Sunday, June 14, 2015
Daily Mail: British Muslim campaigner ridiculed after claiming 'Zionists' stole his shoe
Within hours, the rant had prompted dozens of mocking tweets, with the hashtags #MossadStoleMyShoe and #ShoeishConspiracy trending on Twitter, with one user telling him to 'put a sock in it'.Asghar Bukhari responds to his critics
In response, he issued a bizarre, 15-minute YouTube rant in which he said, 'they're stealing people's homes in Palestine. You think a shoe is a big deal for them?'
A number of readers also created memes mocking Mr Bukhari's assertions that a member of the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service, better known as Mossad, had rearranged his footwear.
The message, which was posted on Facebook alongside a black-and-white image of a boy wearing one shoe, is written under the head 'are zionists trying to intimidate me'.
It read: 'Someone came into my home yesterday, while I was asleep. I dont know how they got in, but they didn't break in - the only thing they took was one shoe.
'Now think about that, the only thing they took was a single shoe - they left one shoe behind to let me know someone had been there.
I held off on the whole #Mossadstolemyshoe story – a strong contender for the funniest Twitter meme ever – because I thought Asghar Bukhari must be ill.Douglas Murray: If I was Asghar Bukhari, I’d hold onto both of my shoes very tightly
But now he is spinning such responses – incredulity and speculation about his state of mind – in order to spread his deluded and conspiratorial narrative still further.
If you aren’t yet up to speed with his original claims – and the fun people had with them – I suggest you read the coverage here or here – and, for some further background on the man, John Sargeant’s account here.
(Briefly, he published a Facebook post in which he insisted that Zionists had somehow got into his house (though there were no signs of a break in) and stolen one of his shoes.)
Bukhari’s latest move has been to release a YouTube video in which he distorts the inevitably incredulous responses in order to whip up a paranoid mindset amongst young Muslims – he makes it very clear that it is this group which he is addressing.
One of his techniques is to imply that Zionists were troubled and angered by his Facebook post. This isn’t true – In fact everyone enjoyed the joke – the Zionist Federation’s response was particularly funny. (h/t Bob Knot)
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is a strange beast. Its membership largely consists of Asghar Bukhari and his brother. Occasionally another person appears on television claiming an affiliation to the group – an affiliation promptly proved by use of the organisation’s modus operandi, viz furious shouting backed up by ferocious stupidity.
I last encountered Asghar in January when we disagreed on Sky about the journalists and cartoonists who were massacred in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Apart from smearing the dead cartoonists as ‘racists’ Asghar appeared most eager to claim that I refused to debate him. He claimed this as I was debating him. Live. On air. Anyhow, in the wake of that debate there were rumours that Asghar had been sending abusive tweets to me from a sock-puppet account.. He denied any involvement, although the rogue Twitter account closed down shortly thereafter.
Anyhow, it has long been plain that Asghar lives in the fever swamps. I suppose Sky just think he makes good noise. But today brings a particularly moving example of where this can lead. Thanks to the excellent Jamie Palmer (@jacobinism) who reads Asghar’s Facebook rants so the rest of us don’t have to, the world can now read a real gem. Here it is. But first a warning. This is not, it seems, a spoof. It is somebody writing under their own name.
I have indeed — as Asghar invites us to do — ‘thought about that’. And I have a nasty feeling that I have the answer. It seems likely to me that Asghar will at some point find his missing shoe. I usually find mine under the sofa. But if I were Asghar I would consider looking there and beneath the bed but behind the television. It is possible, is it not, that the dapper-dresser removed one of his shoes and hurled it at the box in a rage when someone not from his immediate family was on the television? It is easy to forget such moments of inarticulate rage. Asghar clearly does. If he remembered them then he would never again accept an invitation to appear on the television.
Change org Petition: Please join us in demanding the immediate and safe return of Asghar Bukharis sandal held hostage by the agents of the Zionist State, the Mossad
Asghar is clearly very, very annoyed at the Zionist state for stealing his shoe and we fear that his sanity is about to be compromised unless his much prized sandal is returned immediately. He needs to know that the Israeli people love him really and all the mockery he has received in the last 12 hours was just our way of showing him a little love.PreOccupiedTerritory: Knesset Intelligence Committee Ups Shoe-Theft Allocation (satire)
HELP US TO HELP ASGHAR-FREE ASGHARS SHOE
Building on the success of recent operations against anti-Israel agitators, the Israeli legislature’s Intelligence Committee held an emergency session to approve further funding for agents to steal more shoes from such activists.Netanyahu pans Gaza war crimes inquiry as ‘waste of time’
The Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, requested the emergency allocation Friday after discovering the surprising effectiveness of what had theretofore been merely a pilot program to intimidate or confuse political opponents of Israel by making a single item of footwear disappear, leaving the other half of the pair. Activist Ashgar Bukhari’s lengthy online diatribe yesterday against Israeli agents stealing his shoe drove home to Mossad officials just how important the program cold be, and the experimental operations will give way to an organized program of theft involving athletic shoes, boots, dress shoes, slippers, sandals, clogs, and those creepy shoes with individual toes.
Committee members scrambled to reach the meeting this evening at the Knesset, hoping to achieve the necessary quorum. The measure passed unanimously, and the full plenum will vote on the increase tomorrow morning. Political experts anticipate the measure to pass handily, as several Opposition parties concur with the centrality of clandestine operations to befuddle enemies by surreptitiously confiscating their footwear. Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni, in fact, worked for the Mossad in a capacity similar to the current shoe-theft program, at one point replacing the toothbrushes of several Iraqi and Syrian military commanders with duplicates that had been used to clean the tile grout and toilet bowl rims of a prominent Baghdad hospital.
Reading the upcoming UN Human Rights Council report on last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip “would be a waste of time,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, deriding the yet-to-be-released paper as an attempt “to blacken [the name] of the State of Israel.”Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Israel Needs a Global “Iron Dome” - Against Defamation
Netanyahu received the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s own report on the conflict Sunday, which was expected to try to head off criticisms thought to be included in the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict.
The Israeli report was being formally released later Sunday. The full UN report will be submitted to the Human Rights Council on June 29, but segments are expected to be released beforehand.
In a statement released to the press, the Prime Minister’s Office said that the main points of Israel’s counter-report highlighted Hamas’s war crimes committed during the war and the IDF’s measures above and beyond international legal requirements to prevent civilian casualties.
“We will act everywhere and as necessary in order to contend with false claims and anti-Israel initiatives,” Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting.
Today, Israel, the Jews, and the West are up against dangerous demagogues who flourish on campuses and in the media. Would we allow a professor to teach that the earth is flat and reward him for teaching Junk Science? Imagine that this professor had a following which demonizes, intimidates, and death threatens all those who believe that the earth is round! Such behavior is typical of Islamists and Stalinists, but here I am describing the Western intelligentsia.Should Jews Reclaim the Words "Palestine" and "Palestinian"?
What is frightening about campus anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism is that the Israeli Apartheid Weeks and BDS campaigns have become such a familiar part of North American university life and the internet. Such Big Lie events have become normalized. They have been well-organized by the Muslim Brotherhood through its Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. Already, Jewish students have to be rescued by the campus police from Gaza-like mob attacks and riots. What next? Broken bones, a concussion, God forbid, a murder?
It is inevitable.
And then, the usual suspects will say: There is no connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism which are protected by free speech. This is an isolated event. The murderer is mentally ill. Or, he is a 19-year old freedom fighter whose family supposedly lost everything in the “Nakba” sixty years ago and he still cannot forget it.
We have lost 35-60 years in terms of combating the lethal War of Ideas against us. Despite valorous grassroots efforts, including my own, we have lost the war of ideas. Israel is now utterly defamed. We face a tsunami of hatred.
According to the most reliable statistics, most non-Jewish immigration to Palestine occurred in the 1800s and early 1900s (which explains why in the late 17th century not a single settlement had a name that was of Arabic origin). Demographer Roberto Bachi believes there were around 151,000 non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine in 1540. By 1800, the Muslim and Christian populations had risen to 268,000, rising to 489,000 by 1890, 589,000 in 1922, and swelling to just over 1.3 million in 1948.Michael Oren: US altered 40-year policy on ’67 lines without consulting Israel
Many of the non-Jewish migrants to Palestine came for several reasons. The Ottoman authorities, for instance, transferred a great many people to Palestine to put them to work on infrastructure projects and to outflank Jewish immigration. Furthermore, the Zionist project was very attractive to Arabs who were drawn to Palestine by the good wages and healthcare offered by the Jews. Indeed, the Arab population of Palestine increased the most in cities where there were large numbers of Jews. Between 1922 and 1947, the Arab population grew by 290 per cent in Haifa, 158 per cent in Jaffa and 131 per cent in Jerusalem. By contrast, the growth in Arab-majority towns was less dramatic: 37 per cent in Bethlehem, 42 per cent in Nablus and 78 per cent in Jenin.
During the British civil administration in Palestine (1920 to 1948), restrictions were placed on Jewish immigration in order to appease Arab troublemakers. However, there was significant illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan and the Hauran region of Syria. The Peel Commission reported in 1937 that a “shortfall of land” was “due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.”
President Barack Obama endorsed the Palestinian position on the 1967 lines in 2011 and by so doing altered more than 40 years of American policy without prior consultation with Israel, former ambassador to the US Michael Oren writes in a book to be published later this month.Congressmen call on Obama to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital after US court ruling
Oren, in an account of the book that appeared Friday in The New York Jewish Week, wrote that the Prime Minister’s Office was outraged at the move, and instructed him to call congressional leaders.
“Israel felt abandoned, I was to say. And that is no way to treat an ally,” he wrote.
According to the Jewish Week report, the book, titled Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israel Divide, is a first-hand account of “mistrust, mistakes and missed opportunities” that Oren saw as ambassador from 2009 to 2013, with “Obama in the role of bully in chief.”
In the book he reportedly describes how Israel was continuously blamed for lack of progress on the diplomatic front, while the Palestinians were given a free pass.
The Supreme Court took the side of US President Barack Obama’s administration in Zivotovsky v. Kerry last Monday, saying that the law encroached on the president’s policy to set foreign policy.Professor Alan Dershowitz: interview to Channel 1, Israel
Members and chairman of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus came out against the decision, with many calling for Obama to use the power the Court ruled he alone holds to do what the now-canceled law authorized.
“The sad and unfortunate truth is that this President has done all he can to diminish the standing since he walked into office,” Rep. Ted Franks (R-AZ), a CIAC co-chairman who introduced the Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel Act, stated.
Franks said that, because Obama “refuses to reflect the unified American voice that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Congress has been placed in the very uncomfortable position of having to confirm to the world who our allies are.”
The goal of the law SCOTUS repealed was to hold the US President to his own statement that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,” Franks explained, adding that Obama misled the American people when it comes to his support for an undivided Jerusalem.
Professor Alan Dershowitz was the key speaker during the B'nai B'rith World. Center award ceremony in Jerusalem this week for journalistic excellence. In a special interview with Israel television's Yaakov Ahimeir, the renowned Professor spoke about President Obama, US-Israel relations and the BDS movement.
"There is a broad consensus the emerging deal with Iran is not a good deal for the world", says Professor Dershowitz, who believes there is a connection between the negotiations with Teheran and the US Supreme court ruling that prohibits American born in Jerusalem to register Israel as the country of their births in US passports.
Congress Approves Millions in Extra Aid for IDF Missile Defense
In a joint statement released Friday, Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL), co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus, and Congresswoman Grace Meng (D-NY), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, expressed their satisfaction at the increased aid for cooperative US-Israel missile defense systems including Iron Dome, Arrow, Arrow 3, and David’s Sling.Hillary Tells Rally: I Stood up to Putin! I Helped Israel!
The boost in funding was added to Defense Appropriations Bill after Meng and Roskam sent a letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense urging that more funds be allocated for the programs. The legislation, which passed a vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday by 278-149, includes:
- $55 million for the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system, which guards against short-range rockets and mortars
- $146.1 million for the Arrow Weapon System, which protects against long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)
- $286.5 million for the David’s Sling Weapon System, designed to intercept medium- to long-range rockets and cruise missiles.
The latter two budgets represent an increase of $60.6 million and $249.8 million over the President's budget request respectively.
On Israel, Clinton participated in a serious, deliberate, and unnecessary sabotage of U.S.-Israel relations. She infamously berated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for 45 minutes over an Israeli government move to build apartments in a Jewish area of Jerusalem. Her State Department relished the chance to join anti-Israel institutions like the UN Human Rights Council. She even compared Israel to Iran, because of the separation of the sexes among some religious Jews.Prominent Bipartisan Delegation Of Americans Back Iranian Opposition Movement At Paris Rally
There are many, many more examples that absolutely and totally refute Hillary Clinton’s claim to have stood up to Putin and defended Israel and other allies. Conversely, there is no record of Clinton ever standing up to President Barack Obama about any of his misguided foreign policies, save for her claim that she supported earlier intervention in Syria.
Clinton has trouble telling the truth about anything, but it takes an additional level of chutzpah to tell such an easily disprovable lie.
Although few in America probably are aware of it, taking place right now is a huge gathering of the Iranian diaspora calling for regime change by the Iranian people.Rouhani: We won’t give our state secrets to foreigners
I’m writing from this gathering of tens of thousands of expats and their international supporters (including an impressive and bipartisan group of American attendees that includes former CIA director James Woolsey, former Sec. of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former head of the UN Human Rights Commission Ken Blackwell, former Labor Sec. Elaine Chao, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Hugh Shelton, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps James Conway, Alan Dershowitz, and former DNC head Howard Dean).
Some background on the event organizers — and this rally. The good news is they’re no longer considered a terrorist organization. The bad news is…I’m attending their eight-hour rally. It’s not that I disagree with what I’ve heard and understood (it’s not all in English and translations are hurried), it’s just that I don’t know of anything (even, let’s say, eating pizza) that I would want to do for eight hours. But at least it’s full of passion and intensity.
The rally which, as far as I can tell, also includes many thousands of young people who were bused in from all across Europe, is sponsored by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a Paris-based group that serves as an umbrella organization for five Iranian opposition groups, the most controversial being the MEK. I came here partly out of curiosity. This is a group whose American boosters include (aside from the aforementioned names) people like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Ambassador John Bolton, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.
Arab Rioter Tries to Steal Weapon, Soldiers InvestigatedIranian negotiators and those of the P5+1 group (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) are meeting in Vienna to clinch a deal that would guarantee the strictly peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of the punishing international sanctions.Rouhani said the talks were “so far a great victory for the Iranian nation.” The major powers have recognized Iran’s right to possess a uranium enrichment program and the enrichment sites in Natanz and Fordo will remain open, he said.Rouhani repeated Tehran’s objection to allowing international inspectors to visit Iranian military sites, considered a crucial demand by Western powers to ensure the nuclear program does not possess military aspects.“We will not hand over our state secrets to foreigners,” he stated.
Palestinian Arab media published on Friday video documenting an IDF soldier striking and cursing an Arab man during riots the same day in Jelazoun, located near Beit El in the Binyamin region of Samaria - but they misleadingly left out key context, and the IDF apparently fell for it.Karma: Arab Terrorist Dies after IDF Jeep Flips On Top of Him
In the video, additional soldiers are seen joining the first and also hitting one of the Arab rioters.
In the incident, Arab rioters including many with masks covering their faces and hiding their identities descended upon a force from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion (Nahal Haredi), hurling potentially lethal rocks at the soldiers.
One of the rocks struck an officer of the unit, inflicting light wounds on his head and causing him to be evacuated for treatment at a hospital.
Soldiers familiar with the event revealed that the Arab man seen being hit in the video had intentionally confronted the IDF force and tried to elicit a reaction from them.
More importantly, he had tried to steal a weapon from one of the soldiers, which if he had succeeded in doing so would have presented an immediate life-threatening danger to the troops, and clearly indicated his hostile intentions to harm them.
A Palestinian terrorist died in clashes with the IDF near Ramallah Sunday morning, after his attack on an army jeep backfired quite spectacularly.1,500 Jordanian laborers to work in Israeli resort city
Abdallah Ghanayem, 21, died after being struck by the vehicle during clashes that erupted in the village of Kfar Malik following a dawn Israeli army raid, the Palestinian Authority sources said.
An IDF spokesman confirmed to AFP that a Palestinian had died - after he threw an incendiary device at a jeep and the vehicle overturned on him.
It was the second Palestinian terrorist killed in the past week, after a would-be bomber was shot as he was preparing to hurl an explosive device at soldiers in Jenin. The attacker was reportedly injured by IDF fire, and killed when the explosive he was holding subsequently detonated in his hands.
Israel has agreed to allow 1,500 Jordanian laborers to work in the Israeli resort city of Eilat, according to an Israeli official.10 years on, Hamas uses Gush Katif as training grounds
Israeli Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation Ayyub Kara signed the agreement with Jordanian officials last week, Kara told Ma'an Friday, adding the agreement will give workers from the nearby Jordanian city of Aqaba special permits in cooperation with the Jordanian Ministry of Labor.
The agreement is expected to be followed by additional projects including the creation of new border crossings between Israel and Jordan, and a joint industrial zone in the northern Jordan Valley.
Kara says the agreements are part of an Israeli plan to replace foreign workers with Jordanian and Palestinian workers, with the number of work permits given to Palestinians expected to see noticeable increase by the end of 2015.
Until now, Palestinians have been banned from working in Eilat, though tens of thousands have been given permits to work in other Israeli cities. All work permits Israel issues for Palestinian workers include the phrase “allowed to enter Israel excluding Eilat."
Islamist organization self-produces and tests rockets where Israeli settlements once stood; this is also where its fighters practice how to infiltrate Israel and kidnap soldiers.JCPA: Much Ado About… the Academic Boycott of Israel in the UK
Among the many attractions available to Palestinian children in the area formerly known as Gush Katif are a theme park, water slides, a zoo - and a Hamas terror camp. Hundreds of teenagers aged 12 and up train there as Hamas shapes the future fighters of its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The teens practice live fire, learn how to read maps and offer first aid, and also practice the kidnapping of IDF soldiers.
What used to be Gush Katif is far from being Gaza's Disneyland. After taking over the Gaza Strip two years after Israel's pullout, Hamas constructed three large training complexes in the evacuated areas. The first is in the Hof Aza Regional Council - where Elei Sinai, Dugit and Nisanit once stood. The second is in the Netzarim corridor. The third - and most important of the three - was constructed on the ruins of Gush Katif. This complex even earned the nickname "Hamas' Tze'elim" – a Hamas version of the large IDF training base in southern Israel.
The National Executive Council of the British National Union of Students’ BDS resolution on June 2, 2015 may have been publicized by the faction on the executive which proposed the resolution, rather than by the NUS itself.Boycott motion flops at Reading University
It was carefully worded, only “encouraging” rather than “mandating” individual student unions to support BDS. This is for good reason, because too strong a resolution on BDS leaves organizations open to legal challenge and financial penalty under UK anti-discrimination regulations.
The representative body of the 133 British universities, Universities UK, was quick to reiterate its firm opposition “to academic boycotts on the basis that they are inimical to academic freedom including the freedom of academics to collaborate with other academics.”
Co-operation between Israeli and British universities and their academics has grown in recent years under the energetic leadership of outgoing UK ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould.
Israel’s national effort must be directed, not on student political stunts which have the effect of a flea on an elephant. When a large international company in Israel’s flagship business sector, Hi-Tech, threatens to cease trading with the country, this is a major, serious BDS threat. It is not a bunch of amateur student politicos.
An Israel boycott motion at Reading University’s student union failed today.US lawmakers approve measure to prevent anti-Israel boycotts
Students were able to vote from Monday to Friday this week on a motion to boycott Israeli organisations operating beyond the Green Line, but the total number of votes only reached 180, 20 below the minimum 200 needed to make a quorum or valid vote.
The motion was a re-worded version of a stronger motion put forward in April that would have affiliated the union to the international BDS movement.
The original vote was halted due to concerns it would contradict the union’s charitable status.
A statement on the union website read: “The number of total votes cast was 180 which did not meet the required quorum of 200. Therefore the policy did not pass.”
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a measure Friday that could result in punitive measures against European companies that boycott Israel.Norwegian Insurance Giant Divests From Two Firms Over Judea and Samaria
The measure, which was already approved by the U.S. Senate last month, is part of the large bill called the Trade Act of 2015 that is set to arrive at the president's desk in the near future. Under the bill's Trade Promotion Authority, the president would be granted wide leeway to conclude a trade deal with the European Union. Congress would get the chance to vote on the deal but not on its various provisions.
The bill would essentially prevent the U.S. from engaging in free trade with a European trade partner (either the EU itself or a European corporation) so long as it is involved in the boycotting of Israel, potentially barring such entities from submitting bids for government contracts in the U.S. Moreover, a company that is traded in the U.S. stock exchange (or other American capital markets) would have to state whether it has engaged in anti-Israeli activity in Europe and provide a full account of its relations with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.
The TPA's final passage is contingent on the approval of Trade Adjustment Assistance Act of 2015, whose fate is in limbo because of an internal divide among House Democrats.
The Norwegian insurance giant KLP Kapitalforvaltning has excluded two multinational construction firms from their investment portfolio over their ownership of Israeli companies who operate in Judea and Samaria.New Gaza Flotilla Threat on the Horizon This Month
“KLP is excluding Heidelberg Cement and Cemex on the grounds of their exploitation of natural resources in occupied territory on the West Bank,” the company announced Thursday, Haaretz reported. “In KLP’s opinion this activity constitutes an unacceptable risk of violating fundamental ethical norms.”
The two companies in question—Heidelberg Cement, a Germany company, and Cemex, a Mexican company—acquired the Israeli firms Hanson Quarry Products Israel and Readymix Industries Israel, who both run quarries in Area C of Judea and Samaria, which is under Israeli control.
“No such agreement can override the rules relating to occupation set out in the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention,” KLP said.
Both Heidelberg and Cemex, however, stressed that most of the workers at their Judea and Samaria quarries are Palestinian and benefit from the same working conditions as Israelis.
"Freedom Flotilla 3," a maritime challenge to Israel's legal naval blockade on the coastal enclave of Gaza which is controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization, is preparing to embark in the final week of June and threatens to potentially cause a flare-up like the infamous 2010 Mavi Marmara.PreOccupiedTerritory: Somehow People Are Seeing Through Our Denials Of Antisemitism (satire)
Mazen Kahil, head of the European Campaign to Break the Siege on Gaza, told the Hamas journal Palestine on Saturday that the flotilla ships are currently in the Mediterranean Sea.
The ships are waiting to join the Swedish ship Marianne, which recently anchored in Italy, on the open sea and from there continue as a unified group towards Gaza, where they intend to confront the Israeli Navy - potentially with lethal force as was seen in the Marmara.
Kahil detailed that senior public figures, including former Tunisian President Muncef Marzouki, members of the European Parliament, journalists, athletes, artists, as well as radical leftist Israelis will be on board.
He claimed that symbolic humanitarian materials will be loaded on board the ships to demand Gaza's naval entry be opened - despite the fact that Israel is allowing hundreds of truckloads of humanitarian and construction materials to enter Gaza border crossings every day, even as Hamas rebuilds its terror tunnels for the next round of fighting.
We get tired of being asked why we target Israel when there are many far worse violators of human rights: Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan, blah, blah, blah, That’s not a fair question, so please stop asking it. Not that we’re going to give a satisfactory answer, mind you; “you have to start somewhere” is about as coherent as it’s going to get. And then, despite this consistency of message, this rhetoric that uses all the right human rights language, people still go and accuse us of singling out the world’s only Jewish state for vilification. Well, let us say this: if there were other Jewish states we’d have no problem vilifying them also. So much for your “antisemitism.”Croatia Apologises After Euro 2016 Football Pitch 'Sabotaged' With Enormous Swastika
How many times do we have to repeat that we are a pro-Palestinian movement? How pro-Palestinian? We emulate the Palestinian leadership: use Palestinian suffering as leverage to isolate Israel. We can’t condemn thousands of Palestinians to violent death the way Mahmoud Abbas does by refusing to allow Palestinian refugees in Syrian camps to find asylum or citizenship anywhere lest that seem a concession on the Right of Return and Israel’s demographic dissolution, but we can certainly promote a boycott movement that hurts Palestinian workers more than anyone else. If Hamas can build a campaign to isolate Israel on the backs and corpses of Gaza’s children, the least we can do is sacrifice a few thousand Palestinian wage-earners in pursuit of a similar goal. Somehow, people look at the hurt-Israel-even-at-the-cost-of-hurting-Palestinians-more and conclude that there’s some sort of hate at work.
We have no idea how they figured that out.
The Football Association of Croatia has issued an apology after a large swastika was discovered to have been burnt into the pitch to be used for a Euro 2016 qualifier.Dieudonne fined 130K euros for distorting Jewish French singer’s work
Authorities said the symbol, long associated with luck and good health and more recently appropriated by National Socialist movements such as the German ‘Nazi’ party of the early 20th century, had been burnt into the pitch with a chemical. The chemical used had been reportedly laid with perfect timing to only reveal the offensive symbol as the match was to be played.
Shocked at the swastika appearing on their pitch, groundsmen attempted to cover it up during half time – without success. The Mirror reports the comments of Croatian football spokesman Tomislav Pacak, who said of the incident:
“We apologise to all viewers, our guests from Italy and the players from both teams, for the Nazi symbol on the Poljud Stadium grass. Technically speaking, a chemical agent was used on the field 24 to 48 hours before the kick-off, timed to be visible during the qualifying match.
The decision was the final ruling in a case that has been ongoing for for the past year. In July 2014, Dieudonne was ordered by a judge to pay 50,000 euros in damages to the beneficiaries of singer Barbara, after he released a video in which he rewrote her famous chanson L’Aigle Nior (The Black Eagle) as Le Rat Nior (The Black Rat), adding insults against the artist and calling her “crazy” and “senile.”Spanish city councilman applauds burning of Jews
Barbara’s estate, led by nephew Bernard Serf, had sued the provocative comedian, accusing him of using anti-Semitic imagery to “humiliate” the late singer, who passed away in 1997. Barbara’s representatives demanded the video’s immediate withdrawal, as well as compensation of damages.
When the judge ruled in the family’s favor, he also ruled that Dieudonne would be fined an additional 1,300 euros for every day the video remained online. The French comedian filed an appeal against the ruling, not only claiming his song was a legitimate parody, but simultaneously delaying the removal of the video.
A Spanish city councilman tweeted approvingly of Jews burning in an ash tray--a reference to the Nazi's use of ovens to exterminate European Jewry.Head of Spanish Jewish Federation Hopes Emerging Citizenship Law Will be ‘Antidote Against Prejudice’
According to a translation of the tweet, Guillermo Zapata, a city councilman in Madrid who is now in charge of Madrid's department of culture as of Saturday, wrote" how would you fit five million Jews in a Seat 600 (like a Fiat 500)? In the ashtray."
Zapata is a member of the left-wing party Ahora Madrid, which is the same party as Manuela Carmena, the new mayor of Madrid. The party's views on Israel are extremist, mirroring the goals of the Boycott, Sanction, Divestement movement targeting the Jewish state.
According to the English-language Spanish website ,The Spain Report, Zapata wrote dehumanzing and anti-Jewish tweets in 2011 and 2012.
The website noted that he apologized in a tweet on Saturday evening and rejected that he was an anti-Semite. He said that politicians should know better and said that he had: “always liked black, cruel humor […] as a healthy expression to laugh at the horror humans create."
The Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities welcomed on Friday the lower parliament’s passing of a motion to allow the descendants of Jews who were exiled in 1492 to claim Spanish citizenship.Diplomats, officials at UN enjoy kosher meal they can’t see
“We hope that Jewish life will be considered normal in Spanish society, which will act as an antidote against prejudice and stereotypes,” wrote federation president Isaac Querub Caro, in an op-ed for the Spanish newspaper El Pais on Thursday.
He said that many communities of Sephardi Jews — Jews who resettled following the 1492 Inquisition but kept many traditions from their religious and cultural practices in Spain — are awaiting the final passing of this law with “emotional expectation.”
The federation said it had already received over 5,000 submitted requests for information on the law, which could benefit millions of Sephardi Jews in many Latin American countries, the United States, Israel, Turkey and elsewhere.
The Spanish Jewish community today stands at just around 40,000 people of Spain’s mostly Catholic 47-million-person population. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s Global Index in 2014, nearly one-third of Spaniards harbored antisemitic attitudes and beliefs, which was higher than Western Europe’s 24-percent average.
Thirty diplomats and UN officials from around the world accepted Israel’s invitation to dinner last Wednesday night.Birthright celebrates its 500,000th participant
The ambassadors enjoyed a champagne reception as the Israeli delegation warmly welcomed their guests and promptly proceeded to blindfold them.
It wasn’t a kidnapping plot, but a dinner intended to provide a unique sensory experience and glimpse into the lives of those living with disabilities.
The event was hosted by Israel’s mission to the UN in cooperation with non-profit organization Access Israel, as this week’s Commission for the Rights of People with Disabilities got under way.
Michal Ramon of Access Israel instructed the blindfolded dignitaries to place a hand on the person in front of them and find their way to what presumably was a table in the next room.
The Taglit-Birthright Israel program, which sends young Jews on free trips to Israel, celebrated its milestone 500,000th participant this week.In unraveling one Holocaust mystery, journalist finds others
In a ceremony in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, 24-year-old Molly Dodd from New Jersey presented Birthright cofounders Michael Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman with framed letters from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 1998, in which he gave his blessing for the program to begin.
Dodd, who works as a digital department coordinator for Fox News, said that, following the death of her parents, she had no affiliation or involvement in the Jewish community when she was growing up. In the last two years, however, Dodd has taken steps to rediscover her Jewish heritage and hopes to choose a Hebrew name and celebrate her bat mitzvah on her maiden visit to Israel.
“Molly embodies what Taglit, literally translated as ‘discovery,’ is all about, as she travels to define herself as a member of the Jewish community for the rest of her life,” Taglit-Birthright Israel CEO Gidi Mark said at the event.
The photograph shows a girl, perhaps 4 years old, walking up an incline holding hands with a kerchiefed young woman. In the background are several other females, two freight cars of a train and barren trees.Decades after Karski rang alarm, unheeded Shoah warnings brought to life
The scene was captured on April 13, 1945, moments after they and other inmates were liberated from a train transferring them from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany to the Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia.
The image on a photography website caught the attention of Daan Ballegeer, an Amsterdam-based freelance journalist who writes a column about the mysteries surrounding photographs of historic moments.
Hoping to learn the identities of the woman and child, Ballegeer came across a JTA column about the train’s passengers having been freed by an American tank unit. He asked JTA for assistance.
Within a few weeks, the mystery was solved.
Director Slawomir Grünberg uses animation to illustrate the dramatic testimony of the Polish resistance fighter who brought reports of Jewish genocide to Allied leaders
In a way, Jan Karski’s presence had been hovering over film director Slawomir Grünberg for almost a decade before the notion of making a film about the World War II Polish resistance fighter occurred to him.
Grünberg had received the first Jan Karski Film Award for moral courage in 2000 for his film “School Prayer: A Community at War,” about a family that sued authorities to remove prayer from their local Mississippi public school. The award sat on Grünberg’s shelf for seven years.
“I’d been staring at it, but the idea to make a film about Karski didn’t come until I had lunch with three friends in November 2007,” Grünberg told The Times of Israel.
One was the Polish consul in New York, the second was the head of the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, and the third was former Polish ambassador to Israel Maciej Kozlowski, author of a short book on Karski, who had risked his life to bring firsthand reports of the Holocaust to the Allies.
“They suggested to me that I would be the best person to make a film about Karski because I, like Karski [who became a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, after the war], had lived in both Poland and America,” Grünberg said.
