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Israel Is Being Treated Worse After October 7 Than the US After September 11
The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
News that the US will build a “temporary pier” in the Mediterranean Sea to facilitate transfer of humanitarian aid to the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip should feel like déjà vu to anyone who was politically aware at the dawn of the 21st century.
After the worst terrorist attack against the US in its history on September 11, 2001, “the world” reacted sympathetically at first. But it didn’t last long. After the worst terrorist attack against Israel in its 75-year history on October 7, 2023, the world’s sympathy was as ephemeral as an Ivy League “pro-Palestine” hunger strike.
The US and Israel were consoled and pitied — until they fought back. Then they were suddenly portrayed as aggressive colonizing villains, each seeking to impose its version of “empire” on an oppressed “other” while meting out “collective punishment.”
“Nous sommes tous Américains” (“We Are All Americans”), said the French paper Le Monde on September 12, 2001. Parisians brought flowers to the US embassy, and sang the “Star Spangled Banner” outside Notre Dame Cathedral. One week later, French president Jacques Chirac became the first foreign leader to visit Ground Zero, where he said, “Today it is New York that was tragically struck, but tomorrow it may be Paris, Berlin, London.”
But soon, the French turned on the US and began to urge restraint. After October 7, the sick, weak antisemitic countries showed their usual glee over Israel’s suffering. Unalloyed contempt from Iran, Iraq, Qatar, and Syria, whose leaders blamed Israel for the Hamas pogrom, was predictable. Kuwait, a relative newcomer to the Palestinian cause, excused the October 7 attack as “a result of the continued violations and blatant attacks committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against the brotherly Palestinian people.” Saudi Arabia worried that the attack would jeopardize the “two-state solution” that it had been urging as part of a contemplated deal that would see Riyadh join the Abraham Accords.
From non-Muslim countries, Israel received only a fraction of the sympathetic fellowship showered on the US after 9/11, and the blowback came even quicker when the Jewish state went on the offensive against Hamas.
In European displays of sympathy, the Israeli flag was projected onto the Brandenburg Gate in Germany, the Berlaymontin Brussels, and the EU Parliament Building in Strasbourg. The Eiffel Tower was lit up in blue and white and the Star of David, but soon France and the rest of Europe were demanding that Israel stop fighting and accept a ceasefire that everyone knew would allow Hamas to regroup and rebuild.
French President Emmanuel Macron was criticizing Israel: “These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed,” he told the BBC, adding “there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”
Early on Joe Biden expressed support, promising that the US would “not ever fail to have [Israel’s] back,” but soon he became critical, urging “restraint,” cautioning against “indiscriminate” bombing, and criticizing Israel’s conduct as “over the top.” When he rightly said that no one should believe Hamas’ statistics on casualties and deaths, the fringes of his party attacked him, so he apologized for telling the truth and promised “to do better.”
Unique among nations, only the US and Israel will simultaneously fight our enemies and feed those enemies’ children. After the Bush administration’s declaration of a “Global War on Terrorism,” preparations to root out and destroy Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan began. But the US fought the world’s first politically-correct war, dropping leaflets explaining that only Al-Qaeda and the Taliban would be targeted. Then the US dropped tons of food and other humanitarian supplies on Afghanistan long before dropping a single bomb or putting a single “boot on the ground.” But even that was not enough for critics of the “American Empire.”
After Israel declared war against Hamas, it decided to continue providing Gazans with electricity, potable water, and medicine, even as Hamas held Israelis (and Americans) hostage. Anyone who ridicules the claim that the IDF is the most moral army in the world is not paying attention to how it has prioritized the safety of Gazans over the safety of its own soldiers.
As former Labor Party Knesset member and IDF intelligence officer Einat Wilf points out, “Israel has actually put its own soldiers at risk in order to ensure the ability of numerous civilians to evacuate to safety.”
After 9/11, the US attempted to win the “hearts and minds” of both the people who harbored Al-Qaeda and tolerated the Taliban, and the “international community.” We spent years walking the tightrope between dismantling and building a nation, between executing battles and peace-keeping missions. Sometimes the line between the two was hopelessly blurred.
After 10/7, Israel dropped leaflets warning civilians in Gaza of impending combat and “established safe corridors” for them to escape the fighting. (No such safe corridors were afforded to the free-spirits at Nova music festival to escape death and rape). Israel even continued providing electricity and water to its enemy after a brief cessation. It has also allowed medicine and food to enter Gaza. And it has been steadily pushed, especially by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to recognize a Palestinian state — effectively rewarding Hamas for its assault on October 7.
Ultimately, the US project in Afghanistan must be judged a failure. Democracy could not take root in the tribal, Islamist setting. A Pashtun Thomas Jefferson did not spring from the soil to promote the inalienable rights of all Afghans. Today, the Taliban is back in control, and Afghanistan is again a failed-state, and a safe harbor for terrorist organizations. The engineers of that failure are now urging Israel to replicate the failure in Gaza.
In December, Biden sent US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to advise Jerusalem how to “wind down” operations, as if the guy who oversaw the US “wind down” of operations in Afghanistan is qualified to advise anyone on how to succeed militarily.
At a press conference following the meetings, Austin claimed both that the US would “continue to stand up for Israel’s bedrock right to defend itself,” while also reminding Israel that the US would “continue to urge the protection of civilians during conflict and to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
Citing “the clear principles laid down last month by my friend, Secretary Blinken,” Austin pushed the two-state chimera, arguing that “it is in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians to move forward toward two states, living side by side in mutual security.”
With the Biden administration pushing Israel to replicate the US’ failed Afghan war strategy in Gaza, how soon will it be until Antony Blinken announces a US-led, UN-supervised “loya Jirga” in Gaza?
Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Senior Fellow A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow. A version of this article was originally published by IPT.
The post Israel Is Being Treated Worse After October 7 Than the US After September 11 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Accused of Targeting Jews at Home and Abroad as 14 Nations Condemn Assassination Plots
People walk near a mural of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Britain, the United States, France, and 11 other allies issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning a rise in Iranian assassination and kidnapping plots in the West, as a new report warned Tehran has been intensifying efforts to target Jewish communities abroad.
On Tuesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report detailing Iran’s systematic violations of religious freedom, both domestically and through operations targeting individuals abroad.
Within Iran, despite officially recognizing Judaism, the Islamist government also “publicly demonizes Jews as enemies of Islam, denies and distorts the history of the Holocaust, [and] surveils Jewish houses of worship,” the report said.
By promoting such antisemitic views and permitting assaults on Jewish sacred sites throughout the country, “authorities have nurtured a hostile environment in which Iranian Jews feel increasingly threatened.”
According to the report, Iran is also “directly engaging criminal networks abroad to carry out attacks against Jewish targets and make Jews in Europe unsafe,” especially in the aftermath of the recent 12-day war with Israel.
The study revealed that the Iranian regime continues to promote and incite antisemitism abroad — through criminal networks, social media, and online platforms — and has actively recruited gangs across Europe “to carry out attacks on Israeli embassies and Jewish sites, including houses of worship, memorial centers, restaurants, and community centers.”
On Thursday, Western allies condemned a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services targeting individuals across Western countries, urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt these illegal activities.
“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the joint statement read.
The new report and joint statement came as Iran continued to defy international demands regarding its nuclear program, facing mounting pressure and new US economic sanctions aimed at compelling a return to nuclear talks.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that “the road to negotiation is narrow” in the wake of the recent conflict with Israel and the United States.
Araghchi also insisted that Washington must agree to compensate Iran for the losses suffered during last month’s conflict if it hopes to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table.
“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks],” the top Iranian diplomat said. “And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done.”
However, Araghchi also reaffirmed that a deal would be off the table as long as US President Donald Trump continued to demand that Iran commit to zero uranium enrichment.
“We can negotiate, they can present their argument, and we will present our own argument,” Araghchi said. “But with zero enrichment, we don’t have a thing.”
On Wednesday, the United States announced a new round of economic sanctions targeting Iran and entities tied to its oil trade, as part of continued pressure on the Islamic Republic “until Tehran agrees to a deal that promotes regional peace and stability, and abandons all aspirations for nuclear weapons.”
As for negotiations with Europe, Araghchi said during the interview that Tehran would walk away from the talks if European powers continued on their current course, accusing them of failing to honor their obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement.
“With the Europeans, there is no reason right now to negotiate because they cannot lift sanctions, they cannot do anything,” the Iranian diplomat said. “If they do snapback, that means that this is the end of the road for them.”
Under the terms of the UN Security Council resolution enshrining the 2015 accord — which imposed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for large-scale sanctions relief —international sanctions could be reimposed on Iran, restoring all previous UN economic penalties including those targeting Iran’s oil, banking, and defense sectors, through a “snapback” mechanism that would take about 30 days. France, Britain, and Germany have warned they would reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran if no new agreement is reached by the end of August.
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ADL Files Civil Rights Complaint Against Baltimore City Public Schools, Alleging Rampant Antisemitism
Baltimore City Hall is seen in Baltimore, Maryland, US, May 10, 2019. Photo: Stephanie Keith via Reuters Connect
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has filed a Title VI civil rights complaint against Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), alleging that officials refused to respond to allegations of antisemitism in a manner consistent with US federal law.
“All schools have a fundamental obligation to maintain a learning environment that protect students from discrimination,” ADL vice president of litigation James Pasch said in a statement announcing the action. “On this essential measure of keeping its Jewish students safe from harassment and intimidation, Baltimore City Public Schools have failed.”
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like. Teachers behaved even worse than students, the complaint said. At Bard High School, an English teacher performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
In every case, according to the complaint, BCPS officials “slow-walked” investigations, deflecting parents’ inquiries into their status with bureaucratic spin even as they denied Jewish students justice. Moreover, the ADL continued, BCPS was first notified of an antisemitism problem on its campuses over a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel stoked anti-Jewish hatred. The ADL alleged that the school system’s refusing to take action constituted a textbook example of a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids public schools receiving federal funding to treat students unfairly on the basis of race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry.
“Parents of Jewish students in Baltimore have pleaded repeatedly with BCPPS to take decisive action to stop the harassment of and discrimination against their Jewish children. Their pleas have been ignored,” the complaint said. “Jewish students and parents have filed more than a dozen reports with BCPS. In each case, the schools have labeled these weighty allegations as ‘inconclusive’ and appear to have taken action against the perpetrators.”
The ADL is calling on the school system to take imminent, remedial steps to address antisemitism, including adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, requiring BCPS officials to undergo trainings on the history of antisemitism and how to fight it, and additions to school curricula which educate students about the history of anti-Jewish bigotry and its harms.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), described a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, the compaint said, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint which recounted the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on the grounds of the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino, California — being beaten with a stick, told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student admitted that the behavior was motivated by the victim’s being Jewish. Despite receiving several complaints about the treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials allegedly declined to punish her tormentors.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement at the time of the filing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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France, Spain Locked in Diplomatic Dispute Over Removal of French Jewish Teenagers From Flight
A Vueling aircraft approaches landing at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, as Vueling employees prepare for strike, in Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
The forced removal of French Jewish teenagers from a flight in Spain has triggered political outrage in France, after their group leader was handcuffed by Spanish police and a government minister insulted the teens as “Israeli brats.”
French ministers Aurore Bergé and Benjamin Haddad have sharply criticized Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente’s comments and denounced the Spanish government’s overall response to the incident.
Earlier this week, Puente referred to the group of teenagers as “Israeli brats” in a post on X, which he quickly deleted after it went viral and sparked widespread condemnation.
The French ministers issued a strong rebuke of the remarks for “equating French children who were Jewish with Israeli citizens, as if this in any way justified the treatment they were subjected to.”
“At a time when antisemitic acts have been on the rise across Europe since the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, we call on Vueling [the airline of the flight in question] and the Spanish authorities to fully investigate and clarify the events,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
“We will never accept the normalization of antisemitism. We will always stand with our fellow citizens who suffer from antisemitic hatred, and we will never compromise,” the French officials continued.
Last week, a group of 50 French Jewish students was forcibly removed from a plane in Valencia — reportedly for singing in Hebrew — an incident that resulted in the arrest of their summer camp director, who has accused Spanish law enforcement officers of using excessive force against her.
According to her lawyer, she was left with bruises on her legs, arms, and body after being harshly handcuffed and placed in an arm lock.
“No action justified the disembarkation or the excessive and brutal use of force by the Civil Guard against the young woman, who has just been notified of 15 days of total incapacity to work,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
The Spanish low-cost airline Vueling denied the allegations, insisting the incident was not related to religion but rather that the group was causing a disruption.
In a statement, the airline asserted that the group was removed because of its members’ “highly combative attitude that was putting the safety of the flight at risk.”
After meeting with the group’s counselor on Tuesday, Bergé and Haddad said she denied the official version of events, emphasizing that the crew was hostile from the beginning and that the group’s removal and the Civil Guard’s response were unjustified.
The children, aged 10 to 15, are members of the Kineret Club — a summer camp for Jewish families run by the Matana charitable association — which had just concluded their trip in the coastal resort town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, between Valencia and Barcelona.
According to local reports, the children were singing in Hebrew while boarding the plane to return home, which prompted a hostile response from the crew.
Witnesses reported that the group stopped singing at the crew’s request and complied quietly with boarding instructions, yet airport police still intervened and ordered them to disembark.
Other passengers on the plane who witnessed the incident reported that staff made antisemitic remarks toward the group, including one employee who allegedly referred to Israel as a “terrorist state.”
Last week, amid an ongoing investigation into the incident, French authorities reached out to the CEO of Vueling and the Spanish ambassador to France to assess whether the group was subjected to religious discrimination.