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Netanyahu to meet with Elon Musk amid tech mogul’s mounting attacks on the ADL
(JTA) – He won’t be heading to the White House, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed he will meet with Elon Musk when he travels to the United States next week.
The meeting with Musk on Monday in San Francisco comes as the tech billionaire and social media mogul faces mounting criticism for his continued attacks on the Anti-Defamation League.
The visit is part of a key diplomatic trip to the U.S. for Netanyahu, who is also set to address the United Nations General Assembly next week and have a long-awaited meeting with President Joe Biden on the sidelines.
Other tech leaders will also join Netanyahu’s meeting with Musk, part of a bid to bolster Israel’s start-up sector, according to the Washington Post. The choice to meet Musk will be closely scrutinized because of Musk’s string of run-ins with the ADL on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk owns. Most recently, Musk issued a string of posts threatening to sue the ADL, engaging with white supremacists and blaming the prominent American Jewish civil rights group for stoking antisemitism.
In the past, the ADL has taken Musk to task for removing the platform’s guardrails against hate speech and for tweeting that liberal Jewish megadonor George Soros, a frequent target of antisemitism, “hates humanity.” Musk has said the group should be called a “defamation league,” and in recent days, has shared posts decrying “ADL-backed media” and accusing the ADL of a “shakedown” of social media platforms. Musk has said he blames an ad boycott led by the ADL for the social network’s financial troubles after he purchased it last year.
The meeting won’t be the first time Netanyahu has spoken with Musk. In June, the prime minister chatted with Musk by phone shortly after Musk’s posts about Soros. Netanyahu said at the time that the two discussed how Israel can expand its involvement in the artificial intelligence field.
Figures in Netanyahu’s coalition have both criticized Musk and defended him from antisemitism charges. In May, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Musk’s Soros comments had crossed the line, but the foreign minister later disavowed that condemnation. Soon afterward, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli called Musk “an amazing entrepreneur and a role model” and denied that his criticism of Soros was antisemitic. Separately, Israel’s health Ministry criticized comments Musk had made about the COVID-19 vaccine as “fake news.”
Musk recently tweeted that he is “pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind.” Shortly after his string of posts lambasting the ADL, X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted and then revised a statement outlining the company’s commitment to antisemitism. The company also put out a statement accusing the ADL of “consistently misrepresent[ing] our progress” in the area of “combating antisemitism on X.”
Yaccarino further exchanged text messages with ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Musk was spreading “age-old tropes” by blaming a prominent Jewish organization for antisemitism.
Even before his meeting with Musk was confirmed, Netanyahu’s trip to the United States was attracting attention because of the anticipated meeting with Biden, which Netanyahu has sought since he returned to office at the end of last year. Biden has so far rebuffed the prime minister due to concern about far-right elements in Netanyahu’s coalition as well as his effort to weaken the Israeli court system.
That judicial overhaul, which has led to widespread civil strife in Israel, has led a group of Israelis and progressive Jews in the Bay Area to announce a protest of Netanyahu’s visit next week. Protest organizers said they now plan to protest the Musk meeting as well.
“It’s deeply disturbing that Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the world’s only Jewish state, is flying across America to seek the counsel and support from a notorious enabler of anti-Jewish hate speech,” Offir Gutelzon, a tech veteran and co-founder of the Israeli expatriate protest movement UnXeptable, told the Washington Post.
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The post Netanyahu to meet with Elon Musk amid tech mogul’s mounting attacks on the ADL appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘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.
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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.
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‘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.