Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Douglas Murray: The Bigotry of Our Time
The letters page of The Guardian in the UK is regularly filled with letters, jointly signed by "correct-thinking" people who hope that in so doing, they will give themselves both a little puff of publicity and simultaneously signal their loyalty to all modern virtuesFascist Demonstrators to Burn Talmud at London Rally in Jewish Neighborhood
Their opinions on Israeli counter-terrorism strategy may be those of a group of teachers, the unemployed and two extreme-left filmmakers, but it is Israel they are against, so of course the letter is of note. So much so, that it received an accompanying news story in the print edition of the paper. This gave a further quote from Ken Loach, who said: "The boycott campaign specifically says this is not a campaign against individual film-makers, it is a call for a boycott when the state of Israel invests money or is promoting the event. I'd be the last person to want to censor an individual voice."
One doubts, in fact, that Loach would be the last. He is always among the first. The letter -- and the surrounding furore -- is simply the latest in a series of attempts to make Israeli and indeed Jewish culture "forbidden." In London, we have had Israeli orchestras, theatre companies and even string quartets howled down by mobs during performances, and Israeli-performed shows cancelled because the venues hosting them just do not want the bother. Last year, the Tricycle Theatre in London refused to proceed with a festival of "Jewish" culture because a tiny proportion of the festival's funding was coming from the Israeli embassy in London.
The campaign is obviously organized. The same names crop up again and again. Little, if any, rigour is paid to whether the signatories of such letters even do what they say do, or have opinions worthy of any note. Beneath the barely-built veneer of "professionals objecting to something in their own profession," is just the same tiny number of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish obsessives. A sprinkling of "as a Jew" Jews, like Margolyes, help, of course. But the aim is clear. These people, step by step, want to make every expression of Israeli and Jewish cultural life subject to their idea of how a nation under constant threat of terrorist bombardment should behave. They denounce Israel as a militaristic society and then attempt to outlaw every non-militaristic cultural and artistic expression from that society.
It is the bigotry of our time. And if unchecked, it will lead in the same direction as it historically has done. Thankfully, although few people have seen the films of those self-important Guardian letter signatories, we have all seen this larger, historical film -- and it is not one that decent people would like to see repeated.
The extreme right-wing organizers of a Saturday protest in a predominantly Jewish London neighborhood plan to burn Israeli flags and even a copy of the Jewish Oral Law, or Talmud, the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported on Tuesday.5/28/2015: Police Chief Asks UK Jews for Help to Stop Anti-Semitic Rally
Right-wing activist Joshua Bonehill-Paine called on demonstrators through his website to bring Israeli flags to the July 4 demonstration in the mostly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green to “dismember … by hand,” which apparently sidesteps the legal complications of burning national flags.
“This will be a show of solidarity by English people who recognize that Israel is a corrupt state which is responsible for horrific war crimes,” wrote Bonehill-Paine.
Additionally, the activist said there would be a private meeting held before the demonstration in which copies of the Talmud could be burned “in recognition of its racist Anti-White [sic] teachings.” (h/t Alexi)
A British police chief has requested London's Jewish community to provide proof an extremist rally being planned for July 4 in Golders Green will be anti-Semitic, so authorities can shut it down.Kay Wilson's revenge
According to a Jewish Chronicle report, Barnet borough commander Adrian Usher claimed that if there was evidence the rally is “motivated by antisemitism, then that is clearly against the law and we will take robust action.”
A ferocious attack by terror-minded Palestinian Arabs on a pair of defenseless women hiking in the hills near Jerusalem on December 18, 2010 is the prelude to an extraordinary recent talk recorded on video as a TEDx event.
Speaking to an audience in Beer Sheva on the campus of Ben Gurion University of the Negev on May 13, 2015, Kay Wilson passionately and articulately walks her audience through the before, the during and the after of being murdered - and surviving. She shares what it means to witness her friend and companion butchered right beside her, and to identify the killers - who must have thought they had gotten away with their barbarism - and watch them convicted.
There are societies all over the world where a person who undergoes what she did becomes twisted, vicious and bent on revenge. Even if her own website [Let My People Giggle] had been given a different name, it would be clear that hatefulness is not what Kay embodies.
But in a way, standing up in front of audiences, as she now does, and projecting a message of optimism and humanity is an act of revenge.
BDS Mega-Fail: Israeli Goods in Bethlehem Stores
Anti-BDS activist and terrorist murder attempt survivor Kay Wilson has discovered, on recent visits to Bethlehem, that even stores in the Palestinian Authority do not boycott Israel. Far from it.Shmuley Boteach: Why Does Peter Beinart Despise Pro-Israel Jews?
Photos from the visits that Wilson posted to Facebook Monday show Israeli goods and even Hebrew signs advertising those goods on prominent display in supermarkets and hardware stores.
"Take a good look at each picture here,” she wrote. “They are from my visit to Bethlehem when I went to see my Palestinian friend. The pictures show a normal town. Just like any other town, Bethlehem has wealthy neighbourhoods and poor neighbourhoods. Personally, I saw some very nice housing. I saw some beautiful Palestinian shops. I saw Israeli goods sold in Palestinian supermarkets (which makes a mockery of the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions) and I saw that some Palestinians have cars that the rest of us can only dream of. For peace to be possible, it has to be based on truth. And the truth is that there is no genocide against the Palestinians. There is no Holocaust being perpetrated by Jews. None. None. Not even one.”
After her post received a torrent of “likes” and “shares,” Wilson added: “Today, little old insignificant me, posted a couple of pics of the realty of Bethlehem on my FB. It went viral as they say, and infected the social media. In 12 hours it got nearly 700 likes and nearly 400 shares (not bad at all) and was also reposted on blogs. Moral of the story: We don't have to backed by politicians, have huge money, even be smart or famous to make a difference - because truth always prevails. We may all be relative nobodies, but it's the little words and deeds that make a difference. So keep sharing the things that make the world a better place, no matter how small you think they are. And keep sharing the truth about our beautiful Israel.”
Peter Beinart has long had an unnatural obsession with me. To be honest, the amount of column space he’s devoted to promoting my name is something for which I should be compensating him.Noura Erakat Wages Lawfare on Israel
Last week he unleashed his latest tantrum — this time in the form of a screed against me and Sheldon Adelson for fighting BDS on campus.
Beinart begins by introducing his by now familiar appalling factual inaccuracies that are an affront to both reason and logic. He begins by saying that “everyone who understands the [BDS] Movement knows that its recruits are progressives, and that what tips them toward BDS is despair that there seems no other way to end Israel’s immoral, undemocratic control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
With this Beinart offers the over-roasted farcical chestnut that the growth of BDS is a product of an occupation.
The BDS movement, along with those who ascribe to it, is about one thing: the destruction of Israel.
It’s easy to prove.
Since the 2014 Gaza war, proponents of lawfare have sought to use the International Criminal Court to punish Israel for daring to respond militarily to Hamas's unrelenting aggression. Noura Erakat, an assistant professor in legal and international studies at George Mason University and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, presented her case in a recent talk at Stanford University titled, "War on Gaza in the Age of Human Rights: Prospects for Accountability."PreOccupied Territory: Louvre Rebuked For Making Antisemitism Too Obvious (satire)
The niece of Palestinian Authority (PA) chief negotiator Saeb Erakat, Erakat's tone was calm and measured, her demeanor pleasant, and her partisanship unmistakable, even when couched in the dispassionate language of international human rights law.
Seated in a conference room before an audience of approximately forty, many of them fellow academics, Erakat began by noting that because this was "not a legal audience," she would depart from her planned presentation and instead focus on "setting the framework for the lead-up" to the war and on providing "the legal and political context" for the situation in Gaza.
The government of France issued a stern admonishment to the management of the Louvre Museum Tuesday, warning it that displays of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudice must be much more subtle than the institution’s recent refusal to allow Israeli students to book a group visit.Confessions of a Mossad Agent
Last month an Israeli professor at Tel Aviv University attempted to reserve time and space to take his art students to the museum, but was rebuffed, despite having made the same reservations and trip several times previously. The professor then assumed the guise of an educator from Abu Dhabi, and encountered no trouble in reserving the dates and times. Museum management denied wrongdoing, blaming the refusal on technical issues with the computerized system, narrowly avoiding explicit invocation of politics and prejudice, but the government, which provides the majority of the museum’s funding, expressed its displeasure at the carelessness with which the Louvre allowed French antisemitism to surface.
Minister of Culture Fleur Pellerin ordered the museum to immediately adopt measures to more effectively pass off its anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli leanings as more legitimate motives. “In the twenty-first century, displays of crude discrimination against any group are not welcome in our society,” the Minister Perellin wrote to Louvre Director Jean-Luc Martinez. “As such, the institution under your care and leadership must take active, immediate, and effective steps to dress up Jew-hatred in more palatable garb.”
Recent increases in antisemitic attacks and behavior all over Europe, and notably in France, have confronted Paris with an uncomfortable social dilemma. Far-right groups and left-wing activists have found unusual common ground in antisemitism, to the consternation of mainstream French society, which delights in tasteful doses of prejudice against Jews but finds direct manifestations of it grotesque.
Dear Anti-Zionists,Comedy Gold: Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe In Mouth Disease
Before I make my confession to you, I would first like to preface by clarifying that I don’t call you “Anti-Zionists,” (as opposed to “Antisemites”) halfheartedly. The reason for this is two fold: 1. Based on my interactions with you, I found that every single one of you either had at least one Jewish best friend or a Jewish second cousin (and therefore you cannot possibly be antisemitic) 2. Arabs are also Semites – never mind that every dictionary defines “Antisemitism” as hatred specifically directed at Jews because all dictionaries are biased and are owned by Zionists. In any case, Jews are not semites anyway but Khazaryian filth from Eastern Europe.
Now for my confession – it has come to my attention that a prominent Anti-Zionist (and not antisemitic) human rights activist by the name of Asghar Bukhari has claimed that his shoe and a pair of slippers were kidnapped and taken hostage by the Mossad. I would like corroborate this allegation and say that it’s all true.
I was involved in the Mossad sleeper cell (no pun intended) that operated from under his bed and subsequently kidnapped his slippers and shoe. After the kidnapping, my conscience got the better of me and I resigned and now volunteer for an Israeli NGO called Breaking the (Akward) Silence.
Shoeless wonder Asghar Bukhari – who has been claiming the Zionists broke into his house to steal a shoe – is back with a new video.Hundreds Sign Petition Calling for Mossad to Return Muslim Activist Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe
And he does not disappoint with his special brand of cray cray.
Which begs the following questions:
1. Did he not consider the fact many of his fellow Muslims didn’t back up his claim, not because they lack confidence, but because it was nucking futs?!
2. He mentions he was going to see Mad Max. Coincidence?
3. Why does he recount how his (Jewish) neighbor found two slippers in her garden, when he claimed he was missing one shoe?
4. Dogs, foxes..notice a theme?
5. If Zionists harvest organs, will he next claim we stole his brain?
6. Who stole his meds?
[The book he references is "They Dare to Speak Out" by anti-Semite and traitor Paul Findley]
Hundreds of people signed a comic petition demanding the return of a shoe to a British Muslim activist who claimed it was stolen by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.Amid Israel debacle, Orange CEO files complaint with court over death threats
Simon Cobbs, founder of Sussex Friends of Israel, a United Kingdom-based pro-Israel group, told The Algemeiner on Monday that he created the petition to mock activist Asghar Bukhari, who claimed on Facebook over the weekend that the Mossad sneaked into his home and stole his shoe. Bukhari, a founding member of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, later posted a 15-minute YouTube clip in which he doubled down on his allegations.
“They’re stealing people’s homes in Palestine,” he said. “You think a shoe is a big deal for them?”
The story made waves on social media and prompted dozens of mocking tweets with the hashtags #MossadStoleMyShoe and #ShoeishConspiracy.
After coming under fire for comments he made about his company's participation in the Israeli market, Orange CEO Stephane Richard filed a complaint at a Paris court for death threats he received against himself and his family.Orange accelerator in Israel to stay
Citing an anonymous source, AFP reported that Richard filed the complaint last week before coming to Israel in order to apologize and clarify the company's position regarding Israel.
"Stephane Richard received death threats on his telephone and his personal data were published on an Internet site in the context of the controversy over Orange's presence in Israel," the source said.
Once these personal details were published, Richard received hundreds of calls, including death threats, the source told AFP.
Whatever the fate of the Orange brand name in Israel, Israel will continue to supply the international communications technology company with tech and investment opportunities.It's not the 'occupation'
“Our three-month tech program, called Orange Fab IL, is now on its second round of Israeli start-ups,” said Jacky Abitbol, a vice president of corporate development at Orange who is also the director of Fab IL. “We’ve been doing this for over a year, and have no plans to stop now.”
Orange, an international communications tech firm that grew out of France Telecom, has, over the last couple of weeks, been engaged in an on-again, off-again relationship with Israel.
Two weeks ago, CEO Stephane Richard told a gathering in Cairo he would break off the company’s relationship with Partner Communications “tomorrow” if he didn’t fear the Israeli company would sue; then Richard claimed he was misquoted; then, last week, at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Richard said that he did not believe in or support boycotts of Israel, and that he admired Israel and would invest even more in the country.
Some sane members of the Left have stepped up to join the fight against the anti-Israel boycott movement.NGO Monitor: Palestinian Christian Group Sabeel Drives Theological Assault on Israel in Churches
But this is difficult for them. Ever since the Left's brilliant peace plans disintegrated in a hail of blood and fire, it has moved to adopt a strategy of pushing the world to "do the job" and force us to withdraw from the heart of our country. And the boycott movement serves this trend.
All in all, the crux of the dispute between the Right and the Left centers on the question of whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stems from 1948 or 1967. In other words, is the "occupation" (the term used by the Left to refer to Israel's control of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem) the problem? Or rather is the very existence of a Jewish state of any size in the land of Israel the source of contention?
People who protest against apartheid are not necessarily anti-Semitic. But those who accept the terrible lie that apartheid exists in Israel, without checking the facts, are, as they believe the latest blood libel against the Jewish people, in continuance of a dark historical tradition.
The groups that comprise the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement do not recognize Israel, in any borders. Their declared goals include not just an end to the "occupation," but also the implementation of the "right of return" and "full equality for Israel's Arab citizens." In essence, they want to change Israel's Jewish identity to one of "all its nationalities." In the words of historian Norman Finkelstein, one of the leading supporters of boycotts against Israel, the BDS movement's goal is the destruction of Israel.
In advance of a summer when multiple churches will entertain resolutions calling for boycotts of Israel, NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute, has issued an in-depth report, Sabeel’s Theology of Contempt: Injecting Anti-Israel and Antisemitic Activism into Churches. The report focuses on the Palestinian Christian group known as “Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center.” This Jerusalem-based organization plays a central theological role for pro-Palestinian campaigners in churches worldwide. Sabeel is a major actor in the effort to convince Christian denominations to support BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel in North America, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere.Former Washington Envoy: BDS is a 'Strategic Threat' to Israel
“Sabeel is a primary source of the theological and ideological undergirding of most anti-Israel political efforts in churches globally, including church divestment campaigns,” said Yitzhak Santis, NGO Monitor’s chief programs officer and the report’s author. “Disturbingly, Sabeel’s anti-Israel message is often intertwined with theological antisemitism. In the current climate of increasing antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere, Sabeel’s message can be potentially dangerous to the safety and well-being of Jews everywhere.”
Among the report’s key findings is Sabeel’s role as a major contributor to the well-funded international network of NGOs that delegitimize Israel. One example of how Sabeel operates is the United Church of Christ (U.S.), which is meeting next week in Cleveland to deliberate on a resolution calling for divestment from Israel. Another resolution before the UCC would instruct the church to “recognize the actions of Israel against the Palestinians as apartheid.” Elements in the UCC actively promote Sabeel’s materials and partner with Sabeel’s U.S. operation, Friends of Sabeel North America.
In his address Monday to the Yesha Conference, former Israeli Ambassador to the US MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) covered a wide range of topics, spanning the roots of US President Barack Obama's hostility towards Israel to the anti-Israel "BDS" boycott campaign.Michael Oren: Israel Must Wage War on BDS
Following his speech, Arutz Sheva asked Oren about his assertion that the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement posed a "strategic threat" to Israel, and that in order to defeat it the Israeli government needed to fight the struggle "like a war."
He also explained why he believed that - despite Israel having a "fundamental right" to the entire land of Israel - the government should "think strategically" before building in parts of Judea and Samaria. Doesn't that constitute giving ground to BDS? Not so, he argued.
Business Owners Warn: BDS Bill to Harm Palestinians the Most
If Israel labels products from Judea and Samaria, the potential for boycott will hurt Palestinian Arab workers the most, business owners revealed Tuesday.Europe’s economic war on Israel
Fourteen business owners of establishments over 1949 Armistice lines have worded a strong letter to Meretz chairman Zehava Galon over the proposal, which was submitted to the Knesset in May.
If the businesses close, they urge, thousands of Palestinian Arabs would bear the financial consequences.
"In dozens of factories in Judea-Samaria, there are more than 20,000 Palestinian workers who make a living with dignity," the letter states, according to Army Radio. "You will bear responsibility for the fact that they will remain without a livelihood."
When it comes to dealing with the increasing calls to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, the United States and Europe are moving in two opposite directions.Israeli group threatens to sue Coca-Cola over Palestinian partner
Last week, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed into law legislation that bars public entities from conducting business with companies that discriminate against Israel. It’s the first of its kind, though other states are likely to follow suit.
Meanwhile, growing displeasure with the frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace process has led European Union countries to call to label products from settlements in disputed territories in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, as well in East Jerusalem.
If labeling Jewish goods sounds darkly reminiscent, it does as well to Germany’s neo-Nazi groups, who have recently co-opted the country’s BDS movement.
But the neo-Nazis shouldn’t get all the attention — labeling goods from East Jerusalem is a brazen act of economic warfare from Europe, and one that violates the principles of the very peace process Europe claims to promote.
Shurat HaDin — the Israel Law Center said comments by Palestinian-American businessman Zahi Khouri backing a boycott of Israeli companies violates the soda company’s own internal policies.UC Regents: Define anti-Semitism or enable it
“This letter is a warning to the Coca-Cola Company that it should rescind its franchise agreement with the Palestinian National Beverage Company, headed by Zahi Khouri, who openly advocates for BDS against Israel,” said a letter from the Israel Law Center to Mr. Mukhtar Kent, CEO of Coca Cola.
Khouri penned two op-eds in favor of the BDS movement — one in the Orlando Sentinel in 2014, and another in The Hill in May. In his Sentinel column, Khouri wrote that “the nonviolent efforts of BDS advocates make sense as a means to force Israel to recognize that the occupation is not cost-free.”
In its letter Monday, the Israel Law Center’s Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and US attorney Robert Tolchin argued that calls for a boycott violate the Anti-Racism Convention, as well as various state and federal laws. It also represents a breach of Coca-Cola Company’s own Code of Business Conduct, it claimed. The company’s ethics code, which the law center said binds its foreign subsidiaries as well, states, “The Company also must abide by US anti-boycott laws that prohibit companies from participating in any international boycott not sanctioned by the US government.”
Top University of California officials including President Janet Napolitano and several campus chancellors publicly deplore the way activists pushing UC to boycott Israel seemed to spawn outright anti-Semitic actions and outcries over the last few months.150+ California Rabbis and Faculty Call on UC to Address Antisemitism
But they’ve done nothing to stop it. Students who set up mock checkpoints on campuses to harass Jewish students and no one else were not penalized. Nor were students who questioned candidates for student government about their Jewish identity. No one has even been caught in several cases where Nazi-like swastikas were daubed on campus buildings. And no one was caught after the message “Zionists … to the gas chambers” was scrawled on a UC Berkeley wall.
Partly this is because UC has no firm standard by which to tell when protests of some of Israel’s policies sink into outright anti-Semitism.
Now, at last, the 10-campus system’s top policymakers will have a chance to set a standard. The Board of Regents is tentatively due to vote during its July 22-23 meeting in San Francisco on whether to adopt the U.S. State Department’s “Three D” definition of when political protest becomes outright anti-Semitism.
The State Department criteria are simple: If an action aims to delegitimize Israel, denying the Jewish state’s very right to exist, that’s anti-Semitic. If a protest aims to demonize Israel in ways not employed against any other country, that’s also anti-Semitic. And if a protest employs a double standard judging Israel differently from other countries, that’s anti-Semitic, too.
Fifty-seven California rabbis and 104 University of California (UC) faculty members wrote to UC President Janet Napolitano and the UC Board of Regents, urging them to adopt the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism and take further steps to address the recent incidents.Honest Reporting: NPR Host Labels Jewish Senator “Dual Citizen”
These letters come after months of anti-Semitic incidents. They include everything from having swastikas spray painted on dorm buildings and trying to prevent a Jewish student from being a part of the student government, to pro-Palestine students and professors teaching biased anti-Israel courses, chanting “Allahu Akhbar” at university events and advocating for the Boycott, Divest Sanctions (BDS) Movement
The letters outline forms of anti-Semitism, where in the world and on campus they have occurred and appropriate ways to address these issues. Jewish students have become fearful of their safety as pro-Palestine students have begun to equate the conflict with Israel as some kind of Nazi regime, going as far as to make signs saying Benjamin Netanyahu is Hitler’s illegitimate child.
Tensions are becoming worse and worse, causing Jewish rabbis and supporters alike to pressure the university’s administration to take action and address the anti-Semitism head on. Rabbis and faculty members urged the University of California to adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism and condemn any future acts of it.
HonestReporting’s Yarden Frankl joins VOI’s Josh Hasten to discusses a recent NPR interview, in which Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was asked if he held joint US-Israel citizenship. Sanders didn’t take the bait, recognizing that the reporter was insinuating he had dual loyalties. Frankl also says that the New York Times continues its practice of skewing headlines about Israel and downplaying Palestinian terrorism.IsraellyCool: Foreign Press Association Strikes Back At Israel Over Video
Yesterday, I posted the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s South Park-eque video mocking foreign reporters reporting in Gaza.AFP on 17 Slain 'Journalists,' 'No Terrorists Here'
The Foreign Press Association has responded, and I think it’s safe to say they are not happy.
The Foreign Press Association is surprised and alarmed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s decision to produce a cartoon mocking the foreign media’s coverage of last year’s war in Gaza.
At a time when Israel has serious issues to deal with in Iran and Syria, it is disconcerting that the ministry would spend its time producing a 50-second video that attempts to ridicule journalists reporting on a conflict in which 2,100 Palestinians and 72 Israelis were killed.
Israel’s diplomatic corps wants to be taken seriously in the world. Posting misleading and poorly conceived videos on YouTube is inappropriate, unhelpful and undermines the ministry, which says it respects the foreign press and its freedom to work in Gaza
The Board of the Foreign Press Association, 15th June 2015
Note the language. The FPA is “surprised and alarmed” by the video. Incidentally, I do not see any statements on their site expressing “alarm” at a Hamas terrorist impersonating a journalist. Just as an example.
In an article today about a short video produced by the Israeli Foreign Ministry mocking journalists' coverage of the war last summer between Israel and Hamas, Agence France Presse parrots Palestinian propaganda about journalists killed in the fighting ("Israel ministry video lashes out at foreign journalists"):BBC News inaccurately claims first suicide bombing abroad by a British citizen was in 2014
Some 17 journalists were killed covering the July-August Gaza war. . .
The AFP does not attribute this claim to any source. The influential wire service does not inform readers that the figure is a Palestinian (Hamas) claim, disputed by Israel, which maintains that eight of the 17 were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror operatives or were journalists who worked for Hamas media.
On June 14th an article appeared on the ‘Leeds & West Yorkshire’ page of the BBC News website under the headline “Dewsbury teenager is ‘UK’s youngest ever suicide bomber’“. The report includes the following insert.Times of London finds some Orthodox Jews who support George Galloway
Of course Abdul Waheed Majid was not “the first British man to carry out a suicide bombing” at all. Eleven years before that two British men carried out a terror attack in Tel Aviv.
“On April 30, 2003, a suicide terrorist blew himself up at the entrance to Mike’s Place, a pub/cafe on the Tel Aviv promenade. Three civilians were murdered, and over 50 were wounded in the attack.
The attack was perpetrated by Asif Muhammad Hanif, 22, a British citizen.
Times of London (The Times) is typically among the more responsible British publications when it comes to covering the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the broader issue of antisemtism in the UK.Nazis ingrained German kids with lifelong hatred of Jews
However, they seriously misled readers in the following photo caption from today’s edition of the newspaper.
George Galloway is among the more antisemitic figures in British politics, and the failure of Times editors not to recognize that the “Ultra-Orthodox Jews” attending a Galloway for Mayor event are almost certainly members of Neturei Karta – the fringe, extremist movement which believes that Zionism is “a demonic force in the world” – is extremely troubling.
Anti-Semitic propaganda had a life-long effect on German children schooled during the Nazi period, leaving them far more likely to harbor negative views of Jews than those born earlier and later, according to a study published Monday.Anti-Semitic Canadian Paper Blames Jews for 9/11
The findings indicate that attempts to influence public attitudes are most effective when they target young people, particularly if the message confirms existing beliefs, the authors said.
Researchers from the United States and Switzerland examined surveys conducted in 1996 and 2006 that asked respondents about a range of issues, including their opinions of Jews. The polls, known as the German General Social Survey, reflected the views of 5,300 people from 264 towns and cities across Germany, allowing the researchers to examine differences according to age, gender and location.
By focusing on those respondents who expressed consistently negative views of Jews in a number of questions, the researchers found that those born in the 1930s held the most extreme anti-Semitic opinions — even 50 years after the end of Nazi rule.
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) filed a formal complaint with the Toronto Police earlier this month, after an anti-Semitic advertisement was featured in the May issue of the Your Ward News bulletin.Israeli-Developed Micro-Antenna to Treat Tiny Digestive Tract Tumors
The bulletin is distributed by mail to residents in the East York and Beach areas.
The front page displays several images mocking religious Jews (including one with a long nose), and one of them says: "Here the Holocaust is repeating itself."
On the first page the following headline: "Benjamin Levine the Jew convicted of pedophilia", although the question of Levin's Jewishness is irrelevant to the crimes which he was convicted, CIJA adds.
It was also claimed that the media are controlled by "Zionist Marxists," according to the CIJ news site, and implied that Israel was responsible for not only the Sept. 11 attacks but also the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo shootings.
Students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are developing an innovative micro-antenna to focus radiation on tiny tumors in the digestive tract.31 Years after Terrorists Murdered Malcolm Kerr, His Son Coaches on Brink of NBA Title
The university said there is currently no treatment for tumors in the early stages of cancer when they measure less than 0.19 inches. The new antenna would eliminate the need to wait for the tumors to grow big enough to be treated, and also eliminate the need for invasive surgery.
The micro-antenna would be inserted into the patient’s stomach via an endoscopic ultrasound tube and would allow radiation to be focused on tiny tumors. Development of the technique is expected to be completed within a year, pending funding.
Thirty-one-years ago, Islamic terrorists murdered the president of the American University of Beirut. Tonight, his son coaches a Golden State Warriors team on the verge of an NBA championship.Inscription bearing name from Davidic era found at ancient site
“The president of the American University of Beirut, Malcolm H. Kerr, was killed here today when unidentified gunmen fired two bullets into his head while he was walking to his office,” Thomas Friedman reported from Beirut on January 18, 1984. The New York Times correspondent continued, “Dr. Kerr, carrying his briefcase in one hand and an umbrella in the other, stepped off the elevator on the third floor and walked about 12 paces, heading for his office at the end of the hallway…. A split second later the two gunmen stepped forward, either from the elevator or the stairwell just to the right of it, and one of them quickly pumped two bullets into Dr. Kerr’s head with a silencer-equipped revolver.”
Kerr, whose parents taught at the institution, took the job after the kidnapping of his predecessor. He dismissed the bodyguards assigned to him and walked tall as a recognizable figure on the campus not-so cloistered from the chaos that surrounded. Seventeen months after Kerr’s tenure as president began, it ended for the 52-year-old with a coward’s bullet to the back of his head.
“We are responsible for the assassination of the president of the American University of Beirut, who was a victim of the American military presence in Lebanon,” a group calling itself Islamic Holy War, believed to be Hezbollah, told Agence France-Presse. “We also vow that not a single American or Frenchman will remain on this soil.”
An ancient Canaanite inscription including a name shared with a biblical rival to King David was found by archaeologists on a pot unearthed at a site in the Elah Valley, west of Jerusalem, researchers said Tuesday. One of them described it as a “once in a lifetime” find.
The inscription on a large clay storage jar found at Khirbet Qeiyafa dates to the Iron Age, from around 1020 to 980 BCE, and bears the name of Ishba’al son of Beda, researchers wrote in an article published in the latest edition of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
Before the jar was fired some 3,000 years ago, the name was inscribed in clear, large Canaanite letters in the clay, suggesting the hand of a skilled scribe, the scholars said.
The centimeter-high script retains some of the pictographic elements of its antecedents — the aleph has the horns of a bull, the bet looks house-like, and the ayin a staring eye — unlike later proto-Hebrew writings. (h/t Yenta Press)
