Tuesday, December 30, 2025

12/30 Links Pt2: Romi Gonen: Hour-long special; Spielberg Uses Schindler’s List Money to Fund Anti-Israel Protests; Dishonest Reporter of the Year Awards 2025

From Ian:

Stephen Pollard: This was the toughest year in living memory for UK Jews … and there is no sign of things improving in 2026
The deaths of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby on Yom Kippur, the former killed by Islamist terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie and the latter by a police bullet as they sought to protect congregants at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, define not just the year 2025 but the whole period in Anglo-Jewish history since the Hamas massacre of October 7 2023. There is a clear sense in which the atmosphere of open Jew hate since then has been leading us here – and, worryingly, that what we witnessed on Yom Kippur is not its climax but rather the start of new and dangerous era for our community – a sense that has obviously deepened since the murders in Bondi.

Britain has felt different for Jews in the years since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015. Corbyn’s ascendancy unleashed a torrent of antisemitism both online and in the real world, an onslaught which felt both shocking and unprecedented at the time. But while his defeat in 2019 seemed then to mark some sort of closing of the door, hindsight has shown how misguided that idea was. Far from having reached a nadir in the Corbyn years, the massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023 led to a surge in Jew-hate the like of which has not been seen since the Shoah.

In the just over two years since, we have had to grow used to the streets of London and other cities being taken over by hate marches, while the police have mainly stood and watched. Across the country, Jew haters have gathered under the guise of protesting against the Gaza war and the authorities have said and done virtually nothing. On one march, in Tower Hamlets in October, participants wore black clothes and facemasks in a seemingly deliberate echo of the Battle of Cable Steet against Mosley’s Blackshirts – only this time the fascists were the Islamist marchers. And the authorities stood and watched.

As the number of demonstrations intensified this year, we repeatedly told the authorities that their refusal to act against these open and proud displays of Jew hate was sending a clear message. Not only was that message emboldening the haters on the streets, on campus and online, we warned that it would at some point lead to violence – and tragedy. The veracity of that prediction – less a prediction than a statement of the obvious – was seen on Yom Kippur at Heaton Park synagogue. There was a similar refusal in Australia, with even more appalling consequences. And the week after 15 people were murdered at a Chanukah celebration by jihadists driven by the same extremist Jew hate that inspired the Manchester atrocity, two men in Preston were convicted of plotting to kill hundreds of Jews in what would have been the bloodiest terrorist slaughter in British history. The pace of events insistently suggests that across the world, the ancient evil of violent, insatiable antisemitism has once more been let loose.

For British Jews, 2025 has been the worst year in living memory. France and the US have endured deadly attacks in recent years. We have not. But that changed on Yom Kippur, and perhaps the worst of it is that no one seriously thinks that it will be a one-off. The issue is not whether there will be more attacks on Jews but how, when and where.

One response to Heaton Park was the regurgitation of the platitude that follows every antisemitic incident – that there is no place for antisemitism on the streets of Britain. It is not so much a platitude as a lie, because there are plainly many places for antisemitism on the streets of Britain, as we saw in Manchester and as is seen every time there is a so-called Free Palestine demonstration, with their cries for the murder of Jews in the guise of “globalise the intifada” and with the police standing by. Now, in the wake of Sydney, the Met and Greater Manchester Police have pledged to clamp down on that particular chant. The marchers are wasting no time in finding other words to express their wish for Jews to die.

But when it comes to the police, the events surrounding the West Midland force’s decision to make the area around Villa Park Judenfrei for the Maccabi Tel Aviv match against Aston Villa in November are something altogether new – and darker. At the very least, it seems clear that the police decided to acquiesce in the idea pushed by “community leaders” that a Jewish or Israeli presence would be inherently provocative. To that end, they pushed a fictitious account of Maccabi fans’ behaviour in Amsterdam to justify a ban on their presence at Villa Park. But this was never about a football match. As Mark Gardner, CEO of the Community Security Trust, put it at the time: “[The] Aston Villa match is about who controls the streets of UK’s second largest city. The football is a very red herring.”

This was a key moment not just in British policing but in the story of Anglo-Jewry’s place in this country, because it marked a move away from the police merely acquiescing in Jew hate on the streets to them doing the bidding of Islamists. The implications are chilling.
Spielberg Uses Schindler’s List Money to Fund Anti-Israel Protests
“Let Gaza live,” a mob of anti-Israel protesters screamed, brandishing signs falsely accusing the Jewish State of “ethnic cleansing”, “starving Gaza” and genocide while illegally blocking traffic outside the Israeli consulate in Midtown Manhattan.

The only thing more disgusting than the ugly spectacle, which had been timed around a Hamas famine propaganda campaign over the summer, was that one of the hate groups behind the anti-Israel protest, which ended in arrests, was funded by proceeds from Schindler’s List.

When Steven Spielberg created the Righteous Persons Foundation with some of the profits from Schindler’s List, he wanted to educate people about the Holocaust and build up Jewish life in America. “I could not accept any money from ‘Schindler’s List’ — if it even made any money. It was blood money, and needed to be put back into the Jewish community.”

“My parents didn’t keep kosher and we mainly observed all the holidays when my grandparents stayed with us,” the filmmaker said at the time. “I knew I was missing a great deal of my natural heritage, and as I became conscious of it, I began racing to catch up.”

The race has long since gone the other way.

The last time the Righteous Persons Foundation, named after the rescuers of Holocaust survivors, funded Holocaust programs was in 2021. Most of its funding now goes to radical social justice groups including anti-Israel organizations like those protesting Israel.

Since 2021, Spielberg’s foundation has provided $650,000 to T’ruah, an anti-Israel hate group which took part in the Manhattan street blocking and whose CEO celebrated the move and gleefully posted photos of attendees falsely accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing”.

“We have to keep up the pressure,” urged T’ruah CEO Jill Jacobs, who had accused Israeli officials of “incitement to genocide”, and demanded an end to further Israeli attacks on Hamas. Jacobs had blasted American Jews for speaking about “Oct. 7 and the plight of the hostages without once mentioning the unbearable death toll among Palestinians” because of what she claimed was their fear of wealthy Jewish donors.

Jacobs and T’ruah had even falsely accused Israel of “war crimes” by assassinating Hezbollah leaders. “Israel, too, has already committed war crimes in Lebanon, including by exploding the beepers and walkie talkies of hundreds of Hezbollah members,” Jacobs argued.

Within a year, Spielberg had gone from funding Holocaust survivors to funding those accusing Israel of a new Holocaust while enabling Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to perpetrate a new one.
Leading philanthropist reveals she has withdrawn funding from human rights groups over antisemitic rhetoric
One of the country’s biggest philanthropists has revealed she withdrew funding from organisations that appeared to justify the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

The Sigrid Rausing Trust, led by philanthropist Sigrid Rausing, announced that it has cut grants to several human rights groups after reviewing public statements made in the aftermath of the attacks.

“We have strong clauses in our grant contract requiring grantees to abstain from incendiary language that may promote violence,” Rausing said, referencing Charity Commission guidance in an article published by The Times.

According to the Trust, five out of approximately 400 grantee organisations posted what it described as “disturbing material.”

One group in Tunisia expressed “pride” in the Hamas action.

Another called for “support for the guerrilla Palestinian people in their war against the Zionist entity,” stating that Israel “was shaken due to the action of the Palestinian resistance…invading the occupied lands and Zionist settlements.”

A Lebanese media group characterised the Hamas attacks as “resistance” to “colonisation,” referred to murdered civilians as “settlers,” and dismissed Israeli reports of atrocities as “lies.”

A Canadian group, also funded by the Trust, labeled Israel’s actions “genocidal” and described the country as a “settler colonialist white-supremacist state.”

The Trust said that, in context, this language appeared to condone the attacks.

Rausing commented, “Atrocities against civilians are obviously contrary to human rights and international humanitarian law, and we cancelled our contracts with the groups in question.


Eve Barlow: Romi Gonen: Hour-long special
Released Israeli hostage Romi Gonen’s interview with Channel 12 in Israel was an hour special tiled “With Extraordinary Courage”. Today the full episode is now available with English subtitles, although crucial snippets have been circulating on social media for four days.

The Hebrew episode was aired initially on Christmas Day.

Thus far, Gonen’s incendiary and heartbreaking story has not been picked up by the BBC, or Sky News, or New York Times, nor Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, the Guardian…. Nobody has shared the testimony of a then 23-year-old innocent young woman who was kidnapped from a music festival, after witnessing her friend be shot and killed in front of her, only to then spend more than one year in captivity in Gaza, during which time she experienced sexual assault by four different men. They included one “nurse” at the now infamous Al Shifa hospital, and one “journalist” (ie the Hamas militants that human rights “feminist” lawyers of the West advocate for, while turning a blind eye to Gonen, and her fellow victims).

Let’s not forget that the cosplaying humanitarians of the West tore down Gonen’s hostage poster. They rolled their eyes as her sister Yarden stood before the United Nations while Romi was still held captive. Yarden spoke of exactly these sexual atrocities happening to Israeli women - and men - during and post October 7 at the hands of Palestinians in Gaza. Romi and Yarden’s critics claimed that rape was a form of resistance, not a war crime. They had the audacity to make baseless accusations instead towards the IDF; alleging that soldiers were molesting Palestinians in Gaza. They inverted the truth, turning the victim into the oppressor.

So yes it’s been four days.

Where are all the journalists who rushed instantly to publish stories on Palestinians being abused sexually by the IDF without evidence? All the journalists who claim without proof that Israeli prisons are torturing their inmates? All the non-profits who rushed to scream that Israel was abusing Greta Thunberg’s Instagram-posing amateur fellow sailors when they were intercepted this summer - again with no basis? All the celebrities insisting that there was no rape on or after October 7 but who enthusiastically came to the defense of hate-baiting artists like Kneecap and Bob Vylan and political agitators such as Mahmoud Khalil? Where are all the voters who insisted they couldn’t in good faith hit the ballot box for alleged sex pest Andrew Cuomo in the New York Mayoral Election, so chose Jihad-loving Mamdani instead? Where are their voices now? Did their brains fall down a toilet?
Freed hostage Elkana Bohbot: Hamas made me film mock suicide video
Freed hostage Elkana Bohbot revealed new, harrowing details of his time in captivity in an interview published Monday, including that his Hamas captors filmed a propaganda video in which they made it appear as if he and another hostage were attempting to kill themselves.

“They drew blood from our hands and beat us so that we would be injured, to simulate a suicide scene,” Bohbot said in an interview with the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, without revealing the names of other hostage that Hamas filmed alongside him. The video he described was never released by the terror group.

Bohbot, 34, was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival, and spent just over two years in Hamas captivity before his release during the first days of the ceasefire in October. Since his release, he has recounted details of the torture and starvation that his captors inflicted on him, including that he was chained in a tunnel for most of his time in captivity.

“They told me that my mother died and that my wife had left me,” he added in the interview published Monday.

Bohbot also shared that he and other hostages attempted to escape their captors during his first week in Gaza: “The plan was that we would overpower the terrorists while they were praying, draw a Star of David on a white sheet, go up to the roof and try to signal the helicopter with a flashlight.”

However, the plan never came to pass, as the group was moved from the apartment where they were first held: “From this apartment, they took us down to a tunnel, and underground, there is no way out.”


Melanie Phillips: Judaism without Zionism is a shield for antisemites
The enemies of Israel and of the Jewish people, who infest social media, have developed a new meme. What’s needed, they assert, is “Judaism without Zionism”.

This is the next step up from their mantra that “anti-Zionism isn’t the same as antisemitism”. Both statements are designed to deny that hating Israel means they hate Jews — perish the thought!

Some of their best friends are Jews, they maintain; it’s the Jewish state whose existence, alone of all the states in the world, that they oppose. Which apparently is absolutely fine.

This formula of “Judaism without Zionism” is the strategy of Jew-baiters. The “good” Jews, with whom they surround themselves as human shields against the charge of antisemitism, are those who hate Israel. The “bad” Jews are those who love it. “Judaism without Zionism” is thus a weapon to divide diaspora Jews from each other and further hurt Israel by weakening the support it enjoys from Jews around the world.

Tragically, a small but noisy minority of anti-Zionist Jews have also adopted this stratagem. Whether those making this statement are Jews or non-Jews, it demonstrates their ignorance of both Zionism and Judaism.

Their attempt to separate them falls at the first hurdle because Zionism is an essential part of Judaism. Zionism is simply the movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland.

Those who think that Zionism started with Theodore Herzl in the 19th century are wrong. It took time for Herzl, a secular Jew, to tap into the Jews’ unique relationship with the land of Israel.

This relationship isn’t so strong just because ancient Israel was the Jews’ national homeland centuries before the Romans, Christians, Arabs and Muslims colonised it.

Jews are the only people in the world who have retained an unbroken connection to their homeland since antiquity. After they were driven into exile, there were always Jewish communities there. In the mid-19th century, Jews formed the majority in Jerusalem.

More to the point, Judaism is the inseparable fusion of the people, the religion and the land. The religion of Judaism comprises the principles that Jews laid out as a matter of faith to be practised in the land of Israel. Which is why Jewish liturgy is studded with the longing to return to Zion.

That doesn’t mean that you need to be religiously observant or live in Israel to be a Jew. But it does mean that separating Zionism from Judaism is to remove the soul of the Jewish people.

That’s why anti-Zionism is most definitely anti-Judaism. So why do some Jews promote it?
Reclaiming Western Civilization
Josh Hammer and Melanie Phillips, author of the new book, "The Builders Stone", issue a warning: The Foundations of Western civilization are cracking. They expose the erosion of Judeo-Christian values, the rise of radical ideologies, and the cultural battles that will decide the West’s future.


The anti-Zionist echo chamber: Academic gatekeeping and the new blood libel
In the wake of yet another massacre of Jews celebrating Jewish holidays, it is evident that the constant demonization and vilification of Israel legitimizes and encourages the mass murder of Jews. Before their rampage on Bondi Beach, Australia, the father-and-son shooters made a video in which they swore allegiance to ISIS and denounced “the acts of Zionists.” Jihad al-Shamie, who murdered two Jews on Yom Kippur at a synagogue in Manchester, England, reportedly shouted: “This is what you get for killing our children.” Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who set fire to Jews at a hostage vigil in Boulder, Colo., screamed: “How many children you killed!”

The latest calumny against the Jewish state is that its defensive war against Hamas is, in fact, genocide—the “crime of crimes” under international law. The genocide libel originates in a small number of ideologically motivated and highly partisan academics, holding essentialist and hostile views of Israel, and relying on truncated and misinterpreted quotes of Israeli leaders.

These academics tout a supposed scholarly consensus on the “Israeli genocide” while deliberately ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Israeli historians Danny Orbach and Yagil Henkin meticulously dismantle allegations of genocide in a 300-page factual analysis. In September, more than 500 distinguished scholars in law, history, antisemitism, Holocaust and genocide signed an open letter rejecting the claims of genocide. Among these scholars are special prosecutors of Nazi and other war criminals.

A recent incident at the influential German journal, Analyse & Kritik, shows how the anti-Zionist echo chamber perpetuates itself in academia. In its latest issue, the journal featured an article by Abed Azzam, a professor at Bard College in Berlin, which asserted that Netanyahu’s invocation of Amalek in October 2023 demonstrates Israel’s genocidal intent. Azzam begins his article by declaring the “broad scholarly consensus” on Israeli genocide and then claims that Zionists historically identified Palestinians with Amalek, “the eternal enemy of Zionism.” His logic is circular: Israel’s genocide proves that the reference to Amalek was a call to genocide, while the invocation of Amalek shows Israel’s genocidal intent.

Jews, religious and secular alike, tend to reinterpret contemporary events in light of historical or biblical archetypes—enemies of Israel are constantly recast as the ancient foes of Pharaoh, Haman and Antiochus. A famous Israeli song by singer Meir Ariel, released during the 1990 Gulf War, stated: “We got through Pharaoh, we will get through this.”
This year has shown that music gigs are unsafe for Jews
When Jews are already looking over their shoulder, the implication that they are Nazis stokes more hatred towards them. Yet it seems to have become obligatory to make political statements onstage, a fact pointed out by The 1975’s Matty Healy who explained the lack of politics at their own Glastonbury show when he said, “I think we don’t need more politics – we need more love and friendship.” If only more artists agreed.

And this is how I’ve found myself avoiding gigs. How depressing, then, to be reflecting on my musical highlights of the year yet finding only a handful to celebrate.

My highlights this year should have included Dudu Tassa and Jonny Greenwood, whose album of Arabic love songs, Jarak Qaribak – meaning “your neighbour is your friend” – brought together musicians from across the Middle East. But wait! That show was cancelled due to pressure from pro-Palestine activists. The British Jewish band Oi Va Voi were then also cancelled.

These days when I look at gig schedules, I am not just considering the date (can I get childcare?) or the venue (are the acoustics decent?). Now it is a question of: will I feel uncomfortable?

It is novel to find myself gathering intel on the likelihood that an artist will bring divisive politics to the stage – and given that No Music for Genocide launched in September with 400 musicians including Massive Attack and Primal Scream calling on artists to remove their music from Israeli streaming platforms – that risk is pretty high.

Even those attending a Coldplay concert had to witness a pair of Israeli women being humiliated after they were brought onto the stage and booed like villains by the crowd when their nationality was revealed. And not forgetting Kanye West’s amplification of hate with choice anti-Semitic posts on X including, “I’m a Nazi… I love Hitler”, and selling T-shirts brandished with a swastika.

So I close this year by retiring my treasured 25-year-old Primal Scream T-shirt, and stepping into 2026 where I hope that music will, once more, be a place where everyone feels welcome. And that includes Jews.
Lech L'Tulsa program provides pathway for Jewish Canadians to escape surging antisemitism
Two Oklahoma Jewish organizations have come together to launch a program to assist Canadian Jews in relocating to Tulsa.

Lech L’Tulsa (“Go to Tulsa”) is the brainchild of Tulsa Tomorrow and the Jewish Federation of Tulsa (JFT). Tulsa Tomorrow was established in 2017 with the aim of revitalizing Tulsa’s Jewish community. Its Jewish Federation represents the existing Jewish community of around 2,000 people. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>

As part of the Lech L’Tulsa program, the JFT will match Tulsa Tomorrow’s $2,000 relocation reimbursement, meaning Canadian households are eligible for $4,000 to cover relocation expenses.

The program also provides immigration lawyer support, including a free consultation and discounted services, to assist prospective individuals and families throughout the relocation process.

In order to assist potential movers in their decision, Tulsa Tomorrow has created curated weekend trips to help people get in touch with the city. The trip includes a Shabbat dinner with the Jewish community and an introduction to the various congregations, as well as real estate tours and other activities.

After the trip, the Canadian visitors work one-on-one with the team to decide whether they want to make the move to Tulsa.

The first Cohort trip is to take place from February 26 to March 1, 2026, with an option to extend it for a longer stay.Former Canadian Michael Sachs was instrumental in the development of Lech L’Tulsa, after making the move to Tulsa himself. He wrote on Instagram that following his relocation, he was inundated with messages from fellow Canadian Jews wanting help to leave their country.

“The creation of this pathway is just another example of the innovation and creativity Tulsa (and our Jewish community) is known for,” he added.
Rabbi Daniel Levine: Anti-Zionism Isn’t Political Debate — It’s a Modern Ideology of Hate
In this episode, Adam Louis Klein explains why anti-Zionism is not simply criticism of Israel, but a modern ideological movement shaping campus activism, academia, and contemporary antisemitism.

We explore how anti-Jewish hatred has evolved across history—from medieval anti-Judaism, to 19th-century racial antisemitism, to today’s anti-Zionism as a full-scale social and moral ideology. Adam argues that many debates within the Jewish community are fundamentally misframed, and that treating anti-Zionism as “just criticism of Israel” obscures its real function: stigmatization, moral inversion, and social coercion.

This episode examines:
Why the question “Is anti-Zionism antisemitism?” misses the point

Anti-Zionism as an ideology with its own genealogy, language, and tactics

How Holocaust inversion, apartheid rhetoric, and settler-colonial frameworks function as modern libels

Why traditional Jewish advocacy strategies fail against anti-Zionist movements

The role of academia, post-colonial theory, and activist scholarship in mainstreaming these narratives

Why anti-Zionism cannot be debated like a good-faith political position—and how to respond instead

The psychological and sociological pressures leading some Jews to internalize anti-Zionist claims

How Palestinian suffering is often exploited rather than alleviated by anti-Zionist ideology

Rather than defending Israel point-by-point, this conversation makes the case for turning the lens outward—analyzing anti-Zionism itself as a historical, ideological, and moral phenomenon.

This episode is essential listening for anyone grappling with campus activism, media narratives, Jewish identity, or the future of Jewish advocacy in the West.

Timestamps / Chapters
00:00 – What anti-Zionism actually is
07:30 – Why “Is anti-Zionism antisemitism?” is the wrong question
14:00 – Anti-Zionism as ideology, not debate
23:40 – Holocaust inversion & modern libels
35:00 – Academia, settler-colonial theory, and ideological capture
44:30 – Why traditional Jewish advocacy fails
55:00 – Internal Jewish conflict & moral confusion


Here I Am With Shai Davidai: The Hidden War On Jewish Professors | Writer and Professor Andrew Pessin
In this episode, host Shai Davidai sits down with Andrew Pessin, a philosophy professor at Connecticut College and author of several books on anti-Semitism and philosophy. Andrew shares his personal journey, including his "Herzl moment"—the realization that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism—sparked by a social media controversy in 2015. He recounts the backlash he faced after a Facebook post about the Israel-Hamas conflict was taken out of context, leading to international outrage and threats. The conversation explores the rise of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism on college campuses, the challenges faced by Jewish and Zionist professors and students, and the broader societal implications. Andrew also discusses his ongoing work documenting campus incidents, the importance of Jewish education, and his hope for the next generation. This candid discussion sheds light on the complexities of identity, academic freedom, and the fight against bigotry in today’s world.


Melanie Phillips: The British government's horrible hero
At the weekend, the Prime Minster, Sir Keir Starmer, said he was “delighted” to welcome to Britain Alaa Abd el Fattah, an Egyptian activist who also has British nationality.

Long lauded in progressive circles as a pro-democracy and human rights activist, Fattah had previously been banned from leaving Egypt after spending much of the previous twelve years in jail for anti-government activities.

Within a few hours, however, his tweets from 2010 to 2012 were circulating on social media. These revealed that he considered “killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them”.

He urged Londoners to burn Downing Street, told his supporters to kill the police and said he hated white people.

Cue immediate screeching of brakes. On Friday, the “delighted” government had said that working for Fattah’s release had been its “top priority”. A few hours later, Downing Street called his views “abhorrent”. Some of the dozens who had campaigned for Fattah and welcomed his arrival in Britain also abruptly changed their tune. We never knew he said such things, they claimed.

Really? Then they must suffer from attention deficit disorder. In 2014, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “A dissident for hate”. This noted that Fattah, who had been nominated for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought named in tribute to the great Soviet dissident, wasn’t exactly a proponent of human rights. Indeed, he didn’t regard some people as human at all.

In 2009, Fattah had tweeted: “One should only debate human beings. Zionists and other imperialists are not human beings.” In 2010 he tweeted: “Dear zionists [sic] please don’t ever talk to me, I’m a violent person who advocated the killing of all zionists including civilians”.

In 2010 he tweeted, linking to a news article marking the death of Abu Daoud, the Palestinian terrorist who masterminded the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes: “My heroes have always killed colonialists.” In 2012 he wrote: “Assassinating [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat [who had made a historic peace with Israel] isn’t something that should shame a man, but instead honour him.”
Khaled Hassan: As an Egyptian, I know this truth: deranged anti-Semitism is normal in the Arab world
Their core argument, delivered with a patronising smile, is a doctrine of false equivalence: “Every society has its extremists”, they insist. “They do not represent the whole. Egypt, Britain, we’re all the same beneath the skin”.

This is a comforting fiction, and a dangerously naïve one. It dismisses not only my lived experience but a mountain of empirical, indisputable evidence, from state-sponsored media output to educational curricula and the rhetoric of mainstream religious institutions across the Arab world.

It confuses the existence of prejudice in Britain, where it is rightly treated as a social disease to be eradicated, with another country where it is not even recognised as a sin.

This refusal to acknowledge a qualitative difference is not liberalism; it is a form of civilisational suicide. It is the reason, that instead of applying increased scrutiny to cases like that of the Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, he was able to naturalise and become a British citizen.

It explains why, at a time when the BBC diligently investigated historical allegations against Nigel Farage, it platformed Alaa’s sister, Mona Seif, without the most basic due diligence into her social media, which appeared to glorify Hamas’s October 7 atrocities.

This same naivety is why Britain’s political leadership, including the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, could repeatedly engage with Alaa’s family and with Alaa himself during his imprisonment in Egypt, yet seemingly fail to detect their documented history of extremist and anti-Semitic sentiments. It is why Britain looks the other way when individuals with such profiles incite virulent hatred.

This approach privileges a feel-good narrative of universal sameness over the uncomfortable truth. It leaves the most toxic strains of hatred to fester unchallenged, while we pat ourselves on the back for condemning their milder cousins in our own backyard.

Britain prides itself on a clear-eyed approach to security. We assess threats based on evidence, not emotion. It is time we applied that same principle to the fight against anti-Semitism.

We must have the courage to name the problem where it is most endemic, and to stand with those within those communities who bravely fight it, rather than silencing them with platitudes about “sameness”.

Until we do, our conferences and inquiries will remain little more than an elaborate performance, a salve for our consciences – but a tragically inadequate defence against a very old, and very adaptive, form of hate.
The case of Alaa Abd El Fattah is a journalistic failure as well as a political one
Alaa has since apologised for what he described as “shocking and hurtful” tweets as well as claiming that they have been “twisted of their meaning” and adds “I must also stress that some tweets have been completely misunderstood, seemingly in bad faith”. But the fact remains that many of his posts relate to violence and the killing of people including Zionists, police and many others.

When the media reported the political push to bring Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK much of the coverage presented the campaign as a straightforward struggle between authoritarian cruelty and liberal conscience. That framing required omission. His posts were in the public domain, in some cases they had already been reported on but they were forgotten or perhaps ignored, not quite right for the narrative of a human rights warrior unjustly imprisoned and deserving of our help.

Many feel that there is an informal lobby in our society, a consensus of powerful people who decide which causes are “worthwhile” and which are to be set aside. To question this consensus is to risk being cast at best as indifferent to injustice, at worst as a supporter of it. Journalists are supposed to cast aside such pressure, but do they? Perhaps this is why we have Gaza thrust in our faces several times a day but seldom hear a word about the unfolding genocide in Sudan. Or why we’re treated to articles about rising antisemitism that don’t interrogate the anti Zionism responsible for this situation. In the case of Alaa Abd El Fattah, we weren’t just let down by our government and civil service, we were let down by the people who are supposed to be professionally curious, journalists who we’re supposed to be able to rely on to tell us the truth no matter who it offends.

The story of Alaa Abd El Fattah isn’t only about repression in Egypt. It’s about a media that has forgotten it is supposed to speak truth to power, even when that power is an NGO or a famous actor or even a movement to bring to Britain a man imprisoned without a fair trial by a dictatorship. In this they manifestly failed.


Spain announces ban on imports from Judea, Samaria and the Golan
Spain’s Ministry of Finance announced a ban on the import of products from hundreds of Israeli locales in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan on Monday, becoming the first major E.U. member state economy to implement such a measure.

The ban is set to become effective on Tuesday, the ministry said, adding this was the result of a September decree “adopting urgent measures against genocide in Gaza and in support of the Palestinian population.”

The decree “prohibits in its Article 3 the importation into Spain of products originating from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” according to the statement.

To be applied, the ministry is to “approve the list of localities and postal codes corresponding to the Israeli settlements,” the text reads. With the announcement, the measure “is approved” and “will take effect the day after its publication” in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (“Official State Gazette”), the text read.

Slovenia, one of the E.U.’s smallest economies with about 2 million citizens, announced a similar ban in August, becoming the first E.U. member to boycott Israeli products. Legislation to effect a ban is being worked on in Ireland’s parliament.

Enfoque Judio, a reputable Spanish-Jewish news site, confirmed the authenticity of the document published. It noted in its reporting that the inclusion of the Golan Heights in the ban lies outside of the approved September decree.

Enrique Martínez Olmos, editor-in-chief of the ESDiario news site, condemned the ban in a sharp-worded editorial, whose title describes the measure as “a measure that Hitler would endorse.” The ban “prohibits and singles out Jewish products, much like in 1930s Germany,” he wrote.

Israel exports roughly $850 million in goods to Spain annually, according to the Israel Export Institute, roughly half the volume that Israel imports from Spain. Products from Judea, Samaria and the Golan are believed to account for a small fraction of the Israeli exports to Spain.
Oakland School District Admits It Created a "Discriminatory Environment" for Jews
The Oakland (Calif.) Unified School District has acknowledged that multiple instances of one-sided instruction on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and "numerous" displays of pro-Palestinian content in its schools over the past two years created a "discriminatory environment" for American and Israeli Jews, both students and staff.

A Dec. 12 report by the district said: "The numerous pro-Palestinian postings in District classrooms and school grounds, as well as the pro-Palestinian teaching that lacked multiple perspectives, communicating only a pro-Palestinian ideology, resulted in a discriminatory environment."

The incidents included flying a Palestinian flag at Fremont High School in Nov. 2023; an anti-Zionist "teach-in" in December 2023; a Montera Middle School teacher who displayed "divisive" posters outside of his classroom; maps of the Middle East excluding the State of Israel that were repeatedly distributed by the school district; and an Oakland High School assignment that falsely stated as a fact that Israel is "committing genocide in Gaza."


Dishonest Reporter of the Year Awards 2025
The year 2025 is drawing to a close on the Gregorian calendar, which can only mean one thing: it’s time once again for HonestReporting’s Dishonest Reporter of the Year Awards – our annual exercise in recognizing the journalists, broadcasters and media institutions who have worked tirelessly to ensure the public is misinformed, misled, or emotionally manipulated in the most industrious ways possible.

Unlike the hideously drawn-out Academy Awards—where one must endure hours of sanctimony about climate change and so on from people who flew in on private jets—we are not sadists. We go straight for the jugular.

Which brings us, immediately, to the main event.

So, without further ado, the winner of the Dishonest Reporter of the Year 2025 Award is… the BBC.

This should surprise no one. 2025 was the British Broadcasting Corporation’s annus horribilis – though it is becoming difficult to remember when the annus was anything else. Barely a week passed this year without the Beeb finding itself embroiled in some fresh scandal, apology or hastily-added clarification.

The rot set in early. February saw the BBC forced to pull its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone after it emerged that the narrator—the emotional centerpiece of the film—was the teenage son of a Hamas minister and that his mother had been paid by the production company responsible for the program. An unfortunate oversight, one might say, if one were feeling charitable.

Then came the subtitling. A closer review revealed that where Gazan interviewees spoke of “Jews” and pledged to fight “jihad,” BBC editors thoughtfully translated this into the more palatable “Israelis” and the soothingly vague “resistance,” presumably on the grounds that British viewers might find murderous Jew-hatred and holy war a touch less sympathetic.

By May, the BBC’s Radio 4 Today program—famously “setting the day’s agenda”—had set off another fire alarm. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher was invited on air and promptly announced that “14,000 babies could die in Gaza within 48 hours.” He repeated it. The presenter offered minimal pushback. The implication that Israel was about to carry out the mass killing of Gazan babies hung heavily in the studio air.

The claim was, of course, absurd. Which is precisely why it ricocheted through BBC output for the next two days like a journalistic norovirus. The line appeared in multiple BBC stories, spreading to other international media outlets. Eventually, after the damage was done, the BBC quietly clarified and edited. Mission accomplished.

And still, things worsened.

June brought apologies and internal “learning exercises” after the BBC failed to cut a live Glastonbury broadcast of a pop-punk duo gleefully chanting “Death, death to the IDF.” July delivered a leaked Zoom call in which the BBC’s CEO of News, Deborah Turness, earnestly explained that Hamas’ “military” and “political” wings should be considered distinct entities – a distinction familiar only to terrorist apologists and the BBC editorial board.


Egyptian Journalist: The Gaza Public Understands that Hamas Is Responsible for Its Disaster
Egyptian journalist Ahmad Abd Al-Wahhab, deputy editor of the Egyptian government daily Akhbar Al-Yawm, wrote on Nov. 27: "Israel's siege of Gaza has driven Hamas into a severe financial crisis, following the targeting of numerous sites that had been sources of revenue for the movement. This may explain Hamas's involvement in seizing the humanitarian aid meant for the civilian population and reselling it at exorbitant prices, which has deepened the crisis."

"Hamas, which is supposed to fulfill its natural role of providing for the residents of Gaza and easing the burden of their living conditions, has become a heavy burden on the entire Strip....Even more serious is the fact that it has stationed its operatives near ATMs and taken control of 30-40% of the salaries of civil servants and [other] citizens. This use of the crisis to turn the citizens' sources of income - which are already insufficient given the tragic situation in the Strip - into its own sources of income...reveals the true face of the resistance, which prioritizes its own interests over the lives of the citizens in Gaza."

"The crisis in Gaza is not only financial; it is [also] a crisis of trust between a society on the verge of collapse and a ruling authority that strives to preserve its own existence, even if it must sacrifice the citizens to do so. These irresponsible actions [by Hamas] create mistrust and widen the gap between the people of Gaza and the Hamas leadership, whose public support is eroding day by day."


Yemen airstrikes show national security is red line that Saudi Arabia won't let UAE cross
Saudi Arabia has decided to put down some redlines in Yemen. This comes in response to setbacks of Yemen’s government forces throughout December. They are backed by Riyadh and have lost ground to the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) separatist group.

This is intriguing because, back in 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE both intervened in Yemen to stop the Iranian-backed Houthis advancing on Aden. Now they are falling out increasingly in public.

Over time, the Houthis were checked in their advances, but then things changed. The Houthis targeted Riyadh for years until Saudi Arabia was able to secure a kind of ceasefire in Yemen and also reconcile with Iran over the past few years.

The Houthis then turned their attention to Israel. This, in turn, has meant that the STC and Yemeni government troops have not come to blows. This is now drawing in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Arab News noted on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia “expressed regret over what it described as pressure by the United Arab Emirates on Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces to carry out military operations in Yemen’s Hadramout and Al-Mahra governorates, warning that such actions pose a direct threat to the kingdom’s national security and regional stability.”


Tear gas and arrests: Iranian regime continues crackdown on protesters amid economic unrest
Islamic Republic regime authorities have begun cracking down on protests across Iran, with footage revealing tens of people being detained and tear gas being dispersed in the crowded streets.

The political editor of Iran’s Etemad newspaper, Mehdi Biek, was among those detained by the regime authorities as he covered the protests. His wife complained online that she had not heard from him for more than 24 hours, until his release on Tuesday.

Footage shared by BBC Persian confirmed that at least 11 individuals were arrested on Sabunian Street in Tehran.

In the city of Kermanshah, authorities were recorded launching tear gas towards large gatherings as crowds shouted “shame, shame!”

In some regions, including on Tehran’s Jomhuri Street, protesters were recorded successfully pushing back authorities, forcing regime police to retreat.

While the dissent began over the rapidly falling value of the rial, the outbreak has allowed protesters to voice dissatisfaction with the regime’s policy. On Mulla Sadra Street in Tehran, protesters were recorded chanting the slogan "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I will sacrifice my life for Iran," according to videos shared by dissident media.

Iranian dissident journalist Masih Alinejad, who was the target of a failed regime assassination plot, wrote, “What we are witnessing in Iran right now is not an isolated economic protest. It is another deep and serious challenge to the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

“Yes, the immediate trigger is economic collapse. Iran’s currency has lost nearly 90 percent of its value since 2018. When money collapses, lies collapse too.”


Report: Nvidia in advanced talks to buy Israel’s AI21 Labs for up to $3 billion
Nvidia is in advanced talks to buy Israel-based AI startup AI21 Labs for as much as $3 billion, the Calcalist financial daily reported on Tuesday.

The global tech company declined to comment, while AI21 was not immediately available to comment.

The news comes shortly after Nvidia announced that it would build a planned “multibillion-shekel” research and development campus in the northern town of Kiryat Tivon, outside Haifa, with plans to create a tech hub that will employ an estimated 10,000 people.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has described Israel as the company’s “second home.”

And it comes as the Israeli tech market for “exits” — mergers and acquisitions as well as initial public offerings of shares — recorded one of its best years over the past decade in 2025, despite wars in Gaza, Iran and elsewhere.

The value of Israeli tech exits, including M&As and IPOs, this year jumped by a whopping 340 percent to $58.8 billion, up from $13.4 billion in 2024, according to a 2025 exit report by consultants PwC Israel.

The big surge was driven by Google’s $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity unicorn Wiz, the largest deal involving an Israeli-founded company. In the second-biggest exit in Israeli history, Palo Alto Networks, a Santa Clara, California-based cybersecurity firm founded by American-Israeli entrepreneur Nir Zuk, in July announced the acquisition of Israeli firm CyberArk in a deal valued at $25 billion.

A 2023 funding round valued AI21 at $1.4 billion. Nvidia and Alphabet’s Google participated in that funding.

Calcalist said the current deal to buy AI21 is estimated at between $2 billion and $3 billion.

AI21, founded in 2017 by Amnon Shashua and two others, is among a clutch of AI startups that have benefited from a boom in artificial intelligence, attracting strong interest from venture capital firms and other investors.


EXPOSED! The Biggest Anti-Israel Influencers Are Finally Showing Their True Colors!
2025 was the year masks fell and some faces underneath were downright terrifying. In this year-end special of The Quad, the panel count down the “Top 10 Scumbags of the Year,” ripping into cowards, antisemites, grifters, Islamist apologists, woke celebrities, UN enablers and terror funders. From Greta’s arrest and her ties to Hamas-linked figures, to Miss Rachel’s anti-Israel turn, and all the way to Hamas’s luxury-loving leadership hiding in Qatari hotels, this isn’t just a takedown it’s a full-blown reckoning.


Special Briefing - Lior Suchard interview & Highlights of 2025 with Special Guests
As we head into a new year, we look back at some of the most powerful highlights from our show during one of the most dramatic periods in the history of Israel and the Jewish people - plus Israel’s master mentalist Lior Suchard returns to the StandWithUs Studios for an exclusive interview.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 



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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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

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