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Hebrew University Professor Suspended After Calling to Abolish Zionism, Casting Doubt on Oct. 7 Atrocities
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has suspended a senior faculty member after she advocated the destruction of Zionism and called into question accounts of the Hamas terror group’s atrocities during its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, including mass rape and other sexual violence.
Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian of the Faculty of Law came under fire following an expose on Israel’s Channel 14 News, which showed clips of her saying, “It is time to abolish Zionism — it can’t continue; it is criminal.”
The professor also said, “We need to remember this [Israel] is a dishonest state … it’s a killing machine … They will use any lie — they started with babies, they continued with rape … I hope the world will stop believing them.”
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s suspension was announced on Tuesday.
“The Hebrew University is proud to be an Israeli, public, and Zionist institution, and condemns with disgust Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s shocking and outrageous statements,” the university’s president, Asher Cohen, said in a statement. “As in the past, the heads of the university repeat their call for Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian to find another academic home for herself, which is compatible with her positions. At this point and in order to maintain a safe climate on campus for the benefit of our students, the university has decided to suspend her from teaching.”
Mounting evidence over the last five months has revealed Hamas’ systematic use of rape and other forms of sexual violence, including torture, against Israeli women and girls during its Oct. 7 onslaught, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 others kidnapped as hostages.
Last month, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel published an extensive report submitted to the UN detailing the sexual violence occurring both during the Oct. 7 Hamas assault and afterwards against hostages abducted by the terror group.
Then last week, the UN released a report concluding that Hamas likely committed mass acts of gang-rape and torture against women during its massacre across southern Israel and may today still be abusing women kept as hostages in Gaza.
According to eyewitness accounts and forensic experts, Hamas also murdered babies during its Oct. 7 invasion.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s statements “take freedom of expression and academic freedom to the extreme and use it cynically to incite and incite,” the Hebrew University added in its statement. “Since the beginning of the war, Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian has been speaking out in a disgraceful, anti-Zionist, and inflammatory manner. On Oct. 29, in an exceptionally serious letter, on behalf of the university’s president, we suggested that she consider leaving her position. Shalhoub-Kevorkian did not respond to the request, and continues to enjoy the reputation of our magnificent institution, while embarrassing us at the Israeli and international level.”
The suspension was praised by Sharren Haskel, a member of Israel’s parliament who petitioned the Education Ministry and the Hebrew University to discipline the professor following the Channel 14 report.
“In the universities, zero patience is required towards incitement against the State of Israel,” Haskel wrote. “I thank the Rector for responding to my request for the suspension of the lecturer, and call for any call to incitement to be dealt with in a similar manner.”
The largest Zionist grassroots group in Israel, Im Tirtzu, also called for Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s suspension following the publishing of her remarks.
“Congratulations to the Hebrew University for the suspension of the inciting lecturer,” the group’s chairman, Matan Peleg, said in a statement. “We thank our thousands of supporters who sent thousands of letters overnight to the university administration to have her fired. Suspension is not enough … We would recommend her to move to a university in Gaza, but this university was destroyed by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], thank God. Maybe in Ramallah they are looking for inciting lecturers.”
The post Hebrew University Professor Suspended After Calling to Abolish Zionism, Casting Doubt on Oct. 7 Atrocities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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