Tuesday, September 08, 2026

09/07 Links Pt2: Col. Kemp: Political warfare against Israel, led by Russia and China; The 9/11 lesson America forgot; UK sanctions on Judea and Samaria will come at a cost

From Ian:

Col. Richard Kemp: Political warfare against Israel, led by Russia and China
No other ally comes anywhere near approaching the value that Israel provides to America and the West’s collective defense in intelligence or any of the other areas mentioned. Nor have any of them worked so assiduously to ensure American security interests are taken care of as well as their own. Alongside the indirect benefit accrued to U.S. allies from all of this, many of these countries gain substantial direct advantage. Germany, for example, is increasingly dependent on Israeli air-defense systems. At the beginning of September, its navy successfully test-fired Israel’s LORA ballistic missile from a frigate in the North Atlantic. The head of the German navy said the test “made naval history,” giving its warships a new long-range precision-strike capability.

Beyond America’s enemies’ determination to deny the West this remarkable advantage lies a separate but related motivation to put their crosshairs on Israel. Don’t make the mistake of thinking, as they wish you to think, that this is anything to do with Israeli “settlements,” “war crimes” or Palestinian rights. None of those are of any concern to China or Russia.

In any case, they know it’s all lies. Just as much as some of Israel’s supposed “critical friends” know it, yet nonetheless intentionally promote such calumnies to appease Israel-hating elements among their own electorates. Instead, the focus of these despots is on Israel, which decisively constrains their own ambitions in the Middle East. That goes back to the Cold War, especially the severe strategic damage inflicted on the USSR during Israel’s defensive campaigns.

But note how Israel’s actions have led to the hasty withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria since the fall of the longtime regime of Bashar Assad in December 2024. Israel has humiliated and seriously degraded Iran, a client of China, and easily neutralized Chinese and Russian air defenses, ballistic missiles and combat planes there. Similar harm has been done to air defenses in Syria, Iraq and Houthi-controlled Yemen.

The conflict exposed the limits of Chinese strategic influence in Iran, including its failed attempts to halt attacks on Gulf states and restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, even to the extent of being unable to secure transit for its own shipping. This has severe adverse consequences for China’s strategic aspirations in the region, not least to displace America as the Gulf’s security guarantor. Thus, Israel’s role in preventing Russian and Chinese strategic dominance in the region, both to its own benefit and America’s, has contributed markedly to the dictators’ determination to vitiate the Jewish state.

What should be at least as troubling to genuine American patriots as it is to Israelis is the growing diminution of support for Israel in the Democratic Party and the increasing divide among Republicans. To be fair, many of those who are guilty of opposing Israel are acting unwittingly, taken in by a political warfare machine that they do not comprehend. The pro-/anti-Zionist question is equally an acid test for America’s allies around the world. As in American politics, there is a direct and telling correlation between countries and international entities that genuinely support the Western democratic order, with America as its leader, and those that support Israel.

I would urge the U.S. president, now and in the future, to judge those countries and entities for their support or otherwise of America’s most important combat multiplier. And to judge particularly harshly those who actively work to harm Israel, including boycotting Israeli companies and sanctioning democratically elected politicians, which amounts to indirectly sabotaging U.S. security.
The 9/11 lesson America forgot
Now, Michigan Democrats have nominated Abdul El-Sayed for the U.S. Senate. El-Sayed opposes American aid to Israel, even for the purely defensive Iron Dome. Following the attack on a Michigan synagogue in which an assailant drove into the synagogue while more than 100 children were inside, El-Sayed invoked the attacker’s loss of relatives in Lebanon and said, “Hurt people hurt people.” He later apologized. But here again, can an apology erase the original words or their relevance to a candidate’s worldview?

Moreover, El-Sayed’s father-in-law and major financial supporter has held leadership positions in CAIR-Michigan and ISNA, organizations historically identified by federal prosecutors as connected to a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network. That does not make El-Sayed a member of the Brotherhood, but nor does it make the association irrelevant.

The point is not that these politicians are Muslims. It is that ideas, rhetoric and associations once relegated to the political fringe are increasingly normalized and even rewarded within one of America’s two major political parties and among young Americans shaped by our universities, media and progressive culture. Progressives have taught the next generation an astonishing lesson: not to abhor 9/11, but to search for America’s culpability and, in an act of self-reproach and atonement, tolerate the very ideology that produced the attacks.

Europe is America’s bellwether. Britain has acknowledged that fear of appearing racist has inhibited authorities from confronting radical Islam, while France now openly confronts Islamist “separatism.” The warning is clear: Tolerance without assimilation creates segregation, and segregation breeds extremism.

So, we must recalibrate. We must say: religious freedom, absolutely; religious supremacy, never.

The West should welcome immigrants prepared to embrace liberal democracy and its constitutional culture while barring those hostile to its fundamental values. Constitutional law must always supersede religious law. Our universities, media and political leaders must stop pretending that scrutiny of Islamist ideology is synonymous with prejudice against Muslims. Tolerance cannot mean surrender, and diversity cannot require moral blindness.

Twenty-five years ago, terrorists showed America what fast jihad looks like. We hardened cockpits, transformed intelligence gathering and made another 9/11 extraordinarily difficult. But while becoming very good at looking for bombs, we lost the courage to scrutinize the ideology that produced them.

On Sept. 11, 2001, we promised nearly 3,000 murdered Americans that we would never forget. Twenty-five years later, we have forgotten; not who we lost but too much of what we were supposed to learn. Honoring our old promise requires us to remember, to recapture clarity and resolve, and to renew our commitment to defend the freedoms and values the terrorists attacked.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, did the Islamists or the US win the war on terror?
The GWOT globalised Islamism without winning the war. The conflict with Islamism is now internalised in Western societies.

As soon as it was decently possible, left-leading media amplified the Islamist narrative that Israel is a key source of the West’s woes.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organisation of al-Qaeda, Hamas and ISIS, still operates in America and Europe.

Formally in Europe, and informally in blue-state America, free speech is restricted by Islamist intimidation and the complicity of governments that are frightened of being called “Islamophobic”.

You are still taking your shoes off at the airport. You are now lightly irradiated at security in case you have an explosive device in your body or under your burka. You still undergo “random” searches and swabs because targeting the likeliest suspects would be “profiling.”

There has been no second Islamist attack on American soil on the scale of 9/11. The nightmare scenario, a dirty bomb smuggled through the ports or driven across the Canadian or Mexican borders, has not happened.

This is not because of the “security kabuki” at domestic airports. America hardened its airports against the world after 9/11. The PATRIOT Act licenced a 24/7 domestic surveillance system.

The predicted wave of attacks on American Muslims never happened after 9/11. But Islamist terrorism became a constant presence in American life. Foiled plots barely make headlines anymore. Successful attacks are usually the work of single individuals or small cells.

Though 19 Arab nationals committed the 9/11 attacks, a New America report from 2021 found that “every jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident except one who was in the US as part of the US-Saudi military training partnership.”

Faisal Shahzad, who turned his SUV into a truck bomb and parked it in Times Square in 2010, was born in Pakistan and became an American citizen. The bomb failed to detonate.

Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016, was born in New York to Afghan immigrants.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the US Army veteran who killed 14 and injured dozens with a rented truck in New Orleans on New Year’s Day 2025, was raised Christian and converted to Islam.

As Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born preacher who became al-Qaeda’s leader in the Arabian peninsula, said in 2010, “Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie.”

From 2014 on, foreign money seeded a campus intifada against Israel and Jews.

The temporary concrete barriers that were placed around synagogues in New York City are still there.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayor of New York City, is a Muslim who rejects Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and promotes the lie that Israel committed “genocide” in Gaza.

The Democratic nominee for US Senate Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, is a smooth-tongued “anti-Zionist” who campaigned with Hasan Piker, who said in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11”.

Like a stopped clock, the Republicans’ isolationist wing was validated both sooner and later. The rise of the “podcast Right” that blames Israel and the Jews for America’s failures is just the latest symptom of the blowback blame-game at home, and of America the stumbling giant abroad.

So tell me, who won the 9/11 wars?


Last week, Andy Burnham met with the Jewish community – only to throw it under the bus two days later
Amonth ago I wrote in these pages that Andy Burnham had decided to throw British Jews under the bus, that Labour had run the numbers and judged us small enough to sacrifice for a larger, more electorally valuable audience.

The response to that piece, which received millions of impressions online, was fierce: I was accused of smearing a Prime Minister with a “genuine record on antisemitism” and of “dressing up ordinary criticism of an Israeli government policy as an attack on Jews”. I didn't think that criticism was fair at the time. Nothing that has happened since has made it look any fairer. What I described as a calculation has kept playing out, in real time and this week his Foreign Secretary gave the clearest demonstration of it yet.

Ed Miliband, our Foreign Secretary, posted a video recounting, in his own words, "stories" he'd been told in a meeting about Gaza: medicines "being blocked," children "dying while waiting for vital life-saving treatment," the UK needing to "act, and act more decisively." He provided no data or named source for who had told him these stories. Israel's foreign ministry replied that there are no restrictions whatsoever on medicines entering Gaza, that 22,500 tonnes of medical supplies have entered since the ceasefire began last October and that Gazans have continued leaving the Strip for treatment, 200 of them in the last fortnight alone.

The UK sits on the International Gaza Support Centre, the body that helps move that aid. Miliband didn't need strangers in a meeting to tell him what was happening. He had the figures already and he chose to believe and use the stories he was told instead.

None of this means Palestinian suffering in Gaza isn't real. It is and it matters. But it cannot be understood, let alone fixed, without saying plainly that it was Hamas who started this war on October 7, that Hamas steals aid and that Hamas embeds its fighters among the civilians whose suffering is now being repurposed for a British minister's Instagram video, and that Hamas has refused every chance since to disarm or step aside as the peace process requires. A Foreign Secretary who genuinely wanted to help the people of Gaza would be saying that too. He isn't and I don't think that's an accident.

Nor is this the first time claims like his have come apart under scrutiny. Coverage of Gaza has been full of testimony passed on by people who were never there themselves and never heard it firsthand, repeated by others as though it were fact. The BBC alone has had to correct roughly two Gaza-related stories a week for being biased, inaccurate or misleading.

Just imagine, for a moment, the reverse: a Foreign Secretary announcing a pro-Israel shift in policy because of what unnamed lobbyists told him in a private room. We all know exactly what that would be called on social media.

And there is, of course, a cost to all this beyond how it emboldens the antisemites and makes British Jews feel, one this government seems entirely uninterested in totting up. It has been pointed out, correctly, that roughly one in seven prescriptions dispensed on the NHS is filled by a single Israeli manufacturer employing well over a thousand people here; that the swallowable camera used to screen thousands of NHS bowel patients came out of Israeli engineering; that the system due to protect our own tank crews from incoming rounds within the year is Israeli, bought for a rounding error in defence terms; that a drone assembled in Leicester has Israeli origins running through it; and that intelligence sharing from Israel has, by the account of people who have held the relevant ministerial brief, helped stop terror plots on British soil, including a Hezbollah bomb factory found on a residential London street a decade ago.

Israel's own foreign minister has already warned that further sanctions will be met in kind. None of that features in a moody video about "stories." A fair, simple, democratic question has been put to Miliband since he posted it: produce the evidence, or withdraw the claim. He has done neither.
Ed Mililband’s claim about Israel blocking medicine into Gaza was incendiary – but then it was intended to be
It’s not that Keir Starmer’s government, or Rishi Sunak’s beforehand, was effusively pro-Israel, but even the tiniest speck of empathy shown towards the Jewish state was too much for Britain’s Islamists and their fellow travellers on the third-worldist left and nativist right.

Let’s note something important before going any further: when we talk about antisemitic Muslims in Britain, we are not saying that all Muslims in Britain are antisemitic. We are saying that those who are should be treated as the severe civic problem they represent, and certainly should not be pandered to for narrow electoral advantage.

Specifically, we have in mind those Muslims in Britain who tell pollsters Jews have too much power over the financial system (39 per cent), the media (41 per cent), and government policy (46 per cent); the 39 per cent of Muslims who said in the wake of October 7 that Hamas did not commit murders or rapes, the 49 per cent who believed Israel had no right to exist as a Jewish state, and the 46 per cent who stated that they had more sympathy for Hamas than for Israel.

Labour has looked at these numbers, and scanned a fracturing electoral map that does not look encouraging for pluralist social democracy, and resolved in favour of sectarianism and appeasement. It won’t work, of course. The rise of the Gaza independents has proved that antizionist and anti-liberal Muslims no longer need Labour and can successfully apply their demographic advantage in certain constituencies to a first-past-the-post system which has seldom had to contend with ethno-religious voting outside of Northern Ireland.

By leaving the Labour coalition, these voters got the party to adopt an Israel policy much more to their liking. Why would they give up this power now? Why not organise a larger-scale exit next time and see what other policies Labour will shift on, whether LGBT education, anti-Islamism strategies, or criminalising Quran desecration? Labour blinked before. It will blink again.

Ed Miliband is right about one thing: stories matter. British companies routinely do business with both sides of territorial disputes (e.g. Turkey and Cyprus); British charities send money to settlers in "occupied territories” (e.g. Western Sahara); the British government seeks to deepen trade ties with states which can much more credibly be accused of genocide (e.g. China in Xinjiang).

But none of these are getting the Israel treatment because there are no stories there. The lobbies for Northern Cyprus and the Uyghur Muslims are pitifully small, as are those for Christian communities being wiped out by African Islamists and Afghan refugees expelled en masse by Pakistan. Without well-funded lobbies your story rarely gets heard and without getting your story heard you have no chance of moving Western governments in your direction.

Palestine has a lobby, one far better funded and more effectual than the laughably over-hyped Israel lobby, and so its stories are everywhere.

Stories have defined Gaza’s October 7 blitzkrieg on Israel and the ensuing war. Stories pumped out by the paid propagandists of the Qatari-Iranian axis, laundered by the hired help in the NGO-activist complex, broadcast to the West by a partly ideological but mostly credulous media, breathlessly repeated by politicians malevolent and midwit alike, written up with scholarly-looking footnotes by the faculty-lounge fedayeen, edited down for chanting purposes by humanities undergraduates, and injected into Gen-Z’s social feeds so the TikTok kids regard Zionism as cooked and Jews sus.

Throughout the October 7 war, stories have proved themselves the most potent weapon in 21st century armed conflict. Stories of famine and malnutrition were amplified by the United Nations, the British Foreign Office, and even some respectable organisations. The data would later debunk these narratives but by then it was too late.

Western audiences were bombarded with stories that Israel was lying about Hamas-infiltrated hospitals, that Jerusalem’s forces said they were "targeting people including medical teams and Arab speakers” at Shifa hospital, that the IDF blew up a “Press” van killing five journalists from Al-Quds Today, that Israel killed the headteacher of Deir Yassin Secondary School in al-Bass.

Westerners were not bombarded with the facts which dispelled or added vital context to these stories. That Hamas’s control of civilian hospitals has been confirmed by documents, video footage, tunnel infrastructure, and its own admissions. That Israel had actually said its forces would be taking medical teams and Arab speakers to Shifa hospital. That the "journalists” killed in the “Press” van airstrike were members of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist cell. That the headteacher of Deir Yassin Secondary School was, according to Hamas, the head of their operation in Lebanon.

This is how you get patently meretricious accusations of genocide magnified by once credible scholars and institutions. How you boost an intractable but contained conflict to the top of Western political agendas, surging past ongoing wars markedly less contained and more bloody. How you get Labour ministers to upend its foreign policy in a way more likely to harm than to help Britain’s interests.

Tell a good enough story and weak, frightened, civilisationally complacent institutions like the British government will lap it up without question.

The Palestinians tried rocks, knives, guns, and suicide vests. They tried documenting very real Israeli infringements of their human rights. But the most effective campaign of all has been the farrago of lies, half-truths, distortions, and insinuations of the narrative intifada. Stories can be deadlier than weapons, both in Israel and closer to home.
Miliband sanctions plan against Israeli settlements to be announced Tuesday
Ed Miliband is set to announce sweeping new sanctions on goods produced in and imported from Israeli settlements in the West Bank during a statement to parliament on Tuesday.

The new measures will be accompanied by further steps directly targeting individuals and companies profiting from businesses operating in the region.

Jewish News understands the sanctions will focus on produce, including agricultural goods, imported from settlements deemed illegal under international law.

However, they will stop short of covering all service industries—such as banking, telecommunications, and some technology firms—due to enforcement challenges.

Both France and Canada are understood to be weighing up announcing their own moves to coincide with the UK action.

In remarks likely to provoke strong reactions in Israel and among several UK communal organisations, Miliband is expected to voice concern about the possibility of “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank.

However, he is understood to be stopping short of accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.

He will confirm that the UK is expanding its sanctions regime, which has previously targeted both individuals implicated in settler violence and companies involved in the expansion of Israeli settlements.

The sanctions are intended as a warning to British companies considering bids for construction projects in the E1 area of the West Bank—a region where Israeli development could divide Palestinian territory and potentially end any prospects for a two-state solution.

To address concerns that UK sanctions might impact Jewish religious practice in places such as Jerusalem’s Old City, the Foreign Secretary is expected to confirm exemptions for traders engaged in humanitarian or solely religious work.

In a significant shift, the Foreign Secretary will also confirm that the UK now backs a landmark 2024 Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which obliges states to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that help sustain illegal settlements.”

Former Attorney General Richard Hermer KC has reportedly completed a review of the UK’s compliance with international law and Israel’s actions in the West Bank.
UKLFI: Natasha Hausdorff on the Mike Graham Show
Natasha Hausdorff, UKLFI Charitable Trust Legal Director, discusses Ed Miliband's remarks regarding Israel with Mike Graham and why they are antisemitic in the same vein as mediaeval blood libels.


Exeter student faces anti-Semitic abuse – despite not being Jewish
For Ms Thay, all these experiences add up to a campaign of intimidation aimed at discouraging her from her work around combating anti-Semitism and educating people about the Holocaust.

“I’ve asked Jewish students if I should report my experiences of anti-Semitism, but they say there is no point because nothing will be done.”

Ms Thay will be addressing Jewish community leaders and politicians at the HET appeal dinner in London on Monday to talk about her experiences with the trust.

She added:“I don’t think that there is enough Holocaust education in British schools.

“I’ve heard people say that it wasn’t actually six million [Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust], it was only like 250,000 or whatever, because they’ve seen that online.

“And they don’t actually understand that what they’re saying is harmful and wrong.”

Reported incidents of anti-Semitism on university campuses in Britain have rocketed since Hamas’s Oct 7 2023 terror attacks on Israel, and the war in Gaza that followed.

The Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 53 incidents on campuses in 2022-23 and 272 in 2023-24. At the University of Leeds, a centre for Jewish students was vandalised, and Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, a university chaplain, received death threats.

Jewish students have complained about what they describe as the glorification of terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and have called for more action from government and university leaders.

Karen Pollock CBE, the chief executive of the HET, said: “The sad reality is that Amberley’s experience is not unique.

“We are operating in a climate where young people can face abuse simply for commemorating the Holocaust and standing up against anti-Semitism.

“That makes our work more important and more urgent than ever before and it is why I am incredibly proud of Amberley and the thousands of young HET ambassadors who, having seen with their own eyes where hatred can lead, are determined to challenge anti-Semitism wherever they encounter it.”

A spokesman for the University of Exeter said: “We are unaware of this incident, and we encourage both students and staff to report any matters of this nature to us. We are committed to eradicating any instances of discrimination, including anti-Semitism, and we investigate all incidents reported to us.

“We have been working actively with our Jewish staff and student collectives to ensure that there is awareness of our support and report pathways.”


Adidas apologises for ‘offence’ caused by accessibility campaign featuring IDF amputee
Sports retailing giant Adidas issued a statement from its international head office on Monday 7 September apologising for any “offence” it caused by featuring a wounded IDF veteran in a promotional campaign for a service enabling amputee athletes to buy just one running shoe.

Shalev Biton lost a leg on 12 May 2021 whilst serving in the Israeli army’s Nahal infantry brigade during a conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Injured when an anti-tank missile hit his military vehicle, whilst his fellow soldier Omer Tabib was killed, Biton, who now runs with a prosthetic limb, was one of 10 disabled athletes featured in a series of posters displayed in local Adidas outlets across Israel.

The local ads were not part of the company’s global campaign, which launched in Europe earlier this year.

Outraged pro-Palestinian activists, including Spanish actor Javier Bardem, claimed the campaign, whose posters featuring Biton only appeared in Israel, appeared to focus on Israeli amputees rather than Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They also accused Biton of participating in “genocide”, and called for a global boycott of Adidas.

In response, the company said: “We recognize that an image used in a recent local activation by the local team has raised concerns and strong reactions. It was never our intent to cause offense and we apologize for anyone affected. We acknowledge the concerns that have been raised and are taking the feedback seriously.”

It added: “Across the Middle East, Adidas has a long-standing commitment to the communities we serve, working alongside athletes, teams and sporting communities throughout the region as well as supporting people and communities in need through product donations.”

“We will continue to listen, learn and work to ensure that our actions reflect the inclusive values we stand for.”

Posting on his Instagram account on Monday 7 September, Shalev Biton, who has now deleted a video he filmed featuring him promoting the shoe, wrote: “This story is much bigger than me. It’s about Israel. It’s about our soldiers. It’s about families, friends and an entire country living through a reality that is so often reduced to headlines, clips and narratives from thousands of miles away.”

In July 2024, Adidas apologised for any “upset or distress caused” by the re-issue of its 1972 Munich Olympic trainer with Palestinian-American Bella Hadid as its campaign face. As reported by Jewish News, the company had faced intense international criticism for the perceived insensitivity of the choice of an outspoken critic of Israel as the face of a shoe named for a sporting event where 11 Jews were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

In 2023, chief executive Bjørn Gulden defended disgraced racist rapper Kanye West over his antisemitic rants, (which included claims he was “going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” and praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazis), saying, “I don’t think he meant what he said.” The comments came as Gulden, who was not in his Adidas role at the time West launched his attacks on Jewish people, discussed the end of the Adidas Yeezy trainer deal with the musician.


Socialism 2026 Promotes PFLP Leaders’ Texts and Militant Pro-Palestine Activism
Socialism 2026 is now underway in Chicago. The four-day conference, organized by Haymarket Books, runs from September 4 through September 7 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place and advertises more than 100 meetings and workshops.

A previous Jewish Onliner report identified the conference as an organizing hub for campaigns targeting military suppliers, university boards and schools. The programming now underway makes that agenda more explicit. Sessions promote writings by PFLP figures, bring together networks involved in pro-Palestine teacher training, celebrate union divestment from Israel, accuse U.S. and Israeli technology companies of facilitating “genocide,” and describe Israeli prisons as a “death camp.”

The September 6 session “Palestinian Revolutionary Thought and the Prisoners’ Movement” asks what the Palestinian left can teach activists today. Its description centers prison writing and recently translated texts by Ahmad Qatamesh and PFLP terrorist Walid Daqqah, who was convicted in 1987 for participating in the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam.

Qatamesh has a lengthy history with the PFLP. In 2019, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency described him as a PFLP leader when reporting his arrest in the West Bank. An Arabic-language profile published by the Vision Center for Political Development states that Qatamesh joined the PFLP in the early 1970s and became active within its ranks, spending 17 years underground engaged in clandestine activity against Israel. The profile also says Israeli authorities accused him in 1992 of leading the PFLP in the West Bank during the First Intifada and belonging to its political bureau.

The panel is sponsored by the People’s Center for Palestine, and its three listed speakers are current PCP staff. The organization identifies Danya al-Saleh as its education director, Jenan Awaida as operations and communications manager, and Ribhi Hussein as program coordinator. PCP describes itself as a “resource and organizing institution” for “Palestinian liberation” and says its publishing work prioritizes prison writing, political theory and Palestinian political thought.

The Palestinian Youth Movement, which sponsors another Socialism 2026 prisoners panel, separately led a campaign for Daqqah’s release and published a 2023 statement titled “Freedom or Martyrdom: Walid Daqqah’s fate is in our hands,” presenting his writings within a broader framework of resistance and liberation.

Awaida’s own public rhetoric adds further context. At the separate 2025 People’s Conference for Palestine, the Anti-Defamation League reported that Awaida called for every sector of society to become a front against Zionism and urged campaigns designed to strike multiple pressure points.
Dearborn Mayor Headlines Convention With Speaker Who Called for Fighting for Khamenei
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud is scheduled to speak next month at a major Shiite Muslim convention in the Toronto area alongside several religious figures with controversial public records.

Speaker Sayed Moustafa Qazwini, a California cleric, falsely accused Israeli intelligence of supporting ISIS and later said he hoped to die a martyr like the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Speaker Nazar al-Qatari was reported to have urged Shiite worshippers to fight for Khamenei and join Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces.

The Universal Muslim Association of America, or UMAA, will hold its annual convention from October 9 to 11 at the Hilton Toronto/Markham Suites Conference Centre & Spa in Markham, Ontario. UMAA bills the gathering as its 24th annual convention and says on its official convention page that more than 5,000 Shiite Muslims are expected to attend the event, titled “The Next Chapter: From Identity to Impact.”

The program also includes journalist Mehdi Hasan. In remarks from more than a decade ago, Hasan described non-Muslims as people who “live their lives as animals” and separately compared atheists to “cattle.”

Cleric Blamed Israel for ISIS
Speaker Qazwini, founder and director of California’s Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, attracted attention in 2017 after falsely claiming during a sermon that ISIS and other terrorist organizations were supported by Israeli intelligence and that ISIS officers had been trained in Israel.

A 2024 report by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism documented a 2009 sermon in which Qazwini referred to Israelis as “enemies of God” and “enemies of humanity” and said Muslims had to be “tough and aggressive” toward them.

The report also documented a May 2024 sermon in which Qazwini accused American politicians of enabling Israel’s war in Gaza and said some U.S. senators were “worse than the Nazis” and “worse than Hitler.”

GWU researchers further highlighted Qazwini’s past comments about Hamas. In remarks cited by the report, Qazwini said a person seeking to “free his country” should not necessarily be considered a terrorist and invoked George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as comparisons. Following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the report said Qazwini cited a Quranic verse concerning permission to fight after being wronged.

The same investigation found that Qazwini had been a regular contributor to Islam Oriente, a Spanish-language project associated with Iran’s Al-Mustafa International University. GWU described the platform as part of Al-Mustafa’s efforts to disseminate Iranian government ideology in Spanish-speaking communities.

The university itself was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2020. Treasury said Al-Mustafa served as a recruitment platform for the IRGC-Quds Force, including for IRGC-QF-led foreign militias fighting in Syria.

More recently, Qazwini publicly mourned Khamenei following his death in 2026. As Jewish Onliner previously reported, Qazwini described Khamenei as a martyr and then expressed a personal wish: “I pray I exit this life as a martyr, just like Khamenei. I want to die with martyrdom, not in a hospital bed. We ask Allah every day that we are killed and martyred in His path.”


Charity regulator probes Cheetham Hill mosque where speakers praised Ayatollah
The charity regulator is looking into a mosque which hosted a conference in honour of the late Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Al-Hussain Masjid, on Bellot Street in Cheetham Hill, held the event on Sunday August 16 under the title: ‘The Shohada [Martyrs] Conference’.

It was billed as ‘a special evening commemorating the life, sacrifice and legacy of the martyred leader’.

The Manchester Evening News has seen footage and social media material relating to the event, which has now been passed on to the Charity Commission.

One speaker, Sayyid Haider Hassanain, gave a lecture titled ‘Sayyid Khamenei: A life of lessons for today’.

The mosque is operated by the Shia Welfare Association (SWA), which is registered as a charity. It also runs a youth movement programme – Abul Fadhl Youth (AFY). The event was shared on the AFY’s social media page.

A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “We take extremely seriously any allegations of the misuse of charities to promote the interests of hostile states or extremism and will act robustly, within our powers, to deal with such misuse.

"We are aware of concerns about an event that allegedly took place at Shia Welfare Association, also known as Al-Hussain Mosque, as well as concerns about past comments made by an invited speaker. We are assessing information available to us to determine any appropriate action or response."
Canadian council candidate Rasha Zaid says Zionists ‘must be locked up’ in video
A Canadian aesthetician and pro-Palestinian activist running for Windsor city council in Ontario’s Ward 4 district has said in circulating video footage online that Zionists “must be locked up.”

Rasha Zaid, who cooperates with the activist group Windsor4Palestine, was recorded speaking at a demonstration where she said: “Every person that announces they are a Zionist must be locked up! They are terrorists” and “We are not free until they’re not among us.”

The video footage was shared on social media by the X/Twitter account Leviathan, an account dedicated to naming “Jihadis, Antisemites, Anarchists & other threats. Using OSINT to notify for Public Interest” in Canada.

Additional footage shared by Leviathan captured Zaid leading chants of “All the Zionists are racists! All the Zionists are the terrorists!” while marching with demonstrators through city streets.

Leviathan also shared screenshots ascribed to Zaid’s social media accounts that included an image, labeled “The Zionist Cycle,” claiming that antisemitism and major attacks are staged to gain global sympathy and justify military actions, while another post featured text asserting, “There is no such thing as antisemitic.”


In protests and politics, ‘Zionists’ are being blamed for NYC housing woes
The flyers went up in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood last month, plastered onto lampposts, bollards, building walls and traffic control boxes.

“Beware: Talmudists are trained to cheat,” said one of the flyers posted in opposition to a housing redevelopment project.

“Locals vs. Rothschilds,” another said.

While those flyers echoed age-old antisemitic tropes, others deployed Israel-related or anti-Zionist rhetoric, decrying “dirty zionist money” and comparing the redevelopment project to the Nakba.

“Stop Zionist occupation of Manhattan. NYCHA residents must keep their homes,” one said, referring to the New York City Housing Authority, at the entrance to an apartment building.

The flyers were the latest in a series of recent statements attributing housing disputes in New York City to Israel or “Zionists.” The rhetoric appeared to mark a growing new front in anti-Zionist activism in the city, despite a history of disputes between Jews and their neighbors, including about housing.

“There’s always been tension, but the explicit nature of the antisemitism is new, part of the period we’re living through right now,” said Prof. Jeffrey Gurock, a scholar of New York Jewish history at Yeshiva University.


Rhode Island capital becomes largest US city to vote on anti-Israel divestment
As pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel progressives in the United States find some success at the 2026 ballot box, the long-gestating Israel divestment campaign is looking to capitalize in Rhode Island.

Voters in Providence, the state capital, will vote on a referendum this November saying the city should refrain from investing in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.”

The language of the actual ballot petition does not mention Israel, nor any other country, by name. But the signature campaign was led by Providence for Palestine, a local activist coalition, and both its proponents and opponents have framed the measure as a referendum on Israel and the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

With the referendum’s ballot placement secured, Providence has become the largest American municipality ever to place divestment before the voting public.

“We’re in this moment when the general public at large, and particularly Democratic voters, very much understand what’s going on in Gaza and Palestine as genocide, as apartheid, and want their leaders to take action on it,” Zack Kligler, a lead organizer of the ballot initiative and member of the Rhode Island chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Kligler described the current divestment campaign as having “definitely been led disproportionately by Jewish organizers.”

To determine which countries are “conducting” any of its list of human rights abuses, the referendum would rely on “resolutions” from various bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice and “any” US court ruling or UN body. Some, though not all, of those bodies have reached conclusions that would implicate Israel in the ballot language’s divestment campaign.
Mairav Zonszein’s Activism Finds a Home in The New York Times
Mairav Zonszein has long argued that the problem with Israel extends beyond Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Israeli society at large. In 2024, she made that argument in Foreign Policy.

Now, Mairav Zonszein makes this claim once again, this time in The New York Times, insisting that “It’s Not Just the West Bank Settlers. It’s Israel.”

It is no wonder that Zonszein believes the issue in Israeli society is the society itself, when she has made public comments claiming that Zionism in Israel is “Jewish supremacy.” She has also said it should be “no surprise” when Israelis are attacked by Palestinians because of how they are treated.

Needless to say, Zonszein should not be treated as a reputable source in examining Israeli society. Zonszein’s central argument claims that there is a network of “militias” operating in the West Bank. Failing to mention the actual Palestinian terrorist militias operating there, Zonszein frames Jewish civilians living over the Green Line as operating as state-backed militias.

This framing can only be done by ignoring the very real security threats the state of Israel faces. These threats have resulted in the establishment of rapid-response teams, which she likens to “a neighborhood watch, but with military-grade weapons and the use of deadly force.” No mention that regional defense units’ rapid-response squads were established to defend Israeli communities, and were particularly implemented after October 7, when the security threat was heightened dramatically on every front.

Her evidence for these teams being “militias” is the expansion of Israeli civilian access to firearms following October 7. Yet Zonszein never makes the obvious connection as to why that change occurred. Nor does she mention that Israel has some of the strictest gun laws in the world and obtaining a gun requires meeting specific eligibility criteria and undergoing a licensing process.

Having a firearm does not make someone part of a “militia” – a claim that Zonszein makes and does not substantiate. There is, of course, legitimate concern over Jewish violence in the West Bank, but collapsing armed civilian defense teams, ordinary Israeli residents, and violent extremists into one category does little to explain the reality on the ground.
The West Bank Mansions No Journalist Wants to Cover
When foreign journalists cover the West Bank / Judea and Samaria, the story is written before they arrive. Tents, small structures and half-built homes on land that is supposedly swallowed up by Jewish civilians. It’s the story of Palestinian villages being slowly erased, and it runs on a loop.

The reason for that imagery being front and center in the news at all times is simple. It is the story that fits the narrative.

Sunday, I went on a tour with Regavim of Palestinian villages. Not the ones that make the front page, but villages full of multi-story mansions worth millions of dollars. Yet many of the houses remained empty and the streets eerily quiet. The homes that did have cars, more often than not, had Israeli licence plates, meaning they may also maintain a residence within Israel or have their vehicle registered there. This wasn’t the story of one village built to impress that has since remained largely vacant – but countless villages, each with more impressive homes than the next.

And not a single foreign journalist joined. Not because they weren’t asked. They were. And they declined the invitation.

“This isn’t anything new. What’s the story?”

The story is the one they are purposefully leaving out of the frame.

The one that never turns the camera to the angle that would show a million-dollar home sitting empty in a village devoid of basic needs such as supermarkets, pharmacies, and schooling options found in any other community, but isn’t needed in one that is void of people to make use of such needs.

The story that would actually require an explanation – money, ownership, who’s building what and why – never gets asked.

That story doesn’t sell.

And as the homes in these villages largely sit empty, so too does the front page.

Because what’s the point of writing a story when the conclusion derails from the rest of the fantasy that’s already been sold?
20 years of heartache: Alan Senitt’s family on killer’s failed release bid
The family of murdered Jewish community leader Alan Senitt has spoken of their continuing anguish after a US court rejected a bid by his killer to secure early prison release.

Jeffrey Rice, who murdered the 27-year-old Londoner in Washington DC in July 2006, challenged a decision that reduced his original 52-year prison sentence to 37 years.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has now upheld that ruling, bringing to an end more than three years of legal battles for Alan’s family.

Alan’s mum Karen Senitt told Jewish News: “For more than three years we have had to revisit the worst thing that has ever happened to our family. Every application, appeal, court date and period of waiting brings Alan’s murder and the trauma surrounding it back to the forefront of our lives.”

Alan, a former chairman of the Union of Jewish Students and leading advocate for interfaith relations, was attacked while protecting a female friend in the district of Georgetown.

The court recorded that Rice forced Alan to the ground while accomplice Kristopher Piper attacked his friend. When Alan turned towards her after she cried out, Rice stabbed him multiple times.

Rice had earlier told accomplices he was “going to stab or cut somebody”, according to the judgment.

He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder while armed, four robberies and firearms offences and was sentenced in 2007 to 52 years. Piper received 37 years. Rice later sought a sentence reduction and immediate release under Washington DC’s Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act.
Thailand to deport French zoo owner who barred Israelis, and an Israeli said to threaten him
Thailand said Monday it would deport a Frenchman who banned Israeli visitors from his zoo on Koh Samui, just days after issuing a similar order for an Israeli who had allegedly threatened him.

Kevin Dimino, co-owner of the Samui Exotic Park on the resort island, engaged in threatening, harassing and physically abusive behavior, according to an order signed by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.

His behavior was contrary to public order, good morals and public welfare, it said, adding that he had also been fined 5,000 baht ($150) by a local court for violating a law on the use of roads and vehicles.

The government issued a similar order on Friday for Israeli national Yaacov Ohayon, who it said had been given a suspended sentence of 15 days in jail and fined 5,000 baht for causing fear or panic through threats.

Dimino, who owns the zoo with his Thai wife, told AFP last month he had hung up a Palestinian flag in response to bad behavior from some Israeli visitors, which he said triggered threats online.

The Frenchman then went viral after an altercation with an Israeli family was caught on camera. He received more threats, which he responded to with overt antisemitic statements.

He told AFP over the weekend that Ohayon had “started the story.”

The deportation orders — which can be appealed within seven days — came after the government last week published new regulations on when foreigners could be expelled, amid increased scrutiny of tourists’ behavior.
Greek tavern reportedly faces bomb threat over Jewish-Greek dinner
A Melbourne Greek restaurant has rejected online hate and a bomb threat after hosting a joint Jewish-Greek cultural evening.

On Facebook, the owner insists it will keep bringing the communities together. Last Friday the Mediterranean Greek Tavern in Elsternwick staged a night that mixed the two traditions.

Guests dressed in white, challah sat beside Greek dishes, prayers were said, and a bouzouki band played Hava Nagila alongside music from Zorba the Greek.

The dinner marked six months of Shabbat Club Australia.

The series offers relaxed, modern gatherings designed to let younger people experience Shabbat without the formality of a synagogue.

Owner Perry Le Greco called it a simple celebration of life, family and shared values. Most guests were Jewish, though several Greeks joined in.

He noted how closely the cultures align around food, community and hospitality.

Club founder Chrystal Dias started the dinners to counter isolation and antisemitism by offering an easy, inclusive entry point.

Events are usually limited to about 22 people, with the venue kept secret until 48 hours beforehand.

Earlier nights have been held at other Melbourne spots. Friday’s larger gathering had a long waiting list.

The next day the restaurant posted warmly about the young crowd. Supportive replies came first, then a surge of abuse via social media.

Commenters called the hosts sell-outs, accused them of supporting “genocide killers,” urged that Jews be deported, and one reportedly openly called for the tavern to be bombed.

Le Greco described the threat as “insane”.

On Facebook the restaurant said it had received a number of abusive and hateful messages about an evening meant only to celebrate friendship, culture, food and music.

It asked how anyone could find hatred in a night built to bring people together. The post reminded critics that real people stand on the receiving end.

The owners declared they would not be intimidated or let hatred dictate their actions. They would continue celebrating both communities and the ability to gather with respect.

“There is enough division in the world already. We choose unity.”

An update followed: because the commenters posted under their own names, the restaurant decided to identify them publicly.

It gave them their “five minutes of fame” and left others to judge the writers.

He noted the writers made no effort to hide and hoped colleagues or family might call them out. After legal advice, Le Greco made about 23 of the posts public.
Pacific island nation Nauru opens its first Israeli embassy, in Jerusalem
The tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru inaugurated its first embassy in Israel in Jerusalem on Monday, with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attending the ceremony alongside visiting Nauruan Vice President Lionel Aingimea, who is also the country’s foreign minister.

“We see opening an embassy here in Jerusalem not only as a strengthening of our ties with Israel, but also as a message to the world of where we stand,” said Aingimea.

Aingimea asserted Nauru’s “unwavering” support for the Jewish state, saying it is “one of Israel’s most reliable and consistent diplomatic allies at the United Nations,” voting with Jerusalem 71 percent of the time — a number he said “will increase very quickly.”

Israel has previously thanked Nauru – among the smallest nations in the world, with a population of about 12,000 – for its support in the UN and other forums, where Jerusalem has faced increasing isolation in the aftermath of its war against Hamas in Gaza.

“Israel’s relations with the nations of the South Pacific are advancing tremendously,” Sa’ar said in a readout from the Foreign Ministry, and described Nauru as “one of Israel’s greatest friends.”

Sa’ar said that through MASHAV, the Foreign Ministry’s international development cooperation program, Israeli emergency-care doctors will work to strengthen local medical capabilities in Nauru, and Israel will provide the nation with “medical equipment, including cardiac ultrasound equipment, as well as water-purification systems capable of producing tens of thousands of liters of clean water each day.”

The minister posted photos from the ceremony on his X feed, including one in which he was shown fixing a mezuzah to the embassy doorpost. A mezuzah is a small parchment scroll inscribed with the words of the Shema, a traditional Jewish prayer, which Jews hang in doorways, often in decorative cases.


John Malkovich ‘thrilled’ to return to Israel in new musical satire
Two-time Oscar nominee John Malkovich is returning to Israel in a rare international booking at a time when Israel’s entertainment industry is facing continued disruption and boycotts.

Malkovich will perform in The Music Critic at Tel Aviv’s Charles Bronfman Auditorium from April 13, 2027, alongside composer Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-Ki Joo.

The show, a musical satire, blends classical music and comedy, with Malkovich playing an “evil critic” who tears apart composers including Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin, before ironically reading a genuinely harsh review of his own career.

Written and conceived by Igudesman, the production has toured across Europe and the US and was also released as an official album.

It will be Malkovich’s third professional visit to Israel. He first came in 2008 as a guest of honour at the Jerusalem Film Festival, before returning in 2013 with The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer, performed at the Eilat International Chamber Music Festival and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

His return comes at a difficult time for Israel’s entertainment industry, with international performances disrupted by boycotts and artists choosing to stay away.

“I am thrilled to return to Israel and look forward to meeting the warm Israeli audience once again, to whom I feel a strong closeness and solidarity. I hope to find you happy and optimistic! Sending you much love,” Malkovich said.





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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.

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