The final hostage is returning home.
It is understood that Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza, has been located and identified and is being returned to Israel for burial.
With all the hostages – those alive and those who were murdered – returned, the people of Israel and Jewish people worldwide can properly mourn and process what happened on 7th October 2023. This is while still dealing with the effects and ramifications of that dreadful day, not only in the Middle East but on streets and campuses throughout the Western world.
This will be the first time since 2014 that no Jewish hostages are being held in Gaza. It is an extraordinary moment that will bring enormous relief to the Jewish people.
The family of Ran Gvili are in our thoughts as they can finally lay him to rest.
West Midlands: what happened, and what must happen now?
A discriminatory ban.
Fabricated intelligence.
A police force misleading Parliament.
The West Midlands Police Chief Constable ultimately responsible for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans is no longer in post, but this scandal is far from over.
Watch our video to see what happened, and what must happen next.
One of the local councillors who decided on the ban of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans has long supported boycotts of Israel.
How on earth was he allowed to sit on the panel?
With West Midlands Police beginning to face accountability for the Maccabi Tel Aviv decision, focus must now shift to the Safety Advisory Group (SAG) and other parties involved in the atrocious ban on Israeli fans.
One of the SAG members, Waseem Zaffar MBE, has a history of supporting boycotts of Israel, not to mention using grossly inflammatory language about the Jewish state and defending Palestinian terrorism by allegedly calling it “a reaction to Israeli oppression and violence”. This quite obviously should have disqualified him from inputting into the discussion.
Why was he allowed to participate?
Cllr Zaffar, a school governor, former magistrate and Aston Villa season ticket holder, is tipped by some to become leader of Birmingham City Council in the coming months.
Who else on the SAG was plainly partial from the start?
This scandal is far from over.
Meanwhile, Birmingham City Council has reportedly apologised after a press release about its Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration failed to mention Jews.
The Council’s website said that the event, led by the city’s Lord Mayor, Zafar Iqbal, “commemorates the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi persecutions, as well as other genocides around the world,” and talked about Auschwitz and other genocides, but did not mention that the primary purpose of the occasion is to remember the Jews who were murdered.
The press release has been updated, but this is just the latest controversy relating to Birmingham City Council, which is at the centre of the Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters ban scandal.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive Gideon Falter spoke to the BBC about West Midlands Police.
Iran is a blindspot
This weekend, British Iranians marched in London against the Islamic Republic regime.
This radical regime is an antisemitic Islamist murder machine that sows violence and chaos at home and abroad, bringing misery to the Middle East and providing indispensable support to antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisations like Hizballah, Hamas and the Houthis (Ansar Allah).
Its main instrument to achieve this is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The question of banning the IRGC was recently proposed again in the House of Commons, by the backbench MP David Davis.
“This is now the sixth time I’ve called on Prime Ministers and Ministers”, the former minister recounted.
What are they waiting for?
As Mr Davis rightly pointed out, the excuses for not acting are “futile”. The IRGC is a paramilitary force that answers directly to Iran’s radical Islamist regime. They say that they want to target Jews anywhere around the world and that includes British Jews.
93% of British Jews support a ban on the IRGC, according to our polling.
Following years of failures by Conservative governments to act against the IRGC, Labour promised before the last election to ban the IRGC when it achieved power, but has broken that promise.
Our Government needs to act, as they pledged to do.
Sign our petition to push them to finally confront what is a direct threat not only to British Jews, but to Britain itself, at antisemitism.org/bantheIRGC.
While Iran and the IRGC remain a blindspot for the Government and authorities, we continue to call for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
The CAA digital van joined the march yesterday to amplify the calls by British Iranians for the British Government to fulfil its word and finally ban the IRGC.
We are immeasurably grateful for the support from British Iranians who have heroically stood with the Jewish community for the last two years.
It is not only the authorities that have a blindspot when it comes to Iran.
If you want to know about what is happening in Iran, the BBC is the last place to bother checking.
The world has just learned that the Iranian regime may have murdered tens of thousands of people in a couple of days – possibly more than died in Gaza over two years, and these Iranians are all indisputably civilians – but the BBC website has nothing about it on its news front page.
It does not even have a subcategory for Iran among its website tabs.
And before BBC journalists start to say that this is because they cannot operate in or report from Iran, one recalls that they have spent two years complaining that they are not permitted unrestricted access into Gaza either. But that has not stopped the ongoing deluge of so-called Gaza ‘coverage’ to which we have been subjected for over two years.
The BBC is not putting Iran front and centre because it does not want to. It wants to focus on Gaza.
This is not unbiased reporting. It is the essence of partiality.
This is not journalism. It is an agenda.
The lessons of appeasement have still not been learned
Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, is reportedly lobbying for the genocidal antisemitic terrorists of Hamas who murdered 1,200 Jews to be able to keep their AK-47s and other weapons.
Can it really be that decades of appeasement of antisemites – whether in Europe or the Middle East – have taught our political and security class nothing?
The apparent objective of his lobbying is to overcome a deadlock in ceasefire talks, because Hamas wants to break its pledge to disarm so that it can keep subjugating Gaza and threatening the Jewish state, which it openly wants to annihilate, and its Jewish citizens, which it openly wants to eradicate. Unsurprisingly, Israel, which wishes to endure, is opposed to this.
Exactly which side of this impasse is Mr Powell on, and will his boss in Number 10 side with him?
Another slap on the wrist
An unemployed woman who hurled antisemitic abuse at diners at a kosher restaurant in London and threw their plates and food on the ground has received a suspended sentence of 25 weeks in prison.
Footage showed Mary Clarke, 32, attacking diners at a central London eatery last July.
Ms Clarke, who was apparently drunk at the time, yelled that the diners were “killing babies” and screamed “free Palestine” at them as she threw their food from the table.
She pleaded guilty to two counts of racially aggravated harassment and one count of racially aggravated criminal damage, and she has now also pleaded guilty to one count of racially aggravated common assault.
Ms Clarke “resides alone with her four year old son” and is in receipt of benefits but is “actively seeking work”, according to her lawyer.
The judge acknowledged her apparent remorse and said that she deserves a custodial sentence, but suspended it because of her son.
She was sentenced to 25 weeks in prison, suspended for twelve months. She was also ordered to follow an alcohol abstinence programme and she will be fitted with a tag to monitor her alcohol consumption. She was also ordered to pay £100 compensation to each of the victims and £43.50 to the cafe to cover the cost of the damaged crockery.
This is typical of the English justice system. An offender who clearly deserves to be put in jail for an antisemitic attack gets off because of circumstances that have nothing to do with the crime, which is thereby met with a weaker penalty and deterrent.
At a time of surging antisemitic hate crime, this is entirely the wrong message, and just feeds the very vicious cycle.
Legal Friends of CAA
Last week, we hosted a reception for our Legal Friends of CAA network.
It was really lovely to bring together so many Jewish legal professionals, many of whom have worked with us in the past and many others who wish to do so in future.
Together, we can bring justice to the Jewish community and safeguard our future.
If you are a current or former legal professional interested in getting more involved, or did not hear about the event beforehand, please e-mail us at [email protected].
We are recruiting!
Do you want to use your communications skills to raise awareness of antisemitism?
We are looking for a Senior Communications and Research Officer. More information is available here.
Do you want to help combat antisemitism and empower Jewish students?
We are also looking for a School and Campus Educator. Find out more here.
Tomorrow, the world remembers the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust.
But as we enter Holocaust Memorial Day, the Jewish community and its friends know that sadly antisemitism is not merely the subject of remembrance but the lived reality of Jewish people across the world right now.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Director of Investigations and Enforcement Stephen Silverman spoke to TalkTV about recent antisemitic incidents – which you can watch here.
The lessons of the past are not merely that it is important to remember the past. They are also that we must actively endeavour not to repeat what happened.
As Jewish pupils are bullied, Jewish students are ostracised, Jewish academics are boycotted, Jewish cemeteries are vandalised, Jewish synagogues are targeted, Jewish employees keep their heads down, Jewish families avoid showing visible symbols of their identity, and Jewish people are routinely abused and sometimes even brutally murdered, can we really say that what happened in the past is not being repeated?
For our part, at Campaign Against Antisemitism we will continue to work tirelessly to turn the tide on this escalating hatred. That is the best way to teach the lessons of the past and honour the dead.
