The Latest From @MacTaskForce
North Carolina resident Angela Han Hicks and another co-conspirator were charged in an alleged terror plot against Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, with court documents saying the goal was to “kill as many Jews as possible” by driving through the synagogue. Bond is set at $10 million.
Another day, another planned attack on a Jewish site.
The threats facing Jewish communities are not exaggerated. They are real, and increasingly dangerous.
A young Lebanese man said on Lebanese television that he wants to see “an Israeli embassy in Beirut,” drawing disagreement from others on the program, one of whom calls the idea a “humiliation.”
This is a sign that support for Hezbollah in Lebanon is beginning to fall apart. There’s still a long way to go, and many Lebanese still harbor hate for the Jewish state, and are willing to prop up malicious regimes in order to destroy it. However, there is very promising progress in the right direction. And perhaps one day soon Lebanon and Israel will not only be neighbors, but allies.
Let us hope.
SHAME: UCLA’s student government condemned an event featuring former Hamas captivity survivor Omer Shem Tov, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7 and held in Gaza for 505 days. Jewish Insider reports the council criticized the event as “selective platforming.” This event centered around the testimony of someone who survived Hamas captivity.
That is a moral failure. A university student government should never be condemning a hostage survivor for speaking about their personal life experience. When even the firsthand testimony of a victim of terror is treated as unacceptable, it shows that the campus climate deeply broken.
Jewish students deserve to be educated on campuses where hearing a survivor’s story is seen as human, necessary, and worthy of respect, not something to be denounced.
At the President’s Residence Independence Day ceremony, Alon Ohel and Dvir Bublil delivered one of the holiday’s most moving moments.
Alon, a survivor freed from Hamas captivity, performed with Dvir, an IDF veteran and hero who was seriously wounded fighting on October 7th.
These two young men refuse to be defined only by what was done to them, but by the strength with which they returned.
British counterterrorism police have arrested nine people in total over an alleged arson plot targeting a venue linked to London’s Jewish community. Seven were arrested on Tuesday, and then two more on Wednesday. The arrests follow a string of attacks on Jewish sites across the city, including firebombing and arson incidents.
British Jews deserve the same basic sense of safety every other community expects. As hateful ideologies rise across Western cities, and particularly in London against Jews, allegations of wider coordinated plots against Jewish sites show how serious the threat has become.
The University of Washington is now under federal civil rights investigation over alleged antisemitism on campus. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said she authorized the DOJ review and singled out a planned event in support of the “Lebanese resistance” by SUPER UW, even though the school says it has already de-registered the group and disavowed it.
According to KUOW, Seattle’s NPR news outlet, that the university has also petitioned Meta to prevent the group from using “UW” in its name on social media.
The university says it will cooperate with the review.
🎥: komo4
Happy Yom HaAtzmaut to Israel on its 78th Independence Day.
Israel’s story is one of courage, perseverance, and national rebirth. Against all odds, the Jewish state has become a beacon of strength, innovation, and resilience all while under the constant threat of existential, genocidal violence against it.
Today we celebrate Israel, its people, and the miracle of its independence, sovereignty, and the freedom it protects for all of its citizens. 🇮🇱
Anderson Cooper’s interview with Rachel Goldberg-Polin on 60 Minutes brought back some painful memories of October 7, including the moment Rachel learned there was footage showing her son Hersh being kidnapped by Hamas after his hand was severed by the terror attack. Cooper said he realized, during an earlier interview with Hersh’s parents, that he had seen their son in that video.
Rachel said that the proof Hersh had been taken alive was in some way a form of hope. Hersh was executed after 328 days in Hamas captivity.
The Goldberg-Polins’ grief is unimaginable, but their strength is far greater.
