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Wednesday, June 05, 2019

06/05 Links Pt2: BDS: The Big Lie; Glick: Ron DeSantis Takes on the BDS Movement; How Ancient Coins and Seals Prove the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem

From Ian:
BDS: The Big Lie
To counteract BDS it’s not enough merely to condemn the movement’s lies, Nelson writes. In a series of chapters interspersed throughout Israel Denial, Nelson shows his commitment to the imperfect yet inspiring reality of Israel, giving his own ideas about increasing peace between Israelis and Palestinians through a series of trust-building Israeli concessions like ceding parts of the West Bank’s Area C to the Palestinian Authority. The point is to create a two-state dynamic even without a peace deal. He describes his own practice of “teaching for empathy” by presenting Jewish and Palestinian poets together. Nelson’s Israel is not the mythic realm of demons fantasized by BDS advocates but an actual place that contains signs of hope.

Yet professors and students like Nelson are often denied chances to share their experiences. Instead they are silenced by BDS, which seeks to advance their agenda not through reasoned debate but by a full-frontal assault on free speech. BDS adherents have in the last few years tried to shut down 90 mostly Israeli speakers, some of whom were bona fide leftists. Tactically, the BDS movement uses violence and extreme pressure to forcefully prevent reasoned discussion about Israel on campus, and make university faculty, administrators, and students afraid.

It is in the context of the BDS movement’s campaign of continuous pressure and often violent intimidation against those who hold more nuanced, fact-based views that the apparatus of academic BDS publications and conferences should properly be understood. The jargon of po-mo theory, words like “apartheid,” and baldfaced lies about organ harvesting and biological warfare are intended to intimidate while serving as a fig leaf for the eliminationist fantasies they are intended to justify. Even when the facts are wrong, the fact that books are published and conferences are held allows nervous administrators to pretend that the BDS movement is somehow observing normal rules of academic discourse, rather than violating them.

Yet perhaps because of these social pressure tactics, BDS gets a free ride in much of the mainstream media. Their violent heckling of speakers, their traffic in disinformation, and their opposition to dialogue and open debate are nowhere mentioned, for example, in a recent New York Times Magazine piece by Nathan Thrall. When BDS looks in the mirror, what it sees is the noble faces of crusaders against injustice—but that’s because the mirror is cracked, too.

These days, American universities give awards to student BDS organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, which dutifully parrot the hateful nonsense spewed by their professors, in a grotesque parody of what a humanistic education should look like. Instead, the academy ought to follow the German Bundestag, which declared on May 17 that “the pattern of argument and the methods of BDS are anti-Semitic,” and, the Bundestag added, clearly reminiscent of Nazi-era anti-Jewish boycotts. It’s time that these words became as commonly accepted in America as they are in Germany.
Caroline Glick: Ron DeSantis Takes on the BDS Movement
In greeting DeSantis, Minister Erdan said, “Governor DeSantis has been one of the greatest and most consistent friends of Israel and of the U.S.-Israel alliance. Governor DeSantis promised that under his leadership, Florida would be the most pro-Israel state in America and he has kept his promise. In the name of the government and people of Israel, I want to thank Governor DeSantis for all that he has done.”

DeSantis’s decision to include the trip to Judea in his itinerary demonstrated two key facts.

First, elections matter. While it is true that Gillum tried to distance himself from his ties to BDS groups once they became an election issue, the fact is that he enjoyed long-standing, close ties to these groups. Gallium also harshly criticized President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and Israel’s steps to defend its border with Gaza from penetration by Hamas-organized mobs.

Had Gillum been elected, there is little chance Florida would today be leading the campaign to protect U.S. business, academic and cultural ties with Israel and defeating BDS campaigns to criminalize and discriminate Jews in the U.S. or in any part of Israel.

The second lesson from DeSantis’s visit is that the Palestinians are right about one thing: if Jewish life can be delegitimized in any part of Israel, then it will inevitably be delegitimized in all parts of Israel. You cannot defend Israel’s right to exist in general while claiming Jews are criminals for living or working or building in specific parts of the country.
Florida’s DeSantis removes Airbnb from state blacklist
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he has decided to remove Airbnb from the state’s blacklist after it renounced its decision not to advertise apartments in Judea and Samaria.

“As governor, I have an obligation to oppose policies that unfairly target Israel,” DeSantis wrote on his Twitter account. “Once @Airbnb ended their discriminatory policy toward Israel, we decided to remove them from the @FloridaSBA Scrutinized Companies List.”

Florida sanctioned the global vacation website in January after it announced a decision to boycott West Bank settlements.

The state was able to make the move because, according to Florida law, any company that engages in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) actions can be placed on the Scrutinized Companies List. The state of Florida is prohibited from investing in publicly traded companies on that list or contracting with them for services. But such companies can still engage in commercial activities in the state.

In April, Airbnb announced it would back off of its plan to remove Jewish rentals in Judea and Samaria from its rental listings, to end lawsuits brought by hosts and potential hosts.

Argentina embassies to mark 25 years since AMIA Jewish center bombing
Argentina’s embassies in 20 cities around the world will mark the 25th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in a joint initiative with the World Jewish Congress.

The July 18, 1994 blast killed 85 people and injured more than 300.

The international commemorations began on Monday in Santiago, Chile, and are scheduled to continue this week in Berlin. Some of the other cities that will hold events through July 18 are New York, London, Madrid, Moscow, Brasilia, Canberra, Tel Aviv, Rome, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva.

On Monday in Santiago the president of the local Jewish community, Gerardo Gorodischer, remembered the Chileans that were killed in the attack: Carlos Avendaรฑo Bobadilla and Susana Kreiman.

The Argentinean ambassador to Chile, Jose Octavio Bordon, called for international cooperation from “the democratic countries of the world to put on trial in Argentina the Iranian citizens that are under an international arrest warrant” for their alleged responsibility in the attack.

No one yet has been convicted of the bombing, though Argentina – and Israel – have long pointed the finger at Tehran, implicating several former Iranian officials, and Hezbollah in the AMIA attack and also in the March 17, 1992 terrorist attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.




75th D-Day anniversary: A Jewish perspective
D-Day did not prevent the deportation of 430,000 Hungarian Jews, who perished in the Auschwitz gas chambers over 10 weeks between May and July 1944.

Indeed, preparations for the Western invasion were an excuse not to apply resources to bombing the known railway tracks to Auschwitz.

The most disconcerting failure in the 21 miles of defense were the 12 Jews in the Channel Islands, deported by the Germans to their death, from the only British territory occupied by the Nazis. The collaboration of the islands’ administrators set off frightening “what if” scenarios for British Jewry, had London succumbed.

On January 27, 2020 – ironically United Nations Holocaust Commemoration Day – we will mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Red Army – leading three years later in 1948 to the Cold War, a lengthy incarceration sentence for Soviet Jewry and the establishment of the State of Israel.

From utter powerlessness to a return to sovereignty, we salute the signposts along the way, commemorating the liberators – including those of D-Day.
David Collier: The girl who made the mistake of making friends with a Zionist
What happens when an anti-Israel activist takes a leap of faith and opens a positive dialogue with a Zionist? Well – here is one story.

Because of the subject matter, this blog has been difficult to put together. In advance I can say I gave serious thought about how to approach it. I also had to consider whether to shield someone’s name from the piece. In the end I understood it would be contentious whichever way I tried to lay out the content. I also realised that because both actors in this play are well-known in their own communities – and everything in the blog was available online – there was little point in trying to hide anyone behind an alias.
The meeting

I was up late Sunday night, searching Facebook for posts about the Al Quds demonstration when I came across one written by a woman, Zina, who had attended the Al Quds march. The post was an image of herself, holding a Palestinian flag, standing with a ‘Zionist’ holding up an Israeli one. The activist had proudly added a caption that began ‘well here it is guys, Israel and Palestine can have peace‘:

Whatever your political leanings, this is a positive post. It is clear from the image that Zina had met Joseph Cohen from the Israel Advocacy Movement. According to Joseph’s own post on the meeting, Zina’s father was born in Jerusalem and they spoke about peace and the conflict for about forty minutes.
Zina

Outside of direct confrontation, I cannot know if Zena has or has not encountered a proud Jewish Zionist before. The anti-Israel bubble is a strong one. It uses a foundation of historical revision, a reversal of causality and a process of dehumanisation to suggest ‘Zionists’ are not to be approached or trusted. We also know it intimidates and bullies dissenters. Once captured inside the bubble, anything that contradicts the ‘message’ is discarded as ‘Zionist media’ or ‘Zionist propaganda’. It is very rare for someone deeply embedded to actively stretch outside to seek alternative opinion.

Zina is no half-hearted activist. She manages the ‘Palestine Issue Magazine’ on Facebook, which has over 19000 followers. The page regularly uses terms like ‘Apartheid’ and ‘Genocide’, as it pushes an ‘Electronic Intifada’ version of politics and history. Shortly before she had uploaded the positive message about Joseph, Zina had posted a ‘love this’ comment alongside a video of the Neturei Karta burning an Israeli flag. As for antisemitism, her own page is devoid of Mossad or Rothschild conspiracy. Having said that, in her world, Israel is a racist endeavour and the word ‘Zionist’ is clearly a ‘curse word’.
The Great British Historian and Devoted Communist Who Once Suggested Nuking Israel
Born in Alexandria in 1917 to Jewish parents, Eric Hobsbawm—who later became one of Britain’s most highly regarded historians—spent his childhood in Austria and Germany before coming to England in 1933 in the wake of Hitler’s rise to power. Hobsbawm had joined a socialist youth group in 1931 and remained committed to Karl Marx’s teachings right up until his death in 2012. Reviewing a massive new biography of Hobsbawm by Richard Evans, David Pryce-Jones writes:

Hobsbawm never deviated from the party line, however misguided or self-contradictory it might have been. The record speaks for itself. Stalin’s close colleagues confessed in a series of show trials to crimes they could not possibly have committed, but Hobsbawm nonetheless believed they were guilty. Every Soviet invasion of territory and suppression of other nation-states from the Baltic republics and Finland at the beginning of World War II to Hungary in 1956, and then the Prague Spring afterward, delighted him. He accused Mikhail Gorbachev of the wanton destruction of the Soviet Union, staying in the party right up to its dissolution.

Not long before he died, he caused a scandal by proclaiming in a BBC interview that the murder of fifteen or twenty million people would still now be justified if it led to the creation of a radiant Communist tomorrow. The omissions from his books amount to wholesale falsification. The secret police, Beria, the Gulag, slave labor and the White Sea Canal, the mass execution of Poles at Katyn, the deportation of the Chechens and other minorities, enforced famines, riots—all are either met with silence or a half-sentence with grudge in it.

In Pryce-Jones’s estimation, Evans does not do justice to Hobsbawm’s own moral failings.
British Jewish TV Presenter Rachel Riley Sues Labour Party Official Over ‘Appalling Distortion of the Truth’
Rachel Riley, host of the UK television show “Countdown,” is suing a staff member of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party over a Twitter post that the latter wrote in March, the UK’s Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

Riley is seeking 50,000 euros, which is $55,992, from the Labour party’s head of complaints, Laura Murray, plus legal costs, court documents revealed.

When Corbyn was egged during his visit to a mosque in March, Riley, 33, retweeted a post by left-wing commentator Owen Jones that said: “If you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi. Seems fair to me.”

Riley added, “Sound advice.”

In response to Riley’s post, Murray tweeted, “Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for visit my mosque day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer. Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi. This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.”

Riley said Murray’s tweet about her, which the Labour staffer subsequently deleted, was an “appalling distortion of the truth.” She explained that her tweet should not be interpreted to mean that Corbyn was a Nazi and deserved to be egged, according to The Jewish Chronicle.


Anti-Trump protest in London takes no issue with placard claiming “They all work for Rothschild”
A placard claiming that “They all work for Rothschild” was held at the anti-Trump protest in central London today, apparently drawing no condemnation from protesters. It was not clear who “all” referred to, but it was underlined for emphasis.

Antisemitic conspiracy myths have long placed the predominantly Jewish Rothschild family of bankers and philanthropists behind the world’s ills, accusing them of leading a global Jewish conspiracy. The myth gained widespread currency when the Nazis recognised its potency for turning Germans against the supposed hidden hand of the Jews, who their propaganda claimed was ruining Germany’s national future.

One of the themes of the protest was supposed to be anti-racism.

The placard featured a cartoon of Charles Montgomery “Monty” Burns from The Simpsons. The character is the notoriously wealthy, greedy and stingy owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. It also featured a graphic of the “Flower Thrower” by English street artist and political activist, Banksy. The graffiti of a masked rioter throwing a bunch of flowers first appeared on a wall in Jerusalem in 2003 and then featured on the front cover of his book “Wall and Piece” in 2005.

Protests against McDonald's refusal to open in Israeli settlements
Disabled IDF veterans protested McDonald's refusal to open a branch in Jewish communities located in Samaria on Tuesday, Maariv reported.

Signs outside various McDonald's restaurants in Tel Aviv came amid a government tender for the franchise to open at Ben-Gurion International Airport

The large red signs erected in front of the entrances to McDonald's restaurants stating in Hebrew, English and Arabic:

"Israelis please note! 'Area M' is ahead of you, which is controlled by a company that boycotts parts of Israel. By entering this area you become a supporter of the boycott."

The large red signs were a parody on similarly looking signs that dot the West Bank forbidding Israeli citizens from entering Palestinian Authority areas.
Hillel, ADL Urge UCLA to Address Incidents of Anti-Israel Bias, Antisemitism
Local Jewish community advocates are urging the University of California-Los Angeles to issue “a robust and thorough response to continued incidents of anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism.”

Aaron Lerner, executive director of Hillel at UCLA, and Amanda Susskind, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Los Angeles branch, noted in an open letter published Monday that UCLA’s reputation in the past few years “has been tarnished by a series of incidents reflecting anti-Semitism and extreme bias against Israel.”

After acknowledging “important steps” that have already been taken by the administration to address the situation, Lerner and Susskind called for a “more full-throated response.”

“On campus, the repetition of aggressive, ill-informed and often academically devoid anti-Israel bias has created a highly-volatile, and at times vulnerable, atmosphere for Zionist and Jewish students,” they wrote. “Off campus, it has also created a perception in the community, among alumni, and across the nation that UCLA has failed to provide an environment where it is safe to be Zionist or Jewish.”

Lerner and Susskind said “campaigns that uniquely demonize Israel and its supporters have gained momentum over the last several years,” citing six specific incidents, including the distributions of a May 2014 “ethics statement” that urged student government candidates to forgo taking subsidized trips to Israel with several major Jewish and Zionist groups.
Williams College Investigated for Anti-Jewish Discrimination
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Williams College for discrimination against Jewish students after the student government declined to recognize a pro-Israel student group.

The Office for Civil Rights' Boston accepted a complaint filed by George Mason University law professor David Bernstein which accused the College Council of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the College Fix reports. Title VI prohibits "discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics."

The College Council voted to deny recognition to the Williams Initiative for Israel (WIFI) on April 23. Unlike other meetings of the Council, this one was not livestreamed and meeting minutes did not identify speakers by name.

WIFI was the first applicant to be denied recognition in more than a decade, even though it met the requisite bylaws. According to the Fix, the Council's decision "sparked a wave of outrage among Jewish groups and even the Williams administration, which cited the minutes as evidence that council members voted down WIFI because it supports Israel's existence."

In his complaint, Bernstein accused the student government of opposing WIFI over its support of Israel.

"92% of American Jews support Israel, and support for Israel is a bedrock platform of mainstream Jewish organizations, including Hillel that serves Jewish students. Discriminating against a student group organized by Jewish students for the purpose of supporting Israel constitutes discrimination against Jewish students on the basis of ethnicity or race. The antisemitic statements made in the course of the debate, as well as the unusual procedures undertaken, provide evidence of anti-Jewish motive," Bernstein wrote.






Honest Reporting: Newsweek Links Israel to Myanmar Ethnic Cleansing
Lack of transparency to disguise a non-credible source

So far Maza has relied on anonymous “experts” and non-existent “Israeli authorities” to promote an entirely illusionary narrative. She continues in her effort to link Israel to ethnic cleansing:

In an op-ed published in 2015, American-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baraoud highlighted the similarities between Myanmar and Israel and pointed out that many high-level Israeli officials, including former Israeli President Shimon Peres and the country’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, have visited Myanmar.

“Following the ethnic cleansing of the original inhabitants of Palestine, Israel immediately went on to fashion an alternative and particularly biased narrative about how it was established, and to deny Palestinians any historical link to their homeland,” Baraoud wrote. “The Myanmarese did just that too.”

It’s worth noting that Maza does not cite the media outlet from which she quotes Ramzy Baraoud. Nor does Newsweek provide a hyperlink to the original article. This is hardly surprising. Baraoud’s op-ed wasn’t published in the New York Times, Washington Post or any other credible Western news source. Instead, it appears in Gulf News, a daily English language newspaper published from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This is the same newspaper that once published a Holocaust denial piece before it was taken down. Even The Guardian said at the time that “Gulf News has not been regarded as one of the world’s greatest truth-telling newspapers.” Is this the best that Cristiana Maza can come up with for her online research? No wonder she won’t tell Newsweek’s readers her source.

Ultimately, Maza’s article is a journalistic embarrassment that should never have been published by Newsweek.

We’ve sent an official complaint to Newsweek. Watch this space.
MEMRI: Direct Incitement To Terrorism On 8chan – Including Specific Naming Of A Jewish Journalist For Targeting
On May 20, 2019, an anti-Jewish thread was posted on the imaging board 8chan, titled "I'm done. I'm angry. Gas all kikes."[1] The post, which was uploaded to the page "/pol/ - Politically Incorrect," is another example of the hate speech and calls to action, namely to attack and kill Jews, on this platform.

The 8chan site has come to the attention of the public in the past three months, since New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant[2] and Poway, CA synagogue shooter John Earnest[3] posted their manifestos on it right before they carried out their attacks. It is noteworthy that Earnest called Tarrant a direct inspiration for him (for more on connections among users of these and other platforms, see MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1457, Online Non-Jihadi Terrorism: Identifying Potential Threats, May 30, 2019).

The opening post of the May 20, 2019 anti-Jewish thread

The following is an examination of the anti-Jewish thread on 8chan posted May 20, 2019 that specifically targeted a Jewish journalist.

Calls To Action – And How To Carry Out Attacks

The anonymous 8chan post came in response to allegations that students from Covington Catholic High School had behaved in a racist and offensive manner to a Native American man during their visit to Washington DC to participate in the January 2019 March for Life rally.

The anonymous post, which was also uploaded to the ZIG FORUMS website under the name Kevin Ramirez,[4] expressed rage at the mainstream media (MSM) and explicitly called for the deaths of mainstream media journalists. It specifically named a Jewish BuzzFeed journalist.[5]
Guardian attacks Israel’s record on LGBT rights
The broader point that Holmes misses is that LGBTs enjoy these rights nowhere else in the Middle East.

Many Middle Eastern countries makes homosexuality a crime punishable by death (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen) or jail time (Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria). In other countries, LGBTs face risks of violence, torture and “honor killings” by militias or their own families (the West Bank, Iraq, Turkey) or harassment and crackdowns from the government and non-state actors (Bahrain, Jordan).

Focusing on the Palestinian territories, this Pew graph, on attitudes towards homosexuality is telling. (Note that orange is used to indicate ‘unacceptable’, green is ‘acceptable’, while grey indicates people who didn’t believe the topic was a moral issue.)

As the graph show, only 1% of Palestinian respondents believe that homosexuality is morally ‘acceptable’ behavior. (The only other countries with the same results were Egypt, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda.)

Such results are fully consistent with reports detailing the climate of fear Palestinian gays and lesbians endure due to widespread and often codified intolerance. The Palestinian Authority has no civil right laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination or harassment, and the penal code in Gaza renders homosexual conduct a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The real queer foes are those like Guardian Jerusalem correspondents who consistently ignore the horrors committed against LGBTs in the Palestinian territories – and throughout the Middle East – in order to satisfy their readers’ malign obsession with the world’s only Jewish state.
YouTube to remove videos denying Holocaust, glorifying Nazism
YouTube announced on Wednesday that it is to remove material that denies the Holocaust or glorifies Nazism.

The move, announced on YouTube’s official blog, marks a new stage in the battle against hate speech, the company said.

In 2017, Google’s video-sharing platform took a tougher stance against supremacist content, limiting actions such as sharing, recommending and commenting on clips. That policy, according to the company, reduced views of those videos by an average of 80 percent.

This latest stage aims at prohibiting videos that allege that a “particular group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.” The latter refers to the status of a person who has performed active duty in the military.

“This will include, for example, videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory,” the company said.

“Finally, we will remove content denying that well-documented violent attempts, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary, took place.”
Hate crimes surge in NYC, attacks on Jews almost double
The number of hate crimes in New York City jumped by 64 percent this year, officials said Tuesday, fueled by a major spike in attacks on Jews.

The New York Police Department recorded 184 hate crimes through June 2 — up from 112 in 2018 — during a period when the city experienced a continued reduction in overall crimes.

Of the 184 incidents, 110 targeted Jews, up from 58 in 2018.

There were 18 attacks motivated by the victim's sexual orientation — up from 15 in 2018 — and 18 targeting victims who are black, up from 14, the NYPD said.

The next highest targeted group was whites, who were victims in 11 hate crimes, up from three in 2018.

The NYPD says 75 people have been arrested in connection with the crimes.

"There is no place for hate in New York City and the detectives of the Hate Crime Task Force are working diligently to eliminate these crimes and to bring perpetrators of hate to justice," the department said in its monthly newsletter.
Shocking Antisemitism in Brooklyn
As Israel celebrated its 71st anniversary last month, a group called Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine, an offshoot of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), organized a rally in Brooklyn that featured virulent antisemitic tropes by a city official, offered repeated calls for Israel’s elimination, and a calls for “resistance” — tantamount to terrorism — against the state of Israel.

Protesters gathered near 72nd street and 5th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn for “Nakba 71: The Great Return March Continues.” “Nakba” means “catastrophe,” which is how Palestinian advocates tar Israel’s creation.

In an exclusive video report linked below, the Investigative Project on Terrorism shows how the language used by antisemites has become normalized and tolerated.

“New York City, you will see, Palestine will be free,” they chanted. “New York City, you will learn, refugees will return.”

Gilding the lily at this affair were demonstrably antisemitic and anti-Christian comments made by Brooklyn Assemblyman Ralph Perfetto, who attacked Christians who support Israel: “And as far as the evangelicals, who are sending more money over than AIPAC. Forget about it! You’re waiting for rapture and for Jesus Christ to come back, well this Christian doesn’t want him to come back. So, stop sending your money there.” The crowd cheered.
Man who posted he would kill Jews gets 1 year in prison
A Washington state man who pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Jews was sentenced Tuesday to one year in jail.

Dakota Reed, 20, was arrested in December weeks after the Anti-Defamation League tipped off the FBI about social media posts threatening to kill Jews praying in a synagogue or kids in school. He was charged with two felonies.

Reed was not charged with a hate crime, since his posts skirted the letter of the law under the Washington state statute.

He pleaded guilty in May to two counts of threats to bomb or injure property for his hate speech on several fake Facebook accounts, which were registered under pseudonyms.

“I would just like to apologize and let you know I’m remorseful,” Reed said Tuesday in Snohomish County Superior Court, the local Heraldnet publication reported.

One year in prison is the maximum sentence allowed according to the charges.
Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn Shuts Down Church Appearances of Visiting Polish Antisemitic Historian, Far-Right MP Tied to Iran
The Catholic bishop of Brooklyn announced on Tuesday that two outspoken Polish far-right activists — one an antisemitic historian, the other an ultranationalist MP with ties to the Iranian regime — would not be permitted to speak at two churches in the Greenpoint and Borough Park neighborhoods where their supporters arranged public appearances during their visits to the US this week.

A spokesperson for Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio told The Algemeiner that the meetings were canceled when he was informed of the identities of the two speakers: Ewa Kurek, a historian whose allegations that Jews were complicit in the Nazi occupation of Poland have been roundly condemned by Holocaust experts, and Robert Winnicki, a member of the Polish Parliament for the far-right National Movement (RN) who is known for his strident antisemitic rhetoric.

“As soon as Bishop DiMarzio learned that contentious figures, mired in antisemitic controversy, were scheduled to speak at Brooklyn churches, he had the events canceled,” Adriana Rodriguez — communications director for the Brooklyn Diocese — said in an email on Tuesday.

Rodriguez emphasized that “anyone who offers a message that discredits the horror of the Holocaust, and the genocide which sought to extinguish the entire Jewish people, is not welcome at our parishes or academies.” She added that Bishop DiMarzio “regularly remembers in prayer the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, and offers intentions for peace in our world.”
Owner Of Cheers Minneapolis LGBTQ Bar Called Out For Anti-Semitism
The anti-Semitic Facebook posts of the owner of a yet-to-open LGBTQ bar in Uptown has caused an uproar among Minneapolis’ Jewish and gay communities.

“It’s been the Titanic today: slowly sinking more and more,” said Chad Kampe, the founder and director of Flip Phone Events. “Since I’m a local, gay Jew who does work in the community, it was my duty to call it out.”

Kampe has been posting screenshots of the owner’s rants on his own Facebook page, just in case the owner deleted them.

The owner of Cheers Minneapolis, Emad Abed, has been responding to people on a Facebook thread that called out his anti-Semitic postings with profanity and banning them from his bar:

“This community is a joke. We don’t want their business or support. They can take their money to the Saloon & Gay 90. Without this group commenting on this post we will do big business and we will be the number one gay bar in town Without all the stupid losers commenting on this post Andy Birkey can take his post and shuv it up his gay ass. ❤️ this group here they are all racist, prejudice, biased and discriminatory, that’s why they are not welcome in my bar. My bar will still be number one without them and without their money.”

Birkey, late Monday, shared Abed’s profile on his Facebook page as well as several screenshots of anti-Semitic posts that Abed made. Carin Mrotz, the Executive Director of Jewish Community Action, also posted some of Abed’s posts to her Facebook page. Abed did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Former mayor of Polish town apologizes for the deportation of Jews
The World Zionist Organization has awarded its Jerusalem Prize for 2019 to Rafal Dutkiewicz, who served as mayor of the Polish city Wroclaw from 2002-2018, for his support for the local Jewish community.

During the prize ceremony, Dutkiewicz said he apologized in the name of the Polish people for Poland’s 1968 deportation of Jews, and called to battle anti-Semitism.

The 1968 deportation took place following clashes between the communist government and a student group that advocated for freedom of expression and against censorship, which led to a political crisis that snowballed into a wave of persecution against Jews and Zionists. The Jews who remained in Poland after the war, who by then numbered only tens of thousands, were uprooted. Approximately 20,000 were deported or forced to give up their Polish citizenship.

“Before the Holocaust, there was a big Jewish community that was wiped out during the war. After the war, there were thousands of Jews [still] living here, and they, too, were deported and left the city. It happened because of pressure from the communist government, but it happened in Poland and I want to apologize,” Dutkiewicz said.

“There is also anti-Semitism today, and we must fight it. I am committed to keeping up my support for the Jewish community and the state of Israel. I admire it, its culture, and its capital, Jerusalem. I am doing everything I can to continue on this path,” he said.
Putin inaugurates memorial to World War II Jewish resistance fighters
The crimes of the Holocaust will never be forgiven, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at the inauguration of a memorial dedicated to the Jewish resistance in Nazi concentration camps and ghettos.

Standing on stage next to oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, the monument sponsor, and Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar, Putin said, “Mass killings of people which turned into an industry are a beastly crime of Nazism that cannot be forgiven.

“Those who voluntarily supported these evil acts also, are not and cannot be forgiven,” Putin said.

Vekelsberg, who serves as head of the Russian Federation of Jewish Communities, said, “Today, opening this memorial, we want to commemorate those who personally felt how the Nazi death machine operated but risked fighting for freedom.”

Aaron Belsky, one of the remaining resistance fighters, greeted the officials and together with Putin lit candles in front of the memorial wall.
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker Visits Western Wall During Week-Long Stay in Israel
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tuesday during a week-long stay in the Jewish state, the Israeli media outlet Walla reported.

The “Sex and the City” star, whose father was Jewish, prayed at the holy site while surrounded by other women, and placed a note in the cracks of the Western Wall. Afterward, she walked around the Old City and toured the marketplace there.

The actress, who currently stars on the HBO series “Divorce,” arrived in Israel on Friday for a private tour of the country.

Nadav Peretz, owner of the gay tourism company Outdoors, which planned Parker’s family trip to Israel, also posted on his Instagram stories a photo of Parker in the Old City.
Archaeologists discover city gate from time of King David
A city gate from the time of King David was discovered after 32 years of excavation in the ancient city of Bethsaida in the Golan Heights’ Jordan Park, opening up a world of new possibilities, opinions and theories about the ancient landscape of the Land of Israel.

According to Professor Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska, chief archaeologist overseeing the excavations, the gate and further findings found within the ancient city give the notion that it was possible that Solomon and David might have been kings of the Israelite kingdom.

The previously uncovered gate found in the area last year was cautiously identified to be a part of the biblical city of Zer, a name used during the First Temple period. However, the newly found gate dates back to the time and rule of King David, which is purportedly from the 11th to 10th centuries BCE.

“There are not many gates from capital cities in this country from this period,” said Arav. “Bethsaida was the name of the city during the Second Temple period, but during the First Temple period it was the city of Zer.” Arav cited Joshua 19:35, which says: “The fortified towns were Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Kinneret.”

The excavation and research, sponsored by the Hebrew Union College of Jerusalem, has brought together archaeologists from all over the world to help.

Findings presented by the researchers point to the possibility that Bethsaida was not an Israelite kingdom but instead an Aramaic one. Within the city limits of Bethsaida, there was a stone stele bearing the image of their bull-shaped moon god, which dates back to the 11th century BCE. This monument is one of seven other similar tombstones found from the ancient world, from southern Turkey to Egypt. Two have been found in Bethsaida alone.
How Ancient Coins and Seals Prove the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shifted over the last decades from trying to destroy Israel with the help of neighboring Arab armies to the Palestinian leadership and its supporters seeking to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. A primary focus of this effort has been an attempt to disconnect the Jewish people from having any historical connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Convincing the world that the Jewish people have no connection to this disputed area further cements the narrative that Israel is an occupying force in this land, and especially in Jerusalem.

This began with a declaration by Yasser Arafat on October 11, 1996, in which he said, “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Muslim shrine.” (Ma’ariv, Oct. 11, 1996)

This approach continued on November 22, 1997 when the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, who is the PLO’s senior religious authority for the city and was appointed by Arafat, said: “The Al-Buraq Wall [Western Wall] and its plaza are a Muslim religious property, and the Israeli government’s decisions do not affect it…The Al-Buraq Wall is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Jews have no relation to it.”

It seemed to become official Palestinian Authority policy when, on December 10, 1997, the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information issued a statement that “Jews never had any connection to Jerusalem.” They continued and claimed that “there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces/remains in the Old City of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity.”

The Palestinian leadership made sure that this narrative was told to the Palestinian people. Palestinian historian Jarid al-Kidwa went on Palestinian Authority Television in June 1997 and proclaimed that “the Jews never lived in ancient Israel. All the events surrounding Kings Saul, David, and Rehoboam occurred in Yemen, and no Hebrew remnants were found in Israel, for a very simple reason – because they were never here.”

Arafat adjusted this claim a bit at the 2000 Camp David negotiations with Israeli and US leaders. According to Dennis Ross, the US envoy to the Middle East, Arafat suggested that there was a Jewish Temple but that it was not in Jerusalem.

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