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US Jewish Lobby Promotes Azerbaijan, Only Muslim State Fighting Jew-Hatred
FILE PHOTO: Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev arrives for a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Photo: Sputnik/Ilya Pitalev/Kremlin
i24 News – Jewish organizations in Washington, DC, held a forum in Congress, focusing on religious freedom in the Caucasus. The next day, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) reported that Azerbaijan has become the first Muslim-majority country to include a definition of antisemitism in its textbooks.
“Nobody in Azerbaijan is asking local Jews about double loyalty. The idea that building bridges between Baku and Jerusalem is not in the interests of the Azerbaijani nation is considered absurd,” noted Rabbi Zamir Isayev, chief rabbi of the Sephardi community of Baku, during a forum in the US Congress last week.
Isayev presented the case of Azerbaijan during the event, which focused on religious freedoms and tolerance in the Caucasus. He discussed the issues of security of the local Jewish community with representatives of the US Jewish organizations, stressing that the Azerbaijani government sees any threat to Jews as a threat to the state’s stability.
“Everybody knows that we have a very long border with Iran, which always tries to harm our schools and synagogues by sending proxies – foreigners and hired criminals,” Isayev said. “We never needed to ask the local secret service for additional security. They are highly professional and always provide additional protection even before we know that there is a threat. And the local population is very sympathetic to us. A Jew in a kippah can freely roam the streets. Azerbaijanis associate Jews with Israel, and Israel is considered an ally and a friend.”
He invited all the participants to visit Azerbaijan, asking US Representative Timothy M. Kennedy in particular to come and see the example of Judeo-Muslim symbiosis that Azerbaijan is setting for the Muslim world. Isayev quoted and distributed copies of a recent research paper by the Begin-Sadat Center, which analyzed the 30-year-long strategic alliance between Baku and Jerusalem.
As proof of Isayev’s words at the end of the week, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a British nonprofit organization that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula around the world, published a report that stressed how Azerbaijan has become the first Muslim-majority country to include a definition of antisemitism in its textbooks. IMPACT-se examined 53 textbooks from Azerbaijan’s national curriculum, identifying the removal of anti-Israel narratives and the absence of Islamist rhetoric.
“Azerbaijan promotes the freedom of religion and tolerance, creating an open environment for all religions to flourish, including Judaism,” the study concluded. “Students are taught the value of tolerance and harmony in modern society, and examples of Jewish prayer and rituals are incorporated into the curriculum.”
The report highlighted that Judaism is “highly regarded in the textbooks,” and the books also correctly portray the Holocaust as a genocide of six million Jews, highlighting antisemitic measures such as arbitrary killings and imprisonment rather than trying to downplay or deny the Nazis’ atrocities.
“The textbooks demonstrate a clear rejection of the extreme Islamist values promoted by their near-neighbor Iran,” IMPACT–se CEO Marcus Sheff said, commenting on the report. “Instead, they promote tolerance, diversity, and a heartfelt respect for Jews and Israel, which serves as an important model for many other majority-Muslim states.”
In related news, a Jewish singer has been chosen to represent Azerbaijan in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Thirty-two-year-old Asaf (Sefael) Mishiev will be performing as part of his Baku-based band, Mamagama, in which he is the front man and soloist.
Mishiev is well known in Azerbaijan’s Jewish community – in 2013 he won a Mountain Jewish music competition, and he also reportedly gave singing lessons to children and teenagers at the Jewish Community Club in Baku.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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