Former UK chief rabbi Lord Sacks: Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous anti-Semite
Britain’s former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, branded the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn a dangerous anti-Semite in an interview published Tuesday.
In a devastating critique of the opposition leader, Sacks accused Corbyn of giving “support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate, who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map.” The Labour leader, Sacks said, uses “the language of classic prewar European antisemitism.”
Corbyn has been under mounting attack for his own allegedly anti-Semitic positions and for failing to root anti-Semitism out of Labour, Britain’s main opposition party.
The comments that sparked Sacks’s denunciation were made by Corbyn in a 2013 speech at the Palestinian Return Centre in London, where Corbyn said of a group of British “Zionists”: “They clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.”
In an interview with the New Statesman magazine, Sacks, who served as chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, called those remarks the most offensive to have been made by a senior British politician for 50 years.
“The recently disclosed remarks by Jeremy Corbyn are the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech,” said Sacks. “It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.
“We can only judge Jeremy Corbyn by his words and his actions,” Sacks went on. “He has given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove from Israel from the map.”
Eli Lake: Jeremy Corbyn’s Warped Worldview
Since becoming the leader of his party, Corbyn’s excuse-making has become more subtle. After Prime Minister Theresa May expelled Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning in March of a former Russian spy with a Soviet-era nerve agent, Corbyn was careful to say no one in his party supported Putin. Nonetheless, he urged caution and warned of a rush to judgment, despite his own government’s view that Russia was behind the attack. In 2017, following the terror attack at a rock concert in Manchester, Corbyn made sure to say the attackers should “forever be reviled” — while simultaneously asserting that government experts had linked such attacks in Britain to the country’s wars abroad.Jeremy Corbyn claims Israel controls speeches made by British MPs in Parliament, in bizarre remarks slammed as an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' that 'casts Jews as sinister manipulators'
Corbyn was not always this subtle. Daniel Finkelstein, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and columnist for the Times of London, has unearthed some of Corbyn’s more revealing views. For example, in 1989 Corbyn praised the Soviet Union for aiding socialist revolutions in the third world. Writing just four years ago in the Morning Star, the U.K.’s self-described socialist newspaper, Corbyn criticized NATO for its “colonial adventures” in the Middle East and called it “essentially a redundant force.”
Politicians like Corbyn are rare in mainstream American politics, but not in the U.K. In 2005 George Galloway, a member of Parliament who was eventually banished from the Labour Party, gave an infamous speech at Damascus University praising Syria’s dictator and rejoicing in the defeat of the U.S. army in Iraq. Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, earned the nickname “Red Ken” for his apologetics for Britain’s foes. He quit the Labour Party this year after he was suspended in 2016 for saying Adolf Hitler supported Zionism, a conspiracy theory popular in the Middle East.
And this brings us back to Israel. For years Galloway and Livingstone were on the fringe of the Labour Party. Labour remained the party of Clement Attlee, who knew the difference between open and closed societies, between free nations and police states.
Today, that party is led by a foolish socialist who can’t seem to tell the difference. Is it any wonder that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have succumbed to the socialism of fools?
Jeremy Corbyn claimed that Israeli officials control the speeches made by British MPs, in bizarre comments that have been called an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' which ‘casts Jews as sinister manipulators’, MailOnline can reveal.
The remarks were captured on video in 2010, at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in London. In a speech about the shooting of Turkish activists at sea by the Israeli commandos, the Labour leader said:
‘[British MPs] all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script. I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it.
‘Because they all came up with the same key words. It was rather like reading a European document looking for buzz-words.
‘And the buzz-words were, “Israel’s need for security”. And then “the extremism of the people on one ship”. And “the existence of Turkish militants on the vessel”.
‘It came through in every single speech, this stuff came through.’
MailOnline has examined the transcript of the debate in question and could find no evidence that any of Mr Corbyn’s ‘buzz words’ were mentioned by MPs.
In addition, a number of parliamentarians who spoke during the session have confirmed to MailOnline that they received no such ‘pre-prepared script’ or ‘buzz-words’ from Israeli sources.
An Israeli Muslim who served in the #IDF. tells anti-Israel activists at Columbia University who do not live in Israel, and they know nothing about Israel. "Israel is a wonderful country, you are destroying Israel". Please Follow the "Bridge To Peace" @mohammadkabiya pic.twitter.com/f4QrT641Qx
— Yanki farber (@Farberyanki) August 28, 2018
BREAKING: Palestinian Incitement Achieves Absolutely Nothing Yet Again
When Argentina’s national soccer team was slated to play a friendly match in Israel shortly before the World Cup earlier this year, Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian soccer federation, encouraged fans to target the team’s star, Lionel Messi, and burn his jerseys in an effort to cancel the game by means of intimidation. It worked: The Argentines bowed out, going on to suffer a string of humiliating defeats that ejected them from the international tournament at an early stage. Now it’s Rajoub’s turn to once again learn the lesson Palestinian leadership refuses again and again to heed: Violence will get you nowhere.FIFA Says NO to Hate
Earlier this week, FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, banned Rajoub for one year and fined him 20,000 Swiss Francs, or $20,400, for inciting “hatred and violence.” This will deny Rajoub his favorite platform, speaking at FIFA meetings to blast Israel and demand that the Jewish state be censured. In response, Rajoub’s organization blamed FIFA’s decision on shadowy “interest groups” as well as on Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
As kerfuffles go, this one is of relatively little importance: The fine levied on Rajoub is not large, and his ejection from meetings is largely symbolic. But it’s precisely its insignificance that makes l’affaire Rajoub so instructive. Here, in one small but resonant package, are all the components of the Palestinian national tragedy: The absolute refusal to engage in good-faith negotiations; the knee-jerk and gleeful dependence on violence; the malevolent narcissism that turns everything, from entertainment to sports, into a referendum on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the vicious conspiracy theories that hold that the Jews somehow control all of the world’s organizations; and, worse of all, the refusal to take any responsibility for any action, no matter how blatantly and obviously vile.
Hate has a price. The head of the Palestinian Football Association, Jibril Rajoub, has used his position to politicize the sport. This time, he attacked the Argentinian team and launched a hateful campaign to pressure them to cancel their match against Israel. After a campaign launched by StandWithUs and several of our partners, FIFA has decided to take action and hold Rajoub accountable for this hateful actions.
British journalist promotes “taboo busting” article literally justifying antisemitism
We’ve posted previously about the stridently anti-Israel tweets of British journalist Sarah Helm, who writes about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at publications such as the Guardian and The Independent.IsraellyCool: Anti-Israel Blood Libel of the Day: The Hanging Palestinian Kids
Though we believe the tweets we highlighted in our post clearly represent an abdication of her responsibilities as a journalist, we just came across a new tweet which raises even more troubling questions about her professional credibility.
The “taboo-busting” essay (“The chimera of British anti-Semitism and how not to fight it if it were real”, Aug. 19th) by Norman Finkelstein, promoted by Helm was published at the hate site Mondoweiss, and literally defends those who promote toxic stereotypes about Jews.
Finkelstein criticizes a comprehensive survey on antisemitic attitudes in the UK published by the British Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) in 2017, by arguing that some of what the JPR study defines as antisemitic is not actually antisemitic because it represents the truth about Jewish behavior.
Among the beliefs ‘erroneously’ defined by JPR as antisemitic, according to Finkelstein, is the odious charge that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes,” which isn’t surprising as Finkelstein wrote a book titled “The Holocaust Industry”. In this book, it’s alleged that “Jewish elites” created an “industry” to perpetuate Holocaust memory as a ploy to extort money, gain influence and “crush any dissent, any criticism, of the State of Israel.”
Detestable Israel hater Norman Finkelstein prides himself on his fact-checking (not to mention his sense of fashion). But the truth is, he couldn’t check a fact if it bit him on the tuchus.NYTs: Getting Off the Fence About Jeremy Corbyn’s Anti-Semitism
A few days ago, he a page dedicated to him posted this on Facebook:
Update: Reader Tomer notes that the page that published this is not operated by Finkelstein but rather a page setup to increase his awareness. Nevertheless, I stand by my opening paragraph about his fact-checking abilities.
As we know, the residents of Judea and Samaria (commonly referred to as “settlers”) are unfairly maligned, the product of untrue accusations and libels. For example, remember this one?
And what we have here, is yet another example.
The earliest instance of this photo I was able to locate is from this Facebook post of June 2011, by an Arabic speaker.
I’d always thought that if Mr. Corbyn was ever nailed down on this issue, he’d be spouting the anti-Semitism of the international left: Shadowy Zionist lobbyists. Omnipotent Rothschilds. Benjamin Netanyahu glorying in the slaughter of innocent children.Dore Gold: Jeremy Corbyn and the Resurgence of European Anti-Semitism
Instead we got something much closer to home. This was the anti-Semitism of Virginia Woolf and Agatha Christie. It was T.S. Eliot’s “lustreless” Bleistein puffing on his cigar and Roald Dahl insisting that “there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity.” The comments were more redolent of the genteel Shropshire manor house where Mr. Corbyn was raised than the anticapitalist resistance movements where he forged his reputation.
In recent months, most of the Anglo-Jewish community, normally happy to keep its collective head down, has been uncharacteristically vocal on the issue of Mr. Corbyn’s anti-Semitism.
I haven’t. It’s probably because I’ve lived in England all my life, but I don’t like to make a fuss. I recoil from the paranoia and neurosis that haunts many older members of my community, though I recognize its cause. I have never wanted to be a PTSD Jew, forever stuck in 1933. And I really do appreciate that parsing anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism can be a tricky business.
Perhaps the deeper thing keeping me on the fence is that I desperately didn’t want to face the reality that Britain’s possible prime minister is a man who traffics in an ancient prejudice against my people. What would that say about my party — and about my country?
Here’s what I do know: My fellow British Jews were right. I was wrong. From now on, Jeremy Corbyn has my loud and implacable opposition.
J.K. Rowling takes on ‘anti-Semite’ fellow author in Twitter spat over Corbyn
J.K. Rowling went head to head with a fellow British writer on Twitter over his criticism of Jewish complaints about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.JULIA HARTLEY-BREWER: CORBYN IS ANTI-SEMITIC AND A RACIST. SUE ME.
Simon Maginn, who has written five thrillers under his own name and satirical comedies under the name Simon Nolan, on Sunday in a tweet called Jewish outrage over Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s 2013 comments indicating that “Zionists” do not understand British culture “patently synthetic outrage,” and called on a Jewish tweeter to “Explain your deep and wounding sense of injury.”
Rowling, who is not Jewish, tweeted in response: “How dare you tell a Jew that their outrage is ‘patently synthetic’?”
She added: How dare you demand that they lay bare their pain and fear on demand, for your personal evaluation? What other minority would you speak to this way?”
Maginn then called on Rowling to explain, noting that Corbyn has said that his comments did not refer to Jews but was “a rather complicated joke about the Palestinian Ambassador’s fluency in English.”
The opening salvos set up a back and forth that lasted throughout Sunday. Rowling tweeted several quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Anti-Semite and Jew” — a famous essay on anti-Semitism by the philosopher — and lambasted Maginn for demanding that a British Jew explain how he feels under anti-Semitic attack “when there are literally hundreds of accounts currently online explaining how British Jews currently feel?”
Julia Hartley-Brewer set out an explosive challenge to Jeremy Corbyn live on air today, when interviewing a ‘Jewish Voice For Labour’ spokesman.
“Come on Jezza, sue me. I think you’re anti-Semitic. I think everything you do and say suggests you are anti-Semitic. I think you’re an anti-Semite, just like Margaret Hodge, prominent Jewish Labour MP. If that’s not true, prove to me that it’s not true. Take me to court, sue me for libel, and let’s get this out in the open.”
Julia-Hartley Brewer has drawn a pretty big line in the sand and dared Jezza. Corbyn can sue her and Murdoch owned TalkRadio. Will he take her up on her offer?
Jews used Irony and Wrote History when Corbyn’s Ancestors were "Savages"
In 1835, Daniel O’Connell, Britain’s first Irish Catholic Member of Parliament, attacked Benjamin Disraeli during a by-election. In the course of his unrestrained invective, the Irishman referred to Disraeli’s Jewish ancestry calling him the “worst possible type of Jew”.BBC political correspondent fails to fact-check team Corbyn ‘defence’
Disraeli shot back with characteristic chutzpah and brio in a letter to The Times. “Yes, I am a Jew,” he replied, “and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.”
From the moment Disraeli became Prime Minister, the Liberal press indulged in anti-Jewish innuendo against him. His Liberal successor William Gladstone, when opposing the pro-Turkish policies of Disraeli’s Conservative government, accused English Jews of loyalty to foreign Jews. “Gladstone was convinced that Disraeli’s Jewish origins were an influence on his conduct of policy,” writes historian David Cesarani. “The accusation that Jews, from Disraeli downwards, were motivated by dual loyalty gained in volume,” he states.
Over a century has passed. The accusations against Jews remain as stereotypical as Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour party is proving to be a worthy successor to his anti-Semitic forbears in Parliament.
Did Tom Barton bother to fact check that Labour “defence” before regurgitating it on air? Did he ask the Labour Party how exactly it had determined the religion/ethnicity of people it claimed attended an event in Parliament over five and a half years ago? Apparently not.Shapiro At 'National Review': Conservatives Oust Radicals, The Left Welcomes Them
The person who recorded the PLO envoy’s speech in Parliament in January 2013 was Richard Millett. As i24 News reported:
“Millett says he does not recall “berating” the Palestinian envoy at the end of the 2013 event in Parliament, but is convinced that Corbyn was referring to his blog criticizing Hassassian’s remarks, saying he does not recall any other pro-Israel activists in the audience.”
In the video of Corbyn’s 2013 speech he does not mention “a group of people” – let alone their ethnic/religious origins – but refers only to “Zionists”.
Moreover, from remarks made by Corbyn before that ‘English irony’ claim – remarks which were edited out of the video – it is obvious that he was indeed talking about Zionist British Jews rather than “this particular group of activists”.
Yet the Left almost never throws out thinkers for ideological reasons. Leftist institutions will occasionally oust people who openly promote violence or involve themselves in outright fabrication. But when is the last time you saw a leftist outlet say of a leftist columnist, “That view is simply outside the mainstream”? Open Communism is fine; pure identity politics is fine. It’s not difficult to imagine a leftist listserv celebrating Charles Johnson’s words with the races reversed: “Heaven forbid that some thinkers . . . think that the US of A should become majority minority!” That position is actually rather mainstream on the traditional Left. The same is true with regard to hot-button issues such as abortion (Shout Yours Today!) and the First Amendment (it’s being weaponized, so we must curb it!) and anti-Semitism (see Sarsour, Linda). The Left doesn’t throw its radicals out. It mainstreams them.Pro-Israel donor Adam Milstein denies funding Canary Mission
The institutional Right, however, spends an inordinate amount of time self-policing. That’s a good thing. This isn’t a call to silence people — Charles Johnson has his own outlets for his particular brand of bile. Nobody is calling for government censorship of voices, nor should we. But it is up to serious conservatives to decide with whom they associate.
One of the tragedies of the recent past is that the Left’s refusal to acknowledge that self-policing has led too many on the right to begin tolerating the intolerable — to begin making common cause with those they should have thrown out of the tent long ago. That’s not entirely the fault of the Left, of course: Good people should always attempt to disassociate from evil, no matter whether others acknowledge such attempts. But the Left’s refusal to acknowledge good-faith efforts on the part of conservatives is an ongoing problem.
So too is the Left’s refusal to excise its own cancerous voices. It is a reminder that when it comes to policing the boundaries of a political movement, the modern-day conservative movement far outpaces the Left.
Real-estate investor Adam Milstein denied a report that he is a funder of Canary Mission, an anonymous website that aims to name and shame anti-Israel activists.Rogers Waters talks up decision to play in Russia
Milstein’s charity, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, donates to a number of groups that work on campus from a pro-Israel perspective, including Students Supporting Israel, the Amcha Initiative and the media watchdog CAMERA.
On Monday, the Electronic Intifada, an anti-Israel website, posted an excerpt of a previously un-aired Al Jazeera report saying Milstein funds Canary Mission as well.
Canary Mission “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses,” according to its “About us” page.
According to the Forward, Israeli border control officers have used information from the site to bar activists from entering the country. The site does not reveal who funds it or manages its activity.
In the video, Eric Gallagher, at the time an employee of The Israel Project, another group Milstein supports, names Milstein as Canary Mission’s funder. Gallagher is speaking to an undercover Al Jazeera reporter named “Tony” who was posing as an intern with The Israel Project. Gallagher tells “Tony” that Milstein spoke with him on the phone about starting a “name-and-shame” effort, and solicited his feedback.
In April of this year, Waters was once again in the spotlight for launching into a tirade against the Syrian volunteer rescuing group, White Helmets, whom he called a "fake organization" that created propaganda for "jihadists and terrorists." According to Waters, the organization published a fake video of a chemical attack that led the US, Britain and France to launch an air strike against Syria.Pink Floyd co-founder: Russia "has all rights" to Sevastopol, U.S. behind Maidan
In the interview with the Russian newspaper, Waters added that "This is just a chapter of a propaganda war that is trying to demonize Putin, Assad, Iran and so on."
When asked if the decision to perform in Russia was a difficult one given his constant efforts to dissuade artists from performing in Israel and Russian's similar situation concerning Crimea, Waters replied, "of course not." As usual, Waters dodged from questions that could show his double-standards towards geopolitical conflicts, answering simply that he "knows that Sevastopol [Crimea's capital] is very important to Russia and many newspapers shows that Russia has all the rights to the city."
After demonizing the usual countries and leaders in a rather superficial fashion, Waters finished the interview with a call for peace and empathy, "we must always remember that no matter how we look now and how we live, we are brothers and sisters."
Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has told a Russian media outlet that "there are many treaties and papers under which Russia has all rights" to occupied Sevastopol, and "Washington was behind" the Euromaidan in Ukraine.Sputniknews [RUS Govt]: Pink Floyd Legend Roger Waters Slams Skripal Case as 'Nonsense'
"Geopolitics has never been my strong point but I know that Sevastopol is very important to Russia and the Russians. There are many treaties and papers under which Russia has all rights to this city. The change of power in Ukraine with Washington behind it simply provoked Moscow into further action," Waters said in an interview to the Russian Izvestia newspaper, answering a question from a journalist about Crimea's disputed status.
It is worth noting Waters expressed sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview to one of the propaganda resources a year ago.
In an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestiya, former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters dismissed the infamous Skripal case as "nonsense." "That the attack on the Skripals was nonsense is clear to a person with half a brain. But some don't even have one half, that's why they believe in this absurd," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.BDS pressure takes a toll on Meteor Festival
The Skripal case unfolded in Salisbury, England in early March, when former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were exposed to a nerve agent known as "Novichok." The UK rushed to accuse Russia of involvement in the attack, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. Although no evidence has been provided that Russia was behind the Skripal poisoning, the UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats, prompting Russia take a similar retaliatory measure, shut down the British Council and close the British Consulate in St. Petersburg.
Waters also accused White House officials of being behind the Ukrainian crisis. He claimed that Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the US Department of State in 2011-2013, had organized the crisis. "I don't know how Ukraine is going to find a way out of this situation, but blaming Russia for it is ridiculous."
With less than two weeks to the Meteor Festival, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel has chalked up a series of wins – and losses – with artists slated to perform there.BDS movement uses bloody poster to protest Israeli orchestra in Chile
The festival is scheduled for September 6-8 on Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan in the North, with dozens of local and international acts making up three days of diverse music. While headliner Lana Del Rey has made clear she is determined to appear despite the pressure from boycott groups, not all of the artists feel the same. Despite the handful of cancellations, major acts like Pusha T, DJ Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington and A$AP Ferg have not indicated any intention to pull out of the festival.
But a handful of other musicians have changed their minds in recent weeks, including some local groups.
On Sunday, the festival announced two new names for the lineup – British DJs Secretsundaze and Dan Shake.
Festival producer Eran Arieli, head of the Naranjah production company, said the new acts came to replace Shanti Celeste, DJ Python and DJ Seinfeld “who canceled due to BDS politics.”
Two local Arab musical groups, Zenobia and Khalas, that were part of the original announced lineup have indicated their intention to cancel.
The BDS movement calling for a boycott of Israel printed posters showing the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra’s conductor covered in blood, ahead of a concert in Chile.Legal action convinces two Spanish cities to reverse BDS motions
Anti-Israel protesters were planning to hold a demonstration outside the concert venue in Santiago on Monday evening, prompting Israel’s ambassador Eldad Hayet, to call on local security force and police to ensure safety at the performance.
Demonstrators circulated a poster showing orchestra conductor Yeruham Scharovsky covered in blood, using a trope popular in medieval blood libels.
The orchestra is currently touring to packed venues across South America and this was not the first time it had faced opposition from the BDS movement.
Last week demonstrators shouted anti-Israel slogans and waved Palestinian flags outside a concert in Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Two municipalities in Spain rescinded their adhesion to the campaign to boycott Israel following legal action by a Madrid-based organization devoted to defending the Jewish state.Boulder, Colorado names Ramat HaNegev sister city in heated meeting
The city council of Villarrobledo, a city of 25,000 that is located 100 miles southeast of Madrid and is known for its wine industry, scrapped last week a motion passed in April that declared the municipality to be a part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, or BDS.
The move on August 21st followed a motion by the ACOM group, which in recent years has promoted the scrapping, annulment or suspension of 26 motions to boycott Israel by Spanish municipalities.
This week, the city council of Sagunto, a city of 64,000 residents located 200 miles east of Madrid, near the port city of Valencia, also reversed a motion it had passed on June 26, declaring it a “space free of Israeli apartheid.” The reversal followed a warning by ACOM that failure to scrap the motion will result in legal action, the group said.
Tribunals in Spain, including the nation’s Supreme Court in two of its rulings, have voided more than a dozen motions passed by municipalities when ruling on motions by ACOM and other groups. Other municipalities voluntarily scrapped their boycott motions under threat of legal action by ACOM.
Despite many victories over the BDS movement in Spain, the country still has dozens of municipalities supporting BDS, more than in any other EU member nation.
Passion was plentiful in the discussion Thursday night over a proposal to make a region of Israel Boulder's ninth sister city. Council approved the sister city relationship with Ramat HaNegev, Israel, and another with Kathmandu, Nepal, unanimously on a 7-0 vote; councilwomen Lisa Morzel and Suzanne Jones were absent.Michael Lumish: The Week on Nothing Left
More than two dozen members of the public spoke during open comment. Tara Winerproposed the area as a sister city, lauding its many similarities to Boulder, including a love of the outdoors, environmental stewardship and a thriving university and tech startup scene.
"We have been looking forward to an Israeli sister city for some time," she said.
Winer was among the many vocal opponents of Nablus, in the Palestinian territories, being made a sister city in 2016. The public hearing for Ramat HaNegev drew similar opposition, with multiple speakers decrying the Israeli government's harsh treatment of ethnic and religious minorities. They argued that, in voting for the sister city, Boulder would be giving tacit approval to Israel's actions.
"This vote is taking a side," A.J. Nichols said. "Take the side of human rights."
This week Michael Burd and Alan Freedman begin with a studio chat with Marcia Griffin, a non-Jewish businesswoman, local councillor and Israel advocate about her support for Israel.Haaretz’s Uri Misgav Revives Discredited National Library Bunker Story
Isi Leibler joins the guys from Jerusalem with his thoughts on what’s been happening with Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress who has now become an ardent critic of both Israel and PM Netanyahu.
They also catch up in the studio with Stan Goodenough, an Israeli based Christian Zionist who visits Australia regularly, and then hear from Dan Mariaschin, head of the B’nai B’rith in the United States about Gaza and the media war against Israel.
Eight months ago, Israel’s Channel 11 aired a false story in which journalists Motti Gilat and Moshe Steinmetz charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the National Library of Israel construct a special underground bunker to house the papers of his father historian Benzion Netanyahu as a condition for turning over the collection. The sensational story ostensibly demonstrated the prime minister’s inflated ego, this time manifested in the belief that his father’s body of work was so important that it warranted an extravagant spending of public funds.Germany condemns mass neo-Nazi protest in country's east
Israeli media outlets raced to the National Library to obtain additional details on the juicy scoop which had the makings of the most severe corruption scandal embroiling Netanyahu to date. Among those who queried the National Library were two Haaretz journalists. Yet, they too, like the rest of the journalists from a variety of outlets, were immediately convinced, upon receiving details from the library, that the story was baseless and should never have been published. Channel 11 and the other media outlets which had originally covered the sensational story suddenly dropped it like a hot brick without any backtracking or follow up.
The truth, in fact, was that when David Blumberg, chairman of the library, presented the new building plans to the prime minister, Netanyahu asked him where the bunker was. Blumberg answered that there is no bunker. Netanyahu responded: “You mean to tell me that you mean to keep all of the scholarly treasures of the Jewish nation in an unprotected building above ground? Do you know how much this location – the government compound in Givat Ram – will be targeted in wartime?” Blumberg grasped the severity of the oversight and quickly remedied it with revised building plans. Much later, without any connection to the bunker, negotiations between the library and the Netanyahu family concluded, and the elder Netanyahu’s works were donated.
Germany will not tolerate "vigilante justice," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Monday, after hundreds of far-right and neo-Nazi supporters protested in the eastern city of Chemnitz against the death of a man involved in a multi-ethnic dispute.Jakiw Palij deported to Germany...
A 22-year-old Syrian citizen and a 21-0year-old Iraqi national were arrested in the killing of a 35-year-old German man during a clash after a street festival on Sunday.
Police said around 800 demonstrators had gathered in Chemnitz on Sunday, hours after the German man died following a dispute between several people of "different nationalities."
Some of the protesters had thrown bottles at police officers.
The demonstration followed calls on social media by far-right and neo-Nazi groups for protests over the man's death.
An amateur video posted on social media and aired by national broadcasters showed skinheads chasing a young Arab-looking man at a major intersection in the city. Other clips showed hundreds of demonstrators shouting "We are the people!" – a slogan used by far-right supporters.
Jakiw Palij, the 95 year old former Nazi guard at the Trawniki concentration camp is finally being served justice. After more than a decade long process, this week, Palij was stripped of his U.S. citizenship and extradited to Germany.
“Operation Finale” Tells the Story of Eichmann’s Capture without Political Pieties or Banal Moralizing
The new film Operation Finale tells the story of the Mossad’s capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. In his review, Liel Leibovitz—who as a child knew Peter Malkin, the film’s protagonist—praises the movie for avoiding the pitfalls of other cinematic portrayals of daring Israeli operations:Dutch bakery ‘Anne and Frank’ changes name after outcry
[C]onsider all the ways in which the director, Chris Weitz, might have failed. He could have, for example, taken the same tedious route as José Padilha in 7 Days in Entebbe [about the notorious hijacking and rescue in 1976], slathering the screen with thick layers of symbolism that neither move nor inform; that movie cross-cut the raid on the terminal in Uganda with a modern dance performance, delivering one of the most unintentionally comical moments in recent cinema. More pedestrianly, Weitz might have opted to reduce the film to just one of its elements, giving us a tense psychological drama that rarely leaves the airless room where the Israeli spy [Malkin] and the fugitive Nazi spent nine days engaged in a battle of wits, or else a fast-paced caper of subterfuge and narrow escapes. . . .
[Operation Finale also] raises far sharper questions about the intersection of justice and revenge than that other recent tale of Mossad agents out on the hunt, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s lugubrious and preachy Munich. . . . In an age when too many filmmakers fashion their work into banners advancing their own political pieties, Weitz gives us something much more valuable: a study in unruly feelings and the extremes we sometimes go to when we strive for or run away from our just deserts. . . .
If you’re hoping to see the banality of evil [the famous phrase Hannah Arendt coined in describing Eichmann] on display, you’re out of luck: Eichmann is played by Ben Kingsley, who manages to be simultaneously imperious, menacing, and vulnerable even when sitting on the toilet. . . . Weitz knows better [than Arendt]. His Eichmann is demonic precisely because he knows exactly how to think from the standpoint of his interrogator, and knows, too, how to sharpen this skill into a weapon. He sees no reason to empathize other than to gain an advantage, which makes him all the more human and all the more terrifying.
A bakery in Amsterdam called “Anne & Frank” has said it will change its name after sparking outrage.New drug brings hope in acute leukemia battle, Hebrew U researchers say
According to Dutch media reports, the bakery opened just over a week ago around the corner from The Anne Frank House, a popular tourist site in the city.
The site, now a museum, is where teenager Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis for two years before they were caught and deported to concentration camps. Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 at age 15, but her wartime diaries have made her a symbol of Holocaust suffering.
The bakery’s owner, named as Roberto Barsoum in several local media reports, did not anticipate the backlash he received.
“Anne Frank is for many people a hero and for me too,” Barsoum told the local AT5 television station on Monday. “Because my business is in the neighborhood of the Anne Frank House, it seemed like a nice name to me. She is, of course, world famous.”
Barsoum added that he did not intend “to hurt anyone. What she has experienced was so much. That’s why I thought it was just a nice tribute.”
Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said they have developed a new biological drug that had a 50 percent cure rate for lab mice with acute leukemia.Israeli equestrian pulls out of world championships due to Yom Kippur conflict
The results were published last week in the scientific journal Cell.
Acute myeloid leukemia is one of the most aggressive cancers, and while other cancers have benefited from new treatments, there has been little encouraging news for most leukemia patients for the past 40 years, the researchers said in a statement. (One notable exception is the drug Gleevec, which targets chronic myeloid leukemia and is based on the work of Israeli researcher Eli Canaani at the Weizmann Institute.)
The rights to the molecule they developed has already been sold by the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University, Yissum, to US pharma firm BioTheryX, with whom the team of researchers will continue to work to further develop the medication and apply for FDA approval for phase I clinical studies on humans.
Adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes abnormal myeloblasts, a type of white blood cell, red blood cells, or platelets, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Eventually, a person with the disease will start to lack red blood cells that help carry oxygen, platelets that stop bleeding, and white blood cells that protect the body from diseases. That’s because the ailing body is too busy making the leukemic blast cells, and the result can be deadly.
An Israeli equestrian has withdrawn from next month’s world championships because the competition will take place on Yom Kippur.Ashraf Marwan
The International Equestrian Federation event, which will take place this year in North Carolina, is a prelude to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where Israel’s equestrian federation hopes to compete for the first time.
Israeli rider Dan Kramer sent a letter earlier this month to the international federation saying that he would not compete due to the conflict with the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Ynet reported last week.
“I decided not to join the other members of the Israeli national team and not to participate in the upcoming world championships in the United States, because the competition is taking place on Yom Kippur and I want to honor this day as well as the Israeli public and Jewish Diaspora,” Kramer wrote in a letter to the Israel equestrian federation’s chairman Kenny Lalo, Ynet reported.
In 1970, Ashraf Marwan—a chemistry student at a British university who happened to be Gamal Abdel Nasser’s son-in-law—telephoned the Israeli embassy in London and offered himself as an intelligence asset. Marwan, who soon became an important adviser to Nasser, continued spying for Israel until 1998.
Hundreds flock to commemorate clandestine Jewish immigration in Tel Aviv
Hundreds of Israelis gathered on Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach on Monday to watch a reenactment of the arrival of Jews aboard immigrant ships to British Mandate Palestine.
Ha’apala 2018 featured folk dancing, a flash mob, sculptured ships in the sand and a computerized list to help locate relatives who were on the illegal ships. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, the World Zionist Organization and the Zionist Council in Israel-Anglo Division.
“What we are trying to do here today is to take the Ha’apala to Tel Aviv in order to make a much bigger exposure of it to the public,” Noa Geffen, development director at the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites told The Jerusalem Post during the event.
“It’s the end of the summer and people are looking for activities for their families, so we decided to bring this event to where they are, to the beach of Tel Aviv and share with them a very heroic and important chapter of our history,” she added.
According to Geffen, around 130,000 people participated in the clandestine illegal immigration and the organization has been able to find 110,000 names of those who took part at the time.
“What we feel very obligated to do is to document the personal stories of those people. So during the past 20 years with the help of Jewish National Fund of America and other partners, we’ve managed to collect many personal stories,” Geffen said. “We have most of the names but not their full stories and we are running out of time. We are losing them. Not many are still alive, even those who were children are pretty old now.”
