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Saturday, November 22, 2025

11/22 Links: The return of the blood libel; Inside the fracturing pro-Palestine movement: Purges, paranoia and a far-left revolt; A Death-Defying Orchestra;

From Ian:

The return of the blood libel
The problem is not only the anti-Semitism that Jewish staff and students face. It is also the failure of many universities to acknowledge, let alone take action, against the perpetrators. It is left to Jewish staff and students to raise concerns time and again, while often being ignored altogether. Jews are the only minority group that is expected to fend for themselves against discrimination, harassment and violence.

The UCL blood-libel lecture was only exposed because a Jewish student attended and recorded the lecture, passed the recording to Stand With Us, an organisation that supports Jewish students on campus. It took concerted efforts from Jewish academics, the Union of Jewish Students and the Union of Jewish Chaplains to bring this matter to the attention of UCL.

We mustn’t allow Maqusi’s alleged remarks to be dismissed as a one-off, an aberration. Over the past two years, in universities across the UK, there have been many similar instances of Jew hatred. Just this week, it emerged that the rector at the University of Glasgow, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians. Last month, Michael Ben-Gad, an Israeli professor of economics, was subjected to a campaign of grotesque anti-Semitic abuse by students at City St George’s, University of London.

British universities usually take proactive steps to protect minorities on campuses. This is not altruistic – indeed, it is their legal duty to do so. But when it comes to Jews they are failing. Failing to provide information, understanding and training on anti-Semitism. Failing to identify and address anti-Semitic speakers or events. Failing to take disciplinary action against anti-Semitic staff and students. And failing to take seriously, or even listen to, concerns and complaints raised about anti-Semitism.

It should not be left to Jewish staff and students alone to combat anti-Semitism in their places of work and study, but in many instances that is what is happening. Without concerted action across the sector, these protesters and agitators may well get their wish for Zionist-free campuses.
Ted Cruz’s Finest Hour
The antisemitic right has been successful at taking people’s words and twisting them on social media to advance the view that anybody who supports Israel is somehow corrupt or disloyal to the United States. Carlson’s confrontational interview with Cruz is a case in point. Carlson has been pushing the lie that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is made up of American citizens who advocate a strong relationship between the U.S. and Israel, is actually a foreign lobby. When Carlson challenged Cruz on support he has received from AIPAC, Cruz lamented that from a pro-Israel perspective, AIPAC hasn’t been particularly effective, and further noted, “I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate.” His obvious point was that he was committed to Israel from the get-go, not as a result of pressure by a lobbying group. Yet this quote still surfaces on social media to smear Cruz as being more interested in serving a foreign country than his own constituents.

“I believe I have been the leading defender of Israel in the Senate,” Cruz says when I ask him about the exchange. “What I did not say, which Tucker and his minions claim I said, is that my No. 1 priority in the Senate is defending Israel. Those are very different statements.” He points out that he’s taken the lead on many issues: “I’ve spent 13 years as the leading defender of securing the border and stopping the invasion of illegal immigrants into this country.” Cruz says that his support for Israel flows from his faith as well as his belief that the U.S.-Israel alliance is in the national security interest of the U.S., which is consistent with his commitments to keep Texans safe. “Israel is by far our strongest ally in a very troubled region of the world,” he says. “Israel is a democracy that respects human rights and that shares our values — and those who hate Israel hate America.”

Cruz believes that as hatred of Jews spreads, it induces people to embrace anti-Americanism and other left-wing ideologies: “The slippery slope that starts with antisemitism and attacking Israel frequently leads straight down that line.” As examples, he notes Carlson’s recent defense of Venezuelan communist dictator Nicolás Maduro, his praise for a guest on his show who said that Winston Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II and that maybe the U.S. should have sided with Hitler, and Carlson’s own statement that he believes that America should have offered condolences to Osama bin Laden’s family.

Carlson also recently claimed that it was “weird” that Ted Cruz “all of a sudden, out of nowhere” started talking about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, where as many as 100,000 Christians have been killed since 2009. In a wildly false claim, Carlson said that Cruz had “no track record of being interested in Christians at all.” Cruz took to the Senate floor in 2014 to speak up for Meriam Ibrahim, who was imprisoned in Sudan for being a Christian. That same year, he raised concerns about hundreds of mostly Christian girls who had been kidnapped by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. In 2018, in another speech focusing on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, he argued that the U.S. military “must be well equipped to target Boko Haram terrorists.” But these facts are inconvenient for Carlson, who wants to portray the senator as a Christian obsessed with Israel and only “suddenly” feigning concern for Nigerian Christians as some sort of cynical cover play.

Cruz agrees with the sentiment that “the best cure for bad speech is more speech.” Given how lies can spread on social media, he says it is imperative that more voices speak out to counter with the truth.

“We need to see conservatives show the leadership to take this on and refute these lies in a way that the Democrats for the past decade have never been willing to do,” he says. “We need to show more willingness to confront this evil in our own party.”
Two Israels that don’t exist: James Lindsay on how the American Right, and Left, get it wrong
Guiding the far Left and Right beyond the narratives they had established about Israel would be difficult, according to Lindsay. For the Left, there is a deeper belief structure that casts Israel as existing to “oppress the poor Palestinians or Muslims in the region.” The radical Right has also made the issue a shibboleth.

Demonstrating in a concrete manner that foreign actors are proliferating the perceptions of the fake Israels, such as sponsoring influencers, would undermine those voices and the narratives they have been building. Americans generally perceive foreign attempts to covertly influence them as hostile, Lindsay explained. At the same time, creating videos with succinct refutations of the talking points that define the false narratives would also be helpful.

“A lot of Americans literally believe that what the United States is doing is writing Israel a check for $4 billion a year, and Israel just can do whatever it wants with it, most of which is start wars with people that it doesn’t need to. So it’d be very, very easy to just kind of put together a short refutation of claims, explaining [that] the vast majority of the foreign aid is actually through military contracts. And so what’s happening is the United States is giving Israel money to buy weapons from America. That’s over 80% of the aid, which turns out to be $4b. a year. That turns into almost $20b. in profit for American companies employing 15,000 Americans to operate in that business environment,” said Lindsay. “And that’s happening specifically to fight terrorists who chant things like ‘Death to America.’ So it’s in our interest in a multitude of ways, but this is not what the average American right-winger believes. They believe we’re cutting a check to Israel for Israel to just go do whatever they want with, and that if American kids were getting that money instead, they’d be able to buy a house.”

Lindsay also advised that others have to see the real Israel that he had seen – conversations with Israelis, their everyday life. Seeing the daily life of young, Gen Z, English-speaking Israel would show the true Israel. Such materials couldn’t be created or sponsored by the government, Lindsay warned, as otherwise it would be propaganda. Such outreach has to be organic.

Israel has the opportunity to position itself as an example of how to create a culture of strong fathers and loving families with religious children, according to Lindsay. Offering to help Americans figure out how to integrate such cultural features into American life would have appeal to young conservatives. There are many American leaders attempting to figure out how to save their younger generations, and anything Israelis could offer in terms of advice, mentorship, or opportunities would be beneficial to that mission.

“I think there’s a huge opportunity, in fact, to showcase how family oriented and yet like masculine and courageous you have in the men of the IDF,” said Lindsay. “I think the connection between family and religion, especially in the more observant and Orthodox sectors of the society, would also be very charming for people to see how it looks in reality. The focus on children and being a good parent, though, I think would really shine through and resonate.”

The author was struck with how Israeli culture is focused on family and life, even in little ways that are often invisible to the fish swimming in the Israeli current. One example shared by Lindsay was how, when introductions were made at every meeting, Israelis would introduce themselves not by their title and achievement, but primarily with details about their family, such as how many children they had. It is a culture of life which Israelis are ready to defend on the borders of Gaza and Lebanon, and come home to have a Shabbat family meal. This “culture of life” was a chief focus during Lindsay’s November 3 New Discourses podcast, titled “Am Yisrael Chai.”

There are still a lot of Americans who support Israel and Jews, said Lindsay. When the goal is to drive a wedge between two countries or peoples, it takes both sides to give up on the relationship. It would require Americans to become skeptical and angry at Jews, explained Lindsay, but would also require Israelis to turn around and surrender America as an ally because of those sentiments. It would be a “terrible mistake if both sides decide to step into that enmity, when the fact is that the majority of conservative Christians in this country [the US] are still strong allies to Israel, still love Israel, still recognize the difference between civilization and terrorism, and to know which side to stand on.”


Jake Wallis Simons: Will no one acknowledge how Mossad helps Britain?
The reason for the unofficial western media blackout remains a mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with Britain’s petulant and patronising disdain for an ally that has never had the luxury of enjoying our privilege of forgetting the necessity of war.

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph revealed that our army had ‘pointedly stayed away’ from a major international conference in Israel at which military insights from the conflict in Gaza would be shared. The Germans went along. The Canadians went along. Even the French went along, for God’s sake. But His Majesty’s Armed Forces apparently thought it beneath them. Who cares about learning about the cutting edge of urban warfare when you have fingers to wag?

But such moral luxury has a way of betraying whomever indulges it. If you ask me, our top brass should really have a conversation with Yossi Cohen, the renowned Mossad spymaster.

This is the man who came up with the famous pager operation, masterminded such audacious operations as the theft of the Iranian nuclear archive in 2018 and the remote-controlled assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020, and negotiated the Abraham Accords. And he has been outspoken on the extensive assistance his agency has given to the West.

The former Parachute Regiment officer Andrew Fox and I recently interviewed Cohen on our podcast, The Brink. Mossad, he told us, regularly provides western countries with intelligence that has saved countless lives over the years. (The pager caper, he disclosed, was just the tip of the iceberg; Israel has manipulated equipment in ‘all the countries that you could imagine’. MI6 could surely learn a thing or two from that?)

The Israelis are supposed to be the baby-killing génocidaires

‘I have come to accept that it is not even close to being a reciprocal process, not because of any lack of will on behalf of allies or potential partners, but because they struggle to help themselves,’ Cohen said. ‘I have asked them all, “Do you need us, the Israelis, to tell you what’s going on in your nations?” And the unanimous answer was, “Yes, we do.”’
Stephen Daisley: Starmer’s latest betrayal on the international stage is not only morally wrong. It’s stupid
Does Labour want to damage the UK’s relationship with the State of Israel beyond all repair? If so, they are going about it the right way. The Telegraph reports that British representatives did not attend an international military conference held in Tel Aviv this week.

The gathering, organised by the Israel Defence Forces, was intended for friendly countries to learn the strategies and tactics employed in Operation Iron Swords, the Jewish state’s response to the Palestinian invasion on October 7, 2023. Given the depleted state of our defences right now, Britain could use whatever help it can get, but the Government is more concerned with politics.

Labour doesn’t even have France and Canada to hide behind. Earlier this year, the UK teamed up with those two countries to undermine Israel’s war against Hamas and further isolate the Jewish state diplomatically by unilaterally recognising a Palestinian state without requiring the Palestinians to make peace with Israel first.

This Axis of Weasel harmed Israel’s war efforts, yet even France and Canada attended this week’s conference. But within the British Government, and no longer just the Foreign Office, there is a hair-trigger antagonism towards Israel – a product of history, institutional prejudice and the progressive ideology which has seized the UK’s governing classes.

The Ministry of Defence insists that they didn’t reject the invitation, they simply didn’t send anyone over to the conference. That is a distinction as lacking in difference as it is in credibility. The upshot is that France, Canada, the United States and Germany all got an opportunity to learn from Israel’s military while Britain stropped at home.

That Keir Starmer’s Government continues to stick its thumb in Israel’s eye long after others have abandoned that approach speaks either to its inability to adapt to changing circumstances or to a deliberate political choice to distance the UK from Israel.

This is not an isolated incident. There was the announcement in September that Israelis would no longer be welcome at the Royal College of Defence Studies, a decision taken, according to an MoD spokesperson, because “the Israeli government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong”. The Starmer Government also chose to suspend around 30 arms licences to Jerusalem, a craven act of betrayal against a friendly nation in the middle of a war to release its hostages from a death cult.

A cynic might suggest that there is more to this ill-treatment than fashionable “anti-colonialist” politics or the Foreign Office’s longstanding Arabist bent. That the Government sees some electoral advantage in being ostentatiously unpleasant towards Israel, that it perhaps has a specific audience in mind for these little stunts, a demographic that might have once been solidly Labour but which has begun to shift to alternative political forces for their more hardline stance on the Jewish state.
Allied officers convene in Israel to examine two years of continuous combat
An international seminar focused on lessons learned from Israel’s multi-front war concluded on Friday, with dozens of commanders and officers from several countries participating.

The seminar aimed to deepen participants’ familiarity with the IDF’s operational concepts, review lessons from two years of combat and examine multi-branch methods.

During the week, commanders toured significant locations, observed a broad capability demonstration, received briefings from senior officers who fought over the past two years and were exposed to the challenges of urban and underground warfare.

Representatives attended from Austria, Canada, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Japan, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and the United States.

Participants also toured communities near the Gaza Strip and heard the testimony of freed hostage Shlomi Ziv.

“Over the past week, we have stood together before the challenges, dilemmas and lessons that emerge from the complex reality of continuous combat—combat that tested the IDF and all of us to the very limit of our capabilities,” said Maj. Gen. Nadav Lotan, commander of the IDF Ground Forces.

“The stories you heard, the encounters with the soldiers and commanders, and the professional depth that came through in every conversation are a living reminder of the spirit that drives us forward. The IDF does not rely solely on technology, capabilities and procedures. Our true strength lies in the human spirit—in determination, in commitment and in the uniquely Israeli ability to rise, to recover and to rebuild even from the deepest of fractures,” he added.


Inside the fracturing pro-Palestine movement: Purges, paranoia and a far-left revolt
It seems clear many anti-Zionists know very little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and what they do know will ultimately have been sourced from grotesquely one-sided works by writers such as Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim and Rashid Khalidi. I imagine relatively few of them, particularly among the younger generation, know much about the Abu Nidal organisation; not in terms of the terror attacks it carried out internationally in support of the Palestinian cause, but specifically how it brought itself to destruction. So, as a public service, I thought it might be helpful to provide that information.

The Abu Nidal organisation, named after the nom de guerre of its founder, Sabri Khalil al-Banna (“Abu Nidal” means “father of struggle”), split from the PLO in the 1970, over the position as to whether there should be any compromise whatsoever with Israel. The ANO maintained that there could be no solution other than a struggle to the death. It was subsequently responsible for the murders of hundreds of civilians around the world, in dozens of terror attacks.

But what the ANO would ultimately become better known for was the murder of hundreds of its own Palestinian members, accused of being traitors. As Abu Nidal’s paranoia grew, members of the group would regularly be tortured, including via the melting of plastic onto skin, frying their genitals, and whipping them until unconsciousness before ‘reviving’ them by rubbing salt into their wounds.

When the prison cells grew too full to house all the organisation’s members accused of treachery, newly suspected traitors would be buried alive, with nothing but a steel pipe connecting them to above to enable them to breathe. If (or rather when) Abu Nidal had determined their guilt to his own satisfaction, death would simply come by a bullet shot down that breathing tube.

Eventually, the organisation collapsed under the weight of its own paranoia.

It is up to the wider pro-Palestinian movement in Britain whether they decide that such a path – in terms of rhetoric, rather than torture and death – is something they particularly want to pursue. Zionists like me will certainly not mourn the movement’s inevitable self-destruction if they do.
Indonesia’s largest Islamic group urges leader to quit for inviting pro-Israel speaker
Indonesia’s biggest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, has asked its chief to resign for inviting a US scholar known for his support of Israel during the Gaza war to an internal event in August, according to meeting minutes reviewed by Reuters.

The leadership of NU, which is also the world’s biggest Islamic organization with around 100 million members and affiliates, has given Chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf three days to offer his resignation or be removed from his post, according to the minutes from a meeting on Thursday.

NU cited Staquf’s invitation to a person “affiliated with an International Zionism network” for an internal event and alleged financial mismanagement as reasons for his ouster.

Staquf, who has been NU’s chairman since 2021, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NU official Najib Azca told Reuters the decision was linked to Staquf’s invitation to former US official and scholar Peter Berkowitz for an August training event.

Staquf has apologized for the invitation and called it an oversight as he had not carefully checked Berkowitz’s background, adding that he condemned Israel’s “brutal genocidal acts in Gaza.”

Israel vociferously denies genocide in its military campaign against Hamas that was launched in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre that killed some 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages.

Berkowitz often writes in support of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, according to his website, including a piece in September aiming to refute allegations of genocide against Israel.
NGO buys buildings in Hebron to return Jews to city center
Tens of thousands of Israelis poured into the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron this Sabbath for the reading of the Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1–25:18) weekly Torah portion in the place where Abraham purchased the first piece of land for the Jewish people in Israel. There are those working around the clock to turn that symbolic occasion into a daily reality.

The Harchivi Mekom Aholech organization, which has operated in Hebron for more than 18 years, engages in “redeeming homes”—purchasing buildings from Arabs with full cash payment, transferring them to Jewish ownership, and revitalizing the Jewish fabric of the city.

“Our goal is to make Hebron Jewish,” said Miriam Fleishman, the organization’s director, with a smile that doesn’t hide her determination. “We’re not ashamed of it. Hebron is the city of the patriarchs. There was always a Jewish ember there; now we’re expanding it.”

According to Fleishman, recent months have brought dramatic change on the ground. “Since the war broke out, we receive at least five inquiries per month from Arabs who want to sell their homes and leave for Europe,” she said. “They saw what happened in Gaza and are doing soul-searching. We know how to help them. Sometimes we literally smuggle them to Europe after the purchase.”

It turns out that this isn’t a simple matter—each building purchase costs millions of shekels and includes not only the purchase of the structure, but also full assistance with the emigration of the selling family. The organization doesn’t receive money from the state and relies primarily on donations “from Jews only,” Fleishman stressed, “and a few ideological investors willing to risk their money for the city.”
Israel issued more than 220,000 gun licenses since Oct. 7
Israel’s National Security Ministry on Thursday issued the 222,222nd license for a personal firearm since Oct. 7, 2023, in a ceremony to Eli Tahar, the chairman of Yad Labanim, an NGO that supports bereaved families of fallen soldiers, the ministry said.

This means that the number of licensed civilian firearms in Israel has more than doubled since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel’s south, reaching a total of almost 400,000.

Before the attacks, approximately 150,000 people had licenses to carry a personal weapon, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

The expansive civilian armament campaign was led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The minister was present at Thursday’s ceremony, alongside the ministry’s director-general Rafael Engel, deputy director-general for Firearms Licensing and Oversight David Weizman and representatives of the security agencies, the ministry said.

“This is a moment that fills the heart. The Tahar family gave the State of Israel what was most precious to them. The shield and the license are a small expression of our tremendous appreciation. The firearms reform allows good citizens to protect themselves and the state, and today it takes on especially profound meaning,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement.
Israel says IDF strikes kill 5 Hamas officials, as terror group issues threat to end truce
Hamas issued a threat on Saturday to end the ceasefire in Gaza, as the Israel Defense Forces carried out several airstrikes there after a Palestinian gunman opened fire on Israeli troops in the Strip’s south.

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office, five senior Hamas officials were killed in the strikes, which a US official said the Trump administration supports.

In all, 21 people were killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defense agency, whose tolls are unverified and do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Saturday’s strikes and clashes marked one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the fragile ceasefire took effect on October 10, as both Israel and Hamas accused the other side of breaking its terms.

The PMO’s statement accused Hamas of repeatedly sending fighters to attack IDF troops, while Hamas signaled to mediators that it could end the ceasefire over what it called Israeli violations. But later in the day, a Hamas spokesperson denied a report that the terror group had called off the truce.

The violence began in the morning, with a Palestinian terror operative opening fire on Israeli troops in southern Gaza. The gunfire occurred on the IDF’s side of the Yellow Line, which splits Gaza between Israeli and Hamas control.

According to the military, which later published footage of the incident, the operative crossed the Yellow Line and approached troops in a vehicle while “exploiting the humanitarian route through which humanitarian aid enters” the territory’s south.

The IDF said the gunman opened fire on troops stationed in the area without causing any injuries. Troops of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade returned fire and killed the operative.

The incident was a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement,” the IDF said.
IDF kills or arrests all 17 Hamas terrorists who attempted to flee Rafah tunnel following manhunt
The IDF intercepted all 17 Hamas terrorists who tried to escape from terror tunnels in eastern Rafah, killing 11, and arresting six, the military confirmed on Saturday.

This follows a 24-hour manhunt after the terrorists attempted to flee.

The six arrested terrorists were transferred to Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) for further investigations, the military noted.

Sec.-Lt. "A," an observations operations room officer in the Gaza Divison's Southern Brigade, told Walla about how some of the terrorists were intercepted.

At first, two suspects were identified. "They exited a tunnel, and afterwards the observations soldier identified several additional suspects - a total of five. We closed in on them and bombed them with a Hermes 450 "Zik" drone," she explained.

"After that, the observation soldier identified additional suspects fleeing," she continued.

"It is necessary to identify the terrorists, to make sure there are none in the area. We assist in protecting the forces that are fighting and maneuvering in this sector. This event proves the contribution of the observation soldiers. Thanks to alertness and sharpness, the terrorists were located," she told Walla.


Hudson Institute: Israel and the Global Strategic Environment: A Conversation with Caroline Glick
Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran will have a discussion with Caroline Glick, international affairs advisor to the prime minister of Israel, about Israel’s position in global affairs, regional developments, and the international challenges shaping the country’s strategic environment.


THE MOSSAD FILES with Dan Raviv: No Genocide, War Scholar John Spencer Insists, and That's Not Bias -- Is Gaza War Over?
You've heard of John Spencer, one of the experts on urban warfare who has declared -- after studying the Gaza war closely, and going to the warfront 7 times -- that Israel abided by the international rules of war.

Chair of war studies for the Madison Policy Forum, Spencer is known for creating an urban war study program at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

He tells Dan Raviv there's no way Israel was guilty of genocide against Gaza's Palestinians, while Hamas's actions -- the massacres and kidnappings in Israel on October 7, and the regime's treatment of Gaza civilians -- were outrageously atrocious.


‘Antisemitic’ activist Linda Sarsour: Mamdani mayoral win shows hating Israel can ‘send you to City Hall’
Zohran Mamdani’s Election Day victory is proof that hating the Jewish State is actually a plus with NYC voters, radical pro-Palestine activist Linda Sarsour declared this week.

“Being unequivocally in solidarity with the Palestinian people, being able to look at what’s happening in Palestine, and calling it genocide, supporting nonviolent, resistance to apartheid in the form of the [anti-Israel] Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions [movement], for example, is in fact not a political liability,” Sarsour said Wednesday to 240 predominately like-minded haters during a webinar hosted by her Muslim advocacy group MPower Change.

“It actually sends you to City Hall.”

Now is the time to ride the momentum — and not let up, Sarsour said at the event, entitled “Zohran’s Victory and Implications for the Progressive Movement.”

“We hope that candidates across the country who are running for local, state, federal offices in 2026 are looking at what happened in New York City and saying to themselves: ‘I can be courageous. I can truly put forth the values that I believe in, and there will be enough people who will . . . be inspired by my courage and my moral convictions, that I, in fact, can win office in any part of the country,’” said Sarsour.

“I feel fired up!” gushed Sarsour, a notorious antisemite who has been a longtime mentor of anti-Israel Mamdani.

“And now it’s time to say, ‘Where are we going in 2026? How do we build on this momentum?’”


Far Right commenter Candace Owens claims French, Israeli-linked hit squad sent to assassinate her
Israeli involvement is at the center of a new allegation by American commentator Candace Owens, who claimed in a Saturday post on X/Twitter that French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, ordered and funded an assassination plot against her.

In a lengthy message labeled “URGENT,” Owens wrote that “two days ago” she was contacted by what she described as “a high-ranking employee of the French Government,” who allegedly warned her that the Macrons had “executed upon and paid for my assassination.”

Owens said the source claimed the “green light was given to a small team in National Gendamarie [Gendarmerie] Intervention Group,” referring to France’s elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), and that “one Israeli” operative was part of the alleged squad and that plans “were formalized.”

She added that the individual provided “concrete proof that they are well placed within the French government apparatus,” but she did not publish any documents or other verifiable material alongside the post. As of now, none of her claims has been independently corroborated by law enforcement or reputable investigative outlets.

Owens further tied the alleged plot to the killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University in September 2025. She claimed that “Charlie Kirk’s assassin trained with the French legion 13th brigade with multi-state involvement,” echoing conspiracy theories she has been promoting for weeks around his death.

She also warned that French journalist Xavier Poussard, who worked on material about Brigitte Macron that Owens has promoted, was in danger as well. “This is deadly serious,” she wrote. “The head of state of France apparently wants us both dead and has authorized professional units to carry this out.”

Owens urged her followers to “RETWEET and share this,” and claimed she did not know “who in the American government can be trusted,” alleging that the unnamed French official told her US leaders were aware of the supposed operation.


Anti-Israel rioters attack Bologna police with firecrackers, set fires, build barricades
A protest against the Virtus-Maccabi basketball match in Bologna erupted into chaos on Friday, with masked rioters attacking police with flares, firecrackers, and glass bottles.

The protest was organized under the slogan "Show Israel the Red Card: Let's Block Everything!" and began as a march of thousands from Piazza Maggiore, then grew violent on Via Lame, where demonstrators took down barriers, wooden sticks, and other materials from a construction site.

Protestors clashed with the nearly 400 law enforcement officers deployed to keep the peace, attacking them when police fired tear gas and water cannons to break up the march.

Police attacked with makeshift weapons The protest split into groups of masked rioters who confronted police with tools from construction sites, trash bins, clubs, and glass bottles.

At one location, a barricade was constructed from flaming dumpsters and construction site barriers. A water cannon was deployed, forcing the protesters back, where the police beat them and chased them away.

Eight police officers were injured during the riots, and no arrests were made. However, fifteen people were identified with their whereabouts to be assessed later by the Special Operations Unit.

The riot was a culmination of a week-long protest against the match, which sparked controversy over its location, with some suggesting it should be moved or postponed. Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore had proposed relocating the match outside the city, but Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi rejected the idea, stating that the government intended to ensure the game proceeded safely even if extra security measures were required.


BBC ignored my warnings over bias, says author of Gaza report
The BBC is so “blind” to criticism that it refuses to recognise when it gets things wrong, the author of a major report into the broadcaster has claimed.

Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer who wrote a damning report into the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza conflict last year, said that nothing has changed since he highlighted its failings.

Mr Asserson’s report in September 2024 found that the BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the height of the Israel-Hamas war.

The report, which analysed the broadcaster’s coverage during a four-month period beginning Oct 7, 2023, revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel across BBC television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media.

Mr Asserson said it has since become clear that the BBC has no methodology for checking whether it is complying with its own standards guidelines.

He told The Telegraph: “The worst thing of all I think is that there are no methods, which the BBC has for monitoring the adherence to its guidelines.

“The BBC has very clear obligations [to remain impartial] and has no methodology for checking whether it is complying. You can almost say with certainty it is not complying.

“I think the BBC is institutionally so blind to any possibility that it is getting anything wrong that they have no mechanisms internally to address its own bias.”

Mr Asserson’s comments came after weeks of revelations by The Telegraph of one-sided reporting at the BBC on subjects such as President Trump, the Gaza conflict, gender and climate change. These were disclosed in an 8,000-word dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, a former standards adviser for the corporation.


‘Nostra Aetate’ at 60 a ‘transformative period in Jewish history’
In a little more than 1,100 words, the Catholic Church issued a document 60 years ago that fundamentally changed the relationship between Catholics and Jews.

“In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions,” Pope Paul VI wrote. “Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect.”

That document, Nostra Aetate (Latin for “In Our Time”), issued as part of the Second Vatican Council, “totally reoriented the Catholic Church’s outlook toward other religions,” Philip Cunningham, director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, told JNS.

JNS spoke with Cunningham and Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, both of whom were in Rome for the anniversary at the end of October, about the legacy of Nostra Aetate and what it means for Catholics and Jews today.

“It reversed centuries of Christian negative teaching about Jews, most particularly that they were under a sort of collective guilt and curse upon them by God for the crucifixion of Jesus,” Cunningham said. “That basic ‘teaching of contempt,’ as it has come to be called, contributed to anti-Jewish sentiment down through the centuries in Christian Europe and later other places. It rejected and repudiated all such rhetoric.”

The text of Nostra Aetate cites the Gospel of John in noting that Jewish authorities pressed for the death of Jesus, but says that the crucifixion “cannot be charged against all the Jews” of that time or the present and “decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”

Marans described that declaration as creating “a transformative period in Jewish history.”

“The main vehicle for demonizing the Jewish people—the Catholic Church—was transformed in tangible ways,” Marans said. “This is a completely new picture in which the two millennia of the Catholic Church being a or the primary promulgator of anti-Jewish teaching, that was dangerous for the Jewish people, and then, in a post-Holocaust self-reflection, it decided to chart a new course.”
Antisemitism reached record high in Czech Republic in 2024, Jewish community says
Antisemitic incidents in the Czech Republic reached record levels last year amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the country’s Jewish community said on Friday.

In its annual report, the Federation of the Jewish Communities said it registered 4,694 antisemitic incidents in 2024, almost 8.5 percent up from 4,328 in the previous year.

In 2023, the reports jumped by 90% following the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, an assault that triggered the war in Gaza.

Petr Papousek, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Czech Republic, said that his country was no exception to “a global explosive wave of antisemitism which erupted immediately after the Hamas attack.”

Papousek said that hatred of Jews especially in the form of demonization of the State of Israel, has become a socially acceptable attitude and has dominated the public space.

He said the attacks showed “an unprecedented synergy” between the far right, the far left, Islamism and the disinformation media.

“The unifying element is hatred of Israel, which works with the motives, narratives, conspiracies and myths of traditional antisemitism,” he said.

Most incidents, almost 96%, were expressed online, mostly through social media, it said.
With fascist salutes, hundreds march in Madrid for anniversary of Franco’s death
Hundreds of Spanish fascists marched through Madrid on Friday, a day after the country marked the 50th anniversary of right-wing former dictator Francisco Franco’s death.

The Falange — an organization that sees itself as the successor to defunct fascist movements that helped bring Franco to power in a devastating 1936-1939 civil war — protested against what it calls democratic Spain’s 1978 constitutional “regime.”

Making fascist salutes and carrying Franco-era national flags, the Falange paid tribute to the movement’s founder Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, whose November 20 death anniversary coincides with Franco’s.

They then paraded from the headquarters of the main conservative Popular Party to that of the ruling Socialists, where a heavy police presence awaited them, AFP journalists saw.

“National unity, PSOE, PP, it’s the same war!” they chanted according to images posted on social media, referring to the parties’ acronyms.

They also carried an anti-migrant banner.
Meir Y. Soloveichik: A Death-Defying Orchestra
It was a cultural and musical moment that deserves to be remembered. On Thursday evening, November 6, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed in Paris. Suddenly, several members of the audience deliberately disrupted the concert, setting off enormous flares. One might have expected, at that moment, that the rest of the event would be cancelled. The Israeli musicians, however, were undeterred, and the music continued. The concert concluded, in a striking and stirring scene that must be viewed online, with every member of the orchestra rising to his feet, and simultaneously launching into Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” as the audience, in unison, rose as well and launched into applause.

This is more than a story of cultural courage; it is an embodiment of the miracle that is modern Jewish history itself. In order to understand why this is so, one must return to the tale of this philharmonic’s founding—and the man who brought it into being.

The story is told in a 2012 documentary titled Orchestra of Exiles, which centers on a man by the name of Bronislaw Huberman. A Jew born in Poland, Huberman was immediately recognized as a musical prodigy and, as a young man, was gifted a Stradivarius by a Polish count. It was in 1929 that Huberman, an ardent Zionist, was suddenly seized by what might seem a musical vision: He would recruit gifted Jewish musicians from across Europe to move to the Holy Land, thereby bestowing on the pioneers a cultural institution of their own.

At the time, Huberman’s vision must have seemed mad to many. Why would a musician performing in Europe, the center of culture, agree to leave all that he or she had known to take up a career in a backwater in the Middle East? Yet Huberman was indefatigable, scouring the European musical scene for Jews that he might motivate with a sense of mission. He found 72 gifted musicians who embraced his cultural cause. By 1936, the orchestra that would become the Israel Philharmonic debuted in Tel Aviv before an audience of 3,000. Conducted by the visiting celebrity Arturo Toscanini, the performance was rapturously received. At the time, of course, few of those applauding the orchestra members appreciated the immensity of Huberman’s achievement: Had the musicians onstage not risked their careers in service of a Zionist dream, they would almost certainly have ended up slaughtered, with their brethren, in a concentration camp in Europe.

Yet despite his triumph, Huberman himself, during his endeavors, suffered a setback and heartbreak. While tirelessly performing to raise money for his cause, his own Stradivarius was stolen from his dressing room. Interviewed in the documentary, Joshua Bell, today one of the most celebrated violinists in the world, explained how this must have felt: “The connection between violinist and violin—it becomes almost like your soul mate. Some people compare it to getting married.” Bell continued, “Huberman formed so much of his career on this violin, so it must have been devastating to come back to his dressing room and to know that your soul, your voice is missing.”
DC’s Bible Museum exhibits Dead Sea Scrolls, ‘most significant archaeological discovery ever’
At first blush, a vitrine in a new Museum of the Bible exhibition in Washington seems unremarkable. An earthy orange jug with handles overlooks two small oil lamps, all set before a reproduction of part of David Roberts’s c. 1850 painting of Titus commanding the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.

Navit Popovich-Geller, a Jerusalem native and curator at the Israel Antiquities Authority, told JNS that the “simple cooking pot,” set alongside “simple oil lamps,” shows visible signs of use.

Josephus described Jewish rebels hiding in cisterns—water storage tanks—and drainage tunnels from the Romans. “They thought they would be saved, and the Romans would go,” Popovich-Geller said. “It didn’t happen.”

To stay alive, people need a cooking pot, lights and jugs from which to drink. “You see it was used. It’s just a cooking pot,” she told JNS. “It’s not special, but the story—and you think about those people, who sat there in the drainage tunnel, and they hear. You can really relate to it, even though it’s just a cooking pot.”

Having handled the objects, she told JNS that they are lighter and more fragile than one might think. A takeaway from the objects, and from the broader Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit (through Sept. 7) at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, is that Jerusalem was a bustling place, according to the Israeli curator.

“It was a sacred city, the Temple city, but also a big metropolis with a lot of commerce and a lot of activities,” she told JNS. “Sometimes people forget it was not just the Temple.”

Looking at the bowl and lamps with Popovich-Geller required turning one’s back on fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls—arranged outward facing in a circle at the museum to prevent the “massive congestion points” and two-hour lines in the previous venue for the show, according to Rena Opert, director of exhibits and collections specialist at the Bible Museum.

When Opert asked the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., where the show was on view from November 2024 until last September, why a Dead Sea Scrolls show there, she was told because the former president met with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin.

The Ten Commandments fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls was on view in California, but not in Washington. The scrolls hibernate for five years after they are shown—for just a few months at most—for their own protection, so the fragments on view in Washington will change two more times before the exhibit ends.




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