RSS
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.”
The post The Dangerous Double Standards of Britain, Canada and Germany first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
My Message to Donald Trump: The Jews Need You
US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
What happens when the past starts to look dangerously like the present? The hate my family fled in the Soviet Union is back, not just in distant countries but in my city, on social media, and even in the political discourse of this country.
My ancestors didn’t survive oppression by being passive. In the Soviet Union, they fought to preserve their identity, even when being Jewish was a crime. Synagogues were destroyed, Hebrew was banned, and Jewish people were persecuted in every aspect of life. Yet, they kept their faith and traditions alive, passing them down secretly, risking everything to do so.
They weren’t just surviving — they were resisting. And that resistance is part of the reason I’m here today.
But now, in 2025, the same struggle is back: the slurs on the subway walls, the antisemitic graffiti at parks, the casual hate directed at Israel. It’s not just words, it’s a message: Jews don’t belong.
After the October 7th Hamas massacre, we saw a spike in antisemitic incidents, and the climate is growing more hostile. This isn’t some far-off problem; it’s here in America, and it’s escalating.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House makes the need for action even more straightforward. Under the Biden administration, antisemitism surged, and yet the response was mostly silence or half-hearted condemnations. Jewish communities were left exposed as attacks increased. This can’t continue.
We need leadership that takes direct, meaningful action to combat antisemitism — not just when it makes headlines, but every day. Now back in office, Trump has the responsibility to prioritize this fight. His words and actions will shape the future of our country, and it’s time to show authentic leadership by actively protecting Jewish communities.
Antisemitism has become normalized in many spaces, and it’s not something we can hope will fade. We need policies that protect Jewish people, enforce stronger laws, and educate against hate speech. This is about more than just rhetoric. It’s about taking action that ensures we are not targeted simply for being who we are.
I hear the slurs, see the symbols, and witness the spread of harmful stereotypes, often with no consequences. Whenever I speak up, it feels like I’m fighting an uphill battle. But I’m not alone.
This is part of a larger fight. We need leaders, not just in my school or community, but in the White House, who will stand against hate and take tangible steps to protect us.
The responsibility to fight antisemitism can’t fall solely on students or Jewish communities — those in power must take it up. President Trump, this is your moment. Do not let this crisis go unaddressed. If you genuinely want to leave a legacy of strength, act now. Make fighting antisemitism a priority.
We must ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. The stakes are too high. We cannot afford to wait for another crisis to occur. If you want to be remembered for more than just words, show the courage to lead the fight against antisemitism.
The writer is a high school student from Great Neck, New York, passionate about advocacy and government. Through his writing and activism, he engages others in meaningful conversations about US politics, international relations, and Israel’s significance as both a homeland for the Jewish people and a key ally of the United States
The post My Message to Donald Trump: The Jews Need You first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
It was bad enough when Whoopi Goldberg of The View infamously said the Holocaust was not about race. On Sunday, Margaret Brennan of CBS’ Face The Nation interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. During the interview, Brennan said, “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide” in Nazi Germany.
Was it freedom of the press when Nazis shut down the Munich Post, which for a decade had been warning against Hitler and covered the suspicious death of his niece? What about all of Hitler’s critics and enemies — why would they have to flee if there was free speech?
What an actual dictator does is close down free speech to maintain groupthink. Brennan embarrassed herself using the buzzword of “weaponizing” without understanding its meaning, or the fact that it was a lack of freedom of the press that was weaponized to help Hitler conduct a genocide.
In March 1933, Hitler passed the Enabling Act and, in his speech, said that “the entire educational system, the theatre, the cinema, literature, the Press and the wireless, all these very things will be used as a means to this end and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the essential character of the people.”
So now that we established as of 1933 there was no freedom of the press, how could Brennan claim a “weaponization” of free press caused a genocide? Perhaps, she has no idea of what she is talking about, and she should make an on-air apology if she has not already.
I would not expect that she or Goldberg would have read a book called Mein Kampf. But Hitler wrote: “Again and again our Jewish press has known how to concentrate special hatred on England, and many a good German simpleton has fallen into the Jewish snare with the greatest willingness, drooled about ‘strengthening’ German sea power, protested against the rape of our colonies, recommended their reconquest, and thus helped furnish the material which the Jewish scoundrel could pass on to his fellow Jews in England for practical propogandist use.”
Perhaps Brennan could educate herself by watching a film or play about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose members. Scholl and her compatriots were executed for handing out pamphlets that called for resistance. They declared Hitler was a liar. She was 21 when she was executed. Strange, I don’t see any students today being executed for free speech.
Such reports on national news networks assume that the general public has little knowledge of the Holocaust, which is sadly true. If anyone is weaponizing anything, it is Brennan using scare tactics to try to compare modern day political figures to Hitler, which is a tough comparison to make considering no American leaders have advocated for Jews to be eliminated, whereas Hitler used that terminology and hatred from the very beginning.
Be skeptical any time you hear the phrase “weaponized.” Many podcasts and anti-Israel speakers have tried to ignore antisemitism by saying it is being “weaponized” by Jews. You may also hear that Jews “weaponized” the Holocaust to create the state of Israel.
If Jews, after seeing the horrible genocide, understood the need for a Jewish state — and the countries of the United Nations voted for establishment of Israel due to the savagery of the Holocaust — that is called understanding the consequences of events. It is not called weaponization.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
UCLA Student Newspaper Protects Oct. 7 Supporters, and Attacks Jews
A mock Israeli checkpoint set up during a past ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ at the University of California at Los Angeles campus. Photo: AMCHA Initiative.
At UCLA, a troubling pattern has emerged: individuals engaged in antisemitic discrimination are being recast as victims, while those targeted are portrayed as villains for speaking out.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of a staff member who resigned amid allegations that she actively excluded Jewish students from hiring decisions. Rather than holding her accountable or looking seriously into the accusations, UCLA’s student paper — the Daily Bruin — portrayed her as a martyr, while ignoring her actions regarding the Jewish community.
To compound the issue, the Daily Bruin’s coverage of a protest outside the home of UC Regent Jay Sures — where activists threatened him and vandalized his property — was presented with misleading context, making the demonstrators appear justified.
Undergraduate Students Association Council Cultural Affairs Commissioner Alicia Verugo stepped down from her job, after she was accused of directing her office to exclude Jewish students from employment. She claims she only resigned out of fear for her personal safety. Here are the facts, according to the Daily Bruin:
In a copy of the petition, which [Bella] Brannon provided to the Daily Bruin, Brannon accused Verdugo of directing their staff to not hire “Zionist” applicants to the commission. She cited screenshots that she said a member of Verdugo’s office provided to her.
“Lots of Zionists are applying,” Verdugo allegedly said in a message appended to the petition. “Please do your research when you look at applicants and I will also share a doc of no hire list during retreat.”
Verdugo justified Hamas’ atrocities on October 7, saying it was an “unprecedented” and “historic” moment. Furthermore, she did so in a publicly recorded event just days after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Yet, in the Daily Bruin’s coverage, these damning details were omitted. Instead, the article emphasized her support for UCLA’s BIPOC community, whitewashing her actions and shifting the focus away from her discrimination.
The section of the article reporting on her plan to use a member of the extremist anti-Israel group, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), as a defense witness is even more problematic. The journalists identify JVP as merely “critical of Israel.” That would be like describing the KKK as a group “critical of minorities” in a story about them using their nonexistent moral authority to defend a segregationist.
Instead of presenting the facts of what Verdugo had done, the Daily Bruin framed her as a victim of political pressure, allowing her to escape accountability.
This misleading portrayal is dangerous. It reinforces the insidious trend where Jewish students raising concerns about discrimination are smeared as aggressors, exacerbating campus hostility toward Jews and Israel at UCLA.
The contrast is glaring when compared to the Daily Bruin’s reporting on the harassment of UC Regent Jay Sures. Protesters accused Sures of being a “genocide enabler,” vandalized his property with red handprints — a symbol with deep ties to historical antisemitic violence — and ominously threatened him.
Yet, instead of condemning the harassment, the Daily Bruin’s article dedicated its final section to listing Sures’ affiliations with pro-Israel organizations, concluding with an uncritical quote from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) attacking him.
The implication? That such harassment was, if not justified, at least understandable.
When a Jewish leader and his family are threatened, the Daily Bruin frames the narrative as an “underdog vs. powerful figure.” But when a student leader is caught discriminating against Jewish students and justifying the massacre of civilians, the paper downplays the charges and shifts focus to her supposed victimization.
This blatant discrepancy exposes a disturbing editorial bias: Jewish students who fight back against discrimination are ignored — or worse, smeared — as part of an imagined Zionist effort to silence free speech. Meanwhile, anti-Israel activists who face legitimate consequences for their actions receive glowing, sympathetic coverage; their ethical breaches are reframed as minor inconveniences imposed by an all-powerful Jewish establishment.
Thousands of UCLA students and alumni will now likely believe these politicized narratives. Fortunately, the university itself has demonstrated more professionalism, suspending both SJP and its graduate counterpart for their disgraceful treatment of Sures, his family, and his neighbors.
The Daily Bruin has a responsibility to correct the record. True journalism demands fairness, not selective storytelling that whitewashes antisemitism under the guise of political nuance. If the paper values integrity, it must fully acknowledge the scope of both controversies — and ensure future reporting treats discrimination with the seriousness it deserves, no matter the target.
Bias and distortion must no longer mislead the UCLA community. Journalism should illuminate the truth.
Seth B. Mendel is the West Coast Campus Advisor for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA)
The post UCLA Student Newspaper Protects Oct. 7 Supporters, and Attacks Jews first appeared on Algemeiner.com.