“Expecting Hamas to disarm voluntarily is like expecting ISIS or Al-Qaeda to renounce jihad and become peaceful political movements”

GATESTONE INSTITUTE
Hamas is Humiliating Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’
Khaled Abu Toameh
May 7, 2026

Six months after US President Donald J. Trump unveiled his ambitious ceasefire and reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip, the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group remains more armed, entrenched, and openly defiant than ever. Far from disarming, the Islamist group now controls roughly half the Gaza Strip and much of its population, while making a mockery of Trump’s “Board of Peace” initiative and the international mediators sponsoring it. It is now clear that the Trump administration’s strategy was based on a misguided assumption that Hamas (a theocratic terror regime like Iran’s) could somehow be persuaded through negotiations, incentives, and diplomatic pressure to voluntarily surrender its weapons and abandon its jihadist ideology. The exact opposite has happened. Hamas not only rejected disarmament, but also used the ceasefire periods to solidify control, regroup politically and militarily, and humiliate the people negotiating with them. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Lebanese-Iraqi writer and analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain discusses Hezbollah, Lebanon’s future and the personal journey that transformed him from an anti-Israel youth into a prominent Arab advocate for normalization and peace with Israel”

JEWISH INSIDER
Hussain Abdul-Hussain on his anti-Israel upbringing to then making ‘The Arab Case for Israel’
Lahav Harkov
May 7, 2026

Writer and researcher Hussain Abdul-Hussain has an unusual story: A Shia Muslim raised in Iraq and Lebanon and taught to hate Israel and the West, he is now a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies living in Washington, and the author of a book called The Arab Case for Israel…Abdul-Hussain credited the Trump administration for “giving Lebanon more attention than any administration since the early days of Ronald Reagan. … I’m happy that someone sees Lebanon as it is, not as we imagine it to be or just dismiss it and say ‘This is too complicated for us and we’re not going to go into it.’” That attention is “a golden opportunity … to help disarm Hezbollah and live at peace with Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iran, everybody else,” he said. “If the Lebanese don’t grasp it, I’m not sure there will be another opportunity in the coming future.” READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL US to host third round of talks between Israel and Lebanon next week Military representatives from both sides set to participate for first time, Israeli official says, as sides aim to advance concrete measures for disarming Hezbollah

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Leave a comment

Rutgers disinvites Rami Elghandour, producer of “The Voice of Hind Rajab”

JEWISH CHRONICLE
Rutgers cancels graduation speaker over tweet claiming Israelis ‘train dogs to sexually assault prisoners’
Jackie Hajdenberg
May 7, 2026

Administrators at Rutgers University have canceled a commencement speaker scheduled for next week, citing an “inflammatory claim” the speaker tweeted about Israel. Rami Elghandour, a Rutgers alumnus and a producer of an Oscar-nominated docudrama about a Palestinian girl who died in Gaza, was set to deliver the speech at the university’s School of Engineering on May 15. But the university, New Jersey’s public flagship, rescinded the invitation on Wednesday…A university representative specifically cited an April 20 tweet by Elghandour that accuses Israel of genocide and says the Israelis are “running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners.” READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Cornell publishes footage defending president from claims he hit anti-Israel activists with car Cornell University published video footage on Sunday that it said exonerated its president from claims that he had hit two students with his car, after activists seeking amnesty for anti-Israel activists followed him to his vehicle after an Israeli-Palestinian conflict debate last Thursday. President Michael Kotlikoff said that, after he had introduced debate featuring Norman Finkelstein on the justness of Israel’s post-October 7 massacre response, he was followed and harassed by student and non-student activists. Two of them were reportedly previously banned from campus for disruptive protests and verbal abuse of Cornell staff.

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Long before the 20th century, ancient Jewish texts recognized what much of the modern West still refuses to accept: Not every enemy can be reasoned with”

FUTURE OF JEWISH
The problem isn’t Israel’s wars. It’s how the West thinks about war.
Nachum Kaplan
May 3, 2026

…The Torah does not romanticize war; it regulates it, distinguishing between different kinds of enemies and demanding peace when possible and decisiveness when necessary. It recognizes that some conflicts can be resolved through negotiation and others cannot be resolved at all, only ended. It begins not with denial but with recognition: “When you go out to war against your enemies…” (Deuteronomy 21:10). Not if; when. Civilizations that pretend otherwise tend not to last very long. This is not the language of trauma, but of realism. Modern Western thinking, by contrast, has drifted toward a very different assumption: that all conflicts are, at root, misunderstandings. That violence is a failure of communication. That if grievances were addressed, dignity affirmed, and economic conditions improved, enemies would become partners. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Leave a comment

“Maher Bitar’s appointment is the latest sign that Democratic Party elites are leaning into growing hostility to Israel in their party”

FREE BEACON
‘He Was Easily the Most Antagonistic to Israel’: Anti-Israel Activist Who Advised Biden, Schiff To Head Influential Democratic Foreign Policy Group Designed To Staff a Future White House
Adam Kredo
May 4, 2026

An anti-Israel staffer for Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) who was once pictured wearing a keffiyeh and dancing in front of a banner calling Israel an apartheid state is slated to head an influential Democratic foreign policy group designed to staff the next Democratic presidential administration, Axios reported on Monday. Maher Bitar, a Palestinian American who served as a senior official on former president Joe Biden’s National Security Council and who most recently served as chief counsel to Schiff, has been selected to lead a reconstituted version of National Security Action (NSA), a Democratic foreign policy vehicle…Bitar spent years leading anti-Israel organizations that promote the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and, as a college student, led his campus’s branch of the anti-Semitic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) advocacy group. READ MORE

CAMERA BLOG Omri Tubi: Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and the New York Times’ Defense of Hasan Piker In his April 12 column, New York Times contributor Ezra Klein defended Hasan Piker and accepted him into the Democratic Party. Piker is a popular influencer with over three million followers on the platform, Twitch, and over 1.85 million on YouTube. He is also a self-described anti-imperialist Marxist who has spread extremist, antisemitic and anti-Israel vitriol…For example, Piker said that the U.S. “deserved 9/11;” that if someone cares about Medicare or Medicaid fraud, they should kill U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL); that his favorite flag is Hezbollah’s flag; and that a liberal Zionist is like a “liberal Nazi.” Piker also compared Israelis to the KKK and argued that Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel. Additionally, Piker said that it “doesn’t matter” to him if Hamas raped Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.

JEWISH INSIDER Pelosi backs anti-Israel Democrat who alienated Houston’s Jewish community Rep. Al Green (D-TX), a vocal critic of Israel competing in a closely contested runoff against a fellow House Democrat later this month, announced in social media posts on Monday that he had received a coveted endorsement from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the powerful former House speaker.

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“Grief is a badge we wear,” Rachel said. She made the point that it shows we know love, that we have loved deeply, that another person’s existence had become inseparable from our own

TIMES OF ISRAEL
The Weight of Words: Hearing Rachel Goldberg-Polin Speak
Peter Himmelman
May 4, 2026

…Early on, Rachel described feeling as though she had left this world entirely after Hersh’s abduction and murder. A friend was extremely helpful,” she said. “A Breslov Chossid — you know, long peyos, beard, the real deal — and also a psychiatrist with a medical degree from Brown…..He did not attempt to coax her back down into ordinary language or refute her feeling of existing elsewhere. “He told me,” Rachel said, “that I wasn’t entirely in this world anymore. That part of me was now in Olam Haba.”…What is Olam Haba? It refers to the “World to Come,” the world beyond the one we presently inhabit, beyond the rote and the overly familiar, beyond the normal shapes of trees, the ordinary sounds of birds, the commonness of water — or even of words themselves. READ MORE

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Doctors Without Borders” joins “Amnesty International” demonizing and libeling Israel

JPOST
‘No longer a trustworthy humanitarian organization’: NGO Monitor releases report on MSF’s failings
DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD
April 29, 2026

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has abandoned its principles of neutrality and impartiality in its coverage of the Gaza war, relying on Hamas-provided figures while downplaying the group’s role, according to a new NGO Monitor report. The report comes a year after MSF’s former leadership raised the alarm that the NGO was stepping too far from its initial mission. Alain Destexhe, the former secretary general of MSF International, warned that “MSF is no longer neutral; its humanitarian language now serves a political cause,” according to Atlantico. Destexhe had earlier published a report in December 2023 highlighting MSF staff’s infatuation with Hamas, which violates its principles. He found that over 40% of statements by staff, including senior figures, praised the terror group and the October 7 massacre, and that some boasted of participation in tunnel construction and weapons production. READ MORE

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

“Invoking President George Washington’s seminal letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, and Revolutionary era financier Haym Salomon, President Trump paid tribute to the role Jewish Americans have played in the United States since its earliest days”

CHABAD.ORG
Shabbat‘Shabbat 250:’ President Proclaims National Shabbat Honoring America’s 250th Birthday
May 4, 2026

For the first time in American history, a sitting president has called on the nation to observe a Shabbat. As part of the White House’s Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation, signed on May 4, President Donald Trump designated the period from sundown Friday, May 15, through nightfall Saturday, May 16, as a national Shabbat, dubbed “Shabbat 250.” “In special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250 — a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving — Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath,” the President wrote. “From sundown on May 15 to nightfall on May 16, friends, families, and communities of all backgrounds may come together in gratitude for our great Nation. This day will recognize the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection, and gratitude to the Almighty.” READ MORE

WHITE HOUSE Proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month 2026 This month, we celebrate the contributions that Jewish Americans have made to our way of life, we honor their role in shaping the story of our Nation, and we remember that religious devotion, learning, and service to others are enduring pillars of a thriving culture.  Through every trial and triumph, the contributions of Jewish Americans have shaped our past, have strengthened our communities, and will continue to inspire American greatness for generations to come.

Posted in Jewish | Leave a comment

“This is a glorious beat down on Mamdani and his radical cronies”

JNS
Mamdani-endorsed NYC Council candidate trounced in special election
Debra Nussbaum Cohen
April 29, 2026

Lindsey Boylan, whom New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed and who has called the Israeli prime minister a “war criminal and a danger to Israel” and accused the Jewish state of “genocide,” conceded the special election in the New York City Council’s third district on Tuesday night…Some news outlets have reported that Carl Wilson’s win could mean that his the council would overturn the mayor’s recent veto of a bill that would call on the New York City Police Department to make a plan for a “buffer zone” free of protest obstruction around educational institutions. READ MORE

JTA Zohran Mamdani vetoes school ‘buffer zone’ bill against wishes of major Jewish groups Mayor Zohran Mamdani vetoed a “buffer zone” bill insulating “educational facilities” from protests on Friday morning, drawing the ire of a number of Jewish organizations that supported it. The bill, introduced by Jewish City Council member Eric Dinowitz, was part of a legislative package proposed in response to a pair of pro-Palestinian protests outside synagogues in the fall. In a statement — and an accompanying video — Mamdani said Dinowitz’s bill, Intro 175-B, posed concerns about limiting people’s right to protest, including “college students demanding their school divest from fossil fuels or demonstrating in support of Palestinian rights.”

FREE PRESS The Editors: Mamdani, Scapegoating the Rich Won’t Fill a $5.4 Billion Budget Hole New York City’s wealthy pay 40 percent of its bills. The mayor just declared war on them…The mayor’s class-warfare rhetoric may drive away the wealthy with more force than the actual tax. Mamdani singles out billionaire financier Ken Griffin in the video, exclaiming the $238 million price tag of his penthouse and putting the building on camera. It’s as if to say, There’s the enemy, New Yorkers, looking down on you from his spare palace.

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“Protesters chant ‘Keir Starmer, Jew Harmer’; UK raises terror alert to ‘severe’ as anti-terror chief says attacks on Jews are ‘biggest national security emergency’”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Starmer booed at site of Golders Green terror; promises to tackle antisemitism, extremism
Zev Stub
April 30, 2026

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Thursday to deal with “the root causes of extremism and antisemitism” after the stabbing of two Jewish men in the heavily Jewish London neighborhood of Golders Green…The attack occurred at approximately 11:16 a.m. on Wednesday on Highfield Avenue. CCTV footage captured the suspect walking casually toward a 76-year-old man wearing a kippah who was waiting at a bus stop. The assailant suddenly lunged, grabbing the victim with his left hand while repeatedly swinging a knife at his upper body. Approximately 10 minutes later, a 34-year-old man was also stabbed nearby. Witnesses described the suspect as appearing to “hunt” for anyone visibly Jewish…The attack took place some 300 yards from the site of an arson attack earlier this month targeting four Hatzola ambulances parked outside a synagogue. READ MORE

Posted in Jewish | Tagged , , | Leave a comment