Tuesday, October 04, 2016
Palestinian Murderers and their Western Enablers
The Palestinian Authority not only celebrates murderers: it produces new ones every day -- and does so knowlingly and voluntarily. For this it uses textbooks, television and radio programs, and articles in newspapers, all paid for with money from Western governments.Which Nation is (Still) the Number One Sponsor of Terrorism?
The Palestinian Authority also financially rewards the murderers' families and the murderers themselves. These financial rewards are also paid for with money from Western governments.
How can Western politicians explain that they condemn the murders and still fund the incitement to kill? How come they keep giving money that rewards murdering Jews "by all available means"?
How can they define as "moderate" an organization such as the Palestinian Authority that admits sending terrorists to kill Israelis and that teaches children, on its Facebook page, how to stab Jews to death? And how can they consider it urgent to give such an organization its own State?
Israeli Jews know they can only rely on themselves. They know that others, such as France, are holding knives that are sharpened.
Iran has evidently harbored senior Al Qaeda operatives since 9/11, including facilitating the flow of fighters and funds to al-Qaeda through Iran -- a kind of jihadi pipeline. In the mid-1990s, reported the Clarion Project, Iran negotiated an agreement with Osama Bin Laden to allow al-Qaeda terrorists to freely transit Iran.J Street ad campaign to back pro-Iran deal Congressional candidates
And, of course, Tehran's senior leadership financed and facilitated, along with Hezbollah, the training of the 9/11 hijackers that killed nearly three thousand people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. According to a December 2011 decision by Judge George B. Daniels "Iran and Hezbollah materially and directly supported Al Qaeda in the September 11, 2001 attacks."
But 9/11 was not Iran's first terror attack against the United States. The Iranian government also financed the attack on the Pan Am flight that blew up over Scotland in December 1988, and was also responsible for the 1996 terror attacks against Americans at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 1983 bombings of our Marine barracks and embassy in Lebanon.
A number of American courts, upon hearing the evidence of Iranian government support for terrorism, found Iran guilty of terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens, culminating in at least $56 billion in damages, which included being found guilty complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
Even more chilling has been Iran's joint missile and technology cooperation with North Korea, making the potential use of weapons of mass destruction against the US a growing possibility.
If any UN action is taken to stop terrorism, it should start with shutting down the number one source of state-sponsored terrorism in the world -- the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The liberal Jewish political action group J Street is set to launch a $500,000 ad campaign aimed at supporting Congressional candidates who supported the Iranian nuclear deal signed last year.
The campaign will run in two swing states, according to a press release sent out on behalf of the organization, without specifying which two. Details on the new initiative will be made public on Wednesday.
J Street said it seeks to “ensure House and Senate candidates who have backed the Iran nuclear deal in Congress and on the campaign trail prevail at the polls, and in doing so prove that diplomacy-first policies also make for good politics.”
The campaign will include television and internet advertising, direct mail and polling and is part of a “multi-state effort focusing on competitive Senate races in which candidates have been attacked for their support of the Iran deal.”
The organization has maintained that the nuclear deal, signed between Tehran and six world powers last year and implemented in January, is good for the United States and for Israel — whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been a vociferous opponent of the controversial agreement.
Abbas Gestures to Obama, Not Israel
If a two-state solution was the actual goal of the Palestinians, they could have achieved it several times in the last 16 years when Israel offered them just such a deal. But the Palestinians have stalled and said “no” each time. Their pursuit of their ultimate goal of Israel’s destruction remains inextricably linked to their sense of national identity. That’s why Abbas, and Yasir Arafat before him, have always carefully balanced a need to appeal to Western support with speeches in Arabic to their own people, in which they reassure them that the war will continue no matter what else happens. A victory for the Palestinians at the UN will likely mean another terrorist offensive meant to pressure the Israelis to make more concessions not the end of the conflict.Ten Places the Obama Administration Says Are Not In Israel
President Obama will have a brief window of opportunity after the election and before the inauguration of a new president in which, freed from political constraints, he can make one more effort to achieve the “daylight” between Israel and the United States that he has sought since he took office in 2009. The most sympathetic interpretation of this stand is that he believes he can best help Israel by saving it from itself and imposing peace terms upon it. In doing so, he has always sought to undercut the verdict of Israeli democracy that rejected Peres’s idealism with Netanyahu’s pragmatism. The Israeli people want peace as much as Obama, but they understand that the events of the past 23 years since the Oslo Accords were signed have proven that the Palestinians are not yet ready to make peace.
If Abbas were serious about peace, he would be wooing Israel’s people with the sort of gesture that Anwar Sadat made when he went to Jerusalem and spoke to the Knesset. He would cease the incitement to violence coming from the PA media and condemn terror rather than applaud it. He would return to talks with Netanyahu and this time stick with the process rather than torpedoing them as he did the last time in 2014 with his outreach to Hamas and decision to bypass negotiations by going to the UN.
But instead, he is hoping that Obama will reward his funeral visit with one more attempt to tilt the diplomatic playing field in the direction of the Palestinians. That means doing just enough to convince the Americans that he’s interested in peace without ever committing himself to actually ending the conflict rather than merely continuing it on more advantageous terms, as Arafat shamelessly did when he fooled Peres with Oslo. That’s a gambit that an administration that was truly dedicated to peace wouldn’t fall for.
The Obama administration ignited a firestorm over the weekend when it stripped the city of Jerusalem as being located in Israel in an official communication sent following a memorial service for recently deceased former Israeli President Shimon Peres.Prince Charles secretly visited grandmother’s grave while in Jerusalem
The White House originally sent out a press release attributing Obama’s remarks at the memorial service as taking place in “Jerusalem, Israel.” However, shortly after that statement was sent, the White House reissued the statement with “Israel” crossed out as the location.
The White House’s move prompted criticism in Israel and throughout the pro-Israel community, including on Capitol Hill.
The Washington Free Beacon has assembled a list of ten other places that the White House does not believe are located in the state of Israel.
1. The Prime Minister of Israel’s Residence
2. The Prime Minister of Israel’s Office
3. Israel’s Parliament, The Knesset
4. Judaism’s Holiest Sites, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount
5. Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem
6. Judaism’s Ancient Cemetery, The Mount of Olives
7. The Israel Museum
8. Israel’s Supreme Court
9. Israel’s National Cemetery, Mount Herzl
10. Israel’s Capital City
Britain’s heir to the throne, Prince Charles of Wales, quietly visited his grandmother’s grave at a Jerusalem convent on Friday following his attendance at the funeral of former president Shimon Peres.While Hebron gets the press, Jenin and Tulkarem are the sleeping giants Israel should be worried about
Charles stopped at the Mount of Olives’ Church of Mary Magdalene before heading back to the UK, where his paternal grandmother Princess Alice of Battenberg, who saved a Jewish family during the Holocaust, was interred in the late 1980s.
It was a rare opportunity for Charles to visit the site of his grandmother’s burial.
A Telegraph report in late 2015 said British royals were unlikely to visit Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.
“The Royal family can’t really go there,” a British government source told the newspaper at the time. “In Israel so much politics is caught up in the land itself that it’s best to avoid those complications altogether by not going there.”
But the Peres funeral in Jerusalem, attended by dozens of world leaders, may have provided the perfect justification, one that is unlikely to repeat itself anytime soon
Though Palestinian violence and terrorism in Jerusalem and Hebron dominate headlines, it’s Jenin and Tulkarem that keep Maj. Hanan Shwartz up at night.IDF nabs Gaza man who crossed into Israel
The chief operations officer for the IDF’s Menashe Brigade, Shwartz warns that those two northern West Bank cities — hotbeds of terror activity during the Second Intifada — could again become fountainheads of violence against Israeli civilians and security forces.
“I’m always worried,” he said.
Most of the violence in the past year has either been carried out in cities and towns in the southern and central West Bank, or by residents of those areas.
“But the potential damage from Jenin outweighs them all,” Shwartz told The Times of Israel last week, on a hilltop overlooking the region.
All it would take is “that thing that breaks the jar” and lets that violence out, he said.
In the few days since Shwartz issued this warning, Jenin has somewhat proven his point. Early Monday morning, IDF troops uncovered a trove of illegal weapons — mostly pistols and jury-rigged guns cobbled together out of serially produced components — and arrested six people in the West Bank city, one of them an alleged member of the Hamas terrorist group.
IDF soldiers arrested a man on suspicion of crossing the Gaza border fence into Israel on Monday morning.Criticism In Jordan, Palestinian Authority Over Marginalization Of Women In Public And Political Arenas
The incident took place in the Eshkol regional council, opposite the central Gaza Strip, Walla news reported.
The suspect was taken in for questioning by Israel’s security services.
The man’s identity wasn’t released for publication.
The incident was one of several in recent months in which Palestinians from Gaza penetrated the border into Israel. Israel is working to build a sophisticated border barrier to prevent tunneling into Israeli territory.
Last month, in a “abnormal” incident, an 8-year-old Palestinian child entered Israel, only to be scooped up by security forces and eventually returned to Gaza.
In August, four Palestinian men were arrested in the southern Eshkol region minutes after crossing from the Gaza Strip into Israel. IDF troops reportedly apprehended the men shortly after they crossed into Israeli territory.
In Jordan's September 20, 2016 elections for its 130-member House of Representatives – the lower house of parliament – 20 women were elected, comprising approximately 15% of seats. Additionally, Palestinian Authority (PA) municipal elections were to take place held on October 8, 2016, but the Palestinian high court ordered them postponed until further notice, following an appeal for the disqualification of five candidate lists.Palestinian Authority delays local elections indefinitely
One of the main issues in the public debate on the elections in both the Jordanian and Palestinian media was the marginalization of women in public life, and, particularly, in political life. Both countries' presses featured articles and editorials criticizing the discrimination and cultural obstacles faced by women who wish to run for office; this criticism was also voiced by women candidates in both Jordan and in the PA.
It should be noted in this context that both Jordan and the PA have quotas for women in parliament and municipal councils. Jordan sets aside 12% of its parliamentary seats for women, while the PA reserves 20%. However, according to both writers and women candidates, the quotas have proven ineffective in changing women's status in politics.
This report will review several articles and editorials on this issue.
The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday suspended municipal elections until further notice, a day after the PA’s High Court ruled that the upcoming vote could only go ahead in the West Bank and not the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood leader killed in Cairo gunbattle
In the wake of the court decision, the Palestinian Central Elections Commission on Monday had urged PA President Mahmoud Abbas to delay the municipal elections by at least six months.
The commission said a delay would be “in the Palestinian interest” in light of the ruling, which ended hopes of the first municipal elections since 2006 that included both Hamas and the Fatah-dominated PA. Hamas won those elections, sparking a conflict that led to near-civil war in Gaza the following year.
“The court orders the implementation of the government’s decision on the holding of local elections,” court president Hisham al-Hatoo ruled Monday before a packed courtroom in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, later Tuesday praised the decision to postpone the elections, saying that the vote should be held across the Palestinian territories simultaneously and calling for Palestinian unity.
The head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s military wing was killed in a firefight with security forces in Cairo, Egypt’s interior ministry said early Tuesday.Syrian Rebel Leader: Assad is the Main Enemy, Not Israel
Reuters quoted the ministry as saying that Muhammad Kamal was killed in a raid in a neighborhood of the capital along with Yasser Shehata, a fellow leader in the Islamist group.
According to the report, the Brotherhood posted on social media that Kamal had vanished on Monday afternoon, “but gave no further updates.”
A statement from the ministry said that Shehata had been sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for “assaulting a citizen and forcibly detaining the person in the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party,” the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing. Kamal was also sentenced to life in prison in absentia, the statement said.
The leader of a coalition of Sunni rebels fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed that his group, which includes Islamists, has no desire to go to war with Israel, Eli Lake of Bloomberg View reported Thursday.U.S. Suspends Negotiations With Russia on Syrian Ceasefire
Mohammed Alloush, the political leader of Jaish al-Islam, which translates to “Army of Islam,” which includes “several smaller Islamist, Salafi and nationalist rebel militias,” told Lake that his fighters “have no intention to make war against anyone except for the Syrian regime.”
“If we compare all the killing in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Syrian regime has committed many more crimes than the whole conflict. Our aim now is to get rid of the Syrian regime,” he added.
Alloush accused Assad and Hezbollah, the Iranian terrorist proxy supporting the Syrian regime, of exploiting “the Israel conflict to recruit supporters and build armies and all of these armies are used to kill us, to starve us.”
According to Lake, Alloush’s attitude reflects the privately-held positions of many Sunni Arab governments. “Israel has enhanced its diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states during Barack Obama’s presidency, as America’s traditional allies fear the U.S. is seeking a new partnership with their archrival, Iran,” Lake noted. “Alloush’s statements also show that Israel has purchased some goodwill among the Syrian opposition.” Alloush told Lake that Israel’s treatment of Syrians fighters and civilians who come to the border seeking medical attention is an important humanitarian gesture.
The United States on Monday suspended negotiations with Russia over bilateral engagement in Syria due to Moscow’s continued assault on the besieged city of Aleppo, according to the State Department.Washington Post Reporter Jason Rezaian Files Lawsuit Against Iran
“The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
The decision comes five days after Secretary of State John Kerry threatened to pause talks with Russia intended to restore a ceasefire agreement.
The week-long deal implemented on Sept. 9 fell apart after violence erupted between rebel forces and the Syrian military in rebel-held territories of Aleppo. An estimated 275,000 civilians are still trapped in the northern Syrian city with hundreds of people killed within the past week, according to the New York Times.
“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” Kirby said. “The United States spared no effort in negotiating and attempting to implement an arrangement with Russia aimed at reducing violence, providing unhindered humanitarian access, and degrading terrorist organizations operating in Syria.”
The U.S. has also halted plans for joint airstrikes against the Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
“Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments,” Kirby continued. “Russia and the Syrian regime have chosen to pursue a military course, inconsistent with the cessation of hostilities, as demonstrated by their intensified attacks against civilian areas, targeting of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need.”
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian sued the Iranian government on Monday, charging that he was taken hostage and psychologically tortured during his year and a half in prison for political purposes.In NBC Interview, Hassan Rouhani Can’t Stop Lying
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., claims that the Islamic Republic targeted Rezaian for arrest in an attempt to “extort concessions” from the U.S. in last year’s multinational negotiations over the Iran nuclear accord.
The filing also said that Iranian authorities convicted Rezaian on espionage charges last year to increase what Tehran viewed as his “value” in a prisoner swap and sanctions alleviation, the Washington Post reported.
“For nearly eighteen months, Iran held and terrorized Jason for the purpose of gaining negotiating leverage and ultimately exchanging him with the United States for something of value to Iran,” the suit says.
Rezaian, his mother, Mary Rezaian, and his brother, Ali Rezaian, are named as plaintiffs in the suit and are asking for an unspecified sum for the “irreparable harm” caused during his imprisonment.
Rezaian was released earlier this year along with four other U.S. citizens the same day that the Iran nuclear deal was implemented.
The suit detailed for the first time the abuse Rezaian suffered during his 544-day imprisonment.
In an interview two weeks ago, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani consistently lied and evaded questions put to him by NBC News’s Chuck Todd.Erdogan Denounces 9/11 Bill as Plot ‘Pointed Against the Islamic World’
Todd first asked why Iran was claiming that the United States was not living up to the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Rouhani responded that the deal states “that all nations involved in this agreement must free the path, pave the way for resumption of normal activities with the Islamic Republic of Iran, such as banking transactions, insurance transactions, and the likes.” Not only is that not correct, it fits a pattern described earlier this week by analysts from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in which Iran hopes to gain additional concessions by threatening to walk away from the deal unless the West provides every economic concession that it believes it is owed.
The United States was only required to suspend its nuclear-related sanctions, not sanctions placed on Iran due to its history of terror financing and money laundering. (The United States has seen to it that the global watchdog against money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force, relaxed some restriction on Iran despite Iran’s continued presence at the top of the list of money launderers.)
When asked by Todd whether that was a misinterpretation of the deal’s sanctions-related clauses, Rouhani evaded the question, instead accusing the United States of blocking access to large financial institutions. Then he added that “the other breach of the agreement on the side of the United States, it has been brought into the JCPOA that airplanes intended for civil aviation only must be freely sold to Iran.”
But the airplanes that Iran wants are likely not “intended for civil aviation only.” As Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has shown, Iran Air, Iran’s national airline, which is seeking to purchase planes from Boeing and Airbus, is using planes to transport arms and troops to Syria to support the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Transporting soldiers and materiel is not “civil aviation.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced JASTA, the Justice Against State Sponsors of Terrorism Act, in a speech at the opening of Turkey’s parliament on Saturday.UK to opt out of European human rights convention in wartime
“The allowing by the US Congress of lawsuits to be opened against Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 attacks is unfortunate,” said Erdogan. “It’s against the principle of individual criminal responsibility for crimes. We expect this false step to be reversed as soon as possible.”
AFP notes Erdogan hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef for talks at the presidential palace the day before his speech to parliament and even gave him a medal, Turkey’s Order of the Republic, in a sign of tightening relationships between Ankara and Riyadh. Both countries are Sunni Muslim states, and both support rebel forces against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, who is backed by the Shiite theocracy in Iran.
“The Turkish president earlier this year also backed Saudi Arabia in a diplomatic crisis with Iran over Riyadh’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in January,” AFP recalls.
Hurriyet Daily News quotes Erdogan urging Muslim countries to unite against the U.S. 9/11 bill in a Sunday interview with Saudi television:
Britain’s Conservative Party government is planning to temporarily opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) during any future wars, in a move aimed at stemming “vexatious claims” of war crimes faced by its soldiers who fought in previous conflicts.Jackie Walker Can’t Stop Saying Offensive Things About Jews
According to the Guardian newspaper, the plan drafted by Prime Minister Theresa May and Defense Secretary Michael Fallon will be unveiled Tuesday at the party’s annual conference in Birmingham.
The paper quoted May as saying the measure would “put an end to the industry of vexatious claims that has pursued those who served in previous conflicts.” Fallon also mentioned the plan ahead of his own address to the conference, saying that Britain’s “legal system has been abused to level false charges against our troops on an industrial scale.”
The suspension is known as a “presumption to derogate” from the ECHR in warfare, the Guardian said, adding that the British government has previously taken this step during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. The Council of Europe does allow for derogation from the ECHR, although certain central elements of the convention, such as the ban on torture, cannot be suspended.
The move has come under criticism from human rights groups, including Britain’s Liberty organization, which argued that the decision should only be taken in situations that directly threatened the life of the nation.
Yesterday’s New York Times featured an illuminating profile of Momentum, the hard-left political activist organization that has effectively captured Britain’s Labour party for its radical leader Jeremy Corbyn. Co-written by reporter Stephen Castle and the Times‘ excellent London bureau chief Steven Erlanger, the article opened with an enthusiastic quote from the group’s vice chair, Jackie Walker, who exclaims, “We’re part of the biggest political movement in the last 50 years! The seeds we are sowing, who knows what fruit they will bring?”UK Labour suspends Corbyn ally for questioning Holocaust Day
What the piece does not mention is that Jackie Walker is an anti-Semite who blamed the Jews for being the “chief financiers” of the slave trade, falsely criticized Britain’s official Holocaust Memorial Day for not commemorating non-Jewish victims of genocide (it does), argued that Jewish schools do not need extra security in the face of threats, and said she hasn’t “heard a definition of anti-Semitism that I can work with.”
After her comment about Jews being behind the slave trade—a popular anti-Semitic conspiracy theory debunked by academics—Walker was suspended from the Labour party in May. But by the end of the month, she was reinstated, with no explanation from the party as to why she’d been cleared and no apology on her part. This week, Walker went after Holocaust Memorial Day and security at Jewish schools, provoking outrage across the political spectrum. (The recording of Walker’s most recent comments was leaked the day of the Times’ story, so it could not have been included.)
In response, Karen Pollock, the CEO of Britain’s Holocaust Educational Trust, said that Walker had “undermined and belittled” Jews. Jeremy Newmark, head of the Jewish Labour Movement, called on Walker to resign or apologize. “I am appalled that somebody who has already caused great hurt and pain to so many Jewish people by promoting an anti-Semitic myth would come to a training session designed to help Party activists address anti-Semitism and use the occasion to challenge the legitimacy of the training itself,” he said. Manuel Cortes, head of the country’s second largest railway union, called on Walker to resign or be removed from both the Labour party and Momentum. “TSSA will seriously reconsider our union’s support for Momentum if she is still in post by this time next week,” he said. Under pressure, Walker apologized, something she refused to do for her previous anti-Semitic outburst.
Britain’s Labour Party suspended a senior activist close to recently reelected leader Jeremy Corbyn after she said that the national day to honor the victims of the Holocaust should not be solely about Jews.Momentum Not Suspending Jackie Walker, Demand Labour Reinstate Her
The Guardian on Friday quoted Labour as saying that while it did not comment on individual memberships, it is understood that Walker was suspended.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust Remembrance Day was open to all people who’ve experienced holocaust?” Jackie Walker, who was previously suspended for anti-Jiewsh remarks, on Monday told a Labour training session on how to confront anti-Semitism and engage Jewish voters. Her recorded comments appeared Wednesday on the Huffington Post.
When attendees at the session — which was organized by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) at the annual party conference in Liverpool — told her that the day did in fact include non-Jewish victims, Walker said that “in practice it is not circulated and advertised as such.”
Walker’s comments were denounced by Labour MP John Mann, who said they were “unacceptable in a modern political party.”
But she was defended by former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who has also been suspended for his own comments about Hitler.
Momentum have sacked Jackie Walker as vice chair but decided not to suspend her membership or remove her from their steering committee. They say in a statement released last night that her comments on the Holocaust were “irresponsible” but not anti-Semitic, and they say she was stitched up: “Momentum is concerned that footage of a training session was leaked to the press. The leak is unacceptable and undermines much needed political education”.Momentum Bosses Accused of “Bowing to Israeli Pressure”
They add: “On the basis of the evidence the Committee has seen, Jackie should not be expelled from the Labour Party”. So Momentum believe Walker’s comments were not anti-Semitic, blame the media for exposing her and say she shouldn’t be kicked out of Labour. Wonder what the Labour moderates who kowtowed to Momentum last week have to say now…
Senior figures at Momentum are being sent abuse from Corbyn supporters accusing them of “bowing to Israeli pressure” for sacking Jackie Walker as vice chair. Despite the group’s overall very lenient response to the Walker row, Momentum bosses Jon Lansman and James Schneider (who are both Jewish) are being sent messages like the one above accusing them of following “the agenda of the Israeli embassy”. Schneider jokes in response: “I faked the moon landing actually”. The moment when the leaders of the hard-left realise how nutty their grassroots really are…This man wrote the book on British Labour anti-Semitism — literally
Towards end of a long summer contest for UK Labour leadership between Jeremy Corbyn and challenger Owen Smith, a number of people could be seen annotating a gaudily-covered paperback book.Bank of Ireland shuts down anti-Israel BDS accounts
Dave Rich’s seminal primer, “The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Antisemitism” could not have been published at a more appropriate time, on the heels of the leadership contest and the eve of Labour’s annual party conference.
It is no wonder audience members at speeches were using Rich’s book as a source to trace the extraordinary position in which Britain’s Labour Party now finds itself. Once the natural party to which Jews gravitated, Labour’s new toxic message has alienated Jews all over the country, disenfranchising those who had traditionally voted a straight Labour ticket all their adult lives.
At the same time, Labour’s “new politics” has attracted a groundswell of younger people, many of them disaffected from voting, but who are enthused by the ideas put forward by Corbyn and his inner circle — despite the fact that 172 of Labour’s MPs have repudiated Corbyn’s leadership.
Rich is deputy communications director of the Community Security Trust (CST) and associate research fellow at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at London University’s Birkbeck College. His book grew out of his PhD thesis and is a remarkable, methodical documentation of the growth of left-wing anti-Semitism in Britain.
The Bank of Ireland—the country’s oldest financial institution—shut down the accounts of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The termination of the pro-BDS group’s accounts took place in Ireland and Northern Ireland in late September, according to a Sunday account in the Irish news outlet RTÉ.Oberlin Prof. who posted antisemitic memes says she’s a victim of racism
A spokesman for the Bank of Ireland wrote The Jerusalem Post on Monday saying that they "cannot comment in relation to customer accounts.”
According to the RTÉ, the PSC said the bank closed its accounts because it defined transfers to Palestinian Territories as high-risk. The PSC said its transfers funds to a factory in the West Bank. The plant produces Palestinian scarves that the PSC buys to promote solidarity, wrote the RTÉ. PSC had held accounts at the Bank of Ireland for 15 years.
The Irish pro-Palestinian group opened a new account with the Allied Irish Banks (AIB). A Post press query to the AIB was not immediately returned on Monday. According to RTÉ, the PSC believes it is vulnerable to a new closure.
Post media queries to the PSC in Ireland were also not immediately returned. The AIB and the Bank of Ireland are considered to be part of the “Big Four” Irish financial organizations. SPC also maintains a PayPal account.
The SPC branch in Ireland is a hardcore BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) group targeting the Jewish State. According to its website it has launched campaigns to force divestment from Israel’s Mashav --the Agency for International Development Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs--and started a letter campaign from over 215 Irish artists to boycott Israel. The PSC website wrote it seeks to “support the awareness-raising to expose the contamination of the global diamond market with Israeli 'blood diamonds.”’ In addition to the SPC’s call to boycott Israeli products, it aims to create an “Apartheid-Free Zone” in Ireland where Israeli goods are ostracized.
Joy Karega: “I cannot accept the way that I have been treated as a Black woman on Oberlin’s faculty.”Jewish voice for Peace sponsors Arab Festival
You may remember Joy Karega, the Oberlin College Social Justice Writing professor (yes, there is such a position) who, when not helping organize anti-Israel BDS events with Students for a Free Palestine, posted bizarre Jewish conspiracy theories on Facebook.
Like this image of how the Rothschild family controls the world:
Karega also pushed other conspiracy theories, such as that the attacks on a Paris theater and Charlie Hebdo were Israeli false flag operations to distract attention from the Palestinian demands, and that Israel was behind ISIS:
After Karega’s posts about Jews and Israel were exposed in The Tower Magazine, Oberlin was on the defensive after a long-series of anti-Semitic problems on campus centered around an out-of-control anti-Israel movement.
The administration condemned the comments to some extent, the Trustees issued a strong condemnation, and a majority of professors signed a statement against her, though she has a core of faculty and student support.
She was unmoved, proclaiming she was unbothered:
"Jewish" voice for peace is co-sponsoring the October 7th Olympia, Washington Arab fair , on Shabbat, no less.Virtual reality helps net last Auschwitz criminals
The same organization that routinely protests and disrupts Jewish community events is lending their backing to a highly politicized Arab festival, organized by the Rachel Corrie Foundation.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. JVP has made it perfectly clear in the past who their intended audience is.
Slipping on a virtual reality headset, the indelible images come into view: the steel rails, the imposing brick gatehouse, the rows of identical barracks, the gas chambers, the crematoria.
Thanks to the work of the Bavarian state crime office (LKA) in Munich, German prosecutors and police investigating the last living Nazi war criminals can now immerse themselves in a highly precise 3D model of Auschwitz.
The VR death camp offers 21st-century fact-finding technology for the final Holocaust trials, in a twilight bid by the German justice system to address the atrocities committed seven decades ago.
“It has often been the case that suspects say they worked at Auschwitz but didn’t really know what was going on,” Jens Rommel, head of the federal office investigating Nazi war crimes, told AFP.
“Legally, the question is about intent: must a suspect have known that people were being taken to the gas chambers or shot? This model is a very good and very modern tool for the investigation because it can help answer that question.”
