Trump’s hostage envoy demands Iraq free Israeli captive
(JNS) — Adam Boehler, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for hostages, criticized the Iraqi government on Wednesday for failing to secure the release of Princeton doctoral student Elizabeth Tsurkov.
Trump is now taking action to hold Iraq accountable, calling for either the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani’s resignation or an acknowledgment of his complicity if Tsurkov is not returned immediately, Boehler said in a social media post.
The Israeli-Russian researcher has been held captive in Iraq by Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia Kata’ib Hezbollah (“The Battalions of the Party of God”) since being kidnapped in Baghdad in May 2023. Washington has designated the group (a separate and distinct organization from the Lebanese Hezbollah) as a terrorist organization.
Australian man arrested after allegedly throwing bacon during antisemitic hate crime
(JTA) — Police in the Melbourne, Australia, area have arrested a man who they say threw a “packet of bacon” at someone who interrupted his attempts at antisemitic graffiti.
The arrest, announced Tuesday, is the latest in a string as police crack down on antisemitic incidents in Melbourne and Sydney, home to Australia’s two largest Jewish communities.
The incident took place in a park on Jan. 31, the Victoria Police said in a press release. A 68-year-old man was seen allegedly scrawling “prejudice motivated graffiti” on a fence when “a passerby approached the male offender and was spat on and had a packet of bacon thrown at him,” the statement said. He was charged with three crimes including “offensive graffiti.”
“There is absolutely no place at all in our society for antisemitic or hate-based symbols and behaviour,” the police statement said. “Police will always treat reports of such crime seriously.”
The mayor of the suburb where the incident took place said it was a “cowardly” attack meant to stir fear in local Jews who are already reeling from the arson of a prominent synagogue in December.
Officials in Sydney say they believe actors paid by foreign governments are behind many of the recent antisemitic incidents there.
Bacon and other pig products, which are not kosher to eat under Jewish law, have been used in antisemitic assaults before and have historically shown up in antisemitic imagery. In January 2020, an upstate New York woman was charged with a hate crime after allegedly throwing pork at a local synagogue in the middle of the night.
Contradicting Trump, Saudi Arabia says no change in its demand for Palestinian state
(JTA) — Within minutes of Donald Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia threw cold water on one of the U.S. president’s pronouncements.
On Tuesday evening, when asked whether Saudi leaders were demanding the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for a treaty with Israel, Trump said they were not. Saudi Arabia responded quickly: No, it had not not yielded on demanding the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, as a condition of normalization with Israel, the kingdom’s foreign ministry announced in a statement.
Saudi Arabia also noted that it would object to any efforts to displace Palestinians, an idea Trump has repeatedly insisted on in recent days.
The firm statement illustrates the gap between Saudi Arabia and Trump, who made a series of shocking pronouncements on Tuesday, including that Gaza should be completely depopulated and then taken over by the United States. Those proposals fly in the face of the longtime Saudi demand for a Palestinian state in exchange for relations with Israel.
Trump is understood to view a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as a major goal of his foreign policy. Netanyahu has repeatedly touted the prospects of Saudi-Israeli normalization as well.
Trump reimposes ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran, withdraws from UNRWA, UNHRC
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Tuesday to reimpose “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran and to withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council and UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
In an apparent indication of the changes in his foreign policy outlook from his first term, during which he was advised by Iran hawks like John Bolton and Brian Hook, Trump said he was “torn” on signing the order against Iran.
“It’s very tough on Iran,” Trump said. Trump’s second executive order once again withdrew the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body’s Geneva-based rights organization that critics accuse of being systemically anti-Israel.
The council’s agenda item 7 makes a review of the “human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine” a standing feature of every council session. Israel is the only country in the world subject to such an agenda item.
The order also withdraws the United States from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and UNRWA.
Washington has had a complicated relationship with UNESCO since the latter admitted the Palestinian Authority as a member in 2011.
