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Tuesday, December 09, 2025

12/09 Links Pt2: The Rise of Lifestyle Anti-Zionism; Oct. 7 communities: Still mourning but beginning to rebuild; Ireland Is a Wounded Tiger

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Rise of Lifestyle Anti-Zionism
Zionism is at its core a simple belief in Jewish rights in Israel. Much of the time when pro-Palestinian activists in the West use the word Zionist, they mean “Jew.” But when they attack “Zionism” as a concept, they are making a political and ideological statement about coexistence. Anti-Zionists believe that rights are zero-sum, that Arabs in the historical Land of Israel cannot be free unless the Jews there are unfree.

Similarly, they believe that the safety and security of Palestinians must come at the expense of the safety and security of Jews. Outside of Israel, this includes Zionists—people who support or advocate for equal rights for Jews in their homeland. Anti-Zionism has become a totalizing worldview, an ideology of far greater expanse and application than Zionism itself ever was.

Anti-Zionism is an all-encompassing ideology now. It requires no association with the land of Zion. Anti-Zionism, like ISIS’s infamous “jihad in place” strategy, is about hating Jews and punishing their supporters wherever you happen to be. Think global, act local.

This is why we are seeing the founding of explicitly anti-Zionist political parties in Western Europe, of all places. And it’s why anti-Zionism has swallowed anti-colonialism as a discipline on campus. It’s why we’re even seeing the advent of anti-Zionist coffee shops. Opposition to equal rights for Jews is becoming a lifestyle for a growing number of Westerners. Now there is really no limit to what you can blame on the Jews.
Anti-Israel Celebrities Accept Major Saudi Payday To Attend Jeddah Film Festival
Some of Hollywood’s most ardent anti-Israel activists are flocking to Saudi Arabia this week for a government-sponsored film festival—and the kingdom is compensating them well for their time.

The Red Sea International Film Festival, which has been held annually in Jeddah since 2021 under the authority of the Saudi Ministry of Culture, has drawn a star-studded guest list including actors like Riz Ahmed, Juliette Binoche, Michael Caine, Kirsten Dunst, and Idris Elba—all of whom have accused Israel of committing atrocities in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack and none of whom have spoken about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

The festival has been known to pay large sums to celebrity guests. Filmmaker Spike Lee received between $2.5 million and $3 million for presiding over the festival’s jury last year, Puck reported, though it is unclear how much this year’s jury president, Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, has received. A source familiar with the festival confirmed Saudi Arabia has compensated actors and filmmakers for attending, and NBC reported that "many [attendees are] set to receive checks." The festival said in a statement to NBC that it will "on occasion engage with talent on a contractual basis for work we ask them to do at the festival which includes labs, in conversations, mentorship sessions with emerging regional talent." Though representatives for the festival did not disclose the names of actors and filmmakers it is paying, Ahmed is a member of the jury, Dunst participated in a conversation on Thursday, and Elba will do so on Wednesday.

The film festival—and appearances from actors who frequently condemn Israel—comes after a group of U.S. comedians faced scrutiny for performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in September in the face of Saudi Arabia’s policing of speech and widespread human rights abuses. Comedian Shane Gillis, who turned down a "significant" payout, said he declined the offer because most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

"I’m not doing it," he said. "Then they doubled the bag. It was a significant bag. But I’d already said no. I took a principled stand. You don’t 9/11 your friends."

Dave Chappelle, meanwhile, used his performance at the festival to bash the United States—after signing a gag order shielding Saudi royals from criticism—because it was "easier to talk here than it is in America."
The Annual ‘Jesus Was a Palestinian’ Christmas Lie Is Back — and It’s Antisemitic
Each December, as holiday decorations go up and familiar music fills the air, another relatively new holiday ritual returns with equal predictability — social media fills with declarations that “Jesus was a Palestinian,” often joined by the equally fictional assertion that he was a “Palestinian refugee.”

These claims appear every Christmas season as reliably as ornaments and carols, as though the propagandists believe that repeating the lies might someday transform fiction into fact.

But this isn’t just a harmless anachronism — like depicting Moses checking Google Maps while wandering in the Sinai. It is part of a longstanding effort to erase Jews from their own history, an effort that has resurfaced in recent years precisely because it is politically useful.

The Truth Has Never Been in Dispute
Jesus lived and died as a Jew from Judea. He was born into a Jewish family, observed Jewish law, taught in synagogues, quoted Jewish scripture, and was addressed as “Rabbi” by his followers. Christian scripture traces his lineage directly to the kings of Judah.

No credible historian debates this. There is not a single academic school, anywhere, that regards Jesus as anything other than a Jew living in the Jewish homeland.

Denying the Jewishness of Jesus is not a new mistake. It is part of a familiar form of appropriation — including supersessionism (replacement theology) — that has targeted Jews for centuries.

The Colonialist Name Activists Pretend Was Ancient
The assertion that Jesus was “Palestinian” collapses instantly under the simplest timeline. During the first century CE, the land was known as Judea, Samaria, the Galilee, or the Land of Israel. At that time, there was no place or nation called “Palestine,” no “Palestinians,” and no political or cultural identity by that name. No person during Jesus’s lifetime ever referred to himself as a “Palestinian.” Claiming otherwise is like insisting that a Pilgrim stepping off the Mayflower in 1620 called himself an “American.”

Notably, the first political or national entity in history to use the word “Palestine” emerged nearly 2,000 years after Jesus, in 1920, when the British Empire established the “British Mandate for Palestine.”

And the Roman Empire only introduced the geographic term “Syria Palaestina” in 135 CE — a century after Jesus’ death — to punish Jews for the Bar Kokhba revolt and to try to break their connection to their own land.

Today, anti-Israel activists echo that Roman attempt at erasure and call it solidarity.


Dave Rich: We will fight tooth and nail for a better way of thinking
“What is anti-Zionism for, exactly?” The question was posed by Dr Dave Rich in his trenchant Robert Fine Memorial lecture to supporters of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.

And Rich, director of policy at the Community Security Trust, in a complex and detailed analysis of the thinking behind present-day anti-Zionism and antisemitism, had a simple and chilling answer.

“If we strip away the political sloganeering and academic ambiguities, it is a plot to kill a nation. That’s it. Anti-Zionism is a campaign, across decades and continents, to kill the nation of Israel, erase its name and its national identity from history, and replace it with something non-Jewish…Anti-Zionism is utterly unique, and fundamentally anti-democratic.”

In his searing lecture, Rich broke down the levers of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, using references ranging from the Star Wars Death Star to even more prosaic examples of everyday Jewish hatred. His audience laughed and shivered at much the same time.

He cited Loose Women’s Nadia Sawalha, who “took to social media to defend Louis Theroux, after his interview with Bobby Vylan, from what she called the ‘group of people’ who ‘live by their pound of flesh rule…So many of us are sick and tired of being bullied…the threat that has hung over our heads for years and years that we may be antisemitic — you’ve worn it out.” Rich commented: “There’s a brashness, a daring sense of freedom in finally saying what needs to be said about the Jews”.
Dave Rich: The Robert Fine Memorial Lecture: where are we now? (text)



Bethany Mandel: Oct. 7 communities: Still mourning but beginning to rebuild
When Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, they struck multiple population centers across the Gaza periphery, known in Hebrew as the Otef aza, the “Gaza envelope.” The brutality spread across quiet agricultural communities. Each suffered differently, but all were permanently changed. People were slaughtered in their homes on a holiday morning, while others were kidnapped. Children, grandmothers, teenagers, reservists, and peace activists were dragged into Gaza on motorcycles or shoved screaming into stolen vehicles. Entire families disappeared in minutes. In these kibbutzim, where neighbors shared meals and raised children together, dozens were murdered and homes burned to ash.

Just 5 miles from the Gaza border, the Nova Music Festival was transforming a sleepy field near Re’im into a sunrise rave celebrating freedom, music, and youth. That morning, terrorists surrounded the festival from multiple directions, massacring 364 young people and kidnapping dozens more. Hamas fighters blocked every road, and cars blocked all of the roads going north, south, east, and west as they were abandoned when Hamas opened fire. The neighboring communities and army bases could not provide refuge — they were the scenes of their own massacres. As a result, there was no point of escape, and the field became the deadliest site of the attack.

Two years have now passed. In October 2025, two years to the day on the Hebrew calendar, the last surviving hostages were returned. Many of them, still hollow-eyed from captivity, were driven past that same Nova field, past crowds of Israelis cheerfully welcoming them home along the highway that was a killing field the day of their kidnapping. They looked out the windows of their vans at what was once a simple rest stop and a raw crime scene. Now, it is something else entirely.

A hundred days after the war began, the Nova site felt improvised: grass trampled, metal poles stuck into the ground, hundreds of posters flapping in the wind with the faces of the murdered or missing. I visited then, and there was no structure to grief, only rawness. Families and friends wandered silently, touching photographs and silently crying.

When I returned in December 2025, the transformation was stark. Now, dozens of large touring buses arrive each day, along with countless private vehicles. Many of the original posters are still there, but they now sit alongside polished, permanent displays that tell the story of the attack. There are markers at the main stage and the DJ booth, a yellow dumpster where victims hid, and signage honoring the first responders who saved lives under fire. It is no longer just an open wound — it is a memorial, as well as an educational and a purposeful space. The returning hostages drove past their own faces printed beside those who never came home.

The kibbutzim also look different from the way they did in the shock-filled first months. One hundred days after the massacre, many homes were still blackened from fire. Bullet holes chewed through doors and windows. The air carried the smell of burned wood and plastic, along with something else indescribable. We felt constant explosions in Gaza under our feet and heard the booms echo through the air.


Jerusalem legalizes six Samaria communities in move hailed as ‘historic’
The Binyamin Regional Council in Samaria on Tuesday announced the “historic” official legalization of six former outposts by the government.

Ahiya, Harasha, Migron, Nofei Prat, Adei Ad and Shvut Rachel have been “fully regularized and recognized as official towns” by Israel’s Interior Ministry, the council, which administers communities in southern Samaria, said in a Hebrew-language statement.

“Following years of struggle, effort and challenges, these towns are now formally recognized, with ‘settlement symbols’ and full recognition by the State of Israel,” it said. “This is a significant achievement, especially for the young settlement, which has maintained faith and determination over the years, despite harsh weather conditions and many obstacles.”

Binyamin Regional Council leader Israel Ganz thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also oversees civilian issues in Judea and Samaria as part of his secondary role as a minister in the Defense Ministry.

“We continue building and settling with full strength!” Ganz concluded.

Ahiya, Adei Ad, Nofei Prat received Israeli Cabinet approval in May, while Harasha, Migron and Shvut Rachel are neighborhoods of existing communities that were split off by a March 22 Cabinet decision.

All six are established towns, some dating to the early 90s, with hundreds of residents, and have received retroactive authorization.
Mother of last Israeli hostage in Gaza: Peace plan cannot proceed until Ran Gvili is home
The mother of police officer Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza, said Israel will not heal, and that the next phase of a peace plan should not proceed until his remains are returned.

Gvili was one of 251 hostages seized and taken to Gaza by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israeli authorities say they believe he is dead, but his body has not been recovered, and his family is clinging to the faint hope that he is still alive.

"We're at the last stretch, and we have to be strong, for Rani, for us, and for Israel. Without Rani, our country can't heal," his mother, Talik Gvili, told Reuters.

Posters of Ran Gvili, known by family and friends as Rani, line the streets of Meitar, his hometown in southern Israel.

'We want to feel him'
When Hamas attacked, he was recovering at home from a broken collarbone. He quickly put on his uniform and joined the fight against the Hamas gunmen around Kibbutz Alumim near Gaza.

Gvili, who was 24 at the time, was badly wounded and Israeli authorities said he did not survive for long after being taken to Gaza, his mother said.

"We want to feel him, we want to feel some tiny doubt (that he died)," his mother said, before adding: "It might just be wishful thinking."


Israel holds farewell ceremony for slain Thai worker
Israel on Tuesday held a farewell ceremony at Ben-Gurion International Airport for Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker who was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of southern Israel and whose body was recently repatriated.

The event was attended by Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for hostages and missing persons; the ambassadors of Israel and Thailand; senior Foreign Ministry officials; and representatives of the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters and the Eshkol Regional Council.

Hirsch, speaking on behalf of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, conveyed condolences to Rinthalak’s family and the Thai nation, noting Israel’s ongoing support for the victims’ families and its efforts to secure the return of all remaining hostages, including Thai citizens.

He also reaffirmed Israel’s “full commitment” to retrieving the remains of Staff Sgt. Ran Gvili, believed to be the last fallen hostage still held by Hamas in Gaza.


Database that doxed Canadians who joined IDF publishes list of schools, synagogues they attended
The website that previously published a list of all Canadian citizens who served as IDF soldiers has now published a new list of Jewish institutions (such as synagogues) associated with them. The aim of 'GTA to IDF' is to highlight what role Canadian institutions may play in promoting Israel and the Israeli military.

GTA to IDF is a new project by Davide Mastracci, who previously released the 'Find IDF Soldiers' site in February 2025. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>

The existing database contains the names and profiles of 206 Canadians who have served in the Israeli military. The new one doxes the institutions they attended and their involvement with them.

The Find IDF Soldiers project found previously that the average lone soldier is “most likely to have grown up in a Greater Toronto Area neighbourhood with a larger-than-average proportion of Jewish residents in what they’d describe as a Zionist household.” The Greater Toronto Area was therefore selected as the geographical area for this new project.

Mastracci considered an institution eligible if it and/or its head office is based in the GTA and is associated with at least four military members contained in the Find IDF Soldiers database.
Soros, Ford Foundation Fund European Nonprofit Targeting US Companies for Doing Business in Israel
A European nonprofit that promotes economic boycotts of Israel and U.S. companies that do business within the Jewish state received funding from a network of left-wing nonprofits that includes the Ford Foundation and George Soros's Open Society Institute and Foundation to Promote Open Society, a Washington Free Beacon review of financial records found.

The Amsterdam-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, known by its Dutch acronym SOMO, took in a total of almost $5.5 million from the Ford Foundation and Soros-backed groups between 2019 and 2023. The cash has empowered SOMO to pursue its mission of "eradicating the dominant corporate logic of 'maximising shareholder value,'" a vision that seemingly dovetails with its efforts to drive international businesses away from Israel, which it accuses of "committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

Though the organization claims it is primarily dedicated to "restraining corporate power and championing social equity," its website currently features a banner declaring, "End genocide now in solidarity with Gaza."

SOMO's annual report includes a section outlining its priorities, which include "Gaza genocide." The blurb states that the group "exposed the supply chain of military jet fuel and, subsequently, the energy supply chain, which has enabled Israeli military action and illegal occupation" and that its work "supported successful campaigns effectively denying ports in Spain and the U.K. to ships carrying military jet fuel bound for Israel." Global corporations, SOMO contends, "provided goods and services that enabled Israel's crimes under international law."

SOMO is one of many organizations that has received money from the Ford Foundation and Soros-backed groups to wage a campaign against Israel. As the Free Beacon reported in 2024, the Ford Foundation has funneled millions of dollars to groups that celebrated Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel. Elias Rodriguez, the left-wing radical charged with the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in May of this year, worked for a nonprofit that has received at least $1 million from the Ford Foundation since 2024.


Dominic Green: Ireland Is a Wounded Tiger
Official Ireland’s gratuitous loathing of Israel causes further friction with America’s Republicans. In August, after Ireland’s government introduced a bill to boycott some Israeli exports, 16 Republican representatives wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning that the Irish bill might trigger the 1986 law penalizing American corporations and individuals who operate in a state running an “unsanctioned international boycott.” On Nov. 10, after the Football Association of Ireland moved to ban Israel from European soccer competitions, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) warned that Ireland would pay a “heavy price when it comes to access to the American economy” for anti-Jewish discrimination.

Meanwhile, official Ireland pays the political cost of access to the EU economy. The EU’s mandatory redistribution of illegal migrants, and the open border with Britain that official Ireland insisted on in the Brexit negotiations, have created an immigration crisis. Irish society now has 22.6% foreign-born residents—more than twice the EU average. The results include surges in violent crime, sexual assaults, street protests, populist agitation, rumblings of nationalist paramilitary activity and the unprecedented sight of Irish Catholics uniting with Northern Irish Protestants in anti-immigration protests.

Ireland’s political-media class demonizes democratic complaint and dismisses public opinion. Free speech is already limited by the EU’s Digital Services Act. The government now plans to create a “National Counter Disinformation Strategy.” Ireland, an icon of 1990s optimism, is becoming a leader of 2020s reaction, where the poles of politics are redefined as digital speech controls and anti-migrant protests.

To remain a free people, the Irish will have to assert their independence once more—and this time against their own rulers.


NY Holocaust survivor invited to middle school that refused him due to Israel support
A Holocaust survivor in New York City has been invited to a Brooklyn middle school that denied him a speaking opportunity due to his support for Israel, a Jewish city legislator says.

The principal of MS 447 refused to host Sami Steigmann, a survivor who often speaks about the genocide and in support of Israel, last week.

The principal responded to a parent’s request to host Steigmann by saying his presentation would not be right for the school “given his messages around Israel and Palestine.”

The refusal set off a wave of condemnations, including from New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a Jewish Republican representing part of South Brooklyn, says the city council’s Jewish Caucus spoke with NYC Public Schools about the issue, “and they confirmed that [Steigmann] is invited to speak at the school.”

Vernikov says on X that she is awaiting a date for the talk from the city’s education department.

Vernikov adds that she “demanded that the principal issue a public apology” to Steigmann.
Samidoun Proxy Hosts Hamas Bomber and Mother of Teen Killer in International Webinar
An apparent proxy organization for U.S.-designated terror group Samidoun convened a webinar on December 7 titled “Intifada of Stones – Popular Resistance, Collective Memory and Grassroots Organization,” featuring speakers with direct connections to deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis.

The event, organized by the youth movement of Masar Badil, Tariq El-Tahrir, which operates in the United States and Canada despite government designations against its parent organization. A second webinar is scheduled for December 12 to discuss how student activists worldwide have “integrated the values and concepts of the Intifada” into campus movements.

Convicted Terrorists Featured as Guest Speakers
The webinar’s speaker lineup included Osman Bilal, a Hamas commander from Nablus who had been serving 27 life sentences before his release in a recent prisoner exchange. Bilal was reportedly involved in planning bombings that killed 12 Israelis and spent 30 years in Israeli custody as a key figure in Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades.

Also featured was Widad Barghouti, a lecturer at Birzeit University and mother of Qassam Shibli (Barghouti), one of the terrorists responsible for the 2019 murder of 17-year-old Rina Shnerb. Barghouti publicly stated that her greatest achievement was “giving birth to a hero”—referring to her son who participated in the August 23, 2019 bombing attack that killed the Israeli teenager and injured her father and brother.

The third panelist was Khaled Barakat, founder of Samidoun, a leader of the U.S.-designated terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and a Specially Designated National (SDN) under U.S. Treasury sanctions imposed in October 2024.
StandWithUs Legal Team Requests Florida Investigate Guinness World Records for Anti-Israel Policy
StandWithUs, the international nonprofit organization that fights antisemitism and promotes education about Israel, has called on the state of Florida to investigate Guinness World Records (GWR) over its ban on applications from Israel and to ensure that public funds do not support companies engaged in such a “discriminatory policy” against the Jewish state.

StandWithUs Saidoff Law, which carries out legal action for the pro-Israel group, sent a letter on Thursday to members of the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) following the revelation this week that GWR has enforced a policy since 2023 not to accept submission applications from Israel and the Palestinian territories. Saidoff Law formally requested that the board investigate GWR and its affiliate Guinness World Records North America regarding the “boycott policy” to see if they should be included on Florida’s official list of “Scrutinized Companies or Other Entities that Boycott Israel” in accordance with Florida law. Guinness World Records North America is registered in Florida as a foreign profit corporation.

Created in 2016, the list currently includes 109 companies or entities that participate in a boycott of Israel, including actions that limit commercial relations with Israel or Israeli-controlled territories. The SBA is prohibited from acquiring direct holdings of the companies on this list, which is updated and published every quarter following review and approval by SBA trustees. In late September, 91 new entities were added to the list.

StandWithUs Saidoff Law is urging the Florida State Board of Administration to review GWR’s actions to see if they can be added on the list. “We hope that prompt action from the SBA will reaffirm Florida’s strong commitment to opposing discriminatory boycotts and upholding the integrity of the state’s investment and contracting policies,” the letter stated. It was signed by StandWithUs Saidoff Law Director Yael Lerman and Assistant Director Gadi Dotz.

Guinness World Records recently rejected a submission application by an Israeli charity that is organizing an event where a record-breaking 2,000 kidney donors will gather in one place. GWR said that since November 2023, “we are not generally processing record applications from the Palestinian Territories [sic] or Israel, or where either is given as the attempt location, except those done in cooperation with a UN humanitarian aid relief agency.” The policy was enforced shortly after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which began with the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
UKLFI: UEA Opens Investigation into Discriminatory Academic Boycott Following UKLFI Complaint
The University of East Anglia (UEA) has confirmed that it has launched a formal investigation after a senior academic refused to consider a research application from an Arab-Israeli scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, following UK Lawyers for Israel’s (UKLFI) intervention.

The UEA professor rejected the application on the basis that “Palestinian colleagues have asked us not to work with Israeli universities at this time”. The professor acknowledged that this stance was a personal position rather than one held by their university.

UKLFI’s initial letter had made clear that refusing to engage with an applicant because of their affiliation with an Israeli institution is likely to be unlawful under the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of nationality. Such conduct also conflicts with fundamental academic norms and violates UEA’s obligations under its own Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and its commitments regarding freedom of speech.

In response to UKLFI’s complaint, UEA has made a statement to the Telegraph newspaper saying
“The University of East Anglia has received a letter from UK Lawyers for Israel alleging an incident of unlawful discrimination. We will be investigating the allegations seriously in line with the relevant policies.

“UEA has a clear commitment to not adopt an official institutional position on political, social, or international issues, unless there is a direct, demonstrable impact on the university’s operations or legal duties.

“This means UEA does not have an academic boycott on any countries. This is based on the principle that the role of a university is not to prescribe what should be thought, but to create space for robust, evidence-based exploration of complex and contested issues.

“Our code of practice on freedom of speech outlines our commitment to freedom of speech and our equality, diversity and inclusion policy sets out our commitment to prevent discrimination on the basis of the protected characteristics outlined in the Equality Act 2010.”
Israel and Palestine at Tufts/Fletcher: Erasing Inconvenient Facts
On Nov. 17, I attended an event at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. For the first time in my 36 years as a professor at Tufts University and Fletcher, I felt unwelcome as a Jew. I heard audience members compare Jews who oppose Hamas to Nazis and suggest that Jews appointed to posts in the State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs are inherently biased. I alone, as a member of the audience, objected to these antisemitic statements.

To say that Arabs are indigenous to Israel while Jews are not is profoundly biased against Jews and requires the proponents of that view to erase inconvenient facts. That is not proper at a university. I observed that faculty panelists who discussed harms to children and sexual violence spoke only of the suffering of Gazan victims and simply ignored violence against Israelis, including the unspeakable sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and the sexual abuse of hostages. Jewish suffering was erased.

Speakers did not mention that Israeli actions in this war were a defensive response to the unprovoked Oct. 7 attack. Speakers labeled Israel's defensive war "genocide," while erasing the inconvenient components of the definition of genocide.
US judge orders Trump administration to remove limits on anti-Israel Tufts student
A US federal judge on Monday cleared the way for Tufts University PhD student and pro-Palestinian activist Rumeysa Ozturk to work on campus after ordering President Donald Trump’s administration to restore her status in a key database used to track foreign students.

Chief US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued an injunction after concluding Ozturk was likely to succeed in proving US Immigration and Customs Enforcement unlawfully terminated her record in the database the same day that masked, plainclothes agents took her into custody in March.

That ICE-maintained database is called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and is used to track foreign students who enter on visas. The termination of a student’s record from that database prevents that person from being employed.

Ozturk, in a statement, said she was grateful for the ruling and that she hopes “that no one else experiences the injustices I have suffered.”

The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ozturk’s arrest on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, was captured in a viral video that drew criticism from civil rights groups.

She was detained after the State Department revoked her student visa as the Trump administration moved to crack down on non-citizens who engaged in anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activism on campuses.


Media Cast Gaza’s Omari Mosque as a Cultural Casualty While Omitting That It Frequently Hosted Senior Hamas Leaders
For months, the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza has been described by the BBC, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Guardian as a treasured heritage site reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes.

Reports focused on the building’s historic value and the scale of its destruction. Some sufficed with a single line that Israel said there were Hamas tunnels beneath the site. None investigated further.

No media outlets asked what actually happened inside the mosque during the years of Hamas rule. None looked at the mosque’s own public social media accounts.

HonestReporting did. And we found that the mosque’s official Facebook page shows that it functioned not only as a religious center but also as a regular venue for senior Hamas leaders — including former Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, as well as the terror group’s co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar. The mosque’s public page also glorified Hamas terrorists and hosted their funerals.

Our findings raise serious questions about how international media have repeatedly failed to contextualize the impact of Israeli military activity.

Some background: The Great Omari Mosque is one of Gaza’s oldest religious structures. The site has held successive churches and mosques for more than a thousand years and is considered a major cultural landmark. It is referenced in a 2024 UNESCO damage assessment submitted by Palestinian authorities after the mosque was struck during the war.

That heritage is real. But it is only part of the story.

Photographs posted publicly by the mosque on its official Facebook page include images of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, praying inside the mosque.


Two Days, One Agenda at The New York Times
Although Rhodes notes that “Hamas has engaged in abhorrent acts of terrorism,” it is caveated by claiming that Israel had no right to drop “2,000-pound U.S.-made bombs on refugee camps full of children.” He correctly asserts that no state has the right to target civilians indiscriminately. What he omits, however, is that Israel explicitly targeted terrorists who embedded themselves in civilian infrastructure, and the IDF employed extensive measures to prevent civilian casualties. For that reason, the civilian-combatant ratio of less than 2:1 remains one of the lowest in modern warfare.

All of these claims are said to assist Rhodes in concluding, based on a faulty U.N. report, that Israel is committing genocide. But again, the facts speak for themselves, and neither the casualty figures nor the intent to commit genocide support this conclusion.

The laws of war are clear, and it is all the more clear that Israel has been adhering to them throughout the war. In the rare cases where individual IDF soldiers violated these requirements, they have been investigated. Hamas, by contrast, has never adhered to these laws – not before October 7, not during the atrocities, and not in the aftermath. Of course, that is to be expected from a terrorist organization.

Yet, Rhodes makes the absurd moral equivalence between the two, suggesting that if someone believes a “Palestinian child is equal in dignity and worth to an Israeli or American child,” they can no longer support Israel. However, a child kidnapped and brutally murdered by terrorists and a child tragically used as a human shield by Hamas and caught in the crossfire do not have the same perpetrators. Recognizing the equal worth of all children does not require erasing the moral distinction between those who target them and those who try to protect them.

Rhodes is thus no different from Cohen in attempting to portray Israel as an aggressive, territory-seeking entity that acts with impunity. This is an unfortunate paradox, considering Israel is fighting terrorist organizations that will never be held to the same standards.

Two articles. Two days. One outcome: distorted and biased commentary on Israel that does not reflect the reality of the war against terrorist organizations it has been fighting for over two years.

But sadly, this is precisely what we’ve come to expect from the opinion pages of The New York Times.


The leader of ISIS's British wife and her life in Slough: How 'supreme commander' abandoned her and three children to pursue global terror
The new global leader of the ISIS terror network has a British wife and three children living in Slough who he walked out on to pursue his terrorist vision, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Abdul Qadir Mumin, the new supreme commander of the Islamic State, is now based in a remote mountainous region of northern Somalia leading its global terror campaign with 1,200 hardened fighters at his command.

Known for his striking, orange-dyed beard, pearl-white teeth and fiery rhetoric he has been designated as one of the world's most wanted terrorists and has survived several attempts on his life during operations by US ground and air forces and Somali troops.

But thousands of miles away from his rugged hideout in the Cal Miskaad mountains in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia, Mumin has an extraordinary connection to Britain.

While living in the country from around 2003 to 2010, he married British Somali woman Muna Abdule and had three children with her: a boy and two girls.

They lived together in a flat in Greenwich, southeast London, but he was rarely at home, preferring instead to frequent local cafes where young Somali men gathered to try and recruit them to al-Shabaab, a jihadi movement allied to al-Qaeda.

And when he was not recruiting, he was preaching his radical brand of Islam at the Greenwich Mosque where he crossed paths with two of Britain's most infamous terrorists.


IDF: Iran Has Resumed Large-Scale Ballistic Missile Production
Iran has resumed large-scale production of ballistic missiles six months after its 12-day conflict with Israel, a senior IDF representative told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

In November, officials familiar with regional intelligence assessments said Iran had begun producing missiles using older manufacturing methods after Israel destroyed its planetary mixers - key components in missile production.

According to those officials, Iran intends in any future clash to launch hundreds of missiles at once.
Iran moves into Sudan, something Israel cannot ignore
Sudan’s collapse is both a humanitarian and strategic crisis. Islamist networks aligned with Iran are exploiting the country’s turmoil, turning Sudan into a potential launchpad against Israel—another Yemen, but closer and far more dangerous. Stopping Sudan from becoming Iran’s next Red Sea proxy is Israel’s key strategic test.

Israel’s primary threat is no longer conventional armies or hostile Arab regimes. The real danger comes from failing states controlled by Islamist militias, whose legitimacy depends on attacking Israel and serving as proxies for Iran. These groups exploit governance vacuums, ignore international norms, and use Iranian-supplied rockets, drones and missiles to project power. Sudan is emerging as the next front in this expanding network of Iranian proxies, creating a strategic challenge Israel must address decisively.

Sudan, less than 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) from Eilat, has joined the ranks of failed states like Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Somalia and Iraq. This proximity creates a dual threat: armed jihadist groups on the ground and a major political crisis if Israel is compelled to respond. Like Hamas and Hezbollah, Sudanese Islamists would exploit schools and hospitals, in addition to using civilians as human shields. The threat from Sudan would be far worse than the Houthis in Yemen. Allowing Iran to control Sudan would put deadly weapons and hostile forces right on Israel’s doorstep.

For nearly 40 years, Sudan has functioned as a major hub of terrorism, and its post-independence history has been defined by wars, coups and state collapse. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamization project under Omar al-Bashir, a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d’état, transformed internal disorder into genocide, radicalization and the export of terrorism across the region. Sudan’s structural problems—its geography, tribal fragmentation, environmental stress and long-standing geopolitical marginalization—remain deeply entrenched and difficult to resolve.
World Jewish leaders warn of rising antisemitism at Sydney summit
Jewish leaders from the world’s seven largest diaspora communities concluded the first J7 Task Force summit ever held in Australia with a warning that the country’s dramatic spike in antisemitic incidents reflects a dangerous global pattern threatening Jewish safety and democratic stability.

“We came from around the world to show our solidarity with the Australian Jewish community and make clear that we are one Jewish family,” the group said in a closing statement Monday.

The gathering in Sydney, which began on Dec. 3, included representatives from Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The J7 summit comes as new data reveal that Australia experienced the sharpest rise in antisemitic incidents among all member countries between 2021 and 2024, with attacks now occurring at nearly five times pre–Oct. 7, 2023, levels.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) documented 1,654 antisemitic incidents nationwide between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025, following 2,062 incidents the previous year. While representing a 20% decline from 2024’s record high, the figure remains unprecedented in Australian history.

Most alarmingly, the most serious categories of incidents—including arson attacks against synagogues, preschools, and other Jewish institutions—reached their highest levels ever recorded.
Switzerland adopts first-ever national strategy against racism, antisemitism
Switzerland adopted its first-ever national action plan against racism and antisemitism on Friday at the Federal Council meeting.

The action plan comes amid surging antisemitism and racism in the country. According to figures from the Federal Statistical Office, 17% of the resident population aged 15 to 88 said in 2024 that they had experienced racial discrimination in the previous five years.

The new plan seeks to change this. The strategy aims to improve the identification of racism and antisemitism, to protect those affected, to strengthen the prevention of racism at institutional level, and to promote societal engagement.

The strategy centers on four fields of action: systematic monitoring of racism, antisemitism, and discrimination; the guaranteed protection and rights of data subjects; systematic identification of discrimination in institutions; and society-wide commitment to combating hate, including collaboration and the sharing of information and experience between authorities.
Lithuanian party whose leader convicted of anti-Jewish hatred to stay in coalition
Lithuania’s governing Social Democrats will remain in coalition for now with a populist junior partner whose leader was found guilty last week of incitement to hatred against Jews and belittling the Holocaust.

The founder of the populist Nemunas Dawn party, Remigijus Zemaitaitis, was fined 5,000 euros ($5,800) last week for a series of social media posts that a court said falsely blamed Jews for historical crimes and promoted hostility towards them.

In his posts, Zemaitaitis blamed Jews for a “Holocaust of Lithuanians” during World War Two, and quoted an old nursery rhyme with the line “take a stick, children and kill the Jew.”

Judge Nida Vigelienė said after his verdict that “Zemaitaitis chose and used language that was degrading, violated human dignity and demonstrated hatred.”

The far-right lawmaker has denied that his comments broke the law and promised to appeal.

Social Democrats chairman Mindaugas Sinkevicius said on Tuesday his party would wait until appeals are exhausted in Zemaitaitis’ case before deciding the future of the coalition.
Austrian doctor fired after telling obese patient only Auschwitz would help with weight loss
An Austrian regional hospital has fired a chief physician after he allegedly said that “only Auschwitz would help” in the case of an overweight patient, prompting staff complaints about Nazi language, bullying, and a climate of fear.

The incident occurred at the Landesklinikum Horn, a regional hospital in the Waldviertel area of Lower Austria. According to local outlet MeinBezirk and several national media, the doctor, a department head, is said to have told colleagues during an internal meeting about a patient that “nur mehr Auschwitz würde hier helfen,” “only Auschwitz would help here,” in apparent reference to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The remark came to light through an anonymous letter from staff to MeinBezirk, published on Tuesday. In that letter, employees described the comment as crossing “red lines of humanity and professionalism” and accused the primary doctor of creating an intolerable working environment through shouting and aggressive behavior toward both patients and staff. Nurses reportedly began refusing to accompany him on rounds because of the atmosphere on the ward.

Following publication of the allegations, the Lower Austria Health Agency (Niederösterreichische Landesgesundheitsagentur, LGA), which operates the state’s hospitals, confirmed that the physician had first been suspended and then dismissed.

“After the incident at Horn Regional Hospital became known on Friday, the person concerned was immediately released from duty,” the agency said in a statement quoted by Austrian media on Tuesday. “Following investigations under employment law, the employment relationship has now been terminated with immediate effect at the earliest possible date.”
Major update for Bankstown nurses Sarah Abu Lebdeh and Ahmad Rashad Nadir after viral video
A Sydney nurse is set to fight allegations she threatened Israeli patients in a viral video.

Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 27, and Ahmad Rashad Nadir, 28, made international headlines in February after a video of the pair spread online in which they allegedly threatened violence against Israeli patients at Bankstown Hospital, in Sydney’s west.

Ms Abu Lebdeh was charged with threatening violence to a group and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.

She was earlier charged with one count of using a carriage service to threaten to kill, however in September, the court was told prosecutors had withdrawn the charge.

She attended the John Maddison Tower local court on Tuesday where she pleaded not guilty to using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend and threaten violence to a group.

She will return to the District Court on February 2, 2026, for arraignment, before the matter will proceed to trial.

Meanwhile, her co-accused Mr Nadir was charged with using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend and possessing a prohibited drug.

He entered a plea of not guilty to the drug charge in September.

He has not entered a plea for the other charge, however, his lawyer Zemarai Khatiz noted if the matter wasn’t resolved on the next occasion it will also be committed for trial to the District Court.

The pair remain on bail.


Israel and Costa Rica sign landmark free trade deal
Israel and Costa Rica have taken a “leap forward” in bilateral relations with the signing of a free trade agreement encompassing goods, services and investments, Jerusalem’s Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.

The announcement came just days after Costa Rica’s minister of foreign trade, Manuel Tovar Rivera, announced that San José would be opening an office for innovation in trade and investment in Jerusalem in 2026.

Monday’s ceremony was also attended by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat, the MFA stated.

The agreement will immediately eliminate over 90% of tariffs, granting broad access for Israeli industrial and agricultural products to the Costa Rican market. The Jewish state will also reduce import costs on a wide range of goods, from food and medical equipment to industrial tools.

“This agreement opens significant new avenues for both Costa Rica and Israel,” Tovar Rivera said, adding: “It enhances access to high-quality Costa Rican goods and services while creating a mutually beneficial platform for collaboration in high-technology industries, premium agribusiness and specialized services.

Barkat hailed Costa Rica as “a natural trade partner for Israel—an advanced OECD country with a deep commitment to free and open trade.”

He added, “The free trade agreement is expected to strengthen the growth trend in Israeli exports, deepen business cooperation, and help reduce the cost of living in Israel by lowering the costs of imports.”

The announcement that Costa Rica would be opening a trade office was made on Saturday night, in the wake of a meeting in Jerusalem between Sa’ar and Tovar Rivera, and followed similar moves by other countries that do not maintain their embassy in the Jewish state’s capital.

Costa Rica formerly maintained its embassy in Jerusalem but relocated it to Tel Aviv in 2006 due to international pressure and efforts to further its relations with the Arab world.




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