Mideast War blowback

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Ten thousand people marched through the center of Buenos Aires on Saturday in support of Palestine.

The protest was organized by the Argentine Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and the Workers’ Left Front – Unity (an electoral alliance of four revolutionary Trotskyist parties in Argentina) ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expected visit to the country at the end of August.

Videos from the rally showed protesters mainly wearing red to indicate blood, while many carried doll infants covered in blood. Argentina could face legal consequences should the planned visit go ahead, given it is a member of the International Criminal Court which has an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.

Would Netanyahu be arrested in Argentina?
The anti-Israel protesters on Saturday called for Netanyahu’s arrest if he attempts to visit, as well as a termination of trade and diplomatic relations with Israel. This seems unlikely, given Argentinian President Javier Milei’s expression of “unwavering commitment” to Israel during his visit in June 2025, and his proposal to move his nation’s embassy to Jerusalem.

The anti-Israel Jewish group, Judies x Palestina, participated in the rally and denounced the “famine induced by the genocidal State of Israel,” in a post to social media.

“Zionism is not Judaism. We reject Netanyahu’s next visit to Argentina. The place of genocide is jail. Milei: Not in our name! No to the official alignment with the United States and Israel.”

Greek anti-Israel activists waved Palestinian flags and raised signs prohibiting Israeli tourists in a coordinated mass protest at over 100 Islands and cities, according to organizing groups BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Greece, March to Gaza Greece, and Palestinian Community Greece.

Pictures published on social media by the anti-Israel groups showed beaches, ports, and cultural sites flooded with activists rallying against Greece's relations with Israel and the presence of Israeli tourists in the country during the October 7 War.

The Nisiros island chapter of March to Gaza dispensed notes to visitors claimed that a genocide against Palestinians was being perpetrated by the State of Israel, and that inaction meant complicity in the alleged crime. Thousands were protesting at the dozens of tourist destinations to send "a loud and clear message to the Greek government and to all those who visit our country."

"Our land, our sea, and our communities have no space for Zionists and supporters of genocide," read the notes. "We will not offer recreational time and space for IDF murderers. If you support the genocide against the Palestinians, you are not welcome here! If you choose to turn a blind eye, we urge you to take a stand."

The chapter also posted an Instagram story of a cardboard sign declaring "Zionists not welcome."

The national body also shared on social media a poster in English and Hebrew asserting that "All Israeli soldiers are war criminals" – supposedly all being occupiers, rapists, and murderers – and that the locals "don't want you here."
In front of the Meteora rock formation in northwestern Greece, according to a photograph shared by March to Gaza Greece, a flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization flew among several Palestinian national flags.

On Saturday night, anti-Israel activists interrupted a Zakynthos concert by singer Vasilis Papakonstantinou, draping a Palestinian flag across the stage.

Greek health minister fires back at dock riots
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis slammed the dock riots as uncaring about the jobs and economic situation of fellow citizens.

"They have no humanity, they simply hate the West and are antisemites. If they cared about innocent victims in general, they would talk about the Druze, the Hamas hostages, the massacre of Christians in Sudan, the oppression of women in Afghanistan, etc," Georgiadis said on X on July 28. "They only care about Gaza because that is how they slander the Western Democracies, which they hate. They don't even care about anything that concerns Greece, of course, which they also hate."

In an August 3 social media post, Voice of Reason MEP Afroditi Latinopoulou challenged activists to go to Gaza if they wanted to raise a Palestinian flag, but they shouldn't do so in Greece.

N12 reported that a Turkish group in Rhodes attacked a group of Israeli teenagers on July 23, and on July 12, a new Athens kosher restaurant was vandalized by anti-Israel protesters.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg was arrested on Saturday for supporting banned group Palestine Action, The Telegraph reported. While Begg was released without charge in 2005, the US held him for five years, alleging he was a member of al-Qaeda.

Begg was arrested again in 2014 and accused of involvement in terrorist activities linked to the conflict in Syria. The charges were later dropped.

More than 460 people protesting against Britain's decision to ban the Palestine Action group were arrested outside parliament on Saturday, London's Metropolitan Police said.

Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.

In a post on X, the police force said it had arrested 460 people for supporting a proscribed organisation.

It also arrested seven people for other offences including five for assaults on officers, adding none was seriously injured.

The ban on Palestine Action
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain's support for Israel.

The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.

The Telegraph reported that the crowds tried to overwhelm police

Mohamed Salah, one of soccer’s biggest stars, criticized the sport’s governing body in Europe over its tribute to Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Pelé of Palestinian football,” which failed to mention how he died last week.

Al-Obeid, 41, was killed by Israeli gunfire on Wednesday as he was seeking humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Football Association (PFA).

“Farewell to Suleiman al-Obeid, the Palestinian Pelé,” the Union of European Football Associations said Friday in a post on X. “A talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times.”

“Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?” Salah, a forward for the Premier League club Liverpool and captain of the Egyptian national team, said in response.

UEFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Salah, 33, has been a vocal advocate for increased humanitarian aid to Gaza, which the United Nations and other international experts say is on the brink of famine 22 months into Israel’s war with Hamas, which controls the enclave of about 2 million people.

Salah is not the only soccer star to speak out about the circumstances of al-Obeid’s death.

Eric Cantona, a former professional soccer player from France who was a forward for Manchester United, posted a tribute on Instagram alongside a photo of al-Obeid, asking, “HOW MUCH LONGER ARE WE GOING TO LET THEM COMMIT THIS GENOCIDE???”

On Saturday, the PFA shared a statement attributed to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, praising al-Obeid for giving “talent and dedication to the children of Gaza” and giving their dreams “hope to blossom despite the suffering.”

Al-Obeid scored more than 100 goals over his long career, including two for the Palestinian national team, “making him one of the brightest stars of Palestinian football,” the PFA said.

He is survived by his wife and five children.

The PFA said on X Saturday that 325 players, coaches, administrators, referees and club board members from the Palestinian soccer community had died in the conflict.

Several hundred people marched in London on Sunday to demand Hamas release the Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, criticizing Britain's plan to recognize Palestine as a state, Agence France-Presse reported.

Joined by several relatives of the hostages, the march ended at the 10 Downing Street office of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has said the U.K. will recognize a Palestinian state if Israel does not agree to a truce in its war with Hamas.

Many of the protesters waved Israeli flags or wore yellow ribbons, a symbol of solidarity with the hostages, whose liberation the organizers of the march argue should be the Labour leader's priority.

Among those who attended the rally Sunday is Noga Guttman, a cousin of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David, who was featured in a video that enraged Israelis when it was released by Hamas militants last week. The video showed an emaciated David saying he is digging his own grave inside a tunnel in Gaza.

Ayelet Stavitsky, sister of dead hostage Nadav Popplewell, and Adam Ma'anit, cousin of Tsachi Idan, who died while held by Hamas, also were in attendance, according to AFP.

"I think that the government got it wrong with its foreign policy, that it's time for it to correct and refocus on the hostages," said Ma'anit, criticising Starmer's planned recognition of a Palestinian state in September.

Three people, identified as counter-protesters, were arrested, two of them for alleged violent acts, police said.

Sunday's march came a day after supporters of a pro-Palestinian group that was recently outlawed as a terrorist organization intentionally broke the law to test the government's ability to enforce the ban. London police said that 532 people were arrested Saturday.

The vast majority of those detained were arrested for displaying placards declaring their support for the group known as Palestine Action. Police updated their earlier totals and said 522 people were arrested for supporting a proscribed organization in violation of anti-terror laws. Another 10 people were arrested on a variety of charges, including assaulting and obstructing police officers.

Police said that was the highest number of arrests made on a single day in the last 10 years, CBS News partner BBC News reported.

Backers of Palestine Action staged the protest to underscore their belief that the government is illegally restricting freedom of expression by banning a direct action organization that has challenged its policies.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who oversees law enforcement in Britain, rejected that characterization, saying Palestine Action was banned after committing serious attacks involving violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage.

Heartbreaking images of children starving in Gaza have caused what some Jewish Americans call a “rupture” between supporters of Israel’s offensive in its current form and those who oppose how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is managing the war.

Frustrated by the bloodshed, pressure is mounting on the United States and the international community to take better control of chaotic food distribution sites.

“We’re seeing not only divisiveness, but hatred between us, and that’s not a good thing for the future,” said Rabbi Erez Sherman of Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. “So how do we not solve it? How do we work on that?”

But support for Israel remains ironclad among many American Jewish groups and rabbis, who argue that Hamas is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching innocent civilians.

“Israel has facilitated an extraordinary amount of aid to Palestinians in Gaza, in wartime, and that’s really an unprecedented situation,” said Belle Etra Yoeli, spokesperson for the American Jewish Committee, which recently ran a full-page ad in The New York Times with the image of an Israeli hostage who remains in Hamas custody.

“The Palestinian civilians who have been caught in the crossfire throughout this entire war because of Hamas’ actions should not be suffering,” she added. “Israel doesn’t want that.”

To address escalating concerns over the humanitarian crisis, synagogues across Jewish movements in the United States have organized roundtables with the executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

At an event with GHF hosted last month by Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, reactions were mixed, according to Sherman, the rabbi, who led the discussion.

Some people were shocked that an organization that has come under so much criticism was allowed to present its case. Others appreciated hearing directly from people on the ground.

“How do you block evil from your midst while also feeding the hungry and supporting the orphan and widow?” Sherman said after the roundtable, referring to Psalm 146. “To me, it’s an impossible task, and I give credit to somebody who is at least trying to do that.”

Polling suggests Jewish Americans are divided over Netanyahu’s handling of the war. According to a Pew Research Center report, 53% of Jewish Americans say they lack confidence in his leadership, while 45% say they have confidence. About 6 million Jews live in the United States, or 2% of the population, according to the Pew Research Center.

The poll was conducted in April, before GHF began its operations in Gaza.

Supporters of Netanyahu’s government, including several Jewish American organizations, have said Hamas is spreading misleading information about who is to blame for ongoing violence at aid sites, a claim Hamas has repeatedly denied. They have also criticized detractors for losing focus on the remaining Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas.

“All of this can just be stopped anytime if Hamas puts down its weapons,” said Orthodox Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization that supports Netanyahu’s government.

An emerging concern echoed by several organizations and rabbis is that Netanyahu’s position is not creating a safer Israel or global environment for Jewish people. Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of nonprofit advocacy organization J Street, said the ongoing violence is exposing Israelis and Palestinians to unnecessary bloodshed.

J Street, which supports a two-state solution, opposed Netanyahu years before the war.

“If you say to people you must be pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel, then we’re condemning ourselves and our kids to a never-ending conflict,” Ben-Ami said Monday.

But according to Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari of Kol Tzedek, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Philadelphia, the war is creating an “existential rupture” that is pitting friends and family members against one another.

“It’s catastrophic,” he said. “We’re wrestling with the very question ‘Do we belong to each other?’”

Fornari was among more than 40 people arrested outside Trump Tower in New York City earlier this month as they shouted for the United States to stop arming Israel and feed Gaza. He was arrested for investigation of blocking traffic and obstruction, his third arrest since the war started on Oct. 7, 2023, he said.

ome posters and signs displayed outside Trump Tower referred to an ancient maxim about the moral obligation to speak out against injustice, Fornari said.

“It says anyone who has the power to speak out and chooses not to do so is responsible for it,” he said.

Handcuffed near Fornari was Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the CEO of T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization. Jacobs said she supported Israel’s military response to Hamas’ terrorist attack in 2023, which killed 1,200 people and led to the taking of 250 hostages. The strike, the worst one-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust, shocked the world.

Since then, more than 61,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, and much of the territory has been destroyed.

Jacobs began questioning Netanyahu’s strategy as more and more civilians in Gaza were killed, she said. In July, she denounced American Jewish leaders who had not spoken out against the humanitarian crisis unfolding thousands of miles away.

“Privately, Jewish lay leaders are anguished over Gaza. Publicly, they fear being labeled antisemitic,” she wrote in an opinion column in The Forward, a Jewish American newspaper.

Jacobs has been called antisemitic by other Jewish people who support Netanyahu and shunned by legacy Jewish organizations, she said. Some of it, she said, comes from a legitimate fear of prejudice.

The cultural fallout has been playing out in living rooms and across kitchen tables. Sonya Meyerson-Knox, a spokesperson for the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, which has opposed the war since 2023, said a member was uninvited to Shabbat family dinners because of differing opinions about the war.

The group was suspended from several campuses, including Columbia University’s, over allegations it intimidated Jewish students and made them feel unsafe during pro-Palestinian protests last year. Jewish Voice for Peace maintains that its views are not antisemitic.

“It is not unique in Jewish history for Jews to be in fierce disagreement with each other,” she said. “What is unique is that there seems to be an effort to weaponize one-half of our community against the other.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) management has shifted gears about disinviting The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, a documentary about the massacre by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and now says that it will work with filmmakers to ensure that the film is screened.

The story broke earlier this week that although TIFF management officially invited the film, in July, to take part in the film festival, it had suddenly disinvited it.

The movie is by Barry Avrich, a distinguished documentary director and a former TIFF board member. In an email obtained by The Globe and Mail, TIFF management cited concerns about the filmmakers not getting permission for all the clips shown in the film, which Kan News said represented a demand for the filmmakers to obtain permission from Hamas to include clips of the massacre that the terror group filmed and broadcast widely.

The other issue TIFF gave for its decision to disinvite the movie was that “The risk of major, disruptive protest actions around the film’s presence at the Festival, including internal opposition, has become too great.” But on Wednesday night, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey released a statement, posted on Instagram, saying, “The situation calls for compassion and sensitivity, and I recognize the concerns it has raised among members of the Jewish community and beyond.

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere apologies for any pain this situation may have caused. It was never my intention to offend or alienate anyone… Given the sensitive and significant nature of the film’s subject, I believe that it tells an important story and contributes to the rich tapestry of perspectives in our lineup – stories that resonate here at home and around the world.”

Bailey also wrote: “I want to be clear: Claims that the film was rejected due to censorship are unequivocally false. I remain committed to working with the filmmaker to meet TIFF’s screening requirements to allow the film to be screened at this year’s festival. I have asked our legal team to work with the filmmaker on considering all options available.”

TIFF, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and which will run from September 4-14, is the largest film festival in North America, and one of the most prestigious and important in the world.

The story of Noam Tibon on October 7
The documentary tells the story of Noam Tibon, a retired Israel Defense Forces General, who headed south as soon as he heard about the attack from his son, Haaretz reporter Amir Tibon, who was hiding from terrorists with his wife and daughters in their home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Tibon helped subdue the terrorists on the kibbutz, and his family survived.

It was the rare story from October 7 with any kind of positive outcome, and it has also sparked interest from the creators of Fauda, who plan to adapt it into a dramatic film.

The initial decision to pull the film from the lineup sparked worldwide outrage, including from Jewish groups and filmmakers around the world, and many welcomed the festival’s decision to reconsider.

Following the about-face announcement, Noam Tibon was quoted by N12 as saying, “This is a film that is a human story about a life-saving mission on October 7, without a political agenda, that documents the harsh reality of the most terrible day in the history of the State of Israel.

“This reality cannot be hidden, and the truth cannot be erased. The Toronto Film Festival’s ridiculous demand to receive ‘copyright approval’ from the Nuhkba terrorists is an insult to common sense and a spit in the face of the victims. The festival did well to declare that it is considering the return of the film, and I expect it to keep its promise and prove that the Toronto Film Festival remains a free and courageous platform for creativity and does not succumb to political cowardice”.

A Jewish legal advocacy group hailed a legal breakthrough in court battles against antisemitism after a US federal judge last week equated the Israeli flag with “the Jewish race.”

The judge’s decision sets a new legal standard that can be used to protect Jews targeted in anti-Zionist attacks, said the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that represented the plaintiff.

Pro-Israel Jewish activist Kimmara Sumrall filed the lawsuit in a federal district court in Washington, DC, last month. Sumrall alleged that she was attacked at a pro-Israel demonstration in Washington in November 2024 while wearing an Israeli flag tied around her neck as a cape.

An anti-Israel activist at the protest approached Sumrall from behind and yanked on the Israeli flag, briefly choking Sumrall. A police officer witnessed the incident and arrested the assailant at the scene, the complaint said.

The anti-Israel protest was organized by Code Pink, a far-left activist group that often demonstrates against Israel. Both the assailant and the pro-Israel activist regularly attended dueling protests in the capital. Sumrall said she had received death threats related to her activism after the attack, causing her to fear for her safety.

The lawsuit, like others filed by Jewish Israel supporters around the US, argued that Zionism is a facet of the faith and not a political position. Jewish legal advocates have used the interpretation of Zionism to protect pro-Israel Jews and combat anti-Zionism under US civil rights protections that cover religion, race and national origin, but not politics. The argument has been widely used in cases involving Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination in programs that receive federal financial assistance, such as universities.

The lawsuit said Sumrall had been targeted in the attack due to her race, religion and national origin, and sought damages and a restraining order barring the assailant from approaching Sumrall.

Lawyers for the defendant argued that she had been acquitted of assault charges in criminal court. The defense said that the defendant’s keffiyeh had tangled with Sumrall’s flag when the two bumped into each other at the protest, and that there had been no malicious contact between the two. The legal team also argued that the lawsuit was “conflating honest and widespread criticism of Israel’s policies in Palestine with anti-Jewish hate,” and that the incident was not discriminatory.

The restraining order would prevent the alleged assailant from attending protests, violating her First Amendment rights, since both women attend the same events on opposing sides, the defense said.

The judge in the case, District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, sided with Sumrall, saying that the defendant “purposefully discriminated against her on the basis of race” and that she had likely committed battery, citing testimony from the arresting police officer. The officer had declined to testify in criminal court, where assault needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a higher bar than in a civil case.

“That battery was direct evidence of discrimination that likely would not have occurred but for racial animus,” the judge said in a court filing last week.

“Purposefully yanking on an Israeli flag tied around a Jewish person’s neck to choke them is direct evidence of racial discrimination. The Star of David — emblazoned upon the Israeli flag — symbolizes the Jewish race,” the judge said, comparing attacks against the Star of David to using racial slurs against Black people, and dismissing the defense’s argument that such an offense could be “an objection to state policies.”

The defendant “did not have reason to think Sumrall was herself affiliated with the Israeli government. Rather, it is much more likely that she was intentionally attacking a Jewish person wearing a Jewish flag as a symbol of her racial heritage,” the judge said, upholding a restraining order against the defendant.

Mainen said the ruling was significant because it established case law equating attacks against the Star of David and Israeli flag with antisemitism. Case law is formed by judges writing opinions on individual cases that guide legal interpretations in future cases. Case law differs from legal precedents in that precedents are binding, meaning they are rulings that courts must adhere to, while case law serves as a guidepost.

In future lawsuits alleging antisemitism stemming from anti-Israel activism, for example, plaintiffs will be able to cite the Sumrall lawsuit as evidence that there is a legal standard equating anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish discrimination. Mainen said the case would likely be “heavily cited” in the future.

The lawsuit also made novel use of an obscure federal legal provision dating back to the Civil War era aimed at combating racial discrimination. The provision, first enacted as the Civil Rights Act of 1866, guarantees equal rights for all racial groups, and Jews have been recognized by the Supreme Court as a race for purposes of civil rights law. The provision elevates racially motivated assault from state court to federal court.

“If I’m on the street and I hit someone, assault and battery, that’s not really a federal crime. That’s a state crime. But if I’m on the street and I hit someone because of their race, this law federalizes that violent act,” Mainen said. “It allows you to sue in federal court when there’s a hate crime component to it. This case in DC was the first post-October 7 case, and it’s possibly the first ever antisemitism case to use this to apply it to antisemitic violence.”

Code Pink decried the decision in a statement, saying, “The lawsuit’s dangerous claim that criticism of Israel’s government and its flag — a political symbol of a state currently responsible for mass civilian deaths in Gaza — amounts to antisemitism.”

“This false conflation seeks to criminalize political speech, even though many critics of Israel’s policies are themselves Jewish. It is an effort to erase the critical distinction between opposing a government’s actions and attacking a religion,” Code Pink said.

Pro-Palestinian groups vandalized the house of John Acree, acting director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and painted death threats on his driveway, according to pro-Palestinian activist groups posting on social media on Tuesday.

The attack included a message in his driveway that said “Death to the GHF” and damage to his car wheels and rearview mirrors.

The two groups, Eye on Palestine and WearThePeace, shared the event on social media and stated that it was done because of the “GHF’s aid traps.”

“John Acree, the Interim Executive Director of the GHF, had his home and vehicle targeted by American activists due to his involvement in war crimes in Gaza. These attacks were linked to his role in US-Israeli distribution centers – often referred to as ‘death traps’” Eye on Palestine posted on their X/Twitter account.

Anti-GHF protests in Tel Aviv
The attack came at the same time that protesters demonstrated outside of the Tel Aviv hotel where Acree is reportedly currently staying.

The protest was led by Radical Bloc, an Israeli left-wing activist organization based in Jaffa.

“We’re confronting GHF’s leaders in Tel Aviv – CEO John Acree, spokesperson Chapin Fay, and their team. GHF is not a humanitarian organization – it’s a weapon of genocide.

“We will find them, and disrupt them everywhere until the siege is lifted and GHF is dismantled,” wrote the organization on X.

MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party (RZP) was denied entry into Australia on Monday ahead of a planned solidarity trip with the Jewish community there, after the Australian government ruled that his opinions mirrored policies of RZP, which “include the elimination of Hamas,” the official document on the matter said.

Rothman told The Jerusalem Post that the government decision was “blatant and obvious antisemitism that gives a tailwind to terror.”

Among the list of statements cited was taken from the Post’s report in September 2024, in which Rothman said, “We will continue to strike at the enemy and fight the terror that surrounds us relentlessly in order to protect and defend the security of the citizens of the State of Israel,” at the Law Faculty of the University of California’s Berkeley campus.

The government's assessment concluded that Rothman’s statements “mirror the policies of his Religious Zionist Party, including the elimination of Hamas and the expansion and sovereignty of the Israeli State, and denial of any wrongdoing by Israel against Palestinians and Gaza during the current conflict.”

“These statements have been received by members of the Australian community as inflammatory and concerning,” the document added.
Rothman said that he was invited by the Jewish community in Australia “due to the rise in antisemitic attacks on synagogues and a difficult feeling among the community of estrangement and hostility.”

Responding further to the decision, Rothman said that “Jews in Australia are being attacked by jihadists, and in Australia’s mosques there is incitement to murder Jews and to the destruction of Israel. Yet the expression of positions that the Israeli Knesset adopted by a majority of about two-thirds is, in the eyes of the Australian government, provocation and incitement.”

“The decision of the Australian government is a surrender to terror and to the antisemitism raging in the streets of Australia,” Rothman also stated

Rothman was scheduled to appear at four events in Sydney, the nation’s capital, and Melbourne this month, two of which were set to be public. Synagogues and Jewish schools were scheduled to host him, and he was set to meet with targets of antisemitic hate crimes.

The purpose of Rothman’s tour was to show solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community amid heightened antisemitism, according to the Australian Jewish Association’s chief executive, Robert Gregory.

"This is a viciously antisemitic move from a government that is obsessed with targeting the Jewish community and Israel," Gregory said. He called the timing of the cancellation spiteful and "intended to cause maximum harm to the Australian Jewish community."

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said that Rothman would not be able to apply for a new one within the next three years, according to The Guardian.

“Our government takes a hard line on people who seek to come to our country and spread division,” Burke told the British news site. “If you are coming to Australia to spread a message of hate and division, we don’t want you here.

“Under our government, Australia will be a country where everyone can be safe and feel safe.”

Sanctions against Smotrich, Ben-Gvir
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was sanctioned by the Australian government in June, alongside National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced his decision to revoke the residence permits of Australia’s representatives to the Palestinian Authority on Monday.

Sa'ar also announced that he instructed Israel's embassy in Canberra to carefully review any official Australian visa requests for entry into Israel.

"At a time when antisemitism is spreading in Australia, including acts of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government chooses to fuel it instead with false accusations, claiming that visits by Israeli figures would disrupt public order and harm Australia’s Muslim population," Sa'ar stated.

Additional government ministers and politicians slammed Australia's decision to deny MK Simcha Rothman's entry into the country.

Outrage over Australia's decision
Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli said Australia’s decision reflects the "choice to honor the rapists and murderers of Hamas. It reflects a broken moral compass, discrimination, and a grave assault on free speech."

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who was sanctioned by the Australian government in June, alongside National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also expressed support for Rothman.

Ben-Gvir called the decision "a historic stain and a disgrace for the Australian government.”

Vladimir Beliak (Yesh Atid) criticized Smotrich in return, stating that “the people of Israel cannot stand Rothman” and do not support him.

“It is also important to make clear to the world that politicians like Rothman absolutely do not represent a Jewish and democratic Israel,” Beliak added.

Head of the Blue and White Party, MK Benny Gantz, affirmed his support for Rothman, despite their differing political views.

“MK Rothman & I have stark political and ideological differences - yet Australia’s decision to bar him from entry is not only deeply misguided, but blatantly hypocritical.”

“If only Australia fought the ravaging antisemitism targeting its Jewish communities with the same fervor it banned representatives from the one & only democracy in the Middle East,” he added.

Gal Gadot issued a clarification on Sunday following viral remarks she made on the Keshet 12 show, The A Talks, to a group of interviewers on the autism spectrum last week about how she felt anti-Israel sentiment had been a major reason why the new Disney live-action Snow White, in which she co-starred, flopped.

Speaking in Hebrew on an Israeli show, the Israeli actress turned Hollywood superstar seemed far less guarded than in international interviews. Posting on her Instagram story in English over the weekend, she wrote, “I was honored to join an extraordinary interview with inspiring interviewers, whose questions go straight to the heart. Sometimes we respond to questions from an emotional place. When the film came out, I felt that those who are against Israel criticized me in a very personal, almost visceral way. They saw me first and foremost as an Israeli, not as an actress. That’s the perspective I spoke from when I answered the question.”

Adding to her clarification, she wrote, “Of course, the film didn’t fail solely because of external pressures. There are many factors that determine why a film succeeds or fails, and success is never guaranteed.”

While Disney movies, especially their live-action remakes of cartoon originals tend to make big money, Snow White cost nearly $270 million to make and took in just about $205 million at the box office. It lost even more money when promotional costs were factored in.

The movie received mostly negative reviews, with only 39% of critics praising it, according to the website, Rotten Tomatoes. Among the criticisms were that the romance between the heroine (Rachel Zegler) and the prince was downplayed in favor of a more socially conscious story about a people’s rebellion against the Evil Queen (Gadot). There were also criticisms of the portrayal of the seven dwarves.

But political considerations did come into play as the film was promoted. Zegler, who has posted many pro-Palestine messages on her social media, was rumored to be feuding with Gadot and disparaged her as a “professional pageant queen,” referring to the fact that Gadot represented Israel in the Miss Universe pageant in 2004. But Gadot put that rumor to rest in her A Talks interview, claiming the two enjoyed working together.

Accusations of complicity in war crimes in Gaza
But more to the point, when the trailer was released and the publicity campaign for Snow White began in earnest, many on social media accused Gadot, 40, who served in the IDF decades ago as a martial-arts instructor, of complicity in what they termed various war crimes in Gaza. The BDS movement called for a boycott of the film and the premiere was scaled down for reasons that Disney never made clear.

This was the background of Gadot’s remarks on The A Talks, in which she said, “I was sure that this movie was going to be a huge success, and then October 7 happened, and what's happening in all kinds of industries, and also in Hollywood, is that there's a lot of pressure on celebrities to speak out against Israel. You can always explain and try to give people in the world a context about what's happening and what the reality is here, but in the end, people decide for themselves. I was disappointed that the movie was greatly affected by that and didn't do well at the box office."

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, said on Monday it had decided to exclude six companies with connections to the West Bank and Gaza from its portfolio, following an ethics review of its Israeli investments.

The $2 trillion wealth fund did not name the companies it had decided to exclude, but said these would be made public, along with specific reasons for each company, once the divestment was completed.

The announcement follows an urgent review launched this month after reports that the fund had built a stake in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to Israel's armed forces, including the maintenance of fighter jets.

The fund's ethics council watchdog said it would continue to assess Israeli companies every quarter.

Exclusions from the fund are based on recommendations from the fund's ethics watchdog.

The fund had also separately sold stakes in several other companies that were not part of the ethics review, it said, following a decision last week to only hold stakes in Israeli companies that are part of the fund's benchmark index.
As of August 14, the fund had 19 billion crowns ($1.86 billion) invested in 38 companies listed in Israel, it said, noting this was a reduction of 23 companies since June 30.

Number of companies will decline further
The number of companies will decline further once the six ethics-based divestments are made, it said.

The fund announced last Monday that it was terminating contracts with all three of its external asset managers who handled some of its Israeli investments.

The lineup has been announced for one of the largest-scale benefit concerts for Palestine since the intensification of conflict after 7 October 2023. It takes place at Wembley Arena in London on 17 September.

Brian Eno is overseeing Together for Palestine, which brings together British and Palestinian artists at the 12,500-capacity venue to raise funds for Choose Love, a British charity working with 23 partner organisations in Gaza to deliver food, medical supplies and other support.

The Palestinian musicians Adnan Joubran, Faraj Suleiman and Nai Barghouti are scheduled to perform alongside Eno and a host of top UK artists: Bastille, Cat Burns, Damon Albarn, Greentea Peng, Hot Chip, James Blake, Jamie xx, King Krule, Mabel, Obongjayar, Paloma Faith, Rachel Chinouriri and Sampha, with “one-off contributions” from Rina Sawayama, PinkPantheress and Riz Ahmed.

Eno said: “In the face of the horrors of Gaza, silence becomes complicity. Artists have always helped societies to point out injustice and imagine better futures. That’s why this concert matters. It’s time for us to come together – not just to raise our voices, but to reaffirm our shared humanity.”

Khaled Ziada, founder and director of the London Palestine film festival, is producing the event alongside Eno and Tracey Seaward, the film producer who also produced the 2012 London Olympic opening ceremony.

Ziada said: “In a world where governments and mainstream media have fallen silent in the face of genocide, this gathering becomes a chorus of resistance – where artists and communities come together to grieve, to rage and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people.”

Singer-songwriter Chinouriri, who supported Sabrina Carpenter on a recent tour, called on other musicians to “join me in building a bridge to victims in Gaza and beyond, we must break through the privilege of our bubble and speak with truth and justice”. Albarn said: “Pacifism is an action. Peace is an action. To live peacefully requires vision and commitment … I am grateful for this opportunity to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

The production design of the event is being handled by Es Devlin, the Olivier and Tony award-winning stage designer who, as well as working in theatre, has designed huge pop shows for the likes of Beyoncé, the Weeknd, U2 and Lady Gaga.

Devlin is collaborating with Palestinian artist Malak Mattar on Together for Palestine, and said the Wembley Arena stage “will express the rich beauty of Palestinian culture”.

Eno has been a longstanding supporter of Palestine and the cultural boycott of Israel.

In 2017 he had a dispute with Nick Cave over the cultural boycott, with Cave characterising the boycott movement as “people that are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians, and to silence musicians”.

For decades, Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist whose ideas about how the body records pain helped millions find language for their suffering, has been regarded as the world’s leading expert in the study of trauma. His 2014 best-selling book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” turned him into an unlikely celebrity, a household name among therapists, yoga teachers and patients.

But earlier this month, at a bucolic retreat in the Hudson Valley, the 82-year-old van der Kolk triggered trauma and suffering among many of his students with strident comments on Israel.

According to interviews with several participants as well their written accounts, van der Kolk strayed from his course on trauma and neuroscience to share his political views on a variety of current events, including the war in Gaza. They say he compared Israelis to Nazis, and doubled down on the analogy after being challenged by an audience member who told him she was the descendant of Holocaust survivors.

“At what was meant to be a trauma workshop, the person leading it inflicted fresh trauma on me and on several other Jewish attendees,” Avinoam Lerner, a Boston-based trauma recovery coach, said in an interview.

Van der Kolk’s remarks prompted several of the roughly 125 attendees to walk out and later to lodge complaints with the Omega Institute, the retreat center that hosted the event. Omega, a prominent global hub for alternative healing and spiritual practice, responded swiftly, condemning van der Kolk’s comments and announcing he would no longer be invited to teach there.

“Dr. van der Kolk made inappropriate and antisemitic comments that are deeply troubling and entirely inconsistent with Omega’s core values and community standards,” the institute said in a statement Friday.

Van der Kolk sent an apology letter to participants, retracting his claim about the war in Gaza and tracing the reaction he shared to his early life. He was born in the Hague in 1943.

“I want to express my deep regret for talking about what is happening in Gaza being equivalent to what the Nazis did in the 1940s,” he wrote. “It was a gratuitous, offensive, inaccurate and completely unnecessary comment, rooted in my own identification with children in bombed out cities during, and shortly after, World War II.”

As word of the incident spreads, the fallout is rattling both the community of therapists for whom van der Kolk is a hero and the broader wellness world, in which Omega occupies a unique place.

Founded in 1977, Omega has long been a center for spiritual and healing movements, offering courses in meditation, yoga, psychology and holistic health. To be banned from teaching at its campus in Rhinebeck, New York, is a sharp rebuke, one that underscores how institutions once seen as removed from politics are being drawn into the debates and divisions unleashed by the Israel-Hamas war.

For many Jewish therapists in particular, the episode is part of a broader reckoning. Since the October 2023 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, many have spoken about feeling isolated or judged within professional settings, especially as conversations about trauma and oppression spill into ideological commentary.

Speaking about antisemitism in her field, Halina Brooke, director of the Jewish Therapist Collective, said, “What was once the exception has now edged closer to being the rule.”

“Especially alarming when it’s a trauma icon at the helm, this behavioral trend has saturated our training programs, private group practices, community mental health centers, and especially the online discourse about mental health,” said Brooke, who founded her group a decade ago.

Van der Kolk, whose career began in the late 1970s treating Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, has built his reputation on the idea that trauma is embedded in the body and requires not only talk therapy but also physical and emotional practices to heal. His lectures, which feature neuroscience, picking apart case studies and philosophical reflections, attract audiences worldwide.

Several participants in the August retreat at Omega said the episode was especially jarring because of the reverence they had long held for van der Kolk. The remarks came on the first day of a five-day program that cost up to $585 in tuition.

Among those in attendance was Judy Leventhal, co-author of the “Small Miracles” inspirational book series, a New York Times bestseller in the 1990s and 2000s. A psychotherapist and longtime student at Omega, Leventhal said she was stunned when van der Kolk offhandedly compared the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to the Holocaust.

She spoke up to clarify his meaning, but after an exchange in which he insisted the comparison between Israelis and Nazis was valid, she stood and walked out.

“I am a psychotherapist, so I am trained to think before I talk, but when I confronted him, it all disappeared, and what came out was visceral,” Leventhal said in an interview. “I felt the legacy trauma of millennia. My body kept the score.”

Moments later, people still inside the lecture hall heard her screaming, “How dare you?” She was addressing Licia Sky, van der Kolk’s wife and co-leader of the workshop, who was defending him.

“I must have connected to the scream of my ancestors as they were shut into the gas chambers knowing that the gas will soon consume them and their beautiful children which they clutched onto with one hand while their nails scratched the cement walls as they all finally fell to the ground,” Leventhal later wrote in a poetic account of the incident.

A small group of attendees gathered around her outside, including Lerner, the trauma recovery coach, who is an Israeli army veteran.

He said he recognized her outburst as an expression of profound pain and shared her reaction, while also feeling horrified as a practitioner, describing van der Kolk’s conduct as the very antithesis of his teachings.

“There was no context, no invitation to discuss, just a sweeping and dehumanizing statement by someone in a position of authority,” Lerner said. “Empathy and restraint are qualities that are foundational to trauma work.”

Lerner said that the moment following Leventhal’s exit and screaming should have given van der Kolk pause, but that he carried on without inquiring or attempting to find repair.

“Dr. van der Kolk has spent decades teaching us that the body holds onto trauma long after the moment has passed,” Lerner wrote in an account of the incident. “But he seemed unaware — or unwilling to acknowledge — how his own words were landing in the bodies of the people in front of him. Jewish participants. Trauma survivors. People who opened their hearts. People who trusted him with their nervous systems.”

An American educator was recently accosted for holding an Israeli flag outside Auschwitz-Birkenau during a visit to Poland, with a clip showing her heatedly responding to a question as to whether she was ashamed of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza.

Charlotte Korchak, founder of the US-based Jerusalem Education Institute, said she was “shocked” by the encounter, which came at the end of her first-ever visit to the Nazi concentration camp alongside a group of high school students from Miami.

“As we were leaving, I’m standing on the train tracks leading into Auschwitz, holding an Israeli flag, taking a picture, and a girl had the audacity to come up to me and ask me if I was ashamed for holding the Israeli flag,” she said in an Instagram video after the incident.

“You are killing children,” the unidentified woman told her in the clip, arguing that many Palestinians have died since the Gaza war was sparked by the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

“You’re not doing this in front of a bunch of Jews outside Auschwitz. Walk away,” Korchak answered, adding that talking about the Palestinian deaths was like talking about the German death toll in World War II.

After the woman said her Gazan friends had been “forced to leave their homes because of you,” Korchak retorted that her friends had been murdered too, in the Nova music festival on October 7 and in suicide bombings while she lived in Israel during the Second Intifada in the 2000s.

“How about, instead of attacking me, you understand that hate doesn’t help us?” she said. “I will never be ashamed to wear this flag, and I will never be ashamed of being a Jew.”

Korchak dismissed the woman’s claim that her remarks weren’t directed against Jews.

“Why did you come here? To learn what? To learn history, to learn why this country exists?” she answered, noting that Israel was founded so that the Holocaust wouldn’t repeat itself.

At the end of the encounter, as Korchak told her that she was an “embarrassment,” the woman turned around and left and the teenage boys sang “Am Yisrael Chai” (The Nation of Israel lives).

^I found this remark from the American woman waving an Israeli flag very offensive: "talking about the Palestinian deaths was like talking about the German death toll in World War II."

A lot of innocent German civilians were killed because of retaliation motives, similar to Palestinians in Gaza.

I don't think that's similar at all. The Allied forces tried to stop Nazi Germany invading and conquering the rest of Europe, not commiting a genocide on Germans. I have never seen the political leaders of the Allied Countries of the time quoted talking about the German civilians in the way Israeli leaders talk about Palestinian civilians today.

American soldiers also did not see themselves as liberators of Germans, but rather as victors and occupiers. The main directive of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for General Eisenhower, JCS 1067, demanded a punitive and harsh treatment of defeated Germans. Instructions to individual American soldiers in the Pocket Guide to GermanyITALICS stated unambiguously: “You are in enemy territory. These people are not our allies or friends.”

Guidelines for troop behavior warned that “the majority of Germans supported the Nazis” and that German civilians would “try to make friends with us – to get information, to get favors, to create sympathy for the ‘poor down-trodden’ German people, to make us disagree among ourselves, or just to get a good chance to slip a knife into Allied soldiers.”

An opinion survey among US soldiers in April 1945 indicated that 76 percent “hated” or had “negative feelings” toward German civilians, while 71 percent of soldiers felt that “all or most Germans” were responsible for the war.

Let me put it this way. In total, 1,195 people were killed in the October 7 attacks. Israel has responded by killing more than 60.000 - and counting - people in Gaza. 83% of them civilians. That is around 50.000 civilians.
Nazi-Germany killed 6 million people in the concentration camps. How many Germans did the Allies kill as a revenge? 249 million civilian Germans would be the same ratio as the Israeli respons.

How many civilians did the Germans kill in mainland America. Zero. German civilians killed by allied bombing estimated 350,000 to 500,000. Ratio infinity. It is important to note that a number of civilians would have been killed had a sabotage operation not been foiled. The number of British Civilians killed by the Germans were around 60,000. Unlike 10/7 these deaths occurred after war was declared.

Let’s go back to what I said
“I understand what the American women was trying to say. A lot of innocent German civilians were killed because of retaliation motives, similar to Palestinians in Gaza. I found the flag waving more problematic. The museum is supposed to be a place of somber, quiet reflection.” This means I also found trying to prove a whataboutism point at the Auschwitz museum problematic.

The American woman waving an Israeli flag at Aushhwitz reverses the roles and misses the point when she compares it to WW2. When Nazi-Germany killed 6 million people it was unprovoked murder. When 1,195 people were killed in the October 7 attacks it had retaliation motives, like the killing of German civilians.