Saturday, May 16, 2026

05/16 Links: IDF infantry platoon commander killed by Hezbollah drone; Israel’s Noam Bettan finishes second at Eurovision; Bill Maher : New Rule: No Jews, No News

From Ian:

Why does Jerusalem belongs to the Jews? Because history says so
Facts do not cease to exist simply because anti-Israel ideologues seek to erase them.

Nor should anyone forget what happened when Jerusalem was divided between 1948 and 1967 under Jordanian rule.

During those 19 years, Jews were completely barred from accessing the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, despite explicit guarantees in the 1949 armistice agreements. Fifty-eight synagogues in the Jewish Quarter were destroyed or damaged by the Jordanians. Ancient gravestones on the Mount of Olives, some dating back centuries, were desecrated and used for roads, military camps, and even latrines.

The city’s reunification in 1967 ended 19 years of Jordanian control of eastern Jerusalem, with the Hashemite Kingdom’s annexation having been recognized by only two countries.

Yet, somehow it is Israel that now stands accused of restricting religious freedom.

The truth is precisely the opposite.

Since reunifying Jerusalem in June 1967, after Jordan joined the Six Day War, Israel has safeguarded access to holy sites for all faiths. Muslims pray freely at al-Aqsa Mosque. Christians maintain churches and institutions throughout the city. Jerusalem, under Israeli sovereignty, has become one of the few cities in the Middle East where Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have genuine religious freedom protected by law.

The city itself reflects that vitality.

Today, Jerusalem is home to nearly one million residents, making it Israel’s largest city. It boasts well over 1,000 synagogues, hundreds of churches, and dozens of mosques. It is the seat of Israel’s parliament, Supreme Court, and national institutions. It is a living, thriving capital, not a relic of ancient memory.

And that is ultimately what Jerusalem Day represents.

It is not merely the anniversary of a military victory. It is the celebration of an ancient people returning to its historic heart after centuries of dispersion and longing.

When Israeli paratroopers reached the Western Wall in June 1967, commander Motta Gur famously declared, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” At that moment, Jewish history came full circle.

Jerusalem was not conquered in 1967. It was liberated and reclaimed.

At a time when lies about Israel spread with alarming speed across campuses, social media, and international forums, it is more important than ever to stand unapologetically for truth.

Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people because history says so. Archaeology says so. Demography says so. And 3,000 years of uninterrupted Jewish memory say so.

The facts are there for anyone willing to see them.
The Covenant and the Wooden Box
Jews in Britain are not a peripheral concern of that threat. They are a primary one. Jewish faith schools in north London closed their doors in October 2023, citing security fears. The phrase “Globalize the intifada” is chanted openly at marches through the capital, month after month, without prosecution. After two men were killed at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester in October 2025, the prime minister told the House of Commons that anti-Semitism was not a new hatred, that Jewish buildings, Jewish lives, and Jewish children required extra protection, and that he would do everything in his power to guarantee their safety. Then he did next to nothing. The IRGC remained unproscribed. The marches continued. The files stayed closed.

On April 29, 2026, as Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, sat in Madrid discussing Gaza with the Spanish prime minister, a man ran along Golders Green Road armed with a knife, hunting Jews. He stabbed two—a man of 34 and a man of 76. He had been referred to Prevent—the government’s counterterrorism program designed to identify and steer individuals away from radicalization—in 2020. His file was closed the same year. The prime minister visited Golders Green the day following the attack and was met with chants of “Keir Starmer Jew Harmer.”

“Anti-Semitism is an old, old hatred,” Starmer said. “History shows that if you turn away, it grows back.” He was right. Perhaps this time the words will be followed by action, but the word “perhaps” is doing a lot of work here. The record does not encourage hope. And the record matters because of what it confirms: This was not managed ignorance—the filed report, the averted gaze, the truth quietly administered out of existence. It showed something much worse: explicit knowledge, explicit condemnation, explicit promise—and then nothing.

This is the strategic cost—the final destination of the managerial habit that brought about the auction listing for Nelson Street and the conduct of council offices of Rotherham, that wound through the corridors of Broadcasting House, arrived at the gilded antechambers of Buckingham Palace, and came, finally, to the streets of Golders Green. Writing in The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt argues that the decline of the nation-state and the loss of political self-knowledge were not merely cultural tragedies but the preconditions for totalitarian penetration. A society that cannot know itself cannot defend even its most vulnerable children. Britain has not produced totalitarianism. But it has produced, with patient institutional thoroughness, exactly the condition Arendt identified as its precursor: a governing class that has lost the will to know what it is, what it values, and what it owes to those in its care. The Chinese Communist Party understands this with the clarity of a predator that has studied its prey. It targets the gap between what British institutions know and what they have decided, for reasons of procedural calm, to pretend they do not know. That gap—patiently widened over decades by a managerial class that chose comfort over conscience—is now a strategic aperture through which a hostile foreign power has walked into the heart of the British establishment.

Americans reading this would be wise to resist the comfortable assumption that what is described here is a foreign pathology—a peculiarly British failure of nerve from which the New World is naturally immune. It is not. The pipeline that rewards ideological conformity with credentials and institutional authority operates on both sides of the Atlantic. The universities that incubated the assumptions that made Rotherham possible sent their graduates into British newsrooms, council offices, and police commands; their American counterparts sent theirs into the FBI, the Department of Justice, the prestige press, and the administrative apparatus of every major American city. The same spirit of iconoclasm that came for Churchill’s statue came for Washington’s and Jefferson’s, too—pulled down by crowds in Portland in 2020 while city administrators placed them in storage and commissioned reports on whether they deserved to stand at all. A committee reporting to the mayor of Washington, D.C., formally recommended removing or relocating the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.

The same willingness to brand truth-tellers as extremists—which destroyed Sarah Champion’s career for stating the obvious about Rotherham—was visible in the treatment of every American official, journalist, or academic who raised questions that the managerial consensus had decided were impermissible. Britain did not fail because it was uniquely weak. It failed because its governing class lost the will to know itself—and the consequences of that loss, once set in motion, proved impossible to contain. America’s governing class is further along that same road than it yet knows. The wooden box, in America, has not yet been built. But the administrators who would build it, if asked, are already at their post. The question is not whether it is being constructed. It is whether enough people—in Britain and in America—will recognize the lumber being assembled before all the nails go in.

In the summer of 1940, when every counsel of prudence pointed toward negotiation, one man looked into the abyss and refused to blink. He had spent decades preparing for that moment, honoring a covenant older than the war itself: declaring his support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, fighting the White Paper that would have closed Palestine’s gates to Jews fleeing extermination, prosecuting at the cost of everything the war against the regime whose explicit purpose was to end Jewish life in Europe. He understood that the Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews—that England’s fate and the fate of the Jewish people were bound together in a moral order that transcended any government or generation. That conviction did not make him perfect. It made him, at the moment of maximum cost, faithful. He turned down a dukedom.

Those who have inherited stewardship of the covenant—the politicians, police, and civil servants—are failing it right now, if not betraying it outright, in the streets of Golders Green, in the halls of Parliament, in the lecture halls and council offices and police commands where the custodians made the same choice—managed truth over honest reckoning. What remains of that moral order, in the hands of those now charged with keeping it, is not easy to say. It endures—but not in the institutions, which have failed it, or in the bronze, which has been spray-painted, or for much longer in the synagogue, which has all but been sold. It endures in Leon Silver, who could not bear to let go of a building half a mile from where he was born.

It endures in Henry Glanz, who blew the shofar every year for the children who never reached England. It endures in Sarah Champion, who said the plain thing and paid the price for it. “The outside is very plain,” Leon Silver said of the building constructed from its first brick to be a synagogue but that’s now being stolen away to become a symbol of Islam’s triumph over Britain’s Jewry. “But people say the inside is beautiful, which I think so too.” The moral truth Silver might not even have known he was echoing with his words—“the inside is beautiful”—endures in everyone who has named what the governing class could not bring itself to name and everyone who refused to look away from what the governing class chose not to see. The moral truth endures—because covenants of that depth do not dissolve when institutions fail them. They wait.
Nicole Lampert: Why doesn’t Starmer make a video warning about far-Left hate marches?
On Friday night, Sir Keir Starmer took time out of being knifed by his Labour colleagues to warn of an impending threat in a statement posted on social media. He couldn’t have looked more serious; the sinews of his neck were taut. He used his hands in his best headmaster mode to drum home his points.

Soft music, with just a hint of menace, played in the background.

There was going to be a march in London, he warned, organised by people who were “peddling hatred and division, plain and simple”. The march, he added, was “a reminder of what we are up against in a battle of our values”.

Writing on X Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, also emphasised the danger of this march, warning, “if protest turns violent, we will act swiftly, with extra court capacity in place.”

Hallelujah! Could it really be that our political leaders had, after the stabbings in Golders Green, the arson on synagogues and Jewish ambulances, the deadly attack in Manchester, finally woken up to the horror of the “pro-Palestine” hate marches and the anti-Semitic, violent, pro-terrorist, genocidal rhetoric they endorsed?

Of course not.

They were talking about the march with the Union flags, not the ones with flags of Palestine and the Islamic Republic of Iran. If you want to know just how upside down our world has become, we need to look at today: which march was deemed hateful and which one they tried to ignore.


Israel’s Noam Bettan finishes second at Eurovision as Bulgaria takes the win
Israel’s Noam Bettan finished in second place at Saturday night’s Eurovision Song Contest grand final in Vienna, Austria, just losing out to Bulgaria’s Dara, whose crowd-pleasing dance number “Bangaranga” took the top prize.

Ultimately, Israel came third in the popular vote and eighth in the jury rankings, but with enough combined support to propel it to a second-place finish.

But it couldn’t compete with Bulgaria, whose win — the first for the country — came as a shock after bookmakers had predicted Finland, Australia or Greece as the likeliest champions. Third place was also taken by a surprise outsider, Romania’s Alexandra Căpitănescu with the provocative “Choke Me,” which was second in the televote.

Israel took home 343 points overall — 123 from the juries and 220 with the public — while Bulgaria, whose dance hit “Bangaranga” proved a crowd favorite — got 204 from the juries and 312 from the public, cementing its first place win with a whopping 516 in total.

Bettan performed his song “Michelle” in French, Hebrew and English along with five backup dancers as millions around the world tuned in. Unlike during Tuesday’s semi-final, no anti-Israel chanting or boos could be heard on the live broadcast. A number of fans could be heard chanting “Noam, Noam” just as the song began.

Some booing could however be heard in the live broadcast after Israel’s high public vote was announced.

Bettan received 12 jury points — the highest possible — from Poland, as well as 10 from Ukraine and Moldova, and eight from Albania, Austria and Lithuania. The full breakdown of all of the televote results — including from the semifinal rounds — will be released overnight.

Israel’s jury handed its top points to Australia, followed by 10 to Denmark, eight to Bulgaria and seven to Finland.

“Thank you Europe, toda raba,” Bettan said on stage after wrapping up the song. “I love you all — Am Yisrael Chai,” he added, Hebrew for “the people of Israel live.”

After coming off stage, Bettan said in a video message that he was “much more excited than the previous times. I felt good, I felt 100 times better than past performances… I had fun, we’re finally on the other side of it, after months of work, that all led us to this point.” Noam Bettan from Israel performs the song ‘Michelle’ during the Grand Final of the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Following his second-place finish, the 28-year-old singer told Kan’s public broadcaster that “we could not have asked for a better result… I tried to stay focused. I sang with joy, with a smile on my face,” he added, saying he hoped to have given Israelis “a moment of hope.”


Boycott is a pernicious strategy silencing Jews, Israelis and Palestinians
In the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 7,318 Poles are named as Righteous Among the Nations, an award given to gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. There were 32 million Catholic Poles in Poland in 1939. The arithmetic may be crude but around one in 4,000 took the risk, albeit perilous, to save a Jewish life. Of the million Jewish children in Poland in 1939, 5,000 survived. My mother was one of them, saved in part by the heroism of Pola Binkowska, a young Catholic woman who loved her.

It’s an age-old question. What would you have done? What are you prepared to do today?

Anti-Semitism’s most potent weapon is silence. When Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate said, “silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” he was referring to the bystander, a term that embraces the apathetic, the passive, the opportunist and those paralysed with fear. Bystanders represent the largest demographic; it is they who permit the destruction of democracy and all that follows. Pola, my mother’s saviour, was not a bystander.

This weekend, a number of countries, including Ireland, are boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest in protest at Israel’s participation. How has boycott become a pernicious strategy that silences not only Jews and Israelis but also Palestinians? Ireland’s one-note narrative about Israel refuses to allow room for historical complexity or realpolitik. Palestinian voices like Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who campaigns against Hamas, are rarely heard.

Instead, Ireland chooses to boycott. Universities sever links to Israeli academics and companies often at the expense of ending years-long collaborations on research, mid-project. Irish “apartheid free zones” have sprung up, another arm of the BDS movement which itself calls for the destruction of Israel, capturing businesses and cultural institutions.

The same mindset endorses Kneecap, one of whom was charged with displaying a flag of Hizbullah at a concert – a charge thrown out over a legal timing issue. Were Kneecap aware that Hizbullah’s spiritual leader is Ayatollah Khomeini, who banned music in Iran in 1979? Hatred of Israel too often involves trampling over irony as well as critical thinking. Some artists are having to self-censor to avoid the risk of boycott; it can be costly having the “wrong” opinion.

Screening of the Eurovision final has been replaced with the Eurovision episode of Father Ted on publicly funded RTÉ, a political decision which has been taken on behalf of the country. It is a petulant and spiteful act that is directing public opinion, the antithesis of RTÉ’s remit.

Pantibar and the George, two gay bars in Dublin are also boycotting the event. Yet where are the similar public statements of condemnation of the treatment of gay people by Hamas or its funders, Iran? The Jewish community here may not be the intended target of this boycott but the obsessive focus on Israel is nonetheless silencing Jews and Jewish culture everywhere.

Seeing Auschwitz, a remarkable exhibition of photographs taken by the perpetrators, is currently on view in Turin. I had agreement from a national institution to show the exhibition in Dublin but it was withdrawn after October 7th 2023. Apparently, management feared for the safety of its personnel. The mob was allowed to dictate the curatorial programme of a public institution, an exhibition that would have made a profound contribution to Holocaust education. The independence of cultural institutions is a bellwether for the current health of democracy. Self-censorship silenced the Holocaust.
New Rule: No Jews, No News | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
People say the left and the right can’t agree on anything these days? Well, there is this one thing they agree on: hating Israel.


travelingisrael.com: The KGB Invented the PALESTINIAN People. Prove Me Wrong.
Help Me Beat the Algorithm & Fight the Bias Against Israel!

The shadow-bans and drops in views are real, but with your help, we can make sure the truth isn’t silenced. Here is how you can become an active part of this mission and keep this channel going:


Gerald Steinberg: ‘The New York Times’ and the grotesque NGO ‘halo effect’
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.”

Headlined “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” the article consists of supposedly eyewitness testimonies provided by security prisoners (suspected or convicted terrorists) mixed with quotes from “reports” or statements from politicized and far from reliable NGOs, as well as a United Nations committee that recycles their accusations.

False accusations from powerful non-governmental organizations that use human rights to demonize Israel have a history of being amplified by allies, including anti-Israel UN officials, academics, politicians, and journalists on major media platforms.

In the 25 years since the UN held an anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, that was turned into an antisemitic NGO horror show, this alliance has promoted non-stop blood libels and false accusations of apartheid, genocide, war crimes, and now – “sexual violence.”

As explained by the halo effect, journalists often automatically embrace NGO accusations at face value, and do not bother to verify the evidence, such as it is, presented by the organizations.

NGO leaders and activists are typically portrayed as altruistic idealists, and unbiased – attributes which are, in most cases, long gone, as these organizations have become major political actors.

The central group that Kristof quotes calls itself the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (EMHRM), whose main officials have numerous links to Hamas.

The NGO spreads a constant stream of heinous blood libels and conspiracy theories, including organ-stealing accusations, as documented by NGO Monitor, as well as other sources. (With a mailing address in Geneva, EMHRM’s donors are largely hidden.)


Trump: Iran can’t have nuclear weapons because ‘they’re crazy’
Tehran’s erratic conduct in negotiations with Washington demonstrates why the Islamic Republic cannot possess nuclear weapons, U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News aired on Friday.

“We really had the confines of a deal; no nuclear, they were going to give us the nuclear dust ..., everything we wanted—and every time they’d make a deal, the next day it’s like we didn’t have that conversation. ... And that’s taken place about five times. There’s something wrong with them. Actually, they’re crazy, and you know what? Because of that, they cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.



Asked by Fox News’ Bret Baier whether Washington had underestimated Iran’s “pain tolerance,” Trump replied, “I didn’t underestimate anything. We hit them unbelievably hard. Look. We left their bridges. We left their electric capacity. We can knock that all out in two days. Two days, everything. We left Kharg Island [the site of the Islamic Republic’s main oil export facilities] other than …, we hit it except for the valves, where the oil comes out. Because when you hit that means you’re gonna lose a little oil.”

The Iranian regime is “afraid to make a deal” since it has never been in such a position before, Trump said.

“I’m going to do what’s right. I have to do what’s right,” he said.

“The Strait [of Hormuz] will be opened, they will not have a nuclear weapon, and the world will go on,” Trump continued, adding that energy prices will drop when the conflict comes to a conclusion, “and I think it’s going to end fast.”
U.S. military slays top ISIS leader in Africa
U.S. forces overnight Friday killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the Islamic State’s second in command globally, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.

The president did not specify the location of the strike, but said that the American forces “executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission” together with the Armed Forces of Nigeria.

Trump thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation, adding that al-Minuki “will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated on X, “In conjunction with Nigeria’s President, and at the direction of President Trump, U.S. Africa Command oversaw a precise operation to remove this terrorist.”

He continued, “Back in November 2025, President Trump declared to the world that we will help protect Christians in Nigeria and instructed the Department of War to prepare for action. So, for months, we hunted this top ISIS leader in Nigeria who was killing Christians, and we killed him—and his entire posse.

“The removal of him [al-Minuki] and other ISIS personnel makes Americans safer by further degrading ISIS’s ability to plan and carry out attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, American citizens, and innocent civilians. … This should serve as a reminder that we will hunt down those who wish to harm Americans or innocent Christians, wherever they are.”
Iran allegedly behind Canada attacks on US consulate, synagogue
One of the allegations made in the criminal complaint against Kata’ib Hezbollah senior official Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, following the US Department of Justice announcement of his arrest on Friday, was that Iranian proxies may have been behind at least two March shooting attacks in Toronto.

In the complaint, Al-Saadi, working on behalf of the Islamic Regime proxy, told an undercover law enforcement officer that his "people" were behind two attacks in Canada, against a consulate and synagogue.

The officer believed the consulate attack to be the March 10 shooting at the US consulate in Toronto. No injuries were caused by the early morning shooting, the Toronto Police Service said at the time, but damage was caused to the building.

March saw three different shooting attacks on Toronto area synagogues. On March 2, after Purim celebrations ended, there was a shooting at the Temple Emanu-El synagogue, leaving multiple bullet holes in the synagogue’s front windows.

On March 6, shots were fired at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto (the BAYT), and on March 7 at the Shaarei Shomayim synagogue.

An 18-year-old man was charged with the latter two incidents on May 6, according to the Toronto Police Service and York Regional Police.

TPS did not immediately provide a comment on if Iranian involvement had been a line of inquiry prior to Friday.
IDF infantry platoon commander killed by Hezbollah drone in southern Lebanon
An IDF officer was killed in a Hezbollah explosive drone attack in southern Lebanon on Friday, the military announced Saturday evening, as limited fighting continued with the Iran-backed terror group despite a newly extended ceasefire.

The slain officer was named as Cpt. Maoz Israel Recanati, 24, a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade’s 12th Battalion, from Itamar.

Recanati was set to marry his fiancée, Rani, in a month, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We all embrace her and his loved ones during this difficult time,” the statement read.

He was the seventh IDF soldier to be killed in southern Lebanon since the start of the ceasefire, and the 20th since hostilities escalated amid the Iran war. A civilian contractor has also been killed in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the IDF said Saturday that it shot down several Hezbollah drones that were flying in areas of southern Lebanon where Israeli troops are operating. The drones triggered sirens in several border communities in the Western Galilee.

Additionally, Hezbollah launched several rockets and mortars at troops in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the projectiles struck near the forces but did not cause any injuries.

For its part, the IDF said Saturday evening that it had struck some 100 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon over the weekend.

According to the military, the targets included surveillance posts, weapon depots, and other infrastructure used by the terror group to advance attacks.

The strikes were carried out across southern Lebanon, including in the Tyre area.


IDF confirms Hamas Gaza chief Izz al-Din al-Haddad killed in airstrike
The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday confirmed killing Hamas military chief Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the terror group’s leader in Gaza, in a “precise strike” on Gaza City in the Strip’s north the previous day.

In a statement Saturday, the military said Haddad had recently “acted to rebuild the capabilities of the terrorist organization’s military wing and to plan numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement in October.

A senior Hamas official and a member of the group’s armed wing were also cited by AFP and Reuters confirming Haddad’s death. Haddad was killed along with his wife and a daughter, according to another Hamas source.

AFP photographs showed mourners carrying the body of Haddad, wrapped in a Hamas flag, on a stretcher from the ruins of a building.

Separately, the IDF said it also killed two other Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel during the October 7 onslaught in recent strikes in the Strip. It said Khamer Iyad Muhammad Al-Matouq and Khaled Muhammad Salem Jouda were killed in separate strikes in northern Gaza in the past two weeks.

The military said the pair had recently attempted to carry out attacks on troops in Gaza, and had “posed an immediate threat to the forces.”

Another strike in central Gaza on Wednesday killed Abdel Rahman Mahmoud Jumaa Shafi, a member of Hamas’s Bureij Battalion, who the military said had advanced attacks on troops in Gaza.

The terror group had not officially commented on the killing of Haddad as of Saturday afternoon, even as witnesses said Gaza mosques announced his “martyrdom,” and Palestinian media published footage of a funeral procession and “martyr poster” for him in the Strip.

Nicknamed “The Ghost,” Haddad had survived multiple assassination attempts by Israel, according to Hamas sources. Israel confirmed on Friday that it had targeted Haddad, without saying whether the strike had succeeded.


IDF kills 220 terrorists in Southern Lebanon in under a week
The Israel Defense Forces killed 220 Hezbollah operatives over the past week, carrying out more than 440 attacks across Southern Lebanon, the military said on Friday.

Among the sites targeted were storage facilities containing stockpiles of mortar shells, anti-tank missiles and a drone launch position belonging to Hezbollah, the IDF said.

Infrastructure sites in the Tyre area belonging to the Iranian-backed proxy were also struck on Friday, the statement continued.

In a separate statement, the army said that Hezbollah fired rockets at IDF soldiers in Southern Lebanon. The projectiles hit open areas and no injuries were reported.

“Shortly thereafter, the Israeli Air Force, guided by IDF soldiers of the 91st Division, identified and struck two terrorists operating from a structure in the area from which the rockets had been launched toward the soldiers. Following the strike, secondary explosions were identified, indicating the presence of weapons inside the structure,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.

Meanwhile, troops from the division in Southern Lebanon located a Hezbollah weapons storage facility, which contained warheads, magazines, military vests, helmets, weapon barrels and tripods, the military added.

Meanwhile on Friday, a third round of talks between Israel and Lebanon concluded in Washington; the United States and Israel said that discussions will advance on separate political and security tracks, as a three-week ceasefire was extended by 45 days.


Ryan McBeth: Iran Just Texted Millions of People to Become Martyrs
Iran just sent millions of people a text message asking them to become martyrs.

In this video I break down the Iranian “Janfadaa” campaign — a mass messaging operation encouraging citizens to volunteer for sacrifice in defense of the regime. We’ll look at the Arabic Quranic references, the Persian terminology, the propaganda network behind it, and what this campaign may actually mean.

Is Iran:
• Preparing for a long war?
• Building a database of ideologically loyal citizens?
• Trying to intimidate the Iranian diaspora?
• Or attempting to create the appearance of mass support?

We’ll also talk about:
The difference between “Shaheed” and “Janfadaa”
Why the message was sent outside Iran
The role of Telegram and online propaganda
How authoritarian governments psychologically prepare populations for conflict
Why governments don’t recruit martyrs when they think peace is around the corner

At the end, I’ll explain why this campaign concerns me more than the text message itself.


Ryan McBeth: Could Iran Make a Dirty Bomb
A substack viewer wrote me and asked me if Iran could make or use a dirty bomb delivered by drone?

They could definitely do it, but would they?

A dirty bomb is basically a conventional explosive with some radiological material embedded in or surrounding the weapon. It is not a nuclear bomb that explodes with nuclear effects.

However, the effects would generally be panic along with some radiological cleanup, all for little strategic gain.

The consequences, however, would be devastating. Other countries would likely join the coalition. China would likely cease supporting Iran and this would guarantee that Iran’s life would be harder in the time it has left.


Streeting attacks those who ‘globalise the intifada in deeds’ as he confirms leadership bid
Wes Streeting has condemned those who “globalise the intifada in deeds, not just words” as he launched a campaign to oust the Prime Minister.

In his first speech since resigning as Health Secretary, the Ilford North MP took aim at both Reform UK and the Green Party, denouncing “the forces of racism, discrimination, and hatred.”

He highlighted the impact on the Jewish community, saying, “We’ve also seen Jewish people murdered and attacked on their shores and on our streets, kids in my constituency trying to hide their school uniforms and Stars of David because they fear being abused or attacked just for being Jews.”

While focusing much of his criticism on the rise of Nigel Farage’s party—warning that Reform UK could win the next general election unless Labour changes direction—Streeting also accused the Green Party of ignoring antisemitism within its ranks.

He said:”When it comes to antisemitism on the left, the Green Party choose to look the other way, because their party is now riddled with those whom we expelled.”

Turning to Reform UK, he said: “Racism on the march—shocking, shameful, and a stain on this nation’s conscience and reputation.

“Nigel Farage and Reform seek to exploit division and hatred to benefit from it at the ballot box.”

Streeting added: “This is our fight. This has always been Labour’s fight—not just to confront the forces of racism, discrimination, and hatred, but to build a path to a better and brighter future for everyone, where everyone has a stake in this country, and everyone has the opportunity and security they need, not just to survive, but to thrive.”

Streeting’s speech came on a day when both pro-Palestine and far-right demonstrations in central London saw renewed examples of hate chants.


Israel to Mamdani: Palestinians can’t play victim in war they started
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday lashed out at those who mark so-called Nakba Day, screenshotting an image from a video posted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“The Nakba was the result of the Arab rejection of the U.N. Partition Plan [of 1947] and decision to launch war to annihilate the State of Israel,” the ministry tweeted.

It added, “You can’t start war, openly vow to ‘throw the Jews into the sea,’ and then pretend being the victim of the conflict you started. The real forgotten victims are the 850,000 Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries at the same time.”

The so-called Nakba Day is what Palestinians frame as the “catastrophic” consequences of Israel’s Independence War, which led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from land liberated by the Israel Defense Forces during Israel’s rebirth as a state, fending off seven invading Arab armies, as well as local Arab fighters.

Earlier on Saturday, Mamdani posted footage of a “Nakba survivor” named Inea, who today lives in New York.

The anti-Israel mayor wrote that Nakba Day commemorates “the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed.”

Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and up to 1970, approximately 850,000 Jews were forced to flee Arab countries.


Veteran Dem strategist warns that anti-Israel ‘loudmouths’ could cost party elections
Democratic strategist James Carville warned Wednesday that anti-Israel activists aligned with Democrats could damage the party politically, while insisting that “most” antisemites “are not Democrats.”

Carville said during an appearance on Jim Acosta’s podcast that he fears the increasingly bitter divide over Israel and antisemitism could hurt Democrats electorally and morally if the party is seen as tolerating hatred.

“This antisemitic stuff, it’s sickening man! It’s a real problem,” Carville said. “It’s not a made-up problem. It’s a real, real, real definitely problem, and it’s getting worse.”

He argued that while some anti-Israel activists are aligned with Democrats, many are not members of the party, despite public perceptions tying them to Democrats during campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

“And the fact that there are some Democratic-aligned people, most of them are not Democrats, all right?” Carville said.

“That’s when it would drive me crazy, when they were protesting Joe Biden at Columbia, and we thought they were saying, ‘Hey, hey, ho ho, genocide Joe must go.’ And the Democrats were getting blamed for that. A lot of these people are not Democrats. Understand that.”


London police arrest 31 amid massive anti-migrant protest, smaller anti-Israel march
Tens of thousands of people rallied Saturday in London at a march organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson and at a smaller counter-demonstration fused with a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protest. London’s Metropolitan Police said in the afternoon that they had arrested 31 people in total from both demonstrations.

Police deployed 4,000 officers, including reinforcements from outside the capital, and pledged “the most assertive possible use of our powers” in what they called their biggest public order operation in years. They had earlier forecast turnout of at least 80,000 for Saturday’s rallies.

The force also deployed horses, dogs, drones and helicopters to manage Robinson’s so-called Unite the Kingdom march and the rival rally marking Nakba Day, an annual Palestinian event commemorating the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, when the nascent state came under attack by multiple Arab armies.

Mustering in west London and ending with speeches near Piccadilly, it combined with an anti-fascism march organized by the Stand Up to Racism group.

The Unite the Kingdom march started from Holborn in the capital’s heart, before Robinson and other speakers addressed crowds in Parliament Square.

In a late afternoon update, police said the dueling events “have proceeded largely without significant incident” and that officers had made 31 arrests in total up to that point.

Aerial footage broadcast by UK media showed tens of thousands at Robinson’s rally — a sea of British Union Jack, English St George’s and other flags — while an AFP reporter estimated only several thousand at the counter-protest.
Police looking for man in Whitechapel who made threat to behead Jews
Police are trying to find a man who stood in an East London street and threatened that “Jews gonna get beheaded”.

Officers were sent to Whitechapel Road in Tower Hamlets after an online video showed the suspect making threats and slurs on Friday, the Metropolitan Police said.

The Jewish community police force Shomrim (London North & East), described the footage as a “horrific video circulating on social media showing a gentleman threatening to behead Jews and much more”.

In an online post, Shomrim (London North & East) said it was “aware of the fact that the Orthodox Jewish community is exceptionally concerned about these threats”.

It said it is “working closely” with the force and hoped this might provide some reassurance to the community.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “We are aware of this video, which was reported to police earlier on Friday afternoon.

“Officers have attended the scene and are carrying out urgent inquiries to identify the man involved.

“We understand that incidents like this cause significant concern and we take all reports incredibly seriously. Hate crime of any kind has no place in our communities.”


Woke New School kept anti-Israel ‘ringleader’ on despite arrest
The woke New School claimed it wanted its Jewish students to feel safe, but the school retained a faculty member who was a CUNY ringleader of violent anti-Israel campus protests.

Corinna Mullin, a political science professor specializing in anticolonialism and critical of Western culture, was among the leaders of an April 2024 encampment at the City College of New York’s campus in Harlem. Mullin was arrested for her role in the protest, which led to the science building catching fire, resulting in $3 million in damages, school officials said.

She became known as one of the “fired four” — a group of CUNY adjunct professors who alleged they were terminated in the summer 2025 for their support of Palestine in the lead-up to a Trump administration congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses.

Mullin and two others were reinstated in January, according to Higher Ed Labor United, but it’s unclear if she taught any classes at CUNY this spring semester. Her name didn’t appear on CUNY faculty pages.

The university was the first in the country to have its student senate vote to sanction its Hillel chapter this month — a move school officials insisted the group did not have the authority to do.

Mullin taught a course called “Middle East in the World” in Fall 2025 and is scheduled to teach “Decolonizing International Law” in September.

She has called Arab countries normalizing ties with Israel “high treason” — and has worked with the Samidoun network, a sham charity that acts as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization, according to the State Department. She didn’t reply to a request for comment.

The university, meanwhile, continued to insist every student, regardless of background, was “welcome, valued and respected” at New School and that the move to sanction Hillel was “unacceptable.”


Switzerland to release sealed files on Nazi doctor Josef Mengele
The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service announced this month that it will reveal previously sealed files on the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, without specifying when, the BBC reported on Saturday.

Mengele, the doctor known as the Angel of Death, ran a system of experiments on Auschwitz camp prisoners, including severe torture of twins and people with disabilities, exploiting his professional status to advance Nazi racial theory.

Mengele evaded punishment for decades until his accidental death in 1979.

Although historically Mengele's interaction with Switzerland has been considered minimal, with a skiing visit in 1956 with his son as the most prominent publicly known connection, Swiss historian Regula Bochsler told the BBC that there was some evidence he'd been planning a trip to Europe, possibly including Switzerland.

Crucially, this trip would have occurred sometime in 1959, after an international warrant was issued for Mengele's arrest.

Bochsler explained that she had learned the Austrian intelligence service had warned Switzerland in 1961 that Mengele might have entered its territory under an assumed name.

She had also learned that Mengele's wife had applied for permanent residency and rented an apartment in Zurich during that timeframe.

In 2019, Bochsler petitioned the Swiss government for access to confidential files related to Mengele's history in the country, but was rebuffed. Another historian, Gérard Wettstein, tried again in 2025, with similar results. The files, they were both informed, were sealed until the year 2071.

"It seemed ridiculous," Wettstein told the BBC. "As long as they are closed until 2071, it fuels conspiracy; everyone says 'they must have something to hide'."

The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service finally changed its mind after Wettstein took them to court, stating that "The appellant will be granted access to the file, subject to conditions and requirements yet to be defined."

'The administration fueled conspiracy theories'
President of the Swiss Society for History, Sacha Zala, does not believe that there will be anything relevant about Mengele in the files, instead telling the BBC that he thinks there may be references to foreign intelligence services and informants, such as the Mossad.

"It shows the stupidity of the declassification process without historical knowledge," Zala said. "In this way, the administration fueled conspiracy theories."

Jakob Tanner, another historian, said that the secrecy surrounding the files represented "a conflict between national security and historical transparency, and the former often prevails in Switzerland."

"It is a problem for a democratic state that these files are still closed," he argued.
German court allows anti-Israel encampment in Hamburg park where Nazis deported Jews
Activists in Hamburg are commemorating the displacement of Palestinians this week in a park where Jews were deported during World War II, following a legal fight that ended in their favor.

A German court allowed the “Bridges of Resistance” encampment to be set up from May 9 until Saturday in Moorweide, a public park where, according to the Hamburg Memorials Foundation, the Nazis rounded up more than 1,000 local Jews for deportation to the Łódź ghetto in October 1941.

The encampment will culminate on Saturday with a march from the park to Hamburg’s port, the organizers announced. The demonstration will be part of nationwide protests marking 78 years since the Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians to describe their flight and expulsion from their homes when Israel was established in 1948.

A Bridges of Resistance spokesperson, Nikodem Kaddoura, told the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung that the encampment’s location was deliberate. Commemorating the displacement of Palestinians on a site where Jews were forced from their homes was not a “provocation,” said Kaddoura, but a choice pointing to historical “continuities.”

The encampment triggered an outcry from local Jews, who reportedly said in an open letter that its location constituted “a mockery of the victims” of the Holocaust.

The chief rabbi of Hamburg, Shlomo Bistritzky, urged local authorities to take action against the encampment and said on X, “We – the Jews of Hamburg – are deeply concerned about this.”

The city and police initially sought to relocate the protest last week, but after the organizers appealed, Hamburg courts ruled that it could continue.

Hamburg’s Higher Administrative Court determined that the Bridges of Resistance camp did not pose sufficient danger or risk of antisemitic incidents to justify a ban, according to regional broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk.





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