Thursday, September 04, 2014
Richard Landes: The Biggest Winner in the Lose-Lose “Operation Protective Edge”
After weeks of following the combat in Gaza, pundits are now turning to the question, “Who won?” Hamas claims points just for surviving, despite the massive hammering its leadership and its constituents endured, and some say Israel, whatever its battlefield gains, lost the “cognitive war”—big time. In the topsy-turvy universe of Middle East politics, nothing succeeds like failure on the battlefield and nothing fails like military success.Australian Universities hit by antisemitism by Christopher Pyne, Education Minister
Among the ancillary players, there are losers all around. Journalists’ credibility has been dangerously damaged. The UN Human Rights Council and Rights [sic. Relief] and Works Agency were embarrassingly partisan; Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama, astonishingly clueless and blundering; the intellectual Left, shamefully right-wing in its embrace of anti-Semitic discourse. Many analysts agree that Operation Protective Edge (OPE) has produced only losers and bigger losers.
Yet one group did emerge from OPE a winner: European jihadis. As Israel pounded an enemy that hid behind civilians, demonstrators spilled out into the streets of Western and Muslim cities the world over to protest the “Israeli genocide of the Palestinians,” even as they shouted “Death to Jews!” and “Jews to the ovens!” and used the Twitter hashtag #Hitlerwasright. Shops were ransacked, and Jews were refused medical services and attacked in riots. Jewish businesses were boycotted. In Germany, the cry was heard: “Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the Gas!” In France, it was “Death to Jews! Slit Jews’ Throats!” While the news media downplay the violence and hatred, and the police and judiciary resist it half-heartedly, European Jews are packing their bags.
So Jihadis get a quadruple win. They depict Israel as the Dajjal (Antichrist) to Western audiences; roam freely through the streets of Western cities, carrying metal bars and yelling jihadi slogans; accelerate the expulsion of Jews from Europe; and keep post-Christian Europeans thinking this violence only targets Jews, and only because of Israel. For jihadis, these past weeks confirm what they have long believed: that this is the Muslim century in which, among others, Europe joins Dar al Islam.
In our universities, free speech is to be encouraged, but it does not extend to threats and physical harassment. I am not surprised that the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in Australia last year was the second highest on record. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has made anti-Semitism fashionable on the far Left.UN Watch: Watchdog demands Schabas quit UN Gaza inquiry over anti-Israel bias
Last week some University of Sydney students ‘‘occupied’’ a nearby Max Brenner chocolate shop. Chanting phrases such as “Max Brenner, come off it! There’s blood in your hot chocolate!” at customers in Australia is disgusting and targeting a shop because the owners are Jewish is racist. Students at the University of NSW spread false news about a similar protest at Max Brenner UNSW. This month, the student association at the University of Western Australia sought to bring Uthman Badar, spokesman for Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which claims “honour killings are morally justified”, to the university to discuss the Gaza conflict. Hizb-ut-Tahrir calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a global caliphate, so one suspects the purpose is not to provide a balanced discussion — but it will fuel anti-Israel hate on campus. I applaud the university for condemning the speaker as inconsistent with university values, which led the association to cancel it.
Anti-Semitism has no place in Australia and our universities must act quickly to condemn it. University administrations should be very careful not to invoke freedom of speech to allow speech that vilifies students.
Most Australians are horrified at the wave of anti-Semitism that has washed anew over Europe recently. Riots outside synagogues, chants of “gas the Jews” and the smashing of windows in Jewish restaurants evoke terrible memories of pre-war Europe. Political leaders across the continent have condemned these actions, rightly.
We must not let that old hatred grip us in Australia. It is our obligation to each other in a multicultural and diverse society to call out extremism.
Schabas in 2012 expressed the wish to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried at the International Criminal Court, which clearly indicates that he is biased and thus unqualified to lead the investigation, UN Watch’s executive director Hillel Neuer said. “That statement alone is sufficient to disqualify Prof. Schabas on the question of whether he can impartially sit on this panel.”William Schabas already made up his mind: "prima facie, there is EVIDENCE OF DISPROPORTIONALITY"
Schabas voiced his opinions about Israeli policies vis-à-vis Gaza as recently as this summer, Neuer said. In one interview Schabas gave during the early days of Operation Protective Edge, he suggested Israel’s military response to fire emanating from Gaza was disproportionate and therefore could not be considered legitimate self-defense.
“We are filing the first formal legal request to Professor Schabas at the Human Rights Council, calling on him to recuse himself,” Neuer said at a press conference in Jerusalem. In any situation where a judge or the head of a fact-finding mission has been proven to be biased, or even if there is merely “the appearance of bias, the individual is obliged to step down,” he said.
Schabas remaining in place and leading the fact-finding mission “would have a potentially deleterious impact on the international rule of law,” Neuer writes in the request.
Anti-Semitism is still anti-Semitism
After reading the article in al-Monitor entitled “Anti-Israelism, not anti-Semitism, voiced in Europe” making the claim that anti-Semitism isn’t getting worse but is even improving I quickly searched for the name of the author. I have to admit I was positive that the contributor would be someone who is a regular at one of the websites for whom anti-Semitism is merely a trick invented by sinister Zionists to silence ‘legitimate’ criticism of Israel. When I saw the name of the author I kicked myself, it was Akiva Eldar, a Jew and I should have known all along.Running Out of Time? Israel’s Getting Stronger, Not Weaker
Only a Jew is able to write an article so utterly on message in favour of those wishing to dismiss anti-Semitism as an insidious, Zionist plot to distract from the serious business of attacking Israel. But whether you’re a Muslim, Christian or Jew I’m afraid you don’t have the right to tell Jews who are facing hatred every day whether or not they’re suffering from hate crime. Elder’s article serves one purpose only, to perpetuate the idea that the Jews are a hysterical group and can’t be trusted to stand up and point the finger at those who are attacking them and demand they stop. Therefore claims of anti-Semitism as related to the anti-Israel movement in general should be ignored.
In his piece for Al Monitor Eldar posits that anti-Semitism hasn’t gotten worse. There is no grey to his position. His benchmark is to argue that it’s not as bad now as it was in Germany during the 1930s. One wonders why he thinks it needs to be at that extreme level to be a problem in need of a solution. Nevertheless he writes this even as Dieter Graumann, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews tells the Guardian that German Jews are facing “the worst times since the Nazi era,”
Doomsayers about the State of Israel never run out of material. Since the day it was born and even before that, skeptics about the Jewish state’s viability and long-term survival have been numerous and loud. They have plenty of material. The many grave threats to its security as well as many profound domestic problems shouldn’t be minimized. But amid the continuous chorus of those predicting its demise and saying it is running out of time, there is abundant evidence bolstering the opposite conclusion. Today’s news of the conclusion of a $15 billion natural gas deal between Israel and Jordan is just one such story that undermines the dire narrative that many on the left take as a given.Israel is the Safest Place in the Middle East for Arabs
It can be argued that there is nothing terribly new about close cooperation between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom. Even long before the peace treaty between the two nations in 1994, Israel and Jordan closely cooperated on security issues. In fact, Israel leaped to Jordan’s defense in 1970 when its actions thwarted a Syrian invasion seeking to help a Palestinian uprising against King Hussein. Since then, the Jordanian government has remained tight with the Israelis as it sought to defend itself against radicals. Good relations with Amman are impacted by the widespread hatred for the Jewish state in a country where the majority are Palestinian Arabs rather than King Abdullah’s Bedouin kinsmen. But even though the monarchy must publicly keep its distance from Israel, in practice it remains closely allied to it. So it’s little surprise that with the conclusion of this gas deal, the Jewish state has become Jordan’s chief supplier.
This illustrates some important short-term trends as well as another larger truth about Israel’s future.
However, the worst criminal is the United Nations, whose UNRWA deliberately perpetuates discrimination and focuses on keeping the remaining the Palestinians refugees and their descendants as refugees forever, while neglecting the millions of genuine refugees throughout the Africa and the Middle East, especially Syria and Iraq. Their lives are in danger, but because of anti-Semitism and the narrow interests of the UN and UNRWA leaders, they are ignored. The time has come for Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon to give the descendants of the original refugees citizenship, as Israel gave citizenship to the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries who fled in 1948.Thousands Attend Pro-Israel, Pro-Kurd Demonstration in Frankfurt
There are many agencies trying to destroy the relations between Israel’s communities and ethnic groups. Israel’s Jews and Arabs have weathered crises before, because they have mutual economic and social interests. Daily life is stronger than radical Islamic fundamentalism, which is trying to make political capital in Israel. Various Israeli Knesset members contribute nothing to the lives of their constituents, destroying their trust, which has been noted by many Israeli Arabs. Recent surveys have indicated a rise in the participation of Arab in the National Service (a non-military framework of public service) as well as a significant rise in the number of Christian Arabs enlisting in the IDF. Arab society in Israel is not monolithic, and the amazing pluralism of Israeli life means Christian Arabs, Bedouin, and Druze serve in and lead elite IDF units. For example, the Druze Golani Brigade Colonel Rasan Alian, who was wounded, left the hospital to return to command his soldiers on the battlefield in Gaza.
I recently lectured on Palestinian terrorism before an academic audience at Kibbutz Sde Boker. Afterwards I spoke with Qassem, a Palestinian journalist from east Jerusalem, and asked him if I had said anything that offended him. He said no, that he was not angry with me, he was angry with the Islamists who had dragged us into the war. It was hard to admit, he said, but today the only safe place for an Arab in the Middle East is the State of Israel.
Thousands of people gathered in Frankfurt over the weekend to protest anti-Semitism and demonstrate in favor of Israel, the Kurds and the Yazidi, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported Tuesday.Terrorists and the Mantle of Human Rights
The demonstration is to be followed up “on September 14 by a national rally in Berlin coordinated by the Central Council of Jews in Germany.”
"Participants included Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, Central Council President Dieter Graumann, and Frankfurt Mayor Peter Feldmann. German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her support for the event in a letter.
A spokeswoman for the Friendship Germany-Israel group, Natasha Langmann, called on participants to join “together with Kurds and Yazidis against Hamas and IS,” referring to the religious minority that is one of the groups under siege by the radical Islamist group in Iraq."
According to the JTA, the demonstration was notable for the Kurdish and Israeli flags that were on display.
Many analysts and scholars have pointed out the strange bedfellows that some self-described progressive organizations make with radical terrorist groups or autocratic regimes. The American Friends Service Committee, for example, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, subsequently aligned itself with and defended the Khmer Rouge until the full horror of that communist organization’s genocidal campaigns became clear. Lynne Stewart, a prominent lawyer famous for defending left-of-center clients, once told the New York Times that she supported violence “directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support.”Should Human Rights Watch Be Trusted?
That may have been morally obtuse enough, but she eventually found herself in prison for supporting terrorists who promoted the most extreme forms of racism and sexism. This past January, I highlighted an incident in which Human Rights Watch (HRW) partnered with an organization run by a man subsequently designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as an Al Qaeda financier; HRW never bothered to review its reports and the information which it apparently accepted blindly from al-Karama, the partner in question.
Now, information is surfacing about the United Kingdom-based CAGE (sometimes called CAGEPrisoners) which has led a campaign on behalf of Mahmoud al-Jaidah, a Qatari national arrested and sentenced in the United Arab Emirates for helping al-Islah, the UAE’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which last year sought to overthrow the government violently.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) likes to consider itself the authority on human rights and adherence to international law. Unfortunately, in recent years it has weathered a number of scandals and prioritized its own subjective worldview above any objective standard for measuring human rights. Five years ago, for example, HRW spokeswoman Sarah Leah Whitson held a fundraiser in Saudi Arabia promising to use the money to counter the influence of “pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations,” never mind that Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most egregious violators of human rights.NGO Monitor: Ken Roth’s Immoral Anti-Israel Obsession and the Gaza War
Its founding chairman took to the pages of the New York Times to castigate the organization he created for prioritizing politics over mission. Iraqis of all stripes tend to despise HRW because HRW’s leadership refused to provide evidence and documentation about Saddam’s genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds for the trial of Saddam unless Iraqis agreed to forgo capital punishment. Blackmail and imperialism are both unbecoming for an NGO.
For over a decade, NGO Monitor has documented and analyzed the obsessive targeting of Israel by Ken Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch (HRW). In this process, we have examined Roth’s numerous false factual claims regarding events involving Israel, as well as blatant double standards and large-scale distortion of international law in order to promote his personal and ideological objectives.Amnesty International's Deceit
This summer’s 51-day Gaza war was no exception, and if anything Roth’s activities, particularly on Twitter, reflected even greater personal animus towards the Jewish state and even less credibility.
NGO Monitor has catalogued more than 400 Ken Roth tweets about Israel between July 5 and September 2, 2014. On average, the number of tweets on Israel constituted a quarter of his feed. During some periods, this number approached 50-60%. (For different aspects of this phenomenon, see also “The Twitter Hypocrisy of Kenneth Roth” by Jonathan Foreman in Commentary Magazine and “Most of Ken Roth’s most popular tweets are anti-Israel lies” on the Elder of Ziyon blog.)
Using the language of human rights, Amnesty lodges trumped up charges against the Israeli Defense Force, accusing it of war crimes and disproportionality in its responses to terrorist attacks. Amnesty often relies on dubious witness testimony, bolstered by controversial interpretations of laws and regulations relating to the legitimate use of force. In parallel to these accusations, Amnesty campaigns to render the Jewish state defenseless in the face of terrorist attacks, for example by lobbying the United States government to deny Israel crucial support for its military operations.Academic Watchdog Lists Professors Who Have Called for Boycott of Israel
And so on Aug. 4, Amnesty's web site contains a call to "Stop US shipment of fuel to Israel's armed forces as evidence of Gaza war crimes mounts." Characteristically presenting its charges in the context of a feigned evenhandedness, Brian Wood, who has the title of "Head of Arms Control and Human Rights" at the organization, states
“The USA and Iran are both guilty of enabling violations of international law by providing military support to the conflicting parties. Without the supply of military technologies neither side in the Gaza conflict could have repeatedly violated international law with impunity on such a scale. Until violators on both sides are held accountable, no shipments of military supplies that can be used for serious violations should be permitted,”
Of course, the effect of such calls for denying military supplies falls entirely on Israel. Iran and other suppliers of weapons to Hamas are not in the least bit affected by Amnesty's call for an arms embargo - and Amnesty knows that. The result, if Amnesty's demands were to be implemented, would be to give terrorists free reign to continue to launch rockets onto Israeli communities. In reality, Israel is the only target of Amnesty's campaign.
The AMCHA Initiative, an organization dedicated to investigating and combating anti-Semitism at academic institutions, has released a list of 218 professors identifying as Middle East scholars who have called for a boycott of Israel.One simple example of how to fight Israel’s delegitimization
In August, about 200 professors on more than 100 U.S. campuses signed a petition calling “to boycott Israeli academic institutions,” and refuse “to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.”
In addition, faculty members at 16 of 20 universities that received federal grants supporting Middle East studies signed the anti-Israel petition. Those schools are Columbia University, Duke University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, University of Chicago, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington Seattle and Yale University.
“How can professors who are so biased against the Jewish state accurately or fairly teach students about Israel or the Arab-Israel conflict?” asked Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the AMCHA Initiative’s co-founder and a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Students who wish to become better educated without subjecting themselves to anti-Israel bias, or possibly even anti-Semitic rhetoric, may want to check which faculty members from their university are signatories before registering.”
A large number of cheap projects can help counteract delegitimization of Israel somewhat. One example, among many, is the blog, Bad News from the Netherlands.Ohio Univ. Student Body Prez Dumps Bucket of Blood On Herself To Target Israel In 'Ice Bucket Challenge'
What convinced me to start this blog? By 2007, I had seen a large number of articles biased against Israel in a variety – but not all – of major Dutch media. It became increasingly clear to me what their method of reporting was. They primarily mentioned negative aspects or events occurring in Israel. Papers spent little time or space on the far more negative aspects in Palestinian society, including the genocidal programs of the Palestinians’ largest party, Hamas. This approach was masked by the fact that these Dutch media also broadcast or published a few articles from time to time where Israel was not depicted quite so negatively.
By now the blog lists 2,800 negative items about the Netherlands. From these articles, one can, for instance, understand the weakness of the Dutch military. The army hasn’t a single tank left. All of what the wealthy Netherlands has provided to the Kurds in their current battle against the Islamic State barbarians is 1,000 bullet proof vests and helmets.
In the video, she intoned, “As student senate president, I’m sending a message of student concern about the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state,” prior to endorsing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel which only singles out the Jewish state.A Quick Lesson from the Ohio Univ. 'Blood Bucket Challenge'
UPDATE: The Ohio University Student Senate has seperated itself from Marzec's video, however some Twitter users were calling for stronger action:
In a truly stunning display, Ohio University Student Union president Megan Marzec dumped a bucket of blood on herself in an attempt to portray the “genocide in Gaza.” Fans of Israel, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are clearly outraged at the stunt. Let's call it the "Blood Bucket Challenge."Whether you fire him or not, condemn Salaita’s words
The root of the issue is not that the initiative is “divisive.” Politics are inherently divisive to some degree. The real issue is that Marzec is peddling a high degree of anti-Semitism and contributing to a climate of hatred while ignoring the plight of innocent Christians, Jews and Muslims who are being murdered in the Middle East.
While her endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is troubling in itself, the language she used in discussing Israel shows a enormous disconnect from reality. She set out to send "a message of student concern about the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state.” Not Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria. Not it’s counter-terrorism activities in Gaza over summer. But the fact that the Israeli state exists in “Palestine.”
I have no idea what is in Steven Salaita’s heart. Maybe he is a well-intentioned critic of Israel and supporter of the right of the Palestinian people to justice and self-determination. His choice of language suggests otherwise. Indeed, his lack of modulation and sound judgment seems to fail the standard laid out by the AAUP in 1940 for university faculty members: “As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”EU extends deadline on settler fish and dairy products ban
Salaita’s speech is far from respectful. I honestly don’t know whether his disrespectful speech trumps the principle of free speech on which the great American university system rests. But at a minimum, and it is indeed a minimal response, we must condemn Salaita’s offensive words. The failure to do so is itself a failure of courage, discernment, and intellectual integrity.
The European Commission has extended the deadline by which Israel must exclude fish and dairy products produced over the pre-1967 lines from its exports to Europe.A Rabbi Upsets the Church of Liberalism
A new deadline for the ban, which was to have gone into effect on September 1, has yet to be determined but was expected to be set soon.
The West Bank, the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem are included in the territorial ban, which the commission does not describe as a political boycott but rather says there are technical reasons the products can no longer be marketed in Europe.
Earlier this year the commission told Israel it did not recognize the authority of inspection agencies over the Green Line.
Without such inspections, it claimed the poultry, meat, fish and diary products cannot be sold in Europe.
Last week, Rabbi Richard Block caused a bit of a stir by announcing he was canceling his subscription to the New York Times. It caused a stir because of who he is: “a lifelong Democrat, a political liberal, a Reform rabbi, and for four decades, until last week, a New York Times subscriber,” as he wrote in Tablet.Top Adviser to Canada's Liberals Under Fire for Israel Comments
Every so often, someone surprises and offends the intelligentsia by revealing they don’t read the Times. National Review’s Jay Nordlinger wrote the definitive column on the subject back in 2004 (reprinted online at NRO a few years ago). Because Block represented a somewhat prominent liberal defector, the true believers of the religion of liberalism were aghast.
Perhaps no one took this more personally than Chemi Shalev, columnist for Haaretz. Most of Shalev’s column is pretty silly, accusing Block of intellectual retreat because he no longer will give his money to the house organ of the Church of Liberalism. This is, essentially, the I know you are but what am I response to Block, since the Times’s extreme ideological rigidity and enforced narrative conformity are precisely what Block objects to about the newspaper. But Shalev’s column–actually, one sentence of the column–is interesting for two reasons.
Retired general Andrew Leslie, one of the Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau's top advisers, has accused Israel of firing "indiscriminately onto Palestinian women and children" during the recent operation in Gaza.When Burning Jews Isn’t News
According to The Toronto Sun, Leslie's remarks were made August 19 but only surfaced this week when transcripts of his remarks, including a transcript made by Leslie himself, were provided to the local QMI Agency.
At a roundtable on veterans' issues that Leslie hosted he was asked for his "professional opinion" on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In the course of his answer, Leslie, said, "Casualties are caused by the Israelis using very heavy weapons systems, firing indiscriminately onto Palestinian women and children."
On Aug. 30, Palestinian terrorists set a Jewish man on fire in Jerusalem, and on Sept. 1, other Palestinian terrorists tried to set an entire bus full of Israeli Jews on fire.Top 7 anti-Jewish comments by The Independent’s Mira Bar-Hillel
Yet I couldn’t find any mention of these horrific attacks in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other major American news outlet. Why is it that news about burning Jews is not considered fit to print?
The first of the firebomb attacks took place in Jerusalem’s City of David neighborhood. A Molotov cocktail—a flaming bottle of gasoline which explodes upon contact—was hurled through the window of a historic 19th-century house known as Beit Meyuhas. One of the residents, a 45-year-old man, was struck by the firebomb and set on fire. He suffered first and second-degree burns to his face and head. Second-degree burns often result in permanent scarring and require skin grafting.
Mira Bar-Hillel is a journalist for the London Evening Standard and op-ed contributor for The Independent, who’s also been interviewed by both the BBC and Sky News on the topics of Israel, British Jewry, and antisemitism – this despite the fact that Bar-Hillel acknowledged being prejudiced against Jews and has a record of engaging in anti-Jewish racism.Antisemitic incidents reach record level in July 2014
Here is a list of her anti-Jewish claims, which we’ve compiled during the course of frequent posts about her op-eds, media appearances and Tweets:
Antisemitic reactions to this summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas resulted in record levels of antisemitic hate incidents in the UK, according to new figures released by CST today.Jewish Museum of Belgium to reopen 4 months after fatal shootings
CST recorded 302 antisemitic incidents in July 2014, a rise of over 400% from the 59 incidents recorded in July 2013 and only slightly fewer than the 304 antisemitic incidents recorded in the entire first six months of 2014. A further 111 reports were received by CST during July but were not deemed to be antisemitic and are not included in this total. CST has recorded antisemitic incidents in the UK since 1984.
The Brussels museum in a statement on its website said it will reopen on Sept. 14 as part of the European Day of Jewish Culture.Crown Heights Father, 5 Yr Old Son Attacked in ‘Knock-Out’ Game
The European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, or AEPJ, has called on the participants in the day of culture to hold a moment of silence at their events in memory of the victims of the museum attack.
Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman who French authorities believe left for Syria via Belgium to fight with jihadists in 2012 before returning to Europe, has been charged in the May 24 attack. Nemmouche was extradited by France to Brussels in late July.
Two Israeli tourists, a French volunteer at the museum and a Belgian employee were killed.
A Jewish father and his five year old son were attacked Tuesday in another round of the ‘knockout game’ as they walked to the little boy’s first day at school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.‘Mein Kampf’, Entering the Public Domain, Must be Put in its Place
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that an alert bystander saw the attack and chased the assailant. He raced after him down President Street, according to the Crown Heights.info website, flagging down a police patrol cruiser along the way. Police officers joined the chase.
The perpetrator was cornered in an apartment building – but that didn’t mean he was ready to give up when police tried to place him under arrest. Instead he resisted violently and police were forced to add a spritz of mace to their efforts to subdue the suspect.
First responders treated the perpetrator on the scene, and the father and son also arrived to identify their attacker and formally press charges.
The book has been a post-war best-seller across the Muslim world, where it jostles with Protocols of the Elders of Zion for shelf space. It’s widely distributed in Syria, Lebanon and by the Palestinian Authority. It’s also a best-seller in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have carried a copy around with him as a child.Cambridge Councillor Tim Bick’s proposal for Holocaust Memorial Day
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un reportedly gives the book to his top officials for them to study its leadership skills.
You’d expect Adolf’s unique brand of evil insanity to have fans in places where Philip Roth struggles to find an audience, but it also has a morbid hold on western readers.
Cllr Tim Bick, a Lib Dem from Cambridge, has declared, with reference to Holocaust Memorial Day, that genocide ‘is not an issue in the ownership of any one people’. It’s not clear exactly who he is arguing with here. On the front page of the Holocaust Memorial Trust website there are references to genocides in Cambodia, Darfur, Bosnia and Rwanda. Do a search for ‘Roma’ on the same site and you’ll find many recent references to the stories of Roma and Sinti victims of the Holocaust.Amulet created by son for mother in Lodz ghetto recovered
In Cambridge itself, if you look at an account of the most recent commemoration, you will find a similarly inclusive picture:
"While many of the performances commemorated the Jewish and Romany genocides during WWII, some reflected the more recent genocide in Rwanda."
I don’t think anyone here will be surprised to find out what is really behind Bick’s straw man plea.
"The next Holocaust Memorial Day event in Cambridge should hear testimony from victims of Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, according to a former city council leader."
The existence of an amulet created in the Lodz Ghetto by a son for his mother was recently discovered.Shanghai Unveils Memorial for WWII Jewish Refugees
“With love to Mom, from Avram. Lodz Ghetto. March, 1943,” reads the inscription on the amulet, made from two old coins. The son apparently created the amulet for his mother so she would not forget him if he was sent to the gas chambers.
The amulet, which also includes a drawing of the ghetto and the mother’s initials, was given this week to the Shem Olam Institute for Education, Documentation and Research on Faith and the Holocaust located in Kfar Haroeh in Israel, Ynet reported.
The amulet reportedly was found in the ruins of the ghetto by a Polish man. His heirs turned it over to the institute.
The Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum unveiled a memorial dedicated to the 13,732 Jewish refugees who fled to the Chinese city during World War II.Stan Goldberg, superhero of comic-book illustration, dies at 82
A depiction of six Jewish people, the statue symbolizes the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, said its creator, Chinese-American artist He Ning. The statue is etched into a wall with the names of all the Jews known to have taken refuge in Shanghai during the war.
“The list is particularly meaningful. All of [the refugees] survived harsh days in the war and sheltered in Shanghai,” said 75-year-old Sonja Muehlberger, German activist who was born into a Jewish family in Shanghai in 1939, Xinhua reported.
“Shanghai was the only place in the world open to Jewish refugees. We will never forget the city,” Sonja added.
Comic-book artist Stan Goldberg, the color designer for Marvel Comics’ classic superheroes, has died.Jewish comedienne Joan Rivers dies at 81
Goldberg, known to comic-book fans as “Stan G,” died Sunday at Cavalry Hospital in the Bronx. He was 82.
He was inducted into the National Cartoonists Society Hall of Fame and awarded with its Gold Key Award in 2012.
Goldberg started his career at age 16, when he joined Timely (now known as Marvel) Comics as a staff colorist, quickly becoming its color department manager. He colored interiors and almost every Marvel cover published throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, according to his family.
He also was the color designer for the classic Marvel superheroes and villains of the 1960s, including Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and The Hulk.
Joan Rivers, the raucous, acid-tongued comedian who crashed the male-dominated realm of late-night talk shows and turned Hollywood red carpets into danger zones for badly dressed celebrities, died Thursday. She was 81.A KISS for the homeland
Rivers was hospitalized last week after she went into cardiac arrest at a Manhattan doctor’s office following a routine procedure. Daughter Melissa Rivers said she died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, surrounded by family and close friends.
“My mother’s greatest joy in life was to make people laugh,” Melissa Rivers said. “Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that re return to laughing soon.”
Hard-rock band KISS are to perform in Israel as part of the next leg of their world tour, frontman Gene Simmons said this week in a Facebook post.Beach Boys to play Israel on world tour
Simmons, who plays bass and sings lead vocals in the legendary band, was born Chaim Witz in Haifa and emigrated to New York City with his mother, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, at the age of eight. His father, who subsequently remarried, stayed in Israel.
In his short post on Facebook announcing the band’s upcoming travel to multiple countries and regions, Simmons made a point of capitalizing “Israel.”
The band, which changed the way Americans rocked to rhythm and blues, will perform on November 29 in Tel Aviv’s Nokia Stadium.Top 3 Israeli universities for VC-backed entrepreneurs
Founded in 1961 by brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine, the only original musician still performing with the band is Mike Love.
The current tour is anchored by Love and Bruce Johnston, who joined the band in 1965 and Jeff Foskett, who came on board in 1981. The other musicians joining the tour are Tim Bonhomme, Scott Totten, Randell Kirsch and Jon Cowsill, all of whom have played with the Beach Boys for the last 10 to 20 years.
Tel Aviv University, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and Hebrew University of Jerusalem produce the most VC-backed entrepreneurs and innovators in Israel, according to PitchBook’s second annual Top Universities for VC-backed Entrepreneurs list.Wolfson cardiac surgeons save lives of more Gazan children
PitchBook, a research firm for Private Equity and Venture Capital, lists 50 undergraduate schools from around the world to produce the most graduates to launch venture-backed companies over five years ending August 2014.
Stanford University topped the table, with US schools taking seven of the top eight positions.
Tel Aviv University ranked ninth, the Technion 18th, and Hebrew University placed 36th on the list.
Just a week after Hamas terrorists stopped hurling rockets at Israel, a two-week-old Gazan baby girl named Fajar underwent successful open-heart surgery on Tuesday at Holon’s Wolfson Medical Center as part of the voluntary Save a Child's Heart (SACH) organization, the lifesaving help to Gazan children continued through Operation Protective Edge.
She arrived in Holon during the war, on August 23, accompanied by her father. She is the youngest of three daughters. Her two-year-old sister, Zachra, was treated at the Wolfson last year for a different congenital heart condition. Zachra is due back at the hospital next week for reevaluation for a second surgery. The father, who has a degree in business management, is an officer in the Palestinian Authority, while her mother is a high school graduate. Fajar’s heart surgery was performed by Dr. Lior Sasson and his team, together with Palestinian Dr. Addas and Ethiopian Dr. Mekonnen, both doctors taking part in the SACH training program.
Fajar was brought to the pediatric intensive care unit after her surgery, and was put in bed near two-week-old Rumaisa, a Palestinian baby who was brought by SACH to Wolfson at the age of nine days. Rumaisa was an urgent case, brought during the fighting in a Red Cross ambulance. Her condition was so serious upon arrival that the doctors needed a few days just to stabilize her. Now, after the surgery, Wolfson pediatric cardiologists are pleased with her recovery.
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