Thursday, March 08, 2018
Before elected Labour leader, Corbyn was part of an anti-Semitic Facebook group
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour party, was an active member of a Facebook group which contained Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, it has been revealed.New Accusations of Anti-Semitism Rock Labour
Corbyn appears to have been a member of the Palestine Live group for at least a year, and left it shortly after he became head of the opposition in September 2015.
In a 280-page report released Wednesday, David Collier, a researcher and blogger, details a slew of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel material shared by members of the group.
One member said they were reading “Mein Kampf,” and suggested: “Everybody should be forced to read it, especially Jews who have their own agenda as to why they were not liked.”
Others discussed the use of the terms “ZioNazi” and “JewNazi,” debated whether the BBC was controlled by Zionists, and shared conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family and Israel’s supposed involvement in the 9/11 and 2015 Paris attacks.
Members of the 3000-strong secret group — who include Holocaust denier Paul Eisen — are also said to have shared articles by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and links to neo-Nazi material.
Britain’s Labour Party has been trying to get its anti-Semitism problem under control in preparation for national elections that could come sometime in the next couple of years: The party expelled the anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein last month, and recently extended the suspension of former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who has repeatedly insisted that there were close ties between the Nazis and the Zionist movement. But two new controversies shows just how deeply alleged anti-Israel extremists have penetrated the party, which has veered sharply left under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.Breaking the Silence…with Holocaust Deniers?
This week, the Daily Mail reported that Joss Macdonald, a Corbyn speechwriter, wrote a tweet in which he appeared to characterize Israel’s actions as “genocide” shortly after the 2014 conflict in Gaza. A few years earlier, Macdonald tweeted his view that “Apartheid Israel has killed the two-state solution,” leaving “a bi-national democratic Palestine” as the only possible outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Andrew Percy, a member of parliament for the governing Conservative party, has already said that Corbyn “should reconsider his decision to employ this man,” according to the Mail.
In the annals of Corbyn-era Labour anti-Semitism rows, this ranks as a refreshingly mild one. Macdonald only wrote two questionable tweets, one of which was composed nearly a decade ago; the belief that a binational state is the only fair outcome to the conflict isn’t exactly an unusual one among left-leaning Europeans either. The “genocide” accusation came in the context of an exchange with a pro-Israel Twitter user in which Macdonald paraphrases his opponent’s argument in a way that strongly suggests Macdonald agrees with the caricatured version. A single, isolated, and fleeting reference to Israeli genocide is nothing compared to receiving $26,000 from Iran’s state television network, which Corbyn has received, or laying a wreath at the grave of one of the Munich Olympics terrorists—indeed, it would be unfair for Macdonald to lose his job when his boss is guilty of far less ambiguous dalliances with anti-Semites and anti-Semitism.
Thanks to the work of the researcher David Collier, a secret antisemitic Facebook group called Palestine Live has been exposed. At one time, the group’s membership included Jeremy Corbyn, the man who now leads the UK Labour Party.PM asks Trump to allow ex-spy Pollard to leave for Israel
In this group, Holocaust denial material was shared as well as other explicitly antisemitic material, whilst the idea that there was antisemitism in the Labour Party was ridiculed.
The group has over 3,000 members, two of them are or were Avner Gvaryahu and Eran Efrati, the former and current heads of the left wing group Breaking the Silence.
This came as a blow to me personally. I’ve gone to bat for Breaking the Silence a couple of times in the past, and took their tour of Hebron, which I found to be a truly eye-opening experience.
I thought that this was a group of people with Israel’s best interests at heart. Clearly, they’ve lost their way.
Palestine Live was founded by a lady called Elleanne Green, who has shared posts claiming Israel was behind terrorist attacks in France, claiming that the Kotel isn’t Jewish, that 9/11 was a conspiracy, and on and on:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked U.S. President Donald Trump this week to lift parole restrictions on the convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in order to allow him to relocate to Israel, Israel Hayom has learned.
Pollard was arrested in 1985 and eventually struck a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to spying for Israel while working as a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst. He received Israeli citizenship while in prison in 1995.
Pollard, 62, was paroled in November 2015 after serving 30 years and currently lives in New York City. Under the strict conditions of his parole, he must remain in the United States for five years, wear an electronic bracelet and submit to monitoring of his work computer and other devices he uses despite not being exposed to classified material during his 30-year incarceration. He is also barred from speaking to the press.
Netanyahu raised the issue of Pollard's parole terms when he met Trump some six months ago, but during this week's Oval Office meeting, the Israeli prime minister asked that Pollard be allowed to move to Israel as a gesture marking the upcoming 70th anniversary of Israel's founding this May.
Netanyahu said it was time the two countries put the affair behind them. The administration has yet to respond to this request.
Who Believes in Russiagate?
The story of how the Russiagate collusion myth was made and marketed is much easier to understand—it’s social. Imagine a map of professional, academic, and family networks that connect people across professions like law, journalism, public relations, and lobbying, which intersect with political institutions, like the permanent bureaucracies that staff places like the FBI, CIA, Congress, and the White House. That map is largely blue, but there’s lots of red there, too.Do not give holy Jewish artifacts to a country that expelled its Jews
The story of how spies and journalists came to collaborate on a disinformation campaign is also, as the left may not be surprised to find, partly explained by economics. With the rise of the internet and social media, and the resulting collapse of print advertising, it was no longer necessary for the media to mass so close to New York City ad firms. Surviving old-media outlets and their new-media cousins moved much of their operations to Washington, which offered one-stop shopping for “national” stories. Having insulated itself from the 2008 economic collapse, the capital thrived. Ambitious and inexperienced young journalists flocked to where the jobs were, staffing startup news and social media operations—which were often simply partisan war rooms that produced and solicited opposition research—just in time to cover Obama’s historic presidency.
For those like Gessen, Cohen, Lears, and others on the left who don’t understand how and when American journalists got in bed with the country’s spies, it started several years before Trump or Russiagate. It was while reporting on the Obama administration that the press came to rely on the White House’s political operatives, including intelligence officials, for sources and stories about American foreign policy. It got worse when the Obama administration started spying on its domestic opponents during the Iran deal, when the Obama administration learned how far it could go in manipulating the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus for domestic political advantage. As Adam Entous, then of The Wall Street Journal, wrote in a December 2015 article, “the National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.”
Obama administration officials had leaked the story to Entous in order to shape its reception. After all, the real news was pretty bad—Obama had spied on Americans and the Americans he spied on, Congress and Jewish community leaders, knew it. But in Entous’ account, it was only by accident that the National Security Agency had listened in on Americans opposed to the Iran deal, opponents whose communications had simply been “swept up.” While Entous’ evident lack of skepticism about that account was hardly good reporting, it was perfectly in keeping with the maxim of not biting the hand that feeds you.
What the White House really wanted to know, on Entous’ telling, was what the Israeli prime minister and his ambassador to Washington were doing to contest the Iran deal. Except, neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer makes U.S. policy: Congress does. As I explained in an April Tablet article, the purpose of the spying campaign was to help the White House fight U.S. legislators and other Americans critical of the deal—i.e., to win a domestic political battle. A pro-Israel political operative who was deeply involved in the Iran deal fight told me last year, “The NSA’s collections of foreigners became a means of gathering real-time intelligence on Americans.” With the Iran deal, as would later happen with Russiagate, the ostensible targets of intelligence collection—Israel, then Russia—were simply instruments that the Obama administration used to go after the real bad guys, namely its enemies at home.
The same process of weaponizing foreign-intelligence collection for domestic political purposes that the Obama administration road-tested during the Iran-deal fight was used to manufacture Russiagate and get it to market. Except instead of keeping a close hold of the identities of those swept up during “incidental collection” of U.S. persons, departing Obama White House officials leaked the names to friendly reporters. (h/t Failexa)
Imagine being forced to leave your home, leaving all your belongings, your history, and your heritage behind. Now, imagine that they were rediscovered and brought to safe-keeping — just to be stolen from you again.Are American Universities Hiding the Truth about Deir Yassin?
That is the fate of the Iraqi Jewish community.
In May 2003, over 2,700 Jewish books and tens of thousands of documents, records, and religious artifacts were discovered by a US army team when in the basement of the Iraqi intelligence headquarters flooded. This written record provides a robust understanding of the 2,600-year-old Iraqi Jewish community: the texts were sent to the US to be preserved, cataloged, and digitized, and they have been on exhibit in a number of cities for several years. Now, based on an executive order signed by President Bush in 2003, and extended by the US government in an executive order signed by President Obama, the Iraqi Jewish archive is set to be returned to Iraq in September 2018.
Deir Yassin in Tauber’s account doesn’t depict a day of poorly organized battle, with confusion playing a role in making a bad day even worse. He counts one clear case of unjustified shooting. An Arab family evacuated a house in surrender. An Irgun fighter opened fire while his commander was shouting at him, “What are you doing? Stop it!” This incident, Tauber believes, gave credence to later overblown stories of larger-scale massacre, rape, mutilation and barbarity.Republican Jews Call on Seven Democrats to Resign Over Farrakhan ties
But the myth was perpetrated not because of confusion. It was a deliberate attempt by the Palestinian leadership to force the Arab militaries of surrounding countries to intervene in the battle over Palestine. The leaders of the Palestinians sowed a wind and reaped a whirlwind. More than convincing the Arab states to intervene (they eventually did), they convinced their fellow Palestinians to flee.
Why am I telling you this story? Because there is no other way for you — Americans — to know about it. Professor Tauber believed that his story would be of great interest to American publishers. He contacted university presses in the United States, and their response left him stunned. A representative of an elite university wrote back: “While everyone agreed on the book’s many strengths, in the end the consensus was that the book would only inflame a debate where positions have hardened.” Another one wrote: “We could sell well to the right-wing community here but we would end up with a terrible reputation.” Apparently, a book questioning the Palestinian narrative is not a book that American universities feel comfortable publishing.
One American media outlet found Tauber’s account worthy of a review: the online Mosaic magazine. The review rightly included the sober conclusion: “It’s hard to believe that Tauber’s book will put an end to the use of Deir Yassin for propaganda and political purposes. Myths take on a life of their own and historical facts are but background sets for them.” If you need any proof of that, just look at what an American publisher had to say about that review: “Of course Mosaic loved it, they tend to be to the right of Attila …”
Maybe.
Maybe Mosaic is to the “right of Attila.” Maybe Tauber is a right-wing hack. But what about his argument — the facts, the research? Is this a worthy contribution to the debate that will never end about Deir Yassin? As a reader of Tauber, and of all the many responses to his book and of many other books describing this event, I have no doubt that it is. Was the massacre a myth? That depends on one’s definition of massacre, and on having all the facts set straight. The facts that no one provides with as much detail as does Tauber (and yes, he is still looking for an American publisher).
The Republican Jewish Coalition on Wednesday demanded that the seven Democratic members of Congress who have been reported to have had ties to Louis Farrakhan.Why Won’t Women’s March Leaders Denounce Louis Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism?
Farrakhan gave a speech in Chicago last week saying that “the powerful Jews are my enemy,” warning Jews: “your time is up, your world is through.” He then gave a shout-out to Tamika Mallory who was in attendance (she is the national co-chair for the Women’s March, and an advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement).
Advertisement
Instead of disassociating herself from the despicable old anti-Semite, Mallory kept mum for days, until, finally, on Tuesday, Women’s March released a statement suggesting Farrakhan’s views are “not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles, which were created by women of color leaders and are grounded in Kingian nonviolence,” which is a long way from clearly denouncing his anti-Semitism.
RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks then issued a statement saying “seven long-serving Democrats have close ties with Louis Farrakhan. Each of them should resign.”
First, it should be noted that if a House of Representatives of 438 members only harbors seven Farrakhan anti-Semites – that’s not too shabby. It leaves 431 who aren’t. Now to the list:
According to Brooks, the list includes “former Nation of Islam employee,” Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Min), currently Deputy Chair of the DNC. The RJC accuses Ellison, who is a Muslim, of several meetings with Farrakhan, which, admittedly, should be disturbing to any Democrat, especially Jewish Democrats.
Brooks then lumps together with the congressman from Minnesota an additional six (“at least six,” he writes) well-known African-American Democrats: Maxine Waters (D-Ca), Barbara Lee (D-Ca), Danny K. Davis (D-Illinois), André Carson (D-Ind), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Al Green (D-Tx), who “have all, while in office, sat down with Farrakhan for personal meetings.”
Two weeks ago, during a Saviours’ Day event to commemorate the life of Nation of Islam founder Master Fard Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan had some things to say about Jews. The “powerful Jews,” he told the audience inside Wintrust Arena in Chicago, “are my enemy.” The Jews are also “responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men” — that is, for the existence of transgender people, which Farrakhan apparently views as a pressing moral concern. He issued a warning to a subset of the Jewish community — “Farrakhan has pulled the cover off the eyes of the Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through. You good Jews better separate because the satanic ones will take you to hell with them because that’s where they are headed.”The Farrakhan exception
Under normal circumstances, sadly, none of this would come as a surprise. As the Anti-Defamation League and plenty of other organizations have amply documented, Farrakhan has been a hardened anti-Semite — not to mention a committed enemy of LGBT rights — for a long time, and the broader Nation of Islam movement has a longstanding problem with anti-Semitism (as the ADL noted, Farrakhan was not the only speaker to make wildly offensive remarks about Jews that day). This is a man who has described Adolf Hitler as a “very great man.”
What made this address different was one of the attendees: Tamika D. Mallory, co-president of the successful Women’s March organization that has served as an important part of the anti-Trump resistance movement ever since it was formed. During the portion of his speech not dedicated to recycling ages-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Farrakhan explicitly praised both the March and Mallory herself. Mallory posted an Instagram video of herself at the event, and previously had posted a photo of herself with Farrakhan describing him as the “GOAT,” or “greatest of all time.”
His Stagedoor Groupies (some even Jewish) explain that they object to his anti-Semitism—but hey, NOBODY’S PERFECT, as I read their convoluted excuses for tolerating him nevertheless.J Street re-evaluating endorsement of congressman who praised Louis Farrakhan
Okay, but are hashtag feminists equally prepared to be ever so lenient over sexual predators, since after all, nobody’s perfect. Did Matt Lauer have a good side?
Or is it that for Farrakhan there is something else.
Perhaps it’s a titillating experience...a turn-on for some of these ladies who object to gender identification except for the thrill of going masculine now and then against the Jews.
Is it a crush? Hardly anything else accounts for the attraction.
To swoon for Farrakhan is to swoon for a predator. There can be no other term for a bullying anti-Semite.
Somehow the obvious escapes the Liberal Ladies who avow for themselves and their sisters the hashtag Solidarity.
Farrakhan gets away with it because he picked the right group. Imagine a Jewish spiritual leader howling against Muslims or Blacks, “Time’s up.” Then getting cheered at a rally.
You can’t imagine that because there is no such thing. But there was last month at a rally in Chicago when Farrakhan used those words against Jews.
When you hear those thunderous cheers, listen for a train whistling from Chicago towards Auschwitz.
J Street, the dovish pro-Israel group, said it is re-evaluating its endorsement of a congressman who praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.Ellison Says His Democratic Colleagues Never Asked Him About Farrakhan Connection: ‘No One Cares’
JStreetPAC, the arm of the liberal Israel lobby that funds and endorses candidates, currently lists Rep. Danny Davis, an Illinois Democrat from the virulently anti-Semitic Farrakhan’s home base of Chicago, as a candidate it supports. The endorsement, first reported in the Forward, calls Davis “a longtime supporter of Israel and a two-state solution.”
But a J Street spokesman wrote in an email to JTA that the lobby is speaking with Davis’ office and reconsidering that endorsement.
“We take anti-Semitism quite seriously,” J Street’s statement read. “We are currently in conversation with Representative Davis’ office about this issue. We will get back to you shortly with a more extensive response.”
Farrakhan, a vocal anti-Semite for decades, recently gave a speech laced with anti-Semitic statements. There have been a rising number of calls in the speech’s wake for Farrakhan’s allies to disavow him.
Davis praised Farrakhan as an “outstanding human being” in an interview last month with the Daily Caller, a conservative news site. In another interview this week, Davis told the Daily Caller that Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism does not concern him enough to disavow Farrakhan, who heads a black separatist movement.
“I know Farrakhan, been knowing him for years and years and years and years and years, and every once in a while some writer or somebody will I guess try to think of something to say about Farrakhan, but nah, my world is so much bigger than any of that,” Davis told the Daily Caller. “The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth.”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) said that none of his colleagues ever asked him about his connections with controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as he campaigned to take over as the lead sponsor of a single-payer health care bill, ripping the media for focusing on "this Farrakhan thing."Michael Lumish: ‘Wine-Washing’ and the Question of Jewish Indigeneity
Ellison, who serves as deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, has faced increased scrutiny lately over his prior membership in the Nation of Islam and his reported meetings in recent years with Farrkhan, an outspoken bigot who espouses conspiracy theories about Jews and whites.
On Wednesday, Ellison received unanimous consent to take over the Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act from former Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), who retired in 2017 amid multiple sexual misconduct accusations.
Ellison told the Washington Post none of his colleagues voiced concerns about the Farrakhan story as he campaigned to lead the effort on the bill, which is popular with the left.
"None of my colleagues ever asked me about that, only reporters," Ellison said. "I am telling you, no one cares. I’ve been all over Minnesota, all over Alabama, all over Missouri, all over Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and nobody ever asked me about this. People ask me about wages, about pay, about health care, about guns, about immigration. They ask me all kinds of challenging questions. But for some reason, some folks in the Fourth Estate think that this Farrakhan thing needs to be inquired about instead."
The University of California is not fond of Israel — or pro-Israel Jews.PMW: Demands to change PA law allowing rapists to marry victims
On February 5, professor Ariel Handel lectured at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Handel spoke about his recent paper concerned with the indigenous Israeli grape.
One would think that since the San Francisco Bay Area is home to some of the finest vines in the world, that an Israeli expert on indigenous Middle Eastern wine and its political significance would have been greeted with considerable interest.
He was not.
In truth, he was snubbed.
There were barely more than ten of us in the room.
Handel was visiting California from Tel Aviv University to discuss, among other things, the meaning of wine in the debate between Arabs and Jews regarding questions of indigeneity within the Levant.
Central to Handel’s thesis is the vinicultural concept of “terroir.”
It suggests that the flavor of a wine is due to the character of its natural environment, and how it is nurtured by the indigenous population; thus, he argues, the grape and wine reflect a country’s land and people. It is because Chardonnay, for example, is native to the Burgundy region of eastern France that its quality will never be quite the same as when grown in, say, the Jezreel Valley in the Lower Galilee.
Handel insists that “the grape is mute” on Jewish versus Arab claims to the land of Israel.
Palestinian Authority law enables a rapist to marry his victim instead of receiving punishment, according to clause 308 of the Jordanian Penal Code, which is still used by the PA, although it has already been repealed in Jordan.Now, Nobody Can Kill A Palestinian Woman Without Punishment
On occasion of International Women's Day, which falls today, the Coalition of Women MPs from Arab Countries to Combat Violence Against Women has expressed hope that PA Chairman Abbas will approve an amendment of the law and repeal the clause, which "turns the woman into a victim twice":
"Secretary of the Women MPs from Arab Countries Sahr Qawasmi said... that the coalition... hopes that clause 308, which allows a rapist to marry the woman who is raped, will be repealed. She expressed hope that [PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas] will approve [amending] this law on March 8 [2018], because this clause means that the man who rapes evades punishment, and because it turns the woman into a victim twice."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 5, 2018]
Palestinian Media Watch has previously reported that Palestinian women's rights groups for years have demanded changes in PA laws that enable rapists and murderers of women to receive reduced sentences.
March is a special month for ladies. There’s International Women’s Day on the 8th and Mother’s Day in the Palestinian territories on the 21st. This March, in particular, is also special for Palestinian women for another reason; that is, no longer will men receive reduced sentences for “honor killings.”NGO Monitor: The Exploitation of Palestinian Women’s Rights NGOs
Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah announced the introduction of new laws, to be approved by President Mahmoud Abbas, that will prevent men who murder, assault or rape women to evade lengthy prison sentences.
According to protocol, only Abbas can amend the Palestinian legal code, through a presidential decree, as the Palestinian parliament has been defunct since 2007.
A total of 18 Palestinian women were killed in “honor killings” in 2016, according to the Palestinian Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Many of the laws in question were inherited by Palestinians from Jordan, which ruled the West Bank between 1948 and 1967.
The Palestinian Council of Ministers decided to abolish Article 308 of the Penal Code that allows rapists to avoid punishment if he marries the victim within five years. In addition, government officials decided to amend Article 99 of Penal Code No. 16 of 1960 which grants judges the ability to dramatically reduce sentences if the case has “extenuating circumstances,” including the murder of women on grounds of “family honor.”
European funders and multilateral organizations, such as the UN and EU, fund numerous Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the stated goal of improving gender equality and enhancing women’s rights. However, many groups that define themselves as “women’s rights NGOs” promote incitement, glorify violence, and advocate for a rejectonist and politicized narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict.IsraellyCool: ISM Commemorates International Women’s Day With Tribute to Terrorist
The Palestinian NGO Code of Conduct Coalition— a network of five umbrella groups, together comprising the vast majority of active Palestinian civil society—compel women’s groups to follow an extreme agenda that forbids any normalization with Israel and discourages the adoption of “liberal” ideals. Women’s organizations are required to bind themselves to Palestinian national aspirations in order to gain intra-societal legitimacy and acceptance.
This linkage relegates gender equality to the background and perpetuates a situation in which Palestinian women are subject to discrimination and denied access to justice, autonomy, personal security, economic rights, equal opportunity, and political rights and representation.
Within this context, girls and women are taught to idolize female terrorists as role models, further encouraging women to participate in violence. For example, Ahed Tamimi – a Palestinian 17-year old who is on trial for assaulting an Israeli soldier, incitement to terror, and other charges – spoke at an event in the European Parliament where she idolized the female terrorist Leila Khaled. Khaled participated in armed hijackings of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970.
The European-funded NGO Addameer co-produced a booklet featuring (among others) Rula Abu Duhou, current faculty member at Birzeit University’s Institute of Women Studies. Abu Duhou, a member of the PFLP terror organization, was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in jail for her participation in the murder of an Israeli civilian. After her release from prison, Duhou declared, “I’m not sorry for it… On the contrary, I’m proud. And I wish I could do more for my country”.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) describes itself as “a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles.”As ‘Day Zero’ looms, South Africa open to Israeli water tech, researcher says
“Non-violence” is also touted as one of the four founding principles.
As I have shown in the past, this is an utter lie – the ISM supports terror activities against Israelis, despite their “official” statements.
In yet another example of this, the ISM has forgotten themselves on International Women’s Day, posting the following on Facebook:
Cape Town, South Africa, may soon be the world’s first major city to run out of water. On what the city has dubbed “Day Zero,” now slated for July 15, all homes and most businesses in the city of four million will be cut off from running water.Challenging US Colleges With Ties to Those Who Honor Palestinian Murderers
Despite longstanding animosity between Jerusalem and Pretoria, the ruling ANC party is open to help from the Jewish state, said Israeli researcher Dr. Clive Lipchin, who attended a water symposium in Johannesburg last month.
“Everyone is open to hearing solutions from whatever country it comes from,” said Lipchin, the director of the Center for Transboundary Water Management, Arava Institute, and lecturer in environment and conflict management at Tel Aviv University. “I was invited as an Israeli to sit at a panel. ANC government officials who addressed me from the audience said they were happy to look at Israel as a model,” Lipchin said.
Efforts to conserve water and stave off the apocalyptic-sounding Day Zero are having some success, pushing back the expected date from April to mid-July, but there is a consensus that it is close to unavoidable, Lipchin said. Today, restaurants are using disposable plates and utensils, hotels are removing bath plugs from their rooms and filling their pools with seawater, and residents are recycling shower water to flush their toilets and using sanitizer to wash their hands instead of the sink. Several South African pop artists have released a playlist of two-minute songs for residents to time their showers and the city released an online calculator for residents to estimate their daily usage.
On the eve of the anniversary of one of the worst terrorist attacks in Israel’s history, advocates for terror victims are turning up the pressure on Palestinian universities that host a group named in honor of the leader of the massacre.Contrary to Robert Fisk’s claim, Israel did offer Arafat at least 95 percent of the West Bank
Early in the morning on March 11, 1978, a Fatah terror squad led by 19-year-old Dalal Mughrabi landed on the Tel Aviv shore in rubber boats. There they encountered Gail Rubin, a nature photographer from New York City — and the niece of US Senator Abraham Ribicoff. Mughrabi shot her to death at point-blank range.
The terrorists then hijacked an Israeli civilian bus on the nearby Coastal Highway, and murdered 37 passengers. Another 71 were wounded. Nine of the 11 terrorists, including Mughrabi, were killed in a shoot-out with Israeli police.
Each year on the anniversary of the massacre — and on Mughrabi’s birthday (December 29) — the Palestinian Authority (PA) sponsors public events to honor her. The PA has also named schools, summer camps and sports tournaments after Mughrabi, according to reports compiled by Palestinian Media Watch.
“Dalal Mughrabi is a role model, like other heroic female martyrs in Palestine,” Madeline Manna, coordinator of Fatah’s “Sisters of Dalal” university committee,” said last month on the PA television program “Palestine This Morning.”
She continued: “In the Palestinian universities, especially in the Fatah Shabiba [Student Movement], the female student committees were named after Martyr Dalal Mughrabi — ‘Sisters of Dalal.’”
There’s so much to unpack, such as his skepticism over ‘claims‘ that Yasser Arafat was “super-terrorist”, and the conspiratorial tone of his characterisation of how Arafat “conveniently” died.New York Times Blames Israel For Stalin’s Antisemitism
However, there’s also one particular claim that caught our attention – where he accuses the American media of something akin to fake news regarding the Israeli offer to Arafat at Camp David. The late Palestinian leader was not, Fisk writes, offered 90 per cent of the West Bank.
In fact, Arafat was offered a contiguous state encompassing Gaza, east Jerusalem and considerably more than 90 percent of the West Bank. And, it’s not just the “American media” making this “claim”. It’s three of the principle players during negotiations – Bill Clinton, his chief peace negotiator Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, the US Ambassador to Israel. They’ve all characterised the proposed Palestinian state offered by Israel as representing between 95-97 percent of the West Bank.
The former US president said, in his memoirs, and more recently that, during the 2000-2001 talks, he had a deal Arafat turned down “that would have given them all of Gaza, 96 to 97 percent of the West Bank”.
In Dennis Ross’s book, The Missing Peace, and in a NYT op-ed in 2007, he writes that Arafat was indeed offered 97 percent of the West Bank. Further, Ross dismisses Arafat’s claim – parroted by Fisk – that he wasn’t even offered 90 percent as a “myth”.
The New York Times art critic last seen complaining that a Jewish museum exhibit was insufficiently sympathetic to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann is at it again.Outrage over use of yellow badges to protest use of Jewish buses in Montreal area
The latest piece from the critic, Jason Farago, is a review of an exhibit at the Jewish Museum Vienna. The exhibit explores Jewish involvement in Communism.
Farago’s inaccuracy is on display from the start of his story, which appears under the headline “The Jews Who Dreamed of Utopia.” He writes:
Step into the Jewish Museum Vienna, just off the main shopping drag of this imperial city, and you will be greeted by a bust of Karl Marx, the descendant of rabbis who would call religion the “opiate of the masses.” Dour, wild-haired Karl presides over the first gallery of an ambitious, searching show on religion and revolution, uniting paintings, posters, propaganda, film clips, and a fair amount of Soviet kitsch. Its romantic title — “Comrade. Jew. We Only Wanted Paradise on Earth” — sets the tone for an extensive overview of the dreams and nightmares of communism and international socialism, as seen through the lives and work of Jewish politicians, philosophers and artists: not just Marx, but also Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, El Lissitzky, and many others.
Farago calls Marx “Jewish” and “the descendant of rabbis” without telling Times readers that Marx’s parents had both converted to Christianity. Marx himself was formally converted to Christianity at age six and confirmed as a Christian at age 15, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica.
A Montreal woman who sparked outrage after she and other citizens wore yellow badges on their clothing at a borough council meeting to protest the Jewish community's use of school buses in her neighbourhood says she's the real victim.Russian company names an ice cream ‘Poor Jews’
Despite being told by residents the yellow square on her shirt evoked the Holocaust -- when European Jews were forced to wear yellow stars under the Nazi regime -- Ginette Chartre said in an interview Tuesday she wouldn't stop wearing it.
"(The Jews) always bring up their painful past," she said. "They do it to muzzle us. We're wearing the yellow square because the school buses are yellow.
"We'll march down the street wearing them, banging pots and pans if we have to," Chartre said about the most recent flare-up between some residents of Outremont and its burgeoning Hasidic community.
"We are living an injustice. We are being persecuted by them."
Jews in Russia’s Tatarstan region are objecting to a new ice cream called “Poor Jew.”Polish president apologizes to Jews for 1968 persecution
The ice cream cone, announced last month by the Slavitsa company in Naberezhnye Chelny, 600 miles east of Moscow, is wrapped in an image of Israel’s flag.
Leonid Shteinberg, a leader of the Jewish community in Naberezhnye Chelny, has called the name “racist” and demanded its production and sale be halted, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
The city prosecutor’s office says it will investigate the complaints.
In a social media post announcing the ice cream’s launch on Feb. 28, the company describes it as a “crusty horn” filled with chocolate- and prune-flavored ice cream and topped with peanuts.
“Trying all this tastiness, it turns out that he is not so ‘poor,'” the post asserts.
Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday apologized to Jews chased out of the country 50 years ago during the communist regime’s anti-Semitic campaign.Samsung doubles down on Israeli auto tech
“The free and independent Poland of today, my generation, is not responsible and does not need to apologize. But… to those who were driven out then… I’d like to say please forgive the Republic, Poles, the Poland of that time for having carried out such a shameful act,” Duda said.
Poland is marking 50 years since mass student protests against the Moscow-backed communist regime of the time were exploited by the communist party to purge Jews from the party and from Poland.
The result was the expulsion of 13,000 Jews, among them Holocaust survivors and prominent intellectuals including philosopher Leszek Kolakowski and sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.
His apology comes amid heightened tension between Poland and Israel over Warsaw’s new controversial Holocaust bill, which the Jewish state sees as a bid to deny that certain Poles participated in the genocide of Jews during World War II.
Samsung plans to showcase its auto push in an event to be held in Tel Aviv Sunday. The company waded into the competitive domain in 2016, with an $8 billion acquisition of connected car and audio technology company Harman International Industries, completed in March 2017. At the event Samsung plans to showcase collaborations with Israeli companies, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Samsung President and Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn will head the company’s delegation to Israel and will be the keynote speaker at the event.U.S. and IDF troops, in major joint drill, simulating battle on 3 fronts
With Harman, Samsung acquired two Israeli car companies—mobile software management technology Harman RedBend, acquired by Harman in 2015, and Israel-based automotive cybersecurity company TowerSec Inc. acquired in 2016. In September 2017, Samsung showed its commitment to its new interest by launching a $300 million automotive innovation fund.
In late 2017, Samsung has invested several million dollars in Tel Aviv-based AudioBurst Ltd., an AI, and deep learning-based audio content search service, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. In July, Samsung invested in Imagry Ltd., a startup developing a cameras-only level 4-5 self-driving technology, Imagry CEO Adham Ghazali said in an interview with Calcalist Tuesday. One person familiar with Samsung’s investments confirmed the details of the deal. In previous deals in 2017, Samsung invested in fabless semiconductor manufacturer Valens, vehicle communication company Autotalks and low-cost LiDAR startup Innoviz Technologies.
Juniper Cobra, the largest joint US-Israeli air-defense exercise, is under way, with thousands of troops deployed across the country simulating scenarios where Israel faces missile barrages simultaneously on various fronts.Israeli doctors save Syrian mother, baby who came to Israel for treatment
In the two years since the last Juniper Cobra exercise, Israel’s enemies have changed. And while 2017 was a relatively quiet year for Israel, the IDF’s Aerial Defense Division successfully intercepted drones in the North, as well as rockets fired from the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The environment in which Israel find itself is “explosive,” said Brig.-Gen Zvika Haimovitch, head of the Aerial Defense Division, adding that “at the beginning of the next war the enemy will use more fire in the opening barrage.”
Some 2,000 IDF Aerial Defense troops will be participating alongside 2,500 US troops – some 1,400 Marines and 1,100 sailors – in the largest joint exercise with the US military’s European Command.
The Americans have also deployed the USS Iwo Jima and USS Mount Whitney as well as their Patriot missile-defense system, Aegis ballistic missile-defense system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, TPY-2 radar system, communication systems, 25 aircraft and three hovercraft.
Over the course of the two-week-long exercise troops will practice challenging and complex scenarios adapted to Israel’s operational reality such as missile threats in various sectors simultaneously as well as the threat posed by precise missiles that Iran is trying to produce for Hezbollah.
A pregnant Syrian woman who was recently given the choice of dying or having her unborn son die decided to try saving both. The woman – facing almost certain death from a high-risk pregnancy – entered Israel through the so-called “humanitarian gate” between Syria and Israel and was treated at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. She returned home with her baby son on Tuesday and both are doing well.
The woman’s doctor in Syria told her that her placenta had become entangled in the uterine muscles due to previous caesarean deliveries. He explained the terrible significance of the ultrasound scan he performed: A normal birth would be impossible and he was not willing to perform a C-section that would almost certainly lead to the mother’s or the baby’s death. When the woman asked if there was anything she could do, he said she could travel north to a modern hospital in Damascus or try to reach the Israeli border and request admission to a hospital in the North. She chose Damascus but was turned back at roadblocks due to heavy fighting in Syria’s civil war.
Nearing the end of her ninth month of gestation and refusing to accept her own death or her baby’s, she parted from her husband and children and headed south. Two weeks ago, tired and in pain, she crossed the border between the two countries. A few days later, she was admitted to Rambam’s maternity ward where Prof. Ido Solt – an expert in high-risk-pregnancy and head of the maternal-fetal medicine division in the obstetrics/gynecology department – praised the Syrian doctor’s diagnosis.
“A normal caesarean would have been impossible, as you would have bled to death,” Solt told the mother, “We will have to do a more complicated procedure.” Working with colleagues in Rambam’s vascular surgery and transplantation department, the doctors planned a procedure that would have been almost impossible to perform in Syria. Two balloons were inserted into the mother’s uterine arteries. Once they were inflated, the balloons prevented hemorrhaging. After that delicate procedure, obstetricians performed a C-section, delivering a premature baby who was placed in an incubator in the neonatology department, while doctors safely sutured the mother’s uterus.
The baby overcame infections during his few days in the maternity ward. The mother told nurses how thankful she was and that she missed her family very much. She said her husband, with whom she had not been in contact since leaving home, did not know if she had survived the operation or not. “Now my husband will have a wonderful surprise,” she said.
