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A Serb Killer Breaks Bread with Hamas

Posters of Vojislav Šešelj, founder and president of the far-right Serbian Radical Party, May 2012. Photo: Wikimedia commons.

JNS.org – “Politics makes strange bedfellows,” goes the old Victorian saying. In the harrowing weeks that have followed the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, we’ve seen radical feminists aligning with rapists who tortured and violated young women at a music festival, Jewish “peace activists” aligning with terrorists who would quite happily slaughter them along with all their relatives, and Western liberals marching arm-in-arm with Islamists bellowing antisemitic chants in Arabic.

However, at least to my mind, the alignment of a Serbian war criminal from the 1990s with the Hamas murderers of the 2020s is the strangest and most unsettling of all.

Vojislav Šešelj (pronounced “Sheshel”) was the founder of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), which he still chairs, and the main inspiration behind the White Eagles, a vicious Serb paramilitary organization responsible for numerous atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia. Šešelj first emerged in the 1980s, when rising, belligerent Serb nationalism heralded the breakup of what used to be Yugoslavia. During the 1990s, when he served for a time as Serbia’s deputy prime minister, Seselj played an instrumental role in orchestrating and cheering Serb atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia. For the first decade of this century, he was locked in a jail cell at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, where he was on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Diagnosed with cancer in 2014, Šešelj was released. He returned to Serbia and was sensationally acquitted in The Hague before an appeal in 2018 secured his conviction for crimes against humanity. Reached by telephone in Belgrade by a Reuters reporter after the appeal verdict was announced, he declared: “I am proud of all my war crimes and crimes against humanity and am ready to repeat them.” The majority of the victims of those crimes were the largely secular Balkan Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, whom Seselj would contemptuously dismiss as “pan-Islamists” and “Turks.”

Since that conviction, I haven’t had occasion to think about Šešelj—in my estimation, a truly evil individual who derived a visceral pleasure from his acts—until this week, when I saw a photo of him hosting the Palestinian Ambassador at the headquarters of the SRS in Belgrade. I will admit that I did a double take, not quite believing that someone who instigated a genocide against members of the Muslim faith was now embracing, and being embraced by, Palestinian Muslims in the Middle East.

In the process, Šešelj outed himself as an antisemite. Again, that was somewhat surprising given that some of the more opportunistic Serb nationalists sought to win sympathy in Israel and among Jews by invoking the brutal Nazi occupation of Serbia, and then misrepresenting the Serbs as victims of the Nazis in the same manner that the Jews were. (No reasonable person could question the suffering of the Serbian nation under Nazi occupation; but equally, no reasonable person could examine the historical record and conclude that the Nazis slaughtered Serbs with the same devotion and the same justification that they applied to the 6 million Jews at their mercy.)

Interviewed by a nationalist outlet after his meeting with the Palestinian envoy, Šešelj (recall again, a man convicted for crimes against humanity) “expressed his understanding for the just struggle of the Palestinian people and great concern over the genocide that Israel is carrying out against the Palestinians, seeking a basis for its genocidal intent in the Bible of the Old Testament.” This recasting of the Hebrew Bible as the point of origin for Israel’s supposed iniquities is a well-worn antisemitic trope; Christians in medieval Europe invoked the jealous God of Israel as a counter to the universalist message of Jesus Christ, and later on, Soviet Communists touted sacred Jewish texts as embodying the reactionary ideology of Judaism. Its sole purpose, like all antisemitic tropes, is to sow hatred of all Jews everywhere.

Šešelj also inserted a hefty dose of anti-Americanism into his remarks, depicting Serbia as a target of U.S. imperialism by way of NATO’s war to liberate Kosovo in 1999—the same U.S. imperialism backing Israel now, he underlined. And in other media appearances, such as a television interview in mid-October, Šešelj has hammered the same themes. “Hamas is above all an ideology,” he said. “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a typical liberation organization that wants to liberate the Palestinian territories. They want freedom for the Palestinian people, and they want a Palestinian state.”

No slights against Muslims, no mention (of course!) of his role in stirring up the ethnic hatred that sparked a genocide against them in Bosnia and then Kosovo. The Šešelj of 2023 could be taken for a representative of the Iranian regime or, given the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf he has now taken to draping around his portly frame, a pro-Hamas demonstrator in Paris or New York City.

Are Šešelj and Hamas strange bedfellows? On one level, the answer is yes, insofar as Šešelj has a history of stoking hatred against Muslims that would make the most hardened Islamophobes blush. But that’s not the whole story.

Fundamentally, Hamas and Šešelj share the same worldview: hatred of Jews, hatred of America and a burning desire to fight both using any means, no matter how bestial. In the atrocities of Oct. 7, Šešelj would have recognized something of himself in the perpetrators, particularly in the manner in which they dehumanized their victims. When I saw the Israel Defense Forces’ heart-wrenching video of the atrocities at the Israeli Consulate in New York earlier this month, I was reminded of many parallels—the Nazis, most of all—but also the Serb paramilitaries who murdered their way through Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo 30 years ago. The bond between Šešelj and Hamas is one of hatred forged with the blood of those they loathe.

As Israel’s defensive war in Gaza rolls on, I expect many more such alliances—on the one hand, unlikely, but on the other, perfectly natural—to emerge in the coming months.

The post A Serb Killer Breaks Bread with Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Here’s What New York’s Governor Needs to Do About CUNY

CUNY pro-Hamas students and supporters setup encampment at the school’s campus in New York City on April 25, 2024. Photo: Steve Sanchez via Reuters Connect

It is time for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to put some teeth into New York State’s Executive Order 157, by disciplining the Professional Staff Congress of CUNY. 

According to New York State’s Office of General Services, Executive Order No. 157 (EO 157) directs State entities to “divest all public funds supporting the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. The first-in-the-nation action will ensure that no State agency or authority engages in or promotes any investment that would further the harmful and discriminatory Palestinian-backed Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in New York State.”

This Executive Order was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 5, 2016. EO 157 is still in effect.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC) is the union that represents approximately 30,000 professors and staff who are employed by the City University of New York (CUNY) and the CUNY Research Foundation.

PSC membership is open to full-time and part-time professors, and staff who have retired. On January 23, 2025, the delegate assembly of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) approved the, “PSC and NYCERS [sic] Israeli Investments Divestment Resolution” (PSC BDS Resolution). The Delegate Assembly is the principal governing body of the Professional Staff Congress, and the policy forum for the PSC. The Assembly discusses, debates, and designs the policy positions of the PSC. This resolution calls for divestment of PSC assets from Israel and Israeli companies. 

Here is the relevant part of the resolution:

And, be it further resolved that the Professional Staff Congress shall divest its own funds from any investment vehicle that includes in its portfolio stocks and bonds of Israeli companies and Israeli government bonds no later than the end of January 2026, and shall continue in good faith to try to meet that investment objective.

The PSC resolution clearly supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement that seeks to weaken, isolate, and delegitimize Israel. The PSC resolution states: 

Whereas, in the past, such as during the period of apartheid rule in South Africa, American institutions such as colleges and labor unions have used the tool of divestment to show their disapproval of state policies that violate international human rights laws, and also to weaken those states economically.

This PSC CUNY resolution places the PSC in direct conflict with the State of New York. How can the CUNY PSC be the representative of CUNY employees if New York State is prohibited from negotiating and signing contracts with the PSC?

I am a member of the CUNY Professional Staff Congress and I am outraged. I hope I am not alone.

The January, 2025 resolution of the PSC Delegate Assembly is just like their June 10, 2021 “Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People” (CUNY PSC Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People, June 10, 2021).

The 2021 screed is a one-sided polemic that places the entire blame for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians squarely on Israel. It is clear from the text of the 2021 resolution — “Whereas, Israel’s pattern and practice of dispossession and expansion of settlements, dating back to its establishment as a settler colonial state in 1948” — that the PSC views Israel as an imposed state, not a legitimate country. 

EO 157 asserts: “the State of New York will not permit its own investment activity to further the BDS campaign in any way, shape or form, whether directly or indirectly” (EO 157). 

The intention of the PSC to divest its assets from Israel and Israeli companies is clear support of the BDS campaign, and this requires Governor Hochul to act.

It is now incumbent upon Hochul to enforce EO 157 and cut direct and indirect financial support to the PSC until the PSC revokes its commitment to actively support the BDS campaign. 

The first move by New York State should be to add the PSC to the list of “Institutions or Companies Determined to Participate In Boycott, Divestment, or Sanctions Activity Targeting Israel” (List of Companies and Institutions that engage in BDS Activity). The second step should be to exclude the PSC from future discussions and negotiations with New York State.

The BDS movement does the propaganda work of Hamas and prolongs the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis. By passing the BDS resolution, the PSC has become complicit in prolonging this catastrophic war that was launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The PSC is certainly not advocating for peace, but rather for the destruction of Israel. 

Charles A. Stone is a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

The post Here’s What New York’s Governor Needs to Do About CUNY first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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The Bibas Children Were Murdered in Cold Blood; Why Won’t the World Admit It?

Ariel and Kfir Bibas. Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum

We are publishing the details confirmed by Israel regarding the Bibas family‘s deaths because Yarden Bibas has expressed his wish for the world to know how his beloved wife and children were killed.

According to Israeli officials, four-year-old Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir Bibas were strangled to death by their Palestinian captors. Their bodies were then mutilated with rocks to simulate the effects of an airstrike.

These findings were confirmed in a forensic examination conducted in Israel after Hamas returned their remains in yet another macabre spectacle in Khan Yunis, where armed terrorists paraded black coffins on stage before an exhilarated crowd.

While the identities of Ariel, Kfir, and fellow hostage Oded Lifshitz—who was also abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz—were quickly confirmed, forensic tests revealed that the remains Hamas had claimed were Shiri Bibas’ actually belonged to an unidentified Palestinian woman. Shiri’s body was only handed over later, transferred to the Red Cross in Gaza before being returned to Israel on Friday.

Israeli officials have determined that Shiri was murdered in the same brutal manner as her sons in November 2023.

The world witnessed the sheer savagery of Hamas terrorists and the Palestinian civilians who joined them as they stormed across the border into Israel on October 7, 2023.

Many of us remember, in excruciating detail, some of the most horrifying moments of that day: the terrorist who called his father to boast that he had killed ten Jews “with his own hands,” using the phone of a woman he had just murdered alongside her husband. The body of Shani Louk, brutalized and lifeless, paraded through Gaza on the back of a pickup truck as a crowd of civilians jostled to further desecrate her remains. The terror on Noa Argamani’s face as she reached for her boyfriend while being sandwiched between two Palestinian men on a motorbike, abducted into Gaza.

Yet even among these horrors, the cold-blooded murder of a mother and her two young children stands apart. It is difficult to grasp such evil, and yet we must. We must say it, again and again: Shiri Bibas and her sons were murdered in Gaza by Palestinian terrorists with their bare hands, their bodies mutilated afterward. They did not die in an airstrike, as Hamas has falsely claimed, and no media organization should be permitted to repeat this lie—parroting the very group responsible for the atrocities of October 7.

Since the release of their bodies, along with six hostages—including two who had been held captive by Hamas for over a decade—we have publicly called out several media organizations that continue to promote the grotesque falsehood that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Among them: MSNBC, TIME, and the Associated Press.

The tragic confirmation of the Bibas family’s deaths has laid bare—like no other event—just how deeply the Western media has normalized the propaganda of an Islamist terrorist organization that is banned in every single country where these outlets operate.

The New York Times, for example, referred to the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz as “prisoners” of Hamas, a grotesque distortion of reality. NPR described Hamas handing over the wrong body of Shiri Bibas—despite their prompt delivery of her remains on Friday, proving they knew exactly where she was—as a simple “mistake.” ABC News and The Telegraph went so far as to cast doubt on whether the wrong remains had even been handed over, framing Israel’s DNA-confirmed identification as a mere “allegation.” Both outlets only corrected their reports after swift intervention from HonestReporting.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post obscenely referred to Ariel and Kfir Bibas as “youths”—using language that mirrors Hamas’ own dehumanizing rhetoric. And then there was the BBC’s Jon Donnison, who equated Hamas’ staged propaganda spectacle with Israel, declaring that the “propaganda efforts by both [were] pretty nauseating.”

Let that sink in. A journalist, paid by British taxpayers as per the BBC‘s funding model, compared the parading of the bodies of Israeli children before a crowd in Gaza to something he imagines Israel is doing. It is beyond the pale.

And yet, when HonestReporting’s Editorial Director, Simon Plosker, called Donnison out on X (formerly Twitter), the BBC journalist’s response was frankly embarrassing.

This is where we are now. In some cases, particularly when media outlets issue rapid corrections, these distortions can be attributed to laziness. But in others—like Donnison’s—it is simply Western media acting as a PR machine for a terrorist organization. And in his case, he’s doing it on the British public’s dime.

The pattern is clear: When Hamas lies, too many journalists rush to print it. When Israel tells the truth, they call it an “allegation.”

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The Bibas Children Were Murdered in Cold Blood; Why Won’t the World Admit It? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Mahmoud Abbas Tells PLO He Will Continue ‘Pay-for-Slay’ — Despite What He Told the World

The opening of a hall that the Palestinian Authority named for a terrorist who killed 125 people. Photo: Palestinian Media Watch.

With great fanfare, Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas declared to the world that he had stopped the PA’s terror rewards program known as Pay-for-Slay, and that families of terrorists would receive welfare benefits like everyone else in need.

However, speaking to the Fatah Revolutionary Council last week, he contradicted that statement — saying that he would not deduct even one penny from what the PA has been giving to the prisoners and Martyrs.

According to Abbas, “They must receive everything, as it was in the past.”

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PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “We again emphasize that we are proud of the sacrifices made by the Martyrs, prisoners, and wounded … I told you once and I stand by my word: Even if we have [only] one penny left, it is for the prisoners and Martyrs. I will not agree, and you will not agree, to reduce any obligation, any interest, or any penny given to them. They must receive everything, as it was in the past, and they are more precious than all of us! … [emphasis added]

[Mahmoud Abbas, YouTube channel, Feb. 21, 2025]

Palestinian Media Watch had already reported last week that the PA had not stopped the terror rewards payments, and that it was merely paying them from a different account. Since this account also includes welfare recipients, the real amounts paid to terrorists will be harder to determine.

A statement by the head of the Board of Trustees of the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI), the mechanism that will be making the payments, noted that the program is “identical,” which seems to confirm what Abbas declared to his Fatah members, namely that the salaries will remain the same.

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PNEEI Board of Trustees Director Ahmed Majdalani: “It’s not true and not accurate that the financial, ethical, and moral obligations towards all the families who received aid are being abandoned.

On the contrary, the new law also attempts to concentrate and institutionalize this aid in the framework of an identical and unified program on the Palestinian lands without discrimination and in accordance with the accepted international standards.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV News, Feb. 10, 2025]

It is clear that Mahmoud Abbas is lying to someone — either to the Western donor countries (as he continues to pay high salaries as terror rewards), or to his own PLO/Fatah leaders by saying he will not cut the funds.

Palestinian Media Watch will be following and will continue updating.

Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), where a version of this article originally appeared.

The post Mahmoud Abbas Tells PLO He Will Continue ‘Pay-for-Slay’ — Despite What He Told the World first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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