Saturday, April 13, 2019
The Implosion of Jeremy Corbyn
According to polling by The Jewish Chronicle, 85 percent of British Jews now think that Corbyn is anti-Semitic. And that was before this week’s bombshell: documents obtained by The Sunday Times showing that Labour failed to investigate hundreds of anti-Semitism complaints, and let hundreds more slide. The documents show not only that Labour’s procedures for investigating anti-Semitic incidents were—despite public assurances to the contrary—dismally subpar, but also that members of Corbyn’s office directly intervened in more than one in 10 investigations, despite having claimed that they were impartial.
A council candidate who said that Jewish members of Parliament were “Zionist infiltrators” was allowed to continue his campaign. Out of 863 alleged incidents detailed in the files, only 29 resulted in a party member being expelled; 145 resulted in a “formal warning”—which is largely meaningless—and 191 cases were resolved as requiring no action. The rest, the Times reports, are unresolved, including 249 that haven’t even been opened.
A Labour spokesperson said that the report “does not reflect the full details … and is not up to date,” a non-denial that did nothing to stem the bleeding. That evening, the Jewish Labour Movement—one of the party’s oldest affiliates, linked to Labour since 1903—passed a vote of no confidence in Corbyn.
A year earlier, in March 2018, the story broke that Corbyn had been a member of three secret Facebook groups in which virulent anti-Semitic memes were sometimes shared. Understandable, perhaps, in radical campaign circles. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, right? We’re protesting an occupation, not forming a government. There’s nothing anti-Semitic about deploring Israel Defense Forces violence in Gaza, but if Palestine is your cause, sometimes you’re going to meet people who really just hate Jews—just like if Israel is your cause, sometimes you’re going to meet people who really just hate Muslims.
In one of the groups, Corbyn wrote supportively to the artist of a mural in London. It wouldn’t have been so bad—just a throwaway comment—except the mural depicted anti-Semitic tropes so blatant you could see them from space, hook noses and all. Corbyn trying to apologize was an agonizing sight. “I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image I was commenting on,” he said. “I am sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused.” It was as if, in a lifetime of fighting for causes—framing the world as good versus evil—he never really learned how to say sorry.
Abe Greenwald: Ilhan Omar, Con Artist
You see? She’s just an all-loving, rage-filled, anti-Semitic victim of prejudice.Seeking Israel From the Left
If you set aside the canned baby talk of her speeches and articles, her actions don’t reveal much in the way of understanding and compassion. Or was she “showing up with love” when she claimed that Americans who support Israel are guilty of “allegiance to a foreign country” and that pro-Israel American leaders are somehow being paid off to support the Jewish state, and that—lest we forget—“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel?” Are all these examples of what she sees as a “mission as humans to love one another”?
Whenever Omar gets called out for her anti-Semitism or anti-Americanism, she makes a steady retreat back to the faux-compassion and understanding, simultaneously vowing to “learn” from her actions and claiming innocent victimhood. It’s then that her liberal supporters seize on her sunny rhetoric and denounce all the criticism that’s come her way. That’s precisely what’s been happening since she was caught describing 9/11 as a null event.
The con artist will thrive as long her marks are willing to be conned. Which is to say, Ilhan Omar has a bright future in the Democratic Party.
Israel has always been a Rorschach test for the left, Susie Linfield argues in her new book about intellectuals' writings on the first decades of the Jewish home state. And she's right, if not quite in the way she may have intended the metaphor.
Yes, Israel is like a Rorschach test, in the sense that many people over the 70 years of the country's existence have seen in its abstract representation some strange specificity wrought by their own fervid imagination. But Israel is like a Rorschach test in another and more important way. Something disturbing is revealed when the symmetrical inkblots of a Rorschach test provoke descriptions of violence and hatred. And something just as disturbing is revealed when the image of Israel provokes ferocious anger and unrelenting hostility.
Which it does, for a large percentage of the left these days. In her introduction and conclusion, Linfield points out that Israel was created by people who were often socialists, and it enjoyed considerable support among leftists in the West into the 1960s. But somehow, these days, Israel faces a violent antipathy from the left. An important task for historians lies in exploring how that reversal came about.
Linfield, a journalism professor at NYU, is a self-proclaimed leftist worried about the ways in which anti-Zionism has led to a surge of anti-Semitism. And yet, despite her interest in the question of why the left has rejected Israel, she attempts something different in The Lions' Den. In essence, she attacks the premise. Examining the work of prior generations of prominent intellectuals and journalists, The Lions' Den suggests that Israel has always provoked strange notions in intellectuals.
The figures Linfield takes up are a gallery of prominent Jewish left-leaning thinkers from the 1940s on—especially in her chapters on Hannah Arendt, Arthur Koestler, Isaac Deutscher, Maxime Rodinson, I.F. Stone, and Noam Chomsky. She focuses as well on two further figures: Fred Halliday (the only gentile writer she takes up) and Albert Memmi (the Tunisian writer and only non-Westerner in the book). All of them were sometime Zionists, and all of them indulged anti-Zionism. By describing their intellectual journeys—and their intellectual peculiarities—Linfield hopes to illuminate the left's odd
relation to Israel.
Pompeo says PM’s West Bank sovereignty vow won’t hurt Trump peace plan
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said he did not believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talk of extending Israeli sovereignty to West Bank settlements would hurt the Trump administration’s long-gestating peace plan.Trump says Netanyahu election win means a ‘better chance for peace’
His comments would appear to indicate that the US plan does not provide for Palestinian statehood, or even for Palestinian control of substantive contiguous territory in the West Bank.
Asked during a CNN interview by anchor Jake Tapper whether he thought Netanyahu “vowing to annex the West Bank” could hurt the US proposal, Pompeo answered “I don’t.”
“I think that the vision that we’ll lay out is going to represent a significant change from the model that’s been used,” he added.
“We’ve had a lot of ideas for 40 years. They did not deliver peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” he said. “Our idea is to put forward a vision that has ideas that are new, that are different, that are unique, that tries to reframe and reshape what’s been an intractable problem.”
He said the Trump administration wanted “a better life” for both Israelis and Palestinians.
In interviews days before the elections, Netanyahu said he intended to gradually apply Israeli law to all settlements, and that he hoped he could do so with the agreement of the United States.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday congratulated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his win in the Israeli election, and said it would improve the chances of success for his administration’s much-anticipated peace plan.Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief: Trump Peace Plan Likely to Be Very Different From Previous Initiatives
“I think we have a better chance now that Bibi has won,” Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn before heading to Texas, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “The fact that Bibi has won, I think we’ll see some pretty good actions in terms of peace.”
“Everybody said you can’t have peace in the Middle East with Israel and Palestinians. I think we have a chance and I think we now have a better chance,” the US president added.
The White House has said it would release its peace proposal following the elections in Israel, though a report on Israeli television earlier this week said the exact timing would be dependent on the outcome of the vote.
With over 97 percent of ballots counted, and his Likud party and fellow right-wing and religious parties poised to secure a clear majority of Knesset seats, Netanyahu emerged from Tuesday’s elections in the best position to muster a coalition.
“I’d like to congratulate Bibi Netanyahu. It looks like that race has been won by him. It may be a little early but I’m hearing he’s won it and won it in good fashion,” Trump said.
President Donald Trump’s upcoming peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely be very different from previous such attempts, said Algemeiner editor-in-chief Dovid Efune on Thursday.
Speaking to i24 News, Efune said of the Trump plan, “We’ve suspected for a long time that it’s going to be quite different from what people are expecting. When we’ve spoken about peace plans in the past, typically there’s this land-for-peace equation, there’s a two-state solution, there is a framework which we’ve come to expect over decades. I’d be very surprised if its going to be along those lines.”
“I think we’re going to see a regional initiative,” he added. “We’ve had assurances time and time again from different members of the Trump administration that they would not be looking to predetermine the outcome. They won’t be coming to the table and saying, ‘Here’s what the results should be.’”
“It’s about creating a framework,” said Efune. “It’s about empowering, creating incentives, and trying to broaden the issue to regional peace and not just the Israeli-Palestinian discussion.”
The #Trump administration’s #Israel-Palestinian peace plan likely won’t follow the same framework we've come to expect from previous administrations, @Efune tells @ericlandskroner: pic.twitter.com/dWsmCQi1aM— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) April 11, 2019
Bill Clinton: Netanyahu ‘knows how to hit people where they’re tender’
Former US President Bill Clinton hailed the political prowess of newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the “highly intelligent” Israeli leader should never be underestimated, but adding a back-handed compliment.
“You should never underestimate him, he’s highly intelligent, he understands his electorate,” Clinton said on stage Thursday at an event in New York City, as final vote counts in Israel confirmed that Netanyahu is heading for a fifth term as prime minister.
Then Clinton added: “He’s smart and able and he knows how to hit people where they’re tender.”
Clinton was speaking at an event at the Beacon Theater alongside his wife, former US secretary of state and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“There’s lots of minority parties in Israel, and more of them are aligned with the settler movement or religious fundamentalism than secularism or wanting peace,” he said. “Israel is a vital democracy, and they are having these debates and they will work it out.”
“There has to be some approach to reconciling the security needs of the Israelis with the need for greater autonomy and governance by the Palestinians,” Clinton said.
American Special envoy for #antisemitism Elan Carr describes his role pic.twitter.com/nnZ7fzt8tz— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) April 13, 2019
Boycotting Israel is Anti-Semitic, Says Newly-Sworn In Envoy Elan Carr
The United States swore in Elan Carr as the new Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism on Thursday after the position had been left vacant since January 20, 2017.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo administered the oath of office. The secretary remarked that Carr, a Jewish-American Army veteran and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, was chosen for the “fierceness and vigor that he’ll bring to combating anti-Semitism.”
The envoy’s position was established by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004. On his first day in the congressionally mandated post, Carr vowed to fight the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and described the organized boycott of Israel as anti-Semitic.
“An individual has a right to buy or not buy what they please. However, if there is an organized movement to economically strangle the state of Israel, that is anti-Semitic,” Carr said. “We are going to focus relentlessly on eradicating this false distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.”
American Envoy for antisemitism equates BDS with being antisemitic pic.twitter.com/xGi3LJG70P— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) April 13, 2019
My message to fellow Jewish Democrats is simple: TAKE A VACATION!— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) April 12, 2019
Stay tuned-2020 pic.twitter.com/AjPJIxc7Bi
Pete Buttigieg calls Mike Pence a ‘Pharisee.’ Here’s why that angers Jews
Pete Buttigieg has a word he likes to use to describe Vice President Mike Pence: “Pharisee.”Rivlin rebukes Bolsonaro: ‘No one will order forgiveness of the Jewish people’
Jewish scholars would like him to stop doing that.
Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is running a dark horse campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has advanced the idea of liberal candidates using religious language to express their values.
The flip side of that, Buttigieg says, is that Republican leaders don’t practice the religious values they preach. He takes particular aim at Pence, who often speaks of his own conservative Christian values while serving under President Donald Trump. Buttigieg has criticized Trump for paying off an adult film actress with whom he allegedly had an affair.
Buttigieg believes that reeks of hypocrisy, so he uses an age-old Christian metaphor for hypocrites: the Pharisees.
“There’s an awful lot about Pharisees in there,” Buttigieg told The Washington Post this week, referring to the New Testament while discussing Pence. “And when you see someone, especially somebody who has such a dogmatic take on faith that they bring it into public life, being willing to attach themselves to this administration for the purposes of gaining power, it is alarmingly resonant with some New Testament themes, and not in a good way.”
The Pharisees were one of several Jewish sects during the first century, the time of Jesus. They also included the rabbis of the Talmud and the creators of Rabbinic Judaism, the ideological ancestor of mainstream Jewish practice today.
But in Christian discourse, the Pharisees have taken on the role of “hypocrites, fools and a brood of vipers, full of extortion, greed, and iniquity,” wrote Amy-Jill Levine, a professor at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School, in an article in Sojourners magazine. That’s because the New Testament Gospels say Pharisee leaders criticized Jesus and lambaste them for hypocrisy.
President Reuven Rivlin on Saturday rebuked his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro for saying this week that the crimes of the Holocaust can be forgiven, though not forgotten.Yad Vashem slams Bolsonaro after Holocaust comments
“No one will order the forgiveness of the Jewish people, and it can never be bought in the name of interests,” he said.
“What [the Nazis] did to us is etched into our memory, the memory of an ancient people,” Rivlin wrote on Twitter.
“We will never cooperate with those who deny the truth or try to erase it from memory — not by individuals and groups, not by party leaders and not by heads of state,” he wrote, the last being in apparent reference to Bolsonaro.
“We will never forgive and never forget. No one will order the forgiveness of the Jewish people, and it can never be bought in the name of interests.”
Rivlin said the Jewish people would “always fight against anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” while calling on politicians not to wade into historically fraught matters. “Political leaders are responsible for shaping the future. Historians describe the past and research what happened. Neither should stray into the territory of the other,” he said.
President Reuven Rivlin and Yad Vashem took Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to task on Saturday for saying the crimes of the Holocaust can be forgiven, though not forgotten.Iranian forces said killed in reported Israel airstrike on Syria missile factory
“We can forgive, but we cannot forget,” said Bolsonaro – a strong supporter of Israel who has reversed his country’s previously negative positions regarding Israel – at a meeting with Evangelical pastors in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday.
“Those that forget their past are sentenced not to have a future. We need to act so that the Holocaust will not repeat itself,” the Brazilian leader said.
A number of Iranian forces were reportedly killed in an airstrike on a Syrian military position near the city of Masyaf in western Hama province overnight Friday-Saturday. Syrian state media said Israeli jets carried out the raid in the middle of the night, firing missiles while flying in Lebanese airspace.Abbas swears in new PA government led by his Fatah ally, Mohammad Shtayyeh
Syria’s official state news agency SANA said Israel targeted a military site in the area, but that Syrian air defenses intercepted the attack, downing some of the missiles fired. The regime mouthpiece said the interception resulted in the destruction of several buildings and the wounding of three “fighters.” The area is known to house Iranian forces and their Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.
According to a report by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Arabic, Iranian “elements” and pro-Iranian militants were killed in the alleged attack, and 17 people were injured.
Israel does not regularly comment on alleged strikes in Syria, though it has acknowledged some operations.
The Observatory said Saturday that the strike targeted a Syrian military college in the town and two buildings used by Iranian forces in nearby villages — a development center for medium-range missiles in Zawi and a training camp in Sheikh Ghadban.
A new Palestinian Authority government was sworn in by PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, a month after he tapped longtime ally Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of his Fatah party, as the next premier.Thousands protest along Gaza border, 15-year-old shot dead - report
The 61-year-old Shtayyeh is replacing Rami Hamdallah, who served as prime minister of the Palestinian government since 2013. He is seen as being critical of the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers, as well as a proponent of continuing peace talks with Israel.
The new 21-member cabinet includes some fresh faces, but senior officials, such as Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki and Finance Minister Shukri Bishara, are keeping their positions.
Novelist Atef Abu Seif of Gaza, who was recently badly beaten during Hamas’s crackdown on protesters in the Strip, will become culture minister.
Shtayyeh’s government replaces a technocratic administration, which had the nominal backing of Hamas and all other Palestinian factions.
A 15-year-old boy was shot in the stomach during clashes with IDF forces east of the Jabaliya refugee camp, according to the Hamas Health Ministry on Friday.EU's Collusion with Iran
According to the report, two other people were injured by gunfire in clashes with IDF forces east of Gaza City, when 9,000 demonstrators protested in five locations along the Gaza border.
A Palestinian was arrested after cutting the fence into Israel, waving a Palestinian flag.
The border protests began on March 30th and has seen over half a million people violently demonstrating along the security fence with Israel demanding an end to the 12-year long blockade, congregating at points along the border range between several thousand to 45,000 each day.
The one year anniversary of the border riots last week saw some 40,000 Palestinians demonstrate along the border fence and saw three Palestinians killed by IDF fire.
The cross-border violence immediately played into Israel's election campaign, which concluded earlier this week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heading toward a record fifth term in office.
But Egyptian mediators intervened to avoid further escalation by persuading Israel to lift restrictions on the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza and expand the breadth of Mediterranean waters where Gazans can fish.
The main purpose of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) is to ensure that Europe -- and potentially third countries -- can continue doing business with the mullahs in Iran without risking US penalties for contravening US sanctions.The IAEA’s Blind Spots on Iran’s Nuclear Program
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini seems strongly committed to ensuring that Iran -- and Europe -- continue receiving economic benefits from the illegal, unsigned, and unratified Iran nuclear deal. Mogherini insisted that Iran is complying with the JCPOA. It is not. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, referring to documents seized by Israel, stated that the nuclear deal was "built on lies" .
No amount of human rights abuses, however atrocious -- or terrorism, even against its own citizens; or cheating to acquire deliverable nuclear capability to unleash on Israel, the US and eventually threaten the entire West -- will, it seems, deter the EU from its criminal collusion with Iran. Europe seems determined to wade into its own destruction with its eyes wide open.
On April 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani boasted that “today and throughout the past year, we have launched 114 new technologies via the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. This is the message to the world: You have not succeeded, and you will not succeed in preventing the progress and development of the Iranian people and their nuclear program. If yesterday you feared our IR-1 centrifuges, well, here you go!”
He has reason to boast. The 2015 Iranian nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama was extremely weak, but yet, given its weaknesses, the agency that was expected to monitor Iran’s compliance has been exceedingly lax.
On April 4, The Wall Street Journal reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspected a warehouse in Tehran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year said housed nuclear equipment and materials.
When negotiating the Iranian nuclear deal, President Obama promised “anytime, anywhere inspections.” Yet six months elapsed from Netanyahu’s speech until the inspection. The question is what took the IAEA so long?
What a ridiculous thing for a serious journalist to regurgitate. Multiple @USTreasury terrorism designations show the Iran-AQ connection. Official US government intelligence products. Many of these designations were issued by the Obama administration. https://t.co/nOFizDlHdi— Jonathan Schanzer (@JSchanzer) April 12, 2019
WaPo Rushes to Defend Ilhan Omar’s 9/11 Remarks, Fails Spectacularly
The Washington Post, in full white knight mode, rushed to Omar’s defense in publishing a piece in which they claimed context was needed.Group Planning NY Rally Urging Schumer To Get Ilhan Omar Off Foreign Affairs Committee
After quoting several lines from her speech (which did not change what she said), “fact checker” Glenn Kessler wrote:
We will leave it to readers to determine whether Omar should have referred to “terrorists” or if the context for “some people” is clear from the speech.
When we listened to the whole speech, we were reminded of President George W. Bush’s phrasing in two famous moments after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” – Bullhorn address to Ground Zero rescue workers, Sept. 14, 2001
The other one was an Islamic Center speech in which President Bush defended Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11.
Kessler suggests that Bush’s bullhorn comments and the ones he made defending Muslims were no different than Omar’s speech.
In reality, the context surrounding Bush’s speeches meant everything after the terrorist attacks. He was by no means downplaying what happened. In the coming weeks and months, his administration would respond forcefully to the attacks.
On the other hand, the context the Post provided for Omar’s speech didn’t do her any justice. In fact, the context provided by the full video made her “some people did something” quote even worse.
Making things worse still is Omar’s widely-known reputation for repeating anti-Semitic tropes, which is a significant context for drawing conclusions about what Omar says all on its own.
A group called The Coalition to Get Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a rally on May 19 titled “Operation: Schumer’s Doorstep.”
The group states: “The Coalition seeks to mobilize Americans of all political, ethnic and religious backgrounds who are concerned about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s continuing presence on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Coalition’s first goal is to enlist (through all reasonable means of persuasion granted by the Constitution) Senator Schumer in the cause. The event will be part peaceful protest, prayer vigil, and press conference.”
The rally will be held outside Schumer’s building by Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
The group counsels, “We’d like people of faith to lead a prayer calling for Schumer to gain the courage of his convictions so that from this moment on, the senator will fight with every fiber of his being to drive Omar off the committee. We pray for him to become the Shomer he has always said he is.”
This week was a new low in partisanship & dishonesty.— Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) April 12, 2019
I watched in disbelief as some covered for Omar by coming after me with lies & absurd claims that I don’t support 9/11 victims.
What a disgusting, dishonest tactic.
Why turn this into a political football?
Full NBC int: pic.twitter.com/sVXvzHDPnP
Dems to Redefine Hate Crime as ‘Disagreeing with Ilhan Omar About Anything’ (satire)
Claiming that existing language did not go far enough to protect victims of racism and Islamophobia, House Democrats have passed a bill redefining the term “hate crime” to include “any criticism of, or disagreement with, Representative Ilhan Omar.”University of North Carolina Condemns ‘Disturbing, Hateful Language’ After Palestinian Rapper Performs Self-Described ‘Antisemitic Song’
The bill comes after Omar’s description of the September 11 attacks as “some people did something” sparked outrage and led to criticism that she showed a lack of sensitivity towards victims of the attacks. Her defenders, however, said these criticisms led to death threats against the Congresswoman.
“Clearly, there could only be one reason that someone would criticize an elected member of Congress, and that is sheer bigotry,” Representative Ro Khanna said on the House floor. “No criticism of Congresswoman Omar’s religious beliefs, her actions, or her political views will be tolerated.”
After initially resisting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to bring the bill to the floor after several progressive party members threatened to lock themselves in their rooms until she agreed to do so. For some freshman lawmakers, however, the bill does not go far enough.
The interim chancellor of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has rebuked a recent campus performance by a Palestinian rapper who sang a self-described “antisemitic song” and asked audience members to invoke Mel Gibson when participating.
Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar of the hip hop group DAM performed at UNC on the evening of March 22, as part of a 3-day academic conference on the Gaza Strip. The conference was sponsored by the UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies and Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, and co-sponsored by multiple departments.
“This is my antisemitic song,” Nafar was recorded saying in a clip shared by filmmaker Ami Horowitz.
“Let’s try it together,” the rapper said while encouraging audience members to join him. “I need your help, I cannot be antisemitic alone.”
Guys I wish this was farce. @YouTube just banned my video again. A video where I expose a rapper for being openly antisemitic. why? Because Tamer Nafar, the antisemitic rapper, just claimed copyright infringement! @benshapiro @dbongino @jaketapper pic.twitter.com/JELMBphw5P— Ami (@AmiHorowitz) April 12, 2019
New York Times Suggests “Terrorist” Label for Israel
These contorted paragraphs are a prime example of how the newspaper’s preoccupation with casting Israel in a negative light comes at the expense of a well-informed public. Straightforward coverage of the U.S. decision about the Revolutionary Guard would leave readers with a clear understanding of the American criteria for designating Foreign Terrorist Organizations, would forthrightly describe the U.S. justification for applying the designation to Iran, and would not mislead about the State Department’s policy direction.Jewish Canadian mayor: ban on wearing religious symbols 'ethnic cleansing'
CAMERA’s billboard outside the New York Times building calls out the newspaper’s biased and inflammatory coverage.
What’s the actual criteria for designating a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), if not use of violence by intelligence services? The Foundation for Defense of Democracies explains that
U.S. law defines “terrorism” as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” To be designated as an FTO under U.S. law, a foreign organization must engage in terrorism or terrorist activities that “threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States.”
That’s easy enough. And easy enough for a Times reporter to research. The passages in quotes come directly from the US Code. Similar language appears on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations web page, which notes that in order to be listed, an organization must engage in “terrorist activity or terrorism” and “must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security … of the United States.”
That’s why use of violence by, for example, a French intelligence agency doesn’t put that agency at risk for being designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The U.S. didn’t view their use of force as terrorism, and doesn’t regard their ally’s actions as threatening American security. The same goes for Israeli intelligence — which works closely with American intelligence agencies.
The Jewish mayor of a Canadian town compared a proposed bill that would bar religious symbols on some public workers to “ethnic cleansing.”SpaceIL chief: ‘Beresheet 2 starts tomorrow, we’ll put our flag on the moon’
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked William Steinberg, mayor since 2005 of the affluent town of Hampstead in Montreal’s west end, to apologize for the remark.
“We shouldn’t use words like that,” Trudeau, who opposes the bill, told reporters in Ottawa last Friday. “We don’t need to go to extremes.”
Steinberg instead defended using the term, saying he meant “ethnic cleansing” only in a “non-violent” sense.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B’nai Brith and human rights groups have denounced the proposed law as discriminatory and contrary to Canadian human rights charters, but polls consistently show most Quebecers supporting it by a healthy majority.
Following the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet’s failure to land safely on the moon this week, SpaceIL chairman Morris Kahn on Saturday announced he was launching project Beresheet 2, effective immediately, adding: “We started something and we need to finish it. We’ll put our flag on the moon.”
The small spacecraft, the world’s first privately funded moon lander, crashed into the lunar surface Thursday night during an attempted landing, apparently due to a technical glitch that caused its main engine to stop mid-landing.
Appearing on Channel 12’s “Meet the Press,” South African-born billionaire Kahn said work on the successor to Beresheet would start Sunday.
“The response we’ve gotten has been amazing. The amount of thank yous and letters is amazing,” he said. “Over the weekend I’ve had time to think about what happened, and the truth is seeing all the encouragement and support from people all over the world is amazing.
“It gave me time to think and I thought it would be a shame to leave things like that. I’ve come to announce a new project: Beresheet 2. We started something and we need to finish it. We’ll put our flag on the moon.”
He added that “Project Beresheet 2 begins tomorrow… A mission team will be meeting tomorrow to start work.”
The dream goes on! Morris Kahn just announced the launching of Beresheet 2.0 #Beresheet2.0 #IsraeltotheMoon pic.twitter.com/fHlo3jeQ4W— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 13, 2019
Space Industry Leaders Praise Israel’s SpaceIL for Beresheet Moon Mission
Astronauts and scientists at the US space agency NASA commended the Israeli non-profit organization SpaceIL for its efforts after its spacecraft “Beresheet” failed to land safely on the moon on Thursday.The forgotten female WWII-era spy who stayed silent under gruesome Nazi torture
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, “While NASA regrets the end of the SpaceIL mission without a successful lunar landing of the Beresheet lander, we congratulate SpaceIL, the Israel Aerospace Industries and the state of Israel on the incredible accomplishment of sending the first privately funded mission into lunar orbit.”
“Every attempt to reach new milestones holds opportunities for us to learn, adjust and progress,” he added. “I have no doubt that Israel and SpaceIL will continue to explore and I look forward to celebrating their future achievements.”
Famed Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, wrote in a Twitter message to SpaceIL, “Never lose hope – your hard work, teamwork, and innovation is inspiring to all!” European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake expressed disappointment over Beresheet’s failed moon landing but said SpaceIL has “much to be proud of.”
Beresheet lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 22 and succeeded in entering the moon’s orbit, a feat only seven countries have accomplished. It is assumed that the aircraft crashed into the surface of the moon.
Despite unimaginable torture by the Nazis, imprisonment in concentration camps and uncertainty over the fate of her lover and fellow spy, Allied agent Odette Sansom never betrayed the clandestine ring she was part of in occupied France during World War II.Scottish Rescuer of Jewish Children From Holocaust to Be Honored in Budapest
While operating under the code name “Lise,” the French-born, British-residing Sansom helped aid the resistance in her homeland. Her actual name — which changed after the war during her several marriages — would be honored in the annals of espionage when she received the George Cross after the war. She was the first woman who had faced enemy fire to receive the honor, the second-highest award in the UK.
A posthumous UK postage stamp honoring her for her wartime service lists her as Odette Hallowes, the surname of her third husband.
While her exploits made her a celebrity in ensuing years, Sansom has become largely forgotten. A recently published book, “Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy,” by Larry Loftis, aims to set the record straight.
“It’s a story of a particular heroine whom 99 percent of people — 99 percent of WWII historians — probably don’t know who she is,” Loftis told The Times of Israel. “Her family is thrilled I wrote about her life.”
A church missionary from Scotland who traveled to Hungary to help Jewish schoolchildren during the Second World War will be commemorated this weekend at a special ceremony in Budapest.
Jane Haining, a native of Dumfriesshire, was captured by the Nazi authorities, who deported her to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland where she later perished.
Haining was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 for harboring more than 400 children, the majority Jewish orphans, at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest.
When WWII began, Haining refused to return home to Scotland, choosing to stay with the children. She wrote: “If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”
In 2010, she was posthumously awarded a Hero of the Holocaust medal by the British government. Photographs, a video, letters, a copy of her handwritten last will and testament and her Hero of the Holocaust Medal are on display at the church in her hometown of Dunscore.
Haining is also the only Scot to be honored as “righteous among the nations” – the term used for non-Jews who risked their lives to protect Jews from extermination – by Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem.
