Mideast War blowback

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Members of Montreal's Jewish community say they will not be intimidated into closing the doors to their establishments after a day school in the city's west end was struck by gunfire overnight for the second time in the past four days.

Bullet impact marks were found on the facade of Yeshiva Gedola of Montreal, located on Deacon Road in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, Sunday morning. Shell casings were also found on the ground nearby. No one was injured.

Police say they received several calls around 5 a.m. about gunshots near Yeshiva Gedola of Montreal, which is normally open Sundays.

Dubuc says witnesses reported seeing a vehicle fleeing the scene at the time of the gunfire.

No arrests have been made yet.

Dubuc said police cannot confirm if there was anyone inside the building at the time of the event.

In a statement, Premier François Legault said his heart goes out to Quebec's Jewish community, adding "every effort will be made to find and punish the culprits."

"The Quebec nation is a peaceful nation. Let's not import the hatred and violence we see elsewhere in the world," he said.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante also spoke to reporters outside Yeshiva Gedola school Sunday morning, calling the recent acts of violence "odious."

"At this moment, the Jewish community is under attack in Montreal," Plante said.

Alain Vaillancourt, Montreal's executive committee member responsible for public security, said even more SPVM patrol vehicles are being deployed — and with a new mandate following this latest incident.

"The patrols that are now in place are not responding to regular calls or urgent calls. They're uniquely patrolling the area" around places such as schools, synagogues and mosques," he said.

Sunday's incident comes after shots were fired at both Yeshiva Gedola and Talmud Torah Elementary School, another Jewish school in Côte-des-Neiges, overnight Wednesday.

Police said both schools were empty at the time of the shooting and nobody was injured.

Police are investigating after the remnants of Molotov cocktails were found at a synagogue and Jewish community centre in the Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que., overnight Monday.

The Montreal police arson squad and hate crimes unit investigators are on the case and Jewish advocacy organizations are calling out what they say is a worrisome rise in antisemitism.

Investigators on the scene Tuesday morning found pieces of a glass bottle and charred markings on the front door of the synagogue, Congregation Beth Tikvah, where a small fire had burned.

No one was injured and the damage was minor, a Montreal police spokesperson said.

A second small fire ignited at the back door of the Federation CJA building on Roger-Pilon Street, across the street from the synagogue, a spokesperson for the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal(SPVM) said.

I remember how it was.

Back in the Sixties Americans were rather solidly pro Israel. Everyone applauded their victory in the Six Day War of 1967. But as the Seventies kicked in, one group of Americans, American Blacks, began to break ranks, and began to identify with the Palestinians of the occupied territories more than with their Israeli overlords.

But that was still a modest change by only one minority demographic. But that wedge has widened. Today, according to this vid, there are marked generational differences (in Europe and the US) over which side gets sympathy in the struggle in the Holy Land. The youngest cohorts are "net supporters of Palestine".


https://youtu.be/D3cjV3tNd88

Interfaith work between Jews and Muslims 40 years in the making at one mosque in Nassau County has nearly broken down. It's the same story at another interfaith group in Suffolk County.

The violence in Israel and Gaza is shattering relationships between Muslims and Jews who have been friends for years or decades. Many are struggling to hold onto those ties, though they acknowledge they have opposite viewpoints on the Middle East conflict. Others are resigning themselves to lost or frayed friendships and alliances.

“At this time, both of the communities don’t know how to address or how to talk, how to bring this topic up because there is grief, there is hurt, there is anger, there is frustration," said Isma Chaudhry, a longtime leader of interfaith work at the Islamic Center of Long Island, one of the oldest mosques on Long Island. "And a narrative on both sides which is very different from the other’s narrative, which makes it even more complicated.

“Everybody is walking on eggshells at this time as much as we have built friendships, which are extremely valuable,” she added.

Amid the tensions, there are some signs of hope: a 41-year-old Muslim in Nassau County, for instance, said he went trick-or-treating with some Jewish friends and their children.

But there does not seem to be any easy fix as the violence continues, community leaders said.

Interfaith work at the Westbury mosque dates to the 1980s, but has been nearly brought to a standstill, if not broken down completely, Chaudhry and other leaders said. Rabbis and Muslim leaders who were building bridges between the two faiths now have found it difficult at times to even talk.

“We are in different universes” regarding the situation in Israel and Gaza, said Rabbi Michael White, a longtime collaborator at the mosque who heads Temple Sinai synagogue in Roslyn.

“The Muslim-Jewish relationship that was built on interfaith and mutual respect, and tried our best within our faith constraints to be each other’s keepers, have really taken a tremendous hit with the current situation,” Chaudhry said. “Both sides are hurting. Both sides have lost dear family members.”

After a few weeks of little communication, the interfaith committee met recently. It did not go seamlessly.

Muslims immediately asked Jews to support a statement calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, White said.

“I explained to them why that was a nonstarter,” he said. “Hamas butchered, massacred our people, and their leadership, both political and military, have stated that they will not stop until they have eliminated Israel.

“So there’s no possibility of a cease-fire until Hamas is completely disarmed and has no more power,” he said.

For their part, Muslims thought the cease-fire was reasonable, since thousands of civilians, including children, are being killed by the Israeli bombings, Chaudhry said.

Amin Khwaja, president of the mosque, said he was “shocked but not surprised” the Jewish leaders would not agree to the cease-fire statement, since “the sentiments are so high right now … The faith should be advocating for peace, and there should be a protection for all civilians.”

Focusing on Local Issues
In the end, the group agreed to focus on local concerns: antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks against children in schools on Long Island.

“No child should be held accountable for geopolitical world crises that they had nothing to do with,” White said. “So we agreed to keep talking about local issues because we live in this community and we have work to do here. So that is a change, and a good one. We want to remain in relationships with each other.

“In spite of the differences, which are profound, I think there was a sense of relief that we can be in the same room together and we can talk things through, that our relationships are strong enough to be able to do that,” he added.

Another interfaith group, Abraham's Table, is undergoing similar struggles with members “caught between conflicting viewpoints and loyalties” and is striving to move forward, said its chairperson, Richard Koubek, a Catholic layperson.

The group since 2015 has tried to bring the three Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Islam and Christianity — together to celebrate their common roots and build understanding and peace.

During the war, communication has become difficult, leaders said. The group has postponed one event, a panel discussion on how the three Abrahamic faiths view the concept of mercy.

“We don’t talk as much,” said Sadri Altinok, a Muslim who is vice chair of the group and is also president of the Turkish Cultural Center in Ronkonkoma. He added that his Jewish colleagues in the group “are understandably highly emotional” and not ready to converse.

The group is “not really ready to talk heart to heart,” he said. “We understand. They lost their friends and family.”

Koubek added that the mercy program was postponed “because the current situation in Israel and Gaza made it very difficult and painful for them to define what mercy means.”

Still, there are hopeful signs
Despite the tensions, some Long Islanders see signs of hope. They say they have not let the conflict affect or destroy their ties with people of the other faith, and that they are trying to keep events in the Middle East separate from their lives here.

Toufique Harun, a Muslim who lives in Albertson, said he has many Jewish friends, and went trick-or-treating with some of them and their children on Halloween, along with his own children.

“Everyone is definitely on edge. Maybe they are approaching each other with a certain degree of cautiousness,” he said.

But “all of us are a lot more similar than we are different. I have a whole bunch of Jewish friends, and some of them were the first ones to reach out to us” when the Israeli bombing of Gaza began, he said.

“If you want to think about Muslims and Jews that live together in peace with equal rights for all and have a great life — I live on Long Island, it happens here every day,” he said.

Other houses of worship say they have kept pushing forward with interfaith outreach.

Rabbi Howard Buechler of the Dix Hills Jewish Center said his synagogue still hopes to hold interfaith events for holiday seasons, including seder dinners that both Jews and Muslims can attend.

“What the terrorists try to do is have people look upon each other differently with fear and trepidation,” he said. “We can never give the terrorists victory in having us look with suspicion upon any neighbor. Our faiths are stronger and the bonds of faith cannot be hijacked by the Hamas terrorists.”

Some Long Island residents have encountered tensions within their own faith group.

Emily Kaufman, a clinical psychologist in Huntington who is Jewish, said she has “unlearned” some of what she was taught about Israel and Palestine, and tried to present some of the Palestinian perspective on the current conflict to relatives and close Jewish friends.

For instance, she had never learned that in 1948 when Israel was formed, 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly removed from their lands in what Palestinians still refer to as the Nakba — or "catastrophe."

When she brings up such points with other Jews, it doesn’t always go smoothly.

“It can get very heated and very emotional. They are really hard conversations,” she said. Sometimes, “I’m breaking out into tears … It can become yelling matches.”

Harun said he has hope for younger generations of Long Islanders and Americans who grew up in a multicultural environment.

More than 180,000 people across France, including 100,000 in Paris, marched peacefully on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron's party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday's march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against "the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism."

However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that the march would be a meeting of "friends of unconditional support for the massacre" in Gaza.

The interior ministry said at least 182,000 people marched in several in French cities in response to the call launched by the leaders of the parliament's upper and lower houses. No major incident has been reported, it said.

Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliament's lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israel's war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.

France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars.

French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began.

Former French president Francois Hollande said "there are many French flags in the protest but what unites us is not just a flag, it's what it represents, it's the value of freedom and the value of human dignity."

In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished.

"A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France," Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain "united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East."

Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered on Tuesday on the National Mall in Washington in a show of solidarity with Israel as it wages war in the Gaza Strip in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

There is no greater and more just cause than this,” said President Isaac Herzog of Israel, speaking to the cheering crowd via video feed from the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

“Today we come together as a family, one big mishpachah, to march for Israel.”

Eric Fingerhut, president and chief executive of the Jewish Federations of North America, which helped organize the march, said that despite polls showing that Americans “overwhelmingly” supported Israel in its battle against Hamas, “we were increasingly hearing from opposing voices who are on the fringe but who are very loud.”

The march was quickly arranged, and Jewish federations around the country, as well as schools, synagogues and community centers, sent buses of attendees. Shortly after the gates opened on Tuesday morning, the Mall was crowded with people waving American and Israeli flags and holding signs declaring support from Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia and other places around the country.

Educators, artists, students and relatives of some of the hundreds of hostages seized by Hamas were scheduled to appear. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York were among the American political leaders who addressed the rally.

Ritchie Torres, a Democratic congressman from the Bronx and one of the most pro-Israel voices in the House, warned in a speech early in the program that the “narrative has shifted against Israel.” He insisted, however, that a cease-fire with Hamas should be off the table, saying that it would be like America entering into a cease-fire with Japan after the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

Mr. Fingerhut said the march was intended in part to remind the politicians in Washington that “the majority of the American people” support Israel’s actions, even if they disagree on other issues.

Many spoke of the surge of antisemitic incidents around the country in recent weeks. Both speakers and attendees talked of a newfound loneliness, as longtime friends took positions after the attack that seemed, to them, like barely concealed bigotry.

“I realized over the last month or so how often I don’t want to be seen as Jewish in public,” said Hallie Lightdale, 63, a psychiatrist from suburban Philadelphia.

For many of those on the Mall, even those who disagreed with elements of Israeli policy, it was the rise in antisemitism in the United States, more than support for Israel, that had prompted them to join the march.

Some of his Jewish friends were reluctant to come to the march because they did not support Israeli policy, and he, too, has concerns about the Israeli government. But he said that denouncing the Oct. 7 attack — and anyone who endorses such violence — was not a complicated question.

DC cops were forced to guard about 100 Haredi Jews with the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta as the fringe faction incited the marchers.

When a scuffle broke out between the two sides, cops grabbed their bicycles to form a barrier between the Jews entering the rally and the counter-protesters gathered on Madison Drive NW right outside the march’s perimeter.

The ultra-Orthodox counter-protesters chanted, “Judaism yes, Zionism no, the state of Israel must go!” and, “One, 2, 3, 4, Zionism no more! Five, 6, 7, 8, Israel is not a Jewish state!”

Some Jewish marchers yelled back, “Shame on you!” and “Move to Gaza!”

Organizers’ decision to give a speaking slot to evangelical pastor John Hagee at Tuesday’s pro-Israel rally on the National Mall is riling leaders of participating progressive groups who said they had been assured that he would not be given a platform.

Hagee is the founder and chairman of the 10 million-member Christians United for Israel. But he has also speculated that the anti-Christ will be partly Jewish, and falsely claimed that Hitler was Jewish. John McCain, the Republican nominee for president in 2008, rejected Hagee’s endorsement after his comments about Hitler were surfaced.

Progressive groups joining the rally, which was organized by mainstream Jewish groups — The Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations — have come in for criticism from some of their allies on the left for participating and for failing to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

This opposition was driven by Hagee’s previous anti-Catholicism and homophobia. But there was another reason why Hagee was an odd choice as a speaker: He claims that an inevitable peace accord between Israel and Palestinians will be the work of the anti-Christ—literally.

Hagee, who at the rally led the crowd in a chant of “Israel, you’re not alone,” has long maintained that he does not accept the notion that by supporting Israel, evangelical Christians can somehow hasten the end of days. “Christian support of Israel is based on the promises of God in Scripture that affirm a future for the Jewish people and God’s continued faithfulness to that nation, not on prophecies regarding the end times or speeding the return of Christ,” his organization says.

But Hagee is a big believer in End Times Christianity and preaches that, according to the Bible, at some point the anti-Christ will arrive, Jesus and the dead will rise, the rapture will ensue (lifting the truly faithful into air and toward heaven), and that everyone left behind will witness years of destruction, disasters, and absolute misery. Hailing Jews as God’s “chosen people,” Hagee asserts that Israel plays a crucial role in this grand finale. Not surprisingly, Hagee sells books and videos in which he explains all this in great detail based on biblical passages.

More than 400 employees of President Joe Biden's administration have signed an open letter demanding he pursue a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war that has killed thousands of civilians thus far.

“We represent a coalition of Biden-Harris Administration political appointees and civil servants, positioned across the domestic and foreign policy spheres, working in federal agencies, departments, independent agencies, and the White House,” the letter, released Tuesday, begins.

“We call on President Biden to urgently demand a ceasefire; and to call for de-escalation of the current conflict by securing the immediate release of the Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians; the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services; and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip,” it continued.

The letter says the signatories represent various backgrounds and faiths and work in more than 30 departments and agencies.

Two administration staff members who led outreach efforts for the letter told NBC News that since the letter was first circulated about two weeks ago, it has gained the signatures of senior and low-level administration employees working across the federal government and in multiple countries. They include staff in the departments of Commerce, Defense, Interior, Homeland Security and the Executive Office of the President, among other agencies.

It’s unfortunate that we’re at this point," one of the Biden administration staff members told NBC News. "Having hundreds and thousands of people come together within this administration and within Congress and say we are calling for a cease-fire, something that’s so basic to just end human suffering.”

The two are among what they said are many signatories with family and friends in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.

The staffers told NBC that based on what they’ve experienced personally and heard from colleagues in the White House and across several government agencies, they believe there is a lack of direction of how staffers are supposed to talk about Israel’s war with Hamas.

“Some agencies have had specific meetings about this … and in some places it has been completely taboo to even talk about this,” one said. “I’ve heard it expressed among staffers of all levels that they feel a lack of guidance for how to talk about this, how to manage people suffering because of this."

"A lot of people feel quite alone and frustrated,” the staffer added.

Both described a disconnect between what is coming out of the senior levels of the administration and what they and their colleagues are feeling.

“A lot of us are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, a lot of us came from his campaign,” one staffer said. “So there’s this uneasy feeling of not agreeing with what we’re working on.”

More than 50 employees of the Democratic National Committee, which handles much of Biden’s campaign fundraising efforts, anonymously signed an open letter this month urging their leadership to demand that Biden seek a cease-fire as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on.

The Biden administration staffer told NBC News that they and some administration colleagues they’ve spoken with have considered resigning because of the administration’s handling of the war up to this point. A veteran State Department official, Josh Paul, resigned last month, citing what he called the U.S.’ “blind support” for Israel in its war with Hamas and its continued “provision of lethal arms to Israel.”

“These are people who really want to serve the public, including people who want to serve the president,” the staffer said. “But it’s going to push people to a breaking point if this continues.”

Hundreds of Jewish people headed to Tuesday’s pro-Israel rally in DC were left stranded when bus drivers staged “a deliberate and malicious walk-off,’’ a major Jewish organization said.

The “anti-protest” left a charted flight from Detroit — about 300 people — on the Dulles Airport tarmac for about 11 hours before being sent back home, causing them to miss the entire March for Israel event.

Our right to assembly is a constitutional right — and this was straight up blocking that.”

Kaufman and 900 others hopped on three private planes out of Detroit chartered by the Jewish Federation of Detroit, which also booked several buses to transport the massive group to the march at DC’s National Mall.

A third of the passengers weren’t allowed to leave the tarmac, however, after several buses failed to show up on the tarmac upon their 10:30 a.m. landing, according to a federation spokesperson.

The drivers had organized a “mass sick out” day to prevent Jewish ralliers from attending the much-anticipated march, leaving just a handful available to meet their obligations.

“We have learned from the bus company that this was caused by a deliberate and malicious walk-off of drivers,” the spokesperson told The Post.

The bus company — which the federation repeatedly refused to name — told the Jewish Federation of Detroit that a “significant number” of drivers called out sick when they learned they would be taking hundreds of Jewish Americans to the pro-Israel rally, the organization’s David Kurzmann told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.

Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations CEO William Daroff, one of the March for Israel organizers, also confirmed that the “bus drivers refused to take them to a pro-Israel event.”

Those who were left behind spent roughly three hours on the tarmac before they were finally funneled into several buses — which they were swiftly ejected from after it turned out the buses weren’t for their group.

Because chartered flights cannot depart the tarmac without pre-organized vehicular transportation, those passengers who were unable to board the limited buses were forced back onto the plane and missed the entire day-long rally.

They were also forced to wait several hours for their team members who did make it to the rally to finally return before the chartered flights could fly back to Michigan.

The walkout could land the bus company in legal trouble for the apparent antisemitic walkout, Brooke Goldstein, a human rights lawyer and founder of The Lawfare Project, exclusively told The Post.

Any company that so blatantly refuses to provide services to Jewish people engages in unlawful discrimination,” Goldstein said.

The Jewish Federation of Detroit emphasized that the bus company did everything in its power to help the group of stranded ralliers, but was ultimately left powerless with its limited staff.

A Massachusetts town approved flying the Palestinian flag for a month despite heated debates among its residents in the wake of Hamas terrorists’ attack on Israel in October.

The black, white, green and red flag of the Palestinian Liberation Organization was hoisted below both the American flag and POW-MIA flag on the North Andover Town Common flagpole

The 9-0 decision requires select boards to make content-neutral decisions on flags unless the town restricts flagpoles to governmental speech only.

New South Wales police have renewed their inquiries into claims a western Sydney jumping castle business refused its services to an independent Jewish high school.

Police confirmed on Wednesday afternoon they were looking into the matter again after saying earlier in the day that no further action would be taken.

Officers visited St Ives’ Masada College after the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) shared a screenshot of the business’s Instagram page on which its owner apparently boasted about turning down a request from the school for a quote to lease a jumping castle.

an email exchange with the school principal’s executive assistant, the business owner said, “There’s no way I’m taking a Zionist booking. I don’t want your blood money. Free Palestine”, according to the screenshot posted online by the AJA.

The jumping castle business owner allegedly shared a screenshot of the email and wrote: “I have owned my business for 10 years. I have the right to decline any booking at any time.”

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The business’s Instagram page appears to have been taken down. Guardian Australia did not view the original posts from the business – only the screenshot shared by the AJA. Guardian Australia contacted the AJA for comment.

The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, told the Daily Telegraph the alleged situation was “outrageous” and called for authorities to investigate.

“It’s not in keeping with any part of our multicultural community. I condemn it completely. This must be investigated by federal and state authorities,” he said.

George Washington University suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter after the group projected "Glory to Our Martyrs" on the side of a campus building.

The university's SJP chapter projected a series of pro-Palestinian phrases onto the school's Gelman Library on Oct. 24, including "GW the Blood of Palestine is on your Hands" and "Your Tuition is Funding Genocide in Gaza."

In a statement at the time, George Washington University said the messages were "unauthorized" and violated university policy, adding "leadership intervened to ensure that these projections were removed."

The university shared a statement with Fox News Digital, which effectively suspends SJP for three months.

In a statement to the university's student newspaper, the GW Hatchet, a representative for the SJP chapter said the group is disappointed but not surprised by the decision, stating the school has "unwavering support" towards Zionist students.

We see this very clearly as being a political response to a growing wave of backlash and repression towards Palestinian organizing, but specifically the Palestinian student movement that’s been happening the past few weeks," the SJP representative said. "GW is continuously proving, as they have proven time and time again for many, many years, that they will always align with the Zionist lobby and against the right to free speech and the right to assembly of their own students."

Pro-Palestine protesters shut down the Bay Bridge on Thursday morning, tying up traffic during the morning commute and calling out to world leaders to end the war in Gaza during the APEC Summit.

The Arab Resource and Organizing Center organized the blockage, demanding a ceasefire, and calling out President Joe Biden to do more for the Palestinians, 11,000 of whom have so far died in the war between Israel and Hamas.

"There’s a genocide happening in #Gaza and @POTUS is hosting cocktail parties in #SanFrancisco," AROC tweeted. "Bay Area has shut down the Bay Bridge to demand #CeasefireNOW. No more $ for genocide."

In an interview from the bridge, Aisha Mizar, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement, said they were very excited to be out on the bridge, gaining attention for their cause. She said they would all stay out as long as they could, before they were kicked off.

As she tells it, Mizar said the commuters didn't seem to mind not being able to move for more than an hour – although that was disputed heavily on social media with people complaining about the traffic nightmare.

According to the California Highway Patrol, hundreds of people blocked the westbound lanes of the bridge as of 7:45 a.m.

CHP Officer Art Montiel told KTVU that the protesters were congregated on Interstate 80 west of Treasure Island. Many chained themselves together, chanting "Free Palestine" and "We want justice."

A KTVU cameraman managed to walk along the span of the bridge, taking video of protesters lying in body bags, with fake blood smeared on them. Protesters called out for justice, decrying Israelis as colonizers.

CHP officers in riot gear surrounded the group, telling them to disperse over a megaphone. At 9:30 a.m., CHP officers began detaining people in earnest in an effort to get them off the bridge.

"It's unusual, unfortunately it's happening right now," Montiel said.

Police arrested a man in Ventura County, California, on Thursday on suspicion of manslaughter for the death of a Jewish man who fell to the ground during an altercation at pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian street demonstrations earlier this month.

On Thursday, deputies from the Ventura County sheriff's office arrested Loay Alnaji, 50, at his home in Moorpark on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, and he was booked at a county jail.

The county district attorney's office said they had received the sheriff's investigation into Kessler's death and expected to announce a charging decision later on Thursday.

I remember how it was.

Back in the Sixties Americans were rather solidly pro Israel. Everyone applauded their victory in the Six Day War of 1967. But as the Seventies kicked in, one group of Americans, American Blacks, began to break ranks, and began to identify with the Palestinians of the occupied territories more than with their Israeli overlords.

I don't think that's right, there was a lot of crossover among the various left wing militant groups of the 60s and 70s, quite a few of the early groups such as the PFLP were explicitly Marxist and shared training and equipment with everyone from the Black Panthers to the IRA to the Japanese Red Army (who used the fact that nobody was expecting Asian terrorists to carry out a massacre for the Palestinian cause), the connection between Palestine and the left is not new nor did it start with the black community.

You could both be right. Seems to me that naturalplastic is talking about voting blocs and/or ethnic subcultures, whereas Dox is talking about the more radical militant groups (which always were much smaller than the voting blocs and ethnic subcultures).

Exactly. I was talking about American society. And its voting blocs, and subcultures. Regular folks. Not tiny criminal cells.

Multiple police agencies were called to the University of Michigan campus late Friday afternoon as hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters entered the building housing the university president’s office.

Starting around 4 p.m., Nov. 17, at least 200 protesters rallied inside and outside the Ruthven Administration Building, 1109 Geddes Ave., protesting for the university to divest from Israel.

A number of the protesters gained access to the locked building, said University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security Deputy Chief Melissa Overton. However, all workers had left the building prior to this, university spokesman Rick Fitzgerald. said.

As of 8 p.m., police still were in the process of restoring order, Fitzgerald said.

The protest combined many of the pro-Palestine organizations on campus. The university’s chapter of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality protested for the university to divest from Israel, while the Graduate Employees Organization alleged in a social media post that the university supports “genocide in Gaza.”

Pro-Palestine protestors have gathered on the Ann Arbor campus numerous times since Oct. 7, the day the militant group Hamas killed more than 1,000 mostly civilian Israelis according to the Associated Press. Israel has conducted numerous airstrikes on Gaza since, with Palestinian death tolls surpassing 10,000, the AP reports.

Fitzgerald said the university “has a long-standing policy of not using investments as political statements.” Various calls for divestment in other political situations have been made over the years, but the university’s Board of Regents have been firm on not divesting, he said.

The university, however, did decide to end investments in Russia in March 2022, but that was considered more the stopping of further investment than divestment, Fitzgerald said, though officials at the time said the university “will move as quickly as practical to exit its remaining investments.”

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters in Washington, D.C. and in New York City interrupted the evening rush hour Friday by demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, among other things, and blocking entryways leading to subways and rails.

In Washington, D.C., protesters blocked the main entrance to Union Station.

The hundreds of people participating in the protest were chanting, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," and "cease-fire now."

The group of protesters were also heard chanting, "we want 48," referring to the Middle East’s map before the United Nations formed Israel.

A protester using the phrase during a previous demonstration in Atlanta told the Atlanta Jewish Times that the chant expresses opposition to a two-state agreement.

At the same time, protesters in New York City converged near Penn Station in New York City, blocking access to the main train hub in and out of the city.

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) rushed to shut down all surrounding subway stations and entrances near Moynihan Train Hall, just across the street from Penn Station.

In one video, protesters were seen climbing an area above a station entrance then waving Palestinian flags.

The Long Island Rail Road posted an alert to social media on Friday evening, warning commuters to expect delays at Penn Station.

A Brooklyn lawmaker arrested last month after she was seen on social media displaying a handgun at a pro-Palestinian rally at Brooklyn College will have her criminal charges dismissed, the prosecutor's office confirmed.

Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a Republican and vocal supporter of Israel, was seen in photos and videos with the butt of a gun jutting out from her waistband while she was counterprotesting at an Oct. 13 pro-Palestinian rally at Brooklyn College, according to prosecutors.

She filmed herself in front of the protesting crowds, calling them "pro-Hamas" and that she was there to help "Jewish students feel safe." Vernikov called the Palestinian supporters "nothing short of terrorists without the bombs."

Vernikov had a license to carry a concealed weapon, but under New York law, licensed gun owners may not bring weapons to certain sensitive locations, including protests and school grounds. Additionally, the state requires people licensed to carry handguns to keep them concealed.

Vernikov surrendered her gun after the arrest and was later arraigned in Brooklyn criminal court on one count of possessing a gun at a sensitive location.

The firearm the councilwoman turned over to police was unloaded and missing the recoil spring assembly, "rendering it inoperable," Oren Yaniv, spokesperson for Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, said Friday.

"In order to sustain this charge, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the weapon in question was capable of firing bullets. Absent such proof, we have no choice but to dismiss these charges," Yaniv's statement on the dismissal, first reported by THECITY, said.

New York City Jewish bakery was vandalized on Friday afternoon, after someone spray-painted "Free Gaza" on the window, before smashing a window at a nearby bank.

The graffiti on the front window of Breads Bakery near Sixth Avenue and 49th Street appeared in bright-orange lettering.

Additional photos show a man sweeping up broken glass in front of the Simon & Schuster building, where another window, this time belonging to the First Republic Bank, appeared to have been smashed.

New York police on Friday arrested pro-Palestine supporters who occupied the headquarters of News Corp, the media company that owns the Fox News channel and the Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, according to clips posted on social media.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered in the News Corp lobby, chanting, “Shame” and “Fox News … you can’t hide. Your lies cover up genocide.”

Pro-ceasefire demonstrators were also arrested on Friday in New York City after blocking the entrance to the headquarters building for BNY Mellon, a corporate investment company, which they said holds shares in weapons supply for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).