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Friday, September 25, 2026

09/25 Links Pt2: What Frederick Forsyth grasped about antisemitism and Israel; The insane case of the blacked-up Palestine activist; Ro Khanna calls on Israel to release Marwan Barghouti

From Ian:

What Frederick Forsyth grasped about antisemitism and Israel
At the beginning of the month I was invited to see the play Wiesenthal by Tom Dugan at Wilton’s Music Hall in east London – a stone’s throw, if that is an appropriate phrase, from Cable Street – but I found myself unable to go. But it set me off thinking about the first time I heard the name of the legendary Nazi-hunter: and that would have been in the pages of Frederick Forsyth’s second novel, The Odessa File, and I would have been about 12. (Everyone was reading it, and its predecessor, The Day of the Jackal.)

Because it was so very long ago when I was 12, I had forgotten all but the barest bones of the plot, which involves a secret group dedicated to getting ex-SS officers out of Germany, and a concentration camp commander known as “the butcher of Riga”. I thought I’d re-read it, just for the heck of it.

Revisiting the book for the first time in half a century gave me more of a jolt than I expected. It starts like this: a Hamburg journalist comes across the diary of a 56-year-old Jew, who looks 76, and has (and only as I type these words do I realise the savage irony) gassed himself in his flat on (coincidentally) the night of JF Kennedy’s assassination. The journalist finds his diary of his times in a concentration camp in Latvia, which also contains the reason for his suicide: he was a Kapo, and was forced by the Commandant to kill his wife. He can’t live with this any longer. He also feels he can’t go to Israel: he feels too morally stained. I remember being moved, almost as physically as you can be by a punch to the stomach, the closing words of the diary: “But if ever these lines should be read in the land of Israel, which I shall never see, will someone there please say khaddish for me?” Because I am not Jewish, I didn’t have the faintest idea what “khaddish” meant, but I got the gist, and somehow these words kind of rammed home the ultimate horror of the Holocaust. When I re-read those words I felt that punch to the stomach again.

Forsyth was more of a storyteller than a writer, but he put in as many factual elements as he could to make the story plausible. One such factual element was Wiesenthal, who appears as a character: for which, presumably, he had given permission. (The Riga camp commander, whose name I will not utter, was also a real person.) The striking thing about the novel, though, was that Forsyth, who in his later years portrayed himself as a growling mastiff of the establishment Right, was clearly motivated by a deep hatred of Nazism, and genuine anguish at what happened to the Jewish people as a result of it. There was a moral clarity to the book; and now I come to think of it, it’s partly because of this early exposure to the evil of the Holocaust that I write for this paper today.

Two other things struck me: Forsyth makes it very clear that opposition to the state of Israel was entirely motivated by hatred of Jews, and not a humanitarian desire to found a Palestinian state. In the book, there’s much about a plot based on historical events hatched by Egypt to get ex-Nazi rocket scientists to develop a proper guidance system for ballistic missiles, loaded with either strontium-90 or plague bacilli, to kill everyone in Israel. The establishment of a Palestinian state isn’t mentioned, because that wasn’t even a notion then.
David Collier: When the Facts Don’t Fit: BBC News Invents a Motive
The Pen Behind the Sword
The journalist Brandon Drenon is not new to me. I first wrote about his BBC reporting more than two years ago, raising concerns about the way he framed Israel-related stories. Since then, the media watchdog CAMERA has also challenged his reporting on several occasions. In April 2024, Drenon falsely told BBC readers that the International Court of Justice had found the accusation of genocide against Israel “plausible.” It had not. Following a complaint, the BBC amended the article.

But there is a broader pattern worth noting. Drenon has repeatedly produced sympathetic human-interest reporting centred on Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activism. Just a few examples:
October 2023: ’I wake up and check if my family in Gaza is still alive,’ says Palestinian American
November 2023: Palestinian-Americans struggling with “survivors’ guilt”
May 2024: US campus protests: ‘Student arrests will be my final college memory’
April 2025: Anxiety at US colleges as foreign students are detained and visas revoked
October 2025: US campus activists relieved – and anxious – after Gaza ceasefire deal

I looked for the other side. I could find no comparable standalone feature from him centred on Jewish or Israeli-American experiences of October 7, the hostage crisis or the subsequent surge in antisemitism.

Nothing.

Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. When I last reported on Drenon I noted he came from a social justice background, and had married a Syrian-Palestinian from a family of anti-Israel activists.

And now we have his coverage of the shooting in Vermont.

Once again, the problem is not simply what Drenon reports, but the story he invents beyond the facts. His article introduces the Gaza war, Islamophobia, Arabic and keffiyehs in quick succession – leading readers to assume a motive that the evidence never established.

We Should Not Have to Pay for This
The BBC’s motive seems considerably clearer than Jason Eaton’s. We know Eaton shot three young men on a dark street in a peaceful city. Nearly three years later, we still do not know why.

What we can see clearly is what the BBC has done with that uncertainty.

This was a local shooting in which nobody was killed. Would BBC News have reported the conviction of an American who shot and wounded three strangers in Vermont nearly three years earlier if the victims had not been Palestinian?

But having chosen to report it, the BBC then supplied the missing narrative itself: Gaza, Islamophobia, Arabic and keffiyehs – all pointing the reader towards an anti-Palestinian motive that was never established.

But the bottom line is this. I do not actually care if BBC News wants to employ activist journalists who produce one-sided, skewed and misleading coverage.

There are plenty of dreadful media outlets in the world. One more will make little difference.

But here is the crunch: if the BBC has abandoned impartial journalism for student-level activism, then there is no justification for forcing the British public to pay for it.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Campaign to Islamize Canada
At least three ideologically aligned organizations—CMPAC, CJPME, and GTP—registered as third parties with Elections Canada. In the Canadian context, “third parties” are entities other than political parties or candidates that engage in political advertising. Their registration enabled coordinated messaging campaigns centered on specific policy demands, including calls for a Gaza ceasefire, the institutionalization of anti-Islamophobia measures, and the repeal of Quebec’s secularism law, Bill 21. A pre-election survey conducted by CMPAC found that 75% of Canadian Muslim respondents identified Palestine as the most important issue influencing their vote. A post-election poll conducted by Mainstreet Research on behalf of TCMV identified Palestine as the dominant issue for respondents at 45%. These findings reflect the sustained salience of transnational politics on domestic electoral behavior within the Muslim community.

Though these groups claimed to be merely guiding and empowering the Muslim community to vote on values and principles rather than partisan lines, the explicit promotion of their preferred parties and candidates suggests they essentially canvassed Muslims to vote for those who would support their radical agenda. For example, while CMPAC endorsed 47 Liberal, New Democratic Party, and Green candidates via its MuslimsVote.ca platform, a joint endorsement statement issued by CMPAC in tandem with four other Muslim advocacy organizations—Arab-Canadian Vote, Canadian Muslim Healthcare Network, HIKMA, and the National Muslim Action Fund—unanimously backed 41 candidates.

The statement encouraged Muslims to not only exercise their franchise in favor of these candidates but also to support and volunteer with them. A “Joint Statement of Muslim Organizations on Federal Election 2025” was drafted and approved by a committee including CMPAC, TCMV, and the NCCM. Prominent Brotherhood-aligned groups such as the Islamic Circle of North America and the Islamic Society of North America were among its signatories.

Similarly, CJPME’s report card-styled Federal Election Guide 2025 gave the NDP and the Green Party the joint-highest grades for their strong support on issues concerning Palestine and Islamophobia, while the Conservative Party received a failing grade. A popular campaign called Vote Palestine—backed by CJPME, CMPAC, and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), an entity with ties to the U.S.-designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—secured the full endorsement of 344 candidates from four federal parties: the NDP, the Green Party, the Liberal Party, and the Bloc Québécois.

Based on this evidence, the 2025 federal election cycle reveals a broader transition from passive demographic influence to active, organized political intervention. Through a combination of third-party campaigning, coordinated voter mobilization, and targeted advocacy, Brotherhood-aligned networks and their allies demonstrated a capacity to influence electoral dynamics, particularly in tightly contested ridings, in ways that are likely to prove decisive in future elections.

Islamophobia featured among the stated priorities of the 2025 joint electoral statement issued by CMPAC, NCCM, the National Muslim Action Fund, The Canadian Muslim Vote, and over 100 signatory organizations, including the Muslim Association of Canada and 23 of its centers, ISNA Canada, and ICNA Canada. The statement urged voters to question candidates on Gaza, human rights, Islamophobia, and economic justice, and identified Quebec’s Bill 21 as evidence of rising Islamophobia.

The sustained advocacy of these entities has yielded tangible policy responses. In January 2023, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Elghawaby as Canada’s first special representative on combating Islamophobia, following relentless pressure from the NCCM. However, this initiative was soon deemed insufficient by the NCCM, which in the leadup to the 2025 federal election publicly pressed political parties to advance a comprehensive national strategy on Islamophobia as a prerequisite for securing support from Muslim voters.

Legal and quasi-legal constructs further shape the operational environment. Frameworks such as Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, in the specific institutional contexts examined, affect administrative behavior, influence the interpretation of conduct, and alter the terms on which scrutiny and accountability are applied. Their significance lies not in abstract definition but in their practical interaction with broader narrative and organizational dynamics. Taken together, these elements indicate a structural environment characterized by reinforcing domains rather than by a single causal factor. The cumulative effect is the normalization of specific narratives, practices, partnerships, and associations within institutional settings, alongside uneven scrutiny and variable response.

The implications are systemic. Effective responses require a framework capable of addressing the interdependence of narrative, institutional, financial, regulatory, and legal domains with consistency. Without that, individual interventions are unlikely to alter the underlying conditions identified across universities, civil society, and public life.


Mark Ruffalo’s Antisemitic Attack on Paramount Helped Convince CA AG Bonta to Drop His Merger Lawsuit
According to a report, radical Marvel Spider-Man: Brand New Day star Mark Ruffalo’s antisemitic tirades against Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery in August helped torpedo California AG Rob Bonta’s lawsuit aimed at scotching the merger.

The far-left has been on a tirade since Monday when news broke that Paramount settled a lawsuit with the state’s radical, left-wing Attorney General. Hollywood critics are blasting Bonta as a “traitor” and a “coward” for settling the lawsuit and clearing the way for Paramount to complete its acquisition of Warners.

But according to reporter Charles Gasparino, it was the rabid anti-Israel tirades by actors like Mark Ruffalo that caused Bonta to cringe and flinch away from pressing on the with lawsuit.

Gasparino reports that when Ruffalo tried to turn the merger into an attack on Israel, “he made a fatal mistake,” according to the insiders the reporter interviewed.

Operatives inside the California AG’s office began shying away from the lawsuit when Ruffalo started “attacking the Ellisons because of Oracle’s contracts with Israel, absurdly suggesting the merger would promote genocide,” Gasparino said.

Paramount quickly denounced Ruffalo’s obscene accusations, of course. But so did almost every major Jewish group inside and outside Hollywood.

Ruffalo denied accusations that his merger criticism were antisemitic. But the damage was already done.

As a result, “Many in Hollywood, including its large pro-Israel contingent, began alerting Newsom, Bass, and Becerra that Ruffalo — who Bonta said inspired his legal action – had stepped way over the line and that the pols needed to push for the deal to be approved.”
Brendan O'Neill: The insane case of the blacked-up Palestine activist
Gann isn’t the first trust-fund twat to pose as oppressed. She’s not the first person to brownface for moral clout. There’s the aforementioned Dolezal. And one of my personal favourites, Jessica Krug: a Kansas-born white lady who climbed the greasy ladder of the modern university by playacting as a black, Latino, Bronx-descended broad who loves saying ‘Y’all’. ‘I absolutely cancel myself’, said Krug when she was outed as white. And there have been a whole host of ‘pretendians’ – American and Canadian writers and activists who falsely claim Native American heritage to add a little spice to their lives.

It’s not hard to work out what lies behind such ‘progressive’ blacking up. In an era when whites are reprimanded for their supposed privilege, and ethnic-minority folk are creepily indulged as the possessors of a unique, folksy wisdom, some honkies are going to feel tempted to overdo the spray-on tan and embrace ‘blackspeak’ in the hope that they might be mistaken for non-whites, and thus oppressed and interesting. Such race-faking is most commonly found on leafy campuses and in woke circles, where whiteness is tantamount to original sin. It is our culture’s crazy sacralisation of victimhood that leads people to plunder the ‘suffering’ of others in search of a costume to pull on.

But here’s the thing: such trauma-mining is not incidental to the keffiyeh cult – it’s the cult’s whole raison d’être. Gann is an outlier only in the sense that she went the whole hog by darkening her skin and inventing a family tree in order that she might feel the cheap, fleeting thrill of Palestinian victimhood. But in one way or another they’re all at it. Every rich brat who has made hating Israel their entire personality is a kind of grief grifter, desperately hoping their devotion to Palestinianism might help to wash away their sins of whiteness and Westernism and bless them with the holy glow of Third World authenticity. They seek not ‘freedom for Palestine’ but absolution for themselves.

Witness how the keffiyeh has become a kind of holy shroud, worn by the well-off to signal their high-status pity for the downtrodden. And who can forget the hilarious scenes at Columbia University during the Gaza encampment of 2024, when silver-spoon leftists in Arab headwear begged the university administration for ‘humanitarian aid’. They meant refreshments. Across the West we’ve seen privileged youths not quite ‘blacking up’ but certainly ‘Arabbing up’: wearing desert clobber, and in some cases even Hamas headbands, while hollering for intifada and dreaming of the Jewish State’s destruction. All that Gann really added to this bourgeois hobby of oppression play was a little St Tropez. Some people call the Gaza movement ‘radical chic’. It’s worse than that – it’s victim chic, a kind of boutique martyrdom giddily embraced by self-hating Westerners. With all the fervour of a doomsday sect, they brand Israel as the demonic zenith of ‘whiteness’ and then march against it in their culturally appropriated sacred veils. It’s a cleansing ritual masquerading as activism, a vain display of penitence by a generation taught to hate the West and everything it represents. Hannah Gann just took things a little further. She went full method.
A fraudulent ‘Free Palestine’ activist embodies a lying hateful cause
Gann said in her apology, “The fact that I lied about who I was does not mean anyone else who speaks up for Palestine is lying.”

But, of course, that’s exactly the point. The entire rhetoric of “Free Palestine” is a catalogue of lies.

Indeed, the rewriting of the history of ancient Israel and the modern state, as well as the repeated Palestinian-Arab rejections of any peace offer that does not involve the expulsion of Jews from their homeland, is essential to the movement’s cause. From the fabricated statistics about Palestinian casualties in the post-Oct. 7 war they started, to their denials of the atrocities, including mass murder, torture and rape committed that day by the Palestinians (which were filmed on Go-Pro cameras and posted on the social-media accounts of some of the victims to cause even more pain to their relatives and friends), to their denigration of the suffering of the hundreds who were kidnapped on that Jewish holiday, “pro-Palestine” discourse aims not merely to deny reality, but to invert it.

Above all, the dialectic of Palestinianism aims at stripping Jews of rights and falsely portraying them as criminal monsters and modern-day Nazis, while glorifying an Islamist movement whose sole purpose is Jewish genocide and destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet. And in order to accomplish this, they have, with the aid of a biased media, spread blood libels about the Jews committing “genocide” and their democratic nation being an “apartheid state.”

While few go as far as pretending to be Palestinian, the anti-Israel movement nevertheless welcomes those who want to participate in the struggle of the alleged victims. As we’ve seen on American college campuses and in the streets of the country’s cities, those who adopt their lies and target Jews, as Gann and her friends did, have been indoctrinated to think of themselves as righteous activists, not purveyors of hate. In so doing, they acquire a vicarious sort of victimhood that gives them a higher status in the culture of the left, even if they still remain white and therefore intrinsically bad.

Among them are Jews, such as the members of Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, which traffic in other antisemitic blood libels, such as the preposterous accusation that Israel trains American police and first responders to murder African Americans.

Seen in this context, it’s easy to see that Gann’s desperate attempt to escape her “whiteness” and Jewish identity in order to be a member of the ironically more privileged victim class, didn’t just lead to lies about her origins. The identity she chose was itself based on a web of deception, concocted by ideologues and spread by those, like Gann, whose idea of education is shoving propaganda down the throats of students—not sharing the treasure of Western thought and ideals.

Those who joined Gann in the chants for genocide and terror against the Jews may not have transgressed the racial taboo of cultural and racial appropriation that the left despises. They may fool themselves into believing that she betrayed their cause with her lies.

But with their cosplaying of Palestinian terrorists in their costumes of keffiyehs and masks, and their recitations of Soviet and Hamas propaganda aimed at promoting antisemitism, the difference between their frauds and hers is not as great as they think.
Jew-haters using GoFundMe campaigns to deal with aftermath of their antisemitism, watchdog says
The watchdog Stop Antisemitism shared a dossier with JNS of people using GoFundMe pages to raise money “after facing consequences for their antisemitic actions.”

Liora Rez, president and CEO of the nonprofit, told JNS that it is “highlighting these specific individuals, because their GoFundMe campaigns remain active, meaning they continue to have the ability to solicit and receive financial support.” (JNS sought comment from GoFundMe.)

One of the people identified in the dossier is a female minor, which violates the website’s terms of service, according to Rez.

StopAntisemitism posted a video in August that it said shows the minor, then a Burger King staffer, asking a Jewish customer, with a Star of David around his neck, about “his origin” and saying, “free Palestine.”

According to the dossier, Burger King fired the employee, who then launched a GoFundMe campaign stating that she was “simply exercising my freedom of speech.” She has raised more than $255,000 to date.

“StopAntisemitism filed a complaint regarding this issue, yet her campaign is one of many that remains active,” Rez told JNS.
Sadiq Khan accused of ‘extraordinary’ failure to adequately engage Jewish leaders amid attacks on community
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been accused of failing to adequately engage and support Jewish leaders despite multiple terrifying attacks on the community in the past year.

The mayor’s official diary shows he has not had a one-to-one meeting with key Jewish communal organisations and stakeholders such as the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council, Community Security Trust (CST) or the Chief Rabbi in the past year.

The only Jewish group with whom the mayor had a formal one-to-one is AJEX, the Jewish Military Association – in February this year.

In the year since the terror attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, there have been arson assaults against Hatzolah ambulances and synagogues in London, as well as a stabbing spree in Golders Green in April in which two people were injured.

A senior Jewish communal source told the JC: “It’s quite extraordinary that there have been no one-to-one meetings between the Mayor of London and representatives of key communal organisations when you consider the context of the past year: Heaton Park, Golders Green, fire bombings and continued incitement on protests.

“There continues to be routine engagement with the office but the mayor seems to be more concerned with using his public profile to make interventions on Gaza.”

The JC understands that the mayor had telephone conversations with CST’s CEO Mark Gardner in March and President of the Board of Deputies Phil Rosenberg.

The mayor also hosted a Mitzvah Day event in November and a Holocaust Memorial Day event in City Hall; visited Hatzolah in March and Finchley Reform Synagogue in April, where Rosenberg was present; went to the prime minister’s summit on antisemitism in May, which was attended by key communal groups; and went on a tour of the Nova Festival exhibition in July.

However, given the danger faced by London’s Jewish community over the past year and Khan’s regular denouncement of Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, there is a view in the community and beyond that those engagements have been inadequate.

James Cleverly, the former home secretary who hopes to become his party’s mayoral candidate, said that Jewish Londoners “deserve a mayor who will give them the time of day”.

The last meeting between Khan and Chief Rabbi Mirvis was in October 2023.

After the meeting, Mirvis criticised a call by Khan for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying on social media that the mayor’s remark “would be an irresponsible stepping stone to yet more Hamas terrorist brutality”.

In May 2024, after much criticism and uproar, Khan apologised to Mirvis for suggesting that the Chief Rabbi had been more critical of his call for a ceasefire in Gaza than he had been of similar statements by Andy Burnham, then the mayor of Manchester, because he is Muslim.

In an interview with pundit Mehdi Hasan at the time, Khan said: “He’s not called ‘Ahmed Bourani’, he’s called Andy Burnham, whereas I’m called Sadiq Khan.”

The mayor, who was elevated to the House of Lords last week, expressed deep “regret” for his remarks.
Calls to abolish police staff networks after Muslim association’s ‘Zionist terror group’ row
The government has been urged to abolish police staff networks, as part of proposals in a new report examining the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) following controversy over a paper which called the IDF a “Zionist terrorist group”.

Policy Exchange has urged the government to introduce a legal duty on police impartiality or consider getting rid of staff networks altogether.

Its report focuses on NAMP, which has more than 2,000 members and is affiliated with up to 19 police forces in England and Wales, as well as Muslim police associations operating within individual forces.

The think tank argues that some staff groups have moved beyond their role of supporting officers and become involved in contentious political and policy debates.

The report follows controversy over a NAMP paper, first highlighted last year, which identified Zionism as “one of the manifestations of anti-Muslim hatred” and referred to “Zionist terrorist groups including the IDF.”

As previously reported by Jewish News, the document also questioned accounts of atrocities committed during the Hamas-led 7 October attacks and accused “Zionists” of “misuse of the Holocaust”.

The Jewish Leadership Council described parts of the paper as “grossly offensive” and said it raised “serious questions concerning police impartiality”.

NAMP subsequently removed the document and said it did not represent the organisation.

It said the paper, written by former vice president Khaldoun Kabbani, “does not represent any official NAMP position, policy or guidance” and was taken down “immediately upon us becoming aware of its presence”.

Kabbani is no longer involved with NAMP or policing, the organisation said.

NAMP added: “NAMP categorically does not ‘defend’ Hamas or any other proscribed organisation. We condemn all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
Ask Haviv Anything: 149: Patriotism is too important to leave to extremists, with Prof. Alex Yakobson
Hebrew University historian Prof. Alexander Yakobson returns for a subscriber Q&A: Did the Arabs really “miss an opportunity” in 1947? Can Europe reclaim its national identities without falling into old, dangerous chauvinisms? What happens if Israel’s “modern” class walks away after years of war and a rightward political shift? Do liberal democracies fuel extremism when they abandon patriotism?

From Germany’s struggle with its past to a pointed debate over Israelis leaving their country, we ask what holds a nation together and what happens when those bonds are tested.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and guest background
02:30 Arab rejection of partition plans and missed opportunities
04:03 The Arab perspective on missed opportunities
05:39 Rejection of federated states and the White Paper
09:26 Palestinian leadership's rejection of compromise
11:56 Islamist and nationalist motivations in Arab rejection
14:49 Comparison with Indian partition and lessons learned
21:19 Lost opportunities for Palestinian statehood
22:28 European identity, symbols, and neutrality
29:34 Reclaiming national identity in Germany
35:19 The dangers of erasing national borders and identity
41:15 The significance of national symbols and history
43:58 Referendums and their role in Israeli democracy
47:23 International law, European norms, and Israel
55:39 Israel's constitutional development and legal framework
01:01:45 Israeli society, emigration, and internal challenges
01:13:21 The future of Israel and regional security


Protesters persuade theater operator to pull out of Mahmoud Khalil event
Bill Blumenreich, whose event promotion company operates Boston’s Wilbur Theatre, walked outside on Thursday night to speak to Jewish activists protesting his company’s role in a scheduled Mahmoud Khalil book talk.

After talking to the protesters, he canceled his involvement with the event.

Adar Rubin, director of mobilization for EndJewHatred, which organized the rally, said that Blumenreich told protesters he didn’t know who Khalil was. After they described the former Columbia student’s history of Jew-hatred, Blumenreich asked whether they wanted the event canceled, according to Rubin.

“He went back inside, and about 20 minutes later he came out, told the activists the show was canceled and shook their hands,” Rubin said.

“Mr. Blumenreich has assured us that he canceled the event, asked that all tickets be refunded and removed his company’s name from it,” he said.

The Sept. 30 talk about Khalil’s memoir, No Land to Stand On, will still take place at Arts of the Armory in Somerville, Mass. Rubin said Brookline Booksmith, an independent bookstore which partnered on the event, has decided to proceed on its own. The store is located in a busy area with several nearby synagogues and kosher restaurants.

“It’s disappointing that Brookline Booksmith is still giving Khalil a platform, but this outcome nevertheless shows that activism works,” Rubin told JNS.

According to an event listing, tickets for the book talk are sold out. Brookline Booksmith posted on social media on Friday that “this event has not been canceled” and that “we are honored to be hosting Mahmoud Khalil.”


Ro Khanna calls on Israel to release Marwan Barghouti: 'Palestinians must choose their own leaders'
US Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna called on Israel to release imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, arguing that Palestinians should be allowed to choose their own leadership and that Barghouti could play a role in a future Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

"Today I'm calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison. Palestinians must choose their own leaders," Khanna said. He described Barghouti as having "a unique standing among all Palestinian factions" and said he is viewed as "non-corrupt, a strong leader, and secular."

Khanna went further, arguing that "Barghouti could deliver a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel," and noted that some former senior Israeli security officials have also supported his release.

The remarks come as Khanna, a progressive Democrat representing California's 17th Congressional District in Silicon Valley, seeks to elevate his foreign-policy profile while openly weighing a possible 2028 presidential run.

During a visit to the West Bank in July, Khanna told Reuters that he was "strongly considering" a presidential bid. He also sharply criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians during the trip, including using the term "apartheid" to describe conditions in the West Bank — a characterization Israel rejects.


David Harsanyi: Why Abdul El-Sayed refuses to condemn Iran’s Revolutionary Guard thugs
El-Sayed says he opposes foreign entanglements — but while he wants to cut off US aid to Israel and stop any sales of military equipment, even defensive ones, he supports military aid to Ukraine.

The Senate candidate maintains the difference is that, unlike the Jewish state, Ukraine was attacked by Russia, which had thereby broken “international law.”

Which means El-Sayed doesn’t consider the murder of over 1,200 Israeli men, women and children a violation of “international law.”

Nor does he consider the launching of over 350 ballistic missiles at Israel by Iran — nearly two years before Operation Epic Fury was initiated — a belligerent act of war.

It makes sense.

El-Sayed once protested an appearance by reformed terrorists who had converted to Christianity — but his first instinct when a would-be Hezbollah terrorist attempted to slaughter a school filled with 4- and 5-year-old Jewish children was to proclaim, “Hurt people hurt people.”

So it’s no surprise that this Senate candidate would invite Hasan Piker, a man who hasn’t run across an Islamic terrorist group or murderous communist he didn’t feel compelled to defend, to campaign with him.

These days, El-Sayed keeps referring to Piker as a “Twitch streamer in California” to gaslight journalists who ask him about the relationship.

But if Piker was nothing but an irrelevant, out-of-state social-media personality, why did El-Sayed feel compelled to appear by his side on numerous occasions?

Occam’s razor tells us that El-Sayed feels a connection to a man who believes the US deserved 9/11 — and even holds similar views.

El-Sayed certainly believes that Western nations are as evil as jihadists, or worse.

That moral equivalence was on display in his now-deleted 2021 tweet commemorating 9/11.

“Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith,” El-Sayed tweeted — before adding, “Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.”

It’s clear from that comment that El-Sayed believes America is far worse than the Islamist extremists of the Middle East.

In a healthier era, any one of these relationships would have sunk a candidacy.

At this point, Michigan voters are well aware of El-Sayed’s radicalism — and yet he’s poised to become our first Islamist senator.


JLC raises concerns over Macklemore’s ‘Free Palestine’ Wembley concert
The Jewish Leadership Council has raised “serious concerns” over Live Nation’s decision to promote Macklemore’s newly announced “Free Palestine” concert at Wembley Arena.

The communal organisation has called on the entertainment giant to explain how it assessed concerns surrounding the US rapper and what measures will be taken ahead of the London concert on 30 October.

In a statement, the JLC said: “Live Nation’s decision to promote a Macklemore concert at Wembley raises serious concerns. Macklemore is entitled to advocate for Palestinian rights. However, concerns arising from the imagery that he has used and material in his recent performances must be taken seriously.

“We challenged Live Nation over its decision to book Kanye West for Wireless earlier this year. We now ask Live Nation to explain how they assessed the concerns about this event, and what steps they will take to ensure that Jewish audiences and staff feel safe and welcome.”

Live Nation is currently advertising the “Macklemore & Friends: Free Palestine Tour” at OVO Arena Wembley, with tickets due to go on general sale on Wednesday.


When a Pool Cue Becomes a Gun Because the Player Is Israeli
Sometimes a photograph needs a caption.

Sometimes the caption needs another photograph.

On Thursday night, 20-year-old Saied Abu Farchi scored Israel’s equalizer against Austria in European soccer’s Nations League.

He ran to the corner, pulled out the flag and celebrated.

By the following morning, The Guardian, publishing a Reuters report⁠, had a rather more dramatic explanation:

“Israel’s Saied Abu Farchi sent off for gun gesture celebration in defeat by Austria.”

Reuters reported that Abu Farchi had used the corner flag to “simulate a gun.” The interpretation had become a statement of fact.

Except other journalists looking at the same action weren’t so sure.

The Associated Press⁠ report described exactly what Abu Farchi did and said it was not immediately clear whether he was simulating a pool shot or a weapon.

That seems like a fairly important uncertainty.

As a photographer, this is where I start looking for another picture.

And there is one.

On July 16, more than two months before the Austria game, Abu Farchi was playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv against Hapoel Be’er Sheva in the Israeli Super Cup.

He scored twice.

And he celebrated with the corner flag.

Ynet has the photograph, taken by Oz Mualem⁠.

There is Abu Farchi, months before Thursday night, doing substantially the same thing.

Ynet describes it as his familiar snooker-style celebration and reports that he was booked for doing it in the Be’er Sheva match as well.

That photograph should have changed the reporting.


Federal panel recommends suspending American Psychological Association’s accreditation authority
A federal advisory board to the Department of Education recommended that the department suspend the accreditation authority of the American Psychological Association over the APA’s failure to address a “pervasive culture of antisemitism within the programs it accredits.”

The APA is the largest association of psychologists in the world and its Commission on Accreditation serves as the main accrediting body for U.S. psychology graduate programs and internships, offering a stamp of approval that their programs meet professional standards. Without accreditation, programs are ineligible for federal funding and graduates may be ineligible for certain roles or licenses.

A final decision on the issue will be made in the coming months by the Department of Education, and the exact implications and consequences may depend on the decision made. But the recommendation could create significant uncertainty for hundreds of programs and internships and throw into question the licensing of psychology students and professionals across the country.

The recommendation comes after years of concerns by Jewish students and professionals about pervasive antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in psychology education, which in some cases paints Zionism as a mental illness to be treated.

The APA as an organization has also faced criticism for delaying votes on recognizing a Jewish psychology organization, promoting anti-Israel and pro-Hamas propaganda at conferences and allegedly turning a blind eye to antisemitism within the organization. The House Education & Workforce Committee opened an investigation last year into the APA.

The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, the advisory body that provides recommendations to the Department of Education, voted 7-4 on Thursday to recommend that the Department of Education suspend the APA’s accreditation authorities.

Members of NACIQI are appointed by the administration and congressional leadership.

The decision came after two days of testimony by nearly 30 outside witnesses, including members of the Jewish community and Jewish community groups highlighting antisemitism issues in psychology education programs.
Students for Justice in Palestine is ‘broke,’ its attorney says
The anti-Israel group National Students for Justice in Palestine is “broke,” its attorney told a judge on Friday.

Jonathan Wallace is representing the group in Matthew Weinberg v. National Students for Justice in Palestine, in which Weinberg, Rabbi Dovid Gurevich, Nir Hoftman and Eli Tsives sued the group, its leaders and associated groups, including Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network and WESPAC Foundation, in April 2025 for alleged antisemitism and assaults.

Those attacks occurred, allegedly, at the anti-Israel encampment on the University of California, Los Angeles campus between April 25 and May 2, 2024.

In a letter to A. Joel Richlin, a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, on Friday, Wallace wrote that he is “personally overwhelmed” by the amount of discovery in the case, noting that he is “inexperienced in federal discovery, especially at this large a scale.” (The letter listed the judge as part of the state’s northern district.)

“Requiring a broke organization and its harried solo attorney to be able to respond to whatever plaintiffs’ two law firms and law nonprofit can throw creates a truly Darwinian environment,” he wrote. “NSJP has no endowment, savings, nest egg or other financial resources.”

According to NGO Monitor, Students for Justice in Palestine branches on university campuses are not registered nonprofit organizations and thus not subject to financial disclosure laws. WESPAC Foundation, which is also a defendant, is a fiscal sponsor, according to Wallace.

Multiple universities have suspended SJP chapters due to violations of campus policies. Recently, Missouri opened an investigation into the group, alleging that it may be misleading donors and sending funds to terror groups.


Man who stabbed 2 Jews in Golders Green pleads not guilty to attempted murder
A 45-year-old man pleaded not guilty on Friday to attempting to murder two Jewish men who were stabbed in a knife attack in north London in April — an offense prosecutors said they were no longer treating as terrorism.

Essa Suleiman, a British national who was born in Somalia, is alleged to have attacked the men in Golders Green on April 29, one of a spate of incidents targeting Jewish premises in the same area of London, which is home to a large Jewish population.

The attacks left Britain’s 290,000 Jews fearing for their safety, and prompted the government to promise stronger action to protect them.

In March, a separate arson attack in the Golders Green neighborhood destroyed four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish rescue group, parked outside a synagogue. Four men pleaded guilty to the attack, including British nationals Hamza Iqbal, 20, Rehan Khan, 19, Judex Atshatshi, 18, and British-Pakistani Saif Ali, 18.

The arsonists destroyed four ambulance vehicles, causing damage valued at £1 million ($1.4 million).

Suleiman appeared for a brief hearing at London’s Old Bailey court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder.

He also denied a third count of attempted murder, relating to an unconnected incident at the home of a former acquaintance earlier the same day, and possession of a bladed article.

Police had initially said the stabbings were being investigated as suspected terrorism.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer said on Friday, however, that the Crown Prosecution Service had concluded that following a review, there was insufficient evidence to say the stabbings had a terrorist connection.
Crazed attacker who randomly pummeled NYC rabbi after slugging another stranger cut loose by judge
The crazed attacker who allegedly pummeled a rabbi in a random attack this week — minutes after he slugged another stranger pumping gas — was cut loose by a judge in both cases, prosecutors said Friday.

Eric Avrutov, 31, allegedly pummeled the 66-year-old Jewish leader and placed him in a headlock on Dahill Road near Cortelyou Road in Kensington around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday — breaking the victim’s shoulder and leaving him petrified, according to a criminal complaint and a member of his congregation.

But Avrutov was granted supervised release by Judge Edward Daniels — over prosecutors’ request that he be held on $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said.

The attack was considered an unprovoked assault on a stranger — not motivated by hate, according to cops — but it was enough to rattle the rabbi before his community began the celebration of Sukkot.

“More than the physical injuries, he is struggling with the emotional trauma of the incident,” Avrumi Herbst, a member of the rabbi’s synagogue and a close personal confidant, said in an email. “This morning, he was further distressed when the DA’s office notified him that the suspect was released again.”

“I feel it is important to point out that the Rabbi is very resilient and accepts everything that has befallen him as the will of G-d, and he plans to officiate normally during the upcoming holiday, albeit with the physical limitations imposed on him by his shoulder injury,” Herbst added.

“Nevertheless he is concerned for his personal safety and the safety of his neighbors and the casual release of the perpetrator just added to that.”

Just minutes before the attack on the rabbi, Avrutov allegedly slugged another man, 60, on the side of the face as he pumped gas at the Shell station around the corner on Cortelyou Road, police said.

In that case, prosecutors asked for the same bail amount, but Judge Daniels again cut Avrutov loose on supervision.

The reasoning behind the judge’s decisions in both cases was not immediately clear.


German town bans new Holocaust-memory ‘stumbling blocks,’ with center and far-right support
An East German town has approved a motion by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to reject future installation of brass plaques commemorating victims of Nazi persecution.

The “Stolpersteine” are a prominent feature of Germany’s Holocaust remembrance culture.

Thursday’s decision in Heidenau, a town near Dresden in the eastern state of Saxony, comes as the AfD tops national polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU.

The AfD has frequently challenged Germany’s Holocaust remembrance, with co-founder Alexander Gauland once describing the Nazi era as merely “bird shit” in an otherwise successful 1,000 years of German history.

The Heidenau council voted to stop further plaques and for future commemorations to be concentrated at a memorial site on the town’s northern cemetery.

The move has fueled debate over the CDU’s adherence to the “Brandmauer”, an informal firewall by which Germany’s mainstream parties rule out formal cooperation with the AfD.

Local branches of the AfD and the CDU did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

“I am appalled that a democratic party has chosen to support such a transparent manoeuvre by the extremist AfD,” Charlotte Knobloch, the head of a Jewish regional association in Bavaria, told the Funke group of newspapers.
Racehorse ‘Austrian Painter’ renamed after Hitler-reference complaint
A racehorse named “Austrian Painter” has been renamed “Merrylegs” after the organization that oversees thoroughbreds received a complaint that the name was a reference to Adolf Hitler.

As Austrian Painter, the horse won a race at Indianapolis Horseshoe on Monday before the Jockey Club issued a statement on Wednesday that it had changed the horse’s name.

“Earlier this week, the registry was notified through a formal complaint that the name was offensive, and we immediately began a review,” the organization stated. “The registrar determined that the name is ineligible.”

The leader of Nazi Germany had a failed career as an artist in his native Austria before the First World War, leading “Austrian painter” to commonly be used as a euphemism for Hitler online.

After Austrian Painter won the race, some on social media began to point out the name’s association with Jew-hatred.

“I don’t know what’s more out of pocket, that the Jockey Club approved this name or that he won on Yom Kippur,” one racing fan wrote.

The owner of the horse, Scott Herbertson, claimed on Tuesday that the name was in fact a reference to Gustav Klimt.

“That’s who I named it after I’m not changing the name,” Herbertson, who describes himself as a professional poker player, wrote.

Others pointed out that alternative names Herbertson proposed for the horse also appeared to reference Hitler, including “My Struggle” and “Braunau Star.” Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto “Mein Kampf” translates to “my struggle,” and the Nazi leader was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria. The owner told Horse Racing Nation that his wife’s grandfather was born in the town on Austria’s border with Germany.





 


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