Pages

▼

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

04/20 Links Pt2: From grief to action: Ensuring the sacrifices of Israel’s fallen are not in vain; Full 60 Minutes interview with Rachel Goldberg-Polin; Boy George defends Eurovision participation

From Ian: JPost Editorial: From grief to action: Ensuring the sacrifices of Israel’s fallen are not in vain
Memory is a deeply entrenched concept within Israeli society.

Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars and Victims of Terrorism, which will be marked nationwide on Monday evening, is filled with promises that the fallen will not be forgotten.

Over the past year, 170 soldiers have been killed across multiple fronts, including 15 soldiers and reservists killed in southern Lebanon since fighting resumed on March 2. Fifty-four disabled veterans have died from complications linked to wounds sustained during their service.

Behind these numbers are 7,165 bereaved relatives who have grieved and mourned for their fallen father, mother, son, daughter, or sibling.

The annual transition from the somber ceremonies to the joy of Israel’s Independence Day celebrations serves as a reminder of a difficult question we as Israelis must ask ourselves every year: What can we do to ensure that the sacrifices made by our soldiers were not in vain?

On Sunday morning, Israelis gathered outside the homes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government ministers for an impromptu ceremony honoring our fallen heroes.

After observing a minute of silence, the gatherings turned into a public demand: A call for a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding October 7. A direct message from the Israeli public

Their message was direct and unambiguous: “The blood of our loved ones cries out from the ground and demands truthful answers.”

This demand, rooted in grief, is sustained by a real fear among society that, without accountability by the political and military echelon, the failures of the past will continue to manifest themselves in the blood of Israelis being shed.

The question facing Israel is not only how to respond to the current threats, but whether it can alter the trajectory that keeps producing them.

Israelis have shown unprecedented levels of resilience since October 7, 2023. When Hamas invaded southern Israel and the IDF was nowhere to be found, citizens mobilized. When entire neighborhoods, towns, and kibbutzim were destroyed, their residents came back to rebuild them from the ruins. In the North and South alike, Israelis have accepted life under daily fire.

This resilience cannot be taken for granted.
‘To cover our ears to one cry is to silence them all,’ Kaploun says at concentration camp site in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Yehuda Kaploun, a rabbi and U.S. State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, spoke at the annual Donja Gradina commemoration hosted in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the site of the Jasenovac concentration camp.

The Croatian regime killed between 77,000 and 99,000 people at Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“To cover our ears to one cry is to silence them all,” Kaploun said at the ceremony. “Whether it is denying the Holocaust, any genocide or any atrocity, any attempt to rewrite the historical record is an insult to the victims at Jasenovac and an insult to any victim of the atrocities.”

That is why U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “have been clear: there can be no compromise with evil, and there can be no compromising the truth,” Kaploun said. “From standing with Jewish communities to fighting today’s axis of evil, we have made clear that hatred has no place in a civilized society.”

“As antisemitism surges globally, we have no choice but to remember,” he added. “Together, we must educate about the past, and learn from the past, to protect the living.  We must commit to fighting hatred wherever and whenever we see it, and we must build a better world for us all.”

Emir Suljagić, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, stated that he was “deeply moved” by Kaploun’s speech.

“Mr. Kaploun showed rare integrity and honesty in confronting contemporary genocide denial alongside Holocaust denial and antisemitism. He did not shy away from condemning all forms of historical revisionism and genocide denial,” Suljagić said. “That he said all of this in Jasenovac—a place that is hallowed ground for Jews—only underscores the weight of his words. His willingness to reach across historical and religious divides is a testament to his character and openness.”




At Memorial Day ceremony, leaders warn of division, IDF chief says ‘all parts of nation’ must defend it
President Isaac Herzog and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir issued pleas for unity, and praised the country’s resolve in wartime, at Israel’s official Memorial Day ceremony Monday evening at the Western Wall.

Zamir, evidently alluding to the ongoing government-backed broad exemption from military service by the ultra-Orthodox community, declared that “all parts of the nation” need to participate in the “security mission” to defend Israel. “This campaign teaches us that these are necessary conditions for our military strength,” said Zamir, “and that cohesion is a condition for our existence.”

At an earlier event, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the IDF’s work was not yet done in Iran.

The state ceremony came at the start of a solemn day in the Israeli national calendar, when people across the country pause to memorialize loved ones killed in battle and in terror attacks. As the country turned its lens to the bereaved, those who lost loved ones spoke about their pain and pride.

The events began at 8 p.m. with the sounding of a one-minute siren across the country, during which Israelis stood in silence, marking the onset of Memorial Day. A memorial flame for the fallen was then lit at the ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.

In their remarks, national leaders noted that this was the third Memorial Day since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which began a period of near-constant fighting on multiple fronts. In addition to praising the soldiers who have fought in those battles, both Herzog and Zamir nodded to the deep rifts that have plagued Israeli society in recent years, especially throughout the war.

“Our nation has one song, a song of many voices,” Herzog said near the end of his remarks. “The history of our people teaches, again and again: When voices silence one another, the danger grows. When voices sing together, the nation rises.”

Earlier in his speech, Herzog paid tribute to “this generation” of Israeli soldiers, encouraging them to consider “what comes after the war.”

“We are still in the midst of the campaign. In recent days, to our deep sorrow, more precious and beloved sons have been added to the list of the fallen,” Herzog said, referring to soldiers killed during renewed fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was sparked by the US-Israeli war with Iran.

“War is a fateful time, a national test, and as a nation we are meeting it with extraordinary strength, and will continue to meet it with determination and resolve, through all the unbearable pain,” he said.
On Memorial Day, Netanyahu frames Israel’s fallen as ‘foundation of our independence’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem on Israel’s Memorial Day, which began on Monday evening, said the day is one of “heavy sorrow” but also the “anchor of unifying togetherness.”

“The people remember. The people salute. The people are deeply grateful to the sons and daughters, thanks to whom our existence is assured. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: ‘For a people in Zion dwelt in Jerusalem, weep and do not weep,’ ” the prime minister said at a ceremony of Yad LaBanim, the official group commemorating Israel’s fallen.

Among those attending the ceremony were the speaker of the Knesset, the president of the Supreme Court, Israel’s chief rabbis, and the mayor of Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said the loss of a loved one always stays with the families of those who have fallen. He recalled how, after 50 years, his family still longs for his elder brother, Jonathan, who died leading the 1976 raid on Entebbe.

The prime minister spoke of Heli Wolfstall, who lost her son Ariel, an armored battalion officer, in the recent war. Wolfstall went to Poland as part of a group, ‘Witnesses in Uniform,’ with IDF company commanders.

Before the journey, Netanyahu related how she collected stones from the cemetery where her son was buried and took them to Treblinka, Birkenau, and the cemetery in Krakow, where soldiers of the Jewish Brigade, which fought the Nazis in Europe, were buried.

“There, in Krakow, Heli and IDF officers placed the stones of the Land of Israel on the graves of the fighters during the Holocaust. The officers sought to express their deep feeling that they were the successors of their predecessors in the same mission to ensure the eternity of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Quoting Wolfstall, he said: “My family and I have paid the price of revival, and our hearts are torn, but this journey illustrated to me what would have happened if we hadn’t had the Israel Defense Forces. Instead of complete helplessness, today we have the strength and the spirit to fight back against our enemies.”


Call me Back Podcast: The Untold Story of Hannah Senesh - with Matti Friedman
What do we owe the stories of people who sacrificed everything, even when they did not succeed?

As Israel approaches Yom Hazikaron after two and a half years of war, Dan speaks with author and journalist Matti Friedman about one of the most iconic and least understood stories in Israeli history: the parachutists of 1944. At the center is Hannah Senesh, whose name became synonymous with courage, even though the mission itself failed in military terms.

In this episode:
02:40 – The real story behind Hannah Senesh and the parachutists of 1944
06:20 – The 1944 parachutist mission
08:40 – How Israel turned this mission into a national myth
14:10 – Why the mission had no clear or achievable objective
17:00 – How the parachutists understood their role as shaping a future story
27:20 – What Hannah Senesh’s life and death reveal about sacrifice
29:00 – Why the parachutists chose to act despite knowing they would likely fail
32:10 – What this story offers Israelis after October 7


Israeli embassies, diplomats targeted about 30 times since Oct. 7 attacks, says Israel’s FM
Israeli embassies and diplomats worldwide have been targeted by terrorists about 30 times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday.

“Since the start of ‘Operation Roaring Lion’, we have been confronting this troubling wave with greater intensity,” Sa’ar told ministry staff at a ceremony honoring diplomats who were killed in the line of duty, referring to the joint Israeli-U.S. military operation against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The ceremony was held ahead of Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Hostile Acts, which starts on Monday night.

“The Iranian terror regime has tried and continues to try to harm Israel, as well as its representatives around the world. It spreads chaos and terrorism across the globe,” said Sa’ar.

He noted two attempts to harm Israeli embassy staff in the United Arab Emirates in recent months, including one with an explosive drone.

“Israel is not only the most militarily attacked country, it is also the most politically attacked country. Modern antisemitism is carried by venomous, toxic incitement directed against Israel—the state of the Jewish people,” said Sa’ar. “Our diplomats stand on the front line of this: The diplomatic front.”


John Podhoretz: Let Me Explain What an Enemy Is
A good-looking young Muslim man who came to prominence playing video games while people watch him do so on a streaming service has chosen of late to speak about Jews.

He has called Jews and their supporters “blood-thirsty, violent pig-dog[s],” and has said that “it doesn’t matter if rape happened on October 7.” He called Orthodox Jews “inbred”—Orthodox Jews, mind you, who number more than 2 million worldwide and come from Yemen and Syria and Morocco and Vilnius and Belarus and Ethiopia and whose various skin colors mark them as among the most physically diverse people on the face of this planet. Given a chance to amend or apologize for his stated view that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, this young man replied that he stood by it—as well as his opinion that the United States deserved to be attacked on September 11.

The forum in which he affirmed his opinions was Pod Save America, the wildly popular effort by Obama staffers to influence the Democratic Party in a progressive direction and help the party succeed with voters while enriching themselves in the process. They brought him on to whitewash him, and, perhaps to his credit in some evil sense, this young man refused to be whitewashed.

Another successful Internet entrepreneur and Democratic Party booster, Ezra Klein, has taken his trade to the New York Times, where he tries to sound like a voice of sweet reason (following a raging early career on the web during which he suggested someone should “f—k” the late Tim Russert “with a spiky acid-tipped d—k” for not being liberal enough). Klein published a column in April about the controversies surrounding this young man called “Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy.” (The column’s title was later altered, since whitewashing despicable opinions is the mandate not only of Pod Save America but the New York Times op-ed page, particularly as regards Israel and anti-Semitism.)

People like Piker are not without power in this world, especially when their views are amplified. As a voice in the most influential opinion precinct in the Western world, Klein is a gigantic megaphone. He represents what are now deemed acceptable views and, in so doing, advances those views from the acceptable to the respectable.
Yair Rosenberg: The Problem With Hasan Piker’s Einstein Story
The Pod Save America appearance offers a case in point. While discussing his personal opposition to Israel’s founding, Piker marshals an unexpected ally: Albert Einstein. “My assessment on Zionism as an ideology is not that different from Albert Einstein’s assessment of Zionism,” he tells the co-host Jon Favreau. The Jewish physicist, Piker said, “was actually asked to be the first president of Israel.” But Einstein, in Piker’s account, assailed the Israeli project from the start: He saw “the violence that the early Zionist brigades were engaging in” before “the IDF existed, before Israel existed,” and “wrote about what Zionism was turning into, and he warned that what he was seeing was exactly what the Nazis were doing.”

Most listeners probably took little notice of this historical riff. Favreau does not remark on it. But for me, it was a flashing-neon sign. I wrote my undergraduate thesis about Einstein’s relationship to Judaism and Zionism, poring over the relevant documents in three languages on two continents. And just about every bit of Piker’s potted portrayal is either misleading or false.

Far from an opponent of the Zionist endeavor, Einstein assisted it for decades. In 1921, he raised money across America for the Hebrew University alongside Chaim Weizmann, the head of the World Zionist Organization. In 1923, he delivered a guest lecture at the school’s campus in Jerusalem. Weizmann, meanwhile, was tapped to be the first president of Israel, in 1948; Einstein, who had not been in the running, congratulated him. “Long before the emergency of Hitler, I made the cause of Zionism mine because through it I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong,” Einstein wrote to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947, in an attempt to persuade him to support the movement.

In 1951, the physicist hosted David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. When Weizmann died the next year, Ben-Gurion offered his position to Einstein, who declined, writing that he was “deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it.” (The notoriously absent-minded professor explained, “I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.”) Shortly before his death, Einstein told an interviewer that he had “great hopes for the future of the Jewish state.” He even planned to deliver a speech marking the seventh anniversary of Israel’s founding in 1955—but died days before he could deliver it. He bequeathed his valuable papers and the rights to his name and likeness to Hebrew University.

None of this is to say that Einstein was an uncritical booster of the Zionist project. On the contrary, he was a sharp public antagonist of the Israeli right. This ideological orientation was likely another reason Einstein turned down the ceremonial role of the country’s presidency, which is meant to be nonpartisan. He was also a deeply reluctant nationalist. Before Israel was founded, Einstein advocated for a shared state for Jews and Arabs, writing in 1946 that “what we can and should ask” is for “secured bi-national status in Palestine with free immigration.” But once Israel was established, Einstein strongly supported its continued existence, while insisting that its ultimate success depended on the pursuit of peace and fair treatment of the land’s Arab inhabitants. “International policies for the Middle East should be dominated by efforts to secure peace for Israel and its neighbors,” he wrote in the draft of his deathbed speech.

In other words, Einstein wasn’t an unapologetic Israel-right-or-wrong advocate or an ardent anti-Zionist, but something more interesting: a left-wing supporter of Jewish statehood who believed in Israel’s necessity but also in the fundamental rights of the region’s Palestinian citizens. This complex combination of commitments puts him in accord with many, if not most, Americans and American Jews today, according to survey data. In contemporary terms, one might call Einstein a liberal Zionist—the same category of people Piker has previously called “liberal Nazis.”

But listeners to Piker on Pod Save America will have learned none of this. The streamer’s cavalier characterization of the views of American Jews, living and dead, and his failure to genuinely reckon with what they think, help explain why some feel that Piker fosters anti-Jewish animus. But one need not reach a conclusion on the anti-Semitism question to arrive at the simpler determination that he speaks confidently about things that he does not know much about. And this phenomenon is not unique to Piker. It’s characteristic of the new-media landscape, which now includes smashmouth streamers and podcasters of all political persuasions who talk about everything but are experts in nothing, and whose incentives run toward incendiary virality rather than accuracy. Often, this means that these talkers leave listeners less informed than when they came in, as is the case here.


Boy George defends Eurovision participation: 'Turn my back on my Jewish friends? Not going to happen'
British singer Boy George pushed back against criticism from anti-Israel campaigners over his participation in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, reaffirming his longstanding ties to Jewish people.

The Culture Club frontman is set to perform at next month’s contest in Vienna, Austria, representing San Marino alongside Italian singer Senhit. His participation comes amid controversy over Israel’s inclusion in the competition, which has prompted several countries — including Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia — to withdraw.

“I have many, many Jewish friends that I’ve had since I was 15 or 16 years old,” Boy George said ahead of a Eurovision event in London. “Are people asking me as a principled human being to turn my back on my Jewish friends? It’s not going to happen, it’s never going to happen.”

He added that his connection to Jewish people dates back to the early days of his career. “From the beginning of my career I wore a Jewish star. Go back and look at pictures of Culture Club. I am so affiliated with Jewish people,” he said. “I am not necessarily affiliated with Israel. I don’t really have an opinion on that.”

“But the job of music is to unite people,” he added.

The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, ruled in December that Israel would be allowed to compete, despite growing international calls to bar the country. The decision has led to withdrawals and difficulties for some countries in recruiting performers.

Boy George also addressed Ireland’s decision to pull out of the contest. “Ireland is my mother’s home country. I hope they’re not too angry. But if they are, that’s out of my control,” he said.

More than 1,000 figures from the entertainment industry, including Boy George, have signed an open letter supporting Israel’s participation in Eurovision. The letter said such events are meant to unite people and criticized calls to boycott Israel, saying they undermine the spirit of the competition.
Astonishingly Prolific Anti-Israel Medical Researcher Used AI to Churn Out Journal Articles, Screening Software Shows
A stridently anti-Israel Harvard graduate student used artificial intelligence to churn out at least five of the more than 90 medical journal articles he published in two and a half years, including one about whether newborns have a future in Gaza, a Washington Free Beacon review shows.

"The ongoing Israeli military assault on Gaza has led to an alarming humanitarian catastrophe, whereby the onset of famine is coupled with a deterioration of maternal health services, severely impacting the wellbeing of pregnant women and of children. The near-total collapse of the health-care infrastructure, coupled with the lack of access to essential medical services, has resulted in a tragic surge in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths," said the article titled "Will there be a future for newborns in Gaza?" in the November 2, 2024, issue of the Lancet, a British medical journal. "The world cannot remain silent any longer. The time for action is now—to restore access to health care, to protect women and children, and to uphold the sanctity of life."

The lead author of the article, Bilal Irfan, published a Harvard Medical School email address for correspondence related to the article, and he listed his affiliation as "Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA." At the time the article was published, he was a graduate student at Harvard Medical School. The author listed second on the article, Abdallah Abu Shammala, listed his affiliation as Gaza’s European Hospital. The Israel Defense Forces has posted video of Hamas terrorist tunnels under that hospital, and in May 2025 the IDF said it had killed "the terrorist Mohammed Sinwar, Head of the Hamas terror organization's military wing," along with two other terrorists, "in an underground command and control center, under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis."

Three online screening programs—Pangram, Winston AI, and ZeroGPT—marked the article as 100 percent AI-generated. Another program, Quillbot, said 54 percent of the text of the article is AI-generated. A fifth program, GPTZero, gave the article a 73 percent likelihood of being AI-generated.

For a person in his early 20s, Irfan has an astonishingly long list of scholarly journal articles, many of them co-authored with physicians in Gaza hospitals that Israeli and American officials say and physical, photographic, and video evidence show were used for operations of Hamas terrorists.

The U.S government’s official PubMed database, hosted by the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine, lists Irfan as an author on 91 articles published in the two and a half years between March 30, 2026, and November 30, 2023. In the year 2025, according to PubMed, Irfan published 57 journal articles; that’s a rate of more than one a week.

If it sounds more prolific than humanly possible, that appears to be for a reason. The Free Beacon put the texts of those articles through five different programs designed to detect the use of artificial intelligence. Several of the papers were flagged by multiple scanning programs as having a 100 percent likelihood of being AI-generated.
Is jealousy the root of anti-Zionism?
So, when the postmodern West looks at Israel, the nation-state, they see an outlier they subconsciously aspire to. Zionism has become “a target because it represents what Westerners on the Right claim to desperately want but are unable to attain, and what Westerners on the Left wish to define as impossible,” she writes.

In the midst of a confusing and fast-changing world, with hi-tech innovations fueling cultural and political instability, the world is at a pivot point. Yet, instead of grappling with those complex challenges, the public fixates on Israel and Zionism because they’re a simpler target: In the public’s warped thinking, there’s a clear villain and a clean moral narrative people can rally around.

Zionism has become the symbol onto which people project all their frustrations about their rapidly changing lived reality. Anti-Zionism gets bundled with anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, and anti-Americanism. It’s not about the Jews, Newhouse stresses. Israel has become a test case for delegitimizing the entire concept of national identity, which so many believe has failed them.

Newhouse largely downplays antisemitism as the primary driver for hostility to Zionism. She doesn’t deny that it exists, just that blaming anti-Zionism primarily on antisemitism misdiagnoses the phenomenon. The main cause, in her view, is structural, not prejudice.

The Zionism = antisemitism argument is based on the idea that hatred of Jews has shifted from religion and race to the nation-state of Israel. For Newhouse, Zionism has become a target because of what it represents, not because Jews are Jews. Attacks on Zionism are based on projection – blaming others for what’s being lost – and, again, envy: resentment of the non-functioning national models in their own countries.

So, when students on campuses chant slogans like “From the river to the sea,” it’s not about antisemitism; it’s about the West struggling with itself.

Newhouse’s analysis doesn’t include any practical steps for fighting anti-Zionism; it’s more a philosophical thought piece that contextualizes this fraught moment in Zionism as “a technology for national renewal that could, conceivably, be used by anyone.” In that respect, it has helped me better see why it’s worth living in Israel, especially when missiles fly and sirens wail.
UKLFI: AI and Antisemitism
This is a recording of a UKLFI Charitable Trust webinar on AI and Antisemitism, with Prof. Richard Susskind, chaired by Natasha Hausdorff. It took place on Monday 30th March 2026.

In this webinar Professor Susskind explains the history and current capabilities of AI and its likely future, focusing on the social and economic impact of AI and the benefits and risks that it brings. He talks about what AI means for Jews and antisemitism, covering both its positive and negative implications.

Professor Susskind argues that while AI presents immediate opportunities and threats, the community should be encouraged to plan and prepare for the much more advanced systems that are under development and not to focus only on current issues. He believes that humanity is ill-prepared for the upheavals that AI seems destined to precipitate.


Tikvah: Roy Altman on Why Educated Young People Believe Lies about Israel
Roy Altman came to America as a little boy. He came from Venezuela, where his own grandparents had fled to during the Holocaust. Altman and his family arrived in the U.S. with very little and knowing almost no one. Some three decades later, the president of the United States nominated him to serve as a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, where he became the youngest person ever to hold that position. Being an American has been, he says, among the great blessings of his life; a blessing he repaid in public service.

Then came October 7. And what disturbed him was not only the massacre itself but the reaction in Western media, on college campuses, in institutions that he had assumed shared his most basic commitments. He found it, he says, first ridiculous, then disconcerting, and ultimately shocking. He set out to understand this reaction and then, as best he could, to counter it.

The result is a new book called Israel on Trial, in which Judge Altman applies the methodology of the federal courtroom to the six most common legal charges leveled against the Jewish state: colonialism, illegitimate founding, blocking Palestinian statehood, illegally occupying Gaza, apartheid, and genocide.

In this episode, Altman discusses the book with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver. Their conversation ranges beyond the book's core argument, paying particular attention to something Judge Altman observed about the 50 college and law-school campuses he has visited since October 7, something that points beyond a pathology specific to Israel to a broader crisis in American intellectual and moral life. Judge Altman has a striking way of evoking that crisis, rooted in his daily experience watching ordinary jurors reason their way to correct verdicts while educated young Americans somehow cannot reason their way through the difference between civilization and barbarism.
Spain asks EU to end the Association Agreement with Israel
Spain’s foreign minister intends to ask counterparts from other E.U. member states on Tuesday to end the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement, which saves Israel about $1 billion annually in tax dispensations, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Sunday.

Sánchez, who has called Israel a “genocidal state” and whose government has adopted the most anti-Israeli policy of any large E.U. economy, said this during a rally in Huelva, Andalusia, on Sunday.

On Tuesday, foreign ministers of E.U. member states are scheduled to meet in Luxembourg for a policy meeting. It will be the first gathering of its kind since the loss of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in his country’s general elections.

Orbán’s government has shielded Israel repeatedly from sanctions that would have required a consensus. His elected successor, Péter Magyar, has advocated a more harmonious relationship with the E.U. than under Orbán.

Spain under Sánchez has imposed a weapons embargo on Israel and joined South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel for alleged genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice.

Sánchez wrote on X in English on Sunday: “The time has come for the EU to break its Association Agreement with Israel. We have nothing against the people of Israel; quite the contrary. But a Government that violates international law and, therefore, the principles and values of the EU cannot be our partner.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar responded in a stern Spanish-language post.

“We will not accept a hypocritical lecture from someone who has a relationship with totalitarian regimes that violate human rights, such as Erdogan’s Turkey and Maduro’s Venezuela,” Sa’ar wrote. “A government that receives thanks from Iran’s brutal regime and terrorist organizations, and that has dedicated itself to spreading antisemitism. We have nothing against the citizens of Spain, quite the contrary, but against the double standard of the government of Pedro Sánchez.”

Last week, Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center, a pro-Israel legal action group, announced that Sánchez was facing a complaint that Shurat HaDin had filed with the International Criminal Court, alleging Spain enabled the transfer of components with a dual use, military or civilian, to Iran worth €1.3 million ($1.53 million).

The components are “critical parts that allow explosive systems to function, in circumstances where their use against civilians was foreseeable,” Shurat Hadin alleged. Under international law, “providing essential components can constitute complicity in war crimes. Iran continues to arm proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis targeting civilian populations,” the NGO continued.
Israeli envoy: Swedish authorities tolerating ‘open antisemitism’ on Stockholm streets
Swedish authorities continue to tolerate open acts of antisemitism on the streets of Stockholm, as freedom of expression is weaponized to promote hate and incitement against Jews, Israel’s Ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, said on Sunday.

“Open acts of antisemitism, week after week in the streets of Stockholm. The same centuries-old stereotypes and blood libels, repackaged by replacing ‘Jews’ with ‘Zionists,’” Nevo Kulman wrote on X.

He was responding to footage circulating online of a “protest” in the Swedish capital, in which anti-Israel activists staged a scene appearing to depict a Jewish man—wearing a kippah and covered in blood—threatening to slit the throat of a Palestinian woman, as the crowd chanted, “Crush Zionism.”

“Authorities tolerate ‘freedom of expression’ being abused to promote hate and incitement against a national minority,” wrote Nevo Kulman. “Too many bystanders say nothing. ‘It’s not their war.’ This is Europe, 2026.”
UN Watch: Canada’s misleading denial that it nominated Iran to UN body addressing women’s rights & terror prevention
Canada’s foreign ministry made a misleading statement on X.com (see details below) to mask the fact it allowed the nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a UN committee that addresses critical issues including women’s rights and terrorism prevention — failing to object as the US did, and as Canada and EU states have done in the past.

The fact is that Canada, as a member of the 54-nation UN Economic and Social Council, participated in the consensus nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination on April 8, 2026.

This committee deals with budget priorities and program coordination on critical issues, and will meet soon, May 14-21, to address women’s rights, human rights, and terrorism prevention. (See here.)

At a minimum, Canada should have taken the floor to object that it is wrong to nominate a regime that only months ago massacred thousands of protesters, and that brutally oppresses women, tortures political prisoners, and systematically violates basic human rights.

This is exactly what the United States did in that meeting. It was the only country that formally objected and disassociated itself from the consensus decision, citing Iran’s appalling record on women’s rights.

Canada and other Western democracies, however, remained silent and allowed the consensus to pass in ECOSOC, a body of which Canada is a member.

Notably, in a similar scenario at ECOSOC in April 2022, Canada, the UK, the EU, and several other democracies took the floor to object to the election of a Russian candidate, months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At that time, Canada rightly took the floor, on behalf also of New Zealand, to object to and disassociate from the election of the Russian national, and to condemn “Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine.” Canada stressed that it did not want to provide “tacit endorsement” of the appointment of the Russian national.


Expert identifies major holes in UN report claiming 38,00 women and girls were killed in Gaza war
An American policy analyst identifies what he says are major holes in a report published Friday by the UN Women’s agency, which claimed that 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza by the end of 2025 and that a projected 120,000 were killed in total.

These projected figures are far above the death toll currently reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, which stands at 72,345 as of April 16.

Israel Policy Forum senior policy associate Gabriel Epstein tells The Times of Israel that the UN agency’s 38,000 figure was derived by blindly applying projections regarding both an overall claimed undercount and the gender and age breakdown from studies conducted earlier in the war, rather than using actual and current Health Ministry data.

Both the 41% undercount that UN Women assumed and the proportions the agency used to pull out girls from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry’s child category and for adult women from the elderly category are inexplicably from a study relying on a much less complete June 2024 dataset, not current figures published in November 2025, Epstein points out.

Moreover, the UN agency then took those old figures and applied them to the more up-to-date statistics.

The Gaza health ministry’s own breakdown from November 2025 says 40.8% of the children killed were girls, while the UN agency report claims it is 44.6%.

For elderly women, too, the UN report’s percentage was higher than the more updated information provided by the Gaza health ministry — 39.9% compared to 37.2%.

“The current proportions were easily accessible from the November 2025 dataset, so this is a serious error,” Epstein says.


Mamdani accuses Trump admin of ‘killing thousands,’ defends Jew-hatred policy rollback
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, accused U.S. President Donald Trump of “killing thousands of people” in the Iran conflict and defended his decision to revoke his predecessor’s executive orders about Jew-hatred and anti-Israel boycotts in an interview at City Hall with Leila Fadel, of NPR.

Fadel pressed the mayor multiple times about his relationship with Trump, with whom Mamdani has met at least twice at the White House since he began his term at City Hall in January.

“I’ll keep the nature of the conversations with the president between the two of us,” Mamdani told NPR. “What I will tell you is that it is no secret, not my concerns, I would describe it more as a deep opposition to this war, a deep opposition that comes out of a concern for what our politics are incentivizing in this moment, the killing of civilians, as opposed to the uplifting of working-class people across this country.”

Fadel noted that Trump has called Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and that the mayor called the president a “fascist.”

“Now that you’ve met with him, that you’ve spoken with him multiple times, do you still think he’s a fascist?” she asked. “Yes,” Mamdani said.

She asked if the mayor has told Trump that he considers him a fascist. “Yes,” Mamdani said. Asked how Trump responds, Mamdani said that “I think everyone saw in the conversation we had in the Oval Office after our first meeting.”

“He seems to like you. Are you and the president friends?” Fadel wondered. “I would say that he’s the president and I’m the mayor,” Mamdani said. “The basis of the relationship comes from those two positions.”

“Look at the war in Iran today,” he told Fadel in response to another question. “We’re talking about a federal administration that has spent close to $30 billion killing thousands of people at a time when working class people across this country cannot afford the bare minimum.”
Jack Schlossberg to skip Jewish candidate forums as questions remain around Israel stance
As Jack Schlossberg gains a foothold in his primary campaign for a coveted open House seat in the heart of Manhattan, his views on Israel policy are drawing closer scrutiny, as he begins to stake out a stance on the increasingly heated subject of Democratic debate.

His decision to skip at least two upcoming Jewish community candidate forums occurring next month, meanwhile, is also raising some eyebrows among a key constituency in a district that has the largest Jewish voting population in the country.

On Middle East policy, the 33-year-old Kennedy scion has embraced positions that place him to the left of the field on Israel, a potentially consequential issue in the 12th Congressional District, which favored former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in the November mayoral election.

Schlossberg, like his some of his Democratic rivals, had backed Mamdani, despite disagreeing with the now-mayor’s controversial campaign vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and declining to call Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide, among other notable differences.

But as the fallout over Gaza and the war with Iran has stoked Democratic skepticism of the U.S. relationship with Israel, Schlossberg is now joining growing calls to oppose U.S. weapons sales to the Jewish state, though he has yet to clearly articulate his plans to enact such policies if elected to serve in the House.

During a candidate forum at 92NY last week, for example, Schlossberg, the grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, rejected continued U.S. funding for offensive weapons to Israel amid the war in Iran — even as he emphasized support for boosting the Iron Dome missile-defense system, which he described as a “critical” technology.

“I do not think the United States should back away from its ally completely and leave them hanging out to dry without any defenses,” he told the crowd, while saying Congress should hold a vote on funding for the war in Iran, including offensive weapons to Israel.
Michigan Dems nominate lawyer who praised Hezbollah for UMich regent over Jewish incumbent
Michigan Democrats on Sunday nominated insurgent candidate Amir Makled, an anti-Israel attorney, for the University of Michigan Board of Regents over incumbent Jordan Acker, a Jewish regent who had been targeted by far-left activists over his support for Israel.

Acker was actively campaigning for reelection alongside Paul Brown, both of whom were first elected in 2018. But only Acker was targeted by Makled’s backers, even though both Acker and Brown had supported disciplining anti-Israel student activists and opposing efforts to divest from Israel. Brown was also nominated by the Democratic Party on Sunday, and he and Makled will now advance to the November general election.

The positions are statewide elected offices, and regents are tasked with governing Michigan’s flagship public university. Two of the board’s eight seats are up for election this November.

Makled has argued in his campaign that the university should divest from Israel. A trial attorney based in Dearborn, Makled previously represented a University of Michigan student who was arrested during the 2024 anti-Israel encampment.

He faced criticism earlier this month after the Detroit News documented Makled’s history of sharing pro-Hezbollah and antisemitic tweets, which he has since deleted but not addressed. Those revelations prompted SEIU, the labor union, to pull their endorsement of Makled.

In 2024, Acker’s home was targeted by anti-Israel activists on multiple occasions in incidents that university leadership and Michigan politicians described as antisemitic.
UMich Regent Candidate Who Praised Hezbollah Wins Democratic Nomination
Dearborn, Mich. attorney Amir Makled, who shared since-deleted social media posts praising late Hezbollah terrorists as "martyr[s]" and urging Iran to "show no laxity" against Israel, won the Michigan Democratic Party’s nomination for the University of Michigan Board of Regents during the party’s convention Sunday.

Makled will appear on the November ballot alongside incumbent regent Paul Brown after defeating another incumbent, Jordan Acker, a supporter of Israel whose home was the target of antisemitic vandalism in 2024. By contrast, Makled is best known in the university community for representing Michigan students who faced criminal charges after participating in the university's illegal anti-Israel encampment in spring 2024.

His upset victory comes in the wake of the Washington Free Beacon’s revelation that Makled had reposted messages calling slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a "martyr" and referred to him by the honorific "Sayed," which translates to "Master." Makled likewise shared a post saying Nasrallah’s security chief, Abu Ali Khalil, "was martyred in an 'Israeli' strike in Tehran," adding, "May His Ascension rise High." On the day Israel began its operation against the Islamic Republic last June, he shared a post from @IRIran_Military, a regime fan account, that called for Iran to "show no laxity in sacred war against the enemy."

Service Employees International Union rescinded its endorsement of Makled after the Free Beacon reported on those posts.

The Michigan Democrats’ convention showcased the party’s adversarial position toward Israel. Left-wing Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has made his fervent opposition to the Jewish state a cornerstone of his campaign, delivered a speech that was enthusiastically received by attendees. Pro-Israel U.S. Senate candidate Haley Stevens and a Democratic Party official who nominated Acker were both loudly booed by the crowd.

Makled highlighted the contrast and told the Michigan Daily, "I think this room is a litmus test of what we can expect come November, if the campaigns are staying strong and moving forward."


Kanye West shows nixed in Poland, Switzerland amid backlash over past antisemitism
Concerts by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, have now been called off in Poland and Switzerland amid growing backlash over his past antisemitic comments, further disrupting plans for his upcoming international tour.

Ye also said he had postponed a June concert in Marseille as French media reported that Interior Minister Laurent Nunez was seeking to have the event banned.

“After much thought and consideration, it is my sole decision to postpone my show in Marseille, France until further notice,” Ye wrote in a post on X. In a subsequent post, Ye appeared to allude further to the situation, writing, “I know it takes time to understand the sincerity of my commitment to make amends.”

The cancellations follow the scrapping of a London music festival earlier this month where Ye had been slated to headline, after the British government denied him entry into the country amid mounting pressure from Jewish groups over his history of antisemitic remarks.

While Ye has apologized multiple times for his antisemitic tirades, including his previous vows to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” and the release of a song titled “Heil Hitler” last year, the rapper’s upcoming tour this summer has faced mounting cancellations. But his comeback tour — which launched with two sold-out shows in Los Angeles — is prompting renewed scrutiny over the sincerity of his apologies, and debate over how much time should pass before figures who have erred are allowed back into public life.

On Saturday, the Swiss football club FC Basel, which coordinates concerts at the St Jakob-Park ground where Ye had requested to perform in June, told Reuters that it had denied the rapper’s request to use the venue.
Seattle police arrest three anti-Israel protesters outside event with Miss Israel
Seattle police officers arrested three people, including 21- and 33-year-old men for obstruction and disorderly conduct, on Sunday afternoon at a protest, which drew 75 protesters at its height, the Seattle Police Department stated.

The protesters were demonstrating outside a StandWithUs Northwest event with Miss Israel, Noa Cochva, at Town Hall in downtown Seattle. Organizers kept the event location private, but Hannah Saunders, editor of a self-identified “antifascist” news site, encouraged readers to register and pay for the event to learn the location and then share the address on social media.

A security guard whom StandWithUs hired for the event, who told JNS that he has worked several Town Hall events in recent months including one with Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, said that he hadn’t encountered a protest like the one on Sunday.

“Is that what people have to deal with going to events like this every single time?” he told JNS. “Oh, my Lord. Why? Why? You’re making life hell for everyone, including people that are not here for the event. The people that are working.”

The website editor, who posted the address of the event, accused Israel of “genocide” and said that Miss Israel, who used to serve in the Israeli military, was part of the Israeli “occupying” forces. She also referred to the speaker as a “baby killer.”

Many Jewish and pro-Israel event organizers keep the location secret for security reasons. A gunman shot and killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington after they left a May 21, 2025 event at a Washington Jewish museum, and an attacker threw firebombs at Jews marching in Colorado on June 1, 2025. Terrorists killed 15 people at a Chanukah event in Sydney on Dec. 14.

Anti-Israel protesters at the Seattle event yelled “Death, Death to the IDF” and accused Israel of “genocide.” One man lay in a pool of fake blood on the sidewalk outside the event.


With DEI out of favor, some push to honor Jewish philanthropist behind 5,000 Black schools
Aviva Kempner makes films about what she calls “underknown Jewish heroes.”

More than a decade ago, she attended a talk on Martha’s Vineyard by civil rights activist Julian Bond, who spoke about Julius Rosenwald, the Jewish businessman and head of retailing giant Sears, Roebuck. Bond described how Rosenwald worked with Booker T. Washington to help fund nearly 5,000 schools for Black children across the Jim Crow South between 1917 and 1932.

“I’ve got to go make that film,” recalled Kempner.

Kempner went on to write and produce the 2015 documentary “Rosenwald,” about the Illinois native she calls perhaps the greatest unsung philanthropist in American history.

A decade later, Rosenwald is unsung no more. A mix of federal legislation — initiated in part by Kempner’s film — museum exhibitions, digital archives, and grassroots preservation efforts is pushing Rosenwald’s legacy back into public view — and testing whether efforts to confront America’s unsavory history of racial discrimination can survive the administration efforts to erase Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts at federal museums and monuments. In February, Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat, introduced legislation to create a Rosenwald National Historic Park, backed by seven Democratic co-sponsors. The proposal would formally recognize Rosenwald and the sprawling network of schools that reshaped Black education in the segregated South.

The bill calls for a Chicago site that once included the Sears merchandising complex, as well as sites of schools in rural Maryland, South Carolina and Virginia.

Its staunchest advocate has been Dorothy Canter, a National Parks Conservation Association volunteer who has pushed for a park since seeing Kempner’s film. “I didn’t know what to expect in September 2015 when my husband and I went to see a documentary about a man I had never heard of — Julius Rosenwald,” Canter recalled in an essay. “When it was over, I turned to my husband and said, ‘There needs to be a national park to honor him.’”

Canter is now president of the Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park Campaign.

But the bill’s future remains uncertain in a sharply divided Congress, where Republican support will be necessary to move it out of committee and ultimately to the president’s desk.
Rhode Island reaches agreement with school district over Jew-hatred hazing case
Rhode Island reached an agreement with Smithfield Public Schools on Friday after investigating the district, which operates five schools with a combined 2,400 students, for its response to a 2025 incident in which a Jewish student said that he was hazed.

“School is where our kids spend their formative years. It should be a place of growth and exploration, not fear and intimidation,” stated Peter Neronha, the state attorney general. “I want to thank the victim for his bravery in coming forward and telling his story and the district for their commitment to do better when it comes to protecting our children.”

Under the five-part agreement approved by the school committee, the district must review and revise its policies on harassment and discrimination, train staff, introduce student programming that addresses Jew-hatred, develop a protocol for supporting victims who allege discrimination and survey students and parents about whether the district created a “hostile environment” for Jewish students in its response to the incident.

Several high school football players allegedly trapped a Jewish freshman in a locker-room bathroom, sprayed cleaning and shouted anti-Jewish slurs

Disciplinary action against the students was reversed. A probe by the attorney general’s office concluded that the district failed to properly investigate the incident, failed to follow established procedures and did not adequately protect the victim’s rights.
Harvard Business School Case Study Vilifies Israel
Late in the afternoon Eastern Time on Oct. 7, 2023, after reporting revealed that invading Iran-backed Hamas jihadists had perpetrated atrocities against Israel’s civilian population, 34 Harvard student organizations stated on Instagram that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

As Harvard fends off a Trump administration lawsuit alleging the university failed to protect Jewish students from “relentless antisemitic on-campus discrimination,” inquiring minds will want to know where Harvard students learned to vilify the Jewish state.

One likely source of such lessons, a recent controversy at Harvard Business School suggests, is the Harvard faculty.

The controversy revolves around a case study, “Divestment (A),” prepared under HBS professor Reshmaan N. Hussam’s supervision and authorized by HBS for use in her spring 2026 course, “Globalization and Emerging Markets.” Hussam specializes in “questions at the intersection of development and behavioral economics, with research in three areas: migration, health, and finance.” She is also a campus activist, having protested on campus in solidarity with pro-Palestinian protesters.

The case study examined whether the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPF-G) should divest from Caterpillar, IBM, Microsoft, and Unilever because of their “complicity” in Israel’s alleged war crimes against Palestinians and creation of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The case study, however, treated those odious allegations against the Jewish state as established facts. Whatever its relation to her primary research, the case study furthers Hussam’s campus activism.

Following student and alumni objections, Professor Hussam postponed teaching the original case study. In the second week of April she presented in class a revised version. Reportedly, it was less one-sided though class discussion was decidedly anti-Israel.

The case method is HBS’ signature approach to classroom instruction. It typically involves a 10- to 20-page case study drafted under faculty supervision describing a real business dilemma with no easy answers. Case studies promote the business school’s educational mission by conscientiously laying out complex facts, identifying competing interests and principles, and exploring conflicting interpretations of pertinent actions and judgments.

Since the original HBS case study bears the 2026 copyright “President and Fellows of Harvard College” while departing from HBS standards by serving as a polemical indictment of Israel, it deserves scrutiny.
Argentinian union talk with two Palestinian terrorists canceled after police action
A talk on Friday by two Palestinian terrorists released in ransom deals for the hostages of the October 7 massacre at the San Lorenzo headquarters of Argentina’s State Workers Association (ATE) was canceled following police action and legal action against the event.

ATE Rosario and Action for Palestine Rosario announced that the event hosting remote talks by Hamas terrorist Osman Bilal and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine commander Nader Sadaqa had been canceled after Santa Fe Police deployed at the event.

The union branch said in a statement that the gathering of forces, including riot police, without a warrant or explanation for their actions, was intended to intimidate participants.

The deployment allegedly came at the behest of the provincial Security Ministry and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, the latter of which ostensibly stemmed from a Delegacion de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA) complaint.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that it did not order the provincial police to intervene with the event, and it did not know if the order came from the local security ministry or provincial prosecutors.


The Story No One Wanted to Touch: Hamas Exploits Gaza’s Women
An exclusive report published on Sunday (April 18) in the Daily Mail has exposed a reality inside Gaza that much of the international media has chosen to ignore: women living under Hamas rule say they are being sexually exploited by terrorists, coerced into acts in exchange for basic survival.

The testimonies are not vague. They are specific, raw, and deeply disturbing.

One woman told the Daily Mail: “They told me if I don’t cooperate, my children will starve.” Another said she was “forced into sex in return for food aid,” describing a system where access to basic survival is conditioned on submission. These are direct testimonies of coercion in a place where saying no can mean suffering and death.

According to the report, this utter collapse of moral boundaries was perpetrated by the very people who claim to protect the Palestinian people, including by Islamic charity workers tasked with assisting the most vulnerable:

The allegations reflect a pattern that has surfaced before in smaller fragments, now brought into focus through the work of local journalists from Jusoor News in Gaza, whose reporting under Hamas rule carries real personal risk. This is not an international brand with institutional backing. It is a small digital outlet covering the Middle East, including Gaza — and it is no coincidence that its reporters do not splash themselves across social media like other self-styled Gazan “citizen journalists.”

This is what real journalism looks like. Not curated narratives or selective outrage in Hamas’ media office press vests. But the willingness to expose abuse even when it implicates those who claim to represent your own people.

And yet, beyond the Daily Mail, the silence is deafening.

There are no headlines in major outlets. No urgent panels. No viral campaigns. The same ecosystem that amplifies every unverified allegation against Israel has shown little interest in testimonies coming from inside Gaza when they implicate Hamas.

Contrast that with the recent claims circulated by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Hamas front organization that presents itself as a neutral watchdog but has repeatedly pushed sensational allegations aligned with Hamas narratives, to distract from the atrocities the terror group has committed in Gaza and in Israel on October 7, 2023. Among them are allegations of extreme abuse in Israeli detention, amplified across social media despite lacking evidentiary backing. These accounts, including claims such as dogs raping detainees, are spreading widely without the scrutiny that serious reporting demands.

The difference is clear: when allegations point at Israel, they travel fast. When they point at Hamas, they stall. That imbalance is not just a media failure; it is a moral one.


Holocaust inversion at Buchenwald shows why memory must be protected
At precisely 10:30am on 12 April 1941, prisoner 8222, Meier Geppert, died at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Archive documents show the cause of death given as heart failure and lung tuberculosis. He was 55 years old and had been deported to the camp in October 1939 from the Gestapo prison in Cologne.

What he endured in those 18 months dare not be imagined, but the enforced separation from family, slave and forced labour, the transfer to an unknown destination and the dehumanising persecution he would have suffered are experiences from which we instinctively recoil.

Meier Geppert was my great-grandfather, one of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.

To read that anti-Zionist protesters plan to demonstrate outside the camp during the annual memorial next month marking the camp’s liberation is the latest expression of Holocaust inversion: attempting to use the memory and history of the Holocaust to attack Jews. While the protest will be outside the camp, we should not be naïve to the intentions of the demonstrators: to draw a direct comparison and connection between the crimes of the Nazis and the actions of the Israeli government and the IDF in defending their country.

During the years of Nazi terror, law was inverted in Germany to suit the ideology of a barbaric regime and to facilitate its murderous ambitions. Today, thankfully, the rule of law, together with basic common decency, in Germany prevails and has correctly adjudged that the right not to have offensive symbols, the wearing of a keffiyeh, and no doubt the attendant chanting displayed during what should be the solemn and dignified memorial, trumps freedom of expression. As the state court rules, the memorial has an “interest in upholding the purpose of the institution”.

Holocaust inversion is a different phenomenon to Holocaust distortion, which twists the facts to suit alternative narratives, yet at its core it is another manifestation of antisemitism. Holocaust inversion promotes a false equivalence and demonstrates the bad-faith intentions of those who seek to manipulate the facts of the worst crime in history. Inversion will be among the subjects that will be presented and discussed during the upcoming plenary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (the IHRA) to which I am a member of the UK delegation. While this attack on the memory of Buchenwald comes from the left, the camp has also been the subject of antisemitic graffiti – including the daubing of swastikas – by the far right.
Denying that Poles killed their Jewish neighbours, Polish activist declares victory over ‘the Jedwabne lie’
In the Polish town of Jedwabne, where historians agree that townspeople killed most of their Jewish neighbours during World War II, a brand-new “information centre” denies the crime.

The information centre is housed in two shipping containers that stand taller than anything else at the memorial site. On the side of one container, in Polish, are the words “The earth doesn’t lie” — a slogan promoted by those who believe that exhuming the site would exonerate the Poles of Jedwabne.

The containers were installed earlier this month and celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony shared online by Wojciech Sumlinski, a right-wing Polish activist. Last year, he took credit for placing seven boulders near Jedwabne’s official memorial, bearing plaques that deny Polish responsibility and claim that Jews historically conspired against Poles.

“We call it a denial museum, because that’s what it is,” Abraham Waserstein, whose grandfather Szmul Wasersztein was one of the few survivors of the 1941 massacre, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the new installation. “Putting these containers in Jedwabne [is] further desecrating the only remnants of Jewish community left there, our family’s legacy there.”

Waserstein, a law student at Duke University, said he and his family have reached out to local advocates with the goal of removing the new pavilions. But they may be fighting an uphill battle: The boulders that Sumlinski installed last year remain at the site and can be seen in the footage he posted of the new additions.

Szmul Wasersztein was among a handful of Jews who escaped on July 10, 1941, when Polish residents rounded up and killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbours, mostly by burning them alive in a barn.

Wasersztein’s deposition in 1945 was key to recording the Jedwabne massacre and led to the convictions of 12 Polish residents in 1949. His testimony also formed the heart of “Neighbors,” a 2000 book by historian Jan Tomasz Gross that sparked intense national debate. The crimes of Jedwabne, rupturing historical narratives that centered solely on the victimhood and heroism of Poles under the Nazis, became a symbol of Polish complicity in the Holocaust.

Former president Aleksander Kwasniewski officially apologised for the pogrom in 2001, and an official investigation by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance confirmed the next year that the murder was carried out by Poles.

But Jedwabne has since become a flashpoint in Polish politics, with some far-right politicians claiming it was Germans who perpetrated the massacre and characterising research on Polish complicity as part of an effort to slander their nation. The school of those delegitimising research on Polish antisemitism or Poles who killed Jews includes the president Poles elected last year, Karol Nawrocki.
Less than a quarter of French Jews feel safe
More than three-quarters of French Jews do not feel safe in their country, while nearly half of European Jews and a third of North American Jews experienced antisemitism in the past year, a survey released on Sunday found.

Only 22% of French Jews feel safe as Jews in their country, according to the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency for Israel’s “One People Report.”

Forty-three percent of European Jews and 35% of North American Jews surveyed said they experienced antisemitism personally or within their family in the past year.

About 450,000 Jews live in France, which is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, and the third biggest in the world after Israel and the United States.

Sixty-nine percent of Jews worldwide and 79% of Jews in Israel define antisemitism as the central challenge facing Jewish communities today, the survey found.

The host society’s perception of Israel was cited by nearly half of those surveyed as their second greatest concern.

At the same time, nearly three-quarters of Jewish young adults worldwide believe they can positively influence the future of their community despite the burst of antisemitism around the world, the findings showed.

Seventy-four percent of Jewish young adults worldwide and two-thirds of young adults in Israel believe they can positively influence their community’s future.

The survey’s findings highlighted the concern over personal security in Jewish communities in Europe following surging levels of antisemitism, as well as a sense of mutual responsibility between world Jewry and Israel.

Fifty-six percent of Jews worldwide consider it important to be connected to the Jewish community around them; 55% feel that their community provides a strong and supportive environment; 88% see Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people; 85% agree that the existence of the State of Israel is essential for the flourishing of the Jewish people; and 84% of Jews in Israel and 75% of Jews worldwide agree that Israel has a responsibility toward global Jewish communities.

“The report … paints a troubling picture of rising antisemitism and a growing erosion of the sense of security among world Jewry,” said Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who received the report last week. “Precisely at this time, we must strengthen mutual responsibility in Israel and across the Jewish world and stand together as one people. The bond between the State of Israel and world Jewry is a central pillar of our security and our shared future.”
Chicago man sentenced to 25 years for supporting ISIS
A Chicago man, who used social media to promote ISIS and encourage attacks in the West, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Ashraf Al Safoo, 41, was found guilty of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State through his leadership role in the Khattab Media Foundation, an online propaganda network aligned with the terrorist group, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Prosecutors said that the organization produced and distributed pro-ISIS videos, essays and graphics designed to incite violence and recruit followers. Some posts celebrated terrorist attacks and mass shootings in the United States and urged so-called “lone wolf” operations.

In one message, Al Safoo encouraged followers to spread propaganda “to cause confusion and spread terror within the hearts of those who disbelieved.” In another, he urged supporters to “participate in the war, and spread terror.”

Authorities said that Al Safoo coordinated directly with ISIS members and amplified the group’s messaging online.

A federal judge in Chicago also ordered 10 years of supervised release following his prison term. Al Safoo, who immigrated to the United States in 2008 and became a citizen in 2013, has been in custody since his 2018 arrest.
Bakerloo Line driver suspended for saying Jews ‘not safe’ on my train
A Transport for London train operator has been suspended after being filmed appearing to say Jewish passengers would not be safe if he were driving.

The individual is understood to have been identified following the circulation of footage recorded at an undated demonstration.

In the video, the person filming asks: “Is it safe for Jews to ride the Bakerloo line?” The man, seen carrying a banner of the RMT trade union, replies: “Not when I’m driving.”

A Campaign Against Antisemitism spokesperson said: “This is revolting and plainly runs counter to the most basic expectations of public transport. Already over two thirds of British Jews do not feel comfortable disclosing their identity on public transport. We are grateful that TfL has identified and suspended this individual and expect that, if the footage is borne out, in due course he will be fired.”

Claire Mann, TfL’s chief operating Officer, said: “Everyone has the right to travel around London without facing discrimination, and we stand united against hate in all its forms. Any acts of antisemitism will not be tolerated and will be treated with the utmost seriousness.

“Since this incident was brought to our attention, a driver has been identified and suspended whilst we fully investigate, in line with our policies and procedures.”


Israeli startup unveils world’s first chocolate bars made with lab-grown cocoa butter
An Israeli food technology startup says it has succeeded in producing chocolate using cocoa butter grown in a bioreactor, a development that could signal a shift in how one of the world’s most climate-sensitive commodities is sourced.

Celleste Bio announced it has produced milk chocolate bars using cocoa butter grown through cell suspension culture technology, rather than harvested from cocoa trees. The bars, created in collaboration with Mondelēz International, are described as meeting the same consumption and quality standards as conventional chocolate products.

The development marks a notable step in efforts to address mounting pressures on the global cocoa supply chain, which has been strained by climate change, crop disease, and geopolitical instability. Cocoa butter, the fat extracted from cocoa beans, is a critical ingredient that determines chocolate’s texture, melting behavior, and overall sensory experience. Replicating it has posed a significant technical challenge.

According to the company, its cell-cultured cocoa butter is “bio-identical” to conventionally produced cocoa butter, delivering the same melt profile and texture. The milestone, it says, demonstrates that its ingredients can function as direct replacements in existing manufacturing processes, a requirement for large-scale adoption.

The chocolate bars themselves were produced by Mondelēz, Celleste’s strategic partner, which tested the ingredient across nearly a dozen prototypes. The involvement of a major global manufacturer suggests the technology is being evaluated not only in laboratory settings but also under the constraints of industrial production.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

at