Any attack on Qatar is attack on US, Trump says in executive order
(JNS) — Washington will defend Qatar from future attacks, including with military force if needed, according to an executive order that President Trump signed on Monday.
“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the order states.
If the Gulf state is attacked, Washington “shall take all lawful and appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic and, if necessary, military, to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar, and to restore peace and stability,” the order says.
Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JNS that Trump’s order is “misguided” and “counterproductive.”
“It’s basically rewarding Qatar for a whole slew of policies that run counter to any understanding of U.S. interests in the region — its support for Al Jazeera, its enablement of Hamas and encouragement of Hamas’s intransigence in the Gaza negotiations,” Ruhe said.
The order is “fairly unprecedented,” according to the JINSA official.
“We haven’t had a peacetime guarantee of another state’s sovereignty like this that obliges us to do contingency planning to support them militarily even if they’re attacked,” he told JNS.
“This is in response to Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in Doha last month,” Ruhe stated.
‘Today we burn Jews,’ Argentine students chant in viral video taken on graduation trip
(JTA) — A viral video showing a group of high school seniors in Argentina chanting antisemitic slogans during their graduation trip has prompted a wave of condemnation, including from President Javier Milei.
The video, recorded in the city of Bariloche, shows students from Escuela Humanos, a private school in Greater Buenos Aires, chanting “Today we burn Jews.” A coordinator from the travel company Baxtter appears to join in the chants.
It is common during graduation trips to the southern mountain city for tour companies to combine buses from different schools for certain excursions. Students from Escuela Humanos were traveling with students from a Jewish school, Escuela ORT.
Escuela Humanos describes itself as training “ambassadors of peace.” The school issued a lengthy statement on Monday saying that the activities captured on the video “do not represent our values,” and that school officials had been in touch with Argentina’s leading Jewish organization, DAIA. But the statement distanced the school from the incident caught on tape, saying that the tone on the bus was the responsibility of the tour company.
Baxxter told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the coordinator would be fired and that the company would work with DAIA “to work jointly to ensure that incidents of this kind do not happen again.”
Francesca Albanese says Hamas doesn’t need to release hostages for peace
(JNS) — Marco Massari, mayor of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia, was presenting a civic honor to Francesca Albanese, a United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, on Sunday, when he told an audience of hundreds, “the end of the genocide and the release of the hostages are necessary conditions to start a peace process.”
The U.N. adviser, who has a long history of Jew-hatred, reportedly scolded Massari, as the crowd jeered the mayor.
“The mayor was wrong and said something that is not true,” Albanese said. “Peace does not need conditions.”
Washington has sanctioned Albanese, and it and other countries have decried her antisemitic comments.
“I do not judge the mayor. I forgive him,” Albanese said at the event on Sunday. “But he has to promise me that he doesn’t say this thing anymore.”
“Maybe I said something incomplete,” Massari said. “But I reiterate what I said. Let us not make harsh judgments with each other and seek unity among us.”
Trump admin sanctions people, entities involved in procuring tech for Iran
(JNS) — The Trump administration sanctioned 21 entities and 17 individuals involved in procuring goods and technology for Iran, the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday.
They were named part of multiple networks that assisted Iran’s Ministry of Defense, as well as its military and production efforts, and the illegal purchase of a U.S.-manufactured helicopter.
“The Iranian regime’s support of terrorist proxies and its pursuit of nuclear-weapons threatens the security of the Middle East, the United States and our allies around the world,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we will deny the regime weapons it would use to further its malign objectives.”
