Terse State Dept human rights report skips Biden admin references to alleged Israeli ‘war crimes’
(JNS) — The U.S. State Department’s newly released and much shorter country reports on human rights practices in 2024 differ from those released last year by the Biden administration covering 2023, including the nearly three months after Oct. 7, in dramatic ways when it comes to Israel, the “West Bank” and the Gaza Strip.
Last year, the State Department noted that “human rights groups reported extensive and in many cases unprecedented conflict-related abuses, and alleged the commission of war crimes, by Israel, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups.”
It added that “some human rights organizations and the government,” meaning the Israeli government, “described the Oct. 7 attacks as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Federal probe finds GW ‘deliberately indifferent’ to Jew-hatred
(JNS) — George Washington University, an urban campus in Washington, D.C., with some 4,500 Jewish students, violated federal civil rights law in its “deliberate indifference” to antisemitic incidents on campus that were “objectively offensive, severe and pervasive,” the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The private school ignored a “hostile educational environment for Jewish, American-Israeli and Israeli students and faculty,” the Trump administration said. “GW took no meaningful action and was instead deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred and the harms that were suffered by its Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.”
The Justice Department, which reportedly sought a settlement with University of California, Los Angeles worth $1 billion, said it will “seek immediate remediation with GW for its civil rights violations.”
“Every student has the right to equal educational opportunities without fear of harassment or abuse,” stated Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant U.S. attorney general. “No one is above the law, and universities that promulgate antisemitic discrimination will face legal consequences.”
Heavily Jewish Illinois city votes unanimously to adopt IHRA Jew-hatred definition
(JNS) — Highland Park City Council voted 7-0 on Monday to adopt both the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred and accompanying contemporary examples of antisemitism.
Annette Lidawer, whose official council biography lists affiliations with Jewish Women’s Foundation of Chicago, Jewish Child and Family Services and Aitz Chaim Center for Jewish Living, introduced the ordinance, which she called “true landmark legislation.”
The bill helps “our staff and city identify and prevent antisemitic behavior,” as well as protects residents, she said at the council meeting.
“Why in a city as tolerant and clearly committed to protecting its residents do we need to define antisemitism, and why now?” she asked. “The answer is painfully evident in the world, in our country, in Illinois and even in Highland Park.”
New evidence questions former GHF staffer’s claims that IDF killed child at distribution site
(JNS) — A new investigation by The Daily Wire is casting doubt on a now-viral story shared by a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation contractor who claimed he witnessed Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill a child while receiving aid at a GHF site.
Tony Aguilar, who first recounted his experience on social media on July 28, claimed that he met a child named “Amir” while working at a GHF aid location on May 28. He said, after sharing words and an embrace with Amir, that the boy got lost in the crowd, and was subsequently shot and killed an hour later by the IDF.
However, in a video obtained by The Daily Wire, Siham Al-Jarabe’a — a woman claiming to be the child’s stepmother — told an Arabic interviewer on Aug. 5 that the boy, whom she identified as Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hamdan Al-Jarabe’a, was alive and with her until he went missing on July 28. She disputed many of the details of Aguilar’s story.
Additionally, a review of body cam footage from an American security contractor standing next to Aguilar on the day of the alleged incident showed a different version of the encounter.
“Tony completely fabricated his story,” the security contractor told the Wire.
Aguilar, who claimed to have resigned from his GHF post, was reportedly fired by the organization on June 13 “due to poor performance, volatile conflicts with staff and erratic behavior,” the media outlet reported.
GHF and the IDF stated there were no reports of an incident involving Israeli military fire on civilians at any GHF distribution site on May 28.
Man who fired shotgun outside NY synagogue gets 10 years
(JNS) — Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, 29, of Schenectady, N.Y., was sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, on Tuesday for illegally buying a gun, obstructing religious practice with a dangerous weapon and using a gun in a violent crime, the U.S. Justice Department stated.
Alkhader, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Albany in February, had faced between seven and 15 years in jail and up to $500,000 in fines.
He admitted to shooting a shotgun in the air outside Temple Israel, a Conservative synagogue in Albany, on Dec. 7, 2023, and shouting “free Palestine.”
Alkhader fired the shotgun twice and tried to do so again, but the gun jammed, according to the Justice Department. He then tried to tear an Israeli flag down from a pole in front of the synagogue, after which police officers arrived and arrested him.
New Massachusetts educational guidance takes ‘guesswork’ out of fighting Jew-hatred
(JNS) — Jew-hatred is a “pervasive and escalating problem” at elementary and secondary schools in Massachusetts, according to a legislative task force.
The commonwealth’s Special Commission for Combating Antisemitism, which met at the State House in Boston last week, approved a 25-page report unanimously after 10 hearings. Families and teachers have reported experiencing a “large number” of incidents of “hate, bullying, harassment and discrimination,” particularly after Oct. 7, according to the report.
“This is something that needs to be addressed head-on,” commission co-chair Simon Cataldo, a Democratic state representative who is Jewish, told JNS. “It’s not going to get better on its own.”
Alleged Capital Jewish Museum shooter Elias Rodriguez indicted on federal hate crime charges
(JTA) — The man accused of fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staffers in the back at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., in May was indicted Wednesday on federal hate crime charges.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, was indicted on nine new charges, including local charges as well as two federal counts of hate crime resulting in death.
The new charges join those already in place in the alleged murder of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, two Israeli embassy staffers who were about to be engaged, as they exited a May 21 event for young Jewish professionals and diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee.
The indictment alleges Rodriguez killed Milgrim “in an especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner,” noting that Rodriguez could potentially be eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.
