From left: Yael Eckstein, president of the IFCJ, Safwan Marich, director of the IFJC’s Safety and Emergency Response Division, Edan Kleiman, chairman of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, and Adi Strauss, chair of the Friends of the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization. Photo by Chen Schimmel.
  • Words count:
    320 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    July 23, 2024
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    1 file,
Headline
IFCJ launches two programs to support wounded IDF soldiers
Intro
Many who dropped everything to fight on behalf of all of us experienced life-changing injuries, noted IFCJ head Yael Eckstein.
text

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews announced on Monday two new funding initiatives to support IDF soldiers wounded in battle. 

One program funded by the allocation of nearly 2 million shekels (about $550,000) will help wounded veterans with food cards and purchases of clothing, electric appliances and accessible furniture.

The second project will provide for the distribution of support kits to wounded soldiers to help them during the time of hospitalization and rehabilitation.

“This war has exacted an extremely heavy cost on our younger generation with many thousands of soldiers, who dropped everything to fight on behalf of all of us, experiencing life-changing injuries,” said Yael Eckstein, president of the IFCJ.

“Beyond the current physical toll of these injuries, many of these wounded veterans will face lifestyle challenges that will make their rehabilitation and financial independence that much more difficult.  Our commitment, and the commitment of the hundreds of thousands of IFCJ donors around the world, is to ensure that we are addressing those needs and offering them the practical support they deserve in light of the incredible sacrifices they have made,” she added.

The programs are being implemented in partnership with the Friends of the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization.

"Over the years the Fellowship has been instrumental in supporting older veterans who were injured in previous battles and wars, and now we see this partnership benefiting the many injured soldiers, of all ages, whose lives have been so changed and will require extensive and ongoing periods of treatment, recovery and lengthy rehabilitation," said Adi Strauss, chair of the Friends of the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization.

Since Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre, the IFCJ has contributed more than $75 million to dozens of social and civilian defense efforts, including the installation of over 200 sheltered units in northern communities. The organization has also donated armored emergency response vehicles and millions of shekels in first aid and security equipment for local response teams.

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  • Words count:
    367 words
  • Type of content:
    News
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  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025
  • Media:
    1 file

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced on Thursday that the Trump administration canceled Harvard University’s visa program over the school’s failure to provide her department with information about Jew-hatred on campus.

“It is a privilege to enroll foreign students, and it is also a privilege to employ aliens on campus,” Noem wrote to Harvard’s director of immigration services, Maureen Martin. 

“As a result of your refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies, you have lost this privilege,” she wrote.

Following the revocation, Harvard is prohibited from issuing new student visas, and its current students must transfer to another university to maintain their legal status in the United States.

Harvard has 6,793 international students, making up more than 27% of the student body, per the school’s website.

The secretary gave Harvard a 72-hour ultimatum to have its visa privileges restored if it complies with the department’s demands, including requests for records about student visa-holders committing illegal activity, threatening other students or engaging in protest.

“This action should not surprise you and is the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to

comply with simple reporting requirements,” Noem wrote.

The Trump administration has cancelled or frozen billions of dollars in funding over allegations that the school is in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act over its treatment of Jewish students and its rejection of the administration’s demands for change.

Harvard is suing the Trump administration to restore the funding, and a spokesman for the Ivy League school told JNS that the school believes that Noem’s revocation of its visa privileges is unlawful.

“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” Jason Newton, director of media relations and communications at Harvard, told JNS.

“We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the university, and this nation, immeasurably,” Newton said.

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  • Words count:
    468 words
  • Type of content:
    Video Page
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  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025

There were some serious concerns raised about the way Israel seemed to have been sidelined during President Donald Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East.

JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin says those worries need to be balanced, recognizing that Trump has earned the trust of the pro-Israel community. He also believes that the substance of his policy address during the visit, in which the president said that the United States would reject both nation-building and appeasement, and instead take a realist approach to dealing with the region, would be better for the Jewish state in the long run.

https://youtu.be/X0W5BXC-HMM

He’s joined in this week’s episode of "Think Twice" by Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Jewish Policy Center and editor of inFOCUS Quarterly. Bryen says those worried about Trump and Israel shouldn’t panic. More than that, she noted that the way so many countries in the Middle East were showing eagerness to be friends of the United States since the start of Trump’s second administration was encouraging. 

“The good news is that the United States is perceived now as a strong horse in the region,” said Bryen. And, she added, that's bound to be good for Israel, too.

She acknowledged that the fact that the war with Hamas can’t be ended quickly or easily will inevitably create some tensions with the United States since Trump dislikes “forever wars” and doesn’t want to be tied up in them. Still, Bryen said Washington has continued to send arms to the Jewish state to prosecute the war with Hamas in Gaza, and is doing so without the conditions and criticisms that the Biden administration employed to try to hamstring Jerusalem’s efforts.

Bryen agreed that the optics of Trump accepting a plane from Qatar, a “frenemy” of the United States, as a gift were bad. But she said that it was not something from which the president would personally benefit. The Qataris are untrustworthy, and connected to Iran and Hamas, and host the Muslim Brotherhood. But she also pointed out that their recent conduct indicated that they knew that Israel’s successful actions in Lebanon and Syria had significantly weakened Tehran.

Moreover, the United States needs to be engaged in the region because the alternative is China, America’s chief geostrategic rival, and moderate Arab nations don’t wish to be dominated by Beijing.

Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on SpotifyApple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsiHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.

This episode of “Think Twice” is sponsored by The Jewish Future Promise, ensuring a vibrant and thriving future for Jews and Israel.
Sign the promise: https://jewishfuturepromise.org/jns/

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https://youtu.be/X0W5BXC-HMM
  • Words count:
    176 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Thursday evening that he intends to appoint Maj.-Gen. David Zini director of the Israeli Security Agency, also known as the Shin Bet.

Zini has served as a fighter in the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, commander of the Israel Defense Forces Golani Brigade Battalion 51, commander of the Egoz Unit, commander of the Alexandroni Brigade, founder of the Commando Brigade and commander of the Training Command and the General Staff Corps, per the prime minister's office.

Zini prepared a report in March 2023 for the head of the Gaza division "on evaluating the deployment of the division in a complex surprise event, with emphasis on surprise raids and marking weak points," Netanyahu's office stated.

"In the report's conclusions, Maj.-Gen. Zini wrote that in almost the entire sector, it would be possible to carry out surprise raids against our forces," it added.

Zini's father is a rabbi of a community in Ashdod and the new Shin Bet head, who reportedly has 11 children, comes from a family of rabbis of Algerian descent.

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  • Words count:
    547 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Byline:
  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025

The Israel Defense Forces carried out a series of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon, the military said in a statement on Thursday night.

Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck a military site in the Beqaa region of Southern Lebanon that housed rocket launchers and other weapons. The site was being used by Hezbollah terror operatives, the IDF said.

In separate strikes, the IAF targeted additional terror infrastructure, including rocket and missile launchers, across Southern Lebanon.

One of the Lebanese villages where the IDF struck Hezbollah was Toul. Ahead of the airstrikes, Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, issued an evacuation warning.

"You are located near facilities belonging to the Hezbollah terror group," the army spokesman wrote. "For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings immediately and move at least 500 meters [1,640 feet] away, as seen on the map."

https://twitter.com/AvichayAdraee/status/1925583423176888573

"The presence of arms in the area and the activity of Hezbollah terrorists at the site constitute blatant violations of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon," the IDF stated, referring to the Nov. 26 truce deal.

"The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and will prevent any attempt by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to entrench itself near the border," the IDF statement added.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli aircraft eliminated a member of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force in the Rab al-Talatin area of Southern Lebanon, which is right across Israel's northern border, the IDF announced.

The Radwan Force is Hezbollah's elite unit, aimed at infiltrating Israeli territory and capturing areas near the northern border. The village of Rab al-Talatin is located less than a mile from Israel's security fence.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated a senior Hezbollah weapons engineer in an airstrike in the Tyre area of Southern Lebanon. Hussein Nazih Barji served as a senior figure in Hezbollah's weapons-production unit, operating within the Iranian-backed terror group's Research, Development and Production Directorate, it stated.

On Tuesday, the IDF confirmed the elimination of another senior Hezbollah leader in the village of Mansouri, also in the Tyre area.

The operative had been responsible for planning attacks, reestablishing the Mansouri complex and facilitating weapons transfers. Video footage published by the military showed the strike targeting a moving vehicle.

The day before, a member of the Radwan force was eliminated in Houla, and over the weekend, another commander was killed near Mazraat Jemjim.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has repeatedly warned that the Nov. 26 deal with Beirut would be void if Hezbollah refuses to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

The situation in Lebanon's south remains volatile following the end of the ceasefire with Beirut on Feb. 18. The agreement ended more than a year of war, after Hezbollah began attacks on the Jewish state one day after the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Although Jerusalem has withdrawn most of its ground forces since the war ended, it still controls five strategic positions in Southern Lebanon. Israeli officials have stated that the IDF will retain control of these areas until the Lebanese army demonstrates it can maintain security there.

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  • Words count:
    1019 words
  • Type of content:
    Opinion
  • Byline:
  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025
  • Media:
    1 file

If you listen to the March 5 episode of the top-rated podcast on Spotify in the United States, the “Joe Rogan Experience,” you will hear, within the first 30 minutes, that:

  • Former President Richard Nixon was framed.
  • Time travel is possible.
  • California cult leader Charles Manson was a CIA asset.
  • The 1960s anti-war movement was a CIA op.
  • Sirhan Sirhan (the convicted assassin of Sen. Robert Kennedy) had been subjected to mind control.

Then, just a few minutes after that, you would hear the guest, Ian Carroll, tell the host, Joe Rogan, “I sound crazy to someone that doesn’t do their own research.”

You don’t say.

If you were brave or gullible enough to keep listening after Carroll’s assertion that he “sounds crazy” only to “someone that doesn’t do their own research,” (or if you were forced to keep listening as it was your job), you would hear him wonder if the Egyptian pyramids were built by telepathic aliens, and hear him, along with Rogan, claim that we don’t really know what happened at 7 World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.

The destruction of 7 World Trade Center was litigated in multiple cases, with multiple parties fighting over hundreds of millions of dollars. One litigation lasted more than 10 years, and an army of lawyers was involved. I briefly worked on one of the cases myself. And I can promise you, we know what happened at 7 World Trade Center.

I suppose I can’t prove that the pyramids weren’t built by telepathic aliens. But should anyone have to?

This is the sort of exasperation that prompted journalist Douglas Murray, on the April 10 episode of Rogan’s show, to exclaim in frustration, “You don’t need to consume endless versions of a revisionist history!”

It takes about five minutes to look up and then spout off a conspiracy theory, but exponentially longer to debunk one. The sheer number of bizarre claims made on this program, thrown out rapidly one after another for over two-and-a-half hours, could send an actual, serious researcher on a months-long or longer, full-time quest to conclusively debunk each one.

No normal person has that kind of time, and that’s part of the conceit here. Carroll, a former Uber Eats driver turned “independent researcher,” wants his audience to feel that if they believe such claims, they are the ones who are in the know, in possession of a secret knowledge that powerful people are trying to keep hidden.

And, unfortunately, someone who believes or is even willing to entertain Carroll’s ridiculous claims might also believe him when he claims that Jeffrey Epstein was working for the Mossad to gather intelligence on American officials or that a group of Jewish philanthropists investing in Jewish causes was conducting espionage. (“It is unclear if we have proof that they were conducting espionage,” Carroll says. Do your own research.) Or that “Israel has so much control over our government right now. And I’m not saying that all Jews are in on something. Clearly, Internet. Thank you.”

Such a person might also have believed comic Dave Smith, on April 3, when he claimed during a solo appearance on Rogan’s show, before his “debate” with Murray, that the United States is bombing Yemen “on behalf of Israel,” or when he said of Palestinians in the West Bank, “under Israeli control they have zero rights, zero rights whatsoever,” or when he said that Israel has “gotten us into like seven wars.” Or they might have believed podcaster Darryl Cooper’s Holocaust revisionism on March 13. But these are just the same old tired conspiracy theories—at root, most antisemitism is conspiracy theory—now recycled into a new media environment that has no guardrails.

It’s good to know, of course, that Carroll doesn’t believe in conspiracy theorist David Icke’s theories about reptiles (calling them a “grift”) or that the earth is flat (purposeful misinformation meant to “obfuscate the narrative,” he says), but is that our new baseline? One would hope not.

Rogan ended the episode, after play-acting for the supposed censors, “I can’t believe what you said ... . I am so upset that I even platformed you, you’re outrageous!” by more seriously telling Carroll that he was “very, very reasonable” and performing a “valuable service.”

Nor was Carroll the first obvious kook that Rogan had on his show. He has previously hosted actor Terrence Howard, former Pink Floyd member and anti-Israel activist Roger Waters, and Abby Martin, who made a film called “Gaza fights for freedom.”

And just last week, Rogan was once again suggesting that aliens may have built the pyramids in Egypt. Rogan pushed back much harder on the former Egyptian minister of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, who opposes such bonkers theories, than he ever pushed back on Carroll. But it took Carroll just a couple of minutes to promote the claim that the pyramids could have been built by telepathic aliens, and it took an actual archeologist with decades of experience two hours to rebut it.

No one knows better than my colleagues at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Reporting and Analysis, and I do, that the credentialed experts don’t always get things right. But that’s not an excuse to promote baseless conspiracy theories pedaled by someone with no credibility whatsoever.

Rogan is entertaining, and many people enjoy the super-long format that has at other times allowed him to get much more in-depth into issues than television news, even magazine formats like “20/20” or “60 Minutes,” can allow. But if a listener can learn one thing from the Carroll, Cooper and Smith interviews on this podcast, it’s that Rogan—who boasts, “I was arguing with people about the moon landing on the radio before [expletive] there was any podcasts”—doesn’t vet his guests for any type of intellectual rigor whatsoever, and often lacks the knowledge to push back on some of his guests’ crazier claims. And, he’s happy to use his show to promote wild conspiracy theories, including, but certainly not limited to, those about Jews and Israel.

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  • Words count:
    150 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025

The gunman who killed two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night, was inspired by the legitimization of antisemitic violence, according to Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York.

“Rhetoric that legitimizes violence against Jews and Israelis sadly leads to terror attacks—like the one we saw last night in Washington,” he said. “This is a direct result of dangerous incitement and unprecedented riots led by terror-affiliated groups on U.S. campuses.”

“Sadly, someone here listened to the chants of ‘intifada, intifada,’” the consul general stated. “Qatar is responsible for funding the protests that led to this tragedy and must be held to account.”

“No terror group or lone attacker will stop us from representing the State of Israel,” the diplomat added, “neither in the U.S. nor anywhere else in the world.”

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  • Words count:
    220 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025

The city of Chicago is increasing patrols and putting “extra attention” on the Jewish community after an antisemitic attack that killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, stated Chicago alderman Debra Silverstein, a member of the 50th ward of the Chicago City Council.

Silverstein, who is Jewish, said she was “deeply concerned” that the alleged shooter came from Chicago, adding that police commanders say “there is no known threat” to the local Jewish community. However, there will be increased security “out of an abundance of caution.”

“I ask for law enforcement to investigate any ties to local extremist groups and to act swiftly to make sure the Jewish community in Chicago is kept safe,” she stated. “It is time for us to stop allowing antisemitism to masquerade as violent, anti-Israel action. It is time for our elected leaders to keep our local communities safe.”

“Horrified” by the attack, she said her “thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the entire Jewish and Israeli communities as they deal with the aftermath of this horrific attack.”

Silverstein recently criticized Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson for appointing Ishan Daya, who was fired from his job after being caught tearing down hostage posters, to a new budget working group. Daya stepped down just hours after his appointment.

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  • Words count:
    947 words
  • Type of content:
    News
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  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025

The FBI raided the Chicago apartment of Elias Rodriguez on Thursday, searching for clues in their investigation of the 30-year-old, who is accused of shooting and killing two Israeli embassy employees in Washington on Wednesday night, as they left an American Jewish Committee young professionals event at the Capital Jewish Museum.

“FBI Chicago is conducting court-authorized law-enforcement activity in the Chicago area in relation to yesterday’s tragic shooting in Washington, D.C.,” the bureau stated.

“Last night’s act of terror has the full attention of the FBI. Targeted antisemitic violence is an attack on our core values and will be met with the full weight of federal law enforcement,” Kash Patel, the FBI director, stated. “The individual responsible will be held accountable, and the bureau will continue pursuing every lead until justice is served.”

The Anti-Defamation League said on Thursday that it had connected Rodriguez “with a high degree of certainty” to a manifesto that was circulating on social media that is titled “Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home.”

“The text of the manifesto stated that non-violent protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza have been insufficient, and states that the ‘perpetrators and abettors’ of genocide have ‘forfeited their humanity,’” the ADL stated. “It also praises Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old active-duty U.S. Airman who died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2024.”

Just before noon, Dan Bongino, the FBI deputy director, stated that the bureau “is aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect, and we hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon.” (JNS sought comment from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI and the social-media network X.)

The district’s Metropolitan Police Department named Rodriguez as the suspect in custody on Wednesday. Rodriguez paced back and forth outside the museum before approaching a group of four people with a handgun and opening fire, killing two, according to Pamela Smith, the D.C. police chief. The Israeli government later identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim.

‘They were a beautiful couple’

A German-born, Christian Zionist, Lischinsky, 30, “chose to dedicate his life to the State of Israel and the Zionist cause,” according to Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to Berlin, who taught Lischinsky as a master student.

Lischinsky made aliyah at 16, served for three years in the Israel Defense Forces and was fluent in Hebrew, according to his LinkedIn page. The New York Times reported that his father is Jewish and his mother is Christian.

The Hudson Institute stated on Thursday that Lischinsky “was a valued colleague and friend to many at Hudson” and that he and Milgrim, “soon to be his fiancée, were dedicated professionals at the Israeli embassy.” 

“Yaron’s warmth and intellect shaped his compassionate character and dedication to his work and left a lasting impact on us,” the think tank said. “His impending engagement, which he and Sarah planned to celebrate in Jerusalem, makes their loss especially heartbreaking.”

“Yaron was a Christian, but make no mistake. This was an antisemitic attack,” Hudson said. “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and the State of Israel against antisemitism and terrorism.”

Milgrim, 26, an American Jew from Overland Park, Kan., had served as a trustee of the Hillel at the University of Kansas, from which she graduated in 2021.

She described herself on her LinkedIn page as passionate about “the intersection of peacebuilding, religious engagement and environmental work.” She also said that she worked in Tel Aviv for Tech2Peace, a charity dedicated to fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians, before joining the public affairs department of the Israeli embassy in Washington in November 2023.

Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said on Wednesday that “the young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem.”

“They were a beautiful couple,” he said.

‘Happy New Year, death to Israel’

After allegedly shooting Milgrim and Lischinsky, Rodriguez entered the Jewish museum and was detained by security at the AJC event, D.C. police said.

Witnesses told local news that Rodriguez ran into the museum shortly after he opened fire around 9 p.m. and that attendees initially mistook him for a potential victim of the shooting and offered him water and other support.

Videos on social media appeared to show police officers subsequently arresting Rodriguez, while he shouted “free, free Palestine” with a red keffiyeh at his feet.

“Once in handcuffs, the suspect identified where he discarded the weapon, and that weapon has been recovered, and he implied that he committed the offense,” the Washington police chief said on Wednesday. “We believe the shooting was committed by a single suspect.”

Among the posts on a social-media account attributed to the suspect are statements that suggest that he holds far-left, violent, pro-Hamas and anti-Israel views.

“Happy New Year, death to Israel,” the account posted on Jan. 1, 2024.

“Progressive tweeps, as much as I love delving into the day’s discourse, can we please save the idealistic and high-minded debate over the morality of sending a truck bomb into the offices of The New York Times until after we send a truck bomb into the office,” another post reads. The user cut off the final word in an apparent attempt to suggest that it was not a completed threat.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation, a revolutionary communist party that frequently organizes anti-Israel protests, stated on Thursday that Rodriguez “had a brief association with one branch of the PSL that ended in 2017.” 

“We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it,” it said.

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  • Words count:
    1335 words
  • Type of content:
    COLUMN
  • Byline:
  • Publication Date:
    May 22, 2025
  • Media:
    1 file

It was inevitable that the pre-pogrom climate created by the “globalize the intifada” mobs in the streets and on campus over the past 19 months would result in murder. On Wednesday night, this became a sickening reality when two young Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum by a man shouting, “I did it for Gaza!”

This is what “Free Palestine!” looks like.

The murderer pulled the trigger. But many others have the blood of these two innocents, who were reported to have soon become engaged, on their hands.

The university principals who have allowed hate mobs on campus to incite the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel, week in, week out; the politicians who have allowed the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Iranian extremists to spread their influence throughout western civil society; the media and all those who relentlessly demonize Israel with blood libels and murderous lies, including the British, French and Canadian governments that this week threatened to punish Israel for defending itself—these all bear responsibility for what happened in Washington.

This week, another falsehood about Israel’s war in Gaza was added to the relentless incitement against the Jewish state. This one came from the U.N.’s emergency coordinator, Tom Fletcher, who told the BBC that “14,000 babies will die in 48 hours” from malnutrition.

A moment’s thought would suggest that such a synchronized mass mortality event was simply incredible.

The media, however, parroted it as valid. It duly spread like wildfire. Countless Israel-haters leapt upon it to validate their loathing. In a poisonous debate about Gaza in Britain’s House of Commons, members of parliament referred to it no fewer than 13 times.

It soon turned out, however, that it was indeed nonsense. As the BBC later clarified, Fletcher had misrepresented a claim made on May 12 by the U.N.’s IPC food classification system—a claim that was itself highly questionable—that an estimated 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition were expected to occur among Gazan children aged between 6 and 59 months from April 2025 to March 2026.

So two days actually turned out to be one year, and 14,000 certain deaths turned out to be 14,000 possible cases of malnutrition.

We don’t know whether Fletcher can’t read, was feeling the worse for wear that day or maliciously misrepresented what the IPC had said. What we do know is that the United Nations and the entire global humanitarian establishment constitute a bubbling sewer of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred.

False claims of imminent famine and starvation in Gaza have been made on a regular basis since the very start of the war. It’s an emotive blood libel that has incited a murderous hysteria of the kind that led to the gunning down of the young couple on Wednesday night.

The famine and starvation never materialized. Instead, video footage has regularly been shown on social media showing Gaza’s markets and shops groaning with food.

It’s quite astounding that, despite all these claims of famine having been proved false, they are still being made and believed. Indeed, many now think it beyond doubt that Gazan children are being starved by Israel.

The certainty has been fed by the distressing images of apparently starving children being transmitted on TV. Some of these pictures have been of children suffering not from starvation but from terrible diseases; others have involved Gazans either paid or forced by Hamas to stage “Pallywood” tableaux of desperation born of hunger.

Some of this hunger is indeed real. But it’s been caused not by a dearth of food entering Gaza but by Hamas stealing it for themselves or selling it on the black market at prices the Gazans can’t afford.

The global humanitarian establishment, however, speaks with one voice to tell the world that Israel is wantonly killing children and causing the Gazans to starve. People assume that the humanitarian establishment is inspired by the most pure and elevated motives of compassion and justice. So they believe absolutely every statement it makes about famine, starvation and the cruelty of Israel.

On this issue, however, the humanitarian establishment is the voice of bigoted hatred. It subjects Israel to a campaign of demonization and delegitimization that it inflicts upon no other people, country or group anywhere else in the world.

The United Nations is the world’s principal engine of these falsehoods and distortions. It routinely pumps out Hamas statistics that turn out to have no basis in reality; it both draws upon and feeds in turn the malevolent untruths issued by bodies such as the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the big NGOs like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

The consequences of this behavior go far beyond harming the State of Israel to put every Jew at risk and to trap the West inside a sinister mindset that undermines civilization itself.

As has often been noted, the reason liberals hate Israel is because they think that Zionism is a colonialist ideology and that Israel oppresses the indigenous people of the land.

Israel, where the indigenous people are, in fact, the Jews, is actually the historic victim and current target of Arab colonialism, and Zionism is the ultimate decolonization movement. Nevertheless, Israel is deemed to be colonialist and white. That’s because it’s thought of as a Western nation and is therefore inescapably mired in the West’s original sins of colonialism, racism and whiteness, even though the majority of Jews have moved there from other Middle Eastern countries that they were forced to leave and are dark-skinned.

It’s an article of progressive faith that the Western nation is the source of division, oppression and war. Its institutions and laws should therefore be trumped by transnational institutions such as the United Nations and international courts that represent the world, and are thus assumed to possess a moral legitimacy that the Western nation lacks.

Given these institutions’ appalling attitudes towards Israel and Zionism, however, this has helped drive the West off its moral compass.

Moreover, since Zionism is the self-determination of the Jewish people in their historic homeland of Israel, and since Judaism fuses the religion with the people and the land, anti-Zionism is unarguably anti-Judaism.

But there’s even worse.

To those who believe that Israel is a colonialist occupier that’s driven out the rightful inhabitants of the land and that it’s committing war crimes in Gaza, it follows that Israel and Zionism are evil. So, too, therefore, are those Jews who support Israel and Zionism.

If something or someone is evil, it’s not only permissible to loathe, detest and try to destroy them. It’s a moral obligation to do so. If Israel, Zionism and the Jews are evil, then it’s a moral obligation to loathe, detest and try to destroy them.

To the Western liberal, for whom Zionism is racism and Israel starves babies to death, antisemitism is therefore not just the shield behind which the Jews sanitize Israel’s crimes. It’s no longer a uniquely murderous and deranged creed that all people of conscience must oppose. Horrifyingly, for the Western liberal, antisemitism has become a moral obligation.

We’ve gone through the looking-glass into a nightmarish landscape where evil is being embraced as virtue. The shocking murders in Washington, D.C., are the result.

From the French revolutionary terror in the 18th century through the mind control of communism to the tyranny of fascism, a desire to bring about the perfection of the world has led instead to tyranny and mass slaughter. Today, Western liberals have become the accomplices of Islamo-Nazism through their own misguided fantasies about the brotherhood of man.

So it has come to pass that the global humanitarian establishment of transnational institutions and human-rights law that was established after the defeat of Nazism to ensure that such a terrible evil should never arise again, has itself become a monstrous force inciting the conditions for a second Holocaust.

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