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Tuesday, October 06, 2026

10/05 Links Pt1: Howard Jacobson: I am obsessed with the ignorance of the Jew-haters; The Genocide Case Against Hamas; Inside Israel’s War Room: What Really Happened After October 7

From Ian:

Howard Jacobson: I am obsessed with the ignorance of the Jew-haters
I need a new hobby to take my mind off my obsession. The catch, of course, if you happen to have an obsessive personality, is that you become obsessed with your new hobby. In my teenage years, on my father’s advice, I played table tennis to take my mind off falling in love with every girl I met. I was quickly obsessed. I lived and would willingly have died for the game.

Even in my dreams I played table tennis, competing against faceless, impregnable opponents. Back the ball came no matter how hard I hit it, until I woke in the early dawn, defeated and exhausted. When I described my condition to my doctor, he advised me to find a new hobby. “What, like falling in love with every girl I meet?” I asked with a twisted laugh. He put a stethoscope to my chest. “That would certainly be more normal,” he said.

The obsession I need a hobby to take my mind off today is Jew-hating. Its omnipresence. Its implacability. Its inexplicable rage, as though it’s the Jew-hater rather than the Jew-hated who has reason to be aggrieved. Above all what obsesses me is the paradox of its uncouth ignorance appealing most to the educated.

Not in the wild or in a zoo do Jew-haters find a home but on the campuses of our best universities, where they might be expected to have read a little history or know the meaning of simple words. Could it be that the ultimate aim of education is anti-Semitism? I serve the question into the darkness, but only a ball comes back, twice as hard as I hit it.

As in my table tennis years, the nights are the worst. The minute my eyes close the Jew haters appear, not marching – my bed is not big enough to accommodate any sort of demonstration – but sitting packed tight in lecture theatres, wearing black armbands and that closed expression favoured by people who never question themselves. “Shalom aleichem,” I begin. Peace be upon you. They don’t chant the customary “Aleichem shalom”, in return.

I begin by filling in the blanks in their knowledge. Tell them Jesus was a Jew and would certainly have been a Zionist had he been alive when the Jews were being killed in their tens of thousands in pogroms throughout eastern Europe. I tell them what a pogrom was.

I explain that Zionism was a movement of liberation and self-realization of the sort they support when it’s for Palestinians. Zionists didn’t turn up out of the blue in tanks firing Kalashnikovs. They came carrying shovels and works of philosophy. Some were idealists and dreamers, poets and utopists, others, no doubt, would have been opportunists.

There wasn’t just one kind of Zionist. An early supporter of Zionism, for example, was George Eliot. The name rings no bells, though in my dream at least, a sizeable proportion of the Jew-haters are reading English literature at university. Not the kind of English literature I studied. Not Keats and negative capability. More Edward Said and settler-colonialism.

“She wrote Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda,” I explain. The “she” throws them. Didn’t I say George Eliot? The possibility that this early proponent of Zionism might have been trans causes a brief perplexity. It would be a good idea for me to wake up at this moment. Count their confusion a victory. But my obsession forces me to continue throwing words and ideas into the unresponsive blackness.

I move on to genocide. The genocide, they invariably call it. The definite article is not accidental. We are talking about a genocide like no other. “This is not just genocide, this is IDF genocide.”

Seldom can that little word “the” have been sent on so deadly an errand. Not only does its definiteness brook no question as to the genocide’s existence, it reduces in significance and atrocity, indeed it replaces, any other genocide we might have heard about. Out you go, Jews. We have new, more deserving victims.
Gerald Posner: The Genocide Case Against Hamas
What the International Institutions Omitted
The earlier sections make it possible to be specific about what each institution chose not to examine.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars’ August 2025 resolution found that Israel’s conduct in Gaza met the legal definition of genocide. It mentioned Hamas only twice, in subordinate clauses: once to say October 7 “itself constitutes international crimes,” and once to describe Israel’s actions as a “response.” It did not analyze the Hamas Covenant as evidence of intent, did not examine the killings of October 7 against Article II, and did not say which international crimes it had in mind. That silence is harder to explain than an oversight. In December 2023, the association had published its own peer-reviewed policy brief by the genocide scholar Sara Brown. She concluded that Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians were acts of genocidal violence and recommended that IAGS say so. The association ignored those recommendations, and its 2025 resolution went the other way. This was the most widely cited scholarly finding of genocide in the conflict, from the professional association of the people whose job is to apply the framework — and it had the counter-argument in its own publication series nearly two years before it wrote a resolution that skipped past it.

The UN Commission of Inquiry’s September 2025 report ran 72 pages. It examined statements by Israeli leaders — Gallant’s “human animals,” Netanyahu’s reference to Amalek, Herzog’s remarks about responsibility — and concluded that they were “direct evidence of genocidal intent.” It applied no comparable analysis to Article 7 of the Hamas Covenant, to Sinwar’s 2017 promise to discuss “when we will wipe out Israel,” to Deif’s order on the morning of October 7 to take up “a cleaver, an axe,” or to Ghazi Hamad’s pledge to repeat the attack “again and again.” Nor has the Commission since. Its June 2026 report, which found that Israel targeted Palestinian children as part of an ongoing genocide, revisits October 7 only to recap its own earlier findings: that Hamas committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against Israeli children, and according to its own count, that included dozens killed or “targeted for abduction.” It does not reconsider, with two additional years of evidence, whether that record meets the genocide standard it applies to Israel three paragraphs later.

The Commission’s defenders will say its September report was a legal analysis of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and that its June 2024 report had already addressed October 7. Both are true. But the Commission’s mandate, set by the Human Rights Council in 2021, covers violations “in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel.” Nothing prevented it from asking the genocide question about October 7. When it examined October 7 in 2024, it found war crimes and stopped. When it examined Israel’s response, it asked the genocide question and answered yes. The choice of which question to ask was the Commission’s alone.

Amnesty International and B’Tselem both concluded that Israel is committing genocide. Amnesty’s own report on October 7 found extermination and cited “statements from Hamas leaders” as evidence the attack targeted civilians, then went no further. B’Tselem called October 7 war crimes and “likely also crimes against humanity.” Neither asked whether it was genocide.

What Explains the Failure of the International Institutions?
One reason is prevention. The Genocide Convention imposes a duty to prevent, and prevention looks forward. By the time most of these reports were written, October 7 was over, and the war in Gaza was continuing. An institution focused on stopping ongoing killing will naturally concentrate on the conduct still happening.

A second is forum. South Africa’s case at the ICJ put Israel’s conduct before a court, and no parallel ICJ case can exist against Hamas — the ICJ hears only disputes between states. Much of the institutional analysis followed that case.

Those explanations account for emphasis but do not account for absence. The prevention rationale cuts the other way: Hamas’s leaders publicly promised to repeat October 7. If prevention is the point, that promise is exactly the kind of statement the duty to prevent exists to take seriously.

I want to be precise about my claim. I am not saying that because these institutions failed to apply the framework to Hamas, their conclusions about Israel are wrong. I think they are wrong, and I explained why in detail in Genocide for Dummies, but that is a separate argument, and it stands or falls on its own evidence.

My claim here is narrower. An institution that applies the Genocide Convention to one party in a conflict and not to the other, when the evidence against the other is at least as strong on the element that matters most, has not shown that it is applying a standard. The burden is on those institutions to explain the difference. So far, none has.

The Falsifiable Standard
I ended Genocide for Dummies with a challenge: tell me what evidence would change my mind, and if you produce it, I will write the correction myself. It is only fair to end this piece the same way: applying the same standard I did to Israel, the case that October 7 was a genocidal act is much stronger than the case against Israel — and that it has never been examined by the institutions that were most eager to use the word.

Here is what would change my conclusion.

First, show me a military rationale. Hamas attacked army bases on October 7. Its defenders will argue those attacks were legitimate targets under the laws of war. Explain then why the same operation also sent terrorists into more than 20 residential communities, with written instructions to “kill as many people as possible” and to target a school and a youth center, if the object was military. Show me that the killing of infants and the elderly in their homes served any military purpose.

Second, show me that Hamas’s 1988 Covenant was only rhetoric. Hamas says its 2017 document replaced the charter’s call to kill Jews with a struggle against “the Zionist project.” If that is true, explain why the conduct on October 7 looked like the 1988 text and not the 2017 one. Explain why a terrorist called his parents to boast, “Your son killed Jews.”

Third, show me that Hamas’s leaders were misunderstood. Put Sinwar’s 2017 promise to discuss “when we will wipe out Israel,” his 2022 “roaring flood,” Deif’s call for cleavers and axes, and Hamad’s “again and again” in their full Arabic context and show me that they meant something other than what they said.

Fourth, show me that the killing of civilians was not the plan. Many people crossed the fence on October 7 — Hamas’s Nukhba forces, terrorists from Islamic Jihad and other groups, and Gazan civilians who followed them through the breaches. Human Rights Watch concluded that killing civilians was a “central aim of the planned attack,” not a plan gone awry. If the atrocities were the work of undisciplined followers rather than the organization, show me the evidence that Hamas’s command made any effort to stop them.

Fifth, on sexual violence, let the investigation finish. The UN Special Representative found that rape and gang rape occurred at multiple sites. The UN’s own investigation did not find that sexual violence was ordered but instead called for a full investigation. There are other investigations now underway. If they uncover credible evidence that the sexual assaults were not directed policy, then it should drop out of the genocide analysis, and I will say so.

That is the standard. It is the same one I set for the case against Israel. The only difference is that no one has yet been willing to apply it here. And until that happens, my conclusion stands: there is a solid case for genocide against Hamas in the October 7 attack.
Ben-Dror Yemini: How Terror's Victims Became the Targets of Blame
The forces of darkness are aided by far too many of those considered enlightened. Osama bin Laden, Yahya Sinwar, Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei would have reason to be pleased.

Their work is being carried out not only by the terrorists who continue in their footsteps. It is also being done by a growing band of those who openly declare that their goal is to defeat the Free World.

This is not Israel's struggle alone. It should have been the struggle of the Free World and of the Muslim world in particular. That is because Muslims are the primary victims of jihad.

The Muslim Brotherhood, from which most jihadist movements emerged, is persecuted in most Arab countries, which understand the danger, while its influence in the West continues to grow.

Over the past quarter-century, 320,405 people have been murdered in Islamic terrorist attacks. Jihadist branches are spreading death in wars that have raged for years in Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. Shiite jihad is wreaking havoc in Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and among the Palestinians.

Most of these centers of violence have nothing to do with the U.S. or Israel.

According to Brown University's Costs of War research, 4.5 million people have been killed since 2001, most of them in Muslim countries.

Even if we accept Hamas's figures, the 75,000 killed in Gaza amounts to 1.6% of the total, and most of those killed are men of fighting age.


Nicole Lampert: I saw for myself the vicious hatred of the anti-Zionist mob
I’ve reported on the murders and the terrorist attacks. I’ve documented the disease in our schools, our universities, our NHS, and our unions. I’ve received all the online abuse. But until Sunday I had never experienced the full wall of demented hatred that is anti-Zionism.

And ironically it happened not only at an “anti-racist” demonstration but one which was meant to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street – when the Left came together with the Jews of the East End to stop Oswald Mosley’s fascists.

For a brief moment, I had a glimpse of recognition of what it must have been like for those Jews (including my great-uncle), who knew how dangerous the fascists were.

Because I felt the full wrath of this scraggly keffiyeh-wearing mob. I saw what looked like wild hatred in their eyes. I felt that they wanted to hurt me. Now, as then, they were obsessed with the idea of Jews and how we are the only thing standing in the way of whatever utopia they dream of.

Now, as then, their apparent hatred has been fuelled by the lies of people in authority. Now, as then, this is a movement that only seems to be gaining momentum.

At the same time as they were screaming “Zionist scum not welcome here” at me, the Green Party was voting “Zionism is racism”.

There were two commemorations for Cable Street on Sunday. The first was announced by the union Unite. It lauded this milestone date, this victory of the working class over the fascists but forgot to mention who the targets were. Jews as victims is inconvenient.

So Jewish activists decided to have their own event. But a few days before the demonstration, it was made clear this group would not be welcome because apparently they were “fascists”. In the meantime, pro-Palestinian groups received a call-out to attend: “We MUST resist the attempt by Zionists to co-opt our movement and our history!” they were told.

So there were two demonstrations for Cable Street. A real one and a fake one. One filled with Jews and allies who sang: “Ninety years on, we are still here.” At the front were people whose parents and grandparents had been at the first battle. There was even a sprightly 94-year-old who remembered the day clearly.

The other demo was filled with people who looked to be as obsessed with Jews as Oswald Mosley and his fascists were. After the Jewish-run demonstration, I stayed to hear the second set of speeches with some other journalists. I wanted to hear just how much they would erase Jews from our story. I never imagined I would be accosted.


Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain: In Holborn, vote for anyone but Zack Polanski’s Greens
Yet under Polanski’s leadership, the Greens have changed from concentrating on environmental issues to focusing on Israel. They seem more concerned with events in Gaza than local pollution.

Polanski, inadvertently or not, has helped create an atmosphere in which Jews feel targeted if they show any support for Israel, even if they back the two-state solution and deplore settler violence. Supporting the right of Israel to exist is enough to make them villains.

This has been seen in the decision not to allow Standing Together to be present at the Green’s national conference, despite it advocating Arab-Israeli harmony. It works for Israeli-Palestinian peace, equality and social justice, and is the largest Arab-Jewish grassroots movement in the country. What is wrong with that, Zack?

Then there was the decision of Hackney council, controlled by the Greens, to undo the twinning with Haifa – a city renowned for its efforts at Arab-Israeli co-operation over many decades. Such a move is beyond astonishing. Maybe it challenges the Green view that there is nothing good in Israel?

The Polanski Greens are showing an uncanny and disturbing parallel with the popularism of Corbyn’s Labour. Perhaps it is no surprise that the party has attracted many former Corbynistas to its ranks.

Once again, Jews feel they are in the firing line of a major political party and this time it is the Greens. It may not be deliberate, but it is certainly very real.

This has been reinforced by the vote at the party conference to label Zionism as racism, which is based on a bizarre genocidal definition of Zionism that defies reality and just shrieks out hatred for anything to do with Israel, and by extension most Jews.

The Green Party of Zack Polanski is very different from the Green Party of Caroline Lucas, and Jews are finding it increasingly toxic. That should be a warning to all voters, whatever faith or background they may have. The way a party treats Jews has always been a barometer of the moral health of the country. A vote for the Greens does not bode well for social cohesion in Britain as a whole.

After Starmer had done so much to purge Labour of antisemitic tendencies, it would be a terrible irony if his seat was to fall to the Greens and lead to a resurgence of it.

It would also seep into the country at large at the very time when we need to work for a society less divided and more at ease with itself.

Reluctantly, therefore, I feel the need to break the “golden rule” and urge voters to vote for anyone but the Polanski Green Party. In fact, tactical voting may be appropriate bearing in mind that a council election in Dover recently saw the Greens win with 29 per cent of the vote, while 59 per cent was split between three other main parties.

Of course there are also issues about Restore’s rhetoric, while some may consider aspects of Reform UK not compliant with Jewish values, but they are of a different order and the latter has an active Jewish Alliance within it.

We must not let Polanski slip into the Commons because voters did not spot the larger issue of antisemitism and were divided over other matters. It may be only a by-election, but it has the power to end or enhance the current Green momentum, so we should take it very seriously.
I don’t know how my Green friends can support a racist, anti-Semitic party
Those who thought that only a Burnham bounce could decimate the Greens have not been paying attention. It was inevitable that a party so high on its own narcissistic supply of self-righteousness would implode. That is the result of voting in the Soviet “Zionism is Racism” motion, which is effectively a purity test for Jews and has enabled the entire world to see the Greens’ overt racism. It’s sad but not shocking.

This year’s Green Party conference in Brighton, with its obligatory keffiyeh-wearing and performative bans on dissenting groups, was the complete opposite of the tolerant, kind and radical ethos that the Greens believe themselves to embody. The delusion is off the scale. They banned women for thinking that men are not in fact women. They banned a list of everyday words (mothers, fathers) from being uttered by members. They even banned journalists from being present at the actual vote on Israel.

The Greens assure us they are open and democratic. Sure! And my name is Greta Thunberg.

There can be no diversity of thought in the authoritarian structure that’s been on display in Brighton. It’s reminiscent of the instincts of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and it’s no coincidence that, for some time, the Greens’ ranks have been swelled by those who flocked to the party under his leadership.

There is no appeasing these people. Worst of all, the Green leadership seems scared of them. Gaza has become the central issue and, incredibly, this vote means that the Greens have gone further than the Palestinian Authority in wanting a one-state solution, which means, of course, the destruction of Israel. And all Israelis.

The events of this weekend are disgusting. But then this is a party that will not allow women to talk about women’s issues (pelvic health and incontinence) without a load of men protesting that this is not “inclusive”. This is a party in which a woman asked by the journalist Julie Bindel about her views on Hamas said they were simply a “resistance group”. Asked about the Jewish women raped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, the woman replied: “What rapes?” She said this three times.

The Jew hate has of course been laundered by Zack Polanski, who happily cites his Jewish heritage to help excuse his failure to root out anti-Semitism. He would it appears, betray his own Zionist family in order to cosplay as a political leader. Polanski – ever the coward – skipped the vote as his priority was getting elected in Holborn and St Pancras.

The belief in the Jewish homeland is core to much Jewish liturgy and the Greens’ new policy deeming that belief “racist” means declaring that the practices of most Jews, secular or believers, are racist.

No such purity test would ever be applied to Muslims or Christians and not one part of this saves a limbless child in Gaza. This combination of atavistic hatred with fashionable activism is deadly. Where were you when they came for the Jews? “I was shopping for Palestinian dates,” many of the do-gooders will be able to answer.


Exclusive: Labour MPs report the Green party to the police
More than a dozen Labour MPs have reported the Green party to Sussex police and the EHRC over its ‘Zionism is racism’ policy, The Spectator can reveal.

Zack Polanski’s party was plunged deeper into crisis this afternoon after politicians, led by former Home Office minister Mike Tapp and Labour Friends of Israel chair, Mark Sewards, urged police in Brighton to examine whether events at the Green conference may have crossed into criminally actionable racial or religious hatred against Jewish people.

The MPs point to delegates chanting ‘say it loud, say it clear, Zionists are not welcome here’ as a potential legal flashpoint, questioning whether the term ‘Zionist’ was being used as a proxy for Jewish people. They have asked Sussex police to examine whether the Public Order Act may have been breached.

The letter reads: ‘Our concern is whether the term “Zionist” was used, in this setting, to direct or encourage hostility towards Jewish people. The rejected safeguard (amendment) is particularly relevant because it specifically concerned synagogues and Jewish communal organisations. It therefore raises questions about the treatment of Jewish people and institutions in Britain.’

It adds: ‘We ask Sussex police to record this complaint, secure the relevant evidence and assess whether a criminal investigation is warranted. We ask the police to establish where it occurred, who participated, whether anyone was directly targeted, and what was said or done before and afterwards.’

The complaint to the EHRC, meanwhile, centres on whether the Green party’s new anti-Zionist policy – particularly its rejection of protections for members affiliated with synagogues and Jewish organisations – could result in unlawful discrimination against Jewish members.

Yesterday, the KC Adam Wagner argued that ‘there is a strong risk that the motion as passed contravenes the Equality Act 2010, which applies to political parties, as it will discriminate against and harass people who hold Zionist beliefs and Jewish people more generally.’


Zack Polanski torn apart by The Chase star after Green Party announcement
The Chase star Anne Hegerty has demanded the Green Party implement new rules for its Muslim members after Zack Polanski was banned from entering Israel. The Green leader did not take part in a vote his party took to define Zionism as racist, with the state accusing the party of “legitimising the destruction of the State of Israel” with “clear antisemitic text”. Green Party members backed the motion to declare that Zionism is racism, with 1,022 votes in favour and 813 against. The motion declares the Greens an “anti-Zionist party” and states that it will be “treated as any other form of racism”.

Zionism is a movement to develop and protect a Jewish state in Israel, which supports the rights of Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

Now Anne has had her say on the controversy, after MP Carla Denyer clarified: “To Jewish members of the party: The motion proposers made clear in the debate that they have no intention for Jewish members to feel targeted for their beliefs or associations.

“If anyone does try to use it in this way, I will be there for you with my solidarity and support.”

Anne then replied to her tweet on X to say: “Tell you what. Get your Muslim members to promise they will never attend a mosque that criticises homosexuality. Then we’ll talk.”

She quickly faced backlash from fans, however, as one fumed: “You should be off The Chase for that!”

Anne calmly responded: “I’ve asked what would happen if a political party required Muslims to abandon a tenet of their faith as central to them as Israel is to Judaism (‘next year in Jerusalem’). What do you think would happen? And why do you think this shouldn’t be asked?”


Chair of Amnesty leaves Green Party over ‘antisemitic motion’
The chair of Amnesty International has left the Green Party over the “Zionism is racism” motion, accusing the party of “failing to confront prejudice” in its rank.

Sandy Ruthven MBE said that in courting the “hard-left vote”, Zack Polanski’s party had failed to combat bigotry.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Ruthven said his “heart has always been with the Green Party” but after the motion defining Zionism as racism and calling for a single Palestinian state passed, the chair of the Board of trustees of the Amnesty International UK resigned his membership.

Ruthven, who has helmed the board of the UK charity since 2025, said hours after the vote that saw Green conference vote for the motion 1,022 votes to 813, that the party had led itself “into a political cul-de-sac”.

“My heart has always been with the Green Party of England and Wales and I have been a member for longer than I can remember. But this motion at conference marks the end of the line for me. I have resigned my membership.

“In seeking to court the hard-left vote, we have failed to confront prejudice when it appears on our own side. In doing so, we have led ourselves into a political cul-de-sac. I sincerely hope the party finds a way back,” he said.

The vote on Sunday makes the Greens the first political party to define Zionism as a form of racism, and could see the party challenged in the courts via equality legislation.


Israel was ready to shoot down flydubai flight, scrambled jets before calling them off — report
Israeli sources tell CBS News that Israel was ready to shoot down flydubai Flight 1073 with all passengers onboard after the Omani copilot attacked the captain, scrambling fighter jets before calling them off as the plane went to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

The sources say that as part of a protocol for a potential 9/11-style incident, the Israeli Air Force sought to contact the cockpit after the plane made a sharp plunge, but didn’t receive an answer. A committee formed in advanced was then swiftly convened and a command center was set up, as fighter jets were scrambled and Israel closed its airspace, according to the report.

The warplanes were called back however once Israel realized that the plane was turning to Saudi Arabia, which had scrambled its own fighter jets.

The sources add that if the flight got closer, Israel would have dispatched planes into Jordan’s airspace to investigate. The IAF pilots would have then sought to get as close to the cockpit as they could in an effort to establish visual contact and size up the situation, before doing likewise for the cabin to determine if there was any panic among the passengers.


Shin Bet takes active role in interrogation of flydubai hijacker in UAE
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) is taking part in the interrogation of Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami, who attempted to hijack a flydubai flight to Israel, The Jerusalem Post learned on Monday.

According to initial reports from the investigation, which is taking place in the United Arab Emirates, Hammami is said to have stabbed the flight’s captain with a cockpit emergency axe and attempted to seize a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with the intent of harming some 166 Israelis on board.

Israel is still working to establish a final profile of Hammami to determine whether he acted as a ‘lone wolf,’ was affiliated with any organization, or was sent directly by Iran.

His interrogation revealed that he sought revenge for what he described as the “genocide in Gaza,” sources say.

Following reports that his intent was to crash the aircraft into Ben-Gurion Airport, sources from the interrogation also said he had prepared a backup plan to crash the plane into the US military base in Jordan, which has been targeted by Iran on multiple occasions over the past year.


The UN’s double standard toward Israel exposes its moral bankruptcy
The United Nations was founded to help the nations of the world confront the horrors of war, genocide, poverty, and ignorance.

Yet when it comes to Israel, its institutions behave as though they must save the world from the Jewish state.

An organization that claims to speak for universal morality does not apply the same moral standards to everyone. When human rights become a selective instrument, justice gives way to politics and the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore.

The expansion of the UN database of companies connected to Israeli settlements in the West Bank illustrates the problem, and according to published reports, the updated list includes 214 companies.

The database is not a criminal judgment, and the companies should not be portrayed as though they have been convicted of wrongdoing. Nevertheless, their inclusion provides ammunition for boycott campaigns.

Anyone who believes this pressure harms only Israelis should also ask what will happen to the livelihoods of Palestinian employees.

The problem extends far beyond a single list. Item 7 on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council reserves a permanent discussion exclusively for Israel and the Palestinian territories.

In September 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution by a vote of 124 to 14 demanding that Israel end its presence in the territories within one year.


UN Watch: Hillel Neuer on Newsmax: “The U.N. Scapegoats Israel”
UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer joined Newsmax’s Emma Rechenberg and Jon Glasgow to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN General Assembly address, the UN’s longstanding bias against Israel, and UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher’s troubling embrace of Iran’s regime.




Sharri Markson gives testimony to UN for ‘unfairly singling out’ Israel
News24 host Sharri Markson recounts her testimony to the UN Human Rights Council for “unfairly singling out” Israel.




Iran Militarizes Women and Children Under Expanding “Sacrifice for Iran” Campaign
Iran has launched specialized military training for women under the “Janfada-ye Iran” (“Sacrifice for Iran”) campaign, a nationwide mobilization effort overseen by institutions affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The first dedicated Janfada military training center opened at Imam Hussein Square in Tehran on September 23, with women-specific courses reported days later. Female volunteers have received firearms and military instruction, while the broader Janfada curriculum includes drones, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, guerrilla tactics and urban warfare.

Iranian officials claim women make up nearly 32 percent of Janfada registrants and that the campaign has attracted more than 31 million people. That figure, promoted by state media, has been challenged by independent fact-checkers who found technical evidence inconsistent with the government’s claims.

The expansion comes amid a broader IRGC push to militarize civilians, including minors. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented children as young as 12 armed at checkpoints under a separate IRGC recruitment initiative. Promotional material reviewed by Jewish Onliner goes younger still, depicting toddlers and other young children posed with rifles and military equipment at pro-regime rallies.

From Recruitment Drive to Armed Training Centers
The Janfada campaign was launched on March 28, 2026, by the “Gharb Baqiyatallah Cultural and Social Headquarters,” an entity affiliated with the IRGC, following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, 2026, in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. Within weeks, Iranian officials claimed more than 31 million people, representing nearly half of Iran’s population over age 12, had registered via website, SMS, and in-person platforms.

However, IranWire’s fact-checking outlet FactNameh evaluated this claim as “False” after technical analysis revealed the registration system permitted multiple sign-ups using different phone numbers, and the highest registered user ID was under four million—incompatible with claims of 30-plus million participants.

By September, the campaign had transitioned from passive registration to active military organization. Iranian media reported coordination with armed forces to train and organize 1,000 “Jan-Fada National Resistance Battalions,” with women receiving dedicated training courses during Sacred Defense Week in late September.


IDF killed two-thirds of terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, intel chief tells cabinet
Of the 6,000 people who crossed the border from Gaza and infiltrated Israel on October 7, 4,000 have been killed, an Israeli source told The Jerusalem Post on Monday, citing data shared by Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder, head of the IDF's Military Intelligence, during a security cabinet meeting on Sunday evening.

"There are 2,000 remaining, and we will get to every last one of them," Binder said.

In the latest strike on Sunday, the IDF announced that it had killed Saqr Nabil Musa Qaisi, a Nukhba terrorist from Hamas who was posing as the director of a humanitarian aid organization called Deniz Feneri.

Earlier on Friday, the military killed Ibrahim Mustafa Suleiman Abu Oweimer, a Nukhba platoon commander in Hamas’ military wing and one of the terrorists who infiltrated Israel on October 7.

During the weekend, the military killed two Islamic Jihad rocket array commanders and reportedly attempted to kill Ali al-Amoudi, Yahya Sinwar’s successor as Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip.

There was no confirmation by the IDF that Amoudi was killed in the strike, with conflicting reports in Israeli media about his status.

The Post learned in July that the military had killed at least 420 Hamas terrorists since the 2025 ceasefire was established, while it has continued to target Hamas commanders ever since.

According to these estimates, from October 2025 til July 2026, Hamas reportedly has killed dozens or more of its own population since the ceasefire in order to retake control of all areas of the Gaza Strip where the Palestinian population lives.

UN estimates that around 1,000 Gazans have been killed during this time, meaning that, since the ceasefire, the percentage of Gazans killed by the IDF has likely been less than 50% civilians.


IDF kills Oct. 7 Nukhba terrorist tied to Turkish aid group
The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that it had killed Saqr Nabil Musa Qaisi, whom it identified as a Hamas Nukhba Force terrorist who infiltrated Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, in a strike in the Khan Yunis area.

The IDF also identified Qaisi as a director of the Turkish humanitarian organization Deniz Feneri and accused him of using his position to employ Hamas operatives and provide financial support to the terrorist group. The military further alleged that the organization maintains ties with senior Hamas figures.

Qaisi had continued advancing terrorist activity against Israeli troops and civilians and working to restore Hamas capabilities in violation of the ceasefire, according to the military.


Israeli lecturer indicted for planning mass terror attack against Palestinians, Arab Israelis
The State Attorney’s Office on Monday indicted a mathematics lecturer at Bar-Ilan University for allegedly planning a series of mass terrorist attacks, motivated by nationalist ideology, against hundreds of Palestinians and Arab Israelis.

The defendant, a Petah Tikva resident in his 60s, cannot be named under a court-issued publication ban.

The goal, according to the prosecution, was forced mass transfer. The defendant called the plan AY”T, a Hebrew acronym for “Am ya’aseh transfer,” or “The people will carry out transfer.”

He was charged in the Central District Court in Lod with preparing to commit an act of terrorism under the Counterterrorism Law, extortion by threats, and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors asked the court to keep him in custody until the conclusion of legal proceedings against him.

According to the indictment, the suspect developed his plan from early February 2023 until his arrest about two weeks ago. The prosecution said it was initially fueled by the May 2021 riots during Operation Guardian of the Walls and intensified after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, which was first called Operation Swords of Iron.

His idea was to activate terrorist cells simultaneously in different locations. The prosecution said the defendant had also conducted a reconnaissance tour around Tuba-Zanghariya, a Bedouin town near Safed in the North, to examine possible access and attack routes.

The alleged plan envisioned 72 Jewish attackers, including the defendant, at least half of whom would have firearms licenses. They were to be divided into 12 cells of six people each and use a variety of weapons, including handguns, rifles, axes, and hammers.

The intended targets were mixed cities and Arab communities throughout Israel, including Tuba-Zanghariya, which the indictment describes as a primary target.

The plan also called for the terrorist cells to receive assistance and support coordinated in advance with subversive elements who would be recruited from within the IDF, including the bombardment of Arab population centers by the IAF, Artillery Corps, and Armored Corps.
IDF says Palestinian car rammed army vehicle in West Bank, one occupant shot dead
A car with three Palestinian men in it accelerated toward troops near the West Bank town of Bani Naim, with soldiers opening fire and killing one of them on Monday, the military said.

According to a preliminary probe by the army, soldiers had attempted to stop the suspicious car at an earlier checkpoint, before it crashed into an army vehicle near Bani Naim.

No injuries were caused to the soldiers, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF said the troops then opened fire on the car, hitting the three Palestinians inside.

Medics said that one of the Palestinians was killed, one was seriously injured, and one was lightly hurt.

The military added that it set up roadblocks in the area as it conducted scans.

Separately, two alleged Palestinian arms dealers were nabbed by Israeli commandos in the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday, the military said.

The IDF said on Monday that soldiers of the Duvdevan Commando Unit, following intelligence provided by the Shin Bet, raided Nablus’s old city and captured “two terrorists who trafficked weapons intended to harm Israeli civilians and security forces.”

The commandos entered the old city of Nablus and apprehended both suspects “within minutes,” the military added.

Later on Monday, police said a knife-wielding Palestinian set fire to a car belonging to a resident of an illegal Israeli farming outpost in the central West Bank and threatened settlers, who then rammed him with their car, “neutralizing the continued risk from his actions.”
Journalist or Terrorist: Who was Muhammad al-Najjar?
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on September 30 that it killed Muhammad al-Najjar, a Hamas member who posed as a journalist, infiltrated Israeli territory during the October 7 massacre, and was involved in advancing “attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.” The IDF said it eliminated al-Najjar because of the threat he posed.

Palestinian media outlets reported that al-Najjar, a journalist, was killed in a strike that targeted a group of citizens north of Khan Younis on September 30. Following the strike, Palestinian news and social media accounts published footage of al-Najjar’s family grieving over his body, which was draped in a blue “press” vest.

The image of a family grieving over a loved one is powerful, but the Palestinian media coverage gave an incomplete picture of who al-Najjar was. The evidence published by the IDF showing al-Najjar standing in front of what appears to be a burning IDF tank on October 7 is one example of what that coverage left out.

Furthermore, a close examination of al-Najjar’s Facebook page suggests he supported Hamas.

Al-Najjar’s Support for Terrorism
The page, owned by al-Najjar, who goes by “Abu Aziz,” shows open support for Hamas and its military apparatus. On October 7, 2023, he posted a photo of a rifle with the caption, “Exclusive: the weapon of one of the soldiers seized east of Khuza’a,” and linked it to a Telegram news channel. He later praised October 7 as “the raised banner of victory.”

His eulogies tie him to men he describes in military terms. In January 2026, he described Ahmed Fakhri Shubair as “one of the founders of the military media and its commander in Khan Younis.” He marked the anniversary of the death of “the commander” Nour al-Din Baraka. In 2025, he attended the burial of nine “mujahideen (fighters)” from Khuza’a and listed each by name. However, his Facebook page does not show him armed, in uniform, or wearing faction insignia.

It appears that al-Najjar also had other social media accounts, including Instagram and X. Much like his Facebook page, both accounts contained posts praising Hamas and other terrorist groups. Both accounts contain a link to GoGetFunding.com, an online crowdfunding and donation platform. However, the fundraising page appears to have been disabled.


Palestinian Islamic Jihad Identifies Child Soldiers as Young as 13
Palestinian Islamic Jihad reportedly identified two Gazan boys, aged just 13 and 14, as members of its military wing in newly released martyr announcements, providing some of the clearest evidence yet of children below 15 being incorporated into the military structure of the U.S.-designated terror group.

The findings were published by Michael Starr, investigative media manager at HonestReporting, who has been tracking martyr notices released by Gaza terror groups and cross-referencing them against casualty databases, photographs and social-media records. Starr reported that subsequent findings have raised his overall tally of deceased Gazan child soldiers from 26 in late September to 31.

A 13-Year-Old in PIJ’s Northern Brigade
Thirteen-year-old Hossam Muhammad Morsi was identified by PIJ as an operative in the Northern Brigade’s Central Mobilization Unit, according to Starr. Starr said the identification was made using PIJ material, casualty records and facial comparison. A Gaza Health Ministry casualty list independently records a closely matching Hossam Mohammed Ouda Morsi as 13 years old.

Munir Mohammed Abdel Hai Morsi, who was 18, was also identified by PIJ as an Al-Quds Brigades operative, according to Starr. PIJ reportedly placed him in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Hussam Abu Habl Battalion, while photographs on his Facebook account showed armed men with PIJ insignia. Another apparent relative, Abdullah Muhammad Morsi, was killed later and was also identified by PIJ as a member of the same Central Mobilization Unit as 13-year-old Hossam.

The apparent family pattern has surfaced in earlier cases. Starr previously found that 12 of 23 child soldiers identified at that stage had close relatives affiliated with the same terror group.
Gaza Journalist Death Narrative Continues to Crumble as RSF Removes Terrorist Name, UNESCO Adds Addendum
The narrative that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deliberately targeted Gazan journalists during the October 7 War has continued to crumble as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and UNESCO have made modifications to their casualty databases as more information has come to light about the terrorism affiliations of supposed media workers. RSF’s Silent Removal of Terrorists

Without explanation, RSF removed Al-Rai radio’s Assem Al-Barsh from its world journalism abuses Barometer sometime since August 30, bringing the number of Gazan media workers it has removed from its database since June 21 to five.

Al-Barsh was announced by Hamas on August 26 to have been a fighter in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Imad Aqel Battalion. The Hamas operative had been removed from the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Gazan journalist database with its September 24 audit, for being a combatant.

His brother Hashem Adly Al-Barsh was also a confirmed Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operative, and two other brothers were described alongside Assem as being “mujahideen.” His father is the director general of Holy Quran radio, a Hamas-affiliated outlet.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) removed Al-Barsh’s relative, Namaa Radio general manager Moussa Al-Barsh, sometime between July 27 and August 16. He had been killed in the same airstrike that had critically wounded his brother, Naama Radio executive director and Hamas terrorist Yacoup Al-Barsh. Assem had a program on Namaa Radio, which was controlled by the family.

Assem Al-Barsh was the subject of a December 2023 International Criminal Court (ICC) criminal complaint filed by RSF, and it is unknown whether the complaint has been withdrawn or revised. Two other terrorists that had been the subjects of criminal complaints were Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives Mohamed Nasr Abu Huwaidi and Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Sharia.

The remaining two terrorists that were removed without explanation by RSF were Hamas operatives Mohammad Jarghoun and Mohammed Abu Matar. Abu Matar had been the most recent to be removed, with his name disappearing sometime before August 30.

UNESCO’s Vague Notes
Information about Al-Barsh had been altered in another Gazan media worker list. Among the organizations that have created databases of slain Gazan journalists, UNESCO has been the most reticent to alter its materials, but an addendum has been added to six entries by October 2.

“This entry reflects the information available in the verification criteria applicable at the time of the Director-General’s original statement,” read a note added to Al-Barsh’s profile on the UNESCO Observatory of Killed Journalists. “Subsequently, recognised specialised sources underpinning the original assessment materially revised their information concerning this case. In accordance with UNESCO’s working method, this subsequent development is reflected in the present note.”

Abu Huwaidi, Abu Matar, Jarghoun, Hamas operative Mohammed Manhal Abu Armana, and PIJ operative Hilmi Al-Faqaawi had the same note added to their profiles. The vague note does not specify that new information has indicated that the six men featured by UNESCO were terrorists, and the profiles still describe them as journalists. All six had previously had condemnations of their killing issued by UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay.


Coleman Hughes: Inside Israel’s War Room: What Really Happened After October 7
Three years ago this week, Hamas launched an invasion that Israel’s own intelligence services considered essentially impossible. Elliot Kaufman’s new book, In the War Room, explains why that confidence was misplaced, and just how close Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar came to succeeding.

Kaufman spent the better part of the last two years reporting on this war for the Wall Street Journal, and his book pulls from documents recovered from Hamas along with direct access to Israel’s top political, military, and intelligence leadership. I asked him why Hamas launched the attack when it did. His answer: It was the opening move of a plan to destroy Israel entirely, one that depended on Hezbollah joining within days with a missile arsenal capable of leveling Haifa and crippling Israel’s power grid. That never happened, and Kaufman traces the failure back to one man, Hassan Nasrallah, and a single moment of caution that changed the course of the war.

I also asked him about the viral Haaretz report claiming Netanyahu ignored specific warnings from the United Arab Emirates, and that Sinwar attacked partly out of frustration over a stalled economic deal with Israel. Kaufman didn’t dismiss it outright. Some of it holds up—Israeli intelligence did receive warnings, just not in the form or specificity the article suggests. But he pushes back on the deeper implication: that this was a failure of warnings rather than a failure of imagination. Israel had plenty of red flags; what it lacked was the ability to believe Hamas would actually act on them.

We spent real time on the internal Israeli story. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz ran this war while, by Kaufman’s account, detesting one another personally, refusing each other’s calls, and banning each other’s aides from meetings. That dysfunction shaped real decisions, including the early argument over whether to strike Hezbollah first while Israel still had surprise on its side, or focus on Gaza. Kaufman thinks Israel made the wrong call—the three-week gap before troops entered Gaza gave the international media time to turn against Israel, a window he argues never closed.

We also got into what he considers the single biggest unforced error of the war—a two-month stretch when Israel cut off aid to pressure Hamas into a hostage deal, a decision that backfired badly and fed a global narrative about famine in Gaza that Kaufman argues never held up to scrutiny. By the end, we zoomed out to the bigger picture. Hamas set out to destroy Israel, but instead, Hezbollah lost its missile arsenal, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria collapsed, and Iran’s nuclear program sits in rubble under a U.S. naval blockade. Every domino Sinwar knocked over on October 7 ended up falling against him.

0:00 Intro
3:37 Why Hamas Invaded Israel on October 7th
7:39 The Haaretz Claims About Netanyahu and Sinwar
11:08 Why Sinwar Believed He Could Destroy Israel
14:18 Sinwar's Miscalculation With Hezbollah
16:37 Why Israeli Intelligence Was Strong on Hezbollah but Blind on Hamas
21:36 The Charge That Netanyahu Propped Up Hamas
29:00 The Decision to Fight Hamas First Instead of Hezbollah
33:26 Was a More Targeted War Against October 7th's Perpetrators Possible
41:48 The Unforced Error of Cutting Off Aid to Gaza
48:48 What Was Hamas's Actual Strategy
55:24 How the Jihadist Worldview Erased the Line Between Civilian and Combatant
1:01:38 The Conflict Between Rescuing Hostages and Destroying Hamas
1:07:43 Was Netanyahu Right and Galant Wrong
1:13:27 Who Is Benny Gantz
1:18:09 The Role of the Far Right in the War
1:23:51 The War's Effect on the Prospect of a Two-State Solution
1:28:38 The War's Effect on the US-Israel Relationship
1:34:16 The War's Effect on the Abraham Accords





 


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