Friday, October 02, 2026

10/01 Links Pt2: IDF: 170 Hamas, PIJ terrorists killed in Gaza were misrepresented as 'innocent journalists'; IDF rejects ‘NAZA’ claims of deliberate targeting of Gaza civilians

From Ian:

Andrew Fox: Why does the BBC refer to dead terrorists as ‘journalists’?
By its dodgy reporting, the BBC implicitly bolsters one of the most pernicious myths about Israel: that it deliberately kills journalists to silence their reporting. But the fact that a fighter has a camera does not erase his military role, and nor does a journalist’s death alongside a military target establish that his journalism made him a target. By presenting men engaged in war as independent witnesses, the BBC has helped turn their deaths into evidence for an accusation that those deaths cannot, by themselves, sustain. Hamas could hardly ask for a more useful service than what the BBC provides for it.

The overlap extends beyond proven combat roles. A December 2025 study by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre identified terrorist affiliations in 157 of 266 reported journalist and media-worker deaths, roughly 59 per cent. Its definition included employment by factional media, so not all 157 were fighters, but this should have given editors ample reason to investigate whose version of the Gaza war they were publishing.

Hamas has a vested interest in demonising the Jewish State, yet the BBC consistently treats the word of this proscribed terrorist organisation as the truth. The BBC owes viewers an explanation of how it checked its contributors and what relevant affiliations it failed to disclose. Any competent editor should examine their source’s independence, particularly in a conflict as polarising as this one. Instead, the BBC has allowed Hamas propaganda to be smuggled into Western homes with the stamp of a trusted broadcaster.

Since 7 October 2023, the BBC has happily shown footage of a devastated Gaza Strip – but there has been comparatively less interest in explaining the broader security threat that Hamas poses to Israel, or any of the measures taken by the Jewish State to minimise civilian casualties.

The BBC’s record on the Gaza war makes a mockery of its claims to accuracy and impartiality. The BBC documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, used a child narrator whose father was a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run administration. Ofcom found that omitting this fact materially misled audiences. The BBC later claimed that it wasn’t aware of the connection. But, as with the dead ‘journalists’, this isn’t good enough. The BBC broadcast an emotive and highly biased piece of propaganda without knowing the full picture.

Earlier failures were just as grotesque. After the October 2023 Al-Ahli hospital explosion, Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, claimed an Israeli airstrike was responsible. In fact, it was a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The following month, the BBC was forced to apologise for falsely claiming that Israeli troops were ‘targeting’ medical teams at Al-Shifa Hospital.

The BBC’s repeated professions of editorial rigour are contemptible when set against that record. A broadcaster that lectures the public about misinformation has repeatedly failed the elementary checks its own authority depends on.

Senior editors must now account publicly for the sources they trusted and the reports that need correcting, across BBC Arabic and English-language output. Failures this serious should cost careers. Licence-fee payers deserve a broadcaster that is capable of questioning Hamas’s propaganda. The public should not have to investigate the BBC itself to discover what it left out.
More Than Half the Names on Committee to Protect Journalists List of Slain Gaza Journalists Are Still Linked to Terror Outfits Despite Group’s Self-Policing ‘Audit’
More than half the names on the embattled Committee to Protect Journalists' revised list of "journalists" slain in Gaza "have connections to terrorist groups," even after the New York-based advocacy organization conducted a months-long review meant to identify and remove confirmed combatants from its widely cited database, according to a leading media watchdog.

CPJ first announced in June that it was undertaking a wholesale review of its list of "Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza War" following a series of Washington Free Beacon reports questioning the integrity of its influential list and revealing that numerous confirmed terrorists were included in the death toll. CPJ has been in turmoil for months—driven by infighting and the public defenestration of a pharmaceutical heiress—over allegations of myopic anti-Israel bias that's clouded its historic mission of protecting journalists worldwide.

While CPJ initially said its internal review would be completed in July, the organization did not publicly disclose its findings until late last week. CPJ ultimately removed 19 terrorists and 3 other fake journalists from the list, but reinstated 4 others who had previously been nixed for engaging in terrorism against Israel. That leaves a total of 191 supposed Gazan journalists on the CPJ's rejiggered database—102 of whom still have demonstrable "connections to terrorist groups," according to an independent review of the CPJ audit performed by the Israeli media watchdog group HonestReporting.

"Although the CPJ review removed almost two dozen individuals who participated in combat during the war that began on October 7, 2023, 53 percent of those still listed have terrorist ties, with CPJ failing to remove identified terrorists and even reinstating some to the database," HonestReporting concluded in a comprehensive 138-page review. "CPJ continues to include members of the non-military wings of terrorist groups on its list, and has failed to issue an apology for spreading disinformation."

Thursday afternoon, the CPJ doubled down, making the claim on X that "Israel has been targeting and killing journalists in connection with their reporting for decades, and this deadly pattern must end," something the Israelis strongly dispute, presenting, case by case, documentary proof such as "martyr posters," photos, and Hamas payroll and membership records.

The CPJ was first thrust into the spotlight in May, when it served as a critical source for an outlandish column by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof alleging that Israeli soldiers raped two Palestinian "journalists" with a carrot and a dog.

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups operating in Gaza have a well-documented practice of installing their operatives as journalists—often as cameramen in TV crews—so they can take advantage of longstanding conventions to avoid killing journalists during war. When Israel identifies and targets these militants, it faces international opprobrium, especially if CPJ claims there were indeed journalists.

HonestReporting further determined that CPJ's updated list fails to meet the organization's own "criteria for inclusion as a journalist, while broader methodological issues remain." CPJ's board voted 17-1 in July to affirm that "organizations affiliated with militant groups" meet the criteria of a legitimate journalistic outlet "provided they are not engaging in combat or inciting violence in a manner likely to have imminent effect." That contentious definition, opposed only by the Fox News board representative, essentially allowed CPJ to continue considering known terrorists for inclusion on its list.


IDF: 170 Hamas, PIJ terrorists killed in Gaza were misrepresented as 'innocent journalists'
The IDF revealed on Thursday that 170 individuals who were misleadingly presented as civilian “journalists” killed in strikes on Gaza were actually affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other terrorist organizations.

The journalists' identities and terrorist affiliations were verified using documentation released by the terrorist organizations themselves and materials recovered by Israeli troops during Gaza operations, the military stated.

The IDF launched a website dedicated to compiling information regarding terrorists found to be misrepresenting themselves as civilian journalists and combating accusations that the IDF deliberately targets civilians working in the media.

Earlier on Thursday, the IDF released a statement highlighting ten journalists who doubled as Hamas and PIJ terrorists.

The terrorists, some of whom worked for news outlets such as Reuters, Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency, and Palestine Now News Agency, operated as snipers, commanders, trainers, and propaganda agents, among other roles.

According to the IDF, some of the alleged journalists infiltrated Israel and participated in Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

Deaths of Hamas, PIJ journalists cited in complaints against Israel
The deaths of the alleged civilian journalists were cited in complaints and condemnations launched against Israel.

Hamas terrorist Asem Adli Ahmed al-Barsh, an alleged journalist for Palestinian Al-Rai Radio, was named by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a December 2023 complaint to the International Criminal Court.

RSF accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilian journalists and did not mention Barsh’s status as a Hamas terrorist in the complaint.

RSF also engraved the name of Mohammed Mahmoud Abdel Aziz Abu Sharia, a PIJ sniper who allegedly worked for Palestinian Shams News Agency, in a memorial dedicated to journalists who were killed between June 2024 and June 2025.

In 2024, then UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay condemned the killing of another Hamas terrorist, Mohammed Manhal Ahmed Abu Armana, whom the IDF identified as Hamas’s Rafah Brigade Propaganda Department Commander.

A number of the terrorists named by the IDF were included in the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ's) database of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza since 2023.


‘NAZA’ turns anti-Israel propaganda into box-office success
The great Italian success of “NAZA,” the film of lies about Israel that purports to be a documentary, compels us to return to Vasily Grossman’s famous observation: “Look at the substance of what the antisemite says, and you will discover all his characteristics.”

The reasoning behind the special award presented to “NAZA” at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival provides a neat summary. The film, which in three days was seen by 843,000 Italians and grossed 1.806 million euros, remains in theaters, showing on 424 screens.

It was honored because it depicts “the basic mechanisms of the mass extermination planned by Israel, revealed by those who designed and carried it out.”

The supposed soldiers who make these accusations appear as unidentified dark silhouettes. Yet their claims are accepted by audiences without question and seized upon like a club with which to criminalize the Jewish state.

How widespread, then, in the Bel Paese is the desire to destroy Israel and shame the Jews!

Yet the alternative would have been easy. What would it have taken to expose, or at least seriously discuss, a film that is clearly—and legitimately—a work of fiction produced by whomever it pleases, including an enemy of Israel such as The Guardian? It could be treated as a propaganda leaflet or simply as entertainment, like a pornographic film or a cartoon.

Instead, its protagonists reveal horrific things in darkness and with disguised voices. They are presented as soldiers of a genocidal and racist Israel, exterminators of innocent people.

But for anyone who does not accept Palestinianism as a substitute for human rights and historical reality itself, other information is readily available.

John Spencer, the well-known military analyst, has argued that even accepting figures controlled by Hamas, the ratio of combatants to noncombatants killed in Gaza—1:1.12, or at most 1:1.4—would represent an extraordinarily low proportion of civilian casualties in urban warfare.

There are other realities that “NAZA” ignores: Gaza’s population has grown; enormous quantities of food and medicine have entered the territory, even as supplies have been looted by Hamas; and Yahya Sinwar understood that the deaths of women, children and other civilians could serve Hamas’s propaganda purposes, while the terrorist organization embedded itself among the population and used civilians as human shields.

Above all, the film obscures why the war began: Israel was forced to defend itself after the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, when some 1,200 people were murdered, others were raped and brutalized, and 251 people were abducted to Gaza.

The IDF has now issued a painstaking, point-by-point response to the accusations.
'Where are they in your film?': Oct. 7 survivor who lost husband, son confronts 'NAZA' directors
A confrontation broke out Thursday evening during a screening of the film NAZA in the Dutch city of Delft after the wife and mother of two Israelis murdered by Hamas during the October 7 massacre confronted the film’s directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

“Look me in the eyes," Sabine Taasa urged Abraham and Szor. "You’re talking about collateral damage? My husband and my son were murdered by Hamas. Where does this appear in your film?”

Taasa's husband, Gil, and one of her sons, Or, were murdered during the massacre. Additional children of hers were also wounded in the attack. She traveled to the screening in the Netherlands with members of Ad Kan, intending to protest the way the war is portrayed in the film and to share her family’s story with the audience.

"I came here to tell my story. My name is Sabine Tassa. I came from Israel to tell you the truth," she said.

According to footage shared by the Israeli organization Ad Kan, several audience members responded by shouting, “We don’t care,” “Shame on you,” and “We don’t want to hear.”

Dutch Party for Freedom founder and leader Geert Wilders slammed the audience members in a post to X/Twitter responding to the incident.

"The callousness is staggering," Wilders wrote. "Sabine Taasa survived the October 7 massacre. Her 17-year-old son was murdered at Zikim Beach. Her husband was killed shielding their two young sons from a grenade."

“'We don’t care.' That is their answer to her suffering."

"The truth means nothing to the Left. Its alliance with Islam is an expression of moral bankruptcy that threatens the future of the Netherlands and of our civilisation. A crowd can drown out a voice. Not the TRUTH," said Wilders.

In a later post, Wilders stated he hosted Taasa at the Dutch Parliament.

"Her 17-year-old son and her husband were killed. She is a strong and wise Israeli friend," he said. "I will always support Israel and fight Islamic terrorism. Never surrender."


IDF rejects ‘NAZA’ claims of deliberate targeting of Gaza civilians
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday issued a detailed rebuttal of claims made in the documentary “NAZA,” accusing its filmmakers of presenting a “distorted, misleading and disingenuous” account of how the military selects and strikes targets in the Gaza Strip.

The documentary features anonymous testimony from 24 Israeli military and intelligence personnel and alleges that the IDF used intelligence systems and artificial intelligence in ways that contributed to civilian deaths in Gaza. Interviewees also allege that the military deliberately targeted civilians and permitted large numbers of civilian casualties in attacks on terrorist operatives.

The IDF rejected those allegations, saying the film’s narrative “is based on substantial factual errors stemming from manipulative misrepresentations of reality.”

According to the military, binding IDF directives distinguish between terrorists and uninvolved civilians, prohibit deliberately targeting civilians and require commanders to minimize the risk of civilian harm to the greatest extent feasible.

The IDF said it had never planned, approved or carried out a strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians, or anything approaching that number, were expected to be killed, contrary to

It also rejected claims that artificial intelligence independently selects targets for attack.

“Artificial intelligence has never independently selected targets to strike in the IDF,” the military said.

According to the IDF, authorized intelligence officers identify potential targets, relevant professionals plan strikes, and operational commanders make the final decision on whether to attack.

IDF rejects claims about ‘Lavender’
The military also disputed the film’s characterization of “Lavender,” an artificial intelligence-assisted system used by Israeli intelligence.

“‘Lavender’ is not a database of targets approved to strike, but a database that assists intelligence analysts,” the IDF said.

The military denied that its rules established automatic civilian-casualty thresholds, including claims cited in the film that strikes against junior terrorists could automatically be approved when 20 civilians were at risk, or that 200 civilians could be endangered in an attack on a senior commander.

The IDF also rejected the contention that once civilians were warned to evacuate an area, troops were free to strike without considering those who remained.

The military said assessments of possible civilian casualties remain part of the targeting process after evacuation warnings have been issued.

The IDF further rejected claims that it failed to examine the aftermath of strikes, saying it had reviewed hundreds of incidents during the war, including cases involving unintended civilian casualties, to determine what happened and draw operational lessons.

It acknowledged that mistakes occurred during complex combat operations and said suspected violations of Israeli or international law are examined and, when warranted, can lead to disciplinary measures or criminal investigations.

‘Only limited, initial stages’
One of the documentary’s fundamental shortcomings, according to the Israeli military, was its reliance on intelligence personnel who were familiar with only part of the targeting process.

The interviewees described as having served in intelligence roles “usually refer to only limited, initial stages dealing with intelligence, rather than the much broader process of planning and approving strikes,” according to the IDF.

The documentary largely omitted the roles of operational planners, civilian-harm mitigation specialists, legal advisers and commanders who ultimately approve or reject strikes, according to the military.

It said such procedures have resulted in demands for additional intelligence, changes to attack plans, the selection of different weapons and the cancellation of strikes because of the danger to civilians.

The military also accused the filmmakers of failing to provide sufficient context about the war, including the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Hamas’s use of civilian areas for military purposes.

It said the film omitted measures employed by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties, including evacuation warnings, the selection of munitions, changes to strike plans and the facilitation of humanitarian aid.

‘Collateral damage’
The IDF also disputed the documentary’s treatment of the term “collateral damage.”

“NAZA” is derived from the Hebrew acronym for “nezek agavi,” or collateral damage.

Assessing the expected incidental harm to civilians from an attack on a military target is required under international law and is intended to help commanders determine whether an attack is lawful and whether additional precautions are necessary, noted the IDF.

The film instead portrays the process of estimating potential civilian harm as evidence of indifference to civilian lives, the statement continued.

The military acknowledged the moral burden described by some of the film’s interviewees.

“Decisions that may cost civilian lives are among the hardest soldiers and commanders face, and the IDF expects its soldiers to feel that weight and act accordingly,” it said.

However, it added, that moral burden does not in itself demonstrate that a decision was unlawful.

The IDF accused the filmmakers of using manipulative editing, omitting relevant context and making “irresponsible allusions to historical atrocities.”

It said it remained open to “genuine criticism” and to examining substantiated allegations of misconduct.

The military also noted that the filmmakers had not submitted their allegations to the IDF for examination and response before the documentary was released, and had not provided the military with a copy after release, despite requests.

The IDF said its detailed response was therefore prepared based on an account provided by a representative who attended a public screening, along with other publicly available accounts.


The Moynihan Report: Carlos the Jackal and the Birth of Modern Terrorism
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joby Warrick joins Moynihan to tell the story of Carlos the Jackal, the Venezuelan Marxist who became the world’s most notorious terrorist. They discuss his rise through the Palestinian militant movement, his ties to the Soviet bloc, and the governments that allowed him to operate across Europe and the Middle East for decades. Warrick also recounts meeting an unrepentant Carlos in a French prison and explains how his brand of international terrorism anticipated Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the decentralized political violence of today.

(0:00) Cold Open
(0:20) Intro
(1:44) Becoming Carlos
(5:10) Terrorism, Marxism & Antisemitism
(8:34) The Paris Grenade Attack
(11:35) Why Europe Paid Off Terrorists
(15:42) The Soviet Terror Network
(22:49) Terrorism & the Palestinian Cause
(28:20) Meeting Carlos in Prison
(35:55) Carlos & the Nazis
(39:02) From Marxism to Radical Islam
(41:58) The CIA Informant Who Betrayed Carlos
(44:45) How Dictators Protected the Jackal
(47:02) The Legacy of 1970s Terrorism
(49:21) What Happened to Al-Qaeda and ISIS?
(52:45) Israel and the Axis of Resistance
(56:08) Political Violence Today




The Brink: Neo-Nazi influencer: I was brainwashed and I'm sorry
In this episode of The Brink, Andrew and Jake are joined by former US Marine Lucas Gage to tell the extraordinary story of how he descended into white nationalism and antisemitism, and how he eventually found his way out.

Lucas traces his radicalisation from serving in Iraq after 9/11 to conspiracy theories, Mein Kampf and years spent building a huge online following through increasingly extreme rhetoric. He reflects on the damage he caused, the role of social media in fuelling his anger and how his views began to affect his family and personal life.

The conversation explores what finally broke his worldview, why he now rejects the conspiracy theories he once promoted and the responsibility he feels to undo some of the damage he caused.

They also discuss 9/11 conspiracies, online propaganda, Nick Fuentes and what Lucas believes his experience can teach us about pulling people back from political extremism.

Chapters
00:00 From Anti-Semitism To Redemption
02:32 How Lucas Gage Became An Anti-Semite
06:25 The Propaganda That Went Viral
09:25 From 9/11 To The Marines
14:42 How Conspiracy Theories Led To White Nationalism
19:13 Inside The Extremist Rabbit Hole
25:20 The Damage Of Dehumanising Rhetoric
28:13 Nick Fuentes, David Duke & The Extremist Right
35:55 Why Lucas Gage Walked Away
41:57 Rethinking 9/11, Israel & America


Elisha Wiesel: U.S. Holocaust Museum has ‘unique responsibility’ to counter genocide claims against Israel
Elisha Wiesel urged the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday to speak up against what he called the false accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, arguing that the institution his father helped create has a “unique responsibility” to address the issue.

Wiesel, the son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, made the appeal while delivering special remarks at “Honoring the Life, Lessons and Legacy of Elie Wiesel.” The event, held on what would have been his father’s 98th birthday, marked a decade since the elder Wiesel’s death. It was organized with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, the Embassy of Romania and Moment magazine.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has not endorsed accusations of “genocide” regarding Israel’s military actions in Gaza, but neither has the organization issued formal institutional statements to address or quell the label. Instead, the museum has maintained its core organizational focus: educating the public about the Holocaust, condemning the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks and raising awareness about the subsequent rise in global antisemitism.

This neutral stance has not shielded the museum from intense political crossfire. Pro-Israel advocates and some Jewish community leaders argue that Holocaust institutions have a moral obligation to explicitly reject the “genocide” accusation, calling it a form of Holocaust inversion and a weaponization of Jewish history against Jewish people. Some have pointed to the Illinois Holocaust Museum, which distributed internal guides clarifying that the Gaza conflict lacks genocidal intent, as a model the national museum should follow.

“But on one question, this museum has a unique responsibility, and it is one we must face together,” Wiesel said. “Since October 7, the word genocide has been used as a weapon against Israel on campuses, at the United Nations, and even by a member of your own governing council. The charge is false.”

Wiesel pointed to the museum’s past work documenting atrocities in Darfur and against the Yazidis and Rohingya, arguing that the institution has the expertise and authority to properly address genocide accusations against Israel in a credible format.

“You made your own findings for Darfur, the Yazidis, Rohingya,” he said. “You have the scholars, the credibility and the mandate to do the same here to explain with the rigor you applied to Burma why the genocide label does not fit Gaza and what the misuse of Holocaust language does to Jews around the world.”

“Declining to join the accusation is not the same as dismantling it. You can do that. You have that power,” Wiesel added. “All of these other Holocaust and genocide museums around the country, I think, would respond to that leadership…That was my father’s vision: a place that remembers and then acts.”

Wiesel also referenced several voices within the museum’s broader community who have spoken out on the issue.
ADL project documents exclusion of Jews in museums, publishing, entertainment
The Anti-Defamation League announced a project on Thursday that documents the exclusion of Jews in US cultural spaces and offered guidance on how to remedy antisemitism in the arts.

The online platform, called “State of the Arts: Advancing Jewish Inclusion in Arts, Entertainment and Culture,” examined Jewish representation in museums, entertainment and publishing, graded museums on their treatment of Jews, and surveyed public attitudes about Jewish representation

The ADL evaluated 40 leading US art museums, ranking them from “critically deficient” to “gold standard.”

The only museum given the highest ranking was the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, applauded for its antisemitism prohibitions, partnerships with Jewish institutions and representation for Jewish and Israeli artists.

The 12 “critically deficient” museums included the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Los Angeles, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The report cited issues including a lack of anti-discrimination training and Jewish education programming, and insufficient prohibitions against antisemitism.

Only one of the 40 had recognized Jewish American Heritage Month this year, although 24 recognized heritage months for other groups.

The museum ranking was similar to the ADL’s “Campus Antisemitism Report Card” tracking discrimination at universities, launched in 2024. The ranking system prompted improvements from some of the universities listed.

For publishing, the ADL interviewed 30 authors and industry professionals about their experiences with Jewish identity. The authors said that they had been pressured to remove Hebrew words, Israeli settings and character names that sounded Jewish.

Authors were excluded from festivals and events and harassed online, told by literary agents that they were “too risky” to represent, and bombarded with negative reviews before their books had been released to the public.

The writers said publishers were more receptive to stories about the Holocaust, but hesitant to publish books about Israel, Zionism, contemporary antisemitism or the Jewish experience since the October 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel.

“I sent out two batches of queries of my latest novel. One didn’t mention Judaism at all. The second was pitched as a Jewish book. I got ten responses to the first one and zero responses to the second one,” said writer Liza Libes.

Author Meg Keene said a Jewish agent had advised her to “strip out every Jewish element that did not directly drive the plot. That meant cutting Hebrew endearments, scenes in Israel, Jewish practice, a Magen David worn proudly by the protagonist, and references to left-wing antisemitism.”

“She suggested changing the protagonist’s name from Yael to something like Sue. She believed an Israeli name would be a red flag for editors,” Keene said.

Jewish, Israeli and Zionist authors were blacklisted in online campaigns, petitions called to boycott Israeli publishers, and events with Jewish writers were canceled due to complaints about “Zionism.”
New York Public Library hosts Jewish author mocking communal concerns of antisemitism
The New York Public Library is coming under scrutiny from Jewish leaders after it hosted author Benjamin Moser at an event where he mocked Jewish fears of antisemitism, ridiculing what he called the “poor me thing that all these Jews are suddenly having,” according to a recording of the event obtained by Jewish Insider.

Moser’s remarks were made at a Sept. 22 event to launch his new book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History. The discussion, which was moderated by Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi — held in the NYPL’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — went beyond criticism of Israeli policy.

Moser, who is Jewish, accused “almost all of the main Jewish institutions” in America of having “supported this genocide” — referring to Israel’s war in Gaza — and said “nothing has made Jews look worse in history” than Zionism, while singling out Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue, the Manhattan congregation that faced an antisemitic attack over the summer.

He also dismissed the Anti-Defamation League’s tracking of antisemitic incidents as a “fundraising model.” He went on to accuse Jews of exploiting “poor me” complaints, such as walking “down Madison Avenue” and saying that “‘I couldn’t get a croissant and it’s like [Nazi extermination camp] Treblinka.’ This is really stuff you see on social media every day.”

Khalidi, an Edward Said professor emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and a leading Palestinian historian, said during the event that “the vibe” during the anti-Israel encampment that roiled Columbia’s campus in 2024 “was not antisemitic.”

The comments came as antisemitic incidents in New York and nationwide remain near historic highs, ranking among the three worst years recorded since the ADL began tracking data in 1979.

NYPL is a nonprofit but heavily subsidized by the city. The New York City mayor, speaker of the City Council and comptroller all serve as ex officio voting members on the NYPL Board of Trustees.

Comptroller Mark Levine, who is Jewish, told JI the comments were “reprehensible.”

“We discussed it with the Library and understand and respect their position as a guardian of free speech,” said Levine.

Brent Reidy, director of research libraries at the NYPL, opened the event by saying that many at the library and beyond have “strong and differing feelings on Zionism, anti-Zionism and rising antisemitism and Islamophobia.”


Mamdani Will Be Honored Alongside Group with Alleged Ties to Iranian Regime
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be honored next Monday alongside the National Iranian American Council, an organization long suspected of being the unofficial lobbying arm of the Iranian government. Both Mamdani and NIAC will receive William Sloane Coffin Jr. Peacemaker Awards recognizing their advocacy for peace and diplomacy.

Mamdani will be recognized “as a former student activist and voice for Palestinian rights on the national stage,” according to the Peace Action Fund of New York State, which is hosting the October 5 event. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Mamdani will attend the award ceremony. None of City Hall, NIAC, and PAFNYS responded to a request for comment before press time.

Still, the proximity between Mamdani and NIAC—which has been accused of being an unregistered agent of the Iranian government—raises yet more uncomfortable questions about the mayor’s broader social and professional circles. This is especially so because the recognition comes just three months after the revelation of a planned meeting between a City Hall official and Iran’s ambassador to the UN.

NIAC, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that has championed a “friendlier U.S. policy toward the Tehran regime” according to the Wall Street Journal, will be receiving its Peacemaker award for “impactful advocacy against the war on Iran.” Launched in 2002 by co-founder and former president Trita Parsi, NIAC is dedicated to “promoting a greater understanding between the American and Iranian People.”

But critics have long questioned NIAC’s relationship with Tehran. In a 2020 letter, Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Mike Braun called on then-Attorney General William Barr to launch a Justice Department investigation against NIAC and NIAC Action (its sister organization) for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, identifying a pattern of what they called “troubling behavior.”

The senators pointed to a 2019 internal memo in which NIAC blamed the United States for an Iranian militia’s attack on a military base that killed an American civilian contractor and wounded several others. Kata’ib Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia that carried out the attack, later stormed a U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The senators also highlighted tweets from NIAC and NIAC Action staffers pushing “conspiracy theories deflecting blame from the Iranian regime for shooting down a Ukrainian civilian airliner, killing 176 individuals.” (NIAC called the accusations “slanderous.”)

Parsi has faced intense scrutiny for past connections to the regime in Tehran. Discovery during a 2008 defamation lawsuit originally filed by NIAC revealed several emails sent by Parsi to then-Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zari attempting to arrange meetings with Congress members. Former FBI officials would later tell journalist Eli Lake that the attempts to arrange those meetings would “require that person or entity to register as an agent of a foreign power; in this case Iran.” A U.S. District Court judge would later rule that Parsi’s statements “were not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.”

NIAC’s stance on Iran’s war with the United States, for which it is being honored, has become increasingly aggressive. One NIAC staffer, Isabella (Bella) Javidan, was spotted at antiwar protests alongside activist groups like the foreign-linked CODEPINK, blaming the war on Israeli “expansionism.” During recent congressional testimony by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Javidan interrupted the hearing, screaming, “you’re murdering my family and the Iranian people.” NIAC promoted video of her protest on Facebook and YouTube pages.

The group has previously condemned successful U.S. actions against Iran. For example, in 2020, NIAC called the assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani a “profoundly reckless move that will be viewed as an act of war in Tehran.”

Iranian dissident Salman Sima, who was repeatedly imprisoned and tortured in an IRGC-controlled prison amid the government’s crackdown on student activists, told us that NIAC “always took a side in the best interest of the Islamic Republic.”

“I can say that this group doesn’t have the best interest of America in their heart, and they are the enemy of the Iranian people as well,” she said.


University of Texas Jewish groups host former Israeli hostage to counter Piker program
While hundreds of students gathered at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday night to hear far-left streamer Hasan Piker speak about the future of progressive politics, former Israeli hostage Maya Regev was across campus recounting her 50 days in Hamas captivity at a counter-event organized in response to Piker’s controversial appearance.

“From partying at a music festival to being abducted and held captive in horrific conditions for weeks, Maya’s strength and resilience in the face of brutality is profoundly moving,” Ethan Shatz, a UT PhD student who attended the event, told Jewish Insider.

In a discussion moderated by UT student Jeremy Lamm, Regev recounted how she, along with her brother, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and held captive by Hamas for nearly two months.

The event featuring Regev — attended by some 250 students — was organized and funded by the Israel on Campus Coalition, which said it planned the evening as a counter program to Piker’s talk. It was held at the school’s Chabad house and cosponsored by Students Supporting Israel, Longhorns for Israel, Young Republicans and StandWithUs.

Across campus, more than 400 students packed into the William C. Powers Jr. Student Activity Center to hear from Piker, who has an extensive history of antisemitic and anti-American rhetoric, including justifying Oct. 7, calling Orthodox Jews “inbred” and asserting in 2019 that America deserved 9/11 — a remark he later said he should have phrased better while standing by the underlying critique. On Wednesday, Piker, who boasts 3.1 million followers on Twitch, spoke about free speech and the future of progressive politics in Texas, according to The Daily Texan.

The sold-out Piker event, hosted by the University Democrats, a decades-old student Democratic Party political organization, sparked outrage from Jewish leaders and students on campus, who said the Austin campus had previously been one of the most welcoming in the country for Jewish students since Oct. 7.
California congressional candidate to appear on fundraising stream with antisemite Piker
Mai Vang, a member of the Sacramento City Council who is running in California’s 7th Congressional District, plans to appearing in early October on a fundraising stream with antisemitic podcaster Hasan Piker, Politico reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Vang, who is challenging Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), states on her campaign website that there is a “genocide in Palestine” and that “in 2024, while Doris was cashing checks from AIPAC, I was in City Hall passing Sacramento’s ceasefire resolution.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee endorsed Matsui in 2024, but she doesn’t appear on AIPAC’s list of 2026 endorsements. (JNS sought comment from the Vang campaign.)

In an April candidate forum, Matsui accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a “war criminal” and said that she is against providing “offensive dollars” to Israel. She also called for a two-state solution.


Green Party launches ‘unprecedented’ conference security to protect Jewish members from hate mob
Green Party chiefs have launched an unprecedented security operation ahead of their autumn conference in Brighton, amid fears that Jewish members could be targeted by anti-Israel extremists outside and inside the venue.

Jewish News has learned that Jewish members considered high-risk targets have received strict instructions on personal safety measures for the conference.

Similar advice has also been issued to several non-Jewish party members whose security is also a concern.

For the first time, the Green Party has hired a private security firm to provide extra protection for attendees at the three-day conference at the Brighton Centre, in Sussex.

Party insiders confirmed that both Jewish and non-Jewish members have been given safety instructions for the conference. Jewish News has agreed not to disclose the specifics.

But one Jewish member confirmed: “I’ve been a member of this party for years, and I have never known anything like it with the security operation at autumn conference.”

“I won’t go into details for obvious reasons, only to confirm that the steps being taken are unprecedented.”

In a statement, Sussex Police said:”Police are committed to balancing the rights of all parties to protest within the law, working to ensure the safety of everyone involved and minimising disruption to the wider community.

“We have appropriate plans in place which includes engaging and responding to protest activity outside the Brighton Centre on Saturday, 3 October.”

But they added:”Party conference security remains the responsibility of the organisers and their contractors.”

Members of the Jewish Greens group have privately compared the concerning security situation to that of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, when Jewish MPs such as Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth required protection from far-left antisemites.

The Green Party of England and Wales has faced persistent scrutiny and allegations regarding antisemitism linked to social media posts by various candidates and members, particularly following the escalation of the Israel-Gaza conflict after the October 7 Hamas attacks.

They have also faced serious concerns over failure to properly vet their membership over past examples of openly anti-Jewish conduct.
Hackney Greens warned manifesto pledge on divestment puts pensions at ‘major’ legal risk
Hackney Council’s Green-led administration has been warned of a “major-to-likely” risk that its highly publicised election manifesto pledge—to divest pension funds from companies linked to Israel—may have breached legal obligations.

In the latest update to the council’s risk register, noted at a council meeting last week, officers concluded there is a “major” risk, warning it is “likely that the Hackney Pensions Committee has disregarded ‘existing legislation, legal advice, financial impact, and fiduciary duty’ over party manifesto both now and in six months.”

At that meeting, Councillor Izzy Castello-Cortes, Green Party chair of the borough’s Pensions Committee, was asked: “As of today, you haven’t divested anything from any companies involved in Israel’s ‘genocide’?”

Cortes replied, “As of today, we have taken some big steps in terms of looking into this.”

Jewish News can reveal that Hackney Council’s updated risk register now records officers’ concerns that the Green manifesto commitment to “immediate unilateral divestment” from companies profiting from Israel’s military operations and occupation has left the council facing a possible conflict with its legal obligations.

A significant part of Hackney Green’s pre-election campaign targeted the previous Labour administration for allegedly failing to divest up to £30 million said to be invested in companies linked to Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

Many Labour councillors were openly abused by pro-Palestine activists, facing slurs such as “child killers” and “genocide enablers.”

Former Hackney Labour councillor Vincent Stops told Jewish News: “This is quite shocking.

“Hackney Council officers judge as ‘likely’ the possibility of pension committee members ‘… making decisions based on party manifesto, disregarding existing legislation, legal advice, financial impact and fiduciary duty.’

“They assess the impact as ‘major’ and are forecasting that this is unlikely to change, even with training.”

The former chair of Hackney’s Planning Committee and current pension fund member added: “It was sobering to hear the council officer tell members the committee was not a political committee, and that the Secretary of State could take over the fund.

“This is dire. It is more than 25 years since the government intervened in running Hackney council, and in less than five months of a Green Party administration being formed, we are looking at this prospect again.”
Dutch Anti-Israel Measure Ends Up Targeting Druze, Palestinian Residents
On Sept. 22, the Dutch government banned the import, sale, and even personal possession of products originating in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

Dutch enforcement follows the EU's official postal code document. However, leaning on postal codes means including products from Arab, Druze, and Christian communities on the boycott list, as well as Israeli residents who live within the pre-1967 lines.

Included are dozens of neighborhoods in the capital, Jerusalem, including all the Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem.

Four Druze towns in the Golan Heights also made the blacklist, alongside the Alawite village of Ghajar, an Arab village straddling the Israel-Lebanon border.

Apples, olives and other agricultural produce from these areas now fall under the Dutch trade ban.
Jewish leaders join condemnation of Shoebridge
Jewish communal leaders have joined Labor MP Josh Burns in condemning new [Australian] Greens leader David Shoebridge. Asked how the Greens would mend their relationship with the Jewish community, Shoebridge had praised only those Jews who share his views on Gaza.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) co-CEO Peter Wertheim said Jews who backed the Greens were a small and shrinking group, and that many had already come home.

“Since October 7, 2023, we have already welcomed many Jewish refugees from the Greens back into the fold, and we look forward to welcoming back the remainder,” he said.

Wertheim said Jews had long faced pressure to live by other people’s expectations.

“Throughout our history, Jews have been under all kinds of pressure to define ourselves and live our lives according to other people’s expectations, which have been a thinly disguised veneer for other people’s interests. The price of being true to ourselves, and true to our faith, of living life according to our own lights, has often been painfully high,” he said.

“So it is hardly surprising that in every era there have been small numbers of Jews who have succumbed to the pressure by turning against their own people. In our own time, the ever-diminishing number of Jewish Australians who are prepared to dance to the Greens’ tune are among this tiny group.

“We do not hate them: we pity them. In due time they will come face to face with the conditional nature of the Greens’ acceptance of them, and the savage hatred that will follow any failure to meet the Greens’ conditions.”

The Greens party room in Sydney elected Shoebridge leader on Wednesday, after Larissa Waters stepped down due to illness. He defeated Senators Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young, and Victorian Senator Steph Hodgins-May was elected deputy.

At his first press conference as leader, Shoebridge said the Greens had strong ties to Jews who share the party’s views on Gaza.

“We have really strong connections with much of the Australian Jewish community here, working alongside Jewish Australians who are fighting a genocide, who are speaking up for core values that they hold dear, and we will continue to champion their voices, to be solid allies with them,” he said.

He also called on journalists to “listen to these powerful, principled voices coming from the progressive Jewish Australian community, platform their voices like we do, listen to their cries for justice, like we do.”

Speaking in Footscray, in Melbourne’s west, on Thursday, Burns said he wished Shoebridge and Hodgins-May well, but described the senator’s answer as “pretty shocking”.

“The Jewish community should not be put into categories of good and bad based on their views of what is happening in the Middle East. That is not progressive leadership, that’s prejudice,” Burns said.

“He is now in a leadership position, and having public statements like that actually will send chills up the spines of many people in the Jewish community.”

Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Committee (AIJAC) executive director Dr Colin Rubenstein agreed with Burns, but said Shoebridge’s track record made the comments unsurprising.

“Even in the wake of Bondi and the wave of hate our community has experienced over the past three years, Senator Shoebridge makes it clear that the only members of the Jewish community he has any regard for are the tiny fringe who agree with his extremist views on Israel,” he said.
Federal judge dismisses complaint against anti-Israel groups that protested outside NJ synagogue
A federal judge dismissed the U.S. Justice Department’s complaint accusing anti-Israel protesters of attacking and obstructing Jews at a New Jersey synagogue, suggesting that two men, whom the department identified as victims, may have interfered with a protester’s rights.

Katharine Hayden, of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, dismissed the claim against American Muslims for Palestine New Jersey, the Party for Socialism and Liberation New Jersey, Tova Fry, Altaf Sharif, Matt Dragon and Eric Camins in her Sept. 30 ruling.

The Justice Department alleged that Moshe Glick and David Silberberg were assaulted outside Congregation Ohr Torah, an Orthodox synagogue in West Orange, N.J., on Nov. 13, 2024.

At the time, there was an Israeli real estate fair at the synagogue, which Glick organized and which Silberberg attended. There were also religious activites taking place at the time, when protesters gathered outside the synagogue.

Protesters made threats and tried to obstruct Jews from entering a house of worship, violating the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the FACE Act.

Hayden wrote that “arguably these facts just as easily support the inference that Glick and Silberberg interfered with Sharif’s First Amendment right to be part of the protest.”

She warned that treating every physical confrontation during a demonstration as a statutory violation “would demonize protesters, who exercise their own First Amendment rights as being part of a mob.”

Hayden found insufficient facts connecting each defendant to the FACE Act and wrote that for Sharif, the complaint did not adequately connect his alleged violence to intentional interference with religious exercise.
Controversial 'globalise the intifada' slogan could be banned across Australia as second state joins legal battle
A second state has leapt to defend its neighbour's decision to ban protest slogans, as activists say the move plays right into their hands and will make the issue national.

Queensland deemed the pro-Palestine phrases 'globalise the intifada' and 'from the river to the sea' anti-Semitic and outlawed them in March, when they are used to menace or offend.

NSW has now given notice to intervene and join Queensland's defence as the bans are challenged by activists in the High Court.

The southern neighbour's government previously indicated a desire to enact similar legislation.

Lead plaintiff Remah Naji on Thursday said NSW's entry to the case was, in fact, welcome.

'They're playing directly into our hands. This intervention was expected,' the Justice for Palestine Magan-Djin spokeswoman said.

'We will use it to transform this from a Queensland case into a national struggle, one in which all people of conscience have a stake.'

NSW Attorney-General's department declined to comment on the ongoing matter.

More than 30 people have been charged since Queensland's laws took effect including four plaintiffs in the High Court challenge.

Three other plaintiffs, including Ms Naji, claim to have been otherwise gagged by the laws.

The group suggest the laws conflict with any implied right to free political communication, court documents show.

Neither phrase has a fixed meaning, is inherently anti-Semitic, nor inherently a call to violence, the plaintiffs state.

Queensland is yet to outline its case but, in a filing in late September, says the court should send the charges down to the magistrates' court and dismiss the rest of the case.

Its government has publicly defended the laws.

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said they pushed back against 'venomous, poisonous rhetoric'.

Some Jewish groups supported the crackdown, saying the chants fuelled fear and anxiety in the community.


Protesters throw tennis balls, call on Ireland to boycott 2nd match against Israel
Protesters against Ireland playing its Nations League games against Israel interrupted the team’s 2-2 draw with Austria on Thursday in Dublin by throwing tennis balls onto the field.

Referee Allard Lindhout sent the players for a hydration break as soon as the balls bearing Palestinian flags landed on the grass with Ireland 1-0 up after 19 minutes played.

“I think it kind of helped us in a good moment,” Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson told broadcaster RTÉ of the protest. “We could have a breather and some drinks. But you’re never happy with this, but understand it and respect it.”

Troy Parrott had opened the scoring in the 12th with a brilliant individual goal despite facing three defenders. He played the ball through the legs of one defender and eluded two before shooting the ball through the goalkeeper’s legs.

The game resumed after a four-minute break, but there was another brief diversion when a man carrying a Palestinian flag tried running onto the field before being stopped by stewards.


University of Toronto hosting October 7 event, 'Honoring Our Martyrs' on massacre anniversary
The University of Toronto is facing criticism on social media over a planned student vigil scheduled for the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, as well as the separate screening of a film titled The Gaza Ghetto Uprising in the UTSU Student Commons, organized by student groups.

Promoted by several student and activist groups, the vigil is titled "Honoring Our Martyrs" on October 7 at Sidney Smith Hall. The text marks "3 years of genocide, we will not forget," calling on participants to "remember and honor the lives taken in Gaza over the past three years."

The vigil has drawn condemnation from public figures and advocacy organizations who argue that scheduling the event on the anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks is intentionally provocative and offensive.

Dr. Casey Babb, a national security expert and senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, took to social media to heavily criticize the university for allowing the event to proceed. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Babb said that “Many in the Jewish community, and even those outside of it, who've also been subjected to the anti-Zionist lynch mob these last few years, were mortified to learn of this event - but not surprised. Indeed, similar events, which feel like celebratory gatherings to honor our murderers, are happening across the country on October 7.”

Babb continued, saying that “news of this event at the University of Toronto comes just days after a mass casualty event was prevented in Belleville, and after two other men were arrested in separate incidents for planning their own large-scale attacks. In addition, there was also a man arrested in Canada last week for plotting a chemical weapons attack here - four events in a week - and now this in Toronto.”

Leadership glorifying terrorism, indulges in heinous libels
Babb added that "Leaders in this country at all levels, and in all sectors, need to understand the connection between the two. You can't allow certain groups of people in this country to glorify terrorism, and indulge in heinous libels, and then feign outrage when people try to carry out attacks of their own. Lip service helps no one.”

Honest Reporting Canada also criticized the university over the vigil on X/Twitter and flagged a separate event scheduled for the eve of the anniversary on October 6, for a documentary screening of The Gaza Ghetto Uprising by Adi Callai. Organized by several student groups, the screening is slated to take place at the SBA Center in the UTSU Student Commons.

The Network of Engaged Canadian Academics (NECA) said in a statement to the Post. "Rallies, protests, and public memorials are important parts of democratic life, and students have the right to exercise freedom of expression," NECA stated.

"But rights are never exercised in a vacuum. In a university community, freedom of expression must be held alongside other core commitments: the dignity and safety of all students, the obligation to maintain a campus where all students can learn without fear, free from harassment, discrimination, intimidation, hate or violence."

"Choosing October 7 as the date for a memorial framed around Palestinian 'martyrs' demands that we ask whether the event functions as a memorial, or is it functioning as intimidation or the glorification of violence and terror. October 7 marks the anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre where 1,200 men, women and children, including 8 Canadians, were murdered, sexually assaulted, abducted, and desecrated," NECA said.
Pennsylvania state lawmakers hold hearing on Jew-hatred in public schools
Pennsylvania state senators heard accounts of antisemitic harassment and classroom bias on Wednesday in a hearing that Steve Rosenberg, Pennsylvania director of the North American Values Institute, said could help build an official record needed to press school districts for change.

The Senate Majority Policy Committee, chaired by state senator Dave Argall, held the Sept. 30 hearing with educators, parents and Jewish communal leaders. Rosenberg attended the proceedings in Harrisburg.

“Ultimately, through the continued pressure of legislative action, legal action and strategic communications, we think that we can turn the tide,” Rosenberg told JNS.

His three-part approach depends on putting accounts of Jew-hatred on the public record, as hearings can provide material for parents considering legal action and draw attention to district failures, he said.

Rosenberg said NAVI spent more than a year pursuing the hearing, meeting with lawmakers and providing research about school curricula.

Representatives from the Anti-Defamation League of Philadelphia, the Jewish Federations of Greater Philadelphia and of Greater Pittsburgh, and educators testified at the hearing, where they decried “serious allegations of antisemitism in K-12 schools across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Rosenberg told JNS. Andrea Martin, a member of the state’s Human Relations Commission, also testified.

An estimated 350,000 Jews live in Pennsylvania, where enrollment in Jewish schools increased in 2025-26, according to data from Teach Coalition, an Orthodox Union program.

“I’m a huge Jewish day-school advocate, but our goal is not to take kids out of public schools and put them into Jewish day school, because we don’t think that’s a win,” Rosenberg told JNS. “If every Jewish kid left public school, public schools would become training grounds for Jew-hatred.”
The “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal” Scandal Isn’t What You Think
Hannah Gann long claimed that she was Palestinian, black, and Tunisian. But the Philadelphia schoolteacher was recently outed by her fellow activists in the Philly Palestine Coalition as wealthy, white, and Jewish. Social media and newspapers have treated her as a Palestinian equivalent of Rachel Dolezal, the Washington State NAACP official who, having for years claimed to be black, admitted in 2015 that she had been “born white to white parents.”

While the comparison is humorous, it would be a mistake to let Gann become just another punchline. In reality, she is part of the vast network of dedicated teacher-activists in Philadelphia public schools misusing their classrooms to encourage extreme political activism. Maybe this embarrassing incident will provide an opportunity to examine their influence on Philadelphia schoolchildren.

Gann was a leader in the Racial Justice Organizing Committee (RJOC) and its subgroup, Philadelphia Educators for Palestine (PEFP). She appeared to run the RJOC and PEFP’s social media, was a co-administrator in the PEFP’s Signal chat, and ran many of the group’s workshops and teach-ins. Strikingly, after Gann’s outing, the PEFP announced its dissolution. Both groups were founded by teachers and administrators in the district. Since her ruse was revealed, Gann’s co-activists in the RJOC and PEFP now want the school district to “take the necessary steps to hold Hannah accountable for the harm she caused” and “prevent any further harm to students.” But Gann and her fellow teacher-activists have engaged in far more extreme conduct than faking ethnic ancestry—conduct the district permitted to happen.

The PEFP has involved current high school students in its organizing work. That’s alarming, given that the PEFP’s “grounding commitments” maintain that “all resistance is righteous” and that the group “reject[s] false equivalence between the violent systems that oppress us and our responses to them.” In other words, students are being included in a group that endorses violence as a means of political action.

PEFP’s conduct may also violate district rules governing employee-student communications. Gann and other members of PEFP have involved students in activist Signal chats with other adults, many of them teachers in the district. The Signal chats not only discussed PEFP’s planned activities but also advertised actions involving other activist groups in Philadelphia.

These actions can be extreme. In the Signal chat and on Instagram, Gann and other members of the PEFP advertised the “Rally for Rage and Resistance.” The poster for the rally used imagery associated with the Hamas attack on October 7 and included the following tagline: “Reject Normalization. Honor the Martyrs. Uplift Resistance.” The PEFP also hosted teach-ins, alongside Students for Justice in Palestine, for students as young as middle school on “building solidarity and resistance with Palestine.”

Through the RJOC, a number of Philadelphia public school teachers and administrators are connected to a broader network of activist groups. The RJOC grew out of the Caucus of Working Educators (CWE), a progressive caucus within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The CWE, in turn, emerged from the Teacher Activist Group (TAG) Philly, which is part of a nationwide coalition of teacher activist organizations including the Association of Raza Educators (ARE), Rethinking Schools, New York Collective of Radical Educators, and Teachers for Social Justice in Chicago. TAG Philly runs an annual conference for district teachers; this year’s conference featured a workshop entitled “From Venezuela to Iran: Understanding US Imperialism Under Trump.”

This network of activist teachers works with organizations like Black Lives Matter and the W.E.B Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction, a Marxist group that does not shrink from political violence. With Gann’s help and the school district’s approval, the Du Bois School has run multiple “liberation” workshops for Philadelphia public school students. These events were, as the Washington Free Beacon reported, “taught by a convicted felon who has argued that Jews control the media and was involved in torching a police car.”

Unsurprisingly, Israel is a major focus of the Philadelphia activist teacher network. The network encourages students and teachers to see the Jewish state as a settler-colonial, fundamentally racist, oppressive, and genocidal entity.


Georgia man arrested for alleged threat to kill Hegseth, family if Pentagon chief didn’t kill Chabad Jews
Jonathan Mark Susor, who lives in Georgia, was charged with making terror threats after allegedly saying that he would kill U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the U.S. official’s family unless Hegseth killed Jews at a Chabad.

Susor made the threat on July 28 on social media, per a criminal complaint filed on Sept. 25 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

“If you personally strap a GoPro to your head and clear out a Chabad synagogue with the service rifle, you’ll be spared punishment Pete Hegseth,” Susor wrote, according to the complaint. “Otherwise, your entire family is going to be killed for the last cretin.”

Terrorists who took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks used GoPro cameras to live stream the massacre.

Susor was in Fulton County, Ga., and Hegseth in Washington when the suspect posted the threat, according to the complaint.

“The account had previously posted additional threats of harm or death to Hegseth’s family and included pictures of Hegseth and his children,” the complaint alleges. It adds that Susor told law enforcement that he posted the message.

According to Fulton County jail records, Susor was arrested by the Alpharetta Police Department the same day that the complaint was filed, and he was charged with three counts of disseminating information related to terrorism via computer, a count of harassing communications, a count of stalking and three counts of making terror threats.

A man with the same name and description, and in the same county, was arrested for assault and family violence in 2023, family violence and battery against a police officer in 2024 and for making terror threats, aggravated assault and criminal trespass in 2025.
Zara removes Halloween costume likened to concentration camp uniform from website after backlash
Spanish fashion retailer Zara removed a children’s Halloween costume from its website on Wednesday after social media users noted that the gray-and-blue striped outfit resembled prison garb worn by inmates in Nazi concentration camps.

Zara described the ensemble as “Kids costume featuring vertical stripes with decorative topstitching, a lapel flower and a distressed effect. Includes a cardigan and shorts. Gray / Blue.”

The post was visible via a Google search that continued to display an indexed version of the Zara product page after the listing itself had been removed.

The costume resembles the suit worn by Michael Keaton’s title character in the 1988 horror-comedy “Beetlejuice” and its 2024 sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Even so, social media users said the vertical stripes and shiny crisscrosses, which some media outlets described as “fake stitched scars,” resembled concentration camp uniforms and the barbed wire visible in many World War II photos.

Priced at $59.90 in the US, according to another indexed version of the listing, the costume drew criticism online in Europe on Tuesday. It gained wider attention Wednesday after Israeli journalist Dov Gil-Har, activist Hen Mazzig and others shared images of it on X/Twitter.

The listing was no longer accessible by Wednesday afternoon. It was unclear exactly when Zara removed it. No reason was given for its removal, and Zara has not made any public statements regarding the controversy, nor has it responded to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s request for comment.

One Instagram commenter wrote “@zara how many levels of approval did this go though (sic)? Who is working for you?” A Facebook user said “It’s supposed to be a groom costume. It does somewhat resemble a (sic) Auschwitz uniform. With all the anti-semitism on the rise I am not surprised.” Another Instagram user asked, “What were they claiming it was meant to be?”
Magistrate reprimanded after social media posts about Jews and Israel
A magistrate has been reprimanded for serious misconduct after publishing a series of social media posts about Jews and Israel, including one on the day of the Heaton Park Synagogue terror attack last year which asked “why there is always an attack on a Jewish person when Israel wants to divert media attention?”

Ansar Gulzar, who is also believed to be a Labour party activist, had been reported to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) by the UKLFI campaign group over four Facebook posts published between June 2025 and January 2026.

On 2 October 2025, in the hours following the Heaton Park terror attack, Gulzar, a magistrate in Buckinghamshire, posted: “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Manchester. Every life matters. Question bothering me is why there is always an attack on a Jewish person when Israel wants to divert media attention?” In another post, he wrote: “America has a long & brutal history of slave trade. Africans were American slaves between 16th & 19th century. Americans are Israeli slaves from 19th century.”

Gulzar, who is a member of the Aylesbury Labour Party and stood as a Labour candidate for local election as recently as last year, took full responsibility for the Facebook posts, going on to say that he had been under the impression that the posts could only be seen by his family and friends and were intended for general discussion.

In a statement published by the JCIO yesterday, the office said: “Following an investigation under the Judicial Conduct (Magistrates) Rules 2023, a nominated committee member found the allegations proven and concluded that Mr Gulzar’s conduct amounted to serious misconduct. In reaching this recommendation, the nominated committee member found that the four posts formed a course of conduct rather than a series of isolated incidents, that they expressed views on highly controversial and political matters, that they had the potential to cause emotional harm and undermine public confidence in the judiciary, and that Mr Gulzar had referred to his judicial office on social media contrary to the applicable guidance.”

The statement went on to say that that “the nominated committee member recommended a reprimand”, which was subsequently agreed with by a judge on the UK’s High Court of Justice, alongside the Lord Chancellor. A reprimand A is the second-most serious disciplinary sanction available for judicial office-holders, after removal from office

A spokesperson for UKLFI said: “We welcome the finding that Mr Gulzar’s conduct amounted to serious misconduct. Judicial office-holders must command the confidence of everyone who comes before them, including Jewish people and those connected with Israel.





 




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