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Tuesday, April 28, 2026

04/27 Links Pt2: Behind the scenes with Met Police hunting synagogue arsonists; “But Zionism!” Isn’t an Argument Anymore; Irish President’s Sister Joins Gaza Flotilla

From Ian:

Behind the scenes with Met Police hunting synagogue arsonists
A Jewish primary school is not the site of a typical crime scene.

But it is where the two industrious Metropolitan Police officers – Pc Zachary Stimson and Sgt Simon Vandepeer – are investigating a report of “hostile reconnaissance” on Friday afternoon, hours before the Sabbath.

They were called by the school’s security guard, who saw a young man pacing up and down in front of the school gates.

He appeared to be taking pictures and videos of the building on a quiet residential road in north London.

When confronted, the suspect had shouted: “I don’t give a f--- about Jews”, before fleeing, according to the guard.

The unsettling incident comes amid a backdrop of skyrocketing anti-Semitism including an arson attack that destroyed four Hatzola ambulances in north-west London.

On Friday, three men and a 17-year-old boy appeared at the Old Bailey, charged with criminal damage after allegedly attacking the vehicles. Police are investigating whether Iran is hiring locals to carry out the targeted attacks on their behalf.

Seconds after the confrontation, the two police officers and I charged down the North Circular towards the scene with sirens on and blue lights flashing.

Though a report like this would always be concerning, it is taken especially seriously in light of the recent anti-Semitism and a Jewish community living in fear. Jewish community living in fear.

The officers responding to this phone-in are part of a large, multi-pronged campaign called Operation Compertum, from the Latin comperire, meaning “to find out or discover”.

Launched a week ago, the aim of the initiative is threefold: arrest would-be arsonists, deter anyone tempted to commit a crime with a visible police presence and reassure the Jewish, and wider, community they are safe and that the state cares about their security.

So far, police have had enormous success arresting 25 people linked to the arson attacks and an additional 41 people for anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes as well as interviewing a further six people under caution.

This unprecedented undertaking by the Metropolitan Police, counter-terror officials and British intelligence services came in response to the firebombing of four fully-stocked Hatzola ambulances costing around £1m in damages and striking fear into the heart of the British Jewish community.

A group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia [HAYI], meaning Islamic Movement for the People of the Right Hand, claimed responsibility for the strike.

They used Telegram, an encrypted communications app, to distribute propaganda videos of the assaults on pro-Iran networks.

But sadly, Hatzola was only the beginning.
26th suspect arrested in connection with antisemitic attacks in London
Another suspect was arrested in the United Kingdom on Sunday in connection to the series of recent antisemitic attacks against Jewish-affiliated sites in London, according to the Metropolitan Police.

The 37-year-old man was detained near Barnstaple, Devon by officers from the Counter Terrorism Policing unit.

“He was arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts and has been taken to a London police station for questioning,” according to the Met, which did not disclose the man’s name.

Since the setting ablaze of four ambulances belonging to the Hatzola Jewish group in Golders Green, London, on March 23, a total of 26 suspects have been apprehended by British authorities.

Eight people have been charged with arson-related offenses and one person has been convicted of arson, the Met Police said.

Last week, police arrested a 25-year-old man in nearby Stevenage and three others, a 26-year-old man and two women aged 50 and 59, near Birmingham. On April 21, police arrested a 39-year-old man in Ealing in connection with an “investigation following the discovery of jars of a non-hazardous substance in Kensington Gardens,” according to a police statement.
“But Zionism!” Isn’t an Argument Anymore
The sophisticated antizionist will say he is making a political argument about the character of the state. A binational arrangement. Consider what that actually means. Seven million Hebrew-speaking Jews give up majority status, give up the political sovereignty their grandparents built, give up the only country on Earth where Jewish life has demographic and military weight, and trust that a binational entity including Hamas voters and West Bank militants will treat them fairly. They are to return, voluntarily, to the Diaspora condition they left, with its known downside of periodic mass murder, the desire for which is enshrined in founding documents.

This is where the distinction between antizionism and antisemitism becomes, in practice, an academic curiosity. Bari Weiss wrote in How to Fight Anti-Semitism that it’s one thing to consider whether to have children before you get pregnant, but it’s another thing entirely to consider parenthood after your kid is born. Maybe the distinction between antizionism and antisemitism matters in a Jewish Studies seminar. For the Israeli seventeen-year-old in Haifa however, it’s meaningless. What the antizionists are demanding of her is that she dissolve the basic conditions of her existence. Whether your motive is classical Jew-hatred or high-minded political theory is immaterial to the demand itself.

It is also not racism, at least not in the Nazi sense. Nazi racial antisemitism offered Jews no escape: you are what you are biologically, and no renunciation could save you. Antizionism does offer an escape: Renounce your people’s sovereignty, disavow Zionism, adopt the vocabulary of your accusers, and you will be welcomed. This is the sophisticated antizionist’s position. In that structural sense, antizionism resembles not racial antisemitism but the old Christian antisemitism, which promised to receive Jews warmly if only they would convert.

That is why the honest word for it is not racism. A movement that seeks to erase a national and ethnic identity through propaganda, persecution, and sometimes violence is not a legitimate political position. It is a hate group. That broad political circles in the West now grant this hate group intellectual respectability is a problem of its own, and not different in kind from the fact that racial doctrines once enjoyed wide acceptance, or that Christian Jew-hatred was once the bedrock assumption of educated European life. Popularity has never been evidence of legitimacy.

What Israelis are
Israelis don’t owe anyone an argument for their existence. They don’t need to win the debate about whether Zionism was the right idea in 1897. They don’t need to persuade Ezra Klein or Hasan Piker or the student encampments that their country’s creation in 1948 was just. The debate is over, not because one side won, but because the thing itself came into being. They are a people. They speak a language. They live on a piece of land and have mortgages. That is what peoples do. The Greeks do it. The Poles do it. The Québécois do it. The arguments about whether they should are, at this point, a leisure activity for people who live elsewhere.

The core goal of Zionism, the one all its strands shared, was to make the Jewish people a nation like other nations: speaking its own language, exercising sovereignty in its own homeland. Different Zionisms added different ingredients. Some are incomplete. Some never will be. But the core was achieved. To be a Hebrew-speaking Jew in the Land of Israel is now as unremarkable as being a Frenchman in France. Zionism as an ideology has produced something that no longer needs ideology: a national, ethnic, and cultural identity with a life of its own.

For a long time, Jews have been expected to justify their existence to every new generation of critics, in every new language, using the vocabulary the critics themselves handed us. Zionism and the Israeli project, at its deepest level, is the project of not having to. Of simply being. Of the dignity of waking up somewhere, ordering a latte (“cafe-hafuch”) and croissant in Hebrew (OK, the Hebrew for croissant is croissant, a French word, but still), and speaking a language and raising a family and going to work. Antizionism is a demand that Jews return to the mode of being in which they have to justify all of that. Israelis, for the most part, are not interested. And they shouldn’t be.


Don’t capitulate to pro-Palestine activists, arts bosses advised
Festival and theatre bosses have been told to stop “capitulating” to pro-Palestine activists in a guide backed by MPs.

A survey by campaign group Freedom in the Arts has found organisations are buckling to pressure from activists by self-censoring and dropping Jewish artists.

It found they were reacting to the anticipated, rather than actual, backlash to decisions and launched a new online “toolkit” to help them uphold free speech.

Most organisations which responded to the survey cited “safety concerns” as the main reason for withdrawing work from particular artists or cancelling events. ‘Seek legal advice’

The toolkit, to be launched at a parliamentary event on Monday, advises arts leaders: “You are not required to arbitrate political disputes in order to present art. Not all pressure requires engagement [and] not all controversy requires explanation.”

Venues are also advised to wait until there is a clear threat of a boycott or protest, rather than making “decisions driven by anticipated backlash” and to seek proper legal advice.

Action should be considered where there are “genuine security or legal grounds exist for change (eg credible threats)”, it is advised.

Organisations are also urged to hold firm against partisan views held by their own staff, who may try to frame artists they dislike politically by citing “welfare concerns, safeguarding issues, or matters of personal safety”.

The advocacy group found a pattern of “anticipatory compliance” and warned that decision makers were resorting to “preemptive cancellation driven by fear of what might happen rather than response to what has happened”.

Nigel Huddleston, the shadow culture secretary, said: “I am pleased to support the launch of this important report in Parliament.

“Freedom of expression is fundamental to a thriving cultural sector, and artists must be able to create without fear of intimidation or exclusion. It is vital that our arts and cultural institutions remain places of openness, creativity and debate, where ideas can be explored freely and respectfully.”
Not allowing Norwegian King to condole Israel post-October 7 was mistake, state sec. admits
Norwegian State Secretary Andreas Kravik has admitted that it was a mistake not to allow the King to express condolences to Israel after October 7.

Two days after the Hamas massacre, the royal family contacted the Foreign Affairs Ministry and asked if Norway could send a personal condolence. Foreign Affairs Minister Espen Barth Eide advised King Harald V not to. While the reasoning was that “it is considered natural that any condolences in the present case come from the government,” the majority of the Jewish community looks upon this incident as a betrayal. Worse still, it took Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre four days to refer to Hamas as a terrorist group.

Rolf Kirschner, the former leader of the Jewish community of Oslo, told The Jerusalem Post last year that the incident was “a stain on Norwegian history.”

However, there may now finally be an apology – over two and a half years later.

On April 22, Kravik appeared as a guest on the show of Jewish Norwegian podcaster Henrik Beckheim.

Beckheim probed Kravik on the double standards of the king not being allowed to console Israel after October 7, whereas he was allowed to send condolences to Christ Church after the mass shootings in 2019, after the Manchester bombing in 2017, and after the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, in 2024. He was also permitted to send messages after Stockholm, Brussels, Istanbul, Nice, Paris, and London – all of which are locations of high-casualty terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2017.

Kravik said he believed the issue stemmed from the “division of labor,” in which the king typically sends condolences in cases of natural disasters, while the prime minister or the Foreign Affairs minister is in charge of sending condolences following political activity or acts of terror.
Irish President’s Sister Joins Gaza Flotilla
Dr. Margaret Conolly, sister of Irish president Catherine Connolly, has joined an international flotilla attempting to challenge Israel’s long-standing naval blockade of Gaza, setting sail on Sunday, April 27, as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

The mission, which organisers describe as a humanitarian effort to deliver medical aid and open a maritime corridor to Gaza, is expected to face interception by Israeli forces, as with previous attempts over the past two decades.

Dr. Conolly’s participation comes against the backdrop of a sharp shift in Irish politics following the election of her sister, Catherine Connolly, a far-left independent who secured a landslide victory in October 2025. The president has been an outspoken critic of Israel and Western governments over Gaza, repeatedly accusing them of moral failure and aligning herself with pro-Palestinian positions.

Israel has enforced a naval blockade on Gaza since 2009, citing security concerns over weapons smuggling. Multiple flotillas have sought to breach it, most notably in 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded a convoy of six ships, resulting in deadly clashes. Subsequent missions in 2011, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2025 were intercepted before reaching Gaza.

Last year, several vessels were again seized in international waters, with activists, journalists, and politicians detained and later deported.

Dr. Conolly acknowledged the likelihood of a similar outcome. “They have no right to board our boat. If they do, we will offer no resistance. We will put our hands in the air and there will be no violence from us,” she said, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces.

“We are prepared to be arrested, but we will obey and will not react or give any cause for them to shoot or beat us,” she added, noting that participants have undergone training in how to respond to a boarding.

Crew members have also prepared for detention scenarios, including recording SOS messages in advance and planning to dispose of sensitive materials before any interception.
Hasan Piker favors Hamas, is pushing Dems to be anti-Israel — and wants Jews not to worry about him
Then there was the matter of antisemitism on the left. When first asked about it, he acknowledged its existence, in softer terms: “It is undeniable that there has been a shift, for sure, where people, I think, are not as careful in their expressions in the way that they communicate on these issues,” he said. But he also described it largely as a downstream effect of pro-Israel lobbying and American Jewish organizations that he said have created a “forced tying of Judaism and Israel.”

Was that also true for the self-proclaimed anti-Zionists who said that Temple Israel in Michigan, attacked last month, was a legitimate target for a man whose brother had been killed in an Israeli strike on Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon? Or the ones who were celebrating the murders of Israel Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum last year?

“I don’t believe that, by the way. I don’t think it’s a legitimate target, for the record,” Piker responded. (On his stream the day of the Temple Israel attack, he declared, “There is no justification for f**king trying to go into a synagogue and murdering kids.”)

He chalked up left-wing antisemitism, in part, to it being “much easier to get Americans on board with just hating entire populations, than to actually be anti-imperialist, anti-genocide, anti-fascist, unfortunately.”

But then he again said the “biggest reason” is the downstream effect of pro-Israel lobbying — along with, as he puts it, “a lot of the Jewish advocacy organizations that claim to be Jewish advocacy organizations, but just simply are Israel advocacy organizations, like the ADL and numerous others.” Young people upset with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, he said, are being taught by such messaging that they must be antisemitic, and some of them wind up believing it.

“It creates an environment of panic and hysteria that serves the interest of Israel,” he said. “And I think it’s actually not beneficial to American Jews at all.”

He acknowledged that not everyone on the left seemed to think that fighting antisemitism was a moral imperative. “This will come across as, maybe, messed up,” he prefaced. “But the attitude from some is, antisemitism is a problem — however, it’s nowhere near as large a problem as Islamophobia is.” When it comes to his fans, he said, “some people say, ‘Why should we care about this?’”

He was not one of those people, he insisted — even if, in his estimation, antisemitism is no longer “a systematic form of discrimination” in America the way it had been in the prewar period.
'Definitely No Tunnels': Dem Congressional Candidate Dismissed Reports of Hamas Presence at Gazan Hospital Where He Worked—and Where Hamas Boss Mohammed Sinwar Was Later Killed
A New Jersey plastic surgeon now running for Congress with Rep. Ilhan Omar's endorsement worked in a hospital in Gaza that functioned as a Hamas command center—and dismissed reports that there were terror tunnels located underneath the hospital before Hamas boss Mohammed Sinwar was killed in a tunnel directly under the hospital's emergency department.

Dr. Adam Hamawy, a former Army combat physician, did a tour of duty working at Gaza's European Hospital in May 2024, staying for roughly three weeks amid a period of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas. When he returned to the United States, he became a go-to "expert" for left-wing media outlets seeking to rebut reports that Hamas terrorists used hospitals as command centers and operated terror tunnels underneath them.

"I saw no fighters at all," Hamawy told Rowan University's student newspaper the Whit in October 2024. "I didn't see any guns in the hospital, there was no one that I could identify as a combatant. There were definitely no tunnels underground, and no command base there. And this isn’t just me, this is unanimous, everybody that's coming back, people who were at Shifa hospital, people at Nasra hospital. There's been no evidence to actually show that anyone like that was there."

He repeated the claim to the socialist magazine Jacobin shortly after his return, calling the Gaza European Hospital a "completely benign civilian hospital with no tunnels underneath it."

A year after Hamawy's visit, in May 2025, Hamas leader Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 terror attack, was killed in a tunnel directly under the hospital emergency department, where he was leading a high-level meeting with senior Hamas terrorists. In addition to Sinwar, Hamas's Rafah Brigade commander, Mohammad Shabana, was killed in the strike, as was South Khan Younis Battalion commander Mahdi Quara, the Times of Israel reported. The New York Times was given a tour of the bombed-out terror hideout a month later, publishing a piece headlined "The Tunnel That Leads Underneath a Hospital in Southern Gaza."

The hospital was used as a Hamas command center during the Oct. 7 massacre, Israel has said.

The IDF found evidence that Hamas used the tunnels under the Gaza European Hospital to hold hostages taken during the attack, all while Hamawy worked in the facility above.
Come on, Avi – hurry up and Free Palestine!
Beyond Avi’s aspirations for political power as head of the Free Palestine movement in Victoria, he is making a few serious points.

The first is the state of the Victorian political scene where there appears to be very little scrutiny over the way parties are named versus what they actually promise and deliver.

There is no easy way to control this, I understand, as parties must be free to shift around their preferences as they see fit. However, there have been cases in the past that seem to push the boundaries of common sense.

Civilised societies do not need to have the rules printed in detail, but there is a case to be made that politics in Victoria is no longer civil. We have communists who claim to champion the people’s voice. Antifascists who behave like fascists. Environmentalists who shill for Palestine. Anti-racists who believe in racial privilege in Parliament. A Labor Party that sold its workers out to foreign corporations. And Liberals doing laps of the Goldfish bowl – left, right, left right…

Avi’s other not-so-subtle point is the voting behaviour of intense political movements which have been radicalising our inner-city youth to a range of ideological causes.

Vote Climate! Vote Palestine! Vote Trans!

Each trend comes and goes with a fervour I haven’t seen since the school crazes of the 90s when we’d flip from elastics to Tamagotchis to Neopets to Beanie Babies to boy bands to Furbies (mine is still alive) to yo-yos and the Macarena.

At least our crazes were harmless to everything except our parents’ wallets.

The crazes today are political, intellectually shallow, miserable, destructive, and divisive. And you can’t take the batteries out when they degrade.

If nothing else, this campaign for the Free Palestine Party will highlight the problem of single-obsession politics which has robbed Australians of their grounded and balanced approach to political parties which used to favour a centrist point of view instead of the lean toward extreme activism which we are seeing emerge as a voting pattern among the young.


Iran among dozens selected for vice presidency post at UN non-proliferation confab
The United States and Iran clashed at the United Nations on Monday over Tehran’s nuclear program and the latter’s selection to be one of dozens of vice presidents at a month-long conference to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The 11th conference to review implementation of the NPT, which came into force in 1970, began on Monday at the United Nations in New York. Different groups nominated 34 conference vice presidents, and the conference chair, Vietnam’s UN ambassador Do Hung Viet, said Iran was picked by “the group of non-aligned and other states.”

Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary for the US Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, told the conference that Iran’s selection was an “affront” to the NPT.

He said it was “indisputable that Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the NPT,” and had refused to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog to resolve questions about its program.

He called Iran’s selection “beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference.”

Reza Najafi, who serves as Tehran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, rejected the US statement as “baseless and politically motivated.”

“It is indefensible that the United States, as the only state ever to have used nuclear weapons, and the one that continues to expand and modernize its nuclear arsenal… seeks to position itself as an arbitrator of compliance,” he told the meeting.


Kyiv summons Israeli envoy, EU warns of sanctions after 2nd ‘stolen’ grain ship incident
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Monday that Israel’s ambassador had been summoned to his ministry over what he described as Israeli inaction in allowing shipments of grain to enter the country from Russian-occupied Ukraine.

“In a joint démarche with Ukraine, we are requesting additional information from the Israeli authorities on this subject,” the spokesperson adds, after Ukraine summoned Israel’s envoy to Kyiv today to protest the alleged incident and prevent Israel from accepting an additional vessel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told Sybiha that Ukraine had provided no evidence to support allegations that the grain was “stolen.” He accused him of conducting diplomacy through the media.

The Haaretz daily reported earlier that the vessel Panormitis, which it said was carrying grain from occupied Ukrainian territory, was waiting for permission to berth in Haifa.

The newspaper said four shipments of grain from occupied Ukraine had already been unloaded in Israel this year.

A European Union spokesperson later told The Times of Israel that Brussels has “taken note” of reports on the Russian vessels and warned that those involved could face EU sanctions.

“We condemn all actions that help fund Russia’s illegal war effort and circumvent EU sanctions, and remain ready to target such actions by listing individuals and entities in third countries if necessary,” the EU spokesperson told The Times of Israel in a statement.


Commentary Podcast: Violence Made Manifesto
National Review's Noah Rothman joins us from his vacation to discuss the attempted assassination of Trump and the media coverage of the incident and the shooter Cole Allen's manifesto.


Ben Shapiro: What The Left Missed About Trump Assassination Attempt
A would-be assassin tries to take out President Trump and members of the cabinet at the White House Correspondents Association dinner; we examine the roots of Left-wing violence; and we ask whether this trend will accelerate.


Here I Am With Shai Davidai: The Most Defamed Man Running the Anti-Defamation League | CEO Jonathan Greenblatt
In this episode of Here I Am with Shai Davidai, Shai speaks with Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), about antisemitism, Zionism, and the challenges facing the Jewish community after October 7. Greenblatt shares his personal Jewish story, including his family’s Holocaust and Iranian refugee background, and explains how his path through politics, tech, and entrepreneurship led him to lead one of America’s most prominent anti-hate organizations.

Greenblatt breaks down what the ADL does to combat antisemitism and hate, including tracking extremist threats, training law enforcement, legal advocacy, and education initiatives. He also discusses why he argues “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” how anti-Jewish hatred has evolved over time, and what Jewish institutions and leaders must change in response to today’s cultural and political climate.




Seattle cultural festival applauds Palestinian terrorist speaker released in October 7 deal
Seattle Palestinian cultural festival participants applauded an al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terrorist, released as part of a ransom for hostages held in Gaza, as he was introduced as the keynote speaker at a Saturday event.

Speaking by video call from Egypt, according to Instagram stories published by Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return at the University of Washington (SUPER UW), Raed Abduljalil told participants of the Palestinian Cultural Resistance Festival that their actions were “an essential part of the battle we are waging against the occupation and its supporters.”

“Stay vigilant, for homelands are protected only by their conscious and aware. And I tell you today: I am more convinced than ever that I chose the right path,” the Fatah-affiliated terrorist said, according to SUPER UW. “Until we meet, God willing, under the sky of a liberated homeland.”

Abduljalil was released last February after serving 23 years of a life sentence in prison, according to Quds News and Wattan, responsible for terrorist attacks that resulted in deaths and injuries.

In promotional materials for the event organized by SUPER UW, Nidal Seattle, and Seattle University Students for Justice in Palestine, Abduljalil was described as a “freed Palestinian political prisoner and author” who had met and “struggled alongside” arch terrorist Marwan Barghouti and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) cell commander Walid Daqqa.


5 Palestine Action members appear in German court on charges of smashing Elbit site
Five people appeared in court in Stuttgart, Germany, on Monday, on charges of causing about 1 million euros’ ($1.17 million) worth of damage at the German site of an Israeli defense company, the court said.

News outlets including Stuttgarter Zeitung and broadcaster SWR said the vandalized office belonged to Israeli defense electronics firm Elbit Systems, the latest office of the company to be attacked.

Prosecutors say the defendants, aged 25 to 40, trespassed and shouted pro-Palestinian statements as they smashed office equipment, measuring devices, and windows at the business in the southern city of Ulm, the court added.

According to the charges, the defendants acted as members of anti-Israel organization Palestine Action Germany, which later published videos claiming responsibility for the attack.

The defendants, who were not named, are Irish, British, Spanish, and German, prosecutors said.

Monday’s hearing took place in a high-security facility at the court, officials said. The Stuttgart court has previously said that more than a dozen hearings have been scheduled in the case through the end of July.

Elbit, which has an office in Ulm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Why Jewish Education Is No Longer Optional
We thought we were choosing a school. In reality, we were choosing how our daughter would survive being Jewish in Britain today.

Everything we believed about that choice, about meritocracy, about integration, about the quiet confidence of belonging, collapsed in the days following the 7 October attacks. What replaced it was clarity. The question was no longer which school was best for our daughter’s future, it was which environment would allow her to remain unapologetically who she is.

We always thought we had a plan. Like many Jewish families, we chose a Jewish primary school to give our daughter grounding, identity, and community. Secondary school, we assumed, would broaden that world, allowing us the best of both.

So we did what so many parents do. A year of tutors, practice papers, and preparation for the 11+. By September 2023, she had sat the exams, offers followed, choices were there.

Then, within a week, everything changed. 7 October brought our perception of safety crashing down around us.

By January 2024, as decision time loomed, the atmosphere in this country had shifted in ways many of us had never experienced. Weekly hate marches filled the streets, social media became a torrent of antisemitic distortion and public discourse bent under the weight of misinformation and moral confusion through national institutions we had long trusted.

Then came the final school visits at two of London’s most prestigious girls’ schools. In one, a swastika carved into a toilet wall. In the other, a prominent art installation titled “Children of Conflict: The Horrors of Gaza.”
Is it a crime to make fun of a keffiyeh?
As much as prime minister Keir Starmer may wish to convince himself – and the public – that the UK does not have a free-speech problem, the evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against him.

Nowhere is Britain’s free-speech crisis more starkly exposed than in higher education. Since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas two-and-a-half years ago, we have seen academics hounded out of their jobs, students ostracised by their peers, and visiting speakers subjected to militant attempts to silence them for expressing lawful views. But the case of Brodie Mitchell is one of the most egregious examples yet.

The now 20-year-old Royal Holloway student faces the prospect of criminal prosecution after he compared a keffiyeh worn by a pro-Palestine activist student to a ‘tea towel’ during Freshers’ Fair in September last year. Mitchell made the remark to Huda El-Jamal, president of the Friends of Palestine Society, after she called him a ‘wannabe Jew’ and questioned why he was not wearing a Jewish ‘hat’, a reference to a kippah.

What began as a flippant comment – made in response to her remarks about his headgear, or lack of it – has since spiralled into something far more serious.

In a striking display of double standards, Mitchell was handed a seven-week suspension as the university launched an investigation into ‘alleged conduct that could be considered hate speech’. His comments were branded ‘Islamophobic’, ‘racist’ and ‘anti-Palestinian’. He was barred from campus and was given less than 48 hours to vacate his student accommodation. Meanwhile, El-Jamal has faced no disciplinary action.


Publisher of Drop Site News pushes conspiracy theory about a California Jewish family-owned business
Nika Soon-Shiong, the publisher of Drop Site News who is also the daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, is circulating conspiracy theories seeking to tie a California-based Jewish couple behind a major pistachio processor to the recent U.S.-Israeli military strikes in Iran.

In a recent social media post that drew more than 1 million views, Soon-Shiong, citing unverified online claims that the United States and Israel had targeted pistachio warehouses in Iran this month, singled out Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaire owners of the Wonderful Company, which grows and processes a large percentage of California’s pistachios as well as other products including almonds and mandarin oranges.

“The Resnick family’s Beverly Hills-based pistachio empire stands to gain,” she said of the alleged attack on Iranian pistachio warehouses. “You won’t believe the backstory,” she added, linking to the teaser for a recently released documentary she helped distribute called “The Pistachio Wars,” which seeks to implicate the Resnicks’ business interests, ties to hawkish think tanks and pro-Israel philanthropy in a shadowy effort to drive American hostility toward Iran and isolate its pistachio market.

There is little dispute that U.S. trade embargoes as well as steep tariffs on Iran — once a major pistachio producer — helped American competitors dominate the market after the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But the documentary has faced skepticism for overstating cherry-picked evidence to support a narrowly tailored argument suggesting that U.S. pistachio growers hold blame for American hostility toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In addition to promoting the documentary on X, Soon-Shiong, a fierce critic of Israel, also pointed to the Resnicks’ contributions to what she called “Israeli military-linked groups from 2015–2022,” well before the current war began in February, while highlighting their donations to progressive causes, in keeping with their record of contributions primarily to Democrats.


Israel again withholds over $200 million in PA tax revenues
Jerusalem has again withheld the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority this month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday, citing Ramallah’s support for terrorism.

In a statement cited by Arutz 7, the Finance Ministry said that of more than 740 million shekels ($200 million), some 590 million shekels were deducted to cover debts owed by the P.A. to the Israel Electric Corporation, as well as to “water and environmental corporations.” The ministry said deductions were also made for funds that Ramallah intended to transfer to terrorist elements.

The remaining balance has been frozen in line with a policy implemented by Smotrich over the past year, under which the Jewish state has stopped transfers to the Palestinian Authority over the P.A.'s actions against Israel in international forums and its support for terror.

“We will not transfer funds that ultimately reach terrorists who harm Israeli civilians,” said Smotrich. “Our policy is clear: every shekel intended to encourage terrorism or hostile activity will be offset and stopped. At the same time, we are acting responsibly to ensure that the funds are directed toward safeguarding the vital interests of the State of Israel.”

He added, “Whoever chooses to fight the State of Israel in the international arena and to support terrorism will bear the price.”

P.A. Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa on Sunday accused Jerusalem of imposing an “economic occupation” on his organization, which has a level of self-governance in parts of Judea and Samaria.

Mustafa told reporters at a press conference in the Samaria city of al-Bireh that he was working with the international community to pressure Israel to release the funds, Xinhua News Agency, China’s official state-run outlet, reported.

“We are living without our income from customs and taxes collected by Israel on our behalf,” the Palestinian politician confirmed.

Jerusalem collects 600 million-700 million shekels ($160 million-$190 million) in tax funds on behalf of the P.A. every month under the terms of the Oslo Accords, signed with the PLO in the 1990s.


Antisemites need not apply, US says of aliens seeking green cards
New training materials issued last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that the Trump administration is serious about excluding aliens with antisemitic and/or anti-American views from obtaining green cards.

The updated training materials, recently reviewed by The New York Times, incorporate policy guidance issued on Aug. 19, 2025, by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency of Homeland Security that handles green card applications. The documents, which the Times said have not been previously reported on, “show how expansively the Trump administration is carrying out [the August] directive.”

The training materials instruct immigration officers to carefully examine applicants who encourage antisemitism “through rhetorical or physical actions.” Officers should “focus particularly on aliens who engaged in on-campus anti-American and antisemitic activities” following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the Times reported.

Anti-Israel protests exploded across American campuses following the Hamas onslaught. They often morphed into outright antisemitism with Jews threatened, cursed and spit upon.

On Oct. 25, 2023, at Cooper Union College in New York, Jewish students barricaded themselves in the school library as anti-Israel activists pounded on the doors and windows outside.

Some of the worst antisemitism occurred in the country’s most elite schools. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Harvard University for violating the rights of Jewish and Israeli students under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Harvard has tolerated antisemitic mobs of students, faculty and visitors allegedly expressing their opposition to Israel by assaulting, harassing and intimidating Jewish and Israeli students with perceived racial, ethnic and national connections to Israel,” the department said.

The USCIS materials included online examples of antisemitism, such as a social media post with a map of Israel with the name of the country crossed out and replaced with “Palestine.” Another example provided was an online post calling for Israelis to “taste what people in Gaza are tasting.”

Desecrating the American flag is also a potentially disqualifying factor, as is supporting “subversive” ideologies.

“Immigration officers must elevate all cases involving ‘potential anti-American and/or antisemitic conduct or ideology’ to their managers and to the agency’s general counsel’s office for review, according to the documents,” the Times said.
Most Jew-hatred in Canada in 2025 in 44 years B’nai Brith has tracked hate
B’nai Brith Canada, which traces its history back more than 150 years, said that for the third year in a row, it recorded the largest number of incidents of Jew-hatred in the country.

Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy at the group, said in a press conference at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday that its annual audit of incidents of Jew-hatred in Canada found in 2025 that the 6,800 incidents that year were up 9.4% from the 6,219 in 2024. The 2025 statistic was the largest since B’nai Brith began issuing the annual report in 1982, Roberston said.

“Though the figures contained in the 2025 audit are astonishing, we cannot allow antisemitism to be rendered into mere statistics that we grow numb to,” he told reporters. “Each incident documented in the audit meant pain, suffering and anguish for a human being, a fellow Canadian.”

Robertson cited several examples, including a Jew told that the person “should have been gassed along with their ancestors at Auschwitz,” a Jewish man assaulted in front of his children at a park and Nazi imagery scrawled at a schoolyard.

“Antisemitism has become so ubiquitous in our society that the word ‘Jew’ is now commonly used as a slur to disparage and malign non‑Jews,” Robertson said. “Jewishness itself has become derogatory in contemporary Canada.”

He broke the 6,800 incidents down into categories—6,491 instances of antisemitic harassment, 299 examples of vandalism that included Jew-hatred and 10 incidents of antisemitic violence.

There were also increases last year in the number of times that people called for Jews to be exterminated and to be removed from Canada, according to B’nai Brith stats.
Canadian police probing ‘hate/bias-motivated incident’ at Toronto synagogue
The York Regional Police in Ontario said on Saturday that it is probing what it calls a “hate/bias-motivated incident,” which occurred at 9:35 a.m. that day at Sephardic Kehila Centre in Vaughan.

A suspect, whose photo the department shared, “attempted to force his way into a synagogue and assaulted a victim prior to fleeing the scene,” the department said. “The victim was not injured.” It added that its hate crime unit is investigating.

The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto said on Saturday night that it was “aware of this morning’s violent attack at the Sephardic Kehila Centre in Thornhill.”

“An individual tried to force entry into the synagogue and assaulted a member of our community. The incident was reported to the Jewish Security Network, who ensured York Regional Police were notified and are supporting the investigation,” the Federation said. “We are relieved our community member was not seriously injured. That does not lessen the seriousness of the attack, which reflects a continued pattern of antisemitic violence targeting our community.

“The Jewish community, like all Canadians, deserves to live in peace and security,” it added. “As these incidents become more normalized, they erode public safety and our way of life as Canadians. This cannot be tolerated.”

Rabbi David Kadoch, the congregation’s spiritual leader, told JNS that “on Saturday, an intruder attempted to make his way into our building.”

“He was questioned by our synagogue’s security team and ultimately turned away due to his suspicious behavior. After leaving the building, he walked past a member of our synagogue and proceeded to attack him from behind,” the rabbi said. “It was a clear assault, and thankfully, our member was not more seriously injured. We remain deeply concerned that attacks against our community are becoming more commonplace.”

“The Jewish community, like all Canadians, deserves to be able to celebrate and practice our religion without this constant threat of violence,” he told JNS. “We are grateful to the York Regional Police and Jewish Security Network for their immediate response and are confident they will do their very best to apprehend the suspect.” He added that the member who was assaulted was walking to the synagogue at the time with his child.
Israeli company to help design, develop water desalination facility in Texas
US Desalination LLC and Israel-based IDE Technologies announced the formation of RGV-Desal, LLC, a joint venture to design, develop, finance and operate a large desalination plant in South Texas to address worsening water shortages in the Rio Grande Valley.

The proposed facility would be privately funded and produce up to 50 million gallons of drinking water daily by treating seawater from the Gulf of Mexico, according to a joint news release.

Sean Strawbridge, chairman of the board of US Desalination, called IDE Technologies “a world leader in large-scale seawater desalination.”

“We are bringing a proven, privately funded solution that will add meaningful and reliable supply for both public utilities and industrial customers across the region,” he said, citing accelerating population growth in the region straining traditional water supplies.

The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee welcomed the announcement.

“American workers will use Israeli technology to bring more clean water to Texas,” AIPAC stated. “A partnership that benefits us.”
Powerful travelling Nova exhibition to open in east London on 20 May
The Nova Festival Exhibition is coming to east London for six weeks from 20 May, as part of an international tour to tell the story of the 413 people massacred and 44 taken hostage from the site on 7 October 2023.

A successful community campaign in March fundraised to bring the recreation of the festival site to the UK. The exhibition was initially shown in Tel Aviv in 2024, followed by visits to cities including New York, Toronto, Berlin and Buenos Aires, drawing more than 600,000 visitors in total.

Titled “06:29AM – The Moment Music Stood Still”, the exhibition features the actual staging, burnt out vehicles and thousands of personal items discarded in the chaos of the attacks. It includes first-hand witness phone footage from the day, bullet-riddled structures and porta-loos, in-person testimonies from survivors, returned hostages, and bereaved families, who will be present at the exhibition every day.

It sheds light on the lives of revellers from countries including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, United States, Israel, Philippines, and Mexico, forever changed in that moment – at 06:29AM.

Londoners, Lisa and Michael Marlowe, whose son, 26-year old son Jake was murdered at the festival, said: “Bringing this exhibition to London feels like our boy is coming home for six weeks. He was our shining star. On that day, he could have run, but he chose to stay and try to save as many lives as possible. That sums up who our boy was.” Nova Festival Exhibition. Berlin. Thursday 30 October 2025. Michelle Rosenberg

Ofir Amir, co-founder and producer of The Nova Music Festival, said: “We hope the British public will engage with this exhibition, especially given the UK’s strong music festivals culture. The Nova community is centred around light, and we must continue to share the message that We Will Dance Again without fear. This exhibition is about caring for our community, supporting healing, and educating the world on the events that occurred on that day.”

Omri Sassi, co-founder and producer of The Nova Music Festival, said: “The story of The Nova Music Festival is one of strength, resilience and community. It was so important for us to bring the next leg of the exhibition’s tour to the UK, so as many people as possible can experience it and remember the innocent festivalgoers who came together to dance and celebrate music, because this could happen in any music festival around the world.”




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