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Trump Hints at Openness to West Bank Annexation, Touts Israel’s Success Despite Being ‘Very Small Piece of Land’

US President Donald Trump (R) in the Oval of the White House in January 2025. Photo: Fortune via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump on Monday did not bat down the prospect of Israel annexing parts of the West Bank, noting that the Jewish state is a “very small piece of land” and praising Israelis for their “amazing” accomplishments despite their country’s size.
While speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he supports Israel potentially annexing the West Bank. Though Trump refused to answer the question directly, he seemed to indicate dissatisfaction with the size of Israel’s territorial boundaries.
“Well, I’m not going to talk about that,” Trump said regarding West Bank annexation. “It [Israel] certainly is a small country in terms of land.”
Trump then picked up a stationery pen and juxtaposed it to his presidential desk, comparing the size of Israel to its Middle Eastern neighbors.
“That’s not good, you know? It’s a pretty big difference,” Trump said, regarding the size of Israel.
“I use that as analogy. It’s pretty accurate, actually,” Trump said. “It’s a pretty small piece of land, and it’s amazing that they’ve been able to do, what they’ve been able to do when you think about it. There’s a lot of good, smart brainpower. But it is a very small piece of land, no question about it.”
Trump has previously indicated a potential belief that Israel should expand its territorial boundaries. In August 2024, while still campaigning for president, Trump called Israel “tiny” and questioned if the country could expand.
“When you look at the map, a map of the Middle East, Israel is a tiny little spot compared to these giant landmasses. It’s really a tiny spot. I actually said, ‘Is there any way of getting more?’” Trump said
Observers have pondered whether Trump would support a formal annexation of parts of the West Bank in his second term. Although Trump has yet to indicate support for such measures, Jewish billionaire Miriam Adelson, one of the president’s most generous campaign donors, allegedly requested support for West Bank annexation in exchange for financial assistance. However, a spokesperson for Adelson denied that she made such a request.
The first Trump administration handled the West Bank in a different fashion than its predecessors, suggesting that the White House might be open to upending traditional policy regarding the territory. In 2019, the Trump administration reversed the US policy that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. Explaining the policy shift, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”
Proponents of annexation argue that establishing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank would protect the Jewish state from future terrorist attacks by groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while also providing residents a better quality of life.
However, opponents of West Bank annexation argue that such an action would deprive Palestinians of the ability to have their own state and trigger an onslaught of backlash from Israel’s Western allies and international institutions such as the UN.
The Trump administration has issued an executive order rescinding sanctions imposed during the Biden administration against Israelis living in the West Ban. The sanctions accused them of behaving violently against Palestinians in the West Bank. Mike Huckabee, the nominee for US ambassador to Israel, has publicly declared that he will refer to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” adopting terminology preferred by Israel.
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Anti-Israel Singer Kehlani’s NYC Concert Gets Cancelled After Mayor Faces Pressure

Kehlani walking on the red carpet during the 67th Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Elyse Jankowski/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
An upcoming New York City concert featuring Israel-hating, American singer Kehlani was canceled late Monday after organizers faced mounting pressure from New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The webpage for the “Pride With Kehlani” benefit concert has also removed from the website of the City Parks Foundation. The privately-funded non-profit organization was hosting the performance, set for June 26 in Central Park, as part of its SummerStage festival series and in celebration of June being Pride Month. The concert was being produced and presented by Live Nation, which reportedly selected Kehlani for the performance.
SummerStage released a statement on Monday explaining its decision to call off Kehlani’s performance. According to the statement, the mayor’s office contacted concert organizers and expressed concerns about “safety and security issues” at the event, especially in light of Cornell University’s recent decision to cancel a performance by Kehlani, “as well as security demands in Central Park and throughout the City for other Pride events during that same time period.”
“We strongly and emphatically believe in artistic expression of all kinds. However, the safety and security of our guests and artists is the utmost importance and in light of these concerns, the concert has been cancelled,” SummerStage said. “SummerStage is proud to be a platform for artists from around the world to perform and make arts accessible for all New Yorkers in their neighborhood parks. While artists may choose to express their own opinions, their views may not necessarily be representative of the festival. SummerStage events are intended to bring together all sectors of the New York City community and we look forward to welcoming more guests throughout the summer.”
Mayor Adams’ administration also threatened to pull the licenses for all SummerStage shows if Kehlani’s concert was not canceled, according to a letter sent to the City Parks Foundation that was obtained by New York Post.
Kehlani released a music video last year that opens with the message “Long live the Intifada,” a phrase that incites violence against Israel and the Jewish community. She has attended pro-Palestinian rallies, accused Israel of genocide, and shared numerous anti-Israel and anti-Zionist posts on social media. In one Instagram post, she wrote: “Dismantle Israel. Eradicate Zionism.” She also shared on social media a post that called for Israel to be removed off the map and replaced with “Palestine.” Kehlani recently claimed that she is not antisemitic.
“I am not antisemitic, nor anti-Jew. I am anti-genocide. I am anti-the-actions-of-the-Israeli-government,” she stated in a video posted on Instagram and TikTok.
Congressman Ritchie Torres, who pushed Mayor Adams to take action and have Kehlani’s Central Park concert canceled, applauded the move by SummerStage to call off the show. “Antisemitism becomes unacceptable only when we, as a society, have the courage to reject it—clearly, consistently, and without compromise,” he wrote on X.
SummerStage is the city’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival. It presents more than 80 free and benefit concerts each summer.
Kehlani has not publicly responded to the cancellation of her New York City concert.
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New Study Exposes Antisemitism in University Medical Centers

Illustrative Pro-Hamas protesters in Washington, DC, USA, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Robyn Stevens Brody/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish healthcare professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a new study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman said on Monday in a press release. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish healthcare professionals employed by campus-based medical center reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“When administrators and colleagues understand what antisemitism looks like, it clearly correlates with less antisemitism in the workplace,” co-author and Yeshiva University professor Dr. Charles Auerbach said. “Recognition is a powerful tool — institutions that foster awareness create safer, more inclusive environments for everyone.”
Monday’s study is not StandWithUs first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December, its Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.
The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
In some schools, Jewish faculty are speaking out.
In February, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) accused the institution in an open letter of “ignoring” antisemitism at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM),” charing that its indifference to the matter “continues to encourage more antisemitism.” JFrg added that discrimination at the Geffen medical school has caused demonstrable harm to Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
“DGSOM’s continued silence in the face of a sustained and deeply troubling rise in antisemitism within its own institution is not just complicity — it is a failure of responsibility,” the group said. “Without strong and principled leadership, this dangerous pattern will persist.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Dozens of Former Eurovision Contestants Pressure Organizers to Ban Israel From 2025 Song Contest

Israel’s representative to the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, Yuval Raphael, holds an Israeli flag in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: “The Rising Star,” Channel Keshet 12/Handout via REUTERS
More than 70 previous contestants of the Eurovision Song Contest on Monday demanded that Israel’s public broadcaster Kan should be banned from the international competition this year because of what they falsely claim is Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Singers, songwriters, musicians, lyricists and others from across Europe signed an open letter, published by Artists for Palestine UK, that was addressed to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest. In their letter, the anti-Israel creatives urged the EBU to ban Kan, claiming that it is “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people.”
“We believe in the unifying power of music, which is why we refuse to allow music to be used as a tool to whitewash crimes against humanity,” the open letter stated. The signatories urged EBU to “act now and prevent further discredit and disruption to the festival.”
“Silence is not an option,” they added. “We therefore join together to state that the EBU’s complicity with Israel’s genocide must stop. By continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalizing and whitewashing its crimes … Israel must be excluded from Eurovision.”
The former Eurovision contestants also said that they were “appalled” by the EBU’s decision last year to include Kan in the competition during the Israel-Hamas war.
“The result was disastrous,” they said about the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. “Rather than acknowledging the widespread criticism and reflecting on its own failures, the EBU responded by doubling down — granting total impunity to the Israeli delegation while repressing other artists and delegations, making the 2024 edition the most politicized, chaotic and unpleasant in the competition’s history.”
During last year’s competition, Israeli singer Eden Golan was booed on stage by anti-Israel audience members, faced death threats, had a anti-Israel Eurovision jury member refuse to give her points, and was forced to conceal her identity outside of the competition for her own safety.
Those who signed Monday’s open letter also accused the EBU of a “double standard” in regards to Israel. They criticized the EBU for expelling Russia’s public broadcaster from the competition in 2022, because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that year, but still allowing Israel to participate in the song contest amid the Israel-Hamas war that started after the deadly Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“[It] can’t be one rule for Russia and a completely different rule for Israel. You bomb, you’re out,” said former Eurovision contestant Thea Garrett, who represented Malta in 2010.
“I believe that the Israeli government has been and is inflicting genocide on the people of Palestine and for that reason Israel should be barred from competing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest,” added Charlie McGettigan, who won the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.
The open letter was signed by creatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Iceland, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The national broadcasters in Iceland, Slovenia and Spain have previously expressed opposition to Israel’s participation in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
The open letter was published the same day that Israel’s Eurovision representative this year, singer Yuval Raphael, traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to compete in the song contest. Raphael, who is a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will compete in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “New Day Will Rise,” a ballad written by singer and songwriter Keren Peles. She will perform in the second semi-final on May 15 and, if she advances, will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final on May 17.
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