Wednesday, July 01, 2026

07/01 Links Pt1: Israel has outfoxed Iran (and Donald Trump); Terrorists who kill Jews are not ‘journalists’; NY woman arrested for funding PIJ, wished 'every day was Oct 7'

From Ian:

My cousin gave the world the word ‘genocide’ – don’t let anyone profit from it
My family’s name was never meant to become a marketing asset. Yet that is what it has become, and the only people who can stop it are reading this with the power to act and, so far, the patience to wait.

Raphael Lemkin was my cousin. He was a Polish Jewish lawyer who watched the Nazis murder dozens of our relatives and, instead of surrendering to despair, sat down and invented a word for the crime he could not otherwise name. He called it genocide. He spent the rest of his short life, often alone and often broke, persuading the world to turn that word into law.

The 1948 Genocide Convention exists because one man refused to let the slaughter of his people pass without a name. He died in 1959 with almost nothing to his own name except the one he had given to history.

That name now appears on the letterhead of an organization my family never authorized: the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. We did not consent. We were not asked. And for years we have watched it raise money, build a public profile, and borrow the moral authority of a man it never knew, using a name that belongs to his family and to his victims.

I am a lawyer. I do not make accusations lightly, and I am not asking anyone to take my word for what the law requires. I am asking the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to enforce its own.

This week, together with the European Jewish Association, my family sent 100 letters to the officials who can act. We wrote to Governor Josh Shapiro. We wrote to Attorney-General Dave Sunday, whose Charitable Trusts and Organizations Section has plain authority to investigate a charity that solicits donations under a name it has no right to use.

We wrote to the leaders of the General Assembly, to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, to the Justice Department’s task force on antisemitism, and to the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations. Every letter was verified. Every recipient was named. We did the work so that no one could claim the case was too complicated to understand.

It is not complicated. Pennsylvania law protects donors from charities that mislead them. It protects names from commercial exploitation. A complaint is already pending before the Department of State (Case 26-98-001879). A statement signed by 112 scholars is on file.
Jake Wallis Simons: Israel has outfoxed Iran (and Donald Trump)
Two weeks ago, it looked like Iran had placed the American-Israeli alliance in checkmate. With a flourish of a felt-tip pen, Donald Trump signed a “memorandum of understanding” that freed Tehran from American hostilities, promised it hundreds of billions of dollars, and allowed the nuclear can to be kicked down the road.

As if that was not enough, Israel was obliged to cease operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, tying its own hands while the jihadist group rained rockets and drones upon its northern towns.

This remarkable Iranian military and diplomatic coup, aided greatly by the Islamist regimes in Doha and Ankara, drove a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem, making Trump look like a weakling and a fool.

The beauty of the deal – from the Iranian point of view – was that the more the president criticised his ally Benjamin Netanyahu, berating him as “f---ing crazy” and having “no f---ing judgment”, the weaker and more foolish he looked.

Well, Trump may still look weak and foolish, but the same cannot be said of Netanyahu. With an election approaching in September or October, he is not just fighting for the lives of his people but his political life, too; that is just the sort of thing that has always focused his mind. Israel has responded with a military and diplomatic coup of its own, in the form of a deal with Lebanon.

For the first time in 44 years, Jerusalem and Beirut have agreed to a framework that recognises each other’s sovereignty and commits to dismantling Hezbollah along Israel’s northern border.

Reportedly, the process begins with the establishment of two pilot zones in which the Lebanese army will relieve Israeli troops and take over the repression of the jihadists. Importantly, the IDF is permitted to remain in Lebanon for as long as it takes to neutralise the Hezbollah threat.

The proof of the falafel, of course, is in the hummus. As difficult as this pact was to confirm, its implementation will be immeasurably more so. Hezbollah has long been the most glittering jewel in Iran’s poisonous crown; Tehran will not allow it to go down without a dreadful fight.
NY woman arrested for funding PIJ, wished 'every day was October 7'
A 37-year-old New York woman named Catherine Beth Washburn was arrested and charged with attempting to provide funding to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the US Justice Department stated on Tuesday.

According to the criminal complaint, Washburn is a leader of the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation (DAMPL), an extremist organization founded after the October 7 massacre. DAMPL has committed acts of sabotage and property destruction in support of Palestine and against entities that it associates with Israel, rejecting the idea of peaceful protest.

Washburn herself celebrated acts of terror against Israel and praised the bravery of PIJ terrorists. In messages recovered by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in February and March, Washburn and an individual who identified himself as a PIJ member and who claimed to have engaged in PIJ attacks against Israel discussed purported PIJ attacks on Israel, weapons, and ammunition.

An image shared by the DOJ also appears to show Washburn posing with grenades and a Hamas flag in the background.

Washburn also told the individual that she hated Jews “very much” and that she wished Israel “would disappear.”

“I wish every day were October 7th,” Washburn stated in one message.

“I feel excited every time I see news of the killing of an occupation soldier,” read another. Washburn sends money to terror organizations

According to the DOJ, Washburn made approximately 80 cryptocurrency transfers totaling about $30,116 to an account used by the alleged PIJ member.

“As alleged in the complaint, this defendant, fueled by her self-described hate of Israel and Jewish people, went to great lengths to attempt to provide financial support to terrorist organizations that use violence to further their agendas, including the Palestine Islamic Jihad,” said US Attorney Michael DiGiacomo for the Western District of New York.


International Judges Cannot Claim Rights They Don’t Have
Three International Criminal Court (ICC) judges are asking a federal court in Manhattan to give them constitutional rights the Constitution does not extend to foreign nationals abroad, to read into a sanctions statute limits that Congress never wrote, and to subordinate an Act of Congress to a court the U.S. never joined. But the complaint’s main problem is not even what it says; its fatal flaw is what the lawyers knew they had to leave out.

The order being challenged, Executive Order 14203, is a sovereignty-protection measure. Put into place by President Trump in February 2025, the order freezes U.S.-linked property and bars U.S. persons from dealing with designated ICC officials who use a court with no jurisdiction to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Americans or allied nationals without their government’s consent. The administration invoked it here against judges whose rulings advanced ICC proceedings against American personnel in Afghanistan and Israeli leaders after October 7.

The order and its predecessor have been to court before, but both successful challenges turned on a single ground: the First Amendment rights of American citizens who wanted to assist the ICC. These plaintiffs, however, are not U.S. persons. They are citizens of Canada, Uganda, and Benin, living in the Netherlands. The First Amendment is not theirs to raise, and the lawyers who filed this complaint certainly know that. The Open Society Justice Initiative, co-counsel here, won a First Amendment injunction against the predecessor order and beat this one as well, winning a permanent injunction for two American law professors. They know which argument could win, but they also know that it is unavailable to their clients. So they brought other ones, all of them weak.

Take the constitutional claims first. Judges Prost and Bossa say they were denied due process and that their property was taken. Both claims assume the question the complaint never answers: whether foreign nationals abroad hold Fifth Amendment rights at all. They do not. In United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), the Supreme Court held that aliens earn constitutional protection only once they enter this country and develop “substantial connections” here. The D.C. Circuit applied that rule to sanctions in Bazzi v. Gacki (2020), explaining that foreign nationals “do not suddenly acquire constitutional rights whenever the United States sanctions them.”

The complaint says each judge kept a New York bank account, and each was frozen. A bank account is not a substantial connection, and the courts have drawn that line clearly. In 32 County Sovereignty Committee v. Department of State, the D.C. Circuit denied due-process rights to a foreign group whose members merely “utilized a bank account” here. And even if they had such rights, they actually did get all the process they were due: The State Department gave the basis for each designation the very day it issued.

The takings claim is even worse, because freezing property is not the same as taking it. As the D.C. Circuit held in Holy Land Foundation v. Ashcroft, “blockings under Executive Orders are temporary deprivations that do not vest the assets in the Government,” and so “do not, as a matter of law, constitute takings.” As the Federal Circuit explained in Paradissiotis v. United States: economic sanctions “would hardly be sanctions if the foreign targets of the sanctions could simply stand in line to be compensated for the losses those sanctions caused them.”
US envoy condemns UNRWA at donor conference, says ‘well past time to break this cycle’
Jeff Bartos, U.S. representative for U.N. management and reform, criticized the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East during the agency’s annual donor conference on Tuesday, urging member states to stop funding what he described as a terror-compromised organization.

“Another annual pledging conference for UNRWA. Same speeches,” Bartos said. “Same condemnation of Israel. Same failures to condemn Hamas.”

The conference sought contributions for the global body’s Palestinian aid and social services organization, which says it faces a $100 million deficit for the current fiscal year, despite significant cuts in services.

Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA has come under intense scrutiny after evidence emerged that some employees participated in the attack and following longstanding allegations of ties between agency staff and Gaza-based terrorist organizations. Several donor nations suspended funding before many later resumed contributions.

Echoing the Trump administration’s position, Bartos urged governments to end their support.

“Year after year, you choose to fund UNRWA in Gaza, hoping for—and perhaps even expecting—a different result. It is time—it is well past time—to break this cycle,” he said.

“This year, you have the choice to stop funding UNRWA schools in Gaza that indoctrinate the hatred of Jews and glorify terrorism,” Bartos added. “To stop underwriting an organization that has become a subsidiary of Hamas, whose employees took part in one of the most barbaric terrorist attacks in human history.”

He urged member states to take advantage of the opportunity to help Gazans “find durable solutions and prosper, instead of subjecting them to endless cycles of dependency and forever refugeehood” and fund the U.S.-led Board of Peace instead.
BoP says UNRWA 'has no place' in Gaza as COGAT launches pilot program for returning residents
US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace (BoP) said on Wednesday that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) "has no place" in Gaza's future.

"We are turning the page on the complex of perpetual aid dependency and conflict," the BoP said in an X/Twitter post. "The people of Gaza deserve better."

IDF announces returning residents can go through Rafah Crossing screening

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel launched a pilot program relocating the security screening of Gaza residents returning to the Strip from Egypt via the Rafah Crossing, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced in an X post.

Screening procedures have been relocated to the Kerem Shalom Crossing and are now conducted by the Land Crossings Authority within Israel's Defense Ministry, COGAT stated, noting that the changes will streamline operations.

COGAT emphasized that operations via the Rafah Crossing have not changed.


Jake Wallis Simons: Terrorists who kill Jews are not ‘journalists’
Weirdly enough, Western journalists with large followings have been among the most zealous in lending their authority to these unexamined and contested claims. Some of Britain’s most prominent foreign correspondents, from the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen to Alex Crawford of Sky News, have repeatedly presented Gaza as a place where Israel systematically targets journalists, while giving scant attention to Israeli evidence that militant organisations embed operatives within the press.

Round and round we go. Well, this week provided an unexpected and happy little victory. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) – one of the world’s leading press-freedom organisations – was forced to concede that, after all this time, the Israelis had a point. ‘The [CPJ] is conducting a full review of its database of journalists killed during the Israel-Gaza War’, it said in a statement, ‘after militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad published obituaries identifying as combatants individuals previously listed by CPJ as journalists’.

Hallelujah! The irony of all this, of course, is that the CPJ and the rest of the media-NGO complex believe jihadis far more readily than they believe the Middle East’s only democracy. Israel has been telling them for years that terrorists were masquerading as civilians, only to be pooh-poohed – it’s only when the head-choppers let the cat out of the bag themselves that the matter is taken seriously.

The same dynamic was in play, of course, with the casualty figures during the Gaza war (which ended last year, by the way). According to a study by Andrew Fox for the Henry Jackson Society in 2024, only five per cent of the media organisations surveyed cited casualty figures issued by the Israeli authorities. By contrast, 98 per cent used those provided by the Hamas-controlled health ministry.

This means that almost all Western media outlets have unflinchingly disseminated Hamas propaganda to their tens of millions of viewers, while disregarding Israeli figures almost entirely. The world’s journalists have taken the word of jihadi butchers above the evidence-based testimony of a friendly democracy and shared this narrative with the world.

It is no exaggeration to say that this comprises one of the gravest failures of journalistic scepticism in modern times. The same story has been told at the UN and in other international organisations and charities. The uncomfortable truth is that we have been living through the most intense age of propaganda since Soviet times, made only more appalling by the fact that it has been spread voluntarily within supposedly free societies.

So good on the Committee to Protect Journalists, I suppose, for finally admitting – if only begrudgingly, and only in part – its role in spreading the most vicious anti-Western propaganda since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Given the volume of misinformation to which we have been subjected, and the way the public now believes lies as fact, this is little more than a drop in the ocean. These days, however, that is all we have.
Key Source for Kristof’s New York Times Gaza ‘Rape’ Column Now Claims Palestinian ‘Journalists’ Can Also Be Terrorists: Times Won’t Comment
The Hamas-linked founder of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor—the advocacy group that was a key source for the May 11 New York Times article that made outlandish claims about Israel training dogs to rape Palestinian journalists—recently declared on social media that Gaza-based journalists have a right to dually serve as terrorist operatives.

Euro-Med Monitor founder Ramy Abdu, who reportedly "has documented ties to senior Hamas leaders," acknowledged in a June 23 Arabic-language Facebook post that "a limited number" of "slain journalists had engaged in acts of resistance prior to their journalistic work—a right belonging to a people living under injustice and occupation, which no fair-minded person can deny." The message was posted just two days before the New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists announced a wholesale review of its widely cited list of journalists killed in Gaza, which has included dozens of confirmed military operatives for Hamas and other jihadist groups.

Both the CPJ and Euro-Med Monitor served as primary sources in Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s notorious May report, which at its most salacious, made the bizarre claim that Israeli soldiers raped two Palestinian journalists with a carrot and a dog in two separate incidents of what the Times called "sexual violence." Less than a month since that column ignited an international controversy over the Times’s editorial policies and dueling newsrooms—and a potential lawsuit from the State of Israel—the central sources behind the claims are facing challenges to their own credibility. While the Times’s public relations department has vigorously defended Kristof’s report, and the sources behind it, the outlet has declined to comment—or not responded to requests for comment—as both the CPJ and Euro-Med Monitor are picked apart by various media watchdog groups. Two senior Times employees are on the CPJ’s prestigious board of directors, including the anti-Israel polemicist Lydia Polgreen.

Euro-Med Monitor’s Abdu, in his Facebook posting, said Gazan journalists are being unfairly penalized for also serving in military roles for Hamas and allied terrorist groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Both terror outfits have published a flurry of obituaries in recent weeks acknowledging that many supposed journalists, including at least 20 who once appeared on the CPJ’s list, served on the battlefield. In one recent example, Al Jazeera photojournalist Ahmed Samir Muhammad Washah was revealed to be a Hamas sniper, with videos showing him aggressively firing an automatic weapon in the air and posing with a sniper rifle with an enormous sight while wearing a terrorist group’s headband.

"Within the context of Israel’s war over the narrative and its smear campaigns," Abdu wrote, "footage from their past or obituary statements issued by factions are being exploited to justify targeting the journalistic community. The publication of such obituaries by factions, as well as the circulation of footage showing journalists in military uniforms, serves the false Israeli narrative and undermines the reality that the occupation is targeting journalists and the Palestinian narrative in a systematic and widespread manner."


Israeli Defense Ministry head urges Israelis to understand U.S. perspective amid MOU negotiations
The director general of Israel’s Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Baram, urged Israelis on Wednesday to understand Washington’s perspective as the U.S. and Israel negotiate the next memorandum of understanding, cautioning against judging American policy through a purely “provincial lens.”

“What some in Israel perceive as weakness or folly, an apparent disregard for every warning sign on the ground, is viewed in Washington as cold, calculated and clear-eyed risk management in an era of shifting global attention,” he said at the annual Herzliya Conference at Reichman University.

The divergence between the two allies, he concluded, is not a misunderstanding of the fundamental threat, but rather a byproduct of different national security priorities.

“For us, Iran is an existential threat; for the United States, it is a chronic regional challenge, while China and the Indo-Pacific theater remain the core concern,” Baram said. “We think Tehran, they think Taiwan.”

“At the same time, based on my deep familiarity with the range of views within the American system, if there is one thing Americans hate more than this war that has dragged on for them, it is losing a campaign they have already won,” he added of the conflict with Iran.
Vance: Iran memorandum leaves US in ‘great position’ regardless of talks
The Memorandum of Understanding with Iran has put the United States “in a great position,” regardless of how talks with Tehran ultimately unfold, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday.

“If the negotiation is successful, which obviously we want it to be successful, you have an Iran that is permanently transformed, that’s not funding regional terrorism and instability, that has permanently given up on any nuclear weapons ambition and that as a result is welcomed back into the world economy,” Vance told Laura Ingraham of Fox News‘s “The Ingraham Angle.”

However, if Tehran refuses to make concessions and the talks fall apart, “their nuclear program is still destroyed, their conventional military is still destroyed, and the United States is still in a much stronger position relative to the Iranians,” Vance continued.

“We have all the cards in negotiation, we obviously want it to be successful, but even if it’s not successful, we’ve accomplished the core mission, which is to ensure that the Iranians never have a nuclear weapon,” he said, adding: “It’s a win-win outcome for the American people.”

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the regime’s top negotiator, said earlier on Tuesday that Tehran would not take part in further talks until the conditions outlined in the MoU were met, including an end to the fighting on all war fronts. He said the current negotiations were aimed at ensuring the United States fulfilled its commitments.

Vance in the Fox News interview attributed the Islamic Republic’s tough public negotiating stances to “a real push and pull in their system.”

“There are people within the Iranian system who recognize the way that they have done business for 47 years is a mistake and they want to turn over a new leaf,” he claimed.

Vance said the talks were intended in part to test whether Iran was serious, adding that Tehran would have to make meaningful concessions, “not just say the right things.”
Netanyahu: Gaza no longer poses military threat, Hamas rule yet to be dismantled
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday night that the Gaza Strip no longer poses a military threat to the Jewish state, while acknowledging that Hamas’s civilian rule has yet to be dismantled.

“We had several objectives in Gaza,” Netanyahu told Channel 14 host Yinon Magal in a rare interview with a Hebrew-language broadcaster, referring to Israel’s declared war goals.

“The first objective was, of course, to bring back all of our hostages. We achieved it,” Netanyahu said, adding that “nobody” but him had believed Israel would succeed in returning all 251 hostages taken to Gaza during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

The second objective was to ensure the Hamas-run coastal enclave no longer posed a military threat to Israel. “At the moment, it is no longer one,” Netanyahu told Magal.

“Do you want proof? A few days ago, we eliminated one of the last remaining [senior Hamas leaders], Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who was their military commander and one of the architects of the terrible massacre,” he said. “What was the response? Nothing. Zero. Not a single bullet, because we are in control.”

However, the premier noted, “We also had a third objective, and that objective has not yet been achieved: to eliminate their civilian rule.” He added, “We will get there. There is still work to do.”

Under the second phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan, Hamas is to cede power and Gaza is to be deradicalized and disarmed, with the deployment of an International Stabilization Force to parts of the Strip currently held by the Israeli military.

Top Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mashaal and Musa Abu Marzouk, have rejected key parts of Trump’s plan in recent months, including disarmament, despite having agreed to the proposal in October.

Netanyahu in the interview on Tuesday cited the eliminations of Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, along with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and the Lebanese terror group’s senior leadership, the destruction of much of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, Israeli control of nearly 70% of Gaza, the establishment of security zones in Lebanon and Syria, and two military strikes on Iran as achievements that he said had removed a direct existential threat to the Jewish state.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to settle the score with every terrorist who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks and “everyone who planned it,” he vowed.
Zamir, Gen. Clearfield meet to promote Lebanon coordination mechanisms
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir met with US Commander of Marine Forces Central Command Lt.-Gen. Joseph Clearfield on Wednesday to promote Lebanon-related coordination mechanisms impacting Israel, the Lebanese Army, and Hezbollah, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

A number of Israeli and American officials have been meeting with each other in rapid succession in recent days to move forward the process of the Lebanese Army deploying to new areas in southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah is out of those areas and to permit partial withdrawals from IDF officials.

Clearfield was the senior official and main coordinator with Israel and Lebanon on such issues, with support from around 30 other American military officials, prior to the 2026 war.

Even as recently as June 25, US Central Command (CENTCOM) was unsure whether and when Clearfield and the 30 officials would return to the same roles, or whether the roles would shift in any way.

In the meeting, Zamir made clear many of Israel's regular recent points to US officials, the same way he and others have to CENTCOM Chief Admiral Brad Cooper in recent meetings, such as that the coordination of conflict reduction, securing areas from Hezbollah, and Israeli partial withdrawals must be done separately from any Iranian influence.

In addition, the IDF chief emphasized, as Israeli officials have said in other recent meetings with American officials, that Hezbollah is at a historic weak point, that the closeness of the Lebanese government to Israeli positions is at a high point, and that all of this cannot be squandered in a way that would allow Hezbollah to rearm.

Despite the optimism, the IDF has been skeptical that the Lebanese Army would have staying power in holding back Hezbollah, given recent history.
Iranian FM warns of ‘powerful response’ to Israeli threats against Khamenei
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday warned Israel would be “schooled” if it threatened Tehran, saying the United States had committed to “muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv” under its agreement with the Islamic Republic.

The terms of the Memorandum of Understanding between Washington and Tehran “are crystal clear and public for all to see,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X.

U.S. President Donald Trump “has committed the U.S. to muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv,” the top diplomat tweeted. “If they ignore their master, Iran will school them.”

“Any threat against our people and leadership will receive [an] immediate powerful response,” he added.

Araghchi was responding to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz telling Hebrew media that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was “marked for death” by the Israel Defense Forces.





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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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