RSS
Why Is the City Council of Somerville So Focused on the Middle East?
Postcard of Somerville Highlands station in Somerville, Mass. The station was located at Hancock Street on the Fitchburg Cutoff (later the freight cutoff), originally part of the Lexington & West Cambridge Railroad, circa 1907. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – Somerville is a delightful city: It was named in 2016 by Lonely Planet as one of the best places in the country to visit, borders Boston, is a short stroll from Harvard University, is home to the exciting new kosher restaurant of Lehrhaus, and, most importantly, where I lived for much of my 30s with my now wife. Recently, Somerville also became the first municipality in Massachusetts to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, the latter of which is the council’s perceived neighborhood bully.
As you would expect, this resolution has been dominating headlines all over the Israeli press and is exactly why the country is now slowing its operations against terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. We are finally moments away from the historic era of peace in the Middle East. People are asking why Somerville dragged its feet and took so long to pass such a resolution!
Of course, the part about the impact of the resolution is in jest; it has predictably failed to make a single headline in the Israeli press. If the goal of the resolution was to have an actual impact on the state of Israel, then it is hard to imagine actions by the city council that would have been a greater waste of time.
More than 100 days since Hamas started this war, Hamas is still firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel. Israeli villages that were decimated during the Hamas invasion on the morning of Oct. 7 are still uninhabitable, including Kissufim, where I spent the first years of my life. Hundreds of Israelis, men and women, babies to elderly, remain hostage and tortured. Hamas has been very vocal about their desire to repeat such atrocities again and again.
Does the city council of Somerville really think that they will cause Israel to ignore Hamas and just learn to live with this new reality? Perhaps they are reasoning that Jews have been the target of massacres for thousands of years and should continue to accept it?
In reality, resolutions like these have one effect, and that is to demonize Israel. A 2021 Pew study proves an overwhelming affinity by American Jews for Israel; more than 80% of U.S. Jews said that Israel is important for their Jewish identity. Our continued relationship for this spot on the planet dates back thousands of years.
After the second century C.E. Roman expulsion and enslavement of much of the Jewish population in Judea, Jews continued to inhabit the region, only avoiding it during periods when the penalty of inhabiting it was death. From serious attempts to rebuild the Temple to a brief period of Jewish control of Jerusalem in the fourth and fifth centuries, throughout history there were robust Jewish attempts to restore Jewish autonomy in the region. Many Jewish families fleeing the inquisition made a home in the land of Israel, and when Napoleon invaded, the de facto ruler defending Acre was Haim Farhi, a Jew. Montefiore’s Jerusalem the Biography outlines the continuous strong ties between the Jewish world and the land of Israel, despite thousands of years of oppressive discriminatory laws and violence aimed at Jews living there.
I have news for the city council of Somerville and its voters: One of the major components of being Jewish, as Avraham Infield, president emeritus of Hillel International, writes, is Memory. And we have a damned good one.
My personal favorite example that reflects the Jewish connection to the land of Israel is the prayer recited daily continuously for over a millennia by observant Jews, that makes an analogy of the return of Jews to the land of Israel to the streams of the Negev Desert—coincidentally, a the target of Hamas on Oct. 7. Only a people passionate and intimately aware of this region would constantly bring up such specific phenomena. After winter rains, areas that appear to be a barren wasteland become an unrecognizable area lush with fauna and flora.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by the state department during the Obama administration—and since then adopted by dozens of Christian, Muslim and secular countries all over the world, as well as states, and other institutions—specifically clarifies that holding Israel to a double standard is an example of antisemitism.
Somerville’s council has not passed resolutions, at least in recent history, about any other nation. From the millions of Muslim Uyghurs held in Chinese concentration camps to the half a million casualties as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the horrible war in Sudan that has led to thousands killed and millions displaced to the reintroduction of slavery in Yemen, none of these are worthy of a resolution. Does the city council not find these situations problematic?
Perhaps the only problem that they see is the ones involving the only country in the world that has a Jewish majority. We seem to be living in Bob Dylan’s song about Israel, sarcastically named Neighborhood Bully: “ … he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized, old women condemned him, said he should apologize, then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad, the bombs were meant for him … he’s the neighborhood bully.”
So what does that make the city council of Somerville, members of which have avoided resolutions singling out any other country except Israel? If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck … ?
The post Why Is the City Council of Somerville So Focused on the Middle East? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
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.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login