Friday, August 21, 2015
Anti-Zionism’s Mask Falls
The first Saturday in September will see Israel’s national soccer team travel to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, for a vital qualifying game for next year’s European Championship in France. As is becoming the norm when any Israeli athletes travel abroad, the team will also face protests off the field, led by activists who believe that Israel has no right to compete internationally in the first place.UN-istan: occupation above and beyond morals and ethics
I mention this forthcoming event because one of the speakers addressing the anti-Israel rally outside the soccer stadium is Jeremy Corbyn, a far-left member of the U.K. parliament for the opposition Labour Party and, more importantly, the current front-runner in the battle for that party’s leadership. If Corbyn ends up winning the contest— triggered by the resignation of former leader Ed Miliband, following his poor showing in the U.K.’s general election earlier this year—we will have a vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement at the helm of one of Europe’s more august left-wing parties.
Corbyn is a patron of the U.K.’s pro-BDS Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is well known for its anti-Semitic targeting of Israel through its constant comparisons of the Jewish state with Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa. But that, arguably, is the least of it.
During the last week, Corbyn has been confronted in the media over his connections to a London-based Holocaust denier and “Palestine solidarity” activist named Paul Eisen. In the past, he has vocally defended Ra’ed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, despite Salah’s endorsement of the anti-Semitic blood libel and his claim that Jews were warned in advance of the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist atrocities. When Salah got into a legal tussle with the British authorities during an extended stay in the U.K., Corbyn urged a parliamentary inquiry into the influence of the “pro-Israel Lobby” on government policy. This sinister statement was made after it emerged that the Community Security Trust (CST), a professional and highly-respected body that deals with security for the U.K.’s Jewish community, had provided evidence of Salah’s toxic views to the government.
Now just consider the following before you decide how to do away with this insidious UN occupation.Edgar Davidson: Could this be the most obvious example yet of anti-Israel bias in news reporting?
During the Jordanian occupation, and following that Israel’s return of Jews to their lands, and after the PA was granted full administrative responsibilities under the Oslo Accords, it turns out that little industry has been created in “Palestine”; the UN-funded and UN-run education programme is a case study in mass indoctrination in hatred, racism and violence; the economy is kept alive by the UN thanks to the fact that the UN employs 25,000 locals to maintain the permanent refugee status of the local population; the UN provides the funding and training for the PA’s almost two dozen different internal and external security agencies; the UN runs many of the medical services and, if the PA’s own claims and that of the UN are to be believed, then even issues as basic as food, water supply and nutrition would be non-existent without the UN.
So it turns out the UN is the de facto government of “Palestine”. But since it hasn’t been elected to the post – any more than Mahmud Abbas has – we can rightly claim that “Palestine” is fully, totally, occupied by the UN. In terms of its security, economy, education, food, water, foreign policy, diplomatic cover – everything that makes a nation.
“Palestine” is UN-istan.
And it turns out that UN-istan is one of only a handful of countries that is NOT a member of the UN. Along with North Korea, among others…
Now THAT says a whole lot.
At roughly the same time today the following two international incidents happenedRadio gaga
1 North Korea fired a shell into South Korea. South Korea responded by firing missiles at where the shell was fired from
2 Syria (in the form of Iranian backed Islamic Jihad) fired 4 rockets into Israel. Israel responded with artillery fire at where the rockets were launched from.
Clearly these incidents were very similar - a terrorist regime launching an unprovoked attack against its democratic neighbour leading the latter to respond. The only qualitative differences were that
1 The South Korea response was far more 'disproportionate' (several missiles in response to a single shell) than Israel's (minor artillery shelling in response to 4 rockets)
2 The attack against Israel was far more serious and newsworthy because it was the most serious attack against Israel from Syria in many years and was authorised and funded by Iran at the very time the world is rewarding Iran with nuclear weapons and the ending of sanctions.
So how did the main stream media report these incidents?
- The attack on Israel was almost completely ignored - not a word on the BBC News or even its Middle East News website, while the Korea attack was covered everywhere.
- But, more important, look at how the only British newspaper to cover the Israel story (the Financial Times) described it compared to the way the Korea story was covered.
The ABC [Australia] has allowed Radio National to be used by fanatics pushing a virulently anti-Israel agenda
A series of programs on ABC Radio National, produced by a long-standing anti-Israel activist, has undermined the objectivity of the national broadcaster and exposed serious failings in its editorial process. The programs may also have put the ABC in breach of its statutory obligation of ‘maintaining independence and integrity’, and its Code of Practice requiring ‘impartiality’ in current affairs.
The programs, Jerusalem: a divine crime scene, and An unholy mix – Jerusalem, religion and archaeology, produced by former Greens Marrickville Councillor Cathy Peters, presented the views of a parade of veteran anti-Israel propagandists, whose unstated purpose was to discredit the historical connection between Jerusalem and the Jewish people, and to level an array of unchallenged and inaccurate accusations against Israel in the guise of expert analysis.
An editor’s note published online described Peters as a member of the NSW Greens, an executive member of the Coalition For Justice and Peace in Palestine and a member of Jews Against the Occupation. What the ABC failed to disclose is that Peters is also a fierce proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. She was the instigator of the 2010 Marrickville Council motion urging the Council to consider boycotting all goods made in any part of Israel, as well as Israeli artists, athletes and academics. The motion, which also called on state and federal governments to adopt BDS, provoked a surge of protest and derision, especially from ratepayers unimpressed that the Council was being used as a vehicle to prosecute a pet international cause of a few Councillors.
Facebook Controversy: Part II – A Conn College professor’s decision not to return to the classroom leaves many questions unanswered
It’s been five months since a Facebook post about Hamas drew international attention to Connecticut College, which had become embroiled in a debate over racism, free speech, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.BDS and Matisyahu’s bum rap
The post was one of 11 written during the August 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict by tenured philosophy professor Andrew Pessin and published on his personal Facebook page about Hamas and its behavior. It described Hamas as “a rabid pit bull chained in a cage, regularly making mass efforts to escape.”
In response to a complaint from Lamiya Khandaker, a former student of Pessin’s and the Student Government Association chair of diversity and equity, Pessin apologized and removed the post. But students had taken a screenshot of the post, which they circulated without the context of the 10 previous posts or the comments thread, which made it clear that Pessin was referring to the terrorist group Hamas, and not the Palestinian people as a whole.
As more concerns were voiced from on campus and beyond, Pessin published a letter of apology in The Campus Voice, the independent, student-run newspaper.
Pessin departed campus mid-semester on medical leave, in the wake of death threats to himself and his family for his pro-Israel stance. At the time, his intention was to return to full-time teaching in the fall, and campus administration claimed that they wanted him back in the classroom.
The new school year opens in just two weeks, but students arriving on campus will not find Pessin there. Although he is listed in the course catalog, he will remain on medical leave, according to a representative who spoke to the Ledger anonymously and would not elaborate.
Pessin’s absence leaves unanswered several questions that came to the fore as the Facebook tumult escalated. The Ledger turned to the college and others for answers.
For the BDS promoters to describe the blacklist of Jewish- owned businesses as “appalling” is especially absurd.Why we shouldn’t be so upset that Matisyahu got the boycott
What is BDS if not a blacklist of companies associated with the Jewish state? An email I received from BDS South Africa last week tried to explain why the campaign had singled out Woolworths for its consumer boycott campaign. “Several retailers in South Africa have some sort of trade relationship with Israel. Boycotting all of them at the same time is not feasible so we focus our campaigns and move from one target to another as we reach our goals.....
“While the individual Woolworths cherry may not come from an illegal Israeli settlement, the supplier in all likelihood according to various reports, has activities in the settlements making the supplier and Woolworths guilty of violating international law.
“In addition, it is well documented that Israeli agricultural companies are using Israel’s main water supplier Mekorot which has illegal activities in the illegal Israeli settlements. Woolworths is aware of this but has failed to clarify whether any of its Israeli produce come from companies that use Mekorot.”
By this standard they should boycott the Palestinians, not support them: Both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, for example, use electricity supplied by Israel; PA officials and Hamas members regularly receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals; and far from avoiding Israeli academic institutions, BDS founder Omar Barghouti studied at Tel Aviv University.
My answer, as always, is to counter the boycott with a buy-cott, favoring blue-and-white products.
The righteous uproar over the Matisyahu fiasco has fled as quickly as it came. Disquieting and galling as it was, we really ought to celebrate: it is one of the few victories we’ve had in a bad streak of stinging defeats.As West Bank storm brews, Abbas looks to groom a successor
The cherry on top is that we didn’t even have to work so hard. It was handed to us on a silver platter. BDS overplayed its hand.
Looking back, the whole episode seems dryly amusing. Spain’s BDS coterie should have known better, really. Discretion is the better part of valor. It was entirely predictable that openly discriminating against an American Jew would not fly in front of a broad public. Such garish anti-Semitism might cut it among certain benighted precincts, but was bound to get the cold shoulder from ordinary concert-goers and the political elite.
Who could have expected a proud Jewish artist like Matisyahu to abase himself so meekly as to submit to a McCarthyite political test? So no surprises there.
BDS activists are acutely aware that their bizarre fixation on Israel will be tolerated only if it remains possible to convince the mainstream left that it is not anti-Semitic. BDS has loitered in the sordid shadows of some academic associations for 15 years now, and it’s on us to admit: All in all, it's done a damn good job at branding itself.
Notwithstanding the endless flow of Arab MKs for photo-ops at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon alongside an Islamic Jihad operative (in case anyone forgot that minor fact), there was not much excitement over his cause in the Palestinian territories.Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: Israel has sent us numerous truce offers
There have been rallies, yes, but those were rather limited. Even the horrific murder of a Palestinian infant and his father in the West Bank village of Duma, south of Nablus, last month did not lead to a third intifada.
This indifference of the Palestinian street comes as something of a surprise to Israeli and the Palestinian security forces, both of which warned that the murder of the Dawabsha father and his son would lead to a broad wave of popular protest.
Although it began with Israeli media reports, the possibility that Abbas will resign from his position in September very quickly turned into a heated discussion among Palestinian pundits. While Abbas’s associates deny these reports, they do hint that something significant is about to occur. The PA president’s office has not bothered to confirm or deny the reports of Abbas’s imminent resignation; perhaps the fog is convenient.
For now, it does not seem likely that Abbas will resign. He continues to engage intensively in bolstering his position in the PA and in the PLO, and seems especially concerned with defeating his enemies from within, so to speak — shutting the offices of rival politicians and officials.
After striking down Mohammad Dahlan, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Salam Fayyad, Abbas’s next target may be Jibril Rajoub, who is emerging as one of the most powerful figures in the PLO.
Israel has sent Hamas several proposals for a long-term cease-fire, a senior official from the Islamist movement claimed on Thursday.Charlie Who? Dutch Islamists Threaten Muslim Actor for Playing Jesus
The overtures were relayed to Hamas through Palestinian, Arab and Muslim officials, he said.
But none of the proposals were serious, Ziad al-Thatha, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said.
“There offers did not reach the level of maturity and don’t derive to be dealt with in a serious way by Hamas,” Thatha said in an interview with a Hamas-affiliated online newspaper.
He said that mediators between Hamas and Israel include Palestinian businessmen and former British prime minister Tony Blair, as well as other Western officials and politicians. “We deal with everyone and have no reservations about anyone,” Thatha said. “Hamas is politically open to the Arab and Islamic world, as well as the international community.”
How well so many of us remember.UNESCO's Use of Moral Relativism to Foster Anti-Israel Bias
It wasn’t very long ago – barely eight months – when Muslim extremists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 12 of the satirical magazine’s editors and artists. And how well we remember, too, the hours and days that followed as the world declared its support for free expression, with hashtags and marches and T-shirts and headlines that bore the now-immortal phrase “je suis Charlie” – and believed that it would make a difference.
Apparently, it didn’t.
Earlier this month, a group of Dutch Muslim youth surrounded actor Abbie Chalgoun – a self-described “non-practicing” Muslim – at a train station in Venlo. They called out, “Whore child! Just you wait. We know where you live. We know where to find you.”
Chalgoun’s misdeed? He played the role of Jesus in a nationally-celebrated performance of “The Passion.” For Muslims, Chalgoun explained in an interview with national daily Trouw, the image or personification of a prophet – including Jesus – is forbidden.
Arguments making use of “moral relativism,” or the immoral claim that “the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to the moral standard of some person or group of persons” are often used against Israel in a damaging way. The United Nations is a major culprit, and this tool is employed frequently under its auspicesEU Money Funds Terrorists
In 2012, UNESCO inaugurated a sponsored Chair in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the Islamic University of Gaza. The institution employs numerous Hamas engineers who have been known to manufacture explosives and bombs for use against Israeli civilians. According to a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, this sponsoring of academic activities taking place within a terrorist environment was announced without being preceded by an investigation of the university’s doings. Similar inaugurations of UNESCO-sponsored chairs at the Technion and at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah (IDC) were, however, “checked with a magnifying glass.”[5]
One common application of moral relativism by UNESCO has been its harsh judgment of how Israel manages holy sites. The agency has also denied the legitimacy of Jewish claims to these sites. No similar standards have been applied by UNESCO within the Arab world.
In 2014, UNESCO partnered with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in presenting an exhibition at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters entitled, “People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People to the Holy Land.” Its text was written by the late Robert Wistrich, a leading scholar of anti-Semitism.
The opening of the exhibit, which had been set for January 2014, was postponed by UNESCO because of pressure from the 22 UN member states which form the Arab bloc. They invented an absurd and laughable argument- of professing the “concern that the planned exhibition could impact negatively on the peace process and current negotiations underway in the Middle East.”
Perhaps to avoid direct confrontation regarding its anti-Israelism, the official UNESCO statement announcing the postponement of the exhibit discussed various Holocaust education and Yiddish preservation activities held by its sponsors. It made no mention of any other past, current, or future activities involving Israel. The exhibit finally opened in June 2014, in part because of protests by the US, Israeli, French, and Canadian governments.
Israel’s Military Advocate General filed indictments against the terrorists involved in the killing of Malachi Rosenfeld a month ago in the Binyamin area. The lead murderer's name is Ahmad Najar, fwho had already been imprisoned in an Israeli jail for the murder of six Israelis in 2004. After his release as part of the “Shalit deal”, Najar received a monthly stipend from the Palestinian Authority, which he used to train and arm his terror cell.Senator calls on university to discipline ‘rogue’ professor
It is a bitter irony that part of the terrorist’s salaries has been paid by the European Union. From 1994 to 2011, the EU donated €4.26 billion to the Palestinian Authority through many different channels, this without taking into account individual EU states’ donations to the PA. The EU has become the largest single donor to the Palestinians, contributing about €500 million ($720 million).
Michael Theurer, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, revealed that since 2007, Palestinian Authority civil servants in Gaza also received their salaries partly funded through EU aid. And the salaries to Palestinian Arab prisoners convicted of terrorism are up to five times higher than the average Palestinian Arab salary in Judea and Samaria.
PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affaire, Issa Karake, said that “the Europeans want their money that comes to us to remain clean – not to go to families of those they claim to be terrorists. ... These (prisoners) are heroes”. European lawmakers cannot claim any excuse in funding the terrorists, since they have written a virtual blank check for the Palestinian Arabs. And the NGOs involved in de-legitimization of Jews are funded not only by Arab states, but also by the European Union.
State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams on Monday called on the administration of Lincoln University to discipline a rogue professor whose anti-gay, victim-shaming, and terrorist-defending social media posts have drawn international scorn to the university.Jews, lies and olive trees
In a letter to Lincoln Interim President Dr. Richard Green, Williams said Professor Kaukab Siddique “continues to cross the boundaries, adding no value to the popular conversation on race, rape culture or LGBT rights” and, most shockingly, for defending ISIS against charges of terrorism by dismissing reports of rape and ethnic cleansing as “propaganda.” Siddique‘s 2010 statements denying the holocaust led to similar protest but were deemed protected by academic freedom.
Williams urged the university to conduct an inquiry to determine whether Siddique has violated the university’s professional conduct code. He pointed to Siddique’s repeated denial of historical facts as evidence of his professional incompetence, which could be grounds for his removal.
“Is it not professionally incompetent to deny historical fact, or to voice support for wholesale discrimination against large swaths of people? His words, broadcast widely, have created a hostile environment for all Lincoln University students, particularly during a time in which an increase in sexual assault cases coupled with recent media reports exhibiting persistent racial harassment on college campuses have led to a national demand for universities to address student safety and intolerance,” he wrote.
The war against the Jewish people and their state is being fought in military, diplomatic and information theaters. In the information battles, the ammunition used against us is lies.Is This Tree Really Being Destroyed? Or Replanted?
Sometimes they are big, reality-inverting ones, such as the lie that Israel is a colonial power oppressing ‘indigenous Palestinians’, when the truth is that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel and have a moral and legal right to it. Sometimes they are medium sized ones, repeated over and over until they are believed, such as the statement that “settlements are illegal under international law.” And sometimes they are little ones, a flood of many little lies meant to demonize us and create sympathy for our enemies.
Olive trees are a favorite metaphor for reality-inversion. It is suggested that ‘Palestinians’ belong to the land like hundred-year old trees, and evil Jewish ‘settlers’ commit genocide against them just as they do against the deeply-rooted ‘Palestinian people’. Never mind that both the invaders and genocide fans – not to mention the environmental destroyers – here are Arabs, not Jews.
But this is not an example of arboreal genocide. If you look at the picture you will see that the tree has been pruned and the root ball carefully preserved. Getting the tree out with the root ball intact is a big job, requiring both manual digging and heavy equipment. If you wanted to destroy an olive tree you could just take a chain saw to it.
No, what is happening here is that the tree is being transplanted. Here is a picture of the same thing taken from the website of a California company that specializes in transplanting mature olive trees:
Almost every year a similar lie makes the rounds, about destroying trees. Here is a picture that is supposed to show an olive tree that had been mutilated by ‘settlers’:
Funny how neatly it was cut, carefully leaving some shoots. And here is one, in Greece, that was just pruned, as is usually done once a year as part of the routine cultivation of olive trees:
Jeremy Moodey, the CEO of the British Charity Embrace the Middle East, is very quick to condemn Israel. His antipathy toward Israel is documented.Labour Leadership Favourite Jeremy Corbyn Says ‘Equivalence’ Between ISIS And US Forces
Predictably, Moodey’s Twitter feed is filled with a number of links to anti-Israel polemics and propaganda, but one Tweet, posted on August 17, 2015 is worthy of closer scrutiny.
Moodey’s Tweet accuses Israel of “demolishing” an ancient olive tree in Bethlehem
But is that what’s really going on in the photo he Tweeted?
If one looks closely at the photo, one can see that the workers have taken great care to keep its root system intact. If the tree was being demolished, why would they treat the tree with such care?
It doesn’t look like the tree is being demolished, but replanted.
Moodey has been challenged on Twitter by analyst J.E. Dyer.
He made the comments in an interview with Russian propaganda channel RT in June last year – a network he once hosted a show for alongside George Galloway.Seven in 10 British Jews 'Concerned' by Prospect of Corbyn Victory
Corbyn said there needs to be “an acceptance and understanding” of why people in Northern Iraq were turning to ISIS. Adding: “Yes [IS] are brutal, and yes, some of what they have done is quite appalling; likewise, what the Americans did in Fallujah and others places is quite appalling.”
And again, he called for “an acceptance of a much wider view of the world,” a relativistic world view, which one must assume includes genocidal clerical fascism. He concluded by saying that, “there has to be a political solution” and the war with IS had to end in a “political compromise.”
In response, the Corbyn campaign team told Channel 4 News last night, that, “… where Jeremy Corbyn talks about the need for a political solution and compromise, he means not with ISIS but against ISIS… working with neighbouring states in the region to come to common solutions.”
Shortly before in the interview Corbyn explained that, “the growth of the ISIS forces is a direct result of the overthrow of the entire system around Saddam Hussein” and is “a consequence of western medaling.”
Seven in 10 British Jews are concerned about the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader, according to a new poll. It also found that nearly 90 per cent of British Jews think “anti-Zionist” is used as a code word for “anti-Jewish” by politicians.Jeremy Corbyn and Britain’s Apologists for Terror
The frontrunner in Labour’s leadership race, Corbyn has stirred unease with his links to pro-Palestinian groups. As Labour prepared to send out ballots, it emerged that Corybn had given money to Deir Yassin Remembered, an organisation set up by known holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Corbyn acknowledged the link but claimed not to have known that Eisen was a holocaust denier.
He has also come under fire for comments in which he described Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends,” reacting angrily to reporters when questioned on his choice of words.
His comments in full were put to respondents in a poll conducted by Survation on behalf of the Jewish Chronicle this week; 83 per cent of those questioned said they were concerned about the comments.
As regards his links to Eisen, 80 per cent said they were concerned regarding those links.
Corbyn, who, when challenged on television to defend his description of Hamas and Hezbollah – those internationally condemned terrorist groups of a theocratic bent – as his ‘friends’, weakly suggested that he did so in order to create dialogue and then lost his temper. He has failed to address the fact of Hezbollah’s alliance with Assad, and nor has he ever truly dealt with Hamas’s Covenant, with its flagrantly anti-Semitic citing of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and its call to wipe Israel off the map. A spate of recent polling suggests that he could comfortably win the Labour leadership election, thereby becoming Leader of the Opposition and a possible future Prime Minister. Such talk is not idle, and neither is the threat he could pose if he achieves office.Letters to the Guardian about Corbyn and Deir Yassin Remembered
This all being common knowledge, these men and their ideological fellow-travellers must be either ill-informed or indifferent to the causes they claim to champion. Instead of standing up for the oppressed or those victimised by imperialism and capitalism and the West, Galloway and Corbyn and those like them attach themselves uncritically to some immensely undesirable characters. This intervention does not help those it is meant to support; rather, it assists those who, like Hamas, pose as the saviour while secretly acting as immorally as they who are the declared oppressors, if not more so.
British politics is in turmoil. After an election which created a highly surprising majority for the Conservative Party, the left is now in a position of great strain. There are many – Corbyn and Galloway among them – who say that Britain’s leftist parties must become more radical in order to win again. Among these suggestions lurks the possibility of what is effectively co-operation with and even endorsement of some of the nastiest actors in the Middle East. To reject this siren song is essential, not only for the future of the British left, but also for those in that region who have faced theocracy, fascism and tyranny, which is often supported – tacitly or explicitly – by European left-wingers. This must cease and the agents of this terrible accommodation must be prevented from gaining political prominence. Only then can the British left begin to salvage its reputation both at home and in the international arena.
Although there is still some lack of clarity about the precise nature of Corbyn’s links with DYR it does seem reasonably certain that he attended an event back in 2013 whereas the problems with the organisation, by Tony Greenstein’s own account, date back to at least 2007. Corbyn might well have known nothing about the controversy, even in 2013. But the letter shouldn’t rely on timing/chronology to defend him.Islington 140: Israel 149
Another interesting letter comes from Ruth Tenne. She takes a rather different line:
I totally reject the suggestion that Deir Yassin Remembered organisation could be regarded as a group whose membership is largely composed of Holocaust deniers. As an Israeli human rights activist ,whose grandparents perished in the Holocaust, I strongly believe that the massacre in Deir Yassin and the narrative of the Palestinian people should not be wiped out of history. DYR is commemorative body which is supported by members of civil society all over the world. I hope that the public, including the Jewish community, will support the important work and aims of DYR as well as backing Jeremy Corbyn and his vision of a fairer society.
There’s nothing antisemitic in acknowledging either Deir Yassin or Palestinian perspectives on 1948 more generally. One might think this letter had been written by someone not directly involved in these controversies, an Israeli with liberal views. However I assume this is the same Ruth Tenne who Tony Greenstein clashed with back in 2012 over the expulsion of Holocaust deniers from the PSC. He objected to a letter she wrote to the Weekly Worker. This is no longer available but it seems that she was glossing over the serious problems facing the PSC at this time, and that Greenstein saw her thinking on this issue to be worryingly muddled:
The venerable British left leaning (but mostly Israel supporting) blog, Harry’s Place, has made an interesting observation about the terrorist loving leading candidate to take over the premiership of the British Labour Party. He’s the MP for Islington North.Watchdog Develops Scorecard to Rank US Campuses on Safety for Jewish Students
Mentions of Israel on the Jeremy Corbyn website: 149
Mentions of Islington on the Jeremy Corbyn website: 140
We wish Britain the best of luck if this chap becomes leader of the opposition in a few weeks.
A non-profit campus watchdog released on Thursday a questionnaire to help parents determine how safe campuses are for prospective Jewish university students.Navigating the Complex Politics of Israel on Campus: Advice from a Parent
The scorecard, compiled by AMCHA Initiative, is made up of 20 questions, and was designed for students and parents to use for assessing antisemitic and anti-Israel activity on a particular campus.
The questions include, “Was there a BDS campaign on campus, and if so, what was the result?” and “What is the response time of the administration when there is an antisemitic incident?”
AMCHA Initiative’s director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin said the scorecard was created in response to many requests from concerned Jewish parents over the past year. She said the survey should serve as a reminder to school administrators that the level of antisemitic and anti-Israel activity on campus influences Jewish students and their families in deciding on a school.
North American college campuses are often the setting for bitter disputes over Middle East politics, often driven by the global anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In this video, Washington Institute Executive Director Robert Satloff offers practical advice on how to address anti-Israel activism on campus and engage constructively on the politics of the Middle East. He recommends specific ways for students to learn whether their professors endorse the BDS agenda and how to promote constructive dialogue. An historian who is a longstanding observer of the academic world in the U.S. and abroad – and the parent of a college freshman -- Dr. Satloff offers useful ideas and helpful resources for parents and students looking for help in combatting anti-Israel activity on campus.
BBC WS WHYS initiates discussion of the apartheid trope, moderation fails
The August 18th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘World Have Your Say’ included an item about “the Israeli columnist who’s decided it’s time to call Israel an ‘apartheid’ society”. We will be discussing that programme in a future article but in this one we will take a look at the related post on the ‘World Have Your Say’ Facebook account on the same day.Jewish-Funded Monument in London Desecrated With Raw Meat
As a reminder – the BBC uses social media and discussion boards as part of its interpretation of the public purpose remit titled ‘Global Outlook’, according to which it will “[e]nable individuals to participate in the global debate on significant international issues”.
“BBC Trust: “The BBC should inform conversation and debate, providing forums where its international audiences can debate issues they find important.””
The WHYS Facebook post the following question:”Apartheid”: right or wrong word?
Obviously anticipating the type of offensive comments not infrequently seen when Israel-related topics appear on such BBC discussion boards , the first comment on that post was posted by WHYS itself:
Below are examples of some of the comments the WHYS moderators apparently did not consider “abusive or inappropriate” seeing as they were left standing on the thread.
‘Powerful’ and ‘influential’ Jews:
‘Ethnic cleansing’:
Promoting the elimination of Israel:
Nazi analogy:
‘Jews are pigs’:
Special demands of the BBC’s Jewish journalists:
Jewish-funded memorial statue in east London was found desecrated by vandals with raw meat on Thursday morning, the U.K. Independent reported.Killer of Czech Jewish historian jailed for 28 years
The statue, located in the East End district of Whitechapel, was found covered in scraps of red meat and poultry.
Local Jewish residents paid for the monument to honor King Edward VII, who ruled in the early 20th century and was known for his amicable relations with Jews.
Lauren Justice, who first discovered the defacement said in a Twitter post that she was disgusted to see the memorial “treated with such disrespect.”
“I was just coming into Whitechapel for work this morning – usually I do not see the memorial because it is concealed by market stalls, but today it was just covered in meat,” she said. “I just think it is disgusting. It is a memorial. I do not know if they think it is funny or what, but it cannot be allowed to stay up like that. I find it offensive.”
The man who fatally stabbed Czech Jewish heritage researcher Jiri Fiedler and his wife was sentenced to 28 years in prison.Anti-Semitic Le Pen Booted From His Own Party
Dalibor Skopan, 29, attacked the couple with a knife in their Prague apartment in March 2014. Skopan confessed and said he needed money to avoid living homeless in the street. He also expressed regret over his crime.
But the judge who sentenced Skopan this week in Prague Municipal Court said Skopan had committed a particularly severe act of violence, and even put the lives of other building residents at risk when he sealed the windows in the apartment and opened gas burners, apparently hoping that an explosion would destroy incriminating evidence.
Skopan stole jewelry and several books that he later sold for the equivalent of about $200.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, France's elderly, far-right master provocateur, was booted out of the National Front (FN) he founded on Thursday after a high-profile feud with his daughter and party leader Marine.SAP Labs Israel and "Startup Nation"
The party said 87-year-old Le Pen would be "notified shortly" of the dramatic decision, which came after the FN's executive committee questioned him for hours and voted to exclude him over inflammatory comments that had proved too much for his daughter, pushing him out of a party he led for close to four decades.
A gifted orator with a taste for controversy, Le Pen had for years been an irritating thorn in the side of his daughter, who took over the party from him in 2011 and had tried to steer it away from the overt racism and anti-Semitism of its past.
The final straw came in April when the elder Le Pen rehashed familiar comments about gas chambers being a "detail" of history and said France should get along with Russia to save the "white world."
Marine Le Pen openly split with her father, saying he was committing "political suicide," and later suspended him from the party.
According to the 2015 Bloomberg Global innovation index, Israel is the world’s 5th most innovative country. Over 1,000 new startups are formed every year in Israel, and in 2014 there were more than $5B worth of acquisitions.Fearless Innovation: SAP Leverages "Startup Nation"
How do you explain such a successful entrepreneurial spirit?
During a tour in Tel Aviv’s startups hub, SOSA, Orna Kleinmann, SAP Labs Israel Managing Director, provides an explanation. She believes that Israel’s innovation spirit derives from necessity: Israel is a small country, with no substantial natural resources, which must fight for its existence. This kind of collective experience breeds creativity and creates a sense of strong, supportive community that is the foundation for the local innovation ecosystem.
Clas Neumann, head of SLN at SAP and one of our guests, claims that “in Israel, there’s a certain attitude of getting things done, a level of fearlessness.”
US and Israel to cooperate on preventing satellite collisions
Israel and the United States announced an agreement of cooperation on Monday to track and prevent collisions between satellites in orbit.American "Manifest Destiny" Heads to the Holy Land in 1847
The agreement was signed between the Space Administration -- which operates under the Defense Ministry's Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure -- and U.S. Strategic Command.
The objective of the agreement is to ensure continual space operations and, as stated, to prevent unwanted collision between objects in orbit.
Israel is joining a comprehensive American initiative bringing together countries which see themselves as responsible for maintaining continuous and safe satellite operations in outer space.
The Defense Ministry said the cooperation pact will improve the information available to each of the participating countries.
William Francis Lynch (1801-1865) was a naval officer who served in both the U.S. Navy and the Confederate Navy. In the 1840s he proposed to the United States Government to undertake a voyage to the Holy Land to explore and map the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.Lodz opens first Jewish kindergarten in decades
Lynch conducted his mission with a crew of 16 sailors in 1847 and published his findings in his book, Narrative of the United States' Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. Lynch did not include a photographer in his entourage, but a crewman did provide illustrations for his book.
Lynch's motives appeared to be part patriotic, religious, and scientific. He wrote, "We [Americans] owe something to the scientific and Christian world, and while extending the blessing of civil liberty in the south and west [otherwise known as "Manifest Destiny"], may well afford to foster science and strengthen the bulwarks of Christianity in the east."
Lynch was also a strong adherent of "restorationism" (a precursor to Christian Zionism) -- a belief that the Jewish people must return to the Holy Land to fulfill their biblical prophecy of the "Second Coming." The belief drove many Americans, including American presidents, to advocate for the establishment of a Jewish homeland.
The city of Lodz in Poland will open its first Jewish kindergarten in decades, some 70 years after the Nazis decimated its Jewish community. Administrators have said 10 pupils are expected to attend Gan Matanel when the school year commences in September.Late Filipino president honored for saving Holocaust refugees
Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based group that seeks to reconnect Jews to their faith and heritage, has led the efforts to make the kindergarten a reality, with the help of the local Jewish community. Shavei Israel's emissary in Lodz, David Szychowscy, and his wife, Miriam Szychowsca, will run the kindergarten.
"It is so emotional for us to be a part of the renewal of Jewish life here in Lodz, especially considering all that the Jewish community went through during World War II, and the total lack of Jewish education for decades," said Szychowsca, whose own children are among the inaugural class.
"We are truly proud that our own children will be among the first Jewish kindergarten class in Lodz in nearly 50 years," she said.
The Raoul Wallenberg Foundation posthumously honored Philippines President Manuel L. Quezon for providing a haven in his country to more than 1,300 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis.
In a ceremony Wednesday at Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City, Zenaida Quezon Avancena received the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation Medal on behalf of her father, Filipino media outlets reported.
Quezon, who led the Philippines from 1935 to 1944, was recognized for his “life-saving plan” and for “reaching out to the victims of the Nazi murderous machine.”
Effie Ben-Matityau, Israel’s ambassador to the Philippines, and Lee Blumenthal, board member of the Jewish Association of the Philippines, presented the medal. Several government officials, including President Benigno Aquino, attended the ceremony.
