Columbia students hold canceled ‘teach-in’ to publicly praise Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities

Hiding their faces behind umbrellas, balaclavas and surgical masks, several students crowded into the lobby of the Columbia University’s School of Social Work on December 6, praising and justifying Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel.

Columbia Social Workers 4 Palestine, the student group that organized the event and labeled it as a “teach-in and discussion,” originally intended to hold it in a third-floor conference room. But after the school’s administration canceled it, in part because it officially hadn’t been approved, the group moved it to the school’s lobby.

There, students spent the better part of an hour defending the terror onslaught — in which Hamas gunmen mutilated, raped, burned, and murdered 1,200 people in a rampage through southern Israel, over 1,000 of them civilians, and seized 240 hostages — as a justified response to policies of the Israeli government, Jewish students who attended the event told The Times of Israel.

"On October 7, the Palestinian liberation fighters demonstrated their refusal to be dominated. They showed the world that the Palestinian people will fight for freedom instead of quietly adapting to subjugation,” said a student speaking at the event.

Photo targeting Ilhan Omar predates US congresswoman's birth

US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has voiced concerns about a rise in anti-Muslim hate in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, but a photo claimed to show the Democratic lawmaker with a rifle in Somalia is being misrepresented online. The image was taken four years before she was born.

"Do you know her @Ilhan?" says a November 8, 2023 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The post accumulated thousands of shares and includes a black-and-white photo of a woman holding a firearm. Text over the image claims it shows a "Muslim congresswoman at an Al' Qaida (sic) training camp in Somalia," Omar's birth country.

Similar claims circulated elsewhere on X, some published shortly after the 41-year-old politician from the state of Minnesota issued a statement denouncing what she called "a growing tide" of "anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian hate" in the United States 

Video Shows Putin Get Very Different Greeting Compared With Top NATO Leader

Russian President Vladimir Putin got a welcome with all the trimmings on his trip to the United Arab Emirates, which contrasted sharply with what greeted the German head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on his recent visit to a regional neighbor.

Following Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv's allies, led by the U.S., have sought to isolate Russia from the global financial system with sanctions. The International Criminal Court (ICC) to which the UAE is not a signatory, has issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader for the abduction of children in Ukraine.

But there was no sign he was a pariah on his state visit, which saw him receive the red-carpet treatment, including jets painting the colors of the Russian flag in the sky while his country's ensigns fluttered in the streets of Abu Dhabi as his convoy drove through, accompanied by cavalry.

This is how internationally 'isolated' President of Russia Vladimir Putin was greeted in the UAE," read a mocking post by the account of Moscow's mission in South Africa to X (formerly Twitter), next to a video demonstrating a greeting as warm as the Middle Eastern climate.

California cafe staff seen barring Jewish woman from bathroom where she wanted to film anti-Israel graffiti

Employees at a cafe in Oakland, California, were filmed in recent days denying a customer said to be Jewish from using the bathroom at their shop.

The female patron of Farley’s East was said to have complained to the staff about anti-Israel messages graffitied inside the bathroom and then wanted to go inside again to film the messages but was blocked from doing so by a staff member with blue hair.

“We’ve given you all of your food… I know Israel loves taking private property and saying it’s their own, but we got ahead,” a second employee is heard telling the female patron filming the interaction on her phone. “We have a right to refuse service.”

“Currently, this is a private property,” says a third staff member. “You’re also misgendering them, so I need you to leave.”

Fatah in freefall as Hamas and Israel wage war

Fatah, the largest Palestinian party, has seen its popularity plunge during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, from where the Islamists violently ousted rivals Fatah in 2007.

Fatah's chosen path of negotiations has not brought about the Palestinian state promised by the Oslo Accords of 1993, and Hamas -- after choosing violence instead -- has seen its popularity soar.

Fatah chief Mahmud Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority -- which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- since its creation in 1994.

But the PA is now weakened like never before, and Palestinian political divisions run deeper than ever since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Iranian regime accused of raping and violating protesters as young as 12

Iranian security forces used rape and sexual violence to torture, punish and inflict lasting physical and psychological damage on protesters as young as 12 during the country’s nationwide protests last year, a report says.

The report by Amnesty International is based on the testimonies of 12 women, 26 men, one girl and six boys who survived rape or other forms of sexual violence. Six survivors of rape were subjected to gang rapes by up to 10 male state agents, according to Amnesty.

Protests spread across the country after the death in custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in September 2022 following her detention for allegedly breaking the country’s strict dress code.

Security officials have arrested more than 19,000 people, and at least 500 protesters have been killed. These included children, according to human rights groups that have documented the torture and sexual abuse inflicted on those arrested.

Biden urges global condemnation of Hamas 'sexual violence'

AFP Tue, December 5, 2023 at 2:36 PM CST

US President Joe Biden called on Tuesday for global condemnation of what he said was "horrific" sexual violence by Hamas during the October 7 attacks on Israel.

Biden's comments come after campaigners in Israel have derided what they see as a muted international response to gender-based violence during the attack.

"The world can't just look away at what’s going on," Biden said at a campaign event in Boston.

"It’s on all of us -- government, international organizations, civil society and businesses -- to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation."

At least 2 injured after rocket hits Israeli residential building, authorities say

Rocket fire struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon, according to Israel's emergency medical service MDA.

At least two people -- a 67-year-old and a 60-year-old -- were wounded by shrapnel while standing in the parking lot next to the building's entrance, according to MDA, which said its staff provided treatment on site and transported the two victims to a nearby hospital.

Pope calls for reflection on feminine dimension of Church

Pope Francis highlighted the feminine dimension of the Church on Thursday, emphasizing the need for women’s perspective in theology. “Women have a different capacity for theological reflection than we men do,” the Pope said.

His extemporaneous remarks came during an audience with members of the International Theological Commission (ITC), which, as the Pope noted, is composed primarily of men.

The Church is woman

“The Church is woman,” he said, continuing his reflection. “And if we do not understand what woman is or what the theology of womanhood is, we will never understand what the Church is.” He described the "masculinizing" of the Church as a “great sin,” which has yet to be resolved.

The Pope appealed to a distinction proposed by Jesuit theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who described a “Petrine” or ministerial principle, and a “Marian” or mystical principle. “The Marian is more important than the Petrine,” Pope Francis said, “because there is the bride Church, the woman Church, without being masculine.”