This is just stupid. The only ones who will pay this are the American consumers. “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump will be implementing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada as well as a 10% duty on China, in retaliation for ‘the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country’.” Read it at CNBC.
“The European Union has treated us so terribly,” Trump says. Read it at Politico.
The messages seen in the photo were printed on the banner raised behind the platform where Hamas showed off hostages set to be released today. It’s obvious that they are inspired by the political left in Europe and America. Hamas terrorists praise themselves as victorious freedom fighters, and they portray Zionists as a Nazis. This is completely absurd coming from an organisations with the outspoken aim to eliminate the Jewish people globally.
From Hans Globke’s book Civil Rights and the Natural Inequality of Man (1936):
The Jews, who constitute an alien body among all European peoples, are especially characterised by racial foreignness. Jews, therefore, cannot be seen as being fit for service to the German Volk and Reich.
From Article 7 in the Hamas Covenant (1988):
The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight and kill the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, “O Moslems, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.
From Article 32 in the Hamas Covenant (1988):
The Movement [Hamas] adds its efforts of all those who are active in the Palestinian arena. Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews.
The slogan that “Gaza is the graveyard of the criminal Zionists” is ludicrous. Hamas is a bunch of violent idiots. Dangerous anti-Semites, yes, but also complete dimwits unable to grasp even the simplest aspects of political philosophy.
German journalist Susan Ville (@villebooks@mastodon.social), whom I wrote about a few days ago after she said that Israel was to blame for the female victims of Hamas’s terror attack, is now claiming that Jews have no right to Israel. The Holocaust survivors, those millions of Jews who the Germans didn’t have the time to kill before they were defeated in the Second World War, are now described as foreign colonisers. This is exactly how the Germans described Jews living in Europe. I quote Nazi ideologists Wilhelm Stuckart and Hans Globke, co-authors of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Race Laws, from their book Civil Rights and the Natural Inequality of Man (1936):
The Jews, who constitute an alien body among all European peoples, are especially characterised by racial foreignness. Jews, therefore, cannot be seen as being fit for service to the German Volk and Reich.
And:
Only he who is a racial comrade can be a citizen. Only one who is of German blood, no matter what his religious faith, can be a racial comrade. Therefore no Jew can be a racial comrade. Anyone who is not a citizen can live in Germany only as a guest and is subject to special legislation for foreigners. The right to determine the leadership and legislation of the state may be granted only to citizens. We demand, therefore, that every public office, regardless of its importance, and whether in the Reich, in the Land, or in the municipality, be occupied only by citizens.
The internet is full of anti-Semites using the Israel-Hamas conflict to legitimise their racism, but I find it particularly provocative when a German journalist incites hatred against Jews.
From Zero Hedge:
Beard worked night shifts, 12 hours a day, six days a week, pretending to be a woman named Annie to deceive victims. The scam centre housed over 1,000 workers, mostly foreign migrants from Africa and India, all controlled by a Chinese-run syndicate. Workers were confined to the premises, only leaving to buy food from vendors serving the scammers.
Victims, already catfished on dating apps, believed they were chatting with a woman who led a glamorous lifestyle. Beard’s job was to extract financial information and convince them to invest in cryptocurrency.
“It’s not the important information I give them,” he explained. “It’s the important information I got out of them.”
A real woman, half-Turkish, half-Ukrainian, was employed to take brief video calls to reassure victims they weren’t being scammed. “She had a line of people waiting for her to also talk to other victims.”
Read the whole thing.
They see the trend especially among four groups:
No surprise that these are the groups ready to flee the new wave of fascism.
Oh, speaking of fascism, my favourite on the topic of Trump is John Bolton who, in an interview, said, “To be a fascist, you have to have a philosophy. Trump’s not capable of that.”
Read it at Spectrum News.
Apparently, Susan Ville (@villebooks@mastodon.social), filed a complain about my previous posts where I criticised her anti-Semitism. In some obscure message on line, she wrote that she’s filing complaint against me at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
I don’t really care about her feelings, nor don’t I care much about Mastodon (my audience is elsewhere), but I do care about the struggle against racism and thus take offence at being censured by @admin@mastodon.nu.
Let’s imagine that someone said that people of colour had no right to settle in Europe and America, that black people were colonisers and responsible for the atrocities that white people subjected them to. Wouldn’t that be absurd? Wouldn’t that be bluntest racism? To any sane person it would. Still, when it comes to Jews, people like Susan Ville are somehow excused from criticism. They are free to voice their anti-Semitism behind sympathies for Palestinians. Because all but one of the world’s countries and terrorises are non-Jewish, Palestinians—as gentiles—are by default übermensch and Jews are inferior. As if human value was a popular vote.
Let me be clear. There’s nothing wrong with being sympathetic towards the many innocent people suffering in Gaza or the West Bank. I, too, find it unbearable to watch how innocent Gazan children that are being killed and maimed. I understand why people are emotionally affected by this. There is, however, a huge gap between that and saying, as Susan Ville does, that Jews have no right to settle in Israel and that Jewish women have themselves to blame for being killed, raped, and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. Again, let’s turn the table and say that Arabs have no right reside in Gaza. Wouldn’t that be offensive?
In Susan Ville, I see an immoral racist. But she’s also a person with less than 200 followers on social media and no assignments for any major outlet as far as I can tell, so I’ll let her be. I will, however, never stop to call-out the racists and homophobes online no matter what they try to throw at me. I’m prepared to face prison to defend Jews and LGBTQ people from extremists.
For background, see previous posts on Susan Ville here and here.
Good news! Caffeine in your blood may help determine your risk of developing type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Read the study at BMJ Medicine.
A study of twenty captive chimpanzees has now found that when one individual lets go of their bladder, others are quick to follow suit—especially if the chimp urinating is a group leader. Read it at Current Biology.
“Newly released Israeli hostages have revealed the brutal conditions they endured in Hamas captivity—severe malnutrition, psychological torment, and forced confinement in cages.” Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
@wretchardthecat should read David Benatar’s Better Never to Have Been (2006), in which he makes a case for anti-natalism.
This is actually true. In the oldest extant biography of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq, the animal that the prophet rode in his celestial journey to Jerusalem is described as a donkey with wings.
Good news! Burning books is stupid, but people have the right to be stupid. Read it in Swedish at SVT Nyheter.
Yesterday, Iran revealed a new ballistic missile capable of travelling 1,700 kilometres. Read it at the Times of Israel.
Farewell potholes. Read it at the Guardian.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of Argentines took to the streets across the country in defence of hard-fought diversity advances and to denounce recent homophobic and transphobic remarks by President Javier Milei. Read it at Buenos Aires Times and Buenos Aires Herald.
Hamas dress their female hostages in uniforms and force them to stand on a platform with anti-Semitic slogans in the background. The Jewish women are threatened with death unless they smile and wave to the Arab journalists. And now the internet if flowing with disinformation about Israel being responsible for Hamas’s mass killing of Jews and hostage taking. This propaganda, made to appeal to the radical left and racist right in the West, is so perverse.
Walid Mahmoud presents himself as a photographer and filmmaker in Gaza. Apparently, he lost loved ones in the war. So, I find it easier to accept his anti-Semitic reporting than I do westerners who buy and reproduce this garbage.
Took these photos tonight when I walked through central Malmö.
At lest five people shot at school in Örebro. Some fatalities, but the police have not yet said how many. Read it at The Local.
Update at 4.10pm: Swedish newspaper Expressen reports that several people are shot dead.
Update at 4.18pm: BBC News has live coverage in English.
Update at 4.20pm: The Guardian has live coverage in English.
Update at 4.43pm: Several people are shot dead, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg star in new campaign video made to tackle anti-Semitism. American journalist Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) comments this on X. It seems to be a trend among journalists to voice anti-Semitism and blame Jews for being subjected to hate and violence.
The video Peters objects to can be seen below.
The police just finished a press conference and then said there are at least ten people dead after today’s school shooting in Örebro. Read it at Expressen.
His name was Rickard Andersson. He shot himself after killing eleven people at a school in Örebro yesterday. Read it at Expressen.
Trump also wants to see permanent displacement of Gaza residents. I can’t see this happening without violence on a scale we can only have nightmares about. Besides, it would save the core issue. Hamas and others would only start to operate from Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. The risk of terror attacks in America is also overwhelming. Read it at the Washington Post.
“Hamas continues to sell the illusion of triumph, hoping the world will look past the devastation they have wrought. Don’t be fooled.” Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) is the host and founder of The Young Turks, an American political show broadcasting live on social media. He was once working for MSNBC. He’s a Democrat and ran for president in 2024. It was a failed attempt, however, not least for his history of anti-Semitism.
“President Trump signed an executive order intended to prevent transgender students from participating in women’s sports.” Read it at the New York Times.
Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) is a podcaster and former MMA fighter and has obviously suffered many blows to the head.
Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) is a medical doctor at Rigshospitalet, Denmark’s largest hospital, based in Copenhagen. She has published several research papers, but on social media she’s loved by radicals who share her contempt for Jews. It’s appalling to see how well-educated people sink this low. Accusing Jews for the death of Jesus is medieval anti-Semitism. To link it to the Israeli military is to recycle medieval anti-Semitism. Don’t tell me that this is about criticising Israel.
Yesterday, Donald Trump on Thursday authorised economic and travel sanctions targeting people who work on International Criminal Court investigations of American citizens or US allies such as Israel. Read it at the Times of Israel.
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say a new breed of tiny flying robots that weigh less than a gram could take the place of bees as pollinators in indoor farms of the future. Read their paper at Science Robotics.
The same could be said for people. Read it at Ars Technica.
It’s as if he were the new American president.
Dear God, help us! Read it at Daily Kos.
Anti-Semitism has survived for millennia by adapting to the prevailing ideologies of the time. It has now adapted once again. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
Quote:
Rabbi Sacks wrote extensively about the mutation of antisemitism across history. First, they hated us because of our God.
Then they hated us because we “killed their God.” Then they hated us because we were different. Then they hated us because we tried to be the same. Next, they reviled us as a subhuman race without a home of our own—culminating in the Holocaust.
And now, in a perverse historical irony, they hate us because we do have a home of our own, and because we dare to defend it.
I’m not a fan of Elon Musk, especially after his Hitler salute and all his transphobic nonsense. However, if his claims in this tweet are true, there’s some merit to the work his Department of Government Efficiency is doing.
“When asked who should govern Gaza after the war, most Jewish respondents preferred a multinational force, rather than Israeli control. Among Israeli Arab respondents, support for Hamas control rose sharply from 8% in September 2024 to 29% in January 2025, becoming their top choice.” Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
Israeli forces withdrew from the entire Netzarim Corridor in the central Gaza Strip overnight. I don’t think this is a wise decision. With Hamas back in northern Gaza, the rockets will soon rain over Sderot again. Read it at the Times of Israel.
“Seventy-six Israeli hostages remain in Hamas captivity, trapped in underground tunnels, starving, and abused. The three men released over the weekend—Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami—were barely recognisable,” the Jerusalem Post writes. “Skeletal, sunken, and hollow-eyed, their bodies were a chilling reminder of what happens when the world stands by as evil prevails.”
This is horrific. So many people lost in one man’s war against democracy. Read it at Kyiv Independent.
In Al Jazeera (where else?), Shahd Hammouri, a lecturer in International Law at the University of Kent, writes that the United Nations should be moved from America and Europe to the so-called Global South. In the past, Hammouri has written that Hamas and others have the right to fight the Jewish State by “all means available at their disposal”. Personally, I think the West should stop funding the UN. It’s run by undemocratic countries set on destroying Israel. Between 2015 and 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted 154 resolutions against Israel and only 71 against all other countries. It’s absurd. So, yes, move the UN to some hellhole in the Global South, such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or Congo. Then we can stop pretending that it’s in any shape or form an organisation for democracies that respect human rights.
Rich Lowry’s article in the New York Post reminds me of why I’m not a conservative. Their culture war is all about humiliating minorities.
“President proposes letting ‘all hell break loose’ if hostages held by Hamas are not returned to Israel at noon on Saturday.” Good! Read it at the Guardian.
I’ve often wondered from where the pro-Palestinians got the idea that Israel is based on Jewish supremacism. Now I know. It’s David Duke.
Adin is 100% right. People have so many misconceptions about Zionism. There’s no end to the many straw men our opponents use. Zionism is actually simple. It’s about the Jewish people’s right to self determination in our homeland.
People want to know why Rickard Andersson short and killed eleven people at a Swedish school last week, but the police seem unable to provide one. They have kept more than 300 interrogation, but little is still known about the shooter. This is a problem that is not uncommon. Our idea about crime is that there’s a reason for it to happen, but in reality, many criminal are acting without thought. Frustrating for relatives and the rest of us, but a reality. Read it at Expressen.
“US President Donald Trump’s continued discussions about Gaza have already resulted in getting some movement in Jordan and Egypt.” Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both Arab nurses working in a Sydney hospital, have been suspended from work for threatening to kill Israeli patients. Read it at the Times of Israel.
This is what happens when politicians try to control business. It will have a direct impact on the environment. Read it at the Washington Post.
The contract between the Greek foreign ministry and the BGR group, a Republican-focused spin shop with close links to Trump and his officials, is worth €580,000 per year. Read it at the EU Observer.
It’s absurd how some American “scientists” still promote the idea that vaccines are more harmful than the Covid virus that has so far killed 7,000,000 people. Nicolas Hulscher and his boss Peter McCullough are a fraudsters according to real scientists. But more than that, they are a danger to public health not only in America, but globally.
Useful knowledge for anyone set on a life in southern Sweden. Listen to the podcast at The Local.
This is troubling. It’s no secret that Trump doesn’t care much for Ukraine nor its president Volodymyr Zelensky. Besides, this only adds to Putin’s delusion about Russia being a superpower at level with the United States. Read it at The Economist.
After posts on X praising Nazis, Kanye West’s account was deactivated, and Shopify shut down his website. Now people who hates Nazism (and who doesn’t) have began to produce anti-Kanye items, such as T-shirts and coffee mugs. Read it at Rolling Stone.
Europe reacts to Trump’s rush to negotiate peace with Putin. Read it at the Kyiv Independent.
More: John Bolton denounces Trump and Putin’s peace talks. Read it at The Hill.
It’s before noon and still hours to go until Shabbat begins, but I’m stating early. Have a nice weekend, y’all!
In the anti-Semitic propaganda machine, I’m sure this will be attributed to evil Jews.
This is the problem with many Palestinians. They just hate us and want us dead. There’s no room for debate or reconciliation.
For context, read the story at Times of Israel.
The clown just won’t stop. Read it at the Independent.
The horrors of Gaza captivity are revealed. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims, was in a car with another person when the killer’s vehicle stopped in front of them and blocked their exit. Read it at the Guardian.
I stumbled across the @realrabbilinda X account and couldn’t believe my eyes. Support for Iran and trans rights? Eh… Then I made a search for this “rabbi” and found out that it’s actually a satirical profile. The funny thing is that it’s so close to positions held by some anti-Israel Jews on the far left, such as Judith Butler and Naomi Klein. Read about the real Rabbi Linda Goldstein at Jewcy.
“Middle-aged and older adults with a history of depression have more long-term physical health conditions at baseline and accrue additional physical conditions at a faster rate than those without a history of depression.” Read the study at PLOS Medicine.
“As the sun sets on the Canadian Prairies, the search begins for one of North America’s most destructive animals, a fast-growing population of wild hogs that biologists call ‘super pigs’.” Read it at CBS News. 🐽⚠️
The humanitarian aid that entered the Gaza Strip at the beginning of 2024 reached Hamas leaders instead of Gaza citizens. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
Trump and Putin have decided to negotiate a peace in Ukraine without European involvement. European leaders are therefore gathering in Paris to discuss the situation. It’s unacceptable that Russia and America ignore Europe on an issue vital to our continent. Read it at the Guardian.
An interesting report from the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and Leiden University. Click here to download it as a PDF-file.
Kobi Saar is right. But the problem goes beyond new olim. The cost of living in Israel is ridiculously high. Even in small towns in desert one has to pay far more for a flat than is reasonable. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
It’s a bit like the biblical story of Jonah. Watch the video at Science Alert.
This is complete madness. “Trump also seemed to blame Kyiv for Moscow’s invasion—even as he said he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks—claiming Ukraine could have ‘made a deal’ to avert war.” Read it at the Guardian.
“Kremlin propaganda has pushed the narrative that Zelensky is an illegitimate leader, relying on the premise that his first presidential term was originally meant to end on May 20, 2024,” the Kyiv Independent writes. “The false allegation ignores the fact that the Ukrainian constitution prohibits elections during martial law, which went into effect after Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022.”
“In this situation, we should make it clear for the Europeans: now we can really strike Brussels, London or Paris, because we can forget about [NATO’s] Article 5,” the Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov, known for his many fascist ideas, said on a TV show according to the Daily Express. “You can forget the notion that Americans would step in on your behalf.”
Ukraine’s democratically elected president is a “cornered rat”, according to Russia’s dictatorially selected president. The world is going fast into darkness. Read it at Daily Express.
“The Kennedy Center has seen a raft of cancellations since President Trump took over the arts centre last week and installed his loyalist Ric Grenell as its interim president and himself as chairman of the board.” Read it at Washingtonian.
In a few hours, Hamas will release the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bidas. The terror organisation that kidnapped and kept the brothers in captivity now claims that the boys died in an Israeli airstrike. This is unconfirmed and probably a lie to save face. In any event, there wouldn’t have been an airstrike had Hamas not attacked Israel and kidnapped hundred of Jews on 7 October 2023. The blood of these and all other children killed in this war is on the hands of the Hamas terrorists.
Michael Starr in the Jerusalem Post.
Amnesty International used the last 15 months to produce reports accusing Israel of every crime it could think of, but for 500 days the organization that was founded to free political prisoners said nothing of the Bibas family members as they were held in captivity. They said nothing on social media as the alleged remains of four hostages were paraded before jeering and cheering Gazan civilians.
Human Rights Watch did nothing but watch on Thursday, with no statement being made about the indignities of the hostages being used to threaten those that still remained in terrorist captivity. The abuse of the Bibas family was mentioned in a July report, but this token attention appeared to be the sole exception.
Save the Children International, which claims to ensure children are protected around the world, has not once taken a stand against the precedent for using children as hostages to ransom the release of murderers. It has not once mentioned the Bibas children on its website or social media.
And:
Even if these organizations release their necessary lip service hours or days later out of shame, it is already too late. The comparison of their response to Thursday to that of the constant and zealous manner in which human rights organizations attack Israel with claims of genocide, or apartheid, or whatever new term they have invented as the weekly bludgeon, demonstrates a ridiculous double standard.
“The barbaric handover ceremony began at about 9.20am to the sounds of the cheering, clapping and whistling of the delighted audience. The coffins were handed over to the Red Cross, who transported them to a meeting point in the Strip where IDF forces were waiting.” Read it at the Yeshiva World.
The Irish simply can’t stop praising anti-Semites who are successful at killing Jews.
I’m not surprised. Steve Bannon is an idiot. Everybody knows that. But he’s doing this Nazi salute at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington only weeks after Elon Musk faced heavy criticism for his salute. To make things worse, the crowd seems to love it. American conservatism has lost all decency.
Scientists say defining sex as a binary excludes many biological realities. Read it at Science News.
Earlier this week, French scientists announced that they had reached a crucial milestone in the long road towards nuclear fusion by managing to maintain raging-hot plasma for a record 22 minutes. Read it at Science Alert.
Vatican officials say the Pope now needs oxygen at high flow. Read it at the Associated Press.
Needless to say, no one is crying “genocide” now. Read it at BBC News.
On its Mastodon account, the Al-Quds News organisation describes itself as providing “unbiased coverage, breaking news, and deep analysis on the ongoing struggles”.
Yes, and Dolly Parton’s face is on Mount Rushmore.
“Europe holds its breath as world’s third largest economic power and most populous EU country faces crossroads.” Read it at the Guardian.
Read Stewart Lee at the Guardian.
“A mysterious, one-off flash of energy from an unknown object outside the Milky Way has left astronomers puzzled.” Read it at Space.
The far right AFD gained big, but with about 21% and no one willing to work with the party, its impact will most likely be limited. Instead, Germany seems set for conservative leader Friedrich Merz to be the new chancellor. This is good news for Germany, and good news for Europe. Mr Merz is a friend of the EU and Ukraine. He has, in recent days, spoken out in favour of a stronger European defence not reliant on American backing.
He’s not been able to increase support for the liberal Centre Party and decided to leave his post a year before the next general election. I’m not sure this will help the situation, but party politics is brutal. Read it at The Local.
“Newton’s First Law of Motion is typically understood to govern only the motion of force-free bodies. This paper argues on textual and conceptual grounds that the law is in fact a stronger, more general principle. The First Law limits the extent to which any body can change its state of motion—even if that body is subject to impressed forces. The misunderstanding can be traced back to an error in the first English translation of Newton’s Principia, which was published a few years after Newton’s death.” Read it at the Philosophy of Science.
Jane Fonda speaks her mind. Read it at Variety.
I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the far-right parties in Israel’s own government. IT’s still a huge mistake to cooperate with ex-Nazi parties. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
A computer-generated video of Donald Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes briefly played on video screens at the office of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development as staff returned to work yesterday. Read it at the Jerusalem Post.
I think people had had enough of Nazi-saluting Musk. Read it at the Guardian.
“Donald Trump has threatened to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the 27-country bloc was ‘formed to screw the United States’.” This man really thinks everything is about America. The EU was created to stop constant war on our continent. It was encouraged by the US. Read it at the Guardian.
The great actor Gene Hackman was found dead in his home yesterday. The police found him alongside his wife and dog. I will remember Hackman for many films, but among the best are Unforgiven (1992) and The French Connection (1971).
“But in addition to training children to spout the terrorist organization’s party line rants, maybe Hamas should also teach them some basic gun safety. Or not. If she touched one off and shot someone in the crowd, they’d just blame it on Israel anyway.” Read it at Shooting News.
Good!!! “The European Commission responded that the EU had been ‘a boon’ for the United States after President Donald Trump claimed it had been born to ‘screw’ the US, laying bare his hostility to the longtime US partners as he detailed new tariffs.” Read it at The Local.
In a new study, researches have found that deep sleep has an effect on cognitive reserve factor in Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Read it at BMC Medicine.
The list for reference:
Read it at Jason Kottke.
It’s Friday afternoon and soon a new Shabbat begins.
