Lappin: “U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff’s ties to Gulf state businesses raise increasing concerns about his role in proposed ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel”

JNS
US diplomacy in the shadow of Qatar
Andrew D. Lappin
May 30, 2025

Has Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s appointed special U.S. Middle East envoy, been incontrovertibly corrupted by Qatar? The question is prompted by the stench of the proposed ceasefire with Hamas that was announced on May 29. Even though Hamas has been reduced to a toothless shell, the deal would have Israel agreeing to a ceasefire for 60 days and then withdrawing from strategic territory that it paid for, inch by inch, with the precious blood of Israeli soldiers and the broken hearts of the Israeli people. Paid for during a defensive war that definitively spoke to the most heinous violations of Western civilization since the Holocaust. READ MORE

FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES Qatar keeps purchasing political influence In 2017, Qatar dispatched lobbyists to build opposition against the Palestinian International Terrorism Support and Prevention Act, which identified Qatar as a sponsor of Hamas. Materials distributed by Qatari agents warned that the bill “erroneously and unfairly” targeted Qatar and had the potential to “chill the robust economic relationship between the U.S. and Qatar.” Whether because of Qatar’s efforts or not, the legislation never passed. Qatar’s efforts have continued amid the war in Gaza. Disclosures submitted to the U.S. Justice Department indicate that lobbyists on Qatar’s payroll engaged with offices in the House and Senate over 285 times between October 2023 and April 2024 on the issue of Qatar’s role in hostage negotiations. 

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Northwestern University professor Mkhaimar Abusada serves on boards of organizations that regularly partner with Hamas and the PFLP

FREE BEACON
Meet the Professor Northwestern Hired As Part of Deal With Student Radicals
Jessica Costescu
May 27, 2025

A Northwestern University professor—hired as part of a deal with anti-Israel groups to end last year’s encampment—sits on the boards of two organizations that were founded by and frequently partner with Palestinian terrorists, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Last year, Northwestern president Michael Schill struck a deal with radical student groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), to end their encampment, agreeing to recruit two Palestinian professors and provide full rides to five students from Gaza. READ MORE

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“In the paranoid version of world events concocted by Tucker Carlson and his guests, it is the “neocons” who drive the United States to war in the Middle East, motivated in turn by Netanyahu’s insatiably expansionist ambitions”

TABLET MAG
The Anti-Israel Right Joins the Pro-Iran Left
Lee Smith
May 29, 2025

Donald Trump says he is going to fight to end antisemitism and the left-wing delegitimization and hatred of Israel that has plagued college campuses since Oct. 7, which led to the murder last week of two Israeli embassy employees. Standing in the way of his efforts to rid America of a violent and deadly scourge are the radical left, Democrats, federal courts, and university presidents who are determined to protect pro-Palestinian terrorists from his deportation campaign. Everyone wants Trump to lose. This includes certain self-proclaimed MAGA influencers, who are obsessed with the idea of Israel as a uniquely evil force in world history and American Jews as a malignant fifth column. READ MORE

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“Eyewitness video independently verified by Reuters showed large crowds of people pushing into the warehouse and removing bags and boxes, as gunfire can be heard”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Four Palestinians die in storming of Gaza UN food warehouse; IDF was not in area
May 29, 2025

Hundreds of Palestinians stormed a United Nations food warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, shouting and shoving each other and ripping off pieces of the building to get inside, the UN said. Palestinian hospital officials said four people died in the chaos, two of them shot. Israel accused the Hamas terror group of opening fire. There were no Israeli troops in or near the area of the UN’s World Food Program warehouse at the time, and the IDF is not operating in Deir al-Balah. “Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, Central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the UN’s World Food Program said in a statement on X…Hamas, in a statement, denied that it had opened fire or that it operated the warehouse. READ MORE

FDD ‘Agents of the Occupation’: Hamas Threatens Civilians Who Accept Aid From Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Hamas denounced the new U.S.-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as an “agent of the  occupation,” warning Palestinian civilians who accept its assistance that they “will pay the price, and we will take the necessary measures.” The GHF, which began operations in the southern part of the coastal enclave on May 26, condemned Hamas’s “death threats,” asserting that the Iran-backed terrorist group feels “threatened by this new operating model and will do everything in its power to see it fail.” 

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Rachel Goldberg-Polin honored with Ph.D and gives commencement address at Yeshiva University: “We are not what we say, we are not what we think, and we are not even what we believe. In this life, we are what we do.”

KVELLER
Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s Commencement Speech Must Be Heard
Lior Zaltzman
May 28, 2025

Last week, on May 22, in New York’s Louis Armstrong Stadium, the city’s Yeshiva University held its graduation ceremony. Its head, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, presented an honorary doctorate to a woman who has become a hero to so many of us since October 7. I’m speaking, of course about Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of the late and great Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed brutally by Hamas along with five others while in captivity. (An award named after Hersh — the Ohr Shel Hersh Award— was also inaugurated at the ceremony.. Her speech for the new graduates contained in it beautiful guidelines for how to live in order to make the world a better place. She started out with gratitude, noting that the root for the Hebrew word for “gratitude/thank you” is also found in the Hebrew word for “Jewish.” She talked about Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, sending to their parents comfort from the heavens and saying that her heart and soul are with them, and that they did everything right. READ MORE

Hear Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s stirring address

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After the DC murders, the time has come to strike down this monstrous antisemitic movement once and for all.

NO DELUSIONS, NO DESPAIR
Smash the Free Palestine Nazis
Benjamin Kerstein
Mary 23, 2025

…In some ways, the horrific murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim z”l at a Jewish event in Washington, DC by a Free Palestine Nazi is an exception to the rule. It is explicable in its logic, and its cause can be easily traced. Its cause is Free Palestine Nazism itself: The first full-scale antisemitic movement in the United States since the 1930s, led by the Red-Green Alliance between radical progressives and Islamic supremacists. Its logic is the same as antisemitic murder has always been: the satanic belief in the necessity, the obligation, to kill Jews. This is the logic of everyone from Haman to Hitler, and it remains unchanged since Amalek slaughtered the women and children of the refugees from Pharaoh’s oppression. We know this is true because, like the movement that birthed him, the swine who committed the atrocity said so. But we know more than that: This is not a matter of one’s man guilt. The complicity is vast and collective. READ MORE

JEWISH INSIDER After Capital Jewish Museum killings, 33 senators call for $500 million in nonprofit security funding The letter was sent the day following the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees, which prompted calls for more resources to protect Jewish institutions

JOHNSON COUNTY POST Funeral held for Sarah Milgrim, Johnson County native killed in D.C. shooting — ‘She opened new doors’ Family and friends gathered Tuesday to mourn the death of Prairie Village native Sarah Milgrim, less than a week after she was shot and killed outside an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Local rabbis, Jewish leaders and a member of the Israeli embassy gave remarks at Congregation Beth Torah, in Overland Park. The funeral was private but streamed live online….Milgrim grew up in Prairie Village and was involved in Kansas City’s Jewish community. She was remembered for her commitment to Judaism and peacebuilding. Her father told KCUR that part of her job at the embassy involved hosting the families of Oct. 7 hostages when they visited the U.S.

JEWISH INSIDER Hundreds attend funeral outside Jerusalem for Israeli diplomat murdered in D.C. Yaron Lischinsky was laid to rest on Sunday in Beit Zayit, a moshav outside of Jerusalem, after he was killed alongside his partner, Sarah Lynn Milgrim, by a shooter who shouted “Free Palestine” at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on Wednesday. Hundreds attended the funeral, according to sources present. The funeral was closed to the media at the family’s request. Among those who attended were Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel and Lischinsky’s direct superior at the embassy, Minister-Counselor for Middle East Affairs Noa Ginosar, who accompanied his body to Israel.

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Northbrook: Only adding to the offense, the sign is standing during Jewish American Heritage Month

WGN NEWS
Northbrook residents demand removal of sign featuring Nazi symbol
Jenna Barnes, Ashlyn Wright
May 27, 2025

In downtown Northbrook, a longstanding free speech zone is the focus of a new uproar with some neighbors saying it has now crossed the line into hate speech. “It was terrible. It was just gut wrenching. It was shocking,” Jeff Kaminsky said. A sign at the corner of Shermer Road and Walters Avenue reads ‘Northbrook stands with migrants’ and shows a blue inverted triangle, which is a Nazi symbol. “I live a block away. I can see it if I walk outside my door and come half a block up. I’m very upset by this,” Lisa Beth Gansberg with Friends of United Hatzalah said. READ MORE

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Meanwhile, at Harvard: “Instead of discipline, the students behind an attack that went viral got a fellowship, accolades—and a commencement spotlight”

FREE PRESS
Attacking Jews at Harvard Doesn’t Just Go Unpunished. It Gets Rewarded.
Johanna Berkman
May 21, 2025

In the year and a half since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, there have been so many alarming incidents on college campuses aimed at Jews. Many stick out for their grotesque imagery, for their outrageous slanders, and for their Soviet-style tactics. But the incident that I remember most vividly is the one that took place at Harvard University less than two weeks after Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 more. No one was physically injured that day. But the fact remained that the incident was wildly beyond the pale: a group of Harvard students surrounding another student, an Israeli named Yoav Segev, repeatedly screaming “Shame!” in his face, blocking his path, and forcing him to leave a part of campus that he was entitled to be in just as much as they were. READ MORE

JNS Student speaker accuses Israel of ‘genocide’ at MIT graduation Clad in a red keffiyeh, Megha Vemuri, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s class of 2025, addressed graduates at the school’s commencement on Thursday. “You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine,” she said.

JPOST Two Harvard students who assaulted Jewish peer receive honors, $65,000 fellowship One of two Harvard students who assaulted a Jewish classmate during an anti-Israel protest in October 2023 has been appointed as class marshal by Harvard Divinity School at the upcoming graduation ceremony. This comes just three weeks after the other assailant was awarded a $65,000 Harvard Law School fellowship to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Harvard Law Review website says its $65,000 fellowship goes to recent Harvard Law School graduates “with a demonstrated interest in serving the public interest through their work and scholarship.”

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European governments and broadcasters tried to turn a song contest into a show trial. The public voted for Israel anyway.

TABLET MAG
The Crowd Knew Better
Itxu Díaz
May 27, 2025

The Eurovision Song Contest just wrapped up one of its most controversial editions, which revealed a stark disconnect between European audiences and their governments. For the third year in a row, Israel received more popular votes than those awarded by the national juries. While viewers this year voted overwhelmingly for Israeli singer Yuval Raphael, European bureaucrats went to comical lengths to exclude and efface the Israeli contestant, resulting in her second-place finish. The now-familiar Eurovision vitriol toward Israel began even before the contest, when public broadcasters from six participating countries pushed to exclude Israel from the event, comparing it to Russia as an aggressor state. Then, after Raphael’s song, “New Day Will Rise,” received the most votes from audiences, the Spanish Broadcasting Authority (RTVE) demanded a reassessment of the voting system. READ MORE

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Free 30-minute film about the forced 1493 deportation of Jewish children from Portugal a reminder of how Europe has often treated their Jews

JNS
‘The 2,000 Kidnapped Jewish Children’ connects hostages across time
May 25, 2025

…The film tells the story of Jewish children—aged eight and under—who were seized in 1493 by order of King João II of Portugal. Their families, who had fled Spain following the 1492 expulsion of Jews, were unable to pay the exorbitant ransom demanded by the Portuguese crown. As punishment, the children were forcibly taken from their parents and deported to the remote and uninhabited island of São Tomé, some 7,500 kilometers from their homes. “When we hear European leaders rewarding terrorism and encouraging the killing of Jews and Israelis everywhere, it becomes imperative to remember what European Jewish life has been like for centuries,” said Gabriel Senderowicz, president of the Oporto Jewish community. READ MORE

TO VIEW 2000 Kidnapped Jewish Children CLICK HERE

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