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Thursday, January 22, 2026

01/22 Links Pt2: Australia marks day of mourning for Bondi terror attack victims; Anti-Semitism on the Couch; Syria was never one country, and Israel knows it

From Ian:

‘She’ll Be Right’ Is Not a Strategy: How Australia Sleepwalked into a Crisis of Antisemitism
Slogans matter in this context, not because words are inherently violence, but because words can be permission structures. They can normalize contempt. They can be recruitment tools. They can teach people which targets are legitimate. After October 7, Australians watched a pattern take hold: open hostility toward Jews, moral inversion, and rhetoric that did not aim for peace but for escalation. Chants such as “Globalize the intifada” were tolerated in protests and on campuses, even though they function as a call to export violence into Western streets. In the wake of subsequent events, commentators and security analysts have repeatedly warned that hate speech does not stay in the realm of slogans: it translates into intimidation, harassment, and sometimes violence, with the deliberate purpose of making communities afraid. Australia was warned in real time. Too many people chose to treat those warnings as exaggeration, or as an inconvenience to the national self-image.

Then it happened here.

On Sunday, 14 December 2025, Jews celebrating Chanukah at Bondi Beach were attacked. It is difficult to overstate what that meant. Bondi is iconic Australia, the postcard version of our national story. The target was not an abstraction. It was Jews gathered openly, publicly, celebrating their identity. The Commonwealth later recognised the national impact with formal reflection and commemoration. A royal commission was announced to examine the circumstances and failures around the massacre.

But here is the part that should make every decent Australian pause. A commission, however necessary, is not a substitute for cultural and civic accountability. And the most chilling detail is not only that this attack occurred, but that our public debate still struggled to speak plainly about the conditions that made it possible.

Because even after Bondi, the line kept moving. The instinct to rationalize, to relativize, to insist that “it’s complicated,” to reach for euphemisms rather than speak plainly, remained. If a society cannot draw a clear boundary after a mass casualty attack targeting Jews at a religious celebration, then the problem is not confusion. It is moral failure, and it is institutional cowardice.

This is where the “she’ll be right” mentality becomes dangerous. It tells decent people the adults will handle it, the institutions will self-correct, the extremists will burn out, the country will naturally return to balance. But extremists do not burn out when they are rewarded with attention, tolerance, and platform. They escalate when they learn there is no meaningful cost.

The media conversation, too often, has been trapped in a false binary: free speech versus censorship. That frame is convenient for those who want to avoid doing the difficult work of distinguishing legitimate political expression from incitement and harassment. It also obscures the cumulative reality. One sermon becomes a “controversy.” One rally becomes “passionate activism.” One antisemitic incident becomes “unfortunate.” One campus campaign becomes “student politics.” And then people act shocked when Jewish Australians say they no longer feel safe, when security becomes normalized around synagogues and schools, when families reassess what it means to live openly as Jews in a country that once felt uncomplicated.

Australia did not “suddenly” change. We were watching it change. We just did what we often do best.

We shrugged.

So where to from here? Australia has a choice. We can keep treating antisemitism as episodic, or we can confront it as systemic. That requires more than statements. It requires enforceable standards and the willingness to apply them consistently. It means drawing bright lines around incitement and vilification, and acting when those lines are crossed. It means refusing to launder hate through the language of “debate,” and being honest that dehumanization, intimidation, and calls to violence are not contributions to a pluralist society. It means treating Jewish safety as a national issue, not a niche concern, because Bondi was not only a Jewish tragedy. It was an Australian one.

And it means demanding institutional courage from universities, cultural institutions, and community leaders, rather than watching them outsource moral judgement to PR teams and crisis committees. A liberal democracy cannot function if it has no confidence in its own moral boundaries. Multiculturalism cannot survive if it becomes a cover for tolerating extremism. Social cohesion is not maintained by pretending the problem is smaller than it is. It is maintained by confronting what threatens it, early, clearly, and consistently.

Australians are proud of being laid-back. But there is a difference between being laid-back and being asleep.

“She’ll be right” might be fine when you are talking about a dented car door, a late train, or a rainy weekend. It is not fine when hatred is organizing, recruiting, preaching, marching, and escalating.

We got here because too many good people assumed someone else would stop it.

If Australia wants to be the country it says it is, then the next cultural reflex cannot be a shrug.

It must be resolve.
Anti-Semitism on the Couch
Congress has taken notice. Last December, the House Committee on Education and Workforce sent a letter to Debra Kawahara, the president of the APA. “The Committee is gravely concerned about antisemitism at the APA, which represents more than 172,000 researchers, clinical professionals, professors, and students across the country in the field of psychology,” wrote Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich). Walberg cited as evidence the letter from Psychologists Against Antisemitism and a new report from the Anti-Defamation League on professional organizations that identified the APA as an entity about which it had “major concerns” requiring “substantial action.”

Walberg’s committee requested all APA documents, communications, publications, programming materials, complaints, and actions related to anti-Semitism since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Upon review, it will then consider “whether potential legislative changes are needed.” The association’s millions in federal funding for training programs and contracts could be at risk.

This moment is fraught with paradox. It was Jews who pioneered psychotherapy and psychoanalysis (once called “the Jewish science” by Nazi critics but later resurrected by some admirers and practitioners, including Freud’s daughter, Anna). All but one of the early members of Freud’s inner circle of 13 were Jewish. The anti-Semitism waged against Austrian physicians had constrained their professional opportunities but left open the unexplored territory of the mind, regarded as a marginal area at the time. The original psychotherapy patients were mostly Jewish, too, reflecting the value placed by Jews on introspection, intellectual life, and the ethic of repair.

Surely, there remain therapists who are emotionally mature—they may even represent the majority of seasoned professionals. Trust has nonetheless been resoundingly damaged on several fronts: among colleagues in the field, among colleagues and their professional organizations, and between patients and therapists. Today, Jewish and Zionist individuals who seek psychological care must search carefully for an experienced therapist who, no matter his or her politics, will regard the patient, foremost, as a fellow human who is suffering.
New documentary depicts the lawsuit that humbled Henry Ford – and revved up US Jewry
After years of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories in his Dearborn Independent newspaper, Henry Ford was finally called to account for it. In 1927, the billionaire American auto magnate, famed for the assembly line and the Model T, was sued for libel by Aaron Sapiro, a Jewish American lawyer and a cooperative farm organizer in the United States and Canada. The ensuing trial in a Detroit federal courthouse — and subsequent apology by Ford — had repercussions for the American Jewish community and its relations with wider society.

This drama is retold in a new documentary film, “Sapiro v. Ford: The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford.” Directed by New York-based Gaylen Ross and produced by Detroit native Carol King, the film made its world premiere at the Miami Jewish Film Festival on January 18, and is available locally to stream through the festival’s website. It was also screened on January 21 at the New York Jewish Film Festival, which will show it again on January 28. Additional upcoming screenings include the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival and the Boca International Jewish Film Festival.

“I think it’s an unknown story,” King said in a joint Zoom interview between the filmmakers and The Times of Israel. “People are curious. So many people have not heard of it. They know about Henry Ford, but they did not realize the extent of what happened — with the libel suit against him by Sapiro and the resultant apology.”

“Our goal,” she added, “was to really introduce people to this hero [Sapiro], a man who risked so much, because he believed so passionately in the cause.”

Beyond amplifying Sapiro, the film looks at the ever-present debate between balancing First Amendment protections for free speech with defending minority rights in America.

“We definitely support freedom of speech,” Ross said, while noting “the concern we have for when hate speech often turns to hate crime. That’s the difficulty of protecting rights and freedom of speech at the same time… and also protecting the vulnerable.”

The Miami festival is billed as the largest showcase of Jewish and Israeli films; this year’s lineup features over 100 selections. After Miami, “Sapiro v. Ford” makes its way to the New York Jewish Film Festival, then it’s back to Florida for the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival. Its first three in-person screenings — one in Miami, and two in New York — have all sold out.

Within the film’s length of an hour and 10 minutes, the filmmakers have found creative ways to tell the story. Contemporaneous cartoons about the trial come to life through Garry Waller’s animation. Descendants of Canadian farmers whom Sapiro organized give perspectives on how he transformed their families’ lives for the better. And the post-trial euphoria among American Jews was humorously captured in a catchy 1927 Yiddish dialect song, “Since Henry Ford Apologized to Me,” which gets played twice. The filmmakers also used the well-known documentary approach of interviews with experts, including Brandeis University American Jewish history professor Jonathan Sarna and Indiana University adjunct law professor Victoria Saker Woeste, who is the author of “Henry Ford’s War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech.”


Australia marks day of mourning for Bondi terror attack victims
Australia on Thursday marked a national day of mourning for the 15 people murdered in an antisemitic terrorist attack on a Chanukah gathering at Sydney’s Bondi Beach last month, lowering flags to half-staff and urging millions to pause for a minute’s silence as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged solidarity with the Jewish community.

The Labor Party leader, who has faced criticism for not doing enough to address rising antisemitism in the lead-up to the Islamic State-inspired shooting by two gunmen at the holiday event, called the day a “solemn opportunity for every Australian to stand with the Jewish community and remember the 15 lives stolen in this deadly attack.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry marked the day with a social media post memorializing the victims, including a video with pictures of each of those “whose lives were so cruelly cut short …, may their memory be a blessing.”

The day of mourning was marred in Melbourne, where vandals used machinery to tear down a 155-year-old Pioneer Monument and deface a nearby Separation Memorial in Flagstaff Gardens with anti-Australia graffiti and an inverted red triangle linked to the Hamas terrorist group, prompting condemnation from city leaders and Jewish groups.

The day of mourning came a day after the parliament in Canberra approved hate crime and gun control laws. The legislation was passed after Albanese recalled senators and members of the House of Representatives from summer recess early for a special two-day session.

Albanese announced on Jan. 8 that Australia would establish a royal commission to investigate the Bondi Beach massacre. He said that the government would fully support and adopt all 13 recommendations that Jillian Segal, Australia’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, outlined in her July “Plan to Combat Antisemitism.”

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy on antisemitism, has said Washington is closely watching Australia’s royal commission amid concern over Albanese’s past pro‑Palestinian activism and his government’s handling of antisemitism.
Sam Mostyn reads Psalm 23 on behalf of King Charles during ‘Light Will Win’ memorial
Governor-General Sam Mostyn reads Psalm 23 on behalf of King Charles III during the ‘Light Will Win’ memorial honouring the victims of the Bondi terror attack.

“As your Governor-General, I am very proud to be here at this gathering of unity and remembrance to continue to show love and support for the Jewish community,” Ms Mostyn said.

“I am honoured to read Psalm 23 on behalf of His Majesty King Charles III.”


Candles lit for Bondi terror attack victims
A representative from each family of the Bondi Beach attack victims lit a candle in honour of their loved ones.


‘Most painful days of my life’: Rabbi reflects on the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack
Chabad of Bondi Spiritual Leader Rabbi Yehoram Ulman says despite the “pain” of the Bondi terror attack, the days following the tragedy sparked an “awakening” across Australia.

“The past 30 days or more have been the most painful days of my life,” Mr Ulman said.

“I believe I speak for many when I say we’ve felt an emptiness so heavy it could crush us.

“But in that void, something else appeared … these 30 days I have witnessed an awakening in a country I’ve never seen before.”


‘Dark and evil’: Chris Minns mourns Bondi massacre victims
NSW Premier Chris Minns says the Bondi massacre was a “dark and evil” crime committed on the Jewish community.


Sussan Ley addresses ‘Light Will Win’ memorial for Bondi Beach massacre victims
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley addresses the ‘Light Will Win’ memorial, remembering the lives lost at the Bondi Beach massacre.

“It has been an honour and a privilege to stand with the Jewish community in the days following the Bondi terror attack and to stand for Jewish Australians in the parliament this week,” Ms Ley said.

“39 days on from the attack at Bondi, we remember 15 lives that were taken.”




Memorial for Bondi attack victims will be a ‘symbolic’ event: Alex Ryvchin
Executive Council of Australian Jewry Co-CEO Alex Ryvchin discusses Thursday night’s “symbolic” memorial service commemorating the victims of the Bondi terror attack.

“It’s symbolic, and it’s critical, and it’s also important that today we turn a page,” Mr Ryvchin told Sky News host Peta Credlin.

“We’ve had a horror month; we’ll never forget what happened … but we have to move forward.

“That means both of us taking personal responsibility and asking what we can do to lead better lives as individuals and as Australians, and we’re hoping that today is the genesis of that.”


‘Profoundly sorry’: Albanese marks Light Will Win vigil with apology to Bondi victims
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has issued an apology to Jewish Australians at the Light Will Win vigil remembering victims of the Bondi terror attack.

The vigil, organised by the Chabad of Bondi, marked a national day of mourning for the 15 innocent lives lost during the horrific massacre.

Mr Albanese, Governor General Sam Mostyn, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, and other dignitaries joined Jewish leaders at the Sydney Opera House to pay respect to those lost in a powerful display of unity.

A minute's silence was observed and the names of the dead read aloud as the vigil began.

Candles were also lit in honour of each victim.

Mr Minns gave a powerful speech, acknowledging the ongoing pain felt by the family and friends of those killed as he vowed to continue working to restore light to the community.

"Rabbis have told me that whilst the pain remains, and the grief continues, the one-month mark is a transition where we begin the search for meaning, to find purpose, to take action and to ask questions," he said.

"It’s a bitter reality to realise that this was a dark and evil crime committed here, in Australia, and we are not immune to the kind of darkness that would see a family decide to maim and kill another family as they practised their religion, but the story of Hanukkah is not that darkness doesn’t exist, but rather that it can be extinguished with light.

"Scripture tells us we can defeat evil but, crucially, not by doing nothing – we need to light the candle."

His message of hope was echoed by Rabbi Yehoram Ulman and the wife of his slain son-in-lay Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Chaya, who used a video message to pay tribute to a man who "saw the miracles in the small things, in everyday life".

"He made sure to take notice of every single person and what they needed," she said.

Mr Albanese, who was booed and heckled during his last address to the Jewish community, also paid tribute to the lost, expressing hope "their memories be a blessing".

"In their name, we will work to open all eyes to that light because that is the light that will win," he added.
‘I am sorry’: Albanese apologises to Jewish community following Bondi Beach terror attack
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has apologised to Australia’s Jewish community in a speech at the ‘Light Will Win’ memorial event.




Sepehr Saryazdi: CSIRO PhD candidate charged over alleged terror plot planned for Gold Coast on Australia Day
A PhD student with the CSIRO has been charged over an alleged terror plot planned for Australia Day celebrations on the Gold Coast.

Sepehr Saryazdi, 24, was denied bail when he faced Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday on one count of other acts done in preparation for, or planning, terrorist acts.

He was arrested by detectives from the counter-terrorism investigation group on Wednesday after a report from the public was made to Crime Stoppers, prompting police to investigate.

During his court appearance, Commonwealth prosecutor Ellie McDonald told the court the alleged offending related to “extremely concerning” Facebook Messenger chats within a private group containing more than 50 people, ABC reports.

“The defendant had plans to lead a riot on the Gold Coast on Australia Day and those plans involved the use of Molotov cocktails, which he had purchased supplies and equipment for,” she told the court.

He allegedly also encouraged others to do the same.

“He says: ‘I will be leading the Gold Coast riots on Jan 26 if you guys know people in Melbourne, let them know so they can start buying vodka bottles early to stockpile in batches’,” she said.

“He also states: ‘if arrested the key is to stay calm and collected, when put into questioning remind them what you did is purely logical given the current trajectory of this nation.’

“I recommend learning how to shoot guns at shooting ranges while you can,” he allegedly said on Facebook.

He bought bottles of alcohol, wrapping paper and a blanket between January 4 and 9 in preparation for the attack, according to court documents obtained by AAP.

Mr Saryazdi, who describes himself as a PhD candidate with the CSIRO data and digital specialist arm and Australian Centre for Robotics, allegedly said he expected to die during the Gold Coast attack unless he was killed or lobotomised by Australia’s spy agency ASIO.

Mr Saryazdi’s defence lawyer Hellen Shilton told the court he was an academic who had moved from Sydney to Brisbane for his career with the CSIRO but had become isolated and “became influenced a bit by the new people he was associating with”.

“He admits he became quite overwhelmed emotionally. He felt he should do something with the way the world was going ... it was never his intention to hurt anyone.”

Magistrate Penelope Hay denied his application for bail, finding the risk of serious injury to multiple people was too high.
Muslim community should be ‘doing the policing’ on Islamic extremism
Former education minister Alan Tudge says the Islamic community should get together and put “greater structures in place” to prevent extremist ideologies.

Mr Tudge told Sky News host Chris Kenny that they should be “doing the policing” on Islamic extremism.

“The same way now that the Catholic Church, for example, monitors all of the catholic priests.”


Restricted Video
A TIMELINE of how the Australian government's inaction on radical Islam and Jewish hate led to the deadliest terror attack in Australia’s history.
And how the same government this week, has exploited the attack, to push through authoritarian censorship and tougher gun laws. Learning NOTHING in the process.




A Genre Is Born: The Oscars, Hind Rajab, and the Rise of the Palestinian “Holocaust” Film
From Cinema to False Memory
The film has been hailed as one of the “most harrowing cinematic experiences of the year,” praised for its supposed “ideological neutrality,” and presented – by Christiane Amanpour – as “history.”

That last claim matters most.

It is not filmmakers alone who are constructing this new canon. Journalists are paving the way for it. In The Telegraph, critic Robbie Collin compares The Voice of Hind Rajab to The Zone of Interest, describing Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz-set film as a “masterpiece” and suggesting that Ben Hania’s work is underpinned by the same “calm artistic rigour that transcends shock value.” The comparison stops short of declaring equivalence, but nonetheless places a Gaza war drama in dialogue with Holocaust cinema.

This is how false memory is formed.

Film is one of the most powerful tools for shaping historical consciousness. Filmmakers can always retreat behind artistic discretion. When the IDF is depicted as sadistic and indifferent, it can be dismissed as interpretation. When Israelis are rendered faceless, it is defended as symbolism.

But when journalism anoints such films as “history,” it does something more enduring: it commits a version of the war to cultural memory that future audiences will mistake for truth.

There will be more films like The Voice of Hind Rajab. More works like Palestine 36. Not only Gaza, but Israel’s entire past, will be re-imagined through this lens – a process that does not merely criticize a state, but delegitimizes its very existence.

And once committed to the big screen, those myths will be far harder to dismantle.
Culture minister says Oscar-nominated Israeli films ‘amplify our enemies’ narrative’
Culture Minister Miki Zohar said the two Israeli films that were nominated for an Oscar on Thursday “amplify our enemies’ narrative” by depicting the country as racist against Arabs and guilty of killing children in Gaza.

“Act surprised,” wrote Zohar on X. “The two Israeli films that are nominated for an Oscar are against Israel.”

“That’s precisely why the cinema reform that I’m leading is so important,” he added, referring to his efforts to penalize the perceived left-leaning tilt of Israel’s film industry, including by slashing government funds and canceling awards ceremonies.

The two Israeli films that received the nod for the Academy Awards on Thursday are “Butcher’s Stain,” which was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film, and “Children No More: Were and Are Gone,” which was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film.

“Butcher’s Stain,” created by Meyer Levinson-Blount while at Tel Aviv University’s film school, follows Samir, an Arab butcher in Tel Aviv, who sets out to prove his innocence after he’s accused of removing posters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

“Children No More,” directed by award-winning filmmaker Hilla Medalia, follows a weekly silent vigil that began in Tel Aviv in March 2025 for Gaza children killed by Israel amid the war sparked by the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.

“Unsurprisingly, the two Oscar-nominated films amplify our enemies’ narrative and harm the State of Israel’s reputation,” said Zohar in a statement. “One film depicts Israel as ‘massacring Gaza children,’ and the other film depicts Israel as racist toward Arab citizens.”

Touting his cinema reforms, Zohar said popularity with the Israeli public should be the benchmark for whether a film should receive state funds, not “nominations for international festivals and awards.”

Israelis should not have to “pay from their pockets for films that harm Israel’s reputation,” he added.
The University of Pennsylvania is gaslighting the courts on antisemitism
Give credit to the University of Pennsylvania for one thing. It’s not short on chutzpah.

The school has brazenly tolerated and even encouraged widespread and blatant acts of antisemitism on campus since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But when an agency of the federal government sought to probe what had happened, Penn stonewalled requests for cooperation and transparency.

Faced with such intransigence, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a subpoena asking for the school’s records, including the identification of employees who could have been exposed to alleged harassment and the names of all employees who complained about the behavior. In its quest to find people potentially affected, the EEOC demanded a list of employees in Penn’s Jewish Studies Program. That was in addition to a list of all clubs, groups, organizations and recreation groups related to the Jewish religion, including points of contact and a roster of members, and the names of employees who lodged antisemitism complaints.

Who is defending the Jews?

But instead of complying with an effort to fight antisemitism, the school again said “no.” It is now alleging that the request is unconstitutional and a violation of the privacy of its employees and students. More than that, as its legal response asserted, it is now claiming to be defending Jewish students, employees and faculty by failing to cooperate with the government investigation.

In this bizarro view of reality, Penn is acting as if it is the government agency that is seeking to investigate antisemitism and defend its victims from behavior the university allowed to happen—that is the party that is targeting Jews. Predictably, corporate liberal media like The New York Times and The Guardian are cheering on the academic institution and claiming that it’s the Trump administration in the wrong.

Just as predictably, this stand is being supported by many members of Penn’s Jewish faculty, many of whom may privately acknowledge that there is antisemitism is present in their ranks but simply don’t want to go on record supporting anything the Trump administration does.

In this way, this drama is playing out in a similar fashion to the arguments about the Trump administration’s efforts to punish universities like Harvard, which is guilty of the same behavior the University of Pennsylvania is being called to account for. Harvard and many other schools have refused government settlement offers that would force them to pay fines and change their policies with respect to the treatment of Jews and the demonization of the State of Israel.

They have stuck to that position even if it means that, as is the government’s obligation under the Title VI provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. This shows that they value their right to be antisemitic more than they do their mission to conduct medical research. Instead, Trump’s liberal critics have spun the issue as one revolving around their assertion that the administration is attempting to suppress the free speech and academic freedom of Hamas supporters. Even many in the liberal establishment condemned the government’s stand as harming vital institutions rather than conceding that these schools were morally compromised and needed to be held accountable.
Man charged for antisemitic attack on Israeli lecturer, two others in Manhattan
The man who carried out a vicious antisemitic attack on Israeli educator and IDF lecturer Rami Glickstein and two other Jewish men in October 2025 has been charged with hate crimes, according to an unsealed indictment released by the Justice Department on Wednesday.

Glickstein, 59, suffered a vicious antisemitic attack while in New York on October 27, 2025, resulting in a brain bleed and a broken nose.

The incident took place while he was on the way to Mr. Broadway kosher restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. The attacker – Alazim Baker – approached him and gestured at his kippah, yelling, “What is your religion?”

When Glickstein did not respond, the man grabbed the kippah from his head, threw it on the ground, and spat on it. Glickstein bent down to pick it back up, and the man punched him in the face, knocking him to the floor.

He was saved by two Orthodox Jewish men wearing kippot, who intervened in the attack and gave Glickstein a chance to flee into the restaurant.

Baker then made antisemitic statements to the two individuals who sought to intervene. He also punched one of them in the head and aggressively pursued the third man, who collided with a large, hard object while evading Baker.

Charge over hate crimes connected to Jewish victims assault
The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, and Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI, Terence G. Reilly, announced on Wednesday that Baker was charged with two counts of committing hate crimes in connection with his assaults on the Jewish victims.

“As alleged, Alazim Baker deliberately targeted Jewish victims with violence,” said Clayton. “Violence motivated by antisemitism or any other anti-faith bias has no place in this great city.”

“Alazim Baker allegedly committed despicable hate crimes against multiple members of the Jewish community,” said Reilly. “Hate crimes like those in this indictment tear at the fabric of our communities.


Did AFP Consider Paying Hamas to Evacuate Its Journalists? A Gaza Documentary Raises Troubling Questions
A recent documentary about AFP’s Gaza bureau during the Israel–Hamas war, produced by the European public service channel Arte and titled “Inside Gaza,” set out to portray the bravery and endurance of journalists working under fire.

Instead, it raises troubling questions about ethics, omissions, and the extent to which major news agencies are willing to look the other way when reporting from a territory controlled by a terrorist organization.

Most alarming is a moment late in the film suggesting that AFP was prepared to pay for the evacuation of its Gaza-based journalists and their families, apparently while Hamas was still in control of the Rafah crossing. According to the timeline presented, this would have been before Israel took control of the crossing in May 2024. That raises an unavoidable question: if money changed hands, to whom was it paid?

That is not a minor logistical detail. It goes to the heart of journalistic ethics and potentially to legal exposure.

But the issue of the apparent payment is only one of many problems with the film, which omits Hamas, ignores the hostages, and makes Israel look like a child slayer that strikes blindly at innocent civilians and not terrorists.

Payment to Hamas?
Roughly 45 minutes into the documentary, AFP photojournalist Mohammed Abed states that AFP was willing to pay 5,000 dollars to evacuate the agency’s journalists and their families from Gaza:

The film does not specify the exact timing of its journalists’ evacuation, and it’s not clear to whom AFP was willing to pay. But based on the sequence of events shown, it appears to have taken place while Hamas still controlled the Rafah crossing and was the only body able to grant such permission.

If that is accurate, AFP must explain who was paid and under what conditions. If no payment was ultimately made, that too requires clarification as to how the agency’s journalists were ultimately able to leave.


Syria was never one country, and Israel knows it
Syria was never a nation-state, and repeating the word will not make it one. Treating "Syria" as a strategy is a category error that produces bloodshed, displacement, and instability. In Damascus, a post-Assad regime with jihadist roots seeks recognition while governing through coercion, prioritising the optics of statehood over its substance. The uniforms may be new; the methods are not.

The events of the past days expose the contradiction.

On January 9, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa arrived in Damascus, proclaimed a "new chapter", and announced a €620 million financial package for 2026–2027. Concurrently, Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo came under fire: at least 23 were killed, Kurdish officials cited higher tolls, and more than 150,000 civilians fled the city's two Kurdish-held districts. Clashes spread toward Qamishli as government forces pushed beyond agreed lines, triggering clearances.

According to sources present at the Damascus meetings, al-Sharaa directed his security commanders and briefly paused talks amid the crackdown. While European leaders shook hands in Damascus and released funds without conditions, coercion was directed against Kurdish communities in the north. Violence now accelerates legitimacy. This is a false premise. Syrian regime fighters inside the city of Sweida. Photo: Reuters

Syria is not a homogeneous society misruled, but a mosaic of peoples organised around autonomy and restraint. Sunni Arab populations differ sharply by region and lineage; Kurds dominate the north and northeast; Druze are rooted in the south and around Damascus; Alawites along the coastal mountains and mixed urban belts. Christians of multiple denominations – already withdrawing from public life – alongside Turkmen, Circassians, Ismailis, and others complete a landscape that has never conformed to centralised rule without fear. Hafez al-Assad imposed that fear. His successors are repeating the experiment.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Kurdish case. Kurds number 2 to 2.5 million in Syria – its largest ethnic minority. Beyond Syria, they are a supranational nation of more than 30 million across Turkey, Iraq, and Iran: the world's largest people without a state. Their status is extraterritorial, a regional fault line.


Jewish cemetery in Libya destroyed
A Jewish cemetery in the eastern Libyan city of Derna has been demolished due to construction work at the site, the head of an Israeli center for the preservation of Libyan Jewish heritage said on Thursday.

Scores of graves believed to have once been at the site were destroyed over the last couple of weeks, said Pedhazur Benattia, chairman of the Or Shalom organization in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv.

He shared video footage of the site with the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

”There is nothing left there now,” Benattia told JNS, adding that such destruction was standard practice in the country.

No Jews live in Libya today, with the last resident leaving in 2003, ending a community that existed for more than two millennia.
‘Let me spit on that Jew’: New Jersey man charged with federal hate crimes
Federal prosecutors charged a New Jersey man with federal hate crimes on Wednesday after he allegedly attacked three Jews outside a kosher restaurant in Manhattan in October.

Alazim Baker, 29, of Irvington, N.J., approached a visiting Israeli rabbi outside the restaurant and began aggressively asking the victim, “What is your religion?” and refused to let him enter.

“Baker then grabbed Victim-1’s yarmulke and threw it on the floor. He then stomped on the yarmulke and spit on it before punching Victim-1 in the face,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York stated. “While Victim-1 was lying on the ground and bleeding, Baker yelled toward Victim-1, in sum and substance: ‘Let me spit on that Jew.’”

The punch left the unnamed victim with bruises and caused a brain bleed, according to reports. Baker then allegedly attacked two other Jewish men who tried to help the rabbi while he yelled, “Your people own everything” and “I’m going to jail today.”

“As alleged, Alazim Baker deliberately targeted Jewish victims with violence,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Violence motivated by antisemitism or any other anti-faith bias has no place in this great city.

Baker faces two counts of committing hate crimes, each of which carries a maximum of 10 years in prison.
2 arrested for defacing NYC playground used by Jews with dozens of swastikas
The NYPD on Thursday arrested two teenage suspects for scrawling dozens of swastikas on a playground in a Jewish area of Brooklyn.

Both suspects were 15-year-old boys, a police spokesperson said.

One was charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, and the other was charged with 25 counts of aggravated harassment.

The swastikas turned up at the park two days in a row. The NYPD said 16 swastikas were found at the park on Tuesday, and another 57 on Wednesday.

Photos from the scene showed some of the swastikas scrawled around the name “Adolf Hitler.”

The graffiti was found in Gravesend Park, which is adjacent to Boro Park, a neighborhood with a large Orthodox population.

The graffiti drew condemnation from city and state leaders, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General Letitia James.


Shekel's gains represent strong fundamentals, says Bank of Israel
The shekel's rise to around four-year highs against the dollar reflects the resilience of the Israeli economy and comes amid solid export performance, Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Yaron said the Israeli currency's strength was also acting as a tailwind that was moderating inflation.

"The appreciation of the shekel represents a lot of the positive fundamentals in terms of geopolitical developments and certainly post the ceasefire," he said of the October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza. "We understand the appreciation makes it difficult for exports. But we've seen exports of both goods and services rise in the last two readings," he added of the roughly 12% rise in the shekel against the dollar since the start of 2025.

Asked at what point the central bank would consider intervention to lower the level of the shekel, Yaron said: "The FX tool is part of the toolbox of the Bank of Israel. We have many tools for facilitating our policies."

In the past, the central bank had bought tens of billions of dollars to keep the shekel from appreciating too fast and harming exporters. It sold $8.5 billion of foreign currency at the outset of the Gaza war in October 2023 to defend the shekel, but it has largely stayed out of the market since.

The Bank of Israel unexpectedly cut its interest rate by 25 basis points earlier this month, a second successive cut after lowering it in November for the first time in nearly two years. It cited the shekel's strength and an improving inflation environment after the ceasefire, which led to an easing of the supply constraints that emerged during the two-year war. The inflation rate currently stands at 2.6%, within an official 1-3% target range.

Yaron underlined that demand in the Israeli economy had remained robust during the conflict and that the bank had not so far seen it surge further as a result of the ceasefire.




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