Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS

JNS.org – A Hamas terror cell in Nablus that received instructions and funding from the organization’s overseas headquarters in Turkey was dismantled by Israeli security forces in recent weeks in what observers say is part of a broader pattern of Turkey serving as a permissive hub for Hamas’s terror operations.

According to a joint statement by the Israel Police and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) issued on March 25, “a terror cell from Nablus was thwarted, which acted under the guidance and funding of Hamas headquarters in Turkey to carry out shooting and explosive device attacks.” The statement added that “an M-16 rifle and tens of thousands of dollars in cash were handed over during the investigation.”

Six suspects from Nablus were arrested between January and February in a joint operation by the Shin Bet, the Israel Police Central Unit of the Judea and Samaria District and the Israel Defense Forces.

The investigation revealed that the suspects had received approximately $40,000 from Hamas in Turkey to carry out shooting and bombing attacks against Israeli security forces and other targets in Judea and Samaria.

The Shin Bet stated that “the investigation revealed that the cell operated under direct guidance from the Hamas terror organization in Turkey,” and that “significant evidence was gathered which not only thwarted the planned attacks but also enabled the indictment of all involved.”

One of the suspects led security forces to a hidden roadside bomb buried near a key junction in Samaria. The large metal container filled with explosives was destroyed in a controlled demolition by police sappers.

Col. (res.) Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and former head of IDF Military Intelligence’s Department for Palestinian Affairs, told JNS on Wednesday, “Turkey at this stage constitutes one of Hamas’s most important operational hubs abroad.”

Milshtein noted that “in Lebanon, there’s been a decline [of Hamas activities] since the war—and Hezbollah is angry at Hamas for trying to heat up the border with rocket fire. In Syria, there is still rebuilding [of Hamas] after Assad’s fall, but it remains limited. As a result, Turkey has become a central nerve center.”

Milshtein added that Istanbul is home to Zaher Jabarin, the successor of Saleh al-Arouri, the late Hamas deputy political bureau chief [eliminated in an airstrike in Beirut on Jan. 2, 2024] who was responsible for Hamas’s Judea and Samaria operations across a variety of fields. “Most operations in Judea and Samaria—especially military ones—are promoted from there,” said Milshtein.

He added, “I assess carefully that Hamas finds it very convenient to operate in Turkey. There’s freedom of action, though not the same intense support as from Iran or Hezbollah. As long as they don’t establish military bases like in Syria, they are allowed to work freely, and of course, it is known that their focus is on promoting terrorism.”

Milshtein said there had been several reports indicating that “it’s not just a free hand, but also training, mainly in intelligence and commando fields, by Turkish security elements.” And, he stressed, “Turkey is a central NATO member.”

Under Jabarin, the core of Hamas’s Judea and Samaria command is run by operatives deported as part of the 2011 Shalit prisoner exchange.

“A minority are in Qatar and Gaza—where a number of senior headquarters operatives were eliminated during the war—but the core is in Turkey, led by Mousa Dudin,” said Milshtein.

A number of these terrorists were involved in attacks such as orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014. Milshtein said that this network also continues to explore “breakthrough moves like undermining the Palestinian Authority’s hold on the West Bank,” a strategic vision led by Arouri until his elimination.

Regarding potential counteraction, Milshtein said, “The question of operating against the headquarters in Turkey is very complex, similar to operating against Hamas figures in Qatar. Against those in Lebanon or Syria, there has been no problem, but any assassinations, even quiet ones, in an arena like Turkey would mean friction with Erdoğan, especially now that Ankara is more deeply involved in Syria.”

He concluded, “I assume that as with Arouri and Haniyeh, there would be a theoretical possibility to act against Hamas operatives from Turkey if and when they leave the country for a more convenient arena, such as Iran or Lebanon.”

Michael Barak, senior researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and a specialist on radical Islamist and jihadist movements, told JNS on Tuesday, “Turkey is a base for the Muslim Brotherhood. There are networks there that help Hamas with funding, support, religious rulings, and logistics. Turkey has become a reception point for Brotherhood members.”

Barak confirmed that “a Hamas headquarters still exists there—in Istanbul and Ankara—and it is integrated into educational institutions, including universities.”

He cited the example of Professor Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad financier in the 1990s who was deported from the United States and now operates from a university-affiliated think tank in Ankara. “There he hosts Hamas figures,” Barak said. “Al-Arian maintains ties with Hamas, runs webinars with them on Zoom, and manages Brotherhood-Hamas links, including in India.”

Barak emphasized: “All of these Muslim Brotherhood assets in Turkey assist Hamas—whether through dawa [Islamic outreach], financing, or religious rulings.”

He added that Turkey has become “a reception point for Muslim Brotherhood figures from Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.”

On March 30, during a Ramadan prayer service, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared, “May Allah, for the sake of his name … destroy and devastate Zionist Israel.”

He also prayed for “mercy upon the martyrs” of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and wished a “speedy recovery” to their wounded terrorists.

Erdoğan has intensified his anti-Israel rhetoric since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and asserting that “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.” Throughout the conflict, Erdoğan has met openly with Hamas officials and even threatened military action against Israel, according to the Washington D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Tyler Stapleton, director of congressional relations at FDD, warned, “Erdoğan’s call for the destruction of Israel should force the United States to begin an escalatory ladder of responses to hold Turkey’s leadership accountable.” He said the US should reassess arms sales to Turkey, warning that “Turkey’s ability to purchase advanced fighter aircraft like the F-35 should trigger congressional review.” He added that Washington “should continue to outline restrictions on foreign military financing and the exclusion of Turkey from NATO exercises” as initial steps to address Erdoğan’s hostility against Israel.

The post Turkey Has Become ‘the Central Nerve Center for Hamas Abroad’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami addressing the 2019 J Street National Conference. Photo: J Street via Flickr.

JNS.org – Since its founding, J Street has established itself as a far-left extremist organization that represents only a sliver of American Jewry. However, it attracts disproportionate media attention because it serves as a “man bites dog” story—Jews who oppose Israel. J Street published a 10-point manifesto to rationalize its positions, but its raison d’être can be summarized in a single sentence: To lobby the US government to impose the views of a small group residing far from Israel, who neither participate in its elections nor contribute their children to its military, upon the people of Israel, who alone bear the consequences of these misguided policies.

J Street’s manifesto opens by graciously acknowledging that “Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people,” but it quickly distorts history. It fails to mention that, beginning with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the international community recognized the Jewish people’s right to a national home in Palestine. Nor does it acknowledge that two-thirds of the land originally designated for the Jewish homeland was unilaterally excised to create Jordan.

The root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, stems from the Islamist desire to eradicate the Jewish people—a goal first championed in the 1920s by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Hitler-collaborating Mufti of Jerusalem. By 1947, Palestinians had already rejected multiple statehood offers, including the 1937 Peel Plan, the 1939 British White Paper and the 1947 U.N. partition plan. Instead of negotiating, Arab nations launched a war intended to annihilate Israel, not create a Palestinian state. The outcome of the war was the 19-year occupation of the West Bank by Jordan and of Gaza by Egypt. During that period, there were no demands by the Palestinians, the United Nations, human-rights organizations, campus activists or anyone else to end the occupation and create a Palestinian state. J Street conveniently ignores the repeated Palestinian refusals of autonomy in 1979 and statehood offers in 2000 and 2008.

Contrary to its assertion, Palestine was never the national home of the Palestinian people. The Jewish people trace their indigeneity to the Land of Israel to their exile from Egypt. If it had not been for foreign conquerors, Israel would be more than 3,000 years old. Still, Jews have been sovereign in their homeland altogether for more than 500 years. Arabs did not arrive in what the Romans first called Palaestina until the seventh-century Muslim conquest, and “Palestine” was never an independent state. In the early 20th century, Palestinian nationalism was not driven by a desire for independence but by the aspiration to become part of Greater Syria.

J Street claims that most American Jews support a Palestinian state. However, a May 2024 poll found that only 12% supported a state with no conditions, while just 25% would accept one that is demilitarized and accepts Israel as a Jewish state. What Americans think is irrelevant anyway. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians want a Palestinian state.

• A February 2025 survey by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs found that 75% of Israeli Jews opposed a Palestinian state.
• A 2024 PSR survey reported that 57% of Palestinians opposed a two-state solution, while 48% supported violent “armed struggle.”

Despite these facts, J Street insists that the two-state solution is the only way forward and that granting Palestinians independence is essential to guarantee Israelis’ safety. However, history has disproven this notion. Israel gave up land in the Oslo Accords and got suicide bombings; it withdrew from Gaza and got missile attacks culminating in the horrors of Oct. 7. Palestinian Islamists reject any Jewish presence, and the “secular” Palestinian Authority is committed to the destruction of Israel in stages.

J Street insists peace requires “statesmanship, diplomacy and compromise,” three characteristics totally absent from Palestinian society. It also overlooks that their vision would require the politically unacceptable evacuation of 100,000 or more Israelis from their homes.

J Street speciously claims that the “occupation” prevents its “acceptance.” This is demonstrably false. Israel has relations with 159 out of the 193 U.N. member states. Regionally, the Arab-Israeli conflict is over. Israel has formal relations with Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

J Street claims Israel’s policies threaten bipartisan support in the United States, yet Congress overwhelmingly backs Israel. Efforts to condition foreign aid, supported by J Street, were rejected.

J Street insists that American Jews can be “pro-Israel” while criticizing the Israeli government. However, Israelis have no obligation to listen to those who don’t live with the consequences. J Street lobbies the US government to coerce Israel’s democratically elected leaders, which is neither democratic nor pro-Israel.

J Street ignores that Israel was ready to withdraw from captured territories in exchange for peace after 1967, only to be met with the Arab League’s “Three No’s”: no peace, no recognition and no negotiations. The 2009 Fatah conference reiterated this stance: no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and no end to armed struggle.

In yet another omission, J Street says that Israel’s “occupation” was supposed to be temporary, forgetting that U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, the basis for all peace talks, tied Israeli withdrawal to the Arab states ending their belligerency. Israel was not obligated to give up all the territory it captured but still withdrew from roughly 94%. The Palestinians were not mentioned and given no political rights.

J Street criticizes Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, but says nothing about the repression of Palestinian rights by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

During the Obama administration, most Jews disagreed with his call to halt settlement construction. In 2019, only 25% supported dismantling all settlements; 41% supported dismantling some, while 28% opposed dismantling any. Meanwhile, a December 2024 poll found that only 29% of Israeli Jews opposed annexation, while 40% supported it.

The manifesto calls for “The 23-State Solution.” This is interesting because opponents of Palestinian statehood have long pointed out that since there are already 22 Arab states, there is no reason for a 23rd. Many people also note that Jordan is both geographically and demographically a Palestinian state. Yet another fact is that most Palestinians live in what was historically Palestine.

J Street falsely equates the “historical and emotional ties” to the land of Palestinians and Jews. They argue that adding another Arab state will lead to Israel’s acceptance by its adversaries and global recognition. The former, however, cannot be placated, and the latter has already been achieved.

The fact that all the peace agreements with Israel were made without concessions to the Palestinians proves that they are unnecessary. The Abraham Accords succeeded because the UAE and Bahrain were fed up with Palestinian intransigence and decided to put their interests first. J Street argues that Saudi Arabia will be different; however, the Saudis will likely follow the example of the others who normalized ties with Israel and bypassed the Palestinians—provided they get what they want from the United States.

J Street backs a return to the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and advocates a “diplomacy-first approach,” oblivious to the fruitless negotiations pursued by the Biden administration that allowed Iran to advance to the point it has the uranium to build multiple weapons.

Point eight reminds us that J Street added pro-democracy to its tagline. The problem is that it doesn’t support democracy unless the outcome suits its needs. The group rejects the democratic process in Israel because it disagrees with the representatives chosen by the people. The group also claims to support bipartisanship, yet it exclusively funds Democrats, including those who are openly hostile to Israel.

Regarding combating antisemitism, J Street defends antisemitic rhetoric under the guise of “criticism of Israel.” It falsely claims that right-wing groups exaggerate campus antisemitism while Jewish students face unprecedented harassment almost exclusively from the left. They mention “longstanding allies,” but not the fact that many turned on and often expelled Jewish students while endorsing Hamas. J Street defends radical groups that glorify terrorism, opposes anti-boycott legislation and objects to effective methods for motivating administrators to protect Jewish students.

Like other demonizers of Israel, J Street speciously attacks the internationally recognized (including the United States) definition of antisemitism proffered by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism by ignoring its explicit declaration: “Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

In its final catchall point that “everything else also matters,” J Street argues Jewish voters are not hawkish single-issue Israel voters. True, Jews don’t rank Israel high among the issues that determine their vote, and yet they consistently vote for pro-Israel candidates and oppose those who are anti-Israel.

The manifesto complains about “powerful and well-funded” lobbies, meaning AIPAC, which have those traits because they represent the bulk of the pro-Israel community. After years of being the largest “pro-Israel” PAC and filling Democratic candidates’ coffers, their funding is now dwarfed by AIPAC’s bipartisan support.

Reflecting its anti-democratic agenda, J Street denigrates “hawkish” voters, meaning conservative and Orthodox Jews who, in the last election, overwhelmingly favored Donald Trump in part or whole because of his positions on Israel. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, received the lowest percentage of the Jewish vote of any Democrat since Michael Dukakis, partly due to President Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel.

J Street pretends to represent Jewish interests, but its actions tell a different story. It supports policies that endanger Israel, disregards the will of Israelis and Arabs, and undermines Israel’s democracy.

The post J Street’s Dishonest, Anti-Israel, Anti-Peace, Anti-Democracy Manifesto first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on April 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters Connect

The 36 new special patrol officers announced last month by Columbia University were appointed by the New York Police Department and will be subject to the orders of the police commissioner, a Columbia spokesperson confirmed this week.

Columbia’s leaders applied to the city’s police commissioner for peace officers last year after they had twice called in NYPD to arrest anti-Israel student protesters who had set up an unauthorized tent encampment on a campus lawn last spring and barricaded themselves inside an academic building.

Columbia spokesperson Samantha Slater said the new officers had gone through the NYPD’s application process under New York state’s Peace Officers law, which allows individuals and corporations to apply to the NYPD commissioner to appoint their employees as special patrol officers. If approved, the appointed officers acquire the same powers of arrest and to use physical force as police officers.

“These laws give Columbia the authority to have Special Patrol officers, with the police commissioner’s appointment,” Slater wrote in an email in response to Reuters’ queries. “Columbia has individuals that meet the other requirements in the law such as a lengthy training program and have gone through the NYPD’s application process.”

She said the special patrol officers were authorized under the New York City administrative code that states they will “be subject to the orders of the commissioner and shall obey the rules and regulations of the department and conform to its general discipline.”

Under city law, Columbia pays for the training and the salaries of the officers appointed by NYPD, and they remain Columbia employees. But they will also “possess all the powers and discharge all the duties” of regular NYPD patrol officers. The Columbia officers must report any summonses they issue and bring anyone they arrest to the local NYPD precinct.

People they arrest will be detained and processed in an office on a Columbia campus about 20 blocks uptown from the main Manhattan campus until they can be handed over to the precinct, Columbia said.

After publication of this article, Slater, the Columbia spokesperson, disputed the characterization of the laws and emphasized that the officers were employees of Columbia.

“They are hired, selected, employed, and funded by Columbia,” Slater wrote in an email.

Reuters could not independently establish full details of how Columbia’s officers have gone through the hiring and NYPD appointment process.

A spokesperson for the NYPD said the patrol officers would be unarmed, but declined to respond to other questions. The new officers must complete 162 hours of state-certified training, Columbia said, and under the law be sworn in by the police commissioner. They will then be able to patrol Columbia’s privately owned buildings and gated plazas and lawns, which regular NYPD officers are generally not able to do.

Last spring, Columbia became the epicenter of an anti-Israel student protest movement that has roiled campuses around the world, drawing criticism from both Democratic and Republican politicians, donors and some students and faculty.

Columbia’s board of trustees and the 111 students, staff and alumni who make up the University Senate have frequently been at odds over the best way to handle the protests.

The board of trustees appointed its co-chair, Claire Shipman, as interim university president last week.

Columbia’s new officers have the same powers of warrantless search and arrest as any other police officer under New York’s peace officer law. The state law permits the officers to use “physical force and deadly physical force in making an arrest or preventing an escape.”

Slater said that the officers will work with the university’s public safety office, but – unlike Columbia’s 117 civilian safety employees – will have powers to “remove individuals from campus, issue citations and make arrests, if necessary and appropriate.”

The plan was underway months before US President Donald Trump returned to the White House. His administration, citing what it described as antisemitic harassment on and near the campus, demanded last month that Columbia tighten its protest rules or permanently lose federal funding. One of the nine demands was that the school deploy peace officers with arrest powers.

This week, Columbia’s Office of Public Safety updated its website to say the new officers will allow Columbia “to respond more effectively and promptly to campus disruptions, while reducing our reliance on the NYPD.”

Members of the Senate, the rule-making body that shares university governance with the trustees, said the trustees and president’s office had informed them Columbia was seeking to recruit peace officers, but has not told them that NYPD has any involvement in the patrol officers they have hired.

Dr. Jeanine D’Armiento, a professor of medicine and the chair of the Senate’s executive committee, and two other senators who asked not to be named, told Reuters that the president’s office had repeatedly declined to tell them who in New York’s government was authorizing the officers.

Columbia’s Slater said the university was complying with all its bylaws and in the post-publication letter said “the fact that Columbia was looking to expand its safety team with peace officers has not been a secret.”

The post Columbia University Adds 36 New Campus Patrol Officers with Powers of Arrest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.