RSS
‘We’re Gonna Get You:’ Pro-Hamas Mob Rampages Across New York City During Mass Protest
Anti-Israel protester waves sign while Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani leads demonstration. Photo: Screenshot/Twitter
Pro-Hamas activists stormed the streets of New York City on Thursday night, amassing in the hundreds to stage a demonstration outside the Loews Regency New York Hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staying before addressing the United Nations the following morning.
“Netanyahu, we’re gonna get you,” the protesters, led by Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and its founder and leader Nerdeen Kiswani chanted, appearing to threaten the prime minister’s life. Flanked on all sides by dozens of New York City Police Department (NYPD) Bike Unit officers assigned to contain the demonstration, they waved Palestinian flags and signs calling for the destruction of Israel.
Later in the night, the protesters defied law enforcement officers’ orders to stay within the space they allowed, resulting in several arrests and additional charges for resisting arrest and obstructing justice. During the detainments, the protesters screamed expletives at officers, calling them “fascists,” “p—ssies,” and “pieces of sh—t.” Others, jamming their cell phone cameras into the thick of the confrontations, demanded to know the officers’ names, presumably to report them for misconduct.
In a statement WOL accused the NYPD of setting off a “cop riot to protect Netanyahu, the Butcher of Gaza.” It continued, “The NYPD incited another egregious riot against New Yorkers, arresting and injuring dozens. The NYPD’s violence and aggression exemplifies that they will continually prioritize protecting the forces of imperialism and zionism [sic] over the safety and rights of the people of NYC.” The group added that “two protesters remain in state custody.”
The demonstration shows that, nearly a year removed from Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, pro-Hamas extremists are as active as ever and intend to continue targeting major cities for mass disruptions and clashes with law enforcement. College campuses are another theater in which the activists operate and thrive. Last month, pro-Hamas activists vandalized an administrative building at Cornell University. At University of Michigan, they disrupted a move-in week festival, prompting dozens of arrests.
In New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams (D) has been sharply critical of their anti-Jewish and anti-American rhetoric, Within Our Lifetime has been the principal agent of mass demonstrations, the aim of which is the disruption of the local economy and sabotaging of public services, as happened in April when it led the local operation of the “Coordinated Economic Blockade to Free Palestine.” Seeking to block the “arteries of capitalism,” Kiswani led WOL to Wall Street, where it attempted to bring trading on the New York Stock Exchange to a halt. In July, Kiswani indiscriminately targeted individual Jews, defending a man who had entered subway cars asking Zionists to identify themselves and deboard.
“We don’t want zionists in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE,” she later tweeted. “This is free speech, it is saying we don’t want racists here.”
During summer, WOL participated in an anti-July 4 demonstration in which anti-Zionist groups flooded the streets of New York City and Philadelphia, chanting anti-American slogans and others — such as “long live the intifada” — calling for terrorism. WOL recruited hundreds of people for a march through Washington Square Park, where they burned the American flag. Two months earlier, WOL conducted a siege on the Brooklyn Museum.
Named Antisemite of the Year in 2020 by StopAntisemitism, WOL founder Nerdeen Kiswani is an alumnus of City University of New York (CUNY), from which she has received undergraduate and graduate degrees. During her time there, she precipitated numerous antisemitic incidents, including one in which he threatened to set her classmate on fire for wearing an Israeli Defense Forces sweatshirt. The incident, for which she was not punished but defended by the school, prompted a federal investigation of CUNY by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Kiswani founded WOL in 2019 while still attending CUNY School of Law (CUNY Law) and for five years has steered the group far outside the mainstream of the pro-Palestinian movement, opposing, for example, the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and encouraging terrorism, as well as subversion and destruction of both Israel and the United States. In 2022, CUNY Law honored Kiswani by naming her the keynote speaker of its 2022 commencement, a platform Kiswani used to disgorge a stream of antisemitic conspiracies which both demonized Jews and inflated her importance on the world stage.
Following Thursday’s demonstration, Kiswani, clearly referring to Jewish men, described “Zionist men” as “perverted freaks” and accused them of attempting to sexually assault her. She proceeded to call Zionism, a category which includes a majority of the world’s Jews, a “perverted rapey [sic] culture.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘We’re Gonna Get You:’ Pro-Hamas Mob Rampages Across New York City During Mass Protest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel’s Yuval Raphael Advances to Grand Final of 2025 Eurovision Song Contest
Yuval Raphael from Israel with the title “New Day Will Rise” on stage at the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in the Arena St. Jakobshalle. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa via Reuters Connect
Israel’s Yuval Raphael advanced to the grand final of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest after a stunning performance of her song “New Day Will Rise” in the second semi-finals on Thursday night in Basel, Switzerland.
The 24-year-old, who is a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Nova music festival massacre, performed an emotional ballad in English, French, and Hebrew that was written by singer and songwriter Keren Peles. The results of the semi-finals are based solely on public vote.
Ten acts from the second semi-final advanced to the grand final, including performers from Armenia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Malta. Raphael will compete in Saturday’s grand final against those acts and the qualifiers from Tuesday’s semi-final. They include performers from Albania, Iceland, Estonia, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Norway, San Marino, and the Netherlands. Also competing in the grand final is the Eurovision “Big Five” — Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy – and Switzerland, which was last year’s winner.
Unlike in the semi-finals, the results of the grand final are based on a combination of the televote and the jury vote, in which professional juries from all 37 participating countries vote for their favorites. Last year, a Eurovision jury member from Norway admitted that he refused to give points to Israel’s representative, Eden Golan, because of his personal resentment toward Israel’s military actions in the Gaza war.
There have been a number of public calls, including from national broadcasters and former Eurovision contestants, to have Israel banned from this year’s competition because of the country’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
During a dress rehearsal for the semi-final on Thursday afternoon, audience members booed at Raphael, whistled, and waved oversized Palestinian flags. Under rules of the competition, all flags are allowed but there are limitations on the size. The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, which is organizing this year’s Eurovision events, said in a released statement that the audience members with the oversized flags were escorted out of the St Jakobshalle arena by security personnel.
The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest grand final will take place on Saturday night in Basel’s St Jackobshalle arena. The detailed results of the second semi-final will be revealed after the grand final.
The post Israel’s Yuval Raphael Advances to Grand Final of 2025 Eurovision Song Contest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran, Europeans Hold Nuclear Talks, Agree to More, Diplomats Say
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS
Diplomats from Iran and the three European parties remaining in a moribund 2015 nuclear deal met in Istanbul on Friday, Iranian and British officials said, their first round of talks since the US began nuclear talks with Tehran in April.
The talks between senior diplomats from Iran and Britain, France, and Germany – known as the E3 – took place as US President Donald Trump pushes for a deal to limit Iran‘s nuclear program. On Friday he called on Iran to move quickly after he said his administration had put forward a proposal to Iran.
An Iranian source close to the negotiating team said Tehran has yet to receive the US proposal, “but Oman has got it and will hand it over to Tehran soon.”
The European powers are not part of current negotiations between Iran and the United States, the fourth round of which ended in Oman on Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
However, they have held repeated talks with the Iranians most recently in March where they discussed how they saw the parameters of a deal to replace the 2015 accord.
The three powers have sought to coordinate with Washington notably on whether and when they should reimpose UN sanctions against Tehran – known in diplomatic circles as the “snapback mechanism” – if no agreement is reached.
That coordination has not been easy with European diplomats bemoaning a lack of clarity in US policy on its negotiations with Tehran.
Iran and the Europeans agreed to hold further talks if needed, Iran‘s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on X on Friday.
“Iran and the three European countries are determined to maintain and make optimal use of diplomacy,” Gharibabadi said. “We will meet again to continue the discussions if necessary.”
British diplomat Christian Turner said on X that Iran and the E3 shared a commitment to dialogue and that they agreed to meet again, without giving a timeframe.
Under the terms of a UN resolution ratifying the 2015 nuclear pact, the three European powers have until October 18 to trigger the snapback mechanism before the resolution expires.
According to diplomats and a document seen by Reuters, the E3 countries may do this by August if no substantial deal can be found by then.
Relations between the E3 and Iran have worsened over the last year despite sporadic meetings, against a backdrop of new sanctions imposed on Tehran over its ballistic missile program, its detention of foreign citizens and support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met the equivalent of national security advisers of the E3 powers also in Istanbul on Friday to discuss Iran and Ukraine, a US official said.
The post Iran, Europeans Hold Nuclear Talks, Agree to More, Diplomats Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Strikes Yemeni Ports, Warns That Houthi Leader Is a Target
Illustrative: Smoke rises in the sky following US-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adel Al Khader
Israel struck Yemen’s Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif on Friday, continuing its campaign to degrade Houthi military capabilities and warning that the Iran-backed terrorist group’s top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, could be targeted if attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.
Israel has carried out retaliatory strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
On Friday, the Israeli military said the ports of Hodeidah and Salif were being used to transfer weapons, reiterating its warnings to residents of those areas to evacuate.
Residents in Hodeidah said they heard four loud booms and saw smoke rising from the port following the Israeli strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement they would hunt down the Houthis’ top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
“If the Houthis continue to fire missiles at the State of Israel, they will be severely harmed, and we will also hurt the leaders,” they said, adding that al-Houthi could join the list of terrorist figures killed by Israel, such as Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis are part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests in the Middle East, alongside Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. About 60 percent of the Yemeni population lives under their control.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks toward Israel, most of which have been intercepted or landed short.
The post Israel Strikes Yemeni Ports, Warns That Houthi Leader Is a Target first appeared on Algemeiner.com.