Friday, October 16, 2026

10/15 Links Pt2: Obama’s Grudge; It’s Time to Wake from Woke; The Democrats have abandoned Israel, not just Netanyahu; Sally Rooney’s Self-Boycott Stunt

From Ian:

Gil Troy: It’s Time to Wake from Woke
Painfully divided and ideologically adrift, American Jewry has become a case study of weakness at a time when the Jewish people need to display strength and determination. Instead, the news is filled with items like these:
In Michigan, an anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist Democratic senatorial candidate who cavorts with someone who blames America for being attacked on 9/11 has received messages from a Jewish organization proclaiming, “Mazal Tov Abdul El-Sayed.”
In New York, whose new mayor can’t stop demonizing Israel, more than 230 rabbis declared that Zohran Mamdani’s “support for Palestinian self-determination stems not from hate, but from his deep moral convictions.”
The pressure group J Street has released millions of its donors’ dollars to go “on offense against AIPAC-backed incumbents”—effectively setting themselves against politicians who are supportive of the Jewish state.

Indeed, as more and more American Jews have internalized the mass mania demonizing Benjamin Netanyahu, they have also seemed to sour on Zionism, implicitly joining those who place the onus on Israel for the burgeoning anti-Semitism worldwide.

What kinds of people keep siding with their sworn enemies? I believe the answer is that these people are so emotionally and politically invested in dated, outmoded, and discredited ideas and fantasies that they would rather believe the best of the enemies of the Jewish people and the worst of their fellow Jews.

Three years after October 7, Israelis continue to wonder how it was that their leaders so easily deluded themselves with the conceptzia—the term used to describe the consensus view that Israel had found an effective modus vivendi with Hamas that occasionally required the Jewish state to “mow the lawn” when the terrorist-gang government got too obstreperous but did not require an all-out war to defeat and extirpate Israel’s enemy.

With justification, many have accused Netanyahu and his government of refusing to revisit the conceptzia and explain what went wrong. But no one doubts that Netanyahu has moved on from the conceptzia itself. That cannot readily be said of many American Jewish organizations and prominent American Jewish individuals, who find it impossible to move on from their pre–October 7 hopes, dreams, and delusions. They remain frozen in their own versions of the conceptzia, mired in a set of dated and sentimental notions about coexistence, the pursuit of peace, and being liked, when the nation’s enemies have made it clear that they’re not interested in any of those lovely illusions.

I am not speaking of those who have joined the enemy camp, building careers and delighting the haters as anti-Zionist Jews, declaring that at least Nazi Germany had the decency to seek to hide its genocide; rather, I am referring to mainstream liberal Jews, whose constant invocations of phrases such as “two-state solution” and “doing the work” indicate the degree to which their opinions have calcified. Even as they recognize the threat from growing Jew-hatred, they cannot surrender their priors, among them the certitude that the people with whom they agree on matters as various as abortion and climate change remain their allies rather than participants in a bloodless backstab that has been going on since October 8.

It has indeed been a disillusioning period, since many of the institutions American Jews both shaped and venerated over the past century have been the choreographers of today’s anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist mania—from the universities to the media to the publishing houses to the art world to Hollywood and the Democratic Party. And yet they persist, as do the delusional Jews who refuse to see the truth about those whose love they have long sought and whose approval they apparently continue to need.
Jonathan Tobin: The Democrats have abandoned Israel, not just Netanyahu
The idea that an Israeli prime minister not named Netanyahu could fix relations with a Democratic Party that treats antisemites like El-Sayed as worthy of support is just wishful thinking on the part of people like Shapiro.

That’s because this issue is not just a matter of the positions taken by radicals like El-Sayed and Mamdani or far-left “Squad” members in the U.S. House of Representatives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is also considering a 2028 presidential run.

Democrats like Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who are perceived as moderates, are also signaling that the alliance with Israel will undergo a “thorough re-examination” in the coming years. Coons, who is in line to become chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee if the Democrats regain control of the Senate in November, is already planning on proposing discriminatory sanctions on Israelis similar to those already put forward by British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband.

None of this is because, as Foer claims, Netanyahu cultivated ties with Republicans while neglecting to do the same with Democrats. To the contrary, it was the Democrats who have aligned themselves against Israel’s interests and—under the influence of a base that has swallowed the toxic ideas of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism—view the Jewish state and Jews in general as “white” oppressors who must be suppressed. The claim that Netanyahu should have rejected the support of conservative Republicans (who were not under the spell of these ideologies) to placate Democrats is not a serious argument.

Shapiro may hope this will all fade away if Netanyahu is defeated on Oct. 27. But his problem is not just the possibility that Israeli voters will reject his advice. It’s that the same Democratic primary voters who elevated people like El-Sayed, Mamdani and a host of other “progressive” candidates in the last year view those who express “love” for Israel, even if it is qualified with Netanyahu-bashing, as simply beyond the pale.

In the recent past, Shapiro’s combination of political liberalism, largely successful governance and record of electoral success would have put him among the frontrunners in a presidential race. But over the course of the last year, even the most enthusiastic supporter cannot have missed the shift in the opinions of Democrats.

To them, a figure like Gadi Eisenkot, the former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff who is Netanyahu’s principal opponent, is just as much of a “war criminal” deserving of sanctions as the prime minister. No conceivable concessions that Eisenkot could make to the Palestinians will be enough to win back Democratic voters indoctrinated in left-wing ideologies or the officeholders they want to send to Washington to blow up the alliance with the Jewish state.

A liberal failure
The remnants of a once-dominant pro-Israel faction of Democrats prefer to blame Netanyahu. But the responsibility is theirs. It was Democrats like Schumer and Shapiro who abetted the rise of Obama and who looked the other way as he set in motion the train of events that created so much “daylight” between their party and Israel. They were the ones who refused to anathematize members of the “Squad,” like Reps. Ilan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and AOC when they helped legitimize antisemitism and Israel-bashing. And they are now the ones who, in the hope of appeasing their left-wing critics, are bolstering the candidacies of Jew-haters like El-Sayed.

Democrats who are blasting criticism of El-Sayed’s radicalism and Islamist opposition to Israel’s existence as “Islamophobia” while ignoring or downplaying his bigotry aren’t open to rethinking their opposition to Israel. Nor are they likely to embrace a Democratic presidential candidate who is emotionally committed to the U.S.-Israel alliance but just wants a different prime minister in Jerusalem.

Simply put, Shapiro’s pro-Israel/anti-Netanyahu stand is not likely to satisfy a party base that now regards hostility to the Jewish state, along with opposition to enforcement of immigration laws, as the organizing principle of politics in the second quarter of the 21st century. And it’s likely that neither he nor any other Democrat is going to be able to get past that problem with the sort of nuanced position articulated at his debate. The collapse of the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party is a liberal failure of nerve and principle that won’t be undone, regardless of who wins the next election in Israel.
Brendan O'Neill: Ireland has been conquered by Israel Derangement Syndrome
If the reports are accurate, then this could not be more serious. To kick people out of your hotel for the sin of ‘combating anti-Semitism’ is a flagrant prejudice. To see the words ‘combating anti-Semitism’ and think to yourself ‘Is this an IDF thing?’ is wild. It is proof of the Israel Derangement Syndrome that has Ireland in its unsparing grip. Increasingly in Irish polite society, Jews and the Jewish State and Gaza and ‘genocide’ are all thrown together in a big pot of suspicion and hysteria.

Remember when it was racists who risked being cancelled from public venues? Now it’s anti-racists – if the racism they’re discussing is the one targeted at Jews, that is. In a development that will shock precisely no one, some Israelophobes are cheering for the hotel. One Palestinian journalist offered his ‘full solidarity’ with the hotel’s refusal to host ‘delegates attending a conference about “fighting anti-Semitism”’. ‘Noble, noble people’, he said. Once again, the keffiyeh slips, revealing the ancient animus that lurks behind so much ‘Palestine activism’.

The delegates found somewhere else to stay. The Jew-haters of Europe and beyond who were rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of an anti-Semitism conference collapsing will have to suck that up. And yet serious questions remain. Is it now hazardous to discuss anti-Semitism in Ireland? Is Ireland now hostile territory for people who want to end Jew hate? Will the government speak up loudly and clearly against the hotel cancellation? We will see.

Dublin’s chattering classes should fret less about the IDF and focus more on IDS – the Israel Derangement Syndrome that has colonised Ireland as surely as the Brits once did. Israelophobia courses through the nation’s veins. The Irish parliament froths with invective about the ‘repulsive’, ‘obscene’, ‘disgusting’ Jewish State. The Irish government demanded a watering down of the meaning of genocide in order that the Jewish nation might finally be found guilty of it. The entire Irish establishment puffs itself up with nauseating fake virtue against the world’s only Jewish nation. Irish music acts scream ‘Up Hamas!’ while virtually the entirety of Dublin’s posh college intake consists of keffiyeh cultists who dream of Israel’s erasure. Little wonder Israel shut its embassy in Dublin, citing Ireland’s surrender to ‘anti-Israel’ mania.

‘Virtuous’ Ireland now defines itself almost wholly by its opposition to the Jewish State. It is the most tragic, envious, bitter and bigoted style of politics imaginable, and it flings open the door to outright anti-Jewish prejudice. ‘Are you linked to the IDF?’ Imagine asking that of people fighting anti-Semitism. What are we doing here, Ireland?


Seth Mandel: Obama’s Grudge
Fresh from cutting an ad in support of the obsessively anti-Zionist Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Barack Obama reminded a Belfast audience that the former president shares El-Sayed’s fixation with Israel.

Temperamentally, Obama and El-Sayed are as different as night and day. Obama is preternaturally calm, while El-Sayed is short-tempered and jumpy. But Obama has carried a chip on his shoulder about Israel since he left office, and, like El-Sayed, it’s the one thing he apparently can’t let go of.

So there Obama was on stage last night in Belfast in front of 7,000 fans, performing the hits:

“The citizenry of Israel has to rethink, to reimagine, how are your children and grandchildren going to live in this region? Are you just going to be behind walls and wipe out everybody around you, or are you going to find some just way of defending yourself while still acting in an ethical, moral way?”

Of course he gestured weakly at the Palestinians’ need to drop their militarism, but his focus was on how the Jews went breaking bad, according to extended quotes from his remarks in the Belfast Telegraph:
“The fact is that the Jewish people, for millennia, were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. Europe was responsible for much of it. They understandably sought a refuge.

“That is undeniable. What is also undeniable is that they took land off people and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.’”

By the end of the 19th century, the holy cities of Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Safed had Jewish majorities. Long before the Balfour Declaration was a gleam in anybody’s eye, Tel Aviv would join them. Then there were all the Jewish communities that didn’t constitute a majority, but they didn’t live on land that was somebody else’s. As Jewish immigration increased, Jews legally purchased land, often from absentee landlords. Rather than displacing people, they drained malarial swamps so they could live on land they purchased. Whose land, Mr. President?

Of course, none of this is new, nor would Obama listen to a history lesson that he so desperately needs. So what’s the point?


Dara Horn: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living
The conversation was recorded on September 8th, 2026, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.


Jewish Authors Are Being Pushed Out And Meg Keene Is Fighting Back!
Meg Keene, the editor behind the new Jewish fiction imprint Meg Keene Books, joins us on Being Jewish with Jonah Platt to break down how the publishing industry has been shutting out Jewish authors since October 7th.

This is the first stop in a season of episodes inside industries getting hammered by anti-Jewish hostility, and it starts with the written word. Meg is a lifelong liberal who says her politics now are simply the Jewish people, and she lays out what she says is happening behind closed doors: agents telling Jewish writers it’s “not the time for a Jewish story,” influencer teams pressuring publishers over the authors they sign, and a color-coded spreadsheet that sorted authors by their stance on Israel.

Then she tells her own story. Her novel drew four offers of representation within six weeks, until an agent who loved it explained that the only way to sell it was to strip out the Jewish details that weren’t driving the plot, down to a character’s name. Meg’s answer was to launch her own imprint. She explains why she believes the Jewish community has a funding problem it keeps refusing to look at, what’s behind the wave of new Jewish presses, and the one thing every listener can do this week to push back.

00:00 - Meg Keene on the Hostility Toward Jews in Publishing
01:55 - Why Agents Say It’s “Not the Time for a Jewish Story”
03:51 - The Spreadsheet Asking “Is Your Favorite Author a Zionist?”
06:50 - The PEN America Report & the Agent Who Told Her to Cut the Jewish Details
11:35 - How the Meg Keene Books Imprint Came Together
13:48 - The 1% Problem & Her Plan for Jewish Fiction in Every Genre
17:00 - Jewish Horror, New Jewish Presses & Whether Suing Is the Answer
21:02 - How to Fight Back: Buy Jewish Books, See Jewish Movies


Seth Mandel: Sally Rooney’s Self-Boycott Stunt
This didn’t satisfy Rooney either. She wanted to be able to claim she was being censored, and Britain absolutely refused to indulge her.

So she figuratively tied herself to the railroad tracks. Rooney and her publisher pulled the books from UK shelves.

Why does the tantrum of a mopey Marxist mediocrity matter to the big picture?

The answer is twofold. First, Rooney, a devotee of the anti-Jewish boycott movement, has gone out of her way to express unambiguous anti-Semitism rather than try to hide behind “criticism of Israel.”

A few years ago, she refused to let her bestselling novel be translated into Hebrew, lest any Hebrews anywhere try to read her novelistic cry for help.

In March, Rooney gave a speech in which she portrayed the defeat of the Jewish state as of world-historical significance: “By standing in solidarity with Palestine, we are learning how to fight for life on earth.”

She went on: “What else can make our lives endurable in times as dark as these? What else, in the face of such horror, can give us a reason to go on, to fend off despair, to live with ourselves.”

Now, this is genuinely insane stuff—believing that destroying Israel is the only thing worth living for. But Rooney is famous and popular, and the normalizing, let alone valorizing, of end-times anti-Semitism is dangerous, as is her attempt to normalize funding terrorist organizations.

Second, Rooney’s con job is an extension of the pro-Palestinian war on free speech. It is, in fact, an escalation.

Since October 7, a key anti-Zionist tactic has been to blur the lines between speech and violence in an attempt to coopt defenders of free expression into a campaign centered on physical violence and the denial of civil rights.

What happens is that actual free-speech crises and the legitimate suppression of liberty get lost entirely. Authoritarians like Hamasniks hijack the language of democracy to roll back democracy where it already exists and prevent it from taking root in places that badly need it.

Writers who support artistic boycotts and blacklists are no friends of liberty. As with Rooney, it’s always only a matter of time before their war on Jewish freedom extends to the rest of the world.


Comedy Cellar USA: "They Hated Each Other”: Inside Netanyahu’s War Cabinet | WSJ's Elliot Kaufman.
"They hated each other." That's Elliot Kaufman describing Israel's war cabinet, not its enemies.

Kaufman joins Noam Dworman on the rivalries, leaks and gambles behind Israel's war since October 7. Why did Netanyahu wait 20 days to invade Gaza? When was Biden saving Israel from itself, and when was he holding it back? And why did killing Nasrallah trigger a furious phone call from Washington? They also confront what both consider Israel's biggest mistake in Gaza: taking ground, leaving, and having to fight for it all over again.

Also: Gallant and Gantz, Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin, the Philadelphi Corridor, Rafah, the Qatar strike, Trump's "all I heard was yes," Mamdani's October 7 statement, and Iran under blockade.

Get the full story in Kaufman's new book, In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis, coauthored with Yonah Jeremy Bob.

0:00 Elliot Kaufman and the case for airing Israel's dirty laundry
6:44 Churchill's war room vs. Israel's: "they hated each other"
18:25 Mers-el-Kébir, Netanyahu's history test, and the 20-day wait to invade Gaza
30:06 Hostages, the Philadelphi Corridor, and the Saudi deal that wasn't
38:34 Rafah in days, not months, and was Biden really in decline?
48:46 The morning of October 7: Halevi's note and one aircraft
55:12 Killing Nasrallah without telling Washington, and how the Iran war began
65:29 Endgame: Petraeus, raid-and-leave, "all I heard was yes," and the story that leaves Hamas out


UKLFI: Natasha Hausdorff exposes flaws & misstatements of UK officials' legal analyses on Israel
Relations between Britain and Israel are deteriorating sharply, with British ministers accusing Israel of violations of international law, restricting arms exports and trade, and escalating diplomatic tensions.

But what do the UK Government's own legal assessments actually establish about Israel? And is international law driving British policy, or is politics influencing its legal conclusions?

In this UKLFI Charitable Trust interview, international lawyer and barrister Natasha Hausdorff examines the Foreign Office's assessments of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) and the apparent disconnect between those findings and ministers' public statements.

Natasha explains that the Government's published assessment did not establish that Israel had breached international humanitarian law in its conduct of hostilities in Gaza. She also examines the separate concerns raised about humanitarian assistance and detainee treatment, and challenges the legal basis for Britain's suspension of certain arms export licences.

The discussion also considers a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation and why assessing the legality of military strikes requires information about intended targets, anticipated civilian harm and the circumstances known to commanders before an attack.

Natasha examines statements by Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham and Emily Thornberry, questioning whether their claims accurately reflect the Government's legal assessments. She also discusses the dispute over the British Consulate in East Jerusalem and the implications for UK–Israel diplomatic and security relations.

Topics discussed:
What Britain's legal assessments actually established about Israel
International humanitarian law and alleged war crimes in Gaza
The suspension of British arms export licences
Channel 4 Dispatches and the legal assessment of military strikes
Statements by Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham and Emily Thornberry
The British Consulate in East Jerusalem
Whether politics is influencing Britain's legal policy towards Israel

Chapters:
00:00 – Britain's deteriorating relationship with Israel
02:01 – What did the Government's legal assessments establish?
04:05 – Israeli military targeting and international humanitarian law
06:22 – Humanitarian aid, detainees and the arms export decision
11:14 – Channel 4 Dispatches and allegations of war crimes
14:19 – Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham and the Government's legal conclusions
16:00 – Emily Thornberry and leaked legal advice
17:45 – The British Consulate in East Jerusalem
19:12 – Is politics driving Britain's legal policy towards Israel?




Commentary Podcast: Fallow Field
Our friend Matt Continetti is back on this Thursday to discuss John Ossoff's surprise declaration that he won't run for president before the end of his term, who will end up as the democratic nominee in 2028, and how will the Judaism of certain potential candidates impact their chances? Plus, Obama's awful ahistorical Belfast speech, Abdul El-Sayed's terrible response to reports of his family's Muslim Brotherhood associations, NYC's comptroller refusing to buy Israel bonds in violation of his campaign promise, Mamdani gaining new haters in the anti-Israel crowd, and Matt recommends Thomas Mallon's Henry and Clara.




Trump addresses Michigan synagogue as antisemitism event sparks Jewish community backlash
President Donald Trump addressed a Michigan synagogue by video Wednesday evening as part of an event orchestrated by Leo Terrell, chair of the administration’s task force for combating antisemitism, and the Zionist Organization of America.

Trump’s greeting, which was prerecorded, was met with applause from the estimated 500 Jews who had come to Congregation Shaarey Zedek in the Detroit suburbs amid a pivotal Senate election in the state that has prompted deep anxieties among its Jewish population.

The president told the crowd that Terrell “speaks for our country” and “speaks for a lot of people, a lot of people that love Israel but really, more than anything else, they don’t want to see false and inaccurate statements made about this horrible subject of antisemitism.”

The event was billed as the first stop on Terrell’s “American Tour Against Hate” and was staged by the US Justice Department, while also serving as a fundraiser and booster for ZOA. Attendees were handed donation forms for ZOA’s Michigan chapter. The organization’s national director, Mort Klein, is close with Terrell and said he intends to participate in all future stops on the tour.

Several other Trump officials, including Terrell and US Attorney General Todd Blanche, would address the crowd over the course of the night to emphasize the administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism.

Michigan Jewish leaders accuse Trump administration of politicizing antisemitism
A group of progressive-leaning Michigan Jewish leaders denounced the event Wednesday, saying in a statement that it “risks fueling antisemitism and dividing the Jewish community.”

The statement accused the administration of trying to “distract” from its own “authoritarian policies,” called ZOA “a far-right radical group” and criticized the Trump administration for its campus antisemitism policies, including freezing university funding and “kidnap[ping] university students.”
US bill targeting Israeli settlements gains 53 co-sponsors
Support is growing for Rep. Joaquin Castro’s Stop the Settlements Act, which targets Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, despite there being no Jewish presence in the latter.

As of this week, the bill has 53 co-sponsors, including high-profile figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna.

The Stop the Settlements Act, introduced on October 1, aims to halt the construction of new settlements and the expansion of existing Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank and Gaza through sanctions and a prohibition on importing goods made in these settlements and outposts.

It claims that ending settlement construction and expansion would protect Palestinians from “the dispossession of their land and help create a pathway to peace, where both Israelis and Palestinians are able to fully exercise their right to self-determination.”

Bill would prohibit the import of all goods produced or manufactured by Israeli settlements, outposts
It specifically calls for sanctions to be imposed on any individual determined to be complicit in the construction of “any Israeli settlement or outpost on or after September 30, 2026; construction or development of settlements in E1; or anyone deemed to have facilitated the transfer of Israeli civilian population into Israeli settlements or outposts on or after September 30, 2026.”

In a similar manner to sanctions imposed by the UK, Netherlands, Canada, and France, the bill would also mean prohibiting the import of all goods produced or manufactured wholly or in part in any Israeli settlements or outposts in the West Bank or Gaza.

“Under Netanyahu’s government, settlers are engaged in a violent land grab that’s ripping Palestinians from their land,” said Congressman Castro. “Democrats must face this with urgency – act now or watch the prospect of Palestinian self-determination slip away forever.”

He said the Stop the Settlements Act gives any person or company looking to take Palestinian land in the West Bank or Gaza a choice to “pursue settlements or do business with the United States.”
Talarico accuses Netanyahu of imposing ‘collective punishment’ in Oct. 7 response
James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, reiterated his sharp criticism of Israel at a CNN town hall on Wednesday, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of targeting Palestinian civilians and restricting humanitarian aid and declining to push back when pressed on the credibility of those claims.

Talarico made the comments while speaking on stage with Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn of Congregation Beth El Binah, a Reform congregation in Dallas, who told Talarico that she was “concerned with some of the things that I’ve been hearing lately about your stance on Israel and also on your support of the Jewish people.”

Talarico, running in a solidly Republican state,began by noting that his seminary studies required him to spend his first year “learning the Hebrew scriptures” and spoke about having “deep love and respect for the Jewish people, for the Jewish scriptures.”

Pressed by Cohn about how that changed his approach to Israel, which she said “can impact antisemitism,” Talarico responded that he tries to make sure his criticisms of Netanyahu are not perceived as opposition to Israelis personally.

Talarico condemned the “death and destruction in Gaza” before acknowledging the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel and his belief in Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. He added, however, that he did not support Netanyahu, accusing him of using “collective punishment” against Palestinian civilians.
NYC comptroller hails city’s economic ties with Israel after ditching Israel Bonds
New York City Comptroller Mark Levine hailed the economic relationship between the city and Israel on Thursday, a day he announced that the city will not reinvest in Israel Bonds.

“The economic relationship between New York City and Israel is deeply important, bringing substantial investment into our city and generating strong returns for our pension funds,” Levine, who is Jewish, said in a statement.

He said that New York City invests more than $285 million in Israel, mostly in equities. The city’s pension funds have a value of more than $300 billion.

“Israel remains one of the world’s most dynamic and innovative economies, and those holdings remain an important part of our portfolio. They also make clear that New York City’s pension funds are not engaging in BDS,” Levine said, referring to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Levine is a moderate Democrat who is closely connected to the Jewish community. He a supporter of Israel and a critic of the Netanyahu government.

He had pledged to reinvest in Israel bonds during last year’s campaign for comptroller, but reneged on that commitment on Wednesday.

He said that the decision against reinvesting, a longstanding issue in the city, was motivated by financial concerns, not politics.

Anti-Israel groups have long called on the city to divest from Israel Bonds and celebrated his Wednesday announcement. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, also said he “welcomed” the decision.

Levine added on Thursday that the city was unable to purchase the bonds partly due to a rules change regarding short-term investments made by the previous comptroller, Brad Lander.

Lander, also Jewish, is a leftist critic of Israel who identifies as a “liberal Zionist” but is an ally of Mamdani.

While comptroller, Lander left the city’s $40 million in Israel bonds to mature, without reinvesting, in 2023.


'It's Actually Making It Worse': Jewish Dem Whose Son Attends Temple Israel Pans El-Sayed's Defense of 'Hurt People Hurt People' Remark
Left-wing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed defended his infamous statement that "hurt people hurt people," in which he justified the terrorist attack at a Michigan synagogue, telling NBC News that he was trying to help people "understand" the "cycle of violence." A Jewish Democrat whose son was attending preschool at the synagogue during the attack told the Washington Free Beacon that the remarks have only increased her concerns about El-Sayed.

El-Sayed has faced intense criticism over his response to the Hezbollah-inspired attack in March. He argued at the time that the attacker, a Lebanese immigrant whose brother was a Hezbollah commander, was retaliating because his family members were killed in an Israeli strike. "As an epidemiologist, I've spent my career studying the worst things that happen to people to understand how to stop them from happening, and I'll never forget one of the simplest lessons I learned while on my psychiatry rotation in medical school: hurt people hurt people," El-Sayed said. "Violence is a cycle."

NBC News's Tom Llamas pressed El-Sayed on the remark in a Wednesday interview. El-Sayed apologized, but only after he defended "those four words."

"I wish it was true that hurt people always help people; I'd love to live in that world," El-Sayed said. "I want us to understand pain for what it is and end the cycle of violence that we see anywhere against anyone."

El-Sayed's answer prompted a rebuke from Taylor Weintraub, whose five-year-old son attends Temple Israel. A lifelong Democrat, Weintraub has publicly supported El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, saying it marks the first time she's voting for a GOP candidate.

"I just can't believe that there's any justification for somebody wanting to kill my five-year-old Jewish-American son over something that happened overseas," Weintraub told the Free Beacon. "I believe that when he's talking around it, it's actually making it worse," she added in reference to El-Sayed.

"I just need somebody who's going to stand up for us, say it for what it is, and stop spreading false things about Israel," Weintraub went on, "because it does spread right back into the Jewish population."
Meet Abdul El-Sayed's Academic 'Inspiration': A Muslim Brotherhood Scion Barred From Entering US Over Terror Ties
Left-wing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said he drew inspiration from the "excellent" works of a disgraced Oxford professor—and grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna—best known for his diatribes against "Jewish intellectuals" and for being sentenced to 18 years in French prison for raping three women.

The Democratic Senate hopeful told the SenseSustainability podcast in a 2011 interview that he draws inspiration from Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder al-Banna, the extremist Egyptian imam. Ramadan is the son of Said Ramadan, who was married to al-Banna's daughter and emerged as a top Brotherhood leader in the wake of al-Banna's death.

Ramadan had been scheduled to teach at Notre Dame but was barred from working in the United States in 2004 after the George W. Bush administration revoked his work visa, citing his donations to two Swiss and French-based charities linked to Hamas, the Committee for Charity and Support for the Palestinians, and the Association de Secours Palestinien. The Treasury Department designated the groups as terror fundraising organizations in 2003.

Ramadan was appointed chair of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University in 2009, the same year El-Sayed began attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Two years later, El-Sayed cited Ramadan as one of the three authors from whom he draws "inspiration."

Ramadan left Oxford in 2017 after he was accused of sexual misconduct with minors, allegations he said were part of a "campaign of slander clearly orchestrated by my longtime adversaries." More women came forward accusing Ramadan of rape in subsequent years, and a Paris criminal court sentenced him to 18 years in prison in March for several counts of rape. Ramadan broke a court order by leaving France for Switzerland and did not attend the trial, claiming anxiety and depression, though a court found him fit to attend.

El-Sayed's deep academic interest in the Muslim Brotherhood and familiarity with its leading academic figures raises questions about his professed ignorance of his family's ties to the organization. After telling NBC News's Kristen Welker on Sunday that his family had no ties at all to the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed bristled at follow-up questions from the network's Tom Llamas on Wednesday, who pointed to Washington Free Beacon reporting on 2012 and 2013 tweets from his sister, Eman Abdelhadi, celebrating El-Sayed's mother's college activism in the organization and stating that she has relatives who have been "jailed" for their ties to the group.

"You want to ask me about what was happening in Egypt in 1970? Are you serious?" El-Sayed told Llamas. "I get it, but you were asked a question," Llamas responded. "Yeah, I'm telling you, like, we—I have no ties. We have no ties," El-Sayed said. "So your mother had no ties?" asked Llamas. "I have never had these conversations with my mother," said El-Sayed. "Like, you're using hearsay evidence from a tweet. This is not serious."

El-Sayed has a serious academic interest in one of the organization's leading scions, he said in the 2011 interview. "One of my other interests—in the maybe non-academic interests—is the question of Islam in the West. And this is something I'm very interested in for personal reasons," El-Sayed told the SenseSustainability podcast. "And for that reason I would recommend—a third author would definitely be Tariq Ramadan, who's actually out of Oxford, and a lot of his work—he's got several books out talking about reconciling Islam and Western ideals and a lot of his work is excellent."

Ramadan's writings sparked controversy in the years prior to El-Sayed's remarks.


INTERVIEW: Sir James Cleverly: Sadiq Khan has failed Jewish Londoners over security fears
Conservative mayoral hopeful James Cleverly has accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of failing to respond effectively to concerns repeatedly raised by the Jewish community about their safety on the capital’s streets.

Speaking to Jewish News, the Lewisham, south London-born former Tory cabinet minister insisted that when Khan was first elected Mayor in 2016, party politics aside, he also believed having a Muslim politician in the role sent a “powerful message” about the capital’s diversity.

But a decade later, and with the divisive impact of the war in Gaza still evident in London, Cleverly now says: “So the mayor must be, not should be, or could be, must be, absolutely must be, a mayor for all the communities and all the geographies in London.

“And for me, when one of the communities in London, when the Jewish community in London, says, over and over again, we do not feel safe, the mayor is duty bound to do something about that.”

While accepting that Khan has regularly “said all the right things”, Cleverly adds, “words are one thing, actions are another. “

He continued: “Actions matter. I don’t think the mayor has been as responsive to concerns from the Jewish community as he should have been.

“Now, I also know, sadly, in this era of very polarised politics there are many, many people, many Muslim Londoners, who also feel very intimidated and scared, because this whole situation has generated a huge amount of division.

“But supporting Muslim Londoners shouldn’t come at the expense of supporting Jewish Londoners. You must do both. And I think the mayor has not been as active on both sides of the equation.”
Labour to break coalitions with any local Green party that does not disavow ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion
The Labour party has announced that it will end any local council coalitions with the Green party where the local Greens do not disavow their party’s new “Zionism is Racism” policy, following the Prime Minister describing the policy as “antisemitic” in the House of Commons yesterday.

It is understood that local Labour groups around the country have been asked to write to their Green counterparts, asking them to state publicly that they reject their party’s policy and will call on their leader, Zack Polanski, to reconsider it.

Yesterday, during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, Andy Burnham was asked by a Conservative MP whether he would “rule out co-operating” with the Green party. He responded by saying that he condemned the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion passed by the Greens “unequivocally”, going on to say “It is wrong, it is antisemitic, and this side of the House will have nothing to do with it.

“We will always take the right response when it comes to any partnerships we have with other parties.

“We cannot support a partnership with a party that holds the position that has recently been adopted.”

While this was widely seen as ruling out any potential coalition with the Green party at a national level after the next election, a Labour spokesperson yesterday was unclear as to whether this would also apply at a local level; an issue that today’s announcement has clarified.

Labour currently sits as part of a local government coalition with the Greens in Sheffield, Lewes and Warwick. In another dozen or so areas, Labour and the Greens are part of a broader coalition running a local council area.

At its conference in Brighton on 4 October, members present not only passed a motion claiming that Zionism was racism, but also expressly defeated a motion designed to protect Jewish green party members who attend Synagogues. A number of senior Green party members, including some former leaders, voted against the motion. However, Zack Polanski, the Jewish leader of the Green party, was not one of them, having left his own party’s conference at that point. While he had travelled to London to campaign in a by-election which he subsequently lost, the Green party did offer members signing up to conference the ability to vote remotely – an option which Polanski did not avail himself of.

Local Labour groups will reportedly give their Green counterparts a week to produce the response they have requested, and if that does not transpire, any local power sharing arrangement which has previously existed will cease.

Responding to Labour’s announcement, Board of Deputies Vice President Karen Newman said: “We strongly welcome Labour’s decision to end arrangements with Greens in local government unless they can give assurances of their rejection of the antisemitic platform the Green Party has recently adopted. This comes on the back of the Prime Minister’s important confirmation that there could be no coalition with the Green Party under its current policy.

“It is right that parties in positions of power should be held to clear standards. Labour’s position – that it cannot work with Greens while this racist motion is in place – is the correct one. This is a commitment we have been pressing for, and we are urging other mainstream parties to take the same clear and principled stand.”

It is understood that while the Liberal Democrats have condemned the “Zionism is Racism” motion, the party has declined to instruct local groups to engage in similar action to Labour, with a spokesperson saying that “Decisions about local council arrangements are made entirely by local councillors on the ground, who know their communities best.”

While some Liberal Democrat local council groups have vehemently condemned the Greens, others, including the Lib Dem local party group in Southwark, have indicated that they will continue to sit in coalition with the Green Party regardless.


DSA Targets JFK Workers in Plot to Block Military Shipments to Israel
The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) is organizing a mass meeting on October 17 to expand a campaign recruiting airport workers and labor unions to halt weapons shipments to Israel through John F. Kennedy International Airport, targeting a critical transportation hub for American defense exports.

The gathering, scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Fifteenth Street Friends Meeting House in Manhattan, is organized by Break the Chain alongside NYC-DSA’s Labor and Anti-War working groups. Participating organizations will be asked to formally endorse the campaign, join airport leafleting activities, and recruit workers into organizing circles.

The initiative goes beyond demonstrations calling for an American arms embargo. Its organizers are seeking to enlist employees involved in transporting military equipment to refuse shipments themselves, while building political pressure against the companies responsible for moving weapons and defense technology to Israel.

Break the Chain has already developed a database identifying 39 companies involved in regional defense manufacturing and cargo transportation, secured support from labor organizations, and established relationships with New York political figures.

Break the Chain was established in June 2025 by NYC-DSA’s Anti-War Working Group, following research by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) documenting the movement of military cargo through New York-area transportation facilities.

The initiative is part of DSA’s national Labor for an Arms Embargo campaign, which launched in May 2025 and aligned itself with PYM’s Mask Off Maersk initiative and Progressive International’s No Harbor for Genocide campaign.

The connection between DSA and PYM extends to joint research and organizing strategy. In August 2025, DSA’s Democratic Left published an article coauthored by PYM organizers Kaleem Hawa and Lea Kayali alongside Abdullah Farooq, a founding member of DSA’s national arms-embargo campaign.

In September 2026, DSA, PYM, People’s Embargo for Palestine, and the Movement Research Unit jointly reported identifying 2,761 shipments to Israeli defense manufacturers aboard United Airlines passenger flights between July 2025 and February 2026, primarily through Newark Liberty International Airport. Researchers examined the contents of a sample of 546 shipments.

The campaign’s ambitions extend well beyond stopping the export of rifles or ammunition.

In a September 10 article for DSA’s Socialist Forum, organizer Sammy Z described the objective as ending all military trade with Israel, including not only weapons and aircraft components but also intelligence, research, software, and technical knowledge.
Ontario man accused of punching a man at an anti-Israel protest turns himself in
An Ontario man surrendered himself to police on Monday after allegedly punching a person repeatedly in the head at an anti-Israel demonstration on Oct. 10 in Toronto.

The Toronto Police Service’s hate crime unit alleges that Martin Salgatar, 20, of Mississauga, was walking in a demonstration near Yonge and Grosvenor Streets when he attacked the victim from behind without provocation.

The blows knocked the victim to the ground, injuring his face and leg, according to police.

A police spokesman told JNS it was a “pro-Palestine event” and that the hate crime unit investigates “any arrests made at demonstrations.”

Video footage that circulated on social media appeared to show the attacker strike the victim from behind, pull him to the sidewalk and punch him repeatedly, as fellow anti-Israel protesters tried to stop him.

The protesters then appear to berate the victim, who is on the ground bleeding from the face, and a man wearing a sweatshirt with an upside-down red triangle—a Hamas terror symbol—seems to curse the victim and accuse him of “trying to pick fights.”

“You f****** deserve it, you piece of sh**,” the man yells.
Wastrel rich kid, 38, has embarrassing meltdown as he appears in court charged with hurling antiSemitic abuse on NYC subway
A silver-spooned wannabe activist had a meltdown in a New York City courthouse after seeing that the Daily Mail was there to cover his antisemitic hate crime case.

Christopher Husary, 38, is accused of threatening and harassing a Jewish man by spewing antisemitic statements at him on the subway in June 2024.

Months earlier, Husary had pushed a woman to the ground while she was at a pro-Israel demonstration in California, then took her Israeli flag and burned it.

He was sentenced to 364 days in jail and two years of probation in that case on October 9, 2024, after he pleaded guilty to robbery with a hate crime enhancement.

At the time of both the alleged and proven antisemitic crimes on opposite sides of the country, the then 36-year-old was living with his parents at their $1.8 million Bay Area home in California, according to public records.

After his sentencing in California, NYPD officers were waiting outside the courthouse to extradite Husary to New York, where he was indicted on charges of attempted coercion as a hate crime and aggravated harassment. He pleaded not guilty and was placed on supervised release.

Husary appeared in Manhattan criminal court on Wednesday morning, where he approached the Daily Mail in the hallway outside the courtroom before his hearing and began taking photos and recording with his phone.

When the Daily Mail asked to confirm that he was Christopher Husary, the 38-year-old lied and said he was not. He then became increasingly confrontational before bizarrely saying a Daily Mail photographer was 'compromised' by Israel.


House ed panel says its probe of University of California schools over Jew-hatred revealed ‘broader pernicious’ bias
The House Education and Workforce Committee’s investigating of the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine and of the University of California, San Francisco for alleged Jew-hatred revealed broader things that troubled the panel, according to Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), who chairs the committee.

The committee’s investigation of the public schools “revealed a broader pernicious infrastructure at medical schools that perpetuates not only antisemitism but other forms of discrimination,” it said.

The new concerns relate to “race and sex-based discrimination in their admissions and hiring practices,” the House panel said.

Both schools testified to the contrary before the committee but have tried to admit and to hire more people based on race and gender, according to Walberg.

The schools have until Oct. 29 to turn over relevant documents and communications, he said.

A spokesman for the UCLA medical school told JNS that “we’re carefully reviewing the letter and have fully cooperated with the committee over the past year, producing responsive documents and voluntarily participating in the July 2026 hearing.”

UCSF told JNS that “since August 2025, UCSF has fully cooperated with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Workforce’s requests for information, and we remain committed to resolving the committee’s inquiry.”

“We have received the committee’s letter and are reviewing it,” the university said.
Behind Closed Doors: Wild GW Conference Devolves Into Anti-Israel Hatefest Plotting How To Resist ‘Zionist Billionaires’ and ‘Weaken the Zionist State’
A private conference at George Washington University's prestigious Elliott School of International Affairs—convened to discuss the war on terror—became two days of far-left ranting overwhelmingly focused on attacking Israel, "Zionist billionaires of the Epstein class," "U.S.-Zionist genociding," and "Anti-Blackness and the Historical Legacy of Amerikkka," among other familiar boogeymen to American academia.

While participants repeatedly denounced "the repression of academic free expression" regarding on-campus anti-Israel activism, conference attendees themselves were strictly policed by event organizers who required them to sign a lengthy confidentiality agreement and promise not to record or photograph anything or identify attendees without explicit approval.

The Muslim Counterpublics Lab—an advocacy group that works to "challenge, disrupt, and subvert the dominant narrative" about Muslims—sponsored the two-day event, which purported to examine the "lessons and legacies of the war on terror" 25 years after 9/11.

But sessions, more often than not, largely fixated on the pernicious influence of "Zionist" Jews and, as one speaker framed it, "how we can continue to strategize within the belly of the beast to produce campaigns that weaken the Zionist state." Breakout panels included "Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia in the War on Terror" and "Palestine and the War on Terror: (Dis)arming Genocidaires and State Repression." A separate "luncheon fireside chat" went by the title "State Violence by Design: Anti-Indigenous Racism, Anti-Blackness, and the Historical Legacy of Amerikkka."

The conference was cosponsored by nearly 40 organizations, most of them fiercely anti-Israel, and provided a rare window into the strategies and motivations guiding American academia's increasingly aggressive anti-Israeli movement. The hostility towards "Zionists" was palpable inside the GW Elliott School's top-floor event space, which was littered with signs stating, "We're here to subvert the dominant narrative" and "Our stories. Our Liberation." One attendee was spotted walking around in a jacket that declared, "STOP ARMING ISRAEL." The confab was notably cohosted by GW's Institute for Middle East Studies, along with an assortment of radical anti-Zionist groups that included the Muslim Justice League, Crushing Colonialism, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, and the Rutgers Law School's Arab-focused Center for Security, Race and Rights.

Entry to GW's anti-Zionist conclave came with strict conditions: Participants were required to sign a two-page "Conference Confidentiality, Consent, Recording, and Conduct Agreement." It barred "unauthorized recording or photography," for which a Washington Free Beacon reporter was scolded when he initially attempted to capture panelists' name cards, and outlined "respectful and safe conduct" for those in attendance. "Harassment, intimidation, threats, stalking, or unwanted repeated conduct" was verboten during the confab, as were "attempts to identify an attendee who has chosen not to be publicly identified."

Additionally, there was a wholesale ban on "unauthorized recording or photography," including "covert recording and the use of phones, cameras, wearable devices, artificial-intelligence tools, transcription services, or other technologies to capture or reproduce a conversation or presentation" (Organizers recorded the event themselves and did permit a Free Beacon reporter to visibly use his laptop to take notes on the panel discussions).

The most heavily attended session—a discussion on how the global war on terror supposedly victimized "Palestine" and its supporters—took place in the final hours of the conference's first day. Tina Al-khersan, a staff attorney at Project South, an advocacy group that aims to "eliminate poverty and genocide" via means "rooted in Black Radical Tradition," made clear that "Palestine is central to the conversations we've been having all day about the war on terror."


Exclusive: Bath University cancels ‘one-sided’ lecture with Gaza college where Hamas weapons and tunnel were discovered
The University of Bath has apologised after announcing, on October 7, a collaboration with a Gaza university where Israeli troops uncovered a cache of Hamas weapons and a tunnel shaft.

Students from Al-Azhar University were set to join a Bath comparative politics class on Thursday, and students were told to “refrain from attempting to ‘balance’ the discussion” with their own views.

“They are the experts on the conflict in Palestine, while we are not,” the lecturer said about the Palestinian participants in an email about the class sent on the anniversary of the Hamas-lead attack.

That lesson on Thursday has now been cancelled after the JC asked the university if a risk assessment had been conducted prior to the class given the Hamas weaponry discovered underneath Al-Azhar.

In December 2023, the Israel Defence Forces found military infrastructure at Al-Azhar, which it said Hamas had used for attacks on Israeli forces.

Rocket components, launchers and explosives were found by the IDF during their investigation, as well as an underground passage leading from the university courtyard to a nearby school.

Now Al-Azhar is one of the Gaza universities which is collaborating with British campuses.

Bath, as well as University College London (UCL) and Edinburgh University have connections with the institution.

When universities collaborate with other institutions or invite speakers into lectures they must conduct a risk assessment – it is not clear if that was completed by Bath for the Al-Azhar lecture.

Last week, second year Bath students were sent a set of strict guidelines to the class with Al-Azhar.

In an email sent on October 7, course leader Dr Kateřina Vráblíková told the politics students to defer to their Palestinian counterparts’ experience of the conflict and not express their own views or experience.


I will not be intimidated, says human rights lawyer after masked Gaza mob storms his lecture screaming ‘war criminal’
A human rights lawyer has said he will not be intimidated after an keffiyeh-clad mob burst into his talk about representing British families of Gaza hostages and started screaming abuse.

Adam Wagner KC was giving a public lecture at City St George’s, where he is Visiting Professor of Law, on Thursday when the activists barged in and chanted “settlers go home” and “war criminal”.

The group Association of Student Activism for Palestine took responsibility for the latest stunt, posting footage of the disruption on social media.

After interrupting the talk for around 10 minutes, they eventually left and Wagner was able to finish the lecture.

Posting on LinkedIn after the incident, Wagner said he would not be intimidated by the incident.

“One or two [of the protesters] were focussed on me, screaming things like ‘war criminal’ and ‘you should be disbarred’. They shouted ‘free free Palestine’ and similar. One was screaming ‘the Zionist hostages were killed by the Zionists’. They were chanting ‘settlers settlers go back home’ (am I a settler? In Finchley? I am confused).

“I carried on and finished the lecture. The vast majority of the audience stayed.

“The purpose of this protest was not to express an opinion or have a debate, and least of all to listen to my view. It was to intimidate me, stop me doing my legal work, and try to make it impossible for people who do not share their extremist world view to give lectures and do ordinary things that people at universities do, such as exchange ideas.

“I will not be intimidated by illiberal people. If I am a threat to them because I make the simple (and unarguable) point that everyone has human rights, and that includes Israeli and British victims of terrorism, and of course Palestinians, then what can I do? This is a point I made in the lecture itself - they just proved it.


Indonesia’s Muslim council urges cancellation of Andrea Bocelli shows over Israel ties
Indonesia’s top Islamic council met with government officials Wednesday to voice its opposition to two upcoming concerts by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, arguing that the singer’s past support for Israel is incompatible with the views of many in the Muslim-majority country.

The Indonesian Ulema Council, or MUI, the country’s highest and most influential body of Islamic scholars, demanded the cancellation of Bocelli’s scheduled performances at the UNESCO-listed Borobudur Temple in Central Java’s Magelang city on October 31 and in the capital Jakarta on November 3.

The council, which initially announced its opposition on Saturday, met with Indonesia’s Tourism Ministry to discuss Bocelli’s Romanza 30th Anniversary World Tour Indonesia, including the Borobudur performance at one of Indonesia’s most iconic historical sites.

The council said its objection is in response to Bocelli’s past support for Israel, including his participation in a 2010 fundraiser in Los Angeles for the Israel Defense Forces and a 2022 concert in Tel Aviv.

“Giving a platform to a figure who has funded or supported military actions linked to humanitarian abuses in Gaza runs contrary to the values of the Indonesian nation and MUI’s religious guidance,” the council said in a statement.


NPR Promised Israeli Voices on October 7. It Delivered Only One.
A quick look at NPR’s lead story on Israel’s commemoration of the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack last week is all it takes to understand the extent of the institutionalized media bias now facing Jews, Zionism and the Jewish nation.

The piece – benignly titled “3 years on, Israelis grapple with reports Netanyahu was warned before Oct. 7 attacks” – promised to deliver a deep dive into the ways Israelis are contending with newly-released reports that their Prime Minister knew a Hamas attack was possible, yet failed to protect the nation. Framed against the backdrop of yet another day of Israeli national mourning, the piece proposed an almost unspeakable paradox – a people still mired in grief ruled by an arrogant and impune leader who recklessly allowed their suffering to happen.

This would have been a difficult-yet-necessary story, if only NPR had written it. Instead, the piece – all 23 paragraphs of it – was little more than a laundry list of allegations against the Prime Minister with just a single Israeli voice crammed in with scant consideration or context.

This is hardly the only example of what might be called the mainstream media’s penchant for “bait-and-switch” editorializing around Israel. But its timing – and egregiousness – powerfully reflect long-standing efforts to embed an activist agenda into what might nominally appear as standard reportage and storytelling.

The NPR “Netanyahu was warned” feature led a pair of October 7 reports, the second more innocuously focused on Israel’s actual mourning. But it is the Netanyahu piece that NPR editors chose to lead with, which is why its failures demand such close scrutiny.

The piece’s most manipulative element is not in what it includes but what it is missing. Paragraph after paragraph detail how everyone from former Palestinian Authority official Sufian Abu Zaida and UAE leader Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to Egypt’s ex-head of intelligence, Abbas Kamel, along with a series of Israeli interlocutors, informed Netanyahu of a potential Hamas attack. Such reports originated and were recirculated in leading global and local media outlets, including The Atlantic, Haaretz and The New York Times.

Arriving just as Netanyahu fights for his survival before Israel’s upcoming national elections on October 27 – the first since the October 7 massacres – the Prime Minister has repeatedly branded these claims as baseless and politically motivated.

Perhaps.

But the allegation’s veracity is actually the least of the piece’s problems, at least in terms of messaging and journalistic integrity. Because while the piece’s three – yes, three! – writers manage to more than adequately cover the “Netanyahu knew” portion of their headline, the far more consequential coverage of Israelis “grappling” with this knowledge this past October 7 is almost entirely missing.
Wikipedia left biased edits on Israel, Hamas, and Zionism pages intact despite bans, ADL finds
Uncorrected past biased edits remain embedded across Wikipedia’s most-read pages concerning Israel, Zionism, Hamas, and Jewish history, according to a follow-up report published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Technology and Society on Thursday.

The report, titled “Damage Done: Wikipedia Leaves Biased Edits Unchecked Despite Editor Bans,” follows an initial investigation released in March 2025 titled “Editing for Hate,” which documented a coordinated campaign by approximately 30 bad-faith editors to manipulate entries related to Israel, Jewish history, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Following the release of that initial investigation, the findings became the subject of extensive external pressure, including a US House Committee on Oversight investigation, a bipartisan congressional letter signed by 23 members, and federal inquiries from the Justice Department and the Senate Commerce Committee, alongside widespread media reporting and scrutiny from Wikipedia’s own neutral-point-of-view editors.

To understand how editor behavior and article content have changed since their previous investigation, researchers analyzed platform activity using five separate data collections gathered between July and August this year. These methods included tracking whether edits made by banned users remained live on major pages, comparing editing volumes before and after the 2025 report, and reviewing thousands of revisions and discussion logs across conflict-related entries.

As part of this methodological analysis, the ADL examined public platform communication records and collaboration patterns on Wikipedia.

Following the intense external scrutiny, visible coordination metrics among the bad-faith editors dropped sharply. Public user-talk page messaging between group members fell 95.41%, from 501 to 23, and same-page tandem editing dropped 87.91%, from 6,218 to 752. Total combined edits across the group decreased by 26.65%, from 182,440 to 133,817.

Wikipedia retains 91% of banned editor's changes to key Israel-related articles
According to the report, although Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee topic-banned six editors and site-banned three, none of their work was systematically reviewed or corrected.

On six flagship articles, including Hamas, Gaza war, Zionism, and October 7 attacks, 91% of past edits made by Iskandar323, an editor identified in the original 2025 report and subsequently site-banned for violating platform rules in the topic area, remain intact in the live text.

A review conducted in July identified 19 active accounts shaping conflict-related pages, consisting of eight unsanctioned members from the original cohort and 11 newly identified editors.

These accounts employ subtler techniques, such as gatekeeping through frequent reverts to undo neutral updates, hedging factual claims with qualifiers to turn documented facts into contested opinions, and gradually rewriting or restructuring page sections over time, so that no single edit draws administrator attention.
Canadian anti-Israel group to host Wikipedia edit-a-thon honoring ‘martyred’ Palestinians
A Canadian pro-Palestinian organization is hosting a Wikipedia editing event on October 22, inviting participants to "populate Wikipedia entries honoring martyred Palestinian artists and exposing the Canadian, Zionist backers of genocide."

Jewish Onliner was the first to report on this 'Free Palestine Wiki edit-a-thon,' but it was independently confirmed by The Jerusalem Post.

The group, Artists Against Artwashing (AAA), says the evening will begin with Palestinian short films, followed by a Wikipedia 101 session and hands-on editing.

While anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, organizing editing sessions around a predetermined political objective like 'honoring Palestinian martyrs' risks taking the site away from its formal core policy known as the Neutral Point of View (NPOV).

'That is canvassing [and] they should be blocked'
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger said, "If you are organizing people to take a controversial point of view on Wikipedia, that is canvassing [and] they should be blocked."

Independent investigator WikiBias said, "Wikipedia claims neutrality. Their mission of “remedying the narrative” tells a different story."

Artists Against Artwashing describes itself as a group of "arts workers across so-called-Canada demanding cultural institutions divest from settler colonialism and genocide."

Its main campaign is focused on pressuring arts institutions into cutting ties with the Azrieli Foundation, the charitable counterpart to the Azrieli Group, Israel’s largest real estate company.

AAA held another Wikipedia editing workshop earlier this year, in April, specifically targeting articles associated with the Azrieli Foundation.

According to Wikipedia’s public revision history, changes to the Azrieli Group article were made at 7:30 p.m. Toronto time on April 28, coinciding with the editing workshop.

The user who made the edit - 'Sure-thing-no-problem' - was registered that day, has no user page, and made exactly one edit.

Other accounts made further edits to the page, especially removals, throughout May.
Instagram accused of ‘pushing pure Nazism’ as Holocaust denial spreads
Luc Bernard, a French-Jewish video game designer and founder of the Holocaust education charity, has accused Instagram of “pushing pure Nazism”.

Bernard, who works with Meta on efforts to identify harmful content, claimed extremist videos which breach the platform’s own rules were attracting vast audiences.

He added he felt compelled to speak out despite his existing relationship with the technology giant.

“Social media is turning youth into Nazis. I work with Meta, this is public, and I don’t want to throw them under the bus, but I have no choice,” said Bernard, who set up Shoah education group Voices of the Forgotten.

“Instagram is pushing pure Nazism and it’s radicalising youth on a scale which we haven’t seen before,” he said.

His comments follow an investigation by The Telegraph, which identified numerous Instagram posts and reels – a short-form video facility that lets users record, edit, and share clips lasting up to 90 seconds – promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, praising Adolf Hitler and denying the Holocaust.

Among the material identified was a post featuring a woman holding a placard falsely claiming that the Talmud instructs Jews to kill non-Jews, alongside the assertion that it was acceptable to be antisemitic. One response beneath it read: “Make antisemitism great again.”

Another video, generated using artificial intelligence, imagined Hitler alive in the present day, signing autographs as crowds greeted him enthusiastically.

A separate reel showed a scenic landscape accompanied by the caption: “The world if the Austrian painter had finished his job”.

Other content denied the existence of Nazi gas chambers. One post, featuring Nazi officers beside an artillery gun, carried a caption falsely suggesting that the construction of gas chambers was historically implausible. It had attracted almost 80,000 likes, according to the report.

Bernard said the volume of the material was alarming.

“Thousands of videos are racking up hundreds of millions of views that are pro-Hitler and they are all over Instagram,” he said. “These videos violate Meta’s own terms of service but are not being taken down.”

He warned that the platform’s recommendation system could compound the problem, exposing users who engage with one extremist video to a continuing stream of similar material.

“Instagram as a platform is pushing Holocaust denial. Even worse, it’s pushing pure support for Hitler with these videos accessible across Europe where a lot of this content is illegal,” he said.

Meta’s own policies prohibit Holocaust denial and content that promotes hateful ideologies such as Nazism. In 2020, the company announced that it would remove content denying or distorting the Holocaust.

The company has nevertheless faced scrutiny over its enforcement decisions. In January 2024, Meta’s Oversight Board overturned a decision to leave an Instagram post containing false and distorted claims about the Holocaust online, ruling that it violated the company’s hate-speech standards.

Bernard said the apparent failure to remove similar material demanded urgent action.


Gazans Rage at Hamas for Oct. 7 Gamble
"On that accursed day, they pushed Gaza off the edge of the cliff," Gazan writer and poet Ni'ma Hassan wrote on her Facebook page on Oct. 7.

A few hours later, she posted again, "Even after three years, they tell us that the outcome is what counts and victory is near. By God! Even if you build paradise...we will not forgive what has happened and is still happening to us."

Hassan writes openly what many in Gaza say among themselves. Yet their anger at Hamas over what they describe as a strategic mistake, an adventure, a gamble, or even a conspiracy does not diminish their loathing for Israel.

Journalist Hamed Jad, the Gaza bureau chief for the Ramallah-based daily Al-Ayyam, wrote on the third anniversary of the "Al-Aqsa Flood," Hamas's name for the Oct. 7 attack:

"Three years later, the Flood has not stopped, and we are still drowning in its raging waves, ground down day after day by the millstones of killing, destruction, displacement and loss."

Those living in Gaza today, and those who have managed to escape, long for Oct. 6, 2023.
Israel Warns of Gaza Aid Crisis as Merchants Strike over Hamas Threats
Maj. Gen. Yoram Halevy, coordinator of government activities in the territories (COGAT), sent an urgent letter Wednesday to senior international officials and Board of Peace Executive Director Nikolay Mladenov, alerting them that private merchants in Gaza had gone on strike over threats from Hamas and the oppressive taxation system it imposes on them. Halevy warned that the flow of goods into the Gaza Strip would drop by 50%, adding: "Hamas will try to blame Israel."

The dramatic move also followed an increase in direct threats against the lives of merchants who refuse to comply with the terrorist organization's demands. The letter was sent to Mladenov, Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, commander of the International Stabilization Force for Gaza, and Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the region.

According to the statement, the decision to strike came after members of Hamas' security apparatus arrested the son of a merchant whose father had refused to comply with the terrorist organization's demands for extortion payments and taxes.

According to the IDF, reports received from merchants indicate that Hamas demands a cash payment of approximately 10,000 shekels for every truck entering the Gaza Strip. It also requires merchants to sell require merchants to sell about 30% of their merchandise in cash transactions, a measure designed to enable Hamas to seize the proceeds directly and thereby preserving its grip on power. Moreover, the practice directly violates the commitment made by merchants authorized to operate in Gaza to conduct payments exclusively through monitored bank transfers. Reports also indicate that the taxation system has recently been expanded to include secondary merchants and that Hamas intends to impose it even on drinking water supplies.

The merchants' strike directly undermines Israel's ability to meet its commitments. Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is obligated to allow approximately 600 trucks into Gaza each day, divided roughly equally between international organizations and independent Gazan merchants. Because the private sector accounts for about 50% of all trucks entering the Gaza Strip each week, the strike is expected to reduce the daily flow by approximately 300 trucks, a drop of about 50%.

Three years into the war, Hamas remains standing, managing daily life for Gaza's residents and exerting significant influence over the entry of aid trucks. The IDF has acknowledged that it has so far failed to develop a system that would allow aid trucks to enter Gaza and reach residents without passing through Hamas' hands. There are concerns that the consequences of the strike — a de facto reduction in the flow of goods into Gaza — will intensify international criticism of Israel and further delegitimize its operations in the Gaza Strip.

In his letter, Halevy made clear that Hamas bears full responsibility and called on international officials to act immediately to prevent the terrorist organization from interfering with the mechanism for bringing aid and goods into Gaza and exploiting it to strengthen itself economically and militarily. Halevy also warned that Hamas would exploit the merchants' strike to spread false claims about shortages of goods and Israel's alleged failure to comply with the terms of the agreement.


UAE joins international antisemitism forum for first time
A representative of the United Arab Emirates participated for the first time in an international forum on combating antisemitism in Dublin this week, according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC).

Maqsoud Kruse, the UAE foreign minister’s envoy for countering extremism and terrorism, joined officials and Jewish community leaders at the gathering. The WJC organized the forum in partnership with the European Commission.

During the forum, U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun announced that Armenia and three additional countries are expected to join the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), according to the WJC.

WJC executive director Sara Friedman called on governments to acknowledge their failures to protect Jewish communities following Oct. 7. “The responsibility for protecting Jewish life cannot rest on Jewish communities alone,” she said. “It requires governments, international institutions, and technology companies to move beyond statements of solidarity and take meaningful action.”
Paraguay to join International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
Paraguay said on Thursday that it intends to become a full member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the group that issues the widely used working definition of Jew-hatred.

The South American country made the announcement at the Argentinian embassy in Washington, with Argentine President Javier Milei present. Foreign ministers of Argentina and Paraguay attended, as did the Argentinian ambassador to the United States and Yehuda Kaploun, a rabbi and the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

Member governments of IHRA, an intergovernmental organization that addresses “contemporary challenges related to the Holocaust and genocide of the Roma,” strengthen the “historical record, so the world can better understand and remember what happened,” the alliance states.

“We equip leaders with what they need to craft international policies that support democratic and inclusive societies to help prevent genocide in the future,” it says.

Parallel to the Abraham Accords, the “IHRA Accords” are a collective, international push to get countries, regional bodies and institutions to join IHRA and to adopt its working definition of Jew-hatred.

Paraguay became the eighth Latin American country to say that it is adopting the working definition of Jew-hatred.

Argentina is the lone Latin American country with full-member status in IHRA. Uruguay is an observer nation.

JNS reported last month that Costa Rica intends to pursue membership. The country’s government has yet to confirm that publicly.
German court sentences two for plotting to kill leader of German Jewish community for Iran
A German court on Thursday handed two men prison sentences of up to 8-1/2 years for planning to kill the leader of a Jewish organization in Germany, saying one man had been steered by Iran's intelligence service.

One man, previously identified as Danish national Ali S., was sentenced to eight years and six months for preparing an assassination and aggravated arson, judges ruled.

"The court is convinced that the defendant, S., was recruited by the Iranian secret service and integrated into it to carry out state-sponsored terrorist activities in Germany under Iran’s direction," the court in the northern city of Hamburg said in a statement.

The Iranian Embassy in Germany did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another man, previously named as Afghan national Tawab M., was sentenced to four years and six months for his role in the plot.

The verdicts, which can be appealed, come as a war with Iran launched by the United States and Israel in February has spilled over into an escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis.

German federal prosecutors brought criminal charges against the two men in May.
Why American Doctors Travel to Israel for Magen David Adom Training
Dr. Michael Block, an American anesthesiologist, was riding with a Magen David Adom ambulance crew rushing to a young man having a heart attack in Tel Aviv. They didn't take him to the emergency room. He went straight to the catheterization lab.

"He would have died had we not gotten there so fast," Michael said. "The way that it was organized was just incredible. It doesn't happen in [the U.S.]."

Jeff Covitz, a paramedic captain with the San Francisco Fire Department, wanted to see how Israel handled major emergencies. "We run out of ambulances in San Francisco on your average Tuesday," he said. "How do they get 30 ambulances to the scene in 10 minutes? That's amazing."

In an incident with 20 casualties, he said, Israeli teams can sometimes triage, treat, and transport everyone from the scene in under 15 minutes. "In San Francisco, it would take us the better part of an hour."

Magen David Adom's International Seminar on Emergency Response brings doctors, paramedics, and other medical professionals to Israel for an inside look at the country's emergency medical system.

Jeff met MDA paramedics who responded on Oct. 7. They handled casualties at seven or eight locations at the same time, with terrorists still on the ground.





 




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