“Oct 7 2023”

The Black Student Union at the University of Michigan — Ann Arbor withdrew from a Pro-Palestinian coalition called “TAHRIR” due to “rampant anti-Blackness.”

“Members of our organization and our community have dedicated their time, energy, and well-being to the continued existence and strength of the coalition despite repeated instances of being erased, belittled, and berated,” reads the statement by the Black Student Union. “These community members did so with the belief that the work of the coalition would be furthered by their sacrifice — that it would be worth the vitriol they received. However, as Black people, we are not obligated to sacrifice ourselves for any organization that does not value or understand us. The anti-Blackness within the coalition has been too pervasive to overcome, and we refuse to endure it.”

Some police officials have accused the IDF and the Shin Bet of withholding security threat information overnight between October 6 and 7, which, if it had been shared with the police, could have saved the lives of 364 civilians who were killed at the Nova party and 44 hostages who were taken.

First reported by Channel 12 at the end of the weekend, acting police commander for the Negev area Eyal Azulai is quoted as saying that the police had always been unsure about the safety of the Nova party attendees and that if they had known about the enhanced security threat, they might have ended the party before the invasion took place.

American-Turkish human rights activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, succumbed to her wounds on Friday after being shot in the head by Israeli forces during a weekly protest against settlement expansions in the West Bank, according to Palestinian Authority-run news outlet Wafa.

During the weekly protest in Beita, south of Nablus in the West Bank, IDF soldiers opened fire at the protesters using live ammunition, the report noted. Eygi was subsequently critically wounded in the head. The 26 years old activist was evacuated to Rafida Hospital in Nablus, where she later died.

h/t Patti Jo

The days leading up to a new academic year at a university are typically filled with a mix of excitement and anticipation for both faculty and students alike. Yet this year, it brought trepidation and even fear for many in the Jewish community. At my own university, faculty attended training sessions on coping with potential classroom intruders, including tips for de-escalation strategies and detailed security procedures. Students normally thinking about orientation programming were instead forced to ask themselves difficult questions about whether to conceal their religious or political beliefs, for fear of risking backlash or ostracization from fellow students and even faculty.

I don’t know that there is much hope for our universities.

The carnage of October 7, 2023 in southern Israel was wrought by an unprovoked attack by the Jew-hating, jihad terror organization Hamas, in conjunction with local Gazan Muslims. Some 1,200 Israelis were murdered, the victims being overwhelmingly non-combatant children, women, men, and the elderly. Atrocities committed against these primarily non-combatant Israelis included, mutilation, torture, beheadings, and mass rape, followed by burning, helpfully documented by the jihadists’ own videos and oral testimony (of captured jihadists), surveillance camera videos, surviving eyewitness testimony of the victims, and forensic pathology evidence.

Earlier this summer, my son and I biked over to fashionable east Hackney where it’s normal to pay £4.20 for a coffee and £3 for a croissant and everybody complains about the cost of living. The croissants, by the way, must come from the Dusty Knuckle bakery. I don’t know if it’s the same in other parts of London, but here in the north-east we have our standards.

We’d biked a fair distance, so we found a café that sold Dusty Knuckle croissants and settled in. My son read his book while I eavesdropped on the conversation between three interesting-looking youngish people at the next table. Interesting because they all looked so very typical it was almost surprising. Like going to Australia and right away coming face to face with a koala in a eucalyptus tree.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has condemned Israel for initiating a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, near Jordan, but it has purposely chosen to overlook the reason behind the Israeli security’s operation. Israel’s counterterrorism operation, called Summer Camps, targets numerous Iran-backed armed terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), that have been operating freely in PA-controlled territories in the past few years.