Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 02, 2025

The Growing Legal Defense Against Pro-Hamas Protesters (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The right to free speech is both recognized and protected.

Since October 7, pro-Hamas protesters have been accusing universities, the police, and even the government of deliberately violating their free speech. However, emphasizing that speech rights are not absolute only illustrates the growing need to more clearly define the boundary between the right to protest and the right to be protected from the protesters.

When the ACLU brought a suit against the city of Pittsburgh during a 2009 G-20 Conference, it claimed:

Pittsburgh officials deliberately adopted a strategy to harass, intimidate, discourage, and ultimately prevent Three Rivers Climate Convergence and the Seeds of Peace Collective from exercising their constitutionally protected rights to free speech and assembly.

But now, in light of pro-Hamas protests, we are seeing the pendulum swing in the other direction in search of a balance that protects others from being harassed, intimidated, and discouraged from expressing their Jewish identity.

One step in that direction came in January 2024, when Jewish students at Harvard University filed a federal lawsuit claiming Harvard has "become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment" by failing to enforce Harvard's own rules against students who violate them -- rules designed to protect Jewish students. Instead, according to lawyer Marc Kasowitn, Jewish students have been "intimidated, harassed and in some instances physically assaulted because they're Jewish."

A further impetus for the protection of Jewish students' rights came last month when a jury found Greenpeace liable for civil conspiracy, defamation, and trespass with a verdict of $667 million in damages. The New York Post article notes the parallels:

There are similarities between the anti-pipeline protests near North Dakota’s Standing Rock Indian Reservation and other mass actions, including Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the anti-Israel demonstrations that erupted around the United States after the Oct. 7 attacks.

These are “hybrid protests,” in which masses of peaceful demonstrators are joined by smaller groups of trained agitators who tip the events toward violence.

The verdict also exposes how NGOs funnel money and material support to those who join the protests with the intent to harass and violate other people's rights.

Now, in a new tactic in the fight against pro-Hamas protesters, families of the victims of the Hamas October 7 massacre are bringing a lawsuit against the anti-Israel groups themselves. Groups such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Within Our Lifetime and leaders like Mahmoud Khalil are being sued. According to the suit:

“Their self-described acts in furtherance of their goals to assist Hamas have included terrorizing and assaulting Jewish students, unlawfully taking over and damaging public and university property on Columbia’s campus, and physically assaulting Columbia University employees.”

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The suit does more than claim that the protests exceed mere free speech. The families claim that these anti-Israel groups and leaders are coordinating with Hamas, a foreign terrorist group:

“Associational Defendants are not independent advocates; they are expert propagandists and recruiters for international foreign terrorist organizations and nation-state proxies operating in plain sight in New York City.”

The bottom line is that these groups did not just intimidate, harass, and perform acts of violence. They violated America’s Antiterrorism Act.

The families also accuse the groups of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization and having prior knowledge of the attack:

After months of dormancy, Columbia SJP allegedly reactivated its Instagram account "three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7," announcing a meeting and stating that supporters should "stay tuned."

Eighty-three SJP chapters, including Columbia, signed and disseminated a statement in support of Hamas at midnight at the end of the day of the attack, leading the suit to insinuate that the content must have been drafted, reviewed, and signed by dozens of organizations "before and/or during the events of October 7 themselves."

This lawsuit mirrors one by the Jewish National Fund in 2019, when it sued the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, accusing them of supporting terrorism and acting as a front for Hamas. The JNF was rebuffed at every turn:

The plaintiffs made these claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), which allows any U.S. national suffering injury due to an act of international terrorism to sue in federal court. Those considered to have knowingly provided “substantial assistance” to a terrorist organization can be found guilty of providing “material support” to terrorism.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s rejection, the lawsuit was dismissed by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2021, noting that the plaintiff’s arguments were “to say the least, not persuasive.” In 2023, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, stating that JNF’s attempt to establish liability “fails at every turn,” calling the allegations against USCPR “nothing more than guilt by association.”

The evidence being brought in this new case may make all the difference.

This fight against protests claiming free speech protections goes beyond college campuses. The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute filed a lawsuit last April for blockading the main entrance into Chicago's O’Hare International Airport, tying up traffic for hours and trapping innocent travelers in their cars. Among the defendants are Jewish Voice for Peace, The Tides Center, and the National Students for Justice, who "provided monetary or logistical support."

The case defends the rights of citizens unlawfully impeded by anti-Israel, pro-Gaza groups engaging in illegal acts of obstruction rather than peaceful protest. HLLI’s legal team seeks damages and a court injunction to prevent future disruptions like this.

A counterpoint to this is the case of NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. in 1966, when the group launched a boycott of white merchants to promote equality and racial justice. While the protest relied on nonviolent picketing, the protest caused financial damage to the businesses. The businesses went to court in 1969. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld that the NAACP could be held responsible and held the boycott to be unlawful "since the NAACP agreed to use force, violence, and 'threats' to carryout the boycott."

However, the US Supreme Court unanimously held (8-0; Justice Thurgood Marshall did not take part) that the NAACP could not be held responsible because the violence or threats of violence could not be tied directly to the financial losses.

Similarly, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court limited the punishment of inflammatory speech only where it is intended to “incit[e] or produc[e] imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such aelction.” However, in that same case featuring the NAACP, an activist who said, “If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck,” was found not to have gone beyond protected speech.

Of course, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits an institution receiving federal funds from discriminating based on race, color, and national origin, could add another dimension to the current cases. National origin includes shared Jewish ancestry.

At the very least, the various cases might finally get the media to correctly point out that there is more to the defense of Jewish students on campus than just free speech.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The New York Times provides us with a textbook case of media bias while technically staying within the bounds of journalistic ethics.

The actions taken in recent weeks against these foreign students and academics, many of them highly accomplished in their fields, have raised questions about why federal authorities are singling them out, and what role outside groups like Canary Mission are playing in identifying targets for deportation.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has said that it does not rely on lists from Canary Mission, and some of the students who’ve been targeted by federal agents do not appear on any of the lists.

Yet some of them do. And immigration lawyers and experts point to coincidences that suggest to them that the information circulated by Canary Mission and another pro-Israel group, Betar, may be providing road maps for ICE enforcement actions.

... Canary Mission, asked if it had shared information on potential deportation targets with federal authorities, said that it had not. “Our investigations of anti-U.S. and antisemitic extremists are all publicly available on our website,” the group said in a statement.

To summarize: There is zero evidence that the US government uses Canary Mission as a resource. The government flatly denies it. Canary Mission denies providing any information to the government. But some biased "experts" "suggest" that it "may" be happening - and that's all the evidence the New York Times needs.

Jonathan Wallace, a lawyer representing one of the seven “deportable” people posted on Canary Mission’s “Uncovering Foreign Nationals” web page, called the group a “predator in the ecosystem that we’re living in right now.” Critics say the lists amount to doxxing, the publishing of private information about someone with malicious intent.

According to documents filed in a lawsuit against Columbia, Dr. Abdou was doxxed by Canary Mission.

Canary Mission's website, along with its mission and methodology, is public. It never publishes private information on the people it writes about. Every piece of information on the site about these individuals is public - their own writings, their own LinkedIn profiles, photos of them in public protests. The Canary Mission site is extraordinarily careful to document everything it says.

The NYT doesn't fact check the "doxxing" lie, even though it easily could. Because better to quote biased "experts" and a lawsuit that does not need to be truthful than to do actual reporting.

In 2018, the Middle East Studies Association, an academic group, published a report, “Exposing Canary Mission,” that compared the group’s tactics to the Red Scare of the 1950s, when the government targeted those purportedly engaged in Communist subversion. The report also accused the organization of “misinformation, omissions, quotations taken out of context and allegations based on guilt by association.”

Again, the New York Times reporters can check whether this is true themselves. They can look through the site and find on their own examples of misinformation or quotes out of context. But instead of doing journalism, it chooses instead to quote a rabidly anti-Israel group that supports boycotting Israel as an unbiased "academic group." They can link to the Ethics section of Canary Mission and let readers decide for themselves whether the site is doing anything unethical.

But they don't. And they won't.

Then the newspaper of record adds more innuendo:

Details about Canary Mission’s leadership, origins and funding are murky, with a few exceptions.
The group has not sought tax-exempt status in the United States, meaning that, unlike most American nonprofit organizations, it does not file disclosure statements about its leadership and budget with the federal government. It also does not list a physical address.

Unlike anti-Israel organizations that claim tax exempt status and spread hate on the American taxpayers' dime, Canary Mission does not seek tax benefits. The NYT suggests that there is something wrong with the organization that does not rip off Americans, that does everything legally and above-board, whose methods and veracity can be independently checked and verified.

Canary Mission cares far more about the truth and ethics than the New York Times does.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

YNet reported yesterday:

Israeli authorities said Tuesday they thwarted a major terrorist attack being planned against Israeli targets abroad, in what they described as one of the most serious plots in recent years.

The IDF and Shin Bet security agency confirmed that the overnight airstrike in Beirut's Dahieh district, a Hezbollah stronghold, targeted and killed Hassan Ali Mahmoud Bdeir, a senior operative in Hezbollah’s Unit 3900 and the Iranian Quds Force.

According to Israeli intelligence, Bdeir played a central role in a joint terror network involving both Hezbollah and Hamas operatives—a rare instance of cooperation between the Shiite and Sunni terrorist groups. The network was reportedly planning an imminent large-scale attack abroad, which officials said could have killed hundreds of Israelis had it been carried out.

According to French news agency AFP, Bdeir served as deputy to Hezbollah’s chief coordinator for Palestinian affairs. Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar published a photograph of Bdeir aboard a plane with former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the senior Iraqi militia leader who was killed alongside Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike in 2020.

Shin Bet and IDF officials said the operation prevented a potentially catastrophic attack and marked a significant blow to the collaboration between Hezbollah and Hamas beyond Israel’s borders. Israeli authorities noted that Hamas’ overseas network operates from countries including Turkey and is attempting to expand into parts of Europe.

Everything we know so far makes this sound like this would have been Iran's "Operation True Promise 3," their pledge to hit back at Israel in a massive way in retaliation for last October's Israeli air strikes in Iran.

Iran doesn't have the capability to strike Israel directly without sparking a major war, which they don't want. It would always rely on proxies and plausible deniability for its attacks to dissuade Israel from attacking it directly. Just the time it would take to investigate a terror attack on foreign soil would add doubt and pressure on Israel not to respond, and it also complicates the legality of a direct military response to Iran under international law.

All the articles say that the planned attack would have killed hundreds of Israelis, not Jews. That would be consistent with Iran's goal of targeting Israel and not appearing antisemitic. It seems likely that it would have been against a tourist spot popular with secular Israelis on the upcoming Passover holiday, not a kosher for Passover specific program. Iran would probably have also chosen a non-Western target to avoid upsetting (and killing) Westerners which would result in, at the least, major diplomatic and economic fallout, if not military. Greece or even Sharm el-Sheikh would have too many risks.

My guess is that the planned attack would have been in Asian spots popular with Israelis, some of which have Israeli-owned guest houses. This attack seems likely to have been planned for a place like , Bangkok’s Khao San, Koh Samui or India's Goa, some of which are so popular that they have Hebrew signs around the hotels. Vietnam has been becoming an increasingly popular destination as well.

It is not as if Iran and Hezbollah haven't done this sort of thing before. In 2012, Hezbollah bombed a tourist bus with dozens of Israelis in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing six.

Thank God for Israeli intelligence and the IDF protecting Jews worldwide.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

04/01 Links Pt2: How U.S. Academics Became Apostles of Folktales and Superstition; Blind Spot - A documentary on campus antisemitism

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: How U.S. Academics Became Apostles of Folktales and Superstition

The contrast between protests in Gaza and protests ostensibly for Gaza is startling. In Gaza, Palestinians are out in the streets calling for freedom from Hamas rule despite the knowledge that they are risking their lives to do so. Indeed, just this weekend Hamas abducted a protester, tortured him to death, and left his body on his family’s doorstep as a grotesque warning to others. On U.S. campuses, meanwhile, protesters are out in the streets to oppose restrictions on their pro-Hamas demonstrations.

It’s all part of an overall trend in which Palestinians in the territories and “pro-Palestinian” activists in the West are moving in two different intellectual directions. Westerners are unambiguously moving backwards.

A book that should be required reading on the Arab-Israeli conflict at every American university is Self-Criticism After the Defeat, by Sadik al-Azm, a groundbreaking 1968 critique from within the Arab world. Azm, a Syrian intellectual, wrote this superb dissent from what he saw as Arab leaders’ denialism after the Six-Day War in 1967. The war, he felt, exposed how the rest of the world was leaving the Arab world behind, and Arab leaders responded by pretending the war was not a defeat but a mere setback in the inevitable triumph over the Zionist project.

The version of the book in circulation today includes a forward by the late Lebanese-American intellectual and academic Fouad Ajami and three response-essays by other Arab writers, including the foundational Palestinian novelist turned PFLP terror recruit Ghassan Kanafani. Ajami’s essay is on the stultifying atmosphere in Arab thought that was disrupted by Azm’s gust of fresh air.

Rereading Ajami today, however, from an American perspective is jarring: It sounds like he’s talking not about pan-Arab groupthink from the 1950s and 1960s but the elite U.S. university in 2025.

Part of the problem, Ajami writes, was that the echo chamber of the “Arab street” left the publics ill-prepared for Israel’s victory because they didn’t expect it or plan for it: “No one had told ordinary Arabs that Israel was there to stay, that she had won the struggle for statehood on her own, that the verdict of the 1948 war could not be reversed.”

Today’s college students and activists, the bright minds of the future, are that Arab street. Magical thinking, faith in their own cause, and self-righteousness have cloistered them, and instead of expanding their horizons their professors only locked them in further, sealing them off from reality. There is something almost anti-modern about it, as if they don’t have access to sources on the outside.

Seth Mandel: A Cautionary Tale for Defenders of Campus Hamasniks

Taal’s sympathies for Hamas aren’t in question. His response to the Oct. 7, 2023 massacres and sexual violence carried out by Hamas against innocent Israelis was to tweet “Glory to the resistance!” alongside a Palestinian flag. He also wrote “Today has shown us what is possible when you are organized.” The pogrom appears to have made him very happy.

Because Taal reveled in the attention from his Hamasnik activism, and because he had already proved himself a good candidate for deportation, there wasn’t much doubt he’d be held responsible for his actions by the Trump administration. And so his visa was revoked, again, finally.

This is where Taal’s behavior gets uniquely obnoxious. He sued the Trump administration to undo the anti-Semitism executive order and to stop his deportation. He did so after his visa was revoked. The judge in Taal’s initial hearing was perplexed. “Any future harm alleged in their affidavits appears to be speculative and even moot because of the revocation of Taal’s visa,” the judge said.

Contrary to some reporting, he was not punished for suing the Trump administration; he sued the Trump administration in a partially successful attempt to fool reporters and activists into misleading the public.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Taal announced yesterday that he was self-deporting.

Taal’s statement is self-pitying and remarkably dishonest, even for Taal. He lied about the entire affair and whined about having to listen “ad nauseum” to the safety concerns of “Zionist students.” He signed off with “long live the student intifada.”

There is no moral defense of Taal or his actions or what he was asking the courts to do. And those who instinctively jumped to his defense ought to engage in some self-reflection.

Melanie Phillips: How others view the once-"sceptr'd isle"

Israel’s national carrier El Al has produced a remarkable promotional video. The central conceit is two young Israeli men, Hanan and his friend, who are tourists in London. There are shots of a London taxi, a London bus and London landmarks. You can watch it here.

In the taxi, the driver asks them “Where are you from?” The young men, startled, look at each other and hesitate. Hanan sings: “What do I answer him? I don’t know…” Then the other says, with a knowing smile, “Greece!”

Hanan (in real life Israeli singer, songwriter and composer Hanan Ben Ari) continues to sing: “How is it the same story every taxi ride…?”— in Japan they say they’re from France, in some unidentifiable Muslim country, from Italy, in India from Sweden — “…am yisroel chai (the people of Israel live) but meanwhile…” and as they walk in a London park he gesticulates to his friend to conceal his T-shirt, which sports a star of David and the Hebrew word for Israel, by zipping up his sweatshirt which displays the legend “I love London.”

As they walk, Hanan continues: “We blend in with the local culture; how am I a guest everywhere I go?” In Starbucks the barista calls out the name written on his coffee cup: “Yohan!” “Yohan?” inquires his friend. “Yes — adding an international twist” replies Hanan sardonically.

“With tricks we make it comfortable,” he sings as they join a crowd of English football fans watching a match on a big screen. His friend tells him sternly: “We are from Spain— you, keep silent!” But then everyone erupts over a goal and Hanan screams “Yaish!” (Yessss!!!) “What did I tell you?!!” scolds his friend in alarm. It’s a tense and threatening moment — but then a guy delightedly says in accented English: “Are you from Israel?” and on hearing the affirmative, shouts “Yalla balagan!” (“on with the chaos!”) as they cheer.

Then comes the bit that made me well up. The video cuts to the two of them embarking on an El Al plane to the accompaniment of an exuberant and heartfelt song: “Oh Lord, oh Lord, feeling at home like in Israel, here you finally can”, as they are greeted emotionally by the crew, and children run around in the plane receiving goodies from smiling flight attendants (ok, a bit of poetic licence here); and then Hanan takes off his woolly hat to reveal the kipah he has been concealing all the time he was in London as he continues: to sing: “Oh thank God, just being ourselves, without apologising — without apologising!” And he is asked sweetly to pipe down by a young woman with a baby — who addresses him for the first time by his real name.

How sad is this, as a promotional video by an airline company — an airline company!! — about the delights of London as a holiday destination? For it’s all too accurate and true. Such is the level of Israel-hatred and antisemitism that many British Jews do indeed avoid doing or saying anything that links them to Israel.

While most of the time there will be no nasty experiences — and for sure, there are many decent Brits who have no horrible feelings about Israel — too many Jews in Britain now feel the need to be always on their guard against unpleasantness, vitriol or worse. Because the abuse, intimidation and defamation occur regularly, as does the implicit and sometimes explicit expectation that as a Jew you must apologise for what you are and denounce Israel and your own people. It’s a process of venomous delegitimisation and dehumanisation based on lies, a potentially murderous process directed at the Jewish people alone, and it can and does happen across British society to ambush the unwary Jew.

04/01 Links Pt1: Hamas ‘quietly drops’ thousands of deaths from casualty figures; Gaza Rises up Against Hamas - with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib; Iran, ISIS plan to target Jewish tourists over Passover

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: In the modern age, 'civilised' people can no longer hate Jews for their religion or race - so they now resort to hating them for having a state and daring to defend it

In the final part of the Mail’s exclusive serialisation of On Democracies And Death Cults, renowned author Douglas Murray explains why Israel is seen as the ‘bad guy’ the world over and details how pervasive anti-Semitism still is.

It always puzzles me why the citizens of Israel seem so unique among victims. Why they seem to be the only people on Earth who, when savagely attacked, either don’t gain the world’s sympathy or gain it only for a matter of hours, if that.

Almost a year went by after the vicious terrorist raid from Gaza and the cold-blooded slaughter of more than a thousand innocent civilians on October 7, 2023 before a point was made that was so searing nobody else had dared raise it.

The massacres, said Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard University, had been the worst atrocity carried out against Jews since the Holocaust – yet almost nobody had the courage to address who the people who had carried it out were.

Why did no one want to dwell on just who the anti-Semites and Nazis were this time? Why was there so little concentration on the ideology that drives Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic government in Iran, and on the fanaticism and the willingness to die and kill mercilessly in its pursuit? Were people not interested?

Or was there some sort of collective anti-Semitism going on – overt or underlying – that meant Israel had to be the bad guy whatever?

You have to see casual anti-Semitism in action to understand how entrenched it can be and how deep it can go, especially in the Middle East. Whenever I travel in the Arab and Muslim worlds I am struck by this obsession with Israel and the Jews. I remember being in Egypt and searching the bookshops to see what the locals were offered for reading material.

The book selections were always the same – Mein Kampf, The Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of Zion and a range of other conspiracy tracts focusing on Israel and the Jews.

Hamas ‘quietly drops’ thousands of deaths from casualty figures

New research shows that Hamas has quietly dropped thousands of deaths from its Gaza war casualty figures.

Salo Aizenberg, from the US-based non-profit organisation Honest Reporting, said that Hamas’s March 2025 casualty update had removed thousands of people it previously listed as having been killed last year.

“Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully “identified” deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These “deaths” never happened. The numbers were falsified – again,” Mr Aizenberg wrote.

The casualty lists are released as PDFs by the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health, which has been cited by international media as a source for fatality figures in the enclave since the start of the war.

A report by the Henry Jackson Society in December said that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict had probably been inflated by Hamas in order to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people.

Andrew Fox, the author of the report, said the latest deletions are likely to have been an attempt by Hamas to retain credibility.

“We knew there were rafts of errors in their reporting,” Mr Fox said. “There’s a reasonable explanation in that their computer systems went down in November 2023, so it’s been challenging for them to report accurately, but the lists are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable.”

He added: “The UN also just takes Hamas’s figures and publishes them with a note stating the figures are unconfirmed.”

The Hamas lists contain information such as names and ID numbers, and can be filled in by anyone with a link to the Google form for the document.

Hamas will “have gone through the list, trying to make it as convincing as possible. They’ve been accepting names onto that list with no evidence whatsoever”, explained Mr Fox. “So what I’m guessing they’re trying to do is thin out the names they cannot substantiate at all.”

Mr Fox, a former British paratrooper who has worked with Mr Aizenberg on previous research, said the teams use the publicly available Hamas data and cross-check it name by name.

“Salo’s research would be looking for names that were on previous lists but have now disappeared,” Mr Fox explained. “Hamas releases lists as PDFs, so it’s harder to do comparisons but we transfer names to an Excel sheet to do a mass comparison this way.”

Iran, ISIS plan to target Jewish tourists over Passover, Israel says

Iran and global terrorist organizations, including ISIS, plan to target Jews and Israelis traveling during Passover, Israel’s National Security Council warned on Tuesday.

“Iran is the central generator of global terror, directly or through its proxies, against Israeli and Jewish sites around the world,” the National Security Council said in a statement released before Israeli schools go on Passover break on Sunday.

The Islamic Republic uses terror attacks as a policy and seeks to avenge the deaths of senior Hezbollah and Hamas officials, according to the travel warning.

In the last year, Iran has backed attempted terrorist attacks against the Israeli embassies in Sweden and Belgium, which were thwarted, as well as attempts to attack or abduct Israeli citizens around the world under the guise of making business contacts. Those attempts mostly began through e-mails and messages on social media.

Hamas has also attempted to attack Jews and Israelis outside of Israel, in light of the terror group’s weakened state in Gaza and the continuation of the war, the NSC stated. Hamas terror infrastructure was found in Denmark, Germany, Bulgaria and Sweden that aimed to attack Israelis.

In addition, in recent months, terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaida have increased their activities, especially in Europe. ISIS specifically has called on its supporters to strike Israeli and Jewish sites around the world.

The NSC said that “with the collapse of the ceasefire [last month] and the return to fighting in Gaza, an increase is expected in efforts to attack Jewish and Israeli sites abroad, including through local or individual initiatives.”

Northwestern U shows that it IS possible for universities to fight antisemitism

From the Evanston Roundtable:

Nearly a year after Northwestern University President Michael Schill appeared on Capitol Hill for a hearing on antisemitism, the university released a report Monday touting an 88% drop in documented incidents of antisemitic discrimination from November 2023 to November 2024.

NU, facing an active Trump administration investigation over alleged antisemitism on campus, said in the update that “like many universities across the nation, Northwestern was not prepared for the antisemitism that occurred last year.”

Among other things, since last summer, the university has revised its handbook and code of conduct, created a new Display and Solicitation Policy banning “unauthorized 3D installations including tents and structures” and updated the Demonstration Policy to limit how, when and where protests may be conducted.

In February, Northwestern also launched an antisemitism training module that is mandatory for all students and adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

According to the progress report, the number of reports of antisemitism went down from 26 in November 2023 to 4 in November 2024.

The report indicates that, unlike the bare minimum that has been done on other campuses, Northwestern has taken the problem seriously. It expanded its police force, disciplined 11 students for breaking protest policies and fired a staff member “for violations of the staff policies.”

The Student Code of Conduct policies have been strengthened significantly:

The new Intimidation Standard explicitly prohibits subjecting another person or group to abusive, demeaning, harassing, humiliating, intimidating, threatening or violent behavior that substantially affects the ability of the person or group to learn, work or live in the University environment. Examples of violations to this new policy include physical threats, verbal or written communication to threaten violence, the use of symbols, words or graphics to threaten violence, acts of doxing, and abusive behavior toward a University official or agent acting in performance of their duties, among others. It also prohibits engaging in abusive, demeaning, harassing, humiliating, intimidating or threatening behavior that excludes a student from joining or participating in a student organization.
The Failure to Comply Standard has been updated with specific examples and to make clear that students are required to comply with the requests, directives and instructions of University officials acting in performance of their duties. Under this policy, students must identify themselves, including removing face masks or coverings for purposes of identification when asked by an authorized University official who is addressing law or policy violations and health or safety concerns.
The updated and renamed Misuse of University Properties policy more clearly defines misuse, including unauthorized access to athletics fields and construction sites and attending or participating in an event in University spaces that violates the policies governing that space.
The Destruction of Property Standard has been updated to broaden the definition of what applies under this policy to include tampering with University property.

All of these are common sense. None of them violate freedom of speech. It appears that Northwestern has not buckled under to threats by the haters.

Notice also that adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a major part of their successful program. The people who claim that somehow the IHRA definition endangers Jewish students have no data to back them up - Northwestern has data showing that it works.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

One might think that Iran's implacable opposition to Israel's existence is based on Muslim theological beliefs. After all, Iran calls itself the Islamic Republic and its two Supreme Leaders, its two Supreme Leaders, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have styled themselves as religious authorities.

Surprisingly, the reasons for Iran's antisemitism has little to do with such high-minded considerations.

It is pure politics.

When the Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile from 1964 to 1979, he wrote a lot of essays and gave a lot of speeches that would be smuggled back to his followers in Iran. He did forbid all dealings with Israel in 1967, mostly in response to the Shah of Iran's ties with the Jewish state. This put him in the mainstream of Muslim opinion - the Arab League had similar policies since 1948.

What Khomeini did do was plot his return, and formulate his ideas of an Islamic state in Iran. However, his goals went way beyond just an Islamic state: Khomeini wanted Iran to be the leader of the entire Muslim world, and possibly more. He viewed Iran as the Bolsheviks viewed Russia - as the vanguard of a worldwide revolution.

His own language echoed his ambitions. In one of his first speeches upon returning to Iran, which recalls Marxist-style rhetoric, he said, "We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle." Khomeini wanted his Islamic state "to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world. We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations."

To achieve his goals, he needed to unify the fractious Muslim world. In 1979, the easiest way to do that was to take a leadership role in the rhetorical fight against Israel and Zionism, an old gambit that every Arab leader had relied upon to maintain order in their own countries and distract the people from domestic problems. This was why one of Khomeini's first acts was to declare an annual Quds Day, an anti-Israel holiday on the last Friday of Ramadan, calling for Muslims to unite against the “usurper Israel."

Khomeini’s opposition to Israel intensified after the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which he condemned as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause, severing ties with Egypt to signal Iran’s leadership in the fight against Israel.

He downplayed Shiite differences with Sunnis, issuing rulings to help them coexist. Unifying the two groups was an important stage in his goal to lead the Muslim world was to become the unquestioned superpower in the Middle East.

The main obstacle for that political goal was, and remains, Israel.

Especially when the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty finalized shortly after the revolution, Khomeini wanted to stop Israeli influence in the region. Thus began the Iranian policy of creating proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and later Yemen and Gaza, to create the "Islamic crescent" to surround and eventually strangle Israel.

Iran's war against Israel was not only through these proxy forces. Using Islamic rhetoric and hate speech, Iran adopted the Soviet playbook, spreading anti-Zionism through state-controlled media like PressTV, which platforms virulent antisemites - white supremacists and socialists alike - to globalize antisemitism while maintaining deniability.

Khomeini, and his successor, use the Shiite concepts of taqiyya (dissimulation while under threat) and maslaha (public interest) to justify lying for the perceived greater good of Muslims. In January 1979, Khomeini sent a secret message to President Carter, claiming his post-Shah Iran would not be hostile to the U.S., a lie to ensure the Iranian military wouldn’t oppose his return. Months later, he orchestrated the 1979 hostage crisis, holding 52 Americans for 444 days.

This same willingness to lie for political gain is the prism through which Iran must be viewed in its public statements claiming not to seek a nuclear weapon. It is all for show, and the IAEA as well as Israeli intelligence has shown that Iran continues to seek to build a nuclear bomb. That weapon itself is meant not only to make Iran the superpower it desires to be, but also to keep Israel under constant existential threat.

Iran's actions and policies indicate that it studied its antisemitic antecedents. Like the Soviets, Iran uses the language of revolution and struggle against its enemies. Like the progressives, Iran uses propaganda to spread antisemitism and recruit followers. Like the Nazis, Iran prioritizes its attempts to hurt the Jews even over the welfare of its own people, spending billions to build and maintain its anti-Israel proxy forces. Iran's constant references to Israel as a "cancer" recalls the Nazi characterization of Jews as parasites, and its threats to vaporize 7 million Jews outdoes even Hitler.

This hate isn't through ideology, or theology, or self-defense. It is all because because Israel is the major obstacle to Iranian hegemony in the region. Iran’s campaign fits the annihilationist-supersessionist framework: its nuclear threats, proxy wars, and Holocaust denial aim to erase Jewish existence—physically, historically, and ideologically—while envisioning a Shiite caliphate replacing Israel. Iran’s annihilationist crusade, adapting historical antisemitism with modern tools, poses an unprecedented threat to the Jewish people.

The Book of Esther describes the Persian viceroy Haman as hating Jews because he saw them as a potential obstacle in his quest for absolute power over Persia and all its provinces. The Iranian apple does not fall far from the Persian tree.

(This is a continuation on my series on antisemitism, supersessionism and annihilationism.)

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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The reporting on the national security ad-hoc Signal group leak has, understandably, concentrated on the sheer stupidity of using a public messaging app with no traceable authentication nor other basic security protocols as a means to plan a secret military attack.

What has been lost in major media coverage of the scandal (and despite what the Trump administration says, this is a scandal) are the details of how the group described its initial airstrike, targeting the Houthis' "top missile guy."

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz wrote to Vice President Vance, "VP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID. Pete, Kurilla, the IC, amazing job."

Vance: "What?"

Waltz: "The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed."

Vance: "Excellent"

John Ratcliffe: "A good start"

Michael Waltz: "👊🇺🇸🔥"

Marco Rubio: "Good Job Pete and your team!!"

So we have the group celebrating what they say was the total collapse of a building where the missile specialist's girlfriend lived, presumably with multiple casualties.

When the Houthis claim that the airstrikes that night killed 32 people, including women and children, the media was careful to say that this cannot be verified. Al Jazeera identifies one airstrike that night in Sanaa that struck a residential area, which it says killed at least 15 people and wounded nine others. This seems to be the likeliest match for the Signal chat event.

An attack like this against such a high profile target is absolutely justified and legal even with a significant number of civilian casualties. But the contrast between how this attack is covered in the media and how similar attacks by Israel on buildings in Gaza is stark.

When the IDF attacks a single person in a building, it typically will take out the specific room or apartment where that person is, avoiding destroying the entire building when there are people inside. The media would be skeptical about Israel's claims that there was a terrorist there to begin with, and then concentrate on the civilians, with stories about how tragic their deaths are.

The US just destroyed the entire building, and apparently many civilians, and no one (outside the far-Left) is concerned.

Even worse, the Pentagon has still not identified the name of the Houthi target or confirmed that he did in fact get killed

There is a huge disconnect between the deference the media shows to the US for its military claims compared to the skepticism and outright hostility shown towards similar Israeli statements that have more evidence and specific names.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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Hamas' Al Resalah reports:

Medical sources announced the martyrdom of journalist Mohammed Saleh al-Bardawil early Tuesday morning, when the occupation forces bombed a house in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

Sources reported that the journalist, who worked as a broadcaster for Al-Aqsa Radio, was killed along with his wife and children when his home in the Emirati neighborhood, west of the city, was bombed.

Al Aqsa Radio is owned and operated by...Hamas.

Looking at his Facebook page, he considered himself to be in the same group as Hamas terrorists, proudly referring to their attacks on October 7 as "ours."

October 12, 2023:

Here a few hundred of our men shattered the illusion of Israel and its alleged intelligence at dawn on Great Saturday!
Here, despite the thousands of martyrs and wounded, we still raise the victory sign, and each of us awaits his turn in the march of blood and suffering, not hoping to survive, but it is a duty and a price that we realize and are ready to pay.

He got what he wanted.

I am also wondering if he is perhaps a brother or cousin to Salah Bardawil, the Hamas spokesman killed last week. Arabic reports said that Salah was killed in his tent "while he was prostrating himself in prayer" - and this was attributed to his unnamed brother. Obviously anyone who could possibly have witnessed Salah's demise would have been killed along with him in his tent. I have no proof, but this "journalist" with the suspiciously similar name seems to be a likely source for such a rumor.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

03/31 Links Pt2: 60 Minutes: Israeli hostages bond through horror of Hamas captivity; Irish academic warns that anti-Zionism has become her country’s new religion

From Ian:

Schama accuses celebrated writer of ‘sustained moral profantity’ with essay on Israel and the Shoah

Simon Schama has accused the acclaimed author Pankaj Mishra of delivering an “exercise in sustained moral profanity” with an essay on Israel and Gaza that suggested those supporting the actions of the Jewish state had failed to learn the lessons of the Shoah.

In a hard-hitting, and well-received speech, delivered at a London conference on antisemitism, historian and author Schama spoke out against widespread misrepresentation and dilution of Holocaust memory in popular culture.

After citing the more obvious examples of anti-Jewish propagandist in our society, including the rapper Ye, previously known as Kayne West, Schama raised the essay The Shoah After Gaza, published in the London Review of Books by Mishra – who he said had become “a kind of darling of the English intellectual literati left.”

“I think a really low in this process, I mean can you actually sink any lower than this, of actually moving beyond the dilution of Holocaust memory to disqualifying Jews from being the custodians of that memory was reached by Pankaj Mishra in a famous essay he published last year in the London Review of Books.

“He became, as you probably know, the kind of darling of the English intellectual literati left. ”

Schama then said of the essay:”This is an exercise in sustained moral depravity. ”

The author, currently making a new BBC documentary on the Holocaust in an “age of denial”, suggested arguments such as those advanced by Mishara on Israel and Gaza leave a condition in which Jews are only allowed to “say Kaddish in effect for the six million if you come out like Naomi Klein and Judith Butler and Peter Beinhart and you come out as anti-Zionist.”

“So we have a kind of moral selection ramp,” continued Schama, “between those who are allowed to grieve and explain and write and study the Holocaust on condition that you repudiate the Jewish state – 20 percent of whom in its earliest years were Holocaust survivors.”

He added:”You know, sometimes chutzpah, which is a joke for us, can be a kind of ethical crime, as has been committed by Mishra.”

A subsequent book from Mishra was now titled The World After Gaza, Schama noted.

During Monday’s lecture at the London Centre Study of Contemporary Antisemitism conference in central London, Schama discussed attempts to remove the Jewish presence in the modern era from the Anne Frank story, mentioning the lessons to be learned from Dara Horn’s book People Love Dead Jews.

In the film world, Schama also openly criticised the award winning 2023 Jonathan Glazer movie Zone of Interest.

“In the end I became absolutely furious at his own clever self-admiration,” said Schama on Glazer’s film, which focuses on the life of German Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig.

“What you’ll all notice about the Zone of Interest,” Schama said to the audience at his talk, “it was completely Jew free, totally Jew free.”

Ruthie Blum: Methinks the left doth protest too much

In a letter obtained last week by Israel Insider, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.)—the chairs of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, respectively—requested of the Jewish Communal Fund, Middle East Dialogue Network, Movement for Quality Government in Israel, PEF Israel Endowment Funds, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and Blue and White Future that they “produce all documents and information” about dubious practices vis-à-vis Israel.

The March 26 missive to the heads of the above organizations got right to the point in the first paragraph.

“According to reports, the Biden-Harris administration funneled U.S. taxpayer money to certain Israeli entities with the effect of attempting to undermine Israel’s democratically elected government,” it began, with a footnote referencing two JNS articles—one by Caroline Glick and the other by David Isaac.

The former, published Feb. 17, 2023, showed that the left-wing Israeli NGO, the Movement for Quality Government (MQG), had been receiving money from the U.S. State Department. And it was using the cash, among other things, for “democracy education” in Israeli high schools.

As Glick noted, “Since MQG’s primary activity is subverting democracy in Israel by waging lawfare and sowing chaos in a bid to block democratically elected right-wing governments from fulfilling their pledges to voters, it’s fairly clear that when MQG refers to ‘democracy education,’ it doesn’t mean majority rule.”

Isaac’s piece, which appeared on Feb. 18 this year, showed how Elon Musk’s efforts to “expose waste and misuse of funds” by “America’s administrative state” led to the emergence of reports that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had been heavily funding the anti-government judicial-reform protests in Israel.

This, explained Isaac, “led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to … blast what he called the ‘almost inconceivable’ amounts of foreign money that drove the protest movement.”

The letter by Jordan and Mast went on to stress that the “use of federal grants in this manner not only jeopardizes America’s relationship with one of its closest allies, but also undermines core civil liberties protected within the United States and Israel. Additionally, the misuse of federal grant funds may, in some cases, amount to a criminal offense.”

Heidi Bachram: Respite and fight

Last night I went to the most painful art exhibition I have ever been to. It was the opening event for the LCSCA conference on antisemitism and like organiser David Hirsh said, usually such academic spaces are not launched with art. But we are not in usual times.

Curator and artist Mina Kupfermann says she was moved to paint after the horror of October 7. It was an urgent need yet she had no expectation that the paintings would ever leave her studio. No hope that the art world would accept them. She wasn’t wrong. Jewish and Israeli artists have been pushed out and isolated. They have suffered threats, hate and discrimination. Israeli actress Gal Gadot has had to have enhanced security since October 7 due to the explosion in death threats against her. Jewish creatives have found themselves on boycott lists. The worst part is the slow squashing of self and identity as Israeli and Jewish artists censor and silence themselves in order to avoid blacklisting.

The fact that this exhibition happened at all is a miracle. One that occurred within a Jewish community centre. I have little faith that any other gallery would have exhibited it. Another artist Maya Amrami who showed her work was inspired to create it after experiencing severe antisemitism. The anger and frustration at what she went through is palpable.

The third artist was Benzi Brofman who painted victims of October 7 and kidnapped hostages. I know his work well because in December 2023 he created powerful portraits of my husband's cousin Tsachi Idan, alongside Omri Miran who was kidnapped with him from Nahal Oz kibbutz where they both lived. Tsachi and Omri’s wives, Gali and Lishay posed next to them. It was achingly painful an image. As soon as I entered the space, my eyes found it. Or maybe my heart. In that huge place, a familiar face. A smile amongst strangers. Like a private conspiracy, we said hello. Here he was in my home after me just being in his

Soon there were more familiar faces. Friends. Some I hadn’t seen since we had that terrible news and had been to Tsachi’s funeral and shiva. A month ago. A month. How can time move so fast and yet stay silently stuck. Friends, with love and empathy in their eyes and in their words. I get confused sometimes. We spent so long in anxiety and hope, it’s shocking to shift into grief. When they gave condolences I was surprised at why and then I remembered. Tsachi didn’t come back alive.

Oh yes.

It’s a struggle then to know what to say. It’s hard for them too. How can you navigate such horror in a crowded, noisy room with soft jazz and canapés? It’s the right place and the right people but felt entirely wrong. My daughter got overwhelmed at one point and we went to retreat into a darkened, quiet theatre. There, more intimate conversations felt possible. I met the incredible Rachel Moiselle, a gentle and humble warrior. She told me it was so beautifully refreshing to be amongst allies and to just be herself and relax. She hadn’t realised how much she needed it.

03/31 Links Pt1: Stop Ignoring Hamas’s Anti-AmericanismThe silence of the so-called pro-Palestinian crowd; Why Israel must end US military aid; Do Not Be Fooled by the 'Anti-Hamas' Protests

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Stop Ignoring Hamas’s Anti-Americanism

The protests on campus and in major U.S. cities in support of Hamas were explicit about their support for “anticolonialist” actions against the U.S. as well. The people tearing down hostage posters weren’t differentiating between American hostages and others. And these were American institutions being vandalized, occupied and covered in Nazi graffiti on behalf of Hamas’s cheering squad in the U.S.

Now, obviously many of the people ignoring this are doing so purposely, so I can’t say I was surprised to see Glenn Greenwald call Brianna Wu an “Israel loyalist” and a “freakish authoritarian pig” operating on behalf of a “foreign country on the other side of the world that you worship” for supporting the detention of someone the administration claimed was “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”

Of course, maybe the administration is wrong! Perhaps the suspect was not, in fact, engaging in support of Hamas. But only one type of person believes anything done in America’s name by Americans is actually the result of foreign Jewish puppeteers. Similarly, there is the contention by the Nation’s Jeet Heer that Columbia has appointed as its new acting president Claire Shipman “in order to protect a vicious client state from criticism,” because Shipman apparently attended an AIPAC conference.

The belief that American Jews aren’t actually Americans but constitute a disloyal, foreign subnation is an old idea and not a surprising one to encounter, of course. But we should still point it out when we see it.

The specific problem here is not that anti-Zionist lunatics will behave like anti-Zionist lunatics but that they will shame people with normal, functioning brains into believing Israel is too toxic to support by convincing them that Hamas and anti-Semitism have nothing to do with Americans.

Billy Binion, a smart, fair, and principled writer for Reason magazine, was outraged by a video of ICE detaining a woman who says she never supported Hamas but only wrote an anti-Israel op-ed once. I would expect the traditional libertarian response to be something like: If she is telling the truth, then she did nothing to materially support a proscribed terrorist organization. Instead, Binion posted: “I’ve always considered myself pro-Israel. But if that now means arresting, jailing, and deporting someone whose only ‘crime’ we know of was writing a pro-Palestine op-ed, then count me out.”

Since ICE field agents aren’t taking orders from Jerusalem, I think it’s still safe to consider oneself pro-Israel by this particular, previously unknown standard. This is simply a case of Americans carrying out American policy. But the whole thing is a sign that even good, honest people are getting fooled into thinking that the terror group holding Americans hostage isn’t America’s problem.

Stephen Pollard: The silence of the so-called pro-Palestinian crowd

It's been well remarked that last week’s protests mean there have now been more demonstrations against Hamas inside Gaza than anywhere else in the world. Here in Britain, as elsewhere, the so-called pro-Palestinian marches have rightly been labelled hate marches, from the very first protests on October 9, 2023 in front of the Israeli embassy and the first big march a few days later – planned as the October 7 massacres were still unfolding.

The supposed rationale for these marches, and the routine description of Hamas as “freedom fighters” and “resistance”, has been concern with the human rights of Palestinians in the face of Israeli military action.

But the reaction to the murder of Odai Naser Saadi by Hamas from many of the most prominent supporters of the marches – indeed of the Palestinian cause more generally – should pull the rug from under the feet of anyone who might have been taken in by the marches, who has seen them as a valiant call for peace, and for an end to suffering on all sides. The reality, of course, is the opposite. They are not about Palestinian suffering. They are not about Palestinian rights. They are about the Jews – I’m sorry, I mean the Zionists. Oops, that should be Israel.

Because there has been no reaction that I have been able to trace, on social media or elsewhere. The murder of a Palestinian for no reason other than his objection to being ruled by Hamas has been met with utter silence from the usual suspects of Palestinian human rights defenders. If they have criticised Hamas, they somehow managed to keep it out of the news.

The social media accounts of the likes of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, the Green Party, Stop the War, the independent “pro-Gaza” MPs, Jeremy Corbyn, Zara Sultana, Francesca Albanese and – of course – Gary Lineker are full of tirades against Israel over the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza. Some “pro-Palestinian” accounts have even posted statements from clan and tribal elders in Gaza against the anti-Hamas demonstrations, statements that come across as just one step removed from those of captives forced by their captors to say how well they are being treated.

But look for a mention, let alone condemnation, of the death of any of those murdered in recent days by Hamas for taking part in demonstrations against its rule and you will search in vain.

To many of these pro-Palestinian voices, it appears the deaths of Palestinians killed by Hamas are an irrelevance because they do not comply with the ideology that Israel is the evil imperialist coloniser and that those who “resist” Israel are "freedom fighters." The only dead Palestinians that matter to them are those who have been killed by Israel.

To anyone who has been studying the pro-Palestinian movement this will be one of the least surprising revelations ever. The Palestinians have never been anything other than a tool with which to attack Israel as part of a wider campaign. But much of their support is soft, based on the vague idea promoted relentlessly across the media that the Palestinians are the victims of Israeli aggression.

It is likely a vain hope, but maybe, just maybe, this obvious indifference to the murder of Palestinians by Hamas might prompt some re-thinking.

Douglas Murray: Why do the West's most privileged students always side with the terrorists of Hamas against a democracy fighting to survive?

In part three of the Mail's exclusive serialisation of On Democracies And Death Cults, renowned author Douglas Murray asks how some of the most prestigious universities in the West allowed themselves to become tools of Hamas and its plan to blame Israel for the murder of its own citizens.

In June 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) performed a daring and successful rescue mission for four of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023.

They included Noa Argamani, a young woman snatched from the Nova festival. Footage of her being driven off on the back of a Hamas motorcycle, screaming in terror, became one of the formative images of the day.

When the IDF rescued her and the other three hostages they found out one of the people who had been holding them was Abdallah Aljamal. During the war Aljamal had filed many articles about the humanitarian suffering inside Gaza.

One of the news sites that he had contributed to was Al Jazeera. And it turned out that while filing these articles, he had failed to tell his readers that he was holding Israeli hostages in his own home, where they were being tortured daily.

Yet details like this were lost all the time. The world seemed so pleased to be able to throw its attentions onto the conflict in Gaza that any and every claim could be made about Israel's actions.

Almost every time, these were presented in the worst possible light. If anyone pointed out that the death tolls in other conflicts in the 21st century were far larger than Gaza, they were told that they were trying to deflect attention from the latter.

If they pointed out, as did Major John Spencer, the chair of urban warfare studies at West Point's Modern War Institute, that the IDF had implemented more precautions to prevent civilian deaths than any military in history – far beyond what international law requires – they were dismissed as mouthpieces of the Israelis.

Would a "Death to the Jews" chant be considered protected by the First Amendment?

The First Amendment is quite broad, and a chant like "Death to the Jews!" would likely be protected under it unless it was shouted directly at Jews, or, say, outside a synagogue. If it was done in a crowd, away from Jews, in a style that does not appear to be a direct incitement to kill Jews right now, it would probably not be prosecutable.

The reason I bring this up is because I saw these two stories in American newspapers. The first was from October 1906, from Odessa, and it appears to pass the test of not being direct incitement.

The following wire service story (in the Montreal Gazette February 4, 1907) showed another case where an Odessa mob shouted the same chant - and this time they acted on it.

It sure sounds like the cumulative effect of hearing "Death to the Jews" for months and years prompts mobs to start acting on that desire.

The chants we hear at anti-Zionist rallies, like "There is only one solution, Intifada Revolution" and "We don't want no Zionists here" and "Resistance by any means necessary" literally brainwash people to want to attack Jews.

We have a pretty clear precedent in Odessa.

The chants might be legal. But they must be denounced, loudly and strongly, by every decent human being.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)