Pages

▼

Sunday, October 18, 2026

10/18 Links: Trump endorses ‘great warrior’ Netanyahu; Collier: Inside Occupied Territory at the Green Party Conference; Synagogue vandalized in Paris amid nationwide riots

From Ian:

David Collier: Inside Occupied Territory at the Green Party Conference
I attended the Green Party conference, spending time inside the conference halls and observing demonstrations outside. I tried to speak to as many Green Party members as possible. When I dive into sewers such as this, I rarely rush to publish. I need time to recover, as well as to analyse footage and digest and understand what I have experienced. My goal is to try to bring deeper insight to what is unfolding.

As always, I bring receipts. In these two photos, you can see me alongside Mothin Ali, Deputy Leader of the Green Party, and Ismail Patel, the Islamist Founder and Chair of Friends of Al Aqsa and one of the key people responsible for the hate marches that have plagued our streets for years.

Green Party conference selfies. Ismail Patel and Mothin Ali

To be fair, I doubt they knew who I was.

The Ignorant Cult of Hate
Lee Harpin captured footage of a group of Green Party members chanting “all of Palestine is Arab” in Arabic after the motion passed.

Harpin also uploaded two videos in which he spoke to Green Party members who had supported the motion. I identified both of those involved. In one video, Lambeth’s Serena Oliver explains that people who support Israel are the real antisemites, before outrageously suggesting that Jewish people who associate their Jewish identity with a belief in Jewish self-determination are the ones who need to educate themselves.

It is hard to imagine white people on the left dismissing the self-identity of any other minority group in this fashion. As if to prove she has been totally brainwashed by ahistorical garbage, Oliver says Jews should learn about how the “Zionist project was linking with the Nazis.” Turning her Holocaust revisionism dial up to maximum, she implies that “history has been rewritten” to suggest otherwise.

It may shock her to learn that Jews at Auschwitz were not divided into Zionists and non-Zionists before being selected for the gas chambers.

The second video features Alex Blower from Peterborough. Blower was one of those singing “Palestine is Arab” in Arabic, although it is unclear whether he knew what he was saying. Then, speaking straight to camera, Blower suggests that “Zionism has to go” and that the motion “empowers UK people”. He tells them to “go out and fight” Zionism. Stressing how important this mission is, he says “we cannot have a world with Zionism”, adding that the future of humanity depends on it.

This is unhinged, irrational hate, fuelled by ignorance and targeting the only Jewish state in the world. This is what the Green Party has unleashed – and it is their motion the party adopted.

Standing Next to a Jew
This movement evolved within Corbynism, but many of those involved believed Corbyn was too weak. They are more forceful in their antisemitic ideology, more confident in their manner, and now supported by an army of arrogant, cocky young people who truly believe Israelis are the new Nazis. A generation educated through doomscrolling classes on Instagram or TikTok.

“How on earth can we be antisemitic?” they will respond. “The leader of our party is Jewish.”

Finding Jewish outliers to hide behind is standard practice for left-wing antisemitic movements.

History is littered with examples. The early communists created a special group, the Yevsektsiya, for just this purpose. The Soviets did it again in 1983, creating the Anti-Zionist Committee and placing Jewish figures at its forefront to deflect accusations of antisemitism.

The Soviet propaganda statement that accompanied the 1983 launch stated that Zionism “concentrates in itself extreme nationalism, chauvinism and racial intolerance, justification for territorial seizures and annexations, armed adventurism, the cult of political permissiveness and impunity, demagoguery and ideological diversions, filthy maneuvers and perfidy.” It also rejected attempts by Zionists to call their opposition to Zionism “antisemitic.”

That 1983 Soviet propaganda statement is mirrored in the Green Party’s 2026 ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion.

Within ten years of the committee’s formation, the Soviet Union had collapsed, its borders had opened and approximately 1.5 million Jews had escaped, most of them to Israel. So much for the committee’s insistence that there was no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union.

Yet the strategy is still deployed successfully on the left. Corbyn’s inner circle created Jewish Voice for Labour. It is no coincidence that, after Corbyn’s defeat, ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ changed its name to ‘Jewish Voice for Liberation’ and some of its founders became Green Party members. I saw JVL executive member Jonathan Rosenhead at the conference. In the video below, Mike Cushman, a JVL founder and now a member of ‘Jewish Greens’, talks about how happy he is that the motion passed:

This is always how it is done: find fringe members of the Jewish community and use them as cover.

Andy Burnham, knowing he was going to swing left to chase the Islamist vote, deployed Ed Miliband in the Foreign Office to make criticism of his anti-Israel policies more difficult. The Green Party chose Zack Polanski.

Once that protection is in place, fringe anti-Zionist groups form around the larger movement to reinforce it:

Green Party Jews against Zionism
For Jews, the strategy is transparent. They know most of these token Jews already have one foot, if not both, outside the community. But non-Jews are left scratching their heads, and this confusion helps to blunt the voices of Jews who speak out in opposition. After all, how can a movement be antisemitic if Jews are there defending it?

Someone should ask the 1.5 million Jews who fled the Soviet Union.

The antisemites have invaded and occupied the Green Party.

I am unsure whether the Green Party has the numbers or the energy to oust them.

When Sunday arrived, I could not wait to get home.
Predictions of Gaza’s death toll were wrong - why is no one being held accountable?
Gaza’s Health Ministry, an arm of Hamas with every incentive to inflate, reported 455 malnutrition deaths across nearly two years of war, fewer than Somalia’s famine killed in half a day at its height.

By the IPC’s own threshold, two deaths per 10,000 people a day, the declared famine should have killed about 9,000. Hamas’s own ministry counted fewer than 200, across all of Gaza, fewer than the US records in four days.

Rafah followed a familiar pattern. Before Israel entered the city in May 2024, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry warned an assault would bring “the annihilation of about 1.5 million Palestinians.” The EU’s then-foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, scoffed at evacuating civilians: “Where? To the moon?” Within three weeks, about a million people had evacuated Rafah. There was no annihilation and no apology.

The pattern is older than this war, and it only ever runs in one direction.

In April 2002, during Israel’s operation in Jenin, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat told CNN that Israeli troops had killed more than 500 people. The UN secretary-general’s own report later counted 52 Palestinians dead, at least half of them terrorists, along with 23 Israeli soldiers, and found the 500 figure unsubstantiated. By then, the “Jenin massacre” had entered the world’s vocabulary.

Operation Cast Lead followed the same arc. Hamas initially acknowledged fewer than 50 dead combatants. The since-discredited 2009 Goldstone Report cited a Palestinian Centre for Human Rights tally identifying just 236 of the dead as combatants. Then, in November 2010, Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad acknowledged that up to 700 men from Hamas’s military wing and security forces had been killed, close to Israel’s count of 709.

Abroad, the dead were nearly all civilians. At home, they were Hamas martyrs.

On October 17, 2023, Hamas’s health authorities instantly blamed Israel for the Ahli hospital explosion and reported nearly 500 dead. American, British, French, and Canadian intelligence assessments concluded that a misfired Palestinian rocket was the likely cause; US intelligence put the toll at a fraction of the ministry’s tally. The New York Times later conceded that its early coverage had relied too heavily on Hamas’s claims.

The progressive Left, which prides itself on following the science, rarely asks why so many catastrophic predictions and claims about Israel fail. A growing faction of the populist Right, the so-called “woke Right,” recycles Hamas figures and UN forecasts it would ridicule on any other subject.

The method works because the claims and predictions do their work before they can be tested. Put Israel in the dock. Push for sanctions or an arms embargo. Pressure Israel, but not those sworn to its destruction. By the time the evidence arrives, the damage is done.

Tom Fletcher still runs the UN’s humanitarian office. The IPC has not retracted its 2025 famine declaration. Newsrooms still headline the forecasts and bury the accounting.

In most fields, predictions this consequential would at least produce an audit. When the subject is Israel, they produce the next failed prediction.
If Gaza Is "Genocide," What Was Tokyo?
On March 9, 1945, close to 300 American B-29s bombed Japan under cover of darkness, dropping 1,665 tons of napalm incendiaries on Tokyo. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people died in a single night. More than 60 Japanese cities followed.

Yet almost nobody calls the firebombing of Japan "genocide," and for good reason. Genocide requires intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group "as such." America aimed to completely defeat a regime that murdered millions of civilians across Asia, massacred Nanjing, ran the "comfort women" system of sexual slavery on an industrial scale, and performed human experiments under Unit 731 - a regime whose cruelty rivaled that of the Nazis.

The clearest proof of intent came after the surrender. America occupied Japan, gave it a democratic constitution, fed its people and poured money into rebuilding it. A country bent on destroying the Japanese people, as such, does not spend seven years rebuilding them.

In Gaza, instead of fire, Israel used precision munitions. Instead of surprise, it warned civilians by leaflet, text message and phone call before strikes, and opened evacuation corridors. It moved food and medicine into the territory it was fighting in. It accepted losses no army in 1945 would have accepted to spare enemy civilians.

The law is clear about who bears responsibility when one side hides its war machine among civilians. The 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions forbids using civilians to shield military targets and requires each side to keep military objectives away from populated areas as much as possible. Hamas spent 16 years doing the reverse. The presence of civilians does not make a military target immune. If it did, then every terrorist group and tyranny would win every war simply by hiding among its people.

America burned dozens of Japanese cities to the ground and is remembered, correctly, as the nation that defeated a monstrous regime and helped rebuild its people into a free and prosperous ally. Israel faced a more entrenched version of the same problem, chose far greater restraint, and stands accused of "genocide."

There is one more lesson from 1945: Japan became a free and peaceful nation only after its militarist regime was totally defeated, disarmed and replaced, and its schools stopped teaching children to die for the emperor. Nobody suggested leaving Japan's rulers in place to rearm.


How Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu could change Israel’s electoral map
U.S. President Donald Trump has delivered the endorsement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting for—and it could change Israel’s post-election calculations, even if it doesn’t alter many votes.

In an extraordinary Truth Social statement addressed to the “Great People of Israel,” Trump offered his complete backing of Netanyahu. He called him a “Great Warrior Prime Minister” who had been “Strong, Brave, and Brilliant” under intense pressure, concluding: “BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Yet the most consequential passage concerned Iran. Trump warned that unless Tehran rapidly changes course, “we will soon finish the job.” He then explicitly tied continued cooperation against the Islamic Republic to Netanyahu’s political survival: “If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” he wrote.

This is more than a conventional political endorsement. Trump is telling Israelis that, in his judgment, Netanyahu is the indispensable partner for confronting the regime in Tehran during the remaining years of his presidency.

The message carries added weight because Israel’s threat level from Iran is at or near an all-time high. The possibility of another major escalation is not theoretical. Israel and the United States have already fought Iran together twice in little more than a year.

During the closing stage of the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, the United States launched Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. American B-2 stealth bombers struck the deeply buried Fordow enrichment facility with massive bunker-busting bombs, while additional attacks targeted Natanz and Isfahan. Fordow was the target that Israel could not reliably destroy on its own. Trump supplied the unique American capability needed to reach it.

Then, on Feb. 28, 2026, American and Israeli aircraft again flew into battle against Iran in parallel operations. Washington called its campaign Operation Epic Fury, while Israel designated its component Operation Roaring Lion. U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iranian nuclear, ballistic-missile, air-defense, naval and regime targets. The White House described Epic Fury as a campaign conducted “in partnership with regional allies” to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat and cripple its military capabilities.

In other words, the Netanyahu-Trump partnership has already moved beyond intelligence coordination, diplomatic support and defensive interception. Israeli and American forces have attacked the same enemy during the same campaigns.

Shortly after the announcement, a Senior Israeli official told JNS, “There has never been greater cooperation and coordination between an American wartime President and an Israeli wartime Prime Minister. Trump and Netanyahu are an epic tag team who have achieved unprecedented achievements in war and peace. That has, of course, translated into unprecedented cooperation between our great armed forces.”

Nor does Trump appear to believe the confrontation is over. At an Oct. 13 campaign rally in Alaska, he warned: “Wait till you see what we do to Iran,” adding, “We’ve sort of had it. You know, we’ve had it.”

Days earlier, Trump said that the United States would not resume strikes before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, while leaving open the possibility of renewed military action afterward. Meanwhile, there are media reports that Trump continues to regard post-election escalation as a viable option.

Against that background, Trump’s endorsement is not simply about personal loyalty; it is about who will sit across from him when the next decision on Iran must be made.

The timing nevertheless makes the statement striking. Trump had repeatedly declined opportunities to endorse Netanyahu. In August, he said, “I think it’s most appropriate for me to stay out of Israeli elections, but I may endorse somebody.”


EU condemns West Bank settler attacks targeting diplomats, Palestinians during olive harvest
The European Union "strongly condemns" attacks by extremist settlers in the West Bank, including attacks against European diplomats, the bloc's foreign policy spokesperson said on Sunday.

The statement came a day after Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian civilians, European diplomats and a French mayor in the West Bank.

"We take positive note of statements by several Israeli representatives who condemned the attacks, but we expect full accountability as well as effective measures to prevent continued acts of violence and violent harassment against Palestinians, including during the ongoing olive harvest season, as well as against journalists," the EU spokesperson said.

The incident in question included a group of European diplomats who claimed to have been attacked by Jewish settler extremists on Saturday. Netanyahu cautioned against ongoing 'campaign to smear Israel'

Following the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying that "serious accusations require serious evidence." Masked men reportedly attacked European diplomats in the West Bank.

"We urge caution before drawing conclusions from today's reports that European diplomats were attacked by masked Israelis in Judea and Samaria. Any violence against diplomats is unacceptable. The more serious the accusation, the greater the demand for compelling evidence," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

The statement by Netanyahu also claimed that the reports come amid a "coordinated campaign to smear Israel and the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria during the annual olive harvest, relying on sensational headlines before the full facts emerge."

"We may see further allegations in the coming days. By the time the evidence is fully examined, the reputational damage from premature conclusions may already be done," the statement continued, adding that the PMO has "called on the public and responsible journalists to demand verifiable evidence, reject hearsay, and refuse to turn unproven allegations into a collective indictment of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria."


For Israel, Greece is more than a friend - it is a strategic partner
In the Middle East, where alliances are repeatedly tested by crises, Greece is a partner Israel should value.

Beyond the blue sea, the islands, and the beloved music stands a country that understands the importance of its relationship with Israel and gives it diplomatic, security, and economic depth.

Relations between Jerusalem and Athens show how geographic proximity can become a strategic partnership when political leaders invest in it over time.

Relations between countries also have a personal dimension, expressed through diplomatic encounters.

One such occasion was a dinner hosted by Ami H Orkaby, dean of the Israeli Consular Corps and honorary consul general of South Korea, and his wife, Shirley.

Gil Haskel, Israel’s chief of protocol, attended the dinner, which was held in honor of Nikolaos Margaropoulos of Greece, president of the World Federation of Consuls (FICAC).

Such gatherings illustrate the importance of diplomacy in connecting people and countries, building relationships, and cultivating trust.

The organization president’s Greek background also gives the occasion a personal connection to relations with Greece. Honorary consuls, who operate at the intersection of diplomacy and business, can help expand relationships and advance new initiatives.

Alongside formal agreements, hospitality, conversation, and a willingness to listen and help create the foundation for future partnerships, Orkaby’s contribution to cultivating these encounters and strengthening Israel’s international relationships deserves recognition.

What makes Greek-Israeli ties so significant
Greece’s approach toward Israel is especially worthy of appreciation because it exists within a complex political reality. Friendship does not require agreement on every issue.

Athens maintains independent positions and has criticized Israel on diplomatic matters, but disagreements do not erase the relationship’s importance.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s visit to Israel in October 2023, following the Hamas attack, expressed solidarity during an exceptionally difficult period and demonstrated the human significance of the partnership.

Greece’s ambassador to Israel, Maya Solomou, also deserves recognition for her contribution to this continuing effort. She presented her credentials to President Isaac Herzog in February 2025.

Her work demonstrates the value of diplomacy that connects governments, business communities, and professionals.
Austrian Air flight from TLV to Vienna makes emergency landing due to bomb threat
A bomb threat against an Austrian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna on Sunday forced the plane to divert to Bulgaria, according to Bulgarian authorities and the airline.

The Austrian Airlines crew decided to make an emergency landing in Sofia after reportedly receiving a bomb threat as they neared Romania, Bulgaria’s transport ministry said in a statement, adding that the passengers were evacuated from the aircraft after landing.

The Haaretz newspaper reported that the threat came from an Austrian citizen who was not on board the flight.

The Bulgarian air force scrambled a MiG-29 fighter jet to escort the airliner as part of established procedures, the transport ministry said.

The airline told AFP that 51 passengers and six crew were aboard the flight, and that a security search of the aircraft — an Airbus A320 — was launched after it safely landed in Sofia about a half hour after the threat.

“Once the search of the aircraft is complete, the passengers will be rebooked onto alternative flights as quickly as possible,” the airline said.

The plane reportedly was carrying a delegation of young people who were due to speak at the United Nations.

According to Flightradar24 data, the aircraft, registered OE-LZE, entered Romanian airspace at around 9:10 p.m. before turning south and heading back towards Bulgaria, where it landed in Sofia.

Data from another flight-tracking platform, ADS-B Exchange, indicates that the aircraft was transmitting squawk code 7700 — a signal for a general emergency — at around the same time.

The transport ministry said that a crisis response team had been set up and the relevant authorities have launched an investigation into the incident.
U.S. and Israel Can't Force Iran to Surrender
The U.S. and Israel are at a stalemate with Iran and its proxies. Washington and Jerusalem enjoy almost complete freedom to operate in the skies over the Islamic Republic, along with a military advantage in every other domain. Despite the crippling naval blockade enforced by U.S. Central Command, Trump's negotiators cannot even secure agreement on his minimum demands: that Iran stop developing nuclear weapons and respect freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.

The explanation lies partly in the absence of an organized force on the ground in Iran with the motivation, organization and resources to challenge the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia militarily, and offer an alternative government if the regime is defeated.

A memorandum of understanding with Iran reached in June, negotiated with Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad under Pakistani mediation, was violated by the Revolutionary Guards within days, which launched missiles and drones that struck three merchant ships passing through Hormuz. Iran's violation of the conciliatory memorandum and the latest negotiations drove home a point for Trump: Not only is a diplomatic compromise with the current regime impossible, it is not even clear whether Iran's representatives have the authority to agree to anything.

A source familiar with the administration's deliberations says this realization is bringing Trump and Rubio closer to the Israeli position, shared by Netanyahu and all the Israeli security chiefs: Only overthrowing the regime will ensure that Iran does not rebuild its nuclear program and that passage through Hormuz again operates under international navigation rules.

Yet it is equally clear that decision-makers in Washington and Jerusalem do not intend to send in ground combat formations to overthrow the regime and seize its nuclear and missile facilities. The IDF is advising Netanyahu not to rush. Every passing day allows Israel to produce more interceptors, long-range precision-strike weapons, drones and counter-drone systems. Moreover, reliable intelligence held by both Israel and the Americans indicates that Iran has so far neither tried to recover its uranium enriched to 60% nor moved to restore enrichment facilities and resume nuclear warhead development.

The Pentagon has dispatched a third task force to the Middle East, led by the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, probably reflecting the lessons of Iranian strikes on American aircraft based in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. CENTCOM consequently decided to reposition its forces, including several fighter squadrons that were moved to Israel, which has strong air defenses. The additional carrier and its task force effectively replace more than one U.S. base in the region.


Iran’s new defense chief warns US of ‘enormous damage’ if attacks resume
Newly appointed Iranian defense minister Mehrdad Akhlaghi threatened on Sunday to inflict “enormous damage” on the United States and its allies in the Middle East if Washington resumes its military campaign against the country.

“People can rest assured that they will most likely not dare to attack us,” Akhlaghi told reporters shortly after securing parliament’s vote of confidence. “If they (the US) do, they themselves and the region will suffer enormous damage.”

Iranian lawmakers had earlier approved Akhlaghi’s appointment as the country’s new defense minister, after his predecessor was killed on the first day of the war with the United States.

“Members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) today gave a vote of confidence to Mehrdad Akhlaghi, the nominee for minister of defense and armed forces logistics,” state television reported, nearly eight months after the initial US-Israeli strikes that sparked the conflict.

According to the government website, Akhlaghi “was elected to the post with 237 votes in favor,” out of a total of 277 votes cast.

The veteran defense official replaces Aziz Nasirzadeh, who was killed in a US-Israeli attack on a leadership compound on February 28, alongside former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior military commanders.

“If I receive parliament’s vote of confidence, responsibility for the Ministry of Defense will fall to me at a sensitive juncture,” Akhlaghi said before the vote, according to the ISNA news agency.

“Under such circumstances, defending the country requires an accurate understanding of the environment, an understanding of the logic behind developments, the identification of influential trends, and preparedness to face different possible futures,” he added.

Although he does not hold a military rank, Akhlaghi has worked in the defense ministry for 42 years and has headed the Iranian Defense Industries Organization, the state’s weapons manufacturer, since 2013.


I Was in the Room when Israel Decided to Kill Nasrallah. Here's Why We Had to Do It
Two years ago, I sat in a room where the question being discussed was: Should Israel strike Hassan Nasrallah, a man I had spent much of my professional life studying? Hundreds of intelligence officers and analysts spent years building the intelligence case for targeting Nasrallah and minimizing harm to civilians. I remember Col. M., who led intelligence work on Hizbullah, when she told us: "We have it. If you decide to act, you can."

What remained was the strategic decision. In the room, not one person objected. Mindful of the lessons of Oct. 7, we sought dissenting views and contacted two people considered most likely to oppose the operation. Both supported it. Nasrallah blocked any ceasefire in Lebanon and would never unlink the Lebanese front from Gaza.

I watched the live images as the bombs hit the compound where he was staying. When confirmation arrived, I felt profound relief and satisfaction that a man whose organization had killed so many Israelis and Americans was gone.

Nasrallah led Hizbullah from 1992 and transformed it into a force that served Iran far beyond its borders. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 allowed Hizbullah to claim that armed resistance had forced the Israeli military out. The 2006 Lebanon War, which Nasrallah cast as a divine victory despite the devastation in Lebanon, made him a star across much of the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Afterward, Hizbullah amassed an arsenal and precision-strike capabilities that gave it firepower rivaling that of many states, deterring Israel for years from taking decisive action against it. Yet, decades in power dulled Nasrallah's instincts and bred an arrogance that distorted his judgment. Nasrallah came to believe that no one understood Israel and the Jews better than he did, and that Iran's Shiite revolutionary project was destined to triumph.

Nasrallah's killing marked a decisive turning point in Hizbullah's decline. It still exists and remains dangerous, but it is a pale shadow of the force that once possessed the capabilities of a state military and threatened Israel, American lives, and the stability of the Middle East.
UKLFI: Natasha Hausdorff with ToI's Lazar Berman: distortion of international law by anti-Israel NGOs
Natasha Hausdorff interviewed by Lazar Berman, Times of Israel Diplomatic Correspondent, for his weekly deep dive, Lazar Focus. They discuss the ecosystem of international organisations, NGOs and governments using the terminology of international law to vilify Israel - despite the measures taken by Israel to protect civilians going beyond any other army in the world. Natasha observes that the UN Commission of Inquiry's report alleging genocide by Israel was essentially a copy-and-paste job on an Amnesty International report, which was itself based on a report by Human Rights Watch that relied on sources controlled by Hamas, resulting in the UN effectively laundering Hamas propaganda. Natasha also criticises the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, pointing out that Pillay appears to be part of a coordinated effort to soften established criteria of genocide in order to find Israel guilty.


Victor Davis Hanson: Hamas is a Complete Death Cult—Why Are Campuses Not Condemning Them?
Columbia University had “Oct. 7 blush sauce” on the dining hall menu. A Haverford professor was arrested for cyberstalking a Jewish colleague.

The Left continues to shield these bad actors behind victimhood. Why?

“You get these expensive policies. Well, that's what DEI is. It's basically saying, ‘I got a DEI policy, and that means that if I want to make up a false identity and attack this person, I'm not a part of the oppressor class. I'm the oppressed class, so I get an exemption.’”


Ben Shapiro: This Senate Candidate Hid 100+ Videos. Here's What We Found.
Who is Abdul El-Sayed? From the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee’s alleged Muslim Brotherhood connections and CAIR-linked campaign donations, to his relationship with Hasan Piker and his radically socialist platform, these are the facts about Abdul El-Sayed that his campaign wishes you’d never see.


Authorities examine UK security adviser’s wife over Palestine Action post
Spiked Online Editor Tom Slater reacts to authorities examining the wife of UK national security adviser Jonathan Powell over a social media post about Palestine Action.


Watchdog tracks over 1,300 posts blaming Jews, Israel for France riots
A wave of unrest that erupted across France over the weekend was accompanied by antisemitic incitement and conspiracy theories on X/Twitter, accusing Israel, Mossad, and Jews of responsibility for the violence and destruction in the streets, according to a report published Sunday by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).

The study, conducted by CAM's Antisemitism Research Center (ARC), examined activity on X between October 16 and 18 and identified 1,384 posts linking the riots to Jews or Israel. According to the organization, the posts included conspiracy theories alongside calls for physical violence, expulsion, and extermination. Antisemitic conspiracy theories blame Israel and Mossad for France riots

According to the findings, influential social media accounts spread claims that "Mossad is burning France right now" and described the unrest as a "civil war orchestrated by Jewish elites."

Other accounts linked French President Emmanuel Macron to the Rothschild family, while far-right activists with hundreds of thousands of followers circulated the message: "The Jews did this to France. Don't let them do it to America."

CAM said this was the fourth time in less than three months that its research center had identified a similar pattern of antisemitic conspiracy theories spreading in response to major news events.

Verified X accounts accused of amplifying antisemitic incitement
The study also found that accounts subscribed to X Premium, identified by blue verification checkmarks, were among those spreading some of the most extreme messages.

According to CAM, the content received millions of views, with the organization arguing that the platform's amplification mechanisms helped spread the messages.

CAM CEO Sacha Roytman warned of the connection between online incitement and violence in public spaces.

"Once again, we are witnessing the same distorted pattern in which hatred of Jews and Israel becomes the automatic explanation for every national crisis," Roytman said. "Worse still, social media platforms are incentivizing those who spread hatred instead of stopping them."
Synagogue vandalized in Paris amid nationwide chaos
A synagogue in Paris's 19th arrondissement (a district in northeastern Paris) was vandalized overnight Sunday as riots continue to spread nationwide. The attack was part of a broader wave of violence that saw rioters hit public buildings, loot stores, and assault police stations during nationwide protests.

Social media footage shows rioters damaging Torah scrolls and furniture inside the synagogue, which was broken into under cover of darkness. No one was injured, and authorities have made no arrests so far.

The French capital is still reeling from a full day of fierce rioting that inflicted massive damage on state institutions and private businesses alike. Across the country, countless stores and businesses – selling everything from food to luxury items and mobile phones – were looted and vandalized on Saturday afternoon. In several cases, including in Paris, the destruction unfolded far from the sanctioned demonstrations against the rising cost of living.

Among the most harrowing images to emerge from Saturday night was the collapse of the historic Town Hall in Limoges, a landmark built in 1883, after flames tore through the building amid the unrest that gripped Paris and other French cities.

"The price will be steep, all across the country," Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu noted shortly before midnight, promising, "I have instructed the various ministers to stand by those who have lost their livelihoods." Commerce Minister Serge Papin later turned to "all the businesses affected" on the social media platform X, reassuring them by saying, "We at the Ministry of Economy and Finance are mobilized to help you."

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 110 marches had drawn approximately 550,000 people nationwide, with about 500 police officers and firefighters injured in the unrest. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu added that around 1,200 people had been arrested in connection with the demonstrations, stressing that the government would not be "intimidated" by violence.


UK Charity Commission opens case against Restless Beings after UKLFI complaint alleging Hamas ties
The UK’s Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into the human rights charity Restless Beings following a legal complaint by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) regarding its ties to a Gaza-based organization designated by the United States as controlled by Hamas’s military wing.

The regulatory scrutiny follows a complaint UKLFI submitted detailing extensive evidence of cooperation between Restless Beings and Merciful Hands Gaza, an organization the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated in January as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.

According to the US Treasury, Merciful Hands was owned, controlled, or directed by Hamas and integrated into its military wing, which provided funding and operational instructions.

UKLFI investigation documented overlap between Restless Beings, Merciful Hands
UKLFI's investigation documented overlapping personnel and joint humanitarian projects conducted between 2022 and 2024.

Evidence submitted to regulators included shared personnel such as Nura Barzaq, who was identified as a public relations officer for Merciful Hands and appeared in Restless Beings fundraising videos between 2022 and last year.

The dossier also identified aid workers Alaa al-Tabtibi and Mohammad Abu al-Ouf, who appeared in material published by Merciful Hands while filmed wearing Restless Beings-branded clothing during aid operations.

Additional findings cited joint aid operations during Ramadan 2022 featuring Restless Beings branding on packages, banners, and worker apparel in material published by Merciful Hands, alongside direct funding instances, including a February 2024 distribution of 450 meals funded by Restless Beings.

Senior Hamas figures tied to Merciful Hands administration
The complaint further highlighted connections between Merciful Hands and senior Hamas figures, including Muhammad Abu Nar, who chaired Merciful Hands from approximately 2015 to 2023 and was reportedly a commander within the al-Qassam Brigades.

The dossier pointed to additional archival records, noting that footage from 2017 showed senior Hamas figure Ahmed Behar addressing a Merciful Hands gathering, alongside a local media report attributing the founding of the charity to senior Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari.

UKLFI contended that these publicly accessible indicators should have prompted rigorous background checks by Restless Beings prior to and throughout their operational partnership.


Palestinian history children's book withdrawn from publisher due to editorial disagreements
Palestinian American writers Alana Hadid and Jenan Matari withdrew a planned children’s book about Palestinian history from Penguin Random House following disagreements over passages concerning Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, according to details published Thursday. The authors said they would instead release the book through another publisher in 2027.

For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org

The book, Displacement and the Palestinian American Story, had been scheduled for publication in September as part of Random House Children’s Books’ Race to the Truth series, intended for readers ages 10 to 13.

Hadid, the older sister of models Bella and Gigi Hadid, and Matari, an author and communications strategist, signed their publishing agreement in November 2024.

According to correspondence reviewed by The Guardian, disagreements intensified after editors inserted language stating that Hamas’ October 7 attacks violated international law. The authors objected, arguing the addition conflicted with their account of Palestinian resistance and was made without their approval.

Human Rights Watch has separately concluded that Hamas-led armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the attacks, including the deliberate killing of civilians and hostage-taking.

The publisher also questioned repeated references to Jewish identity in descriptions of armed Zionist groups during the 1948 war, when approximately 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.

Random House says editorial changes were intended to aid younger readers
Random House defended its editorial procedures, saying changes were intended to help younger readers understand contentious historical events. It subsequently proposed adding a publisher’s note and raising the intended readership age.

A company spokesperson said Random House respected the authors’ decision to withdraw the manuscript and remained committed to publishing Palestinian perspectives.

The authors subsequently reached an agreement with Interlink Books, a Palestinian-owned American publisher, which plans to release their work in 2027.

Saira Rao, who helped create the Race to the Truth series, said she would end future collaborations with Random House over how it handled the project. The publisher said another installment remained scheduled for 2028.


Real Madrid calls on Spanish soccer league president to resign after Goebbels remark
The Real Madrid soccer team called on Javier Tebas, president of Spain’s LaLiga soccer league, to resign after he compared the club’s messaging strategy to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Tebas, who is also vice president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, made the comparison in a Friday social media post in which he wrote that “Real Madrid’s management directs an orchestra of mouthpieces and Real Madrid TV leads the singing.”

“Their score is always the same. Select the plays that suit them, repeat the grievance, feed the suspicion and point fingers at the enemies,” he wrote. “That method recalls propaganda mechanisms exploited by Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda: systematic repetition, construction of an enemy and subordination of facts to the narrative.”

“The comparison is with those propaganda techniques, not with an ideology or, of course, with the Madridista fanbase,” Tebas wrote.

Real Madrid stated on Friday that it’s “absolutely intolerable and extraordinarily serious that someone holding two positions of utmost responsibility in Spanish football resorts to a comparison with the propaganda methods of the Nazi regime to discredit our club, its management and its television.”

“The clarification that he is not referring to Nazi ideology does not mitigate the deeply offensive, morally repugnant and institutionally unworthy nature of his statements,” the club said. “Real Madrid C.F. demands his immediate resignation as president of LaLiga and vice president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation.”


Huge pro-Palestine mob target Israeli dance show... only for performers to win a standing ovation
A huge pro-Palestine mob targeted an Israeli dance show on Thursday before the performers received a standing ovation.

Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Teatros del Canal in Madrid earlier this week, where Israel's Batsheva Dance Company was performing.

Protesters held Palestinian flags and displayed a banner reading "Israel dances while it kills in Gaza" and "Against the whitewashing of genocide" in Spanish.

The group are also said to have demanded a total boycott of Batsheva, which is currently presenting its show "Sadeh21", as well as a cancellation of any future shows.

Footage from the demonstration shows hundreds of protesters gathered outside the doors to the theatre from around 7pm, an hour before the show's starting time, shouting pro-Palestine chants, along with "boycott Israel" and "Free Palestine".

It is claimed some members of the protest even screamed "murderers" and "shame on you" to audience members innocently taking their seats at the theatre.

In spite of the outside noise, the dance performance went ahead as planned and, according to the Israeli embassy in Spain, even received a standing ovation.

Dances were scheduled to take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with all three shows reportedly sold out. pro-Palestine mob

On Friday, the Israeli embassy took to social media to congratulate the performers.

"Yesterday the Israeli dance company Batsheva had its grand premiere at the @teatroscanal in Madrid," the embassy wrote.

"The audience, among whom were the Minister of Culture of the Community of Madrid and the Chargé d'Affaires of Israel in Spain, was able to enjoy a performance of the highest level.

"Full house, standing ovation, and sold-out tickets for the three days are marking this company's passage through Spain."



Herzog marks 40 years since IAF navigator Ron Arad was taken captive in Lebanon
Israeli President Isaac Herzog commemorated on Saturday evening the capture of Israeli Air Force navigator Lt. Col. Ron Arad by Lebanese terrorists, a day after Friday’s 40th anniversary of the incident.

“I remember clearly the day Ron was captured,” Herzog wrote in a Hebrew-language post on X.

“I was serving in the active reserves at the time, and the news that his aircraft had gone down and that he was missing shook us all,” he recounted.

“Ron’s photograph stands above my head in my office at the President’s Residence [in Jerusalem] at all times, a daily reminder of our moral and national commitment to bring him home. My heart and thoughts are with Tami, Yuval, and the entire family,” the president continued, referring to Arad’s spouse and daughter.

“Even after forty years, the State of Israel remains committed to doing everything possible to determine what happened to him and bring him home. We must never forget Ron,” Herzog added.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Friday tweeted, “Time has not erased his memory, nor weakened our commitment. Ron Arad has not been forgotten. We will never stop fighting to bring him home.”

Arad has been classified as missing in action ‎since October 1986, when his plane went down over Lebanon. He ejected from his F-4 Phantom II interceptor/fighter-bomber and was ‎captured by the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist group Amal. The captured navigator was later handed over to Hezbollah, and ‎later, perhaps to Iran.

His pilot, Yishai Aviram, also ejected from the aircraft. A few hours later, Aviram was located by an Israeli Bell AH-1E Cobra helicopter, and escaped by clinging to one of its landing skids as it flew away under heavy enemy fire.





 


at