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Thursday, September 03, 2026

09/02 Links Pt1: Mohsen Mahdawi: A Timeline of Support for Terrorism; Durban’s 25-Year Legacy of Antisemitism; Giving voice to the stories from Bondi; Richard Flanagan’s dangerous fiction about Australian Jews

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: Miliband is proving even more dangerous as our Foreign Secretary
Quite ridiculously, a British trade embargo would be little more than a performative gesture. It would harm ourselves far more than the dastardly Israelis, with their booming economy, world-class tech, superlative security and intelligence services, military prowess and pesky determination to survive.

Bilateral trade stood at £5.9bn last year, with Britain selling Israel £3.5bn of goods and services and buying £2.4bn in return. Goodbye to all those profits, then.

Twenty-two Israeli-linked companies are listed in London with a combined market capitalisation of $11.5bn; many more have set up or expanded their operations in Britain over the last two years, promising British jobs. Goodbye to all that, as well.

What about the capsule camera with which NHS England spares tens of thousands of patients the indignity of a colonoscopy? After all, it was dreamed up by an Israeli missile engineer, who repurposed the imaging technology from a guided warhead. Goodbye to that, too, I guess. Certainly, it will be goodbye to any similar healthcare tech innovations in the future.

Then there’s the Challenger 3 tanks, which will enter service next year. Those hulks are supposed to be protected by Trophy, the advanced Israeli defence system that shoots down incoming anti-tank munitions mid-flight. Will our servicemen have to make do without?

And the intelligence sharing? Countless terror attacks on Britons have been thwarted thanks to tip-offs from the Israelis. Yossi Cohen, the former Mossad chief, has revealed that an MI5 director-general once told him that Israeli spies deserved “an Oscar” for saving “many, many lives on British soil”. But it’s worth losing that for the virtue signalling, amirite?

To make matters even more absurd, the embargo will likely harm Palestinian workers most. Tens of thousands of them work in Israeli businesses, receiving far more pay than they would at home.

For what? Sure, London is appalled by the Jewish extremists on the West Bank. But out of about 530,000 “settlers”, only a few hundred have been involved in nationalist crime, and a tiny number are hardcore criminals.

This madness it is emblematic of a new and myopic British hostility towards our ally – erstwhile ally? – which, for all its flaws, is the only Western-friendly advanced democracy in the region. (It even offers more political freedom to its Muslim citizens than any other Middle Eastern country, for goodness’ sake.)

It hardly comes as a surprise that Miliband is the one wielding the knife. In 2014, as Labour leader, he responded to Operation Protective Edge in Gaza – launched in response to the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers by Hamas, followed by intense jihadi rocket fire – by whipping his MPs to back unilateral Palestinian statehood recognition.

Today, Britain has already extended that recognition, regardless of the fact that the supposed state of Palestine has no defined borders, pays reward money out of public funds to those convicted of terrorism, uses textbooks rife with anti-Semitism, and is half-controlled by jihadis.

It’s the same old shameful story from the Left: everything Israel does to defend itself is condemned. All the Israelis are permitted to do is die. Let’s dismantle capitalism. Let’s win back the Muslim vote from the Greens. Let’s tighten our grip on power.

And if Britain ends up weaker – did you know that at least one in eight packs of medication in Britain is produced by the Israeli pharma company Teva, which employs 1,500 people here? – then that is a small sacrifice to be made for the cause.
Israel again warns of retaliation if UK imposes sanctions over West Bank settlements
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has again warned his country will retaliate if the UK imposes sanctions against it over the potential expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Jewish News reported yesterday that, addressing Parliament for the first time as foreign secretary, Ed Miliband said he would introduce a “comprehensive reset” of policy on Israel “in the coming weeks”.

He said the government would examine how to stop UK companies “financing, constructing or advertising new settlements” in the occupied West Bank.

Responding, Gideon Sa’ar said: “If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain.”

“If they act, I think they will be making a big mistake,” he said.

Asked how concerned he is about the prospect of sanctions, Sa’ar claimed Israel will respond and charged that any British measures would be politically motivated.

“There is a government there that is systematically acting against Israel. It has already harmed defence exports to us and imposed sanctions on ministers.

“What guides it is its domestic politics, and at the end of the month the Labour Party conference is convening,” he said.

Pressed on how Israel would respond, Sa’ar declined to elaborate, saying only: “There are tools. I’m saying this clearly and unequivocally. If they act, I think they will be making a major mistake. It will work the opposite way from how they may be dreaming it will work.”

Pressed further, he said: “Why hint at it? What I’ve said is enough. We are preparing. If they make a mistake, there will be a response.”
Who Pays the Price for the UK’s Potential Settlement Trade Ban?
Beyond the challenges of singling out goods from the West Bank for boycott, it is impossible to ignore who would be negatively impacted by such a trade ban. Prior to October 7, 2023, roughly 165,000 Palestinians worked in Israel and the West Bank. While that number has decreased in the years following, a trade ban would have significant potential negative ramifications on Palestinian workers.

This isn’t purely theoretical. When, in 2014, SodaStream was boycotted for the location of its manufacturing plant in the community of Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank, the vast majority of those impacted were Palestinian employees. After the production plant was moved to the Negev desert following international pressure, 500 Palestinian workers lost their jobs – jobs which provide higher wages than average in the West Bank alongside employment benefits.

But the potential consequences do not end within the borders of Israel. A settlement trade ban could also have implications for British Jews, particularly if restrictions on settlement goods contribute to a broader environment in which Israeli products, businesses or institutions become increasingly subject to boycotts.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council warned that such a boycott could further damage UK-Israel relations and risk creating an even more hostile environment towards British Jews.

If a ban on trade in Israeli settlements goes through, the consequences will undoubtedly be far-reaching. From impacting the very people that the ban is supposedly meant to help, to hurting Jews outside of Israel, the ban would prove to do more harm than good.

These results are not difficult to foresee, making the decision to pursue it driven by policies of activism and double standards. A policy this disingenuous doesn’t advance peace, but it does advance the warped anti-Israel hatred that has too frequently presented itself as genuine concern for Palestinian rights.
Badenoch: Labour is ‘singling out Israel’ with West Bank trade sanctions
Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of “singling out Israel for their own internal political reasons” ahead of the government’s expected announcement of tough new sanctions on West Bank settlement trade.

Asked by Jewish News for the Tory leader’s view on Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s expected move to target settlement trade, Badenoch’s spokesperson said she believes “there are a lot of countries doing things that this country would feel is not entirely alright.”

Reflecting Badenoch’s stance on UK sanctions, the spokesperson added: “It is interesting that the Labour government always feels the need to single out Israel. And I would suggest that’s for their own internal political reasons.”

On Wednesday, Downing Street said it would not respond to “speculation” regarding Israel’s threat to retaliate against any UK sanctions.

A spokesperson for Andy Burnham told Jewish News: “We have been consistently clear that illegal settlements threaten the viability of a Palestinian state and undermine security for both Israelis and Palestinians.

“We want to see an end to the appalling suffering in Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank, and a resumption of the peace process to deliver a two-state solution.”


David Collier: Exclusive Report – Mohsen Mahdawi: A Timeline of Support for Terrorism
Published today, Mohsen Mahdawi: A Timeline of Support for Terrorism is the result of months of research into Mahdawi’s history, political activity and the public narrative that has developed around him.

“Let’s for once be shrewd and politically astute, and let’s play skillfully with their minds; act meek until we gain the upper hand, and after that there will be plenty of ways to deal with it.
Mohsen Mahdawi, 2014

Almost everybody who encounters Mohsen Mahdawi’s story is presented with the same compelling arc. A child grows up amid violence in a Palestinian refugee camp. His younger brother dies. His best friend is shot dead in front of him. Consumed by thoughts of revenge, he sits beside their graves until a beloved uncle intervenes and teaches him that education, not violence, is the answer. Mahdawi eventually reaches America, embraces dialogue and non-violence, builds relationships with Jews and Israelis, and dedicates himself to peace.

It is an extraordinary story, delivered by a man with presence and charisma. As his ex-wife noted in her 2025 witness statement, Mahdawi has incredible people skills. But after months of research, it is also a story that is simply not sustained by the evidence.

The findings are extensive. Previously unpublished material includes Mahdawi promising the “annihilation of the Jews”, praising the leaders and armed wings of terrorist organisations, honouring dead terrorists from several Palestinian factions, and continuing to express support for armed “resistance” after arriving in the United States. The investigation also uncovers serious contradictions in the personal story that became central to Mahdawi’s reputation as a peace activist.

Mahdawi has spent years engaging with certain Jewish audiences and has formed relationships with people within those communities. That much is not in dispute.

What we have not found is evidence that the message of dialogue and mutual understanding Mahdawi presents to certain progressive Jewish audiences has ever operated with the same force in the other direction. His support for armed Palestinian “resistance”, meanwhile, remains clear. He asks Jewish audiences to listen, understand and trust him, while simultaneously expressing support for groups engaged in an armed struggle against the Jewish state.

Mahdawi would describe himself as simply seeking “justice”, while standing in front of Within Our Lifetime banners declaring “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY” at an event where protesters sang about “globalising the Intifada”.

It is why we cited the Desiderius Erasmus quote at the beginning of this report: “There are no vices more dangerous than those which simulate virtue.”

Long before Columbia, the Arabic-language record shows Mahdawi repeatedly venerating men and organisations associated with terrorism and armed struggle. Ahmed Yassin and Fathi al-Shiqaqi are honoured. Armed factions are praised. His militant uncle Thaer is remembered not merely as the gentle mentor of his later American accounts, but as the man who taught him “the first bullets and the first love”. Even after Mahdawi reached Vermont, this language did not disappear.

That last point matters. A simple redemption story would be easier to understand. People change. A young man raised amid conflict may abandon ideas he once held, and evidence of that transformation should be taken seriously. Had the record shown Mahdawi encountering new ideas in America and subsequently repudiating his earlier support for violence, this report would have had a very different conclusion. But that is not what we found.

Instead, the two strands repeatedly overlap. The public image of a peace-builder develops while expressions of solidarity with armed “resistance” continue. And in one particularly revealing 2015 tribute to Thaer, Mahdawi appears almost to provide the vocabulary necessary to understand the transition himself. Having invoked the uncle who taught him “the first bullets”, he writes that “even if the form has changed”, his commitment to his homeland remains.

The full report can be downloaded here.
‘I Like To Kill Jews’: Columbia Protester Upheld by Media as Gentle Peace Activist Is Accused of Supporting Terrorists, Boasting He Can Use a Machine Gun, in Scathing New Report
Mahdawi's support for radicalism emerged as early as 2013, when he was a young adult with hopes of moving to America. It continued up until at least 2024, well after Mahdawi emerged as a leader in the campus anti-Israel movement.

In a December 2024 Facebook video that was restricted to "friends only," Mahdawi defiantly condemned an operation by Palestinian Authority security forces to root out terrorists in the Jenin refugee camp, describing it as "a slap in the face of the resistance, whether armed resistance in the West Bank or Gaza, or the popular resistance that we began and are still engaged in outside the homeland." Those West Bank refugee camps, he added, serve as the "heart of the resistance and the heart of the struggle," insisting that armed militants are actually "resistance fighters."

Just two days after Hamas's Oct. 7 terror spree, meanwhile, Mahdawi helped pen a joint statement from Palestinian activist groups at Columbia titled "Oppression Breeds Resistance." In it, the authors maintain that "occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land" and that "we should not be surprised when resistance and violence breaks out."

Two months later, Mahdawi penned a Facebook post mourning six "young men" who were killed in the West Bank refugee camp in which he grew up. "Israeli occupation forces killed six young men, including two of my neighbors," he wrote, claiming that at least five of those killed "were civilians." However, all of the individuals were later claimed by Hamas as "martyr heroes" who were killed while confronting Israeli forces, according to the report.

Mahdawi's support for such "martyrs" stretches back to 2013, just a year before he moved to Vermont. A Facebook post from January of that year showed Mahdawi on video advocating armed resistance to Israel.

"Every young man, and every person who thinks a little, has within him the ability, the capacity and the conviction to resist, to advance, to kill and to wound, whether on the military level, the political level, or the intellectual level," he said in the clip.

In a March 2014 Facebook post, Mahdawi posted a video "about the martyr Mu'tazz Washaha, which contains the infamous 'Khaybar' chant," widely seen as an antisemitic call to violence. Washaha was a terrorist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was killed around that time in an Israeli strike.

In another post just a few days later, Mahdawi lamented that a terrorist attack on a Jewish settlement didn't harm enough people.

"Brothers, if someone wants to do something, they should plan it. I'm not saying they shouldn't do something like this, but it's a shame to waste bullets and take the risk," he wrote in the Arabic-language post. "There is a great/easy possibility of doing bigger things if he really means/wants to."

Shortly after arriving in America in July 2014, Mahdawi praised Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a Facebook post signed from "United States of America - Vermont."

"In all the forms of resistance that we seek outside the homeland, we remain dwarfs before the greatness of the lions of al-Qassam, al-Saraya and al-Kata'ib, and before the sacrifices of our brothers in Gaza," he wrote. "Congratulations to you, [people of] the purest land after Jenin camp; congratulations to you on [making] history and [winning] glory."

By 2015, Mahdawi was investigated by Vermont police after he applied for a job at a gun shop and allegedly told the staff he was experienced with modified submachine guns "to kill Jews while he was in Palestine," according to police reports reviewed as part of the investigation.

"Mahdawi allegedly said he had previously made guns for Hezbollah," Collier and Feldman discovered through contemporaneous police reports. "The gun-shop owner also told police that Mahdawi appeared genuinely knowledgeable about firearms," and that at a later date, he "allegedly said: 'I like to kill Jews,'" though he later denied to authorities ever having made that statement. The police report was provided to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and FBI agents ultimately interviewed Mahdawi before closing the investigation.


Experts Condemn Durban’s 25-Year Legacy of Antisemitism, Urges Democracies to Boycott UN Anniversary
Ahead of the United Nations’ planned “Durban 25” commemoration on September 28, UN Watch and NGO Monitor today published a video panel of experts examining how the notorious 2001 World Conference Against Racism became a global forum for antisemitism and the demonization of Israel.

The event brought together leading figures who witnessed and confronted the Durban conference and its aftermath: former Canadian justice minister and attorney general Prof. Irwin Cotler; former UN Watch chair David Harris, now Executive Vice Chair of ISGAP; Yad Vashem chief historian Prof. Dina Porat; NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg; and UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. The speakers warned that Durban’s legacy continues to shape the systematic targeting of Israel at the United Nations and in international civil society.

“What happened at Durban was truly Orwellian,” said Cotler. “That was a tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism at the UN. What emerged from Durban was the metastasized, newly legalized antisemitism under the cover of the UN.”

“This singling out of Israel has continued to metastasize since,” he added. “Durban is the ‘Mein Kampf’ of today.”

Harris recalled with pride the Sept. 3, 2001 decision by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to withdraw the American delegation from the conference:
Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it… I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of “Zionism equals racism;” or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world—Israel—for censure and abuse.

Harris explained how the Durban campaign refined the strategy behind the UN’s infamous 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution.

“Whereas the 1975 effort on Resolution 3379 was a Soviet-Arab concoction, 2001 and thereafter was much more sophisticated: wrapping its agenda in a mantle of political progressivism, of the language of human rights,” said Harris. “The basic strategies and tactics employed then in Durban, and honed in the months leading up to Durban, continue until today with the BDS movement.”

Porat, who attended Durban as a member of the Israeli delegation, described how a conference that was supposed to confront racism abruptly turned against Israel and the Jewish people.

She recalled asking a senior European delegate how this had happened. His answer, Porat said, was startlingly candid: former colonial powers feared demands for compensation from countries they had once ruled, and therefore found a convenient diversion.

“‘The simple solution to this problem was to pick on Israel and the Jews,’” Porat recalled him saying. “He said it so simply and so openly that he left me speechless. That was a blunt and exact explanation of what happened at the Durban Conference.”


25 Years After Durban: The lasting impact of the antisemitic UN World Conference against Racism
This live Zoom webinar and Q&A, recorded on Monday, August 31st, examines the enduring legacy and international consequences of the 2001 Durban conference. Co-hosted by UN Watch and NGO Monitor, the discussion features firsthand accounts and academic analysis detailing how the conference shifted from an anti-racism agenda into a platform that fueled modern institutional antisemitism.

Panelists:
Prof. Dina Porat: Chief Historian of Yad Vashem, Professor at Tel Aviv University, and an active participant in combating the NGO Forum's resolutions.
Hon. Irwin Cotler: Founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, former Canadian Minister of Justice, and witness to the conference's shift toward an anti-Israel focus.
David Harris: Visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University who engaged directly with the US delegation's withdrawal under Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Moderators:
Prof. Gerald Steinberg (President of NGO Monitor)
Hillel Neuer (Executive Director of UN Watch)

Chapters:
00:00 – Welcome by Prof. Gerald Steinberg on the 25-year history since the Durban conference.
03:15 – Hillel Neuer discusses the UN's 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution and the institutional launch of Israel's demonization as an apartheid state.
05:30 – David Harris details Secretary of State Colin Powell's decision to withdraw the United States from the conference.
10:00 – Prof. Dina Porat recounts the hostility faced by the Israeli delegation and the NGO Forum's refusal to acknowledge antisemitism.
15:45 – Hon. Irwin Cotler analyzes how Durban weaponized human rights language to launder institutional antisemitism under the protective cover of the UN.
23:00 – The development, adoption, and international integration of the working definition of antisemitism to combat the post-Durban environment.
31:20 – The aftermath of the conference, including the failures of Durban II and III, and Western democracies increasingly withdrawing from subsequent anniversary events.
37:10 – Q&A: Analysis of voting blocs within the UN and the structural influence of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
44:00 – Closing remarks on the necessity of mobilizing democratic nations against systemic bias.


UN Watch: 25 Years After Durban: Irwin Cotler on the Institutionalization of Antisemitism
As the 25th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism is set to take center stage at the United Nations this month, former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler outlines the historical trajectory and lasting global impact of the 2001 Durban conference.

Chapters:
00:00 – The Orwellian Inversion: The 2001 Durban conference was initially anticipated as a landmark human rights event but was inverted into a conference promoting racism and hate against the Jewish people.
02:15 – Campus and Street Incitement: Demonstrators at Durban chanted for the dismantling of Israel as an apartheid state. Pamphlets distributed at the conference declared that Jewish people do not belong to the human race.
05:30 – Institutionalizing Antisemitism: Following the conference, United Nations bodies adopted resolutions disproportionately condemning Israel. This included the convening of the contracting parties to the Geneva Convention to place one state in the docket of the accused.
09:45 – The Tehran Pre-Conference: A regional conference held in Tehran in February 2001 set the foundation for the Durban agenda. This pre-conference established an indictment against Israel that was later adopted by the NGO forum.
14:00 – Post-October 7th Antisemitism: The ideological framework established at Durban is linked to an unprecedented global surge in antisemitic hate crimes. This environment has also led to the celebration of unconscionable mass atrocities committed by Hamas.
18:20 – A Call for Democratic Action: Democratic nations must actively expose and combat the Durban legacy. The international community must ensure that international human rights law is applied equally and not used to launder antisemitism.




Stop explaining. It is time for the UN to answer Israel’s questions
For decades, the pattern has been remarkably consistent. A UN body makes an accusation, and Israel responds. A commission or report appears, and Israeli diplomats explain the country's position, correct factual errors, and challenge conclusions. Then the cycle begins again.

In a previous article, I argued that Israel should suspend its participation in the UN. Nothing that has happened since has persuaded me to soften that position. What is needed now is to define its practical purpose.

Israel should suspend its participation in the UN. At the same time, it should formally demand concrete answers from the United Nations.

Why is Israel the only country subjected to a permanent dedicated agenda item at the Human Rights Council? By what criteria are commissions and special mandates established? How are Special Rapporteurs and commission members selected? What due diligence is performed before their appointment, and who is accountable when credible questions about impartiality emerge? How does the UN vet humanitarian partners and information supplied by parties to an armed conflict? Most importantly, what reforms is the organization prepared to undertake, and on what timetable?

These are not rhetorical questions, and diplomatic generalities will not suffice.

Suspending participation should therefore have a clear purpose: transparent appointment procedures, meaningful conflict-of-interest checks, consistent criteria for establishing special mechanisms, independent scrutiny of humanitarian partners, and accountability when oversight fails.

Nor should Israel act alone. Together with its allies, it should advocate reform based not on special treatment for Israel, but on universal rules. The moral authority of international law depends precisely on its universality.

Cooperation beyond the UN
At the same time, Israel should invest more heavily in alternative forms of international cooperation.

The Abraham Accords have already demonstrated what direct relations built around shared interests can achieve in technology, medicine, energy, security, science, and trade.

Finland provides a timely example of another kind. Helsinki can criticize Israeli policies on specific issues while simultaneously maintaining and deepening practical security cooperation with Israel, including cooperation involving Israeli air-defense technology. There is no contradiction in this. Mature relations between states do not require political agreement on every issue. Countries can disagree, sometimes sharply, while continuing to cooperate where their interests converge.

This is particularly relevant at a time when Finnish President Alexander Stubb himself has spoken about the need for a more effective international system and for flexible coalitions of states capable of acting when traditional institutions are unable to do so.

That pragmatic approach deserves more attention.

International cooperation does not belong to the United Nations. Regional alliances, bilateral agreements, diplomatic missions and specialized international frameworks can complement multilateral institutions and, when those institutions fail, provide alternatives.

Israel should therefore not withdraw from the world. It should broaden its alliances while insisting that international institutions live by the principles they demand of others.

Israel has answered questions about its conduct for decades, and it must continue to answer legitimate ones. But after decades of exceptional institutional scrutiny, Israel is entitled to ask questions of the United Nations as well.

If the answers are convincing and followed by genuine reform, cooperation can be restored. If they are not, Israel should continue building other mechanisms for international engagement.

Israel is not refusing accountability. It is refusing to accept a system in which Israel is perpetually required to answer, while the institutions judging it consider themselves exempt from answering in return.


US envoy: UN officials knew Francesca Albanese and other rapporteurs were ‘out of control’
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz has accused the world body of failing to police its independent human rights experts, saying senior UN Secretariat officials privately acknowledge that special rapporteurs including Francesca Albanese “are out of control" and "a discredit to the UN.” “This is a broken system that must be fixed,” said Waltz.

His comments follow unusually blunt remarks by outgoing UN Secretary-General Antรณnio Guterres, who told the Financial Times last week that the Secretariat does not control the independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.

“We have many [rapporteurs] that are totally out of control, from the point of view of the Secretariat,” Guterres said, according to the interview.

The distinction is significant. Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council rather than employees of the UN Secretariat. They serve in their personal capacity, are not UN staff and are intended to operate independently of governments and the UN bureaucracy. Their opinions therefore do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations itself.

They are nevertheless required to comply with a Human Rights Council code of conduct that calls for independence, impartiality, objectivity, integrity and good faith. The code was adopted by the Council in 2007.

That structure also means the secretary-general does not simply have the authority to dismiss a rapporteur. Mandate holders are appointed through the Human Rights Council system, generally for three-year terms that may be renewed once.

Waltz’s criticism therefore focuses not only on Albanese but on what he describes as a broader accountability failure within the UN human rights apparatus.


Giving voice to the stories from Bondi
It started as so many things do. With a conversation. And then another. And then a phone call from a friend of a friend who said, “I was there, and I want to talk about it.”

Psychologist and podcast producer Dr Maddie Brygel was involved in the psychological response to the community in the wake of the Bondi massacre. Through that work, she began to notice a running thread. Beneath the grief and the heartache were stories that deserved to be heard in full.

“I started to realise how many unique stories there were,” Brygel told The AJN. “At the same time, I started to realise how many common psychological themes were binding people’s stories together.”

The result is After Bondi: Survivor Stories, a podcast bringing together survivors and paramedics as they reflect on the events of December 14, and what has stayed with them since.

Once word got out that Brygel was working on the project, the community showed up.

“The Jewish community is really amazing,” she said. “As people started to hear that I was doing this podcast, I was inundated with phone calls and texts of people offering their time to do an interview.”

What sets the podcast apart is its focus not just on what happened, but on the inner world of those who lived through it. What went through people’s minds when they thought it was the end? How did they speak to their children? What did they find themselves looking back on?

For Brygel, one of the most striking patterns was the way survivors drew strength from Jewish collective memory.

“I had so many survivors tell me that they were thinking about October 7, or their grandparents in the Holocaust, while running from the gunfire,” she said. “To me, this pointed to a kind of collective Jewish consciousness that we hold, and how we gain strength from others before us who have encountered similar horrors.”

She was also moved by the way people took control of the one thing they still could. Their psychological response. One of the women she interviewed, Julie, spoke about the moment she realised the gunmen were coming towards them. Julie promised herself that her last image would be of her child, not the attackers. So, she refused to look up.

For both Julie and Brygel, that fierce instinct carries into the questions that came afterwards.

“People are asking us, how do you tell your kids that everything’s going to be fine?” Julie says in the podcast. “What I can tell my kids is, you have a mum and a dad that will do anything to make sure you’re safe, and will protect you from anything. That’s all I can tell my kids.”
‘It does fail the pub test’: Taylor on the Antisemitism Royal Commission
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has ridiculed the Royal Commission into Antisemitism saying “it does fail the pub test”.

“It absolutely should be extended … it does fail the pub test,” Mr Taylor told News24 host Sharri Markson.

“This is a community that is hurting and wants answers. It's not just our Jewish community here in Australia … I think all Australians want answers.

“They’ve cut it short; there are many people who should have been called who have not been called.”


‘Failed the pub test’: Aussie sporting legend’s scathing Royal Commission verdict
News24 Digital Presenter Gabriella Power details how Australian Olympic legend Dawn Fraser declared that the Royal Commission had failed the pub test.


The antizionist hate-laundering service
In the antizionist era, it is Jewish statehood that attracts today’s “organisation of politics against the Jews”, as Ruth Wisse puts it.

An antizionist will likely pass a lie-detector test for classical antisemitism before doxxing hundreds of Jews. They call themselves “antizionists”, proudly placing themselves on the right side of a line drawn to protect bigotry.

Antizionists like to be called ‘anti-Zionists’ because it enables them to culturally appropriate a pre-1948 conversation between Jews about their own security and future, as though their hate movement were merely its continuation. Many anti-Zionist Jewish Holocaust survivors emigrated to Israel. Anti-Zionism ended in 1948, much as a conversation about what we should have for dinner ends once dinner is served.

Contemporary antizionism is not a conversation between Jews, but a conversation about Jews. It engages with “Zionism” in the same way that classical antisemitism engaged with “Semitism”: not at all. This is why the increasingly preferred spelling of both words leaves them unhyphenated. The prefix “anti” does not accurately describe either relationship, because neither ideology honestly engages with the object it claims to oppose.

Antizionists construct a fictional, innately evil thing they call “Zionism”, in much the same way that American racists use the n-word. This is not criticism of Israel.

Criticism of Israel can be answered by reform; antizionism cannot. The former is constructive; the latter is destructive. There is zero overlap between criticism of Israel and antizionism.

‘Antisemitism’ is the word commonly used to describe a centuries-long, mutating virus that stigmatises Jews in response to the dominant anxieties of each era. That antizionism could be positioned as sitting outside that superstructure is obscene.

It is frightening that antizionism may be conflated with political criticism this far into the Royal Commission.

Criticism is easy to identify by what it does not do: it does not reward doxxers with government grants, and it does not put bullets in ten-year-old girls.

The “perilous line” between antizionism and antisemitism merely denotes a difference in the object of hatred. If Bell does not understand this, those who care about Jewish safety must make it their mission to ensure that everyone else does.


Richard Flanagan’s dangerous fiction about Australian Jews
His account of the IHRA working definition is similarly distorted. IHRA expressly states that criticism of Israel comparable to criticism of any other country is not antisemitic. Its purpose is not to immunise Israel from criticism but to recognise when discourse about Israel becomes a vehicle for older hatreds: collective Jewish guilt, Nazi comparisons, conspiracy theories about Jewish control or the denial to Jews alone of any right to national self-determination.

Flanagan’s speech inadvertently demonstrates why those examples are necessary. He associates Zionism with the “fetid” political culture that produced Nazism and fascism, depicts Israel as a uniquely murderous state, and describes Jewish communal advocacy as a foreign operation seeking control over virtually every sphere of Australian life.

He then invokes selected Jewish critics as moral witnesses against the wider Jewish community. This is a familiar device: a small number of dissenting Jews are presented as the authentic Jewish conscience. At the same time, mainstream communal organisations are dismissed as lobbyists for a criminal foreign power. Jewish legitimacy is granted only to those who endorse Flanagan’s politics.

The comparison with McCarthyism is therefore particularly hollow. McCarthyism involved coercive state interrogation, ideological blocklists and punishment by association. Yet Flanagan overlooks the ideological tests already imposed upon Jewish Australians: students expected to denounce Zionism, academics pressured to disavow Israel, artists excluded because of their Jewish or Israeli associations, and communal organisations treated as morally contaminated unless they repudiate the Jewish state.

Combating that coercion is not McCarthyism. It is the defence of equal citizenship.

Richard Flanagan is entitled to condemn Israel, reject Zionism and oppose every recommendation made by Jillian Segal. What he is not entitled to do without challenge is portray Australian Jewish organisations as a foreign-controlled conspiracy, blame them for the hatred directed at Jews and suggest that they may profit politically from Jewish insecurity.

Flanagan ends by calling upon Australians “to name, to point, to bear witness to the truth”. Australian Jews should accept that invitation.

We should name the demonisation of Jewish communal advocacy. We should point to the conspiratorial architecture of his argument. And we should bear witness to the reality that antisemitism does not cease to be antisemitism merely because it presents itself in the fashionable language of Gaza, anti-Zionism and free speech.

The new McCarthyism Flanagan imagines may be a rhetorical fantasy. The old prejudice embedded in his speech is all too real.


Fagan’s shameful ruling
However, rather than limiting his comments to the facts of the particular case before him, Fagan J inexplicably embarked upon a broad and far-reaching examination of the conflict between Israel and others in the Middle East. He stated as a fact that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Why on earth would an Australian judge enter the fray with such a contentious accusation particularly when the International Court of Justice is still considering South Africa’s claim of genocide against Israel?

He stated that the slogan ‘F-k Israel’ ‘is not antisemitic, either self-evidently or by any degree of analysis or construction’. Surely it depends on the context. This was not just any suburb but one with a high proportion of Australian Jews.

Fagan J goes to great lengths to draw a distinction between being a Zionist and being a Jew and asked, ‘How can disparagement of Zionism be hostile or prejudiced towards Jews as Jews when it is only “most, but not all” Jews who support the ideology, with whatever degree of fervour?’ Mark Dreyfus, former Commonwealth Attorney-General, during his evidence at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism, provides an answer to this question. He defined ‘Zionist’ as ‘support for the continued existence of the State of Israel as a home for the Jewish people. It’s not a complicated concept… I’m proud to be a Zionist’. He also said that there is a crucial distinction between robust criticism of Israel and antisemitism but ‘[t]hat line is crossed when Jewish Australians are collectively [or individually] held responsible for the actions of a foreign government’. As an example of antisemitism personally experienced by him he recounted being called a ‘genocidal Zionist’ by a stranger in the street. Is that legitimate criticism of Israel or antisemitism? Could there really be any doubt?

Fagan J expressed his opinion on what antisemitism is and is not. He was dismissive of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism and said that the proposition that antisemitism may be directed towards a non-Jewish individual as ‘counterintuitive to the central concept of Jew hatred’. Really? Surely, accusing someone of being a ‘Zio’ as in ‘Zionist’ and later smashing their car windows, as happened to Marcia Langton, an Australian Aboriginal academic, described by her during evidence at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism could be seen as antisemitic. She is not Jewish.

Fagan J’s decision also includes what on any view is a highly selective history of the creation of State of Israel citing some very dubious sources. This was a completely unnecessary exercise. He also dismissed the opinion of an expert in the case that Hezbollah is an antisemitic organisation and said it is merely anti-Israel. Hezbollah is a radical Islamist organisation backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp dedicated to the annihilation of Israel whose residents are predominantly Jewish. I doubt that in carrying out their mission they will be careful to differentiate between Jews and Israeli citizens. In any event, there are ample credible reports that Hezbollah has declared its mission to rid the world of Jews.

The extent to which this decision exceeds its remit is breathtaking and most regrettable.
Cambridge festival removes event with writer who supported 7 October attack
Cambridge Literary Festival has removed a webpage advertising an event with a writer who expressed support for the 7 October Hamas terror attack.

Australian-Palestinian author Randa Abdel-Fattah had been due to discuss her new novel, Discipline, at Newnham College on 8 October – one day after the third anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre in Israel.

The festival had promoted the hour-long event as “powerful and unmissable”, but the page advertising it no longer exists on its website.

It is not yet clear whether the event itself has been cancelled.

Abdel-Fattah, 47, has faced controversy over a series of comments about Israel and the 7 October attacks, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Writing for US publication Mondoweiss in October 2024, she described a “glimmer” of hope on 7 October that was “palpable, real, and exhilarating”.

“If you ask me about confusion, fear and expectations, they were there in the early hours and days (…) If you ask me about freedom, justice and peace, it could have been achieved,” she wrote.

In an interview with Sky News Australia days after the attack, Abdel-Fattah said she did not regard Hamas “as terrorists” and argued that 7 October was inevitable after “every avenue of peaceful resistance” had failed.

She has also previously written on social media: “To hell with you all. Every last Zionist. May you never know a second’s peace in your sadistic miserable lives,” according to Australia’s Daily Telegraph.


Queensland man charged over alleged antisemitic threats
A Far North Queensland man has been charged over alleged threats containing antisemitic abuse directed at an unnamed religious organisation.

Queensland Police and Australian Federal Police officers arrested the 52-year-old Mossman man on the Captain Cook Highway at Macalister Range on Thursday, 27 August.

The arrest followed an investigation into reports of ideologically motivated threats of violence. Detectives also executed a search warrant at a Mossman address and seized an electronic communication device for forensic examination.

The man has been charged with two counts of threats with a circumstance of aggravation relating to serious vilification or hate crime.

Police allege the offences involved “abusive, threatening and antisemitic content” directed at a religious organisation.

Police have not said how the material was communicated, whether it was sent directly to the organisation, whether particular people were threatened or whether the seized device was used in the alleged offending.

Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies president Jason Steinberg AM welcomed the police action but said the allegations were a disturbing reminder of the threat posed by Jew hatred.

“We are very grateful to the Queensland Police Service and the Australian Federal Police for their swift action in locating and charging this man relating to alleged ideologically motivated threats of violence against Jews,” Steinberg told JWire.

“The rapid police response underscores the critical role of collaborative law enforcement in keeping Queenslanders safe. However, this arrest serves as yet another deeply unsettling reminder that there are individuals within our state who harbour profound hatred and seek to inflict harm on Jewish people.


Michael Doran: Trump’s Third Way
The financial siege is welded to the maritime siege. Treasury has warned companies that complying with Iranian demands over Hormuz shipping could expose them to American sanctions. Washington is escorting tankers past Tehran’s tollbooth while forbidding the market to pay the toll. It is even applying pressure to institutions in the same Gulf states whose shipping American forces are protecting.

None of this is how a president courts Tehran as a partner in regional stability. “America is no longer managing the Iranian threat,” Bessent declared. “We are ending it.” Whether the boast proves justified is a separate question. As a statement of intent, however, it cannot be reconciled with the proposition that Trump has become Barack Obama.

Trump stands poised, uncomfortably but deliberately, between Bush and Obama, trying to make the siege accomplish what bombing alone has not.

Trump’s predicament reflects something larger than the peculiarities of Iran or his own political coalition. A revolution in the character of warfare is underway, yet the American political debate has not caught up. The stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz is the product of cheap precision weapons, not presidential temperament. To admit this requires abandoning cherished positions.

The Obama camp insists that the strait is closed because Trump chose war over diplomacy. In this telling, Obama’s diplomacy—embodied in the JCPOA—had already solved the Iranian problem. The present crisis is merely the predictable result of abandoning that agreement.

But the JCPOA rested on the assumption that the nuclear problem could be isolated from Iran’s growing disruptive military capabilities. The war has exposed the flaw in that assumption. Missiles and drones, not centrifuges, closed the Strait of Hormuz. As Iran’s missile-and-drone arsenal grew, it also raised the prospective cost of enforcing nuclear restrictions and progressively sheltered the nuclear program behind a widening zone of immunity. An agreement that capped enrichment while leaving that arsenal untouched therefore left its own enforcement increasingly vulnerable.

The hawks’ cherished position fares no better. Graham’s theory held that enough bombardment would eventually produce capitulation. Six months on, Trump appears to have found another way to apply the pressure he prescribed: not simply by escalating the bombing, but by shifting the contest onto terrain where American advantages are greater. Iran created local overmatch in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is answering with naval power, economic warfare, and control of the global financial system.

The stalemate has therefore changed shape. It is no longer a question of whether a course exists between Bush’s war and Obama’s retreat. Trump is attempting to create one: suppress Iran’s disruptive capabilities enough to keep Gulf commerce moving, deny Tehran the same privilege, and use America’s global economic power to impose costs that airpower alone could not. Whether this strategy will compel Iran remains unknown. Five days of financial warfare do not settle a six-month war. But the experiment is now underway. Graham wanted to hurt Iran until it wanted a deal. Trump is trying to do precisely that.
Canada gave contracts to Iran VP’s son while investigating role in regime missile program
The Canadian government awarded millions worth of contracts to the son of Iran’s former vice-president, despite an ongoing investigation into allegations he helped the Islamic Republic evade sanctions and develop missile systems, documents obtained by Global News reveal.

Since founding two companies in Alberta, an Edmonton resident named “Sal Ghafouri” has received more than $2 million in federal and provincial contracts, including from the RCMP and Department of National Defence, public records show.

The 45-year-old was part of an official Canadian trade mission to Latin America, received a federal business grant and was invited to “propose legislation” to the Alberta government at consultations backed by the province’s economic development minister.

But according to newly released records, Ghafouri is actually Mohammad Reza Ghafouri Fard, an Iranian who has been the subject of a long-running Canadian investigation into his alleged work for Iran’s military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The son of Hassan Ghafouri Fard, an Iranian politician who served as the country’s vice president, Ghafouri was “involved in the research and development of Iranian military technologies,” according to a recently declassified Canadian Security Intelligence Service report.

Before immigrating to Canada in 2013 and going into business as “Sal,” Ghafouri allegedly helped develop a guided anti-aircraft missile system and a jamming tool to “confront American aircraft” for the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard, or IRGC.

He was also part of a “covert procurement structure” that used a front company in Southeast Asia to purchase components that were needed for Iranian military projects, CSIS alleged in its report detailing his alleged past work for the regime forces.
UN chief Guterres slammed for ignoring Iranian regime executions in talk with President Pezeshkian
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres came under fire from watchdogs after he failed to publicly address the killing of protesters in January and executions carried out by the Iranian regime during a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier this week.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Shanghai Plus summits in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on Tuesday.

According to Iranian state media, Pezeshkian told Guterres that “the attack by the United States on Iran, the martyrdom of the country’s leadership and a number of officials and citizens, including schoolchildren, as well as the targeting of our country’s infrastructure, demonstrated that the most basic principles of humanity and international law have been disregarded.”

Pezeshkian also complained that the conflict in Gaza and Lebanon was “unacceptable.”

The UN’s official readout of the meeting said Guterres and Pezeshkian discussed the humanitarian and economic consequences of the conflict between Iran and the US.

Issue of Iranian crackdown on protesters not broached

However, the issue of Iran’s treatment of protesters and detainees did not appear in the readout.

A UN spokesperson confirmed to investigative journalist Efrat Lachter that the issue had not been raised during the meeting, while asserting that Guterres had raised it with Iranian officials on other occasions. The spokesperson also said the UN had condemned the use of the death penalty in Iran, “as we stand against the death penalty in every country.”

Human rights groups say that upward of 30,000 protesters were massacred by the Islamic Republic’s security forces in January, though an official figure has been hard to surmise due to the mass disappearances and nearly three-month internet lockdown imposed by the regime.

Following the meeting, Guterres wrote on X/Twitter, “The conflicts in the Middle East have had far-reaching effects. Agreements & ceasefires are constantly violated, and strikes continue.”

“I appeal for maximum restraint & for agreements & international law to be respected. More than ever, we need negotiations toward a just, lasting peace in line with international law, including the @UN Charter & relevant UN resolutions,” he added.


IDF says it hit Hezbollah after group launched 2 drones at troops in Lebanon
Hezbollah launched two explosive-laden drones at Israeli troops operating in the Ali Taher Ridge in southern Lebanon overnight, prompting strikes on the terror group’s infrastructure in the area, the military said Wednesday.

According to the IDF, one of the drones was shot down by the troops, and no soldiers were injured in the attack.

Hezbollah has a major underground facility beneath the ridge in the Nabatieh area, and several operatives are believed by the IDF to still be holed up there.

In response to the attack, the military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the Nabatieh area. The sites had been used by the terror group to advance attacks on Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon and against Israeli civilians, the IDF said, adding that the strikes were intended to “remove an immediate threat.”

Lebanese official media said the Israeli strikes on south Lebanon killed one person.

“One person was killed and another wounded in a strike launched by an enemy drone” in the city of Nabatieh, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said.

The IDF said it is continuing to operate at the Ali Taher Ridge and “will not allow terrorists in the area to advance and carry out” attacks.

“The IDF is operating and will continue to act with determination against Hezbollah’s repeated attempts to harm IDF soldiers,” the military added.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday that more than 10 EU member states are willing to contribute resources and people to a planned ​mission to advise and train Lebanon’s armed forces.

The proposed mission stems from the EU studying ways to strengthen Lebanese forces to help free up the Lebanese ​army to focus on disarming Hezbollah.

Western countries have long called for Lebanon to disarm the Iran-backed terror group, and doing so is a central component of a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel aimed at ending the fighting that has run in parallel with the US-Israeli war against Iran.

The mandate of a UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, is set to expire at the end of 2026, and the force ​is expected to begin a yearlong drawdown and withdrawal.


US issues harsher censure of ‘West Bank violence,’ without explicitly blaming Israel
The United States went slightly further in condemning surging West Bank settler violence than it has in the past on Wednesday, urging legal action, though it did not use the word “settler” and avoided criticizing Israel for not cracking down on the phenomenon.

“We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank and call for investigations, arrests and convictions of those responsible,” a US State Department spokesperson said in response to a query from The Times of Israel on the matter.

Previous statements from the State Department on the subject were slightly more vague and largely stressed the importance of maintaining stability in the West Bank, though this one does not mention either Israel or the Palestinians by name.

“We are in regular dialogue with partners about improving stability and security in the West Bank,” the State Department spokesperson said, indicating that the US is raising the matter with Israel behind closed doors.

Surging violence by Israeli settlers across the West Bank — largely unchecked by Israeli authorities — has been met with severe condemnation from Western allies in recent weeks.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has been just about the only member of US President Donald Trump’s administration to criticize settler violence, calling perpetrators “terrorists,” while insisting that they’re not representative of the half-million Israelis living beyond the Green Line.

But he too has refrained from explicitly criticizing Israel’s handling of settler violence, which goes largely unchecked, though President Isaac Herzog insisted to CNN during an interview aired Wednesday that Israeli authorities were taking the issue seriously.

Herzog called the perpetrators “juvenile delinquents” and claimed “there is a major effort by our authorities to undermine these activities and bring people to justice.” He noted that a series of rare arrests were carried out earlier this week, though most of the near-daily settler attacks do not lead to arrests or prosecutions.

Herzog also likened the phenomenon to “inner-city violence,” though they are different, as the perpetrators in the West Bank often profess that they are acting out of ideological nationalist motives, and seek to expel Palestinians from the West Bank.

Still, Herzog called the Jewish extremists behind the daily attacks on Palestinians, a “shame on the face of Israel,” repeating a sentiment he has expressed previously.


David Harsanyi: Evidence doesn’t point to a genocide in Gaza — despite all of the rage
In May 2025, Tom Fletcher, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, went on BBC Radio and told the audience that 14,000 babies in Gaza were going to die “in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.”

Two days. Fourteen thousand babies.

According to UNICEF, there are around 20,000 babies in the entirety of Gaza. Which means 70% of all infants were in danger of dying in mere hours. An “utterly chilling” figure, Fletcher stressed.

The New York Times, along with numerous other establishment media outlets, relayed Fletcher’s allegation to its credulous audience without any skepticism. The usual experts were summoned to discuss this unfolding famine on cable news. And the antisemites across social media amplified the claim.

No matter how far-fetched a story is about Israel, including preposterous evidence-free accusations that it trains dogs to rape Palestinians, papers such as The New York Times will spread it to feed the perception that the Jewish state operates as a genocidal entity.

And no matter how often the claims are debunked, they keep at it.

Photo out of focus
A couple of months after Fletcher’s pronouncement, for instance, The New York Times ran a front-page story about starvation in Gaza featuring a haunting photograph of an emaciated Palestinian toddler named Mohammed Zakaria al Mutawaq.

Unmentioned was that the boy suffered from cerebral palsy and other serious preexisting medical conditions, and his appearance had nothing to do with hunger.

In any event, what the UN report actually found, and even this contention was questionable, was that 14,000 cases of malnutrition might occur among the 1 million children of Gaza, not babies, if aid did not reach them over the next year.

Aid did reach them. Lots and lots of aid. The US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation delivered around 187 million meal equivalents, plus produce, and over 1 million packs of supplementary food for children to Palestinians before the cease-fire.

Another report found that, despite Hamas’ tactic of pilfering international aid to control the population, Israel had provided Gaza with triple the food it needed during the cease-fire. Data showed malnutrition was lower than prewar levels.

And a year after UN Secretary-General Antรณnio Guterres claimed that “famine” in Gaza was a “failure of humanity itself,” a UNICEF-led “Nutrition SMART Survey Result” found that not only was there no widespread acute malnutrition in Gaza, but at 0.5%, the Strip had one of the lowest rates in the region.

To find that number, a person had to delve deep into the footnotes of the study. As of this writing, The New York Times has not bothered to mention it.

By the time “clarifications” run, the stories have coagulated in the imaginations of Israel haters.





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