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Wednesday, May 20, 2026

05/19 Links Pt2: A Miscarriage of Journalism at the New York Times; Nearly 80% of Gazans open to emigrating from Strip; Somaliland to establish embassy in Jerusalem

From Ian:

Judge Roy K. Altman: A Miscarriage of Journalism at the New York Times
Nicholas Kristof's recent essay in the New York Times about supposed Israeli sex crimes against Palestinian detainees is a travesty - not simply because it's wrong as a matter of fact, or because it regurgitates long-debunked blood libels against the Jewish state at a time of rising antisemitism around the world. It's a travesty because it embraces the erosion of democratic norms.

We assume that our citizens will be prepared to discern truth from fiction. We feel comfortable in that assumption because we've devised a system of laws - based on evidence, burdens of proof, and a time-tested set of rules - to help us assess the veracity of contested claims. Today, this whole system is being undermined by the proliferation of false information, especially on the internet.

It's one thing to have our geopolitical and ideological enemies pushing unverified claims about our closest allies into our cell phones. It's another thing entirely for the New York Times to offer a story that - in its disregard of basic evidence-gathering norms, its unwillingness to investigate the opposing side's position, and its inversion of common sense - violates the fundamental rules of fairness and due process that serve as the bulwark of our democracy.

Kristof accused Israel of using sexual violence against detained Palestinian prisoners as a kind of "standard operating procedure." His claim is not merely that a few rogue Israeli prison guards sometimes behave illegally, as happens in all Western democracies, including our own.

Whether in civil or criminal cases, we have for hundreds of years rejected the technique of allowing anonymous witnesses to advance salacious claims in secret. But Kristof's article relies mostly on anonymous sources whose credibility - much less their political or ideological affiliations - cannot be tested. Moreover, his reliance on anonymity ensures that no one can ever prove him wrong.

The few sources Kristof does name underscore why anonymity is so problematic. Kristof relies heavily on a report by Euro-Med, an organization with known ties to Hamas. Its leader, Ramy Abdu, has advocated publicly for "a million October 7ths," and has repeatedly peddled the allegation that Israel "harvests organs."

When a reporter in our supposed "paper of record" advances a series of allegations that are this severe and pernicious, against an entire nation, we should demand that he produce evidence to match the gravity of his assertions. Kristof has fallen well short of this standard.

The writer is a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Seth Mandel: The Truth About the Entertainment Industry and Israel
It’s hard not to enjoy seeing someone speak actual truth to actual power in the entertainment industry. So when the celebrated Hungarian filmmaker Laszlo Nemes was asked by the Guardian about his new WWII movie, Orphan, and the cultural and political implications of its subject, Nemes did the whole world a giant favor.

“There’s an orgy of antisemitism, an absolute, shameless orgy of antisemitism, overtaking the west,” Nemes declares. He’s had enough of the “puritan, moralising, self-righteousness” from people who think of themselves as cultured and enlightened. “I think it’s all anti-humanist regression. And because it’s not identified as this, I think it’s very effective at spreading. And one of its very potent vectors has been antisemitism. … The Jew has always been [cast as] the sort of internal enemy, and I think now [the idea of] the Jew as the internal enemy of the west has reached the dimensions of European antisemitism before the takeover by the National Socialist [Nazi] party.”

His much-awarded 2015 masterpiece Son of Saul, Nemes suggests, would not fare well in this environment, where “anything that’s Jewish is now considered… Nobody would touch it with a 10-foot pole.”

Orphan is also a Holocaust movie, and despite Nemes’s mastering of the subject, this time he has yet to find a U.S. distributor. “You should be able to talk about these things without being ostracized,” he told the Guardian.

Nemes, who is Jewish, said that at conversations ostensibly about his new movie, “people [would] ask me about Gaza, instead of, you know, asking about the movie. [They ask] if I signed this or that petition.”

In other words, is he, you know, a good Jew? “We know how totalitarian mindsets work. … This kind of ideology always attaches itself to the sense of being on the right side of history, being on the righteous side. There’s a very strong, moralizing, puritan surface on which this ideology can attach itself.”

Obviously Nemes is correct in every particular. But it’s worth noting that we have confirmation that he is correct from the very cohort he’s talking about.

Usually, what Nemes calls the “overclass of Hollywood” loves to portray itself as some courageous institution. But occasionally a smug buffoon like Javier Bardem will be so giddy with self-righteousness that he’ll reveal the truth.
JPost Editorial: Leiter’s blunt accuracy maybe undiplomatic, but it his criticism is valid
Sharply criticizing J Street and implying that US Senator Bernie Sanders should not be called a Jew may not have been Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter’s most diplomatic moment. But it was perhaps his most candid – articulating what many Israelis and their supporters quietly believe.

“How can you be pro-Israel and advocate for an arms embargo on a state that’s fighting a seven-front war against Iranian proxies?” Leiter asked of J Street, which bills itself as pro-Israel, pro-peace, and pro-democracy.

His comments in Washington referred to the lobbying organization’s call to end military aid to Israel, including support for weapons systems such as Iron Dome.

“If they said that they were pro-Palestinian, I wouldn’t have a problem meeting with them,” he said. “I meet with pro-Palestinian groups. But when you come and say in such a two-faced manner, ‘We’re pro-Israel, we’re pro-democracy,’ there’s a democratically elected government in Israel. You don’t like [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, make aliyah, vote in the next election, and express yourself. Don’t say you’re ‘pro-democracy’ and decry and defy the position of the democratic government of Israel.”

Even as we reject Leiter’s reference to J Street as a “cancer” – believing it is possible to disagree without resorting to toxic rhetoric – we agree with the thrust of his criticism.

Israel is now in the 956th day of a war forced upon it on October 7. The very least it could expect from an organization calling itself pro-Israel is not to lobby against the sale of arms needed to defend itself or accuse it of genocide. That’s a low bar, and one that J Street failed to clear.


Jonathan Tobin: The four reasons why we can’t move on from a blood libel
The newspaper was counting on not just cheers from those who are ready to believe any lie about Israel, no matter how despicable. They were also relying on responses from those labeling themselves as “liberal Zionists,” as well as other Jews whose ties to Israel are far more tenuous, who speak up to shift the attention from the paper’s misconduct or Palestinian crimes to investigations of the Israeli prison system. And that’s exactly what some writers at left-wing publications, like The Forward, JTA and Haaretz, essentially did.

By accepting the story as credible enough to justify treating its charges as plausible, such people are practicing what the Canadian psychologist Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy.”

In this manner, they help to flip the script from the documented outrages committed by Palestinian Arabs, including the widespread and horrific acts of sexual violence and murderous brutality that happened on Oct. 7, 2023, to one about dubious allegations. And in so doing, they validate a false narrative about moral equivalence between the two sides.

Though some may be well-meaning, those who prioritize sympathy for the side that started the current war (and all those that preceded it between Jews and Arabs) and lost it—bringing great suffering to their people—aren’t so much being fair-minded or kind. Rather, they bolster terrorists and undermine efforts to defeat them and to defend Israelis, all while virtue-signaling their self-righteousness.

Some are also using the Times story as a cudgel with which to beat Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom they oppose for other reasons, for their alleged indifference to prison abuses on their watch.

It’s true that Israeli military prisons may be no better than those in other countries. Maybe they’re worse. But also understand that the large number of Palestinian prisoners who were captured post-Oct. 7 after committing unspeakable atrocities, in addition to other terrorists caught in Gaza, are not only deserving of contempt from civilized persons. Their propensity for violence has made these facilities unsafe for themselves and those Israeli reservists who have been given the unpleasant job of guarding them. They are equally a great danger to each other, which is one more aspect of his story, among others, that Kristof chose to ignore in a quest to point a finger and demonize Israelis.

As for Ben-Gvir, he is popular on the far right and despised by centrists and the left. But he appealed to a far larger group than only his voters when he vowed that the Oct. 7 criminals weren’t going to be given privileges or anything more than the bare minimum required by law. To scapegoat him or treat his attempts to keep this problem under control as a reason to diminish outrage about Kristof’s lies is wrong. Nor should it divert any attention from his libelous charges or the documented use of rape by Palestinian Arabs, as the Times clearly intended.

By crossing over from debatable accusations to blood libels, Kristof has similarly exposed both the futility and the intellectual bankruptcy of those Jews who have internalized so much of the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism around the globe. But they also expose themselves as failing to realize the implications of their foolish stands. Instead of validating these positions, the fallout from Kristof’s writing will further discredit them.

For all these reasons—and even if the Times never owns up to the betrayal of its obligation to report the truth—the controversy and the debate about Kristof and his mythical rapist dogs will linger in the public imagination in ways the writer never intended for many years to come.
From ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ to ‘The New York Times’
In his follow-up to Warrant for Genocide, Cohn revisited the idea of a cosmic conspiracy, tracing its roots to antiquity and following it through the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. In the book, Europe’s Inner Demons, Cohn posits the existence of a recurrent fantasy, the belief “that there existed, somewhere in the midst of the great society, another society, small and clandestine, which not only threatened the existence of the great society but was also addicted to practices that were felt to be wholly abominable in the sense of anti-human.” He continues, noting that those “wholly abominable” practices generally take the form of a fairly consistent cluster: nocturnal assembly, infanticide, ritual cannibalism (often involving the consumption of children’s blood or flesh), incest or sexual orgy, and worship of an anti-god, frequently in animal-headed form. Interestingly, Cohn’s focus in the book is the application of this fantasy by Christians to other Christians, heretics, or other outsiders who had to be destroyed and eliminated. Indeed, his specific interest is in the “witch-sabbat” fantasies from the 15th century onward.

In Cohn’s reading of “the fantasy,” the Jewish blood libel is just one application of a perpetually transferable European cultural template. For centuries, Europeans turned their paranoia and insecurity on outsider sects, imagining the existence of small, clandestine, and strictly “anti-human” sub-societies, demonic in nature, which therefore had to be destroyed. It was only when this template was applied in the political context of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was secularized in the form of The Protocols that it became the fantasy that enabled the Holocaust.

To return to where we started, what Nick Kristof wrote the other day is a textbook example of the “blood libel.” Whether he intended it to be or not, his column is a classic application of the fantasy of the cosmic conspiracy. Kristof does not allege that some Israeli guards have committed sexual abuse. If that happened, it would be a reportable, prosecutable offense, the likes of which Israel has previously pursued. Rather, he alleges that sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners is a systematic, organized, state-sanctioned practice. He shifts the charges from “individuals did wrong” to “this is the secret rite of the institution,” which is precisely the shift described by Cohn in Inner Demons. Medieval accusers did not allege that some Jews had killed some Christians; they said that there was a hidden Jewish council coordinating the practice as a perennial ritual. Kristof makes the fantastical but damning leap here, alleging misbehavior not by lone criminal individuals but by an organized demonological system.

In Kristof’s telling of the story, the dog-rape fantasy is critical. Gavin Langmuir, a historian who also studied the origins and repetition of the “blood libel,” used specific terms to distinguish mere prejudice from the descent into demonic fantasy. He distinguished xenophobic assertions, which exaggerate or unfairly generalize from some real feature of a group, from chimerical assertions, which describe practices no human group actually engages in. A claim that IDF guards have humiliated, beaten, or even sexually assaulted detainees is xenophobic in form, which is to say that even when those claims are wrong or overstated, they point to recognizable human behavior. By contrast, Kristof’s claim that Israeli forces have trained dogs to rape prisoners as institutional practice is chimerical in form: it describes a scene—choreographed bestiality, the animal as instrument, the victim as passive ritual object—that has no plausible institutional reality, the purpose of which is purely symbolic rather than evidential. Kristof’s charges function to depict the Israelis—and all Jews, by extension—as categorically alien, not merely different from “the rest of us,” but irredeemably so.

In the days since Kristof’s column was published, many observers have called for The New York Times to retract the piece or to issue a statement of correction. Either would be nice, but neither would be sufficient. Kristof’s column is part of the recurrent accumulation of cultural permission to view Jews as totally alien and, frankly, demonic. It incrementally renews the cultural availability of the “abominable and anti-human” template inside a respectable institution. That is what the template’s transmission has always required, and that is what makes this column so dangerous, regardless of its author’s intent.

While he may not have meant to do so, Nicholas Kristof signed a new “warrant” with his column last week, one that follows an old and treacherous pattern.
Kingsbury is the Opinion Editor of the New York Times. She doesn’t write the columns. She doesn’t go on television. But she decides what the most widely read opinion section in American journalism publishes, and she has been doing it for five years.
In 2020, when Kingsbury was running the Democratic primary endorsement process, she pressed every candidate on whether they would reverse Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. She asked Amy Klobuchar the question twice, even after Klobuchar said she supported keeping the embassy there. Moving the embassy back was not a standard Democratic platform issue at the time. Kingsbury made it part of the process.

When over 1,000 Times contributors signed an open letter in 2023 protesting the paper’s coverage of transgender issues, Kingsbury and the executive editor sent a memo the following day saying the paper would not tolerate staff participating in advocacy protests. She had already personally written a Times piece calling transgender youth’s gender identity a phase and had cracked down on staff who pushed back on the section’s editorial direction.

Then there’s the Kristof column, which is what started all of this.

It was published the evening before Israel released a 300-page civil commission report documenting Hamas’s systematic sexual atrocities on October 7 and against hostages held in Gaza. That report had been sent to the Times weeks in advance. The Times did not cover it. What the Times did publish was a piece built on a Hamas-linked NGO, featuring a lead source who had celebrated October 7 on social media, and including an allegation that canine behavior experts called physically implausible. Kingsbury’s section produced an accompanying video, put it on the homepage, and publicly defended it when the backlash came from Israel, from Jewish organizations, from journalism watchdogs, and from some Palestinian voices who questioned the sourcing.

Two sets of allegations about sexual violence. One backed by hundreds of interviews and thousands of photographs. The other built on anonymous sources and organizations with documented Hamas ties. The Times passed on the first and produced a multimedia package for the second.

Her official bio lists the degrees, the awards, the titles. It leaves out the editors who were gone after she took over, the outside money that funded her marquee series, the internal crackdowns on staff who objected to editorial direction, and the column now at the center of a threatened defamation lawsuit from the government of Israel.


Can a Jew Be Trusted to Prosecute Campus Protesters? By Peter Savodnik
Earlier this month, a judge declared that Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen could not be trusted to do his job because he is Jewish.

That was not how she put it, but that seemed to be the unavoidable implication of her ruling.

To Rosen, whose father was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a baby, there was something “mystifying” about the whole thing.

It all started in June 2024, when protesters stormed into the office of Stanford University’s president—busting doorframes, spray-painting the walls, smashing windows, and splattering fake blood on the carpet. They caused a little more than $300,000 in damage. They were all students or alumni. They ranged in age from 19 to their early 30s.

Three hours later, campus police arrested them.

In April 2025, the DA’s office charged 12 protesters with vandalism and conspiracy to trespass—both felonies.

On February 13, 2026, the judge declared a mistrial. The jury was deadlocked, with most jurors voting for conviction on both counts. The DA’s office announced it would retry the case.

Then, on February 25, defendants filed a motion demanding that Rosen and, in fact, the whole DA’s office he presides over recuse themselves from the case.

The motion asserts that Rosen’s campaign website “heavily features the Stanford prosecution on his campaign website and on the page that falsely aligns his prosecution of these defendants with his work ‘fighting antisemitism.’ ”

It adds: “DA Rosen is not entitled to continue to prosecute a case where he falsely describes the prosecution of the defendants as part of his fight against antisemitism while attempting to raise campaign dollars off that false description.”
Heartbroken family of Brit killed in Hamas festival attack blame Labour and the Met for the rise in anti-Semitism: 'They take the side of hate'
The heartbroken parents of a British man who was killed by Hamas at the Nova Festival have blamed the Labour government and the Met police for the rise in anti-Semitism.

Jake Marlowe, 26, was one of the 34 security personnel killed by terrorists when they stormed the music event on October 7, 2023.

The talented British-Israeli musician moved to Israel in 2021 after news of an anti-Semitic incident in north London which saw men shout abuse at Jews on the street from cars draped in Palestinian flags made him feel unsafe.

Speaking to the Daily Mail at the Nova Exhibition in London, his father, Michael Marlowe, said: 'I said to Jake, 'Why are you moving?'.

'Remember this quote, he said to me, 'I don't like this country, I don't feel safe in this country and I don't see a future in this country.'

'That's Jake, in 2021, aged 24 - a visionary. And now look at what this country has become.'

Earlier this month, new figures from the Met Police revealed anti-Semitic hate crimes in London are the highest they have been in two years, with the most in the borough of Barnet, where the Golders Green stabbings happened.

Some 140 offences were logged across the capital in April, up from 98 in March and 67 in February, according to the data.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: Jewish man 'kicked like animal' in Golders Green attack A violent attack on a Jewish man in Golders Green, London, after he spoke Hebrew on a phone call, has once again called into question the safety of Jews in the UK.

The Nova Festival exhibition opens in London this week. Here’s what I saw there
The first thing that hits you when you enter the Nova Festival exhibition in London is a sound-scape of anguished cries, as the people targeted by Hamas terrorists run for their lives.

You don’t need to speak Hebrew to get a sense of what was happening. You are pitched from a film of warm and fuzzy, peace and love, trance music, early on the morning of 7 October 2023, as the golden sun rises, when suddenly the music stops and the organisers tell the disbelieving crowd: “Red Alert!”

And pandemonium ensues. All around the exhibit are screens, some of which feature testimony from the survivors, which you watch in shocked disbelief, as you walk on sanded floors, circling around shot-up cars rescued from the Nova Festival site. Three hundred and seventy eight people were murdered at Nova and many more wounded.

There are cubicles which represent the concrete shelters on Route 232 away from the festival site by Kibbutz Re’em, into which dozens of festival-goers crammed themselves in a desperate attempt to escape the terrorists. In one of these, Aner Shapira, a British-Israeli soldier aged just 22, tried to stave off the Hamas attackers by throwing out the grenades they were lobbing into the shelter. A wall poster tells us: “There were 40 of us in there and only seven came out alive. We couldn’t move. We were all covered by corpses.” A view of destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Tribe of Nova music festival after Saturday’s deadly attack by Hamas (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images) via JTA

It is truly heartbreaking to read comments from survivors, such as this from Adir Ben Zikri: “I realised that they were shooting at every vehicle that approached and then they burned it. I ran between burnt bodies, body parts strewn all over the road and rivers of blood. We reached a rescue point. The guy next to me was mumbling: ‘They shot at us in the car. They turned my brother into a sieve, they left nothing of him. I have nothing to bury… nothing to bury…”

Another annexe room holds a screen with an interview with one of the Zaka volunteers, Shneor Gol, who speaks of the unspeakable, of the mutilated bodies and bags of heads, He smiles and says that Zaka volunteers are “thought of as the tough guys, the people who didn’t cry. But I cry every day.”

He is not alone. It is almost impossible to view this exhibition without shedding tears, and indeed dozens of hardened journalists at the press preview were doing just that.


‘Out of control’: London Nova Festival exhibit's banner removed over fears of antisemitic attacks
'Triggered with Samara Gill' host Samara Gill says antisemitism is “out of control” in the UK, as police order the Nova Festival exhibit to remove its main banner over fears of more attacks.

“It shows that London police apparently think that a sign remembering Hamas massacre victims is more offensive than the people glorifying Hamas,” Ms Gill told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“Memorialising murdered Jewish people is treated like some sort of public order issue.

“This is not a healthy society; we’re at a breaking point.”


First hearings for Australia commission end after Jews share stories of antisemitism
The first block of hearings for the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion ended on Friday, after Jewish residents shared their experiences with antisemitism in the country.

The first block of hearings began on May 4, providing those impacted by rising antisemitism in the country an opportunity to share their insights and testimonies in the wake of the October 7 massacre and the Bondi Beach massacre.

Some who submitted testimonies were directly impacted by the December terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 15 celebrants at the Hanukkah beachside event. Beit Yosef Synagogue head Rabbi Menachem Dadon, who co-sponsored the event in which his daughter was wounded, recalled at the May 11 hearing that once, while leaving his synagogue, a man confronted him from behind, calling him a “baby killer” and accusing him of killing Palestinians.

“Unfortunately, to be a religious Jew in Sydney is to accept the fact that, from time to time, you’ll walk on Shabbat and people will drive [by], and they will allow themselves to say certain things to you, to curse,” said Dadon.

Usually, the rabbi ignored drive-by calls of “free Palestine” and “f**k Jews,” but he found it difficult when accompanied by his children.

Combat Antisemitism Movement Australian public affairs officer Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuven Morrison was killed trying to fend off the two Bondi Massacre terrorists, told the commission on May 6 that her childhood memories of the neighborhood had become tainted by both its antisemitism and the massacre.

“On several occasions, in both Sydney and Melbourne in the last two-and-a-half years, I have witnessed cars driving past on main roads with passengers shouting ‘free Palestine,’ followed immediately by ‘f**k the Jews.’ This is not political expression, but explicit targeted hatred and designed to intimidate,” said Gutnick. “In December 2024, I was walking through Westfield Bondi Junction, holding my 12-month-old baby. A man pointed at my Star of David necklace and called me an f***ing terrorist.”


Their ABC’s Gaza Fantasyland
ABC ‘likes’ UN
The Independent Research Group report says the ABC treats and quotes the UN as an impartial authority, rather than an activist, pro-Hamas player in the Gaza conflict. In reality, the UN’s quasi-jihad against Israel dates back to the UN’s Durban conference on racism of 2001, with its calls for the elimination of Israel as a supposed genocidal state.

From 2015-23 the UN General Assembly condemned Israel 154 times compared with 71 times for all other nations combined. The UN gives Israel alone a standing negative agenda item for its Human Rights Council, typically including human-rights abusers like China, Russia, Pakistan and Venezuela. The Council’s so-called Human Rights expert is mandated to report only on Israeli violations of international law, rather than any by Palestine or Hamas. The ABC has repeatedly referenced the UN as its primary source in framing allegations against Israel. Notably, statistics demonstrating this double standard against Israel amongst the UNHRC has never formed part of ABC’s structured reporting or editorial output, the report says. Likewise, the ABC turns a blind eye to UN peace-keepers’ scandals like child sex abuse, rape of young girls, human trafficking and forced prostitution:
In Haiti (2004–2017), UN peacekeepers were linked to hundreds of allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, including cases involving minors as young as 11, with investigations documenting transactional sex for food or moneyand peacekeeper-fathered children abandoned without support. Across these cases, there were effectively zero criminal prosecutions, because UN personnel and peacekeepers benefit from immunity from host-state jurisdiction…

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights shared the names and details of dissidents and human rights activists with the Chinese government. This disclosure enabled Chinese authorities to intimidate and punish activists and their families, including through detention, torture, disappearance, and other forms of transnational repression. When the practice was exposed, the UN retaliated against the whistleblowers who reported it, subjecting them to harassment, false accusations, pressure to remain silent, and ultimately terminating their employment.

These failures matter because they demonstrate that UN branding does not guarantee integrity, accountability, or truthfulness—yet ABC reporting routinely treats UN institutions as unimpeachable sources.

In Gaza, UN operations are deeply entangled with Hamas. UNRWA’s 15,000 staff include many acknowledged Hamas members, the issue never explored by the ABC . Instead ABC reported that ‘UNRWA has robust neutrality’, reporting eliminated Hamas members as innocent UN workers. Information provided by the “Gaza authorities” is simply redistributed by the UN under UN branding. It is then circulated by media outlets — with vast audience capture — as impartial and verified. This is indeed the case for the ABC, the report says. To rely on the UN as proof is not journalism; it is an abdication of responsibility.

Francesca Albanese
The ABC’s reliance on UN authority is most clearly illustrated by its repeated platforming of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories. The ABC has presented Albanese as a senior UN official commenting authoritatively on the Gaza war, allowing her to advance sweeping legal and moral claims of genocide, apartheid, and global complicity directly to Australian audiences. The ABC has amplified her profile and legitimised her as a default authority on Israel and Gaza, instead of clearly identifying her as a highly contested and polarising figure whose credibility is widely disputed.

The report said that in December 2022 she spoke at a Hamas-organized conference in Gaza. “You have a right to resist,” she told them.

Since October 7 she has systematically whitewashed Hamas atrocities, says the report. For example, just four days after the horror she wrote: “Caution! Numerous claims are circulating, repeated by US officials & amplified by mainstream media re Hamas’ crimes including beheadings/rape. ISR [Israeli] military did not confirm such claims. Divulging unverified information risks to escalate tensions & endanger lives in a volative ( sic) context.” She’s said:
People say ‘But Hamas, Hamas, Hamas’ — I don’t think people have any idea what Hamas is. Hamas built schools, public facilities, hospitals. It’s critical you understand, when you think of Hamas, do not think of throat cutters, armed to the teeth, fighters. It’s not like that…

Albanese routinely compares Israel to Nazis and Netanyahu to Hitler. Her lie that she’s a lawyer was recycled by the ABC, the report says. She claimed that 680,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, a figure ten times higher than even Hamas’s own casualty claims. She further asserted that this total included 380,000 children under the age of five, when the total population of children under five in Gaza is significantly lower than that number.

The ABC, by repeatedly concealing this context, has laundered ideologically driven accusations through the prestige of a UN title. Albanese is not an impartial authority; she is a political extremist and activist operating under institutional cover. Treating her claims as authoritative reporting constitutes a serious failure of editorial judgement.
The ABC’s Gaza Fantasyland: Part II
The 58-page report on the ABC’s pro-Palestine activism by a small group of Jewish analysts last week is an indictment of the national broadcaster. See Part One here. The report has been submitted to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism. This article continues coverage of detail in the report.

The analysts conclude the ABC’s deeply rooted, anti-Israel (anti-Zionist) position plausibly vilified the IDF, Israel and, by extension, Jews, and fuelled hostility towards all those who support Israel. The effect, their report says, was to legitimise hate against Jewish Australians who feel a deep personal connection to Israel and its right to exist as a peaceful and pluralistic Jewish homeland.

Hamas and its proxies have conducted an extensive global disinformation campaign against Israel. The ABC’s editorial approach appeared wilfully blind to this. The ABC distortions include

♦ Amplified harmful and unverified content without proportional evidentiary scrutiny.
♦ Publication of demonstrably false or highly contested claims as established facts.
♦ Emotional framing replacing factual analysis and operational context.
♦ Using sensational or accusatory headlines, with contextual qualifications buried deep in the article
♦ Presenting one-sided storytelling, in which Israeli perspectives, military context and security considerations were marginalised or omitted.
♦ Relying on politicised or structurally biased sources without adequate critical examination.
♦ Elevating ideologically committed commentators as neutral “experts”.
♦ The daily repeating of terms such as “genocide”, “famine” and “starvation” without meeting the rigorous legal and evidentiary thresholds.
ABC and SBS defy antisemitism definition backed by government
The ABC and SBS have refused to adopt the antisemitism definition endorsed by the federal government and the current royal commission, breaking with the standard backed by special envoy Jillian Segal.

The decision puts both taxpayer-funded broadcasters at odds with the Commonwealth’s push for a uniform national definition.

The definition was developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and has already been endorsed by federal and state governments.

It has also been adopted by the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

The definition says that "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews".

The taxpayer-funded ABC confirmed it would not formally adopt the definition despite acknowledging the "underlying concept of antisemitism", according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

A spokeswoman told the publication that the broadcaster wanted to rely on its own editorial policies and standards.

"The ABC’s existing guidance on hate speech is clear and unambiguous, including the principle that legitimate criticism of the State of Israel or the actions of some Israelis becomes antisemitism when the target shifts from 'Israel' to 'Jews'," they said.

The broadcaster said some examples attached to the definition had become politically contentious.

"These examples have been the subject of highly politicised debate internationally and have, in some contexts, been applied in ways that risk conflating legitimate political and policy critique with antisemitism," the spokeswoman said.


ABC ‘setting their own rules’ on antisemitism definition
Sky News host Sharri Markson says the ABC and SBS have rejected the antisemitism definition backed by the federal government.

Ms Markson said the ABC claims they are “protecting editorial independence”.

“But why should taxpayer-funded media be setting their own rules on jew hatred?”


Israel has lost its morality, Tucker Carlson says, in first interview with Israeli media
Israeli has "definitely lost its morality," Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson told Channel 13 in his first interview in recent years with Israeli media, broadcast on Tuesday night.

Carlson pointed at the civilian casualties Israel has inflicted during recent wars against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran as examples of its lost moral compass.

When it was pointed out that Israel acts in self-defense, Carlson pivoted to describing how his qualm is with the fact that the United States funds Israel's military.

"The reason that I have cause to comment on this and to say that it's wrong is that I'm paying for it," he said. "There's no reason the United States should be sending any money at all to Israel, and particularly not to its military."

"If Hamas does something bad, it's bad. It doesn't justify Israel doing the same bad thing, nor does it justify the US," added Carlson. "You can't kill people who haven't done anything wrong."

Carlson implied that Israel is "unenlightened" for responding to the October 7 Hamas attacks with the Gaza war due to the collateral damage caused.

"We had the September 11 attacks, where many were killed, and in response, the US killed some of those responsible for that, and also many innocent people," said Carlson. "We did it. It is never permissible to kill an innocent person. You cannot kill a child who has done nothing wrong. That is what enlightened people are; that is the definition of an enlightened country."


Anti-Israel Republican Thomas Massie loses primary to Trump-backed candidate
The only Republican to refrain from supporting Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack will exit Congress following a decisive primary loss on Tuesday.

US Representative Thomas Massie, who has represented Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District since 2013, lost to Ed Gallrein, an endorsee of President Donald Trump who drew support from pro-Israel PACs.

Massie conceded the election on Tuesday night — but not without a dig at Gallrein’s purported relationship to Israel.

“I would’ve come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede. And it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,” he said in his concession speech.

With almost all ballots counted on Tuesday night, Gallrein had drawn 55% of the votes.

The result means that Massie, the most anti-Israel Republican in Congress and the only Republican to vote at times with far-left Democrats on measures opposing Israel, will leave Congress at the end of the year.


Massie’s closing message leans into conspiratorial attacks on Israel, Jewish groups
In the closing days of his House reelection campaign against Trump-endorsed Navy veteran Ed Gallrein — which will conclude with Tuesday’s primary — Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has focused his ire on pro-Israel and Jewish advocacy groups, claiming that his opponent is a “puppet” of such interests.

At a rally on Saturday, the congressman joked that Gallrein’s phone number had a Tel Aviv area code, part of a narrative by Massie that Gallrein is working on behalf of Israeli interests.

“After months of beating around the bush, one reporter finally writes the true story of my race and when asked, the lobbyists brag about it,” Massie said on X on Sunday, referring to a story in Politico about pro-Israel groups’ spending to defeat him. “A coalition of Israel’s lobbyists and donors is spending tens of millions of dollars in a blatant attempt to buy a KY congressional seat.”

The congressman also asserted that Gallrein is a “puppet” of the Republican Jewish Coalition and that “they are running his race.”

The RJC’s national political director, Sam Markstein, responded, “I am speaking for ALL Republicans who want to see you lose tomorrow — including President Donald Trump.”

On Friday, Massie called his primary, which has become the most expensive intraparty congressional contest in U.S. history, “a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress.”


Nevada GOP candidate Marty O’Donnell hosted neo-Nazi influencer on podcast
Marty O’Donnell, a Republican candidate in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District recently endorsed by President Donald Trump, hosted a Nazi supporter on his podcast last year, months after filing to run for Congress.

O’Donnell is an outsider candidate who also ran in the district in 2024, placing fourth in the GOP primary. He was best known before his political career as the music composer for the “Halo” video game series.

But with Trump’s endorsement — as well as backing from the National Republican Congressional Committee’s MAGA Majority program — the unlikely political candidate has become the favorite for the nomination, despite facing a former U.S. ambassador to Iceland, among others.

In August 2025, O’Donnell hosted Charles Cornish-Dale, a popular far-right influencer better known by his online pseudonym “Raw Egg Nationalist,” on his podcast for a friendly discussion. Repeatedly, over the course of multiple years, Cornish-Dale has shared antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on his Raw Egg Nationalist X account.

Those posts include a quote from Mein Kampf alongside a meme featuring a man in a Nazi uniform in front of a swastika flag; a reference to the “zog” — a conspiracy theory claiming Zionist control of the U.S. government and society; the shorthand “HH” — which stands for Heil Hitler; an advertisement for “Blood, Soil and Grass-fed Beef” t-shirts — referencing a Nazi and white nationalist slogan; and various other Nazi-sympathetic posts.

In his introduction to the interview, O’Donnell acknowledged that Cornish-Dale has been “accused of many weird — fascist, nationalist, white nationalist, misogynist, you name it — he’s been accused of everything. And of course I’m being accused of those things too, so I had to talk to him to find out what’s true and what’s not true.” He called the interview “one of those sort of marriages made in heaven.”
US Jewish groups express sympathy after California mosque shooting
American Jewish communal organisations have expressed their solidarity with the Muslim community in the wake of a shooting at a Mosque in San Diego in which two teenage gunmen shot and killed three men, including a security guard, before turning their weapons on themselves.

The attack, which was carried out at the Islamic Centre of San Diego on Monday is understood to have been perpetrated by two individuals – one 17, the other 18.

None of the victims have been named, but the security guard outside the mosque is understood to be a father of eight, with San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl describing his actions as “heroic. Undoubtedly he saved lives today.”

The ADL, America’s foremost organisation targeting antisemitism, said: “We are devastated by the deadly shooting at the Islamic Centre of San Diego. No one should fear for their safety while attending a house of worship or school. Our hearts are with the victims, their loved ones, and the broader Muslim community during this horrific moment. ADL and the ADL Centre on Extremism are monitoring the situation closely.”

The Islamic centre, which is understood to contain a school on site, was evacuated after the shooting.

Two hours prior to the attack, the mother of one of the shooters contacted the police, reporting that her son had taken her car and a number of her guns, and had left home with someone else; both dressed in camouflage gear.

She reportedly described her son as suicidal, although the police have expressed scepticism; questioning why a suicidal individual would take three different firearms.
Anti-Islamic writings found in mosque shooters' car
“Anti-Islamic writings” were found in a vehicle connected to the two teenage suspects in Monday’s shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego that killed three people, according to a US Justice Department official with knowledge of the investigation.

The alleged gunmen have been identified as Caleb Vasquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17, the official told Reuters. They were found dead in their car after the shooting, apparently from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said on Monday.

Their names and the contents of the writings were previously reported by local media.

Police said on Monday that the attack was being investigated as a hate crime but declined to offer further details about a possible motive.

According to an FBI agent, the shooters appear to have been radicalized online.


Mamdani’s twisted Nakba narrative fits the record of New York’s first anti-Israel mayor
And Mamdani, while fiercely opposed to Israel’s existence as a Jewish-majority state, has nothing to say about another partition plan in 1947, one that should be closer to home for him, given his own family history.

Without any of the layers of legitimacy that the UN plan gave to Arab and Jewish states in 1947, British colonial rule in South Asia led to partition of the vast region into India and Pakistan. Why was Pakistan created as a separate country (and, to boot, with Islam as the official state religion)?

To establish a Muslim-dominant nation, where the population could feel safe and in charge rather than living as a potentially vulnerable minority in a Hindu-majority country.

The price of that partition was immense in terms of fatalities and refugees on both sides. But it succeeded in crafting a two-state solution, which eventually became a three-state solution when East Pakistan broke away and became independent Bangladesh.

The lessons in South Asia are applicable in the Arab-Israeli context, though Mamdani is hardly likely to cite them.

No, let’s face it, Mamdani is the real deal. He despises Israel, detests Zionism, and embraces the hardcore Palestinian movement, including the frenzied protests and encampments, none of which, incidentally, call for a peaceful two-state solution, far from it.

That’s who he is. Some Jews may still live in la-la land and pretend otherwise. And some bizarrely voted for him and continue to stand by his side. They reject Israel and Zionism as if these were disposable parts of Jewish history and identity. In doing so, they serve as useful props, as we have seen before in history, to try to shield the mayor from charges of antisemitism.

It’s a cautionary tale of how quickly a political situation can change. Since 1948, the year of Israel’s rebirth, New York’s mayors have all stood, proudly and loudly, in support of the unique links between the city and Israel. No more.

In three-and-a-half years, New Yorkers will go back to the polls to vote for mayor. Will the 2025 election result prove to be a one-time anomaly or a terrifying new trend?

In 2029, we will have the answer.


Caught on Camera: Transgender Anti-Israel Rabbi and Congressional Hopeful Brad Lander Among Small Crowd of Far-Left Jews To Attend Mamdani's Embattled Shavuot Party
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) celebrated the Jewish holiday of Shavuot at Gracie Mansion on Monday evening with a bevy of his progressive allies, including anti-Israel Jews such as congressional hopeful Brad Lander and the transgender rabbi who once held an interfaith dialogue meeting with the president of Iran.

The already controversial event became even more so after Mamdani sent a tweet on Friday, just as the Jewish sabbath was about to begin, marking the "Nakba," a commemoration of when some Palestinians were allegedly displaced in 1948. Mamdani did not acknowledge Israeli Independence Day last month. The Shavuot event, billed as a celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month, appeared to be Mamdani's alternative to celebrating Israel.

Word went out over the weekend in Jewish New York City circles not to attend the event. Influential Jewish groups, such as the UJA-Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council, urged Jews to boycott it.

That didn't stop Lander, who arrived an hour late from the event's 5:30 p.m. start time and zipped into the ceremony without taking questions. He later exited the event on a Citi Bike—again dodging questions.

Lander, a one-time mayoral rival, is now a close ally of Mamdani. He is making a strong primary challenge to Rep. Dan Goldman, a more pro-Israel congressman representing parts of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.

The longtime progressive pol—who has falsely accused Israel of genocide—was joined inside the historic home on Manhattan's East End Avenue by other prominent far-left Jews, including city councilmen Lincoln Restler and Harvey Epstein and former Manhattan Borough president Ruth Messinger.


McMorrow walks the line on Israel, floats Iron Dome for Palestinians
In the tight Michigan Senate race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow has tried to present herself as a middle-of-the-road Democrat, ideologically situated between Abdul El-Sayed, an anti-Israel progressive, and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who has been endorsed by AIPAC.

In a recent interview with leftist podcasters Matt Bernstein and Emma Vigeland, McMorrow continued to position herself as an objective observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and said it’s worth discussing whether the Palestinians should also have access to the Israeli-developed Iron Dome missile-defense technology, which the U.S. partially funds for Israel.

Bernstein, the host of the queer political podcast “A Bit Fruity,” questioned McMorrow about why she supports Israel’s access to the life-saving Iron Dome systems, arguing that it empowers Israel to attack Palestinians without risk of harm to its own population, which is protected by the systems.

While highly effective, the Iron Dome does not provide complete protection and Israelis have continued to be killed and wounded throughout the conflict.

“I don’t think anybody should live in fear of being bombed or killed. I would look at: How do we support defensive systems for Palestinians? How would we support defensive systems for Lebanese?” McMorrow said. When Vigeland sarcastically asked if the Palestinians should get their own Iron Dome, McMorrow said maybe.

“Let’s talk about that as a conversation,” McMorrow said. “I mean, the horror of living in fear of being bombed constantly. Let’s work with the outcome of how do we end the violence, period?

Then backing away from that, how do we protect people?”

She added that she wants to get to a place where Iron Dome systems are “not needed, period, for anybody.”
Talarico won’t campaign with Democratic House candidate who wants to open ‘a prison for American Zionists’
Maureen Galindo, the housing activist and conspiracy theorist whose rants about “billionaire Zionists” have defined her pursuit of a U.S. House seat in Texas, is within spitting distance of winning a Democratic runoff in a competitive San Antonio-area district.

But if Galindo becomes the nominee, she’ll be without the support of the state’s most prominent Democrat: U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico.

“This antisemitic rhetoric has no place in our politics. We need leadership in both parties willing to stand up and call out hate wherever it rears its ugly head,” the Texas state representative, whose own surging campaign has garnered national attention, said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency when asked about Galindo.

Talarico’s campaign confirmed to JTA that he would not campaign with Galindo if she wins her May 26 runoff, in a district Democrats are hoping to flip following Republican-led redistricting in the state.

Talarico, a pastor, has sought to carve out a lane for himself as a religious progressive. While his interactions with the Jewish community have been minimal, his rejection of Galindo comes after he swore off support from pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and expressed criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It was a forceful rebuke of an outsider candidate who has quickly personified an extreme in antisemitic rhetoric among Democrats as the party, caught up in hopes for a “blue wave” in the midterms, is also facing a delicate moment in its relationship with Jews.


Attorney plans to testify before House panel that healthcare unions are making hostile work conditions for Jews, Israelis
Deena Margolies, staff litigation attorney at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, plans to testify before the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday that some healthcare unions have engaged in “antisemitic and anti-Zionist campaigns.”

“There’s a real problem with antisemitism in healthcare,” she told JNS on Tuesday. “It doesn’t just stop with one union. It doesn’t just stop with one doctor. It starts to then become normalized.”

Margolies is one of four scheduled to testify at the hearing, titled Bad Medicine: Politics, Unions, and Antisemitism in Health Care. The cardiology fellow Dr. Jacob Agronin, Bend the Arc chief executive officer Jamie Beran and Eveline Shekhman, CEO of the American Jewish Medical Association, are also slated to address the subcommittee.

Bend the Arc is a progressive Jewish organization that is anti-Israel.

Healthcare unions that engage in antisemitic and anti-Israel campaigns affect patient care, according to Margolies.

“When you’re in an examination room, when you’re getting surgery or at a hospital, you’re feeling vulnerable. You don’t really want to come in and be faced with politics,” she told JNS. “It has no place there.”

One of the examples in the written testimony that Margolies plans to give, which she shared with JNS, is the Service Employees International Union affiliate, the Committee of Interns and Residents.

The behavior of union representatives at the affiliate, which represents more than 40,000 resident physicians and fellows, is “encouraging coworkers to ostracize Jewish and Israeli doctors because of their perceived Zionist identity and support for Israel,” per the prepared testimony.
Yale Gives Honorary Degree to Canadian Anti-Israel ‘Activist’ Who Left Catholicism for Islam
Yale University on Monday bestowed an honorary degree on a Canadian anti-Israel activist, Ingrid Mattson, who in June 2025 signed a letter to the Canadian prime minister falsely accusing Israel of "genocide" in Gaza and calling on Canada to impose extensive sanctions on Israel. In 2024 she also signed another letter saying Canada should arrest leaders of the Israeli government "should any suspects arrive on Canadian territory."

The 2025 letter also calls for investigations into Canadian nonprofits, part of a demonization and harassment campaign against Jewish summer camps that employ Israeli counselors. It calls for an arms embargo against Israel at a moment when Israel was facing threats from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthi terrorists dedicated to its destruction. It calls for an end to a Canada-Israel trade agreement and for unspecified sanctions against Israeli politicians.

In honoring Mattson, who converted to Islam from Catholicism, Yale’s president, Maurie McInnis, described her as a "bridge builder, and champion of peace." McInnis praised her "integrity" and "wisdom." McInnis addressed Mattson directly, according to the Yale website, saying, "Compassionate and powerful force for good in a troubled world, Yale wishes you a thousand blessings as it honors you with the degree of Doctor of Divinity."

The biography of Mattson on the Yale website describes her as a "distinguished Canadian scholar, activist, and former president of the Islamic Society of North America."

As president of the Islamic Society of North America from 2006 to 2010, Mattson launched a dialogue with a Reform Jewish group. Yet after October 7, 2023, she has taken a more publicly strident anti-Israel position.

The June 9, 2025 letter she signs refers to "the Occupied Palestinian Territory including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Israel." It calls for "sanctions against key Israeli government officials suspected of responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defence Israel Katz, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich." It calls on Prime Minister Carney to "withdraw from the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement." It demands that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police "launch investigations into allegations that Canadian citizens and organizations incorporated in and based in Canada have committed, or aided and abetted the commission of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity in Israel or Palestine, including while serving with the Israel Defense Forces, with the specific aim of prosecuting alleged perpetrators."


Board of Peace asks UN members to pressure Hamas to disarm, deliver more funding for Gaza
The Board of Peace, chaired by U.S. President Donald Trump, wants the U.N. Security Council to pressure Hamas to disarm, according to a report of its activities viewed by JNS.

That report was delivered to the United Nations on May 15 and is set to be made public on Wednesday. It is slated to be discussed on Thursday during a U.N. Security Council meeting.

Through a resolution passed last November, the Security Council gave force to Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Israel and Hamas, and the proposed groundwork for Gaza’s future governance and recovery.

The Board of Peace cites Hamas’s refusal to disarm, as called for in the plan, as “the principal obstacle to full implementation” of the ceasefire, criticizing its “refusal to accept verified decommissioning, relinquish coercive control and permit a genuine civilian transition in Gaza.”

Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s high representative for Gaza, testified to the council last week that the terror group’s obstinacy is paralyzing progress.

Disarmament is supposed to go hand-in-hand with a phased withdrawal from Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces and the entry of a board-backed transitional Palestinian governing body, which has been stuck operating from Cairo and “has not yet been able to enter Gaza in areas that remain under Hamas armed control.”

Instead, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza has spent the reporting period “preparing the technical foundations of the transition, including the development of the legal, financial and administrative architecture of transitional administration, setting standards for senior civil servants, personnel procedures and building partnerships.”

Meanwhile, training for a Gazan police force “is ready to commence,” with Egypt “as the lead training partner,” the board says.
The New Equation Against Hamas
The elimination of Hamas military leader Izz al-Din al-Haddad is a move with profound strategic significance. Al-Haddad, one of the most hardline and extremist voices within Hamas, strongly opposed any framework that included the organization's disarmament or the establishment of an alternative governing authority. Removing him from the equation weakens the uncompromising camp within Hamas and could create new, more favorable conditions for negotiations. Israel's message is clear: those who reject all compromise and glorify a perpetual war of attrition are not immune.

In the Middle East, weakness is perceived as an invitation to aggression. When Israel makes clear that everyone involved in planning, murdering, and kidnapping will pay a personal price, it strengthens its ability to survive in a hostile region.

Targeted killings alone cannot defeat Hamas unless they are integrated into a broader strategic framework. Eliminating the organization's veteran command structure forces Hamas to hand the reins to a younger, less experienced, and less authoritative generation, leading to operational erosion. However, this is only half of the equation. To bring about the complete collapse of Hamas and prevent its rehabilitation, Israel must immediately implement a comprehensive operational strategy.

First, Israel must make clear that every day Hamas refuses to disarm is another day in which it loses territory for an indefinite period.

Second, a new and far stricter political-security framework must be established with Cairo concerning the management of the Rafah crossing, in order to completely block Hamas's lifeline, prevent large-scale weapons smuggling, and deny the organization control over the movement of people and goods along the southern border.

Third, a dedicated mechanism, entirely separate from Hamas, must be created immediately to manage, distribute, and process humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Hamas's control over food and supplies is the oxygen sustaining its rule.

Fourth, a strict and clearly defined timetable must be set for the full disarmament of Hamas by the end of the year. No Hamas operative may be integrated into future security mechanisms, civilian administration, or governing institutions in Gaza.
Hamas's Internal Cracks Are Becoming Impossible for Gazans to Ignore
After the recent killing of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, commander of Hamas forces in Gaza, what drew attention inside Gaza was the silence that followed.

In previous years, funerals of senior Hamas commanders often turned into massive public displays of loyalty and defiance.

Many Gazans noticed that this time, the turnout appeared smaller, public enthusiasm seemed weaker, and social media reactions revealed exhaustion and indifference.

Some of these reactions appeared to come from individuals previously associated with Hamas's own social environment. Many revived old conversations about internal rivalries, repression, and the atmosphere of fear that has shaped life in Gaza for years.

After years of war, blockade, displacement, and economic collapse, priorities have changed for many Gazans.

People increasingly want electricity, safety, freedom of movement, jobs, and education more than revolutionary slogans.

Today in Gaza, many residents no longer feel genuinely represented by any political faction. Even those who do have become more willing to criticize their own leaders openly or indirectly, especially after the recent war.

I still remember meeting Haddad in Jabalia after the "We Want to Live" protests. He told me then: "You want to overthrow a movement blessed by God?" I replied: "If the results of your rule were truly a blessing, people would already be thanking God for them."
Nearly 80% of Gazans open to emigrating from Strip, COGAT survey finds
Nearly 80% of Gazans are interested in emigrating from the Gaza Strip, according to a recent survey the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) shared with senior Israeli officials.

The findings, seen by The Jerusalem Post, underscore growing frustration among Gaza’s civilian population as Hamas continues to refuse to disarm - a key condition in the plan presented by US President Donald Trump and a central element in efforts toward postwar reconstruction.

As part of the survey conducted by COGAT, respondents were asked which issues they would like “additional information about for the Palestinian public.”

Nearly 80% said they were interested in receiving information about mechanisms for relocating to a third country through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings. Another 17.5% sought additional information about food supplies and humanitarian aid, while only around 2.5% expressed interest in medical humanitarian issues.

Israeli officials viewed the findings as evidence that a substantial portion of Gaza’s population is focused primarily on opportunities to leave the territory, as prospects for reconstruction and long-term change remain remote.

Since the war began following the October 7 massacre, more than 44,000 Gazans - including medical patients and individuals holding visas for third countries - have exited the Strip through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings. Approximately 2,500 departed through Rafah after the crossing reopened in February under the ceasefire arrangement.

Some Israeli officials believe the true number of Gazans interested in leaving may be significantly higher.


Man aged 18 charged after video clip calling for Jews to be ‘beheaded’ sparks outrage online
Police have arrested and charged an 18-year-old after a video purporting to show antisemitic abuse in east London went viral and sparked widespread outrage online.

The footage, filmed on Whitechapel Road in Tower Hamlets on Friday and viewed thousands of times on social media, appeared to show a man shouting: “Free Palestine…from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” before adding: “You Jews…are gonna get beheaded one by one, you dirty Jews.”

The Metropolitan Police said officers arrested Mohamed Sibous, of Schoolhouse Lane in Limehouse, on Monday. He has since been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence and was due to appear at Thames Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

In an earlier statement, the Met said the 18-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of “using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of immediate unlawful violence”.

Police added: “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.”

The Jewish volunteer security group Shomrim said it was “aware of the horrific video” and warned that the Orthodox Jewish community was “exceptionally concerned” by the threats. The organisation said it was working closely with police over the incident.


Antisemitic ‘No Deel ZOG’ graffiti appears near Emirates Stadium after Arsenal sponsor announcement
Antisemitic graffiti referencing Arsenal’s new Israeli co-founded shirt sponsor has appeared near the Emirates Stadium on Monday night following the club’s 1-0 Premier League victory over Burnley.

The words “NO DEEL ZOG” were spray-painted inside a pedestrian railway tunnel near Benwell Road, close to the north London stadium. Images shared online showed the slogan written in large black lettering on the tunnel wall.

The graffiti appeared days after Arsenal confirmed that global payroll company Deel would become the club’s official shirt sleeve sponsor from the 2026/27 season.

Deel was co-founded in 2019 by French-Israeli entrepreneur Alex Bouaziz and Chinese-born entrepreneur Shuo Wang. Bouaziz, who grew up between Paris and Tel Aviv and is now based in Israel, has become one of the most prominent Israeli figures in global tech following the company’s rapid expansion. Arsenal commercial chief Juliet Slot with Deel co-founders Shuo Wang (left) and Alex Bouaziz at the Emirates Stadium following the sponsorship announcement. Photo: Arsenal FC/Deel

The term “ZOG” stands for “Zionist Occupied Government” – an antisemitic conspiracy theory commonly used by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The phrase falsely claims that Jewish people secretly control governments and institutions.

Arsenal announced the expanded Deel partnership last week, confirming the company’s logo would appear on the left sleeve of the club’s home, away and third kits from next season.
Israeli AI firm Decart raises $300 million at $4 billion valuation
Israel-based artificial intelligence company Decart has raised $300 million in a funding round valuing the firm at $4 billion, the company announced Monday.

The round was led by Radical Ventures and included participation from Nvidia, alongside investors such as eBay Ventures, Adobe Ventures and Toyota Ventures. Amazon also joined as a strategic customer.

Private investors include OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and other global tech and business figures.

“NVIDIA. Amazon. OpenAI’s Andrej Karpathy. They’re all backing Israeli AI unicorn Decart,” Israel’s official X account run by the Foreign Ministry wrote. “Decart is building the future of real-time AI and world models, another example of Israeli innovation shaping the future of technology.”

Decart, based in Tel Aviv and founded in 2023 by former Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 veterans Dean Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, develops infrastructure for real-time generative video and interactive AI systems.


Somaliland to establish embassy in Jerusalem
The Republic of Somaliland will establish an embassy in Jerusalem, according to Somaliland ambassador to Israel Mohamed Hagi.

“I am pleased to announce that the Republic of Somaliland’s Embassy will be located in Jerusalem,” Hagi stated. “The embassy will be opened soon, while Israel will also establish its embassy in Hargeisa, reflecting growing friendship, mutual respect, and strategic cooperation between our two peoples.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomed the move, thanking Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi for the decision.

“The opening of the embassy in Jerusalem will be another significant step in strengthening relations between our countries and nations,” Sa’ar said, adding that the agreement would be implemented soon and noting that it would make Somaliland’s mission the eighth embassy in Jerusalem.

“Mr. President, we look forward to hosting you soon in Jerusalem, our eternal capital,” Sa’ar wrote.

The announcement followed Monday’s ceremony in which Israeli President Isaac Herzog received Hagi’s diplomatic credentials at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, formally accrediting Somaliland’s first ambassador to Israel.





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