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Monday, January 26, 2026

01/26 Links Pt2: Don’t mourn the Holocaust while supporting the genocide of living Jews; NYTs becomes megaphone for NGO propaganda in Gaza

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Plot Against the Holocaust
Why? Because you cannot have both the “Israeli genocide” and the “Nazi genocide”; they are incompatible and can’t coexist within a single category. So it appears enlightened Westerners are choosing the former and dispensing with the latter.

Accusing Israel of genocide is not merely an attempt to isolate the Jewish state diplomatically; it is part of an effort to erase the Holocaust from history.

Educators who want to continue marking the Holocaust are facing increasingly vicious resistance. Olivia Marks-Woldman, CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, told the Telegraph that some teachers say they feel unprepared for what to do if (increasingly, when) attendees try to make the lesson about Israel’s supposed crimes. “But then there are people with their own agenda who want to use HMD to attack the memory of the Holocaust,” Marks-Woldman said. “We have had people write to us saying they will only commemorate HMD on certain conditions, for example, if we put out a letter condemning Netanyahu.”

Marks-Woldman told the Telegraph that Holocaust education “should not be conditional on anything.” Which is exactly right, of course. Unfortunately, in some sick sense, anti-Zionists agree: They are essentially pushing to retain Holocaust education as long as it is made entirely about Jewish crimes. When someone says “Holocaust,” these sociopaths want people to think Gaza.

It would be naïve to think this isn’t already progressing here in the U.S. as well. First, because it’s the exact same movement running with the exact same propaganda. Second, because according to some reports, it’s already happening.

The Jewish Journal reports that at UC-Irvine, the student government prepared a resolution for Holocaust Memorial Day. Jewish groups joined the others in backing the resolution, which originally said: “the world continues to witness a troubling rise in antisemitism, Holocaust denial, hate speech, and violence, both globally and within local communities, which reinforces the urgent need for education, historical understanding, and active resistance to all forms of discrimination.”

The student government apparently removed the Jewish sponsors and the particularist Jewish details, essentially confiscating the Holocaust from its victims. “What was originally a thoughtfully crafted Holocaust remembrance statement was fundamentally altered by ASUCI senators questioning established history, erasing Jewish authorship, and ignoring Jewish student voices,” one UC junior told the Journal.

Unless this trend is reversed, Holocaust Remembrance Day may soon have nothing to do with the actual Holocaust at all.
Jonathan Tobin: Don’t mourn the Holocaust while supporting the genocide of living Jews
The cost of universalizing
The universalization of the Holocaust and the way students are taught a slimmed-down summary of this chapter of history—in brief lessons crammed into the school year—has had unforeseen consequences. It has led to something that survivors, whose numbers are fewer and fewer every year, never envisioned when they began the campaign to spread knowledge of their experiences.

The Holocaust has become a metaphor for anything that people dislike. The predilection to treat anyone with whom we strongly disagree as if they were Hitler is not just a product of the hyperpartisan tone of 21st-century politics or the extreme polarization of the Donald Trump era. It is also the result of the way it has been universalized to the point where many, if not most, ordinary people think it was just a bad thing that happened a long time ago—not the specific result of millennia of Jew-hatred and the powerlessness of nearly an entire people.

Equally unfortunate is the way much of the educational establishment has embraced toxic leftist ideas like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism. So-called “progressive” teachings have largely captured primary, secondary and higher education to the point where a generation of Americans has been indoctrinated into believing not merely in concepts that exacerbate racial divisions, but ones that promote the idea that Jews and Israelis are “white” oppressors.

This movement produced the pro-Hamas campus mobs that have targeted Jewish students for intimidation, discrimination and violence since Oct. 7 at universities around the world. Participants are shockingly ignorant of the history of the Middle East, even as they chant slogans endorsing Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the intifada”). What they have also done is to appropriate the word genocide, which Holocaust survivor and lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined to describe the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jewish people.

Their claim that Israel’s just war of self-defense against Hamas terrorists is “genocide” is a blatant lie. If applied to any other conflict, it would mean that every war that has ever been fought, including the one waged by the Allies against the Nazis, would be considered genocide. That not only drains the word of its actual meaning. It is, like the libelous efforts to smear Jews as Nazis, a classic trope of antisemitism.

Yet many on the political left, which has embraced this lie about Israel, are also prepared to join in mourning the Holocaust. Some, including that small minority of Jews who, for distorted reasons of their own, join in these antisemitic denunciations of Israelis and their supporters, even claim that they are inspired by the history of the Shoah to speak out against Israel now. Some even support efforts to eradicate the Jewish state—a result that could only be accomplished by the sort of genocidal war that Hamas and its allies are waging.

Our answer to them and others who are either silent about the misappropriation of the Holocaust or join in the blood libels against living Jews while lamenting the fate of dead Jews must be unequivocal.

Prioritize the defense of living Jews
We must tell those, like Walz, who misappropriate the memory of the Six Million, or utter such falsehoods about genocide, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and others on the intersectional left wing of the Democratic Party, that Holocaust commemorations should be off-limits to them.

The same applies to global organizations like the United Nations, which in 2005 voted to establish International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945. These agencies that claim to speak for human rights and justice for all countries in the world have become cesspools of antisemitism and engines of the war against the Jewish state.

For too long, too many members of the Jewish community have treated the promotion of Holocaust education or ceremonies honoring the dead as more important than efforts to defend the living.

It’s also true that, as important as teaching young Jews about the Shoah is, it must be linked to learning about the importance of Israel, as well as the life-affirming nature of their heritage and faith.

Above all, we must stop allowing the memory of what happened 80 years ago on Europe’s soil to be used by those who support or are neutral about those seeking to carry on the Nazi project of Jewish genocide. The failure to call an end to this misuse of Jewish history will only contribute to more tragedy.
‘I understand antisemitism because I was born in Russia’
Today Tabarovksy is the world’s leading expert in Soviet anti-Zionism but for a considerable time, in America, where Jews did not expect antisemitism to come from the left, her ideas were not taken as seriously as they should have been.

“I did acquire a following for the endless articles I was pumping out, but many people didn’t really understand how things I was warning about were relevant to them.

“I felt like a Cassandra,” she says, referring to the Greek figure whose prophesies were not believed.

“But the truth is that the antisemitism that has exploded across the world since October 7 is exactly as I predicted. I warned that any time a society is taken over by anti-Zionist ideology, you can be sure that antisemitic outcomes will follow.

“Jews who grew up in the USSR could now tell you this. Once the institutions become anti-Zionist, all Jews become suspect. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Zionist or not. They don’t even understand what Zionists are. When they speak about Zionists they mean Jews.

“We have an exceptionally well-documented history of Soviet Jews being discriminated against under an anti-Zionist regime and that is exactly what is happening to American Jews now. It’s crashing all around them, and it’s devastating to see.”


Israel launches international confab on combating antisemitism
The second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism—Generation of Truth, dedicated to confronting Jew-hatred and Holocaust denial, kicked off in Jerusalem on Monday morning.

International policymakers, parliamentarians, academics and media professionals are there to discuss the core issues of the problem.

Held at the capital’s International Convention Center, aka Binyanei HaUma, the two-day conference is being led by Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli.

The participants include Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders.

Also attending are professionals and academics such as marketing professor Gad Saad, JNS CEO Alex Traiman, Babylon Bee parody outlet CEO Seth Dillon and author Dinesh D’Souza.

Chikli explains the background for the conference on the event’s website: Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, “the world has seen a resurgence of hatred, a dangerous increase in violence, and an unsettling tolerance for antisemitism disguised as political discourse.

“Not only does this surge threaten the lives of Jews worldwide, but it also jeopardizes the memory of the Holocaust and the essential lesson it serves for all humanity,” the minister continues.

Chikli frames the conference as a “global call for action” that brings together prominent figures to develop practical strategies to directly confront antisemitism.
At Knesset antisemitism event, European lawmakers blame Islamism, policy failures
At a Knesset plenary session kicking off the government-sponsored International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, some 20 visiting lawmakers warned about the role of radical Islam in antisemitism, the failures of European policies in stymying growing hatred, the importance of education, and what they described as moral and political ambiguity on anti-Jewish hatred since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

The speakers, primarily figures from hard-right parties in Europe, gathered in Jerusalem for a two-day confab organized by Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, designed in part to help Israel cultivate ties with the political parties already challenging radical Islam abroad.

The conference, the main event of which will be held on Tuesday at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center (Binyanei Hauma), comes roughly 10 months after a previous antisemitism conference was boycotted by Jewish organizations for including those same parties, many of which have themselves faced accusations of racism and antisemitism.

Chikli opened the plenary by framing the rise in global antisemitism after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas as a civilizational struggle between Western nations and Jihadist Islam.

Postwar Europe has become increasingly vulnerable to “takeover from within” by ideological forces that do not share its democratic values, he said.

“A notable example of this is the elimination of Holocaust education in Western Europe,” Chikli said, citing recent data indicating that the number of British schools marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day has dropped by nearly 60 percent over the past two years.

Related: Interview — Hosting Europe’s far-right again, minister says Diaspora criticism ‘just a disagreement’

The decline reflects a broader erosion of historical clarity and moral confidence, he suggested.

Chikli has argued that the right-wing parties fighting against the rise of radical Islam in Europe are well-positioned to collaborate with Israel. Many of the speakers at Monday’s plenum portrayed themselves as natural allies of Israel and the Jewish people.
Terrell prays for peace at Jerusalem’s Western Wall
U.S. Justice Department senior counsel Leo Terrell arrived in Israel on Sunday, a day before a Jerusalem gala honoring him, beginning his trip in Israel’s capital.

It was “a beautiful day” and he felt “a whole different environment here—a feeling of good, warmth,” he posted online.

Terrell, who heads the department’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, said it was his first visit to the Jewish state. The Israeli government will honor Terrell, who heads the department’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, with its annual Award of Honor for the Fight Against Antisemitism at a gala at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center launching the Second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism.

In a video from the Western Wall, Terrell said he was “privileged” to stand in Israel’s holiest city, and wished “for the Israeli people to live in peace” and to “stop the hatred towards Jewish people.”

On Monday, he posted that he was “in awe” walking through the ancient excavations near the wall, also sharing video of touring the City of David.

“Walking the same stairs that Jesus Christ walked was remarkable. The City of David is a treasure, where history comes alive and faith feels tangible! Grateful for our incredible guide who brought it to life!” Terrell wrote on X.

During his visit on Sunday to the Dan Family Aish World Center in Jerusalem, Terrell spoke with students and staff about confronting antisemitism on U.S. college campuses. Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Aish, called the visit “remarkable” and said Terrell’s message of solidarity “came at a moment when it is profoundly needed.”
Holocaust survivor: I would leave Britain if I still had my youth
Joanna Millan was three years old when she was rescued from a Nazi concentration camp. She endured unimaginable horrors as her family perished in death camps around Europe, before taking refuge in England as one of the liberated Windermere Children.

Yet in the face of rising anti-Semitism in Britain, the 83-year-old said she would consider leaving the country today if she were younger.

Speaking to The Telegraph from her home in north London with Holocaust Memorial Day approaching on Jan 27, Mrs Millan, who has dedicated her life to Holocaust education, warned that anti-Semitism was “getting worse”.

Asked if she believed that the UK’s Jewish community was safe, she replied: “Not particularly, no. Obviously I’m too old to move, but I think if I was younger, I would be considering leaving the UK.

“It’s a question of finding somewhere else, and there’s not that many places that you’d be safer than in the UK.”

Mrs Millan was liberated from the Theresienstadt camp in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia by the USSR’s Red Army at the end of the Second World War.

Theresienstadt was simultaneously a ghetto, transit camp and concentration camp, and operated between November 1941 and May 1945.

During its operation, more than 140,000 Jews were transported to Theresienstadt, of whom 33,000 were murdered in the camp itself. Around 90,000 were deported East.
Holocaust Museum Rebukes Tim Walz for Likening Minnesota's Illegal Immigrants to Anne Frank
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Monday rebuked politicians for comparing illegal immigrants targeted by ICE to Anne Frank after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D.) did just that.

"Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable," the museum said on X. "Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges."

The statement followed Walz’s controversial comments in which he compared ICE agents to Nazis and illegal immigrants to Anne Frank. "We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside," Walz declared.

"Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota," he added.

This isn’t the first time Walz compared the Trump administration’s immigration policies to the Holocaust. During a May 2025 commencement ceremony Walz called ICE the "modern-day Gestapo."

"Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks off the streets," he told the graduates.

Earlier this month, Walz encouraged resistance to ICE. Agents are "just plain grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked vans, kidnapping innocent people with no warning and no due process," he said. "Let’s be very, very clear: This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it is a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government."
Homeland Security asks NJ to hold Mexican accused of throwing rock fracturing Jewish girl’s skull
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement filed an arrest detainer on Monday asking New Jersey to hold Hernando Garcia-Morales, who is accused of throwing a “baseball-sized rock” into a school bus, hitting an 8-year-old Jewish girl and fracturing her skull on the New Jersey Turnpike in Teaneck.

The federal agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, referred to Garcia-Morales as a “criminal illegal alien from Mexico.”

According to Yeshivat Noam, a Modern Orthodox day school, the third grader was recovering after undergoing surgery.

New Jersey Turnpike State Police arrested Garcia-Morales on Jan. 9 for aggravated assault, resisting arrest and possessing a weapon. The Bogota Police Department in New Jersey also charged him with aggravated assault, criminal trespassing-defiant, criminal trespassing peering and criminal mischief-damage property, per the Homeland Security Department.

“Garcia-Morales has had an extensive criminal history while living in sanctuary state New Jersey. In 2023, he was arrested for burglary. In 2006, he was arrested for possession of a weapon and theft,” the department said. “This illegal alien entered the country at an unknown date and time.”

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant U.S. secretary of homeland security for public affairs, stated that “violently targeting a school bus full of children is extremely wicked and heinous.”
Al Jazeera Forum to Feature Iranian Foreign Minister & Hamas Leader
Qatar wants the West to see it as a responsible, “moderate” mediator. Al Jazeera wants skeptics to believe the network has toned down its most inflammatory (i.e. terror-loving) instincts and matured into something closer to a conventional global broadcaster.

But it can never maintain the facade for long.

According to the official website for the 17th Al Jazeera Forum, taking place February 7 to 9, 2026 in Doha, the conference’s headline theme is “The Palestinian Cause and the Regional Balance of Power in the Context of an Emerging Multipolar World.”

On its face, that sounds like the usual nauseating, sanctimonious, academia-infused soirée one might expect from Doha. But look at the actual lineup, and the mask slips.

Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is listed as one of the keynote speakers.

This matters because Iran is not a neutral “regional stakeholder.” It is a regime currently facing global scrutiny over the scale of its crackdown on mass protests. Multiple reports and opposition-linked monitoring groups claim that as many as 43,000 people may have been murdered overall, with roughly 30,000 killed in the span of just two days, figures that major outlets note are difficult to independently verify due to internet shutdowns and information controls.

So yes, Qatar is giving a keynote platform to Iran’s top diplomat while the world is still sorting through the scale of one of the bloodiest internal crackdowns in recent history.

The program lists Khaled Meshaal, described plainly as “Head of Hamas abroad,” as a featured speaker in the conference’s opening session, titled “Gaza after Two Years of War: The Resistance Project, Occupation Plans and Prospects for Internationalisation.” Meshaal is one of two frontrunners gunning (pun intended) for the leadership of the entire terrorist organization.

Other Senior Officials Speaking at the Forum
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, President of Somalia (keynote speaker)
Burhanettin Duran, head of Türkiye’s Directorate of Communications (keynote speaker)
Sheikh Nasser bin Faisal Al Thani, Director General of Al Jazeera Media Network and a member of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani royal family (keynote speaker)
Rima Hassan, member of the European Parliament (keynote speaker)
Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister
Gerald Steinberg: 'New York Times' becomes megaphone for NGO propaganda in Gaza
From the headline, a New York Times piece on Doctors Without Borders in Gaza appears to paint a worrying picture of Israel’s approach toward the influential humanitarian agency. But the text, masquerading as professional journalism, is little more than an echo chamber for the propaganda of a powerful NGO.

Draped in anecdotes of suffering Palestinian patients and heroic physicians from Doctors Without Borders (also known as MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières), the January 17 article – titled “Inside the Doctors Without Borders Clinics that Israel Is Closing in Gaza” – seeks to guide readers to an ostensibly inescapable conclusion: that new Israeli regulations for humanitarian NGOs like MSF condemn civilians to needless misery.

That conclusion is wrong – and very dangerous.

The Times piece promotes three claims: that MSF is indispensable to Gaza’s health system; that Israel’s new NGO regulations damage this system and are politically motivated; and that concerns about MSF’s terrorist links are marginal, even petty. Each claim collapses under scrutiny.

Start with the question of the inflated portrayal of MSF’s role in Gaza’s hospitals and clinics, for which the Times substitutes sentiment for statistics. A patient says, “If MSF stops working, people will lose their lives,” a claim which the piece does not further explore or verify. Instead, it refers to the group’s “vital role in the territory’s medical system” – not coincidentally, the same terminology used in MSF’s press releases attacking Israel.

Indeed, the article relies almost entirely on site visits and interviews apparently arranged in cooperation with MSF, then uses those impressions to dismiss Israeli claims that MSF exaggerates its importance. (Bilal Shbair, the lead author, lives in Gaza, and her previous reports on war casualties omitted information on their Hamas ties.) That circular logic would not pass muster in coverage of a corporation, a university, or a political campaign. It should not pass in the case of powerful NGOs.


Here I Am With Shai Davidai: Being Israeli at Harvard after October 7th | Educator & Researcher Barak Sella
In this episode, host Shai Davidai sits down with Barak Sella—Israeli-American educator, Harvard Kennedy School researcher, and expert on US-Israel relations. Barak shares his personal journey from growing up in Texas to becoming a leader in Israeli youth movements, and discusses his work on impactful projects like Operation Human Warmth and the fight against child poverty in Israel. The conversation explores the challenges of Jewish identity, the importance of youth leadership, and Barak’s experiences navigating academia and activism after October 7th. Barak also reflects on the evolving relationship between Israel and the Jewish diaspora, the significance of Rabin’s assassination, and the need for nuanced dialogue in today’s polarized world. Don’t miss this insightful discussion on leadership, resilience, and hope for the future.


How did CUNY become the most antisemitic US university in just two years? Campus group finds out
“The chilling expungement of all Jews from City University of New York (CUNY) leadership positions was part of a broader, contemplated, and deliberate plan,” claimed the group Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY (SAFE CUNY) in its new report on Saturday.

In the report, ‘How CUNY Became the Most Systemically Antisemitic US University in Just Two Years,’ SAFE says it uncovered evidence that there was a planned push to “purge” Jews from the CUNY leadership.

This was not always the case; CUNY used to be a popular choice for Jewish students and staff, and the university regularly recruited from Yeshivas.

However, according to the SAFE report, CUNY began to dramatically change in the mid 2010s, sharply reducing recruiting visits to New York City’s Jewish schools, cutting advertising in Jewish media outlets, and seemingly deliberately curtailing recruitment of Jewish employees.

Through the early 2000s, CUNY regularly boasted of close to or above double-digit numbers of campus presidents who were Jewish and well into double digits of senior leadership administrators who were Jewish, according to the report.

By the late 2010s, CUNY had a near-complete elimination of Jews both among its campus presidents and among its 45 other senior leadership positions. And by March 2023, there was not a single Jew among the 80 campus presidents and senior leadership positions.

"In a city with a 20% Jewish population, it is unfathomable that the largest urban US university located in that city failed to employ any Jewish administrative leaders by happenstance,” the report said.
Two lawsuits alleging Jew-hatred against Stanford, UCLA activists cleared to proceed
Two lawsuits alleging antisemitism—one involving Stanford University and another tied to the spring 2024 anti-Israel encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles—will move forward, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced on Jan. 22.

The Stanford case stems from a July lawsuit filed by the Brandeis Center on behalf of Shay Laps, a Jewish Israeli researcher who alleges that he faced “discrimination and insidious, malicious conduct intended to permanently tarnish his reputation and career” at a Stanford lab, including tampering with his research, being locked out of a lab and a fabricated sexual harassment complaint against him.

In a ruling issued on Jan. 20, Susan van Keulen, a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, stated that Laps plausibly alleged a defamation claim against Danny Chou, an associate pediatrics professor at the private university who ran the lab. According to the suit, Chou allegedly told at least one university researcher that Laps wasn’t in the lab due to a “legal licensing” issue with his work, suggesting wrongdoing, and implied there was a Title IX sexual-harassment investigation against Laps.

Van Keulen also ruled that Laps may refile an amended discrimination claim after correcting a “citation error” for a secondary claim within the California Education Code the identifies discrimination in educational institutions.

The second lawsuit, filed in April on behalf of four Jewish community members, targets activists connected to the UCLA encampment. The lawsuit alleges organizers created a “Jew exclusion zone” enforced “by the concrete threat of physical violence.”

Mark Scarsi, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ruled on Jan. 20 that the UCLA suit can move forward against two of the defendants: National Students for Justice in Palestine and the People’s City Council.
UVA Law School to Host Huwaida Arraf, Who Allegedly Aided Terrorists During Second Intifada
The University of Virginia School of Law will host Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, for what organizers describe as “a conversation” on her work with the organization and “the occupation of Gaza.”

The event, sponsored by the Student Legal Forum—a group that seeks to introduce "notable persons" to the academic community—raises questions about the type of voices being elevated at one of America's premier legal institutions. Arraf's alleged associations with designated terror organizations, her published endorsement of violence, and her legal representation of individuals convicted in deadly terror attacks have made her a controversial figure.

The 90-minute discussion aims to stimulate “education, debate, and participation in important issues,” according to the Student Legal Forum’s mission statement. The organization, contactable through a University of Virginia email address, lists its purpose as introducing speakers on “legal, political, economic, and foreign affairs matters” to the law school community. Who Is Huwaida Arraf?

Arraf, a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist, has spent more than two decades at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arraf helped found ISM in the early 2000s and later married fellow ISM activist Adam Shapiro. This established what would become one of the most controversial Western activist organizations operating in the Palestinian territories.

In May 2002, Arraf claimed that she and other ISM activists entered Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity to deliver food and support to armed Palestinian terrorists inside, which included members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. They described their actions as providing "international protection.”

Even more revealing are Arraf’s own published statements about violence. In a 2002 article co-authored with her husband, she wrote that “the Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both nonviolent and violent,” explicitly stating that Palestinians have “a right to resist with arms.” These comments represent not merely criticism of Israeli policy, but an endorsement of violent tactics during a period when suicide bombings were devastating Israeli civilian populations.

Arraf has publicly acknowledged that ISM activists cooperate with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)—all organizations designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. State Department. Her transparency about these connections stands in stark contrast to the ISM’s public presentation as a “non-violent” movement.


Mehdi Hasan, Joy Reid, and Jim Acosta Walk Into a Therapist’s Office
It's hard being a liberal in Washington, D.C., when a Republican is president. You're angry all the time, and you don't get invited to the fancy White House parties anymore. You end up settling for thin gruel, trudging through the cold on a Wednesday night to watch Mehdi Hasan and the #Resistance all-stars validate your grievances for three hours.

Zeteo, the left-wing blog Hasan founded after the network formerly known as MSNBC fired him for anti-Semitism, is hosting a live event to commemorate the first year of Donald Trump's second term. He is joined by a pair of erstwhile media professionals—Joy Reid, formerly of MSNBC, and Jim Acosta, formerly of CNN. Like Hasan, they were also fired for being obnoxious. (Technically, Acosta "resigned" after refusing to accept a humiliating demotion.)

The vibe at the Howard Theatre is not quite as depressing as it was last year at the first (and only) installment of Acosta's post-CNN "Fire Within Tour." He had promised an evening of "fueling courage" and "igniting truth." He delivered a barrage of lame zingers and a Zoom call with Rosie O'Donnell, who insisted the 2024 election was rigged.

But it's not far off.

Zeteo gets its name from the ancient Greek term for "getting to the bottom of things"—the pretentiously highbrow equivalent of "igniting truth." The people in the audience paid to be here because they need the truth therapy, and there's nowhere else to go these days. CNN and MSNBC (or whatever it's called these days) are too right-wing, too anti-Hamas. Don't even get them started on CBS News. The Democratic Party is run by corporate sellouts, Zionist shills, and conniving anti-communists who refuse to fight.

Hasan, Reid, and Acosta are here for the paycheck. This is what they do now. They're #Resistance bloggers, the vanguard of "independent media." What a blessing it was, getting fired from their real jobs. Anyone who has ever encountered (or been) an angsty teenager will immediately recognize the "Screw you, we’re starting our own club" ethos. They go on each other's podcasts and answer endless variations of the same question: "Can you f—ing believe what Trump just f—ing did?" They agree on everything, above all on the towering scale of their personal courage. They risked their lives to be here. Such is their devotion to "zeteo."

Prem Thakker, the website's political correspondent, kicks things off by reminding the crowd this is an "exclusive event." Photos are fine, but anyone taking video will be immediately thrown out by security. He offers another reason for the gathering tonight. "I know many of us here share this sense of grief, of the things we've lost, thousands of Palestinians who have been killed," he says. "And so I want you to know today that there's space for all that grief and frustration and anger and love and joy and laughter."

Hasan, Reid, and Acosta jump right in, congratulating each other for being "ex-cable news." They can say whatever they want now without fear of reprimand. Mehdi can expose the Zionist cabal, Joy can call Stephen A. Smith a money-grubbing Uncle Tom, and Jim can lament the "nightmare" of going out to eat in Washington, D.C., and seeing a Republican in the same restaurant. On stage, Acosta recounts the horrors of covering Trump's first term, when a White House aide told him he'd been banned from bowling night.


Israel prepared for evacuation of tourists in event of Iran attack, says Tourism Ministry Director
Israel’s plan to evacuate approximately 42,000 tourists amid the possibility of an Iranian attack is ready, Director General of the Tourism Ministry, Michael Itzhakov, announced on Monday.

Itzhakov explained that Israel has been preparing for an evacuation scenario for about a month now, after he discussed with Tourism Minister Haim Katz that the country needs to learn its lesson from previous scenarios, alluding to the 12-day war with Iran in June of last year.

He noted that the Tourism Ministry has developed internal procedures designed to provide certainty and reassurance to tourists in the event of an airspace closure.

Although data from the Population and Immigration Authority estimated that there are around 42,000 tourists in Israel, the data is incomplete regarding Israelis with dual citizenship who may be tourists but are not counted as such upon entering the country, he explained.

Itzhakov’s remarks come amid rising tensions with Iran and the possibility of a security escalation as Trump weighs US strikes on the regime.


London TV station is operating as propaganda arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard and must be shut down to stop spread of Tehran misinformation, ministers warned
A London TV station is operating as a propaganda arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and must be shut down, a senior politician has warned.

LuaLua TV has been described as a 'covert influence' operation that is spreading pro-Tehran misinformation.

The IRGC is known as the Ayatollah's 'terror army' and is leading a brutal crackdown on protests.

More than 33,000 people have been killed so far, according to one estimate, with demonstrators shot on the streets.

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, despite heavy pressure from senior UK politicians and the White House.

LuaLua TV has been accused of praising Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, including the terrorists responsible for the October 7 attacks on Israel

Lord Walney, the UK's former extremism tsar, called for the network to be banned from Britain.


From Arctic hunters to Israeli warships, the unlikely Jewish story hidden in Greenland
Greenland, the vast Arctic island once publicly coveted by U.S. President Donald Trump, is not a place where one expects to encounter Jewish history. The world’s largest island, stretching over more than two million square kilometers, is among the most remote and extreme places on Earth. Roughly 80% of it is covered in thick ice, and its population of about 57,000 is largely Inuit. A formal Jewish community has never existed there.

And yet, among glaciers, forgotten ports and military bases, a small, persistent and surprising Jewish story has taken shape over centuries.

Jews never built permanent synagogues in Greenland. Still, Jewish figures — military chaplains, soldiers, scientists, medical workers and even whalers — left their mark, proving that Jewish identity, faith and hope can endure even at the edge of the world.

As of 2025, the only Jew living permanently in Greenland is Paul Cohen, a translator who has lived in the town of Narsaq since 2001. Cohen and his family run a tourism business renting holiday cabins. Even at the far end of the world, he says, Jewish travelers find their way — and are reminded that the Jewish spark, even amid the ice, has never gone out.
GWR resumes accepting submissions from Israel, to recognize record of Israeli kidney donation org
Volunteer kidney donation organization Matnat Chaim set a new world record for the largest gathering of live kidney donors.

More than 1,000 kidney donors gathered at an event celebrating the achievement on Sunday night in Jerusalem.

This is the Israeli record since the Guinness World Records resumed accepting submissions from Israel on January 15.

GWR told The Jerusalem Post on December 3 that it was no longer accepting submissions from Israel or the Palestinian territories and that the policy had been in place since November 2023. This came to light when Matnat Chaim had attempted to coordinate with GWR regarding its record-breaking event and had been told that GWR would not accept it.

With submissions once again accepted, the event proceeded as planned.


travelingisrael.com: A Giant Israel Ignored — and His Shocking Jerusalem Discovery
I came to Jerusalem to film a food video — but I couldn’t ignore the passing of Gabi Barkay, one of Israel’s greatest archaeologists.
From an “unimpressive” spot came a discovery that carries the oldest surviving biblical Hebrew blessing: the Priestly Blessing.




Holocaust-era songs composed in Nazi ghettos published for first time in English
A collection of songs composed and sung in the Nazi camps and ghettos and collected in the immediate aftermath of the devastation of the Holocaust is now being republished by a UK university, which described it as “a remarkable historical document.”

Manchester University Press is publishing a new version of ‘Mima’amakim’ (Out of the depths), which was originally compiled shortly after the Second World War. The collection was begun in June 1945 when a team of researchers, while documenting the experiences of Jewish refugees, began to collect songs.

The resulting book was published in a short run of 500 copies, which were subsequently all but forgotten. It was only through the discovery of one of the original copies in 2013 – thought to be one of only a handful to survive – that the collection returned to wider public consciousness.

The new edition, translated into English from the original Yiddish, is the project of two Australia-based academics: Joseph Toltz, a Jewish music researcher and administrator at the University of Sydney, and Anna Boucher, an Associate Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney.

As described by the publishers, the new printing contains the songs’ melodies and lyrics, the latter in a new translation by Toltz, as well as short biographies of the composers, drawn from painstaking original research. Introductory essays also provide historical and musicological background. The original editor of Mima’akim, Yehuda Eismann, described the work as a ‘memorial stone for Polish Jewry’.




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