Eye on Extremism: May 14, 2026
Top Stories
Axios: U.S. wants to start implementing Gaza plan in areas outside Hamas control
The U.S.-led Board of Peace wants to start implementing its Gaza governance and reconstruction plan in the parts of Gaza that are not under Hamas control, according to a Board of Peace official and two other sources briefed on the issue.
The Guardian: Prince Harry calls rising antisemitism in Britain ‘deeply troubling’
Prince Harry has described rising antisemitism in Britain as “deeply troubling”, saying that while people were entitled to feel anger over events in the Middle East, there could be no justification for hostility towards individuals or faith communities.
CEP Mentions
Deutsche Welle: Architecture of remembrance and hope: Daniel Libeskind at 80
Not only are there several new projects in the works, but many of them underscore Libeskind's ongoing engagement with historical memory. Among them, the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) project, announced in 2025, will convert the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss' house into an anti‑extremism and education center.
Analysis
The Australian: ISIS Brides repatriation: Labor’s ‘no assistance’ lie
Having spent the better part of a decade as a card-carrying ISIS groupie, how does one manage to leave a Syrian detention camp and arrive in Australia without any government assistance whatsoever? That is a question I have pondered since four ISIS-linked women and their nine children recently graced these shores in a much-publicised homecoming. It was a remarkable achievement, given the federal government’s previous public announcements regarding this cohort. The ‘no assistance’ stance: A closer look
United States
Amid mobs clashing with police outside synagogues in New York City, and after a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice announced he would be abandoning the Democratic Party over its "acquiescence to Jew-hatred," Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., called out his party for its "antisemitism problem."
The New York Times deliberately published a Nicholas Kristof column accusing Israel of abusing Palestinian prisoners on the day before the release of a civil commission report documenting Hamas’s sexual violence on Oct. 7, according to Michal Cotler-Wunsh, CEO of the International Legal Forum. The former Israeli envoy for combating antisemitism told JNS that the paper was enabling a “blood libel” that could lead to violence against Jews.
A leader of an Eastern European neo-Nazi group was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for soliciting violent attacks against the Jewish community and members of minority groups, including a scheme to distribute poisoned candy to children during the holidays.
New York Times: U.C.L.A. Considers New Tactics to Combat Antisemitism
The University of California, Los Angeles, should toughen its approach to combating antisemitism, an internal committee recommended Thursday, after the Trump administration and many students and faculty members said it had not done enough to curb harassment of Jews on campus.
A prominent Jewish donor to Republican politicians is the target of a new ad about the Kentucky GOP congressional primary. The one-minute spot criticizes the candidacy of Republican Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal backed by President Donald Trump, who is running against incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s 4th district. Among Gallrein’s donors is Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge fund manager at Elliot Management.
JTA: At Jewish Democratic event, Jacob Frey says anti-Zionism can blur into antisemitism
Jacob Frey, the Jewish mayor of Minneapolis, decried some criticism of Israel during a Jewish Democratic event on Wednesday. Speaking at the national conference of the Jewish Democratic Council of America in Washington, D.C., Frey recounted visiting a local grocery store shortly after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
New York state Assemblymember Alex Bores’ father, a former union president, has worked to advance his son’s ambition to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in a heavily Jewish Manhattan House seat. But William Bores has spent campaign season raging online against Israel and Jewish people more broadly, even cheerleading the killings of Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Jewish Insider: Sen. Rand Paul’s son goes on antisemitic tirade against Rep. Mike Lawler
William Paul, the adult son of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), verbally accosted Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) at a popular bar in Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening in a lengthy, public antisemitic tirade, Lawler confirmed to Jewish Insider on Wednesday afternoon.
CBS News: Swastika flag raised at NYU, stunning many during graduation week
The NYPD is investigating after someone raised a swastika flag on the campus of New York University on Wednesday. A man walking in Washington Square Park in the afternoon noticed the flag flying above one of the school's buildings and notified CBS News New York.
The Democratic runoff race for U.S. Congressional District 35 has turned into a public fight over antisemitism allegations and who best represents Jewish voters.
Canada
Fox News: Non-Jewish professor says he was fired for calling out Hamas supporters in online post
A non-Jewish Canadian professor says he was fired from his university for defending Israel in a social media post as antisemitism exploded across Canada following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
Ireland
Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan accused Ireland’s public broadcaster of “disgraceful antisemitism” over its decision not to air this year’s Eurovision Song Contest because of Israel’s participation — even as his work will get prime airtime as a result.
Netherlands
NL Times: Intelligence service to investigate anti-asylum riot planning, support
The general intelligence service AIVD has launched an investigation into the recent anti-asylum riots in various places in the country, Minister Bart van den Brink of Asylum and Migration announced during a parliamentary debate, NOS reports. The intelligence service will look into whether these riots have more planning and support involved than concerned citizens showing up to protest.
United Kingdom
The Guardian: Met chief says British Jews ‘not safe’ in London after series of attacks
Counter-terrorism officers in London have launched 11 investigations and arrested 35 people after “a sustained period of attack” upon the Jewish community, the head of the UK’s biggest police force has disclosed.
London police said on Wednesday they would mount an “unprecedented” operation this weekend to prevent violence and serious disorder when two large protests — anti-immigration and pro-Palestinian — take place in the British capital.
Reuters: UK police charge second man over arson at former synagogue
Britishpolice said on Thursday they had charged a second man, a 31-year-old, inrelation to an arson attack at a former synagogue in east Londonearlier in May.
Reuters: King Charles visits Jewish area of London hit by antisemitic attacks
King Charles was greeted by cheering crowds on Thursday when he visited an area of London which has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent weeks, in a show of support for Britain's fearful Jewish communities. The monarch met two victims of a recent stabbing attack when he made the unannounced visit to Golders Green, which is home to a sizeable Jewish population and has borne the brunt of the recent antisemitic incidents across the British capital.
The Guardian: As the right moves in on antisemitism, where does that leave the Jewish left?
For some, antisemitism can only be confronted through broad alliances with other minority communities and anti-racist movements. But others increasingly view parts of those same spaces with suspicion, arguing hostility towards Jews has been minimised or tolerated within them.
The Telegraph: The far-Right has got a new weapon: glamorous young women
Not so long ago, the stock image of someone from the far-Right was easily summoned: they’d be male, obviously, and very probably bald, with steel-toe boots and questionable tattoos. Times, however, have moved on: this week, it was reported that the Government had banned seven “far-Right agitators” from entering the country to attend a Tommy Robinson rally on Saturday. Three are strikingly telegenic young women.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan International: Explosions & Aircraft Activity Reported Over Kabul
Local sources reported that explosions and gunfire were heard in Kabul early on Thursday, followed by the sound of fighter jets and drones flying over the Afghan capital.
Reuters: Taliban detains three journalists in Afghanistan, UN says
Afghanistan's Taliban government has detained at least three journalists on unspecified charges, the United Nations mission there said on Thursday in a statement that called for the protection of reporters. The three were the head of the Kabul-based Paigard News Agency, and two staff from Afghanistan's first 24-hour news channel, TOLOnews, media and rights groups said,
Amu: Young woman detained by Taliban in Herat, sources say
A young woman with a background in journalism has been detained by Taliban intelligence in the western city of Herat, local sources said on Thursday. The woman, identified as Habiba Salehi, was arrested on Wednesday, May 13, in the “Posta Number One” area of Herat City, the sources said.
Amu: Shiite cleric ‘beaten’ by Taliban in Kabul, council says
Afghanistan’s High Shiite Council said on Thursday that Hussaindad Sharifi, a known Shiite cleric, had been beaten by Taliban morality enforcers, confirming reports that had circulated in recent days and calling for measures to prevent similar incidents. In a statement posted on Facebook, the council said its representatives had met with officials from the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to discuss the case involving Sharifi.
Gaza Strip/West Bank
CNN: Gaza risks becoming permanently divided, top official warns
A prolonged stalemate in Gaza risks cementing the territory’s permanent division, a top international official overseeing the ceasefire has warned, as Israel deepens its control over the enclave.
BBC: Hamas can survive politically by giving up weapons and armed conflict, peace envoy says
<>A senior diplomat tasked with implementing Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza has said Hamas could survive as a political movement after handing over power, if it rejected armed conflict and gave up its weapons and military structures.
The US-Israeli war against Iran appeared to break out at an inopportune time for the Board of Peace tasked with negotiating Hamas’s disarmament. Just nine days earlier, on February 19, the US-led international panel overseeing the postwar management of the Gaza Strip secured $17 billion in pledges for humanitarian relief and reconstruction in the enclave.
New York Times: Top Gaza Negotiator Urges Hamas to Embrace Rebuilding Plan
The official leading negotiations with Hamas and Israel over the future of the Gaza Strip urged the militant group on Wednesday to focus less on consolidating its grip in the part of the war-ravaged enclave it still controls and more on embracing an international plan to rebuild Gaza.
Up to 80 percent of incidents that Israeli troops in the West Bank record are Jewish attacks on Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was told on Wednesday, amid an unchecked surge of deadly settler violence that has plunged the West Bank into chaos in recent months.
Israel
Three Israeli civilians were wounded, two seriously, in a Hezbollah drone attack Thursday in the Rosh Hanikra area, the military and hospital officials said, as clashes with the Iran-backed terror group continued hours ahead of another planned round of talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials.
Hezbollah drones are not affecting Israeli operations in southern Lebanon in any meaningful way, IDF officers told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. “The drone threat is strictly a tactical threat and not a strategic threat,” said a company commander in the Givati Brigade’s Tzabar Battalion, currently fighting under the command of the 769th ‘Hiram’ Brigade.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, one of the primary information sources relied upon by journalist Nicholas Kristof in his controversial New York Times op-ed, is a research institute headed by a Hamas member against whom Israeli security forces have issued an administrative detention order.
Syria
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: ISIS brides' arrest in Australia prompts anger in Syrian camp
In the wake of three Australian women linked to the Islamic State (IS) group being arrested upon arriving home last week, the initial reaction from inside the Syrian refugee camp where they had lived for years has been one of anger and frustration.
Yemen
Reuters: Yemen government, Houthis to release more than 1,600 prisoners in conflict's largest swap
The internationally recognised Yemeni government and the Iran-aligned Houthi group will exchange more than 1,600 prisoners, the office of the U.N. special envoy for Yemen said on Thursday, marking the largest release of detainees since the outbreak of the war in Yemen. The conflict erupted after the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention in supportof the government the following year.
Yemen Online: Yemen: Minister Reveals State Loss of Control Over Taiz Power Grid
Yemen’s Minister of Electricity and Energy, Adnan al-Kaf, disclosed Wednesday that the public electricity system in Taiz has fallen out of state control, with military leaders loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood seizing government networks and converting them into what is known locally as “commercial electricity.”
Yemen Online: Yemen: Soldier Killed, 2 Wounded in Houthi Drone Strike on Shabwa Defense Forces
A soldier was killed and two others injured late Wednesday after a Houthi aerial attack targeted Shabwa Defense positions on the Harib front in Yemen’s northeastern Marib province. Military sources told Erem News that units from the Sixth Brigade of Shabwa Defense, stationed on the front lines, came under direct fire from a projectile launched by a Houthi drone. The strike resulted in the death of one soldier and left two of his comrades with varying injuries.
Mali
AFP: Mali army airstrikes target rebel-held northern town
Mali’s army carried out overnight airstrikes on the northern town of Kidal, which has been under the control of Tuareg separatists and their jihadist allies since a large-scale offensive last month, the army and witnesses said Thursday.
Australia
The Guardian: Modern antisemitism built on old Jewish stereotypes and tropes, royal commission told
Old tropes about Jewish people – such as those found in the fraudulent and debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion – have morphed and been melded into modern-day antisemitism, the royal commission has heard. On Thursday morning, the royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion heard from Dr Dave Rich, the Community Security Trust’s policy director.
Palestinian voices are being excluded from the debate on social cohesion, the peak body for Palestinians in Australia has said after it was refused leave to appear before the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion.
Technology
A pro-Iran hacker group has claimed responsibility for a DDoS cyberattack against the Spotify music streaming platform on Tuesday, according to a report from the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security.
Young content moderators from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines gathered in Bali on May 7–8 for a United Nations-led workshop focused on addressing online harms in gaming communities and strengthening digital resilience across Southeast Asia.
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