Wednesday, February 18, 2026

02/18 Links Pt2: US likely to attack Iran, but Trump has not yet decided to do so; Jesse Jackson and the betrayal of the civil-rights movement; Eli Sharabi’s ‘Hostage’ memoir named Jewish book of the year

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Two Cases Demonstrate How Anti-Zionist Propaganda Undermines Liberal Democracy
The significance of the Palestine Action case, in fact, threatens to obscure the importance of the fight over the hostage posters. But the hostage posters arguably represent the problem at the root of all this activism.

The Palestine Action non-convictions were made possible by a campaign for what activists called “jury equity.” The defendants’ own lawyer argued that they should be treated like suffragettes, not criminals. But how does a society—in a democratic country, with a free press—come to embrace that idea widely enough to nullify the law? And to apply it only when the motivating factor is Jew-hatred?

To answer that, we only have to listen to the people who tear down hostage posters. In the case cited above, here’s how the defendant, Fiona Monro, explained her destructive actions:

“The board was clearly there to justify the genocide that was happening. A large laminated board with a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory to many people in that community clearly found it very upsetting to have that constantly thrust in our face daily.”

This is genuinely insane. The central claim of hers is that “a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory” and that people understandably “found it very upsetting.”

It is a picture of a Jewish person who was kidnapped during a pogrom and then murdered by his kidnappers.

You cannot get to the Palestine Action acquittals until your society produces enough people like Fiona Monro and those she claims to represent.

The people who tear down hostage posters represent a genuine threat to the functioning of a free society. They are an indication that the virus of anti-Semitism has metastasized to the point at which self-government becomes imperiled. As Britain is the first to belatedly realize.
NGO Monitor: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
Introduction
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s current and former Board Chairs appear on a 2013 list, published by Israel, of Hamas’ “main operatives and institutions” in Europe.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor appears in the European Union’s transparency register, a “database listing ‘interest representatives’ (organisations, associations, groups and self-employed individuals) who carry out activities to influence the EU policy and decision-making process.”

In their own words “youth-led independent, nonprofit organization that advocates for the human rights of all persons across Europe and the MENA region, particularly those who live under occupation, in the throes of war or political unrest and/ or have been displaced due to persecution or armed conflict.”

Funding
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor does not publish any financial date on its website, reflecting a complete lack of transparency and accountability.

According to its website, “Since the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, we have completely refused all offers of funding, sponsorship or support from government and faction bodies to protect our vision and narrative, to ensure an unbiased perspective and to resist external influences and pressures. We, however, rely on individual donations, project funding by independent international organizations, as well as crowdfunding campaigns, which are launched by our crowdfunding team several times a year.”

Euro-Med Monitor’s program “We are not Numbers,” which provides “training to developing storyteller–journalists in Palestine,” is fiscally sponsored by Nonviolence International.
Nonviolence International co-founder Jonathan Kuttab is also co-founder of Palestinian NGO Al-Haq. On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared Al-Haq a “terror organization” because it is part of “a network of organizations” that operates “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.”

Ties to Terror
Ramy Abdu, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor Founder and Chairman
In November 2020, Israel Minister of Defense Benjamin Gantz signed an administrative seizure order against Ramy Abdu under Israel’s anti-terrorism law. The order was issued “in relation to his work with the [Israeli]-designated terrorist organization ‘IPalestine- International Platform of NGOs Working for Palestine…that belongs to and acts on behalf of…Hamas” Abdu served as a Board member.
The order was in effect until August 1, 2022.


Ramy Abdu appeared on a 2013 list, published by Israel, of Hamas’ “main operatives and institutions” in Europe. The institutions included The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), European NGOs Empowerment Services (ENES), and the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR).
A 2011 publication by Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center described Ramy Abdu as ECESG’s coordinator.

In 2013, Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR) and PALThink organized an event, “Hamas Movement within the International Context,” featuring Hamas leader Osama Hamdan. At the event, Ramy Abdu, then CEPR’s Palestine Office Manager in Gaza, sat next to Hamdan and was a keynote speaker.

Mazen Awni Issa Kahel (Mazen Kahel), Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor chair 2015–2019 Mazen Kahel appeared on a 2013 list, published by Israel, of Hamas’ “main operatives and institutions” in Europe. The institutions included The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), European NGOs Empowerment Services (ENES), and the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR).


Hymietown Revisited
In April 1988, Rabbi Emanuel Rackman published a column in The Jewish Week titled “Jesse Jackson, Israel and American Jewry.” Rackman’s essay focused not only on Jackson but also on Jewish leadership itself. He accused American Jewish institutions of hesitating to speak candidly. He described what he regarded as “a tragic repetition of the silence of the 1930s.” The analogy was severe. Rackman was not equating the United States of 1988 with Europe of 1938. He argued that Jewish communities had historically been tempted to suppress discomfort for the sake of access and stability. In his view, that instinct, once understandable, had become a liability.

Rackman framed the stakes in terms that made clear his concern for Israel’s centrality. “You will not save yourselves as you did during the Holocaust. If the State of Israel comes to an end, God forbid, you too will face the same fate.” His argument rested on a structural claim. Jewish security in the Diaspora, he believed, depended on the continued existence and legitimacy of Israel. If Israel’s standing were weakened within American political discourse, the consequences for Jews outside Israel would follow over time.

Rackman also addressed Jackson’s public record directly. He wrote that Jackson was rising in influence “despite the unconvincing quality of his denials that he loathes Jews and approves of terrorism.” The formulation is deliberate. Rackman does not assert proven animus. He argues that the denials did not resolve legitimate concern. His central point remained that Jewish institutions were avoiding direct confrontation and that such avoidance reflected weakness.

Six months later, in October 1988, Rackman expanded his critique in a column titled “The Hidden Issue.” There he shifted his attention to the press. “Unchecked by the press, an insidious demagoguery flourishes,” he wrote. Journalists, he argued, were reluctant to scrutinize Jackson with the same rigor applied to other candidates. Democratic integrity, in his view, required equal standards of accountability. When symbolic stature shields a political figure from sustained examination, public discourse is diminished.

Rackman did not let the matter rest. After Jackson’s 1988 campaign concluded, his political influence remained substantial. Some Jewish leaders advocated reconciliation. Rackman responded in February 1989 with a column titled “Unacceptable Ally.” “I admit that a major reason for my having abandoned the liberal camp was that I wanted to deny the Democratic Party any possibility of projecting Jackson into any position of power,” he wrote. He continued, “Jackson is as much of a threat to Jews as he ever was.” He concluded with a sentence that summarized his position: “I simply reject Jesse Jackson as an ally.”

Rackman did not deny Jackson’s civil rights history. He denied alliance. In his framework, alliance required clarity and consistency on matters touching Jewish dignity and Israel’s legitimacy. Where he believed those standards were absent, partnership could not proceed.

Schick called for distance. Kahane called for self-interest stripped of sentiment. Rackman called for candor and open challenge. Their methods differed, and so did their political commitments. Yet each concluded that Jewish leadership had mistaken alignment for permanence. Alliances that were treated as structural were, in fact, contingent. In different idioms, all three argued that communal judgment had been clouded by habit and assumption.

Jackson did not become president. The Democratic Party did not adopt an overtly anti-Israel platform. Black-Jewish relations did not collapse permanently. American Jewish life continued to expand in the decades that followed. Yet the debates of the 1980s left an imprint. They influenced partisan shifts within segments of Orthodox Jewry. They altered how Jewish leaders spoke about coalition politics and about the relationship between American liberalism and Israel. They also forced a reconsideration of how Jewish institutions should respond when anti-Jewish rhetoric emerges from figures who are otherwise treated as morally unimpeachable.

Time has done what time always does. Many of the figures who shaped the debates of the 1980s are gone. Some have died. Others moved on to different battles, different causes, different concerns. The newspapers in which these arguments first appeared have themselves changed or disappeared. The political alignments of that era no longer look the same.

Yet the questions remain. The tensions Schick described did not vanish when the campaign ended, and Rackman’s warnings did not expire when the election was over. They have resurfaced in altered form, across ideological camps that accuse one another of extremism while excusing their own. Antisemitic rhetoric today does not confine itself to one political home. It appears on the populist right in conspiratorial language about hidden power and divided loyalty and on the progressive left in rhetoric that casts Zionism as malevolence. It is heard as well in academic and cultural institutions that once prided themselves on neutrality. The speakers and vocabulary change, but the pattern does not. Apathy within segments of the Jewish community, across ideological lines, remains a constant.

What Schick, Kahane, and Rackman confronted was not only Jesse Jackson. It was also the recurring temptation within Jewish leadership to assume permanence where there is only temporary alignment and to assume goodwill where there is only political convenience. Change rarely announces itself with spectacle. It settles gradually. A relationship weakens. A boundary softens. Words that once would have ended a career become survivable. By the time the change is undeniable, it has already taken root. At that point, what remains is not surprise, but responsibility.
Jonathan Tobin: Jesse Jackson and the betrayal of the civil-rights movement
Demonizing Israel and Zionism
It’s true that Jackson’s “Hymietown” comments were a watershed moment in a black-Jewish alliance that had begun to fracture in the late 1960s, especially after King’s death. But what needs to be understood is that Jackson’s anti-Jewish attitudes went far deeper than a “stray remark” that caused controversy that he never entirely lived down.

While liberal Jews were castigated by other Democrats for their general reluctance to get on the Jackson bandwagon, the “Hymietown” slurs were just the tip of the iceberg of his hostility to Jews. He anticipated a trend that is now prevalent in the African-American community in which the State of Israel and Zionism are demonized and falsely labeled as a form of “racism.”

As The Washington Post reported in 1979 on a trip to Israel, Jackson devoted his efforts to promoting terrorist Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, while refusing to meet with, among others, Jewish refugees from Arab countries. He falsely smeared the Jewish state as “anti-black” and then, when presented with the prospect of visiting the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, said he was “sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust.” After touring the museum, he said that “genocide” should not be allowed to happen “to anyone, including the Palestinians.” In this way, Jackson was floating the “genocide” blood libel against Jews—44 years before the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

While claiming to be an advocate for freedom for all, he sought to deny rights to the Jewish community. As Eunice Pollack, author of Black Antisemitism in America: Past and Present, noted last year in JNS, he echoed the infamous antisemitic Soviet propaganda campaign alleging that “Zionism is racism” in a 1980 speech to an Arab-American audience. He told them, “We have the obligation to separate Zionism from Judaism. Judaism is a religion. … Zionism is a poisonous weed that is choking Judaism.”

Long before it became fashionable to bash Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel for organizing and seeking to lobby Congress to support it, Jackson denounced their efforts and said the Democratic Party was being “perverted” by “the Jewish element.” He claimed that the willingness of members of Congress to support Israel, which was widely popular across the country, was “a kind of glorified form of bribery. Financial bankrolling and moral bankruptcy.”

Nor should it be forgotten that Farrakhan, a notorious black racist and antisemite, was part of Jackson’s 1984 campaign, sometimes warming up audiences before the candidate spoke. Far from disavowing Farrakhan, Jackson embraced him. He also blamed Jews for not winning the Democratic nomination in 1984 and for pressuring former Vice President Walter Mondale not to pick him as his running mate before losing to President Ronald Reagan in a 49-state landslide.

Jackson wasn’t so much an early critic of the pro-Israel “lobby” as he was a forerunner of the sort of left-wing antisemitism that is commonly expressed by people such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and members of the congressional “Squad,” such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

That shows just how dishonest the narrative was about an overreaction to a “stray remark” being the cause of strife between blacks and Jews.
1984: Jesse Jackson; the Blacks & American Foreign Policy
Since the time of Vietnam, when Martin Luther King, Jr. lent his considerable moral prestige to the antiwar cause, the participation of prominent blacks in the debate over American foreign policy has been a source of intermittent and sometimes heated controversy. The political landscape has undergone far-reaching changes, however, since King asserted that racism lay at the root of U.S. involvement in Vietnam in much the same way that racism had produced an unequal society at home. Then, the single act of publicly rejecting the war policies of the Johnson administration earned King a great deal of criticism, even hostility, with some of the criticism emanating from the civil-rights movement itself. Today, by contrast, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, one of King’s lieutenants and currently a candidate for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination, has developed a perspective on foreign policy sharply at variance with both the Reagan administration and the declared views of many leading figures of his own party. Yet while Jackson’s positions on international affairs have been duly recorded by the press, they have not been subjected to anything approaching the intense scrutiny which the views of such other Democratic candidates as Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, John Glenn, or even George McGovern have evoked. This is unfortunate, for Jackson is altogether serious about foreign policy.

Jackson’s ideas about foreign policy are often described as embodying a “Third World approach” to international affairs. He has criticized his Democratic presidential rivals for holding a “Europe-centric” attitude while ignoring or minimizing the needs of the underdeveloped countries, and he has condemned Americans in general for harboring feelings of “arrogance and contempt” for the impoverished nations of the Third World. Given his view that the U.S. should undertake a major reorientation in its policies toward the Third World, his positions on many of the most controversial issues of the day provide few surprises. He favors normalization of relations with the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and a cut-off of aid to the government of El Salvador. He calls for the imposition of trade sanctions on South Africa and the elimination of policies which inhibit trade between the U.S. and black Africa. In addition, he advocates massive increases in the amount of foreign aid given African countries, and the elimination of special conditions—such as a country’s support for U.S. positions in the United Nations—which the Reagan administration has attached to our assistance programs. He has also called for the U.S. to continue its membership in UNESCO.

Looked at collectively, these positions are not especially unusual. Nor is there anything outlandish in Jackson’s endorsement of the nuclear freeze and a decrease in defense spending, or even his advocacy of a reduction in U.S. troop deployments in Europe. Indeed, with the exception of his strong sympathies for the PLO, there is little in the various policy prescriptions advanced by Jackson to distinguish him from many, perhaps most, liberal Democrats.

Where Jackson does diverge, however, is in his statements regarding the underlying values of American involvement in world affairs. Thus in a speech this past summer on America’s role during and after World War II, he went so far as to say:
Psychologically, America emerged out of the Second World War arrogant, militarily victorious, with a sense of “We can conquer the world.” It believed that might was right, and not that right was might.

More recently, Jackson has referred to the Reagan administration as a “repressive regime” and asserted, at a meeting of representatives of the Organization of African Unity at the UN, that “Third World nations are being raped and robbed of valuable raw materials” in the service of a coming nuclear holocaust. Jackson, born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, refers to himself as having grown up as a “Third World resident in the first world,” and of having been “born in occupied territory, having lived for all of my developing years under apartheid.”


Jewish councillor branded ‘Zionist trash’ by Your Party activist
Leaked messages from a Redbridge Your Party group chat reveal activists plotting to “boot out” a Jewish councillor branded “Zionist trash,” while footage from recent meetings shows members railing against “settler colonialism” and “fake antisemitism” claims.

Members of Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana’s new political project discussed their own experiences facing antisemitism allegations while in the Labour Party.

WhatsApp messages and meeting footage suggest the left-wing faction has become a hub for figures expelled from Labour during its antisemitism crisis.

In one message, members targeted Lloyd Duddridge, a Labour councillor.

“We must make a mission to boot him out. He is such a piece of Zionist trash,” one activist wrote, accusing Duddridge of being “aggressively anti-Jeremy and would open[ly] call him antisemitic especially to my face.”

Another responded that they had “lost my whip and I was put on trial” following similar accusations of antisemitism, adding that Duddridge “must be replaced.”

The exchange is reflected in remarks made at Your Party events in recent weeks.

At a North West hustings on February 7, Liverpool councillor Sam Gorst denounced what he described as “fake antisemitism” allegations he faced while in Labour.

In 2019, the JC reported that Gorst had defended former London mayor Ken Livingstone against an “antisemitism witchhunt” and criticised MPs and “corrupt groups” for using antisemitism “as a political weapon” against Corbyn.

At the same event, Haifa Ali, also known as Haifa Alkhanshali, told attendees: “We stand firmly against imperialism and militarism and Zionism.”


A Jewish Teacher at a UN School in New York City Reported Anti-Semitic Harassment to Officials. They Investigated Her Instead.
An elite Manhattan private school affiliated with the United Nations ignored an alleged campaign of anti-Semitic harassment against a Jewish faculty member who filed a complaint with officials, instead launching a 15-month retaliatory investigation into the Jewish teacher that pushed her out of her job, according to a new legal filing provided exclusively to the Washington Free Beacon.

Nadine Sébag, who taught French at the U.N. International School (UNIS) for 30 years, alleged in a lawsuit filed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) last week that she and other Jewish teachers faced a "workplace climate [that] was hostile toward Jewish faculty." Sébag and others claim that a Muslim colleague offered remarks about how "Jews are driven by money" alongside "vulgar references to the Holocaust," among other forms of harassment. According to Sébag, UNIS—which educates the children of U.N. members and charges up to $50,000 in annual tuition—declined to investigate any complaints from Jewish teachers and submitted Sébag to an unjust probe of her own behavior, costing Sébag her job.

"Plaintiff did not receive a single substantive response from UNIS—or from its Board of Trustees—to any of her eight detailed, evidence-based complaints documenting the antisemitic and national origin discrimination she was experiencing and requesting intervention," the filing reads. "Rather than address the misconduct, UNIS permitted it to continue and subjected Plaintiff to further scrutiny and retaliatory treatment. UNIS’s refusal to act, in contravention of its own policies and basic employer obligations, materially contributed to the hostile environment she endured."

The lawsuit comes after years of anti-Semitic radicalism within U.N.-run schools inside Gaza and the West Bank, with terror-affiliated faculty "turning classrooms into incubators of hate," the Free Beacon reported in September. The lawsuit details the spread of anti-Semitism into the United Nations' educational system in the United States as well, noting that UNIS has some of the same backers as Hamas itself. The alleged harassment, the filing states, "occurred against the backdrop of UNIS’s substantial financial relationships with foreign government donors," including Qatar, which pledged $60 million to the school in 2023. The Gulf state has a representative on UNIS’s board of trustees—a body appointed by the U.N. secretary-general—and has long sponsored and promoted terrorism and anti-Semitism.

Though the United Nations founded the school and exercises control over its operations, UNIS is registered as a nonprofit institution and is subject to New York anti-discrimination laws, according to NJAC.

Sébag stated in the complaint that the harassment started in 2022 when she began sharing an office with another faculty member, Nehad Soliman, who subjected her "to repeated antisemitism and anti-French remarks grounded in long-standing, derogatory stereotypes."
The Resurrection of Liz Magill: Georgetown Law Search Committee That Tapped Disgraced Penn President As Dean Included 11 Democratic Donors and a Democratic Political Aide
The 14-person Georgetown University Law Center search committee that hired the former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill as the school's next dean included at least 11 Democratic donors and a law student who worked as a Democratic aide, a Washington Free Beacon review found.

Seven committee members contributed to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, including committee chairwoman Eloise Pasachoff, the Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Law. Georgetown Law professors Jonah Perlin, Paul Ohm, Dorothy Brown, Naomi Mezey, and Kristin Henning, as well as associate dean Alicia Plerhoples, all members of the selection committee, also contributed to the Harris campaign.

But the committee wasn’t limited to supporters of Harris. It also included donors to former president Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, including Walsh School of Foreign Service dean Joel Hellman and associate vice president Alison Spada. Perlin, Plerhoples, Ohm, Pasachoff, and Mezey contributed to both the Biden and Harris campaigns.

The committee also included donors to a variety of other Democratic campaigns. Law professor Erica Hashimoto gave $100 to West Virginia Democrat Richard Ojeda's 2018 congressional campaign while law professor Josh Chafetz contributed $2,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Georgia Democratic senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and Stacey Abrams's embattled voting group, Fair Fight Action.

Together, those committee members combined to contribute nearly $80,000 to Democrats since 2004, federal campaign finance records show.

Plerhoples, a Yale Law School graduate, is the committee's most prolific small-dollar donor. She has made more than 200 contributions to Democrats since 2012 totaling over $14,000. She is a regular donor to the Fairfax County Democratic Committee and contributed to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D., N.Y.) campaign in 2025. She boasted on social media about canceling her Washington Post and Amazon subscriptions after Jeff Bezos announced that the paper would not endorse a presidential candidate in 2024.
Immigration judge rejects Trump effort to deport anti-Israel Palestinian student
A US immigration judge has rejected efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to deport Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested last year following his participation in pro-Palestinian protests.

Lawyers for Mahdawi detailed the immigration judge’s decision in a court filing on Tuesday with a federal appeals court in New York, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to his release from immigration custody in April.

It was the latest case in which an immigration judge rejected a case brought as part of the broader effort by Trump’s administration to detain and deport non-citizen students with pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel views who engaged in campus activism.

Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based Immigration Judge Nina Froes wrote in a decision on Friday that the US Department of Homeland Security failed to meet its burden of proving he was removable, which it sought to do using an unauthenticated document signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice,” Mahdawi said in a statement.

The administration has the option of challenging the judge’s decision before the Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the US Department of Justice.


Effort to expel Israel from international social work org voted down
An effort to expel Israel from the leading global organization for social workers failed on Wednesday in a closed-door Zoom meeting. A second vote, on suspending Israel, also failed.

The International Federation of Social Workers, which counts social work organizations from 141 countries as members, was considering the measure against Israel after some European members complained that Israeli social workers had served in combat roles during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. IFSW formally censured Israel last year.

Jewish social workers in the U.S. and Canada mounted a brief advocacy campaign against the measure, authoring a petition signed by 12,000 people urging the U.S.-based National Association of Social Workers and the Canadian Association of Social Workers to vote against the measure. NASW released a public statement a day before the vote, saying that the expulsion effort violates “the profession’s core values of unity, dialogue and compassion.”

Inbal Hermoni, the chair of the Israeli Union of Social Workers, said last week that kicking Israel out of the IFSW — whose members also include Russia, China and Iran — would not advance peace in the Middle East.

The leadership of the IFSW did not publicly comment on the results of Wednesday’s vote.
Judge allows Jew-hatred lawsuit against Fairleigh Dickinson University to proceed
A New Jersey Superior Court judge has denied Fairleigh Dickinson University’s motion to dismiss key claims in a lawsuit brought by a Jewish campus rabbi who alleges he was suspended after objecting to antisemitic activity.

In a Feb. 13 order, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County, rejected the private university’s bid to dismiss counts in an amended complaint filed by Rabbi Ira Jaskoll, a professor who served as a volunteer Jewish chaplain for the Division of Student Affairs–Office of Campus Ministries at its Metropolitan Campus in Teaneck, N.J.

The court dismissed one count under the New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act but allowed other claims to proceed.

Jaskoll first filed suit last year, alleging religious discrimination and retaliation in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and state associational rights laws.

According to the amended complaint, Jaskoll “facilitated students’ continued spiritual wellness at the university” in his role as volunteer chaplain. He alleges that after he objected to what he described as antisemitic speech and abuse directed at Jews during a university-approved campus event advocating for the destruction of Israel, Fairleigh Dickinson suspended and effectively terminated him.

The complaint asserts that Fairleigh Dickinson, its employees and agents violated Jaskoll’s rights under the NJLAD “to be free from all forms of discrimination and retaliation,” and that the university’s actions were retaliatory and discriminatory.

Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, which represents Jaskoll along with Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, stated that the decision sends a message to universities facing antisemitism claims, calling it a “major win.”
Carnegie Mellon Must Provide Discovery About Relationship with Qatar, in Ex-Student's Lawsuit Alleging Anti-Semitism
The case is now in discovery, and in yesterday's Canaan v. Carnegie Mellon University, Judge Scott Hardy (W.D. Pa.) allowed a considerable amount of discovery about CMU's relationship with Qatar, where it has a major campus. [UPDATE: For more on the underlying substantive dispute, see this post and this post.] The court concluded the requested discovery was generally relevant (this is just an excerpt from a very long opinion):
Qatari interests partially fund the position of Elizabeth Rosemeyer, because she serves both CMU's Main Campus and its Doha campus as Assistant Vice Provost for DEI and Title IX Coordinator…. Rosemeyer is an integral participant in Canaan's case. She is referenced repeatedly in the Complaint, notably as one of several CMU officials specifically responsible for enforcing CMU's anti-discrimination policies and protecting students from discrimination and harassment. Importantly, Canaan specifically alleges that Rosemeyer aggressively discouraged her from filing a formal complaint, which would have triggered an investigation of Professor Arscott's purported discriminatory mistreatment of her, as well as of the DEI Office's failure to address the misconduct and of Professor Issaias's purported retaliation.

Although CMU downplays any possible Qatari influence in its partial funding of Rosemeyer's position by averring that she was hired by its then Vice-President of Operations and not by any Qatari donor, entity, or representative, such point merely generates, at most, a potential factual dispute about whether or to what extent Qatari funding of Rosemeyer's position and Qatari "consultation" during CMU's identification, review, and selection of Rosemeyer may have influenced Rosemeyer's handling of Canaan's complaints of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation….


US likely to attack Iran, but Trump has not yet decided to do so, sources tell 'Post'
The United States is likely to attack Iran eventually but not necessarily in the coming days, despite the spike in global media “noise” surrounding the conflict, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Sources indicated that Israel’s impression is that US President Donald Trump has not yet decided on his final course of action, even if his disappointment in Iran’s negotiating positions this week makes an eventual American attack on Tehran more likely.

Rather, many of the latest reports are viewed by some Israeli officials as global media noise picking up on the general feel of Trump administration officials coming out of this week’s negotiations as opposed to crossing the threshold.

There has also been intense focus on whether Trump’s deadline of two weeks for the Islamic Republic to return with a new offer is parallel to the two weeks from June 2025, which turned out to be a fake-out and cover for Trump’s attack on the Fordow nuclear facility after only three days of that two-week deadline had passed.

Not same circumstances as in 12-day war
But the circumstances are not the same.

When Trump broke his own deadline early, he had already sat on the sidelines for around a week and a half, while Israel had already cleared out most of Iran’s air defenses, and he faced little risk by sending in B-2 high-altitude bombers to drop bombs on Fordow uncontested.

In contrast, Trump is currently considering whether to be the lead party in a much longer campaign in which he could lose many American soldiers as well as expensive sea vessels, and in which the broader goals of regime change might not be realized.

Under the circumstances, some Israeli officials believe that the current noise is at most venting frustration and expressing to the Iranians the seriousness of the next two weeks, as opposed to signaling an imminent attack in the coming days.

All of that said, most acknowledge that Trump is unpredictable, and even an imminent attack cannot be completely ruled out.


Vance: Trump has ‘many tools’ to stop nuclear Iran
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump has “a lot tools” to ensure that the Iranian regime doesn’t acquire nuclear weapons, amid indirect talks between Washington and Tehran and an American military buildup in the Middle East.

The vice president spoke to Fox News on the day that a second round of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Geneva took place, with the Iranians signaling progress.

Vance said that Washington has set red lines in nuclear negotiations with Iran and that Trump retains military options if diplomacy fails.

He said he spoke that morning with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about ongoing negotiations, describing the talks as mixed. “In some ways it went well,” Vance said, noting the two sides agreed to meet again, but adding that Iran had not yet acknowledged the administration’s core demands.

Vance said preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was the administration’s primary objective, warning that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger proliferation across the region. “You can’t have people like that have the most dangerous weapon known to man,” he said.

Asked whether regime change was on the table, Vance did not rule it out, saying Trump “takes a much different approach to America’s national security” than his predecessors and is “much more willing to act aggressively” to defend U.S. interests.

Vance also said the administration wants Iran to cease its support for terrorist proxies and called Iran “one of the world’s largest state sponsors of terrorism,” but said the nuclear question remained the administration’s foremost concern.

“The president has a lot of tools in the toolkit,” Vance said. “He has a lot of options to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Arrow 4 anti-missile defense system to possibly be deployed in coming months, IAI CEO Levy says
Israel Aerospace Industries CEO Boaz Levy on Tuesday signaled new progress with the Arrow 4 anti-missile defense system and possibly deploying it within the coming months.

In some of his most extensive remarks about the next-generation anti-missile defense system, he said, “When we plan for a new [military] campaign, we look at the solutions for the threats of tomorrow, and not only the already existing threats. The way we achieve the capability to advance our response to the varying threats, and this is how the Arrow 4, which will replace the Arrow 2, will operate.”

“The Arrow 3 and 4 systems will bring new and advanced shoot-down capabilities against aerial targets. With the help of the Arrow 4, we will elevate the success of Israeli shoot-down capabilities,” said the IAI chief.

“We have to be ready for the next war,” Levy said. “A lot of lessons were learned, and many changes were made in the systems… We always look two steps ahead to future threats.”

While the IDF used dozens of interceptor missiles during the 12-day war with Iran, according to Levy, “We are delivering the amount of interceptors required by the IDF, as well as to the German Air Force.”

In December, German Air Defense Commander Col. Dennis Kruger told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview that Berlin will definitely purchase the Arrow 4 and 5 systems, which are currently under development.

“I can give you a clear yes to that,” Kruger quickly shot back when asked about purchasing the new systems shortly after showing off the purchase and deployment of the Arrow 3 from Israel and IAI.

In December, Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram also noted progress regarding the Arrow 4.

Moreover, as far back as in June 2025, Levy discussed the future replacement of the Arrow 2 missile defense system with the Arrow 4 system.
Reps. Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie plan to force vote on resolution blocking Iran strikes
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) plan to introduce and attempt to force a vote on a war powers resolution blocking military action against Iran without congressional authorization, as the Trump administration appears to be moving closer to military action against the Islamic Republic.

“[Massie] & I have a War Powers Resolution to debate & vote on war before putting U.S. troops in harm’s way. I will make a motion to discharge to force a vote on it next week,” Khanna wrote on X on Wednesday.

He framed the legislation as an attempt to block a “disastrous war” with Iran that “would be catastrophic.”

“Like the votes before the Iraq war, this could be one of the most consequential votes in the history of Congress,” Khanna said. “Are we going to stop another endless dumb foreign war? Or will the neoconservatives mislead us once again?”

He said that lawmakers must go on the record about where they stand on a potential conflict.

“A war with Iran would be catastrophic. Iran is a complex society of 90 million people with significant air defenses and military capabilities. We also have 30-40k U.S. troops in the region who could be at risk of retaliation. Congress must do its job and stop this march to war,” Khanna said.

Once introduced, there will be a waiting period of 15 House session days before the lawmakers can force a vote on the resolution.

Similar legislation is pending in the Senate, introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY), but the two have not yet called it up for a vote. Kaine said last week he was waiting to see the trajectory of the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

Several similar resolutions were introduced by House lawmakers after the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes last June, but never came to votes.


The BBC is letting itself be used as a propaganda outlet for Iran’s regime
What was absent from this BBC report mattered as much as what was present. There was no one critical of the government in the piece. Not one. No dissident voice. No bereaved family member. No former prisoner. No student who has watched friends disappear. Instead, we were given the kind of “vox pops” you get when a regime is comfortable with the answers.

And that leads to the question that should have been asked on air, not muttered afterwards on social media. Were those interviews conducted under conditions of duress?

If they were, why were viewers not plainly told that the regime was controlling what could be said, and who could say it? Why was the coercion not made explicit as the central fact shaping the entire report?

And if they were not under duress, if there was genuine editorial freedom, real latitude to choose contributors and frame the story, then the question is even more significant: why on earth was the report so soft on a regime that has very recently been murdering its own citizens on the very same streets? Why did it not focus in detail on the recent crackdown that has cost thousands of innocent lives?

This is why Iranian dissidents have used the acid phrase “Ayatollah BBC”. It is not because they imagine a secret love affair between Broadcasting House and the clerics. It is because they recognise an outcome: the world’s most trusted broadcaster producing something that a theocratic, propaganda-driven regime could happily file under “normal life continues”.

This all feels uncomfortably familiar. In the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza war, it has been striking how rarely audiences hear voices plainly critical of Hamas, how often the governing force in Gaza is treated as a “normal” government, a reliable source of information rather than a genocidal terrorist group that triggered a war in which so many Palestinians have suffered.

Different conflict, same weakness: a reluctance to confront the most culpable actors head-on and hold them responsible.

The BBC will insist it is simply showing what it can, where it can. But there is a line between “limited access” and “useful output for the regime”. This primetime report, shared across social media, crossed it. The BBC must explain why.

In a country where dissent is met with bullets and hangings, “family festival” is not an observation. It is an erasure that comes dangerously close to propaganda.


Australia grants residency to daughter of sanctioned Iranian military adviser
Australia granted permanent residency to Hanieh Safavi, the daughter of Iranian Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a sanctioned adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a former senior figure in the Revolutionary Guards, despite repeated warnings to the government, The Australian reported on Wednesday.

Safavi arrived on a student visa in 2024 and later obtained a skilled independent visa. She is now registered as a provisional psychologist in Australia.

Her residency has drawn criticism from members of the Iranian diaspora and opposition lawmakers. Liberal Senator Dave Sharma wrote to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke that it was “concerning and potentially alarming that the daughter of a senior IRGC commander, on the Australian sanctions list, appears to be residing in Australia.”

An Iranian-Australian activist also wrote to authorities, saying: “(Ms Safavi) left her IRGC commander father behind and came to live freely in Australia. This is the injustice I cannot remain silent about.” He added that the issue was about ensuring the visa system “applies the same rigorous standards to everyone.”

A government spokesperson said all visa applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis and must satisfy all criteria before approval.


Tracy-Ann Oberman ‘honoured’ to receive MBE for work combating antisemitism
Jewish actor Tracy-Ann Oberman, collected her MBE today, characterising the occasion as a “moving and magical experience”.

Oberman, a JC contributor, was recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours list last year for services to Holocaust education and combating antisemitism.

The stage and screen actor, who recently starred in an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice set in 1936 as a Jewish matriarch battling the fascists of London, said she was “honoured” to be appointed an MBE.

“It was a really moving and really magical day,” she told the JC.

"I felt honoured to receive this for the work that I have done trying to combat antisemitism and trying to bring communities together and also, for working alongside the Holocaust Education Trust and others to never let people forget the horrors."

The actor, who has appeared in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner and recently made a dramatic return to EastEnders, reprising her role as Chrissie Watts, said she was “moved” by of the “support” for the Jewish community expressed by the King during the ceremony at Windsor Castle.

"This came from both the King and everyone at the palace that I met,” Oberman said.

“The King was really lovely. He said how important it was that the Holocaust is never forgotten, particularly these days when many of the last survivors are passing away. He also said how it is so important to keep the message alive.”
Nazis restored old manuscripts to hunt down Jewish ancestry, researcher finds
A British researcher has found that the Nazi regime in Germany engaged bookbinders and restorers to repair old records so that they could be combed for the names of people who had Jewish ancestors, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.

Morwenna Blewett, a researcher in conservation history at the University of Oxford, was investigating cultural heritage organizations established under the Nazis. She was puzzled at references to bookbinding and the restoration of church documents.

“I found in the archives official documents about engaging bookbinders, as well as letters between various officials talking about cleaning documents, in the hope that these records would represent ‘racial purity,'” she told the newspaper.

During the 1930s and 1940s, paper restorers and bookbinders repaired historic church and civil records to make them legible so that the Nazis could hunt for people with Jewish ancestors, Blewett explained.

“They were creating an accumulated record of who might potentially be killed – a kind of hitlist, really,” she said. “They went above and beyond to enforce their ‘racial’ registration of populations.”

During the Holocaust, Nazi Germany murdered six million European Jews who were hunted down in Germany and the countries it occupied.

The craftsmen restored documents recording marriages, births, conversions, and baptisms, enabling the Nazis to look for those who inherited “racial” status, Blewett said.

She based the research on letters and other material she found while scouring public institutions such as the German federal archives in Berlin.

One Nazi official was quoted as writing at the time that “German church books, which capture the smallest place and every little farmstead in their closely bound mass of more than a hundred thousand volumes, are by far the most important source for the German population history, the proof of descent and the genealogy.”
Sole Jewish lawmaker in Belgium faces backlash amid spat with U.S. over mohels
The long-simmering controversy over whether mohels can perform ritual circumcisions in Belgium broke dramatically into international public view this week, over a case involving the prosecution of three mohels.

The controversy, which touches on sensitive religious, legal and diplomatic matters, has ensnared the only Jewish lawmaker in Belgium, Michael Freilich, as well as the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, who accused the country of antisemitism over the legal action. And it stretches from Antwerp, home to a large Orthodox Jewish community, to Washington, to Jerusalem, where Israel’s foreign minister has weighed in.

In an X post on Monday addressed to Belgian Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke:, White wrote: “You must make a legal provision to allow Jewish religious MOHELS to perform their duties here in Belgium. It’s done in all civilized counties as legal procedure. … Stop this unacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here.” He then received a reprimand from Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot, saying White’s interference in a judicial matter was a breach of diplomatic norms.

But much of the fallout landed on Freilich, who is Orthodox. It comes after Belgian police arrested the mohels, Jewish religious authorities who conduct circumcisions, during a series of raids last May in Antwerp, home to a large Orthodox Jewish community. The individuals have been charged with performing a medical procedure without a license.

While Brussels has not specifically outlawed ritual circumcision, it requires a doctor to perform the procedure. There are no mohels who are also doctors in Belgium, a source close to Freilich told Jewish Insider, and Jewish law requires a mohel to be Jewish. Muslims have no requirement for ritual circumcision to be performed by a coreligionist.

Freilich has become the target of accusations from his fellow lawmakers, in light of a recent interview to a Yiddish-language newspaper Der Yid, in which he recounted raising the matter at a roundtable discussion with members of Congress during a visit to Washington.


British woman who removed Israeli hostage poster from memorial is convicted of theft
A British woman who is married to a Jewish anti-Zionist activist has been convicted of theft in connection with a 2024 incident in which she removed an Israeli hostage poster and threw it in the trash.

Fiona Monro, 58, of Brighton, England, was found guilty of theft, but not convicted of criminal damage in charges stemming from a February 2024 incident in which she took a large laminated poster of Israeli hostage Tsachi Idan that was hanging in a memorial in a public park and disposed of it.

A relative of Idan who lives in a neighboring town, Hove, returned the poster to the memorial site after Monro threw it away. A week later, Monro also wrote the phrase “Pray for the 30,000 murdered Palestinians” on the memorial but was acquitted of charges related to the vandalism, according to Brighton and Hove News.

The incident came at a time when Israeli hostage posters were being vandalized frequently by activists across the globe who said they were protesting the war in Gaza. The war began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

During the assault, gunmen stormed the Idan home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, shooting dead the oldest daughter, Maayan, in front of her father. A video, filmed by the terrorists and circulated on social media, showed gunmen standing over the rest of the family as they huddled on the floor of their home. Idan was eventually abducted and killed in Hamas captivity, and his remains were returned to Israel a year ago during a negotiated ceasefire.

“This crime was one out of 50 times the memorial was vandalized and it took two years to get justice. But it is possible to get a win,” Heidi Bachram, one of the memorial’s organizers, told the Jewish News following Monro’s conviction. “We cannot let hateful people get away with attacking us.”


Nissim Black “These People Have NO IDEA What Israel Actually Is…”
What happens when a gangster rapper at the peak of his career walks away from fame to chase God and end up finding Judaism in Jerusalem? Nissim Black opens up about his wild spiritual journey, from growing up around gangs and hip-hop in Seattle, to Christianity saving his life, to ultimately discovering the unbreakable bond between God and the Jewish people. Viewers will learn how faith transformed his music, why he “retired” at the height of success and how Israel became not just a destination, but home. It’s raw, funny, deeply moving and will leave you thinking about purpose, identity and what it really means to live authentically.

CHAPTERS
00:00 – From rap to redemption: Nissim’s shocking turning point
03:10 – Growing up in Seattle’s hip-hop and street world
07:05 – How Christianity saved his life—but wasn’t the final stop
11:40 – The Bible questions that pulled him toward Judaism
16:30 – Searching through Torah, Quran, and “Rabbi Google”
21:45 – Walking away from music at the peak of fame
27:10 – Judaism’s surprising relationship with music and purpose
32:20 – Making music from vulnerability: “A Million Years”
38:00 – Aliyah and landing in Israel as a viral sensation
43:50 – Podcasting, activism, and defending Israel in today’s world
50:20 – Raising kids in Israel: values, identity, and hope for the future




Eli Sharabi’s ‘Hostage’ memoir named Jewish book of the year
Eli Sharabi’s memoir “Hostage,” recounting his experience in Hamas captivity after the 7 October 2023 attack, has been named Book of the Year by the National Jewish Book Awards, organisers announced Wednesday.

The awards, presented by the Jewish Book Council and considered among the most prestigious honors in Jewish literature, recognise outstanding English-language books of Jewish interest across dozens of categories. Founded in 1950, the program is the longest-running North American awards initiative devoted to Jewish books.

Sharabi’s memoir, which details his abduction from Kibbutz Be’eri and the more than year he spent in captivity, became a bestseller in Israel and was later released in English in the United States.

“This recognition means so much to me, not only personally, but for the memory of my family and all those we lost,” Sharabi said in a statement. “’Hostage’ is my testimony, a story of my survival, written so others could bear witness. I hope it helps ensure that what happened is never forg


WWII soldier who refused to identify Jewish POWs to receive Medal of Honor
Roddie Edmonds never spoke about his time in a German prisoner of war camp. This week, his family learned he’ll soon receive the nation’s highest valor award for an act of heroism in which he never fired a shot.

A master sergeant thrust into command of 1,200 POWs in a German camp, Edmonds will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, his family confirmed to Task & Purpose. The award honors a moment, not of direct combat action, but of Edmonds’ refusal to identify Jewish soldiers in the camp, instead daring a German commander to execute him.

Ordered by the camp commander to hand over the Jewish soldiers under his command, Edmonds instead called a full formation of American prisoners and declared, “We are all Jews.”

The German major pulled his Luger pistol and held it to Edmonds’ head, threatening to shoot him on the spot if he did not call the Jewish troops forward.

Edmonds held his ground.

“Major, you can shoot me, you can shoot all of us, but we know who you are,” he replied, according to a noncommissioned officer who stood beside him during the confrontation — and who, unknown to the Germans, was himself Jewish. “This war is almost over and you’ll be a war criminal.”

The German officer put his pistol away and left. The camp authorities never again tried to segregate the Americans.

Edmonds died in 1985 in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. According to his son, Christopher Edmonds, he never told his family about his time as the ranking NCO for over 100 days in the camp, which was called Stalag IX-A.

But the men who came home because of him never forgot him.

“Roddie was incredible,” said Paul Stern, one of four Jewish senior NCOs inside Stalag IX-A who told his story in interviews and a 2016 documentary. “He never really got his recognition except among us.”

A story untold for 40 years
Christopher Edmonds told Task & Purpose that President Donald Trump called him on Monday to confirm that his father would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor. An official at the White House also confirmed to Task & Purpose that the Medal had been approved.

Christopher Edmonds only learned of his father’s role at Stalag IX-A after his death. Christopher’s mother, Mary Ann, gave him his father’s diary, which he’d kept in the camp.

After his daughter used the diary for a school project, contacting some of the men listed in it, Edmonds began to recognize what his father had done. He began traveling across the country to meet many of the men who had been in Stalag IX-A.

The Jewish soldiers he met said they owed their lives to Roddie’s bravery.

Edmonds joins roughly a dozen of Medal of Honor recipients recognized for resistance in prison camps. Tibor Rubin, a Holocaust survivor, was captured in the Korean War and nursed at least 40 POWs. In Vietnam, Army Captain Humbert “Rocky” Versace, Air Force Captain Lance Sijan and Navy Admiral James Stockdale all received the Medal for fierce resistance and escape attempts.

In 2015, Edmonds’ heroism was recognized by the nation of Israel with one of its highest awards. Yad Vashem, Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, named Edmonds among “The Righteous Among The Nations,” a title for individuals who “mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values, risking their lives to save Jews” during the Holocaust.

Edmonds is one of just five Americans to receive the title.




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

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