Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Alan M. Dershowitz: A New Tolerance for Anti-Semitism
In the United States, although there has been hard-right anti-Semitism for decades, the bigotry of the hard-left is far more prevalent and influential on many university campuses. Those on the left who support left-wing anti-Semites try to downplay, ignore or deny that those they support are really anti-Semites. "They are anti-Zionist" is the excuse du jour. Those on the right do essentially the same: "they are nationalists." Neither side would accept such transparent and hollow justifications if the shoe were on the other foot. I believe that when analyzing and exposing these dangerous trends, a single standard of criticism must be directed at each.Richard Landes: Caliphate Cogwar, Lethal, Own-Goal Journalism, and BDS
Generally speaking, extreme right-wing anti-Semitism continues to be a problem in many parts of Europe and among a relatively small group of "alt-right" Americans. But it also exists among those who self-identify as run-of-the-mill conservatives. Consider, for example, former presidential candidate and Reagan staffer, Pat Buchanan.
The list of Buchanan's anti-Jewish bigotry is exhaustive. Over the years, he has consistently blamed Jews for wide-ranging societal and political problems. In his criticism of the Iraq War, for example, Buchanan infamously quipped: "There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East-the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States." He then singled out for rebuke only Jewish political figures and commentators such as Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthammer and A.M. Rosenthal. Buchanan did not mention any of the vocal non-Jewish supporters of the war. Furthermore, Buchanan also said that "the Israeli lobby" would be responsible if President Obama decided to strike Iran, threatening that if it were to happen, "Netanyahu and his amen corner in Congress" would face "backlash worldwide." Buchanan's sordid flirtation with Nazi revisionism is also well documented.
Meanwhile, on university campuses, the absurd concept of "intersectionality" -- which has become a code word for anti-Semitism -- is dominating discussions and actions by the hard-left. The warm embrace of Palestinian-American activist, Linda Sarsour -- who recently delivered the commencement address at a City University of New York graduation -- is a case in point. A co-organizer of the Women's March on Washington in January, she has said that feminism and Zionism are incompatible, stating: "You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There's just no way around it." And when speaking about two leading female anti-Islamists, Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who is a victim of female genital mutilation) the feminist du jour, Linda Sarsour, said: "I wish I could take away their vaginas."
The irony is breathtaking. Under her own all-or-nothing criteria, Sarsour -- who is also a staunch supporter of trying to destroy Israel economically -- cannot be pro-Palestinian and a feminist because the Palestinian Authority and Hamas subjugate women and treat gays far worse than Israel does.
BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) is part and parcel of a wider cognitive war (cogwar) offensive against both Israel and the West. Cogwar is the main resort of the weak side in an asymmetrical conflict, whose task is to convince the enemy not to use its superior forces to resist attacks from the weaker side. While most asymmetric cogwar conflicts are defensive (chase out the imperialists), the Caliphate cogwar (see below), is an imperialist effort to invade and subject the far more powerful enemy, the modern, democratic West.Matti Friedman: What the AP’s Collaboration With the Nazis Should Teach Us About Reporting the News
BDS pursues two major goals: stigmatizing Israel in the world community, and undermining the workings of a free academy in the West. This two goals strike at both major targets of Caliphate cogwar, Israel and Western democracies. It is based on weaponized false information (Pallywood), and its surprising success in enrolling Western “progressives,” illustrates the degree of disorientation current among Western thought leaders.
How disoriented must one be to look at the ME, where “human rights” don’t even exist in the Muslim-majority world, and blame Israel for the region’s woes because they have failed to provide more protection and human rights to a sworn enemy of both Israel and human rights. Without the disturbing receptivity of liberals and progressives in the West to the absurd portrayal of Israel as a particularly nasty case of human rights violations, BDS would rapidly fade.
This essay is less concerned with understanding BDS – a secondary phenomenon – than understanding from where BDS draws its strength by placing it within the larger context of a cogwar conducted against the West by Muslims who believe that Islam should replace the US/West as global hegemon. It describes the Caliphaters, and the invasive cogwar they wage against the West, and their strategy of using of anti-Zionism, assisted by Western lethal, own-goal journalism, to hit the West in its “soft underbelly.”
The report on WWII is an opportunity to look again at the automatic bias in favor of “access,” and to ask if things might not be done differently. In the case of Gaza, for example, is the right choice really to have staffers inside, when their reporting can be controlled by Hamas? Or would it be more productive for the AP and others news organizations to report from outside Gaza while working sources on the inside and making use of external players (Egyptian intelligence, Israeli intelligence, Palestinian reporters in the West Bank) to give a more accurate picture of events?
Or instead of paying for an illusory “bureau” in Pyongyang and getting in bed with Kim Jong-un, why not devote that money to hiring the most knowledgeable people in South Korea and developing information from dissidents, refugees, and spies, which, in expert hands—and there are plenty at the AP’s disposal—might actually be able to yield an approximation of the truth? While these solutions are far from perfect, they’re preferable from the standpoint of news-gathering. Credible information that is explicitly presented as incomplete is far better than a distorted picture presented as reality.
In 2017, consumers of news are beset as never before with a blizzard of disinformation. There is no alternative to mainstream news sources. No Twitter feed is going to replace The New York Times or the AP. And yet much information published in established sources is unreliable, sometimes for the reasons discussed here. Many flaws and misunderstandings have crept into journalistic practice over time, like the idea that it’s permissible to collaborate with dictatorships and obfuscate about it, or that telling half the story is better than leveling with readers and admitting that your hands are tied. This renders journalism vulnerable to the claim that there is no “fake news” because it’s all fake, anyway.
The people in charge at the AP were wrong in 1935. It matters today because they and their competitors are wrong now in similar ways. It’s a good time for journalists to think deeply about the ways the profession has failed—80 years ago, two years ago, last week—and about ways to better serve a world that badly needs us to do our job
William Jacobson: Justice for Rasmea
The heart of the hero-worship is the claim that Odeh did not participate in the 1969 bombings, and only was convicted in Israel because she falsely confessed after 25 days of sexual torture. That story never had credibility because demonstrable facts proved otherwise.When will the Six-Day War finally end?
Israeli court recordsshowed that Odeh confessed not after 25 days, but after one day, as did her co-conspirators. The confessions were reported in the media at the time. There also was physical evidence of her guilt, including bomb-making material found in her bedroom.
In interviews for pro-Palestinian documentaries long after release from prison, Odeh’s co-conspirators spoke of Odeh’s involvement, with one of them describing Odeh as the mastermind of the supermarket bombing.
Odeh also received a full and open trial in Israel. She was represented by defense counsel, and an observer from the International Red Cross publicly stated at the time that she received a fair trial.
Yet the false narrative of Odeh’s Israeli conviction formed the false narrative of her defense on immigration charges.
Odeh’s supporters claimed that Odeh was a victim of a vindictive prosecution by a “Zionist” prosecutor in the Justice Department.
This week, Israel is marking the 50th anniversary of its improbable victory over Arab assassins. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser saw annihilation of the Jewish state as a uniting mission for his project of pan-Arab nationalism and had declared: ‘Our path to Palestine will be covered with blood.’ In June 1967, he enlisted Syria and Jordan in his plans for invasion and few thought Israel, then a meagre strip of land nine miles wide at its narrowest point, could withstand the onslaught. Herzl’s dream in the desert was about to be unwilled.Arabs Always Rejected the Idea of a Home for Jews, and They Still Do
In a stroke of tactical cunning, though at the time it looked to be an act of suicide, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against its tormenters and in under a week, armed with Dassaults, Super Shermans and the covenant of Psalm 121, it had defeated the Arabs and conquered vast swathes of territory. Little Israel now controlled the land from the Suez to the Jordan and had liberated the old city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Fifty years on, the world has never forgiven Israel for surviving and Israelis, and the Diaspora, have struggled with their position as ‘history’s most improbable occupier’, as Yossi Klein Halevi put it. That ambivalence runs through commemorations being held this week, as Israel recalls how close it came to destruction, honours those who fought and fell, and even sneaks in some pride at its unlikely triumph. In Haaretz, Uzi Benziman laments reunited Jerusalem as ‘a banal city’ where the Haredim hold too much sway. Michael Koplow tries to convince readers of the Atlantic that success was actually defeat. The Six-Day War, he intones ominously, left Israel with ‘a far more expansive and ambitious’ Zionism. He considers that a bad thing.
This year is peppered with landmark anniversaries of key events in the history of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. A lesser known but no less important date is July 7, the 80th anniversary of the publication of the report of the Palestine Royal Commission, established by Britain under the chairmanship of Lord William Peel.Legal Insurrection: Six-Day War Day 2 — At the Gates of Jerusalem’s Old City
It was this report in 1937, not the UN report on which the General Assembly based its famous resolution a decade later, that contained the first official recommendation in favor of partition based on the principle of two states for two peoples.
The Commission found "while neither race can justly rule all Palestine, we see no reason why each race should not rule part of it ... If (partition) offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely freedom and security."
The Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shocked the commissioners with his extremism when he suggested that most of the existing Jewish population of Palestine should be forced to leave the country or be exterminated. When asked whether he thought the 400,000 Jews already living in Palestine could be assimilated into the country, he gave a one-word answer: "No."
The Peel Commission recommended partitioning the land into separate Arab and Jewish states, and creating an international zone from Jaffa on the coast up to and including Jerusalem. The plan was never implemented. The Arab leaders met in Damascus and resolved that partition would be rejected outright.
This rejectionist attitude sadly persists and remains at the core of the conflict. 400 surveys carried out by five Palestinian research centers in regular polls in the West Bank and Gaza has shown that during the past 20 years 70 percent of Palestinians have continued to seek an immediate end of the State of Israel. No peace initiative can succeed until this attitude changes fundamentally.
Yesterday, a surprise aerial attack on the Egyptian Air Force set the stage for some impressive military gains by Israel against her enemies in this second day of fighting.Coexistence in the Middle East one of the greatest lies
The Egyptian armed forces are now in retreat as the IDF continues to “smash deeply into the Sinai.” Gaza has also been captured by the 7th Armored Brigade led by Major General Yisrael Tal, and shells from there have now stopped falling on the beleaguered Jewish settlements lining that border.
Over the last 24 hours the IDF has fought its way to the gates of the Jordanian-held Old City in Jerusalem.
Joined by the Jerusalem Brigade, the Paratrooper Brigade under the command of Major General Mordechai Gur is now controlling all the neighborhoods and towns surrounding the Old City (the troops avoided using any armor or artillery in order not to cause damage to the area’s holy places).
Faced with a continuous barrage of rocket attacks, there was no way of protecting west Jerusalem except by capturing outlying positions deep in Jordanian territory. That’s now been accomplished—Ramallah has fallen and the Harrel 10th Brigade under Major General Uri Ben Ari’s command just entered Qalqiliya without any shots even being fired.
Seeing a newspaper clipping from the era of the Six Day War showing the dumping of rubbish and human waste next to the Western wall in recaptured Jerusalem prompted Seth Frantzman to reflect that there never was co-existence with Jews in most of the Middle East (or Europe). If they accepted second class status, minorities were allowed to exist, not co-exist.US Jewish scientist gave Israel spy tech before Six Day War – report
Prior to 1967 part of the western wall was used as a toilet by local Arab residents of Jerusalem's Old City. One wonders, since we hear from groups that the Wall is also an Islamic holy site called "al-Buraq" why would one build a toilet at it?
We always hear these stories about "coexistence" in Ottoman Palestine before the arrival of Zionists in the 19th century.
But what was this coexistence? Toilets next to holy sites, purposely placed there because the residents knew it was holy to someone else. Let's see, also slaughterhouses and other stench next to the Jewish quarter. Part of the "coexistence" of putting latrines and animal blood next to the religion you "coexist" with?
After 1948 what was done with Jewish grave stones on the Mount of Olives under Jordanian administration? They were used to pave the walkways to toilets for soldiers. A continuation of the concept of literally crapping on the holy things of others.
A year before the 1967 Six Day War, a Jewish-American scientist reportedly gave Israel groundbreaking technology that facilitated eavesdropping on secret communications between the surrounding Arab nations, ultimately leading to a decisive victory.The literary left’s anti-celebration of Jerusalem’s liberation
Just before he died last July, nuclear scientist Zalman Shapiro told a reporter from Pittsburgh’s Tribune-Review that he gave Israel advanced batteries that could be used for long-distance surveillance.
Shapiro’s company, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC), used radioactive strontium 90 to create batteries with an extremely long life for the US military. The batteries, called radioisotope thermoelectric generators, could operate at extreme temperatures and even underwater, using the heat generated by the radioactive decay of the strontium (or other radioactive materials) to generate electricity.
Shapiro said that in 1966 the then-head of the Mossad, Meir Amit, contacted him to ask if he could supply the batteries to be used in spy stations on the Egyptian border.
At one point Waldman lets slip the need for intricate security measures to protect Israeli settlers, even while much of her critique (and the book) is aimed at those measures: “the relative safety” of the settlers, surrounded by millions of Palestinians, “represents a remarkable Israeli military achievement.” But that’s about as close to nuance as she’ll get — and it’s not very close.Seth J. Frantzman: Far-right Islamism is Europe’s new Nazism
The weakest chapter in the book is Chabon’s, not only in its writing but because it is strikingly cheap and dishonest. Chabon’s bread and butter is fiction, not nonfiction, and here he blurs the line between the two.
He accuses Israel of violating the Fourth Geneva Convention, which he calls “the finest flower of the Nazi defeat,” comparing Holocaust survivors and their descendants to the Nazis. And he repeats falsehoods like a gullible child — that the water used by Israeli towns is stolen, that Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount was responsible for the second intifada, that roadblocks are “pointless.”
What’s not pointless, of course, is the timing of this execrable book. Chabon & Co. don’t present the truth, and they don’t pave the way for justice. They are rhetorical rock-throwers.
Happily, as the liberation of Jerusalem reminds us, Israel has survived far worse.
UK intelligence officers admit there are at least 23,000 jihadists in Britain, a number close to the 22,500 members of the British Union of Fascists in 1939. There are likely more than 100,000 far-right Islamist extremists in Europe today, which outpaces the membership of the Nazi Party in 1928. Europe has become a breeding ground for Islamist extremism, not merely a victim of it.Col Kemp: Terror attacks: Britain faces the biggest threat since WWII
Almost all the terrorist attacks carried out across the continent and the UK have been perpetrated by men and women raised in European education systems.
They didn’t come to Europe as migrants with intolerant views, they received an indoctrination in hate, intolerance, bigotry, fascism, far-right Islamism, misogyny, homophobia, neo-Nazi-like terrorist ideology and KKK-like Islamist supremacy, in Europe. Islamists in the West today are as intolerant and more extreme than those in mostcountries in the Muslim world.
Preachers and Islamist recruiters in the US, UK and elsewhere spread more hatred and are directly responsible for more Islamic State (ISIS) recruitment and jihadism than Islamist preachers throughout the Muslim world. The West exports a unique brand of far-right Islamist genocidal ideology.
We need to pause and internalize this.
Eight Islamic terrorist plots have targeted this country since the end of March – more than one a week.Human Rights Watch blasts May’s anti-terror comments
Five were disrupted by the security services but the three that got through have left dozens dead or with life-changing wounds.
We must confront this violent challenge to our way of life with the same defiance as our fathers met Nazi aggression.
This was the spirit of the police who shot dead three terrorists within eight minutes of the attack unfolding at London Bridge.
It was also the spirit of ordinary citizens who ran at the terrorists, hurling missiles at them to save their fellow Londoners.
It is the fighting spirit that we must all adopt, not candles, illuminations, teddy bears and group hugs.
The gloves must come off and we need to hold the Prime Minister to her strong words on Sunday that ‘enough is enough’.
When intelligence confirms that non-British citizens in this country are involved in extremism, they must be deported.
The threat these enemies pose to the lives of our people morally outweighs any risk to their own human rights.
British citizens who are involved and can’t be deprived of citizenship and deported or convicted in court should be interned.
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday condemned comments by British Prime Minister Theresa May vowing a hardline approach to terrorism, after the deadly London attacks and on the eve of a national election.UK Labour lawmaker pans ‘anti-Semitic’ banner of Theresa May
Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based group, took aim in particular at remarks May made to supporters on Tuesday questioning limits imposed by human rights laws on tackling violent extremism.
“As if George W Bush never happened, UK promotes the canard of rights abuse protecting from terrorism,” Roth wrote on Twitter.
He was referring to tough measures passed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks of 2001, including controversial data collection powers given to the US National Security Agency and the opening of the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
In her speech, May promised longer prison sentences and restrictions on the freedom and movements of terrorist suspects.
A British Labour Party politician strongly condemned a banner put up by supporters of her election campaign that showed British Prime Minister Theresa May sporting Star of David earrings, in a derogatory reference to her support of Israel.Islamist Perpetrator of Attack at Paris Cathedral Was Award-Winning Journalist in Sweden
Member of Parliament Thangam Debbonaire, who is seeking reelection in the Bristol West constituency, denounced the banner and said anti-Semitism has no place in her party.
The banner was apparently put up by Labour supporters in the southwestern British city of Bristol, prompting accusations of anti-Semitism. It came as the party, trailing in polls ahead of Thursday’s vote, has been trying to shake off persistent accusations of anti-Semitism among some of its members.
Placed in a key location in the city and later removed, the banner depicted May, a Conservative, and rival Jeremy Corbyn of Labour facing each other, with slogans like “Balfour,” “causing ISIS,” “sanctions kill,” and “NHS cuts” on May’s side and “youth vote,” “skilled jobs” and “no student debt” on Corbyn’s side.
The Islamist terrorist who attacked a police officer outside the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Tuesday was an award-winning journalist who previously worked as freelancer for Swedish public radio, Swedish media outlets reported on Wednesday.Piers Morgan To London Mayor: Why Are You Willing To Host Ambassadors From Anti-Israel Countries But Not Trump?
The suspect in the attack, 40-year-old Algerian-born Farid Ikken, is said to have moved to Sweden in 2004 after marrying a Swedish woman.
On Tuesday afternoon, Ikken charged with a hammer at a police officer on patrol outside the iconic Paris cathedral. He was also, according to reports, carrying two knives. As he battered the officer, he shouted, “This is for Syria!” An armed police officer who was also in the area then fired two shots at Ikken, who was wounded and is currently being treated at a hospital.
Paulina Neuding — a Stockholm-based journalist who has written extensively on Islamist extremism and antisemitism in Sweden — told The Algemeiner that Ikken “studied journalism at Uppsala University, and worked as a freelance journalist for many Swedish media outlets, including Swedish national public radio (SR), the equivalent of BBC in Britain or NPR in the US.”
“SR is the institution in Sweden which the Swedish public trusts the most, according to a recent report from Gothenburg University,” Neuding pointed out.
In 2009, Ikken won an EU Journalism Award for a feature in the Swedish magazine “Folket i Bild” on asylum seekers with no healthcare rights.
A fair question from an unlikely source at 3:00 below. Khan’s been unusually game for a squabble with Trump dating back to last year, huh? Maybe he’s hoping to follow his predecessor as mayor, Boris Johnson, into the cabinet in a future administration and figures being loudly anti-Trump is the way to go.
Picking fights with Trump has been good business for all sorts of American left-wing personalities, beginning with the media. Why shouldn’t it work for left-wing Brits too?
Killer's brother was PAID to fight extremism: Group that was given government funding to fight terrorism was set up at the London Bridge jihadi's family home
The brother of the man behind the brutal massacre of seven people in the London Bridge terror attack had actually been paid by police to fight extremism, despite it going on within his own home.Labour Chief Jeremy Corbyn Sought to Remove Hamas From UK’s List of Terror Groups
Saad Butt, 29, brother of murderer Khuram, 27, was involved in the Government’s ‘Prevent’ programme set up to counter extremist groups.
His actions are a far cry from his younger brother, who led the three-man death squad who went on a bloodthirsty stabbing frenzy in Borough Market on Saturday night, injuring a further 48 people.
The news has prompted further questions as to how authorities missed Khuram's bloodthirsty plans when they worked so closely with one of his blood relatives.
He was even being investigated by anti-terror forces in 2015 but was deemed a 'low priority' with police saying there was 'no evidence he was planning an attack'.
Today Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has also backed those asking how the killer 'slipped through the net'.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who hopes to become the United Kingdom’s next prime minister after Thursday’s vote, has previously argued that the militant Islamist group Hamas should be removed from the Britain’s list of terrorist organizations, The Telegraph reported Sunday.Quds Day 2017
In a statement to Qatari-owned Al Jazeera on April 16, 2009, Corbyn said, “At some point, Hamas should be removed from this list because contacts with Hamas by politicians are increasing day after day. All want to find a peaceful solution to the problem.”
“Hamas, too, has thus far proven that it is committed to the process. It encourages these contacts and wants to get some sort of recognition of it. Therefore, this will one day take place,” he added.
The segment was uncovered by BBC Monitoring, which locates and translates news from other countries.
At the time of the remarks, Corbyn was still a little-known parliamentarian who did not hold any leadership position in the Labour Party. That same year, he also referred to Hamas and the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah as “friends,” and called Hamas “an organization that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region.” Corbyn also said that the UK’s labeling of Hamas as a terrorist organization is “a big, big historical mistake.” He expressed regret over that characterization last year, indicating that he used “inclusive language” in order to spur “a discussion about the peace process.”
While we’re all still reeling from the impact of three terror attacks in three months it’s worth noting that the annual Quds Day hate fest run by the Islamic Human Rights Commission is due to hit the streets of London on the 18th of June.
While you’re thinking about that also bear in mind that the chairman of the IHRC said the following about suicide bombers in April 2002;
In the wake of a suicide bombing carried out not by a Palestinian but by a Mancunian one wonders whether Shadjareh will argue that the UK should have given poor Salman Abedi a free M-16 so that he wouldn’t have had to blow himself up in order to murder British kids at a pop concert.
Israel-Thrives: This Week on Nothing Left
This week we start by discussing the relationship between Israel and New Zealand with communal leader Juliet Moses, and then we hear the latest on the British election with barrister and writer Jeremy Brier.Linda Sarsour Has Raised $80K For Anti-Muslim Hate Crime That Allegedly Did Not Happen
We speak with Christian Copt Raymond Ibrahim and then catch up with Isi Leibler in Jerusalem who has some thoughts on President Trump's waiver on moving the US embassy.
3 min Editorial: The Occupation
12 min Juliet Moses, New Zealand
51 min Jeremy Brier, UK commentator
1 hr 14 min Raymond Ibrahim, Coptic Christian
1 hr 35 min Isi Leibler in Jerusalem
Activist Linda Sarsour has raised more than $80,000 for a Somali woman who claims she was attacked by a white man in a hate crime, but there’s much more to the story, the two people accused of the hate attack tell The Daily Caller.IsraellyCool: Courtney Love Cobain Rips Linda Sarsour For Being “Antisemite & Anti-American Fraud”
Sarsour started the fundraiser for Rahma Warsame, a 40-year-old single mother who lives in Columbus, Ohio, who says she was attacked on Saturday night by a white man while defending a friend.
Sarsour, a leader in the pro-Palestine cause who has come under fire for her sympathetic views on sharia law, posted a picture of Warsame in the hospital and said that she has four missing teeth, a swollen face, swollen nose and busted lip.
According to CAIR, Warsame claimed that the white man told her “you all will be shipped back to Africa.” The group held a press conference on Sunday to complain that the man involved in the incident was not arrested.
But Samantha Morales says that the Sarsour and CAIR have the story all wrong, including the allegations that racial epithets were hurled at Warsame.
Morales, 31 and of Mexican heritage, says that she was attacked first by a mob of men and women, including Warsame, following a neighborhood argument involving a woman and her son.
File this under Surreal But Delightful: Singer and actress Courtney Love Cobain has gone after faux feminist Linda Sarsour in a big bad way.
It started as a response to Sarsour’s claim that Muslim Somali woman Rahma Warsame was beaten up in a hate crime, before raising over $100,000 for her. The “hate crime” apparently did not happen, and Love Cobain took exception to what she sees as Sarsour’s fraud.
she's an anti Semetic fear mongering liar, who's attacking Americans for hate crimes that are not even real. The police need to investigate
— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 7, 2017
It’s Time to Hold Students for Justice in Palestine Accountable
Let’s talk about justice — a term that has been hijacked by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) over the course of its existence.Facebook's Little Ethics Problem
In the dictionary, justice is defined as “the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness or moral rightness.” Students for Justice in Palestine, however, might have forgotten to look up that very important word when selecting the right title for the national organization. It seems that in SJP’s eyes, morality and righteousness mean disrupting events, shouting supportive statements of terror, such as “Long live the Intifada,” and calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews by chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” across college campuses in the United States.
When we speak about justice, or — more precisely — the lack of it, we have to acknowledge the bullying and intimidation strategies that SJP has been using against pro-Israel organizations on American campuses. And one particular university seems to hold the record for these kinds of incidents: the University of California at Irvine (UCI).
UCI’s troubled history goes way back to hosting Amir Abdel Malik Ali in 2006. Ali accuses the Jewish state of perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinian people (whose population has quadrupled since 1948); he has also called Israel the “Fourth Reich,” and has described Jews as the “New Nazis.”
Facebook has been aiding abusers of human-rights -- such as China, Turkey, Russia and Pakistan -- to curb the freedom of expression of their people.The Washington Post’s Troubling Trend Towards Israel
"On the same day that we filed the report, the 'Stop Palestinians' page that incited against Palestinians was removed by Facebook... for 'containing credible threat of violence' which 'violated our community standards.' On the other hand, the 'Stop Israelis' page that incited against Israelis, was not removed. We received a response from Facebook stating that the page was 'not in violation of Facebook's rules.'" — Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, head of The Israel Law Center.
According to Darshan-Leitner, Facebook's insistence that it cannot control all the content on its pages is disingenuous, if not an outright lie. After all, its algorithms are perfectly accurate when it comes to detecting users' shopping habits.
Terrorists as ‘political prisoners’Oregon sign blames Jews for 9-11
Viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of Palestinian victimhood and aggrievement has a distorting effect on the paper’s reporting. For example, The Post offered a glowing profile of Khalida Jarrar an “elected Palestinian parliamentarian, a lawyer, a wife and a mother,” who the paper claimed was leading efforts to fight for the rights of Palestinian prisoners. Reporter Ruth Eglash briefly stated “In April 2015, an Israeli military court convicted her of incitement and membership in an illegal terrorist organization, among other things—charges she still denies.” The Post omitted that this “activist” was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S. designated terrorist group that has murdered Israelis and Americans, among others. Jarrar has encouraged the abduction of Israeli soldiers, as The Times of Israel reported (“Palestinian lawmaker given 15 months for inciting terror,” Dec. 7, 2015). Nor did the paper explain that the phrase “Palestinian parliamentarian” means little given that the PLC is a rubber stamp under Abbas’ autocratic rule.
More recently, Post Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth used the phrase “political prisoners” to describe imprisoned Palestinian terrorists (“Washington Post Bureau Chief Justifies Paying Palestinian Terrorists,” Algemeiner, May 4, 2017). Would the paper use similar language to describe terrorists imprisoned by the U.S. or Great Britain? The Post’s announcement of the death in a U.S. prison of Omar Abdel Rahmn, convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, used no such language (“Omar Abdel Rahman, imprisoned blind sheikh linked to terrorist efforts, dies at 78,” Feb. 18, 2017).
As George Orwell, the British dystopian novelist, famously said, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
The Post’s willingness to adopt the Palestinian narrative, to omit pertinent facts, and to disregard Palestinian responsibility for their actions has had a debilitating effect on the quality of the paper’s reporting. The reporting from the Jerusalem bureau evidences troubling trends. Post readers are not getting the full story, and in many instances the story that they are getting falls under the category of Orwellian fiction.
A sign blaming Jews for the Sept. 11 attacks was hung from a pedestrian bridge over an interstate highway in Portland, Oregon.UK police declare arson attack on 2 kosher restaurants as hate crime
The banner sign reading “Jews did 9-11” was hung on both sides of the bridge on Sunday evening.
Several people who saw the signs called the Portland Police Department to complain, according to the Oregon Live website. The police referred the issue to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Someone removed the signs on Monday, according to local reports. Photos of the sign already had been posted on social media.
Authorities in the UK have determined that arson attacks against two kosher restaurants in Manchester over the past week were "antisemitic hate crimes," according to The Jewish Chronicleon Wednesday.Holocaust denier to be extradited to Germany
The Greater Manchester Police department said in a statement that the fires at The JS and Taam restaurants in Prestwich are believed to be "linked,” and have begun an investigation into the attacks.
According to The Jewish Chronicle, security footage captured two attackers targeting the Tamas restaurant with Molotov cocktails last Friday, smashing windows and causing extensive damage.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, arsonists forced open a window at JS restaurant, pouring in flammable liquid which they then set alight, The Jewish Chronicle added.
The Hungarian courts ordered the extradition of Horst Mahler, a neo-Nazi and an infamous German Holocaust denier, who was caught in Hungary after escaping a prison sentence imposed on him in Germany.‘Parthenon of Books’ raised at site where Nazis torched Jewish works
Mahler, a neo-Nazi activist and Holocaust denier who was sentenced several times to prison terms for his statements against Jews and the Holocaust, was captured in the city of Sopron in Hungary about three weeks after he managed to escape from Germany.
Now a Budapest court has ordered Mahler to be extradited back to Germany, which had issued an international arrest warrant against him.
However, the judges announced that the extradition would be canceled if Germany did not return Mahler to her borders by June 16. Mahler told the court that he had sought refuge from the government of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, but his request was rejected. He claimed that he was persecuted by the German government for his political activities.
Mahler was sentenced in 2009 to ten years in prison for denying the Holocaust, incitement to anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi activity. As a result of serious medical problems, the German court had accepted 81-year-old Mahler's request to be released from prison two years before the end of his sentence, but later ordered Mahler to report back to court in late 2016 to complete it.
It looks like the monumental temple standing imposingly at the Acropolis in Athens. But this replica in central Germany is not built with marble, but books that have been or remain banned.Israeli President Meets With Christian Supporters of Jewish State From Around the World
“The Parthenon of Books” is the main showpiece at this year’s Documenta — the cult contemporary art show held once every five years in the university town of Kassel.
The work by Argentine artist Marta Minujin is a plea against all forms of censorship.
Minujin, 74, a pop art icon in South America, has described it as “the most political” of her works.
In fact, the “Parthenon of Books” stands at the same site where, in 1933, Nazis set in flames books by Jewish or Marxist writers.
Fast forward eight decades and there is a team of volunteers wearing hard hats gathering at the foot of a crane, preparing to lift more books onto the installation.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin met with leaders from more than 200 Christian communities around the world as part of a delegation arranged by the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus and the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast movement to mark the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification.After 8-month hiatus, Ethiopian immigrants land in Israel
“The city of Jerusalem, which was once a divided city, is the same city where Jews and Arabs, religious and secular people, find the space to live together, to meet and get to know each other, to build a shared Jerusalem, together,” Rivlin told the Christian leaders.
“Jerusalem for me, is a microcosm of our ability, to live together, Jews, Muslims, Christians. Jerusalem is holy to everyone of faith. And Israel is proud to stand by the right of everyone to worship God as they believe,” he said.
Yisrael Beiteinu MK Robert Ilatov, chairman of the Christian Allies Caucus, urged the Christian leaders to “pray for peace in Jerusalem.”
“You are here, to show your support for Israel, your love for Jerusalem and your friendship with the Jewish people. We appreciate this very much,” he said.
Swedish politician Lar Adaktusson, a member of the European Parliament, said it was important to address the roots of anti-Israel bias — especially in Europe.
Surrounded by Israeli flags and dozens of balloons, more than 200 families and supporters gathered at Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday night to welcome 72 new Ethiopian immigrants to Israel, the first group to immigrate since the government “resumed” Ethiopian immigration last October.
When the new immigrants emerged into the airport’s arrival hall, a huge cheer went through the crowd, which rushed forward to embrace family members they hadn’t seen in over a decade.
Youth group members formed a welcoming line, chanting, “We won’t be afraid, even if the road is long.”
“We’re not angry but we were worried, we were very worried,” said Adisu Berhanu, who was waiting for his 13-year-old niece, whom he had last seen before he moved to Israel when she was a year old. “But here, today, the worries are behind us. There’s always hope, we hope everyone will be able to make aliyah.”
