Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski

As concern mounts over a potential surge in Hamas-linked attacks in Europe, German authorities have arrested another suspected member of the Palestinian terrorist group accused of acquiring firearms and ammunition to target Jewish communities.

On Tuesday, local police arrested Lebanese-born Borhan El-K, a suspected Hamas operative, after he crossed into Germany from the Czech Republic — part of an ongoing probe into the Islamist group’s network and operations across the continent.

The German federal prosecutor’s office confirmed the suspect obtained an automatic rifle, eight Glock pistols, and more than 600 rounds of ammunition in the country before handing the weapons to Wael FM, another suspected member of the terrorist group, in Berlin.

Local law enforcement arrested Lebanese-born Wael FM last month, along with two other German citizens, Adeb Al G and Ahmad I.

Prosecutors believe the three men acted as foreign operatives for Hamas and procured firearms and ammunition intended for attacks on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany.

Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.

Earlier this month, Mohammed A, another alleged member of the Palestinian terrorist group, was arrested in London at the request of German police. He is accused of taking five handguns and ammunition from Abed Al G before moving them to Vienna for storage.

Last week, Vienna authorities uncovered a hidden arsenal linked to Hamas, reportedly intended for “potential terrorist attacks in Europe” targeting Jewish communities.

The Austrian government confirmed that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN) has been conducting an internationally coordinated investigation into a global terrorist network with ties to the Islamist group.

During the investigation, Austrian authorities uncovered evidence suggesting that this group had brought weapons into the country for potential terrorist attacks in Europe.

For its part, Hamas issued a statement denying any connection to the criminal network, calling the allegations of its involvement “baseless.”

However, experts have warned that Hamas has expanded its terrorist operations beyond the Middle East, exploiting a well-established network of weapons caches, criminal alliances, and covert infrastructure quietly built across Europe over the years.

Last month, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released a study detailing how Hamas leaders in Lebanon have been directing operatives to establish “foreign operator” cells across Europe, collaborating with organized crime networks to acquire weapons and target Jewish communities abroad.

In February, four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin, in what prosecutors described as the first court case against terrorists of the Islamist group in Germany.

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) legal director Jenin Younes. Photo: Screenshot

The new legal director of one of the largest and most influential Arab-American rights advocacy groups in the US recently promoted classic antisemitic tropes on social media, claiming that American society is under “Zionist control” and that Jews routinely “fake” hate crimes against them.

Jenin Younes, who in September was hired by the American‑Arab Anti‑Discrimination Committee (ADC) to be its national legal director, made the explosive claims on X last week.

“There may be inadequate evidence to be certain in this specific instance, but the fact is it is a very common occurrence that Jewish people fake these hate crimes,” Younes said, responding to someone else’s post.

In another post, Younes replied to a tweet which claimed that Jews control the media, education system, entertainment indsutry, and government.

The ADC’s legal director responded, “100 percent. It’s dawning on me recently how insane it is I just accept that I’m subservient to them.”

Both social media posts have since been deleted. The ADC did not respond to a request for comment for this story on why the posts were erased and whether the organization agrees with and stands by her comments.

Younes’s posts came a few days after her organization filed a federal lawsuit targeting a California law which aims to combat antisemitism in K-12 schools.

Earlier this month, she led a lawsuit challenging the state over a civil rights bill which requires government officials to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools, establish an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, set parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially bar antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.

State lawmakers introduced the measure, also known as Assembly Bill (AB) 715, in the California legislature followed year-on-year increases in incidents of K-12 antisemitism, including vandalism and assault, which surged 135 percent in 2023, fueled by Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Among the ensuing spike in incidents, a Jewish girl was beaten with a stick and teased with jokes about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

In a statement announcing its lawsuit, the ADC argued that Arabs are victims of discrimination and that fighting antisemitic harassment in accordance with the new law undermines First Amendment protections of speech unfettered by governmental interference. Furthermore, the ADC argued that the law amounts to a hijacking of American policy by Israel, an argument advanced by neo-Nazis, including Nicholas Fuentes, and commentators who promote their views such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens — both of whom claim that proliferating antisemitism is an exercise of free speech.

“AB 715’s intent and effect is classroom censorship. It — probably intentionally — does not feign the conduct it targets, then points schools to federal guidance that blurs legitimate criticism of a foreign state with bigotry,” Younes said in a press release announcing the action. “That combination guarantees arbitrary punishment of educators, chills valuable classroom instruction and discussion, and deprives students of the vigorous debate the Constitution protects.”

Since joining the ADC, Younes has garnered media coverage from prominent legacy media outlets such as The Washington Post, which described her in a lengthy feature published in September as always in search of “new allies” due to her traveling across the political spectrum to promote vaccine skepticism and anti-Zionism.

Just months ago, she compared Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press and the newly minted editor in chief of CBS News, to Nazi party official and propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Younes stood by her comparison after receiving significant backlash.

Others, including Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), told The Algemeiner that Younes is one among many figures pantomiming intellectual seriousness as they degrade public debate with demagoguery, conspiracy mongering, and hate regarding Israel and the prevalence of antisemitism.

“In today’s world of infotainment, facts matter even less,” he said. “In particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has turned into a theater for the land of make believe where Palestinians are the evergreen victims and Israelis are the victimizers. This fallacious binary view of the conflict has been amplified by historic antisemitic tropes of Jews controlling media and governments, taking a page out of the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

He added, “Further, social media has become ripe with such rhetoric as illustrated by the ADC’s legal director Jenin Younes projecting her own biases and falsehoods in an attempt to create a predetermined outcome detached from reality, something we just witnessed at the BBC that manufactured and ignored facts in its reporting.”

Multiple BBC leaders resigned this past weekend after a leaked memo revealed that Britain’s public broadcaster misleadingly edited a speech by US President Donald Trump to make it appear that he had directly called for violence on Jan. 6, 2021, when a crowd of his supporters breached the US Capitol. The internal report also showed that the BBC’s story selection and editing largely omitted pieces criticizing Hamas or highlighting the suffering of Israelis amid the war in Gaza.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

In the most intensely covered mayoral election in generations, the wellbeing of Jewish New Yorkers became a major flashpoint. And yet, no candidate took a decisive stance on a crisis affecting tens of thousands of Jewish children: the educational conditions at Hasidic and haredi yeshivas. 

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has not said much, and the few comments he has made have raised concern for those of us who believe the schools are characterized by grave educational neglect. At a New York Jewish Agenda forum during the primary, he questioned whether the enforcement of basic education standards in yeshivas was possible. This is troubling, given that New York State recently gutted regulations to provide a sound, basic education. 

In the absence of state oversight, new research has revealed just how deep this educational neglect runs. The sociologist Matty Lichtenstein captured the most granular data to date of course material in New York City’s Jewish schools, leveraging community researchers to survey dozens of people with on-the-ground knowledge of curriculum. Ultimately, the researchers gained a comprehensive understanding of what is taught in 171 grades at 85 schools — including haredi yeshivas.

The results were astounding.

In Hasidic all-boys schools, students spent an average of less than two hours per week on all secular subjects combined. At the height of their intellectual development, children’s growth is being stunted.

And STEM education was almost nonexistent for Hasidic high school boys – only 13% of male high school cohorts received any science instruction, and fewer than a quarter received math. The denial of a STEM education essentially slams the door shut on many career paths in today’s tech-forward workforce. 

And though English received greater priority for Hasidic high school boys, many Hasidic boys have a limited ability to communicate with the outside world. A separate report that we released earlier this year about economic outcomes in the Hasidic community found that fully 13% of Hasidic male youth speak no English whatsoever, with much larger percentages languishing at subpar proficiency levels.

As an advocate for Hasidic and haredi education equity, I have seen that the impact of this deprivation extends far beyond the classroom. Too often, I hear stories like that of a man who had a bright mind and was a great Torah student — but when he enrolled in college to help build a career, he could not keep up. Without the English fluency to do his coursework, he dropped out within a year. 

His story is tragically common, and it is borne out in the data. Approximately 63% of Hasidic individuals live below or near the poverty line, and Hasidic men earn about 30% less than their non-Hasidic counterparts. 

Still, we have reasons for cautious optimism. The curriculum report found that some Hasidic boys’ schools — a small but important minority — include six to eight hours of secular studies per week. And Hasidic all-girls schools generally offered at least eight hours per week of secular coursework as well as robust religious coursework. This proves that traditional Torah study and secular instruction are not mutually exclusive within these communities.

I have met many haredi women who received a balanced education, and they credit it for their success. They’ve seen firsthand how access to both religious and secular learning opens doors — and how its absence closes them. Some have even stepped in to fill the gaps themselves, teaching their sons to read and write in English at home. 

These women want schools that honor their faith while preparing their children for the world beyond it. And supporting yeshivas in moving toward this balance would fulfill a core Jewish value: helping others achieve dignity and self-sufficiency.

We cannot accept a reality where tens of thousands of Jewish children graduate without the basic skills they need to earn a living and support their families. Stronger education standards must ensure that Hasidic and Haredi students gain the tools to thrive as adults. 

But elected leaders cannot take action without knowing which schools are denying students an education. And because the state has shirked its role in requiring comprehensive school assessments, existing public data on Jewish school curriculum is sparse. The mayor and the New York City Department of Education can play a key role here by compiling information on what institutions are teaching. Mayor-elect Mamdani should fulfill New York City’s responsibility to track what students are actually learning.

New York State has betrayed Jewish students by gutting education standards and failing to monitor what they are being taught. As the next mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani must stand up for the right to learn – ensuring that every Hasidic and haredi Orthodox Jewish child receives an education that honors both their faith and their future. 

The well being of the Jewish community depends on it.

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