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Tuesday, September 22, 2026

09/21 Links: Richard Landes: How the Western Press Got Jihad Wrong; Police officer wounded in shooting outside Ontario synagogue; Reform Rabbi: Unhinged, obsessive loathing of Israel is corrupting US values

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: How Hamas Controls the Story Coming Out of Gaza
Azaiza revealed details about how journalists operated under Hamas rule. He described an environment in which journalists were pressured to suppress criticism of Hamas and, in some cases, to stop filming when Palestinians expressed anger toward the terrorist group.

These are not allegations coming from an Israeli government official or a pro-Israel advocacy organization. They are admissions by a Palestinian journalist who became internationally famous for documenting the war.

When Palestinians blamed Israel, the cameras kept rolling. When Palestinians blamed Hamas, the cameras were turned off.

He acknowledged that stepping outside this framework exposes journalists to intense backlash, including organized online campaigns, accusations of treason, and physical intimidation inside Gaza.

He openly acknowledged that initially he struggled with whether to publish material showing Palestinians criticizing Hamas. He said he had never seen a Gaza journalist publish such material. He also disclosed that he grew up supporting Hamas and that Hamas's ideology and the culture of "resistance" were part of his childhood environment.

This is a remarkable admission. It helps explain why the outside world has heard relatively little from Gaza about Hamas's responsibility for the suffering of Palestinians under its rule. It also raises an obvious question: How much of the story coming out of Gaza has been shaped not only by what journalists saw but also by what they believed they were permitted to show?

Azaiza's account should therefore prompt media organizations that used his work – and the work of other Gaza-based journalists as well as journalists covering other terrorist entities and their sponsors – to examine their own reporting practices. Who supplied the information? Who was present when it was gathered? What material was not published? Were journalists pressured? Were interviews conducted freely? Were Palestinians allowed to criticize Hamas on camera? Most importantly, did international media organizations independently verify claims coming from a territory controlled by a terrorist organization?

Azaiza's interview is ultimately a warning about the dangers of accepting any side's narrative without scrutiny.... It should be a wake-up call.

The question is no longer simply what the cameras show. It is also what they do not show.
Gaza journalist who met with Mamdani admits he buried Oct. 7 footage of Israeli hostages being beaten to protect perpetrators
A Gaza journalist who has met with Mayor Mamdani and been honored with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and a spot on the Time100 list admitted that he buried footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a Palestinian mob on Oct. 7, 2023 in order to protect the perpetrators.

Photographer Motaz Azaiza also revealed that all media in Gaza is controlled by Hamas through a single WhatsApp group — and the terror group will target any journalist who publishes criticism.

Azaiza — who has become one of the most famous journalists in Gaza — was in the territory on Oct. 7, when Hamas marched the hostages taken from Israel through the streets of Gaza, where all hell broke loose.

“People got out, watched, beat them, hit them, and I followed them and filmed,” Azaiza told the Taqarrab podcast.

“But I did not publish those videos.”

“Why? Because I did not want to ruin the lives of the people who were filmed,” the photographer said.

“I understood that Israel would use those videos to identify every person who was there and eliminate them.”

“I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online,” he added.

Aziza also revealed that “every journalist in Gaza” is in a Hamas-run WhatsApp group called “Smart” that coordinates coverage in Gaza. One of the Hamas media directors based at the Rafa Crossing ran it, he said.

Aziza went on to say that he was targeted by pro-Hamas media — run through that channel — when he showed a video of a Gaza resident cursing Hamas.


Leading US Reform rabbi in Yom Kippur sermon: Unhinged, obsessive loathing of Israel is corrupting US values
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a leading voice in the US Reform community, in his Yom Kippur sermon on Monday called on Jews to hedge their support for politicians, urged young Jews to take leadership roles amid rising hostility in the US, and warned that hatred of Israel was corrupting the US.

“My advice to the Jewish community is to support only politicians who support us and our liberal vision for America. Do not give to organizations that in the past may have allied with us, but so betrayed us after October 7,” he said.

Hirsch is a leader in the Reform movement in North America and the senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, one of the city’s most prominent Reform institutions.

He has consistently pushed for continued attachment to Israel, and opposed anti-Zionist activity, in recent years, as the Reform community, the largest denomination in the US, has contended with discrimination, anti-Zionist activism and hostile politics.

In his Yom Kippur speech, he drew a continuity between historical persecution of Jews and contemporary discrimination, saying, “To be a Jew is to be part of a nation that others seek to harm.”

“While pervasive anti-Jewish hostility is not new, it is new to us. We grew up in what has been described as the ‘Golden Age’ of American Jewry,” he said, according to a transcript shared with The Times of Israel before the speech. “It is this clear and obvious change that has so unnerved us.”

Jews are targeted in hate crimes far more than any other group in New York City, with at least 229 confirmed antisemitic hate crimes so far this year, according to NYPD data.

Hirsch warned that hatred of Israel and animosity toward Jews in politics, the intellectual sphere and online were damaging US society. Other Jewish leaders, such as the historian Deborah Lipstadt, have repeatedly warned that antisemitism is a harbinger of societal deterioration.

“Jew-hatred is harming America. We are not only worried about ourselves. We are worried about the country we love,” Hirsch said. “Unhinged and obsessive loathing of Israel is corrupting American values. If allowed to spread, it is not only Jews who will pay the price. America will too.”

Hirsch called on Jews to “stay and fight” for the US, New York and the US Jewish community through protesting, advocacy, lobbying and political activity.

“Do not be enslaved to political tribes. The hatred exists on both the right and the left,” he said.

The speech came amid a fraught political season for centrist Jews. Most American Jews, and a large majority of Reform Jews, are Democrats. The party’s turn against Israel has put many Jewish Democrats in a bind as they navigate their allegiance to the party and the left with concerns about Jewish community welfare.


Quillette: Richard Landes: How the Western Press Got Jihad Wrong
Historian Richard Landes speaks with Pamela Paresky about apocalyptic movements, shame–honour cultures, and why he believes Western journalism has spent twenty-five years reporting jihad backwards.

Landes was trained as a medievalist, specialising in apocalyptic movements and shame–honour cultures. He is the author of Can "The Whole World" Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad, and the founder of Infidel Awareness Month, a 27-day observance running from 11 September to 7 October.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction & Background
02:41 Hamas vs. Palestinian Nationalism
05:15 Durban, 9/11, and Media Narratives
19:46 Islamophobia and Its Uses
41:02 Infidel Awareness Month
59:31 October 7th and Campus Response
01:08:25 Looking Ahead: Reasons for Optimism
01:11:21 Media Fabrication ("Pallywood")


Quillette: Iran, the Houthis and the Rise of Islamism | Zineb Riboua
Zineb Riboua is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East and founder of its China in MENA Project. She joins Zoe Sankey to discuss Iran, the Houthis, Israel, Turkey, Islamism, China’s influence in the Middle East, and the growing ideological divide between the West and its opponents.

Why is Iran escalating from a position of weakness? What do the Houthis actually want? And how does the ideology of third-worldism connect Islamists with parts of the Western left?

Riboua explains Iran’s strategy of “buying time”, the impact of sanctions and the naval blockade, China’s role as a source of support for Tehran, and the Houthis’ search for new patrons—including their growing interest in al-Shabaab. She also discusses Morocco–Israel normalisation, the changing balance of power in the Middle East, Turkey and ErdoฤŸan’s ambitions, and the prospects for Syria–Israel normalisation.

The conversation then turns to Europe and the West: why some young North African men become radicalised after migrating to Europe, the spread of Islamist and anti-Western ideas, and the rise of third-worldism as a political framework.

Finally, Riboua discusses the rise of AI doomerism, China’s role in the debate, the politics of degrowth and environmentalism, declining fertility in the Middle East, and what demographic change means for the future of the region and the West.

00:00 Introduction to Zineb Riboua and the geopolitical context
01:57 Iran’s strategy of buying time and recent escalation
03:50 Sanctions and economic pressure on Iran
05:50 Yemen, the Houthis and regional support
09:07 What do the Houthis actually want?
11:57 The Houthis’ religious and ideological motivations
15:00 Arab, Persian and Bedouin identities
17:56 Zineb Riboua on Morocco, Jewish heritage and Israel
22:02 Islamist radicalisation and antisemitism in Europe
26:11 Foreign influence and the rise of third-worldism
28:59 What is third-worldism?
34:08 Israel’s changing geopolitical role
36:06 AI doomerism, China and the “psyop” theory
39:10 AI panic, regulation and geopolitics
43:00 Degrowth, environmentalism and anti-human ideology
45:01 What young people in the Middle East want
47:04 Falling fertility and the region’s demographic problem
48:59 Turkey, ErdoฤŸan and the struggle for influence
52:08 Syria–Israel normalisation and Turkey’s role
54:54 American politics and the future of US support for Israel
58:10 Why Israel matters to American technology and power
59:58 Closing remarks




Gunman opens fire outside Ontario synagogue on Yom Kippur; police officer seriously wounded
A 29-year-old man opened fire on a police officer stationed outside an Ontario synagogue at the start of Yom Kippur on Sunday evening, triggering a shootout involving as many as 30 shots, the province’s police watchdog said Monday.

The gunfire left the assailant with life-threatening injuries and seriously wounded a veteran of nearly 13 years with the Belleville Police Service who was recovering in intensive care.

At a press conference on Monday, Belleville’s deputy police chief Sheri Meeks identified the shooter as Sean Ward, 29, from the neighboring city of Quinty West and the injured officer as Constable Jeff Smith.

The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said preliminary evidence showed the man arrived in a truck around 7 p.m. on Sunday and fired at an officer outside the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, about 110 miles east of Toronto. The officer returned fire before a second officer arrived and also fired.

SIU spokesperson Kristy Denette estimated that 20 to 30 shots were fired and said investigators found dozens of bullet holes along the street, with homes and vehicles struck and some vehicle windows shot out. She said it would make sense to believe that the synagogue was deliberately targeted, but stressed that this was speculation.

“It would have been quite, quite the scene indeed,” said Denette. She said the scene appeared to stretch about half a block from the synagogue.

At a press conference, a reporter asked Denette if the incident could be considered a “terrorist attack aimed at the Jewish community.”

She responded that “common sense would say that probably was the case,” but that her department’s investigation was limited to the exchange of fire and that the Belleville police were looking at motive.


Who decided to station police at Sons of Jacob on Yom Kippur?
Const. Jeff Smith of the Belleville Police Service was waiting in an unmarked car outside Sons of Jacob Synagogue on Sunday evening when, according to Ontario’s police watchdog, a man with a shotgun opened fire on him.

About 25 people were inside for Kol Nidre, the service that opens Yom Kippur. The synagogue’s president, Norm Weddum, says the congregation had never received a threat.

Belleville is a city of about 55,000, roughly 110 miles east of Toronto, and Weddum describes its Jewish community as small. Somebody at the local police department decided that this synagogue, on this night, needed an armed officer outside anyway. Ontario Premier Doug Ford called Smith a hero who stopped a tragedy. I think Ford is right, and I’d like to know who put Smith there.

Here’s what happened inside, as Weddum tells it. He heard shots, some congregants went toward the doors, and then a second round came. He moved everyone back into the sanctuary, shut the wooden doors so no one could be seen from the entrance, and told people to get down on the floor. Bullets came through the windows. One stained-glass window has about 20 holes in it.

Doug Lobel, a congregant, told CP24 news station what they were thinking down there: “Was the gunman going to breach the doors and start targeting us?”

He didn’t get the chance. Smith returned fire; a second officer fired as well, and Smith and the man were both hit. Houses and cars on the street were damaged. Smith, a 13-year veteran, is in critical but stable condition. The suspect, 29-year-old Sean Ward from neighboring Quinte West, is in life-threatening condition. No one inside was hurt.

Read the statements slowly
The first statement from Belleville police said an officer had “encountered” an individual near an intersection. It didn’t say why an officer was there. Since then, the force has had nothing to add, because the Special Investigations Unit, the civilian agency that takes over in Ontario whenever police shoot at someone, has invoked its mandate.

Mayor Neil Ellis told CBC he hopes the SIU investigation gets to “the root cause.” I don’t doubt he was shaken; he said he cried when he heard the news. But the SIU’s job is to decide whether Smith and his colleague were justified in firing. Why a 29-year-old showed up on that corner with a gun isn’t its question. Someone else has to ask it, and nobody has said publicly who that is.

Police haven’t said what led to the shooting or whether the synagogue was the target. The SIU first described the weapon as a rifle and later as a shotgun. At least three people fired on a residential street, and nobody has said whose bullets went through the stained glass. I’m not going to guess at Ward’s motive. Whatever it was, Smith was there first.


Heartbreaking farewell to Netanel Shukrun: ‘Dad, thank you for giving me my life’
Hundreds of people gathered Monday night at the cemetery in Alei Zahav to accompany Netanel Shukrun on his final journey. Shukrun was murdered at the Ein Raya spring in the Binyamin region hours before the start of Yom Kippur.

Netanel, a high-tech professional who worked as an information systems analyst at Hachshara Insurance Company, is survived by his wife, Merav, and six children. The eldest, an 11th-grade student, had accompanied him to the spring, while the youngest is 4. Members of the family gathered beside Netanel’s grave and embraced one another during the traditional tearing of garments as a sign of mourning.

Yoav, Netanel’s 16-year-old son, whose father helped save him in the attack, thanked him in his eulogy.

“Dad, I want to say thank you for 16 years together. Thank you for shouting to me when the terrorist came in during the attack. I don’t remember what you said to me, but I ran. Thank you for giving me my life. Thank God I survived, and I want to tell the family that we will keep going together and everything will be OK. I want to ask Dad to forgive me for what I did and for anything that may have hurt you.”

His daughter Talia addressed her father: “Monday, you told me to come with you to the spring, and I preferred to stay home. At 11:36, I heard on one of the channels that there had been an attack at a spring near Neve Tzuf. At first I didn’t make the connection, but then I realized it was the spring where you were. I went to Mom and asked her to check where you were, and you didn’t answer. From that moment, our lives changed. I missed you so much on Yom Kippur, especially during the Ne’ilah prayer. I will miss you so much, and your absence will be felt.”

Merav, Netanel’s wife, said in her eulogy: “I’m supposed to be used to speaking before an audience, but not one like this. The circumstances are different. Before I give a lecture, I’m prepared, and Nati would go over the presentation and make sure I knew the material. I don’t have that option now.

“I met Nati after going through crises in my life, and to tell the truth, Nati didn’t make things easy for me. We came from different families, but that didn’t stand in the way of two soulmates.


ASIO boss sends ‘clear signal’ to prominent Jewish Australians over Iranian threats
News24 Defence Analyst Peter Jennings says ASIO boss Mike Burgess has sent a “clear signal” to prominent Jewish Australians about the threat of Iranian assassinations.




The monstering of Ed Sheeran proves ‘Free Palestine’ has become a cult
While it should never have come to this, and Sheeran would have done well to ignore the mob or tell them where to go, his statement was probably about as good as it could have been in the circumstances. He called October 7 ‘horrific’, name-checking Hamas’s massacre at the Nova festival, before going on to call the Gaza war ‘catastrophic, unjustifiable and disproportionate’.

It’s rare that the butchering of nearly 400 ravers at Nova is even acknowledged on American arena stages, which in itself tells its own story. Depressingly, many Western pop musicians seem not to see themselves, or their audiences, in the party-mad young people who were butchered by jihadists in southern Israel that day.

You might have thought that Sheeran condemning the Gaza war would have bought him some leeway. It didn’t. The keffiyeh classes are incandescent that he dared mention the Israeli victims at all, and that he refused to utter the magic words, ‘Free Palestine’. Zarah Sultana, one of our lowest-wattage members of parliament, has accused Ed of ‘both-sidesing genocide and somehow casting himself as the victim’. She signed off with the not-at-all mental, ‘Enjoy your blood-soaked millions’.

All of this confirms what has been clear for some time – that Palestinianism is now a cult masquerading as humanitarian concern for the people of Gaza. And I don’t mean that as a metaphor. I mean it’s literally a cult. The insistence we mouth their slogans. The vitriol sprayed at anyone who deviates from the group’s monomania. All it’s missing is the charismatic leader, certainly since the IDF popped their beloved Sinwar.

This is no longer about the right of Pally mad artists like Macklemore to utter their ‘anti-Zionist’ blather in public – which should of course be defended, no matter how odious these cretins are. This is about forcing the entire music industry to conform to their warped, Jew-baiting worldview, or else. After all, Sheeran has been hounded not for saying something, but for not saying something – for asserting his right to stay out of politics and stick to the tunes. This is about conformity, not free speech.

The pro-Palestine cause took flight from reason some time ago. It is now fuelled by sheer, blind hatred. Hatred of the Jewish State. Hatred of anyone who sticks up for it, or refuses to agree it should be wiped from the map. Hatred of Jews, if we’re being honest, in many cases. What else could explain the viciousness, the refusal to recognise the humanity of the other side, the eye-rolling when you dare bring up Hamas’s murders and rapes?

That even Ed Sheeran is being slurred as ‘complicit’, as drenched in Palestinian blood, is almost darkly comic. This is a man who writes soppy love songs about how beautiful his missus looks with no make-up on. We do not need to know what he thinks about the world’s most intractable conflict, nor did he seem keen to tell us. But even poor Ed must now bow to the deranged diktats of the omnicause. If he isn’t safe, then no pop star is.

Good on him for ploughing ahead with the tour. Because it clearly wasn’t easy. At the end of the show on Saturday, he almost broke down, talking of the ‘weird week’ he’d had, the friends who have ‘backed away’, the family members who have turned on him. But, in the end, he said he knew couldn’t let down those who had bought tickets, booked hotels, hired babysitters. The roar of the crowd showed how right he was to do so.

The cult of Palestinianism might be growing, but there are millions more out there who can see through its bullying, its bigotry – who get that the conflict in the Middle East is, at the very least, a lot more complicated than their most annoying Facebook friend insists; who like to have the occasional evening out without being reminded of all the horrible things in the world. I’ll bet a few more of them have just become Ed Sheeran fans.
Brendan O’Neill vs Billy Bragg: ‘The monstering of Ed Sheeran is sickening’
spiked’s chief political commentator, Brendan O’Neill, and musician Billy Bragg appeared on BBC Five Live to debate the cancellation of Ed Sheeran, the authoritarianism of the Gazaholics, and why we must be free not to have an opinion on Palestine.

0:00 – Intro: Macklemore, Ed Sheeran and the backlash
1:10 – Is the Free Palestine movement a 'cult'?
2:06 – Should Sheeran have to declare a side?
3:30 – Robert Kraft and the decision to drop Macklemore
4:25 – The genocide question: is Israel committing one?
5:30 – 'Palestine fatigue' and the other conflicts being ignored
6:06 – Taxpayer money and the right to protest
6:30 – Should people be free not to say 'Free Palestine'?
8:04 – What should Sheeran do on stage tonight?
9:52 – Should Sheeran have stood by Macklemore?
10:12 – O'Neill and Bragg on debating each other
11:17 – Free speech cuts both ways




Pierre Rehov: The Hamas Guarantor Problem: Turkey and Qatar
Every peace agreement rests on an assumption that the powers charged with enforcing it want it enforced.

The current roadmap for the future of Gaza is organized around the principle of one authority, one law and one weapon. Its purpose is to strip armed factions such as Hamas of their weapons, install a single Palestinian administration and prevent Hamas from reconstituting its military machine. Whether these goals can be achieved depends less on the drafting than on those who will certify compliance.

A guarantor inside that architecture is effectively a judge who confirms or denies compliance, arbitrates disputes and applies pressure to whichever party breaks its word. The relevant question is what pressure Turkey and Qatar are likely to apply to Hamas.

"Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide.... Even more than Iran." — Udi Levy, former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, YNet, April 18, 2024.

"Qatar has adopted an extremely smart strategy based on the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine, which believes in gaining influence initially through financial means in order to create sympathy for them and alignment with their views... With Israel, the strategy was to develop economic, intelligence, and political relations without evolving into full diplomatic relations... It is easy to be captivated by the money, the grandeur, and the charm." — Udi Levy, YNet, April 2, 2025.

Supporters of Turkey's inclusion as a guarantor on the Board of Peace appear to regard its closeness to Hamas as an asset. They argue that a government able to speak directly to Hamas is better placed to extract concessions from it. The argument holds only if one chooses not to look at what Erdogan has built at home.

Since 2016, Turkey's government has closed more than 1,500 foundations and associations and replaced thousands of judges and prosecutors with loyalists. Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and Erdogan's most plausible challenger, was arrested in March 2025, days before his nomination as the opposition's presidential candidate, and was later charged with 142 offenses carrying a possible sentence of more than two thousand years in prison. A government that runs its own courts this way is an odd candidate for a supposedly disinterested judgment of somebody else's compliance.

Erdogan -- who has also threatened Greece and Cyprus by announcing that "Turkey will not allow violations of its rights or what belongs to it" -- has never condemned the Hamas massacre.

People who support terrorism rather than prosecute it are not likely to conclude that violence does not pay.


Far-left Elif Eralp set to become Berlin mayor, as her Die Linke party tops elections
The election win by the Die Linke, at about 25 percent according to exit polls, was a historic first for Berlin and dealt a blow to the center-right CDU of embattled Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which came second with about 20 percent.

In order to govern, Eralp must now convince other parties — likely the center-left SPD and the Greens — to join her in a so-called “red-red-green coalition”. The Die Linke (Left Party’s) main candidate Elif Eralp prepares for a TV debate following Berlin’s state elections, in the House of Representatives in Berlin on September 20, 2026. (Odd ANDERSEN/AFP)

However, the SPD’s lead candidate Steffen Krach has already made clear he opposes the expropriation idea by Die Linke, a party which traces its roots in part to communist East Germany’s ruling party.

Germany’s mainstream parties have many other differences with the hard-left party, especially on security policy where it opposes military aid for Ukraine and advocates for Germany to leave NATO.

Die Linke has also been criticized for anti-Israeli messages from some district-level figures — an especially sensitive issue in Germany, given its dark history of Nazi rule and the Holocaust.

Eralp had repeatedly emphasized her desire to support and foster Jewish life in Berlin.

But fierce criticism of Israel from some local branches of Die Linke, particularly in Berlin’s Neukoelln neighborhood that is home to many Arab and Muslim immigrants, has drawn negative headlines.

A concert in August at a local Die Linke campaign event in Neukoelln provoked scandal after a performer advocated an “intifada” (uprising) and chanted “Death to the IDF!”, the Israel Defense Forces.

Eralp distanced herself from the incident, but it drew fierce criticism from the Greens and the SPD — and once again prompted the press to question whether Die Linke is fit for governing.


A Jew-hater killed my friend — now Zohran Mamdani owes us answers
I’ve never before felt so strongly that Jews in New York City are endangered.

This year, anti-Jewish hate crimes in the five boroughs have increased by 8.5%, according to the NYPD.

Jews are targeted in 70% of all hate crimes in the city, more than all other groups put together.

In recent weeks, the Trager family asked Mayor Zohran Mamdani to meet with them to discuss their concerns about citywide antisemitism. The request was declined.

Cara had refused to leave her beloved Queens after Mamdani was elected mayor — even though, as Mike told me, he saw “the writing on the wall” and suggested to Cara that they move.

I knew Cara Trager for decades: We and the Tragers each had a son and a daughter around the same time, clinching our friendship for life.

Cara had a capacity for delight in everyday existence that was impossible to miss. No wonder her funeral drew 400 mourners.

It’s always hard to lose a friend, but it’s harder to lose one so suddenly — and harder still to be left wondering if her death was murder.

Cara loved the Jewish people, but she loved nothing more than being a wife, mother and grandmother.

Her last email to me, in December 2025, said it all.

“Leaving for DC this morning to see Eric and family for Chanukah and then on 12/24 to Israel to see Rachel and family,” she wrote. “Have kids, will travel, I say.”

What do you think? Be the first to comment.

Surely our police and district attorney will pull out all the stops to bring Faisal Dawood to justice.

Surely, too, Mayor Mamdani can take the opportunity — as an act of good faith — to console a grieving Jewish family, pledge opposition to antisemitism and honor my slain friend’s cherished memory.


Man who shot 3 Palestinian students convicted of attempted murder — rejecting insanity claim
A jury on Monday convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad.

Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison in the November 2023 attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, which left Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the waist down and his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, wounded.

The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a weeklong trial that saw testimony from the three wounded men and psychiatric experts called by the defense and prosecution.

Eaton was ordered jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. He stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read. Awartani and Aliahmad, sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiled and hugged people around them.

Eaton had pleaded not guilty but did not dispute that he was the shooter. His lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, pointing to his claims that the US and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted orders to shoot the men to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.

Had he been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could have been ordered to undergo mental health treatment.

The shooting, a few days after Thanksgiving, shook Burlington, Vermont, and reverberated in the West Bank, where the three wounded men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the US for college.

The November 2023 shooting, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, spawned calls for a hate crime investigation.

But no hate crime charges were filed as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or something else had compelled Eaton to open fire on Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, who were all 20 at the time.
Ireland is in the grip of “Paddystinian” tyranny
In today’s Ireland, by contrast, the FAI cannot stage its nominal home game against Israel in Dublin. Whatever euphemisms are employed about “operational challenges”, the authorities clearly do not believe this fixture can safely and normally be staged in the capital.

Another thing has happened: The Irish media have given up any pretence, whatever, of objectivity or fairness or impartiality. Here’s the Journal’s sports department, this morning, plaintively begging their readers not to punish them for covering a sports match:


RTE, for its part, cannot cover the matches fully because of an impending staff revolt. An Irish Independent report this morning quoted an RTE Union representative saying that “There is no middle ground on this. Silence is treachery”.

Consider that statement: “Silence is treachery”. That is the view of a great many of the Paddystinian cult – not that you are permitted to go about your business, keeping your views to yourself, but that you are treasonous if you do not affirm their views loudly, and publicly.

Nor are these empty threats. They will, in fact, go after you, regardless of how big you are. Witness what happened to Ed Sheeran this week, when a national newspaper published an article by one of its own senior editors saying that he should never be welcomed in Ireland again. In that context, read this tweet by luvvie and actor and general pain in the arse Liam Cunningham:


This has moved well beyond the stage of these people simply being loud, annoying, and rather pointless. We’re now at the stage where they are openly attempting to rule the country by fear of consequence, should you differ from them.

The great irony of all of this is that none of it – not one iota of it – does a single solitary thing to help the Palestinian cause.

Hamas played its cards on October 7th, and the result was a crushing and soul-destroying military defeat, and what appears to be the permanent loss of yet more land, as customarily happens in war (look at a map of Germany in 1913, and the same map today, if you don’t believe me).

It is all the culmination, in many ways, of decades of Palestinian political failure. Their leaders have repeatedly chosen maximalism over settlements that might have produced a Palestinian state, and the consequences have repeatedly been borne by ordinary Palestinians.

Nothing that Ireland does or can do will change that.

What is happening, however, is that Irish people are now being subjected to a campaign of coercion, repression, and tolerated abuse by supporters of that cause, which goes entirely unchallenged in the public domain.

And across the country, in offices, schools, workplaces, and in the public domain, a lot of Irish people have internalised the lesson: You do not challenge the Paddystinians. The price is too high. The cost is too great. It’s not worth it.

When you hear people “speaking out” on this, you may well be hearing sincere conviction. But increasingly, you’re just hearing people who don’t want to be the next Ed Sheeran, as Liam Cunningham charmingly put it.

Say the line. Put your head down. Hope they leave you alone.

Of course, they won’t.

Why would they?

It’s working.
Irish athletes group urges national team to boycott Israel
More than 160 Irish sportspeople have signed an open letter asking the Ireland national football team to boycott their upcoming UEFA Nations League fixtures against Israel, the Irish Sport for Palestine Group said on Monday.

Ireland are due to play Israel on September 27 in Hungary before the reverse fixture in Serbia on October 4. Both matches are set to be staged at neutral venues and behind closed doors after protests by players and fans over the war in Gaza.

Irish Sport for Palestine said the signatories included Olympian Ciara Mageean, former footballer Louise Quinn, former rugby flyhalf Tony Ward and boxers Tyrone McKenna and Eric Donovan.

"This is a significant moment and with this moment you have an opportunity to do the right thing," the letter said.

"Not playing the game would be the most sporting thing you could do. Through your leadership and courage, it would show the power of sport to unite, remind us of the shared values that connect us all, and have an impact far beyond the game."
Israel’s soccer federation blasts Irish coach for saying ‘we’re playing against genocide’
Israel’s soccer federation lambasted Ireland’s coach for describing the upcoming UEFA Nations League matches between the national teams as “playing against genocide,” accusing him of “stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy.”

Ireland are due to play Israel on September 27 in Hungary before the reverse fixture in Serbia on October 4. Both matches are set to be staged at neutral venues and behind closed doors.

Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said last week that he had spoken individually to players about facing Israel and that “none of us feel comfortable playing in these games.”

“We’re not playing with genocide, we’re playing against genocide. We’re playing against Israel, we’re not playing with Israel,” he said, referring to allegations by rights groups and others that the war against Palestinian terror group Hamas, in which tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, amounts to genocide.

Israel has repeatedly and vehemently rejected allegations of genocide, saying its actions in Gaza adhere to international law as it battles a terror group deeply embedded within the civilian population.

The war began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught against Israel, in which terrorists killed 1,200 and took 251 hostages amid widely documented atrocities and targeting of civilians.

In a statement Monday evening, the Israel Football Association (IFA) said: “We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way.

“Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by Ireland’s national team coach. We’re not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity, we’re playing against the coach who embodies them.”


Israeli chess team penalized after Yom Kippur scheduling agreement falls apart
The International Chess Federation refused to reschedule the Israeli team's Monday matches in the International Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, scheduled for Yom Kippur, despite having pledged months earlier to remedy the issue, according to the Israel Chess Federation.

Because they failed to compete on Yom Kippur, the Israeli team forfeited four matches.

According to the Israel Chess Federation, the International Chess Federation agreed in writing in January that Israel's Sunday matches would be moved to an earlier time in order to finish them all before the start of Yom Kippur in the evening. Monday matches would be rescheduled to take place after Yom Kippur.

In practice, the four countries scheduled to compete with Israel on Yom Kippur were given the option to reschedule. Colombia and Singapore agreed to start their matches early, but the Netherlands and Bulgaria kept the original Yom Kippur match times and were awarded a 4-0 technical victory because their opponents, Israel, never showed up.

'The Israeli teams have performed very well at the Olympiad so far'
"We are very angry that the International Chess Federation failed to honor the commitments it made," said Dr. Zvika Barkai, Chairman of the Israel Chess Federation. "Instead of including this in the tournament regulations, they planned to speak with the teams we were drawn against because they didn't want to generate public discourse or attention around the issue; in reality, they did almost nothing, and we are very upset with them about this."

"The [international] federation did not enforce what had been agreed upon with us in advance, causing us significant harm," said Gil Boruchovsky, CEO of the Israeli Chess Federation. "They did nothing to mitigate the damage it caused. They could have at least tried to prevent a 4–0 forfeit, which will severely hurt our ranking later on; we will consider our next steps—this will not go unchallenged."

"The Israeli teams have performed very well at the Olympiad so far and will continue to fight with all their might and ability to reach the top 15," Boruchovsky added.

Despite this slight from the international community, the Israeli Chess Federation is still expected to host the Jerusalem Open Championship in November, which is projected to attract some 450 chess players from all over the world.





 


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