This is not an "occupation." It is legitimate and entirely lawful self-defense. It would be a lie — a blood libel — for the United States to declare Gaza to be occupied territory.

Under international law, a military occupation may continue as long as there is belligerence, as there certainly continues to be.

Had Israeli troops remained, Israel would be criticized. Now that they have left, there is still criticism. For some, Israel can do no right.

Jerusalem is more complicated... These are not occupied territories. Nor is the rest of East Jerusalem which is part of a united city.

Israel twice offered to end its presence in more than 90% of the West Bank in exchange for peace. The Palestinian leadership refused these offers and are thus responsible for the current situation.

The bill proposed by Levin and his fellow Democrats encourages the refusal of Palestinian leaders to negotiate painful compromises that are essential to achieving peace. It also rewards the pay-to-slay and terrorist policies... It sends a dangerous message to Palestinian naysayers: you do not have to negotiate or compromise; the United States will compel Israel to give in to your demands without requiring the Palestinians to negotiate, compromise or give up terrorism.

A far better bill would be one that conditioned reopening the Palestinian embassy on a willingness of the Palestinian leadership to return to the negotiating table and engage in genuine and honest discussions leading toward a peaceful two-state solution that assured security for Israel and autonomy for the West Bank Palestinians. (There can be no solution for Gaza except a military one as long as Hamas remains in charge, and persists in its terrorism and refuses to recognize Israel.)

Throughout 2016, a year rife with global Islamist terrorism and horrific human rights violations, the UN General Assembly passed 20 resolutions against Israel and four against all other countries combined. At UNESCO, an Arab–backed resolution erased any historic link between the Jewish people and Judaism’s holiest sites, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. It also rebranded Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs as exclusively Muslim sites. The resolution also “deeply regrets” Israel’s refusal to remove these sites from its national heritage list..."

UNSC 2334 called Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and the settlements "occupied Palestinian territories" but the Congress rejected this. H.Res.11 rejected UNSC 2334. 0n July 1st 2017 the Congress approved H.Res.11 - Objecting to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 as an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace, and for other purposes. H.Res.11 "Calls for such resolution to be repealed or fundamentally altered

On January 13, 2017 JEAN-PATRICK GRUMBERG wrote in dreuz.info "In a historic trial carefully forgotten by the media, the 3rd Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Versailles declared that Israel is the legal occupant of the 'West Bank'."

Until 1948 Jews were a majority of the population in Jerusalem. On December 11, 2017 Amb. Dore Gold wrote in the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs "By the mid-19th century, the British Consulate in Jerusalem made the following determination, according to this report, which I found in the Public Record Office in Kew, it states that Jews were a majority in Jerusalem, when? already in 1863 – that’s long before Theodor Herzl, before the Britt’s arrived, or Lord Balfour."

"See the guy on the right, William Seward, he was Secretary of State of the United States during the American civil war, under President Abraham Lincoln.

"When Seward’s term ended, he visited the holy land, he visited Jerusalem. And he wrote a memoir. And in his memoir, it is written, 'There is a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.'" See William Seward, Travels Around the World (1873)

Jews were a majority of the population in Jerusalem until they were expelled by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948. In 1948 British General Glubb Pasha lead the Jordanian Arab Legion to expel all the Jews from Hevron, East Jerusalem and the 'West Bank'. Not only they did ethnic cleansing but they destroyed dozens of ancient synagogues and thousands of Ancient Jewish Tombstones in the Sacred Ancient Jewish Cemetery of Mount of Olives to try to erase all evidence of Jewish History.

According to the Palestinians Arabs themselves most "Palestinians" are migrants from other Arab Countries. On March 23, 2012 MEMRI reported "Hamas Minister of the Interior and of National Security Fathi Hammad Slams Egypt over Fuel Shortage in Gaza Strip, and Says: "Half of the Palestinians Are Egyptians and the Other Half Are Saudis" (Please see video in the link below)

Even though 20% of the Israeli population is Israeli Arab and Arabs are allowed to live anywhere in Israel, Abbas calls for the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from Judea and Samaria (including Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall). On July 29, 2013 Reuters reported "...Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state..."

In conclusion, Israel must emphasize that Jerusalem is to Judaism as Mecca is to Islam. Jerusalem is the spiritual capital of Judaism, the spiritual capital of Islam is Mecca. Jews around the world face Jerusalem when they pray, Muslims face Mecca even when in or around Jerusalem. Jews were not allowed to pray in Jerusalem's Western Wall while it was under Jordanian occupation (1948-1967) and now the Democrats are trying to get the Jews expelled from the Western Wall again.

Twenty years after the collapse of the political process, Israel is now insisting on repeating exactly the same perceptual error vis-à-vis Hamas, with the idea that an “economic settlement” will take the place of a political settlement. Economic easing and a partial relaxation of the so-called Israeli “siege” of the Gaza Strip are meant, like the spurned territorial concessions of the 1990s, to inspire Hamas and all the other Palestinian terrorist elements in Gaza to lay down their arms and make peace with Israel.

In recent years, this notion has become a cornerstone of Israel’s policy toward Gaza, comporting as it does with Israel’s reluctance to engage in further military campaigns in the Strip. So great has Israel’s attachment to this misguided idea become that it has begun to misrepresent Hamas terrorism as “disobedience” that has nothing to do with the organization’s official goal of destroying the Jewish state, which Hamas makes no attempt to conceal.

Not even the violence of the Gaza war in May could change this outlook among Israelis. On the contrary: it anchored the assumption that an economic settlement was possible. This perception reveals that Israelis have not yet internalized the fact that like the PLO, which was unwilling to accept the existence of Israel in any shape or form and expressed that view with violence even as it pretended to negotiate, Hamas’ strategy is based on a combination of negotiations and terrorism. This combination of a false willingness to negotiate and constant violent behavior also characterizes Iran in its relations with the US as it attempts to forge a path toward a nuclear weapon. This approach works well for terrorist entities because their Western enemies, be they American or Israeli, remain committed to the idea of “either/or” — either war or concessions are the pathway to peace.

There is no fundamental difference between the PLO and Hamas. As far as Israel is concerned, they feel the same way: the goal is Israel’s total destruction. Yet Israel repeats its mistakes by artificially imposing Western thought patterns on its enemies.

Political folly is not fate, however. It’s time for Israel to sober up and recognize that economic regulation carries no promise whatsoever of a secure peace.

The prime minister’s speech opened and closed with the theme that Israel is a “lighthouse in a stormy sea.”

Bennett called Israel “a beacon of democracy, diverse by design, innovative by nature, and eager to contribute to the world — despite being in the toughest neighborhood on earth.”

Bennett did not mention the Palestinians, nor did he bring up climate change, an issue many other world leaders focused on.

In the speech, he also highlighted Israel’s treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and the 2020 Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

“Alongside our old friends, we are gaining new friends — in the Middle East and beyond,” he said.

Bennett alluded to the 38 countries that boycotted “the racist, anti-Semitic, Durban conference.”

“It’s a choice between darkness and light,” Bennett concluded. “A bit of light dispels much darkness.”

“The lighthouse among the stormy seas — stands tall, stands strong, and her light shines brighter than ever.”

Pointing to the 38 countries that opted out of last week’s Durban IV Conference, marking 20 years since the World Conference of Racism, which devolved into antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, Bennett said: “This conference was originally meant to be against racism, but over the years turned into a conference of racism, against Israel and the Jewish people. And the world has had enough of this. I thank the 38 countries who chose truth over lies and skipped the conference.”

The prime minister specifically thanked the US for being a “longtime, trusted friend,” citing the vote last week to fund $1bn. In Iron Dome batteries.

Bennett lamented that “for way too long, Israel was defined by wars with our neighbors. But this is not what Israel is about.”

“Israelis don’t wake up in the morning thinking about the conflict. Israelis want to lead a good life, take care of our families, and build a better world for our children,” he stated, “which means that from time to time, we might need to leave our jobs, say goodbye to our families, and rush to the battlefield to defend our country, just like my friends and I have had to do ourselves. They should not be judged for it.”

Israelis, Bennett said, are “determined to look ahead, to build a brighter future.”

While Israel is focused on doing good, it still faces a threat from a nuclear Iran, Bennett said.

“Iran's nuclear weapon program is at a critical point,” he warned. “All red lines have been crossed. Inspections — ignored. All wishful-thinking — proven false. Iran is violating the [International Atomic Energy Agency’s] safeguard agreements — and it's getting away with it.”

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Monday said he was seeking approval to resume a war crimes investigation into Afghanistan, focusing on the actions of the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) militia.

A statement said the request was being made to the court's judges in light of developments since the Islamist Taliban movement seized control of Afghanistan in a lightning advance last month.

Prosecutors had previously also looked into suspected crimes by US forces and Afghan government troops. But prosecutor Karim Khan, six months into his nine-year tenure, said they would now "deprioritize" that element of the probe due to lack of resources, and instead focus on "the scale and nature of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court".

The ICC had already spent 15 years looking into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan before opening a full investigation last year.

But that probe was put on hold by the Afghan government, which said it was investigating the crimes itself. The Hague-based ICC is a court of last resort, intervening only when a member country is unable or unwilling to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. Khan said the fall of the internationally recognized Afghan government and its replacement by the Taliban represented a "significant change of circumstances".

Three prominent Iraqi leaders are facing arrest warrants after they participated in a conference that called for peace with Israel, Agence France-Presse reported Sunday.

The conference, held Friday in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, featured more than 300 attendees.

Organized by the US-based think tank the Center for Peace Communications, the conference called for Iraq to make peace with Israel and normalize relations with it in the context of the Abraham Accords.

The Iraqi government and other leaders were apoplectic at news of the conference, with the government calling it “illegal.”

Shia extremist cleric Moqtada Sadr demanded the participants be arrested, and pro-Iran MP Ahmad Assadi called them “traitors.”

Arrest warrants were quickly issued for tribal leader Wissam al-Hardan, Culture Ministry official Sahar al-Tai, and ex-MP Mithal al-Alusi, who all attended the conference.

Tai had addressed the conference, saying, “We demand our integration into the Abraham Accords.”

Iraqi Sunni Tribal Leader Sheikh Wissam Al-Hardan at a Peace Conference in Erbil: We Demand to Join the Abraham Accords and to Establish Full Diplomatic Relations Between the Signatories and Israel #Iraq#Israel#abraham_accordspic.twitter.com/4OmmMnrv7j

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 27, 2021

Whatever the tensions between the Democratic Party and Israel, they aren't anywhere near the point that the mainstream of the party would begrudge the Jewish state funding for a technological marvel that, over a decade of operation, has saved countless civilian lives by shooting down thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately at Israel by Hamas and other terrorist groups.

As it turned out, undermining Israel's security is enough of a priority for at least some House progressives that they're fully prepared to humiliate a president from their own party on the day Biden told the UN General Assembly that "the commitment of the United States to Israel's security is without question."

Support for Iron Dome should be a no-brainer - all the more so since the system is now being deployed by the U.S. to protect American troops. There is no conceivable argument that denying funding puts pressure on Israel to show greater military restraint (quite the opposite) or helps advance the cause of a two-state solution. The only coherent rationale is to give Hamas a better chance to kill Israelis in the next war.

To choose the only war out of the 3 (not 4)* after iron dome deployment, where the abduction and murder of Jewish teenagers were clearly an important factor in shaping the Israeli response, is dishonest at best.

2/

— ~Jachnun Supremacist~ ????? ?? ?????? (@JachnunEmpire) September 26, 2021

How can you possibly analyze if the Israeli response was less harsh, the same, or more harsh after deployment of the iron dome if you don’t have the numbers of the very thing it was designed to help combat? So I added them for you; numbers provided by the IDF.

4/ pic.twitter.com/o9DUlh8bX0

— ~Jachnun Supremacist~ ????? ?? ?????? (@JachnunEmpire) September 26, 2021

Progressive Democrats in Congress attempted to gut $1 billion in funding for the Iron Dome, the missile shield that prevents Hamas from firing rockets at Israeli civilians. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wept on the floor of the House after colleagues defeated her plot and restored funding to the Iron Dome. You'd be upset too if you'd just failed to strip funding from a life-saving system that saves the wrong sort of lives.

Earlier generations of Israel-haters were careful to couch their hostility in talk of settlements, checkpoints, security detention and the military courts. This crew are against a purely defensive anti-missile system that reduces the number of Israeli children blown up in their bedrooms.

The Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel, they alone have ever been sovereign in the territory, and they keep trying to give a state to the people they are supposed to be oppressing and keep getting blown up in response.

That AOC was outmaneuvered is good news for Israel but even better for the U.S. American influence is already crumbling in west Asia. It cannot afford to lose another ally.

.@jstreetdotorg has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to politicians that voted no on Iron Dome.

They either don't support Iron Dome, or don't have a clue. Either way, they're dangerous. https://t.co/kIeZ2p9zvB

— Conspiracy Libel (@ConspiracyLibel) September 27, 2021

I’m just gonna leave this here. https://t.co/QWFR4Ypn6Mpic.twitter.com/OW8ICZPSF0

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 26, 2021

The perfect screenshot doesn't exis pic.twitter.com/kEAlSUolf4

— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) September 26, 2021

Says Peter Beinart, who openly calls for the destruction of Israel. pic.twitter.com/PDKjquGPyv

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 27, 2021

Why is @RepThomasMassie our 'Antisemite of the Week'?

- Only R to vote against Iron Defense Dome funding
- Only R to vote against labeling BDS as antisemitic
- Voted AGAINST Holocaust education
- Trivializes Holocaust with vile COVID comparisons

More: https://t.co/dPBpwHFM1wpic.twitter.com/6UN2G0nctN

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 27, 2021

Military chief Aviv Kohavi on Monday visited two soldiers seriously wounded in a gun battle while trying to capture terror group members in the northern West Bank on Sunday.

Members of the Duvdevan counter-terrorism unit, Captain “Daled” and Sergeant first-class “Yud,” identified only by their Hebrew first name initial, were transported by helicopter to Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus for treatment early Sunday morning.

“Your sons are warriors, as is their character. They acted in the operation while showing great courage and fearlessness,” Kohavi told their families, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces.

Five Palestinian suspects were killed in the raids, which targeted alleged members of a Hamas cell in the West Bank, preventing a major terror attack, officials said.

“It is important for you to know that if we had not stopped this network, of the Hamas terror organization, they would have been at an advanced stage and would have carried out attacks in Israeli cities,” the IDF chief said.

“Your sons prevented these attacks,” he added.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz also visited the wounded troops and their families on Monday.

As the conditions of the IDF troops seriously wounded in the anti-Hamas operation in the West Bank continue to improve, a senior IDF medical officer said that the two men might not have survived if not for the quick thinking of the paramedic who treated them.

“They got the most advanced medical treatment in the world,” the senior officer said. "Those two men, anywhere else in the world, would have likely died before getting to the hospital. The chances of getting to the hospital alive was really small."

Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, where the two men are being treated, announced Monday that their conditions were improving. One of them regained consciousness and is expected to be removed from a ventilator, and has communicated with his family. The other is scheduled to undergo a lengthy operation for his wounds.

The two troops, a platoon commander and his soldier, were seriously injured during a firefight in the West Bank village of Burqin when they engaged armed Palestinian terrorists. The IDF’s preliminary investigation is looking into the circumstances surrounding their injuries but is leaning towards the possibility that they were injured by friendly fire.

One of the men was shot in the chest and lost one of his lungs while the other man was shot in the jaw and stomach. The two are also suffering from shrapnel wounds.

“They were very seriously injured... and from the moment they were shot, the 18-year-old EMT-P went straight to treat them. The time we have to get to an injured person and give them medical treatment is seconds,” the officer said, adding that while “most armies around the world have their paramedics in the back, in the IDF they are in the front.”

The Israeli military, the Shin Bet internal security agency and Border Police's joint raid overnight Sunday on Hamas infrastructure on the West Bank was an unusual event, owing not only to its large scope and deadly outcome — five dead Palestinian militants and two seriously wounded IDF soldiers — but to its implications for the future.

Hamas is trying to have it both ways — the terror outfit is negotiating an agreement with Israel on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following their last standoff in May while concurrently scheming terrorist acts against the Jewish state on the West Bank.

Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar has made it his goal to alleviate the plight of the Palestinian enclave's residents through an arrangement with Israel while solidifying his organization's image as an armed Islamist group girded for conflict with the so-called "Zionist occupier."

Hamas has been pushed aside lately as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group threw down the gauntlet several times in the form of launching rocket fire into Israel and orchestrating the escape of the six security prisoners from the maximum-security Gilboa Prison earlier this month. Hamas fears losing its dominance on the Palestinian street if people start feeling like the group has abandoned the armed struggle against Israel. That is why it has been working as of late to establish armed, well-organized terrorist capabilities in the central and northern West Bank with help from the group's top brass, some of whom are operating from Turkey and Lebanon.

Building such capabilities took many months, perhaps even more than a year. It included funneling funds for the purchase of weapons by terror units that have already begun training for an attack and conveying the know-how necessary to produce homemade explosives. The militants themselves are villagers from the Ramallah and Jenin areas, places where Hamas has long had a very strong presence.

We've already resigned ourselves to not seeing "terrorists" in headlines about those threatening Israel.

But at least call them "militants," or "suspected militants," or "gunmen."

These were not simply "Palestinians."

Shocking headline, @AP. pic.twitter.com/0WJ389oMQm

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 27, 2021

Clashes and firefights broke out between Palestinians and Israeli security forces on Sunday night as about 500 Jewish worshipers visited Joseph's Tomb in Nablus in the West Bank, with two Border Policemen injured by Palestinian rioters.

As the Israeli forces and worshipers entered the city, dozens of Palestinians rioted, throwing rocks and explosives toward their vehicles and firing toward security forces, according to Border Police.

Border Police responded to the riots with live fire and riot dispersal methods. One officer was lightly wounded by an explosive and transferred for treatment to an IDF clinic. Another officer was injured lightly by a stone that hit his face and was treated at the scene.

Amid the firefight, an armored vehicle belonging to Border Police sustained significant damage.

Joint Arab List member Aida Touma-Suleiman garnered harsh criticism Sunday for publicly expressing support for the newly released Khalida Jarrar who had been arrested for involvement in terrorist activity.

Jarrar is a Palestinian lawmaker and a senior official at the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization, whose members carried out an attack in Samaria in 2018, killing 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and seriously wounding her father and sibling.

Jarrar was released on Sunday after a two-year sentence she received as part of a plea bargain with the Military Prosecution.

Touma-Suleiman posted a congratulatory message on Facebook that included a photo with her and Jarrar embracing. In the background, one can see Ahmad Sa'adat, secretary-general of the Popular Front, who orchestrated the failed assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi.

In November 2002, Samuel Milshevsky, who immigrated to Israel from Estonia a year earlier; Yehiav Elshad, 28, who immigrated from Azerbaijan; and student Inbal Weiss, 23, were murdered on a bus near Pardes Hanna by a suicide bomber sent by Mohammed Aradeh, one of six prisoners who escaped Gilboa Prison earlier this month. What did these two new immigrants and a student on her way to class do to anyone that warranted sentencing them to a terrible death by suicide bombing?

Four of the prisoners are convicted murderers who offered no shred of mercy to their victims. They took human lives at random. They don't deny and even take pride in what they did. In September 2002, escapee Yakub Kadari murdered Yosef Ajami - shooting at his car with an automatic weapon near Mevo Dotan in the West Bank. The same day, Kadari sent a suicide bomber to the Um al-Fahm Junction, killing police officer Moshe Hezkiyah, who approached the bomber.

In 2006, a car stopped to offer a ride to Eliyahu Asheri, 18. Inside was Iham Kamamji, another of the escapees, who levelled a pistol at Asheri's head and calmly pulled the trigger.

A Palestinian military court on Monday began the trial of 14 security officers charged with beating to death a prominent critic of President Mahmoud Abbas, in a case that has drawn widespread protests and calls for his resignation.

Nizar Banat's death following his arrest on June 24 has heightened criticism of Abbas' Palestinian Authority and his security forces, who human rights groups say regularly arrest critics in the West Bank. Abbas denies the charges.

An autopsy carried out the day Banat died showed he was struck in the head and over the body with metal rods, leading to his death. The PA, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank, has vowed to hold those responsible to account.

Appearing in Monday's court session in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the indicted officers pleaded not guilty as prosecutors read out a charge sheet including battery, abuse of power and violation of military instructions.

But Banat's family have demanded that senior Palestinian officials be held to account over his death, accusing Abbas and his prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, of deflecting blame.

Hebron: Palestinian security forces arrest Hussein Banat, a cousin of Anti-corruption activist Nizar Banat, who was beaten to death by Palestinian security officers. Hussein is one of the witnesses in the case. pic.twitter.com/Tsmc8SKHv9

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 27, 2021

Members of the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades wore what appears to be explosive-laden vests during a ceremony Friday night in the West Bank town of Jenin in commemoration of several Palestinians who were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces during the previous months.

In addition to the apparent explosive-laden vests, the militants wore a white garb signifying what they believe is a sign of their readiness to meet God as a martyr.

During the ceremony, a militant accompanying the suicide bombers threatened that factions would respond if Israeli forces entered Jenin.

“[We are] here in the Joint Operations Room in Jenin camp. The room consists of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and Saraya al-Quds. We warn the Zionist enemy against committing any foolishness and entering the Jenin camp, because we will be ready. We warn the Zionist enemy against committing any foolishness and entering the Jenin camp, and we will be ready for any Israeli attack or aggression,” the militant stated.

Sudan’s foreign minister has downplayed the country’s emerging ties with Israel, saying that there are currently no plans to establish an Israeli embassy in Khartoum.

In an interview published with The National Sunday, 11 months after the announcement of normalization between the countries, Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi said that there is “not any sign of normalization with Israel.”

Nonetheless, in April, the Sudanese cabinet abolished a 63-year-old Israel boycott law. And last week, Sudanese authorities seized assets of companies linked to the Hamas terror group, which rules the Gaza Strip.

“There is no talk at any official level,” al-Mahdi said, adding that “abolishing a law on boycotting Israel does not mean that we consider opening an Israeli embassy in Khartoum.”

Al-Mahdi said that Sudan agreed to normalization so as to improve economic ties with the rest of the globe by becoming a member of the World Trade Organization.

“We have been trying to be a member of the WTO whose terms stipulate that there should be no boycotts between member states,” al-Mahdi said. “We want to be a country open to the world and different partnerships.” Ties with Israel are “completely linked to lifting Sudan off the US state sponsors of terrorism list,” she maintained.

Sudanese authorities have taken control of a dozen companies that officials say were linked to Hamas, shedding light on how the country served as a haven for the Palestinian militant group under former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.

Seized assets include real estate, company shares, a hotel in a prime Khartoum location, an exchange bureau, a TV station, and more than a million acres of farmland.

Hamas has lost a foreign base where members and supporters could live, raise money, and channel Iranian weapons and funds to Gaza.

Iran denied access to UN inspectors who were seeking to visit the Karaj centrifuge assembly site on Sunday, several months after a sabotage incident at the facility, which Tehran blamed on Israel.

Citing several unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal reported that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were seeking to replace and fix up cameras at the site as part of a deal struck earlier this month.

The IAEA confirmed later Sunday that its inspectors were turned away from the site, with a statement from the agency’s head, Rafael Grossi, saying the move violated the September 12 agreement to allow inspectors to service the surveillance equipment.

“The Director General reiterates that all of the agency’s activities referred to in the joint statement for all identified agency equipment and Iranian facilities and locations are indispensable in order to maintain continuity of knowledge,” the UAEA said in a statement said.

Grossi in his latest report on Iran informed member states that the Islamic republic had granted all other access from September 20 to 22.

Agency inspectors had been allowed to service monitoring and surveillance equipment and to replace storage media at “all necessary locations” except the Karaj workshop, the statement said.

The European Union and United States on Monday urged Iran to allow inspectors access to a nuclear site, while Tehran argued the facility was exempt from a recent agreement with the United Nations watchdog.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sunday that it had been denied “indispensable” access to the TESA Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop near Tehran, contrary to a September 12 agreement with Iran.

The facility was the site of a sabotage incident in June, which Iran blamed on Israel. Without disclosing details, Iranian authorities acknowledged that the alleged strike had damaged the building.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi on Monday rejected the charge on Twitter.

“During the discussions in Tehran and Vienna, Iran indicated that… equipment related to this Complex are not included for servicing,” he wrote, referring to IAEA work on its surveillance equipment.

Sunday’s IAEA statement “isn’t accurate and goes beyond the agreed terms,” he added.

pic.twitter.com/YK5NqsLlfI

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) September 27, 2021

Three people were injured Sunday in a fire at a research center belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran state TV reported.

Citing a statement from the IRGC, the report said the fire, at a site west of Tehran, was brought under control.

“With the efforts of the firefighters of this center, the fire was contained and the injured were taken to the hospital,” the statement said.

The report did not indicate the extent of the damage from the blaze, or the possible cause.

The powerful IRGC controls major aspects of Iran’s security facilities and operations.

Several mysterious incidents have in recent years damaged Iranian facilities, including those tied to its defense establishment or its nuclear program.

Iran has blamed some of the incidents on sabotage by Israel.

Israel has officially neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

First the Taliban submitted an official request for U.N. credentials to represent Afghanistan.

Now Pakistan is calling to oust the ambassador who currently holds the Afghan seat.

Am I the only one at the United Nations who thinks this the height of folly?https://t.co/YcSZouchuK

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 27, 2021

2/2 Friday Sermon by North Miami Imam Dr. Fadi Yousef Kablawi: What Does the West Want for Afghan Women? Afghanistan’s Got Talent? Miss Afghanistan? Shari’a Is the Solution for Human Suffering pic.twitter.com/BxIrNpECrI

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 27, 2021

A member of the militant Islamist group that now governs Afghanistan voiced his disappointment today that his fiancée will be unable to create an age-appropriate wish-list for wedding invitees to consult at her preferred retailer, because that chain of toy stores went out of business.

Omar Massoud, 29, claimed a bride from among various daughters of a family that had supported the previous regime. His position within a Taliban unit that overran Kabul as the US and allies withdrew their military presence allowed him first choice of the captives, and he selected Fala, who, until Massoud’s group shut it down, had attended third grade at a local school. The fighter expressed excitement at his upcoming nuptials, then frustration that his bride-to-be will be denied a gift registry at Toys “R” Us now that the latter went bankrupt and closed all of its branches.

“It’s a big problem, because there aren’t any real alternatives out there,” he lamented. “I was hoping we could get her some hijab-wearing Barbies, maybe a Barbie Dream Humvee that the Americans abandoned, or something. Her friends and family could know exactly what toys to get her, like maybe an E-Z Bake oven, or a Snoopy snowcone machine. Now we won’t be able to celebrate as we should.”

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We should reflect deeply on our withdrawal from Afghanistan. The lesson of Afghanistan for the Jews—a lesson we should have learned a thousand times—is that if you want to survive, you need to rely on yourself. You cannot subcontract your defense and protection to anyone, least of all to faux human rights activists and their deluded supporters who sit in ivory towers: intellectuals who write and think all day, who preen with academic arrogance, but are incapable of understanding what is really going on in people’s hearts. Preoccupied with their shallow self-righteousness, they ignore even basic human emotions, motivations, and drives; bleeding hearts who have no heart for bleeding Jews. It is all academic for them. We should have the courage, the decency, the honesty to say that our side, the liberal side, is wrong. We, too, are writing and supporting untruths—vicious, malicious, fallacious, audacious lies.

All of us, especially young adults, teenagers, and university students—you need to feel antisemitism in your kishkes. Learn to appreciate subtlety, nuance, and context. Develop the capacity to distinguish between legitimate critique and the new mutated form of antisemitism dressed up in the garments of pathological anti-Zionism. If you oppose Israeli policies, say so. Be active. Try to influence and make a difference. But whatever you do, you cannot give comfort, cooperation and credibility to those who hate your people. Often what they oppose is not the excesses of the Israeli military, but that a Jewish army exists at all. Jewish tank commanders, Jewish fighter pilots are disorienting to a world that had grown accustomed over the centuries to passive, disempowered Jewish victims—the kind that Rudi Vrba described.

President Roosevelt read the Vrba-Wetzler report sometime in the summer or fall of 1944. Although nothing like the eyewitness account and detailed sketches of the machinery of extermination were previously documented, the broad intentions of the Nazis to annihilate European Jewry were known as early as 1942. The Americans knew. The British knew. The Swiss knew. The Vatican knew. Even The New York Times knew. The victims, themselves, did not know, until the doors were slammed shut and Zyklon pellets were released into what they thought were shower rooms. The Allies never bombed the tracks or the gas chambers, as Vrba urged. Roosevelt insisted that the best way to save the Jews of Europe was for the Allies to win the war as quickly as possible.

For his entire life, Vrba regretted that his report failed to save the Jews of Hungary. George Klein reminded Vrba that he saved at least one Hungarian Jew. To save even one life is to save the entire world, according to our sages. Furthermore, said Klein, you played a role in saving at least 100,000, perhaps 200,000, Hungarian Jews.

In the aftermath of the report, international pressure was placed upon the Hungarian regent, Miklos Horthy, and he intervened to stop the deportations in July—only one week before the scheduled final transport of the Jews of Budapest. Klein suggested to his new friend that even if Hungarian Jews had read the report in full, most of them would have still gotten on those trains. “Denial is natural,” said Klein, who had himself shared the report with 12 other people. None believed him.

George Klein and Rudi Vrba went on to live full and productive lives. They made significant contributions to the well-being of the world. It is the best response to those who hate Jews. Keep moving forward. Find meaning and purpose. Help others. Show compassion. Fight for justice. Defend your people. Resist evil. Warn the world.

The Rutgers faculty and the supporters of the bill to deny Israel Iron Dome share one common view: terrorism against the Jewish state is acceptable, in their minds, because they devalue Israel’s existence and because justice for the Palestinian Arabs is desirable—at any cost—including Jewish lives.

Why should Israel have the advantages of modern technology and weaponry—even with strictly defensive purposes—if the ever-aggrieved Palestinians are, in their minds, dispossessed, occupied, suppressed, and stateless? Why should Israelis be spared the threat of being murdered in their homes, schools, discos, and pizza parlors if terrorists—and their apologists—have decided they have a moral and legal right to carry out such acts because they seek "social justice" and are "victims", it is falsely asserted, of Zionism’s imperialism, colonialism, and militarism?

This explains why the Left has regularly glossed over terroristic behavior on the part of Islamists—Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Al Aqsa Brigades, or others—and has romanticized this violence as “resistance.” But that idealized world requires that state actors behave in rational ways, something that is clearly absent in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in which Islamist theology, apocalyptic views of the world, a longing for martyrdom, and genocidal ethnic hatred underlie the ideology of Israel’s current enemies, all of whom are terrorist groups and not conventional armies.

This rationalization, that violence is an acceptable, not to say welcomed, component of seeking social justice—that is, that the inherent “violence” of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism will be met by the same violence as the oppressed attempt to throw off their oppressors—is exactly the style of self-defeating rationality that in this age has proven to be an intractable part of the war on terror.

America-hating and Israel-hating academics and policymakers have not infrequently wished for harm to come to these countries at the hands of the victim groups to whom they readily give their sympathies. They frequently, and mistakenly, ascribe to poverty and helplessness the inclination to lead to terrorism on the part of otherwise weak and oppressed individuals, although a glance at terrorist backgrounds proves that false.

And, like Leftist apologists for other examples of revolutionary violence, they see an opportunity for the tables to be turned on the oppressors and an equal distribution of suffering to be brought about in the resulting power shift.

Additionally, the Left’s being in the thrall of multiculturalism has meant that radical members of Congress like the “Squad,” not to mention university faculty and students, have been seeped in an ideology that refuses to demarcate any differences between a democratic state struggling to protect itself and aggressive, genocidal foes who wish to destroy it with their unending assaults. For the multiculturalist Left, the moral strengths of the two parties are equivalent, even though the jihadist foes of Israel, for example, have waged an unending struggle with the stated aim of extirpating the Jewish state through the murder of Jews.

Thus, this inclination to worship multiculturalism forces liberals to make excuses for those cultures which have obvious, often irredeemable, moral defects, such as the Islamist foes who currently threaten Israel and the West.

It also, apparently, justifies stripping Israel of its very right to defend its citizens from being murdered by the genocidal impulses of Hamas, even when those defensive weapons protect Arab and Muslim lives as well as those of Jews. But in the name of social justice, only the perceived suffering, human rights, justice, and very lives of the "downtrodden" Palestinian Arabs are of interest to Leftist radicals, and if Jews have to die as part of Palestinian self-determination, so be it.

If this is not naked anti-Semitism played out very publicly so that anyone with a moral compass can see it, then nothing is.

“The Holocaust That Never Happened” Hannah Baron (20, Los Angeles) interviews Efraim Donitz (83, Los Angeles)

“I hear you want to know about the Holocaust that never happened.”

This was Efraim Donitz calling me back to respond to my request for an interview. I arrived at his house in Los Angeles the next day and sat across from him in his living room.

He was only 3 when his family moved to a ghetto in Transnistria some 80 years ago. I doubted he would remember much. But I was wrong. “I remember everything,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

Despite his vivid memories, he spoke of the period like he was giving a history lecture, rather than relaying personal experience. But there were brief moments in which Efraim was overcome with emotion. They happened most frequently when he spoke about how the world remembers—or, rather, doesn’t remember—those events rather than the events themselves.

A few years ago, he and his wife embarked on a pilgrimage through the sites of the occupation. He wanted to show these places to his children and grandchildren because he had been there: “I lost my mother there, and I lost my sister. It’s a part of my life.”

When they were looking for Babi Yar in Kyiv, their tour guide took them to the wrong memorial. For a long time, they couldn’t find a driver who would be willing to take them to the actual site of the massacres. When they finally got there, they found it desecrated. Later, they were told that their tour guide and the drivers likely knew exactly where Babi Yar was, but refused to take them. It made them angry.

Back home in Los Angeles, Efraim tried to get others to hear about it. “I’ve tried everywhere, nobody wants to listen,” he said. He volunteered to teach at the Holocaust museum, and though the museum’s donors appeared very enthusiastic about the idea, he never got a call back.

“I’m just disappointed in the whole thing.” This time, the crack in his demeanor was almost a sob.

Most of the world didn’t have an obligation to remember Babi Yar, he said. But Jews do.

“That is why this is the Holocaust that never happened.”

During the middle days of the Sukkot festival, small groups of haredi kids can be seen wandering along the thoroughfares of New York City’s Upper West Side, asking passersby whether they are Jewish. If the answer is affirmative, they will proffer a lulav and an etrog so that the same passerby can perform one of the sacred traditions of the holiday. The kids are effusive but also polite, and most people who encounter them, Jewish or not, do so good-naturedly.

But not everybody. Walking up Amsterdam Avenue last Thursday, I caught sight of a middle-aged woman scolding a haredi boy of about bar mitzvah age who was standing behind a display table. As I got closer, I noticed that she was jabbing her finger in his direction while she pontificated—although amusingly, the look on the kid’s face suggested that whatever she was saying was going in one ear and out the other.

Once I was in earshot, the first thing I heard her say was, “there’s enough anti-Semitism around without you people making it worse.” I hadn’t planned to interject, but I couldn’t let a remark like that (“you people”) go unanswered. So I faced her and said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you should know that Jews are never responsible for causing anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a non-Jewish problem.”

Arching her eyebrows at me, her first response was to say, “I’m Jewish,” with the inflection in her voice insinuating that since I probably wasn’t, I should mind my own business. As I speak with an English accent and was dressed casually without a kipah on my head, I can understand why she might have come to that conclusion, but I quickly disabused her on that score before explaining that being Jewish doesn’t give you a pass when it comes to making anti-Semitic comments. “You’re telling a Jewish child that he’s provoking anti-Semitism just by standing in the street,” I told her.

At this point, her commentary became a whole lot worse. The young boy she was yelling at wasn’t wearing a mask, and this was the source of her displeasure. Was I not aware, she asked me, that “these kids are coming up here from these communities in Brooklyn where none of them are vaccinated and they don’t wear masks?”

Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum is one of the candidates to head the Jewish Agency, the largest Jewish nonprofit organization in the world. If elected, she would become the first woman to head the agency.

Established in 1929, the Jewish Agency predates the state itself and acted as a central player in its establishment and development. Today, it facilitates aliyah to Israel, in addition to the absorption of immigrants and funds programs in Israel and around the Jewish Diaspora. “Its history and impact are immeasurable on the state of Israel,” Hassan-Nahoum told JNS.

Former chairman Isaac Herzog recently vacated the position when he became Israel’s 11th president this summer, following the seven-year term of Reuven Rivlin.

For now, Yaakov Hagoel is serving as acting chairman of the Jewish Agency. Traditionally, the prime minister suggests a candidate, who must be approved by nine of 10 members on the selection committee (including Hagoel and other representatives of the World Zionist Organization, Keren Hayesod and the Jewish Federations of North America), and with unanimous confirmation from the board of governors. The chosen successor will serve a four-year term.

I’m sure you’ve heard of them. IDF soldiers giving personal, eye-witness testimonies on camera about how they abused Palestinians during their time in the Israeli military. What could be more authentic?

Today, we’re going to examine three reasons why Breaking the Silence is not a credible organization, and instead, built on lies and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Get ready to bust through some fake news and connect to the true and authentic stories of Israel.

The first vote at the party conference
The first debate was on the adoption of constitutional laws to adhere to EHRC rulings following the damning report which had concluded the Labour Party acted unlawfully. There was not really much choice in this but the vote still had to pass. It was clear from the debate that this was going to receive a large majority. Jewish members spoke and received ovations – other members came out in solidarity. Very few dissented.

When one woman shouted out about ‘Palestine’ she was quickly silenced. When another raised the Palestinian flag they were told flags were not allowed in the conference hall. This was all million miles from the toxic atmosphere at the 2017 and 2019 events.

The second vote and a warning
The trouble here is that many of the people in the hall giving the Jewish members standing ovations – were also in the hall waving the Palestinian flag in 2019 or treating JVL as heroes in 2017. Many of these delegates are sheep, just leaning in the direction of the wind. At the moment that wind is blowing towards Keir Starmer.

Which is why, as welcome as it was to feel a different breeze in the hall, we cannot read too much into what we are witnessing. Yes there are some good signs – but there are bad signs also. Which brings me to the second vote.

Two sides of the same coin
The second debate was about a change to the leadership election process. Starmer wanted to change the system so as to make another Corbyn style takeover much more difficult.

This debate was different. Speaker after speaker took to the stand and this was a different breed. Most signalled their opposition to the changes. There was one who did it in a Corbyn t-shirt. Another had a JVL badge. Most had PSC lanyards.

Starmer won this vote too – but only just – with 52% of the vote. These delegates may have been forced to give up on the EHRC battle – but they were not willing to so easily surrender their hope for another Corbyn style project in the future.

It was an odd spectacle because the same ethical force drove both debates. On the one hand the floor roundly stood with their Jewish colleagues who had been so badly treated. On the other many refused to rule out repeating the exercise That contradiction is a sign of how much trouble the party is still in.

Nearly three-quarters of delegates at Labour Party conference have endorsed a new independent complaints process prompted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report into antisemitism the party.

But in a swipe at the remaining 24 per cent of delegates who failed to support the changes that the party were ordered to adopt by the watchdog, the Jewish Labour Movement’s vice-chair Ruth Smeeth branded the rebels as “racist.”

The changes to disciplinary procedures will affect the handling of complaints about antisemitism, Islamophobia, other forms of racism, sexual harassment, and discrimination.

Keir Starmer said the approval of the moves represented a “decisive and important day in the history of the Labour Party.”

He added:”I promised to tackle antisemitism in our party. We’ve now closed the door on a shameful chapter in our history. I want to acknowledge the courage of all the people who spoke up against it.”

After Labour’s ruling NEC had backed the moves earlier this month, under Labour’s rule book, they needed final approval at party conference.

When the results emerged on Sunday evening 73.6 per cent of delegates voted in favour of the changes, with 26 per cent opposing the EHRC’s recommendations.

And in an often emotional debate on the Brighton Centre conference floor a stream of Jewish Labour figures stepped up to speak in favour of the changes to disciplinary procedures, in a move aimed at repairing the damage of the Jeremy Corbyn era.

Delegates in the British Labour Party on Monday passed a resolution condemning Israel for allegedly perpetrating an “ongoing Nakba in Palestine,” drawing outcry from some party officials.

“Conference condemns the ongoing Nakba in Palestine, Israel’s militarised violence attacking the Al Aqsa mosque, the forced displacements from Sheikh Jarrah and the deadly assault on Gaza,” the motion passed at the main opposition party’s annual conference read.

“Nakba,” which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, is used by Palestinians to denote Israel’s establishment in 1948.

The motion brought by Young Labour passed at Monday’s conference with about twice as many votes for as against, according to the Jewish News website.

It added that “together with the de facto annexation of Palestinian land by accelerated settlement building and statements of Israel’s intention to proceed with annexation, it is ever clearer that Israel is intent on eliminating any prospects of Palestinian self-determination.”

The delegates recognized “unequivocal” reports by the Israeli left-wing NGO B’Tselem and the New York-based Human Rights Watch that branded Israel as an “apartheid” state.

The motion also noted a Trades Union Congress in 2020 that described Israel’s West Bank policies, including settlement building and what it charged was annexation, as “another significant step towards the UN Crime of Apartheid.”

Different leader, but same Jew hatred and antisemitism in @UKLabour! #Lab21https://t.co/NyXTsc9lb7

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 27, 2021

The political editor of radio station LBC has accused notorious anti-Israel activist Tony Greenstein of “assaulting” him at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference.

The incident on Sunday evening took place during a Jewish Voice for Labour event listed in the Labour Party official guide, entitled: ‘Labour in crisis: Tackling racism in the party’. It was chaired by JVL’s Jenny Mason and attended by former shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

LBC’s Theo Usherwood tweeted: “I have just been been forcibly removed from the JVL fringe event at the Labour Party….I was assaulted by Tony Greenstein, who was in the event, and was expelled from the Labour Party for antisemitism… he grabbed my phone.

Usherwood was later allowed back into the meeting and tweeted: “Listening to one speaker declare the EHRC findings are being used by ‘Starmer to run a tyrannical regime’.”

Greenstein was declared bankrupt earlier this year after losing a libel case after being called a “notorious antisemite”. He was ordered to pay Campaign Against Antisemitism more than £81,000 after unsuccessfully suing for libel. He also lost a subsequent appeal.

.@nytimes are toxic, they consistently downplay antisemitism or make antisemitic comments. According to this article by @_stephencastle antisemitism in @uklabour was “allegations” & “infighting” he doesn’t mention @uklabour breaking the equalities act! https://t.co/tLWZ7IjzY6

— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) September 26, 2021

Dr. Osama Abuirshaid Executive Director of American Muslims for Palestine: Israel Is a Parasite That Sucks the Blood of America; The More Americans Know about Israel the Less They Like It #Israel#antisemitism#IronDome@AMPalestine@OsamaAbuirshaidpic.twitter.com/QWEk1NQ0wV

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 27, 2021

Seemingly out of nowhere and for no good reason, Israel built a wall that has, according to Salmon, “facilitated the continued annexation of Palestinian territories by Israel.”

In fact, the construction of the security barrier was in direct response to the unprecedented wave of violence unleashed by Palestinian terrorists beginning in September 2000 against Israeli citizens during what became known as the Second Intifada.

This dark period saw over 1,000 Israeli civilians and soldiers killed. An additional 7,000 were injured as a result of suicide bombings and shootings. The Israeli government thus approved and began construction of the security barrier in an attempt to stop rampant Palestinian terrorist infiltrations and murders.

Due to the security fence’s effectiveness, suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians entering Israel from the West Bank decreased sharply. The number of such attacks fell by 90 percent. In 2002, 457 Israelis died from terrorist attacks. In 2009, that figure had dropped to eight Israelis.

Despite the barrier’s success, a spasm of recent violence emanating from the West Bank attests to the continued precariousness of Israel’s security:
- On September 8, hundreds of Palestinians rioted across the West Bank and Jerusalem, in solidarity with the six security prisoners who had broken out of Gilboa Prison earlier in the week.
- On September 8, a Palestinian man tried to stab two IDF soldiers at a hitchhiking station in the West Bank.
- On September 13, a Palestinian teenager from the West Bank stabbed two Israeli men inside a pharmacy near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, moderately wounding them.
- On September 17, dozens of Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem threw stones and hurled firecrackers at the police and at Jewish homes.

The Daily Beast article praises human smuggling in Israel. However, The Daily Beast covers the scourge of human trafficking quite differently when it is happening outside of Israel:
- How Mexico’s Cartels Are Behind the Border Kid Crisis
- The Border Crackdown is Forcing Migrants to Become Mexican Cartel Slaves
- The Smugglers Cashing In on Children’s Misery
- 2 Smugglers Jailed for Death of Aylan

Moreover, The Daily Beast and other outlets are so fixated on lambasting Israel that they are oblivious to the dire state of human trafficking inside the Palestinian Authority (PA)-run West Bank. According to the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Affairs, the PA “does not criminally prohibit child trafficking or forced labor in accordance with international standards. In addition, laws criminalizing commercial sexual exploitation of children are insufficient because they do not criminalize the use, procuring, and offering of all male and female children for prostitution, the production of pornography, or pornographic performances. Further, there are no criminal penalties for recruiting children into non-state armed groups.”

Everyone knows Jews aren’t funny.

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) September 27, 2021

We’ve looked into it, and it appears that a Guardian op-ed arguing that the UN hasn’t condemned Israel enough isn’t a parody, and (based on the date it was published) doesn’t appear to be an April Fool’s joke or a Purim Spiel. Here’s the headline of the Sept. 25th piece, co-authored by long-time Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi and former Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi:

In addition to hurling false charges of apartheid and the antisemitic charge of “Jewish supremacy” at Israel, the modern revival to the 1975 Soviet-PLO ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution, the op-ed argues that only if the UN General Assembly (UNGA) acts to hold Jerusalem accountable and investigate their crimes can it “restore faith” in its ability to act on the most pressing issues. It also calls on the UNGA to form a “special UN committee” to “dismantle” Israel’s racist policies.

Evidently, the co-authors are somehow unaware that Israel is not only already on the UN’s “agenda”, but, year after year, is obsessively critical of of the Jewish state whilst ignoring truly horrific human rights abuses by other nations. From 2015 till today, according to UN Watch, the UNGA has passed 157 country specific condemnatory resolutions, 112 of which (71% of the total) were against Israel. By comparison, during that time, Iran only garnered 5 such condemnatory resolutions, North Korea 6, and Syria 8. China has not been condemned at all.

At the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), there have been 170 country specific condemnatory resolutions, 95 of which targeted Israel (56% of the total), which is nearly nine times as many as the resolutions critical of Iran. In fact, Israel is the only country at the UNHRC whose human rights record is examined under a special agenda item (No. 7), while all other countries’ records are scrutinized in the general debate. It has adopted zero resolutions on gross human rights abuses perpetrated by nations such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Gaza, Russia, Turkey and Zimbabwe.

In August, someone painted several racist and offensive slurs on a building at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. At the time, local news outlet WSBTV reported that the “Emory Autism Center has become the target of several crimes, including burglary and vandalism, including graffiti of racial slurs and swastikas.”

A police report for the incident also mentioned that vending machines in the building were vandalized, along with a glass door that had been shattered. A large rock was found several feet away.

“The area where racial slurs were reportedly written along the walls are near the workspace occupied by two African-American women and a swastika was in a hallway near a Jewish man’s office,” WSBTV reported.

In a statement, Emory University spokesperson Laura Diamond told the outlet: “These acts of racism and antisemitism are painful for all of us at the EAC and in the Emory community. They will not be tolerated, and every effort will be made to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

A week later, the perpetrator was charged with burglary second degree by Georgia law enforcement and named as Roy Lee Gordon, Jr. The College Fix reported on August 25 that the school was refusing to reveal Gordon’s race and that he wasn’t charged with a hate crime even though such slurs would typically lead to such a charge.

The Fix reported that the school refused to provide a copy of the police report, arrest warrant, or photos of the alleged vandalism.

When Gordon was arrested on August 20, Emory released a much more sanitized statement, saying, “Emory University is committed to fostering a safe and inclusive campus for all faculty, staff, students, patients and their families.”

I would like to share a story about my friend Motti Avraham, who hails from Montreal, Canada. He is a 15-year-old talented athlete, whose passion is soccer.

In January 2021, Motti signed up to play in a competitive municipal soccer league. The rule is that before every game, all the players go to the referee for a safety check. He makes sure they are wearing the proper gear; shin guards under their socks, cleats, etc.

Before one such game, the referee noticed a yarmulka on Motti’s head.

“You are not wearing that”, he said.

Motti asked why and the referee responded curtly, “I don’t have to tell you.” Motti protested, but to no avail.

Per the rules, Motti would be allowed to wear a sports bandana which would hide his yarmulka. However, the referee’s remark of “You are not wearing that” did not sit well with him. He thought for a while, bravely summoned the courage to approach his coach and told him clearly that he was not removing his yarmulka, even if it meant not playing.

The coach then conferred with the referee whose ruling was that if Motti played with a yarmulka, he would get a red card. It would have meant the automatic ejection of Motti and that his team would remain shorthanded for the remainder of the match.

Just as the game was about to start, to Motti’s amazement, the coach told the whole team to get down on one knee in protest. It was then that the coach told the players what was going on. The stunned players then heard about the referee not allowing Motti to play with a yarmulka and that if the team continued to protest and not play, it would be a forfeit and an automatic loss.

The coach from the opposing team didn’t quite understand what was happening. When he heard what the protest was about, he instructed his team to get down on one knee in support of Motti.

On September 27, 1791, the French National Assembly voted to give the Jewish people of France equal rights under the law.

Gradual improvement in conditions for Jews was making headway leading up to the vote. In 1785, the poll tax on Jews was abolished, and restrictions on locations of Jewish settlement were abolished.

However, when the Declaration of the Rights of Man was passed in August of 1789, it was interpreted at the time to not including Jews.

The Loi relative aux Juifs was passed September 27, 1791, proposed by Adrien-Jean-Fracois Duport. The text reads:
"I believe that freedom of worship does not permit any distinction in the political rights of citizens on account of their creed. The question of the political existence of the Jews has been postponed. Still, the Muslims and the men of all sects are admitted to enjoy political rights in France. I demand that the motion for postponement be withdrawn, and a decree passed that the Jews in France enjoy the privileges of full citizens."

The descendants of two Holocaust survivors and the farmer who hid them from the Nazis in Poland have connected with the help of a recently discovered post-World War II letter.

Karolina Jurzyk, 35, said that in 1942, her great-grandfather, Stanislaw Jurzyk Sr., and his wife hid two orphaned sisters, both in their 20s, at their family farm east of Warsaw during the war. That same year, Stanislaw’s wife died in childbirth, leaving him to raise their children alone while still caring for the women. The sisters stayed at the farm for two years before leaving.

Jurzyk never knew her great-grandfather, who died in 1989, but his son (her grandfather), Stanislaw Jurzyk Jr., did recall those days.

Not long ago, Karolina’s father discovered a letter from 1948 that the women wrote to Stanislaw from a displaced person’s camp in Germany. The letter carried the full names of the correspondents—Fela and Jadzia Kejzman—and after searching online, Jurzyk found them on the genealogy website MyHeritage.

She messaged the family tree’s host, Karen Norman, 42, who is Jadzia Kejzman’s granddaughter. The two women have since corresponded online and look forward to speaking on the phone soon, CNN reported. Their families and MyHeritage hope to apply to Yad Vashem to have Stanislaw recognized as a Righteous Gentile for the Righteous Among the Nations honorific and database.

Norman revealed that after the war, her ancestors moved to North America and had families: her grandmother in Toronto and her great-aunt Fela in Chicago. Jadzia died several years ago, and Fela passed away in December at the age of 103.

A Nazi-era police chief from a rural Protestant town in France is to be declared a “righteous among the nations” by Yad Vashem due to his efforts to save Jews targeted by collaborationist forces during World War II.

At the time, France had been conquered by Nazi Germany, and was ruled by the pro-Nazi puppet Vichy regime, which aided the Germans in rounding up Jews and sending them to their deaths.

As the BBC reported Saturday, the small town of Vabre proved an exception to the general atmosphere of collaboration and antisemitism. Led by town pastor Robert Cook, it united against the Vichy regime and became a center of Resistance activity. In addition, the town had long had business ties with Jews in the Paris garment industry, many of whom found sanctuary there.

Partly because of the memory of their ancestors’ own persecution as Protestant Huguenots in the 1600s, the town citizens sympathized with Jews hunted by the Germans and their collaborators, a phenomenon that reached its peak in 1942.

Police Chief Hubert Landes took the lead. After his men participated in a mass arrest of Jews in another town, Landes decided never to allow such a thing to happen again.

A year later, when another roundup was on the way, Landes warned the targeted Jews, and many of them went into hiding or joined the Resistance — including a Jewish Resistance group in the area, called the Compagnie Marc Haguenau.

In 2015, Vabre itself was named a “Town of the Righteous” by Yad Vashem. Now Landes himself will be named a righteous among the nations, joining Pastor Cook, who has already been recognized as such.

Aharon Jakobson (wearing a white shirt in the center of the photo), dances with a torah scroll along with fellow members of the Zionist Youth Front during #SimchatTorah in the Lodz ghetto.

Aharon was later murdered at Gleiwitz, a sub-camp of Auschwitz https://t.co/kvl6vgwWz5pic.twitter.com/FcdvxnRluv

— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) September 27, 2021

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During a discussion with students about National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday, US Vice President Kamala Harris did not challenge a comment by a student at George Mason University in Virginia who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide” and defended her right to say it.

The student, who identified herself as part-Yemeni, part-Iranian and “not an American,” also expressed outrage at US funding of the Iron Dome. She said America affects her life “every day” due to military funding it gives to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“You brought up how the power of the people and demonstrations and organizing is very valuable in America,” she said. “But I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine. But then just a few days ago, there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”

The student questioned why money was going to Israel and Saudi Arabia instead of to social issues in America.

“The people have spoken very often of what they do need, and I feel like there’s a lack of listening, and I just feel like I need to bring this up because it affects my life and people I really care about’s [sic] life,” she said.

In response, Harris said she was “glad” the student spoke up.

“Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard,” she said.

Harris said democracy is strongest when everyone participates and is weakest when anyone is left out.

“That’s not only about being physically present but that your voice is present,” she said. “Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity. Unity should never be at the expense of telling any one person, ‘For the sake of unity, oh you be quiet about that thing.’ That’s not unity. Then we see where that ends up in a healthy debate about the issue.”

Regarding the student’s reference to Middle East policy, Harris said: “We still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.”

Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman expressed outrage at Harris’s statements, tweeting: “Shameful. There is truth and there are lies. No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.”

The VICE PRESIDENT of the USA is here praising an anti-Semitic twit quacking out the blood libel accusing Israel of genocide. "Your truth cannot be suppressed," she croons.
Still believe the Democrats' anti-Semitism problem begins and ends with the Hamas caucus in the squad? https://t.co/6dKVZUnF0i

— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) September 29, 2021

Author Douglas Murray argued Harris is 'terrible in exchanges,''horrible in a corner,' and is 'not a great asset' to the Democrat party. #FoxNews

US Vice President Kamala Harris failed to correct a college student who falsely accused Israel of "ethnic genocide." Harris "was glad" that the George Mason University student expressed that it "hurt her heart" when Congress approved additional funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.

The student also claimed that "all this money ends up going to inflaming Israel" instead of providing struggling Americans with affordable healthcare and housing.

The genocide charge against Israel has been thoroughly debunked. And Harris knows this given that she has visited the country. Accordingly, when asked in June 2019 by The New York Times whether Israel meets international standards of human rights, Harris replied: "Overall, yes." She also previously stated, "I believe that when any organization delegitimizes Israel, we must stand up and speak out against it."

Why not, then, when individuals do?

Furthermore, military aid to the Jewish state makes up only a fraction of a fraction of the US federal budget -- and Israel must spend the vast majority of it in America.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion... but not to their own facts. In Harris' own words, Americans should understand "the importance of fighting to make sure that we protect and respect [Israel], one of the best friends we could possibly have."

[Catie Edmondson] cited no support for her "reporting" on the pressure placed by "powerful ...rabbis," nor did she name them, because her "reporting" simply was not true. She just made it up, because it supported the anti-Semitic narrative that AOC and her Squad deploy to deflect justified criticism of their anti-Israel and anti-American votes.

No powerful rabbis or lobbyists were needed to pressure the nearly 500 Democrats and Republicans who voted to fund the Iron Dome defense system....

No mention was made by the Times of powerful pro-Palestinian lobbyists or Imams, or of the pressure placed on AOC and others by radical leftists who hate Israel. No: it was supposedly"principles" that motivated the anti-Israel votes, and "powerful" rabbinical pressures that determined the "yes" and "present" votes. And this purports to be objective "reporting" from the newspaper of record.

After much criticism, the Times quietly removed the reference to "rabbis" without apologizing for its reporter's mendacious anti-Semitism or disciplining her for her journalistic malpractice. Just imagine how quickly a journalist would be cancelled if she engaged in comparable bigotry toward another group. But the Times has long suffered from a double standard toward Jews and the Jewish nation.

You are not getting "all the news that's fit to print" about Israel. You are getting only the "news" that its reporters and editors fit into their preconceived and biased narrative.

The Times must publicly, clearly and substantively apologize for its reporter lying about "powerful ...rabbis" and explain how its editors could permit such an obviously anti-Semitic canard to be published on its pages. Quietly eliminating the offending words from its online version is cowardly and insufficient. It must acknowledge the harm that its false reporting has caused.

The head of the Defense Ministry’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure (MAFAT) was not at all concerned that Washington might not replenish the IDF’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.

“We got the funding in two days – one day after what happened,” said Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Danny Gold. “For me, the result is important, and we trust our American friends who authorized the $1 billion.”

The full story will appear in Friday’s Magazine.

Gold said he was not concerned about the possibility that the funding wouldn’t be approved to replenish the interceptors for the Iron Dome. “I didn’t even think about it,” he said. “We trust our American friends, and we trust Israel, which also put money into the project. It’s good to have partners like the US who have both restoration and production capabilities. We also have the capabilities in Israel, but it’s an issue of funding.”

Earlier in the week, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass legislation to provide Israel with $1b. for the missile-defense system. Progressive Democrats had removed it from a government spending bill because of their position that military aid given to Israel should be conditions-based.

The Iron Dome system is built by US defense contractor Raytheon Technologies and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and was developed with US financial help. According to a Congressional Research Service report released last year, the US has already provided more than $1.6b. for Israel to develop and build the system.

Since it went into service in 2011, the system has successfully intercepted more than 2,500 rockets and other projectiles fired into Israel.

Make no mistake, these claims didn’t just come out of nowhere. They were insinuated or in some cases explicitly stated by members of Congress like Rashida Tlaib, who tweeted about how she would vote against funding the Iron Dome because she opposes “war crimes against Palestinians.” This of course leaves the average person with the impression that the Iron Dome somehow harms Palestinians when the reality is it is completely a defensive system that protects civilians.

Ironically, after Tlaib and others received push back and accusations of antisemitism for opposing the Iron Dome bill, they changed their tune and disingenuously pretended they opposed the bill because it was, as they called it, frivolous military spending that should be spent at home. In AOC’s case, after switching her vote at the last minute from “no” to “present,” she claimed it was because the vote was “rushed” and she wanted to do more research about the “controversial” bill (despite the 420-9 final vote). She also added that she wept over the bill on the House floor because of the lack of concern for vulnerable groups the bill impacts, referring to the Palestinians – who again, have nothing to do with the Iron Dome.

These types of theatrics from The Squad have absolutely no factual basis, and as such lend credence to emotionally-based pleas that fuel antisemitism.

Perhaps most problematic about the rhetoric and tactics of Tlaib, Omar, Bush and AOC is that their deeply rooted bigotry against both Israel and Jews is intentionally couched in “progressive” language despite being regressive, bigoted, dangerous and antisemitic.

When the facts of issues like the Iron Dome are obscured in emotional claims that aren’t related to the actual issue, antisemitism is bound to eventually crop up, and crop up it did.

In the days following the vote on the Iron Dome funding, the New York Times ran an article claiming powerful lobbies and “rabbis” pressured AOC into switching her vote. Similarly, the Democratic Socialists of America – the faction of the Democratic party that Tlaib and AOC are a part of – released a lengthy statement riddled with antisemitic canards about how Israeli civilians don’t deserve to have missile defense.

While it’s a relief that the US Congress unequivocally stood up for human rights by supporting the Iron Dome bill, the longer the intentional efforts to obscure the truth and emotionalize issues by representatives from The Squad, the more we will see a rise in antisemitism.

Pelosi had the opportunity to call out these 10 errant House Democrats during her Floor Speech after the funding was passed - but chose instead to gloss over this growing scandal within the Democratic Party:

“Passage of this bill reflects the great unity in Congress on a bipartisan and bicameral basis for Israel's security.”

Strong admonition of these 10 Democrat House Members by Pelosi for voting as they did was certainly warranted.

And Biden’s silence is breathtaking.

These 10 House Democrats had joined 15 more House Democrats in signing a letter in May calling on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to condemn the possible evictions of Arabs who refused to pay rent from four homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood – whose ownership by Jews was legally recognized.

The other 15 Democrat signatories to that letter - Reps. Pocan, Jayapal, McCollum, Chu, Rush, Connolly, Huffman, Johnson, Welch, Lowenthal, Escobar, Speier, Eshoo, Pingree and Dingell – nevertheless voted to fund Israel’s Iron Dome system despite their concerns expressed to Blinken.

These 15 Democrats could distinguish between criticising Israel whilst voting to financially support Israel in defending its civilian population from being deliberately targeted by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Ocasio-Cortez declared:
“I hope we can take this moment and opportunity to more deeply engage in and grow a true, substantive movement of community support for human rights around the world - which includes cherishing and respecting the human rights of Palestinian people.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s first imperative in building this international movement should have seen her voting with her 15 colleagues to help protect Israel’s civilian population, including Israeli Arabs of whose existence she may not even be aware, being threatened by rockets indiscriminately fired from Gaza and Lebanon.

Jew-hatred within the Democratic Party exposed by those 10 House Democrats’ votes needs to be rooted out before it becomes endemic.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) accused a leading American pro-Israel lobbying group of acting as a foreign agent.

After Massie voted against funding Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system last week, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee published an ad attacking him for his stance. "When Israel faced rocket attacks, Thomas Massie voted against Iron Dome," the ad read.

Massie struck back at AIPAC over the ad; "How is THIS not foreign interference in our elections?" the congressman tweeted on Monday.

AIPAC is a bipartisan American lobbying group headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is not an Israeli government agent. The organization has more than 100,000 members in the United States.

Critics accused Massie of evoking the anti-Semitic "dual loyalty" trope, in which American Jews are cast as holding loyalty to Israel over the United States. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) drew controversy in 2019 for advancing the trope after she bemoaned "the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country [Israel]."

Massie was the only House Republican to vote against funding the Iron Dome. The congressman said concern over the country's debt guided his vote.

Just recently Beinart was claiming that Zionism was okay because it didn't necessitate a State of Israel. His Zionist vision was a semi-autonomous Jewish community, free to live and worship.

His antisemitic friends said that was unacceptable.

Now he's pushing this bullshit: https://t.co/W3QDTjmWFC

— Conspiracy Libel (@ConspiracyLibel) September 29, 2021

The Hamas charter does not talk about improving the living conditions of the Palestinians. It does not talk about boosting the economy or creating job opportunities for unemployed Palestinians.

Instead, the charter talks about jihad (holy war) and urges all Arabs and Muslims not to abandon the fight against Israel....

"The people of the Gaza Strip want their freedom," he said. "They want the return of their land. Israel does not know the reality of the Palestinian people and believes that economic solutions would prompt the Palestinians to abandon their goals of liberation and achieving the right of return. This is not an economic or material issue." Hazem Qassem, Hamas official, i24news.tv, September 13, 2021.

The PA and Hamas leaders are apparently worried that the Palestinians would forget about the jihad against Israel once they have jobs and a strong economy.

That is why the PA and Hamas rejected former US President Donald Trump's plan for peace in the Middle East, "Peace to Prosperity."

By rejecting all the offers, the leaders of the Palestinians are actually telling... the world: For the Palestinians, the conflict with Israel is not about financial aid or boosting the Palestinian economy. Do not expect the Palestinians to make any concessions to Israel because of the billions of dollars that you are offering or have already given us.

This is an important message that needs to be grasped by the Biden administration in the aftermath of its decision to resume financial aid to the Palestinians. The Biden administration and other Western donors are wrong to assume that their funds could change the hearts and minds of the Palestinians. The only way to bring about such a change is by ending the anti-Israel rhetoric of Palestinian leaders and media outlets -- something that is not likely to happen, at least not in the foreseeable future.

On Sept. 23, 2021, Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the “Two-State Solution Act” to “to preserve conditions for, and improve the likelihood of, a two-state solution that secures Israel’s future as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people, and a viable, democratic Palestinian state.” Yet, news coverage of Levin’s proposed legislation omitted crucial details and relevant history.

POLITICO, hours before the bill dropped, offered an “exclusive look.” Writing for the magazine’s National Security Daily brief, reporters Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey detailed the proposed law, which currently has 18 co-sponsors.

The act asserts that “only the outcome of a two-state solution can both ensure the state of Israel’s survival as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people and fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own.” This language isn’t unusual, or surprising. But what’s interesting about Levin’s proposed legislation are the numerous false and misleading claims contained in the bill—many of which are uncritically echoed by Ward and Forgey.

The act, for example, refers to the “West Bank” (Judea and Samaria), “East Jerusalem” and Gaza as “occupied territories”—and calls for them to be referred to as such in official U.S. policies, communications and documents. These areas, Levin’s legislation asserts, are “occupied Palestinian territories” and, accordingly, the establishment of “Israeli settlements” there are “inconsistent with international law.”

Yet, as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has frequently noted, a sovereign Palestinian Arab state has never existed. Rather, the status of the territory is, at best, disputed. Its status is to be resolved by negotiations anticipated by UN Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim accords, the 2003 international “road map,” and related diplomatic efforts.

Indeed, the co-authors of Resolution 242, US Under Secretary of State Eugene Rostow, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg, and British ambassador Lord Caradon made clear, both then and later, that Jews and Arabs both had claims in the territories, and that no national sovereignty over them had been recognized since the end of Ottoman rule.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett used a Monday meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York to tear into the international institution over its “discrimination” against Israel.

The premier said that if the UN wants Israelis to take its institutions seriously, its members must start treating the Jewish state as an equal partner, as opposed to attacking it disproportionately, a diplomatic official said after the meeting.

The official readouts from the two leaders’ offices were light on details, with Bennett’s only stating that the meeting took place, while Guterres’s said that “Bennett updated the secretary-general on the situation in Israel. They exchanged views on regional developments, including the Middle East Peace Process.”

In his subsequent meeting with US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Bennett told the envoy, “I think that the reengagement of the United States with international institutions is a good opportunity to bring balance to these institutions vis a vis Israel.”

“Many times we feel these institutions are slanted and sometimes unfair and I think the new spirit between America and Israel can be brought to bear and we can do great things together,” Bennett said, according to a statement from his office released on Tuesday.

The Biden administration has moved to rejoin the UN’s Human Rights Council and World Health Organization, which former US president Donald Trump’s administration abandoned due to disputes over Israel and China.

The European Union parliament said it will condition the funds received by the UN Palestinian refugees' agency on removal of incitement against Israel from Palestinian text books.

The European Parliament’s Budget panel approved on Tuesday an amendment to withhold 20 million Euros in aid to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) if immediate changes are not made to the curriculum taught in its schools, which allegedly includes anti-Israel rhetoric and incitement of violence.

“The reserve of EUR 20 million will be released by the next academic school year if substantive positive changes are made in the Palestinian Authority curriculum that promote coexistence and tolerance with the Jewish-Israeli ‘other and peace education with Israel in alignment with the goals of the two-state solution,” the approved amendment 4083 said.

“Should there be no change, appropriations in reserve shall be used for funding Palestinian NGOs that have a proven track record of promoting educational initiatives in school settings for children designed to foster tolerance, coexistence and respect towards the Jewish-Israeli ‘other,'” the amendment added.

“Hate speech, anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA textbooks have still not been removed. The EP decisions insisted that EU-funded salaries of education civil servants who draft Palestinian textbooks must be made conditional on material reflecting values of peaces, tolerance, coexistence,” the justification for the amendment noted.

Brussels is the PA’s largest single donor - paying the salaries of its civil servants, including those who design PA curricula - and sent over $157 million in aid to UNRWA in 2021.

From my interview on @ILTVNews re. #EU threat to cut aid to @UNRWA, unless UN agency reforms to remove antisemitism and incitement from #Palestinian schoolbooks and the Palestinians begin to teach about tolerance, peace and respect. Even EU is saying 'enough is enough'! pic.twitter.com/2Gj0CwXiZF

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 29, 2021

THREAD on ECJ ruling against EU trade deals with Morocco applying to W.Sahara (1/3): The EU is reaping what it sowed with its anti-Israel policies. https://t.co/16n8U3gStA

— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) September 29, 2021

(3/3) EU is discovering that the rules it made up for Israel won't stay limited to Israel. Maybe other places thinking of making Israel-only rules will understand that their courts make actually take those principles seriously, creating new problems for their trade & diplomacy

— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) September 29, 2021

One needs look no further than the recent speech by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in order to understand why he is not a partner for peace. Referring to the creation of the State of Israel as a “catastrophe,” rewriting history, rejecting criticism of the PA terror reward payments, and telling outright lies, were just some of the highlights.

Here’s a quick overview:
Creation of Israel was a “catastrophe”

Abbas started his speech noting that “This year marks the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba.” The word “Nakba”, which in English means a “catastrophe,” is the Palestinian terminology used to refer to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. For Abbas and the PA, the problem is not the Israeli settlements built in Judea and Samaria after 1967 and the Six-Day War, but rather the very existence of Israel.

This opening did not prevent Abbas later in his speech from arguing that there are many potential solutions to the situation “including returning to a solution based on the partition plan of resolution 181 (II) adopted in 1947.” Abbas, it would appear, seems to have forgotten that the Arab countries completely rejected UN resolution 181 – also known as the “UN Partition Plan” –and instead attacked and tried to destroy the new State of Israel and in doing so, forfeited that option.

Abbas rejected the most generous offer of peace
Abbas continued with a bold challenge saying: “To those who claim there is no Palestinian partner for peace and that we do not “miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”, I challenge them to demonstrate that we have rejected even once a genuine and serious initiative to achieve peace, and I accept the judgement of the world in this regard.”

Clearly Abbas has forgotten Israel’s multiple previous offers of peace, most recently, the offer made by the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

US President Joe Biden reportedly rejected a request from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet last week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Citing US and Palestinian sources, the Axios news site reported Wednesday that Abbas and his aides inquired about the prospect of a meeting with Biden when considering whether to attend the annual gathering.

The Palestinians were told by the White House that Biden wouldn’t hold any bilateral meetings while in New York and was also unavailable to meet in Washington, according to the report, which said this message contributed to Abbas’s decision not to address the General Assembly in person and instead speak remotely by video.

The White House would not comment on the report, which noted Biden held several bilateral meetings during his brief stay in New York.

Biden has not made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a top foreign policy priority since taking office. In his speech to the UN last week, Biden reiterated his support for the two-state solution but did not call for an immediate resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

His administration has instead been encouraging efforts to “advance peace” and Hady Amr, deputy assistant secretary of state for Israel and Palestinian Affairs, is due to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah next week, the Axios report said.

In his own UN speech, Abbas demanded Israel withdraw to the so-called 1967 lines within a year or face repercussions, while Prime Minister Naftali Bennett omitted the Palestinians altogether in his address to the General Assembly.

Most media outlets that reported on Abbas’ speech fell into the trap of parroting his falsehoods.

In an article titled, Frustrated Abbas gives Israel ultimatum in harsh UN address, The Associated Press states:
Abbas spoke against a backdrop showing the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, a flashpoint holy site sacred to Muslims and Jews, and a series of maps of the region showing Israel’s territorial expansion over several decades of war and conflict.”

On closer inspection of the maps that the AP claims depict “Israel’s territorial expansion” it is clear they are in fact a series of widely shared and highly misleading illustrations, as HonestReporting has previously demonstrated.

These debunked maps are a part of a wider propaganda campaign that seeks to delegitimize Israel and bolster fantastical claims about a historical Palestinian state, which is precisely why Abbas chose to show them in the backdrop of a speech that he knew would be disseminated by the international media.

However, the maps hanging on the wall were not the only one of Abbas’ lies that have been uncritically published.

Before launching into a tirade in which he accused the Jewish state of committing “massacres” and of being a “colonial” enterprise, Abbas suggested he was speaking on the 54-year anniversary of Israel’s “military occupation” of Palestinian territory, including the Gaza Strip.

Of course, a quick Google search would tell any journalist that there is no such military presence in Gaza after Israel “disengaged” from the coastal enclave in 2005. At present, the Palestinian territory is ruled by the US-designated terrorist group Hamas.

This salient fact did not stop SABC News, a channel owned by the partially taxpayer-funded South African Broadcasting Corporation, from regurgitating this disinformation in a story published on September 27:
His [Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s] speech followed that of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in which he accused Israel of destroying the two-state solution and threatened to withdraw Palestinian’s recognition of Israel if it does not withdraw from the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem in one year.”

It is a shame that some news organizations did not care to dissect the many lies of Abbas’ address because neglecting to do so simply adds credence to them.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has reportedly extended invitations to a pair of left-wing Israeli government ministers for political talks.

According to Channel 12 news, Abbas sent the invitations last week to Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frej, both of the dovish Meretz party.

The network, which did not cite a source, asserted the purpose of the meetings was to discuss politics, not Horowitz and Frej’s ministerial duties, thus putting Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in an uncomfortable spot as to whether to approve them.

Bennett’s office said in response that it had received no requests from the ministers to meet with Abbas.

Frej has been pushing to expand ties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority since taking office in June and has organized a number of high-level contacts between Israeli and PA officials.

Iraqis who took part in a meeting that reportedly suggested ties between Israel and Iraq have faced threats of imprisonment and condemnation at the highest levels in Iraq.

The uproar is not surprising. It is part of posturing in Baghdad against Israel. Underpinning the reaction is not Iraq’s bureaucracy or even average Iraqis, but rather the hand of Iran and its militias in Iraq who want to use the country as a platform for attacks on the Jewish state, the US and others.

It is important to understand the background here. Iraq has attempted in the past to posture as being at the forefront of anti-Israel struggles in the region. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, the country led regional rhetoric against Israel, even firing Scud missiles at it during the Gulf War. The missiles were the last gasps of a failing regime that had already exhausted itself invading Kuwait and threatening Saudi Arabia, provoking a large US-led coalition that ejected Saddam from Kuwait and led Iraq to ruin.

But Saddam’s threat was more serious than the Scuds. The regime was a regional powerhouse in the 1980s. It had attempted a push for nuclear weapons, which led to the Israeli strike on the Osirak reactor in 1982. More than that, Iraq had participated in three wars against Israel: in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Its participation in the 1948 war included sending small forces as far as the Jenin area.

In 1973, a more serious Iraqi threat emerged when the country sent elements of its 3rd Armored Division to Syria to aid the war against Israel. The Iraqi forces were decimated between October 11 and 14. Iraq also acted against its Jewish minority, seeking to punish their remnants over the existence of Israel. In 1969, fourteen Jews were hanged in Iraq, accused of being “spies.”

The tides seem to be turning as Israeli Arabs are increasingly speaking out in support of the State of Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter

A prime example of this growing phenomenon would be Yoseph Haddad — a staunch Israel defender on social media and abroad in both English and Arabic.

Other Israel advocates include Mohammad Kabiya — a Bedouin from northern Israel who served in an IDF combat unit; and Jonathan Elkhoury — the son of a former officer in the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army who was resettled in Israel after its 2000 withdrawal and dedicates his life to coexistence between Arabs and Jews.

And lest we forget Shadi Khaloull — a Maronite Christian who served as an officer in the Paratroopers Brigade; Dima Tayeh — a Muslim woman from northern Israel and a stalwart Israel supporter who ran in the Likud primaries for a spot on the party's list for Knesset; and Liana Khatib — a member of the Druze community who works part-time for the Foreign Ministry and every day she isn't serving as the ambassador to the some Arab nation's capital is a waisted one despite her lack of training in diplomacy.

They, alongside many others, are standing out in their communities, especially against the backdrop of the racially motivated riots in mixed Israeli cities in May and the endless violence and murders plaguing the Arab sector.

More and more young Israeli Arabs choose to present an alternative to the animosity. Israel is not perfect, many of them have told me, but it provides more equal rights and opportunities not only compared to its Middle Eastern neighbors but also other advanced Western nations.

Their views differ from one another's substantially and they also have their fair share of criticism which can be scathing at times.

Our Board Member and Sharaka UAE CEO sat down with Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire to talk the Abraham Accords.

Israel’s foreign minister will fly to Bahrain on Thursday, the highest-level official Israeli visit to the Gulf state since the countries established ties last year, the Foreign Ministry said.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will inaugurate Israel’s embassy in Manama and sign bilateral deals during the visit, a ministry statement on Wednesday said.

Bahrain and Gulf neighbor United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel in a US-brokered deal known as the Abraham Accords that built on shared business interests and worries about Iran.

Big day coming up tomorrow! It will also be first-ever direct commercial flight (@GulfAir) #Bahrain to #Israel. https://t.co/z1OIHHg2zb

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 29, 2021

Israel’s Green Pass system, which permits the vaccinated access to a variety of spaces and activities, will no longer apply to those who have not received a third booster dose by Sunday.

Recent research emerging from the country’s Health Ministry shows that only around 3,243,641 Israelis have received a booster dose and will retain their Green Pass eligibility.

The announcement will see over a million Israelis who did not yet receive a third shot denied entrance from many public areas until they are inoculated.

At a speech addressing the United Nations on Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised the country for rolling out a third booster vaccine campaign.

Other countries, like El Salvador and the United States, have been encouraged to follow Israel’s example.

“Running a country during a pandemic is not only about health. It’s about carefully balancing all aspects of life that are affected by Covid, especially jobs and education,” the leader announced, quoted by The Times of Israel.

Following booster vaccination, an updated Green Pass will be issued one week after the shot.

The verification will then be valid for a period of six months.

The Islamist Ra’am Party is warning that Israeli flags on the Temple Mount are a “red line” for its constituents, the Hebrew-language Ynet site reported Tuesday night.

Ra’am is a member of the Israeli government coalition.

Nevertheless, the party issued a statement warning, “The movement warns the government and the police against the continued attack on the al-Aqsa Mosque by the extremist settlers. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a red line,” the party said in its statement.

The statement comes after Jews held a series of events in the mosque plaza, the last of which consisted of raising the Israeli flag.

Notably, the Islamist party issued its statement while Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is still in the United States, following his address Monday to the United Nations General Assembly.

2. "Break into mosque"?!

The pilgrims walked on the Temple Mount. That's it.

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 29, 2021

Israeli flags were waved on the Temple Mount and Palestinians are furious yet it was the ISRAELI POLICE who arrested them for breaking the law of waving an Israeli flag and enforced the rules. Enough with the lies
The truth about #AlAqsa:
#??????_??_???pic.twitter.com/PcYl9CiXLShttps://t.co/jODKxgcOjt

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 28, 2021

Israel Police announced the arrest of three Jewish Israelis on Wednesday who allegedly participated in a stone-throwing assault on a Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills that left more than a dozen Palestinians wounded, including a three-year-old boy, in an incident Foreign Minister Yair Lapid labeled a terror attack.

Police said the three Israeli suspects included a minor who lives in the South Hebron Hills and two adults who live in Jerusalem. They are being investigated “on suspicion of assault, causing damage to property and sabotage,” the police said in a statement.

On Tuesday afternoon, dozens of masked Israelis threw stones at Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills. The rocks smashed cars and injured at least 12 Palestinians, including the three-year-old, Palestinian and Israeli witnesses said.

Some Palestinians threw stones back at the settlers as well, causing clashes to break out between the two sides, witnesses said. Three Israelis were injured as well, according to Hebrew media reports.

Lapid condemned the incident as terrorism and called for justice to be carried out.

“This violent incident is horrific and it is terror,” Lapid tweeted Wednesday evening. “This isn’t the Israeli way and it isn’t the Jewish way. This is a violent and dangerous fringe and we have a responsibility to bring them to justice.”

Israeli security forces early Monday carried out further operations in the West Bank to disrupt alleged plans for major terror attacks, using new intel gained following the arrest of some 20 suspected members of a Hamas cell.

It was the second straight night Israeli troops operated in the town of Bidu, near Jerusalem. Three Hamas gunmen were killed in a shootout with soldiers the night before.

In the latest raids, forces found a significant cache of explosive devices intended to be used in a terror attack in the capital in the coming days, according to television reports Monday.

The “kilograms of explosives” were hidden in a well whose exact whereabouts were determined after the Shin Bet internal security service interrogated the cell’s mastermind and other members, the reports said.

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces declined The Times of Israel’s request for further information, citing the ongoing investigation.

Clashes were reported between Palestinians and Israeli troops during the operation in Bidu. There were no reports of injuries.

The reported mastermind of the Hamas cell was wounded during a separate gun battle early Sunday in the town of Burqin, near Jenin.

A correspondent for the Nation magazine praised the "martyrs" and the "glory" of the second intifada on Tuesday in a social media post celebrating the 21st anniversary of the Palestinian surge of violence and terror attacks against Israel that left thousands dead.

"Today marks 21 years since the start of the Second Intifada. Glory to those who resisted and sacrificed," wrote Mohammed El-Kurd, the "Palestine Correspondent" for the Nation, in a Twitter post on Tuesday. "Glory to the martyrs, the women and men whose makeshift weapons confronted artilleries, the children whose stones intimidated tanks. The struggle continues, until liberation."

The second intifada was a campaign of violence launched against Israeli citizens and directed by Palestinian leaders after the collapse of the Oslo peace negotiations in 2000. During the five-year onslaught, militants launched rocket attacks at civilians, and suicide bombers targeted restaurants and public areas in Israel, killing around 1,000 Israelis.

"The resistance of the Second Intifada forced Zionists to live fearfully, giving them a dose of their own poison," wrote El-Kurd. "Allegedly, an estimate of 300K settlers left back to where TF they came from during that period."

El-Kurd added that "no matter what the Zionists do, we will continue resisting."

While the Nation is a partisan magazine, reporters have typically tried to refrain from public expressions of naked bigotry toward those they cover. El-Kurd has a history of anti-Israel comments on social media. He has referred to Israelis as "rabid dogs" and "sadistic barbaric neonazi pigs that claim to be indigenous to our land" and argued that "Zionism is genocide."

HonestReporting earlier this month published a critique in response to The Nation’s hiring of Mohammed El-Kurd as the outlet’s first-ever “Palestine Correspondent.”

From Terror Supporter to ‘Palestine Correspondent’: Meet Mohammed El-Kurd, The Nation’s Latest Hire detailed the long history of his anti-Israel “activism.”

Just two days before The Nation’s announcement, El-Kurd 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 [Israeli] prisons are abolished,” he tweeted, calling the incident “excellent.”

El-Kurd has incited violence and glorified terrorism, stating that he mourns “all of our [Palestinian] martyrs.” He previously lauded Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member and two-time airplane hijacker Leila Khaled:

And since being included in TIME Magazine’s annual list of 100 most-influential people, El-Kurd has seemingly lifted any reins there may have been on his antisemitic, terrorist-backing vitriol:

“Today marks 21 years since the start of the Second Intifada. Glory to those who resisted and sacrificed. Glory to the martyrs, the women and men whose makeshift weapons confronted artilleries, the children whose stones intimidated tanks. The struggle continues, until liberation.”

The Nation’s newly-minted “Palestine Correspondent” is evidently pleased that Palestinian terrorists between 2000 and 2005 launched a gruesome wave of suicide bombings and other horrific attacks that murdered more than 1,000 Israelis and injured over 8,000 others.

For El-Kurd, praise is due to the 466 members of Hamas, 408 from Fatah’s Tanzim and al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and 205 from Islamic Jihad that Israeli forces in response to the terrorism were forced to kill in battle.

In the struggle against global terror, El-Kurd tells us where he stands, glorifying those who "resist" and "sacrifice" by targeting and bombing children, sowing terror to bring "liberation". My child was murdered by his 'heroes' before she reached 16. Why does he have a platform? https://t.co/42H8DgjsJj

— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) September 29, 2021

There is absolutely no way @m7mdkurd's tweets do not violate @Twitter's policies on glorification of violence, yet he gets a blue checkmark, recognition as @TIME 100 most influential person and a job with @thenation.

This glorification of hate must end.https://t.co/mAUxfStTbDpic.twitter.com/v5MY9T4ZJE

— Report Jew Hate (@reportjewhate) September 29, 2021

Calling for murder of Jews based on the (proven false) accusation that Jews killed a child. This is also how Pogroms started in the 19th century. https://t.co/VIMh1YUkzQ

— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 28, 2021

Which suicide bombing was your favourite, the 30 senior citizens that were murdered during a Passover meal or the 13 costumed children celebrating Purim? https://t.co/Y8AL8gFhA4

— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) September 28, 2021

A new video game headed for Steam will see players take part in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – from the Palestinian perspective.

Titled Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the game is developed by Nidal Nijm, a Brazilian resident of Palestinian origin. The game promises to let players take the role of Palestinian freedom fighters and break what it calls "the cliché of portraying Arabs as Terrorists."

"You will play in missions across Palestine with many objectives to accomplish, epic battles, powerful guns, vehicles to drive, and more," the game's page on Steam notes.

The game is currently slated for a December 2021 release, and user reviews are currently not available on the platform. However, a free playable demo is available for download.

The game's story follows protagonist Ahmad al-Falastini, who was "unjustly tortured and jailed" by the IDF for five years and who lost his family in an IDF airstrike, as noted on the Fursan Al-Aqsa website. Now free from prison, Falastini is out for revenge and to retake his homeland by joining the titular Fursan Al-Aqsa, a new Palestinian resistance movement.

The United States announced on Wednesday that it was imposing sanctions on Hezbollah financiers in coordination with Qatar, a US ally that has kept cordial relations with Iran.

The Treasury Department announced that it was taking action against seven people including Qatari nationals Ali al-Banai and Ali Lari, who it said have secretly sent tens of millions of dollars to the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Hezbollah uses “global networks of financiers and front companies to support its malign activity” and praised the cooperation of Qatar.

“This represents one of the most significant joint actions we have taken with a Gulf Cooperation Council partner to date and underscores our extensive bilateral cooperation on countering terrorism finance,” Blinken said in a statement.

Nearby Bahrain also took action by freezing the bank accounts of al-Banai’s nephew on the island and will prosecute three people, the Treasury Department said.

Bahrain has tense relations with Iran but Qatar has comparatively friendly ties with Tehran as it seeks to maintain dialogue around the region.

The Biden administration is withholding from Congress a legally mandated report on Hezbollah's financial empire, information that lawmakers could use to increase pressure on the Iranian-backed terror group.

Congress ordered the State and Treasury Departments in early 2019 to produce a publicly available report on Hezbollah senior leadership's funding channels as part of legislation known as the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018. The bill mandated a report be produced 180 days after it was passed, by April 2019. The Trump administration never produced a report and the Biden administration is withholding it too.

Republican lawmakers and congressional sources familiar with the matter say the report has become increasingly critical as the Biden administration considers lifting economic sanctions on Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon as the country grapples with a massive cash crunch. Both the State and Treasury Departments declined to provide the Washington Free Beacon with information about the report or answer questions about why they have failed to comply with the law.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon the report could be used to target Hezbollah's senior leadership and crack down on their efforts to steal cash and international aid meant for the Lebanese people. This information would also make it harder for the Biden administration to justify rolling back sanctions on Lebanon and providing the country with an economic bailout that could further enrich the terror group.

"I'm not surprised that after botching the retrograde in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is now not complying with reporting requirements stated in the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018," Fallon said. "Additionally, the possibility that this administration will bailout and lift sanctions on Lebanon is a play straight out of the Neville Chamberlain foreign policy playbook. Hezbollah alone is responsible for Lebanon's economic ruin."

As part of that 2018 legislation, Congress mandated a public report on the estimated net worth of Hezbollah's senior leaders, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his closest associates. The report was also to include information of Hezbollah associates, including those working in Lebanon's government, which continues to serve the Iranian-backed terror group.

Lebanese in #Beirut chant “Hezbollah are terrorists” after the Iran backed Hezbollah tries to cover up their role in the Beirut blast.

pic.twitter.com/SUCMyvcpFC

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 29, 2021

Democratic leadership in the House blocked a GOP-led measure to sanction trade between the Taliban and China, with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee citing opposition to any move that could anger the Afghan terror group, according to congressional sources briefed on the matter.

House Republicans tried to attach an amendment to the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, the sprawling annual defense-funding bill, that would sanction any person or business that attempts to work with the Taliban to purchase rare earth minerals, a lucrative natural resource coveted by China and used to power most modern electronics. The Communist regime has used the American exit from Afghanistan to boost its presence in the war-torn country, in part to gain access to its natural resources, which are valued at anywhere from $1 to $3 trillion.

The GOP measure was rejected last week by Democrats on the House Rules Committee and by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.). According to congressional sources briefed on the matter, Meeks's staff cited concerns about any legislation that could provoke the Taliban. Meeks's office said it is concerned that any additional sanctions that target the Taliban could complicate ongoing efforts to rescue Americans still stranded in war-torn Afghanistan. Meeks aides also said that sanctioning the Taliban will push them to sell illegal drugs, which GOP sources say the terror group will do and is doing anyway.

Republicans will reintroduce the measure on Tuesday as a standalone bill in a bid to force Democrats into voting on a measure that will increase pressure on the Taliban, according to congressional sources familiar with the matter. GOP leaders say China's increased focus on Afghanistan poses a national security risk, particularly as it seeks to work with Taliban leaders to export precious materials that U.S. companies will end up buying.

Deputy PM in Taliban’s Interim Government Abdul Salam Hanafi: We Appreciate Qatar’s Role in Maintaining Peace and We Hope It Will Continue to Send Us Humanitarian Aid; We Hope China Plays a Positive Role in the New Afghanistan #Afghanistan#Taliban#Qatar#Chinapic.twitter.com/UrdtLjT7qY

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 29, 2021

In his full U.N. speech, @ImranKhanPTI spoke a lot about Islamophobia yet said not a word about 1 million Muslim Uighurs locked up in Chinese camps. Like the Taliban, Pakistan’s leader cares more for Chinese cash than for his fellow Muslims. https://t.co/ise9Sf6NoB

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 29, 2021

Chinese TV Host “Salwa”: “War-Thirsty” U.S. Is Responsible for Most of the Wars in the World; The American Model of Democracy has Failed #China#AUKUSpic.twitter.com/FN1A15kA5J

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 29, 2021

Iran must return to talks with world powers over its 2015 nuclear deal to avoid a diplomatic escalation that could jeopardize the negotiations, a French presidency official said on Tuesday

The official also said Iran could not set new conditions before returning to the talks in Vienna as the terms on the table were clear.

Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the accord aimed at keeping Iran from being able to develop a nuclear weapon stopped in June before Ebrahim Raisi took office as Iranian president last month.

Western powers have urged Iran to return to negotiations and said time is running out as its nuclear program is advancing well beyond the limits set by the deal, which Washington abandoned in 2018.

“Nobody wants an escalation, but to avoid an escalation Iran must return to the negotiating table,” the French presidency official told reporters.

Tehran has signaled in recent weeks that negotiations would resume in a few weeks without giving a specific date, increasing frustration among the Western parties – Britain, France, Germany and the United States – to the 2015 accord.

“The more that time passes, the harder it becomes to return to the negotiating table… and the key question of restoring a manageable and acceptable breakout time for us becomes complicated to resolve,” the official said, referring to the time it takes to amass enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon.

Admiral Ali Fadavi, IRGC Deputy Commander-in-Chief: Muslims Scientists Invented Quantum Mechanics 1,000 Years Ago; We Are the Source for Quantum Sciences and the Leaders and Pioneers in These Fields #Iran#IRGC#PseudoScience#quantumpic.twitter.com/XJjnVyeyba

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 28, 2021

Massive Iranian military columns being sent to the border with Azerbaijan for military drills as tension is rising between both countries. This is a first as Iran hadn’t held military drills near Azerbaijan’s border since it’s independence. pic.twitter.com/i9L5OCxPUh

— CaucasusWarReport (@Caucasuswar) September 28, 2021

On September 6th, six Palestinian prisoners being held in an Israeli jail escaped, forcing Israeli authorities to launch a manhunt for them. All have been caught, since. Of the six, five are members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and one is a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, two groups internationally-recognized as terrorist organizations. Democratic operative and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib staffer Rasha Mubarak thinks otherwise; she has lionized the terrorists as heroes. It is not the first time Mubarak has championed Palestinian terror, and the Democratic Party continues to embrace her and even groom her for future political office.

In August 2014, at the end of the 2014 Gaza War, along with photos of a jubilant Hamas, who had bizarrely just declared victory over Israel, Mubarak tweeted, “Thousands of people celebrating in the streets of Gaza for the victory. Alhamdulillah. #VictoryForGaza.” The war had left nearly 2200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis dead.

Mubarak has promoted material from Hamas-supporting media, including the Palestine Info Center and Shehab News, both of which are directly affiliated with Hamas and publicize the group along with shocking anti-Semitic cartoons of evil looking Orthodox Jews. In July 2014, Mubarak copied onto Facebook a post from Falastin News Palestine, a site that glorifies Hamas and PIJ fighters as heroes; outright states, “God bless Hamas”; features numerous photos of armed masked terrorists interacting with little children; and showcases photos of dead US and British Jews murdered in a Jerusalem synagogue, grossly referring to the dead as “occupiers.”

In June and July 2020, Mubarak posted memorials onto her Twitter and Facebook pages for car-ramming terrorist Ahmed Erekat, who was shot and killed after attempting to run over a female Israeli border officer, at a checkpoint east of Jerusalem.

The executive director of American Muslims for Palestine has recently claimed in an interview that Israel is a parasite that sucks America's blood, and that accusations of anti-Semitism "are no longer influential."

Speaking with Jordan's Yarmouk TV on Sept. 22 about the recent removal of funding for Israel's Iron Dome air defense system from US budget legislation, Osama Abuirshaid said, "We are witnessing the closing of the ranks, and an emphasis on the force that supports Palestine within the Democratic Party."

The majority of the Democratic base was "more supportive of Palestine than the Republicans are," said Abuirshaid, adding that many American Jews were also more supportive of Palestine.

"Their concept of support obviously differs from the Arab, or Eastern, notions here [in Jordan]. It is not that they want to go back to the source of the problem and view Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea as occupied land, but they believe that the Palestinians deserve to live," he said.

Modern Israel, he continued, "represents the ugly face of racial segregation, of apartheid."

"Israel has become a partisan issue. There is no longer a political consensus about Israel. Criticizing Israel is no longer tantamount to political suicide," said Abuirshaid.

Calling the Iron Dome missile defense system an environmental nightmare, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now recommending the US instead fund the carbon-neutral “recycled Bamboo Dome.”

Her suggestion came in a long Instagram post defending her “present” vote on funding the Iron Dome.

“A lot of people are like, ‘well you voted against building a dome over Israel to stop the rockets from Ham mass (sic), so it must mean you want the Jews to get blown up’,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “This is hurtful and wrong. I just want the Jews to build their dome out of a more sustainable material.”

Ocasio-Cortez added that iron is not recyclable and that the process of extracting iron releases greenhouse gases.

“Israel is, like, really big. Like even bigger than Yankee Stadium,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Building a dome over such a big area is going to require, like, so much iron. Like probably almost 100 pounds of iron. Think about how many carbon monoxides that releases!”

The motion, which passed by a show of hands, is no less embarrassing for Sir Keir, who did not want Labour to be foaming at the mouth about the Jewish state on the same day that former MP Louise Ellman, who quit the party in 2019 over anti-Semitism, announced that she was rejoining the party. Ellman says the motion is ‘disgraceful’, singles out ‘the world's only Jewish state for pernicious and morally perverse boycotts’ and ‘shows there are still too many in the party who are more obsessed with demonising Israel than reaching a solution to this tragic conflict’. She adds that ‘Labour will not win back the trust of the Jewish community whilst the Jewish state is continually demonised and smeared’.

At first glance, it seems like another bad day for the Labour leadership but they are not the real victims here. The Palestine motion was proposed by Young Labour, that section of the party which struggles to overcome years of private education so that it can talk to working-class voters without asking them where the self-service checkouts are. Young Labour celebrated its triumph by tweeting:

Still, spare a thought for the Palestinians learning about their new brothers and cis-ters in the Labour party. The right of return sounds dandy until one day you're tending your olive trees in Hebron, minding your own business, and up rocks Bertie, who's reading art history at Durham but could have gone to Oxford if he’d wanted. Within a month, the neighbourhood watch has added micro-aggressions to its remit, the community council discusses nothing but planning permission objections, and you’re seriously weighing up an anonymous tip-off to the Shin Bet about the guy next door with the strange accent and stockpile of fertiliser.

The Palestinians have suffered enough. Do they really deserve the ‘solidarity’ of the Labour party on top of it?

A resolution condemning Israel for the “ongoing Nakba in Palestine” and calling for a ban on British trade with Israeli settlements was approved at the UK Labour Party’s annual conference on Monday, drawing a rebuke from party leaders.

Brought to vote by the Young Labour section of the party, the resolution condemned “the ongoing Nakba in Palestine, Israel’s militarized violence attacking the Al Aqsa mosque, the forced displacements from Sheikh Jarrah and the deadly assault on Gaza.

It also pledged to support sanctions against Israel, and called for Labour to “adhere to an ethical policy on all UK trade with Israel, including stopping any arms trade used to violate Palestinian human rights and trade with illegal Israeli settlements.”

After the vote, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy told the Jewish News that the leadership “cannot support” the motion, a sentiment backed by party leader Keir Starmer.

“We owe it to the people of Palestine and Israel to take a fair and balanced approach that recognizes there can only be peace through a safe and secure Israel existing alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state,” Nandy said. “It does not address the issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a comprehensive or balanced way.”

MP Steve McCabe, chair of Labour Friends of Israel, called the motion “grossly inaccurate and morally repugnant,” and said it did not represent the party’s longstanding support of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Separately, in a conference vote on Sunday, over 73% of delegates voted to establish an independent complaint procedure for claims of racism, spurred by a report into antisemitism in the party.

Statement from our chair @steve_mccabe on the Israel/Palestine motion passed at #Lab21: pic.twitter.com/Z2lJp06cBc

— Labour Friends of Israel (@_LFI) September 27, 2021

https://t.co/2Ny1DdNuP1

— David Hirsh (@DavidHirsh) September 29, 2021

Hopefully those responsible for this antisemitic vandalism will be charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law @ASPBristolhttps://t.co/sxhctAvcQ2

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) September 28, 2021

Following the backlash received by Californian Jews, a revised version of the bill which included two lessons on Jews in California was approved by the state's Board of Education in March.

AB 101 was drafted by The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Institute (LESMC) who claims Israel partakes in "settler colonialism" and "apartheid." The site also encourages teachers and students to "fight against Zionist backlash."

"The Liberated curriculum includes overtly anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist lessons and explicitly promotes student engagement in actions to harm Israel, especially BDS," the petitioners wrote.

"The Jewish community is simply not capable of challenging such an antisemitic curriculum in every one of the hundreds of school districts where it will likely be considered."

"It is a moral outrage to expect Jewish parents to fight against antisemitism being taught to their children in a state-mandated course," they added.

On September 24, the chancellor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC), Kevin M. Guskiewicz, issued a statement titled “Confronting antisemitism in our world.” It claimed that the university will work with North Carolina Hillel “to foster a welcoming and inclusive environment for our Jewish students” and will be “convening a diverse advisory committee to implement this initiative.”

This statement was surely issued in response to widespread frustration and outrage stemming from the university’s decision to choose Kylie Broderick — an instructor who promotes the view that Israel should not exist — to teach a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Broderick, the graduate student instructor, uses the term “Zionist dirtbags”; demands “everyone at UNC … boycott Israeli products”; and declares that Palestinians are the only legitimate side in the conflict.

Some Jewish students at UNC are not registering for classes related to Israel because of the hostility they face from instructors. And non-Jewish students who do sign up are being fed propaganda and activism instead of facts and alternative viewpoints.

A UNC faculty member echoed the concerns of many, stating: “While this statement is a step in the right direction, it is completely shallow if the administration cannot or will not speak out against [instructor] Kylie Boderick’s vehement anti-Zionist, antisemitic statements that clearly target and discriminate against Jewish and Zionist students.”

Chancellor Guskiewicz posted the statement on Twitter, with one commenter responding, “Couldn’t we also just stop teaching antisemitic classes? That might help.”

Amid weeks of controversy surrounding a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict taught by an anti-Zionist instructor, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill acknowledged “concerns” that have been raised by members of the Jewish community over its efforts to combat antisemitism, and announced a new partnership with Hillel International.

The Fall semester course — “The Conflict Over Israel and Palestine,” in the university’s Department of History — is taught by graduate student Kylie Broderick, whose previous social media posts have called Zionists “dirtbags” and endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

News of the planned course drew concern from local Jewish groups, with the Jewish Federation of Raleigh-Cary calling on the school in August to investigate Broderick’s “fitness to ensure a fair classroom environment” on the topic.

On Friday, Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz described a new program with Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative, pledging to “learn best practices for cultivating a positive campus climate where all students are comfortable expressing their identity and values.”

“At Carolina, we unequivocally reject and deplore antisemitism,” he said. “It has no place on our campus.”

More than 670 European financial institutions have ties with companies that are involved in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a report by a group of 25 Palestinian, regional and European organizations said Wednesday.

The report called on the companies “to end all investments and financial flows” into the settlements, arguing that they are illegal under international law.

The findings detail financial dealings worth $255 billion (218 billion euros) between 2018 and May 2021 directly or indirectly linked to the settlements — including loans or share and bond purchases — involving major European firms like BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank.

More than 600,000 Israeli Jews live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel from Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967. Many large Israeli companies are active in those communities.

The report is not an account of financial dealings directly occurring in Israeli settlements. For example, many of the European companies named have been implicated because they hold shares in non-Israeli firms, like machinery giant Caterpillar, whose products have been used in settlements.

The “Don’t Buy Into Occupation” coalition that authored the report claimed these European companies “have a responsibility to ensure that they are not involved in violations of international law and are not complicit in international crimes.”

The New York Times issued a Yom Kippur correction for an article that had falsely stated that previous periods of Jewish sovereignty in Israel had lasted for no more than “about 70 or 80 years.”

The Times historical error was the subject of an Algemeiner column, “New York Times ‘Mangles’ Jewish History as Gordis Sees ‘Incurable’ Pathology at the Newspaper.” That article reported that the Times had initially refused a correction request from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.

“By falsely reporting that the longest Jewish rule in Israel fell in less than 100 years, The Times minimizes the historic Jewish connection to ancient Israel, eroding the legitimacy of the present Jewish state,” the director of CAMERA’s Israel office, Tamar Sternthal, wrote at the time. The article “mangles the historical record,” she had said.

The Times correction — published in print on Thursday, September 16, the Day of Atonement — reads, “An article on Sunday about the film ‘Legend of Destruction’ referred imprecisely to the time periods when Jews enjoyed sovereignty in the land in ancient times. While the first period of unified sovereignty some 3,000 years ago is believed to have lasted for less than a century, separate kingdoms remained sovereign for hundreds of years.”

The original, erroneous article had stated, “Israeli leaders have increasingly drawn on the lessons from Jewish history, noting that the Jews enjoyed two previous periods of sovereignty in the land in ancient times, but both lasted only about 70 or 80 years — a poignant reminder for the modern state that, founded in 1948, has passed the 70-year mark.”

More American Jews suffered hate crime attacks in 2020 than Asians, Muslims, and transgender people combined, according to FBI crime tracking data.

The agency recorded 676 instances of criminal offenses motivated by prejudice or hatred of Jews, making anti-Semitic hate crimes the third most common type of hate crimes, trailing anti-black and anti-white attacks.

While the media and politicians have focused on an increase of domestic hate crime attacks against Asians—a trend that has also been the centerpiece of Chinese Communist Party propaganda operations—the FBI recorded just 274 total incidents in 2020. Americans who identify as Asian make up roughly 7 percent of the U.S. population. Jews, who make up just 1.75 percent of the population, are more than twice as likely to experience hate crimes as Asian Americans.

Biden in March signed into law the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which seeks to make the reporting of hate crimes easier for the public and was written in the wake of the #StopAsianHate social media campaign. The bill also directs the Department of Justice to give grants to state and local governments to study ways to reduce hate crimes.

"My message to all of those of you who are hurting is: We see you. And the Congress has said: We see you. And we are committed to stop the hatred and the bias," Biden said at the bill signing ceremony.

Biden, who during his early days in the White House made hate-crime enforcement a top priority for his Department of Justice, has largely overlooked the disproportionate attacks on Jews. His late-May statement that denounced "despicable" anti-Semitic attacks came after a coalition of Jewish organizations sent a letter that called on the White House to do more to stem the violence.

The FBI recorded 196 hate crime incidents that singularly targeted transgender individuals, On the campaign trail Biden pledged that his administration would help eradicate the "epidemic of violence against the transgender community, particularly transgender women of color." Although the FBI has not released demographic information on victims of anti-transgender hate crimes, blacks make up a plurality of alleged offenders at 38 percent.

The beauty and makeup giant L’Oréal USA and the Anti-Defamation League have partnered on a new initiative aimed at bringing Holocaust education to more than 10,000 middle and high school students across the US, it was announced on Monday.

The new project will create digital educational classroom activities about the Holocaust for approximately 1,750 schools across the country by the end of 2024. The new curriculum will offer students “self-paced independent learning opportunities and digital interactions, including testimonials, personal narratives and access to primary sources to create an engaging way to learn about the lessons of history that are relevant today,” according to a press release by the ADL.

“We hope to be able to help turn back the rising tide of discrimination by promoting understanding and empathy among a new generation of students,” said Stéphane Rinderknech, president & CEO of L’Oréal USA, which is the largest subsidiary of the L’Oréal Group, the world’s leading beauty company.

ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan A. Greenblatt said, “With antisemitism rising around the world, it is essential to provide students with a strong foundation of knowledge about the history of the Holocaust, so that they can understand the consequences of hatred and prejudice.”

The ADL will also honor L’Oreal Group Chairman Jean-Paul Agon with its Courage Against Hate Award in recognition of L’Oreal’s “long-standing commitment” to supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in the company, and to “respecting human rights and confronting antisemitism in society.” The award will be presented during ADL’s Never Is Now Summit on Antisemitism and Hate on Nov. 7, where Agon will be the keynote speaker.

A massive hacking operation on web-hosting company Epik, carried out by hacktivist group Anonymous, released the data of 110,000 people including Nazis and far-right extremists, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Epik, the Washington-based domain registrar, is significantly popular with right-wing extremists and hosts sites such as the Texas GOP website and several anti-abortion sites such as Texas Right to Life and a site where Texas residents can anonymously "snitch" on abortions, according to independent journalist Steven Monacelli who broke the news of the hack earlier in September.

Some 110,00 Epik users' full names, addresses, credit card numbers, and unencrypted passwords were leaked through Anonymous' massive hack. One of the users whose data was leaked was Joshua Alayon, a former real estate agent in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Anonymous' hack exposed Alayon as an antisemitic holocaust denier who once paid for domains such as christiansagainstisrael.com and theholocaustisfake.com. Following the hack, his employers fired him, as reported by real estate news site Inman.

"We don't want to be involved with anyone with thoughts or motives like that," Rick Rapp, the owner of the brokerage who employed Alayon, told TWP.

Akamai Technologies, a public US cybersecurity firm traded on the Nasdaq, is set to acquire Israeli cybersecurity startup Guardicore for roughly $600 million, according to a joint announcement Wednesday.

Akamai said the move will position the company, which reported revenue of $3.2 billion in 2020, to provide comprehensive solutions against malware and ransomware to enterprise customers.

Guardicore was founded in 2013 by entrepreneurs Pavel Gurvich, Dror Sal’ee, and Ariel Zeitlin. The company has raised over $100 million to date with investors such as Battery Ventures, 83North, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Cisco Investments and Qumra Capital.

The Tel Aviv-based company develops cybersecurity solutions for cloud and hybrid cloud data center environments to stop advanced threats such as malware and ransomware in real-time through detection and response. It offers “micro-segmentation” strategies to limit user access to only those applications that are authorized to communicate with each other, so as to minimize potential breaches.

Guardicore says its solutions enable “deep visibility into application flows, across data center and cloud applications, allowing businesses to more granularly understand and protect their infrastructure, from the core of the enterprise to the cloud.” Breaches are detected early so “corrective actions can be taken as quickly as possible,” the company adds.

“Given the recent surge in ransomware attacks and increasingly stringent compliance regulations, investing in technologies to reduce the spread of malware has become mission-critical,” said Tom Leighton, Akamai Technologies co-founder and CEO, in a company statement.

TIME magazine recently named Israel’s Negev Desert as one of the World’s Greatest Places for 2021. And for good reason, too, since despite its seemingly arid appearance the southern desert is one of the most fascinating places in the country.

Covid permitting, we urge you to check out the Negev’s ancient archeology, magnificent views and fabulous wines when you next visit Israel. Or at least to keep it at the very top of your travel wish list. Here’s why.

1. The views are breathtaking
The most remarkable thing about the Negev Desert, at least in our opinion, is the stunning views that emanate from absolutely everywhere. There’s the uniquely magnificent Makhtesh Ramon, of course, but other gorgeous views include the deep gorges of Zin Valley, the colorful Red Canyon in the Eilat Mountains and the lunar landscape of Hamukei Nitzana.

2. The hikes are fun
To explore the magnificent views that make up the desert, we recommend that you get to know it by foot. There’s a wide variety of hikes available in the area, ranging from easy-to-do and kid-friendly short walks to grueling treks that are perfect for the pros.

Our favorites include Timna Park with its gorgeous lake, family activities and interesting rock formations; and Mount Zefachot, which offers a beautiful view of the Red Sea and four of the countries that border it – Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

In bad news, a report assessing the state of trees worldwide has found that 30 percent of tree species are threatened with extinction. But in good news, it would seem that only two out of Israel’s 60 or so tree species are threatened – a meager 3%.

The State of the World’s Trees report, published as part of the Global Tree Assessment by Botanic Gardens Conservation International this month, looked into the extinction risk information on the world’s 58,497 tree species.

“We now know that 30% of tree species are threatened with extinction, and at least 142 tree species are recorded as extinct,” the report noted.

“The main threats to tree species are forest clearance and other forms of habitat loss, direct exploitation for timber and other products and the spread of invasive pests and diseases. Climate change is also having a clearly measurable impact.”

The report didn’t mention which Israeli tree species are threatened, only noting their number as well as the fact that two tree species are endemic, meaning that they grow in a limited area.

About a million people visited the Western Wall during the High Holy Day season this year, according to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation.

Last year, COVID-19 restrictions allowed for only a limited number of worshipers to gather at the Western Wall Plaza, when previous years saw tens of thousands of worshipers.

Thousands joined for the traditional Selihot penitential services in the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, as well as during the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The pilgrimage holiday of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret also saw large numbers of worshipers. The traditional Birkat Kohanim (Priestly Blessing) was also split over two days to avoid large crowds.

The rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz stated, “The masses that came to the Western Wall are impressive and strong proof of the Jewish nation’s connection with the Western Wall, which unites us all through preserving tradition and its holiness."

On the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, the Western Wall was divided into 15 capsules, with 8,000 worshipers allowed at a time.

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No one in the U.S., including the president, has the power to settle the conflict with the Palestinians (see the Rogers Plan, Reagan Plan, Camp David Accords, Clinton Parameters, Middle East Road Map, Kerry Plan, and Deal of the Century). There is no magic formula that is yet to be discovered to change the status quo. Peace will only come when the Palestinians decide they are prepared to give up their delusions of having a state from the river to the sea where every Palestinian can return to the homes they lived in before 1949.

Who cares what professors think about Mideast policy? The Washington Post published a survey of 557 professors where 65% agreed the current situation is akin to Afrikaner South Africa. If they are using the university to indoctrinate students with their personal agendas, they are committing academic malpractice.

Who cares about people who deny Israel's right to exist? Abba Eban said: "Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its 'right to exist.' Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement....There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its 'right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession."

Who cares about anti-Semites telling Jews the definition of anti-Semitism excludes them? Racists don't get to tell non-whites what constitutes racism. We have an internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism.

People need to stop telling Jewish students to be scared because it is making them fearful. We never did that in the past when things were no less hostile on campus. We should be creating muscular Jews - proud, knowledgeable and confident - not snowflakes.

With the return to power of former US President Barack Obama's team, we are once again hearing murmurings of "two states for two peoples." It is being reinforced by political media agencies with the aim of suppressing thought, but above all else – it conceals a lie.

What is meant by the term "Palestinian people"? What Palestinian people is deserving of a state to be called "Palestine"? They all pretend as if this was a population that lives in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, based on the fiction that Israel "occupied" these territories, which in fact were occupied for generations, by the Jordanian regime, and were never under "Palestinian" rule. Does this refer only to the residents of Area A, in which the Palestinian Authority already enjoys partial autonomy? Should we add to this the Gaza Strip? What about the 5 million pseudo-Palestinian "refugees" (originally numbering 600,000 people), who have been waiting 73 years to enjoy the "right of return"? The return to what territory exactly? If we are to believe the statements from Palestinian leaders, this right of return will pertain to the State of Israel's territory on the 1967 borders.

It is clear, therefore, from the Palestinian statements that they are referring to more than the territory that was "occupied" following the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. The territory of the entire State of Israel is on the line, and no Palestinian state will yield its demand for the unification of territories and populations. Let us not forget there is yet another branch of the Palestinian "people" that constitutes 70% of the population in Jordan, in which a Bedouin minority controls the throne. A glance at this landscape raised two geostrategic questions:
How will the West Bank be connected to Gaza? Any land-based connection will cut Israel in two and expose it to the threat of infiltration, and this is in an era in which the Negev Region is already seen as a kind of no man's land. Do we intend to bring back the Polish Corridor? That territory, which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea and divided the bulk of Germany from East Prussia, was the pretext for the Nazi invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War II.

As the world watched the US Marines pull down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, on April 9, 2003, and as Iraqis defaced every Saddam poster or mural around the country, other Iraqis did one more thing that went uncovered. Hundreds stormed the Palestinian neighborhood in Baghdad and threw rocks on its residents, forcing them to flee. All the Palestinians in Iraq, numbering five thousand, relocated to Treybeel, on the Iraqi border with Jordan, where the UN constructed a makeshift refugee camp. The UN eventually resettled those Palestinians around the world. Today, there is barely any Palestinian who lives anywhere in Iraq. Palestinians are simply not welcome among Iraqis.

When Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to invade Kuwait in 1990, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stood next to the Iraqi tyrant as both men paraded the army that had just decimated a fellow Arab country. The more Saddam found himself isolated because of invading Kuwait, the more he leaned on the “Palestinian Cause” and Arafat, who had himself become irrelevant and living in Tunisia but was enjoying the largesse of oil-rich Iraq.

Until 1990, Saddam had sponsored Arafat’s rivals, including the most notorious global terrorists such as Abu-Nidal, who ordered the assassination of Israel’s ambassador in London, which precipitated the 1982 Lebanon War. Another Palestinian terrorist Saddam hosted was Abul-Abbas, whose claim to fame included recruiting Samir Kuntar, who killed a family in northern Israel and was serving a life in prison until Hezbollah freed him in a prisoner swap that had ignited the 2006 Lebanon War. But by 1990, Saddam was not seeking mercenaries, only legitimacy that he found in Arafat.

When America launched Operation Desert Storm that ejected Saddam’s troops from Kuwait, the Iraqi dictator calculated that he could lineup the Arabs behind him by throwing 39 Skud missiles on Israel. He threw a dozen on Saudi Arabia too. The Arabs — including radicals like Syria’s Assad and Libya’s Qadhafi — never took Saddam’s side. Only Palestinians took to the streets and cheered for Saddam, shouting “Oh Saddam our love, hit Tel Aviv” (it rhymes in Arabic).

Saddam’s love story with the Palestinians continued throughout the 1990s, but unhappy with Arafat’s peace with Israel, Saddam started sponsoring Hamas, whose campaign of suicide bombings, throughout the 1990s, aborted peace and resulted in the Second Intifada in 2000. To every family of a Palestinian “martyr,” Saddam offered 5,000 Euros.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid flew to Bahrain on Thursday on the highest-level Israeli visit to the Gulf state since the countries established formal relations last year.

Lapid, who landed at Bahrain’s international airport in an Israir plane with an olive branch painted on its nose, will inaugurate Israel’s embassy in Manama and hold talks with his Bahraini counterpart.

Bahrain and Gulf neighbour United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel last year in a US-brokered deal known as the Abraham Accords that built on shared business interests and worries about Iran. Sudan and Morocco followed suit.

“We see Bahrain as an important partner, on the bilateral level but also as a bridge to cooperate with other countries in the region,” the spokesperson said.

In Gaza, the Islamist Hamas group criticized Bahrain for hosting Lapid, who returns to Israel on Thursday evening. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said this represented “an encouragement” of what he described as Israeli “crimes against our Palestinian people and their sacred sites.”

The accords have also been criticized by Bahraini opposition figures, speaking largely from abroad, as well as locals who stand against normalization.

History: First time an #AbrahamAccords leader meets an Israeli official: @yairlapid meets King of Bahrain pic.twitter.com/143Ske7UWu

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) September 30, 2021

Hamas: The visit of Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to Bahrain is a national crime.

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 30, 2021

Leader of the UK Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer has said he welcomes the Abraham Accords agreements between Israel, the United Emirates and Bahrain, and that he welcomes diplomatic normalization between Israel and Arab countries.

His comments were made to the Labour Friends of Israel lobbying group during the current Labour Party annual conference, and came following a motion passed by delegates calling for an arms boycott and other sanctions against Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians.

“We must bring people together... not drive them apart with boycotts. That’s the path forward for Israelis and Palestinians,” said Starmer, although it is unclear exactly when his comments were recorded.

“Labour welcomes the Abraham Accords and the growing diplomatic normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This will enhance prosperity and security for all peoples across the region.”

Starmer praised the new Israeli government for including an Arab party, Ra’am, in the coalition, and said that he is “encouraged by the steps the government is taking to repair relations with the Palestinian Authority and its proposals to tackle the terrible plight of the people of Gaza.”

He added that he is seeking to visit Israel as soon as possible, and that he is “committed to doing all I can to continue rebuilding the important bond with our friends in Israel.”

A new IMPACT-se report finds further dramatic improvements in Saudi textbooks in 2021.

The research on the Saudi Arabian school curriculum shows a trend of continuous improvement and dramatic changes over the span of just one year. The textbooks have removed or edited several lessons demonizing Jewish people, Christians, and other "non-believers."

An entire textbook unit on jihad was taken out of the curriculum, the unit advocating violence to spread Islam and protect Muslim land.

Items removed from 2021 Saudi textbooks include forbidding friendships with Jews and Christians, called "infidels" as they are "enemies of God" and lessons justifying and praising violence and murder on behalf of the Prophet Mohammad.

“The trend of significant reforms to the Saudi textbooks that we noted last year is continuing, reinforcing the view that we are witnessing a clear Saudi governmental policy of making rapid improvements to its textbooks in line with standards of peace tolerance in school education," says Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se.

"The country’s rulers have stated their aim of preparing Saudi children with the skills to positively interact with the different cultures and world-views that they may encounter, and this textbook reform is a key element. The improvements this year build on the significant changes instituted in 2020, following our report being presented to the Saudi authorities. IMPACT-se is gratified that so much of the offending material that we noted has now been removed.”

Even George Orwell could not have imagined the dystopian universe that is today's U.N. Human Rights Council. https://t.co/4BIgQXIqci

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 30, 2021

Until a few years ago, Yoel Levi, 21, never thought that one day he would live in Israel and enlist in one of Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) combat units.

He was born in Melilla, an autonomous Spanish city located on the northwest coast of Africa next to Morocco where the majority of the population is Muslim.

"Everyone thought my mother was a Muslim and my father a Christian. Had they known I was Jewish, it would not have been good for me," he says in Hebrew, a language he only learned in the past year.

"Melilla has changed. In the past, there were many Jews there but now there are almost none."

Levi claims that Melilla has turned into an Islamic State hub in recent years. "If you ask children what they want to do when they grow up, the answer for many would be to wage a 'holy war,' which means terrorist attacks."

As he was about to graduate high school, something began to change inside the young man after he had learned that three of his classmates joined the jihadist group. "Every time they talked about Israel, which of course they would call Palestine, I would see the hatred in their eyes," he recalls.

Members of Knesset from the Joint Arab List are happy this week. Their national hero, Khalida Jarrar, was released from Israeli jail after two years, and they are now making pilgrimages to her home and calling her on the phone to congratulate her.

Jarrar is a Palestinian Authority parliament member who was convicted for her activities as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization, whose members carried out an attack in Samaria in 2018, murdering 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and seriously wounding her father and sibling.

MK Ayman Odeh visited her at her home near Ramallah, hailed her as a freedom fighter, saluted her and of course, vowed that the "occupation" would not win. MK Aida Touma-Sliman publicly glorified the "Palestinian leader who finally left prison," while MK Ofer Cassif boasted that he spoke with Jarrar over the phone to congratulate her on being released. In earlier chapters of this story, even MKs from the Labor and Meretz parties advocated for and acted on her behalf on various occasions.

Our expectations from the Joint Arab List are so low, that it isn't even "news" when their Knesset members make pilgrimages to meet a terrorist leader. When MK Itamar Ben-Gvir hangs a picture of Baruch Goldstein on his living room wall, it sparks public outrage and a media frenzy of condemnation. When MKs publicly laud and congratulate a member of the PFLP on every stage imaginable – it's not even a newsflash.

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist was killed after firing on Israeli security forces in the village of Burqin near Jenin on Thursday morning, according to Israel Police.

Border Police undercover officers were shot at from close rage during a riot while they were operating in the village. The agents fired back at the terrorist, killing him and seizing the Carlo submachine gun he used to fire at them.

The Palestinian was identified as Alaa Nasser Zayoud, 22, a terrorist in the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Israel Police said that there were no casualties to the forces, who were conducting arrests of suspects and locating weapons as part of a larger campaign to root out Hamas terrorist infrastructure in the area.

The anti-terror operation involved the Border Police and Israeli soldiers from the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv urban warfare unit.

Five Palestinian suspects were killed early Sunday morning in separate incidents in the West Bank during gunfights with Israeli forces that saw two IDF soldiers seriously wounded in Burqin.

Israeli officials said that the operations targeted a Hamas cell, preventing a major terrorist attack.

Report: Ala' Nasser Zayoud, 22, killed in an armed clash with IDF soldiers in Burqin village near Jenin. pic.twitter.com/iC8AxZh2EA

— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 30, 2021

Palestinians in the West Bank carry the body of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (no official acknowledgment) militant Ala'a Zayoud after he was shot in killed by Israeli forces during clashes in Burqin Thursday morning. pic.twitter.com/o4GD4ovHU6

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 30, 2021

The Palestinian Authority on Thursday accused Israel of carrying out “extra-judicial executions” and called on the United Nations to provide protection for the Palestinians.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), meanwhile, called on Palestinians to step up the “resistance” against Israel in response to the killing of a gunman near Jenin and a woman who tried to stab police officers in the Old City of Jerusalem early Thursday.

In the village of Burkin, near Jenin, soldiers shot and killed 22-year-old Alaa Zyoud, a member of the PIJ’s armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades.

Hours later, police officers shot and killed Israa Khuzaimia, a mother of three from the town of Kabatiya, also near Jenin. The woman was shot while she tried to carry out a stabbing attack near the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The PLO accused Israel of killing the two “in cold blood” and called on the international community to assume its responsibilities toward “the enforcement of international and humanitarian laws in the occupied territories.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned “in the strongest terms the two heinous field executions committed by the occupation forces and its police in both Jerusalem and Burkin.”

According to the ministry, the killings are the direct result of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s evasion of the Palestinian issue during his speech at the UN General Assembly earlier this week.

Palestinian factions in Gaza organized a conference on Sept. 14 to call for the revocation of the framework between the United States and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The conference, which was organized in al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was attended by hundreds of citizens. The Palestinian flag was raised while several banners stressed “the refugees’ rejection of the conditional funding of UNRWA and the rejection of the agreement.”

The Framework for Cooperation between the UNRWA and the US for 2021-2022 called for restoring US funding to the UN agency after it was cut off for several years under former US President Donald Trump.

The framework, signed in July, stipulates, “The US will not make any contributions to UNRWA except on the condition that UNRWA takes all feasible measures to ensure that no part of the US contribution is used to assist any refugee receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestinian Liberation Army or any other guerrilla organization or has participated in any terrorist act.”

Under the framework, the US paid an additional $135 million to the agency.

Palestinian national and Islamic parties in the Gaza Strip led protests back on July 15 against the framework.

In April, the US government resumed its financing for UNRWA with $150 million. In May, the US also provided about $33 million in humanitarian assistance to UNRWA in response to the difficult humanitarian conditions that followed the military confrontation between the resistance factions in Gaza and Israel.

A Palestinian woman was shot dead as she attempted to stab police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City early Thursday morning, police said.

According to police, the woman approached the officers near the Chain Gate leading to the Temple Mount at around 6:30 a.m., took out a knife and tried to stab them. The officers opened fire, shooting the woman.

“Medical forces who arrived at the scene later pronounced her death,” police said.

None of the officers were injured in the attack, according to police.

The Palestinian woman was said to be roughly 30 years old, from the town of Qabatiya, outside Jenin, in the northern West Bank. It was not immediately clear how she entered Israel.

Police closed off the area and brought in a sapper to ensure that the woman did not have an explosive device on her.

A Palestinian teenager was set to be indicted Thursday for allegedly stabbing two people in a terror attack outside the Jerusalem Central Bus Station earlier this month, according to police.

Basil Shawamra, a 17-year-old from the Hebron area, is accused of stabbing two people in a store next to the bus station on September 13, moderately wounding them. He was shot by a police officer as he fought with one of the victims and hospitalized in serious condition.

According to a police statement, Shawamra entered Israel with a friend earlier that day after telling family he was going to pick up his salary. Once in Jerusalem, he came to the bus station via the light rail from the French Hill neighborhood.

Before allegedly carrying out the attack, the suspect published posts on social media praising terrorism and expressing solidarity with Hamas, according to police.

Police said prosecutors would ask the Jerusalem District Court to keep Shawamra in custody until the end of legal proceedings.

Hamas was one of the first to congratulate the Taliban. “The demise of the American occupation and its allies proves that the resistance of the peoples, foremost of which is our struggling Palestinian people, will achieve victory,” Hamas stated the day Kabul fell to the Afghani terrorist organization.

Welcoming “the defeat of the American occupation on all Afghan land,” Hamas praised the Taliban’s “courageous leadership on this victory, which was the culmination of its long struggle over the past 20 years.” The Taliban, in turn, declared that Israel is the only country it would not establish relations with.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who moved to Qatar from Gaza in 2019, and Taliban leaders, who opened a Doha office in 2013, reportedly met in May, soon after the last Hamas-Israel conflict. “The end of the US occupation of Afghanistan is a prelude to the end of the Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine,” Haniyeh told the Taliban’s Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who today is Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister.

Does Hamas, which has sought for more than 34 years Israel’s eradication, have a new sense of confidence in fulfilling its founding Charter, to establish an Islamic state on what is now Israel, including Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza?

Hamas’s governance of Gaza is not an existential threat to Israel, but it is the roadblock to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace, and particularly to resolving the quandary of the Palestinian coastal enclave that Israel left in 2005. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, there has been an uptick in Hamas violence – rockets, incendiary balloons, an IDF soldier shot dead, and protests along the border – that undermines the May ceasefire ending the 11-day Hamas-initiated battle that involved firing 4,000 rockets and missiles into Israel. Not even a fresh delivery of Qatari cash to aid Gazans has quieted Hamas for a moment.

As far as [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad (holy war) against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen.

This approach by the PA leadership has sent a message to generation after generation among the Palestinians that the murder or injuring of a Jew is a noble deed that earns the perpetrator boundless respect – even adoration.

This is the theater of the absurd, where a senior Palestinian official condemns Israel for making an effort to recapture convicted terrorists who murdered and injured several Jews and are serving lengthy sentences. Israel, according to this official, should stand aside while terrorists escape from prison and return to murdering Jews.

What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration's talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.

Under such circumstances, how could Abbas – or any Palestinian leader – ever return to the negotiating table with Israel, regardless of how many hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration decides to waste on the Palestinians' worthless words.

If foreign donors have not understood it by now, the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh spelled it out yet again: The PA will never stop paying salaries to terrorists:
PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh: “From our perspective, the prisoners are the heart of the Palestinian national movement throughout history… The US is punishing us, and Israel is punishing us because we are taking care of the prisoners’ affairs. As President Abbas says: “Even if we are left with one penny, we will take care of them.”These people are our children and we will protect them like we protect every central element of the Palestinian public.”

[Facebook page of PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, Sept. 14, 2021]

The PA also regularly ensures the Palestinian public that under all circumstances the financial rewards for terror will continue. Over 40 times official PA TV has broadcast a filler praising PA Chairman Abbas for various achievements. Part of the video shows Abbas vowing to pay his “last penny” to terrorists – be they prisoners, wounded, or “Martyrs”:
PA TV narrator: “Armed with the power of the right, adhering to the national principles, defying the political pressures, defending Jerusalem… Despite the blackmail, he defends the right of the Martyrs, the wounded, and the prisoners.”

Mahmoud Abbas: “A blessing is sent to our loyal Martyrs, our prisoners, and their families who are standing firm and bearing their suffering with patience. We say to them, to the families of the Martyrs, that we will defend their rights regardless of the price we’ll have to pay. I won’t submit to what Israel has requested. I won’t submit. Even if I’m left with one penny, I’ll pay it to the families of the Martyrs, to the prisoners, and to the wounded, and I won’t withhold this from them.”

[Official PA TV, June 4 (twice), 5 (twice), 6 (four times), 9 (twice), 11 (twice), 12, 15, 16 (twice), 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30, July 2, 3 (twice), 4, 6, 7, 8, 13 (twice), 17 (twice) 23, 26, Aug. 9 (three times), 13, 14, 20, 21, 29, 30 (twice), 2021]

Official PA TV reporter: “Viewers, this is Milad, who was born from smuggled sperm in spite of the jailer. She is the other face of the freedom tunnel…

Regarding prisoner Walid Daqqa (i.e., murderer of 1) and the birth of his daughter Milad, we actually followed this entire process ever since Milad was born. We took it upon ourselves to convey the image of Milad to her father."

Walid Daqqa - Israeli Arab terrorist and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Daqqa was part of the squad that kidnapped and murdered Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in August 1984. Daqqa is serving life in prison.

“The freedom tunnel” refers to the escape tunnel dug by 6 terrorist prisoners in the 2021 Gilboa Prison escape – 6 Palestinian terrorist prisoners escaped from Israel's Gilboa Prison on Sept. 6, 2021, by widening the hole of the shower drainpipe in the floor of their cell. One terrorist is from Fatah - Zakariya Zubeidi, and the other five are from Islamic Jihad - Ayham Kamamji, Muhammad Ardah, Mahmoud Ardah, Yaqub Qaderi, and Munadil Nafiyat. Four of the terrorists were recaptured after five days: Zubeidi, Ardah, Ardah, and Qaderi. Kamamji and Nafiyat were arrested in Jenin on Sept. 18, 2021 along with two accomplices.

Zubeidi was head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Fatah's military wing) in the Jenin area during the PA terror campaign (the second Intifada, 2000-2005), when he oversaw numerous lethal attacks, and he also carried out shooting attacks in 2018-2019.

Kamamji participated in the murder of 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri on June 25, 2006, and planned to blow up a bus using an exploding car. Muhammad Ardah participated in initiating and executing a suicide bombing on bus no. 823 on Nov. 29, 2001, in which 3 people were murdered and many others were wounded.

Mahmoud Ardah was involved in numerous attacks; the website of Islamic Jihad’s military wing defined him as the "commander" of the prison escape.

Qaderi committed a shooting attack on Sept. 18, 2002 with an accomplice in which Israeli Yosef Ajami was murdered and a foreign worker was wounded.

Nafiyat was being held in administrative detention.

On August 31, 2021, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi sent a letter to Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah thanking him for his words of congratulations upon Raisi's election to the presidency and praising Hizbullah and its activity, which, he said, "is no longer confined to Lebanon and Palestine." In his letter Raisi compared Hizbullah to a tree that produces fruit -- young jihad fighters and "the blood of the martyrs of the resistance" -- and called Hizbullah "the hope of the entire Islamic nation" and a regional element whose influence is such that "no political, military or security element in the region or the world can ignore it." He added that Hizbullah "can constitute a unique political model operating according to the religious principles and the directives of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei."[1]

This letter evoked a response from Charles Jabbour, head of the media and communications department of Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces party, known for its opposition to Hizbullah. In an article he published in the Lebanese daily Al-Jumhouriyya, which is identified with the party, he wrote that Raisi's letter proves once again that Hizbullah receives its orders from Iran's Supreme Leader, forms an integral part of Iran's Islamic revolution and acts to promote Iran's goals, one of which is to transform Lebanon from a civil state into a religious one. Jabbour stressed that this contravenes the Lebanese constitution, which defines Lebanon as a pluralistic civil state. Therefore, he said, there is no way to coexist with Hizbullah and maintain a stable country in its presence. According to Jabbour, Raisi's letter describes Hizbullah as a tool for establishing the Islamic nation and for confronting Israel. This, he said, belies the claim that Hizbullah has been marketing for years, namely that it is fighting Israel in order to defend Lebanon's sovereignty, and shows that Hizbullah is actually fighting Israel as part of the great Iranian program.

It should be noted that this article is part of the growing criticism voiced against Hizbullah by its opponents inside Lebanon, which regard it as a tool of the Iranian regime which violates Lebanon's sovereignty.

A senior official in the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah told the judge investigating the disastrous Beirut port blast that it would remove him from the probe, according to a journalist who says she conveyed the message and a judicial source.

Judge Tarek Bitar described the message in a letter to the public prosecutor, said the judicial source. The justice minister and judiciary were following up on the matter but a formal investigation has yet to be opened, the source said.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a judicial matter and judge Bitar’s letter was marked private.

Reuters could not reach Bitar, who is not permitted to speak to the media in his capacity as an investigating judge. He has not issued any statement about the matter since reports of the warning began circulating in Lebanese media last week.

Neither the Hezbollah official in question, Wafik Safa, nor other Hezbollah officials could be reached for comment.

More than 200 people died when a huge stockpile of chemicals stored unsafely at Beirut port for years exploded on Aug. 4, 2020.

Bitar is the second judge whose investigation has been stymied by powerful factions in Lebanon, where a lack of high-level accountability are blamed for systemic corruption, governing gridlock and economic meltdown.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's attacks against Iran in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Monday highlights Israel's strategic distress against the Islamic Republic as its nuclear program continues to rapidly progress.

The premier made an almost desperate call to the U.S. and its European allies to toughen up their stance on Tehran and take more drastic measures to halt its accelerating nuclear weapon.

Israel is mainly worried that the brakes former president Hassan Rouhani put on the pace of the nuclear program have been lifted under his ultra-conservative successor Ebrahim Raisi. There is no longer a moderate force in the leadership of the regime that can counteract the hardliner Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - along with the Revolutionary Guard and the mainly conservative parliament.

Israel fears that by the time the Americans and their allies come to their senses and understand what the new regime is really striving for, Iran will already be a nuclear threshold state or even on the verge of their first nuclear weapons' test.

Bennett's despair stems from the fact that Israel, at least for now, has no efficient, reliable and conventional military option to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions before they come to fruition, at least at a reasonable cost.

Israel needs not only to thwart Tehran's military nuclear capabilities, but to ensure they could not be rebuilt further down the road.

Iran is set to hold military exercises on its border with Azerbaijan in an attempt to challenge what it claims is “the presence of the Zionist regime” in the area.

The exercises include a large amount of materiel, such as armored units and attack helicopters, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Azerbaijan has relatively warm relations with Israel, which include oil supplies to the Jewish state from Azerbaijan and military aid to Azerbaijan from Israel. This in stark contrast to Iran’s theocratic regime, which regularly calls for the genocide of Israel’s Jews and engages in crude antisemitic propaganda.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh explicitly connected the military exercises to what he called “the presence of Israel” in Azerbaijan.

“It’s clear that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not tolerate the presence of the Zionist regime near its borders, and in this respect, it will implement any action it deems necessary for its national security,” he said.

The Cabinet1 of Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, represents the culmination of a decades-long political project by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to promote ultra-hardline elites to key leadership positions.2 Drawn from an increasingly narrow bench, Raisi’s appointees include several persons who served under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2013),3 who also harbored immense hostility to the West and stacked his Cabinet with veterans of Iran’s security forces.4

Reflecting this new constellation of power, Raisi’s Cabinet boasts 12 sanctioned individuals, more than any other in the history of the Islamic Republic. These persons are subject to overlapping international penalties imposed by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and United Nations due to their role in Khamenei’s networks, support for Iran’s nuclear program, ties to terrorist groups, and human rights abuses. These 12 also hold some of the most important portfolios, including the ministries of defense, interior, and petroleum as well as two vice presidencies.

The Cabinet members under sanctions include eight persons on the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List,5 seven persons subject to UK sanctions,6 seven persons subject to EU sanctions,7 and one person on a UN sanctions list.8 The EU and UK lists mirror one another, and both entities will delist the same three persons come October 2023, pursuant to the implementation timeline of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).9 Similarly, UN sanctions will terminate in October 2023 pursuant to the same JCPOA implementation timeline.10 The other four EU and UK designations against members of Raisi’s Cabinet will remain, as they were issued under human rights-related authorities and are separate from each entity’s JCPOA commitments. Three of those four individuals have yet to be sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.11

While Raisi is by now known for serving on a “death commission” in 1988 that led to the execution of several thousand political prisoners, he is subject to U.S. sanctions for having been elevated by Khamenei to a state position.12 Several other Cabinet members have been designated under this broad and unique U.S. sanctions authority, which exposes and penalizes the supreme leader’s network of appointees.13 They include First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber,14 who previously led a multibillion-dollar holding company owned by the supreme leader, known by its acronym, EIKO,15 as well as three others.16

After years of sanctions, mismanagement and the pandemic, many prices in Iran have more than doubled since 2018, living standards have skidded, and poverty has spread, especially among rural Iranians.

All but the wealthiest have been brought low.

The darkening mood for middle-class Iranians can best be measured in the rush to leave the country after graduation, in delayed marriages and declining birthrates.

The rial plunged from 43,000 to the dollar in January 2018 to 277,000 this week, a decline that forced the government last year to slash four zeros off the bills.

Recent years have seen an ascendancy of key individuals linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran. The IRGC already has a parallel state in Iran, controlling parts of the economy and foreign policy, and building up new military technologies such as missiles, drones and attack boats.

According to the Tasnim News Agency, IRGC Quds Force head Ismail Qaani congratulated Dr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on his election as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a visit to the ministry.

Why does this matter? In the past, former IRGC Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani was seen as the “shadow commander” in reports, a figure who moved around the Middle East and pushed Iran’s agenda far and wide, but who did not often brag of his role. When the US killed Soleimani in a drone strike in January 2020, he was replaced by Qaani, a man of unclear abilities. Qaani was rumored to be an expert on Afghanistan, and it may be that his role there helped remove the US from Kabul this year, but his role in Iraq and Syria is not yet fully formed.

Nevertheless, the reports of his meeting at the Foreign Ministry seek to showcase his power and influence. In the meeting he emphasized “the special and significant position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in securing the national interests of our country,” the report said.

But why does the Ministry, previously run by Javad Zarif, who had fame in the West, need the blessings of the Quds Force? Because this illustrates the real power structure and how the ministry works hand in glove with the IRGC.

Iranian Maj.-Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid said that Revolutionary Guards Gen. Qassem Soleimani announced, three months before his death, that he had organized six armies outside Iranian territory to defend Tehran against attack.

These armies include Lebanese Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the regime forces in Syria, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Houthi militia in Yemen.

A prominent Iranian military commander said that his country has “six armies outside its borders that work for it.”

Gholam Ali Rashid, the commander of what is known as “the headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya”, said in statements carried by the Iranian Mehr Agency, that Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force, announced, three months before his death, that he had organized six armies outside Iranian territory.

He added that Soleimani was supported by the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the General Staff of the Army.

He added that these armies have ideological tendencies, live outside Iran, and their mission is to defend Tehran against any attack, according to his claim.

In his statements, he also said that these armies include the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Hamas and Jihad movements, the regime forces in Syria, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Houthi militia in Yemen, stressing that these forces represent a deterrent force for Iran.

IRGC General Gholamali Rashid: Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas and PIJ in Palestine, PMU in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen Are All Armies Ready to Defend the Iranian Regime #Iran#IRGC#JCPOA#Hizbullah#Hamas#Houthis#PMU#PIJpic.twitter.com/4fiWkTXOH4

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 30, 2021

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Conference resolutions aren’t binding on the party leadership but are nevertheless a powerful statement of Labour party feeling.

So now we know that the Labour faithful view Israel’s rebirth as a catastrophe. The Labour faithful promote the legally and historical illiterate falsehood that there is such a thing as “Palestinian land”. The Labour faithful misrepresent international law which, contrary to the persistent mis-statement of the relevant treaties by deeply anti-Israel international bodies and the British Foreign Office, the Israelis uphold.

The Labour faithful appear to believe that Israelis are not entitled to the protection of the rule of law, misrepresenting as “forced displacements” legal proceedings taken against Arab tenants in a district of Jerusalem, Shimon HaTzadik as it’s known to Jews or Sheikh Jarrah as it’s known to Arabs, because they were refusing to pay their rents.

The Labour faithful appear to believe that Israelis are not entitled to defend themselves against mass murder. Thus the motion demonised as Israel’s “militarised violence” against the al Aqsa mosque the defence of Israelis against jihadi attacks launched from the al Aqsa mosque.

The Labour faithful similarly misrepresented the deadly bombardments with thousands of missiles and rockets from Gaza as a deadly assault by Israel on Gaza — because Israel defended its citizens by taking military action against Gaza’s terrorists, an offensive that went to lengths unparalleled in the world to protect Gaza’s civilians from harm.

The Labour faithful further want to make it easier for Israelis to be murdered. Thus they demanded the destruction of the security barrier which has stopped the mass attacks committed by Arabs from the disputed territories that slaughtered more than 1000 Israelis between 2000 and 2005.

And most vicious of all, the Labour faithful smeared Israel with the libel of “apartheid” — a claim as fatuous as it is pernicious. Apartheid was the appalling system of separate development by which white South Africans not only excluded black South Africans from public life and denied them their civic and human rights but prohibited them from sharing buses, public amenities or even park benches.

By contrast, Israel is a democracy committed to the human rights of all its citizens. Arab Israelis have full equal rights, as can be seen immediately from their numbers studying in Israel’s universities, enjoying Israel’s beaches and parks, receiving treatment in Israel’s hospitals or working there as doctors and other medical staff, serving in the armed forces and as judges and members of Knesset in Israel’s governing coalition.

Interview with Tom Gross, British journalist and political commentator.

Labour’s response on this should have been led by Starmer and his shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy when the summer skirmishes started. Instead, they appeared hamstrung and for several days both only attacked Israel. Hamas weren’t mentioned.

This obsession impacted on many of us during those dark days of the conflict. Our children were bullied in schools and universities, work was made uncomfortable for many of us if our colleagues were left-wingers, and there were physical attacks in the street. This demonisation of Jews because of their connection with Israel is the next obvious step; words lead to action.

The second is the uncomfortable truth that Starmer was next to Corbyn when he caused all that pain to our community. While he can insist that they rowed about it furiously in shadow cabinet meetings, we can only take his word for it; what we do know is that he barely criticised it in public, preferring to parrot the line that all this stuff about Corbyn was down to those awful creatures in the media.

When Ellman quit the party in October 2019 saying, “the Labour Party is no longer a safe place for Jews and Jeremy Corbyn must bear the responsibility for this,” Starmer was asked about what she had said by Andrew Marr. He replied: “I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that. I am 100 per cent behind Jeremy Corbyn.”

On winning the leadership, he called Corbyn his “friend” and even now he said that to win the whip back all the former leader has to do is apologise for saying the antisemitism crisis in Labour had been “dramatically overstated”.

Why has no one guilty of the antisemitism crisis – which hurt so many of us, made us feel like strangers in our home, led to many of us contemplating leaving the country – properly apologised and acknowledged what they did? Why hasn’t Corbyn, in particular, been thrust completely out of the party instead of headlining fringe events where they are still wailing ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ like cultists? Why are Labour MPs, including deputy leader Angela Rayner, still attending events with Corbyn and people thrown out of the party for antisemitism? Why hasn’t Starmer acknowledged and apologised for his own part in it?

This week I’ve been interviewing some of the brave men of the 62 Group who fought anti-fascists in the 1960s, and whose story will be told in new BBC series Ridley Road, which starts on Sunday night. They knew how you dealt with antisemites. While I’m not advocating starting fights at Labour meetings, I do think we need to put our heads up a bit higher, find a bit of Jewish pride, and only forgive the Labour party when they actually and completely solve their problem with antisemitism.

At the Young Labour rally, in bright lipstick and with shiny hair, they thrill to protest. I think it is Oedipal, and more an emotional than a political imperative, but I am a Social Democrat. The room — called The Empress but no matter — is alive with protest; protest for its own sake. Beyond it there is nothing: certainly not power. Here, at the Empress, they would rather lead the party than have the party lead the country. That is clear. They speak to the voters, but they do not listen to them. Their voters are theoretical. Their analysis of the 2019 defeat is: not enough Corbynism, plus sabotage. The reason for their problems now is: purge.

They fete themselves, and attack the Labour leadership, which they treat like a pantomime villain, with boos and hisses. Starmer is obviously Sylvia Plath’s Daddy: “Daddy, I have had to kill you”. The leadership named this event “Cancelled” on the conference app, but changed their minds, and this is their revenge. I can hear their narcissism in their cadences, and their applause. It is their Conference. They are Labour. When a trade union leader says her union is not affiliated to the Labour Party, they cheer. The obvious question: so why are they?

We hear Richard Burgon MP, and John McDonnell MP, then Corbyn comes, still denied the Labour whip. I marvel at the vanity of this supposedly humble man, but I never believed in his humility, any more than I believed in his anti-racism. Anti-racism is only meaningful when you extend it to your political enemies, and he never did. He ignored the abuse of live female Jewish MPs but stands in solidarity with dead Jews, who need nothing from him, can’t attack him, and are as theoretical to him as voters. The humble change their minds, and he never does: his humility is performative, in a shy glance at the youthful supporters, in a tender bowing of the head. He looks sorrowful — he lost — then happy: I still have you. To be fair, he does sound like the most sensible man in the room. But that is his job: to sound sane and vexed — Magic Grandpa — while his supporters bully and scream. “In the last leadership election, our members and unions were promised unity, but instead we are given division,” he mourns. He will spend the whole of Conference inciting division, and haunting Conference with his vanity.

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle has issued a grovelling apology to party members who he claims are being “purged or set up with false allegations.”

In a clear reference to members who had fallen foul of new rules proscribing groups that had downplayed or denied antisemitism, the Brighton Kempton MP told a rally held by Socialist Campaign Group MPs at a festival coinciding with Labour’s party conference: “I want to apologise.

“I was struck by members who feel alone in our party at the moment. I want to apologise, from me in particular, because if we have made you feel like you are alone, if we have not reached out our arms enough in these tough times when you are being purged or set up with false allegations , Ii not only apologise, I will endeavour to do better because we have to support each other. ”

One of Russell-Moyle’s colleagues, who heard his speech at Tuesday’s event at The World Transformed said they found his remarks “sickening” in a week in which leader Keir Starmer said the party was on the right path to rooting out antisemitism.

But Russell-Moyle was not the only speaker at the event to attack the suspension of members falling foul of the rules.

Pro-Israel groups are slamming Vice President Kamala Harris after she praised a student who accused Israel of "ethnic genocide," an exchange that threatens to undercut Harris’s credibility as a pro-Israel voice in the Biden administration.

Harris was taking questions at George Mason University on Tuesday when a student in the audience criticized U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and argued that "just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s an ethnic genocide and a displacement of people." Harris, who nodded during the student’s comment, responded that she was "glad" the student spoke out and said, "Your truth should not be suppressed."

Pro-Israel groups said they were troubled that Harris—who is viewed as one of the more pro-Israel voices in a Democratic Party that is growing increasingly hostile to the Jewish state—failed to push back on the audience member’s claims. The criticism of Harris comes as Democratic Party leaders are facing pressure from left-wing lawmakers and activists to withdraw support for Israel. Last week, House Democrats removed funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system from a spending bill under pressure from progressive House members.

"The vice president should’ve challenged the student’s baseless demonization of Israel," said CUFI Action Fund chairwoman Sandra Parker. "Unfortunately, instead, Vice President Harris chose to defend the individual’s right to speak—something no one sought to deny. Harris’s reaction was that of a politician afraid to speak honestly rather than a leader with the courage of her convictions."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center also questioned the vice president’s response.

"Israel Genociders? Your truth can’t be suppressed? No VP Harris don’t validate PA/Hamas talking point lies. Truth is not a multiple choice question. Don’t validate big lies that spawn anti-Semitism," the group wrote on Twitter.

I am honestly not surprised about Kamala Harris.

Last year, she made a video that said Chanukah, the festival that commemorates Jews fighting to defend their Jewishness & Judaism against cultural genocide, was about 'Tikkun Olam'. It is not.

— Ben M. Freeman (@BenMFreeman) September 30, 2021

Naftali Bennett and Mahmoud Abbas both made speeches at the United Nations recently. What they had to say could not have been further apart.

Vice-President of the United States Kamala Harris created an outrage online this week by refusing to condemn lies accusing Israel of committing genocide. She even nodded her approval when a student at a Virginia University accused Israel of ethnic cleansing.

Iran state media promotes video of Kamala Harris not pushing back on Israel 'ethnic genocide' claimhttps://t.co/yBiKVAHP7d

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 30, 2021

Winston Churchill famously said that "nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." In the last several days, those of us who are part of the Jewish and pro-Israel communities have been repeatedly reminded of Churchill's maxim. While the bullets flying in our direction are metaphorical rather than ballistic, we've spent a lot of time recently dodging incoming political missiles with the potential to do great damage to the Jewish people and homeland.

Most visible in the latest fusillade was last week's congressional fight over whether the United States should provide financial assistance to help the Israeli military restock its Iron Dome defense system after their war with Hamas earlier this year. A small group of progressive Democratic House members forced their leadership to eliminate a $1 billion earmark from a must-pass government funding bill, and although the spending was later approved in a separate measure, it provided an opportunity for a vocal and growing faction of Israel's congressional foes to air their grievances with the Jewish state's efforts to defend its people against thousands of missiles fired at civilian targets.

In California's state capitol, meanwhile, legislation creating a mandatory ethnic studies course for the state's public schools was awaiting Governor Gavin Newson's signature. The bill is a vast improvement over the original version, which included a curriculum that neglected to mention anti-Semitism as a type of racial or ethnic hatred and uncritically held up the anti-Zionist BDS crusade as a worthwhile social movement. But it still allows for that objectionable earlier draft to be taught in local schools, and there is a well-organized advocacy effort to persuade school districts to use it.

And here in Los Angeles, a faction of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union members had introduced a motion to be considered by the organization that would have put them on record in support of the BDS movement, following similar successful efforts by the Seattle and San Francisco teacher unions. The Jewish Federation LA effectively marshalled a broad-based opposition campaign and was able to convince union leadership to indefinitely table the proposal, but the fact that such a fight was necessary provided an uncomfortable reminder of the pervasiveness of anti-Zionist and and-Semitic sentiment in political circles.

Iraqis who participated in a conference calling for normalizing ties with Israel disavowed or recanted their remarks after being subjected to death threats and arrest warrants, with some participants saying they had been duped into attending.

Last Friday, over 300 Iraqis from across the country gathered at a conference in the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where speakers called for peace and reconciliation with Israel. Iraq has been at war with Israel since 1948, when the Jewish state was established.

The conference immediately ignited a firestorm in Iraqi media, with Iraq’s president and prime minister condemning the event as illegal and vowing to prosecute those who attended. Iraqi law mandates strict penalties for citizens and residents who maintain contact with Israelis. Normalization efforts are punishable by life in prison.

Three arrest warrants were issued following the conference: for tribal leader Wisam al-Hardan and Iraqi Culture Ministry official Sahar al-Ta’i, both of whom spoke at the conference, and for Iraqi parliamentarian Mithal al-Alousi, a longtime advocate of Israel normalization.

It is unclear if anyone had been arrested, as al-Hardan is reportedly under the protection of Kurdish authorities and Al-Alousi resides in Germany.

In foreign policy, the SPD and the FDP will both advocate business as usual with China and Russia. Only the Greens have called for greater emphasis on human rights and an end to turning a blind eye to tyranny.

On defence, it is a similar story: the German failure to contribute the Nato minimum of two per cent of GDP is likely to continue, with only the Greens favouring a tougher policy. Thus Emmanuel Macron’s vision of a European army, to give the EU a clout commensurate with its economic weight, is likely to remain just that: a mirage of military prowess.

It was a previous Social Democratic Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, who in the late 1970s and early 1980s was so determined to ensure that the Federal Republic played its part in the defence of the West that in the end it cost him his job. By then he had forced the pacifists and fellow travellers to leave the SPD and form a new party — the Greens. There is a certain irony, then, that 40 years later the Greens are slightly more hawkish than the SPD.

Olaf Scholz has a great deal to prove that he is worthy to inherit the mantle of Schmidt and the even more legendary Willy Brandt, the Chancellor who fell on his knees in Warsaw to atone for the crimes of the Nazis. But at least he has already arrested the decline, which had seemed terminal, of his party.

Not so Armin Laschet, the lacklustre leader of the CDU. The great Volkspartei (“people’s party”) created by Konrad Adenauer to rebuild postwar West Germany, repurposed by Helmut Kohl to rebuild East Germany after the fall of the Wall, then steered through multiple crises by Angela Merkel, has ceased to exist.

A biopic about an Israeli attorney who has defended Palestinian terror suspects won an award for Best Documentary at Wednesday night’s News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

“Advocate” follows the story of Lea Tsemel, an attorney who represents Palestinian clients including civil rights activists and suspected terrorists — most recently Arafat Irfaiya, who has confessed to the brutal rape and murder of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in a Jerusalem forest in 2019.

The controversial movie — directed by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche — was previously among 15 films shortlisted for the 2019 Academy Awards in the documentary feature category.

The film follows two cases from the past few years in which Tsemel, 74, represented Palestinians eventually convicted of terrorism.

One is the case of Ahmed Manasra, who was convicted of the attempted murder of two Israelis in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem in October 2015, when he was 13 years old, and is currently serving a 9.5-year prison sentence.

Manasra carried out the attack with his 15-year-old cousin Hassan Manasra. The two stabbed and seriously wounded a 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev. Hassan Manasra was shot dead by security forces, while Ahmed Manasra was hit by a car as he fled.

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present is the title of Dara Horn's new book. I happened to receive a copy last week just as anti-Israel members of Congress were doing their best to ensure the proliferation of more endearing corpses.

In case you missed it: Last Wednesday, members of the "Squad," far-left House Democrats including Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, blocked a bill to keep the federal government operating until it was stripped of funds to replenish Israel's Iron Dome.

To be clear: The Iron Dome is not a weapon. It is a shield. It intercepts and destroys short-range missiles before they can reach their intended victims.

Developed through a blossoming partnership that produces next-generation military technology for Israeli and US warfighters, this miracle of engineering is now used to protect American troops as well.

The Iron Dome also defends Israelis who are not Jews. Say a missile strikes an Israeli hospital. Those inside will likely include Israeli Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Druze and other minorities. They may be doctors, nurses, or patients, because Israel has no laws separating by race, ethnicity, or religion.

In other words, Israel is not an apartheid state, although that's the slander you now incessantly hear from the Squad and others intent on demonizing, delegitimizing and, ultimately, destroying Israel.

A College Democrats of America leader is facing pressure to resign after her anti-Semitic tweets resurfaced.

Just one day before Nourhan Mesbah was elected vice president of the College Democrats' executive board, the national student club's Jewish Caucus released a screenshot of a 2016 tweet where she blamed Jews for sabotaging Hillary Clinton in a debate against Donald Trump.

"I blame this debate on the yahood," Mesbah tweeted. "Yahood" is the Arabic word for Jews.

In her tweet, Mesbah tagged Dima Jubara, an acquaintance with a long history of anti-Semitic statements—including one 2016 tweet where she prayed that "God will kill the Jews." The College Democrats of America Jewish Caucus called on Mesbah to drop out of the race and resign from the organization. College Democrats chapters at George Washington University and American University echoed calls for Mesbah's resignation and threatened to withdraw from the national organization if it fails to address anti-Semitism within its ranks.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in the Democratic Party. Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and other left-wing members of the Democratic Party are quick to address instances of hatred toward minority groups but have largely ignored hate crimes against Jews, which far exceeded those against Asians, Muslims, and transgender people combined in 2020, according to FBI crime statistics released Sept. 27. House progressives earlier this month successfully lobbied to strip funding from Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system from a defense spending bill.

Mesbah issued an apology but denied her tweets stemmed from hatred toward Jews. She quickly turned to discussing her own experience with bigotry as a "Muslim, immigrant, woman of color."

AFTER THE Post’s revelations, Oberlin College’s chief of staff David Hertz told the student paper Oberlin Review in April that “the college is aware of the allegations and is taking steps to address them.” However, it has refused to answer multiple Post queries about its investigation into Mahallati and whether the findings will be published.

The most serious accusations against Mahallati involve his role as a former Iranian envoy in a mass murder in which he “committed crimes against humanity” by covering up the massacre of at least 5,000 innocent Iranian prisoners in 1988, according to an Amnesty International report titled “Blood-soaked secrets: Why Iran’s 1988 prison massacres are ongoing crimes against humanity.” The college’s April inquiry also covers Mahallati’s activity during the 1988 atrocities and his documented tirades against the persecuted Baha'i community in Iran.

The organization Oberlin Committee for Justice for Mahallati’s victims will hold a protest against him and the management of Oberlin College on November 2 from 12:00-2:00 p.m. in front of the Cox administration building. Growing outrage over the college’s alleged failure to hold Mahallati accountable for his reported “crimes against humanity” prompted the slated protest.

In 2020, the local Oberlin newspaper The Chronicle quoted Lawdan Bazargan, whose 29-year-old brother Bijan was one of the victims of the 1988 massacre. Bazargan said when her father asked for Bijan's body from the authorities, they told him that “he was a heretic, so he can not have any mourning ceremony, and we will not reveal his grave. You cannot have any ceremony for him."

After the victim’s family members and human rights experts published their public letter in October 2020 stating that Mahallati carried out “crimes against humanity,” the professor told the Post that "I was in New York the entire summer of 1988, focusing on peacemaking between Iran and Iraq and did not receive any briefing regarding executions. There was not a single communication from Tehran to Iran’s UN embassy informing Iranian diplomats of those incidents.

"During my short-lived ambassadorial position (1987-1989), I was focused on peacemaking efforts to end the Iran-Iraq war, the most prolonged and devastating war in modern history."

Mahallati has refused to answer numerous Post media requests for comments about his alleged antisemitism and anti-Baha'i propaganda.

"9/11, as we all know, does not begin on 9/11" when Al Qaeda waged jihad against the United States, but has an imperialist prehistory that goes "back really to the birth of the colonial order," stated UCLA history professor Robin Kelley during "Whose Narrative? 20 Years Since 9/11/2001," a September 11 webinar. He and his fellow panelists, including two terrorist supporters, hijacked a solemn day of mourning to whitewash any Islamist involvement in that day's horrifying events and portray America as righteously attacked by a vengeful world.

The first terrorist sympathizer to speak was San Francisco State University associate professor of ethnic studies Rabab Abdulhadi. In 2014, she used taxpayer dollars to send Americans previously imprisoned for terrorism to meet fellow terrorists at An-Najah University in the West Bank. Last September, she attempted to host via Zoom convicted Palestinian terrorist and hijacker Leila Khaled, but congressional pressure and online companies' wariness forced the event's cancelation.

This year, Abdulhadi denied the victims of 9/11 their dignity by adopting an "all lives matter" stance to her "moment of silence to honor all those fallen" by the attacks. "We depart from the U.S.-centric approach by remembering and thinking of all those who have fallen around the world as a direct result of U.S. interventionist and imperialist wars," she said. Lest anyone miss her viciousness toward her host country, she added a litany of anti-Western accusations, including slavery, "genocidal wars against the indigenous people of the Western hemisphere," and "disaster capitalism and racial capitalism." She thereby reflected Kelley's view that "The lessons I think every generation learns is that U.S. empire threatens the future of humanity,"

UJS is disgusted to hear that Wiley will be performing at @SwitchPreston as part of @UCLanSU freshers week. https://t.co/4qU1MdrgjBpic.twitter.com/syKDzRchig

— Union of Jewish Students (@UJS_UK) September 30, 2021

When the BDS movement attacks other Arabs for refusing to boycott Israel.

What a pathetic movement of losers. https://t.co/inDqNxsAHR

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) September 29, 2021

That time South Africa's then-President Nelson Mandela received an honorary doctorate from Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

CAMERA UK submitted a complaint to the BBC concerning that serious omission on August 31st. On September 8th we were informed that it would take the BBC more time to address that very straightforward issue. On September 20th we received the following response:

“Thank you for getting in touch about our article Palestinian President Abbas holds rare talks with Israeli minister and please accept our apologies for the delay in our response.

We have added this information, along with an update note advising readers of the change.”

The relevant section of that report now reads as follows:

The footnote appended to the report reads:

The continued absence of a dedicated corrections page on the BBC News website of course means that few, if any, of the readers of that article in the first 19 days after its publication are likely to discover that it failed to provide them with that highly relevant information.

On Monday, we emailed and tweeted the Irish Times foreign editors over an extremely misleading photo accompanying an article about an IDF operation near Jenin that left five Hamas terrorists dead.

Though the article makes clear that those killed were all adult Hamas members who were were planning a series of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians, editors chose an undated photo of another incident, in another city, involving a young teen detained for rock throwing.

Our complaint was upheld, and the photo replaced with something far more appropriate:

A former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp skipped the planned start Thursday of her trial in Germany on more than 11,000 counts of accessory to murder, officials said. She was picked up several hours later after the court issued an arrest warrant.

The 96-year-old woman left her home near Hamburg in a taxi on Thursday morning, a few hours before proceedings were due to start at the state court in Itzehoe, court spokesperson Frederike Milhoffer said.

The court issued the warrant and delayed the reading of the indictment until the next scheduled hearing on October 19 because that couldn’t be done in the defendant’s absence.

The accused woman previously had “announced that she didn’t want to come” to court, but the statement did not provide sufficient grounds for detaining her ahead of the trial, Milhoffer said. Given the woman’s age and condition, she had not been expected “actively to evade the trial,” Milhoffer added.

The court said Thursday afternoon that the defendant had been caught and police would bring her to the court, German news agency dpa reported. A doctor was to examine whether she was fit to be jailed before the court decides whether or not to put her in custody.

Prosecutors argue that the woman was part of the apparatus that helped the Nazi’s Stutthof camp function during World War II more than 75 years ago.

A member of a neo-Nazi cell operating in several US states has been convicted on five counts related to threats against journalists and Jewish activists.

Kaleb Cole, 25, was one of four neo-Nazis arrested by the FBI in February 2020 in Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Washington state.

The group called itself the “Atomwaffen Division” after the German term for “atomic weapon.” Authorities charged that they cyber-stalked and sent swastika-laden posters to journalists and an employee of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), telling them, among other things, “You have been visited by your local Nazis,” and “We are Watching.”

One of their targets was Mala Blomquist, an editor for Arizona Jewish Life magazine. A poster glued to her house displayed Nazi symbols alongside the threat, “Your Actions Have Consequences.”

The Department of Justice said in a statement Wednesday that the jury in Cole’s trial deliberated for about 90 minutes before delivering its verdict, finding Cole guilty of conspiracy, three counts of mailing threatening communications, and one count of interfering with a federally protected activity.

Prosecutors said during the trial that images sent by Cole to his victims “were selected by Kaleb Cole to send one message: ‘We can get you in your home.’ Cole wanted to terrorize them with threats of physical harm.”

The Department of Justice said that Cole’s victims “moved from their homes for a time and installed security systems.”

A new report contends that hatred of women and feminism on the far-right can easily slip into antisemitism.

According to the report from the UK-based organization Hope Not Hate, there is a strong correlation between antisemitism and anti-feminist and misogynist figures, groups, and publications among members of movements like the “alt-right.”

In particular, the report points to conspiracy theories such as “cultural Marxism,” which holds that intellectuals are seeking to impose communism via culture, education, and movements like feminism; and “white genocide,” which holds that there is a plot to use Third World immigration to destroy the white race — both of which often lead into open antisemitism.

Members of the far-right accept these conspiracy theories but then connect them to larger antisemitic conspiracy theories, claiming that the Jews manufactured feminism and other supposedly destructive ideologies in order to harm men and white people.

The report describes how “antifeminism and misogyny can act as slip roads towards antisemitism and other forms of racism, due to a perceived loss of status among white men — and women — based on gender and racial hierarchies.”

“In recent years,” states the report, “the antisemitic far right, in particular, has become increasingly adept at steering antipathy to feminism and women more broadly towards Jew-hatred, reasserting men’s status at the expense of others.”

A political candidate in Virginia, a television game show host, and a Washington, DC, historian seem to think that jokes about “Jewish noses” are funny. They’re not. In fact, they’re dangerous.

In Virginia, Hahns Copeland, a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates, last week mocked the size of a Jewish delegate’s nose. Earlier this year, Mike Richards, who was almost the new host of “Jeopardy,” was revealed to have made a joke about a Jewish woman’s nose.

And then there’s Dr. Rebecca Erbelding, a staff historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, who tweeted in 2019: “At a talk today, asked about my personal background. I confessed that I’m not Jewish, but with a Hebrew first name, German last name, and my nose and hair, I ‘pass.’”

It’s instructive to see how each of these controversies played out. Richards apologized — but was fired from “Jeopardy” anyway. Copeland apologized — but denied his slur was antisemitic. Erbelding has never apologized at all. In fact, she hasn’t even acknowledged the public’s legitimate concerns about what she wrote.

The British attorney-general has told the country’s Court of Appeal to review the sentencing of a right-wing extremist who was convicted of a terrorism offense and ordered to read classic literature as a punishment, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Though Ben John, 21, was also given two years’ suspended jail time, the office of Attorney General Suella Braverman said in a statement the ruling was “unduly lenient.”

“It is now for the court to decide whether to increase the sentence,” a spokesperson said according to the report.

An anti-racism group in the UK had petitioned the attorney general with a call to re-sentence John, who was ordered last month to read classical literature in retribution for downloading almost 70,000 white supremacist documents and bomb-making instructions.

John avoided prison “by the skin of his teeth,” Judge Timothy Spencer of the Leicester Crown Court said during a sentencing hearing August 31, instead handing him the suspended prison sentence.

Spencer said John’s crime was likely to be an isolated “act of teenage folly” and ordered him to reappear in court every four months to be “tested” on classic literature by Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen.

Australia’s leading civil rights organization condemned antisemitic and anti-vaccine graffiti found on the side of an IKEA store in Melbourne, Australia.

The Ikea store in the suburb of Richmond was defaced Thursday on one wall with the words, “No Jew Jab for Oz,” and “No Jew Jab” on another wall. A Jewish woman who saw the vandalism reported it to Victoria Police and the local Richmond Council, the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) said. The graffiti was then painted over by a council staff member.

In a statement Friday, ADC chairman Dvir Abramovich addressed the “poisonous alliance” between some opponents of the COVID-19 vaccine and antisemitic groups that are “feeding off each other’s conspiracy theories and wacky narratives.” He called on elected officials to condemn “this toxic intersection which may spill into violence” and explained how the coronavirus pandemic has produced a “fertile ground for extremists.”

“The neo-Nazis who first accused Jews of creating the ongoing pandemic are now using the growth of skepticism about vaccines, and the fact that many people are online during the lockdown, to spread their dangerous ideas to a wider audience,” he said. “This domestic radicalization is a cause for concern, and as the violent anti-lockdown, anti-vax protests of the last week in Melbourne and this latest incident demonstrate, there is a coalition of actors that have locked arms to spread these lies.”

French gaming company Vodoo has acquired Israeli gaming company Beach Bum for an estimated $250-300 million, sources close to the deal have told "Globes." Beach Bum was founded by Gigi Levy-Weiss and Uri Shahak, who previously founded Israeli gaming company Playtika (Nasdaq: PLTK).

Beach Bum, which has developed digital board games backgammon, rummy and spades, is based in Ra'anana and had grown rapidly under the media radar in recent years, and gained millions of loyal users who have been able to play their 'real world' favorite games on their mobile phones.

Voodoo is a leading French mobile gaming company with a valuation of $1.4 billion, and whose shareholders include Tencent and Goldman Sachs.

Beach Bum lets users open their app and find partners to play against in real time. The app became especially popular during the Covid pandemic when millions of people were socially isolated at home in lockdown but using Beach Bum were able to find partners to play their favorite games. The company will soon launch a product which will take the experience in the world of video, making it possible to play backgammon or rummy against partners using video programs such as Zoom.

In Sound Mind, a new video game developed by Israeli game studio We Create Stuff and published by Modus Games, was finally released on Tuesday, hitting digital distribution services Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X/S.

The game is in the psychological horror genre, and the influences of some of the past luminaries of its kind, such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, are very visible.

Like Amnesia, In Sound Mind is a game played in the first-person perspective with a heavy emphasis on puzzle-solving. However, it also shows its survival horror influences, with an additional focus on action and boss fights.

This is done through obtaining items through exploration, with new items opening up new gameplay avenues and progressing through the story. In In Sound Mind, players take the role of psychologist Desmond Wales, who has woken up trapped in a strange building. In his journey, he encounters horrific monsters, strange visions, a mystery involving a series of victims and experimental chemicals, and a cat named Tonia. The building itself serves as a sort of hub world, with a series of cassettes found serving as the game's levels, allowing the player to explore the minds of the victims and battle the various monsters within.

Mohammed Al-Hadid, president of the Jordanian Red Crescent, spoke of how training in Israel helped equip paramedics in his country to face the Covid crisis.

Al-Hadid personally paved the way for the admission of Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent organization in 2006.

He told MDA UK that the Israeli emergency service was "a fantastic organization. I sent a cohort of Jordanian students to Israel."

"They spent four years there and made lots of friends. MDA trained them and trained them well. Now many of them are working in our center and were instrumental in the Covid crisis."

The Czech Ministry of Defence has signed a deal to acquire the Spyder surface-to-air missile systems made by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The contract is worth 13.69 billion koruna (US$627 million), the ministry said in a statement.

Czech Defence Minister Lubomír Metnar said the purchase would enable Prague to replace its outdated, Soviet-designed 2K12 Kub surface-to-air systems with modern military technology.

“I appreciate the willingness of the Israeli government to share with us a state-of-the-art defense system that will move our military towards 21st century capabilities,” Metnar said, as quoted in the statement. “Finally, we will get rid of our dependence on the Soviet Kub [systems] from the 1970s which do not meet the current requirements for airspace protection.”

Under the contract, the Czech defense industry will take part in the program, supplying products and services worth more than 30 percent of its value.

The Czech Armed Forces are expected to operate the supplied systems for at least 20 years. Combined with the costs of maintenance and repairs, the acquisition will cost the country’s budget about 23 billion koruna, or $1 billion, according to the statement.

As tension continues to simmer between India and China over Ladakh, New Delhi will be buying four Heron MK II UAVs from Israel Aerospace Industries and will deploy them to the area for surveillance purposes.

The agreement between New Delhi and IAI was signed in mid-January, but the arrival of the UAVs was delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to The Times of India, the first two UAVs will arrive in India in two to three months, while the other two will arrive by the end of the year.

The deal, worth some $200 million, was at first set to be a three-year lease agreement, but New Delhi decided to purchase the platforms as part of the country’s plans to upgrade its military amid the ongoing border conflict with China.

Indian media reported that the Indian Air Force’s plan, dubbed “Project Cheetah,” will see 90 Heron drones flying with the Indian Air Force, Indian Army, and Indian Navy be upgraded with laser-guided bombs, air-to-ground and air-launched anti-tank guided missiles.

The Indian Air Force already operates more than 180 Israeli-made UAVs, including 108 IAI-made Searchers and 68 unarmed Heron 1s for surveillance and intelligence gathering as well as a fleet of IAI-produced Harpy UAVs, which carry a high-explosive warhead and self-destructs to take out targets such as radar stations.

David Matlow, owner of the world’s largest collection of Zionism founder Theodor Herzl memorabilia, was excited to learn that Israel was invited to participate in Expo 2020 Dubai, the first World’s Fair hosted by an Arab country. (The event was postponed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.)

Starting October 1, Israel will welcome visitors to its open-concept pavilion in Dubai, which is future-focused and highlights the ways in which the Jewish state can cooperate with other nations to solve the many challenges facing the global community.

“I was really struck by this. This invitation was extended before the Abraham Accords. It occurred to me that the presence of Israel’s pavilion in Dubai is a continuation of more than 100 years of aspiration — initially of the creation of the Jewish state, and now for it to live peacefully with neighbors and be more accepted among the nations of the world,” Matlow said.

While the presence of an Israeli pavilion in an Arab country is novel, Israel’s participation in World’s Fairs and other international exhibitions is not. In fact, this participation predates Israel’s establishment by several decades. Major exhibitions were an important way for Zionists to show off positive social, economic and cultural developments in what was then British Mandate Palestine, and to advance the case for the creation of a Jewish homeland there.

“The idea was to basically will the country into existence. The purpose of having these pavilions was to imprint on people’s minds either the possibility that Jewish people could have their own nation, or that it already existed — even if it didn’t,” Matlow explained.

Fresh evidence of the bravery of a British spy who saved 10,000 Austrian Jews during WWII, and who may have helped Sigmund Freud escape Vienna, has prompted a JC campaign to have him honoured by Yad Vashem.

Spymaster Thomas Joseph Kendrick’s dangerous, last-ditch operation to secure passports for thousands of desperate refugees is well known and has earned him the title “Austria’s Oskar Schindler” – but he has not been recognised as a Righteous Gentile by Israel’s Holocaust memorial centre, Yad Vashem.

A key reason for the omission has been Yad Vashem’s consistent refusal to accept evidence on potential Righteous Gentiles from sources other than eyewitnesses.

Now historian Dr Helen Fry, who tells the story of Colonel Kendrick’s Vienna operation in a new biography, Spymaster, says the Holocaust memorial has changed its rules and will accept documentary evidence.

As a result, Dr Fry submitted an application late last month to Yad Vashem, featuring new written testimonies — ­which the JC can reveal — about Col Kendrick’s actions.

They include statements by Eric Sanders who, after escaping to the UK with the help of Col Kendrick, was trained to go back into Austria with British special forces; and Susan Gompels, who discovered how the British officer saved her family in a chance conversation with her father.

Fresh documentary evidence about how Col Kendrick helped 2,000 Jews flee to Rhodesia and Kenya was also sent to Yad Vashem last month.

Here's this week's front page pic.twitter.com/6zYjtFgNiM

— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) September 30, 2021

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Palestinian resistance group Hamas denounced Bahrain’s reception of the Israeli foreign minister as an extension of the sin of signing normalization deals with the Israeli regime and a “national crime” against the interests of Arabs and Muslims.

The Ansarullah official added that the Zionist regime is seeking to foment ethnic conflicts in Arab countries in order to reach its goal.

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A few hours before the House voted on the supplemental Iron Dome funding, Rep. Andy Levin, a progressive Jewish lawmaker from Michigan who voted in favor of the supplemental Iron Dome funding, submitted his own bill that related to the Palestinians and Israel. And Levin's bill is far more dangerous to Israel and to US-Israel relations than his fellow progressive lawmakers' nay vote on the Iron Dome.

The main purpose of Levin's bill, which is co-sponsored by 24 other members, (seven of whom are also Jewish), is to support the Palestinian terror against Israel, while adopting a laundry list of anti-Israel policies along the way.

Levin's bill includes an amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 that defines the PLO as a terrorist organization and bars the US from permitting the PLO to open offices in the US or from receiving assistance from the US so long as the PLO and its member organizations remain engaged in terrorism. Levin's bill would amend the law to provide the administration with the authority to permit the opening of a PLO office in Washington and to transfer funds to the PLO/Palestinian Authority even while the PLO and its member groups remain engaged in terrorism. Levin's bill enables the administration to sidestep the law simply by proclaiming that opening a PLO office in Washington and funding the PLO/PA is necessary to advance "diplomacy."

Whereas the 2018 Taylor Force Act bars the US from funding the PA so long as it pays salaries to terrorists and their families, Levin's bill would enable the administration to transfer funds directly to the PA even if it continues to pay salaries to terrorists and their families. Levin's bill empowers the secretary of state to authorize such funding simply by proclaiming that the PA is "reforming" its payment apparatus. As Palestinian Media Watch reported this week, the PA already believes that US funding will be restored despite the fact that nearly 10% of the PA budget goes towards paying salaries to terrorists and their families. A senior PA official said that reinstating US funding "is merely a problem of semantics." Levin's bill provides the semantic trick to restore funding.

Alongside its direct support for Palestinian terrorism, Levin's bill also includes multiple provisions whose purpose is to undermine and weaken Israel while subverting the US-Israel alliance. The Levin bill bars Israel from using weapons it receives from the US to defend itself in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and unified Jerusalem. It also discriminates against Israel in a manner that legitimizes the anti-Semitic Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state. The Levin bill bars Israel from marking goods from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, "Made in Israel," instead, Israel is required to mark all such goods as made in the "West Bank/Gaza." Israel's scientific, agricultural and other cooperative agreements with the US will only apply to areas that Israel controlled in 1949. Israeli institutions and citizens beyond those areas will be boycotted.

Levin's bill requires the administration to cancel former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 2019 determination that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are not illegal and delineate all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as illegal. Israeli neighborhoods built in Jerusalem since 1967 are also deemed illegal, as are Israeli actions to enforce building laws on illegal Palestinian construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Arguably, the most significant aspect of Levin's pro-Palestinian terror bill is the name he gave it. Levin named his would-be federal law, "The Two-State Solution Act."

Bahrain hosted the Israeli foreign minister on Thursday for the highest-level visit since the countries established ties last year and which included a tour of a US naval headquarters to signal common cause against Iran.

Landing in Manama on a plane daubed with an olive branch painting, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

“His Majesty’s leadership and inspiration have led to true cooperation and our meeting outlined the path forward for our relationship,” Lapid said on Twitter.

Bahrain and Gulf neighbour United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel last year in a US-brokered deal known as the Abraham Accords that built on common commercial interests and worries about Iran. Sudan and Morocco followed suit.

“Our opportunities are shared. Our threats are also shared, and they aren’t far from here,” Lapid said in remarks to reporters, apparently alluding to Gulf power Iran.

Touring the Bahrain headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which has faced off Iranian vessels amid tensions over Tehran’s regional aims, Lapid said: “Our three countries work together because we have similar interests in the region.”

“When we speak about peace, we need to remember that peace must be protected from those who would harm it,” he added, according to his office.

Iran said Friday that the visit by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to Bahrain this week left a stain on the reputation of the Gulf state’s rulers that “will not be erased.”

Lapid on Thursday officially opened Israel’s embassy in Manama and met with top-ranking officials, a year after the two countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations and in the first public visit by an Israeli minister since the agreement.

“We condemn any scheme that bolsters Israel’s destructive presence in the region,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement reported by the official IRNA news agency and cited by the Reuters news agency.

“It is unfortunate that Bahrain’s rulers ignore the Zionist regime’s daily crimes against the oppressed but resilient people of Palestine,” Khatibzadeh said.

“This stain will not be erased from the reputation of Bahrain’s rulers. The people of the region will continue to oppose the process of normalization of ties with the Zionist regime,” he said.

On September 23, 2021, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report on “The allocation of water resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” to be presented to the Human Rights Council during the notorious Agenda Item 7 debate. The document, which purports to summarize Israeli government policy on an issue that requires constant Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, contains no official Israeli government information; instead, it is based solely on Palestinian Authority, UN, and NGO sources pushing a Palestinian narrative that politicizes water in order to further the PA’s nationalistic strategic aims.

No official Israeli sources
The UN authors acknowledge that their report is incomplete and one-sided. They claim that the absence of Israeli data and perspectives is due to a lack of engagement from Israeli authorities. However, information submitted by NGO Monitor more than a month prior to UNHRC’s publication was ignored and not included. Notably, NGO Monitor’s submission was based on independent, and largely open-source research – research that the UN clearly did not bother to conduct in violation of credible reporting standards.

NGO Monitor’s submission provided current data on water allocations mandated by the Oslo Accords; information on detailed efforts by Israel to improve Palestinian water infrastructure; and examples of the misuse of water and environmental damage caused by Palestinian non-cooperation and illegal activity.

Conversely, the UN report makes outlandish claims based on weak sourcing. For instance, the assertion that the Israeli town of Ma’ale Adumim enjoys greater access to water than Palestinian communities is based on a caption and an unsourced claim in a 2017 Amnesty International publication.

Similarly, the allegation that Israel’s water carrier, Mekorot, gives Israeli settlements preferential access to water is attributed to other unsourced materials. It does not appear that OHCHR made any effort to contact Mekorot in drafting this document.

Embracing Palestinian politicization of natural resources
A central aspect of the OHCHR report is its politicized and misleading treatment of the Oslo-established Joint Water Committee (JWC).

The Oslo framework established the JWC as the primary bilateral tool for managing water issues. Consisting of equal representation of Israelis and Palestinians, the JWC is responsible for managing the allocation of water and approving all water and sanitation projects in the West Bank.

However, from 2010-2017, the PA boycotted this body, due to its refusal to advance water infrastructure projects that would in any way benefit Israeli settlements. Thus, instead of adhering to the agreement and prioritizing the environment and health – which would entail compromise and working with Israeli officials to jointly manage water planning – the PA politicized the issue (for more on this topic, see here).

Absurdly, OHCHR justifies this approach, amplifying PA complaints that its representatives were expected to approve settlement projects alongside projects serving Palestinian areas. As the JWC is a creation of Oslo, which incorporates the existence of Israeli settlements, this rejection of the JWC is fundamentally a repudiation of the cooperative framework. It should be noted that the Oslo Accords are internationally guaranteed by the UN and thus, OHCHR is undermining the UN and its legal obligations with this publication.

Flood libel
There is a Palestinian conspiracy theory, circulated speciously by NGOs, that Israel intentionally floods Palestinian farmlands along the Gaza-Israel border to “undermine the activities of Palestinian farmers.” A 2021 report by Al Mezan claims that Israel uses dams and floodgates to “redirect the flow of natural water away from the Gaza Strip,” and that when the dams are at risk of overflowing, Israel “open[s] their gates-without prior warning- resulting in sudden flows of water into Palestinian farmlands in the ARA, causing huge damages not only to crops but also to houses as well as other properties.”

This claim, however, has been proven demonstrably false. In 2015, Al Jazeera and Agence France Presse (AFP) were forced to retract stories that repeated the allegation after it became clear that there are no such dams in all of southern Israel that can be opened. A 2015 AFP news report shows that the “dam” in question is, in fact, a short step that is barely one meter high.

Armed Conflict
NGO falsehoods related to water also appear following episodes of armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza. For instance, after the May 2021 conflict, Al Mezan alleged that Israel “targeted, damaged, and destroyed water well systems, water networks, and municipal facilities in the Gaza Strip” (emphasis added). Al-Haq also accused Israel of “targeting [] water and sanitation infrastructure” (emphasis added). However, there is no evidence to suggest that Israel intentionally targeted water infrastructure and that the damage caused was anything other the result of legitimate military strikes.

Indeed, these Palestinian NGOs discussed the effects of Israeli strikes in isolation, ignoring evidence of collateral damage resulting from Hamas co-locating its military installations near civilian infrastructure. For instance, Al Haq referred to a strike from May 12. However, cross-referencing details provided by another NGO, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, reveals the presence of legitimate military targets:

“Around the same time, Israeli warplanes launched 20 missiles within minutes at al- Madares Street, a military site belonging to the Palestinian armed groups and a municipality park; all of them are in the same area. As a result, the area sustained wide destruction, including the street, the electricity and water supply network, and the municipality park”.

Speaking of which…can you believe Kamala Harris is vice-president of the United States? She got the job even though she was the least popular of all the 2020 Democrat candidates.

She scored the lowest on the likability scale, so, given Biden’s habit to do everything backwards, maybe that is why he picked her to be his running mate.

Turned out to be Contrary Joe’s first poke in the eye against Americans.

Then, seeing that she knows nothing or cares nothing about our Border, he chose her to serve as our Immigration Czar.

We are still waiting for her to do anything about the flood of migrants…except giggle. That’s her style when she gets stumped, which is often.

“No,” she could have snapped back. “On equal rights for all, Israel is a light unto the nations.” Nor does this chic grooving out of California Dreamin’ know anything about foreign affairs. On Israel, she is either flatly prejudiced or plainly ignorant.

When a student at George Mason University accused Israel of “ethnic genocide,” here was Kamala’s chance to feature some worldly smarts and set the record straight.

Instead, going Progressive all the way, she sided with the student, saying, “Your truth cannot be suppressed.”

Disappointing…but predictable…given the absurdities we’ve come to expect from her and the other masters of our universe.

So Melman went to war right away, and issued a statement saying, “We were pleased Vice President Harris’s senior staff reached out to us today to confirm what we already knew: Her ‘commitment to Israel’s security is unwavering.’”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that nodding scene a show of a little wavering? I’m just saying. We’re not expecting VP Harris to sing Hatikvah, we only wished she were able to tell that barely coherent student that she was wrong, that’s all, instead of reassuring her that “this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we’re fighting for in a democracy, right?”

Not at all. Especially when Kamala’s only defense of the Jewish State was to say: “The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.”

In other words, the jury is still out on just how many Arab babies those Jews are killing, there’s no right answer.

According to Mellman, Harris’ senior staff reassured him that the vice president “strongly disagrees with the George Mason student’s characterization of Israel.”

Could have fooled me. I mean, we all so the video, “strongly disagrees” wasn’t in it.

But Mellman, forever the professional mercenary, is trying to put that kerfuffle away by saying stuff like: “The Biden-Harris Administration, as well as President Biden and Vice President Harris personally, have exemplary pro-Israel records, for which we are immensely grateful.”

Not good enough. Because that outrageous video offered Jewish Democrats an opportunity to watch Kamala Harris in her natural environment, arguing with the crazy left of the DNC, and failing to apply all those nice notions about the “exemplary pro-Israel record” thing. If the VP can’t act like an honest and strong leader, come up to the podium and say, in her own voice, I messed up, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, trust me – then we won’t trust her.

In the latest hurdle to Israel receiving $1 billion in funding to replenish its Iron Dome missile defense system after May’s Gaza conflict, Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky has blocked swift passage of the bill, Politico reports.

The lawmaker is an opponent of US foreign aid and is insisting that the Iron Dome money be offset by redirecting financial assistance for Afghanistan.

“He proposed that we pay for the House bill with money that is going to go to the Taliban,” a spokeswoman for the Kentucky senator told Politico.

Paul is the lone senator refusing to “hotline” the bill after its passage in the US House of Representatives. The “hotline” process allows a bill to go directly to the Senate floor for a vote with the consent of all 100 senators.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he and his party stand with Israel and its security in Conservative Friends of Israel’s Informed Magazine, released on Friday.

"Under this government, the UK’s support for Israel’s security will be unflinching,” Johnson wrote in a letter to the pro-Israel group, saying that “the Conservative Party stands firmly with Israel.”

“We will always back Israel’s right to self-defense,” he added.

Johnson said the Abraham Accords, peace and normalization agreements between Israel and three Arab states, show that “progress in the Middle East is possible.”

"The recent sight of Israeli and Palestinian firefighters working together to tackle wildfires near Jerusalem was a small but welcome sign of hope - and the UK stands ready to support genuine advancement towards a more positive future for both Israelis and Palestinians," he wrote.

Johnson said he is proud that the UK-Israel relationship has gone “from strength to strength” under his government.

??MUST READ??

Prime Minister @BorisJohnson has celebrated the ???????? friendship and underlined that "under this Government, the UK’s support for Israel’s security will be unflinching", in CFI’s new edition of Informed Magazine.

Read the full magazine here: https://t.co/6rftt7wZFxpic.twitter.com/SW3dSEhM4P

— CFoI (@CFoI) October 1, 2021

The head of Australia’s national security agency has backed listing the entirety of Palestinian group Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

ASIO director-general Mike Burgess told a parliamentary inquiry he did not have an issue with the listing of all of the group.

“Yes I would support it, but I am not the decision-maker,” Mr Burgess said.

“There is a difference between Hamas and people who consider themselves Palestinian. If they support Hamas, then they would be supporting a terrorist organisation.”

Currently, only Hamas’ military wing, the Izz al‑Din al‑Qassam Brigades, is listed as a terrorist organisation.

The whole organisation was previously listed as a terror group in 2014 but was removed from the list soon after.

The inquiry was examining whether the Hamas brigades, along with four other groups, be formally re-listed as a terrorist organisation.

The director-general said Hamas’ brigades were assessed by ASIO to threaten military and civilian targets in Israel.

“As a consequence, they remain a security concern to ASIO, and we support the listing,” Mr Burgess said.

“ASIO has assessed (the brigades) as a highly capable terror organisation that are committed to using terror tactics in targeting Israel.”

The listing of all of Hamas as a terrorist organisation would mean supporters of the group would be subject to counterterrorism laws.

The Constitution of The Republic of Iraq, formulated in 2005 and approved in a referendum by more than three-quarters of the people, stated that “Iraq shall observe the principles of good neighborliness... seek to settle disputes by peaceful means, establish relations on the basis of mutual interests and reciprocity, and respect its international obligations.”

That is why, as an Iraqi Jew, it was gratifying and in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the constitution that during a conference last week more than 300 prominent Iraqis called for their country to normalize ties with the State of Israel.

Those of us with long roots in the region, especially the Jews who have lived in what was variously called Babylon, Mesopotamia and Iraq for 2,500 years, have long sought a Middle East that is more tolerant, open and its various parts at peace with each other.

Last year’s Abraham Accords were the first and important steps in a region where new alliances are being sought and embraced. Former enemies are moving forward in a warm embrace, enmity is replaced with fraternity, and all are benefiting from the newfound Jewish-Arab multilateralism in the region.

Even those nations that are not yet at the point of official recognition of the Jewish state, like Saudi Arabia and Oman, are putting aside past differences and working together behind the scenes and even on occasion openly.

The region is moving beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict in an unprecedented manner.

While Iraq is no longer the central power in the region, its history and geography make it an important player in the new Middle East. As the “Cradle of Civilization,” where mankind first began to read, write, create laws and live in cities under an organized government, it certainly has a symbolic status that no other country can match.

The conference organizer, Joseph Braude, an Arabic-speaking American of Iraqi Jewish descent, insists that the sheikh understood everything that was in the article and his speech. Al-Harden's son, who did not attend the conference but did drop his father off there, is also facing an arrest warrant if he returns to Anbar. Conference attendees are remaining in Erbil, which is part of the autonomous Kurdish region that broke away from Baghdad's control decades ago. But they know if they go home, they may die.

Iran dominates much of Iraqi society in part because of the ties between Iraqi Shiites and Tehran, but also because Iran became immeasurably strengthened by America's toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, an unintended and unfortunate consequence of the 2003 invasion of the country.

As much as one might expect that Iran's Iraqi allies would do their utmost to oppose the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the saddest and the most disgraceful aspect of this story is the reaction of the Biden administration. While Washington has largely remained silent about these events, it was telling that the one American statement about it demonstrated just how thoroughly Iran has also intimidated the United States.

The International Coalition for Operation Inherent Resolve – the US-led force that has been fighting ISIS for eight years – did have something to say about the pro-normalization conference. In a tweet issued by the command's spokesman, US Army Col. Wayne Marotto, the force officially stated that it had been, "made aware of announcements … relating to the recent conference held in Erbil to discuss the normalization of ties with Israel. @Coalition had no prior knowledge of the event, nor do we have any affiliation with its participants."

In other words, the US military made it clear that its allies who had taken a stand in favor of peace with Israel were on their own. Rather than standing with the advocates of normalization, America was doing its best to appear indifferent to their fate even as other Iraqis, egged on by Iran, were demanding their blood.

Can we expect courageous Iraqis to stand up to Iranian influence and antisemitism when even America won't also do so? As Jewish News Syndicate recently reported in an interview with a pro-normalization former Iraqi legislator who had to flee the country for his life, many Iraqis would like to join those working with Israel against Iran. But so long as the Biden administration treats this cause as if it were radioactive, advocacy for peace will remain a perilous choice.

Iraqi Sunni Tribal Leader Sheikh Abdullah Al-Jughaifi: The Participants in the Erbil Peace Conference Are Worthless Scum - They Should Be Executed #Iraq#Israelpic.twitter.com/nV4pbX6SnK

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 1, 2021

Israel is treating 53 Covid patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines, Channel 12 announced, setting a new record for the country.

ECMO machines are critical in treating severe COVID-19 cases as they support more functions than standard ventilators.

The devices provide crucial backup to a patient’s heart and lungs, and Israel is facing a shortage in hospitals.

On Thursday, Israel’s Health Ministry recorded 3,550 new cases of COVID-19, with the current positivity rate standing at 3.65 percent. Of those infected, 639 were classified as seriously ill, with 219 on ventilators.

The updated numbers mark a small decline in data recorded earlier this week. On Tuesday, 3,819 new cases were reported, with a positivity rate of 4.19 percent

Around 3,326,167 Israelis were completely inoculated with a third booster shot, a requirement for continued Green Pass eligibility.

The first soccer game involving an Israeli team at the stadium built for the 1936 Olympics hosted by Nazi Germany was marred Thursday by antisemitic abuse aimed at visiting fans.

Maccabi Haifa’s trip to Berlin’s Olympiastadion for its Europa Conference League game against Union Berlin ended in a 3-0 defeat for the visitors in front of 23,324 fans. Nearly 1,000 were Maccabi supporters.

The youth branch of the local German-Israeli society said on Twitter that they were targeted by some of the home team’s fans as they attended the game in a mixed block.

The Junges Forum Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft said they had beer thrown on them and were called “sh***y Jews” among other insults, and that one Union fan attempted to set alight an Israeli flag taken from a female supporter until he was stopped by civil police.

“There were also Union fans who spoke up against this behavior. We moved to the Maccabi block to be on the safe side,” the society said.

The stadium is usually used by Union’s city rival Hertha Berlin, but it has been taken over by Union for European competition this season as its own stadium in the eastern borough of Köpenick doesn’t have enough seating capacity to meet UEFA demands.

On September 26, Israel Defense Force soldiers conducted a series of arrest raids against Hamas terrorists across the “west bank” which saw gun battles where five Hamas gunmen were killed and two Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded.

In covering the hostilities, the Toronto Star published the following misleading headlines to its print edition and website on September 26 and 27:

Importantly, readers view headlines 3:1 over seeing an article in its entirety and therefore, many Star readers were misled into thinking that Israel killed 5 Palestinians, all presumably innocent civilians and not combatants, whereas Israel contends they were all armed Hamas terrorists. At the very least call, the Star should have referred to the dead Palestinians as “gunmen” or “militants.” Contrary to what this headline implied, these were not simply innocent “Palestinians” who were killed by the IDF.

In sharp contrast, CBC News and Globe and Mail editors headlined this very same Associated Press report as follow by mentioning that the dead Palestinians were “gunmen” and “Hamas militants”:

??? ?????? ?? ?? ?'???? ????? ????? ????... ????? ????? ?? ???? ???????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???????!

Happy to humiliate Al Jazeera on their home turf... I will continue to expose the Israeli truth and fight lies and incitement in the world media! pic.twitter.com/hA7rLW6ohn

— ???? ???? - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) October 1, 2021

After attempting to STAB them.

But readers scanning headlines at the @NBCNews website wouldn't know that. pic.twitter.com/5ZiPJPmhNP

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 30, 2021

Being wrapped in the al-Qassam Brigades' flag generally denotes the 'martyr' belongs to or is affiliated with Hamas' so-called armed wing. A Hamas flag generally means the 'martyr' was a supporter or a 'political' member. Original tweet before the edit. https://t.co/jeyd1JUSDp

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 30, 2021

?? iPhone 13 pro max sold in Gaza before it is available in Israel!
?? Going for just 6500 shekels at Tiba Mobile, Khan Younes, south #Gaza Strip.#TheGazaYouDontSee#shoppinginGaza#SaveGaza#Palestinianshttps://t.co/6DEsNFcT94https://t.co/XQBMiSNvFlpic.twitter.com/505eoUoDNb

— Imshin (@imshin) September 29, 2021

Incendiary comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slamming US officials as being linked to “terrorists” came after Turkey held high-level meetings with Moscow.

Turkey opposes the US role in eastern Syria, where the US helped the local Syrian Democratic Forces defeat ISIS. Ankara’s ruling party, which has backed extremists in northern Syria and has ethnically cleansed Kurds, Christians and Yazidis, has frequently bashed the US in the past.

Turkey singled out US White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk in the recent attack by Erdogan on the Biden administration. Turkey’s Daily Sabah, a pro-government daily, said Erdogan was “speaking to reporters on his way back from Sochi, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.”

“McGurk supports terrorism and has almost become the PKK/YPG/PYD’s manager,” Erdogan was quoted as saying.

“It deeply disturbs me that this man is arm in arm with terrorists in an area where I’m fighting them,” he reportedly said.

The comments were reported in leading Turkish media, indicating that the ruling party wants the comments to be known widely.

Thus, the Iranian regime should be brought to the same “bomb or regime survival” dilemma. But how exactly?

First, Israel should maintain strong coordination with the American government, as the current Israeli government – unlike the previous one – does.

While doing so, we must cease talking about returning to the old agreement, which was wrong and is no longer relevant. Gladly, it seems that US President Joe Biden’s administration begins to grasp this notion.

Moreover, the American administration must be convinced to restore the coalition Trump broke and concentrate its efforts in forming a three-tiered policy: (1) political isolation of the Iranian regime; (2) severe economic sanctions (primary, secondary and tertiary); (3) preparing a credible military option.

The challenge of forming a coalition is not a simple one; however, it is not impossible. Russia and China, too, were convinced back in 2010 it would better for them to partner with the pressure and sanction Iran. They must be convinced that the American administration is currently determined to execute a similar move and they should join it, otherwise, they will suffer a heavy economic price. The superficial discussion between a full-fledged military offensive or a nuclear Iran, is sinful to the point, in this sense.

Unless forfeiting basic interests, the State of Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran, nor can the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, in the past five years, different regimes and governments had postponed the “decision” to their successors instead of dealing with the challenge themselves. The government of Israel must discuss this urging matter with the American administration as soon as possible.

Should Iran go on to become a nuclear state, it can be expected to extend a nuclear umbrella over its terrorist proxies. This development would boost its deterrence against America’s allies in the region, as they become encircled by increasingly confident and provocative Iranian proxies. Additionally, a nuclear Iran would very likely set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, with those same Sunni states seeking to attain their own nuclear deterrent against the radical Shiite regime in Tehran. Such a development would represent a drastic deterioration of regional security, but also of international stability, which is why attempts to present Iran as a regional concern are highly misleading.

Currently, senior Israeli defense and government officials appear to be holding a series of marathon talks with their American counterparts in an effort to quietly share Israel’s threat perception regarding the Iranian situation, and coordinate responses.

Such efforts may be receiving even quieter assistance from the Sunni Arab states who are badly threatened by Iran’s capabilities and intentions. According to one report by Israel’s Walla News, the Israeli-American talks are aimed at setting up a parallel “Plan B,” in case nuclear talks fail. Meanwhile, the Israeli military is accelerating strike capability preparations for Iran’s nuclear program, and has requested billions of shekels in extra budgeting to help those preparations along.

In a speech Monday to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett affirmed Israel’s willingness to act if necessary.

“Iran’s nuclear program has hit a watershed moment, and so has our tolerance,” he said. “Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning. There are those in the world who seem to view Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as an inevitable reality, or they’ve just become tired of hearing about it. Israel doesn’t have that privilege. We will not tire. We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”

Referring to the recent protests against the regime in Iran, Bennett added that “Iran is much weaker, much more vulnerable than it seems.”

Last year, Israel fast-tracked the acquisition of a series of advanced weapons systems from the United States — weapons that could prove crucial in a confrontation with Iran, such as additional F-35 stealth fighter jets, new transport helicopters, and refuelers essential for long-range air operations.

Despite these preparations, the prospect of Israel having to face down Iran’s nuclear program alone, without the assistance of the US, would represent a strategic failure with serious consequences — one that the ongoing high level discussions can hopefully avert.

"The war with Israel has already started," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told Maariv. "Israel has carried out attacks that were intended to destroy our nuclear program for peaceful purposes. It murdered nuclear scientists and harmed the Iranian people. Iran is accused of terrorism, but there is no good or bad terrorist. The whole crisis in the region is Israel's fault."

Khatibzadeh later claimed that Israel had "done everything" to thwart the nuclear talks in Vienna and to cause conflict between Iran and the world powers. He accused the United States of "soft terrorism" by holding up medicine and starving the people of his country.

The Iranian spokesman said that Iran's strategic decision to return to the seventh round of nuclear talks in Vienna had already been made and that its country had already announced this two weeks ago to the EU representative responsible for the talks.

Asked if he thought a return to the nuclear deal would prevent a military operation by Israel, the spokesman replied: "Israel has severely damaged our research and civilian system. There is talk of an Iranian nuclear threat, but Israel has hundreds of bombs, and it has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Iran’s national army began exercises on Friday near its border with Azerbaijan, state TV reported, putting on a display of military capabilities near a neighbor it is increasingly skeptical of for its ties to the West and Israel.

Artillery, drones and helicopters will participate in the drills, the report said, without elaborating on how long they would last or where exactly they would be held. Iran occasionally holds such events, saying it wants to assess combat readiness and demonstrate capabilities.

The exercises come amid escalating tensions along the border. Iran is wary of Azerbaijan in particular for its deep military cooperation with the Islamic Republic’s rival Israel, and on Thursday voiced its concerns to Azerbaijani ambassador in Tehran Ali Alizadeh.

“We do not tolerate the presence and activity against our national security of the Zionist regime, or Israel, next to our borders,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said. “And we will carry out any necessary action in this regard.”

Ground forces commander Brigadier General Kioumars Heidari told state TV: “We respect good neighborly relations but we do not tolerate the presence of Zionist regime elements and Islamic State terrorists in the region.”

Before & after: An explosion occurred (27 September 2021) at an #IRGC secret missile base of Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group pic.twitter.com/OYnsijeXiq

— ImageSat Intl. (@ImageSatIntl) September 30, 2021

Houthi Friday sermon by Abdallah Al-Lahji: Due to Wahhabi Influence, We Were Humiliated by the Most Cowardly People in the World: U.S. Marines, Al-Qaeda, ISIS #Houthispic.twitter.com/OfrXQHy7xE

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 1, 2021

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"كونوا يدًا واحدة يا عائلات بيت المقدس لنصرة الأقصى" .. عائلة الطويل أدت صلاة الفجر بالمسجد الأقصى وهذه كانت رسالتها للعائلات المقدسية pic.twitter.com/ZwUSAj5JCb

— AlQastal القسطل (@AlQastalps) October 1, 2021

(h/t Khaled Abu Toameh)

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In a speech to the United Nations last week, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas not only stated that “Israel is an occupying power, practising apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” but also made no fewer than five further references to Israeli “apartheid”.

Two years ago, a report by Dan Diker and Adam Shay for the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs revealed that the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was not, as was widely believed, a network of local grassroots human-rights groups advocating BDS to establish a peaceful Palestinian state next to Israel.

It was instead run by the PA in Ramallah to direct, mobilise and co-ordinate global political warfare campaigns with the goal of isolating, delegitimising and ultimately dismantling the State of Israel. The current “Israel apartheid” chorus is almost certainly the product of the latest such campaign.

The “apartheid” libel is a potent weapon because it is unlike claims that Israel is practising genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians that are demonstrably fatuous (the number of Palestinian Arabs has at least tripled since Israel’s creation).

By contrast, the “Israel apartheid” smear triggers emotions of deep anger and disgust among the shallow and ignorant, whose knowledge of Israel is entirely drawn from malicious propaganda that misrepresents the defensive measures of the Jewish state as racist aggression but which they believe as unchallengeable truth.

South African apartheid was a system as unique as it was evil. The “Israel apartheid” libel is an evil that once again singles out the Jews for a unique level of persecution.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a secret plea to Adolf Hitler in the summer of 1936, according to newly-uncovered documents.

It wasn’t a plea to curtail Germany’s military buildup.

It wasn’t a plea to Hitler to stop intervening on behalf of the fascists in the Spanish civil war.

And it certainly wasn’t a protest against the brutal Nazi persecution of German Jews.

No, the issue that was so urgent to FDR that he sent a secret communication to Hitler was his request that the Führer meet with three American oil industry executives—two of them Roosevelt’s personal friends—who were on their way to Germany.

The documents about Roosevelt’s request came to light when they were recently put up for sale by a Maryland auction house. They begin with a “very urgent” message to Berlin from the German ambassador in Washington, Hans Luther, on August 21, 1936.

The ambassador reported that President Roosevelt had requested, through his senior aide Stephen Early, that Hitler grant an audience to Kenneth R. Kingsbury, president of Standard Oil of California; James A. Moffett, former head of FDR’s Federal Housing Administration and now vice president of Standard Oil of New Jersey; and Torkild Rieber, chairman of Texaco.

“In view of Roosevelt’s personal interest,” Ambassador Luther wrote, “I very strongly recommend that his request should be granted.” In a second message a few days later, Luther reported that Early had again emphasized “the great importance Roosevelt attaches to Moffett being introduced to the Führer.”

Ultimately, FDR’s request ran aground because of a scheduling conflict—the oil executives were going to be in Germany during one of the busiest periods in Hitler’s schedule, the preparations for the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. But that didn’t stop the three oil executives from engaging in significant commerce with the Third Reich.

Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold testified to a Senate committee in 1942 that at Hitler’s request, Standard Oil had obstructed the development of synthetic rubber in the United States, and instead provided the rubber technology to the Nazis. The revelations were so damning that then-senator Harry Truman accused the oil company of “treason.”

In fact, Bird gets this exactly wrong because he ignores or is unaware of the key evidence regarding Begin, Carter and settlements.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Accords, the Carter Center on Sept.17, 2003 held a symposium in Washington, DC. Participants included Mr. Carter, Samuel Lewis, who had been the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, William Quandt, who had been a staffer on the National Security Council, and Aharon Barak, who had been Israel’s Attorney General. Ambassador Lewis brought up the question of the settlement freeze, and Barak stated that he was in the relevant meeting, had been the only one taking notes, and that his notes showed that Begin had agreed only to a three month freeze. Off camera Carter is heard to state, “I don’t dispute that.” William Quandt then added that while he had not been in the meeting, Cyrus Vance, who had been, told him immediately afterwards that Begin had agreed to a three month freeze, but they hoped to get it lengthened the next day. Neither Carter, nor Barak, nor Quandt indicated that Begin had ever agreed to extend the freeze. Here’s the sequence from the symposium:

So, confronted with the evidence in 2003 Jimmy Carter admitted that Begin had agreed to only a three month settlement freeze – “I don’t dispute that” – but numerous times before and after, and now for Kai Bird’s book, Carter revives his false charge that Begin violated a promise to impose an open-ended settlement freeze.

Why would Carter keep lying about this? While there can be no question about Carter’s anti-Israel animus, his hostility towards Begin borders on the pathological. As Bird recounts, this included telling a senior aide that he had “coldness in my heart towards” the Israeli leader (p 326), telling his wife Roslyn that Begin was a “psycho,” (p 343) and accusing Begin of “trying to welsh on the deal.” (p 355).

I was taken back in time this week. I was also taken aback. In the BC era, Before Corona, I visited the UK at the end of 2018 as a guest speaker at the Limmud conference taking place in Birmingham. It seems strange now to think of a massive gathering – some 2,000 people from more than 40 countries – taking place without masks and corona regulations. The novel coronavirus was still unheard of, a nightmare that didn’t exist outside dystopian movies for the average Limmud participant.

The panels were on a broad variety of subjects but one topic dominated the gathering – antisemitism and the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. COVID-19 was not known, but the spirit of ancient hatred of antisemitism was alive and kicking – in the gut.

Several attendees told me that they had rescinded their membership in the Labour Party, some of them after decades, particularly following revelations of Corbyn’s social media support for a mural with antisemitic tropes. There were speakers who warned against panic, but I didn’t meet anyone who completely dismissed the fears of growing antisemitism.

But that was meant to be a thing of the past. Several top Labour figures resigned; Corbyn was ousted; and the party revamped under Sir Keir Starmer promising a new uncompromising stand on antisemitism in its various manifestations. No more photos of party figures like Corbyn laying wreaths at the graves of Palestinian terrorists associated with the Munich Olympic Massacre or calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends.”

The Labour Party Conference held this week in Brighton was meant to be a celebration of the new approach. On Sunday, the party introduced an independent process for handling complaints of antisemitism. Starmer proudly told party activists: “We have closed the door this evening to antisemitism in the Labour Party. We’ve turned our back on the dark chapter.”

Well, that door might have made a slamming noise, but it didn’t stay shut for long. Corbyn’s allies saw a window of opportunity and created enough of a cold blast to blow the door wide open again.

In a classic move, antisemitism was replaced by anti-Israel hatred: No problem with the Jews, just with the one and only Jewish state.

It’s the Swinging Sixties in London’s East End, and far-right fascism is on the rise.

Enter Vivien Epstein, a young Jewish hairdresser from Manchester who finds herself embroiled in an undercover movement against racism, after following her lover, Jack Morris, to the capital.

This sets the scene for a new four-part BBC thriller called Ridley Road, written by Sarah Solemani and based on the book of the same name by British author Jo Bloom.

It’s a vivid, romantic, and inspiring series, which marks rising star Aggi O’Casey’s first television role (she plays Vivien) and also features Rory Kinnear, Eddie Marsan, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Tamzin Outhwaite and Tom Varey.

The thrilling drama is inspired by real events; Jack (played by Varey) is a member of the 62 Group – a militant coalition of Jewish men formed in 1962, largely in response to the National Socialist Movement established by Colin Jordan (played by Kinnear).

Londoner Marsan, 53, plays cab driver Soly, the leader of the 62 Group. The Ray Donovan star says he watched documentaries and read books ahead of taking up his latest role, but he also already had a deeper understanding of the drama’s context from his childhood.

“My father was raised on Cable Street and I come from the East End of London,” he says. “So, I am very aware of the history of normal people taking on fascists in the East End. It’s the proudest part of our history, I think.”

He continues: “I grew up with men like Soly; tough, Jewish, working-class men.

So the far-left is organising a rally to commemorate the time fascists were stopped from marching through a Jewish neighbourhood.

Who did they invite to speak?

Jeremy Corbyn
Apsana Begum

Both of whom have been accused of antisemitism ??https://t.co/1LgUsl0ZDe

— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) September 30, 2021

David Miller has been dismissed by the University of Bristol.

In a statement today, the university said, “a disciplinary hearing found Professor Miller did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff and the University has concluded that Professor Miller’s employment should be terminated with immediate effect.

They university said a report from an independent QC “considered the important issue of academic freedom of expression” and found that Prof Miller’s comments “did not constitute unlawful speech.”

The statement added: “Professor Miller has a right of internal appeal which he may choose to exercise and nothing in this statement should be taken to prejudge that prospective process. On that basis, the University does not intend to make any further public comment at this time.”

The Union of Jewish Students and Bristol JSoc said they were "delighted" at the news.

In a joint statement, they said it had been over two years since the Jewish community, "raised their heads and their voices in protest at the harrassment, targeting, and vicious diatribe shared by Professor Miller with his students."

The Jewish Leadership Council welcomed the news, condemming the academic's "well documented treatment of Jewish students."

They congratulated Bristol's Jewish student bodies for working "tirelessly" to reach this point.

UJS and @BristolJsoc are delighted to see that a decision has finally been made by Bristol University regarding Professor David Miller. pic.twitter.com/0GYnWCu1CK

— Union of Jewish Students (@UJS_UK) October 1, 2021

David Miller, an academic obsessed with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, has been fired by the University of Bristol one month after Campaign Against Antisemitism commenced a lawsuit on behalf of current students against the institution.

Our legal case against the University concerned alleged unlawful harassment on the basis of Jewish ethnicity and Judaism, amounting to breaches of the Equality Act 2010, as well as breaches of contract. We launched pre-action proceedings in late August and the University swiftly realised that it was putting itself in legal jeopardy by sustaining Prof. Miller’s employment at the institution.

A number of brave students at the University stepped forward to act as complainants in the litigation. We also wish to thank Asserson Law Offices, led by senior partner Trevor Asserson, and barristers Derek Spitz of One Essex Court and Benjamin Gray of Littleton Chambers.

Having failed to act over Prof. Miller since his comments in February, in a statement released today by the University, it said that “following a full investigation”, Prof. Miller is “no longer employed by the University of Bristol,” explaining that “We have a duty of care to all students and the wider University community, in addition to a need to apply our own codes of conduct consistently and with integrity.” The statement admitted that “Prof. Miller did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff” and that accordingly, “the University has concluded that Professor Miller’s employment should be terminated with immediate effect.”

The undergraduate student union at York University has faced pushback for turning to a group supporting a boycott of Israel to hold an antisemitism training session planned for last Tuesday, the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret.

The York Federation of Students (YSF) — which represents over 53,000 undergraduate students at the Ontario, Canada research university — had asked the school’s Hillel for candidates who could provide antisemitism training, the Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reported.

The union reportedly first selected Yavilah McCoy, an African-American Jew and CEO of Dimensions Inc., a Boston-based diversity consultancy, for the session. But YSF later tapped Independent Jewish Voices of Canada (IJV) — a group that describes itself as the “first national Jewish organization to endorse the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.”

Jay Solomon, Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer of Hillel Ontario, said that Hillel York had been calling on the YFS to address “systemic antisemitism” in its operations for over a decade.

“Unfortunately, after requesting a list of suitable educators from Hillel York, it came to our attention that the YFS was pursuing an educational session on antisemitism with a group that is entirely unrepresentative of mainstream Jewish voices,” he told The Algemeiner on Thursday.

“The actions of the YFS are clear,” Solomon continued. “They seek to control the way antisemitism is explained to justify their own problematic behavior. The exclusion of representative voices from such an important process would be inexcusable in the context of any other marginalized community.”

Baden-Württemberg is embroiled in a series of anti-Semitism scandals: The German state’s commissioner tasked with combating anti-Semitism, Michael Blume, has failed to take action against funding for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting the Jewish state and has refused to urge the city of Freiburg to end its partnership with the genocidally anti-Semitic Iranian regime.

If Baden-Württemberg and Freiburg are serious about combating anti-Semitism, the state should immediately fire Blume, close the pro-BDS Palestine Committee Stuttgart’s bank account, and terminate Freiburg’s twin city partnership with Iran’s regime in Isfahan. Freiburg is the only city in Germany that has a city partnership with the Iranian regime.

One of the most powerful of BDS entities, the Palestine Committee Stuttgart, is based in the capital of Baden-Württemberg and maintains an account with the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), a state-backed bank. The committee hosted an international conference that brought together a who’s who of the BDS campaign, with over 300 participants.

Blume’s contention suggesting that banks cannot close accounts of BDS groups is demonstrably false. The following German banks have terminated accounts for BDS groups for support of terrorism or of anti-Semitism, or both: Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Deutsche Postbank, DAB Bank Munich and Die Bank für Sozialwirtschaft.

Under German law incitement against Jews is illicit. The Bundestag passed a resolution in 2019 defining BDS as anti-Semitic. It is worth noting that the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft terminated the account of the pro-BDS extremist entity Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East following the implementation of the anti-BDS resolution.

This writer’s investigative series led to the closure of more than 20 BDS accounts in such countries as France, Germany, Austria, the US, Ireland, and the UK due to violations of anti-discrimination laws against Israel, incitement targeting Jews, and terrorism links.

The city of Stuttgart and the state government together own nearly half of the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg. Sadly, Baden-Württemberg’s governor, Winfried Kretschmann of the Green party, and interior minister, Thomas Strobl of the Christian Democratic Union, have shown no appetite to end the state’s tolerance of BDS and Blume’s anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity on social media and in his articles.

HonestReporting is marking 21 years of monitoring anti-Israel media bias, a remarkable journey launched by the “Photo that Started it All.”

On September 30, 2000, Associated Press, The New York Times and other major media outlets published a photo of a bloodied youth standing near an Israeli border policeman.

The caption identified the victim as a Palestinian, although the truth quickly surfaced: The person in question was actually Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. The Israeli security officer was trying to protect him after he and two friends were pulled from their taxi by a mob in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem and severely beaten and stabbed.

The public outcry over the picture became a symbol in the struggle to ensure that Israel receives the fair news coverage that every nation deserves.

More than two decades later, this remains HonestReporting’s core mission.

Jews comprised 57.5% of victims of all religious bias hate crimes in the United States in 2020, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yet, many U.S. news outlets have failed to provide adequate coverage of the rising danger of antisemitism. Indeed, as CAMERA has documented, some in the media have actively contributed to the problem, engaging in antisemitic tropes, offering apologetics for antisemites—and, at times, even publishing them.

Accordingly, the Washington Post’s decision to publish not one, but two, opinion pieces in the same week calling out antisemitism is not just welcomed—it’s much needed.

On Sept. 23, 2021, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen authored the bluntly titled, “When you vote to let terrorists kill Jews, that is antisemitism.” Thiessen didn’t pull any punches while describing the efforts of a handful of members of Congress to block funding for the Iron Dome, the U.S.-funded defense system that blocks missiles and rockets fired into Israel.

Thiessen quoted Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who noted that the Iron Dome “is a purely defensive system,” which “protects civilians when hundreds of rockets are shot at population centers.” Iron Dome, Slotkin tweeted, “is used to protect our bases abroad, in addition to Israeli civilians in their homes.”

But the truth about Iron Dome was obfuscated in the misleading statements of the small coterie who sought to block its funding. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), for example, tweeted, “Here’s an idea: don’t sell arms to anyone who violates human rights.”

The decision by Omar and others to oppose funding Iron Dome is particularly malicious, Thiessen observed. As recently as May 2021, Gaza-based terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fired 4,369 rockets at Israel. Many of the rockets missed their targets, and as CAMERA’s Alex Safian has documented, many fell short and killed or wounded Gazans.

Regular readers are no doubt aware of the BBC’s double standards on language when reporting terrorism but even usually used euphemisms such as ‘militants’ and ‘gunmen’ were not appropriately employed in these two headlines in order to help audiences understand the circumstances in which those people were killed. Moreover that headline was not improved even after the report was updated to include Hamas’ acknowledgement of three of the five. By the time that update was made, it was also known that one of those killed was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The first part of the relatively short report provides scant details of the story, with the aim of the operation to arrest wanted members of a Hamas terror cell planning imminent attacks in Israeli cities described as follows:
“The Israeli army said the operation was against Hamas militants about to carry out attacks…”

The report fails to inform BBC audiences that several arrests were made and weapons and ammunition seized during the operations in five locations.

The second half of the report begins by telling readers that:
“Correspondents say there has long been concern in Israel that Hamas, which runs Gaza, could also challenge its rival the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.”

That concern is of course by no means limited to Israel and is no less disquieting to the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority. Nevertheless, the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent Tom Bateman found it appropriate to amplify spurious and opportunistic PA talking points on Twitter.

We complained to Telegraph editors, but they’ve thus far failed to update an article falsely suggesting that the IDF killed an innocent Palestinian teen “on his way to school”. The allegation, based on an unsubstantiated claim by the teen’s uncle, appears in the strap line of the Sept. 26 article reporting on an IDF raid on a Hamas cell that was reportedly planning a massive Jerusalem terror attack.

Though the article doesn’t dispute that four of those killed in overnight raids were indeed “militants”, it chose to promote the narrative advanced by the teen’s uncle about the fifth Palestinian killed – citing it in both the strap line and here in the opening sentence:
Israeli troops killed five Palestinians, reportedly including a teenager on his way to school, during raids on what the army said were Hamas cells in the West Bank this weekend, marking the worst hostilities since the Gaza war in May.

Later, the report adds:
But one of the Palestinians killed was a 16-year-old walking to school when he was shot, according to his uncle.

We tweeted the Telegraph journalist, who responded by noting that that allegation was based on initial accounts from Reuters – again based solely on comments by the teen’s relative. We tweeted back to inform the journalist that even according to the radical, pro-Palestinian NGO ‘DCI-Palestine’, in a tweet that same day, the teen was killed after firing at Israeli soldiers – which of course contradicts the uncle’s account.

A former nursing student responsible for the 2019 deadly shooting at Chabad of Poway, Calif., was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 137 years to life, in San Diego County Superior Court.

John Earnest’s sentence was given under the terms of his plea deal, reported San Diego’s CBS News 8. The 22-year-old pleaded guilty on July 20 to murder and attempted murder charges for the shooting. He also pleaded guilty to arson for setting fire to the Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque in Escondido, Calif., on March 24, 2019.

Earnest shot an assault rifle inside Chabad of Poway during Passover services on April 27, 2019, killing 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye, a longtime congregant at Chabad. Two others were injured in the antisemitic attack and the synagogue’s rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, lost a finger in the shooting.

State prosecutors originally wanted to seek the death penalty against Earnest but that pursuit was dropped after the plea deal was made, according to CBS News 8. In the plea deal, Earnest admitted to hate crime allegations.

In an open letter published online, Earnest talked about a need to protect the “European race.” He also wrote, “I can only kill so many Jews” and “I only wish I killed more.”

Police have identified a 16-year-old boy in an alleged assault on a 60-year-old Jewish man earlier this month at a vigil in support of Israel and against antisemitism, which took place in the city of Hamburg.

The suspect, named in reports as Aram A., is apparently under contract with an acting agency and has a role in a movie about a family of Holocaust survivors called “Evolution,” which premiered at the International Cannes Film Festival in France this year, German daily Bild Zeitung reported Thursday. In the movie, Aram A. plays the role of “Ali,” who bullies a Jewish student called “Jonas” at a school in Berlin and also gets violent towards his classmates.

Aram A. is being investigated for causing bodily harm to a participant of the vigil “Hamburg for Israel and against antisemitism,” which took place on Sept. 18 near the central train station in Hamburg. The identified perpetrator was part of a group allegedly yelling antisemitic and anti-Israel slogans at the organizers of the gathering, including “f**k Israel, free Palestine.”

When several of the participants in the vigil approached the offender and asked him to stop, he punched the 60-year-old victim in the face with his fist, causing a fracture of his cheek and nasal bones. The perpetrator — along with his companions, who are thought to have fled on rental e-scooters — managed to escape despite an immediate chase by several police cars. Following the attack, the victim was treated at a hospital for six days.

Jewish advocacy groups were dismayed, if not surprised, by the decision of Belgium’s Constitutional Court on Thursday to uphold a ban on shechita — the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for kosher consumption.

The court issued a ruling affirming the legality of the Belgian ban, originally imposed in 2017, bolstered by the decision of the European Union’s highest court last December to permit EU member states to ban the slaughtering of animals without pre-stunning, despite the requirements of both Jewish and Muslim religious law on this matter.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) made its determination after Belgium’s Constitutional Court referred a lawsuit, filed by the Belgian Federation of Jewish Organizations (CCOJB), to determine whether the bans were lawful.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), said that while his group was “disappointed with today’s judgement, we are certainly not surprised as it upholds the status quo in Belgium.”

Goldschmidt added that the court ruling “confirms the ban religious slaughter and brings Belgium into line with those few other countries whose bans on shechita date from the Nazi era.”

In one of the earliest legislative acts of the Nazi regime in Germany, a ban was imposed on the slaughter of animals without pre-stunning in April 1933. Nazi propaganda films routinely depicted shechita as the barbaric practice of an alien people.

Other Jewish organizations issued similar condemnations of the Belgian court’s decision.

The mayor of Alaska’s largest city apologized Thursday for his comments supporting some residents’ use of Holocaust imagery to liken a proposed citywide mask mandate to the oppression of Jewish people in Nazi Germany.

Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has said he staunchly opposes the proposal and initially defended the use of yellow Stars of David worn by other critics this week at heated public hearings. Such imagery has been used by opponents of mask and vaccine mandates across the US, drawing condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations.

The proposal before the Anchorage Assembly would require people to wear masks in indoor public spaces and outdoors at large events. If approved as written, businesses and building owners would be required to deny entry to people not wearing masks, though there are exceptions for small children and some others.

It comes as Alaska experiences a spike in coronavirus cases. The state has seen a 42% increase in newly confirmed COVID-19 cases over last week, officials said, and its largest hospital has declared crisis standards that allow the overwhelmed facility to modify its normal levels of care.

The mask proposal has provoked a strong response.

Right-wing Mayor of Anchorage, AK David Bronson, who has said he will not get vaccinated, says there is nothing wrong with anti-vaccers wearing a Nazi-era, ‘Star of David’ to the commission meeting since it pays tribute to Jews. pic.twitter.com/NShnT0wjat

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 30, 2021

A beautifully rendered, understated short film screening internationally until October 3 through the Manhattan Short Festival demonstrates how Holocaust trauma is passed down through generations and expresses itself in the smallest of domestic details.

“Ganef” (Yiddish for thief), written and directed by Mark Rosenblatt, brings viewers back to 1962, into the well-to-do suburban London home of a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Hirth, and their six-year-old daughter Ruthie. The family has a maid named Lynn (played by Downton Abbey actress Sophie McShera) who cleans the home and keeps an eye on the little girl.

It all seems quite normal until Mrs. Hirth comes home from clothes shopping, opens the front door just a crack and hands her bags to Ruthie, who has come to greet her.

“Take these bags and run as fast as you can to my room. Quick, don’t let anyone see you. Go, go, go,” she instructs her young daughter.

Shortly thereafter, upstairs in the bedroom, Ruthie asks her mother, “Why can’t Lynn see the bags?”

“Because,” answers Mrs. Hirth in her German-accented English. “People don’t need to see what they don’t need to see.”

When my father was 6 months old, my grandparents put him in a burlap sack and smuggled him out of Ukraine as they fled the pogroms of 1921. Their destination was Poland, which they considered a relatively safe haven. To make sure he stayed quiet and did not draw unwanted attention, they put a cloth on his mouth, fearing any sound that emerged from the sack could result in immediate death. They prayed that he would make it, and to their great relief, he did.

Thanks to their determination to survive I am alive to tell their story, and that of Europe’s Jews.

Several weeks ago, at the 100th anniversary of their escape, I became chairman of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center and a great responsibility was placed on my shoulders. Having served as Israel’s consul-general in New York for four years, I could easily cross international borders and enjoyed diplomatic immunity, unlike many European Jews in the early part of the 20th century, who had to hide their Jewish roots. I felt privileged because of this freedom, feeling emotional every time I saw the words “State of Israel” and the menorah—Israel’s national emblem—on my passport and in my heart.

The difference between my border-crossing experience and the story of my father and his parents is nothing short of amazing. This is just one example of the transformation that the Jewish people have undergone since those days. During the Holocaust, the world descended into the darkest abyss it has ever known, as millions of Jews were murdered systematically. I consider myself one of the lucky Jews who were born because their family managed to escape before these tragic events. The Holocaust is part of our collective Jewish experience, and even though Yad Vashem belongs to the Jewish people, it bears great significance to all of humankind.

The 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre is marked this week. The event, in which Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators murdered 33,771 Jews, took place on Sept. 29-30, 1941, on the eve of Yom Kippur. As if that atrocity was not bad enough, for many years Nazis and then Soviets added insult to injury by actively trying to destroy any evidence that could attest to these horrors.

Yesterday and today mark the 80th anniversary of the mass murder of 33,771 in Babi Yar on Yom Kippur on September 28th and 29th 1941. This horrific mass atrocity in just two days in September 1941, targeting the Jews of Kiev, Ukraine was carried out by the Einsatzgruppen, the brutal Nazi killing squads responsible for the mass murder of 2 million Jews in Eastern Europe.

Babi Yar is a poignant and painful reminder of my dual responsibilities as Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism domestically and internationally.

In the matter of preserving Holocaust remembrance, Babi Yar is a reminder of the danger of forgetting and the imperative of remembrance - le devoir de memoir; of the dangers of indifference and inaction in the face of mass atrocity and genocide; of the Holocaust as a paradigm for radical evil as antisemitism is a paradigm for radical hate - with Babi Yar the expression of both.

80 years later, Babi Yar is a reminder of our individual and collective responsibilities to remember, to bear witness, to shatter walls of indifference, to prevent and act against antisemitism and mass atrocity - lest we be complicit by our silence.

Rare photos that have resurfaced ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre show early efforts by activists in the 1960s to identify bones and human remains at the site where close to 35,000 Jews were murdered in just two days.

Between September 29-30, 1941, Nazis and their collaborators murdered tens of thousands of Jews at the Babi Yar ravine just outside of Kyiv. Despite it being one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust, the site and the event went largely ignored for decades and were overshadowed by the atrocities in the concentration camps — which were often better documented. Throughout the remaining years of World War II, more than 100,000 people were ultimately killed at the ravine.

In 1966, on the 25th anniversary of the massacre, a group of activists began to work to identify the tens of thousands of human remains left at Babi Yar and to officially memorialize all those who were killed there, the National Library of Israel said.

The efforts of those early activists were documented by Joseph Schneider, a Holocaust survivor and anti-Soviet dissident. The photographs taken by Schneider in 1966 were found in the Emmanuel (Amik) Diamant Archive, which was turned over to the library’s Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, and they are now being made public for the first time.

According to the library, the activists hung an unofficial memorial sign at the site for the first time in 1966. Photographs from the archive show men and women standing amid piles of bones at the site as they worked to memorialize the forgotten murdered men, women and children. Efforts to create an official memorial at the site where not allowed to begin in earnest until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Eighty years ago, a ravine in the north of what is now Ukraine’s capital city turned into a bloodbath as Nazis, aided by local collaborators, shot tens of thousands of Jews to death.

For two days at the end of September 1941, Ukrainian collaborators brought more than 33,000 Jews to the hills of Kyiv’s Babi Yar ravine, where soldiers in Adolf Hitler’s army executed group after group of defenseless victims — children, as well as women and men of all ages.

The victims were shot with machine guns into pits. After none remained standing, the perpetrators would jump into the pit with their victims to finish off the dying and those pretending to be dead. Then the bodies were buried and a new group of victims brought to stand atop the fresh, thin layer of earth covering their brethren.

The 80th anniversary of the massacre, the first mass shooting in what is known today as the “Holocaust of bullets,” is eliciting a wave of commemorations, including a ceremony in Israel to honor a survivor and a memorial coin in Ukraine, where Nazi collaborators are increasingly being celebrated alongside their victims.

It is also reinvigorating a German lawyer’s mission to bring to justice a man he says may be the last Babi Yar perpetrator alive, a 99-year-old German man named Herbert Waller.

Today would have marked Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor #ElieWiesel's 93rd birthday. Elie was a hero of human rights and a champion in the battle against antisemitism. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 87.

May his memory forever be a blessing. pic.twitter.com/9xiNXn1g6m

— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) September 30, 2021

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Let’s break down the bill into its individual pieces.

First, the two-state solution has been dead from the moment Israel was founded. The 1947 United Nations partition plan would have created a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the plan, while the Arabs rejected it. This led to Israel’s founding following war in 1948. Since then, Israel has made numerous offers of statehood to the Palestinians. They have been rejected, and terrorism has, in most cases, followed. Put simply, the Palestinians have repeatedly demonstrated their refusal to co-exist with the Jewish state. A state, we should remember, that was founded only in the aftermath of 6 million Jews being killed in the Nazi-led Holocaust.

Second, there is no Israeli "occupation of the Palestinian territories." The West Bank has never belonged to the Palestinians. It used to belong to Jordan. Israel seized that land, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 six day war. Jordan eventually ceded the land to Israel. The bill would condition U.S. assistance to Israel on the Jewish state not "[undermining] the prospects of a negotiated two-state solution."

This would be dangerous, especially as Israel faces numerous threats, the biggest from Iran.

The bill would also mark products made in the "Palestinian territories" as either "West Bank/Gaza,""West Bank/Gaza Strip," or "West Bank and Gaza." This is labeling designed to be loved by supporters of the movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel.

Finally, the bill would end the designation of the Palestine Liberation Organization as a terrorist group. At least, that is, once the Palestinians are found to be in compliance with the Taylor Force Act (which prohibits U.S. taxpayer funds from going to the Palestinian Authority as long as it rewards terrorists and their families). The bill would allow, once that condition is met, for the PLO office in Washington to reopen.

But the bill forgets that the PLO has shown little interest in peace. President Donald Trump was right to shutter the PLO office in 2018. The Biden administration resumed funding for Palestinians earlier this year. So what’s to stop the secretary of state from certifying that the Palestinians are in compliance with the Taylor Force Act when they’re actually not?

Recall that the administration revoked the terrorist designation of the Houthis in Yemen even though they are a terrorist group backed by Iran.

Ultimately, any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be worked out between the two sides without the U.S. dictating what it thinks is best. One thing is for certain. To quote the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."

The question that requires analysis and exploration is why nine duly elected members of the House of Representatives saw it as a good thing to leave millions of civilians defenseless to a terrorist onslaught. As Congressman Fleischmann said the other day, these are just plain anti-Semites. There is really no other way to explain it.

The other day, Vice President Kamala Harris visited a university classroom in Virginia. The question posed to the vice president by a student was about funding for Israel, a country that commits “ethnic genocide,” which is actually the furthest thing from reality.

Vice President Harris stood there as the student spoke about how Israel kills people based on who they are, and instead of disagreeing and correcting the student she just nodded her head in agreement.

Ms. Harris is not a here-today-gone-tomorrow fringe member of Congress. She’s the vice president of the United States and should not be nodding her head in agreement when a woke college student uses “ethnic cleaning” and “Israel” in the same sentence. Harris told the student, “Your truth must be heard.” Does that mean that VP Harris believes Israel is perpetrating ethnic genocide?

I’m reluctant to use the best word to describe her actions, but here it is: stupid.

Even AOC knew better.

Recording of a UKLFI Charitable Trust Webinar: The Accusation of Israel as an Apartheid State With Professor Orde Kittrie, Chair: Natasha Hausdorff

A new UN Commission of Inquiry of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is poised to accuse Israel of apartheid. Professor Kittrie discusses this Inquiry and its mandate, and the potential relationship with prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The mandate’s reference to apartheid was apparently inspired by a lengthy report, accusing Israel of committing the crime of apartheid, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW). However this report is based on a definition of “apartheid” which is not found in the ICC’s Statute or the International Convention on Apartheid.

Professor Kittrie discusses the different definitions of apartheid, reasons why the apartheid charge is wrong even under HRW’s definition, and options for responding.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved on Thursday night the bipartisan Israel Relations Normalization Act during its markup. The bill would encourage the continued cooperation of the Abraham Accords and urge expansion of these peace and normalization agreements to countries that do not currently have diplomatic ties with Israel.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee already adopted the bipartisan version of the bill, which requires the State Department to provide a strategy “to strengthen and expand the Abraham Accords and other related normalization agreements with Israel.”

If signed into law, the State Department would be required to provide “a detailed description of how the US government will leverage diplomatic lines of effort and resources from other stakeholders to encourage normalization, economic development and people-to-people programming.”

The bill states that “it is the policy of the United States to expand and strengthen the Abraham Accords to encourage other nations to normalize relations with Israel and ensure that existing agreements reap tangible security and economic benefits for the citizens of those countries.”

In addition, it calls to develop and implement “a regional strategy to encourage economic cooperation among Israel, Arab states and the Palestinians to enhance the prospects for regional peace, respect for human rights [and] transparent governance,” among other issues.

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees announced Friday it was seeking $800 million at a donor conference scheduled for November in Brussels.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that the organization needed “predictability” for its operations.

To fund UNRWA’s “three core activities” — education, health and social services — “we are seeking $800 million a year,” he told reporters ahead of the gathering, organized by Jordan and Sweden.

“The main objective of the conference is to have a better predictability” and to “promote visibility,” the Swiss diplomat said.

The funding would allow the agency to keep open the 700 or so schools it managed, catering to 550,000 children, as well as health centers and to provide social welfare to Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

In addition to the $800 million, Lazzarini said there was also a need for funds for the humanitarian aid provided by UNRWA, which varies from one year to the next, depending on the crisis, but which the agency estimates will be around half a million dollars in 2022.

Lazzarini, who took the post last April, said his agency was $100 million short to see out this year, and warned that it might have to shut down some activities in November and December.

UNHRC Chair Nazhat Khan is making up a rule that does not exist.

I have every right to quote the racist Facebook posts of UNRWA teachers—funded with hundreds of millions by US, Germany, EU, Canada—and to name them.

The UN itself published the info here: https://t.co/xpeXDZJz9u

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 1, 2021

Ironically, after the U.N. Human Rights Council president cut me off for exposing the antisemitic teachers hired by UNRWA, she then gave the floor to the Hamas front group, the "Palestinian Return Center." https://t.co/AfbGiZck0qpic.twitter.com/VgFCcijqle

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 1, 2021

Enough with the corruption! Want to see why @UNRWA should be dissolved? Take it from @YosephHaddad and yours truly:

pic.twitter.com/qDQdXd99Gq

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) October 1, 2021

The only circumstances the @IntlCrimCourt Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC should be meeting any representative of #Iran, is in the context of trying them for War Crimes, Incitement to Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Not posing for happy snaps like this! https://t.co/1Xu5kAHMPE

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 2, 2021

Anything about radical Islamic terror? Why does @KenRoth of @hrw have such a visceral hatred of America, Israel and Western democracies? https://t.co/Nz9ZZKUanQ

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 2, 2021

True for a while now. To take the obvious example: the anti-Israel hysteria that's common on university campuses would be considered declasse and vulgar across much of the Gulf. It's just not how people talk any more. https://t.co/6QlXt50pA2

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) October 1, 2021

Police arrested four suspects over the weekend after several officers were assaulted early Friday by private security guards working for the central town of Kafr Qasim. Government and police leaders expressed outrage at the attack on law enforcement officials in the Arab Israeli town.

The officers had sought to enter the town’s municipality after receiving a report that someone had been violently taken into the building, but were denied entry by the guards. A scuffle broke out and several cops were beaten and bloodied.

Hebrew media reported on Saturday that the guards were part of an organization hired by local leaders to maintain order in the town amid the epidemic of violent crime in the Arab community. According to Channel 13 news, MK Walid Taha of the coalition’s Ra’am party had himself been involved in forming the group. Taha did not comment.

In response to the attack on the officers, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Saturday condemned “violence in Arab society” which he said had “reached an intolerable point.”

He tweeted: “We will fight it with all our strength. I expect the Arab community, which has been asking the state to intervene, to give police officers full backing and support.”

Public Security Minister Omer Barlev described the private security guards as a “local militia,” adding that “the suspects who were arrested and anyone who thinks he can lift a hand against those in uniform will be brought to justice.”

Several Members of Knesset arrived in the Israeli-Arab city of Sakhnin on Saturday afternoon to join an event commemorating the “martyrs” of the October 2000 riots, in which 12 Israeli-Arab civilians were killed by police forces across Israel.

The riots were a series of protests in Arab cities and towns in northern Israel that broke out days after then-defense minister Ariel Sharon’s ascent to the Temple Mount and the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The protests quickly escalated into rioting by Israeli Arabs throughout the country and counter-rioting by Israeli Jews. During the riots, 13 Arabs – 12 Israeli-Arabs and one Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who had been demonstrating in Israel – were killed by the police.

The demonstration, organized by the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Affairs, also called for lives devoid of crime for Israel’s Arab citizens, as the 100th person from the Israeli-Arab community was killed for crime-related reasons on Friday night.

Deputy Knesset Speaker and Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi stated on Saturday morning that six Joint List MKs would be participating in the event marking 21 years since the riots.

“The demonstration will take place in the shadow of the 100 people murdered this year [in the Arab sector] and the more than 1,600 killed since October 2000,” his statement read.

The outside wall of a private home in the Israeli Arab city of Umm al-Fahm has become a memorial wall for five terrorists.

Under their faces the artist quoted a Facebook post by one of the terrorists prior to the attack carried out at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, writing, “Tomorrow’s smile will be wider.”

The artist honored the killers of two Israeli Border Guard Police officers in a July 14, 2017 terror attack at the Temple Mount compound in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Muhammad Ahmed Muhammad Jabarin, 29, Muhammad Hamad Abdel Latif Jabarin, 19, and Muhammad Ahmed Mafdal Jabarin, 19, all cousins from the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, stormed the Temple Mount during the attack. The attackers were killed by other Israeli forces at the scene after killing Israeli Druze police officers Master-Sgt. Kamil Shnaan, 22, of Hurfish and Master-Sgt. Haiel Satawi, 30, of Majaar. Satawi left behind a wife and newborn son. Shnaan was the son of former MK Shachiv Shnaan.

The elder Shnaan told Israeli public broadcaster Kan News that he was outraged when he learned about the memorial for the terrorists, saying, “It is inconceivable that we lose sovereignty in the country. I demand this wall be eliminated.”

694 Palestinians who were illegally in Israel were caught by Border Police as they tried to enter the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday.

Police acted to catch the illegal aliens in light of recent incidents in Jerusalem, including an attempted stabbing attack on Thursday, in which a resident of the West Bank town of Kabatiya near Jenin attempted to stab police officers after exiting the Temple Mount complex.

The 694 illegal aliens were residents of the West Bank who were attempting to enter the Old City.

Palestinian media reported on Friday morning that Israeli police set up checkpoints between the Damascus Gate and the Temple Mount and checked the IDs of all those entering the Old City, arresting hundreds who were attempting to reach the Temple Mount.

Additionally, three Palestinians were reportedly arrested by Israeli security forces in Kabatiya on Thursday night, with Palestinian terrorists firing towards Israeli forces in the city during the arrests, according to Palestinian media.

Israeli security forces on Saturday arrested two Palestinian suspects who tried to cross into Israeli territory from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

According to a brief statement by the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson’s unit, “a bag containing grenades was seized from the suspects.”

“The suspects were taken for questioning by security forces,” the statement further added.

Last week the Israeli military announced that it thwarted a series of terrorist attacks Hamas planned to carry out against Israeli targets, on the heels of escalating clashes in the West Bank.

General Hossein Salami, the chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the Iranian regime's plans vehemently clear: "Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map," he stated on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019. Supreme Leader Khamenei, in 2015, also published a 416-page guidebook, titled "Palestine", about destroying Israel.

"The mission of the constitution is to create conditions conducive to the development of man in accordance with the noble and universal values of (Shiite) Islam." The regime's constitution goes on to say that it "provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad."

There is the dangerous likelihood of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Iran's proxy and militia groups, or that the Iranian regime will share its nuclear technology with its proxies and allies such as the Syrian regime or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

If this is how Iran's leadership treats its own citizens, what makes anyone think they would treat their perceived adversaries any better? As others have asked: If Hitler had acquired a nuclear weapon, do you think he would have hesitated to use it?

Once such leaders have weapons of mass destruction, it is far more costly in life and treasure to try and stop them. Iran might not even need to use its nuclear weapons; the threat should be more than enough.

Despite enriching uranium at a level not seen before, Iran still has a long way to go before acquiring a nuclear bomb, according to Israel’s Military Intelligence head Maj.-Gen. Tamir Hayman.

According to Hayman, while the levels of enriched uranium are “disturbing,” the Islamic Republic still has a long way to go before acquiring a functioning nuclear bomb that can threaten Israel.

“There is an enriched amount [of uranium] in volumes that we have not seen before and it is disturbing. At the same time, in all other aspects of the Iranian nuclear project, we see no progress,” Hayman said in an interview with Walla News.

“Not in the weapons project, in the financial area, not in any other sector. Therefore the period of time that still remains of two years has not changed. Because even from the moment you have a breakout, there is still a long way to go before a bomb,” he said.

“To the best of our knowledge, the directive has not changed and they are not heading toward a breakout. They are not heading toward a bomb right now: It may be in the distant future.”

The Iranians face three choices, he said: a return to the previous 2015 nuclear deal, break out and go for “unprecedented defiance” including in weapons and continued enrichment or go for an improved agreement where they will achieve far more than they have in the past. Tehran will likely try to exhaust long negotiations with the West while continuing to enrich.

Hayman said that while the “right thing to do” is to act on the side of diplomacy vis-a-vis Iran and its nuclear program, there must be a practical, reliable military option along with the economic and diplomatic tools.

Lotfollah Dezhkam, the representative for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Fars Province, urged the elimination of Israel in a Friday sermon in the city of Shiraz.

The Islamic clerical firebrand declared, “The global arrogance led by America with complicity of Israel seeks to delay the realization of an important issue, which is the destruction of the Zionist regime.” Kian Meli, a news outlet opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran, quoted his remarks. Three regime-controlled news organizations – Islamic Republic News Agency, Fars News and Tasnim – reported on his speech.

Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident who fled to Germany to escape persecution, said, “The more the mullahs spread hate speech against the Jewish State of Israel, the more Iranian people realize that Israel is our friend, because the regime in Iran is the only enemy that we have. His hate speech against Israel is not surprising.... Ali Khamenei as the leader of the Islamic Republic calls for the annihilation of Israel and Dezhkam is his representative.”

She added, “We are tired of their antisemitism. We have a long history with the Jewish people and we want to be able to revive that 2700 years of friendship. The Islamic Republic’s antisemitism is lethal and endangers both Iranians and Israelis. The regime accuses Iranian dissidents of being Israeli spies, and calls the protesters against the regime’s corruption Israeli agents, and considers them against the national security. We want to normalize relations with Israel like other normal countries.”

A nightclub in the United Kingdom is facing pressure from a number of student groups to cancel a live performance by British rapper Wiley scheduled for Saturday due to the artist’s antisemitic past.

Wiley, whose real name is Richard Kylea Cowie, is set to perform at the Switch nightclub in Preston as part of the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLAN) Preston Freshers 2021 line-up of events, which span over the course of two weeks in multiple venues.

Last year, Wiley was banned from various social media platforms and lost his recording deal after publishing a series of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel comments online. Among the offensives comments that he shared on social media, he called Jews “snakes;” told “black people” to go to “war” with Jewish people; and tweeted that Jews should “hold some corn,” a slang expression that means they should be shot, adding, “Jewish community you deserve it.” He later apologized for his comments.

The UK’s Union of Jewish Students (UJS) said on Thursday it is “disgusted to hear” that Wiley will be performing at Switch nightclub.

“Just over a year ago he was publicly criticized and permanently suspended from Twitter, for writing antisemitic tweets and spreading hateful conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control,” UJS wrote in a statement. “Allowing him to perform sends the message that antisemitism is acceptable and the wellbeing of Jewish students in Preston is not important. UJS insists that Switch club review this event and show they will not tolerate antisemitism.”

Kylie Broderick is a Ph.D. student within the University of North Carolina’s History Department and teaches a class to undergraduates named “The Conflict Over Israel/Palestine.”

However, if any students were hoping to take the course in order to receive a nuanced and balanced insight into one of the Middle East’s most complex issues, it is likely they were mistaken.

Because Broderick can only be described as an avowed anti-Zionist who has made no effort to hide her hatred of the Jewish state and its people.

Broderick, who has now deleted her Twitter account, used the social media platform to call defenders of Israel “Zionist dirtbags”; this, during May’s conflagration in which Hamas terrorists fired thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli civilian-populated towns and cities.

In other remarks, she described Zionism as an “oppressive ideology” that is supported by its “patron, the US imperialist death cult,” and retweeted a comment that labeled all of Israel “occupied Palestinian territory.”

Despite this, American non-profit news organization, The Intercept, still ran an impassioned defense of Broderick that suggested she was the victim of a smear campaign by “right-wing pro-Israel websites and an advocacy group.”

The article, published on September 28, quotes Broderick at length, including her claims that those who are critical of her employment have never seen “past evaluations which have said that [she treats] students fairly, and thus [they] have no right to dictate what [she says] inside the classroom.”

Now, this could be true. Broderick may indeed be open-minded when it comes to diversity of thought and freedom of speech does allow her to express her opinions on thorny issues without fear of censure.

But the mere fact she was invited in the first place to teach a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when she clearly holds such extreme views on the subject is troublesome, to say the least. Also concerning is that UNC faculty heads did not find someone less partisan to teach this class, even after her online posts were drawn to their attention and given the university’s chancellor recently stated that, “At Carolina, we unequivocally reject and deplore antisemitism. It has no place on our campus.”

A controversial resolution condemning Israel passed this summer by the City University of New York’s teacher’s union sparked a new faculty group, opposing what they call “a climate of hostility” toward the Jewish state on campus.

The June 10 resolution by the Professional Staff Congress CUNY union (PSC) had labelled Israel an “apartheid” and “settler colonial” state responsible for the “massacre” of Palestinians during its conflict with Hamas in May, and advanced chapter-level discussions on supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Calling itself CUNY Alliance for Inclusion (CAFI), and operating since August, the group comprises over 2,700 community members, including over 400 faculty and staff who had signed a letter denouncing the June resolution as an inappropriate foray into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ilya Bratman, Executive Director of Hillel at CUNY’s Baruch College, told The Algemeiner last Thursday that nearly half of CAFI faculty members have already resigned from the PSC. But, he said, “this is not an anti-labor movement. We are the opposite. We are folks upset with the union because of this specific resolution.”

“Most would return to the union and would be excited to work with it to make wonderful conditions for faculty in our great university,” he said. “We just need to right now address the voices that are creating a hostile environment for Jews.”

Leaving the union is not a condition for membership, though the group’s website has publicly posted several resignation letters from members of the public university’s faculty. On August 6, CAFI wrote to PSC President James Davis asking for a “repudiation” of the controversial measure and that he address the “culture of antisemitism pervading the PSC Delegate Assembly.”

That falsely suggests that it was only “the creation of Israel in 1948” that turned Iraqis against the Jews. Yet the Times itself acknowledged back in 2016: “Iraqi Jews had always been the targets of sporadic attacks. But the danger soared with the rise of the Nazis’ influence in the 1930s as well as unhappiness around the Arab world with Zionism’s push for a Jewish state. A pogrom in June 1941, the Farhud, killed nearly 200 Jews in Baghdad.” The 2021 Times article makes no mention of the Farhud or of Nazi influence in Iraq.

The Farhud was before the creation of Israel, not “after.”

And the Farhud was, sadly, not the end of it. Edwin Black, who wrote a book about Iraqi Jewry, reports, “on May 9, 1947, a Baghdad mob killed a hapless Jewish man after hysterical accusations that he gave poisoned candy to Arab children.”

The word the Times chose — “pressured” — is a highly sanitized way of describing what happened to the Jews of Iraq. As Black reports, “One man was sentenced to five years’ hard labor for merely possessing a scrap of paper with an Old Testament Hebrew inscription; the paper was presumed to be a coded Zionist message. Hundreds of Jews were now arrested, forced to confess under torture, punished financially, and sentenced to long jail terms.” The wealthiest Jew in Iraq, Shafiq Ades, “was publicly hanged in Basra. His body was allowed to languish in the square for hours, to be abused by the celebrating crowds.”

Back in 2017, the Times erroneously attributed Iraqi anti-Jewish sentiment to “Israel’s defeat of its Arab neighbors in 1967,” so I suppose it’s a kind of modest progress that the Times is now falsely blaming the events of 1948 for Iraq’s turn against the Jews, rather than the events of 1967.

Even better would be for the newspaper to get the story fully accurate, and to stop blaming Israel for Iraqi Jew-hatred that predates the Jewish state.

Oh please John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen), stop playing the victim card. You were called out for your one-sided and biased reporting against Israel. Now you’re trying to capitalize on it to sell your book. Pretty lame mate!https://t.co/eAR2OKiYC4

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 2, 2021

Jews visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs where the forefathers of Judaism are buried = “Provocation rituals” ?? ?? can’t make this stuff up.

CJ is triggered again. pic.twitter.com/7FMhdloGPe

— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) October 1, 2021

Most of the “baddest actors” charged at the Nuremberg Trials escaped justice, Dean Reuter, general counsel and vice president at the Federalist Society and co-author of The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America’s Deal with the Devil, stated on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily.

“One disturbing scene that came out of a lot of these Nazi trials [is that] the folks that weren’t executed — that were given a term of years — very, very few of them served their full sentences,” Reuter noted. “I just found that really disturbing. … “These were the baddest actors that we’ve identified — that the legal process really has identified — in history, and a lot of them just didn’t serve their full sentences.”

He added, “Hundreds of people made deals at various levels of complicity [and] various levels of guilt. … Hans Kammler is probably the highest ranking, most ridiculously bad person that would have able to escape justice, but Nuremberg, I think, was effective in terms of putting down a marker and basically underscoring the phrase that has now become famous: ‘Never Again.'”

In The Hidden Nazi, Reuter explained how General Hans Kammler, a Nazi S.S. commander who designed the Third Reich’s network of concentration camps and V-2 rocket program, likely escaped Europe with aid from the U.S. government in exchange for intelligence.

Reuter remarked on the Nuremberg Trial’s impact on treaties. It “revolutionized international law,” he stated.

US health officials are said to be looking to data from Israel’s military to help shed light on the safety of Pfizer/BioNtech’s COVID-19 booster jabs in young people, and the risks of developing a heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis.

The condition, while rare, has been linked to the two-dose mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, mostly in males under 30.

US chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, told Reuters on Friday that a key question yet to be answered was “the safety data of an mRNA in young people vis-a-vis myocarditis.”

US regulators will weigh the question and the data to determine whether to grant full approval for a booster shot in the wider population. A third jab was already approved for Americans over 65 years of age, healthcare workers, and those deemed to be at high risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19.

“The Israelis will relatively soon have that data because they’re vaccinating everybody in the country I think from 12 years old up, including their military recruits,” Fauci said. He added that the data could “help address the gap in safety information on mRNA vaccines, ‘which is one of the things that the advisory committee was interested in,'” according to the report.

On Friday, Israel’s Health Ministry released data showing that the known side effects from the COVID-19 vaccines were significantly milder from the booster shot compared to the first two doses. Reported side effects, such as fatigue, weakness, and pain in the arm where the injection was administered, were all less common the third time round in every age group, according to the ministry.

The number of serious COVID-19 patients over the weekend dropped below 600 for the first time since mid-August.

As of Saturday night, there were 587 patients in serious condition, 100 less than a week earlier. The highest number recorded in the fourth wave was 738 on September 23.

The new Green Pass system is set to come into effect on Sunday as the coronavirus cabinet is scheduled to meet for the first time in a month. In light of the encouraging data, which also included a decline in the reproduction and positivity rates, the cabinet is not expected to introduce any new restrictions, including no cap on large gatherings which had been widely discussed.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett expressed satisfaction over the development but said it is too soon to celebrate, as the outbreak is not over. “We are at a critical stage, with the reopening of the education system and our intention to end mass isolation and move to a model of extensive testing and isolation required only for identified cases,” he said on Saturday night. “Right now, we must strictly keep the Green Pass rules and not be complacent.”

By mid-October, the pilot program to change the isolation and testing requirements in the education system will be completed, and starting from October 17, only those infected will need to quarantine, while their classmates will undergo coronavirus tests every day for a week. In addition, parents of children under 12 are set to receive at-home test kits to check them regularly – possibly once or twice a week.

The latest results from the clinical trials of Israel’s homegrown COVID-19 vaccine, BriLife, show that it is at least 80 percent effective at preventing severe disease and may provide longer-lasting protection.

Channel 12 reported on Friday that the government-run Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) in Ness Ziona indicated that, so far, over 80% of volunteers who received the two-shot Israeli vaccine at its highest doses during clinical trials developed antibodies, suggesting an efficacy rate of 80%.

These high doses were trialed in Israel and are being applied in Georgia and Ukraine where the jab is being tested in Phase IIb/III trials with unvaccinated volunteers over the age of 18.

The institute hopes that additional results will show the vaccine to be up to 85% effective, according to the report.

This would make BriLife, pending results from Phase III studies, one of the most effective non-mRNA vaccine, with the AstraZeneca jab demonstrating approximately 74% efficacy and the Johnson & Johnson Janssen shot showing 85.4% efficacy against severe disease and 93.1 % against hospitalization.

Of the mRNA ((messenger RNA) vaccines, a type of jab that teaches our cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response, both Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna have shown over 90% efficacy against severe infection and at preventing hospitalization.

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