A 19-year-old Palestinian suspect was arrested on Thursday in the stabbing of an Israeli soldier earlier in the day.
The suspect, who has not been publicly identified, reportedly stabbed the 32-year-old reservist as he was waiting at a bus stop in Shomron Square in the northern West Bank. Reports said soldiers and civilians who witnessed the attack began firing shots at the terrorist; one shot ricocheted and hit a 26-year-old woman.
The soldier, who was stabbed in his face and upper body, and the woman sustained light-to-moderate injuries and were hospitalized.
All that has been revealed the suspect is that he is from Jamma’in, a Palestinian village in the West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman tweeted, “Exceptional intelligence and operational work led to the capture of the terrorist, hours after the attack he carried out at Shomron Square.”
An Israeli court denied 22-year-old American student Lara Alqasem’s appeal to enter the country, meaning that she can either appeal the decision to the Israeli Supreme Court or be deported back to the United States.
Alqasem has been detained at Ben Gurion Airport for the past 10 days due to her past membership and leadership positions in University of Florida’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is one of the organizations on Israel’s blacklist that they have barred from entering the country.
Alqasem and her family have downplayed her involvement with the SJP chapter, stating that while she has been critical of some of the Israeli government’s policies, she is not supportive of BDS; she just wants to study at Hebrew University.
However, the district court in Tel Aviv did not find her appeal compelling, according to the Times of Israel:
The judge, Erez Yekuel, found that there was “no disputing” that Alqasem from 2014-17 was a member of an organization that called to boycott Israel, and for two years was the president of its Florida campus chapter, and that the organization allegedly urged the “boycott of Israeli society” and expressed support for those who carried out activities to harm Israel.
He cited contradictions in her testimony, noted that she had wiped her social media history, and found that the state had the right to bar someone who sought to harm the country’s economy and image.
The ruling also stated, “Any self-respecting state defends its own interests and those of its citizens, and has the right to fight against the actions of a boycott… as well as any attacks on its image.”
Gilad Erdan, the Israeli minister of public affairs and security, also stated that Alqasem’s letter to him appealing his decision never actually renounced her past support for BDS.
Hebrew University, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and J Street are among the organizations that are calling for Israel to let Alqasem in.
The United States government has defended the Israeli government’s decision.
“As a general principle, we value freedom of expression even in cases where we don’t agree with the political views expressed and this is such a case,” State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said.
More background and nuance on the Israeli law in question and how it relates to Alqasem can be read here.
Rutgers University canceled a speaking event for Lisa Daftari, a regular Fox News guest and journalist with expertise in the Middle East, foreign affairs and counterterrorism, after some students accused her of Islamophobia.
Daftari, a Rutgers alumna and Iranian Jew, was scheduled to give a speech on Oct. 16 titled “Radicalism on College Campuses” and discuss free speech at universities. Some students objected to Daftari’s speaking event; Adeel Ahmad, who studies Art & Science at Rutgers and is the president of the university’s RU Progressives organization, started a petition accusing her of being an “Islamophobe”:
In a [2015] speech at The Heritage Foundation, Daftari remarked “Islamic terror takes its guidance and teachings from the Quran, which is Sharia law.” She went on to say, “When you go to the mosque and you’re part of a community, and you want to feel important and relevant, and want to give back to the cause — [ISIS] recruits you. You say- I can be an ISIS wife.” This statement, equating Muslims everywhere with ISIS, is undoubtedly hate-mongering. This is only a small sample of the type of harmful rhetoric Daftari has advanced and shared on various media platforms.
Rutgers University Student Assembly passed a resolution denouncing the school inviting Daftari to campus.
Daftari defended her comments to The Daily Targum, Rutgers’ campus newspaper, stating, “The quote they have attributed to me is part of a much longer talk about ISIS recruitment practices in which I recommend working together with the Muslim communities in America to isolate extremism. I have always differentiated between Muslim people versus the distortion of Islam in politics and radicalism.”
In a video of the speech cited by the petition, Daftari stated, “Islamic terror, as we know, claims to take its teachings and its guidance from the Quran, which is Sharia Law.” Before that, Daftari said, “What ISIS claims to be doing is to take the Quran and its teachings and Sharia law in a very literal way. What others, more moderates claim is that they’ve hijacked [the religion].”
Additionally, the Journal has learned that Daftari’s name and email address were used to sign the petition. The Journal has also learned Rutgers canceled the speech after initially defending the event out of fear that there could have been a security threat and they felt they had to be sensitive toward the students.
“By silencing me, you’re only showing me your own prejudice and your own intolerance toward different points of view,” Daftari said.
“I feel attacked,” Daftari told the Journal in a phone interview. “My name has been dragged through the mud… I’ve been invited to do briefings in Washington under Republican presidents, under Democrat presidents, I’ve been invited to the U.N… and to be called an Islamophobe after the years of reporting I’ve done on victims of human rights abuses in Muslim countries… it’s slanderous and unethical.”
Daftari added that students that had an issue with some of her past statements could have asked her about them during a question-and-answer session during the event and she would have been happy to address them.
“By silencing me, you’re only showing me your own prejudice and your own intolerance toward different points of view,” Daftari said.
Matthew Della Bella, a Rutgers alumnus, told the Journal in an email that it was ironic for Rutgers to pride itself on being an institution of free speech yet they canceled a speech because of “a previous denunciation of ISIS, whose long list of heinous crimes includes (but is not limited to) genocidal behavior against LGBTQ individuals, Jews, Catholics, ethnic minorities (see [the] Yazidis), and women.”
“If Rutgers should continue (as we all think it should & hope it will) for another 250+ more years with as celebrated a history, as the last, it must in times of conflict put values above cowardice,” Della Bella wrote.
In February 2016, then-Rutgers Chancellor Richard Edwards said in an email to the Rutgers community, “We strongly support the right of free speech—even the right to express views that are abhorrent to others—but expect our students to engage in civil discussion on important issues and to treat each other with respect.”
Andrea Vacchiano, the president of the Rutgers’ Young Americans for Liberty chapter and defended Daftari in an op-ed for the Targum, told the Journal in an email that Rutgers’ cancellation was “disgusting.”
“It is clear that Daftari is a courageous, reputable journalist who is far from hateful or Islamophobic,” Vacchiano wrote. “It is embarrassing that Rutgers is caving to students who took Daftari’s comments out of context. I’m already making arrangements to host her through my own club, Young Americans for Liberty, and I know there are also other clubs interested in hosting her.”
Neal Buccino, Rutgers’ Associate Director of Public and Media Relations, told the Journal in an email, “Rutgers University has decided to postpone the lecture by Lisa Daftari, scheduled for October 16. The university will continue to go forward on events that reflect a wide variety of perspectives.”
When pressed for further comment, the Journal was told that Rutgers has no further comment at this time.
Daftari tweeted in response:
LET'S BE CLEAR- this was not a "postponement"- that is public relations talk for a cowardly CANCELLATION. @RutgersU told me the event was canceled.
Ike Barinholtz (“The Mindy Project”) blends dysfunctional family comedy with timely political satire in “The Oath,” which he wrote, directed and produced. He leads a cast that includes Tiffany Haddish, Carrie Brownstein, Nora Dunn, John Cho, Jay Duplass and Max Greenfield.
The story revolves around a loyalty oath that the President asks all Americans to sign voluntarily, but it soon becomes clear that non-compliance will have dire consequences.
An already tense Thanksgiving gathering escalates into an ideological war, then takes an absurd and scary turn when government agents show up to question Barinholtz’s Chris, the one holdout in his family.
“Chris talks a big game, but when he’s faced with a threat, he doesn’t know how to handle it,” Barinholtz said at a Q&A session after an L.A. Times-sponsored screening of the film. He got the idea for the story from a Thanksgiving argument in his own family, “And we all voted for Hilary Clinton,” he said. It made him think how much worse it might be in a politically divided family.
While Barinholtz stays “true to myself and my side of the aisle” in portraying Chris, the film skewers both conservatives and liberals. “I don’t think you can satirize properly unless you shine a light on everything,” he said.
Barinholtz saved time and money by shooting “The Oath” in one location in Chatsworth, and even cooked the food for the dinner scene.
Given the contentious current political climate, “there’s a lot of catharsis” for the audience, he said.
I didn’t fully realize it until yesterday morning… You see, every time I opened my closet door, an avalanche of stuff would explode into the room. I did this so often that it was normalized.
But when I found that I no place to store important treasures because of the clutter, I opened my eyes. I spent the next few hours culling. It felt really good. But what about removing clutter makes us feel better?
There is a lesson from a 13th Century Jewish text called, “Sefer HaChinuch/ The Book of Teaching”: Our external surroundings have a huge impact on how we feel inside.
I thought of this teaching and realized: When we free ourselves from the slavery of clutter, we can more easily focus on our lives:
Do we make time for what matters?
Have we surrounded ourselves with good people?
Are we nourishing our days with art, music, literature, and culture?
Is there space for prayer and meditation, exercise and well-being?
Cleaning my closet did NOT take a moment in time! But the hours of labor allowed for a moment of rebirth of my spirit.
With love and shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
A change in perspective can shift the focus of our day – and even our lives. We have an opportunity to harness “a moment in time,” allowing our souls to be both grounded and lifted. This blog shows how the simplest of daily experiences can become the most meaningful of life’s blessings. All it takes is a moment in time.
Rabbi Zach Shapiro is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Akiba of Culver City, a Reform Jewish Congregation in California. He earned his B.A. in Spanish from Colby College in 1992, and his M.A.H.L. from HUC-JIR in 1996. He was ordained from HUC-JIR – Cincinnati, in 1997. He was appointed to the HUC-JIR Board of Governors in 2018.
