UN Security Council resolution, intended to free Hormuz strait, being revised
(JNS) — A United Nations Security Council draft resolution, which Washington and Gulf allies drafted, invokes U.N. authorization for use of force in defending freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
The resolution has undergone a revision, according to a reliable diplomatic source. Council members are trying to agree on a version that Russia and China, Iranian allies who vetoed a resolution on the same topic weeks ago, would support.
The draft resolution requires Iran to cease attacking, mining and tolling in the Strait of Hormuz, a pivotal Gulf waterway, through which some 20% of the world’s oil travels to global markets.
Iran implemented a blockade of the strait on Feb. 28 at the outset of its war with the United States and Israel. Although the strait has technically been open for business, shippers have been loath to use it for fear of being struck and because insurers are reluctant to cover routes through the strait.
The United States and Bahrain wrote the resolution, with backing from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. It demands that the Iranian regime disclose how many mines it laid in the strait and where they are located, and it insists that the Islamic Republic help remove the mines and support a humanitarian corridor.
The latest draft focuses on Iranian actions and blames Tehran entirely for the current predicament.
London’s Metropolitan Police launches new 100-officer unit to protect Jewish communities
(JTA) — London’s police force has created a new unit to protect Jews, in the latest effort to stem a wave of attacks and calm mounting anxiety in the city’s Jewish communities.
The new “Community Protection Team” will boast 100 members and include both officers already working in Jewish communities and newly assigned officers, the Metropolitan Police announced on May 6.
The announcement came a day after an arson at a disused synagogue and a week after a stabbing of two Jewish men in the Orthodox neighborhood of Golders Green. It also comes a day after top Metropolitan Police brass joined an emergency summit on antisemitic violence convened by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street, his home and office.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said he was working with the British government and London Mayor Sadiq Khan to secure additional funding beyond the 25 million pounds (about $34 million) allocated last week to safeguard Jewish communities.
The Community Security Trust, Britain’s Jewish security charity, said it welcomed the creation of the new unit in a statement: “The increase in the number of arrests for antisemitic hate crimes in recent weeks is a welcome sign of effective action being taken by the police, which we hope will send a strong message both to the Jewish community and to would-be offenders.”
Norway rector cites ‘free speech’ after professor praises Oct. 7
(JNS) — The head of a state-funded university in Norway said on May 5th he had no plans to discipline a professor who last month called the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacres “the most beautiful thing that has happened in our century.”
Following an uproar this week over comments made on April 21 by Professor Bassam Hussein of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Rector Tor Grande told broadcaster NRK that Hussein’s views do not represent NTNU, the country’s largest university.
He added, however, that “freedom of expression is strong in Norway, and it gives Hussein, like other citizens, the freedom to express his opinions, as long as they are within the broad framework of Norwegian law.”
Asked by NRK whether there would be “consequences” for Hussein, Grande replied that the university has no written rules governing how employees express themselves. He added that it would have been “natural” for Hussein to clarify to the Socialist Forum in Trondheim that his remarks were made in his “personal” capacity.
Hussein told the Adresseavisen newspaper on May 4, “I do not consider Oct. 7 a victory or triumph, especially not in light of the many victims that day and in the time afterward. The loss of civilian life is deeply tragic, without any semblance of beauty. It should never be romanticized.”
Jewish Australian says police told him Jew-hatred case was ‘wasted effort’
(JNS) — A Jewish Australian man told a public inquiry on Tuesday that police in New South Wales discouraged him from pursuing a complaint against a man who allegedly threatened him and used antisemitic slurs, saying it would be “a lot of wasted effort.”
Nir Golan testified before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that the incident occurred in October 2023, when a man approached him on the street and “started calling me all sorts of racial slurs, among them ‘dirty Jew.’” Golan said he was wearing a kippah at the time.
According to Golan, the man performed a Nazi salute and pointed “a gun finger at my forehead, imitating like he wanted to kill me.” When Golan began recording the encounter on his phone, the assailant “started getting physical,” Golan said.
“No one intervened, unfortunately, except for an American tourist who jumped in. That tourist ended up getting bashed pretty badly,” he said. “I broke down and started shaking uncontrollably and crying again. No one came to my aid. No one came to help. No one came to do anything.”
“I was eventually told by the police that there’s not much that they could do and the case would ultimately get thrown out, and it would be a lot of wasted effort for nothing and encouraged to drop it,” he told the commission.
Canadian Jewish groups call on government to designate Palestine Action as ‘terrorist entity’
(JTA) — Prominent Jewish groups in Canada have called on its government to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist entity after the activist group published a “target map” identifying locations across Canada, Europe and the United States as possible targets for “direct action.”
Palestine Action’s “target map” is available to the public online and lists hundreds of addresses of companies and homes across the globe linked to Elbit Systems, an Israeli-based military technology company. Each location also includes a link to the group’s “underground manual” which instructs viewers to create “cells” and “disrupt [sic], damage or destroy” targets by breaking into them, blocking pipes or vandalizing them with spray paint.
The manual also offers instructions on how to evade law enforcement and destroy evidence of vandalism.
“The manual offers operational guidance for terroristic anarchy,” Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of research and advocacy, said in a statement. “By promoting this manual and identifying specific targets, Palestine Action is inciting its followers to commit criminal acts in furtherance of its radical ideology.”
On May 5, four British Palestine Action members were found guilty of criminal damage in connection to an August 2024 break in at the U.K. site of an Israeli defense company.
