Pro-Palestine activists target ‘genocidal’ Israeli hummus in shops

Pro-Palestinian campaigners are labelling pots of Israeli hummus stocked in British supermarkets as “profiting from genocide”.

The anti-Israel BDS movement – which stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions – calls for activists not to buy Israeli products in order to put economic pressure on companies operating in the country.

It claims on its website that the hummus and dips brand Sabra previously supported the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with donations.

The campaign’s website states: “Sabra hummus is a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that provides financial support to the Israeli army.”

However, The Telegraph understands that BDS’s website refers to a Sabra brand sold in the US.

Hamas has allegedly rejected an Israeli offer for a one-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, saying they wouldn’t discuss releasing the hostages until a full ceasefire first goes into effect, Egyptian officials said, according to the Wall Street Journal report on December 20.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political wing of the terrorist organization, met with intelligence officials in Cairo earlier today to discuss Israel's offer but allegedly said that he was there to obtain a full ceasefire and more humanitarian aid.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad would have been included in talks for the first time, however, they demanded a ceasefire before any negotiations begin. They also demanded all Palestinian prisoners be released in exchange for 100 hostages.

A wide generational gap is apparent in Americans’ views surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas, with the youngest demographic differing from the public at large, according to a new poll.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that two-thirds of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 believe Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated that way, while 73 percent of all voters said this notion is false.

Mark Penn, the chairman of the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, said that as additional research is conducted into the knowledge about Israel and Hamas possessed by 18-to-24-year-olds compared with the rest of the public, the more “unbelievable” the findings are.
He said the finding that two-thirds of the youngest voters view Jewish people as oppressors after 6 million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust “stands out as representative of [Generation] Z’s attitude towards Jews and Israelis.”

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But the youngest age group differed from others in how calls for genocide on campus should be handled. About three-quarters of all voters said students who call for genocide of Jewish people should face consequences, but just less than half of those 18 to 24 said the same.

The Hamas terrorist organization did what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not: Unite Israel – according to human rights activist Majed El Shafie.

Sitting in the lounge at the David InterContinental Hotel, the Egyptian refugee who converted from Islam to Christianity and now lives in Canada told The Jerusalem Post on Monday morning that he would like to thank Hamas for “showing the world the ugly face of extremism” and “for displaying the rise of antisemitism in Western countries – no one was aware of how bad it was. “And, I would like to thank them for uniting the Jewish people and activating them.”

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El Shafie founded OWFI, an organization at the forefront of conducting rescue missions for religious minorities across multiple countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. His human rights organization has helped liberate Yazidi girls from the clutches of ISIS and assisted the Uyghur Muslim minority in China.

“Hamas is determined to commit a second Holocaust in Israel,” El Shafie said. “We must not agree to a ceasefire.”

He said that the OWFI report is vital because it is not written by an Israeli or Palestinian, or by a Muslim or a Jew, but by a Christian with an Egyptian background.

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Tegin, who has more than 25,000 TikTok followers, is part of a group of Black Israelis in their 20s and early 30s who have been vigorously defending Israel online — and in English — since its war with Hamas began on Oct. 7. They are an informal but increasingly visible part of Israel’s public diplomacy, known as hasbara, which seeks to defend Israel from criticism and burnish the country’s image overseas, and kicks into high gear during wartime. (TikTok, especially, has become a major online battleground, with a recent analysis showing that pro-Palestinian hashtags are massively outperforming pro-Israel hashtags on the platform.)
While they each have their own politics and communication styles, these creators said in interviews that they are motivated by a desire to raise awareness about Israel’s diverse population. All of them except Aynaw, who did not respond to requests for comment, said they are creating Israel-related content on their own initiative, and that the government is not paying them to do hasbara on its behalf. (Like all soldiers, Tegin and Logan receive wages from the IDF to perform their regular military duties.)

“I was looking to show the world that as strange as it may sound, there are also quite a few Black people in Israel, and we live good lives, so there is no need to use my skin color as an excuse” to criticize the country, Tegin, who lives in Haifa, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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There are more than 200,000 people of African descent who call Israel home, including about 170,000 Ethiopian Jews, 30,000 asylum seekers (primarily from Eritrea and Sudan), 3,000 Hebrew Israelites (Black people who identify as descendants of the ancient Israelites but are not recognized as Jews according to Jewish law), and an unknown number of Black Jewish immigrants from the United States and African countries. There are also people who identify as Afro-Palestinian who live inside Israel’s borders.

Besides the asylum seekers, all of these people trace their genealogical or spiritual roots to the Holy Land. “Most of us see our return to the land of Israel as prophetic,” Moore, who was raised in the African Hebrew Israelite community in Dimona, said in an interview. (The community, which considers Israel to be located in northeastern Africa, is not connected to the radical “Black Hebrew Israelite” groups in the United States whose members denigrate Jews and Israel.)

Israeli security forces eliminated a number of terrorist squads in Gaza, and seized significant weapons, including a bomb that was found in a Shejaia medical clinic near a school, the IDF said on Tuesday.

The statement came with a video showing the device, found in a garbage can near the door to the clinic.

In a raid on terrorist infrastructure in Khan Yunis, IDF soldiers shot down a terrorist who had launched an anti-tank missile at Israeli forces. The IDF located a munitions storehouse containing explosive charges, weapons, and grenades, the statement said.

The IDF released photos of the seized weapons, as well as a vest with "UN" on the front.

Kamal Adwan Hospital director Ahmad Kahlot of Jabalya in northern Gaza has confessed to the Shin Bet that Hamas took over his hospital as a military operations center, it was revealed on Tuesday.

Kahlot told his interrogators that he joined Hamas in 2010 at the equivalent rank of a brigadier general.

Next, he said that many of the hospital staff double as members of Hamas’s al-Qassam brigades. These include doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other staff.

More specifically, he said that the hospital had 16 staff members who doubled as terror operatives for Hamas.

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday revealed the largest-ever Hamas attack tunnel discovered by the military, in the northern Gaza Strip, close to the Erez border crossing with Israel.

The tunnel, of which around four kilometers (2.5 miles) were uncovered by the IDF, goes down some 50 meters (165 feet) underground in some areas and appears to be wide enough for vehicles to pass through. It did not enter Israeli territory.

One of the shafts was found just 400 meters (a quarter mile) from the Erez Crossing, which until Hamas’s October 7 onslaught facilitated the movement of Palestinian civilians into Israel for work and medical care.

The IDF said that over the last few weeks, the Combat Engineering Corps’ elite Yahalom unit and the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade used “advanced intelligence and technological means” to uncover the “strategic” tunnel network, scan it and clear it of any potential threats.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a radical anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activist group that advocates for the boycott of Israel and eradication of Zionism.
JVP does not represent the mainstream Jewish community, which it views as bigoted for its association with Israel. JVP’s staunch anti-Zionist positions place it squarely in opposition to mainstream American Jews and Jews worldwide, most of whom view a connection with Israel as an integral part of their social, cultural or religious Jewish identities. JVP promulgates the view that Jews who identify even tangentially with Israel are motivated by white supremacy, Jewish racial chauvinism and religious supremacism.
The spread of JVP’s most inflammatory ideas can help give rise to antisemitism. Many left-wing groups have uncritically accepted JVP’s anti-Zionist claims, elevating their harsh rhetoric related to Israel and Zionism and furthering the widespread antisemitic vilification and ostracization of many American Jews who identify as Zionists. This has helped to create a hostile environment for Jews on many campuses and in many progressive spaces.

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In addition to JVP’s promotion of messaging that descends into the antisemitic vilification of “Zionists,” the group has expressed support for violence and, occasionally, classic antisemitic tropes. Some JVP members, leaders and chapters propagate rhetoric or sponsor events where participants express support for violence or terror against Israelis and vilify Zionist Jews. In a few instances, they have espoused blatant antisemitic tropes, including modern manifestations of the blood libel and allegations of Jewish dual loyalty to the countries in which they live.

In the weeks following the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, political activists have targeted elected officials – and their offices – with harassment and vandalism. Many of these incidents featured anti-Israel rhetoric, allegations of support for genocide and demands for a ceasefire.

Fewer than half of the elected officials who have reported being targeted by protestors are Jewish. All targeted individuals have expressed support for Israel, and most have spoken about the need to eliminate Hamas to secure lasting peace in the region. Several have also expressed concern about the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza. A week after protestors disrupted U.S. Representative’s Becca Balint’s (D-VT) fundraising event, she became the first Jewish representative to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

These incidents highlight the very real threats facing legislators who engage publicly on the Israel-Hamas war and underscore the fraught environment in which public officials are operating -- and the mounting pressure to perfectly calibrate every public statement.

Below, reported incidents targeting elected officials.