RSS
Leading law conference drops UN Israel investigator after Hamas attack
(New York Jewish Week) – A United Nations official leading an investigation into Israel was dropped from the schedule of a prominent international law conference in New York City, where she was due to receive an outstanding achievement award and deliver a keynote address.
The investigator, Navi Pillay, is a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and currently heads the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was slated to receive an Outstanding Achievement Award and speak at International Law Weekend, a gathering hosted from Oct. 19 through 21 by the International Law Association’s U.S. branch.
Last month, however, dozens of centrist and right-wing Jewish groups protested the decision to honor Pillay, signing onto a letter urging law firms to drop their sponsorship of the event. The letter accused Pillay of working “to further a demonstrably discriminatory agenda against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”
She will still receive the award, but in another setting, and will deliver her speech via webinar at a later date, according to an email the American branch of the law association sent to its board following what it called an “emergency meeting” held Oct. 11, in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the subsequent war.
According to the email, the award “will not be withdrawn,” and Pillay is listed as this year’s recipient on the association’s website. The email said the conference had attracted “significant attention and controversy” for the group and the event’s sponsors. The decision to “decouple” the award from the conference was made “both out of sensitivity to the outbreak of hostilities over the weekend and due to security concerns for Judge Navi Pillay and others participating.”
Pillay’s name was on the conference program a few days before Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, according to an archived web page. Her name does not appear on the current version of the program.
The International Law Association has 63 branches and more than 4,800 members, according to its website. The International Law Weekend, hosted by the association’s American branch, is one of the world’s leading annual conferences on international law. The association’s American branch and Pillay’s U.N. commission did not respond to requests for comment, and the association made no public statement regarding her removal from the program.
Four prominent law firms, including two headquartered in New York, were also removed from the conference’s list of sponsors ahead of the event, as was Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. In their letter protesting the event, the coalition of Jewish groups had asked three of the firms — Debevoise & Plimpton; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and White & Case — to cut ties with the conference due to Pillay’s participation. The fourth firm was Winston & Strawn. The firms and Y.U.’s law school did not respond to requests for comment.
Israel, the United States, Jewish groups and other countries have accused Pillay’s commission and the Human Rights Council of bias against Israel. And Pillay has long been a bête noire for pro-Israel groups. As the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from from September 2008 though August 2014, she often criticized Israel’s actions against Gaza, drawing rebuke from more than 100 members of Congress. The U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly both condemn Israel more than any other country.
Pillay’s Commission of Inquiry overwhelmingly blames Israel for its conflict with the Palestinians. Her recent reports, issued before Oct. 7, have not described Hamas as a terror group and rarely mention Israeli terror victims. The commission’s report released a year ago did not mention Hamas at all. Hamas applauded the commission last year.
One member of the three-person investigation, Miloon Kothari, said last year that the “Jewish lobby” controls social media and questioned why Israel was allowed membership in the U.N. Pillay defended Kothari, saying the comments had been “taken out of context.” After the incident, Pillay dismissed charges of antisemitism against the commission as “lies” and a diversion.
Pillay also oversaw the so-called Goldstone report into Israel’s military operation in Gaza in 2008-2009, which accused Israel of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians. The report’s lead author, Richard Goldstone, later retracted allegations made in the contentious report, but Pillay has defended the investigation and continues to cite it in her reports for the Commission of Inquiry.
Last year, Goldstone received the award that Pillay is receiving this year. A co-author of the Goldstone report, Christine Chinkin, is the chair of the International Law Association. Last year, Jewish groups criticized the conference for holding a panel on apartheid featuring several harsh critics of Israel.
Following the Oct. 7 attack, the commission said it was collecting evidence of war crimes committed by “all sides,” criticized “armed groups” from Gaza for killing civilians and condemned Israel’s response.
Pillay delivered her latest report, which was written before the current war, to the General Assembly on Tuesday. The report blames Israeli actions in East Jerusalem for Hamas rocket attacks, and criticizes Israel for taking military action against the terror group. The report was delivered on the same day that Israeli officials called for the resignation of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after he said Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”
—
The post Leading law conference drops UN Israel investigator after Hamas attack appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.