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by Dion J. Pierre

These organizations have maintained both influential and radical friends, NGO Monitor explained in its new report released on Thursday, noting that JVP — a fringe anti-Israel group that has often joined forces to coordinate events with SJP — has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Other donors to JVP include the Open Society Policy Center and the Kaphan Foundation, among others.

As for SJP, one of its founders, Hatem Bazian, is also a co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an advocacy group that, according to a landmark report last year by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian Territories.” AMP is a growing power player in the US Democratic Party and has led several legislative initiatives aimed at eroding Democratic support for Israel.

NGO Monitor also named in its report Within Our Lifetime, a New York City-based group headed by a former City University of New York (CUNY) student who once threatened to set a Jewish student’s Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sweater on fire while he wore it. Since Oct. 7, WOL has openly cheered Hamas’ atrocities as the “right to resist zionist [sic] settle violence” and “Resistance in all its forms. By any means necessary” — an apparent endorsement of Hamas’ abductions and sexual violence against Israeli women. The group’s funding is a source of mystery; the public cannot freely donate to it because a link to its donation platform, “Donorbox,” is broken, but it is widely believed that the Westchester Peace Action Committee (WESPAC), a nonprofit based in New York, is WOL’s principal funder.

Another group named in the new report, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), supports a network of allied groups, including AMP, JVP, and WESPAC. USCPR has received immense financial support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has awarded it at least $355,000 since 2018.

Many of the same groups backing the ongoing protests have also been integral in the growth of the BDS movement. Indeed, a growing alignment of large philanthropic organizations with BDS has been fueling the movement’s growth on American college campuses, as was revealed in the NAS report from last year.

According to NAS’s findings, JVP as of last year had received $480,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, whose endowment was valued at $1.27 billion, since 2017, and the Tides Research Fund, a sponsor of Black Lives Matter, has given the group at least $75,000 since 2019. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, JVP brought in over half a million dollars in grants. Additionally, Palestine Legal, a lawfare group founded in 2012 to support campus BDS groups like SJP, is the beneficiary of generous funding from Tides Foundation, a pioneer of activist investment that has given over $1.5 million to anti-Israel initiatives, according to figures included in the report.

“Saturation of anti-Israel, pro-BDS sentiment on college campuses is a long term danger to US support for Israel by its simple normalization of demonizing the Jewish state,” NAS said at the time. “Beyond the problem of antsemitism, the importance of academia to the BDS movement’s growth and viability demonstrates the steady erosion of its political neutrality that has taken place over the past two decades.”

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by Ephraim D. Tepler and Itamar Marcus

In an incredible and rare admission, Fatah has corroborated what Israel has been saying all along: that Hamas is responsible for turmoil connected to distribution of the humanitarian aid sent into Gaza. A Fatah TV anchor reported that throughout the war, Hamas has been committing what is essentially a triple crime—it has attacked and killed aid workers in order to control aid distribution, stolen the food and water for itself, and caused food prices to skyrocket.

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Jews control the world? Huh?

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by Dahlia Lithwick, Masua Sagiv

he casual verbal slippage between war photojournalism and crime scene photography is manifest in another simple trick: In announcing the AP’s win, the award organizers reposted the unblurred image of Louk on their Instagram page but neglected to include her name. Her name did, however, appear in the prize announcement on the award website, in which the chosen caption says it all:

Heavy Israeli airstrikes on the enclave has killed thousands of Palestinians. Palestinian militants drive back to the Gaza Strip with the body of Shani Louk, a German-Israeli dual citizen, during their cross-border attack on Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.

That caption reorders the sequence of events, as if the subsequent bombing of Gaza were the cause of the cross-border attack. In this telling, these militants found themselves with a half-naked female “body” in the bed of their truck in some accident of war. It distorts the fact that Louk was murdered during a cease-fire and her corpse taken as bounty. Deliberately conflating Hamas’ sexual violence, kidnappings, and burning of women and children with acts of combat gives away the game from the start. However you opt to perceive it, an atmosphere that celebrates this image sets back decades of international legal advances recognizing the dignity and rights of women.

Perhaps the photo merits an award by sensitively capturing the plight of the victims of Oct. 7? That was the line the AP’s vice president of corporate communications, Lauren Easton, gave following international outrage about the prize. “Documenting breaking news events around the world—no matter how horrific—is our job,” she said. “Without AP and other news organizations, the world would not have known what was happening on Oct. 7.” But that is also untrue. In this case, the perpetrators filmed their own acts in viral videos captured on GoPros and livestreamed them to the world, screaming “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is great!”) and driving through the streets. In other instances such footage was shared with the victims’ families using the victims’ own phones. One could well ask whether we should consider a journalistic image of one of the most photographed violent pogroms in modern history to constitute essential newsgathering or whether we should instead regard it as prurient rubbernecking. Yet the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute saw fit to reward the impulse with a prize.

Images of war can be aimed at producing empathy for the victim or anger and disgust toward the perpetrators (or both). Indeed, most of the photos that garnered this prestigious prize do just that. This photograph does neither. The victim, Louk, is an object, almost illegible as a person, reduced by her captors to a trophy. The perpetrators delight in that fact. Most remarkable about the picture is the extent to which it manages to simultaneously deny the crime and celebrate it. On its face, the photo and the caption accompanying it evince no interest at all in how she came to be a “body,” instead observing the time-honored adage invoked whenever a female victim is involved: “She deserved it.”

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by Dexter Van Zile

In a transparent effort to falsely portray Muslims—rather than Jews—as the primary targets of hate in America, more than 60 Islamist groups and their allies have called for the ouster of Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

In a statement released on April 15, the groups—many of which have defended and legitimized violence against Israel and fomented antisemitism—condemned Greenblatt for criticizing anti-Israel protests on college campuses. They also lambasted him for likening the keffiyeh worn by many anti-Israel protesters to the Nazi swastika in a recent interview on "Morning Joe."

In light of the harassment Jews have endured at the hands of pro-Hamas, keffiyeh-wearing students at campuses around the country, the keffiyeh cannot be viewed as an innocent sign of support for Palestinians, but instead as a marker intended to intimidate Jews in the U.S.

"Mr. Greenblatt's reckless words threaten the safety of Palestinian-Americans, as well as many others who wear the keffiyeh in solidarity with the Palestinian people," the statement said. It then called on the ADL to fire Greenblatt, "apologize for its history of bad faith attacks" and "stop attempting to defame, silence and endanger those who express support for Palestinian human rights." Coming from openly antisemitic organizations, this is risible.

Moreover, in light of the targeted harassment Jews have endured at the hands of pro-Hamas, keffiyeh-wearing students at college campuses around the country, the keffiyeh cannot be viewed as an innocent sign of support for Palestinians, but instead as a marker intended to intimidate Jews in the U.S.

The idea that Greenblatt and the ADL are enemies of American Muslims is also nonsense. While Greenblatt and the ADL have certainly condemned Muslim antisemites—as they should—they have also regularly warned the public about the prospect of anti-Muslim violence in the U.S. The ADL even published a lesson plan that calls on Americans to serve as allies to their Muslim neighbors. Last December, the organization issued a warning about a rise in anti-Muslim hostility in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre.

CAIR and its allies have now repaid this allyship with defamation.

Moreover, the anti-Greenblatt statement is rank hypocrisy. It comes after a dramatic increase in Islamist-driven hostility toward Jews and Israel. The ADL has itself reported a 337% increase in antisemitic incidents in the two months after the attack.

This skyrocketing antisemitism has been fueled by the very groups who signed the condemnation of Greenblatt. The United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), for example, issued a statement on the day of the attack justifying the massacre by leveling false allegations of "targeted and indiscriminate killing of civilians, including innocent children" against Israel.

The big question is: has Greenblatt learned anything from this and from October 7?

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by Jack Elbaum

The pro-Hamas and antisemitic chants and statements made by those in connection with the encampment have even drawn comment from the White House: “While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous — they have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America.”

Here is a comprehensive list of the chants and statements that produced such a response.

A protester stood in front of pro-Israel students who were waving Israeli and American flags with a sign reading, “Al-Qassam’s next targets,” referring to the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization.

A man yelled at two Jews, “Never forget the 7th of October. That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 … 100 … 1,000 … 10,000 … The 7th of October is going to be every day for you.”

A crowd chanted, “Al-Qassam, you make us proud; kill another soldier now!”

Demonstrators yelled “Jews, Jews” in Arabic and others were saying “Go back to Poland.”

A group of demonstrators off-campus chanted, “We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!”

“Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!” 

“Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight!”

“It is right to rebel, Al-Qassam, give them hell!”

A person in the encampment said, during a speech, “Let it be known that it was the Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel] that put the global intifada back on the table again. And it is the sacrificial spirit of the Palestinian freedom fighters that will guide every struggle on every corner of the earth to victory.” 

She continued, “Remember that militancy breeds resistance. Thousands upon thousands of students around the world have been moved to rebel because of your militancy.” 

Members of the encampment created a “human wall” after a leader yelled, “Zionists have entered the camp!” The leader then directed the people there to take ���one step forward … push them out of the camp.”

When asked if he condemns Hamas, a Columbia student responded, “I don’t need to condemn anybody. I condemn you motherf—ker!”

Another student led the following chants: “From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab!” and “Resistance [Hamas] is justified!”

There are more at the link above.

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If you analyze the major criticisms of Israel, you will discover that every one of them is based on unstated but very real assumption that reveal not the truth about Israel but the anti-Jewish bias of the accusers.

These criticisms are framed in such a way that the truth, which are not antisemitic, is not even considered. As a result, facts that contradict the antisemitic assumptions are discarded and only the cherry-picked facts that support the antisemitism are mentioned.

This pattern becomes startlingly clear when you look at the major criticisms of Israel with both the antisemitic and non-antisemitic assumptions in mind.

Here are some examples.

Settler-Colonialism

The charge: Israel is a settler-colonialist state where Jews arrived from outside and claimed the land for themselves, pushing out the natives.

The unstated antisemitic assumption: Historically, Jews are not a people or a nation, and today's Jews have no history in the Land of Israel. 

The truth they want their audience not to consider: The Jews have been a people and a nation since Biblical times, a people whose lives remained centered around the Land of Israel in their daily prayers and dreams for millennia. 

When you remove the false antisemitic assumption, you see that the Jews were returning to their ancestral lands, not invading land that was never theirs. That is a narrative that the critics ignore and exclude from discussion. 

The charge is based on antisemitism, and when you remove the antisemitism, the accusation disappears.

"Pinkwashing," "Aidwashing" and others

The charge: Israel only pretends to hold progressive-friendly positions and engages in liberal, progressive activities (like being gay-friendly or sending doctors to disaster areas) in order to distract from and hide its crimes from the world.

The unstated antisemitic assumption: Jews are deceptive and liars.

The truth:: Jews generally tell the truth at least as much as other people, and it would be difficult to lie in an open, free society without serious repercussions. 

These kinds of charges cross the line into conspiracy theories, where the entire nation of Israel is colluding to fool the world and its entire purpose is immoral. The praiseworthy things it does are converted into evil, and the assumptions do not allow any other explanation that does not damn Israeli Jews.

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Yes, Babylon Bee is a satyrical site, but . . .

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by Virginia Kruta

Cruz’s response got straight to the point: “If this is a student, she should be expelled. If this is a #Columbia professor, she should be fired. No university should allow one member of the community to advocate the murder of other members of the community.”

Cruz was not alone in his sentiments, as others flooded X with comments on the photo. AG added a second post, saying, “This image also made me think of a great line I saw from @neontaster the other day: The difference between a radical anti-Zionist and a moderate anti-Zionist is that a radical anti-Zionist wants to kill you, and a moderate anti-Zionist wants a radical anti-Zionist to kill you.”

“This was the least of it. At least one Jewish student was attacked at Yale. Several Jewish students were threatened at Columbia,” AG added in another post. “There are videos of the crowds threatening violence, telling Jews to go back to Europe, cheering terrorism, celebrating the American flag being taken down. This is all happening on 2 American campuses. It’s clear that these campuses are clearly not safe for Jewish students right now and not particularly productive for others as they have been taken over by antisemitic and pro-terrorist mobs. This is all coordinated and well-funded by some national activist groups, but the schools allowed for it to get to this place by allowing those involved to keep pushing the line/normalizing such behavior and they hired faculty/administrators who encourage it. Now it’s up to these schools to figure out how to address these mobs. It’s their problem because their reputations are on the line and their failures that led us here. If they refuse to address it, they should face civil rights investigations, lawsuits from students, and permanent reputations loss.”

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by Shiryn Ghermezian

Several women interrupted Chelsea Handler’s comedy show in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday night in a coordinated effort to protest the Jewish comedian’s support for Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The incident took place at Handler’s show Little Big Bit**h at the Altria Theater. In a video that was shared on social media, one female audience member at the show stood up and shouted at Handler, “Murder. Mass Murder.” The pro-Israel comedian first replied, “I can’t hear you,” before adding, “Oh, honey, please. This is not what this night is for.” She then asked security guards to remove the protester from the audience.

Female demonstrators in the audience also yelled “Palestinian babies — you’re a genocide supporter” and “Free Palestine.” Some audience members who got frustrated by the show’s interruption helped authorities identify the protesters and were told by one of the activists, “You guys should be this angry about genocide, not people standing up.”

“Be angry about genocide and people dying — children are dying with our tax dollars,” shouted the same protester, referring to the US providing aid to Israel amid its war against Hamas terrorists controlling the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. After an audience member answered, “They should die,” the female protester replied, “They should die? Say that on camera.”

One protester was arrested by police and can be seen in the video being escorted away from the show in handcuffs. Handler also told the protesters, “Do you know that I’ve been on tour for a year and a half and this is the only city two people stand up? You guys really owe me an apology.”

The protesters appeared to be associated with the organization Here 4 The Kids, which said in an Instagram post that the demonstrators on Friday night “forced other white people to confront our American complicity in GENOCIDE, begging them to no longer remain silent after 195 days of massacre.”

“These are protestors who are AGAINST the indiscriminate slaughter of human beings,” the organization added, before telling Handler: “YOU owe Palestinians an apology. YOU owe every single orphaned Palestinian child AN APOLOGY. YOU owe HUMANITY an apology. Demand a Free Palestine.”

Handler said in 2022 that she stands with the Jewish community in its fight against antisemitism and in February of this year filmed a video with Israeli activist Noa Tishby to address misinformation being spread about Israel during the ongoing war in Gaza. She said in the clip that she is “pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas, and it is OK to question Israel’s policies and still be pro-Israel.” She also called Israel “our greatest defense in the Middle East for all of Western democracy and Western values.”

Although Handler has been critical of Israel over the years, she joined hundreds of celebrities in signing on open letter in October that thanked US President Joe Biden for supporting Israel after it launched a war targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The open letter also called on Biden to “not rest until all hostages are released.” Days after the Oct. 7 attacks, Handler, condemned Hamas and its “barbarism” in a statement.

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by Christine Rosen

It’s not as if their readers and viewers are unaware of the problem. According to Pew Research, the percentage of Americans who say Jews face discrimination has doubled from 20 percent in 2021 to 40 percent in 2024. And yet, for some reason, mainstream-media outlets seem to be the only ones who haven’t drilled down on the issue.

In fact, the decision to downplay the anti-Semitic threat from the left is deliberate. Left-leaning media do not like to cover the behavior of their own, as the inconsistent coverage of the Jew-baiting members of the Democratic Party’s “Squad” during the past several years attests. Mainstream reporters at outlets like the New York Times take great pains to provide context and explanations for Representative Ilhan Omar’s blatant anti-Semitism, for example. A 2019 piece gave Omar and her defenders ample space to claim she was being unfairly targeted for criticism because she was a progressive Muslim woman while glossing over the fact that she had repeatedly accused Jews of having dual loyalties.

Amid the current conflict, it’s evident there is tacit agreement among most in the mainstream media that because Israel is defending itself by trying to root out Hamas in Gaza, the behavior of protesters is somehow justifiable and acceptable—but only because it involves Israel and the Jews.

This goes well beyond the deliberately misleading stories and factual errors about the war that have appeared in outlets such as the Washington Post. As Zach Kessel and Ari Blaff outlined in National Review, in a deep dive of the Post’s coverage of the Israel–Hamas war, the newspaper “has been a case study in moral confusion and anti-Israel bias” and has “violated traditional journalistic principles that have shaped coverage of foreign conflicts by American newsrooms for decades.”

Similarly, a recent story in the Free Press by Uri Berliner, a long-time editor and reporter at National Public Radio, described how NPR “approached the Israel-Hamas war and its spillover onto streets and campuses through the ‘intersectional’ lens that has jumped from the faculty lounge to newsrooms,” which meant “highlighting the suffering of Palestinians at almost every turn while downplaying the atrocities of October 7, overlooking how Hamas intentionally puts Palestinian civilians in peril, and giving little weight to the explosion of antisemitic hate around the world.”

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