The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they unfold.
Sweden to map scope of racism; minister: ‘We see Jewish students’ school lockers marked with swastikas’ Sweden’s government says it is launching a project to chart the different types of racism in society and assess the level of Swedes’ intolerance towards minorities. Presenting the government’s plan, Gender Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg says she wants to focus in particular on the scope of the phenomenon in schools. “Racism and discrimination affect Afro-Swedish students at school… young Roma don’t dare speak out about their identity, and the (indigenous minority) Sami are victims of hate crimes,” the minister tells a press conference. “Teachers say they hear students uttering verbal insults against people because of their skin color, their religion or their ethnic origin,” Health and Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed says at the same press conference. “It’s deeply worrying.” The government therefore plans to map the scope of racism in Sweden, focusing primarily on racism against Muslims, Jews, black people, Roma and Sami. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the terror group’s devastating October 7, 2023, attack, has also led to increased racism in Sweden, the ministers say. “We see Jewish students whose lockers in school are marked with swastikas, we see young Muslims facing hatred and threats on social media,” Brandberg says. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRA), 2,695 hate crimes were reported to police in 2022, of which 53 percent were of a racist or xenophobic nature.
US President-elect Donald Trump names loyalist Devin Nunes, who heads his social media platform Truth Social, to serve as chairman of a White House intelligence advisory board. Nunes is a Republican ex-congressman from California who led the US House intelligence committee during the start of Trump’s first presidential term. He has accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation of abusing its powers to spy on a Trump election campaign official who had extensive Russian contacts. Trump says in his post that Nunes will remain the chief executive of Truth Social while leading the advisory panel. In 2018 while chair of the intelligence committee, Nunes released a controversial memo saying the FBI conspired against Trump when it was probing Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. “Devin will draw on his experience as former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the US Intelligence Community’s activities,” Trump says in a statement. The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), created in the mid-20th century, exists to provide an independent source of advice on the effectiveness of the intelligence community’s data and its data acquisition.
Heads of Shin Bet, IDF intel said to visit Jordan to discuss effects of Syria upheaval Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and the head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder, covertly visited Jordan and held talks Friday with Jordanian generals on the situation in Syria, according to several reports. The Walla news site says the talks were held with Ahmad Husni, director of the General Intelligence Department, and with other senior Jordanian officers. Citing three senior Israeli officers, the outlet reports that the sides also discussed the growing threat of weapons smuggling by Iran to via Jordan to Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank. Walla also reports that Jordan is a central mediator between Israel and the Syrian opposition groups currently working on forming a transitional government. Meanwhile, the Kan public broadcaster reports that talks come against the backdrop of fears in Israel that extremist groups in Jordan will be inspired by the Syrian rebels’ swift overthrowing of the Assad regime, and will try in turn to oust the Hashemite Kingdom’s ruler, King Abdullah II. Citing senior Israeli sources, Kan reports that top Israeli officials, including in the security cabinet, have discussed the possibility of what happened in Syria being replicated in Jordan, which would have major implications for Israel, whose longest land border is with Jordan.
Report: PM’s circle mulling new party that will take votes from Bennett but join Netanyahu bloc Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s associates are reportedly weighing the option of engineering the emergence of a new security-oriented party that will court the votes of right-wingers disappointed with the premier over the failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre — but that will join forces with the Netanyahu-led bloc after the next elections. According to an unsourced Channel 12 report, one of the candidates to helm the potential party is IDF former general Ofer Winter, who says his right-wing views halted his advancement in the top echelons of the army and who days ago launched an attack on IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi for allegedly refusing to tap him as Netanyahu’s military secretary. Opinion polls have largely shown Netanyahu’s bloc wouldn’t win a majority in the Knesset if elections were held now (no elections are currently scheduled until late 2026). Furthermore, former prime minister Naftali Bennett is expected to launch a political comeback ahead of the next election, a scenario in which Bennett is predicted to secure the votes of many on the right who don’t support Netanyahu. The report says the main goal of the possible future party is to compete with Bennett for votes, boosting Netanyahu’s bloc. However, the plan — especially now that it has apparently been leaked to the press — is not sure to go ahead, reportedly because the new party could possibly attract voters of current coalition parties, not just Bennett voters. Netanyahu’s office denies the report, while Winter doesn’t respond to a Channel 12 request for comment.
Group claims there have been dozens of Israeli strikes on Syria in a few hours Israel has launched more than 60 strikes on Syrian territory in few hours, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims. Israel fired 61 missiles at Syrian military sites in less than five hours Saturday evening, it reports, maintaining a campaign which started after rebel forces toppled president Bashar al-Assad nearly a week ago. Jerusalem says the campaign is needed to prevent the Assad regime’s extensive military arsenal from falling to jihadist rulers who could use them against Israel or to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon. SOHR, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.
ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million toward Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the US president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. As part of the settlement, the American news site posts an editor’s note expressing regret over Stephanopoulos’ statements during a March 10 segment on his “This Week” program. ABC will also pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito. The settlement agreement describes ABC’s presidential library payment as a “charitable contribution,” with the money earmarked for a nonprofit organization that is being established in connection with the yet-to-be-built library. “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” ABC News spokesperson Jeannie Kedas says. Trump, Stephanopoulos and ABC executives signed the settlement agreement on Friday.