Saturday, January 17, 2026

01/17 Links: The Board of Peace Isn’t About Gaza — It’s About Replacing the UN; Trump Calls for End to ‘Sick Man’ Khamenei’s Rule; The strange and beautiful love story of the Maori and the Jews

From Ian:

An undercover reporter joined France’s anti-Israel movement. Here’s what she found
If antisemitism has long plagued France, dating back to the Middle Ages, it’s now metastasizing in new, alarming ways, according to a recently published book by French journalist Nora Bussigny.

Titled “Les Nouveaux Antisémites” (“The New Antisemites”), it exposes virulent Jew-hatred endemic to many far-left organizations in France, infiltrated by Bussigny as part of a lengthy undercover investigation. Using a false identity, Bussigny uncovered pervasive antisemitism and anti-Zionism, now a common denominator among diverse groups that often disagree on other matters.

“I saw with my own eyes to what degree Islamists, far-left so-called ‘progressive’ militants and feminist, LGBT and ecological activists are closely linked in their shared hatred of Jews and Israel,” Bussigny told The Times of Israel during a recent interview on Zoom.

“It’s ironic because historically, the extreme left was fragmented. Many radical groups never got along despite dreaming of a convergence of their struggles. Before October 7, [2023,] I was convinced they could only unify around a common hatred of the police and what it symbolizes for them. But I’ve now seen how their hate for Jews, or rather Zionists, to use their term, is more effective in bringing them together in common cause.”

The Hamas-led invasion on October 7, 2023, saw some 1,200 people in southern Israel slaughtered by thousands of marauding terrorists, and 251 abducted as hostages to the Gaza Strip. The massacre touched off the two-year war against Hamas in Gaza and an unprecedented spike in global antisemitism.

“Les Nouveaux Antisémites” — whose subtitle translates in English as “An Investigation by an Infiltrator within the Ranks of the Far Left” — opens with a dedication to Régine Skorka-Jacubert, a Holocaust survivor and member of the French Resistance. Nora Bussigny at the podium of the French Senate as she receives the 2025 Prix Edgar Faure for best political book of the year. (Courtesy Nora Bussigny)

“While writing the book, I was invited to the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris,” said Bussigny, 30, speaking in French. “As part of its education program, they have a terminal which scans your face and attributes to you someone deported to a Nazi concentration camp. You’re then asked to commit yourself to help preserve the person’s memory and keep their story alive. I told myself I’d dedicate my book to Régine.”

In the book’s introduction, Busssigny explains her incognito endeavor, for which she risked her personal safety.

“During an entire year, I participated, with full discretion, in demonstrations, meetings, online discussions,” she writes. “I investigated university campuses. I applauded next to hysterical crowds glorifying terrorism. I took part in feminist protests and dialogued in municipal facilities with members of an organization [Samidoun] outlawed in many countries for its close, proven links to terrorism. I chanted against ‘genocide’ and for ‘Palestinian resistance’ — obviously armed ‘resistance’ — during demonstrations supposedly defending the rights of women and LGBT people, with no mention of homosexuals being tortured or murdered in the name of Sharia law in the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas.”
Trump’s Fateful Choice in Iran
To be sure, there are valid strategic reasons for his reluctance. Most U.S. interventions to exact justice on foreign tyrants have ended poorly. No American silver bullet will cleanly depose Tehran’s Islamist leaders and peacefully transition the country to a stable, representative democracy. Since World War II, fewer than a quarter of authoritarian collapses have led to democracy, and those triggered by foreign intervention have been particularly unlikely to do so. Violent revolutions are coercive contests; they are won by those who can organize force, not mobilize hashtags.

That said, U.S. military action can still constructively shape events, even if it can’t control their ultimate outcome. Foreign intervention will not spawn an Iranian Denmark, in other words, but it could prevent the entrenchment of an Iranian North Korea.

In this context, Trump should be clear about his objectives, focusing on three fronts. He should seek to deter the violence against civilians by signaling that the cost of this slaughter will outweigh the benefits of suppression. He should insist on tearing down the digital iron curtain that has allowed the regime to massacre people in the dark (for the past week, connectivity in Iran has hovered at 1 percent). And he should make a goal of fracturing Iran’s security forces by degrading the regime’s command and control, thereby creating doubt within their ranks and emboldening the population.

On the last point, I consulted with three friends in the U.S. military and intelligence communities who have a century of collective experience dealing with Iran. Johnny Gannon, a Persian-speaking veteran of the CIA, advised that any U.S. action should serve to “demoralize, damage, and denigrate” the adversary. He paraphrased Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince about the risk of half measures: “One should either caress a man or crush him. If you injure him, you should do so in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.” If you aim for the supreme leader, you best not miss.

A retired senior U.S. military official who has studied Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for decades recommended striking the country’s missile capabilities and also aiming for command centers, such that the regime would be unable to coordinate internally and protesters could reemerge without fear. According to another former intelligence official, Trump’s action must convince the IRGC that it has just three options: change voluntarily, be changed by protesters, or be changed by Donald Trump.

The Islamic Republic may have prevailed in this latest battle, but it is destined to lose the war against its own society. The medium-term bet on who will prevail between an 86-year-old dictator and his young society is clear. Khamenei will soon be vanquished by time, and 47 years of the Islamic Republic’s hard power will eventually be defeated by the soft power of a 2,500-year-old nation that wants to reclaim its proud history.

Trump appears relaxed about the fate of Iran. Yet the machinery of war is already in motion: The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, is reportedly en route to the Middle East. Given their violent history with Trump, Iran’s leaders know they cannot rest easily.
The Silence of the Left on Iran
For the exiles I spoke with, the most disturbing—and telling—thing about the tepid response was the contrast with the impassioned reaction to Gaza. “Why is it that when Palestinians—armed or unarmed—fight for liberation, it is seen as a moral duty to support them, but when Iranians protest, they are labeled ‘armed terrorists’ or ‘agents of Mossad?’” Shams, the feminist scholar, said.

Janet Afary, a religious-studies professor at UC Santa Barbara, helped put this dissonance in context. She described for me a long history that would explain the left’s knee-jerk sympathy for the Islamic Republic, starting with the leftist elements that helped lead the 1979 revolution (alongside the clerics who ended up seizing full control). For those who want to see the end of Israel, the regime’s identity as a defender of Palestinian rights—and a funder of extremist anti-Israel groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah—has given it cachet.

Afary recalled confronting a colleague who was dismissive of the 2022 protests, which were largely driven by feminists; this person wondered why Iranian women can’t just wear hijab like other women in the Middle East. “Are you saying this because you don’t want the government of the Islamic Republic to be overthrown because it supports the Palestinian cause?” Afary asked her. She said yes. “To my face!” Afary said.

The ideological left doesn’t know what to do with violence that doesn’t involve a Western aggressor, according to Kamran Matin, another exile and an international-relations professor at the University of Sussex in England. Matin noted other groups that received only muted support from anti-imperialists, including the Yazidis, persecuted by ISIS, and Rohingya, victims of the Myanmar government—in which case the aggressors were not Western hegemons. If you jump to the barricades against these atrocities, “then the whole edifice of postcolonial anti-imperialism basically collapses. Because for them, it feels like they dilute their case against the West by accepting non-Western cases.”


The Board of Peace Isn’t About Gaza — It’s About Replacing the UN
The invitation itself is the clearest window into what this project claims to be. It does not describe a “forum,” a “contact group,” or a loose coalition. It explicitly states that the Board of Peace has been established as a new “international organization,” governed by a charter open for “signature and ratification.” Those words are not decorative. They carry precise and unavoidable legal meaning.

The language goes further. The Board of Peace is described as overseeing a “Transitional Governing Administration” — a term of art in international practice, not casual phrasing. Reporting on the draft charter reinforces this. The Board is framed not as Gaza-specific but as a standing body intended to promote “lawful governance” and “stability” across multiple conflict zones, explicitly positioning itself as an alternative to existing UN institutions.

The charter, which reportedly does not mention Gaza, speaks of the need for a “more nimble and effective international peace-building body”, — which will be chaired by Trump himself. The charter describes the Board of Peace as “an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict,”

Even more extraordinary is the concentration of authority embedded in the charter. According to reporting, the chair of the Board — Donald Trump personally, not the office of the President — is granted sweeping powers over appointments, removals, and decision-making, including veto authority.

World leaders appear to fully understand what the Board of Peace is about. President Javier Milei of Argentina clearly stated Gaza is just the start.
“It is an honor for me to have received tonight the invitation for Argentina to join, as a Founding Member, the Board of Peace, an organization created by President Trump to promote lasting peace in regions affected by conflict, starting with the Gaza Strip.”

President Santiago Peña of Uruguay is also very clear on the scope of what was getting invited to take part of, a new international organization:
“I thank President Donald Trump @realDonaldTrump for the invitation to join the Board Of Peace. This new international organization aims to act in regions affected by conflicts, focusing on the Gaza Strip.”

The charter language is already being operationalized. According to White House statements, the Board of Peace is not a single body but the apex of a multi-layered governance hierarchy. Beneath it sits a “Founding Executive Board,” chaired by Trump himself and composed largely of U.S. political figures, envoys, financiers, and corporate executives — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, World Bank president Ajay Banga, and national security adviser Robert Gabriel — with former UK prime minister Tony Blair as the sole non-American member.

Alongside it is a separate “Gaza Executive Board,” tasked with supervising all on-the-ground activity in Gaza and overseeing a subordinate Palestinian technocratic body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

Crucially, reporting indicates that the charter grants the chair of the Board of Peace — Trump personally — authority not only to appoint and remove members of these bodies, but to create additional subsidiary boards and structures at will. This is not incidental. It mirrors the architecture of a standing international organization, complete with expandable sub-organs, centralized executive control, and a permanent chain of command. This is the institutional scaffolding of a parallel UN-style system, not a temporary reconstruction mechanism.

Which brings us to the central constitutional problem.

International organizations are creatures of state consent. They are not instruments of personal authority, nor are they legally designed to vest sovereign powers in a single individual. International organizations are not created by press conference, branding, or presidential initiative. They exist only when sovereign states consent through a treaty or treaty-like instrument that creates legal personality, defines powers, and imposes binding obligations. Charters are ratified. Forums are not. Declarations are not. Memoranda of understanding are not. A document open for signature and ratification invokes treaty mechanics whether its authors acknowledge it or not.


Full text: Charter of Trump’s Board of Peace

Netanyahu’s office: Trump’s Gaza committee contradicts Israel’s policy
The Gaza Executive Board led by the U.S. and composed of officials from countries such as Turkey, Qatar and Egypt “runs contrary to [Israel’s] policy,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday.

In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office said, “The announcement regarding the composition of the Gaza Executive Board, which is subordinate to the Board of Peace, was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy.”

It added that Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was instructed to discuss the matter with his American counterpart, Marco Rubio—who was named on Friday as a founding member of the Executive Board.

The White House on Friday unveiled three committees that will oversee the activities of the Board of Peace, the initiative led and chaired by U.S. President Donald Trump, tasked with implementing his 20-point peace plan for the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the two-year war.

The Gaza Executive Board includes members such as U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi and Egyptian General Intelligence Service Director Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad.

The Gaza Executive Board will assume the role of assisting the high representative for Gaza, United Arab Emirates-based Bulgarian politician and former U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov, as well as the new National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), another committee under the Board of Peace that consists of 15 Palestinian technocrats and is led by former Palestinian Authority Deputy Minister of Transportation Ali Sha’ath.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump wrote: “With the support of Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar, we will secure a COMPREHENSIVE Demilitarization Agreement with Hamas, including the surrender of ALL weapons, and the dismantling of EVERY tunnel.”

Trump’s comment was made on the backdrop of Witkoff’s announcement on Wednesday that Phase 2 of the Trump administration’s peace plan has commenced.
Tony Blair ‘honoured’ to be part of Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza
Sir Tony Blair has said he is “honoured” to be part of Donald Trump’s Gaza “Board of Peace”, which aims to prevent future conflict in the territory.

The former prime minister was listed alongside high-profile Trump administration officials as part of a “founding executive board” to lead long-term peace efforts in the Middle East, published by the White House on Friday.

The list also included US secretary of state Marco Rubio, special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Sir Tony said in a statement: “I thank President Trump for his leadership in establishing the Board of Peace and am honoured to be appointed to its executive board.

“It’s been a real privilege to work with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and their outstanding team.

“I look forward to working with them and other colleagues in line with the president’s vision to promote peace and prosperity.”

He said the president’s 20-point plan for Gaza was an “extraordinary achievement” and that implementing it will take “enormous commitment and hard work”.
Seth Frantzman: Trump names Gaza’s ‘Stabilization Force’ commander who played key role in Israel-Lebanon ceasefire
The White House said on Friday that it had appointed a commander for the International Stabilization Force (ISF), which is expected to lead security operations in Gaza.

“Major-General Jasper Jeffers has been appointed commander of the International Stabilization Force, where he will lead security operations, support comprehensive demilitarization, and enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials,” the White House added.

The goal is to “establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment.”

The appointment of Jeffers comes as the US has also moved to appoint a new Board of Peace for Gaza, as well as a Gaza Executive Board. The US also announced the names of the new committee of Palestinian technocrats who will run Gaza. The ISF will be of great assistance to these parties.

Jeffers has decades of experience in the US military and has played a key role in the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire. According to US Special Operations Command Central, he was “commissioned into the infantry from Virginia Tech in 1996. Throughout his career, he has led Airborne, Stryker, Ranger, and Special Operations units during combat and operational deployments, including Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), and Operation Resolute Support (Afghanistan).”

His family, which runs a sawmill business, comes from Giles County, Virginia, according to a Virginia Tech website.


‘Time To Look for New Leadership in Iran’: Trump Calls for End to ‘Sick Man’ Khamenei’s Rule
President Donald Trump issued an unprecedented call for regime change in Iran, marking the first time any U.S. president has publicly endorsed removing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power after 37 years of hardline rule.

"It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran," Trump told Politico on Saturday after a reporter read him a series of social media posts in which Khamenei accused Trump of orchestrating the widespread protests that have threatened his grip on power.

"What he is guilty of, as the leader of a country, is the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before," Trump continued. "In order to keep the country functioning—even though that function is a very low level—the leadership should focus on running his country properly, like I do with the United States, and not killing people by the thousands in order to keep control."

The president added that Khamenei "is a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people. His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership."

The Iranian dictator unleashed a social media tirade against Trump early Saturday, writing, "We find the US president guilty due to the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted upon the Iranian nation."

In another post, Khamenei wrote that "the US President introduced the groups who committed acts of vandalism, arson, and murdered people as ‘the Iranian nation.’ He uttered an appalling slander against the Iranian people. We find the US President guilty for this slander."

Trump’s remarks come after the Iranian regime killed upwards of 12,000 civilians in a bloody crackdown even as Trump repeatedly warned Khamenei and his allies that they would face consequences for doing so. The United States is in the process of moving military assets into the region in preparation for a potential strike that could reinvigorate a protest movement that has slowed under regime pressure, but Trump has not confirmed whether the United States will take action against the Islamic Republic. While the president appeared poised earlier in the week to immediately authorize U.S. military intervention, he retreated from that stance after the Iranian regime postponed the public executions of around 800 protesters.

"The best decision he ever made was not hanging more than 800 people two days ago," Trump said in the Saturday interview with Politico.

Israel and several Gulf states reportedly urged Trump to postpone military action, fearing that Iranian retaliation would include attacks on their countries that the United States did not yet have the capability to prevent on Wednesday. But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that "all options remain on the table." The State Department, meanwhile, confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon late Friday that diplomacy with Tehran is not one of those options.


When Foucault met the ayatollah
His embrace of Islamism is clear from a 1978 piece in Nouvel Observateur. There, he talks up ‘Islam[ic] values’: that ‘no one can be deprived of the fruits of his labour’, that liberties will ‘be respected to the extent that their exercise will not harm others’, and that ‘minorities will be protected and free to live as they please on the condition that they do not injure the majority’. But, recognising how close that all sounds to various Western political ideologies, he then criticises the blandness of ‘these formulas from everywhere and nowhere’.

It’s the Islamist character of revolt that lights Foucault’s fire, not the supposed socialism or liberalism of ‘Islamic values’ – something observers of today’s kleptocratic, illiberal Iran would struggle to spot. He claims that it’s the dream of an ‘Islamic society’ that is in ‘the hearts’ of the shah’s opponents. He praises the revolt against the shah as a movement that aims to give ‘a permanent role in political life to the traditional structures of Islamic society’. And he celebrates it for introducing ‘a spiritual dimension into political life, in order that [political life] would not be, as always, the obstacle to spirituality, but rather its receptacle, its opportunity, and its ferment’.

Here, Foucault was drawing on the work of French-trained sociologist Ali Shariati, the so-called intellectual father of the Iranian Revolution, who died in 1977. In his later works, Shariati called for Iranians to throw off the veil of Western modernity, imposed by the shah, and rediscover their authentic cultural selves, their Shia Islamic essence.

Similarly, in a piece written in February 1979 (after the fall of the shah, but before the March referendum that ushered in the Islamic Republic), Foucault talked up the ‘singularity’ of the Iranian revolution, praising it for bringing into being ‘an entire way of life’, reviving ‘a history and a civilisation’. And in the ‘singularity’ of this Islamist revolt, creating a radical alternative to the materialism and rationalism of the West, Foucault identified an immense spiritual ‘force’, a ‘power of expansion’ that could mobilise ‘hundreds of millions of men’.

Foucault was enthusiastically predicting the emergence of Islamism as a transnational force. A movement drawing on pre-modern Islamic histories and cultures, which, as he saw it, would establish a genuinely radical alternative to Western modernity. The growth and emergence of countless, often violent Islamist movements in the Middle East and beyond lends Foucault’s writing a dark prescience.

But that was February 1979. At that point, Foucault could still believe in his own visions of the Iranian Revolution. He could still imagine the Islamic society as a ‘utopia’, as he called it in 1978. By March, Foucault had to reckon with the harsh reality. Within days of Khomeini and his supporters taking control, all women had been ordered to veil themselves and left-wing dissenters were slowly but surely being silenced. On 8 March 1979, protesters came out on to the streets, chanting against the mandatory veils, and ‘Down with the dictatorship’. Pro-Khomeini forces answered the protests with knives and bullets.

Within weeks, and amid a lot of domestic criticism, Foucault had stepped back from his support for Khomeini’s vicious Islamist movement. The brutally repressive reality of its ‘semi-archaic fascism’, as one of Foucault’s critics called it at the time, had shaken him awake. He wrote a desperate letter to the then Iranian prime minister, registering his anger, and then retreated, shame-faced, from the fray.

By embracing radical Islamist reaction, Foucault succumbed to the temptation that still confronts today’s decadent bourgeois anti-modernists. He at least realised his mistake very quickly. Today’s ‘progressives’ should take note.


'Give us back our Australia': Post-Bondi massacre, Jews send a message to the world
The final speaker was another Holocaust survivor. He began by explaining that in the camps, crying was forbidden. Tears were considered weakness and could cost a life. He had never cried publicly since.

Until that night. Until Matilda’s father spoke. Until “Waltzing Matilda” was sung.

He spoke of the welcome he had received from Australia after the Shoah, of a country that prided itself on decency, multiculturalism, and fairness.

Then his tone shifted. He said everything changed after October 7. Antisemitism moved from the margins to the mainstream.

Even Sydney University, where he once studied happily, had become a place of hostility. He said that if he walked there today wearing a kippah (skullcap), at best he would be insulted and at worst assaulted.

His final words brought the longest applause of the evening.

“Give us back our Australia.”

It was not nostalgia speaking, but moral urgency – a demand from people who know precisely where unchecked hatred leads and who refuse to surrender their country’s soul.

Australia’s Jews, joined by countless non-Jews, are not asking for special treatment. They are demanding the return of something that belongs to everyone: courage, decency, and the refusal to excuse evil in the language of ideology.

The world should take note. Because what happened at Bondi was not only an attack on Jews, or Australians, or a beachside celebration. It was an assault on the idea that free societies can remain free if they abandon the values that sustain them.

On a cold, rain-drenched night, thousands of Australians stood and declared: not here. Not like this. Not on our watch.

They have demanded their country back. The rest of the world must now decide whether it has the courage to do the same.


‘Greens have no credibility on this issue’: Robert Gregory flags concern over potential Albanese govt deal to pass hate speech bill
Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory has raised major concerns over the Albanese government’s proposed hate speech bill, set to be introduced next week, though passage is now uncertain after the Greens confirmed they would not support it unless significant changes are made.

Legal and security experts as well as the Coalition and the Greens have dissected the government’s proposed hate speech legislation, but Anthony Albanese remains intent on moving forward while leaving the door open for discussions with parties willing to support the reforms.

Alongside a failure to name Islamic extremism, the bill also carves out protections for those quoting religious texts, sparking fears it could empower radical preachers to use interpretations of the Quran and Hadiths – a record of the speech and actions of the Prophet Muhammad – to spread hatred

Mr Gregory said while many Jewish people were in favour of the laws, his organisation had “a lot of concerns”.

“We're against (the laws), primarily because they're rushed,” he told Sky News host Caroline Marcus on Friday.

“We've seen the government sit on the Siegel report since July last year and now they've invited us to make a submission. They gave us less than two days.”

Mr Gregory said the laws also left out the issue of radical Islam, the alleged motivation behind the Bondi attack which spawned the need for the fresh restrictions.

The Jewish leader questioned how laws which “ignore the main cause” of a violent and barbaric massacre can prevent a future attack from occurring.

“We're concerned that (the proposed legislation is) putting the blame on law abiding firearms owners, but everything except the real cause,” he said.
Albanese splits hate speech and gun reform bills after Greens refuse support
Following resistance from the Greens, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has moved to split Labor’s proposed hate speech laws into two separate bills.

The government will now present distinct legislation on gun reform and hate speech to the House of Representatives on Tuesday morning.

Contentious clauses covering racial vilification have been removed from the hate speech bill.

The decision comes after Greens leader Larissa Waters confirmed on Saturday that her party would not back Labor’s combined “omnibus bill,” which included a gun buyback scheme alongside hate speech and migration measures.

At a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Mr Albanese said the government would only proceed with legislation that has parliamentary support.

“I had a discussion with Larissa Waters yesterday afternoon where she informed me about where they had landed, that they would vote for the gun laws but would not vote for the other parts of the legislation,” he said.

“The gun laws will be separate and then the laws on hate crimes and migration will proceed.

"But we will not be proceeding with the racial vilification provisions because it’s clear that that will not have support. We will only proceed with measures that have the support of the parliament.”

Mr Albanese also challenged the Coalition to clarify its position on the two new bills.

“They have, up to this point of course, called for parliament to be recalled and then opposed it. We want to know what their position is on these measures, because what we don’t want to happen in this parliament is for there to be an ongoing debate or conflict.”
David Littleproud slams Labor over separate legislation on firearms and hate crimes
Nationals leader David Littleproud has slammed Labor’s decision to split its hate speech and gun reform legislation, declaring the move fails to resolve broader concerns about the bill’s content.

The Albanese government has been pushed into a sharp reversal over its Bondi terror response, confirming it will dismantle its sweeping reform package and bring two smaller bills to parliament after support for the original plan collapsed.

Mr Albanese said the most disputed part of the proposal, a new anti-vilification offence aimed at combating antisemitism, did not have the numbers to pass the Senate.

The original package drew significant criticism from legal and human rights bodies, who said it was rushed, overly broad, and capable of limiting debate on hot-button topics such as migration and terrorism.

Nationals Leader David Littleproud blasted Labor’s new proposed hate speech laws as an “overreach”.

"The Nationals didn't just oppose the racial vilification part of the original Bill, but other elements as well, that still remain," he added on Saturday in response to news of the combined “omnibus bill".

"Splitting the bill still hasn't changed any of our issues with the content and intent of significant aspects of the original bill."

Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory blasted the bill as "fundamentally flawed and beyond repair" from the outset.

"The fact that every party except Labor rejected it speaks volumes. That a piece of legislation so heavily hyped by the Albanese government has now collapsed is a serious political failure," he told skynews.com.au.

"Any deal with the Greens to pass legislation in response to the Bondi Beach massacre would be a profound insult to the Jewish community.

"For more than two years, the Greens have actively antagonised Jewish Australians and recklessly fuelled extremism."

The Greens have argued Labor’s original anti-vilification proposal was too narrow, demanding protections be extended to LGBTQ and religious communities instead of focusing on racial hatred in the wake of the Bondi attack.

They also raised concerns that Labor’s approach could stifle pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including chants such as “Globalise the intifada” and “River to the sea”, which critics argue could be interpreted as incitement.

Sussan Ley said the opposition would present its own proposals next week, accusing Labor of creating confusion through poor drafting.
Claire Lehmann: How Adelaide Writers Week collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy
For Abdel-Fattah, it appears free speech is something to be demanded for herself and denied to her opponents. And Adler’s defence of it aligns, conveniently, with a cause she already supports. It is an alignment that does not appear to be accidental.

In an essay for a series called Journeys from Zionism, Adler describes visiting Israel in 1972 and finding “imperialism” and “racism” rather than the socialist utopia she imagined existed. She later studied under Edward Said, who framed Zionism as a Western imperialist project. Adler recalls feeling “uncomfortable” when Said spoke about the “Jews” rather than Zionists or Israelis because, she said, it left “no space for progressive Jews like me who were not Zionists”.

That discomfort appears to have been institutionalised at Adelaide Writers Week. Under Adler’s leadership, the festival has run several sessions on Palestine, Gaza and anti-Zionism for three consecutive years – six in 2023, five in 2024, five again in 2025 – while excluding Israeli writers altogether. In checking the programs, I was unable to find one session led by an Israeli author. Not one. I was unable to find Israeli writers such as David Grossman, Yuval Noah Harari, Etgar Keret, Zeruya Shalev, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen or Sayed Kashua in past years’ programs.

I emailed historian Benny Morris to ask if he’d ever been invited to Writers Week and he said no – never. Recently released best-selling books such as Eli Sharabi’s Hostage, recounting his time in Hamas captivity, were also apparently unworthy of inclusion.

Has Adler been carrying out an unofficial boycott of Israeli writers in her programming? If so, it would mean that Writers Week was not a forum for free expression at all but an institution enforcing a political blacklist.

The boycott goes beyond Israeli voices. When I asked Holly Lawford-Smith, Australia’s most prominent gender-critical feminist and philosopher at the University of Melbourne, whose book Feminism Beyond Left and Right was published by Polity Books last year, if she had been invited, she told me “no” and that she had never been invited to a writers festival. The only time one of her books has been reviewed was in a British newspaper.

This is why Adler’s appeal to free speech rings hollow. It appears that what she wants protected is not open debate but rather particular political narratives. Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices are to be amplified; Israeli or Jewish-Zionist ones are to be ignored. Writers who oppose that framing are to be ignored or driven out – as Iranian novelist Shokoofeh Azar discovered when she refused to join in the boycott of Adelaide Writers Week. For refusing to conform she was rewarded with abuse and at least one death threat. So much for free expression.

Writers Week 2026 did not collapse because it defended free speech. It imploded on itself because it replaced literature with pontification. It stopped being a place where writers met with each other as writers and became a place where the in-group defined itself by its politics and the out-group was met with what Azar calls “structural intolerance”.

The world outside of insular arts and academic communities has moved on from crude identity politics. Yet the Adelaide Festival board has chosen to capitulate to an unprincipled campaign, apologising to Abdel-Fattah and inviting her back in 2027.

Let this year’s collapse of Adelaide Writers Week serve as a warning to Australia’s cultural leaders: a culture of free expression is not endangered when a single extremist is uninvited. It is endangered when only one side of a debate is permitted, when moderates are intimidated into silence, and when the loudest and most aggressive voices enforce ideological conformity.


Query over Phillip Boulten SC appointment to NSW Supreme Court amid criticism of Israel, anti-Semitism envoy
A high-profile criminal silk who has been critical of Israel and worked extensively with the Labor Friends of Palestine group has been elevated to the NSW Supreme Court, prompting calls to review the appointment.

It comes before a legal challenge of strict protest laws passed in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.

NSW attorney general Michael Daley announced the appointment of top criminal silk Phillip Boulten SC to the bench of the NSW Supreme Court in early December, with his swearing in set to take place next month.

Mr Boulten has previously attacked Australia’s special envoy to combat anti-Semitism Jillian Segal on social media, including questioning whether the federal government did a “thorough background check before appointing the ‘envoy’”.

He re-shared messages online about Ms Segal, including one that labelled her as “the deplorable racist Segal”, while he said measures contained in her plan to combat anti-Semitism lacked “sufficient justification”.

He responded to a video of British Jewish comedian Alexei Sayle talking about “zionist Jews” by commenting: “And they lie and they lie and they lie”.

Mr Boulten has also co-authored letters on behalf of the Labor Friends of Palestine group, including calling on Australia to join South Africa’s case against Israel in the UN International Court of Justice accusing the state of committing genocide in Gaza.


Francesca Albanese’s Campaign Against Israel
Ultimately, Albanese’s motivation appears to be fundamentally political. Her gratuitous smears on Israel’s moral legitimacy—as well as her unsettling indifference to Palestinian acts of terrorism—suggest that her core objection lies not with the war that’s just been concluded, but rather with the whole Zionist project to establish sovereignty in the historical homeland of the Jews.

And while she seems to imagine the 7 October 2023 attacks were a pretext for Israel to commit genocidal acts, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Albanese herself is acting on pretext. Which is to say that she used the ensuing war as an opportunity to broadcast her own pre-formed antipathy to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state with a moral right to defend its borders.

In her more exalted passages, Albanese presents as a self-styled prophet, predicting doom if the community of nations continues to abet the forces of Zionism. In that case, she warns, the “façade” of the rules-based order may collapse, leaving not just Palestinians but other societies vulnerable to the four horsemen of settler-colonial evil. As in a battle between devils and angels, “the world now stands on a knife-edge between the collapse of the international rule of law and hope for renewal.”

So what is to be done in the short term? Albanese calls upon the international community to levy sweeping punishments against Israel—including boycotting and sanctioning its economy, and suspending it from the United Nations.

That hasn’t happened, of course. Since Albanese released her report in October, the world’s attention has largely shifted to other crises—including in Venezuela, Iran, and even humble Greenland.

Nevertheless, we haven’t heard the last of Albanese: Earlier this year, the UN Human Rights Council decided to keep Albanese on as Special Rapporteur. Assuming she serves out her full term, she’ll continue leading humanity out of the “ruins of oppression” until at least 2028.


US says it killed ISIS-linked operative tied to deadly ambush on its troops in Syria
The US military on Saturday said that a strike in northwest Syria a day earlier had killed a terror operative linked to a deadly attack on three Americans last month.

The announcement of Friday’s operation came one week after “large-scale” strikes by US and allied forces against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Washington has blamed an Islamic State fighter for ambushing and killing two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter in Palmyra on December 13.

The target of Friday’s strike was Bilal Hasan al-Jasim, “an experienced terrorist leader who plotted attacks and was directly connected with the ISIS gunman” in last month’s lone gunman attack on the American personnel, US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the country’s military forces in the region, said on X.

CENTCOM said al-Jasim was affiliated with al-Qaeda, without elaborating on his links with the Islamic State group — also known as ISIS — or the Palmyra attacker.

Syria’s interior ministry has said the Islamic State gunman was a member of the security forces who had been set to be fired for extremism.
IDF slays Hamas commander behind 1995 murder of Israeli civilian
The Israel Defense Forces killed a Hamas terrorist in Gaza who was responsible for the murder of an Israeli civilian at the Nahal Oz checkpoint in 1995, the military said in a joint statement with the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) on Saturday.

The targeted killing was conducted as part of strikes carried out throughout the Strip over the past week in response to a “blatant violation” of the truce in the Rafah area, the IDF noted.

Muhammad Hamed Muhammad al-Hawli was a key figure in the terrorist organization for decades, the IDF said.

As the commander of Hamas’s Central Camps Brigade, he played a significant role in preparations for the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of the northwestern Negev.

Al-Hawli directed the terrorists who carried out the attack on Feb. 6, 1995, in which Ashkelon resident and security guard Yevgeny Gromov was murdered.

Another terrorist slain was Ashraf Adnan Muhammad al-Khatib, a commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s missiles array in the Central Camps area, the military stated.

A Hamas sniper commander in the Deir al-Balah Battalion of the Central Camps Brigade, Saeed Khaled Ali Abd al-Rahman, was also killed in the IDF strikes.


Argentina designates Iran’s Quds Force a terrorist organization; Sa’ar praises move
Argentine President Javier Milei designates the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a terrorist organization, earning praise from Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.

An official statement from the Argentine president’s office says that the body specializes in “training for the execution of terrorist attacks in other countries,” adding that Argentina holds it responsible for the 1990s Buenos Aires terrorist attacks on the Israeli Embassy and the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish center. A court in Argentina said in 2024 that the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group was responsible for the AMIA attack, which killed 85 people.

The designation “entails that members of the Quds Force and their allies are subject to the application of financial sanctions and operational restrictions,” the statement adds, noting that Milei “maintains an unbreakable commitment to recognizing terrorists for what they are.”

Milei has also designated Hamas, the Sinaloa Cartel, and more recently, Muslim Brotherhood chapters in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan as terrorist organizations.

Sa’ar welcomes Milei’s decision as a “significant step that strengthens the international front against Iranian terrorism and honors the memory of the victims of the attacks on the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA,” urging other countries to “call these terrorist organizations by their names.”


‘As a Jew, I was told Israel didn’t exist’: Life inside Britain’s biggest teaching union
When Bristol MP, Damien Egan, who is Jewish, was prevented from visiting a local school after his appearance was cancelled due to “security reasons”, the local teaching union celebrated this as a great victory, calling it “a win for safeguarding, solidarity and the power of the NEU trade union staff group”.

While many unions are obsessed with the issue of Palestine, the National Education Union (NEU), Britain’s biggest teaching union, takes things to a whole different level from the top down.

The NEU has sponsored more Palestine marches than any other union, with teachers often having their own bloc. It is headed by Daniel Kebede, who was forced to apologise after calling on crowds to “globalise the intifada” in 2021. There has been a steady stream of Jews walking out of the union – most teachers belong to unions because of the insurance they provide – but what is it like being a Jewish member?

Nicole Lampert speaks to two NEU members who have asked to remain anonymous.
Teacher #1: ‘I’ve left the NEU, and now I am leaving the country’

I’m a special needs assistant at a school in north London. It was after the NEU representative at my school told me that Israel didn’t exist that I started having doubts about the union I had been a member of for nearly a decade.

I don’t go to branch meetings or anything like that – I knew it was Left-wing, but I never realised just how bad things were.

I had gone in to talk to the rep in her office – we were good friends. It was soon after Oct 7, and I was quite sad about it as I have family in Israel. She was sympathetic, but then just told me that Israel didn’t exist. When I challenged her and said, “What do you mean it doesn’t exist?” She told me, “I’ve been to a union meeting, and they’ve shown us the maps, and it’s Palestine, not Israel.” This was an intelligent woman.

I was kind of speechless, but over the next few days, I sent her some material and videos to show her the history of Israel. I never even heard back. I wish I’d said to her, “Well, I go to Israel almost every year, so it must exist.” But of course I didn’t. I daren’t.

I’ve found this denialism to be a recurring theme. One day, I went for lunch with some of the other assistants, and we had falafel. They started talking about how it was a Palestinian dish. In the playground, I heard two colleagues talking in front of the kids about the “genocide” in Palestine, and I went and talked to our head.

Soon after that, he banned all talk about the conflict on the school grounds. In some ways, that was helpful, but in other ways, it totally wasn’t. I work in quite a Muslim area, and there is only one point of view being perpetuated. It feels like we are not allowed to challenge that.

Both my parents were from Hungary – my father’s family perished in the Holocaust – he was lucky he was already working in the UK. My mother grew up under communism, coming to the UK in 1956, so I have a good understanding of anti-Semitism and of being silenced because you are not allowed to voice the wrong ideas from communism.

I don’t think teachers should be on the side of brainwashing children. I don’t want to have to tiptoe around this subject when it involves me. It feels like we are on dangerous ground.


West Midlands Police ‘ignored’ string of ‘hate crimes’ against Jews in Birmingham
West Midlands Police is “institutionally anti-Semitic” and has repeatedly dismissed alleged hate crimes against Jews in Birmingham, a whistleblower has claimed.

A dossier obtained by The Telegraph, including internal emails and police crime logs, appears to show West Midlands Police disregard complaints about alleged anti-Semitism and extremism raised by members of the Jewish community, including by a former police volunteer who claims she was dismissed by the force after raising concerns.

In one case the force is accused of failing to act after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was punched in the face and kicked in the stomach by a classmate shouting “free Palestine”, leaving her in need of medical attention.

Its Prevent unit, designed to intervene early in cases of possible radicalisation especially in younger people, is also facing criticism after appearing to ignore multiple reports of extremism and anti-Jewish hatred.

Emails seen by The Telegraph show the unit saying there was “no role” for police to respond to a WhatsApp group chat in which a student said he wished Hitler had done more to kill “the little rats [Jews]”.

The unit also appeared to dismiss a report of extremist material on display at a pro-Palestine march which proclaimed that “the military action of the Palestinian resistance on October 7 was justified”, an apparent endorsement of Hamas terrorism.

Last night politicians called for the scandal-hit force to be “placed into special measures” and called for a “total change in leadership”.

The revelations leave West Midlands Police with more questions to answer after Chief Constable Craig Guildford, 52, announced his retirement “with immediate effect” on Friday afternoon.


Activist educators are hijacking MLK Day — and Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy — with ‘Palestine teach-in’
For decades, K–12 schools across the United States have honored the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a way that reflected both his values and his example. On MLK Day, children have volunteered at food pantries, assembled hygiene kits for shelters, cleaned up local parks and donated books to libraries.

The message was simple and powerful: citizenship requires service, and freedom comes with responsibility.

After 15 years of advocacy, President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law in 1983, establishing the third Monday in January as a federal holiday. It was meant to be a unifying moment in American civic life — a day to reflect on our shared values, our progress and the work still left to do.

Today, that legacy is under assault.

In New York City, a radical teachers’ group calling itself “NYC Educators for Palestine” is hosting a “Palestine teach-in” on MLK Day for children as young as 6 years old. Similar efforts are cropping up in other cities, including Philadelphia.

These events are not about service. They are not about Dr. King’s vision of nonviolence, pluralism or moral clarity. They are about ideological indoctrination — using a sacred day in American civil-rights history to push a one-sided, inflammatory political agenda onto children.

The group’s own materials make their intentions clear — falsely claiming that Israel is occupying “historic Palestine.” Students will be taught “Palestinian history and culture,” along with lessons on the “origins of Zionism.”
School agrees to amend teaching materials following UKLFI advice
A South London primary school has agreed to amend teaching materials linked to the novel Oranges in No Man’s Land after UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) advised a parent who raised concerns about the way historical events were presented to pupils.

In a written response to the parent, the school confirmed that it will make adjustments to how the story is introduced in future. The headteacher stated that references in the teacher notes to the wider historical conflict would be removed, with the materials instead focusing solely on Lebanon, the setting of the book, and on the Lebanese characters featured in the story. The school explained that this approach is intended to avoid confusion for younger pupils and to ensure sensitive issues are handled appropriately.

UKLFI became involved after reviewing both the book itself and the accompanying “Home Learning” materials published on the school’s website. While the novel does not make explicit reference to Israel or Judaism and does not, in itself, raise a legal issue, UKLFI identified concerns in relation to parts of the teaching aids.

UKLFI advised that certain passages in the Home Learning document framed historical events in a way that risked favouring a particular political narrative through the omission of relevant context. In particular, references to Palestinian displacement following the founding of the State of Israel, and to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1978, were presented without acknowledging key background factors, including the Arab-initiated war of 1948, calls by Arab leaders for civilians to leave during that conflict, and the attacks against Israel from Lebanon that preceded the 1978 conflict.

UKLFI explained that such omissions, taken together, could steer pupils towards a particular political conclusion. Schools have a legal duty to avoid promoting partisan political views and, where political issues are raised, to ensure that pupils are offered a balanced presentation of differing perspectives.


US AG says she’ll seek death penalty for suspect in killing of Israeli embassy staffers
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said her office would seek the death penalty for Elias Rodriguez, who is accused of murdering Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim in Washington in May, the Miami Herald, reported Friday.

Bondi made the announcement in a speech at the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit in Florida on Friday.

“Sarah and Yaron were shot, murdered because they were Jewish,” Bondi said, according to the Herald. “It was horrible. Horrible. We will not tolerate that in our country any longer.”

Citing hate crimes such as the arson at a historic Mississippi synagogue this month, Bondi said antisemitism has gone “unchecked” in the US, adding that the Department of Justice under US President Donald Trump “is dedicated to reversing this unacceptable trend,” the Herald reported.

As examples of the White House’s commitment to fighting antisemitism, Bondi touted Trump’s involvement in securing a Gaza truce-hostage deal and the DOJ’s million-dollar settlements against public universities over anti-Israel protests amid the war in Gaza that was sparked by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

“Too many Jewish Americans have been forced to live in fear,” said Bondi, blaming the “inaction” of institutions and leaders who choose to “look the other way,” the Miami Herald reported.
Holocaust survivor to address US Congress on anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation
Holocaust survivor Albert Garih is set to speak in front of the US Congress during a bipartisan session held in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, as a rise in antisemitism threatens Jewish communities worldwide.

Garih is a French Jew who survived the Holocaust by hiding with two families and later at a Catholic boarding school. He, his mother, and his siblings escaped arrest due to the courage of two French police inspectors, a social worker, and other heroic non-Jews.

His father, Benjamin Garih, was deported to a forced labor camp in the Channel Islands in 1943 before being rescued by the Belgian resistance and returning home on foot after liberation in 1944, on Rosh Hashana.

After the Holocaust, Garih graduated from Sorbonne University in France and became a translator for the World Bank, which brought him to Washington in 1976. Eighth annual bipartisan Congressional Holocaust Commemoration, January 21, 2026.

Worldwide rise in antisemitism
“France has taken important steps to confront its Holocaust-era past, but rising antisemitism, especially since October 7, 2023, demands vigilance, stronger protection of Jewish communities, and Holocaust education,” said Afraim Katzir, Founding Director of the Sephardic Heritage International (SHIN-DC).

“Recent attacks, including the Bondi shooting in Australia, underscore the urgency of working together to combat antisemitism,” he added.

"Jews in France today are feeling threatened more intensely than at any time since the Holocaust. To ensure the safety and security of Jews in France, the United States, and around the world, we must do more than remember the past; we must act to protect the future,” said Alyza D. Lewin, president of US Affairs for the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

“The Congressional Holocaust Commemoration does both. It pays tribute to Holocaust survivors, enabling us to learn from their stories and strength, while also educating today's leaders to recognize and combat all forms of contemporary antisemitism," he concluded


‘The strange and beautiful love story of the Maori and the Jews’
Only dead fish swim with the flow,” the Reverend Hayley Ace likes to tell people, and for much of her unusually public career the New Zealand Maori with the five-star smile appears to have been good to her cultural word.

In Britain, where Ace has spent most of her life, the 43-year-old ordained minister from the evangelical Lea Valley Church in Waltham Abbey is the co-founder of Christian Action Against Antisemitism. The organisation, which she runs with her fellow minister and husband Timothy Gutmann, energetically goes after anti-Jewish sentiment, whether in Britain at large or sometimes even within Ace’s own Assemblies of God denomination.

She’s also known for producing a cascade of popular video clips on social media, variously shot on location in England and Israel, in which she pithily makes her wider case on other Jewish matters that she says are a major focus for her group.

Along with other congregants from the 150-strong fellowship, “we’re openly pro-Israel and always have been”, she adds. “We pray for Israel every week.” A year ago the sincerity was repaid in kind when Israel’s President Isaac Herzog hosted her for tea at his Jerusalem home, the warmth of their mutual feeling scenting the occasion.

Welcome to the strange and beautiful love story of the Maori and the Jews.

Ace’s sense of mission marks her as a bit unusual in the UK, but many Kiwis would quickly recognise a familiar theme.

Just as the New Zealand-born minister’s warm skin tone unmistakably reflects her Polynesian heritage – along with a particular sense of confidence often described here as mana wahine, denoting the strength and authority of a Maori woman living at full tilt – so does her philosemitic warmth.

Around 20 per cent of the overall New Zealand population is officially estimated to be of Maori descent. While the precise number may be slightly exaggerated for domestic political reasons, there’s no disputing the pivotal presence of the country’s original Polynesian inhabitants, who probably began arriving in what’s called the Land of the Long White Cloud, or Aotearoa, sometime in the 1200s.

Ace hails from the country’s verdant far north, from where her parents travelled in the late 1980s to do missionary work in Kenya and then on to East Anglia. And while her personal Jewish awakening came in part from marrying a man of Jewish background – the couple share six children as well as a foster child – she acknowledges that it also taps into a much broader cultural story.

Although not be quite as tight as it used to be, the wider cultural relationship between Maori and Jew has proved notably enduring over much of New Zealand’s history, dating back even further than the nation’s founding in 1840.

As Ace marvels with a smile, almost as soon as the Christian missionaries began arriving from England, bringing with them the great Bible stories, her own people so often “recognised so many of our own legends, our own stories about God – they were all the same, but with different names”.

Especially when it came to all those biblical maps and legends involving the ancient Israelites.
Alex Bregman, who drew Jewish star on his cap after Oct. 7, inks $175M deal with Cubs
For the second year in a row, Jewish star third baseman Alex Bregman has signed a lucrative free-agent contract with a team that is run by a Jewish executive and plays in a historic ballpark in a city with a significant Jewish community.

Last year, it was the Boston Red Sox. Now, Bregman is headed to the Chicago Cubs — a team whose Jewish fans possess almost religious devotion.

Bregman, who had opted out of a three-year, $120 million deal with Boston, has signed a five-year, $175 million pact with the Cubs. It is the second-largest contract ever signed by a Jewish ballplayer, behind Max Fried’s $218 million contract in 2024. Bregman previously signed a five-year, $100 million extension with the Houston Astros in 2019.

Bregman, who played the first nine years of his career in Houston, has been one of baseball’s premier third basemen over the past decade, with three All-Star selections, a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger and two World Series rings. He’s also heralded for his leadership on and off the field.

Bregman grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he played baseball in high school and also, according to his mother, was once teased while leaving school for a bar mitzvah lesson. His grandfather, the onetime attorney for the Washington Senators whom she said Bregman called “zeyde,” gave him a collection of baseball cards featuring Jewish players.

His great-grandfather fled antisemitism in Belarus and fell in love with sports in the United States, The Athletic reported in 2017, as Bregman hurtled toward his World Series win.

“It’s the fulfillment of four generations of short Jewish Bregmans who dreamed of playing in the major leagues,” his father Sam, now the district attorney in Albuquerque’s county as well as a Democratic candidate for New Mexico governor, said at the time. “The big leagues and the World Series. One hundred twenty years in America fulfilled by Alex in this World Series.”




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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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