RSS
One Palestinian, one Jew, and two very different impressions of ‘Golda’
(JTA) — Like many other Diaspora Jews, I was curious to see the film “Golda,” which dramatizes Israel’s first female prime minister’s handling of what for Israel was the nearly disastrous Yom Kippur War of 1973. But I wanted to know what it would be like to see it with a Palestinian American.
So I called up my friend and colleague, Omar Dajani, professor of law at the University of the Pacific and a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel from 1999-2003. We agreed to see the film the same night in our respective cities (he in San Francisco and me in Ottawa) and compare notes the next morning.
On the film’s artistic aspects — for instance, the excellent casting of Helen Mirren as Golda Meir and Liev Schreiber as U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; the less successful portrait of Moshe Dayan by Rami Heuberger, who missed the boat on the defense minister’s well-known charisma — our agreement was deep and broad. (And I succeeded in getting Omar on board with my favorite Israeli actor, Lior Ashkenazi, who plays David “Dado” Elazar, the IDF’s chief of staff.)
But finding common ground on the framing of the Yom Kippur War, the focus of the film’s narrative — proved much harder.
Most of the Israeli criticism of its country’s handling of events in October 1973 has focused on the Israeli intelligence failure in the lead-up to Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack. Israeli analysts refer to this blindspot as the “conceptzia.”
Talking to Omar, I soon realized that I, too, had been caught up in a conceptzia, albeit of a different sort.
I was only a baby when the Yom Kippur War broke out. But so much of my life was indirectly shaped by those three weeks in 1973. My first boyfriend had come to Winnipeg with his Israeli parents in part because of that war. Same with my seventh-grade crush, in Vancouver. Born two days apart, both were exactly a year old when the war changed things for so many Israelis. My husband had the reverse family story; he moved with his parents and sister to Israel a few months before the war broke out before they returned to Canada 18 months later. And my kibbutz “dad” (some youth movement-raised young adults, like I was, are gifted an “adoptive” family on kibbutz to connect with as they spend time in the country) served on the front lines in 1973. Just two months ago, we talked about his battle memories — still raw and unfiltered — until the wee hours of the night.
All these personal connections have meant that when I think about the Yom Kippur War, I feel instinctively protective. Protective of Israelis who were forced to endure the insult of being attacked on their holiest day of the year (for Jewish Israelis at least) — even if that holiness extends, for many, to simply bike riding on empty streets. Protective of the memory of the 11 boys who were killed on my aunt and uncle’s kibbutz — for whom a stunning tune to the Yom Kippur Prayer “Unetaneh Tokef” was written, and which I’ve led at my synagogue on High Holidays past.
Though I’m ashamed to admit it — given her comments denying the existence of the Palestinian people — I was also protective even of Golda’s legacy as a Jewish stateswoman.
But talking to Omar I was forced to consider another perspective. “As a film about the 1973 war,” Omar told me, “I found it infuriating. The film did almost nothing to set up the fact that the Egyptian offensive against Israel was taking place to a great extent on Egyptian territory.” Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was trying to get back the Sinai, after all.
Omar also stressed that Meir refused to entertain various opportunities for Israel-Egyptian peace in the years leading up to the war, a point made in a recent Jewish Telegraphic Agency article about the film. Sadat “was dying for a peace opening,” Omar said to me. “The film claims that Israeli-Egyptian peace in 1979 was a result of what Meir did, while I would argue that the peace agreement was in spite of what she did.”
I challenged Omar on the idea of the war being started on “Egyptian territory” given that the Sinai was (legally) occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War of 1967; he countered with a view of that war as having resulted from an offensive attack by Israel. I drew on the idea that Egypt’s closure of the Straits of Tiran and expulsion of United Nations peacekeepers may have justified Israel’s pre-emptive strike; he referenced Article 51 and Article 2 of the United Nations Charter regarding acceptable uses of force.
After 90 minutes of back-and-forth, I carefully strode across the proverbial debate stage and asked the question most often considered taboo in academic circles.
“Do you think,” I asked gingerly, “that our respective debating positions are a function of our ethnic allegiances?”
“Yes and no,” he offered. “On one hand, opposing Israel taking others’ land and holding it indefinitely whenever it feels it will serve its security purposes is not about being Palestinian; it is about believing in the international rule of law, and I’m an international law scholar.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “I’ve lived in Egypt and so I certainly recognize that my sympathies affect my tendency to see some acts that are unlawful as being justified. And so while I see how some people defend Israeli acts as justified even if they are unlawful, the same goes for me and Egypt. For instance, Sadat violated the ceasefire in the first place.”
Where does all this leave me? I suppose it served as a healthy reminder that we — analysts, scholars, writers, and human beings — have a set of complex commitments that stem from our understanding of how things are and how they ought to be. While we hope that those commitments are free of tribal ties, sometimes that’s just not possible.
At least Omar and I both agree that the most pressing contemporary humanitarian issue in Israel-Palestine is that of the grinding occupation and the human rights abuses that flow from it. We also both see Israel’s current judicial crisis as in part a reflection of those circumstances. And ultimately we agree that to be human is to care deeply about both one’s own and about the other, whoever they are. I suppose that’s a start.
—
The post One Palestinian, one Jew, and two very different impressions of ‘Golda’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Jewish Leaders in UK, Canada, Australia Urge Governments to Reconsider Palestinian State Recognition
Women hold up flags during a a pro-Palestinian rally in Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia, Oct. 15, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Lewis Jackson
Jewish umbrella organizations in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have jointly expressed “grave concerns” over their governments’ plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next week.
In a joint statement, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Canadian Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs urged their governments to reconsider their intention to recognize a “State of Palestine.”
This month, several Western countries — including France — are expected to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, marking their latest effort to increase international pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza.
However, Jewish communities in these countries have strongly opposed the move, urging their governments to concentrate diplomatic efforts on securing the release of all remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas and dismantling the Palestinian terrorist group’s military and political power.
They also emphasized the need to ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians in Gaza without being diverted for terrorist operations and that all parties comply with international law.
“We are gravely concerned that our governments’ announced intentions to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN this month are seen by Hamas as a reward for its violence and rejectionism towards Israel, and these announcements have therefore lessened rather than maximized pressure for the hostages’ release and for Hamas to disarm,” the joint statement read.
“Extremists have answered [Hamas’s] call for escalations in global violence by carrying out brutal assaults on Jews — citizens of each of our countries,”” it continued. “For the sake of a better future for Israelis, Palestinians, and the wider Middle East, it is an imperative to avoid serving this agenda.”
Supporters of the recognition argue that this move would actually undermine Hamas’s control, noting that the terrorist group has never supported a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and would likely oppose a Palestinian state since it would have no governing role.
However, Hamas has praised such plans to recognize a Palestinian state as “the fruits of Oct. 7,” citing the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as the reason for increasing Western support.
“The fruits of Oct. 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue,” senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said in a recent interview with Al Jazeera.
Israeli officials and opponents of such recognition argue that Hamad’s remarks show these countries are, essentially, rewarding acts of terrorism.
US President Donald Trump has strongly opposed the move, warning that it would hinder Gaza ceasefire negotiations and empower Hamas instead of advancing peace.
During a bilateral meeting on Thursday amid Trump’s state visit to the UK, he was asked about Britain’s plans to recognize a Palestinian state.
“I have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score, one of our few disagreements, actually,” Trump said, referring to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
For his part, Starmer said he and Trump were aligned on the shared goal of achieving peace in the region.
“We absolutely agree on the need for peace and a road map, because the situation in Gaza is intolerable,” the British leader said.
In their joint statement, Jewish communities in the UK, Canada, and Australia argued that their governments’ plans to recognize a Palestinian state without making Hamas’s disarmament and the release of hostages a precondition would set back, rather than advance, prospects for a genuine two-state peace.
“Our governments are in effect saying that the fulfilment of these requirements post-recognition will be taken on trust and left for some unspecified time in the future,” the statement read. “This is a posture that lacks credibility, borders on recklessness, and sets up Palestinian statehood for failure from the outset.”
“Let it never be forgotten that Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza initiated this war [and] they remain openly committed to the genocidal goal of destroying Israel as a state and expelling or eradicating its Jewish population,” it continued.
Western powers have been negotiating with the Palestinian Authority (PA) on conditions for Gaza governance after Hamas is removed from power, while the PA continues to pledge reforms — a strategy experts say is unlikely to succeed given its lack of credibility and ongoing support for terrorism against Israel.
Jewish leaders have argued that these governments appear to be accepting the PA’s promises of reform at face value, rather than waiting to see if its behavior truly changes.
The PA, which has long been riddled with accusations of corruption, has maintained for years a so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
Under the policy, the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund makes official payments to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs”” killed in attacks on Israelis, and injured Palestinian terrorists. Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas had announced plans to reform this system earlier this year, but the PA has continued to issue payments.
The Palestinian Authority has been lying to the world for decades.
Once again, they are trying to whitewash the “Pay-for-Slay” policy of payments to terrorists and their families. Instead of paying the “Prisoners” and “Martyrs” through the old method, they are paying through a… https://t.co/IDlSEBqYDn
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) September 17, 2025
The PA has also avoided holding elections for nearly 20 years, largely due to Abbas’s limited support among Palestinians.
According to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), if an agreement is reached to end the war in Gaza, only 40 percent of Palestinians “support the return of the PA to managing the affairs of the Gaza Strip,” while 56 percent oppose it.
RSS
‘Antisemitism Is Alive and Well’: Swastika Graffiti at Dartmouth College Shakes Jewish Community
Swastika graffitied outside of Jewish student’s dormitory at Dartmouth College. Photo: Screenshot/X.
An unknown person or group graffitied a swastika, the symbol of the Nazi Party, outside the dormitory of a Jewish student at Dartmouth College — at least the second such incident at an elite US college during the early weeks of fall semester.
“This act of bigotry and targeted harassment at a person’s home will not be tolerated on our campus,” Dartmouth president Sian Beilock said in a statement on Wednesday, noting that both the local police force and the college’s own security department are investigating the incident. “Antisemitism has no place at Dartmouth. Acts of bigotry — and all forms of hate — are deeply hurtful and stand in direct opposition to what each of us is working so hard to create at Dartmouth. This is not who we are.”
The graffitiing of a swastika as a method of intimidation and expression of hate on the campus came as a shock to Dartmouth’s Jewish community and stands out for being perpetrated only days before Jews across the US and the world observe Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
“With Jewish high holidays around the corner, our community feels the impact of this crime even more profoundly,” Ruby Benjamin, a Jewish Dartmouth student and president of the campus Chabad, told The Dartmouth, the college’s official student newspaper. “In a time that should be marked with joy, we are forced to look hatred in the eye. While we are disgusted by yesterday’s events, we are not afraid. Today, as always, we stand together as a strong community.”
Another Jewish student and Hillel International affiliate, Jacob Markman told the paper, “This just shows that antisemitism is alive and well, and that it is something we need to take seriously and address.”
The incident came about a week after an unknown person graffitied antisemitic messages inside the Weinstein residence hall at New York University.
Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, has seen this kind of incident before.
In April 2023, someone carved a swastika into dirt on The Green of Dartmouth College, a a five- acre, grassy common space at the center of the school’s campus. Three years earlier, in 2020, a former student, Carlos Wilcox, vandalized a public menorah on campus by shooting it with a pellet gun during the 2020 Hanukkah holiday. The 20-year-old Bronx, New York native also shot the windows of several college buildings, causing $1,500 in damage in total. Wilcox, who managed to dodge a hate crime charge and was charged with felony criminal mischief, was expelled from the college and banned from campus.
In April 2022, according to The Dartmouth, he reached an agreement with the prosecutors of Grafton County, where Dartmouth is located, under which the charges against him were dropped in exchange for his paying the college $2,ooo in damages, completing 100 hours of community service, and attending substance abuse counseling. Wilcox was also ordered to meet with Dartmouth Chabad Rabbi Moshe Leib Gray and other members of the campus community.
Throughout the process, he maintained his innocence, claiming that another student, Zachary Wang, shot the menorah and that he only purchased the pellet gun and witnessed the incident.
Dartmouth has also been the site of extreme anti-Zionist activity.
In May, a pro-Hamas group which calls itself the “New Deal Coalition” (NDC) commandeered the anteroom of the Parkhurst Hall administrative building but limited the demonstration to business hours, as its members went home when it was shuttered at 6 pm. Before leaving the building, however, the group contributed to injuries sustained by a member of Beilock’s staff and an officer of the school’s Department of Safety and Security officer, according to The Dartmouth.
During the unauthorized demonstration, the agitators shouted “free, free Palestine,” words shouted only recently by another anti-Israel activist who allegedly murdered two Israeli diplomats outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC.
The following day, the group at Dartmouth defended the behavior, arguing that it is a legitimate response to the college’s rejection of a proposal — inspired by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — to divest from armaments and aerospace manufacturers which sell to Israel and its recent announcement of a new think tank, the Davidson Institute for Global Security, which it claims is linked to the Jewish state.
“We took this escalated action — one deployed several times in Dartmouth’s history to protest against apartheid — because Dartmouth funded, US-backed Israel has been escalating its genocidal assault on Palestine,” the group wrote. “In an effort to ‘dialogue,’ a group of students, staff, and faculty, and alumni spent months drafting extensively researched 55-page divestment proposal … How did the college respond? They rejected divestment on every single criteria and, the day after, announced that they are reinvesting in colonial genocide with the launch of the Davidson Institute for Global Security.”
The statement concluded with an ambiguous threat.
“So long as you fund actively imperialistic violence, we will continue to hold you accountable,” it said. “There is only one solution! Intifada! Revolution!”
Amid these disturbances, the Dartmouth administration has declined to legitimate the claims of anti-Zionists who demand a boycott of Israel.
A week before the demonstration, Dartmouth College’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) unanimously rejected a proposal imploring the school to adopt the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
“By a vote of nine to zero, [ACIR] at Dartmouth College finds that the divestment proposal submitted by Dartmouth Divest for Palestine and dated Feb. 18, 2025, does not meet criteria, laid out in the Dartmouth Board of Trustees’ Statement on Investment and Social Responsibility and in ACIR’s charge, that must be satisfied for the proposal to undergo further review,” the committee said in a report explaining its decision. “ACIR recommends not to advance the proposal.”
A copy of the document reviewed by The Algemeiner shows that the committee evaluated the BDS proposal, submitted by the Dartmouth Divest for Palestine (DDP) group, based on five criteria regarding the college’s divestment history, capacity to address controversial issues through discourse and learning, and campus unity. It concluded that DDP “partially” met one of them by demonstrating that Dartmouth has divested from a country or industry in the past to establish its moral credibility on pressing cultural and geopolitical issues but noted that its analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lacks nuance, betraying the group’s “lack of engagement with counter arguments.”
ACIR added that DDP also does not account for the sheer divisiveness of BDS and its potential to “degrade” rather than facilitate “additional dialogue on campus.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
RSS
Michigan Mayor Says Resident ‘Not Welcome’ in City After Objecting to Street Sign Named After Terrorist Supporter
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud speaks at a press conference in Dearborn, Michigan. Photo: Screenshot
A City Council meeting in Dearborn, Michigan erupted into controversy last week after Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat, told a local resident he was “not welcome” when the man objected to renaming a street sign after an Arab-American journalist who has praised internationally designated terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The honorary sign in question recognizes Osama Siblani, founder of The Arab American News, a bilingual weekly that has served Dearborn’s Arab-American community for more than four decades. Supporters praise Siblani for amplifying Arab and Muslim voices in US media. However, critics argue that his past remarks regarding terrorist groups make the recognition inappropriate.
At last week’s meeting, Edward “Ted” Barham, a Christian resident of Dearborn — a heavily Muslim city known for being a hub of anti-Israel sentiment — objected to the sign and accused Siblani of backing Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the US government.
“I feel like having that sign up there is almost like naming a street Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street,” Barham said.
“Hezbollah bombed the embassy in Beirut, including many Americans. I just feel it’s quite inappropriate,” Barham continued, likely referring to Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks at the Beirut International Airport, killing 241 American service members and dozens of French soldiers.
“He talks about how the blood of the martyrs irrigates the land of Palestine,” Barham added.
The resident explained that, as a Christian, he wanted to encourage peace and closed by quoting Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Hammoud intervened during Barham’s remarks, accusing him of spreading bigotry against Muslims in past online videos.
“Although you live here, I want you to know that as mayor, you are not welcome here,” Hammoud said. “The day you move out of this city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out.”
The mayor called Barham “a bigot, and you are racist, and you’re an Islamophobe,” before telling his constituent to figure out how to live with the sign.
“The best suggestion I have for you is to not drive on Warren Avenue or to close your eyes while you’re doing it. His name is up there, and I spoke at a ceremony celebrating it because he’s done a lot for this community,” Hammoud said.
Hammoud has established himself as an especially outspoken critic of Israel who has repeatedly condemned Israel’s military operations against Hamas, accusing the Jewish state of committing a “genocide” in Gaza and an “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank. Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, a brutal onslaught that started the current Gaza war, Hammoud condemned the Jewish state as a “racist apartheid system that criminalizes Palestinian existence.”
The mayor’s comments, captured on video, have since sparked debate. Critics say they reflect intolerance toward dissenting views, while supporters argue Hammoud was standing up against anti-Muslim rhetoric.
The street sign in question, located on Warren Avenue, was approved earlier this month by the Wayne County Commission, not the Dearborn City Council. County officials, including Council President Michael Sareini, attended an unveiling ceremony where Hammoud praised Siblani as a voice of the Arab-American community for more than 40 years.
During a 2022 “Nakba Day” rally, Silbani urged Muslim Americans to continue to “fight” for the Palestinian cause, encouraging some to even take up arms against Israel. “Nakba” is the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
“Believe me, everyone should fight within his means. They will fight with stones, others will fight with guns, others will fight with planes, drones, and rockets, others will fight with their voices, and others will fight with their hands and say, ‘Free, free Palestine!’” Siblani said in 2022.
Siblani has defended his comments, telling the Daily Mail that his words were a call for justice, not violence. “‘People have the right to fight occupation and oppression by all necessary means and it is justified and accepted under international law. I said here in America we fight with our words of support for free Palestine,” he said, adding that thousands of residents have praised the street sign as recognition of his decades of community work.
“I stand firm on my opinion of people’s right to fight oppression and occupation by all means as they seek their freedom and sovereignty including the Palestinian people,” Silbani continued.
Siblani has also defended Hamas, the terrorist group which slaughtered roughly 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as “freedom fighters.”
At a Ford Community and Performing Arts Center rally in 2023, Siblani defended Hamas as “not a terrorist organization.”
“The terrorist is Benjamin Netanyahu and his government,” he said during the rally, referring to Israel’s prime minister.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Siblani also told a crowd chanting “death to Israel” at a September 2024 rally in Dearborn that Hezbollah will “take care of the job” by destroying the Jewish state. He later threatened to send Israeli Jews “back to Poland.”
Dearborn, home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American populations in the US, has long been a focal point for debates over identity, politics, and Middle East issues. In the two years following the Hamas-led massacres in Israel, Dearborn has transformed into a tinderbox of protests and demonstrations signaling opposition to the Jewish state.