Anti Zionist and Anti Israel activities thread

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The Oxford Union has voted "overwhelmingly" in favour of declaring Israel a "bigger threat than Iran".

A debate took place at the society on Thursday evening discussing a motion which aimed to declare Israel more of a "threat to regional stability" than Iran.

Hillel Neuer, the Director of UN Watch, and Mohammad Shtayyeh, a Former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, spoke on two opposing sides on the topic, with the latter claiming "Israel is an expansionist colonial state that has been established by colonial powers".

Mr Neuer, however, called the motion an "inversion of reality", arguing: "Regional stability is measure by who starts wars, not by who stops them.

Israel does not arm terror proxies in five Arab countries - the regime in Iran does that.

"The entire Middle East knows this, and that is why Arab states quietly depend on Israel for their own survival.

He continued: "One of the most powerful illustrations was when the Islamic regime in Iran launched an unprecedented attack on the people of Israel with 170 drones, 30 cruise missile and more than 120 ballistic missiles.

"The fact that Sunni Arab states provided a combination of air force interceptions... is a real-world vote on tonight's motion.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, Mr Shtayyeh, who was in office from 2019 to 2024, said: "Israel acts above the law and does not respect UN resolutions, and also we know this aggressive state of Israel is... nuclear armed and a centre of colonial regime that is based on apartheid against the Palestinian people.

"Brutal occupation, crime and genocide. [Israel is] dragging the region into repeated conflicts... Israel is causing misery, genocide."

He ended by saying: "We all should say that Israel is the biggest cause of destabilisation in the region."

It is understood that members of the union voted "overwhelmingly" in favour of the motion.

An Israeli-born Canadian woman was allegedly denied listing Israel as her place of birth on her Canadian passport at a Montreal passport office last Monday, according to the woman and her legal counsel, with staff insisting that the exclusion was part of a new federal policy.

Start-Up Nation Montreal founder Anastasia Zorchinsky said, in a Thursday Instagram video statement, that when she attempted to file a passport application, a Passports Canada employee told her that she could not put Israel alongside her birth city, Kfar Saba, due to the “political conflict.”

Zorchinsky told The Jerusalem Post that when she had demanded to know the policy that dictated this decision, the staff members then told her that she could, in fact, put Israel on her passport.

Carney and Canada's recognition of Palestine
However, as Zorchinsky detailed in her video statement, she was told by Passport Canada staff that, since Prime Minister Mark Carney had officially recognized a Palestinian state on September 21, there were some cities that were eligible to be labeled “Palestine,” including Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, and Jerusalem.

The policy expressed to Zorchinsky was politically motivated and discriminatory, she said in the video.

“These are the clear consequences of the current government and leadership in power,” Zorchinsky said.

She told the Post that if someone else were in her position, they might not know how to deal with the situation, and it could result in them being denied the right to list their birthplace in their passport – with no legal basis.

Zorchinsky’s attorney, Neil Oberman, said on X/Twitter that he had contacted Service Canada’s Passport Program on Wednesday, demanding the disclosure of internal documents regarding passport nationality designation and a review into the legality of the provided explanations – and that his client had experienced discriminatory service based on her national origin.

After sending at least 42 threatening letters to over 25 American Jewish sites, a Maryland man pleaded guilty on Monday to 17 counts of threatening communications and eight counts of obstructing the exercise of religious belief.

Garrett Park resident Clift Seferlis faces a maximum penalty of 19 years in prison, three years supervised release, and a $5,650,000 fine for sending threatening letters and postcards to Jewish museums, community centers, schools, non-profits, a kosher delicatessen, and synagogues in Washington, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

Some of the letters, which were sent between March 2024 and June 2025, threatened arson or explosive attacks on the sites.

Many also contained references to Gaza, Israel, or incidents in which Jews were attacked or killed, and suggested that the recipients may become victims of similar attacks.

‘Hatred at all time high'
"The hatred toward you all, your [institution], and especially the nation of Israel is at an all-time high and is only getting worse," read the letter attributed to the 55-year-old suspect. "Do you – deep down – reallycare [sic] – really – about what is going on in Gaza? Will it take something happening to your beloved [institution] to make that happen."

Other similar letters received by the Jewish institution noted its “many big open windows" and made reference to "Kristallnacht" and the need to "rebuild" in the future.

Muslim leader at a New York City college interfaith event last week accosted the Jewish representative as a “Zionist” responsible for deaths in Gaza and led Muslim students out of the room.

The college said it was aware of the incident and investigating.

The event on Thursday brought together students from different faiths, including Muslims, Jews and Christian, at Manhattan’s City College of New York, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) public system.

The imam delivered a 15-minute speech extolling Islam, saying that Allah was responsible for students’ grades and paychecks.

“He is the ultimate decision-maker, and so Muslims, we are encouraged not to humiliate ourselves to anybody,” the imam said, according to an audio recording of the meeting shared with The Times of Israel. “We sent you a prophet to all of mankind.”

The Jewish representative at the event, Ilya Bratman, said the imam had identified himself as Abdullah, but his full name and affiliation with the university were not clear. The college did not answer questions about the imam and his connection to the university.

The imam interspersed his speech with chanted prayers in Arabic, and promoted Sharia law, saying its harsh punishments, such as executions for serious offenses and amputating the “tips of the hands of a thief,” were an effective deterrent against crime.

“I’m talking about the elite, the filthy rich, the ones that continue to steal from people as we speak today. Those are the ones that deserve their tips to be cut off,” he said.

“Sharia, it stands against the oppressor. When Shariah is implemented, pornography — gone. Alcohol industry — gone. Gambling system — gone. Interest is gone, which is what they use to enslave you,” he said.

He finished by attacking Bratman, who leads the campus chapter of the Hillel student group and was on the panel.

“I came here to this event not knowing that I would be sitting next to a Zionist and this is something I’m not going to accept. My people are being killed right now in Gaza,” the imam said, to cheers and applause from the students.

“If you’re a Muslim, out of strength and dignity, I ask you to exit this room immediately,” he shouted. Bratman said that all of the roughly 100 Muslim students at the meeting walked out, leaving behind mostly Christians and a handful of Jews.

The moderator of the event, a campus chaplain, is heard on the recording telling the remaining audience, “I’m so surprised. I want to apologize for that. This group was supposed to be, to remain respectful, and unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”

“So sorry, I’m in shock right now,” he says.

“You’re in shock? We’re not, we’re used to it,” a Jewish student says in the recording. “That’s how interfaith goes at CCNY.”

Most of the Hillel chapter’s Jewish students were in a different room in the building at an event with a Holocaust survivor who survived Kristallnacht at a gathering marking the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Hillel had not been able to reschedule the event with the Holocaust survivor, so Bratman and a few students attended the interfaith event to represent the Jewish community and as a show of respect. The walkout did not interfere with the Holocaust survivor event.

The interfaith event was organized by the college, held on campus and billed as an “interfaith workshop” aimed at discussing, “How are we different and what are our commonalities?”

The meeting continued after the Muslim students left and when it finished, campus safety officers escorted the participants out of the building.

Bratman said that, given the heated atmosphere, he feared that if the imam had told students to “attack this Zionist,” some would have likely done so.

He added that he was concerned about indoctrination and that Muslim students were compelled to either walk out of the event, aligning with the hardline rhetoric, or risk ostracization by their peers.

“You can have your views of your religion, but this was an interfaith event,” he said. “It should be light and fun and love. This was about bridges, not about isolationism and superiority.”

A spokesperson for the college said, “We were made aware of this incident and are working with our teams to investigate claims of possible discrimination.”

Anti-Israel protesters gathered outside a Nefesh B'Nefesh event hosted at Park East Synagogue in New York City on Wednesday night.

The protesters chanted “Death to the IDF,” “Resistance is glorious,” “Intifada revolution,” and “Resistance, you make us proud; take another settler out,” footage posted to social media revealed.

PAL-Awda NY, a pro-Palestinian organization, organized the protest. It targeted the event hosted by Nefesh B'Nefesh, an Israeli organization that helps Anglo Jews with the immigration process to Israel.

In the PAL-Awda social media advertisement for the protest, they referred to Nefesh B'Nefesh as "an affiliate of the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency for Israel, mainly responsible for the recruitment of settlers to Palestine from North America."

Attendees of the synagogue's event were forced to enter and exit in front of the protest while demonstrators heckled them, holding signs saying ‘Zionism is a death cult’ and shouting “There is only one solution, intifada revolution.”

Park East Synagogue Rabbi Arthur Schneier survived the Holocaust in Budapest, Hungary, and arrived in the United States in 1947.

At a protest on Wednesday night at the entrance to a New York City synagogue, a masked demonstrator stood above the crowd and urged attendees to intimidate Jews.

“It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events,” he said, referring to a gathering held inside the synagogue by Nefesh B’nefesh, a group that helps Jews immigrate to Israel.

“We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared,” he shouted, the roughly 200 protesters in the crowd repeating each sentence in unison, a tactic the activists use to amplify their speeches without the use of a loudspeaker, which requires an additional permit.

Protests erupted in the city on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas invasion In the following months, the activists kept crossing red lines as the death toll climbed in Gaza, targeting cancer patients, vandalizing museums and libraries, disrupting holiday events, and demonstrating against memorials to the dead. The leading activist groups make clear that they do not seek coexistence, two states, or a halt to the conflict, but the annihilation of the Jewish state.

Demonstrations at synagogues have been relatively rare, though. There were scattered protests at synagogues in New York and nearby towns in New Jersey after the start of the war to demonstrate against events marketing real estate in Israel. The synagogues do not organize the events; organizers rent out space in the buildings. The synagogue protests tend to be especially vitriolic, as are demonstrations in heavily Jewish neighborhoods.

The Wednesday night rally marked an escalation in that it was the first to target such a prominent synagogue, in the heart of Manhattan, that was not selling real estate, and was marked by more ugly, threatening and violent rhetoric than usual.

Chants at the protest included:

“Death, death to the IDF”
“From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada”
“Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here”
“Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out”
“We don’t want no two states, we want ’48”
“Resistance is justified”
“No peace on stolen land”
“Settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone”

Demonstrators had not previously chanted “death to the IDF,” or for death to anyone, at the dozens of protests The Times of Israel has covered in recent years, but the chant broke out repeatedly on Wednesday night. The “take another settler out” slogan was also new.

The protest was organized and advertised by leading activist groups in the city, including a number of student organizations.

The protesters were allowed to gather right next to the synagogue’s school entrance, forcing attendees to walk past them to get inside. The activists later posted videos of Jews entering the synagogue, branding them “settlers” in the videos, while activists shouted “shame” in the background.

The NYPD did not address a question about why the protest was allowed so close to the synagogue entrance, only saying that, “The demonstration concluded and no arrests were made.” There was a heavy police presence at the scene and officers kept the anti-Zionist protesters apart from Jewish counter-demonstrators. The Jewish community generally commends the police for their handling of protests.

The demonstration was organized with the veneer of political protest in that it targeted an event, not the synagogue itself, but the activists repeatedly veered into outright antisemitism that had no relation to the event and was more extreme than the rhetoric at most protests.

One woman shouted, “f*****g Jewish pricks,” at passersby, while another yelled, “You’re part of a death cult,” while arguing with a man in a kippah. Another protester held a sign that said, “Pedophiles & rapists are running our government to serve ‘Israel,'” the text overlaid on a photo of US President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Others shouted about the Hannibal Directive, referring to a conspiracy theory that says the IDF was responsible for the Israeli civilian deaths on October 7.

“You f*****g rapist c***s. You f*****g pedophiles. You f*****g Epstein pieces of s**t,” one woman shouted.

The presence of the fringe, anti-Zionist Naturei Karta Jewish sect also helps the activists head off allegations of antisemitism. Members of the tiny, extremist group are at the front of nearly every anti-Israel protest in the city. On Wednesday night, members of the group, which has been condemned by other non-Zionist Hasidic movements, repeatedly stomped on an Israeli flag.

The animosity was not one-sided — right-wing Jewish activists had circulated calls to show up for the counter-demonstration, saying, “Silence is not an option.” The two sides berated each other, flashed obscene gestures across the police barricades, beamed bright flashlights in each other’s faces, and hurled a plastic coffee cup back and forth.

The group that held the event, Nefesh B’nefesh, does not direct immigrants to settlements, which much of the international community considers a violation of international law, although the group works with a few coordinators in the West Bank blocs.

Mamdani on Wednesday confirmed that he will keep the well-regarded NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in place, fulfilling a campaign pledge that had calmed centrists, including Jews, who were fearful about their safety due to Mamdani’s past criticism of police and issues including attributing NYPD violence to Israel.

His keeping Tisch in place provoked a backlash from leading anti-Zionist activists in the city, though. The activists are from the same camp that organized the synagogue protest, underlining Mamdani’s tightrope walk between his far-left base and the city’s moderates.

Inside the synagogue on Wednesday night, the Nefesh B’nefesh event went on, with staffers greeting attendees at a table inside the synagogue door, within sight of the protesters. A Nefesh B’nefesh staffer said around 150 participants attended the “open house” event to discuss options for immigrating to Israel.

“There was more serious discussion of aliyah as an option than in previous, similar events,” the staffer said.

Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect, has responded to a protest targeting an event promoting migration to Israel at an Upper East Side synagogue, suggesting that the event was an inappropriate use of a “sacred space.”

“The Mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so,” Mamdani’s press secretary, Dora Pekec, said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

She went on, “He believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”

Pekec did not offer further comments about whether or why Mamdani believed the event at Park East Synagogue, a prominent Orthodox congregation, promoted violations of international law.

The event was organized by Nefesh B’nefesh, the nonprofit that facilitates immigration to Israel for North American Jews. The organization bills its open house events as a chance to “get your questions answered, learn about the process, and discover what life in Israel could look like for you and your family.”

The group is considered a quasi-governmental agency in Israel, receiving funding from the Israeli government and works closely with its ministries. It does not assign immigrants to particular communities, but has showcased West Bank settlements — which most of the world, though not Israel or the United States, considers illegal under international law — in events and on its website as possible destinations for new immigrants.

The demonstration is providing an early window into how Mamdani’s long- and deeply held pro-Palestinian views might influence his leadership of the city.

As a state Assemblyman, he sponsored legislation aimed at blocking nonprofits from funding Israeli settlements in the West Bank that some, including critics of the settlement movement, decried as casting an overly broad net.

Now, Mamdani’s response to the Park East demonstration offers a stark contrast to two robust condemnations of antisemitism he has offered up since being elected, after a swastika was painted on a Brooklyn yeshiva and after the words “F–k Jews” were painted on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Both times, he quickly offered a full-throated denunciation on social media.

This time, even as prominent Jewish voices in the city alleged antisemitism on the part of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, Mamdani did not make a public comment himself. His office’s statement did not address allegations of antisemitism.

Mayor Eric Adams, who is in Uzbekistan after a visit to Israel this week, said in a statement that he planned to visit Park East upon his return to the city. Calling the rhetoric shouted there “desecration,” he suggested that the protest augured a grim future for the city under Mamdani.

“Today it’s a synagogue. Tomorrow it’s a church or a mosque. They come for me today and you tomorrow,” Adams tweeted. “We cannot hand this city over to radicals.”

Rabbi Marc Schneier, who has been staunchly critical of Mamdani and whose father is the longtime senior rabbi at Park East Synagogue, said he was distressed by how the police allowed the confrontation to unfold.

“What I find most disturbing is that the police, who knew about this protest a day in advance, did not arrange for the protesters to be moved to either Third or Lexington Avenues,” he said. “Instead, they allowed the protesters to be right in front of the synagogue, which put members of the community at risk.”

I question whether the duties of the mayor of NYC, or mayor-elect, include concerning himself with what congregants of a synagogue in a wealthy neighborhood choose to do with their building. I can't imagine the mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, making public pronouncements about something like this. Of course if citizens' safety is threatened, the police would get involved. But a mayor should have more pressing concerns. Maybe NYC is such a wealthy city that maintaining quality of life isn't a big challenge for the mayor.

Saying that because they have "showcased West Bank settlements" that a pro-Aliyah organization should be sanctioned in the sense that association with it should be cause for arrest or discipline in the case of municipal employees seems an extreme reach, and suggests to me that Mamdani really could be some sort of extremist which could really hurt his effectiveness as mayor. Tell me again why Adams had to go?

Full disclosure, I do NOT support West Bank settlers.

I assume she can keep her job as a Jewish police commissioner as long as she doesn't let her zionism getting in the way of upholding the law.

If any appointee publicly disagrees with the mayor or openly or surreptitiously works to block the mayors policies that person will be gone.

I don't know why an official should be required to share the views of the mayor on an issue like Zionism that is unrelated to their job or the mayor's job, for that matter.

An anti-Israel guerrilla art demonstration at the main train station in Washington, D.C., on Thursday that portrayed U.S. and Israeli leaders drinking the blood of Gazans is drawing criticism for channeling the blood libel levied against Jews throughout history.

“Seldom have we seen such a sickening display of full-throated antisemitism,” the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said in a statement late Thursday.

The protest featured five people in suits wearing masks representing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump and other officials. They were covered in fake blood, sitting at a long table set with bloodied doll limbs, glasses of red liquid and plates of what looked like organ meat. Israeli flags acted as napkins as the participants mopped blood from their faces.

A sign in ornate font laid out a menu: “Starter: Gaza children’s limbs.” “Main: Stolen Organs.” “Dessert: Illegally harvested skin.” “Drink: Gaza’s spilled blood.”

Each place setting had a name, showing Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former President Joe Biden and his secretary of state, Antony Blinken. At Netanyahu’s seat, a place card showed “Mileikowsky,” his family’s name in Europe from before his father moved to pre-state Israel and adopted a Hebrew surname.

Jewish groups swiftly denounced the display, which was shared by both its supporters and critics on social media.

“Dressed up as ‘activism’ and ‘performance art,’ this was nothing less than the revival of one of the oldest and most dangerous antisemitic tropes in history,” said the American Jewish Committee in a statement. “Blood libel has fueled violence, persecution, and massacres of Jews for centuries. Seeing it resurface in our nation’s capital is both horrifying and unacceptable.”