The Latest From @MacTaskForce
An Arab citizen of Israel says he’s tired of being told he’s “oppressed.”
Ali Shaa’ban points to the educational opportunities, government support, and resources he received growing up in Israel.
Ironically, one of the top comments on his original video comes from a Palestinian who says he grew up in Saudi Arabia unable to own property or start a business because he is Palestinian.
The people shouting the loudest are often the ones listening the least. Facts and lived experiences matter.
🎥: ali.shaa.ban
If all sorts of flags, including the Palestinian flag, is allowed inside FIFA World Cup stadiums, why is the Israeli flag prohibited?
A fan at a World Cup match was reportedly told he could not have an Israeli flag in the stadium.
His flag was confiscated because, as he was told, it violated stadium policy. Yet, fans right behind him freely waved Palestinian flags.
Singling out the flag of the Jewish state for exclusion while allowing all others to fly sends a frightening message to Jewish fans that their identity is somehow more controversial, more political, and not welcome.
If FIFA is going to allow national symbols, the rules must apply equally to everyone. If Palestinian flags are permitted, Israeli flags should be too.
Equal treatment is all Jews ask for.
At a rally against BDS in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, Mustapha Ezzerghani, a Muslim from Morocco, gave a rousing speech in which he pointed out that tens of millions of Moroccans benefit from Israeli technology and innovation, even as activists in the United States push to boycott the Jewish state.
BDS is not a movement for peace. It’s a campaign of exclusion that singles Jews out and treats connection to the Jewish state as something to be punished.
The persecution of Jews doesn’t begin with physical violence. It begins by normalizing discrimination and double standards.
Standing against BDS means standing for the belief that Jews should never be excluded from economic or civic life because they are Jewish.
Smith College has declined to advance an Israel divestment proposal pushed by Students for Justice in Palestine and Smith Alums for Justice in Palestine, concluding that the proposal did not meet the criteria required to move forward to the Board.
The school’s advisory committee cited concerns around mission alignment, societal impact, community consensus, financial impact, fiduciary responsibility, and practical implementation.
BDS campaigns are not sound institutional policy. They single out the world’s only Jewish state, divide campus communities, and pressure universities to adopt ideological positions that often deepen hostility toward Jewish and pro-Israel students.
Colleges have a responsibility not to bend to pressure campaigns rooted in demonization and division.
Rejecting divestment is also a rejection of the growing effort to turn campuses into platforms for isolating Israel rather than educating students.
A major legal setback for Francesca Albanese: a U.S. appeals court has allowed sanctions against the UN Special Rapporteur to remain in force while the government’s appeal moves forward.
The ruling does not decide the final legality of the sanctions, but it does mean the Trump administration can continue enforcing them while the case is litigated.
Albanese has long faced criticism for using her UN platform to target Israel, advance extreme anti-Israel claims, and undermine the credibility of international human rights institutions.
For those who believe international law should be applied with integrity, neutrality, and accountability, this is an important moment.
No UN official should be above scrutiny, especially when their work affects the legitimacy of institutions intended to defend human rights.
Video from Barcelona shows Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez embracing Arab Barghouti after Barghouti’s appearance at the Primavera Sound music festival, where reports say he addressed a crowd of tens of thousands. Sánchez also publicly thanked him for his activism.
Arab Barghouti is the son of Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences in Israel after being convicted of involvement in deadly attacks during the Second Intifada.
When Western leaders choose to elevate figures tied to that legacy, they are not advancing peace. They’re helping normalize a movement that glorifies violence instead of coexistence.
Real peace requires moral clarity.
Nicole was an MTF Fellow this past year at Penn State University. She first went to Israel as a campus influencer on an MTF trip during the height of the war in Gaza. What she saw in Israel was eye-opening and she eventually became a stalwart pro-Israel ally.
This past winter she returned to Israel, helping to lead her campus’ MTF trip, and develop more influential allies for the Jewish community.
We want to extend a huge thank you to Nicole, and to all of our other incredible fellows and participants from campuses around the country. Together we will continue spreading the truth and building powerful coalitions.
Dr. Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and a 2024 Tasmanian Australian of the Year nominee, says colleagues within the UN system worked to dilute and weaken a formal letter documenting allegations arising from the October 7 attacks.
According to Edwards, some of her colleagues who had considered signing the letter were pressured not to do so, while the final version was significantly watered down from her original draft.
She also warned of growing politicization inside the UN system, a trend that continues to raise serious questions about how atrocities are documented, addressed, and publicly recognized.
When the mass abductions, torture, and brutality of October 7 are softened or minimized for political reasons, it undermines the credibility of the very institutions tasked with defending human rights.
Truth should never be negotiated away to pacify extremists.
