Jewish Onliner is an independent publication. If you find our work valuable, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You can also subscribe to us on WhatsApp and Telegram. Follow us on Instagram, Discord, and X.
Four days after the third anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack, Jewish Currents will convene an all-day political and cultural gathering at the Brooklyn Academy of Music featuring Fadi Quran, a former official of Israeli-designated Al-Haq, and Muhammad Shehada, who previously held a senior position at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, an organization Israeli authorities have identified as a Hamas front group.
The BAM program also features political streamer Hasan Piker on a panel titled “Can the Left Wield Power?” Piker said during a 2019 livestream that “America deserved 9/11,” a remark he later walked back. In September 2026, he told Axios that he considered the United States worse than al-Qaeda “pound for pound” when comparing deaths caused by conduct he characterizes as terrorism.
The October 11 program includes sessions titled “Confronting Israel From Within,” “Judaism and Genocide,” “The Palestinian National Movement After The Destruction of Gaza,” and “Know Your Enemy Live: Neocons, the Far Center, and the Politics of Jewish Reaction.” A day earlier, Jewish Currents will hold a separate text study at 651 Arts titled “Complicity, Inclusion, and Purity in Jewish Left Politics.” The BAM gathering also includes a concert and is followed by an off-site afterparty featuring music.
The description for “Judaism and Genocide” says Jews must confront the destruction of Gaza “this time not as victims but as perpetrators.” Another session, “Confronting Israel From Within,” asks whether Israelis can be challenged to confront what Jewish Currents calls the “genocidal consequences” of their positions.
BAM is a private nonprofit, but its public ties are substantial. New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs lists BAM as a member of the Cultural Institutions Group. The city says the group’s institutions are located on city-owned property and receive significant capital and operating support, describing them as publicly owned facilities operated through public-private partnerships.
Jewish Currents says the gathering is supported by the Ideas Workshop of the Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Krupp Family Foundation.
Speaker Worked for Israeli-Designated Al-Haq and Was Detained Alongside PIJ Leader
Among the speakers is Fadi Quran, whom Jewish Currents identifies as the founder of Thiqa. Quran is also a senior director at Avaaz and previously served as UN Advocacy Officer with Al-Haq’s legal research and advocacy unit.
Quran worked at Al-Haq while Shawan Jabarin was its general director. Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, citing AFP, reported that Jabarin was sentenced to nine months in prison in 1985 following a conviction involving recruitment for the PLFP.
Human Rights Watch describes the conviction more specifically as providing a service to the PFLP by facilitating the overseas travel of two members for training. HRW also records that the Israeli military later told courts, based on classified evidence, that Jabarin remained active in the PFLP.
Israel subsequently designated Al-Haq and five other Palestinian organizations as terrorist organizations in 2021 over alleged PFLP ties.
Quran and senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure Khader Adnan were also detained during the same August 2021 Palestinian Authority crackdown on activists demanding accountability for the killing of Nizar Banat. Contemporary reporting listed Quran and Adnan among four detainees released together after being arrested in connection with the Ramallah protests. The report identified Adnan as a leader in Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
A decade earlier, Quran participated alongside Bassel al-Araj in the 2011 Palestinian “Freedom Riders” campaign. Contemporary coverage lists Quran and al-Araj among six individuals arrested by Israeli authorities. Israeli police later said al-Araj directed a local terror cell and was responsible for purchasing its weapons. He was killed in a gunfight with Israeli forces on March 6, 2017.
Quran has also publicly described an unusual operation from his years at Stanford. In an April 2025 Arabic-language report, Al Jazeera reported that Quran assumed the identity of an Iraqi Jew named “Sami Ben Ami,” entered Jewish campus activity centers and received specialized training at an Israeli consulate. According to the report, he maintained the assumed identity for six months.
At the 2025 People’s Conference for Palestine, Quran said he was “going to be calling for a Palestinian revolt, insurrection” during a panel addressing Palestinian political leadership.
Speaker Held Senior Role at Hamas Front Group
Appearing with Quran on the October 11 panel “The Palestinian National Movement After The Destruction of Gaza” is Muhammad Shehada. Jewish Currents’ program identifies him simply as a writer.
The European Council on Foreign Relations identifies Shehada as the former chief of communications and programmes at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, where he held one of the organization’s senior public-facing positions.
Swiss commercial-register records provide a clearer picture of Euro-Med’s organizational history. The Geneva association currently registered as Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, was previously registered under the name “Observatoire Euro-Mid pour les Droits de l’Homme,” or Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights. The registry currently lists Euro-Med founder Ramy Abdu among members of its management committee and authorized signatories.
The earlier Euro-Mid entity was banned by Israel in 2015 as an unauthorized association and was subsequently designated under Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law over alleged Hamas connections.
Abdu’s name has also surfaced in Italian material concerning Operation Domino, an investigation into an alleged Hamas-financing network. A June 2026 parliamentary question entered in the Italian Senate record, citing Italian press reporting about the investigation, said investigative files purportedly contained material involving Abdu and alleged financial connections linked through his brother.
Shehada himself was pictured smiling alongside former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in a 2014 social-media post. The accompanying text identified Haniyeh as the former Gaza prime minister and leader of Hamas.
Jewish Currents Editor Who Discussed ‘Armed Resistance Against Civilians’ to Moderate Finale
The day’s closing panel, “Israel, Palestine, and the Future of the Democratic Party,” will be moderated by Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart.
During a May 2025 discussion at Harvard Divinity School, Beinart said Palestinian “armed resistance against civilians” long predated Hamas, pointing to violence carried out by the PLO, Fatah and left-wing factions including the PFLP. He cited the Munich massacre, the Ma’alot massacre and airplane hijackings as examples.
Once upon a time I was a contributing writer to Jewish Currents. I left (and was politely thrown out) when new editors declared for rabid anti-Zionism instead of a largely labor oriented journal of recent decades. At the retirement party for the past editor/publisher, I met some of the new team. Arielle Angel, after several years at the helm, left as editor-in-chief but her mark is there and taken to even further extremes. Peter Beinart is a bourgeois crybaby whose American Jewish jealousy
of Israeli men is so obvious. The retirement party was shortly before Chanukah. One new young staffer excitedly said the new JC should have a Chanukah party. The new chief editor (whose ‘creative writing’ MFA’s were obviously not in historical scholarship) exclaimed that “the Macabees were fascists.” Being a historian, I quickly asserted that fascism is generally considered a modern movement and not applicable to ancient societies. That if it was being used metaphorically, it better described the actions of the imperialist invading Assyrian Empire rather than the invaded tiny Israeli kingdom. Before walking away, I turned to the young man, smiled and said: “Have your Chanukah party.”
A few weeks later they did. Unfortunately it was to be an anti-Zionist propaganda event advancing Jewish culture and tradition without Israel. This upcoming event is farther out on a limb than even I would have suspected. When the Stalinist / Maoists (all needing calendars) come for them at JC, let’s hope Israel will receive them, as they did the anti Zionist Bundists escaping Nazism and then Stalinism. One editor left when JC made such a travesty of itself after October 7. He knew they went too far and actually went to live in Israel to be an anti-Likud activist, joining masses of Israelis in that quest, instead of condemning them all simply as “Zionist colonizers.”
shalom / salaam
Sadly, the phenomenon of the self hating “kapo Jew” is not uncommon throughout Jewish history. Whether through profound ignorance or some deep seated psychological need (ie Stockholm Syndrome or outright mental illness) such individuals turn their backs on their own people, land, culture and history. What they never understand until it is too late is that there is no great success in being on the last train to Auschwitz.