Saturday, August 08, 2026

08/07 Links Pt2: David Collier: The Synagogue Standing With a Terrorist Supporter; Swedish Left MP Praised Convicted Terrorist: “Your Fight Is Our Fight”

From Ian:

David Collier: The Synagogue Standing With a Terrorist Supporter
A synagogue holds a fundraiser. No big deal, right?

A synagogue holds a fundraiser for someone with a history of supporting Islamic terrorists? That’s a red flag.

The synagogue leadership shuts down discussion of the terrorist supporter in advance of the fundraiser?

That’s gatekeeping on a suicidal level.

The Mohsen Mahdawi Video
Ever since the U.S. administration arrested Mohsen Mahdawi in April 2025, I have been investigating his background. Working alongside Vermont researcher Rachel Feldman, we uncovered evidence that much of the narrative Mahdawi had used to build support within progressive circles was misleading. He had portrayed terrorist relatives as innocent victims and, over many years, repeatedly glorified and honoured Palestinian terrorists.

What we lacked was a recent piece of evidence showing that these views were not confined to the past. Then, a few weeks ago, we found it.

In a video Mahdawi posted in December 2024, he spoke in Arabic to a restricted audience, making it unlikely that most of his American supporters would ever see – or understand – what he was saying.

In the video, Mahdawi describes himself as part of a unified “resistance” movement and his words identify him with the same terrorist movements responsible for the October 7 atrocities.

Taken together with our earlier findings, the video completed a consistent picture of support for violent Palestinian militancy stretching back more than fifteen years.

The evidence was no longer ambiguous. Those presenting Mahdawi as a peace activist now had to explain how that claim could be reconciled with his own words.

The Synagogue That Did
Just as news of the video began to spread, Mahdawi’s supporters were preparing a major fundraising event to finance his legal campaign against deportation:

I knew Mahdawi enjoyed a substantial support network and had become something of a cause célèbre for anti-Trump activists. But it had never occurred to me that a Jewish organisation would help raise money on his behalf. Mahdawi is a man who has repeatedly praised and honoured leaders of terrorist organisations committed to murdering Jews. I had assumed that, whatever the political divisions within the American Jewish community, that would remain a clear red line.

But I was wrong.

I learned that one of the principal organisers of the August 9 fundraising event was Beth Jacob, a synagogue in Montpelier, Vermont:

Worse still, Mahdawi had even been personally invited to the synagogue for a discussion to take place prior to the main fundraising event.

That a Jewish congregation would lend its name and credibility to a fundraiser for a man with Mahdawi’s record was something I found almost impossible to comprehend.

The Internal Division
There was some pushback.

Beth Jacob has a members’ email discussion list, and after some members saw our research – including the recently uncovered December 2024 video – they began questioning the synagogue’s support for both the pre-event discussion with Mahdawi and the fundraising event itself.

What followed should serve as a case study. It is not simply that parts of the diaspora Jewish community are willing to embrace people who support organisations committed to murdering Jews. It is that some within those communities act as gatekeepers, introducing conspiracy theories and extremist thinking into the discussion while attempting to silence those who challenge their narrative.
Israel’s New York consul cancels ‘NY Times’ subscription over ‘false blood libels’
Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, ordered the Israeli Consulate to cancel its subscription to The New York Times on Friday, accusing the newspaper of publishing “false blood libels” against the Jewish state.

“I have ordered the Israeli Consulate in New York to cancel its subscription to The New York Times, a newspaper that consistently demonizes and delegitimizes the Jewish State,” he stated.

The newspaper has faced heightened criticism from Jewish groups and Israeli officials in recent months over its coverage of the Jewish state.

In May, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published an opinion piece on May 11 titled “The Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” in which he accused Israeli guards of sexually assaulting Palestinian prisoners. The column also included allegations that Israeli guards trained dogs to rape male prisoners.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused the newspaper of publishing “one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press,” adding that the column was part of what it described as a coordinated anti-Israel campaign.

Three days later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that Israel would initiate legal action against the Times over the column, calling its allegations “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel.”

The controversy also prompted Jewish leaders to call for a boycott of the paper after a spokesman publicly rejected rumors that editors would retract Kristof’s column.

“The New York Times is a newspaper that consistently publishes false blood libels against the State of Israel, often based on ‘anonymous’ sources,” Akunis stated. “When citing named sources, the paper conveniently turns to anti-Israel activists, and even Hamas terrorists who seek Israel’s destruction, to reinforce the narrative they want to promote.”

His office did not clarify why the subscription was canceled this month as opposed to back in May, when the controversial Kristof op-ed was published.


“Your Fight Is Our Fight”: Swedish Left MP Praised Convicted Terrorist
Sweden’s Left Party is facing mounting criticism after several of its politicians sent personal letters of solidarity to Palestinian prisoners, including men convicted of some of Israel’s deadliest terrorist attacks.

The controversy centres on a December 2025 campaign involving 24 Left Party members of the Swedish and European parliaments.

According to the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the politicians displayed photographs of 24 prisoners at their parliamentary seats for two weeks, with each participant sending a personal letter to one of them.

The Left Party disputes that account, insisting that only “a handful” of its politicians sent letters.

The row began after Expressen revealed that Left Party MP Ilona Szatmári Waldau had written to Ahmad al-Moghrabi, who has been serving 18 life sentences since 2002 for leading the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the terrorist-designated armed wing of Fatah.

Al-Moghrabi was convicted of organising attacks during the Second Intifada, including sending a suicide bomber to a bar mitzvah celebration in Jerusalem. Eleven people were killed, including two babies. He was also implicated in an attack in which a 17-year-old Palestinian girl was sent to blow herself up at a market.

“Your courage and perseverance in the fight for freedom and dignity touch and inspire far beyond Palestine,” Szatmári Waldau wrote. “Your fight is also our fight.”

Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defence, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, condemned the campaign on X.

“The ENTIRE parliamentary group of the Left Party has thus tried to become pen pals with a bunch of convicted murderers and terrorists,” he wrote. “That surpasses my worst prejudices about this party.”

Bohlin added that the politicians had “naturally been fully aware” of what they were doing.


UN trying to block construction of much-needed school for Palestinian kids, Israeli officials say: ‘Choosing politics over children’
The United Nations is trying to block the construction of a much-needed school for desperate Palestinian kids at an empty UNRWA compound, according to Israeli officials — who are accusing the organization of putting politics ahead of children.

Crews are expected to move into a 22-acre site in the densely populated east Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab in the coming days to start construction of the campus, so it can welcome students when the school year begins on Sept. 1, Israeli officials told The Post.

However, the officials say the UN is preparing to condemn the Jewish state for removing UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees — from the property.

The officials believe the UN is fighting Israel’s 2025 decision to expel UNRWA from the country after allegations that workers for the mission in Gaza participated in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks — even if that means opposing a project they say will benefit Palestinian children.

“They’re choosing politics over Palestinian children,” one Israeli official told The Post, arguing that the UN is more interested in preserving UNRWA’s footprint in Israel than allowing new schools to be built for Arab students.

“When politics comes before children, the UN has lost sight of its most basic responsibility. The UN should be opening doors for children, not keeping school gates closed for political reasons,” the person added

More than 140 boys are already enrolled for grades seven through 10, with the school expected to expand through grade 12 in future years. Officials say the broader educational campus and planned community center will eventually serve roughly 22,000 local residents.

The project is aimed at one of Jerusalem’s most overcrowded Arab neighborhoods, where Israeli officials say many children spend two to three hours commuting each way because there aren’t enough classrooms nearby.

The sprawling compound sits like a giant green island in the middle of one of Jerusalem’s most crowded Arab neighborhoods, surrounded by rows of high-rise apartment buildings.

Despite this, officials say it has remained largely unused except for a small vocational training center operated by UNRWA.

Supporters of the project point to the striking contrast between the crowded neighborhood and the largely closed-off compound.

“You have this hugely densely populated area,” one source in Jerusalem said. “Then you see this huge blocked-off land that can’t be used by the local residents.

“At the end of the day, children had to drive hours to school every morning because the UN kept this huge compound for itself.”

The warning signs that the UN is planning its next diplomatic broadside against the Jewish state have already appeared.

On July 27, UNRWA accused Israeli municipal officials of “forcibly” entering the facility — known as the Kalandia Training Center — for the second time in less than a month, calling the compound “a United Nations property” protected under international law and warning that it remains under threat of what it described as an “unlawful seizure” by Israel.


Australian Jewish Association: "Leave While You Still Can" - A British Activist's Journey to Israel with Joseph Cohen
AJA Weekly Zoom Speaker Series hosted Joseph Cohen, founder of the Israel Advocacy Movement.

Joseph was raised on the political left and became one of Britain's best-known pro-Israel activists.

After years confronting radical Islamists and anti-Israel demonstrations in London, he made the decision to leave the UK for Israel.

Joseph discussed the changing climate for British Jews, his activism, his decision to make Aliyah, and why he now urges others to "leave while you still can."




Restore Britain co-founder sparks anger with Farage ‘bought’ by Jews post
The co-founder of the far-right Restore Britain political party has appeared to suggest that Nigel Farage has been “bought” by his Jewish supporters.

In a social media post that sparked outrage, Charlie Downes responded to a post on X by Reform leader Nigel Farage—who claimed he could not be bought—by sharing an image of Farage in front of signs for the Reform Jewish Alliance.

The image showed Farage standing at a podium bearing the group’s logo, with a Star of David visible in the background.

The Reform Jewish Alliance was established by Jewish supporters of Farage’s party, and Farage spoke at the group’s launch event.

Gary Mond, RJA’s chair told Jewish News:”This is a classic case of an attempt to demonise Jews by falsely accusing us of seeking to buy influence, one of the oldest antisemitic tropes.

“It is of course completely absurd and is frankly an illustration of the Jew hatred exhibited by many associated with Restore Britain.”

Restore Britain was founded by former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe following a public dispute with Farage. The party has repeatedly denied accusations of extremism and has accused the media of conducting a “smear campaign” against it.


Exclusive: Burnham gave government job to MP who accused Israel of ‘deliberately exterminating’ Gazans
Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed a left-wing Labour MP who previously accused Israel of enacting the “deliberate extermination of the people of Gaza” to a government job, the JC can reveal.

Steve Witherden, who has served as the MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr since the last general election, was appointed as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the new energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh.

He was one of a number of appointments to similar roles drawn from the party’s far-left Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) faction, whose members include Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Richard Burgon.

Past SCG members have also included former party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

On July 27, Burnham appointed three SCG MPs, Olivia Blake, Mary Kelly Foy and Witherden, with all being given the role of PPS to different ministers.

The role of a PPS, which is often considered a stepping stone to more senior government jobs, is to act as an assistant to a minister and to be their “eyes and ears” in the House of Commons, according to the House of Commons Library.

Before being elected, Witherden became a teacher in 2005 and spent almost two decades in the profession. He joined the NASUWT teachers’ union in the same year and began serving as a trade union representative for his school in 2009. He later became the negotiating secretary for NASUWT Wrexham Association.

However, he has long been a vocal critic of Israel, writing several articles on the topic accusing the Jewish State of genocide.

In one, he argued that the Gaza War amounted to “the deliberate extermination of the people of Gaza: missile by missile, bullet by bullet, calorie by calorie”.

He pointed to a UN commission of inquiry which, he said, declared that “there are reasonable grounds to term Israel’s war against the Palestinian people a genocide”.

Pro-Israel group UN Watch said of the same report that it is “fatally deficient: its reasoning is deeply flawed, its evidentiary base unreliable, and its methodology unsound”.


University of Washington cancels Hasan Piker event
The University of Washington canceled an event with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, which was scheduled for January, the public school told JNS on Friday.

JNS reported that not only did the university plan to host the hateful commentator, upon whom it heaped praise in the description of the event, which two of the university’s schools planned to co-host, but the public school had also suggested that attendees pay $10 each for tickets.

“I’m happy that the University of Washington, for literally the first time ever, has made the correct decision to not have an America-hating communist spread his hatred and terrible ideology to young people at our taxpayer-funded universities,” Travis Couture, a Republican state representative, told JNS.

“Obviously universities are a place for First Amendment free speech, but someone who said that America deserves 9/11 and that capitalist blood should spill in the street should not be someone we are promoting with our tax dollars,” Couture said.

“Every elected official and taxpayer-funded organization should be asked to condemn socialism, communism and Democratic Socialists of America people like Hasan Piker,” Couture told JNS. “If they will not condemn those people, actions and extreme ideology, then they should be disqualified from serving the people of Washington state.”

The university told JNS that it “is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, including on controversial topics and involving provocative speakers.”

“After Hasan Piker was announced as a speaker for the 2026-27 speaker series, there was a review of the process by which the event was planned,” it said. “It was determined that the process for organizing this event did not meet the necessary level of rigor for university-hosted events in the speaker series. As a result, this event will not be held.”
Zionists welcome, liberal arts college Haverford says, settling Jew-hatred lawsuit
Haverford College said on Friday that it settled a lawsuit with the Deborah Project that accused the highly ranked liberal arts school in Pennsylvania of fomenting a hostile environment for Jews on campus.

The Deborah Project filed the suit on behalf of five Jewish students and the group Jews for Haverford in May 2024. The latter includes professors, parents, alumni and students.

Wendy Raymond, outgoing college president, stated in an email to the university community on Friday that as part of the settlement, the college is making clear that all students, including Jews, Israelis and Zionists, are “welcome” on campus and can “enjoy equal access to the college and all of its educational programs and activities.”

She added in the email, which JNS saw, that the college agreed to clarify that “harassing, excluding or seeking to silence Jewish community members on the basis of their beliefs, their commitment to Jewish observance or any other element of their Jewish identity, including Zionism, is anathema to the college’s core principles of trust, concern and respect.”

“This extends to our classrooms, offices and student-led organizations and activities, and it includes all employees—faculty, staff and administrators—and students,” Raymond stated.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, told JNS that for Raymond to state in writing that Zionists are welcome on campus is an “amazing change” that she is “thrilled” will be part of the college’s policies.

“We’re really happy that the president of the college is now committed to this position and the entire college, the leadership, is behind it,” she told JNS.

Jewish students and professors “have been suffering terribly at the hostility directed toward them” and have had to hide their Jewish identities for fear of being “shunned and labeled and attacked on campus,” according to Lowenthal Marcus.

Under the settlement, this “is no longer going to be something that’s hanging over their heads,” she told JNS.


Huckabee Extends Olive Branch of Solidarity by Adopting Tree in Israel
More than two hours from Jerusalem, in an olive grove southwest of Nazareth, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, accompanied by his wife, Janet, visited the olive tree he adopted six years ago.

The ambassador believes the trees here represent something much more than olive oil. The tree adoption took place through My Tree in Israel, a program that allows supporters of Israel to adopt an olive tree while helping Israeli farmers and Israeli soldiers.

“I thought it was one of the coolest ideas that we would be able to adopt a tree in Israel because we love Israel,” Huckabee said.

“We want to be able to support the farmers and the soldiers, and by becoming part of My Tree, we were able to do both,” he added.

Huckabee first adopted the tree while serving as Arkansas governor. On this day, the tree was placed into his current title of U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee's tree stands across from one that President Donald Trump adopted. During the visit, the Huckabees also adopted a tree for their daughter, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Under the program, Israeli farmers care for and harvest the adopted trees before sending bottled kosher olive oil to their adopters.

“It’s incredibly good, solid quality olive oil and it has our family’s name on the label,” Huckabee said. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful gift, and every time we give it to someone, they are so grateful, and they think it’s the neatest gift.”

Part of the proceeds from each adoption supports Lone Soldiers, a program that assists IDF soldiers throughout their service.


Hundreds gather to remember Hersh Goldberg-Polin on second anniversary of his murder in Gaza
Hundreds gathered on Friday in Jerusalem to remember Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, and murdered in captivity in August 2024.

The ceremony, organized by family and friends, marked the official Hebrew calendar date of Goldberg-Polin’s death, when he and fellow captives Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lubanov and Ori Danino were executed by their Hamas captors at close range in an underground tunnel in Gaza, as IDF troops unknowingly approached their location.

Goldberg-Polin was one of the most well-known globally of the 251 people taken hostage in the October 7 attack. That was largely due to the relentless efforts of his parents, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who traveled the world advocating for their son’s release and spoke in a variety of high-profile forums.

Friday’s event was held in the courtyard of the Baka community center, where the Goldberg-Polins’ synagogue, Hakhel, is located.

Ayelet Haas, a family friend, opened the ceremony, noting that the space where everyone was gathered was where Hersh grew up playing games, praying with his community and dancing with his family and fellow synagogue members — doing so for the last time on October 6, 2023, Simchat Torah night, before he went to the Nova festival that was attacked on October 7 by Hamas terrorists.

“Hersh grew up in this place,” Haas said.

Speakers included Hersh’s parents, his sisters Leebie and Orly, and several of his friends, including two from the fan club of the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer team, of which he was an active member.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose words in public and in her book, “When We See You Again,” have come to embody the grief and loss of October 7, spoke of being stuck in time.

“I live in a place where my clock has no arms,” she said. “The big and the little hands broke off, and the second hand is not there either. So it’s just a face with numbers that used to mark the time.”

She continued: “I’m trying to unpack the trying. You gave us the chance to try and maybe it is the trying that saved us, even though we couldn’t save you.” (Clockwise from top left) Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Almog Sarusi, 25, Carmel Gat, 40, and Alex Lobanov, 32.

Goldberg-Polin also addressed the crowd of friends and neighbors sitting outside the Baka community center in the warm Friday afternoon sun:

“All of us here, we ran, and begged and prayed and screamed and drowned and rose and boiled and baked and tore and kneeled and keeled and stood and pled and bat and cracked and kicked and crashed and thrashed and tried and cried and lied and grabbed and fell and waited and shrieked and died and lived and live and loved and loved and loved and love and love and failed,” she said.

She continued: “Oh dear God, we failed, but we tried. And we tried because you kept yourself alive for us to try. You were and are our why. So thank you, the most precious boy of my lifetime — thank you, my golden forever thirst for whom I will always be parched.”





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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)

    

 

 



AddToAny

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Search2

Hasbys!

Hasbys!

2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Show All

Blog Archive

Copyright © Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News | Powered by Blogger
Blogger Templates