BDS Umbrella Group Linked to Palestinian Terrorist Organizations
Over the past decade, as the prospects of peace between Israelis and Palestinians became ever slimmer, there has been a growing attention to—and, in some quarters, acceptance of—the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, or BDS. Those drawn to the cause have likely come across the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a Virginia-based non-profit organization that serves as the American umbrella group of the BDS movement and is arguably the most prominent promoter of BDS in the United States. The US Campaign, which is officially called Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, coordinates the efforts of 329 different pro-BDS organizations “working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy… bound by commonly shared principles on Palestine solidarity as well as our anti-racism principles,” according to the group’s website.Michael Chabon delivers jihad speech for Hebrew Union College
But as Tablet confirmed , the group also helps facilitate tax-exempt donations to a Palestinian coalition that includes Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other groups the US State Department designates as terror organizations.
The US Campaign, Tablet has learned, is the fiscal sponsor of a group called the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the main West Bank and Gaza-based cohort advocating for sanctions against Israel. The BNC was created in 2007 in Ramallah with the intention of serving as the Palestinian arm of the international BDS campaign. According to the BNC’s website, one of the group’s members is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, commonly known as PNIF. Among PNIF’s members are five different groups designated by the US as terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Popular Front – General Command (PFLP-GC), the Palestine Liberation Front, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Since its founding, the BNC has frequently and openly collaborated with known leaders of these terror organizations: In 2015, for example, the BNC held a press conference to pressure the Palestinian government not to import gas from Israel, featuring a speech by Khalida Jarrar, then a member of the Palestinian parliament for the PFLP and still an active official in the terror group. A video of the BNC-hosted press conference features Jarrar seated alongside BNC secretariat member Omar Barghouti.
He is no casual hater of Israel, this Chabon. For him it’s a full-time business. He invites other writers to join him, and his wife, Ayelet Waldman, in demonizing the Jewish State.
What did his mother ever do to him, and what did they see in him, those who run the university, that made him so emblematic for the Reform Movement?
Perhaps they heard that he is best friends with “Breaking the Silence” contrarians, or maybe they read him in The Forward, where he said about the Jewish State –
“It is the most grievous injustice I’ve seen in my life.”
That was the theme of his commencement address.
For one graduate, Morin Zaray, it was a rant too much. In a blog titled, “How My Graduation Was Ambushed,” she writes –
“As I heard Chabon’s simplified takedown of my country [Israel], the room began to spin…I felt ashamed for being part of this gathering, ashamed that many in the audience were just nodding at this reductionist view of a multilayered and complicated country…I was nearly brought to tears as I heard the crowd of Jews give Chabon a thunderous applause.”
Coming to a Temple near you.
David Collier: Beyond the great divide, a trip inside the Palestinian areas
It was a long time coming, but during the recent trip to Israel I went back to areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. A decade ago, this type of visit would not have happened given the upsurge in violence in Gaza. Violence in one area, raised tensions in another. Since the Gaza withdrawal and the rise of Hamas, this is progressively proving to no longer be the case. Why? Recent history isn’t the only reason.
Palestine as colonial construct
In 1919, as the British prepared plans for their temporary control of areas in the Middle East, they considered the southern regions of what is now Israel as ‘Egyptian’ because of the tribal affiliation of those living there. Take this extract from a memorandum on British understandings during the early days of the 1919 Peace Conference (Versailles):
‘As to the southern boundary, there are a number of different considerations. On the one hand it is contended that the cultivable areas south of Gaza ought to be part of Palestine, because they are necessary to the subsistence of the people. On the other hand this area is inhabited by Bedouins of the desert, who look really towards Sinai, and ought not to be associated with Palestine at all. It is suggested by the Foreign Office it would be a sound principle to include in Palestine all the southern country capable of cultivation, e.g. in the direction of Rafa and Beersheba; and that the remaining area south of Gaza and to the Dead Sea, should be reserved to the Bedouins and attached to Egypt since the tribes are identical with those in the Sinai Peninsula and the pre-war frontier is quite arbitrary from the tribal point of view’.
Decolonising Palestinian identity
The British cut the cloth for the mandate that was then given a name, ‘Palestine’. As a national identity, Palestine was a colonial construct whose borders were first defined in European cities less than a hundred years ago. Had the British not interfered, Palestinians would not exist as *a nation of people* today. If the British cut the cloth differently, then many of those in Gaza would wave an Egyptian flag. Had the British designed the Northern border differently, then some of today’s Palestinians would be proud Lebanese citizens. This is historical game-play that ardent anti-Israel activists should consider. ‘Decolonising Palestine’ doesn’t touch the Jews, nor the Jewish homeland, it only deconstructs the colonial identity the British created within the borders that they called ‘Palestine’.
Joy Reid endorsed a plan from Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to forcibly relocate all Jews from Israel to Europe
In her now-defunct blog, MSNBC anchor Joy Ann Reid attacked CNN’s Wolf Blitzer for being too nice to Jews. In a post dated July 16, 2006, Reid called Blitzer an ‘AIPAC flak’ after he didn’t ask Israeli officials questions to Reid’s liking on air.EXCLUSIVE: Joy Reid's Blog Promoted Anti-Semitic Conspiracies, Vicious Personal Attacks
Blitzer’s behavior is not only anti-journalistic, it’s irresponsible and transparantly (sic) ideological. If he wants to do an editorial program promoting the interests of a foreign government (Israel,) he should petition his bosses at the network to do just that. Otherwise, if he is purporting to do ‘news,’ he should stick to the news, and put aside his AIPAC flak jacket. (Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha didn’t fare much better with MSNBC’s resident twitterbug Norah ‘Giggles’ O’Donnell, who even managed to characterize the U.S. veto of a U.N. resultuion (sic) condemning Israel’s use of excessive force in Gaza as a repudiation of criticism of Israel by the Security Council…)
Shame on CNN for allowing this spectacle to go on.
In a post from The Reid Report dated December 5, 2005, Reid said that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then-president of Iran, was really onto something when he suggested that the “Zionist regime” of Israel should just relocate to Europe.
“God is not a real estate broker,” the blogpost reads. “He can’t just give you land 1,000 years ago that you can come back and claim today.”
You can read the whole thing here. The short version of Ahmadinejad’s proposal is to make all the Jews pack up and leave the Middle East so they can hide out in a German province somewhere and leave everyone alone. (h/t jzaik)
1. In a blog post dated November 28, 2005, Reid promoted a conspiracy theory that claimed that the United States was driven into the Iraq war to promote the interests of Israel and Iran:Ben Shapiro: What Are We Willing To Do As Individuals?
Which country or countries had the strongest motivation to get Saddam out of power in Iraq? I'd say Iran, which is now reaping the benefits of the Iraqi Shia ascendance, dep, and Israel, which has long cherished the notion of getting rid of Saddam in order to further expand its leverage in the region, not to mention removing a known supporter and financier of Palestinian suicide bombers. Add to that the fact that many neocons really do believe that "the road to Mideast peace goes through Baghdad, not Jerusalem..." Removing one of the Palestinians' most vocal and belligerent friends would have been in Israel's strategic interest.
Reid further questioned Bush's motives for entering the war by asking: "Could he also have sold out American interests to the Likud?"
The Likud Party is a center-right political party in Israel.
2. In a blog post dated January 25, 2006, Reid wrote in a post titled "The ballot or the bullet," that she was highly sympathetic to the Palestinian people because they were "on that land since long before the Jewish emigres arrived after World World II."
Reid also appeared to give a serious ear to the terrorist group Hamas, writing:
And Hamas is as much driven by religion as are the settlers in the West Bank and formerly in Gaza. Still, beyond Islam, their rise to power was also fueled by many of the same things that helped the conservatives in Canada and that could yet help the Dems in the States: the demonstrated corruption of the party in power. Since they are promising to clean things up, they obviously have credibility with many of the Plaestinian people. It won't be easy to ignore them after this vote, or for that matter, to go around blowing up their cars.
This week, a bizarre situation broke out on the Bronx-bound New York subway. A Black woman walked onto the train with her three children; nobody got up to give her their seats. At that point, a second Black woman began ranting about the supposed injustices of the New York public. According to an Orthodox Jewish witness, Yossi Wolfe, the woman ranted, “If it was a Jewish family, y’all would have gotten up.” At that point, Wolfe — who was standing — stated, “Can we please not make this a racist thing?”Italians trained to fight Israel in Palestinian refugee camps, former Arafat adviser says
That prompted the woman to new heights of anger. “Judaism is not a race,” she stated. “It is a religion … I’m schooling your ass. You guys think you’re so f—ing smart, but guess what? I’m gonna teach you a lesson on this f—ing train today.”
Wolfe interjected, “No ‘you guys.’ I am a person. You are a person.”
To which the ranting woman responded, “No! No! We are different. Understand that. You know why? Because your people treat my people different in our community! The f— you talking about.” When Wolfe demurred, she continued, “You treat us different in our community. You don’t even rent to us. What the f— are you talking about? … You said I was racist, so I’m addressing your people. You said I was racist, right? Because I brought up Judaism, right?” The woman continued by stating that she wasn’t calling Jews “dirty” or saying “they stink,” she was just explaining the “difference between racism and prejudice-ism.”
Most of this discussion was caught on an electronic device and posted on Twitter.
In fact, being Jewish is both a racial and a religious attribute. And in fact, it’s racist to claim that Jews are somehow — as a group — discriminating against Black Americans, particularly without data to support such an accusation.
During the Seventies, thousands of Italians went to Palestinian refugee camps to give their help, according to a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Bassam Abu Sharif, a historic member of PFLP who later became advisor of Yasser Arafat, has been heard by the parliamentary inquiry committee into the death of Aldo Moro, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, who was kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades in 1978. Bassam Abu Sharif said to the committee also that there was a non-aggression pact between the Italian secret services and the Palestinian fedayeen.Donald Macintyre: a case study in how ‘enlightened’ British opinion can empathise with Hamas
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had special relations with some of the revolutionary groups emerging in Europe after 1968. These forces did not know how to oppose capitalism, and we taught them how to do it. It was part of the fight against the imperialism that supported Israel. Thousands of Italian young women and men came to Palestinian refugee camps in order to help in different ways, in the schools, in the clinics, or in combat», Bassam Abu Sharif said to the committee. This is the first time explicit mention is made of the presence of Italians in the Palestinian refugee camps forty years ago.
He underlined the good relations between PFLP and the Italian government to demonstrate the non-involvement of his organization in the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. «PFLP and Italy had a special dialogue about politics and security since 1972. Italy sent ambulances and doctors to the refugee camps, and in return we helped you a lot. Italy asked us to save it, to not use its territory for operations or attacks against Israel. Colonel Giovannone spoke to me. He said that he had to reassure his men. George Habash signed that document, I gave our commitment to secure Italy, colonel Giovannone received it in writing. When I changed from PFLP to Arafat we continued on the same line», he said.
Donald Macintyre is a veteran journalist, with years of experience covering the Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has published extensively for the Guardian, Independent and New Statesman, and is also the author of a book “Gaza: Preparing for Dawn.” His stature as a leading journalist makes his recent coverage of the Gaza protests – containing open falsehoods and distortions, and a fawning affection for Hamas – all the more shocking.Campus Unmasked: Pro-Palestinian Students Storm Stage, Disrupt Meeting
In an article in the New Statesman, Macintyre opens by stressing the peaceful nature of the protests, saying the deaths of Palestinians mark “a bloody climax to two months of unarmed protests,” but in a later paragraph, further clarifies what “unarmed” means, with a sentence that is quite astounding:
“…..Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, who emphasised the unarmed nature of the protests (except for stones, Molotov cocktails and flaming kites that had not at that time injured a single Israeli)….”
“An unarmed protest, except for stones, Molotov cocktails and flaming kites.” This sentence defies both logic and the dictionary; imagine any other context, conflict or conversation, where such a sentence would be considered intelligent. The question of whether the weapons of choice have injured any Israelis or not is quite irrelevant to whether the protest was armed or unarmed. By the most elementary logic, any person will recognize that a protest that contains stones, Molotov cocktails and flaming kites is quite definitely not an unarmed (non-violent) protest.
Why does Macintyre write this? I would suggest it’s rooted in a deep flaw in his reporting of the conflict, whereby he is deeply beholden to a narrative, leading him to paper over uncomfortable truths. In his worldview, Israel is a colonialist project that in its very essence is anti-Palestinian. The heavily armed and dangerous Israelis continue to cause untold pain to the weak and suffering Palestinians. In this narrative, the Israelis are immutably guilty and violent, and the Palestinians are innocent victims, to whom no agency, responsibility or blame is ever to be attributed.
Pro-Palestinian students disrupted a student senate meeting at Santa Barbara where they were going to vote on whether or not their school should divest from Israel, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation. The boycott, divest, sanction movement, of course, aims to prohibit universities from partnering with Israeli schools and requires them to boycott companies that do business with Israel like HP. Palestinians weaponize BDS by using it to deny funding to pro-Israel people and groups with whom they have political disagreements. So you might be wondering: why were the pro-Palestinian students disrupting a BDS vote you would think they’d support?
Well, it turns out that the format of the vote wasn’t good enough. The proposal required two-thirds approval to pass, whereas some students wanted it to only require majority approval.
They were apparently upset because 12 out of 25 of the student senators walked out of an over 10-hour-long meeting the previous week, preventing a vote on the resolution. But here’s the thing, even if the resolution did pass — which it didn’t; it failed for the fifth time in six years — but even if it DID pass, UC Santa Barbara isn’t obliged to pull its money out of Israeli businesses.
Students at the University of Michigan passed a divestment resolution last year and the administration said: “We appreciate hearing from students,” but stated “the university’s longstanding policy is to shield the endowment from political pressures and to base our investment decisions solely on financial factors such as risk and return.” And UM’s board of regents said it “strongly oppose[d]” the BDS movement.
J Street urges Senate to probe Friedman over comments on settlements, Democrats
J Street called on the US Senate to investigate US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on Thursday after he told The Times of Israel that West Bank settlements do not violate international law and that Republicans support Israel more than Democrats.French-Muslim activist denies tweet featuring Jews was a hit list
“J Street urges senators to carry out a thorough investigation of Ambassador Friedman’s conduct in office,” the liberal Mideast advocacy group said in a statement, adding that Friedman “has clearly broken his promises to senators to behave diplomatically and prudently in his new post and to put aside his own personal agenda.”
In a wide-ranging interview published Thursday, Friedman took aim at Democratic lawmakers and party officials for, in his view, not backing Israel with the same alacrity as their GOP counterparts. “There’s no question Republicans support Israel more than Democrats,” he said.
J Street — which describes itself as “pro-peace and pro-Israel” — decried those statements as inappropriate.
A French-Muslim activist denied that a list she posted on social media featuring Jewish groups and individuals was a “hit list” and said it did not specifically target Jews.Japan store bars wine from Golan Heights after protests
Sihame Assbague posted the list in a series of tweets last week, accompanied by a picture of a “Game of Thrones” character from a scene in the series in which the character lists the people she intends to kill.
Among those listed were prominent individuals and groups with Jewish ties — including the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities; the Socialist Jewish politician Julien Dray; and former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, a supporter of Israel whose ex-wife and children are Jewish — as well as people without Jewish ties, such as the non-Jewish radical left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melenchon. A staffer at a prominent French Muslim news site, Al Kanz, responded to Assbague’s list adding nine additional names, including several Jews.
The Jewish philosopher Raphael Enthoven, who was named on the Al Kanz list, called it “hate speech.”
A major Japanese department store has quietly removed a vendor specializing in wine from Israel’s Golan Heights after protests from pro-Palestinain groups boycotting products from the region.SPME BDS Monitor: Antisemitism Rises on Campus
Daimaru store said it withdrew its offer for Naturael, a Tokyo-based importer specializing in wine from the Golan — highly valued among connoisseurs — to participate in a fair in May.
Naturael said the wine is produced and imported legally and that Daimaru’s decision could lead to anti-Israel sentiment.
Daimaru said the decision did not reflect any political stance and was only for the May 9-15 “Mediterranean gourmet and wine fair” at its Tokyo store. It said wine from elsewhere in Israel was sold at the fair and that Daimaru has no policy against Israeli products in general.
But a spokesman acknowledged that Daimaru took into consideration activists’ concerns about the wine’s origin.
“Today we cannot ignore geopolitical issues,” said Satoshi Nishio, a spokesman for Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores Co. “We have to start paying more attention to where products are coming from.”
The academic year ended with sudden late pushes for BDS resolutions and associated protests. While there were notable wins for BDS in student government, the larger goal remains shifting campus opinion against Israel and intimidating Israel supporters into silence. These were propelled by continued disruptions of pro-Israel and other events. But BDS harassment and university indulgence may produce public backlash of the sort now being felt at Evergreen State and other institutions. Radical politics, and the BDS movement, threaten the viability of specific institutions, and will undermine public confidence in higher education even further.Is a Virginia Democrat Running for Congress an Antisemite? The NY Times Is on It
The end of the academic year saw several late pushes for BDS in student governments. At the University of California at Santa Barbara, a BDS resolution was added to the student government agenda at the last minute — and was then debated the measure for an extraordinary 10 hours. During that time, supporters of the resolution walked out after the body’s “Attorney General” ruled the resolution had to be “positional” rather than “directional.” The measure was then tabled.
The student newspaper described the stealthy introduction of the measure as a “guerilla ambush” designed to bypass the usual comment period and to limit organized opposition. A follow up debate was then thwarted by the absence of student legislators and, more significantly, a “civil disobedience” protest by BDS supporters unhappy with the direction of the meeting. No vote was held.
Another stealthy BDS resolution was introduced in the University of Oregon student government over the Shavuot holiday. The resolution — entitled the ASUO Senate Resolution on Boycotting Israeli Settler Colonialism — then passed after a lengthy debate, which included a warning that the measure could be reversed in the next semester by the student “court” on the grounds that it was not “viewpoint neutral.”
The New York Times devoted the labor of two reporters, Thomas Kaplan and Michael Tackett, to a news article about the Democratic nominee for the Fifth Congressional District of Virginia, Leslie Cockburn.King’s College London adopts international definition of anti-Semitism
For some time, the article appeared online under the Times headline, “A Democratic Candidate Criticized Israel. Republicans Shout ‘Anti-Semite.’”
The headline is misleading, because the Democratic candidate wasn’t merely criticizing Israel like some American Reform rabbi complaining about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of egalitarian prayer spaces at the Western Wall or Israel’s treatment of African migrants. Cockburn wrote a book that even the Times itself described as “largely dedicated to Israel-bashing for its own sake,” with the message that “the Israeli-American connection is somewhere behind just about everything that ails us.”
The Times, at least its two male political reporters, do characterize Cockburn’s views on Israel as “strident.” But that may be less about her Israel views than a sexist way to dismiss her — at least if you believe what the Times has written about that word. As I noted when the Times hurled the term at the American ambassador at the United Nations Nikki Haley,
In a trailblazing move, King’s College London (KCL), has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and has set out tough new guidelines in order to ensure the safety and security of students and staff at its campuses. It is thought KCL is the first academic institution in the country to adopt the IHRA definition with the accompanying examples . It was publicly turned down by London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) last March, which rejected it as “too controversial”.IsraellyCool: Ice Cream Over These Half Baked BDS-Holes
Professor Ed Byrne, the neuroscientist who has been principal of KCL for the last four years, has been engaged in talks with the Board of Deputies, UK Lawyers for Israel, Jewish students and Rabbi Lord Sacks, who is an emeritus professor at KCL, to hammer out details of the new proposals.
His entire senior team, he told the JN, had unanimously endorsed the adoption of the IHRA definition. A similar definition relating to Islamophobia has also been adopted.
Professor Byrne said that KCL had seen some difficult and distressing campus meetings where speakers had been disrupted and students felt intimidated. He was determined to stamp this out, he said. “We have three key priorities: freedom of speech — we’re not allowing ‘no platform’ — but always in the context of the law.
“Second, we will allow peaceful protest, but the problem is that we have not put enough effort into defining and controlling how protests will take place”. That will change, he said, as protesters will be made to demonstrate far enough away from any meeting so that they do not disrupt it with noisy chanting. Megaphones or loudhailers will be banned, Professor Byrne said.
Tundra Tabloids reports on an anti-Israel protest in Finland – against ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s:Facebook Can Now Be Sued In Israeli Courts
Besides being illegal, the demonstration was illogical, assuming the organizers are really “only” anti-Israel.
You see, Ben & Jerry’s have a history of anti-Israel activity. For example:
Under a hail of protest from anti-settler groups, the ice cream manufacturer’s Israeli franchise canceled a contract last month to purchase water from Mei Eden, a mineral water company based in the Golan Heights, to make sorbet.
But some Jewish organizations consider the move to break the contract — and endorse calls for boycotting certain Israeli products — a slap in the face of the peace process.
The president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, said Jewish entrepreneurs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have sent a message to all Jewish businesses to boycott Israel.
And in 2014, the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation donated $2,500 to the vehemently anti-Israel, pro-BDS Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
So you either believe they are protesting Ben & Jerry’s because they manufacture ice cream in Israel….or something else is going on here.
Of course, they may just be dumbasses. We’ve seen evidence of this before.
The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israeli claims filed against Facebook will be heard in Israeli courts, even though the user-license-agreement to join the site says suits can only be filed in a California court.The European media's Palestinian propaganda
The court accepted the position of the Attorney General, according to which giving multinational corporations the ability to determine jurisdiction in cases involving customers represented a major imbalance of power, even if the user-agreement states that it must be so
The provisions would have forced any Israeli suing Facebook to have his or her case heard in California.
The decision was made in the framework of a petition to approve a class action lawsuit against the companies Facebook Ireland and Facebook US, on a number of grounds for infringement of the privacy of users on Facebook and non-registration with the Registrar of Databases.
Facebook filed an application to dismiss the claim out of hand, claiming that the user-license-agreement signed by users on the site when opening an account leaves jurisdiction over complaints with the California courts.
These past two weeks have provided a wonderful opportunity to examine the way the winds are blowing when it comes to European media's reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the Palestinian provocation organized along the Israel-Gaza border fence in which dozens of Palestinians were killed starred in news broadcasts, on news sites, and on the front pages of newspapers, the Palestinian provocation of firing dozens of rockets at Israel from Gaza was given marginal coverage, if at all.BBC presenter objects to anti-extremism campaigner’s description of Hamas
For the Europeans, if there are no Palestinian casualties, which are presented as a sacrifice on the altar of the war on the Jewish state, there is no reason to report what is going on. The few reports on the latest escalation in the south blamed Israel, directly or indirectly. The headlines focused on IDF airstrikes in Gaza, and only later noted, almost incidentally, that the attacks were in response to Palestinian rocket and mortar fire.
The Palestinians are portrayed as the weak side in a conflict they themselves started. They are just firing mortars, which cause very little damage and don't kill anyone, while Israel send out its powerful air force and rains fire on a population already suffering from a "total blockade that has lasted a decade," as France 24 put it.
For example, following a question from Badawi as to whether he had contemplated violent acts himself during his jihadist years, Husain answered:Was Anne Frank betrayed by a Jewish collaborator?
Husain: “Personally I didn’t walk the violent pathway but I remember raising funds for extremist organisations, for terrorists. Today I look back and I wonder why was I in – for example – the East London Mosque raising funds for Hamas because we saw that as the right thing to do. Now millions of…”
Badawi immediately interrupted him:
Badawi: “Hamas isn’t quite equated though with the so-called Islamic State, is it?”
Husain: “I accept that it’s not the Islamic State but it is an extremist group with a terrorist agenda and it does want to bring an end to Israel’s existence and we were supporting its martyrs who were in fact murderers and it was that, that area that was blurred from any of us and it shouldn’t be. So my concern is that many, many young Muslims are today exposed to those kinds of extremist interpretations of Islam that are taking them away from leading a peaceful, normal, coexistence-based live-and-let-live life.”
Badawi: “Yeah. We won’t talk about Hamas but of course there are many Palestinians who support it because they see it as a legitimate voice in their struggle for…erm…you know, reclaiming their territory.”
Anne Frank may have been betrayed by the infamous Nazi collaborator Anna “Ans” van Dijk, a Jewish woman who agreed to help capture other Jews in hiding in exchange for her freedom.Point of View. Sister Act: San Francisco and Haifa
In his new book, “The Backyard of the Secret Annex,” author Gerard Kremer claims that van Dijk was responsible for betraying Anne and seven other Jews in hiding behind an Amsterdam office building. According to Kremer, his late father — also named Gerard Kremer — occasionally spotted van Dijk during her visits to a Nazi office building where Kremer worked during the war. There, she supposedly met with handlers and made phone calls.
The book’s major claim is that Kremer, who died in 1978, overheard van Dijk speaking about Jews who were in hiding on the Prinsengracht, the canal where Anne’s so-called “Secret Annex” was located. The conversation allegedly took place at the beginning of August, just days before the Nazis raided the annex on August 4, 1944.
Of the eight Jews in hiding, only Otto Frank survived the Holocaust.
This is not the first time van Dijk has been named as a suspect in the betrayal of Anne Frank. As the only woman executed by Dutch authorities for collaborating with the Nazis, her name has been associated with the diarist’s arrest for decades.
Check out this striking piece of interactive public art down by the San Francisco Cruise ship terminal. There is an identical piece in Haifa.
San Francisco and Haifa, two "Cities by the Bay" have been sister cities since 1973. Today's installation of "Point of View" is just one in a series of cultural and sporting events that have tied the 2 communities together.
Matthew Passmore from Oakland's MoreLab and Israeli artist Saron Paz collaborated on the design and execution of the project.
The installations feature panoramic cameras, atop identical towers, allowing visitors in each country a glimpse into the other.
Check it out.
Mark Hamill to present an award at L.A. Israel Film Festival event
Months before the Israel Film Festival is set to open in Los Angeles, actor Mark Hamill will appear at a sponsor luncheon for the event this weekend.IsraellyCool: MUST WATCH: Some of Most Pro-Jewish & Pro-Israel Sentiments Ever Seen on Australian TV
Hamill, best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, was slated to arrive on Thursday at the event in Los Angeles, and present an “achievement in film award” to Hollywood producer and Israeli native Ram Bergman.
Bergman, originally from Rishon Lezion, was a producer on 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi and is to be involved in the franchise’s next film as well.
The luncheon will also present awards to Larry Tanz, a Netflix executive, for achievement in television, and philanthropist Stanley Black will receive the Israel Film Festival’s humanitarian award.
“As we celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary, the Israel Film Festival is proud to honor three distinguished individuals who have paved the way for groundbreaking collaborations between the US and Israel film and television industries, resulting in movies and series that reached millions of people worldwide,” said Meir Fenigstein, the founder and director of the film festival.
This is quite stunning. Ross Cameron, former Australian Liberal Party MP and now co-host of Sky News’ Outsiders with the equally philo-semitic and pro-Israel Rowan Dean, waxes lyrical about Israel and the Jewish people.
I do not recall hearing anything this pro-Jewish and pro-Israel on Australian TV ever (granted I have not lived there for over 17 years, but if there was, surely I would have heard about it!)
In any event, what a breath of fresh air from all of the anti-Israel and antisemitic things we are subjected to each and every day.