The American Jewish Committee announced on Tuesday that it is providing a grant to support relief efforts following the severe flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas on July 4.
“We are accustomed to storms in Texas, but the magnitude of the flooding in Kerr County is still hard to comprehend,” said Rachel Schneider, director of AJC Houston. “AJC is standing with our fellow Texans during this moment of incredible heartbreak and grief. Contributing to this relief fund is one way for us to show our support for the Texas Hill Country community.”
The funds will be donated to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which created the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund shortly after the devastating flash floods. The grant funding will support nonprofit organizations, first responder agencies and local governments involved in recovery efforts.
Kerr County was hit the hardest during the floods, leaving at least 106 dead, including 36 children, according to AJC.
As of July 15, the total estimated death toll is 134, with some 100 people still unaccounted for, according to ABC News.
The day after the floods began, Israeli officials—including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog—offered condolences to the people of Texas.
While much attention has focused recently on the indoctrination of our youth against Jews and Israel at universities and kindergarten through 12 schools, public libraries should not escape public scrutiny. Not only are there plenty of antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda materials available to adults, but similar materials also target kids. Children across the country can go to their local libraries to find books and events that espouse fake history about Israel, along with the demonization of Jews.
A library in North Carolina, for instance, planned a “Family Cultural Festival” to “explore global cultures with food and crafts from Costa Rica, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and more.” After some pushback from the North Carolina Coalition for Israel community, the word “Palestine” was removed. In the meantime, the North Carolina Arab Caucus started a project asking people to donate “pro-Palestine” books to local libraries in Durham, Raleigh, Charlotte and other cities in North Carolina.
These events prompted us to review materials at the public library in Chapel Hill, N.C. We decided to focus on books for kids since they are a prime target for anti-Israel propaganda.
One of the most egregious items we found was a picture book called Baba, What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine by Rifk Ebeid. The words “Jews” and “Israel” cannot be found in it, and the Hebrew names of places are replaced with Arabic ones; for instance, Jerusalem is only referred to as Al-Quds. A page with a map of Israel says only “Palestine’s unique terrain.” On the last page of the book, a girl is given a “superhero” kefiyyeh while saying, “I know one day we will be free.”
We Are Palestinian: A Celebration of Culture and Tradition by Reem Kassis, asks readers: “Do you know one of the countries in (the Fertile Crescent)? You guessed it, Palestine!” This is false since “Palestine” has never been a country. The Jewish presence in the land is omitted. The ancient Hebrew city of Hebron is renamed Al Khalil and is said to be famous for blown glass and food. There is no mention in this book of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron, which is the true reason for the city’s fame and its importance to Judaism. Kassis writes of the nakba (the "disaster" that is Israel) and “Palestinian” poets from the 20th century. Why isn’t there anyone listed from further back in time? Because the current version of “Palestinians” and their associated “culture and tradition” weren’t invented until the mid-1960s and later.
Also problematic is Young Palestinians Speak, Living Under Occupation, by Anthony Robinson and Annemarie Young, which includes anti-Israel maps showing purported loss of Palestinian land in addition to tacitly blaming Israel and the Jews for Arab suffering.
Given our concerns about these materials, the library staff agreed to meet. We explained that hate often starts with misinformation, and that some of the library’s holdings, such as these three books, erase Jewish history and are not historically accurate. The library director told us they obtain materials that reflect the community, and that their goal is diversity of perspective. They purchase books that readers want to read.
They asked us to submit a formal “Request for Review” of these books, and we complied. We sent them a detailed list of concerns, keeping in mind their stated collection guidelines, which include popular demand, critical reviews from the industry and media, established authority of an author or their publisher, current or long-term significance of a work, accuracy and timeliness, reflection of diverse ideas/information/stories and experiences, relationship to existing collection and the price.
After a few weeks, we received the library’s response. The books were reviewed and met their collection guidelines. Apparently, there is demand for materials that exclude Jews, Jewish history and Israel, and where inaccuracies are tolerated. As for long-term significance, it’s well documented that lies about Jews and Jewish history have led to an uptick in antisemitism.
The invention of a “Palestinian people” cobbled together from disparate groups, along with a pretend culture, is not trivial. These constructs are springboards for so many other lies about Jews and Israel. Children are vulnerable to that propaganda, which gives a false legitimacy to the notion that there should be “two states for two peoples.” Yet if one of the “peoples” does not exist, this ideology cannot hold.
The problem goes far beyond Chapel Hill. These materials can be found in libraries from Los Angeles to Chicago, and New York to Boston. We ask those who care about truth, accuracy and the survival of the Jewish people to investigate their local libraries. Challenge the anti-Israel propaganda. The time to speak up is now.
Israeli air defense systems intercepted a missile launched from Yemen at southern Israel on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“Following warning sirens activated recently in several areas, one missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement. The Home Front Command had said the projectile was on a trajectory toward southern Israel, in an area spanning the Dead Sea, parts of Judea and the Negev.
The launch on Wednesday was the first from Yemen since July 10, when Houthi terrorists targeted central Israel, sending millions of Israelis into sheltered spaces in the early morning hours. On Tuesday, Israeli aerial defense fighters downed a drone from Yemen.
The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia, have in recent weeks escalated their aerial attacks on Israel in support of the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip, including a direct hit near Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport on May 4. Houthi terrorists are believed to have launched dozens of projectiles into the Jewish state since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Both Israel and the United States have repeatedly struck sites and gunmen associated with the Houthi terrorists, who have targeted dozens of ships transporting goods in the Red Sea since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, which led to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, terrorists in Syria and Iran.
The Yemeni National Resistance Forces successfully intercepted a “massive” shipment of Iranian weapons intended for the Houthi terror group, U.S. Central Command reported on Wednesday.
The NRF, a U.S.-backed coalition fighting against the Houthis, “intercepted and seized over 750 tons of munitions and hardware,” which included anti-aircraft missiles, drone engines and communications equipment, CENTCOM stated, adding that it is the “largest seizure of Iranian advanced conventional weapons in their history.”
Many of the systems seized were “manufactured by a company affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Defense that is sanctioned by the United States,” according to the NRF.
“We commend the legitimate government forces of Yemen who continue to interdict the flow of Iranian munitions bound for the Houthis,” said U.S. Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of CENTCOM.
“The interdiction of this massive Iranian shipment shows that Iran remains the most destabilizing actor in the region,” he stated. “Limiting the free flow of Iranian support to the Houthis is critical to regional security, stability, and freedom of navigation.”
Jerusalem has conducted several rounds of strikes against the Houthis in response to the terror organization’s onslaught of missiles and drone strikes since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel has launched an air campaign against the new Syrian regime's forces, striking in southern Syria and in the capital Damascus to enforce a demilitarized buffer zone on its border and to prevent a potential massacre of the Druze community in the southern Sweida province.
In a series of statements, Israeli leaders have vowed to use significant force to halt the Syrian government's advance into the Druze heartland, with Defense Minister Israel Katz warning on Wednesday, “The signaling in Damascus is over. Now will come painful blows.”
The dramatic Israeli intervention follows the expansion of violent clashes on Wednesday, when forces loyal to Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa entered the provincial capital of Sweida, sparking fierce resistance from local armed Druze factions.
In response to the assault, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz issued a joint statement directing the IDF “to immediately attack regime forces and weapons brought into the Sweida area,” citing both the need to enforce the demilitarization of southern Syria and Israel’s “deep alliance with our Druze citizens in Israel, and their familial and historical connection to the Druze in Syria.”
An Israeli military official, speaking on Wednesday, elaborated on the two core principles guiding Israel’s actions. “The first and most important one is to prevent a buildup of a threat on our border in southern Syria,” he stated. “The second one is to prevent the massacre of the Druze in Syria. To prevent these things from happening. We will not stand idly by. A lot of the people in Israel, Druze in Israel, have family members, cousins, brothers, sisters, just a mountain away in Syria.”
The official noted that “many of the people” in the Syrian regime and its army are former ISIS members.
The official rejected the Syrian regime’s claims that its objective was to restore order, arguing that its presence has only inflamed the situation. “The scenes that we are seeing from Syria are harsh and brutal. The more the Syrian regime has intervened, the worse it looks,” he said. “The situation has become much worse for the Druze community in the last 24 hours.”
“Before they approached the area, Sweida had somewhere between 70 and 80 percent control of the Druze,” said the source. “It is flipped now. The regime has encircled with firing artillery from the outskirts of Sweida to within Sweida, and we are operating against the Syrian regime with our two main purposes.”
The military official stressed that “the difference between a conflict and a massacre. And I think that their [Syrian army] presence is not helpful, on the contrary.”
To that end, the Israeli Air Force has been conducting dozens of strikes over the past several days. According to the military official, it has targeted Syrian regime forces and their infrastructure, including “tanks, rocket launchers, weapons, pickup trucks loaded with heavy machine guns on their way to Sweida.”
Israel has also struck key access roads to physically block the regime’s advance and, in a clear message to Damascus, hit the entrance of the Syrian regime's military headquarters and a military target within the presidential palace compound.
The situation on the ground remains highly volatile. On Wednesday morning, local armed Druze factions launched a counter-attack and reportedly retook control of several positions in Sweida city that had been seized by regime forces.
The fighting has been exceptionally bloody. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 203 people have been killed since the clashes began, including 71 residents of the Druze province, 111 regime fighters and allied gunmen, and at least 21 civilians who were executed by the regime-aligned forces.
An attempt at a ceasefire on July 15 quickly collapsed amid accusations of treachery. The prominent Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, released a video statement accusing the al-Sharaa regime of immediately violating the terms by continuing to shell the city, calling on all Druze to resist what he termed a “war of annihilation.”
Reports also emerged of atrocities committed by regime forces, including the ritual humiliation of Druze men by forcibly shaving their mustaches—a grave insult in Druze culture—and the looting and burning of the St. Michael Church in a village in northern Sweida.
The crisis has had a direct impact on Israel’s border. On July 15, the IDF confirmed that dozens of Israeli Druze citizens from Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights had breached the border fence in an attempt to enter Syria and aid their brethren.
The military official said the incident would be investigated, explaining that the IDF’s focus is on external threats. In response, the IDF has significantly reinforced its presence on the Golan Heights, redeploying troops, including a brigade that had been operating in Gaza, to defensive positions along the border to prevent further unauthorized crossings and prepare for any spillover from the fighting.
Katz has issued a series of warnings to Damascus. On Wednesday morning, he stated, “The Syrian regime must leave the Druze in Sweida alone and pull its forces back. As we have clarified and warned, Israel will not abandon the Druze in Syria and will enforce the demilitarization policy we decided on.” Hours later, he declared that Israel would “raise the level of response” if the message was not understood, culminating in his threat of "painful blows."
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir instructed the military to reinforce intelligence-gathering capabilities, strike capabilities, and deploy back-up forces to Northern Command to speed up the pace of Israeli strikes and thwart threats to the Syrian Druze community.
“The IDF is committed to the deep alliance with the Druze community and is therefore conducting strikes against military targets throughout Syria to defend them in the Sweida region, Jabal al-Druze and wherever necessary. The 210th Division’s sector will be reinforced with additional troops along the border area and at outposts within the security zone,” the military stated. “The uncontrolled crossing of the border into Syria endangers both the Druze community and our soldiers and must be stopped immediately.”
Dozens of people who protested United Nations partnerships with technology companies that do business with Israel were removed from U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
Last week, the United Nations hosted its annual AI for Good Summit in Geneva, where it recognized executives from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM, all of which are companies U.N. “independent adviser” Francesca Albanese has accused of complicity in Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. (Washington recently sanctioned Albanese, who has a long history of antisemitic remarks.)
Some 70 protesters, including current and former Google employees, bearing signs stating “no tech for apartheid,” tried to enter U.N. headquarters. After security blocked them, the protesters gathered outside the building.
Organizers of the protest said that protesters with Arabic on their clothing were profiled. Arabic is one of six official U.N. languages.
“We expect all of the private sector to work and to engage in work based on the principles of the charter, the universal declaration of human rights,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, said at a press conference on Tuesday when asked about the protest.
“We expect all our vendors that we may have to behave in a way that meets the code of conduct that is specified in our procurement,” he added.
Asked if the United Nations will continue to work with the companies being protested, Dujarric said, “That’s what I’ll say for the time being.”
Last year, Guterres met with a group of anti-Israel protesters weeks after they snuck into the sensitive U.N. Security Council chamber, with some recording political speeches before security finally interceded and escorted them out.
Dujarric was asked at the time if it is customary for his boss to grant a meeting to groups that hold unauthorized protests on U.N. grounds.
“It was not a reward,” Dujarric said, adding that Guterres briefed the group “on his view of the situation and his advocacy for a humanitarian ceasefire.”
The Shas Party announced on Wednesday that it would leave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition over its failure to pass a law exempting Haredi men from military conscription.
In doing so, Shas joins another ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, which quit the government on Monday night.
The immediate significance of the move is that the government, which enjoyed a comfortable 67-seat majority, is now reduced to a minority of 50 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
However, the government is not in imminent danger of collapse as Shas said it would not support a no-confidence motion to bring down the government until after the end of the parliament's summer session, which concludes on July 27, Kan News reported.
Shas members will also remain on Knesset committees, and party chairman Aryeh Deri will continue to attend the reduced kitchen cabinet. The party will also support any deal involving the release of hostages held by Hamas.
The party doesn't hold Netanyahu responsible for the impasse. Shas spokesman Asher Medina blamed Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, for the failure to reach an agreement on a military draft bill.
"I know that Netanyahu did everything he could," Medina told radio station Kan Reshet Bet.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party, responding to the announcement, called for elections.
"A minority government cannot send soldiers into battle, decide who will live and who will die, decide the fate of Gaza and close an agreement with Syria and Saudi Arabia," Lapid said.
"It cannot continue to transfer billions to the corrupt and draft dodgers at the expense of the taxpayers, and certainly a minority government cannot free the ultra-Orthodox from conscription," he added.
The Haredi community faces widespread anger in Israeli society for opposing sending its young men to serve in the army.
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last year, following the expiration of a previous exemption law in 2023, that the state must begin drafting Haredi men into the Israel Defense Forces.
This year, the IDF began initiating criminal proceedings against Haredi draft candidates who fail to report for enlistment.
Hamas terrorists threw grenades at a food distribution site managed by the American-sponsored Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on July 5, wounding two American aid workers. Hamas has placed a bounty on the GHF’s security personnel, as well as its aid workers, some of whom are local Gazans. Moreover, videos on social media show Hamas thugs beating Gazans, shooting their legs and even murdering Palestinians who dare accept GHF food.
Clearly, Hamas is desperate to prevent the GHF from providing free food to hungry Gazans, since the group’s operation mortally threatens Hamas’s immensely profitable black market. The terrorists steal food aid, keep supplies for themselves and then put the remainder on local markets at exorbitant prices.
Mainstream media coverage of Hamas’s outrages against its own people has been rare to non-existent. Instead, legacy media promote the false narrative that the GHF is—in the words of the Hamas’s Gaza media office—a “filthy tool” used by Israeli forces to “lure civilians into death traps.”
Several media outlets have published reports of Palestinian Arabs in line waiting for food at distribution sites being massacred by GHF security personnel and Israeli soldiers. Yet the GHF and the IDF strenuously deny firing on Gaza aid-seekers; no footage or other evidence of such has turned up.
Hamas is demanding an end to GHF operations and a return to the previous system of corrupt aid distribution. By publishing blood libels and falsehoods about the GHF’s aid efforts, legacy media are simply Hamas mouthpieces advocating the return to a system in which the Islamist terrorist group stole the majority of humanitarian aid meant for ordinary Gazans.
Hamas is determined to thwart efforts of the GHF to feed hungry Gazans. The U.S. State Department confirmed a Washington Free Beacon report last week that Hamas is targeting GHF workers with threats and violence. Hamas is also targeting anyone who dares receive free food from the GHF. The terrorist group issued a statement, saying “anyone who cooperates with the occupation in imposing its agenda will pay the price, and we will take the necessary measures against them.”
The July 5 attack that injured two GHF aid workers was hardly a one-off. Last month, Hamas attacked a bus full of Palestinian aid workers killing at least eight people. As of July 1, the GHF reported that 12 of its personnel have been murdered. Furthermore, Gazan aid-seekers have testified that Hamas fires at residents near aid distribution sites and spreads false claims about IDF fire. COGAT, the body responsible for implementing Israeli government policy in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza has also said that Hamas "fabricated data about large numbers of casualties.”
Such misinformation published by mainstream media promotes Hamas’s threatening narrative that the GHF food distribution system is, in the words of one U.N. official quoted by the BBC, “a death trap,” the same term used by Hamas.
Legacy media implicate the GHF and Israel for massacring hungry Gazans. Media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN and the BBC have cited claims, since disproven, of dozens of Palestinians at a time being killed near the GHF distribution sites.
In early June, for example, the Post published an article with the headline, “Israeli troops kill over 30 near U.S. aid site, health officials say.” Yet the IDF, supported by independent drone footage and U.S. assessments, maintained that this figure was significantly inflated. The Post was eventually forced to issue a correction, saying “the article didn’t meet Post fairness standards,” and admitting they failed to properly indicate that the casualty numbers were unverified Health Ministry figures.
The fact that the Post relied on information from “health officials” should immediately cause suspicion since all government “officials” work for the Hamas rulers of Gaza. In fact, the source of casualty figures for many stories about “massacres” at or near GHF cites is Mahmoud Basel, the head of Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense organization, who has also been identified as a Hamas operative by the IDF.
When legacy media rely on Hamas for facts, they will inevitably be regurgitating a Hamas narrative—one whose aim is to defame and discredit the GHF and IDF.
The Associated Press also promoted the Hamas narrative when it published an article with the headline, “U.S. contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza.” As evidence, one of the contractors supplied videos showing “hundreds of Palestinians crowded between metal gates, jostling for aid amid the sounds of bullets, stun grenades and the sting of pepper spray.” However, no sources quoted in the story could point to a verifiable instance of a GHF worker shooting a Palestinian.
The GHF responded to this report by saying, “Based on time-stamped video footage and sworn witness statements, we have concluded that the claims in the AP’s story are categorically false.” The GHF claimed that the main source for the story was a “disgruntled former contractor who was terminated for misconduct weeks before this article was published,”" adding that AP’s “coverage of our aid operations has increasingly echoed narratives advanced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health.” The GHF is now taking legal action against the AP.
Mainstream media promote Hamas goals: A return to the former U.N.-sponsored aid distribution system by which Hamas appropriated humanitarian aid to fund its operations, rather than passing it directly to intended recipients: hungry Gazans. Why else would media choose to publish false, unverified reports of aid-seeking Gazans being massacred?
Equally important: Why do media choose to ignore Hamas efforts to thwart GHF aid operations when they threaten, attack and kill GHF personnel, not to mention brutally murder innocent Palestinians?
In short, legacy media have become press officers for Hamas propaganda, whose goal is to keep the terrorists in power and discredit Israel, even at the cost of depriving Gazans of free humanitarian food aid and pushing them to starvation.
Voters in Washington’s Ward 8 re-elected Trayon White to his seat on the D.C. Council on Tuesday despite an ongoing bribery scandal and White’s past claims that Jews control the weather.
With 80% of the votes counted, the Associated Press called the race for White, who had just shy of 30% of the vote. He edged out three Democratic rivals, who split the remainder of the electorate about equally.
The D.C. Council expelled White in February after the FBI arrested him on bribery charges in 2024.
The Department of Justice alleges that White accepted a $156,000 bribe in exchange for corruptly using his position on the council to help renew municipal contracts.
In 2018, White posted a video to Facebook claiming that the Rothschild family controlled the weather.
“It just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man,” White said in the since-deleted video. “Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation.”
“And D.C. keep talking about, ‘We a resilient city,’” he said. “That’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.”
In other videos he said that the Rothschilds also control the World Bank and the U.S. federal government.
White initially apologized and embarked on a rehabilitation tour, attending a Passover seder and a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Washington Post reported that White ditched the Holocaust museum tour halfway into its 90-minute runtime and was later found by reporters outside the museum with no explanation for his abrupt departure.
White said that claims he left the tour early were a “lie” and said he was “done apologizing” for the scandal.
The newly-elected council member celebrated with supporters at Aces Lounge in Anacostia on Tuesday in southeast D.C.
“The people have spoken,” White told a local news crew. “God is good. He protect me. He guide me. So whatever his will is going to be done in Earth, I’m submitting to that.”
White is scheduled to go on trial for corruption in January 2026.