Uncategorized
Selective Outrage and the Silence Over Iran’s Dead
Iranian demonstrators gather in a street during anti-regime protests in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
In recent weeks, thousands of Iranian citizens have been killed amid widespread internal unrest. Some casualty reports even reach into the tens of thousands.
Iranian men and women took to the streets to protest economic collapse, systemic repression, and a theocratic regime that has ruled through fear for more than four decades. They were met with bullets, mass arrests, torture, and executions. Yet beyond fleeting mentions and buried headlines, much of the international media has chosen to look away.
At the same time, global attention remains overwhelmingly fixated on Israel and the Palestinians. News panels, campus demonstrations, activist campaigns, and social media feeds are saturated with outrage directed almost exclusively at the Jewish State. This contrast is not accidental. It reflects a deeper moral and structural failure in modern journalism and activism.
The most common explanation offered for the lack of coverage is access. Iran is a closed dictatorship. Foreign journalists are monitored, restricted, expelled, or imprisoned. The regime routinely shuts down the Internet, blocks social media platforms, and intimidates the families of victims. Casualty figures are deliberately obscured, and firsthand reporting is dangerous.
But access alone does not explain the silence.
History shows that journalists have reported from some of the most inaccessible and hostile environments on earth. Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Afghanistan have all received sustained attention despite severe limitations. When there is genuine interest, creative reporting follows.
In the case of Iran, the problem is not merely a lack of footage. It is a lack of will.
Israel presents the opposite reality. It is one of the most scrutinized countries in the world. It allows foreign media full access, maintains a free press, hosts outspoken human rights organizations, and operates under an independent judiciary and parliamentary oversight. Journalists can move freely, challenge officials, and broadcast live from conflict zones.
When Israel defends itself after a massacre multiple times worse than the 9/11 attacks, every action is framed as a potential crime. When Iran kills its own citizens, it is described in sanitized language as unrest, crackdowns, or internal affairs.
This is not moral consistency. It is moral evasion.
Much of the international focus on the Palestinian cause relies on a simplistic and emotionally comfortable narrative. It divides the world into oppressor and oppressed, strong and weak, villain and victim. It requires little historical context and no serious engagement with internal problems, extremist violence, or rejectionism. It also offers a familiar and ideologically convenient antagonist: the Jewish State.
Iranian protesters disrupt this narrative. Their existence exposes an inconvenient truth that many commentators prefer to ignore — that the greatest source of suffering in the Middle East is not Israel, but authoritarian Islamist regimes that brutalize their own populations. The Iranian protestors undermine the claim that Israel is the region’s central moral problem, and they challenge the ideological frameworks upon which entire activist ecosystems are built.
That is precisely why they are ignored.
There is also a strategic dimension to this silence. The Iranian regime has spent decades exporting violence while redirecting global attention outward. Through proxy terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and through relentless anti-Israel propaganda, Tehran ensures that outrage is focused anywhere but inward. Every international campaign condemning Israel serves as a distraction from executions, torture chambers, mass arrests, and the killing of dissenters.
Western protest culture plays an enabling role. Modern activism often favors symbolism over substance and slogans over substance. It gravitates towards causes that fit fashionable ideological molds. Iranian dissidents who oppose Islamist extremism, reject antisemitism, and openly criticize Western hypocrisy do not fit neatly into those frameworks. As a result, they are ignored.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is that Jewish suffering is endlessly contextualized, while Jewish self defense is reflexively condemned. That is why Israel is treated differently than the Iranian protest movement.
Thousands of dead Iranians should shake the conscience of the world. The fact that it does not should alarm anyone who still believes in universal human rights. Outrage cannot be selective. Journalism cannot be ideological. And moral concern cannot depend on whether a tragedy serves a preferred narrative.
Iranian lives matter, not when they are useful as political tools, but always. Until the media internalizes that truth, its credibility will continue to erode, one ignored grave at a time
Sabine Sterk is CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.
Uncategorized
Hamas-Linked Nonprofit Launches Wikipedia Training Program to Smear Israel
Avishek Das / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A human rights organization with alleged links to Hamas has launched a new initiative to train Palestinians to edit Wikipedia pages about Israel and the war in Gaza, fueling ongoing concerns that the popular online encyclopedia promotes anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic narratives.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Switzerland-registered nonprofit founded in 2011, announced last week the third round of its “WikiRights” project in the Gaza Strip. According to the group’s official press release, the program will train 12 young Palestinians in human rights documentation and professional Wikipedia editing in both Arabic and English, with a focus on what it calls documenting “genocide in Gaza.”
The organization says participants will conduct field interviews with victims and witnesses and produce what it describes as “documentation-based articles” to be uploaded or incorporated into Wikipedia. The aim, according to the group, is to fill what it characterizes as “knowledge gaps” and to counter narratives it believes marginalize Palestinian accounts.
“Training young people to edit Wikipedia content seeks to transform victims of genocide in Gaza from mere statistics into storytellers, especially given the recent failures of some platforms or their complicity in not conveying the scale of genocide,” said Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Operations Officer Anas Jerjawi.
But the initiative is drawing scrutiny in Israel and among watchdog groups who argue it represents an organized effort to shape one of the world’s most influential information platforms during an ongoing war.
NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — published a profile on Tuesday raising concerns about Euro-Med Monitor’s leadership and transparency. The watchdog notes that founder and chairman Ramy Abdu and former chair Mazen Kahel were listed by Israeli authorities in 2013 among individuals and entities allegedly associated with Hamas operatives in Europe. Abdu was later sanctioned by Israel under its counter-terrorism regulations.
Euro-Med Monitor has presented itself as an independent human rights body and states that it does not receive government or factional funding. However, NGO Monitor says the group does not publicly disclose detailed financial documentation, raising questions about funding transparency.
Israeli officials have long argued that Hamas and affiliated networks operate not only militarily but also through political, legal, and media channels to influence international opinion.
The WikiRights program focuses on training participants to create and edit entries related to the Israel-Hamas war, including content framed around allegations of genocide and systemic human rights violations.
Wikipedia, one of the most widely accessed reference websites globally, claims it operates under strict neutrality and verifiability policies. However, conflict-related pages, particularly those involving Israel and the Palestinians, have frequently been the subject of intense “edit wars,” coordinated campaigns, and administrative interventions.
Investigations by websites such as Pirate Wires have exposed intricate efforts by ideologically motivated Wikipedia editors to insert explosive language in reference to Israel with the implied goal of weaponizing the website’s reputation as a neutral source of information to launder biased viewpoints about the Jewish state. For instance, Wikipedia asserts that the war in Gaza is a so-called “genocide.” Editors have also softened language regarding Hamas and its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, seemingly to depict the terrorist group in a more positive light.
Euro-Med Monitor’s press release states that the latest round of the program emphasizes “live field documentation,” encouraging trainees to interview people and incorporate firsthand accounts into articles. The organization says the goal is to transform victims “from mere statistics into storytellers.”
Critics argue that such framing signals a predetermined narrative rather than a neutral research effort.
Euro-Med Monitor’s announcement comes six months after the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the online encyclopedia to insert anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway audiences.
Earlier last year, the US Justice Department warned the Wikimedia Foundation that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law. Specifically, the department expressed concern about accusations that the online encyclopedia has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel.
Uncategorized
Nearly Half of Jewish Students Report Experiencing Antisemitism on US College Campuses, Survey Finds
A student puts on their anti-Israel graduation cap reading “From the river to the sea” at the People’s Graduation, hosted for Mahmoud Khalil and other students from New York University. Photo: Angelina Katsanis via Reuters Connect
The campus antisemitism crisis has changed the college experience for American Jewish students, affecting how they live, socialize, and perceive themselves as Jews, according to new survey results released by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in partnership with Hillel International.
A striking 42 percent of Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism during their time on campus, and of that group, 55 percent said they felt that being Jewish at a campus event threatened their safety.
The survey also found that 34 percent of Jewish students avoid being detected as Jews, hiding their Jewish identity due to fear of antisemitism.
Meanwhile, 38 percent of Jewish students said they decline to utter pro-Israel viewpoints on campus, including in class, for fear of being targeted by anti-Zionists. The rate of self-censorship is significantly higher for Jewish students who have already been subjected to antisemitism, registering at 68 percent.
“No Jewish student should have to hide their identity out of fear of antisemitism, yet that’s the reality for too many students today,” Hillel International chief executive officer Adam Lehman said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our work on the ground every day is focused on changing that reality by creating environments where all Jewish students can find welcoming communities and can fully and proudly express their Jewish identities without fear or concern.”
The survey, included in AJC’s new “The State of Antisemitism in America” report, added that 32 percent of Jewish students feel that campus groups promote antisemitism or a learning environment that is hostile to Jews, while 25 percent said that antisemitism was the basis of their being “excluded from a group or an event on campus.”
Jewish students endure these indignities while preserving their overwhelming support for Israel. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed identified caring about Israel as a central component of Jewish identity and 76 percent agreed that calling for its destruction or describing it as an illegitimate state is antisemitic.
“While we welcome the fact that the vast majority of campuses have not been disrupted by uncontrolled protests in the past year, the data make clear that Jewish students are still experiencing antisemitism on their campuses,” Laura Shaw Frank, the AJC’s vice president of its Center for Education Advocacy, said in a statement. “This survey gives us a critical look into the less visible, but no less important problems, that Jews face on campus.”
She continued, “Understanding the ways in which Jews are being excluded and changing their behavior out of fear of antisemitism is vitally important as we work with institutions of higher education to create truly inclusive campus communities.”
The AJC and Hillel’s survey results are consistent with others in which Jewish students have participated in recent months.
According, to a recent survey of Jewish undergraduates of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), a significant portion of Jewish students still find the climate on campus to be hostile and feel the need to hide their identity over two years after the campus saw an explosion of extreme anti-Zionist activity and Nazi graffiti.
The survey, conducted by Penn’s local Hillel International chapter, found that 40 percent of respondents said it is difficult to be Jewish at Penn and 45 percent said they “feel uncomfortable or intimidated because of their Jewish identity or relationship with Israel.”
Meanwhile, the results showed a staggering 85 percent of survey participants reported hearing about, witnessing, or experiencing “something antisemitic,” as reported by Franklin’s Forum, an alumni-led online outlet which posts newsletters regarding developments at the university. Another 31 percent of Jewish Penn students said they feel the need to hide their Jewishness to avoid discrimination, which is sometimes present in the classroom, as 26 percent of respondents said they have “experienced antisemitic or anti-Israel comments from professors.”
Overall, 80 percent of Jewish students hold that anti-Israel activity is “often” antisemitic and that Israel’s conduct in war is “held to an unfair standard compared to other nations.”
College faculty play an outsized role in promoting antisemitism on the campus, according to a new study by AMCHA Initiative which focused on the University of California system. The study, titled “When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California,” exposed Oct 7 denialism; faculty calling for driving Jewish institutions off campus; the founding of pro-Hamas, Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups; and hundreds of endorsers of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
The University of California system is a microcosm of faculty antisemitism across the US, the AMCHA Initiative explained in the exhaustive 158-page report, which focused on the Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz campuses.
“The report documents how concentrated networks of faculty activists on each campus, often operating through academic units and faculty-led advocacy formations, convert institutional platforms into vehicles for organized anti-Zionist advocacy and mobilization,” the report stated. “It shows how those pathways are associated with recurring student harms and broader campus disruption. It then outlines concrete steps the UC Regents can take to restore institutional neutrality in academic units and set enforceable boundaries so UC resources and authority are not used to advance activist agendas inside the university’s core educational functions.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
Uncategorized
Forverts podcast, episode 6: At-risk languages
דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט שוין אַרויסגעלאָזט דעם זעקסטן קאַפּיטל פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָדקאַסט, Yiddish With Rukhl. דאָס מאָל איז די טעמע „שפּראַכן אין אַ סכּנה“. אין דעם קאַפּיטל לייענט שׂרה־רחל שעכטער פֿאָר אַן אַרטיקל פֿונעם ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט דזשייק שנײַדער, „וואָס אַקטיוויסטן פֿאַר שפּראַכן אין אַ סכּנה קענען זיך אָפּלערנען איינער פֿונעם אַנדערן.“
צו הערן דעם פּאָדקאַסט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
אויב איר ווילט אויך לייענען דעם געדרוקטן טעקסט פֿונעם אַרטיקל, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ און קוקט אונטן בײַם סוף פֿון דער זײַט.
The post Forverts podcast, episode 6: At-risk languages appeared first on The Forward.