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Why Did Newsweek Choose to Spread Anti-Israel Propaganda and Lies?

Released Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas, who was seized during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, embraces loved ones in an unknown location, in this screengrab from a handout video obtained by Reuters on February 1, 2025. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS

When media outlets interview academic experts, news consumers deserve an in-depth analysis.

But Newsweek’s attempt to do so last week, in a piece titled “Israel-Hamas war: What it Will Take to Rebuild Gaza,” was not only intellectually shallow, but also factually wrong and infected with personal animosity towards Israel.

Instead of asking serious questions and presenting various views, the magazine quoted biased experts whose level of analysis matched that of an average high school student on TikTok.

With subheaders that don’t require a Ph.D. — such as “Dr. Asher Kaufman: Rebuilding Gaza Will Take Years and Cost Billions, “Professor Best Dawn: Clearing the Rubble in Gaza Alone Will Take Years,” or “Professor Atalia Omer: There Is a Fear That Israel Has Rendered Gaza Uninhabitable” — the piece is an insult to common sense.

But perhaps more importantly, the magazine gave a platform to the historical revisionism of these so-called experts, who didn’t even bother doing their homework on the basic facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Take Oxford University anthropologist Professor Dawn Chatty, for example, who falsely claims in the article that Israel implemented military Plan Dalet in 1948 to “clear Palestine of Palestinians,” i.e. ethnic cleansing.

The deliberate misinterpretation of events in 1948 to delegitimize Israel and claim it was born in sin is not new. Historian Benny Morris has categorically debunked the claim that there was a  Zionist “plan” to evict Palestinians during the War of Independence.

Doesn’t Newsweek employ editors who either know a thing or two about the region’s history or are prepared to do some rudimentary fact-checking?

When HonestReporting raised these questions on social media, Chatty replied by telling us to “Read Ilan Pappe,” a charlatan who admitted he didn’t care about the truth and whom Benny Morris called “at best… one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest.”

Also in the Newsweek article, Chatty spread blatant disinformation by claiming that the Palestinians’ “right of return” is enshrined under international law.

She conveniently ignored the fact that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948 is not legally binding and that there’s nothing in international law guaranteeing a Palestinian right to destroy Israel as a Jewish state demographically.

None of the above is surprising if one takes a quick look at Professor Chatty’s X account (formerly Twitter), which is almost exclusively full of anti-Israeli propaganda, including a post calling to suspend the Jewish State from the United Nations.

She also reposted what bona fide antisemite Jake Shields — whom the ADL says “has a history of espousing a range of hateful tropes and narratives including antisemitism, anti-Zionism, the Great Replacement theory, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and more” — had to say against Israel in a tweet about the USS Liberty incident:

But Newsweek editors don’t seem to do any background checks on their experts.

They certainly didn’t do any due diligence on Professor Atalia Omer, who shared posts about “Israel’s state violence” and “apartheid.”

And Newsweek had no qualms about quoting her false claim that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) deemed Israel’s actions in Gaza as “plausibly genocidal.”

Sadly, it seems no editor was able to remind her that the former ICJ president said that “[The court] did not decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”

So what Newsweek gave its readers was nothing more than a superficial mix of biased pseudo-academic analysis and lies.

In fact, the once-respected magazine used the former to mask the latter.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Why Did Newsweek Choose to Spread Anti-Israel Propaganda and Lies? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Colombia Appoints First Ambassador to ‘State of Palestine’ Amid Deepening Rift With Israel

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro speaks during the inauguration of the International Book Fair (FilBo) in Bogota, Colombia, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

Colombia has appointed its first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, marking a significant diplomatic shift a year after severing ties with Israel and pledging to open an embassy in Ramallah.

On Monday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro officially appointed Jorge Iván Ospina — former mayor of Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city — as the country’s first ambassador to the “State of Palestine.”

A close ally of Petro, Ospina is well known for his outspoken hostility toward Israel following the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

He has previously sparked controversy by comparing the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group to the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime during World War II.

In a post on X, Ospina publicly confirmed his appointment, expressing solidarity with the “heroic Palestinian people.” He also pledged to “denounce the ongoing genocide that the Palestinian people are suffering today” and to dedicate himself to advancing their freedom and dignity.

The Colombian diplomat indicated that it is still uncertain whether he will carry out his duties from Ramallah in the West Bank or operate from a neighboring country.

“We will need to discuss with Israel and determine the necessary steps to enable the establishment of the Colombian embassy in Ramallah,” Ospina told AFP. “We recognize that the Palestinian state and the State of Israel must coexist.”

This latest move builds on Colombia’s 2018 official recognition of “Palestine.” According to Ospina, the new embassy will prioritize securing the release of Colombian-Israeli citizen Elkana Bohbot, supporting humanitarian aid for Palestinians, and advancing the recognition of a two-state solution.

Despite decades of close diplomatic and military ties — with Jerusalem supplying Colombia with warplanes, surveillance technology, and assault rifles since the 1990s — Petro severed relations with the Jewish state last year.

On Monday, the Colombian president called on the United States to help stop what he described as “the genocide in Gaza,” while condemning Israel’s defensive campaign in the enclave.

“In the fight for their lives, there are girls trying to survive the bombing of a school by Netanyahu, the genocidal man,” Petro said in a post on X, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There is a decisive complicity in producing this horror in the US and the EU. What we see is produced by Nazis.”

Colombia has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s actions, with Petro backing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Israel adamantly rejects the allegations.

The Latin American country has also joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Jewish state of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.

Last year, the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide. However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations, nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign.

Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide. The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The post Colombia Appoints First Ambassador to ‘State of Palestine’ Amid Deepening Rift With Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Children Attacked in London, Harassed in New York Amid Rising Antisemitism

A Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) car. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The growing wave of antisemitism across the globe continued to crash down on Jewish teens and children with incidents Monday in the United Kingdom and Friday in New York.

A Jewish teen required hospitalization after a group of approximately seven men used a knife to attack him and two other Jewish boys at northwest London’s Hampstead Underground Station on Monday evening. Police have opened an investigation into the assault and robbery as racially motivated. Hampstead is one of the country’s largest Jewish communities, with a 2021 Jewish population of 8,851.

Jewish security agency Shomrim stated on X that it was “appealing for any witnesses to the incident which took place or anyone with information to come forward … Shomrim is supporting the victims, and we encourage anyone who has been affected or who has experienced any form of antisemitism to get in touch. Shomrim specializes in reporting and supporting victims of antisemitic crime.”

London saw a previous antisemitic attack against adolescents in London on Nov. 25, 2024, when a man threw glass bottles from a high-rise balcony, targeting Jewish girls, one of whom required hospitalization from a head injury.

In February, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, said that 2024 included 3,528 recorded antisemitic incidents across the UK, the second worst year in the country’s history, following 2023. This included 260 cases at schools, 223 at synagogues or with congregants as victims, and 1,240 taking place on the internet.

Mark Gardner, the CST’s chief executive, praised “the defiance and pride that our community has shown, despite everything it has been through” and described how “those who are complicit in this antisemitism range from social media giants to the Islamist and far left extremists who celebrated the Hamas terror attacks.”

Students in Brooklyn also experienced antisemitism, when they reported their charter school’s bus driver pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road in order to evangelize his religious beliefs, including the claim of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This resulted in one Jewish pupil crying and the students arriving 30 minutes late to class at Brooklyn Prospect International Elementary Charter School, the New York Post reported.

The driver reportedly said, “The only one who can deliver you isn’t religion, it’s Jesus.”

In response to a student’s question about Jesus and Judaism, the driver said, “Yes, he was a Jew and basically Jews — his own kind — killed him.” He added, “They basically killed him because he said he was the son of God … These were religious leaders who killed him.” Some students texted their parents in real time during the driver’s antisemitic sermonizing. At one point he distributed white hats with black crosses and asked students to pray with him.

One parent told the New York Post that the driver “definitely held the kids captive.”

The school has since suspended the as-yet unnamed driver, sent a note to parents informing them of the incident, filed a complaint with the service who provided him, and requested a new person to fill the role.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents recorded 860 incidents (9 percent of the total nationwide) in K-12 schools in the US, a decrease of 26 percent from 2023. The most prominent of these antisemitic acts was swastika vandalism.

The Brooklyn school bus incident took place just two days before a protest outside the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, which resulted in police officers removing the demonstrators. The activists seemed intent on disrupting members of the global Hasidic movement within Orthodox Judaism as they were conducting a Torah ceremony.

According to the ADL’s audit, New York — the state with the largest Jewish population in the US — led the country in antisemitic incidents, with 15 percent of the total. The incidents included 912 cases of harassment (second highest nationally), 443 acts of vandalism (highest nationally), and 82 assaults (highest nationally). Comparable to the country as a whole, 58 percent of the state’s incidents included anti-Israel sentiment. New York’s colleges also experienced more incidents than those of any other state.

Sixty-eight percent of incidents occurred in New York City. The ADL reported that “the targeting of Orthodox Jews has become particularly concerning, with Brooklyn alone — home to numerous Orthodox Jewish communities — accounting for 39 percent of all assaults in the state. This reflects a dangerous pattern of escalating violence against visibly Jewish individuals.”

The post Jewish Children Attacked in London, Harassed in New York Amid Rising Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘Pod Save America’ Hosts Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’

Pod Save America hosts on tour. Photo: Screenshot

On a recent episode of Pod Save America, hosts Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, alumni of the former Obama administration, slammed Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza as a “genocide” and accused the Jewish state of killing at least 100,000 people in the enclave — a number that even exceeds the figures put out by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

“[The Palestinians] are — this is a population that lives in a place that has been entirely destroyed, right. Like almost every structure destroyed or damaged,” said Rhodes, an adviser and speechwriter in former US President Barack Obama’s White House. “I talked about in the interview, but like the death toll is much higher than you know they can report anymore. It’s probably like somewhere over 100,000 people. They’ve not let any food into the Gaza Strip.”

Rhodes dismissed Israel’s new plan to control aid distribution in Gaza, arguing that the Jewish state has only allowed a “dribble” of food to be delivered to civilians. He falsely accused Israel of “entirely killing civilians at this point,” not mentioning the military campaign is aimed at targeting Hamas.

“That’s a genocide,” Rhodes said. “And people don’t like to hear that term, but I don’t really know what other what the military rationale is to starve children and bomb innocent people in tents.”

After a two-month pause, Israel has allowed aid trucks to resume entering the Gaza Strip. According to Israel, around 170 trucks entered Gaza on Monday. Since allowing aid deliveries to restart last week, over 600 aid trucks have been allowed into the war-torn enclave. Israel says that it ceased aid deliveries to pressure Hamas, the terrorist group which rules Gaza and regularly steals aid for its own purposes, to release the remaining hostages it kidnapped from southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Vietor, who also served as a speechwriter for Obama, then cited Drop Site, a new pro-Palestinian news outlet, as a “great” publication that, according to him, has done valuable work in hiring journalists to document the ongoing war in Gaza. However, critics have accused Drop Site of being apoloigists for Hamas. The outlet’s lead reporter, Jeremy Scahill, has described Hamas as a “resistance,” echoing the terminology used by supporters of the internationally designated terrorist group.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Pod Save America podcast, known for its sharp Democratic analysis and former Obama staffer hosts, has struggled to address the ongoing war in Gaza with the same clarity and confidence that characterizes much of its political commentary. While the hosts have tackled other contentious issues, their discussions on Gaza have been sporadic, cautious, and often notably brief, drawing criticism from some longtime listeners.

The show, which typically provides liberal commentary on American politics, has appeared hesitant to engage deeply with the complex dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Initial episodes after Oct. 7 expressed horror at the violence but largely emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense. As civilian casualties mounted and global criticism of Israel’s military actions grew, the podcast’s treatment of the topic remained limited — often sidelined in favor of domestic political issues such as the 2024 US presidential election.

The reticence to engage in discussions centered around the Israel-Hamas war has sparked disappointment among parts of the show’s progressive audience, particularly younger listeners who have pushed for a more critical stance on US foreign policy and military aid to Israel. 

Additionally, the show has also been under pressure from progressive staffers, who have urged the show’s hosts to adopt a more critical stance against Israel. According to reports, many of the show’s staffers wear keffiyehs — a traditional Arab headdress that has been repurposed after Oct. 7 to indicate support for the Palestinian cause.

The post ‘Pod Save America’ Hosts Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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