(JNS)
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday in the first time that a Syrian head of state has visited the White House.
Trump spoke to reporters about the oval office meeting with the Syrian leader later in the day during a swearing-in ceremony for the new U.S. ambassador to India.
“He’s a very strong leader. He comes from a very tough place. Tough guy. I like him,” Trump said. “I get along with the president, the new president in Syria, and we’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful, because that’s part of the Middle East.”
Trump said that he expects a forthcoming announcement that Syria will join the international coalition to defeat ISIS.
“You can expect an announcement on Syria. We want to see Syria become a country that’s very successful. And I think this leader can do it. I really do. I think this leader can do it,” Trump said. “We have to make Syria work. Syria is a big part of the Middle East, and I will tell you, I think it is working really well. We’re working also with Israel on, you know, getting along with Syria, getting along with everybody, and that’s working amazingly.”
Photos posted by the office of the Syrian president on social media appear to depict a warm welcome for al-Sharaa, who was previously a member of al-Qaeda before rising to lead the Syrian rebellion against the Assad regime and taking over the country in December.
The discussions between the two leaders “addressed the bilateral relations between the Syrian Arab Republic and the United States, as well as ways to strengthen and develop them, in addition to a number of regional and international issues of common interest,” according to a brief readout of the meeting from Syria.
The photos show that U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine were also in attendance.
Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who lost two legs while serving in Afghanistan and is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Monday that he “broke bread” with al-Sharaa on Sunday evening.
“We had a long and serious conversation about how to build a future for the people of Syria free of war, ISIS and extremism,” Mast stated.
“He and I are two former soldiers and two former enemies. I asked him directly ‘Why we are no longer enemies?’” Mast said. “His response was that he wishes to ‘liberate from the past and have a noble pursuit for his people and his country and to be a great ally to the United States of America.’”
During the White House meeting, which lasted nearly two hours, the State Department renewed a waiver on most U.S. sanctions on Syria for an additional 180 days.
Video on social media after al-Sharaa departed the West Wing showed the Syrian leader greeting supporters outside the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue to chants of “Allahu Akbar” as the Syrian president donned a scarf thrown from the crowd depicting the Syrian rebel flag.
Image: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the first time that a Syrian head of state has visited the White House, Nov. 10, 2025. Credit: Social media post by the Syrian presidency. | Syrian presidency
Published on Mon, 10 Nov 2025 16:39:52 -0500. Original article link
(JNS)
French authorities arrested on Friday four suspects connected to the coercive disruption to a concert performed by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris the previous day.
Three women and a man were detained on charges of violence, destruction and organizing an unauthorized protest, Reuters cited the Paris Prosecutor’s Office as stating.
Activists were seen on videos posted on social media throwing flares and chanting pro-Palestinian slogans at the Philharmonie de Paris complex in the city’s northeastern 19th arrondissement, as audience members and security personnel tried to remove them.
VIDEO:
Protesters disrupt Israeli orchestra’s performance in Paris
Footage captured by a spectator at the Philharmonie de Paris shows a protester holding a flare, disrupting a performance by Israel’s national orchestra. The orchestra’s visit to the French capital had drawn… pic.twitter.com/oUDYP4NlqC
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 7, 2025
At least one hooligan could be seen dodging individuals who tried to stop him or her. The incident apparently lasted a few minutes.
The concert went ahead despite three interruptions, the venue said.
“I strongly condemn the actions committed last night during a concert at the Philharmonie de Paris. Nothing can justify them,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on X.
“I thank the personnel from the Paris police who enabled the rapid arrest of several perpetrators of serious disturbances inside the venue and contained the demonstrators outside. Four people have been placed in custody,” he added.
According to Le Monde, the disruptions began at around 8:40 p.m., when the Israeli orchestra, conducted by Lahav Shani, performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, also known as the “Emperor Concerto” in English-speaking countries.
A woman stood up, shouted, “Israel murders,” and hurled yellow leaflets into the crowd, which read, “Israel, you play the symphony of your genocidal army,” Le Monde reported.
The concert resumed after the woman was removed.
Standing ovation for the Israeli Philharmonic after their performance in France
The applause came after Hatikvah, the Israeli anthem.
Free Palestine tried to discriminate against these brave, talented musicians.
Our songs will never be drowned out by their hate
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) November 7, 2025
Another woman who attended the concert with her son told the newspaper that “five, maybe 10 minutes later, the orchestra stopped playing again. I saw a young man brandish a flare on the balcony. There were flames, it was striking. It could have been very dangerous. There were screams, an usher was in tears. I was really frightened.”
The Philharmonie de Paris said it had filed a police complaint, adding that it “deplores and strongly condemns the serious incidents that occurred,” France 24 reported.
The French branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, together with other anti-Israel organizations, had called on the hosting venue to cancel the concert.
The disruption joined a wave of anti-Israel actions throughout Europe over the past few months, pushing for a cultural boycott of the Jewish state.
In September, organizers of a classical music festival in Belgium canceled a concert by the Munich Philharmonic that was to be conducted by Shani, 36, the music director of Israel’s national orchestra.
In a statement announcing the concert cancellation, organizers said that the positions of Shani, the Munich Philharmonic’s Israeli conductor, “vis-à-vis the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv are unclear.”
Image: The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Lahav Shani. Source: IPO/YouTube.
(JNS)
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee who has a history of anti-Israel rhetoric, won the New York City mayoral race, the Associated Press reported shortly after 9:30 p.m.
At press time, with 75% of the votes counted, Mamdani had 860,327 votes (50.4%), followed by 704,866 (41.3%) for former Democratic state governor Andrew Cuomo running as an independent and 128,400 (7.5%) for the Republican, Curtis Sliwa.
The Republican Jewish Coalition stated that “it’s official. Zohran Mamdani is the face of the Democratic Party now.”
“Democratic ‘leaders,’ including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Gov. Kathy Hochul, have handed their party over to what was once the radical left wing fringe,” the RJC said. “This is a deeply distressing result for New Yorkers, particularly Jewish New Yorkers, but in fact this election will affect all of us.”
The Democratic Party “owns this election and all its results, and voters across the country will hold them accountable when they vote in 2026 and 2028,” the RJC said.
It added that New Yorkers now have “a mayor who will ruin their economy, their education system and their transportation system with communist fantasy policies.”
“They will have a mayor who took money from terror-supporting Islamist organizations for his campaign, who is virulently anti-capitalism, anti-police and anti-Israel, and who will not lift a finger to protect Jewish New Yorkers from the ‘globalize the intifada’ crowd,” the RJC said. “This is a dark day for the City of New York, and the Democrats own all of it.”
“The exit poll shows Mamdani up by about 7. Roughly 47% of the vote. Sliwa dropped a lot, but not enough for Cuomo,” wrote Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and host of the Beyond the Polls podcast, shortly before AP called the race.
“Mamdani wins every racial and ethnic group but really wins on the college-plus vote. He beats Cuomo among them by 20% while losing the non-college vote by only 5,” Olsen wrote. “He loses white non-college voters big, but carries non-white non-college voters by 7.” Olsen added that Cuomo “wins the Jewish vote by only 60-31.
Jewish community leaders told JNS that civic engagement among their constituencies have reached unprecedented levels.
Sydney Altfield, national director at Teach Coalition, an Orthodox Union program that pushes for government funding of nonpublic schools, told JNS that her sense, after visiting polling sites in Jewish neighborhoods in four boroughs on Tuesday, was that the election had “accelerated the progress of the last several years in the Jewish community understanding the importance of voting for our interests.”
“Tens of thousands of new Jewish voters have been registered, and we’ve seen engagement in all segments of the community,” Altfield said. “When the final numbers are in, we expect record Jewish voter turnout. The lasting impact transcends a single election. It’s a movement, not a moment.”
Scott Feldman, executive vice president of the One Israel Fund, which supports Israelis in Judea and Samaria, told JNS that Orthodox Jews in New York City have been motivated by concerns about a Mamdani victory.
Mamdani has accused Israel of “genocide” and said that he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if the premier came to the Big Apple.
“Mamdani is very dangerous to the Jewish community,” Feldman said. “He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Unfortunately, there are plenty of Jews who have fallen for his rhetoric, but he is really an existential threat to our community.”
“Everybody that I talk to in my part of the city, in Far Rockaway, are very, very concerned,” he told JNS. “The turnout at our local precinct is almost at the point, and I think by the end of the night it will exceed the amount of votes that were cast last year in the presidential election.”
Jewish organizations have spent months registering voters and on get-out-the-vote campaigns.
“We all realize the potential problems of a Mamdani mayoral election,” he said. “It’s not just about the Jewish community. We all feel that he would be a terrible mayor for the city of New York, for quality of life, for safety and security, for the police, for the real estate and housing industry, for the stock market and everyone who works in the financial industry.”
Although Cuomo had a nearly 30 point lead on Mamdani in the Jewish vote, Jews are just 15% of the electorate, according to Olsen, the polling expert. “No religions are 23% and Mamdani won them by 52,” he wrote. “He also won the 14% who practice non-Judeo-Christian religions (14%) by 43%.”
“The only income group Mamdani loses are those making $200,000 or more, and that by only 11%,” he said. “He barely wins among straight voters by 43-42. But among the 14% who are LGBTQ he wins by 64.”
Image: Wikipedia CC – Zohran Mamdani at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park on Oct 27th 2024
(JNS)
A delegation of 30 senior African Christian leaders from 10 countries across the continent was in Israel this past week on a joint religious and political mission, as Jerusalem increases its faith-based diplomatic outreach to tens of millions of Christian supporters in Africa following the two-year war against Hamas in Gaza.
The visit highlighted anew the growing diplomatic tug-of-war between supporters and opponents of the Jewish state in Africa. While South Africa has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of Israel worldwide, other African countries have pushed back and are now further strengthening ties rooted in a mix of shared interests and faith.
“We have a lot of haters and quite a lot of people who want to push us away, but they have one huge obstacle: they are going against the word of God,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told the African Christian leaders in a Thursday evening address in Tel Aviv. “We need counter-pressure on governments to support Israel in the international arena, and as spiritual leaders connected to your communities, you can make a change.”
The delegation included representatives from Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda and included bishops, pastors and prominent church leaders whose congregations alone encompass millions of followers throughout the continent.
During their five-day visit, the group met with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem, visited Hebron and Shiloh in the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria and toured the site of the Supernova music festival in the northwestern Negev, which was targeted by Hamas-led terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught.
‘Strategic partners’
“The Christian religious leaders of Africa are strategic partners of the State of Israel,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, who has spearheaded the diplomatic outreach to the continent with more than half a dozen visits over the last two years.
“The Christian community across Africa is strongly supportive of Israel and serves as a vital force in countering the spread of radical Islam and jihadism. Strengthening our ties with these leaders reinforces Israel’s standing in Africa, founded on deep, shared values that will endure for generations,” she said.
Archbishop Justin Badi Arama from South Sudan said, “Thank you for reviving a vision which has been a bit dormant, as we never took a political side to talk about Israel, only the spiritual side. The vision you have come up with has revived us.”
‘Intellectual terrorism’ against Israel
“There is an environment of intellectual terrorism against Israel in the African Union,” said Father Louison Emerick Bissila Mbila, a Roman Catholic priest and chaplain to the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, bemoaning the anti-Israel leadership of Algeria and Djibouti.
“At the same time, people individually in Africa want to come to Israel and pray for Israel. The moment they discover Israel, it will change their minds,” said Bissila Mbila, who is a citizen of the Republic of Congo and the Republic of the Seychelles.
Last year, Israel’s African allies thwarted an attempt by African countries, led by South Africa and Algeria, to strip Israel of its observer status at the 55-member African Union, a title held by other countries such as China, Greece, Kuwait, Mexico, “Palestine,” the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
“For quite a long time, Africa has been preoccupied with struggling to break away from the grip of colonialism,” said Pastor Robert Kayanja, who serves as an adviser to the president of Uganda. “Now the people of Africa are standing up to support Israel in a way we have never seen before.”
“We know Israel stands falsely accused when trying to defend itself against terrorism,” he said. “And all we hear on the news is ‘Gaza, Gaza, Gaza’ and they never talk about the killings of Christians in Africa.”
600 million Christians and 54 UN votes
With 600 million Christians and 54 U.N. votes, including 30 Christian-majority countries, Israel has homed in on the strategic value of religious diplomacy on the continent at a time of international opprobrium over the fallout from the war in Gaza, and continued persecution of Christian in Africa.
“This is the first time that [representatives] of the Church of Africa are starting to meet with the State of Israel and their counterparts in faith to reaffirm our common shared heritage and chart a pathway forward in advancing the interests of our communities,” Bishop Dennis Nthumbi, Africa director of the Washington, D.C.-based Israel Allies Foundation, which organized the event, told JNS. “This is a game-changer.”
Bishop Monday Muyombo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is fighting against the boycott of Israel in the United Methodist Church, said it is only a matter of time for change to set in on the continent.
“I am praying that more people will get a chance to come to Israel like us and see for themselves, because what is being portrayed in the media is not accurate,” he said. “As we say, lies come off the elevator whereas the truth comes off the escalator.”
Image: A delegation of prominent African Christian leaders visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Judea, Oct. 28, 2025. Credit: Courtesy of the Deputy Foreign Minister’s Office.
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