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Monday, May 18, 2026

05/17 Links: Holocaust survivors: Australia is no longer safe for Jews; Eurovision 2026 Highlights Europe’s Israel Divide; Simon Sebag Montefiore on the History — and Future — of British Jews

From Ian:

John Spencer: Absurd Claims of Dog Rape and Genocide
I see a correlation between those who believe absurd claims like dogs were trained to rape Palestinians and those who insist Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Both claims collapse under scrutiny and under mountains of contrary evidence. One ignores biology and basic science, including the reality that dogs cannot rape humans in the way being alleged. The other disregards the legal definition of genocide, which requires demonstrable intent to destroy a people as such. That accusation runs directly against repeated public statements by Israeli political and military leaders after October 7 that the war was against Hamas, not the people of Gaza. It also requires evidence of actions taken to fulfill genocidal intent. Instead, the easily obtained facts show Israel facilitating historic aid deliveries, establishing evacuation corridors, warning civilians before operations, moving populations from combat zones, numerous other civilian harm mitigation measures, and even vaccinating Gaza’s population during active combat under conditions no military has ever faced.

The accusation also collides with another uncomfortable reality. Even critics of Israel’s military campaign have acknowledged civilian-to-combatant casualty ratios that are historically low for dense urban warfare against an entrenched enemy operating from within civilian areas. Using even Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry figures, the available numbers suggest ratios somewhere between roughly 1.5:1 and 1:1 depending on the methodology used. Those figures compare favorably to many major urban battles and wars, including Manila, Seoul, Mosul, the Iraq War, and the Korean War just to name a few of many.

None of this removes the tragedy of civilian death. War remains brutal even when fought within the law. Yet casualty figures of this kind directly undermine the assertion that Israel’s campaign reflects an organized effort to destroy the Palestinian people.

Public debate around war increasingly turns statistics into instruments of persuasion rather than tools of understanding. Numbers are pushed into headlines before definitions are clarified. Casualty counts circulate globally detached from methodology, sourcing, combatant status, age distributions, or the conditions under which the data was collected. Large numbers create emotional reactions on their own. Most audiences have little ability to independently evaluate how those figures were generated or whether the institutions producing them have political incentives embedded within the process.

Sociologists who study statistics have long recognized that numbers are social products shaped by the organizations and people who produce them. Activists use statistics to elevate causes. Governments use them to defend policy. Media institutions amplify the figures that generate the strongest emotional response and reinforce existing narratives. In wartime, numbers often become ammunition. Selective statistics gain power through repetition long before they survive rigorous scrutiny. Figures themselves do not lie, but people routinely use figures dishonestly. As the old saying goes, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”

The genocide accusation survives largely because many people begin with the conclusion and work backward from it. Evidence that contradicts the accusation is ignored, minimized, or reframed. Actions that would normally weigh against genocidal intent are treated as irrelevant. Legal definitions become elastic only in Israel’s case. Standards applied to every other military confronting enemies that openly disregard the laws of armed conflict, deliberately embed within civilian populations, and treat civilian suffering as a strategic asset often disappear when Israel is involved.

That dynamic resembles what Natan Sharansky describes as the “3Ds” that distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism: Demonization, Double Standards, and Delegitimization.

One of the major double standards applied to Israel is the way the laws of armed conflict are removed from their actual legal framework and replaced with emotional accounting built almost entirely around casualty numbers. Civilian deaths are presented without operational context, without discussion of the target, the enemy’s tactics, the precautions taken, or what commanders reasonably understood when the action or strike was approved or taken. The numbers themselves become treated as proof of illegality.

The law of armed conflict does not function that way. Military decisions are judged based on what commanders reasonably knew before an operation or action occurred, not through hindsight after the outcome is already known. Legal analysis examines whether the target was a lawful military objective, whether commanders conducted a proportionality assessment to determine that the anticipated civilian harm would not be excessive compared to the concrete and direct military advantage expected from the attack, and whether feasible precautions were taken to mitigate civilian harm under the circumstances at the time.

Much of the public discussion surrounding Gaza reverses that process entirely. Casualty figures are frequently treated as the beginning and end of legal judgment. Civilian deaths become automatic evidence of criminality regardless of the military objective, warnings issued, evacuation measures attempted, intelligence available at the time, the reliability of assessments distinguishing civilians from those actively participating in hostilities, or the enemy’s deliberate integration into civilian infrastructure. Hamas’s use of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, tunnel systems, and dense residential areas for military purposes is often pushed to the margins of the discussion even though it shaped nearly every operational decision Israel faced.
Jonathan Turley: Why Israel’s lawsuit against Times over ‘blood libel’ has a chance
Does the “Gray Lady” have a “longstanding Jewish problem“?

That question may soon be answered in a Manhattan courtroom as the New York Times stands accused of an alleged attack piece on Israel. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would sue the paper and columnist Nicholas Kristof for defamation over the publication of what he called a “blood libel.”

The latest controversy emerged after the Times ran a Kristof column alleging widespread sexual abuse and torture of Palestinians, including the use of dogs to rape prisoners. The government denounced the column as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.”

The Israelis allege that the column was intentionally posted ahead of the release of an independent Israeli report that found Hamas had systematically used sexual violence in the onslaught of October 7, 2023.

It is unclear whether the lawsuit will be filed on behalf of individuals, groups, or the nation as a whole. Regardless of the framing, the defamation action could allow Israel to delve into the paper’s journalistic practices and alleged bias.

Under the higher “actual malice standard,” Israeli counsel would likely need to prove that Kristof and the Times acted with knowledge of the allegation’s falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth.

The Times has been accused of such malice for years. A newspaper with an overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal readership, critics have accused the paper of pandering to its increasingly anti-Israeli base.

According to recent polls, two-thirds of Democrats (67%) now support Palestinians over Israel (17%).

The newspaper has been repeatedly called out for slanted and sometimes false reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. For example, after Israel attacked Gaza in response to the October 7th massacre, the Times reported on an alleged Israeli strike that destroyed part of the Al-Ahli hospital. The Times seemed to rush to get the allegation into print, with little supporting evidence.

The story was based on sources associated with the terrorist group Hamas, which is notorious for disseminating propaganda and false stories. It took a week before the Times retracted the claim. (It turned out to be a misfired Palestinian rocket that hit a parking lot).

The Times has been forced to make a series of retractions and apologies for such coverage. After the newspaper ran a column that it later admitted was antisemitic, Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote that “The Times has a longstanding Jewish problem … continuing into the present day in the form of intensely adversarial coverage of Israel.”

In May 2021, a front-page story contained multiple factual errors and biased elements, including the portrayal of a Hamas militant as a civilian child. It also used a stock image of a girl to claim that she was a dead Palestinian child.
New Report Warns WHO Health-Attack Data Is Being Weaponized Against Israel
A May 2026 policy paper by the Center for Medical Integrity argues that the World Health Organization’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care is being used in international forums in ways that turn a public-health monitoring tool into a political instrument against Israel. The report says SSA collapses analytically distinct categories of incidents under the single label “attacks on health care,” allowing obstruction, intimidation, and direct violence to be cited together without the legal context needed to assess culpability.

The issue matters now because Gaza hospital cases remain central to diplomatic, legal, and media narratives about the war, while evidence and intelligence assessments regarding Hamas and PIJ exploitation of medical infrastructure are often treated as secondary or omitted altogether.

A Broad Database With a Loaded Label
The report explains that WHO defines an attack on health care as “any act” of verbal or physical violence, obstruction, or threat that interferes with health services during emergencies. Its own examples include heavy-weapons violence, psychological intimidation, obstruction to care, armed searches, denial of services, and “militarization of health care facility.”

That breadth may make sense for emergency monitoring. But CMI argues the word “attack” gives operational data the appearance of a legal finding. WHO has also acknowledged that both high-impact events, such as bombings, and lower-impact incidents, such as verbal threats, are included in the same framework.

The concern, CMI argues, is not merely semantic. Under WHO’s SSA methodology, certainty levels indicate confidence that an incident occurred, but they do not resolve disputed questions about perpetrator identity, legal culpability, intent, proportionality, or whether a facility had previously been used for military purposes. WHO separately says it does not collect or verify perpetrator information and that its objective is to raise awareness of attacks on health care, not to pursue accountability.

How Counts Become Accusations
The sharpest allegation in the report concerns the way WHO-linked data travels through international institutions. According to CMI, at WHO’s 158th Executive Board session in February 2026, WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean regional office cited SSA data to claim that “almost 1,000 people” had been killed in documented attacks by Israel, with nearly half that figure deriving from the disputed October 2023 Al-Ahli Hospital explosion.

CMI’s broader concern is that WHO-linked health data can omit battlefield context relevant to legal assessment. U.S. officials said in November 2023 that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used Al-Shifa Hospital and tunnels beneath it to support military operations and hold hostages. A later declassified U.S. assessment, reported by AP, said American intelligence was confident the groups used the Al-Shifa complex to house command infrastructure, exercise command-and-control activity, store some weapons, and hold at least a few hostages.

Human Rights Watch later found that the Al-Ahli blast resulted from an apparent rocket-propelled munition of a type used by Palestinian terror groups, while saying a full investigation was still needed. HRW also said it could not corroborate the Gaza Health Ministry’s reported death toll of 471, calling it significantly higher than other estimates and out of proportion with visible damage.

The case illustrates the report’s central warning: an early battlefield claim can enter a health database, continue circulating with institutional authority, and later be folded into diplomatic accusations against Israel even after key facts are contested.

Israel itself told WHO’s Executive Board that the body was in “dire need of reform” and accused the session of fueling “yet another politicized discussion” while ignoring facts on the ground.


Australia is no longer safe for Jews, say Holocaust survivors
For Peter Halas, Australia was his haven after fleeing Hungary, where the Nazis had murdered his mother and grandparents.

He was five when he last saw his mother. They had been hiding in Budapest in 1944, as thousands of other Jews were sent to Auschwitz, when she sneaked out to wish her father happy birthday.

The home where her parents were staying was raided by the Nazis, and she never returned. Mr Halas, 86, told The Telegraph: “They took them down to the banks of the Danube and shot them.”

At 17, he fled post-war communist Hungary and settled in Sydney, where he has been living for 68 years with his wife – also a Hungarian Holocaust survivor.

But Mr Halas is now questioning whether Australia is safe for Jewish people. He is too afraid to wear his Star of David in public, knowing it would make him a target.

He is not alone. Other Jewish people who moved to Australia told The Telegraph they were considering moving to Israel, despite the turmoil in the Middle East. One said he would feel safer with Iranian missiles flying overhead.

Anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in Australia. They are almost five times higher than before Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

The most deadly came on Dec 14 – a day shy of 81 years since Mr Halas’s family were murdered – when gunmen killed 15 at a Hanukkah party on Bondi Beach.

Synagogues have been firebombed, and homes and cars have been vandalised. In January, police prevented what they said was an anti-Semitic plot involving a travel trailer packed with explosives.

Jewish leaders have accused the Australian government of being slow to react to the warning signs. They argue that pro-Palestine protests – including one in Sydney barely 24 hours after the Oct 7 massacre – have fanned the flames of anti-Semitism.

The Bondi Beach shooting, the nation’s worst terrorist attack, has seen the establishment of the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion.


Zoe Strimpel: Why I can no longer call myself a feminist
Anti-Zionist rape denial is the biggest cluster of the red lines I’m talking about. This perverse phenomenon reared its ugly head the moment alleged feminists started denying Hamas’s sexual torture of Israeli women on (and after) October 7. Despite the crimes on the day being gleefully caught on those animals’ bodycams as trophy footage, an open letter from prominent feminist activists with a sprawling list of signatories stooped so low as to condemn Israel for “weaponising the issue of rape”, heavily implying that stating simple facts about the appalling crimes committed by the terrorists against women was racist and colonialist.

It was surreal to realise that what was so obviously among the most shocking features of that orgy of Jewish butchery – the sexual violence against the Israeli women killed or taken hostage – was something that would have to be verified. And verified, and verified.

By the time the latest commission setting out the appalling facts of the sexual violence of October 7 came out last week, I’d already lost the ability to define myself as “feminist”. Who would want to be associated with rape deniers?

This latest report, the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, won’t convince those who don’t want to be convinced. When you have the UN’s own Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, saying last year that “no Palestinian applauded rape in Gaza. No independent investigation found that rape took place on October 7” and a deafening silence from multiple organisations whose ostensible purpose is to stand up for women, you have no international women’s movement.

And in more grassroots organisations – on campus, on feminist social media – it’s also a cesspit of hatred against Israelis, who – even the raped and killed women – are clearly seen as less than human.

Since October 7, feminism’s most progressive and noisy advocates have shown that “Believe Women”, the rallying cry of MeToo, means zilch, and that erasing Jewish women, in fact and in every other way, means everything.

The best I can do for now, then, is say feminism has been taken over – not for the first time – by entryists obsessed with advancing anti-Semitism.

I will have to wait till its advocates return to the point – women’s health, wealth, safety, freedom, education and ambition – before even considering calling myself a feminist again. I’m worried I’ll be waiting a very long time indeed.
Flotilla Movement Acknowledged Senior leader's Hamas Ties — Then Deleted the Evidence
A Jewish Onliner investigation has identified archived versions of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) website proving that organizational leadership deliberately removed references to ties with the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA)—an entity designated by the U.S. Treasury on January 21, 2026 as a Hamas-controlled fundraising operation.

The archived GSF website from October 1, 2025 contains a biography section identifying Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish national and GSF steering committee member, with the specific language: “serves on the secretariat of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad.” This identical description no longer appears on GSF’s current website as of May 2026—approximately four months after the PCPA designation.

The change appears to fit a broader pattern across flotilla-linked websites, including the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) website, which previously listed Zaher Birawi, a PCPA founding member designated in the same Treasury action, before that reference was removed from the current website.

Jewish Onliner Identified Abukeshek’s PCPA Role Before U.S. Designation
Jewish Onliner first identified Abukeshek’s PCPA membership in August 2025. The following month, Israel’s Foreign Ministry identified him as number 25 in a document listing PCPA operatives, reportedly recovered from a Hamas outpost in the Gaza Strip.

Abukeshek was recently brought into Israel for questioning alongside fellow GSF steering committee member Thiago Ávila after the flotilla’s attempted maritime sail to Gaza, and was released on May 10, 2026.

Their detention drew international criticism and coverage from outlets such as Reuters, AP, and Al Jazeera, which largely presented Abukeshek and Ávila as Gaza aid or humanitarian flotilla activists while making no mention, in the reports reviewed, of Abukeshek’s documented PCPA role or Treasury’s designation of PCPA as a Hamas-controlled organization. Translated version of a document reportedly recovered by the IDF, listing “Saif Abu Kashk” as PCPA’s Palestinian representative in Spain. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs

According to reporting, Abukeshek doubles as CEO of Cyber Neptune SL, a Barcelona-based maritime company registered with Spanish corporate records, which owns ships that have participated in the flotillas. Business filings indicate that Cyber Neptune operates under the corporate purpose of maritime transport of goods and maritime passenger transport. On August 29, 2025, precisely three months after incorporation, the company’s corporate purpose was changed from “buying and selling of real estate” to maritime transport.


Eurovision 2026 Highlights Europe’s Israel Divide
Israel finished second in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 grand final in Vienna, securing 343 points (123 from juries, 220 from public votes) in a contest marked by a five-country boycott and voting rule changes implemented after years of Gaza-war controversy. Bulgaria won with 516 points, while Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, and the Netherlands withdrew from the competition over Israel’s participation. The result marks a sharp shift from previous years: Israel’s jury score more than doubled from 60 points in 2025 to 123 in 2026, even as its public vote declined from post-October 7 highs.

Boycotts and Security Concerns Frame Vienna Final The Eurovision final took place amid a Gaza-related boycott, Reuters reported, while the Associated Press described the contest as unfolding under “heightened political controversy and security concerns in Vienna.”

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE withdrew from Eurovision 2026 and declined to air the final, instead broadcasting a message declaring that “Eurovision is a contest” but “human rights are not,” and calling for “peace and justice for Palestine.”

Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, and the Netherlands similarly boycotted the contest in protest of Israel’s inclusion following 19 months of war in Gaza.

EBU Implements Voting Reforms After 2025 Controversy
The European Broadcasting Union announced voting reforms in November 2025 aimed at strengthening credibility, including limits on “disproportionate promotion campaigns, especially those supported by governments or government agencies,” and reducing the voting cap from 20 to 10 votes per payment method.

The reforms followed controversy over Israel’s public vote strength in 2025. Days before the 2026 final, the EBU issued a formal warning to Israeli broadcaster KAN after videos connected to Israel’s artist urged viewers to “vote 10 times for Israel.” The EBU stated the material was not part of a large-scale funded third-party campaign, but said the direct call to vote repeatedly “was not in line with the rules or the spirit of the contest.” Jury Score Doubles as Public Vote Declines

Israel’s 2026 jury score of 123 points represented more than a doubling from its 60-point jury tally in 2025, marking a reversal from the 2024 and 2025 contests when Israel received minimal jury support but surged in public voting.

Israel finished third in the 2026 public vote with 220 points, down from the higher televote totals it received in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attacks, according to comparative Eurovision data.

The jury recovery signals a shift in institutional voting patterns. In 2024 and 2025, Israel’s Eurovision performance was characterized by strong public support and weak jury backing. The 2026 result showed professional juries awarding Israel significantly more points even as public voting moderated.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: That utterly bonkers, gloriously dreadful Eurovision where the audience just loves Israel
Eurovision is a great distraction from everything that matters in life. It is utterly unimportant, gloriously dreadful to listen to or watch, and all the more compelling for it. The show has developed over the years from something sort of wholesome to a sexually suggestive celebration of camp, of cross dressing, shouty singing, and bizarre fever-dream staging. It is utterly bonkers, excessively long, and continues to bamboozle and entertain in equal measure through its attempts to be political and not political, uniting and dividing, musical and cacophonic, all at once. Nothing about it makes sense, and nothing should. Least of all the scoreboard.

This year was no different. The run-up to the show featured the now usual attempts to belittle and exclude the Israeli entry. One year they complained the song was "political” and changed a few words. Then they complained that because Israel’s song was too popular with the public, the entire voting system needed to be changed.

While geopolitical tensions cast a heavy shadow over this year’s contest, Israel soldiered on as ever. Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain all opted out, while other singers made a point of snubbing the Israeli team when pushed to talk about their song in public.

The eventual winner, Bulgaria’s Dara, though, had quietly "liked” an Instagram clip of Israeli representative Noam Bettan’s rehearsal of his song Michelle early in May. Dara’s simple, public digital interaction stood out as a clear choice to evaluate a fellow competitor strictly through an artistic lens rather than a political one. So when she ended up beating Israel at the last moment with a massive audience vote, many Israelis forgave her and settled for an impressive second place, once again delivered by the popular viewer vote over the “expert jury” votes of the participating countries.

It would have been satisfyingly wonderful if Israel had won, seeing all those nasties who went out of their way to try to ostracise the country having to swallow their pride and fly to the Jewish state, or worse, cut off their nose jobs to spite their filler-plumped faces by boycotting the competition once again.
Hen Mazzig: The Only Night Europe Tells the Truth
Here is the gap that Eurovision exposed.

Official Europe, meaning the broadcasters and the activists and the newspapers and the artists’ letters, spent a year insisting that Israel should be banned, ostracized, treated as a pariah.

Actual Europe, meaning the people in their living rooms with their phones, voted Israel third out of thirty-seven.

That gap is the most important political fact on the continent right now. The institutions that are supposed to represent European opinion have decoupled from European opinion. The people who write the letters and run the broadcasts and edit the papers are no longer in alignment with the public they claim to speak for. Think about it the way you’d think about a marriage where the couple’s friends keep insisting they’re miserable. The friends post about it. They write op-eds. They organize interventions. And then you actually ask the couple, in private, and they say they’re fine.

At some point, you have to stop listening to the friends and start listening to the couple.

Eurovision is Europe answering the question in private. The friends have been screaming for a year. The couple just said: We like the Israeli singer. We voted him third.

This is not unique to Israel. You see it on migration, on free speech, on climate, on the cost of living. The institutions and the public have separated. The Eurovision result is just an unusually clear data point, because the public got to vote without a filter.

What Eurovision told us is that the campaign to make Israel toxic in Europe is succeeding institutionally and failing publicly. The broadcasters can boycott, the artists can sign letters, the newspapers can write framing, and the activists can organize. And the public, in private, will still vote for the Jew.

That isn’t a victory for Israel. Israel came second.

It is something stranger and more interesting. It is evidence that Europe, when you actually let Europe speak, is not the place its institutions have been telling us it is.

The campaign to delegitimize Israel relies on the idea that there is a consensus. That all decent people agree. That the only thing standing in the way of justice is a few stubborn Zionists and the politicians they’ve bought.

Eurovision said: There is no consensus, and there never has been. The consensus was manufactured by the people who already had the microphones.

Eurovision is supposed to be the silliest night of the year. The campy one, where everyone gets drunk and votes for the country with the best costume.

But it isn’t that anymore.

Now it’s the only night Europe tells the truth.

Watch what people choose when no one is watching them. That is where the actual continent lives. Not in the headlines. Not in the press releases or the boycotts. In the private vote, on a Saturday night, when a Jewish kid from Ra’anana sings a love song and three hundred and forty-three points come back.

That is the Europe that actually exists.

The rest is theater.


Defying predictions, Eurovision juries gave Israel a boost amid voting reforms
Eurovision organizers brought back the jury votes in the semifinal rounds this year in another bid to balance Israel’s popular vote support, but the results would not have been drastically different either way.

Israel won the first semifinal, coming top in the televote but still third overall in the jury vote, trailing only Poland and Finland when it came to support from the professional juries.

And who did Israel give its points to?

The professional jury — made up this year of Ido Porath, Noy Ben Haim, Ohad Hitman, Roi Delmedigo, Lihi Mayra Toledano, Mei Finegold, and Michaela Hazani — gave its top points to Australia, followed by Denmark, then Bulgaria, Finland, Moldova, and Greece.

Meanwhile, the Israeli public awarded 12 points to Bulgaria, 10 to Australia, eight to Moldova, seven to Italy, and six to Denmark.

In the semifinal, Israel’s top jury points went to Poland, Finland, Belgium, and Greece, while public voters awarded Moldova, Greece, San Marino, Croatia, and then Poland.

Above all, musical tastes are subjective, diverse, and often unpredictable.

Nobody has introduced politics into the Eurovision in recent years — politics have always been a major behind-the-scenes factor in the competition, both in who takes part and how the voting plays out.

Three years ago, the countries that began lobbying for Israel to be kicked out in the wake of the October 7 attack and subsequent war in Gaza were the ones who introduced the backlash that drove Israel supporters to turn out en masse.

And last year, when those countries — Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Spain — dropped out in protest, many predicted the end of the Eurovision Song Contest.

But Saturday night proved that there is still a significant appetite for floating Australians, screaming Serbians, silver Lithuanians, and a night of musical adventure. And for a multilingual angsty pop song from Israel, outscored only by an earworm dance banger from Bulgaria.


Israel built two covert military bases in Iraq to support Iran strikes – report
Israel built two covert bases in Iraq to aid in its wars with Iran, and an Iraqi soldier and a civilian were killed in order to protect the secret military installations, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had built one base in Iraq’s western desert for use in the US-Israeli war with Iran that began in late February. Shortly afterward, what appeared to be a makeshift airstrip in a dry lakebed, some 180 kilometers (112 miles) southwest of the city of Karbala, was located by open-source intelligence analysts in satellite imagery taken just days before the war.

But Iraqi officials told the Times that Israel had maintained another base there as well, which was used during the June 2025 war with Iran as well as this year’s conflict.

Israel began building that base in late 2024, according to a regional official. The Times report said the US knew of that base, and that it is no longer operational.

According to the reports, Israel built the bases to cut down on flight time for strikes in Iran, provide medical treatment, and aid in logistics and other forms of support for the Israeli Air Force. They also housed special forces troops and search-and-rescue teams who were poised to act if any Israeli pilots were downed.

The IDF has not commented on either report. Iraq and Israel do not have diplomatic relations.

Local Bedouins in Iraq’s sparsely populated western desert had contacted local military officials with reports of suspicious activity for weeks, according to the Times. But the Iraqi army chose to try to observe from a distance and ask the US for information.

Washington was not forthcoming, even though it is an Iraqi ally. The US also persuaded Iraq to turn off its radars in order to protect US aircraft, the Times said.


Drone strike hits Abu Dhabi nuclear plant; UAE, Saudi Arabia and UN watchdog condemn
The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United Nations’ nuclear agency joined in condemnation after a drone strike targeted the UAE’s sole nuclear power plant on Sunday, sparking a fire on its perimeter.

The UAE decried the incident as an “unprovoked terrorist attack,” and the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed “grave concern.” Riyadh called the strike a threat to regional stability.

There were no reports of injuries or radiological release in the strike on the Barakah nuclear power plant in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The UAE Defense Ministry said three drones came over its western border with Saudi Arabia, with the other two intercepted.

An official from the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), which operates the Barakah plant, said there were no casualties and the plant had not been damaged.

“It does not appear that there was a direct attack on the nuclear plant we manage and operate. It seems a fire broke out at other power facilities on the outskirts,” the official said, according to the Yonhap news agency.

No one claimed responsibility, and the UAE said it was investigating who launched the drones.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash appeared to blame the attack on Iran or its regional proxy groups.

“The terrorist targeting of the Barakah clean nuclear power plant, whether carried out by the principal perpetrator or through one of its agents, represents a dangerous escalation,” he wrote on X.
Iranian internet blackout enters 12th week
Iran’s internet blackout has entered its 12th week, the NetBlocks global internet monitor said on Saturday.

“The internet shutdown, which has sent a country of 90 million largely offline for an unprecedented duration, continues to erode human rights, the economy and basic liberties at scale,” it stated.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian last week tasked First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref with forming a body aimed at restoring internet access.

The “Reformist” Shargh newspaper reported that the committee is expected to reconsider the internet restrictions within a month.

The Islamic regime combined advanced surveillance technology, communications blackouts and swift paramilitary crackdowns to suppress nationwide protests that started in late December.

The regime used drones, digital monitoring and military-grade jamming equipment to identify demonstrators and cut off internet access, while casting protesters as foreign-backed agents.

The internet blackout has fueled a growing black market for unrestricted SIM cards and paid VPN services, the opposition Iran International outlet reported on Friday. The blackout has also dealt significant damage to the country’s economy.


Israeli forces arrest Palestinian suspected of killing IDF soldier in Samaria hit-and-run
Israeli security forces have arrested a Palestinian suspected of carrying out a hit-and-run earlier this month that killed an Israel Defense Forces soldier, the military said on Saturday.



Sgt. Netanel Ayala, 20, from the southern Samaria community of Ofra, was killed on May 3 when an Arab driver struck his motorcycle in a head-on collision on the Route 60 highway, near the village of Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya.

The offending driver abandoned his car, which had been stolen from Tel Aviv several days prior, and fled into the village on foot, according to the Israel Police.

Last week, troops of the IDF’s Duvdevan commando unit, guided by the police and Military Intelligence Directorate, raided Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya and arrested the suspect, the army said on Saturday.
4 IDF troops wounded, one severely, by roadside bomb in south Lebanon
A roadside bomb hit four Israel Defense Forces soldiers overnight in south Lebanon, leaving one of them in serious condition, the military said Sunday.

An officer was also moderately hurt in the overnight blast, while another officer and a soldier each sustained light injuries, the military said, adding that all four troops were taken to a hospital for treatment.

It was unclear whether the bomb, likely planted by Hezbollah, was placed before or during the ceasefire in Lebanon that US President Donald Trump announced on April 16, or the Iran ceasefire that began on April 8.

Shortly before announcing the roadside blast, the IDF called on residents to flee at least a kilometer (0.6 miles) away from the southern Lebanese villages of Irzay, Merouaniyeh, Babliyeh and Baisariyah.

“In light of the Hezbollah terror organization’s violations of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF is forced to act against it with force and does not intend to harm you,” said army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee.

Lebanese state media reported several strikes in the country’s south, including before the warning was issued.


‘Now 60%’: Netanyahu admits Israel taking more territory in Gaza, despite ceasefire
Israel has been expanding the territory it controls in the Gaza Strip during the ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Sunday, pushing past the lines that were agreed upon in the US-brokered ceasefire that took effect last October.

At the start of the truce, the Israel Defense Forces controlled around 53 percent of the war-torn Palestinian enclave, with Hamas controlling the other 47%, in which nearly all of the Strip’s two million residents live. The army established the “Yellow Line,” demarcating the part of Gaza occupied by Israeli troops, and has been regularly firing at those who approach the line and are deemed a threat.

“In Gaza now, we already control not 50%, but 60%,” Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, confirming reports that Israel has taken more territory despite the ceasefire still being in effect.

Maps issued quietly by Israel in March showed a new restricted area beyond the 53%. The area, marked on the maps with an orange line, makes up an estimated 11% of Gaza’s territory beyond the Yellow Line. The areas cordon off nearly two-thirds of Gaza’s territory in total.

The military sent the maps to aid groups in Gaza in mid-March, saying the area between the orange line and the yellow line is a restricted zone to enable aid delivery, and that aid groups must coordinate their movements with the military. It says civilians are not affected.

The expanded zone has stirred fears from displaced Palestinians living there that they could be deemed targets by Israel. It has also stoked concerns that Israel may plan to hold the area permanently.


ICC denies ‘inaccurate’ report it is seeking new warrants against Israeli officials
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has denied that it had issued new arrest warrants for Israeli political and military officials, following a Haaretz report published on Sunday claiming The Hague has quietly sought arrest warrants against several Israeli officials.

According to the Haaretz report, citing a diplomatic source, the warrants target three Israeli politicians and two IDF officials.

ICC spokesperson Oriane Maillet said in a note to journalists that the report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper was not accurate, and that the court “denies the issuance of new arrest warrants in the situation in the state of Palestine.”

Until now, the only publicly known ICC arrest warrants against senior Israeli figures were those issued in November 2024 against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

International Law expert Prof. Eliav Lieblich told Haaretz that the ICC does not actually require the court to notify suspects of arrest warrants.

“The considerations for making the warrants public, as was done in the cases of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu, and Gallant, are deterrence. The considerations for secrecy are increasing the chances that the person will arrive somewhere where they can be arrested,” he said.


Ask Haviv Anything: 116: Simon Sebag Montefiore on the History — and Future — of British Jews
What does it mean to be Jewish in Britain? What happens when centuries of hard-won belonging is suddenly called into question by destabilizing events?

In this conversation on history and identity, we sit down with bestselling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore to trace the extraordinary story of British Jewry: from the arrival of Jews with William the Conqueror in 1066, through medieval blood libels and expulsion, to emancipation, empire, Zionism, civil rights and integration, and on to the modern crisis facing British Jews after October 7.

We explore how British Jews became one of the most integrated and successful Jewish communities in the world, and why many now feel that a golden age is ending.

Montefiore brings the sweep of history to the conversation, while confronting one of the most urgent questions facing Jews in the West today: Can liberal societies still protect Jewish belonging in moments of deep social fracture?

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to British Jewish History
05:24 The Medieval Jewish Experience in Britain
14:47 The Expulsion of Jews in 1290
16:44 The Return of Jews under Cromwell
23:08 The 18th Century: Emancipation and Integration
33:16 The Ordinary Life of Jews in 19th Century Britain
39:46 The Impact of Eastern European Immigration
45:21 Zionism and British Jewish Identity
51:26 The Divided Zionist Movement
52:52 Zionism's Rise and British Imperial Interests
56:17 World War I and the Promises of the British
01:01:40 The Balfour Declaration and Its Implications
01:06:59 The British Mandate and Jewish Immigration
01:11:53 The Reversal of British Support for Zionism
01:14:18 The Aftermath of World War II and Jewish Aspirations
01:20:36 The Golden Age of British Jews
01:22:53 The Shift in Jewish Identity Post-October 7
01:31:40 The Current State of British Jewry


London Nova Festival exhibit's sign removed over fears of antisemitic crimes
The main sign of the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in London has been removed at the request of London police following concerns over the potential for antisemitism and terrorism. The festival organizers confirmed this to The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

For the first time on its international tour, the Nova Festival Exhibition will be showcased in the UK for six weeks from 20 May to 5 July. It has previously been shown in New York City, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Miami, Toronto, and Washington, D.C., where it collectively brought over half a million visitors.

The Nova Exhibition describes itself as an in-depth remembrance of the brutal massacre at The Nova Music Festival on October 7th, 2023. It intends to serve as both a memorial and a call to remembrance. It uses original staging, burnt-out vehicles, and personal items to recreate the scene. It also features first-hand witness phone footage from the day, bullet-riddled structures, porta-loos, and survivor testimonies.

The London exhibition’s main sign, installed in the area in recent days as part of preparations for the official opening this week, was removed at the request of London's Metropolitan police due to concerns about antisemitic incidents, public disorder, and protests ahead of the exhibition's opening.

According to sources familiar with the matter, London police sought to minimize any early exposure of the exhibition’s exact location, out of concern that attempts could be made to organize extreme protests or security incidents around the site before it officially opens to the public.


Mamdani releases ‘Nakba’ day video, gets angry reactions from Jewish leaders
UJA-Federation posted an uncharacteristically pointed response to Mamdani’s video.

“You chose 5:40 p.m. on Friday to post it, as Jewish New Yorkers prepare to light Shabbat candles,” the Federation stated. “We noticed.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote that “Nakba” is “Arabic for catastrophe” and that “the only catastrophe here is a mayor of New York who lets antisemitic mobs run wild to terrorize law-abiding Jewish New Yorkers while he spreads anti-Israel propaganda.”

Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, stated that “my mother and her parents fled the Nazis to come to New York City in 1939. My grandfather kept hidden Swiss francs and gold coins in his apartment in case he ever had to flee again.”

“My heart breaks for New York City,” he wrote. “Mamdani is a menace. Pro-Hamas and Hezbollah mobs are harassing Jews. Mamdani has empowered them.” Mamdani Passover

Some critics of the mayor’s posted noted on social media that the poster on a wall in Inea’s home is actually a 1936 Zionist advertisement encouraging people to move to what would become the modern Jewish state.

The media watchdog HonestReporting said that after Mamdani put out the “propaganda video,” it was “no surprise that the New York Times simply repeats the false narrative without scrutiny.”

“Because Inea Bushnaq is not a ‘Nakba survivor,’” it stated. “She is the descendant of Bosnian Muslims and was not forcibly displaced from her home. But facts don’t matter to the Times.”

Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, is not of Palestinian or Arab descent. He was born in Uganda to an Indo-Ugandan family.

He has not posted a video about any other of New York City’s ethnic communities’ commemorations or observances. (JNS sought comment from the mayor.)

There are about 1 million Jewish New Yorkers in a city of 8.7 million residents, the largest population of Jews anywhere outside of Israel.

“It’s the obligation of any mayor, regardless of personal views, to try and bring people together. This is clearly divisive,” Greenfield, of Met Council, told JNS. “It’s obviously misinformation as well that really does concern the leaders of the community. When you put out disinformation like this it does tend to take people who are otherwise on the fence and push them toward an extremist view.”

“The reality is that for most non-Jewish New Yorkers, they are not able to separate between Israel and Jews,” he said. “It’s going to have a negative impact on how people treat and work with the Jewish community.”


Eiffel Tower Palestinian flag stunt prompts arrests
French police arrested six people suspected of unfurling a large Palestinian flag from the Eiffel Tower without permission, a police source said on Saturday.

The climate activist group Extinction Rebellion France said it hung the flag from the Paris monument’s first floor on Friday to show support for Palestinians and accuse Israel of “massacres” in Gaza and “ecocide crimes,” including uprooting olive trees in Judea and Samaria, AFP reported.

The action was timed for “Nakba Day,” observed annually on May 15 to mark the Arab rejection of the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan and the 1948-49 war launched by Arab states in an effort to destroy the newly revived State of Israel.
Police hunt seven suspects from pro-Palestine rally for hate crimes as they reveal details of 43 arrests at rival demos in £4.5m operation
Police are hunting seven suspects from Saturday's pro-Palestine Nakba Day rally as they reveal details of 43 arrests at rival demonstrations in a £4.5million operation.

Between 15,000 to 20,000 people attended the Nakba Day rally on Saturday, which was held concurrently to Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom march - which the Met Police said was attended by around 60,000.

Police have confirmed a total of 43 arrests were made from each demonstration, with 12 affiliated with the Nakba march and 20 linked to the Unite the Kingdom protest.

The affiliation of the remaining 11 were not confirmed, or they were not linked to either group.

The protests, which were held in London, saw a total of 4,000 police officers on duty.

Four officers were assaulted at the gatherings while six were subjected to hate crime offences, according to a post by the Met Police on X.

Eleven arrests were made for hate crime related offences, including those motivated by race, religion, sexuality and disability.

The force said of the 11 arrests, two are allegedly affiliated with the Nakba Day rally and nine to Unite the Kingdom.


Abbas complains that funds withheld by Israel are needed to pay terrorist salaries
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas admitted that tax funds being withheld by Israel would be used to fund Palestinian terrorists during a speech at the Eighth General Conference of Fatah.

The comments confirm that the PA has not ended its pay-for-slay policy, even though it has restructured payments so they no longer reflect the prisoner’s sentence. It now distributes the funds under the guise of social welfare.

“The continued holding of Palestinian Authority funds by Israel is an unprecedented event that violates the agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as international law,” Abbas claimed in his Fatah conference address. “...The continued withholding of the Palestinian people’s funds, which have so far exceeded $5 billion... and all this needs to be paid to public employees, to prisoners (terrorists)...”

Israel began withholding funds that the PA had used to pay the salaries of terrorists in 2022, following similar legislation adopted by Washington in 2018. The Taylor Force Act has meant Washington is unable to offer economic aid to Ramallah until it ends its pay-for-slay payments and its statements of public support for terrorism.

Palestinian Media Watch founder and director Itamar Marcus commented to The Jerusalem Post that Abbas’s “admission” must have “significant international implications.”
Turkish flotilla to reach Israel in 48 hours
A Turkish flotilla of 53 vessels, organized by the IHH, the same group behind the Mavi Marmara flotilla, is reportedly en route to Israel.

The flotilla is an element of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), which departed Turkey for Gaza on Thursday on its second blockade run, the first of which occured in April and ended with 20 of its vessels intercepted by the Israeli Navy.

The IHH's flotilla is expected to reach Israel’s shores within 48 hours. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to hold an operational meeting on the matter with senior defense officials.

An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that Netanyahu held a preliminary security consultation on Sunday regarding the Turkish flotilla, which includes Hamas supporters and intends to breach the naval blockade on Gaza.

The previous flotilla to be intercepted included Brazilian activist Thiago Avila and Spanish national Abu Keshek, who were both detained in Israel for questioning under suspicion of aiding the enemy and contact with a terrorist group.

Both Avila and Keshek were deported earlier this month, joining the other over 100 participants who were deported soon after the naval interception.

In addition to the naval flotilla, a 30-vehicle land convoy set out from Libya to Gaza on Saturday as part of the GSF.

GSF: Convoy includes doctors, nurses, engineers, builders
200 participants from 25 countries are participating in the convoy, according to GSF, which said in a press release that the delegation includes doctors, nurses, engineers, and builders.

A previous, much larger land convoy that departed Tunisia in June was denied passage by Libyan forces, according to France 24, while a concurrent 200-member strong group was deported from Egypt upon arrival.


Now that’s cracking: Israeli scientists invent the ‘safe peanut’
Scientists in Israel have invented a peanut that could change the lives of the millions of people around the world who are highly allergic to the food.

They have created "safe peanuts" by tweaking their protein structure so that the immune system no longer sees them as a threat.

They then baked cookies using a powdered form of the safe peanuts and gave two a day to children with a severe peanut allergy.

After nine months, 28 out of the 32 children were able to eat a small handful of peanuts with no adverse effect.

Four experienced a "minimal reaction" but the rest were deemed to be safe from accidental exposure to peanuts.

Traditional immunotherapy focuses on training the immune system to accept the allergen. But the team at Sheba Medical Centre, in Tel Aviv, team flipped the concept.

“We actually invented a new peanut," said Professor Mona Kidon, the lead researcher and Head of the Food Allergy Research Programme.

“Instead of making the immune system adapt to the peanut, [we said] let's make the peanut a little bit different.”

The peanut cookies, named Mona Cookies after her, act as medication, gradually training the immune system over time not to react.

“An allergy is actually a wrong decision," said Prof Kidon. “Your immune system is deciding that these proteins that you see in milk or in egg or in peanuts are something that are really dangerous.”

But they’re mistaken. In normal peanuts, the proteins are tightly folded into 3D balls that trick the immune system into panic mode.

Prof Kidon and her team spent seven years researching how to "unfold" these balls, so the immune cells can "see" that they pose no threat. They chill out instead of attacking.





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