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Welcome to the new Twitter: Kanye West returns with ‘shalom’ and Elon Musk trolls the ADL
(JTA) — Elon Musk bantered with Kanye West and trolled the Anti-Defamation League this weekend, in the latest of mounting signs that he is choosing to let the platform become a free for all after acquiring it last month.
West, the rapper and designer who also goes by Ye, had been banned from Twitter last month for threatening Jews; he returned to the platform Nov. 4 and was swiftly banned again after he launched a new round of anti-Jewish invective.
“Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,” West tweeted midday Sunday. Several hours later, Musk appeared to be welcoming West, punning on West’s more recent name in a response to his question: “Don’t kill what ye hate Save what ye love,” Musk tweeted.
West’s next tweet was simply “Shalom” followed by a smile emoji, a message that appeared to wink at his ongoing antisemitism controversy.
West’s return to Twitter came amid a slew of restorations of accounts that had been banned for violating Twitter’s rules. On Friday, Musk restored Donald Trump’s account, following a poll of users that narrowly concluded that the former president should be allowed to return after being suspended because his incendiary tweets helped spur the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. (Trump for his part was blase about his restoration, saying he preferred Truth Social, his own social media platform.)
Musk also restored the accounts of the Babylon Bee, a satire site, and Jordan Peterson, a conservative commentator. Both had been suspended over tweets targeting trans people and had declined to remove the tweets that Twitter said violated its policies on hateful content.
Other than with Trump, it was not clear what process Musk followed, if any, to guide his decision making — a dynamic that is at odds with what the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said he had been promised when he and others met with Musk on Nov. 1 to urge him to combat hate on the platform.
“He committed not to replatform anyone, regardless of stature, until he installed a transparent, clear process that took into consideration the views of civil society,” Greenblatt said in a statement Sunday night. He called the poll that preceded Trump’s reinstatement “dangerous” and said, “It forces us to wonder whether he is serious about safeguarding the platform from hate, harassment and disinformation.”
The statement was an extended version of comments that Greenblatt had tweeted on Saturday night — and elicited a flip public response from Musk as a result.
“Hey stop defaming me!” Musk wrote, in a message widely interpreted as mocking the civil rights organization that has sought to play a leading role in pressing for a hate-free Twitter.
In the immediate wake of the Nov. 1 meeting, Greenblatt had expressed optimism about Musk’s commitment to ridding Twitter of hate speech. But as Musk instituted changes, firing or encouraging to quit hundreds of staffers, including the executives responsible for ensuring that the platform is free of hate, hateful language and harassment spiked on the site. The coalition Greenblatt initiated, Stop Hate For Profit, called on advertisers to quit Twitter until Musk makes changes.
A review of Musk’s more recent tweets suggested he was relishing the free for all. He mocked his critics, saying they were driving eyes to Twitter, joked that he hoped Twitter would induce a greater dopamine rush and then posted what he framed as a statement of his philosophy: “The most entertaining outcome is the most likely.”
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The post Welcome to the new Twitter: Kanye West returns with ‘shalom’ and Elon Musk trolls the ADL appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Qatar’s Al Thani to Visit Beirut Wednesday to Meet with Lebanon’s Leaders
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani makes statements to the media with then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Doha, Qatar, Oct. 13, 2023. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani will visit Beirut on Wednesday to meet with Lebanon’s leaders, Al-Jadeed reported Saturday.
The visit comes “as part of an effort inseparable from the efforts by Egypt in coordination with Arab countries, foremost among them Saudi Arabia.”
The trip coincides with a sensitive period for the country, ravaged by war and deep economic crisis.
Lebanon is under growing pressure from both Israel and the United States to more swiftly disarm Hezbollah and other Islamist groups across the country, with Israel increasingly inclined to stop the Shiite militia from rearming and rebuilding its infrastructure.
Hezbollah was left devastated in the aftermath of a nine-day war last year, that saw Israel take out its command structure and lay waste to a significant proportion of its missile arsenal.
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Pope Removes Shoes But Doesn’t Pray on Visit to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
Pope Leo XIV visits the Sultanahmet Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, during his first apostolic journey, in Istanbul, Turkey, November 29, 2025. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan
Pope Leo visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on Saturday, removing his shoes in a sign of respect but not appearing to pray in his first visit as leader of the Catholic Church to a Muslim place of worship during his four-day visit to Turkey.
The first US pope bowed slightly before entering the mosque and was led on a tour of the expansive complex, able to hold 10,000 worshipers, by its imam and the mufti of Istanbul.
Leo, walking in white socks, smiled during the 20-minute visit and joked with one of his guides, the mosque’s lead muezzin – the official who leads the daily calls to prayer.
The Vatican appeared surprised that Leo had not stopped to pray during the visit and that he had not been welcomed to the mosque by the head of Turkey’s state-run religious organization, known as the diyanet, as had been planned.
About three hours after the visit, the Vatican released a press statement saying both the prayer and the welcome had occurred, although they had not. The Vatican press office said the release had been sent in error.
LEO’S FIRST TRIP AS POPE BEING CLOSELY WATCHED
Askin Musa Tunca, the muezzin, told journalists after the mosque visit that he asked Leo during the tour if he wished to pray for a moment, but the pope said he preferred to just visit the mosque.
The Vatican said in a statement immediately after the visit that Leo undertook the tour “in a spirit of reflection and listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”
While Leo did not appear to pray during the tour, he did joke with Tunca. As the group was leaving the building, the pope noticed he was being guided out a door that is usually an entryway, where a sign says: “No exit.”
“It says no exit,” Leo said, smiling. Tunca responded: “You don’t have to go out, you can stay here.”
The pope is visiting Turkey until Sunday on his first overseas trip as pontiff, which also includes a visit to Lebanon.
Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy.
The Blue Mosque is officially named for Sultan Ahmed I, leader of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 to 1617, who oversaw its construction. It is decorated with thousands of blue ceramic tiles, the basis of its popular name.
NO VISIT TO HAGIA SOPHIA
The 17th-century structure is located across from the Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine-era cathedral that Leo did not visit, in a break from past papal trips to Turkey. The Hagia Sophia, one of Christianity’s most important places of worship for about a millennium, was made a mosque for 500 years after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
It was converted to a museum by Turkey’s secular republic more than 70 years ago but turned back into a mosque by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2020.
The Vatican has not commented on Leo’s decision not to visit the Hagia Sophia. The late Pope Francis, who visited the structure during a 2014 trip to Turkey, said in 2020 that he was “very pained” that it had been made a mosque again.
Leo chose mainly Muslim Turkey as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world’s Christians today.
At a ceremony on Friday to commemorate the Church council with Christian leaders from across the Middle East, the pope condemned violence in the name of religion and urged Christians to overcome centuries of heated divisions.
Speaking to senior clerics from countries including Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Israel, Leo called it a scandal that the world’s 2.6 billion Christians were not more united.
Leo repeated his condemnation of religious violence on Saturday at a Mass with Catholics at Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena, attended by about 4,000 people.
He also met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul and is the spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.
In a joint declaration, the two leaders lamented the number of bloody conflicts around the world and pleaded for civil and political leaders to pursue peace.
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Trump Says Airspace Above and Around Venezuela Should Be Considered Closed
A drone view shows a fishing boat anchored in the Gulf of Paria, and the coast of Venezuela in the back, in Cedros, Trinidad and Tobago, November 17, 2025. REUTERS/Marco Bello
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety,” but gave no further details as Washington ramps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
US officials contacted by Reuters were surprised by Trump’s announcement and unaware of any ongoing US military operations to enforce a closure of Venezuelan airspace. The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment and the White House did not provide any further explanation.
Venezuela‘s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump’s post.
MASSIVE MILITARY BUILDUP IN CARIBBEAN
David Deptula, a retired lieutenant general who commanded a no-fly zone over northern Iraq in 1998 and 1999, said Trump’s announcement raises more questions than it answers. Imposing a no-fly zone over Venezuela could require significant resources and planning, depending on the goals of the airspace closure, he said.
“The devil’s in the details,” Deptula said.
The Trump administration has been weighing Venezuela-related options to combat what it has portrayed as Maduro’s role in supplying illegal drugs that have killed Americans. The socialist Venezuelan president has denied having any links to the illegal drug trade.
Reuters has reported that options under US consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro, and that the US military is poised for a new phase of operations after a massive military buildup in the Caribbean and nearly three months of strikes on suspected drug boats off Venezuela‘s coast. Trump has also authorized covert CIA operations in the South American country.
Maduro, in power since 2013, has contended that Trump is seeking to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt.
Trump told military service members earlier this week that the US would “very soon” begin land operations to stop suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers.
The streets of Caracas were largely quiet on Saturday morning, though some people braved rain to go shopping.
Maduro and high-ranking officials in his government, some combination of whom appear almost daily on state television, have decried US imperialism in their recent comments, but do not single out Trump by name, as the Venezuelan government may be trying to de-escalate tensions, according to security and diplomatic sources. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously been the focus of Venezuelan government ire, but even references to him have decreased in recent weeks.
The US boat bombings have led to stepped-up surveillance by authorities in the remote northeastern state of Sucre, with increased patrols by security agencies and ruling-party supporters stoking fear among locals, four residents and one recent visitor said.
GPS signals in Venezuela have also been affected in recent weeks amid the US buildup.
Trump’s announcement on Venezuela‘s airspace followed a warning last week from the US Federal Aviation Administration that major airlines faced a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over Venezuela due to a “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around” the country.
Venezuela revoked operating rights for six major international airlines that had suspended flights to the country after the FAA warning.