Thursday, 2 April 2026

NY Mayor and Wiki


https://nypost.com/2026/04/01/opinion/woke-wikipedia-editors-try-to-erase-the-posts-reporting/

How a handful of woke Wikipedia editors are trying to erase The Post and other outlets that don’t align with their worldview 

Wikipedia editors are helping politicians like Zohran Mamdani — and censoring outlets like The New York Post — by editing scandals out of entries.

For years, Mamdani has built relationships with the most radical groups in America. Before being elected mayor of New York City, he even went so far as to give a shout-out in one of the rap videos he recorded to five men convicted of financing Hamas — men who were held liable in federal court for the murder of a boy from New York City.

But Mamdani also has a solution, one afforded to far-left politicians: the media.

When The Post first broke the news of his infamous rap, mainstream media outlets ignored his pro-terror shoutout and instead focused on the cringe-inducing music, which Rolling Stone gushed over and Washington Post analyzed as part of his millennial bona fides.

Wikipedia editors are helping politicians like Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji — and censoring outlets like The New York Post — by editing scandals out of entries.James Keivom

What few realize is that this ideological Iron Dome doesn’t stop with the press. It extends into the infrastructure of information itself: Wikipedia.

In the early 2000s, Wikipedia was a novelty website that quickly evolved into the internet’s public square for shared knowledge. Today, it’s far more than that. Its data is training the AI systems that will determine our collective future. The thousands of seemingly insignificant editorial decisions by a small group of volunteer editors add up to a cohesive worldview — one that is shaping how our most advanced AI systems see the world. 

A look at some key pages on the site reveals the lengths to which Wikipedia editors are willing to go to shape Mamdani’s public image — and, critically, that of his wife, Rama Duwaji. Over the past weeks, disturbing revelations have surfaced that the now first lady of New York City liked pro-Hamas social media posts in the wake of October 7.

A report by the Washington Free Beacon found that Duwaji created a post on blogging site Tumblr with the photo of PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled, with a caption echoing Khaled’s own words: “If it does good for my cause, I’ll be happy to accept death.” Duwaji also liked posts claiming that mass rapes committed by Hamas during the group’s genocidal rampage through Israel were “fabrications.”

Rama Duwaji, the first lady of New York City, liked posts claiming that mass rapes committed by Hamas during the group’s genocidal rampage through Israel were “fabrications.” But on Wikipedia — and in the AI systems that increasingly rely on it — these details don’t disappear. They’re filtered, softened or reframed.@zei_squirrel / Instagram
The first line of the “Controversies” section of Duwaji’s Wikipedia page simple states that she liked posts “supportive of the Palestinian cause” after October 7.Wikipedia

She was also found to have used the n-word as well as a noxious slur against gay people. In the moral milieu of the left from which Mamdani and Duwaji hail, statements like these are disqualifying.

But on Wikipedia — and in the AI systems that increasingly rely on it — these details don’t disappear. They’re filtered, softened or reframed.

A look at Duwaji’s Wikipedia page shows how that works. The first line of the “Controversies” section states that she liked posts “supportive of the Palestinian cause” after October 7.

To be clear, Duwaji liked dozens of pro-Hamas posts tied to October 7 — some of the most extreme messaging circulating online at the time. But Wikipedia editors strip out that context and replace it with something safer, blander and far less accurate.

Rama Duwaji liked dozens of pro-Hamas posts tied to October 7 — some of the most extreme messaging circulating online at the time. But Wikipedia editors stripped out that context and replaced it on her page with something safer, blander and far less accurate.Instagram/@ramaduwaji
In old social media posts, Duwaji was also found to have used the n-word as well as a noxious slur against gay people.

It gets worse. A single Wikipedia editor, IvanScrooge98, used a series of bureaucratic maneuvers in an attempt to keep these claims off Duwaji’s article altogether. The editor argued that, because The Post reported on these events, they weren’t worthy of inclusion.

Referring to The Post, IvanScrooge wrote: “If we need to cherrypick specific information … we shouldn’t even be using [that source].”

That’s because Wikipedia classifies The Post as “generally unreliable” — effectively sidelining it as a source.

While this seems targeted, the reality is that it’s part of a broader structural bias against conservative sources on the site, which blacklists outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, Epoch Times and the the DailyWire. Outlets on the left — no matter how far — like the Guardian, the Nation and the New Republic are blessed with a “Generally reliable” rating. 

Wikipedia editor IvanScrooge98 used a series of bureaucratic maneuvers to keep these claims about Duwaji’s old posts off her article page. The editor argued that, because The Post reported on these events, they weren’t worthy of inclusion: “If we need to cherrypick specific information … we shouldn’t even be using [that source].”Wikipedia

Even Chinese state media, like the CCP’s own China Daily, gets a high ranking (“somewhat reliable”). Al Jazeera, controlled by Qatar, an autocratic state ruled by the Al Thani royal family, is blessed with a “generally reliable rating.”

This is how Wikipedia — the site millions trust for quick facts — is quietly shaping what you’re allowed to see.

On the page of Rama Duwaji, IvanScrooge98 repeatedly stepped in to shape the narrative. At one point, he waved off sourced reporting as a smear. In another, he dismissed edits as “Zionist vandalism” and claimed the information was only controversial “if you support persecuting Palestinians.”

The Post has reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, for comment.

Before being elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani gave a shout-out in one of his rap videos (above) to the Holy Land Five, who were convicted of financing Hamas and held liable in federal court for murder. After The Post reported on it, mainstream media outlets ignored his pro-terror shoutout to focused on the cringe-inducing music,YouTube/Mr. Cardamom

This isn’t just about New York City politics. In January, my reporting uncovered thousands of images and videos created by Iranian state media sources linked to the IRGC and uploaded to Wikipedia. I’ve found over 20,000 citations on the site using IRGC-linked state media as sources, and over 8,000 citations using sources linked to Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — as well as around 100 citations of Al-Qaeda-linked media.

Behind the IvanScrooge account might be a real person. Or there might be something more coordinated, along the lines of an anti-Israel Wikipedia influence operation I exposed that is run by a well-resourced activism group called Tech For Palestine. 

What’s clear is that this is not a good-faith attempt at achieving balance.

Instead, the account is part of a group of highly ideological editors working to push a far-left, anti-US, anti-Israel agenda. One small but representative example: IvanScrooge scrubbed the terms “murderer” and “terrorist” from an image of Che Guevara, a revolutionary icon linked to executions and political violence.

Wikipedia classifies The Post as “generally unreliable” — effectively sidelining it as a source. Outlets on the left — no matter how far — like the Guardian, the Nation and the New Republic are blessed with a “Generally reliable” rating.GoodPics – stock.adobe.com

Mamdani’s own page is no better.

His praise for the Holy Land Five — men convicted in a major terrorism financing case — is softened into a bland line about people who were merely “arrested and connected” to a certain foundation. Far from “arrested and connected,” these men, all senior operatives in Hamas’ far-reaching network, were convicted for channeling charity funds to Hamas in what remains the largest terror financing criminal trial in US history. The “arrested” men received sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years in federal prison.

If a story comes from a conservative outlet, it gets treated as guilty until proven innocent by Wikipedia editors. A familiar protocol is activated. Editors demand extra sourcing, with the assumption that a right-of-center source is simply invalid. The inclusion of the information gets delayed. There is debate and discussion. Information coming from the other side of the ideological spectrum sails through. 

When The Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, Big Tech didn’t debate it. They simply buried the story, blocked links, locked accounts and killed off any chances this piece of major breaking news had to inform voters looking to make their decision in the presidential election that was just days away. 

It’s similar to how, when The Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, Big Tech didn’t debate it. They simply buried the story, blocked links, locked accounts and killed off any chances this piece of major breaking news had to inform voters looking to make their decision in the presidential election that was just days away. 

In the aftermath of this censorship debacle, we were told that this was a one-off affair — a kind of lapse, a one-time case of overreach that wouldn’t happen again. In reality, the censoring of The Post’s Hunter Biden reporting became a template that is put to use on Wikipedia every single day. 

What gets reported by the Post and a range of important conservative-leaning outlets is instantly memory-holed by a system that’s been designed to do just that. It’s the equivalent of sending unwanted email straight to spam, regardless of whether the reporting is accurate, relevant or — let’s not forget — newsworthy. 

If the inputs into what is quickly shaping up to be humanity’s most powerful information architecture are skewed — if they are deliberately curated on sites like Wikipedia to boost one side of the political aisle and redact to erase another — the output will be too. And we’ve already seen where that leads and who it protects: politicians like Zohran Mamdani whose records are being quietly rewritten in ways that even the most expensive Manhattan PR firms could have once only imagined.

https://nypost.com/2026/04/01/opinion/woke-wikipedia-editors-try-to-erase-the-posts-reporting/#


Wednesday, 1 April 2026

Israel Imposes Death Penalty on Terrorists

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15694153/Israel-imposes-death-penalty-fatal-attacks-Palestinians-parliamentary-vote-executions-carried-hanging.html

Israel imposes death penalty for fatal attacks by Palestinians after parliamentary vote, with executions to be carried out by hanging


Israel's parliament has passed a law approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, with executions to be carried out by hanging.

The passage of the bill marked the culmination of a years-long drive by the hard-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the Knesset to vote for the bill in person.

The law makes the death penalty - by hanging - the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of "nationalistic" killings. Israel's national doctors' union refused to carry out lethal injections. 

It also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges, but applies only to those who 'intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel.'

This definition is designed to exclude Jewish terrorists, such as Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler who killed 29 Palestinians at a West Bank holy site in 1994.

It will not apply retroactively to any prisoners Israel currently holds, including the Hamas-led militants who attacked the country on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

After the final 62-48 vote in favour on Monday, lawmakers erupted into cheers and stood up in jubilation. Netanyahu, who remained in his seat, did not immediately react or speak.

Israel's minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, brandished a bottle in celebration

Israel's minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, brandished a bottle in celebration

After the final 62-48 vote in favor, lawmakers erupted into cheers and stood up in jubilation

After the final 62-48 vote in favor, lawmakers erupted into cheers and stood up in jubilation

Israel's firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who spearheaded the push for the legislation, brandished a bottle in celebration.

Hard-right lawmaker Limor Son Har-Melech, one of the bill's original sponsors whose first husband was killed in a Palestinian militant attack in the West Bank, smiled through tears.

The legislation, which says it will take effect in 30 days, is certain to face legal challenges that may stall its implementation.

Minutes after the bill passed, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel said it had already petitioned Israel's highest court to challenge the law. 

It called the legislation 'discriminatory by design' and said the parliament had enacted it 'without legal authority' over West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens.

This measure has been harshly condemned by the international community and rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane. 

Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute's Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, said that under international law, Israel's parliament should not be legislating in the West Bank, which is not sovereign Israeli territory.

Many in Netanyahu's hard-right coalition seek to annex the West Bank to Israel.

The vote capped a daylong debate in the parliament. During earlier deliberations, lawmakers raised other concerns, including how the bill does not allow clemency, contradicting international conventions. 

Opposition lawmakers at times appeared to plead with their colleagues to vote against the bill.

Before the vote, Ben Gvir described the law as long overdue and a sign of strength and national pride.

'From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the State of Israel will take their life,' he told lawmakers. 

On his lapel, he wore a signature pin - a small metal noose.

Ben Gvir wore a pin of a noose on his lapel as he described the law as long overdue

Ben Gvir wore a pin of a noose on his lapel as he described the law as long overdue

Palestinians hold placards as they take part in a protest against the execution of the Israeli death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks, in Ramallah

Palestinians hold placards as they take part in a protest against the execution of the Israeli death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks, in Ramallah

Gilad Kariv, of the Labor Party, condemned the bill's stipulation that a unanimous judgment is not required to impose the death sentence.

'A law in which a person can be sentenced to death without a unanimous conviction. Is this justice in your eyes? Is this the sanctity of life that Israeli tradition has taught us?' he asked.

The bill contravenes international law, he added, and risks turning Israeli soldiers and prison guards into 'war criminals against their will.'

Some, like Aida Sliman of Hadash, the leftist Jewish-Arab political party, left the chamber in dismay before the votes were complete.

Experts say the legislation has two key elements that will effectively limit the death penalty to Palestinians.

First, the bill makes the death penalty a default punishment for "nationalistic" killings in military courts, which try only West Bank Palestinians and not Israeli citizens. It says that only in special circumstances can military judges change the sentence to life imprisonment.

It gives Israeli civilian courts a greater degree of leniency in sentencing, with judges having the option to choose between the death penalty and life imprisonment.

The second element is how the bill defines the offense punishable by death: killing that rejects the existence of the state of Israel.

'It will apply in Israeli courts, but only to terrorist activities that are motivated by the wish to undermine the existence of Israel. That means Jews will not be indicted under this law,' Cohen said.

The foreign ministers of Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy released a statement Sunday urging Israel to abandon plans to pass the law, calling it 'de facto discriminatory,' and saying the death penalty was unethical and had no 'deterring effect.'

However, the US notably refrained from issuing a condemnation, with a State Department spokesperson instead saying: 'The United States respects Israel's sovereign right to determine its own laws and penalties for individuals convicted of terrorism.'

Though Israel technically has the death penalty on the books as a possible punishment for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime and certain terror offenses, the country hasn't put anyone to death since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962.

The Public Committee against Torture in Israel says the state has consistently voted in favor of abolishing the death penalty at the UN.

Israel's Shin Bet's security agency had - until recently - objected to the practice, believing it could spur further revenge plots by Palestinian militants.

Some opposition lawmakers worry that the bill could harm future hostage negotiations. 

Israel exchanged some 250 hostages taken during the October 2023 attack for thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

There is a separate bill under consideration dealing with punishment for the Oct. 7, 2023 attackers in Israel's custody.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15694153/Israel-imposes-death-penalty-fatal-attacks-Palestinians-parliamentary-vote-executions-carried-hanging.html

Tuesday, 31 March 2026

Elite Israeli Mountain Unit


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15692433/Elite-Israeli-ski-unit-Alpine-mission.html

Elite Israeli ski unit launches Alpine mission against Iranian-backed guerillas in disputed mountainous area on the Lebanese-Syrian border

Dressed in white suits and trekking over mountain tops the soldiers seem far removed from the Middle East conflict.

The frozen setting appears more akin to Arctic warfare but, in fact, the specialist Israeli troops were deployed on the mountainous Syria-Lebanon border.

Israel's elite snow warriors were seen for the first time last night after a mission to thwart terrorist attempts to seize territory.

The 'Alpinists' used their expertise in rugged landscapes and conducting covert operations in plunging temperatures.

The little-known Special Forces unit crossed on foot through deep snow from Mount Hermon in Syria to the Mount Dov area of southern Lebanon.

The slopes were so steep they could have been mistaken for Hollywood actors approaching the Bavarian Nazi fortress in Where Eagles Dare.

The Alpinists' reconnaissance mission required the specific skills that set their unit apart from the Israeli Defence Forces.

They also donned skis and accelerated their passage through what the IDF described as 'complex mountain terrain'.

Israeli troops ski into southern Lebanon from territory in Syria. The cross-border operation was the first of its kind by the IDF

Israeli troops ski into southern Lebanon from territory in Syria. The cross-border operation was the first of its kind by the IDF

Israel's elite snow warriors were seen for the first time last night after a mission to thwart terrorist attempts to seize territory

Israel's elite snow warriors were seen for the first time last night after a mission to thwart terrorist attempts to seize territory

The little-known Special Forces unit crossed on foot through deep snow from Mount Hermon in Syria to the Mount Dov area of southern Lebanon

The little-known Special Forces unit crossed on foot through deep snow from Mount Hermon in Syria to the Mount Dov area of southern Lebanon

For weeks, Israeli forces have been engaged in clashes with Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerillas in the area. But the terrorists cannot match the Alpinists' advanced techniques in winter conditions.

Mount Hermon straddles the Syrian-Lebanese border and was seized by the Israelis in December 2024 following the downfall of dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Israel maintains military bases inside Syria, a presence the government in Jerusalem insists is essential to intercept weapons deliveries.

Controversially, Israel is seeking to establish a forward defensive line through southern Lebanon to protect its communities on the other side of the border.

Israel considers Mount Hermon a strategic asset. The peaks have been christened the 'eyes of the country' and are key to protecting the sate from terrorist attacks launched in Syria and Lebanon.

The Alpinist Unit consists of hundreds of reservists specialising in combat and training in harsh winter environments. According to the IDF they use specialist equipment, including snowmobiles, and spend months training for covert deployments.

On Monday, the IDF said: 'The targeted operation was carried out in response to ongoing attempts by terrorist organisations to entrench themselves in the border area.

'Moving through deep snow and in extreme conditions, the specialist mountain commandos conducted a precise sweep from the Hermon ridge to Mount Dov.

'The successful execution of this cross-border manoeuvre underscores the strategic importance of the region and the IDF's determination to deny terrorist organisations any operational foothold.'

The slopes were so steep they could have been mistaken for Hollywood actors approaching the Bavarian Nazi fortress in Where Eagles Dare

The slopes were so steep they could have been mistaken for Hollywood actors approaching the Bavarian Nazi fortress in Where Eagles Dare

They also donned skis and accelerate their passage through what the IDF described as 'complex mountain terrain'

They also donned skis and accelerate their passage through what the IDF described as 'complex mountain terrain'

Pictures released by the IDF, some during daylight operations, others at night as seen through optical devices, captured the troops fighting the conditions as much as their enemies.

They were up to their waists in snow as they scaled a steep hill on a mission, described by the IDF, as intended to 'scan the area, collect intelligence and to locate enemy terror infrastructure in the area'.

Mount Hermon stands over 9,000ft tall and provides commanding views of surrounding territory.

The Alpinists are under the command of the IDF's 810th Brigade. When not launching penetrating raids into contested areas, they maintain a defensive posture to protect Israeli civilians.

The raid came as the joint US-Israeli campaign against Iran and its proxies entered its fifth week with no military or diplomatic resolution in sight. With US President Donald Trump expected to sanction ground operations for US troops, an end to the fighting appears far off.

Any US ground incursion onto Iranian soil would expand the war significantly and would likely be accompanied by further Israeli infiltration into Lebanese and Syrian territory, with the reservists of the Alpinist Unit pitted against Hezbollah.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15692433/Elite-Israeli-ski-unit-Alpine-mission.html


Monday, 30 March 2026

Harvard's Jewish Problem

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424773

Why are we not surprised? Harvard’s new Jewish Problem

The percentage of Jews in Harvard was once 25%, but that number has gone down to 7% of undergraduates for next year.


by Dr. Rafael Medoff


There was a time when Harvard’s “Jewish problem" was that many young Jews wanted to attend, but the university limited the number it would admit.

But the tables have turned. A new report has revealed that Jewish undergraduate enrollment at Harvard is down to just 7% of the student body, the lowest figure in more than a century.

The university is so worried that the dean of admissions and financial aid, William Fitzsimmons, announced that he will be making a special effort to target potential students in Jewish day schools. It will not make his task an easier that the faculty committee on Admissions and Financial Aid has among its members anti-Israel extremists such as Ali Asani and Maya Jasanoff.

Jewish students’ diminishing interest in Harvard no doubt is related to the prominence of such anti-Israel faculty members, and the well-known scenes of campus mobs cheering the mass murder of Israeli Jews and calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state. It’s not hard to understand why that would make prospective enrollees uneasy.

Harvard was not particularly hospitable to Jews in the 1920s, either, but for different reasons.

The American children of European Jewish immigrants, pursuing the American dream through education and hard work, gradually rose to about 25% of the Harvard student body in the years following World War I. That did not sit well with Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell and his colleagues.

In a letter to an alumnus in 1922, Lowell blamed campus antisemitism on the Jews. “The anti-Semitic feeling among students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews," the Harvard president wrote. “If their number should become 40 per cent of the student body, the race feeling would become intense…All this seems to me fraught with great evils for the Jews, and very great peril for our community."

That was why Lowell went to the Harvard Board of Overseers in 1922 with a proposal to reduce the number of Jewish students on campus to 15% of the student body.

Until then, admissions had been determined on the basis of merit, that is, grades and test scores. Lowell and the board devised new criteria that would allow “careful discernment of differences among individuals," as Lowell put it.

Under the new rules, a Harvard admissions officer could reject an application based on the applicant’s “character." Also, the applicant would be required to state his “race and color" and “religious preference," and would have to explain if either of his parents had ever changed their names-so that the admissions officer would know whose “character" required special scrutiny.

Applicants from New York City were classified according to whether their family name and photograph indicated they might be Jews. They were classified as “J1" (definitely Jewish), “J2" (probably Jewish), or “J3" (possibly Jewish). Thus Jews could be singled out for rejection without anybody having to explain that it was because they were Jews.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served on the Harvard board in the 1920s, later boasted of his role in this episode. He and his fellow-board members decided that “the number of Jews should be reduced one or two per cent a year until it was down to 15%," President Roosevelt explained to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the only Jewish member of his cabinet, in 1941. “You can't get a disproportionate amount of any one religion."

Lowell and FDR also shared an indifference to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. In his book The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower, Prof. Stephen Norwood described Lowell’s rejection of an offer by a charitable foundation in 1933 to pay the salary of a refugee scholar from Nazi Germany if Harvard would hire him. Lowell accused the foundation of trying “to use the College for purposes of propaganda."

James G. McDonald, the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany, requested an appointment with Lowell in March 1934. Lowell’s secretary told McDonald-according to the latter’s diary- “that he wasn’t interested in German refugees," and “that he was tied up the whole day," so therefore “couldn’t see me." But when Hitler’s foreign spokesman, Harvard alumnus Ernst “Putzi" Hanfstaengl, visited the campus three months later, Lowell found the time to have a friendly meeting with him.

In those days, Harvard rejected the Jews. Today, the Jews are rejecting Harvard. The plummeting Jewish enrollment actually began long before October 7, 2023, although the outpouring on campus of pro-Hamas sentiment following the massacre, and the administration’s tepid response, accelerated the trend.

According to a study by the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, in the years preceding October 7, Harvard’s history, political science, and social sciences departments offered a torrent of courses “promoting the view that the Palestinian people are innocent victims of Jewish (white) oppression and that known terrorist groups are simply ‘political movements’." It was that biased curriculum which planted the seeds for the eruption of pro-Hamas protests on camps in the autumn of 2023.

Following the October 7 massacres, dozens of student groups at Harvard endorsed Hamas, more than 100 faculty members joined the pro-Hamas “Faculty for Justice in Palestine" group, and the recommendations of the university’s task force on antisemitism were ignored, prompting some of its members to resign. The administration appointed, as the new co-chair of the task force, a faculty member who had accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing" and “apartheid."

Ironically, then, A. Lawrence Lowell’s prediction in 1922 that the campus environment would become hostile to Jews has indeed come true-not because the Jews provoked the bigots, as Lowell expected, but because anti-Jewish bigots, masquerading as anti-Zionists, were emboldened by the university itself to let their true feelings show. The dwindling Jewish application numbers are a natural response.

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424773







Sunday, 29 March 2026

USA Deploys Drone Speedboats Against Iran

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/03/27/u-s-unleashes-uncrewed-sea-drone-speedboats-iran/

U.S. Unleashes Uncrewed Sea-Drone Speedboats Against Iran — A New Era in Naval Warfare


The United States has for the first time deployed autonomous, uncrewed drone speedboats in active combat operations against Iran, introducing a low-cost, asymmetric naval capability that officials say has already logged hundreds of hours patrolling key waterways under Operation Epic Fury.

Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, confirmed to Reuters on Thursday that the vessels — known as Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC — have been deployed for maritime patrols as part of the campaign.

“U.S. forces continue to employ unmanned systems in the Middle East region, including surface drone assets like the GARC,” Hawkins told the outlet, adding that the platform has “successfully logged over 450 underway hours and more than 2,200 nautical miles during maritime patrols in support of Operation Epic Fury.”

The deployment marks the first acknowledged use of uncrewed surface vessels by the United States in an active conflict, underscoring a broader shift toward autonomous systems designed to operate at a fraction of the cost of traditional naval platforms while expanding surveillance and strike capabilities.

The vessels, built by Maryland-based BlackSea Technologies, are designed for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, but can also support mine countermeasures, communications relay, anti-submarine warfare, and the deployment of aerial and underwater drones.

Each craft can reach speeds exceeding 40 knots and carry payloads of up to 1,000 pounds, according to manufacturer specifications, offering a flexible platform capable of supporting a wide range of maritime operations at an estimated cost of roughly $250,000 per vessel — a fraction of the roughly $2 billion price tag of a U.S. Navy destroyer.

Officials have not indicated that the drone boats have been used in offensive strike roles, though their design allows for adaptation into expendable, one-way attack systems increasingly seen in modern conflicts.

The Navy has maintained a growing unmanned presence in the region for years, including through its Bahrain-based Task Force 59 under the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which focuses on integrating autonomous platforms and artificial intelligence into maritime operations.

The use of such systems comes as the United States and its allies confront Iran’s escalating campaign against commercial shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has effectively choked off normal traffic through missile attacks, drone strikes, and explicit threats against ships tied to countries it considers aligned with the United States and Israel.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Friday that ships traveling “to and from” ports belonging to countries it described as supporters of the “Zionist-American enemies” would no longer be permitted to cross the strait, regardless of destination or shipping corridor used.

The deployment also reflects lessons drawn from recent conflicts, including Ukraine’s use of explosive-laden drone boats against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, demonstrating how low-cost, hard-to-intercept systems can reshape naval warfare in contested waters.

The development comes as the United States weighs additional military options in the region, including the potential deployment of up to 10,000 additional ground troops, while continuing operations aimed at degrading Iran’s military capabilities and restoring freedom of navigation through the strait.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly rebuked European allies for declining to contribute military resources to efforts to reopen the waterway as the conflict expands and pressure mounts to break Iran’s grip on the chokepoint.

The GARC deployment marks the first acknowledged use of this class of uncrewed surface vessel in an active conflict.

U.S. strikes have already destroyed 92 percent of Iran’s largest naval vessels, according to U.S. Central Command commander Adm. Brad Cooper, further shifting the maritime balance as autonomous systems take on a more prominent operational role.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/03/27/u-s-unleashes-uncrewed-sea-drone-speedboats-iran/

The vessels can be used for both surveillance or kamikaze strikes.

Uncrewed vessels have risen ​to prominence in recent years after Ukraine used explosive‑laden speedboats to inflict significant damage on Russia’s ⁠Black Sea Fleet.

    In the Gulf of Aqaba

“The GARC is an emerging capability and part of a fleet of surface drones operated by US 5th Fleet to enhance ​awareness of what’s happening in regional waters.”

    The Strait of Hormuz