Freed hostage whose wife and daughters were murdered, exposes Hamas’ use of UN aid while captives starve. “They dragged us to Gaza, my ribs were bruised. When we arrived there, an angry mob tried to lynch me, but the terrorists put me inside a mosque. For them, I was their trophy.”

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
From paradise to hell: Former hostage’s moving UN speech
March 20, 2025

…”On October 7, my paradise turned into hell,” [Eli] Sharabi began his chilling testimony. “Hamas terrorists invaded the kibbutz, my home, and tore me away from my family. I haven’t seen them since. For 491 days I was held primarily underground in Hamas terror tunnels, bound, starved, beaten, and humiliated. I was a prisoner in darkness, isolated from the world. The monsters enjoyed our suffering.” Sharabi vividly described the moment of his abduction to council members: “On October 7, the door opened. Our dog barked. The terrorists opened fire. Lianne and I threw ourselves on our daughters and shouted at the terrorists to stop. Suddenly there were ten terrorists inside my house. They took my wife and daughters to the kitchen. I couldn’t see them anymore. As they dragged me outside, I called to my daughters: ‘I’ll come back.’ It was the last time I saw them.READ MORE

YOUTUBE Hear his speech at the United Nations

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“More British citizens (18) were killed during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 onslaught than in any foreign terrorist attack since Al Qaeda struck the US on Sept. 11, 2001”

ALGEMEINER
UK Parliament Group Publishes Major Report to Ensure Oct. 7 Massacre Is ‘Never Forgotten’
David Swindle
March 18, 2025

A group of British lawmakers has released a new and extensive report documenting the atrocities of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel to establish an irrefutable historical record of the massacre. “The purpose of commissioning our report has been to chronicle the events of Oct. 7 with clarity and meticulous, fact-checking precision, to ensure it is never forgotten,” said Lord Andrew Roberts, a prominent historian who presided over the 318-page study…“The present report…lays down incontrovertible proof — for now and for the years to come — that nearly 1,200 innocent people were indeed murdered by Hamas and its allies, and very often in scenes of sadistic barbarism not seen in world history since the Rape of Nanjing in 1937.” READ MORE

COMMENTARY The Moral Asymmetry Between Israel and Its Enemies A commission of inquiry led by the renowned historian Andrew Roberts has now produced the most comprehensive report on the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks. Every kibbutz, town, city, and music festival victimized by thousands of Gazan infiltrators has its own entry in the report. That level of detail, along with the authors’ inclusion of the relevant recent history and background of the conflict, makes it to date the best guide to what we know about the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history.

JEWISH CHRONICLE Police must publish advice that led them to drop imam case Last week’s decision not to prosecute an east London imam who urged Allah to destroy Jewish homes would be easier to understand if the UK had a strong free speech tradition…The same British authorities that so zealously enforce some of the most restrictive speech laws in the Western world tend to transform to First Amendment purists when it concerns Islamist hate preachers or Hamas apologists indoctrinating students at our finest universities.

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As it unfurls, the saga of Mahmoud Khalil—the Columbia agitator picked up by immigration enforcement last week—looks less like a complicated immigration-law dispute and more like something out of a John le Carré novel.

CITY JOURNAL
Who Are the Shadowy Figures Defending Mahmoud Khalil?
Liel Leibovitz, Asaf Romirowsky
March 19, 2025

…Similarly, it is troubling that those who argue, against all available evidence, that Mahmoud Khalil is a martyr on the altar of free speech—rather than someone who violated the terms of his residency by advocating for a terror group—enjoy near-universal access to and support from our finest academic institutions, our best-endowed philanthropies, and our best-placed legal or political elites. Telling foreign nationals to refrain from espousing support for a terror group to evade legal trouble exceeds the bounds of advocacy; it approximates aiding and abetting people in skirting our immigration laws. If nothing else, the Khalil case demonstrates yet again that for America’s progressive elites, power, not principle, is the currency that counts, and that the system they’ve designed ensures that their power is preserved in perpetuity, defending even those fellow travelers who work to undermine our national-security interests. READ MORE

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“Erdogan has long feared running against Imamoglu in a presidential election given the charismatic Imamoglu’s popularity with a large proportion of voters”

FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Turkey Arrests Presidential Candidate Ekrem Imamoglu
Sinan Ciddi
March 19, 2025

It was, according to Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party, a “coup against our next president.” In the early hours of March 19, Turkish police arrested Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul who last month announced his intention to run for president. The mayor’s arrest is a worrying demonstration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s contempt for basic democratic norms. One day earlier, Istanbul University annulled Imamoglu’s status as a graduate of Turkey’s oldest university. The Turkish constitution requires all presidential candidates to be university graduates as a precondition for running. Imamoglu was then arrested and charged by police for alleged “corrupt practices in municipal business,” including bribery, fraud, money laundering, personal enrichment, and bid rigging. READ MORE

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That the epicenter of modern Jew-hatred over the past year is Columbia University in New York City is no accident.

FUTURE OF JEWISH
Columbia University hates the Jews.
Hana Ravyit Schank
March 17, 2025

…After the Holocaust, in the heady days of post-war unity, American universities claimed to open their doors wide open to Jews. Come on in, Jews. Don’t join our fraternities, and try to play at least a little lacrosse or wear a polo shirt and loafers, but whatever, man. We’re all equal now. By 1967, 40 percent of Columbia students were Jewish. And, support for Israel was high. People remembered the Holocaust and thought Jews deserved a little slice of their indigenous land on which to create their own Jewish state. Today, Jewish student enrollment has dropped sharply across the Ivy League universities³, to 20 percent at Columbia (which also houses a Rabbinical school), and 9 percent elsewhere. READ MORE

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Joe Rogan: Jews ‘overreact’ to antisemitism

JTA
Joe Rogan hosts Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper on his podcast and complains of ‘paranoid’ Jews
Ben Sales
March 17, 2025

Joe Rogan, who hosts one of the most popular podcasts in the country, invited a Holocaust revisionist to his studio just over a week after interviewing someone who spreads antisemitic conspiracy theories. Rogan’s interview of so-called “historian” Darryl Cooper on Thursday followed his interview of conspiracy theorist Ian Carroll last week. In Carroll’s interview on March 5, he claimed sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “was clearly a Jewish organization working on behalf of Israel and other groups” and said Israel was founded by Jewish organized crime figures, according to Jewish Insider. READ MORE

JEWISH INSIDER Joe Rogan invites antisemitic conspiracy theorists into the mainstream Rogan, whose lucrative podcast has more than 14 million subscribers, faced backlash on Wednesday for hosting a friendly discussion with Ian Carroll, a self-described journalist with a sizable following who has frequently spread antisemitic conspiracy theoriesclaiming that “Israel did 9/11” and that the U.S. is controlled by a “Zionist mafia,” among other baseless assertions.

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For the Arab countries, the new plan just another attempt to avoid responsibility towards their Palestinian brothers and shift the blame onto Israel

GATESTONE
Do Not Count on the Arabs to Rebuild Gaza or Help Palestinians
Khaled Abu Toameh
March 17, 2025

The Arab countries have finally come up with a plan for the Gaza Strip that aims to address the humanitarian crisis, restore essential services and rebuild. The $53 billion plan, announced in early March after an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, did not come out of a genuine desire to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but as a counterproposal to US President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating the residents of Gaza and turning it into the Rivera of the Middle East…The truth, however, is that most of the Arab countries have always refused to receive Palestinians. Most Arabs view the Palestinians as ungrateful. The turning point in Arab-Palestinian relations occurred in 1990, when Palestinians supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait – a country that had provided residency and employment to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. When Kuwait was liberated a year later by the US-led coalition, the Kuwaitis and other Gulf states responded by deporting most of them. READ MORE

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“Viral videos of haredi anti-draft chants have reignited Israel’s conscription debate, sparking public outrage and political backlash”

JPOST
Dancing on the brink: Haredi draft dodging video triggers national backlash
Herb Keinon
March 14, 2025

Three recent viral videos on social media have put the issue of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription in the spotlight, even as the Knesset continues its inability to legislate the matter. The first, posted on February 28 by Mendel Rata – a hassidic composer and singer who is the son of the rebbe of the Shomrei Emunim hassidic sect in Ashdod – documented his seventh week in training with the new haredi Hashmoniam Brigade. Since enlisting in December, Rata has shared updates about his experience, and in this clip, he described learning navigation skills – how to get from point A to point B without a map – admitting it wasn’t his strongest suit. READ MORE

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Hirsi, a far-left activist, anti-Israel agitator, and Barnard College senior, hosts online Mahmoud Khalil fundraiser

FREE BEACON
Ilhan Omar’s Daughter Promotes Fundraiser For Pro-Hamas Activist in ICE Custody
Jessica Costescu
March 12, 2025

Isra Hirsi, the daughter of “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), championed a fundraiser supporting Mahmoud Khalil, the student activist and foreign national facing deportation by the Trump administration over his pro-Hamas campus organizing. The online fundraiser was launched after ICE took Khalil into custody Saturday night after the State Department revoked his visa and green card. By Wednesday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised nearly $270,000, surpassing its $250,000 goal and prompting administrators to set a new target of $500,000. READ MORE

FREE BEACON Hamas Hostage Taker Who Wrote for US-Based Website Boasted of ‘Actively Coordinating’ With American Campus Protesters, Lawsuit Alleges A Hamas operative who also wrote for a U.S.-based nonprofit publication bragged to his Israeli hostages about how the terror group “was in contact and actively coordinating” with anti-Israel protesters at American colleges, according to eyewitness accounts detailed in a landmark terrorism lawsuit. Abdallah Aljamal, a Gaza-based “journalist,” was killed last year during an Israeli raid that freed three hostages from his home: Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv, and Andrey Kozlov. They are now suing Aljamal’s former collaborator, a little-known publication called the Palestine Chronicle.

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“Illinois public school staff forced girls to change in front of a boy and actually stood guard in the locker room to make sure they couldn’t escape”

LAKE COUNTY GAZETTE
Deerfield middle school administrators force teen girls to change in front of boy in school locker room
March 14, 2025

Deerfield School District 109 administrators forced teen girls at Shepard Middle School to change in front of a boy in the school locker room. That’s according to parent testimony heard during public comment Thursday’s District 109 School Board meeting. After receiving a complaint from girls in early February that a boy was in their locker room while they were changing for gym class, District 109 “Assistant Superintendent for Student Services” Joanna Ford, “Assistant Principal” Cathy Van Treese and “Director for Student Services” Ginger Logemann reprimanded the girls, then escorted them to the locker room and tried to force them to change in front of the boy. READ MORE

Watch the video.

NOT THE BEE Illinois public school staff forced girls to change in front of a boy and actually stood guard in the locker room to make sure they couldn’t escape The mother said the next day, things got worse. When the girls refused to change into PE clothes in front of the boy, they were pulled into the principal’s office, where they were questioned. That day, [Assistant Superintendent for Student Services] Joanna Ford, [Assistant Principal] Cathy Van Treese, and multiple teachers all came into the girls locker room, making them change into uniform. This went on all week.

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