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Monday, February 09, 2026

02/09 Links Pt2: The Truth About American Police Training in Israel; Francesca Albanese: the sneering face of international Israelophobia; Israel's Obligation to Protect Archaeological Sites in Judea and Samaria

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Truth About American Police Training in Israel
The report itself turns out to be quite interesting, though more for what it says about the state of LA Times reporting and the bad faith of groups like CAIR.

It is true, for example, that Israel is one of the countries to which LA police have traveled. One of 32 countries, to be specific.

So why the focus on Israel? Perhaps Israel is the only Mideast country on the list? No, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are there, too.

Then maybe Israel is the most common destination for LA cops? Again, no. And it’s not even close to some of the competition: The UK gets twice as many trips, Canada three times as many as Israel.

Well then surely Israel is the only country accused of “genocide” on the list? After all, it’s the only country accused of genocide in the article. But no—China, a country carrying out an actual genocide, is there too.

Since we all know where this is going, let’s just get there already. Israel accounts for 7 percent of “total activities” of LAPD personnel going abroad, about the same share as France and far less than some others.

The numbers of LAPD officials participating in such events abroad follows the roughly the same pattern. Trips to France account for about a quarter of all employees who went abroad in the decade under investigation, with Canada close behind and the UK not too far in the rearview. Israel is a small part of the exchange program.

One could easily find some non-Israel details for concern, if that’s truly all one was looking for. Thailand, for example, is rated by Freedom House as “not free,” having transitioned from military rule to a “military-dominated, semi-elect government” known to use “repressive tactics including arbitrary arrests, intimidation, lèse-majesté charges, and harassment” to quell protests. One might look at the IG report and see that the LAPD apparently went to Thailand to “train” the royal police and ask what the story is there. But one would only be tempted to do so if one were actually concerned about any of this rather than trying simply to spread unfounded conspiracy theories about Jews.

If the LAPD is displaying a tendency toward mishandling public order, is it more likely that they learned such behavior from, say, Israeli K-9 training programs and bomb-squad instruction, or from their time spent at the “Austrian Police Academy Public Order and Riot Control Conference”?

Would you look to where they are learning particular skills, in other words, or would you simply draw attention to vague insinuations that the Jews must have taught them to hurt people? With regard to CAIR and the LA Times, we already know the answer. But perhaps others should ask themselves the same question.
Jake Wallis Simons: Francesca Albanese: the sneering face of international Israelophobia
Albanese sits squarely in the tradition of this Soviet anti-Zionist agitprop. Born near Naples, she grew up in the world of ‘progressive’ academia, with a master’s degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, which is dominated by pseudo-radical thought to this day.

Naturally, she went on to join the UN, where she found her calling as its foremost anti-Israel provocateur. She has frequently accused the Jewish state of ‘apartheid’, one of the principal smears invented by Soviet propagandists, seemingly overlooking Israel’s Arab politicians, leaders of industry, soldiers, judges and footballers on the national team. (The Israeli state even recognises and funds Sharia family courts to cater for its Muslim minority.)

Again echoing Soviet disinformation, Albanese has compared Israeli actions with the Nazi Holocaust and in 2014, contended that the US had been ‘subjugated by the Jewish lobby’. After a global backlash, she apologised, but it set the tone for much of her perspective since.

It was 7 October that catapulted her to new heights of provocative extremism. On the day of Hamas’s massacre of Israelis, she posted that ‘today’s violence must be put in context’, but never extended the same dignity to Israel’s military response. This, of course, she wrongly labelled a ‘genocide’, wilfully ignoring the ‘context’ of a just and defensive war.

Bizarrely, Albanese even argued that ‘the victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression’, making a defence of Hamas that even the jihadis themselves have, to my knowledge, failed to make.

Last year, US secretary of state Marco Rubio sanctioned Albanese for ‘illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt International Criminal Court action against US and Israeli officials, companies and executives’. In a resolute post on X, Rubio added: ‘Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated. We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defence.’

That summed it up. Setting aside China and Russia, in crude terms, the great global power struggle of our age places Israel and the US on the one side, much of the Muslim world on the other, and Britain / Europe pulled hither and thither in the middle.

People like Albanese hold fast to an ideology that causes them to kick against the pillars of our civilisation relentlessly. What they don’t seem to realise is that if they are successful, and the roof comes crashing in, they will end up just as dead as the rest of us.
Yisrael Medad: Recalling a father of the ‘Zionism is settler-colonialism’ theory
In the mid- to later years of the 1960s, as a young member of the Betar Zionist youth movement that recently suffered an act of bureaucratic, progressivist legalist oppression and discrimination in New York City, I would drop by far-left bookstores and pick up the latest pro-Arab literature. Already then, the name of Fayez Sayegh, a Christian Arab born in Syria, was familiar to me.

His 1965 pamphlet charging Zionism as being “settler-colonialism” was republished, as if received at Sinai, in edited form in 2012. I consider Maxim Rodinson’s analysis more challenging. It, too, preceded the 1967 Six-Day War, and Israel’s subsequent extension of its administration of Judea and Samaria (and, until 2005, over Gaza as well), having been first published in French in July 1967 but written previously.

Still, Sayegh represents a more genuine Arab voice of negation, rejection and desire for Jewish elimination. Whereas Marxists applaud killing “Zionists” in the name of “resistance,” Arabs are those mostly doing it.

In the 1920s and ’30s, the Communist Party platform had been asserting that the Mandate of “Palestine is a colony of British imperialism.” This was based on earlier resolutions, such as the Second International’s Fourth Congress in London in 1896, which condemned colonialism, and at the Sixth Congress in Amsterdam in 1904, which positioned the party as “against the colonial and imperialist policy.”

Moshe Machover, born in pre-state Tel Aviv—a Communist and the author of the 1961 anti-Zionist tract Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, which uses the colonialist paradigm—more recently spins the conflict differently. He writes that he sees it as a collision between “a Hebrew settler nation and a single indigenous Palestinian Arab people.”

A few counterpoints underlining Sayegh’s propositions are in order.

As New York Times columnist Bret Stephens recently remarked, “the fight against antisemitism … is a well-meaning but mostly wasted effort. We should spend … efforts toimprove pro-Israel advocacy, helping raise a generation of young Jews who are conscious of their Jewishness … .”

Highlighting a few basic irrationalities, historical corruptions and misleading “facts” should illustrate to younger Jewish generations that the ideology and anti-Zionist backlash they face are not new. Such misinformation has been disproved decades ago; modern-day misconceptions are just another form of anti-Jewish fulminations.


Israel's Obligation to Protect Archaeological Sites in Judea and Samaria
The Knesset’s Education, Culture and Sports Committee recently approved a draft amendment to the Israel Antiquities Law. If passed, this amendment will create a new “Judea and Samaria Heritage Authority”, under the Ministry of Heritage, responsible for protecting archaeological sites in Judea and Samaria. This comes as Israel has designated over sixty sites in northern Samaria as archaeological sites, including Sebastia, the ancient capital of Samaria, northwest of Shechem (Nablus).

This move has sparked widespread condemnation. The Institute for Palestine Studies denounced the designation as part of Israel’s aim of “Israelizing and Judaizing the Palestinian Arab area” based on “fabricated Zionist-biblical claims”. The designation has been rejected as supposedly contrary to Israel’s international humanitarian law obligations, as found in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and the 1972 World Heritage Convention.

The State of Israel has consistently maintained that Judea and Samaria are not “occupied territories” under international law, but rather a sui generis (unique) case. This legal stance, formulated by former Attorney General Meir Shamgar, asserts that because Jordan and Egypt’s prior control resulted from illegal aggression, there was no legitimate sovereign to whom the territory must be returned. While Israel rejects the formal status of “occupier,” it has voluntarily chosen to implement the humanitarian provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The 1994 peace treaty with Jordan further solidified this position by ending the state of belligerency, which Israel argues nullifies claims that the laws of armed conflict still apply. This perspective has received notable international support, particularly from the United States, which recognized the legality of settlements, moved its embassy to Jerusalem, and labels products from the region as “Made in Israel.” Furthermore, recent dissenting opinions in the International Court of Justice have lent international legal weight to Israel’s sovereign claims.

In any case, even if the Laws of Belligerent Occupation (LOBO) applied to Judea and Samaria, they would be no bar to Israel protecting archaeological sites. Israel is a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Article 5 of the Convention states:
1. Any High Contracting Party in occupation of the whole or part of the territory of another High Contracting Party shall as far as possible support the competent national authorities of the occupied country in safeguarding and preserving its cultural property.
2. Should it prove necessary to take measures to preserve cultural property situated in occupied territory and damaged by military operations, and should the competent national authorities be unable to take such measures, the Occupying Power shall, as far as possible, and in close co-operation with such authorities, take the most necessary measures of preservation.

Given the Palestinian Authority’s abject failure in protecting archaeological sites, especially Jewish heritage sites, the obligation to protect falls on Israel. The 1972 UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, while recognising that the primary duty of protecting falls on relevant states, states that these sites are “a world heritage for whose protection it is the duty of the international community as a whole to co-operate.”
Muslim countries, EU join condemnations of Israeli moves deepening West Bank control
International condemnation mounted Monday in response to Israel’s moves to tighten its control of the West Bank, as both the European Union and a group of Muslim countries slammed the decision.

The statements followed those denouncing the move Sunday from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Muslim countries called the decision illegal and a “dangerous escalation.” The EU called it a “step in the wrong direction.”

The security cabinet decision, announced on Sunday by Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, “dramatically” changes land registration and property acquisition procedures in the West Bank, easing Jewish settlement in the territory. It aims to deepen Israeli control over the territory, including at sensitive sites such as Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs. Smotrich said the goal of the new measures was, in part, to “kill the idea of a Palestinian state.”

Israel’s neighbors, as well as the EU, oppose Israeli control of the West Bank and have long called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, a prospect Israel’s government rejects.

“The European Union condemns recent decisions by Israel’s security cabinet to expand Israeli control in the West Bank. This move is another step in the wrong direction,” EU spokesman Anouar El Anouni told journalists.

The EU has weighed suspending Israel’s inclusion in agreements with the bloc covering research and free trade in response to Jerusalem’s treatment of the Palestinians, though it has not done so yet. The bloc includes allies of Israel like Germany and Hungary, as well as a number of outspoken critics such as Ireland and Spain. Despite Israeli objections, several EU countries recognized a Palestinian state during the Gaza war sparked by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack.

The UK joined the chorus of condemnations, with a government statement asserting that “any unilateral attempt to alter the geographic or demographic make-up of Palestine is wholly unacceptable and would be inconsistent with international law. We call on Israel to reverse these decisions immediately.”

Middle Eastern countries, meanwhile, have said moves to annex the West Bank would mark an end to Israel’s normalization in the region. The statement was signed by countries with which Israel has relations, such as Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, as well as adversaries including Turkey and Qatar. Other signatories included Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

The measures are “aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people,” the signatories said in a joint statement. They called on the international community “to compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation in the occupied West Bank and the inciting statements of its officials.”

Israel has pushed for years for a normalization deal with Riyadh, which has called for a Palestinian state in return. Recently, however, Saudi Arabia has signaled a move away from normalization. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen looks on as she arrives to attend the European Council meeting in Brussels on December 18, 2025. (NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP)

The Muslim countries’ statement followed a call from Hamas, which is based in Gaza, for “a unified Arab and Islamic position” against the Israeli decision.

The terror group called on countries to “take practical and serious steps, foremost among them cutting off relations with the Zionist entity and expelling its ambassadors from capitals that have established relations with it.”

“We demand the Arab and Islamic states… bear their historical responsibility in confronting the occupation [Israel] and its plans aimed at imposing the annexation of the West Bank as a fait accompli,” Hamas said.

It also called for “Palestinians and their rebellious youth throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem to intensify the confrontation with the occupation and its settlers by all available means, to thwart the projects of annexation, Judaization and forced displacement.”


Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas's Secret Plan to Maintain Control of Gaza
"[T]he document outlines an operational framework in which the technocratic government appears to function, while the actual management of systems, the flow of information, and control over the civil administration remain in Hamas's hands." – Elior Levy, Channel 11 Kan News, February 2, 2026.

Hamas wants Trump's Board of Peace and the technocratic committee to focus on reconstruction, economic projects, and paying salaries to Palestinian civil servants while it continues, through a shadow government, to effectively rule the Gaza Strip, manufacture stockpile weaponry and prepare for a new attack on Israel, similar to its October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel's southern communities.

There can be no peace, security or stability in the Gaza Strip if the same terrorists who murdered, tortured, and mutilated thousands of Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7 are given new uniforms, rearmed and allowed to serve as a paramilitary force. There also can be no peace, security, or stability in the Gaza Strip so long as Hamas is permitted to function as a shadow government in the Gaza Strip. The talk about allowing Hamas to "freeze" or "store" its weapons is misguided and falls short of the full disarmament (decommissioning weapons) required by the Trump plan.

With countries such as Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan sitting on Trump's Board of Peace, it is hard to see how Hamas could ever be forced to lay down its weapons and give up control of the Gaza Strip. These countries -- longtime sponsors and funders of Hamas -- will never take part in any effort to disarm Hamas or remove it from power. What we are witnessing is a clear attempt by Hamas and its Arab and Muslim sponsors to hoodwink the Trump administration and the rest of the international community.

Will Trump choose to fall for it and join the Legacy of Losers -- like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain? Chamberlain will forever be recalled waving a fraudulent piece of paper and idiotically claiming that he had achieved "peace for our time." Is that how Trump would like to be remembered throughout history?


Indonesia to be first peacekeeping contributor to Gaza's International Stabilization Force
Indonesia will be the first country to contribute to the International Stabilization Force (ISF), which will handle aspects of peacekeeping in Gaza during the Trump administration's Phase II of the ceasefire, Israel's public broadcaster KAN News reported Monday night.

In prior months, Indonesia had been mentioned as a possible contributing country to the ISF along with the UAE, Egypt, Italy, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, and others, but until now, not a single country had moved from general promises to a concrete readiness to send troops.

According to the report, Indonesian troops could be on the ground in Gaza within weeks, shortly after Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visits Washington for US President Donald Trump's Peace to Prosperity summit on February 19.

Neither the ISF in general, nor Indonesia in particular, is expected to seek direct confrontation with Hamas or to proactively disarm them.

Rather, they are expected to supervise current ceasefire lines and possibly handle other border-related issues.
IDF slays four terrorists in exchange of fire in Gaza’s Rafah area
Israel Defense Forces troops on Monday killed four Palestinian terrorists who had opened fire at them in the southern Gaza Strip.

“Four armed terrorists exited an underground tunnel shaft and fired toward IDF troops operating in the Rafah area,” the IDF said in an English-language statement, adding that no soldiers were harmed.

“Following identification, the troops eliminated the terrorists,” the army added. “IDF troops are continuing to operate in the area to locate and eliminate all the terrorists that are in the underground infrastructure.”

The army described the enemy attack as a “blatant violation” of the U.S.-brokered truce deal with Hamas, which went into effect on Oct. 10.

After the agreement went into effect, dozens of terrorists barricaded themselves inside the Rafah tunnel network, which falls within IDF-controlled territory under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

As recently as Jan. 30, IDF soldiers identified eight terrorists emerging from the underground infrastructures in eastern Rafah, prompting a series of airstrikes that killed at least three of the gunmen.

In November, around 20 terrorists tried to escape from the besieged tunnel network. Following a 24-hour manhunt, the IDF killed 11 terrorists while detaining another six for questioning in Israel.

At the time, some 60 to 80 Hamas terrorists were believed to remain in the tunnels. Channel 12 cited arrested Hamas operatives as having told Israeli interrogators that they are unable to move from tunnel to tunnel due to ongoing IAF strikes targeting the underground infrastructure.
IDF kills senior Hezbollah terrorist operative in Lebanon strike
The Israel Defense Forces killed a senior Hezbollah terrorist operative near Yanouh in Southern Lebanon’s Tyre District on Monday morning.

“The IDF struck in the area of Yanouh and eliminated Ahmad Ali Salami, a terrorist who served as Hezbollah’s head of artillery in the area,” the military said. “The terrorist’s activities constituted a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

Salami “carried out numerous terror attacks throughout the war against IDF troops and the State of Israel, and recently operated to rehabilitate the artillery capabilities of the terrorist organization from within the civilian population in Lebanon,” according to the IDF statement.

The military said it was “aware of the claim that uninvolved civilians were killed” and emphasized that the incident was being reviewed.

According to the IDF, several steps were taken to mitigate possible harm to noncombatants, “including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.” It added that “the IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians and operates to minimize harm as much as possible.”

Also on Monday, IDF troops eliminated a second Hezbollah terrorist in the Ayta ash-Shaab area in Southern Lebanon.

The unidentified terrorist was involved in gathering intelligence on IDF troops and operated to rehabilitate Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in the area, according to an IDF statement.

The terrorist’s activities constituted a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon, the military said.
IDF nabs Muslim Brotherhood-linked terrorist in Lebanon raid
Israel Defense Forces troops arrested a senior terrorist from Jamaa Islamiya, a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated terrorist organization, during a targeted raid in Southern Lebanon overnight Sunday, the military announced on Monday.

The targeted raid followed intelligence indications “gathered in recent weeks” according to the military.

The terrorist “was apprehended and then transferred for further questioning in Israeli territory,” the statement continued, adding that weapons were found in the structure in which the terrorist was apprehended.

The army noted that Jamaa Islamiya, which maintains close relations with Hamas, “advanced terror attacks against the State of Israel and its civilians in the north” throughout the two years of war following the Gaza terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

“IDF troops will continue to operate to remove any threat against the State of Israel,” the statement concluded.

In late November, a counter-terrorism raid in southern Syria’s Beit Jinn area, which sought to apprehend Jamaa Islamiya operatives, left six Israeli soldiers wounded, three of them seriously.

Seven months earlier, in April, an Israeli Air Force strike in Lebanon killed Hussein Izzat Mohammad Atwi, a top Jamaa Islamiya operative.

According to the IDF, Atwi was a key figure in advancing terrorist activity against Israel from Lebanese territory, including rocket fire, infiltration attempts and coordinating terrorist infrastructure along the border.


What Antisemitism Looks like in 2026, Not 1996
The conclusion reached on social media is that the ad either makes Jews look worse in the public eye or that it was a missed opportunity for education and awareness. Twenty Jews were murdered in antisemitic attacks in the past year. How many Americans can name even one? The definition of Jew hatred is still being actively debated and called controversial; under Mayor Mamdani’s leadership, New York City is actually poised to redefine what counts as antisemitism. Jewish teenagers, students, and professionals are being pressured to disavow a core component of Jewish identity, the connection to the land of Israel, in order to be accepted as “the right kind of Jew.”

They are fed disinformation about Zionism, accused of complicity in a supposed genocide, and told their safety is conditional on ideological conformity. This is what toxification looks like, and it is endangering the future of Jewish life in the Diaspora, particularly for young American Jews who are left with two options: internalize the hostility and discard their Jewishness, or stand alone.

None of this negates the intent behind the ad. The desire to combat antisemitism is sincere, but the backlash reflects a larger and overdue conversation within the Jewish community: how do we fight antisemitism that no longer looks like it did even three years ago, before the Hamas massacre and subsequent war, and before the AI-era took hold?

That same question is now being asked of legacy institutions. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has faced growing scrutiny over whether its educational tools and advocacy frameworks reflect the current threat landscape. Its recent declassification as a “trusted source” by Wikipedia underscores how quickly institutional authority can be eroded online.

This moment demands clear-eyed reassessment, especially as the war against Hamas recedes from daily front-page headlines. A ceasefire in Gaza does not mean a ceasefire on Jew-hatred. In January alone, New York City recorded 31 antisemitic hate crimes, a 182% increase. These attacks have nothing to do with a conflict thousands of miles away and everything to do with a climate that has normalized hostility toward Jews and made visibly Jewish people in particular targets simply for existing.

At HonestReporting, this is not an abstract concern; it is our daily work. As antisemitism migrates across platforms and mutates in real time, so must the tools used to confront it. That includes developing AI-driven monitoring systems, building forensic mapping of terror networks and hate ecosystems, and partnering with organizations that are at the forefront of developing technology to fight antisemitism and the narrative war against Israel.

Because if you’re still looking for antisemitism where it used to be, you’ll miss how it actually shows up today: online, ideological, and increasingly normalized. The Super Bowl ad debate isn’t just about one commercial. It’s a signal: antisemitism has changed. The question now is whether Jewish advocacy is prepared to change with it.
Commentary Podcast: Kraft Blue It
Was Robert Kraft's antisemitism ad at Superbowl LX a waste of time and money? Plus Bad Bunny's halftime show, bizarre AI ads, and John recommends the new movie Send Help.


Trump religious liberty panel’s first antisemitism hearing turns contentious over Israel
When the White House Religious Liberty Commission gathered in Washington on Monday for the body’s first public hearing focused on antisemitism, attendees expected an informative if subdued meeting, meant to gather testimony from Jewish Americans who have faced antisemitism. The commission’s members are tasked with drafting a report with recommendations for President Donald Trump about how to promote religious liberty.

The speakers were mostly conservative, like the 13 members of the commission, which was created by Trump last year.

The conversation was largely friendly, barring one member of the commission, Catholic conservative activist and former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller, who acted as more of an interrogator. She pushed back on witnesses’ testimony, arguing that they had defined antisemitism too broadly and questioning whether she would be considered an antisemite because she does not support Zionism and because she believes the Jews killed Jesus.

She also defended right-wing influencer Candace Owens from accusations of antisemitism.

“I listen to her daily,” said Prejean Boller, who appeared to be wearing a Palestinian flag pin. “I haven’t heard one thing out of her mouth that I would say is antisemitic.” In 2024, Owens was dropped from a Trump campaign event where she was slated to speak alongside Donald Trump Jr. after the campaign faced backlash for including Owens, who regularly shares antisemitic commentary in social media posts and on her podcast.

The first panel of speakers featured former UCLA law student Yitzy Frankel, who sued the university over its handling of antisemitism during the 2024 encampments; Yeshiva University President Ari Berman; Harvard alum Shabbos Kestenbaum; and former Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl. Each of them talked about their experiences of antisemitism — or combating it — in the United States after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel.

After nearly an hour and a half, Prejean Boller revealed that she had been counting each mention of Israel in the course of the discussion.

“Since we’ve mentioned Israel a total of 17 times, are you willing to condemn what Israel has done in Gaza?” said Prejean Boller. “You won’t condemn that? Just on the record.”

Prejean Boller insisted that she opposes Israel because of her Catholic faith.

“Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know. So are all Catholics antisemites?” Prejean Boller asked the panel, earning some boos from the audience, a mix of Jewish professionals, Christian activists and members of the Washington Jewish community. “I want to be clear on what the definition of antisemitism is. If I don’t support the political state of Israel, am I an antisemite, yes or no?”

At the end of the first panel, the Religious Liberty Commission’s sole Jewish member, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, offered a pointed response to Prejean Boller’s commentary about Catholics.

“This is an incredibly diverse country, and the one thing we should be careful about is speaking on behalf of all members of a religious community, even if one is a member of that religious community. I certainly wouldn’t claim to speak for all Jews on all subjects,” said Soloveichik. “We’re not known for agreeing on everything, and that certainly should be said for speaking about Catholics in America.”


Kassy Akiva: Disgraced Tucker Carlson Guest Who Lied About Child’s Death In Gaza Launches Bid For Congress
After leveraging a false claim that he witnessed the Israeli military shoot a child dead at an American-run aid site in the Gaza Strip for national attention, Anthony Aguilar is now running for political office.

Aguilar went viral last year with his claim that he saw a young Gazan boy named Amir “gunned down” by Israel’s military at a Trump administration-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid site. His tale landed him on major media outlets like NBC News, and on prominent podcasts, including two appearances on the Tucker Carlson Show. It also won him meetings with members of Congress, where he recounted the incident in vivid detail.

The Daily Wire, however, found major inconsistencies in his story and later confirmed that the incident never happened. In fact, the child he claims was shot dead is alive.

Now that his media tour has slowed down, Aguilar is running in North Carolina as a Green Party candidate.

“I stand with the 62% of Americans who want a choice outside the two-party establishment,” Aguilar told The Daily Wire. “By running as a Green, I can fight for the solutions people are literally dying for — like healthcare as a human right and an end to endless war—solutions the billionaire donors will not stand for.”

In July, Aguilar set the internet ablaze when he first began telling the story of the child he said was named “Amir.” The child’s name was actually Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamden. According to Aguilar, he met the boy while working at a GHF aid site on May 28, only to watch him killed moments later. He told an emotional story of an intimate interaction with the boy before his death.
Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency plans exclusions tied to business in Judea and Samaria
While a high-profile Israel boycott bill has reportedly stalled in Ireland, the country’s National Treasury Management Agency is moving ahead with an investment strategy that could achieve a similar outcome.

According to a Jan. 17 report in The Times, the NTMA plans to use a United Nations database of companies doing business in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem to exclude “certain companies” from investments by the Future Ireland Fund, a government sovereign wealth fund valued at approximately $14.8 billion.

The fund’s published investment guidelines state that investments may be excluded based on specific criteria and that “a small number of discretionary exclusions have been so identified to date,” including companies in several categories. Among those categories are “certain companies listed on the United Nations database of business enterprises involved in specified activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

The U.N. database—widely criticized as a blacklist—was approved by then- U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, a former Chilean president and outspoken critic of Israel. Bachelet was nominated last week as a candidate to serve as the next secretary-general of the United Nations.

The database, which has since been expanded, includes not only Israeli companies but also several large American and European entities, such as Motorola and Airbnb.

The Times reported that NTMA “did not specify which companies it was planning to ban from investment.” The agency’s investment strategy states that exclusions would be used only as a “last resort,” with “stewardship” being “the preferred way to effect change.” (JNS reached out to the U.S. State Department for comment.)

The NTMA move comes as Ireland’s proposed Occupied Territories Bill—which would ban goods and services from Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem—remains stalled in parliament. Once viewed as a fait accompli, the legislation has been delayed amid U.S. pressure urging Dublin to abandon the measure altogether.
Federal lawsuit challenges Massachusetts city’s divestment ordinance as anti-Israel boycott
A federal lawsuit filed in Massachusetts seeks to block enforcement of a Medford ordinance that directs the city to divest public funds from companies linked to alleged “human rights violations,” arguing that the measure effectively imposes a boycott of Israel.

The ordinance, known as the “Values-Aligned Local Investments Ordinance,” was enacted in late 2025. While the law does not explicitly mention Israel, the Feb. 6 complaint contends that its broad criteria—such as prohibiting investment in entities allegedly “complicit” in “illegal occupation” or “apartheid”—mirror the structure and effect of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by Medford “residents and taxpayers” Zachary Chertok and Eliot Jokelson against the city, its council and Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn.

A copy of the complaint was provided to JNS by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, which is representing the plaintiffs, along with the Gevura Fund and Libby Hoopes Brooks and Mulvey.

The suit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing that the ordinance violates federal constitutional law and Massachusetts statutes governing municipal investments.

According to the complaint, the measure unlawfully intrudes into U.S. foreign policy, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent holding that state and local divestment regimes aimed at influencing foreign conduct are preempted under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
EXCLUSIVE: She Was Dismissed From a Leadership Post at Harvard. Now She's a Candidate for Columbia's Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies.
A professor removed from her leadership post at Harvard University after bringing in a raft of anti-Israel guest speakers and panelists and few, if any, dissenting voices is among four finalists to become the Edward Said chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University, internal communications reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

Columbia on January 22 informed graduate students and faculty members in its history department that Rosie Bsheer, an associate professor of history at Harvard and formerly the associate director of the university's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, is a finalist for the position and will give a presentation as part of the selection process, according to a copy of the message. Bsheer's presentation is scheduled for February 16, the communications indicate. Associate professors do not have tenure at Harvard, while the Said chair at Columbia is a tenured position.

Bsheer's appointment would be controversial, coming just seven months after Columbia, which became the epicenter of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic campus protest in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023, reached an agreement with the Trump administration to restore the federal grant funding that had been put on pause in part due to the university's failures to adequately protect Jewish students.

Bsheer, who has written just one book, has a long history of anti-Israel activism. On May 21, 2021, the last day of a nearly two-week war Hamas began by launching missiles into Israel, she and Harvard's former Center for Middle Eastern Studies director, Cemal Kafadar, shared roughly 60 digital resources centering on topics like "occupation" and "settler colonialism." They included a book, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, which asserts that Hamas is not "a terrorist group" but "a multifaceted liberation organization." Hamas Contained was written by Tareq Baconi, who has described the October 7 Hamas terror attack as "anti-colonial violence" that was "inevitable" and motivated by "oppression." Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies hosted Baconi at an April 2024 event. It did not host pro-Israel speakers in the wake of the Hamas attack.
Stanford to Host “Pinkwashing 101” Teach-In Featuring Palestinian Drag Artist
Stanford University’s Women’s Community Center will host a “Pinkwashing 101” teach-in on February 12, 2026, featuring Mama Ganuush, a trans Palestinian drag artist who has been a plaintiff in federal litigation against Congress members, accusing them of “complicity in genocide” in Gaza.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by four additional Stanford departments including the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

According to the Stanford events page, the teach-in aims to “unpack the concept of pinkwashing.” The event description states participants will “center queer, trans, and Palestinian perspectives often erased from mainstream narratives.”

Activist’s History of Anti-Israel Advocacy & “Pinkwashing Claims”
Mama Ganuush, described on their personal website as “an activist who is dedicated to ending the Palestinian genocide & liberation from the Israeli apartheid,” served as a named plaintiff in the Taxpayers Against Genocide (TAG) lawsuit filed in December 2024 in federal court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit targeted two members of Congress who voted for military aid to Israel, as well as then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

According to a UN Universal Periodic Review submission by TAG and the National Lawyers Guild International Committee, Mama Ganuush provided testimony in the lawsuit. The TAG lawsuit was dismissed on February 10, 2025, with the judge ruling it presented a “political question” outside the court’s jurisdiction.

In October 2024, Mama Ganuush appeared on the Friday Night Semites podcast in an episode titled “Mama Ganuush: Trans Palestinian Drag Artist, Israel’s Pinkwashing, & Suing President Biden.” The podcast description states the episode covers “the beauty of queer Palestinian life, the ugliness of Israel’s pinkwashing propaganda” and discusses why Ganuush “joined a lawsuit against President Biden for the U.S.’s complicity in war crimes.”

The same podcast account, @fridaynightsemites on Instagram, published a video segment in October 2024 titled “Gay Orgies in Ramallah” featuring Mama Ganuush.
King’s College London hosts screening of 7 October raw footage
King’s College London has become the first university to host a screening of graphic footage from the 7 October Hamas massacre, after an earlier attempt was abandoned on security grounds.

Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre includes raw footage captured from body cameras worn by terrorists.

The film was initially shown to a group of international journalists in November 2023.

King’s College is the first university campus in the world to show the film. The screening for around 20 students and five staff members was hosted by the campus Israeli Society in collaboration with Stop the Hate on Campus.

It forms part of an ongoing initiative led by Israeli campaigner Yael Di Castro.

Di Castro said: “Reactions were deeply emotional and varied. Many found the footage extremely difficult but important to witness, and some attendees chose to leave the room during the screening due to the distressing nature of the material. The audience included people from a wide range of faiths, backgrounds and professional communities.”

She stressed that universities “have a responsibility to engage with complex realities through factual and unfiltered evidence. Bringing this footage into the academic sphere is not about politics. It is about bearing witness, accountability and the role of higher education in shaping informed discourse. The screening forms part of a broader commitment to responsible academic engagement, historical testimony and constructive dialogue.”


BBC admits error after claiming: ‘There have been other holocausts’
The BBC responded to a complaint that it used a lowercase ‘h’ for Holocaust by insisting: “There have been other holocausts.”

In its website report on Jewish survivors of Nazi atrocities meeting the King and Queen, the BBC wrote that: “Mala Tribich became the first holocaust survivor to address the cabinet,” adding that she had asked “How, 81 years after the holocaust, can these people once again be targeted in this way?”

A reader who registered a complaint about the lowercase ‘h’ was told in an email, apparently written by an experienced BBC broadcast journalist who we have agreed not to name: “Historically there have been other examples of holocausts elsewhere.”

Contacted by Jewish News the corporation backtracked, added a footnote to the online article and said its initial email to a reader had been “sent in error”.

A BBC spokesperson said: “This response was sent in error. All references to the Holocaust in this article should have been capitalised and we have now updated it accordingly and added a note of correction. We will be writing again to the original correspondent.”


Prominent Norwegian diplomat who mediated Oslo Accords quits over Epstein ties
Norway’s foreign ministry on Sunday said a prominent ambassador and key Oslo Accords mediator, Mona Juul, would step down due to a “serious failure of judgement” over ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, part of a growing scandal in the Nordic country and across Europe.

The ministry earlier this week suspended Juul from her position as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq pending an internal inquiry into links to Epstein found in a massive set of files released by the United States government.

“Juul’s contact with convicted sex offender Epstein has shown a serious failure of judgment. The case makes it difficult to rebuild the trust that the role requires,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.

Juul, 66, a former junior government minister, previously represented Norway as ambassador to Israel, Britain, and at the United Nations.

In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, quit on Sunday, saying he took responsibility for advising Starmer to name Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his known links to Epstein.

A lawyer representing Juul said she had voluntarily stepped down as the current situation made it impossible for her to carry out her work.

“Mona Juul will continue to cooperate fully with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help ensure that all relevant facts in the matter come to light,” her lawyer Thomas Skjelbred said in a statement.

The foreign ministry said it had also initiated a review of its former grants to the International Peace Institute (IPI), a New York think tank headed by Juul’s husband, Terje Roed-Larsen, until 2020.


Streeting faces backlash over messages accusing Israel of ‘war crimes’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’
Wes Streeting accused Israel of “committing war crimes before our eyes” in Gaza and the Netanyahu government of talking “the language of ethnic cleansing” in messages sent to disgraced former British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, it has emerged.

The Health Secretary also predicted he would be “toast” at the next election if the government did not change its stance and become tougher on Israel. Streeting wrote:”I fear we are in big trouble here – and I am toast at the next election.

“We just lost our safest ward in Redbridge (51% Muslim, Ilford South) to a Gaza independent. At this rate, I don’t think we’ll hold either of the two Ilford seats.”

The messages, released on Monday, were an apparent effort by the Health Secretary to be transparent about his friendship with the ex-peer, as he sought to win over support from Labour MPs for a possible leadership bid.

The messages, sent last August to disgraced former British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, immediately sparked anger among Jewish Labour members, MPs confirmed.

Three Labour MPs who had attended a meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster on Monday night confirmed the messages had sparked anger amongst some Jewish party members after they were made public.

One MP was emailed by a member of the community asking:”Does he say one thing when he’s speaking to us at Labour Friends of Israel events, and another thing behind our backs?”

The WhatsApp messages, sent in August last year showed Streeting Voicing his support for Palestine recognition, announced by Keir Starmer just one month later in September last year.


Lack of vetting nearly let alleged Hamas-linked Palestinian businessman build Jerusalem hotel
The absence of mechanisms enabling Jerusalem’s Planning and Building Committee to vet the security backgrounds of real estate developers nearly allowed a Palestinian businessman accused of supporting Hamas to build a hotel in Jerusalem, the Knesset’s Internal Affairs and Environment Committee heard on Monday.

Tzviya Zicherman, legal adviser to the Planning Committee, explained that the plan was originally submitted by the Greek Orthodox Church, and only in recent days did the committee learn that the land had been sold to an Italian company, which is why the discussion was removed from the agenda. “The district planning office has no ability at all to check the identity of the applicants,” she noted.

The Jerusalem District Planning Committee had been set to meet on Monday as part of the approval process for Bashar al-Masri’s hotel after the plan was approved by a local committee before the war.

The meeting was canceled after the families of deceased former hostages protested, noting that Masri is currently being sued in the US over his alleged facilitation of Hamas terrorist activities in the Gaza Strip.

Attorney Moran Revivo from the Jerusalem Municipality confirmed that, in light of the new information, it was decided to halt the discussion of the plan and remove it from the agenda. A massive construction site off Jaffa Road, not far from the entrance to Jerusalem, seen in 2022.
WHO Gaza child vaccine data ‘proves genocide hoax,’ author says
Recent World Health Organization data has been cited to challenge reports of large-scale civilian deaths in Gaza, with the figures suggesting that more children under age 10 were vaccinated in 2025 than the pre-war total for that age group.

In recent posts on X linking to the WHO data, author and HonestReporting board member Salo Aizenberg said the figures showed that 603,000 children under 10 received vaccinations in early 2025—exceeding Gaza’s pre-war population estimate for that age bracket.

He argued that the data undermines claims of mass casualties or genocide during the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The vaccination program, conducted in three rounds and published on the WHO’s public dashboard, demonstrates that Israel permitted widespread humanitarian activity in Gaza, said Aizenberg, proving the “genocide hoax.”

“Ask why Israel would allow mass life-saving vaccinations if ‘genocide’ were the intent,” he wrote.

Aizenberg also said that the WHO figures indicate births in Gaza during the war were comparable to, or even higher than, pre-war levels, further undercutting genocide claims.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman reposted Aizenberg’s post on the WHO vaccination data, calling it “devastating proof that Tucker Carlson has falsely, intentionally and massively inflated the number of Gaza children killed since Hamas started the war on 10/7/23.”


Brendan O'Neill: No, it is not Islamophobic to criticise the Islamic Republic
It was a blistering pushback. And she’s dead right: there is something seriously off about the fact that as women in Iran risk their lives by casting off the hijab, we in the West bow down to that regressive covering. There are even World Hijab Day events in British schools, where non-Muslim girls are encouraged to put one on to see what life is like for a Muslim. As one observer quipped, how about encouraging Muslim girls to take theirs off so that they might taste that hair-flowing freedom their non-Muslim peers enjoy?

Not everyone was pleased with Alinejad’s Mamdani-slamming. Step forward, Mehdi. ‘I have a feeling’, he said, ‘that a lot more Muslims around the world would support the Iranian protests for freedom and democracy if so many members of the pro-regime-change Iranian diaspora weren’t such raging Islamophobes’. Got that? Alinejhad isn’t just an ‘Islamophobe’ for having the audacity to reject a religious garment – she’s a raging Islamophobe. Ready the stocks. Prepare the fruit. A woman has spoken ill of religion.

The more I think about it, the more astonishingly awful Hasan’s comment becomes. What would possess a man to so publicly rebuke a woman for supposedly speaking out of turn? Even if that’s what you think privately – that these religion-mocking broads should pipe down – you really should control yourself in public. More to the point, what did Alinejad say that was ‘Islamophobic’? She made not one bigoted remark about Muslims. She only said the mayor of NYC should not celebrate the hijab and instead should show solidarity with the men and women fighting for freedom in Iran.

That Hasan felt cocky enough to call such sane, normal commentary ‘Islamophobic’ reveals what that word really means. The woke warriors against ‘Islamophobia’ are not fighting bigotry. They’re punishing blasphemy. They’re policing speech. They’re ringfencing religion – well, one religion – from the scurrilous wrongthink of the masses. That a public figure like Alinejad can be shamed for rejecting the hijab and raging against Tehran’s cruel rulers leaves no doubt – ‘Islamophobia’ means nothing more and nothing less than showing an impious disregard for the diktats of Islam.

We end up in a situation where a bloke can scold a woman for being irreligious. Not only is that morally out of order – the optics of it are absolutely dire, too. The Islamophobia-hunters of the credentialled classes are so drunk on misplaced moral arrogance that they can’t even see what the rest of us can – that their hectoring of Islam’s critics is an act of rank authoritarianism that makes them look like total wankers. Alinejad’s friends back in Iran are being arrested, flogged, jailed, and Hasan has a go at her? I don’t particularly like the term ‘male privilege’ but it’s hard to see what else made him think he could behave in such a shrill, illiberal and ungentlemanly fashion.

There’s a larger problem here. Across the West we have instituted rules against the dissing of Islam. You face shaming, or the sack, and sometimes even violence, if you mock Muhammad. And here’s the thing: that’s also why Iran’s dissenters are being so violently pummelled by their theocratic overlords. Because they, too, have been found guilty of anti-Islam sentiment. Alinejad was branded ‘anti-Islam’ by her former dictators in Iran – now she is ridiculed as ‘Islamophobic’ by some progressives in her adopted home of the United States. What a disgusting betrayal of a woman’s right to say whatever she wants, however many God-botherers she pisses off.
Hugh Hewitt: Prince Reza Pahlavi joins Hugh to discuss the future for Iran and the choice before President Trump



Guilty! Leaked Audio Reveals Roedean Did Not Want to Play Against Jews
An audio recording in the possession of The Common Sense shows that Roedean School misrepresented the reasons for cancelling tennis fixtures with King David Linksfield. The recording contradicts the school’s claim that the cancellation was due to scheduling constraints and rather that the school community did not wish to compete against Jews.

Roedean School is an elite Anglican girls’ school in Johannesburg. King David Linksfield is an elite Jewish school, in the east of the city.

Multiple sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Common Sense that the recording captures a conversation between the respective senior staffers of Roedean and King David.

You can listen to the recording here.

The controversy emerged over the weekend after a scheduled tennis fixture between the two schools did not go ahead as planned. A King David staff member subsequently alleged that the cancellation stemmed from antisemitism.

In response, the King David Schools Foundation said it was treating the matter with the seriousness it deserved and would act in every instance to protect its students against antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies condemned what it described as “blatant prejudice” by Roedean.

Roedean, however, disputed the allegation.
New Israeli development uses ‘mechanical Lego’ to create smart materials
A new study by an international team led by researchers from Tel Aviv University presents a surprising way in which simple mechanical structures behave like Lego blocks, enabling them to perform mathematical operations, respond to pressure in stages and even serve as the basis for energy-efficient mechanical computing.

The study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, was led by Prof. Yair Shokef of Tel Aviv University’s School of Mechanical Engineering, with the participation of undergraduate student Tomer Sigalov and researchers from the Netherlands. It introduces a new method for designing metamaterials — artificial materials whose properties are determined mainly by their shape and structure rather than by the substance from which they are made.

The researchers developed a kind of “Lego kit” made up of triangular building blocks that can be connected in different ways. These connections determine whether a given region of the material is flexible or “frustrated,” a state in which the material would like to deform but the geometry prevents it from doing so. Using simple mathematical rules, it is possible to plan in advance how the material will behave, how many modes of motion it will have and what they will look like.

This “mechanical Lego” approach makes it possible to design materials with complex behavior without relying on heavy simulations or trial and error. As a result, materials can be “assembled” for specific tasks — such as shock absorption, programmed shape changes or mechanical computing — as easily as assembling a model from prefabricated blocks. The concept brings materials science closer to the language of modular engineering and opens a path toward the rapid development of a new generation of smart metamaterials.

The research team explained that one of the study’s most striking achievements is the demonstration of a graded response to pressure: the material does not collapse all at once but folds step by step in a controlled manner. This property is particularly important for applications such as shock absorption, armor and impact protection. Beyond that, the researchers showed that these structures can be used to perform matrix-vector multiplication — a basic mathematical operation in machine learning and artificial intelligence — using only mechanical motion, without electricity or electronics.




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