Saturday, April 25, 2026

04/23 Links Pt2: A Spoonful of Reform in Higher Ed; How Labour is helping antisemitism flourish in Britain; Mamdani nixes school ‘buffer zone’ bill, veto-proof houses of worship bill is law

From Ian:

March of the Living: our generation will soon be the last to hear these stories directly from Holocaust survivors
That same tension appeared in Krakow. We stood by part of what used to be the ghetto wall. Right next to it was a playground. Children were running around, playing, completely unaware of what that wall had once meant. It was such a normal scene, and that is what made it feel strange. Unlike Treblinka, this was not a place that had been erased. The wall was still there, but it had become part of everyday life. People walked past it, children played beside it, and unless you knew what it was, you could easily miss it. Standing there, it felt like two completely different realities existing in the same place. One grounded in history that feels almost impossible to comprehend, the other in normal life carrying on. Of course life continues, but there was something about that contrast that stuck with me. It made me think about how easily something so significant can fade into the background.

That idea followed through into the march itself. On Tuesday, we walked between Auschwitz and Birkenau as part of March of the Living. Thousands of people from all over the world, walking together along a route that once meant something completely different. It is described as a march of remembrance, which it is, but it also feels like something else. You are not seeing what happened there. You are walking in a place where something happened, knowing that most of it is no longer visible. What you see instead is what remains. Survivors walking with us. People singing. A sense of life in a place that was meant to be defined by death. At one point, we were walking with Martin, one of the survivors, and had to speed up to keep up with him. It was a small moment, but it stayed with me because of what it represented.

I was fortunate enough to be on the same trip as my mum, although we were on different buses, which meant we experienced it quite differently. On my bus, there was a real mix of perspectives. Some people had been before, some had never been. Some came with strong personal connections, others with what they had learned in school. Some people cried, some did not, and no one reacted in exactly the same way. What mattered was that we were able to talk about it. To sit with those differences and try to understand them. There was no right way to respond, and I think that is important.

What stayed with me most is more than what I saw. It’s what I have now heard and carry with me. Our generation will soon be the last to hear these stories directly from survivors. That means for future generations it is our responsibility; meaning now we have to listen. It sits in the conversations we had, the testimonies we listened to, and the way we choose to remember them. At some point, these stories will no longer be told first-hand. When that happens, it will be up to us to make sure they are still understood, still told properly, and still felt in the way they deserve to be. That is what this experience left me with.

March of the Living is more than a memorial of the past. It is about seeing survivors walk alongside us, still telling their stories, still living their lives and understanding what that means for my future.
Seth Mandel: Can U.S. Universities Hold Commencements Free of Anti-Semitism?
Gothamist reports on the heartbroken students in New York who are being denied their Gaza-given right to speak at graduation.

“Commencement ceremonies at several local universities have undergone a post-Oct. 7 overhaul,” we’re told, “and some students say their free speech rights are being suppressed.”

For example, there will be no live student speech at the “school-specific ceremonies” (the ones that aren’t university-wide) at the New York University and City University of New York commencements. The law schools appear especially broken up about the new rule.

I’m also not speaking at any New York-area sub-commencement ceremonies, and so perhaps I should join the “First Amendment” lawsuit that anti-Zionists are filing against CUNY.

You see, CUNY in particular has a problem. It has a fervently anti-Semitic campus culture that the administration has failed to constructively address, so the university has difficulty producing public events that don’t deteriorate into Soviet anti-Zionist rallies.

Columbia University will forgo live student speeches at its main university-wide commencement. NYU plans to have pre-recorded student remarks at school-specific ceremonies.

The reasons behind these decisions vary by university—but only slightly.

At NYU, last year’s student commencement speaker added unapproved remarks to his speech, in violation of school policy, just so he could spread modern blood libels.

Columbia canceled its 2024 commencement entirely because its campus had devolved into a psychotic circus in which students were taking members of staff hostage, assaulting them, spray-painting Nazi graffiti and taunting the building workers as Jew-lovers. Last year, it brought back the commencement just so that students could drown it in boos.
Jonathan Tobin: Unraveling the lies we were told about hate in America
For most Jews and many other people, the “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017 was among the most shocking and disturbing moments in recent American history. As much as anything, it was the imagery of the torch-lit procession of hate-mongers at night that brought to mind the Nazi Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s that scared the Jewish community far and wide.

The events both on and near the campus of the University of Virginia itself were fairly small-scale and involved only a few hundred persons. Still, those haunting memories, coupled with the fact that one of the counter-protesters was killed by the mob of racists, convinced so many Americans that the country was in the middle of a crisis brought on by the election of Donald Trump.

But what if it turned out that among the funders of those involved was a group that not only hyped the threat from the far right, but also profited from it with a huge surge of fundraising? If that were true, then perhaps so much of what had shaped American public opinion about not only the alleged threat from such extremists and Trump, now in his second term as U.S. president, would have to be rethought.

A false narrative
As it turns out, that’s the truth about Charlottesville.

The indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center on charges of fraud ought to put in perspective much of the hysteria and alarmism about Trump supposedly empowering racists and engendering an epidemic of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia.

The SPLC is charged with pouring millions of dollars raised from gullible liberal donors to far-right operatives. In its defense, the group claims that it was operating a vast undercover operation, obtaining intelligence about extremists that it could then use to better inform the nation about the threats it faced from dangerous organizations. But its funders didn’t know that’s where their money was going.

More to the point, a deep dive into the indictment makes it clear that what it was doing wasn’t so much investigating extremism as helping to produce it.

In point of fact, the SPLC funded one of the organizers of the Charlottesville rally, paying him $270,000 to post racist comments online and transport fellow extremists to central Virginia.

The principal myth about Charlottesville was that Trump had called the neo-Nazis and white supremacists that SPLC had helped gather were “very fine people.” That lie was debunked long ago—the president was referring to those upset by the removal of various statues in the South, not the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members—but many Democrats and others on the left persist in spreading the accusation to bolster their narrative that Trump has encouraged and enabled racism, as well as antisemitism.


A Spoonful of Reform in Higher Ed
Stefanik offers a comprehensive summary of these events, which will stand out as a reliable one-volume corrective to any attempt by legacy media or a future Democratic administration to sweep them under the rug or into a memory hole. She also gives a superb account of where the recent violence came from—an academic culture that had long rotted from within as critical theory, leftwing activism, Marxist thought, and the DEI structures they produced wormed their way into university life. Stefanik experienced hints of this firsthand as an undergraduate at Harvard, where earlier in the century she witnessed unchecked disruptions of recruitment for government jobs, the forced resignation of the university’s now doubly disgraced former president Lawrence Summers over private musings about women and science, and a minority grievance complex that ignored antisemitism in accordance with a ranked hierarchy of supposed oppressed and oppressors. Later, when she as a congresswoman defended President Trump on the floor of the House, she was unceremoniously kicked off the board of Harvard’s ostensibly bipartisan Institute of Politics, amid internal calls to revoke her degree.

Many other universities showed equally worrisome signs of trouble over the two decades or so prior to Oct. 7, but few people outside academia noticed or cared as long as graduates got good jobs and trustees had no incentive to exercise what on paper are considerable oversight and fiduciary powers. Radical leftist faculties self-replicated with the tacit cooperation of a merely leftist older generation, while a bewildered and nonconfrontational conservative movement fussed its bowties in the vain and gravely misplaced hope that what happened on campus would stay on campus.

Today we have radicalized institutions that trammel civil rights while charging tuition fees so exorbitant that a $100,000 per year price tag is barely over the horizon. In some surveys Democrat-registered faculty members outnumber Republicans by a ratio of 78 to one, compared to two to one half a century ago. Entire academic disciplines now do little more than indulge in political activism rather than conventional scholarship. Once popular bedrock majors like History and English have imploded because few students care for their DEI-inflected priorities. According to an Oct. 2025 Pew poll, 70% of Americans think higher education is “going in the wrong direction,” while a July 2025 Gallup poll found that 55% express little or no confidence in it.

Herein, Stefanik argues, lies part of the solution. Dismayed Americans are already in the process of shifting their cash and enrollments to institutions—she singles out for praise Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, the University of Florida, and the new, albeit troubled, University of Austin—that uphold civil rights and academic vigor as tarnished Ivy League prestige wanes. Even bolder innovators are dismantling higher education’s stranglehold on credentialing altogether. Entire fields—tech, logistics, business management, health care support, and communications, to name only a few—are doing away with traditional degree requirements in a world where two of the most successful tech entrepreneurs—Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg—are Harvard dropouts. Peter Thiel offers $200,000 grants to promising young people who skip college. Some are now billionaires in their own right and probably have little time for traditional four-year degree models. A looming “enrollment cliff” caused by a perfect storm of campus radicalism, high costs, and a demographically smaller generation of students poses a major challenge for which no university leader appears to have any plan.

Stefanik recommends continuing Trump policies to use available government powers to enforce accountability on higher education. The process is arduous and faces fierce ideological opposition, practical noncompliance, and many cases of outright dishonesty on the part of recalcitrant universities. But withholding government funds on civil rights grounds has indisputably captured institutional attention. Stefanik has also pioneered worthy legislation to limit foreign enrollment—which at Columbia reaches 40% alongside impressive spikes elsewhere—and to exclude billions in foreign cash from adversarial nations like China and Islamist countries like Qatar. Immigration authorities have ramped up visa revocations to expel foreign students who engage in criminal activity or express support for terrorism.

The pressure could be working. One day after Poisoned Ivies’s release, Yale University, which was quieter around Oct. 7 but has had its share of woke embarrassments, issued an internal report on the nature of public trust in higher education that endorsed most of Stefanik’s findings and recommendations. Perhaps Yale and other institutions will follow them.


Shabbat Shalom to those who refuse to cross the line
There are moments when the line is obvious and there are moments when it begins to move. Not because it should, but because it is convenient for it to do so. Often because there is money to be made, influence to be gained and there is a cost to holding it in place.

We have a name for this now; the “Overton window.”

The idea that what is considered acceptable can shift over time, that positions once beyond the pale can be pulled into the mainstream if enough people are willing to entertain them.

Used honestly, it is a way of describing how societies evolve. Used cynically, it becomes something else entirely, a justification. A way of pretending that the line itself has moved, when in reality it is being pushed, deliberately, by those who benefit from doing so.

The truth is far simpler, because the line does not move on its own, it is moved by people or it is held in place by them. If more people were prepared to say no, if more people refused to cross it, then the so-called “window” would stop shifting altogether.

Which is why those who refuse to move the line matter so much.

Each Friday, I try to end the week by saying Shabbat Shalom to those who have made a difference over the past few days. Those who, in their own way, have stepped forward and done something that deserves to be recognised.

This week, that means recognising those who saw the line clearly, and refused to step over it.

So this week, I want to say Shabbat Shalom to the following people.
Jake Wallis Simons: From medieval blood libels to ‘Israeli baby killers’ – how antisemitism endures in Britain
Which brings me to the point. Ever since October 7, and even before, those who should know better in the media, politics and international institutions, have been bolstering this poisonous myth for all they’re worth.

During the Gaza war, you couldn’t switch on the BBC without being subjected to reports of the suffering of children. Since the conflict flared up in Lebanon, the usual suspects have relentlessly pushed the same narrative, with the United Nations, for example, decrying the “devastating and inhumane toll on children”.

Needless to say, the suffering of the innocent rightly evokes the strongest moral repugnance. Tragically, however, children suffer in all wars. It is only when Israel is fighting that the spotlight falls so blindingly upon them.

So little has changed since 1144! Which brings me to Zack Polanski. It is well worth looking up the response on X by Louis Moseley, who leads Palentir Technology’s operations in Britain and Europe, after the Green leader made a video casting his company – which has fairly tenuous ties to Israel – as the villain.

One by one, Moseley highlights errors in Polanski’s narrative, from the identity of Palentir’s CEO (Alex Karp, not Peter Thiel) to describing it as building “spyware technology” rather than software that helps organisations make sense of data they already hold.

But I digress. The point is not just Polanski’s swivel-eyed hatred of Israel in general but the way in which he has endorsed the “baby killer” motif, wantonly posting claims like “Israel kills a child every 45 minutes”.

Polanski, of course, is Jewish, and this highlights better than anything else how little has changed. Back in 1144, the first ever allegation that Jews were baby-killers was made by a Jewish turncoat, Theobald of Cambridge, who had converted to Christianity. “I was, at that time at Cambridge, a Jew among Jews, and the commission of the crime was no secret to me,” he claimed after his conversion. I suppose he was trying to fit in.

Shame on Zack Polanski. Shame on the media, the international institutions and the hoards of activists, whether on social media or in the real world, who have so obsessively given new life to this age-old expression of hatred. Is it any surprise that it has conjured such monsters as that thug captured on video by Shomrim?

Truly, we live in dark times. But the question that now bothers me is this: given the potency of antisemitism that has awakened since Israel started to defend itself against Hamas and its allies in 2023, have we been living a lie the whole time?
Stephen Pollard: How Labour is helping antisemitism flourish in Britain
Another week, and not yet another arson attack, although no week at the moment is complete without an antisemitic incident of some sort, so this week’s was a racist shouting abuse and making violent threats against a building inspector wearing a kippah.

Not that the recent spate of anti-Jewish hate crimes has provoked much outrage. As Kemi Badenoch pointed out, if any other minority had been targeted this way, there would have been a sense of national crisis.

Instead, while there have been three arson attacks on buildings with strong Jewish connections – including two synagogues – we have grown used to the new normality of antisemitism in society on social media, on the hate marches and in politics. And everyone else seems to be getting on with their lives as if it doesn’t really matter that Jews are under assault.

There have, as always, been the usual words of condemnation. On Sunday, following the attack on Kenton synagogue, Sir Sadiq Khan posted the formulation he always uses: “There is no place for antisemitism in our city”. It’s the same set of words used by politicians of all parties whenever there is another antisemitic incident that the words are utter nonsense, because the new normality shows that there is a very large place for antisemitism in London and elsewhere.

Last week the Communities Secretary, Steve Reed, spoke about the Green Party’s embrace of antisemitic members and candidates (let alone its actual policies): “The Labour Party went through and cleared out the racists and the antisemites who had brought our party to its knees and ended up with the party being referred to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for racism. We kicked them out, and they’ve been able to walk into the Green Party with no one checking their backgrounds. A lot of those people are not only in the Green Party – they have been selected to stand as candidates in the local elections.”

I know Mr Reed is sincere in his belief that he fights against antisemitism. Years ago, when I was JC editor during the Corbyn era, we ran a story which painted him in a bad light, he believed unfairly. He was so distressed at the idea that the Jewish community would think badly of him that he rang me to stress his long track record of fighting antisemites. I have no doubt that he genuinely believes himself to be one of the good guys in this.

But when we come to look at the resurgence of antisemitism – not of what was once dismissively described to me by one Labour MP as “hurty words on social media” but of Jew hate being chanted on the streets and arson attacks on Jews – then I am afraid that neither Mr Reed nor any of the other members of the government who consider themselves to be friends of the Jewish community, let alone of Israel, can escape responsibility.

Because there is one factor in creating the atmosphere in which Jew hate flourishes which is rarely spelt out with the force and clarity that it merits. That factor is the current government.
Three pro-Palestine vandals jailed for 20 months each
Three pro-Palestinian activists who carried out a 16-hour rooftop protest at a defence-linked factory have been jailed for 20 months each.

Julian Gao, 22, Saeed Najam Shah, 53, and Daniel Jones, 30, broke into the site of Teledyne UK Ltd in Shipley in the early hours of 2 April 2024, using an angle grinder to cut through a security fence. Once inside, they caused an estimated £570,000 worth of damage to the roof and interior.

The company has previously been linked to the manufacture of equipment used by the British Army and exported to other countries, including Israel.

The three men, along with a fourth defendant, Ruby Hamill, 21, were convicted in February of criminal damage and possession of articles with intent to cause criminal damage. Hamill, of Emu Road in London, was convicted in her absence and remains wanted by police.

Sentencing the men at Bradford Crown Court, Judge Ahmed Nadim said the protest was “deliberate, planned and sustained” and had caused significant damage and disruption.

During the demonstration, the group changed into red boiler suits and were filmed carrying sledgehammers, ladders and crowbars, alongside flags and banners. Drone footage later showed them smashing roof tiles and windows after climbing onto the building.

Emergency services were forced to implement a containment plan when the protesters refused to come down.

The court heard the damage directly affected around 100 employees and forced the site to close for a week.

As the sentences were handed down, supporters in the public gallery applauded before the three men were taken into custody.
UK Palestine Action activist tells court his sledgehammer attack on officer was ‘reasonable’
A member of the British group Palestine Action told a court on Thursday that he believed it was “reasonable” to strike a police officer with a sledgehammer during a 2024 attack on an Israeli defense firm’s UK factory

Six members of the anti-Israel group are being retried after a jury acquitted them of aggravated burglary earlier this year but wasn’t able to reach verdicts on several key charges, including criminal damage and violent disorder.

One of the defendants, Samuel Corner, 23, was called to testify on Thursday and told the court that he hit the officer with a sledgehammer after hearing “someone screaming” and fearing that one of his fellow activists was being hurt by security personnel.

The officer suffered a fractured spine from the attack and remains on restricted duty.

“It seemed reasonable to do something, and I had to act quickly,” Corner reportedly told the court. He accepted in court that the officer was not injuring anyone and acknowledged in hindsight that his actions were extreme.

Corner said the group’s aim was to “shut Elbit down” by damaging equipment they believed was linked to the Israeli company’s weapons production. Jurors heard the attackers say they used sledgehammers and crowbars to destroy computers and drones during the break-in.

During the trial, the court’s public gallery was filled with supporters of the defendants, some of whom wore keffiyeh scarves. Three pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested outside the court.


Ask Haviv Anything: 109: The crisis no one is talking about in Canada, with Dr. Casey Babb
Canada has long imagined itself as one of the safest, most tolerant societies on earth. For generations of Jews, it felt that way too. But something has changed, suddenly and profoundly. Synagogues have been shot at. Jewish schools targeted. People are hiding their identities, looking over their shoulder, taking down mezuzahs.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Casey Babb to ask a question few outside Canada are even aware needs asking: what is happening to Canadian Jews?

From the history of Jewish life in Canada to the shock of October 7 and its aftermath, we trace how a quiet, integrated community is now grappling with fear, isolation, and a growing sense that the country they helped build may no longer fully accept them. This isn’t just a story about Jews in Canada. It’s a story about what happens when a society loses the ability to confront its own realities -- and what that means for its future.

Chapters
00:00 The Current State of Canadian Jews
02:52 Historical Context of Jewish Immigration to Canada
06:07 Diversity and Identity of Canadian Jews
09:00 The Impact of October 7 on Canadian Jews
12:13 The Rise of Anti-Semitism in Canada
15:02 Understanding the Perpetrators of Anti-Semitism
17:55 The Future of Jewish Identity in Canada
35:48 The Silence Surrounding Hate Crimes
38:45 The Complexity of Welcoming Diversity
42:50 Land Acknowledgments vs. Real Action
45:09 The Muslim Community's Response to Violence
49:22 The Role of Jewish Organizations
54:44 The Need for Honest Conversations
01:00:27 The Future of Canadian Jewry
01:05:51 Looking for Solutions and Hope




Coleman Hughes: Inside the Ideological Takeover of Wikipedia
Ashley Rindsberg has spent years investigating how ideological bias corrupts institutions that present themselves as neutral arbiters of truth. His book The Gray Lady Winked exposed how The New York Times got major stories wrong across decades of reporting. Now he turns his attention to Wikipedia, the internet’s default encyclopedia and one of the most influential sources of information in the world. Rindsberg finds that while Wikipedia remains a reliable resource for most topics, its most politically charged articles have been quietly captured by a small group of anonymous editors working to push a coherent ideological agenda. He and Coleman dig into how these editors operate, how a handful of people can dominate entire topic areas, and why almost nobody can stop them. They also get into the specific case of Wikipedia’s Israel-Palestine coverage, where a group of around 40 dedicated editors have made over a million edits across thousands of articles. And they discuss why all of this matters far beyond Wikipedia itself, as the encyclopedia’s biases are absorbed by Google, fed into AI systems, and baked into the information infrastructure and AI systems that will increasingly decide what counts as true.

0:00 Intro
3:58-The Paradox at the Heart of Journalism
7:53-The Media's Abandonment of Objectivity
12:32- The Bezos Question
15:47- How Wikipedia Editing Works
23:00-Who Are the Administrators?
25:58- Who Actually Edits Wikipedia?
27:30- Wikipedia's Israel-Palestine Bias
33:54- Two Kinds of Bias
36:29-Wikipedia, LLMs, and Data Poisoning
46:23-The Conservative Labeling Problem
51:30- Is Wikipedia Still Worth Using?
55:26-Grok and the Future of Encyclopedias


The Spirit of Henry Ford Descends on Dearborn Once Again
This is the first installment of a multi-part series on anti-Zionism (and Antisemitism) in Dearborn, Michigan by CAMERA Senior Fellow Dexter Van Zile. Dexter’s Fellowship is thanks to a grant-funded collaboration between CAMERA and Middle East Forum, where he is Managing Editor, Focus on Western Islamism.

Inside a tastefully appointed coffee shop a short walk from the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, a handsome wooden sculpture hangs to the left of the door. An uninitiated observer might take the woodwork for an abstract design. In fact, it is a map of “Palestine” that erases Israel. It’s an artistic rendering of the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free,” that was echoed with troubling frequency and ferocity on college quads and in downtowns across the United States after October 7.

A map of Palestine hangs from a rope at a coffee shop in Dearborn, Michigan. (Dexter Van Zile)

Patrons at the coffee shop — which offers pretty good pastries — won’t hear that angry chant from the baristas behind the counter but the sculpture sends a clear message: “We hate Israel and want it to disappear. You should, too. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not welcome here.” This message permeates the public life of Dearborn and the communities that surround it.

Visitors to Dearborn can see this contempt on oblique display at the Arab American National Museum, which has an exhibit lionizing the late journalist, Helen Thomas. The museum, whose website offers a land acknowledgement that laments its sinful presence on tribal land — and celebrates “the larger ethnic and racial fabric” of the greater Detroit area — makes no reference to Thomas’s antisemitism which manifested itself when she told Jews to “to go back to Germany” in a now-notorious interview in 2010.

The message is clear. The museum will confess the sins of white settlers in the United States but has no problem with Arab Americans who demonize Jews in America. So much for respecting the ethnic and racial fabric of the greater Detroit area—which includes an estimated 70,000 Jews.
Tikvah Podcast: Jesse Arm on Michigan Democrats' Islamism Problem
Something has been happening in Michigan politics that deserves the attention of everyone who cares about the health of American democracy. And, as they so often are, the Jews are at the center of events.

Taking root in Michigan is a specific and serious ideological threat—Islamism—that is gaining influence inside the Democratic party. This is a story about what happens when that influence is unnamed, accommodated, and finally normalized. And it is a story with major national implications.

Muslim Americans serve in the U.S. military, teach in schools, build businesses, raise families, and love this country. Presumably, most Muslim citizens of America see their futures as bound up with the future of this republic, with no sympathy for those who would undermine it. But a radical Islamic political ideology has taken hold in specific institutions, among them the Michigan Democratic party.

In March of this year, a Hizballah-inspired attacker drove a truck into the largest Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, when over a hundred children were inside. Two weeks later, the Michigan Democrats held their statewide convention, and the incumbent Jewish regent of the University of Michigan—a man whose home had been attacked, whose family had been terrorized—was denied renomination and replaced by a Dearborn attorney who had praised Hizballah on social media. The leading candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination excused the synagogue attacker. And the pro-Israel Senate candidate was booed by delegates when she addressed the Jewish Voters Caucus.

To discuss this growing threat, our guest this week is Jesse Arm, who grew up in West Bloomfield and is now a vice-president at the Manhattan Institute.
The Brink: Can The West Survive Its Own Tolerance? (And can Keir Starmer survive at all?) With Daniel Hannan
In this episode of The Brink, Andrew and Jake are joined by Daniel Hannan for a wide-ranging conversation on freedom, identity, and the political challenges facing Britain today.

The discussion begins with a debate around freedom of worship and the place of Islam in a liberal society. We explore how questions of integration, national security, and cultural confidence are increasingly colliding in modern Britain.

The conversation then turns to the deeper causes behind social division. From economic stagnation to a loss of national identity, we examine why trust in institutions has eroded and how this creates fertile ground for both extremism and political fragmentation.

We also discuss the state of British politics under Keir Starmer, with a sharp critique of what Hannan describes as managerial leadership and a lack of clear direction.

Finally, the conversation widens to the global stage. We examine the impact of Donald Trump on Western alliances, the growing threat posed by Iran, and the risk of nuclear proliferation in an increasingly unstable world.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
03:52 Challenges of Integration and National Security
08:40 Historical Parallels and Integration Efforts
18:48 Economic and Social Factors Influencing Extremism
26:29 Keir Starmer's Leadership and Management Style
30:58 The Impact of Trump on Global Conservatism
43:12 The Role of the US in British Foreign Policy




He Testified for the WTC Terror Sheikh. Now He’s Running for Congress
In 1995, ‘Adam’ Hisham Hamawy testified for the defense in the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman: the Egyptian Islamic terror leader linked to the World Trade Center bombing.

Now, Hamawy is running for Congress in New Jersey while promising to defund the military, abolish ICE, and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security.

Hamawy, an Egyptian Muslim currently working as a plastic surgeon in New Jersey, has been in the news more recently for his Gaza advocacy, demanding that Israel stop its military campaign against Hamas, and in his recent interview with Hasan Piker, a Turkish social media influencer who praised the USSR and defended Hamas, the candidate accused our military of “war crimes”.

Calling the War Department, the “Department of War Crimes”, is at odds with Hamamy’s cultivated pseudo-patriotic image as a military plastic surgeon right down to his signage.

It may however show his true feelings. But where did Hamawy’s hatred for America come from?

No media outlet has covered his past appearance at the highest profile Islamic terrorist trial in American history. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the ‘Blind Sheikh’, had headed a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group terror organization in Egypt, before coming to America, where he raised money for Osama bin Laden and his Jihadist operations in Afghanistan.

In America, the Blind Sheikh fundraised at mosques while calling for terrorist attacks in this country and the destruction of the United States. Rahman ranted that Americans were “the descendants of apes and pigs” and urged “cut the transportation of their countries, tear it apart, destroy their economy, burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land”.

The Sheikh’s supporters carried out terrorist attacks across Egypt. Others were responsible for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and Rahman was finally convicted of taking part in “a war of urban terrorism against the United States” that targeted the Statue of Liberty and other New York City landmarks. His supporters were caught preparing bombs and at Rahman’s trial, testimony was introduced about Rahman urging an informant to assassinate Egypt’s president.

Rahman’s defense team, led by Lynne Stewart, later convicted of providing material support to terrorists for relaying the terror sheikh’s messages encouraging more attacks, however brought out Hamawy to deny the informant’s claim. The question is why was Hamawy even there?
Virginia Del. Sam Rasoul, who faced backlash over anti-Israel rhetoric, won’t run for Congress
A Virginia state lawmaker with a history of inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric who had been exploring a congressional run announced on Friday that he would instead remain in the state’s House of Delegates.

Sam Rasoul, a Roanoke Democrat who is the son of Palestinian immigrants, said he would hold onto his seat in the state legislature to continue focusing on his work chairing the Education Committee, a role that has garnered concern from the state’s Jewish community due to his heated comments.

The decision comes days after Virginia voters approved a new congressional map that is likely to deliver four additional House seats to Democrats, prompting a reshuffling as politicians in the state opt to run — or not to run — for the newly drawn Democratic-friendly seats.

“Over the past few months, I have been evaluating the best path forward for me to continue serving our communities as we witness the Trump administration use our taxpayer dollars to fund a genocide abroad and wage an illegal and immoral Middle East war, all while our infrastructure and education systems are left crumbling here at home,” Rasoul said in a statement. “After careful consideration, I have decided that I will not be running for Congress this year.”

He urged congressional leaders to “champion Medicare for All, tackle the affordability crisis, and fight for an arms embargo on Israel.”

Rasoul came under fire last year from Jewish leaders in the state after posting a series of anti-Israel messages on social media that critics say veered into antisemitism. “Zionism has proven how evil our society can be,” he wrote on Instagram last summer, in a post that also called Zionism a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.”


Mamdani nixes school ‘buffer zone’ bill, veto-proof houses of worship bill is law
Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, vetoed a bill that would have created “security perimeters” around educational institutions that prevent “physical obstruction, physical injury, intimidation and interference” while “preserving and protecting the rights to free speech, assembly and protest.”

The bill, Int. 175-B, passed the New York City Council 30 to 19 and was thus subject to mayoral veto. Another bill, Int. 1-B, that creates a buffer zone around houses of worship, passed the council with a veto-proof majority of 44 out of 51 members. Mamdani said on Friday that he allowed the latter to go through.

“New York City will always uphold both the right to prayer and the right to protest. These two fundamental freedoms help define this city and the people who call it home,” stated the mayor, whose spokeswoman has said that synagogues violate international law when they host pro-Israel events.

“Last month, the City Council passed two bills related to these rights, known as buffer zone bills. Today, I am letting one of them go into effect and vetoing the other,” Mamdani stated. He added that Int. 1-B “initially raised constitutional concerns,” but “the final version of the bill that passed is narrower in scope and effect.”

“It requires the NYPD to document its existing practices related to protests near houses of worship,” the mayor said. “Following a thorough legal review, I do not believe it poses the same risks it once did, and that is why I will allow it to become law. That said, I disagree with its framing of all protest as a security concern.”

The bill states that it would require the New York City Police Department commissioner to “establish a plan to address and contain the risk of physical obstruction, physical injury, intimidation and interference at places of religious worship while preserving and protecting the rights to free speech, assembly and protest.”
New York rep introduces nationwide bill to protect houses of worship from protest
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) announced federal legislation on Friday to create a 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect them from disruptive protests after a spate of anti-Israel demonstrations aimed at intimidating synagogue-goers.

The Long Island congressman told JNS that the “patchwork” of similar legislation in parts of the country was insufficient and that his bill would establish a nationwide standard for protecting religious institutions.

“You can say things that I disagree with, but if you’re trying to say to people, ‘Hey, you Zionist pig,’ as they’re walking in to go to worship, that’s just an effort to harass people,” Rep. Tom Suozzi told JNS. “Activities specifically done to harass or intimidate people, especially as they’re entering into a religious institution to go worship, are unacceptable.”

Proposals for protest buffers at religious sites have followed anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations at synagogues in New York City and other places across the country.

In November, hundreds of demonstrators protested at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and chanted slogans such as “resistance you make us proud, take another settler out” and “globalize the intifada.”

In December, two demonstrators were arrested for entering Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles as masked protesters outside shouted “baby killers” and “Zionist pigs” at congregants.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani allowed the passage on Friday of a protest buffer bill for houses of worship that had a veto-proof majority in the city council, but blocked a similar bill to protect schools, saying that it would violate the First Amendment.

Suozzi said at a press conference on Friday that his federal bill was designed with the help of Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, to meet constitutional thresholds of free speech.

“We believe that this is a rational, common-sense compromise between our desire to go after this hateful, violent, awful activity and protect our right to free speech and our rights to the freedom to worship,” Suozzi said.

Courts have generally permitted neutral restrictions on the time, place and manner of speech, but not content-based bans.


Mamdani veto of educational buffer zone bill draws rebuke from Jewish groups
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani exercised his veto power for the first time since entering office on Friday to block a bill that would standardize NYPD policy around protests at educational institutions.

Mamdani had just one day left to block the two “buffer zone bills” that the City Council passed last month: the other measure, backed by Council Speaker Julie Menin and passed with a veto-proof majority, compels the police commissioner to develop formal protocol for security perimeters that ensure access and egress from religious buildings during demonstrations. That proposal went untouched and passed into law automatically — but the schools bill, which contains similar language but did not pass with a veto-proof majority, was struck down.

Speaking to reporters after an unrelated event Friday morning, the mayor cited what he described as “constitutional concerns” and union objections to possible infringement on their right to picket — even though the measure contained a carveout for labor action.

“It carries [these concerns] because unlike in the first piece of legislation, which is balancing the right to protest and the right to prayer — both of which are not just sacrosanct in our city but also constitutionally — the second does not have a counterbalance to the right to protest,” he said, suggesting that this exposed the proposal to legal challenge. “It also defines educational institutions in such a broad manner that it includes museums, libraries, teaching hospitals, things of that nature.”

The city’s leading Jewish groups issued a rare united response, highlighting the protests that have targeted yeshivas and gathering places for Jewish student groups in recent years.

“We are deeply disappointed by Mayor Mamdani’s decision,” said the UJA-Federation of New York, the Anti-Defamation League of New York/New Jersey, Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, American Jewish Committee New York, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the New York Board of Rabbis, Orthodox Union, The Rabbinical Assembly, StandWithUs and Teach NYS. “This veto is a profound failure of City Hall to demonstrate to all New Yorkers that our safety is a priority.”


Georgetown SJP Solicits Letters of Support For ‘Political Prisoners’ Convicted of Funneling Millions To Hamas
Georgetown University's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter is soliciting letters of support for "political prisoners"—namely the founders of the Holy Land Foundation, a nonprofit the Department of Justice said "existed to support Hamas," who were convicted for funneling millions of dollars to the terrorist organization. Other recipients include criminals who torched New York Police Department cars and repeatedly attacked Jews.

The SJP chapter held a letter-writing event on April 15 to "stand in solidarity with our comrades … caged by the U.S. empire for their resistance to occupation and repression" and named Holy Land Foundation founders Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker among the "political prisoners" the group would write to. A Thursday Instagram post, which called to abolish prisons, provided guidance for those who couldn't attend the session, instructing writers to greet the prisoners "as a comrade" and to "honor their steadfastness and the justice of their cause."

Elashi and Abu Baker were sentenced to 65 years in prison after being convicted in 2008 of providing material support to a designated terrorist organization. Under their guidance, the Holy Land Foundation funneled roughly $12.4 million to Hamas under the guise of charitable donations, according to the Justice Department. The Council on American-Islamic Relations was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

Georgetown SJP, however, described the "material support" charges as charitable "zakat" to "Palestinian orphans and widows" and cast doubt on the evidence used in their convictions.

"The prison is the colonizer's weapon against a people who refuse to disappear. It is how the carceral state cages resistance, isolates our comrades, and turns solidarity into a crime," SJP wrote. "This is one struggle. The same US empire that bombs Gaza funds the zionist prisons and brings federal cases against our comrades here."

The group also solicited letters to Tarek Bazrouk and Jakhi McCray, radical anti-Israel activists who were convicted of violent crimes.

Bazrouk, a 20-year-old self-described "Jew hater," was sentenced to 17 months in prison for hate crimes after attacking Jewish protesters at three demonstrations across 2024 and 2025, including at Columbia University. Investigators found a stash of weapons and $750,000 in cash when they searched his apartment as well as pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah images on his phone, the Washington Free Beacon reported. His criminal history includes robbery, additional assaults, and operating a drug factory in Hartford, Conn.


UKLFI: Gallery Cancels Controversial Matthew Collings Exhibition Following UKLFI Intervention
A controversial art exhibition due to open in south-west London has been cancelled after concerns were raised by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) about alleged antisemitic content.

The exhibition, “Drawings Against Genocide” by Matthew Collings, had been scheduled to take place at Delta House Gallery in Wandsworth between 16 and 24 May 2026. UKLFI wrote to the gallery’s owners, Pineapple Corporation and Delta House Studios Ltd, warning that the works proposed for display appeared to include repeated antisemitic imagery and narratives.

UKLFI’s letter outlined a range of concerns, including depictions that demonised Jews and Israelis, promoted conspiracy theories about Jewish control, and drew comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.

UKLFI pointed out that the material could potentially engage provisions under the Public Order Act 1986 and expose both the artist and the gallery to legal risks. The gallery and its owners would also incur reputational risks.

The concerns were supported by examples drawn from Collings’ previous exhibition, also entitled “Drawings against Genocide”, held in a gallery in Margate last month, which received critical reviews.

The Telegraph review of that exhibition was headlined: “Lovely time in Margate? No, it was dripping with Jew-hate” and said: “It should be preserved in the annals of anti-Semitic propaganda alongside that of Der Stürmer.” A Times article was headlined “Jews are openly blood-libelled yet there’s no hate crime?” and the reviewer said: “After visiting a grotesque exhibition at a gallery in Margate, I cannot imagine what it must be like to be Jewish in this country now”.

UKLFI’s letter expressed the view that Collings’s images and captions relied on longstanding antisemitic tropes and dehumanising portrayals.
UKLFI: UCU warned over illegal language in Congress Motion
The leadership of the University and College Union (UCU) has been warned that there are serious legal concerns about a motion due to be debated at their upcoming annual Congress on 27-29 May 2026.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to UCU General Secretary, Dr Jo Grady, and Head of Democratic Services, Catherine Wilkinson, warning that Motion SFC27 could expose the union to claims of unlawful discrimination and harassment under the Equality Act 2010.

The motion, tabled by the UCU London Regional Committee, addresses issues of academic freedom and calls for strengthened opposition to what it describes as “Zionist repression” and “dangers posed by Zionist groups.”

Apparently in support of these allegations, the motion bizarrely cites the case of Usama Ghanem, a student at KCL who was suspended following several serious disciplinary offences, including his participation in storming and forcing the abandonment of a campus meeting fostering dialogue between Iranians and Israelis. Ghanem also allegedly assaulted a KCL security guard when picketing a meeting of the London Defence Conference at the University.

UKLFI notes that the motion singles out “Zionist groups” as “dangers” against which branches across the higher and further education sectors should be advised, characterises “Zionist pressure” as a “threat” to staff-student freedoms, and calls for coordinated opposition to such groups through industrial action.

UKLFI argues that UCU’s adoption of this resolution would be detrimental to its Zionist and Jewish members and staff and would create an intimidating, hostile and offensive environment for them.
UC Regent Jay Sures slams UCLA student govt as ‘lunatics’ for condemning former Israeli hostage’s speech
Jay Sures, vice chairman of United Talent Agency and a regent of the University of California system, slammed the members of UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association who authored a letter condemning former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov’s recent campus appearance as “shortsighted, antisemitic or both,” in an interview with Jewish Insider.

“Why would anybody send out a letter condemning a hostage who is a student who was held in captivity for over 500 days? You have to be a complete lunatic to sign on to that letter,” Sures told JI on Friday, shortly after he issued his own letter to the body stating he was “disgusted and appalled” by its condemnation.

Sures, who was appointed to the Board of Regents in 2019, told JI that UCLA’s campus is host to a “small number of people who have a very loud voice that love to spew antisemitic hatred,” adding that “administration has done an excellent job at cracking down on this and having a zero tolerance towards it.”

Sures, who is Jewish, has frequently spoken out in support of Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks and had his home vandalized last year by anti-Israel demonstrators.

Upon sending Friday’s letter, Sures told JI he has renewed concerns regarding his family’s safety. “Having said that, I think it’s critical that my voice is heard louder than ever at this moment in time in history,” he said.
Toronto student sues university over antisemitic climate on campus
A Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) student has filed a claim alleging that the school failed to protect Jewish students from a “poisoned” campus environment marked by intimidation and harassment following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court, seeks $300,000 in general damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

Plaintiff Liat Schwartz alleged TMU allowed “intimidating, offensive, demeaning, threatening” behavior to worsen over time.

“TMU’s self-proclaimed TMU Commitments and TMU Conduct Policies are mere platitudes, and the TMU Conduct Policies are not applied equally to those in the university community,” the claim states, citing the university’s failure to enforce or apply its own policies.

It points to statements by TMU and by Mohamed Lachemi, president of the university, released in the weeks following Oct. 7, against antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric, that “did not provide any guidance on what rhetoric TMU considered problematic.”

The claim describes rhetoric used on campus, including “Globalize the intifada,” “Only one solution, intifada revolution” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as well as interference with pro-Israel events, including one instance where attendees required police assistance to enter after demonstrators blocked access.

It highlights an off-campus event in November that was allegedly infiltrated by protesters who shouted slogans and shattered a glass door, injuring attendees. It also included an incident in February, when a masked individual threw a liquid at Jewish students staffing a table on campus.

The claim states that Schwartz had to hide her identity and ultimately leave the university. “The environment at TMU pushed me to a place I never thought I’d be—feeling like I no longer belonged on my own campus,” she said.


Poof! The Evaporation of Wired’s Credibility
“WIRED is obsessed with what comes next, the technology-focused Condé Nast publication tells readers. “Through rigorous investigations and game-changing reporting, we tell stories that don’t just reflect the moment—they help create it.”

Its May/June cover story, “The Impossible Search for Gaza’s Missing,” most certainly embodies obsessiveness. Zealously curating a robust range of anti-Israel propaganda, writer Mahmoud Mushtaha does not settle only for boilerplate anti-Israel accusations including genocide and starvation, which he parrots with zero consideration and acknowledgment of counterevidence.

In particular, and most alarming for a publication which prides itself on both rigorous investigation and technological expertise, is his allegation that the bodies of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “have been effectively ‘evaporated’ by extreme-heat munitions, leaving no recoverable bodies.”

Poof. And, like that, WIRED‘s credibility as a trustworthy technology publication vanishes into thin air. Mushtaha’s game-changing cover story does indeed help create the moment. To be clear, it’s the moment in readers can no longer trust anything WIRED writes.

The outlandish anti-Israel accusation originated with Hamas and was amplified, with zero evidence or logic, by Al Jazeera, which reports (“Israel used weapons in Gaza which made thousands of Palestinians evaporate,” Feb. 10, 2026):


From the Livingstone Formulation to the Polanski Principle
In 2005, David Hirsh, widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading authorities on antisemitism, coined the term ‘The Livingstone Formulation’, named after the then-mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

In its most straightforward terms, it works as follows. An individual makes a comment which is widely seen as containing antisemitism. When called out on it, however, the individual in question goes on the attack, accusing their questioner of falsely attempting to use the accusation of antisemitism to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.

Just as antisemitism evolves, however, so too does its useful-idiot twin; namely, gaslighting those who call it out. And in 2026, a new generation has found its very own champion of such efforts; all the more effective because he happens to be Jewish.

It’s hard to know exactly what Zack Polanski believes, in reality – or whether it makes much of a difference. The most successful Western politicians since the advent of the mass-screen era of civilisation – in the UK, America, or elsewhere – are those who are not just eloquent but manage to get themselves to a point where they genuinely believe what they are saying, sometimes in the face of significant evidence to the contrary. This has, if anything, only worsened since the rise of social media. It has never been easier to find people who are absolutely certain in their beliefs – and now more than ever, certainty is often mistaken for truth.

For a while now there has been a strong sense that Zack Polanski does not take antisemitism – either within the Green Party or in general society – seriously, despite disclaimers to the contrary. In the last 24 hours, that feeling has developed from suspicion to certainty, in the wake of two comments from the Green Party leader.


Arsen Ostrovsky: Freedom secured through sacrifice
Australians, too, understand something about the price of freedom. From Gallipoli to the Western Front, from Tobruk to Afghanistan, generations of Australians have served with courage, sacrifice and distinction. The Anzac spirit of resilience, mateship and duty is etched into Australia’s national identity and ethos.

Yet remembrance is not confined only to battlefields.

On December 14, the Australian Jewish community was shaken to its core, after the horrific terror attack in Bondi, which claimed the lives of 15 people, including 10-year-old Matilda and 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman. As someone who narrowly survived that attack myself, I know how quickly normal life can be instantly shattered by hatred and evil.

This hatred and bloodlust of the terrorists who murdered 15 innocent souls at Bondi is no different to that which has driven countless Palestinian and Iranian-sponsored terror attacks against Israelis.

And so, as we reflect on Yom Hazikaron and Anzac Day, this memory becomes part of that broader tapestry of remembrance.

But remembrance is not simply about honouring the past. It is also about confronting the realities of the present, and asking what kind of future we want to fight for and build for our children and our communities.

For Israelis, Yom Hazikaron underscores a simple but sobering truth: the existence of the Jewish state has always depended on the courage of those willing to defend it. It is why the day immediately precedes Independence Day, in a powerful reminder that freedom was secured through sacrifice.

For Australians, Anzac Day similarly reminds us that the freedom and liberty we cherish, were only made possible by those who came before us, and those brave men and women of the Australian armed forces today.

The bond between Australia and Israel is not merely diplomatic or strategic. It is rooted in shared values: democracy, resilience and the belief that freedom must be fought for at all costs.

When Australians gather at dawn services across the country, they honour courage and sacrifice. Likewise, when Israelis stand still during the piercing siren of Yom Hazikaron, they do the same.

The settings may differ, but the sentiment is identical: our freedom endures only because of the courage and bravery of those willing to stand, fight and defend it.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 



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

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