“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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Three sources said the Trump administration’s hostage envoy has already been pulled off of the Hamas hostage file

JEWISH INSIDER
Adam Boehler sidelined from Hamas negotiations after media blitz, sources say
Emily Jacobs
March 13, 2025

Republicans on Capitol Hill are privately frustrated by Adam Boehler, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, over his behavior during a media blitz last weekend about his direct negotiations with Hamas and subsequent handling of the fallout. GOP sources told Jewish Insider the administration has pulled him off of the Hamas hostage file and said that he needs to be further sidelined. Boehler’s appearances on “Fox News Sunday,” CNN’s “State of the Union” and several Israeli channels made headlines over his responses to questions about his direct engagements with Hamas on behalf of the U.S.; he told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Israel’s resistance to direct talks with the terror group stemmed from the possibility that he would meet Hamas officials and think “they don’t have horns growing out of their head … They’re actually pretty nice guys.” READ MORE

GATESTONE Daniel Greenfield: U.S. Hostage ‘Negotiator’ Says Hamas Wants Peace, Offers ’15-Year Truce’, U.S. Rebuilding of Gaza Now White House Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Adam Boehler, who appeared to be a credible figure, decided to directly meet up with Hamas and came out with exactly the sort of thing John Kerry or Jimmy Carter would have come away with…This proposed deal leaves Hamas in Gaza, and has the U.S. rebuild Gaza for 10-15 years. In short, it’s the worst deal imaginable for America and for Israel.

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“The Barnard administration, instead of disciplining students who break the rules and the law, negotiated with them”

GATESTONE
Cut Federal Funding to Barnard
Alan Dershowitz
March 7, 2025

President Donald Trump has pledged to cut federal funding to schools that do not protect Jewish students from anti-semitic harassment and violence. The best place to begin this process is Barnard College in New York City. Cutting funding to major research universities threatens cutbacks on grants for medical and other important scientific research. Barnard College, on the other hand, is not a university. It does not have a medical school. Its faculty does little or no research that would affect Americans on a day-to-day basis. Cutting off federal aid to Barnard would have few negative impacts on issues that legitimately concern Americans, especially if it focuses on discriminatory actions and does not interfere with protected free speech. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Cornell University Pursuing Disciplinary Charges Against Anti-Zionist Hecklers of Pro-Peace Event Cornell University has initiated disciplinary proceedings against over a dozen anti-Zionist students, staff, and non-Cornell-affiliated individuals who disrupted a “Pathways to Peace” campus event that was held to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians on March 10.

FREE BEACON Trump Admin Slashes $400 Million In Federal Funding to Columbia, Citing Ivy League School’s ‘Inaction’ in the Face of Anti-Semitism The Trump administration’s multi-agency task force to combat anti-Semitism announced the immediate cancellation of approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over its failure to curb campus anti-Semitism in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. The departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Education, along with the General Services Administration, announced the move Friday. Two days earlier, Columbia student radicals stormed a Barnard College campus building—the second time in a week. Within hours of the funding cuts, Columbia suspended its four students who had been arrested while clashing with police during Wednesday’s incident.

JPOST Watchdogs sue US government over Qatar’s billions in university funding The Zachor Legal Institute, in conjunction with Judicial Watch, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the US Department of Education several weeks ago, seeking records related to Doha’s funding and operations at five prestigious American universities: Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan.

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“Israel is not a cause. It’s a country. It exists so that Jews — real, breathing, imperfect, wonderful Jews — have unapologetic control of our own destiny”

FUTURE OF JEWISH
Israelis don’t care what you think about Zionism
Joshua Hoffman
March 9, 2025

The idea that American Jews, nearly all of whom have never lived in Israel, can define and redefine Zionism is laughable to say the least. It’s cute, in a way. College students with Che Guevara t-shirts, think tank interns who just discovered the word sababa, and even some clueless “progressive Jews” all seem to think that the fate of the Jewish state hinges on how they feel about it. As if Israel is a reality show waiting for audience approval. None of this is surprising, of course. Americans in general have grossly overvalued their opinions and perspectives on the world stage, known as “American exceptionalism.” Unsurprisingly, many American Jews have acquired this mentality. There is also the fact that American Jews, on the whole, are a very successful minority in the most impactful country in our post-World War II world. We should also note that parts of American culture give people an unfounded sense of entitlement, especially those who come from homes with money and means. READ MORE

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