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Saturday, October 10, 2026

10/10 Links: Bret Stephens: Zohran Mamdani’s Moral Obscenity; The Nobel Peace Prize is now totally discredited; Why Dolly Parton sang a song about Daniel Pearl

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: Zohran Mamdani’s Moral Obscenity
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor, set off a firestorm of criticism Wednesday morning with a social media post ostensibly intended to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. It devoted a brief paragraph to condemning Hamas and commiserating with its victims. The rest was a much longer denunciation of Israel’s “ongoing genocide in Gaza,” a “world in which occupation and apartheid continue” and a situation in which “our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.”

In response, Ammiel Hirsch, the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the statement was “so offensive to so many Jews that it is hard to describe how offensive it is.” In fact, it’s a moral obscenity. Let me count the ways.

It is obscene in the same way it would have been obscene if the mayor had commemorated the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 last month with a perfunctory nod to the victims of the day, followed by a much longer denunciation of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. What happened on both Sept. 11 and Oct. 7 was undiluted evil, each an unprovoked visit of deliberate and maximalist violence on people who had done nothing to invite that violence other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It is obscene because many of the Jews murdered on Oct. 7, living in kibbutzim with conspicuously left-leaning politics, had been at the forefront of the peace movement, volunteering, for example, to drive sick Palestinians for treatment at nearby Israeli hospitals. Hamas wasn’t just killing and terrorizing the innocent; it was eliminating the good.

It is obscene because Hamas didn’t just kill its victims in pursuit of a strategic objective. It tormented and slaughtered them like an army of serial killers who delight in the suffering of their victims. Corpses of Israeli women were described by one coroner as “shot in the crotch, intimate parts, vagina, or were shot in the breast.” Others appeared to have been raped so violently that their pelvises were broken. Parents were killed in front of their children; children were murdered in their beds. A fieldworker was beheaded with a garden hoe. I know this because Hamas filmed itself doing this and I forced myself to watch the film. I know because that same month, I visited the bedrooms where the kids had been murdered, their mattresses still soaked in blood.
Zohran Mamdani’s antisemitism plan cannot survive his October 7 statement
Mamadani right that the suffering did not begin on October 7, but the history undercuts his antisemitic fable. Arab mobs murdered Jews in Jerusalem in 1920, Jaffa in 1921, and Hebron in 1929, where in a single morning they slaughtered 67 Jews after the circle around Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and the era’s dominant Palestinian Arab leader, spread the lie that Jews were plotting against al-Aqsa. There was no Jewish state then, and no “occupation” to blame.

Husseini’s leadership rejected a Palestinian Arab state in 1937, 1939, and 1947. He spent World War II in Berlin as Adolf Hitler’s honored guest, urging Arabs over Nazi radio to kill Jews wherever they found them. His successors were offered a Palestinian Arab state in 2000, 2001, and 2008 and refused each time. In 2005 Israel pulled every soldier and civilian out of Gaza; Hamas answered with terror, rockets, a violent takeover and, eventually, October 7. Hamas’s charter declares the land from the river to the sea an Islamic trust no one may surrender and quotes a hadith about Muslims killing Jews. Ninety-four years after Hebron, Hamas named its invasion and massacre “Al-Aqsa Flood.” From the mufti to Hamas, the throughline is a violent, fascist Islamist rejection of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the land.

None of this is hidden. The mayor left it out on purpose.

The genocide-libel itself collapses against the record. Genocidal regimes do not warn civilians to evacuate, pause fighting to vaccinate children against polio, or truck food to the people they are supposedly exterminating. In every genocide on record, the killers controlled when the killing stopped. In Gaza, Hamas could have ended the war any day by freeing the hostages and surrendering. Spreading that libel as mayor of the largest Jewish city outside Israel is reckless at best.

Anti-Jewish hate crimes rise in New York
The results are measurable. NYPD data show anti-Jewish hate crimes up about 8% in the first eight months of his tenure, with Jews targeted in more than half of all confirmed hate crimes. When the plan was announced, Israel’s consul general in New York, Ofir Akunis, warned that antisemitism would keep rising until the mayor recognized his own anti-Israel language as its main driver. Nine days later, the mayor delivered that same language to an audience of millions.

Most Jewish New Yorkers have no use for grant programs from a mayor who marks one of the worst days in Jewish history by calling the Jewish state a “genocidal apartheid regime funded by their taxes.” They have seen where that rhetoric leads: to their campuses, their synagogues, their streets.

Mamdani’s plan was written to show he takes antisemitism seriously. His October 7 statement showed it was written to give him cover for the hatred he keeps feeding.
Bill Maher mocks Mamdani for being ‘tone deaf’ criticizing Israel in Oct. 7 tribute
Mamdani’s reaction to the anniversary did not go over well with Maher, who harshly criticized the mayor.

“Mayor Mamdani, not all that sympathetic to this stuff, but he did make some nice remarks about it,” Maher said, referring to Mamdani’s statement.

“But then he pivoted right to, ‘but Israel made them do it,’” Maher said, offering his interpretation of the mayor’s remarks.

The comedian also mocked Mamdani’s past career as a rapper, during which he performed under the stage names “Young Cardamom” and “Mr. Cardamom.”

“You know, he used to be a rapper. His rap name was ‘Tone Deaf,’” Maher quipped.

Mamdani also faced criticism earlier this week after dining Wednesday at Ayat Hinds Hall, a Palestinian restaurant.


Preparing for the worst lets you ‘go on and live your life,’ Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting survivor says
Audrey Glickman, who survived the mass shooting during Oct. 27, 2018, Shabbat services at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh, thinks that people should watch testimonies from terror survivors.

“I would hope that they would watch all of us just in case one of the things would be appropriate,” the 69-year-old told JNS.

She allowed that “it’s never going to happen the same way again,” but that someone might see something that would help them escape a dangerous situation in the future. There is a “big opportunity to have something good come from it,” she said.

Glickman told JNS that “the day started as every Saturday did.”

“I picked up my friend Joe. It was cold and raining, and we had our winter coats on and got in my car instead of walking,” she said. “We walked in together.”

Her first sense that it wasn’t a normal day was when she heard a noise “like something was falling.”

She thought it was a coat rack but then understood it was “unmistakable automatic weapon gunfire echoing down the hallway.”

Glickman had received security training while working at another synagogue, where she was a rabbi’s assistant. She started running.

“I thought, this is what we do. There’s an emergency. We’ve got to save as many people as we can,” she told JNS.

David Rosenthal, who was helping her lead the prayer service, ran with her at first but then decided not to hide with her. He and his brother Cecil were killed in the attack.

Glickman and her late partner, Joe Charny, ran up the stairs and hid. When she used Charny’s phone to call 911, she was worried that it would make too much noise and draw the shooter’s attention. (She asked JNS not to name the shooter for fear of inspiring copycats.)

The 911 operators “wanted to keep me on the phone,” she told JNS. “I couldn’t do it. I could not stay on with them.”

“We made the decision to stay there until we could hear what was happening, because it seemed to be a safe place,” she said. “In due course, we decided to make our way out in the direction where there hadn’t been any praying going on, so hopefully there was no shooting going on.”

Her experience left her with a practical takeaway: have pockets big enough to carry a phone. Her phone was on a pew when the gunfire began.

“If somebody listens to our stories and gets themselves the training, then go for it, because that’s what we need,” she told JNS.

“If you’re prepared for the worst, then you can go on and live your life and find happiness and joy and laughter and know that when you need it, it will be there,” she said.
Red Cross chief says she tried to arrange Gaza hostage visits through talks with Hamas's Haniyeh
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric said that she met former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar on two separate occasions with the goal of arranging a visit by the organization to Israeli hostages held in Gaza, making the comment as part of an interview on Saturday with New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

"These were tough discussions, and trust me, we are very frank in these meetings," said Spoljaric, noting that she further met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue. "This is why these meetings have to always remain confidential."

When Garcia-Navarro asked the Swiss-Croatian diplomat whether the ICRC had any access to the hostages, Spoljaric shook her head.

She described the issue of visiting hostages as "much more complicated" than returning them home, saying that the ICRC can only "work with the tools that we have."

"In my opinion, they should have come back unconditionally as of day one," she said. "But that’s not the reality in which we operate."

In August 2025, the mothers of former hostages Evyatar David, Nimrod Cohen, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, and David and Ariel Cunio met with Spoljaric in Geneva, pushing for the organization to visit their loved ones in Gaza.

In addition, eight of the hostages released during the December 2025 temporary ceasefire wrote a letter to the ICRC asking them to visit the then-137 remaining hostages. No such visits ever took place.

Spoljaric, who has led the ICRC since 2022 and says she visited Gaza several times amid the war, told the NYT that there is "nothing more complex, and to a certain extent also more brutal, than hostage-taking."

"The objective always has to be to bring the hostages back," she explained. "And the longer it takes, the more complicated it becomes. I personally think that pressure should have come earlier in the negotiations. We could have saved more lives. And this was the subject of our conversations."

She cited the organization's "strict insistence on neutrality" as having been vital in the eventual return of many of the Gaza hostages to Israel.

"You’ve seen the pictures of our colleagues unarmed among thousands, if not tens of thousands, of armed men, surrounded by rubble from which there was no escape," she emphasized. "Nobody would have trusted us to be able to do this highly complex operation if we hadn’t defended our neutrality over 160 years. You tweak it once, you become political, and that’s it. I know it makes so many people angry, but that’s the essence of our mission."


Revealed: BBC reporter’s history of glorifying murder of Jews
A BBC Arabic reporter who wrongly described terrorists killed in Gaza as “journalists” has a history of glorifying the murder of Jewish people, The Telegraph can disclose.

Layla Bashar al-Kloub has described Israel’s Jewish population as “terrorists” and asked Allah to “strengthen” a Palestinian TV presenter who had been labelled a Holocaust denier.

She has also described Palestinians who have been killed after murdering Israelis as “martyrs”.

Last month, The Telegraph reported allegations of BBC bias after finding that 53 people it had described as “journalists” killed in Gaza had links to Hamas or other armed groups.

Some were alleged to have taken part in the Oct 7 attacks, while others had expressed support for violence against Israelis or been claimed as members by militant organisations.

The BBC responded by saying it was reviewing its coverage after the new findings.

Most of the names appeared on a list compiled by Ms al-Kloub, which was first published on the BBC Arabic website in 2023 and was updated periodically.

By the time Ms al-Kloub wrote the list, she had an established history of anti-Israeli posts on social media.

In 2014, she wrote on social media to an Israeli citizen that “before 1948 it was Palestine, before YOU (Terrorists) came to our land”, adding: “There’s no problem for us to die for Palestine, you don’t, because it’s NOT YOURS.”

Two years later, she tweeted: “The Zionist entity does not recognise any international law or agreement, their entire [legal] proceedings are infringements of human rights treaties. They are the terrorists, not us.”

In 2017, she suggested that Israel should not exist by posting that the land “from the river to the sea” – referring to the whole of Israel and the Palestinian territories – was “Arab, Arab, Arab”.

In 2018 and 2019, she described Ahmad Jarrar and Omar Abu Leila as “martyrs”. Both had murdered Jewish civilians before being killed.
European Parliament Backs Calls to Put Muslim Brotherhood Entities on Terrorist List
The European Parliament on Thursday approved a resolution calling on the European Union to add people and entities linked to the Muslim Brotherhood to its list of terrorist organizations, amid growing concerns over the group’s influence and Islamist threats across the continent.

With the resolution passing 381-167, with 15 abstentions, the measure now goes to the European Council, which determines the EU’s political direction, after lawmakers called on member states to develop a joint strategy to counter what they described as “Islamist infiltration and Muslim Brotherhood networks.”

As part of the broader effort to counter the growing influence of Islamist networks, European officials have called on EU member states to develop a common strategy for identifying signs of infiltration, including “double messaging” — when individuals use moderate language in public or political settings but promote more extreme views in mosques or private settings.

The resolution also urges governments to strengthen cooperation against extremist networks and support Muslim intellectuals and activists who publicly defend democracy, freedom of conscience, and the rule of law.

Among the measures proposed is ending public funding for Islamic fundamentalist groups and increasing oversight of civil society and youth organizations that could be influenced by individuals who support terrorism.

Earlier this year, the United States also ramped up pressure on the Brotherhood, designating several of its branches and affiliated organizations in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as terrorist entities, underscoring growing international scrutiny of the group and its networks.

Founded in Egypt in 1928 by schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood seeks to implement Islamic law around the world by any means necessary, embracing both violent terrorism and lawful political activity.

Today, the most influential Brotherhood-created group is Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

According to a recent report by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, the Muslim Brotherhood has built an extensive network of activists and organizations across Europe, including dozens of groups and individuals identified as affiliated with the movement’s European wing.
The Nobel Peace Prize is now totally discredited
Pillay is as pro-dictator and pro-cruelty as you can be. But her true agenda, and the evidence of her vast undeservingness for any peace prize worth its salt, is most evident in her flirtations with anti-Semitism.

In her years at the head of the UN Human Rights Council, more resolutions condemning Israel were issued by that body than about the rest of the world combined.

Pillay is, of course, a virulent genocide-libeller. It’s her life, actually: she was the one who oversaw a report that accused Israel, falsely, of committing genocide in Gaza after October 7. The damage she has done by sending this libel into the world parcelled as a UN report is incalculable and will be felt for decades, if not centuries, to come.

Even pre-October 7, she repeatedly campaigned hard, as a supposedly impartial investigator, to smear and punish Israel before looking at any evidence. She chaired a UN Commission of Inquiry into alleged Israeli crimes, but had previously signed a manifesto calling on governments to: “Sanction Apartheid Israel.”

The mask slipped still further in July 2022, when Pillay rushed to the defence of her fellow commissioner Miloon Kothari after he railed against “the Jewish lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to be a member state of the UN. It was such an outlandish thing to do that an event planned in her honour at a Berlin town hall in 2022 was cancelled.

This Nobel winner was chosen from a field of 287 candidates. How can the committee justify this egregious, and incredibly brazen, piece of complicity with anti-Jewish malignancy?

The way they all do, of course, with dishonest, pseudo-pacifist references to international law and peace. “At a time when the number of wars and conflicts is rising, and when judges and institutions of international law are under political attack, the Nobel committee wishes to issue a reminder that the ability to resolve conflicts without force or violence is dependent on the international rule of law.”

Benjamin Netanyahu put it more succinctly, saying the Nobel Prize committee had “lost its moral compass”. I’m not sure it’s had one for a long time, though perhaps this is the moment its mask has well and truly dropped.
Nobel rewards Navi Pillay’s anti-Israel crusade
A life devoted to antisemitism: The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Navi Pillay, chair of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry that accused Israel of genocide in September 2025, could hardly have been more deserved.

Nothing is more “mainstream” than the Nobel Prize, more devoted to the supposed good of humanity. Only the truly respectable are admitted to its table. The prizes for science and medicine are different, but writers and politicians must wear a liberal badge bearing the word “peace,” even if they are terrorists, like Yasser Arafat; or “equality,” even if they have yet to accomplish anything, like Barack Obama; or at least display some sign of contempt for capitalism, like Dario Fo.

The idea is to provide a role model whom we are supposed to admire and follow. We are used to it, but this time it is difficult: The Nobel has gone to a woman who has made hatred of Israel, transformed into a U.N. institution, her banner.

Her supposed commitment to the human rights she was meant to defend is belied by her lukewarm attention to so many crucial causes—China, Russia, Iran. One recalls a trip she made to Syria during the period of Bashar Assad’s massacres that failed to elicit any significant reaction from her.

Navi Pillay now ascends to the pantheon of inspiration for humanity that the prize aspires to represent. U.S. President Donald Trump wanted it, and instead it has gone to one of his enemies. It is an old-fashioned sneer at the stereotype of imperial America, but above all it is ideological confirmation that the aspirations of decent people for human rights, peace and freedom have been transferred wholesale into Palestinianism.
Elliot Malin: When Jew Hatred Wins the Nobel Prize
A final point that is incredibly important to make is that the Pillay report uses language to stipulate that it is using a heightened standard of proof (fully conclusive). The same standard that the ICJ requires. However, that’s not what is happening here. They use the lowest standard of proof of reasonable grounds (this, by the way, was something that her co-author, Chris Sidoti, has openly admitted to). This does not require that there be any opportunity for rebuttal, it accepts blindly the evidence as presented as factually accurate, accepts hearsay without caveat. It is frankly not an acceptable standard and is an attempt to maliciously misrepresent the law.

Pillay has routinely used stigmatizing language to describe Israel and has placed special attention on targeting it while ignoring atrocities from around the world. Pillay has displayed a fatal lack of objectivity in the course of her work.

The Nobel Committee said that they had awarded their Peace Prize to Pillay as a means of trying to uphold international law and prevent genocide. Unfortunately, they did not do that. Instead they awarded bigotry and gave it a show. The Nobel Committee’s immoral awarding of the Peace Prize to Pillay will cause insurmountable harm to Palestinians and Israelis alike because it tells everyone that you can distort the law for your hatred of the Jewish state, and put the real people who are hurt because of it in harms way.

It is morally repugnant, shameful, and an aversion to international law and the principles it is meant to uphold.

Navi Pillay does not deserve to be recognized as a stalwart of human rights because she isn’t a stalwart defender of human rights. She ignores serious breaches of international law when she cannot blame the Jews or Israel. She systematically excuses Jew hatred because of her bias. And Pillay’s report will cause people to be hurt and murdered.20

In doing this, she harms Palestinians; because, as mentioned above, she permits Hamas to escape agency for what they do to the Palestinian people in Gaza. This signals to Hamas that they can continue to get away with the crimes against the Palestinians that they continue to commit.

At the end of the day the Pillay report does more to degrade the law and undo the work of Rafael Lemkin, and the drafters of the Genocide Convention, than the report does to uphold the law and defend it. Pillay’s work undermines everything we know about genocide so she can single out the world’s only Jewish state.

Navi Pillay should not be hoisted as a defender of human rights. She should be routinely condemned for belittling human rights and bigotry.

And Pillay’s report fails as a matter of law, and a matter of evidence, as does the morality of the Nobel Committee.


Iran retains missile, drone production capabilities despite months of US-Israeli strikes
Iran has retained the ability to manufacture ballistic missiles and drones despite eight months of US and Israeli airstrikes, allowing Tehran to replenish its weapons stockpiles as US President Donald Trump debates delaying further military action until after the November midterm elections, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing Western officials familiar with intelligence assessments.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iran had preserved parts of its weapons manufacturing infrastructure despite extensive strikes targeting its military-industrial capabilities.

One Western official assessed that Tehran still possesses significant stocks of ballistic missiles and certain anti-ship weapons, with the capacity to manufacture additional munitions relatively quickly.

The official also claimed that Russia has been supplying Iran with missiles, consistent with a separate intelligence assessment from June. Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.

The findings contrast with repeated assertions by Trump administration officials that the US-Israeli military campaign has effectively dismantled Iran's ability to threaten American military installations and regional allies.

Trump previously described Iran's military as "totally destroyed," while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on September 30 that US operations had destroyed Iran's "military industrial capacity" and "their entire defense base."
CENTCOM strikes commercial vessel with precision munition after ship attempts to bypass blockade
US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced early on Sunday morning that it has disabled a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman after the crew ignored repeated warnings and attempted to bypass the US naval blockade on Iranian ports along the Strait of Hormuz.

The vessel, a Panama-flagged merchant vessel named Ocean Molica, left an Iranian port and attempted to traverse into the Arabian Sea before being struck in the stern by a precision munition launched by a fighter jet, according to CENTCOM.

The confirmation came shortly after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it received a report that an outbound tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was struck on the port side by an unknown projectile, causing a fire on board.

The crew was reported safe, UKMTO said, adding that damage assessment and environmental impact were unknown at the time of the report.

he blockade, which began on April 13, 2026, was temporarily ended on June 18 following a US-Iran agreement, before being reinstated a month later on July 14.

According to CENTCOM, "four commercial vessels have been disabled, and 135 ships have been turned around during three months of strict enforcement." 10 tankers linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been destroyed in that period of time.

Naval mine critically damages oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz
Additionally, the IRGC said on Saturday that an oil tanker had exploded and caught fire after hitting a naval mine while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media reported.

The Guards did not specify the tanker's name or flag.

The IRGC Navy announced it was exercising control over the strait and would not allow "aggressor armies" in the area, saying it would counter attempts to disrupt management of the strait, according to the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency.


At least 12 killed, more than 300 hurt in Houthi attack on Riyadh airport
Yemen’s Houthis attacked Riyadh’s international airport with a missile on Saturday, in an attack that Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said killed at least 12 people and injured over 300, with some in critical condition.

It was the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the Iran war, whose fronts have expanded to include the recent surge in fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces.

A missile struck a complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights at King Khalid International Airport and many people were wounded, prompting the airport’s evacuation, two regional officials told AP on condition of anonymity. Ambulances were seen rushing there.

The Saudi statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens as well as two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese. It said the injured were being treated at several hospitals.

The airport had already been struck in two earlier attacks this week that left four people dead and exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom’s ability to defend itself as it wages war on the Houthis. Saudi Arabia’s early warning system did not issue an alert ahead of Saturday’s incident.

One witness reported hearing an explosion while waiting to board a flight at King Khalid International Airport, and another said they saw a strike that left people wounded.

“I was on gate 403” at the domestic terminal, the witness told AFP. “I saw 401 hit. I saw injured in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.”

An injured traveler told Reuters they saw something fly across the sky outside the airport before part of the ceiling near a departure gate collapsed.

A source at a local hospital told AFP that five people were in intensive care after being wounded at the airport, saying “dozens of people were injured” in all.

The relative of one injured person said they had been wounded in the shoulders and arms by shattered glass, and had been taken to hospital.

Three witnesses confirmed people being evacuated from the airport.

“Houthis are attacking civilian targets. Riyadh airport is a civilian target,” the diplomatic source told AFP, saying the airport was hit by a missile around 3 p.m. local time (12 p.m. GMT). Houthi supporters carry their rifles while attending an armed tribal rally in Sanaa, Yemen, October 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

After the attack occurred, the Houthi military spokesperson retweeted his own post from before the attack, saying only pre-approved humanitarian flights were allowed to land at Riyadh airport, adding the words: “a reminder.”
Hamas facing internal unrest as Israel detects plans for renewed attacks, official says
A senior Israeli security official told Walla on Saturday that Hamas is showing signs of preparing for attacks against Israeli forces, amid growing tensions between the terrorist group's leadership abroad, headed by Khalil al-Hayya, and its leadership in the Gaza Strip over its policy toward Israel.

The official said Israeli intelligence had identified indications that Hamas was planning to confront IDF troops along the Yellow Line, which separates areas of Israeli military control from the rest of Gaza, as well as local Palestinian clans that regularly clash with the terrorist group.

"We are identifying offensive intentions in general. To confront the IDF along the Yellow Line and to confront the clans," the official said.

Addressing Hamas's current situation, the official said the group was struggling to rebuild its military capabilities while facing continued Israeli operations and growing internal opposition.

"Hamas is paying the price of defeat every day. On average, three to four targeted eliminations occur every day. Hamas is very concerned about the clans and internal stability. They can't build up their strength, only restore existing weapons. We are not seeing anything coming in from outside. There is very effective threat-removal activity."

The official was referring to IAF operations aimed at disrupting Hamas's efforts to organize attacks against Israel or confront IDF forces along the Yellow Line. Capture of senior Hamas security official provides intelligence gains

The official also highlighted the September 1 capture of Muin al-Arabid, the head of Hamas's internal security apparatus in Gaza, describing it as a particularly significant operation that has undermined Hamas's confidence in its ability to protect itself against future Israeli operations.

According to the official, al-Arabid initially couldn't speak because of his condition, but his health has since improved. The official also suggested that al-Arabid has begun providing information to Israeli interrogators.

The official said increased investment in intelligence resources, closer cooperation between security agencies, improved intelligence gathering, and the establishment of new operations centers had significantly strengthened Israel's intelligence capabilities, allowing security forces to carry out more targeted killings.
IDF raises toll of Palestinian terror operatives it has killed in past week to 17
The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday that it had killed at least five Palestinian terror operatives in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip over the past week, adding to 12 such deaths announced earlier in the week for a total of 17.

In one statement, the military said it killed several members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force in a strike on a meeting in Gaza City earlier Saturday, along with a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander in a separate strike.

The military identified two of the Hamas operatives as Muad Mazen Hamza Hassouna and Muhammad Riyad Khader Arahim.

Palestinian media reported that the strike, which took place near Gaza City’s Panda Mall, killed four people and wounded six others.

The PIJ commander, Muhammad Walid Saadi Nakhala, was killed in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, the IDF said.

In a statement earlier on Saturday, the IDF and Shin Bet jointly said that separate strikes in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis area earlier in the week had killed a PIJ company commander who took part in the onslaught of October 7, 2023, along with a member of Hamas’s Nukhba force.

Muhammad Abu Shalouf, a company commander in PIJ’s military wing, was killed in a strike on Wednesday, the military said.

Musa Atef Musa Abu Dan, identified as a Nukhba member, was killed in a separate strike on Friday.

The military said the two recently “advanced attacks against IDF troops and operated to restore the terrorist organizations’ capabilities,” targeting them to “remove the threat.”


Binyamin Regional Council launches body-camera initiative for Jewish shepherds
The Binyamin Regional Council launched a new initiative this week known as the “Shepherd Camera Project” to equip farmers and shepherds throughout the region with body cameras similar to those used by police officers and security personnel, in an effort to ensure that confrontations with anti-Israel activists are accurately documented.

A launch event for the project took place on Thursday at the newly established Ruach Ha’aretz agricultural farm (“Spirit of the Land”) near the community of Ma’ale Michmas, where several dozen area farmers and shepherds arrived to pick up their body cameras.

According to the council, in recent years it has repeatedly encountered short video clips that begin in the middle of an incident and are circulated in Israel and abroad as examples of “settler violence”—violence allegedly committed by Israelis against Arabs in Judea and Samaria—without showing what preceded the confrontation.

The new program will give the Israelis continuous footage from the beginning of an incident, allowing them to document events as they unfold and share the footage with media outlets and on social media in real time.

The council initiative is being carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism and Generation Zion, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose mission is to educate and mobilize Generation Z Americans, aged 14 to 29, to stand with Israel.

Binyamin Regional Council Chairman and Yesha Council head Yisrael Ganz told JNS at the event that the government ministry backed the initiative so the footage could be used for research to identify potential criminal activity by foreign nationals or to counter anti-Israel claims they might make.

Ganz added that the project is particularly important with the beginning of the olive harvest for Arabs throughout the region. He said that in the past week alone, there were at least 48 incidents of violence carried out by Arabs and anarchists targeting Jewish shepherds in Binyamin.

“The anarchists who arrive from all over the world attack the farmers, capture it on video and then level charges of settler violence. This new initiative will prevent that,” Ganz said.
Call me Back: Ask Me Anything with Dan Senor, Yael Bar tur and ChayaLeah Sufrin
Dan Senor is joined by Yael Bar tur and ChayaLeah Sufrin, hosts of the new Ark Media podcast Chosen People Problems, for a wide-ranging Ask Me Anything. They tackle questions about the state of Jewish education, the appeal of anti-Zionism among young Americans, why Fauda is shaping perceptions of Israel globally, and what the rise of the European right means for Israel and Jews abroad.

In this episode:
What American Hebrew school gets wrong
Why anti-Zionism is resonating with young Americans
Will the language around “genocide” and anti-Zionism eventually change?
Why Fauda succeeds in telling Israeli stories better than non-fiction means
What the rise of the European right-wing means for Israel and European Jews
The unlikely allies Israel may need to turn to
Which American presidential candidates could effectively navigate Israeli issue


NatCon speakers mark Oct. 7 by telling the Jews to stop complaining about antisemitism
Several speakers at the right-wing National Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem said on Wednesday that Jews complain too much about antisemitism — on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which were followed by a sharp increase in hate crimes against Jews around the world.

NatCon, as the conference spearheaded by right-wing Israeli American intellectual Yoram Hazony is known, was held in Israel for the first time this week.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, whose defense of far-right commentator Tucker Carlson sparked a firestorm at his think tank last year, opened the conference on Tuesday with a speech supportive of the U.S.-Israel alliance and avoided controversy, after his organization had previously been roiled by accusations of tolerating antisemitism. He called antisemitism evil and a “malignant sin,” and said that Israel and the U.S. are part of an alliance against “red-green leftism.”

But in a plenary on Wednesday titled “American Right: The Next Generation,” multiple speakers berated Jews for speaking out against antisemitism, accused Israel of drawing the U.S. into wars and mocked evangelical Christians’ beliefs about Israel. They also blamed liberal and neoconservative Jews for mass immigration to the U.S.

Jonathan Keeperman, the owner of a conservative publishing house who recently courted controversy for remarks against Indian Americans, said that most of the American right is “at present suspicious of the value of our country’s geostrategic partnership” with Israel, and “exhausted by efforts to use the Holocaust or Jewish suffering in generally as a moral obligation to support Israel. They are completely unmoved by accusations of antisemitism and any hardline approaches to disavow and shame Israel’s critics.”

Amanda Milius, a conservative documentarian, portrayed those accusing others of antisemitism as being “in a fit of hysteria,” and said that doing so is “at risk of becoming [Black Lives Matter] to the younger American right. They are correctly sick of being called racists.”

Matthew Peterson of the Claremont Institute warned that “denouncing antisemitism in the abstract in America these days is like calling somebody racist; both have little currency in America these days … We have a boy-who-cried-wolf problem in the West.”

The remarks drew widespread criticism from the right. American First Policy Institute Vice Chairman Fred Fleitz wondered on X: “Why did NatCon host this antisemitic weirdo [Keeperman]? … I was invited to speak at this conference. I’m glad I’m not there.”

George Mason Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich, who is a fellow at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom think tank, wrote: “Who on the American right argues a moral obligation to support Israel based on the Holocaust? They argue strategic utility, technological prowess, and common enemies. Then comes this gaslighting.”

Omri Ceren, a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), commented that “as an empirical statement, this claim is straightforwardly false. Americans continue to find antisemitism weird and off-putting. They code it as a foreign mind virus.”


Andrew Gilligan: The British Muslim Trust’s mosque attack claims don’t add up
This week, The Spectator exposed how the British Muslim Trust (BMT), paid millions of pounds by the Government as its official monitor of anti-Muslim hatred, has made multiple claims about attacks on mosques which are not true, and others for which it refuses to provide evidence.

On Thursday, the BMT chose to double down. Probably because of our piece on Tuesday, they finally, six weeks after promising it, published a report purporting to prove their claim that “one mosque [was] attacked every five days” between July 2025 and July 2026. That is indeed the title of the report. But what it actually proves is that the BMT is even shoddier and more dishonest than we feared.

An attack every five days equates to about 73 attacks on mosques over the year, and the BMT duly claims a figure of 78. But the report only lists about 40 or so supposed attacks – including when you count multiple supposed attacks on the same day against the same target. Even of those 40, we can now say that about a third are clearly false. They were either not attacks, or were not directed against mosques, or both.

The BMT’s tally of 78 “attacks” includes, for instance, a series of protests outside the Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre in Glasgow. The BMT describes these as “anti-Muslim targeting” while unfortunately neglecting to mention that many of the demonstrators were themselves Muslim, anti-regime Iranians protesting against the slaughter of protestors by the Tehran government outside a mosque described as Scotland’s unofficial base for the regime. (After Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in American airstrikes this year, the mosque’s imam, Aoun Ali Jarvi, was filmed at his funeral, weeping and paying respects before his coffin.)

The 78 figure also includes a mostly peaceful protest in March 2026 against the building of a new mosque in Dalton, Cumbria, and a leafleting campaign by residents in Harefield, Middlesex, against a huge new Islamic complex, on a site of 6.3 acres, in their rural village. Is the BMT saying that nobody is allowed to object to this sort of project, and that to do so constitutes an attack? Nor is either of these sites yet in operation as a mosque, and worship will only be a small part of the Harefield project.

Three more of the 78 were when “a scholar affiliated with a local mosque was subjected to a sustained campaign of…abuse online,” an imam in High Wycombe “received an abusive letter” and a Facebook post wrongly claimed that an imam in Belfast was linked to Isis. None of these, of course, is an attack on a mosque. The most serious anti-Muslim attack of the period, the stabbings of five people in Edinburgh in June, is included as an attack on a mosque even though no mosque was targeted (the attacker started in Sighthill Park, which is about a quarter of a mile from the nearest mosque, then targeted shops, takeaways and a petrol station.)


Stephen Pollard: Burnham calls out the Greens’ antizionism – but is his hostility to Israel much better?
It’s not quite the same as being a little bit pregnant, but Andy Burnham’s call on Thursday for the Green Party leadership to commit to reversing their ‘Zionism is racism’ vote is as near as dammit the political equivalent.

The prime minister said, quite rightly, that the motion was “a completely wrong decision” that effectively ruled out a two-state solution. “For that reason, it shouldn’t be supported in any way, shape or form. I would call on the leadership of the Green Party to say that it will be reversed and it won’t be Green Party policy.”

That’s certainly a good reason to reject it. I’m also willing to credit Burnham with believing what I think is the main reason, even though he hasn’t actually said it for himself: that the motion commits the Greens to Jew hate as part of its platform. (JC readers really don’t need me to elaborate on why it is deeply antisemitic; we will take that as read.) I have my differences with the prime minister and his government on Israel, but I accept that he considers that Israel has a right to exist, and that Jews who go to synagogue aren’t racist even though we say a prayer for the state of Israel.

But that’s the little bit pregnant bit. Because while Burnham may accept all that in theory, in practise the difference between the government and the Greens is one of degree.

For decades the UK and Israel were close allies. Of course we had our differences, but fundamentally both of us knew not only that we were on the same side, but that our closeness worked to huge mutual advantage. That relationship ground to a juddering halt in July 2024, when the Labour government decided that appeasing the sectarian Muslim vote here was more important than working with one of our closest allies. From the day the government took office, it set about – deliberately, as a matter of policy – alienating Israel, whether it was by restoring funding to Unrwa, the UN aid body which employed some of the October 7 terrorists, by withdrawing the previous government’s objection with Germany to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, and then most notoriously by rewarding Hamas for its massacre through the recognition of a Palestinian state, thus allowing the terrorists to claim they had been able to deliver something negotiations had never managed.

But however bad things were – deliberately so, remember – under Starmer, the appointment of Ed Miliband has taken things to a different level. Burnham appears to have little real interest (at least for now) in foreign affairs, so his foreign secretary is an even more significant appointment than usual.

And Miliband is the man who as Labour leader refused to back action against Assad, condemning thousands of Syrians to murder and who as foreign secretary has happily shaken hands with the foreign minister of Iran – despite that regime plotting a series of murders of British citizens on British soil, as well as even more terrorist outrages. For Miliband, the real enemy is the Israeli government, and so he has introduced a series of sanctions against Israel. Labour’s policy is clear: to do as much diplomatic and economic damage to Israel as possible without taking military action.
Exclusive: Government’s independent adviser on antisemitism calls for EHRC probe into Green Party
The government’s independent adviser on antisemitism has called on Britain’s equalities watchdog to launch a probe into the Green Party, the JC can reveal.

Lord Mann has accused Green Party leader Zack Polanski of “running away” from the party’s widely condemned decision to adopt a motion equating Zionism with racism and claimed he made efforts to meet party officials to avoid the present situation.

It comes after a number of Labour MPs and the Campaign Against Antisemitism referred the party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for potential discrimination against Jews.

Speaking to the JC, Mann accused Polanski of “trying to dance on the head of the pin” having previously made pro-Israel comments which are in the public domain.

Mann said the Green Party leader was “an ardent Zionist as a Lib Dem and when he first joined the Greens”.

Following his by-election defeat in Holborn and St Pancras, Polanski claimed he opposed his party’s “Zionism is racism” motion despite failing to vote for it.

But the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism accused the Green Party leader of being partially responsible for the present predicament.

The party’s official Jewish group today urged Polanski to resign over his silence on the motion.

Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Jewish Greens Chair Vivien Lichtenstein described his inaction ahead of the motion as a “big mistake”.

Mann continued: “The mess that the Greens are in, due in part to his lack of leadership in running away from speaking in their debate on Zionism, is about much more than about some amendments.”

He then said that the substance of the motion passed by Polanski’s party required an official probe.

He said: “The Green Party is denying Jewish members and potential members their right to observe their religion as they choose and to identify as they choose. This is undeniably an issue for the EHRC to investigate and act on, and I call on them to do so immediately.

“In the United Kingdom you are able to identify as Jewish as you choose to and anyone putting restrictions on this is acting outside of the law,” he added.
‘Greens in same league as British Union of Fascists’, says Hastings Jewish community
Hastings Jewish community has written to the Green Party, accusing it of being no better than Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the latest backlash against the party’s decision to declare Zionism a form of racism.

In a furious letter to Green councillors, who control the local council, Hastings and District Jewish Community said the policy placed the party alongside Britain’s most notorious extremist movements.

The intervention follows similar concerns raised by the Jewish community in Highgate, where a local synagogue rejected attempts by the Green council leadership to reassure congregants the party does not pose a threat to Jewish life.

“We are distressed, disbelieving and shocked at the new Green policy that Zionism is apparently racism,” the Hastings letter states.

“This is blatantly antisemitic and puts the Green party in the company of the National Front, the British Union of Fascists, the Imperial Fascist League, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Workers Revolutionary Party, who all have or had the same policy.

“In other words, the Green party can now fairly be called an institutionally antisemitic party with policy in common with fascists.”

The community said it had previously warned Green councillors about hostility and discrimination experienced by Jewish residents in Hastings, but claimed its complaints had repeatedly been ignored.

“We have already written several letters to you detailing exactly how much discrimination and hostility our members have experienced in Hastings. You have ignored this information every single time.”

The organisation said it had referred councillors to the Standards Committee and that its complaints were now being investigated by the Local Authority Ombudsman.

It also accused the local Green Party of supporting aggressive Palestine Solidarity Campaign activities, alleging that its association with campaigners involved fundraising that could ultimately benefit Hamas. The allegation has not been independently verified.

The letter demands urgent clarification about the implications of the party’s policy for Jewish residents, particularly those who identify as Zionists or support Israel.

“As proud supporters of Israel, should our members now expect to be formally discriminated against from their Green cllrs?” it asks.

“Do we actually have fair representation from our ward cllrs or will they always be biased against us? Should we expect more divisive policies from this administration?”
Scottish Green MSP facing demands to quit after endorsing antisemitic post
An MSP is being urged to resign after endorsing a vile antisemitic post on social media.

An investigation by the Mail on Sunday has found that Ariane Burgess, the Scottish Greens MSP for the Highlands, liked an image depicting the Israeli flag with a swastika on it, covered in blood.

The image was posted on Instagram and Facebook by former SNP and Green MSP John Finnie, who has also made posts describing Israeli soldiers as ‘Nazis in action’, said ‘blood-thirsty Zionists’ and shared a cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier in a Nazi military uniform.

Calls are now being made for Ms Burgess’s resignation, with opposition parties and Jewish leaders condemning the content and her support of it.

The board of the Jewish Council of Scotland said the material was ‘groteque and antisemitic’ and have called for the Scottish Greens to take immediate action against Ms Burgess.

A spokesman said: ‘Depicting the Israeli flag with a blood-covered swastika is grotesque and antisemitic. It exploits the murder of six million Jews to demonise the Jewish state.

‘A serving MSP endorsing such imagery owes Scotland’s Jewish community an explanation and an unequivocal apology. Comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis is repugnant, dehumanising language. Politicians have every right to criticise the Israeli government and its military actions.

‘That does not excuse Holocaust inversion or stripping people of their humanity. Coming alongside the Greens’ decision to treat Zionism as racism, this raises serious questions about whether Jewish concerns are being heard at all within the party.

‘Scotland’s Jews should not have to keep explaining why the Holocaust must not be weaponised against them.

‘The Scottish Greens’ leadership must publicly condemn this material, investigate its endorsement by Ariane Burgess and make clear what action will follow.’

Tory MSP Rachael Hamilton said: ‘Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay should grow a backbone and suspend Ariane Burgess from the Scottish Greens.’


Pre-written slogans, ready-made banners — FOX probe exposes who’s behind anti-Israel protests
As demonstrators, including the headline-grabbing CodePink agitators, descend on the nation’s capital late Saturday afternoon for a “coordinated global day of action” against Israel, they will join a worldwide wave of marches and planned disruptions that may appear to be unfolding independently.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Friday, anti-Israel demonstrators carried signs deploying emotionally charged language against Israel, including one featuring a Palestinian flag and a bloodied hand with the message, “STOP GENOCIDE.” Nearby, two women carrying mock machine guns flanked a cardboard image of a handcuffed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a noose around his neck.

But a Fox News Digital investigation has found that, long before the first demonstrators gathered, the messages for the protest’s “communications framing” and transnational action plan had already been written, the banners designed, the tactics circulated and the media strategy laid out to “turn public outrage into collective leverage.”

The campaign documents reveal that coalition organizers instructed participating groups to direct protesters to “shut down city squares,” “encircle government buildings” and “blockade complicit corporate hubs.”

The document declares, “This is not a symbolic march and not a routine protest.”

Fox News Digital identified 179 organizations in the coalition, while an interactive Google Map published by the network lists 322 events scheduled across three days through Sunday. They include a rally on an “Intifada Trail” in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, a protest in Bangladesh by the “Bangladesh Intifada Youth Collection” and actions in South Africa by “Social Intifada.” All three use “intifada,” a term associated with Palestinian uprisings against Israel, including periods marked by deadly terrorist attacks. Activists describe the term as a call for resistance.

The global coordination illustrates how contemporary protest movements combine international leadership, local activist networks, standardized visual branding, emotionally charged messaging and traditional news outreach into a single mobilization infrastructure in which professional political organizing amplifies the sincerely held convictions of individual demonstrators.

Among the participating organizations is CodePink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has received $1.33 million from Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based tech tycoon who has funneled $278 million into a network of nonprofits under scrutiny by the House Ways and Means Committee and its chairman, Rep. Jason Smith, over allegations that some operate as “Trojan horses” and proxies for the Chinese Communist Party and other malign foreign interests. CodePink and other organizations under scrutiny have denied wrongdoing.

Two days ago, CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and D.C. coordinator Olivia DiNucci dispatched a letter to members, directing them to join the “Feminist Contingent” at the Library of Congress for the “global day of action.”

“And don’t forget to WEAR PINK!” they noted.

The network’s connections were also visible last week, when CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans, who married Singham in 2017, joined an anti-Israel protest in New York City, marching behind a band of activists from Revolutionary Communists of America as they chanted, “Long live the intifada.”

Evans told Fox News Digital Singham supports CodePink’s efforts and the “amazing work” nonprofits are doing to “stand up when violent things are happening.”

Taken together, the documents reveal a coordinated protest and influence campaign spanning continents, combining accusations of Israeli “genocide,” attacks on the news media, workplace and university walkouts, blockades, political lobbying and carefully orchestrated publicity.


Several arrested as thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in London
Several thousand pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters marched through central London on Saturday, calling for an end to Israeli strikes on Gaza three years after Hamas’s October 7 invasion and massacre in southern Israel.

Marchers carried placards reading “End the genocide” and “Free Palestine” as they made their way along the route near the British Parliament.

The “National March for Palestine,” organized by the Palestine Coalition, came three days after the third anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, in which 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and 251 abducted, which sparked the war in Gaza.

The war ended with a ceasefire a year ago, but Israel has continued regularly targeting Hamas operatives in strikes whom it says are planning attacks or attempting to rebuild the terror group’s capabilities. The strikes have killed 1,450 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

Ahead of the march, London’s Metropolitan Police said it would be using powers under public order legislation to require anyone wearing a face covering to deliberately hide their identity to remove it.

“We will take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime and other offending,” said senior Met officer Carl Galvin.

Police said they made “several arrests” at the march, including a man and a woman with placards of support for the banned organization Palestine Action.

“We are here today to mark three years of the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Aimee Shalan, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told AFP. Israel rejects allegations of genocide, says it makes efforts to avoid harming noncombatants and accuses Hamas of fighting from among civilians.


5 UK health workers spread hate against Jews and Israel, cheered on Oct. 7 — report
Amid mounting reports of widespread antisemitism within the UK’s National Health Service, the British Daily Mail reported on Saturday that five NHS workers, including three doctors, made inflammatory statements against Jews and Israel.

The report follows up on a documentary released last month by the Campaign Against Antisemitism organization, which alleged that the NHS has been plagued by severe antisemitism in recent years, leaving a majority of British Jews concerned that they would not receive equal treatment because of their religious identity.

According to the Daily Mail, in December 2025 one NHS employee, Zaida Akhtar, shared a video that said the terrorist shooting that killed 15 people and wounded dozens at an Australian Jewish community Hanukkah party on Sydney’s Bondi Beach was a “false flag.”

Akhtar works as an occupational therapist at University Hospitals Birmingham, the paper said.

Other inflammatory comments came from Abdelaal Ragheb Elfarra, a Gazan-born GP at St. James’s University Hospital in Leeds, the newspaper reported. Those reportedly included a statement in December 2024 that “Israelis are much worse than Nazis” and a post he shared in July 2024 that said the Rothschild banking family was the “most wealthiest and influential family, believed to control all the world’s money” — a historic antisemitic trope employed by the Nazis, among others.

Another doctor, Manchester-based psychiatrist Ahmed Sewehli, reportedly called at least twice on social media for the death of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and wrote in 2025 that “Zionism is the ideology of terror, mass murder, displacement and depravity” and that the Islamic State terror group was “learning new acts of depravity” from the Israeli military.

The third doctor, British-Jordanian citizen Nadeem Crowe, was suspended in August 2024 from his position as an emergency room doctor with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust after a colleague complained about his online activity, which included a call for police to investigate UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, whom Crowe described as “an absolute risk to Arabs and Muslims,” the paper added.

Another NHS employee, registered midwife Fatimah Mohamied, reportedly responded “Hell yeah!!!” to a post during the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, that said: “Palestinians have a right to resist their occupation — we have a right to support them.”

She was appointed “cultural safety champion” at London’s West Middlesex Hospital, the Daily Mail said, adding that she resigned in March 2024 and was referred by the NHS to law enforcement after accusations of antisemitism.

The referrals were dismissed, the paper said, and Mohamied has since filed claims against her former employer, which are still under adjudication.


Celebrity chef who signed BDS pledge shares stage with Israeli chefs in San Francisco
When celebrity chef and Bay Area food ambassador Samin Nosrat appeared this week at San Francisco’s JCC alongside two Israeli chefs, it was nearly three years since she pledged not to buy or promote Israeli food.

The Chez Panisse alum and author of 2017’s smash hit “Salt Fat Acid Heat” joined Israeli chefs Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer, the couple behind a beloved London restaurant, to discuss their latest cookbook, “Honey & Co. Daily: Easy Food for Your Everyday Pleasure.”

In promoting the event, Nosrat urged people to join her in the JCCSF’s sukkah to enjoy bites from Loquat, a Jewish bakery in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco that she calls her favorite. The celebration of Jewish and Israeli food culture came two days shy of the third anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Nosrat was among those who signed the Hospitality for Humanity pledge in 2023, which, in accordance with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, committed signers to “not purchasing, using, or promoting Israeli agricultural or food products … so long as Israel continues its system of apartheid, occupation, settler colonialism, and genocide.” Israel rejects the genocide charge.

The boycott drew signatures from more than 1,100 people across the industry. When the New York Times covered the saga in November 2023, it listed Nosrat as one of its most prominent supporters.

The pledge targets Israeli products, not Israeli people, and Srulovich and Packer are longtime friends of Nosrat’s.

Nosrat did not return several requests for comment, nor has she publicly disavowed the boycott, which has scrambled Israeli and Jewish food businesses’ relationship with other Middle Eastern cuisines. New York magazine depicted this tension in August in its Habibi City series, which proposed that Israel’s war in Gaza had ushered in a golden era for Southwest Asian and North African restaurants, at the peril of cuisines considered Jewish or Israeli. Husband-and-wife couple Itamar Srulovich (center) and Sarit Packer (right) demonstrate a cooking technique at London’s Gefiltefest on June 28, 2015. (courtesy)

Bay Area restaurants have felt the pressure, too. Guy Eshel, the Israeli owner of Sababa — a popular pita eatery in San Francisco’s Financial District — told J. that he recently sold his shop, citing the dual pressures of a struggling downtown and anti-Israel sentiment. Mica Talmor, an Israeli chef who ran Oakland’s Pomella until last year, said that stress related to October 7 and its aftermath contributed to the restaurant’s closure.

In the years since signing the boycott pledge, Nosrat, a first-generation Iranian American raised by a Muslim mother and Baha’i father, revealed a family secret: Her paternal ancestors were Jewish.

She found out by accident. Nosrat had gone looking for her estranged father’s will as he lay on his deathbed. The search returned a hidden YouTube channel with hours of her father “ranting.”

In those recordings, “he revealed we had Jewish ancestry, which had always been kept from us,” she told podcast host Sam Fragoso last year while promoting her new book, “Good Things.” “I was like, this is so cool, this is amazing. Like, there’s just things where I’m like, wow, I wish I had known this about myself.”
Jewish educators told to denounce Israel before attending Italy conference — report
A group of some 100 Jewish early childhood educators from the US and Israel decided to cancel their planned study trip to Italy after they were told to sign a statement condemning Israel and its actions in Gaza and the West Bank, Jewish Insider has reported.

According to the report, the group of teachers was set this month to visit Reggio Emilia, a city in the northern Emilia-Romagna region, where they were planning to study the Reggio Emilia Approach for early education, a method that the outlet described as being “long embraced” by Jewish preschools.

But before the trip, the teachers were told that they had to sign a statement saying: “I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children’s and human beings’ rights in the occupied territories as well as in every place [sic] in the world.”

According to the report, the statement was the result of a protest by some parents associated with the local organization that was set to host the Jewish educators, who objected to their participation over alleged support for Israel and the Israel Defense Forces.

Choosing not to sign the statements, the participants decided to cancel the trip, Jewish Insider said.

The outlet also said Reggio Children, the host organization, had been drafting a statement calling for “militarization out of schools,” before the participants decided not to come. People stage a protest after Israel detained activists from a Gaza-bound anti-Israel flotilla, in Rome, Italy, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

“Our identities were made public, and our personal and institutional social media profiles were reviewed and characterized as demonstrating our support for Israel and the IDF,” Manhattan Day School head Pesha Kletenik, one of the intended attendees, said in a statement to her community.

Melissa Davis, of Washington DC’s Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School, said that the canceled trip was “a loss for our community in the near term — our teachers, and in turn, their students will not be enriched by this experience,” and attributed the situation to “the ripple effects of global antisemitism.”


Abbas postpones Palestinian elections, sets presidential poll for September 2027
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday canceled legislative elections scheduled for November, blaming worsening conditions within the Palestinian territories, and set a date of September 11, 2027, for both presidential and legislative elections, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Abbas’s decree cited “obstacles posed by Israeli measures” to holding elections in November and the need to establish suitable political, security and on-the-ground conditions for “free, fair and inclusive elections.” It called on Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza to participate in the polls.

There had been serious doubts that the Palestinian Authority vote would go ahead in late November. The Palestinians have not held legislative or presidential elections since 2005-06, after which Abbas’s rivals in the terrorist group ​Hamas seized control of Gaza, ousting his loyalists.

The decree said Israeli military attacks, settlement expansion, settler violence and movement restrictions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, along with Israel’s continued withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, created challenges to preparing for and holding elections on the previous date.

In Gaza, the decree pointed to “exceptional security and humanitarian conditions,” the incomplete withdrawal of Israeli forces, the lack of progress in reconstruction and the failure to implement arrangements for deploying international stabilization forces and police.

Israeli restrictions on access for election commission staff and international observers to Gaza and East Jerusalem also complicated preparations, the decree said.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar countered Saturday evening that Israel was not responsible for the delay, launching a social media attack on Abbas.


France jails head of sadist Nazi group that tortured girls, many of them Black or Jewish
A Paris court on Friday jailed a young Indian man to 20 years jail for leading a masculinist group that forced young girls, many of them minors, to perform sexual acts and in some cases tortured them.

Prosecutors had sought a 30-year jail term for Rohan Rane, a 29-year-old who they described as a Nazi lover of sadism and macabre ultra-violence.

Most of the dozens of victims of the group led by Rane were American girls, the court was told. Many were aged under 15.

Other young male members of the masculinist group were from the United States, India, Germany and New Zealand.

Six of the girls, now aged between 18 and 21, made official complaints. About 20 victims were identified but others could not be contacted, prosecutors said.

After five days of hearings, mainly behind closed doors, the court found Rane guilty of offenses, notably extortion committed as part of an organized gang, with the aggravating circumstances of acts of torture and barbarity perpetrated on the victims.

Prosecutors said all of the girls were lured by the “CVLT” group that was driven by nihilism, racism, antisemitism, Nazi aesthetics and values, and the hatred of feminists and the LGBTQ+ community.

The group became active ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Discord platform with Rane as its leader.

The Indian went to France to study at a commercial school in the southern town of Antibes before becoming a sports coach.

Vulnerable victims were picked out in online forums and persuaded to send nude images. The men threatened to tell their families and school friends if they did not give in to their demands.

According to investigators, many of the girls were Black or Jewish and they were forced to engage in sexual acts or to self-harm with knives, including scoring the names of their tormentors or a Nazi swastika into their skin.

The scenes were accompanied by insults and jeers from the men, who called themselves “war lords.” One 26-year-old American group member has been jailed in the United States for the 2021 rape of a 12-year-old.
Israelis unable to compete in FIDE amateur chess tournament taking place in Malaysia
The World Amateur Chess Championship, organized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), is scheduled to take place from November 4 to 13 in Klang, in Malaysia's Selangor state, a country that prohibits Israeli citizens from entering its territory.

FIDE's official announcement states that "all FIDE member federations and all eligible players are invited to participate." However, Malaysia's entry restrictions effectively prevent Israelis from competing in the tournament.

Lior Eisenberg, who has campaigned against boycotts of Israel in sports and culture in recent years, told Walla: "I contacted the tournament organizer with an innocent question about participating, and immediately received a message saying he was sorry, but Israelis would not be able to play because of Malaysia's immigration policy. Right afterward, he deleted the message and added another saying they would get back to me. A place that does not accept Israelis or players from any other country should not be allowed to host a world championship."

The situation in Malaysia is not the only case raising questions about Israeli participation in international chess competitions.

In the Netherlands, controversy recently erupted over Israeli grandmaster Alexander (Aharon) Bagrationi, who was born in Ukraine, represents Israel, and lives in Germany. Bagrationi has previously played for several clubs, including Elitzur Elkana and Elitzur Samaria.

Organizers of the Amsterdam Chess Open contacted the Dutch organization The Rights Forum following allegations concerning Bagrationi's ties to clubs in Judea and Samaria. The organization recommended that he not be allowed to participate in the tournament.

Following the controversy, tournament organizers announced that, beginning in January 2027 and subject to legal review, they intend to bar players representing clubs located in territories that an international court has determined to be under illegal occupation.

Bagrationi rejected attempts to attach political significance to his membership in the clubs, saying they are recognized by both the Israeli chess system and FIDE. He argued that any objections to their recognition should be directed at the international federation.
Boy George says he’s received threats, been harassed over upcoming shows in Israel
British singer Boy George told Channel 12 in an interview that aired Saturday that he has faced threats, professional isolation, and accusations of fascism over his support for Israel.

However, he insisted he will perform in the country as scheduled next month despite the backlash.

“I’ve had threats, and I’ve had people defacing my pictures and concert posters,” George said in the television interview. “For me personally, none of those people [attacking me] look like peace.”

The British musician, who is not Jewish, described long-time peers who abandoned him for his support of Israel.

“Some of these people do not care about anything,” he said. “Their political views are [fashion brand] Dolce & Gabbana. Suddenly, to have a position on something that I know you don’t care about, it makes me so angry.”

He insisted that his support for Israel does not mean he is indifferent toward Palestinians, emphasizing that it is instead about Jewish people who, like everyone else, want to feel safe.

“I never, ever said I didn’t care about Palestine,” he said. “I just know Jewish people and I know they’re good people, and I know they want to live.”

The pro-Israel singer also spoke to Channel 12 about his pro-Israel song, “We Will Dance Again,” which he has said he was inspired to write after visiting an exhibition in London about the Nova music festival, where hundreds of people were murdered and dozens kidnapped during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack. The name of the song is a phrase adopted by survivors of the massacre at the rave.

“I saw it on TV, and I remember being absolutely physically traumatized by what I was seeing,” Boy George said of the Hamas massacre. “Just so shocked. And to see people with children, and women, saying that it didn’t happen is mind-blowing to me.”

“When I wrote We Will Dance Again, I felt like the world had really broken my heart again,” he said, recalling the difficult experience of turning his emotions over the massacre into music, and calling the resulting song “an emotional statement rather than a political one.”

“It just happened. I was just sitting in my flat on Friday night writing away, writing lyrics, and then I played it back…and I got quite tearful.” British pop singer Boy George speaks at the Sholom Temple in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, September 9, 2026. (

Turning to his upcoming shows in Israel next month, Boy George admitted that he has been having difficulties finding musicians willing to join him.
Why Dolly Parton sang a song about Daniel Pearl
A Broadway show, a star-studded television tribute, a new hotel and museum in Nashville. As odes to Dolly Parton keep coming, a recording of the late country music singer honoring an American Jewish journalist has recently surfaced.

Never before released in America, the song, “A Bridge Across,” sung by Parton and accompanied by the Nashville Symphony, honors slain journalist Daniel Pearl.

The song features spare lyrics set to violin music composed in honor of Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was brutally murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.

Originally recorded in 2008 by Parton, renowned fiddler Mark O’Connor, and the Nashville Symphony, the song was intended to be part of a compilation album called This is My America, produced and funded, oddly enough, in Canada but never released in the U.S.

It was O’Connor and his wife Maggie who resurrected the recording this fall, shortly after the deaths of Parton and another musician that connected the four artists: Oregon violinmaker Jonathan Cooper, who died in September.

Deeply troubled by the journalist’s murder in 2002, Cooper learned Pearl was an amateur fiddler and set out to create a quartet of string instruments – two violins, a viola and a cello – in the journalist’s honor. He entrusted the instruments to O’Connor to use during his annual summer music camp in North Carolina. Every year since, four students from the camp have received one of the Daniel Pearl memorial instruments to play for a year.

“These young people carry the message that love fights hatred through music-making and understanding that Daniel Pearl’s family want him remembered for,” O’Connor told The New York Times. Likewise, Cooper’s loving gesture inspired Parton, O’Connor said.

Canadian violinist Samantha Robichaud received one of the violins in 2005 and has gone on to become a successful recording artist with more than a half dozen albums. She has toured North America as an ambassador for the Daniel Pearl Foundation, sharing Pearl’s story, including his passion for music and its power to change lives. Enter songwriters Tom McBryde and Lynn Wilbanks, whose introduction to Robichaud inspired verse.

On the album, the Nashville Symphony played one of Robichaud’s compositions while Parton introduced Pearl to listeners.




‘Great valor': Herzog sends letter to wounded flydubai captain who helped avert disaster
Israeli President Isaac Herzog sent a letter to Capt. Smit Machchhar expressing “deep gratitude” for his role in averting a catastrophe after he was severely wounded in a terrorist attack aboard a flydubai flight on Sept. 30, the President’s Office in Jerusalem said on Saturday night.

“Your ability to find the strength to rise above the pain, to combat the immediate threat to your life, and to operate sound judgment demonstrates the strength of your character and the great valor you possess,” Herzog wrote.

Machchhar received the letter while recovering in the hospital.

Capt. Machchhar was piloting flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv when his co-pilot attacked him with an ax and attempted to crash the Boeing 737 MAX 8. The aircraft was carrying 182 people, including 174 passengers, most of them Israeli.

Despite suffering severe injuries, Machchhar managed to open the locked cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew members to enter and overpower his attacker. Passengers then brought the plane under control, and two off-duty pilots traveling aboard the aircraft landed it safely at Tabuk Airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

On Oct. 2, Machchhar recounted the dramatic moments during a video call from his hospital bed in the United Arab Emirates with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I had so many injuries, but I told myself that I had to get up and act,” he said. “At that moment, I pushed myself to open the cockpit door. I fought for my life. I understood that if I did not show courage, 170 passengers would lose their lives.”

In his letter, Herzog highlighted the historic ties between India and Israel, recalling the Indian troops who fought in the Holy Land more than a century ago.

“Your heroics place you in the distinguished ranks of Indian troops, who risked their lives over 100 years ago to liberate cities in the Holy Land, forever becoming a part of Israel’s history,” the president wrote. “You too, Captain Machchhar, will henceforth be a treasured part of our people’s history, further amplifying the warmth and connection between the Republic of India and the State of Israel.”

Herzog continued, “As you slowly begin your journey toward healing, I know that you are in the very best hands of our dear friends and partners in the United Arab Emirates. We all share heartfelt prayers for your full and speedy recovery, and I look forward, once you have regained strength, to welcoming you to Jerusalem and expressing the appreciation and the love of our grateful nation.”

During a ceremony on Oct. 8 honoring six Israeli passengers for their heroism aboard the flight, Herzog announced that he would present Machchhar with the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism.





 


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