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Saturday, August 01, 2026

07/31 Links Pt2: After 25 years, the Sbarro bombing and its aftermath still matter; Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and the serpent: Why their lies work

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: After 25 years, the Sbarro bombing and its aftermath still matter
For the rest of the world, including most Jews, Aug. 9 is just another day on the calendar. It doesn’t have the resonance of 9/11 or Oct. 7. Unlike those dates that remain inextricably linked to horrifying terrorist attacks, what happened on Aug. 9, 2001 has faded into memory for most Jews.

Some remember the Palestinian Arab suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria at the corner of King George Street and the Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, which took the lives of 16 people, including eight children and a pregnant woman, and wounded another 130 persons. It was one among many such atrocities committed by the Palestinians during the terrorist war of attrition waged by the Palestinians from 2001 to 2005, known as the Second Intifada. And even that terrible struggle, which took the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis and many more Palestinians, has been overshadowed by the unspeakable crimes committed on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ordeal of the war against Iran and its terrorist proxies ever since.

Other than the families of the murdered and injured, that day isn’t likely circled on many calendars.

A date to remember
So, perhaps it’s understandable that it might fade from our consciousness.

Indeed, many such dates fade from the collective memory of nations because of the passage of time. Dec. 7 was once a turning point in the lives of Americans, who could tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, dragging the United States into the Second World War. But those who have such memories of the events 85 years ago are now few and far between.

Increasingly, the same is true for Nov. 22, which was once indelibly linked to the trauma of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but which now has little resonance for any but the conspiracy-theory buffs among the overwhelming majority of Americans who were not alive then.

But we should remember Aug. 9—and not just because this year is the 25th anniversary of that horrible incident. It stands as a reminder of the folly and hubris of those who dabble in the Middle East peace process. That is something that President Donald Trump ought to keep in mind when he issues broadly optimistic statements about peace in the Mideast.

Trump’s Board of Peace, which is responsible for the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the post-Oct. 7 war, has announced a new plan for implementing the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the region. Israel’s moves would be contingent on the terrorists laying down their weapons and the president’s threats to Hamas if they don’t comply sound tough. But Trump’s breezy optimism about Hamas surrendering its armaments seems reminiscent of such predictions about the end of Palestinian terrorism the world has heard many times in the past, not least in the years before Aug. 9, 2001.

The Sbarro bombing was a shocking indicator of the barbarism of Israel’s erstwhile peace partners.

Nearly eight years earlier, most Israelis and the Jewish world had rejoiced in the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords on the White House Lawn by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat under the optimistic patronage of President Bill Clinton. Only a year before the bombing, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak had journeyed to Camp David, where he and Clinton had followed up on Oslo by offering Arafat an independent state in Gaza, a share of Jerusalem, and almost all of Judea and Samaria. Arafat rejected the offer. By way of further response, he launched the wave of terror attacks that literally and figuratively blew up the peace process. Instead of trading land for peace, it exchanged land for terror.
Jonathan Tobin: Decoding the settler violence narrative for Americans
Debunking a false narrative
The truth about settler violence contradicts not merely the assertion of the CIS and those regurgitating it in America, like Stephens. Though the Times columnist and others have mocked Netanyahu’s claims that the problem is confined to approximately 150 “juvenile delinquents,” once you take a deep dive into the statistics about settler violence, you realize that he might not be entirely wrong about that claim.

As JNS has reported, the assertion that Jews living in Judea and Samaria have been regularly engaging in a crime rampage is based on reports that classify a great many things that no objective observer would call “Jewish terror.” A Kohelet Policy Forum report on the subject by Israeli legal scholars Eugene Kontorovich and Avraham Shalev details the facts that many of the alleged acts of settler violence consist mainly of Jews doing things like visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or creating infrastructure in their communities.

More important is the fact that many of these alleged instances of Jewish terrorism represent incidents in which Jews have defended themselves against acts of Arab terror. They also include times when the IDF has conducted counter-terror operations.

The narrative about settler violence also ignores the context of life in the territories. Arab violence and terrorism aimed at Jews is a daily occurrence. It is so common that only the most violent incidents involving deaths at the hands of Palestinian terrorists are reported, even in the Israeli press. The hundreds of thousands of Jews living in communities in the heart of their ancient homeland face constant harassment and violence. Rock-throwing at vehicles—something that American prosecutors would have no qualm about classifying as attempted murder since it is done with the express intent to harm the occupants of the car—is a constant threat. As anyone who has taken the trouble to visit these “settlements” knows, Jewish towns and villages, as well as farms, must be guarded around the clock to protect their inhabitants.

The number of acts of Arab violence in the territories far outnumbers even most of the exaggerated claims of settler crimes.

That’s not to say that a tiny minority of the Jewish population of these communities has never crossed the line from active defense to acts of retaliation. And when they do, they are often arrested by Israeli intelligence units and subject to the full force of the law. But such incidents are a small percentage of overall actions that the United Nations or others call settler “violence.”

So, to argue as Stephens does, that Netanyahu is lying and that a nation that can order its forces to perform amazing acts of derring-do when fighting Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas could, if it wished, put a quick end to a major crime problem is not merely missing the point of what is actually happening in Judea and Samaria. It’s a false claim whose purpose is to bolster the idea that Netanyahu’s government is hopelessly compromised by the presence of parties, like those led by ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The assertion is that these controversial parties and leaders that support the Jews of Judea and Samaria have prevented the prime minister from doing his duty to uphold the law.

There are reasonable, even strong, arguments to make that someone like Ben-Gvir, who does and says things that are irresponsible and undermine Israel’s reputation, is a liability to Netanyahu. In private, the prime minister probably thinks that himself. Netanyahu would almost certainly prefer some of the center-left parties as coalition partners for Likud and will likely try to get them to join him if he gets the chance to form another government after the Oct. 27 election. But except for the national unity government that existed for a time after Oct. 7, they have refused to join Netanyahu due to personal feuds. That has ensured that Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and the ultra-Orthodox parties are the Likud’s only available partners.

Seen from this perspective, the entire discussion becomes easily understandable as a tactic to persuade people not to vote for Netanyahu or his allies.

Plenty of legitimate reasons exist for Israelis not to want Netanyahu to continue in office, including his lengthy tenure as prime minister and the fact that Oct. 7 happened on his watch. Yet it should be remembered that his most likely would-be successors were just as guilty as Netanyahu of subscribing to the “conceptzia” idea that Hamas could be bought off from attacking Israel as it did that Black Shabbat. That goes double for everyone in the military and intelligence establishment that sold Israelis this false doctrine. Indeed, the entire point of the CIS initiative is to replicate the pre-Oct. 7 situation in Gaza in Judea and Samaria, with the same tragic results its most likely consequence.

And that’s a reminder to those citing the CIS letter that blind faith in military and intelligence officials—many of whom, like Vilnai, have political motives—is almost always a mistake.

Coercing Israel
Once you strip away the skewed statistics, emotive rhetoric and virtue-signaling about disassociating from Jews who are “bad” settlers, the talk of settler violence is revealed as a political tactic aimed at toppling Netanyahu. The main reason why the Israeli opposition and its allies in the United States talk about the subject is to paint the Jewish population of the territories as a bunch of violent thugs, and in doing so, convince the electorate that they should be sacrificed in some chimerical “land for peace” agreement.

Yet since the Israeli left knows very well that the Israeli public will never vote for such a thing, they must resort, as they have for decades, to pleas for Washington to pressure Jerusalem to adopt policies the voters have rejected, as well as to efforts to delegitimize the prime minister and his allies.

Those whom American supporters of Israel look to as champions of their cause, like Stephens, should not have fallen for this tactic since it does as much harm to Israel’s reputation as it does to the government. That he and others like him have done so speaks volumes about their hostility to Netanyahu and Trump. Stephens’ readers deserved better from him.
Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and the serpent: Why their lies work
A biblical strategy
"Your eyes will be opened,” said the Serpent to an undecided Eve in the very first time this tactic was used.

The same tool that Carlson and Owens use today.

"Did God really say you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?"

The same build-up that the Serpent used before any claim is made, the same that Carlson and Owens use now. A redirect of attention. Not telling Eve what to conclude explicitly, but certainly implicitly.

Then comes suggesting something is being hidden from Eve.

And finally, the feeling that you see something others don't. It's framed by the Serpent, and now by the woke-right as joining an unseen tier, being a part of the people who see behind the curtain that everyone else is staring at.

The content of what's revealed almost doesn't even matter.

What's seductive is the exclusivity of the seeing. Once you believe you're one of the few who's noticed something hidden, the claim defends itself, because doubting it would mean giving up the very thing that made you feel exceptional in the first place. Owens, Fuentes, antisemites across Twitter/X even use that term to describe themselves. “Noticers.”

These lies are compelling for the same reason they always have been.

What makes this worth writing about, for me, isn't the tactics themselves, however. It's that I've fallen for them. Not in some abstract, theoretical "everyone's susceptible" way. Specifically.

There have been moments where a claim, made by conspiracy theorists, about 9/11, Kennedy’s assassination, or the moon landing, or even the claims made by Carlson, Owens, or Fuentes themselves, landed on me not because I'd examined it, but because it was framed in a way that made the examining feel unnecessary. Where "obviously" did the work that evidence should have done, where I felt the rush of waking up to something instead of the slower, less flattering work of actually verifying it.

Most of life, most of reality takes time to understand, and you actually shouldn't have it all easily comprehensible in an instant.

Maybe the Israel-Palestine conflict can't be fully understood from a 30-second TikTok clip; maybe it does actually take time.

That's the uncomfortable part of taking this seriously. It's easy to nod along to a breakdown of manipulation tactics when you're picturing the people who fell for them.

It is way harder to sit with the fact that skepticism isn't a personality trait you either have or don't; it's a discipline you fail at, repeatedly, usually in the exact moments you feel most certain you're finally seeing clearly.

Aristotle once said that “the mark of an educated mind” is the ability to “entertain a thought without accepting it.”

I quite like that. In an age where we're flooded with every idea imaginable, regardless of how shaky, I think it's more important than ever to be able to hear something, feel its pull, and still ask whether it's actually true.


Queers for Palestine must heed the warning of gay Jews about Hamas and the wider Islamist threat
And that brings me back to my anger. The protests began almost immediately after the atrocities of October 7, before Israel had even mounted any substantial response and while the Hamas attacks were still unfolding. Yet huge swathes of the LGBT community joined demonstrations at which Israel was already being accused of genocide and protesters openly called for its destruction.

Solidarity for Palestinian civilians, a desire for them to live in safety and prosperity, is entirely legitimate. Anything resembling solidarity with Hamas, or a movement seeking to eradicate Israel, is not. LGBT people may have thought they were participating in these anti-Israel hate rallies as an expression of solidarity with Palestinians: one oppressed group standing up for another, but that naively ignores the extremist elements involved in them and the original cause of this awful war.

It is, bluntly, deluded. The Berlin attack proved once again just how deluded, and it made me furious that these self-identified “good people” still could not see it.

Gay Jews have repeatedly told other parts of the LGBT community that they are aligning themselves with people who do not like them or care about them. They have warned that Israel is fighting murderous Islamist extremists who want to kill gay people as much as they want to kill Jews.

Worse than simply falling on deaf ears, the argument that Israel is the only country in the Middle East with gay rights and pride parades, a haven for LGBT people in a region that is often dangerous, sometimes fatal, for them, is met with dismissive comments and eyerolls.

Highlight the examples of Amir Ohana, the Likudnik speaker of the Knesset, and Sharon Afek, a former member of the IDF’s general staff and now deputy attorney general, who show that openly gay people can operate at the highest levels of Israeli public life, and you are accused of “pinkwashing”. This is the foul idea that Israel only respects its gay citizens as a way of covering up its supposed crimes.

Of course, Israel could never actually want to offer gay rights simply because it is the right thing to do. There must be some other malevolent reason.

However, if you have had the chance to stand, as I did last year, in Tel Aviv as she prepares for pride, you know that Israel is a country that showers love on its LGBT community and that protects and respects it. (Sadly, I could not enjoy the celebrations as war broke out with Iran before they could fully get under way.)

I guess this is the point for the inevitable caveats. Some of the extremist political elements in Israel are now at the heart of the government. They are no friends of the LGBT community. The country needs to take care that it does not go backwards on these issues. LGBT people from elsewhere should be standing with their Israeli brothers and sisters to make sure that never happens, not calling for their demise by chanting “from the river to the sea”.

Perhaps we will learn about some mental health or other issues affecting the perpetrator, alongside his fundamentalist beliefs. Either way, the most vocal parts of the absurd Queers for Palestine crowd will once again find a way to dismiss what happened as an isolated event.

It isn’t. The Berlin pride killing was an attack by an Islamist on LGBT people, a direct result of the same worldview that inspired the likes of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to maim, rape and murder on October 7.

It is high time anti-Israel LGBT activists listened to the warnings of gay Jews. They need to consider the company they keep and the people beside whom they march. Last weekend showed that serving as the Islamists’ useful idiots offers no protection.
‘No sign’ of EU sanctions on settlement goods, says Irish foreign minister
Ireland’s foreign minister has admitted that there is “no sign” of the EU adopting sanctions against goods from West Bank settlements.

Helen McEntee said Dublin was keen to impose measures on settlers, but could not act unilaterally and independently of the bloc.

She also has her sights set on sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, but European outlet Rapporteur reports that a number of EU member states are holding off on any decision until Israel’s October elections.

"What I’ve seen in a very short space of time is that things change, that views within member states change, that actions change, and if there were to be a change in government actions from Israel, then we respond to that - but at the moment there is no sign of any type of change,” said McEntee.

However, she added there was “no way” sanctioning trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank would “drop off the agenda”.

“The way I see it is the situation is continuing to get worse,” she went on, citing recent events in the West Bank.

“I think we just need to continue to work... to try and reach an agreement so that we can stop this from happening.

"Continued settlement expansion is making the prospect of a two-state solution less likely.”


Ask A Jew: The Foundation Against Deadly Dumbasses - with Mark Dubowitz
Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), and our new reluctant friend. We sit him down to talk about Iran, Saudi Arabia, why the IRGC wants Ted Kaczynski to kill him, why we can’t just send Bruce Willis (in Armageddon) to drill into Pickaxe mountain, and who the bad guys would want winning the Israeli election…

Also in this episode:
* Why didn’t Iran pick a good photo of Mark to present at Khamenei’s funeral?
* Make democracy cool again.
* Mark never met a self-hating Jew until he came to America.
* How to deal with your anti Zionist kids? Tell them they’re idiots.
* The Iranians won’t miss an opportunity to kiss an opportunity.
* Mark realizes we want to talk about whether or not Ahmedinejad is attractive… and he has some thoughts.
* What do you say to Americans who ask why are we in this war with Iran?
* Trump was talking about Kharg island before it was cool.
* The US Israel military alliance is something to behold.
* Is Trump forcing Saudi Arabia to hang out with us?
* Who do the Iranians want leading Israel?
* Israeli politics - this coalition must be defeated.
* The Israeli expression that shouldn’t be used in English.
* We need to talk about the Mexican president.
* Magic Pickaxe mountain.


The Islamist threat to gay life | spiked podcast
Albie Amankona, Tom Slater and Fraser Myers discuss the Berlin Pride attack and the fall of Zack Polanski.




Bob Vylan frontman was deported from Germany over ‘death to IDF’ chant and ‘Hamas propaganda’
Germany barred the frontman of controversial British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan from entering the country after police concluded he posed a threat to public safety, it has emerged.

The dramatic move saw singer Pascal Robinson-Foster detained by German federal police at Berlin Brandenburg Airport before being placed on a flight back to Britain last month, according to a report by The Intercept.

The decision is believed to have been triggered by his leading chants of "Death, Death to the IDF" during the band's controversial performance at Glastonbury Festival in 2025.

Then-BBC Director General Tim Davie later admitted the corporation had aired an “antisemitic broadcast” in relation to the band’s set, which was also condemned by numerous politicians, including then-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

According to the report, German Federal Police justified the refusal of entry by citing the Glastonbury performance. The Intercept says the entry ban was later lifted, but that German authorities declined to explain either why it had been imposed or why it was subsequently withdrawn.

The magazine says it has seen a German police file describing Robinson-Foster as someone who had spread antisemitic narratives and “Hamas propaganda” capable of "radicalising certain sections of the [German] population" and serving as an "ideological justification" for terrorist organisations or lone attackers.

The document reportedly also concluded that he represented "a danger to public security and order in Germany."

Robinson-Forster told The Intercept: "It is frankly absurd to claim that I am a threat to Germany's national security. It is equally absurd to claim that we are spreading propaganda on behalf of a banned organisation."

Germany has some of Europe's strictest laws and policies on combating antisemitism, reflecting the country's historical responsibility following the Holocaust.


Singapore bans 2 members of Brit band Massive Attack for waving Palestinian flag at concert
Two members of Massive Attack were issued with stern warnings and barred from re-entering Singapore after the British trip-hop band ended its performance on Wednesday with a display of the Palestinian flag, according to local media reports.

Authorities said the band was investigated for their “actions of support for a political cause and unfurling of a foreign flag,” during the band’s concert, reports said.

The Infocomm Media Development Authority also said it is investigating the possible breach of a number of license conditions and will take “necessary action” when investigations are completed, reports added.

Singapore does not allow the public display of foreign national emblems without a permit or exemption, and the Palestinian flag is especially sensitive given the war in Gaza and Singapore’s Muslim population.

In 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught that began the war, Singapore’s home affairs ministry said: “The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict is an emotive issue. We would like to advise against the public display and wearing of articles in relation to the conflict, given the heightened sensitivities.”

“The peace and harmony between different races and religions in Singapore should not be taken for granted, and we must not let events happening externally affect this peace and harmony we have in Singapore,” the statement added.

Singapore’s resident population is 74 percent Chinese, 13.6% Malay, and 9% Indian, with 3.3% classified as others. Around 15% are Muslim.


Maine rabbis issue joint call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war ‘genocide’
Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates made the accusation.

But the 11 rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with matters in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.

“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”

The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argued that using the genocide term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis said. Israel vehemently rejects the accusation.

“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continued. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”

The statement came after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic US Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a rape allegation, which he denies. Jackson will now run against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election. Both parties view the race as key to controlling the Senate.

Platner routinely used the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.

The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.


Stevens says El-Sayed wants to ‘blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans’
Jews, Israel and AIPAC have become a central focus of the final days of the Michigan Democratic primary election for Senate, as Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) accused her opponent Dr. Abdul El-Sayed of Jew-hatred on Thursday.

“Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans,” Stevens wrote.

Stevens was responding to comments that El-Sayed, a medical doctor who previously served as the health director of Detroit and Wayne County, made in an interview with the blog MuslimGirl.

“When AIPAC watches this, come for me,” El-Sayed said. “I know you keep coming, but you picked literally the least capable candidate in America.”

“I tell you what people don’t want. They don’t want money in a foreign government,” he said. “They want money here.”

Tuesday’s Senate primary election in Michigan is the latest test of whether pro-Israel Democrats can win contests against the anti-Israel left, after a wave of primary defeats for House seats in New York, Colorado and other states.

Unlike some of those candidates, El-Sayed, who is of Egyptian descent, does not identify as a democratic socialist but has been endorsed by prominent socialists, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), for backing a slew of progressive policies over the more moderate Stevens.

He has also made opposition to Israel a focal point of his campaign in the state with the highest proportion of Arab-Americans and one of the largest Muslim populations in the country.

He has accused Israel of “genocide,” called for a total arms embargo on the Jewish state, including of defensive systems like Iron Dome, and said that an attack in March on a Detroit-area synagogue, which the FBI said was inspired by Hezbollah, was part of a cycle of Israeli violence.

“We can and must condemn the attack on Temple Israel and we can and must condemn the violence 6,000 miles away,” El-Sayed said at the time. “Hurt people hurt people.”El-Sayed cited an Israeli airstrike that killed members of the attacker’s family in Lebanon the week before. The Israel Defense Forces identified the attacker’s brother as a commander in Hezbollah who was killed in the airstrike.


In battle for Haley Stevens’ House seat, AIPAC dominates a race where it hasn’t even endorsed
Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss has a lot of endorsements in his campaign for Congress in a Detroit-area Democratic primary — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and several other state and local officials — but AIPAC is not one of them.

That has not stopped Don Ufford, one of Moss’ opponents, from trying to tar the Jewish lawmaker as a pawn of the pro-Israel group in the final days of the race.

A mailer that Ufford’s campaign sent to the homes of voters in the district described Moss as a “career politician who has taken thousands from AIPAC-linked donors.” A website operated by Ufford’s campaign, titled “AIPAC Jeremy Moss,” said that Moss is “for them, not for working Michiganders like you.”

Ahead of the Aug. 4 primary, it’s a strategy that has raised eyebrows in the 11th District — the seat being vacated by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) — which includes the heart of metro Detroit’s Jewish community.

“The language on his mailers was very clear to say AIPAC-linked donors,” Moss told Jewish Insider in an interview on Thursday. “One more dig deeper than that is just — it’s Jews.” Some of Moss’ donors have also supported AIPAC, but he does not think their involvement in the political system should be suspect.

“I went through the donors and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, those people go to synagogue with me. These people are the parents of my childhood friends,’” Moss said. “It does touch many people’s ears as if it’s trafficking [in] antisemitism.”

Stevens has represented the area since 2019, but her decision to run for Senate created a rare open seat in the Democratic-leaning district. Her Senate opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has made Stevens’ support from AIPAC a key tenet of his campaign. But where AIPAC — which has become toxic in a wide swath of the Democratic Party this cycle in the wake of the war in Gaza — has spent tens of millions of dollars to boost Stevens, the group is not involved in Moss’ race.

“AIPAC has definitely been more talked about during this election year than I recall in past years,” Adam Duberstein, a clinical psychologist in the district who serves on the city council of Clawson, a small Detroit suburb, told JI. “I’m incredibly surprised by it. I really am, because I don’t think that I even really knew what AIPAC was a couple years ago.”


Michigan AG Dana Nessel to skip Democratic convention over antisemitism fears
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat whose eight years in office will conclude at the end of December, said at an event in Lansing on Thursday that antisemitism in the state — and in the statewide Democratic Party — has gotten so bad that she will not attend the party’s nominating convention next month.

At the party’s first convention of the year, in April, attendees chose a pro-Hezbollah candidate over a pro-Israel Jewish incumbent for a slot to be a University of Michigan regent. Party members loudly booed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a pro-Israel Democrat running for Senate, when she addressed the room, leaving Jewish attendees “shell-shocked,” as a former Ann Arbor city councilmember said at the time.

“I don’t feel safe going,” Nessel said at the Thursday event, which was organized by the Anti-Defamation League and featured other Michigan Jews speaking about their own experiences of antisemitism. “I feel like my presence is not going to be welcomed. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. And I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying. And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen.”

Nessel spoke candidly, as heard in audio of the event obtained by Jewish Insider, about a problem that she said has gotten “worse and worse and worse,” including within her own political party.

“I can’t speak for the Republican Party because I’m not a member of that party, but I will speak as a member of the Democratic Party here in Michigan, that something’s got to change. This cannot continue,” Nessel said. “I have profound fears about what is going to happen to this state, and what is going to happen to this country if we don’t have a significant change of course.”

Nessel was billed as the moderator for the roundtable, where she heard from parents whose children had faced antisemitism in Michigan schools, the director of Chabad at Michigan State University and a rabbi from Temple Israel, the West Bloomfield synagogue that is still reeling from an antisemitic attack in March. Nessel listened to the stories and asked questions of the participants, but she also spoke at length about her own experiences and her perception of the threat that antisemitism poses.

“I can’t just say that it’s caused me a good deal of depression. I often feel despair,” Nessel said. She described gradually coming to terms with the modern reality: that antisemitism is now a feature of American society, and a fixture on both the political left and right.


Michigan city ‘strongly condemns’ antisemitic literature spread in community
Oak Park, Mich., a city with about 29,000 residents, stated that it “strongly condemns” antisemitic literature that was distributed early in the morning on July 29.

“While we recognize and uphold First Amendment protections, the city strongly condemns hateful and discriminatory materials of any kind and will uphold the law to the fullest extent possible,” the city stated.

JNS asked the city if it is probing the incident as a hate crime.

“Oak Park Public Safety is investigating to the fullest extent of the law,” Brittany Toth, a city spokeswoman, told JNS. “We are one of several local jurisdictions having received these reports recently.”

The city manager and its public safety director stated that the city has “increased its presence in recent months around places of worship, schools, parks and other community gathering spaces to help ensure the safety of residents.”

The city “remains committed to fostering a community where all residents feel safe, welcome and respected,” officials said.


A UK Lawyer Thought He Was Above the Law Defending Anti-Israel Criminals; But He Wasn’t
Rajiv Menon KC (short for King’s Counsel) was the advocate defending the Palestine Action activists in the case of R v Head. The activists had entered the facilities of Elbit Systems, an Israeli company, and inflicted around £1.2m of damage to company property, and injured the spine of an intervening police officer.

While two were acquitted, and four others retried and convicted, it was Menon’s closing speech to the jury that has become most controversial.

The presiding judge had directed Menon on six occasions not to invoke the principle of jury equity as a defense, nor to refer to the history of the Middle East, and not to advise that the court cannot direct them to convict, when he gave his closing speech.

Despite these directions, which as an officer of the court Menon is obliged to comply with, he defied them.

While not using the exact words “jury equity,” he asked the jury to apply its principles; in support of this, he expressly quoted the words from the plaque at the Old Bailey, the preeminent criminal court, describing the “right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions.” The reference, in connection with the repeated invocation of jury equity, was clear in its intent.

What is more, he told the jury six times that the judge may not direct the jury to convict. As we shall see, though it is true that the judge cannot give such a direction, it is also true that defense counsel cannot tell the jury of this principle, and that Menon was directed by the judge not to tell them.

The court also alleged that Menon made statements which could suggest the court was not impartial: he claimed that the defendants had been improperly denied the opportunity to give evidence about Elbit Systems, saying that Elbit Systems were being “protected” and “wined and dined in the corridors of power.”


Indiana city appears to recognize independent state of ‘Palestine’
The official website of Goshen, Ind., appears to recognize an independent state of “Palestine,” and after JNS sought comment from the city, a spokesman said that there was no policy one way or another but didn’t suggest that the city would amend the page.

Goshen, which has a population of about 34,500, lists “Palestine” in a dropdown menu in a “contact” portion of its website.

JNS asked the city if it recognizes “Palestine” or if it understands the state of Indiana or the United States to do so.

“The city of Goshen has no policy regarding the matter you’ve raised,” Michael Wanbaugh, the city’s director of administration and community relations, told JNS.

The dropdown menu reference to “Palestine” seems “to show a standard country/region selection list used within a website form,” he said. (JNS sought comment from the Indiana governor’s office.)

“Those lists are typically generated by third-party software and are not intended to reflect or communicate city policy or positions on international matters,” he said.
Scouts cancel venue booking for vegan festival after warning over “antisemitic” bands
The Scout Association in the UK has cancelled a venue booking by a vegan music festival after UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) warned that bands on its line-up had promoted material alleged to be antisemitic and supportive of violence against Israelis.

The Great Vegan Gathering had hired Gilwell Park, the Scouts’ activity centre in Chingford, north-east London, as the venue for its festival from August 27 to 31.

However, the Scouts have confirmed that the event “is not now happening at Gilwell Park”. The booking was cancelled on Friday 24 July 2026 when the festival organisers were informed.

The Great Vegan Gathering Instagram page now announces that the event has been cancelled.

The Scouts’ decision followed a letter from UKLFI raising concerns about some of the scheduled acts.

UKLFI alleged that material published or performed by the bands endorsed violence, vilified Israel and Israelis, and risked stirring up racial hatred.

Its letter placed the Scouts, operator of the proposed venue, on notice of the alleged risks. UKLFI requested that Gilwell Park either require the festival organisers to remove the problematic acts and impose conditions on other performers, or cancel the site booking.

Particular concern was raised over a song titled Resistance Is Justified. UKLFI argued that the slogan, in the context of the Israel-Gaza conflict, was liable to be understood as endorsing violent “resistance” rather than peaceful political protest.

The song was described by the band as relating to a member of the “Filton 24”, activists accused of damaging equipment at an Elbit Systems-linked factory.

UKLFI also highlighted a song by another band titled It’s Not Anti-Semitic to Hate Fascists, which accuses Israeli forces of killing “for fun” and planting knives beside injured Palestinian teenagers.

UKLFI said that some of the bands’ lyrics went beyond criticism of Israeli policy and were capable of stirring up hatred against Israelis and Jews. They also cited social media posts describing Israeli forces as “psychopaths” and an image of a band member wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “FCK IOF” alongside an inverted red triangles.


The vanishing terrorists: The New York Times' new Gaza reporting strategy
How is a news outlet supposed to report on war casualties? This question is particularly worth asking when it comes to a news outlet that promises its readers journalistic professionalism “without fear or favor”, and even defines itself as "a newspaper of record", or a media outlet whose information archive is supposed to serve as a reliable historical reference.

It matters because casualties in Gaza became a central topic in the discourse around the October 7 war. This discourse influenced global public opinion, as well as commercial, academic, scientific, and cultural circles, and, of course, leaders and their policies toward Israel. Despite never having been convicted, Israel was accused of genocide at the ICC as early as December 2023, in a lawsuit filed by South Africa which was suspected of being funded by Iran. Yet few are familiar with the details, and many young people on social media believe that Israel did indeed commit genocide in Gaza, and that every Israeli or Jew who supports Israel is complicit.

We all know that in the post-truth era, many ride on narratives whose connection to reality is tenuous, at best. So amid the information chaos, someone needs to take responsibility for reporting as accurately as possible and serve as a reliable source, right? That was the incentive for examining the way casualties in Gaza were reported over two years, in the news outlet that considers itself the most professional in the world.

The New York Times covered the October 7 war with 6,696 headlines between October 7, 2023 and October 10, 2025 - approximately 7% of all headlines published during that period, and reflecting the editorial significance of the topic. 19.5% of the war headlines dealt with death and killing: 1,305 in total. Of these, 709 dealt with Palestinian casualties, and of those, 653 headlines dealt specifically with Palestinians in Gaza and not elsewhere (such as the West Bank). These are the relevant headlines we analyzed.


Doubts about IDF but not about Gazan sources
When it comes to war casualties, there are three main aspects that need to be addressed. The first is the overall scope of casualties. The second is the internal breakdown - primarily between civilians and combatants. The third is who bears responsibility for the casualties. So let’s see how the New York Times reported on casualties in Gaza over two full years of war.

The cumulative number of casualties in Gaza (10,000, 25,000, 30,000, etc.) was published in 11 headlines and subheadlines throughout the war. None of them distinguished between combatants and civilians, or mentioned that the number includes Hamas fighters, as well as casualties from failed rockets fired by terrorist organizations or by internal executions. In other words, one could only conclude that all the casualties were civilians.

In all 11 headlines, the Times raised no reservations about its source. One headline noted that the total number is probably higher than reported. One headline did cite a reservation regarding the numbers but from former President Joe Biden, since it was published around the time of the false report about the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital, in which the death toll figures were fabricated. By contrast, the IDF's assessment of the number of terrorists killed was published in only one headline throughout the war - and the Times questioned its reliability.
The New York Times Re-Runs War Tropes During Pause in Fighting
With a pause in U.S. attacks on Iran and reports that Iran is not running at full speed towards the negotiating table, The New York Times appears to be recycling some of its old material. There have been several articles including pro-regime narratives that floated around the news pages at the beginning of the war as well as more accusations that Netanyahu was the driver behind the U.S. attacking Iran.

“The previous supreme leader, who was killed early in the war, had renounced nuclear weapons,” read the sub-headline to The Times’ July 24 piece, “Iran’s New Leader is More Open to Pursuing a Nuclear Weapon, U.S. Intelligence Says.” The article, by Julian Barnes, reported that American intelligence believes the new Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei – who has not been seen in public for five months – is more interested in pursuing a nuclear weapon than his father was. This language appeared again at the conclusion of Julian Barnes, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt’s July 29 article, “Trump Encounters a More Determined Iran as War Widens.”

The narrative of the former Supreme Leader renouncing nuclear weapons was always farcical, as outlined by CAMERA’s Shay Khatiri, who explained it best when he summarized, “[s]ometimes an Islamist military dictatorship with a nuclear program that chants death to America and death to Israel is just an Islamist dictatorship that seeks a nuclear weapon to destroy its enemies with.” At the beginning of the U.S. (and Israel) – Iran war, pro-regime puppets like Ali Vaez and Negar Mortazavi went on the news circuit to tell the western world that the former Khamenei had a religious edict against developing nuclear weapons.

The Times stuck to this narrative, including in its March obituary for Khamenei, when, as CAMERA’s David Gerstman wrote, the paper “ignore[ed] the many Iranian deceptions under Khamenei’s leadership, during which Iran repeatedly violated agreements and misled the international community about its nuclear ambitions.”


Imam at Heaton Park attacker’s mosque ‘called on God to deal with the Jews’
An imam at the Heaton Park terrorist’s mosque is reported to have called on God to “deal with the Jews” in an incendiary sermon in the year before the lethal attack on the nearby synagogue.

The anti-Jewish prayer is alleged to have been delivered at the Al-Sunnah Mosque in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, where knifeman Jihad al-Shamie and his associate Mohammad Bashir, with whom he planned a second potential attack, were regular worshippers.

The mosque is a registered charity and The Charity Commission confirmed to the JC that it has launched a probe into the claims and “will not hesitate to take robust action” if regulatory guidance has been breached.

An anti-extremist campaigner has also urged the police to launch a criminal investigation and said it was time for the state to “get more proactive”.

Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by armed police while he carried out his terrorist attack in Manchester in October 2025.

Jewish worshippers Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, died after the Syrian-born British citizen drove his Kia Picanto into the gates of the synagogue and began attacking with a knife, wearing a fake suicide belt.

Meanwhile, in July, Bashir, 31, was sentenced to a minimum of 17 years in prison at Manchester Crown Court for his role in plotting a separate terrorist attack on a Ministry of Defence site alongside al-Shamie.

The court in that case heard that the pair drove on a 10-hour round trip to conduct hostile reconnaissance at the UK Defence Academy in Shrivenham, Swindon, on August 14 last year, before they deliberately disposed of their mobile phones.

During the hearing, the court was shown CCTV footage which revealed Shamie and Bashir discussed “martyrdom” and terrorism plans while attending the Al-Sunnah Mosque.

The Times has reported that three recordings of sermons filmed in April 2024 at the Al-Sunnah mosque are being investigated.


Hebrew anniversary of 1929 Hebron Massacre commemorated
Israelis are marking the Hebrew anniversary of the 1929 Hebron Massacre this weekend, commemorating one of the deadliest pogroms of the British Mandate period and the destruction of Hebron’s centuries-old Jewish community.

The massacre took place on the 18th of Av, 5689—corresponding to Aug. 24, 1929—and this year the Hebrew date falls from Friday night through Saturday.

In a post on X marking the anniversary, Israel’s Foreign Ministry recalled that “67 Jews were murdered by their Arab neighbors in the Hebron Massacre, temporarily bringing centuries of continuous Jewish life in Hebron to an end.

“The nefarious ideology that fueled the massacre did not stop in 1929,” the ministry wrote. “It began long before Israel’s establishment.”

The violence erupted amid widespread riots across Mandatory Palestine after false rumors spread that Jews were threatening Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. Arab rioters in Hebron attacked the city’s Jewish residents, killing 67 men, women and children, wounding dozens more, looting homes and desecrating synagogues. The surviving Jewish residents were evacuated by the British authorities, ending a continuous Jewish presence in the Judea city that had stretched back centuries.

Hebron, home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, is one of Judaism’s four holy cities (along with Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberias) and had maintained a Jewish community for hundreds of years before the massacre.

The anniversary comes two months after the death of Yitzhak Ben-Hebron, believed to have been the last surviving witness to the massacre. Ben-Hebron, who was four years old when Arab rioters attacked the city, returned following the 1967 Six-Day War and devoted much of his life to rebuilding Hebron’s Jewish community.

Today, a renewed Jewish community lives alongside a much larger Palestinian population in Hebron, where security remains tight because of the city’s religious significance and its history of Arab violence.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly cited the 1929 massacre as evidence that anti-Jewish violence in the Land of Israel predates both the establishment of the State of Israel and the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict.





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Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026)

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    

 

 

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