Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Palestinian Terrorist’s Wife to Address Clinton Foundation
Donald Trump is criticizing Hillary Clinton over the fact that the Clinton Foundation is honoring a Palestinian teacher whose husband is a convicted terrorist on Tuesday evening.Trump campaign: Clinton should be disqualified for event hosting Palestinian teacher
Hanan an-Hroub is scheduled to speak at a Clinton Global Initiative event in New York after winning a $1 million teaching award from another charity that donates to the Clinton Foundation. Her husband, Omar al-Hroub, spent 10 years in an Israeli prison for his role in a 1980 bombing that killed six Israelis.
The event is going ahead as planned, in spite of the recent Islamist terrorist bombings in New York and New Jersey, which injured dozens.
The Wall Street Journal noted Tuesday:
Omar al-Hroub was convicted on charges that he was an accomplice in a deadly bombing attack in Hebron that killed Israelis walking home from Friday night Sabbath prayers. According to an Associated Press account at the time, Omar al-Hroub was a chemist who provided chemicals needed for making the bombs.
Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said:
Today’s report that the Clinton Foundation is feting the wife of a Palestinian man convicted of helping bomb innocent Israeli citizens is deeply disturbing, especially in the wake of this weekend’s attacks. The decision to honor the wife of a terrorist by Hillary Clinton’s foundation shows a complete lack of judgment and a callousness that should disqualify her from holding the presidency.
The Republican National Committee has also reportedly objected.
The biography for Hanan al-Hroub on the Clinton Foundation website does not mention the terror connection:
An appearance by an acclaimed Palestinian teacher, whose husband served time for terrorism, at a Clinton Global Initiative event “disqualifies” Hillary Clinton from the presidency, according to Donald Trump’s campaign.Where Does Black Lives Matter's Anti-Semitism Come From?
“Today’s report that the Clinton Foundation is feting the wife of a Palestinian man convicted of helping bomb innocent Israeli citizens is deeply disturbing, especially in the wake of this weekend’s attacks,” Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “The decision to honor the wife of a terrorist by Hillary Clinton’s foundation shows a complete lack of judgment and a callousness that should disqualify her from holding the presidency.”
The emailed release linked to a Wall Street Journal story in which the Republican National Committee also condemned the appearance of Hanan Al-Hroub Tuesday evening at the final meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Black Lives Matter has been guided to anti-Semitism by the concept of "intersectionality, which argues that all oppressions are interlinked and cannot be solved alone. Thus, women can never be treated fairly if blacks face racial prejudice, and the disabled are not given sufficient support to be equal to the abled, and unless the Palestinians are liberated from the Israelis, and the Israelis are liberated from their lives and their home.
"Intersectionality" urges us to view the world as divided into a conspiracy of oppressors and an agony of oppressed, and reduces people to a number of categories, such as gender, sexuality, race, nationality, religion, capability, etc. Differences, such as sexism, racism, nationalism and ability -- as opposed to what we have in common -- are reinforced.
Supporters of "intersectionality" cheer terrorists when they murder Jews. To them, that is just "social justice" at work.
Israel doesn’t do ethnic profiling the way Trump thinks it does
Donald Trump wants to profile likely terrorists the way Israel does it. The problem is, Israel and the United States already profile in similar ways – and neither in the way Trump prefers.After Brexit (1): Jonathan Rynhold on Israel’s future relations with the UK and the EU
The Republican presidential nominee’s proposal to blanket-profile entire communities would be unwieldy and pose thorny ethical problems, according to professionals who are familiar with law enforcement in both countries.
His formula reverses how law enforcement in the US and Israel tackle terrorism prevention. Both first identify suspicious behavior patterns, then narrow the range of suspects by considering a number of demographic factors, including ethnicity or religion.
Trump, however, would start with a blanket profile of a huge religious or ethnic group, and then use the hammer of the state to intimidate the community and extract suspects from within.
Law officials say that method risks tarring – and alienating — entire communities and is far slower and less practical than focusing first on behavior.
Fathom’s contributing editor Dr. Toby Greene sat down with Jonathan Rynhold, professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan University, and discussed the implications of Brexit for Israel’s relations with the UK and the European Union. For further analysis of Brexit, see Azriel Bermant in Fathom.UK Jewish center accused of being 'apologists for terror' after hosting Corbyn
Toby Greene: Jonathan, let’s focus first on the UK and its foreign policy. Will we see a UK freed from the constraints of a common European foreign policy adopting a different approach to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Jonathan Rynhold: The first point to make is that the process of the UK separating itself from the EU will be long and complicated. Whilst it is not 100 per cent clear that Brexit will end with the UK fully leaving the EU, it will nonetheless take a long time to work out its consequences for the UK’s foreign policy and its economy. This will reduce the time available for the UK to deal with Israel, the Palestinians and the Middle East.
TG: In time will we see a different UK, perhaps closer to the US, or more independent of EU positions?
JR: I think we need to separate EU policy into three fields: Diplomatic, politico-military, and economic. The one area where the EU has some degree of significance as a body when it comes to the Middle East is in the diplomatic field. There is no doubt that the UK’s position towards votes at the UN has been influenced by an attempt to get an EU-wide consensus on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although that effort has been relatively successful in terms of a common EU foreign policy – they’ve reached more rhetorical consensus on the Peace Process than on any other issue – the UK and France generally go their separate ways when they choose to. They’re the states with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC), not the EU. If the UK leaves the EU that could strengthen the Atlantic-orientation in its foreign policy, due to the desire to maintain the special relationship with the US, which has dominated British foreign policy since 1945. But the balance will shift according to who’s in power. The conservatives tend to be more pro-American, and if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour were to come into power, they would probably take a more independent line from both the EU and the US with an anti-US and anti-Israel bias, irrespective of other considerations.
A London Jewish community center received abusive messages after the venue hosted Labour Party head Jeremy Corbyn, who has made controversial statements about Israel.Louis Farrakhan: Obama chose Israel, homosexuals over black community
Emails and Facebook messages, some of which were from members of the Jewish community, sent to the JW3 center accused its staff of being “apologists for terror” and called Corbyn “a known collaborator with Hamas and Hezbollah,” The Jewish Chronicle reported.
Senders were angry that JW3 had hosted a debate Sunday between Corbyn and Owen Smith, his challenger to lead the party. Corbyn has faced allegations that his pro-Palestinian politics and endorsement of radical anti-Semites has encouraged hate speech against Jews.
One of the messages referenced the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a right-wing Jewish extremist Yigal Amir, who was incensed by Rabin’s signing of the Oslo Peace Accords with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
“It was a lot of these messages coming from the same person, who then started posting them on social media,” JW3’s chief executive, Raymond Simonson, told The Jewish Chronicle.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan harshly criticized US President Barack Obama this week, accusing him of supporting Israel and the gay community instead of the black community.Michael Lumish: Berkeley reinstates class demonizing Israel
“You fought for the rights of gay people; you fought for the rights of this people and that people...[y]ou fight for Israel,” Farrakhan said while giving a sermon on Sunday, according to a report in The Blaze.
Meanwhile, Farrakhan said, "your people are suffering and dying in the streets.” He added that Obama has not fared well in the eyes of the black community.
The comments came after Farrakhan claimed that Obama “didn’t earn” a positive legacy with the black community.
“If you can’t go and see about them, then don’t worry about your legacy,” he said. “Because the white people that you served so well — they’ll preserve your legacy.”
According to Morton Klein:Free Speech and CUNY Anti-Semitism
“This course at UC brings into the open what is often merely latent –– that courses at universities today that deal with Zionism, Arab nationalism and the history of Israel and the Palestinian Arabs are inherently biased against Zionism and Jewish national rights, regarding Palestinian Arabs as the only group entitled to such things."
Yes, and this has been going on for many years, now.
One lesson that we can take away from the proliferation of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism on American campuses is that Jewish alumni donors to schools like UCAL, Berkeley, do not much mind the defamation of Israel on those campuses.
Nor do they, apparently, much mind the challenges - physical, emotional, and otherwise - suffered by Jewish supporters of Israel on those campuses.
Either that or the schools are willing to alienate a few Jewish donors and subject pro-Israel Jewish students to harassent in order to support the anti-Zionist project.
It is a shame, really, because if the pro-Israel Jewish alumnus at schools like UCAL, Berkeley would stand up with strength they could make a difference.
Sadly, they don't.
The situation at CUNY, of course, is hardly unique; indeed, it’s likely better for both Jewish and pro-Israel students than many other campuses. Reporting from Tablet magazine’s Yair Rosenberg, for example, has exposed a particularly sinister atmosphere at Oberlin. That reality illuminates the CUNY report’s central flaw. While “many of those we interviewed recognize that criticism of Israel is protected speech but feel that the use of the word Zionist is often a cover for anti-Semitism,” Jones and Shechtman wrote, “it would be wrong, however, to conclude that is generally the case … [T]hose who shout for ‘CUNY out of Israel’ should not be tarred as anti-Semitic.”Israeli Minister: Australian Labor’s Imposed Israel-Travel Restrictions Cause for Deep Concern
The truism that anti-Zionists are not necessarily anti-Semites should not obscure the reality of campus anti-Zionism of the type detailed in the CUNY report—or in Rosenberg’s reporting. As the Brooklyn faculty-council disruptors demonstrated, the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism among campus activists is frequently so thin as to be meaningless, and campus activists’ willingness to hold Israel and Israel alone to a set of standards no other country in the world could or does meet, exposes their bad faith. The report’s attempt to whitewash the extremist beliefs that Jones and Shechtman encountered thus falls flat.
Overall, however, the report’s defense of free speech, coupled with institutions’ willingness to punish anti-Israel extremists whose conduct violates campus rules, remains the best path for creating a better campus atmosphere on matters related to Israel.
A member of Israel’s security cabinet expressed “concern” over the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) newly published guidelines for MPs traveling to Israel, insisting that they spend equal time in Palestinian territories, The Australian reported.Oberlin Student Senate condemns Alumni group for complaining too much about campus anti-Semitism
Jerusalem Affairs and Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin said he is worried that “anti-Israelism in Europe and Western society will come to be the modern, politically correct antisemitism,” after a decision was made at the ALP national conference requiring MPs to spend equal time in the PA when taking trips to Israel, funded by Jewish organizations.
According to the report, the announcement follows a failed attempt by ALP members to block Labor politicians from traveling for free to Israel altogether.
“You can see in Europe, what began as BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activity against the state of Israel (escalated) and there was a terrorist attack on Jewish communities in France,” Elkin said. “In this context, when we are looking in the last year at the increase in anti-Israeli activity in Australia — of course it’s not the mainstream of Australian society or political establishment, but it’s a concern.”
As The Algemeiner reported, recent anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity in Australia has included an initiative to block the erection of an eruv in Sydney, slammed as “textbook antisemitism” by religious and political leaders, and thousands of Holocaust-denial fliers distributed across Australian university campuses.
Claims alumni have engaged in “witch hunt” against Prof. Joy KaregaFlailing Haaretz Lashes Out At CAMERA
We have followed the problems at Oberlin College for years. Rather than revisiting everything, please scroll through our Oberlin Tag.
The most recent incident involved Professor Joy Karega, who posted blatantly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on Facebook, including linking the Rothschild family to a global conspiracy.
Karega also accused Israel of attacking Charlie Hebdo as part of a false flag operation and being the equivalent of ISIS.
The uproar led to a letter signed by a majority of faculty members and the Board of Trustees condemning such anti-Semitism, and the college placing Karega on paid leave pending possible employment action.
The Karega incident took place amidst increased scrutiny of campus by a group of alumni, Oberlin College Alums: Anti-Israel fanaticism creating hostile environment for Jews.
CAMERA’s evidently gotten under Haaretz’s skin in a big way.Saint Nick’s Math Problem
A September 5 front-page story by the Israeli newspaper blasted CAMERA, saying, in effect, the organization’s criticism is driven by financial motives and political bias ("Times of Israel Cofounder Gave $1.5 million to Right-wing Media Watchdog That Routinely Goes After News Outlets"). CAMERA’s rebuttal appeared on September 20 (with a headline the paper chose): "CAMERA Response to Haaretz: We're Not a Right-Wing Media Watchdog."
In the original piece, reporter Uri Blau offered a conspiratorial picture suggesting ill-treatment of Haaretz. He reported that: 1) CAMERA has received support from allegedly right-leaning philanthropists who also support publications that compete with Haaretz, specifically Times of Israel and Israel Hayom; 2) CAMERA has heavily criticized Haaretz and hasn’t faulted the other publications nearly as much; 3) according to unnamed foreign journalists "who spoke on condition of anonymity", CAMERA has no interest in accuracy and simply promotes a "right-wing agenda"; 4) CAMERA staff members have written for the TOI blog; 5) Haaretz is one of "the few critical voices of right-wing policy inside Israel."
Needless to say, what had to be omitted from such a story line pointing to unfair, unwarranted criticism of Haaretz were certain essentials. First and foremost are the facts of CAMERA's criticism. None of the false reports cited in the scores of articles on the CAMERA Web site could be cited because nothing would undermine Haaretz’s claims of ill-treatment more than a list of the incendiary factual errors printed and spread globally by the paper. Instead, the political labeling and name-calling that dominates so much Haaretz coverage and editorial stance was the theme. (Indicative of the illogical premise of its claims – one of the supposedly right-leaning supporters of CAMERA is a significant supporter of Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. That would suggest, according to the thrust of the Haaretz argument about the underpinnings of CAMERA's work, that the organization must have a left-leaning, pro-Democrat Party bias.)
New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof seems to be having trouble with math.BBC still portraying incitement as an ‘Israel says’ story
As the United States and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding last week that would grant Israel $3.8 billion annually in military aid from 2018-2028, Kristof objected with a tweet. “At a time when 6 million kids die annually around the world,” the Times columnist opined, “should the U.S. really be announcing its largest aid package … to wealthy Israel?”
What’s weird here is that the Times’ foreign affairs columnist seems not to understand the basic difference between economic assistance and military credits. In fact, “wealthy Israel” doesn’t receive a dime of economic assistance from the United States, and hasn’t since 2007.
But more to his point: The United States does indeed spend much of its economic aid precisely on taking care of starving and diseased children. Most U.S. foreign aid, which makes up less than 1 percent of the annual budget, is spent on health-related issues. In 2014, for instance, the United States spent $5.3 billion on health, $3.1 billion of which was earmarked for HIV/AIDS. Even as it’s clearly in the interest of the United States to fight transmittable diseases, that’s still a pretty generous sum to spend on afflicted foreign nationals.
The large sum that the MOU guarantees to Israel comes from an entirely different category of spending. What Israel gets from America are what is known as military credits, which is money that has to be spent in the United States on American-made weaponry. That is, Israel is the address for an American domestic subsidy that helps float the American defense industry, which helps keep Americans safe at home. Mandating that Israel place orders for items like F-35 fighter planes lowers costs for the Pentagon, and keeps production lines open in California, where Americans work.
A perhaps harsh but hardly inaccurate way to describe the billions that Washington spends on foreign military financing for Israel is as a species of American corporate welfare—which Israel greatly welcomes, because it lowers Israel’s own defense costs while helping Israel maintain its qualitative military edge over foes like Iran. The guys who pay the full sticker price for shiny American military toys are U.S. allies in the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, which spends billions of its own money on American planes, tanks, and other costly systems that the United States would likely not otherwise be able to afford to produce. The sticking point is that Congress has often been uneasy about sending those arms to Arab states: Giving military credits to Israel to buy more advanced versions of these same systems helps calm nerves on Capitol Hill, while keeping the order books of defense contractors full.
The new MOU comes with an added twist, though, which makes the principles behind this aid crystal-clear: In the past, Washington allowed Israel to spend 26 percent of the subsidy on its own defense industry, much of that going to modify off-the-rack systems to local uses. But the new deal stipulates that by 2024 Israel will have to spend every penny of American credits in America. In doing so, the Obama administration, for better or worse, has cornered a rising competitor in the defense industry. Sure, Israel wants to sell arms to India, say, but so does the United States—and because the point of the credits is to subsidize American business, no more carve-out.
Back in October 2015 the BBC News website produced a backgrounder titled “Is Palestinian-Israeli violence being driven by social media?” which actually did very little to inform audiences of the scale and significance of the incitement spread via social media, the kind of content appearing on such platforms or the use of social media by official Palestinian groups other than Hamas – including Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party – for incitement and the glorification of terrorism.Guardian writer evidently has absolutely no idea Israel builds fences
BBC coverage of a report produced by the Quartet at the beginning of July 2016, in which Palestinian incitement was identified as one of several factors ‘driving’ the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, played down that issue, preferring to focus audience attentions on the topic of ‘settlements’.
Also in July, BBC Technology produced a report titled “Israel angered by Facebook hatred rules” and incitement on social media was the topic of an additional article published later the same month under the title “Facebook sued by Israeli group over Palestinian attacks“.
Although BBC audiences had not been provided with any serious, comprehensive reporting on the subject of Palestinian incitement and the link between social media and the wave of terrorism against Israelis which emerged in the autumn of 2015, as was noted here at the time:
Much of the Guardian’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinian territories suffers from a basic failure to understand cause and effect. Take, for instance, how reporters typically try to contextualize deprivation in Gaza as a ‘result’ of Israeli restrictions on the entry of some (mostly military-related) goods.BBC waives another chance to explain why Gaza’s naval blockade exists
Rarely, do reporters explain the ‘root cause’ of such Israeli policies: the basic need to protect their citizens from harm by slowing the flow of weapons to the terrorist group Hamas. It’s Hamas’s belligerent policies, based on an ideologically-motivated desire to annihilate Israel, and not the Israeli response to Hamas, that is the driving force behind the crisis in Gaza.
Likewise, reports which focus on the injurious impact of Israel’s security fence on Palestinian lives often downplay the reason the fence was constructed in the early 2000s: to prevent suicide bombers from crossing the then porous boundaries between Israel and the West Bank and murdering innocent civilians. As with coverage of Gaza, reports mostly fail to make a connection between decisions made by Palestinians to launch attacks with the resulting security measures and subsequent impact on Palestinian civilians.
This pattern of omission concerning the basic causation of events is repeated in a Guardian article written by Ellie Violet Bramley (Painting for peace: global mural project highlights the walls that divide our cities, Sept. 21) which actually ignores entirely the motivation for the security fence.
With yet another would-be-blockade-busting ‘flotilla’ perhaps currently en route (and repeat passenger Mairead Maguire no doubt ready to give media interviews), this story obviously presented a good opportunity for the BBC to clarify to its audiences why the naval blockade which such publicity stunts seek to breach is still necessary.Boasting 'Hitler was right,’ Neo-Nazi's set up ‘whites only’ food bank in Scotland
Likewise, another story about a recently thwarted attempt to smuggle equipment (this time vehicles) to Hamas, which could have helped explain to BBC audiences why the restrictions on the entry of dual-use goods and weapons into the Gaza Strip are necessary, was once again ignored by the BBC’s journalists in the region.
A neo-Nazi group has set up a “whites only” food bank in Glasgow, Scotland.‘Disturbing’ footage emerges from famed Israeli spy’s execution in Syria
The group whose name is "National Action" says its aim is to “ethnically cleanse Britain”.
According to the English website 'The Sun', the group bragged about the stunt that they described as “whites helping whites.”
Photos online showed members of the organization dressed in black t-shirts and combat gear – at a street stall dishing out groceries.
A banner showed in the photos hails it as “White Rescue” and claims it is a “charity campaign for Europeans.”
In the past they have displayed a “Hitler was Right” banner in Newcastle and filmed themselves giving Nazi salutes on a visit to the former Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, according to the Sun.
A two-minute video posted on Syrian opposition forces’ social media accounts this week purportedly shows the aftermath of the 1965 execution of Israeli spy Eli Cohen in Damascus.Maryland governor kicks off trade mission to Israel
The black-and-white footage shows what appears to be Cohen’s body being lowered into a coffin after he was hanged in a public square in Damascus over 51 years ago, on May 18 of that year. His remains were not retrieved by Israel and the regime in Syria has claimed it does not know where he is buried.
Mossad agent Cohen was put on trial and executed for espionage after he successfully infiltrated the Syrian government under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet for four years. The intelligence conveyed to Israel during that period was credited by then-prime minister Levi Eshkol with greatly assisting Israel’s victory during the Six Day War.
Despite the fact that the video is not new, and is included in the archives of The Associated Press, the re-publication set off a stir in Israel.
Nadia Cohen, Eli Cohen’s widow, said she had never seen the footage and told Channel 2 watching the video “was difficult” and that it “took me back [to those days].”
“There were tears and a sadness to see [the post-execution video] right in front of you, how he’s lowered from the rope into the coffin, to see the vehicles there, to see the masses in the square, and all of it accompanied with loud music [and] happiness, it’s not simple,” she said.
“Already daily life is not [easy] and when things like this pop up, it just boggles the mind, and disturbs my soul,” she added.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has started a week-long trade mission to Israel.City of Chicago declares today “Hillel Neuer Day”
Hogan arrived in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
The governor met with executives at Enzymotec and its subsidiary VAYA Pharma, which recently relocated its US headquarters to the University of Maryland BioPark.
Business, academic and Jewish leaders from Maryland have accompanied the governor, along with some administration officials. About 25 private-sector representatives have made the trip.
Maryland officials will have private meetings with business leaders, as well as public events and speaking engagements.
Hogan is scheduled to be a keynote speaker at a conference on the Tel Aviv University campus aimed at helping high-tech entrepreneurs connect with investors and economic development support services.
In honor of the visit by the Executive Director of UN Watch, the Chicago City Council has declared today, September 15, 2016, to be Hillel Neuer Day, in recognition of his “contributions to promote peace, justice and human rights around the world.”
The resolution reads in part:
WHEREAS, In his role as one of the world’s foremost human rights advocates, Hillel Neuer has drawn global attention to both atrocities and injustice;
BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and the members of the Chicago City Council, assembled this fourteenth day of September, 2016, do hereby welcome Hillel Neuer to the City of Chicago and do hereby recognize his contributions to promote peace, justice and human rights around the world; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That Thursday, September 15, 2016, shall be officially recognized as Hillel Neuer Day throughout the City of Chicago…”
