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The Dangerous Double Standards of Britain, Canada and Germany
Mourners gather in Jerusalem for the funeral of Hersh Goldberg-Polin on Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Taken by author
JNS.org – Earlier this month, the United Kingdom announced that it is imposing an “immediate” weapons embargo against Israel. The announcement came on the same day that American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, all of 23 and one of the six hostages recently executed by Hamas, was buried in the Jewish state.
The British government thought it appropriate to punish Israel on a day the entire Jewish nation around the world was mourning six of its murdered innocent civilians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the move as “shameful.”
According to the Gatestone Institute’s Robert Williams, the U.K. suspended around 30 licenses for items used in the current conflict in Gaza, which go to the IDF, allegedly due to Hamas-induced fear that they “might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
At the same time, Williams noted, the United Kingdom willingly continues to support Hamas.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government announced in July that it was going to “restart funding to UNRWA in order to get aid as quickly as possible to those who need it in Gaza” as a “moral necessity in the face of such a catastrophe.”
Starmer’s blind insistence on continuing to fund UNRWA comes even after Israel has provided evidence that the so-called aid agency is enmeshed with Hamas, with roughly 10% of its members proven to be terrorists or to have ties to terror groups. UNRWA schools and hospitals were knowingly used to facilitate terror and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
Williams said Starmer seems “unperturbed” that all funding goes straight to Hamas and not to the needy civilians of Gaza, who are shot if they try to approach the trucks carrying aid supplies.
Williams mocked Starmer and his government for “taking away the annual winter fuel allowance for British pensioners” and instead sending £21 million ($28 million) to Hamas.
The Daily Telegraph defense editor Con Coughlin noted that the embargo is only the latest in a string of anti-Israel moves by the United Kingdom.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s “first act was to withdraw the British government’s official objection to attempts to persuade the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges,” Coughlin wrote.
Then came the decision to restore U.K. funding to UNRWA. Its suspension of arms contracts with Israel followed soon after.
The embargo includes, according to Lammy, “important components which go into military aircraft, including fighter aircraft, helicopters and drones, as well as items which facilitate ground targeting.”
Williams noted that in his announcement of the embargo against Israel to the House of Commons, Lammy claimed that “this government’s priority … [is] to advance the cause of peace … .”
Then Lammy admitted that although the British government cannot verify whether or not Israel is, in fact, committing any war crimes, it is still going to enforce the embargo.
“In many cases, it has not been possible to reach a determinative conclusion on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities, in part, because there is insufficient information either from Israel, or other reliable sources to verify such claims,” Lammy said. “Nevertheless, it is the assessment of His Majesty’s Government that Israel could reasonably do much more to ensure lifesaving food and medical supplies reach civilians in Gaza in light of the appalling humanitarian situation.”
‘Pure racist perfidy’
Williams also recalled that in March, the former U.K. government, led by Rishi Sunak, reportedly conditioned continued arms supplies to Israel on its allowing the Red Cross or international diplomats to visit the detained terrorists of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force. The foreign secretary at the time, David Cameron, had even warned Israeli officials that Europe as a whole would impose a weapons embargo on Israel.
According to Williams, the U.K.’s arms embargo “appears to represent nothing so much as pure racist perfidy.”
Lammy “completely ignores the extreme lengths to which Israel has gone to avoid civilian casualties, as well as the huge amounts of humanitarian aid it has facilitated into the Gaza Strip,” he added.
Williams quoted the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, John Spencer, who wrote, “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Richard Kemp, a former British Army officer and commander, has echoed these sentiments supporting Israel and the IDF.
According to Coughlin, Lammy’s “blatant anti-Israel agenda will place the U.K.’s long-standing strategic alliance with Israel under intense strain.”
Unfortunately for Israel, Britain is not alone. Sadly, Germany and Canada have also felt it is appropriate to sanction Israel by imposing an arms embargo exactly at a time when Israel is trying to fight Islamic extremism that is already rising in those countries.
Germany, under Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has delayed nearly all of Israel’s requests for arms sales since the start of the war. Sales to Israel in 2023 amounted to more than 300 million euros and, in 2024, they allegedly dropped to just 14 million.
But when juxtaposing these policies against Israel alongside other countries, the hypocrisy becomes clear.
Astonishingly, Germany has massively armed Qatar, which, alongside Iran, is the most significant backer of Hamas, and one of the main sources of evil in the world today.
“In the first half of 2024, the federal government approved arms sales worth just over 100 million euros to the rulers in Doha, who are probably the most important supporters of the terrorist organization Hamas,” Bild journalist Björn Stritzel noted.
Likewise, Canada has also decided to punish Israel over baseless and false accusations of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
For the past several months, Ottawa has not approved new arms export permits to Israel, halting about 30 such permits, including a deal between the Canadian subsidiary of American company General Dynamics and the U.S. government, according to a recent announcement by Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly.
“First and foremost, our policy has been clear since Jan. 8, we and I have not accepted any form of arms export permits to be sent to Israel,” she said.
She also said that she asked her department “to look into any existing permits of arms or parts of arms that could have been sent to Israel.”
Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador to Canada and current director of the Institute for Diplomatic Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JNS that Canada’s decision is “absurd.”
“I wouldn’t call the policy in and of itself antisemitic, but it is certainly misguided,” he said. “It is based on ignorance or naivete, and not on an understanding of the situation.”
Baker called out Joly, “who seems to be completely persuaded that Israel is involved in a genocide. She doesn’t want to understand the facts and get down to the true situation.”
Baker pointed to hostile anti-Israel organizations based in Quebec that “seem to be influencing her whole policy.”
“What’s sad about this is that she seems to be pulling the Canadian prime minister by the nose when he should be sufficiently responsible to rein her in,” Baker said.
“You expect someone who has been prime minister for so long to be somewhat more circumspect and to consult and take into consideration those who perhaps have a less politically driven point of view and a more facts-based point of view,” he added.
Baker noted that the previous Canadian premier, Stephen Harper, gave a speech before Israel’s Knesset toward the end of his term and said that Canada will always have Israel’s back. He said it is inconceivable that Canada could ever act against Israel’s interests.
“But here we are,” said Baker. “Canada is being held hostage by an irresponsible foreign minister who seems to have great influence on the prime minister, based on political assumptions that are fed by propaganda that has no relation to the truth.
“Rather than trying to ascertain the facts and being in contact with those elements, whether in the United States or Israel, that are conversant with the statistics and the truth and genuine data, she and Trudeau prefer to base themselves on the accusation of genocide. And they come to the wrong conclusions.”
Canadian aid organizations have called for a complete embargo on military exports to Israel, warning that it is impossible for them to provide basic support to Palestinians while Israel operates in Gaza.
Clueless of facts on the ground
Canadian news outlet The Maple interviewed Dalia Al-Awqati, head of humanitarian affairs at Save the Children Canada (SCC).
“We don’t believe that the government of Canada should continue to provide weapons that are likely being used in violation of international humanitarian law against civilians and particularly against children,” Al-Awqati said.
Among other willful deceptions, lies and false accusations against Israel, Al-Awqati also claimed that SCC “has been present in Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1953.”
Unfortunately for Al-Awqati and her effort to smear Israel, from 1949 to 1967, Jordan controlled the so-called West Bank and Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not maintain a presence in those areas until the 1967 Six-Day War.
The sole occupier at the time was Jordan, which illegally annexed the West Bank in 1950. Only the United Kingdom and Pakistan, and possibly Iraq, recognized the move.
This is just one small but important example of how blatantly anti-Israel—or completely clueless of facts on the ground—that so-called aid organizations like SCC truly are.
In March, the Trudeau government said it would pause authorizations of new permits for exports of military goods to Israel. However, this measure did not apply to approximately $95 million worth of export permits approved before Jan. 8 or any goods that flow to Israel via the United States and other third countries.
According to documents published by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (FAAE) in July, there were 210 active military export permits for sales of goods to Israeli end users, including Israeli arms companies. Some of those permits had expiry dates as late as the end of 2025.
Then, in August, the U.S. government announced that a Quebec-based company would be the principal contractor in a “possible” $61 million U.S. sale of high-explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment to Israel.
Following that announcement, civil society organizations, including SCC, wrote a letter to Joly warning that Canada risks being complicit in the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza through its ongoing transfer of military goods bound for Israel.
The signatories also claimed that Canada’s military exports to Israel could violate Canada’s obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty, which prohibits the government from permitting military exports if the goods are likely to be used to commit serious violations of international law.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Israel is fighting a just war against radical Islam and has gone to great lengths to save the Palestinian civilians Hamas wants dead.
The embargoes wrongfully placed on Israel by the U.K., Germany and Canada accomplish one thing only: They feed into Hamas propaganda and help isolate Israel while emboldening and encouraging Iran.
As Williams states, “Arming Israel’s enemies, whether through UNRWA or Qatar, while limiting Israel’s ability to defend itself, is setting up a disaster that is likely to end up in Europe, on the heads of Starmer, Trudeau and Scholz.”
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Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says

Jews of Pride members are seen marching in the Pride parade 2025, part of LGBTQ+ community’s Midsumma Festival. Photo: Alexander Bogatyrev / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.
Anti-Israel activists in the LGBTQ+ community are subjecting Zionist Jews to extreme levels of discrimination, including expulsions from major progressive groups and even physical assault, according to a new report by the nonprofit A Wider Bridge.
The release of the report — titled “Unsafe Spaces: Addressing Antisemitism Against LGBTQ+ Jews and Ensuring Pride Safety” — comes as LGBTQ community members across the Western world observe Pride Month, a period of festivities which celebrate the expansion of social and legal rights that have allowed gays to live more freely and authentically than ever in human history. For pro-Israel Jews, however, Pride Month 2025 is a challenging moment, as anti-Zionism has creeped into and crowded out many queer spaces which once welcomed them with open arms.
From online forums to the streets, the maltreatment and “erasure” of Jewish queer identity is severe, the report explains. Eighty-two percent of LGBTQ Jews have reported being expelled from social media channels or harassed on them, A Wider Bridge noted.
Earlier this year, NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occurring in Gaza. Last year, the NYC Dyke March came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to mass killings occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
Also in 2024, the Dyke March Committee formally barred “Zionists” from participating in the Pride March, and during the event Jews were attacked and heckled after being seen wearing the Star of David on their clothing. That same year, an LGBTQ-friendly bar in the Brooklyn borough of New York City refused to hold a screening party for the Eurovision talent competition due to the participation of an Israeli contestant.
Forced, mass exiles are taking place in response to this new reality, the report added. Forty-three percent of queer Jews say they are leaving online forums; 40 percent abstain from participating in LGBTQ social events; and 30 percent said their decision was driven by precipitous deterioration of the manner in which they are treated. The only conclusion to draw, the report said, is that the Pride movement is “no longer universally safe or inclusive.”
“What we have found since Oct. 7 and what the report points to is that the explosion of antisemitism that the whole Jewish community has experienced has in some ways grown even more exponentially in the LGBTQ community,” Rabbi Denise Eger, interim executive director of A Wider Bridge and former president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “What we’re seeing around now as Pride marches and organizations put on their celebration s is institutional discrimination and outright boycotts.”
Eger went on to note that antisemitism in LGBTQ communities is all the more distressing due to the outsized contributions, legal and political, which Jewish gays and lesbians have made towards fostering a society that is more inclusive of non-heteronormative identities and relationships.
“Look at who were the early leaders of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the US, was a Jewish man. Edith Windsor, who brought one of the first marriage equality cases that we won at the Supreme Court, and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who won it — these are LGBTQ heroes, not just LGBTQ ‘Jewish’ heroes and heroines,” Eger continued. “So, for LGBTQ Jews to be continually shut out of these spaces is paralyzing, shocking, and horrifying, and LGBTQ Jews are asking where is their home.”
She added, “These are difficult times, but together, the whole Jewish community, including the LGBTQ part of the Jewish community, can stand strong and be resilient in the face of all this, just as the Jewish people have done throughout our history. We have the tools within our tradition to keep us strong and to help us educate. And yes, I believe so much, as a rabbi, that we can and must help change the world for the better. That’s what we are called to do as the Jewish people.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, recorded incidents of antisemitism in the US continue to increase year over year, breaking all previous annual records.
In 2024, as reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit, there were 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, creating an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly thirty years since the ADL began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“Hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” said Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment

Illustrative: A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
A court in the United Kingdom on Thursday sentenced Hussein Altamimi, 22, and Ali Alanzi, 30, to prison sentences of eight months and seven months respectively, for charges stemming from an incident at London’s Western Marble Arch Synagogue in November 2024, according to British media.
The two men received convictions for yelling at four Jewish worshipers such phrases as “Jews aren’t welcome here,” “you don’t belong here,” and “f—king Jew.” They also repeatedly screamed “free Palestine.”
The incident grew violent when Altamimi hit one victim’s arm to try and prevent her from filming the abuse. Alanzi also hurled liquid from an alcoholic drink toward one person. When police arrived to arrest the pair, he assaulted one of the officers.
The court convicted both men of four counts of religiously aggravated public order offenses and religiously aggravated assault. Alanzi also received a conviction for attacking the officer and will endure an additional 12 weeks’ incarceration due to a previous suspended sentence.
On Friday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) described its reaction to the hate crime prosecutions on X in one word: “Vindicated.”
Altamimi also faced additional charges and guilty verdicts related to a July 2023 incident which included racial abuse and striking a police officer.
“The CPS is working closely with the police to tackle hate crime, making sure that perpetrators who target victims because of their religion, race, sexuality, gender identity, or disability are brought to justice,” Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Anna Hindmarsh said following the trial. “We know that hate crimes have a significant impact on victims and the wider community, and we will continue to support victims and witnesses who come forward to report any examples of hate crime they have experienced.”
The convictions against Altamimi and Alanzi are part of a historic surge in antisemitic acts in the United Kingdom.
The UK experienced its second-worst year for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high, according to a report released in February.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing it recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, a drop of 18 percent from the 4,296 in 2023. These numbers compare to 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
In the 12 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, CST counted 5,583 antisemitic incidents in the UK, an increase from 204 percent from the same period the previous year.
Many of the incidents involved violence targeting the Jewish community.
Last month, On May 26, a group of six or seven men attacked three Jewish boys at the Hampstead Underground Station in North London, requiring hospitalization for one. CAA said that “this report is yet another stark reminder of the growing threat facing Jewish communities, including children.”
Another antisemitic assault occurred in Manchester in February, when an unidentified individual hit a Jewish man with what was believed to be a bottle, shattering the victim’s glasses.
The heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill in Hackney saw an antisemitic act last week when vandals targeted a Jewish-owned investment firm, smashing its windows and splashing red paint. The group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the crime, as it had done previously for similar acts at the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund headquarters and the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.
“This should be treated as [an] antisemitic incident without any doubt. [The owners] are visibly Jewish people; the people who run the business and this business itself have nothing to do with Israel,” said Rabbi Herschel Gluck, president of Jewish security service Shomrim’s branch in Stamford Hill.
Days earlier, residents of Brighton in southeastern England discovered antisemitic vandalism at a memorial created to honor the victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks.
“There have been over 40 attacks on the site including vandalism, theft, and graffiti. The abuse has been relentless,” Heidi Bachram, who volunteers to maintain the memorial, told The Jewish Chronicle at the time. “It’s shocking that grief for innocents is met with such violence. The hate won’t stop us, and every night, a different victim’s story will be told [at the memorial]. We will never let them be forgotten.”
In April, according to prosecutors, Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 33, attempted to climb a wall outside of the Israeli embassy in London while carrying a “martyrdom note.”
Prosecutor Kristel Pous said that Albadri told police that he wanted to “do something to send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war.”
The Israeli embassy stated in response to the foiled attack that “we thank the British security forces for their immediate response and ongoing efforts to secure the embassy.” It vowed that “the embassy of Israel will not be deterred by any terror threat and will continue to represent Israel with pride in the UK.”
The post Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism

A protester holds a sign that reads, ”From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” during a pro-Palestinian emergency demonstration outside the Consulate General of Israel in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 2025. Photo: Reginald Mathalone via Reuters Connect
The 2025 Israel Summit in Dallas, Texas has been indefinitely postponed in response to what organizers described as intensifying threats of terrorism.
Prior to the cancellation, the event was expecting over 1,000 attendees. The Israel Summit had already undergone a last-minute venue change due to mounting safety concerns. The gathering, scheduled for June 9–11, was set to feature prominent voices from both the Jewish and Christian pro-Israel communities.
Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who had been scheduled to speak at the event, commented on the cancellation on social media: “This is what America looks like in 2025. A peaceful pro-Israel gathering with more than a thousand participants had to be scrapped because of threats from violent extremists.”
Ten days prior to this year’s event, local police and intelligence officials in Dallas alerted organizers that the gathering had been upgraded to a “high-threat event.”
According to Josiah Hilton, host of the Israel Guys show, which was scheduled to co-host the event with HaYovel, the organizers had to produce “a mandatory security plan with a substantial budget estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The organizers then moved the Israel Summit to a facility in an isolated area of Kenneth, Texas. However, the event was forced to cancel after the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and Jewish Voice for Peace, a pair of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas organizations, revealed its location to their followers.
“[T]he Genocide Summit had to change plans last minute in desperation due to them claiming to be ‘under attack.’ The reality is they understand DFW’s commitment to confronting the extremist ideology that is Zionism,” Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas wrote on Instagram.
However, the organizers stated that they are going to hold the pro-Israel event “in the near future,” and vowed to “come back bigger and stronger, with more people.”
Hilton said that the cancellation reflects “the growing normalization of antisemitic threats and anti-Israel extremists, which are fueling intimidation and silencing voices of support for Israel across the United States.”
The cancellation of the Israel Summit also reflects growing concern regarding potential violence against supporters of the Jewish state. Last month, two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lipschinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were murdered while exiting an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Then this past Sunday, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, injuring 15 people and a dog.
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