Some Catholic media have lately been posting articles about how Pope Pius XII was not as passive in the face of the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust as he has been accused of.

The Catholic News Agency interviewed Deacon Dominiek Oversteyns, a former engineer with no formal background as a historian, who pored over public archives to show that Pius XII actively helped save several hundred Jews from Rome.

According to his study, there were 8,207 Jews in Rome before the Nazi raid on the Jewish ghetto on Oct. 16, 1943.

Out of these, 1,323 — or 16% — found refuge prior to the raid. Eighteen went to the Vatican extraterritorial properties, 393 to villages in the mountains around Rome, 368 to the private homes of friends, 500 to 49 different Roman convents, and 44 to parishes and pontifical colleges in Rome, Oversteyns reported.

Pius XII was also able to help 152 Jews hidden in private homes under the protection of DELASEM, the Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants. In all, Pius XII gave support to some 714 Jews.

Oversteyns also highlights the Vatican intervention that slowed down Nazi deportations of Jews from Rome, as the Nazis released some 249 Jews out of 1,351 who had been rounded up from the Rome ghetto in 1943 after Catholic pleas. The Jews who were released were those who had married Catholics or who were in the service of "Aryans."

Yet even Oversteyns admits that this was temporary, and the Nazis deported hundreds more Jews in subsequent months.

This is not new news. As John Pawlikowski, Professor of Ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, has argued when another non-professional tried to whitewash Pius' record, "We know that Pius did some things that were good, but they tended to come rather late, they were mostly behind the scenes and were relatively minor gestures." 

In fact, the Pope could have done more for the Jews of Rome themselves. Only last year it was discovered that Pius ignored a memo to publicly protest the deporttion of Jews from Rome:

David Kertzer, a professor of anthropology and Italian studies at Brown University, said he has now found the full version of a memo from a senior Vatican official urging Pius to formally protest against the deportation — advice the pope ignored. “There was no formal papal protest to Germany,” said Professor Kertzer.

The real legacy of Pope Pius XII is not that he indirectly and silently helped several hundred local Jews take shelter in various Catholic convents or monasteries, but what he didn't do that could have saved tens of thousands more.

The Vatican maintained a policy of neutrality from the start of World War II. The Allies signed a declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews on December 17, 1942, but the Pope refused to add his signature to the document. He obliquely referred to the Holocaust in his Christmas message a week later, but didn't mention Jews explicitly and kept it low key, referring to "the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or ethnic origin, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline." 

 Pius XII's failure to explicitly condemn the Holocaust gave the responsibility of saving or damning Jews to individual Catholic leaders and laypeople. Some decided to shelter and save Jews and some decided to collaborate with the Nazis, secure in the knowledge that they were not contradicting any of the teachings of the Church

The Vatican opened up its archives on the wartime record of Pius last year for only a week before the library was shut down on account of COVID-19, and even in those few days scholars found damning evidence against the Pope and the Church.

On September 18, 1942, Pius’ assistant, the future Pope Paul VI, received an eyewitness report of “incredible butchery” of Jews in Warsaw. One month prior, Ukrainian Archbishop Andrzej Szeptycki had delivered a similar report informing the pope of atrocities carried out in the Lviv Ghetto, reports Haaretz’s Ofer Aderet.

Soon after, the United States’ envoy to the Vatican asked if it could corroborate accounts of mass killings in Warsaw and Lviv. In response, Vatican Secretary of State Luigi Maglione reportedly stated, “I don’t believe we have information that confirms this serious news in detail.”

While sifting through the papers, the researchers also found a memo from a Vatican staffer that warned against believing the reports, dismissing these accounts on the grounds that Jews “easily exaggerate” and “Orientals”—a reference to Archbishop Sheptytsky—“are really not an example of honesty.”

 The memo was conspicuously absent from the 11-volume collection published by the Vatican in defense of Pius’ reputation, reports Religion News Service.

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Former Iranian armed forces chief and senior military advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi,  has died of COVID-19. He was 70.

In 2011, he said, "The Zionists, who do not have any fate but death, will continue screaming of war until their destruction."

In 2012, he said, “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause, [which] is the full annihilation of Israel.”

He also has said that Israel's Iron Dome doesn't work and that the West uses lizards as nuclear spies, so it seems that his record of expertise is perfect.

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The legitmised attacks on Jews

Whilst attacks on Christians still occur in the dark – those against the Jews happen in broad daylight. A man has recently been arrested following a spate of attacks on Jews in Stamford Hill. The man’s MO was simple. He would simply walk by someone who looked visibly Jewish and then punch them.

It is only a few months since a convoy of cars drove through a Jewish area calling for the ‘rape’ of our daughters. This got mainstream attention because it happened on our own doorstep. It also fits the narrative – the ability to blame a couple of extremists and pretend there is not a far wider problem.

But at the same time as those cars drove through North London – hundreds of other Islamists gathered in cities throughout the UK and chanted Islamist songs about massacring Jews. Those actions received absolutely no coverage outside of the Jewish bubble. Hundreds of Islamists actually marched through the streets of the UK, promising the Jews that the army of Mohammed is returning to slaughtered them – and not a single mainstream outlet gave a damn. It is too ‘real’ to be addressed – and anyway they think, ‘it is only the Jews’ – it is all because of ‘Israel’.

Rather than see Israel as being under attack from the Islamists – this twisted logic actually blames Israel for the hate it receives from radical Islam. A classic case of reverse causality. It is part of the societal pyramid of lies that has been built up to stop people in the UK understanding what is taking place in places such as Dewsbury, Bradford and a dozen other towns. They have legitimised attacks on Jews and given up the Jews to the Islamists, in the hope that the Islamists won’t turn their attention on to them.

So they turn a blind eye to anti-Jewish activity as long as it carries the Palestinian flag and doesn’t explicitly call for rape. ‘Palestinianism’ is an excuse that allows radical Islamists onto the streets with their murderous chants. They can even openly threaten Jews as they walk alongside the British police and the police don’t do a thing.

What we have witnessed this year – in the covoys – the attacks – the threats – is not an increase in extremism (the extremism is already there) – it is an increase in confidence. And for that our Government, security forces and police are all firmly to blame.

Their claims that a video of the meeting was “misleadingly clipped” or “misleadingly cropped” are fanciful - as the following transcript of what actually happened indicates.

Bennett had already been addressing Biden for almost six minutes at this starting point – when Biden suddenly nodded off during Bennett’s remarks : “And one last word, Mr. President — I’ll take this off [Bennett’s face mask – ed.] for this part, if I may: You’re a man of faith, as am I. In the synagogues across the world, we read a biblical portion, beyond the Parsha; it’s called the Haftarah.
"And tomorrow, we’re going to be reading words of the prophet Isaiah — Yeshaʿyahu. In Hebrew, the words are: (Recites verse of Isaiah in Hebrew.)
"What this means — I can saying anything now. Right? (Laughter.) What this means is: The sons and daughters of the Jewish people are going to come back to our land, are going to nurse our ancient land and rebuild it.
"And this ancient Jewish prophecy is today’s Israel reality. And it’s a miracle that you’ve been so central and so part of it for so many years.
"So, Mr. President, today, you and I — and you’ve been so generous with your time in these difficult days — you and I are going to write yet another chapter in the beautiful story of the friendship between our two nations: The United States of America and the Jewish and democratic State of Israel — both of us who seek to do good and need to be strong, both of us who are a lighthouse in a very, very stormy world.
"Thank you, Mr. President. I look forward to working with you now and for many years forward. Thank you."

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, thank you. And you give me credit, much of which should go to Barack Obama, for making sure that we committed to a qualitative edge you would have relative to your friends [should Biden have said “enemies” ?– ed] in the region. So, he’s the one that deserves the credit.

PRIME MINISTER BENNETT: Thank him as well.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you very much, folks.

Important as Bennett thought it necessary to convey this amazing history of the Jewish people to Biden – using Jewish liturgical terms like “Parsha” and “Haftarah” and quoting a Biblical passage in Hebrew (text below) were understandably lost on Biden - who then dozed off for 30 seconds.

The mainstream media’s continuing honeymoon with Biden had clearly clouded its judgement.

In so doing - the mainstream media was exposed once again for its biased reporting on Biden – undermining its integrity and trumpeted independence.

Beware the mainstream media when reporting Biden news.

On August 28, United States Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) ignited a firestorm after posting a claim on Twitter that Israel was dehumanizing Palestinians by not returning the body of an assailant who in June had attempted to ram a car into IDF soldiers before exiting the vehicle while wielding a knife. She was subsequently shot dead.

First, there is the obvious fact that Tlaib failed to even note that Afana had committed an act of terrorism.

Second, Afana was not killed by “the Israeli government,” but rather by security forces who were intentionally targeted.

Third, Tlaib alludes to an Israeli policy whose underpinnings she is clearly unfamiliar with.

While Rashida Tlaib in particular, and more broadly the international media, have seemingly turned a blind eye to the ramifications of Israel returning the bodies of dead Palestinian terrorists, the country’s High Court of Justice has addressed the matter.

In 2019, the court ruled that the military has the legal right to keep the bodies of slain terrorists. The justices determined that doing so is a matter of national security, and that the practice was not illegal under international law governing armed conflict.

The ruling was effectively a judicial seal of approval for a 2018 parliamentary law that allowed district police commanders to determine whether to release terrorists’ bodies for burial. The law made clear that praise has repeatedly been lavished on dead terrorists at their funerals, which, in turn, has served to incite additional attacks.

Indeed, what Tlaib overlooks — and the media continually downplays — is the culture of “martyrdom” that pervades Palestinian society.

The newly elected BAME representative for Young Labour officer has been filmed leading a chant about Israel as a “terrorist state” at a pro-Palestine rally that he organised.

Clips of the rally emerged as Young Labour faced calls to be shut down over its extremist views.

Abdullah Okud, one of three Momentum-backed candidates elected to official posts within Young Labour last month, could be seen telling the crowd in Sheffield to chant after him, “five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terrorist state”.

In another film of the May demonstration, protesters also could be heard chanting the Hamas rallying cry, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

Many view the slogan as a call for the dismantling of the Jewish state. It has also long been a Hamas rallying cry.

Mr Okud also designed the poster for the event which includes the same inflammatory phrase.

He also urged the crowd to “look up” Cage — a Muslim advocacy group whose research director hailed Isis terrorist Jihadi John as a “beautiful young man” in 2015 — in order to “know the great work that they do”.

Placards at the protest declared, “Zionism is racism” and called for the end of “Israeli apartheid”.

On this day 77 years ago, Anne Frank and her family were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Anne was born in Frankfurt, Germany to her parents, Otto and Edith, in 1929. She had one older sister, Margot, who was three years her senior. In the years following Anne's birth, antisemitism was worsening in Germany, and unemployment and poverty in the Jewish communities were rising. In order to give his family relief and respite, Otto decided to move his family to Amsterdam where he founded a company that traded in pectin. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, sparking the Second World War. Nine months later, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, and the Dutch army surrendered five days later.

Just as they had done in Germany, the Nazis began making the Jews' lives more difficult by segregating them and harming their businesses. Eventually, Otto lost his company.

Soon, Jews were required to start wearing the yellow "Jude" star and began to disappear from the Netherlands. So, when Margot got a call-up to report for a labor camp, her parents knew this could not be good news. They decided to go into hiding to keep Margot safe.

Polish boxer Tadeusz Pietrzykowski was known for his ability to dodge blows. Still, the odds were against him when he fought his first bout at the Nazi German death camp Auschwitz.

Severely emaciated, Prisoner Number 77 was up against a much heavier German inmate — a “kapo” who oversaw other prisoners.

“From around me I got warnings and gestures that I was crazy: ‘He’ll kill you, destroy you,'” he said in his official account for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum after the war.

“But there was no time to think… There was bread to be won. I was hungry, my friends were hungry,” said Pietrzykowski, the pre-war Champion of Warsaw in the bantamweight class.

His courage paid off.

With a successful left jab to the face, the 23-year-old Pietrzykowski drew blood from the kapo, Walter Duening.

The loser chose not to seek revenge for his loss and instead rewarded the boxer nicknamed Teddy with a loaf and some meat.

In June 1941, just hours before Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, renowned biochemist Otto Warburg was summoned to Nazi headquarters in Berlin.

As other great Jewish scientists such as Albert Einstein, Fritz Haber and Lise Meitner fled the country in the 1930s due to persecution, Nobel laureate Warburg defiantly stayed put as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology in Berlin.

Overly assured and notoriously arrogant, the half-Jewish and apparently gay Warburg withstood all intimidation from Nazi officials. The way he saw it, he and his genius predated the Nazis, so he would not be bullied or succumb to threats.

However, Warburg feared the compulsory June 1941 invitation to Nazi headquarters signaled that his luck had run out. Fortunately for Warburg, Hitler and the Nazi leadership were more concerned about the exponential increase in cancer cases among the Aryan master race than about Warburg’s mischling (part-Jewish) status.

Regardless of whether Hitler himself was personally aware of Warburg’s research, there were enough people in Hitler’s inner circle who believed that Warburg’s expert knowledge of the metabolism of cancer cells could offer hope for a cure to the disease. Warburg would have to move his lab to a different location, but he could stay.

Of the many Jewish scientists and scientists of Jewish descent who worked at the world-famous Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now the Max Plank Institutes), Warburg was the only one to remain. The rest either became refugees or victims of the Holocaust.

Three judges agreed that Moroccan Jews suffered antisemitic abuse from the authorities, but the harm they suffered “consisted mainly of a reduced ability to acquire housing, education and employment.”

“These restrictions, which weren’t imposed in the territory of the German Reich but on Moroccan soil,” said the court, “don’t meet the demands of the law.”

Secondly, the plaintiffs had not managed to persuade the court that the Jews had suffered “extreme tension and fear.” Yet, in spite of the Allied “liberation” of Morocco and Algeria after Operation Torch in November 1942, the United States allowed the Vichy regime to remain in place until the end of 1944. With the apparent support of the king, the regime’s French SOL troops had apparently instigated vicious anti-Jewish riots in January and February 1943. These would have created a climate of fear.

Most bizarre of all, the court observed that history is open to revisionism and interpretation, whereas the “law works according to precise rules, with all the pros and cons that that entails.”

The Moroccan failure in the Israeli courts recalls a similar ruling against Farhud survivors, who had argued unsuccessfully, after five legal rounds, that the 1941 pogrom in Iraq was a Nazi-inspired event.

Professor Yitzchak Kerem, an expert on the Holocaust as it affected Sephardi communities, discerns a deliberate effort on the part of the Ashkenazi establishment in Israel to downplay or marginalize the sufferings of Jews in Morocco and Iraq.

Yadid accused the Israeli Teasury of “discriminating between victims of the Nazi regime out of budgetary considerations,” pointing out that the Jews of Libya and Tunisia had been recognized as victims of Nazi persecution. He will consider asking for a re-hearing with an expanded panel of judges.

In any event, we have not heard the last of this story.

With the recent “First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents,” author Gary Ginsberg reminds readers of an easily forgotten truism: presidents are people too.

Released in July, the book chronicles nine presidential pals, from the nation-building work of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, to Bill Clinton’s close bond with the civil rights activist Vernon Jordan.

Alongside the succession of cabinet members and aides well known to history, these friends have played key roles in providing a given POTUS with policy advice, political feedback or simply someone to hang out with.

But Ginsberg, a former media executive, told The Algemeiner that the book’s concept was partly driven by a single White House meeting, staged at the precipice of Israel’s founding.

“It was one moment where a friend was able to walk uninvited into the Oval Office, and speak truth to power to accomplish an objective that had genuine global consequence,” said Ginsberg in an interview.

That moment came in the spring of 1948, just months after the United Nations vote to adopt the partition plan for Palestine, and with President Harry Truman facing the choice of whether to back a Jewish state once it was declared.

At one ear stood opponents of American support, including Secretary of State George Marshall, who feared it would push Arab states toward the Soviets and risk US access to oil. At the other, Truman was met with intense pressure from both Jewish voters and Zionist leaders including Stephen Wise and Chaim Weizmann.

The Taliban’s reconquering of Afghanistan has reenergized the global jihad’s war against the West, inspiring other regional Islamist and extremist movements, including those of the Palestinians.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad see the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan as vindicating their longstanding ideological claims that patience pays off and that “resistance” can defeat the American-led Western alliance and dismantle the State of Israel.

Congratulating the Taliban on August 17, 2021, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said, “The demise of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is a prelude to the demise of the Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine.”

Palestinian statements of support for the Taliban should be understood in the context of the fundamentalist groups’ ideological rejection of America and Israel as infidels seeking to control the lands of Islam.

Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar and cleric, is widely considered the “father of the global jihad” and served as a mentor to Osama bin Laden. Azzam laid the groundwork for the establishment of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the deadly Mumbai, India, attack in 2008, killing 175 people.

Palestinian “human rights” organizations sought to undermine the American mission in Afghanistan, submitting complaints to the International Criminal Court (ICC) charging U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and the CIA with “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

The Taliban victory in Afghanistan makes it impossible for Palestinian Islamists to agree to any U.S. peace proposal that would require any Palestinian concessions. The Taliban’s takeover and the U.S. withdrawal have legitimized and empowered Hamas as the new standard for “resistance” against Israel.

As such, from a Muslim standpoint, if America pressures Israel on the Palestinian issue, it is abandoning its brothers and sisters and supporting the Muslim cause. The reason that this applies to the reopening of the consulate is that the Palestinian Authority teaches its children that Israel must be destroyed — that it is Muslim and must be ruled by Muslims.

The Palestinian Authority honors and pays stipends to those Palestinians who kill Jews. As the Muslims see it, this is no less a jihad than that in which the Taliban, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are engaged. So, when the US announces the reopening of the consulate in Jerusalem, it is, from a Muslim perspective, helping those who want to liquidate Israel. For Muslims, supporting those who want to destroy Israel is the same as helping the Taliban, which has defeated the United States and is killing those who worked with America in Afghanistan.

This seems like convoluted logic to Westerners, who see the issues of Afghanistan and the Palestinians as separate and distinct. From an Islamic perspective, however, they are one and the same. Indeed, for the past two weeks, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has been echoing the Taliban to a tee, acknowledging that they are two peas in a pod.

All not need be lost, though. There is a solution — a serious one that was portrayed humorously in the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In one scene, the protagonist, Indiana Jones, is confronted by an Arab about to kill him with a huge sword, with a crowd cheering on the attacker.

Watching the man wield his weapon fiercely, Indiana Jones smirks, shrugs, pulls out a revolver and shoots his assailant. At this point, the onlookers cheer for Indiana Jones.

Welcome to the Middle East, where people go with the winner. Unfortunately, America chose defeat in Afghanistan. And from the Biden administration’s stated policy regarding the reopening of the consulate in Jerusalem, it looks to the Muslim world as though it wants Israel to be defeated as well.

Quite gross from @BBCNews: our "impartiality" doctrine was used to basically shut down @CChristineFair when she explained #Pakistan's jihad policy in #Afghanistan that has brought us all to this catastrophe — an issue on which there is no "balance" or "other side", factually. pic.twitter.com/FSzXKLMExN

— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) September 4, 2021

"Do not recognise the Taliban or legitimise them"

A 2nd day of protests held by brave women in Kabul. The West & countries in the region have already abandoned Afghan women. But their recognition of the Taliban could make things even worse for them

Don't abandon Afghan women pic.twitter.com/VzvWIyxSjN

— Masih Alinejad ??? (@AlinejadMasih) September 4, 2021

1. The Taliban is beating women who speak out for equality.

2. Whoever told you the Taliban changed is lying.

3. Still waiting for champions of women’s rights like @aoc@ilhanmn& @lsarsour to condemn the Islamist misogynist regime that is subjugating the women of Afghanistan. https://t.co/F3mXx39fKt

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 5, 2021

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov for the first time in Moscow this week, the Foreign Ministry stated on Sunday.

Lapid is set to depart from Israel on Wednesday evening, after Rosh Hashana ends, and return to Israel the following day.

The announcement comes the day after components of a Russian-made missile launched from Syria landed in the Gush Dan region.

In addition, two weeks ago, the Russian military in Syria said the air defense system it supplied to Syria shot down 22 of 24 missiles launched by Israel.

Israel often strikes in Syria to stop Iran from building bases or stockpiling weapons near the border with Israel.

The flagship of the Palestinian diplomatic struggle in Israel is the prosecution in The Hague of senior Israeli officials for war crimes, and in this regard, there is bad news for the PA.

According to my sources in Ramallah, the International Criminal Court has not dismissed the case against Israel, but it is downgrading it on the agenda because there are more urgent matters to deal with. Moreover, Defense Minister Gantz is on the list of “war criminals,” and it would be difficult to convince the tribunal of such charges against Israel after such bilateral meetings take place in Ramallah.

The testing point for Mahmoud Abbas’ seriousness is his ability to dismiss Shatiyah and lead a new policy direction. Once discussed was the naming of a new Palestinian government headed by Ziyad Abu Amr, who was acceptable to Israel, but the Fatah “elders” blocked him and demanded retaining the stubborn Shatiyeh.

In conclusion: Majed Faraj, who represents security cooperation with Israel, and Hussein al Sheikh, who represents civil cooperation, came to the meeting, while Shatiyeh, who represents the struggle against Israel, did not. This issue will test Mahmoud Abbas’ ability to make a difference – even a small one.

It will also give us a clue as to where the West Bank leadership is headed in the future – in favor of cooperation with Israel or in favor of fighting it.

Palestinian Authority officials on Saturday called on the International Criminal Court in The Hague to expedite its investigation into alleged Israeli violations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

According to Israel National News, Ramallah's Foreign Ministry wants the ICC to make significant progress on its controversial probe of alleged human rights violations and "crimes" by the "occupation and the settlers" and demands they be "brought to justice."

"The escalation of the aggression of the occupation against our people continues in various forms, especially with regard to the continued demolition of houses and the distribution of demolition orders," a statement by the PA's Foreign Ministry said.

The demand came a week after Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last week – a move that vexed right-wing Israeli politicians and Hamas alike.

Should the PA get its way at the ICC, Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff and a two-term defense minister, will be one of the Israel officials to potentially face the tribunal.

It is unclear how this demand reconciles with the fact that on Thursday, Abbas said he was "ready" to take confidence-building measures vis-à-vis Israel and restore calm in the Palestinian territories in an effort to advanced a two-state solution.

Abbas spoke following a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Jordan's King Abdullah in Cairo.

Qatar and others might be laying the groundwork in the West Bank for the day after Abbas, a collapse of governing authority, protests and then the emergence of pro-Hamas or openly Hamas members to suddenly take control. It could happen quickly if the security forces in the West Bank might be convinced to accept this rather than a battle.

It’s not entirely clear how this could transpire, but the methodology has been seen in Afghanistan, where what appeared to be governing authorities melted overnight and fled and were easily replaced without chaos. Local governors and others accepted the new normal.

Countries that didn’t back the Taliban found themselves suddenly shut out from Kabul. This has implications for those countries that prefer the PA and Fatah. They may include Jordan and also Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and Egypt.

However, there are different angles here because there are Palestinians close to Muhammad Dahlan who are critical of the recent Abbas meeting with Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

Dahlan has been based in the United Arab Emirates, which is a peace partner of Israel since the Abraham Accords last year. Until recently, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as Bahrain, were involved in the Gulf crisis with Qatar, and they tend to be on opposing ends of the spectrum when it comes to various groups in the region.

Whereas Qatar has preferred groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, the UAE and its friends have preferred more moderate groups.

The Palestinians fit into this puzzle because any contest for power in Ramallah inevitably will revolve around not just Fatah and Abbas, but also other players, including those Hamas will want and those Dahlan and others will prefer.

At the moment, the goings-on in Ramallah are not center stage; rather, the Qatari transfers of cash to Gaza are being worked out. But some might wonder about the needs of the West Bank. Has Hamas shown through its conflict in May with Israel that it is the “resistance,” and if so, who might try to benefit from that to increase its standing in the West Bank?

After Afghanistan, the lesson is that anything is possible, and still waters run deep, which means more maneuvering might be going on behind the scenes than is apparent.

Egypt is exerting immense pressure on Hamas and Israel to reach a prisoner exchange agreement, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said on Sunday.

The Egyptians are hoping that such a deal would pave the way for a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, the sources said.

Unconfirmed reports in a number of Palestinian and Egyptian media outlets claimed over the past few days that some progress has been achieved toward reaching a prisoner swap.

Hamas is holding the bodies of IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who were killed in the 2014 war with Israel, as well as two Israeli citizens, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who crossed into the Gaza Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2105, respectively.

According to the reports, Israel’s recent easing of restrictions imposed on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave are aimed at facilitating the Egyptian mission of securing a prisoner exchange deal and achieving a long-term truce.

The Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was personally involved in the contacts to achieve a Hamas-Israel deal.

The Palestinian Authority unremittingly teaches Palestinians - and in particular youth - that all of Israel is “Palestine” and that Israel has no right to exist in any borders. One way the PA instills the message is through activities in summer camps arranged by the PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports.

This year too, Palestinian children were taught that there is no Israel but only “occupied Palestine” as they spent time drawing maps in which all of Israel and the PA areas are painted as one country and in the colors of the Palestinian flag.

The following are maps of “Palestine” made by or shown to children in the PA summer camps which are run by the PLO:

A video showed drawings of the PA’s map that shows all of Israel and the PA areas as one “Palestine” made by children in PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports summer camps.

[Facebook page of the PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, Aug. 19, 2021]

Camp participants hold a drawing of the PA map of “Palestine” in the colors of the Palestinian flag. To the west of the map is written “The Mediterranean Sea,” to the north is written “Lebanon,” to the east is written “Jordan,” and to the south is written “The Gulf of Aqaba.”

The Palestinian Authority relentlessly indoctrinates the Palestinian population with the message that all of the State of Israel is “Palestine,” - delegitimizing Israel’s existence in any borders. The host on official PA TV recited a poem reiterating this ideology - that all of Israel is “Palestine” from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea:
Official PA TV host: “Haifa is mine, Jaffa is mine (i.e., Israeli cities), Al-Aqsa is mine, Jerusalem is mine, and my land is mine – from my [Jordan] River to my [Mediterranean] Sea.”

[Official PA TV, Good Morning Jerusalem, Aug. 20, 2021]

As Palestinian Media Watch has exposed, the phrase “from the river to the sea” is used regularly by PA officials to describe the area of “Palestine” – entirely erasing the existence of the State of Israel.

Among the PA institutions promoting this ideology is also the PA Presidential Guard. It posted this image of a girl holding a stone in the shape of the PA map of “Palestine”:

Iran urged the United States Saturday to stop its "addiction to sanctions" against the Islamic Republic and accused President Joe Biden of following the same "dead end" policies as his predecessor Donald Trump.

Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh made his remarks a day after the US Treasury announced financial sanctions against four Iranians accused of planning the kidnapping in the US of an American journalist of Iranian descent.

"Washington must understand that it has no other choice but to abandon its addiction to sanctions and show respect, both in its statements and in its behavior, towards Iran," Khatibzadeh said in a press release.

On Friday, the Treasury announced sanctions against "four Iranian intelligence operatives" involved in a campaign against Iranian dissidents abroad.

According to a US federal indictment in mid-July, the intelligence officers tried in 2018 to force Masih Alinejad's Iran-based relatives to lure her to a third country to be arrested and taken to Iran to be jailed.

The United States is prepared to be patient with Iran regarding the negotiations over a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the 2015 Iran nuclear deal), but “can’t wait forever,” according to US Special Representative to Iran Robert Malley.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV that aired on Sept. 3, Malley said that while the new Iranian government’s request for more time was understandable, its rapidly advancing nuclear program could render additional negotiations pointless.

“As [US] Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has said, we can’t wait forever as Iran continues its nuclear advances, because at some point their advances will be such as to make a return to the JCPOA much less valuable to the US than it would otherwise be. So, we’re prepared to be patient; we have been patient; we understand it’s a transition. We went through a transition as well. But let’s not drag this on for too long, because at some point, we’ll have to reach a different conclusion,” said Malley.

The sixth round of negotiations in Vienna over a possible return to the JCPOA wrapped up in June, and no date has yet been set for a seventh round of talks. Iran held presidential elections on June 18, and has argued that it needs more time to settle in the new government before returning to the nuclear talks.

An Australian federal court has overturned the dismissal of the pro-Iranian regime and anti-Israel academic Tim Anderson, who was fired for inserting a swastika in the middle of an Israeli flag, because it said his activity was an expression of free speech.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported in late August that Anderson’s, who was employed by the University of Sydney, was, according to the judges, “an expression of a legitimate view, open to debate, about the relative morality of the actions of Israel and Palestinian people.”

In 2019, Australia became the 33rd member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to adopt the organization's contemporary definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition defines comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel as antisemitic but the IHRA definition is not legally binding.

The Herald reported that the ruling reversed a previous decision “that had suggested academic freedom was merely an aspirational goal with no legal force and bolsters academics’ free speech rights nationally amid a focus on censorship on campuses.”

But the paper added that “it does not mean the lecturer, Tim Anderson, will ultimately win his legal campaign to get his job back because another judge now has to examine whether his conduct was within the bounds of academic freedom, or went too far.”

According to the Herald, justices Jagot and Rangiah said the swastika flag image was “deeply offensive and insensitive to Jewish people” and might express a “false moral equivalence comparing Israel to Nazi Germany."

The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during August 2021 shows that throughout the month a total of 142 incidents took place: 92 in Judea & Samaria, 25 in Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ and 25 in the Gaza Strip sector.

In Judea & Samaria, Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ the agency recorded 85 attacks with petrol bombs, eleven attacks using pipe bombs, one stabbing attack, nine shooting attacks (including rocket fire from Lebanon), one rock-throwing attack and ten arson attacks. In the Gaza Strip sector one pipe bomb attack, three petrol bomb attacks, two shooting attacks and 19 incidents of rocket/mortar fire took place.

One member of the security forces died after having been critically injured in a shooting attack in the Gaza Strip sector. The BBC News website published a one-sentence reference to that shooting attack nine days after it had taken place in an article on another topic, failing to name the member of the security forces who passed away.

One civilian was moderately injured in a rock-throwing attack on Route 60 on August 31st which did not receive any BBC coverage.

The incidents of rocket fire from Lebanon on August 4th and 6th did not receive any coverage on the BBC News website and neither did the August 16th rocket fire from the Gaza Strip – the first since Operation Guardian of the Walls in May. A shooting incident in Jenin was reported in a confusing manner with significant omissions. The BBC News website did not produce any reporting whatsoever in August about the renewal of violent rioting at the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Agence France Presse recently published an in-depth feature sanitizing the noisy Palestinian riots taking place at Beita as a unique grassroots effort, stripping them of their violent elements and ignoring their likeness to riots by the Gaza border. The article’s flaws are manifold, including the glaring failure to report the burning of a swastika inside a Star of David, a disturbing incident which drew the attention of the Israeli and Jewish press, but was universally ignored by the international mainstream media.

Full of obfuscations, AFP’s Aug. 25 report, “Palestinians forge ‘grassroots’ campaign wildcat settlement,” begins:
Using laser pointers and noisy horns to torment Jewish settlers across the valley, Palestinians in Beita have set themselves apart from others demonstrating against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

But beyond attention-grabbing tactics, protesters in the Palestinian town near Nablus insist their weeks-long campaign against the wildcat settlement of Eviatar is distinct for another reason.

They describe it as a grassroots movement, not inspired or directed by Fatah secularists who control the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, or their rivals from the Islamist Hamas that runs the Gaza Strip.

Among the article’s multiple blatant omissions is the fact that the Beita demonstrations are also characterized by the use of explosives and the burning of tires in addition to lasers and loud horns.

In addition, the article omits the striking case of the burning of a swastika combined with a Star of David, widely reported last month by multiple Israeli and Jewish media outlets, even as mainstream international media outlets completely ignored it. Palestinian Media Watch reported that organizers of the protest responded to criticism of the swastika with ugly vitriol, stating: “You [Israelis] are worse than Hitler and the Nazis … Yes, we want to burn you alive.”

Also ignored is the fact that far from “distinct,” the Beita riots’ tactics closely mirror the methods of the “night confusion” units which have been operating along Israel’s borders in the Hamas’-controlled Gaza Strip on and off for three years. In both Beita and along the Gaza border, rioters lob explosives, burn tires, shine blinding lasers, and blare high volume noise. In addition, the article’s depiction of the violent demonstrations as “grassroots,” with no connection to either Fatah or Hamas, is dubious considering that Fatah‘s fingerprints are all over them.

In an astounding match, Israel’s soccer team defeated their Austrian counterparts in the 2022 Qatar World Cup European Qualifiers.

The two teams met at Haifa’s Sammy Ofer Stadium for a fierce match, with the final score announced as 5-2 in Israel’s favor. The win marks a continued victory streak for Israel’s team, who also beat the Faroe Islands last week.

Despite this recent success, the blue-and-white are saying they will not succumb to overconfidence. “It’s hard to come down from this high but we have a crucial match coming up. I don’t even want to look at our World Cup chances, we have to just focus on Tuesday and go game to game and that is how we will continue,” player Eran Zahavi told the Jerusalem Post.

After sweeping up this victory, Israel’s soccer team is preparing for another match, progressing strongly through the ranks. They will take on Denmark’s team next, a strong contender who currently leads Group F in points. Israel sits at second place within, followed by Scotland and Austria.

As the Tokyo Paralympics draw to a close, Israel is bringing home an impressive nine medals, six of them gold, triple its medal haul from the Rio Paralympics in 2016 and the most gold medals it’s won since the 1988 Games.

After 12 days of competitions, the Paralympics came to an end on Sunday with a colorful, circus-like closing ceremony. But none of the Israeli delegation stuck around to take part in the ceremony, opting instead to return home before the start of Rosh Hashanah, which begins Monday evening.

Israel, which sent 33 athletes to compete across 11 sports, won nine medals at the Games, its highest total since 2004 in Athens, when it took home 13 medals. Six of Israel’s medals this year were gold, which is the highest figure since the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul.

All but one of Israel’s Tokyo Paralympic medals came in swimming, where three Israeli swimmers — Mark Malyar, Ami Dadaon and Iyad Shalabi — dominated the waters and the podium, each shattering world records along the way. The trio landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday afternoon, where they were greeted by cheers, balloons, posters and plenty of singing and dancing.

Shalabi, 34, a native of Shfaram who was born deaf and became paralyzed after falling off a roof as a child, brought home two gold medals — in the 100m backstroke and 50m backstroke in S1, the most severe disability category. The Tokyo Games were Shalabi’s fourth time appearing at the Paralympics, but his first time winning a medal. His achievement also marked the first time that an Arab Israeli took home a medal at either the Olympics or the Paralympics.

Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered a 2,000-year-old stone quarry, along with a range of massive building blocks in various stages of the pre-construction process, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Sunday.

The large quarry discovered in the modern-day industrial park of Har Hotzvim, which means “quarrymen’s hill,” likely dates to the first century BCE and would have been active around the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, archaeologists say.

“The large-scale building projects in ancient Jerusalem, such as the Temple Mount, required a vast amount of building materials and the ability to organize and coordinate the quarrying and transportation of thousands of building blocks to the ancient city,” said Moran Hagbi, the excavation’s director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The partially excavated quarry covers approximately 600 square meters but archaeologists say it could be at least two or three times as large.

The massive building blocks extracted from it measure 1.5 x 2 meters and provide “a clear demonstration of all the phases of quarrying and stone preparation,” the IAA said in a statement.

“We uncovered large, square blocks of stone about to be detached from the bedrock, prior to loading and transporting them to the ancient city,” Hagbi said, adding that the quarry “presents a golden opportunity; because some of the stones were left in situ in this way, we can copy ancient technologies and experiment with them in order to recreate the processes by which the building stones were quarried.”

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported Sunday that Israel’s population topped 9.3 million this year, growing by 146,000 people from the year before in a rise of 1.6 percent.

There are now 9,391,000 people living in the Jewish state, according to the CBS figures published ahead of Rosh Hashanah, which begins Monday evening. The number is expected to pass 10 million by the end of 2024.

The population comprises more than 6.94 million Jews, or 74%; over 1.98 million Arabs, who account for 21%; and another 466,000 people of other ethnic groups, 5% of the population.

The figures show 172,000 babies were born and there were 48,000 deaths — including around 5,800 from the coronavirus — in the 11.5 (Gregorian calendar) months since Rosh Hashanah last year.

Life expectancy is 80.7 years for Israeli men and 84.8 years for women, the CBS said.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the vast curbs on international travel have had a significant impact on immigration. There were 19,676 immigrants who arrived in Israel during 2020, a dramatic 40.8% drop from 2019 when there were more than 33,000 new arrivals.

There are now 15.2 million Jews worldwide, a 100,000 increase from the year before, according to the Jewish Agency.

In statistics published ahead of Rosh Hashanah, which begins Monday evening, the Jewish Agency said 8.2 million Jews live outside Israel, with the largest population in the United States, which has around 6 million Jews. In Israel, there are 6.93 million Jews, accounting for 45.3 percent of world Jewry, according to the research, which was compiled by Prof. Sergio Della Pergola of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Following Israel and the US, the countries with the largest number of Jews are France (446,000), Canada (393,500), Britain (292,000), Argentina (175,000), Russia (150,000), Germany (118,000) and Australia (118,000).

The Jewish Agency said there 27,000 Jews living in Arab and Muslim states, with 14,500 in Turkey, 9,500 in Iran, 2,000 in Morocco and 1,000 in Tunisia.

Reminder that the Jewish population in 1939 was 16.6 million. https://t.co/IeVKn9aTzB

— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 5, 2021

Addressing not just the people of Israel, but the world’s Diaspora Jews, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog released a holiday greetings video.

“I would like to extend my warmest wishes on behalf of the State of Israel and its people for a Shana Tova, Happy New Year, to you and your loved ones,” Herzog announced, commemorating the upcoming holiday of Rosh Hashana. The celebration, which opens the new year of 5782 in the Jewish calendar, begins on the evening of September 6 in Israel.

In his speech, Herzog emphasized the dependence shared by Jewish individuals on their communities, as well as the connection between Jews within Israel and abroad, calling them his “brothers and sisters.”

“I will be praying for the well-being of my immediate family, as well as my extended family, the people of Israel, and the Jewish People at large,” he stated, wishing those “from around the world a year of health and coming together.”

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett: "Shalom from Jerusalem! I'd like to wish the Jewish people around the world Shana Tova and a happy New Year!" pic.twitter.com/SQhpvrmc4h

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 5, 2021

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Continuing on my research into how newspapers in the 18th century reported about Jews, I see lots of stories of European countries imposing taxes specifically on their Jewish populations.

The Caledonian Mercury, Edinburgh, Scotland, Sunday, December 1, 1726, reporting from Warsaw:

Same newspaper, October 14, 1728, reporting from Hamburg:

 Pennsylvania Gazette, Philadelphia, March 5, 1730:

 The Newcastle Weekly Courant, England, Tuesday, July 25, 1730:

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Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics came out with its annual Rosh Hashanah report on Israeli and worldwide Jewish populations.

This year, there are 6,940,000 Jews living in Israel, compared to 15,200,000 Jews worldwide. 

This means that 45.7% of all Jews live in Israel, today.

I looked at the Jewish population worldwide and in Israel since 1970. Here is my graph, with a forecast going to the year 2030:

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From the The Morning Chronicle London, September 23, 1805 :

I confess I don't know what a "white fast" or "black fast" are. I've seen some refer to Yom Kippur as a "white fast" because Jews wear white on that day, with Tisha B'Av being a "black fast," but that clearly isn't the meaning here.  I cannot figure out what they are talking about, especially saying that the "White Fast" lasts a week and the "Black Fast" several days.

The Aberdeen Journal and General Advertiser for the North of Scotland had essentially the same article two weeks later, replacing "Yesterday" with "Saturday last."

20 years later the London Morning Post of  September 17, 1825 had a much better description of the Jewish holidays of the month of Tishrei, showing that not much has changed in the last 196 years.

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When I first asked Corinne Snow if I could talk to her for a piece about grassroots efforts to evacuate and aid Afghan refugees, she demurred. She told me, “I would be more than happy to talk to you but I don’t feel comfortable being highlighted. There are private citizens chartering planes, putting themselves in harm’s way, doing incredible things and I’m just sending emails and texts in between feeding my baby while on maternity leave. I would just feel really foolish taking credit when there are people out there doing really heroic stuff.”

Snow wasn’t alone in her humility; every single person involved in the efforts to rescue Afghans who I asked to talk to for this piece felt similarly.

While Snow may not be chartering planes, her efforts have contributed to the successful evacuations of Afghan families and individuals and more than 8,000 items purchased off of Amazon wishlists she put together for U.S. troops and refugees in conjunction with troops stationed in nearby Qatar. Alongside countless other Americans, Snow played a vital role in getting as many Afghani allies out as possible following the quick and dramatic fall of the government to the Taliban.

None of the individuals I spoke with could pinpoint the moment they became involved: Sometime in the past several weeks, they started to receive requests for help from both those still inside Afghanistan and from individuals around the world who cared about people there. Message after message rolled in, and eventually groups of individuals with connections in the military, on the ground, in the government, or just concerned citizens were formed on WhatsApp and Signal.

Snow worked with another woman, Simone Ledeen, who described her grassroots work as being a communications hub and facilitating connections between parties. Ledeen was the perfect woman for the job. Thanks to spending more than a year in Afghanistan across two deployments — one that brought her around the country, and one stationed in Kabul — Ledeen had a large and varied number of contacts on the ground. A former government employee, Ledeen has an extensive network in government in Washington, D.C., as well, all of which she harnessed over the past two weeks as she worked to connect those who needed help with those who would have a hope of providing it.

At the end of the 1990s, Shiite Iran and the Sunni Taliban nearly went to war. However, the Iranians also pursued a strategy of supplying Taliban units with arms and cash as well as training Taliban fighters, using the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Iran later deployed the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division in Syria, which became the largest external militia involved in the fighting there. Both Iran and the Taliban were committed to seeing U.S. power in Afghanistan weakened. But now that the Americans are gone, does there remain a basis for Iranian-Afghan cooperation?

Will Iran seek to add the demographic weight of Shiite communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan to its cause?

Iran's primary security interests in Afghanistan are to prevent terrorist infiltration. As of now, Iran regards ISIS as the most significant terrorist threat. According to American reports, the Afghan branch of ISIS has conducted many terrorist attacks against civilian Shiite targets in Afghanistan. The American withdrawal is liable to strengthen ISIS in Afghanistan and reinforce its activity against the Shiite community or Iranian targets.

Iran also wants to safeguard its economic interests as the largest exporter to Afghanistan, one of Iran's largest markets for non-oil exports. Another important Iranian interest is the free flow of water from Afghanistan to Iran - a matter of dispute between the two countries. The Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan to the Sistan region in Iran, supplies water for about a million people.

The improved relations between Iran and the Taliban, despite the ideological and religious differences and the Shiite-Sunni rift, reflect a large degree of realpolitik. As long as its security and economic interests are preserved, Iran is not expected to support the Taliban's opponents or engage in subversive activity in Afghanistan.

No joke: U.N. Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths meets Taliban chief Mullah Baradar in Kabul, the terrorist group's highest-level meeting with an international figure.

If the Taliban win U.N. recognition, they inherit the Afghan seat on the U.N. Women's Rights Commission. https://t.co/oT3xzGEKirpic.twitter.com/548O4usQzw

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 5, 2021

The State Department says there is little it can do to help Americans and at-risk Afghans whose planes are reportedly grounded at an airport as the Taliban prevents them from leaving the country.

At least six chartered planes are attempting to evacuate these Americans and others from Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport, but the Taliban is reportedly preventing them from taking off. Since it evacuated U.S. military forces and diplomatic personnel from the war-torn country, the Biden administration has not had the resources necessary to ensure that flights chartered by nonprofit groups and others can depart Afghanistan.

"We do not have personnel on the ground, we do not have air assets in the country, we do not control the airspace—whether over Afghanistan or elsewhere in the region," a State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. "We understand the concern that many people are feeling as they try to facilitate further charter and other passage out of Afghanistan."

While the State Department says it has little to no information about the situation but is pressing the Taliban to make good on its promise to allow Americans to leave the country, Republican lawmakers are now raising the alarm that the Taliban is grounding planes as leverage to extract concessions from the Biden administration.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has received classified briefings on the matter, told Fox News on Sunday morning that there are hundreds of American still trapped in Afghanistan and that the "Taliban want something in exchange" for letting these people leave.

McCaul has been tracking the situation and says the State Department cleared these flights to leave, but that the Taliban is responsible for stopping them. The State Department reportedly confirmed to Congress that flights from Mazar-i-Sharif are being held until the Taliban gives its approval.

McCaul says the planes have been stuck at the airport for the past several days and include American passengers, as well as Afghans who are trying to flee the Taliban, which has been trying to detain those citizens who worked with the United States and other coalition forces during the 20-year operation there.

“Around 1,000 people, including dozens of American citizens and Afghans holding visas to United States or other countries, remained stuck in Afghanistan for the fifth day on Sunday as they awaited clearance for the departure from the Taliban.” #USHostageshttps://t.co/YVv8pUucAe

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 6, 2021

From org funding: “There’s only one way to get all the US citizens, legal permanent residents, and our allies out of Afghanistan. DoS & DHS needs to work with the private efforts to get permission from 3rd countries & provide them to Taliban for aircraft to be able to take off”

— Alex Plitsas ???? (@alexplitsas) September 6, 2021

The US and the EU should not buy Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's fake pro-Western posture (such as when he offered to run the Kabul airport, then fled) or his fake anti-radicalism (such as when he is courting the Afghan terrorists). Erdogan's strategy, as a member of NATO, is clearly to bolster Russia's and China's plans for the future of Afghanistan.

Iran, for its part, seems to be hoping to hit two birds with one stone: by systematically facilitating the journey of illegal Afghans to Turkey and toward Greece, it might destabilize both Turkey and Europe.

"The persistence of Erdogan's relationship with Hekmatyar illustrates that it was wishful thinking to believe that Erdogan was ever anything more than a jihadi in a business suit, no matter how many diplomats projected their hopes of change on him."— Michael Rubin, Middle East expert, Washington Examiner, August 11, 2021.

Now, due to Erdogan's long-term anti-Western ideology, he will probably be tempted to seek an alliance with whichever pro-sharia group(s) will, in the near future, be governing Afghanistan.

Afghan Ambassador to China Javid Qaem: The International Community – Especially China – Can Be Very Helpful to Afghanistan, It Should Maintain Its Role Even After the U.S. Pullout #Afghanistan#China@JavidQaem#Talibanpic.twitter.com/HJvQDUAyrP

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 6, 2021

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid praised the Biden administration’s evacuation of Afghanistan during a Monday call with United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in what appeared to be an attempt to paper over criticism he voiced over the withdrawal last week.

Lapid and Blinken also discussed Israeli efforts to ease pressure in the Gaza Strip while maintaining security, and Iran’s nuclear program. The two agreed to meet next month, Lapid’s office said.

The call came days after Lapid publicly lobbed criticism at the Biden administration’s Afghanistan pullout, despite Prime Minister Naftali Bennett being fresh off a visit to Washington in which the administrations sought to display warm ties and a shift from the public tiffs of past governments.

“The minister expressed his deep appreciation for the US effort in Afghanistan, especially with regard to the extraordinary evacuation operation,” Lapid’s office said in its readout of the call Monday.

Lapid told reporters on Wednesday that the withdrawal “was probably the right decision maybe that wasn’t performed in the right manner.”

“I think the entire globe was concerned, and first and foremost the Americans themselves. It didn’t happen the way it was supposed to happen,” he said.

Egypt's President al-Sisi called me tonight to wish the Israeli people a happy #RoshHaShanah. We discussed bilateral issues and shared national interests. I thanked President al-Sisi for his important role pursuing regional stability and peace and we agreed to stay in contact????????

— ???? ????? Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) September 5, 2021

Indian authorities have issued a countrywide alert due to intelligence information that Jews may be targeted by terrorist groups during the high holidays.

Indian English-language paper the Economic Times reported that the alert was issued to police officials across the country, and stated, “Jewish holiday to start on September 6 onwards as per intel input terror groups can again target Israeli citizens or Jewish sites which hold religious value.”

An official was reported saying, “We have shared the alert with various police forces across the country. And if required then the security of such establishments will be increased.”

In accordance with the warning, security personnel have been deployed to Jewish and Israeli sites, particularly in New Delhi. The sites include everything from the Israeli embassy to kosher restaurants to synagogues.

Islamist terror groups, often sponsored by Pakistan, are active in India, and have committed antisemitic attacks in the past.

These atrocities have included the mass-casualty attacks in Mumbai in 2008, which among other sites targeted a Chabad center, and a small bomb detonated near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi in January of this year.

A massive manhunt is underway for six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from the Gilboa prison in Israel's North using a tunnel. “Overnight, we received a number of reports about suspicious figures in agricultural fields and from the prison service, which discovered very quickly that prisoners were missing from their cells and that six escaped,” police spokesman Eli Levy said.

Police, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Border Police and troops from two IDF companies as well as Special Forces are taking part in the manhunt, and have placed some 200 roadblocks throughout the country to catch the escapees. Security forces are also utilizing special units in the search involving dogs and aerial support.

“Our goal is to catch and arrest them. As long as there is a possibility that they are in Israel,” he said.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that troops in the West Bank have been alerted to the escape and are on high alert.

Walla! News reported that two of the escapees crossed into Jordan and of the four that remain in Israel, two are hiding out in the Druze town of Majdal Shams on the Syrian border.

Police are also investigating the possibility that the escapees may have managed to escape to Jenin.

Zakaria Zubeidi, one of the six Palestinian inmates who escaped from Gilboa Prison in northern Israel, was one of the “symbols” of the Second Intifada, which erupted in September 2000.

The five other escapees, all members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), are less known to the Palestinian and Israeli public. But all six men were involved, directly and indirectly, in a series of terrorist attacks against Israelis.

Zubeidi, who once called himself a peace activist, was known for his close relations with several Israelis, including journalists covering Palestinian affairs. He would regularly call some journalists to brief them on the latest developments in the Jenin area or to invite them to interview him and his friends.

His mother and brother were reportedly killed in separate incidents involving IDF soldiers who raided the Jenin refugee camp, where the family lives.

The 45-year-old became one of the leaders of Fatah’s armed wing the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the camp and the Jenin area, years after he had been recruited to the Palestinian Authority security forces.

He and his men were known for imposing a reign of terror and intimidation on many Palestinians in the Jenin area, especially businessmen and merchants who were forced to pay protection money to the Fatah gangsters.

Zakaria Zubeidi arranged the 2002 Beit She’an terror attack that targeted a polling station. Six Israeli civilians — including Yaakov Lary, a newly married father-to-be — were killed, and over 40 were wounded.

Terrorists like Zubeidi are the heroes of media darling @m7mdkurd. https://t.co/sLGYsmRwKlpic.twitter.com/WibmD4ljQv

— Akiva van Koningsveld (@koningsveld) September 6, 2021

Senior Fatah official Munir Al-Jaghoub, head of the Fatah Mobilization and Organization Commission’s Information Office, celebrated the escape of six terrorists from Gilboa Prison this morning with a post he published on his Facebook page and Twitter account:
[Facebook page of Munir Al-Jaghoub, Sept. 6, 2021]

“Zakariya Zubeidi – the dragon defeats the hunter

Great freedom, the dream of freedom, and striving for it are the prisoners’ dream. This is a true challenge to the Israeli security system that boasts of being the best in the world. Gilboa Prison is the most complicated prison in their security system, but 6 heroes succeeded in breaking this system of the occupation. Blessings to you, O heroes, and may God keep the eyes of the [Israeli] agents and plants away from you.

And this occupation has one end – to pass.”

Zakariya Zubeidi is a terrorist who commanded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah’s terror wing, in Jenin. In the indictment that was submitted against him, he was accused of committing a long list of terror crimes.

Another terrorist Fatah “hero” who was a partner in the escape from Gilboa Prison, and who was also termed a “hero” by Al-Jaghoub, is Ayham Kamamji who murdered young Eliyahu Ashri in 2006, and planned to blow up a bus filled with passengers using an exploding car carrying a massive explosive approximately 100 kilograms in weight.

Yet another terrorist Fatah “hero” who escaped from Gilboa Prison is Muhammad Ardah, an Islamic Jihad member who was put on trial and convicted for his part in initiating and executing a suicide bombing on Nov. 29, 2001, in which 3 people were murdered and many others were wounded.

Palestinian groups, including Fatah, welcome the escape of the 6 prisoners from Gilboa Prison: 'A blow to the Israeli security system.' pic.twitter.com/I9njK2UczS

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 6, 2021

The haunting cover of @LIFE Magazine, #OnThisDay 1972, after 11 #Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the #MunichMassacre in the 1972 @Olympics! pic.twitter.com/mIiWPFUZn3

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 5, 2021

Murdered by criminals because they were Jewish.#MunichMassacrepic.twitter.com/6ANOz0JVdg

— RedLehi (@LehiRed) September 5, 2021

Palestinian Authority says 14 officers who beat activist Nizar Banat to death have been indicted and will go on trial in the next 48 hours. The officers belong to the Preventive Security Service. pic.twitter.com/Qtq5MB97S9

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 5, 2021

A Jordanian soldier killed in the 1967 Six Day War was given a military funeral and laid to rest in East Jerusalem on Monday, in an extraordinary scene that pointed to improved ties between Israel and Jordan after years of tensions.

The soldier’s remains were discovered last month during construction work at Ammunition Hill, the site of a famous battle between Israeli and Jordanian forces.

Funeral prayers were held at the Al-Aqsa mosque and a Jordanian honor guard in uniform, with red-checkered headscarves wrapped around their faces, carried the casket to a nearby Islamic cemetery.

Jordanian military officers and government officials, as well as Palestinian representatives, attended the funeral.

Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war. The Palestinians want both territories to be part of their future state, a position with strong Jordanian support.

The kingdom gave up its territorial claims decades ago but remains the custodian of Al-Aqsa and other religious sites in East Jerusalem.

According to a Reuters report, “the United States has been in talks with Egypt and Jordan over a plan to ease Lebanon's power crisis. The Lebanese presidency has said it involves using Egyptian gas to generate power in Jordan that would be transmitted via Syria, which is under US sanctions including the so-called Caesar act.”

That means that Syria is basically saying to the US that either it will facilitate Iranian gasoline going to Lebanon or seek US support to go against America’s own sanctions, to enable Syria to bring in gas and electricity from Jordan and Egypt, empowering the Syrian regime as it becomes the new boss of Lebanon’s electric and gas needs. This is a brilliant maneuver for Syria. Egypt has been hinting it wants to bring Syria back into the fold. In addition, the Gulf states, Jordan and Iraq want a stable Syria and have also put out feelers to increase Damascus’ role in the Arab league and welcome it back into the Arab camp. The point is that the Syrian regime was sidelined by the war and many countries even worked with rebel groups.

Today, there is no appetite for more Syrian rebels. Countries want regimes and stability. No one wants the extremism of power vacumes. But Syria’s regime, backed by Russia and Iran wants things too. It wants trade, legitimacy and cash. It knows that relying on Iran is like a poor man relying on another pauper. Iran is under sanctions too. Syria wants the legitimacy that comes with brokering a deal with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon with quiet or tacit US support. This is the magic wand around US sanctions. And Iranian gas can flow as well to help Hezbollah.

Everyone wins, in the Syrian regime view. Hezbollah wins. Iran wins. Egypt and Jordan can also get things. Iraq may win as well, as trucks from Iran transit Iraq to Albukamal.

A hidden aside to this may be why Russia brokered the deal in Dara’a that ended months of fighting and saw 50,000 people displaced. Now Dara’a is quiet. The short-lived rebellion there, the first since the regime retook the area in 2018, was a threat to Damascus and its image. Now, with Russia as a broker again in southern Syria, gas and energy can transit from Jordan. Big money and influence may be at stake.

Regional media sense that something is afoot. Al-Jarida in Kuwait noted that this was the first Lebanese visit of this kind since 2011. “This visit, the first since 2011, has two objectives; The first is technical-economic research related to the import of Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity through Syrian territory. The second is political, giving victory to Hezbollah and an opportunity for President Michel Aoun to strengthen his political position, based on his relationship and his openness to Syria.”

Al-Alam in Iran noted that “after the Syrian-Lebanese talks session at the Syrian Foreign Ministry building, Majdi al-Khoury said: ‘The Lebanese side requested the possibility of Syria's assistance to Lebanon in passing Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity through Syrian territory. The Syrian side welcomed the request and confirmed Syria's readiness to meet that.’”

Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) approved the list of ministers presented by President Ibrahim Raisi on August 25, 2021. Most ministers are considered conservative, some are on the U.S. government’s sanctions list, and some are accused of international terrorism, such as Ahmed Vahidi, the interior minister, who served as defense minister in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government and is wanted for his role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) building in Argentina.

The composition of Raisi’s conservative government reflects an expected shift in Iran’s policy in the regional and international arenas. The conservative “capture” of the executive branch effectively completed their takeover of all the centers of government (the government, Parliament, and the judiciary) and left the reform camp outside the decision-making processes and power centers in Iran.

Iran’s new government is more coordinated and in sync with the Supreme Leader’s office and the revolutionary policies it dictates. A tougher line is expected on foreign issues – mainly around the nuclear talks and Iran’s regional policy, especially regarding the strength and scope of its support for the “Resistance Camp.”

For Iran, “Palestine” is just one piece of the complex puzzle of a regional strategy to build the Axis of Resistance from the Persian Gulf, through Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Each arena has its own “toolbox,” and the expertise and experience of Hizbullah-Lebanon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force are copied from arena to arena.

Former Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer told Israeli daily Israel Hayom in an interview published Sunday that the world will allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, leaving Israel to contend with the threat alone.

Dermer, who served as ambassador for seven years under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was Israel’s man in Washington through some of the most tumultuous years of the Israel-US relationship, including the intense split between Netanyahu and former president Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear deal.

“In no uncertain terms, the world will allow it to happen,” Dermer said of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“No one wanted North Korea and Pakistan to get nuclear weapons, but it happened. [Former US President Barack] Obama and [current US President Joe] Biden also don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but it will happen if we [Israel] doesn’t stop it,” he asserted.

“The Iranians want to turn Israel into South Korea, and Tel Aviv into Seoul,” Dermer said. “They want to surround us with a conventional ring of precision weapons and create a balance of terror so that any time someone fires a rocket from Gaza, you will think twice before responding.”

“In year 15 of the nuclear deal, when your expectation is that the international community will prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapon, [Iran’s] conventional might will be such that people will say, ‘Now it’s already too late to stop them. They will destroy Tel Aviv,’” he said.

Iranian Political Analyst Emad Abshenas: U.S. May Have Been behind the 9/11 Attacks; Biden Wanted the Kabul Airport Bombings, He Does Not Really Care about American Lives; His Main Concern – to Undermine the Security of #China, #Russia, and #Iran#NineEleven#KabulAirportpic.twitter.com/Xn3T7JJyxR

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 6, 2021

“Made in America” - Video Aired by Pro-Iran Iraqi Militia TV Channel Purports to illustrate That U.S. Soldiers Orchestrate ISIS Executions #Iraq#Iran#ISIS#terroristspic.twitter.com/j9Iu80dTy8

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 6, 2021

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The Jerusalem Post is proud to present its 2021 list of the 50 Most Influential Jews.

Many people influence the world we live in and impact our daily lives.

This year, we strived to create a list showcasing the diversity of the Jewish nation while highlighting people from all walks of life – government, art, medicine, literature and science.

1 Israel's Changemakers Naftali Bennett & Yair Lapid
2 The Diplomat Antony Blinken
3 America's COVID Warrior Rochelle P. Walensky
4 King of the Cure Albert Bourla
5 Intel Czar Avril Haines
6 Mr. President Isaac Herzog
7 Leading Global Jewry Ronald Lauder
8 Mrs. Unicorn Eynat Guez
9 Britain's Fighters for Justice Michael Ellis & Lucy Frazer
10 Prime Opposition Benjamin Netanyahu

'Bahraini first:' Houda Nonoo on the Middle East's new era of peace - The Jerusalem Post https://t.co/uKLrMKxlIo

— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) September 6, 2021

When Jews were being beaten in the streets of New York and Los Angeles by Muslim thugs, she signed a letter in support of the anti-Israel movement while insisting it wasn’t anti-semitic.

“We refuse to allow the continued and inaccurate conflation of antisemitism with speech critical of Israel,” the letter signed by Elyse Wechterman, the executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, huffed even while Jews who had been assaulted still lay in the hospital.

“Palestinian liberation and dismantling antisemitism are intertwined,” the letter claimed, which was a lot like insisting that Nazism and dismantling antisemitism were intertwined.

Its examples of the “Palestinian Freedom Movement” that it was defending against charges of anti-semitism included the BDS movement and a user name calling for the destruction of Israel.

"The Israeli government must be held accountable for its continued violations of Palestinian human rights," the letter ranted while insisting that the signers would support support the right of anti-Israel activists “to describe their lived experiences without being accused of antisemitism.”

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Fritz Berggren, our 'Antisemite of the Week', is an antisemitic, racist homophobe that works in the U.S. Department of State.

His white supremacist bigoted views are well known

Why in the world is he STILL employed with you @SecBlinken@StateDeptSpox ?https://t.co/s3KoL3Ysuopic.twitter.com/VxdTZRpPzL

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 5, 2021

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is being urged to clarify her government’s position on antisemitism after it emerged Holyrood’s power-sharing partners believe Zionism is a “racist ideology”.

In 2015 the Scottish Greens approved a motion that declared Hamas was not a terrorist organisation while branding Israel an “apartheid state”.

Antisemitism campaigners voiced concerns the party was now in power in Scotland while Scottish Conservatives called for the First Minister to condemn the “shameful stance”.

The Scottish government adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in full in 2018 but the policy of its new junior partner appears to be a clear breach of that definition.

Policy Motion 2, voted through by Scottish Greens in 2015, has never been rescinded. It was debated and voted on at conference on a Saturday, excluding participation by observant Jews.

It condemns Israel’s claim to be the “Jewish state” and brands Zionism a “racist ideology based on Jewish supremacy in Palestine”. It accuses Israel of being an “unacceptable” “apartheid” state.

It goes on to demand Israel repeal its law of return for Jews, while backing the right of return for all Palestinian Arabs and their descendants.

It declares that Hamas should no longer be designated as a terrorist organisation and offers its support for the anti-Israel BDS boycott movement.

The Leader of Calderdale Council has refused to act against a fellow councillor who organised an anti-Israel rally last month, where it was reported that antisemitic chanting and a sign bearing a swastika were present, causing outrage.

Labour Party Cllr Tim Swift was urged by members from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to take action against councillor and Cabinet member Jenny Lynn, who organised the event in Halifax, and who was allegedly filmed raising her fist in the air while the crowd chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

The chant, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, only makes sense as a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state – and its replacement with a State of Palestine – and is thus an attempt to deny Jews, uniquely, the right to self-determination.

It was also said that a sign depicting swastikas alongside former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a wanted poster was present.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, which Calderdale Council has adopted, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” and “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” are both examples of antisemitism.

It is understood that one of the invited speakers at the event was the disgraced conspiracy theorist Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer who, in 2015, was ordered by the Church of England to stop using social media after he claimed that an Israeli conspiracy was behind 9/11, which the Church denounced as “clearly antisemitic”.

The Taliban has returned to power in Afghanistan. Iran is racing toward a nuclear weapon. Lebanon is on the brink of collapse, as Hezbollah — the Iranian proxy — stands to gain even more power, ready to unleash 130,000 rockets and precision missiles on Israel.

Despite all these realities, anti-Israel activist Osama Abuirshaid stood outside the White House on August 26, protesting President Biden’s meeting with new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

“Israel,” Abuirshaid said, “is the real danger to stability and peace in the Middle East.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad argued at the same protest, that welcoming Bennett was as bad as welcoming the Taliban:
Imagine if [the] Taliban forms the government, [and] continues to do what it was doing to the people in Afghanistan before they were defeated in 2001,” Awad said. “And they became national and international leaders, and if the president of the United States, President Joe Biden, decides to host in the White House the leader of [the] Taliban, what would be the reaction of the US media? What would be the reaction from the public? What would be the reaction of politicians by the fact that Joe Biden would be hosting the leader of [the] Taliban? … Today it’s no different. President Joe Biden is hosting the leader of the Israeli Taliban. Joe Biden is hosting the leader of the settler colonial movement in Israel.

The White House meeting, Awad said, sent “a message to the world that Israel is an exception, Israel can abuse human rights because it has an agency on Capitol Hill that pours money in the pockets of candidates and congresspeople. And that’s what matters. What matters is not that people are being killed and maimed and bombed, and their houses are being destroyed on their heads by US-made weapon supplied to Israel.”

This won’t change, Awad, claimed, because “there’s money pouring in the pockets of people like Joe Biden to become candidates and to maintain the status quo.”

In other words, Jewish money is driving American policy.

Leaked lecture recordings reveal embattled Bristol professor David Miller labelling Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi “effectively an asset of the British state”.

While discussing counter-terror policy, Prof Miller said Mr Abedi was “taken to Libya by the British, the British allowed him to go to Libya,” and that this “illustrates blowback in the most extraordinary way for the government.”

Mr Abedi returned from Libya in 2014 after fighting for an Islamist group. Three years later he detonated a homemade bomb at the Manchester Arena, killing 23.

Prof Miller’s comments came during a lecture on ‘state terror’.

In reference to the Syrian Civil War, he said: “The government have supported the moderate armed opposition…

“In other countries Britain is supporting [Islamic terrorism] while opposing it here.”

The controversial professor of sociology also mentioned 2015 reports from Turkish pro-government media outlets that a British spy helped to smuggle British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, into Syria.

Women who wanted to join Isis were “escorted across the border by British intelligence,” said Prof Miller, “for who knows what purpose we can only guess.”

“Never believe what the government says without thinking it through,” he added.

Prof Miller may be set to face a hearing as early as next week after being under investigation since March.

.@SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi has turned her campus into a dangerous place for Jewish and Zionist students and she'll tell you just that: "I consider the statement...welcoming Zionists to campus...to be a declaration of war."https://t.co/Mbdrb1S2dbpic.twitter.com/YKGLy17o7U

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) September 6, 2021

Instagram users may not necessarily be heading online in search of antisemitic content but many are finding it, a new report has warned.

Analysis published Monday by the Community Security Trust (CST) and the Antisemitism Policy Trust (APT) suggests online users may be accessing antisemitic content regardless of their “intentions and chosen search terms.”

“For antisemitic content, this would appear to represent supply rather than demand,” warns their report based on research carried out last year by data scientists at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge.

Dozens of hashtags containing antisemitism or links to Jew-hate were viewed tens of thousands of times on the platform over a seven-week period, the report found.

Experts combing the social media network for antisemitic material found it often appeared in hashtags attached to seemingly unrelated posts.

Hashtags containing or associated with antisemitism also featured alongside hashtags related to conspiracy theories concerning chemtrails, 5G and paedophilia.

“In this way, antisemitic terms and tropes appear to be, in some cases, deployed almost randomly by users alongside other forms of discriminatory, hateful or conspiratorial hashtags.

“These posts can, of course, also act as a resource or gateway to further racist content,” the report warns.

Researchers also found a “strong association” with antisemitism on the platform and anti-Israel attitudes.

Today, along with @CST_UK, we publish a new report revealing the supply of antisemitic #chaos to users of Instagram. The research, conducted by @Woolf_Institute explores the relationship between #antisemitism and #conspiracy theories on the platform. #onlinesafetybill#onlineharm

— Antisemitism Policy Trust (@antisempolicy) September 5, 2021

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Thani, recently approved the first semi-democratic elections for the country’s parliament (the Shura Council), which are to be held in October 2021. In the past, the emir himself has appointed the 45 Council members. He is now ready to allow the popular election of 30 of them, though he is retaining the power to appoint the remaining 15.

Ostensibly, this is a positive step toward democracy in the autocratic emirate of Qatar. Yet many have argued that these reforms are intended for Western consumption ahead of the soccer World Cup, which is to be held in Qatar next year.

As a criterion for participation in the planned elections, it was determined that anyone whose original citizenship is Qatari and who has reached the age of 18 will have the right to vote. Those who have received Qatari citizenship, meaning individuals who have been naturalized and are not originally Qatari, will not be eligible to participate.

According to Article 1 of the Qatari Nationality Law, original Qataris are those who settled in the emirate before 1930. As such, it effectively divides Qataris into first- and second-class citizens. This provision is especially discriminatory against the Mora tribe, one of Qatar’s largest, which only recently regained its citizenship after it was stripped for having supported the current Emir’s grandfather when he was deposed by his son in 1995.

Small wonder, then, that the Nationality Law has infuriated the people, who have taken to the streets in protest. The demonstrations have resulted in many arrests. This is the first time such demonstrations have been seen in the Persian Gulf in many years.

During the “Arab Spring,” the Qatari cable news network Al Jazeera incited people across the Arab world to rise up against their regimes, from Egypt to Libya to Syria to Yemen. The network urged the Arab masses to take to the streets and unseat leaderships in the name of democracy, individual rights, and freedom.

The Associated Press last month faced criticism after HonestReporting highlighted how the wire service appeared to minimize the severity of arson balloon attacks on Israel by Gaza Strip-based rioters, some of whom have ties to or are members of US-designated terrorist groups.

In an August 23 article, AP described those who launched the incendiary devices as “activists” even though the attacks had sparked “at least three fires.” In the same piece, the Gazan who murdered border police officer Barel Shmueli was described as a “Palestinian activist.”

HonestReporting posted a screenshot of the offending article and drew attention to the Orwellian-like use of such language. Numerous users thereafter expressed shock that the AP would choose a word that so clearly misrepresents the reality of acts of violence against Israelis.

Hoping to get some clarity on why AP chose to frame its story in the way that it did, we reached out to Josef Federman, the outlet’s news director for Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. He explained that the issue we raised was one that his team was still grappling with and made clear that the use of the word “activists” in such a context is not editorial policy.

Furthermore, Federman argued that while incendiary balloons represent dangerous attacks, they are less potentially lethal than rockets or gunfire and the people that are launching them are, to AP’s knowledge, not trained terrorists.

This, despite the fact AP itself later acknowledged that this is indeed the case. While an AP article on August 25 only identified a Gazan killed during clashes as “a Palestinian man,” the text was later updated to read that “Hamas identified him as a member of its armed wing.”

Is that the only picture of tourists in Israel @Bloomberg could find? pic.twitter.com/ksZcqlJP9S

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 6, 2021

A nearly two-thousand word Sept. 2nd Guardian obituary for Mikis Theodorakis, written by Gail Holst-Warhaft, failed to note his record of explicit antisemitism.

Unlike the Guardian, an obituary in The Times devoted two paragraphs (in a much shorter piece) to Theodorakis’s anti-Jewish racism.

Though the Guardian obit for the Greek composer, best known writing the score to ‘Zorba the Greek‘, included great detail on his political activism, including his opposition to Greece’s military junta, it didn’t report that he was a self-proclaimed anti-Semite and – as the Guardian itself reported in 2003 – called Jews the “the root of all evil”. Additionally, he accused Jews of controlling “world music”, the banks, the media and the United States.

Theodorakis also alleged that Israeli policies towards the Palestinians were like that of the Nazis.

A 2014 survey of global antisemitic attitudes commissioned by Anti-Defamation League found that Greece had the highest percentage of antisemitic attitudes in the world outside of the Middle East.

@Jewishnews run a story about three British Jewish women who have suffered personal loss and how they remember their loved ones on the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur @BrightonBDS-"Yeah but Israel!!" pic.twitter.com/YJBd6zr6cK

— Self Declared Zionists (@SussexFriends) September 6, 2021

The Lach Yerushalayim organization and right-wing watchdog group Im Tirzu have contacted Facebook upon learning a Palestinian media outlet with over one million followers has been using the social media platform to incites terrorism online.

The network, by the name of Jerusalem Square, operates from the city, issuing daily reports on terrorist operatives killed or wounded while working against "operation forces."

In one such post on Aug. 12, the network commemorated the 27th anniversary of the "martyrdom" of terrorists who abducted Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman, a dual US-Israeli citizen, in 1994 and then murdered him when IDF forces attempted to rescue him.

On its Facebook page, the organization expresses support for these activists, glorifying them and campaigning for their release. The network also expresses support for imprisoned Sheik Raed Salah, head of the outlawed northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and the man believed to be behind the Facebook page.

An Israeli tourist was the victim of an antisemitic assault while vacationing in Italy.

Elad Forgash was shopping in the city of Pisa in Italy's Tuscan region on Aug. 31 when he entered a store to purchase a few sculptures as souvenirs from his trip.

"I started talking to the salesman while he wrapped up the sculptures. He told me he was from Bangladesh and asked where I was from, and I replied 'Israel.' He told me he hated Israel and the Jews because they are killers. I didn't get worked up about it. I just returned the bag with the sculptures and said I would rather not buy from him.

"When I turned around, he hit me in the head with the sculptures. Luckily, there were tourists who filmed him and he ran away, and the police and an ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital."

Elad said he suffered a fracture in his eye socket and his nose and would need to have surgery when he returned to Israel.

Police in Pisa are investigating the circumstances of the incident.

?? Jewish man assaulted in Italy by a Bangladeshi kiosk owner - Elad Forgash (sp) was shopping for souvenirs when the kiosk owner asked his origins

Forgash answered Israel when the Bangladeshi man started screaming "I hate Israel, Jews are murderers" and physically attacked him pic.twitter.com/xA6YahvJ0A

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 5, 2021

Last month, Francois Amalega Bitondo was standing on a Montreal street, megaphone and cellphone in hand, protesting against COVID-19 vaccines. A bright yellow six-pointed star stood out against his black T-shirt.

The star, which read “unvaccinated,” was an explicit reference to the yellow Stars of David that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. Others in the crowd were wearing them, too. Their implication: Those who refuse to be vaccinated are facing the same oppression as Jews did in the 1940s.

The message and badge put Bitondo and his fellow protesters into the company of a growing cadre of COVID-19 vaccine skeptics around the world who have invoked the Holocaust as they rail against regulations that increasingly marginalize those who choose not to be vaccinated against the virus.

In the days following the Montreal protest, Bitondo told a French journalist that his yellow star was “here to stay” and Quebec’s anti-racism minister criticized anti-vaxxers who don the symbol.

Then Bitondo called the local Holocaust museum — and changed his mind.

Campaign Against Antisemitism will be writing to Tennants auctioneers over its sale of a trove of Nazi memorabilia, including medals, weapons, books, uniforms, badges and cutlery.

Tennants describes itself as “the UK’s largest family-owned fine art auctioneers, and a market leader with offices in North Yorkshire and London.”

As the company claims that it “has the knowledge and experience clients can trust,” it cannot rely on ignorance to explain how it has come to be selling numerous Third Reich artefacts, including a tin of Third Reich machine gun magazines for £120-£180, a Third Reich SS Officer’s visor cap for £800-£900, a collection of Nazi medals for £100-£150, two Nazi Party badges for £100-£150, a “small quantity of German Third Reich related books” for £60-£80, various articles of Waffen-SS uniforms and a lot more.

Recently, a BBC Bargain Hunt expert apologised after it was revealed that Nazi memorabilia was due to be sold at his auction house.

A collection of 18th-century porcelain hidden from the Nazis, acquired by Hitler and then stashed away in a salt mine before being recovered by Allied forces, will go up for sale at the Sotheby’s auction house in New York next week.

The proceeds of the sale will benefit the heirs of the family that purchased the collection before the Holocaust and fled Europe in the late 1930s with few to none of their worldly belongings.

A public exhibition of the porcelain will open at the auction house on September 7, a week before the auction, which is scheduled for September 14.

The 117 items in the auction — which range in estimated sale prices from $300 to $400,000 apiece — are all rare Meissen porcelain, dating back to the early 18th century. The collection was first curated in the late 1920s by Franz and Margarethe Oppenheimer, a Jewish couple living in Berlin, said Sotheby’s. The entire collection today is said to be worth approximately £2 million ($2.75 million).

According to the auction house, the Oppenheimers fled Nazi persecution in Berlin around December 1936, heading first to Vienna and then to Budapest. The collection ended up in the hands of Fritz Mannheimer, although “it is not known precisely when” he acquired them, said Sotheby’s. Mannheimer died in 1939, and the collection was acquired for Adolf Hitler in 1941.

In order to protect Hitler’s art collection from Allied bombing, the porcelain was “moved for safe keeping first to Vyšší Brod Monastery in Bohemia and later to the salt mines in Bad Aussee,” said the auction house.

Seven rare ledgers from the 19th and 20th centuries containing records of pre-Holocaust Jewish communal life in what is now Hungary have been removed from public auction and jointly purchased by the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives (HJMA), along with the National Library of Israel (NLI).

Among the documents are thousands of birth, death, marriage and other communal records from six different Jewish communities, many of them from the Holocaust era, which have not yet been digitized.

Included in the registers are marriage records going back to the 1850s in the eastern Hungarian city of Miskolc and burial society logs dating between 1942 and 1946 in the town of Satoraljaujhely, around 50 miles east of Miskolc. At the turn of the 20th century, Satoraljaujhely contained some 4,500 Jews — one-third of the town’s 13,000 residents — but the Jewish population was decimated in the Holocaust.

The ledgers will be kept in Jerusalem at the NLI, and will be available for exhibit at the HJMA, housed in Budapest’s Dohany Street Synagogue complex, upon request, said Dr. Yoel Finkelman, curator of the NLI’s Haim and Hanna Solomon Judaica Collection.

The items were set to be auctioned off by the Kedem auction house in Jerusalem on behalf of an anonymous seller on August 24, but were removed from the block after protests by activists and organizations dedicated to the preservation of Jewish heritage, who maintain that such records should not be held by private collectors.

StoreDot, an Israeli developer of extreme fast-charging (XFC) battery technology for electric vehicles, unveiled this month what it called the “world’s first” silicon-dominant battery prototype capable of recharging in just 10 minutes.

The company’s cylindrical cells use a 4680 format — 46 millimeters wide by 80 millimeters long — that is favored by global carmakers, specifically electric vehicle giant Tesla.

The battery tech has been in development for three years and includes five patents in cell design, StoreDot said in a statement last week. The design “increases throughput and addresses safety and performance issues typically associated with the hard case structure of cylindrical cells,” the company said.

StoreDot said it was now working on setting up a production line with Eve Energy, the company’s manufacturing partner in China.

“Achieving the goal of extreme fast charging a cylindrical cell in only 10 minutes has been on StoreDot’s technology roadmap from day one,” said StoreDot CEO Dr. Doron Myersdorf. “It’s highly significant that we can offer Electric Vehicle manufacturers the choice of cell formats, utilizing our XFC technology that will overcome the current barriers to EV [electric vehicle] ownership: range and charging anxiety.” This refers to the fear of a battery running out mid-journey and the driver getting stranded at a charging station.

Myersdorf revealed that the company was now in “advanced discussions” with a number of global automotive manufacturers with plans “to supply them with various XFC cells, enabling a rapid transition to a zero-emissions electrified future.”

Israel’s new allies in the Gulf sent Rosh Hashanah best wishes to Israel and the Jewish people as a whole on Sunday in both English and Hebrew.

The United Arab Emirates’ embassy in Israel tweeted, “On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the UAE Embassy in Tel Aviv wishes you and your loved ones its best wishes for a Happy New Year.”

“May it be a wonderful new year filled with abundance, joy, and treasured moments,” they said.

On the occasion of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, the UAE Embassy in Tel Aviv wishes you and your loved ones its best wishes for a Happy New Year. May it be a wonderful new year filled with abundance, joy and treasured moments. #UAEinIsraelpic.twitter.com/aJcovwMeyH

— UAE Embassy in Israel (@UAEinIsrael) September 5, 2021

Khaled Al Jalahma, Bahrain’s first ambassador to Israel, tweeted, “I would like to wish the Bahraini, Israeli and world Jewry a very happy #Rosh_Hashanah.”

“May this new year bring peace and prosperity to our peoples. #Shana_Tova,” he said.

I would like to wish the Bahraini, Israeli and world Jewry a very happy #Rosh_Hashanah. May this new year bring peace and prosperity to our peoples. #Shana_Tova.

— Khaled Al Jalahma (@BahrainAmbIsr) September 5, 2021

Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain normalized relations in November 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

Before a year ago, this was unimaginable. Today? Welcome to #TheNewMiddleEast! Love watching these heartfelt #RoshHashanah greetings (many even in Hebrew) from our dear Muslim friends across #AbrahamAccords countries! Thank you @sharakango!

???????????????????? pic.twitter.com/GVAYQonZ4F

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 6, 2021

Dear @arabnews,

THANK YOU!

May this year bring increasing peace and cooperation between the children of Abraham.

Salam ????? pic.twitter.com/iHKaEaZOmY

— Rabbi E. Poupko- UNITED AGAINST ANTISEMITISM (@RabbiPoupko) September 6, 2021

Word famous Israeli mentalist Lior Suchard in a special #RoshHashanah greeting ?? ?? pic.twitter.com/QpfS1UxIIK

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 6, 2021

As we ring in the Jewish New Year, check out what our soldiers have accomplished this year:#RoshHashanahpic.twitter.com/D4FAf6iOYB

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 6, 2021

In 1944, Naftali Stern, a prisoner in the Wolfsberg labor camp, traded in his bread rations for a pencil stub and cement bag to write down the #RoshHashanah prayers from memory

Naftali hid the pages on his body until his liberation in 1945.

More: https://t.co/VTCvZJFiMgpic.twitter.com/mAc3usXqWZ

— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) September 6, 2021

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For 1,400 years, Judaism and Islam were inextricably linked in the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East and in medieval Spain. Each had a common ancestry, similar values and holy scriptures. We are enjoined by our faiths to find a path toward peaceful coexistence between all religions and all people. Therefore, in order to establish a channel of communication and cooperation between Jews and Muslims, between Judaism and Islam, the following steps are necessary.

First, we must lead by example and communicate to our own congregations that peace is a basic human right. We must stand together should any of our communities suffer harassment or attacks. And we must overcome some of the misrepresentation, demonization, stereotyping, prejudice and lack of awareness in the world through an ongoing educational process that teaches peace and respect for each religion.

Second, as each of us takes enormous pride in our own religion’s history, culture and tradition, so too must we pride ourselves on our level of understanding and tolerance of each other’s religion. Just as we encourage our own people’s pride in our own religions, we must castigate those who show intolerance and ignorance of other religions and cultures.

Third, it is our responsibility to guide our people toward looking for the inestimable value of peace, and not in the “importance” of religious conflict. Yes, the world is made up of different races, colors, ethnicities, religions, and political ideologies. However, the seeds of peace begin to grow when people of all faiths and backgrounds are encouraged to communicate, tolerate, accept, respect, and ultimately trust one another.

As the Jewish new year approaches, let us reflect on the wise words included in the UN manifesto on the Culture of Peace, which states: “We must learn to use one another’s religious belief as ways to connect — not as reasons for conflict.” May these words serve as a guiding light for everybody in this region for the coming year. Judaism and Islam are forever bound together as sister religions. We are intertwined in our faith, liturgy, history and culture. It behooves us to maintain an open dialogue and cherish our similarities and our differences with respect, acceptance, coexistence and love for each other. We owe it to our communities, to our people and to our common father Abraham.

The state of Arizona plans to completely divest $143 million from the global ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s as of September 2021 over its Israel boycott.

“Israel is and will continue to be a major trading partner of Arizona,” Arizona State Treasurer Kimberly Yee said on Tuesday.

“As Arizona’s Chief Banking and Investment Officer, I stand with Israel and I will not allow taxpayer dollars to go towards antisemitic, discriminatory efforts against Israel,” she stated.

Arizona is the first state to totally divest from Ben & Jerry’s after the ice cream giant, which is a subsidiary of the British based Unilever conglomerate, announced that it planned to end its contract with its Israeli franchise as of December 2022.

The Israeli Ben & Jerry’s franchise is based in southern Israel and has been in operation for 35 years. It ran afoul of Ben & Jerry’s for its refusal to halt ice cream sales to West Bank settlements.

The boycott decision by Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board of Directors to end its ties with its franchisee was modified by Unilever and the Ben & Jerry’s CEO, who said they wanted the ice cream company to maintain ties with Israel through another franchise that would not allow sales to the settlements.

The office of the Arizona Treasury said on Tuesday that state laws prohibited continued investments in Ben & Jerry’s in light of its boycott decision.

As Arizona Treasurer, I've divested all state funds from Ben & Jerry's for boycotting Israel. Israel is and will continue to be a major trade partner of AZ. #IStandWithIsrael and I will not allow taxpayer dollars to go towards anti-Semitic, discriminatory efforts against Israel. https://t.co/F7mFhCq1Rt

— Kimberly Yee (@KimberlyYeeAZ) September 7, 2021

I don’t mention these intelligence failures to criticize the US for not acting prior to 9/11, but rather to point out that it’s difficult not to see history repeating itself today.

For years, Israel has been providing proof of Iran’s illicit nuclear program and their funding of global terrorism – including against US troops in Iraq. In 2018, Israel provided indisputable evidence that Iran had lied about nuclear weapons programs in the lead-up to the Iran deal. Yet now, instead of US (and EU) taking necessary action, they’ve made it a political game and given Iran more time, through bad decisions like the Iran deal.

The US does not feel the full impact of Iran’s terrorist activity because it occurs far from home, but if the US thinks Iran doesn’t seek to carry out acts similar to 9/11, they aren’t living in reality. Have we learned nothing from the intelligence failures pre-9/11?

While we should be creating a long-term strategy for withdrawal from Afghanistan that prevents from coming to power the very terror groups that assisted in 9/11, the US is instead betraying Afghanistan and leaving millions to die while literally arming that same terrorist organization.

While we should be sanctioning Iran and demanding they end terrorist activity and military action against Israel and the US – as well as maintaining a zero-tolerance approach to their nuclear program – the US is instead discussing re-entering the nuclear deal. No one wants war, but the Biden administration’s approach is shockingly naive.

None of this means that the US should be launching a full-scale war against Iran today, but it does mean that the US is not taking the Iranian threat seriously, and the ramifications could be deadly. The US took its security for granted ahead of 9/11 due to geographic proximity and global strength. They refused to learn from the experience of others, like Israel. As both an American and an Israeli, I know we can’t afford to make the same mistake again.

The new podcast is up with special guest @DrZuhdiJasser discussing 9/11, 20 years on. https://t.co/FWWAwLYyUH

— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) September 8, 2021

HEREIN IS revealed the reality and symbolism of the headlines about the Taliban rejecting relations with Israel. It’s not about Israel: It is about Jews, Judaism, Jewish symbols, Hebrew and everything else having to do with Jews. The fact that sidelining Israel and excluding it in international forums, groupings and foreign policy was given quiet acceptance – including in Western countries where the Holocaust happened – was about enabling antisemitism in foreign policy and enabling the exclusion of Jews and Israelis.

It is not a coincidence that many of the countries that reject ties with Israel have also expelled Jews or make it impossible for them to openly practice their faith. The last Jew of Afghanistan has reportedly left Kabul, for instance. The last Jews of Yemen have mostly been rescued, with help from the UAE.

We have gotten used to this discussion of the “last Jew” of many countries, in a way no one would think to discuss the “last Muslim” or “last Christian” living somewhere. There is only one community in the world in which it is considered normal to reduce them to zero in countries where they once thrived. Where is the Jewish community in Syria, in Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Yemen and all these countries where once there were thriving Jewish communities?

The reduction of a minority community to zero is generally called genocide. We don’t call it genocide because no one put Jews in gas chambers in Yemen; they just made life impossible for the community, indirectly forcing them out. When that happens to racial and religious minorities in the West we call it a hate crime, or racism, or Islamophobia.

What is the phobia that guides the expulsion and disappearance of Jews in all those countries that also lack relations with Israel? It is antisemitism. The foreign policy decision to avoid relations with Israel is guided solely by antisemitism. No other international relations concept can explain it, since no other such concept applies to any other countries or religious minority community in the same way. Thus, the antisemitic speeches of Malaysia’s former leader spell out openly the underlying concepts that guide those in Pakistan and other places. The Taliban have no real reason to reject relations with Israel, except the implied antisemitism that says such rejection is normal in their milieu.

For the Left, social justice is solely for the disenfranchised, the ‘victims’ of unjust Western societies, those whose suffering is ostensibly caused by and is the fault of imperialistic, capitalistic, militant, hegemonic nations—America and Israel foremost among them. And on campuses, where liberal professors have nearly made sacred the politics of race and class and have identified specific sets of favored victim groups for whom justice will be sought, the cult of “victimhood” has even led to compulsory instruction on the mechanics of achieving social justice for the weak in society.

This view of the Jew, or of Israel, the Jewish state, as a political destabilizer, is, of course, also central to the ideology of Palestinianism and the notion that the victims of Jewish power are the dispossessed and weak for whom liberal academics purportedly seek justice. Any tactics, including terror and violence, are considered appropriate and excusable in the victims’ cause of throwing off the yoke of oppression, so the Palestinian, clearly made to suffer daily humiliation and endlessly deprived of a homeland and the right to self-determination, has become the perfect example of the contemporary victim archetype, the Third-World “other,” an ever-present, homeless, dispossessed tragic refuge whose plight could be traced directly to supposed colonialism on the part of the “settler” state of Israel.

This rationalization, that violence is an acceptable, if not welcomed, component of Palestinianism—that is, that the inherent “violence” of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism will be met by the same violence as the oppressed attempt to throw off their oppressors—is exactly the style of self-defeating rationality that in this age has proven to be an intractable part of the war on terror. America-hating and Israel-hating academics have not infrequently wished for harm to come to these countries at the hands of the victim groups to whom they readily give their sympathies. They frequently, and mistakenly, ascribe to poverty and helplessness the inclination to lead to terrorism on the part of otherwise weak and oppressed individuals. And, like leftist apologists for revolutionary violence in earlier examples of resistance, they see an opportunity for the tables to be turned on the oppressors and an equal distribution of suffering to be brought about in the resulting power shift.

The nearly total rejection by the Left of any recognition of goodness on the part of Western countries, cultivating and promoting Palestinianism, is, according to commentator Melanie Phillips, symptomatic of academics' belief in their own moral superiority, a feature which, at least in their own minds, gives them a more genuine and principled worldview.

“In the grip of a group-think that causes them to genuflect to victim-culture and the deconstruction of western morality and the concept of truth,” Phillips wrote, “a dismaying number of our supposedly finest minds have been transformed from people who spread enlightenment to those who cast darkness before them.”

How do we make life better for those who live in Gaza? According to Palestinian political analyst Bassem Eid, we start by recognizing who is really responsible for the suffering that happens there.

And as for holding the Taliban accountable: they made promises that they would sever links with al Qaeda in order to secure release of their prisoners and the American withdrawal. But al Qaeda has now put out a statement celebrating the Taliban victory, and a senior associate of Osama bin Laden, Amin ul-Haq was filmed returning to his home in Nangarhar in the east.

This makes the next few months highly dangerous for Afghans. If the Taliban offer a corridor for departing Afghans with visas, can we trust that commitment? The recognition issue is on hold for now. But there will be increasing pressure from the Taliban to take the Afghan seat at the UN, and appoint ambassadors. There may be conditions attached to that, but with no way of holding them accountable. The Taliban have secured support from China, but will need to have far better security in order to persuade the Chinese to put in the serious investments that the Taliban expect. And China will not play an active role on the ground in security.

Meanwhile it has become harder for ordinary Afghans to find out what is going on in their country. Many brave independent Afghan media organisations are still operating, but with less capacity than they had. And that has led to dangerous rumours spreading quickly on social media. There is no reliable reporting on the fighting in the Panjshir Valley, the one province still out of Taliban hands, as social media activists on both sides promote victory on a daily basis.

And in a telling sign of the gap between what the Taliban say and what they do, while the junior cricketers were allowed to leave on their planned tour, the junior girls’ national football team are in hiding with their families, living day to day in fear. That is the reality behind the façade of the English-speaking Taliban front men.

As a small state surrounded by better-armed rivals that would no doubt covet its gas fields, Qatar has long felt the need to protect itself with ambitious diplomacy. Four years ago, it found itself in peril when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and their allies, with the apparent tacit approval of the Trump administration, imposed trade bans and diplomatic isolation.

The neighbors accused Qatar of backing Sunni Muslim Islamist groups across the region while simultaneously growing too cozy with Shi’ite Iran. Some in the region wondered whether Saudi Arabia and its allies might even invade, although Riyadh denied harboring any such plan.

Qatar, shielded from the economic impact by its $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, denied wronging its neighbors and held out until the dispute was resolved this January. But the feud underscored the need for it to cultivate powerful friends.

Being useful to the West can help, said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“It’s much an issue about influence as it is an issue about being relevant to the international community in ways in which the international community – if you are under threat – will step in for you.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that the Taliban would have to earn legitimacy from the world, after talks with allies on how to present a united front to the hardline new government in Afghanistan.

“The Taliban seek international legitimacy. Any legitimacy — any support — will have to be earned,” Blinken told reporters at the US airbase in Ramstein, Germany, after leading a 20-nation ministerial meeting on the Afghan crisis.

Standing alongside him, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the international community expected the Taliban to uphold human rights, including those of women, grant access to humanitarian aid, and allow those wishing to leave the country to do so.

Maas said he believed Wednesday’s talks were “the starting point for international coordination” on how to deal with the Taliban.

Among the countries that participated in the virtual meeting were European allies and historic Taliban backer Pakistan.

Blinken and Maas both criticized the caretaker government announced in Afghanistan on Tuesday, which has no women or non-Taliban members and includes an interior minister the United States wants to arrest on terrorism accusations.

For more than five days, Zebulon Simantov and over two dozen women and children rode a bus, crossing war-torn Afghanistan and Taliban checkpoints as the country’s last Jew left his homeland.

Footage obtained by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster shows glimpses of the perilous journey taken by Zimantov and his rescuers before they finally, safely reached a neighboring country this weekend.

The footage shows Simantov and the children on the bus, traversing the barren landscape. In the background, rescuers can be heard warning them that they are going through a particularly dangerous area.

Finally, the footage shows him surrounded by children, with faces blurred to protect them and the families left behind, after arriving across the border, from where they will likely be taken to the US.

Simantov, 62, had long refused to leave Afghanistan despite threats.

But with the United States’ complete withdrawal from Afghanistan at the end of August leaving the country in the hands of the extremist group, pressure mounted on him to leave.

After initially refusing, he finally agreed.

“What changed his mind finally is that his neighbors said to him go, and take our children with you because they are also in danger,” said Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana who runs a private security company that extracted Simantov.

“His problem isn’t the Taliban, but Islamic State, al-Qaeda. In his case it’s the other crazies that emerge each day now,” Kahana told Kan. “He fears them,” he added.

We've all seen them. Those photos of Kabul University women students in fashionable mini-skirts around 1970 contrasted with the Blue Burqa wearers of Taliban years. Vogue magazine actually did a spread "Afghan Adventure" for its December 1969 issue, which showcased both Afghan fashion and cultural sites like the (now destroyed) Bamiyan Buddhas. Sometimes the "progressive" photos are from a bit later, even from the years of Communist rule in Kabul when scarf-free women party cadres would attend rallies. But there is something important missing in the facile discourse contrasting the supposed modernizing past and retrograde present.

Afghanistan, an ancient land turned mostly into a bit of a backwater for much of the early to middle twentieth century, has had the misfortune of living through not one or two, but three ultimately dystopian political nightmares, each offering a deeply ideological, coercive "remaking" of society.

The three utopian disasters were triggered by the overthrow of the Afghan monarchy by Muhammad Daoud Khan in 1973. Himself a prince and cousin of Afghanistan's long-reigning king Muhammad Zaher Shah, Daoud Khan was an arrogant authoritarian who had been eased out of the position of Afghan prime minister a decade earlier and nursed a bitter grudge against the monarchy. The bloodless coup against the king was carried out by Daoud with the help of Afghanistan's communists. Daoud empowered the pro-Soviet People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and even gave them government positions. He would later turn on the communists and try to crush them, but their penetration of the Afghan National Army had gone too deep and they were able to kill Daoud and most of his family in the April 1978 coup that brought the communists to power.

In one of those circumstances all too well known by students of revolutionary history, the first strongman of communist Afghanistan, Hafizullah Amin, had been radicalized not in the countries of the Warsaw Pact but at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University. Amin and his colleagues killed tens of thousands of Afghans but his rule was so chaotic that the Soviets intervened directly in 1979, killed him and ruled through other stooges for more than a decade. Russia's last collaborator, the secret policeman Muhammad Najib, would hang on to power until 1992.

Afghanistan's second dystopia began with the triumphant mujahideen of 1992. Supported by the United States against the Soviets, they had been cultivated by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who favored the most radical and ideological of the feuding factions, with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami receiving more support than any other Afghan rebel group. Hekmatyar had been deeply influenced as a young man by the works of the Egyptian Islamist ideologue Sayyid Qutub. Infighting by rival Afghan warlords would destroy much of the country once they came to power (Hekmatyar's forces indiscriminately shelling much of Kabul into rubble) before the Taliban entered Kabul in 1996. Jihadist rule along Taliban lines would continue until they themselves would be overthrown in November 2001 by the Americans following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, organized by Al-Qaeda.

Russian officialdom is gloating over America's debacle in Afghanistan, but even more balanced observers are aghast. Kommersant Radio's foreign policy specialist Maxim Yusin, who does not trust the Taliban is shocked by America's selfishness in leaving Afghanistan in a worse state than when they entered and taking the decision in total disregard of its Afghan clients and NATO allies. Those who previously relied on American support will have to rethink their options.

Yusin's article follows below:[1]
"The withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and everything that accompanied it will go down in history as the most graphic, eloquent and shocking symbol of a great power’s humiliation. Of course, there were previous precedents: the withdrawal of the same US from Saigon, the French evacuation of Algeria, and the British departure from India that were no less dramatic and were accompanied by even greater human suffering and casualties.

"However, it was a different era back then; without Internet, social networks, and Telegram channels. Back then, the entire planet was not aware of the scale of the disaster and the mistakes made, people didn’t follow them on live TV.

"Never before has the failure of a great power, of its top leadership, its armed forces, and its special services been so public. The consequences of the events should be realized by all: by America, its allies, and its adversaries. It is even possible that this will be a watershed moment in geopolitics: before and after Kabul. Only time will tell when and at what cost will Washington be able to liquidate the colossal toll to its reputation and whether it can do so at all.

"For now, the picture is lamentable. If one was to compare the situation in Afghanistan to that of 20 years ago, when the Americans started their military operation, then the current situation is much worse.

"At that time Islamic radicals had nowhere near full control of the country. In the country’s north there was a quasi-state, which was under the authority of the Northern Alliance that was not subordinate to the Taliban and filled the role of a peculiar buffer on the borders with the post-Soviet Central Asian republics. Now there is no such buffer; the Taliban have extended their power to practically all of Afghanistan, and they are better armed than the armies of many states in the region thanks to the seized American equipment.

"The Taliban movement used to control mostly Pashtun areas, now it has reached the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. Thus, there is a tangible danger, despite the assurances of the new rulers in Kabul, that the Afghan chaos may sooner or later boil over beyond the country’s borders.

In the two decades since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has been monitoring, translating, and documenting content about the attacks in media from the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond. The MEMRI 9/11 Documentation Project, launched to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks, archives all MEMRI translations, analysis, and clips about the attacks and their aftermath, and has amassed one of the largest and most unique archives in the world on this subject. These archives allow an in-depth examination of the ideological roots and other factors that ultimately led to the attacks.

The content includes:
Primary source material from Arab and Islamic print, broadcast, and online media and other sources.

Material from Al-Qaeda and affiliates, including leaders' speeches, interviews, wills, and statements.

Material from ISIS on 9/11.

Al-Qaeda recruitment, outreach, and indoctrination materials.

Conspiracy theories denying Arab or Muslim responsibility for the attacks – some collected from recent sermons in the U.S. monitored by the MEMRI Sermons by Imams in the West project.

Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair warned on Monday that “radical Islam” remained a “first-order security threat” to the world despite two decades confronting the issue across the globe.

Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in the wake of the Taliban retaking power in Afghanistan, Blair argued that the threat posed by jihadist groups was “getting worse”.

He reiterated his long-held belief it could only be defeated by “a combination of hard and soft power” and urged world powers, including non-Western allies, to adopt a more unified approach.

“Islamism, both the ideology and the violence, is a first order security threat; and, unchecked, it will come to us, even if centered far from us, as 9/11 demonstrated,” he said at the Royal United Services Institute military think-tank.

“The leading powers must unite to develop an agreed strategy,” he added, noting China and Russia had an interest in countering it alongside many Muslim countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Blair highlighted the radicalism pushed by Shia Iran, and Sunni groups from the Muslim Brotherhood through to Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group and Boko Haram.

He said they were “the principal cause of de-stabilization across the Middle East and beyond and today in Africa.”

The prosecution of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others restarts Tuesday, just days before the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

Mohammed and his co-defendants, who have been locked up in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for nearly 15 years, will appear at the military tribunal for the first time since early 2019.

But after a 17-month halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, the proceedings appear likely to continue where they left off, mired in the defense’s efforts to disqualify most of the government’s evidence as tainted by the torture the defendants underwent in CIA custody.

With scores of motions lined up to demand evidence that military prosecutors refuse to hand over, defense attorneys said the pretrial phase could easily last another year, placing far over the horizon any hope for a jury trial and verdict.

Attorneys say the five defendants — Mohammed, Ammar al-Baluchi, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi — are all weak and suffer the lasting effects of severe torture endured in secretive CIA “black” sites between 2002 and 2006.

The five face the death penalty on charges of murder and terrorism.

They are represented by attorneys assigned by the military, as well as pro-bono lawyers from the private sector and non-governmental organizations.

Four Taliban members swapped for Bowe Bergdahl now in Afghan government https://t.co/zfETS1fAaGpic.twitter.com/RY70sya2YZ

— New York Post (@nypost) September 8, 2021

Yes, glad to see State has their priorities straight, as usual. The problem isn’t that they are literally the Taliban. The problem is that they’re male. ????? https://t.co/Y1pmm0MsRt

— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) September 8, 2021

If Washington is going to deter a militant China, it needs the support of democratic India. Unfortunately, India looks like the country most immediately — and perhaps most adversely — affected by the Biden-created debacle. As a result, New Delhi could decide to side not with America but with a Chinese ally, Moscow.

India saw the Afghan government as a friend in blunting extremism in neighboring Pakistan, which has always defined itself as India's enemy.

The Biden administration may in fact be willing to defend Taiwan, but that is not all that counts at this crucial time. What also counts are perceptions, and the perceptions that especially count are those in Beijing. Chinese propagandists promoted two narratives as Kabul fell: The United States will not defend Taiwan and an America unable to deal with the Taliban cannot hope to stand up to China.

Those two narratives appear to in fact reflect Chinese thinking, especially because the withdrawal from Afghanistan signaled to Beijing a complete failure of the U.S. intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the White House national security apparatus. Chinese exercises in areas adjacent to Taiwan in August and an August 13 simulated attack on Taiwan with a short-range missile are, in this context, ominous.

India's close ties with Vietnam are an indication that India perceives its security as dependent on an open South China Sea and even East China Sea. Taiwan, which sits at the intersection of those bodies of water, is essential in keeping sea lanes there open.

#Kabul: Afghan women protesting in the streets chanting “freedom”

?? pic.twitter.com/ZkVuJzbJin

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 7, 2021

#Qatari Government-Owned Daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi Mocks U.S.: It Wanted To Overthrow The #Taliban And Now It Has To Rely On Its Help; U.S. Is Responsible For Emergence Of #ISIS - Audio of report here https://t.co/9it2fPeArV#MEMRIpic.twitter.com/S2axmtEfNK

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 7, 2021

U.S. Central Command announced Sept. 1 that it has assumed responsibility for U.S. forces in Israel. This positive development reflects changes in Arab-Israeli relations and offers an opportunity to build a more unified and militarily capable American-Israeli-Arab coalition to deter aggression from Iran and its terrorist proxies — one of CENTCOM’s top priorities.

Despite Israel’s location in the Middle East, when CENTCOM was created in 1983, responsibility for the Jewish state was assigned to U.S. European Command. That decision reflected Israel’s political isolation from its Arab neighbors. As a Pentagon news report noted in January with a bit of understatement, Israel’s regional isolation would have “complicated” efforts by CENTCOM to coordinate multilateral exercises and operations that included Israel.

Warming Arab-Israeli ties offer a major opportunity to align key partners against common regional threats. The catalyst for improved Arab-Israeli relations is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s longstanding effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability, as well as Tehran’s determined campaign to create, cultivate and co-opt terrorist proxies across the Middle East to attack both Arab and Israeli targets.

Tehran’s aggression helps explain the conclusion last year of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, enabling significant and mutually beneficial opportunities for political, economic and cultural cooperation.

Enhanced military cooperation, however, will likely carry the most direct benefits for regional stability.

Italy and Croatia joined 12 other countries in boycotting this month’s event marking 20 years since the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, due to antisemitism at the conference and anniversary events.

The Durban IV conference is set to be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this month.

The 2001 Durban Declaration singled out Israel as racist. At the parallel NGO forum, activists disseminated copies of the antisemitic conspiracy theory The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, flyers saying Hitler was right and other materials featuring Jew-hatred.

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust at the 2009 Durban Review Conference, where he called it a “pretext” for Israel to oppress Palestinians. He was invited back to Durban III in 2011, where he did the same.

Croatian news site Vecernji said the country will not participate in Durban IV because of “the constant antisemitic attitudes and the linking of conferences to anti-Israel propaganda and the promotion of intolerance.”

Italy has also opted out of the conference due to its antisemitism, the Italian embassy in Israel confirmed.

Italy ???? pulled out of the antisemitic @UN#durban gig. Thank you??@ItalyMFA

They join ???????????????????????????????????????????????????? in rejecting anti-Jewish hatred

Ireland???? are still going course. Knowing how much some of the Irish hate Jews- @dfatirl are probably helping Iran write the script!

— David Collier (@mishtal) September 8, 2021

Bravo ?? #Croatia, on withdrawing from #DurbanIV. They join:

Israel ????
US ????
Australia ????
Canada ????
UK ????
Hungary ????
Netherlands ????
Austria ????
Czechs ????
Germany ????
France ????
Bulgaria ????

Anyone that stands against racism should #SayNoToDurbanIV antisemitic @UN Festival of Hate! https://t.co/yowa1vnof3

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 7, 2021

Pope Francis has sought to assuage concerns over comments he made about Jewish law that some Jewish leaders viewed as disparaging, according to a new report.

Reuters said Monday that the pope had conveyed to Israel’s chief rabbinate that he had not intended to be seen as passing judgment on the law of the Torah.

Last month Francis caused consternation when he told an audience that the law of the Jewish Torah “does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter… Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ.”

Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, the chairman of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s Commission for Dialogue with the Holy See, sent a latter to the Vatican requesting clarification of the comments.

“In his homily, the pope presents the Christian faith as not just superseding the Torah; but asserts that the latter no longer gives life, implying that Jewish religious practice in the present era is rendered obsolete,” Arusi reportedly wrote in the letter. “This is in effect part and parcel of the ‘teaching of contempt’ towards Jews and Judaism that we had thought had been fully repudiated by the Church.”

According to Reuters, Cardinal Kurt Koch, who deals with religious relations with Jews, wrote to Arousi that the pope had not meant to pass judgment on Jewish law.

Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy, voiced opposition on Tuesday to a California review panel’s recommendation that the man serving a life term for assassinating her husband during his 1968 presidential campaign be released from prison on parole.

“Our family and our country suffered an unspeakable loss due to the inhumanity of one man,” Kennedy, 93, wrote. “We believe in the gentleness that spared his life, but in taming his act of violence, he should not have the opportunity to terrorize again.”

She concluded by printing in her own hand: “He should not be paroled. Ethel Kennedy.”

Her brief message was issued to the news media 11 days after a two-commissioner panel of the state Board of Parole Hearings concluded on Aug. 27 that the convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, 77, is suitable for parole. It was the first time an initial review panel recommended his release.

The panel’s ruling is subject to a 120-day review by the board’s legal staff, during which the case may be referred to the full board for further evaluation.

California’s governor then has 30 days to reverse the decision or let it stand. That process would most likely put Sirhan’s fate in the hands of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, assuming he survives a Sept. 14 recall election.

If the governor takes no action, the inmate would be scheduled for release. Sirhan, a Palestinian refugee, has previously been denied parole 15 times.

Ethel Kennedy sided with six of her nine surviving children in publicly objecting to letting Sirhan go free. It marked the first time she has spoken out on the issue, according to one of her children cited by a family spokesperson.

The biggest trial in France’s modern history opened on Wednesday of 20 suspects charged over the November 2015 Paris attacks that saw 130 people killed, with the expected nine months of hearings set to reopen still raw wounds.

The suicide bombing and gun assault by three teams of jihadists on bars, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue — planned in Syria and later claimed by the Islamic State terror group — was the worst postwar atrocity on French territory.

The only surviving attacker, Salah Abdeslam, was present with 13 other defendants as the trial started under the highest security at a purpose-built facility at the historic court of justice on the Ile de la Cite in central Paris.

Abdeslam told the court “there is no god but Allah” as he was asked to identify himself at the trial Wednesday.

Six others are being tried in absentia. Twelve of the 20 people on trial, including Abdeslam, face life sentences if convicted.

“We are entering the unknown,” said Arthur Denouveaux, a survivor of the Bataclan music venue attack and president of Life for Paris, a victims’ association.

“We’re eager for it to start but we’re wondering how it’s going to go over the next nine months,” he said.

Police handed out multiple fines to people suspected of gathering illegally to pray on Rosh Hashanah in Melbourne, Australia, despite a coronavirus lockdown on the city, Australia's 9 News reported Tuesday.

The fines issued were worth A$5,452 ($4,016) each and were issued by officers who waited for people at the exits of Ripponlea Synagogue, according to 9 News.

"Victoria Police has spoken to a number of people who attended an address on Glen Eira Road, Elsternwick on Tuesday 7 September. All adults who attended will be issued with a [A]$5452 fine," police said in a statement, according to 9 News.

Police added that they believe a number of people present have yet to speak to the police and the officers are looking for them.

Israeli forces reportedly arrested three people on Tuesday for their suspected roles in helping a group of Palestinian security prisoners escape from prison, as the fugitives remained at large over a day after their disappearance.

Israel has launched a massive manhunt to capture the six prisoners, who are considered highly dangerous, after they broke out of the high-security Gilboa prison early Monday in what is considered to be among the most serious jailbreaks in the country’s history.

Police entered the neighboring Arab towns of Na’ura and Tamra, located northeast of Afula, and searched mosques, according to Hebrew and Palestinian media reports. Numerous checkpoints were placed in the area, Army Radio reported.

The three suspects were arrested in Na’ura, reports said. The detainees did not include any of the escaped prisoners themselves, but were suspected of helping them break out of the prison or flee the area afterward.

Authorities believe at least some of the escaped prisoners stopped in the town for a short time after their breakout and changed clothes there, Haaretz reported.

Police were also conducting searches in the Palestinian town of Jalamah, adjacent to the West Bank border fence, and near the Palestinian city of Jenin, the Walla news site reported. The escapees all hail from the Jenin area.

Palestinians held large-scale demonstrations across the West Bank and Jerusalem Wednesday night, some of them violent, in solidarity with the six security prisoners who broke out of Israel’s Gilboa Prison earlier this week.

In at least one case, rioters near the Judea and Samaria Square in the Ramallah district of the West Bank were reported to use live fire against Israeli troops, but missed them. A similar incident occurred at the same place amid a violent demonstration in May, during which two Israeli soldiers were wounded.

Unrest was reported near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, in Hebron, Hawara, Azzoun, near Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, and in other locations in the West Bank.

Two Palestinians were hurt from police’s rubber bullets, and another from a stun grenade during the clashes at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

In the West Bank town of Beita, two Palestinians were hurt by Israel Defense Force’s live fire, the Red Crescent said.

And in Hawara, at least 100 Palestinians were treated by Red Crescent medics, most of them for inhaling tear gas fire by Israeli forces.

Security prisoners rioted in jails across Israel as tensions escalate following the escape of six prisoners from Gilboa Prison using a tunnel they dug in their cell.

The rioting prisoners, mainly belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, set fire to cells in Ketziot, Ramon and Ofer prisons on Wednesday after Prison Service Commissioner Katy Perry placed new restrictions on inmates and moved over 400 prisoners in order to ensure that only one PIJ prisoner would be in a cell at a time.

Israel Prison Services (IPS) said following the escape that it would be sending the other security prisoners at Gilboa Prison to other facilities across the country as a precautionary measure in case there are other tunnels.

Inmates from Gilboa and Megiddo Prison in the North were moved to other jails in the South, but on Wednesday, the IPS backtracked on moving some 150 PIJ inmates from Ofer Prison in the West Bank after prisoners threatened to riot, commit arson and harm guards if they would be transferred.

Five of the six prisoners who escaped belong to PIJ.

Although the riots and fires were brought under control, authorities are preparing for additional violence.

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bankheld solidarity marches in cities like Hebron and Jenin toward Israeli checkpoints like Qalqilya and the perimeter fence in support of the prisoners.

The Palestinian Authority and several Palestinian factions on Wednesday warned Israel against punishing Palestinian security prisoners in the aftermath of the escape of six inmates from Gilboa Prison.

They also warned Israel against harming the fugitives or their family members.

Shortly after the jailbreak, the Israel Prison Service began transferring hundreds of inmates to other prisons.

Dozens of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) inmates held at Ofer Prison were placed in solitary confinement after they refused to be moved to other prisons, the IPS said in a statement.

Five of the inmates who escaped from Gilboa Prison are members of PIJ. The sixth, Zakaria Zubeidi, belongs to Fatah, the ruling faction headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The six men hail from the Jenin area.

Leaders of PIJ prisoners announced on Wednesday that all inmates will go on a hunger strike next week to protest Israel’s “repressive measures.”

Palestinian sources said that IDF troops raided several villages and towns in the Jenin area early Wednesday as part of the manhunt for the fugitives.

On today’s adventure show, we went to the largest Arab city in Judea and Samaria - Nablus, also known as Shechem. During the Second Intifada and early 2000s, the Israeli media labeled this town as the “capital of terrorism”. Some said that as many as 80% of terrorists in Israel came from this city.

Today, we went to the city to check out the religious and historical sites, experience the culture and meet the people. We also wanted to find out if Nablus was actually the terrorist capital of Israel, and if it is still a volatile place.

The answers might surprise you.

The Israel Defense Forces carried out a series of retaliatory airstrikes in southern Gaza late Monday night after incendiary balloons from the Hamas-run enclave sparked three fires near Israeli towns bordering the Strip.

The military said it hit a Hamas rocket production facility and training camp in Khan Younis. Footage uploaded to social media showed the strikes lighting up the skies. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Earlier Monday, incendiary balloons launched from the Strip sparked three fires in Israel’s Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council. Firefighters managed to put out the fires before they could cause significant damage.

Gazans have continued to launch incendiary devices attached to kites or balloons into Israel despite warnings from Jerusalem of zero tolerance for such attacks.

Tensions with Gaza have remained high amid intensified efforts to shore up a ceasefire brokered after May’s war between Israel and Gaza-based terrorists, including a new arrangement for bringing Qatari cash into the Strip to ease poverty there.

The IDF’s Southern Command was preparing on Monday for the possibility that ceasefire talks managed by Cairo could break down, leading to an upsurge in violence and renewed rioting on the border.

IDF airstrike in #Gaza tonight in response to incendiary-laden balloons launched earlier today. #Israelpic.twitter.com/zOwwase9mu

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 6, 2021

Most Palestinians, however, are clearly unimpressed with both the Biden administration's renewed financial aid and the Israeli government's gestures.... These Palestinians are saying that they prefer Hamas, the Islamist group that seeks the destruction of Israel, over Abbas.

"[T]he Biden administration is deluding itself by assuming that US funds could change the hearts and minds of the Palestinians."— Arab World for Research and Development, August 25, 2021.

Those who want the Oslo Accords rescinded are, bluntly, saying that they are opposed to a peace process with Israel. They are also saying that they do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Another crucial finding the Biden administration needs to take into account is that the poll found... a majority of those surveyed believe that Israel has no right to exist and should be replaced with a Palestinian state, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

US taxpayer dollars will not drive Palestinians to accept Israel's right to exist. The same applies to the Israeli gestures, which are not likely to achieve the Biden administration's hope of bolstering the PA's standing or advancing the "two-state solution."

The results of the poll are clear: many Palestinians have been so successfully radicalized by their leaders that they want to see Israel removed from the face of the earth.

The only way to change this brutal reality is by halting the messages of hate and the delegitimization of Israel. Until that happens, Palestinians will continue to pocket money from the US and other Western donors, while at the same time moving closer to Hamas and further from any peace with Israel.

While we receive amazing messages of Shana Tovah from the UAE and Bahrain on Rosh Hashana, Palestinians in the West Bank burn the Jewish Star of David.

Sickening. pic.twitter.com/JGrsFLpL14

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 6, 2021

Fourteen members of the Palestinian Authority security forces will be charged for allegedly beating opposition figure Nizar Banat to death in late June, a spokesperson for the forces said on Sunday.

“The investigations have concluded, and the military prosecutors… decided to charge all the officers and forces who participated in apprehending Nizar Banat,” PA security services spokesperson Talal Dweikat told official PA television.

The 14 alleged perpetrators will be charged with fatally beating Banat, under PA military law, said Dweikat.

Banat, a social media activist well-known for his caustic videos condemning the PA leadership, died after being arrested by PA officers in late June. His death sparked rare major protests in the West Bank calling for the downfall of the PA government.

In the aftermath of Banat’s death, the PA arrested 14 officers alleged to have taken part in his beating. All hailed from the Hebron division of the powerful Preventative Security apparatus, Dweikat said on Monday.

But Banat’s family has already pledged not to accept the results of the PA’s investigation into his death. The family formally withdrew its support from an earlier commission of inquiry that led to the arrests of the 14 suspects in July.

PIJ has extensive networks in Gaza and also Damascus and back to Iran; I wonder, considering this incident, whether more focus needs to be on Gaza, Iran, Damascus and what they may be saying and what twists may come https://t.co/S3fLFeaCjr

— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) September 7, 2021

Palestinian Islamic Jihad held a rally in #Gaza today in support of the six militants who escaped Gilboa prison. pic.twitter.com/aw37hALPBE

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 6, 2021

Sweets distributed earlier today in #Gaza celebrating the escape of the six militants from Gilboa prison. pic.twitter.com/l8TGHjzmCa

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 6, 2021

A PFLP militant hands sweets to children in the Dheisha camp, south of Bethlehem, celebrating the escape of six militants from an Israeli prison early Monday. pic.twitter.com/aWVAe7bG9P

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 6, 2021

Iran is blocking international arms control inspectors from visiting its nuclear reactor sites, testing the Biden administration as talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal flounder.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is tasked with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program, has been barred from inspecting Iran's nuclear sites, according to confidential reports from the organization obtained by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

"Iran has still not provided the necessary explanations for the presence of the nuclear material particles," one of the reports reads. "The Director General remains deeply concerned that nuclear material has been present at undeclared locations in Iran and that the current locations of this nuclear material are not known to the Agency."

Iranian scientists are enriching uranium—a process vital to building nuclear weapons—at an alarming rate. Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz said in August that Iran is just over two months away from obtaining enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon, while Iran’s new hardline prime minister Ebrahim Raisi has stalled talks in Vienna over renegotiation of the Iran deal.

Iranian and Western diplomats have participated in six rounds of talks, and Raisi has given no indication of when Tehran may return to the table after the last official talks concluded in June.

Iran has dramatically increased its production of highly enriched uranium in recent months, while refusing to resume full cooperation with inspectors, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday.

Tehran has quadrupled its stockpile of 60 percent-enriched uranium since May, in open contravention of the 2015 accord with world powers that was meant to contain its nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported.

The IAEA also told member states in its confidential quarterly report that its verification and monitoring activities have been “seriously undermined” since February by Iran’s refusal to let inspectors access IAEA monitoring equipment.

The agency said that it estimates Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity at 10 kilograms, an increase of 7.6 kilograms since May. The country’s stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 20% fissile purity is now estimated at 84.3 kilograms, up from 62.8 kilograms three months earlier.

Iran’s total stock of uranium is estimated at 2441.3 kilograms as of August 30, down from 3241 kilograms on May 22, the agency said.

Tehran is only permitted to stockpile 202.8 kilograms of uranium under the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, and is meant to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb.

Iranian political analyst Emad Abshenas, editor-in-chief of the Iran Diplomatic, said that the U.S. government and President Biden wanted the Kabul airport bombing to happen in order to undermine the security of the region. He made these remarks in a show that aired on Mayadeen TV (Lebanon) on September 1, 2021. Abshenas said that it was the Americans who brought ISIS into Afghanistan and equipped them with modern weapons. He added that now Iran, China, and Russia must cooperate in order to defeat the terrorism in the region, or else it will spread throughout the entire world. For more about Emad Abshenas, see MEMRI TV clips 9005, 9003, 8608, 8581, 8341, 8320, 8211, 8057, 7939.

"Even With Regard To The 9/11 Attacks, There Are Suspicions That The American Security Agencies Are Behind All This"

Emad Abshenas: "I do not think that the U.S. fought terrorism or even wanted to fight it. Even bin Laden's assassination is doubtful. In Saddam Hussein's case, we could at least see him being executed on TV, but nobody even saw Osama bin Laden's body. The U.S. claimed to have assassinated him and to have thrown him into the sea. I have no idea why they had to throw him into the sea, but many questions are still left unanswered.

"It should be noted that Bin Laden, before becoming the leader of Al-Qaeda, was one of the allies of George Bush, who ordered the attack on Afghanistan.

"Even with regard to the 9/11 attacks, there are suspicions that the American security agencies are behind all this, and have cooperated with Al Qaeda, which was created by America.

"There Is An American Plan To Usher In New Terrorist Organizations, Equipped With Planes And Helicopters"

"It seems to me that there is an American plan to usher in new terrorist organizations, equipped with planes and helicopters. They want to undermine security in the vicinity of Iran, China, and Russia.

@RashidaTlaib sharing a spiteful #RoshHashanah message from a #Jewish hate group is another reminder that 95% of campaign donations come from #California, NOT from #Michigan.

Time for @RepRashida to stop representing silicon valley #BernieBroes& for them to stop bribing her. pic.twitter.com/Q26nv5RXlJ

— Rabbi E. Poupko- UNITED AGAINST ANTISEMITISM (@RabbiPoupko) September 6, 2021

Ironic that the director of “Physicians for Human Rights” is explicitly supporting terrorism in English no less, on Twitter.

Terrorism isn’t human rights and it’s def against medical ethics pic.twitter.com/TL1KUDyPPJ

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 8, 2021

Where @TheNation is going full blown Jew hatred, by employing this racist as their Palestinian ‘correspondent’. https://t.co/TDmektnU3m

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 8, 2021

No. 27: Deborah Lipstadt

The COVID-19 pandemic and the May conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza have both given rise individually and in unison to one of the worst waves of antisemitism in recent decades.

Jew hatred from the Right and Left, from white nationalists to so-called progressive and racial justice activists, has erupted across the world resulting in violent assaults, appalling vandalism and terrifying incitement against Jews and Jewish institutions.

In such times, the need for authoritative voices to speak out against the ancient scourge of Jew hatred is paramount, and there is perhaps no one today who is more knowledgeable and has spoken with greater clarity than Deborah Lipstadt.

Lipstadt is the renowned historian of the Holocaust and Jewish history, who famously took on Holocaust denier David Irving in court and won. She has authored numerous books and papers on antisemitism and the Holocaust and was in July nominated by US President Joe Biden to be the next US special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism.

100 yrs ago, @TheTimes exposed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a forgery. Using our documents this podcast sheds light on how The Times exposed the truth. Part 1 & 2 featuring our colleague Liane, @TimesArchive and @DAaronovitch is online: https://t.co/I0Snhm1uajpic.twitter.com/yAk0809wh2

— News UK Archives (@NewsUKArchives) September 7, 2021

Even on #RoshHashanah@twitter’s blue tick users are spreading Holocaust denial unabated and unhindered by @TwitterSupport#TwitterAntisemitism. pic.twitter.com/UWRgFLmXc7

— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) September 7, 2021

A 30-year-old German man was found guilty Wednesday of an anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish restaurant three years ago in the eastern German city of Chemnitz in which the owner was injured and the restaurant damaged.

The Chemnitz district court ruled that the man, whose name was not given in line with German privacy rules, was found guilty of severe aggravated assault and breach of the peace. Judge Dominik Boerner convicted him of a one-year suspended prison sentence, the German news agency dpa reported.

The judge integrated a different conviction for drug dealing into the man’s sentence, dpa reported.

The man was part of a group that attacked the restaurant on August 27, 2018. The group threw cobblestones at the building which hit and injured the Jewish owner of the Schalom restaurant, dpa reported.

The group also yelled anti-Semitic slurs during the assault. Investigators later found the man’s DNA on one of the stones, dpa reported.

The anti-Semitic attack was part of several days of far-right, anti-migrant riots following the fatal stabbing of a German man by a Syrian asylum-seeker in Chemnitz. Hundreds of far-right rioters came to Chemnitz from all over Germany protesting and chasing foreigners through the city.

At the opening of the trial, the defendant refused to talk. The owner of the Jewish restaurant, Uwe Dziuballa, said he was shocked that night when he stepped out and saw around 10 people, all in dark clothes, who looked at him with hate, dpa reported.

Police in Santa Fe are trying to determine who spray-painted a swastika on a wall outside an apartment where a Jewish man lives, according to multiple sources.

Jeff Hornstein, 58, said he and his wife noticed the swastika outside their home as they returned from dinner.

He commented, saying, “I came forward because I felt that I had to stand up to hate, ignorance, and cowardice."

"It's not something I would really expect in Santa Fe,” said a neighbor who lives down the street. “And it's a little too close for my comfort. It's frightening."

Hornstein, an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher who works with the immigrant community, filed a report with the police and the Anti-Defamation League.

“At this point, we don’t have any suspects,” Santa Fe police Lt. Sean Strahon said. “We don’t have anything else to go on.” As of now, they're calling the swastika vandalism and not a hate crime.

?? Minnesota State Fair - a woman spotted wearing “Zionists are racists. Everyone single One” t-shirt.

When approached by an older Jewish man attempting to have a discussion with her, she started yelling - “Go die” and various other antisemitic sentiments.

Sickening. pic.twitter.com/1fmcGUHsjk

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 7, 2021

The reproduction rate or “R” has dropped to 0.95, the Health Ministry reported Wednesday evening.

The R is the number of people each sick person infects. At the beginning of the week, the R stood at 1.05, which already represented a decrease from the previous week.

Prof. Eran Segal, the computational biologist from the Weizmann Institute of Science who advises the government, first revealed the good news in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

He said that “the decrease is not due to fewer tests. The number of tests in the last two days is similar to that of a week ago. There is a decrease in both the percentage of positive tests and the number of new severe patients. Happy New Year to everyone.”

The Health Ministry reported 678 people in serious condition, including 171 who were intubated, on Wednesday evening. The number of total serious cases was only up by one since the Sunday before Rosh Hashanah. There were 17 new serious cases between midnight and press time.

There were 6,780 people diagnosed with coronavirus on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said, out of 95,155 who were screened - a 7.22% positivity rate.

The positivity rate before Rosh Hashanah was only 5.31%.

A new film that premiered on Friday on digital platforms is based on the true story of a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors who planned to poison the water system in five German cities after World War II.

In 1945, young Holocaust survivors formed a group called Nakam, the Hebrew word for revenge, and vowed to avenge the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. Their plot — to kill six million Germans by poisoning their drinking water — was dubbed Plan A, also the name of the film written and directed by Israeli brothers Doron and Yoav Paz, the directors behind “Jeruzalem” and “The Golem.”

The film stars August Diehl (“Inglourious Basterds”), Sylvia Hoeks (“Blade Runner 2049”), Michael Aloni (“Shtisel”) and Milton Welsh (“Conan the Barbarian”).

The Paz brothers, who had family members killed in the Holocaust, said they were inspired to make a film about the Nakam group after a friend revealed that his grandfather returned to his childhood home following his liberation from a labor camp and killed the man who sold out him and his family to the Nazis.

“This blew our minds,” Yoav told Jewish News. “We said, ‘Wow, this is an amazing story. You never hear about revenge.’”

He added, “For us, it was really fascinating. We felt that from this minority group who couldn’t go on with their life, we could learn a lot about all of the other survivors who did want to start a new life, and for them that was the real revenge.”

Israel took home a total of nine medals and set a number of new records at the 2020 Paralympic Games that concluded on Sunday in Tokyo, Japan.

Team Israel earned six gold, two silver and one bronze medal, with eight in swimming and one in rowing. On Aug. 25, Iyad Shalabi, 34, became the first Arab-Israeli to win a medal on behalf of Israel at the Olympics or Paralympics when he received a gold in the men’s 100-meter backstroke. He went on to win his second gold medal in the men’s 50-meter backstroke on Sept. 2.

On Aug. 27, Mark Malyar, 21, earned a gold medal in the men’s 200-meter individual medley and set a new world record in the category. He also won a gold in the men’s 400-meter freestyle race on Aug. 29, setting a new record in the category, and a bronze in the men’s 100-meter backstroke on Aug. 30.

Ami Dadaon, 20, won a silver in the 150-meter individual medley on Aug. 28, a gold medal in the men’s 200-meter freestyle on Aug. 30, and a gold in the men’s 50-meter freestyle on Sept. 2. He set new world records in the 200-meter and 50-meter races.

A silver was earned by Team Israel athlete Moran Samuel, 39, in the women’s single 2,000-meter rowing event on Aug. 28.

Israel’s Paralympics team of 33 athletes competed in 11 sports: athletics, badminton, boccia, goalball, paracanoeing, power lifting, rowing, shooting, swimming, table tennis and wheelchair tennis. The nine medals Israeli athletes won is triple of Israel’s total medal count from the Rio Paralympics in 2016 and the most gold medals Israel has won since the 1988 Games, according to The Times of Israel.

cc. @hrwhttps://t.co/ongDdTUdnO

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 8, 2021

The IDF has published a series of rare aerial photos from the 1930s and 40s as part of a digitization project involving millions of photos, videos and documents.

They include photos of the Tel Aviv Port, Nahariya, Kibbutz Ginosar, Kibbutz Ein Gev, and Kibbutz Hanita on the day of a 1938 aliyah wave. Many of the settlements that were photographed were originally founded as homa u'migdal ("tower and stockade") settlements, including the three kibbutzim.

These served the function of being legally resistant to the restrictions of British authorities while protecting Jewish communities during the Arab revolts.

According to the Defense Ministry spokeswoman, IDF archivists were able to identify the settlements and estimate the dates the files were documented.

Kibbutz Hanita four hours after an aliyah wave

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Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

The American debacle in Afghanistan is bad for America, and bad for Europe. The jihadists of the Middle East have received a huge gift of military equipment. They may even receive “humanitarian aid” from the US, in return for releasing some of the Americans still in Afghanistan. The Americans may call it aid, but everyone knows it is ransom for the release of hostages.

Psychologically, this is a massive boost to Islamic militants everywhere. Their belief that Allah is on their side has been confirmed. While I am probably too old to see them marching into the Vatican, unless present trends are reversed, my children probably will. Maybe they will find our Menorah, the one that Titus looted from the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.

America’s defeat is also bad for Israel, and not just because of the American-made arms that the Taliban is selling to Iran and to every swaggering group of savages who believe they have a divine mandate to loot and rape. Even before the disaster in Afghanistan, the forces of jihad here have been feeling the wind of history at their backs, and have become drunk with their power to make demands and have them met by a government which is always willing to choose, as Churchill said, dishonor over war – and which, like Britain under Chamberlain, got war anyway.

So when six murderous terrorists from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Fatah organizations escaped from an Israeli prison on Monday, their parent organizations threatened violence. Hamas, apparently feeling left out, also made threats of escalation and launched incendiary balloons across the border. The tension has been growing for the past few weeks, as Hamas makes demands for loosening of restrictions on the entry of building materials and financial aid from Qatar, and Israel tries vainly to satisfy them with concessions.

Recently, Israel agreed to “loan” the Palestinian Authority about $150 million, in order to “strengthen the PA against Hamas.” This is a strange “loan:” the source of the money is about $186 million of funds that were collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, for Palestinian taxes on imports that pass through Israeli ports. Israel, however, withheld the money from the PA because of an Israeli law that forbids transferring money as long as it is used to pay stipends to imprisoned terrorists or the families of “martyrs.” The Palestinians have refused to stop paying their heroes, so the transfer is called a “loan” in order to bypass the law. Wrap your head around that.

I know, it’s complicated. There is the PIJ, there is Hamas, and there is the Fatah-dominated PLO which in effect constitutes the PA. But here’s a rule to make it simpler: they are all waging jihad (even Fatah, which is officially secular), they are all deploying terrorists against us, and they are all dedicated to the idea that if they kill enough Jews the rest of us will pick up and go back to Poland, or wherever they believe we come from.

The new government is not quite as dysfunctional as the preceding one, but because of the inclusion of left-wing parties and even an Arab Islamist party – that’s right, a party whose ideology is that Israel should be ruled according to the principles of Islamic sharia is part of Israel’s governing coalition – it seems to be unable to deal with the escalating chutzpah of its Palestinian enemies.

The Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, is someone with a solid right-wing ideology, at least he has always expressed himself as such, but I believe that he is not able to call the shots in a government whose majority is center-left and left. Incidentally, and I know I will get a lot of objections to this, I think he is a courageous person who has sacrificed his political career – I doubt that his party will even get into the Knesset in the next election – to extricate the country from an endless series of elections and caretaker governments. The present situation is not good, but it was worse before. For this, I am grateful to him.

But now is not the time for concessions. America is leaving the Middle East, starting with Obama’s tacit decision to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons (as long as the breakout happens after his presidency), continuing through his inaction when Bashar al-Assad crossed his “red line” by using chemical weapons, and now being concluded by the empty suit in the White House. It should be clear to every American ally in the region, especially Israel, that it is impossible to count on support from America. Of course Israel doesn’t need American troops to fight for it, or even military advisors. But political developments in America make it uncertain if it will continue to support Israel diplomatically, with military aid, or even by selling her weapons for cash.

I don’t want to be even more negative than I have to be, but there is a fundamental cultural instability in America that seems to be becoming more intense with time. I suspect that Americans will soon be concerned more with their own personal security, even their physical safety, than anything else. Maybe it looks worse from here than it is, but I visualize it as an engine revved far beyond its redline, and holding there. At any moment it will fly apart.

We are living at a major historical inflection point, with America withdrawing her influence everywhere. Unfortunately the beneficiaries of this are Iran and the Islamists of all stripes, as well as the totalitarian Chinese Communist party, nuclear-armed Pakistan and North Korea, and others.

The end of the Roman Empire was followed by the Dark Ages, which aren’t called that for nothing. It's going to be hard for everyone.

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The Foreign Minister of the UAE and the Bahraini ambassador to Israel both issued Rosh Hashanah greetings on Sunday on Twitter in Hebrew.

Both of them extended their greetings to Jews worldwide.

Iran's Abna News wrote that Arabs were surprised and upset over the tweet. 

Jordan's Al Majd, a pan-Arab nationalist news site, called both Arab officials "traitors" for tweeting in Hebrew and damned them saying "God's curse on them."

Abu Zayed had tweeted Shana Tova greetings in 2019, before the Abraham Accords, and in 2020. Arabs expressed anger on those occasions too.

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From Tufts Daily:

An act of antisemitic vandalism occurred in one of Tufts’ dorms on Saturday, according to an email sent to the Tufts community Wednesday night. The email was signed by University President Anthony Monaco.

According to the email, a Jewish student had discovered his mezuzah — an important Jewish symbol traditionally affixed to the doorposts of Jewish homes — removed from his doorpost.

“Regardless of intent, the removal of this important symbol of Jewish faith is antisemitic and has caused harm,” Monaco wrote in the email. “This is a moment from which we can all learn. All members of our community should feel comfortable displaying and expressing their faith, and all members of our community should respect those displays and expressions.”

Monaco said that Tufts University Police Department had launched an investigation into the incident but has not yet been able to identify the people or person responsible for the mezuzah’s removal.

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Former U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. He currently serves on the advisory council of the Combat Antisemitism Movement and ai a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The failure of the international community to condemn Durban I had very real consequences: Antisemitism was given a prestigious platform, and anti-Zionism and Israel hatred become accepted orthodoxy among certain academic schools and in large swaths of public discourse.

The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement was borne out of Durban, and the harassment and discrimination to which Jewish university students have been subjected in many parts of the United States and Europe owes its prevalence to the depravity of Durban.

Remarkably, instead of condemning what Durban I became, the United Nations continues to celebrate the event by organizing successive commemorative conferences. Later this month, the UN plans to hold a high-level meeting in New York known as Durban IV, to honor the 20th anniversary of the original conference. This is a moral outrage, and it will surely compound the damage and further driving global antisemitic narratives.

I applaud President Joe Biden for leading the United States to boycott this obscenity. Across four administrations, both Democrat and Republican, the United States has refused to participate in Durban I or any of its follow-up iterations, including the one that is forthcoming. The US understands that Durban is about antisemitism, not anti-racism, and will not abide any form of hatred towards Jews.

President Emmanuel Macron of France similarly declared his country’s boycott of the Durban commemoration, as have the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Australia, Canada, and of course, Israel. These countries are exhibiting moral leadership and are an example for the world.

All countries of goodwill must withdraw from Durban IV. With antisemitism rising across the world and attacks on Jews proliferating from Los Angeles to Berlin, the time has come for leaders of conscience to act in concert. On this matter, there is no room for neutrality. Participating in Durban IV is an endorsement of antisemitism. The time has come for all of us to say enough of the Durban depravity

New Zealand and Cyprus will not take part in this month’s event marking 20 years since the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, which identified Israel alone as a racist state.

The conference was studded with antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments.

“New Zealand remains strongly committed to combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Wellington said on Thursday. “Consistent with our long-standing position, New Zealand will not attend the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration conference in New York on 22 September 2021.”

Cyprus has also decided not to attend the conference, American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said, citing a conversation he had with Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides on Monday.

Also this week, Italy and Croatia said they would not attend the conference, with the latter saying the decision was due to “the constant antisemitic attitudes and the linking of conferences to anti-Israel propaganda and the promotion of intolerance.”

Durban IV will be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this month.

Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, the UK and the US also plan to boycott the event. The number of countries boycotting this year’s conference, 16, is greater than the 14 which opted out of the 2011 Durban Review Conference, and the 10 that did so in 2009.

Major democracies have pulled out of Durban IV which obscenely celebrates the worst global display of antisemitism in the post-war era—the 2001 Durban Conference.

When will Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland & others follow?

?? Petition: https://t.co/pusCImy0C3pic.twitter.com/nGc1oUuwFx

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 9, 2021

Hey countries! Do you want to attend the @UN Durban IV conference and promote antisemitism?

Countries:
???? ???? ????????
???????? ???? ???? ????
???? ???????? ???? ????
???? ???? ????????

— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 9, 2021

When President Barack Obama struck a deal with the Taliban in 2014 to free several high-ranking terrorists being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, his defenders argued their release would do little to harm U.S. national security. Now, four of those terrorists are serving in senior roles in Afghanistan's newly formed Taliban government.

The Obama-era deal's prominent defenders include officials now serving in senior posts in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House press secretary Jen Psaki. They claimed there was no indication these terrorists, known as the Taliban Five, would return to the battlefield, let alone rise to senior leadership positions in the Taliban government following the United States' much-criticized evacuation from Afghanistan. The prisoners were swapped for Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was later charged with desertion.

Blinken, who was then serving as deputy national security adviser, told NBC that "any threat they would pose to the United States [and] to Americans has been sufficiently mitigated." Blinken also claimed the terrorists would be "very carefully monitored" by Qatar, which helped facilitate the trade and provided safe haven to the five detainees after their release. "There will be restrictions on their travel, on their activities," Blinken said.

Jen Psaki, who served as the State Department spokeswoman at the time of the deal, hailed it as a signature achievement by the Obama administration. "Was it worth it? Absolutely," Psaki said in 2015.

Biden himself, who was vice president at the time, also celebrated Berghdahl's release on Twitter.

The Taliban said it would support a normalization with the United States as well as with regional actors, yet ruled out establishing ties with the Jewish state.

“Of course, we won’t have any relation with Israel,” a spokesperson for the Islamist group told the Russian Sputnik outlet. “We want to have relations with other countries, Israel is not among these countries … We would like to have relations with all the regional countries and neighboring countries as well as Asian countries.”

Yet “if America wants to have a relation with us, which could be in the interest of both countries and both peoples, and if they want to participate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, they are welcome,” Suhail Shaheen was quoted in the report.

World powers have told the Taliban the key to peace and development is an inclusive government that would back up its pledges of a more conciliatory approach, upholding human rights, after a previous 1996-2001 period in power marked by bloody vendettas and oppression of women.

Two hundred foreigners in Afghanistan, Americans among them, are set to depart on charter flights from Kabul on Thursday after the new Taliban government agreed to their evacuation, a US official said.

The departures will be among the first international flights to take off from Kabul airport since the Islamist militia seized the capital in mid-August, triggering the chaotic US-led evacuation of 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans.

The flights come two days after the Taliban announced an interim government made up of mainly ethnic Pashtun men, including wanted terror suspects and Islamist hardliners, dashing international hopes for a more moderate administration.

The Taliban were pressed to allow the departures by US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the US official said, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The official could not say whether the American civilians and other foreign nationals were among people stranded for days in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif because their private charters had not been allowed to depart.

The announcement of a new government on Tuesday was widely seen as a signal the Taliban were not looking to broaden their base and present a more tolerant face to the world, as they had earlier suggested they would do.

Ft. Hood shooter radical Islamic terrorist Nidal Hasan celebrated the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. "I think it's a stark reminder that terrorism is still alive," retired Sgt. Howard Ray, a Ft. Hood survivor, told @FoxNewshttps://t.co/ARTK1nH0go

— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) September 9, 2021

Almost a year after the beheading of Professor Samuel Paty in a middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, after which the Minister of Education Jean Michel Blanquer revealed that 800 Islamist "episodes" have occurred in French schools, a French professor was suspended for praising the Taliban.

On August 16, the day after the capture of Kabul, Khalid B. wrote on his Facebook account: "The Taliban have will and courage ...". Khalid B. does not teach in a "difficult suburb", but in Peltre. A village of 1,900 inhabitants, Peltre, near Nancy, tops the 2020 list of “villages and towns where life is good”. Le Figaro tells that it is not the first time that the teacher has praised the Islamists.

And he is certainly not the first French teacher to praise Jihad.

L’Express reveals that a math teacher, who was also an imam, Abdelali Bouhnik, was suspended from the Académie of Créteil for having invited "the faithful to pray for jihadists around the world". Member of National Education for more than 25 years, the man taught mathematics at the Jean Moulin high school in Torcy.

In Lyon, says Le Parisien, an aspiring professor was arrested for "condoning terrorism and threats to Catholic staff and students".

More than 1,000 jihadist propaganda photos and videos were stored on another professor's computer, Le Parisien reveals. The Grenoble-born mathematics teacher, born in Morocco, was sentenced to two years in prison after teaching for a long time in public and high schools. Khalid Z., a member of a Salafist movement and translator of Al Qaeda, taught in a public high school in Rennes.

What do all these cases tell us? That French disintegration is at a very advanced stage and that Islamists have infiltrated all ganglia of the public apparatus, from the police to the schools. Islamists have already recruited dozens of French and ex-military soldiers who converted to Islam. Many come from specialized units, with experience in handling weapons and explosives.

A radical left-wing activist group organizing a pro-abortion protest outside the home of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh had some interesting advice for prospective attendees. An addendum to the notice announcing the protest urged activists "to be as inclusive as possible in your language" while making a ruckus outside Kavanaugh's home in Washington, D.C.

"Women and girls are not the only people who can get pregnant and need abortions," the organizers from ShutDownDC wrote. That's going to be rather inconvenient for anyone who was planning to reuse old signage about stopping the "war on women," but at least they've been given a few days to prepare. Alas, "Stop the war on people who can get pregnant" has far too many syllables to incorporate into a catchy chant.

Additionally, the protest organizers cautioned attendees to "please avoid comparing U.S. abortion-restricting politicians to the Taliban" because it would be unfair to the Taliban. (No, seriously.) "The former are a distinctly homegrown phenomenon and ignoring that in favor of such comparisons is Islamophobic," they explained.

Since the Taliban's rapid takeover in Afghanistan, even prominent Democrats have delighted in comparing people they don't like to the militant Islamist group. "Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here?" wrote Arne Duncan, an Islamophobe who served seven years as former president Barack Obama's secretary of education.

The protest is scheduled to take place on the evening of Monday, Sept. 13. ShutDownDC, a left-wing activist group that purports to use "strategic direct action to advance justice and hold officials accountable," said they intend to "make our voices heard" by calling for Kavanaugh's resignation and telling him to "keep your oppressive ideology out of our bodies."

Taliban soldiers beating women infront of Kardan university, Kabul city. pic.twitter.com/KOvLXMo8mw

— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) September 7, 2021

Much of the imagery used to illustrate the recent conflict in Gaza sought to portray a military superpower and a largely helpless victim. The echoes of the biblical story of David and Goliath were difficult to miss. But this vision of a mighty Israel crushing poor Palestinian civilians is highly misleading.

First, Israel is far from being a superpower - even in military terms; it is at most a middleweight. By all key metrics - geographic, demographic, and economic - Israel is dwarfed by even a middle-ranked power like Britain.

The annual Global Firepower ranking puts Israel in the world's top-20 strongest militaries - but only just, at No. 20. Britain was ranked at No. 8. Several countries in the Middle East are more highly ranked militarily than Israel, including Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, the contemporary conflict is not simply one between Israel and the Palestinians. It also involves an additional main party in the wider region: Islamism.

Hamas (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement) in Gaza has substantial external Islamic support, including military backing from Iran and financial support from Qatar. It also has a powerful military ally in Hizbullah in Lebanon, which is also backed by Iran.

Indeed, the goal of Hamas, and Islamism generally, is not Palestinian self-determination. It is to subjugate Gaza, along with the rest of the Middle East, under an Islamic caliphate. It is therefore hostile to Palestinian self-determination.

There is comfort in realising that some insanities are not new. When Israel saved its hostages in Entebbe, UNSC convened to "consider Zionist aggression against Uganda's sovereignty" (from excellent book by Prof. @JeffreyHerf on East Germany's "Undeclared Wars" against Israel).

— Dr. Einat Wilf (@EinatWilf) September 9, 2021

It’s one of the holiest sites in the world…and the most controversial: The Temple Mount / Al Aqsa

Is #AlAqsa really in danger?

See the truth for yourself:

with @YosephHaddad#SaveAlAqsapic.twitter.com/PcYl9C1mUk

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 9, 2021

Several factions in the Gaza Strip, including the ruling US-designated Hamas terror group, have called for an investigation after three Palestinians were found dead in an underground tunnel between the coastal enclave and the Sinai Peninsula.

According to local reports, the men were killed when Egyptian forces pumped poisonous gas into the structure, triggering its collapse.

The accusation against Gaza’s southern neighbor was echoed in statements by Palestinian terror groups, which spoke of “murder for which Egyptian authorities bear full responsibility.”

It wouldn’t be the first time that Egypt has employed tactics to counter Hamas’ tunnels.

In 2019, two Gazans, including one Hamas operative, reportedly died after Egyptian troops sprayed toxic fumes into a subterranean passageway. Hamas made similar allegations in 2010 after the death of four smugglers.

Moreover, Egypt has tried to combat cross-border movement by blowing up the terrorist group’s tunnels and flooding them with seawater and raw sewage.

Indeed, Egypt rightfully regards Hamas as a security threat, since the terror group smuggles arms and even Islamic terrorists through and into Sinai, where Egyptian troops have for years been fighting a local ISIS branch. The underground tunnels also fund Hamas’ activities, as Gaza’s rulers impose taxes on goods passing through them into the Strip.

The Biden administration and leftist congressional allies have perpetuated a tired charade of prioritizing human rights over other security-focused considerations with regard to relations with several key partners, including Egypt. One of the loudest Democratic voices in opposition to continued security assistance for Egypt is Sen. Christopher Murphy (Conn.), who questions a number of established partnerships supporting U.S. objectives across the Middle East.

In the past weeks, much has been revealed by our appalling abandonment of U.S. citizens and allies in Afghanistan. If promoting human rights was a primary consideration, the Biden administration would not support the Taliban — a designated terrorist organization under the United Nations and U.S. Treasury Department — which, this past week, blamed the U.S. for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

With this new reality, it is worth circling back to the administration’s dangerous approach to the U.S.-Egypt relationship, where some hard questions must be asked of Democrats advocating a halt to critical security assistance.

Egypt faces multiple security challenges and requires urgent assistance in order to continue providing leadership on regional security matters. The nation and its president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, are critical bulwarks against the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical islamist groups. It is clear that if security assistance is not provided by the United States, Egypt will seek it elsewhere, likely with Russia or other strategic rivals.

The House passed a 2022 foreign aid bill that proposes withholding $150 million from Egypt — a larger amount than in previous years — and that does not include the standard national security waiver for a portion of that withheld assistance. Due to long-standing fiscal problems, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cairo is financially strapped and now risks losing U.S. financial assistance, which constitutes a big chunk of its annual military budget. Meanwhile, as its budget is expected to remain in a deficit through 2025, pressure is building in Egypt for more austerity measures. With citizens under 30 representing more than half the total population, the trajectory is unsustainable.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other Palestinian factions have called for a “day of rage” on Friday in protest of Israel’s decision to transfer security prisoners to other prisons following the escape of six inmates from Gilboa Prison earlier this week. A Palestinian Authority official, meanwhile, warned that Israel’s “repressive” measures against the prisoners could ignite a new intifada. “Israel is playing with fire,” the official told The Jerusalem Post.

“The issue of the prisoners is extremely sensitive. The situation is very dangerous.”

The official said that the PA has warned the Israeli government that the West Bank “is on the verge of explosion” because of the anger over the measures taken against the security prisoners.

Tawfik Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee and former head of the PA General Intelligence Service, on Thursday visited the families of some of the fugitives who escaped from Gilboa Prison.

Tirawi told the families that he was proud of the six inmates and expressed hope that all the security prisoners would be freed.

Israeli forces continue to search for six Palestinians who on Monday escaped from the maximum-security Gilboa prison. Five fugitives are members of Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad. The sixth is a former leader of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Both are US-designated terror groups.

Most of the escapees were serving life sentences for their roles in attacks on Israeli civilians. Ayham Kamamji, for instance, was convicted of kidnapping and murdering teenager Eliyahu Asheri.

Nevertheless, Palestinians celebrated the jailbreak, with candy handed out across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah faction praised the development. An official Twitter account posted a photo of Abbas and Zakaria Zubeidi, who in 2002 planned an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades attack that killed six Israelis.

This apparently came as a surprise to The New York Times, which downplayed Abbas' responsibility by claiming Fatah was only "loosely linked" to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. In reality, Palestinian officials are on record gloating that they bear "full responsibility" for the terror group, which is an indivisible "part of Fatah."

Palestinian Media Watch has repeatedly warned that Israel Prison Service (IPS) does not know what the Palestinian terrorists are doing in their prisons.

PMW has met, exchanged emails, and spoken with members of the prison service, including the Head of the IPS and Israel’s Minister of Internal Security (responsible for the IPS) to warn them of activities happening in prisons that they are not aware of. Despite the overwhelming evidence, the IPS consistently responded by saying that the information published by the Palestinian Authority, and exposed by PMW, was not true, and that everything is under control.

On Monday (Sept. 6, 2021) six Palestinian terrorist murderers escaped from prison in what is being described as one failure after another by the prison service. The first failure was negating and not acting on PMW’s repeated warnings.

In over 10 reports in the last four years, PMW warned that terrorist prisoners and their lawyers appear to have an almost unlimited freedom to smuggle materials in and out of the prisons. For example, according to PMW documentation of official PA sources, hundreds of prisoners were able to study for academic degrees despite the IPS ban on these studies. Lawyers smuggled the educational materials into the prisons and prisoners with advanced degrees became faculty staff, teaching the different subjects. In addition, prisoners even managed to smuggle out their sperm and father scores of children. Despite clear evidence, the IPS constantly responded that these activities are not happening.

Just recently, PMW reported to the IPS that a mass murderer, responsible for a suicide bombing in which 23 people were murdered, had been speaking via a mobile phone to a crowd gathered in a neighborhood of Jerusalem. While the IPS acted swiftly to punish the terrorist, the fact remains that a cell phone was smuggled to a mass murder into prison without the IPS knowing about it.

When describing the measures ???? can impose on the 6 terrorist murderers who escaped from an ???? prison on Monday, @alhaq_org connivingly refers to regulations from GCIII limited to Prisoners of War.

So here's some news for the EU funded NGO:

Terrorist murderers are NOT POW's! https://t.co/3ODPpbyeC3

— Maurice Hirsch, Adv. ???? ??''? ????? ???? (@MauriceHirsch4) September 9, 2021

Palestinians erected a large poster of the six militants who have been on the run for several days now after escaping Gilboa prison. The message is in reference to one of the escaped militants, Zacharia Zubeidi's dissertation, titled 'The Dragon and the Hunter.' pic.twitter.com/kkemqnaioY

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 9, 2021

Video by @nowthisnews about the Palestinian escapees from an Israeli prison talks about "alleged planned attacks" but #fails to mention convicted murderer Eham Kamamji, 35, from Kufr Dan.

Kamamji murdered an 18-year-old Israeli civilian in 2006. pic.twitter.com/uzdybID6zD

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 9, 2021

These are convicted murderers and terrorists, incl. from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible for the murder of Jews and Israelis. Only Gideon Levy could write such vile trash and @haaretzcom deem it worthy of publishing. pic.twitter.com/QOAxn80MMV

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 9, 2021

"Accused of crimes of terror," @NTarnopolsky?

All but one of the escapees were *convicted* for crimes of terror. Not accused.@thedailybeast, this inaccuracy needs to be fixed.https://t.co/g2lZ8UG9wXpic.twitter.com/NEhx8gekLE

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 9, 2021

Why does the Washington Post continue to romanticize terrorists with blood on their hands?

This “theatre kid” is a MURDERER @WashPostPRhttps://t.co/tRyfhlhAtk

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 9, 2021

Turkey-Based Egyptian Islamic Scholar Sheikh Sameh Al-Gobah: The Jews and Communists Have Conspired to Destroy Muslim Family Values, as Detailed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion #Antisemitism#muslimbrotherhood@watanegypt#Turkeypic.twitter.com/o7k8uR9Y7e

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 9, 2021

The Biden administration is expected to waive sanctions on Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad to facilitate an energy deal with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, according to congressional sources briefed on the matter.

The administration wants to waive portions of the bipartisan Caesar Act, which applied wide-ranging sanctions on Assad for his war crimes in Syria, to facilitate an energy deal with Arab nations that would provide the Assad regime with a financial and political lifeline.

Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa who was caught having an extramarital affair with a reporter in 2008 while serving as the Obama administration's ambassadorial nominee to Iraq, is pressing Egypt to sell gas to Lebanon via a pipeline that runs through Syria, congressional sources told the Washington Free Beacon. The Biden administration would have to waive key sanctions on Assad in order for the deal to go through.

As Biden and Democrats in Congress signal a willingness to back sanctions relief, Republican foreign policy leaders say removing sanctions on Assad will embolden his Iranian backers as well as Hezbollah. Indeed, Hezbollah itself sees the deal as a victory in its fight against U.S. sanctions and efforts to expand the Islamic Republic's influence across the Middle East, saying it will loosen restrictions on all three countries involved: Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.

"Why in the world would the Biden administration lift sanctions on one of the most brutal human rights abusers in the world—the Assad regime?" Joe Wilson, a House Foreign Affairs Committee member and chair of the Republican Study Committee's National Security and Foreign Affairs Task Force, told the Free Beacon.

Apparently desperate to revive the nuclear pact, the Biden administration at once began appeasing the ruling clerics of Iran.

From the perspective of Iran's mullahs, Biden's desperate efforts to resurrect the nuclear deal manifested his weak leadership and therefore a delectable opportunity for Tehran to buy time, get more concessions, advance its nuclear program and become a nuclear state.

Notwithstanding all these policies of incentives and appeasements, Iran's mullahs continued to make excuses seemingly to drag out the nuclear talks. One of the latest overtures was that the world powers ought to wait until Iran's newly elected president, Ebrahim Raisi, took office before resuming the nuclear talks.

By now, Raisi has been president of Iran for more than a month but there has not been the slightest effort by the Islamic Republic to restart any talks; in fact, all the while, the regime appears to have accelerated its enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade.

At the moment, the Iranian regime is reportedly 8-10 weeks away from obtaining the weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon.

The UN atomic watchdog on Tuesday criticized Iran for stonewalling an investigation into past activities and jeopardizing important monitoring work, possibly complicating efforts to resume talks on the Iran nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in two reports to member states reviewed by Reuters that there had been no progress on two central issues: explaining uranium traces found at several old, undeclared sites and getting urgent access to some monitoring equipment so that the agency can continue to keep track of parts of Iran’s nuclear program.

While the investigation into the uranium traces has been going on for more than a year, diplomats say the IAEA urgently needs access to the equipment to swap out memory cards so there are no gaps in its observation of activities like the production of parts for centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.

Without such monitoring and so-called continuity of knowledge, Iran could produce and hide unknown quantities of this equipment that can be used to make weapons or reactor fuel.

“The Agency’s confidence that it can maintain continuity of knowledge is declining over time and has now significantly further declined,” one of the two reports said, adding that while the agency needs to access the equipment every three months, it had not had access since May 25.

“This confidence will continue to decline unless the situation is immediately rectified by Iran.”

A senior diplomat said the agency’s confidence that the equipment is still working properly declines rapidly after three months, and while the memory cards should keep working for slightly longer, inspectors will need access soon.

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is joining a coalition of civil society groups that call for President Joe Biden to roll back sanctions against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Forty-six organizations, including two avowedly Communist groups, on Tuesday submitted a letter to Biden that urges him to implement "significant" changes to the United States' sanctions policy. The U.S. Peace Council and International Action Center are openly supportive of Communist and totalitarian regimes.

The U.S. Peace Council has cozied up to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and accused the U.S. government of launching coups in Ukraine and Venezuela. The International Action Center recently released a report that parrots the popular Chinese talking point that the coronavirus originated in a U.S. military lab in Maryland.

Sent in the wake of the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, a policy long backed by the isolationist-leaning Quincy Institute, the letter demonstrates the organization's ongoing efforts to push Biden's foreign policy to the left.

"We write to urge you to complete the administration's sanctions policy review as expeditiously as possible, to make its findings public, and to implement significant and structural changes to U.S. sanctions policy," the letter reads.

The signatories offer to provide "expertise" to the Biden administration during its sanctions policy review.

"We believe we have valuable insight to share, and your administration has said it seeks such input," they write.

The letter is the Quincy Institute's first known collaboration with the U.S. Peace Council and the International Action Center, two of the harshest critics of U.S. foreign policy.

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Hamid Sajjadi, Iran’s recently appointed minister of sports, warned Iranian athletes in August not to compete against counterparts from the “child-killing and occupying regime of Israel.” With the 2022 Winter Olympic games commencing just five months from now, sporting authorities must condemn and punish this discrimination.

At this year’s Olympic games, the world watched Fethi Nourine from Algeria and Mohamed Abdalrasool from Sudan forfeit their judo matches rather than risk sharing the Olympic stage with an Israeli opponent. Supported by the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Nourine and Abdalrasool demonstrated that old hatreds die hard. Meanwhile, Olympians from presumably hostile countries welcomed their Israeli peers, embodying the Olympic values of sportsmanship and mutual understanding.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) promptly suspended Nourine and his coach, and launched an investigation into the incident. In a press release, the IJF said, “Judo sport is based on a strong moral code, including respect and friendship, to foster solidarity and we will not tolerate any discrimination, as it goes against the core values and principles of our sport.” Defiant, Nourine told the Algerian press, “My position is consistent on the Palestinian issue, and I reject normalisation, and if it cost me that absence from the Olympic Games, God will compensate.”

For years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has called upon athletes in the Arab world to boycott Israeli sports. Jibril Rajoub, the chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association, has weaponized these sporting events to condemn what he calls the “crime of normalization.” In 2014, Rajoub declared, “Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity.” Following Nourine’s withdrawal, Rajoub posted a photo on Facebook of the two together, and commended Nourine’s “courageous stance refusing normalization.”

Rajoub is effectively encouraging athletes to break Olympic rules, and destroy their careers in a campaign to exclude and alienate Israeli athletes. “The practice of sport is a human right,” states the Olympic Charter. “Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind.”

Rajoub even has a personal history of promoting violence against Israel.

In other words, the BBC fully understands that Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the northern part of the island is not accepted by any other state or by the UN.

A European Parliament briefing describes the situation as follows:
…the Turkish army occupied 37% of the island’s territory. A cease-fire was declared on 18 August 1974, confirming the partition of the island. The period that followed was characterised by territorial occupation, loss of life, flight by sections of the population and destruction of the cultural heritage. In November 1983, the illegally occupied zone proclaimed itself the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (TRNC), illegally in the eyes of the United Nations Security Council.

Moreover, since Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the EU regards the whole of the island as “EU territory.”

Nevertheless, as is uniformly the case in BBC reporting on the topic of Cyprus, the corporation avoids the use of terms such as “occupation” and “international law” — which are equally inevitably seen in BBC coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In articles about Cyprus, readers do not find any pronouncements pre-emptively allocating disputed territory to one side or the other — in the style of the frequently employed phrases “occupied Palestinian land” and “Palestinian territory.”

As we have noted in the past, the BBC is able to report on the long-running conflict in Cyprus in a manner which refrains from promoting a particular political narrative. That editorial policy continues to stand in sharp contrast to the corporation’s chosen framing of territorial disputes involving Israel.

When David Baddiel’s latest book, “Jews Don’t Count,” was published in the UK earlier this year, he was somewhat surprised to hear some Americans buzzing with interest about it.

After all, the book, which rails against the relegation of antisemitism to a bigotry of lesser importance among many progressive activists, arose in the aftermath of the Jeremy Corbyn era of British politics, where issues of antisemitism dominated public discourse.

Now, more than six months later, Baddiel — a comedian, author, and popular British TV personality — has adapted the book for American audiences, with a new version out in the United States this week.

“Before I rewrote the book, a number of Jewish Americans had read it anyway because it was available on Kindle,” Baddiel told The Times of Israel, in a recent phone interview while vacationing in Cornwall along the British coast.

“There was interest… without me even rewriting a word of it,” he said, adding that, like their coreligionists in the UK, left-leaning Jews in the US feel “alienated.”

“Left-wing Jews tend to be allies to other minorities, [but] where are our allies?” he said.

Money Heist is one of the most popular television series in Israel in years and two of its stars have even visited the Jewish state, but it seems their affinity for the country is now costing them in terms of popularity in the world, or at least online.

In a recent interview with Channel 12 News to mark the premiere of the series' fifth season, the show's actors praised Israel and complimented the country and its security forces.

When asked about his trip to Israel, actor Darko Peric, who plays the character "Helsinki" in the show, answered: "It was a wonderful experience, and I hope to come back. I know there are a lot of fans here, and the people here are great. When people travel to Israel they always talk about the strict security arrangements and meticulous police activity. But when I got here, even the policemen wanted to take pictures with me. It was great."

Spanish-Armenian actor Hovik Keuchkerian (who plays the character "Bogotá"), also complimented the Jewish state, saying he had "heard wonderful things about Israel." Keuchkerian also praised the original Israeli Netflix action-drama series Fauda.

As expected, the comments sparked the consternation of online activists, anti-Zionists and keyboard warriors, who are now calling for Money Heist to be boycotted.

California Jewish institutions are being tested. And I’m sorry to report that many are failing to protect the Jewish community in their support for state-mandated ethnic studies, which, unfortunately, as it is expressed today, contributes to Jew-hatred in the form of anti-Zionism—today’s most virulent and misunderstood form of Jew-hatred.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with being opposed to teaching ethnic studies, which is noble in construct. The problem is that the first draft of the state-mandated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) set up a terrible precedent, as the curriculum was so saturated in Jew-hatred that it was unanimously rejected by the Jewish Caucus of California, as well as the California State Board of Education in 2019.

While many celebrated the decision to reject teaching hate in the classroom, AB 101—a California bill mandating that ethnic-studies classes be a requirement for graduation from high school—is likely to be approved by the state legislature in the coming days.

Proponents of AB101 do not understand why the Jewish community is alarmed. As one representative of a California assemblyperson said, “What’s the problem? Are you against teaching ethnic studies? We rejected the first draft of the model curriculum!”

The problem is that the two are interlinked.

AB 101 leaves it up to individual schools and teachers to decide which ethnic-studies curriculum they want to use. As such, if they want to use the final State Board of Education-approved ESMC, the rejected first draft of the ESMC or the newest ethnic studies curriculum—the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, which has been called “the first draft on steroids”—there are no legal safeguards capable of stopping the school from doing so, with educator activists determined to ensure that their anti-Zionist versions are taught. Teachers who are already overworked and stretched thin will gladly take what is being pushed on them by anti-Zionist educators rather than develop their own units.

Alarmingly, even without this bill’s passage and subsequent boost, Jewish students are already experiencing virulent classroom anti-Zionism that directly harms them.

More antisemitism at @TuftsUniversity as a student had his mezuzah vandalized during Rosh Hashanah per a letter from University President Tony Monaco. pic.twitter.com/tQybBcZ2lp

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 9, 2021

The tech giant Google is holding “antiracist” training for its employees that claims a direct link exists between listening to Ben Shapiro, editor emeritus of The Daily Wire and host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and committing “mass murder.”

The training also places former President Donald Trump on a list of ideas and people that lead to “genocide,” along with “apolitical beliefs” and phrases such as “All Lives Matter.” Shapiro, Trump, and the rest all contribute to the “normalization” of racism that eventually inspires mass shooters and leads to the genocide of entire people groups, according to a slide of the training curriculum obtained by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo.

“Another graphic, titled ‘The White Supremacy Pyramid,’ advances the idea that conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is a foundation of ‘white supremacy’ and that Donald Trump is moving society on a path toward ‘mass murder’ and ‘genocide,’” Rufo tweeted along with an image of the pyramid.

Shapiro, who was the top target of antisemitism on Twitter among journalists in 2016, slammed the Google training.

“All it would take is one Google search to learn just how much white supremacists hate my work, or how often I’ve spoken out against their benighted philosophy,” Shapiro told Rufo in City Journal. “The attempt to link everyone to the right of Hillary Clinton to white supremacism is disgusting, untrue, and malicious.”

Can you imagine being “thrilled” to welcome a misogynistic antisemite as an employee? Tolerance of antisemitism like @thenation are doing, is why global antisemitism is at an all time high. #Antisemitismhttps://t.co/YidOwPAXms

— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) September 9, 2021

.@thenation keeping it classy with their new hire @m7mdkurdhttps://t.co/ZzX2kzejjepic.twitter.com/ncR1WMuQ8W

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 9, 2021

Israel's Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely recalled in an interview her horror at the anti-Semitic protests that erupted as Israel defended its civilians from Hamas missiles in May. "Some of the attacks happened in my neighborhood, some of the cars were driving next to my house," she said, referring to the "hate convoy" that snaked through north London during the Gaza war, with cars draped with Palestinian flags driving through Jewish neighborhoods. "My children had to hear people shouting and screaming horrible things."

"The issue is that this jihadi ideology has got to the capital of freedom and liberalism that London symbolizes. I'm not just speaking about my own experience, I'm speaking about the Jewish community's experience."

During the May conflict, the ambassador had faced an often hostile British media. On BBC "Newsnight," the opening question was: "How ashamed are you of your government tonight?""It wasn't an easy moment for me," Hotovely recalled. "My mother, who's over 60, was sitting in a shelter, kids in Israel were sitting in shelters instead of going to nurseries and schools. But my reaction was very clear. We are a democratic country defending its people being attacked by a terror organization. This is the truth."

Dr. Michael Blume is the state representative on anti-Semitism in Baden-Württemberg (Germany)

Please share a little bit about your mandate as the representative of the state government for antisemitism. What does it encompass? For those who are not familiar with the German institutional approach to this issue, how does it fit in with the federal response to antisemitism? (i.e. what is the “vision” and the “mission”?)

In 2015 and 2016, I led a humanitarian mission in Iraq to evacuate 1.100 Yazidi women and children to our State, who had suffered traumatizing violence by Daesh. But I was shocked about the massive, antisemitic conspiracy myths even among our allies in the region! Many Kurdish and especially Arab, Turkish and Persian people believed ISIS had been established by the Israeli Mossad and ISIS-„Caliph“ Baghdadi being a jewish CIA-agents named Shimon Elliot. Of course, I had read about „Antisemitism without Jews“, but it was shocking to deal with it. And soon after our return from Iraq, a new right-wing party, the AfD, became elected into our State Parliament (the Landtag), with one of its legislators claiming the antisemitic forgery of the „Protocols of the Elders of Zion“ to be accurate!

So, I began to warn, to lecture and to write about the new, digital rise in Antisemitism, for example devoting a chapter to the dangers of Islamic Antisemitism in my book “Islam in der Krise” (Islam in Crisis) in 2017 and publishing a book on the global dangers of Antisemitism in 2019.

As an expert group advised Germany to enlist State Commissioners against Antisemitism, the two big Jewish communities of our State asked Ministerpresident Kretschmann and the Landtag to name me – without having me asked in advance. But of course, having faced Islamist extremists in Iraq, I would not hesitate to face all kinds of Antisemites in our State, too. All factions in our Parliament with the exception of the AfD agreed.

In 2018, I became the first State Commissioner against Antisemitism in Germany, with my colleague Dr. Felix Klein on the federal level and more colleagues to follow. I assembled a council of experts and we worked out 74 recommendations to our Parliament in our first report, ranging from Education and Security, fighting the anti-Semitic BDS-movement, more youth exchange with Israel and program funding to the installment of the first police rabbis in the European Union. There remains so much to be done, but our work is quite often attacked by various extremist groups and trolls.

What are your objectives in assuming this position and how have you pursued them? What do you see as metrics for “success” and how far have they been reached, from your perspective?

Of course, my first goal has been the security of Jewish live. So I warned our Government about digital radicalization and we were able to set up a Security congress with the police forces at the Stuttgart Jewish Centre weeks “before” an anti-Semitic terrorist attack was carried out in Halle. But then, we have to prevent people from believing in conspiracy myths and becoming Anti-Semitic in the first place, so my team & I are putting a lot of effort in informing the public and reforming education. Remember that we are having and needing a lot of immigration from all parts oft he world – and many of them have been raised with Antisemitism! Finally, I want people to understand that we should support Israel as the single liberal democracy in the region against boycott movements and against the threats by Iran. We managed to reach out to thousands and I am getting hundreds of invitations to cities, schools and various associations. I do know that we will never be able to get conspiracy myths and Antisemitism out of every human heart, but I do believe that we should try nevertheless. And I do hope that we will see a day where all Jewish communities and the State of Israel are accepted by all major groups and States. As you can imagine, we are actively supporting every Muslim State and Group that is ready for real peace.

The Hon. Piers Portman, the youngest living son of the 9th Viscount Portman and heir to 110 acres of West End real estate, has been found guilty of calling Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive “Jewish scum” in a confrontation at a courthouse in 2018.

Mr Portman, 50, was prosecuted after approaching Gideon Falter, Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 14th June 2018 following the sentencing of Alison Chabloz, a notorious Holocaust denier and antisemite. Campaign Against Antisemitism had brought a private prosecution against Ms Chabloz which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) took over, and which ultimately led to a conviction and landmark legal precedent. Mr Falter had testified against Ms Chabloz, who has since been repeatedly sent to prison over her antisemitic statements, including denying the Holocaust and claiming that Holocaust survivors had invented their suffering for financial gain.

Mr Portman followed Mr Falter out of the courtroom and confronted him in the lobby of the court building. He extended his hand to Mr Falter, who refused to shake it because the building was filled with what he told Southwark Crown Court was a “Who’s Who of Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and far-right extremists”. As Mr Portman extended his hand, Mr Falter replied, concerned that Mr Portman might be part of Ms Chabloz’s entourage: “I’m very sorry but I can’t shake your hand because I don’t know who you are.”

At this point, Southwark Crown Court heard that Mr Portman became “very enraged”, coming close to Mr Falter and saying: “I’m Piers Portman. I have written to you before. Come after me, you Jewish scum. Come and persecute me. Come and get me.” Mr Portman was then told to leave by security staff at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. When police arrived, Mr Portman had left the area.

A 30-year-old suspect was given a one-year suspended prison sentence for his involvement in an antisemitic attack on a Jewish restaurant owner in the city of Chemnitz, Germany, DW reported.

The defendant, identified only as Kevin A., was charged with breaching the peace, property damage and dangerous bodily harm for being one of at least 10 people who threw stones and objects at Jewish restaurant owner Uwe Dziuballa in August 2018, according to DW.

His sentence was surprising to some in the courtroom, given that he had prior convictions for drug dealing and another stone-throwing incident in Hamburg. But the judge argued this should be mitigated due to the defendant having kept a clean record for two years and because Dziuballa escaped mostly unharmed and property damage was only minor, DW reported.

Reports around the incident back in August 2018 initially labeled it an attack by a gang of violent neo-Nazis.

According to those initial reports, a group of approximately a dozen masked individuals threw bottles and stones and then stormed the Schalom restaurant on August 27, causing damage to the building’s façade and shattering a window.

While vandalizing the kosher eatery, the neo-Nazis allegedly shouted “Get out of Germany you Jewish pig.”

Disgusting - residents of the 5 Towns, a massive Jewish metropolis in Long Island, have reported seeing “Free Palastine” ?? graffiti during Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/BolacJio7k

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 8, 2021

More than 100 headstones were smashed at a Jewish cemetery in Argentina that had seen similar damage in 2009.

The vandalism at the Tablada Cemetery in the Buenos Aires area was discovered on Sunday, the Jewish news site Visavis reported.

The headstones were between the cemetery’s older section and the new one, which also contains the remains of dozens of victims from the 1994 terrorist bombing at the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

AMIA, the umbrella of Argentine Jewish communities, condemned the vandalism and lamented the “neglect and lack of control” by law enforcement around the cemetery in La Matanza, an eastern district of the Argentine capital.

Police are investigating, AMIA said in a statement. It did not say whether there are indications of the vandalism being an antisemitic hate crime. There are no suspects.

In 2009, unidentified individuals defaced more than 60 headstones, including victims of the 1994 bombing. That vandalism also happened shortly before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which this year began on Monday evening. AMIA called that vandalism antisemitic.

#OnThisDay 1931: more from the Soviet Union’s bid for the “annihilation of Jewishness”.
“Every vestige of Jewish religious observance and custom must be destroyed” pic.twitter.com/9Dtc8fsKvt

— James Vaughan (@EquusontheBuses) September 7, 2021

The Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives (HJMA) and the National Library of Israel (NLI) announced the joint purchase of seven documents from the 19th and 20th centuries, related to Jewish life in what is now Hungary.

These documents include thousands of birth, death, marriage and other records from six different Jewish communities, including a number pertaining to prominent Hungarian Jewish figures, and many from the Holocaust period immediately prior to the Nazi occupation and following World War II.

Not yet digitized or available elsewhere, these documents will present valuable contributions to historical and genealogical research.

After appearing in the catalog of a Jerusalem auction house in August, the items were removed from auction at the request of activists and organizations dedicated to the preservation of Jewish heritage.

Following the joint purchase, the NLI and HJMA have committed to digitizing and making high-resolution scans of these documents freely available on the Internet, as well as preserving the originals under the highest standards of archival storage.

The National Library of Israel and the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives share a commitment to public ownership of Jewish and European heritage.

Boston-Based cyber security software startup Snyk on Wednesday said it raised $300 million in fresh funds and the company was now valued at $8.5 billion.

Synk's technology is used by developers to add security components to their new software products. Cyber security has been one of biggest areas of investment by venture capitalists since the pandemic as companies ramped up their digital footprint, including e-commerce and remote work.

The latest round co-led by Sands Capital Ventures and Tiger Global follows a funding round in March when $175 million of new capital was raised. The company was valued at $4.7 billion only six months ago.

The new funds will be used for product development and to improve its technology, the company said.

In addition to the fresh capital raised, investors paid $230 million to buy existing shares of the company. As startups fetch big valuations even before publicly listing, large funds and private equity firms are moving to buy shares of private companies from earlier shareholders or company employees.

Intel Corporation’s Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based maker of self-driving technologies, will roll out a pilot for autonomous taxis and ride-hailing services in Munich and Tel Aviv next year, pending regulatory approval, in collaboration with German-headquartered international car rental and mobility service giant Sixt SE.

The announcement was made on Tuesday by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger at the annual IAA Mobility 2021 conference (also known as the International Motor Show Germany) taking place in Munich this week. Intel bought Mobileye in 2017 for a whopping $15.3 billion.

Mobileye will own the fleet of vehicles — which it calls “robotaxis” — powered by the company’s fully integrated self-driving system, dubbed Mobileye Drive, and developed specifically for commercial, driverless ride-hailing services. Sixt will maintain and operate the fleet both in Israel and Germany.

Gelsinger and Sixt co-CEO Alexander Sixt demonstrated the new service at the event with a video showing a driverless vehicle maneuvering the streets of Tel Aviv-Jaffa as it pulls up to waiting passengers who had hailed the ride. Mobileye co-founder and CEO Prof. Amnon Shashua, also senior vice president of Intel, then briefly addressed the crowd via video segment to detail the technologies powering the ride-hailing service.

Riders will be able to access the service on the app developed by Moovit, the Israeli smart transit data company Intel bought last year for some $900 million, as well as the Sixt app, which combines ride-hailing, car rental, car-sharing and other offerings.

Countering hypersonic weapons may require greater maneuverability and more extensive sensor coverage to account for their less predictable and visible flight path. Space-based sensors and more frequent mid-course updates may offer solutions to these challenges.

However, another technology the Arrow 4 is reportedly aimed at countering are missiles that release multiple submunitions, known as MRVs, or MIRVs, in their more sophisticated independently-guided form. Various ballistic missiles in service can carry anywhere from three to fifteen such separating warheads.

If regular ballistic missile defense is akin to shooting down a bullet with another bullet, trying to defend against MRVs is like trying to shoot down a spray of shotgun pellets with a bullet. In other words, MRVs not only spread out the damage further and more destructively, but also cheaply multiply the number of targets missile defenses must contend with. For this reason, North Korea appears to be developing an MRV-releasing missile.

There appear to be two counter-MRV methods under consideration. One is to intercept an incoming missile early before it can release its submunitions. Ensuring that may require even greater speed and faster detection and launch times.

The other concept is to have the anti-missile interceptor also release multiple kill vehicles. In fact, proposals for the United States’ next-generation interceptor apparently feature exactly that. Despite the obvious appeal of this counter, the problem remains that interceptor missiles and their sub-munitions will likely be much more expensive than the offensive weapons they are designed to stop.

Nonetheless, in the last decade, Israel has been successful so far in using expensive technologies to render indirect fire attacks from its enemies largely ineffective. That means that even as Iran improves the range and precision of its long-range missiles, it’s unlikely to achieve a reliable capability against Israel unless it manages to deploy them in large volumes or attack from some unexpected vector to overwhelm or bypass Israel’s multi-layered defenses.

During the demonstration in central Israel at a training area I got to see how the rifle sight snd helmet-mounted display performs, including in daytime and in a dark tunnel. It was interesting and unlike what I’d seen before; designed for the future digitized battlefield pic.twitter.com/IPKThVgZle

— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) September 7, 2021

A video featuring the King, Elvis Aaron Presley singing Israeli composer Neomi Shemer’s Months Song went viral in Israel ahead of Rosh Hashanah, as thousands of Israelis enjoyed this pretend clip from the Ed Sullivan Show, complete with the grumpy host’s introduction and blessings for the Jewish State—most of them doubting its historic authenticity, but all of them loving the performance.

According to Haaretz, the inspired video was made as a combination of Deep Fake technology and a convincing musical production by Yishai Raziel, a veteran Israeli content creator. Raziel collaborated on the hoax with production company B.Y Group, director Zohar Rabinovich, and designer Roi Kahalani.

According to Raziel, the clip’s production took about six months, and included recruiting an Elvis impersonator (one of the very best) out of tens of thousands of candidates, and creating an English version of the familiar song.

“Once a year I do something for the soul,” Raziel told Haaretz, describing the reactions he received to the latest video as “crazy.” He himself was receiving hundreds of shares on his phone, including some from top Israeli popular stars. A radio host on Army Radio played the clip as a straight historic item, bringing great shame on the house of (Ya’akov) Bardugo.

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I had a professor make a horribly offensive analogy about the Holocaust. When I told her it was offensive, she gaslit me and said if I was so sensitive, I should find another career.

A professor, when discussing the Jewish Diaspora in ancient Babylonia, said that “It seems that the Jewish version of this history may be distorted to make it seem worse than it was, as unsurprisingly many Jews were wealthy while in Babylon.”

Professors often made out of hand comments that supported antisemitic conspiracy theories against Israel, such as that Israelis harvest Palestinian organs or use Palestinian children as target practice.

One time I asked my accounting professor if I could please move my exam because of religious holidays (Rosh Hashanah), he answered back by saying “do you think I should change my schedule because of you being jewish?” I answered, “No, I am just politely asking for an extension or a new date since I won’t be able to complete the exam the day you have set for it.” He didn’t hesitate and answered, “I already told you that I am not jewish and I won’t change your exam.” After this the only option left for me was to talk to the head of accountancy. So, I went on told her the situation, and without thinking twice she told me, “of course the professor should give you a new date to complete your exam because of your religious holidays, and btw jag sameaj” It turns out the head of department is Jewish and she right away let the professor know of her answer regarding the moving for my exam. I completed my exam right before Rosh Hashanah. After the jag I was eager to see what I scored on the exam. I went to class the following morning and for my surprise I had failed the exam. I asked the professor and he told me “I didn’t have time to correct your exam, and I guessed what grade you deserved.” I politely answered him back, “Ok, I understand is there any way we can sit together and go over it?” The professor eagerly answered back to me “as you changed my schedule because of your jewish holiday, I am not willing to grade your work.” I ended dropping the class and getting a 4.0 the second time I took the course, but obviously with a different professor. 

I took a course on US citizenship and equity at UC Berkeley. On the first day of class the Professor went down the roster, taking roll. When he got to my name, he stopped and began asking me antisemitic questions related to economic libel and the Rothschild conspiracy theory. My last name is Rothschild so I experience this kind of antisemitism constantly, but it was unnerving being outed in class at a University that is notoriously antisemitic. I never hid my last name nor my ethnicity until I went to Cal. But in all honesty this experience was just the tip of the iceberg at Cal. I would never encourage Jews to attend UCB. 

 Long story but tldr. Professor was incredibly antisemitic (jews did 9/11; Jews own the media etc). Friend and I filed a 30 page report (and met with) multiple deans on his antisemitism. We received a 1.5 page letter stating that we misconstrued his comments and he did nothing wrong. Then they offered him tenure. 

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