Monday, October 23, 2017
In Upcoming Book, Controversial Rutgers Professor Accuses Israel of Sparing Palestinian Lives in Order to Control Them
A professor with a history of supporting terrorism against Israelis is publishing a new book accusing the Jewish state of physically debilitating Palestinians in order to control them.Feminist Writer Claims Zionism Is ‘Built To Uphold White Supremacy’
The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, authored by Jasbir Puar — associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University — argues in part that the “Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have shown a demonstrable pattern over decades of sparing life, of shooting to maim rather than to kill.”
According to the Rutgers professor, this “purportedly humanitarian practice of sparing death by shooting to maim” is part of a “logic long present in Israeli tactical calculations of settler colonial rule—that of creating injury and maintaining Palestinian populations as perpetually debilitated, and yet alive, in order to control them.”
The Right to Maim is set to be published by Duke University Press in November 2017, and was the topic of Puar’s lectures at Stanford University and Rutgers University this year. A copy of its introduction can be found at the Duke University Press website.
Puar’s latest claims appear similar to those she shared during a controversial, faculty-sponsored event at Vassar College in February 2016, when she said that Israel “manifests an implicit claim to the right to maim and debilitate Palestinian bodies and environments,” according to a transcript of the talk provided by the Vassar alumni group Fairness To Israel.
During that appearance, Puar repeated allegations that the bodies of “young Palestinian men … were mined for organs for scientific research.” She also asserted that Israel’s actions can be called a “genocide in slow motion,” and said, “we need [the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions movement] as part of organized resistance and armed resistance in Palestine as well. There is no other way the situation is going to change.”
Mahroh Jahangiri, an editor at Feministing.com, recently published an article in which she claims Zionism is a system "built to uphold white supremacy" (emphasis added):
In case you missed it, women are flooding social media this week to share our stories of sexual assault and harassment, using the hashtag #MeToo to “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” Though this should be obvious, in this moment it bears repeating: gender-based violence does not exist without other systems of violence, especially those built to uphold white supremacy (such as racism, colonialism, zionism, militarism) ...
But just as we acknowledge that rape does not happen in a vacuum and that gender violence comes from our fathers, brothers, friends, and partners, we have also *got to admit* that this violence often specifically comes from people in institutions many amongst us otherwise support: men with badges, those in uniform, people who staff detention facilities across our arbitrary borders and outside of them (in Guantanamo, Iraq, Israel), men who learn harmful stereotypes about women of color from American culture and media, and most importantly, people of all genders who support them.
Unfortunately, Zionism-as-white-supremacy is an argument that’s been tossed around by progressives for quite some time. Those who rail against a Jewish State are either unwilling or unable to understand two very important, and very obvious, facts:
The Jewish people are a minority group who were targeted by white supremacists (see: Nazis) in the 1930s and 1940s, resulting in the brutal execution of approximately 6,000,000 of them via shooting or gas chambers.
Israel is home to a multitude of people of varying ethnicities and faiths — Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. Even among the Jewish population, there are variant races (see: Ethiopian Jews).
Unsurprisingly, Jahangiri doesn’t expand on her contention that Zionism "uphold[s] white supremacy." Rather, she simply lists it right next to "racism" and "colonialism" as if the notion is obvious.
UC Berkeley Student Newspaper Offers Vicious, Nazi-Like Cartoon Of Alan Dershowitz
The Daily Californian, the University of California, Berkeley’s student newspaper, has offered a monstrously anti-Semitic cartoon of famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz that would have fit perfectly in any issue of Nazi Germany’s Der Sturmer.EXCLUSIVE: Daily Wire Speaks With Alan Dershowitz About Berkeley Student Newspaper’s Anti-Semitic Cartoon
The drawing showed Dershowitz’s head fitting through a stock emblazoned “The liberal case for Israel” (the title of the speech Dershowitz gave on campus on October 16), while on the other side of the stock the palm of his hand held an IDF soldier standing with his rifle drawn with a bloody, prostrate Palestinian lying in front of him as blood dripped down toward Dershowitz’s shoe, which was crushing another Palestinian.
In September, Dershowitz said he was considering suing the university because they were refusing to let him speak on campus. He said the school prevented him from speaking on Israel because he did not give the school eight-week advance notice.
Dershowitz noted that the school usually waived the stipulation for speakers who were invited by a department, but those speakers tended to be anti-Israel, liberals and radicals.
The Daily Wire reached out to Mr. Dershowitz in order to get his opinion on the drawing.Israeli Minorities -- Christian, Muslim, Druze -- Praise Israel, IDF Service
The renowned legal scholar first offered his various reactions upon seeing the cartoon:
My first reaction was surprise that the official student newspaper of a major state university would publish a Dur Sturmer-type cartoon which would have fit comfortably into any Nazi publication.
My second reaction is what I’ve always believed, and that is, there is very little difference between the Nazis of the hard Right and the anti-Semites of the hard Left. This obviously was a hard Left neo-Nazi cartoon.
My third reaction is, I’m surprised that it was treated with as little response. Imagine if a comparably anti-black or anti-woman or anti-gay cartoon was ever published in the Berkeley student newspaper. Again, it reflects for me the incredible double standard in tolerance that people have toward anti-Semitism.
When I noted the irony of the cartoon, considering the way in which many progressives speak about "punching Nazis" in the wake of Trump’s election victory in 2016, Dershowitz replied:
Irony is too kind a word. It’s hypocrisy. And remember, this is a reaction to a speech in which I said I support a Palestinian state; I support the end of the occupation; I am against Israeli policies on settlements. Imagine what the reaction would be if somebody came and gave a more unbalanced [speech], or imagine what the reaction would be if somebody gave an anti-Israel speech, and somebody tried to put a comparable anti-Palestinian cartoon or anti-Muslim cartoon in the newspapers.
To me the most shocking part is that it appears, as far as I can tell, an official publication of a state university.
Four Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservists from the country’s non-Jewish religious minorities praised their military service and their country at the American Jewish University on Sunday night.Death threats for refusing to hate Israel
Christian Arab Jonathan Elkhoury, Muslim Bedouin Mohammad Kaabiya, Muslim Arab Dema Tayah, and Druze Arab Ram Asad spoke to an audience of several hundred as they represented the “Reservists on Duty” (RoD) organization at an event hosted by the Israeli American Council. RoD was established in 2015 by Israeli combat soldiers and veterans to counter the message of left-wing organizations such as “Breaking the Silence,” a largely European-funded left-wing Israeli veterans’ group that spreads accusations of war crimes by Israeli soldiers.
“Some of the things that are [falsely] said about us is that Israel is being an apartheid state … And we are here to share our stories,” Elkhoury said. He explained that he and his colleagues are particularly interested in reaching college campuses.
In May 2017, they faced such virulent protest at University of California Irvine, where their speaking event was disrupted by pro-Palestinian activists, that they had to be escorted off campus by police. (As a result, the UC Irvine chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was sanctioned with probation for two years.)
“What apartheid are they talking about?” Tayah asked, noting that Israel was a society of many colors and many cultures. She noted that she had been criticized by some within her community, but that she wanted to live “hand in hand” with her Jewish compatriots. She contrasted life in Israel to “jungle” life in the neighboring Arab countries,”Israel gives you a chance to express yourself … one of the strongest rights that democracy has.
Just a few years ago, Yahya Mohamid was living in a northern Israeli town controlled by the Islamic movement and like everyone else in Umm el-Fahm, had been indoctrinated to hate Israel.Filmmaker Faces Harsh Criticism for Claiming Chasidic Jews Were Killed in Holocaust Because They ‘Refused to Blend In’
Today, the 20-year-old, calling himself a Muslim Zionist, has made his home in Jerusalem and is dedicated to getting the truth out about his life as an Arab Israeli and giving back to his country.
He hopes to join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in March and get into one of the elite combat units — a precedent for an Arab Israeli.
But Mohamid’s pro-Israel activism has come at a huge price.
The brave, articulate, handsome man — who seems wise beyond his years — has been subject to assaults, more death threats than he can count and has been forced to break ties with his mother and sister, both of whom still live in Umm el-Fahm.
“They live in a constant situation of fear,” he says.
Mohamid — in Canada this week on behalf of the StandWithUs advocacy organization to speak to audiences in synagogues, high schools and at university campuses — told me over coffee that growing up in his town was like living in an “isolated bubble world.”
The Islamic movement, which was labelled a terrorist organization in 2015, has controlled the town for 30 years, he says.
They control how the municipality operates, what is taught in the schools and who gets hired for any public service jobs, he says, adding that nepotism and corruption is rampant.
During an interview on the “Charlie Rose” show on Thursday, Ewing talked about the Chasidim — followers of a stream of Orthodox Judaism which has its roots in 18th century Eastern Europe. At the time, she said, “the community wasn’t as cloistered and insular as it is today,” adding, “The vast majority of Chasidic Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust partly because they refused to blend in. They kept wearing the clothing. They were sort of loud and proud about their identity. And the vast majority died in the Holocaust.”Netflix director apologizes for Holocaust comment
Rabbi Abraham Cooper — associate dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center — told The Algemeiner on Sunday that Ewing’s comments left him “almost at a loss for words.” He added, “[Jews] were killed because they were Jews. The Nazi definition of a Jew – there was a church in the Warsaw ghetto! — it was a racial definition. People who were not even halachically (by Jewish law) Jewish were targeted also for suffering and ultimately extermination. So I don’t quite get it, as if … the fact that they maintained their identity was the reason for their death sentence? It’s ridiculous.”
Furthermore, Cooper said, “It’s not as if for the Jews who were dressed like Aryans everything would have be fine. I’m in Paris right now, there were many tens of thousands of French Jews who were deported from here. They didn’t look any different from the rest of the Frenchmen, and they were deported to Auschwitz.”
Chabad Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone took to Twitter to condemn Ewing’s remarks. “This is appalling,” he said. “It’s … an insult to the many Jews across the religious spectrum that were killed in the Holocaust. Cities likes Warsaw and Vilna, strongholds of traditional Judaism also had large secular populations. Nazi bullets and gas killed them all.”
The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council also condemned Ewing’s comments, calling them “outrageous” and Chaskel Bennett, founder of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, called on Ewing to issue a retraction. He noted, “the Nazi ‘final solution’ endeavored to exterminate ALL JEWS!”
While it is true that the hassidic community was decimated by the Holocaust, the idea that Jews who “blended in” were less of a target is wholly inaccurate. The Nazis sought out Jews of all stripes, including those who didn’t practice the religion at all.Melanie Phillips: BRITS STILL TWO-FACED OVER BALFOUR
Several days later, Ewing posted an apology for her statement on her website.
“I am sorry if my words on Charlie Rose caused any pain and would like to clarify their meaning,” she wrote, noting that close to half of world Jewry was killed by the Nazis (the figure is closer to 35%; in Europe alone it was about 60%). “Hassidic Jews suffered disproportionate losses during the Holocaust partially because they were more easily identified and therefore had more difficulty hiding. This has been documented by multiple historians. It took great courage for hassidic Jews at that time to refuse to change their appearance to look more like the general European public. I am only filled with respect and admiration for any person who chooses to live their own truth.”
One of Us, which premiered globally on Netflix on Friday, follows the stories of three hassidic New Yorkers who choose to leave behind the community and the struggles they face in doing so.
In other words, there was no unfinished business in the Balfour Declaration. It included no commitment to establish a state of Palestine and it is an outright falsehood to suggest that it did.Yisrael Medad: BICOM Redefines the Balfour Declaration
As for Allen’s claim that “the occupation is a continued impediment to securing the political rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, this is malevolent geopolitical gobbledegook. There is no such entity as “Palestine”. There are territories in the West Bank which remain a kind of no-man’s land.
The only reason the Arabs resident there have no political rights is because their leaders choose to use those territories to continue their war of extermination against Israel – while exercising through their own administration tyrannical power over the unfortunate Arab residents of these territories – thus ensuring a political impasse in perpetuity.
Is Allen an uneducated ignoramus? Alas, would that he were merely a rogue official. As I commented here, the Foreign Office said last April:
“We recognise that the Declaration should have called for the protection of political rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine, particularly their right to self-determination.”
In other words, while professing pride in helping create the state of Israel the Foreign Office actually regrets the Balfour Declaration that started the whole process. And now the Foreign Office has resorted to misrepresenting it.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to attend a Balfour centenary dinner in London as the guest of Prime Minister Theresa May. I hope he takes the opportunity to give perfidious Albion a pointed lesson in history, truth and law.
James Sorene, CEO at the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (Bicom), penned an op-ed on the Balfour Declaration published in The Telegraph. I quickly tweeted a reaction and now, I enlarge my thoughts.Melanie Phillips: THE DRUMBEAT OF ALARM GROWS LOUDER FOR BRITISH JEWS
As the Jewish Chronicle informed us last year, "eyebrows were raised when James Sorene was appointed as chief executive of research group Bicom" as he was a key adviser to Nick Clegg during the former Liberal Democrat leader's time as Deputy Prime Minister, a time of a not very delightful relationship of that party with the Jewish community. One excuse offered was that as "Clegg's official spokesman and communications director, he was a senior civil servant, completely detached from party politics."
Sorry, but that is, and I know from personal experience, well, let's just say an exaggerated untruth.
He seems to have started his career in public affairs at the Israeli embassy in London. So how did he arrive at the content he published? Or should I actually write 'it's no wonder he wrote what he wrote'?
I don't criticise necessarily his personal political outlook. My experience in London taught me that. I am disappointed simple historical narratives are either insufficient or a bit twisted.
For example, Exhibit One:
Britain was now in control of vast territories, including Egypt, Palestine and another new creation – Iraq. In addition, Britain offered the Arabs independence in return for fighting the Ottomans, but they also promised the Zionists a Jewish home in Palestine.
In which countries was that independence promised? Not in Palestine. That country was to be for the Jews. In it, Jews were to be the primary national grouping whereas others, defined simply as "non-Jews", and "Arabs" were not specifically mentioned in this context - not in Balfour, nor San Remo nor the Mandate.
Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to attend next month’s dinner in London to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration confirms what many have long suspected.Angela Epstein: Why row over anti-Semitism claims in the Labour Party is making so many Jews like me want to leave Britain
His antipathy to Israel goes way beyond hostility to Israeli “settlements” or any romantic attachment to the Palestinian cause. He does not support the existence of Israel at all.
How else to explain his refusal to attend a dinner to celebrate the event which kick-started the (agonising) process that eventually resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel?
And if he thus opposes the self-determination of the Jewish people in their own ancestral homeland, how can he be anything other than hostile to Judaism itself? For Judaism comprises three inseparable elements: the people, the religion and the land. Judaism is, simply and indivisibly, the mission of the Jewish people to form a nation of priests within the land of Israel.
Of course, neither Corbyn and his hard-left cabal, nor the so-called soft-left whose views about Israel may be less extreme but are no less problematic, have any insight into their own bigotry because they have virtually no understanding of what Judaism means (and that goes for many Jews on the left too, who equally deploy the spurious mantra that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism as their get-out-of-jail-free card).
But hey, some folk are very happy with Corbyn’s Balfour dinner snub; there are reports that the JC story about it has been tweeted by Hamas.
Many British Jews are now shuddering at the possibility of a Corbyn-led Labour government. They are heartbroken and aghast at what has happened to the country that for the half-century following the liberation of Belsen they believed offered them not just physical but psychological safety.
Some, like Angela Epstein in this article, are now talking of emigrating should Corbyn come to power.
Yet I know in my heart that my family will not see out our lives here in the UK. The fact that the Conservatives have felt like our natural protectors used to help me turn a blind eye to burgeoning anti-Semitism. As Home Secretary, Theresa May said that ‘Britain would not be Britain without its Jews’ and committed to providing £13.4 million for security measures in the Jewish community.Hamas Terror Group Applauds as Jeremy Corbyn Says 'No' to Balfour Centenary Dinner
And, in 2014, David Cameron announced a Holocaust Memorial Commission tasked with building a lasting memorial near Parliament. Yet such staunch support could be wiped out at a stroke by a squabbling Tory Party whose domestic disputes could throw open the door for Labour.
We know what that means. With the advent of Jeremy Corbyn, friend to the virulently anti-Israel militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah and a magnet for increasing membership from militant supporters, anti-Semitism has been breeding like bacteria on the Left of British politics.
Labour will point to last year’s report by Shami Chakrabarti, former head of the human rights group Liberty, into anti-Semitism in the party. She lamely asserted that while there is an ‘occasionally toxic atmosphere’ against Jews in Labour, anti-Semitism is not prevalent in the party’s ranks.
But her words, to paraphrase H. G. Wells, were bows and arrows against the lightning. The report was a joke (as was the fact that Corbyn nominated her for a peerage just months later).
Labour has promised to tighten up its response to anti-Jewish sentiment. But as a statement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews has made clear, it remains to be seen whether those who question the Holocaust, or call for Jews to be purged from Labour, will still be welcome in the party or — as the Board’s chief executive put it — ‘thrown out as they so obviously should be’.
For many Jews, it won’t be worth hanging around for the answer. To my friend who tells me she’s waiting for me in Israel, I can only say the wait may soon be over.
The Hamas terror group has welcomed the decision by UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to shun a dinner commemorating the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in London next month.The Journalists Bin Laden Could Count On
Jonathan Goldstein, chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council, announced Mr. Corby’s decision on Saturday, adding it was “deeply unfortunate” the Labour leader was not going to the event.
“I do think it will not have been amiss for Mr Corbyn to understand that the Jewish community will have taken great heart and great comfort for seeing him attend such an event because it recognises the right of Israel to exist,” Mr Goldstein told the Jewish Chronicle.
Hamas quickly backed Mr. Corbyn’s decision, adding that compensation and an apology should be issued by the British government instead:
Osama bin Laden knew which journalists to feed information to when the terror chieftain wanted information disseminated in a manner useful to his aims. The al-Qaeda founder, like his terrorist counterparts in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), used the media to his advantage, a new book highlights.Issa Amro is no “Palestinian Gandhi”
In their 2017 book The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in Flight, British journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy interviewed top counterterrorism officials from a variety of governments, as well as Bin Laden associates and members of the terror group.
Among other things, Scott-Clark and Levy note that, from his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Bin Laden plotted in October 2010 on how best to highlight the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda. The author’s state:
“The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was coming and ‘attention should be paid to start preparing for [it] now,’ Osama railed. Al Qaeda needed to ‘benefit from this event’ and present ‘our cause to the world, especially to the European people.’ Atiyah [abd al-Rahman, a top AQ operative] should reach out to the right people. He [Bin Laden] suggested Ahmad Zaidan at Al Jazeera, Robert Fisk of the Independent, and the prominent Arab newspaper editor Abdel Bari Atwan, based in London [emphasis added].”
Bin Laden clarified that “jihadi media” is a “main piece of the war” and it shouldn’t be “abandoned.”
The journalists named by Bin Laden as preferable disseminators of his propaganda have another thing in common: They all target Israel.
For years, the Palestinian activist Issa Amro has told credulous journalists that he is “inspired by Gandhi” and firmly committed to “non-violent resistance.”
One of the most recent examples is a puff piece by the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor, who describes Amro as an admirable “nonviolent dissident” and suggests he might even be considered a “Palestinian Gandhi.”
But as I will show, it would have taken only a quick look at the recent social media activity of Amro and his group Youth Against Settlements (YAS) to realize that the image he presents to journalists may just be a flimsy façade that hides an intense hatred of Israel and a burning ambition to see the world’s only Jewish state replaced by yet another Arab-Muslim majority country.
The “Gandhi” Façade
The journalists who are content with simply passing on whatever Issa Amro tells them can point to Amnesty International, which has also faithfully parroted Amro’s claims. Amnesty has described Amro as “a Palestinian human rights defender who runs the Youth Against Settlements group in Hebron,” asserting that Amro and his group “are committed to non-violent activism against the illegal settlements in Hebron and the discriminatory restrictions placed on Palestinians by the Israeli authorities in the city.”
Human Rights Watch also considers Amro a “human rights defender,” and the group’s “Israel and Palestine Consultant” Khulood Badawi – a former UN employee who was fired after making a blood-libel-style accusation against Israel – recently denounced charges brought by an Israeli military tribunal against Amro as baseless because they are “related to his nonviolent activism.”
UKMW prompts correction, via Twitter, to Evening Standard claim on Gaza ‘occupation’
Earlier today, we prompted a correction to an extremely misleading claim in the Evening Standard.
The article (‘This is my country’: Cambridge University bans Arabic students travelling to Palestine amid fear of deportation by Israeli security, Oct. 22), by Martin Coulter, contained several questionable claims that we’re currently investigating, and one clearly misleading passage which we noted in a tweet to the journalist.
Here’s the claim:
Now here’s the exchange, which began with a Tweet to Mr. Coulter under his original Tweet of the article:
Here’s his reply:
Cambridge University has banned Arabic students travelling to Palestine after a spate of Israeli security incidents https://t.co/25rZ4QnOjM
— Martin Coulter (@martincoulterES) October 22, 2017
BBC Arabic amplifies Assad’s conspiracy theory in Golan attack report
While the BBC’s English language services did not consider the story newsworthy, the corporation’s Arabic language website did publish a report headlined “Israel bombs Syrian artillery in the Golan” in which – once again – the Syrian regime’s propaganda was uncritically amplified.HonestReporting Wins the Battle of Beersheba
“The Syrian Defense Ministry said the armed opposition had fired missiles at Israeli-controlled areas to provoke them to retaliate against the Syrian army. […]
The bombing of the terrorists, acting under the direction of Israel, is a free zone to provide an excuse for this attack,” the ministry said.”
As those two senior BBC executives acknowledge, it is supposed to be the job of the BBC – including BBC Arabic and other foreign language services – to distinguish itself from the countless media outlets in the Middle East that operate according to a particular political or ideological agenda by providing audiences with accurate and impartial reporting which will enable them to understand what is fact and what is fiction.
Uncritical and unchallenged amplification of Syrian regime propaganda that audiences could just as easily find at the Syrian State news agency is clearly not conducive to achieving that goal.
Much is being written in the Australian press concerning the centenary of the victory of the Australian Light Horse Brigade at the WW1 Battle of Beersheba including this on the ABC News site:Israel Hayom inquiry prompts global retailer to pull Hitler mask
Granted, the battle took place in what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine in 1917. Today, however, this bugle would certainly not be “heading back to Palestine.”
We contacted ABC directly, pointing out that Beersheba is today part of the State of Israel, asking that the article be amended in the interest of clarity.
ABC agreed and made a change to the text, which now, in non-specific language, reads:
A bugle linked to the famous Beersheba cavalry charge will be heading back to the site of the battle.
An Adolf Hitler mask sold by Chinese global retailing giant AliExpress was removed from its website following an inquiry by Israel Hayom.IsraellyCool: Anti-Zionist-Not-Antisemite Of The Day: Michael Chikindas
The AliExpress website did not mention the costume was a depiction of the Nazi dictator, but the mask was unquestionably based on his likeness and was being sold alongside masks of other world leaders, such as U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama.
An official at the Kfar Saba Municipality happened upon the Hitler costume while visiting the website and immediately turned to the vendor selling the item.
"I was stunned over the appalling item that was available to anyone, and I'm sure the product is offensive to many Holocaust survivors across the globe," he told Israel Hayom.
The official contacted AliExpress' customer service, which told him the matter would be reviewed.
He wrote directly to the vendor, saying he wanted to purchase a mask, "but it's a problem for me that you are selling a mask of the murderer Hitler, who murdered over 6 million Jews and was responsible for the Holocaust. Masks make the characters likable. I would very much appreciate it if you didn't sell anything that could symbolize Nazis and Hitler."
Meet Michael Chikindas.After apology, Scaramucci reposts poll on number of Jews killed in Holocaust
Professor of the Department of Food Science at Rutgers University, he seems to have a very unhealthy obsession with Israel.
Not surprisingly, it stems from an intense hatred for Jews. But naturally, he will deny it.
As usual, all the evidence you need is in his social media posts, the following of which is but a sample.
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s self-described news outlet reposted a controversial survey question on Twitter about the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, saying it was an educational exercise.Police arrest vandal who painted swastikas on Jewish home
The Scaramucci Post originally tweeted out the poll on Oct. 17, asking, “How many Jews were killed in the Holocaust?” and offered multiple choices: “Less than one million, between 1-2 million, between 2-3 million, more than 5 million.”
The actual historical figure, 6 million, was not offered.
The resulting outcry included a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League anti-Semitism watchdog, which said the poll could lend credence to Holocaust deniers.
Noting that he is Jewish, Scaramucci’s partner in the enterprise, Lance Laifer, took responsibly for posting the survey, removed the tweet and apologized “if anyone was offended.”
The man who painted a swastika and an antisemitic slur on a Staten Island garage door told police that he knew the family who lived there was Jewish “because of the way they spoke.”Rome police probe anti-Semitic Anne Frank stickers at soccer game
James Rizzo, 37, was arrested on Thursday and arraigned on Friday, four days after he vandalized his neighbor’s house in Staten Island with the large swastika and the misspelled slur “Kyke.”
Rizzo lives several houses away and was seen on surveillance camera footage vandalizing the Calabrese family’s white garage door with black paint.
Prosecutors at his arraignment said Rizzo, who has a criminal record, admitted that he committed the crime, DNAinfo reported. He is charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime and aggravated harassment. He is being held on $10,000 bail. Rizzo’s lawyer that he has mental health issues but refused a psychological examination.
Rome police on Monday launched an investigation into reports that Lazio fans posted stickers of Anne Frank in a jersey of rivals Roma alongside anti-semitic slogans during Sunday’s Serie A game at the Stadio Olimpico.Urban Outfitters to open first branch in Israel
The photos and stickers — including the famous photo montage of Frank with the Roma shirt that surfaced four years ago — were stuck on glass barriers during the 3-0 win over Cagliari.
The two clubs share the Stadio Olimpico and Lazio’s ultras were housed in the south end of the ground normally reserved for Roma supporters for Sunday’s game.
Their own north end had been closed following racist chants during a game against Sassuolo earlier this month.
Rome’s Jewish community immediately blasted the incident.
“This is not football, this is not sport. Get anti-Semitism out of stadiums,” said Ruth Dureghello, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, on Twitter.
A new Urban Outfitters is opening in Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Center mall, according to an announcement on Facebook Wednesday.Israeli Paralympic Teens win Eight Medals in European Games
According to Globes, this will be the first branch in the Jewish State. Fox, an Israeli-based fashion company, reported that it signed a 10-year deal last September which outlines that Fox will be the Urban Outfitters franchise operator. The three brands that will now become available in Israel are Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters and Free people. These brands will also be sold on the Fox virtual store online.
Fox is paying an estimated 40 million shekels for the first four years of the franchise.
Urban Outfitters' entrance into Israel comes after years of accusations against them of antisemitism and insensitivity regarding their merchandising practices.
According to Jweekly.com, in 2003, a shirt stating "everyone loves a Jewish girl" surrounded by dollar signs was removed after complaints from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
In 2015, the ADL asked the clothing chain to remove a shirt stylizing an upside down pink triangle on a striped background. The pink triangle was a symbol used by Nazis during the Holocaust to label members of the gay community.
Three gold medals, two silver and three bronze medals were brought home to Israel by young Paralympic hopefuls on Israel’s first team to compete in the European Para Youth Games held in Liguria, Italy, October 9-15.UK Holocaust center immortalizes Holocaust survivors through 3D testimony project
Some 600 teenage athletes from 24 European countries participated in the Paralympic-style competitions in 11 sports: archery, athletics, bocce, football 5-a-side, football 7-a-side, goalball, judo, table tennis, sitting volleyball, swimming and sailing.
Seven of Israel’s eight medals were won in swimming, by Arik Malyar, Ron Wolpert and Ami Dadaon. Liad Levi won the bronze medal in bocce. “This was my first competition abroad,” said Dadaon. “I was particularly excited to stand on the podium and sing Hatikva with a loud voice.”
“It is very important that the future generation of Israeli swimmers be exposed to international competitions,” said Karen Leibovich Swet, the swimming division coordinator for the Israel Paralympic Committee. “The industry is highly acclaimed so it is very important to invest in and develop it.”
The UK's National Holocaust Centre and Museum is set to premiere interactive 3D recordings of 10 testimonies of Holocaust survivors over the next ten months.Yad Vashem to Honor First Arab as Righteous Gentile
Last week, just in time for National Hate Crime Awareness week, it announced that it had received the final piece of funding needed to launch its Forever Project, as part of wider efforts to combat hate crime and antisemitism in the UK.
The completion of the Forever Project was made possible by the support of the Genesis Philanthropy Group, co-founded by international businessman Mikhail Fridman.
The project uses the recordings of Holocaust survivors to allow future generations to ‘meet’ survivors and ask them questions about their experiences, with the aim of providing future generations with an opportunity to learn about the Holocaust, even after there are no survivors left.
The Center has collected thousands of questions typically asked by schoolchildren and gave them to survivors, so that through the Forever Project, children can ask survivors questions for years into the future, with software matching the question with the closest recorded answer.
Later this week, Yad Vashem will for the first time recognize an Arab, Dr. Mohamed Helmy, as a Righteous Among the Nations for saving the lives of four of his Jewish friends in the Holocaust.
An Egyptian urologist who moved to Berlin in 1922, Dr. Helmy was working for the Robert Koch Institute, but was fired in 1937 for being non-Aryan. He was arrested by the Nazis, but was released shortly thereafter and allowed to return to his home. When the Nazis began deporting Berlin’s Jews, Dr. Helmy hid Anna Boros, a 21-year-old family friend, in his cabin in the city’s Buch neighborhood, where she assumed a false identity, pretended to be married to a Muslim man, and wore a hijab. Dr. Helmy also helped hide Boros’s mother Julie, her stepfather Gerog Wehr, and her grandmother, Cecilie Rudnik, and was himself nearly caught after the family was discovered and tortured in 1944.
Having all survived, the family emigrated to the United States after the war, but continued to return to Berlin and visit Dr. Helmy. They also wrote letters to the local German government extolling the virtues of their rescuer, who died in 1982.
“A good friend of our family, Dr. Helmy hid me in his cabin in Berlin-Buch from 10 March until the end of the war,” read one such letter. “As of 1942, I no longer had any contact with the outside world. The Gestapo knew that Dr. Helmy was our family physician, and they knew that he owned a cabin in Berlin-Buch. He managed to evade all their interrogations. In such cases he would bring me to friends where I would stay for several days, introducing me as his cousin from Dresden. When the danger would pass, I would return to his cabin… Dr. Helmy did everything for me out of the generosity of his heart and I will be grateful to him for eternity.”
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