Weekly roundup of world briefs

Elon Musk praises Israeli innovation as ‘number one in the world’

By JNS Staff

(JNS) — Elon Musk, considered to be the richest person on the planet, has lauded Israeli innovation as “number one” in the world.

“I’m a huge admirer of the innovation coming out of Israel,” Musk said Monday in video remarks at the Samson International Smart Mobility Summit at Expo Tel Aviv. “I think it is objectively true that Israel punches high above its weight for population.”

The owner of Tesla and SpaceX added, “My hat is off to Israel for just how much incredible innovation … I’d say innovation per capita, Israel must be number one in the world.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared video of Musk’s remarks in an X post, thanking “the world’s leading man in innovation.”

Musk was originally scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the conference, which was postponed from March due to the war with Iran.

He last visited the Jewish state in November 2023, when he toured Kibbutz Kfar Aza with Netanyahu in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and met with families of hostages and victims.

The two-day conference at the Tel Aviv Expo, hosted by the Israeli Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, brought together business leaders, innovators, policymakers and academics to explore the trends shaping mobility in the 21st century.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice leaves Democratic Party over Jew-hatred concerns

(JNS) — Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht announced on Monday that he has left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent, citing what he described as growing tolerance for antisemitism within the party.

Wecht, who said he was speaking in his “personal capacity” and not on behalf of the court, said his voter registration now reflects his judicial independence. A longtime Democrat who previously served as vice chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party from 1998 to 2001, stated that “the Democratic Party has changed.”

“In the years that have followed, that same hatred has grown on the left,” Wecht said, referring to the rise in antisemitism after the 2018 mass shooting at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh, where he and his wife were married and where he served on the board.

“Nazi tattoos, jihadist chants, intimidation and attacks at synagogues and other hateful anti-Jewish invective and actions are minimized, ignored and even coddled,” he said.

Wecht said he would continue to uphold the constitutional rights of “haters and extremists of all stripes” while remaining impartial on the bench.

“It is my hope that Pennsylvanians, and Americans, of all viewpoints and backgrounds will oppose and resist the scourge of Jew-hatred before it undermines what our ancestors have built here,” he said.

German nationals face potential felony hate-crime charges in Miami Beach over antisemitic graffiti

By Jessica

Russak-Hoffman

(JNS) — Florida prosecutors are considering whether to elevate misdemeanor charges against two German nationals accused of vandalizing a Miami Beach bench with antisemitic graffiti to a felony hate-crime offense, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office told JNS.

Miami Beach police responded to Lummus Park near 12th Street and Ocean Drive on Monday evening after park rangers discovered graffiti drawn on a public bench, reading, “Adolf was here” alongside a swastika.

According to police, the city’s Real Time Intelligence Center used surveillance cameras to identify and track the suspects to the Colony Hotel on Ocean Drive shortly after the incident. Investigators alleged that one man wrote the graffiti while the other shielded him from public view.

The suspects were arrested and identified as Christoph Rehak, 58, and Gunther Manfred Jekschtat, 63, both of Germany. Police said both men admitted involvement in the vandalism and were charged with criminal mischief.

“The 1st Degree Misdemeanor charge of Criminal Mischief more than $200 and less than $1000 is presently being reviewed to see if it can be enhanced to a 3rd Degree Felony under Florida’s Hate Crime Enhancement statute,” a spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office told JNS.

Justice Dept to form advisory committee to combat ‘rising tide’ of Jew-hatred

By Mike Wagenheim

(JNS) — The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that it will establish a new advisory body aimed at combating Jew-hatred nationwide.

The Anti-Semitism Advisory Committee will provide recommendations to the attorney general and Justice Department leadership on responding to what the department called the “rising tide” of antisemitism across the United States.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that U.S. President Donald Trump “has made combating antisemitism a top priority for this administration,” and praised Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department’s task force on Jew-hatred, for his leadership on the issue.

Terrell will lead the committee, which the department said will consist of “citizen leaders dedicated to combating antisemitism,” subject to Trump’s approval. Members will come from a range of backgrounds but share “a common goal of developing innovative solutions to address antisemitism across the country,” according to the department.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who oversees the department’s cases involving religious-liberty protections, stated that the administration “is using every tool available to confront antisemitic threats, support local communities, and ensure that radical activists and violent extremists do not intimidate law-abiding Americans.”

‘Son of Saul’ director says Jews are shunned in cinema

(JNS) — The director of “Son of Saul”, the Holocaust movie that won the Oscar award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016, said that the movie would’ve been ignored in today’s “shameless orgy of antisemitism.”

“I don’t even think it would make the [Oscar] shortlist today,” László Nemes told Jonathan Freedland in an interview at Cannes published in The Guardian.

Asked why, Nemes said: “Because of the politicization of cinema, because anything that’s Jewish is now considered... Nobody would touch it with a 10-ft. pole.”

“Son of Saul” follows a few days in the life of a Hungarian Jew who the Nazis forced to operate the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Nemes’s latest film, “Orphan,” focuses on a Hungarian-Jewish teenager who lived through World War II and the 1956 anti-communist uprising, which the Soviet Union crushed. The boy’s relationship with a paternal figure in his life exposes the duress his mother had endured during the Holocaust while he had been hidden in an orphanage.

Nemes called the new movie his “best work so far” but said he hadn’t found a U.S. distributor — in his opinion, because it’s about Jews. His film was “ignored in Venice” and “even some response from the media smells of an ideological standpoint,” Nemes told Freedland.

Nemes has directed another movie, his third feature film, “Moulin,” about the resistance leader Jean Moulin. It was selected for the Cannes festival. Moulin was a Catholic.

“There’s an orgy of antisemitism, an absolute, shameless orgy of antisemitism, overtaking the west,” Nemes told Freedland, whose newspaper, The Guardian, has been accused of promoting antisemitism in the guise of criticism of Israel.

Nemes condemned the “race obsession” and a “puritan, moralizing, self-righteousness” of the far left, particularly in the context of artists who single out Israel for a cultural boycott.

“I think it’s all anti-humanist regression,” Nemes said of the boycott campaign against Israel. “And because it’s not identified as this, I think it’s very effective at spreading.”

Senate advances resolution to halt Iran war

By Andrew Bernard

(JNS) — The Senate voted to advance a war powers resolution on Tuesday aimed at halting U.S. hostilities against Iran.

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted with nearly every Democrat to withdraw U.S. forces from the conflict with Iran and confirm that military action against the Islamic Republic has not been authorized by Congress.

Seven similar resolutions have failed to advance in the Senate in previous months. Cassidy switched sides for the first time on Tuesday, and the measure passed 50-47.

Cassidy lost his primary race on Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump accused him of “disloyalty” and backed one of his opponents. Cassidy voted to convict Trump during his 2021 impeachment over the Jan. 6 protests.

Tuesday’s procedural vote in the Senate discharges Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) resolution from the Foreign Relations Committee and faces additional procedural hurdles before final passage.

Three Republicans did not vote on Tuesday, making passage of the discharge motion possible. Two of the three, Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), have been deeply at odds with Trump.

Tillis announced in June that he would not seek re-election to another term, and Trump endorsed Cornyn’s opponent in the bitterly contested Republican Senate primary in Texas earlier.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to vote against the measure.

Trump would likely veto any war powers measure even if both the House and Senate passed it, but the loss of Republican support may reflect the war’s unpopularity.

A New York Times/Siena poll suggests that 64 percent of Americans think that attacking Iran was the wrong decision, while only 30 percent believe that it was correct.

Israeli economy contracts amid war with Iran but expected to bounce back

By JNS Staff

(JNS) — Israel’s gross domestic product shrank at an annualized rate of 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2026, according to an initial assessment published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Sunday.

The contraction of the economy is registered on the backdrop of the war with Iran, and is less severe than a forecast by analysts in the Finance Ministry who anticipated a 9.5 percent drop in GDP, financial outlet The Marker reported.

The contraction was also lower than the 4.3 percent annualized contraction of GDP in the second quarter of 2025, when June’s 12-day war with Iran took place.

The Bank of Israel estimates a rebound for the economy with 3.8 percent growth this year, if the conflict does not resume, according to Reuters.

The central bank’s forecast from before the war stood at 5.2 percent growth for the entire year.

Somaliland to establish embassy in Jerusalem

(JNS) — The Republic of Somaliland will establish an embassy in Jerusalem, according to Somaliland ambassador to Israel Mohamed Hagi.

“I am pleased to announce that the Republic of Somaliland’s Embassy will be located in Jerusalem,” Hagi stated. “The embassy will be opened soon, while Israel will also establish its embassy in Hargeisa, reflecting growing friendship, mutual respect, and strategic cooperation between our two peoples.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomed the move, thanking Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi for the decision.

“The opening of the embassy in Jerusalem will be another significant step in strengthening relations between our countries and nations,” Sa’ar said, adding that the agreement would be implemented soon and noting that it would make Somaliland’s mission the eighth embassy in Jerusalem.

“Mr. President, we look forward to hosting you soon in Jerusalem, our eternal capital,” Sa’ar wrote.

The announcement followed Monday’s ceremony in which Israeli President Isaac Herzog received Hagi’s diplomatic credentials at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, formally accrediting Somaliland’s first ambassador to Israel.

Israeli AI firm Decart raises $300 million at $4 billion valuation

By JNS Staff

(JNS) — Israel-based artificial intelligence company Decart has raised $300 million in a funding round valuing the firm at $4 billion, the company announced.

The round was led by Radical Ventures and included participation from Nvidia, alongside investors such as eBay Ventures, Adobe Ventures and Toyota Ventures. Amazon also joined as a strategic customer.

Private investors include OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and other global tech and business figures.

“NVIDIA. Amazon. OpenAI’s Andrej Karpathy. They’re all backing Israeli AI unicorn Decart,” Israel’s official X account run by the Foreign Ministry wrote. “Decart is building the future of real-time AI and world models, another example of Israeli innovation shaping the future of technology.”

Decart, based in Tel Aviv and founded in 2023 by former Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 veterans Dean Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, develops infrastructure for real-time generative video and interactive AI systems.

Board of Peace asks UN members to pressure Hamas to disarm, deliver more funding for Gaza

By Mike Wagenheim

(JNS) — The Board of Peace, chaired by U.S. President Donald Trump, wants the U.N. Security Council to pressure Hamas to disarm, according to a report of its activities viewed by JNS.

That report was delivered to the United Nations on May 15 and is set to be made public on Wednesday. It is slated to be discussed on Thursday during a U.N. Security Council meeting.

Through a resolution passed last November, the Security Council gave force to Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Israel and Hamas, and the proposed groundwork for Gaza’s future governance and recovery.

The Board of Peace cites Hamas’s refusal to disarm, as called for in the plan, as “the principal obstacle to full implementation” of the ceasefire, criticizing its “refusal to accept verified decommissioning, relinquish coercive control and permit a genuine civilian transition in Gaza.”

Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s high representative for Gaza, testified to the council last week that the terror group’s obstinacy is paralyzing progress.

Disarmament is supposed to go hand-in-hand with a phased withdrawal from Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces and the entry of a board-backed transitional Palestinian governing body, which has been stuck operating from Cairo and “has not yet been able to enter Gaza in areas that remain under Hamas armed control.”

Instead, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza has spent the reporting period “preparing the technical foundations of the transition, including the development of the legal, financial and administrative architecture of transitional administration, setting standards for senior civil servants, personnel procedures and building partnerships.”

Meanwhile, training for a Gazan police force “is ready to commence,” with Egypt “as the lead training partner,” the board says.

“Institutions, resources and plans are in place to take the next steps,” according to the board.

The board is now calling on the Security Council to “reiterate publicly, clearly and consistently that the decommissioning of weapons in Gaza is not merely a requirement” to end the war, “but critical for reconstruction to begin, for a time-bound Israeli forces withdrawal, and for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood to be pursued.”

An international security force under the board’s auspices has not started operating, even though the report said “a pre-deployment site survey” by the five countries contributing troops was completed in late April.

Hamas blames Israel for failing to uphold its end of the truce, including in allowing humanitarian aid to enter unimpeded and to allow a fuller flow of people around the enclave.

Mladenov “has underscored repeatedly that the ceasefire constitutes the foundation of the entire transition and that every violation, from whatever quarter, risks unraveling what has been painstakingly built,” the report says. The Board of Peace calls on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to honour the commitments they have undertaken.”

Money is another issue. While the board received $17 billion in pledges around the time of its inaugural meeting in February, the report states that “the gap between commitment and disbursement must be closed with urgency,” without identifying funders who may be lagging.

It’s also calling on U.N. member states and international organizations to step up if they haven’t donated yet and to get the dollars out the door.

“The faster the international community moves from pledge to disbursement, the faster the NCAG can demonstrate that Palestinian-led administration delivers,” the report says.