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Our Own Worst Enemies
PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool
JNS.org – It’s bad enough that we have real enemies who are attacking Israel; the last thing we need is “friends” who, perhaps with the best of intentions, are undermining Israel’s case in the United States. One example is an organization I have never heard of, the A-Mark Foundation, which erroneously believes “clear, concise and unbiased information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is difficult to find.” Maybe, if you don’t bother to look. My publication, Myths and Facts, has only been around for 60-odd years (originally published by the founder of AIPAC), and the legacy Jewish organizations have produced plenty of material. My first impulse was to think, “Let a thousand flowers bloom,” but then I saw that the material is based on the work of UCLA professor Dov Waxman, a frequent critic of mainstream American Jewry and one of the signers of an anti-Israel screed published before Oct. 7 (another was Harvard University professor Derek Penslar, who Harvard naturally put on its antisemitism task force).
If the material A-Mark published, based on Waxman’s book, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know, is any indication of his scholarship, students at UCLA are in trouble, as are any readers of the A-Mark answers to the “10 Common Questions About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Waxman exemplifies the worst of woke academia, where facts don’t matter as much as narratives, and their truthfulness or speciousness is irrelevant because everyone’s narrative is their truth. He says both sides dismiss the others’ narratives as myths. He doesn’t acknowledge that facts can be distinguished from myths. It’s a flypaper version of history where there are two sides, and it doesn’t matter which side the fly lands on.
The first paragraph in the “unbiased” answer to question one on what the conflict is about is misleading and inaccurate, reducing it to the two peoples fighting over one piece of land cliché. The religious dimension of the conflict is ignored completely; that is, the Islamic rejection of a Jewish presence on “Muslim land” from the days of the Mufti to Hamas today.
He dates Palestinian nationalism to the mid-19th century, which is untrue. People at that time identified themselves by clans and religion. In the 1920s, the Palestinians began to talk about wanting to be part of Greater Syria, not an independent state. The Jews wanted to return to their homeland and were willing to share it. Unhappily, they accepted the reduction of the size of the Jewish homeland.
Starting in 1937—and as recently as 2008—the Palestinians were offered opportunities for statehood nine times and rejected every one. The Palestinians’ disinterest in independence during the 19-year Jordanian/Egyptian occupation is not mentioned.
It is simply taken for granted that the Palestinians should get a state just because they want one. The Kurds and Basques have a greater claim to independence. Why are only Palestinians entitled to one?
Waxman gives equal weight to the Jewish and Palestinian claims to indigeneity. He acknowledges evidence of Jewish roots in the land dating to antiquity while Palestinians didn’t arrive until after the Muslim conquest, but then contradicts this inconvenient fact by claiming that “it is impossible to definitively know who was here first.” He then asserts a blatant falsehood, suggesting that Jews believe they descend from the Canaanites, and further insinuates that there is validity to the baseless Palestinian claim to be related to them.
The explanation of Zionism is facile and misleading, calling it “a diverse set of beliefs.” No, Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people are a nation entitled to self-determination in their homeland, which is Israel. There are different “flavors” of Zionism debating how this should be achieved and what the state should look like, but not the objective.
The Arabs believe the Zionists are colonialists, but Waxman shows they are the antithesis. He acknowledges that the Arabs are wrong but says their view “is completely understandable in the context of that time.” We are no longer in that time, however, so when Israel’s detractors say it now, it is simply a lie.
His version of how the Palestinians became refugees in the first place is mostly wrong, starting with the exaggerated number of 700,000.
Ephraim Karsh’s research has shown the number was no more than 609,000, and United Nations and CIA estimates were roughly half that. Waxman repeats the Arab canards about the Palestinians being expelled as part of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing,” but acknowledges most Palestinians “probably” were not expelled. The facts are well-documented that Palestinians were forced to leave in a handful of instances, and not for “ethnic cleansing” but to protect Israeli soldiers from being attacked from the rear. The Arab narrative further dissolves if you know thousands of Palestinians left before the war began, that Israel encouraged Arabs to stay, and 250,000 remained to become full citizens.
Most Palestinians left because they didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire of the war. He cites historian Benny Morris to discredit the idea that many Palestinians fled because their leaders encouraged them to make way for the invading armies and promised they’d be allowed to return to their homes—and those of the Jews. Morris, however, said that “Arab officers ordered the complete evacuation of specific villages” and that “there can be no exaggerating the importance of these early Arab-initiated evacuations in the demoralization, and eventual exodus, of the remaining rural and urban populations.”
There is plenty of documentation about the leaders’ role if Waxman bothered to look.
The discussion about the fate of the refugees is also inaccurate. Refusing to allow enemies who left their homes to return is not a violation of international law. Other refugee populations were resettled, but it was the Arab states that prevented the Palestinians from becoming citizens in their countries. Israel offered to allow some refugees to return in exchange for a peace agreement; the Arabs rejected the idea.
Waxman cites U.N. Resolution 194 as granting Palestinians a “right to return”; however, that is a selective reading of the resolution, which conditioned their return on a willingness to live at peace with their neighbors and called for their resettlement. Also omitted is the fact that the Arab states voted against the resolution because it was adopted when they still believed that they would drive the Jews into the sea. Like all General Assembly resolutions, 194 is not legally binding.
He also incorrectly states that Israeli leaders have not accepted any compromises regarding the Old City; former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert offered them. Omitted is the Palestinians’ rejection of those proposals.
On the borders of a future state, Waxman has accepted Palestinian propaganda that Palestinians have abandoned their claim to the majority of the land they believe should be theirs and are being asked to take only 22% of Palestine. It is Israel that is only 22% of historic Palestine, and if Israel withdrew from the disputed territories, it would possess only about 18%. Today, some 73% of Palestinians live in “Palestine.”
The evidence that the Palestinians have not abandoned their goal of destroying Israel and claiming the land from the river to the sea is clear from Palestinian Authority maps. Furthermore, Israel has already withdrawn from more than 90% of the territories it captured in 1967, including all of Gaza and 40% of the West Bank. It is not obligated to return any more land. Waxman also accepts that the territories are “occupied” when they are disputed. Israel cannot occupy land that was part of Israel but never a sovereign Palestinian state. Moreover, an occupier is a nation that attacks another and then retains the territory it conquers. One that gains territory while defending itself, like Israel, is not in the same category.
In another distortion of historical fact, Waxman says Netanyahu doesn’t want to negotiate. That is true during the war, but he was willing and did in the past. It is true that Netanyahu opposed Oslo, but he didn’t repudiate it and agreed to further withdrawals in negotiations with PLO head Yasser Arafat.
Waxman refers to current P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas as “a staunch advocate of the peace process” even though he has refused to negotiate since 2008, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to stop incentivizing terrorism. He falsely equates religious Zionists and Islamists. Extremist Jews are a minority, with no say in policy towards the Palestinians and no charter calling for the murder of their neighbors. The Palestinian public elected Islamists, who took over the Gaza Strip, and immediately started acting on their desire to destroy Israel and kill Jews.
If you wonder why there is so much hostility towards Jews and Israel on campus, look no further than the professors who teach already ignorant students that facts don’t matter, only narratives. By disseminating misinformation about history, they hinder genuine understanding of the conflict. Worse still, they push a false equivalence between the positions of Israelis and Palestinians, distorting reality and perpetuating animosity.
The post Our Own Worst Enemies first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials
Illustrative: Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, US, April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
Yalies4Palestine attempted to establish a so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Beinecke Plaza section of Yale University’s campus on Tuesday evening, prompting a quick disciplinary response from the administration.
The students were told in no uncertain terms that refusing to discontinue the activity by an 11 pm deadline set by administrators would result in disciplinary sanctions, according to a report by the Yale Daily News. Prior to that, they obstructed Jewish students’ right to walk through campus, according to videos posted to social media by a Jewish student at Yale.
Jewish students aren’t allowed to walk through Yale’s campus anymore! pic.twitter.com/ywa8Z7V6KU
— Netanel Crispe (@NetanelCrispe) April 23, 2025
Such action blocking Jews from parts of campus elsewhere has triggered a lawsuit in which the US Justice Department recently filed a statement of interest.
“The group’s activities violated Yale’s time, place, and manner polices,” a university spokesperson told the News when asked about the incident. “University officials clearly articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them.”
The students eventually left after Yale’s assistant vice president for university life, Pilar Montalvo, walked through the area distributing cards containing a message which implored students to “Please stop your current action immediately. If you do not, you may risk university disciplinary action and/or arrest” and a QR code for a webpage which explains Yale’s policies on expression and free assembly.
The cards triggered a paranoiac fit, the News reported. Upon receiving them, the students became suspicious that the QR code could be used to track and identity those who participated in the unauthorized protest. “Do not scan the QR code!” they began to chant. They left the area soon after, the paper added, clearing the way for public safety officers to photograph and remove the tents they had attempted to pitch.
According to the News, the protest was triggered by an upcoming off-campus event at which Israel’s controversial national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — who has called for annexing the West Bank and the emigration of Gaza’s residents — will be hosted by Shabtai, a student group not formally recognized by the university.
Writing to The Algemeiner in a message titled “Yale Maintains Calm Campus and Takes Disciplinary Action,” the university took credit for preventing a style of protest that could have lasted for weeks and upended the campus during final exams. It also confirmed that disciplinary sanctions have already been meted out to several students who participated in Tuesday’s unauthorized demonstration despite having been punished for committing the same infraction in the past.
“University officials articulated Yale’s policies and the consequences of violating them and actively cleared the area, which has remained clear since that time,” a spokesperson wrote. “During the interaction, staff identified students who had been warned or disciplined in previous incidents that violated university policy. Those students have received written notice today that they are subject to immediate disciplinary action.”
The most severe sanction handed down is the revocation of Yalies4Palestine’s status as a registered student organization, which proscribes their holding events on campus indefinitely. Additionally, the group will no longer enjoy access to funds that subsidize club activities and is deprived entirely of the privilege of assembling on university property. A string of transgressions precipitated the action, Yale said in Wednesday’s statement, noting that the group had been forewarned on Monday that it had exhausted the university’s tolerance for its misconduct.
“Concerns have been raised about disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering,” the statement continued. “The university is investigating those concerns, as harassment and discrimination are antithetical to learning and scholarship. Yale condemns antisemitism and will hold those who violate our policies accountable through our disciplinary processes.”
Yale University has ample cause to claim credit for quelling the would-be encampment and punishing those who were involved in it. The Trump administration has been impounding federal funds previously appropriated to universities that allow pro-Hamas demonstrations and promote excessive “wokeness.”
In March, it cancelled $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.” Brown University’s federal funding is also reportedly at risk due to its alleged failing to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its alignment with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.
Most recently, the Trump administration cancelled $2.26 billion in federal funding for Harvard University following the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter shared by interim Harvard president Alan Garber, the policies called for included “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [DEI initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard is now suing the administration in federal court to halt its sequestering of grants and contracts paid for by the American taxpayer. However, resolving the complaint could take months, and any money confiscated from Yale before a ruling in that case is rendered could cause catastrophic levels of harm that lead to hiring freezes, job cuts, and unsustainable borrowing, a measure to which several universities, including Harvard, have resorted to cover budget shortfalls.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Yale University Students Abort Anti-Israel Encampment Attempts After Warning From Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Abbas Calls Hamas ‘Sons of Dogs,’ Pushes for Palestinian Authority Control Over Gaza
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a leadership meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Hamas “sons of dogs,” while urging the terrorist group to release the Israeli hostages held in Gaza and bring an end to the war.
“The first priority is to stop the war of extermination in Gaza. It must be stopped – hundreds are being killed every day,” Abbas said in a televised speech at the Palestinian Authority’s Central Council on Wednesday.
“We are facing grave danger that could lead to a new catastrophe — a Nakba,” he continued. Many Palestinians and anti-Israel activists use the term “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
During his speech, Abbas pressed Hamas to cede control of the war-torn enclave to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and give up its arms — a demand his ruling Fatah party has reiterated in efforts to reunite Gaza and the West Bank under what it describes as “a single national authority.”
“Hamas must transfer control of Gaza and its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, and transform into a political party,” Abbas said.
However, Hamas has previously rejected calls to disarm — a key condition in ceasefire negotiations with Israel and the United States — dismissing them as “impossible conditions” and a red line the terrorist group insists it will not cross.
“Any truce lacking real guarantees for halting the war, achieving full withdrawal, lifting the blockade, and beginning reconstruction will be a political trap,” Hamas said in a statement last week.
Hamas violently eliminated Fatah, its Palestinian opposition, in a brief conflict in 2007, when the terrorist group took full control of Gaza after winning legislative elections the prior year.
In his speech, Abbas once again denounced Hamas for negotiating with the United States, accusing the group of “undermining Palestinian unity” — a criticism the PA has voiced before.
He also condemned what he described as Israel’s actions to uproot Gaza’s residents from their homes, calling it a “new Nakba.”
“We reject this. It’s an inseparable part of our land — what’s happening in Gaza is also happening in Jenin, everywhere,” Abbas said, seemingly referring to Israeli counterterrorism operations in the West Bank.
Israeli leaders have said they support voluntary emigration from Gaza for those who wish to leave but not forced displacement.
Abbas delivered his speech during a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he is expected to announce a successor, addressing international concerns about the PA’s ability to govern the enclave during reconstruction efforts.
“Our vision for achieving peace in the Middle East is based on ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state,” Abbas said during his remarks.
He added that the PA’s goals are “returning the hostages, lifting the Israeli blockade of Gaza, stopping the displacement of our people in coordination with Arab countries, and defending the ‘Palestinian cause.’”
This is not the first time the PA has attempted to publicly separate itself from Hamas while simultaneously pursuing Palestinian reconciliation talks. However, PA officials have been regularly rationalizing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and in some cases even denying it took place or falsely claiming Israeli forces carried out the onslaught that started the Gaza war.
The PA, which has been riddled with accusations of corruption, has also long maintained a so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis, leading critics to question whether the PA can effectively govern Gaza.
Abbas’s remarks came as Egyptian and Qatari mediators continued working to restore the January ceasefire agreement, which had halted fighting in Gaza before it broke down last month.
The BBC reported this week that mediators from Egypt and Qatar presented a new framework to both parties, which included a five-to-seven-year truce, an end to Israel’s war in Gaza, the release of all remaining Israeli hostages held in the enclave, and the release of an undisclosed number of Palestinian detainees.
The latest round of talks in Cairo last week aimed at salvaging the ceasefire and freeing Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough.
Hamas said it would no longer agree to interim deals, but rather called for a “comprehensive package negotiation” to secure the release of all remaining hostages in its custody in exchange for an end to the Gaza war, the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and the reconstruction of the enclave.
“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” Khalil Al-Hayya, the terrorist group’s Gaza chief who leads its negotiating team, said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to facilitate hostage releases and potentially start indirect talks to end the war, but Hamas has already rejected one of its conditions — that it lay down its weapons.
The Palestinian terrorist group released 38 hostages under a ceasefire that began on Jan. 19. In March, Israel’s military resumed its ground and aerial offensive in Gaza, after Hamas rejected proposals to extend the truce without ending the war.
Israeli officials have said that the offensive will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Gaza is demilitarized. However, Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war.
The post Abbas Calls Hamas ‘Sons of Dogs,’ Pushes for Palestinian Authority Control Over Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Global Antisemitic Incidents Decreased in 2024 From Post-Oct. 7 Surge but Remain Alarmingly High, New Study Finds
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
Antisemitic incidents worldwide decreased in 2024 following the record surge that followed the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but they remain significantly higher than levels recorded prior to the attack, according to a new report published on Wednesday.
Just hours before the start of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday night, Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, in collaboration with the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights, and Justice, released its Annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report, which focuses on anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2024.
“Antisemitism is not just a problem of the past or a fringe issue,” said Professor Uriya Shavit, the report’s editor. “It is a mirror to our societies. And in 2024, that reflection is still deeply troubling.”
The 160-page study revealed that anti-Jewish hatred, which spiked in the wake of the Hamas onslaught, continues to persist across continents a year and a half into the ongoing Gaza conflict.
“Contrary to popular belief, the report’s findings indicate that the wave of antisemitism did not steadily intensify due to the war in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster there,” Shavit said. “The peak was in October-December 2023, and a year later, a sharp decline in the number of incidents was noted almost everywhere.”
“The sad truth is that antisemitism reared its head at the moment when the Jewish state appeared weaker than ever and under existential threat,” he continued.
Australia saw the most significant rise in anti-Jewish incidents, with 1,713 recorded in 2024, compared to 1,200 in 2023 and 490 in 2022.
Despite the sharp surge in anti-Jewish hate following the Oct. 7 attacks, Australia recorded 478 incidents between October and December 2024, a notable drop from the 827 incidents reported during the same period in 2023.
A rise in antisemitism compared to pre-war norms continued into this year. In February, for example, Australia experienced a scandal in which two nurses were caught on video vowing to kill Israeli patients, prompting outrage from authorities. After the video went viral, both nurses were suspended and permanently barred from employment within the New South Wales state health system. They were later charged with crimes.
The United States also saw notable increases in anti-Jewish incidents, especially in cities like Chicago, Denver, and Austin. The Anti-Defamation League released its own report on Tuesday showing that antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” in 2024, with the civil rights group recording 9,354 antisemitic incidents last year.
In New York, the city with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, police recorded 344 antisemitic hate crimes in 2024, up from 325 in 2023 and 264 in 2022. Last month, Jews were the targets of more hate crimes than any other group, according to police data.
However, between October and December 2024, New York saw 68 antisemitic incidents, a sharp decline from the 159 incidents recorded in the same months of 2023.
Canada recorded a record-breaking 6,219 anti-Jewish incidents in 2024, up from 5,791 the previous year. Although members of the Jewish community make up less than 1 percent of the country’s population, they were targeted in one-fifth of all hate crimes.
“Around the world, levels of antisemitism remain significantly higher compared to the period before Oct. 7,” Shavit said in a statement.
In Europe, Italy experienced a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate, with 877 incidents reported in 2024 — nearly double the 454 recorded in 2023.
Switzerland and Spain both saw a rise in antisemitic activity in 2024. For example, nearly 2,000 antisemitic incidents were reported in French-speaking Switzerland last year — an increase of 90 percent from 2023. The German-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking regions recorded a 43 percent rise compared to 2023 and a staggering 287 percent increase compared to 2022.
One of the most notorious recent cases was the Zurich attempted murder, in which an Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and left with life-threatening injuries by a Swiss teenager, an Islamic State supporter of Tunisian origin.
On the other hand, France reported an overall decline in antisemitic incidents in 2024, but there was a concerning rise in physical assaults. The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
Last week, a Jewish man wearing a Star of David pendant was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Villeurbanne, a city in eastern France that is home to the country’s second-largest Jewish community. In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a Paris suburb last year. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack.
In the United Kingdom, 3,528 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, down from 4,103 in 2023 and 1,662 in 2022. The country also saw a sharp decline in October, with 310 incidents reported in 2024, compared to 1,389 in the same month of 2023.
Despite recording an 18 percent drop in anti-Jewish hate crimes from the previous year’s all-time high, the UK still experienced its second worst year for antisemitism in 2024.
In Germany, 5,177 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, down from 5,671 in 2023 and 2,811 in 2022. During the October-December period, 671 incidents were reported in 2024, a significant decrease from 3,163 in the same period of 2023.
In South America, both Argentina and Brazil experienced increased antisemitic activity in 2024. For example, Argentina saw a 44 percent rise in reported anti-Jewish hate crimes compared to the previous year.
The post Global Antisemitic Incidents Decreased in 2024 From Post-Oct. 7 Surge but Remain Alarmingly High, New Study Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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