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Saturday, March 28, 2026

03/28 Links: Europe’s shameful appeasement of Iran; In Israel, wartime reality doesn’t match what you see on the internet; What secular liberals don’t get about Islam

From Ian:

Tony Blair: Why the West Fails to Stop Antisemitism
These counterarguments need to be made loud and clear by leaders. I don’t know exactly what the response of the people of Britain would be if we woke up one day and between the hours of 6 a.m. and midday, 1,200 of our citizens were murdered, including young people at a music festival, with women raped and others taken hostage (and for Britain, proportionate to the size of population, the figures would be much larger). But I suspect it would be total determination that those responsible were going to be removed as a threat, and nothing would deter us from doing so.

The problem is that, under pressure from party activists and parts of the Muslim community, many progressive politicians who do sincerely reject antisemitism are not making these arguments, and failing to take head-on this literally “unholy alliance” between parts of the left and Islamists in our own societies whose ideology leads inexorably to antisemitism.

Because failure to do so creates the climate in which, even if antisemitism is not explicitly condoned, it flourishes.

One poll during the Gaza war showed that only 24 percent of the British Muslim community believed that October 7 happened in the way it did. Some even believe it was all an elaborate Israeli plot. That is frankly unacceptable.

I know some say that defending the State of Israel is not the way to defeat antisemitism. But there is more at stake than simply defending Israel. It’s about defending reason. Defending facts. Standing up to the noise and intimidation to assert the truth.

None of this means that you cannot support the creation of a Palestinian State or disagree strongly with this or that action of the government of Israel, particularly when that government includes within it figures from the very far right—with whom, it should be said, most members of the Jewish community would disagree.

But it does mean understanding that without a challenge to the ideology that encourages antisemitism, whilst clothing it in indignation at the human cost of war, incidents like the one with the ambulances will continue to the shame of our society.
Europe’s shameful appeasement of Iran
The truth behind the weak response of the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and other countries is far simpler: They refuse to accept that the only way to confront the ayatollahs is with force, plain and simple. The same mindset that produced the 2015 nuclear deal is ascendant now—namely, that military force is always wrong and counterproductive, and that what is needed is a return to soft power and diplomatic initiatives.

Yet such options have been tried and failed repeatedly, testing to destruction the idea that the Islamic Republic is capable of moderation. Years of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, followed by punishing sanctions, failed to curb Iran’s appetite for an atomic weapon or a ballistic-missile program. With its long history of concealment, evasion and deception, the regime could never be trusted with agreements that limited its power. That equation has not changed.

The other reason for E.U. passivity may have to do with Ukraine. Many European diplomats are deeply concerned about the diversion of attention and military resources from Kyiv to Tehran. They fear that the war against Iran will be a boon to a Russian president who is desperate for some success after four years of indecisive war.

But this is to mistake short-term benefits for long-term strategic loss. Any weakening of Iranian power (and destruction of the very missiles that have been sent to bombard Ukrainian cities) reduces the threat both to Ukraine and the wider Middle East, ensuring that Russian President Vladimir Putin loses a much-valued client state in the region.

Another Iranian ally watching this war somewhat nervously is China, a major purchaser of cheap Iranian oil. President Xi Jinping will certainly believe that American hegemony in the energy-rich Gulf will not suit its long term interests, especially if he chooses to flex his muscles over Taiwan. He has already lost one important economic ally in Venezuela.

Perhaps a third reason for passivity is domestic in nature. There are substantial Muslim populations in a number of European countries, many members of which remain deeply radicalised by the war in Gaza. While some will side with Iranian Muslims who have borne the brunt of the regime’s savagery, many others will reflexively condemn the United States and Israel for their perceived aggression toward a Muslim country.

There are genuine fears of Iranian proxy attacks on European soil, including in the United Kingdom, where 20 attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been foiled recently and where two Iranians were charged with spying on the Jewish community. Yet while such fears cause genuine concern, they are no excuse for sitting on the diplomatic fence.

To their credit, Trump and Netanyahu are helping ensure that the Iranian threat is destroyed for a generation, potentially freeing that nation from the tyranny that has enslaved it. To their shame, European leaders remain mired in shameful and self-defeating appeasement.
Keir Starmer is giving Iran's terror cells free rein to operate in Britain says Israeli president Isaac Herzog
Israel's president has accused Keir Starmer of allowing Iran's 'empire of evil' to operate freely in Britain.

Isaac Herzog said the prime minister allowed Iranian terror cells to 'do what they want' in the UK and said the Middle Eastern 'rogue state' should be 'crushed'.

President Herzog made the comments in an interview earlier this week which came after four Jewish charity-owned ambulances were set on fire on Monday in an incident which is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime.

Metropolitan Police officials previously said the investigation into the arson attack was looking at an Islamist group with potential links to Iran after unsubstantiated claims of responsibility by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya - The Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand.

Counter-terrorism police arrested two British nationals, aged 45 and 47, earlier this week and released both on bail.

Speaking to the executive director of pro-Israel campaign group StandWithUs, Mr Herzog said Iran spent 'billions of dollars' and had 'terror cells all over the world'.

He added Iran operated 'directly and through their proxies' and it was 'about time the world stands up to them'.

President Herzog continued: 'How come in Britain, the Prime Minister of Britain says there were about 10 or 20 events only last year linked to Iranian terror? What is this?'


In Israel, wartime reality doesn’t match what you see on the internet
The liberal internationalist left and the isolationist right — two camps that have agreed on almost nothing for decades — have suddenly found themselves in lockstep, racing to declare the war a failure before it had barely begun. This is the new blob: not the old foreign-policy establishment that the term originally described but a new amalgamation that has arrived at the same conclusion from opposite directions. Together they are the most powerful engine of the alt-war.

I asked Golan Shahar, a prominent clinical psychologist at Ben-Gurion University and self-described liberal turned centrist, to help me understand. Why do otherwise intelligent people send me AI-generated videos and refuse to believe my firsthand account?

“They don’t want this to work,” he said. “They want it to fail.” Analysts in the U.S., he explained, “cannot have it that Trump and Bibi are the ones defending the West.” People send me these videos because they need me to confirm what they need to be true.

This is the defining feature of the alt-war. It is not that people lack information, but that the success of the war conflicts with their priors and so they have constructed an alternative war: one in which Tel Aviv is burning, Washington never heard of the Strait of Hormuz before last week and the whole enterprise is doomed. Because that is the only version they can psychologically accept.

The new blob has found its common cause not in a policy position but in a psychological need. That need is feeding an alternative reality more vivid and viral than anything the enemy could produce.

Meanwhile, in the real war, I step onto my balcony each morning. The construction crews are already at work. My kids log in to school. Israel, bruised and tired, keeps building toward a better future for itself, and the region.
What secular liberals don’t get about Islam
Whenever a public figure dares to criticise Muslims or Islam, you can bet that they will be met with two emotive responses. The first is that they will be accused of racism or ‘Islamophobia’. This option was the one taken by the UK prime minister last week when reacting to comments by the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, who had described a mass act of worship in central London as an ‘act of domination’. Rather than address the substance of Timothy’s claim, Keir Starmer condemned the ‘utterly appalling’ remarks, suggesting that Kemi Badenoch and her Conservative Party had a ‘problem with Muslims’. In effect, he was smearing them as bigots.

The second response – equally evasive – is to indulge in deflective ‘whataboutery’. This was the path chosen by attorney general Lord Hermer. ‘Timothy and Badenoch’s comments beg the question – would they have a problem if I, as a Jewish man, were praying in public?’, he asked. ‘Or is it just Muslim prayer they find offensive, and contrary to “British values”?’ This line of inquiry was repeated and expanded ad nauseam, with many deeming it brilliant and original to hypothesise whether we should also be unsettled by Christians, Sikhs and Hindus engaging in mass worship on Trafalgar Square.

Of course, both responses betray an ignorance of the nature of religion. They fail to address the central concern raised by Timothy: that a variety of Islam practised in Britain today has become distinctly aggressive. The reason public displays of Christianity raise no eyebrows is because Christianity has been intrinsic to these islands for a millennium and a half, and the leaders of England’s established Church largely refrain from seeking the mass conversion of the country’s heathens. Moreover, Christianity, unlike Islam, does not divide the world into two spheres: that in which it reigns (The House of Peace) and that where it does not yet reign (The House of War). To put it more starkly, people simply aren’t worried about Christian, Jewish, Sikh or Hindu suicide bombers.

Shallow secularists are prone to make the argument that ‘You wouldn’t ban [insert other religion here]’ because they believe all religions are basically interchangeable. They have no understanding of differing religious systems or how they affect the behaviour of their adherents. As Jake Wallis Simons reminded us on spiked last week, Islam consists of many denominations, some more liberal than others. And it remains an uncomfortable truth that the Islam that prevails in Britain today is not a version that enthusiastically embraces difference. It is neither as eager to reciprocate tolerance, nor to ‘celebrate diversity’, as we might like.

This is something that lazy agnostics, timorous liberals and lofty humanists never seem to comprehend. Belligerent varieties of religions are just as dangerous as any political ideology that seeks power through domination. No ideology, sacred or profane, automatically deserves ‘respect’.
Brendan O'Neill: There is nothing the left hates more than an angry Jew
The true narrative of Golders Green – which is that Britain’s Jews have suffered a bloody wave of racism since Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October 2023 – has been utterly turned on its head by the ghouls of the Islamo-left. The British Muslim website 5Pillars put out a video titled ‘Golders Green attack and [harass] Arab journalists’. And so, courtesy of the twisted morality of that unholy alliance of foolish socialists and nutty Islamic hardliners, the story of Golders Green is no longer one of Jewish pain but of Jewish menace. The victims of racism reimagined as racists – the final grim accomplishment of the Jew-baiters in our midst.

What we are witnessing is the theft from the Jews of their moral status. Under the regime of identitarianism, the Jews can never be victims. They’re too ‘white’ for that. So their every claim to victimisation must be dismantled. Almost instinctively – but no less brutishly for that – the Islamo-left swarms on any story about Jewish suffering and seeks to disprove or dampen it. They must, in order to maintain their hierarchy of oppression in which Jews are hyper-privileged and suspect, and Muslims are oppressed and noble. Hence the events in Golders Green are twisted from a story of Jews being beleaguered by anti-Semites to Arabs being beleaguered by Jews.

This digital mobbing of concerned Jews is in keeping with the regime of moral inversion we have been living under since 7 October 2023. Time and again, the Jews are cast as perpetrators, even where they are the victims. Hamas subjects Israelis to genocidal violence and yet it’s Israel that is called genocidal. British Jews suffer an unprecedented spike in anti-Semitic incidents and yet they’re damned as ‘privileged’. Golders Green is subjected to the fires of racial hatred and yet it is Golders Green that gets called racist and hateful. This is the violent gutting of the truth in the service of keeping Jews in their place – that is, as symbols of ‘whiteness’ and ‘privilege’ that leftists and Islamists might righteously hate.

Someone needs to say it: it is perfectly logical that Jews waking up to news of anti-Semitic terror would be annoyed to see Al Jazeera skulking around. This is the media empire that is described by some as the mouthpiece of Hamas. Its digital channel, AJ+, has called into question the Holocaust. It has hawked conspiracy theories about the Jews controlling the porn industry and hating Jesus Christ. I’m not Jewish but if I had been in Golders Green that morning, with the smoke of Jew hatred getting in my eyes, I might also have invited the Al Jazeera guys to sling their hook.

There is nothing the left and its Islamist allies hate more than an angry Jew. They don’t mind them when they’re meek, when they just shut up and put up with anti-Semitism. But when they push back, when they hit the streets, when they shout, when they ‘weaponise’ their experiences of racism, as the left loves to accuse them of doing – that’s unacceptable. Listen, if Jewish anger grosses you out more than anti-Jewish violence, then you are further down the road of fascism than you might think.
Finish the Job: There's Only One Way To Lower the Price of Oil
To stop the pain, many hope the United States will unilaterally declare a ceasefire or sue for peace by negotiating an agreement along the lines of the failed Obama-era nuclear deal. Again, this would be a mistake.

For one thing, an undefeated Iran would pose a persistent and graver threat to Gulf shipping and thus force up oil prices. If the mullahs can prevail in a conflict that began at a time chosen by the United States and Israel, they will have even better prospects when they can seize the initiative. Even before this campaign, Iran's leaders occasionally rattled markets by threatening to close the Strait; if the Pentagon cannot deter them from closing it, traders will need to price in this heightened risk. The Gulf crude will become more expensive, and because oil is a globally traded commodity, it will spike in the United States and elsewhere too.

The air campaign is also proceeding well. Gauging the progress of any conflict can be hard, even with access to the classified information that does not reach the public, but there are many indicators that the toll on the Iranian regime has been immense. Central Command leader Admiral Brad Cooper said on Wednesday that the U.S. military has hit more than 10,000 Iranian targets, "damaged or destroyed over two-thirds of Iran's missile, drone, and naval production facilities and shipyards," and is "on a path to completely eliminate Iran's wider military manufacturing apparatus."

The Iranians, by contrast, are in disarray. Their ostensible new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, still has not been seen since he was injured in the strike that killed his father. Judging by the success with which Israel and the United States have dispatched so many of his subordinates, the regime seems thoroughly penetrated, and the survivors cannot trust each other much. The Revolutionary Guards are touting their new 12-year-old child soldiers, not stunning new capabilities.

There is still much work to be done though, and the going may get harder. Russia is helping Iran attack Americans and their allies, and the Kremlin is reportedly preparing shipments of drones for Iran. China and Russia are cutting back on their fertilizer exports, which will compound the pain for the world's most vulnerable.

Defeating Iran and destroying its ability to develop nuclear weapons, attack its neighbors, and threaten the global economy are vitally important. That is why the Saudis and Emiratis, who do not want their customers to shop elsewhere for energy, are reportedly encouraging Trump to go for victory. The Israelis are too. Trump should listen to his allies.


Up to 1,000 Iranian ‘sleeper’ agents embedded in Canada: Gov’t official
As many as 1,000 former members of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may be embedded across Canada — and posing an urgent security threat to the US, experts told The Post.

Canada’s liberal government isn’t doing nearly enough to address the problem, Michelle Rempel Garner, a member of the opposition and the “shadow minister” for immigration, told The Post.

“It’s a huge problem,” she said. “That’s not just a concern for our country, it’s a concern for our security partners and allies.”

Regime-affiliated figures routinely exploit Canada’s lax immigration policies to gain entry, making them nearly impossible to deport, Garner said.

“They go on to request asylum and get deportation stays; the system has to change,” she said.

“The crown jewel for the Iranian regime is the US, not Canada. The Iranian regime sees the US as the Great Satan and Israel as the Little Satan,” said Joe Adam George, a research lead for Philadelphia-based think tank Middle East Forum.

The Islamic Republic is known to have “sleeper cells” all over the world, and may have sent out an “operational trigger” to activate them after the war with the US and Israel began, according to an encrypted message intercepted by the US.

The US Consulate in Toronto was attacked on March 10 when two gunmen allegedly opened fire at the heavily fortified compound. No injuries were reported, and it is not yet known if the suspects were connected to the Islamic regime.

Royal Military College and Queen’s University Professor Christian Leuprecht said Canada will have to bear some of the blame should one of their immigrants commit a terrorist act in the US.

“Canada presents itself as a beacon of human rights but we let people into the country who have blood on their hands,” he said.

The Canadian government has identified 32 high-ranking Iranian officials living in their country and has flagged them for deportation, according to the Canadian Border Services Agency.
Paris cops thwart suspected terrorist bombing near Bank of America
French police have thwarted a suspected bomb attack outside a Bank of America building in Paris, authorities said Saturday. One suspect was detained and another escaped.

The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, or PNAT, told The Associated Press that it has opened an investigation into alleged terrorism-related offenses.

The suspected offenses include attempted damage by fire or by a dangerous means, the manufacture of an incendiary or explosive device, the possession and transport of such devices with the intent to prepare dangerous damage, and involvement in a terrorist criminal association.

A person was placed in police custody.

“Well done to the rapid intervention of a Paris police prefecture unit, which made it possible to thwart a violent act of a terrorist nature overnight in Paris,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.

“Vigilance remains at a very high level,” Nuñez said. “I commend all security and intelligence forces, fully mobilized under my authority in the current international context.”
Iran's Pezeshkian clashes with IRGC's chief over control of Iran, marking rifts in regime
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian is reportedly clashing with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Ahmad Vahidi over the economic and social impact of the war with the United States and Israel, Iran International reported on Saturday, citing Iranian sources.

According to the London-based Iranian opposition outlet, Pezeshkian criticized the IRGC's approach of increasing tensions in the region and attacking neighbouring countries, warning of the long-term effects that these movements could cause on the Iranian economy.

The report also mentioned that Pezeshkian has been demanding that executive decisions regarding the war be made by the Iranian government rather than the IRGC, a demand Vahidi did not accept.

In response, the IRGC criticized Pezeshkian's inability to implement structural reforms in the Islamic Republic to address several problems within the system before the current war began.

Iran risks renewed protests as citizens reach 'breaking point'
The report comes as Iran’s already dying economy keeps being pushed toward full collapse after several weeks of war.

Food prices are rising not only day by day, but hour by hour, with some staples increasing by at least 50 percent compared to pre-war levels.

At the same time, the disruption of internet access has halted many services. Factories and production facilities are facing acute shortages of raw materials, and the country’s administrative system has been severely impaired.

According to figures cited by state-affiliated institutions and some economists, more than 40% of the population now lives below the absolute poverty line, with that figure exceeding 50% in the capital.


Bahrain confirms Iranian attack on aluminum facility as UAE, Kuwait air defenses intercept missiles
Aluminium Bahrain, also known as Alba, confirmed early Sunday that its facilities were targeted in an Iranian attack a day earlier, Bahrain's state news agency reported.

Alba said two people were mildly injured in the attack, adding that it was assessing damage in the facilities.

The confirmation comes after Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they targeted Alba and Emirates Global Aluminium in response to attacks on two Iranian steel plants. The IRGC said, without elaborating, that the two companies had ties to US military and aeronautics firms.

Reuters could not independently verify the IRGC's claims.

In early March, Alba initiated a shutdown of three aluminum smelting lines, accounting for 19% of its capacity, to preserve business continuity amid ongoing ​disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. It followed a company force majeure on March 4, as it was unable to ship metal to customers due to the closure of the strategic strait.


Israel intensifies strikes on Iran’s industry, crippling key economy sectors
The Israeli Air Force on Friday struck major steel complexes in the cities of Isfahan and Ahvaz, as part of an intensified campaign to pummel the Islamic Republic’s industrial infrastructure, The New York Times reported, citing Iranian officials.

The attack on the Mobarakeh Steel Complex in Isfahan killed one person and injured 15, according to the Times.

Two large electric power plants that supply the steel complex were also damaged, the report added, citing the governor of Isfahan Province as saying.

The strike on the Khuzestan Steel Industries facility in Ahvaz injured 16 workers, the Times cited the deputy governor of Khuzestan Province as saying.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israel on X of hitting two of Iran’s largest steel factories, a power plant and civilian nuclear sites, among other infrastructure facilities.

He said the attacks contradicted U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to give diplomatic talks a chance to end the conflict, and threatened that Tehran will exact a “heavy” price in response.

Israel’s broadcaster Channel 14 reported that the strikes were conducted at the instruction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, coordinated in advance with U.S. Central Command.

The complexes are partially owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and hitting them is expected to significantly impair the Iranian economy, the report noted.

The Iranian steel industry is ranked ninth or 10th in the world and accounts for some 14% of Iran’s non-oil and natural gas exports, according to Channel 14.


2 soldiers seriously hurt in Lebanon clashes as Hezbollah rockets and drones pound north
Two soldiers were seriously wounded and seven others were moderately hurt during clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Friday and overnight into Saturday, Israel Defense Forces said, as the terror group continued to pound northern Israel with rocket and drone attacks.

In an incident on Friday, two officers were injured by anti-tank missile fire during an engagement with Hezbollah operatives. One of the soldiers was seriously wounded and the second was moderately injured, the military said.

In a separate incident overnight, an officer was seriously wounded and six troops were moderately hurt by Hezbollah rocket fire in southern Lebanon.

Four soldiers have been killed in Israeli operations inside Lebanon since hostilities resumed when the terror group began firing at Israel in response to the latter’s killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued to fire rockets at northern Israel, sending residents running for shelter.

In addition, at least two Hezbollah drones launched from Lebanon at northern Israel were intercepted by air defenses, according to the IDF. The drones triggered sirens across northern Israel, including in the Haifa Bay area. There were no reports of injuries.
IDF slays Hezbollah ‘journalist,’ seizes hundreds of weapons in Lebanese school
In Southern Lebanon on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces targeted and killed Ali Hassan Shaib, a Hezbollah Radwan Force terrorist who operated for years under the guise of a journalist for the terrorist organization’s Al-Manar television network, the military said in a statement.

In his journalist role, Shaib “consistently worked to expose the locations of IDF troops operating in Southern Lebanon and along the border, and maintained continuous contact with other operatives in [Hezbollah’s elite] Radwan Force in particular and within the organization in general,” the IDF said.

In addition, he engaged in incitement against IDF troops and civilians of the State of Israel, serving as Hezbollah’s mouthpiece for distributing propaganda materials, including during the ongoing “Operation Roaring Lion,” the army continued.

“The IDF will continue to act forcefully against the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which chose to join the fighting and operate under the auspices of the Iranian terrorist regime, and will not allow harm to the civilians of the State of Israel,” the military stressed.

According to the Al-Manar website in English, Fatima Ftouni, a correspondent of the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen channel, was also killed in the strike.

Ftouni’s brother, a videographer, and Shaib’s relative were also killed, Lebanese media reported.

The group was struck by a drone while driving on the main road in Jezzine, located some 14 miles east to the coastal city of Sidon, reports added.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strike, calling it “⁠a brazen crime that violates all treaties and norms through which journalists enjoy international protection in war,” Reuters reported.


Iran threatens to hit US universities in the Middle East in retaliation for alleged strike on two universities
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threaten to target US universities in the Middle East after saying US and Israeli strikes had destroyed two Iranian universities.

“If the US government wants its universities in the region to be free from retaliation… it must condemn the bombing of the universities in an official statement by 12 noon on Monday, March 30, Tehran time,” said the statement published by Iranian media.

The statement added: “We advise all employees, professors, and students of American universities in the region and residents of their surrounding areas” stay a kilometer away from campuses.

Several US universities have campuses scattered throughout the Gulf region, such as Texas A&M University in Qatar and New York University in the United Arab Emirates.

Iranian media has reported that strikes hit the University of Science and technology in the northeast of the capital overnight Friday to Saturday, damaging buildings but not causing any casualties.
Iran threatens to seize assets of soccer star Sardar Azmoun over photo with UAE leaders
Iran’s judiciary has threatened to seize the property of national soccer star Sardar Azmoun, two semiofficial news agencies said Friday.

The star is on a list of 16 individuals seen as government critics and whose assets judicial authorities in the northern province of Golestan plan to confiscate, according to the Fars news agency.

The 31-year-old Azmoun played for Iran at the past two World Cups and his 57 career goals for Team Melli, in 91 games, is second most on its all-time list.

Azmoun failed to be picked this month for warmup games ahead of the World Cup, and he currently seems unlikely to be taken to the tournament where Iran is scheduled to play in the United States.

He reportedly was dropped from the squad because of a social media post that angered Iranian authorities during the current war with the United States and Israel. Azmoun has previously posted support for protests against the Iranian government.

The announcement Friday followed threats from Iran’s hard-liner judicial chief that authorities planned to seize the assets of celebrities viewed as critical of the government.
Man killed, 13 injured by Iranian missile attacks on central Israel
Iran continued to fire ballistic missiles at Israel over the weekend, killing a man in Tel Aviv and wounding at least 13 people in the Beit Shemesh area in two separate incidents.

The slain victim was identified as Vyacheslav Vidmant, 52, an Ashdod resident who was employed by the municipality to guard residential buildings that have been evacuated due to a previously deadly missile strike, Ynet reported.

Vidmant ended his shift at 10 p.m. on Friday and remained in the area. An air-raid siren sounded shortly before midnight but the security guard did not enter a bomb shelter. A bomblet from a cluster munition hit the street and shrapnel killed him.

The munition was reportedly the sixth missile attack launched at Israeli territory throughout the day.

On the first day of the war, Feb. 28, Filipino caregiver Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, 32, was killed nearby by an Iranian missile that injured her while she was helping her patient to safety. She was pronounced dead while paramedics were taking her to the hospital.

On March 28, a ballistic missile passed through the Israeli military’s air defense array and hit a town in the Beit Shemesh area, west of Jerusalem, wounding 13 people and causing heavy damage to property.

Elad Kadmon, a senior paramedic with Magen David Adom, described what he saw at the impact site in Moshav Eshtaol. “We saw destruction and people walking around fully conscious. We are providing initial medical treatment to those lightly injured and conducting searches to ensure there are no additional casualties,” he told Ynet. Additional people suffered from anxiety.


IDF finds bombproof room held up to direct hit from cluster munition
A cluster munition from an Iranian ballistic missile damaged the wall of a bomb-safe room in central Israel during an attack earlier this week, but those inside the shelter were unharmed, according to a Home Front Command investigation released Friday.

The Petah Tikva incident apparently marked the first time that a cluster munition has directly hit a bomb-safe room in Israel.

The Home Front Command investigation found that the submunition with several kilograms of explosives struck the outside wall of the bombproof room, close to the window, during the Tuesday attack.

Two children and their babysitters were sheltering in the room at the time.

The munition itself did not penetrate the shelter, but the wall is suspected to have been “breached” by the blast, due to the angle and location of the impact, the probe found.

“Despite the intensity of the direct impact, the large shockwave, and the amount of shrapnel, the wall of the bombproof room sustained most of the impact and saved the lives of those inside,” said Lt. Col. Moshe Shlomo, chief of the Home Front Command’s engineering department.


Hugh and Eli focus on the end of the fourth week of the war

When your enemy believes in martyrdom: Haviv returns to explain the problem of ending the regime

Live from the Table: Iran, Nukes and the Illusion of Safety | Nuclear Weapons Expert Scott Sagan
The Table is joined by Professor Scott Sagan - leading scholar of nuclear security and international relations.

Sagan explains that the biggest risk of Iran going nuclear is being missed. It's the threat of accidental explosion and even full-out nuclear war in the Middle East.

In his view, this is especially true when small despotic nations get the bomb.

Scary stuff.




Ask Haviv Anything: 102: Freedom under missile fire, the Passover story, with Rabbi David Stav
Passover is just around the corner. So we sat down with the ever-wise Rabbi David Stav to dig into the inexplicable contradictions at the heart of the holiday's traditional Seder meal -- and of Jewish life writ large.

In the Seder's text, the Hagaddah, we are commanded to declare that “now we are slaves, but next year we shall be free” -- even if we live in freedom and prosperity. And we are commanded to thank God for "taking us out from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to a festival" -- even in generations past when we were crushed beneath the yoke of oppressors and tyrants, and even in our own day when we must run to a bomb shelter to be safe.

So which is it? Are we free? Are we still slaves?

Rav Stav takes us through stories of Natan Sharansky, Hasidic rebbes in the ghetto, and Rav Kook’s wisdom to reveal Passover's deepest teaching -- that true freedom is an inner consciousness and moral choice, not mere political circumstance, and that the experience and remembrance of slavery teaches us how to value, safeguard and properly use our liberty.

And that is why on the evening of April 1, in this time of war and sirens, violence and fear, Jews all over the world will once again affirm, as they have done for three millennia, that “next year we shall be free.”

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Rabbi Stav's background
01:16 Pesach as a profound holiday beyond the surface
02:13 The tension between religious authority and community service
02:36 Rabbi Stav's background and contributions
03:18 Episode sponsor and community engagement
04:04 Rabbi Stav on Israel's current challenges and freedom
05:18 The question of celebrating freedom amid conflict
06:31 The significance of the phrase 'Now we are slaves, next year we will be free'
07:48 The contradictions in the Passover narrative
08:47 Historical context of Jewish sovereignty and exile
09:46 The declaration of freedom and slavery in the Seder
10:45 The universal right to freedom for all humans
11:45 Stories of prisoners and the perception of true freedom
13:10 Freedom in the face of danger and suffering
14:36 The joy of belonging and suffering for a higher purpose
15:52 The story of Sharansky and the perception of freedom
16:47 The importance of feeling free even in captivity
17:33 The role of agency and responsibility in freedom
18:41 Living in Israel versus exile and diaspora
18:59 Remembering slavery to appreciate freedom
19:50 The lessons of Ralph Cooke on slavery and idolatry
21:18 The significance of remembering our origins and failures
22:32 Humility and the importance of acknowledging past weaknesses
23:07 The concept of beginning in disgrace and ending in praise
23:39 Learning from idolatry about intimacy with God
24:38 The importance of acknowledging weaknesses and sins
26:02 Learning from the other side and polarization in society
27:59 The balance of rules, discipline, and freedom
30:46 The experience of exile and feeling at home
31:45 Experiencing darkness to understand light and freedom
32:42 Inner freedom as a spiritual state
33:37 The philosophical and mystical aspects of divine intimacy
34:34 Rambam's religious experience and relationship with God
35:44 The practical implementation of values in society
38:34 The transmission of values through generations
39:53 The universal message of Pesach and human rights
41:06 The importance of striving for redemption and holiness




Veterans blast heiress’s boyfriend — a Dem congressional candidate — after eagle-eyed experts spot problem with his Navy record
Military veterans are sounding off about a Democratic congressional candidate who they say inflated his Navy record and used a deceased Korean War vet’s gravesite as a campaign prop.

Ammar Campa-Najjar — a candidate for an east San Diego congressional seat and boyfriend of billionaire Qualcomm heiress Rep. Sara Jacobs — is under fire for fudging details of his service to boost his campaign.

“I supported Ammar in the past, but won’t again,” Elizabeth Perez-Rodriguez, a former CalVet deputy secretary, Vista entrepreneur and Navy combat veteran, said in a statement.

“As a combat veteran, I can’t stand when political candidates exploit the uniform for politics and using a veteran’s gravesite in your campaign is toxic and disrespectful.”

Campa-Najjar, a Navy Reserve officer since 2023, called himself a “Navy Officer” in campaign materials — a violation of policies that Navy reservists running for office must accurately state their reserve status.


Nicole Lampert: Zack Polanski is facing rebellion from his OWN family as they fear being forced to leave UK if Green Party leader becomes Prime Minister
Family members of Greens leader Zack Polanski fear they will be forced to leave the UK if he ever became prime minister.

The party, which stormed to a surprise by-election victory last month, is holding its spring conference on Saturday where it will debate and vote on a controversial motion alleging ‘Zionism is racism’.

Under Mr Polanski’s watch, the Greens have attracted an army of alleged Islamists and far-Left activists, moving away from its traditional roots.

Born into a Jewish family in Salford, he has constantly said he is ‘proud of my Jewish heritage’, but family members believe he has put his ambition and politics ahead of his community.

The Daily Mail has spoken to three members of Mr Polanski’s extended family – none of whom now talk to him.

‘He’s currently the leader of the future Islamic party of Britain, that’s what the Green Party is fast becoming,’ said one. ‘And there would be no place for Jews in an Islamic state of Britain.’

The motion, which is set to be debated today, would see the party formally declare itself an anti-Zionist party and would ignore definitions of anti-Semitism, including those Mr Polanski once tried to get the Greens to adopt, which equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

It also calls for sanctions on Israel and support for ‘resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation’, effectively backing Hamas attacks.

The Jewish Greens – which Mr Polanski was once a member of – say the motion would ‘for many Jews, come across as an attack on that very basic right of aspiring to lead a safe and secure life’.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said the Green Party was ‘not only tolerating but amplifying some of the worst rhetoric that we have seen in British politics in a generation’.

The only member of the Greens leader’s family still speaking to him was his mother, Ava, relatives said. She is said to tell the wider family that while she does not agree with his politics, she loves him as her son and is proud of what he’s achieved.


Seven women charged for defacing Australian statue - after vandals tried to use UMBRELLAS to evade capture
Seven women have been charged with criminal damage after a statue of an Australian women's rights campaigner was vandalised.

The group allegedly damaged the statue of Zelda D'Aprano outside the Victorian Trades Hall about 11am on March 6, just days before International Women's Day.

Police allege the activist group vandalised the statue with red spray paint while using umbrellas to block CCTV cameras to avoid being identified.

Jemima Demanuele, 34, faced Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Friday afternoon, charged with a range of offences including criminal damage, marking graffiti on a residence without consent and recklessly damaging part of a registered place without a permit.

The court was told the accused was currently on bail for another matter relating to protesting in Melbourne's CBD.


Protesters clash at memorial for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in London
Hundreds of people turned out to protest against a memorial service in north London for Iran’s former supreme leader.

Protesters clashed with those demonstrating in support of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-backed Israeli air strike in February.

There was a heavy police presence at the Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale on Saturday afternoon.

The Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police could be seen working to calm outbursts, asking disruptive protesters to move on and marshal traffic.

Two police officers were seen monitoring the protest with a video camera from the balcony of a residential property opposite the centre.


IDF detains CNN journalists in the West Bank, one crew member injured, cameras damaged
The IDF detained a group of CNN journalists in the West Bank on Friday, damaging their cameras and hurting one photographer, the American news outlet reported.

The CNN team was interviewing Palestinian residents of the West Bank town of Tayasir, after settlers established an outpost in the town and reportedly violently attacked residents.

While conducting interviews on camera, IDF soldiers ordered the team and the Palestinians to stop speaking and aimed their weapons at the group, according to the CNN reporters present.

One soldier then reportedly approached CNN photojournalist Cyril Theophilos from behind and put him in a chokehold, bringing him down to the ground, and damaging his camera in the process.

The IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir spoke with IDF Central Command Chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth on Saturday evening, following the incident. In the meeting, Zamir requested to receive the main findings of the ongoing investigation as soon as possible, along with command recommendations, the IDF informed.

CNN reported that the crew’s detention lasted two hours. Their Palestinian interview subjects were detained alongside them.

During that detention, the IDF soldiers shared their personal perspectives on Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank with CNN’s Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond.


Anti-Jewish crime reporting method changes under Zohran Mamdani, lowers figure: NYPD
Antisemitic crime was soaring in NYC — until Mayor Mamdani’s new math kicked in.

After a startling spike in January, Mamdani’s NYPD changed how it counts antisemitic incidents, virtually shrinking the startling numbers overnight.

Anti-Jewish incidents were up an eye-popping 182% in Mamdani’s first month in office, with 31 reports this January compared to 11 in January 2025.

But in February, the NYPD changed the rules and started counting the crimes only after they are investigated by the Hate Crime Task Force and confirmed as hate crimes, the NYPD said.

Only 21 antisemitic crimes were logged in February – 10 fewer than in January, NYPD data show.

And as of March 15, the NYPD tallied 69 anti-Jewish crimes this year compared to 58 in the same period last year — for a more politically palatable 19% increase, the data reveal.

“We’re all watching the manufacturing of propaganda in real time,” said Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side.

“They’ll change the method of counting antisemitic crimes and literally six months later the mayor’s office will claim that antisemitism has dropped. What it will do is it will burnish the mayor’s credentials but unfortunately it will further marginalize Jews.”
£2,000 reward offered in urgent appeal to recover stolen Torah scrolls from shul
An urgent appeal has been launched for the return of two Torah scrolls stolen from a synagogue in Salford, with the local Jewish community offering a £2,000 reward for their safe recovery.

The Sifrei Torah were taken from Beis HaMedrash Torah Etz Chaim, on Bury New Road, during a break-in in the early hours of last Friday, when intruders removed a heavy safe containing the scrolls.

CCTV footage shows three men in high-visibility clothing entering the building with a trolley before leaving with the safe, which they loaded into a van. The entire operation lasted around 30 minutes.

A synagogue committee member told the Manchester Evening News that the thieves appeared to act with intent, heading directly to the upstairs prayer area where the safe was stored.

“It looks like they knew where they were going. They went upstairs into the synagogue. They took away our safe, which is very, very heavy.”


Israeli AI startup Conntour raises $7 million Seed round to transform video surveillance
The platform enables security teams to search video using natural language instead of predefined rules.

Conntour, a company developing an artificial intelligence platform for real-time video intelligence analysis, has raised $7 million in Seed funding. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Y Combinator, SV Angel, and Liquid 2 Ventures, along with other investors.

Conntour enables security teams to query cameras using natural language, finding any object, person, or situation without relying on preset categories or pre-programmed rules, for example, users could search for “a man with a tattoo on his left arm” or “a van with a print of fruits on it.”

The company was founded in 2024 by Matan Goldner and Tomer Kola, computer vision experts with experience in video analysis and technology companies. Conntour employs 14 people at its offices in Tel Aviv and participated in the first cycle of Palantir’s Startup Fellowship program. The idea for the company originated from working with IDF field observers during their reserve service after October 7, when both founders were in active combat reserve units.

"Traditional video surveillance forces operators to define exactly what they're looking for before they even know what they need to find," said Conntour CEO Matan Goldner. "Existing solutions can only detect a predefined set of parameters, such as a weapon or a make of car. But what do you do when you need to identify someone passing a bag to another person, or a man with a Nike shirt? Real-world security doesn't work in neat categories. Our platform brings search-engine-level intelligence to any camera network, so security teams can respond to threats as they unfold and investigate incidents in minutes rather than days.”

Conntour’s platform is designed to address that constraint by applying computer vision algorithms capable of interpreting complex, context-driven queries. The system can operate both in real-time, flagging potential threats as they occur, and retrospectively, allowing investigators to search through large volumes of archived footage.




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