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‘Israel and the Jewish People Are Not Going Anywhere’: Celebrities Show Support at Historic DC Rally
Debra Messing speaking at the “March for Israel” rally in Washington, DC on Nov. 14, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
Celebrities in attendance at the historic pro-Israel rally in Washington, DC, on Tuesday urged the crowd of nearly 300,000 people to remain steadfast, resilient, and even “disruptive” in their support for the Jewish state, as it continues to fight Hamas in the Gaza Strip and seeks to rescue the hostages taken from Israel by the terrorist organization on Oct. 7.
The “March for Israel” rally in the US capital — which made history for being both the largest ever pro-Israel gathering and the largest Jewish gathering in US history — was organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America. Organizers said over 290,000 people attended and 250,000 others tuned in via livestream. The event was meant to showcase the American people’s support for Israel and the return of the hostages taken by Hamas, as well as their condemnation of rising antisemitism in the US.
Jewish actress and former Will & Grace star Debra Messing was one of the celebrities in attendance who addressed the crowd. She began by saying, “I know you are in pain. I know you are afraid. I know you feel alone and abandoned by people you thought were your friends. I know you feel misunderstood and maligned. I know because I do, too.”
“Looking out at all of us today, also know that we are not alone because we have each other,” she added. Messing talked about the “tsunami of hate” and rise in antisemitism that has impacted Jews around the world since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, as well as the “deafening silence” from much of the international community in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre attacks, in which Hamas terrorists killed over 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped more than 240 others as hostages.
“We see clearly now. We see naked, virulent Jew-hatred being disguised as a noble call for liberation. And we reject it,” Messing said.
“What does Israel’s defense in response to a terrorist attack have to do with an elderly Jewish man in California killed for holding an Israeli flag?” she asked, referring to the death of 69-year-old Paul Kessler at a rally near Los Angeles earlier this month.
“This is madness. This is terrorism,” Messing noted. “But we will win. We always have. We are strong, resilient, and devoted. And we will not lose ourselves. We will worry for our global Jewish family and also hurt for the innocent Palestinians used as human shields by Hamas. We will work to eviscerate Hamas and also pray for a free and flourishing Gaza.”
Messing’s speech focused largely on the 240 hostages taken by Hamas terrorists and she held a moment of silence for them.
“We will remember and work for the release of the 240 hostages as well as for the safety of the 2.2 million Gazans also held hostage by Hamas,” she said. “We will pray for the success of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] in a war Israel did not start and did not want, but a war Israel will win because we must. Those who hate us deny our humanity and right to exist. No matter. We know who we are. We know that even in — especially in – darkness, we stand united, proud, resolute … we too will prevail.”
Messing noted that children and elderly were among the hostages in Gaza. “We cannot allow the world to move on,” she said. “We must not rest until these families are made whole.”
The “March for Israel” event also featured performances by Israeli singers Omer Adam and Ishay Ribo, Jewish reggae singer and rapper Matisyahu, and the Maccabeats acapella group.
Sporting two necklaces with the Star of David, Jewish actor Michael Rapaport briefly addressed the crowd and told the young people in the audience to “‘stay strong, sane, and disruptive” before he introduced two college students who discussed the rise of antisemitism taking place on their college campuses.
Rapaport also called for the immediate return of the hostages taken by Hamas and said “there cannot be a ceasefire until the hostages are home.” He declared, “I have never felt this prideful to be Jewish in my life. It’s been a crazy time but Jewish people around the world, we have seen it all. We have heard it all. Israel is not going anywhere. Jewish people are not going anywhere.”
Broadway star Tova Feldshuh talked to the crowd about not wanting to change her Hebrew name to a more Western one in order to advance her career.
“We stand here in the tens of thousands, and usually even if you have 10 Jews you have 10,000 opinions. But today, we stand in the thousands to say Am Yisrael chai, ‘the people of Israel live,’” said the Israel Peace Medal recipient, who played former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the play Golda’s Balcony.
She added: “We stand here firm against global antisemitism. We stand firm in confrontation with antisemitism here in these United States. We stand here to say, ‘Enough.’ We are now engaged in a battle reaching beyond any Arab-Israeli conflict. We are engaged in a battle fighting for a civilized world. We stand here knowing that the halls of our universities should be havens of enlightenment and moral clarity, and not places where Jewish students, Jewish faculty, or any minority feels outcast and afraid of being physically abused.”
Feldshuh said that although she is short, she stands “tall for the almost 200 innocent citizens, almost 200 Israeli children of Israel who are now orphaned, for the 240 innocent citizens of Israel still held in captivity by Hamas, for the kidnapped babies, and the Holocaust survivors abducted and hidden somewhere in Gaza.”
She also told college and university presidents that remaining silent as antisemitic incidents take place on their campuses is equal to complicity. She quoted Jewish physicist Albert Einstein who said, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them and do nothing.”
Others who spoke at the rally included Natan Sharansky, CNN host Van Jones, US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), American actor and comedian Brett Clifford Gelman, and others.
Yasmine Pahlavi, who is married to Reza Pahlavi — the exiled crown prince of Iran and son of Iran’s last Shah — also attended the rally, carrying an Israeli flag and the previous national flag of Iran — which was changed after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The post ‘Israel and the Jewish People Are Not Going Anywhere’: Celebrities Show Support at Historic DC Rally first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
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