Thursday, June 11, 2026

06/10 Links Pt2: Why is Zack Polanski championing a convicted terrorist?; Trump welcomes freed Hamas hostage Rom Braslavski to WH; Gwyneth Paltrow receives online hate for Israel commercial

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: Why is Zack Polanski championing a convicted terrorist?
Defiant to the last, Barghouti twisted the emotional knife by informing the court that he stood for peace and liberty and describing himself as a freedom fighter. The judge sternly pointed out: ‘A soldier does not kill civilians with bombs and kill children.’

To compare the Palestinian killer to Nelson Mandela, in other words, is a grave disservice to the South African leader. Nevertheless, Barghouti is undoubtedly an interesting character. He was never a raving jihadi like the late Yahya Sinwar or Mohammed Deif of Hamas. He is a nationalist rather than an Islamist. He began his political life in the 1990s as a relatively pragmatic Palestinian leader who supported peace in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank.

However, that had changed by the time of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when 140 suicide bombs killed more than 1,000 Israelis – some of them schoolchildren on buses. Barghouti was often spotted on street corners in Ramallah during disturbances, issuing orders by phone, earning him the nickname ‘Little Napoleon’. Then came the evidence connecting him to murders.

Barghouti knows how to play a Western audience. Even in 2002, while directing savagery against innocent civilians, he struck a relatively moderate tone in English. In a column for the Washington Post, he wrote: ‘while I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbour, I reserve the right to protect myself… and to fight for my freedom.’

What to make of all this? Here’s my take. Like other performative Palestinian firebrands, Barghouti knows that doe-eyed Western activists and journalists want to believe that he is a saint. So deep-rooted is hatred of Israel that liberals will lap up the most blatant lies and false comparisons, just to confect a Palestinian hero where they are otherwise lacking. Barghouti knows this; I know this; chances are, reader, that you know this. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the gullible left. Which brings us back to Zack Polanski.

Look, I get it. It must be frustrating to support a cause that has nothing to show for itself in terms of democracy, human rights, respect for women and minorities, the protection of homosexuals and the rejection of terror. To take as your tribune a people who spit upon all your values is a tricky position to maintain. But don’t expect the rest of us to join you in your circle jerk. Wishful thinking, in other words, does not a freedom-fighter make.
Harry LaForme: I stood on my ancestral land and said what Carney would not
On June 6, I stood before Toronto’s Jewish community on the treaty lands of my ancestors. Days earlier, Prime Minister Mark Carney had stood at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple and acknowledged a painful truth: Canada is failing its Jewish citizens. He recognized that antisemitism has reached levels unseen in generations. He acknowledged that Jewish Canadians are disproportionately targeted by hate. He acknowledged the fear felt by families whose schools, synagogues, businesses and communities have become targets. He named the statistics. He named the suffering. But he did not name the ideology driving it.

So, I will. I stand before you on the land of my ancestors to say what the prime minister should have said: “Anti-Zionism is a libel-driven hate movement that incites violence and the targeting, exclusion, and marginalization of Jews in the diaspora and has as its ultimate goal wiping Israel off the face of Mother Earth and the death of all beings within it.”

There. That is what should have been said, and now it has.

For Indigenous peoples, this moment feels painfully familiar. We know what happens when governments speak of reconciliation while avoiding uncomfortable truths. We know what happens when institutions choose carefully crafted language instead of moral courage.

Canada’s Jewish community does not need another expression of concern. It needs honesty. And honesty begins by confronting the lie at the centre of this moment: the claim that Israel is a colonial project and Zionism is a movement of oppression.

As an Anishinaabe man, a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and someone who spent almost 25 years as a judge interpreting the laws of this country, let me be clear — Canada is a colonial country. Israel is not.

Indigenous peoples know colonialism because we lived it. Colonialism means language suppression. It means forced religious conversion. It means population displacement, foreign governance, economic exploitation, imposed legal hierarchies and cultural erasure. Canada’s Indigenous peoples experienced these things. The Jewish people experienced these things. They do not describe Israel.

For thousands of years, Jewish identity has been tied to the land of Israel through language, culture, law, religion, traditions and collective memory. The Jewish connection to Jerusalem did not begin in 1948. It survived despite conquest, exile, persecution and genocide.
Why pro-Israel educators should teach the Nakba
In the charged classrooms where young Zionists form their understanding of Israel, one question now demands courage: Should we teach the Nakba?

The answer is yes. Not because the Palestinian narrative is true, but precisely because it is not. When we confront the events of 1948 with honesty, acknowledging real pain while refusing to distort the moral record, we strengthen the next generation rather than shield it.

The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” refers to the displacement of roughly 700,000 Arabs during Israel’s War of Independence. Anti-Israel voices present this as the inevitable result of Zionist aggression: a premeditated ethnic cleansing that stains Israel’s birth. That version is false. The truth is more complex, more human, and far more defensible.

In 1947, the Jewish leadership accepted the UN Partition Plan, despite its painful compromises. Arab leaders rejected it outright and launched a war of annihilation. If there had been no war, there would have been no displacement.

Once the fighting began, Arabs fled for three primary reasons. The majority left out of fear, as battle lines shifted; many departed on the explicit advice or orders of local Arab leaders, who cleared villages so their armies could operate freely; and in a smaller number of cases, Israeli forces expelled populations from strategic areas during active combat.

These were wartime decisions, not a systematic policy of expulsion. Historians who have examined the records closely, including Benny Morris in his early work, confirm that the overwhelming majority of departures occurred before major Israeli offensives, and often preceded them.


Hen Mazzig: The Loudest Silenced People in the World
I want to be fair to her. She may actually believe that she is taking a risk. But a blacklist you can describe from a stage at Cannes, to a room of journalists who will quote you admiringly, is not a blacklist. The Hollywood Ten could not publish essays about being blacklisted. That was the entire point of the thing. The test of silence is whether you can still be heard, and every name on this list is heard constantly, by millions, with a publicist setting it up.

There is an actual, organized refusal-to-work list in film right now. It is called Film Workers for Palestine, and more than five thousand people have signed it, pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions they accuse of complicity in Gaza. Javier Bardem signed it. The man named at Cannes as a victim of blacklisting helped build one. The targets are Israelis and Zionist Jews.

The people who took a real risk in that room were the ones who refused. Debra Messing and Mayim Bialik put their names to a letter calling the boycott what it is, and got called McCarthyists for objecting to McCarthyism. They are not on Hollywood’s magazine covers for it.

And then there is the kind of silence that does not come with a profile.

On a Sunday last June, a group of mostly older people walked through Boulder, Colorado, the way they did every week, carrying signs for the hostages still held in Gaza. A man threw firebombs into them while shouting, “Free Palestine!” He told police he wanted to kill every Zionist there. A dozen people were injured, the oldest in their eighties. One woman later died of her burns.

A few weeks before Boulder, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot dead as they left a museum in Washington. The man who did it chanted the same words.

Those people were criticizing nothing. They stood in public as Jews who would not disown Israel, and that was enough. None of them will be asked by a magazine how it feels to be silenced. They already have been, in the older sense of the word.

So here is where I land. I criticize Israel constantly, and the sky stays up. The settlements and the men running the war are fair game, and saying so has never once cost me the thing these people insist it costs. Being argued with is not being silenced.

There is a harder question under all of this, and I think we keep avoiding it because the answer stings. You would believe every word of this if it were any other group. If a minority said its elderly were being burned at a weekly vigil and its kids shot leaving a museum, the response would be grief and alarm. When Jews say it, the response is a request to see our work. We are asked to prove that we are not exaggerating and that the dead were killed for the reason we name. I just spent this whole essay doing that. For any other group, the dead would have been enough.

The ones who say they cannot criticize Israel are speaking from the loudest rooms we have. The ones who truly cannot speak are the people who were set on fire for showing up. One of those groups is on a stage at Cannes. The other is in the ground.
I was betrayed by Hollywood for speaking out after October 7, says Will & Grace star Debra Messing
Will & Grace star Debra Messing has revealed she felt “betrayed” by Hollywood after the October 7 attacks.

The award-winning actress said she was alienated and “abandoned” by showbusiness friends for speaking out about the massacre and raising awareness of the hostages’ plight.

Messing admitted: "I expected the entire globe to mourn with us", especially her "Hollywood community".

"My entire career I have been part of this very liberal, inclusive community, and so I thought, 'All right, I'm just gonna be one little voice in this cacophonous call for empathy and legitimacy for the Jewish people'," she said.

However, she recalled: "No one stepped forward. I remember just being so shocked and, of course, angry."

Messing, who is Jewish, was "stunned" that friends in the industry did not come out and call for the release of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas, despite the fact that some were "mothers and babies and children".

“I was so stunned. How can anyone defend not speaking out for these hostages? I was disgusted, honestly.”

Speaking at a Sydney event hosted by Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA), she told Sky News Australia's Sharri Markson: "I feel like my life is everything before October 7 and then everything after. I will never be that person again."

She added: "I felt betrayed, I felt abandoned, I felt maligned. I felt like I was completely alone.

"I lost so many friends, and I know so many Jews who have had the same experience."

The reaction to her vocal support for fellow Jews was "the hardest thing that I've ever experienced in my life,” she said.
Gwyneth Paltrow receives online hate for Israel commercial
Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow has been mocked in the past for Goop, her New Age wellness site, but that’s nothing compared to the backlash she is facing for becoming the face of 51 Park, a luxury building project in Israel.

Paltrow, who grew up in an interfaith Jewish-Christian family, appears in a commercial that started airing in Israel recently for 51 Park, a luxury housing project in Herzliya.

The commercial shows her waking up in her New York apartment, where she wonders, “Who decided mornings should be so early?” and bemoans the fact that “Even my coffee needs a coffee” before going out for a run in nearby Central Park. While it’s “brutal” for her to start her morning run, she says that, “Once I hit the park, pure energy takes over,” and notes that, “There’s a reason the world’s most iconic buildings are by a park.”

Coming out of her building dressed in a chic white suit, she tells a waiting driver to take her to “51 Park.” He asks, “New York?” and she replies, smiling, “Herzliya, Israel.” A voiceover lists the features of the two-tower development, which will be 51 stories tall and located right next to Herzliya Park.

Paltrow accused of supporting genocide for taking commercial job
Paltrow began to receive online hate after the commercial aired. Most accused her of supporting genocide, and many said she deserved to be beaten, and worse.

“Gwyneth Paltrow promotes $10M penthouses in Herzliya while Gaza burns and Lebanon bleeds,” one user wrote, while another, referencing Paltrow’s phrasing in the announcement of her divorce from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, said she was “consciously uncoupled from morality.”

Another X user wrote: "Something deeply unspeakably sinister about this thin, wealthy, white woman looking for any possible opportunity to collaborate with a state committing genocide across at least two states,” and others criticized her supposed $10 million contract for the commercial.

Paltrow, who is active on Instagram, did not post the commercial, but many of the comments on her recent posts reiterate these accusations, calling her such epithets as “Genocide Queen.”

Others praised her for her support for Israel and for “being on the right side of history.”


Hundreds of filmmakers back Nadav Lapid after boycott campaign forces festival withdrawal
More than 350 actors, directors and producers have signed an open letter supporting Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid after he withdrew from a French film festival following a campaign against his participation.

The award-winning director was due to serve on the jury at the FID Marseille International Film Festival next month.

However, according to reports in French newspaper Le Monde, several pro-Palestinian filmmakers threatened to withdraw their work from the festival if Lapid took part, leading him to pull out.

Among those backing Lapid are Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Triet and Emilia Pérez filmmaker Jacques Audiard. Natalie Portman

In a letter published by Le Monde, the signatories described the boycott of Lapid as “an intellectual failure” and argued that artists should not be held responsible for the actions of governments they often publicly oppose.

They wrote that “Russian, Israeli, and Iranian filmmakers should not be threatened with being erased as a form of atonement for crimes committed by governments of which they are often the most ardent critics.”

The letter described Lapid as “the greatest Israeli dissident artist, working tirelessly to denounce the fascist and colonialist excesses of his government, its criminal moral failures, in films that have won awards all over the world”.

It added: “Nothing justifies the cancellation of an artist’s voice.”

A second statement, also published by Le Monde and signed by filmmakers and producers who have worked with Lapid, challenged the idea that inviting an Israeli filmmaker to a festival amounts to endorsing the Israeli state.

“Inviting an artist to a festival is not about elevating him to the status of a cultural ambassador, but about recognising a body of work, a career, and a cinematic vision,” the statement said.


Why don’t you agree with William Dalrymple?
What an amusing shtick! Read one interview with Dalrymple. He doesn’t even try to hide the falseness of it all. ‘As opposed to going to do the shopping, picking up kids from school,’ he told the Indian Telegraph in 2017, ‘Indian middle-class life allows you to send the driver to do one, the cook to do the other… and that means you can get a lot more done, frankly!’ In India, he said, he can lead ‘a bigger life’. It’s like being taught about the history of racism by a man dressed as a golliwog. It’s like being taught about the history of racism by a man dressed as a golliwog

For a certain audience, such inconsistencies don’t matter. The crowd at the Palestine Project conference was full of other enlighteneds – not only men who had the right opinion about Israel/Palestine, but about Brexit too. Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general who led the campaign for a second Brexit referendum, was in the theatre listening to Dalrymple, and so was Tom Brake, a former Liberal Democrat MP who was another ‘People’s Vote’ backer. Dalrymple, naturally, is also anti-Brexit. In 2019, he wrote a ‘love letter to Europe’ for the Scotsman (‘we gaze towards you, longingly…’) and moaned to the Evening Standard, presciently, to be fair, about the potential for long airport queues: ‘I’m going to be with the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis and the Afghans trying to fight their way into Europe.’

What joins the two, not obviously linked opinions of anti-Brexitism and anti-Israelism in Dalrymple’s head seems to be that people who don’t hold them are idiots. ‘I don’t think it’s through outright malice [that Britain still deals with Netanyahu’s government]’, Dalrymple said yesterday. ‘I believe that this profound moral failure is more a failure of education, a failure of knowledge’. In his Scotsman letter about Brexit, he said that ‘Little Britain Brexiteers’ did not ‘know’ what they were doing.

These idiots, of course, are meant to be shouted at, and Dalrymple’s favourite place to do this is on Twitter, the natural home of well-intentioned discussion (where he just happens to have 1.2 million followers watching). Earlier this week, Dalrymple went for Adam Parsons, Sky News’ Middle East correspondent. Adam’s crime was not using the word ‘ethnic cleansing’ in a report about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. On Israel’s orders, people have evacuated large areas of southern Lebanon, and villages have been destroyed.

It’s usually for governments, academics and NGOs who determine whether a certain military action meets the definition of ethnic cleansing, and for Adam, presumably, to then report this news. This is not enough for Willie: ‘I can’t see you how you [sic] can possibly avoid using the term ethnic cleansing, without losing your last remaining shreds of integrity as a journalist, Adam.’ In Britain, broadcast journalists do not typically decree that war crimes have been committed. And neither should historians who live in sprawling compounds with staff.
Citizen McCain with Meghan McCain: Huckabee Reflects on HEATED Tucker Carlson Israel Interview: "Not the Person I Knew"
Ambassador Mike Huckabee joins Meghan McCain to reflect on his controversial sit-down with Tucker Carlson in Israel and push back on Carlson’s claims about the trip. In this Citizen McCain clip, Huckabee says Tucker has become “irrational,” calls his airport story “utter nonsense,” and explains why supporting Israel does not make someone any less loyal to the United States. Meghan and Huckabee also discuss the viral “my flag” exchange, what Zionism actually means, and why Huckabee believes the debate over Israel has become deeply distorted on both the right and the left.




The Free Press: Confessions of a Former Jihadist
Mubin Shaikh grew up in Toronto, in a devout Muslim family, caught between two worlds he couldn’t reconcile. By day, he was a public school kid with non-Muslim friends, playing sports and going to parties. At night, he sat in Quran class, where he was beaten with a stick for mispronouncing Arabic words. The identity crisis that built slowly through his childhood came to a head at 19, sending him on a four-month trip to India and Pakistan—and leading to a chance encounter with the Taliban.

They had AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and belts of ammunition piled at their feet. When Shaikh gave them his rehearsed religious pitch—that success in this life and the next came from following God’s commandments—one of them picked up his rifle and said: Success comes from this. In that moment, something that had been theoretical and abstract became viscerally, thrillingly real. Shaikh was captivated.

When he returned to Canada, he began recruiting young men into jihadist networks—targeting the isolated, the angry, the spiritually searching. He groomed some of them for foreign conflict zones. On the morning of September 11, 2001, driving to work in Toronto, he heard the news on the radio and his first instinct was to cheer.

Then something shifted.

Today, Mubin Shaikh is one of the world’s leading counterterrorism and de-radicalization experts, and has worked with Canadian intelligence services and with the U.S. State Department’s coalition against ISIS.

He now spends his days working for Parents for Peace, trying to pull young people back from the same edge he once stood on—including a 14-year-old autistic boy in Ohio who was plotting to behead a Jewish classmate, in a case I reported on earlier this month.

In this conversation, Shaikh is unflinching about what makes young people so susceptible to extremist ideologies. It isn’t, he argues, simply about religion. It’s about meaning, belonging, and identity—a hunger that transcends culture, nationality, and faith, and that radical ideology is uniquely engineered to satisfy.






Pair accused of chant threatening Jews at London anti-Israel protest appear in court
Two women charged with intending or likely to stir up racial hatred have appeared at Southwark Crown Court, with the prosecution accusing them of a chant that “in effect is a threat that Muslims will again kill Jewish people in the present day or in the new future.”

Hadjer Boumazouna 27, and Fatiha Boumazouna 53, both from Croydon, were arrested on 29 October 2023 after taking part in a march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign the previous day. They handed themselves in after the Metropolitan police issued an appeal for information about the pair on social media.

As reported by Court News UK, the pair appeared in court on Tuesday, with footage of the march in October 2023 being screened. The footage appears to show Fatiha chanting “Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yahud Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud”. The chant, which translates to “Khaybar Khaybar, oh Jews, the armies of Mohammed are coming”, is a reference to the 7th century battle of Khaybar, when Jewish tribes in Arabia were slaughtered by forces under Mohammed, the founder of Islam.

Brett Weaver, prosecuting, said the footage showed “these two defendants together in amongst protestors at the demonstration.

“Fatiha can be seen holding a megaphone and engaged in chanting, with her daughter behind her joining in.”

Weaver described the chant as being “in effect a threat that Muslims will again kill Jewish people in the present day or in the new future.”

Further footage screened in court, filmed by Hadjer, is believed to show her laughing while her mother chants.


Bipartisan bill would require colleges to investigate Jew-hatred complaints or risk losing federal funds
Bipartisan legislation introduced on Monday would require colleges and universities to adopt formal procedures for investigating antisemitism complaints and could strip federal funding from institutions that repeatedly fail to comply.

The Student Protection and University Accountability Act, HB 9203, introduced by Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.), would impose Title VI compliance requirements modeled in part on existing Title IX frameworks, including mandatory campus coordinators, standardized investigative procedures and enhanced federal oversight.

The bill was drafted with input from the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center and has been referred to the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Under the measure, schools that fail to meet the requirements for two consecutive years could lose eligibility for federal funding.
Justice Dept indicts eight tied to University of Michigan in alleged anti-Israel intimidation conspiracy
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that a federal grand jury indicted eight people affiliated with the University of Michigan for allegedly conspiring to threaten university officials, law enforcement officers, businesses and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit as part of a campaign tied to anti-Israel activism.

“In America, we rule by law, not by fear,” stated Jerome F. Gorgon Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. “These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice.”

According to the indictment, the alleged conspiracy began after Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and was driven by the defendants’ belief that the university and other targets financially supported Israel. Prosecutors said the group publicly called for supporters to “escalate, mobilize, and organize to demand divestment by any means necessary.”

The defendants allegedly used social media to demand that the university fully divest from Israel and companies doing business with the Jewish state. When university leaders did not meet those demands, prosecutors say the group escalated its activities, including occupying and vandalizing campus buildings, disrupting events and targeting the homes of university officials and an elected university regent.

Those charged are Zainab Aliasgar Hakim, Amatullah Aliasgar Hakim, Paige Elizabeth Feyock, Ahmet Kerem Korkaya, Jonathan Hongru Zou, Alexander Matthew Sepulveda, Mariam Muhammed Odeh and Colin Hunter Weger.

The indictment alleges that the defendants researched personal information about their targets online and “discussed methods by which to harm the targets and their families, including poison, bombs and psychological torture.” Feyock allegedly said one victim’s family was on a “hit list” and suggested targeting the children of two victims.
'I'm Gonna … Poison Her A— Slowly': University of Michigan Students and Graduates Charged by Feds With Violent, Anti-Israel Plot To Terrorize University, Jews
On May 21, 2024, Feyock, a UM medical researcher who graduated from elite Wellesley College and Korkaya, a medical student in Wisconsin, formulated plans to "'kill,' 'torment,' and 'terrorize' their targets and families," according to evidence presented by the Justice Department. "Referring to one victim, Korkaya stated his 'entire family' was on his 'hit list' [and] Feyock added that they should 'get' the 'kids' of two victims." Korkaya subsequently said of another listed target, "I'm gonna be the dirtiest f—g doctor ever / I'm gonna be [the victim's] doctor / poison her a— slowly." Feyock agreed with this plan and added: "We need people following [the victim] / get into that house then burn it down."

Korkaya had the chemistry expertise to make good on his threat and allegedly aided in the creation of "noxious chemicals" that were used in the attacks on University of Michigan officials' homes. A public profile on the Medical College of Wisconsin's website says Korkaya received an MS in biomolecular science from Augusta University and a BS in biomedical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He worked as a researcher at the University of Michigan from 2023 to 2024, "screening small molecule inhibitors and degraders for therapeutic impact on various cancers."

The feds did not specify what chemicals were used.

Feyock, meanwhile, was a constant presence at anti-Israel demonstrations on the University of Michigan's campus. In November 2023, just a month after Hamas's attack, Feyock participated in the high-profile sit-in at the university's Ruthven Hall that prompted police intervention.

Feyock and Zainab Aliasgar Hakim are facing additional charges of witness intimidation that could carry up to 20 years in prison.

In July and August 2024, "Hakim and Feyock devised a plan to confront the victim, a University of Michigan student whom they believed may have been cooperating with federal authorities." Hakim allegedly "warned that the victim was 'going to send us to federal prison,'" prompting Feyock to respond, "We have to do something about [the victim] / [the victim] is actually a liability / the fact that [the victim] is naming you to [unindicted conspirator] is a major issue." She later told her conspirators that, along with Hakim, the duo would "strip search" the victim for a wire. After confronting the unidentified student, Feyock allegedly said the individual "knows not to talk."

Hakim, like Feyock and other conspirators, was a well-known anti-Israel agitator on campus. She completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan in 2024, obtaining a "Bachelor of Arts in History of Art, Women's and Gender Studies, and a minor in Islamic Studies," according to an April profile by the Polis Project, a magazine that "documents communities in resistance." Hakim was hired for a full-time job at the university in October 2024 but was fired earlier this year for her anti-Israel activities, with the university saying she violated its "Violence in the University Community" guidelines.


UC San Diego ‘deeply disappointed’ after anti-Israel graduation protest at medical school commencement
The University of California, San Diego said it is “deeply disappointed” after a graduating student unfurled a Palestinian flag emblazoned with the words “Divest from Death” during the School of Medicine’s commencement ceremony on May 31, a university spokesman told JNS.

Video of the incident, which circulated on anti-Israel social media accounts, shows the graduate displaying the flag, which also featured a red hand symbol, while onstage after posing for a commencement photograph.

The spokesman told JNS that the student’s actions “overshadowed” the commencement ceremony.

“The graduating student’s display included imagery that many people associate with antisemitism and that caused pain and concern for members of our community,” the spokesman said. “We regret that this occurred and want to be clear that the views expressed by an individual participant do not represent those of the university.”
‘I condemn Hamas for targeting innocent civilians’, Oxford Union president tells JC
The president of the Oxford Union has condemned Hamas in comments to the JC following an uproar over leaked messages in which she described the October 7 atrocities as “proportional” and suggested that terrorist groups were sometimes later “lauded as heroes”.

The leaked remarks by Arwa Elrayess, 20, a philosophy, politics and economics undergraduate, provoked outrage among some members of the debating society and prompted a motion of no confidence in her leadership last Thursday.

Proposing the motion, non-Jewish member Ben Ashworth asked Elrayess to explicitly condemn Hamas – which, he said, she failed to do at the time.

Speaking to the JC, however, Elrayess said: “I condemn Hamas' targeting of innocent civilians, just as I condemn the targeting of innocent civilians by the IDF or any other actor.

“I have consistently maintained this position.”

Speaking in the debating chamber, Ashworth also accused the president of conduct that contributed “to an atmosphere of harassment that is fundamentally incompatible with the inclusive environment this society must uphold”.

Elrayess said in her responses to the JC: “I have consistently advocated for open debate and dialogue. During my term as President, I deliberately platformed views that were fundamentally opposed to my own because I believe universities should be places where difficult and contested issues can be discussed openly, even when doing so carries personal and professional costs.”

The no-confidence motion later failed, gaining 116 signatures – 34 short of the 150 required.
Danish university condemns lecturer’s ‘death to IDF’ slide
The University of Copenhagen on Tuesday condemned the actions of an external associate lecturer who appeared to have a displayed an image with the text “death to the IDF” among the slides of a presentation he gave during a law faculty lecture.

“The University of Copenhagen wishes to clarify that it is unacceptable that the image in question appeared in connection with teaching without an educational context,” a university spokesperson wrote in a statement.

The university declined to answer the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s questions on the identity of the lecturer, which was not made known, citing privacy issues. It also would not say what disciplinary action, if any, would be taken against the lecturer in connection with the slide, which critics interpreted as a call for violence against Israel.

A picture of the slide appeared on Tuesday in the Danish media after it was given to lawmaker Christian Holst Vigilius of the Conservative People’s Party, who shared it online.

Two sources have identified the lecturer in question to JNS, but he did not reply to a request for comment by time of publication. JNS is withholding his name pending further confirmation.

Israel protested the slide, which repeated a slogan popularized last year by the musical duo Bob Vylan at a music festival in the United Kingdom, where thousands chanted it at the duo’s encouragement, as the BBC aired the event live.

“This is a completely unacceptable and deeply concerning behavior! We appreciate that the University of Copenhagen is taking the matter seriously, but we also expect the consequences to match the severity of the actions,” a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Denmark wrote on X.

“A person who incites or encourages violence should not be entrusted with a teaching position or have responsibility for instructing students, who at all times are entitled to a safe and respectful learning environment,” the spokesperson added.


Anonymous Sources, Viral Claims: How Weak Reporting Fueled a Narrative About Israeli Espionage
One of the most viral Israel-related stories to emerge over the weekend was a claim spread by NBC News and amplified by The New York Times: that Israel has intensified efforts to spy on senior Trump administration officials, particularly those involved in negotiations with Iran, and that concerns about Israeli espionage have been elevated within the U.S. Defense Department.

The story quickly spread from mainstream media into social media, where the usual cohort of anti-Israel accounts seized upon it as confirmation of long-held accusations about Israeli misconduct and duplicity.

The claim was circulated by figures across the American political spectrum, including Republican Representative Thomas Massie, AIPAC Tracker, conspiracy theorist Max Blumenthal, former Trump administration official Joe Kent, and anti-Zionist agitator Shaiel Ben-Ephraim.

But behind the headlines and salacious narrative, is there any evidence to actually support these allegations?

Depending on how one assesses the reporting, the story may amount to little more than unverified claims that have been spun into a major controversy for views.

The story was first broken by NBC News, which claimed that the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had recently raised the counterintelligence threat posed by Israel to its highest level amid concerns that Israel was seeking intelligence on U.S. officials involved in negotiations with Iran.

Such a serious allegation would ordinarily require substantial evidence.

Instead, NBC’s report relies primarily on claims made by three unnamed U.S. officials – two current officials and one former official.

According to the report, one of these officials said they had reviewed an internal seven-page DIA document that elevated the threat of Israeli espionage to a “critical” level.

That alleged document, which has not been made public, together with the testimony of anonymous sources, forms the core basis of NBC’s sensationalized reporting.

Notably, NBC also acknowledged that a White House official rejected the claims, calling them “false” and saying they were sourced to someone “who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on.”

Without additional corroborating evidence, the story ultimately rests on anonymous sourcing and an unseen intelligence assessment. Nevertheless, it was presented to readers as an “exclusive” factual story on a significant national security development.


EXCLUSIVE: Hamas Turns Gaza Hospitals and Schools Into Torture Chambers as It Reestablishes Police State: Gazans Describe Horrific Interrogations, Beatings
Hamas has built makeshift torture chambers inside Gazan hospitals and schools where its men are interrogating and abusing fellow Palestinians suspected of disloyalty. The reign of terror comes as Hamas moves aggressively to reassert its power over the Gaza Strip, according to video testimonials and official government documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

More than eight months after a fragile ceasefire with Israel left Hamas badly wounded, the terror group has largely turned inward, establishing a strict police state and moving internal security operations—its dreaded "Interior Ministry"—back into the same civilian outposts it commandeered to wage war on Israel. Eyewitness accounts from three Gazans reveal that Hamas has again laid claim to al-Shifa hospital, the Gaza Strip's largest medical complex, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, and the al-Ma'amadani Hospital in Gaza City. The terror group has done the same with schools across Gaza, turning classrooms into prisons and detention centers where civilians are often subjected to brutal beatings and more creative forms of torture.

"They have prisons inside the schools, rooms that function like prisons," recounted one Gazan activist who says he was abducted by Hamas and beaten for several days. "The same goes for hospitals. They have rooms underground in the basement that they use as a prison, as if they were military and security sites." At the Nasser Hospital, said a second Gazan woman, "inside the Hind al-Daghma Dialysis Center, people are beaten and shot in the legs. If they send someone to the renal department at Nasser, it basically means it's over."





Jonathan Schanzer, a veteran regional analyst and executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said it is no surprise that Hamas is again staking claim to Gaza's most important civilian centers.

"Hamas has always exploited the civilian infrastructure that it has wielded to deter Israel from attacking its military structures," he said. "The co-opting of institutions is a long-standing practice of this terrorist organization dating back to its very founding."


Former Taliban commander sentenced to 42 years for journalist kidnapping, deadly attacks on US troops
Haji Najibullah, a former Taliban commander, was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in the kidnapping of an American journalist and for supporting terrorist attacks that killed U.S. service members in Afghanistan.

Najibullah, 50, pleaded guilty in April 2025 to hostage-taking and providing material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death.

Federal prosecutors said Najibullah commanded Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province, west of Kabul, from 2007 to 2009. During that period, forces under his command carried out attacks against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops using improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and suicide bombers.

Prosecutors said Taliban fighters under Najibullah’s command ambushed a U.S. military convoy in Wardak on June 26, 2008, killing U.S. Army Sergeants First Class Matthew L. Hilton and Joseph A. McKay, Sgt. Mark Palmateer and their Afghan interpreter. Several other service members were wounded.

Najibullah also admitted participating in the November 2008 kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde, Afghan journalist Tahir Ludin and driver Asadullah Mangal. The three men were held captive for more than seven months in Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan before Rohde and Ludin escaped. Mangal was released shortly afterward.

The FBI arrested Najibullah in Ukraine in 2020, and he was extradited to the United States to face prosecution in the Southern District of New York.
Bondi terror attack suspect charged with 19 extra offences
The man accused of killing 15 people in a terror attack on a Jewish festival at Australia’s Bondi Beach has been formally charged with 19 additional offences.

Naveed Akram, 24, and his father, Sajid, allegedly opened fire at the Chanukah event at Archer Park in Sydney on December 14.

His father was shot dead at the scene by police.

The 19 fresh charges – 10 counts of shooting with intent to murder, three of causing wounding with intent to murder and discharging a firearm with intent to resist arrest – were confirmed at a court hearing in Sydney on Wednesday.

Akram, who is being held in a maximum security prison, has yet to enter a plea on those or the 59 initial charges, which include 15 counts of murder, 43 of attempted murder and one of committing a terrorist act.

A committal hearing was scheduled for August 12.

New South Wales Police alleged the father and son parked their vehicle near a footbridge overlooking Archer Park at Bondi on the evening of December 14 before opening fire.

The pair also allegedly threw improvised explosive devices into a group of people, although none detonated.


Crazed attacker gets sweetheart deal after yelling antisemitic slurs and pulling woman's hair on subway
A woman accused of shouting vile antisemitic slurs at a young woman on the New York City subway before ripping out the lady's hair received a relatively modest bail.

Diana Smith, 45, who was caught on camera committing part of the alleged hate crime on May 31, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of felony assault, harassment and criminal obstruction of breathing as a hate crime.

The Bronx native was known to police and had at least six encounters with law enforcement before the disturbing alleged attack, according to the New York Post.

She appeared for her hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court virtually from the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital.

Prosecutors had asked presiding Judge Dan Quart to issue Smith a $30,000 bond. The woman's defense attorney requested that she be released on her own recognizance because she had no money for bail.

The judge split the difference and gave Smith a $10,000 bond, the New York Post first reported.

Disturbing footage taken by Smith's alleged victim, a 23-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman from Montreal living in the Upper West Side, captured the terrifying ordeal that took place on a crowded subway car in Lower Manhattan.

The young woman, who asked not to be identified, had only been on the train car for one stop when Smith boarded around 2.15pm and almost immediately began accosting her, the victim told the Post.
Despite war, Israeli startups snag $8.6 billion, as strong shekel cuts cash runway
Investment in Israeli startups soared about 45 percent this year, despite a period of war and a fresh round of fighting with Iran, as the continued strength of the shekel poses a different kind of challenge to the local industry, according to a new report by Poalim Tech and Dealigence.

Israeli startups raised about $8.6 billion in the first five months of 2026, compared with roughly $6 billion in the same period last year, with the lion’s share of funding flowing to cybersecurity companies and AI startups, according to data collated in the report.

“The data shows that even though the conflict remains, funding is growing, including in March, in which Israel experienced a full-blown war with Iran and [$2.1 billion in] funding continued to flow into Israel,” Elad Har Zahav, head of business development at Poalim Tech, told The Times of Israel. “This has been the strongest half-year since 2021, and if the trend continues for the remainder of the year, it will be the strongest since 2020 and 2021.”

The Poalim Tech-Dealigence report about financial and workforce trends in the Israeli high-tech industry is based on a database of 1,685 startups with significant operations in Israel that employ 161,730 people.
Magen David Adom marks 96 years of saving lives in Israel
Magen David Adom marked its 96th anniversary this week with an emotional celebration honoring the patients, volunteers, blood donors and emergency responders whose stories have shaped Israel’s national emergency medical service.

Held at the organization’s national headquarters in Ramla, the event on Sunday evening brought together patients reunited with the teams that saved their lives, alongside volunteers, employees and longtime partners who have helped sustain MDA’s lifesaving mission.

Founded on June 7, 1930, by a group of physicians and community leaders in Tel Aviv, Magen David Adom has grown from a small local first-aid organization into Israel’s national emergency medical, blood and disaster-response service.

Today, it operates a nationwide network of tens of thousands of employees and volunteers, ambulances, mobile intensive care units, emergency motorcycles, helicopters, blood services and a 24/7 dispatch system serving millions of people across the country.

The anniversary celebration focused on the people behind MDA’s work, with patients sharing stories of survival and reunion with the emergency teams who treated them.

Among those recognized was 8-year-old Yosef Cohen of Asael, whose life was saved after MDA responders identified his severe headache as a life-threatening emergency and rushed him to the hospital, where doctors discovered a brain hemorrhage.
Breakthrough cancer treatment: stop tumor growth without drugs
An innovative technology developed by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology could lead to a fundamental shift in the cancer treatment paradigm. They created advanced nanoparticles that successfully halt aggressive triple-negative breast cancer tumors – without releasing a single drug molecule. The particles operate through a sophisticated interaction with the immune system, changing the rules of the game by delivering a biological message to the tumor microenvironment and to immune system cells.

Published in ACS Nano, the study was led by Ph.D. candidate Ofri Vizenblit, with the assistance of Ph.D. candidate Rawan Mhajne, under the supervision of Assistant Professor Assaf Zinger, head of the Bioinspired Nano Engineering and Translational Therapeutics Laboratory in the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering.

Triple-negative breast cancer is considered one of the most aggressive and difficult cancers to treat. It is characterized by rapid progression and high resistance to conventional therapies. The new paradigm change presented by Technion researchers is based on a revolutionary approach: instead of attacking the cancer cells themselves, it targets the environment in which they exist and develop.

Cancer cells employ a range of “strategies” to evade the immune system, which is supposed to identify and destroy them. One of the central strategies is recruiting immune cells to their side. In such cases, white blood cells known as macrophages –whose role is to protect the body – are “hijacked” by the tumor, support its growth, and prevent the immune system from attacking it effectively.


Israel congratulates Modi on becoming India’s longest-serving prime minister
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on becoming the country’s longest-serving premier, highlighting the growing ties between the two nations.

“India and Israel share a unique friendship that continues to grow stronger with each passing year,” the ministry said in a post on X, expressing hope for deeper bilateral cooperation under Modi’s continued leadership.

Separately, Israel’s ambassador to India, Reuven Azar, thanked Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh for attending Israel’s 78th Independence Day celebration, calling the countries’ “special strategic partnership” increasingly robust.

Singh, in his own remarks, reaffirmed India’s commitment to strengthening ties with Israel and advancing shared goals in areas including peace and innovation.


Trump welcomes freed Hamas hostage Rom Braslavski to White House
U.S. President Donald Trump met on Tuesday at the White House with former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski, who was freed from captivity in Gaza last year.

Braslavski, who was abducted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack at the Nova music festival, posted photos from the Oval Office meeting to Instagram. In the post, he thanked Trump, writing that the president “got me out from the hell of 738 days of captivity.”

He called Trump “my hero” and wrote “God bless you, may God bless America.”

In the pictures with the president, Braslavski is seen wearing a shirt with American and Israeli flags and saying in Hebrew, “Thank you, Trump.”

Braslavski was released on Oct. 13, 2025, as part of a ceasefire agreement. He has previously spoken about harsh conditions during his captivity.





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