Yesterday, the controversial academic Norman Finkelstein tweeted a purposefully provocative statement:

I vividly recall my own deflated sense of intellectual self upon perusing Holocaust-denier Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the 20th Century. He correctly observed, for example, that it was originally alleged that three million Jews were killed at Auschwitz, and six million Jews altogether were killed. The figure for the number killed at Auschwitz was subsequently scaled down to one million, yet the total figure was still put at six million. How can this be?, Butz rhetorically asked. I had no answer.

US President Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of US-brokered deals in recent months.

During a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sudan Sovereign Council president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, Trump brought reporters into the Oval Office and announced: “The State of Israel and the Republic of Sudan have agreed to make peace.”

A senior Trump aide, Judd Deere, said that Sudan and Israel “have agreed to the normalization of relations.”

Trump said Sudan had demonstrated a commitment to battling terrorism. “This is one of the great days in the history of Sudan,” Trump said, adding that Israel and Sudan have been in a state of war for decades.

“It is a new world,” Netanyahu said over the phone. “We are cooperating with everyone. Building a better future for all of us.”

“We are expanding the circle of peace so rapidly with your leadership,” Netanyahu could be heard telling Trump, who responded by saying. “There are many, many more coming.”

Trump also was heard taking a dig at Joe Biden, his opponent in the November election saying: “do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi?”

Yes to removal of Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terror. Yes to a billion-dollar aid package. And yes to normalization with Israel?

The remarkable tale of Sudan turning from a symbol of the Arab world’s rejection of the Jewish state, into its latest potential peace partner, could be summed up by referring to three no’s that, in the span of 53 years, look set to become three yes’s.

Many Israelis still associate Khartoum with the “Three No’s” — “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel” — formulated by an Arab League summit held in the Sudanese capital shortly after the end of the Six-Day War in 1967.

Now, after months of pressure from the US administration, the culmination of efforts to get the Northeast-African Arab country to normalize relations with Israel appears closer than ever, perhaps just days away.

Earlier this week, the transitional government in Khartoum agreed to pay $335 million in compensation to the victims of the 1998 bombings of two US Embassies in Africa (Sudan didn’t perpetrate the attacks, which killed more than 4,000 people, but granted asylum to the terrorists). In exchange, US President Donald Trump vowed to remove the country from its lists of state sponsors of terrorism, where it has been since 1993.

Together with a massive financial aid package for the struggling country — the US has reportedly offered $800 million in aid and investments, but Sudan demands some $3-4 billion — the removal of the terrorism designation is largely seen as a precursor to a normalization deal with Israel.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday spoke with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, applauded his “efforts-to-date to improve Sudan’s relationship with Israel, and expressed hope that they would continue.”

This election, there is no subgroup for whom the stakes are higher than my Jewish co-religionists.

That’s because, for starters, Donald Trump is quite possibly the most pro-Jewish president ever — or at least since George Washington famously assured the Jews of Newport, RI, that each child of the “stock of Abraham” would forever “sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree.”

Through word and deed, President Trump — a father of an observant Jew and grandfather of Jewish children — has repeatedly established himself as a true friend and guardian of the people of the covenant. And in the post-1948 era of Zionism, Trump has been by far the most loyal and transformative friend of the world’s sole Jewish state.

Trump ended decades of presidential timidity and promise-breaking by finally moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. He withdrew the United States from the harrowing capitulation to evil that was the Obama-Biden nuclear accord with Iran and has slapped crippling sanctions on the mullocracy.

He decimated the Islamic State “caliphate” and decapitated Iranian arch-terrorist Qassem Soleimani, both threats to Israel and Jews everywhere. He closed the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington and defunded the Palestinian Authority itself due to its barbaric “pay-to-slay” subsidies.

Trump also cut funding or outright withdrew from three anti-Israel UN bodies: the (grossly misnamed) UN Human Rights Council, UNWRA and UNESCO.

And we’re just getting started. Team Trump has boldly stood up for Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria. The president formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and rolled out the most pro-Israel plan for peace with the Palestinian Arabs that a US president has ever endorsed.

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper hosted a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benny Gantz, at the Pentagon on Thursday.

“This morning I met with Israeli Minister of Defense Benjamin Gantz at the Pentagon where we discussed the security and stability of the Middle East, as well as the United States’ long-standing and continuing commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge,” Esper tweeted.

Gantz tweeted, “Today in DC, months of dedicated work culminated in Defense Secretary @EsperDoD and I signing a joint declaration confirming the United States’ strategic commitment to Israel’s qualitative military edge in the Middle East for years to come.”

“The declaration naturally elaborates on the practical measures involved, which I will not elaborate on here, but I will say this: Israel’s security has taken a major leap forward today, thanks to our American Allies,” he added.

The issue of Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East received much attention in recent weeks due to reports that the US was considering selling F-35 stealth fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates after it signed a normalization agreement with the Jewish state.

A senior defense official on Thursday predicted Saudi Arabia would soon move to normalize ties with Israel.

The comments by the official, who spoke to reporters as Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited America, came amid reports that Sudan was poised to follow the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in normalizing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

“Soon Sudan and later Saudi Arabia will come out of the closet,” the official was quoted saying by Hebrew media, without further elaborating.

Saudi leaders have publicly ruled out forging ties with Israel before a Palestinian state is created, even as they have welcomed the normalization deals between the Jewish state and Gulf Arab states signed in Washington last month.

Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo encouraged Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel.

“We hope Saudi Arabia will consider normalizing its relationships as well. We want to thank them for the assistance they’ve had in the success of the Abraham Accords so far,” said Pompeo, while hosting Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Washington.

“I was born and raised in Tehran. We opened every school day reciting ‘Death to Israel, Death to the United States.’ For eight years we were trapped in Iran, trying to escape. Today, I interact with millions of Iranians on behalf of the Israeli government. I cannot put into words the thrill and satisfaction I feel.”

Sharona Avginsaz is one of Israel’s most important diplomats today. Though not an ambassador, consul or even attaché, she oversees the Jewish state’s most extensive and substantial link with the people of Iran as head of the Foreign Ministry’s Farsi Digital Department.

“We’re dealing with a hostile, enemy nation,” she tells The Media Line. “Our platform is the only way to be present there, to communicate with the Iranian public, to build a bridge to the people in Iran over the regime’s head.”

Avginsaz is part of a surprisingly small team of young, energetic and driven social-media experts operating for the past several years out of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Armed only with a computer, an internet connection, a deep sense of patriotism and complete fluency in Farsi or Arabic, this band of keyboard warriors has changed the landscape of digital diplomacy in just a few years.

Their hard work, usually done in the shadows, has come to light in recent weeks with the signing of the historic Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

A victory for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would harm the burgeoning normalization deals between Israel and its Middle East neighbors, US Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz said in an interview published Thursday.

“I am nervous, if I am just being completely honest,” said Berkowitz, who is assistant to US President Donald Trump and a special representative for international negotiations.

Berkowitz was careful to laud Biden for his support for the Abraham Accords, under whose umbrella Israel last month normalized ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“I was appreciative when the Biden camp put out a positive statement of support for the accords, because it actually showed that this is something that has bipartisan support in the US,” Berkowitz said.

At issue, he warned was the potential that a Biden presidency would return US policy toward Iran to one of appeasement.

“A different administration would continue to pursue sort of an appeasement-type strategy with Iran and whether its intention is so or not, it is hard to imagine that that would not have negative ramifications on the normalization efforts,” Berkowitz said.

372 House members have now cosponsored a bipartisan resolution supporting the historic peace agreements between Israel, UAE and Bahrain.

Here are the major elements included in the resolution 👇

— AIPAC (@AIPAC) October 22, 2020

The UAE-Israel Abraham Peace accords may have been signed by men, but looking at the members of the Gulf-Israel Women’s Forum, it is women who will actualize it.

Founded by Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum and head of the London Stock Exchange’s Israel market, Justine Zwerling, the goal of the Forum is to unite women from the Gulf and Israel in friendship and business. The Forum is a division of the UAE-Israel Business Council, established to foster shared Abu Dhabi-Jerusalem opportunities, economic cooperation and business partnerships. Established in June, it already boasts 2,500 members.

“At London Stock Exchange Group, we believe that a diverse group of colleagues and a commitment to equal opportunities for all are key to driving innovation and building a culture that reflects our global customers and the communities in which we operate around the world,” says Zwerling.

For Hassan-Nahoum, it’s simple.

“Women are natural networkers and collaborators, and we are very practical.”

This truth was evident from the first Zoom meeting of the forum (of which this writer is a member) where Emiratis and Israelis, native and immigrant, met virtually. At first, perhaps a bit shy, the group warmed up upon noticing the many similarities we had among us.

Over the last few months, history has been made in the Middle East. Peace between Israel and the Arab world is no longer a dream. It is now a reality. May peace in the region continue to prosper. 🇮🇱🕊️🇦🇪🇧🇭

The historic peace accord signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last month is already paying dividends.

Large corporations from both countries are establishing joint ventures and negotiating collaborative agreements.

One example is the UAE’s Dubai Ports World, one of the world’s largest port operators, which has signed an agreement with Israel’s DoverTower to buy a stake in the privatization of Haifa Port, Israel’s largest by cargo tonnage.

But the possibilities extend beyond freight and trade. Strategic collaborations across the financial services sector and the biotechnology space are two more areas where businesses from the UAE and Israeli expect to benefit from the Abraham Accords, says Ran Hamou, managing partner at France-based firm Everlaw.

“Each year, many Israeli startups are sold to foreign investors instead of developing their businesses to become major players,” he says. “And UAE funds invest in many foreign companies around the world.”

However, there are very few UAE companies that operate at the global level, Hamou says.

“If a UAE-Israel consortium were able to invest, such a group could [pursue business opportunities] across the entire European Union, and become a major player in that part of the world.”

Once upon a time, prior to the advent of Twitter, any relationship between an Arab country and Israel would be cause for celebration, yet given the current climate in the Middle East, some are unsure of the normalization of relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.

While the historic deal between Israel and the Gulf states was lauded by many as a historic accomplishment, there were some who were concerned that it would harm their personal beliefs about how reality ought to be. Meade Benjamin, who is a cofounder of Code Pink, says that the agreement between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain is a step in the wrong direction for the Middle East, and that “we’ll never have peace in the Middle East if they keep signing Peace agreements with Israel.” Code Pink is a progressive organization that seeks to support other peaceful movements in the region like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, Hezbollah, and just random groups of men who enjoy getting together on Saturdays for those special weekend beatdowns on women and small children.

Also concerned about the prospects for another book deal and speaking tour is former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes, who noted, “I can’t be wrong, history is the problem”. Former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry, who once said that Israel would find itself further isolated and a Pariah state, was last heard crying into a pillow through his bedroom door and refusing to come out.

Hillary was Secretary of State in the Obama admin, which coddled the Palestinian Authority, Muslim Brotherhood, & Iranian regime with total silence on their atrocious records on "women's rights." It's hard to overstate what BS this is: https://t.co/nzaOseQUmG

— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) October 22, 2020

Palestinian lawyers on Friday filed suit with a Nablus court against the British government over the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which spelled out the United Kingdom's support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people.

Signed by then-British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, the declaration is considered the historic precursor to Israel's inception in 1948.

According to French news agency AFP, lawyers representing the Federation of Independent and Democratic Trade Union, International Commission to Support Palestinian People's Rights, and the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate file a lawsuit in Nablus citing that "the suffering of the Palestinians" stemmed from the Balfour Declaration.

"The British Mandate is at the root of the suffering of the Palestinian people and has paved the way for the violation of their rights and the plunder of their land," said Munib al-Masri, head of the Federation of Independent and Democratic Trade Unions.

The Palestinians have repeatedly condemned the declaration, which they refer to as the "Balfour promise," claiming Britain was giving away land it did not own. The PA has tried to get Britain to renege on the historic document in the past but to no avail.

Striving for Peace. The @ZionistFed annual Balfour Lecture by the brilliant international law professor Eugene @EVKontorovich on 3 November. Registration details below. pic.twitter.com/RIdaYFUcAm

— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) October 23, 2020

#OnThisDay we remember & honor the 241 American service members (as well as 58 French military personnel and 6 civilians) murdered in the 1983 #BeirutBarracks bombing by #Iran-#Hezballah.

May the victims memories always be blessed. pic.twitter.com/OqcBOR5OCy

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 23, 2020

Guatemala designated all branches of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization on Friday, according to the Foreign Ministry. This makes Guatemala the eighth country to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization in 2020.

Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi welcomed the designation and congratulated Guatemala's government. "I call on other countries in Latin America to fight the terror led by Hezbollah globally," said Ashkenazi. He went on to say he was happy to see that diplomatic efforts "led by the Foreign Ministry to label all branches of Hezbollah a terrorist organization are bearing fruit and being recognized worldwide and especially in Latin America.

"The struggle against Hezbollah is a long and difficult one, but we cannot ignore the fact that global efforts against the organization are doing great damage to it, strong expressions of which can be seen by citizens of Lebanon becoming fed up with the organization for the disaster it caused them," Ashkenazi said.

Guatemala's recognition comes a day after Estonia announced that it will impose sanctions on Hezbollah, becoming the fifth EU state to take the step of banning Hezbollah in its entirety, following Germany and Lithuania this year.

At a meeting with ambassadors from the region in August, Ashkenazi called on Latin American countries to ban Hezbollah saying that "Terrorism affects all countries, and we have to fight it in a mutual way." According to Ashkenazi, “The best way to do that is sanctions on Hezbollah.”

Estonia joins a growing list of countries that are taking action to disarm the Hezbollah terrorist group. Welcome!
🇮🇱 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇳🇱 🇧🇭 🇬🇧 🇦🇷 🇵🇾 🇨🇴 🇭🇳 🇩🇪 🇪🇪 pic.twitter.com/0PdV3r7f3N

— Yiftah Curiel (@yiftahc) October 23, 2020

Turkey’s president on Friday confirmed the country tested its Russian-made S-400 missile defense system, despite objections from the United States.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had every right to test its equipment. “They were tested, they’re being tested,” he announced.

“America’s stance is absolutely not binding for us,” he said. “We aren’t going to ask America.”

Washington has strongly objected to NATO member Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian anti-aircraft system and suspended Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet program, saying the S-400s are a threat to the stealth fighter jets and wouldn’t be interoperable with NATO systems.

It has also warned Ankara that it risks US sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act if the S-400 system is activated.

The US Embassy in Ankara said on Friday it was temporarily suspending all American citizen and visa services at missions in Turkey over credible reports of potential terrorist attacks and kidnappings against US citizens in Istanbul.

"The US Mission in Turkey has received credible reports of potential terrorist attacks and kidnappings against US citizens and foreign nationals in Istanbul, including against the US Consulate General, as well as potentially other locations in Turkey," the embassy said.

A US Embassy spokesperson said the statement was issued after an ongoing assessment of security conditions in Turkey.

On New Year's Day 2017, a lone gunman killed 39 people in an attack at an Istanbul nightclub which was later claimed by Islamic State. It was one of a series of militant attacks that killed dozens of people in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey.

The Palestinian terror group Hamas is secretly operating a facility in Turkey where it conducts cyberattacks and counterintelligence operations, according to a British newspaper report Thursday.

Citing Western intelligence sources, the Times of London said the headquarters was set up two years ago and is overseen by Hamas military leaders in the Gaza Strip.

The headquarters, which is separate from Hamas’s official offices in the city, was set up without the knowledge of Turkish authorities, the report said.

The facility is reportedly overseen by Samakh Saraj, a senior member of the terror group who reports directly to Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza.

Channel 13 stirred waves in the political pool on Sunday evening with the broadcast of a Camil Fuchs poll showing that if elections were held today, a right-center coalition could be formed without the Likud and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to this poll, the Likud would get 27 seats, only three more than Naftali Bennett’s Yamina Party (24) and only six more than Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid-Telem list (21).

Bennett and Lapid, together with Blue and White (8) and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu (8), could form a four-party center-right coalition, keeping the Likud and haredi parties out.

That prospect was trumpeted by the network as “dramatic.” And, indeed, it is not an uninteresting political possibility, though a more likely possibility based on the same polling numbers would be the Likud, Yamina and the two haredi parties joining together for a 66-seat coalition.

THERE WAS something else in that poll that was even more significant, but did not garner much attention: Ayman Odeh’s Joint List would fall from the 15 seats it received in the last elections to 11. And while this was the first time that a poll showed a possible center-right coalition without the Likud, this was the third month in a row that the Channel 13 poll showed a significant tumble for the Joint List. In August and September the network’s poll had the Joint List gaining only 12 seats.

Over 2,100,000 people have been tested for coronavirus since the start of the pandemic in Israel, marked at February 24th, according to the MDA.

These were taken at various locations across the country, most notably at nursing home as part of the “Protecting Fathers and Mothers” project meant to prevent the spread of the virus to vulnerable populations.

About 340,609 of these tests were taken at people's homes, while 717,137 samples were taken at MDA's Drive and Test facilities operating in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Home Front Command and HMOs across the country. The highest number was in Jerusalem, where 125,454 tests have been carried out within the city.

About 80,988 were sampled in Tel Aviv, of those,73,744 Ganey Yehoshuah. Some 17,986 were tested in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, 25,616 in Ashdod, 24,675 in Hadera, 24,593 in Haifa, 23,066 in Netanya, 20,528 in Kfar Sava, 20,526 in Bnei Brak, 17,806 in Rishon le Zion, 17,142 in Lod, 16,396 in Um al-Fahm, 14,854 in Modi’in Ilit, 14,584 in Beer Sheva, 11,021 in Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut, and 10,518 people were tested in Rehovot. In addition, as needed, Magen David Adom operates additional Drive and Test complexes across the country.

The drive and test facilities continue to operate alongside testing for those who are homebound and in nursing homes and long term care facilities throughout the country.

Police on Wednesday dispersed an ultra-Orthodox wedding held at an unexpected location — the Arab village of Kafr Qasim, east of Tel Aviv.

The reason for the choice in locale was because the bride and groom wanted to avoid detection while holding a wedding that violated coronavirus restrictions on mass gatherings, according to a Channel 12 news report Thursday.

Under the partial lockdown in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, weddings, like other outdoor events, are capped at 20 people.

An eyewitness quoted by the network said the revelers played Arabic music over the loudspeaker in an effort to blend into the surroundings.

Palestinian officials on Thursday denounced a decision by Israel to brand the student branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as a terrorist organization.

Israel, the United States and the European Union consider the PFLP to be a terror group.

On Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces Gen. Tamir Yadai said in a statement that the military also now considers the PFLP’s student branch as an “illegal and terrorist” entity.

Yadai, who heads the IDF’s Central Command in the West Bank, said the branch had been for years behind “destructive acts that led to the deaths of many Israeli citizens.”

He accused the PFLP of “recruiting young men to commit acts of terrorism.”

At least 50% of coronavirus patients lie during their epidemiological investigation, Home Front Command said Thursday.

The tracing of the chain of infection has been severely impacted by people lying during investigations, Home Front Command said, adding that it could not properly track the people they may have been in contact with. As a result, it could not warn people to enter quarantine before infecting others.

Each investigator spends up to four hours per investigation. On occasion it can take less, but this is because after an investigator calls a coronavirus patient, the patient hangs up.

A citizen is not obligated to cooperate with an epidemiological investigator.

Epidemiological investigators are tasked with breaking the chain of infection. However, the task cannot be done without the cooperation of those being investigated, Home Front Command said.

Of those who are infected, at least half of them refuse to admit who they have been in contact with.

Iron Dome Tamir interceptors launched against rockets fired from #Gaza toward Ashkelon. #Israelpic.twitter.com/5XTxjuxFxS

— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) October 22, 2020

Gazan terrorists fired missiles at Israel to kill Jews but the missiles were intercepted.
Media, UN & EU ignore the Palestinians' war crimes because they never care when Jews die.
Write "yes" in the comment below if you support Israel's right to retaliate.pic.twitter.com/pNXrHQj1g3

— Liza Rosen (@LizaRosen0000) October 23, 2020

It fills me with no pride that senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat was this week given VIP treatment for acute novel coronavirus at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. It does not make me feel moral or altruistic, nor does treating him represent the “finest Jewish ethics,” as some commentators have gushed. Israel is a light unto the nations without having to treat an enemy like Saeb Erekat.

In fact, I am not sure Israel’s Minister of Defense should have approved Saeb Erekat’s request for emergency treatment in Israel. It is not at all certain that “Jewish values” require us to heal him, and I am quite certain that Erekat doesn’t deserve it. If Erekat is nevertheless benefiting from Israel’s ultra-benevolence, it is because we hopelessly want to believe that (almost) every person was created in the image of God.

Many Israelis and Jews worldwide are extraordinarily proud of the fact that Israeli hospitals treat hundreds of Palestinian Arabs and Arabs from countries that do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, especially innocent children. It is a fine humanitarian thing to do; and maybe, just maybe, the Arab kids who are saved by Israeli doctors might one day be a bridge towards peace.

But I never have bought the assertion that Israel has an “obligation” to do so stemming from its “responsibility for the occupation” or from some sweet-sounding and misinterpreted halachic dictum. Nor do I believe that the world truly grants Israel credit for such humanitarian effort. Few have tempered their political hostility towards this country in recognition of its medical kindheartedness.

Hamas' Humat al-Thagour (Border patrol) unit allegedly confiscated a batch of Saraya al-Quds missiles tonight. Although this is unconfirmed, it is highly unusual to hear about this — much less publish photos of the seizure of the PIJ arsenal. #Gazapic.twitter.com/sDYdKXrUpz

— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) October 23, 2020

Exterior works in #Gaza by Wafi Group. #TheGazaYouDontSee#Gaza4realhttps://t.co/7ldGKZ907Bpic.twitter.com/BBhy6moXpf

— Imshin (@imshin) August 31, 2020

On October 20, 2020, the daily Al-Arab, which is UAE-affiliated and based in London, published an op-ed by Lebanese writer Khairallah Khairallah in which he discussed Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi's ongoing series of visits to some of Europe's capitals in relation to the recent security challenges his government is facing.

Al-Kahdimi set out on his tour just two days after reports of the abduction and murder of a group of Sunnis in Iraq's Salahuddin province, and the vandalization of the Baghdad offices of a Kurdish political party. On October 17, ten bodies were discovered near the village of Farahat in Balad. The bodies belonged to a group of Sunni villagers, including some minors, who were abducted a week earlier. The area is controlled by Asa'ib Ahal Al-Haq, an Iran-backed militia.

Also on October 17, pro-Iran groups attacked the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Baghdad after senior KDP member and former Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari accused Shi'ite militias of operating outside the law, implying that they are responsible for the attacks on foreign diplomatic missions in Iraq.[1]

Commenting on these two incidents, the writer suggested that the deteriorating security situation in Iraq is being orchestrated by Iran in order to intimidate Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds, embarrass the Iraqi security forces, and foil the efforts of Iraq's Prime Minister to restore his nation's sovereignty. The writer argued that Tehran is nevertheless failing to notice the growing tendency among Iraqis, including Shi'ites, to resist Iranian influences, as evidenced in the ongoing protests calling for reform. He further stresses that Iran's declining economy under U.S. sanctions haa left Tehran with little space to maneuver, adding that the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election is Iran's last bid to help its economy.

Government analysts and private sector investigators were able to rapidly attribute to Iranian hackers a wave of thousands of threatening emails aimed at US voters because of mistakes made in a video attached to some of the messages, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Those failures provided a rare opportunity for the U.S. government to identify and publicly announce blame for a malicious cyber operation in a matter of days, something that usually requires months of technical analysis and supporting intelligence.

"Either they made a dumb mistake or wanted to get caught," said a senior US government official, who asked not to be identified. "We are not concerned about this activity being some kind of false flag due to other supporting evidence. This was Iran."

Attribution to Iranian hackers does not necessarily mean a group is working at the behest of the government there. Iranian officials denied the US allegations.

“These accusations are nothing more than another scenario to undermine voter confidence in the security of the US election, and are absurd," said Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York.

Iraqi Politician Misha’an Al-Juburi: I Would Rather Be Ruled by ISIS than by Pro-Iranian Militias that Follow Khamenei pic.twitter.com/fAPksbz8TC

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 23, 2020

When word got out this week that Facebook had squelched Shibbolet – again – Likud MKs Amit Halevy and Ariel Kelner published posts on Twitter threatening to take legislative action against Facebook. The threats worked. Shibbolet's account was reinstated. In fact, the account Facebook "permanently" froze in April quickly thawed.

While this is a positive development, it isn't a business model. Conservative businesses – and business owners – cannot build their commercial model around faith that lawmakers will defend them on Twitter or that the trillion-dollar conglomerates will long care what lawmakers say or do.

Recognizing the dimension of the threat, Wednesday Halevy initiated Knesset action on the issue. He submitted a bill titled, "Social Media Responsibility for Content Published on its Platforms."

If passed into law, Halevy's bill will divide social media companies into two categories: those that interfere in content posted on their platforms and those that do not. Currently, both types of companies enjoy immunity from lawsuits related to content posted or blocked on their platforms.

Halevy's bill would maintain the exemption for social media companies that do not interfere with content on their platforms without a court order or a clear legal obligation to do so. On the other hand, social media companies that interfere with the content on their platforms would no longer enjoy immunity from legal actions by users harmed by the content on their platforms.

Halevy's bill also requires companies that interfere with the content of its platforms to operate in a transparent way. They would be required to explain precisely what sort of content they censor. And they would be required to publish annual reports delineating precisely which posts they censored and why. Users would be notified before the companies take action against their content and be given an opportunity to defend themselves.

President Donald Trump and prominent Republican lawmakers have pledged to take similar action against Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants after the election. The Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google earlier this week.

These initiatives are critical. And they shouldn't stand on their own. They should rather be the first shots of concerted campaign to limit the power of these gargantuan companies that control nearly all global information.

Freedom of expression and the free flow of information are the foundations of free societies. Rather than use their unprecedented power to secure both, social media giants are manipulating information and censoring speech with a power that no one could have fathomed just 20 years ago. Optimism and hope for their positive potential blinded many of us to their actual dangers. The time has come to take on this new and pernicious threat to the future of free nations and free people.

The BBC apologized on Thursday for broadcasting an appeal by convicted Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, mastermind of the Sbarro Pizza parlor bombing in Jerusalem in 2001, to be reunited with her husband, after the families of Tamimi's victims and the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) spoke out against the broadcast.

On October 1, 2020, Tamimi's husband Nizar, who is also a convicted terrorist, was deported by the Jordanian authorities to Qatar.

Seven days later the BBC's Arabic TV service broadcast a report in its program Trending on how Tamimi had called into a popular Amman-based radio station in a bid to appeal directly to King Abdullah II to intervene and have her husband returned to Jordan.

The BBC's report glossed over key elements of Jordanian-born Tamimi's story, reporting that she had been "accused" of the Sbarro terror attack but not that she had boastfully pled guilty to the charges in an Israeli court – or that she had said she would be happy to carry out such an attack again.

Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life sentences following the attack, but only served ten years as she was released in the deal that secured the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas's hold.

The BBC's Arabic service, which is funded by Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, further failed to mention any of her victims by name.

Moreover, such self-styled progressives believe this constitutes their whole moral and political identity. It bestows virtue upon them because it is based on the ideal of the perfect society where war is no more, lions lie down with lambs and prejudice is obliterated from the human heart.

Anyone who challenges it, therefore, isn’t just wrong, but right-wing and evil. So anything they say — however truthful or evidence-based — is right-wing and evil. And so truth has become a right-wing concept and is to be exiled, along with the truth-tellers, from acceptable society.

But Farrakhan is immune from criticism as a result of the core doctrine of identity politics that says members of an “oppressed” minority are victims and can therefore do no wrong.

Liberal Jews in America go one stage further. They have convinced themselves that “social justice,” which is in fact anti-social and unjust and stands utterly against the particularism which is the essence of Judaism, actually embodies Jewish ethical precepts.

So when they look at the Democratic Party, they make excuses and continue to vote for it. When presented with the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry of The New York Times, they make excuses and continue to buy it. When confronted by the violence of Black Lives Matter, they make excuses and continue to call anyone who opposes it “racist.” And when they cannot make excuses, as over Farrakhan, they look away.

Because they have made a religious faith out of this illiberal liberalism, which classifies all who challenge it as evil by definition, most of their minds have become hermetically sealed thought systems. They will never be prised open.

In her essay, Weiss is rightly aghast at what this signifies for the Jews who have adopted this mindset. “That leaders and philanthropists charged to protect and nurture our community are entertaining, and at times embracing, such nihilistic and anti-American ideas is a scandal.”

More than that, it’s a tragedy in the making—not just for American Jews, but the west.

The irony of this is that pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic forces on university campuses have been perhaps the foremost practitioners of deplatforming anywhere in the United States. Pro-Israel events are regularly disrupted, pro-Israel and even simply Jewish speakers are harassed and shut down, and Jewish and pro-Israel students are systematically subjected to campaigns of hate, violence and intimidation.

This has gone so far as to force Jewish students off campus; as was the case with the CUNY law student Rafaella Gunz, whose horrible odyssey was reported by this publication. And often, these acts of violence are enabled and supported by faculty and administrators.

The obvious goal of all this is to violate precisely those principles Khaled’s defenders claim to advocate and thus brutalize Israel and Judaism’s campus defenders into surrender and silence. In other words, they want to deplatform the Jews. The question, then, is whether we ought to do the same to them.

On the one hand, it is an uncomfortable question, given that many of us disapprove of deplatforming itself and oppose attempts to deplatform the Jews on precisely that basis. But that is essentially an argument over ideals, and we do not live in an ideal world. Whether we like it or not, the other side has laid down the rules of the game. When student mobs, faculty and administrators collaborate in an attempt to deplatform the Jews, it is no longer an issue of free speech. It is an issue of power: who has it and who doesn’t. And is only by empowering ourselves that we can fight back, as was successfully done against Khaled and her supporters.

Moreover, if the deplatformers, whether students or faculty, wish to continue using the tactic, they must be consistent. They claim hate speech is an actual threat to life and limb, the moral equivalent of physical violence and even murder. By this definition, groups like Students for Justice in Palestine that incite violence against Israel and Jewish students, and often call for the outright genocide of Israel’s Jewish population, are unquestionably hate groups, and thus certainly qualify for deplatforming according to the deplatformers own standards. Against this, our opponents can simply have no argument. They have chosen to live by that sword, and can hardly complain when they die by it.

Of course, it could be said that if we start to live by that sword, we will also die by it. But we are already dying by it, and it is only by seizing it for ourselves that we can effectively defend ourselves. These are the values, after all, that those who ought to know better have embraced, and it appears that, sadly, it is only by adopting them that we can force them to act according to those values, which they allegedly hold so dear.

Are Jews white? No, said the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner during a Wednesday appearance on i24 News, and the false claim that they are is a “slur” that must be refuted.

“In the language of wokeness,” Dovid Efune told “Global Eye” host Natasha Kirtchuk, “‘whiteness’ isn’t just a description of the lowest rung on the ladder of victimhood — it’s a pejorative, it’s an accusation. It refers to an oppressor, a ruling class…an occupier or a colonialist.”

Efune recalled that his own great-grandfather, who perished in the Holocaust, was considered by the Nazis to be of an inferior race.

“So it really is the height of irony and insult that when Jews express concern about antisemitism being ignored and a blindness to antisemitism, they’re then lumped into the white category,” he noted.

I have mentioned these memories before. They haven’t changed. But this year, more than ever, we need a reminder that Rabin was neither a saint nor the devil.

If he hadn’t died the way he did, we would probably still hear now and again his Knesset speech comparing Golan Heights residents opposed to withdrawal to “spinning propellers.” That would be the everlasting sound bite rather than Eitan Haber’s stark statement telling of the assassination.

It seems strange today to recall how Rabin’s last term as prime minister was marked by arguments over leaving the Golan. I even remember residents of Jewish communities in Gaza making a solidarity trip to the Golan Heights, where people seemed to be under the imminent threat of losing their homes.

Today, we can appreciate just how disastrous handing the Golan Heights over to the Assad regime in Syria would have been. The same way as even those who ardently supported Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza recognize the dangers of the ever-increasing rocket attacks and the terror attack tunnels like the one discovered just this week.

It’s tempting to play “What if?”: What would have happened had Rabin not been murdered? It’s impossible to know, but I don’t believe he would have remained in power. While the Left often claims that Rabin’s assassination killed the peace process, it was already literally blowing up before he was shot. The Left focuses on the incitement (some of it by Shin Bet agents provocateurs like Avishai Raviv) that preceded his murder, but the Palestinian suicide bombings that accompanied the Oslo process were just as much a part of the background.

Similarly, there’s no way of knowing whether Rabin would have continued along the path that Shimon Peres was pushing him down, or done a reverse. It was Rabin, after all, who took a tough stand during the First Intifada and deported hundreds of Hamas terrorists to Lebanon.

It was these actions that Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decided to focus on recently, as the timing of the anniversary overlaps with the height of election fever in the US. AOC, as she is known, pulled out of a commemoration event organized by Americans for Peace Now following a social media storm by Palestinian supporters. She apparently did not want to be associated with the Israeli leader even though he won the Nobel Peace Prize – along with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres – for his role in the Oslo Accords.

That Peace Now’s credentials are not liberal enough for AOC does not bode well for any of us.

Upon Rabin’s death, Arafat called his partner in the peace process, “a brave man in war and a brave man in peace.”

That’s what’s missing in the progressive audit of Rabin twenty-five years later, that he was in a state of war. And wars make people dehumanize other people. That’s not a defence of anything Rabin or Israel have done to the Palestinians, far from it. But it does, as Ellison said, make Rabin’s later sacrifices for peace all the more powerful.

The strange optics of Ocasio-Cortez playing a video game for a massive audience on the night of the Rabin memorial probably came about accidentally. That the livestream also featured Ilhan Omar — who has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks, is a staunch opponent of the Israeli government, and a supporter of the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement which does not believe in a two-state solution — is simply fuel for the Israel hawks looking to paint AOC as an opponent.

In a 2018 PBS interview AOC clumsily referred to Israel’s “occupation of Palestine,” which some critics interpreted as a view that Israel was illegitimately occupying the full body of land that once constituted the British Mandate for Palestine, which includes Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. But after conceding she’s “not the expert on geopolitics on this issue,” AOC also said she believes “absolutely in Israel’s right to exist” and is “a proponent of the two state solution.”

The congresswoman also shares in Peace Now’s opposition to the Israeli’s government threat to annex land on which it has illegally built settlements in the West Bank, much of which is the only land still available for a future Palestinian state.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not return multiple requests for comment, which is a shame because without clarification, it’s fair to assume that a vocal and growing portion of the progressive left are slowly making it clear that seemingly no Israeli leader — not even a martyr for peace — is worthy of tribute or legitimization.

And that makes it tough to unpack AOC’s true positions. If she supports a two-state solution and Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, why not participate in a memorial for Rabin — who did more than any single Israeli to push toward a two-state solution?

If AOC shares the view that Rabin, like all Israeli political leaders, is irredeemably tainted by actions in defence of what many progressives see as a racist, colonial state, she should lay her cards on the table and say that. If she doesn’t, it’d be illuminating to know which Israeli figures are not so problematic.

The Rabin event, hosted by the decidedly left-wing Americans for Peace Now, was no Zionist affair. It was attended by teachers' union president Randi Weingarten and Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, who honored Rabin's legacy as a peacemaker. This was an event for those who loathe what the Zionist project has become—confident, capitalist, and prosperous—but nonetheless wish to associate themselves with the kind of progressive Zionism that Rabin has come to represent.

But even progressive Zionism, the support for the hypothetical Jewish state that might exist if its proponents could isolate and boycott and berate Israelis into living with unacceptable threats, is intolerable to AOC and her allies. As Jewish Insider reported earlier this month, the congresswoman has shunned New York's progressive Jewish leaders, some of whom have spent two years trying to get on her calendar. Those leaders are "perplexed" and "befuddled," the report says.

Tuesday evening's antics should bring some clarity. In addition to Piker, AOC was joined by her colleague Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who has argued that American support for Israel is solely a product of Jewish money—shared values and enemies don't factor for a congresswoman who rejects those values and embraces those enemies—and that it constitutes "allegiance to a foreign country." She believes that "Israel has hypnotized the world."

For Omar, 9/11 was an attack perpetrated by "some people" who "did something." For Piker, it was the attack America deserved.

AOC, who never seems to be at a loss for words, has had precious little to say about the atrocity inflicted on America that day but has never failed to defend her allies, like Omar, when they provoke criticism and backlash.

Her actions suggest that she believes the United States had it coming, that U.S. support for Israel is driven only by Jews and the support they can buy, and that Yitzhak Rabin was an irredeemable colonizer and occupier. As the saying goes, when someone shows you who they are: believe them.

The facts about these groups aren’t a secret. All three are guilty of supporting the anti-Semitic BDS movement with words and deeds, and seek to undermine the right of Israelis to self-defense against terrorism, as well as to promote false charges of war crimes against the Jewish state. Their approach to alleged inquiries about life in the only democracy in the Middle East is inherently prejudiced. Indeed, these three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) act in perfect concert with institutions like the U.N. Human Rights Council, where anti-Semitism and bias against Israel have become its raison d’être.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Oxfam dates back to the Second World War, the efforts of Quaker groups to aid starving populations in countries devastated by the impact of the fighting and Nazi occupation. But it eventually broadened its agenda to a general goal of fighting injustice. And, like other organizations connected to the Quaker faith, it developed a particular animus for Israel and a desire to support the Palestinian Arab war to destroy it. As NGO Monitor—a vital source for information about the anti-Semitic activities of non-governmental organization—details, it has become a huge booster of BDS and other anti-Israel activities.

Human Rights Watch was begun in 1978 as part of an effort to hold the Soviet Union accountable for its atrocities and oppression of dissidents and Jews. But it, too, eventually expanded its scope and ironically wound up becoming an ardent foe of Israel. As one of its founders noted in a blistering attack on it published in The New York Times in 2009, it had become an enabler of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, and was short-changing the far more egregious human-rights offenses going on in the Arab world because it was obsessed with attacking Israel.

Amnesty International also had a sterling reputation as a foe of oppression around the world. But it became a pivotal ally of the BDS movement, supporting embargos against Israel, falsely labeling it an “apartheid state” and defending those linked to terror under the bogus excuse that they were victims of human-rights abuses by Israel.

Let’s be clear that these three groups are not being accused of anti-Semitism because they are critical of Israel’s government or its policies. Rather, it’s because their activities and advocacy have been consistent with the widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism that has been promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance—precepts that have been officially endorsed by the government of the United States that rightly labels delegitimizing, demonizing and applying double standards to Israel, the one Jewish state on the planet, as acts of Jew-hatred.

Why then are so many liberal groups rising to defend them against the State Department?

The answer has more to do with politics than anything else.

I was on @i24NEWS_EN explaining my support of @StateDept labelling @hrw& @amnesty as #Antisemitic.

These orgs have long peddled Antisemitism under guise of ‘#HumanRights’ to demonize, delegitimize & single out #Israel, incl. supporting BDS and whitewashing Palestinian terror. pic.twitter.com/NWe1xZpuPb

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 23, 2020

you're not biased https://t.co/6iBolZzoowhttps://t.co/NCAYjtQo1mpic.twitter.com/Y4jtltILiH

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 22, 2020

The ADL said calling the groups anti-Semitic “is neither accurate nor helpful to the fight against anti-Semitism.”

Democratic Congressman from Michigan Andy Levin, who used to work for Human Rights Watch, also criticized the move.

“Criticizing Israel’s policies is not anti-Semitism. I know because I do so out of love for a country I want to thrive,” he said on Twitter.

He also said the groups “do essential, often dangerous work to protect human rights.”

News of the reported declaration came just before an international conference on anti-Semitism, which featured Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a range of other officials and analysts. The conference focused on online hate and emphasized anti-Semitism from the left and Islamic terrorists, including anti-Israel activism.

While no panelist focused solely on far-right anti-Semitism, officials, including Netanyahu and others, did mention neo-Nazis among the dangerous groups facing the Jewish people.

“Contemporary anti-Semitism feeds off its more traditional precursors, often focusing on the State of Israel, which for the modern anti-Semite is the manifestation of the collective Jew,” Netanyahu said.

“Today people with opposing political agendas can nevertheless find themselves united in hatred for Israel and the Jewish people. The neo-Nazi, the ultra-left revolutionary, the Islamist militant might agree about nothing else, but they all do share a common hatred towards us and that hate is awash across the internet,” he added.

Tablet’s correspondent attended the Sunday Paris demonstration in the central Republique square in solidarity with Paty, which appeared to show high levels of public support for Macron’s initiatives and the French values they are meant to protect. The demonstration was tens of thousands strong and militantly serious. Schoolteachers were out in force. Numerous people waved their copies of Charlie Hebdo. The demonstrators represented a cross section of the population, and their placards were plaintive, generous, and occasionally witty.

Yet, perhaps because of exhaustion or built up trauma, the demonstration, which was very touching and somber in many ways, did not draw the millions who had attended previous demonstrations. As the second wave resurgence of the coronavirus has overwhelmed French hospitals and brought infection rates back up to unacceptable levels, mandatory nighttime curfews on free movement have been reimposed in various cities throughout France. Many Parisians have become visibly exhausted by the cycle of violence, and the somber atmosphere on the square showed it. Yet the single violent incident that Tablet’s correspondent observed involving an angry middle-aged French man left open the question of how bright the future for communal cooperation might actually be.

A dedicated band of Algerian democracy protesters that gathers with Algerian national flags and posters every Sunday shared the side of the square with the demonstration in honor and defense of Paty. Their stall was assaulted by a tall and rotund middle-aged French man, dressed in a working class sort of leather rocker outfit and bedecked with numerous steel rings. The French man threw the Algerian flag to the ground, showed the Algerians his middle finger, and began fighting with some of them. Upon barreling through the crowd and pushing me to the side he was himself pushed to the floor, with some of the Algerian men having to keep their enraged comrades from stomping his head into the sidewalk beneath the statue of Marianne. The gendarmes then twisted the troublemaker’s arms behind his back and dashed him against the side of a blue police van in an efficient display of concerted violence.

On Wednesday the French government sent an unmistakable message as Samuel Paty was posthumously awarded the Légion d’honneur.

Over the past two days, reports and articles that included incitement following the October 16 beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty, as well as condemnations of French policy in response to Islamic terrorism, have been removed from the website of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). One of the articles that was removed was written by IUMS secretary-general Ali Al-Qaradaghi, who claimed in it that the murder had been staged by the French authorities and that "the real murderer is still alive." Al-Qaradaghi's article, as well as statements containing incitement he voiced following the attack, were identified, translated, and published by MEMRI on October 20.

The Doha-based IUMS has been supported since its founding by the Qatari regime and by Turkey. It was established in 2004 by Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi, who also headed it until late 2018. He is considered to be the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and has resided in Qatar and enjoyed the backing of its regime since the 1960s. The IUMS website has for years promoted extremist discourse, including incitement to jihad and terrorism and hatred of Jews and Christians.[1] It should be noted that there is a French version of the IUMS website, but that it is different from the Arabic website.

The following are examples of articles that the IUMS removed from its website:

In response to Paty's October 16 murder, IUMS Secretary General Al-Qaradaghi condemned it in a statement on the IUMS website. In the statement, Al-Qaradaghi also placed the blame for the murder on senior French officials and on the victim himself, underlining that a teacher's role is to "instill peace in the young, rather than incite them." Going even further, the same day he published an article on the website that included a conspiracy theory according to which the murder had been meticulously staged by the French authorities with the aim of linking Islam and terrorism, and that "the real murderer is still alive." (For more on Al-Qaradaghi's response to the beheading, see Secretary-General Of International Union of Muslim Scholars, 'Ali Al-Qaradaghi, Resumes Jihadi Incitement: Claims Murder Of French Teacher Was Staged By French Authorities And Real Killer Is Still Alive.)

Two days later, the IUMS removed Al-Qaradaghi's conspiracy article from the website, along with other articles condemning French President Macron's stated intention to eradicate extremist Islamism in France.

On October 21, 2020, Al-Qaradaghi published a statement of clarification and denial, stating that he "condemns the incident and does not cast any doubts on it."[2] However, it should be noted that the article still appears on Al-Qaradaghi's Facebook account.[3]

David Miller is a sociology professor at the University of Bristol and for the past year and a half he has taken up far too much of my attention.

You might have come across him – his comments on Zionism and the Labour party, and the controversy that followed, are covered in the national press. He appeared at events alongside outcast former Labour MP Chris Williamson, and has also claimed the White Helmets were responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.

Since last January he has been brought up in roughly every other JSOC (Jewish society) committee meeting. Why? Because some Jewish students have been feeling intimidated by what he’s been teaching for months.

He’s accused Keir Starmer of receiving ‘Zionist money’ Miller has a history of controversial comments about Israel and Zionism. In 2018, at UCL, he argued that accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour party are “mostly false”. Yet according to a 2017 YouGov survey, 80+ per cent of British Jews believe the Labour party tolerated anti-Semitism. At the same event he claimed the reaction of some Jewish students was a result of “propaganda which they have been schooled with”.

In June, Miller accused Keir Starmer of receiving “Zionist money” and resigned from the Labour party because of the “Zionist movement”. The idea that Jews or Zionists are using their money to manipulate politics is a trope as old as time. Miller says he is “simply describing the facts” and that a donor to Starmer’s campaign, Trevor Chinn, is “arguably, de facto one of the most senior officers in the UK Zionist movement”.

Theories he uses in lectures leave some Jewish students feeling uncomfortable His lectures in his “Harms of the Powerful” module have made some Jewish students feel increasingly uncomfortable and unwelcome in his classroom.

A Jewish student in his class, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: “I was one of the only Jewish students in David Miller’s class. Honestly it was scary because he is a teacher so people believed the anti-Semitism he was spreading. I was scared because I am one voice and felt I couldn’t stand up to him or tell him what he was saying was wrong.”

Jewish students at the University of Illinois filed a formal complaint with the Department of Education alleging "an unrelenting campaign of anti-Semitic harassment" on campus, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The complaint, filed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring discrimination at institutions receiving federal funding, alleges that University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) officials systematically swept multiple instances of campus anti-Semitism under the rug. "Despite repeatedly being placed on notice of the developing hostile environment on UIUC’s campus, the UIUC administration has failed to take the measures necessary to provide Jewish and pro-Israel students with a discrimination-free academic setting," the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which is helping to handle the case, said in a statement.

During the past several years, Jewish students at UIUC have come under attack from pro-Palestinian activists, far-left student groups, and white supremacists. Swastikas have been painted across the campus and Jewish ritual items, such as menorahs and mezuzahs, have been vandalized. The campus’s Jewish fraternity houses also have been subject to attacks, including having bricks thrown through their windows. The complaint was filed seven months ago, but made public on Friday due to the school’s alleged refusal to address the matter.

The landmark complaint with the Education Department is the latest attempt by American Jewish students to ensure their safety on campus. Jewish students across the nation are increasingly under attack from liberal activists who oppose their support for Israel and belief in a Jewish homeland. Anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses have hit historic levels in recent years. Much of this activism has been tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged by professors intolerant of pro-Israel voices.

Ex-Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters claimed the BBC was “completely corrupt” for failing to respond to his proposal to make a documentary to counterargue claims of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.

The musician and vehement anti-Israel activist attacked the British public broadcaster during an online panel discussion last week — hosted by anti-Zionist author and American-Israeli activist Miko Peled — that focused on defending Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Waters referenced a July 2019 documentary by the “Panorama” program, screened by BBC1, that examined antisemitism in the Labour Party, charging it “was a shocking put-up job that just floated away on the clouds of rubbish that come out of the Ministry of Truth never to be seen again.”

“We can’t live with the disgusting nature of the deceit — the BBC having become completely corrupt,” he added, before saying, “I wrote to the BBC and suggested we make another ‘Panorama’ program showing the other side of the argument about alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party. They didn’t even answer.”

An open letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, Ken Loach, former MP Jim Manly, poet El Jones, author Yann Martel, and more than 170 Canadians, was delivered this week to Canadian Justice Minister David Lametti asking him to investigate recruitment taking place in Canada for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The authors of the open letter also launched a formal legal complaint with the Justice Minister, since it’s a crime in Canada to recruit anyone for a foreign military. Advertisement

A website close to the petition and the complaint listed the offenses carried out by Jewish schools in Canada in violation of the country’s Foreign Enlistment Act.

Netivot HaTorah Day School last January posted on its Facebook page that its “donut day” initiative raised more than $750 for Gar’in Chayalim, a program that supports IDF lone soldiers.”Bialik Hebrew Day School states on its website: “Tzedakah programs such as Shai Le’chayal help students feel a sense of responsibility to the Israeli community by sending gifts to Israeli soldiers. Similarly, having the opportunity to interact with IDF [entertainment] Band soldiers, who visit to perform for the school, reinforces these feelings.”The Toronto Heschel School invited the IDF Nachal Band to play there last September.Families affiliated with the Leo Baeck Day School hosted Israeli teens for a year before they enlisted in the IDF. When they returned to Israel, they engaged with students over Skype.Leo Baeck students also pay tribute to Israel’s fallen heroes and fundraise for Beit Halochem Canada/Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel.The IDF Orchestra performed in several Canadian Jewish schools.Leo Baeck’s alumni magazine advertised the Judy Shaviv Memorial Fund “Keren Yad Yehudit” which assists graduates to spend time in Israel in the IDF, in study programs, or as volunteers. The high school celebrates its graduates who have served in the IDF, inviting them to share their experiences with the students.The Israeli Consulate General in Toronto in May 2019 sent IDF Colonel Barak Hiram to speak to high school students, telling them about “being a new recruit and a seasoned commander in the Golani Brigade.”Some of the Jewish high school teachers’ biographies state that they served in the Israeli military.Bnei Akiva honors alumni who served in the IDF on its website.

Sounds like nothing short of those Central African children’s armies doesn’t it…

A former leader of a campus anti-Israel group and employee of an organization that was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror case is running for a seat on the Coral Springs City Commission in Florida.

Noor Fawzy, a civil litigation attorney at statewide law firm Conroy Simberg who previously worked at the Broward County Attorney’s Office, has a history that includes being president of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Florida Atlantic University in 2012, where she graduated the following year, according to her LinkedIn page.

From June to August 2015, she served as a legal intern at the office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Sunrise, Fla., according to LinkedIn. CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case that proved connections to the US-designated terrorist group Hamas and other radical Islamic entities.

In 2012, when Hamas launched rockets from Gaza into Israel, Fawzy posted on Facebook, “Israeli warmongers justify their operations on the basis of ensuring safety and security for their citizens. During the Gaza Massacre (2008-2009), resistance fighters hit areas farther and farther into Israel proper. It saw a record in the number of Palestinians wishing to fight on behalf of its Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades. Its support increased, and its international legitimacy was enhanced.”

“Now, the resistance has targeted even farther areas, including Tel Aviv and Occupied al-Quds, for the first time in 20-30 years,” she continued. “This is unprecedented.”

Given than Norm wrote the (bestselling) The Holocaust Industry, in which he suggests people drain a living from it, that's essentially what he's made a career out of. His shtick is Holocaust Holocaust Holocaust. Oh, and he's got a new book coming out. Guess what it's about? 🤔😉 pic.twitter.com/RjyVEFicAO

— Joo (@JoosyJew) October 23, 2020

As for logistics, the synagogue in question could never hold a crowd of 10,000, as Satmar leader Rabbi Moshe Dovid Niederman explained to Cuomo during a Sunday call, published in the Orthodox daily Hamodia. The hosting congregation even published a statement explaining that “this wedding was designed differently,” because of COVID-19. So, only “a small circle of close family members” were expected to attend the ceremony and celebratory meal. The statement also noted that “unwarranted attacks on this event” were “detached from the facts” before remarking, “It’s sad that nobody verified our plans before attacking us.”

Americans Against Antisemitism founder Dov Hikind considered that statement credible. During a call, he asked rhetorically, “Are the Satmar so out of their minds that they’re planning a wedding with 10,000 or even 1,000, and TV cameras would’ve been down there? It would have been a disaster.”

Another nagging question remains: Why didn’t Cuomo just call Satmar leaders? On Sunday’s call, Cuomo described knowing Rabbi Niederman for “over 20 years.” Given that, Cuomo could easily have buzzed Niederman to fact-check. Hikind commented, “Why didn’t the governor pick up the phone before making it into a national story? That’s being sensitive? That’s not being a friend.” A friend would inquire directly. Further, if anything in the original wedding plans didn’t fully comply with state health guidelines, a friend would offer private guidance on how to remedy shortcomings.

Cuomo’s response to Niederman during Sunday’s call truly stands out, though: “In this crazy world, everything gets blown out of proportion. And you’re right, the press comes to me, they ask me a question, with an asserted fact in it. ‘There is a wedding that’s gonna have 10,000 people, how can you let that happen?’ They assert the fact, and then it’s hard to say to the reporter, ‘Well, I don’t know if you, if that’s true or not.’ And I understand that things are said.”

But Cuomo clearly accepted the premise of a large wedding taking place, and his words have had consequences. Reporters descended on Williamsburg on Monday, something locals did not appreciate. Further, harassment and anti-Semitic graffiti continue apace for New York’s Orthodox Jews, as does the cementing of the dangerous narrative that Orthodox Jews deserve unique blame for COVID-19’s spread.

If New York is to conquer COVID-19, there must be universal compliance with public-health guidelines. However, public officials must simultaneously demonstrate true leadership. In Governor Cuomo’s case, that includes ending his recent, troubling pattern of singling out New York’s Orthodox Jewish community. Perhaps he could start by publicly taking responsibility for the response that launched a thousand nasty news stories.

Help NYC Jewish Cafe Survive De Blasio Harassment https://t.co/jpd1WqA4rb

— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) October 23, 2020

To that end, the RCI report includes a reference to a news release from M.A.I (Montreal, arts interculturels) that states:

This exhibition is a response to the ongoing violation of Palestinian human rights with the continued sieges on Gaza, the shooting of peaceful protestors, night raids and the arrest of thousands of Palestinians including over two hundred children and women. Live in Palestine seems particularly crucial at this moment as Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ sponsors Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank, in defiance of International and Humanitarian Law.”

There was no context about Israel’s perspective on these many issues and no balance is featured in this RCI report. On the issue of the security barrier, what is referred to in this report as a “wall,” no mention was made that it’s in place to prevent Palestinian terror that has killed over 1,000 Israelis, injuring hundreds more and that its implementation has seen a drastic reduction in terror attacks by 90%, Israel says. With respect to Palestinian prisoners, no mention was made that Israel considers these individuals to be terrorists or they were incarcerated for their role in supporting acts of terror and/or for being security threats. Israel says they are not “political prisoners” and this report leads you to that false conclusion. Lastly, with respect to the now postponed Israeli plan to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria (west bank), Israel claims it’s within its rights under international law, citing its historical, legal and ancestral claims to the lands, along with pressing security concerns. The U.S. now supports the Israeli position that Israel’s presence in these areas is not “illegal” and do not violate international law.

The article also links and drives traffic to the M.A.I exhibit and the Arts and Resistance blog.

In a complaint sent to senior editors at Radio-Canada International, we conveyed our concerns that this isn’t a news article in any sense, it’s really just a promotional piece of this anti-Israel “art” exhibit without any context and consideration for Israel’s perspective on these many controversial issues.

Accordingly, we respectfully requested that corrective action be immediately undertaken by RCI to set the record straight.

We await RCI’s response to our complaint. Stay tuned to this page for any future updates.

After CAMERA’s communication with editors, the New York Times corrected a recent story about an al Qaida financier that had misrepresented the violence on board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a 2010 flotilla to the Gaza Strip.

The story initially stated that in 2010, the al Qaida operative “was a student activist in Australia who was shot when Israeli naval commandos killed nine activists on a ship that was carrying aid to Gaza.”

The suggestion that Israel arbitrarily killed activists seeking to deliver aid is egregiously misleading. The Mavi Marmara was not carrying aid for Gaza. And while other ships in the flotilla did carry aid, a UN report questioned the “true nature and objectives of the flotilla organizers.”

No less important is that the flotilla was seeking to breach a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. That blockade was a “legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law,” the UN report found. The Mavi Marmara ignored several warnings and demands that the vessel turn back, and when Israeli forces boarded the ship, they faced “organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers,” the UN report explained. Three Israeli soldiers were captured, and several were injured in the violence.

In short, the passengers on the Mavi Marmara weren’t killed because they were charity workers. They weren’t killed because they were part of a flotilla delivering aid. They weren’t even killed because, as the UN report put it, they “acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.” Instead, they were killed during a frenzied battle, in which they initiated the violence. The Times story ignored all of this. To refer to the death of the passengers without mentioning their violent attacks is to flagrantly mislead readers.

We pointed out to editors that, based on our research, this 400 figure was merely an unsubstantiated (and, as we demonsrated in our post, highly dubious) claim by a Palestinian activist, and not based on any actual source.

Editors upheld our complaint and amended the sentence to make it clear that the number only represents a claim:

After some claims of 400 incidents in Kisan and the surrounding area, the villagers say they have had enough and installed a camera system that can monitor clashes with the settlers and hopefully provide evidence for prosecutors.

As we often remind journalists and editors, the Accuracy clause of the Editors’ Code requires that media outlets “distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact”.

An Australian school teacher on Thursday collected a “Righteous Among the Nations” award from Israel’s national Holocaust memorial on behalf of her Dutch grandparents, who protected a two-year-old Jewish child from the Nazis by passing him off as their own.

Ingrid Bradford — a teacher from the Australian city of Brisbane — received the award in a virtual ceremony on Thursday evening hosted by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Bradford’s late grandparents — Klaasje van der Haar and her husband Jacob — cared for the infant boy, Joseph Gokkes, alongside their own children for more than three years in the Dutch city of Hoogeveen.

Following the defeat of the Nazis, Joseph was safely reunited with his parents, Gila and Benjamin.

Also participating in the ceremony were the daughter of Joseph Gokkes, Inbal, and her mother, Shifra, who live in Israel.

Bradford said that the family had been overwhelmed by the recognition of their grandparents’ heroism.

Jerusalem’s International Convention Center (Binyenei HaUma) at the entrance to the city will be renamed in memory of the late Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, who died four years ago at the age of 93. His last political position was as the ninth president of the Jewish state, serving from 2007-2014.

The commemoration received the blessing of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and chairman of the Jewish National Fund Danny Atar.

JNF is expected to take ownership of the site as part of its redevelopment, together with the Jerusalem Municipality. The management of each organization, as well as the board of directors of the International Convention Center, approved the decision.

The convention center, which was inaugurated in 1956 near the government building complex in Givat Ram, is expected to become the largest and most advanced conference center in the Middle East in the coming years, covering an area of 55,000 square meters.

Additionally, a new business center will be built on the site with nine skyscrapers and another 15 10-story buildings—a project estimated to add 60,000 new jobs in the city of Jerusalem.

The construction of the entire project, expected to take place over the next decade, is estimated at $530 million.

Capt. S. just made history as the FIRST female pilot to ever fly the F-35i "Adir" fighter jet. She was just appointed as the new Deputy Squadron Commander of the 116th Squadron in the Israeli Air Force.

Here's to the strong women and men who defend Israel's skies & more. 💪 pic.twitter.com/4jtZ0sIOvb

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 22, 2020

Kristallnacht is when 140 synagogues were burned down in 1938. March of the Living is running a campaign across the world to keep lights on during the night of November 9th, as a symbol of solidarity.

Join us by shining a light: https://t.co/r7Eg6MW7C8pic.twitter.com/zPML8WQ8lm

— Imam of Peace🕊 (@Imamofpeace) October 22, 2020

It might not be so easy to tell, but what you are looking at are the earliest surviving photographs ever taken of #Jerusalem.

All the way back in 1844 (176 #YearsAgo), Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey took these photos of the Old City on a tour of the Middle East. #TBThursdaypic.twitter.com/K5w7HjNAXC

— Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) October 22, 2020

I've read multiple pieces accusing President Trump of using the Abraham Accords as an election success story. Any candidate trying to get elected or re-elected as president of the United States of America will use whatever gains they possess to gain votes. If you have something better than the first peace deal in 25 years by all means use that to your advantage- any politician would.

Similar claims are made against Netanyahu who is standing trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu have been given a grace period following the Abraham Accords. In Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's case, it is not because Israelis don't have foreign policy high on their list, but because there are more pressing domestic issues to deal with.

Israelis refer to Netanyahu as "the magician"– a term used both positively and negatively. Recent polls however indicate the opposition right-wing Yamina party is closing the gap with Netanyahu's Likud, calling the entire magic theory into question yet again.

The peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Bahrain is widely favored among Israelis, but it contrasts with serious dissatisfaction at home. While Israelis are eager to travel to the Gulf, let's not forget that they have been stuck at home for several weeks until recently due to a second nationwide lockdown. Ask any one of the tens of thousands of Israelis protesting across Israel and they will blame Netanyahu for miserable handling of the Pandemic. At this point Israelis are feeling so helpless, a trip to the local grocery store will suffice.

All this is to say that the Abraham Accords, amazing as they truly are, cannot erase – or even ease – domestic strife.

The biggest mockers of the new Israeli-Gulf relationship are unquestionably the Palestinians. They rejected the deal immediately and left no room to recognize their longtime Emirati ally's achievement in blocking Israel's plan to extend sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

Palestinians see the deal as a betrayal as it calls for normalization with Israel through the good ol' formula they grew up on "if we don't get a piece of peace, no one does." The Abraham accords aren't killig the prospects of an independent state of Palestine, the Palestinian reaction to it is.

Those who believe that Jerusalem's holy sites are in danger due to the agreement can rest assured the Hashemite custodianship of Muslim and Christian holy sites hasn't changed. The only ones threatening the city right now are extremists targeting and harassing Emirati worshippers who have come to visit the Temple Mount, Islam's third holiest site.

By taking a robust approach to some of the region's more intractable issues... such as relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem, the US has produced a number of profound changes to the regional landscape, the consequences of which are likely to be felt for many years to come.

The breakthrough in the peace process, moreover, has resulted in the region being clearly divided between moderate, peace-loving countries that are prepared to engage in the peace process, and rejectionist regimes, such as Turkey and Iran, that are only interested in causing further bloodshed.

It is these countries, as well as China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela that have most to fear in next month's presidential election if a strong and successful America returns again.

Commenting on Israel's presumed 'vulnerability' regarding the legality or illegality of civilian Jewish residency communities ("settlements") in the "West Bank", a new geopolitical term created in 1950, territory the United Nations termed Judea and Samaria in its 1947 Partition Plan, David Luban, Georgetown Professor in Law, writes in "America the Unaccountable" that "[t]ransferring your own people into occupied territory violates the Geneva Conventions". He pursues this by adding that "Israel has devised an arcane legal theory that it never occupied the West Bank, but it is fair to say that nobody outside Israel and the US takes that position seriously" [NYR Aug 20].

The international legal experts who do not agree with that thinking, among them Stephen M. Schwebel, Eugene Rostow, Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich and many others, point out that the actual language in the 1949 Geneva Convention is "forcible transfers", that "Palestine" never existed, nor does it at present exist, as a "state", that indeed Israel is a "belligerent occupier", quite a proper legal status and that the non-arcane legal doctrine of Uti Possidetis Juris applies - in which the territorial sovereignty of emerging states covers their pre-independence administrative boundaries - as does United Nations Article 80 as well. Moreover, the IJC's 2004 advisory opinion does not hold "that the [Israel–Palestine] boundary is 'subject to such rectification as might be agreed upon by the parties'" as Luban writes. Quite to the contrary, a "Demarcation Line" was to be subject to rectification (see para. 71), a line that the 1949 Armistice Agreement specifically stated in Article IV, 9 that "Lines...of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto".

As someone who lives in such a community, I think that Luban could have noted that the Arabs of Mandate Palestine refused the offer of a state in 1947, consistently rejected diplomacy (the Khartoum 3 Noes), that they had been engaged in an anti-Jewish terror campaign since 1920 which has never stopped until this day and that they ethnically cleansed all Jews from this area intended to be reconstituted as the Jewish "national home" due to the Jews'"historic connection" to it, as the League of Nations decided in 1922. Some of those families had been living in that territory for centuries. Luban could, even in passing, had referred to the 1967 war when Israel, threatened with aggression, came into administrative possession of Judea and Samaria (and until 2005, Gaza as well) as a defensive war. Had he done so he would have provided a better, indeed, a more philosophical framework to judge the matter.

Jewish Republicans said the Sudan-Israel normalization agreement was proof of the US president’s negotiating prowess while some Jewish Democrats said the deal only served his own interests.

Republican Jewish Coalition national chairman Norm Coleman said the Trump administration deserves tremendous credit for this diplomatic success.

“The Israel-Sudan agreement comes on the heels of the Abraham Accords, brokered by President [Donald] Trump, which established peaceful and friendly relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain,” said Coleman. “These are truly historic diplomatic achievements led by the Trump administration.”

According to Coleman, Trump and his team have quietly produced innovative solutions to some of the world’s most intractable foreign policy problems.

“Today, Muslim countries are entering into diplomatic, trade and other relations with the State of Israel. These amazing changes will bring greater peace, stability, security and opportunity to millions of people. And the credit for bringing those historic achievements to fruition goes to President Donald Trump.”

The Jewish Democratic Council of America, on the other hand, expressed “optimism and concern” about the announcement of normalization of relations between Israel and Sudan.

Jared Kushner’s remarks in the oval with ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ after the Sudan 🇸🇩- Israel 🇮🇱 peace agreement announcement 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/4HwGm8sjca

— Avi Berkowitz (@aviberkow45) October 23, 2020

Israeli officials believe Oman is next in line to normalize relations with Israel in the near future, following the Jewish state’s blitz of deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and most recently Sudan, according to a new report Saturday.

Channel 12 said sources in the government claimed an announcement was even potentially possible before the US presidential election on November 3rd, though they stressed it could take more time, as Muscat would likely wait to see where political winds are blowing in Washington before making any major decisions.

Oman hailed the accords between Israel and the two Gulf states last month, expressing hope they would “contribute to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman in 2018, the first trip by an Israeli leader in over two decades, in what was seen as a sign of warming ties between the Jewish state and the Sunni Arab world. This image made from video shows Oman’s new sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said taking part in a cannon-fire salute outside the Royal Family Council in Muscat, Oman, January 11, 2020. (Oman TV via AP)

Oman’s former sultan Qaboos bin Said died in January and was replaced by cousin Haitham bin Tariq Al Said.

Meanwhile, Channel 12 also reported that Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen has stated he believes Saudi Arabia will normalize ties with Israel, but will do so after the election, to capitalize fully on such a decision with whoever is the next US president.

The pulses of American Jewish leaders were set racing again on Friday as they reacted to the announcement of a historic US-brokered normalization agreement between Israel and Sudan.

“We applaud the beginning of the process of normalizing relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of Sudan, which deserves universal support by all who seek peace in the Middle East,” declared the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in a statement lauding the news.

“Sudan is the third Arab country to make peace with Israel in the past two months, the significance of which cannot be overstated, as these landmark diplomatic agreements represent the dawn of a new age for the relationship between the Jewish State and the Muslim world,” the statement asserted. “In normalizing relations with Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and now Sudan pave the way for more Arab and Muslim countries to embrace peace and reconciliation.”

Predicted the Conference of Presidents: “The rapidly shifting dynamics of the Middle East signify a future that will be defined by diplomacy and cooperation, with rejectionism and extremism relegated to the past.”

In a separate statement, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) noted that the “Israel-Sudan agreement comes amidst a pivotal transition in Sudan as the country prepares for democratic elections in 2022, following last year’s historic revolution overthrowing dictator Omar al-Bashir.”

Egyptian President @AlsisiOfficial applauds the historic peace agreement between two of his nation's neighbors, Israel 🇮🇱 and Sudan 🇸🇩. https://t.co/3fYgcVqLsk

— American Jewish Committee (@AJCGlobal) October 23, 2020

Peace loading...
█████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 22.7% pic.twitter.com/MUM44iKMj9

— The Mossad: Zionists and Loving It (@TheMossadIL) October 23, 2020

Israel’s foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, hailed on Friday the growing number of countries that have blacklisted Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

The Jewish state’s top diplomat — a former IDF chief of staff — singled out Guatemala, which recently announced new legislation to hamper Hezbollah’s ability to move money, for praise, and urged other nations in the region to follow suit.

On Thursday, Ashkenazi’s focus was on eastern Europe, as he lauded Estonia for designating all of Hezbollah — Iran’s Lebanon-based Shi’a proxy — as a terrorist group.

“The Estonian government’s decision to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, including all of its wings, and to bar the group’s members from entering the country, sends a clear message against terrorism and against Hezbollah’s terrorist activities, which threaten world peace and undermine regional stability,” he stated.

Sudan has agreed to designate Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist organization as part of a recent deal to normalize ties with Israel, a senior US official said Friday.

“After decades of living under a brutal dictatorship, the people of Sudan are finally taking charge,” a joint statement between the United States, Sudan and Israel said.

But there was no mention of Hezbollah's designation, which the senior US official confirmed to Al Arabiya English that Sudan agreed to.

It remains unclear if this was a demand by other Arab states or only Israel and the US.

Friday marked 37 years since one of the deadliest attacks against US troops on foreign soil. On Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide bombing at the US Marine Barracks in Beirut killed 241 American service members.

US President Donald Trump Friday announced that Sudan would normalize relations with Israel, in a landmark step after two Gulf Arab nations moved to recognize Israel.

Several key Sudanese political parties announced their opposition to the country’s decision to normalize relations with Israel.

Saturday also saw sporadic demonstrations against the deal in Khartoum. At one such protest, an Israeli flag was burned. According to the Guardian, at the events some chanted “go to hell” and “no to normalization with Israel.”

Opponents of the agreement, announced Friday in a joint statement from the US, Israel and Sudan released by the White House, said they would form a unified front against normalization.

The parties form essential parts of the civilian coalition that overthrew longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir last year. They accused the transitional government of violating its authorities as previously agreed upon.

The government is led by a civilian, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and a military general, Chairman of the Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan. Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, at a press conference in Khartoum, Sudan, August 21, 2019. (AP Photo, File)

Parties opposing normalization included the country’s largest party, National Umma Party; the Sudanese Baath Party; and the Popular Congress Party.

Sudanese protesters marching in Khartoum set the Israeli flag on fire on Wednesday, expressing their rejection of normalizing relations with Israel.

According to the local newspaper Al-Intibaha, the demonstrators chanted slogans against establishing relations with Israel and demanded that political parties who have supported the step revise their position.

Photos and videos of Sudanese protesters burning the Israeli flag have since circulated on social media.

The Al-Hadaf newspaper, owned by the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, posted photos on its Facebook page of the incident, with the caption: “The protesters burned the flag of the Zionist entity during the 21 October marches in Khartoum,” the Middle East Monitor reported.

The incident took place on the same day that an Israeli delegation reportedly visited the Sudanese capital to discuss the peace agreement and prepare for its announcement.

The Joint List of Arab parties roundly condemned the normalization deal between Israel and Sudan, while a former chairman of the Balad Party, one of the constituents of the Joint List, called for the Sudanese people to overthrow the government because of the agreement.

Several Joint List MKs denounced the deal for ignoring the conflict with the Palestinians and said that only the establishment of a Palestinian state would lead to real peace in the region.

Immediately after the announcement of the normalization agreement, former Balad MK and chair Jamal Zahalka took to Twitter to castigate the development.

“I condemn Sudan’s agreement with Israel which comes at the expense of the Palestinians,” he tweeted.

“I am sure the Sudanese people oppose it and will depose those who sign it. It [Sudan] is not the [United Arab] Emirates and there is strong opposition to the agreement.”

Current Joint List MK Ofer Cassif of the Hadash Party alleged that the “Trump-Netanyahu axis of evil” was seeking to obtain “recognition for Israel’s occupation through bribery of benighted regimes.”

Cassif was referencing reports that the US pressured Sudan into the normalization deal in return for removing it from its list of state sponsors of terror, as well the reports regarding the sale of F-35 fighter jets to the UAE as part of its normalization deal with Israel.

The Palestinian leadership’s subdued reaction is seen by some Palestinians as a sign that Ramallah is careful not to aggravate tensions with the Arab countries.

The Palestinian attacks on the UAE and Bahrain drew powerful and unprecedented responses from many citizens of the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. Scenes of Palestinians burning photos of the UAE and Bahrain rulers and the flags of the two countries drew even stronger condemnations from politicians, journalists and political activists in several Gulf states.

The PA has since appealed to Palestinians to stop “harming the symbols and leaders of Arab countries.”

The Palestinian leadership clearly understands that it made a big mistake when it accused Arab countries that once supported the Palestinians of treason and back-stabbing the Palestinians.

Moreover, PA President Mahmoud Abbas seems to understand that recurring attacks on Arab countries that establish relations with Israel will place him on a collision course with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both of which have explicitly and implicitly supported the normalization deals.

As one Palestinian official in Ramallah put it, “We don’t want to be seen as if we are standing against the whole Arab world. We also need to take into consideration the interests of Palestinians living in the Arab countries.”

Condemning peace. Evergreen PLO. https://t.co/CuPRDIAaME

— The Mossad: Zionists and Loving It (@TheMossadIL) October 24, 2020

#Hamas published a statement saying the agreement to normalize ties between #Israel and #Sudan is a "shock" and is "condemned" by movement. The group describes "devotion to the Palestinian cause" and will work toward removing the "usurper Zionist abomination" from Palestine. pic.twitter.com/9ksR4Qmyjn

— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) October 23, 2020

Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday described a US-brokered Sudan-Israel deal to normalize ties as “phony” and accused Khartoum of paying a ransom in return for Washington removing it from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The deal agreed on Friday marked the third Arab government after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to set aside hostilities with Israel in the last two months.

“Pay enough ransom, close your eyes to the crimes against Palestinians, then you’ll be taken off the so-called ‘terrorism’ blacklist,” the ministry tweeted in English. “Obviously, the list is as phony as the US fight against terrorism. Shameful.”

US President Donald Trump announced on Monday he would take Sudan off the list once it had deposited $335 million it had pledged to pay in compensation.

Khartoum has since placed the funds in a special escrow account for victims of al Qaeda attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Trump also said the Palestinians “are wanting to do something” but offered no proof. Palestinian leaders have condemned recent Arab overtures to Israel as a betrayal of their nationalist cause for statehood in the disputed territories. They have refused to engage with the Trump administration, seeing it as biased in favor of Israel.

This is just the latest example of how Netanyahu makes side deals at the expense of the country’s security without transparency or accountability. This is similar to the green light he gave Germany to sell advanced Dolphin-class submarines to the Egyptian military, at a time that no one in the IDF knew or approved of such a sale.

What happened now with the UAE is not that different. Netanyahu wanted to advance a diplomatic peace deal, and for that to happen he had to condone a massive arms sale. Instead of simply telling the truth and dealing with the consequences – it’s likely the defense establishment would have agreed – he decided to hide it and pretend this was a “peace for peace” deal, unlike previous deals with Jordan and Egypt, which required concessions from Israeli leaders.

In other words, to make himself seem better and stronger, he hid the truth. He kept state secrets from the people whose responsibility it is to safeguard the nation and instead issued statements full of falsehoods.

This is just another reason why a proper investigation is needed to uncover what really happened with the deal to purchase new submarines and surface vessels from Germany alongside the permission Netanyahu gave to sell submarines to Egypt. Last week, an effort to establish a parliamentary commission of inquiry was scuttled after the coalition succeeded in annulling a previous vote in which establishment of the commission had passed.

The people need to understand what is happening at the highest echelons of power with regard to their safety and security. Is Netanyahu making the right decisions, and where is the system of checks and balances meant to oversee these decisions and hold the people who make them accountable? Right now, it seems like there are not any.

These two cases – submarines to Egypt and F-35s to the UAE – raise a serious cloud over Netanyahu’s decision-making as well as the claims he made after they both were uncovered. He says the opposite of the truth, only to have to reverse at a later date.

Netanyahu’s calculation is the public doesn’t care. But people should care. These decisions impact the security of this nation. If they are hidden from the defense establishment, something is wrong. A parliamentary commission of inquiry is needed now more than before.

Israel signaled to the Trump administration that it would not oppose F-35 sales to the United Arab Emirates, the Hill reported Friday.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Benny Gantz declared they would not oppose the sale of "certain weapons systems" to Abu Dhabi, in reference to the American-made fighter jets. "The prime minister and the defense minister both agree that since the U.S. is upgrading Israel's military capability and is maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge, Israel will not oppose the sale of these systems to the UAE," Netanyahu and Gantz said in a joint statement.

Jerusalem's approval comes soon after Secretary of Defense Mark Esper met with Gantz in Washington Thursday and signed a joint declaration that the United States would continue to prioritize Israel's military strength in future arms deals. "It was important for me once again to reaffirm the special relationship between our two countries, the commitment we have made to Israel's security based on our shared values, our shared history," Esper said.

Abu Dhabi's acquisition of F-35s would bolster the range and lethality of the Gulf country's air force and deter potential Iranian aggression. Assurances of military cooperation between the UAE and Washington were an integral part of the historic peace deal between the UAE and Israel brokered by the Trump administration. Since the formal establishment of relations between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi in September, Bahrain and now Sudan have joined the ranks of countries to normalize relations with Israel.

Weapon sales could proceed in a rapid fashion to the UAE without opposition from the Senate. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), however, introduced a bill this week that could restrict the sale of fighter jets to Abu Dhabi.

A meeting between Joe Biden and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, described in a memo published by Israeli reporter Nadav Eyal, sheds light on the former Vice President's thought process at that time, and what he believed Israel should do shortly before the Yom Kippur war broke out.

The meeting took place following his return from Egypt where he discussed with Saadat several things, roughly 40 days before the surprise attack that would turn into the Yom Kippur war.

Biden attempted to convince then Prime Minister Golda Meir that Israel withdraw first from areas with no strategic importance - meaning not the Golan heights - suggesting that peace could be acquired this way.

To that, Meir is described as rejecting his offers, arguing that the Jewish people could not afford to make such "mistakes" after the Holocaust, and that Arab Regimes tend to be unstable. Biden is also described as lacking experience in the diplomatic field by the "enthusiasm in his voice."

Biden further told Meir during the meeting that no serious debate was being held regarding the Middle East, as Senators didn't want to say anything that would displease Jewish voters.

The outreach to Islamic Jihad may be linked to this attempt to unify Islamic groups linked to Iran and to challenge Israel. In August the Times in the UK reported that the head of Mossad had said Turkey could be a larger threat than Iran in the future. The substance of the Islamic Jihad report notes that Daoud Shehab, a spokesperson for PIJ, had praised Turkey and that PIJ had slammed Franch President Emmanuel Macron. Macron is one of the toughest critics of Turkey’s regime, opposing its role in Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean and its exporting of Syrians to attack Armenia and its ethnic cleansing of Kurdish areas in Syria. That means that Turkey appears to be highlight Islamic Jihad’s view of Israel and France. Anadolu reported that Islamic Jihad had critiqued France for “neglecting the achievements of Muslims.” It was unclear why, out of many Muslim voices, Turkish media sought to highlight an extremist group known for terror and rocket attacks on Israel to critique France. The overall perception is that Islamic Jihad is just a normal “group” and a legitimate voice for “Muslims.”

Turkey in the past used to be against Islamic Jihad and Hamas before Erdogan changed Ankara’s role. Israel blamed Islamic Jihad for a rocket attack in August 2015 on the Golan. In 2004 former Egyptian leader visited Turkey to meet Erdogan and discussed how Egypt was confronting Hamas and Islamic Jihad. At the time diplomatic reports noted that Turkey wanted to play a larger role in the Middle East and also welcomed Egypt’s initiatives. Things have changed today. A leaked diplomatic report from January 2004 also notes that Turkey had asked Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad, during a visit to Turkey, to “stop supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and for the PFLP.”

Turkey’s pro-government media embrace of Islamic Jihad is therefore symbolic of an attempt by Ankara to whitewash, provide a platform for, embrace and highlight Islamic Jihad as if it is a normal and important group. PIJ has historically been a very small part of the Palestinian political landscape and even though it is a dangerous terror group support by Iran and hosted by the Syrian regime, it is not very large. That means any media that gives its statement front page news and feels its “praise” is important is clearly indicating that Islamic Jihad is important, otherwise why would Ankara highlight the “praise.” The contradictory way Ankara’s pro-government media calls the PKK and other Kurdish groups “terrorists” but does not refer to many other groups as “terrorists” shows that Turkey does not believe firing rockets at Israeli civilians is a terrorist act.

While the media report is only one report, the way it presented PIJ could be symbolic of a larger shift in Turkey. While Turkey sought to portray itself as fighting Hezbollah during clashes in Syria in the spring of 2020, even appearing to feed media reports about how it had harmed Hezbollah’s Radwan unit, Ankara may have been doing this to try to scupper Israel-UAE relations as part of a brief charm offensive to torpedo Israeli work on the East Mediterranean gas forum. In the end Turkey’s embrace of Hamas, and now its media embrace of Islamic Jihad, as well as vows to liberate Jerusalem and claim ownership of Israel’s capital, shows the Turkish leadership’s real intentions.

The vast majority (83%) of Israelis are convinced that the country is on its way to a third coronavirus lockdown, according to a new survey published over the weekend by N12.

The survey, conducted by Midgam’s Mano Geva on behalf of the station, found that the majority of Israelis (56%) said they do not trust the government’s handling of the pandemic. A similar number (55%) said that the government’s efforts were “less good” than in most other countries around the world.

As a result, 56% of Israelis say they are living with stress and anxiety.

The survey found that most worrying for Israelis is expected economic damage (32%) - less than one-third of the public (31%) has continued to work as before the pandemic. Everyone else was either laid off (9%), sent on furlough (17%) or has started working mostly from home (21%).

Some 28% of Israelis say getting sick with the virus is their top worry, although two-thirds said they were afraid of getting sick in general. A quarter of Israelis personally know someone who died from the disease.

Is the European Commission serious about ending Palestinian hate education? Given the recent debacle on the matter within the European Union institutions over the last few months, some parliamentarians are beginning to suspect that it isn’t, particularly.

It has long been known within Brussels’s corridors of power that school textbooks issued by the Palestinian Authority and funded in large part by European taxpayers include incitement to violence and egregious antisemitism.

Children are taught that Israel is the enemy, that terrorists are martyrs, and that their actions are to be emulated. And not just in religious or history studies – first graders are taught the word “martyr” when learning their Arabic alphabet. Newtonian physics is taught via the example of the slingshot.

The issue has been raised in Brussels at least since January 2008 when Britain’s Taxpayers’ Alliance released its report Funding Hate Education. A follow up report in 2011 drew widespread support from across the political spectrum. President Barack Obama stated at the time: “[The Palestinians] have to deal with incitement issues.”

Further reports, including two by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), an Israeli NGO, and votes within the European Parliament for action placed mounting pressure on the commission to act, and so in May 2019 the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, announced that a full-scale review of the Palestinian curriculum was to take place. In September 2019 the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI) embarked upon this review.

The recent IDF operations in southern Syria is a part of a multi-pronged effort to dismantle the presence of Iran’s military and its proxies in southern Syria which Israel views as a threat. The effort also includes foiling the transfer of Precision Guided Munitions (PGM) and its components from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In a recent interview, the Defense Minister of Israel, Benny Gantz, hinted of Israel’s involvement in Wednesday morning’s attack in southern Syria.

“I won’t go into who fired what last night. We won’t allow terrorist operatives from Hezbollah or Iran to set up on the Golan Heights border and we will do what is necessary to drive them out of there,” Gantz stated.

When asked if Israel was behind the strikes, Gantz replied: “Listen, things happen.”

The recent events have demonstrated that Israel has not yet accomplished deterring Iran’s military ambitions in southern Syria. For the foreseeable future, Iran will likely continue its attempt to turn southern Syria into another front against Israel and continue the transfer of PGM components to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Reminder. When Obama/Biden were in power, the Green Revolution happened in Iran. Their response? Zero support to the freedom loving Iranians.https://t.co/nbhS3TLzPk

— Mark Jacobs (@mr_markjacobs) October 23, 2020

These are genuine, honest questions: New Yorkers, is the police doing this to non-Jewish residents as well?

Also, why can't the police officer explain what the issue is instead of shaking his head? Is it illegal to have more than 10 people in a house? https://t.co/p6IjGJbNNc

— Tatjana Pasalic (@Tattytats) October 23, 2020

This is what @NYCMayor and @NYGovCuomo wanted to happen by stirring up the pot of hate https://t.co/tJOMnqZax3

— Never Again UK (@Never_Again_UK_) October 23, 2020

Luke Moon, deputy director of the Philos Project, spoke to participants in an August 24 Middle East Forum webinar (video) about the reinvigoration of evangelical Christian support for Israel in recent years.

In 2014, Moon wrote an article in The Tower Magazine highlighting how several "pillars of evangelicalism" in the United States were actively "leading evangelicals away from support for Israel." That same year, a Middle East Quarterly article by David Brog, founding executive director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), warned that anti-Israel evangelicals were "on a roll."

Moon provided an update on how each of these "pillars" of anti-Zionist evangelicalism has weakened in the past six years.

The first pillar is the global charity World Vision, which in 2014 had a staff of 120 in Jerusalem. Its work providing anti-poverty assistance to Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza was combined with public advocacy portraying Israel as solely responsible for the plight of Palestinians, and of Palestinian Christians in particular. In 2016, a World Vision staffer was arrested for laundering money to Hamas. Following that scandal, Moon wrote an article exposing World Vision's anti-Israel, anti-Zionist history. Citing the forced resignation of the organization's second president, who had compared the IDF in Southern Lebanon to Nazis, Moon also drew attention to World Vision's social media platforms, replete with accusations of Israel "hurting children." Due to efforts by Moon and others to expose World Vision's "singular focus on anti-Israel and anti-Zionist, particularly anti-Christian Zionist," rhetoric, its funding has been cut significantly. Today, World Vision's Jerusalem office has been reduced to a staff of about 15.

A second pillar of evangelical anti-Zionism is Willow Creek Community Church, located in the Chicago suburb of South Barrington, Illinois. It is one of the largest megachurches in the U.S., drawing in over "2,500 people on [an] average Sunday," and exerts further influence through its annual leadership summit. Its senior pastor, Bill Hybels, and his wife Lynne "were known for their ... anti-Christian Zionist, anti-Israel rhetoric," which had a great deal of influence on church followers. In 2018, Bill Hybels was forced to resign amid accusations of marital infidelity. As a result, according to Moon, Willow Creek's involvement in the Middle East has "dried up."

It looks like Norman Finkelstein's praise for David Irving wasn't a one-off. The man really has a thing for Holocaust deniers. pic.twitter.com/hMKlmW6dio

— Dave Rich (@daverich1) October 23, 2020

Joke tweet of the week ! #bdsfailhttps://t.co/ARLuu2424c

— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) October 24, 2020

A Canadian Jewish group on Friday called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to proceed with the deportation of Helmut Oberlander — a Nazi war criminal who served with a death squad unit responsible for the murder of more than 90,000 people in Russia and Ukraine.

“Canada cannot continue to allow a mockery to be made of its processes,” Michael Mostyn — CEO of B’nai Brith Canada — declared in a statement.

“Oberlander has had his day in court, and he lost,” Mostyn noted. “To not remove him now would be a punch in the gut to every Holocaust survivor in this country — and would render meaningless the prime minister’s promises of justice.”

The Canadian government has been attempting to deport Oberlander, who was also an infantryman in the German army, because of his Nazi past for the last 25 years.

Oberlander, who is now 95, had his Canadian citizenship stripped on four separate occasions by lower courts, but those decisions were reversed in three appeals.

Finally, in last December, Canada’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal to restore his citizenship, which Oberlander obtained in 1960.

1990’s The Witches, an adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel, is something of a cult classic. But while the forthcoming remake has generated buzz and excitement, some Jewish fans remain wary. Expressions of skepticism point to the anti-Semitic tropes and caricatures that fill the original film, as well as its source material.

It’s fair criticism, and not new. Connections between Jews and witches and witchcraft go back throughout literature. Jewish stereotypes in general have existed in media for most of history. Chaucer’s Middle English story collection Canterbury Tales, for instance, features an entry about Jews kidnapping and murdering a small child. Centuries of negative Jewish representation in fiction has resulted in a robust canon of Jewish stereotype tropes. And children’s media is no exception.

Samuel French Ltd.

In an article for the Free Library of Philadelphia, librarian Joel Nichols refers to the complexities of rereading problematic childhood favorites. Nichols notes that, as adults, we’re more aware of messaging that slips in, especially from older authors. In revisiting The Witches as adults, we may notice three primary anti-Semitic tropes in play: the association of “Jewish features” with evil or wicked characters; blood libel/child-snatching; and wealth as a symbol of power and corruption.

Attributing Jewish features to “bad witches” goes back centuries. In an article about the origins of archetypical witches, Elie Bufford writes, “The stereotype of the ‘Jewish nose’ is often used in anti-Semitic media, including Nazi propaganda such as ‘The Eternal Jew…While in early folklore it was likely not initially tied to antisemitism, the feature is used in modern times to code characters as Jewish.”

She highlights The Wizard of Oz as an example, noting Glinda the Good Witch’s bubbly, glowing personality and attractive features against the Wicked Witch of the West’s (who, in pre-Wicked days, doesn’t even get a name) long, hooked nose. Furthermore, Nichols references a Facebook post by librarian and children’s author Kyle Lukoff concerning The Witches. Lukoff noted references to large noses in both the book and original film. He cites Dahl’s mention of “queer noses” and “enlarged nostrils,” adding, “they gave Angelica Huston a f***ing foot-long hook in the movie. [sic]”

NovaQuest Capital Management in North Carolina announced a $20 million financing agreement with Israeli biopharmaceutical company Mileutis Ltd. whose products are used to mitigate the use of antibiotics in animals.

Antibiotic resistance, born from the over usage of antibiotics including in animals used in food production is a major global health problem. At least 2.8 million people contract an antibiotic-resistant infection, and more than 35,000 people die each year according to the US Center for Disease Control. Worldwide, it is estimated that antimicrobial resistance is responsible for 700,000 deaths each year globally, and that figure is predicted to rise to 10 million.

NovaQuest's investment will drive the continued development of and commercialization of Mileutis’ novel, biologically sourced, and residue-free therapies for animal health called Imilac™.

Mileutis plans to introduce Imilac™ for use in the management, treatment, and prevention of bovine mastitis. The disease causes inflammation to the udder, and is the most frequent disease in dairy herds worldwide while also being the most costly problem.

Mastitis is a serious medical disorder in dairy cattle, involving the mammary gland and udder tissue in dairy cows. The disease can impair milk-secreting tissues in the cattle and its impact on the global dairy industry is enormous. Dairy farmers experience losses due to lower milk production, lower quality of milk, and the loss of dairy cows from the disease. It can additionally cause billions of dollars in damage every year.

The Bank of Lithuania minted the first euro piece of currency containing Hebrew letters.

The 10-euro coin was minted on Tuesday and is a limited-edition commemorative collector’s item celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon, the 18th-century rabbinical luminary Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who lived and died in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

The heads side of the coin features the Hebrew letter shin, whose value according to the gematria alphanumeric code is 300, followed by the acronym in Hebrew of Gaon Rabbi Elijah. The tails’ rim reads in Hebrew: “The year of the Vilna Gaon and the history of the Jews of Lithuania.”

The commemoration of individual people is very rare on banknotes and coins of the European Union, partly because of the political sensitivity in a political union made up of former foes.

Earlier this month, a mural of the late Israeli poet Leah Goldberg, who grew up in Kaunas, was unveiled there along with other notable individuals connected to the city ahead of its crowning as Cultural Capital of Europe in 2022.

In what has become an extremely complicated year for immigration to the Jewish State, Israel celebrates Aliyah Day on Sunday and the more than 15,000 new immigrants who have made it to the country so far this year, despite the global pandemic raging across the world.

The COVID-19 crisis around the world shut down air travel for long periods of time, drastically reduced the number of flights available, and closed down or restricted the operations of government bureaucracies, all of which have made the usually daunting task of aliyah even more difficult this year.

Nevertheless, a total of 15,647 pioneering souls have made it to the shores of the Jewish state so far this year, despite the additional obstacles, the youngest of whom was just 20-days old from the UK, and the oldest was the grand old age of 97, from Canada.

This figure is however far below the 29,419 immigrants who had arrived in Israel from January to October 2019.

"Aliyah Week is a great opportunity to salute the new Olim as well as the ones who have already settled, for their tremendous contribution to national, economic and social growth,” said Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano Shata.

The word "Sudan" means "black" in Arabic (bilad as-sudan means "Land of the Blacks"). Over hundreds of years, Sudan was infiltrated by Islam. Essentially, all of East Africa used to be called "Cush," which is traditionally considered the eponymous ancestor of the people of the "land of Cush," an ancient territory that is believed to have been located on either side or both sides of the Red Sea. As the centuries passed, three main population groups formed. Islam, in its flexibility, joined two of these groups together.

One group was the Arab Muslims in the fertile, wealthy northern part of Sudan, and the other was the Africans who were converted to Islam but to this day pass on the harsh memories of the days they were hunted by slave traders. Another group, in the southern part of Sudan, consists of black Christians who essentially formed the bridgehead for relations with Israel during the premiership of Golda Meir.

The relations that developed at that time formed complexities that are difficult to comprehend. On one hand, Israel sent Mossad agents led by David Ben Uziel ("Tarzan") to help the Christians in South Sudan defend themselves against genocidal campaigns. Jaafar Nimeiri, who recognized the autonomy of South Sudan in the early 1970s, permitted Ethiopian Jews to immigrate to Israel more than a decade later. He was also the only one in the Arab world who supported former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat when he made peace with Israel. Under Nimeiri's leadership of Sudan, however, an Islamist leader named Hassan al-Turabi rose to prominence. Al-Turabi pushed Sudan toward Islamism and an alliance with Iran immediately after the Khomenei-led Islamic Revolution in 1979.

"Turabi was among those who celebrated Sadat's murder, and his people later tried assassinating [former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak," Koren said, noting that a "process of Islamist radicalism had begun." This was the world of al-Bashir and al-Turabi up until 2011. They had a hand – beyond acts of genocide inside Sudan – in efforts to topple moderate Arab regimes. This period of time was disastrous for Sudan. "Bashir's successors, [Abdel Fattah] al-Burhan and [Abdalla] Hamdok, who seized power following the protests that ousted [al-Bashir], essentially followed a path he had set," according to Koren. "Bashir understood his situation was increasingly precarious, and the matter of establishing relations with Israel was part of the answer to this decline."

As early as three or four years ago, voices began emerging and articles began being written in favor of relations with Israel. The important point is that Arab nationalism, followed by the period of Islamism, didn't inculcate the Sudanese population with a hatred of Israel, contrary to countries in the Arab world. Egyptian society, to this day, is imbued with a deep, venomous anti-Semitism.

Swinging a gigantic, vast country (population of 42 million) such as Sudan, which sits on the Red Sea, is an extremely significant geopolitical move. The new Middle East is bustling with realignment in the face of Turkey's Ottoman ambitions and Iranian imperialism. For the first time, it appears the forces predicated on militaristic anti-Israel ideology are becoming isolated.

Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has represented the United States through a period that belies the Middle East’s reputation for stagnation and intransigence. Not without controversy, the region emerged as what is arguably the Trump Administration’s strong suit as a series of “impossibilities” fell by the wayside. The Media Line’s Felice Friedson sat with the ambassador at his residence in Herzliya where they discussed the issues and events that define the Trump term to the Middle East.

TML: American polling raises the specter of a change in US administrations. There’s concern that these achievements we’ve discussed could be walked back. And in particular, pressure on Iran might be lifted. Can the achievements in the Middle East survive a change of a US administration?

Ambassador Friedman: Well, look, I think an administration with a different approach could do huge damage. No question about it. The most obvious area would be with regard to Iran. Iran is on the ropes. They are weakened. They’re far weaker now than they were before we let them off the hook with the JCPO, right? If you let them off the hook again, we will all have to answer to our children and grandchildren as to how we created a terrorist nuclear power, which is what we will do if we let Iran off the ropes right now. So, I don’t want to predict what will happen in the future with regards to a new administration. I frankly don’t think there’ll be a new administration, but look, it’s a big risk. I think it’s important because I think people do tend to politicize this too much, whatever we’ve done with regard to the Middle East has been done because we thought it was in the best interest of the United States.

That’s always been the lens that we’ve looked at everything, what’s in the best interest of the United States? Not what’s on anyone’s political wish list. I would hope that because of that, all the things that we’ve done would be enduring, would stand the test of time. I’ve heard already that there’s no desire to move the embassy back from Jerusalem. Well, of course there shouldn’t be, that’s the national wellness, the Jerusalem Embassy Act. Why would anybody want to do that? Why would anybody want to talk about giving the Golan Heights to a butcher, like Bashar Assad and threaten Israel’s security? I mean, why would anybody want to undo that? By the same token, why would anybody want to take the most threatening malign sponsor of terrorism in the world and fund them? To me, these are easy things that should be perpetuated because they’re great for America, but I do worry.

While progressives are the ideological grandchildren (to the extent that they possess an ideology) of Marxists, they are members of a cult, the ideological fault lines of which pass not through class but through race and ethnicity. Progressivism borrows a bit from Marxism, but its main weapons are passion and faith, not logic and reason. At its core it is closer to the early Church than to Marx or Lenin.

The belief system of the progressives contains a number of “original sins,” one of which is the establishment of the State of Israel. The Palestinians are viewed as analagous to Jesus: innocents who were sacrificed by the Zionists (or the Jews, if the speaker is not careful enough) on the altar of global white imperialism. Thus every Jew must condemn Israel and Zionism to rid himself of the association.

Given that there will always be Jews who are unwilling to abandon the main tenet of Jewish national identity, the Progressive movement is guaranteed a perpetual enemy. As the movement “matures,” Israel/Zionists/Jews take on more and more diabolical roles unrelated to the Middle East. The Zionists are accused of running the world, its finances in particular, and are presented as the vanguard of white imperialism.

If there is anything the Progressives have thoroughly borrowed from the Soviets, it is intense antisemitism presenting itself as anti-Zionism. The Progressive platform on Jews and Zionism sounds familiar to anyone who read Pravda in the 1970s and 1980s. Intersectionality, the pillar of the Progressive worldview, mandates that enemies be found everywhere, in the most bizarre incarnations.

If the Arab-Israeli conflict is to continue to exist, it will be thanks to the antisemitism of the Progressive movement. Members of that cult will never let the conflict disappear, as to do so would undermine one of their articles of faith.

The removal of Sudan from the circle of Israel's enemies is a strategic achievement that goes far beyond its symbolic significance, because it will help Israel sign a fifth peace agreement with a country that is a member of the Arab League, and also strengthen its presence in Africa, a close and important continent on which a double war is being waged. The first, to check the spread of radical Islam in eastern and western Africa, and the second, to stop the BDS campaign being waged against Israel from southern Africa. After too many years of neglect, Israel has renewed its interest in Africa and expanded its ties there. Renewed relations with Chad and now the start of relations with Sudan are important components to creating a new status for Israel in Africa that is not based solely on alliances with Christian-majority nations.

Sudan, of course, is very different from the UAE. While the deal with the Emirates entails equal opportunities for both sides, Sudan has much more to gain from good relations with Israel. Its removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, which will allow investment in its collapsing economy, is only one of the fruits of peace Sudan can expect to enjoy. The country is undergoing a process of political transformation. Since its was founded, Sudan has had a few short-lived periods of democracy, military coups, dictatorships, and civil wars that went as far as genocide. Sudan's unique situation will require Israel to take a very cautious approach in forming ties with all groups of its population.

And there is, of course, the issue of illegal Sudanese migrants in Israel. Is Israel starting to make serious preparations for the new era of peace? Is Israel ready to handle a mass influx of immigrants from states that are now signing peace and normalization agreements with it? Are there clear restrictions on entry to Israel and maximum stays that can be effectively enforced by Israel, or will we see the same problems Israel currently has with the Eritreans? And what about family reunification, marriage, and citizenship? These are issues Israel should consider now.

A normalization announcement between Israel and Saudi Arabia is close and there could be major developments following the US presidential elections depending on who wins, Mossad director Yossi Cohen has said in closed conversations, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning, N12 reported that Cohen had said privately to those around him that the Saudis were waiting until after the US election, but that they could potentially announce normalization as a “gift” to the winner.

The implication from the N12 report was that such an announcement could even come almost immediately after the election. However, the Post has learned that the N12 report either misunderstood or did not fully flesh out what Cohen had said.

What Cohen actually said to those around him was that if US President Donald Trump wins reelection, there could be an almost immediate announcement.

Yet, if as the polls suggest, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins the election, though the Saudis would still want a normalization deal with Israel, there would not necessarily be a clear timeline.

Cohen had emphasized that the Saudis did not want to give a gift to Trump and then get nothing for it upon a Biden administration taking over the reins.

I remind you that Sudan was an enemy country. It participated in war against Israel. In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the Arab League declared the three no's with Israel: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. We changed all of that.

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 24, 2020

Latest to welcome Sudan-Israel Peace:
🇦🇹 Austria
🇸🇪 Sweden
🇷🇴 Romania
🇪🇺 European Union https://t.co/mgwfCiEu1g

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 25, 2020

To be clear: didn't your Uncle Saeb's militant-led PLO do the same in 1993, despite widespread Palestinian opposition, for pretty much the same reward of funding & terror delisting? And did you just define Sudan ending its state of belligerence with Israel as “violence“? https://t.co/cCNV3S0Szh

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 24, 2020

I returned this week from the first-ever Business Summit of the Abraham Accords in Abu Dhabi. Together with other Israelis and Americans, we traveled to the UAE, where we were warmly welcomed by the Emiratis. I think I speak for everyone on the trip when I say that we found incredibly welcoming, intelligent, thoughtful, and genuinely interested counterparts in the Emirates. I listened and learned a lot and found much to discuss regarding potential areas of cooperation for the future. The visit was a very encouraging first step.

I spent all of Tuesday in Dubai meeting with investors and entrepreneurs. Here, too, I found enthusiasm, curiosity, and a group of leaders and investors trying to wrap their heads around the surfeit of Israeli opportunities that have suddenly come their way. But then I started getting worried.

I was dismayed to learn of many Israelis who were reaching out to our new potential partners over Linkedin, with one person in Dubai telling me that he was so overwhelmed that he had to shut down his account. A second person was trying to figure out whether the multiple Israelis pitching to him were even real people or not. This is a yellow flag.

One of the most important things I learned over lunch and dinner with Emirati colleagues is that the UAE is a trust-based economy. Business is built and conducted on a foundation of trust, which is actually how all business should be done. Contracts are a poor substitute for trust. Trust is built incrementally through predictable actions and follow-through. Trust is built by working together over time, getting to know each other, and not rushing into a transaction. Trust in business is built by ensuring that your partners make money. Trust is built by developing and reinforcing shared values and not just transactions. Shwaye Shwaye, as they say here.

My segment on @WIONews (India) discussing the stunning #Israel - #Sudan peace deal, how it represents a paradigm shift in the Middle East, the role of President #Trump in brokering the deal and the #Palestinian response.

Watch 🎥 here: https://t.co/6ZHhqeuqIz

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 24, 2020

The Israel-Sudan normalization agreement announced Friday was a historic breakthrough, but the path to a formal peace treaty and the establishment of full diplomatic relations may yet be complicated and lengthy.

Only 33 days after US President Donald Trump released a joint statement announcing that the United Arab Emirates had agreed to establish ties with Israel, the UAE and Israel signed a “Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization.” It took Bahrain exactly as long to move from a vague “Declaration of Peace” to a “Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic, Peaceful and Friendly Relations.”

Both countries then moved speedily to ratify their respective agreements with Israel.

But Khartoum is a very different case. As opposed to the two Gulf monarchies, the Republic of Sudan, where animosity toward the Jewish state is still widespread, is currently in a fragile period of transitioning from a dictatorship to a democracy; this alone will make the establishment of full ties with Israel a formidable challenge.

Its foreign minister, Omar Gamareldin, has already stressed that a peace deal with Israel would first have to be ratified — by a body that doesn’t currently exist.

“Agreement on normalization with Israel will be decided after completion of the constitutional institutions through the formation of the legislative council,” he said. It is unclear when the civilian and military parts of Sudan’s transitional government will agree to convene this legislative council.

Even if normalization with Israel were to be brought to a formally acceptable vote in the coming weeks, it is by no means guaranteed that it would be rubberstamped by Sudanese officials as easily as the establishment of diplomatic relations was approved in the UAE and in Bahrain.

In Khartoum, a broad coalition has formed against the notion of peace with Israel — including the leader of Sudan’s largest party — and vowed to fight the deal.

Sudan’s government has agreed to negotiate the repatriation of large numbers of migrants who illegally entered Israel, following the announced normalization between the countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Sunday’s cabinet meeting that “an Israeli delegation and its Sudanese counterparts will meet in Sudan soon, to discuss cooperation in many fields, including immigration, which we are discussing.”

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that the countries will discuss agreements on trade and migration issues. Some Israeli cabinet ministers said Sudan already agreed to accept migrants.

"I understand that they have already agreed on a pilot program, in the very near future, for several hundred” Sudanese to be repatriated, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Ynet TV. "And I think that, after the hundreds…several thousand will leave."

Regional Cooperation Minister Ofir Akunis told Kan the repatriation plan “is a very important part of the normalization between the countries."

A United Arab Emirates delegation landed in Israel last week to cement the normalization deal between the two countries, signing documents to advance investments, cooperation in science and innovation, civil aviation and visa exemptions. The sharing of false media reports was of course not among the discussed common interests. Nevertheless, earlier this month, an Israeli news site, relying on an Arabic report from a media outlet which is partly Emirati-owned, published inflated figures about Arab approval of the normalization. The Hebrew misinformation then found its way into English-language media outlets. CAMERA, together with its Arabic department, prompted corrections on the topic in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

The Oct. 11 Sky News Arabia article carried an imprecise and optimistic headline: “Survey: Most Arab Citizens Support Peace with Israel.” Sky News Arabia is partly owned by the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC), headed by the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Prince Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi royal family. The prince currently owns half of Sky News Arabia, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, while Philadelphia-based Comcast owns other half (as part of the company’s control of the entire Sky network).

The Sky Arabia article was covering the surprising selected findings of the recently released Zogby Analytics poll entitled “The Annexation Debate: Attitudes in Israel and Key Arab States.” While the article correctly reported that most Emiratis (56 percent) and a minority among Palestinians (31 percent) consider normalization with Israel before the Palestinian conflict is solved “desirable,” Sky erred concerning public opinion in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt (translation by CAMERA Arabic): “Results show that 58 percent of Egyptians support peace. The rate reached 59 percent among both Saudis and Jordanians.”

The Zogby Analytics poll (page 20 and screenshot below) puts the figure for Egyptians who support normalization with Israel prior to the resolution of the Palestinian issue (per the “Abraham Accords”) at 42 percent — not 58 percent, as reported. In addition, the Zogby poll found 41 percent of Jordanians and Saudis in support of normalization, not 59 percent. The journalist conflated the figures for Jordanians, Saudis, and Egyptians who found normalization with Israel without solving the Palestinian issue “undesirable” with those who found it “desirable.”

The government on Sunday officially ratified Israel’s normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates, sealing a landmark treaty that is opening Israel to the Gulf and redrawing the contours of the Middle East.

The government also okayed a deal with Bahrain to establish ties and sent it to the Knesset for approval.

“What we’re doing is making peace out of strength, peace for peace, ecoomics for economics,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his ministers before the vote, calling the two agreements “historic.”

“Today we are expanding the circle of peace,” he added. “Additional countries will yet join only if we consistently adhere to this policy. It has brought us results that we could only dream about, and I dream about much more.”

The fact that Arab countries are normalizing relations with Israel is a direct result of a “clear policy that I have been leading in recent years, with great intensity, in many efforts both open and concealed, over the years,” Netanyahu said.

“I cannot discuss all of the meetings, efforts and paths that we have taken. However, it is completely clear that there is a change here in the concept that says the only way to reach normalization and peace agreements with the Arab world is to do things that would endanger the security of Israel, would pull us back to the indefensible 1967 lines, would uproot over 100,000 Jews and would divide Jerusalem.”

Do you remember in August when Sudan fired a spokesman for hinting at its peace talks with Israel?

“We don’t deny there are communications,” Haidar Badawi Sadiq told Sky News Arabia, adding he saw “no reason to continue hostility.”

Time to hire him back.https://t.co/s3D5bcx90w

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 25, 2020

When Did Sudan Start Working against Hamas?

In 2014, there was a turning point in Sudan when ruler Omar al-Bashir clashed with Iran, claiming that Iran was working to spread the Shiite religion in Sunni Sudan. Sudan expelled Iran’s cultural attaché from its territory and closed Iranian cultural centers on its territory. The Sudanese decision was apparently made following pressure from Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s foe.

The crisis in relations between Sudan and Iran also had an impact on relations with Hamas. Sudan cooperated with Iran in smuggling weapons through its territory to Egypt and from there to the Gaza Strip. The weapons came in Iranian ships that regularly docked in Port Sudan.5

In March 2014, IDF naval commandos seized the KLOS-C ship in the Red Sea. The Panama-registered ship, bearing 100 containers of weapons and cement from Iran, was supposed to arrive at Port Sudan. The IDF captured long-range missiles with 200 km ranges that were destined for the Gaza Strip via Hamas’ tunnels.

The interdiction occurred 1,500 km (900 miles) from Israel and demonstrated once more Israel’s superior intelligence and operations capabilities in the war against Iranian-Hamas terrorism.

After clashing with Iran, Sudan closed down Hamas offices in its territory and began arresting movement’s operative who had established a terrorist infrastructure in the country.

Following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting in Entebbe, Uganda, on February 3, 2020, with Sudan’s Sovereign Council Chairman, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, it was reported that Hamas attempted to establish a branch for intelligence missions in Africa in Sudan.

The Intel Times website reported in July 2020 that the Sudanese authorities arrested in Khartoum Muhammad Ramadan’ Abd al-Gafur, head of the Africa branch of the Intelligence Division of Hamas’ military wing. This is the branch of Hamas that deals with building the organization’s military force through Hamas affiliates in Malaysia, Turkey, and Lebanon.

Today we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the U.N. Charter. Its words, principles and purposes are noble and just. Those who are eternally vigilant to demand they be upheld are the true friends of the world body. pic.twitter.com/bQTdKs68aQ

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 24, 2020

These countries' laws call to kill gays:
🇦🇫 Afghanistan
🇲🇷 Mauritania
🇵🇰 Pakistan
🇸🇴 Somalia
🇳🇬 Nigeria
🇶🇦 Qatar

These countries sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council:
🇦🇫 Afghanistan
🇲🇷 Mauritania
🇵🇰 Pakistan
🇸🇴 Somalia
🇳🇬 Nigeria
🇶🇦 Qatar

Why, @mbachelet?

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 25, 2020

About 200 people protested outside the residence of France’s ambassador to Israel Saturday against President Emmanuel Macron, after he vowed his country would not “give up cartoons” depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Protesters, some of them wearing surgical face masks in keeping with coronavirus regulations, carried banners in Arabic in support of the prophet, AFP journalists at the scene said.

The demonstration was held in the largely-Arab district of Jaffa in Tel Aviv, after Muslim evening prayers.

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One of the demonstrators, Amin Bukhari, accused Macron of playing the game of “the extreme right.”

“The Prophet Mohammed is the most sacred thing in Islam and whoever attacks his honor, attacks an entire people,” he told the crowd.

Macron on Wednesday said a French teacher beheaded outside his school outside Paris earlier this month “was killed because Islamists want our future.” (h/t Zvi)

🇵🇰 Leader of country with 200 million Muslims, and which has been a safe haven for 9 Islamist terrorist groups, accuses French President Emmanuel Macron of “encouraging blasphemous cartoons“ & “attacking Islam.“

🇵🇰 Pakistan just won a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. https://t.co/Zha1nm7feG

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 25, 2020

The IDF launched a large-scale multi-front exercise on Sunday morning, simulating war with Hezbollah.

Dubbed “Lethal Arrow,” the multi-day general staff drill will see the participation of thousands of troops from various branches of the military including the Air Force, Navy and the Ground Forces, as well as from the Intelligence, Technological, Logistics and Cyber Defense directorates.

The drill will see activity by IDF fighter jets, attack helicopters and other aircraft and naval vessels, as well as physical maneuvers by ground forces.

“The aim of the exercise is to improve the IDF’s offensive capabilities at all echelons while implementing the Victory concept and generating new procedures between key headquarters,” the military said in a statement.

With more explosive fronts and Hezbollah having significantly increased its arsenals since the last war with Israel, the IDF’s Momentum multi-year plan aims to make the military more lethal in scope and accuracy, and to win any future war as quickly as possible.

Despite the fact that Israel’s enemies are not interested in war, the IDF has “increased its pace of preparations” for confrontation, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi told journalists when the plan was released last year. “On both the northern and southern fronts, the situation is tense and fragile and can deteriorate into a confrontation,” he said.

The IDF has denied killing a Palestinian teenager, after Palestinian media claimed that he was beaten to death by Israeli forces after a car chase on Saturday night.

The IDF responded to reports about stones being thrown at Israeli vehicles near Turmus Ayya north of Ramallah on Saturday. Forces who arrived there found two suspects who began running from the scene.

"It seems that during the escape attempt, one of the suspects lost consciousness, fainted and injured his head," said the IDF Spokesperson's Unit in response to the incident. "He was not hit by IDF soldiers. The forces at the scene as well as military medical forces provided first aid to the wounded. After prolonged resuscitation operations, the suspect's death was declared."

The IDF's Arabic-language spokesperson tweeted a photo from the scene showing Israeli forces treating the teenage along with the IDF's report of the incident, adding "Do not believe the lies of the Palestinian media!"

Palestinian media claimed that a Palestinian teenager from the village of Yatma near Nablus was killed by Israeli security forces on Sunday morning in the West Bank north of Ramallah after a car chase, with some reports including images of an empty vehicle with Palestinian license plates.

While the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported that he was beaten by Israeli security forces, other sources reported that he had been shot. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Sunday morning that the teenager had signs of violence and beating on the back of his neck.

An Israeli and an Italian biopharmaceutical company have signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel's Health Ministry to supply an experimental plasma-derived treatment for the COVID-19 virus.

Kediron Biopharma of Italy has partnered with Israel's Kamada Ltd. to develop the new treatment, which is derived from plasma taken from patients who have recovered from COVID-19.

Kamada will be in charge of the manufacturing. The Health Ministry has ordered enough to treat some 500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

"We are pleased to work in collaboration with Kamada on the development and global distribution of this important therapy, which we hope will help patients in Israel and around the world," said Kediron ChairmanPaolo Marcucci.

Kedrion and Kamada began collaborating on the potential plasma-based treatment in April of this year.

The question is: Will Iran step in to influence the Palestinian Authority? Will Iran manage to convince the Palestinian Authority to become part of an axis that includes Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and all the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq? Where is Mahmoud Abbas taking the Palestinian Authority? No one knows. Most people I speak to they say he doesn't really have a strategy to deal with the with the Middle East conflict. His only strategy, they say, is just to remain in power forever.

The Palestinians.... are further isolating themselves by alienating the entire Arab world by going against countries such as Egypt, Jordan and all these Gulf states that once used to give them a lot of money.... Those who were inciting against Israel all those years are now inciting against the Arab world. Those who were demonizing Israel are now trying to demonize their own Arab and Muslim brothers.... The gap between the Palestinians and the Arab world is growing.

One of the reasons why mainstream media does not want to report about many stories over here, is that these stories do not have an anti-Israel angle.

This whole conflict, whether we like it or not, is not about a settlement, a checkpoint, a wall, and a fence or a settlement. This conflict is really about Israel's very existence....

They [Palestinian leaders] do not want Arabs and Muslims to be exposed to the wonderful things that are happening in Israel. They do not want them to see that Israel has been a story of success. They do not want these wonderful things to be seen in the Arab and Muslim world because then the Arabs and Muslims might go to their leaders and say, "Excuse me. We want something like what these Jews have. Why can't we have democracy? Why can't we have a functioning parliament?"

The question we need to ask ourselves is not who is going to succeed Mahmoud Abbas. The question is will anyone who succeeds Mahmoud Abbas, will he be different? Will he be able to bring about any changes? I'm sorry to tell you that the answer is no.... We are talking about the same ideology, the same mentality, and the same people running the show.

Do not expect many changes in the post-Abbas era. What needs to change is the mindset. What needs to stop is the incitement, the daily delegitimization of Israel. It is very bad, and it is very widespread. If you do not change that, then you will not see any changes. In addition, the Palestinians need to change their education system. They need to start preparing their people for peace with Israel.

IntroductionFor almost three decades, PLO Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat touted himself as a man of peace. In his role as Mr. Peace, Erekat travelled the world to sweet talk the willfully blind with the illusion of the Palestinian moderation, flexibility, and thirst for peace. But at home, in Arabic, Erekat, in his dominant role as Dr. Terror, made his true feelings clearly heard. Support for terrorists, whitewashing terror organizations and terror, threats of violence, rewriting history, and perpetuating libels against Israel, are all just some of the views and actions espoused and carried out by Erekat.

While Palestinian Media Watch has often exposed the statements made by Erekat, the following is a special compilation focusing on a number of different themes exposing the true face Saeb Erekat.

Support for terror and terrorists The bedrock of Erekat’s terror support is his belief that Palestinian terror organizations and Palestinian terrorists, including mass murderers, are in fact not terrorists at all but rather “fighters for freedom.” For Erekat, internationally designated Palestinian terror organizations who are responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis and other innocent people - such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and others - are not terror organizations, and it is “forbidden” to describe their homicidal actions as terror.

When the EU dared to condition its financial support to Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations on the beneficiaries signing a commitment that no EU funds would be funneled to EU designated terror organizations, Erekat made his fundamental objection clear:

“The Palestinian people's struggle is meant to achieve freedom, independence, and the end of the occupation, settlement, collective punishments, and war crimes, and it is forbidden for anyone and any party that relies on international law and the international bodies to describe this struggle as terror.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 9, 2020]

For almost a year, Palestinian Islamic Jihad was largely absent from Iran’s media and political push. Now Iran is back, talking about Islamic Jihad in the media, a day after Ankara’s press also highlighted the group. The articles do not appear to be a coincidence, because the group claimed it was “mobilizing” in Gaza over the weekend.

After conflict with Israel in 2019, PIJ suffered setbacks and was also concerned about threats to its leadership. Baha Abu Al-Ata had been killed in November by an Israeli airstrike and Syrian reports said that the home of its deputy leader Akram al-Ajouri had also been targeted. Iran follows the group closely; PIJ is believed to be an Iranian proxy, armed, advised and provided cash and technical assistance over the years by Tehran. It is Iran’s footprint in Gaza, and perhaps its eyes and ears as well.

The terrorist group also provides Iran leverage and options, including plausible deniability should Iran want to test Israel. That appears clear from how the group has offices in Gaza and Damascus, two key fronts for Tehran against Jerusalem.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is frequently in contact with Islamic Jihad. Last year he called PIJ leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah to support its attacks on Israel. He spoke to the group or put out statements linked to it in February and July of this year. Today Iran is angry about the Israel-Sudan agreement and highlights Hamas opposition to the agreement.

In the past Iran has sought to move weapons via Sudan. Hamas members once enjoyed more support from Sudan and its Muslim Brotherhood contact there. Ismail Haniyeh went to Sudan in 2012, according to reports. Today he is very angry that Khartoum is talking to Israel. Iran is angry as well.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist movement announced a general call-up of its forces on Saturday night, citing the deterioration in the condition of Maher al-Akhras, a PIJ operative hunger striking in Israel as the reason.

Akhras has been engaged in a hunger strike for about 90 days. The Palestinian detainee is being treated at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. Both the PIJ and Hamas have threatened confrontation with Israel if his situation becomes dire or he dies.

The PIJ statement on the call-up was originally published on the website of the movement's military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, but was subsequently erased and then republished a few hours later as a "statement from a senior official source in the Al-Quds Brigades to Al-Quds Al-Youm TV."

The terrorist group did not clarify why the original message was deleted and then replaced by a citation of a TV report. Michael Link, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, called on Israel Saturday to release Akhras.

“Recent visits by doctors to his hospital bed in Israel indicate that he is on the verge of suffering major organ failure, and some damage might be permanent,” said Link, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.

Talk about chutzpah! Saeb #Erekat's daughter goes out of her way to thank all the Palestinian people praying for her father & "all the Arab doctors" treating him.

Not a word about fact he is in Jerusalem or the #Israeli doctors fighting to keep him alive! Talk about ungrateful! https://t.co/C3iRIpMLx6

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 24, 2020

The United States announced on Friday that it will offer a $10 million reward for “information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms” of the US-designated terrorist group Hezbollah.

The US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program is seeking “information on the activities, networks and associates of Hezbollah that form a part of its financial support, which includes financiers and facilitators like Muhammad Qasir, Muhammad Qasim al-Bazzal and Ali Qasir.”

Muhammad Qasir “is a critical link between Hezbollah and its primary funder, Iran” and has been a significant conduit for financial disbursements from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to Hezbollah, according to the State Department.

In April 2019, the United States designated the IRGC as a terrorist entity.

He also “directs the Hezbollah unit that assists in the transfer of weapons, technology and other support from Syria to Lebanon,” according to the State Department.

Qasim al-Bazzal is a “key financier for Hezbollah and the IRGC-QF,” and a “co-founder of the Syria-based Talaqi Group and oversees other terrorist financing enterprises, such as Hokoul S.A.L. Offshore and Nagham Al Hayat,” according to the department. “Since late 2018, al-Bazzal has used the Talaqi Group and his other companies to finance, coordinate and obscure various illicit IRGC-QF-linked oil shipments.”

Syria is one of the first countries to sell the iPhone 12. Despite the war and poverty, life among the regime cronies goes on as usual. The owner of the store selling the iPhone is, Faruq reports, Asma al-Assad, Bashar’s wife. pic.twitter.com/2sCktv4ryn

— Mike (@Doranimated) October 24, 2020

Explosion reported yesterday at petrochemical plant in Bandar Mahshahr, Iran. This site was reportedly listed previously as part of the Iranian nuclear programme. https://t.co/XKnm4wOR7P

— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) October 24, 2020

The Albania parliament announced it would host the first ever Balkans Forum Against Antisemitism, bringing officials and lawmakers from the region and beyond together to make a unified front to fight antisemitism.

Taking place online on October 28 at 4:00 p.m. CET (11:00 a.m. EST), the event will include a wide range of notable figures from across the world.

Speaker include:Miguel Ángel Moratinos, high representative for the United Nations Alliance of CivilizationsElan Carr, United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitismLord John Mann, United Kingdom's adviser on antisemitismNatan Sharansky, human rights icon and former government minister

Speaking ahead of the landmark event, Combat Antisemitism Movement director Sacha Roytman-Dratwa said that: “There is simply no place for antisemitism, racism or hatred in modern, open and decent societies. The Balkans Forum Against Antisemitism is designed to establish clear steps which will help make this a reality across the region.” The announcement comes days after Albania officially adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, becoming the first Muslim-majority nation to do so.

A Bahraini institute has signed an agreement with the US State Department to combat anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and delegitimization of Israel.

The memorandum of understanding, signed Thursday in Washington, DC, marks the first time an Arab country has embraced a key Trump administration agenda item, to get countries to include anti-Zionism and some forms of harsh criticism of Israel in their definitions of anti-Semitism. It comes as the Trump administration has in recent weeks brokered a series of normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

It was signed at a ceremony in a downtown Washington hotel by Elan Carr, the State Department’s anti-Semitism monitor, and Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, a member of Bahrain’s extended royal family who is the chairman of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence.

“We all know that hatred is the enemy of peace,” al Khalifa said at the signing ceremony.

The memorandum of understanding says the sides “intend to work together to share and promote best practices for combating all forms of anti-Semitism, including anti-Zionism and delegitimization of the State of Israel.”

It also accepts the definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes double standards in criticizing Israel, denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and comparing Israeli actions to the Nazis. Some civil liberties groups in the United States and abroad say the definition is too broad and, when adopted as part of enforceable law, inhibits speech freedoms.

More than seven decades ago, their families were divided by war and hatred – Koenraad Tinel, the son of a Nazi sympathizer, and Simon Gronowski, a Holocaust survivor who lost his mother and sister to Auschwitz.

Now the two men, both in their 80s, have forged a close friendship that has become a symbol of reconciliation in their native Belgium.

"Koen and I were two children crushed by a war we did not understand," Gronowski, a lawyer and jazz pianist, told Reuters.

"Each of us was on his side of the fence – me on the side of the victims, and he on the side of the executioners."

Gronowski, 89, and Tinel, 86, met after they both published memoirs of their wartime experiences. They were introduced to each other by the Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique in 2012.

"They ask me: 'Would you agree to meet the son of a Nazi?' Yes I agree. Weird, but I agree," Gronowski said. "Little by little, we met and got to know each other better."

Last month, the twin Free Universities of Brussels - the Dutch-speaking VUB and the French-speaking ULB – gave both men honorary doctorates to recognize the significance of their bond.

"Their unique friendship is a power symbol of hope, happiness and peace," the universities said a statement.

Israel's government on Sunday approved a proposal by Energy Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz which aims to produce 30% of the country's electricity from renewable sources by the year 2030, with an emphasis on solar energy.

During the discussion, it was decided that the Energy Ministry will evaluate and update the targets for 2030 by the end of 2024. An intermediate target has been set, aiming to first generate 20% of electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2025.

Steinitz said in a statement that "setting a new target for 30% renewable energy is a real revolution. This means that, in the next decade, we will have to triple the construction of new solar facilities. In addition, I decided that priority would be given toward the construction of infrastructure-linked power plants and the expansion of existing stations."

Describing his view of the future, Steinitz said that "toward the end of the process, in about seven years, Israel may reach first place in the world in the amount of electricity produced from solar energy. This is a continuation of the policy I have been leading for several years of the transition from coal, oil and polluting fuels to natural gas and renewable energies."

"Thus, the air pollution emitted from about 20 power plants throughout Israel will decrease in a few years by more than 90% – and we, and our children, will breathe cleaner, healthier air," the energy minister added.

Cologne, Germany’s public transportation company put Star of David stickers and the Hebrew-language salutation “shalom” on a vehicle serving one of its busiest tram lines on Wednesday, as part of the buildup to the country’s celebration next year of 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany.

The move is an initiative of Association 321, which references the fact that Jewish presence was first documented in Germany in the year 321.

The new tram look “is a sign against anti-Semitism and against racism,” the association wrote on Twitter.

The sticker’s full text reads “schalomschen Koeln!” — a diminutive form of the Yiddish-language greeting that is sometimes used in the local dialect of the western German city.

Wow! What a stunning video of #Israel, made not by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, but by @AJ_bo7mdan, an incredibly talented photographer and artist from the #UAE! Thank you @HSajwanization for sharing. https://t.co/G2okqSN0mv

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 24, 2020

Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen added that a peace accord with Sudan strikes a blow to Iran’s aspirations of regional hegemony. “Sudan is an important country in the region, having previously served as a way station for weapons between Iran and Gaza,” Cohen said. “Taking it off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism enables us to sign another agreement and to develop several important tracks of cooperation that will greatly contribute to Israel.”

From Israel’s point of view, this is also an opportunity to discuss the repatriation of thousands of Sudanese migrants who have sought refuge here in recent years. But the two countries are also expected to negotiate several mutually beneficial cooperation agreements, including in agriculture and technology.

The US and Israel have pledged to help bring both investment and debt relief to Sudan. Washington is offering a billion-dollar aid package, while Israel will provide agritech to help boost its dire economic situation. For its part, Sudan – Africa’s third-largest country – has huge swaths of arable land.

But on the flip side, there is concern that such a major foreign policy move at a time of deep economic crisis in Sudan could upset the delicate balance between the military and civilian authority, which is why Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is expected to push for his country’s transitional parliament to approve the deal first. The chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is scheduled to hand over control of the council to Hamdok in 2022.

We should not ignore recent protests that have taken place in Khartoum against the normalization agreement with Israel, that have included the burning of Israeli flags. According to the Sudanese newspaper, Al-Intibaha, demonstrators chanted slogans against establishing relations and demanded that political parties who supported the step revise their position. At least two political factions in Sudan – the Popular Congress Party and the Sudanese Baath Party – issued statements condemning the decision to forge ties with Israel.

As the US heads to a critical election next week, we urge the new administration – whether under Trump or Biden – to continue pursuing the path of peace between Israel and Arab states. Perhaps the UAE, Bahrain and now Sudan can help to get the Palestinian leadership back to the negotiating table with Israel.

"For some odd reason, prior administrations decided to indulge Palestinian fantasies about what could happen that were totally out of touch with reality."

"I spent most of yesterday in closed door meetings, with [U.S. Treasury] Secretary Mnuchin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, [and] the finance minister of the United Arab Emirates....I'm in the room and I'm seeing people that really, really want to advance the ball as far as it will go.....They were almost...tripping over each other to come up with more and more ideas about what could be done. The sky is truly the limit, and it's fun to watch, because...we don't need to police this or oversee it; they're doing that on their own."

"I think the Palestinians are sort of in one of those final stages of denial. It's hard to watch. It's completely self-defeating. There was a leadership problem. There was significant corruption at the top....I've traveled with Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States. I've been on his plane a few times....He flies like a regular commercial passenger. And Mahmoud Abbas, where the Palestinian GDP per capita is maybe 1/15th that of Israel, he flies around in a $75 million Boeing business jet....You've got a lot of concentration of wealth among the upper elite and a lot of people are really unhappy about it."

"America has provided the Palestinians with more financial, humanitarian assistance per capita than any other place in the world by far. And we have given more money to the Palestinians compared to any other nation by a power of at least five compared to every other country. So, we've got nothing to apologize for in terms of our assistance to the Palestinians....It is a bridge to nowhere. The Palestinians want to take, but they're not willing to really engage in a serious way."

"We want to help the Palestinian people. By the way, the State of Israel wants to help the Palestinian people. It is in Israel's interest for the Palestinian people to be healthy, to be prosperous, to have hope and optimism about their lives....Enough of the histrionics. Enough of the tantrums. Just sit down and have civilized discussions on serious issues and there'll be progress."

Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Yousef Al-Othaimeen told Sky News on Monday that Palestinians need to "think outside the box" in their search for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"One is required to think outside the box in search for peace. I do not think a reasonable person - whether Palestinian, Arab or Muslim - would refuse any initiative to resolve the [Palestinian] cause in any way," he said.

"The [Palestinian] cause has been going on for 70 years. We have tried wars, we have tried to throw Israel into the sea and we have tried many other things," the former Saudi Arabian minister said.

Othaimeen said that the goal of the Palestinian cause is a two-state solution, with east Jerusalem as its capital, and that a younger generation should not be afraid to try new approaches to get there.

Sec.-Gen. of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Yousef Al-Othaimeen: The Palestinians Need to Think Outside the Box, Try Different Ways to Achieve Peace with Israel, Two-State Solution pic.twitter.com/8GLK0GvFAX

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 26, 2020

Unlike the peace deals with the UAE and Bahrain, the treaty with Sudan has little to offer from an economic standpoint. Sudan has nothing to export to Israel, and given the state of Khartoum's coffers, it is doubtful whether it can import much from Israel. Some business deals are on the horizon, mostly involving Israeli technologies in water, agriculture and food, to help bring Sudan into the 21st century.

The peace deal with Sudan goes beyond having declarative importance. Diplomatically, one less country will vote against Israel in international organizations and forums, and will no longer join efforts impose boycotts or sanctions on the Jewish state.

From an Arab-Muslim standpoint, the accord means another dent in the wall of opposition Israel faces in the Arab world. Sudan has now become the fifth Arab nation to recognize Israel.

Behind the scenes, a diplomatic battle is now being waged for Qatar's allegiances: The U.S. and Israel are trying to mediate rapprochement between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in an effort to pull Doha away from the radical Islamist axis, headed by Turkey.

The normalization agreement between Israel and Sudan is a success story for both sides, where there are no losers, only winners. Sudan, as a result of this treaty, received an economic lifeline of expunged debts worth $60 billion and a horizon that includes returning to the family of nations after being removed from the list of state sponsors of terror. Israel received much more than a shorter flight route to South America: an optimistic forecast for the domino effect and the crumbling of another brick in the wall of Arab hostility.

Khir Allah, one of the more important writers and intellectuals in the Arab world, wrote on Sunday that Sudan's decision to normalize ties with Israel conveys a divorce from three obstructions that had suffocated this vast country and threatened to ruin it completely.

The first obstruction is the Islamic one. The lengthy period of time under the rule of the Mulsim Brotherhood and former tyrant Omar al-Bashir pushed Sudan toward religious fanaticism that included, among other things, providing refuge to al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden, and providing military aid and training to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Bashir's dismissal led to the abolishment of draconian, Islamic state-like laws, such as, for example, executions based on charges of heresy to Islam. Prohibitions on alcohol imports were lifted, and female circumcision was banned.

The second obstruction was the efforts of regional powers, Turkey and Iran, to turn Sudan into a forward operating base to help them expand their spheres of influence. Severing ties with Iran and resisting Turkey's efforts to build a base on the Red Sea paved the path toward relations with Israel.

The third obstruction was Israel's image as a cancerous tumor in the body of the Arab nation. An apartheid state, whose main preoccupation was massacring Palestinians and plotting the best way to demolish the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. This negative image of Israel, which Bashir's regime cultivated, gradually evaporated after his overthrow. Sudan, encouraged by US President Donald Trump, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, and UAE leader Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, decided to alter course.

Khir Allah, the Arab author and intellectual, cautions that despite removing these obstructions, Sudan won't succeed on its path to democracy and economic growth if it fails to overcome its historic afflictions, namely the divisions, disagreements and conflicts between its political parties and numerous tribes -- which has always led to the rise of dictators and military strongmen.

Sudanese Political Analyst Muhammad Adam: The Time Has Come to Establish Relations with Israel; We Will Not Pay the Price for Other People's Mistakes pic.twitter.com/pl5EbsknJM

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 26, 2020

Sudan on Sunday confirmed that it had agreed to normalize ties with Israel in exchange for being removed from the US terror blacklist, acknowledging for the first time the existence of linkage between the two, which it had previously denied.

A statement from the cabinet of Khartoum’s transitional government highlighted the various economic benefits of the deal, which will include badly needed aid and access to global financial institutions, previously refused due to the terror listing.

“The revocation of Sudan from the terrorist list allows the country to deal with the international financial institutions and the full benefitting from the development grants and international aid,” a statement from the cabinet said, according to the Sudan News Agency.

The Council of Ministers also underlined that the deal will allow the country to reenter the international banking system, the report said.

The ministers said the agreement to speak to Israel about normalizing ties came after a year of “hard negotiations,” with the US, in which Washington insisted on linking the delisting to Israel, a stance Khartoum rejected.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will send $5 million in food aid to Sudan just days after Khartoum announced the normalization of ties with the Jewish state.

"We are looking forward to a warm peace and are sending $5 million worth of wheat immediately to our new friends in Sudan," the Prime Minister's Office said in a tweet. "Israel will be working closely with the USA to assist Sudan's transition."

Sudanese and Israeli officials are slated to meet in the coming weeks to discuss a package of cooperation deals to "achieve the mutual interests of the two peoples," Sudan's Foreign Ministry confirmed.

The ministry statement said the deals would cover agriculture, trade, aviation and migration, but did not provide details on the timing or location of the meetings.

The normalization deal came with another pledge by Trump to remove Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The US has linked delisting Sudan to the deal to normalize ties with the Jewish state.

Both deals would open the door for Sudan to get international loans and aid. Sudan needs these to revive its battered economy and rescue its transition to democracy, following a popular uprising last year that led the military to overthrow longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan, which has recently joined the list of Muslim countries seeking peace with Israel, may have introduced an official separation of religion and state about a month ago, but it is still a religious state, where the law is based on Sharia.

The Sudanese population is very religious, and clerics have considerable clout over public life. The struggle between senior Sudanese clerics over normalization with Israel is part of the country's "agony of peace": The official Sudanese Fatwa Council issued a ruling stating that Islam forbids establishing relations with the Jewish state and in response, one of the country's top clerics issued a counter-fatwa stating that, as Islam favors "sulha" or "peace," there is no ban on relations with Israel, and these are even desirable if they serve the Sudanese interest.

The more significant drama took place in Saudi Arabia, which is governed by Sharia law, and its legislators are members of the Shura Council, the sages, and they have great sway over the public sphere.

When the Imam of the Great Mosque of Mecca, one of the top clerics not only in Saudi Arabia but in the entire Muslim world, said in a Friday sermon some time ago that Islam is a religion of peace that welcomes relations with Jews and the Jewish religion, he rattled the Muslim world to its core.

any interpreted his statement as one greenlighting Riyadh's future rapprochement with Jerusalem. In addition, in recent days, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has been steadily appointing moderate clerics to the Shura Council, including one who has been leading normalization with Jews and Israelis for several years.

Clerics play a key role in the running of the states that have recently stuck peace with Israel. Without them, even if normalization is achieved, it cannot evolve into warm and close relations – something that was once fantasy and now seem more real than ever.

Dharur Bel Hol El-Flasi (@dbelhoul), member of the Federal Council of the UAE, tells i24NEWS' @koplewitz the #UAE is committed to the #Palestinian people, not Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority because both are 'corrupt' and 'murderers' pic.twitter.com/xU9Gy9NCB7

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 26, 2020

In order to defeat #Antisemitism, we must first define it, and with the spread of Jew hatred on-line, it is imperative especially that #SocialMedia companies #AdoptIHRA Definition of Antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/X8FM7qzzzI

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 26, 2020

When even #Bahrain welcomes Guatamala and Estonia designating #Hezbollah as terrorist organization in full, while not a word from @eu_eeas. Just underscores how far ahead of #EU the Gulf and Arab world is! https://t.co/rCnqDsMihc

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 25, 2020

'This Jewish Man [from #Israel] Wore His Kipa In #Dubai And Had An Incredible Experience'.

Hey, I know that dude profiled in @lovindubai!

Oh, hi @fredman_a👋👋👋https://t.co/cU9U6vKKF2

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 25, 2020

With Israeli companies’ interest in doing business in the United Arab Emirates increasing following the signing of a peace deal between the two countries, Virtuzone, a firm that helps companies set up businesses in the UAE, has formed a joint venture with Apex Holdings, the owner and operator of a number of businesses in the UAE focusing on Israel-UAE trade.

The new joint venture, “Virtuzone Israel,” aims to help Israeli entrepreneurs and companies to access the UAE market, using Virtuzone’s business support services. These services include company registration, jurisdiction selection, bookkeeping, work permits, visas, VAT handling and related essential services for onshore and offshore companies operating in the UAE.

“With our long track-record of registering over 40,000 UAE-domiciled companies and our partnership with Apex Holdings, we are uniquely positioned to help Israeli companies enter the UAE market and to provide the support services they will need for a seamless arrival,” said Virtuzone chairman and co-founder Neil Petch. “We’ve created a dedicated team who understands Israeli business culture and will help support their move to the UAE, which has its own set of unique laws and regulations that foreign corporations will be best served by the right local advisor.”

In September, Israel signed separate bilateral normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, dubbed the Abraham Accords, paving the way for companies to openly forge cooperation ties, some of which already existed but were kept under wraps due to political sensitivities. US President Donald Trump said Friday that Sudan has also agreed to make peace with Israel, making it the third Arab state to normalize ties as part of US-brokered deals since August.

As one of the Middle East’s largest economies, the UAE offers significant tax benefits to businesses, including 0% tax on corporate and personal income. It also offers high business infrastructure and a strategic geographic position for businesses in Israel that want to expand their reach to Middle Eastern and Asian markets. Direct flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai will only take around three hours.

A Dubai-based company is offering to buy Israir Airlines, one of Israel’s largest carriers and tourism companies, for some NIS 170 million ($50 million), a person familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, after NY Koen Group confirmed in a statement that negotiations for the airline have commenced.

Talks were held in Dubai last week between Israir representatives Assaf Zur, chief financial officer, and Avivit Peleg, vice president, Leisure Groups Purchasing and Operations, and Naum Koen, the Jewish businessman who is the owner of NY Koen Group.

“We’re currently reviewing details regarding corporate objectives and the financial state of Israir,” said Koen in the statement. “Both NY Koen Group and Israir are excited about the future potential of this purchase and are eager to have the details finalized quickly.”

The acquisition of Israir, the biggest tour operator and third-biggest airline in Israel, would extend the operations of NY Koen Group, the statement said. The group operates Aero Private Jet, which offers business and leisure VIP flights and has access to over 7,000 planes and 4,000 airports worldwide, the statement said. The company has been in operation since 2003 as a quality provider of luxury aviation.

Hadassah-University Medical Center is in negotiations with leaders in Dubai about opening a hub and even potentially relocating some its top doctors, nurses and management to the United Arab Emirates, Prof. Zeev Rotstein, the head of Hadassah told The Jerusalem Post.

Rotstein was in the UAE last week as part of the first-ever Abraham Accords Business Summit, which was led by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

During the visit, delegation members split by industries, from food and technology to security defense and health. Rotstein was the only physician on this mission, though he acknowledged that many other hospital heads have already been to the UAE to explore opportunities. During the trip, he said he met with members of the private sector, as well as government representatives.

“They want us in the Emirates, they appreciate us, they want to benefit from our abilities,” Rotstein said, noting that some of the best medical centers, such as the Mayo Clinic, have a presence in the country. “For us, this is really a testament to our services and a vote of confidence.” He added that the UAE is “very open and free” and that they treated the Israeli delegation with warmth and respect.

Maccabi Haifa FC announced on Sunday a cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates' Al-Ain FC and the two teams are expected to meet for a friendly match in Abu Dhabi.

"I am happy to inform you that our club has been invited to hold a friendly soccer match called the 'Game of Peace', in Abu Dhabi," said Maccabi Haifa owner Yaakov Shachar.

"We informed them that we would be happy to play against them in Abu Dhabi and host them in our city, Haifa. Their positive and happy response has just been received and the date for the game will be set later, according to the two clubs' schedules,” Shachar added.

"I have always believed it was possible to develop friendly relations through sports. We will sign a memorandum of understanding between the two clubs In a matter of days to create a relationship that will include collaborations on both the sporting and business side."

#OnThisDay 1994, #Israel& #Jordan signed a peace treaty at the White House.

It would take 26 years before Israel signed another peace deal with an Arab country. In the last 72 days, under @realDonaldTrump🇺🇸 leadership, we have had 3 more agreements:

🇮🇱 🤝 🇦🇪
🇮🇱 🤝 🇧🇭
🇮🇱 🤝 🇸🇩 pic.twitter.com/ztTh6NbLLo

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 26, 2020

An Israeli Cabinet minister said on Sunday that a US sale of advanced F-35 warplanes to Qatar could be possible despite Israel’s objections to such a deal given the Gulf state’s links to Iran and Palestinian terror group Hamas.

“I have no doubt that if they (Qatar) want it and are willing to pay, sooner or later they will get it,” Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who sits in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet, told Ynet TV.

“This is a supposition that we must take into account,” he said, arguing that the US administration “ultimately looks out for American interests,” especially in the face of rival stealth jets on offer from Russia and China.

Reuters reported on Oct. 7 that gas-rich Qatar had submitted a formal request to buy the F-35, a Lockheed Martin plane that has so far been supplied only to Israel in the region. Israel, with which Washington consults on such sales, said it would be opposed.

US officials have been open to selling the F-35 to the United Arab Emirates after it and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel on Sept. 15. But they have been tight-lipped on Qatar’s bid to buy the jet.

Successive US administrations have sought to preserve Israeli military superiority in the region. Steinitz noted, however, that there had been past US sales of advanced aircraft to Arab countries over Israeli objections.

How likely is it that followers of the Islamic State (ISIS) will heed its call on social media for attacks on Saudi oil pipelines and other infrastructure after the kingdom allowed planes en route to and from Israel to cross its territory?

The cryptic audio message on the Telegram messaging platform earlier this month called for retaliation for Saudi support for the United Arab Emirates’ and Bahrain’s normalization of ties with Israel.

While Middle East experts do not have a crystal ball, they are skeptical that this appeal will lead to something bigger. “ISIS is ‘whistling in the dark.’ They have lost their equipment and the services of their formerly numerous volunteers,” Dr. Oded Eran, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told The Media Line.

He was referring to the war against Islamic State, in which it lost its last swathe of territory, in the Syrian town of Baghouz. In March 2019.

Brian G. Williams, an Islamic history professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, told The Media Line: “They have gone underground, operating a shadow war.”

Political tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia are obstructing the movement of goods and putting a strain on trade relations between the two Sunni-Muslim regional powers.

Ties between Riyadh and Ankara have deteriorated over the past few years, with the countries on opposite sides of several regional conflicts.

Mohammed al-Bishi, a Saudi journalist specializing in economic affairs, told The Media Line that Turkey’s “aggressive regional policies” were behind the rising antipathy.

“This is a reaction to the hostile policies practiced by the Justice and Development Party [AKP, led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] in Iraq, Syria, Libya and now in Azerbaijan,” he said.

The antagonism reached its high point in late 2018 immediately after the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.

Twenty years ago, on Oct. 12, 2000, two Israel Defense Forces reservists, Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami, accidentally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah in Judea-Samaria (aka the West Bank).

While in the custody of PA policemen, they were viciously stabbed and beaten to death, their bodies subsequently mutilated and dragged through the streets of Ramallah. These were images broadcast live around the world and seared into the minds of all those who witnessed them.

The most visceral image from that day was that of Aziz Salha proudly waving his blood-stained hands from the police station window.

This bestial murder, and the ghastly images surrounding it, have haunted a generation of Israelis who had supported the Oslo peace accords and witnessed, only a few months previously, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offer the Palestinian leadership a state with Jerusalem as its capital and control over the Temple Mount. The Palestinians rejected this offer out of hand, like all before and since.

At that moment, many Israelis understood that to perpetrate such a murder, and delight in it as thousands of onlookers did, flatly contradicted their belief that the Palestinian people truly wanted peace.

Unfortunately, the Palestinian policies of incitement and delegitimization that inspired the Ramallah lynchings continue to this day. Unfortunately, too, these hateful policies go virtually unreported by US and European mainstream media.

Yet the type of hate and loathing that creates such inexplicable rage, bloodshed, and murder continues intentionally and purposefully in daily Palestinian life.

Israelis, and even Jews generally, are continually seen as legitimate targets in the Palestinian education system, media, and religious institutions.

Explosive balloons were spotted over Sapir Academic College near Sderot on Monday, according to Israeli media. An explosive charge attached to the balloons reportedly detonated in the air, but the balloons continued to travel and are being tracked by security officials.

A balloon landed at the Amdocs Factory in Sderot shortly afterwards. It is unclear if this is the same balloon as the one spotted over Sapir College. Another balloon was found shortly afterwards in a field near the town of Saad in southern Israel.

Except for sporadic balloon launches in September, the launches had largely stopped since a ceasefire was reached between Hamas and Israel at the end of August after weeks of daily explosive and incendiary balloon launches and rocket fire.

In response to the balloon launches in August, Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister and Benny Gantz, warned that such launches would be met with "forceful" responses.

The reports of the balloons on Monday came as tensions rose between terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel, as the terrorist groups threatened action if the health condition of Maher al-Akhras, a PIJ operative hunger striking in Israel for about 92 days, becomes too dire or he dies.

Part 2: pic.twitter.com/CDa5Vs35Jd

— Mike (@Doranimated) October 25, 2020

The IDF believes that Amer Snobar fell down while being chased by troops after throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles traveling at high speed.

Why is this context buried in the sixth paragraph, @campbellmacd@Telegraph? pic.twitter.com/8hUyDkzSoL

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 26, 2020

In the editorial, Haaretz defines the detainee, Maher Akhras, as someone whom “The state claims he is an activist in the Islamic Jihad organization – without presenting him with any evidence, as is acceptable in administrative detention cases.” Haaretz treats the state’s claim that he is a member of Islamic Jihad as suspect, and ignores publicly available indications that this is indeed the case.

In an extensive Op-Ed by Ilana Hammerman, Haaretz completely disregards the question of Akhras’ affiliation with Islamic Jihad, failing to even mention the state’s position that he is a member of an internationally designated terror organization.

Instead, Hammerman warns that Akhras “days are numbered if he is not immediately released” and casts him as a victim to “a reality that is entirely false” at the hands of “the embodiment of evil,” meaning the Israeli judicial system.

To recap, Haaretz makes three claims: 1) Administrative detentions have no place in a democracy; 2) They’re not subject to judicial review; and 3) It’s highly questionable whether Maher Akhras is indeed a terror operative.

All of the above are false.

The prime minister of Pakistan claimed in an interview over the weekend that “Israel’s lobby” in the United States controls Middle East policy and is collaborating with India to boost his most prominent rival.

Prime Minister Imran Khan told ARY News that “The Israeli and Indian lobbies work together in America. Israel’s lobby is the most powerful and that’s why America’s whole Middle East policy is controlled by Israel.”

Khan claimed that this Israel-India conspiracy is pressuring his government to give a National Reconciliation Ordinance – a grant of amnesty for various crimes – to his top rival Nawaz Sharif.

Khan, a former cricket star, is the founder and head of Tehreek-e-Insaf, an Islamist political party that took power in 2018 and installed Khan as prime minister.

Sharif, a former prime minister and wealthy businessman, is Khan’s longtime opponent and the two men have conducted a public rivalry for almost a decade.

In 2018, Pakistan’s supreme court banned Sharif from public office and he later received a 10-year prison sentence for corruption. A year later, he was released on bail and fled the country.

Insulting Muslims is an "opportunistic" abuse of free speech, Iran's foreign minister said on Monday, in an apparent reference to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron perceived to be critical of Islam. "Muslims are the primary victims of the 'cult of hatred,'" the minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted, without directly addressing Macron.

"Insulting 1.9B Muslims—& their sanctities—for the abhorrent crimes of such extremists is an opportunistic abuse of freedom of speech. It only fuels extremism," he added.

Macron, who led a tribute to a history teacher beheaded this month by a Chechen teenager for showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in class, declared war on "Islamist separatism", which he believes is taking over some Muslim communities in France.

Yeah it's not this bro https://t.co/Z6XgXL1RV3

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 26, 2020

Turkey is in various degrees of confrontation with:
🇮🇶 Iraq
🇦🇪 UAE
🇸🇾 Syria
🇮🇱 Israel
🇪🇬 Egypt
🇫🇷 France
🇨🇾 Cyprus
🇬🇷 Greece
🇦🇲 Armenia
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

Turkey is President of this year's U.N. General Assembly.

Have a nice day.https://t.co/a4SONmRwyP

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 25, 2020

Miami Imam Yousef Fadi Kablawi Addresses “Dog of France” Macron: France, Not Islam, Is in Crisis; Syrian Refugees Are Reviving Islam in Europe; By 2050, France Will Have a Muslim Majority pic.twitter.com/QOH6jM2Wp3

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 26, 2020

Sudanese Islamic Scholar Muhammad Abd Al-Karim: All Muslim Countries Must Sever Ties with France pic.twitter.com/CJMh7MOja8

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 26, 2020

Qatar-Based Former Egyptian Footballer Mohamed Aboutrika Calls for a Boycott of French Products during Live Broadcast: “The Prophet Muhammad Is Where We Draw the Line.” pic.twitter.com/rFUyquDTKk

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 26, 2020

Why is it that the countries now going crazy over cartoons in France are the very same who are not only silent at China herding 1 million Muslims into camps, but actually signed a letter at the U.N. praising Beijing’s actions? https://t.co/gKeAKIgFILpic.twitter.com/9bXwpDvITO

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 26, 2020

Over a thousand mostly Orthodox Jews gathered for a rally in support of Donald Trump in Brooklyn on Sunday, using the opportunity to loudly air their grievances against Democratic leadership in New York while calling for four more years of the Republican US president.

The demonstration in Brooklyn’s Marine Park came after weeks of tensions in many of the borough’s Orthodox neighborhoods over new restrictions imposed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in response to rising COVID-19 cases in those areas.

Some ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn have found themselves in national headlines due to accusations that their refusal to adhere to coronavirus guidelines led to a spike of new cases in September. Orthodox leaders accuse Cuomo and de Blasio of unfairly singling out their communities and adopting punitive measures rather than engaging with them.

While the infection rate has since waned and restrictions have begun to be lifted in some places, they still mostly remain in Brooklyn, along with tensions between the Jewish community and the city and state leadership.

“Hey Cuomo, you probably wouldn’t have allowed this [gathering]… Come get me!” said the rally’s emcee Nachman Mostofsky, the executive director of the right-wing, pro-Israel policy group Chovevei Zion.

The rally was the final destination of a parade convoy that chugged through the streets of Rockland County’s Monsey, Long Island’s Five Towns, Manhattan, and a number of pre-dominantly Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

Thank you Rabbis! https://t.co/Lwo07ggfuc

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2020

Skirmishes broke out between supporters and opponents of US President Donald Trump as a Jews For Trump convoy of hundreds of cars draped with American flags and Trump 2020 banners rolled slowly through Manhattan and Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon.

The demonstration was planned as part pre-election rally for the Republican president and part protest against coronavirus restrictions in some heavily Jewish areas of New York where spiking infection rates have been recorded.

The caravan traveled from Coney Island to the Trump Tower in Manhattan before heading to a rally in a Brooklyn park. Cars in the procession blasted remix versions of the president’s speeches, festive Jewish music and soundtracked campaign slogans.

Videos shared on Twitter showed several protesters pelting the vehicles with eggs or stones, snatching flags and shouting insults.

In one video showing physical fights between several people, police officers detain an unidentified man and protesters chant “let him go.” Another video showed a small group of people throwing objects from a Brooklyn highway overpass at vehicles bedecked with Trump flags.

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani briefly greeted supporters from the passenger seat of a car driving near Trump Tower during the parade, videos showed.

A family of seven ‒ including four kids ‒ were pepper-sprayed by violent rioters on Sunday while participating in a “Jews For Trump” rally in New York City. placeholder

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said 11 people were taken into custody after the rally descended into chaos and violence Sunday afternoon. Six people were charged with disorderly conduct, obstruction of government administration and harassment, while a seventh person was charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, the NYPD said Monday.

A convoy of hundreds of cars draped with American flags and "Trump 2020" banners rolled slowly through Manhattan and Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon. The caravan traveled from Coney Island to the Trump Tower in Manhattan before heading to a rally in a Brooklyn park.

At some point, skirmishes broke out between supporters and opponents of the president.

A member of the family that was pepper-sprayed told Fox News that the unprovoked attack happened while the family was driving down Fifth Avenue with the car windows down and Trump flags displayed.

The man, who wished to remain anonymous fearing his family could be targeted, said a car pulled up next to them and unleashed pepper spray into their vehicle.

"Immediately the kids started crying and screaming and I jumped out of the car after I was peppered [sic] sprayed as well," the man said.

The man said the attacker chased him down the avenue trying to pepper-spray him again. His mother flagged down an officer and the suspect was arrested.

Woman arrested for spraying pepper spray at the #JewsForTrump vehicle convoy on 5 Avenue in Manhattan. pic.twitter.com/kfrwaLTJgT

— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) October 25, 2020

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) must enforce a settlement boycott by ensuring that the database of businesses operating over the pre-1967 lines can be used for enforcement action, special rapporteur Michael Lynk said in a written report he submitted to the General Assembly in New York.

“The UNSC should ensure that the database becomes a living tool, that it clarifies and broadens its mandate, and that it provide the database with sufficient resources so that its spotlight can properly identify the scope of all business involvement with the settlements and the occupation,” wrote Lynk in his annual report published over the weekend.

He is a Canadian legal expert who is the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.

In February of this year the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a list of 112 business entities – 94 domiciled in Israel and 18 in six other countries – which it has reasonable grounds to conclude operate over the pre-1967 lines.

These countries include the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Thailand and Luxembourg. The list gives a boost to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and operates as a warning to those companies that such business dealings could constitute a war crime.

Neither the High Commissioner’s office or the UNHRC which commissioned the list, have any enforcement power and the list is advisory only.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: From a Jewish and Israeli point of view, there are two main issues to look at when analyzing the activities of American Jewish billionaire George Soros. The first are his damaging statements and actions against Jews and Israel, and the second are antisemitic attacks on Soros himself. For Jews, the problems that arise around these issues require fine tuning of their reactions to Soros’s statements and actions.

George Soros is a complex figure about whom there is much debate. Many of his activities around the world have no impact on Jewish matters, so there is no reason for Jews to enter into public disputes over whether he should be classified as a major philantropist or a king of speculators.

What does concern Jews, however, is that Soros spreads lies about antisemitism. At a rare meeting in a Jewish environment, Soros spoke before the Jewish Funders Network Conference in New York in 2003. He was asked about antisemitism in Europe and said, “There is a resurgence of antisemitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that… It’s not specifically antisemitism, but it does manifest itself in antisemitism as well. I’m critical of those policies…” He blamed the “resurgence of antisemitism in Europe” on Israel and insisted that “If we change that direction, then antisemitism will also diminish.”

Nobody present at the meeting took him to task for his extreme and false blaming of the victim. Soros was ignoring the basics of Europe’s extreme antisemitism conditions, which have existed for more than 1500 years.

Soros, a typical Jewish masochist, added that he himself bears some responsibility for the new antisemitism. To bolster this point, he quoted Malaysian PM Mahathir bin Muhammad, who said, “Jews rule the world by proxy.” Soros said, “As an unintended consequence of my actions, I also contribute to that image.”

Abraham Foxman, then national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), called Soros’s comments on antisemitism “absolutely obscene.” Foxman said blaming the victim for Israel’s and the Jewish people’s ills was bigoted and biased.

A short while into Mr. Jones, a film by the Polish director Agnieszka Holland, the protagonist, Gareth Jones, who has come to Moscow to learn about Soviet collectivization efforts, says he has no agenda other than finding the truth. It is 1933, and two totalitarian powers are unleashing their competing visions of the world on the Eurasian continent. Jones’ interlocutor, Ada Brooks, a Moscow-based foreign reporter, asks Jones, with not a small touch of cynicism, whose truth he is seeking to uncover. He says that he is looking for “the truth. There is only one kind.”

The question of truth is at the heart of the story Holland tackles—the deadly famine, engineered by Stalin’s regime, that swept through Ukraine, the Volga Basin, the Kuban and Don regions of the North Caucasus, and Kazakhstan in the winter of 1932-1933. In Ukraine alone, where it is known by its Ukrainian name of Holodomor and often referred to as the terror-famine, it took an estimated 4 million lives. In this exceptionally fertile land, Stalin imposed impossible production demands, expropriating all available grain and livestock and using the ensuing starvation to break the back of the peasantry, whose resistance to collectivization threatened to undermine his industrialization efforts.

But Stalin’s crime was only one face of the story. The other face was the extraordinary failure on the part of the world to report and acknowledge the facts. Many were complicit in this failure, but the starring role undoubtedly belonged to the Moscow-based Western journalists, who misreported, underreported, and failed to report about what was plainly happening under their noses. Walter Duranty, the New York Times’ man in Moscow, outright lied about the events, deliberately misleading his readers. In 1932, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for reporting. Holland’s exploration of the complicity of the press in one of Joseph Stalin’s greatest crimes lends the film an unexpected relevance to our current moment, when the role and purpose of the media and of journalism itself seem to be under attack—from both would-be dictators and people for whom virtue is the arbiter of truth.

When Sonia Zalesskaia returned from summer camp to her family in Minsk in June 1941, she found her mother incapable of caring for herself and four children—Sonia, Tsilia, Abram, and Roza: “She had a nervous breakdown when the Germans came; she was completely indifferent, paralyzed. When we had to move to the ghetto, I had to organize everything. I was the oldest sister. When they moved us to the ghetto, Mother did not know what was going on. … I found a peasant who drove our belongings to the ghetto on his cart. I figured I had to give him something, so I gave him our sewing machine and some fabric. That meant we had nothing left to trade with.”

The narratives of child survivors of the Nazi genocide in the German-occupied USSR help us better understand the distinct features of ghettos in the area that were killing sites rather than transitional spaces of internment. Among the 800,000 Belarusian Jews killed by Germans and their collaborators were parents, grandparents, and other relatives of thousands of young Jews who thus became orphans and struggled for survival on their own. This situation, however, often goes unacknowledged in studies of the Nazi ghettos, the so-called Jewish districts established by the German Wehrmacht or occupation administrations in Nazi-occupied countries.

Yet age did matter for everyday life within the ghetto. Adolescents were the most vulnerable group in the Nazi ghettos, suffering unduly from hunger, violence, and the psychological impact of terror. They were also highly mobile within the ghetto and able to maintain relationships with peers and adults—such as classmates and teachers—outside the ghetto, suggesting that they were an especially resourceful group. Everyday life in the ghetto thus redefined roles that children as well as women and men took on within families.

Immediately after the war, Jewish historical commissions began to collect testimonies, especially from children, in formerly German-occupied countries such as Poland and France, but no such efforts were made in the Soviet territories. Statements collected immediately after the war in the USSR, primarily by the Extraordinary State Commission, list human and material losses and German crimes but rarely included descriptions of how Soviet citizens, let alone Jews, lived under the occupation. Materials provided in the Black Book of Russian Jewry unquestionably fill some of these gaps, yet these accounts pertain to multiple locales; again, they do not provide a comprehensive view of how individuals survived under conditions of violence, forced labor, and trauma.

As enforcement ramps up in the city’s COVID-19 cluster zones, the governor again made it clear on a telephone conference call on Thursday who he felt the problem was.

“Some of the complexity in the enforcement here, especially with members of the ultra Orthodox community. They have never complied with the rules,” Cuomo said.

The governor’s words came a day after he announced he would withhold funding from local governments that do not enforce the rules at schools, including yeshivas.

“If the local government does not effectively enforce the law, we will withhold funds from the local government… If they don’t, we will withhold funding from the government. I don’t like to do that. Budgets are tough all across the board. I don’t know how else to get them to do the enforcement they need to do. So, hopefully that will motivate them because nothing else I have done has motivated them – not my rapier wit, not my sense of humor, not my guilt, not my blame, not my admonition, and not my pleas. Maybe money works,” Cuomo said.

He later pointed out that yeshivas receive a significant amount of funding.

“I guarantee if a yeshiva gets closed down, and they’re not going to get state funding, you will see compliance,” Cuomo said.

In the words of the inspector: they have a list of schools to issue summonses. They made ZERO attempt to confirm if the school was closed before writing the summons. (It WAS closed)

This keeps happening-it’s not an isolated incident.

Orthodox Jews continue to be targeted in NY. pic.twitter.com/Mm6qgwFAhN

— Councilman Deutsch (@ChaimDeutsch) October 26, 2020

At the beginning of 2020, Georgette Gómez, the San Diego City Council president who is running for a seat in California’s 53rd congressional district, earned a trio of coveted endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and the progressive group Justice Democrats. The imprimatur was a stamp of approval from some of the nation’s most influential progressive trendsetters, but it turned out that Gomez wasn’t fully aligned with them on one issue: Israel.

In mid-April, Gómez went public with her views in an interview with Jewish Insider, stating that she disagreed with Justice Democrats on matters relating to the Jewish state. The group has previously labeled Israel a “human rights violator,” a characterization Gómez rejects. Since then, Justice Democrats has all but revoked its endorsement. A source close to the Gómez campaign, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, tells JI that Justice Democrats is no longer actively fundraising for Gómez because of disagreements over Israel.

Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, declined to confirm whether the group had ceased raising money for Gómez because of Israel, noting that Justice Democrats had previously raised more than $18,000 for the candidate.

But a look at public filings from the Federal Election Commission suggests that Justice Democrats has disengaged from the race. Its last contribution, for in-kind texting services, was on April 15, according to the FEC, and it has made no independent expenditures as it has in several other races. The group has also stopped directly boosting Gómez on social media.

Just over a week before the US presidential election, conspiracy theories, racist and anti-Semitic posts and disinformation are targeting Hispanic voters in Florida, a key constituency in the battleground state.

A purported election fraud concocted by Democrats, an alleged plot among Jewish, Black and LGBTQ people to interfere in the election: these are some of the stories that have spread among voters in the United States, and among Florida Latinos in particular.

Take influencer Liliana Rodriguez Morillo, a Donald Trump supporter who is the daughter of singer Jose Luis “El Puma” Rodriguez. The Miami-based Venezuelan shared an image to her 485,000 Instagram followers of fake driver’s licenses confiscated in Chicago.

“All registered to vote Democrat!” she wrote in Spanish. “Will there be fraud November 3? Are we playing dumb? Vote in person!”

There is no evidence that the licenses were linked to the Democratic party or to voter fraud. And US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) spokesman Steven Bansbach told AFP that CBP could only confirm that 19,888 driver’s licenses — mainly from China and Hong Kong — were confiscated.

Lizette Escobedo, director of civic engagement at the NALEO Educational Fund, a nonprofit that promotes political participation of Latinos, said that mistrust in the electoral system is common among Florida Hispanics in both parties.

The problem, she explained, is that “many Latinos don’t actually trust the electoral process. They’re afraid that their votes are not going to count.”

Sir Keir Starmer is embroiled in a damaging row over anti-Israeli remarks just days before an official report is expected to condemn how Labour under Jeremy Corbyn mishandled antisemitism in the party.

Sources say the Labour leader is infuriated with Stephen Kinnock, one of his frontbench foreign affairs team, for using a Commons debate on Palestine and the West Bank to accuse Israel of behaviour 'tantamount to profiting from the proceeds of crime'.

Labour did not deny reports yesterday that Mr Kinnock, son of ex-party leader Neil Kinnock, had now been reprimanded for remarks which also included calling on the UK to 'ban all products that originate from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories'.

The row is deeply embarrassing for Sir Keir on the eve of the publication of a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into how the party dealt with antisemitism under his predecessor.

When he took office in April, Sir Keir won plaudits from the Jewish community for vowing that he would 'tear out this poison [of antisemitism] by its roots'.

Under Mr Corbyn, Jewish groups accused the party of repeatedly singling out Israel for criticism while failing to condemn the behaviour of China or Iran.

The row over Mr Kinnock's comments emerged after an online meeting last week between Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy and the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council.

The former Mayor of Luton, who is currently Labour’s candidate for Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner, has been suspended by the Party over alleged antisemitism.

Tahir Khan, who served as Mayor of Luton in 2016-17, will no longer be able to represent Labour in the 2021 election for the senior police job, and a new selection process is reportedly underway.

Although the basis of the suspension is unclear, Mr Khan is believed to have posted Rothschild conspiracy theories on social media in the past and to have claimed that the BBC is a “Zionist channel”.

A Labour spokesman reportedly said: “The Labour Party takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.”

On 28th May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

Their departments co-sponsored talks with member of U.S.-designated terrorist group

After Zoom shut down a university event with a Palestinian terrorist for at least the fourth time in a month, an academic group is pressuring U.S. college presidents to break their agreements with the online meeting provider.

The New York University chapter of the American Association of University Professors said Zoom “unilaterally” canceled its Friday event with Leila Khaled, who hijacked two planes for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the 1970s.

Its event was cosponsored by “several NYU departments and institutes,” the chapter said in a statement posted by Academe, which is published by the national AAUP.

Zoom “censored” another planned event with Khaled on Friday, Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Hawaii wrote in an update on the event’s Facebook page.

The actions were not unexpected. A spokesperson for Zoom told The College Fix Wednesday that the UH event would not be allowed to take place on its platform for violating its terms.

Even though the Zoom link for the UH event had already been rendered inactive by Thursday night, when The Fix last checked it, the event’s Facebook page made no mention of the deactivation before it was scheduled to start Friday.

Both events were in response to Zoom’s cancellation of a Khaled event at San Francisco State University Sept. 23. The next video streaming providers the organizers tried – Facebook and YouTube – also removed the event.

Eric Fingerhut, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, has said that US university administration have ignored “a growing atmosphere” of antisemitism and anti-Zionism on their campuses.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Fingerhut also praised the complaint filed on behalf of Jewish students against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for what was described as a “hostile environment” for Jewish students there, and said the university should have more to prevent this situation from developing.

It was announced on Friday that a complaint was filed with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights by Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP together with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, in consultation with the Jewish United Fund, and Hillel International.

The complaint outlined how Jewish and pro-Israel UIUC students have been subjected to an “alarming increase in antisemitism and anti-Zionism over the past five years,”and detailed how numerous swastikas have been found on UIUC's campus, Jewish ritual items such as menorahs and mezuzahs vandalized, and windows of Jewish fraternity houses smashed by bricks.

“The fact is that the atmosphere on too many campuses has grown increasingly challenging, and what was once excused as criticism of Israeli policy has clearly moved into blatant antisemitism,” said Fingerhut.

He said that several universities have “allowed this kind of behavior to continue with no steps taken to redress it even when it’s been called to their attention time after time,” and said that it was one of the fundamental responsibilities of the organized Jewish community to ensure that the US continues to be open and welcoming for Jews.

EVEN MORE extreme, during this election cycle Twitter has begun flagging tweets, repeatedly adding “fact checks” to US President Trump’s tweets in a misguided effort to reduce “fake news.”

Contrast this level of attention to the lack of attention directed at antisemitic conspiracy tweets from April. These were presented to Twitter in Knesset meetings in August, yet they have still not been removed. Similarly, the Iranian ayatollah on Twitter routinely calls for genocide against Israel and “Zionists.” Even when Twitter was asked about the matter in multiple Knesset hearings, the platform representative defended allowing the ayatollah to spew his antisemitism not once, not twice, but in three separate Knesset committee hearings.

The double standards continue today with Twitter banning a major news publication, the New York Post, for reporting on Hunter Biden’s business affiliations – a move that resulted in subpoenas from the US Senate over its actions. It also refused to allow any users to share links pertaining to the story. Apparently, free speech is only important to Twitter when it’s a political agenda they agree with – and apparently the social messaging service is more on board with the ayatollah than it is with the New York Post.

Twitter and all social media platforms serve an important and complicated role in free speech, and indeed in democratic elections as well, but they are not the arbiters of truth, and they should not engage in censorship. As such, it’s important to make a distinction between flagging or commentary by a social media platform, and censorship. There are activists who believe that antisemitic speech should be banned or removed completely from social media networks, but this is antithetical to free speech, and risks pushing hatred underground. It’s important to know and to see what the trends are, and give people a chance to consider and respond.

As such, the IHRA definition is the perfect solution for social media networks as it doesn’t require any form of censorship, but simply requires education and recognition of antisemitic content. Social media networks should adopt the definition in full as a framework for proactively identifying antisemitism. Refusing to do so, or selectively picking and choosing, actually makes it more difficult for the Jewish community to stand united against the modern antisemitism with which we are faced.

Several major music streaming platforms have reportedly removed antisemitic and racist music, following an investigation.

The BBC found that sections of speeches by Adolf Hitler, references to white power and celebrations of the Holocaust featured in songs on the platforms, with Spotify, Apple, Deezer and YouTube apparently having now removed them.

One song on Spotify, for example, contained the lyrics: “Aryan child, listen to what is said/ So rise your hand and learn to love your land/ For the white revolution needs your uncorrupted hand.”

According to the BBC, Spotify said that the songs violated its hate content policy, while YouTube reportedly said that there was no place for hate on its platform. Apple Music has apparently hidden the majority of the songs while it investigates, and Deezer is investigating.

Following an antisemitic rampage by the grime artist Wiley over the summer, more than 700 musicians and members of the music industry signed a letter decrying racism.

On October 23 at 11:03pm ET, CBC Radio produced a short report which covered the peace deal between Sudan and Israel that erroneously claimed that only three Arab countries recognize Israel.

CBC’s news anchor stated the following:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Friday’s agreement with Sudan is the beginning of a new era. Sudan has become the third Arab country to recognize Israel and the agreement normalize relations was brokered by Washington. It’s similar to the deal announced previously by the UAE and Bahrain.”

In truth, Israel’s normalizing relations with Sudan now marks the fifth Arab country to recognize Israel. In 1979, Israel made peace with Egypt and in 1994, Israel made peace with Jordan.

What CBC likely meant to report is that this is the “third Arab country to recognize Israel this year.” Sudan, after all, followed in the footsteps of the UAE and Bahrain.

HonestReporting Canada has brought this matter to the attention of CBC News editors.

Bateman failed to disclose to BBC audiences the identities of the “rights groups”, the “foreign activists” or the “Palestinians…taking their place” – and the political agenda of each of those groups. As was the case in his filmed report, audiences are not informed that a Palestinian Authority body called the ‘Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission’ brought people to Burqa on the day that Bateman was filming there and once again BBC audiences are not told whether or not his visit to that location on that specific day was linked to that PA organisation.

As in the filmed report, the violence documented by Bateman comes from Palestinians rather than ‘settlers’.

Bateman: “Israeli border police fire tear gas and rubber bullets at the Palestinians who throw stones and burn some scrubland.”

Bateman then travelled to Psagot where he spoke with a representative of the Binyamin regional council before uncritically quoting once again unidentified “anti-occupation groups”.

Bateman: “The Israeli army says it facilitates the harvest and prevents friction. But anti-occupation groups think sabotage by radical settlers extends Israel’s control of the land, as they say the authorities don’t prosecute it properly. Israel denies this, saying it investigates settler violence. International law sees all the settlements in the West Bank as illegal.”

As usual BBC audiences were not informed of any alternative legal opinions to the one exclusively presented by Bateman as “international law”.

This is the second report produced by Tom Bateman in just over a week in which the olive harvest was used to promote well-worn political narratives, but without appropriate clarification of how the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent came to be in Burqa on the very day that a Palestinian Authority political commission organised the arrival of ‘activists’ in that location.

Viewers then find Yezid Sayigh likewise promoting the inaccurate notion that the formation of the PLO was born out of the post-1967 ‘occupation’ while whitewashing the fact that its original charter of 1964 clearly stated that the ‘Palestine’ it intended to ‘liberate’ did not include “the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” or the Gaza Strip and its first attack had taken place in January 1965.

Sayigh: “People like Yasser Arafat started to organise rebellion and armed resistance against the newly occupying Israeli army and so they caught peoples’ imagination. They had demonstrated that the Palestinians could take their cause into their own hands. They could bear arms. They were no longer pitiful refugees. They were people who had dignity because they fought for their own rights and their destiny.”

Arafat: “We know that it is not easy…but we are ready to pay the price.”

Thompson: “The PLO was made up of political and armed groups with different ideologies. In the 1970s, under Arafat’s leadership, it became more extreme and carried out a series of attacks against Israeli and other targets. But there was little international sympathy for a cause promoted by hijacking and bombing.”

Viewers are not told that those PLO ‘attacks against Israeli targets’ included the murder of civilians in the 1970 Avivim school bus bombing, the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, the 1974 Ma’alot attack and many others. The word terrorism is of course not used.

Thompson’s claim of “little international sympathy” is of course not supported by the fact that just six months after the 1974 Ma’alot attack in which 25 hostages – including 22 children – were killed, Arafat was received with applause at the United Nations General Assembly. That information is however not provided to this video’s audience.

This educational video gives British school students an incomplete view of a significant chapter of Middle East history while whitewashing the PLO’s beginnings and original agenda in a manner which steers viewers towards the erroneous belief that Palestinian “armed resistance” was a product of the Six Day War.

Nearly half of Americans don’t know what the phrase “antisemitism” means.

That’s one takeaway from two surveys published Monday by the American Jewish Committee. The surveys asked Jews and the general American public about antisemitism in the United States.

The Jewish survey found that a large majority of Jews consider antisemitism a problem, and that most see it as a problem on the right and in the Republican Party. Those findings were in line with what the AJC, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, found when it surveyed American Jews last year.

The new surveys found that, in a year when 88% of American Jews say antisemitism remains a problem in the United States, 21% of Americans overall — more than one in five — say they’ve never even heard of the term. An additional 25% of Americans overall have heard the term but are unsure of what it means.

But nearly half of Americans overall say they have seen antagonism against Jews either online or in person during the past five years, suggesting that respondents may be familiar with the reality of anti-Jewish bigotry but unfamiliar with the term “antisemitism.”

An attempt by ten police officers to prevent disciplinary proceedings against them in connection with antisemitic and racist Whatsapp messages has cost Police Scotland nearly £200,000, it has been reported.

Whatsapp messages described as being “sexist and degrading, racist, antisemitic, homophobic, mocking of disability and included a flagrant disregard for police procedures by posting crime scene photos of current investigations,” were discovered in the course of an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct on the part of another officer, who was later cleared.

After the messages were discovered in 2016, Police Scotland’s Professional Standards department sought to discipline the officers implicated in the messages in November 2017. However, the Scottish Police Federation tried to block the disciplinary proceedings on behalf of the officers on the basis that they were entitled to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and a common law right to privacy. Last month, however, three appeal judges upheld an earlier ruling that rejected those arguments, claiming that the duty to uphold professional standards on the police force overrode the right to privacy and that it was proportionate for Police Scotland to use the messages.

Following the ruling, The Ferret submitted a Freedom of Information request to Police Scotland, which revealed that its legal bill to date is £189,366.04 (including VAT).

Police Scotland reportedly noted in its reply that “subject to the outcome of any further proceedings, Police Scotland intends to seek an award of expenses in its favour as a result of being successful both in the outer and inner houses of the court of session.”

Two years after 11 loved ones were ripped from their families, multiple bodies and minds were injured and a sense of communal serenity was shattered by the events of October 27, 2018, the three congregations principally affected by the shootings — Dor Hadash, New Light, and Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha — are trying to find a balance between looking at the past and focusing on the future, all within the constraints of COVID-19.

For Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, there are the obvious losses of Joyce Fienberg, Rose Mallinger, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon and Irving Younger. Barb Feige, Tree of Life’s executive director, said the congregation is continuing to respect each family’s journey, but the near eradication of in-person gatherings has challenged longstanding support systems.

And, Feige pointed out, the congregation has suffered double displacement: First, in the aftermath of October 27, 2018, Tree of Life relocated to Rodef Shalom Congregation. Then, because of COVID-19, Tree of Life went virtual.

When the 2019 High Holidays arrived, additional space was required beyond what Rodef Shalom, Tree of Life’s new home, could provide. The Calvary Episcopal Church offered its 1,000-seat sanctuary free of charge, which Tree of Life graciously accepted, yet this meant the congregation was tasked with personalizing an unfamiliar space.

The need for virtual programming for this year’s High Holidays helped the congregation really get a sense of itself, explained Feige: “Tree of Life is more than a building. It’s a family. It’s a community. It’s people together, and yes, there is a connection to the building at Wilkins and Shady without a doubt — generation to generation has grown up in that building and celebrated simchas [joyous occasions] in that building — but we’re still a congregation, a family celebrating simchas together.”

Still, the lack of in-person connection had an impact.

Israel’s Tel Aviv University is launching a special interdisciplinary center to combat the Covid-19 pandemic as well as future mass disease outbreaks.

The Center for Combating Pandemics will examine not only the medical and scientific aspects of pandemics, but also the economic and social effects, and attempt to formulate policies to deal with them more effectively, the university said in a statement.

The Center will focus on frontline policies to contain pandemics, the development of vaccines and other treatments, and examining how nations can stand up economically and socially under the pressures of a pandemic.

The new center’s head, Prof. Itai Benhar of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, said, “In the past 15 years, the world has seen a string of viral pathogens infect large numbers of people, among them SARS, MERS, swine flu and avian flu. Clearly, we are not safe from dangerous emerging diseases.”

“We must look ahead,” he asserted.

Benhar sees the new Center as a long-term investment, saying, “Over the longer term, we envision the Center not only contributing to global efforts to combat and contain the current crisis, but also building the scientific and professional foundations to enable us to successfully cope with the next one.”

Ben-Gurion University researchers have partnered up with a medical startup, Panacea, to create new technology that streamlines clinical trials — improving their efficiency, lowering their cost, and increasing success rates of drugs or medical devices by shortening their development process. Prof. Boaz Lerner is both Panacea’s founder and a lecturer and researcher at the university’s department of industrial engineering and management. Panacea was founded in conjunction with the school’s entrepreneurship center, Yazamut360, which helps students and faculty launch startups.

Panacea’s tool increases machine learning to improve the chance of a clinical trial’s odds of success by examining a patient population and tracking certain markers. In addition, the entire clinical trial is tested and given pre-trial recommendations, insights, and post-trial evaluations. Finally, proposals are made for possible areas of improvement in the event the trial fails.

Lerner added that historically clinical trials haven’t seen much change in the way they are carried out, and continue to be defined by their high costs and low chances of success.

“Our platform is highly beneficial for pharma and biotech companies, enabling them to increase efficiency and the chances of success by streamlining the trial and selecting the optimal participants and markers. Conversely, we can also help in understanding when to terminate a trial and what lessons can be derived from a failed trial,” he said.

So far, the technology has been used to test several types of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons’, and ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It has also improved findings by grouping patients into separate groups and subgroups, and analyzing them individually and the progression of their disease, helping to foresee the rate of deterioration or any patterns that may yield light on a patient’s condition or others like it.

CEO of BGN Technologies Josh Peleg noted that more companies should turn to machine learning and AI to assist them in making better and faster decisions while improving their research.

“In the age of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it seems only natural that drug development should benefit from these sophisticated tools that can take into account large amounts of data, and integrate and analyze numerous parameters in order to optimize clinical trials and increase their probability of success.”

Israel will begin human trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by a research institute overseen by the Defense Ministry on Nov. 1 after receiving regulatory approval, the ministry said on Sunday.

The Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) began animal trials for its “BriLife” vaccine in March. The Health Ministry and an oversight committee have now given the green light to take it to the next stage.

Eighty volunteers aged between 18 and 55 will be monitored for three weeks to see if virus antibodies develop, the ministry said in a statement. A second phase, expected to begin in December, will involve 960 people over the age of 18.

Should those succeed, a third, large-scale phase with 30,000 volunteers is scheduled for April/May. If successful, the vaccine may then be approved for mass use.

The vaccine, the ministry said, has already tested well on a number of animal models and the IIBR has produced more than 25,000 doses for the first and second phases of the clinical trials.

“Our final goal is 15 million rations for the residents of the State of Israel and for our close neighbors,” said IIBR Director Shmuel Shapira.

If a unicorn has one horn, is a “double unicorn” an oxymoron? Not when it describes a company worth $2 billion.

A privately held company worth $1 billion is known as a unicorn. A successful company can claim as many of those magic horns as its valuation warrants.

Over the past couple of years, the number of unicorns based in Israel and led by Israelis abroad has grown exponentially, and that includes double, triple, and quadruple unicorns.

Here’s an astounding fact: Israel has more unicorns per capita than any other country.

“Counting just the unicorns that have their main operations or headquarters in Israel, the count is 14,” says Yaron Samid, founder of the 3,000-member TechAviv global Israeli startup founders club and managing partner of TechAviv Founder Partners.

“With a population of just 8.9 million, that’s 1.58 unicorns per capita and makes Israel No. 1 in the world,” Samid tells ISRAEL21c. “In second place is Singapore with 1.06 unicorns per capita and the US with 0.81 unicorns per capita.”

The Tower of David Museum will undergo a massive upgrade and showcase new archaeological finds as part of a $40 million renewal and conservation plan for the iconic site at the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. The initiative will be led by the Clore Israel Foundation together with the support of the City of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem and Heritage Ministry, and the Tourism Ministry. The Antiquities Authority is supervising the archaeological excavations and conservation of the project.

The Renewal and Conservation Project of the Tower of David Museum will preserve and conserve the historic citadel and archaeological park while doubling the current area of the museum to 20,000 square meters (more than 215,000 sq. feet) with a new sunken entrance visitor center, café, additional public bathrooms as well as seven new galleries, additional exhibition spaces and two elevators, making the ancient citadel accessible to all.

A promenade lined with the archaeological findings from this site will take visitors from the new museum entrance to the educational complex and will also link to the car parks beneath the Mamilla Mall, across the street. One of the most exciting discoveries in recent years was an abandoned Ottoman-era prison on the museum grounds. Archaeologists excavated 10 meters into the earth and slowly uncovered the foundations of King Herod’s Palace, revealing 3,000 years of history along the way.