RSS
Biden Compares Hamas Attack to Holocaust in Antisemitism Warning
US President Joe Biden and Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) hold photographs of Holocaust victims on the day he addresses rising levels of antisemitism, at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, at the US Capitol building in Washington, US, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US President Joe Biden warned on Tuesday that the threat of antisemitism is growing in the United States, including on college campuses, as his support for Israel‘s military campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza divides Democrats and alienates some young voters.
In a speech honoring the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, Biden joined a heated American debate about Jewish security, Zionism, free speech, and support for Israel, in the country with the largest Jewish population after Israel.
Addressing a bipartisan audience at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual commemoration, he warned of the risk that the truth about the systematic killing of Jews during World War Two would be lost.
“‘Never again’ simply translated for me means: Never forget. Never forgetting means we must keep telling the story, we must keep teaching the truth,” Biden said at the US Capitol’s Emancipation Hall. “The truth is we’re at risk of people not knowing the truth.”
Biden spoke seven months to the day after Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that rules Gaza, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping over 250 others as hostages in what he has called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“This hatred [of Jews] continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world and requires our continued vigilance and outspokenness,” Biden said.
“Now here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later, and people are already forgetting … that Hamas unleashed this terror,” he said. “I have not forgotten, nor have you. And we will not forget.”
Biden’s speech came amid growing opposition, including from his administration, to Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 massacre. The Jewish state has waged a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and incapacitating the Islamist group to the point that it can no longer pose a major threat to the Israeli people. The Israeli war effort has sparked protests in the US demanding that universities and Biden withdraw support for Israel.
Biden acknowledged Americans’ right to protest and demonstrate, but didn’t mention the deaths in Gaza.
“We know scapegoating and demonizing any minority is a threat to every minority,” Biden said. “There is no place on any campus in America for antisemitism, hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
On Tuesday, Israeli forces seized the main border crossing between Egypt and southern Gaza as they prepared a possible offensive aimed at eliminating Hamas terrorists.
Biden said his commitment to Israel was ironclad, even amid disagreements with the country’s government. The US government has been holding up several shipments of weapons to Israel, a source told Reuters on Tuesday.
ANTISEMITISM, HATE CRIMES JUMP
Law enforcement and advocacy groups report a sharp rise in antisemitic attacks in the US since Oct. 7.
“Antisemitism is reaching crisis levels in our country,” said Carol Ann Schwartz, national president of Hadassah, a women’s Zionist organization that has been consulted by the White House.
Biden, who is in a tight race for the White House with Republican rival Donald Trump, pledged to unite the country.
He said he was inspired to run by then-President Trump’s response to the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, white nationalist rally, where marchers chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” Biden now governs a country no less divided than when he took office in 2021, most statistics show.
The FBI reported a 36 percent increase in anti-Jewish hate crime incidents between 2021 and 2022, the latest year for which data is available, as well as a jump in crimes against Black Americans and gay men.
More recently, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the outrages occurred after Oct. 7, during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
On college campuses specifically, the ADL report found that antisemitic incidents rose 321 percent, disrupting the studies of Jewish students and leaving them uncertain about the fate of the American Jewish community.
Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents have also skyrocketed to record highs in several other countries around the world, especially in Europe, since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.
CAMPUS PROTEST POLITICS
Trump has sought to exploit Democratic divisions over Israel‘s response and widening college protests to improve Republicans’ lot with Jewish voters, who traditionally vote Democratic.
Police crackdowns on some campuses have given ammunition to Trump’s claim that US cities are under siege from violent crime, illegal migration, and out-of-control leftist policies. Trump’s Republican Party has argued that the protests are driven by antisemitism.
“Jewish Americans are realizing that the Democrat Party has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-terrorist cabal,” said Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson.
Biden has asked the Department of Education to provide colleges with examples of antisemitic discrimination that could lead to a federal civil rights investigation, and technology firms to determine the best ways to monitor antisemitism online.
About seven in 10 US Jewish voters support Democrats, while three in 10 are Republican-aligned, according to the Pew Research Center.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by dozens of governments and hundreds of civic institutions around the world, to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws on college campuses.
To help clarify its definition, IHRA provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
Critics have argued the widely adopted definition is vague and infringes on freedom of speech, including the ability to criticize Israel.
The post Biden Compares Hamas Attack to Holocaust in Antisemitism Warning first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
RSS
UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
RSS
‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.