RSS
How the Media Has Abused the Memory of October 7, 2023
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
Almost immediately after Oct. 7, 2023, the Guardian began what can be described as the abuse of Oct. 7th memory: failing to acknowledge that, on that Shabbat day, Jews in southern Israel were victims of the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust, while framing the story instead as one about Israel’s military response to that (Trigger Warning) savage pogrom. As we’ve documented, other British outlets’ coverage of the racist massacre and its aftermath have often mirrored that of the Guardian.
This partly explains the legitimization given by journalists at these outlets to the genocide libel against Israel. This toxic and intellectually unserious narrative obfuscates the antisemitic-inspired cruelty and barbarism of those willing Palestinian executioners who carried out the mass murder, rape, torture, and mutilation of men, women and children – an atrocity inspired by Hamas’s annihilationist antisemitic ideology.
Downstream from this Oct. 7th massacre erasure is the widespread failure of these same outlets to acknowledge the scale of the antisemitic surge in diaspora communities since Hamas’ attack, and that pro-Palestinian ‘activists’ have been responsible for the vast majority of this historically unprecedented outbreak of anti-Jewish rhetoric, intimidation and violence.
Why? In part because those who’ve long believed in the purity of the Palestinians and the righteousness of pro-Palestinian movement are – like ideological extremists in previous eras – resistant to even the most undeniable evidence contradicting their beliefs.
So, before pivoting to a Guardian op-ed by Rachel Shabi, which, though putatively about antisemitism, manages to erase both the malign anti-Jewish obsession which inspired Oct. 7th, as well as the British antisemitism which, perversely, the attacks on Israeli Jews spawned, let’s briefly highlight the depth of the problem.
CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report January-June 2024, released last summer, revealed 1,978 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded across the UK in the first six months of the year, “the highest January-to-June total ever reported to CST.“ These record figures, CST noted, were driven by anti-Jewish reactions to the war between Israel and Hamas:
Number of incidents, January-June, 2014-2024
The CST also reported that university-related antisemitic incidents in Britain rose dramatically, from 53 incidents in the 2022-23 academic year to 272 incidents in the 2023-24 academic year. CST contextualised the more than 500% increase in antisemitism on campuses to the same wave of anti-Jewish hatred following the Hamas massacre.
It’s important to note that CST is very careful to include in their data only incidents which are clearly antisemitic.
So, though CST “received an unprecedented number of reports of pro-Palestinian campaigning at universities that featured extreme, sometimes violent, rhetoric towards Israel”, and support for terrorism, they didn’t include them in their count “because they did not meet CST’s criteria for recording as antisemitic due to a lack of clear evidence of anti-Jewish language, motivation or targeting.“
So, the numbers would be dramatically higher if the charity included incidents of anti-Israel extremism which, while not falling within the organization’s criteria for labeling something antisemitic, still make most Jewish students feel hated and unsafe.
Further, there’s the antisemitic impact that’s hard to quantify, but to which there’s much anecdotal evidence – such as Jewish artists being excluded from British cultural life because they refuse to denounce Israel.
Not surprisingly, according to a poll by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in Oct. 2024, nearly three in four respondents said they feel less safe as a Jewish person living in the UK since the Oct. 7th massacre.
Yet, on Dec. 31st, the Guardian continued in its effort to gaslight Jews about this tsunami of anti-Jewish racism largely under the guise of pro-Palestinian activism since Oct. 7th, publishing an op-ed by Rachel Shabi titled “The term ‘antisemitism’ is being weaponised and stripped of meaning – and that’s incredibly dangerous.”
Shabi, who’s been denying the proven link between hatred of Israel and hatred of Jews qua Jews for over a decade at the Guardian, and who rarely if ever has a found a ‘real’ instance of anti-Jewish hatred from the pro-Palestinian left, has clearly not allowed events over the last 15 months, as well as the actual fears of British Jews, to intrude on her beliefs.
In her op-ed, for instance, she legitimises the incendiary libel that Israel is committing genocide, while saying nothing about Hamas’s medieval-style barbarism – including their live-streamed torture, mutilation and beheading. She decries that “accusations of antisemitism raised to counter criticism of Israel have gone into overdrive“ — while ignoring the weekly anti-Israel marches in London routinely infested with justifications for, and outright celebrations of, the terror groups’ sadistic murder spree, as well as outright antisemitism and the intimidation of Jews.
Shabi, as Guardian columnists so often do, defends those participating in the anti-Israel demos as merely Britons “crying out for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza” — as if they were peaceniks opposed to all violence, ignoring that condemnations of Hamas, or calls for the terror group to surrender and release the hostages, are never heard at such rallies.
In fact, the cruel tearing down of hostage posters by ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists has become common in London and other major cities.
Further, as The Times revealed, the main groups organising the London marches include some, such as Palestinian Forum in Britain, with reported links to Hamas, and others which supported the Oct. 7th massacre.
Shabi’s egregious dishonesty is especially evident when when she admits that ‘real’ “antisemitism is” indeed “increasing globally“, and that “Britain’s Jewish community has experienced verbal and physical attacks“ — while failing to call out the far-left anti-Israel extremism that’s behind this historically unprecedented spike in anti-Jewish incidents.
While Shabi’s obfuscation of pro-Palestinian antisemitism and her claim of Israelis “weaponising” antisemitism are morally indefensible, it’s, as we noted, completely in line with the editorial direction at the outlet regarding Oct. 7th and its aftermath, content which, for instance, included a Oct. 24, 2023, op-ed accusing Israel of “weaponising the Holocaust,“ and another one more recently accusing Israelis of “weaponising” Oct. 7th commemoration.
What we’ve seen day after day at the outlet since Oct. 7th is antisemitism atrocity deflection, inversion, revisionism and erasure that’s redolent of attempts after World War II – by the Arab and Muslim world, the extreme Left and the extreme Right – to deny and distort Holocaust history and its memory.
What’s truly disturbing however is that, unlike Holocaust deniers and revisionists, who have generally been consigned to the political fringes and rarely given platforms by major media outlets, the whitewashing, obfuscation and inversion of Oct. 7th – one of the most vicious and deadly antisemitic rampages in Jewish history – is not only socially acceptable, but has become de rigueur within mainstream journalistic circles.
The moral rot within institutions that have effectively normalized the rendering of Oct. 7th as a non-event can’t be overstated.
The author is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
The post How the Media Has Abused the Memory of October 7, 2023 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
European Jewish Leaders Demand EU Action After Belgian Police Raid Mohels’ Homes, Raising Religious Freedom Concerns
Police pictured at an Anderlecht supporters village at the Atomium, before the final of the ‘Croky Cup’ Belgian soccer cup, between Club Brugge and RSC Anderlecht, May 4, 2025. Photo: BELGA/HATIM KAGHAT via Reuters Connect
Dozens of European Jewish leaders are calling on the European Union to take action against Belgium over recent police raids on the homes of several trained circumcisers known as mohels — a move that has drawn sharp criticism and intensified fears over growing restrictions on religious practices.
On Wednesday, 60 rabbis and Jewish community leaders, led by the European Jewish Association (EJA), urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to call on the Belgian government to address the mounting concerns of Jewish communities regarding the recent raids.
In a formal letter, they argued that the Belgian police’s actions “represent a breach of an EU fundamental right, that of freedom of religion” and warned that this “echoes one of the darkest chapters in European history.”
“This alarming action directly targets Brit Milah — a sacred commandment that has been safely practiced by the Jewish people for thousands of years across the world,” the EJA wrote in a post on X.
“Out of deep concern for the preservation of religious rights and the protection of Jewish communities in Europe, the European Jewish Association has launched an urgent and coordinated campaign to defend Brit Milah,” the statement read.
On May 14, Antwerp police raided the homes of three mohels, confiscated religious instruments, and demanded a registry of circumcised infants. This alarming action directly targets Brit Milah — a sacred commandment that has been safely practiced by the Jewish people for thousands… pic.twitter.com/N2WqVG3ysd
— EJA – EIPA (@EJAssociation) July 16, 2025
In May, Belgian authorities raided the homes of several mohels in Antwerp, a northern Belgian city, seizing their circumcision tools after a local anti-Zionist Jewish rabbi filed a complaint.
A mohel is a trained practitioner who performs the ritual circumcision in Jewish tradition known as a bris.
Among the homes raided by the Belgian police was that of Rabbi Aharon Eckstein, a highly experienced mohel and a prominent leader within the Antwerp Jewish community.
According to a police report, the searches were ordered by a judge following a complaint filed in 2023 by Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman — an anti-Zionist activist previously accused of Holocaust denial — against Eckstein and other mohels within the Jewish community.
In his complaint, Friedman accused six mohels of endangering infants by performing the metzitzah b’peh ritual, in which the mohel uses his mouth to suction blood from the circumcision area.
However, Eckstein and other rabbis, along with parents of children circumcised by them, have denied such accusations, insisting that they do not perform this practice.
In Antwerp, Friedman is known for publicly criticizing several customs that are important to ultra-Orthodox Jews, who represent the majority of the city’s 18,000 Jewish residents.
“Circumcision is much more than a key tenet of Judaism,” the letter read. “It is what defines the Jewish male, a religious commandment.”
“It represents a core pillar of our faith and a practice carried out over millennia without incidents by meticulous and highly-trained mohalim,” it continued.
Along with their formal letter, the EJA included an open letter from 19 doctors across Europe affirming that “the benefits of male circumcision greatly outweigh the potential negatives, over the lifetime of a male.”
“In our shared experience, those performing the circumcision — known as Mohalim within the Jewish communities — have studied extensively, are proficient in anatomy and hold the required medical experience,” the letter said.
“They are, with their inter-generational experience transmitted for millenia, more than capable of carrying out the procedure,” it added.
Despite several attempts to ban the practice across Europe, ritual circumcision remains legal in all European countries, though many, including Belgium, limit the practice to licensed surgeons and often perform it in a synagogue.
The post European Jewish Leaders Demand EU Action After Belgian Police Raid Mohels’ Homes, Raising Religious Freedom Concerns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘Half Human’: Antisemitism Rampant in Ontario Public Schools, New Canadian Report Says
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Antisemitism has been rampant in public schools of the Canadian province of Ontario since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to a new report published by the country’s federal government.
Nazi salutes in the hallways, assaults, pronouncements of solidarity with the aims of Hitler’s Final Solution coupled with expressions of regret that he did not live to “finish the job,” and teachers converting their classrooms into outposts for the distribution of anti-Zionist propaganda compose the background of the lives of Jewish students in the province, the report says. One teacher, it added, even called a student “half human” after learning that she has one Jewish parent.
Written by University of Toronto sociology professor emeritus Robert Brym, the report is based on data drawn from interviews conducted with 599 Jewish parents as well as nearly 800 reports of incidents of antisemitic hatred which took place in Ontario public schools, roughly three-fourths of which occurred in the Toronto District School Board, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, and York Region District School Board systems.
Toronto specifically was the site of 61 percent of the incidents, part of a broader trend in which Ontario’s largest city, home to half of Canada’s 400,000 Jews, has seen a surge in antisemitism following the Oct. 7 atrocities. Last year, 40 percent of all hate crimes reported to law enforcement involved antisemitic bigotry, according to police data.
“The 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli retaliation in Gaza provoked a three-month outburst of hostility against Jewish K-12 students such as never before seen in Ontario schools,” Brym wrote. “One is immediately struck by the high percentage of responses that have nothing to do with Israel or the Israel-Hamas war. More than 40 percent of responses involve Holocaust denial, assertions of excessive Jewish wealth or power, or blanket condemnation of Jews — the kind of accusations and denunciations that began to be expunged from the Canadian vocabulary and mindset in the 1960s and were, one would have thought, nearly totally forgotten by the second decade of the 21st century.”
Some 30,000 Jewish school-age children live in Ontario, according to the report, which was commissioned by the Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, Deborah Lyons, in order to provide a picture of the situation in Ontario schools.
Brym noted that many Jewish students abstain from reporting antisemitic discrimination due to fear of “being ostracized, re-victimized, or physically harmed.” In lieu of pursuing a course of action which guards their civil rights, they resort to effacing “visible symbols of their Jewishness,” which, he explained, “suppresses the visibility of the problem and contributed to the undercounting of incidents.” He recommended that school boards correct the hostile environments on their grounds by applying the widely adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and recognizing the Zionist component of Jewish identity, which is often the target of antisemitic bullies.
“This report exposes an appalling reality that far too many Jewish students face antisemitism and harassment on a regular basis, and worse yet, many schools are failing to take the necessary steps to protect them,” Michael Levitt, chief executive officer and president of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights nonprofit which raises awareness of discrimination and racial intimidation, said in a statement responding to the Canadian government’s findings. “These latest revelations are a searing indictment of what we’ve been hearing anecdotally for some time now.”
He added, “While the Ontario government and some school boards are making an effort to bring antisemitism training and Holocaust education to staff and students, our education must do more to root out antisemitism and hold perpetrators accountable. There must be a genuine commitment by schools and school boards to ensure every student, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, feels welcome and safe.”
Antisemitism infects all levels of Canadian society, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, from the streets to the halls of government. Following the Oct. 7 attack, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) issued data showing that Jews had been the victims of 57 percent of all hate crimes, with 56 of the 98 hate crimes that occurred in the city from Oct. 7 to Dec. 17 being documented as antisemitic. Compared to the same period in 2022, the number of hate crimes targeting the Jewish community during that period more than tripled.
During all of 2023, Jews were the victims of 78 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto, according to police-reported data. Overall in Canada, Jewish Canadians were the most frequently targeted group for hate crimes, with a 71 percent increase from the prior year.
In 2024, according to the latest TPS data, Jews were the victims of over 80 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto.
“These numbers reflect a disturbing reality: antisemitism in our city is growing more aggressive, more visible, and more tolerated,” Michelle Stock, vice president of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in May, commenting on the statistics. “Jewish Canadians — like all Canadians — deserve to feel safe. It’s time for governments to match words with actions.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Half Human’: Antisemitism Rampant in Ontario Public Schools, New Canadian Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel to Raise Defense Spending to Meet Security Challenges
Israeli tanks are positioned near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel will raise defense spending by 42 billion shekels ($12.5 billion) in 2025 and 2026, the finance and defense ministries said on Thursday, citing the country’s security challenges.
The budget agreement will allow the Defense Ministry to “advance urgent and essential procurement deals critical to national security,” the ministries said in a statement.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the new defense budget “fully covers the intense fighting in Gaza, alongside comprehensive security preparations for all threats — from the south, the north, and more distant arenas.”
Israel‘s military costs have surged since it launched its military offensive on Gaza following the deadly attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since then, Israel has also fought Hezbollah in Lebanon and waged a 12-day air war with Iran, and carried out airstrikes in Syria this week after vowing to destroy government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria and demanding they withdraw.
Over the past 21 months, Israel‘s missile defense systems have been working almost daily to intercept missiles fired by Hezbollah, Iran, and Houthis in Yemen.
Current annual defense spending is 110 billion shekels – about 9 percent of gross domestic product – out of a total 2025 budget of 756 billion shekels.
The extra budgetary funding “will allow the Defense Ministry to immediately sign procurement deals for the weapons and ammunition required to replenish depleted stocks and support the IDF’s ongoing operations,” said Amir Baram, director general of the Defense Ministry.
It would also enable the defense establishment to initiate development programs to strengthen the Israel Defense Forces’ qualitative edge for future systems, he said.
MULTIPLE SCENARIOS
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the funds would allow Israel to prepare for multiple scenarios since “enemies are openly declaring their intent to destroy us … For this we require complete military, technological, and operational superiority.”
Separately, the Defense Ministry said it had signed a deal with state-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to accelerate serial production of Arrow interceptors.
The Arrow, developed and manufactured in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency, is a missile defense system designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles.
The Arrow had a high interception rate during the conflicts with Hamas and Iran. As part of the deal, IAI will supply the military with a significant additional amount of Arrow interceptors.
“The numerous interceptions it carried out saved many lives and significantly reduced economic damage,” Baram said.
On Wednesday, the ministry signed a $20 million deal with Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) to supply advanced machine guns aimed at significantly enhancing the IDF ground forces’ firepower capabilities.
($1 = 3.3553 shekels)
The post Israel to Raise Defense Spending to Meet Security Challenges first appeared on Algemeiner.com.