Thursday, June 21, 2018
UK defends calling Jerusalem Old City part of ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’
The British ambassador to Israel on Thursday defended describing Jerusalem’s Old City as being part of the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” in the itinerary for Prince William’s upcoming visit to Israel and the West Bank.Douglas Murray: Pressured, the Southern Poverty Law Center Admits It Was Wrong
“All the terminology that was used in the program was consistent with years of practice by British governments. It’s consistent with British government policy,” David Quarrey said.
The royal itinerary, published last week by Kensington Palace, raised some eyebrows in Israel, as it indicates that the palace considers the Old City to be Palestinian territory occupied by the Jewish state.
According to the itinerary for the June 24-28 regional visit, William — also known as the Duke of Cambridge — will travel first to Jordan, followed by Israel on June 25-27.
On June 27, “the program will shift to its next leg – the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and on June 28 Prince William — the second-in-line to the throne — will receive a “short briefing on the history and geography of Jerusalem’s Old City from a viewing point at the Mount of Olives,” Kensington Palace said.
“There’s no political message in this,” Quarrey insisted. “The Duke is not a political figure. He’ll be here to see a little bit of the country and to get to meet some of the people here. And also to get a flavor of Israel, to see what’s happening here, some of the extraordinary successes in technology, some of the great culture here. And he really wants to get under the skin of the country.”
Any free society must expect that a certain number of chancers, hucksters, and shake-down artists will prosper among them. But rarely have they come in so grossly endowed and shameless a guise as the “Southern Poverty Law Center.”Ben Shapiro: Trump Opponents Keep Comparing Trump Immigration Policy To Nazi Policy. Read A Damn Book, You Idiots.
The SPLC was founded in the 1970s, and back then it did some respectable campaigning work to target and shut down — through legal means — actually racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. All well and good, and the SPLC can still be applauded for this work. And yet students of non-profits and charities worldwide will be familiar with a certain tendency in this field, which is that such organizations rarely shut themselves down. Or, to put it another way, a charity set up to cure a disease may find a cure for that disease and yet strangely also find some reasons to continue. For of course salaries and pensions are at stake. Comfortable halos have been created. Who would want to divest themselves of the gold and glory that comes from such a sinecure? And so the charity will become, for instance, a charity to help people who once suffered from the disease that has now been cured.
So it is — though in far worse form — with the KKK and the SPLC. Of course as the KKK dwindled to an all but negligible fringe, the SPLC could not afford to bask in its victories. There was still cash to collect. Indeed more cash than ever. And who but a fool, or an honest man, would leave tens of millions of dollars on the table? So it is that in recent years the SPLC reoriented itself. It became an organization that looked into all those things that were not racist but that might be deemed right of center. It decided to look into not terrorism and racism but “extremism.” It decided, in particular, that it should become the self-appointed arbiter of what is acceptable in American life and what is unacceptable. For years the mainstream press, lazy on its memories of the SPLC’s past manifestation, indulged it in its new self-definition. Indeed for a few years the words “whom the SPLC has described as” wormed their way into some of America’s — and the world’s — most otherwise respectable and usually fact-reliant publications.
Yet the SPLC has repeatedly shown itself to be woefully unfit to perform its self-assigned task. For instance in 2015 it “designated” (as though this should have had any standing anywhere other than in the minds of the SPLC’s employees) Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson as an “extremist.” So within the space of only a few decades the SPLC moved from targeting the KKK to targeting a black conservative. Elsewhere it has attempted to anathematize multiple mainstream scholars of a conservative persuasion, including Charles Murray (no relation). About the radical Left it has shown a strange lack of interest.
In the latest in a spate of nutty posts linking an Obama-era Ninth Circuit court decision to Nazism, former CNN host Soledad O’Brien tweeted that America is on the brink of a Nazi takeover:
Welp, I guess we've put to rest the question: "Nazi Germany: Could it happen here in America?"
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) June 20, 2018
O’Brien isn’t alone with this sort of rhetoric. NPR anchor Maria Hinojosa compared the Trump policy to Nazi policy; so did Melania Trump’s former immigration lawyer; General Michael Hayden tweeted out a picture of Auschwitz; Jimmy Kimmel compared Trump’s policy to Sophie’s Choice.
To all these people I say: read a damn book once in awhile.
The policy of separating children from illegal immigrant parents who are detained criminally is the law. It was ruled upon by the Ninth Circuit in 2016, and overturned an Obama-era policy of keeping children with their parents in custody. And to argue that this law is in any way akin to Nazi policy isn’t just stupid, it’s disgusting. The Nazis weren’t particularly concerned with temporarily separating children from parents in order to supposedly protect children from the abuses of detainment (this was the Ninth Circuit’s rationale). Nor was the Nazi policy to keep children with parents in order to alleviate their suffering (the Trump administration’s newly-stated executive policy). The Nazi policy was to murder children and parents.
IsraellyCool: Africa’s Largest Trade Union (And BDS Proponent) Mixes up Their Refugees
COSATU, Africa’s largest trade union federation and a supporter of BDS against Israel, tweeted the following yesterday:Haim Saban criticizes Democratic senators for Gaza letter
Yet despite palestinian Arabs being what they claim are the “largest and longest suffering group of refugees in the world”, COSATU seems to have had a problem locating a photo of them – judging by the fact they instead used a photo of Jewish refugees from Arab lands – in a refugee absorption center.
This is two levels of fail: One, drawing attention to the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab lands (numbering approximately 850,000, more than the 650,000 palestinian refugees in 1948) and two, drawing attention to the fact the tiny, nascent country of Israel was able to absorb them while the multitude of Arab countries did not bother doing the same for the palestinian refugees (leading to the situation we have today and perpetuating the conflict).
Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban took several Democratic senators to task for signing on to a letter organized by Sen. Bernie Sanders that calls on the U.S. to “act urgently in order to help relieve the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.”Story on missing Syrian Judaica is 'inaccurate and confused'
Twelve Democratic senators and Sanders, an independent who ran for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2016, signed the letter dated May 11 that was sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It also said the Trump administration should encourage Israel to ease restrictions on Gaza.
Saban sent emails to six of the senators, along with a handful of staffers for others, expressing his “dismay” that they signed the letter, The Intercept reported Wednesday.
The Sanders letter was sent as thousands of Gazans participated in protests and riots on the border with Israel that turned violent. More than 100 Gazans have been killed by Israelis soldiers in the two months of protests, many of whom are members of the Hamas terrorist group.
“Senators, for you to listen to Senator Sanders and accuse Israel of being the main culprit is outrageous, misinformed, offensive and shows a lack of understanding of the region’s basic fundamentals,” Saban wrote in the email. “Do your homework, unless you have chosen to blindly follow Senator Sanders’ ill advised, misinformed, simplistic, and ignorant lead.”.
The veracity of an article by the Associated Press alleging that Jewish artefacts have gone missing from the Syrian synagogue of Jobar has been lambasted as 'conflated, inaccurate and confused.' The story is not in fact new and is once again dependent upon an anonymous source by the name of Al-Dimashqi.Three Wise Men
The article, by Beirut-based Bassem Mroue, quotes activists' claims that ancient parchment Torah scrolls, put into safe keeping in 2013, have gone missing:
"The main missing cache, they say, contained torahs written on gazelle leather as well as tapestries and chandeliers, and was given to a militia by a local council for safekeeping when rebels surrendered the neighborhood to government forces earlier this year. That group, the Islamist-inspired Failaq al-Rahman brigade, later said that it was not in possession of the items after the council arrived at a new rebel base in Syria’s north after evacuating earlier this year.
Another set of objects appears to have been stolen by a Syrian guardian entrusted by the local council to hide the items in his home. The man, who officials involved declined to name, disappeared with the artifacts in 2014 before some allegedly resurfaced in Turkey."
Adam Blitz, an anthropologist and expert in ancient Syrian synagogues, speaking by 'phone, was quick to point out the broader context of news coverage and to highlight reports from the BBC of deliberate cyber propaganda by the regime, notably at times of regime offensives. This is the case today, with the regime focusing not on the Ghouta, but the south. 'Cultural heritage has been weaponised and disseminated across mainstream and social media,' Blitz claims. Jewish heritage is a political football, with the regime and rebels accusing each other of the bombardment and theft of antiquities.
In mid-June, the American Jewish Committee published a study documenting just how differently American Jews and Israelis think about the Jewish condition. On Israeli security, the American president, religious pluralism, and other issues of real consequence, the gap between Israeli and American Jews is very wide.Charles de Gaulle and David Ben Gurion’s Defense of Israel
The historical sources of this divide are illuminated in Rick Richman’s eye-opening Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler. In 1940, Chaim Weizmann, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and David Ben-Gurion all made independent trips to the United States to raise a Jewish army to fight Hitler. Each mission failed. And the reasons for their failure show us that disagreements between American Jews and Israel are not new, and they are not the result of Prime Minister Netanyahu or any American president.
Britain had been the arena of Zionist diplomacy in the first years of the 20th century. But Zionist fortunes declined from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the 1937 Peel Commission to the 1939 White Paper. British foreign policy had abandoned the Jews, embraced the Arabs, and, in the moments before war really broke out, was complicit in tightening the noose around the neck of Jewish Europe.
Chaim Weizmann, the scientist turned Zionist leader, tried to reorient British policy at every turn. He was an insider, a courtier who plied his charm in the private audience of the gentleman’s club. And on Weizmann’s 1940 trip to the United States, he operated in the same style. Richman describes private meetings with Louis Brandeis, even President Roosevelt. But it was all for naught. In Britain, Neville Chamberlain had rebuffed Weizmann’s offer of military support, and he wasn’t about to try to raise a Jewish fighting force in isolationist America. So he decided to refocus his trip on fundraising and to ask the American government to pressure Britain into relaxing its immigration restrictions in Palestine.
One of the most passionate and eloquent cases for the State of Israel is virtually unknown. Prior to the Six Day War, France had been Israel’s ally, selling her advanced weaponry. After the war, French President Charles de Gaulle decided that it would be in France’s interest to befriend the Arab world instead.Progressives Justify Muslim Violence Against Women
At a press conference on November 27, 1967, he turned on Israel, calling it a “warrior state” and an “elitist, domineering people” with a “burning and conquering ambition.”
This shocking about-face by the difficult and arrogant leader resulted in a very lengthy letter to de Gaulle dated December 6, 1967 from David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister.
The letter was diplomatic and deeply respectful of de Gaulle’s outsized ego and France’s former role in Israel’s defense. Nevertheless, it powerfully presented Israel’s case in great detail. Ben Gurion benefited from his personal relationship and knowledge of de Gaulle, as well as his intimate acquaintance with the development of the State of Israel from his arrival in Palestine in 1906.
What is remarkable about the letter is the striking sweep of history, especially regarding Jewish-Christian relations, demonstrated by Ben Gurion, as well as his knowledge — from an avowedly secular Jew — of Jewish source texts including the Torah and the Prophets. In addition, his language is bold and assertive, and he reveals secret meetings he held with the highest Arab authorities before the declaration of the Jewish state in an attempt to forestall conflict.
By some miracle, 18-year-old Shuva Malka awoke in an Israeli hospital and was able to speak. She survived multiple stab wounds inflicted by a Palestinian jihadist waging the Intifada of the Knives. Her survival beat the odds.Chicago's 'Dyke March' doubles down on anti-Zionist stance
Shuva Malka’s survival will bring joy in Israel and sadness in the Palestinian territories where the murder of young Israelis is celebrated by candies for the masses and shouts of “Allahu akbar.”
The targeted knifings of young women, together with the suicide bombing of places where young people congregate, are calculated strategies of the Palestinian campaign of genocide against the Jews.
Yet, on the Left there is no condemnation of this genocide. Quite to the contrary, there is unbridled support among the identity politics chorus for anything the Palestinians do. This includes self-proclaimed “queers” announcing their support for Palestine. In Gaza or Ramallah, this behavior would result in death.
Among feminists, there is embarrassing and hypocritical silence about the targeting of Jewish women in their reproductive years.
Organizers of this year's Chicago Dyke March have announced their "solidarity with Palestine" ahead of their event this Saturday, while some Jewish members of the city's LGBTQ community have said they are afraid to attend.AS A BLACK JEWISH TRANS WOMAN, THE CHICAGO DYKE MARCH DOES NOT INCLUDE ME
The Dyke March is a self-described alternative to the "corporate, white, male-dominated Chicago Pride Parade."
Last year's June 24 event made headlines after three Jewish marchers bearing rainbow flags emblazoned with the Star of David were kicked out of the march. Palestinian flags were brandished freely at the event.
The expelled women, as well as Jewish organizations, have accused the Dyke March of anti-Semitism.
One of the Jewish women booted from the event, Laurel Grauer, told the Chicago Reader that she does not plan on attending Saturday's march.
"I don't want to go if there's only going to be agitation," she said. "I feel like I'm a well-documented Jewish lesbian Zionist at this point so I don't need to be in a parade for it for people to know."
On June 23, the Chicago Dyke March, a woman-focused alternative to the main Pride celebrations in the city, is set to happen. Lesbians, bisexual women, and other women who love women would expect such an event to be a comforting safe space for them; however, last year proved in a very definite way that it is not a safe space for Jewish women.In Sweden, Jews and Muslims united around Israeli flags at a gay pride parade
As a black Jewish trans woman, I am often asked to participate and show up for events for marginalized women, and I was asked by an acquaintance to attend this one. But my aversion to the Chicago Dyke March should be quite understandable.
In 2017, organizers of the Chicago Dyke March ejected several Jewish lesbians from the event. Their crime? Why, they were expelled for waving rainbow flags emblazoned with the Star of David! There is an unfortunate number of people in leftist circles who conflate the Star of David with Israel: an assumption that one can only come to by completely ignoring history. The Star of David is indeed on the national flag for Israel, but there is a reason for that: it has existed as the symbol for Judaism since the 13th century. To conflate the two is to say that Israel represents all Jews, and that is quite simply not the case. Many anti-Zionists proudly wear Star of David jewelry (myself included). We will not allow for the actions of Israel to dictate how we express ourselves as Jews.
In the immediate aftermath of this awful event, many people gave the Chicago Dyke March the benefit of the doubt. Not long after this, their official Twitter account told us everything we needed to know. On July 13, 2017, @DykeMarchChi tweeted “Zio tears replenish my electrolytes!”
“Zio” is an anti-Semitic term made popular by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and is used hundreds of times on his personal website. He is also known for employing the slur in rants (including “CNN, Goldman Sachs, and the Zio Matrix” as well as “Zio Control of Hollywood”).
This city is not the best place to fly rainbow flags emblazoned with a Star of David.Morning Star newspaper deletes article that blamed 'Israel's crimes' for rising antisemitism
Its crime rate — among the highest in Scandinavia — and a large Muslim community make Malmo a flashpoint rife with interethnic and religious tensions. It is also notorious for its high rate of anti-Semitism, including harassment of Jewish leaders, attacks on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, and anti-Semitic chants at protests.
That’s why Barbara Posner, one of Malmo’s approximately 1,000 Jews, was slightly apprehensive when she joined the Jewish contingent at the city’s gay pride parade earlier this month. It didn’t help that the event fell on one of the hottest days of the year and at the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month when Muslims fast daily between sunrise and sunset.
“I had some concerns, yes, but not enough to keep me away,” Posner, 66, said about the June 10 event. “I think it’s important Malmo’s Jews take an active part in all of the city’s major events, our backs straight and proud of our identity.”
It was the third consecutive year that local Jews organized their own group inside the parade, complete with flags bearing Jewish symbols and Israeli music blasting from a large trolley speaker that one participant, a Christian supporter of Israel, had schlepped all the way from Stockholm.
Posner’s apprehension was partly justified.
LANSMAN TO DISCUSS CORBYN ANTI-SEMITISM “SMEARS” IN TEL AVIVA far-left newspaper, for which Jeremy Corbyn has previously written, is at the centre of an antisemitism row after it blamed "Israel's crimes" for the rise in Jew-hate.
The Morning Star published an article headlined 'Rising anti-semitism cannot be tackled without addressing Israel’s crimes’ but later removed it from their website.
Campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) demanded a "full apology" and called on Mr Corbyn to condemn it.
The article said “mainstream Jewish communities everywhere... appear unwilling to accept the connection between developing international anti-semitism (or anti-Israel sentiment) and Israel's decades long … acts of barbarism”.
It continued: "No amount of protestations about the symptoms of rising anti-semitism or anti-Israel sentiment in Britain and elsewhere will end the problem until its root cause — Israel’s criminal behaviour — is dealt with.”
Momentum supremo Jon Lansman will tonight defend Jeremy Corbyn over the Labour Party’s anti-semitism scandal at an event in Tel-Aviv. Lansman will speak at the Tel-Aviv office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, an organisation connected with Germany’s far-left party Die Linke. The promo reads:LABOUR PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE POSTED ABOUT “HOLOCAUST-MONGERS”, DEFENDED JACKIE WALKER
“In Israel, the media often portrays Corbyn as a controversial figure. Israeli establishment politicians – including from the local Israeli Labour Party – launched a barrage of smears and accusations against him, assisted by uncritical journalists in the media. Both his positions on Israel and Palestine, as well as the question of antisemitism within his Party, featured prominently in the attempts to blacken his image.”
They seem to have forgotten Corbyn’s position that anti-Semitism is not a smear…
Earlier this week Labour’s parliamentary candidate in the marginal seat of North Swindon was forced to distance herself from a Twitter account which sent a string of shocking anti-Semitic tweets. Kate Linnegar denied all responsibility for the posts from a Swindon People’s Assembly account which used her face as the profile picture. Well, Guido has found some more posts on her personal Facebook page, which she definitely did post herself. The first link to an interview with Norman Finkelstein accuses moderate Labour MPs who criticised Naz Shah over her anti-Semitism scandal of being “Holocaust-mongers”, and defends Shah and Ken Livingstone.Western Taxpayers Support “Islamic Relief” Despite Its Ties to Jihad
The second link defends Jackie Walker, who was twice suspended by Labour for anti-Semitism:
Are Labour going to do anything about this clearly awful candidate in a key marginal?
A new Middle East Forum report reveals that Islamic Relief, a “charity” supported by European and American governments, finances Hamas front organizations."PCUSA Stands By While Palestinian Activist Harassed by Extremist"
MEF calls for an immediate cessation of all taxpayer funding to Islamic Relief and a detailed inquiry into its activities.
Founded in 1984 in Birmingham, England, Islamic Relief, with branches in over 20 countries, is the largest Islamic charity in the West. It has received at least $80 million over the past ten years from Western governments and international bodies, including the United Nations. It received more than $700,000 from U.S. taxpayers during the past two years. Its officials are members of government advisory panels, while Western cabinet ministers, Eurpoean royalty, and Trump administration officials speak at its events.
Islamic Relief is, however, banned in both Israel and the United Arab Emirates because of links to terror. The MEF report, Islamic Relief: Charity, Extremism and Terror, confirms its ties to extremism in the West and to terrorism-linked groups in the Middle East.
Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid was harassed and accused of being a “traitor,” a “spy” and a collaborator after criticizing Palestinian elites at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA currently being held in St. Louis, Missouri.IsraellyCool: A-Ha “We Disagree With Their [BDS’] Way of Doing Things”
These accusations, which, in Palestinian society, could be used to justify violence against Eid, were leveled by Palestinian American activist Bassem Masri, who was attending the proceedings at the invitation of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church, a PCUSA institution with a long history of promoting hostility toward Israel and its Jewish supporters in the United States.
Curiously enough, Masri himself videotaped himself harassing Eid and then posted the videos on Twitter. In the videos, which were posted on Twitter on Monday June 18, 2018, Masri can be heard accusing Eid of betraying the Palestinian people. In one video, Masri calls Eid, “a f-----g collaborator,” a “piece of s—t” and a “sympathizer with the Zionists.” In another video, Masri calls Eid gasus — Arabic for spy. “He speaks on behalf of the Jewish lobby,” Masri said.
These accusations could very well incite people to harm Eid, a regular speaker in the United States, upon his return home. (Eid divides his time between East Jerusalem and Jericho.) “People will watch the video where I am called a traitor. This is a clear call to kill me,” Eid said.
Yesterday I posted about Norwegian pop band A-ha’s anti-BDS comments at a press conference in Israel. In an interview with Israel’s Walla!, they have made similar comments opposing BDS, with lead singer Morten Harket also speaking about a connection with Israel.
IsraellyCool: Shashi Naidoo’s Awkward Press Conference with BDS South Africa
I mentioned earlier today how South African celebrity Shashi Naidoo had seemingly capitulated under the weight of all the death threats she was receiving in the wake of her pro-Israel comments. This capitulation was to include a press conference with BDS South Africa.South African Jews protest spike in viciously anti-Semitic rhetoric
Here is video from the press conference. I may be wrong, but to me, Shashi Naidoo looks to me like a caged animal, saying things almost robotically, as if she has been coached. The word “hostage” comes to mind.
Note how she is introduced by the BDS-hole who claims they are not into “mind control” – before he seemingly whispers instructions to her.
Did you also notice the caged animal look at the end of her speech?
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies protested Thursday what it said was a huge spike of anti-Semitic and threatening messages, in social media and in face-to-face encounters, over the previous 24 hours.UKMW prompts correction to Financial Times claim that Gazans are rarely granted medical exit visas
SAJBD Chairman Shaun Zagnoev said that while anti-Semitism was not uncommon, the latest comments were far more inflammatory than usual, and said extremist anti-Israel expressions had crossed over into vicious attacks on Jews.
“The posts show how easily radical anti-Israel sentiment can spill over into hateful slurs and threats against Jewish people in general,” he said in a statement. “We are being told that we are ‘scum,’ ‘rats,’ ‘bastards,’ ‘pigs,’ ‘swine,’ and ‘fat-nosed f***ks.’ We are further being warned that ‘our time is coming’ and that ‘the Holocaust will be a picnic after we are done with you.’”
The statement cited several incidents, including a tweet from one user, Matome Letsoalo, that said the Board of Deputies should be “decimated.”
In addition, travelers from Tel Aviv were verbally abused as they arrived at OR Tambo International Airport near Johannesburg on Thursday.
A Financial Times article published on June 20th focusing on Israel’s battle with kite bombs launched from Gaza included the erroneous claim that Israel has prevented Palestinians in the strip from leaving “except for a few medical emergencies”.Honest Reporting: UK Parliament’s Fake News Inquiry Publishes HR Submission
In fact, tens of thousands of Gazans each year are issued permits to cross the border to receive medical care in Israel and PA hospitals – not to mention the thousands of permits issued to Gazans to cross the border for other humanitarian and economic reasons.
We immediately tweeted the journalist, Mehul Srivastava, alerting him to the error and providing statistics that UK Media Watch had received previously from COGAT, the Israeli authority responsible for coordinating humanitarian crossings from the Palestinian territories into Israel.
We submitted a brief overview of this phenomenon to the Parliamentary inquiry in February 2018 around the same time as Professor Richard Landes, an expert on “Pallywood,” the staging of scenes by Palestinian journalists in order to present the Palestinians as hapless victims of Israeli aggression.New York Times Describes CAIR as ‘Civil Rights Group’
Disturbingly, however, while other submissions appeared on the Parliamentary inquiry’s website within a short time of being submitted, neither Professor Landes’ nor HonestReporting’s were published online. It was particularly notable that submissions from students and schoolchildren were being published despite a clear lack of expertise on the issue. (It is, of course, a positive aspect of the inquiry that anyone can contribute.)
But no sign of ours.
Is it a coincidence that two submissions dealing with fake news as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were seemingly being ignored by the Parliamentary inquiry’s staff?
Only after the intervention of UK Lawyers For Israel, a voluntary organization of lawyers who support Israel using their legal skills, were the submissions published.
It is unpleasant to contemplate the possibility that the organs of UK democracy may have interfered with the right to be heard and that it took a lawyer’s letter to rectify this.
A long New York Times feature article and photo essay about “American Muslims and Their Guns” describes the Council on American-Islamic Relations as “a national civil rights group.”Revisiting a 2014 BBC report by Jon Donnison
That’s biased language. It’d be more accurate to call the organization an advocacy group, or to omit the description. The same Times article, demonstrating a double standard, refers to the National Rifle Association without describing the NRA as a “civil rights group,” even though the NRA exists in part to defend the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“Civil rights” are something that everyone is supposed to be for. If you oppose them, it probably makes you a racist or something else terrible. The civil rights movement was a heroic example of America at its best.
Readers may recall that four years ago the BBC’s Jon Donnison reported on the death of a Palestinian man while concealing the fact that he was a member of a proscribed terror organisation and portraying him instead as a ‘charity worker’.
Readers may recall that in July 2017 the BBC’s Stephen Sackur cited a UNICEF report based on information produced by DCI-Pal that he described to BBC audiences as “saying the ill-treatment of children who came into contact with the military detention system in the West Bank appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised”.
The article continues:
“DCI-P employee Hashem Abu Maria was hailed as a leader of the PFLP, after he was killed by the IDF in a violent confrontation in Beit Umar in July 2014. DCI-P director Rifat Odeh Kassis spoke at Abu Maria’s memorial service, surrounded by PFLP flags and posters.
The PFLP wrote on its website that Abu Maria “was in the ranks of the national liberation struggle and the PFLP from an early age, arrested several times, and was a model for a steadfast struggler and advocate for the rights of our people through his work in Defense for Children International.””
Four years after its initial appearance, Jon Donnison’s 2014 filmed report – “West Bank Palestinians politically divided, but united in anger” – is still available online. No effort has been made to amend it in order to clarify to BBC audiences that the man sympathetically described only as a charity worker was also a member of a terror organisation.
Theodor Herzl Depicted as Satan in Egyptian Ramadan TV Show Featuring "People of Evil" pic.twitter.com/7Xz5zEJDpU
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 21, 2018
WATCH: Man goes on antisemitic rant at Johannesburg airport
It was a welcome to South Africa that passengers disembarking from an El Al flight from Tel Aviv at O.R. Tambo Airport near Johannesburg will never forget.Making Beautiful Food and Music: The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Trip to Israel
While they waited for their bags at the luggage carousel, a man began screaming: “You are wicked... the Jews are wicked people, the Jews are very wicked people.”
“To assist with the water [crisis] in Cape Town, you were rejected because you are wicked.... Tell your government to change, we are not Palestinians,” he shouted, adding again, “They are wicked people.”
Dylan Rendel, who witnessed and filmed the incident, said it was “extremely scary.”
“We were all just standing there waiting around, and the next minute there was just this screaming and shouting – loud and abusive. Everyone was just so shocked as to what was happening. This person started making racial comments and then started attacking the Jews. Her didn’t attack Israel, he was attacking the Jews. It was blatant antisemitism.”
A delegation of 60 donors from the Philadelphia Jewish Federation traveled to Israel this month with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which played three concerts there from June 1 to June 7. Wildly popular Israeli-American chef Michael Solomonov, best known for his award-winning cookbooks and acclaimed restaurants in Philadelphia, also accompanied the tour.Ringo lands in Israel with message of 'peace and love'
David Gold, a member of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s Board of Trustees, told JNS the trip was an example “of how Philadelphia has become a center of extraordinary Jewish communal life in America.”
Gold maintained that what distinguishes the Philadelphia Federation from other Jewish federations in North America is its success in simultaneously building and funding its Jewish community, co-branding itself with the likes of the local symphony, building cultural ties with non-Jews, combating BDS, and finding creative ways to support Israel.
This creativity, said Melissa Greenberg, Chief Development Officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, led to the idea of this multifaceted trip that included Solomonov, Federation philanthropists, and musicians who had never been to Israel. “Both music and food reflect humanity; [they] tie people back to the essence of Israel and its people,” she said.
Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr landed in Israel Thursday afternoon ahead of two planned concerts on June 23 and 24 at the Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv.Eurovision star Barzilai kicks off WeWork's awards for Israeli start-ups
Starr arrived in the country and sent his fans a message of "Peace and Love," inviting them to attend the Saturday and Sunday shows.
He will become the second – and final – former Beatle to perform in Israel, after Paul McCartney took the honors with a monumental show at Yarkon Park in 2008. Ex-bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison died, in 1980 and 2001, respectively, without having made it to the Promised Land.
Starr’s 13th iteration of his AllStarr Band, which debuted in 1989, will feature Men at Work’s guitarist/singer Colin Hay, keyboardist Graham Gouldman of 10cc, Toto’s guitarist Steve Lukather and Journey’s bassist Gregg Rolie, along with percussionists Warren Ham and Gregg Bissonette.
When the winner of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, Netta Barzilai, performs for your company, you know you’ve made it big.Eilat hopes tourism infrastructure will make it Eurovision host city
On Wednesday, WeWork – the Israeli-founded communal workspace giant that has grown into a multi-billion-dollar real estate phenomenon – gave away more than $770,000 to eight Israeli start-ups and non-profits in a Jerusalem awards ceremony.
All companies received prizes in multiples of 18 – a spiritual number in Judaism which symbolizes chai, or “life.”
Jerusalem-based start-up MonitHer – which is developing a handheld ultrasound device for women to use at home to monitor for the early detection of breast cancer – garnered first-place prize, taking home $360,000.
Its founder, Yehudit Abrams, came up with the idea as she was working for NASA, looking into using ultrasound to monitor astronauts headed on long, space-bound journeys.
MonitHer’s software has already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, according to WeWork, and the start-up is now working on its hardware prototype.
As Israeli authorities begin looking for a venue for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, the southern resort city of Eilat is stepping up its efforts to be chosen as the host.Roman Abramovich helps bring sick Israeli kids to World Cup
Israel won the right to host next year's Eurovision after Israeli singer Netta Barzilai won the 2018 pop contest in Lisbon, Portugal, with her catchy techno-dance tune "Toy."
Israel has hosted the event twice before in Jerusalem, in 1979 and 1999.
While Jerusalem or Tel Aviv are the likely favorites to host the competition this time around, under the European Broadcasting Union's rules, a final decision will be made after an official tender is issued and cities submit their bids.
According to a source involved in the Eilat bid, the city hopes to convince organizers it is up to the task by constructing a new arena in its port. The plan would see the creation of a large performance hall through the merging two hangars totaling some 86,000 square feet.
Such a rapid repurposing of buildings is not unheard of. Azerbaijan built a dedicated arena in less than a year ahead of the 2012 contest. Two years later, Denmark also converted a shipping yard into a performance hall in less than 12 months.
Eilat also plans to woo officials by highlighting its unique infrastructure.
As hundreds of thousands of soccer fans are flocking to Russia to attend games at the World Cup, a special group of Israelis is also taking in the sites and sounds at the exciting international competition.
A group of 35 Israeli children with special needs or illnesses - organized by the NGO Fulfilling Dreams - arrived in Moscow on Sunday ready to take in some of the most buzzed-about games of the tournament.
"Thank you so much to all who supported us, donated and made possible the journey of 'Fulfilling Dreams' to the 2018 World Cup," the group wrote on Facebook before flying to Moscow.
The NGO - founded and run by UK native Gilad Salter - has one donor in particular to thank: Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich.
Fulfilling Dreams told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that Abramovich, who recently received Israeli citizenship, gave the group NIS 320,000 towards the costs. The NGO said overall it spent NIS 750,000 on the trip, the rest of which was made up from other donors and crowd-funding efforts.
This isn't Abramovich's first time donating to Fulfilling Dreams. In 2016, the billionaire helped send 55 children associated with the NGO to the Euro Championship in France.
