Wednesday, May 06, 2026

05/05 Links Pt2: Jews Now Live in a World Where Right and Wrong Have Been Reversed; Jordanian pleads guilty to lesser charge in murder of pro-Israel protester Paul Kessler

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Jews Now Live in a World Where Right and Wrong Have Been Reversed
The Palestinian cause and the fictitious Palestinian identity that underpins it are devoted to the destruction of Israel and the theft of the Jews' own ancestral history in the land. Far from being moral, it's an evil cause. The stock in trade of the Palestinian Arabs is to project their own crimes onto the Jews and to accuse the Jews in turn of committing atrocities of which they have, in fact, been the victims. Everyone who has perpetrated these lies is an accessory to murderous violence against Jews.

Horrifyingly, anti-Zionism and antisemitism have become so deeply ingrained in the West as an unchallenged narrative presenting Israel as the fount of all evil that they've developed into a belief system that defines an individual's moral identity.

The shocking outcome, therefore, is that the West has framed antisemitism and anti-Zionism as conscience itself. Small wonder that Jews and all decent people feel as if they're now inhabiting a looking-glass world where truth and lies, right and wrong, victim and aggressor have all been reversed.
Seth Mandel: Progressive Radicals Face No Resistance
Yesterday, Axios reported that longtime anti-Israel campaigner Maher Bitar, a former Biden administration intelligence official, will essentially be running the Democratic Party foreign-policy group founded by Jake Sullivan and Ben Rhodes. While Rhodes is held in low regard in the foreign-policy world, Sullivan is not. But the former national security adviser appears to be handing the torch to a veteran of the anti-Semitic BDS campaign against the Jewish state.

The key takeaway here is that there is almost no resistance within the party structure to the ascendant anti-Zionist contingent. There won’t be a fight for the party; there will simply be a process in which the old hand the reins to the new.

The Philadelphia Inquirer also reported that Chris Rabb, a state lawmaker running for Congress, shared a social media post that blamed the Bondi Beach massacre on “Zionists,” pushing a conspiracy theory that the whole attack was a Jewish false flag.

Rabb blamed a staffer and said he condemned the sentiment. But while Rabb’s post was grotesque, it wasn’t necessarily shocking. Last week, he campaigned with prominent progressive anti-Semitic influencer Hasan Piker, who backs Hamas over Israel and has used various slurs to refer to Jews.

As Jewish Insider notes, Rabb is in a competitive primary contest, but he has received the backing of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the leader of the anti-Israel congressional bloc and possible 2028 presidential candidate. He was also endorsed by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

And today the Washington Free Beacon reports a rather unsettling detail about one of the Democrats running for the party’s nomination for a New Jersey congressional seat. Adam Hamawy “was an associate of terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman—the ‘Blind Sheikh’—and served as a defense witness at the trial that ultimately saw the cleric put away for life, court records show.” The Beacon piece contains a number of interesting details about the friendship between Hamawy and the man connected to the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
Jonathan Tobin: Anti-Zionists who condemn antisemitic crimes are gaslighting us
Last week’s stabbing attack against two Jews in London’s Golders Green neighborhood was just the latest instance of what even local police agreed was an “epidemic” of antisemitic crimes. It was just one of many such incidents in the United Kingdom, the United States, continental Europe and Australia over the course of the last 31 months in which Jews were subjected to violence merely for being conspicuously Jewish.

Since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, such incidents have become commonplace. The connection between the two is not a coincidence. That’s because the Oct. 7 attacks were the spark for a global surge of Jew-hatred. It’s rooted in the idea that the war to destroy Israel—for which the atrocities of Oct. 7 were just a trailer for what would happen to the rest of the Jewish state should Hamas and its allies triumph—was a righteous cause that enlightened progressives should support.

And in the name of this supposedly righteous cause of ending the one state on the planet that is Jewish, where half of the world’s Jews just happen to live, a lot of harm is being done to Jews elsewhere.

They don’t want to be called ‘antisemites’
The curious thing about the people who support these awful ideas is that they don’t wish to be considered antisemitic.

Listen to those like leftist podcaster Hasan Piker and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who openly support Hamas, and they’ll tell you that while they support the destruction of Israel, they want to assure Jews in the Diaspora that they have nothing to fear from them. Or, at least, not as long as they don’t support Israel.

They are adamant in asserting that anti-Zionism—a movement that denies rights to Jews that no one would think to deny to any other group or people—is not the same thing as antisemitism. Indeed, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, they are proud of their public advocacy against the Jewish state and their nonstop floating of lies about it committing horrible fictional crimes while denying or rationalizing the actual crimes committed against it and its people.

At the same time, they deny that this has anything to do with the unprecedented worldwide increase in acts of Jew-hatred. Piker was at pains to make this argument in, of all places, JTA, which was once the respected primary source of news about the Jewish world. He claims that he’s trying to fight antisemitism while leading the charge in favor of demonizing the Jews of Israel and their supporters abroad.


LA-area county ‘strongly objects’ ahead of apparent lesser sentence for man, who pleaded guilty to killing 69-year-old Jew
The district attorney’s office in Ventura County, in the Los Angeles area, is displeased with what it said is a superior court’s indication that Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji will get off with a light sentence after pleading guilty, on Tuesday, to charges related to the death of a 69-year-old Jewish man.

“A prison sentence could be two, three or four years under California law in this case,” Tom Dunlevy, supervising senior deputy district attorney for the county, told JNS. “Our office’s objection is to the court’s offer of probation, as we believe this case warrants a prison sentence.”

Alnaji pleaded guilty on Tuesday to felony involuntary manslaughter and felony battery causing serious bodily injury and “admitted the special allegation that he personally inflicted great bodily injury,” the district attorney’s office stated. “Alnaji also admitted aggravating factors that he used a weapon and that the victim was particularly vulnerable.”

“The court indicated that it is likely to place Alnaji on formal probation with up to 365 days in jail,” it added.

Alnaji pleaded guilty to charges related to the death of Paul Kessler, who died after an altercation with Alnaji near competing pro- and anti-Israel rallies in Los Angeles on Nov. 5, 2023.

A computer science professor at Moorpark College, in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Alnaji hit Kessler with a megaphone, causing the 69-year-old to fall and hit his head on the pavement. Alnaji at first pleaded not guilty.


Jonathan Chait: Progressive Activists Are Sometimes on the Wrong Side of History
One flaw with this account is that it is selective. Over the past two years, many Michigan students have marched or chanted in support of Israel, but Peterson excluded them from his litany of activists blessed by the legacy of righteous protest. The actual argument made by Peterson and others is for deference not to student activists in general but specifically to progressive student activists. And even this one-sided deference suffers from a survivorship bias of sorts. Progressives believe that activists are on the right side of history, because they choose to remember the causes that fared well. But activists on the left have not always acted with wisdom and foresight: Left-wing demonstrators also marched against aid to the Allies in the 1940s, to block nuclear power in the 1970s, and in defense of totalitarian regimes during the Cold War.

The assumption that progressive activists are inherently on the side of justice elevates them above the category of mere political actors into a kind of priestly class whom others can only learn from, and can never criticize. It redirects any scrutiny of their positions to general admiration for their idealism and passion.

Concern and empathy for Palestinian suffering and anger at Israel’s excessive counterattack are admirable, but the movement’s ambition is not limited to that. Michigan’s pro-Palestine activism is primarily organized by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, which is the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a national network. Both the national group and its Michigan chapter have endorsed the October 7, 2023, attacks. Adult progressives’ insistence on viewing their activities as mere youthful idealism makes it impossible to question those positions.

The activists themselves have absorbed the historical-justice narrative, concluding that they are entitled to take whatever steps they see fit to advance their cause. Many campus chapters have seized common space for themselves, an action that no group is allowed. If the crew team, a fraternity, or some local MAGA fans occupied a chunk of grass that belongs to the whole community, they would be evicted quickly. Michigan’s activists did this, and also repeatedly intimidated targets at their homes, including throwing a jar filled with urine through the window of the Democratic regent Jordan Acker’s house in the middle of the night.

Most causes have adherents who get carried away. But not every cause does so with the encouragement of professors who cast them as angels of justice by mere dint of the category of action they are taking. Peterson was lecturing an audience of graduates and their families. Much like the activists he praised, he was commandeering a common space intended to belong to the entire university community on behalf of a narrower, contested segment of it. In so doing, he demonstrated how a belief in the immutable righteousness of one’s own side can be a license to abuse power.
Joshua Namm: For Jews, Not A Great Spring (So Far)
Doing what I do for a living, given my lifelong passion for the Jewish community, and just being a Jew – I am, in no way, even remotely, a stranger to antisemitism.

So when we observed Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) last month, even I was surprised at how surprised I was at the relentlessness of Jew hatred spewed online that day.

It is way too easy to view antisemitic activity on social media as being detached from our lives, and not a serious indication of anything real, because it is online, less personal and also because (so the story goes) social media isn’t the “real world.”

That is obviously ridiculous because for two decades now social media has been growing in influence, and now isn’t just effectively the “town square,” but is the place where most Americans get some, or most, of their news. So, to just dismiss it as some kind of remote cesspool of stupidity, divorced from the real world is dangerous and foolish.

So, for me at least, seeing the tidal wave of antisemitism in my social feeds on Yom Hashoah was a real indication that we are losing the battle. It seems obvious that what you constantly see on social media reflects real world attitudes, and at the same time, its ubiquity gives people tacit social permission to translate online attitudes into real world behavior.

And as if to make the point that social media attitudes, and real world behavior are one in the same: the last few weeks have been some of the worst in recent history in terms of the indications that we are quickly heading into the world endured by our grandparents and great grandparents (and remembered by the people still with us who experienced that period first hand), vs the supposed “golden age” of American Jewish life.

It culminated in the stabbing attack of two Jews outside of a synagogue in Golders Green, London. That was preceded by two months of targeted attacks on the Jewish community.

At a Yom Hashoah event at Auschwitz, Sylvan Adams, President of the World Jewish Congress – Israel Region, said “I believed that the post-Holocaust slogan of ‘Never Again’ truly meant never again, well, I was wrong.”

That realization is heartbreaking. I also hope that it is becoming more widespread because we have been in denial for too long, and denial should have ended permanently on October 7, 2023. But it hasn’t at our own peril, and the events of the last few weeks alone should make that case (again).
Jewish paramedic in Australia says firefighter threatened to 'skin' him with a hunting knife
A Jewish paramedic in Australia testified that a firefighter pulled a hunting knife on him and threatened to “skin" him during a music festival in Victoria. The paramedic spoke at hearings of the royal commission investigating antisemitism and social cohesion in the country, which began Monday. The commission was established following the massacre at a Hanukkah party at Bondi Beach in Sydney, in which 15 people were murdered, and amid the surge in antisemitic incidents in the country.

The paramedic, Joshua Gomperts, 33, said the incident occurred while he was volunteering at a New Year’s Eve festival. He said that while he was with other emergency personnel, one firefighter made a remark about his Judaism, pulled out a large knife and told him: "I would skin you the way my family skinned yours in the camps."

According to ABC Australia, police officers at the scene heard the remarks and responded immediately. The firefighter’s supervisors later arrived and replaced the firefighting team at the festival. Gomperts testified that it was not the first time he had experienced antisemitism. He said that as a teenager, he was attacked and injured while wearing a kippah after being hit with a glass bottle. He also said that, while working as a paramedic, he encountered antisemitic behavior when a patient in his 90s gave a Nazi salute during a hospital transfer. When Gomperts asked why he had done it, the elderly man said he was “an old Nazi” and did not want a Jew touching him. Gomperts and his colleague left, and another team continued the treatment.

He said he also faced discrimination during his academic studies. ABC Australia reported that when the Jewish paramedic asked to postpone an exam scheduled for a Jewish holiday, he was summoned to a university hearing and told the date could not be changed for religious reasons. Only after seeking legal advice and saying he was considering action was his request approved. Gomperts noted that other students who were granted postponements for personal reasons, such as family events, were not required to undergo a similar process.

‘Because of security, the Jewish school in Sydney looks more like a prison’
Sheina Gutnick, daughter of the late Reuven Morrison, who was murdered in the Sydney attack, testified: “I saw cars passing on main roads, with passengers shouting ‘Free Palestine’ and immediately afterward ‘fuck the Jews.’ This is not political expression but explicit and targeted hatred.”

She described another incident. “In December 2024, I was walking down the street with my baby. A man pointed at my Star of David necklace and called me a ‘terrorist.’ I felt shocked, exposed and unsafe. No one intervened. I constantly consider whether to even pick up an online order in person, depending on the neighborhood where it is located, because of attacks that have occurred in certain places in Australia.”


In webinar with current and former UN staff, anti-Israel coalition admits secret coordination with US-sanctioned group
Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, executive secretary of the Hague Group, seemed to think that she was speaking confidentially during a webinar last Thursday, during which she said that the “Hague Group and South Africa and Colombia’s co-chairs are advised by a variety of Palestinian organizations,” including Al Haq.

Marco Rubio, U.S. secretary of state, announced American sanctions against Al Haq and two other organizations on Sept. 4 for being “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.”

Formed in early 2025, the Hague Group is a coalition of countries that says it is devoted to “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures” to defend “international law and solidarity with the people of Palestine.”

South Africa, Colombia, Malaysia, Cuba, Namibia and Senegal are part of the group. Honduras and Bolivia exited the Hague Group in March, after both, under new leadership, established warmer ties with Israel.

Gandikota-Nellutla said at the April 30 online event that “there has been a very careful and actually kind of talked-out dynamic between the states,” of the Hague Group, “and the civil society groups where they have been present at every single ministerial meeting.”

“They have not been formally in the group, because that’s precisely what would scare away the Europeans—to see this as a radical campaign group, to see this not as a diplomatic bloc that’s led by other states,” she said.

The group executive secretary said that Al Shabaka, a U.S.-based nonprofit, billed as a Palestinian think tank but which has a long history of boycotting Israel and justifying terror, is also advising the Hague Group. (JNS sought comment from the Hague Group, U.S. State Department and the Israeli mission to the United Nations.)

Gandikota-Nellutla’s comments came during the webinar, which United Staff for Gaza hosted. The group used to be called “U.N. Staff for Gaza,” and it consists of current and former United Nations staff members.

“I want to make sure that we’re in a kind of confidential, friendly space here,” Gandikota-Nellutla said during the webinar.”


Quillette: Is Fighting Antisemitism a Waste of Time? An Interview with Bret Stephens
In this interview, Bret Stephens joins Jonathan Kay to discuss how Jews should respond to the surge in antisemitism following October 7.

Stephens argues that many traditional approaches—public advocacy, philanthropy, and campus debate—have failed to reduce hostility. Instead of trying to persuade critics, he makes the case for a strategic shift: strengthening Jewish identity, institutions, and culture from within.

The conversation explores the roots of antisemitism, the role of “privilege” narratives, the limits of university discourse, and the importance of investing in Jewish education and community life. It also examines how to think about Israel beyond day-to-day politics, and whether organisations like the Anti-Defamation League should rethink their focus.

A wide-ranging discussion about identity, resilience, and what comes next.

⏱️ CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction from Jon Kay
01:45 Introduction from Amanda Eskenasi
02:47 Conversation begins
05:33 The roots of antisemitism
07:34 Why campus debates fall flat
10:46 “Privilege” and resentment
16:48 Anti-colonial rhetoric and Israel
21:10 The limits of persuasion
23:27 Investing in Jewish identity
27:08 Indigeneity and legitimacy
30:23 Rethinking the Anti-Defamation League
34:04 Diaspora identity and assimilation
36:22 Supporting Israel beyond politics
38:38 Israel and geopolitical myths


30 Democratic lawmakers ask Rubio to reveal details of Israel’s nuclear program
A group of 30 House Democrats has demanded that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio disclose details of Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons arsenal.

“We cannot develop a coherent nonproliferation policy for the Middle East,” they wrote in a letter dated Monday, “including with respect to Iran’s civil nuclear program and Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear ambitions, while maintaining a policy of official silence about the nuclear weapons capabilities of one party central to the ongoing conflict in which the United States is a direct participant.”

“We ask that you hold Israel to the same standard of transparency that the United States expects from any other country that may be pursuing or retaining nuclear weapons capability,” said the group, led by Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro.

Israel does not confirm or deny having atomic weapons, maintaining a policy of official ambiguity on the issue, as both Democratic and Republican presidents have also done over the decades, with Monday’s letter expected to be ignored.

The Democratic representatives argued in the letter that Congress “has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East, the risk of escalation by any party to this conflict, and the administration’s planning and contingencies for such scenarios. We do not believe we have received that information.”

They asked for details on Israeli warheads and launchers, enrichment capabilities, what the US has been told about Israeli doctrine and red lines as well as what is produced at the Dimona nuclear reactor. The facility at Dimona, a southern city targeted by Iran in the recent war, is said to be the home of Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons program.


Team Mamdani Kills Page Celebrating New York’s ‘Unique Ties to Israel’ and Large Jewish Community From Official City Website
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration has quietly pulled an official landing page promoting New York City's business ties to Israel, the Washington Free Beacon can reveal.

The page, which dates back to former mayor Eric Adams's administration, once lived on the New York City Economic Development Corporation's (EDC) website and touted the city's close business and cultural ties to Israel—relations which had been a priority for Adams.

"The ties between New York City and Israel start with our people. Over 20,000 Israelis call NYC home. Additionally, NYC has the largest Jewish population of any metropolitan area in the world outside of Israel. And with New York City's unique ties to Israel—including the 30 Israeli-founded tech unicorns based here—there is no better place in North America to launch or expand your business," the EDC boasted just last year.

"As of 2023, there are 97 Israeli-founded companies that have reached 'unicorn' status, as their value surpassed the $1B threshold. 30 of these companies have established presence in New York City – up from 5 in 2019. More and more, Israeli startups are identifying New York City as a launching pad, equipped with the space and talent to scale their businesses to new heights," the page continued.

Mamdani—a longtime antagonist to Israel who has falsely accused the country of committing genocide, refused to disavow the slogan "globalize the intifada," which he says is "misunderstood," and said he’d have the NYPD arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he set foot in Gotham—appears to be less interested in promoting New York’s Israel ties, as the page was quietly disappeared sometime after he took office.

Those looking for the page today will instead be greeted by a message reading "access denied."


Zack Polanski falsely claimed to be a spokesperson for the British Red Cross
Zack Polanski falsely claimed to have been a “spokesperson” for the British Red Cross while fundraising for his successful campaign to become deputy leader of the Green Party, according to an investigation by The Times.

The newspaper reports that Polanski, now the party’s leader, repeatedly described himself as a spokesperson for the charity on his personal website and on crowdfunding pages during the 2022 deputy leadership contest.

The British Red Cross has denied the claim and said it had raised the matter with his team.

The investigation also raised questions about a series of claims made by Polanski about his professional background before entering politics, when he worked as an actor, nightclub promoter and hypnotherapist.

According to The Times, Polanski stated on his website in 2020 that he had worked as a spokesperson for the British Red Cross and said he was “really proud of the work we do”.

He repeated the description two years later on a Crowdfunder page while seeking donations for his deputy leadership campaign, writing: “As a spokesperson for the British Red Cross, I care deeply about ending racialised policing and have been calling for an end to the phoney war on drugs.”

The British Red Cross told The Times that Polanski “has not been a spokesperson”.

In response, the Green Party said Polanski had acted as a host “for several fundraisers for the British Red Cross”.

Separate questions were also raised about Polanski’s former work as a hypnotherapist. The Times reports that he was not a full member of the National Council of Hypnotherapy, despite claims made to clients while practising.

In 2013, The Sun in 2013 reported that Polanski attempted to enlarge a reporter’s breasts using hypnotherapy. Since joining the Green Party leadership, he has said he “never believed” hypnotherapy could enlarge breasts and was never paid to attempt it.


The Green candidate who thinks Iran should bomb the White House
A Green candidate in this week’s council elections says the White House should be blown up, described Hamas taking ‘filthy hostages,’ and denies that anyone was raped by the terror group on 7 October.

Feda Shahin, a Green candidate in Bournemouth, was first exposed – for different extremist statements – by The Spectator on 21 April. We disclosed she had said that ‘the Zionists killed 20 million Christians’ and that ‘Zionists are trying to control the world.’ She is ‘secretary general’ of a local pro-Palestine group, the Palestine Solidarity Movement, which earned national notoriety after it staged a night-time picket of an MP’s private home.

Those remarks were, it turns out, only part of Shahin’s wide repertoire. We have now been passed her conversations in the Palestine Solidarity Movement’s group chat, including her reaction to our previous story about her. This was not, it’s fair to say, shame, apology or regret. Instead, she said The Spectator was running a ‘trolling campaign’ – deliberately posting inflammatory statements to provoke emotional responses.

The inflammatory statements were, of course, Shahin’s. Now there are some more to report. In a thread from mid-March, discussion turns to the Iran war. ‘I hope Iran can destroy Israel and leave no-one there,’ writes another member of the group. Shahin replies: ‘Iran should hit the Whitehouse. It is the headquarters for evil.’

Shahin was furious about Israel continuing intermittently to bomb Gaza even though a peace deal had been agreed. ‘I am about to go crazy,’ she says. ‘Where are those who agreed the deal? They lied. They got the filthy hostages. It was all about that.’

Earlier in the conflict, on her public X account, Shahin appeared to look forward to more hostages being taken. In October 2024, responding to an Israeli commentator demanding the release of the Hamas hostages (who were then still held) and a ceasefire, Shahin replied: ‘They’re going to kidnap [someone else] soon, God willing, so you can visit the kidnapped.’
Hateful anti-Israel mob descends on historic NYC synagogue, clashes with cops in chaotic protest
A hateful mob of keffiyeh-clad anti-Israel protesters flooded the streets near a historic Manhattan synagogue Tuesday night — clashing with cops as they repeatedly shouted “Israel should not exist.”

About 100 agitators waving Palestinian flags and banging drums swarmed about a half-block from Park East Synagogue, chanting “Palestine will never die” and “Stop the sale of stolen land” during an event promoting real estate in Israel and the West Bank, according to shocking footage.

While the East 67th Street synagogue was sealed off by police barricades, footage captured the rowdy protesters clashing with cops who were trying to force their way past the barriers into the street.

Police yelled “step back” as they shoved the unruly crowd onto the sidewalk, video shows, while counter-protesters rallied nearby.

One officer suffered a leg injury in the chaos and was hospitalized, the NYPD said.

“They’re a bunch of brainwashed fools,” Karen Lichtbraun, co-sponsor of Zionist group Herut New York City, told The Post of the pro-Palestine protesters.

“Israel does not occupy anything. It’s the Jewish homeland. And this is all anti-Zionism, which is antisemitism, which is Jew hate.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani — a staunch critic of Israel — has not commented on the protest.

The 7 p.m. protest was led by the anti-Israel activist group Pal-Awda NY/NJ, which promoted the rally with slogans such as “No settlers on stolen land” and “Stop the sale of stolen Palestinian land.”

The antisemitic group previously spearheaded a November rally at the synagogue, where about 200 demonstrators heckled people attending an event hosted by Nefesh B’nefesh, a Zionist group that helps Jews immigrate from the US to Israel.


Georgetown 'Islamophobia' Initiative Required To 'Consult' With Qatar on Guest Speakers, University Contract With Qatari Regime Reveals
A contract between an "Islamophobia" initiative at Georgetown University and Hamas-allied Qatar, where Georgetown operates a satellite campus, includes a clause that requires Georgetown to consult with a Qatari government group when selecting "speakers" and "themes" for events in Washington, D.C., documents released by the House Education Committee and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The contract outlines a $630,000 grant from Qatar's foreign ministry to Georgetown's Bridge Initiative, a "multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University." Signed by Georgetown's vice president of advancement in June 2024, the contract indicates Qatar will make three payments of $210,000 to the Bridge Initiative between 2024 and 2026. In order to receive the money, Georgetown agreed to "consult" with a Qatari group, the "Islam and Muslims Initiative," when choosing "themes and speakers" for Islamophobia-related "conferences" and "events."

Georgetown's Bridge Initiative has hosted, promoted, or defended several figures whom the regime in Qatar has also boosted. They include Bridge Initiative advisory board member Dalia Mogahed and anti-Israel cleric Omar Suleiman, both of whom have promoted terrorism against the Jewish state, as well as Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"The University's Bridge Initiative is committed, annually and throughout the duration of this Agreement, to organizing international conferences on the Globalization of Islamophobia and similar themes for the purpose of furthering and disseminating research on this topic," the contract states. "During that process, it will consult with the Islam and Muslims Initiative, which is supported by the Ministry, and consider recommendations regarding sessions, themes, and speakers." The contract stipulates that "these events and activities" should be hosted "in Washington, D.C., in the United States of America."
NEVER AGAIN IS NOW Podcast: US – Qatar’s influence on global antisemitism – Ep. 212
Qatar has developed close relations with Western media, education systems and important think tanks. Jordan Cope, Director of Policy Education at StandWithUs (www.standwithus.com) has done extensive research on influence campaigns of Qatar and its ties with terrorist groups. He shares his knowledge in this episode.


GW decries ‘reprehensible, criminal action’ after vials with ‘unknown substance’ dropped around Israel Fest
George Washington University, a private school in downtown Washington, D.C., stated on Tuesday that it is aware of reports of people placing vials with “an unknown substance” around an Israel Fest celebration last week, “in an apparent attempt to disrupt the festival.”

“At least one student was injured by this incident, which is now under an investigation that will examine among other things whether individuals were targeted based on their Jewish faith,” the school said. “The university condemns this reprehensible and criminal action.”

“The university, in cooperation with law enforcement as appropriate, will utilize all available avenues to investigate these concerning reports thoroughly and hold any perpetrators who are identified accountable to the fullest extent under university policies and applicable law,” GW said.

The Hillel at GW states that it serves “more than 3,000 Jewish undergraduates and 1,500 Jewish graduate students” at the school.

Anti-Israel activists set up an encampment at the school in 2024. GW has suspended a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and its Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, and the U.S. Justice Department has said that GW exhibited “deliberate indifference” to antisemitic incidents on campus that were “objectively offensive, severe and pervasive.”
Exclusionary Justice: The APA’s Failure to Protect Jewish Psychologists
In January 2026, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Psychological Association (APA) wrote that leadership means “deciding which battles matter most and committing fully to them, rather than spreading ourselves thin trying to respond to everything at once.” Psychologists were encouraged to use 2026 to “rise to the challenge and show the world the full power of psychology to heal, unite, and lead.” Yet in the months that followed, psychology has increasingly appeared to move in a different direction. Across APA divisions and ethnic minority associations, leadership has engaged in selective outrage and exclusionary approaches to justice, reinforcing rather than addressing anti-Jewish discrimination.

Despite support from a coalition of Jewish American organizations, in February 2026 the APA Council of Representatives voted to defer action on affiliation with the Association of Jewish Psychologists (AJP) as a recognized Ethnic Psychological Association (EPA). While the APA President stated that “the deferral gives council members time for robust discussion and critical deliberation about how best to ensure that all voices are heard and represented,” it remains unclear whose voices are, in fact, being heard and represented. This question is especially pressing given that the APA’s Coalition of National Racial and Ethnic Psychological Associations (CONREPA) had previously opposed recognition of a Jewish ethnic minority association, asserting that the “conflation” of religion, race, and ethnicity “obscures the role of racism, white privilege, and white supremacy in the historical and contemporary oppression of people of color.” CONREPA further argued that Jewish psychologists are “not underrepresented within APA,” that “the majority of Jewish Americans in the United States identify as white,” and that “Jewish psychologists of color already have a home in each of the existing EPAs.”

Although CONREPA’s statement was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), what is less widely discussed is the fact that some ethnic psychological associations have taken positions that raise serious concerns among the greater Jewish population. These include calls for a “humanitarian ceasefire and an end to the senseless genocide in Gaza” without any mention of October 7, the brutal killings, or the abduction of 251 hostages; another that described the October 7 atrocities as a “unified Palestinian resistance action,” and a third that compared Israel’s response to October 7 to historical instances of “colonization, oppression, and violence” through “war, genocide, and its complexities.”

Of note, member associations of CONREPA have also taken positions aligned with Psychologists for Justice in Palestine (PJP), which describes itself as “united in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation.” In a joint letter to APA leadership, signatories and endorsing associations expressed concern that the APA’s 2007 Resolution on Anti-Semitic and Anti-Jewish Prejudice “has been used to obstruct efforts to promote and protect human rights — a core commitment of the Association,” and urged the rejection of the rationale underlying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, arguing that it has been used to prohibit advocacy for Palestinian human rights and well-being.


New York Times Scrambles to Defend Pulitzer-Winning Photo of 'Starving' Gazan
The New York Times is scrambling to defend the integrity of its Gaza-based photographer and his work, which won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, after a press watchdog organization accused him of "staged scenes" that were closely coordinated with the Hamas terrorist organization.

The prizes largely honored articles that bashed Trump—his alleged abuses of power, his destruction of the federal workforce, his venality—or Israel.

What has kicked up something of a storm—at least enough to generate an official if somewhat vague defense from the New York Times—is the prize to Times contributing photographer Saher Alghorra for pictures he took in areas of Gaza that were largely under the control of Hamas terrorists. The New York Times has conceded "Hamas restricts journalists in Gaza," but it’s not clear how that affected the work of Alghorra, who, one prize website reports, "studied public relations, media and photography at the University of Palestine." In 2024 a friend started a GoFundMe to try to raise $36,000 to evacuate him and his family from Gaza, but that campaign was paused.

The watchdog group Honest Reporting said the Alghorra Pulitzer is "a prize built on staged scenes, a manufactured ‘famine’ narrative, and intimate access to Hamas terrorists."

Said Honest Reporting, "One of the winning photos shows 2‑year‑old Yazan Abu al‑Foul, turned by the NYT into the face of children ‘starving’ because of Israel. Yet the original wire copy notes that Yazan has four older siblings – none of whom appear in the Pulitzer portfolio – and the same mother and child were repeatedly shot by multiple agencies in near‑identical poses, raising serious questions about staging, consent and how one family was repackaged into a global ‘famine’ poster‑child." Many of the emaciated-appearing children used in press photographs aimed at charging Israel with imposing starvation had underlying preexisting other health conditions that caused their distorted appearance, though Yazan Abu al‑Foul is not known to be one of those.

The watchdog group went on, "Another Pulitzer‑winning image shows Hamas terrorists in Khan Younis reportedly carrying the remains of an Israeli hostage – a glossy, carefully composed shot that by definition required close coordination and trust with an internationally‑designated terror group. And this is the same Saher Alghorra HonestReporting exposed for calling the Bibas family 'prisoners' in his own Instagram post, faithfully echoing Hamas’ language for murdered hostages."

Said Honest Reporting, "By honoring him, the Pulitzers aren’t rewarding courageous war photography; they’re legitimizing Hamas‑adjacent narratives built on emotional manipulation, staged imagery and unrivaled access to a terror group. One day, people will ask how this passed as ‘journalism.’"


Trump calls for Jewish Americans to observe a ‘national Sabbath’
U.S. President Donald Trump has called for Jewish Americans to observe a national Shabbat from sundown May 15 to nightfall May 16 in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month and the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Aish, told JNS that he was “very moved” by the president’s message because it shifts the narrative from Jew-hatred to Jewish faith.

“One of the things people lose in all of this antisemitism is that we’re a proud religion,” he said.

Burg told JNS that the call for a national Shabbat observance is “more meaningful than anything else I could have ever seen because it celebrates our religion and it refocuses on our job to become a light unto the nations.”

“In a social media world, the overwhelming majority of the hate is coming towards the Jews,” he said. “The celebrating of Shabbos and everyone putting down their phones and putting down X, where all this hate lives, is actually really good and really healthy for society.”

In his official proclamation of the annual heritage month, Trump wrote, “In special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250—a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving—Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath.”

“From sundown on May 15 to nightfall on May 16, friends, families, and communities of all backgrounds may come together in gratitude for our great nation,” he wrote. “This day will recognize the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection and gratitude to the Almighty.”

The president also called on “all Americans to celebrate their faith and freedom throughout this year, during this month, and especially on Shabbat to celebrate our 250th year.”
President Trump calls for Jewish communities to mark national Shabbat
In an historic first, US President Donald Trump has called on the country’s Jewish communities to dedicate next Shabbat to America’s 250th anniversary.

The move is part of May 2026 being declared Jewish American Heritage Month, recognising the role Jewish Americans have played in the two and half centuries of “glorious” American independence.

In one of the grandiose self-styled proclamations that have become the trademark of his presidency, on 4 May Trump exhorted the Jewish community to come together in “rest, reflection and gratitude” from sunset on May 15 to nightfall on May 16 to “celebrate their unwavering commitment to the values that make our country great — faith, family, and freedom.”

Quoting a 1790 letter from President George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island exhorting “the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid”, Trump added: “Since the earliest days of our Republic, Jewish Americans have helped build the cause of liberty and sustain the greatness of our Nation”.

Trump goes on to claim that “under my leadership, we are aggressively fighting the violence against Jewish Americans that increased under my predecessor, prosecuting hateful criminals to the fullest extent of the law, and working to end the scourge of anti-Semitism throughout our institutions, especially on college campuses. As President, I will never stop fighting to protect our birthright of religious freedom — a sacred right that continues to guide our Nation, drawing us closer to the Almighty each and every day.”




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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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