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Wednesday, March 11, 2026

03/11 Links Pt2: Zionism for Everyone; Documentary: How the Bondi Beach terror attack unfolded; IDF Military Funeral in Golan Druze Town Signals Historic Shift

From Ian:

Alana Newhouse: Zionism for Everyone
How do people change?

Some change involves things that happen to us, which isn’t what interests me. I’m curious about what happens, individually and to societies, when people face an unhappy reality—however it came to be—and decide to change what looks, at least at that moment, to be their fate.

In his 2015 novel, Submission, Michel Houellebecq sketches a portrait of a near-future France, in which an Islamic party allies with the Socialists to take over the country. The story follows a literature professor faced with a decision to convert to Islam for career advancement, as the country’s social and political landscape is transformed by Sharia law. His own disillusionment is heightened by his Jewish girlfriend’s decision to escape the Islamization of France by moving to the Jewish state. He almost goes with her but then doesn’t, uttering the book’s now-famous line: “There is no Israel for me.”

I remember snagging on that sentiment the first time I read it. I could see why a disgruntled non-Jewish academic might hesitate to make aliyah, but to the extent that Houellebecq’s fictional portrayal contained a commentary on the real world, the conclusion felt wrong. There quite clearly is, or could be, an Israel for this person. It’s France, if it could just get off the course it’s on.

This is hardly impossible. In fact, throughout history, humans have changed the way they organized or conceived of themselves in order to take advantage of new opportunities or to address new challenges or threats. Such moments of inflection are often brought about by advances in technology, from the invention of the wheel, to the building of roads, to the invention of the printing press, to time- and space-shrinking inventions like the telegraph and the radio, which in turn bring about large changes in the way human beings see themselves and envision their relationship to some large community—and which also introduce new dangers.

We are in one such moment.

The robots are coming, people. There are artificial wombs. We are genetically editing out diseases that have terrorized humanity throughout recorded history, heading to Mars, fighting wars with drones, rewilding parts of nature, and raising extinct animals from the dead (or something).

Are these developments good or bad? Who knows! That’s the thing about new inventions; their effects are—always, entirely—dictated by how humans interact with them.

In our case, the alterations happening to the shape of human life are already dwarfing those brought about by any other transformative age. The digital technologies emerging today are incredibly powerful; like unbacked stallions, they’ll be able to be used, for pleasure and profit, by secure, skilled, intentional humans. But they will also require weak ones to run on. (“This is definitely not a technology where everyone wins,” in the words of Palantir’s Alex Karp.) Whether or not we’re conscious of it, we’re all facing a future in which some people will enjoy the possibility of safe, ambitious, beautiful human lives, and others will become robot fuel and zombie food. It’s scary and confusing, and every day gets more so.

At just this wild moment, filled with questions so incredible they’re effectively spiritual—at what point does a genetically edited person become equivalent to a machine? are rocks animate?!—the world suddenly entered a vortex where, instead of engaging on these many phenomenally interesting and challenging topics, all anyone can talk about is … Zionism.
In Tehran he fooled the regime, in Israel he built an empire. Now he prays for a new Iran
Like all young men in Iran, when Roni Aynsaz graduated from high school, he was required to serve in the military.

That’s when Aynsaz’s story took its first Hollywood-esque turn.

Today, he’s a successful 52-year-old businessman and the co-owner of the SCOOP shoe chain with dozens of stores across Israel. But before his conscription, young Aynsaz was a member of Tehran’s small Jewish community and, as such, destined for low-level positions, either in the military or in the civil service.

Instead, Aynsaz made a decision that would change the course of his life and many others’: When presented with the form to declare his religion, he circled “Muslim” instead of “Jewish.”

He soon found himself working in the Islamic Republic’s legal system under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, often helping fellow Jews under investigation by removing their files.

Eventually, he was discovered and fled the country to establish himself in Israel, founding SCOOP and additional businesses.

His early experience in subterfuge recently came in handy. Aynsaz has become a sort of Israeli celebrity as the winner of the Israeli version of the reality TV series “The Traitors,” which aired on Channel 12 last spring.

More than 30 years after fleeing Iran, he continues to maintain close ties with its people, including family and friends, he told The Times of Israel in a phone interview against the backdrop of the war in Iran.

“For the people in Iran, the war is very difficult,” Aynsaz said. “On the one hand, they are happy that the government might fall; on the other, people are sad for those who are getting killed in the war, because there are also innocents who are dying.”

“I will also tell you that people are angry at [US President Donald] Trump, because he said he wants someone from within Iran [to lead the country] and not Reza Pahlavi,” he added, referring to the exiled son of the last shah, who is a popular figure among many Iranians who oppose the regime.
IDF Military Funeral in Golan Druze Town Signals Historic Shift
For decades, the community center in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights was covered with a huge Syrian flag. This week, that flag was nowhere to be seen. The hundreds who filled the community center came to console the family of Master Sgt. Maher Khatar, a native of the town and an IDF combat soldier, who was killed in Lebanon.

In the 1980s, those few Golan Druze with Israeli ID cards were victims of a religious and social boycott, considered to have betrayed the Syrian nation. Dr. Ramzi Halabi, from the Israeli Druze town of Daliat al-Carmel, said this moment symbolizes the breaking of the last barriers between the residents of the Druze villages in the Golan and the State of Israel. "The Druze in Israel...have long since defined ourselves first of all as Israelis, and hope that in the next stage the identification with Israel will reach the Golan Heights."

Dr. Salim Barik, a political scientist who studies the Druze, said the process of the Israelization of the Druze in the Golan began with the outbreak of the civil war in Syria. "It started in 2011 when people said, 'Syria is falling apart, so it's clear we won't return to Syria and it won't be able to liberate the Golan Heights. The story is over - we're Israelis, let's become part of Israel.'"

"What strengthened this trend most was the massacre in Sweida.... About 800 Druze were slaughtered there, thousands were wounded and displaced, and villages were torched. Today there's a genuine fear of Muslims."

Sheikh Zahir al-Din said, "Israel stood by our side in Sweida when accursed people massacred our brothers, and we'll never forget that. I asked someone here who was pro-Syrian how he agreed to let his son enlist in the IDF. He replied: 'At the time, we had children and relatives in the Syrian army. Now there aren't any, and if my son enlists he'll fight ISIS, and I'm very pleased about that.'"


Chief Rabbi meets Bondi massacre hero during second community visit to Australia
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis met one of the heroes of the December 2025 Bondi Beach massacre, during his second trip in three months to support the Australian Jewish community.

Forty-four year old Muslim shopkeeper Ahmed al Ahmed was shot five times as he wrestled a gun from one of two terrorists during the deadly Chanukah party assault on Sunday 14 December, later saying he had acted out of “humanity”.

Now described as Australia’s worst modern terrorist attack, fifteen people were killed and more than 40 injured during the Bondi beach assault.

Chief Rabbi Mirvis was unable to thank Ahmed in person during his initial solidarity visit to Australia in December 2025 as the Syrian born businessman was undergoing surgery at that time.

This week, however, sharing a picture on social media of the two men finally shaking hands, Chief Rabbi Mirvis said: “A truly remarkable hero! Today I was privileged to spend time with a most amazing human being – Ahmed al Ahmed, whose extraordinary bravery saved numerous lives during the Bondi Beach terror attack. His courage is a beacon of light to our entire fragile world!”
Former Australian spy chief steps down from royal commission on Jew-hatred
Former Australian intelligence chief Dennis Richardson has stepped down from his advisory role in a royal commission investigating antisemitism and the deadly terrorist attack in Sydney.

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, led by former High Court justice Virginia Bell, was established in January following the antisemitic terrorist attack at a Chanukah event at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, 2025.

Bell stated on Wednesday that Richardson had been “uniquely well placed” to advise the commission on what information should be sought from Australia’s intelligence and security agencies to assess their preparedness for, and response to, the attack. She thanked Richardson “for the valuable contribution he has made to the Commission.”

Richardson previously served as director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, secretary of the Department of Defence and Australia’s ambassador to the United States. He was initially appointed to conduct a rapid review of the response by intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, a task later incorporated into the broader royal commission.

Bell stated that the senior members of Richardson’s team—Tony Sheehan, a former Commonwealth counterterrorism coordinator and deputy director-general of ASIO, and Peter Baxter, a former deputy secretary at the Department of Defence and director-general of AusAID—will remain with the commission to help prepare its interim report.

The commission is expected to deliver that report by April 30, with a final report due before the first anniversary of the attack.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: How the Bondi Beach terror attack unfolded
Sky News host Sharri Markson uncovers the story of the Bondi terror attack, piecing together a chilling timeline of events and the critical warning signs that were missed before tragedy struck.


Nicholas James Alexander jailed over antisemitic attacks across Sydney
A man who played a key role in orchestrating a series of antisemitic attacks across Sydney, including the firebombing of a childcare centre, has been sentenced to a maximum five years in prison.

Nicholas James Alexander pleaded guilty in December to six charges of being an accessory before the fact and one count of knowingly directing a criminal group over the string of attacks, which took place in January 2025.

Prosecutors had told the court that between late 2024 and 2025, Alexander, 32, had hired criminals on behalf of an unknown group overseas, who were aiming to "divide the Jewish and Arab communities" in Australia.

The court heard he had ordered them to scrawl antisemitic slogans on cars and properties at Queens Park, spray swastikas on Newtown Synagogue and set cars alight outside a home that previously belonged to the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin.

Alexander was arrested by Strike Force Pearl in March 2025.

In sentencing on Wednesday, Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson said Alexander had played a "key role" in commissioning and organising the crimes.

The court heard that included organising stolen cars or stolen number plates to be used in the attacks, issuing instructions about how to make and use Molotov cocktails, coordinating drop-off locations, passing on instructions and telling his co-accused what to do.

She said signal messages between Alexander and his co-accused which were tendered in evidence showed he knew what the fallout of his actions would be.

"It was clear from the messages that Mr Alexander and his co-accused knew that the preparations … were part of organised activity that targeted the Sydney Jewish community in arson attacks … and was a deliberate tactic to divide the Arab and Jewish communities to further the aims of the larger criminal group overseas," she said.
Primary school pupil ‘celebrated’ Bondi terror attack
An alleged antisemitic incident involving an Australian primary school pupil who “celebrated” the deaths of victims of the Bondi terror attack has been raised in parliament.

The claim emerged during a New South Wales budget estimates hearing on Wednesday, where independent Sydney MP Tania Mihailuk said the incident was one of “at least 100 antisemitic incidents” reported across NSW public schools since early 2024.

According to Mihailuk, the alleged incident took place at Granville South Public School in western Sydney following the Bondi Beach attack and was reported to the Department of Education’s incident hotline.

During the hearing, Mihailuk asked Murat Dizdar, Secretary of the NSW Department of Education, whether he had been informed.

“I understand a notification was made… were you aware of that?” she asked.
Seth Mandel: Germany’s Chancellor Shows the Advantage of Moral Clarity
In a different address, Merz was heckled by anti-Zionist protesters. He was unfazed: “The federal government I lead will never leave any doubt about where we stand. We stand with Israel.” After being interrupted again, he shot back: “Let me tell you one thing. I will do everything in my power to combat anti-Semitism in the Federal Republic of Germany wherever it occurs, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that this country remains a country where Jews can move about freely and openly.” He then pointed to a group holding a pro-Palestine poster and said: “And if those for whom you’re holding up this banner lay down their weapons, then the conflict will be over within 24 hours, ladies and gentlemen. That is the root cause and not the state of Israel, which is fighting for its existence and its right to live in freedom.”

There is, to be fair, a bit of intellectual consistency to Spain’s handling of its relations with Israel, at least as compared to France and the UK. Spain understands that Hamas and Iran are one. (Germany understands this as well.) That these are set pieces in a larger war. That there is something funny about running interference for Hamas and then denouncing Iran.

In fact, to take it one step further, the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran are legitimate responses to October 7, when Iran’s subsidiary invaded Israel and carried out the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Those attacks included the murder of dozens of Americans. Another Iranian proxy then killed three U.S. service members in Jordan.

And yet, France and the UK opposed Israel’s counteroffensive against those who carried out the massacre but are more supportive of strikes against those who financed and armed the ones who carried out the massacre.

Germany doesn’t have that problem, because under its current government Berlin has remained morally consistent: The terrorists and their nuke-pursuing masters are the bad guys. Sometimes Israeli actions come in for criticism from Merz, but never does he abandon the alliance of democracies for the axis of authoritarians who are currently also trying to smash up Europe with Iranian missiles. Moral clarity has the advantage of being easy to explain, even to pro-Palestinian protesters.
Brendan O'Neill: Sally Rooney’s God complex has just reached a terrifying level
Then the Marie Antoinette of Palestine solidarity did something extraordinary – she unwittingly confirmed that “Palestine” is now little more than a moral prop in the lives of bored middle-class millennials.

She told her fawning audience that Palestine solidarity is the great cause of our time because: “What else… can give us a reason to go on, to fend off despair, to live with ourselves, and to fight for our future?”

Standing with Palestine is the only thing that can “make our lives endurable”, she said.

This is a staggering admission. Rooney has pulled back the curtain – or keffiyeh, perhaps – on the depthless vanity of Palestine activism.

She inadvertently exposed that today’s hip cult of Israelophobia is as much about liberating moneyed Western Leftists from the hell of historical boredom as it is about assisting the Palestinian people.

It is self-reverence masquerading as solidarity. They wear Arab headgear and forcefield their lives from the unholy wares of the Jewish State, not because it will have any tangible impact in the Middle East, but in order to make a spectacle of their own virtue.

As Rooney says, it helps them “fend off despair”. It gives them a reason “to go on”. They’re so vain they think this war is about them.

Perhaps the most galling thing in Rooney’s self-flattering homily was her depiction of Palestine activism as a plucky stand against the “forces” of capitalism.

Please. Hating Israel is the great dinner-party prejudice of our time. It’s the moral glue of the cultural establishment. You’re no one in these circles if you don’t drape yourself in the keffiyeh and occasionally forswear brunch in order to rub shoulders with radical Islamists yelling “Globalise the Intifada”.

Rooney thought she was making yet another peacock-like display of her own ethical rectitude. In truth, she gave us a glimpse into the delusional narcissism that fuels “Palestine solidarity”.
There is nothing new about Irish anti-Semitism, but the cancer is spreading
Alan Shatter – brilliant, articulate, icily self-possessed – spent 30 years as a Fine Gael TD and crowned his career as minister for justice and equality.

But during the 1995 referendum to legalise divorce, Shatter and another Jewish minister, Mervyn Taylor, were assailed by a conservative Catholic campaign group: how could either have “full understanding of Christian marriage”?

In 2011, some whispered of Shatter’s “undue influence over government”. The Irish Independent detailed what it was pleased to describe as his “property empire” and in 2014 he was forced from office after the Guerin Report made baseless claims about his handling of a raucous police controversy.

Shatter – condemned without a hearing – had been a particular target of Mick Wallace, then an Independent TD, who shared on social media such claims that Jews control the media, were behind the Sept 11 attacks and that Jewishness itself was a “tribal sociopathy”.

The Dáil would be a “sham”, Wallace shrieked at the justice minister in February 2014, if Shatter survived in his position. “Minister, you look up here at us and you say: ‘How dare those people with their long hair and raggy jeans have the audacity to challenge you?’”

Shatter was later vindicated by the O’Higgins Report. But Fine Gael leaders Enda Kenny and Leo Varadkar left him twisting in the wind and Shatter lost his Dublin South seat in the 2016 election. No Jew has since been returned to Dáil Éireann. Wallace, raggy jeans and all, was only booted out of professional politics in 2024.

Writing earlier this year for the Jerusalem Journal, Shatter deftly arraigned his country’s Establishment for its institutional capture by normalised anti-Semitism – recognition of Palestine as a state and striking such outrageous attitudes that Israel, in December 2024, closed its Dublin embassy.

“Ireland’s political class has continued reflexively to call for a two-state ‘solution’ while ignoring Hamas’s responsibility and agency. Palestinians and their divided, incompetent, and corrupt leadership are infantilised and absolved of responsibility … With few exceptions, Israel is depicted as the aggressor and rarely as a state defending its citizens in a war it did not initiate…”

Jewish students at Trinity College Dublin are intimidated. Visitors in 2024 to University College Dublin were hailed by a sign, “Zionist Free Zone”. A pub in Bundoran – a Donegal resort of matchless vulgarity – is one of many to have banned “all Zionists”.

At every turn, the Palestinian flag flutters; in every hip Dublin eatery, folk preen in keffiyehs. Since the outrage of October 2023, there have been weekly marches in Cork, Dublin and elsewhere, clamouring for the elimination of Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, the only land in the region with full rights for women and gay people; the only country where Arabs actually get to vote.
After JNS query, US Justice Dept amends statement, says ‘not recognizing Palestine as a country’
In response to a query from JNS, the U.S. Justice Department amended a press release on Wednesday that refers to “Palestine” as a country.

The department added an asterisk and affixed a disclaimer that “this designation shall not be construed as recognition of a state of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the member states on this issue.”

Matthew Nies, a public affairs specialist at the Justice Department, told JNS that the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation drafted the press release. Europol, which led the international effort, added the same disclaimer to its release.

“The DOJ is not recognizing Palestine as a country,” Nies told JNS. “Europol led the operation and drafted the press release. We have updated our press release to include a disclaimer.”

The release is about a multinational operation against environmental crime and illegal waste trafficking, activities that authorities said are increasingly tied to organized crime networks. The U.S. Justice Department was on the steering committee of the effort and helped design and plan the operation, it said.


An Open Letter to First Lady of New York City
Dear Ms. Rama Duwaji,

You publicly liked social media posts describing the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas as “collective liberation.” You also placed a heart next to an Instagram post claiming that the reports of mass rapes on Oct. 7 were a “hoax.”

For the past two and a half years, I have been treating survivors of October 7, helping them slowly rebuild shattered lives and broken nervous systems. Some were suicidal. Others could barely speak. Some of the people sitting across from me in therapy had witnessed rapes and executions so brutal that their nervous systems simply shut down. Words stopped working.

These people did not simply survive war. They survived mass and socially sanctioned sadism. Subsequent investigations by journalists, forensic teams and international bodies documented widespread sexual violence that day. Families were burned alive. Festival goers hunted down, raped and then executed.

Hamas terrorists documented much of the violence themselves: one attacker used a victim’s phone to call his parents and brag that he had killed 10 Jews with his own hands; and you surely saw the footage of Shani Louk, whose body Hamas fighters paraded through Gaza in the back of a truck while crowds spat and celebrated. Survivors of the Nova festival have also described militants laughing as they hunted festivalgoers hiding in the fields. These were not acts carried out in secrecy. They were recorded, boasted about and, in some cases, carried out with visible pleasure.

These were not only acts of murder. They were staged performances of cruelty. This was not violence used as a means to an end. It was violence relished for its own sake. That is the socially sanctioned mass sadism my patients are still haunted by, superimposed on everything they see.

Once that sadism becomes undeniable, the narrative has a problem. Mass murder can still be reframed as resistance. Rape cannot. It exposes the cruelty too clearly, so it has to be denied.
Mahmoud Khalil to speak at South by Southwest festival
Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil is scheduled to speak at this week’s annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.

Khalil will participate in a conversation “on the cost of dissent,” with The Guardian editor Betsy Reed and Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center For Constitutional Rights who was a lawyer for Khalil in his deportation proceedings, on March 15, according to the SXSW schedule. The weeklong festival convenes around 300,000 guests, including film and media professionals, executives and politicians to discuss culture, technology and innovation each March.

“Khalil joins The Guardian for an unflinching conversation on his ordeal, the system that tried to silence him, and the personal and political stakes of resistance,” SXSW’s website states.

At Columbia, Khalil was a key organizer of the anti-Israel encampment in April 2024, a two week demonstration in the center of campus during Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstration included several incidents of assault on Jewish students. Protesters used threatening and antisemitic slogans, including, “Go back to Poland”; signs with the Hamas symbol and the words “I’m with them”; and chants calling for Hamas attacks on Tel Aviv.

Khalil was a lead negotiator with the administration in negotiating to end the encampment, where he demanded the university sever ties with Israeli institutions and grant amnesty for students involved in the encampment.

A former Columbia graduate student who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months pending deportation proceedings. A federal appeals court ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested. One month after his release, Khalil repeatedly declined to condemn Hamas in a CNN interview.


Jonathan Sacerdoti: The Al-Quds march should have been banned years ago
Supporters of the march pretended it was a family-friendly protest in support of ‘Palestinian rights’. Yet the political character of the event was never ambiguous. Its ideological origin lay in the revolutionary doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its imagery and slogans repeatedly echoed that lineage. In a way, that does indeed perfectly reflect the mainstream Palestinian ideology and cause.

The Iranian regime has not exactly been subtle about its ambitions. Tehran funds and arms terrorist proxies across the Middle East. Its leadership openly calls for Israel’s elimination. It conducts influence operations abroad and intimidation campaigns against dissidents. British security services have repeatedly warned of Iranian plots and hostile activity inside the United Kingdom. None of this came to light this week. The regime did not wake up this year and decide to become a threat. Nor did the Al-Quds march suddenly become problematic.

For 40 years London hosted an annual demonstration whose ideological roots lay in a revolutionary state openly hostile to Western democracies and openly committed to Israel’s destruction. This raises an obvious question: why now? The ideology behind the march has not changed. The symbolism has not changed. The Iranian regime’s hostility towards Israel and Western democracies has not changed. The warnings from Jewish communities about the atmosphere created by the event have not changed either.

What has changed is that thanks to the Israeli and US military action in Iran, and thanks to over two solid years of open warfare on Israel by Iran and its regional proxies, the geopolitical climate has grown so volatile that the political cost of inaction has become impossible to ignore. In other words, Britain has acted when the problem has already metastasised, making the overall disease much harder to eliminate completely.

The ban on the Al-Quds march, therefore, deserves two judgements at once: it is correct, and it is an indictment. Correct because no society with a scrap of self respect should allow its streets to be used as a parade ground for movements celebrating violent proxies and normalising anti-Semitic and anti-Western rhetoric. An indictment because it took four decades for the British state to reach a conclusion that was obvious long ago.

Yet only now has Britain acted – a perfunctory and performative gesture so late it almost makes it look weaker. Whether the damage already done can be reversed is another question entirely.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: Al-Quds Day organiser compares Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Nelson Mandela
Faisal Bodi, a spokesman for the Islamic Human Rights Commission which helps organise the now forbidden annual al-Quds Day march in London, insisted that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a man of “principle and integrity”. He was asked on the BBC if he’d hold a picture of Khamenei, and he replied “Happily. I would rather hold a picture of the Ayatollah than Keir Starmer or Donald Trump.


UK bans pro-Iran, anti-Israel Al Quds Day march, but static demonstration permitted
The UK government has banned a planned annual pro-Iran, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel march organized for Sunday by a group supportive of the Iranian regime, while police said there was no law to prevent a static demonstration being held.

Al Quds Day, named after the Arabic name for Jerusalem and marked on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, originated in Iran and has been held annually since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Marches are held in cities worldwide.

In a statement, police noted that previous marches in London have seen arrests for support for terror organizations and antisemitic hate crimes, but said the ban this year was due to the possibility of “extreme tensions” with counter-protesters, and the threat posed by Iran.

British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said late Tuesday she had approved the rare police request to prevent “serious public disorder” if the Al-Quds Day march and counter-protests had gone ahead in London on Sunday.

It is the first time a protest march has been banned since 2012 but a stationary protest will be permitted, according to London’s Metropolitan police.

Mahmood said she was “satisfied” a ban on the march was “necessary” due to “the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.”


Universities and US Ed Department conceal the purpose of $12.1 billion in Arab funding
Washington talks endlessly about foreign influence in American institutions. Yet when it comes to billions of dollars flowing from the Middle East into universities and colleges in the United States, the federal government still cannot—or will not—tell the public how the money is being used.

The Trump administration promised tougher enforcement of foreign-funding disclosure laws and greater transparency after years in which the Biden administration allowed reporting requirements to languish while antisemitism surged on campus. Enforcement has improved. Transparency has not.

According to the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise’s updated analysis of the U.S. Department of Education’s latest foreign-gift report, covering 1986 through Dec. 16, 2025, 14,427 donations totaling $16.2 billion from 14 Arab countries and the Palestinian territories were made to 294 U.S. universities—about one-quarter of the $67.6 billion American schools received from all foreign sources.

The striking figure, however, isn’t the total. It’s the secrecy. Nearly three-quarters of Arab funding—about $12.1 billion—lists no stated purpose. Americans have no idea what it bought, funded or influenced.

Three governments dominate: Qatar ($7.7 billion), Saudi Arabia ($4.2 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($1.8 billion), together accounting for 85% of all Arab donations. Qatar alone has contributed roughly $3 billion more to American universities than Germany, Britain or China (minus Hong Kong, which adds $2 billion to its total). Yet of Qatar’s 1,260 recorded contributions, only 144—a mere 11%—worth $1.7 billion, include any description. Nearly $6 billion from a regime that funds Al Jazeera, hosts Hamas leadership and bankrolls Islamist organizations globally remains unexplained in official U.S. records.

The largest single gift highlights the problem. A $936 million donation to Carnegie Mellon University appears without explanation in federal disclosures, though outside reporting shows it funded the school’s campus in Doha. Similar nine-figure gifts largely support American satellite campuses in Qatar, including Weill Cornell Medicine and Texas A&M’s now-shuttering Doha program. Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown together have accepted more than $3 billion in Arab funding, yet federal reporting fails to specify how a single dollar is used.
Former Columbia law dean says Jewish students treated differently on campus
In trying to strike a balance between free expression and anti-discrimination, universities must do a better job at providing a consistent standard, David Schizer, the former dean of Columbia Law School, said during his keynote address at the fifth annual “Law and Antisemitism” conference at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law.

Many universities have not established any consistent procedures to address Jewish and Israeli students’ complaints about harassment following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, argued Schizer. The law professor served as co-chair of the university’s task force on antisemitism, which was established in response to increased antisemitism on the New York City campus after Oct. 7.

Schizer recommended that universities adopt a universal rule. “The best way to make a decision about one group is with a principle that works for all groups,” he said.

“The rules need to be the same for everyone,” he continued. “This means that if a university takes a step to shield Black or female students from harassment, the university needs to take a comparable step to protect Jewish and Israeli students, and vice versa. Unfortunately, universities have not always been consistent … but after Oct. 7, when Jewish and Israeli students complained, the response was different. Instead of deferring, universities invoked free speech principles. Likewise, instead of condemning this offensive speech, many universities adopted institutional neutrality.”

Schizer told attendees — about 200 practicing attorneys and legal scholars — that inconsistent treatment is not only “wrong,” but “also illegal.”

“Indeed, the most basic way to violate civil rights laws is to single out a protected class for different treatment,” he said.

The two-day conference, which concluded on Monday evening, was renamed this year from “Law vs. Antisemitism” to “Law and Antisemitism.” The change, which was one of several according to organizers, came following heavy criticism of last year’s event. The 2025 conference was held at UCLA and featured several speakers tied to anti-Zionist groups, Jewish Insider was first to report.

Rona Kaufman, the chair of this year’s conference and a participant for the past two years, told JI that this year was “from my perspective, a brand-new conference.”
Chicago Teachers Union backs ‘Hands Off Iran and Lebanon’ protest
The Chicago Teachers Union promoted and sponsored a protest in downtown Chicago on March 7 titled “Hands Off Iran and Lebanon,” joining a broad list of activist organizations.

The event, held at Water Tower Park on Michigan Avenue, was organized by groups including the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Palestinian Youth Movement, BDS Chicago, CAIR-Chicago and the Illinois Green Party, among others. Promotional material for the rally listed the Chicago Teachers Union among the sponsors.

One photo from the demonstration showed a protest sign referencing the song “Boom Boom Tel Aviv,” which celebrates Iranian missiles falling on Israeli civilians.

Raymond Lopez, a Democratic alderman for Chicago’s 15th Ward, said the Chicago Police Department and Department of Transportation should not have authorized permits for such “illegal hate-fueled demonstrations.”

“This is exactly the antisemitic hate now outlawed in the Human Rights Ordinance,” Lopez said. “Even if the mayor doesn’t, you are required to enforce the law.”

Josh Weiner, chief strategy officer at the North American Values Institute, who leads its operations in the Chicago area, told JNS: “It is alarming how focused CTU is on activism that has nothing to do with the terrible performance of students in Chicago schools, especially when they are associating with people and groups who are actively calling for the erasure of Israel, and in this case, the bombing of Tel Aviv.”

He noted that “the company they are keeping says about their priorities, which clearly has little to do with the American students and teachers in Chicago classrooms.”


Labour is taking inspiration from the Taliban
Critics might point out that drawing attention to this advice is just ‘fearmongering’ from the usual right-wing suspects. They will say that schools are simply being ‘mindful’ of the multicultural nature of 21st-century England. Of course, no student would be punished for his blasphemous doodlings, they insist.

But this would be to ignore the ways in which blaspheming against Islam is already severely punished in Britain today. In recent years, we have seen just how seriously schools take the concerns of Islamic fundamentalists when rumours of blasphemy get about. Most notoriously, there was the teacher from Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire in 2021, which happens to be located in the Kirklees council boundary. After showing pupils a cartoon of the Muhammed in a religious-studies lesson, he was first suspended by his school and then forced into hiding following death threats from Islamists. In 2023, four students at Kettlethorpe High School in West Yorkshire were suspended for ‘desecrating’ the Koran. One of them had read passages from the holy book before a friend knocked it out of his hands on to the ground, where it got scuffed.

The response to both of these incidents was telling. If you removed the name and location of the schools, you would assume these events happened in Iran or Afghanistan. The schools immediately acted on the demands of those demanding ‘punishment’ for the teacher and the students. That Britain is supposed to be a secular country, where blasphemy laws were abolished long ago, didn’t cross school leaders’ minds. One of the parents of the Kettlethorpe children was even forced into a humiliating public apology, where she pleaded with Islamists not to harm her son. The police ignored the death threats sent to the child, but made sure to record his scuffing of the Islamic holy text as a non-crime hate incident.

The new guidance confirms that the Islamic bigots have won. Their rules – their censorious worldview – now reigns supreme in the classroom.

And this same spirit of appeasement now permeates public life, too. Indeed, just this week, the Labour government formally adopted its definition of ‘anti-Muslim hostility’. As has been pointed out on spiked, hostility can basically mean any form of disagreement with Islam. There is every reason to think, therefore, the definition will only embolden the forces of sectarianism that are throwing their weight around British society with increasing confidence.

This has to stop. Muslims are perfectly entitled to raise their children in accordance with their religion. They are also entitled to send their children to one of the many Islamic schools in the UK, where any bans on singing, dancing and drawing they might want to impose can be enforced uniformly. But to pressure all schools to police children in accordance with Islamic doctrine is an intolerable attack on secular principles and freedom of speech. This can go on no longer.
Gaza MP calls for Islamophobia definition to be adopted across public office
A pro-Gaza independent MP has called on the government to incorporate its new definition of Islamophobia into the Nolan Principles.

A non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hate was unveiled alongside a wider Social Cohesion Strategy by communities secretary Steve Reed on Monday evening.

Iqbal Mohamed, the pro-Gaza independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley, sparked criticism when he asked Reed how the definition would be “integrated into the Nolan principles” and what “sanctions” might be available to MPs and peers deemed Islamophobic under the new definition.

Mohamed suggested that some members of the House of Commons and Lords had engaged in anti-Muslim conduct under the proposed definition.

The three-paragraph definition, released by the government alongside a longer document, states that “Anti-Muslim hostility is intentionally engaging in, assisting or encouraging criminal acts – including acts of violence, vandalism, harassment, or intimidation, whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated – that are directed at Muslims because of their religion or at those who are perceived to be Muslim, including where that perception is based on assumptions about ethnicity, race or appearance.

“It is also the prejudicial stereotyping of Muslims, or people perceived to be Muslim including because of their ethnic or racial backgrounds or their appearance, and treating them as a collective group defined by fixed and negative characteristics, with the intention of encouraging hatred against them, irrespective of their actual opinions, beliefs or actions as individuals.

“It is engaging in unlawful discrimination where the relevant conduct – including the creation or use of practices and biases within institutions – is intended to disadvantage Muslims in public and economic life.”

Reed did not say whether the definition would be incorporated into the Nolan Principles – the standards that apply to public office-holders – telling MPs that “it is for the House authorities to determine what happens with Members of this House.”


Watchdog slams PA over claim of Israeli restrictions on Al-Aqsa for ‘Passover sacrifice’
A Palestinian media watchdog reported Wednesday that official Palestinian Authority TV is “libeling” Israel by falsely claiming that Israeli wartime restrictions at Al-Aqsa mosque are intended to facilitate an extremist Jewish Passover sacrifice.

Israel’s across-the-board ban on public gatherings of more than 50 people out of security concerns went into effect following the outbreak of war in Iran on Feb. 28.

But an inflammatory report on Monday on official P.A. TV said that the limitations were geared to enable Jews to carry out a Passover sacrifice at the Jerusalem holy site, which has long been a tinderbox in the Middle East.

“The Jerusalem Governorate emphasized in a statement that what is being done [against Al-Aqsa] is not within the framework of temporary security measures as claimed by the occupation authorities, but rather constitutes part of a political and ideological process seeking to change the religious, historical and legal reality of the holy compound at the Temple Mount (Al-Haram Al-Qudsi Al-Sharif),” the TV presenter said in Arabic, according to a translation by Palestinian Media Watch.

“Exploiting the fact of the continued closure of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gates of the Old City for ten consecutive days now, during the month of Ramadan, under the pretext of the security situation, extremist Temple organizations have launched awareness campaigns, with the aim of carrying out what is called the Passover sacrifice inside the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque [i.e., the Temple Mount]. These campaigns include calls to sacrifice an animal on the Jewish Passover holiday inside Al-Aqsa Mosque this year … within the framework of unprecedented developments for the conquest of Jerusalem,” the reporter added. “This step is considered a dangerous escalation and an attempt to establish new facts on the ground at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.” Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS on Wednesday, “Claiming that Israel and Jews want to have a sacrifice on the Temple Mount, which in their eyes is a desecration of the mosque, is an outrageous libel and the worst terror incitement.”


UBS asks US judge to shield it from further investigation into Nazi bank accounts
UBS urged a US judge on Tuesday to shield it from new Holocaust-related litigation arising from an investigation of the former Credit Suisse’s activities during World War Two.

A lawyer for UBS asked US District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn to issue a “clarifying order” that the $1.25 billion settlement reached in 1999 covered “all claims, past, present and future” related to the Holocaust, World War Two, and their prelude and aftermath.

Credit Suisse, which UBS bought in a Swiss government-arranged rescue in 2023, distributed the $1.25 billion to more than 458,000 Nazi victims and their families, according to court papers.

UBS requested Korman’s intervention after an investigation commissioned in 2020 by Credit Suisse uncovered additional ties between that bank, its predecessors and Nazis, including 890 accounts with potential Nazi links. The judge did not indicate when he would rule.

During a 2-1/4-hour court hearing, UBS’ lawyer David Burns said the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, should not be permitted to reopen the settlement, “promote public controversy” about it, or file new claims as additional information surfaces about Credit Suisse’s relationship with Nazis.

“The Wiesenthal Center has from the outset made the very public and private claim that Nazi assets are not part of the settlement, and has threatened litigation,” Burns said. UBS, he said, wanted “complete closure.”
US ambassador denounces Liège synagogue bombing as antisemitic attack
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White on Monday visited a synagogue in Liege, Belgium that had been targeted in an apparent antisemitic bombing overnight Sunday, meeting there with the city’s mayor, the synagogue’s rabbi and leaders of the local Jewish community.

An explosion occurred shortly before 4:00 a.m. in front of the synagogue. It did not cause any injuries but damaged the building, which had been built in 1899. Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin described the attack as a “despicable anti-Semitic act.” In a post on X, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said that “antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally.”

Describing the explosion as an antisemitic attack against Belgium’s Jewish community, White said that the United States “unconditionally supports the Jewish community’s right to practice its faith without intimidation.”

The European Commission also strongly condemned the “anti-Semitic attack,” wrote European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Magnus Brunner.

“We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and support the police in their efforts to protect places of worship,” he added on X.

At Unia, the Belgian Interfederal Center for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism and Discrimination, the attack on a synagogue leaves no room for doubt. It is an act “that falls under anti-Semitism,” said Unia Director Patrick Charlier. Unia points out that this is the second such act in Liège in a relatively short period, following the desecration last September of the grave of Jean Gol, a former leader of the French-speaking Liberal party, who was Jewish.

“It’s not good to be Jewish in Belgium today,” Unia said in September when the organization was asked to comment on the rise of antisemitism in Belgium following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish community leaders urge accountability as Kanye West schedules Los Angeles concert
A few months after apologizing for his past antisemitic behavior, rapper Kanye West, who now goes by “Ye,” is scheduled to perform a concert in the Los Angeles area.

According to the artist’s tour page, the show is set for April 3 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., and is currently his only scheduled performance in the United States this year.

The announcement comes after West issued a public apology earlier this year for a series of antisemitic statements that drew widespread condemnation and cost him major business partnerships. Jewish communal leaders say the apology must be followed by concrete actions demonstrating accountability.

In January, West took out a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal apologizing for years of antisemitic remarks and behavior. In the open letter, titled “To Those I’ve Hurt,” he said his actions stemmed in part from an undiagnosed frontal-lobe injury sustained in a 2002 car crash and from bipolar disorder, which he said went untreated until 2023. He wrote that he was “deeply mortified” by his conduct and was committed to “accountability, treatment and meaningful change.”

Ari Ingel, executive director of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Creative Community for Peace, told JNS that “Ye spent years spreading vile antisemitic conspiracy theories that led to real-world consequences for the Jewish community.”

“Even though he recently released a well-publicized ‘apology,’ the real question is whether he has demonstrated any sustained, meaningful change or taken any accountability for the damage he inflicted? He has not,” Ingel said.

Until he does, Ingel added, “no one and no company should be in business with him.”
Man asked barrister: ‘Are you Jewish?’ before punching him, court hears
A man asked a barrister: “Are you Jewish?” before punching him in the jaw, a court has heard.

Tony Steer is accused of attacking Nathaniel Bor on the evening of 13 December last year after the alleged victim left a birthday party at Finchley Cricket Club in north London, Willesden Magistrates’ Court heard.

The 35-year-old has denied assault by beating and racially or religiously aggravated assault by beating.

On Wednesday, Mr Bor told the court he and his friend spotted Steer standing on the opposite side of the road as the pair were waiting outside the venue for an Uber.

Mr Bor said: “Initially, my friend Will turned to me and said: ‘What is that bloke doing?’ or words to that effect, and I looked up and I saw an individual with a big smile on his face giving two middle fingers to my friend and I.”

“I did not know him at all. My response to my friend was: ‘He’s obviously had a big night.’”

He added: “‘He then approached my friend and I and said: ‘Oi, are you two together?’ which was asked probably twice maybe more, and was initially responded to by myself by chucking, and there was pointing.

“It was insinuated from my understanding were we together in a sexual way or in a romantic way, that’s what I took it to mean.”

Mr Bor said he told Steer to cross back over the road and catch his bus.

“He then didn’t cross the road, he then turned to me and said to me: ‘Are you Jewish?’ to which I responded: ‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’ with a slight chuckle,” the barrister added.

“I was quite taken aback by that question, it’s not something I’ve been asked before.

“Having said that to him he then asked the exact same question: ‘Are you Jewish?’ to which I gave exactly the same response: ‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’

“The defendant then smiled and then out of nowhere pulled back his fist and punched me very hard in the jaw.”
Two Israeli Americans beaten in California attack after speaking Hebrew
Two Israeli-American men were hospitalised after being attacked while speaking Hebrew outside a restaurant in California, in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime.

The assault happened at about 3.30pm on Sunday outside Augustine restaurant in Santana Row, a busy shopping and dining area in San Jose.

The two men said they were waiting for a table when three young men approached and suddenly began punching them.

Video recorded by witnesses shows the attack lasting around 30 seconds, with both victims repeatedly struck in the head. One of the men was briefly knocked unconscious and later required stitches.

Describing the assault, one victim said the attackers aimed their blows deliberately.

“Every punch connected directly to where they wanted, to the head directly,” he said. “It was on purpose to hit and make maximum damage.”

The injured men, who asked not to be identified, were taken to the hospital with injuries including facial swelling, cuts and bruising.

Witnesses reported hearing the attackers shout abuse, including “F the Jews” and “don’t mess with Iran” during the assault.

San Jose Police said officers are investigating the incident and confirmed it is being treated as a possible hate crime because of the alleged antisemitic language used.


Google closes record $32 billion deal for Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz
Google completed its $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz on Wednesday, representing the largest exit in Israel’s tech history and the biggest acquisition yet by Google.

The New York-based company, founded in 2020 by Israeli entrepreneurs Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica and Roy Reznik, will join Google Cloud while maintaining its brand and continuing to secure customers across multiple cloud platforms.

“By bringing Wiz and Google Cloud together, we’re making it easier for organizations to innovate with confidence,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Rappaport, co-founder and CEO of Wiz, emphasized that joining Google Cloud “allows us to scale our mission of protecting customers, wherever they operate, at machine speed.”

Headquartered in New York City, Wiz employs about 1,800 people worldwide, including roughly 1,000 in Israel, where most of its engineering team is based in Tel Aviv.

The deal, first announced in March 2025, strengthens Google’s cloud security capabilities as it competes with rivals such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure amid growing demand to protect cloud and artificial intelligence systems.
New drama tells true story of Holocaust survivor who helps scores of troubled teens
For 60 years, Holocaust survivor Herbert Heller kept silent about the nightmares he endured. Imprisoned at Auschwitz as a child with his family, he never saw his father Karel and brother Heinz again. He escaped a death march, reunited with his mother Melanie in their native Prague, and immigrated to the United States, where he established a successful children’s store.

As he married and raised a family, he stayed mum about a mysterious scar — it was where his concentration camp number was tattooed before he used acid to remove it. Decades later, he broke his silence. Not only did he speak about his Holocaust narrative in an oral history project, he discussed it in life-changing presentations for teenage audiences in schools. Now, the late survivor is the subject of a new feature film, “The Optimist.”

Premiering in select US theaters on March 11, “The Optimist” incorporates the real-life narrative of Herbert, who is played by actor Stephen Lang of the “Avatar” franchise. In “Avatar,” Lang is the villainous Col. Miles Quaritch, but in “The Optimist,” he’s a California toy-store owner with a big heart and an equally big secret, which he begins to disclose in sit-down interviews with a teenage project volunteer named Abbey. A recording of Herbert’s actual interview is available through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

For the character of Abbey, producer Jeanine Thomas and writer-director Finn Taylor created a composite of teenagers whom Heller impacted through his presentations. Played by Elsie Fisher of “Eighth Grade,” Abbey has her own troubled background that includes a suicide attempt.

Proceeds from the film will benefit Bring Change to Mind, an organization co-founded by actress Glenn Close that aims to destigmatize teen mental health issues, and Kavod, a group that helps indigent Holocaust survivors. Thomas cited grim statistics related to both demographics: Of the 35,000 Holocaust survivors in the US, more than 11,000 live in poverty, while suicide is the second-leading cause of death for individuals ages 10 to 34.

Currently a resident of Maine, Thomas’s trajectory includes teaching maximum-security inmates at a California prison, working in the fields of tech, education and psychology, and raising four children. She met Herbert in 2014, helped him share his story with youth and eventually decided to make a film about him. Yet the road was difficult. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was diagnosed with multiple brain tumors and was then found to have Stage 4 cancer.
Simon Schama’s The Road to Auschwitz nominated for top television award
Historian Simon Schama has been nominated for a Royal Television Society award for his film The Road to Auschwitz, aired in April last year.

Described as his “most personal and unflinching film” yet with the BBC, the documentary studies the events of the Holocaust as not only Nazi atrocities but a European “crime of complicity”.

The film sees the historian looks at the accumulation of antisemitism over centuries and the global dismissal of the Jewish plight.

Schama, 81, has written several leading history books such as The Story of the Jews and presented educational television programmes for the BBC, including 2007 BAFTA-winner The Power of Art.

The author told the JC last year that he sought to “restore some extraordinary Jewish voices from the anonymity of victimhood” with the RTS-nominated documentary. He has since set to writing his final volume on Jewish history, in the hope of revising the narrative of the perpetual Jewish victim.

“The RTS Programme Awards celebrate the extraordinary depth of creative talent that defines the UK television industry,” said Kenton Allen, Chair of the RTS Programme and CEO of Big Talk Studios.

“On behalf of the Royal Television Society, I would like to congratulate all of this year’s nominees and thank them for the imagination, skill and sheer hard work that keeps our industry at the very forefront of global television.”

Elsewhere, the BBC’s coverage of Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 is nominated for the Best Live Event; Martin Lewis with his ITV1 programme The Martin Lewis Money Show Live is in the running for Best Presenter, and Claudia Winkleman has been shortlisted for Best Entertainment in the hit BBC series Celebrity Traitors.




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