Spending time on the border with Yitzhak Huri, a lieutenant colonel who’s the second-in-command of the army brigade in this sector, I asked if he thought Lebanon’s disintegration and the desperation of its citizens made war more or less likely. Does the crisis lead the Lebanese to pull back to avoid further mayhem, or go for broke? “When a person has nothing to lose, you can’t know what he’s capable of,” Huri said. “The same goes for countries.”

I put the same question to the Lebanon watcher David Daoud, who was born to a Jewish family in Beirut and lives in Washington, D.C., where he works with the Atlantic Council and the advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran. Hezbollah has never wanted Lebanon to be a prosperous state “like Israel or Singapore,” Daoud said, because that would limit its autonomy. But at the same time, he said, the organization’s interests aren’t served by another civil war or the kind of state collapse that would be hastened by a war with Israel at this moment. The group is more likely, Daoud thinks, to try to use the current crisis to make itself even more central to the lives of its followers by doing what it has always done: providing services that should be provided by the state but aren’t. Hezbollah is already distributing bread and fuel, and if it plays its cards right, it will emerge stronger. “The crisis hasn’t weakened Hezbollah, but it has constrained them to such an extent that they must act responsibly on the border,” Daoud said.

That’s why, for example, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah quickly announced that his group’s recent 19-rocket barrage was purposely aimed at open fields, not at Israeli civilians or even soldiers. He’s trying to project strength to his followers, insisting he’s unafraid of war, while calibrating his actions to avoid an explosion he won’t be able to handle. But it’s a hazardous game. Both sides may not want a war, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Things could easily slip out of control no matter how closely each side watches the other.

What do Israelis see when we look into Lebanon? A place with beautiful forests and beaches, where different groups of people share a strip of Levantine coast, one that could have been as successful as Israel or more so—the “Switzerland of the East,” as people said in the ’50s and ’60s. Some of us see a country that has been an arena for misguided Israeli policies or the backdrop for a potent chapter of our own young lives as soldiers. Many see a continuous threat.

But there’s another story we might see across the fence this summer, as we struggle to emerge from an unprecedented period of political dysfunction of our own, with four elections in two years and no national budget, with political leaders who’ve tried to convince us to see each other as enemies, and with internal divisions that feel less bridgeable than ever before. Lebanon is a country that allowed itself to be hollowed out. Its different sects failed to create a national story about citizenship that superseded other loyalties, and the state was paralyzed until the fragile edifice corroded, until the forces of progress faded or emigrated and were replaced by religious and tribal powers not just indifferent to modernity but openly contemptuous of it. It’s a story of state collapse, which is one of the themes of this region in our times. The forces of disintegration are weaker in Israel than they are in Lebanon, but they’re present and will win if we let them. The neighbor across the fence isn’t just a problem or a threat. Lebanon is a possible future.

And if the United States has been made more secure by the debacle in Afghanistan, the visuals to which American audiences are being treated don’t suggest that at all. The Taliban has indicated that it will formally inaugurate its new government in Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks against the U.S. The date is surely designed to humiliate the United States as much as to reinvigorate the terrorist elements that spent the last two decades evading American vengeance. In fact, many of those same terrorists will serve in the new Afghan government.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s new interior minister charged with maintaining domestic security, heads the Haqqani Network, a U.S.-designated terrorist group with close operational ties to al-Qaeda. Haqqani is wanted for his involvement in several terrorist attacks, some of which targeted and killed Americans. Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the infamous Taliban commander Mullah Omar, is in charge of the country’s defense. He oversaw the field commanders who led the insurgency against the Afghan government and is complicit in the Taliban’s atrocities against the Afghan people. Hibatullah Akhundzada, a hardline cleric who encouraged his own son to execute a suicide-bombing attack, serves as the Taliban’s supreme commander. And the country’s prime minister, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund begins his tenure as head of state on a United Nations sanctions list.

The president insists that this iteration of the Taliban will be unable to govern Afghanistan, but they have so far ruled with an iron fist. Moreover, the administration betrays this as more hope than expectation when its members dangle the idea that the United States could one day recognize the legitimacy of a Taliban-led government. The notion that America would even contemplate acknowledging the validity of the Taliban’s ascension to power through force of arms isn’t just a moral atrocity but also an act of abject cowardice that leaves Americans at home and abroad exposed.

The reconstitution of the Taliban does not inspire confidence that the United States is in any way safer because of the Biden administration’s actions. And, if recent history is any guide, this administration will suffer political consequences as a result.

Clearly, America’s vaunted capacity to disrupt and deter terrorist operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region from bases in the Persian Gulf and without reliable intelligence in the area is a matter of some dispute.

The apparent imprecision of the intelligence that informed the planning around these strikes has not dissuaded the Pentagon from entertaining the possibility of further cooperation with the Taliban on counterterrorism issues. “As far as our dealings with them, in war, you do what you must in order to reduce risk to mission and force, not what you necessarily want to do,” Milley said in a statement that called into question just how “over” the war in Afghanistan truly is.

Whether this nascent relationship blossoms into something fruitful or not, the threats to American interests from within Afghanistan will persist. The Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan “is encouraging many jihadists to think about traveling to Afghanistan now instead of Syria or Iraq,” one British official told the Washington Post . “We are now back to 1998, where the Clinton administration was launching missiles at desert camps and hoping to hit something,” one Trump-era counterterrorism official said. “That wasn’t enough to prevent 9/11, and returning to that is not a recipe for success.”

Ultimately, the evacuation effort Biden took so much pride in and credit for failed in its single mission: getting American citizens, legal permanent residents, visa holders, and eligible applicants out. The Biden administration admitted to leaving only between 100 and 250 American citizens behind, though it has previously claimed that there is no way to know precisely how many Americans were in Afghanistan when Kabul fell. The number of green card holders left to the Taliban’s mercies is also unknowable, but it is estimated to be in the thousands . Many more NATO and non-NATO allies are struggling to evacuate their stranded nationals.

Even the herculean multinational effort to get as many people out of Afghanistan as possible could become an albatross around Joe Biden’s neck. Of the over 120,000 people evacuated from Kabul’s airport, only 8,500 were Afghans. “Hundreds of children were separated from their parents. Rogue flights landed without manifests,” the New York Times reported. “Security vetting of refugees was done in hours or days, rather than months or years.” U.S. officials are investigating widespread reports that Afghan children were “married ” off to able men so that both would be eligible for evacuation. And despite all this, on Sept. 1, the State Department finally conceded that the United States left behind “the majority ” of Afghans who either had visas or were eligible for them, along with their families, but languished on a waiting list. One estimate places that number at around 100,000.

So, yes. This could have gone better. From the beginning of the U.S. drawdown and at almost every haphazard step along the way, the Biden White House stumbled into disaster after disaster. And in the end, all America managed to secure were circumstances that leave Americans less safe at home, less respected abroad, and stained with the dishonor of the broken promises we made to the Afghans who foolishly trusted in the United States. There’s nothing to be proud of in that.

Many will suffer severe punishments. Violence will be unleashed against them in a magnitude that those in the West do not comprehend. Body parts will be chopped off. Sexual harassment, rapes, honour violence and murders will become the norm. More from this series

But, unlike before, this time is different. The women of Afghanistan will fight back. They’ve already begun. Protests are erupting across the country. Women of all ages are standing firm against the Taliban. In Kabul, women attempted to march to the presidential palace, “demanding the right to work and to be included in government”. They were attacked for it, with videos and photos revealing the bloody violence they faced at the hands of the Taliban. At a subsequent protest in Kabul, one woman stated: “We don’t care if they beat us or even shoot us. We want to defend our rights. We will continue our protests even if we get killed.”

At another protest in Herat, calling for girls’ education, one of the organisers, Basira Taheri, explained: “The women of this land are informed and educated. We are not afraid, we are united.” Pashtana Durrani, the Executive Director of Learn Afghanistan, a bulwark for Afghan women’s rights, said; “We are going to make sure [girls] get to go to school, they get to go to work. If not on the terms that we want in public, we’re going to make it happen anyways.”

As the saying, often attributed to Thomas Carlyle, goes: “Once the mind has been expanded by a big idea, it will never go back to its original state.” The Taliban cannot undo the last 20 years. These women and girls are refusing to submit to a new Dark Age. That glimmer of hope, sparked after 9/11, has not been extinguished. Even with the Taliban in control, America’s girls aren’t going to give up.

And now the world is watching. Before 9/11, the atrocities committed by the Taliban on the women of Afghanistan received very little coverage in the West. Now, everyone knows names like Malala and Bibi Aisha. And we will come to know more names, like Basira Taheri’s, as we cheer them on. Two decades on, these women may be the most enduring achievement of the American intervention that followed 9/11.

They are defiant. And, as a former defiant girl, I can say with conviction that they can’t beat or cut that defiance out of you.

You’d think that Islamist extremists and leftist radicals would have nothing in common. But noted human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali has good reason to believe this is no longer the case. She explains in this eye-opening video.

The end of a war is a time to reflect. So is a milestone anniversary like the 20th anniversary of September 11. Now, in September 2021, the two are bound up together—the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, not coincidentally, taking place in close proximity to the milestone anniversary.

For Lawfare, the two events are also intimately tied to the history of the site itself. Lawfare surely wouldn’t exist but for the September 11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan. The early years of the site were far more concerned with issues arising out of that conflict than they were with cybersecurity, disinformation, authoritarian populism, and the other issues that predominate on the site these days.

It is probably not possible to over-reflect on the withdrawal and the anniversary. But it is possible to draw the wrong conclusions from reflections on what went wrong in the Afghanistan war—which ended, as it began, with the Taliban in control of the country. And with Afghanistan today facially seeming like Afghanistan as it was on September 11, it is possible to reflect one’s way to the conclusions that the invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake, that it accomplished nothing and that Americans died in vain. It is possible to conclude that any gains were ephemeral, that only the civilian casualties and the policy blunders had lasting consequences, that 20 years of keeping the Taliban at bay was worth nothing and that the destruction of Al Qaeda’s base of operations was all an exercise in squandered blood and treasure.

A great many sober, serious people have embraced these gloomy conclusions—in some cases selectively, in many cases as a morose, defeatist package. The instinct to evaluate the war in binary terms is understandable. People tend to think of wars as won or lost. And watching the chaotic evacuation from Kabul, it certainly didn’t look like a win. It didn’t even look like a stalemate. It looked like a rout.

The final scorecard looks bad too. The vicious gambler played by George C. Scott scoffs at the young pool shark played by Paul Newman in the movie, “The Hustler,” for suggesting he had been way ahead in a game against the world’s best player before losing it all. “This game isn't like football. Nobody pays you for yardage,” the gambler says. “When you hustle you keep score real simple. The end of the game you count up your money. That's how you find out who's best. That's the only way.” By this standard, certainly, the Taliban bested us. United States forces smashed them for years, but at the end of the game, they have Afghanistan—and the government we supported evaporated just like Paul Newman’s early lead.

Yet there is more to be said on behalf of America’s two-decade-long effort in Afghanistan than these crude analyses allow. We certainly don’t mean to suggest that the war was a complete success. It was not: many Americans lost their lives fighting there (and far more Afghans died); the United States spent trillions in a vain effort to build the Afghan state. But here it’s not just the end point that matters but the nature of the curve that led to that endpoint. And there’s a great deal of area under the curve of the Afghanistan war, area one shouldn’t throw away lightly.

The disappointing fact is that there is a long and rich list of potential targets. It begins with President Joe "The Buck Stops Here" Biden as the obvious choice. The President bears ultimate responsibility for making the decisions that led to America's surrender and leaving our citizens behind. The President should be held accountable.

Also, near the top of the list of those who must be held accountable are those individuals who hold Senate-confirmed positions. They were the architects of this disaster: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Together, these individuals either counseled the President that they would execute his direction effectively and safely, or they developed and implemented a strategy that they knew would not work. Either scenario would demand that they also be held accountable.

Some may legitimately ask, what about Jake Sullivan, Susan Rice and others? In other attempts to hold people accountable (think recent impeachment actions) the efforts were seen as overreach. The results, partisan bickering and nothing happening.

The alternative is the path we already seem to be heading down, no one being held accountable.

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.

Lebanon’s new Prime Minister Najib Mikati pledged Friday to gain control of one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, saying he was willing to cooperate with any country except for Israel.

Holding back tears, Mikati, one of the richest men in the country, said he recognized the pain of Lebanese mothers who cannot feed their children or find aspirin to ease their ailments, as well as to students whose parents can no longer afford to send them to school.

“The situation is difficult but not impossible to deal with if we cooperate,” Mikati told reporters at the presidential palace, where the new government line-up was announced.

Still, their pain was apparently not enough to accept aid from Israel.

Asked during a press conference if he would be willing to cooperate with Syria to address the economic crisis, Mikati responded that the government “will deal with anyone for the sake of Lebanon’s interest, with the exception of Israel, of course.”

Israel had formally offered humanitarian aid to Lebanon in July, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.

Unfortunately, the benefits derived from the Biden administration’s renewal of contributions to UNRWA, as set forth in the 2021–2022 cooperation framework, are remarkably similar to those supposedly provided by the 2017 framework—as well as by similar such agreements reviewed by the author while serving as legal advisor/general counsel to UNRWA in 2002–2007. In return for renewing its generous funding, the United States could have, inter alia, demanded that UNRWA:
- Check its staff, beneficiaries, and contractors against the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control list—which at least would have reduced the likelihood of the agency using U.S. funds to support persons under sanctions
- Take immediate action with regard to the decades-long saga of improper content in UNRWA textbooks—e.g., by paying for separate print runs of local textbooks, modified to be suitable for use by UNRWA students
- Begin the process of identifying those persons on UNRWA’s rolls who actually meet the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) definition of a refugee
- Move from a status- to a needs-based provision of services to refugees

The 2021 framework agreement may carry minor benefits by highlighting a few embarrassing problems raised publicly by UNRWA critics (e.g., staff misconduct, textbook concerns), but the agreement mostly focuses on process-related items, such as reporting modalities, and on aspirational statements. More effective would have been to use UNRWA’s tenuous financial position to compel specific, tangible, and constructive actions such as those just outlined. These changes would help UNRWA better reflect U.S. interests, UN principles of behavior, and UNHCR definitions of refugeehood. The easing of financial pressure on UNRWA—through an effective gift of $318 million—without securing such guarantees represented a squandered opportunity to strengthen the efficacy of U.S. foreign aid, including by focusing the agency’s assistance on its UNHCR-defined refugees who are truly in need.

Acting Director Henrike Trautmann, whose EU Commission directorate oversees all aid to the Palestinian education sector, condemned antisemitic and violent content in Palestinian textbooks in a meeting of the EU Parliament’s Working Group Against Antisemitism on Thursday.

In a review of a recently released study on Palestinian Authority textbooks, Trautmann said that “It is very clear that the study does reveal the existence of very deeply problematic content…changes to the curriculum are essential...Full compliance of all educational material with UNESCO standards of peace, tolerance, coexistence and non-violence must be ensured as must any reference of antisemitic nature need to be addressed and taken out.”

“It’s totally clear that even a little bit of antisemitism is not ok…this is why the commission is determined to instill a process here with concrete progress and we will consider appropriate measures as necessary in this regard if progress is not seen in the roadmap we are setting up, ” said Trautmann.

The Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) mission is to promote EU values, policies and assistance in neighboring and candidate states. According to its website, it "manages the bulk of the Union’s financial and technical assistance to the neighborhood and enlargement countries."

Naftali Bennett on Thursday met for the first time as Prime Minister with the heads of the Yesha Council for a working session during which they discussed developing the settlement in Judea and Samaria and strengthening local authorities there. Judea and Samaria’s heads of councils were not invited to the meeting which was limited to the senior level only: Yesha Council Chairman (Bennett’s his old job) David Elhayeni, Amana Secretary-General Zeev Hever (Zambish), Yesha Council Director-General Yigal Dilmoni, and Yesha Council Deputy-Chairman Matanya Shapira.

The Prime Minister stressed that he is committed to the settlement enterprise and had made it clear to the Americans that there would be no construction freeze. He also reassured the same Americans there won’t be an annexation or the application of sovereignty on his watch either. Bennett reminded the four leaders of his clear statement regarding this policy in his NY Times interview (On Eve of Meeting Biden, Bennett Rejects Palestinian State, Favors Hard Line on Iran). He said he had also conveyed this message in another meeting with Hever only.

Despite the tension among the men around the table, they agreed to continue working together to advance several issues, including the development of settlements. The settlers’ leaders wanted to continue building in Judea and Samaria as part of the plans that are already completed, to enter directly into the discussion and get them on the agenda—including plans that had been postponed following the cancellation of the Supreme Planning Council (MTA) meeting over to a staff strike, before Bennett’s meeting with President Joe Biden. Bennett promised to look into this, but no specific plans were picked.

Dilmoni told Kippa News after the meeting: “It was a very good meeting and a positive atmosphere, the meeting dealt mainly with the issue of construction plans. It was promised that our issues would be examined and in the coming weeks we will know how it progresses.”

Members of the Palestinian Authority were unhappy with the statements made by Bennett at the meeting.

As @lightstonea noted a year ago #OTD to us, “this historic occasion [#AbrahamAccords] will be remembered when the world turned for the better”. A year later? Boy was he right! https://t.co/ckvs0zuMsx

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 10, 2021

Bahrain’s national carrier, Gulf Air, will begin operating twice-weekly flights from Israel starting on October 4, Bahrain’s former ambassador to the United States confirmed via Twitter.

Houda Nonoo said that the Tel Aviv-Manama route will take place on Mondays and Thursdays.

The announcement comes just days before the one year anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords at the White House that normalized relations between the Gulf state and Israel. The US-brokered deal also included the United Arab Emirates, later adding Morocco and Sudan.

The route was initially announced in April and was originally scheduled to start on June 3 but was postponed.

“We are delighted to announce the launch of our Bahrain–Tel Aviv route as part of the historic initiation of Bahraini–Israeli relations. As the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain; we take great pride in supporting our leadership and Kingdom in their role of preserving peace and prosperity in the region,” Zayed Bin Rashid Al Zayani, chairman of Gulf Air’s board of directors, said in April.

According to the commercial aviation website Simple Flying, the 2 hours and 50 minutes flight from Bahrain International Airport will depart at 9 am local time, arriving to Tel Aviv at 11:50 am. The aircraft will then spend 3 hours and 30 minutes on the ground at Ben Gurion Airport before departing Israel at 3:30 pm and arriving back in Bahrain at 5:55 pm. The flight time for the return trip is 2 hours and 35 minutes.

?? CONFIRMED: @GulfAir will launch its Bahrain-Israel route on 4 October. It will operate two weekly flights on Mondays & Thursdays.

In honour of flights launching shortly, shall I share a list of the top 10 sites to see in Bahrain? pic.twitter.com/M67fjlLXbI

— Houda Nonoo (@hnonoo75) September 9, 2021

The International Judo Federation (IJF) has banned Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine and his coach, Ammar Benkhalaf, from participating in activities or competitions for 10 years after the athlete withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games to avoid fighting an Israeli opponent.

The ruling goes into effect starting from July 23. Nourine and his coach have 21 days to appeal, according to Middle East Monitor.

Nourine was scheduled to fight Sudan’s Mohamed Abdalrasool in July in the men’s 73-kilogram weight class at the Tokyo Olympics. If he won, he would have had to face Israeli judoka Tohar Butbul in the next round; instead, Nourine refused to compete in the first draw to avoid a possible match-up.

Nourine said he made the decision with the help of his coach in order to “support the Palestinian cause.”

Shortly after their move, the IJF temporarily suspended Nourine and Benkhalaf. The Algerian Olympic Committee withdrew their accreditations and sent them home from the Olympics.

While the BBC has not yet reported that development either on its sports site or its news website, the story has been covered by several Algerian media outlets, one of which reports Nourine’s reaction as follows:

It remains to be seen whether the BBC will produce any follow-up to the story it reported in July and if so, whether its reporting will inform audiences of Nourine’s ridiculous conspiratorial allegations.

Health correspondent Rossella Tercatin has run a series of reports in recent weeks in this paper about the ongoing confusion regarding corona regulations for would-be travelers to Israel. As we observe the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we urge the government to take stock of the situation and clarify when foreign nationals will be allowed into the country and what they will have to do.

When the Health Ministry announced a welcome change in its quarantine policy for Israelis from September 10, Tercatin writes, they rushed to make reservations for vacations abroad and many hoped the policy would apply to foreign visitors as well. The new policy exempts from full isolation individuals who have received a third shot; who have been vaccinated twice or recovered in the last six months; or who have recovered and received one shot.

For now, Israel does not yet recognize foreign vaccinations or recovery documents. The one category of foreigners who may visit as tourists are vaccinated or recovered first-degree relatives of Israeli citizens. Still, they are required to obtain an entry permit issued by Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority.

Once in Israel, if they want to be considered immunized, they need to undergo a private serological test to prove the presence of antibodies in their blood. Once they do, they receive an Israeli recovery certificate, specifying that the document was released based on the serology test performed in Israel and not elsewhere.

While the first statement about the new quarantine policy released by the ministry did not contain anything to suggest that the exemption from isolation would not apply to individuals holding such certificates based on serology results, subsequent versions did require recovery certificates to be based on a PCR test performed in Israel, Tercatin reports. It’s all very confusing.

Israel's infection rate stands at 6.31%, according to Health Ministry data released Friday. Of the 134,778 people who tested for the virus Thursday, 7,813 were found to have COVID-19.

The reproduction rate has decreased to 0.8.

The country currently has 79,799 active cases of the virus. There are 672 people in serious condition, 173 of whom are on ventilators.

Although have 1,063,349 Israelis recovered from the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, 7,319 have died.

Around 155,246 students in Israel's education system are in quarantine.

On the vaccination front, over 6,031,635 Israelis have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Over 5,531,637 have received two doses, and over 2,763,886 have received the full three doses of the vaccine.

Fewer than one million eligible Israelis – around 900,000 – have yet to be inoculated against the coronavirus, Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday. He said Israel had not made "enough progress" on this end.

An assailant was shot and killed after he attempted to stab police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday afternoon, police and hospital officials said, amid heightened tension as security forces carry out an intense manhunt for six escaped Palestinian security prisoners.

The attempted stabbing occurred at the Old City’s Council (Majlis) Gate, on the northern side of the western Temple Mount wall, police said.

“Soon after 4 p.m., the assailant… armed with a knife arrived at the officers’ post in the Council Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem and tried to injure the forces there. A quick response by the officers and border guards, who opened fire at the assailant, neutralized him before he could carry out this intention,” police said.

The assailant’s knife was recovered at the scene.

According to police, the assailant was a 50-year-old Arab man, a resident of East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority identified him as Hazim al-Joulani, director of the al-Rayyan alternative medicine college in East Jerusalem and an expert in Chinese acupuncture. His Facebook page said he used to work in Israel’s Assaf Harofeh hospital outside Tel Aviv.

He was taken to the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in critical condition with a gunshot wound in the upper body, where he later died of his wounds, the hospital said.

The dramatic escape of six Palestinian terrorists from Gilboa Prison in northern Israel on Monday carries the potential of a broader security escalation, a former defense official has cautioned.

Col. (res.) David Hacham, a former Arab-affairs adviser to seven Israeli defense ministers and a senior research associate at the Miryam Institute, told JNS that the breakout could lead to a chain of incidents and an escalation dynamic, although this is not a certainty.

He recalled a highly relevant precedent from the 1980s. In May 1987, six senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) security prisoners escaped from an Israeli prison in the Gaza Strip. In October of that year, a gun battle between Israeli security forces and five of the escaped prisoners erupted in Gaza’s Shejaiya neighborhood district. The cell’s members were killed, and an Israeli Shin Bet member, Victor Arajwan, was also killed in the firefight.

The PIJ to this day considers the incident to be a catalyst for the start of the First Intifada, said Hacham.

Murderers are NOT "political prisoners" and terrorism is not "freedom fighting." Stop glorifying the Palestinians terrorists who escaped from Gilboa prison. They're no heroes, they're convicted killers. Supporting them won't free Palestine.
w/ @YosephHaddad#PrisonBreak#Israelpic.twitter.com/3DNe7vQscF

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 10, 2021

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority constantly talk out of two sides of their mouth. Whilst wishing Israel a happy new year one day, the next, they call on the international community to hold Israel accountable for the war crime of holding terrorists in prison.

Israel is still searching for six high-profile terrorists who escaped from the Gilboa Prison. They escaped through a tunnel that was dug under their bathroom.

Just as you would condemn the KKK for burning an effigy of a Jewish man you should equally condemn this group of Palestinians in Nablus doing the same thing.

This pure and evil Jew hatred is happening a mere 80 years since the onset of the Holocaust! pic.twitter.com/vn7FKsyR5p

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 10, 2021

Sheikh Bilal Abu Hassan, a mosque preacher from Jenin, was surprised last week to receive a letter from the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs informing him of the decision to fire him.

Abu Hassan lost his job because of a khutbah (sermon) he recently delivered during Friday prayers at one of Jenin’s mosques and in which he heaped praise on the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.

Referring to the Israel-Hamas war last May, Abu Hassan applauded the “Joint Operations Room,” which consists of various Palestinian factions that operate as a quasi-army against Israel. “Our Joint Operations Room has unified the Palestinians,” he said from the minbar, a pulpit in a mosque where the imam (leader of prayers) stands to deliver sermons. “This is the true meaning of Palestinian national unity.”

The mosque preachers in the West Bank are appointed by the PA Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs. Every week, the ministry issues a directive to the imams concerning the Friday sermons.

The directive includes instructions about the topics the imams should address during the sermons. Occasionally, the ministry also issues instructions regarding the topics that the imams are prohibited from addressing. Those who defy the instructions of the ministry are often punished by suspension or dismissal, as in the case of Abu Hassan.

On Wednesday, as Palestinians were voicing support for the six Palestinian security prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison and protesting Israel’s punitive measures against the inmates in various prisons, the PA Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs announced that the topic of Friday’s sermon (September 10) will be: “High Morals in Islam.” The implicit message to the preachers: Ignore the fugitives who escaped from Israeli prison.

Palestinian Authority presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh: 'The prisoners are the heroes of the Palestinian people.' pic.twitter.com/jr3PSHWmk1

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 9, 2021

A report Friday claimed that the Palestinian Authority had agreed to cooperate with an Israeli manhunt for six inmates who escaped from prison earlier this week, some of whom are thought to be hiding out in the West Bank.

If correct, the report in the Lebanese paper al-Akhbar would mark a stark shift for Ramallah, which had joined the overwhelming chorus of support for the six escapees in the Palestinian street and had been seen as unlikely to possess the political will for cooperating with Israel on bringing them in.

For Israel, which has struggled to track the whereabouts of the former detainees and has contended with an upsurge of violence linked to the escape, help from the PA would provide a welcome boost to reach certain areas of the West Bank.

According to the report in al-Akhbar, which was based on an unnamed source in the PA, an agreement was reached earlier this week that will see the Palestinian Authority cooperate on finding the escapees, in exchange for an Israeli commitment to capture them alive and ease conditions for the thousands of Palestinians remaining incarcerated in Israel.

There was no comment from Israeli authorities on the report.

Palestinian officials deny a report in the Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar that the Palestinian Authority agreed to help Israel capture the six fugitives: 'Lies and fabrications.'

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 10, 2021

Palestinians chanting slogans in support of the prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison, and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar after Friday prayers at Aqsa Mosque. https://t.co/N5PzhGcNEO

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 10, 2021

1/ Mosheera, Wesam and the kids are at Holiday Inn Chalet on Rafah beach, south #Gaza City. #TheGazaYouDontSee#GazaHolidayChalet#Palestine#Gazachildrenhttps://t.co/6Vobdi5w1zpic.twitter.com/19Ji3P8wHz

— Imshin (@imshin) August 29, 2021

The newly appointed vice president for women and family affairs in the Islamic Republic of Iran advocates the marriage of children in defiance of human rights critics who see the practice as sexual exploitation and abuse of young girls.

The Iranian regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi designated Ansieh Khazali in early September as the new official for women’s affairs. She confirmed the announcement in a September 2 tweet to her 589 followers as of Thursday. She tweeted an Arabic verse from the Koran, according to the news website IranWire. Her tweet derives from a section of the Koran in which Moses pleads with God: “O Lord! Expand my breast for me/... And loose the knot from my tongue,/ [That] they may understand my word.”

Khazal’s Twitter account is linked to the women and family website for the Islamic Republic.

Writing for IranWire, Roghayeh Rezaei noted in lengthy analysis that “Khazali married when she was 16. She also married off her daughters when they were very young. She has said she supports child marriage, accused women who do not want children of ‘seeking comfort,’ and called women who are entitled to sizeable dowries in the event of a divorce ‘hagglers.”’

Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident who fled the Islamic Republic of Iran due to repression, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that "Women like Khazali endanger the whole society. Most of the early marriages force underage girls into marrying the middle-aged men. Ansieh Khazali by supporting child marriage is enabling a vast child abuse and it will have disastrous consequences in Iran and can be viewed from different aspects, especially under Iran's dire economic circumstances."

Qatari sociologist Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Khazraj Al-Ansari: Arab Secularists Hate the Islamic Punishments for Thievery, Fornication, Sodomy Because They Are the Biggest Thieves, Fornicators, and Sodomites #Qatarpic.twitter.com/UfbStuVGXa

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 10, 2021

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We owe this 9/11 Generation a great deal. I was not the only resident of New York City in the weeks after September 11 to have nightmares of more planes flying into skyscrapers. Nor am I alone when I recall the pervasive fear that accompanied the anthrax attacks the next month or the D.C. sniper rampage the following year. The threat loomed large of another massacre; of suicide bombings on the scale experienced by Israel during the contemporaneous Second Intifada; of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. None of that happened.

Why? Because Americans acted. Those Americans, male and female, belonged to every race, every ethnicity, every religion, every creed, every sexual orientation. And they belonged to both political parties. The brightest stars among Republicans and Democrats—from Tom Cotton to Tammy Duckworth, from Dan Crenshaw to Jason Crow—belong to the 9/11 Generation. They may not agree on either the ends or the means of domestic and foreign policy. But they are joined by common citizenship and a mutual interest in the safety and prosperity of America. They ran toward the danger. And they deserve our profound gratitude.

The high cost of war bought safety for the homeland and a reduction in radical Islamic terrorism. Bin Laden wanted his holy warriors to collapse the American economy and drive us from the Arabian Peninsula. They failed. Not only did Osama bin Laden lose his mission and his life. His successors Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did too. These victories for freedom did not happen in a vacuum. It wasn't special-pleading or guilt-tripping or an especially scathing diplomatic communique that ended Baghdadi's reign of terror. It was Delta Force.

Which is why the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has been so dispiriting. It may resuscitate global jihad at the very moment when that ignoble cause was on the verge of defeat. It may revive the fighting spirit and grand ambition of localized and constrained terrorist groups just as America turns inward and aloof.

That danger makes the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 an occasion not for intellectual browbeating but for patriotic resolve. It is the bedrock courage, resourcefulness, and resilience of the 9/11 Generation that will see America through her latest dark night of the soul. The enemy cannot win so long as we never tire, never waver, and never forget.

We have a tendency to forget that two historical events occurred in early September 2001. No one needs to be reminded of the jihadist attacks on Sept. 11 that killed nearly 3,000 people in a single morning. The other event, that tends to be overlooked, was the UN Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, which concluded four days before the attacks.

With 20 years of hindsight, and in light of America's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan last month, it suddenly seems clear that the Durban Conference changed the course of history equally if not more than the Islamic terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. It was legacy of Durban, more than Sept. 11 that brought the free world to its present perilous juncture. Today a humiliated free world faces triumphant forces of jihad, far more powerful than they were on Sept. 10, 2001. It faces a rapidly rising China. Above all else, it faces internal upheavals and cleavages within its own ranks.

US President Joe Biden justifies his decision to withdraw US and NATO forces from Afghanistan in the shameful way he did by claiming that the time had come to end "the forever war." But it works out that Biden and his advisors don't have a problem with all "forever wars." They just weren't willing to fight jihadist Islam. They didn't want to fight this specific war – against the enemy that attacked America 20 years ago this week. And in their frenzied quest to devote all of their energies and efforts to fighting their chosen forever war, Biden and his team were willing to ignore – or perhaps worse, to accept – two very simple facts of war.

First, the only way to end a war that you haven't won is to lose it. And second, if you end a war without winning it, you hand victory to your enemy.

Several analysts have likened the US defeat in Afghanistan to the fall of the Byzantine capital Constantinople to the Ottoman armies in 1453. The Taliban flag flying over what was the US Embassy in Kabul until the end of last month, and reports that China is considering taking over Bagram Air Base, signal that America's enemies believe they are ascendant, that the free world has been defeated.

The "forever war" Biden, his advisors and supporters are gunning to aggressively pursue until the complete destruction of their enemy is a war within the United States. The "enemy" are their political rivals, who they castigate as "racists." They call their forever war, "the war against racism."

The odd thing about their efforts is that the American war against racism was won decisively more than 50 years ago thanks to the Civil Rights Movement and thanks to the fact that the majority of Americans recognized at the time and since that racism is antithetical to ideals of freedom and equal opportunity on which the United States was founded.

The seeds of this strange war were planted 20 years ago at Durban. We remember the Durban conference mainly for its antisemitic agenda. The plan to present anti-Zionism as a "kosher" form of antisemitism, and use it to abrogate the Jewish state's right to exist was codified at Durban. But legitimizing antisemitism wasn't only a means to hurt the Jews. For many actors on the international left, legitimizing the goal of cancelling Israel's moral and legal right to exist was and remains still today a means to advance their primary goal: destroying America's moral confidence in its role as the leader of the free world and denying the US's moral right to fight to defend its national interests.

Most devastatingly of all, the Holocaust passed a shattering judgment against modernity. So in the repudiation of its foundational beliefs, the west arrived at precisely the same point as the Islamic jihadists.

Of course, westerners never saw any similarity between themselves and Islamists locked into the seventh century and whom it dismissed as incomprehensible, crazy and worthless.

But in a mirror image, the west was busily severing the connection with its own historic values. This was compounded by an arrogant assumption that western attitudes were universal.

The west therefore tried to impose its utopian, post-modern belief in negotiation and compromise upon a Middle East and Islamic world that saw conflict solely in terms of victory and defeat, strength and weakness.

And so the west has continued to repeat its fiascos by indulging in the same fantasies that it will end the “forever wars” — whether through the Israel-Palestine “peace process,” the Iran nuclear deal or abandoning Afghanistan, where both British and American governments are now spinning themselves the fantasy that Taliban “realists” will keep the Taliban jihadists in check.

For Islamists, war is indeed forever. For such fanatics, defeat is only ever temporary.

For the west, however, there are no “forever wars.” Its wars are either won or lost; there are victors and vanquished.

And military strength matters less than belief. The 9/11 attackers didn’t use sophisticated military hardware. They hijacked civilian aircraft and turned them into flying human bombs of enormous destructive potential.

What fuels the jihad is the power of an idea. That idea is the cult of death.

To overcome a cult of death, the west needs a belief in life. Its own life. That is the way to draw the necessary courage and resolve from this most sombre anniversary; but alas, it seems the most difficult of lessons to learn.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Danny Lewin boarded American Airlines Flight No. 11 in Boston, expecting to reach Los Angeles. Instead, the flight was hijacked and commandeered by Arab terrorists, crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. On that fateful flight, Danny Lewin became the very first victim of the largest terrorist attack in history in which almost 3,000 Americans died. An internal memorandum of the Federal Aviation Administration says “that in the course of a struggle that took place between Lewin, a graduate of Israel’s elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal, and the four hijackers who were assaulting that cockpit, Lewin was murdered by Satam Al Suqami, a 25-year-old Saudi.”

Sometime after the attack, the Lewin family in Jerusalem received a telephone call from the FBI offices in New York. On the line was the agent responsible for the investigation of the attack on Flight 11. He told Danny’s parents that there is a high degree of certainty that Danny tried to prevent the hijacking. The FBI relied, among other things, on the testimony of the stewardess Amy Sweeney.

Sweeney succeeded in clandestinely getting a call out during the flight to a flight services supervisor in Boston, from the rear of the plane: “A hijacker slit the throat of a passenger in business class and the passenger appears to me to be dead.” To this day the American investigators are not convinced that Danny Lewin was murdered on the spot. An additional stewardess, Betty Ong, who succeeded in calling from a telephone by one of the passenger seats, said that the passenger who was attacked from business class seat 10B was seriously wounded. It turned out that 10B was the seat of Danny Lewin.

The Lewin family, Danny’s parents and brothers, have no doubt that Danny battled the hijackers. And it is for them a tremendous consolation. “I wasn’t surprised to hear from the FBI that Danny fought. I was sure that this is what he would do,” Yonatan, his younger brother, said. “Danny didn’t sit quietly. From what we heard from the Americans, the hijackers attacked one of the stewardesses and Danny rose to protect her and prevent them from entering the cockpit. It is a consolation to us that Danny fought. We see it as an act of heroism that a person sacrifices his life in order to save others.

Danny Lewin: an Israeli, an IDF commander in sayeret matkal, a Technion & MIT grad responsible for much of the Internet we know today, and the first victim of 9/11

Aboard AA 11, Danny valiantly fought the 9/11 terrorists, but sadly was murdered. May his memory be blessed pic.twitter.com/RPg7uezAby

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 10, 2021

WHAT WE learned after 9/11 was that the US embarked on a wide-ranging global war on terror, but the US never really sought to eradicate all terror groups. Instead the question of what constituted a “terror” group would constantly change. Israel likely thought that the US joining the war on terror would mean US sympathy for what Israel was facing. However, deeply ingrained views in the West that portray the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as sui generis mean that terror groups like Hamas were seen as different than al-Qaeda. Iranian-backed groups like Hezbollah have also been seen consistently as different.

There were some consolation prizes for Israel. Warnings about the growing role of jihadist violence and groups likened to the Muslim Brotherhood led some European countries to start to want to learn from Israel’s experience. Where European countries had once portrayed terror attacks like the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre as something done just to “Israelis,” soon after 9/11 there would be a series of jihadist attacks in Europe, from the Madrid bombings in 2004 to the 2005 London bombings and to the attacks the following decade in Paris and elsewhere. However, it’s not clear what lessons were learned in the end from Israel’s experience. Israel never completely defeated terror groups; it merely walled Hamas off in Gaza, and pounded Hezbollah in 2006 until both Hezbollah and Israel appeared tired of fighting. Meanwhile, the US didn’t learn the lessons of Israel’s counter-insurgency challenges, and went into Iraq in 2003 without a plan of how to get out.

What the US found in Iraq was what Israel found in Lebanon in 1982, initial success followed by a decade of war. America tried different strategies, such as counter-insurgency and counterterrorism. Eventually the US even moved through the “surge” to what it called the “by, with and through” strategy, which put most of the focus on local forces doing the work. While that worked in eastern Syria against ISIS, it failed miserably in Afghanistan, and the Afghan government collapsed in a week of fighting in August 2021. The Iraqi army was only able to defeat ISIS because of the mobilization of Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Shi’ites, backed by pro-Iranian militias.

Twenty years after 9/11, the lessons of that day are still inconclusive. It was traumatizing for a generation. Today a new generation must manage a world left behind by America’s attempt to impose its will on countries and then Washington’s decision to retreat from those same countries, such as Afghanistan.

In the long-term wake of the attacks it appears US adversaries such as China, Russia and Turkey are rising, and US friends are weaker than in the past. The Taliban have won in Afghanistan. An al-Qaeda offshoot now controls Idlib province in Syria and is backed quietly by Turkey. That means that the same extremists the US once fought are now appearing to get the red carpet from Moscow to Doha.

On a purely security front, the US and its allies, including Israel, have learned the lesson of how to stop most terror attacks, but they haven’t learned how to defeat terrorist groups.

I remained rooted to my chair, transfixed, as I watched the twin towers come down—and when I finally stepped out into my front yard, I said to my neighbor: “Now, we are all Israelis.”

It was an idea that I repeated many times in 2002 and again in 2003 in “The New Anti-Semitism” and one that my neighbor, German journalist Anya Osang, has also repeated many times, with even more understanding since she and her journalist husband lived in Israel for two years.

Twenty years later, and here I sit, reading an excellent article about 9/11 by Fern Sidman at The Jewish Voice and watching an equally excellent documentary on Netflix about 9/11: “Turning Point.”

Here I sit, transfixed again, reliving the timeline of Islamic terrorist attacks against Israel, America, and the West. I acknowledge that in record time, Israel stopped most such attacks with its Security Wall and then with its Iron Dome, for which it was defamed and demonized.

Europe and America also stopped many—but not all— Islamic/Islamist acts of terrorism before they could be carried out. However, I cannot understand how or why Western leaders and the “chattering classes” managed to forget, minimize, deny, and actually give cover to such plots and plotters. Jihadists are Holy Warriors against Racism.

Jihadists are mentally ill.

And now, America has left Afghanistan where bin Laden plotted 9/11, and we have done so in the most shameful and dishonorable of ways. Who has best captured the reality of the Taliban and their interpretation of Sharia Law?

Why, none other than George Orwell and Margaret Atwood. Strangely enough, many mainstream columnists viewed both “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Testaments,” and the documentary based upon these works as dystopias that describe white Christian misogynist men and a Puritan-style Biblical Hell.

President Joe Biden will not give a live speech to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He will instead release a prerecorded video of his remarks.

"You will hear from [Biden] in the form of a video in advance—or if that will be available that day, I should say," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.

The president will attend events at all three 9/11 memorial sites—in New York City, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon—on Saturday, the anniversary of the attacks. Psaki said Biden's busy schedule that day precluded him from giving a live address.

Former president Donald Trump delivered live remarks to commemorate the attacks on each of the four years of his administration, as did former president Barack Obama each year of his two terms.

#MEMRI Re-Releases 9/11 Documentary 'The Arab And Iranian Reaction To 9/11 – Five Years Later – MEMRIFILMS Documentary' To Mark The 20th Anniversary Of 9/11 – view the full video here: https://t.co/Amoe2d9A9D#MEMRI911Archives#September11#911Anniversarypic.twitter.com/6s7xdfdYyX

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 10, 2021

Speakers with terrorist affiliations or those who have expressed support for terrorism will be featured at a 9/11 event sponsored by Rutgers University and San Francisco State University on Saturday.

The panel, "Whose Narrative? 20 Years since September 11, 2001," will serve as a launching point for a semsester-long event that will explore, among other topics, challenging the "exceptionalization of 9/11/2001" and "legitimization of 'war on terror.'"

Speakers on Saturday will include Dr. Sami Al-Arian and Dr. Rabab Abulhadi, academics who have in the past courted controversy in their engagement with terrorists and terrorist organizations.

According to the event landing page, sponsors include SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies (AMED Studies) program, Rutgers' Center for Security, Race and Rights, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, two Jewish Voice for Peace Chapters, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and America Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

The International Legal Forum, an Israel-based NGO with a global network of over 3,500 lawyers and civil society activists in over 40 countries, uncovered the panel and has sent letters to the administrations of Rutgers and SFSU demanding the event be canceled.

"Robust free speech and academic freedom might be sacrosanct, but it is a red line and simply inexcusable for public institutions, such as SFSU and Rutgers, to sponsor and endorse this event, which effectively glorifies terror and the use of violence, by providing a platform to convicted terrorists, conspiracy theorists and purveyors of hate," Arsen Ostrovsky, Chair and CEO of The International Forum, told The Jerusalem Post. "The International Legal Forum calls upon SFSU and Rutgers to immediately and unequivocally withdraw their association with this event, which furthermore, may be in breach of US anti-terror legislation.”

A Camden theatre that receives tens of thousands of taxpayer funding has been slammed for hosting a three-day event with a group that Boris previously described as “apologists for terror”. In April 2021 they were given a £33,671 grant by DCMS…

The Camden People’s Theatre has been accused of a “grotesque lapse of judgement”, compounded after it emerged they’re to soon host one CAGE speaker who previously questioned whether Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, and another who called Jihadi John a “beautiful young man”. The same week that one Labour council no-platformed comedian Roy Chubby Brown, yet not a peep from Camden council about this…

The event has been highlighted as part of PolicyExchange’s Understanding Islamism project, which documents the activities of Islamists, both violent and non-violent, and their sympathisers Tory MP and Senior Fellow Nus Ghani said:
“It’s absurd that taxpayers’ money has been allocated to events or individuals who have stated that the Islamic State’s violent Jihadi John is a ‘beautiful young man”.

Fellow senior fellow, and Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood also says it “worries me deeply that official Arts Council and UK Government funding could be going towards something that seems designed to offend the British and American public” Guido expects a swift DCMS review…

Some of the Jewish organizational officials flying into the coastal city of Durban, South Africa, on the last week of August 2001 were excited. They believed the U.N.’s anti-racism conference there would be an opportunity to exchange notes on a cause that the Jewish world had worked on for decades.

Others, steeped in how the United Nations and its affiliates functioned, were wary of some of the players, who were known for tirelessly steering every international conference to complaints about Israel. Still others who had been tracking preparations for the gathering knew that Iran, Israel’s implacable enemy, was planning to take over the proceedings.

But no one was prepared for what it became — a carnival of antisemitic expression that drove Jewish participants to tears each night and had them fearing for their physical safety.

“It was worse than I had imagined,” recalled Irwin Cotler, a longtime Jewish human rights lawyer in Canada who would go on to be his nation’s justice minister. “Because it was a festival of hate.”

As is conventional at U.N. forums, the governmental conference, which ran Sept. 2-9, was preceded by the nongovernmental organization conference Aug. 27-Sept. 2.

Both would be overshadowed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the NGO conference, say the Jewish participants who attended, was a template for the next 20 years of anti-Israel rhetoric, codifying the argument now increasingly prevalent on the left that Israel is an apartheid state deserving of isolation. It was also an eye opener for many in terms of how criticism of Israel, however legitimate, can be co-opted by an antisemitic agenda.

We are still waiting for the right answer from @NorwayMFAhttps://t.co/ltnXxzIYs3pic.twitter.com/PiS9x4ddI6

— Conrad Myrland (@miffno) September 10, 2021

With Jews making up a mere 0.2% of the world’s population, one might reasonably wonder, “Why should we give antisemitism so much attention?” But as professor Walter Russell Mead explains, “Societies that tolerate antisemitism...take a fateful step towards the loss of both freedom and prosperity.” History has shown that societies suffer where antisemitism is prevalent. When the focus is on blaming the Jews, the real causes of society's problems go overlooked. This makes antisemitism more than just a problem for the Jews, but actually something we all should be concerned about.

Not 1 word about peace, negotiated agreement, or end of violence.
This isn’t standing with any resolution of the conflict, only embracing and empowering extremists and their narrative. https://t.co/6yHloffNm1

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) September 10, 2021

Khan is certainly keen. He has even introduced Javed favourably to Pakistani diplomats, it seems, as well as Parliamentarians. 2/13 pic.twitter.com/GNO93bTHhy

— habibi (@habibi_uk) September 9, 2021

If she is in fact referring to Mohammadi, Zarah is saying that Prevent were wrong for taking an interest in someone who showed support for the butcher of Syria Bashar al Assad on his Facebook profile pic.twitter.com/fJNS3Cso3A

— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) September 9, 2021

St. Mary’s College has postponed an event featuring an Islamic law and theology scholar following complaints about antisemitic comments, the California Jewish newspaper J. reported on Wednesday.

University of California-Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian — whom the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently criticized for retweeting a cartoon that depicted an Israeli soldier taking the heart of a dead Palestinian — was scheduled to appear at “How to Be a White Ally While Challenging Islamophobia” on Wednesday evening.

“Due to the multiple perspectives and information shared by members of our community, the organizers have decided to postpone the event until they can investigate further and decide how best to meet their goals for the planned event,” wrote President Richard Plumb in a campus-wide email sent before the virtual event, sponsored by the Center for Women and Gender Equity (CWGE), took place.

“Conversations have begun to address how to gather information, review the concerns surrounding the speaker and the community’s response, and move forward,” he said.

According to the Moraga, California college, “How to Be a White Ally” was part of the college’s commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It first addressed the controversy prompted by Bazian’s planned appearance in campus-wide email on Monday, according to J.

Assembly Bill 101 (AB101) is legislation that would make ethnic studies a graduation requirement for all public high school students in California, starting with the 2029-2030 academic year.

StandWithUs has been deeply involved in the debate over ethnic studies in California since August, 2019. We are sharing an update now because AB101 has passed the California Assembly and Senate, and is expected to be signed by the Governor soon.

We believe the goal of ethnic studies is important and positive: to represent and uplift marginalized communities in public education. Because of our work together with thousands of citizens and partners across the state, the California State Board of Education recognized that content about Jews and antisemitism belongs in K-12 ethnic studies.

However, interest groups are working harder than ever to use these courses as a platform for anti-Israel propaganda, antisemitism, and other forms of bias. They are pushing slanderous curriculum materials directly to local teachers, schools, and school districts, regardless of what California's state government does.

We cannot allow this hatred to be institutionalized in our public education system, especially through courses that students are required to take in order to graduate. As such, we supported amendments to AB101 and have been closely tracking the bill.

The original version of AB101 included a requirement that ethnic studies instruction and materials, "not reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination" against anyone based on their identity.

“We understand that how you have practiced religious traditions IN THE PAST…” the students on this list serve are ORTHODOX Jews who are currently practicing. Can you imagine a similar email being sent out to observant Muslims?

— Daniella Greenbaum Davis (@DGreenbaum) September 10, 2021

Egyptian anti-Zionist debates Jewish Zionists https://t.co/Uh92K7T9vh

— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) September 9, 2021

Congratulations! For recognising that "Free Palestine" is a phrase that encourages violence against people's or groups, @customink just earned free advertising!

AND we will now begin using them for our t-shirts, starting tonight. https://t.co/xgliNa7pMw

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

Nevertheless, Knell failed to provide readers with “appropriate information” about the person described only as an activist and a “critic”, or the organisations he represents.

As noted here in June when BBC World Service radio interviewed Ubay al Aboudi, he has been arrested at least three times due to his membership and activity in the PFLP terrorist organisation – most recently in November 2019. In his Linkedin profile al-Aboudi describes himself as also working for an NGO called UAWC which has links to the same terrorist group.

In December 2019 employees of both UAWC and the Bisan Center (both of which have received EU and other foreign funding) were arrested as part of a PFLP operated terror network connected to the murder of Rina Shnerb in August of that year.

Al-Aboudi’s own links to the PFLP as well as those of organisations he works for are clearly “relevant to the context” of his criticism of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, not least because such condemnation on the part of the PFLP predates the Nizar Banat story.

There is of course plenty of reason for foreign journalists to report on the Palestinian Authority’s corruption, crackdowns on critics and abuses of freedom of expression, not least because of the financial support it receives from Western nations. However, audience understanding of those topics is not enhanced by the BBC’s repeated superficial portrayal of anyone critical of the PA as ‘human rights activists’ without any clarification of their own often no less problematic actions, ideologies and “particular viewpoints” and – in this case – a history of links to a terrorist organisation.

Emirati affiliated Sky News Arabia persists in calling Israeli communities inside Israel’s internationally-recognized territory “settlements”, even after its correspondents were publicly called-out by CAMERA staff.

This is how CAMERA Arabic advisor Meir Masri responded on air to Sky News Arabia’s Israel correspondent Firas Lutfi calling the Israeli city of Kiryat Shemona a “settlement”, in an August 4th broadcast following Hezbollah firing missiles at Israeli northern communities that day:

However, not only did Sky News Arabia fail to correct its online item which referred to Kiryat Shmona and other Jewish communities within pre-’67 Israel as “settlements” earlier that day, its website subsequently published three additional items over the next five days which used the same terminology.

August 4th, headline: “Missiles fall close to an Israeli settlement near Lebanon, and the Israeli military responds”; photo caption: “A missile fell in an open area close to the Kiryat Shmona settlement“; body: “The Israeli military responded with [firing] seven rockets across the border with Lebanon, at the Marjayoun plateau facing the two settlements of Metula and Tallat al-Hamames [probably the Har Tsfiya neighborhood, also in Metula; Tallat al-Hamames is an uninhabited hilltop inside Lebanon].”

This week, Slovakia’s Government apologised for imposing antisemitic laws during the Second World War.

Yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of the adoption of the Order on the Legal Status of Jews, also known as the “Jewish Code”, a policy that limited the civil, social, religious, and property-related rights of Jewish citizens.

The Slovakian Government released a statement on Wednesday that said: “The Slovak cabinet feels a moral duty to publicly express regret over the crimes committed by the ruling power of that time, especially over adopting a condemnable regulation restricting the fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens of Jewish origin on September 9, 1941.”

Slovakia adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism last year.

On Tuesday, police divers searched the waters around a Long Island beach for Torah scrolls and artifacts that are believed to have been stolen.

A 23-year-old man was charged with burglary and other charges after two Torahs went missing from Chabad of the Beaches at Temple Beth El in Long Beach. The man, who was arrested by Long Beach police last month, was reportedly found naked, apart from wearing a Jewish prayer shawl, and was holding a spear.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said that he did not believe the incident to be caused by antisemitic intent, and noted that the man appeared to be under mental distress. Commissioner Ryder said: “There is a rise of antisemitism around the country, but not so much in Nassau County and we want to keep it that way.”

The man is expected to appear in court on Thursday.

Artist Joe Bennett (Immortal Hulk) is no longer working on Marvel's Timeless one-shot after posting an anti-Semitic image on social media.

CBR has confirmed Joe Bennett is no longer a part of the Timeless creative team, and is not on any future Marvel projects. Bennett's Immortal Hulk collaborator Al Ewing publicly severed his relationship with the artist last week after becoming aware of the image, which Ewing called "reprehensible."

"An armoured swordsman, which I assume represents Bolsonaro given Joe's commentary, slaughtering tiny, scurrying people, with the buck teeth and ears of rats," Ewing wrote when describing the 2017 illustration by Bennett. "And big noses. One of them is cosplaying Dracula." Ewing also called out the anti-Semitic caricatures in the art, which has an undeniable political agenda. "I'm assuming these are political enemies of some kind, but even if not, the tropes are apparent," he said. "Human beings as vermin being exterminated. Even if it's no longer up, that it was drawn in the first place, signed, and so proudly displayed by Joe speaks volumes."

Full piece by @BusinessInsider here: https://t.co/A7NQUpLoQF

Tidbits attached for those behind the paywall.

It appears Marsan’s brother Yvan, as well as Salvatore Rianna partook in the horrific behavior and really should be stepping down as well! pic.twitter.com/N2JFdzenO8

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 9, 2021

Tel Aviv University and Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center have set out to cure Alzheimer's disease by reversing the main activators of the disease, and their latest research – published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Aging on Thursday – attests to their efforts bearing fruit.

By using hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), researchers improved the cerebral blood flow in elderly patients by 16-23%, alleviating vascular dysfunction and amyloid burden, both crucial elements in the development of Alzheimer's and cognitive decline.

Each patient received 60 HBOT sessions over a 90-day period and showed substantial improvement in cognitive functions – with memory, attention and information processing speed exhibiting the strongest results.

The study – part of a comprehensive research program directed toward aging and accompanying ailments as a reversible disease – holds promise for a new strategic approach to the prevention of Alzheimer's by addressing not only the symptoms, but rather the core pathology and biology responsible for the advancement of the disease.

"By treating vascular dysfunction, we're mapping out the path toward Alzheimer's prevention," research group leader Professor Shai Efrati said. "More research is underway to further demonstrate how HBOT can improve cognitive function and become an influential tool in the imperative fight against the disease."

Scientists at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have produced a stretchable electronic material and created a wearable sensor capable of precisely identifying bending and twisting motion. It is essentially an electronic skin capable of recognizing the range of movement human joints normally make, with up to half a degree of precision.

This breakthrough is the result of collaborative work between researchers from different fields in the Laboratory for Nanomaterial-Based Devices, headed by Professor Hossam Haick from the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering. It was recently published in “Advanced Materials” and was featured on the journal’s cover.

Haick’s lab is focused on wearable devices for various uses. Currently, existing wearable motion sensors can recognize bending movement, but not twisting.

Existing twisting sensors, on the other hand, are large and cumbersome. This problem was overcome by Ph.D. candidate Yehu David Horev and postdoctoral fellow Arnab Maity. Horev found a way to form a composite material that was both conductive (and thus, usable as a sensor) and flexible, stretchable, breathable and biocompatible that didn’t change its electrical properties when stretched.

Maity then solved the mathematics of analyzing the received signal, creating an algorithm capable of mapping bending and twisting motion—the nature of the movement, its speed and its angle. The novel sensor is breathable, durable and lightweight, allowing it to be worn on the human body for prolonged periods.

Not to brag, but we're #8 in the world??#VisitTelAvivhttps://t.co/WPXPo2rMCX

— Tel Aviv (@TelAviv) September 9, 2021

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When American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower on September 11, 2001, then-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy was in the middle of a meeting with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

“Suddenly someone came in the room, passed him a piece of paper. And he said to me, ‘Something has happened. I think you shouldn’t be here, you should be in your office.’ I said, ‘What happened?’ He told me briefly, and I was off on my way,” Halevy recalled, speaking to The Times of Israel ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

“The 9/11 events caught everyone by surprise,” he said.

Halevy, 86, had been the head of the Mossad spy agency for three and a half years when two planes hit the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, after the passengers regained control of the aircraft from the hijackers and prevented it from hitting its target, which investigators believe was either the White House or the United States Capitol.

The British-born spymaster was wary of revisiting many of the technical questions of the Mossad’s activities following the attacks — what they knew and when and what was shared with the US — but he said there was a general effort to bring whatever relevant information it collected with the Americans.

“I’m now well past 80 and to start going into my memory, which has all kinds of ‘boxes,’ some which are very full and some of which are emptying up — I would rather not go into that minefield,” he said.

“We had an understanding that on this issue we had to cooperate in bringing information [to the US] if it came our way and to initiate activities to gather information subsequent to the attack.”

Halevy recalled a grim mood in the Mossad following the attack and not only out of an understanding that a major event had taken place with the potential to significantly reshape the world.

Steven Emerson is considered one of the most esteemed experts on Islamic Jihad. As early as 1992, he sounded the alarm that a major attack on US soil was just a matter of time, but no one seemed to care. Speaking with Israel Hayom, he has vivid memories of 9/11, as if it happened yesterday.

Unlike most Americans who were shocked by the horrific events, he was not surprised. In fact, about a month before the attack he predicted that something big was imminent, but again, to no avail.

Q: What lit up your interest in going after the subject of the jihad in America and how it happened, a decade or so before 9/11.

"In December 1992, I had been working as an investigative correspondent for CNN (my second year for CNN; my 12th year as a journalist). In late December I got a tip that in Oklahoma City, the Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor was going to unveil his final report on the Iran-Contra affair but I didn't know what day. So I flew to Oklahoma City on December 24, the day before Christmas and checked into a downtown hotel, waiting any day for the report to be released. Well on December 25, Christmas Day, everything was closed, even the restaurant in the hotel. So I took my rented car and drove around downtown looking for a fast-food restaurant and I suddenly passed a most unusual sight as I drove near the Oklahoma City Convention Center: Streaming in and out of the Center were thousands of men and women dressed in traditional Middle East clothing – women wearing hijabs and men wearing the galabias (long robes). My first instinctive reaction was that there must have been a film being made and that these folks were extras. So I parked my car nearby and went inside the convention center. I immediately realized that this was actually a convention of some kind – I really didn't know what kind until I went down to the convention floor where there were scores of tables, each one cluttered with books, audio and video cassettes, and pamphlets or Middle East clothing for sale. I felt a bit conspicuous but I was warmly welcomed from the table as I began collecting the books, cassettes, and pamphlets. Some were in Arabic, but many were in English. And the ones that were in English had very radical anti-American, anti-Israeli, and antisemitic rhetoric with names of organizations based in Tampa, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; Bridgeview, Illinois; Brooklyn, NY; Tucson, Arizona – from all over the country.

"I soon discovered that the organization hosting this conference was called the Muslim Arab Youth Convention or MAYA for short. (Only later would I found out that it was founded and headed by Abdullah bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's half brother). In fact, I was warmly welcomed by one of the attendees – Abdullah, who identified himself as a 'revert' to Islam (since everyone in the world is born a Muslim including Jews and Christians, one doesn't convert to Islam; rather one reverts to Islam). Abdullah told me he had been born a Jew but had reverted to Islam. He took me under his wing and actually allowed me to accompany him as his guest to 'Palestine Night' that very evening where we sat in the section of converts or reverts. The speakers including Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal, Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamal Helbawi and leaders of other radical Islamist groups including Al Gama al Islamiya. Although the fiery speeches were in Arabic with thunderous applause from the audience of about 3000, there was a simultaneous translation for all 25 of us in the revert section. At one point, everyone got up and starting chanting something about 'Yahudi.' So naturally, we all tried to join in as well. I asked Abdullah what were we chanting? He blithely responded, ' Oh, just 'Kill the Jews.'

In 2001, the organization al-Qaida struck a blow that shocked the world. In a series of coordinated terrorist attacks, unprecedented in nearly every aspect, the group managed to hit the US, the strongest superpower in the world, in its most vulnerable spot.

Residents of the world were amazed to see how a small organization numbering only a few hundred or thousand members, located in far-off Afghanistan without any particularly impressive infrastructure, managed to organize such a destructive attack. In the years that have passed, al-Qaida has carried out other terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005).

But the American invasion of Afghanistan dealt the organization a harsh blow. Many of its people were killed or captured by the Americans. Cooperation between intelligence agencies worldwide made it difficult for terrorists from the group to operate freely, as they had done previously, and the scope of the attacks it perpetrated against the west gradually decreased.

But the most serious blow to al-Qaida came in 2011, when a team of US special forces killed its leader and founder Osama Bin Laden. His successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, served as a kind of spiritual authority, almost disconnected from what was happening in the field.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was seen in a new video on Saturday, following rumors that he had died. The footage wsas released on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the online activity of jihadist groups, reported that in a video released by al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri spoke on a number of subjects including the “Judaization of Jerusalem.”

Although the video was released on Saturday, al-Zawahri made no mention of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Rita Katz, SITE’s director noted.

Al-Zawahiri made references to a raid on a Russian military base by the al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen group in Syria, which it claimed on January 1, 2021, Katz added.

Al-Zawahiri also talked about the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Katz pointed out that it could have been said long ago following the signing of the Doha Agreement, in which the US pledged to remove its troops from the country.

“Thus, he could still be dead, though if so, would have been at some point in or after Jan 2021,” Katz tweeted.

Reminder, this is how some #Palestinians celebrated #September11! Just vile. pic.twitter.com/qNbKwBLWgz

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 11, 2021

Allan Englander usually commemorates Sept. 11 at the Tribeca Synagogue where he was having breakfast after morning prayers that Tuesday in 2001 when he learned a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

"We didn't believe it at first – somebody called in, and we all rushed out and ran to the corner, where we had a view of the World Trade Center," he recalls. "I got there just in time to see the second plane crash into the tower."

On the anniversary of the attacks, they pray, have breakfast, and think back at what they were doing and how they felt, he says. "I try to make an effort to go there on 9/11 simply because it's reminiscent, it's remembering," he says.

This year's commemoration will be different, though. With the 20th anniversary of the tragedy falling on Saturday, instead of being minutes from the World Trade Center site, where he prays on weekdays, Englander will mark the day closer to home at a synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Jewish groups across New York City will be marking America's worst international terrorist attack against the backdrop of Shabbat this year. For some, that means moving programming to adjcaent days; for others, it means having a group of community members gathered to remember together.

The lesson for Israel is clear and ominous. For almost two decades, Iran has been conducting a two-front proxy war against Israel. Hezbollah is a total proxy of Iran and Hamas a partial one, as it also has to take into account the interests of the Turkish-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood axis which do not always align with those of Iran.

Despite ongoing Israeli efforts, including significant attacks against Iranian forces in Syria, the threat posed by Iran’s proxies continues to evolve into an ever more menacing one. Though clearly incapable of defeating Israel, their ability to exact an increasingly dear price from Israel continues to grow, with Iranian assistance. This will not change as long as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei knows he can fight Israel to the last drop of Lebanese blood and be confident of his and his regime’s safety in Tehran. Indeed, despite enjoying a significant conventional weapons qualitative edge over an Iranian military that has been hobbled by decades of tight international sanctions, Israel has so far refrained from actions aimed at decisively defeating either of the proxies or exacting a high enough price from Iran to force it to reconsider its proxy war against Israel.

Militarily, the main reason has been the Iranian missile program, which, though still equipped entirely with conventional warheads, has seemingly succeeded in sufficiently deterring Israel. This is despite the fact that Israel possesses the world’s only fully operational multi-layer missile defense system (Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome).

This is not, however, the only reason, as militarily, Israel has the capacity to defeat both Iranian proxies. In order to destroy Hamas, Israel would have to resume the status of Gaza’s occupying power, or ensure in advance that a multinational force of some kind would be available and capable of assuming responsibility for Gaza. No such force is likely to come into existence any time soon. A unilateral Israeli occupation of Gaza is possible, but would exact a prohibitive price economically, diplomatically, and in terms of public opinion.

Destroying Hezbollah would require Israel to destroy half of Lebanon, since Hezbollah is a state within a state that is more powerful than the legitimate state itself. Militarily it can be done, but would create a humanitarian and public relations disaster. Israel has therefore based its policy on containment and management, having concluded that the economic, diplomatic, and military sacrifices and ramifications the alternative would entail are too expensive.

Afghanistan provides a compelling reminder of the futility of fighting a proxy war while refraining from confronting the power supporting the proxy, even if you are the preeminent global power, which the US still is.

Israel’s priority must be to ensure it does not reach a situation where it ends up facing a proxy backed by a nuclear-armed power. In order to achieve that, it must, without delay, reassess its current containment policy. It must formulate a new policy based not on threat containment but threat neutralization. That means confronting Iran.

As heavy as the costs of such a policy might be, it is clear that the costs of not adopting such a policy will, very possibly and unfortunately in the not too distant future, be much higher. The question Israel’s strategic policymakers should be asking themselves is not whether it can afford to bear the costs of threat elimination, but whether it can afford not to.

Wow, @KenRoth of @hrw is not only an antisemites and shill for terrorist regimes, he is also passionately anti-American. The three by the way, ideologically coincide. These are some of Ken’s posts today, on 20th anniversary of #September11. pic.twitter.com/54i5tDWoKN

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 11, 2021

Looking for a meaningful and respectful way to commemorate 9/11?

How about a panel featuring supporters of terrorism and airplane hijackers?

No? Well, departments at Rutgers and SFSU thought it was an appropriate thing to sponsor. pic.twitter.com/Y4b0es1Mc0

— Michael Starr (@Starrlord89) September 10, 2021

“Immediately in the aftermath we have the special registration, if you recall, where innocent people were detained and then deported. Then we went to war in Afghanistan, then Iraq and continued on to Syria. Now estimates are that close to a million people have died in those wars"

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 11, 2021

WITH PRAYERS over at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, in other cities and towns, several dozen Irgunists, fighters, medical staff, those responsible for weapons’ storage and drivers began to assemble. Shortly before midnight, four police stations were attacked throughout the country. Housed in what were referred to as Taggart fortresses, they had been built in the late 1930s to counter the Arab terror then. Many still serve the Israel Police.

The Irgun’s warnings about the Western Wall, an early form of psychological warfare, being perceived as forcing a concession from the British, had served its purpose in Jerusalem. No clashes occurred that day at the Western Wall or en route to it. All the attention of the British had been concentrated at the Western Wall. Before the night was over, in Haifa, Qalqiliya, Qatra near Gedera and Beit Dagan, perimeter defenses were overcome, suppression fire allowed the explosives experts to approach the walls and the resulting blasts and exchanges of shots caused significant damage and loss of life on the British side.

As it happened, on that Yom Kippur, Stern Group member Mattityahu (Todi) Pil’i, an observant Jew, for the first time in his life traveled on the most holy day from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. He had participated in the attempted assassination of British High Commissioner Harold McMichael on August 8. Having located the quarters of Thomas J. Wilkin, assistant superintendent of police, and the CID detective who had found Yair in 1942 and handed him over to Geoffrey Morton to be killed, he reported the news to Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir authorized Yehoshua Cohen and David Shomron to assassinate him immediately.

Two days later, on Friday, September 29, walking along St. Paul’s Way, as he approached Queen Helena Street where he would turn right and ascend to the Russian Compound, he was fired upon and killed. The curfew declared was ineffective as the two assassins were already on the loose, going to Tel Aviv, having jumped into a waiting taxi in an alley across the street that ran behind the Evelina de Rothschild school. The High Holy Day season was over.

Two more Palestinian security prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison were recaptured in the early hours of Saturday morning, including notorious terror commander Zakaria Zubeidi.

The second recaptured prisoner was named by police as Mohammed al-Arida, the younger brother of the reported mastermind of the jailbreak.

Four of the six escapees are now back in Israeli custody, as searches continued for the remaining two fugitives. Police believe one of them may now be in the northern West Bank, according to Hebrew media reports.

Zubeidi, a notorious commander in Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror group, was in prison while on trial for two dozen crimes, including attempted murder.

Al-Arida and the other four prisoners who escaped are all members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization. He was arrested in 2002 on terror offenses and sentenced to life in prison.

Zubeidi and Al-Arida were recaptured by Israeli counter-terror police officers near the northern town of Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam. The two were captured at around 5 a.m. at a parking lot used by truck drivers. Zakaria Zubeidi seen after being recaptured in northern Israel on September 11, 2021 (Courtesy)

An unnamed security official told Hebrew media that Zubeidi briefly tried to escape during the arrest operation, but was quickly overpowered.

“They found them hiding under a semi-trailer,” Yusuf Kahili, a resident of the town, said to reporters. “I saw them. They looked scared, hungry and humiliated.”

Security forces continued to search on Saturday for the last two escaped Palestinian prisoners who remained on the run, after the capture of four inmates who broke out of prison earlier this week.

Authorities believed that at least one of the remaining fugitives fled to the northern West Bank, where all six of the prisoners hail from.

“The estimation is that one has succeeded to get to the West Bank. The other one could be on either side of the Green Line,” Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said in an interview on Channel 12.

“We will catch them,” he added.

The two escapees still on the run are Iham Kamamji and Munadil Nafiyat, both of whom are members of the Islamic Jihad terror group.

Kamamji was serving a life sentence at the time of Monday’s escape, for killing an 18-year-old Israeli in 2006, a murder he reportedly expressed pride in.

Nafayat has not been charged with a crime other than being a member of the Islamic Jihad, and was being held under Israel’s practice of administrative detention, which allows it to imprison suspects without filing charges.

Security officials were increasingly concerned that Kamamji or Nafiyat could try to carry out an attack following the arrests of the other fugitives over the weekend.

“They have nothing to lose,” an unnamed senior official was quoted saying by the Walla news site.

The family of the person who reportedly told police about the fugitives has received death threats and subsequently denied involvement in the capture, according to Ynet. "It is a lie - we didn't report anything, we were at a wedding," the family told Ynet. "We want to help the state but we were not involved in this incident," they said.

Despite the death threats received by the family, no police officers were seen near their home to secure their safety, Ynet reported.

Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev publicly thanked the Arab-Israeli Nazareth residents for "aiding in the capture" of the escaped terrorists.

"Although the mission has not yet been completed, I would like to thank Arab-Israeli citizens for their help in the captures," said Bar Lev.

"For four days, the escapees believed they could seek shelter and assistance from Arab-Israeli citizens - they were mistaken," said Bar Lev. "Wherever [the fugitives] went and were identified, Arab-Israeli citizens dialed 100," the Public Security Minister added.

Manipulated photos of the captured Gilboa Prison fugitives were shared on the social media platforms of Palestinian news outlets on Saturday.

Yakoub Mohammed Qadri and Mohammed Ardah’s faces were “photoshopped” to appear as if they had a broad smile on their faces as they were captured by police officers in Nazareth late on Friday night.

Social media quickly caught on to the photos, which have been doctored for reasons that are unclear.

Gaza media just FaceApp'ed a smile on the 2 recaptured Palestinian terrorists and we can't even. pic.twitter.com/b19iZVpyJV

— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 10, 2021

Lest there be any remaining doubt about the extremist, anti-Jewish bigotry of the inaptly named “Jewish Voice for Peace” group, their recent Instagram messages should put that to rest. Beyond messages celebrating the escape of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails as “self-liberation,” a recent message equates terrorists who escaped from prison while serving life sentences for the murders of Jews, with those who managed to escape the Nazi genocide of Jews during the Holocaust. Click on image above to enlarge.

It comes as no surprise to those acquainted with the group’s increasingly radical anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic activities. Read on for a fuller exposition of the group’s anti-Jewish hate rhetoric and actions.

JVP literally celebrated the intifada, a violent uprising in which Palestinians brutally murdered Jews...but that wasn't enough. Now, they're comparing convicted murderers serving time in prison to victims of the Holocaust.

Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/f2JcZrwn1v

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 10, 2021

Blue tick Bunkall describes a terrorist attack on an Israeli policeman as a 'minor stabbing', where do @SkyNews get these so-called correspondents from? Imagine it the other way round and I wonder what the narrative would be! #SpeakupforIsraelpic.twitter.com/xWScprwwUc

— David Ridge ??? (@DRidge67) September 11, 2021

“Journalism” from Mohammed El Kurd: @thenation must be so proud to have such accurate reporting from their “Palestine correspondent” pic.twitter.com/izHoNLDmWz

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 11, 2021

The IDF carried out an airstrike in Gaza on Friday night after Hamas shot a rocket towards the Eshkol Regional Council in the south of Israel. The rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome.

The IDF made a statement that they struck a Hamas position used for shooting, a storage facility next to a school and mosques, and a military facility that creates cement for tunnels.

"Once again, Hamas proved that they purposely place their assets at the heart of the civilian population in Gaza," they wrote in a tweet. "The IDF will continue to strike against terror attempts and sees Hamas as responsible for all that is done in the Gaza Strip."

Meanwhile, attacks and riots broke out all across the West Bank on Friday afternoon and into the night. An attempted stabbing attack took place at Lion's Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday afternoon.

The suspect, a 50-year-old resident of east Jerusalem, came to the gate where he attempted to stab Israel Police officers in the area. He was immediately stopped and arrested, a police spokesperson stated.

The Palestinian Authority has walked away from an agreement to transfer Qatari aid money to public servants in the Gaza Strip, Mohammad al-Emadi, chairman of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, announced on Friday.

“The Palestinian Authority has withdrawn from the agreement recently concluded between it and the Qatari Committee regarding the disbursement of the grant for employees,” al-Emadi said in a statement.

The PA decision is related only to salaries of public servants, and not to needy families in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources clarified. The PA decision is seen as a blow to Egyptian, Qatari and United Nations efforts to reach a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas.

Al-Emadi said the PA informed him of its decision not to transfer the funds through banks belonging to the Palestinian Monetary Authority, despite recent understandings.

According to al-Emadi, the decision came in spite of the fact that Qatar had already transferred the funds to the PA.

The PA’s justification for the retraction was fear that the banks would be exposed to lawsuits and accusations of supporting terrorism, he revealed.

“The Qatari committee is currently working to solve the problem and find an alternative way to disburse the grant,” he added.

“We have intensified our preparations for operations in Iran,” he said. “A large portion of the increase in the defense budget is for this purpose. This is complicated work that requires a lot of intelligence, operational capabilities and munitions. We are working on it all.”

Israel’s rhetoric is not empty. The possibility that Iran will one day obtain a nuclear weapon or be on the threshold of doing so with very little breakout time is a threat under which Israel cannot live. It will impair Israel’s operational freedom, set off a nuclear arms race throughout the already volatile Middle East, and give Tehran’s proxies – primarily Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip – a feeling that they can get away with attacking Israel without paying a price.

Israel’s hope is that the world will understand that the Jewish state is not bluffing, and will take seriously its threat to use military force to stop Iran. The world would do well to keep in mind that Israel is the only country on the globe to twice – Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 – launch airstrikes that successfully eliminated an enemy’s nuclear program.

What the world should also keep in mind is that this is an issue that crosses partisan lines. It is true that the current government is split between right-wing parties and left-wing parties, but Iran transcends those divisions. Stopping its nuclear arms race is a consensus issue that receives wide parliamentary support.

Will that be enough for the West to take the necessary economic and diplomatic steps to rein in Iran? That remains to be seen. The clock is ticking.

“Israel takes very seriously the situation reflected in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report released this week on the Iranian nuclear issue,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Friday.

“This report proves that Iran continues to lie to the whole world and to promote a nuclear weapons development program, while denying its international commitments. We must ensure that Iran will never have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons,” he said.

The prime minister called “for an appropriate and swift international response to Iran’s grave acts.”

“The IAEA report warns that the time has come to act, we must no longer continue with a naive expectation that Iran will be ready to change its habits through negotiations which have proved to be unnecessary,” he added.

According to Bennett, “only a firm position of the international community, supported by decisions and actions, can lead to a change of course of the regime in Tehran, which has lost all restraint.”

“Israel will do everything to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” he concluded.

The IAEA denounced on Tuesday the lack of cooperation from Iran, which according to the organization seriously undermines its mission of monitoring Tehran’s nuclear program, against a backdrop of a deadlock in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear accord.

A bill that would make California the first state in the nation to require that high school students take an ethnic studies course for graduation passed the state’s legislature on Wednesday, the latest turn in a contentious, years-long process over the proposal.

Assembly Bill 101 (AB 101), now awaiting the signature of Governor Gavin Newsom before becoming state law, was opposed by some Jewish groups, who argued that it would allow schools to adopt previously proposed curricula that included antisemitic and anti-Israel material.

In 2020, Newsom criticized the first draft of an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (EMSC) as “offensive in so many ways,” and later vetoed an earlier measure to require its adoption in California schools.

The version of the mandate passed on Wednesday was praised by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus for including “important clarifying amendments” they said addressed concerns raised by the Jewish community.

“These amendments — which expressly prohibit the use of curriculum that was rejected because of concerns about anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias — strengthen the firm guardrails included in AB 101 and leave no doubt that hate and bigotry against Jews, Israelis, or any other community is prohibited by law and cannot be taught in our classrooms,” the caucus said.

“In the coming months, the Jewish Caucus will continue to remain actively engaged to ensure that the teaching of ethnic studies is free from any anti-Jewish bias or discrimination and adheres to the highest educational standards.”

An important thread about how a party with extremist views on Israel and Zionism got to the heart of the Scottish Government without being challenged on them. The experience one Scottish Jewish group had with the Greens, quoted a few tweets into this thread, is dismal. https://t.co/cNKllDwef2

— Stephen Daisley (@JournoStephen) September 10, 2021

Dear friends and colleagues, members of the Jewish-American community:
Good News! Antisemitism is no longer a problem worth combatting. This is the assessment of a large number of fellow Jews I've reached out to over the past few years. The outreach was part of my effort to recruit others to partner with me in my fight against the world's oldest hatred, which is now, once again, inciting violence against Jews. Although I decided to continue fighting instead of shifting to a laidback lifestyle, I owe it to you to provide some of the reasonable as well as absurd excuses I’ve heard over the years. So here it is, as expressed by some of my Jewish peers who tried to convince me that my activism is a bad idea.

We cannot afford to fight antisemitism
The number one reason many Jews avoid fighting or helping in the fight against antisemitism is because they are afraid.

The more affluent and successful my Jewish friends are the less risk they are willing to take. Standing up and fighting against our enemies expose and place us in the public domain and we become the targeted enemies of our adversaries, and that can be costly. I often hear or I am led to understand that they would like to help but they cannot afford any risk and have too much to lose. It’s much safer for their reputation, their businesses, and their wellbeing if they stay underneath the radar and hope someone else will do the job. There are many ways to stay underneath the radar and support anonymously, but any type of involvement scares them because it might leak out and be used against them. Because they don’t want to admit that they are fearful, most use reasonable and/or absurd excuses including the following:

An outrageous website that compares Israeli policies to the Holocaust has now chosen to attack Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Shoah.org.uk, a website that launched in 2011 and joined Twitter earlier this year, says that its “aim is to give a voice to the millions of ordinary people around the word who want to end to the ‘Zio-Nazi’ oppression, environmental destruction of Palestine.”

The Shoah is the Hebrew name of the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jewish men, women and children at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.

It is believed that the website is managed by Sammi Ibrahem, a former council candidate for the Birmingham Workers Party and may now be a member of the Communist Party. He has also reportedly been praised by the antisemite Gilad Atzmon, who has previously been forced to make a humiliating apology to Campaign Against Antisemitism following defamation proceedings.

According to the JC, a Twitter profile with a picture matching the logo of the website tweeted last year: “inshalla [G-d-willing] we see another Holocaust so will be no Zionist at all [sic].”

The website reportedly responded to the JC’s request for comment saying: “The views in our articles are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect those of shoah.org.uk.”

This week, the website republished an article recycling criticisms of Campaign Against Antisemitism common on the far-left. The article was originally published in 2018 on a different website.

Top executives at the Italian fashion and accessories brand Brandy Melville have come under fire for engaging in antisemitic, racist, sexist and other discriminatory behavior, Business Insider has reported.

The outlet obtained screenshots from a text message group chat from 2017 to 2020 called “Brandy Melville gags” that included owner and CEO Stephen Marsan and other top company executives. In the group chat, members shared racist, sexist, and antisemitic jokes, including one photo in which, a former business partner said, Marsan superimposed his face onto the body of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The group members additionally exchanged images mocking Black people and employing pornography, other photos of Hitler, and memes featuring the n-word.

One image Marsan posted in the group featured a woman holding a T-shirt at an angle so that it would spell “Hitler.” Other Holocaust and Nazi references appeared, with Hitler mentioned 24 times in the more than 150 screenshots viewed by Business Insider.

Another image of Hitler featured the text “Premio Nobel per la brace,” which translates to “Nobel Prize for barbecue;” another showed Hitler with the text “Happy New Year My [n-word]; and a separate edited image depicted an emaciated woman in a sash that said “Miss Auschwitz 1943.” A selfie shared by Adriano de Petris, Brandy Melville’s chief technology officer, showed Roberto Tatti — Marsan’s brother-in-law and a Brandy Melville supplier — performing a Nazi salute.

Marsan — who in 1970 founded the brand with his father in Italy — opened the brand’s first North American location in Westwood, California, in 2009. There are now 94 locations worldwide, including 34 in the US, while annual global revenue has surpassed $250 million, according to former executives.

Antisemitic hate stall being dismantled as the stallholder is carted off in a police van. pic.twitter.com/Sd2N3oqJGV

— Glasgow Friends of Israel (@GlasgowFOI) September 11, 2021

With Vietnam in the midst of its deadliest outbreak of COVID-19 so far, Israel has transferred medical equipment to aid the country’s pandemic efforts, the latest of several signs of warming ties between the two nations.

The medical supplies were handed over on Friday by Israel’s ambassador to Vietnam, Nadav Eshcar, to Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Hieu at a ceremony also attended by representatives of the country’s Ministry of Health. The equipment is destined for a new field hospital that has opened in Hanoi to treat coronavirus patients. Eshcar and Hieu also discussed steps to promote relations between the two countries.

“The assistance reflects the growing friendship between Israel and Vietnam,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Friday.

The equipment includes 10 oxygen ventilators provided by the Israeli firm Inovytec Medical Solutions. In the coming days, about 10,000 medical masks will also be delivered, as well as 20 oxygen generators and antiviral plastic sheets to cover surfaces, donated by the Israeli company Poli Film. Some of the protective equipment will be transferred for use at a major hospital in Ho Chi Minh City and to cover ATMs throughout major cities. Ambassador Eshcar added that additional medical equipment was on the way.

Cumulative cases of COVID-19 in Vietnam surged from just a few thousand before the summer to over 480,000 today, with over 12,000 new cases reported on Thursday.

The effort comes after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh spoke on the phone in July, during which they discussed the aid transfer.

The Genius Star is an award-winning puzzle game where each player gets a six-pointed star-shaped board made up of 48 numbered triangles.

Players roll seven dice and place triangular pieces on the seven spaces determined by the dice. Then they race to use 11 colorful triangle combos to tessellate — or cover the game board – without gaps or overlaps.

Sometimes the task of finishing the star will seem easy and sometimes virtually impossible, but for each of the 165,888 possible dice combinations there is always at least one way to accomplish it.

“That’s the ‘genius’ element that people love about the game,” says its inventor, Aron Lazarus, 42, who immigrated to Israel from London in 2006.

“People can’t get their head around the fact that there is always a solution. Well, it took me three months to devise the correct dice configuration that made that possible and we even had a computer program written to test every single one of the 165,888 puzzles, to be absolutely certain that there are no mistakes.”

The Genius Star, named “Best Puzzle/ Brainteaser Game” by the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association in 2020, is available in 30 countries on five continents and became an Amazon Best Seller in the UK.

A project to digitize thousands of historical Hebrew texts in Italy is now in full swing, according to the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), with an eye to make hundreds of years of the country’s rich Jewish history available to scholars around the world.

The I-TAL-YA Books initiative aims to create an Italian-Hebrew database of nearly 40,000 volumes, and is moving at a “rapid pace” after a testing phase, according to Pagine Ebraiche, a publication run by UCEI.

“You can thus immerse yourself in pages dating from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, leaf through the comments of the rabbis on the texts of the tradition, but also discover where and who had the opportunity to print these volumes,” the outlet said.

2,000 volumes have already been uploaded on the “Teca” web portal, with another thousand about to be added and further updates planned every two months.

On September 26, a Jewish book festival event — organized by the Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in the town of Ferrara — will update the public on the project’s revelations so far and its future plans.

Texts already available in the database include a 1906 prayer book for the Shavuot holiday, an 1886 book of Exodus published in Livorno, and a Passover haggadah dating to 1758, from the prominent Bragadina printing house.

Tel Aviv placed eighth in the 2021 edition of Time Out’s Best Cities in the World, based on a poll of 27,000 city-dwellers across the globe. San Francisco topped the list.

“We wanted to find out which cities really stepped up and pulled together this year,” write the editors of the London-based guide to art and entertainment, food and drink, attractions, hotels and things to do in the world’s greatest cities.

“So we asked you not just about food and culture, as we always do, but also community projects, green space and sustainability. We were after the cities that were not only thinking about the now, but also the future. The ones making life better both for us and for our grandkids.”

Tel Aviv was cited for its resilience during the pandemic.

“When Covid hit tourism, this high-tech hub hit the Reset button. The pandemic caused the ‘city that never stops’ to take a well-needed pause. Spaces like Dizengoff Square and Park HaMesila played host to picnics, gigs, screenings and talks. After the lockdowns, Israel led the vaccination race and before long locals were back sipping cappuccinos in cafes and doing yoga on the beach.”

Eighty-one percent of the Tel Aviv residents responding to Time Out’s poll said their city was fun and 84% said they can express themselves there.

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Though Greenblatt claims FBI statistics back up his claims about an anti-Muslim backlash, a look at the last 20 years of such data proves the opposite. The number of attacks on Muslims has remained small even when temporary hikes occurred. Throughout this period, the numbers show that the overwhelming majority of religion-based attacks have been aimed at Jews, not at Muslims.

While Greenblatt is riding the left’s favorite racism hobby horse, elsewhere the anniversary is being used for different purposes.

In Afghanistan and other places where Islamists rule, Sept. 11 won’t be a day of mourning or an occasion for talking about Islamophobia. It’s not a coincidence that the Taliban — the Islamist group that hosted the Al-Qaeda terrorist atrocities — have chosen to inaugurate their new government on the date. They believe they have proved that with enough patience, sooner or later those who attack the United States can wait out a democracy that lacks the will to oppose them in a long, drawn-out struggle.

As Hudson Institute strategic analyst and former combat veteran Michael Pregent told me in an interview that will air on a JNS “Top Story” podcast, Afghanistan will now be open for business again as a base for Islamic radicals. While four administrations from both political parties contributed to this catastrophe, the feckless decision of the Biden administration to pull the plug on its Afghan allies and then effectively concede the country to this enemy will help to recruit others for various Islamist radical terror groups. It will also encourage Iran, a rogue regime that President Joe Biden is also still bent on appeasing, to stick with its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.

That will make American allies like Israel less secure and increase the chances of regional war. It will also — contrary to the belief of many Americans on both the right as well as the left, who think the conflicts in the Middle East can be ignored as long as Americans are no longer stationed there — make it entirely possible that future terror attacks will be closer to home, rather than in Kabul.

These cruel facts should be uppermost in our minds on this somber anniversary. Instead, Greenblatt and others on the left are trying to change the subject to Islamophobia. In retrospect, the Ground Zero mosque controversy was all about the way radical groups like CAIR were, with the help of liberal media, trying to change the narrative about 9/11 in order to distract Americans from a potent threat while miring them in a self-destructive and dishonest conversation about prejudice. Still, who would have believed 10 years ago that the ADL, the group tasked with defending Jews against the ideas and the people behind 9/11, would be lending its considerable influence to this disgraceful effort?

So moving, so powerful! U.S. Marines in Jerusalem, as "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played at the @JNFUSA#September11 commemoration. ???? ????@usembassyjlm@USAmbIsrael@IsraelinUSA@giladerdan1@IsraelMFA@StateDept@JNFRobinsonpic.twitter.com/SxCEYTKLg6

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 12, 2021

In a video marking 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri attacked Arab countries for “collaborating” with the United States, calling them “Zionist Arabs.” Al-Zawahiri also vowed that “Jerusalem will not be Judaized.”

The video was posted to the website of a US NGO, SITE Intelligence Group.

Al-Zawahiri named Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the chief “collaborators.”

The UAE, along with Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, made history in 2020 when they signed the Abraham Accords, normalizing ties with Israel under the auspices of the United States.

Al-Zawahiri took command of Al-Qaeda following the assassination of its longtime leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Rumors of al-Zawahiri’s death have circulated for years, and the assessment in the West is that this video is not proof he is still alive, as he makes no mention in it of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The son of Osama bin Laden, the slain leader of the al-Qaida terrorist group said he hopes to visit Israel in an interview with the Israeli media.

Omar bin Laden, 40, the youngest of Osama's sons, was expected to be his father's heir and take on the leadership of al-Qaida but turned down the offer. He said he felt "shame and horror" toward his father for the crimes he committed during his life.

He said after the devastation of the Sept. 11 attacks orchestrated by his father on the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon outside Washington, and in an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania that "it was hard for me to believe that he had the ability to organize such a thing. That day changed our lives forever, and it was very hard to continue to live afterwards. During these years of loss and pain, I was forced to come to terms with the truth about my father."

An artist, Omar bin Laden lives in Normandy, France. He longs to visit the United States and Israel, noting that his wife, whose maternal side of the family is Jewish and originally from Israel, received an offer to give lectures on peace at Israeli universities.

"I know that it's a beautiful country, and many people in it want peace with the Palestinians," he said. "I know that since 1948, the Palestinians have been living alongside the Jewish nation. We believe that the world needs to live as one and that neighbors from every religion can live alongside each other in peace."

The Durban process, from before Tehran until the final declaration, was largely directed by powerful NGOs — particularly Human Rights Watch (HRW), and its Palestinian partners. Before the opening sessions, HRW Executive Director, who has a long record of hostility towards Israel, told an interviewer, “Clearly Israeli racist practices are an appropriate topic.” During the NGO Forum, Reed Brody, who headed the HRW delegation, joined in blocking the participation of Jewish delegates, as noted by Lantos, Professor Anne Bayefsky, and others. Other participants recalled that HRW’s “silence was quite distressing.”

After HRW founder Bob Bernstein and donors voiced criticism, HRW claimed to have condemned the final resolution. Their version was repeated in an April 2021 New York Times article touting the latest HRW “apartheid” campaign, and quoting Brody supposedly telling the Forum that it is “wrong to equate Zionism with racism.” All of the evidence suggests otherwise.

Indeed, immediately after Durban, the same NGOs and UN allies moved to implement the strategy. HRW led the other groups with allegations of war crimes following every Israeli response to terror, whether from Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah from Lebanon. In 2021, HRW has continued to publish a flood of “reports” and pushing demonization further with each step. They even invented and promoted a unique definition of apartheid to lobby the International Criminal Court to open investigations against Israelis. In parallel, the HRW and the NGO network promote boycotts targeting Israeli universities and businesses, athletes and cultural events, often joined by church groups with classical theological antisemitic agendas under the banner of BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions).

The constant drumbeat from Durban has contributed significantly to violent antisemitic attacks worldwide. Recent statistics from the US, Britain, and European countries highlight the hate directed against Jews and Jewish or Israeli targets.

Nevertheless, the Durban framework remains on the UN’s permanent agenda. On September 22, the General Assembly will host Durban 4 — a one day low-profile event in which officials and affiliated NGOs will “celebrate” the successes. To their credit, President Biden and the leaders of Canada, Britain, and a number of European officials announced that their governments will not participate.

But the echoes of the original anti-racist hatefest continue, with the ongoing antisemitism and obsessive Israel-bashing under the façade of human rights. Now, as in 2001, many of those who claim to speak in the name of morality and law continue to support the perpetrators of inhuman brutality, and erase the victims of terror and injustice. This is the legacy of Durban after 20 years.

No world leader is better equipped to help us understand and contain this rising threat to Britain and our international interests than Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and the greatest foe of radical Islamism in the Arab world.

He helped stem the escalating regional challenge of the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt; his forces combatted Al Shabab in Somalia, supported the Libyan National Army against its Islamist opponents and fought against Islamic State in Syria and Iran-sponsored Houthi insurgents, Al Qaida and the Islamic State in Yemen.

Lord Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, nominated Mohamed bin Zayed for the same award in recognition of his "historic achievements in advancing peace in the Middle East".

[W]e should be looking to the UAE's leadership to further strengthen and broaden them. Britain should stand with them. As with the UAE, we are a close and historic ally of Israel, with significant influence across the Middle East. Freed by Brexit from our stifling dependency on the EU, we should now be ready to play a leading role alongside Abu Dhabi in this strategically important process, both in our own interests and in the interests of peace in the region.

Almost a year into the Abraham Accords, dozens of companies, foundations and government offices from Israel and the United Arab Emirates have established ties, reached agreements and inked deals in an array of fields.

Think venture capital, endangered wildlife and everything in between.

On July 14, the UAE inaugurated its embassy in Tel Aviv.

To mark the first anniversary of the historic accords agreed to on August 13, 2020 and signed on September 15, 2020, we’ve highlighted the most interesting deals to have come out of the peace pact.

Israeli security forces believe the Palestinian fugitives who escaped a high-security prison earlier this week received no help while on the run, according to reports on Saturday night.

Five days into a national manhunt for six Palestinian security prisoners who escaped from a jail in northern Israel, police captured two of the fugitives in Nazareth Friday night. Hours later, two others — including notorious terror commander Zakaria Zubeidi — were apprehended in the nearby town of Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam. In both cases, Arab Israelis who encountered the fugitives reported the suspicious sightings to authorities, aiding in their capture.

After interrogating the four Palestinian security prisoners, police and Shin Bet security service investigators concluded they had no accomplices on the outside, or assistance from within Gilboa Prison, Channel 12 reported on Saturday night. The report said the escaped prisoners may have received minor assistance from passersby, such as offers of rides or clothing, none of which was premeditated.

Police sources told the Ynet news site on Saturday that despite earlier assessments that the prisoners had outside help and that a getaway vehicle had driven them away, authorities now believe they acted alone and traveled on foot the entire time. The six men apparently first walked together to the Arab Israeli town of Na’ura and split up from there, according to Channel 12.

Investigators believe that while the men meticulously plotted their escape from the prison, they had relatively few clear plans upon getting out.

On September 11, 2021, Israeli security forces managed to capture four of the six terrorists who escaped from the Gilboa prison just days earlier. The terrorists did not resist their re-arrest.

While their escape was clearly the result of a substantial failure on the part of the Israeli Prison Service, their relatively quiet re-capture could well be the function of the comfortable life in Israeli prison while accumulating massive salaries, from the Palestinian Authority.

According to calculations made by Palestinian Media Watch, based on the official PA terrorist salary pay scale, prior to the escape of the terrorists, the PA had already paid them a minimum cumulative sum of 3,728,600 shekels ($1,165,125).

Leading the payments was Mahmoud Ardah, who was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life and another 15 years. To reward Ardah for his terrorist activities, to date the PA has paid him a total of 1,156,000 shekels ($361,230). For the last 60 months, Ardah had been receiving 8,000 shekels ($2,471). On Sept. 21, he will complete 25 years in prison. Accordingly, in his September “pay check”, he will receive a salary rise to 10,000 shekels/month ($3,089)

The second highest paid of the escaped terrorists 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. To reward Ardah for blowing up a bus, the PA has already paid him a total of 903,200 shekels ($282,235). Arrested in May 2002, this Ardah receives 7,000 shekels/month ($2,162). He will receive a salary increase in May 2022.

The two Ardah’s are followed by Yaqub Qaderi, who carried out a shooting attack in 2002 in which Yosef Ajami was murdered and a foreign worker was wounded. Arrested in 2003, to reward Qaderi for murdering an Israeli, the PA has paid him a total of 831,800 shekels ($259,923). His current monthly salary is 7,000 shekels ($2,162).

Jews blessing a child with the words “may He give you peace” is “playing with fire”—because #antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/o7n0sjLbdE

— andrew mark bennett (@acandidworld) September 12, 2021

When soldiers look through the sights of their assault rifles with the Elbit System’s new artificial intelligence data platform, their view is transformed to resemble a first-person shooter video game.

Layers of data from the Assault Rifle Combat Application, or ARCAS, display alongside a soldier’s view of the environment — a mock urban landscape and dark tunnel in the case of the company’s recent demonstration in a rural area in central Israel. Shooters push buttons on a grip to toggle among layers of information about their surroundings, including motion detection, range, ammunition levels and more data that’s just a click away.

ARCAS, which the Israel-based company is featuring at the DSEI conference in London, incorporates a microcomputer in the weapon to process data and provide a graphical user interface to display the information in the rifle’s electro-optical sight and through an optional helmet-mounted eyepiece.

The demo used ARCAS systems mounted on M-4s, with testers shooting at stationary targets. The use of ideas from the gaming world is clear when putting the sight up to the eye.

The system is easy to adapt and adjust, Elbit officials said, and the company developed it for average infantry soldiers, not just special forces. “We made it very intuitive so it looks like PlayStation’s Fortnite [video game]; it shows range, wind and ammo left, etc.,” said Arie Chernobrov, general manager of Elbit Security Systems.

The system builds on the company’s portfolio of scopes and thermal night vision sights. “We’ve worked in infantry systems for many years,” said Chernobrov. Infantry has generally lagged in high-tech capabilities that pilots or submariners may have in today’s militaries, the Elbit demonstrators noted. Infantry has been slow to make use of the kinds of applications available on smartphones for civilians, for instance, including navigation, communications and integration of basic information into thermal weapon sights.

Israel’s defense minister accused Iran on Sunday of providing foreign militias with drone training at an airbase near the city of Isfahan, a month after Tehran came under global scrutiny over a suspected drone attack on an Israeli-managed tanker off Oman.

Israel has combined military strikes with diplomatic pressure to beat back what it describes as an effort by its arch-foe, whose nuclear negotiations with the West are deadlocked, to beef up regional clout through allied guerrillas.

In what his office described as a new disclosure, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Iran was using Kashan airbase north of Isfahan to train “terror operatives from Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in flying Iranian-made UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).”

Iran was also trying to “transfer know-how that would allow the manufacturing of UAVs in the Gaza Strip,” on Israel’s southern border, Gantz told a conference at Reichman University near Tel Aviv.

His office provided what it said were satellite images showing UAVs on the runways at Kashan. There was no immediate comment from Iran.

A July 29 blast aboard the Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned petroleum product tanker managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime, near the mouth of the Gulf, a key oil shipping route, killed two crew — a Briton and a Romanian.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid laid out his detailed plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza through economic and diplomatic means, in an address to the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism Conference at Reichman University on Sunday.

“We need to start a large, multi-year process of economy for security,” Lapid said.

Lapid rejected the dichotomy that Israel can either reconsider Gaza or continue to engage in periodic rounds of violence against Hamas and other terrorist groups in the coastal enclave that Israel evacuated in 2005.

“Those are two bad options...That’s not a reality we can accept,” he stated.

Instead, Israel should advance the “economy for security” formulation without negotiating with Hamas - “Israel doesn’t speak to terror organizations who want to destroy us,” Lapid said - to put pressure on the group that controls Gaza.

“We need to tell Gazans at every opportunity - Hamas is leading you to ruin,” Lapid stated. “No one will come and invest real money and no one will try to build an economy in a place from which Hamas fires and which Israel strikes on a regular basis.”

An Israeli plan to improve life in Gaza if Hamas lays down its arms is a way to put pressure on Hamas and end the “absurd situation” in which an antisemitic terrorist organization attacks Israeli civilians, and Israel is blamed for it, he said.

The Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday denied reports from Israeli media that it would consider reverting to the “suitcase of money” system, by which Qatari funds were channeled into the Gaza Strip.

Hamas demands millions of dollars a month, provided by Qatar, as payment for civil servants in Gaza.

Qatar, Israel and the United Nations have agreed to transfer grants provided by Doha, including cash payments of $100 to 100,000 impoverished families in Gaza.

But the parties have yet to agree on a new mechanism for transferring funds to the Hamas employees.

Israel’s fledgling government has warned that it does not intend to allow the Qatar to transfer money directly to Hamas, as former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration did.

The Prime Minister’s Office stated that contrary to reports this Sunday, “there will be no return to the previous system.”

It added that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz are currently considering new options, following the withdrawal of the Palestinian Authority from a tentative agreement on Friday.

The United Nations said Sunday that it would begin distributing Qatari cash to some eligible Gazan families on Monday, as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett denied reports that his government was weighing a resumption of the previous leadership’s policy of allowing cash payments to be sent in suitcases from Doha to Hamas civil servants.

“Tomorrow, some vulnerable families in Gaza, out of the nearly 100,000 beneficiaries, will begin to receive their aid as part of the UN’s Humanitarian Cash Assistance programme, supported by the State of Qatar,” the United Nations office tasked with handling Middle East peace efforts tweeted.

Qatari support is considered a crucial lifeline for impoverished Palestinians living in the Strip, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt for years. Israel views the blockade as a necessary measure to limit the ability of Gaza’s Hamas terrorist rulers to arm themselves.

Israel had been allowing millions in Qatari cash to flow through Israeli crossings into Gaza on a monthly basis since 2018, in order to maintain a fragile ceasefire with Hamas. As of early 2021, some $30 million in cash were being delivered in suitcases to Gaza each month through an Israeli-controlled crossing.

Since an 11-day war in May, Israel has blocked the payments and imposed heightened restrictions on the enclave.

Indirect talks between Israel and the terror group went on for months, with tensions rising between the two sides as the situation in Gaza deteriorated.

This is really sad - an Arab burns Tehillim (Jewish book of Psalms) and uploads it bragging to his TikTok account.

pic.twitter.com/ywle74yLu8

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 12, 2021

Fatah Official Nashat Al-Wahidi on Palestine TV: Israeli Merchants Harvest Organs from Bodies of Palestinian “Martyrs,” Sell Their Skeletons to Israeli Medical Schools #Fatah#Palestinians#Antisemitismpic.twitter.com/vCD4jutQzU

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 12, 2021

September 12, 2021, marks a year since the Islamic Republic of Iran’s hangmen rushed to execute champion Greco-Roman wrestler Navid Afkari, merely because he dared protest against the theocratic state’s political and economic corruption.

The Jerusalem Post recognized the story’s great importance and punched well above its weight in drawing global attention to Afkari’s grim plight in the lead-up to his early morning extrajudicial killing, before major international news outlets reported on the story. What grew into a global campaign to save Afkari’s life emerged in part from the Post’s reporting and news-gathering in late August and early September 2020. Alas, in the days after Afkari’s execution, intelligence agents from the Islamic Republic said there had been no other choice but to execute him, the Post learned this week from highly credible Iranian sources.

Iran’s regime remains highly anxious about a domestic movement mobilizing around Afkari’s killing.

Afkari’s brother Saeed wrote on Friday that, “on the eve of my brother’s anniversary [of execution], security agencies have threatened and pressured my family. We have been experiencing [the] most brutal repression for three years. We are saddened but we are still standing.” The intelligence officials argued that Afkari was becoming too much of a popular figure among Iranians. One human rights expert from a prominent NGO told the Post that if the mushrooming international campaign would have had just a few more weeks, his life could have been saved.

Iran is to allow the UN nuclear watchdog to service monitoring cameras at Iranian nuclear sites after talks on Sunday with IAEA head Rafael Grossi, according to the head of Iran’s atomic energy body and a joint statement.

The talks with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Grossi were aimed at easing a standoff between Tehran and the West just as it threatens to escalate and scupper negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal.

The IAEA said this week that there had been no progress on two key issues: explaining uranium traces found at old, undeclared sites and getting urgent access to monitoring equipment so the agency can continue to keep track of parts of Iran’s nuclear program as per the 2015 deal.

“We agreed over the replacement of the memory cards of the agency’s cameras,” Mohammad Eslami, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), was quoted as saying by state media.

“IAEA’s inspectors are permitted to service the identified equipment and replace their storage media which will be kept under the joint IAEA and AEOI seals in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the nuclear bodies said in a joint statement.

If accurate, this entire exercise is even more ridiculous. Why would US & E3 withhold a resolution if @iaeaorg& @rafaelmgrossi won’t even get data collected thus far at Iran’s nuclear & nuclear-related sites? Iran may delete it.

Quite a disaster. https://t.co/OI6yzPiwlD

— Andrea Stricker (@StrickerNonpro) September 11, 2021

Iranian Armed Forces Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi: Our Strategy of Annihilating Israel Has Not Changed #Iran#IRGC#Israelpic.twitter.com/EsfAH4kDY8

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 12, 2021

It has been a long, difficult and so far unsuccessful fight by Jewish students at the University of Bristol. Professor David Miller has spent much of the last two decades mapping conspiracy theories about ‘Zionist’ power, dressing them as academia – and then teaching them to students.

Since serious complaints about him surfaced, he then turned his conspiratorial mind towards the Jewish students themselves – accusing them of being ‘pawns‘ of Israel. Despite all this, Miller is still at Bristol and teaching the offensive module in the current academic year.

The fight by the Islamic Society was far more fruitful. They wanted a module by Professor Steven Greer scrapped because they saw it as ‘Islamophobic’. His chief ‘crimes’ were to suggest that the Charlie Hebdo attack is ‘evidence of Islam’s stance on free speech‘ and he gave support to the government’s anti-extremist PREVENT program. The students also demanded that the Professor apologise.

Bristol University just caved and cancelled the module. It isn’t that the university found Greer’s stance ‘Islamophobic’ – they didn’t – but rather to protect the feelings of students, they cancelled the module so students would ‘not feel that their religion is being singled out or in any way ‘othered’ by the class material’.

The message here is simple:
You can teach that Zionists (Jews) are a powerful, hidden cabal, pulling the strings of world governments. And even add that Jewish students act as pawns of that shady cabal.

but –

Cannot teach that strands of Islam – which clearly have a problem with free speech – actually have a problem with free speech.

Puma is an amazing brand dedicated to the existence of Jews, Muslims and Christians in Israel.

Why is the antisemitic BDS movement pushing to boycott it?! #PumaFam#PumaConnectsUspic.twitter.com/1Wkhu5yach

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 12, 2021

#Burlington City Council is set to vote on a #BDS resolution which calls for destruction of #Israel, decolonization of "Arab lands" and accuses Israel of apartheid. I teamed up with @YosephHaddad, an Israeli Arab, to break down whats wrong with BDS and urge the council to vote no pic.twitter.com/eNuqXgZ5ki

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 12, 2021

A student senator at Washington University is being accused of snatching up 2,977 American flags to commemorate the lives lost in the 9/11 terror attacks on the 20th anniversary before throwing them in trash bags.

Fadel Alkilani, who serves as chairman of the student senate finance committee at the St Louis, Missouri university, is allegedly seen filling blue trash bags with the minature flags used as part of the 9/11: Never Forget Project memorial.

A video posted to Twitter by the Young Americans for Freedom, show as the cameraman confronts Alkilani.

'Who are you?' Alkilani asks the cameraman, identified as Nathaniel Hope, a member of the university's College Republicans.

Hope described Alkilani as showing 'no remorse' before claiming the flags were a 'violation of school rules.'

'I did not violate any university or legal policy. Now go away,' Alkilani told YAF.

Meanwhile, Alkilani allegedly boasted about the act on his Twitter, which has since been set to private.

He claimed the move was done in 'protest against American imperialism and the 900,000 lives lost as a result of post 9/11 war.'

Fadel Alkilani (he/him/his), a member of the student government at @WUSTL, has released a statement saying he's a victim & justifying his vandalism of the 9/11 memorial. He says it is to fight Islamophobia. He posted a long statement on his Instagram: https://t.co/zcBx0evz6bpic.twitter.com/yUCIgHz4ln

— Andy Ngô ?????? (@MrAndyNgo) September 12, 2021

A #September11th monument at @michiganstateu has been vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.

Vandals obscenely turned “Never Forget” into “Israel Forget 2977 Lives”. pic.twitter.com/qulRUaAzx6

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 11, 2021

On September 8, the California Legislature passed AB 101, which would mandate a required ethnic studies course for high school graduation across the state. It awaits a signature from embattled Governor Gavin Newsom.

It seems likely the governor will sign the mandate into law, although the looming recall election on September 14 may change his calculus on whether to sign the bill.

The bill has gone through several versions, amendments, and other changes since first came up for consideration in 2018. The idea has generated national attention and outrage from parents of students in California’s public schools. Throughout the process, its sponsors and supporters have endeavored to obfuscate the connection between their version of Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Theory. Legal Insurrection’s Samantha Mandeles reported in February:
The California public school and university systems have seen their fair share of controversy—from outrage at the Islamist Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) involvement in a San Diego “anti-bullying” program to blowback against the Burbank Unified School District’s practice of temporarily discontinuing the teaching of classic books.

Now, the state’s Department of Education is back in the hot-seat as its much-reviled “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) ” has once again made headlines for its reliance on the neo-Marxist (so-called) academic discipline known as “Critical Ethnic Studies.”

She later summarized the intent by saying, “The field is patently opposed to the ‘U.S. Empire’ and American capitalism (which it judges as completely immoral) and looks with disdain at ‘the nation-state model’; its overarching theme is one of the oppressor versus the oppressed, categorizations which it claims are inherently tied to the racial, ethnic, religious, class, and sexual identities of different groups. It then necessitates political activism and ‘community engagement’ based on these guiding principles.”

On September 8, The Nation announced the hiring of Mohammed El-Kurd as its first-ever “Palestine Correspondent.” El-Kurd, a student at the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, said he would be writing about “Palestinian resistance without burrowing in the sand,” using language that is “loyal to the Palestinian street.”

El-Kurd will publish his first essay about the Arab-Israeli conflict in the coming days, introducing the magazine’s million followers to his radical viewpoints, as HonestReporting detailed in July.

Indeed, for those who have followed the writer since he gained notoriety by protesting against Jews seeking to reclaim ownership of properties in the eastern part of Jerusalem that were confiscated from them between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan occupied the holy city, El-Kurd’s skewed interpretation of “journalism” is crystal clear.

In fact, El-Kurd’s Twitter feed demonstrated what The Nation’s latest addition defines as “Palestinian resistance;” that is, the murder of Jewish Israelis. Just two days before his hiring was announced, he rejoiced as six Palestinian terrorists broke out of Israel’s maximum-security Gilboa Prison.

“I am going to bed with a smile on my face and dreaming of the day all prisons are abolished,” El-Kurd tweeted, calling the incident “excellent.”

For the record, all six escapees were members of US-designated terror groups. Most were serving life sentences for their roles in attacks on innocent Israeli civilians. Islamic Jihad member Ayham Kamamji, for instance, was convicted of kidnapping and murdering teenager Eliyahu Asheri.

Zakaria Zubeidi in 2002 planned an Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades attack on a polling station that killed six Israelis and was awaiting trial for his role in several other terrorist acts.

Nevertheless, El-Kurd called the recapture over the weekend of four of the terrorists a “heartbreaking development.”

As in previous BBC content relating to that location, no mention is made of its Jewish history.

Fox does however manage to shoehorn an irrelevant and context-free reference to ‘occupation’ into her piece:
“Heirloom seeds, which are non-genetically modified and open pollinated, are important for the health of agriculture all over the world. Sansour believes they are especially important for Palestinians who have been living under Israeli occupation of the West Bank since 1967. “With each seed we can achieve more autonomy,” she said.”

Readers are even told (twice, apparently due to editing issues) that the wheat based products they consume are thanks to Sansour’s Palestinian ancestors:
“The land around Battir is part of the Fertile Crescent, along with modern day Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. From this region, wheat was domesticated; some of the wheat Sansour and her community work with is approximately 10,000 years old, dating back to the beginning of agriculture. “The reason the English eat biscuits and everyone eats bread is because of our ancestors,” said Sansour.”

Once again BBC Travel goes down the all too familiar route of promotion of partial political messaging in commissioned ‘life-style’ articles that potentially reach audiences less familiar with the politics and history of the Middle East.

As previously reported, France24’s Arabic broadcast coverage of the July 18 Tisha B’Av events was deeply tendentious, with correspondent Layla Odeh’s false smear about “settlers intruding al-Aqsa” a dismal lowlight. Alarmingly, a separate France 24 Arabic item that day, an analysis concerning the same events, descended even further into the rabbit hole of anti-Israel bias and denial of Jerusalem’s Jewish history.

France 24 host Rafik Sahali established the distorted frame:
Clashes between Israeli security forces and worshippers this morning, against the backdrop of hundreds of settlers entering [the Jerusalem sanctuary] to commemorate what they consider the destruction of the Temple anniversary.

Notably, an image (at left) of running rock-throwers (including one who is shirtless) lobbing their projectiles appeared exactly as the host cited alleged “worshippers.”

With a misleading question regarding the Tisha B’Av violence, Sahali subsequently introduced commentator Khaled al-Gharabli, (whose counter-factual observations on the Israel-Hamas escalation in May previously found a welcome platform at France 24 Arabic):
Khaled, what is this anniversary, anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, which every year causes clashes and intrusions into the al-Aqsa Mosque plaza?

That was Al-Gharabli’s signal into launch a monologue which surpassed even the excesses of Odeh, who had uncritically adopted false terminology and the Palestinian nationalist narrative. Al-Gharabli, for his part, claimed that there is “no material evidence” of a Jewish Temple on Temple Mount.

If humiliation and hardship and a painful death needs to be balanced against vices, should we be “kind” to all those executed at Nuremberg? To Eichmann? Is outright condemnation of monstrous antisemites the opposite of “fair-minded” or “calm”?

— Ms Ohfora Lodge (@MsOhfora) September 11, 2021

Pope Francis warned on Sunday of “the threat of antisemitism” in Europe and beyond in an address to Christian and Jewish leaders during a brief visit to Hungary, where he also met anti-migration premier Viktor Orban.

“I think of the threat of antisemitism still lurking in Europe and elsewhere. This is a fuse that must not be allowed to burn. And the best way to defuse it is to work together, positively, and to promote fraternity,” the pontiff said.

During the ceremony, held in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, Francis met with leaders of the Hungarian Jewish community, the largest in Central Europe, estimated to number between 47,000 and 130,000 people.

The pontiff met Zoltan Radnoti, the chairman of the rabbinical council of the Mazsihisz Jewish umbrella group in Hungary, and the group’s president Andras Heisler, as well as two representatives from the reform-progressive community.

Radnoti presented the pope with a silver pointer used during public readings of the Torah. The pointer was specially made for the occasion by a goldsmith whose parents are Holocaust survivors.

Police in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, are beefing up patrols at Jewish sites in the city after a number of antisemitic incidents, specifically the vandalization of a local Jewish cemetery, local CBS affiliate WCCO reported.

Vandals had targeted the Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery, with its caretaker telling police Thursday that he found 30 tombstones knocked over, according to the Star Tribune.

Another incident in nearby St. Louis Park saw a local Beth El Synagogue close its preschool and cancel in-person Shabbat evening prayer services after a possible threat was received by the Anti-Defamation League, according to the Star Tribune.

Both incidents occurred during the High Holy Day period, taking place right after Rosh Hashanah and ahead of Yom Kippur.

On September 11, 2001, the greatest Holocaust film ever made, before or since, premiered at a festival — and quickly disappeared, largely unnoticed.

The film’s cast included Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, David Arquette, Michael Stuhlbarg and Mira Sorvino, and it was written and directed by the acclaimed Jewish actor Tim Blake Nelson. Roger Ebert called it one of the best films of the year; later, he added it to his prestigious Great Movies series. The film was so extraordinary that Steven Spielberg considered distributing it himself, less than a decade after making “Schindler’s List.”

This was the astonishing pedigree and support behind “The Grey Zone.” But it couldn’t translate into any attention for the beleaguered film, which had a quickly forgotten premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and languished at the box office when it was released the next year.

“The Grey Zone” is not about righteous gentiles or good Nazis who redeem themselves by saving Jews. It’s not a happy-go-lucky film with a father and son prancing around Auschwitz playing games, or a cartoonish Adolf Hitler mugging for the camera. It lacks the other typical trappings of Holocaust movies: the lush musical score, the tortured accents, the melodramatic misdirections. “The Grey Zone” is, instead, about the moral and philosophical conundrums faced by the Sonderkommando: the Jews in the death camps who worked to dispose of the victims’ bodies in exchange for slightly better treatment from the Nazis.

Drawing on the writings of Primo Levi and the true story of the forgotten rebellion at Birkenau by the Sonderkommando in 1944, where the Jewish workers destroyed two of the main four crematorium complexes on the deadliest spot in human history, Nelson portrays real people living their reality — not with black or white choices, but with gray moral choices. And “The Grey Zone” tells its complex, layered story in an economical 108 minutes, with grace and humility.

How did such an important film fall through the cracks? “The Grey Zone” was practically stillborn, set to premiere just after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while smoke was still rising from lower Manhattan.

In 610 CE, Muhammad had revelatory visions in a cave in Medina, revelations that would later make up the Quran and the commandments of Islam. Meanwhile, the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula were finally living in relative safety after years of tortuous oppression by the Byzantine Christians.

Muhammad was forced to flee from Mecca to Medina, where Jewish tribes who had lived there for generations were more accepting of his monotheistic beliefs. In fact, Muhammad and his followers even adopted many Jewish customs. However, the Jews did not accept Muhammad’s claims to prophecy and things took a negative turn between the early Muslims and the Jews.

As Muhammad’s followers continued to conquer much of the Middle East and North Africa, the Jews in these lands were given “dhimmi” status. This meant that if they paid the annual tax and kept their heads down, they could generally live without fear. And while the system occasionally broke down, this relative freedom enabled a flourishing of Jewish thought and set the stage for some of Judaism’s most influential scholars and philosophers.

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few years ago, after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had just passed its usual litany of anti-Israel resolutions, an exasperated UN translator accidentally told the world the truth. Thinking only her colleagues could hear her speaking into the microphone, she caused laughter but no embarrassment among the diplomats as she exposed their farce: "When you have...like a total of 10 resolutions on Israel and Palestine, that's a bit much, no?"

Hundreds of parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic agree that this is way too much. In an unprecedented initiative, spearheaded by the Transatlantic Friends of Israel, 312 cross-party lawmakers from the European Parliament and national legislatures from EU member states, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, the U.S., Canada and Israel have urged EU member states and fellow democracies to end the systematic discrimination against Israel at the UN.

"Within the context of rising global antisemitism, the relentless, disproportionate and ritualistic condemnation of the world's only Jewish state at the UN is particularly dangerous and must finally end. Israel deserves attention and scrutiny, as does every other nation. But it also merits equal treatment—nothing more, nothing less," the declaration reads in part.

Last year, for example, the UN General Assembly adopted 17 one-sided resolutions against Israel and only six against any of the other 192 member states for human rights violations. As the 76th session of the UN General Assembly opens tomorrow, it is set to establish a similarly shameful record.

A particularly outrageous spectacle—the 20th anniversary summit of the UN's so-called 2001 World Conference Against Racism—will take place on September 22. We write "so-called" because the original conference held in Durban, South Africa perverted its agenda from fighting hatred to advocating hatred against Jews. Israel was singled out and libeled as an illegitimate racist apartheid state, setting the agenda for the next two decades of anti-Israel bigotry. Jewish conference participants were physically threatened and had to hide their kippahs. "Anti-racist" activists screamed, "you don't belong to the human race" and held placards that read, "Hitler Should Have Finished the Job."

Showing moral clarity, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. announced they would stay away from this odious affair. But as of the time of this writing, 17 EU member states are still on track to attend the celebration of what was an antisemitic hate fest, with speeches scheduled from the UNGA president, the UN secretary general, and the UN high commissioner for human rights.

Every country that withdrew from #DurbanIII, has now pulled out of the #antisemitic#DurbanIV event at UN - with the exception of #Poland.

Hardly surprising given the rampant Holocaust distortion & Jew hatred at the moment in Poland, that they refuse to #SayNoToDurbanIV. pic.twitter.com/5tIqmxqVUc

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 13, 2021

Wow, talk about chutzpah! Durban Conference became synonymous with unhinged Jew hatred and antisemitism, the very kind that led to the Tree of Life massacre. How dare the @UN now abuse the memory of these victims in such shameful manner! https://t.co/8Gx1EAeIEP

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 13, 2021

America too has a mission in the world – to defend the good and fight evil. Our victory over Nazism was part of that. In the second half of the 20th century, we fought communism in Korea, Vietnam and throughout Europe and Central America. Under Reagan, Bush (occasionally) and Trump, we fought Islamism. (Biden is determined to sign articles of surrender.) Like Nazism, fundamentalist Islam has marked the Jews for extermination. After the defeat of the Third Reich, the conflict shifted from Europe to the Middle East, and then went global after the Cold War. The World Trade Center should have been a wake-up call for America. For most in the West, the phone is still ringing. Tragically, very few Americans and Jews even grasp the idea of a mission. Americans are too caught up in the concept of a world ruled by international trade and international relations,and doing perpetual penance for imaginary sins of the past. Jews want the world to forgive them for being different, while complaining about the dramatic rise of anti-Semitism, which they refuse to relate to the rise of Islam. In that encounter at Kaufering Lager IV came a moment of clarity. The prisoners understood why they were being murdered -- “Juden, Juden.” (The world has always hated the messenger.) The Americans of Easy Company understood why they fought. Then amnesia set in. Now, 20 years after 9/11, we’ve saddled ourselves with a president who staged the most disastrous retreat imaginable from Afghanistan and thinks our enemies are a virus and a natural phenomenon (climate change). And many Jews can’t figure out why the percentage of Americans who have negative feelings about them is declining while anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise. Islam, anyone?

As an aside, it should be noted that American Jewish donors had purchased more than 3,000 greenhouses from the Israeli communities for US$14 million and transferred ownership of them to the Palestinian Authority, with the intention that they could be used to shore up the Gazan economy. However, within a few short hours of the departure of the Israelis, the greenhouses had been ransacked and destroyed by Palestinian mobs who looted every item of value – even the plastic sheeting.

Within two years, Gaza was engulfed in a short but bloody civil war in which Hamas militants systematically butchered every one of their Palestinian “brothers” that they could find who were members of the rival Fatah faction. This handed Hamas total control of the territory and complete freedom to launch attacks on Israel, which it has totally exploited over the last decade and a half.

Since then, Hamas and other Gazan terrorist groups have launched thousands of missile attacks on Israel, resulting in dozens of deaths and almost 2,000 injuries.In the years following Israel’s withdrawal, there was a sharp increase in attacks with nearly 2400 attacks in 2008. This increase was only halted in late 2008/early 2009 by Operation Cast Lead. The trend is that there is a period of one or two quiet years following a decisive Israeli response, only for the militants to gradually up the ante again.

Meanwhile, in southern Israeli towns such as Sderot, there is always – at best – an uneasy calm. Residents speak of jumping at the smallest noise. Parents report children still wetting their beds or being too scared to sleep alone. Estimates of the levels of PTSD in children run from 40% to 75%. Every night as parents in southern Israel put their children to bed, there is always that fear that tonight might be the night when the Gazan militants try to rain down more hell on their communities. Once again, Israelis have cause to wonder if their lives and those of their families are more peaceful under this “land for peace” paradigm.

What of Judea and Samaria?
So, what of Judea and Samaria (also referred to as the West Bank) that Israel captured from Jordan in 1967? Would leaving the territories guarantee greater peace and security for Israel? Let’s leave aside the fact that in 2000 and again in 2008, the Israelis offered over 90% of the area with territorial compensation, only for the Palestinians to reject the offers on both occasions. Based on the examples cited above with regard to Lebanon and Gaza, there is very little reason to expect that such a concession would bring more peace and security for Israelis.

Support for Hamas is growing in Judea-Samaria and there is ample evidence that the militant group would be capable of seizing control of the Palestinian Authority-administered territories either through elections or by a short, brutal war such as the one that won them control of Gaza in 2007. Even more significantly, there is a lot of high ground that is ideally positioned for any militants who would like to rain down missiles on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Rishon LeTzion and various other urban centres in Israel’s densely populated central belt.

Sixteen years ago today, Israel ended its presence in Gaza. The result has been far greater insecurity and fear for the small number of towns and villages in the sparsely populated southern districts of the country. At this point in time, Israelis simply cannot afford to take the same risk with millions of their citizens living a mere missile-strike away from the hills of Judea and Samaria.

Lapid’s two-step plan, which he said “would create stability on both sides of the border,” is full of concepts that are by no means new and is not an official government policy. But “we can’t accept this reality,” Lapid said. “The State of Israel has a duty to tell its citizens we have turned every stone in an attempt to deal with the Gazan issue.” Though Israel’s military has understood that the issue of Gaza cannot be ignored, it’s as if it has given up winning the fight and has resorted to carrying out retaliatory strikes instead of being on the offensive. And it is Israel’s southern communities that suffer the most from this decision. Why should they live with almost daily rocket fire at a time when the country is not at war? Why should parents have to rush their children to bomb shelters or have them sleep in them so that they don’t need to wake them up? Lapid understands the IDF has apparently given up on winning – for now. There needs to be another way, or else residents of the South will continue to be held hostage in a situation that can deteriorate into another war at any moment.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday for talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, a seaside town in the Sinai Peninsula.

The visit marks the first time an Israeli prime minister has traveled to Egypt in more than ten years.

Their discussion was to focus on “efforts to relaunch the peace process” between Israelis and Palestinians, according to a press release from presidential spokesman Bassam Radi.

The meeting comes hours after the reopening of the Taba crossing point between Israel and Sinai with no limit on the number of entry permits.

Israel has also reduced its security advisory for travelers to the country for the first time in years, a decision taken after Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel visited Israel for high-level talks on the Gaza Strip.

The visit comes following talks held earlier this month in Cairo with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, and the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, where discussions focused on relaunching the peace process in the Middle East.

The parties also touched on ways to strengthen the ceasefire that ended last May’s conflict between Israel and Hamas.

EgyptAir, the national airline of Egypt, is slated to operate direct flights between Cairo and Tel Aviv from early next month, The Times of Israel has learned.

Once flights start after the Sukkot holiday, there are expected to be four direct commercial flights a week between Ben Gurion International Airport and Cairo.

Currently, the only flights between Israel and Cairo are operated by Air Sinai, a subsidiary of EgyptAir, which operates the flights in unmarked planes without the Egyptian flag. The Air Sinai flights between Tel Aviv and Cairo have operated continuously since the 1980s in order to fulfill the terms of the 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt, but were kept discreet amid lingering hostilities between the nations.

Once flights are relaunched by EgyptAir, they will be operated by the airline’s fully marked aircraft.

Also on Monday, Israel lifted the travel restrictions on citizens visiting the Sinai Peninsula just days ahead of Sukkot, a popular period for the travel destination.

After months of restrictions due to COVID-19, Israeli government limits on the number of Israelis allowed to travel to Sinai have been lifted.

It gets worse. The Central Council of Jews, notes Chaim Noll, a German-Israeli author, "is a unique institution that does not exist in other countries and also is unknown in Judaism. It is one of the state institutions financed by the federal government, it administers the country's Jews. … That Jews are subject to the government's wishes is the specific tragedy of the Jews in Germany; in other countries, Jewish communities are autonomous."

As for substance, JAfD accurately argues that "the AfD has done more to protect Jewish life than any other party in the German Bundestag." Specifically, it successfully initiated a ban on Hezbollah and the BDS movement, and it is working to defund UNRWA and abolish labeling requirements for Jewish products from the West Bank.

I personally witnessed this when sitting in the Bundestag on March 14, 2019, as a vote was taken urging the German government to vote favorably for Israel in the United Nations. AfD's members voted 89 percent in favor of this motion, about 350 times more so than the ¼ of 1 percent of the ruling parties who joined them.

This spat illustrates a deep truth about Europe's sad Jewish leaders: beholden to the Establishment, they sacrifice most of their Zionist inclinations to stay in its good graces. (For more detail on this pattern, see my article Europe's Jews vs. Israel.) So avidly do they bow before the government, they even convinced Israel's current ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, to broach diplomatic protocol, openly attack the AfD and defend Germany's anti-Israel parties.

In the end, however, Europe's supine Jewish leadership will find itself isolated from its own constituents and opposed by the people and government of Israel, all of whom will eventually recognize their true friends in German politics. The AfD is far from perfect but it does best fit that description.

Daniel Pipes, President of the Middle East Forum, was interviewed by Channel 20 reporter Lital Shemesh as part of a special broadcast titled "Talking Israeli Victory."

We are now commemorating 20 years since the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. The vast majority of the terrorists who flew hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were from Saudi Arabia. At the time, Wahhabi charities, representing an extreme form of Islam, were moving enormous sums of funding from Saudi Arabia to organizations around the world.

I wrote a New York Times bestseller, Hatred's Kingdom, which presented evidence from captured documents on how Hamas was one of the recipients of this funding, as it conducted suicide bombings in major Israeli cities.

Fast forward to 2021. How much Saudi money is now going to Hamas? Zero. In fact, Saudi Arabia is not giving a dime to any of the terrorist organizations. Today, the main countries funding Hamas are the Islamic Republic of Iran and Qatar.

Back in 2001, the Muslim World League, headquartered in the Saudi Kingdom, was spreading the ideology that supported a new wave of global terror. Yet today, the same Muslim World League has issued the Charter of Mecca in 2019 based on interreligious tolerance rather than jihad. A year later its secretary-general took a delegation to Auschwitz.

Since Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) became crown prince in 2017, important reforms have reshaped key elements of Saudi Arabia. In 2020, he curbed the powers of the religious police who were harassing Saudi citizens and foreigners.

The way forward is for like-minded Saudis and Israelis to draw together. We need to create a consensus for the security of our nations to meet the challenge from Iran and its proxies, which seek to re-establish Persian power in the framework of a renewed Safavid Empire.

While it’s still unclear how far Turkey will go in dimming its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, it is obviously interested in increasing Saudi and Emirati investment in its economy.

Not only the Turkish, but also the Saudi, Emirati, and Egyptian economies have shrunk since the beginning of the pandemic, and all are looking for ways to speed the recovery. Abu Dhabi conglomerate International Holding recently announced that it was seeking investment opportunities in Turkey in sectors including health care, industrial and food processing, and Erdoğan said he was expecting “serious Emirati investment” soon.

For now, it seems that while all sides are ready for gradual de-escalation in order to benefit economically, but that just as in the case with Qatar, the wariness will remain when the ties will grow warmer. The central issues of dispute, Turkey’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as its military presence in Libya and Syria, will still prove hard to resolve.

At the same time, the rapprochement might also affect the future of the Hellenic alliance and the slow development of the East Med natural pipeline designed to deliver natural gas to Europe.

During the last few months, Turkey has signaled that it is also interested in mending ties with Israel, especially in the sphere of energy. The gaps between Ankara and Jerusalem are still significant, and it remains to be seen whether the current geopolitical developments will also incorporate Turkey-Israel relations in the future.

The Taliban, by trying to introduce themselves as "moderate," also appear to be playing "good cop, bad cop" regarding Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K), presumably to get international support and recognition. The West should be skeptical. As long as the Taliban and other terror groups, whether Shi'ite or Sunni, have not changed ideologically, they will remain a significant threat to the US and the Free World.

Although the Taliban pledged to protect future US economic interests on Afghan soil by vowing that it would not allow other groups to form and organize terrorist attacks against the US and its allies, this promise will probably last only as long as the US keeps complying with the Taliban's blackmail demands regarding the US hostages and co-workers Biden abandoned.

The newly formed government consists of acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who has a $10 million bounty on his head , is on the FBI's Most Wanted List, and whose family are longtime supporters of al-Qaeda; and four of the senior commanders are terrorists whom former President Barack Obama released from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for US Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

Reports have also begun questioning if Biden's surrender of Afghanistan with not a trace of resistance – including the great Bagram airbase and nearly as much military aid as the US has provided to Israel since 1948 -- might have been deliberate in view of China's "investment" of $1.5 billion in Biden's son, Hunter, when Biden was vice-president, as well as for possible future returns.

A few key questions remain unanswered: Has America, in seeking coordination with a terror group against which it fought for years, ended its own supremacy? Is America about to cap the horror by officially recognizing a state run by known terrorists, armed to the teeth with America's finest military equipment, and who seem to have every intention of establishing a terrorist state?

Another question is the geostrategic factor, if any, of the West's position in the future of Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Free World?

So far, the main losers in Afghanistan disaster, apart from the US and the Free World, are the people of Afghanistan, especially those who helped the US and found themselves betrayed, and the women who for 20 years, thanks to the US and its allies, had for the first time known freedom.

Media Complicit in Antisemitism Cover-Up?
Recent data lend credence to the notion that media are reacting to a recent upsurge in the manifestation of antisemitism in international relations “with a shrug.”

An HonestReporting analysis found that in the two-week period from August 31-September 13, “Taliban” appeared in approximately 660,000 news reports and broadcasts. By contrast, “Taliban” and “Israel” were mentioned in articles or segments only 12,000 times. When the term “relations” was added to the big data search, the number plummeted to 844.

HonestReporting also found that the term “Lebanese government” appeared about 14,000 times in reports and broadcasts during the same period. However, these stories only included “Israel” some 3,000 times. And when the term “relations” was included, the number once again dropped dramatically to only 285.

Israel Reaches Out, Lebanon Lashes Out, Media Tune Out
The findings regarding Lebanon are especially egregious given that Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz recently said that Jerusalem was prepared to offer help to the beleaguered nation on the verge of economic collapse.

“The crisis in Lebanon is devastating. The State of Israel calls on the international community to aid Lebanon. We are also willing to provide assistance,” Gantz was quoted as saying.

Accordingly, the Lebanese government is choosing to shun Israel instead of accepting what could amount to life-saving humanitarian aid for its suffering population.

Such irrationality is one of the defining characteristics of both ancient and modern forms of antisemitism.

All the while, the media are for the most part turning a blind eye to an evil emanating loudly and clearly from Kabul and Beirut.

The United Nations is hosting a high-level donors conference on Monday to drum up emergency funds for Afghanistan after last month’s Taliban takeover of the country that stunned the world.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was leading the world body’s call for more than $600 million for the rest of this year in a “flash appeal” for Afghans after their country’s government was toppled by the Taliban and US and NATO forces exited the 20-year war in a chaotic departure.

There are concerns that instability and upended humanitarian efforts, compounded by an ongoing drought, could further endanger lives and plunge Afghanistan toward famine.

The conference will put to the test some Western governments and other big traditional UN donors who want to help everyday Afghans without handing a public relations victory or cash to the Taliban, who ousted the internationally-backed government in a lightning sweep.

The UN says “recent developments” have increased the vulnerability of Afghans who have already been facing decades of deprivation and violence. A severe drought is jeopardizing the upcoming harvest, and hunger has been rising. The UN’s World Food Program is to be a major beneficiary of any funds collected during Monday’s conference.

Along with its partners, the UN is seeking $606 million for the rest of the year to help 11 million people.

Changed Talibans are flogging woman in Afghanistan. She is screaming.😭 The whole Afghanistan is in this situation while world is sleeping. pic.twitter.com/1gznpS5p76

— Ihtesham Afghan (@IhteshamAfghan) September 12, 2021

Leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community in Melbourne, Australia, have written to the premiere of the Australian state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, asking him to authorize socially distanced prayer services for the upcoming Yom Kippur holiday amid the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown in the state.

Over Rosh Hashanah, several dozen members of the ultra-Orthodox community violated the lockdown and prayed in a synagogue, in an incident which the police were alerted to and led to widespread media coverage and condemnation, including from the mainstream Australian Jewish community. Victoria has been in a COVID-19 lockdown since August 21 and the stringent restrictions on movement and assembly are set to continue over Yom Kippur, which falls on Wednesday night and Thursday.

In their letter to Andrews on Monday, nine rabbis heading different institutions in the Melbourne ultra-Orthodox community said that the community members had a high rate of vaccination, pointed out the great sanctity of the Yom Kippur holiday and noted that, unlike other religious groups, they could not conduct services remotely by digital means.

Although they were aware that Andrews has consulted with Jewish organizations outside of the ultra-Orthodox community, such as the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, the rabbis said these groups did not properly represent the ultra-Orthodox community.

A total of 7,686 new cases of the coronavirus were diagnosed across Israel Sunday, according to data provided by the Health Ministry Monday morning, down from 10,183 new cases reported a day earlier.

The percentage of tests returning positive dropped from 6.57% Saturday to 5.24% Sunday, marking the lowest level recorded since August 13. The figures marked a significant decrease from the soaring numbers recorded over the weekend, in both the positive rate and the case numbers.

Saturday's count of 10,183 new cases had left many concerned about rising infection rates, despite the accessibility of booster vaccines. Israel removed age limitations on the third doses, making them available to all ages. Researchers have predicted a drop in severe cases with the implementation of health regulations and further circulation of COVID shots.

Experts have anticipated a decline in cases with Israel's third vaccine rollout, and the numbers seem to indicate a trend along that line.

Imposing “green pass” rules on certain venues is needed only to pressure members of the public to get vaccinated, and not for medical reasons, Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said on Sunday, ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Horowitz was caught on a hot mic telling this to Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, who was also unaware that the conversation was being taped and would be broadcast on Channel 12 News.

In response to Shaked’s suggestion that the “green pass” could be removed as a requirement for outdoor seating at restaurants, Horowitz said: “For swimming pools, too, not just in restaurants.”

“Epidemiologically, it’s true,” said Horowitz, adding, “The thing is, I’m telling you, our problem is people who don’t get vaccinated. We need [to influence] them a bit; otherwise, we won’t get out of this [pandemic situation].”

Currently, he said, “there is a kind of universality to the ‘green pass’ system, other than at malls, where I think it should be imposed, [because] now it’s clear that it applies nowhere.”

Horowitz went on to explain that the only way for there to be no exceptions—since people wonder why if it’s ok not to have a pass for pools “then why for water parks, outdoor facilities and sports?”—is to have the regulations be uniformly enforced.

On the one hand, he added, “we don’t want to do things that have no medical justification. But I’m telling you that we have a problem. The ‘green pass’ isn’t even being enforced; certainly not in the Arab sector, where it doesn’t exist at all. And I’m seeing the effect on the hospitals.”

Two people were moderately wounded in a stabbing attack on Jaffa Street outside the Jerusalem Central Bus Station on Monday afternoon, a spokesperson for Magen David Adom (MDA) said.

An Israel Border Police officer shot and neutralized the attacker at the scene of the incident, according to Israel Police. The suspected terrorist was examined by a police sapper before receiving medical treatment.

Both victims of the attack were in their 20s and are in stable condition, the MDA spokesperson said. Reports indicated that the two victims are Haredi.

The pair were transported to the trauma unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, the hospital announced.

“We arrived at the scene and there was a big commotion,” senior MDA medic Shlomi Pinchas said.

“The two wounded were lying unconscious and suffering from stab wounds. We provided them with advanced medical care in the field, which included bandages, stopping bleeding and medication, and we quickly evacuated them to the hospital in a moderate condition,” Pinchas continued.

Israel Police Jerusalem District Commander Doron Turjeman told reporters at the scene that the assailant is believed to a be a 17-year-old from the Hebron area.

Attempted stabbing at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank: The Palestinian tried to use a screwdriver to attack the troops.

pic.twitter.com/UfUMFAbQ3e

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 13, 2021

Terror attack at the #Jerusalem central bus station - 2 lightly injured pic.twitter.com/onEBhQFBrz

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 13, 2021

For a third consecutive day, a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, Sunday evening.

The artillery fire was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, the Israeli military said. No direct casualties or damage from the rocket was reported.

A man and his young son suffered light injuries while running to shelter during the siren in Sderot, the Times of Israel (ToI) reported.

Cross border fire occurred Saturday and Friday night, as tensions rose between Israel and Gazan militants, following the escape of several Palestinian prisoners last week.

Four of the six escapees were recaptured over the weekend, prompting Hamas, which rules Gaza, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — the organization to which five of the prisoners belong — to escalate tensions.

Israel follows a policy of holding Hamas responsible for any fire from the Gaza Strip, irrespective of which organization conducted it.

The launch of an Iron Dome interceptor not long ago after a rocket launch was identified from #Gaza. #Israelpic.twitter.com/TRX0gM7hgt

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 12, 2021

After breaking out of the maximum-security Gilboa prison early on Monday, September 6, the six escaped Palestinian security prisoners headed on foot for the nearby Arab town of Na’ura, some 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the jail, where they begged several residents to drive them to the city of Jenin in the West Bank, but were refused, Hebrew media reported Sunday.

Citing details leaked from the Shin Bet interrogation of the four escapees who have been recaptured, particularly from notorious terror commander Zakaria Zubeidi, the reports detailed the fugitives’ first actions in the first hours after the escape.

After being rebuffed by local residents, the six spent less than an hour in a local mosque where they showered and changed clothes before heading out of the town. Israeli investigators had initially believed they spent the night there.

Police captured two of the fugitives in Nazareth on Friday night. Hours later, two others — including Zubeidi — were apprehended in the nearby town of Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam. In both cases, Arab Israelis who encountered the fugitives reported the suspicious sightings to authorities, aiding in their capture.

The reports highlighted the residents’ refusal to take Zubeidi and his accomplices to the West Bank, as yet another example of Arab citizens rejecting being complicit in the escape, and also of the intentions of the escapees to try and reach the West Bank.

Residents of the Palestinian West Bank town of Beita, located south of Nablus, on Thursday set fire to an effigy of a stereotypical Orthodox Jew. The incident was far from the first antisemitic act perpetrated by these “popular resistance units.” Over the past four weeks, Palestinian rioters on at least three occasions set ablaze makeshift wooden swastikas embedded within a Jewish Star of David.

They also burned a model of an Israeli village in consonance with their stated goal to “burn you [Israelis] alive.”

Our exclusive research has revealed that the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling Fatah faction are actively backing Beita’s extremists. In fact, a senior Palestinian official praised them just hours after they had set alight the first swastika. Two days later, Fatah’s legislative body held a meeting in Beita to “support the popular resistance.”

Nevertheless, nations that support Ramallah diplomatically and financially have remained silent.

There has been a near-total media blackout.

But thanks to HonestReporting’s work and social media campaign, European politicians and governments are taking action to counter the PA’s encouragement of Nazi-like antisemitism.

Following the publication of our investigative article, Dutch lawmaker Raymond de Roon on August 22 submitted written questions in parliament that demanded to know whether Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag would denounce the PA’s backing for the Jew-hatred espoused by Beita residents.

Maj.-Gen. Tamir Yadai, completing his tenure as head of IDF Central Command, told Israel Hayom in an interview: "The Palestinian Authority is in a deep ideological crisis. Their core argument that any diplomatic agreement in the Middle East must pass through Ramallah has been eroded by the Abraham Accords. Its domestic legitimacy vis-a-vis the Palestinian public also no longer leans on ideology, but on daily functionality....Fatah is divided and plagued by internal rivalries; Hamas, on the other hand, has built up a top-level organizational and political infrastructure, which it aims to use in the future as the basis for a military infrastructure."

"In Judea and Samaria, there is fatigue with ideological struggles. People want to live, especially the 1.2 million young people in the West Bank who are in no hurry to die a martyr's death for either Hamas or Fatah's ideologies."

The standard of living in Judea and Samaria is reasonable, he explains. "Go into any mall in Ramallah or Nablus and you will see for yourself. In Jenin, you can't find a table at a cafe. In Rawabi, prices are like those in Kfar Saba. People have a life. You can travel from Jenin to Hebron and not see one roadblock along the way....When the average Palestinian sees what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Gaza, they don't really want to be there."

Nashat Al-Wahidi, the spokesman for Fatah’s Commission for Martyrs, Prisoners and Wounded, said that Israeli merchants harvest the organs of “martyred” Palestinians who are buried in Israel and transplant them in Israeli soldiers and “settlers.” He made his remarks in a public address that aired on Palestine TV on August 31, 2021. Al-Wahidi said that Palestinian “martyrs,” whose bodies are held by Israel, are buried in shallow graves and are exposed to the elements, and that Israeli merchants steal their bodies and skeletons, in order to sell them to Israeli medical schools for research.

The MEMRI Lantos Project exposes anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East region and Middle Eastern communities in the West with the aim of supporting legislation and educating media and the general public.

Al-Aqsa Lecture by Palestinian Political Researcher Ahmad Al-Khatwani: The U.S. Has Decided That China, Rather Than Islam, Is Its Main Enemy, But the Enormous Islamic Energy May Explode at Any Moment #Palestinianspic.twitter.com/12mXfMdeUA

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 13, 2021

Mahmoud Abbas shocked the world early Monday morning by announcing his intention to step down as Palestinian Authority President in six weeks’ time and join the International Space Station (ISS) habitable artificial satellite.

“My prostate’s the size of a melon. Zero gravity will help with the swelling,” the Palestinian statesman said after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution on ending the Israeli occupation earlier in the week.

While other crew members are conducting experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy and meteorology, Abbas plans to “close my eyes and imagine that I’m floating weightless in the Dead Sea, a body of water currently occupied by a certain genocidal regime.”

At nearly 86 years old, the Palestinian leader’s age was a key factor in his decision to leave Ramallah for the tranquility of low Earth orbit. “I’m tired of the grind, son. I can’t even doze off in the middle of an emergency meeting anymore without people freaking out, thinking that I’m dead. Saeb Erekat [Chief PLO Negotiator with Israel] once even gave me sloppy mouth-to-mouth…tasted like stale salmon. Thankfully he hasn’t been around much lately.”

Stability is restored. And the Iranian nuclear threat is back to the pattern of long, dragged out but hopeful negotiations to a deal.

That was the message the IAEA and Tehran each wanted to deliver on Sunday, each for their own purposes.

An emergency trip by IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi to the Islamic Republic once again saved the day from an imminent nuclear crisis, or, it is hoped, that the West will be hypnotized by that message back into complacency.

What did the IAEA’s new deal really achieve with Iran?

Grossi is widely respected by Israeli intelligence officials as one of the more serious international officials to deal with the nuclear issue.

So it was almost painful watching him do intellectual backflips trying to present a success, while admitting that he achieved none of his deeper goals.

Iran wanted to avoid a public condemnation by the IAEA Board of Governors, and a negative referral to the UN Security Council regarding its nuclear weapons program.

But as former IDF intelligence chief Aharon Zeevi Farkash pointed out at a conference on Sunday, Tehran nearly always has better long-term vision and strategy than its rivals.

Uh huh. Biden admin just undermined global arms control writ large - NPT obligations on inspections, agreements, etc. - and said it was to give the Iranians more time. They've made it clear there's nothing Iran can do that'll get them to turn up pressure. https://t.co/5T3CEl3b2e

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) September 13, 2021

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While anti-Semitism is rampant throughout the world, the Holocaust memory is increasingly interrogated in the name of post-colonial ideas. The latest attack is signed by the Australian historian Dirk Moses. He argues that distinguishing the Holocaust from other violent crimes in human history is nothing more than a matter of faith. And that it is time to abandon this faith in the singularity of the Holocaust and the obligations that derive from it and replace it with a new truth: the Holocaust is only one crime among others. The great historian of the Holocaust Saul Friedländer, in an article originally published in Die Zeit, counters: “‘Auschwitz’ was something completely different from the colonial atrocities of the West. And postcolonial thought is currently taking on the risk of disassociating itself from the struggle against anti-Semitism that can sometimes simmer in its ranks.”

There is one more element that Moses fails to mention, which is part of a long tradition: in 1985, forty years after the end of the war, President Richard von Weizsaecker declared German historical responsibility for the extermination. In fact, German responsibility to Jews and to Israel had already been accepted by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer when he signed the Reparations treaty with Israel and the Jewish Claims Conference in 1951. For Dirk Moses, it seems that these things only matter to the professional historian; in his eyes, in reality, this all is the past. For him, the German culture of memory, which developed over several decades after 1945, has done its job. Now it is urgent to make room for something new, for a comprehensive view of the history of violence in past centuries. And then, in his presentation of things, so-called postcolonial studies is a marginalized discipline that must be promoted in order to do historical justice to all victims of violence.

I cannot assess the importance or insignificance of postcolonial theory in Germany. In the US, post-colonial thinking, the kind represented by Dirk Moses and many others, has conquered university campuses and is well represented in Congress. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel movements have surged, BDS (boycott, divestments, sanctions) has become the common cause of an increasingly militant – and often violently so – coalition of “subaltern” communities, the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) and sundry academics and politicians.

Sure, not everyone who gathers under the banner of postcolonial critique is an enemy of Israel, and those who are openly anti-Semitic may be only a minority. But anti-Semitism in the U.S. has taken on disturbing proportions in the wake of recent protests, particularly in Los Angeles, where I live: Jewish neighborhoods were the primary targets of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence after the murder of George Floyd last May. In Fairfax, home of one of the oldest Jewish communities in Los Angeles, the march was led by professor Melina Abdullah, one of the main organizers of Black Lives Matter; at the protest, rioters also vandalized synagogues and Jewish businesses. “It is no coincidence,” wrote a local rabbi, “that the riots escalated here in Fairfax, the symbol of the Jewish community. I witnessed the Watts riots and the riots following the acquittal of Rodney King’s murderer, in which no synagogue or house of worship was harmed. Today’s graffitis, even before the attacks, were a sign of open anti-Semitism.”

These massive violent outbursts of Jew-hatred are relatively new to the United States. Unfortunately, they now seem to accompany Black Lives Matter protests quite often. Those who criticize the memory of the Holocaust from a postcolonial perspective and murmur about “American and Israeli elites” should take note of this fact. Antisemitism was a destructive force then, and it is still a destructive force today, no matter which direction it comes from. Does Dirk Moses wish to see this new militancy and its unavoidable and unrestrainable sequels unleashed in Germany? I can hardly imagine that.

An Israeli-French-American Holocaust survivor and historian and a US scientist specializing in gut bacteria were among the recipients of this year’s Balzan Prizes, recognizing scholarly and scientific achievements, announced on Monday.

Saul Friedlander, who has taught at both the University of California, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv University, was awarded the prize for Holocaust and Genocide Studies for his work broadening the perspective on the history of the Holocaust.

Friedlander, 88, was born in Prague in 1932 in a non-religious Jewish family, which fled to France after the German occupation in March 1939. His parents hid him in a Catholic boarding school near Vichy, where they were later captured and sent to Auschwitz.

With his parents’ agreement, Friedlander was baptized as a Catholic and later, out of his own conviction, considered becoming a priest. After he learned in 1946 that his parents had been killed at Auschwitz, Friedlander reclaimed his Jewish identity. He later said, “for the first time, I felt Jewish.”

Friedlander received the Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction in 2008 for “The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945,” the second volume in his history of Jews in Hitler’s Germany. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1999, after the publication of the first volume covering the period from 1933-39 and has also been awarded the Dan David Prize recognizing outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary research.

Friedlander was recognized for examining the persecution of all Jews in Europe, going beyond country-focused studies that had preceded him, and for making personal documents accepted in scholarly practice.

PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS Reports From a Haunted Present By Dara Horn

In three other essays, Horn deals with the upswell of anti-Semitism in the United States. Here it becomes clear that her concern about the ways we remember is inextricable from the way we relate to what is happening today. Horn claims that setting the Holocaust as the bar for anti-Semitism means that “anything short of the Holocaust is, well, not the Holocaust. The bar is rather high.” According to Horn, this might explain the limited shelf life, so to speak, of current events like the gunning down of Jews in Pittsburgh, in San Diego, in New Jersey.

And then there’s the moment of relief that Jews feel when we arrive at the famous questions in Act III of “The Merchant of Venice”: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? … If you poison us, do we not die?” So Shakespeare was not really an antisemite, but rather, more benignly, a satirist when he limned Shylock’s stereotypical Jewish character. After all, he is Shakespeare, and we want him on our side.

Or how we recognize the Chinese government’s investment of $30 million to restore “Jewish heritage sites” in Harbin, a city that was built by Russian Jewish entrepreneurs, who flourished there until they were no longer required.

“People Love Dead Jews” is an outstanding book with a bold mission. It criticizes people, artworks and public institutions that few others dare to challenge. Reading this book, I started to find the words I should have said to that woman in Motal. I should have responded that maybe Eastern Europe has been left with a void, but I have been left with hardly any family.

But there is a rare moment in Horn’s book in which she admits the austerity of her own perspective. It’s in “Legends of Dead Jews.” The common family story that so many American Jews have heard about their surnames being changed at Ellis Island is a myth, she writes. The names weren’t changed by mistake. American Jews preferred to change their names to be able to fit in, to blend in, to assimilate.

I expected Horn to criticize the purveyors of this legend. After all, they distorted the past to avoid the discomfort of its truth. But she writes: “Our ancestors could have dwelled on the sordid facts, and passed down that psychological damage. Instead, they created a story that ennobled us, and made us confident in our role in this great country.” Perhaps revision of this sort does not always have to be about self-blinding. Perhaps, as Horn suggests, it is “an act of bravery and love.” Some things are just too painful to say.

Reading Horn’s beautiful words, I thought that maybe, after all, what this woman in Motal wanted, and needed, was a simple thank you, a handshake and a humble nod.

True, the attempt to set boundaries is sometimes clumsy, intolerant, and ignorant. Bad actors appoint themselves as ultimate judges of right and wrong. But two wrongs don’t make a right: The fact that limits are not always set in the right way doesn’t mean that limits shouldn’t exist. The fact that the wrong people act as “enforcers” doesn’t mean that “enforcement” is, in itself, negative. The setting of boundaries should be organic, informed, responsible, and respectful. It should, above all, represent the views and ideas of the majority of Jews. The acrimony of the communal debate around Israel and the general polarization of society make these conversations incredibly difficult, but paradoxically, more necessary. Historically, “anything goes” has never been the Jewish answer.

The truth is, Zionism has become key to the Judaism of a very large number of Jews. On the one hand, close to 50 percent of the world’s Jews live in Israel itself, and the Zionist enterprise is inextricably linked to their lives. Denying Zionism implies disregarding and denying a critical piece of their lived experiences. On the other hand, most diaspora Jews (surveys place the percentage in the high 80s) recognize the connection with Israel as a central part of their Jewish identities. Supporting the Zionist enterprise has become normative for most and a matter of life and death for millions. In that context, claiming that support for anti-Zionism puts one, in some important way, outside of the Jewish people is less a point of debate than a literal description of reality. The difficulties that any boundary-setting exercise entails shouldn’t make us lose sight of this obvious fact.

This may be another one of those historical moments that call for a redefinition of the boundaries of belonging. Because this is an important conversation, we need to wrestle it away from the extremists and the merchants of hate. We need to educate the community to have these conversations intelligently and respectfully, grounded in the sources and historical experiences of Judaism. We need a broad community dialogue that is as empathetic as it is learned. Ultimately, limits are going to be drawn. They always are; but how that happens is largely our choice.

Ahmadi Muslim and Zionist Jew talk Palestine https://t.co/yU5MT9bC9Z

— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) September 12, 2021

An op-ed piece in the Atlanta Jewish Times by Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones that was titled “How one Jewish family shaped my views: Vernon Jones recalls the family that inspired him to speak up for Jewish Americans” was removed on Wednesday night from the newspaper’s website after Marisa Pyle, a Jewish aide to Democrat Stacey Abrams, tweeted that it was “disgusting.”

Kaylene Ladinsky, Editor and Managing Publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, issued a follow-up statement saying:
“Rep. Jones’ essay was published by mistake. It is our policy not to publish politically driven opinion pieces such as this one, especially from anyone this controversial. As of 7:05 PM, the article has been taken down from our site. It would have been done sooner, but we had to wait until the Holy Day was complete. The ATJ is a bi-partisan news source and we do not support white supremacists, nor extremists. We apologize for any confusion this mistake may have caused our readers.”

Before we continue with this tale of Cancel Culture, it’s only fair that you, our readers, will get a chance to see for yourselves what raised the repugnance of Stacey Abrams’ staff member and publisher Ladinsky. I fished it out of the Internet cache that doesn’t forget anything, and are running it here under the fair use doctrine—but I also contacted the Jones campaign for approval – and received the enthusiastic approval of the campaign’s Heather Wallace to run the piece as it had appeared for four hours on the AJT’s website. You’re also welcome to read a variation of the same article that was published on NewsMax (and Arutz Sheva).

How One Jewish Family Shaped My Views
Vernon Jones recalls the family that inspired him to speak up for Jewish Americans.
By Vernon Jones September 7, 2021, 9:33 PM
The American Jewish community’s strong support of Israel has always helped steer a strong United States-Israel alliance. Unfortunately, as Zionist loyalties have started to dissolve among newer generations, politicians are starting to consider support for Israel detrimental to their political careers. This is shameful. These politicians are afraid to take a stand against anti-Semitism, while other politicians fully embrace it. Ignorance of the importance of a strong relationship with Israel is reaching its boiling point and the onus to speak out against this downward spiral is on public servants like me.

Jewish communities have positively impacted my life for as long as I can remember. It started when I was just a child. I was raised with my siblings in the small town of Laurinburg, North Carolina. My parents were farmers who did their best to provide for us. We never had the best luxuries in life, but they ensured that we had food in our bellies and shirts on our backs. Laurinburg was also home to the Risks, a kind Jewish family that settled down near us. The Risk family owned a merchant store in town, which was common for small rural communities at the time.

Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is under growing pressure over the SNP’s deal with the Scottish Greens due to the Party’s opposition to the International Definition of Antisemitism and other controversial policies revealed by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others.

In 2015, the Scottish Greens adopted a motion, which has never been rescinded, condemning “Israel’s claim to be ‘the Jewish State’” and “Zionism as a racist ideology.” According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.

The motion also committed the Party to opposing “Aliyah” (Jewish immigration to Israel, including by British Jews) and Israel’s Law of Return, the Jewish state’s answer to centuries of persecution of Diaspora Jewry. The motion further called for the removal of Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisation, from its designation by the British Government as a terrorist organisation, and supported the BDS movement—the campaign to boycott the Jewish state—the tactics of which an overwhelming majority of British Jews find intimidating.

The debate on this motion was held on a Saturday, when observant Jews would be unable to participate, and it passed easily. It became Party policy and remains so even as the Scottish Greens recently joined the Scottish devolved Government for the first time. Indeed, it is the first time that a Green Party has joined any Government in the United Kingdom. The two leaders of the Scottish Greens—Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater—are now ministers in Ms Sturgeon’s Government.

Although the agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens excludes international relations, as one journalist has pointed out this is the worst of both worlds, as it means that the two parties and their politicians can speak freely on the subject, allowing the Scottish Greens to promote their Party’s positions without the hindrance of collective responsibility.

Prior to inviting the Scottish Greens into her administration, Ms Sturgeon sought to reassure the Jewish community that she is “committed to tackling” antisemitism after the recent surge in racism against Jews in the UK.

This appears to be @uklabour Cllr Sam Gorst, calling for the destruction of Israel.

He was let off antisemitism charges by Labour under @jeremycorbyn.

Remember neither @Keir_Starmer or @ehrc are doing anything about those let off historical charges of AS. #LabourAntisemitismhttps://t.co/UyBJqZzRtc

— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) September 12, 2021

A Canadian parliamentary candidate apologized on Sunday after tweets emerged showing that she had claimed Israel was stealing coronavirus vaccines from the US.

Sidney Coles, a candidate for the left-wing New Democratic Party, made the comments in a reply to a Jan. 29 tweet saying that “millions of vaccines in America” were missing.

“Uh, I think Israel might be able to help you solve the mystery,” Coles replied.

In reply to another post on the subject, she said of the allegedly missing vaccines, “They went to Israel. I keep saying this.”

After the tweets surfaced on Sunday, the Canadian Jewish organization Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center called them “outrageous.”

“A retraction & apology for these false & offensive remarks, which have hurt members of the Jewish community, are in order,” said the FSWC.

“Coles’ comments are particularly concerning given the global rise in antisemitism — including ongoing efforts to blame Israel & Jewish people for creating, exploiting or worsening the coronavirus pandemic — & escalating incidences of Jew-hate in her Toronto-St. Paul’s riding,” the group added.

Shortly after, Coles apologized, saying, “In the past I posted unsubstantiated theories about vaccine supply linked to Israel. These comments weren’t based on evidence. I recognize this frame is a common antisemitic trope, though that was never my intent.”

Coles' comments are particularly concerning given the global rise in antisemitism - including ongoing efforts to blame Israel & Jewish people for creating, exploiting or worsening the coronavirus pandemic - & escalating incidences of Jew-hate in her Toronto-St. Paul's riding. 2/2

— Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (@CanadianFSWC) September 12, 2021

A Norwegian pension fund that recently announced it planned to blacklist Israeli companies in the West Bank has poured hundreds of millions into Chinese companies linked to slave labor and Russian entities on the U.S. sanctions list.

Norges Bank's Government Pension Fund Global, Norway's largest pension fund, placed several Israeli companies in the West Bank on its "excluded companies" list earlier this month, citing "serious infringements of the rights of the individual in situations of war or conflict in connection with the construction of roads linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank."

At the same time, Norges held over $150 million in investments in at least seven companies that operated in or are suspected of using forced labor from the Xinjiang province of China, where Uyghur Muslims face human rights abuses, according to the fund's most recent financial disclosures from last December. And the fund also held $1.8 billion in shares in at least six Russian energy companies and banks that are under U.S. financial restrictions or sanctions.

The fund's investments raise questions about its decision-making process for divestments. While Norges Bank cut ties with Israeli companies, it has yet to bar controversial Russian and Chinese companies from future investments. Anti-Israel boycotts are growing more common in progressive circles. Earlier this year, Ben & Jerry's announced it was ending its operations in the West Bank, prompting a wave of public backlash and the threat of financial penalties against the ice cream company from several U.S. states.

"The decisions made by the Executive Board of Norges Bank, announced last week, were made based on recommendations from the Council on Ethics," said Line Aaltvedt, a spokesman for Norges Bank. "The Ministry of Finance has established the independent Council on Ethics to evaluate whether or not the fund's investments in specified companies is consistent with its Ethical Guidelines."

Norges Bank did not indicate whether it still holds shares in Chinese companies linked to slave labor or Russian firms under U.S. sanctions. The fund said last year that it would be reviewing its investments in companies that are linked to forced labor in Xinjiang, but the entities are not included on the fund's list of "excluded companies," which was updated earlier this month.

Activists on behalf of Palestinian rights continue their efforts to seek justice, with one group organizing around the goal of getting Israeli officials in the dock of the International Criminal Court here in this Dutch city for overseeing Israel Defense Forces operations that resulted in millions of Palestinian women and girls not getting sexually assaulted by Israeli troops, which only underscores the racist ideology behind the Zionist enterprise, a spokeswoman for the group announced today.

Oness Hamoni of the NGO New York Movement for Palestinian Hysterics and Outlandishness (NYMPHO) told reporters today that her group has come to the ICC specifically to petition the body to expand its investigation into allege Israeli war crimes to include wanton engagement of refusal to rape Palestinians en masse, a policy that departs dramatically from virtually the entire history of warfare and raises disturbing questions about Israeli soldiers’ view of Palestinian women.

“There’s something wrong with that,” charged Ms. Hamoni, herself of Palestinian and Syrian extraction. “Only a deeply bigoted society could order its soldiers not to rape the women and girls – or men and and boys, for that matter – of areas under its control, especially in the bloodlust during and right after combat, and have those soldiers, every last one, obey those orders. It can only mean that the IDF, and Zionist culture in general, see Palestinians, probably all Arabs, as subhuman and therefore unworthy of lust.”

Hamoni warned against falling into the trap of accepting Israeli explanations for events at face value. “We already know about pinkwashing and other phenomena,” she admonished, referring to Israel as an island of tolerance and freedom for homosexuals in a region where that population faces torture and execution. “Whenever and wherever Israel appears to be doing something positive, look for a sinister ulterior motive. That’s where the truth lies.”

A recent POLITICO report omitted the motivation behind the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: the late Senator’s support for Israel. The Aug. 28, 2021 dispatch, by correspondent Shia Kapos, noted that six of the Senator’s eleven children “expressed outrage” over a recent California parole board vote for the release of convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan. The report briefly profiled the family’s anger over Sirhan’s possible release—but omitted the motive that drove him to murder the then-presidential candidate more than five decades ago.

Kennedy was gunned down on June 6, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after delivering a victory speech. Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian from Jordan, was convicted of the assassination and sentenced to death—a punishment that was commuted when the state of California briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972. While he has previously acknowledged shooting Kennedy, he has also claimed not to remember the assassination.

But Sirhan has, in years past, admitted that Kennedy’s support for Israel motivated him to murder the Senator.

Indeed, in the moments after Sirhan murdered Kennedy and wounded five others, the assassin exclaimed, “Let me explain! I did it for my country.” Similarly, in a 1989 interview with David Frost for NBC’s Inside Edition, Sirhan said that he had supported Kennedy until he heard that the Senator supported sending arms to Israel. As Sirhan told Frost: “To hear him say that he was going to send fifty Phantom Jets to Israel, to deliver nothing but death and destruction on my countrymen, that seemed like it was a betrayal.”

There's more (just couldn't fit it all into one tweet):

Furthermore, the Unified Kingdom lasted 83 years.

And if that wasn't enough, the Hasmonean dynasty extended some 103 years.

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 12, 2021

Listeners heard a confused response to that question from Bateman, with the terror offences of which most of the escaped prisoners were convicted described merely as something that “Israelis say” is the case.

Bateman: “Well they’re all…or five of the six are…have been…ehrm…were serving life sentences…ehm…err…the Israelis…ehm…err…say that each case linked to deadly attacks against Israelis.”

Continuing to avoid the word terrorism, Bateman continued:
Bateman: “But the most high-profile; Zakaria Zubeidi – a former leader of one of the Palestinian militant groups, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Now he’s very well-known to Israelis and Palestinians alike…ahm…first…during the first Intifada was…ahm…known for masterminding attacks and had been on Israel’s radar for many years. He was actually granted an amnesty…ahm…in 2007 but later went on the run and later jailed again. So he’s been in and out of prison.”

Zubeidi was born in 1976 and was therefore around 11 years old when the first Intifada began. His planning and carrying out of terror attacks on behalf of Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades actually took place during the second Intifada. Bateman failed to clarify that the amnesty given to Zubeidi and others was revoked due to his return to terrorism and that his ongoing trial relates to multiple offences, including two shooting attacks on buses in 2018 and 2019 which the BBC failed to report.

Listeners heard only in passing that the other five escaped prisoners are also members of what Bateman refrained from clarifying is a terrorist organisation.

A report in the Independent by Middle East correspondent Bel Trew about the impact of Hamas’s wars with Israel on pollution in Gaza did what British media reports about the conflict typically do: avoid imputing agency to the terrorists controlling the coast strip. In fact, the word Hamas was only used once in the 1125 word piece.

In certain passages of the article (“Gaza is battling to tackle deadly pollution levels as efforts are hampered by continued conflict”, Sept. 3), it almost seems that the journalist went out of her way to avoid referencing the Islamic Resistance Movement, whose actions have incited four wars since 2008, particularly when referencing the most recent conflict.

Here’s one example:
A week later, a devastating 11-day war between Palestinian militants and Israel’s army erupted, and that notion quite literally blew up.

The war didn’t just “erupt” like some sort of act of nature. It started when Hamas launched an unprovoked rocket attack on Jerusalem, a decision, Palestinian Media Watch has persuasively argued, that was likely spurred almost entirely by the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas.

Trew continues:
However, international and local projects have over the years seen the construction of new desalination and sewage plants and other infrastructure despite the tight restrictions on bringing materials into the strip.

Israeli restrictions only apply to goods which have, or could have, a military dimension. Indy readers wouldn’t know that, in the case of water infrastructure, any such restrictions are a response to Hamas’s consistent diversion of putatively ‘humanitarian’ items (used to build and maintain water infrastructure) for military use. For instance, as CAMERA reported in June, Hamas routinely digs up water pipes and converts them into rockets – a fact that Hamas leaders have acknowledged.

Hey @TwitterSupport. Explain. pic.twitter.com/R7NEHrqJSY

— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 13, 2021

Pope Francis opened his first full day in Slovakia on Monday by meeting with church and state leaders ahead of an encounter with the country’s Jewish community to honor its Holocaust dead and atone for Catholic complicity in World War II-era racial laws and crimes.

Francis arrived at the presidential palace, and later at the capital’s St. Martin cathedral, looking well and rested on the second day of his four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia which marks his first international outing since undergoing intestinal surgery in July.

“I’m still alive!” Francis quipped when asked by an Italian journalist how he was feeling as he walked up a ramp into the cathedral for a meeting with Slovak priests and nuns, where he cracked a series of jokes in a sign he was in good spirits, too.

Francis, 84, has been recovering after having 33 centimeters (13 inches) of his colon removed for what the Vatican said was a severe narrowing of the large intestine. He has seemed in good form, though he used a golf cart buggy indoors on Sunday during a rigorous day in Budapest to limit a long walk, and has been delivering some speeches sitting down.

In his Gazeta Wyborcza piece, Karpieszuk listed several of the titles of the books that were neatly stacked on tables outside the church. Pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories, especially the latest fabrication of Jewish responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic, the titles included “Coronavirus Vaccine — a Threat to Humanity?”, “Judeopolonia II — Anatomy of Enslaving Poland,” “Scum and the Jews in Today’s Poland,” “Homoterror” and “5G — the Birth of a Mega Totalitarianism.”

Karpieszuk said that while he had seen these and similar titles on sale at meetings organized by ultranationalist groups, he had “never thought that something like that could be sold during a beatification Mass attended by the highest state authorities, church leaders, and thousands of the faithful.”

The journalist said that he had spent about 40 minutes observing customers at the book stalls right after the ceremony concluded.

“During those 40 minutes I didn’t see a single reaction of indignation. Nothing,” Karpieszuk wrote. “I didn’t see anyone draw the attention of the sellers. Many clergy, and even one bishop among them, passed by the stands indifferently. They saw the books, but they didn’t react. It was as if nothing had happened.”

Karpieszuk said he was struck by the offense caused to Poland’s Catholic clergy by the rainbow symbol — which represents the LGBTQ+ community, itself the target of discriminatory measures — but not the sight of “antisemitic books sold on the occasion of the beatification Mass.”

He also shared a photograph of one of the book stalls on Twitter, causing an angry reaction among several Polish readers. “You are awarded three rainbow badges and two medals of merit from the ‘chosen people’ for this propaganda,” one responded sarcastically.

A shooting that killed a Texas lawyer and severely wounded her husband has been revealed to be an antisemitic hate crime, with the shooter calling the couple “Jewish Satan worshippers.”

The El Paso Times reported Saturday that lawyer Georgette Kaufmann, 50, and her husband Daniel, 47, were shot on Nov. 14, 2020 at their residence.

Georgette was shot as she was returning home and was killed outright. Daniel went to the backdoor in response to the sound of the attack and was shot several times, but survived. He then crawled to a neighbor’s house and the police were called.

El Paso police announced last week that they had arrested Joseph Angel Alvarez, 38, in connection with the shooting. The killer apparently stated that he was motivated by antisemitism and a bizarre conspiracy theory involving Satanism and far-right ideology.

Court documents, the El Paso Times reported, show that Alvarez said he was “executing and exterminating the pro-choice Jewish Satan worshippers” he believed were located at the Kaufmanns’ and three other houses in the area of Memorial Park.

A police officer stated in an affidavit that “The defendant’s belief was ‘to end the Satanic activity’ near the crime scene (Memorial Park) and acted out his manifesto by killing and shooting the Kaufmanns and by mentally fabricating the connection he believed the four corner houses on Raynor and Copper to have been involved in ‘satanic activity,’ because of their relative geographic location to the park.”

The man accused of punching a pregnant Jewish woman in Stamford Hill earlier this year is mentally ill, a court has heard.

Keith Gowers, 59, allegedly tracked Beilla Reis down an alleyway, pulled a black bag over her head and punched her several times before running away.

Ms Reis, 20, was 27 weeks’ pregnant at the time but was fortunate to escape with only minor injuries.

The alleged incident, which took place on 18 March, was initially investigated as a possible antisemitic hate crime, but Gowers has been sectioned after investigators found he is mentally ill.

Speaking outside the court, Gowers’ solicitor Jose Grayson said: “Although people at the time thought it was an antisemitic attack, it has been accepted by the Crown it was not racially motivated.”

Two years after unveiling, to much fanfare, a prototype for the first known all-electric airplane at the Paris Air Show in 2019, Israeli-American company Eviation Aircraft is preparing for the plane’s first test flight to usher in a “new age of aviation,” according to founder and CEO Omer Bar-Yohay.

The test flight for the aircraft, dubbed the Alice, was expected “before the end of the year” with the plane — now in its fifth iteration — in final assembly at Eviation headquarters in Arlington, Washington, just north of Seattle.

Bar-Yohay told The Times of Israel in a Zoom-facilitated interview from Arlington this month that the company was “excited” for the flight, which puts the Alice on a path toward approval by regulators and then, hopefully, service entry in 2024. “We are making three more planes for a total of four aircraft to accelerate certification over the next few years,” he said.

The Alice was originally conceived as a small, nine-passenger, fully electric commuter aircraft manned by a single pilot that would make regional trips as accessible as a train ride, but at a lower cost and with better service, according to the company. With a payload of 2,500 pounds (1.1 tons) and a range of 440 nautical miles (815 kilometers), the Alice would be available for passengers to book a ride by app for popular short-haul routes — say, San Jose to San Diego, London to Prague, and Paris to Toulouse. It’s a potential experience Bar-Yohay has coined an “Uber in the sky.”

The aircraft’s lithium-ion battery would require 30 minutes or less to charge per flight hour, Eviation says, as its mission is to make electric, zero-emission aviation a “competitive, sustainable answer to on-demand mobility.”

A research team in Israel has succeeded in reversing brain trauma using hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). This is the first time in the scientific world that non-drug therapy has been proven effective in preventing the core biological processes responsible for the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

HBOT involves having patients sit in a special chamber where the atmospheric pressure is much higher than normal, breathing air composed of 100 percent oxygen. This form of therapy is considered safe for treating many medical conditions, and can induce the repair of damaged brain tissue and renewed growth of blood vessels and nerve cells in the brain.

A specific HBOT protocol devised by Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Center researchers Prof. Shai Efrati, Prof. Uri Ashery, Dr. Ronit Shapira, Dr. Pablo Blinder and Dr. Amir Hadanny resulted in cerebral blood flow improving in elderly patients by 16-23%, alleviating vascular dysfunction, reducing the volume of pre-existing amyloid plaques and slowing the formation of new ones. These protein plaques are linked to severe degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s.

Their findings were published in the journal Aging.

The study, part of a comprehensive research program that looks at aging and accompanying ailments as a reversible disease, could lead to a new strategic approach to preventing Alzheimer’s.

Israel has significantly improved its internet quality but remains iffy on infrastructure, according to the annual Digital Quality of Life Index 2021, which ranked 110 countries worldwide on digital wellbeing based on factors such as internet affordability and quality, infrastructure, and digital government services.

The survey, compiled by the virtual private network provider Surfshark, was released last week with Israel ranking fourth overall, up four spots from the 2020 index, which examined 85 countries. Israel’s 2021 rating surpassed that of the US, which ranked fifth, Switzerland, 8th, and the UK, 10th.

Denmark took the top spot in the index, followed by South Korea and Finland. The bottom five countries were Ethiopia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Guatemala, and Angola.

The annual survey, now in its third year, evaluates countries based on a set of five “pillars” — internet affordability, internet quality, e-infrastructure, e-security, and e-government — and 14 indicators such as internet speed, GDP per capita, mobile internet price and broadband internet price. The study is based on open-source information provided by the United Nations, the World Bank, Freedom House, the International Communications Union, and other sources.

According to the 2021 survey, Israel dropped down from the top spot for internet affordability (mobile and broadband) last year to second place overall, but did rank first for broadband internet affordability. The index looked at the number of hours people had to work per month to afford the cheapest broadband internet package for this pillar. In Israel, it was only 19 minutes, four minutes less than 2020, whereas globally, the figure stood at around six hours of work.

Emirates Food Industries (EFI) has enlisted the help of Israel's largest food maker, Tnuva, to expand its range of dairy products, starting with a new facility to produce the popular Mediterranean cheese Labneh, Tnuva said on Sunday.

Under a licensing agreement, Tnuva will help build a production line in Dubai in return for royalties. It is the first such deal between food companies in Israel and the United Arab Emirates since the countries normalized ties a year ago, Tnuva said.

Labneh is a tart, creamy cheese often made locally across the Middle East.

Tnuva said its formula is unique since it is able to mass-produce while using a traditional 'drip bag' method and that EFI found its product to be better than anything available in the UAE.

"Later on the activity will include support in the development and production of additional products," Tnuva said.

The was no immediate comment from EFI.

The licensing agreement is for 10 years with an option to extend and Tnuva said it potentially will bring "millions of dollars of revenue in the coming years."

Tnuva has been controlled by Chinese food conglomerate Bright Food since 2015.

One year after the signing of the Abraham Accords, the relationship between the UAE and Israel is stronger than ever.

Learn how the historic normalization is being felt across the Middle East: https://t.co/nUwOCUGFWxpic.twitter.com/pJ9E8D2vIq

— UAE Embassy US (@UAEEmbassyUS) September 13, 2021

One of my favorites- each time a country joined the accords the artist added their flag in place of a leaf. pic.twitter.com/WTy6Msbi3K

— Avi Berkowitz (@AviBerkow) September 13, 2021

An iconic modern Jerusalem mosaic has been reconstructed after the building it graced was demolished, in the largest such operation in Israel, the Haaretz daily reported.

“The Rainbow,” by Russian-Israeli artist Lev Syrkin, was created between 1973 and 1974 on the Bezeq telephone exchange building on Hebron Road, commissioned by then-communications minister Shimon Peres to decorate the large windowless building that housed the analog exchanges.

The 5 by 15 meter (16 by 50 foot) work depicts the biblical account of the rainbow God showed to Noah after the flood and is inscribed with the passage: “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:13).

However, when the telephone exchange became obsolete, the building was ordered demolished to make way for apartment buildings in 2009.

Syrkin led a series of protests to save the mural, the first major work he created after moving to Israel, saying at the time that he was “offended to the bottom of his heart” by the decision to destroy it.

Following the protests, Jerusalem authorities authorized a plan to save the work.

Syrkin died in 2012. “He knew that he saved it and went in peace,” his daughter Stella Syrkin told Haaretz.

“He created it in a burst of creativity after the Yom Kippur War in the hopes of peace,” she said.

High Holiday services for American Jewish soldiers near Aachen, Germany, in 1944 — just miles from the Nazi frontline. pic.twitter.com/Q6NgdY92Ru

— Hungry Chipmunk (@hungrychipmunk) September 12, 2021

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