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Friday, September 25, 2026

09/24 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Why ‘Fauda’ has shocked the West; Why Did It Take a Massacre of Jews to Lift the Lid on Anti-Jewish Hostility?; Why Does Ireland Hate Israel So Much?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Why ‘Fauda’ has shocked the West
Many things have contributed to the insanity of the West’s obsessional delegitimization of Israel that has turned it into a pariah in mainstream political and cultural circles. This can only be properly understood as part of a broader and deeper Western civilizational crisis.

However, one factor, in particular, has turned truth and lies inside out in the minds of many. For decades, there’s been a settled view among progressives that Israel is a rogue state that behaves illegally and cruelly.

That’s because the overwhelming majority of media coverage of the Jewish state has consisted of lies and distortions intended to delegitimize it as a prelude to its destruction.

In recent days, a curtain has been lifted on a corner of this madness. Motaz Azaiza is a Palestinian Arab photojournalist lionized by Western liberals for his production of images that have fueled hatred and incitement against Israel. Time magazine listed him among its top 100 most influential people of 2024.

But in a long interview in Arabic, whose translation is now all over social media, Azaiza revealed that every claim or image coming out of Gaza during the war had been crafted to fit the Hamas narrative. If Gazan journalists didn’t toe the line, they disappeared. Every journalist in Gaza belonged to a Hamas-run group.

Said Azaiza: “They take the details of a specific person, publish his phone number in the group and instruct online activists to attack him, curse him and make his life miserable.”

As a result, photographers like him lowered their cameras the moment anyone said something bad about Hamas.

Furthermore, Azaiza himself supported Hamas terrorism. He related how he’d filmed Gazans beating and abusing Israelis who were captured and dragged into the Strip on Oct. 7, but he didn’t publish those videos because he didn’t want Israel to identify the abusers and kill them.

Not a word of Azaiza’s revelations has appeared in Western media. Of course not. That would reveal that they’ve been doing Hamas’s dirty work for it. Every report from Gaza should have carried a health warning that it was produced under Hamas censorship. Instead, it was all presented as credible or true.

And this has been the case for decades. The Western public has no idea that what it takes to be the truth about Israeli behavior and Palestinian suffering—because it’s “seen it on TV”—is a giant and monstrous lie.

Shockingly, many Diaspora Jews are now claiming that Israel’s terrible image in the world is due to the toxic nature of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the extremists in his coalition government, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Such a ludicrous misrepresentation of the civilizational emergency that has engulfed the West can only be explained by the desperate need for such Diaspora Jews to deny the danger to themselves from their own society that has simply lost its collective mind.

“Fauda” is delivering to the West a truth that it doesn’t even realize it has so devastatingly denied.
Why Did It Take a Massacre of Jews to Lift the Lid on Anti-Jewish Hostility?
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a leading voice in the U.S. Reform community, is senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan. Here are additional excerpts from his Yom Kippur sermon on Monday:
Anti-Jewish hostility is simply part and parcel of our three millennia existence. It is one reason why we are still so tiny - a mere 0.2% of the world's population. What we are seeing today is not new, even in America. Our grandparents and great grandparents lived through worse.

I concede that I, too, was shocked, and am still unsettled, by how quickly so many past allies turned against us. Not because they were sensitive to Palestinian pain - I am, too - but because they were so insensitive to Jewish pain.

Why was Oct. 7 morally complicated? Even if you are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause - if you are a Palestinian, yourself - why the moral stuttering? What would have been more natural, normal and humane than to express empathy for the loved ones, demand that the hostages be returned immediately, and to condemn the savagery? Then - talk all you want about so-called apartheid, occupation and resistance.

I know Hamas. It was not surprising that they murdered Israelis - although their barbaric brutality, proudly filmed by them in their GoPro cameras live and in living color, was still stunning to me. What was shocking to me was Oct. 8. Why did it take a massacre of Jews to lift the lid on all this bile? And don't tell me Israel's response - the poison was released before the sun set on Oct. 7, before Israel could even clear its towns, villages and kibbutzim of murderers.

Deep down, we also know that the return of legitimated, tolerated, excused, contextualized, intellectualized and often violent antisemitism is a flashing warning sign of the decay of something uniquely precious about America itself. Some of the best minds of a generation are inflamed by an aggressive form of cultural encephalitis, distorting reason and impairing moral judgment. If a politician or intellectual or journalist tells you that the Land of Israel has nothing to do with the People of Israel, the civilization of Israel, the religion of Israel, the God of Israel, or the State of Israel - why are you listening to them? They know nothing.
Why Does Ireland Hate Israel So Much?
Ireland and Israel will face off in a men's soccer match in Hungary on Sunday. The game was supposed to be played in Ireland, but such is the hostility there that it must take place at a neutral venue instead. A second match will take place in Serbia rather than Israel the following Sunday. The Football Association of Ireland doesn't want to play at all. It wants the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to boot Israel from the organization. Only Turkey and Norway share the Irish position.

In the days after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, no Israeli flags flew in solidarity outside public buildings anywhere in Ireland. Many politicians began displaying the Palestinian colors instead. The hostility of official Ireland stands out in Europe. Before Israel closed its embassy in Dublin last year, Israeli diplomats would quietly tell you that they regarded Ireland as the worst diplomatic posting in Europe. There are almost no politicians they can ever work with, and that was before the Gaza war. There are no friendly media.

Why is Ireland so anti-Israel? Irish history explains most of it. Ireland was occupied by Britain for centuries and most Irish people liken the Palestinians to themselves, and particularly to the Catholics of Northern Ireland. They liken Israel to Britain.

This startles a lot of Israelis. Surely if anyone was like the dispossessed Irish, it was the Jews. During the early days of the struggle for a Jewish state, leading figures such as future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir took heart from Ireland's successful fight for independence from Britain. Shamir's nom de guerre was "Michael," after Michael Collins, one of the leaders of the old Irish Republican Army.


SHADOWS OF WAR: The Propaganda War Against Israel | Full Documentary
Presented as part of Infidel Awareness Month, special selection The Shadows of War explores and debunks “Palestinian” propaganda through a meticulous examination of the methods employed since 1948. From the Mohammed al-Durrah affair to the “Pallywood” imagery surrounding the October 7 pogrom and its aftermath, the film reveals how manipulated images and false narratives become weapons of war. Featuring leading experts and commentators, its conclusion is unequivocal: propaganda does not merely influence how a conflict is understood it can determine whose suffering is believed, whose crimes are excused, and whose victims are forgotten.


'There's no from the river to the sea. There is no return' | Einat Wilf
Former MK Einat Wilf, now third on the Reservists–New Economic Party list, argues Gaza shouldn't be rebuilt until its people choose to end the war.

Ahead of Israel's October 2026 election, Wilf lays out a plan she says no other party will touch: divide Gaza into three.

A small area adjacent to Israel as a permanent price for October 7; a Hamas-run "Gaza of war," reconnected to Egypt and cut off from Israeli supply; and an IDF-secured "Gaza of peace," open to any Gazan willing to renounce UNRWA refugee status and the claim of return.

"It sounds small, but it's not," she says. "This is how you begin to create a new consciousness." On the Board of Peace's reconstruction program, she is blunt: "Give them the respect of choice, and if they choose war, don't throw $2.5 billion at them."

Wilf also explains why she joined Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha outside the traditional blocs, what a "broad Zionist government" should mean for Haredi and Arab parties, and why she calls the Western refusal to take Palestinians at their word "the bigotry of low expectations."

Drawing on her Oxford Union debate, she describes how anti-Zionist messaging works and why "when your enemy gets lazy, there's always an opportunity in that." Whether you share her conclusions or challenge them, this is one of the most detailed day-after proposals put forward by any candidate this campaign.

Chapters:
00:00 - Einat Wilf joins the Reservists–New Economic Party joint list
12:23 - What a "broad Zionist government" means for Haredi and Arab parties
16:51 - Wilf's three-part Gaza plan: "Gaza of war" vs "Gaza of peace"
30:25 - Palestinian agency and "the bigotry of low expectations"
37:04 - Oxford Union debate and exposing the anti-Zionist playbook
47:10 - Day one in government: Wilf's foreign policy agenda


This Israeli Arab wants to be Israel's hasbara minister | Yoseph Haddad
Yoseph Haddad, a Christian Arab Israeli and Golani veteran, is No. 2 on Ofer Winter's right-wing slate. He explains why, and what he wants to change.

Haddad spent a decade advocating for Israel abroad before October 7 made him a household name. Ahead of the October 27 election, he is running for the Knesset with Amcha Yisrael (People of Israel) party. He says he wants to become Israel's next public diplomacy (hasbara) minister. He rejects the word "coexistence" in favor of partnership: "Coexistence is like this. You're not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere… Let's live in coexistence." He argues that relations between Jewish and Arab citizens should go further, pointing to the Arab Muslim bus driver who rescued Jewish partygoers at the Nova festival. He also predicts his party will be "the surprise of this election."

The interview covers his experience of racism from both Jewish and Muslim extremists. It also covers his plan to hold weekly press conferences in Hebrew, Arabic, and English as minister, and his party's model for an October 7 commission of inquiry, with judges nominated through Knesset signatures. He sharply criticizes the Joint List and Ra'am's decision to place Jewish former MK Yoav Segalovich at No. 2. He also explains where he agrees and disagrees with Itamar Ben-Gvir. He was pressed on how a party promising only new faces can back Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister, and his answer is part of the interview.

Chapters:
00:00 - Preview and Yoseph Haddad's decade of pro-Israel advocacy
04:33 - Growing up Christian Arab: racism, bullying and serving in Golani
11:41 - "Partnership, not coexistence" and the Las Vegas debate
18:04 - Crime in Arab Israeli society and why he joined Ofer Winter
24:05 - The Joint List, Ra'am's Segalovich and plans for a hasbara ministry
35:09 - An October 7 commission of inquiry, Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir


HonestReporting: Your Tax Dollars Paid for These: Marcus Sheff on the School Books Teaching Hate Against Israel
A fourth-grade math problem asks Palestinian children to add the martyrs of the First Intifada to the martyrs of the Second. A physics lesson teaches Newton's second law with a boy aiming a slingshot at an Israeli soldier. A first-grade Arabic book introduces a letter using two words: attack, and martyr.

Marcus Sheff is the CEO of IMPACT-se, the Jerusalem-based institute that reads school textbooks across the Middle East and Europe and grades them against UNESCO's own standards on peace, tolerance and non-violence. His analysts read every line of every book of every subject of every grade — one country can mean 350 textbooks in a year.

His argument is that textbooks are predictive. What a state prints for its fourteen-year-olds is what that society looks like in ten years. In this conversation he walks through what IMPACT-se found in the Palestinian Authority curriculum, why the peace agreements that were once in those books were taken out between 2016 and 2018, and what UNRWA — the UN agency running most of the schools in Gaza — has done with it, including the supplementary material that describes an attack on a bus of Israeli civilians as a barbecue party.

He also answers the hardest questions put to him: whether the causal line from a classroom to October 7 holds up, what IMPACT-se finds when it turns the same standards on Israel's own textbooks, and why the fix is cheaper and more achievable than almost anyone assumes. And he makes the hopeful case — the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Morocco have all rewritten their books, which means the Palestinian Authority curriculum is the outlier in its own region, not the norm.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold Open & Introducing Marcus Sheff
7:39 Inside the method: 350 books a year, read line by line
13:00 The fourth-grade math problem about martyrs
17:45 The line from the classroom to October 7
23:16 UNRWA: the UN agency that teaches it
28:56 Congress, and the money the US pulled
34:05 "But without UNRWA there'd be no education"
37:05 What happens when you grade Israeli textbooks
41:28 "Cut off our water before we change the curriculum"
45:02 Europe's mixed bag — and Ireland at the bottom
51:12 The good news: the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Morocco
55:19 "If it happened in Nazi Germany, it can happen in Hamas Gaza"
58:35 One message for the UN General Assembly




Abdul El-Sayed Quietly Headlines Fundraiser Alongside Hamas-Loving Activist Who Urged Jews To Be Sent ‘Back to Poland,’ Speaker Who Backs Islamic Militants
Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed headlined a fundraiser Wednesday at an Arab cultural center alongside a prominent Arab-American activist who urged that Jews be sent "back to Poland" from Israel, called Hamas "freedom fighters," and praised Hezbollah's leader as a "hero."

The under-the-radar fundraiser—which did not include press—came a day after El-Sayed appeared alongside Kamala Harris at a campaign event targeted at black women voters, where Harris defended DEI and a participant mentioned "black women and black birthing people."

But by Wednesday, El-Sayed was back with his core constituency in majority-Arab Dearborn, where Harris is widely despised due to the Biden administration's support for Israel. The fundraiser, which was attended by 200 community leaders and organizers, came as El-Sayed faced withering scrutiny for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a socialist influencer who has stated that "America deserved 9/11" and that Israel is "much worse" than Hamas. But many of the speakers and attendees at Wednesday night's fundraiser have embraced even more extremist rhetoric, in addition to calling Harris a "genocidal warmonger."

Osama Siblani, the head of the Arab American Political Action Committee, spoke prior to El-Sayed at the fundraiser, held at Dearborn's Bint Jebail Cultural Center, according to Dearborn.org. Siblani has referred to Hezbollah and Hamas as "freedom fighters." At a rally in 2022, Siblani urged the "fedayeen"—Islamic militants—to "fight within [their] means" against Israel, whether it be with "stones," "guns," or "their hands."

At a rally in 2024, Siblani called slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah a "hero" and said that Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli Jews should be sent "back to Poland." Poland was the site of all six of the Nazis' death camps, where Jews were transported from across Europe to be murdered.

Also present at the fundraiser was Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, an Iran-born cleric who eulogized Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and bemoaned that he was killed by "the most wretched hands on earth." Spotted in the crowd was Amer Zahr, a Dearborn school board member and longtime El-Sayed pal who has stated he "stands with" Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Last year, Zahr stood in front of a banner of Nasrallah and proclaimed the late Hezbollah leader a "martyr" and "hero."
What El-Sayed Wouldn’t Say By Abe Greenwald
Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.
I’m going to do you a favor and summarize. He said, “What we all need is more democracy, more freedom in the world but also an understanding of what we can and should do with respect to that.” He went on, “One can disagree with the governance of a foreign country. One can stand in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements.” But “when one decides that we are going to go in and take out the leadership of a foreign government…. A lot of times that frustration gets used to justify corporate interests that have a real stake in the natural resources in a particular country. See what I mean?”

Yes, I see what you mean. You’ll talk about the perils of regime change, evil corporations, and stealing natural resources, as if the kid had asked you to enlist and go fight. But all he asked you was to verbally renounce the Iranian regime. And not only will you not renounce it—you won’t even name it.

Dashti saw it, too, and didn’t let him off the hook. “You still haven’t said it,” he said, and he asked once more whether El-Sayed would stand with him against the regime. And once more, El-Sayed spoke about his support for freedom movements in general.

El-Sayed went so far as to put words in the poor kid’s mouth. “What I think you want to hear from me is to say, ah, well, the U.S. has a responsibility to be involved in regime change.” Dashti shook his head, said, “No,” and asked one last time, “Do you stand with our movement for freedom and democracy? Ours? The Persians?” El-Sayed sidestepped the specific question and said he wants freedom for the people of Iran.

Which you may think means something. But you know who else has said that? Every supreme leader to rule Iran since the 1979 revolution. The catch is, as Ruhollah Khomeini said in 1982, “Our freedom is within the limits of the laws of Islam.” One man’s freedom, you see, is another’s prison, which is why El-Sayed felt safe using that general formulation.

OK, what’s so hard about renouncing the Iranian regime while making it clear that you oppose the war? Even Zohran Mamdani managed as much when the war began. “The Iranian government has engaged in systematic repression of its own people, even killing thousands of Iranians who were seeking to express the most basic forms of dissent earlier this year,” he said at a press conference. “It is a brutal government, and I’ve also said that, while I may be a young mayor, I am old enough to remember the devastating consequences of our country pursuing a war with the intent of regime change in that very same region not that many years ago.” Done.

This should have been a no-brainer for El-Sayed. The man has zero problem speaking in grotesque contradictions. When a terrorist attempted to blow up Temple Israel synagogue and day school in West Bloomfield, Michigan, El-Sayed managed both to condemn and justify the attack in a single statement.

So why couldn’t he follow Mamdani’s lead here? Because, at the end of the day, Mamdani is a socialist and not an Islamist, whereas El-Sayed is an Islamist and not a socialist. And Islamists don’t care about Muslims. They care about advancing Islamism, which happens to be the Iranian regime’s chief aim.

El-Sayed was never afraid of offending regime supporters in Michigan (bad as that would be). He is a regime supporter in Michigan. And yesterday, he tried so hard to hide it that he ripped right through his disguise.


Sorry, Ed Sheeran had every reason to know about Macklemore’s anti-Israel vitriol
Anyone paying even a little attention to Macklemore these last three years ought to have realised there was very little joy or love in his heart when it came to the Jews. He wrote a song, “Hind’s Hall,” dedicated to supporting the American college students who, in the aftermath of October 7, launched the Tentifadah, taking over their quads in support of Hamas and Hezbollah. And lest anyone think he was merely criticising the policies of the government in Jerusalem, he put on a grotesque wig, a fake busy beard, and a comically large prosthetic nose, and pranced around on stage in a spectacle that would’ve tickled Goebbels pink.

Sadly, Macklemore wasn’t the only one of Sheeran’s opening acts to spend more time carping about the Jews than writing good music. The artist known simply as Finneas – and who had since quit the tour as well in solidarity with Macklemore – famously showed up to the Oscars in 2024 wearing a pin shaped like a red hand, a pro-Palestinian symbol inspired by a famous 2000 lynch in Ramallah in which a Palestinian mob beat two Israelis to death, displaying their blood-covered hands as a sign of their success.

Sheeran had every reason to know all that. Macklemore and Finneas were both open, vocal, and consistent with their constant vitriol. But Sheeran must have assumed that talk of unity simply no longer included the Jews, which is precisely the message you hear everywhere in our toxic culture industries these days, from book publishing to music to Hollywood. And like every other coward, he passed the buck at the first sign of trouble, hiding behind corporate-speak and platitudes.

We deserve better artists. Not only better than Macklemore – not a very hard bar to clear, that – but better than Sheeran, too, artists possessing not only talent but also souls big enough to understand that nothing true or beautiful ever grows out of mindless groupthink.

And we deserve more resolute Jewish leadership, too.

When news broke of Macklemore’s antics, Robert Kraft, one of the most prominent philanthropist in the American Jewish community and a truly righteous man, announced that the rapper wasn’t welcome in Gillette Stadium, which he owns and which was slated as one of the tour’s upcoming stops.

It was an act showing much backbone. But a few days later, Kraft was singing a different tune.

“I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people,” Kraft wrote in a statement. “I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting.” To that end, he continued, he had spoken to Sheeran and both decided to donate $2 million each to Palestinian causes.

“I’d like the people who are speaking in support of the Palestinian people to know that for decades, I have supported efforts that create opportunity for Palestinians,” the statement continued.

It’s hard to imagine a more soppy statement. It’s not only intellectually feeble – I doubt that Kraft really thinks that the lives of Hamas terrorists, say, are truly worth protecting – but also morally repugnant.

It was dispiriting to see a Jew who had worked hard and made good rush to apologise for banning someone like Macklemore from his venue. It was also completely and absolutely futile: A few days later, Sheeran took the stage in Philadelphia and delivered a sombre monologue, saying that “what is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”

Because, as Kraft ought to have known, “Palestine” is a cult of bullying and intimidation that’s interested in subjugation, not honest conversation.

Kraft had a golden opportunity to demonstrate real Jewish pride and strength. Instead, he shuddered and bowed down to the demonic logic of the left, in which a Jew must always prove his worth by pledging his allegiance to the very people eager to kill him. Even if Kraft’s millions don’t end up in the hands of some genocidal militant gang – an unlikely scenario given the corruption and oppression rampant across Palestinian society – his statement is a small victory to our worse enemies. If even a Jewish billionaire can’t stand up to rank bigots without caving at the first hint of a backlash, we’re in deep trouble.
Calls grow to remove Pink as UNICEF ambassador over her criticism of Macklemore
Pop singer Pink is facing more calls — including from Spanish Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem — for her removal as an ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations agency that provides aid to children and mothers.

Pink criticized Macklemore for the pro-Palestinian comments and imagery in his opening set on Ed Sheeran’s tour. The rapper was removed from the tour after venues objected to his participation.

Macklemore has announced his own “Free Palestine” tour beginning with three dates in Dublin, Paris and London starting October 26, with additional dates, including in the US, to be announced. “All proceeds will benefit organizations supporting the Palestinian people and movement,” he said. Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti–Zionist group, is one of the causes listed on the tour flier.

The petition reads, “As individuals who care deeply about the welfare of children around the world, we must hold UNICEF Ambassadors to the highest standards of neutrality and compassion.” It was started by the group Swifties Against Genocide and has received more than 192,000 signatures. Bardem, who has been vocal in his support of Palestinians, shared the petition on his Instagram account earlier this week.

“Palestinian children, like all children affected by genocide, deserve ambassadors who unequivocally extend support and empathy towards their plight,” the petition reads.

UNICEF did not return the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s request for comment.

Pink, whose real name is Alecia Beth Moore-Hart, cited her work as a UNICEF ambassador in a lengthy Instagram post earlier this month about Macklemore’s comments. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators hold signs during a “Free Palestine” protest before an Ed Sheeran concert in Philadelphia, September 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Allie Ippolito)

“I’ve spent a decade as a UNICEF ambassador for kids who didn’t choose the country or the war they were born into, and I have grieved every one of them, on both sides of that fence,” Pink wrote at the time.

She added that Macklemore used “violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them.”

Macklemore told the crowd during his speech: “To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”

“You don’t get to decide that for us,” Pink responded in her post.


Polanski sparks anger after declaring himself ‘anti-Zionist’ at packed communal hustings
Zack Polanski has publicly declared himself an “anti-Zionist” for the first time at a heated communal hustings ahead of the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, sparking a strong and angry reaction from much of the audience.

All candidates from the Green Party, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Reform UK were asked whether they identified as Zionists. Polanski responded candidly: “I am an anti-Zionist, which I know is difficult for people to hear in this room.”

Faced with heckles and the pointed question, “Where do the Jews go?”, Polanski asserted that Israel’s right to self-determination “relies on the displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people,” prompting further boos from the audience.

He drew further disapproval when asked whether Zionism was a form of racism.

“I think there’s a problem with definitions… It means different things to different people,” Polanski explained. “If you’re defining Zionism as a displacement genocide, which is how, in practice, Zionism has become, then that is racism.”

His answer was met with a wave of angry heckles and shouts of “shame” and “liar” from the audience.

Later, when asked about combating antisemitism, Polanski argued, “Too often criticism of the Israeli government, the occupation, what I would class as apartheid and genocide.”

Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, Conservative Ewan Cameron, Reform’s Peter Newman, and Liberal Democrat Patrick Spillman joined Polanski for the Thursday evening hustings in central London.

The event, organised ahead of the October 8 by-election—triggered by former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s shock decision to step down as local MP—drew significant attention.


Stu Smith: Sanctions Aren’t Enough to Curb These Terror-Linked Groups
In late August, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Masar Badil, an international revolutionary-minded Palestinian support organization, as a cover for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The action followed the 2024 U.S. and Canadian designations of the closely aligned Samidoun network—which presented itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity” organization—as a PFLP front. These acts were meant to strike a blow against the alleged terror-linked organizations.

Yet recent events show how little the sanctions have disrupted the network on the ground. Last week, news broke that one of Masar Badil’s youth affiliates secured a generous plea deal following a campus occupation at the University of Washington that resulted in more than $1 million in damage. In November, Masar Badil is set to host a conference in Toronto titled “3 Years of Al-Aqsa Flood”—Hamas’s name for the October 7 massacre—despite the U.S. sanctions.

Though the sanctions struck at the organizations’ formal structures and leadership, they have done little to blunt their influence. Across North America, a growing number of affiliate groups increasingly cast themselves as Samidoun’s successors, adopting a politics of “strategic risk” and “intentional sacrifice in pursuit of the liberatory struggle,” and normalizing “revolutionary violence.” More decisive action is needed to curb this growing threat.

The Masar Badil network is extensive. One prominent affiliate, Al-Ahrar, operates as a prisoner-support organization in the mold of the now-sanctioned Samidoun. The organization’s purported mission is a euphemistic sleight of hand that ignores the fact that the prisoners in question are often terrorists and militants. The term “prisoners” also plays on the sympathies of many Western leftists, who have been conditioned to view such captives primarily as victims rather than as perpetrators of violence. Al-Ahrar identifies itself as part of Masar Badil and maintains chapters in Toronto, New York, and New Jersey. The group claims that it “emerged in January 2025 from the ashes of imperialist repression” following the designation of Samidoun in January 2025 and that it “fill[s] the gap“ left by Samidoun’s inability to continue operating as a public-facing organization.

Other affiliates operate within the Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network, Masar Badil’s youth wing. These include groups like Alkarama, SUPER UW at the University of Washington, and Nidal. Together, these organizations have helped extend Masar Badil’s influence across North America despite repeated sanctions.

Even this accounting likely understates the network’s reach. While the 2024 designation of Samidoun made many organizations reluctant to associate with it publicly, its influence did not disappear. Beyond its formal organizations lies a broader ecosystem of activists and advocacy groups across the West that, while not formally tied to Masar Badil or Samidoun, often look to their affiliates for guidance and political leadership.

Just days before Masar Badil’s designation, the Workshops 4 Gaza collective hosted “One Day We Will All Be Terr*rists: On Designations, Counterinsurgency & the Path of Resistance,” providing a glimpse into how this network operates. During the event, representatives of Al-Ahrar Toronto argued at length that terrorist designations are intended to “criminalize resistance movements.”
Masked men shouted 'Allahu Akbar' and 'Free Palestine' as they tore down and burned pub's Union flags in an 'attack on the British people' two weeks after October 7, court hears
Three hooded and masked men tore down and burned two Union Jack flags outside a pub while shouting 'Allahu Akbar', 'Free Palestine' and 'F*** the UK', a court has heard.

The trio allegedly gathered with a fourth man in a nearby alleyway before setting the flags alight in what prosecutors described as an 'attack on the British people'.

Zaid Sami, 21, and Nour Sami, 20, both from Feltham, and Omar Sukkar, 21, from Isleworth, are accused of racially-aggravated criminal damage to the flags outside The Fox pub in Twickenham.

All three deny the charge and are standing trial at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court.

Prosecutor Mark Mullins told jurors that the incident, on the evening of October 23, 2023, was racially aggravated because the defendants were allegedly motivated by hostility towards British people.

He said: 'This case is about the ripping down and burning of two Union Flags, which the prosecution asserts is an attack on the British people and their way of life and is therefore racially aggravated.

'Just after 6.00pm in the evening four young men ripped down two Union Jacks from The Fox public house and set fire to them.

'While they were burning the flags they were heard shouting: "Allahu Akbar"; "Free Palestine" and "Stop bombing children".

'CCTV evidence shows Sukkar climbing onto a noticeboard below one of the Union flags and Zaid Sami removing the other Union flag and they both damaged the poles and fixings.

'Moments later in a nearby alleyway there was a strong acrid smell as they burned the flags, say witnesses.'

The court heard the incident came just over two weeks after Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Mr Mullins told jurors: 'The background is that on October 7, 2023 Hamas launched missiles from the Gaza Strip into Israel and an incursion that led to several hundred deaths and kidnappings.

'Then UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave a speech on October 19 that Israel had a right to defend itself and on October 23 he made a similar speech to the House of Commons.'

Pub landlord Paul Brace told the court that the flags were a source of pride and part of the character of the street.

He said: 'I had two Union Jack flags on poles. It is a very British street and we also have flags up during the rugby, the Six Nations via the Church Street Association.
Black former classmate of ‘Palestinian Rachel Dolezal’ reveals what race-faker really cares about
A black former UPenn classmate of “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal,” Hannah Gann, said the fraudster cares more about her “personal gain” than helping the cause, after the self-proclaimed African and Palestinian activist was outed as a white, Jewish woman.

The former associate, who said she knew the 35-year-old Gann before she started living a lie, accused her of trying to “take advantage of vulnerable communities” when she spoke to The Post on Wednesday.

“The moment you start lying and perpetrating as if you’re somebody else, is when your whole point, your whole message, starts to fall flat,” said the former student, who asked not to be identified.

“If you truly care about the cause more so than about personal gain, then that’s just what it is,” she said of high school teacher Gann, whose activism was so rabid she was once branded “Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite” by the group Accuracy in Media (AIM).

The former classmate remembers Gann through their shared involvement in urban studies and public-service programs at UPenn.

“She definitely wasn’t black,” she said. “There were a lot of Jewish students at Penn during my time and even in my program that looked like her — light skin, curly dark hair.”

The UPenn graduate added that she worked at the Black Cultural Center at the college so she “built strong relationships” with other black students.

“And I don’t remember her being there or being a part of that at all,” she said.

Gann was forced to issue a groveling apology in recent days on Instagram, in which she admitted to lying to her comrades for years about her identity after being confronted by fellow activists.


Francesca Albanese faces backlash from pro-Palestine activists over photoshoot wearing ‘Israel-linked’ brands
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is facing the prospect of criticism from the boycott movement after appearing on the cover of a fashion magazine wearing items from luxury brands that activists claim have financial links to Israel.

Albanese has become one of the Jewish State’s most vocal international critics in her role researching the situation in the Palestinian territories.

But her photoshoot, during which she sported clothing from Loro Piana and Celine, has drawn significant backlash.

Loro Piana and Celine are both owned by French luxury conglomerate LVMH, which pro-Palestinian boycott and brand-monitoring platforms have identified as companies consumers should avoid because of investments connected to LVMH and its chairman, Bernard Arnault.

One of the main reasons cited is Arnault's investment in Wiz, an Israeli-founded cybersecurity company. In 2021, Arnault and US billionaire Howard Schultz participated as individual investors in a $120 million funding round for the company.


Anti-Israel coalition from eight London universities to march through the city on 7 October
A coalition made up of pro-Palestinian groups at eight of London’s universities have organised a march on 7 October, describing that date, on which Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 people in Israel, as “only the most recent form of genocide inflicted on the Palestinian people”.

The University of London Coalition, which describes itself as “a coalition of London university groups organising for Palestinian liberation”, shared details on social media of what it called an “inter uni march”, starting at Kings College London and proceeding past LSE and SOAS, before ending at UCL.

As well as using the red triangle, commonly associated with Hamas, in their publicity post for the event, and describing their march as being “against 78 years of genocide”, they urge people to “Join us in our struggle for a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea”.

Commenting on the date chosen by the coalition, Raphie Leon, President of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) told The Times: “There are 365 days of the year. The decision to protest on this day is provocative, deliberate and must be condemned to the fullest extent.

“At this march in 2025, a student protester told the media that she didn’t think Jewish students’ feelings are valid. UJS will work tirelessly to protect Jewish students in the face of hatred and hostility.”

Lord Walney, who served as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption from 2020 until 2025, told The Times that some activists “don’t just want to minimise the slaughter of Jews by Hamas on 7 October, they want to taunt those who remain deeply traumatised by it.

“It is time for mainstream political leaders who are concerned about suffering in Gaza to take a stand against the sick extremism that has gripped pro-Palestinian campaigning in the West.”
UC Berkeley offers Israeli dance scholar position after legal settlement over denied job
For more than nine months, UC Berkeley has failed to honor a legal settlement with an Israeli dance scholar who was denied a teaching position due to her nationality.

In response to a J. inquiry, a university spokesperson said the delay was caused by “internal miscommunication.” The university now promises that the scholar, Yael Nativ, will receive the job offer she was guaranteed in the December 2025 settlement “no later than the week of Sept. 28.”

“We deeply regret this unfortunate delay and look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to our campus,” UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement.

Nativ said she received an apology for the delay and the promise of an imminent job offer in a Sept. 21 email from a university administrator.

“It’s always a surprise when I get emails from them because the correspondence was so little to none,” Nativ said. “I’m so tired of this case.”

UC Berkeley professor cites student anger in decision not to rehire Nativ
Nativ, a sociologist specializing in Israeli dance, taught in UC Berkeley’s dance department during spring 2022 as a visiting professor through the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Her course focused on contemporary dance in Israel through social, political, and cultural perspectives.

The institute invited Nativ to reapply for another year of teaching. But after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, SanSan Kwan, chair of the dance department, informed Nativ that she would not be rehired. In November 2023, Kwan told Nativ in a WhatsApp message: “My dept cannot host you for a class next fall. Things are very hot right now, and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”

The university’s civil rights office investigated the matter and concluded that Nativ was discriminated against based on her Israeli identity.


Germany investigates alleged 105-year-old Nazi POW camp guard
A 105-year-old man is being investigated for possible crimes committed at a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, German prosecutors said on Thursday.

“The 105-year-old suspect is thought to have been a guard at the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag 326 VI K” in the Senne region of western Germany, prosecutors told AFP in a statement.

The man is “accused of being an accessory to multiple murders through his activities there.”

The case was first reported by the Bild newspaper, which said that another former guard at the same camp had recently been investigated but had died in the interim.

The Senne camp housed between 180,000 and 200,000 Soviet prisoners of war between 1941 and April 1945, when it was liberated by American troops, according to the memorial which now stands there.

“Of the approximately 5.3 to 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war who were taken into German captivity overall, between 2.3 and three million did not survive,” the memorial says.

Soviet prisoners of war suffered from “malnutrition, inadequate medical care, appalling sanitary conditions, and… forced labor.” A Russian grave is pictured on the Soviet cemetery in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, western Germany, near the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag 326, May 6, 2015, during a commemoration ceremony on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. (Martin Meissner/AP)

Last year prosecutors in Dortmund also opened an investigation into a 100-year-old former guard at another WWII prisoner of war camp in Hemer, which also held mostly Soviet inmates.

That man was suspected of taking part in executions between December 1943 and September 1944.
British tourist’s TikTok critique of Auschwitz Museum’s café goes viral
A TikTok video made by a British tourist has gone viral for her complaints about the high prices and low quality of drinks at a café near the entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.

The video, which has since become unavailable, was posted by user FreeSpirit666 on September 14 and captioned “Prices at auschwitz.” It racked up at least 4 million views and more than 202,000 likes.

“We fancied a coffee, so there is a restaurant there because we were early, so we thought we would get a coffee, but they don’t do decaffeinated and they don’t do any other milk other than real milk,” Lynne, the tourist, said.

She opted for a “strawberry smoothie, which tasted very watered down,” and then asked her daughter, who had a lemonade, what she thought about it. Her daughter made a grimace and said it tasted like “Dettol,” an antiseptic cleaning product. In the video, Lynne took a sniff of the bottle and said it smelled like “toilet cleaner.”

Together, their drinks cost 9 GBP ($12), Lynne said. “When you come to Auschwitz, bring some food and drink,” she recommended.

Commenters swiftly moved the attention from the beverages to the significance of the café’s location, situated at the memorial site of the concentration and extermination camp in Oświęcim, Poland. There, the Nazis murdered approximately 1.1 million people. The vast majority were Jews, but the victims also included Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and others. The museum’s regulations require visitors to the grounds of the Museum to “behave with due solemnity and respect.”

Many viewers criticized the video for being disrespectful and said the tourist should be “ashamed.” Others cracked jokes over the post.

“Let’s not forget where we are,” one wrote, as shared by The Independent. “This is a concentration camp where thousands died, not a 5 star restaurant experience.”

“I went to Auschwitz, I didn’t take food and drink, and quite honestly, I didn’t feel like eating and drinking, It wasn’t entertainment for me. The last thing on my mind, was my comfort,” wrote another person.

A spokesperson for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum told British outlet The Times that the café is run independently by an external provider, which clearly displays the prices.
Maryland Republicans withdraw support from antisemitic conspiracy theorist
The Montgomery County Republican Party in Maryland withdrew its support on Wednesday for a county council candidate who claimed that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, controls elected officials in the county.

The party, which endorsed Harold Maldonado in District 7 in June, decided at a meeting on Tuesday night to end its support for the candidate and not to include him in its 2026 voter guide.

“We reject as baseless and unacceptable his allegations that Mossad controls Montgomery County elected officials,” Dennis Melby, chairman of the party committee, stated. “We oppose antisemitism, bigotry and all forms of baseless conspiracy theories, regardless of who they target or the political cause used to advance them.”

“Political debate must be grounded in facts, verifiable evidence and respect for every Montgomery County resident,” Melby wrote. “Criticism of any government, public official or public policy is legitimate, but unsupported claims that a foreign intelligence agency secretly controls local elected officials are not.”

The heavily Jewish county contains about 45% of Jews in the state.

On Sept. 11, Maldonado wrote that “locally, Mossad controls the council and the executive” in a social media post in which he also said that the CIA and Mossad are the “forces behind 9/11.”

In 2025, Maldonado wrote that he was “highly suspicious about Oct. 7" and that Israel’s war against Hamas was “part of the greater Israel project,” a conspiracy theory that claims Israel is attempting to expand the Jewish state across the Middle East.

He has accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” “targeting Christians” and “genocide against Palestine.”

“We’ve said Mossad/Israel carried out 9/11 and other false flags in the past with actual proofs,” he wrote in October 2025. “Now we have more on them.” In the same post, Maldonado suggested that Israel was behind the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

He has also said that Israel and the Mossad were behind the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and an attempted assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Illinois man sentenced to seven years for defacing Northwestern University with swastikas, Nazi symbols
Shahid Hussain, of Niles, Ill., was sentenced to seven years in prison for defacing Northwestern University property with swastikas and other Nazi symbols, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday.

Hussain, 43, pleaded guilty to two counts of hate crime and one count of institutional vandalism. Surveillance footage showed Hussain spray-painting the symbols on campus property and making a Nazi salute on Jan. 30, prosecutors said. Cook County Judge Paul Pavlus sentenced him during a hearing in Skokie, Ill.

“Acts of hate and intimidation have no place in our communities,” Eileen Burke, the Cook County state’s attorney, stated. “This guilty plea and prison sentence demonstrate that we will hold individuals accountable for crimes intended to intimidate and spread hate in our communities.”

Hussain was previously convicted of hate crime and institutional vandalism in 2022 for a series of incidents targeting Jewish schools and synagogues in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood. He was sentenced to three years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Bronx man charged with hate crime for allegedly threatening Jewish man in Crown Heights with knife
Devin Best, 48, of the Bronx, was arrested and charged with a hate crime and aggravated harassment for allegedly chasing a visibly Jewish man in Crown Heights, threatening him with a knife and reportedly shouting “heil Hitler” on Wednesday, a New York City Police Department spokesman told JNS.

Best was “taken into custody without any further incident,” the spokesman said. “The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating this incident.”

The department told JNS that officers were called to Park Place and Brooklyn Avenue at around 2:48 p.m. on Sept. 23.

“Upon arrival, officers met with a 24-year-old male victim stating that an unidentified male individual approached him and began cursing and threatening him,” the NYPD spokesman told JNS. “When the victim began to run away, the unidentified male individual began to chase him and continued to threaten him while brandishing a knife.”

Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn borough president, stated that he was “appalled.”

“Brooklyn must be safe for all,” he stated. “We cannot tolerate attacks on our Jewish neighbors.”


Historic Budapest synagogue shuttered by Nazis opens for first time since the Holocaust
A major Budapest synagogue, which was closed during the Holocaust, has returned to use nearly a century after it was built.

The Rákospalota synagogue in the city’s 15th district was rededicated last week in a ceremony attended by members of the family of its founding rabbi, Michael Dushinsky.

The reopening was led by EMIH, the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation, headed by Chief Rabbi Shlomo Köves, as part of a wider effort to restore former Jewish properties that were nationalised or taken from the community after the Holocaust.

Built in 1926, the synagogue served the local Jewish community for just 18 years. In 1944, members of the community were sent to Auschwitz.

After the Holocaust, the building was nationalised by Hungary’s communist government and later became a warehouse for the country’s National Széchényi Library for 80 years.

“When I first walked in, my heart sank,” Köves said. “There were all kinds of old newspapers. They said, ‘You want us to leave? Pay.’”

EMIH eventually succeeded in reclaiming the building and began restoring it. The renovation was supported by funds raised by Jewish American businessman Igor Tulchinsky.

The restoration also made use of AI, which analysed an old, faded photograph of the synagogue to help reconstruct elements of the building that had been lost or altered over the decades.





 


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