06/30 Links Pt2: Dems’ destructive agenda has turned them into a Jew-hating cult; A Former Muslim Exposes Tucker's Lie About Islam; ‘Anti-Zionist’ patrols in Greece condemned as echoing city’s June 1931 pogrom

From Ian:

David Collier: The PFLP Was There on Oct 7. The Archbishop Should Not Have Met Its Supporters

I will keep this as brief as possible. Following my article on the Archbishop of Canterbury meeting with two women with a history of PFLP affiliation, several people contacted me with a variation of the same response: “So what?”

It is hard to believe that, after October 7, there are still people with so little understanding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), what it stands for, and the central role it plays within the Palestinian “resistance” camp.

Some naively imagine that October 7 was a Hamas operation with a supporting role played by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Others assume that because the PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist organisation, it must somehow stand apart from the Islamist groups.

That fundamentally misunderstands the Palestinian armed factions and the reality of the alliances that developed first through violent opposition to the Oslo peace process and later under Palestinian rule after 2006. Whatever their ideological differences, when it comes to fighting Israel and killing Jews, the PFLP and Hamas are brothers in arms.

Nor has the PFLP ever been shy about its position. It openly announced its mobilisation on October 7 and participated in the atrocities that followed. This is the official statement (translated) published on the PFLP website at 10:25am on October 7, 2023.

Dems’ destructive agenda has turned them into a Jew-hating cult

The rise of the Socialist left in New York is a bad omen for obvious reasons.

The radical agenda is uniformly anti-police, pro-criminal, favors wildly expanded government powers over private property and demands punishing taxes on businesses and high-income families to fund its redistribution schemes.

If that were all, it would still be a destructive and dangerous movement.

But the post-election analysis from last week’s New York primary races finds another driving force among the winning candidates.

Namely, the hatred of all things Israel, and those who dare support the Jewish state.

It hardly needs to be said that the pied piper of this sickening eruption is Mayor Mamdani.

He started it and continues to fan the flames of antisemitism.

And now New Yorkers have made the added mistake of electing a cadre of clones.

As Jay Jacobs, the state leader of the beleaguered Democratic Party’s state leader, told The Post, the pro-Palesinian, anti-Israel furor “was a more important issue” in luring voters to races that otherwise had very low turnouts.

Overall, only abut 17% of registered Dems voted in the districts where the Socialist candidates beatprevailed over other Dems, some of them incumbents.

California Democrats divided over calling harassment of Scott Wiener antisemitic

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Jewish Insider in a statement that Wiener was targeted for being Jewish.

“It is sincerely disturbing to see Jewish lawmakers, including Senator Wiener, face deliberate and ugly attacks,” Schiff said. “Dissent and discourse should be expected during a campaign, but this is something totally different, and not within the bounds of what’s appropriate in a liberal democracy. When lawmakers are being targeted and harassed because they are Jewish, and viewpoints are being ascribed to them based on little more than their religious affiliation, that is a problem.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) said in a statement that the actions against Wiener were “unacceptable” and “crossed a line.”

“We’ve seen a deeply troubling rise in antisemitism, violence and hate of all forms directed at people in public life, and we have a responsibility to push back strongly against it,” Padilla said.

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, Wiener’s competitor in the congressional race who is running to his left, said in a statement that she stands “firm against threats of violence and hate speech. There is no place for hate and violence in our city.”

Asked whether Chan believed the incident targeting Wiener to be hate speech, a spokesperson for Chan declined to say.

“In this moment, what matters is how State Senator Scott Wiener felt and feels about the interactions. We must stand in solidarity against hate whenever someone tells us they are experiencing hate,” said Julie Edwards, the spokesperson.

Pelosi, who endorsed Chan in the race, said in a statement that the harassment against Wiener “went too far, and I condemn all forms of threats and intimidation which have no place in American political debate.” Rep. Ro Khanna said in a post on X that what happened to Wiener “was simply wrong,” but used his condemnation to promote an amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to cut all U.S. aid to Israel.

Outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom did not respond to requests for comment.

Respectability for Radicals By Abe Greenwald

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But for my money, Ro Khanna, the U.S. representative from California's 17th district, is worse. My reasoning is related to a famous line of Martin Luther King Jr.’s. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people,” he said, “but the silence over that by the good people.” Don’t worry, I know the idea needs some tinkering in this case because Khanna is neither silent nor good. He facilitates the oppression and cruelty by translating the florid war cries of radicals into establishment shorthand. Here’s what he posted on X in response to the trans activists who ganged up on Scott Wiener on Friday for being a Jew:

There is no place for harrasment or physical violence in our democracy. I am a strong supporter of protest, dissent, & free expression. But not of intimidation. What happened to @Scott_Wiener was simply wrong. Let's focus on passing @RepThomasMassie amendment to zero aid to Israel. Hold elected officials accountable. But do so in the spirit of building a politics of conviction and dignity, not insult and aggression.

In other words, if you want to go after the Jews, don’t waste your time with a bunch of ranting freaks. Invest in me. I may not know how to spell harassment, but I know how to take down the Jews using the power of the federal government.

Khanna is no socialist—he’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And there was a time, not long ago, when he claimed to support Zionism. I don’t know whether he’s been asked about that lately, but he should be. Because once it became clear that anti-Semitism was gaining unprecedented traction in our politics, he decided to go all in—shamelessly. He now rushes to support Jew-haters left and right.

Khanna is worse than the outspoken and earnestly revolutionary Jew-haters because he—along with others—handed them the keys to the kingdom. Raging anti-Semites were always out there, mostly on the fringes. They’re actually not the ones who represent a new and frightening phenomenon. It’s humdrum opportunists like Ro Khanna who are now doing something both novel and ruinous. They’re hoping to trade away the country’s defining virtues for a shot at continued relevance. Khanna has discovered an uncharted depth of political prostitution, and his success threatens to drag us all down there with him.

06/30 Links Pt1: One-year jail term for professor who killed pro-Israel demonstrator in LA; Iran’s ceasefire trap; Defensible Borders after October 7; The UNRWA crisis

From Ian:

One-year jail term for professor who killed pro-Israel demonstrator in Los Angeles

A Moorpark resident has received his punishment after entering a guilty plea regarding the death of a 69-year-old Jewish rally attendee who sustained fatal cranial trauma during a 2023 clash between opposing Middle East war demonstrations in Thousand Oaks.

Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji, a 53-year-old educator at Moorpark College, was handed a one-year incarceration term at the Ventura County Jail alongside two years of felony probation for the 2023 death of retired pro-Israel activist Paul Kessler, KTLA-TV reported on Tuesday, citing an announcement from the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.

The sentencing follows Alnaji's legal decision in May of this year to plead guilty to charges of felony involuntary manslaughter and felony battery resulting in serious bodily harm.

According to state prosecutors, Alnaji transformed a heated verbal shouting match into an active physical assault against the victim on November 5, 2023, while opposing groups gathered at the intersection of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Westlake Boulevard.

The district attorney's team established that Alnaji hit Kessler in the head utilizing a megaphone, a blow that forced the victim backward onto the asphalt where he struck his head on the hard pavement.

Eyewitness recordings captured from the immediate aftermath showed Kessler immobilized on the ground while multiple bystanders, including at least one individual from the pro-Palestinian Arab demonstration, rushed over to administer first aid.

Following the physical encounter, Alnaji remained at the intersection, placed a call to emergency services via 911, and provided a formal statement to arriving police detectives.

Kessler succumbed to the extensive internal injuries caused by the confrontation one day later. Law enforcement officers subsequently tracked down Alnaji several days after the incident, placing him under arrest for causing the fatality.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office formally noted that its prosecution team lobbied heavily for a state prison commitment, registering an official objection when the presiding judge chose instead to grant the more lenient combination of a county jail stay and probation.

“Mr. Kessler lost his life in a violent attack that took him from his family and his wife of 43 years," said District Attorney Erik Nasarenko, as quoted by KTLA. “Given the circumstances of this case and the death that resulted, we believe a state prison commitment was the appropriate and just sentence."

Groups condemn ‘slap on the wrist’ sentence for man who killed Jewish protester near Los Angeles

Jewish leaders and Jewish advocacy groups criticized the sentencing.

“We are deeply disappointed by the lenient sentence handed down to Paul Kessler’s killer,” Burt told JNS. The sentence “is little more than a slap on the wrist and not in proportion with the enormity of this crime.”

Burt said the court spent much of the sentencing hearing “expressing dismay” with letters submitted by members of the Jewish community and asking the district attorney’s office to “make a statement correcting the perceptions of the 132 community members who felt compelled to express how this woefully inadequate sentence would impact them.”

“Despite the court’s pointed statements about the Jewish community, the judge never once expressed dismay at the defendant who took Paul Kessler’s life,” Burt told JNS. “The judge merely asked the defendant to stay late to sign some paperwork.”

“Our system of justice needed to send a strong message here,” he said. “Instead, the message being sent is that you can get away with attacking someone in broad daylight because you disagree with their opinions, especially if it involves feelings about Israel.”

He added that the verdict comes as the Jewish community faces an “unprecedented surge in antisemitism,” including more than 800 antisemitic incidents in California in 2025 alone.

“This verdict does little to restore our faith in the justice system and its ability to protect us,” Burt said.

Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told JNS that “as antisemitic protests turn increasingly violent, a dangerous trend closely monitored by CAM since Oct. 7, 2023, it’s essential for our legal system to deter, not embolden, unlawful conduct targeting Jews.”

“The disturbingly lenient sentence for Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji does just the opposite,” she said. “Rather than serving as a warning to potential assailants, making clear that assaults which lead to death will be punished severely, this sentence emboldens would-be perpetrators of antisemitic aggression.”

“I fear it is only a matter of time before more Jews like Paul Kessler pay the price,” Lewin said.

Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at the Lawfare Project, told JNS that “to call this sentence an outrage doesn’t do it justice.”

“It exposes major flaws in the criminal justice system that need to be addressed—from the prosecutor declining to charge this as the hate crime it was and undercharging conduct that should have carried a mandatory term, to a judge whose slap-on-the-wrist sentencing is taken by many to devalue Jewish life,” he said. “It is hard to see this as justice for Paul Kessler’s family, let alone for a Jewish community under constant siege.”