Monday, June 04, 2018
When Democrats embrace an anti-Semite
In both cases, Democrats have made a meal of this embarrassing situation, despite the fact that the GOP in both California and Illinois has condemned and disowned these candidates, who have no more chance of being elected to Congress than they have of flying to the moon.Women’s March Co-Founder Condemns Founding of Israel as ‘Human Rights Crime’
But what’s going on in the Virginia district that just so happens to include Charlottesville is something very different.
The Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia’s Fifth District is Leslie Cockburn, an author and film producer who is presenting herself to the voters as nothing more than an ardent liberal critic of Trump. But far from a garden-variety Democrat, Cockburn is a veteran left-wing propagandist with a troubling history of anti-Israel extremism.
Along with her husband, Andrew, Cockburn was the author of 1991 book Dangerous Liaisons: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship. The book was a compendium of conspiracy theories and smears that sought to depict Israel as manipulating U.S. foreign policy. The Cockburns weren’t content to feed the notion that Jews were the tail wagging the American dog to the detriment of American interests. Instead, they sought to blame Israel for a host of international problems, including South American drug cartels, Central American massacres and apartheid in South Africa.
As no less a critic of Israel than The New York Times noted in its review of the book at the time, it was dedicated to “Israel bashing for its own sake,” and that its message was that Israelis “are a menace” who are responsible for “everything that ails us.”
Women's March co-founder Tamika Mallory said during an event Friday that Israel committed a human rights crime in doing "whatever" it took to take land from Palestinians.
"This is not about stopping one side. This is about ensuring that the native people are able to enjoy the land. They shouldn’t have to ask anybody for their land. This is their land," Mallory said in remarks made via video at an event hosted by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Justice Delegation, and flagged by The Forward.
Mallory, who joined the group of lawyers and civil rights activists on a trip to the Holy Land last month, accused Israel of obtaining the land by force.
"When you go to someone’s home and you need a place to stay, you ask ‘Can I come into your home and can I stay here, and can we peacefully coexist?’ You don’t walk into someone else’s home, needing a place. It’s clear you needed a place to go – cool, we got that! I hear that!" Mallory began.
"But you don’t show up to somebody’s home, needing a place to stay, and decide that you’re going to throw them out and hurt the people who are on that land. And to kill, steal, and do whatever it is you’re gonna do to take that land! That to me is unfair. It’s a human rights crime," she added.
Memo to @TamikaMallory, Jews didn’t just need “a place to go” after the Holocaust, we had a right to our ancestral home & created a democracy w/full rights for all citizens. Your malevolence toward Jews is rivaled only by your complete ignorance of history https://t.co/uouEZ9ipsc
— AJC (@AJCGlobal) June 3, 2018
J Street Chapters Aiding BDS Campaigns on Campuses
Campus branches of the liberal group J Street have been helping anti-Israel activists gain support for student government resolutions calling for boycotts of Israel, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of BDS campaigns on college campuses during the recently concluded 2017-2018 school year.
At many schools where boycott and divestment campaigns have taken place, J Street chapters provided key assistance to BDS activists through statements, lobbying, and activism that fueled the anti-Israel climate on campus and reinforced accusations against Israel made by BDS groups. Despite J Street claims that the group is an important progressive opponent of BDS, at many schools J Street chapters did not oppose BDS campaigns and sat on the sidelines during contentious fights over student government divestment resolutions.
The revelations, compiled from Free Beacon interviews with campus activists and pro-Israel professionals who fought BDS resolutions this year, call into question the group's publicly claimed opposition to the BDS movement. Catie Stewart, deputy director of J Street U, recently boasted that her organization "does not support Israel Apartheid Week or BDS campaigns and joins anti-BDS coalitions." This year's campus fights suggest a different record.
At the University of Minnesota, where a BDS referendum succeeded in March, a pro-Israel coalition launched a campaign to oppose the vote. J Street U refused to participate in the effort, instead releasing a statement condemning the campus Hillel for being insufficiently anti-Israel. The president of J Street U at UMN, Imogen Page, is a donor to Jewish Voice for Peace, a BDS group that endorses terrorism and calls for Israel's destruction. Page was seen handing out anti-Israel flyers during the voting period of the referendum. Weeks later, she was arrested for disorderly conduct during an anti-Israel protest staged by a different BDS group.
This Ongoing War: 01-Jun-18: On watching our child's killer
Imagine what it must be like to endure a loved child's violent death and then see the killer's face in front of you: unhindered, alive, well, thriving, a celebrity boasting to others about what a blessed thing she did.Swedish Minister to PA Arabs: We will fight with you and for you
Not such a common thing but in our case it doesn't take much imagination. It's part of our lives, a stressful and painful matter of routine.
The name of Ahlam Tamimi, our daughter Malki's murderer, will be familiar to people who follow our blog. Tamimi was convicted on her open confession for the central role she had in the 2001 massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. She was sentenced by an Israeli judicial tribunal to 16 consecutive terms of life imprisonment. But she walked free in October 2011 - not because she was pardoned, not because she repented, not because the court changed its mind.
She was a beneficiary of the catastrophic Shalit Deal which brought about the unwarranted (and eventually lethal) release from Israeli top security prisons of no fewer than 1,027 Arab terrorists, the majority of whom were there for having killed or tried to kill Israelis and/or Arabs.
Two days after her release, Tamimi was re-settled in her homeland, Jordan. Shortly after that, we started work on asking the US government to bring serious charges against her under its laws. Our daughter Malki was a US citizen.
Sweden’s foreign minister told Palestinian Arabs that her country will “fight with you and for you,” prompting pro-Israel activists to accuse her of encouraging violence against Israelis.Wallstrom, Palestinian activist fighting against Israel
Margot Wallstrom, whom Israel has accused of pursuing hostile policies against the Jewish state, made the pledge last month during a visit to an exhibition at the Palestinian Authority representative’s office in Stockholm.
“You know how much we care about Palestine, you know that we will continue to hopefully fight with you and for you,” Wallstrom said, adding: “And we will fight for a two-state solution, we will remain a close friend.”
The Sweden-Israel Friendship Association said in a statement last week that Wallstrom’s language, which is unusual for a top diplomat of a major member of the European Union, suggests that “the government of Sweden has placed itself on the ‘Palestinian’ side in their armed struggle to wipe out Israel.”
But a spokesperson for Wallstrom told JTA that her referencing of “fighting” was for “a negotiated two-state solution,” and that the “security of both Israel and Palestine is fundamental to Sweden.”
Sweden is the only country in the European Union that recognizes a state it calls Palestine.
In her speech Wallstrom added: ”Maybe these maps could be realized. But they also represent history, they represent something that was and that has to be recognised by everybody. This is where we come from, this was our land.”The Myth of America’s Middle East Malfeasance
What is Wallstrom saying here? Well, there should be no doubts that Wallstrom is trying to satisfy her new fanbase by hinting that those Palestinian maps which have erased Israel and replaced it with an Arab Palestine should be recognised by everybody, including Israelis.
She is also hinting that the Palestinian maps have the right borders while Israel moves the borders and changes conditions on the ground, in the land that according to the Palestinian narrative once was Palestinian.
However we must be clear that there has never ever been a Palestinian state and consequently there have never been any Palestinian borders and no such borders to move. It is up to the Israelis and the Arab Palestinian individuals to decide through a future peace deal if there ever will be any Palestinian borders.
In case someone wasn’t sure of her government’s devotion to the Palestinian cause, Wallstrom also spoke about mobilizing friends of Palestine and stated: "You know how much we care about Palestine, you know that we are a friend of Palestine, that we will continue to hopefully fight with you and for you and we will fight for a two-state solution."
Wallstrom is as full of contradictory statements as she is full of Palestinian propaganda. First she talks about recognizing the maps she has seen on her trips in the Palestinian territories, maps that she knows have erased Israel and replaced it with a Palestinian one-state solution. Then she talks about fighting for a two-state solution.
This is a contradiction. Wallstrom talks like a Palestinian activist. Which country does she represent if she will fight with and for the Palestinian Arabs? It surely is not Sweden.
According to a pervasive academic narrative, many journalists, and the rhetoric of the Obama administration, the woes of the Middle East since World War II have been shaped by wrongheaded and even disastrous American meddling. George Simpson, Jr. argues that this is all wrong, bringing evidence from the U.S. role in the creation of Israel, the 1953 Iranian coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and the Six-Day War:The Dangerous Perversion of "Genocide": Israel's Critics Distort a Crucial Term
The conventional view wrongly inverts Washington’s Middle East policy and the nature of its relations with local allies. Not only have Middle Eastern actors not been hapless pawns of foreign powers, but they have been active and enterprising free agents pursuing their own goals and agendas, often beyond Washington’s control and at times against its wishes. . . .
The roots of what Jean-François Revel termed “the theory of American guilt in all things” can be traced to the late-19th and early-20th centuries when U.S. diplomats, missionaries, and educators first ventured to the Middle East. These “Arabists” generally held sympathetic views of the cultures and people among whom they lived. While their dominance in the foreign service waned in the wake of World War II, they have retained a profound impact on the Department of State—consistently the most pro-Arab governmental organ. This influence has been further reinforced by a powerful pro-Arab lobby comprising oil companies, lobbyists in the employ of Saudi Arabia, other Arab or Muslim governments, and non-Arab special-interest groups, like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Iranian American Council, that seek to influence U.S. policies and American public opinion. . . .
[Profoundly] misconstrued are standard criticisms of Washington’s supposedly escalatory role in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Thus, for example, the political scientist William Quandt contended that President Lyndon Johnson “abandoned the policy of making an all-out effort to prevent war” between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, instead allowing the Israelis to understand “that they could take action without worrying about Washington’s reaction.” Noam Chomsky took this charge a big step further by describing the war as “the U.S.-backed Israeli victory in 1967.”
What is paradoxical in this case is that both the Eisenhower and the Kennedy administrations had repeatedly tried to woo the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser over to the West, only to find their unrequited advances spurned. The two presidents were thus forced to watch Moscow arming Egypt (as well as Syria and Iraq) to the teeth, endangering Israeli security, and upsetting the regional balance of power. As an unintended consequence of this development, Washington gradually consolidated its relations with Jerusalem.
In fact, notes Simpson, the U.S. has been the leading force in pressuring Israel to make territorial concessions, whether with Egypt, Syria, or the Palestinians.
Turkish President Erdogan has claimed that Israel engaged in "genocide" in Gaza. While I acknowledge the suffering of the Gazan people, I feel equally bound to recognize the unfairness of this charge. Genocide is a legal concept with a legal meaning, and it has no possible application here. Any claim to the contrary is, as we lawyers say, frivolous and dangerously perverts the true meaning of this truly critical term.Has Silicon Valley's Ro Khanna swallowed the kool-aid?
The word "genocide" emerged near the end of World War II in response to the Nazi policy of systematic and deliberate murder of Jews as a people. It has since also referred to the mass murder by the Turks of Armenian Christians.
Shortly after the Second World War, genocide was recognized as a crime under international law in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The crime of genocide has a narrow legal meaning. One of the requirements is the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such."
If Israel truly were guilty of that, I would be the first to cry out publicly. But it is spurious even to theorize that Israel had or has any intent to destroy Palestinians as a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.
Falsely portraying Israel - and yes, Jews - as perpetrators of genocide fosters anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. That perpetuates racial hatred and victimization of the group wrongfully accused.
It may even be used in an effort to "justify" attempts at a second genocide against the Jews by the Iranian theocracy and their henchmen (Hamas and Hizbullah) who do deliberately target Israelis and Jews as such.
Today, at Silicon Valley Congressional Representative Ro Khanna's Fremont Town Hall, Khanna effectively placed blame for the conflict at the Gaza/Israel border on Trump and Netanyahu, ignoring the role of the Iranian-funded Hamas terror .Honest Reporting: The Village Idiot: Irish Magazine’s Flawed Article
It wasn't surprising- late last month, he had posted this notice on his Facebook page.
Almost immediately, thank you posts from as far away as Ramallah began pouring in- spurred on by Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Israel groups.
Village sells itself as “Ireland’s political and cultural magazine.” Unfortunately, investigative journalist Frank Connolly demonstrates that he has done very little investigating into the facts when it comes to his article “Israel Politik: Illegal settlement.”British Labour suffers another embarrassment
Connolly’s Myth #1.
Last December, President Trump confirmed that he intended to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a move that deeply angered the Arab world while elating many Israelis who have long had their sights on ultimate control of the holy city, which has been traditionally shared by Muslim, Christian and Jewish religions.
Newsflash: Jerusalem is already under the full Israeli control and has been since 1967. And the city has not been “traditionally shared.” Only under Israeli sovereignty has it been shared by the three major monotheistic faiths thanks to Israel’s policy of freedom of worship and religion. Prior to 1967, Jews were forced out of the eastern part of Jerusalem and its Old City, preventing them from praying at their holy sites. Does this sound like “sharing”?
Connolly’s Falsehood #2.
The policy of the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) is that the right-to-return protests must be resisted with maximum force, including by the killing of unarmed activists and the maiming of thousands.
No this is not Israeli policy. The protests themselves are not being “resisted with maximum force.” The IDF’s rules of engagement have seen the use of non-lethal riot control measures including tear gas and rubber bullets to stop violent rioters from attacking Israeli forces, damaging Israeli infrastructure and attempting to breach Israel’s border fence with the intention of harming Israelis.
Where riot control methods have failed, IDF snipers have used live bullets. Those targeted have, in the main, not been “unarmed activists” but violent rioters, including those armed with firebombs, explosives and even, in some cases, firearms.
The British Labour Party suffered another blow after Jewish donor Sir David Garrard announced that he would no longer support the party in light of the ongoing anti-Semitism scandal it faces under leader Jeremy Corbyn.Rise in British anti-Semitism: Is the Conservative party government to blame?
Garrard told the Observer that the Labour Party he had supported for years "no longer exists," and that he viewed the party's inability to deal with the anti-Semitism within its ranks with “growing dismay and foreboding."
“As one of the former leading political and financial supporters of the Labour party, of which I was a member for so many decades, I no longer feel any affinity with, or connection to, what it seems to have become,” he said. “I have watched with dismay and foreboding the manner in which the leadership has, in my view, over the last two years, conducted itself."
“I consider that it has supported and endorsed the most blatant acts of antisemitism. And yet it has failed to expel many of those who have engaged in the grossest derogatory fantasies about Jewish/Zionist conspiracies – and Jewish characterizations and accusations which conjure up the very kind of anti-Semitic attacks that led to such unbearable consequences for innocent millions in the past. So there no longer exists a party which even pretends to maintain and promote the principles and the integrity of what always was, to me, the Labour party."
Garrard has contributed £1.5 million to Labour since 2003.
This was in answer to the host’s question: Is the Conservative party, which is in government, responsible for the rise in British anti-Semitism in recent years? (Tom Gross, May 29, 2018)
Disgraced Reverend Stephen Sizer, who claimed Israelis were behind 9/11, announced as speaker at pro-Hizballah parade in London
Disgraced conspiracy theorist Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer, who claimed that an Israeli conspiracy was behind 9/11, has been announced as a speaker at the annual pro-Hizballah “Al Quds Day” parade through central London on 10th June.Home Secretary Sajid Javid to formally consider proscribing Hizballah after 10,000 people from Orkney to St Ives sign CAA’s Parliamentary Petition
In February 2015, the notorious Rev. Dr Sizer was ordered by the Church of England to stop using social media after posting the conspiracy myth that Israel planned 9/11. While the Church said the material Rev. Dr Sizer posted was “clearly antisemitic”, the Daily Mail revealed that Jeremy Corbyn wrote to the Church defending Revd Dr Sizer, saying that he was being victimised because he “dared to speak out against Zionism.”
Mick Napier, the Secretary of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPCC), is another controversial figure announced as a speaker at the parade. Last year, Mr Napier was found guilty of aggressive behavior at a protest outside an Israeli-owned cosmetics store in Glasgow during the 2014 Gaza war. The SPCC has previously been exposed over many of its supporters’ extremely antisemitic views.
The “Al Quds Day” march is nothing more than a celebration of genocidal antisemitic terrorist group Hizballah. It is organised by registered charities, principally the self-annointed Islamic Human Rights Commission, which the Charity Commission has yet to open a statutory inquiry into despite repeated complaints by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has also launched a private prosecution against the leader of the march last year, Nazim Hussain Ali, after the Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute him.
As hundreds of supporters of Hizballah, the genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisation, prepare to parade through central London with Hizballah flags, over 10,000 people from 646 of the UK’s 650 Parliamentary constituencies have signed a Parliamentart Petition calling for Hizballah to be fully proscribed. The Parliamentary Petition, started by Campaign Against Antisemitism, rapidly gained 10,000 signatures after a number of days as the most popular petition on Parliament’s website.More Israel Demonizing Likely at Upcoming Presbyterian Church USA’s General Assembly
The petition was snubbed by some Jewish community organisations, but fiercely backed by figures such as Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Honorary Patron, Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, who tweeted that every British citizen should sign the petition in support of British soldiers, describing Hizballah terrorists as “animals” who “murdered and maimed British soldiers”.
Now, as one of his first acts as Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, will be required to formally and publicly respond to the Parliamentary Petition, as the Government is required to respond to any Parliamentary Petition gaining more than 10,000 signatures. If the number of signatures on the Parliamentary Petition now climbs to 100,000, a debate in the House of Commons will be triggered. The petition can be signed at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/219020.
The dangerous pro-Hizballah parade is currently permitted due to a legal loophole. Whilst the British government has proscribed the “military wing” of Hizballah under the Terrorism Act 2000, the “political wing” is not proscribed, something that even Hizballah finds ridiculous. Indeed, its Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, mocked the distinction, saying in 2012: “We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hizballah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hizballah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”
From June 16-23 the General Assembly (GA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will meet in St. Louis where delegates will consider for passage at least eight Israel-related resolutions.IsraellyCool: Antisemite Thomas Lopez-Pierre Wants Us to Believe He is a Zionist
By contrast, in terms of its Middle East coverage, the GA is slated to consider only one overture “responding to the current Syrian crisis” and one responding to the devastating humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
That the PCUSA will be allowing a “concentration of Israel-denunciatory time and energy” throughout its weeklong GA comes as no surprise. As we and others have documented, for nearly 15 years the church has engaged in this “biennial ritual” of obsessive anti-Israel delegitimization:
Presbyterian Church USA’s General Assembly Assails Israel and Abandons Christians in Middle East
ALERT: Three U.S. Churches to Vote on Anti-Israel Resolutions This Spring
As we highlighted, the GA (which takes place every even-numbered year) has long been a “regular scene of controversy” over the denomination’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The problem has emerged on account of the PCUSA’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), a small but well-organized and highly vocal group of virulently anti-Israel activists who have managed to dominate the Middle East-related agenda at the GA. There, they’ve repeatedly pushed proposals targeting Israel for condemnation and advancing the goals of the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement.
Remember Thomas Lopez-Pierre, the antisemite who ran for NY City Council in the 7th Council District last year, but got his ass handed back to him on platter?Ramadan 'Insult': French Shop Pulls Israeli Dates After Muslim Protests
Last time we heard from him, he had decided to stop using the term “greedy Jewish landlords” in his campaigning, instead finding another way to essentially say the same thing. At the time, I posted:
I can’t quite work out whether he is just trying to mess with people, or is really this stupid.
After what he just posted today, my question remains.
Hey @ADL_NY @ADL_National, I am proud to attend Israel Day Parade 2018 @CelebrateIsrael. Let’s work together to STOP the “Greedy Jewish Landlords” from pushing out Black & Hispanic tenants. Jews own 80% of multi-family housing units in Harlem/Upper Manhattan. #CelebrateIsrael. pic.twitter.com/4caJkEhyeb
— Thomas Lopez-Pierre (@VoteLopezPierre) June 3, 2018
Old and busted: Anti-Zionist-not-antisemite.
New hotness: Zionist-not-antisemite?
A French storekeeper was forced to remove Israeli dates from public display after an angry Muslim customer said they were offensive.
The dates were on a stall advertising Ramadan food and treats in the town of Chambourcy west of Paris. The video was shared by anti-Israel activists from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the Times of Israel reports.
“Israelis shoot Palestinians like rabbits,” the protester says. “I don’t want to fund Israeli killing or Israeli occupation.”
Israel’s embassy in Paris told the Ynet news site “The embassy closely follows and instances of boycott activity in France and holds continuous and intensice dialogue with businesses and law enforcement as well as the French government to stamp out the phenomenon, which is forbidden by French law.”
‘Fauda’ Creators Talk BDS, Critics, and Whether There Will Ever Be Peace
When Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff pitched their TV series about an undercover Israeli unit that hunts Palestinians preparing to launch terror attacks, Israel’s Keshet network told them to write a comedy about the conflict instead.BBC Radio 4 reframes last month’s Iranian attack on Israel
Now, the creators of the hit series Fauda — who stuck to their guns — are having the last laugh. Speaking at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to promote the release of the show’s second season, they addressed their critics, including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s call for Netflix to drop the show.
“But it was a kind of a good PR for us,” Issacharoff said.
The show, while fictional, pulls from the experiences of both Raz — who served in an undercover unit similar to the one on the show — and Issacharoff, a longtime journalist who spent a lot of time in Gaza and met with top Hamas officials.
Issacharoff said that much of the criticism he sees isn’t “about Fauda as a TV show,” but based on “a political issue with the State of Israel.”
In fact, Lieberman’s comment was made after the events of the night of May 9th/10th.BBC R4 FOOC report on Palestinian music promotes one-sided politics
Stourton did not bother to inform Radio 4 listeners that the May 8th order to open shelters on the Golan Heights came as a result of “abnormal movements of Iranian forces in Syria” – detected after a month of threats against Israel from Iran.
Neither did he bother to mention (not for the first time) the rather relevant fact that those “overnight airstrikes by Israel” were preceded by Iran having launched 32 missiles at Israel.
As we see, less than a month after it took place the BBC has reframed the incident in which Iran’s IRGC forces attacked Israel, turning it into a story in which “the Israelis launched their biggest attack yet” – and making 32 Iranian missiles completely disappear from audience view.
When he finally got round to describing the music festival itself, the earlier motif of Palestinian “national heritage” went somewhat awry.Arab assailants attack Jewish teen listening to Israeli music in Berlin
“From jazz to satirical political rock songs, Balkan-Palestinian fusion and angry hip-hop. Musicians from Gaza had been refused travel permits to attend but there was an extraordinary video from a rapper who calls himself MC Gaza filmed amid the violent and bloody ‘Great March of Return’ protests on the border with Israel.”
Denselow did not bother to tell Radio 4 listeners that the video he described as “extraordinary” advocates the destruction of Israel. Describing another band, he went on:
“‘This is the only way to fight back against the occupation’ band member Adnan Jubran commented on stage. Later he told me ‘it’s trying to delete our culture. This is how we say no’.”
Near the beginning of his report Denselow stated that one of the festival’s purposes is:
“…to give those [foreign] visitors a distinctively Palestinian view of the place and its problems.”
There can be no doubt that Denselow and the other foreign visitors got exactly that. Unfortunately however, so did BBC Radio 4 listeners – with no provision of essential context and no regard for the BBC’s supposed editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.
Arab assailants attacked a German Jewish teenager who was listening to Israeli music on his mobile phone on Saturday at the Zoologischer Garten train station in western Berlin.Illinois man indicted for painting swastikas on 200 graves
The attackers cursed the teen, identified only as a 17-year-old Berlin native called Jonathan, and threatened to kill him. When his non-Jewish friends came to his defense, they were hit by the attackers, and one sustained cuts to his face and hand from a broken bottle that required hospitalization.
"My friends and I were about to change trains," the teen told Israel Hayom. "We saw that we would have to wait a long time for the next train so we went to a nearby shop to buy bottles of beer. I was playing the song 'Tel Aviv, Ya Habibi, Tel Aviv' [a hit song by Israeli artist Omer Adam] on my phone when suddenly a group of young Arab men approached me, surrounded me and started yelling at me, 'Music in Hebrew? You've been murdering children for 70 years. Berlin is ours now and you won't listen to crappy Jewish music here.'"
An Illinois man has been indicted after he allegedly painted swastikas on more than 200 grave markers in a local cemetery in southern Illinois, and vandalized a number of local residences, cars, mailboxes, and churches.You’ve probably never heard of the world’s oldest Holocaust museum
The suspect, 34-year-old Timothy McLean, has been charged with criminal damage, vandalism, and hate crimes after he is believed to have spray painted Nazi symbols on more than 200 grave markers at the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Glen Carbon, Illinois during the Memorial Day weekend.
McLean is also suspected of vandalizing local churches with the Nazi symbol.
The cemetery is nondenominational and there was no common denominator for the gravestones that were vandalized with swastikas.
More than 1,300 veterans are buried in the cemetery and officials rushed to have the gravestones power washed ahead of Memorial Day on Monday, when a public memorial ceremony is scheduled, CBS News reported.
It is a collection as extensive as its contents are horrifying. Step behind the imposing Georgian façade which houses the Wiener Library in central London’s picturesque, tree-lined Russell Square, and one enters the world’s oldest Holocaust museum.Israel rushes emergency aid to Guatemala after volcano eruption kills 25
Eighty-five years ago this year, Alfred Wiener, a German Jew decorated with the Iron Cross in World War I, fled his homeland and established the Jewish Central Information Office in Amsterdam. Its purpose was to alert the world of the dangers posed by Germany’s new rulers.
Wiener’s decision may have been prompted by the Nazis’ recent accession to power. But he had been aware, and trying to warn his fellow countrymen of, the growing menace posed by the German far right for almost the entire period of the Weimar republic.
Indeed, soon after completing his military service in 1918, Wiener published a pamphlet, “Before Pogroms?”, which presciently argued that, if left unchecked, right-wing anti-Semitism would lead to “bestial murders and violence” and the “blood of citizens running on the pavements.”
The eruption of Guatemala's Fuego volcano has impacted at least 1.7 million peopleComings and goings shake up summer concert lineup
Israel said Monday that it would send emergency aid funding to Guatemala after the country's Fuego volcano erupted killing at least 25 people.
The Foreign Ministry said that it would immediately send $10,000 to assist in the purchase of medicine, food, and blankets for those affected by the disaster.
Guatemala was one of the few countries to side with the United States after President Donald Trump's December recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, breaking with decades of US diplomacy and international consensus.
On May 16, Guatemala opened its new embassy in Jerusalem, just two days after the US. Since then Paraguay has also followed suit.
As the summer concert scene in Israel kicks off in earnest, a variety of changes are shaking up the busy calendar.With flags and tight security, New York celebrates Israel’s 70th birthday
In the biggest news, Die Antwoord, the South African hip hop duo, has canceled its August 2 show in Rishon Lezion.
“Die Antwoord needs to reschedule the start of their tour to begin on August 4 in Belgium and unfortunately their show at Live Park Rishon on August 2 needs to be canceled,” the group told the local production company. “Ninja and Yolandi look forward to rescheduling their appearance and to once again perform in front of their amazing fans in Israel.” Ticket holders will be fully refunded by the production company.
Ahead of its 2016 show in Israel, Die Antwoord was pressured by BDS supporters to cancel, but they appeared regardless and played for close to 20,000 fans.
“Everyone be getting their f***ing panties in a knot, because like ‘Why you going to Israel? Don’t go to Israel!’” Ninja – half of the duo – said on stage in 2016. He continued by saying that he didn’t care about anything besides making music and performing for fans: “So thank you very much for having us!” Also this week, The Stranglers announced that they would be delaying their Tel Aviv show from June until October for “logistical problems.” The British rock band was scheduled to perform – for the third time in Israel – at the Barby in Tel Aviv on June 20, but will push back the show until October 16 instead. Tickets will transfer over to the new date.
And two new acts have confirmed this week that they will be heading to Israel soon – heavy metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen and British group Oi Va Voi.
Tens of thousands of Israel supporters clad in blue and white and waving Israeli flags marched up Fifth Avenue on Sunday for the annual Celebrate Israel parade, this year marked as a gala event to honor the Jewish state’s 70th birthday.
The march was led by New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Israel’s Consul General in the city Dani Dayan and Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
A number of top Israeli lawmakers also attended Sunday’s march, including Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev, Minister of Immigration and Absorption Sofa Landver, and Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis.
But it was the 40,000 marchers and masses of spectators who were the main focus.
Israeli flag cookie mosaic breaks Guinness World Record
The Jewish community of Atlanta, Georgia, has broken the Guinness World Record for the largest cookie mosaic, by building an enormous Israeli flag.Danon: We are grateful to the American people
Congregation Beth Jacob - in the presence of Michael Empric, a judge from Guinness World Records - used about 117,000 blue-and-white cookies on Sunday to assemble an Israeli flag that was more than 3,200 square feet in size.
The most recent cookie mosaic record was held by a cookie brand in Pakistan, which created a Pakistani flag in Islamabad last summer to celebrate the country's 70th birthday. That mosaic measured 2,438.15 square feet.
Before that, the record was held by culinary students in Jordan, who created a 2,013.28 square foot mosaic in the shape of the country in 2016.
The Cookies for Israel project used the event to celebrate Israel's 70th birthday and as a fund-raiser for three Israeli-based organizations: One Family Fund; United Hatzalah of Israel; and a partnership between the Atlantic Jewish community and the town of Yokneam. People were able to sponsor a cookie for $10 each and support the project and the charities. As of Monday, the project had raised just over $103,000 - falling short of its $200,000 goal.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, spoke to Arutz Sheva at the Israel Day Concert, following the 54th annual Celebrate Israel Parade in Manhattan.Watch: Times Square awash in blue and white for Israel gala
“It was a beautiful day today, to see thousands of people coming to support Israel. After a long week at the UN, where we dealt with many resolutions against Israel, we are grateful to the American people, to the Jewish community here in New York, for standing with Israel,” said Danon.
“It gives me a lot of courage to go back to the UN and to continue to represent our beautiful democracy, the State of Israel,” he added.
Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Israel gathered Sunday night in Times Square to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.
Hours after the 54th annual Celebrate Israel Parade – formerly known as the Salute to Israel Parade – during which tens of thousands of marchers made their way down Fifth Avenue from 57th Street towards 75th Street, supporters of the Jewish state gathered in Times Square for a massive outdoor celebration.
Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev (Likud) addressed the gathering, along with Israeli Consul General in New York Dani Dayan.
Also in attendance were New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon, Science Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud), and Immigration Minister Sofa Landver (Yisrael Beytenu).
Singer Shiri Maimon performed for the massive crowd, becoming the first Israeli to perform at Times Square.
