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‘Revitalized’ Palestinian Authority: New Minister of Women’s Affairs Is a Brazen Terror Supporter
Palestinian demonstrators display a poster showing terrorist Dalal Mughrabi alongside the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Photo: File.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced a new government as part of its fulfillment of the US demand for a “revitalized” PA. However, for the PA, “revitalization” does not preclude religious incitement to terror and demonizing Jews as “apes and pigs,” supporting terror and terrorists, or rejecting Israel’s legitimacy as a state.
1. New minister Muna Al-Khalili praised the murder of 37 as a “quality resistance operation”
Muna Al-Khalili, the new PA Minister of Women’s Affairs, is an outspoken terror supporter, having publicly glorified the murder of 37 Israeli civilians.
As chairwoman of the PLO General Union of Palestinian Women, Al-Khalili spoke at an event honoring Dalal Mughrabi, who led the most murderous terror attack in Israel’s history, prior to October 7.
On March 11, 1978, Mughrabi led a team of PLO terrorists who hijacked a civilian bus and murdered 37 civilians, including 12 children and one American photographer, Gail Rubin.
In her speech, Al-Khalili praised the murder of the 37 civilians as a “quality resistance operation.” She also praised the decision to appoint a woman to lead the massacre, calling Mughrabi the “head of a squad of self-sacrificing fighters (Fedayeen),” and saying that Mughrabi “proved that Palestinian women are capable of carrying out the most difficult missions”:
The Chairwoman of the [PLO General] Union of Palestinian Women Muna Al-Khalili said…: “We are gathering today, 40 years after the quality resistance operation that 20-year-old Martyr Dalal Mughrabi led, [i.e., terrorist bus hijacking and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children] at the head of a squad of self-sacrificing fighters (Fedayeen), and she proved that Palestinian women are capable of carrying out the most difficult missions.“
[Al-Kahili] explained that the selection of Dalal as commander of the operation constitutes proof of the PLO’s appreciation of the role of women, and that Martyr leader Khalil Al-Wazir [i.e., Abu Jihad] did not choose Dalal as commander of the operation accidentally, as those who know him and were in his company confirmed that he wanted to convey a message to the Palestinians and to the world regarding the significance of the role of women in the national struggle, in the liberation, and in laying the foundations of a society in which social justice prevails for the future State of Palestine.
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 12, 2018]
2. Three weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, Al-Khalili “emphasize[s] the Palestinian’s right to resist
Three weeks after Hamas’ rapes, torture, murders, and massacre on Oct. 7, Muna Al-Khalili spoke at a conference and brazenly supported Palestinians’ right to “resist” — the PA euphemism for terror and murder. In addition, she also denied Israel’s right to exist in any borders, calling Israel an “occupation for the past 75 years,” i.e., since Israel’s founding:
We in the General Union of Palestinian Women emphasize the Palestinian people’s right to resist the occupation that has continued for the past 75 years, [a right] that is anchored in the resolutions of the international institutions.
We emphasize that there will be no peace or stability in the entire region and the world without the Palestinian people receiving its legitimate rights — self-determination, freedom, independence in its sovereign state whose capital is Jerusalem — and without a just resolution for the refugees’ issue according to [UN] Resolution 194.”
[Conference of Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, PLO website, Oct. 26, 2023]
3. 10 days after Oct. 7, Al-Khalili honored convicted murderers of 61 as “heroic prisoners”
The General Union of Palestinian Women that Al-Khalili heads held a vigil calling for the release of terrorist prisoners just 10 days after the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities. Al-Khalili sat right behind four posters featuring the names and pictures of different terrorist murderers imprisoned in Israel for past terror attacks, each with the text: “Freedom for the heroic prisoner.”
From left to right in front of Al-Khalili are posters honoring Ibrahim Hamed, a Hamas leader responsible for the murder of at least 53 people in a series of bombings: Sheffield Club (15 murdered), Hillel Cafe (7 murdered), Hebrew University (9 murdered), Moment Cafe (11 murdered), and Zion Square (11 murdered); Akram Hamed, who murdered three people; Marwan Barghouti, who orchestrated attacks in which at least five people were murdered; and Ali Barghouti, who aided Marwan Barghouti and also murdered Palestinians he suspected of aiding Israel. As head of the organization appearing with these posters, Al-Khalili is honoring these well-known terrorist mass murderers.
[PLO General Union of Palestinian Women – General Secretariat, Facebook page, Oct. 17, 2023]
4. New PA Minister of Religious Affairs called to “afflict the Jews with the worst torment,” calling them “apes and pigs”
The new “revitalized” PA government also includes religious leader Muhammad Mustafa Najem as PA Minister of Religious Affairs. Najem openly called for terror in a sermon on official PA TV during the PA terror campaign known as the Second Intifada, from 2000-2005, where more than 1,100 Israelis murdered, framing his incitement as a religious imperative: “O servants of Allah, be the ones through which Allah will afflict the Jews with the worst torment.”
Najem went on to demonize the Jews with toxic antisemitism, saying that they are “characterized by conceit, pride, arrogance, rioting, disloyalty, and treachery,” and adding that “Allah turned them into apes and pigs” while quoting from the Koran.
PA religious leader Muhammad Mustafa Najem: “Praise Allah … It is He who warned us of the Jews and of the Jews’ ethics in the clearest manner, and He fought them and waged Jihad against them — after they attempted to murder the call [to Allah] from its foundations and to murder Prophet [Muhammad] in a political murder…
The Jews — as is their practice, and as Allah described them in His book [the Koran], and in the Prophet’s tradition [the Hadith] — are characterized by conceit, pride, arrogance, rioting, disloyalty, and treachery…
And they were jealous of the Muslims because the Prophet was not one of them. They are still jealous; they were jealous, and they are still jealous. They killed, and they are still killing. They betrayed, and they are still betraying. They spilled blood, and they are still spilling blood, and so on and so forth…
The same goes for their rulers, any political party or any group, it is all the same. Whether the crime rates are on the rise or the decline, they have a common denominator and it is hostility to Islam and the Muslims, hostility to the bearers of the truth, hostility to the sons of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, hostility to the bearers of the historical truth in this land…
Therefore, [violence and crimes] are not an exception to them and their nature, due to which Allah turned them into apes and pigs: “So when they were insolent about that which they had been forbidden, We said to them, ‘Be apes, despised.’ …And [mention] when your Lord declared that He would surely [continue to] send upon them until the Day of Resurrection those who would afflict them with the worst torment. Indeed, your Lord is swift in penalty; but indeed, He is Forgiving and Merciful” [Koran 7:166-167] …
Allah, grant us victory over the Jews and those who side with them! Allah, grant us victory over the Jews and those who side with them! Allah, grant us victory over the Jews and the patrons of the Jews’ arrogance.
[Official PA TV, Nov. 1, 2002]
Palestinian Media Watch calls on Israel and the United States, which has led the call for a “revitalized” PA, to demand that Najem and Al-Khalili and any other terror supporters in the new PA government be immediately replaced.
If the previous PA terror supporting government is replaced by a new terror supporting government, the PA is making a mockery of the US demand for “revitalization.”
Itamar Marcus is Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post ‘Revitalized’ Palestinian Authority: New Minister of Women’s Affairs Is a Brazen Terror Supporter first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.