Monday, August 06, 2018
Temple University SJP Posts Column Supporting Palestinian Terrorists
The Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group is the “most ideologically clear organization in the Palestinian liberation movement,” a Temple University Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) officer wrote on Thursday. The statement appeared in a column promoted and linked to by the group.
It should be noted that the PFLP’s goal is Israel’s complete destruction.
The PFLP rejects “concessions made by the Arab misleadership class, which has supported so-called ‘peace’ agreements with Israel,” wrote Temple SJP Vice President Brandon Do. “These agreements have allowed the forces of occupation to extend deeper into Palestine and diminished chances of Palestinian liberation.”
The PFLP rose to notoriety in the 1960s and 1970s through a series of airline hijackings, including the 1976 hijacking of a Paris-bound Air France flight, which was then flown to Entebbe, Uganda. In a legendary operation, the IDF stormed Entebbe airport and rescued the hostages.
The PFLP was also responsible for a 1972 airport massacre that left 26 people dead. During the Second Intifada at the beginning of the century, several PFLP terrorists committed suicide bombings.
Brandon Do has also supported PFLP terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who played a key role in a 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two people. A 2016 picture posted by the Temple SJP chapter shows Do holding a sign calling for charges against Odeh to be dropped.
In his column, Do praised PFLP founder George Habash, who has been called the “godfather of Middle East terrorism” as an authority for “raising the Arab world’s consciousness” against Israel. He also attacked Palestinians who he claimed “sell out” their own people to Israel. The Palestinian Authority’s establishment following the 1993 Oslo Accords, he says, created a “crypto-Zionist front.”
Open Hillel’s Latest Initiative Shows Its Indifference toward Anti-Semitism
The campus organization Open Hillel aims to reform the rules followed by campus Hillel houses that prohibit partnership with certain organizations, specifically those that endorse boycotts of Israel. While Open Hillel claims that its goal is to make Hillel more inclusive, its real objective seems to be to make it more anti-Israel, or to shut it down completely, as evidenced by a recent amicus brief submitted by Open Hillel in favor of San Francisco State University (SFSU). SFSU is currently being sued by Jewish students who claim that it has done nothing to stem the tide of anti-Semitism on its campus, including a decision by a university civil-rights fair to exclude the school’s Hillel chapter from participating. David Schraub comments:A response to David Grossman
The argument [in the brief] was striking: the [school’s] deliberate targeting of Hillel for exclusion from campus life . . . should not even be seen as potential evidence plausibly suggesting anti-Semitism. Open Hillel’s view is that attempts to shut out and shut down Hillel cannot be considered anti-Semitism because not all Jews are represented by Hillel. [Thus] Open Hillel seems indifferent to how excluding Hillel from university activities would impact the many Jews for whom Hillel occupies a central role in campus Jewish life. It is entirely reasonable for these Jews to perceive efforts to target Hillel for isolation and expulsion as a denial of their equal standing on campus. . . .
Open Hillel . . . could have very easily asserted that while debates over Hillel International’s policies are both desirable and legitimate, debates over whether the primary space for Jewish communal life on campus should be expunged are not. Such a position would have been easily harmonized with Open Hillel’s putative commitments to pluralism and open engagement. After all, how can Hillel be “open” to a campus that refuses to allow it in the door?
Instead, Open Hillel actively chose to align itself with groups who seek to drive Hillel from campus outright. It is not just at SFSU, either—from Cal Poly to Stony Brook to the University of Ottawa, campus activists have grown increasingly emboldened in asserting that Hillel’s association with Israel necessitates that it be isolated and if possible extirpated from the university setting entirely. This has historical precedent as well: it chillingly echoes the concerted campaign in the 1970s and 80s to ban Jewish Societies from British campuses on account of their alleged “intrinsic racism.” . . .
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It's not pleasant to watch writer David Grossman puff his feathers in indignation. But has he ever missed an opportunity to hurl public accusations against Israel? Grossman takes every crime by a police officer, soldier, or civilian – provided that it is perpetrated against a Palestinians – and makes it a universal issue to use in collectively blaming the State of Israel and the Israeli people. But this time it feels untruthful, like someone is standing behind him, holding a hair dryer to make sure that he puffs photogenically.
Again, we have the same torrents of words, backed up by demagogy, lies, and fictions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Grossman writes, "has made the decision not to end the occupation or the apartheid situation in the [Palestinian] territories. The opposite – [he has decided to] deepen them and bring them from the occupation into the State of Israel. In other words – this law [the nation-state law] effectively gives up on any chance of ever ending the conflict with the Palestinians."
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A few weeks ago, I heard this argument from a friend. I was surprised. I didn't understand where he had gotten this, because it is well-known that one of the reasons for enacting the Basic Law: was so that when a peace deal with the Palestinians is made, there will be a law in place that curtails the Palestinians' right to self-determination.
Does Grossman oppose self-determination for the Palestinians? Of course not. He and his friends, intellectuals and writers – alive and dead – blindly support the Palestinians' right to self-determination, but are seized with fear when the Jews seek to ratify that right for themselves, in their own laws. Why are we asking the Palestinians to recognize us as the Jewish state if Grossman and his pals are so afraid of the law and making up stories that Israel is racists? The late Yehoshefat Harkabi, a former head of Military Intelligence, opined his entire life that Israel underestimates the power and influence of the enemy's guiding ideology. He was referring to the Muslim Arabs' hatred of Israel, but also to the lack of understanding on the Left – from Grossman to Yitzhak Rabin – that to the Palestinians, a right to self-determination means a right to the entire country, without recognizing any border. The nation-state law was designed, among other things, to limit the Palestinians' struggle for self-determination.(h/t steelraptor from Saturn)
Why Do Christians Love Israel? What I Learned.
When I met in Nov. 2015 with Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), I was a reporter for the Jewish Journal. It’s a widely-read Jewish newspaper whose readership at the time trended to the left politically and religiously.MEMRI: Yemeni-Egyptian Liberal Dr. Elham Manea: 'I Went To Israel And Don't Regret It'; Peace With It Is Possible
I had a vague idea of what I hoped would develop into a big story. A story exploring why so many Christians are so passionate about Israel and the Jewish people. More passionate and more financially generous, in fact, than many Jews.
Why?
I didn’t know know why.
But I knew that one common explanation — that Christian support for Israel stems from the eschatological belief that the Jews’ return to the Holy Land will lead to the rapture — seemed simplistic.
But let’s say that were Christians’ motivation. What was the basis? Was it scriptural? That was the deeper why I was searching for.
I came to this story with some uninformed assumptions of my own. For one: my image of the typical pro-Israel evangelical Christian. A friend once told me about a drive through rural Texas in which he came across a house that had a tall flagpole waving a massive flag of Israel.
These were not Jews.
Liberal Yemeni-Egyptian writer Dr. Elham Manea, who resides in Switzerland where she lectures on political science at the University of Zurich and is a member of Switzerland's Federal Commission for Women's Affairs, wrote an article published July 27, 2018 on the liberal Arab website Ahewar.org and titled "If We Are Not The Emissaries Of Peace, Who Will Be? I Went To Israel And I Don't Regret [It]."Melanie Phillips: UK Jewish community leaders lose the plot on antisemitism, hate and lies
In the article, Dr. Manea stated that she had visited Israel and told of her pleasantly surprising and reassuring experience with passport control at Ben Gurion Airport. She wrote that she was planning to write a weekly series of articles about her visit to Israel, and stressed that she recognizes Israel's existence, sees the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as having two sides, is not biased towards either, and wishes peace and security on both sides. She went on to condemn "the hatred that is fanned in equal measure by Jewish and Islamic religious extremism" and declared that no matter what, she refuses to hate the Israelis.
Her decision to visit Israel, she added, was not difficult at all, and she does not regret it. She wrote that she learned a great deal from what she saw with her own eyes there. In her upcoming series of articles on her visit, she said, she intends to describe her impressions of the Israeli point of view regarding peace-seeking; of her visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust; of her chance meeting with Yemenite Jews; of her visits to Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem; of the debate in Israel on the issue of the recently-passed Nationality Law; and of finally recognizing Israelis as people with whom it is possible to make peace.
Calling on the Arabs to give up their belief that Israel will just disappear one day, because it will not, she urged them to seek a way of attaining peace with it, for the good of both sides.
There are other Jews who circulate the same venomous lies and distortions about Israel but who say they support its right to exist (well, thanks) or even call themselves Zionists.Jeremy Corbyn must remember that inaction in the face of racism is complicity
Worse yet, however, is Britain’s Jewish leadership. It refuses to call out Palestinianism for its intrinsic antisemitism and to hold up its supporters for deserved obloquy in the public square. Instead — astoundingly — it bashes Israel with the ignorance and distortions of its enemies.
Thus the Board of Deputies Senior Vice President Sheila Gewolb denounced Israel’s new nationality law for its “regressive steps”. She didn’t clarify; but presumably she was channelling the Israeli and British left who storm that the new law is “racist” , turning Israel’s minorities into second-class citizens.
But this is totally untrue. Minorities will continue to have equal rights as Israeli citizens. The only thing reserved to Israeli Jews alone is, as always, the right to national self-determination. If they didn’t have this right, Israel wouldn’t be a Jewish state at all.
“Being Jewish is a wonderful thing, but this should not lead to doing down others,” said Gewolb. That is jaw-dropping. Israel isn’t “doing down” anyone.
There’s nothing wrong with having one national Jewish flag, one official language which is Hebrew and one set of national holidays which are Jewish. That’s because Israel is a Jewish nation state. Does Gewolb have a problem with that? Or is she merely ignorant of what a nation state actually is?
Worse still, she said: “The lesson of Jewish history is that societies are stronger when minorities are affirmed, and they decay when minorities are degraded”. What? Was she really suggesting that Israel’s behaviour is akin to that of the Nazis? Isn’t this precisely the kind of antisemitic insult of which Labour members stand accused?
So the Board of Deputies is not only failing to call out the wellspring of anti-Jewish bigotry. It is promulgating some of the very falsehoods that incite people to hate Israel and the Jews – while simultaneously shouting about Labour party antisemitism.
Has there ever been a community less suited to an existential battle than this one?
Jeremy Corbyn’s office asked us whether it would be insensitive to release a statement on Friday afternoon, before the Jewish Sabbath. We said it would be an act of tremendous bad faith. He clearly ignored us.David Collier: Corbyn’s antisemitic anti-Zionism is part of his core belief system
He deliberately picked a time that he knew all the mainstream Jewish organisations were closed for our holy day. This tells you as much as you need to know about him and the contempt with which many of those around him regard the Jewish community.
As the latest series of scandals broke, we waited over a week to hear from Jeremy Corbyn. When he chose to speak, much of what he said was a tired re-hash of things that had been said before, and neither his article nor his video message on Sunday did much to move us forward.
Despite almost every reputable institution – and much of his own institution – being ranged against Labour’s watered-down antisemitism code, his op-ed defended it. The only problem, he seemed to say, was that Labour did not consult the Jewish community.
Labour did not consult the Jewish community over their definition of antisemitism – the very thing that we experience. But they did know what we thought. The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, the Chief Rabbi and 68 rabbis from across every denomination told him we objected to their proposed weaker code.
Lies, lies and more lies of anti-Zionism
But the propaganda doesn’t just come from those he stands alongside. This video of Jeremy Corbyn is from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign conference in 2010
Absolute total poppycock. The video also shows how European funding has been used to spread antisemitism. Jeremy Corbyn was part of a group of *sixty* European lawmakers sent to Gaza by the Palestine Return Centre (PRC). It came several months after the 2009 conflict. These lawmakers are then hand-held in Gaza and introduced to the people that Hamas want them to meet. It is a diet of lies and propaganda. A soup of antisemitic, anti-Zionism. The lawmakers then return to their homes and begin spreading these lies as ‘witness testimony’. Just like the one Corbyn spread in the video.
The PRC also led the event where Gerald Kaufman used the term ‘Jewish money‘ to describe Israeli political power in the UK. At another PRC event (the one that led to Jenny Tonge’s departure from the Liberal Democrats), I heard about Jews being blamed for the Holocaust. Who funds this hate to be spread? Nobody knows, because according to NGO monitor, the PRC don’t ‘publish donors or financial information‘. In other words we have politicians being sent to Hamas territory funded by anonymous donors. All to spread the lies of anti-Zionism.
Another interesting point on the tale of shooting Hebrew speakers. In Max Blumenthal’s book ‘The 51 Day War’, Blumenthal spins a similar story:
‘The soldiers ordered the family to re-evacuate the house under the shelling the army had just initiated. Then they summoned Mahmoud’s father Abdul Hadi El-Said. As soon as he appeared at his doorstep, they asked him if he spoke Hebrew. When he answered in the affirmative, the soldiers shot him in the chest’. (The 51 Day War, page 92).
It seems like there is a script sheet of propaganda tales. ‘Shooting Hebrew speakers’ is clearly on it. Gullible western antisemites are fed these stories in Gaza and then return to spread the disease.
Corbyn comes from a political faction that is anti-Jewish to its core. For decades he has swallowed this propaganda whole. British Jews now want him to get a grip on the antisemitism in the Labour Party. There is no way this is ever going to happen. Corbyn does not even know what antisemitism is.
PRESS RELEASE: Likud-Herut UK – Chairman’s Statement: The Corbyn Affair
What is it about rejection that we Jews don’t get?Tom Watson faces campaign by Jeremy Corbyn supporters calling on him to resign for warning that Labour will “disappear into a vortex of eternal shame and embarrassment”
You pick up the courage to ask a girl out on a date and she says she’s washing her hair. The next time you ask, she’s studying for exams. Next it’s her grandma is in the hospital. By the tenth time she’s telling all her friends about this creepy guy she simply cannot get rid of.
Let’s face it, the only time she’s going to be calling you is years later when you’re running a 10 billion dollar hedge fund with homes in Barbados, Monte Carlo and Davos.
For months we’ve been watching the seedy little creep Corbyn and his unwashed band of supporters giving the finger to British Jews. He is effectively saying: I don’t like you, my party doesn’t need your support and I certainly don’t need your minority votes to get where I’m going.
Now he seems to be saying: I detest your shitty little state and no Holocaust organisation is going to stop me or my Labour party from vilifying and defaming it whenever we choose.
I’d call that pretty solid rejection.
So why is our community leadership and media still calling him?
Our people have not stopped churning out statements and op-eds saying how outrageous he is, how offended we are and how important it is for him to apologise and behave himself.
Why?
he Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson MP, has warned that his Party will “disappear into a vortex of eternal shame and embarrassment” and render itself unfit for government unless it addresses antisemitism.Soon after posting an article promising to “root antisemites out of Labour” Jeremy Corbyn’s Facebook page is awash with antisemitic comments, which are not being rooted out
Echoing the stance of the Jewish community, Mr Watson demanded that the Labour Party must immediately drop the persecution of Campaign Against Antisemitism’s honorary patrons, Dame Margaret Hodge MP and Ian Austin MP, who face disciplinary action simply for standing up to Mr Corbyn’s transparent attempt to preserve safe space for himself and fellow antisemites.
Speaking to The Observer, Mr Watson said: “I think it is very important that we all work to de-escalate this disagreement, and I think it starts with dropping the investigations into Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin. I think people are very, very concerned that these investigations should be dropped quickly.”
Dame Margaret and Mr Austin, who both lost family in the Holocaust, and now Tom Watson, are outraged that Mr Corbyn and Labour’s National Executive Council have cut key examples from the International Definition of Antisemitism, including the age-old antisemitic trope of Jews having divided loyalties.
Mr Watson went further, insisting that Labour must adopt the definition in full, saying: “We should deal with this swiftly and move on. We can’t have this dragging on throughout the summer. I have made no secret of the fact that…we should adopt the full [international] definition and should do it without delay.”
Instead of addressing Mr Watson’s comments, supporters of Mr Corbyn called on him to resign, with #WatsonResign trending on Twitter.
After posting his article about how he will “root antisemites out of Labour” on Facebook, Jeremy Corbyn has shown that he will not even root antisemites out of his Facebook page.'All You Needed Was a Shower' Corbynistas Send Sick Racist Abuse on #ResignWatson
After Mr Corbyn posted the article on Facebook, his supporters began leaving antisemitic comments. “Kul Mang” warned that “these Jewish people are very violent pron [sic] people. They are the 21st century terrorists.” Another supporter, “Andy Doughty”, seemed to agree, writing: “Perhaps the issue should be the murderous brutality and active apartheid of Israeli Zionists. Worse than the Nazis.”
“Ian Davies” warned that everyone needed to watch out for the nefarious power of Jews: “Why is it that jews [sic] are so established in this country of owers [sic] they control or media and have a powerful influence on the political stage now that should be looked into asap. Would we tolerate Muslims haveing [sic] so much say commanding the media into wich [sic] hunting or political people think not so why o [sic] why do people think this is alright. Time to wake up.”
“Carly Stevens” picked up dozens of ‘likes’ for her observation that the whole issue was really just smoke and mirrors: “This is such a distraction issue. Where exactly is the antisemitism in the UK? This is all about the Friends of Israel being the biggest lobby group in parliament, heavily funding the Tory party”. “John Tate” agreed too, remarking: “Giving way to a cabal of Zionists, Tories and right-wing Labour MP and letting them set the political agenda is a serious mistake.”
Here is a sample of what appears on the #ResignWatson hashtag being used by Corbyn supporters to target Labour’s deputy leader. One anonymous account told a Jewish former Labour member: “All you needed was a shower”.
Hundreds of Corbynistas, including the prominent pro-Corbyn account ‘The Awakend’, said Watson was in the pay of Israel:
Labour National Policy Forum Member on Watson's 'Jewish Donors'
This is a new Facebook post this morning from George McManus, a Momentum-backed member of Labour’s National Policy Forum:Corbyn invites Jewish Community to a Reconciliation Dinner on 18 September (satire)
Corbyn has admitted Labour have been too slow to deal with anti-Semites. Will they take action against McManus today?
UPDATE: He has now been suspended.
London, Islington: Gardening allotment aficionado/Iranian TV Personality/British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has decided once and for all to find a way forward with the United Kingdom’s Jewish Community and has thus planned an elaborate reconciliation dinner for the evening of Tuesday September 18th. The Daily Freier caught up with Mr. Corbyn as he was weeding his radishes on the allotment, and he shared his vision with the Daily Freier.BDS Advocates Try to Split the Jewish Community From Israel
“I am really hoping to put this whole unpleasantness behind us, as I outlined in the message I sent to the Jewish Community on Friday night. But I got to thinking: Why not break bread together, much like I’ve done with my friends in Hamas? And what better night to meet up than Mid-Week in Early Autumn, like Tuesday 18 September after Sundown? We could invite everyone: Ken, Diane, George, maybe even old Roger Waters!”
When the Daily Freier asked Jezz if he had run this idea by an actual Jews, he was quick to point out that Jewish Voice for Labour thought it was “a splendid idea.”
The Labour Party’s trajectory continues to be a warning, or harbinger, of developments within the US Democratic Party, particularly with much promoted candidacies of anti-Israel figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar for the House of Representatives, Maria Estrada for the California State Assembly, and Abdul El-Sayed for Governor of Michigan. Ocasio-Cortez’s forthcoming appearance alongside BDS activist Linda Sarsour at an Islamist conference is a worrying sign.Former Sanders adviser and Netanyahu critic detained at Israeli border
Elsewhere, the High Court in the Spanish state of Asturias ruled that Israel boycotts by municipalities and states are unconstitutional. After legal action, Israel boycotts have been ruled illegal and reversed in dozens of Spanish states and municipalities, but more localities continue to adopt motions regardless, most recently the city of Valencia and a nearby town.
The defiance of court rulings suggests that Israel-hatred is a supra-legal issue in Spain, which is undermining the rule of law. The announcement by the Spanish Justice Minister that it expected to reinstate the policy of universal jurisdiction that allowed foreigners, particularly Israelis, to be tried in Spanish courts, also indicates that Spanish foreign policy will be aligned with supra-legal norms.
Finally, the Irish Senate approved a bill criminalizing trade with Israeli “settlements.” The legislation demands heavy fines and prison sentences for individuals and companies importing, selling to, or providing services to entities located in the “settlements.” Observers warned that the wording of the bill was so broad that it would criminalize purchase of souvenirs and taxi rides across the “Green Line.” More substantively, the legislation will jeopardize American corporations based in Ireland by putting them in violation of US laws regarding politically motivated Israel boycotts, as well as European Union regulations. The bill, which was praised by Palestinians and BDS supporters, including Hamas, must still pass through other levels of the Irish legislature.
Simone Zimmerman, a former adviser to US Senator Bernie Sanders who was suspended after reports surfaced of her harsh and foul-mouthed criticism of Israeli policies and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was detained for questioning at a border crossing into Israel on Sunday.Brown notifies campus community of 'disturbing' 'anti-Semitic' incident
Simone Zimmerman tweeted that she and her friend Abby Kirschbaum were detained for four hours at the Taba crossing from Egypt.
The Population and Immigration Authority said the two women were held by the Shin Bet, which initially refused to comment on the matter. On Monday, the Shin Bet said the two were indeed stopped at the border, and questioned on its instructions. It said the Population and Immigration Authority carried out the questioning, Haaretz reported, and that the focus of the questions for the two that it relayed to the Authority related to “their involvement in violent protest against Israeli security forces in Judea and Samaria.”
The two were later allowed into Israel. “We’re out. That was four hours of rounds of interrogation, waiting and mostly attempted intimidation centering on our connections to Palestinians,” Zimmerman tweeted.
Two people displayed a “vulgar and highly offensive anti-Semitic sign” on the Brown University campus Tuesday, according to a notice that was sent to the Brown community.BDS Scheming to Kill Soccer Match between Israel and Northern Ireland
Shontay Delalue, the university’s vice president for institutional equity and diversity, said the “disturbing” incident involved two people who are not associated with Brown. They were seen making a video of themselves and trying to talk to people on campus.
“At Brown, while we welcome free expression, behavior that creates a hostile environment on campus is not tolerated,” Delalue said in the message to the campus. “This includes expressions of hatred based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and any other protected classes.”
A Brown public safety officer told the two people that they had to move to public property. Brown’s private campus abuts public streets, Delalue noted.
“The unfortunate reality is that hate speech activities that occur on the public city sidewalks and streets that intersect campus are beyond Brown’s control, but we will continue to offer resources and support to members of our campus community who are directly impacted as a result of hate speech,” Delalue said.
On September 11, a friendly match between the Israeli and Northern Ireland soccer teams is scheduled to take place in Belfast, Ireland, but Lev HaOlam founder, attorney Nati Rom has sent us an email warning that BDS groups have turned their cross hairs on the match and are working to get it cancelled.IsraellyCool: Richard Silverstein Must Be Smoking the Ganja
BDS groups in Ireland and the ISPC group, which works to spread the boycott across Ireland, have begun a campaign calling on the Northern Irish Football Association (IFA), which is part of the United Kingdom, to cancel the friendly match between the two national teams. As part of the campaign, the BDS groups have released photos of Gazan Arabs with missing limbs playing soccer, and suggested that “nearly 90 per cent of its players lost limbs due to Israel’s violent military attacks on the civilian population.”
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There is a soccer team in the Gaza Strip whose members are all amputees, much like many other countries whose clubs for disabled athletes compete in the Paralympic Games, which are organized in parallel with the Olympic Games. Back in July, Managing Director of the Palestine Amputee Football Association Mahmoud Al-Naouq announced (Amputee football: Gaza’s first squad kicks in to action): “This is the first football team of amputees in Palestine, and it was formed as part of personal efforts to emphasize the right of people with special needs to play any sport, and show how they love life just like anyone else in the world.”
Anti-Israel DouchebloggerTM Richard Silverstein sees himself as some kind of reliable expert on all matters Middle East in general. But as I have shown on countless occasions, he is so unreliable, he can’t even trust himself.BBC ignores British links to failed ‘flotilla’ agitprop
In the latest example , El Doucherino today tweeted the following:
Which links to this story. From 2015.
Clearly, Dicky somehow came across this old story and, licking his chops, could not help himself and tweeted it out, oblivious to the fact that it is the Richard Silverstein of news (very old).
He obviously also didn’t get the memo regarding what happened next.
Spain’s foreign ministry has criticized Benicàssim’s Rototom Sunsplash after the reggae festival kicked Matisyahu off their bill for refusing to declare his support for Palestine. “Imposing a public declaration [from Matisyahu] puts into question the principles of non-discrimination on which all plural and diverse societies are based,” Spanish foreign ministry officials said in a statement Tuesday, adding that Rototom’s actions on behalf of the BDS movement were “anti-Semitic.”
The link between the flotilla and the ‘Great Return March’ is of course not coincidental: as noted here previously, one of the organisers of both those publicity stunts is UK-based Zaher Birawi who, as the Jerusalem Post reports, “was designated as a member of a terrorist organization – Hamas Headquarters in Europe – by Israel’s Justice Ministry in 2013”.BBC radio audiences get whitewashed picture of youth participation in Gaza riots
Despite the connections of the British based activist to a potentially incendiary publicity stunt staged by an organisation with links to more than one terror group, the BBC apparently did not consider this story to be of interest even to its domestic audiences – which of course include British MPs and Peers who have in the past been briefed by Zaher Birawi on topics such as “violence in the occupied territories” or attended events in Parliament put on by one of the other organisations with which he is involved.
Obviously this widely promoted report from Tom Bateman fails to give BBC audiences – domestic and worldwide – the full range of information needed in order for them to understand Hamas’ cynical exploitation of the under-18s described as “children” in its weekly agitprop that is designed to prompt media coverage of exactly the type that Bateman has produced.BBC Two’s ‘Victoria Derbyshire’ breaches impartiality guidelines with ‘specialist’ academic
Instead, listeners heard a context lite “David and Goliath” story in which Palestinian “boys” and “children” who throw rocks, burn tyres and fly kites are “confronted with live fire from the most sophisticated military in the region” with results portrayed by the BBC’s reporter as “completely disproportionate”.
Ghazi Hamad was no doubt very pleased with this effort to “get attention of the international community”.
Less than a minute later she asked Jonathan Sacerdoti:BBC News website misleads on construction plans
Chakrabarti: “Do you not accept that for some people it’s the actions of the Israeli government they are protesting against?”
She subsequently claimed that Sacerdoti was misrepresenting Sian’s statement concerning “a wider political project” before going on to give her “a final right of reply”.
Sian: “I mean I would argue that bigotry, violence, harassment, abuse, hatred and systematic oppression enshrined through laws and policies directed at Jews for simply being Jews is antisemitic. To critique Israel’s settler colonial state is not antisemitic.”
Chakrabarti made no effort to challenge Sian’s false and materially misleading portrayal of Israel as a “settler colonial state”, instead allowing her to read out loud from an obviously pre-prepared statement on India which had nothing to do with the issue of antisemitism in Britain’s Labour Party.
The fact that a Jeremy Corbyn and Labour Party supporter – and quite possibly a party member – was brought in to comment on this topic while inadequately presented as a ‘neutral’ academic is clearly a breach of BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality.
The fact that audiences were also not informed that the same supposedly ‘neutral’ academic regularly promotes anti-Israel material and four years ago had a book launch organised by the (Corbyn favoured) Iran linked, self-styled Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) – which organises the annual anti-Israel ‘Quds Day’ hate rally in London – likewise clearly impairs their ability to put her claims and pronunciations into their appropriate perspective.
So did – and can, as this report clearly leads readers to believe – Israel’s defence minister at the drop of a hat order the construction of 400 “new” residential units in Geva Binyamin (Adam) in response to the terror attack that took place the previous evening? As explained at the Times of Israel – the answer to that question is no.Retired Pope Benedict accused of anti-Semitism after article on Christians and Jews
“Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Friday announced that he had directed his ministry to advance plans for the construction of 400 new homes in the West Bank settlement of Adam, in response to the deadly terror attack that took place there overnight. […]
The 400 homes would be part of an already existing plan which will add 1,000 houses in the settlement, 150 of which are already under construction.
Liberman’s directive likely means the plan will be prioritized by the Civil Administration, the Defense Ministry body that convenes once every three months to approve West Bank construction.
The plan still requires several approvals by planning authorities before ground can be broken — a process that sometimes can take years.”
As we have seen in the past, BBC audiences often receive misleading impressions about the scale of construction in Judea & Samaria and parts of Jerusalem because the BBC covers – often repeatedly – announcements of building plans, planning approvals and issues of tenders, regardless of whether they actually come to fruition.
In this report we have yet another example of the BBC presenting residential units that are part of an existing plan as though they were an announcement of “new” building.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013, is being accused of fostering anti-Semitism after publishing a controversial essay in a German-language theological journal.Eviction of Dutch Jews from Nazi-ravaged synagogue brings back bitter memories
Both Jewish and Catholic leaders say that the retired pontiff’s essay on Jewish-Catholic relations in the current issue of Communio suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views despite his visits to synagogues and cordial relations with Jews during his papacy.Articles both criticizing and defending the essay have appeared in German, Austrian and Swiss media in recent weeks.
The central point of debate is Benedict’s denial the Catholic Church ever adopted “supersessionism,” the theological belief that God’s covenant through Christ replaced the covenant God made with the Jewish people, and his insistence at the same time that the Christian lens for reading the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is the only valid one.
“Whoever describes the role of Judaism like this is building the foundation for a new anti-Semitism on a Christian basis,” said Rabbi Walter Homolka, executive director of the School of Jewish Theology at Potsdam University in Germany.
“Benedict’s suggestion that Christians should teach Jews how to read selected parts of the Hebrew Bible in a Christological way is very problematic,” said the Rev. Christian Rutishauser, head of the Jesuit order in Switzerland and an expert on Jewish-Christian relations.
Four years ago, Tom Furstenberg proudly carried into his synagogue its first Torah scroll since the Holocaust, when local Nazis destroyed the building’s interior.After complaints, Amazon removes swastika pendants, onesies with burning crosses
The scroll’s introduction in 2014 was an important moment for the Beth Shoshana Masorti community that Furstenberg helped establish in 2010 in this city of nearly 100,000 residents, located 60 miles east of the capital Amsterdam.
After all, it was proof that Jewish life had finally returned to a place where it had been uprooted and destroyed.
“I felt that this was it, nothing could reverse our presence as part of this city,” Furstenberg, a 49-year-old teacher and chairman of Deventer’s Jewish community, told JTA on Monday.
Furstenberg had been overly optimistic.
On Monday, he and a dozen other members of their congregation of 35 had to take away the scroll and all the other ritual possessions and load them into a white van.
Amazon says it has removed items with Nazi or white supremacist symbols from its website after criticism from advocacy groups.Guatemala dedicates weekly lottery prize to ties with Israel
An Amazon executive said the company blocked the accounts of some retailers and might suspend them. Such items were still listed and displayed on Amazon.com as of August 5, 2018, though some were marked unavailable.
Democratic US Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota complained to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos last month. The company’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, responded to Ellison, telling him that Amazon prohibits listing products that promote or glorify hatred, violence or intolerance.
A spokeswoman for Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. declined to comment further on Sunday.
The Guatemalan national lottery has dedicated this week's prize to the warm bilateral ties the Latin American nation enjoys with Israel.Israel-Chinese partnership opens unique technology incubator in Guangzhou
About 100,000 Guatemalans who bought lottery tickets this week received a special edition ticket dedicated to "70 years of friendship and cooperation" and featuring a special logo issued by the Israeli Embassy in Guatemala to mark 70 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
This marks the first time that the Guatemalan lottery has dedeicated its lottery tickets to a foreign country. Israeli Ambassador to Guatemala Matty Cohen, who came up with the idea, said the publicity would give the embassy access to new sectors in Guatemala.
The weekly draw is scheduled to take place this Sunday.
The Guangzhou Sino-Israel Biotech Investment Fund, led by Dr. Shuki Gleitman, has launched a unique technology incubator in a biotechnology island in Guangzhou, China, which will operate based on the Israeli incubation model, knowledge and methods.Israel, India Deepen Technology Cooperation
China is still the largest “untapped market for the Israeli business sector with enormous opportunities,” said Gleitman, chairman of the Guangzhou Innovation Office in Tel Aviv, and a former chief scientist in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. “It requires a different way for doing business comparing the traditional markets, a bit different attitude. But China is really open for doing business with Israel."
Xian Yinsong, executive vice chair of Guangzhou’s Huangpu District, said the Chinese-Israeli cooperation marked an exciting moment in bilateral relations.
“This innovation will strengthen cooperation in biotechnology and other life sciences, such as medicine and the environment,” she said. “The Guangzhou district offers wonderful opportunities for investors from abroad and together we can be world leaders.”
The incubator’s launch ceremony on Monday was attended by high-level Guangzhou officials, entrepreneurs and Israel’s consul general, Nadav Cohen.
India and Israel are cementing bilateral cooperation in technology with the launch of a $40 million joint research fund.Credit scoring agency gives Israel its highest-ever rating
The ‘Israel-India Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund’, or I4F as the project is formally known, was kicked off at a ceremony in India’s capital New Delhi last week.
The fund is being operated by India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA). Funded with equal contribution from both countries, the initiative aims to promote development and commercialization of technologies in the private sector, an Indian government communique said.
“The 40 million USD fund aims to promote, facilitate and support industrial research and development between the two countries benefiting both people,” said the Embassy of Israel in New Delhi in a press release.
The governing board of technology fund (I4F) announced the first four recipients for grants that will be working in areas such as medical devices, water conservation, energy efficiency and mobile networks. The winners were selected from several joint proposals submitted by Indian and Israeli companies. The private players are required to cover at least 50 per cent of the research and development costs. The proposals were selected on the merits of their social impact and commercial viability.
The Standard & Poor’s credit scoring agency on Friday upgraded its credit rating for Israel, citing the Jewish state’s steady economic growth and improved debt outlook.Inclusive Israeli youth movement named special adviser to UN
With the raising of its credit score from A+ to AA- with a stable outlook, Israel notched its highest ever rating from S&P and other international credit rating firms.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the upgraded rating as “a reflection of the strength of the Israeli economy.”
In announcing its decision, S&P cited Israel’s stable growth and improved fiscal position in light of the sharp reduction in net government debt.
Despite Israel’s fractious politics, S&P pointed to the passage of the 2019 budget as a sign of fiscal discipline.
The Israeli youth movement Krembo Wings, which brings disabled and able-bodied children together for weekly social activities, has been selected as a special adviser on empowering social activity by the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
The "special adviser" status confers international recognition of the importance of Krembo Wings' work.
Founded 16 years ago, Krembo Wings boasts 65 branches throughout Israel, including in Druze, Bedouin, Muslim and Christian communities. Some 6,000 children with cognitive and physical disabilities participate with able-bodied children in Krembo Wings activities each week.
"The special international status the movement has received from the U.N. will allow us to raise awareness of the right of youths with disabilities in Israel and worldwide to a full social life," said Krembo Wings CEO Talia Bejerano.
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