An explosive email arrives in my inbox on January 16

By BERNIE BELLAN This is the third part of a story about a delusional Winnipegger who has inflicted great harm on people over the world. The first two parts of the story can be read at Part 1: “The delusional Winnipeg con man who actually believed his own elaborate con and led one victim in Africa to consider committing suicide” and Part 2: “Meeting the con man for the first time in 2021.

I would probably not have given another thought to Devlin had an email not arrived in my inbox on January 16, 2026.

That email came from someone I’ll call Charlie. It was so explosive in how it described a vast pattern of broken promises and shattered trust which Devlin had engendered among a wide number of individuals that I was totally floored by what the writer of that email wrote. (Again, I’ve changed Devlin’s name in the email from his true name.)

The subject line of that January 16 email was “The Winnipeg Con Man.”
 Here is that email in its entirety:

“This report is being posted by a group of individuals who connected privately after discovering that we share strikingly similar experiences involving Frederick Devlin, also known as Fred. Our experiences span anywhere from approximately two years to as long as five, ten, twenty, and in some cases thirty years.

“Across this group, many of us were in frequent communication with Fred, who consistently presented himself as an extraordinarily wealthy and powerful individual with vast global influence and resources. He represented himself as a business leader, investor, or partner and repeatedly assured people that significant funding, compensation, or major opportunities were imminent.

“Over extended periods of time, many of us were told repeatedly that money, contracts, payment, or formal agreements would happen next month or very soon. Despite these ongoing assurances, no verifiable proof of funds, legal documentation, contracts, or concrete follow through ever materialized. Expectations and conditions for moving forward were frequently changed, and individuals were encouraged to continue investing time, labor, trust, and emotional energy without any tangible results.

“As time went on, the claims being made became increasingly extreme and difficult to reconcile with reality. Among the statements reported by multiple individuals were claims that he was the world’s first trillionaire, that he owned thousands of companies, that some of those companies generated billions of dollars per hour, that he owned hundreds of hospitals, hundreds of airports, and thousands of aircraft, and that he controlled vast global infrastructure. He also claimed ownership of thousands of acres of land in both Winnipeg and Israel.

“Additional claims reported include involvement with intelligence agencies, building the Third Temple in Israel, statements that Osama bin Laden was still alive and being held for future rehabilitation, and claims of direct communication with God and receiving guidance from God. He also claimed personal relationships with world leaders and public figures and suggested that he would assume positions of power under certain circumstances. None of these claims were ever supported with evidence despite repeated requests for verification.

“He also represented entities referred to as Xanadu Group of Companies Worldwide and Xanadu Foundation Worldwide as major global organizations under his control. Based on the experiences shared within this group, these entities appear to have no independently verifiable operations, assets, or legitimate structure. Multiple individuals report having worked for extended periods under these names without pay, believing compensation or success was imminent, only to later realize that no payment or formal organization existed.

“Organizational Roles and Unpaid Labor

“Members of this group report a consistent pattern involving individuals who were presented as part of an organizational structure surrounding Fred. These individuals were described as executives, managers, legal advisors, financial professionals, technical staff, or personal assistants connected to the entities he promoted.

“Several individuals report that his spouse was present during meetings and communications with prospective partners or workers, sitting alongside him while representations were made about business operations, funding, and future opportunities.

“Multiple people were introduced to individuals described as senior executives or operational managers who were said to oversee large numbers of companies or global activities. In some cases, individuals were told they were responsible for managing thousands of companies or acting as official representatives on his behalf. These roles were presented as legitimate and authoritative, yet compensation, contracts, or formal structure never materialized.

“Some individuals report being encouraged to create their own business cards, travel internationally, and attend meetings while representing him or the organizations he promoted. These activities were carried out under the belief that the companies were real and that long term compensation or equity was forthcoming. In at least one reported instance, individuals were aware of staged humanitarian activity that appeared to be conducted primarily for promotional imagery rather than meaningful aid.

“Other individuals report providing extensive professional services without pay, including legal work, financial and accounting services, website development, administrative support, and personal assistant duties. These services were reportedly performed over extended periods under the belief that formal employment, payment, or senior roles within a large organization were imminent. In some cases, individuals were asked to assist with sending legal notices or cease and desist communications aimed at discouraging others from speaking publicly.

“Across these experiences, it remains unclear whether certain individuals involved were themselves misled, enabling the behavior, or acting in some other capacity. What is clear to the group is that a wide range of unpaid labor and representation was sustained by repeated promises that never resulted in legitimate compensation, contracts, or verifiable business operations.

“Victim Experiences and Patterns of Harm

“Members of this group report a wide range of deeply concerning victim experiences that illustrate how trust was established, exploited, and maintained over long periods of time.

“One individual reported first meeting Fred while both were present in a medical setting. During that time, Fred presented himself not as a patient, but as an extraordinarily powerful and wealthy figure, claiming ownership or control over the facility and suggesting he was operating undercover to evaluate staff. This individual was told repeatedly that he would be financially supported for life. Over time, Fred encouraged him to identify other people who could also be helped financially, creating a chain of introductions built on trust and false assurances.

“Several victims describe being drawn into prolonged, high intensity communication lasting months or years, including frequent phone calls that extended for hours at a time. During these interactions, victims were promised large sums of money, major investments, salaries, or company acquisitions. In some cases, victims were led to believe they would receive life changing financial support or that their businesses would be purchased for significant amounts. Each time deadlines approached, timelines were pushed back by months, with repeated explanations and new promises offered. This pattern continued over extended periods, with victims investing substantial time, planning, and emotional energy based on assurances that never materialized.

“Another individual reported being promised financial rescue after suffering significant losses in a separate situation. Fred allegedly assured this person that debts would be paid, a new business would be launched, and a substantial annual salary would be provided. This individual was reportedly instructed not to pay existing creditors and was warned that doing so would jeopardize the promised support. Relying on these assurances, the individual experienced cascading financial consequences, including loss of credit, housing, personal property, and severe disruption to family life. This experience is described as having resulted in total financial collapse and lasting personal harm.

“Multiple individuals outside North America reported being approached with promises of humanitarian support, development funding, or life changing financial assistance. In at least two reported cases, individuals were instructed to create promotional materials using company logos and to stage charitable activities in impoverished communities, including distributing small amounts of food while being photographed. These images were then allegedly used to promote an image of vast wealth and global humanitarian impact. Victims report being promised assistance for themselves and their communities for five years or more, receiving no financial support, and in some cases spending their own limited resources in the process.

“One individual involved in these humanitarian related representations stated that Fred told him he was in direct contact with senior leadership or directors at major international aid organizations, including USAID, World Vision, Save the Children, and the World Food Programme. These claims were presented as proof of legitimacy and influence, yet no evidence of such relationships was ever provided.

“Other victims describe being used as intermediaries or connectors, introduced to political figures, industry leaders, or international contacts under the belief that legitimate large scale deals were underway. These efforts often involved months of preparation, meetings, and negotiations involving proposed transactions in the millions of dollars. Victims report that these deals consistently collapsed at the final stages, after extensive time and effort had already been invested.

“International Scope of the Conduct

“Members of this group also report that the conduct described above was not limited to a single location or jurisdiction. Individuals involved are located across multiple regions, including the United States and Canada, and in some cases were connected to activities, communications, or meetings abroad. Victims report involvement spanning locations such as Florida, California, Nevada, Manitoba, Ontario, Israel, and multiple countries in Africa.

“Several individuals report being encouraged to participate in or support proposed international business, humanitarian, aviation, or political initiatives, including travel, meetings, and coordination across borders. In some cases, individuals traveled internationally or were asked to act as intermediaries or representatives in foreign countries based on representations that large scale transactions, funding, or humanitarian efforts were underway.

“As a result, the time invested, financial loss, and emotional harm described by victims occurred across multiple legal jurisdictions, complicating efforts to seek accountability and increasing the number of individuals potentially affected. Victims report that the same patterns of representation, delay, and nonperformance were repeated consistently regardless of location, suggesting a widespread and sustained pattern rather than isolated incidents.

“Attempts at Family Intervention”

“Members of this group also report that concerns were raised directly with his family members in an effort to prevent further harm and encourage intervention. According to individuals involved, family members acknowledged long standing issues and expressed a desire to keep matters quiet in order to avoid upsetting Fred.

“Despite being alerted to the concerns raised by multiple individuals, the response described by victims focused on minimizing confrontation rather than addressing the underlying behavior. Victims report that Fred continued to receive financial support for daily living and social activities, allowing him to maintain the appearance of legitimacy while continuing to hold meetings, conduct outreach, and make representations to others.
 Many victims believe that the lack of intervention contributed to the continuation of the behavior described above, increasing the number of individuals affected over time.

“Taken together, these accounts describe a pattern in which extraordinary promises, constant engagement, emotional manipulation, and shifting timelines were used to sustain belief and participation, resulting in severe emotional, financial, and psychological harm to numerous individuals over many years.

“Members of this group report a wide range of impacts. Some individuals describe being encouraged to work for months or years without pay under the belief that compensation or equity was imminent, which never occurred. Others report significant financial strain after rearranging their lives, careers, or commitments based on repeated assurances that funding or payment was coming. Several individuals describe being threatened with legal action or intimidation when they attempted to question claims or speak publicly about their experiences. Others report emotional distress and long term psychological impact after years of being strung along by false promises and grand representations.

“Many individuals also report being asked for access to personal or professional contact networks, raising concerns that trust and reputations were being leveraged to gain credibility with others.

“As a result of connecting and comparing experiences, members of this group have taken steps to protect others. Some have contacted the Winnipeg Police Service and crime and fraud units within multiple Canadian agencies to request investigation. Some individuals are pursuing civil legal action. Others are warning their friends, families, and professional networks after believing they may have been targeted or approached in similar ways.

“This report is not being posted out of anger or malice. It is being posted because the consistency, duration, and severity of the experiences reported by many individuals raise serious concerns. We believe others deserve to be warned so they can protect themselves and insist on independent verification before engaging in any personal, professional, or financial relationship.

“If you have had a similar or concerning experience involving Fred Devlin, we encourage you to share your experience so others can be informed.

“This report reflects the collective experiences and observations of multiple individuals. All readers are strongly encouraged to independently verify any claims before proceeding.”

Wow! That was quite the email. But why was I on the receiving end? I wondered. It seemed to be intended for others who might have been taken in by Fred.

But, I was deeply curious why I had been sent that email, so I responded:

“Hi,

“Interesting that you got my name. I wonder where that came from? 
I met Fred a couple of times over the years and knew immediately that he wasn’t right, but I humoured him and made him think that I believed the nonsense he was feeding me.
 I didn’t take me very long to establish that nothing he was saying was true – except maybe for the part about Izzy Asper having thought that he had great potential. Fred likely had great ability at one time (he did show me a photo of him descending a jet with his company logo emblazoned on the jet) – but apparently something happened somewhere along the line that led to his delusional behaviour.
 I contacted Fred”s mother (whom I hold in very high regard) at one point and asked her how she thought I should respond to Fred’s request that I do a story about him – and her response was to treat him gently – which I did by not calling him out to his face.
 What I don’t understand is how he suckered so many people into believing the crap he was feeding them. How long would it have taken to verify that his ‘Xanadu’ group of companies didn’t exist?


Regards,

“Bernie Bellan

“Former publisher,

“The Jewish Post & News

“and current publisher,

“jewishpostandnews.ca”

I didn’t hear back immediately from Charlie. As events transpired, it was only after a couple of months had passed that I did hear from him – apparently after he had been persuaded by another individual who turned out to play a key role in putting this story together for me (I’ll call him Rick), that he (Charlie) could trust me.

I received a text message from Rick the same day that I had responded to Charlie in which Rick told me that he had all the information I would need to write a full exposé of everything Fred had done to so many individuals.

But, what kept gnawing at me was that there were so many references to a host of different individuals, all involved somehow in helping to perpetrate this vast fraud, at which Devlin was at the centre.

According to that January 16 email, “Multiple people were introduced to individuals described as senior executives or operational managers who were said to oversee large numbers of companies or global activities. In some cases, individuals were told they were responsible for managing thousands of companies or acting as official representatives on his behalf. These roles were presented as legitimate and authoritative, yet compensation, contracts, or formal structure never materialized.”

Who were all these individuals who were supposedly senior executives or operational managers? I wondered. As time wore on, I never came across anyone who could be said to have been working as a senior executive or operational manager in any of Devlin’s companies – because none of those companies ever existed! Thus, as I noted earlier, there are so many rabbit holes in this story – and so many of the individuals to whom I spoke also seemed to be suffering from their own mental illnesses, I still have no idea how much of what supposedly was written in that explosive email was true.

What I did discover though, was that the email had not been written by Charlie, it had been written by someone I’ll call Rick. Why Rick wanted to disguise his identity when he sent me that email, I’m not sure. What I did find out, however, was that Rick himself would veer in and out of normalcy – and what began as a level headed discussion between us ended with him angrily cutting off communication with me for a very long time. Then, when I decided to try to reestablish contact with him, he was perfectly normal – again. Rick proved invaluable in putting me in touch with others who were able to provide me information about how Devlin had conned them, so I still owe him a great debt of gratitude.

Coming next – Part 4 of the delusional con man: How one man was at the centre of figuring out everyone who been conned by the delusional Winnipegger

On Both Sides of the Wall
Vladka Meed and Steven D. Meed
Citadel Press, 448 pages, $29.00.

“But surely by this morning we will learn something.” It was a sentiment that was going around the Warsaw Ghetto, overheard among the groups of Jews huddled on street corners. On occasion someone would muster up some hopeful words: “Jews, have no fear! You will all see. With God’s help, once more we shall survive the evil decree!” It was July 22, 1942: the first day of the Great Deportation. Any optimism was unfounded: On that day, the Germans led roughly 250,000 Jews to the death camps.

Thus begins the opening scene of On Both Sides of the Wall, Vladka Meed’s memoir of her life in Warsaw during World War II. Her story originally appeared in installments in the Forward shortly after her arrival in America, in 1946, under her real name, Feygele Peytel Miedzyrecki. A book-length edition was published by the educational committee of the Workers Circle in 1948.

In 1977, an English translation came out, with an introduction by Elie Wiesel. Now Meed’s memoir is available in an expanded edition, complete with an introduction from the historian Samuel Kassow and a foreword by the translator, Steven (Shloyme) Meed, Vladka’s son.

Vladka Meed takes the reader into the heart of the Warsaw Ghetto, with its charged atmosphere of hope, terror and despair. She summons the cacophony of those last ten, tragic months of the Ghetto; we hear the voices of Jews, Germans and their Ukrainian accomplices.

Fortunately, Vladka managed to avoid the daily aktsyes (deportation campaigns) when the mundir forces (“Jewish police,” in the ghetto vernacular) would capture Jews for deportation. Vladka soon found herself alone: “My mother, brother, and sister have all been taken from me to some unimaginable fate,” she writes. Vladka was lucky to find a job in one of the workshops that served the Germans.

Following the second selektsye (separation of fit and unfit Jewish laborers) in September 1942, the Jews that remained in the ghetto began preparing for an uprising. Vladka remembers their calls: “If we are to die, anyway, let us die with dignity!” “The enemy must pay a heavy price for our lives!”

As a young girl, Vladka was active in the Jewish Labor Bund, an affiliation that helped keep her alive during the Holocaust. She spoke Polish well without a trace of a Yiddish accent, and had “good Aryan looks.” The leadership of the ghetto’s Bundist underground suggested that she become a courier between the ghetto and the Aryan side. That’s how the young Jewish girl, Feygele Peltel, was transformed into a Polish woman by the name of Wladislawa Kowalska, or simply — Vladka.

Step by step, she integrated into “normal life” among Christian Poles. At first she had high hopes. “I had expected to encounter a strong interest among our Polish neighbors about life within the ghetto,” she writes. But she soon realized that her neighbors preferred very much not to know what was happening on the other side of the ghetto wall.

Vladka and her comrades on the Aryan side were charged with obtaining weapons for the ghetto. But their relations with members of the Polish underground army were poor, and little came of their interactions: “As we travel about the city, trying and failing to get arms…we beg them: ‘Help us to obtain weapons. We are willing to pay well for them!’”

Most of their requests fell on deaf ears. Often they’d hand over payment and receive nothing in return — or worse, their Polish contacts would betray them to the Germans. Even when the Jewish ghetto fighters managed to get their hands on a revolver, another challenge remained: smuggling it into the ghetto.

The book is a gripping read. Vladka Meed is a skillful narrator, and she gives a detailed accounting of her dangerous missions. Any day could have been her last: she never knew if she’d live to see the evening. Vladka had many more failures than successes, and in many cases she was saved by a fateful coincidence.

Kassow’s introduction describes the greater historical context of that period, while Steven Meed provides personal details about his mother’s life before the Holocaust, based on her interviews in the American press.

In his translation, Meed includes bracketed phrases that provide brief, helpful contextual notes. He has also chosen to preserve Yiddish words from the so-called “ghetto language”, like aktsye (action), mundirn (police forces), and blokade (blockade). The choice to keep such vocabulary gives the text an authentic feel, even as Meed’s strategy occasionally raises questions. Why, for example, did he ‘translate’ the word kristin (Christian woman) in the Yiddish as “shikse” (an often pejorative term for a gentile girl) in the English? In general, his translations in the book occasionally veer far from the original.

In the United States, Vladka Meed dedicated her life to Holocaust education. This newest edition of her book carries this mission forward, and constitutes a significant addition to the ever-growing library of documents and research on the Warsaw Ghetto.

Unfortunately, the history of Jewish resistance to German occupation still hasn’t been properly integrated into American Holocaust education, even in Jewish day schools. At the University of Michigan, when I discuss the Warsaw Ghetto uprising with students in my course on the history of the Jews in Eastern Europe, I often get this response: “Why didn’t anyone tell us about this in our Holocaust education classes? It’s so important!”

To this day we often view the history of the Holocaust with a focus on mass murder. Vladka Meed’s book, writes Kassow, “demonstrates [that] this battle to stay alive, against all odds, refuted the oft-made claim that Jews went passively to their deaths.”

The post How a young woman smuggled weapons into the Warsaw Ghetto appeared first on The Forward.

Aerial view of Duke University on Jan. 6, 2026. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

Duke University has suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter and impounded its money for posting an antisemitic political cartoon on social media, The Duke Chronicle reported on Tuesday.

According to the student paper, the illustration depicts a pig labeled “Zionism” hoisting a Star of David as its arm interlocks with another pig, labeled “US Imperialism,” hoisting the Torch of Liberty. The image was created in 1970 by political cartoonist Emory Douglas, a Black Panther party official who harbored hostility toward the US and Israel.

The Chronicle said the image elicited no fewer than 10 formal complaints from Jewish students for showing a blatant antisemitic trope. Historically, depicting Jews as pigs has been done to reduce them to the status of animals and mock the fact that dietary restrictions forbid Jews to eat pork. The Nazis notoriously did so, but the practice reaches back further into history, when medieval Germans proliferated the Judensau drawings which portrayed Jews drinking pig’s milk and excrement.

In a statement to the Chronicle, SJP denied that it intended to endorse the cartoon’s antisemitic messaging, saying it “was never intended to be antisemitic” and that anti-Zionist activism is “not the same as targeting Jewish people.”

This was not the first time that the anti-Zionist group posted antisemitic imagery. In 2024, the Harvard chapter of its faculty spinoff, Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FJSP), posted a political cartoon of a Jew lynching an African American and an Arab. In the illustration, a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David and containing a dollar sign at its center dangles a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. In its posterior, an arm belonging to an unknown person of color wields a machete that says, “Liberation Movement.”

Such activity is an integral part of the playbook of anti-Zionist and antisemitic messaging on social media, scholars have found.

From 2013 to 2024, the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA) at Indiana University studied over 76,000 posts created by Students for Justice in Palestine and its affiliates, finding that over half, 54.9 percent, included only a single, evocative image.

“In contrast, Reels (5.3%) and Videos (4.9%) are used far less frequently,” the institute said in a report based on its research. “Based on these descriptions, we see a strong preference among campus-based anti-Israel groups for static visual formats, suggesting that this type of bimodal content represents the highest form of shareability within activists networks.”

To boost their audience and reach, pro-Hamas groups also post together in what ISCA described as “co-authored posts,” of which there were over 20,000 between 2013 and 2024. Their content set off strong emotions in the individual users exposed to them, inciting incidents of antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and violence. Such outrages, it added, increased in proportion to the concentration of anti-Israel groups on a single campus, evidence of “particularly strong” correlation.

ISCAP’s conclusions can be found in the real world, as SJP and its network of student groups have helped fuel a historic wave of antisemitic incidents on college campuses over the past two and a half years — from spitting on Jewish students at the University of California, Berkeley while calling them “Jew” to gang assaulting Jews at Columbia University’s Butler Library.

SJP has also expressed its hope of inciting insurrection in the US and amassing a jihadist army.

In 2024, the national SJP organization proclaimed on X that the anti-Zionist student movement is a weapon for destroying the US, saying that “divestment [from Israel] is not an incrementalist goal” but enacted with the later goal of initiating “the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself.” On the same day the group issued the statement, Columbia University’s most strident SJP spinoff, created after SJP was suspended, was reported to have distributed literature which called for “popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”

Sections of the pamphlet were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose is to build an army of Muslims worldwide.

“We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nations, its scholars, men, institutions, and active forces to come out in roaring crowds tomorrow,” it added, referring to a previous event. “We also renew our invitation to the free people and those with living consciences around the world to continue and escalate their global public movement, rejecting the occupation’s crimes, in solidarity with our people and their just cause and legitimate struggle.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

A failed Senate vote to block US arms sales to Israel has further exposed a deepening divide within the Democratic Party, one increasingly defined by younger voters and liberals whose views on Israel are shifting rapidly.

The Senate on Wednesday rejected two resolutions led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have halted roughly $450 million in weapons transfers to Israel, including bombs and bulldozers. The measures failed, ensuring the sales will move forward. But the margin, and who supported the effort, marked a significant political inflection point.

Of the 47 Senate Democrats, 40 voted in favor of blocking sales of bulldozers and 36 voted in favor of blocking transfers of so-called “dumb” bombs. The failed vote represents the largest show of opposition to military aid for Israel within the party in recent memory. While previous efforts spearheaded by Sanders drew support from a smaller bloc, this vote saw roughly 80 percent of Senate Democrats vote against transferring aid to the Jewish state, signaling a seismic shift in the dynamic between the Democratic Party and Israel.

Further, many traditionally stalwart supporters of Israel, such as Democratic Sens. Elissa Slotkin (MI) and Cory Booker (NJ), voted in favor of Sanders’s resolution, signaling that anti-Israel sentiment has migrated from the far-left fringes of the party into the mainstream. 

That change is closely tied to evolving public opinion, especially among younger Americans.

Recent polling, including newly released data from the Yale Youth Poll, shows that younger voters are far more critical of Israel than older generations. Large shares of voters under 30 now support restricting or even ending US military aid, a position that departs sharply from the long-standing bipartisan consensus in Washington. Polls show that a supermajority of Democrats believe that Israel has committed a so-called “genocide” in Gaza, an assertion which lacks little evidence and has been boosted by foreign entities tied to Iran. 

Data also suggests that increased social media consumption aligns with more skeptical attitudes toward foreign policy regarding Israel. Those who receive their news from social media, especially youth-centric platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, are far more likely to exhibit anti-Israel animus than those who consume traditional broadcast news media. 

The Senate vote reflects the increasing pressure of Democratic lawmakers to stake an aggressive stance against Israel. Several lawmakers who backed the resolutions argued that continued arms transfers should be reconsidered amid the expanding regional conflict involving Iran and mounting humanitarian concerns. They argued that the Trump White House has not sought out appropriate congressional approval for the ongoing war in Iran. Many also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct, suggesting that he has escalated hostilities in the region rather than acted in self-defense from existential threats. These same voices expressed dismay at civilian casualties in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza.  

The lawmakers largely framed their votes not as opposition to Israel’s existence, but as a challenge to current policies and the use of US-supplied weapons.

Opponents, including most Republicans, maintained that US military support remains essential to Israel’s security, particularly as tensions with Iran escalate. They warned that blocking arms sales could weaken a key ally in a volatile region.

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), an organization dedicated to increasing support for the GOP among Jews, framed the vote as reflective of a broader anti-Israel sentiment within the Democratic Party.

“There is only ONE pro-Israel party, and it is the Republican Party,” RJC wrote on X. 

Meanwhile, Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the group J Street, endorsed the vote as an “encouraging” sign of progress.

“It’s encouraging to see a growing number of senators recognize that unconditional US military support for Israel is no longer tenable in light of the Netanyahu government’s policies. The work now is to translate that shift into action: alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, stopping violence on the West Bank and pursuing paths to end the ongoing fighting across the region,” Ben-Ami wrote. 

A self-proclaimed “pro-peace, pro-Israel” lobbying organization, J Street has come under fire for allegedly not doing enough to combat antisemitism or anti-Israel narratives within liberal political circles.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), one of the most strident defenders of Israel in Congress, criticized his party’s turn against Israel, saying in a new CNN interview that they have “boxed themselves in” by supporting Sanders’s resolution. He dismissed the notion that Democrats would become more likely to support Israel with a change in Israeli leadership.

“When Netanyahu goes, and you’re now on record with this, you’re going to revert back and say that now that he’s gone, I can now start sending offensive weapons?” Moskowitz pondered.

Despite the failure of the resolutions, the size of the Democratic vote in favor underscores how quickly the political landscape is changing ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

People hold the flag of Somaliland during the parade in Hargeisa, Somaliland, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced the appointment of its first ambassador to Somaliland on Wednesday, less than four months after Israel became the first country to officially recognize the self-declared Africa republic as an independent and sovereign state.

Michael Lotem, who currently serves as a non-resident economic ambassador to Africa, will now shift to work as a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland, which has sought global support in breaking away from Somalia in the Horn of Africa. He previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles, a position he concluded in August.

Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.

Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.

In December, Israel recognized Somaliland’s independence, becoming the first UN-recognized country in the world to do so — Taiwan did in 2020 — while igniting a diplomatic firestorm in Mogadishu and across dozens of Muslim nations which condemned the decision.

Somalia’s Foreign Ministry has likewise released a statement blasting Lotem’s appointment, calling the move “a direct breach” of the nation’s sovereignty and saying it “categorically rejects” the announcement.

“Such actions risk destabilizing regional progress and emboldening divisive narratives,” the Somali ministry said on Wednesday.

Beyond Israel, the United States has also started strengthening ties with Somaliland. A senior American delegation including US Air Force Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, the commander of US Africa Command, reportedly met with Major General Nimcaan Yusuf Osman, Somaliland’s Chief of the General Staff of the Somaliland Armed Forces, on Tuesday.

After the meeting, Somaliland officials said that “control near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea would significantly change the US approach to dealing with the Houthis and Iran,” according to Israel’s Channel 12.

Last month, Iran threatened to take control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — a key maritime chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden — using the Houthis, its proxy in Yemen and an internationally designated terrorist group. The waterway — an energy highway through which up to 14 percent of the world’s shipping passes, including 30 percent of container shipping — also functions as a strategic link between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea via the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

The US has a Red Sea base in Djibouti, but the government there has been less supportive of some of Washington’s policies. A foothold in Somaliland could be a major strategic asset for the US, Israel, and other partners in confronting the Houthis and protecting global shipping lanes, according to experts.

“Djibouti becomes an increasingly reluctant, unwilling ally to the US in helping enforce sanctions on the Houthis. Somaliland, which is almost equally well-placed to address issues on the western and southwestern coasts of Yemen, can help the US, Israel, and the UAE combat the Houthis,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former UK ambassador to Yemen and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in 2023, the Houthis have been routinely attacking Red Sea shipping, forcing shippers to avoid the waterway and thereby raising costs.

The US delegation’s visit this week came after Somaliland’s top diplomat in Washington expressed optimism about the prospects of US recognition.

“From [Capitol] Hill we have very good support,” Bashir Goth, who has represented Somaliland in the US since 2018, told Military.com last week.

In an interview with The Algemeiner in March discussing his legislation to support studying boosting economic ties, US Rep. John Rose (R-TN) said, “We think it’s in the best interest of the United States to develop a stronger relationship and to provide a path forward for what I would ultimately hope might be a full recognition of Somaliland as an independent nation.”

Last week, a spokesperson for the State Department issued a statement to Fox News Digital clarfiying that the US “continues to recognize the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the territory of Somaliland.”

In addition to countering the influence of Iran in the region, Goth also pointed out that support for Somaliland would serve to check Chinese interests.

“We sometimes call ourselves the Taiwan of Africa because we are in a similar position in global politics,” Goth said. “Somaliland is the only country in the Horn of Africa that is countering Chinese influence. We are the second country in Africa that has relations with Taiwan.”

In August 2017, China established its only overseas military base in Djibouti, where the communist government has established major influence as a significant creditor for infrastructure projects.

Beyond strategic interests, Somaliland has functioned as a stable democracy for decades, conducting democratic elections since 2003 with delegations from the US and Europe observing the 2017 presidential election. In 2024, Somaliland held one of only five elections in Africa, voting in an opposition party in a peaceful contest.

March 29, 2025, Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands: A pro-Palestinian demonstrator burns a hand-fashioned Israeli flag. Photo: James Petermeier/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

Antisemitism in the Netherlands remained at alarmingly high levels last year, according to newly published figures, as Jews and Israelis across Europe continued to face a persistently hostile environment marked by harassment, vandalism, and targeted attacks.

On Wednesday, Dutch authorities released a new annual antisemitism report showing 867 registered cases in 2025, a figure that remains at deeply troubling levels and virtually unchanged from the 880 antisemitic incidents recorded the previous year.

Even though Jews make up less than 0.3 percent of the Dutch population, anti-Jewish hate crimes account for 26 percent of all discrimination cases.

Eddo Verdoner, the Dutch national coordinator for combating antisemitism (NCAB), said the data reflects a worrying normalization of antisemitic incidents and called for sustained, coordinated action to address them.

“We have been recording hundreds of antisemitic incidents each year for years now. What I fear is that we are slowly getting used to figures that are unacceptable, that hatred is becoming the new normal,” Verdoner said in a statement.

“The figures once again paint a worrying picture, underscoring the need for decisive action in schools, online, and in the courtroom,” he continued.

The newly released report shows a decrease in violent antisemitic incidents, with 34 cases compared to 42 in 2024. However, local police registered an increase in antisemitic threats in 2025, with 93 cases compared to 88 the previous year.

Of the 867 registered incidents, more than 400 involved Jewish individuals or institutions in everyday settings, including residential neighborhoods, public streets, and areas around Jewish buildings and cemeteries.

In light of these figures, Verdoner called on authorities to strengthen enforcement and prevention efforts, prioritizing higher detection rates, expanding Holocaust education, and placing greater emphasis on Jewish life as a way to counter ignorance and prejudice.

“At the moment, Jewish life in the Netherlands can almost only continue thanks to the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, the police, and interventions such as cameras and bulletproof glass,” he said. 

Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, the Netherlands has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In one of the most controversial incidents, local authorities opened an investigation last year into Batisma Chayat Sa’id, a nurse who allegedly stated she would administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.

In another instance, Amsterdam-based Jewish columnist Jonath Weinberger publicly denounced rising antisemitism in health-care settings, saying she was denied medical care by a nurse who refused to remove a pro-Palestinian pin shaped like a fist.

“There is no other way to protect victims of harassment or discrimination unless you collect information about them,” Andrea Lucas, chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said at a conference on antisemitism and the law held at Harvard University.

As part of its investigation into antisemitism at Penn, the EEOC has demanded the Ivy League university produce a list of Jewish faculty, staff and students, along with personal identifying information. The school opposed the subpoena, saying the demand “raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns,” but an Obama-appointed judge recently ruled that the Trump administration was within their rights to ask for such a list.

Penn has appealed the case and this week asked for a stay on the court order, which would otherwise require them to produce the list by May 1.

The case has drawn fierce opposition from Penn’s Jewish community, including its Hillel chapter, and beyond. Free-speech groups have also spoken out against the demand, though some Jewish groups have argued it is reasonable.

Lucas, who is not Jewish, said she couldn’t comment specifically on the Penn case due to ongoing litigation. Her representative did not respond to requests for an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency following her talk.

But in broad terms she defended her office’s approach to antisemitism cases, claiming that for class-action employment harassment cases, any eventual payout would be dependent on having specific names of victims.

“At some point, either the government will know information about individuals related to their religion or we will not be able to enforce the laws on their behalf. I understand the sensitivities around this issue,” she told the crowd. “But fundamentally the Jewish community does have to decide: Do you want to have civil rights enforcement in this space?”

The conference was put on by the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal group that frequently defends Jewish and pro-Israel college students. It was held at Harvard as part of the terms of a different antisemitism settlement between Harvard and the Brandeis Center, related to the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian activism after Oct. 7.

Attendees were a mix of representatives from umbrella Jewish groups, including Hillel International’s lead counsel; sympathetic Jewish university faculty; and strongly pro-Israel advocacy groups including the Lawfare Project and American Friends of Likud. William Daroff, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, also spoke on a panel.

Lucas said she had to obtain information about “somebody’s affiliation with a religious organization” in order to determine potential payouts from any religious discrimination settlement her office might negotiate. She also claimed the list would give her a fuller picture of the victims.

“I have reason to believe there are victims there, but I may not know all of them. So there’s going to be information gathering,” she said, adding that the EEOC would do the same for Black complainants alleging discrimination.

The Brandeis Center’s founder Kenneth Marcus, himself a former Trump official, interviewed the chair onstage and praised her leadership of the office.

“I think that she has been a transformative chair of the EEOC, one of the most consequential civil rights enforcement officials that we have,” Marcus said of Lucas, who was nominated to the commission by Trump in 2020 and appointed as chair in 2025. The EEOC’s Penn case dates back to 2023, prior to Trump’s second term in office.

Not everybody in the audience agreed with Lucas’s arguments. Mark Rotenberg, general counsel of Hillel International, told JTA that Hillel echoed its Penn chapter’s concerns about the list.

“The government has many ways in which to ascertain the scope of the problem of antisemitism in higher education without forcing the universities themselves to create and disclose lists of Jews,” Rotenberg said shortly before appearing on another panel at the conference.

He added, “The idea that this topic, compiling lists of Jews, is just like compiling lists of women or something like that misses the important historical context in which Jews experience horrifying examples of being singled out by the government. And the Jewish experience with that is something that we believe the enforcement officials need to take into account when they choose the tools they use to deal with the terrible problem of campus antisemitism.”

Rotenberg said he wasn’t the only one in the room who differed with the EEOC chair on the issue. “I think people in the room were trying to be courteous to her and didn’t want to engage in an open debate with her on the merits of that,” he said.

Lucas did not directly address broader concerns from Jewish groups that “collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries,” as Penn Hillel said earlier this year. Instead, she addressed perceived privacy issues.

“I can assure you, though, that we understand the concerns and we take our confidentiality duties very, very seriously,” she said.

The EEOC is also pursuing an antisemitism probe against the University of California. The agency’s work is separate from other federal campus antisemitism probes at the Department of Education and other agencies.

Under Lucas, the EEOC has been more aggressive in pursuing antisemitic workplace discrimination cases — a cause the chair said she felt compelled to because of her interest in religious liberty.

“For me, religious liberty is a core thing the EEOC needs to be focusing on,” she said. “And combatting antisemitism is, of course, an integral part of defending religious liberty.”

The post At Harvard antisemitism conference, Trump official defends ‘list of Jews’ legal strategy in Penn case appeared first on The Forward.

“I just had excellent conversations with the Highly Respected President Joseph Aoun, of Lebanon, and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel,” Trump wrote in a Thursday post on Truth Social. “These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE at 5 P.M. EST.”

Trump added in a separate post that he was inviting both Aoun and Netanyahu to the White House for “the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1983, a very long time ago.”

He wrote: “Both sides want to see PEACE, and I believe that will happen, quickly!”

The announcement comes over a week into a separate ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which Israel joined but said would not apply to its fighting in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy, is based.

The announcement reportedly came as a surprise to even some of Netanyahu’s closest deputies, arriving a day after he told the country that he had instructed the army to deepen its fighting against Hezbollah. He told members of his cabinet on Thursday that Trump had requested the pause, according to Israeli media.

“We have an opportunity to reach a historic peace agreement with Lebanon,” Netanyahu told Israelis in a video statement announcing the truce.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the ceasefire in a post on X, writing, “As I congratulate all Lebanese on this achievement, I pray for the martyrs who fell, and affirm my solidarity with their families, with the wounded, and with the citizens who were forced to flee their cities and villages.”

Negotiating with Lebanon is complicated because it does not control Hezbollah, which began firing on Israel two days after Israel and the United States launched a war on Iran in February. Since then, Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel, causing widespread damage and prompting Israeli strikes across Lebanon as well as a ground operation in the country’s south.

A burst of rocket fire by Hezbollah shortly before the ceasefire’s scheduled start left at least one man in Israel seriously wounded.

A senior Hezbollah official told Reuters that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon had informed the group about a ceasefire. He said Hezbollah would commit only if Israel halted all forms of hostilities.

Iranian negotiators have insisted that the fighting in Lebanon must be included in any longer-term agreement with the United States and Israel, but Israeli officials have maintained that its forces will remain in Lebanon during the ceasefire.

Netanyahu convened a meeting with the country’s security cabinet on Thursday after news of the ceasefire broke, telling ministers that he had accepted the deal at the request of Trump.

“When Israel’s greatest friend, President Trump, is acting alongside us in close coordination, Israel cooperates with him,” Netanyahu said, according to Ynet.

The post Israel agrees to 10-day halt in fighting in Lebanon, after Trump announces ceasefire appeared first on The Forward.

Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon have a message that can sound utterly preposterous as violence hardens as the main mode of communication between Israelis and Palestinians: The Future Is Peace, the title of their new book.

They are dead serious — and bring their own grief and healing to the cause.

On October 7, 2023, Inon’s parents, Bilha and Yakovi, were killed by Hamas terrorists in their home in Netiv Haasara near the border with Gaza. Decades earlier, Abu Sarah’s brother, Tayseer, was killed by Israeli forces following a year-long detention for alleged stone throwing.

You might recognize Abu Sarah and Inon from the winter Olympics, where the world watched as they carried the torch together—the first Israeli and Palestinian duo to ever do so — or from photos of them embracing the Pope, a picture of brotherhood.

Their book takes readers on an eight-day journey through the region, from the streets of East Jerusalem, where Abu Sarah grew up, to the farmland in the kibbutz that Inon’s father tilled. Along the way, they meet other bereaved families and friends who have been touched by the conflict. They found that the resistance to engaging with the other side’s narrative came from a fear of erasing one’s own.

Agreement, they concurred during an interview in Manhattan, is not a prerequisite. “I think what we bring in the future is peace is that we show first you don’t have to agree on everything. It doesn’t matter if you are pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, there will be things you will disagree with, there will be language you will not be happy with, there will be things that you think we got wrong,” said Abu Sarah.

For them, non-consensus is the beauty of the book — and their relationship with one another. “Relationships which have no disagreement, by the way, are boring,” he added. “We often quote Pope Francis, who said, ‘The only place that has no disagreement is a cemetery.”

Inon suggests the skeptical reaction to peacemaking is a coping mechanism. “You’re protecting yourself from wanting to believe. You think no one knows how to take you there.” He added, “We talk along the journey about the importance of dreaming. What we realized is that when you don’t dream, the others, the extremists, are dreaming for us, and then their dream is our nightmare.”

Parallel paths to peace 

Abu Sarah’s experience living under the occupation and growing up in the West Bank led him to pursue anti-Israel activism.

At age 10, he watched his “protector,” the sibling he shared a bed with each night, succumb to his wounds from injuries sustained during his time in an Israeli prison. “All I knew was that someone had killed my brother, and I wanted to hit back,” he says in the book.

Following his death, and during the years spent living under occupation, Abu Sarah sought revenge. Eventually, when he realized it would be difficult to get a job without speaking Hebrew, he enrolled in a Hebrew language class — the first time he had ever met an Israeli who was not a soldier at a checkpoint.

As he began connecting with his teacher and classmates, he slowly let down his guard. Getting to know Israelis beyond the context of occupation gave him a new perspective and sparked his interest in peacebuilding. Eventually, he founded Mejdi Tours, leading dual-narrative trips across Israel with a Jewish counterpart, explaining landmarks through the lens of their respective communities.

Inon made his own journey to connecting across the divide, starting long before Oct. 7. As so many young Israelis do, he and his wife, Shlomit, had traveled the world after their army service. He realized that he had developed friendships with people in far-flung countries but hadn’t managed to make a single Palestinian friend back home.

Passionate about tourism as a means of connection, Inon decided to open a guesthouse in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel. When he first came to Nazareth, many were skeptical of him. “There were many rumors that I was a Mossad agent, or Shin Bet, even worse,” said Inon. Over time, he began to build relationships and trust in the Palestinian community.

The murder of his parents could have been the end of his mission. Instead, Inon recommitted himself to it. Just days after Oct. 7, Inon and his siblings publicly stated that they did not seek revenge against the Palestinian people for the atrocities committed that day. He even hosted a memorial service in Nazareth so that his Palestinian friends living in the city could attend.

While they had lived somewhat parallel lives, with both men working in the travel industry as a means for peace, Inon and Abu Sarah met only once, several years before Oct.r 7.

After Abu Sarah learned of the death of Inon’s parents, he decided to reach out. Inon’s immediate empathy was striking to Abu Sarah, for whom forgiveness of the other side took years. A friendship and partnership began. “I lost my parents on Oct. 7, but I gained Aziz as a brother,” said Inon.

I asked them what moments of tension have been like in their relationship. Inon said the two have managed to find common ground over shared values. But for a long time, he struggled to get on board with the value of justice, which is a priority for Abu Sarah.

“I kept telling Aziz, I don’t know how to bring justice to Tayseer or my parents. I remember President Biden saying that when Israel assassinated Nasrallah, justice was being done. But with the same bomb, 300 civilians were killed. So will it now be legitimate for them to avenge the death of … their innocent loved ones?”

Eventually, after discussions with religious leaders, Inon came around to embracing the idea of justice. He discovered that of the 613 mitzvot in Judaism, the only two that are mandated are justice and peace. “After learning that, I said Aziz, from now on, I can have justice within the values that I believe.”

Another disagreement they’ve faced: Abu Sarah’s love for country music — Inon can’t stand it.

A different kind of solution

Inon and Abu Sarah can seem almost radical in their commitment to dialogue. To some, their approach may feel detached from reality. They know that most Israelis and Palestinians do not think the way they do. But to them, the belief that violence is inevitable is far more difficult to accept.

“Loss, instead of making us want to walk away, makes us more convinced that this is the only path, “ said Abu Sarah. “Really, if we give up, then what we should do is go get a gun and shoot at each other. Because what’s the alternative? You either believe we can solve this by sitting and working it out, or you believe we have to kill each other, and we refuse to believe that alternative.”

Notably, only one page of the book is devoted to discussing a solution to the conflict in the literal sense. “Here are shelves of practical solutions, chapter after chapter about borders, about water resources, about Jerusalem, about refugees, about security arrangements,” said Inon, laughing about the Israel-Palestine section that has become a fixture of many bookstores following the Gaza war. For them, the book is less about prescribing a specific political outcome and more about laying the emotional groundwork needed to get there.

Abu Sarah and Inon did not want to close themselves off by endorsing a single political solution. “We don’t want to be in a box,” Inon said, explaining that neither of them feels strongly tied to one specific outcome.

“Our values are human dignity, security and safety for everyone, recognition of everyone … People want to argue with us, two states, one state, three states, monarchy. That’s less the issue. If that agreement is based on those values,” said Abu Sarah.  “Then we’ll be fine, regardless of the political ‘blah, blah, blah,’ if it’s not, you can have the nicest drawn map, and it will fail.”

Mocking the peacemaker 

While both men had been engaged in peace work long before Oct. 7, that day and the war in Gaza that followed changed the landscape. Colleagues and friends told them they could no longer find it in themselves to care about the suffering of the other side.

“Palestinian friends would say … this happened because of what they’ve been doing to us … Then I would talk to Jewish friends who would tell me, ‘I used to sympathize with you Palestinians, but from now on, I just don’t care,’” Abu Sarah said. “The moment you do that, part of your humanity dies. I prefer to have the pain of feeling than to kill that part of me that maybe makes it easier.”

Abu Sarah said that when he tells people he is a peacemaker, they are incredulous. “They go, Oh, well, how is that going? Like in a mocking way.” He compared it to those working to find a cure for cancer. “If you’ve met a cancer researcher who’s trying to develop vaccines… you would respond to someone who is trying to make vaccines, saying, ‘God bless you.’”

“Peace has been done many times. A cancer vaccine has not,” he remarked, laughing.

Inon recalled a memory of his father shared during his parents’ shiva. Every night, his siblings sat around the table listening to him — the manager of the kibbutz’s farm — talk about his day.

“He would share the catastrophe in the fields,” Inon said. “The floods, the drought, the wildfire, the insects. Every day there was something new.”

But he always had faith in next year’s crop.

“He would say that next year, he will sow again. It doesn’t matter how devastating this season is,” he continued. “He will learn from his mistakes. He will consult with other farmers … and next season, he will sow again — not with prayers, not just believing, but knowing that next year will be better.”

The post A Palestinian and an Israeli bereaved in violence make the case for peace appeared first on The Forward.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was part of the Global Sumud Flotilla seeking to deliver aid to Gaza and was detained by Israel, gestures as she is greeted by supporters upon her arrival to the Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, in Athens, Greece, Oct. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism published this week its official ranking of the 10 most influential antisemitic figures in the world in 2025, and the No. 1 spot was given to social media influencer Dan Bilzerian, who is running for US Congress in Florida.

The Armenian-American entrepreneur and US military veteran is a prominent critic of Israel and Judaism who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. He has said he wants to “kill Israelis” and thinks Judaism is “terrible.” He recently claimed antisemitism is a “made-up term” and there is a “big Jewish supremacy problem” in the United States. He formally filed paperwork earlier this month to run as a Republican and unseat incumbent Jewish Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s 6th Congressional District.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is the world’s second most influential antisemite, according to Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which highlighted her use of terms such as “genocide,” “siege,” and “mass starvation” in reference to Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip.

Third place was given to Egyptian comedian and former television host Bassem Youssef, followed by far-right American political commentator Candace Owens in fourth place and Palestinian-British journalist and editor Abdel Bari Atwan in fifth.

The list includes American imam Omar Suleiman, Denmark-based doctor Anastasia Maria Loupis – who has shared online conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel – far-right commentator and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and conspiracist Ian Carroll.

Rounding out the top 10 is far-right podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who regularly promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish influence.

Israel said the 10 most “prominent influencers in the global antisemitic and anti-Zionist arena in 2025” were selected based on “both the severity of their actions/statements and the scope of their influence” related to their activities last year. “Each of them has expressed antisemitic views or promoted false information related to Jews, Israel, or both,” the ministry explained. The list does not include individuals with formal political or government positions.

Each individual was ranked based on their influence on social media, but also other factors such as their repeated appearances on news channels, “perceived influence on public opinion, and prominence in certain communities.” The ministry also took into consideration each person’s “level of impact and risk,” which includes how often they upload antisemitic and anti-Israeli posts on social media. The report was released ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Hebrew as Yom HaShoah.

In a separate section of the report dedicated to antisemitic and anti-Israel influencers in the US, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs singled out YouTuber and children’s educator Ms. Rachel, who has “increasingly used her social media accounts to amplify pro-Palestinian messages and criticize Israel.”

“Her posts have been interpreted by pro-Israel organizations as one-sided and hostile to Israel, and organizations such as StopAntisemitism have accused her of spreading anti-Israel or pro-Hamas propaganda and called for an examination of her activities,” the ministry stated.