02/27 Links Pt2: Disdain For Jews Is The Sinew Of Identity Politics; Melanie Phillips: Poland v Israel round two, Labour party antisemitism; Run4Ari to Commemorate Ari Fuld HY’D in 2019 Jerusalem Marathon

From Ian:

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Disdain For Jews Is The Sinew Of Identity Politics

Omar’s anti-Semitism drew endorsements from white supremacist David Duke and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. If there is one thing white supremacists and black nationalists share, it is hatred of Jews.

Women's March co-president Tamika Mallory, a vocal supporter of Farrakhan's, naturally added to Omar's defense, parroting Farrakhan's specious indictment of Jews as being responsible for the slave trade.

Jews provide a convenient focal point for the American Left's hate. And progressive Jews, given a choice between their leftist politics and their fading Jewish identity, have joined the Hamas chorus, lending a twisted credibility to hackneyed tropes that have resulted in inquisitions, crusader massacres, pogroms, and the Holocaust.

Max Berger, co-founder of the anti-Zionist IfNotNow, calls on his fellow Jews to stand with Omar against AIPAC, which Omar alleges buys votes from her fellow members of Congress.

Berger and Omar are obsessed with AIPAC, using old tropes of Jews and money. But somehow the various Arab lobbies, including the powerful Saudi and Emirates lobbies, escape their concern.

For all of Omar’s trafficking in allegations of Israeli apartheid, there is actually an empirical measurement of racism among states. Muslim states tend to be racist and xenophobic.

But Omar's accusations bear no relation to facts — as fellow traveler Ocasio-Cortez has said, if you are morally correct, the facts don't matter.

Neither do they matter to those who seek to mobilize a mass movement built on hatred as the sinew that ties it all together. In this pursuit, both Omar and her progressive accomplices are of one mind. Jews should take note, for those who do not pay attention to history are known to repeat it.

Douglas Murray: Must We Really Be Careful What We Do Lest We Offend Extremists?

What is striking and controversial are the repeated interventions into the debate made by the government's own 'extremism commissioner', Sara Khan. Over recent years Khan has been a hugely admirable figure. The founder and leader of the women's group 'Inspire', Khan has shown a generation of British people – including, most importantly, young Muslim women – that it is possible to be resilient against the fanatics in their faith and also to argue for the rights of women. She has been an unarguable force for good, and has had to withstand appalling pressure from Islamist groups in the UK.

"It is, I think, completely misconceived to suggest that we should change our foreign policy because it might cause some people to take up arms against us. That's a form of blackmail...." — Michael Howard, former Conservative party leader

In 2006 a small group of peers, MPs and Islamist groups sent an open letter to the then-Labour government. The signatories included the subsequently jailed Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, the subsequently disgraced (over expenses fraud) Baroness Uddin and the then-MP, now Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. This letter suggested to the UK government of the day that British foreign policy "risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad." This is a commonly heard argument of course, and is especially commonly heard from various extremist groups.

Melanie Phillips: Poland v Israel round two, Labour party antisemitism

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired the latest developments in our crazy world. On our agenda this week: well, afraid it’s pretty much wall-to-wall antisemitism. There’s a lot of it about, alas.

We first of all discuss the row that blew up between Israel and Poland over remarks, made first by Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu and then by its new foreign minister Israel Katz, drawing attention to the complicity of Polish people with the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

As I wrote here, the Polish government tries reprehensibly to conceal the fact that there were Polish anti-Jewish programs before, during and after the Holocaust. But Poland today is warmly disposed towards Israel and its friendship is valuable.

As I say in this discussion, the way for Israel to handle this delicate situation (the second time this row has erupted) is surely to be both fair and unsparing: to insist that the Polish government is wrong to try to sanitise its country’s history of anti-Jewish hatred, while acknowledging that the Nazis slaughtered thousands of Poles too and that many Poles risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis.

Avi and I then go on to discuss the crisis over antisemitism in Britain’s Labour party from which nine MPs have now departed, either partly or wholly in revulsion at the leadership’s continued refusal to deal with this scourge.

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Lecture in Egypt on "Herzl, Imam of the Zionists"

There was a lecture this week at the Egyptian Opera House about Theodor Herzl, described in this article as the "imam of the Zionist."

,Dr. Adel Al-Sayyid, lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, just published a book about Herzl and he discussed his findings.

In the lecture, the author said that the rush of some Arab rulers today to cooperate with Israel without solving the basic question of Palestine will not contribute to resolving the crisis and will not end the conflict and the dispute between Jews And the Arabs.

Al-Sayyid emphasized that if only the Jews would have moved to Argentina or Chile, then the Jewish problem in Europe would have been solved and there would be no Israel to cause such problems.

The lecture discussed Herzl's motivation for Zionism but does not mention the Dreyfus Affair. Therefore, the author could say that the only antisemitism was in Tsarist Russia and the Western European Zionists planned to use Russian Jews as cheap labor to build the land.

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The Forward publishes another stupid anti-Israel argument by a BDS activist

Yousef Munayyer, a BDS activist for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, wrote an absurd op-ed that The Forward naturally felt had merit.

Here's his main argument:

The truth is that no state has a “right to exist” — not Israel, not Palestine, not the United States. Neither do Zimbabwe, Chile, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg have a “right to exist.”

States do exist; there are about 200 in our world today, even though there are thousands of ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic groups.

And these states don’t exist because they have a “right” to. They exist because certain groups of people amassed enough political and material power to make territorial claims and establish governments, sometimes with the consent of those already living there and, oftentimes, at their expense.

Most people understand this. I’ve never heard anyone demand to know whether Switzerland, or even the United States, has “a right to exist.” States come and go over time; borders can change, names can change, regimes can change and yes, discriminatory systems underpinning regimes can change, too. But one state demands to be beyond reproach through a mythical “right to exist”: Israel.

Can you imagine asking indigenous Americans and indigenous rights activists — fighting for the rights of a population whose languages, societies, culture and possessions were categorically decimated in the process of erecting the United States — whether the United States has a “right to exist”?

That you can’t imagine this is testimony to the disingenuousness of the question. For this question is asked — almost always of critics of Israel’s policies — not for the purposes of debate and discourse, but rather, to create a gotcha moment, to undermine the credibility of the person questioned.

It is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies.

This is an amazing twisting of the truth.  Israel is the only nation whose right to existence is regularly questioned, and Munayyer twists this into making it sound like only Israel insists on the right to exist!

Munayyer's assertion that no state has the right to exist is flat out wrong. The concept of a nation's right to exist pre-dates Israel, as Wikipedia notes:

The  right to exist is said to be an attribute of nations. According to an essay by the nineteenth century French philosopher Ernest Renan, a state has the right to exist when individuals are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the community it represents.
... Proponents of the right to exist trace it back to the "right of existence", said to be a fundamental right of states recognized by writers on international law for hundreds of years.... The phrase gained enormous usage in reference to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. "If Turkey has a right to exist – and the Powers are very prompt to assert that she has – she possesses an equally good right to defend herself against all attempts to imperil her political existence," wrote Eliakim and Robert Littell in 1903. In many cases, a nation's right to exist is not questioned, and is therefore not asserted.

That last sentence demolishes Munayyer's core argument. (The Wikipedia article goes over other states and aspiring states that assert a right to exist, including "Palestine," which also demolishes his argument that only Israel insists on that right.)

Does anyone question Israel's right to exist? Um, yeah. Every day. Including Munayyer's BDS buddies like Omar Barghouti.  But proof of Israel's right to exist can be seen, ironically, from Yasir Arafat:

 In 1993, there was an official exchange of letters between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Arafat, in which Arafat declared that "the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid."

The unquestioned Palestinian leader admits that he did not agree for most of his life that Israel has the right to exist, and then he claimed he accepted that right.

Munayyer is disproved by the leader of the Palestinians that he claims he is supporting.

But, since Munayyer declares the question of Israel's right to exist to be a "bullshit question," let's cut through the bullshit.

When people talk about Israel's right to exist, it implicitly means Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. That is, of course, Israel's purpose, to be a refuge for Jews around the world. (Arafat, of course, tried to thread the needle by saying he accepts the State of Israel but not its purpose.)

Munayyer emphatically rejects that right of a Jewish state to exist.

Asking the question whether Israel has the right to exist isn't a "gotcha" question - it is a question asking whether the Jewish people have the right of self determination, like all other peoples, and can say that Israel fulfills that right.  Those who answer "no" are antisemites, and their refusal to accept Israel's existence is proof of their bigotry.

That is what Munayyer objects to. The question that he refuses to answer reveals that he, and the people on his side, are bigots.

It isn't intellectually dishonest to ask that question - it is intellectually dishonest to refuse to answer.

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01/07 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: How western humbug gives antisemitism a free pass; How Chaim Weizmann Crafted the First Arab-Zionist Alliance

From Ian:

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Melanie Phillips: How western humbug gives antisemitism a free pass

Of course they don’t accept that calling Israel’s policies racist and criminal is an example of antisemitism. But it is. That’s because it singles out Israel for an obsessional campaign of double standards, demonisation and delegitimisation based solely on malevolent falsehoods, distortion and selective reporting – treatment afforded to no other country, people or cause.

At the same time, such people ignore the true racism, prejudice and antisemitism displayed by Palestinians. They ignore the constant incitement to murder Jews, the relentless terror attacks against Israelis, the Nazi style deranged discourse demonising not just the State of Israel but also the Jewish people as a source of cosmic conspiracies and evil intent.

There was recently a graphic example of this egregious double standard. Jamil Tamimi was jailed for 18 years at Jerusalem district court for the murder of 21 year old British student Hannah Bladon whom he stabbed repeatedly with a seven-inch knife.

Her parents were outraged by what they as an unjustifiably lenient sentence. But the court had found that Tamimi was mentally ill, possibly trying to provoke the police into shooting him dead by stabbing someone. “This was not a terrorist incident,” the prosecutor told the court. “This was a terrible murder carried out by a mentally ill person.”

A few days later a Palestinian Arab, Issam Akel, did get a life sentence. He was convicted at Ramallah high court, in the Palestinian-run territories, of acting to broker the sale of a house in the Muslim quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to a Jewish organisation.

Palestinian law deems it treasonous to sell land to Jews, a crime for which the maximum penalty is execution. It was commuted here to a life sentence with hard labour, possibly because Akel also held American citizenship.

So Israel showed leniency to a Palestinian Arab convicted of murder – while the Palestinians imposed a far harsher sentence on a Palestinian convicted of selling land to a Jew.

The Israelis saw the killer as a person just like any other human being whose mental illness had diminished his moral agency; they treated him accordingly with a total absence of racism. The Palestinians jailed for life a Palestinian who had dared reject the racist law requiring him to discriminate against Jews. The Palestinians thus made not just the Jewish people a victim of their antisemitism but one of their own, too.

How Chaim Weizmann Crafted the First Arab-Zionist Alliance

“No true Arab can be suspicious or afraid of Jewish nationalism. . . . We are demanding Arab freedom and we would show ourselves unworthy of it if we did not now, as I do, say to the Jews—welcome back home.” These words were spoken by Faisal al-Hashemi—the future king of Iraq—at a banquet in honor of Chaim Weizmann on December 29, 1918. T.E. Lawrence (a/k/a “Lawrence of Arabia”) served as the translator. While many today see the Israeli-Arab conflict as both eternal and inevitable, the idea of an alliance between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East seemed perfectly natural to Weizmann and to Faisal, who were seen by the British empire as the representatives of their respective peoples. Rick Richman tells the story of this alliance:

On January 3, 1919, a few weeks after World War I ended, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met with Emir Faisal, the commander-in-chief of the Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire, at a London hotel. . . . At the meeting, Weizmann and Faisal signed an agreement, brokered over the preceding month by Lawrence, exchanging Arab acceptance of the Balfour Declaration for Zionist support of an Arab state in the rest of the Ottoman lands. In February, they traveled to the Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allies would remap Europe and the Middle East, and made complementary presentations about the future of the region. . . .

Faisal and his father, [King Hussein of the Hejaz], believed Zionism would bring financial resources and technical expertise to Palestine, transforming the economic circumstances of the Arabs in both Palestine and beyond. In January 1918, D.G. Hogarth, director of Britain’s Arab Bureau in Cairo, had traveled to Jedda to deliver to King Hussein a formal message regarding British policy: the Arabs would be given “full opportunity of once again forming a nation,” and “no obstacle should be put in the way” of the return of the Jews to Palestine. All holy sites would be protected, and the religious and political rights of all residents preserved. The message emphasized the importance of “the friendship of world Jewry” to the Arab cause.

In an article published in March 1918 in al-Qibla, the daily newspaper in Mecca, the king wrote that Palestine was “a sacred and beloved homeland” for “its original sons” [abna’ihi-l-asliyin], and the “return of these exiles [jaliya] to their homeland” would be beneficial to the region.

Devotees of the Liberal Order—Unlike Its Founders—Underestimated the Importance of Nationalism and Religion

The year 1948, writes Yehudah Mirsky, saw the birth of the basic elements of what came to be known—perhaps misleadingly—as the “liberal international order.” These included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and the creation of Israel with the imprimatur of the United Nations. Mirsky argues that some of the failures of this order stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of those committed to defending it:

[Many] thought human rights and nationalism were antithetical, and that promoting the former meant pushing back on the latter. The architects of the world of 1948 understood better. As the historian James Loeffler has shown in his remarkable new book, Rooted Cosmopolitans, so many key figures in the human-rights revolution of mid-century were not only Jews but Zionists. For them, an international regime of protecting individual human rights as well as nation-states for persecuted minorities were necessary to overcome the Holocaust’s ghastly trauma of statelessness. The deep structural suspicion of the idea of state sovereignty woven into the human-rights framework, it seems, has unwittingly fostered the legalistic abstraction and airy disregard for political realities that has made that framework such a supple tool in the hands of dictators who couldn’t care less. . . .

[Moreover, many] underestimated the role of religion not only in people’s lives but in human rights and liberalism’s own foundations. Religion is about the search for the absolute and how that ultimate truth shapes what it means fully to be human. Liberalism and human rights are understood by many people in different ways, but there is no denying they make serious claims about the ultimacy of human dignity, so ultimate that there are certain things that no state, or collective body of any kind, can do to harm human dignity.

Why the US Diaspora Misunderstands Israel

What does the Diaspora find alienating about Israel? Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, recently criticized the Israeli government for its treatment of the Palestinians, its attitude towards asylum-seekers, and the dominance of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel.

But these concerns show a fundamental misunderstanding of Israel and of the conflict. Progressives (and not just in the United States) think that the two-state solution would fulfill Palestinian aspirations. In reality, the ultimate Palestinian objective is the “right of return” — overrunning Israel proper with Arab refugees. They believe that time is on their side.

The US Diaspora also misunderstands what makes Israelis tick. Israeli support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a response to rockets and terror tunnels. But many Israelis view the Palestinian jihad as just the latest chapter in a long story of Arab and Muslim antisemitism predating anti-Zionism. Anti-Jewish hatred goes to the very heart of the conflict.

More than 50 percent of Israeli Jews have their roots in Arab and Muslim states. The American Diaspora, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi: Their background is European antisemitism and the Holocaust. They project a Eurocentric world view and their own Western values on the Arab and Muslim world.

Most Jews are in Israel because of the Arabs, not the Nazis (although Arabs and Nazis were allied during World War II). They vote for Netanyahu because of this legacy of bitterness and mistrust. Arabs will only respect a strong Israel, they believe. These Jews, their parents, and their grandparents left Arab countries due to pogroms, institutionalized inferiority, and state-sanctioned laws. Most left as destitute refugees with a single suitcase. Israel rescued them. Jews in the West may take their freedoms and rights for granted. Jews from the Middle East and North Africa do not.

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01/02 Links Pt2: The deal that disappeared; The threat posed by Jeremy Corbyn; AP Shills For Peace Now; Muslim Antisemitism in Berlin Schools

From Ian:

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The deal that disappeared

Historian Kobby Barda has found a lost chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: After World War II, the U.S. gave Israel and Arab nations $1.5 billion to solve the Middle East refugee problem. But only Israel lived up to its end of the deal.

Kobby Barda couldn't believe what he was seeing. While researching the establishment of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee under the auspices of the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa, Barda found his way to the personal archive of one Isaiah Leo "Si" Kenen, a Canadian-born lawyer, journalist and philanthropist who was one of the founders of the pro-Israel lobby.

Among the many documents that record in detail Kenen's work in the first years of Israel's existence as a state, Barda discovered a lost chapter in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the start of the 1950s, in addition to pouring money into the Marshall Plan to rehabilitate Europe after World War II, the U.S. decided to provide money to Arab states and Israel so they could find a solution to the refugee problem created by the 1948 War of Independence.

The American aid earmarked to solve the issue of Middle East refugees was supposed to have been split evenly between Israel and the Arab states, with each side receiving $50 million to build infrastructure to absorb refugees. The money to take in the Arab refugees was handed over to the U.N. agency founded to address the issue of Palestinian refugees, and the Americans gave Arab countries another $53 million for "technical cooperation." In effect, the Arab side received double the money given to Israel, even though Israel took in more refugees, including ones from Arab nations – Jews who had been displaced by the regional upheavals. The amount Congress allocated to provide for Middle East refugees – Jewish and Arab – at the request of then-President Harry Truman was equal to $1.5 billion today.

David Collier: The smear tactics of the Jeremy Corbyn cult. A case study.

We all know that the Jeremy Corbyn cult uses smear tactics. It can be well highlighted by this case study. It is a worthwhile exercise to show just how empty and crudely constructed these smears can be.

My website was attacked on the evening of the 22nd December. It was down for several hours and when the server restored the site, it remained unstable as the new security systems were configured. I have ample proof of the attack. For example there are numerous emails from the host company as they attempted to deal with the problem, including one that confirms a DDOS attack. Someone also kindly archived how the website looked at the time of the attack:

The antisemitic mindset of the Corbyn conspiracy cult
Everyone knows there are bad people in the world who pose a danger. But for the antisemite, this does not hold true for the Jews. In the eyes of the antisemite, the Jews *are* what is bad in the world. So when Jews complain they’ve been hacked, they are lying. When they say they are victims of antisemitic abuse, they are conspiring to smear someone, and even when six million of them ‘go missing’, they have somehow deceived the world just to gain power and make money. It does not matter that in some cases the antisemite has replaced the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’, the seams always show where it has been stitched in.

So through the eyes of the antisemites, the attack on my website could not be real. It did not take long for someone to write up a version that turned the DDOS attack into a conspiracy to smear Jeremy Corbyn supporters, and of course being Jewish, make some money whilst I did it. On 30th December, the Prole Star upload an article that did just that:

The Prole Star and its editor
The Prole Star is a Jeremy Corbyn support media. It self references as a socialist site ‘counteracting mainstream media bias’. The Facebook page has 6000 followers. On Twitter, they have another 10,000. It seems to rely on freelance writers desperately seeking media to publish their articles. The Editor and chief contributor is Maria Roberts. Roberts has been writing for the Pole Star for over two years.

I don’t know much about her. Her Facebook friends include Jacqueline Walker, Tony Greenstein, Piers Corbyn, Jon Lansman and Grahame Morris MP. Beyond her editorial role at the Pole Star, her profile also suggests she is a Director at a Company called ‘Red Letter Ltd‘. Company House has her using the names ‘Jeanne Roberts‘ and ‘Jeanne Maria Roberts‘. She is listed as holding ‘overall control’. The accounts and Confirmation Statement are also both overdue, so if you are reading this Maria – chop-chop.

Alan Dershowitz: Comparing Trump to the Nazis Is Holocaust Denial

Professor Alan Dershowitz joined FOX and Friends on New Year's Day to discuss a new poll that finds most children are completely ignorant of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II. Dershowitz then went on to say that any of the people today who compare the current US political climate to the Nazis are basically Holocaust deniers. (h/t jzaik)

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01/01 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The Labour party's out-of-body antisemitism experience; New York Times Ends Year with Epic Smear; Guardian falsely blames Israel for shortages of medicine in Gaza

From Ian:

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Melanie Phillips: The Labour party's out-of-body antisemitism experience

When Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry spoke last week at the annual Limmud Jewish cultural festival in Birmingham, she declared in relation to the accusation that the Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn was an antisemite:
“I don’t believe there is a racist or antisemitic bone in his body”. And she claimed that Corbyn had been unable to deal properly with the issue of Labour antisemitism because he had been so emotionally affected by being accused of it himself.

Cue derision and jeers. Which was only to be expected.

After all, Corbyn has not only personally endorsed numerous enemies of the existence of the State of Israel, Judaism and the Jewish people. He has not only failed adequately to tackle the blizzard of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish utterances by party members under his leadership.

He has himself endorsed unambiguously antisemitic tropes, such as the wall mural depicting grotesquely caricatured Jewish financiers making money literally on the backs of the enslaved poor (which he claims to have supported only on freedom of expression grounds and not to have noticed what the mural actually contained); and he also implied that British Zionist Jews were somehow alien to their own country by being unable to appreciate “English irony”.

So Thornberry’s protestations were ludicrous and clearly untrue and amounted merely to cynical dissembling, no?

Well actually, no. I think she was speaking honestly. And that’s even worse.

For I believe that Corbyn really is upset at the accusations against him – because he really does believe he is simply incapable of antisemitism (which he equates, shallowly, with racism, thus demonstrating he doesn’t even understand that antisemitism is not just a prejudice nor even just a form of bigotry but is a unique and ultimately murderous deformation of rationality and psychology).

And he’s not alone in that belief. Virtually all on the left believe they too are incapable of antisemitism because that is exclusively to be found on the right. Why so?

Melanie Phillips: US Syria pullout, EU antisemitism survey

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired some major events of the past few days in our crazy world.

We consider the implications of President Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, the ramifications of which are more complex than might be imagined from the shallow mainstream media accounts. You can also read my take on what really matters about America’s approach to Syria and Iran here.

We also talk about the recent EU survey of perceptions by Jewish communities in Britain and Europe of the incidence of antisemitism in their countries. The survey found rising alarm, especially in Britain, but once again this needs to be unpicked to discover findings which the mainstream media have not seen fit to explore, including a refusal to face realities by the Jewish communities themselves.

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12/31 Links Pt2: The good side of 2018; David Collier: 2018 and Antisemitism, a year in review; The Intellectual Dishonesty of 'I’m Just Criticizing Israel'

From Ian:

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JPost Editorial: The good side of 2018

Newspapers tend to be in the business of bad news far more than good news. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a well-known adage. The downside is we often forget how good things are. Between rockets from Gaza, terrorist attacks, corruption, murder and whatever else makes headlines most days, there are plenty of great events happening in Israel and the world each day. Here is some news from 2018 to remind us all to see the glass as half-full, as the secular year comes to a close.

Netta Barzilai became an international name and a national hero, after she and her chicken sounds brought Israel to its fourth Eurovision victory, the first in 20 years, bringing Israelis to the streets to celebrate and sing “I’m Not Your Toy.”

Netta was part of another major good news story in 2018: the first-ever official visit to Israel by a member of the British royal family, Prince William. This year, a prince and Superman – OK, actor Dean Cain, who played Superman on TV – visited Israel.

Beyond visiting royalty, this was a banner year for Israel’s foreign relations. Our ties expanded throughout the Middle East, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Oman and other ministers jetsetting around the Persian Gulf. By Netanyahu’s count, 300 senior foreign dignitaries – presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, senators and leading parliamentarians – visited Israel this year.

Israeli disaster-relief experts helped people around the world. Israelis provided aid in California, Puerto Rico and Guatemala, where Sara Netanyahu was personally invited by the president’s wife to dedicate the efforts. In Thailand, emergency mobile communication technology developed by Israeli company Maxtech Networks played a key role in rescuing the youth soccer team trapped in a flooded cave, whose survival and rescue captured the world’s attention.

The US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved its embassy. We didn’t need them to tell us. It’s our eternal capital and has been that way for millennia, but it’s nice to get recognition. And US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley championed Israel repeatedly in that den of wolves.

David Collier: 2018 and Antisemitism, a year in review

To look back on antisemitism in 2018, I have split the year into calendar months, with each example representing a different element of the global battlefield.

I remember the end of 2017 as being part of a lonely battle. In November I recorded that there were 176 anti-Israel events taking place in the UK in a single month. By year-end we were just a handful shouting about the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn, but few seemed to be listening. I didn’t realise back then, how much things were about to change.

January 2018 – Alison Chabloz
2018 Alison Chabloz2018 began just as 2017 ended, with me sitting amongst neo-Nazis and far-left antisemites. On January 10 2018 I was in court, for the early stages of the Alison Chabloz trial. Chabloz is a far-right Jew-baiter, a woman who composes songs that ridicule and deny the Holocaust. To add that extra dose of ‘spiteful’, Chabloz sets the lyrics to classic Jewish folk tunes.

Her journey to the court-room was a long one and this case highlights the difficulty of actually bringing even the most odious haters to justice.

Sitting amongst neo-Nazis in the gallery, people who cheered to songs about the Holocaust, was a very lonely place to be. Yet by the end of 2018, I was almost never alone. One of the greatest changes that occurred in 2018, was the ‘waking up’ of the Jewish community (along with their friends).

In May, Chabloz was found guilty. She was sentenced in June.

The Intellectual Dishonesty of 'I’m Just Criticizing Israel'

The playbook exploited by Marc Lamont Hill and countless other anti-Israel activists ranging from Linda Sarsour to Jimmy Carter, to former Pink Floyd front man, Roger Waters, is the following:

Step 1: Fabricate a non-existent Israeli law or policy, that, if real, would constitute a colossal human rights violation. Don’t be afraid to be dramatic. Ethnic cleansing has a real ring to it. And always remember to be as vague as possible. Use broad terms and generalizations, making your claims harder to challenge on specific grounds.

Step 2: Next, feign outrage about the existence of this newly concocted law, and justify any acts of terrorism against Israel under the guise of “resistance” against this law you just invented.

Step 3: If anyone points out that what you’re saying lacks any smidgeon of truth, simply reply, “I am just criticizing the Israeli government! Are you a fascist? Am I not allowed to criticize Israeli government policies?”

It goes without saying that criticism of Israel’s government is as kosher as criticism of any country’s government. The only catch is the criticism hinges on the issue under scrutiny being real. It requires specific criticism, aimed at an existing law or practice. Conversely, what borders on bigotry is blithely fabricating non-existent laws or practices — like, Israel’s perpetration of ethnic cleansing — and using them to undermine Israel’s existence. Self-avowed “critics” of Israel who are derided as addled anti-Semites exclusively focus their ire on laws they themselves imagine into existence. Not for the betterment of the Palestinian Arabs, but for the belittling of Israel.

Daily Freier losing ground to hot new satire site called “The Forward” (satire)

With 2018 drawing to a close, the Daily Freier reviewed its web traffic numbers and discovered that it has been consistently losing market share to a hot new competitor in the “Goofy Jewish Satire” niche market that calls itself “The Forward”. This wacky blog has popped up out of nowhere it appears, and is consistently putting out material that is funnier and more nuts than anything the Daily Freier has managed to produce. So did the Daily Freier just give up? Heck No! We put together a focus group! Yes, the Daily Freier gathered a focus group of Jews: Young and Old. Gay, Straight, and the Israeli guy who you think is Gay but ends up trying to hook up with your girlfriend. Reform, Conservative, Conservadox, Dati, Haredi, and Masorti. Americans, Canuckians, and…. Well you get the point. And if you think this comes cheap, then you haven’t purchased bagels and coffee recently, thank you very much. So anyhoo, we put a bunch of Jews in a room with copies of the Forward downloaded onto Kindles and stealthily recorded their reactions. Like that movie with Sigourney Weaver and the Gorillas. Except the Daily Freier was Sigourney Weaver. Let’s call it “Hebrews in the Mist“. So where were we? Oh yeah, the Focus Group. They LOVED the Forward! But don’t take our word for it, check out some of their reactions below!

“Hey, check this one out!” exclaimed “Married North Jersey Dentist” to the other people sitting at his table. “No, You Can’t Be A Feminist And A Zionist“, by Mariam Barghouti! You know, this might be the funniest thing produced by a Barghouti since Marwan invented the “Hunger Strike with Designated Snack Breaks” last year!“

“OK OK you need to see this!” giggled “Canadian-Israeli Woman” as she took a break from showing everyone pictures of her dogs. “It’s called ‘Lay Off Linda Sarsour’. I know! Linda! The woman who said that there is nothing creepier than Zionism! And accused Jews of secretly controlling America. Yes! her! So anyways, the article says that Jews only criticize Linda because they’re racists! Amazing! ……What’s that you say? It would be funnier if they also threw in some random stuff about Trump? Well say no more. They did that too!”

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12/08 Links: UNIFIL and the Hezbollah Tunnels; Bethany Mandel: Trump’s Hanukkah Party Reminded Me Why America Is Great For Jews; NYTs columnist defends anti-Zionism

From Ian:

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Elliott Abrams: UNIFIL and the Hezbollah Tunnels

UNIFIL is not supposed to be merely a means of communication, or the Security Council would have bought cell phones instead of paying for a military force. Moreover, there are no "appropriate authorities" in Lebanon or Hezbollah would never have been able to dig its tunnels.

The tunnels are hardly the only brazen Hezbollah violation of the Security Council resolutions undertaken right under UNIFIL's nose. Consider this: Hezbollah is blocking roads in southern Lebanon to smooth the path of missile it is moving into the area, according to a report in the newspaper Israel Hayom. Then there is the village of Gila, just north of the Israeli border, where there is a Hezbollah headquarters and according to the Israelis about 20 warehouses with weapons, combat positions, lookout positions, dozens of underground positions. All this was built in an area supposedly patrolled by UNIFIL.

What is to be done? As I wrote in a previous post about UNIFIL and its new commander,
Del Col should test the limits. That will make Hezbollah angry, but if Hezbollah isn’t vexed by UNIFIL's presence then we are all wasting a lot of money--$500 million a year is the UNIFIL budget—and effort supporting that organization and making believe that it is enforcing resolution 1701.

This is a test of UNIFIL and its new commander. "Communicating" to "appropriate authorities" is a euphemism for doing nothing at all. Hezbollah is preparing for war. UNIFIL is supposed to get in its way. If it cannot hinder Hezbollah's war preparations in any way and is even ignorant of them, UNIFIL is a waste of time and money.

In rain and mud, IDF exposes another tunnel from Lebanon into Israel

The Israeli military on Saturday located an additional cross-border attack tunnel from southern Lebanon into Israeli territory that it says was dug into the Hezbollah attack tunnel — the second it has fully exposed and the third it has identified since the start of its operation to find and destroy such underground passages.

This fresh tunnel, whose location has been kept secret for security reasons, has been fitted with explosives in order to ensure that it cannot be used by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

According to the spokesman, excavation of the tunnel was being conducted until recently.

“It’s a fresh tunnel,” he said.

The military did not offer additional details regarding the size of the tunnel.

Conricus said Saturday’s tunnel, as with the others identified by Israel until now, was “not yet operational and does not yet pose an imminent threat to the surrounding Israeli communities.”

IDF fires toward 3 suspected Hezbollah fighters who approach border

Israeli soldiers on Saturday opened fire at three suspected Hezbollah fighters on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the army said.

A military spokeswoman said the incident took place close to Yiftah, south of Metula, a town near which a tunnel from Lebanon was found.

The military said the three men attempted to approach an “area of technological work” in an enclave north of the security fence, as the IDF continues Operation Northern Shield to destroy Hezbollah attack tunnels dug under the border.

The army said it believed the three attempted to use the cover of stormy weather to approach the Israeli forces. Troops fired towards the three “in accordance with the standard operating procedures” and they fled the scene. “Work in the area continues as usual,” it said.

Lebanon’s official NNA news agency said Israeli forces fired shots in the air east of the village of Mays Al-Jabal after they were surprised because of heavy fog by a routine Lebanese army patrol.

Israel using ‘passive seismic’ technology to expose Hezbollah’s attack tunnels

The Israeli army on Friday revealed that it has been using “passive seismic” technology to locate the attack tunnels Hezbollah has been digging under the border into Israel.

The IDF this week launched an ongoing operation to locate and destroy the tunnels, and has so far announced that two have been identified. On Tuesday, it released footage from inside the first of the two, with alleged Hezbollah members still inside, and on Thursday asked UNIFIL, the UN force in Lebanon, to deal with the second.

The IDF’s Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot announced Tuesday that Israel has “in its possession” Hezbollah’s tunnel plans. Military sources have said Israel believes several other cross-border tunnels have yet to be exposed.

An officer in the IDF’s Engineering Corps, Col. Ziv Nimni, told Israel’s Hadashot TV news Friday that the IDF, aware for years of Hezbollah’s tunnel ambitions, utilizes “passive seismic technology” throughout the northern border area in order to locate the tunnels.

The technology enables the IDF to identify where tunnel drilling is taking place — not only in limited, specific areas, but throughout the Israel-Lebanon border area, he said.

The sensors in the ground relay information to sensors at the border fence, as well as to receptors in patrol vehicles along the border, Nimni added.

He said locating and dealing with the tunnels “could take weeks or longer,” but that the IDF was operating as quickly as possible.

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List of journalists who attended an anti-Israel "journalism" conference

Recently there was a conference in Istanbul for journalists to meet and to discuss how to push the Palestinian narrative in world media.

Not how to be objective.

No, every so-called "journalist" who attended the conference was there to figure out how to demonize Israel and make Palestinians look as sympathetic as possible to the world.

Every "journalist" who attended makes a conscious decision to violate all journalistic ethics and push an anti-Israel agenda. There was even a workshop on how to address Arab media that is not hateful enough towards Israel.

The forum published a list of the attendees. I highlighted the ones from Western countries and media outlets.



Aarfa Khanum (India) Senior Editor at Thewire.in
Abdallah Elbakkali (Morocco) Director of the National Syndicate of Morrocan Press
Abdallah Marouf (Palestine) Professor of Jerusalem Studies
Abdullah Abu Awad (Morocco) Academic Professor & Communications Expert
Abdullah Al-Saafin (Palestine) Media Trainer
Abdullah Almosawi (Kuwait) Researcher and Political Analyst
Abdullatif Najim (Palestine) Digital Media Expert - Tawasul
Adam Ali Adam (Chad) President of the Association of Arabic-Speaking Chadian Journalists
Adam Bensaid (Algeria) Deputy Producer at TRT World Digital
Adnan Abu Amer (Palestine) Expert in Israeli Affairs
Ahmad Hasan Al Zoubi (Jordan) Jordanian Journalist and Writer
Ahmad Hela (Palestine) Palestinian Media Consultant
Ahmed Al-Shaikh (Palestine) Veteran TV Journalist
Ajša Hafizovic Hadzimesic (Bosnia And Herzegovina) Editor at IIN Preporod Newspaper
Alfredo Jalife Rahme (Mexico) Professor & Political Analyst
Ameen Izzadeen (Sri Lanka) Editor of Intl Desk at Wijeya Newspapers Group
Amer Lafi (jordan) Correspondent of Aljazeera - Istanbul
Angel Phiri (Zambia) Broadcaster at MUVI TV Zambia
Angela Lano (Italy) Journalist & Editor of InfoPal Press Agency
Antony Loewenstein (Australia) Australian Journalist, Author & Filmmaker
Anwar Abdelhadi Abu Taha (Palestine) Director General of Palestine TV today
Anwar Farrán Veloso (Chile) Journalist & Filmmaker
Ashraf Ali (India) Founder Editor of Asia Times Online
Asma Alhaj (Palestine) TV Presenter at TRT Arabic
Assaad Taha (Egypt) Documentary Filmmaker and Audio-Visual Expert
Ayman Gaballa (Egypt) Director of Aljazeera Mubasher TV
Ayman Zeidan (Palestine) Deputy Director-General of Al Quds International Institution
Azzam Al-Tamimi (Palestine) Director of Alhewar TV Channel
Ben White (UK) British Journalist & Author
Britt Hendrix (Netherlands) Human Rights Advocate
Carmen Corda (Italy) Italian Journalist & Researcher
Catherine Dorcas Ageno (Uganda) News Producer at NTV Uganda
Clare Short (UK) Former Secretary of State for Intl Development of UK
Dareen Abughaida (Palestine) Principal Presenter at Aljazeera English
Daud Abdullah (UK) Director General of MEMO - UK
Dorothea Ionescu (Romania) Journalist & Strategic Communications Consultant
Edison Mutumba (Kenya) Cinematographer & Drone Operator
Elijah Mwangi (Kenya) TV Producer & Media Consultant
Farid Abudhier (Palestine) Professor of Media at Al-Najah University - Nablus
Farrah Adeeba (Malaysia) TV Presenter
Fatih Er (Turkey) Director of News, Programmes & Visual at TRT World
Francis Ameyibor (Ghana) Deputy News Editor at Ghana News Agency
Gustavo Abu Arab (Argentina) Acredited Journalist at National Governemt House - Argentine
Hani Al Masri (Palestine) Director of Masarat Research Center
Hasina Kathrada (South Africa) Senior correspondent at SABC
Hassan Haider (Palestine) Executive Director of Quds Press International News Agency - UK
Hisham Qasem (Palestine) Director General
Hossam Shaker (Palestine) Media Consultant
Houreye Thiam (Senegal) TV Programs Presenter
Hugh Miles (UK) Editor of ArabDigest.org
Imad Musa (Palestine) Digital Media Expert
Isra Al-Modallal (Palestine) Journalist & TV Presenter
Issa Qaraqe (Palestine) Ex-Minister of the Bureau of Prisoners Affairs
Jaber Alharmi (Qatar) Chief Editor of Al-Sharq Newspaper - Qatar
Jamal Rayyan (Palestine) Media Expert & TV Presenter
Jasim Al-Azzawi (Iraq) Anchor and Media Expert
Jimi Matthews (South Afrıca) Veteran Journalist & Former Head of News at SABC
John Quigley (USA) Professor of Law at Ohio State University
Johnny Mansour (Palestine) Palestinian Historian and Writer
Jonathan Steele (UK) Veteran Journalist & Guardian Columnist
Jorge Ramos Tolosa (Spain) Professor of Cont. History at the University of Valencia
Khaled Taha (Jordan) Technical and Media Consultant
Khalil Mabrouk (Palestine) Correspondent of Aljazeera.net - Turkey
Leila Nachawati Rego (Spain) Spanish Writer & Human Rights Activist
Luca Steinmann (Italia) Italian Journalist & Political Analyst
Luisa Morgantini (Italy) Former Vice President of the European Parliament
Malik Ayub Sumbal (Pakistan) Political Commentator, Award Winning Journalist & Broadcaster
Martin Lejeune (Germany) Journalist, Photographer & Human Rights Advocate
Marwah Jbara (Palestine) Palestinian Filmmaker & CEO of Zainab Productions
Matteo Meloni (italy) Italian Journalist & Communication Professional
Metin MutanoÄŸlu (Turkey) Chief Editor of Anadolu Agency
Moeti Mohwasa (Botswana) Journalist and Writer
Mohamed Mansour Injay (Senegal) An announcer in Tubah channel - Senegal
Mohiyiddin Haris (India) Executive Editor at Tejas Daily
Monica Maurer (Germany) International Filmmaker
Montaser Marai (Palestine) Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Journalism - Al Jazeera Media Institute
Mouad Khateb (Palestine) Human Rights Activist
Muad Zaki (Maldives) Journalist & Writer
Nada Atieh (Palestine) Ù€ournalist at Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ)
Nafiz Abu Hasna (Palestine) Director of Palestine Today TV
Noureddine Miftah (Morocco) Moroccan Federation of Publishers
Nur Hasan Murtiaji (Indonesia) Deputy Chief Editor of Republika Newspaper
Olivier Pironet (France) Journalist at Le Monde Diplomatique
Omar Abu Arqoub (Palestine) Researcher in Media Issues & Engineering of Consent
Omar García (Nicaragua) TV & Radio Newscaster
P. KOYA (India) Managing Editor at Tejas Daily
Patrícia Campos Mello (Brazil) Journalist & Special Reporter
Pizaro Gozali (Indonesia) Chairman of JITU - Moslem Journalists Union
Prashant Tandon (India) Media Strategist & Consultant
Ramzy Baroud (Palestine) Journalist and Media Consultant
Rawan Damen (Palestine) Filmmaker and Media Consultant
Resul Serdar AtaÅŸ (Turkey) Director of News & Visuals at TRT Araby
Romana Rubeo (Italy) Editor at The Palestine Chronicle
Saadiah Mufarreh (Kuwait) Kuwaiti Journalist and Writer
Said Abu Moalla (Palestine) Lecturer at Arab American University of Jenin
Salma Aljamal (Palestine) Palestinian Journalist at Aljazeera TV
Samia Labidi (France) Coordinator of the Palestine Films Meetings, Filmlab: Palestine
Seema Mustafa (India) Editor-in-Chief of "The Citizen"
Shafeeq Al-Ghabra (Kuwait) Political Analyst & Writer
Shafiq Morton (south Africa) RADIO JOURNALIST
Shahin Hasnat (Bangladesh) Vice President of Dhaka Union of Journalists
Shaker Aljawhari (Jordan) Director of Jordanian Digital Journalism Society
Siddharth Varadarajan (India) Founding Editor of thewire.in & former Editor of The Hindu
Sles Nazy (cambodia) President of Cambodian Muslim Media Center
Soraya Misleh (Brazil) Member of International Ciranda of Shared Communication & Director of Institute of Arab Culture
Susana Mangana (Spain) Columnist & Political Analyst
Sylvain Cypel (France) Veteran French Journalist with Le Monde & Orient XXI
Talib Al Maamari (Oman) Journalist & Writer
Temiloluwa Bamgbose (Nigeria) Communications Consultant
Umud Mirzayev (Azerbaijan) President of International Eurasia Press Fund
Urmilesh Singh (India) Former Executive Editor at RSTV
Yassir Abu Heen (Palestine) Director of Safa News Agency - Palestine
Yousef Alshouly (Palestine) Palestinian Journalist
Zainab Ismail (Kenya) Senior news Anchor at Nation TV
Ãngel Martínez (Spain) Chief Editor of International Section at El Confidencial
Ä°smail Sinani (Macedonia)  Chief Editor of News at TV SHENJA

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We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

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11/27 Links Pt2: A third of Europeans say Jews too politically influential; Jordan's media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers; Driver tried to hit men leaving LA synagogue

From Ian:

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How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers

Being the parents of a child murdered by a proud and pleased woman who doesn't stop boasting about what she did was never going to be easy.

Regular readers know that Malki, our sweet, vivacious fifteen year-old eldest daughter was one of the victims of the Hamas bombing of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria on August 9, 2001. The mastermind of the attack, convicted for her role in scoping out the target site because of the attractive number of Jewish children who frequented it and planting the human bomb there before fleeing, was sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment. She was the first-ever Hamas female jihadist. Her name is Ahlam Tamimi.

Tamimi walked free, along with 1,026 other Arab terrorists - most of them killers - in the catastrophic deal Israel made with the Hamas terrorists to secure the freedom of an Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, in October 2011. She has been living free-as-a-bird in Jordan, not under cover, not in hiding, ever since.

She married another convicted Arab terrorist/murderer, Nizar Tamimi, in the summer of 2012. He is her cousin. (Another cousin is Ahed Tamimi, the 17 year old blondish "icon" of Palestinian "resistance" recently released from an Israeli prison.)

The United States Department of Justice unsealed terrorist charges against Ahlam Tamimi on March 14, 2017. That same day, her name was added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and the US let it be known it was asking Jordan to extradite her to face charges in a Washington courtroom. The two countries have had an active extradition treaty since 1995.

Giving Tuesday: World Vision Must Answer Terror Finance Questions

On Giving Tuesday, the Middle East Forum is warning Americans about the risks of giving to charities that are active in areas of the world where terrorist groups operate. This comes in the wake of an investigation into World Vision, the international evangelical aid charity, and its continued refusal to acknowledge the depths of its involvement in the financing of a designated terrorist-funding Sudanese charity linked to Osama Bin Laden, or to take any corrective measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Writing in the Christian Post on November 3, the Forum revealed the full extent of the role played by World Vision in a 2015 decision by the Obama administration to approve the transfer of $115,000 of taxpayers’ money to the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), which the U.S. government designated as a terrorist organization in 2004 because of its close links to Bin Laden. The Christian Post article followed a July 2018 report the Forum wrote in National Review first uncovering the scandal, which was covered by media all around the world.

In response to the Christian Post article, World Vision referred to the Forum’s evidence as “false,” “unfair” and “outrageous.” World Vision declined, however, to address the Forum’s questions about the history of its financial relationship with the Bin Laden-linked charity, or the matter of a fraudulent identification number submitted to the U.S. government as part of World Vision’s grant application.

The Middle East Forum has now responded to World Vision’s latest obfuscation with a detailed post refuting World Vision’s attempt to muddy the waters.

Cliff Smith, Director of the Middle East Forum’s Washington Project, said: “It is not our intention to impugn any of the good work that World Vision does. But an appropriate response to the discovery that your charity has been working with a designated terrorist entity connected to Bin Laden is not denial and obfuscation, but reflection and internal investigation. World Vision should answer, substantively, without dodging questions, the issues raised by the documented facts we discuss, and let the chips fall where they may. Taxpayers and other World Vision supporters would better welcome a charity that could admit making such a serious mistake.”

Driver tried to hit men leaving LA synagogue: cops

Authorities arrested a motorist suspected of trying to run down two men leaving a Los Angeles synagogue, and detectives are investigating the case as a hate crime, police officials said Monday.

The driver yelled anti-Semitic remarks at the men Friday night, made a U-turn and drove at the pair, who took cover behind a car and an electrical box, said Deputy Chief Horace Frank.

The suspect made another U-turn and targeted the men, then tried to speed away but crashed into another car in the largely Jewish Wilshire-area neighborhood, Frank said.

No injuries were reported.

The suspect, Mohamed Mohamed Abdi, was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, but is now a U.S. citizen, officials said. The 32-year-old was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon and remained jailed. It wasn’t known Monday if he has an attorney.

The FBI joined the investigation, and Abdi could face federal charges, Frank said.

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10/31 Links Pt1: The West Must Stop Fetishizing Palestinian Extremists; Is UNRWA damaging the Palestinians?; Israel Helped Foil Plot to Assassinate Dissidents in Denmark

From Ian:

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The West Must Stop Fetishizing Palestinian Extremists

He is bare-chested, muscular and not unattractive. A Palestinian flag blazes in one hand, a slingshot is strained taut in the other. All around him is smoke and press photographers. Aed Abu Amro, a 20-year-old Gazan, is rioting on the boundary between the Hamas-run statelet and Israel's southern frontier. Amro, who was snapped mid-rampage on Monday, has stirred that morbid romanticism which draws Western progressives to the Palestinians.

Newsweek gushed of "the now-iconic photo." The New Zealand Herald told its readers the image had "drawn comparisons with the iconic French Revolution painting, 'Liberty Leading the People,' by Eugene Delacroix." There is scarcely an anti-Israel agitator who has not tweeted, Facebooked or Instagrammed the picture. Depictions of heroic resistance rewrite the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a romantic epic in which righteous victims are ennobled by their oppression at the hands of inhuman tormentors.

Amro is the new Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old Palestinian jailed for eight months for assaulting Israeli soldiers. In a series of interviews with Tunisian media this month, she said: "We should always be slapping soldiers, wherever they may be, regardless of whether they did anything or not....We, as a generation, will fight for the liberation of Palestine in its entirety."

Tamimi will fight for the destruction of the world's only Jewish state, which is located, for those who still inhabit the fact-based community, on land to which Jews are indigenous, in which they alone have ever been sovereign, from which they were expelled, to which they returned, and upon which a rival Palestinian nationality so defined has staked a claim to nationhood for little more than a century and to statehood for around half that time.

Westerners have little time and even less comprehension for Palestinians who seek comity and compromise, who acknowledge Israel as the state of the Jewish people, who recognize Israel's legitimate security needs and who spurn the self-harming violence of their fellow Palestinians. The peacemakers exist but they do not capture the imagination of remote revolutionaries. They are the wrong kind of Palestinians.

Instead, Aed Abu Amro will be the face of Palestine and Tamimi its voice. The Palestinians will go on being pin-ups and go on being stateless.

Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz: Is UNRWA damaging the Palestinians?

Shmuel Rosner chats with Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz, the writers of the book “The War for the Palestinian Right of Return”, about the Palestinian refugees, the right of return and the existence of UNRWA.

Einat Wilf is a writer and a politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Independence and the Labor Party.

Adi Schwartz is a journalist and academic. A former staff writer for Haaretz, he currently works as a freelance journalist for Israeli and international newspapers and magazines. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

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09/09 Links: On Rosh Hashanah 5779, Netanyahu Expresses Optimism About Future of Israel and Jewish People; A Greater Threat to Israel than Iran: The Deception of NGOs

From Ian:

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On Rosh Hashanah 5779, Netanyahu Expresses Optimism About Future of Israel and Jewish People

In a Rosh Hashanah message he shared on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed optimism about the future of his country and the Jewish people.

“Our people are united not only by a common past, but by a common and burning support and reverence for liberty, for pluralism, for debate,” Netanyahu said. “As we debate, we remember our common heritage, our commitment to our common future, and our common values, of liberty, of inquiry, of ensuring the Jewish future, of contributing to the betterment of the world, and Israel and the Jewish people are doing all of that.”

Watch Netanyahu’s message below:

Shana tova!
Happy new year from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. #shanatova pic.twitter.com/9205cBCIYQ

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 9, 2018

The 50 most influential Jews of the year

As we begin the Jewish New Year 5779, it’s more difficult than ever before to predict what will happen in our rapidly changing world, and who will most impact Israel, the Jewish world and the world at large. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the powerful leader of the Jewish state for more than 12 years, and wields significant influence with a range of global leaders from US President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Netanyahu’s fate, however, lies in the hands of Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, who is due to decide within the next few months whether or not to indict him in one or more cases involving alleged corruption. That’s why Mandelblit tops our list of influential Jews this year, followed by Netanyahu. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who led last year’s list, retain huge influence over President Trump, perhaps the most powerful person on the planet, and are in third place. Following them is the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, the man primarily responsible for the historic decision to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, on May 14, 70 years after the establishment of the State. To highlight his special role, this special supplement features a fascinating interview with Friedman by diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon. We don’t expect our readers to agree with all our choices, but we hope to provide food for thought and discussion over the High Holy Days. As Shimon Peres once told me, it’s our job to tell our readers what (or in this case who) to think about, and not what to think.

Mazal tov to all those on this list, and shana tova to all our readers!

50 Most Influential Jews:
1. Avichai Mandelblit
2. Benjamin Netanyahu
3. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
4. David Friedman
5. Maggie Haberman
6. Steve Mnuchin
7. Audrey Azulay
8. Ayelet Shaked
9. Ronald Lauder
10. Gal Gadot
11. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman
12. Yossi Cohen and Gadi Eisenkot
13. Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, Elana Kagan, and Stephen Breyer
14. Michael Cohen
15. Isaac Herzog
16. Sheldon Adelson
17. Claudia Sheinbaum
18. Miri Regev
19. Esther Hayut
20. Reuven Rivlin

Greenblatt: ‘Pray with me’ for release of Hamas held Israeli captives

United States envoy Jason Greenblatt called on Jews around the world to pray with him this new year for the release of the Israeli captives and the remains of two IDF soldiers that Hamas is holding in Gaza.

“This Rosh Hashanah I will pray for the Goldin and Shaul families that Hamas will return Hadar and Oron to them. I will pray for the Mengistu and al-Sayed families, that Hamas will return Avera and Hisham to them. Please pray with me,” Greenblatt tweeted on Friday in advance of the holiday.

The Mengistu and al-Sayed families also issued a call on Thursday for the release of the two men, both of whom are suffering from mental illness and as a result crossed into Gaza.

They unveiled a new campaign, #SpecialNeedsCaptives, which highlights the fact that these men have a psychological disability.

This Rosh Hashanah I will pray for the Goldin and Shaul families that Hamas will return Hadar and Oron to them. I will pray for the Mengistu and al Sayed families, that Hamas will return Avera and Hisham to them. Please pray with me. pic.twitter.com/VjdjogKvpW

— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) September 7, 2018

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08/28 Links Pt2: Lord Sacks: Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous anti-Semite; Corbyn claims Israel controls speeches made by British MPs; Roger Waters: Russia "has all rights" to Sevastopol

From Ian:

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Former UK chief rabbi Lord Sacks: Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous anti-Semite

Britain’s former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, branded the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn a dangerous anti-Semite in an interview published Tuesday.

In a devastating critique of the opposition leader, Sacks accused Corbyn of giving “support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate, who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map.” The Labour leader, Sacks said, uses “the language of classic prewar European antisemitism.”

Corbyn has been under mounting attack for his own allegedly anti-Semitic positions and for failing to root anti-Semitism out of Labour, Britain’s main opposition party.

The comments that sparked Sacks’s denunciation were made by Corbyn in a 2013 speech at the Palestinian Return Centre in London, where Corbyn said of a group of British “Zionists”: “They clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.”

In an interview with the New Statesman magazine, Sacks, who served as chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, called those remarks the most offensive to have been made by a senior British politician for 50 years.

“The recently disclosed remarks by Jeremy Corbyn are the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech,” said Sacks. “It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.

“We can only judge Jeremy Corbyn by his words and his actions,” Sacks went on. “He has given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove from Israel from the map.”

Eli Lake: Jeremy Corbyn’s Warped Worldview

Since becoming the leader of his party, Corbyn’s excuse-making has become more subtle. After Prime Minister Theresa May expelled Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning in March of a former Russian spy with a Soviet-era nerve agent, Corbyn was careful to say no one in his party supported Putin. Nonetheless, he urged caution and warned of a rush to judgment, despite his own government’s view that Russia was behind the attack. In 2017, following the terror attack at a rock concert in Manchester, Corbyn made sure to say the attackers should “forever be reviled” — while simultaneously asserting that government experts had linked such attacks in Britain to the country’s wars abroad.

Corbyn was not always this subtle. Daniel Finkelstein, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and columnist for the Times of London, has unearthed some of Corbyn’s more revealing views. For example, in 1989 Corbyn praised the Soviet Union for aiding socialist revolutions in the third world. Writing just four years ago in the Morning Star, the U.K.’s self-described socialist newspaper, Corbyn criticized NATO for its “colonial adventures” in the Middle East and called it “essentially a redundant force.”

Politicians like Corbyn are rare in mainstream American politics, but not in the U.K. In 2005 George Galloway, a member of Parliament who was eventually banished from the Labour Party, gave an infamous speech at Damascus University praising Syria’s dictator and rejoicing in the defeat of the U.S. army in Iraq. Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, earned the nickname “Red Ken” for his apologetics for Britain’s foes. He quit the Labour Party this year after he was suspended in 2016 for saying Adolf Hitler supported Zionism, a conspiracy theory popular in the Middle East.

And this brings us back to Israel. For years Galloway and Livingstone were on the fringe of the Labour Party. Labour remained the party of Clement Attlee, who knew the difference between open and closed societies, between free nations and police states.

Today, that party is led by a foolish socialist who can’t seem to tell the difference. Is it any wonder that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have succumbed to the socialism of fools?

Jeremy Corbyn claims Israel controls speeches made by British MPs in Parliament, in bizarre remarks slammed as an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' that 'casts Jews as sinister manipulators'

Jeremy Corbyn claimed that Israeli officials control the speeches made by British MPs, in bizarre comments that have been called an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' which ‘casts Jews as sinister manipulators’, MailOnline can reveal.

The remarks were captured on video in 2010, at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in London. In a speech about the shooting of Turkish activists at sea by the Israeli commandos, the Labour leader said:

‘[British MPs] all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script. I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it.

‘Because they all came up with the same key words. It was rather like reading a European document looking for buzz-words.

‘And the buzz-words were, “Israel’s need for security”. And then “the extremism of the people on one ship”. And “the existence of Turkish militants on the vessel”.

‘It came through in every single speech, this stuff came through.’

MailOnline has examined the transcript of the debate in question and could find no evidence that any of Mr Corbyn’s ‘buzz words’ were mentioned by MPs.

In addition, a number of parliamentarians who spoke during the session have confirmed to MailOnline that they received no such ‘pre-prepared script’ or ‘buzz-words’ from Israeli sources.

An Israeli Muslim who served in the #IDF. tells anti-Israel activists at Columbia University who do not live in Israel, and they know nothing about Israel. "Israel is a wonderful country, you are destroying Israel". Please Follow the "Bridge To Peace" @mohammadkabiya pic.twitter.com/f4QrT641Qx

— Yanki farber (@Farberyanki) August 28, 2018

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08/27 Links Pt2: Collier: Antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the principle of the divided cloth; In praise of Richard Millett!; Saluting McCain; Jeremy Corbyn honouring Richard Falk

From Ian:

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David Collier: Antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the principle of the divided cloth

Before I talk of a divided cloth, let me address the antisemitic events. Last September I was turned away at the door of a fringe event at the Labour conference because I was a ‘known Zionist’. Last summer as I sat to eat a meal with my wife and eleven-year-old son during a day out at the PalestineExpo I was approached by security and asked to leave. I was treated like a criminal. My ‘unwelcome’ presence had been ‘reported’ by Labour Party members.

I have been de-registered from an event at Parliament because I am a ‘Zionist’ and at Warwick University I was recently turned away from an event with feeble excuses about a ‘PREVENT’ strategy. These however remain oddities in a long line of events I have witnessed over that past few years. If I am recognised once successfully inside, I am treated as a pariah. I have my photo taken, I am ‘accidentally’ nudged, I have abuse hurled at me.

It is not the only reason I identify with the recent story about Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitic attack on Richard Millett.
The Zoo animals

I have witnessed far too many events where I have seen both Richard Millett and Jonathan Hoffman treated disgracefully. As someone who researches antisemitism online, I have also seen that abuse frequently carried over into social media. These two posts about Richard were shared by two well-known antisemites:

Only those who have been to these events can truly understand how it feels to be inside one. You become an object of hate and ridicule. All Jews do. Antisemites are all around, each speaker trying to outdo the other and the more vivid the hatred of Jews, the louder the applause. Whether on campus or in parliament, the system is set up to protect the hate. If you protest, you will be evicted. There are feelings of helplessness and at times despondency and depression.
Vilified and vindicated

Sadly only a few Jewish people have been doing this circuit, Richard longer than most. Each of us have our own methods and in several cases our differences have allowed us to benefit from each other. Richard’s questions probe, Jonathan’s outbursts provoke or distract and my silence leaves me more unnoticed than most. Nothing though creates a better feeling than seeing the others in the room. I know this because those times I have felt the worst, were all the times I was the only Jew there.

In praise of Richard Millett!

In 2012, blogger Richard Millett was attending a SOAS Palestine Society event in London and was called “a typical Israeli” by a pro-Palestinian attendee who objected to his filming of the event.

Millett is not Israeli. He’s a British Jew whose family has been in the UK for nearly 150 years. He also routinely defends Jews and Israel with first person reports published at his blog – posts which include audio and video recorded while monitoring events featuring activists (and sometimes even MPs) hostile to Israel’s existence and, at times, openly hostile to Jews.

Moreover, If you’re wondering whether the charge hurled at Richard was racist, simply replace “Israeli” with any other identity and repeat the charge. “You’re a typical Arab.” “You’re at typical Black,” etc.

Or, how about “You’re a typical Zionist”?

Well, Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of the British Labour Party, said something akin to this in a reference to Millett at a 2013 event, per a story in the Daily Mail last week.

Here’s a clip of Corbyn’s speech at the conference, which, tellingly, was promoted by the propaganda wing of Hamas.

IsraellyCool: Maajid Nawaz Rips Jew Hater a New Corbyn

See what I did there?

British activist and politician Maajid Nawaz rips a caller defending a-hole Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he is not antisemitic, after the caller shows the very kind of antisemitism of which people are accusing Corbyn.


How’s that for English irony?

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08/09 Links Pt2: A homicidal Jew-hatred is going viral, again; Son of Imam Linked to WTC Bombing and Linda Sarsour, Ran Jihad Camp, Allegedly Trained Children to Shoot Up Schools

From Ian:

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A homicidal Jew-hatred is going viral, again

The culture of suspicion against Jews circulates now in a country that had not participated in the Holocaust, , which did not have ghettos, but where today for a mixture of Thirdworldism, consistent Islamic electoral interests, anti-colonial madness out of maximum time and anti-Zionism practiced by the progressive elites, the English citizens of Jewish origin today no longer feel at ease.

The previous day there was the indictment of an imam of Copenhagen who in a sermon invited the faithful to kill the Jews. The day before there was the reconstruction of the history of the Imam of the Great Mosque in Toulouse, also guilty of having invited the faithful to get rid of the Jews.

Previously, there was a pan-European flotilla of solidarity to Hamas and Gaza which stopped in many Italian ports. Also a law in the Senate of Ireland which sanctions with prison those who import post-1967 Israeli goods.

And then the launch of hundreds of missiles on the Israeli houses in the south. And then the threats of elimination of the Jewish people coming from the spiritual father of Iran, Ali Khamenei.

And we do not stop here, since the last few weeks have seen nothing short of attacks on Jews in the cities of Germany and France.

Watchdog Group Sues US Government to Obtain Records of BDS Groups Under Obama Administration

A conservative watchdog group has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense over Obama-era records pertaining to anti-Israel BDS groups.

Judicial Watch filed the FOIA lawsuit in order to obtain records from 2015 of groups affiliated with BDS movement, which lobbied “the Obama administration to adopt policies to harm companies doing business with Israel,” the group said in a statement.

The lawsuit occurred “after all three agencies failed to respond to nearly identical April 23, 2018, FOIA requests,” the organization explained.

“Americans deserve to know if the Obama-era agenda of supporting anti-Israel radicals in subverting US law is ongoing,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These entrenched bureaucrats of the Deep State clearly require lawsuits to compel observance of FOIA law.”

The lawsuit states, despite Obama signing the 2015 Trade Enforcement Act, “the Customs and Border Protection Bureau restated the West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirement rules requiring labeling of goods as being from the ‘West Bank,’ despite the fact that it is not a sovereign country,” reported Judicial Watch.

The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) applauded the move by Judicial Watch.

Israeli Air Force Gets First-Ever Female Squadron Commander

The Israeli Air Force has appointed the first female squadron commander in its 70-year history.

According to Israel’s Channel Two, the commander, who for security reasons is referred to only as “G.,” will be promoted to lieutenant colonel and put charge of the 122nd Squadron, known as “Nachshon.” The squadron is composed of planes specifically geared toward intelligence gathering.

The 34-year-old G. has been active in the Air Force since 2003, and has served in several command positions, including deputy commander of the “Nachshon” Squadron itself.

G. — currently a major — said that she was “happy with the appointment,” which she called “a great privilege alongside a great responsibility.”

“The real work is ahead of me,” she added. “I’m proud to serve in the Air Force.”

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06/06 Links Pt2: Sirhan Sirhan, Forgotten Terrorist; Argentina soccer match canceled over terrorism, not a boycott; Rockefeller Fund gives to groups funding Palestinian terrorism

From Ian:

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Sirhan Sirhan, Forgotten Terrorist

Because the assassination came just over four years after his brother President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, and just two months after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, the nation focused on gun violence and hatred of the Kennedy family in its aftermath. Many blamed right-wing racists, since the Kennedys had supported the civil-rights movement. I was in school back then, and I remember the most common phrase: “They killed another Kennedy.” The “they” was generic. It wasn’t an individual; it referred to a supposed violent streak that ran through American culture and mythology all the way back to our frontier days.

But a single individual killed Kennedy for very specific reasons. Sirhan was obsessed with both Israel and Jews. He was born in British Mandatory Palestine in 1944 and emigrated to the United States in 1956, attending school in Los Angeles. Yet even though the California economy of the 1950s and 1960s was one of the strongest in the world, Sirhan never took advantage of what surrounded him: He worked as a stable boy and never became a U.S. citizen.

The shooting took place on the one-year anniversary of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War. This was no coincidence. When Kennedy was 22 years old, he traveled to Palestine, writing articles for the Boston Post about his admiration for the country’s Jewish inhabitants. As a senator from New York, Kennedy continued his strong support of Israel. Shortly before the assassination, in a televised debate with his chief Democratic rival, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, Kennedy said he supported the sale of fighter jets to Israel.

Indeed, Kennedy was a consistent and staunch supporter of Israel — which infuriated Sirhan. In a 1989 interview with David Frost, Sirhan said: “My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 bombers to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Indifferent to Muslim Antisemitism

Muslim antisemitism receives scant mention from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to “fighting hate and extremism.” Its website has 1,327 articles on non-Muslim antisemitic actions, statements, or hate crimes. But less than 10 articles out of thousands mention Muslim antisemitism.

Instead, the SPLC aligns with Islamist groups and leaders — including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) — while giving their antisemitism a pass.

The SPLC’s credibility has already been questioned. It took down its media guide this year after Quilliam Foundation co-founder Maajid Nawaz pointed out that it contained fabrications about him.

While the report may be gone, SPLC Intelligence Project Director Heidi Beirich has yet to correct a false accusation she made against Nawaz, claiming that he was placed on a list of anti-Muslim extremists in part because he supported vast surveillance of Muslims.

Beirich has produced no evidence to support the claim, which Nawaz insists is a lie.

“The SPLC says it fights hate. Yet it criticizes groups that call out Jew-hating Islamists and ignores groups packed with Jew-hating Islamists,” Center for Security Policy Executive Vice President Christopher Hull told the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

U.N. Accused of Doctoring Video to Erase Leading Pro-Israel Speaker’s Credentials

The United Nations is facing accusations it doctored an official video to remove all mention of a leading pro-Israel speaker's credentials ahead of a scathing speech accusing the international organization of promoting anti-Semitism and hatred against Israel, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Professor Anne Bayefsky, the director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, was recently invited by the Israeli government to speak at an event at the U.N. on anti-Semitism about the harmful impact of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, a global campaign to economically isolate the Jewish state that has widely been discredited as anti-Semitic in nature. Bayefsky specifically addressed anti-Semitism at the U.N. itself.

In an official video of the May 30 event posted on the U.N.'s website, all mention of Bayefsky's credentials and longstanding status as a leading expert on anti-Semitism was initially erased, leaving a confusing gap that she claims diminished the speech's impact.

Bayefsky, a vocal critic of the U.N.'s anti-Israel bias, alleged in a subsequent video highlighting the U.N.'s deletion that the international body was engaged in an attempt to revise history and weaken a speech that called out in stark terms the entire U.N. for its promotion of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic policies.

U.N. officials who spoke to the Free Beacon admitted the original video deleted all mention of Bayefsky's credentials, but explained this was due to a technical issue that was rectified soon after the Free Beacon began its initial inquiries in the matter.

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