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Thursday, October 31, 2019

10/31 Links Pt2: Despite terror ties, SJP 'antisemitic force' active at Harvard, Columbia; Antisemite Of The Week- Max Blumenthal, an Antisemitic Jew Obsessed with Hating Jews

From Ian:
Despite terror ties, SJP 'antisemitic force' active at Harvard, Columbia
The National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is an “antisemitic force on campus,” according to a new 96-page report about the organization.

The document, published by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) in advance of NSJP’s annual conference being held November 1-3, tracks the history of the organization and highlights how NSJP “promotes antisemitic rhetoric” and is “associated [with] violence and terror, ideologically and politically.”

The study, titled “National Students for Justice in Palestine and the Promotion of Hate and Antisemitism on the University Campus: The Threat to Academic Freedom,” is authored by Charles Asher Small, David Patterson and Glen Feder.

“For centuries, the most violent antisemitic attacks on Jews, including expulsions and pogroms, were rationalized by a need to bring justice to other groups,” said ISGAP chairman Natan Sharansky. “Today, the new antisemitism is brought to the world of academia under the pretext of justice for Palestinians.”

In the report’s foreword, Sharansky says that demonization, delegitimization and double standards against Jews are now being applied to the Jewish collective in the State of Israel.

“All those who value both justice and academic freedom should be resistant to it,” he said.

The report cites dozens of incidents, mainly on social networks, in which traditional antisemitic tropes are used by NSJP local chapters.

In 2017, for example, Students Supporting Israel at City College in NY described on their Facebook page a reaction by SJP members to the visit of Dani Dayan, the Consul General of Israel in New York. According to the post, “Comparisons to Hitler and Nazis were hurled by students… Rather than listening to what the speaker had to say, they put their antisemitic hate on blast, demonizing the Jewish State of Israel and all who would support it.”

Harvard’s NSJP chapter, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, posted on their Facebook page in 2012 that “Zionism is racism. Women who immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago say there were told they would not be allowed into Israel unless they agreed to be injected with the long-acting birth control drug Depo Provera, according to an investigative report aired yesterday on Israel Educational Television.”

Stony Brook University’s SJP also had multiple inflammatory posts, including one noting that “together, we can create a domino effect to ensure Zionism is an extinct ideology.”
A Beginner’s Guide to the SJP National Conference
In a surprise to nobody, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced that its upcoming National Conference, set to commence on November 1, will be held on the University of Minnesota Campus in Minneapolis (UMN). Why is this unsurprising? Because Minneapolis happens to be the district of antisemitic Congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar, a prominent figure in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel.

This is not a coincidence. In fact, the very first goal stated on the conference website is to capitalize on shifts in the political climate, represented by the elections of BDS supporters Rep. Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib. However, the REAL shift in the political climate- one that SJP themselves have played a substantial role in- is the resurgence of the world’s “oldest hatred” in the US, under the guise of BDS.

Countless articles and in-depth studies have delineated the various calls for violence by SJP leadership, as well as their intimate connection with Palestinian terror organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP, all of whom thrive off an ideology of Jew-hatred. It’s not just the leadership which is guilty of purveying antisemitism, but many student members of SJP as well. How many times must an SJP chapter host convicted terrorists like Rasmeah Odeh at their events before they are called out for their antisemitism? How many social media posts fawning over convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti and PFLP founder George Habash must be shared by official SJP accounts until the tech overlords ban SJP from their platforms? How many t-shirts glorifying PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled must be sold at their events before the world opens its eyes?

In the past few years, several analyses have been published revealing the link between BDS activity on campus and antisemitism. According to a Brandeis University study, one of the strongest predictors of hostility towards Israel and Jews on campuses is the presence of an SJP chapter. Furthermore, the campus antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative found that antisemitic activity was 8 times more likely to occur on campuses where anti-Zionist student groups were present.

This brings us back to the SJP National Conference, the epicenter of left-wing antisemitism. We will not be privy to real time updates from the conference since access is heavily restricted, and the speaker list has yet to be announced. But If history is any indication, the conference will be replete with the usual delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish State. They will sell paraphernalia with slogans advocating violence; they will compare Israel to Nazis; and they will host terrorists.



Prominent US Reform Rabbi Warns of Growing Anti-Israel Sentiments in Democratic Party
A prominent US Reform rabbi warned on Wednesday of growing anti-Israel sentiments in the Democratic Party.

The senior rabbi at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, Ammiel Hirsch, spoke out following statements made by a number of Democratic presidential candidates at the annual J Street conference earlier this week about conditioning US aid to Israel.

“Overwhelmingly, most American Jews — including most liberal Jews – passionately support a strong US-Israel relationship,” Rabbi Hirsch stated. “They believe that foreign aid promotes the interests of both countries and oppose any cut in, or redirection of, those funds. American support helps Israel stand against an array of anti-democratic, anti-liberal forces that seek its destruction.”

“The crisis of antisemitism within the UK Labour party began with intense anti-Israel animosity at the party’s margins,” he went on to say. “That anti-Zionism increasingly devolved into the downright antisemitism of the Labour Party itself, severely damaging its standing and reputation and stripping it of Anglo-Jewish support. I fear that a similar process is beginning here in the United States.”

“The Democratic Party is increasingly tolerant of voices that are opposed to Israel’s existence,” Rabbi Hirsch noted. “To allow this process to go unchecked will cause irreparable harm to the bilateral US-Israel relationship and to the Democratic Party, itself.”

“Reducing American support for Israel will not bring peace any closer. To the contrary, it will distance it even further,” he concluded.
BESA: U.S. Presidential Candidates and Military Aid to Israel
Three leading Democratic presidential candidates recently said they would consider cuts in U.S. military aid as a means to pressure Jerusalem into changing its policy in the West Bank. These statements are completely out of touch with the realities of Palestinian-Israeli relations and developments in the Middle East.

The candidates deliberately distort the nature of U.S. military aid to Israel. They ignore the Palestinians' repeated rejection of peace negotiations and peace proposals. They also ignore the unrelenting Palestinian campaign of delegitimization against Israel and the monthly payments to terrorists convicted of murdering thousands of Israeli civilians.

The term "aid" in the context of U.S.-Israeli defense relations is itself misleading. The more accurate term is "investment," as most of the funds are reinvested back into the U.S. economy as it goes to American defense manufacturers. In return for aid, Israel provides the U.S. military and defense industries with information about weapons effectiveness, develops innovative military technology like missile defense systems and border surveillance technology, and shares intelligence and battle-proven military doctrines.

Despite serious disagreements between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, in September 2016 they signed a memorandum of understanding committing $3.8 billion annually for military aid for the next 10 years, as Obama recognized the value of a long-term investment in U.S.-Israeli defense collaboration.
The Irrationality of Punishing Israel by Withholding Aid
Recently several Democratic presidential candidates have raised the possibility of withholding American financial assistance to the Jewish state to induce it to make policy changes. Such a move, notes Michael Koplow, wouldn’t be unprecedented—both George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did so. To Koplow, however, cutting aid would likely “create more problems than it solves”:

Conditioning aid to Israel is a mess from a policy perspective. If it is intended as a way of punishing Israeli behavior, then it downgrades a vitally important defense and intelligence relationship for the purposes of making a values statement.

If U.S. assistance to Israel were an issue existential to Israel’s survival, that would create a different calculus, but as valuable and important as $3.8 billion in annual security assistance is to Israel, the country would be able to live without it.

Even if conditioning security assistance were to work in changing Israeli behavior in the West Bank, it would still bring a potential unintended outcome of greater casualties on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. If withholding security assistance means less money for Iron Dome batteries, for instance, it makes larger numbers of Israeli civilian casualties a certainty when rockets are shot from Gaza, which in turn makes an Israeli ground invasion and exponentially higher Palestinian casualties just as certain. . . . While such an outcome is not the aim of those who advocate conditioning aid, it may come about nonetheless.
Antisemite Of The Week- Max Blumenthal, an Antisemitic Jew Obsessed with Hating Jews
Max Blumenthal, whose Jewish father Sidney Blumenthal, was a former Clinton aide, began his career in 2002 as a radical left-wing journalist and already in 2013 and 2014 the Simon Wiesenthal Center named him as one of the country's most prominent antisemites. In 2015, Blumenthal founded a website called “The Grayzone Project,” which is a one-stop propaganda shop, devoted largely to pushing a pro-Assad line on Syria, a pro-regime line on Venezuela, and specifically, a pro-Hamas line on Israel. Blumenthal currently works as a writing fellow at the Nation Institute, which is funded, in part, by George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Max is a useful Idiot Jew serving as an outspoken supporter and promotor of the antisemitic BDS movement. His book "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel" drew condemnation even from far left-wing critics of Israel for his outlandish antisemitic opinions and the Louis Brandies Center blamed him for mainstreaming antisemitism. The Nation's Eric Alterman blasted the book, claiming it "could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed)."

Max Blumenthal has a long and well known history of antisemitism:
Blumenthal was disinvited from a scheduled speaking engagement by the German “Die Linke” (The Left) party due to his antisemitic views.
Blumenthal’s antics earned him a lifetime ban from the German parliament.
Blumenthal’s works have been cited and praised by radical extremists and neo-Nazis and have been featured on the antisemitic, Islamist blog, Electronic Intifada as well as the neo-Nazi Internet forum, Stormfront.
The left-leaning news outlet Forward referred to Blumenthal’s book as so anti-Israel it, “makes even anti-Zionists blush.”
Blumenthal compared Israel with the Islamic terror group ISIL (=ISIS), calling the Jewish state “JSIL” or the “Jewish State of Israel and the Levant.”
Blumenthal called Israelis “Judeo-Nazis.”
Blumenthal was caught red-handed conjuring up fictitious quotes maligning Israel by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the liberal publication, the Atlantic.
Blumenthal spoke at an event held by the British charity War on Want (WoW), which has sponsored numerous anti-Israel events and helped pay for “Israeli Apartheid Week”. According to the London Telegraph, undercover recordings showed that these WoW events were replete with “anti-Semitism, demands for the destruction of Israel, [and] naked support for terror.”
He also has appeared numerous times as a speaker at fundraising banquets for the Council on American-Islamic Relation (CAIR), a group known for ties to Palestinian terror organization.

Senators Sanders and Warren Offer ‘The Squad’ Squalid Middle East Peace Plans
“In the warmest of human hearts,” the socialist Irving Howe once wrote, “there is always a cold spot for the Jews.” The plans which socialist Bernie Sanders and more-than-socialist Elizabeth Warren have just set forth for resolving the Israel-Palestine “conflict” demonstrate that, in their view, Jews have not done enough dying in the past century.

The plans certainly give no evidence of compassion for the three generations of Israelis who have had to bury their own children. No, their compassion is reserved, in Sanders’ case, for the Arab residents of Gaza, ruled by the Hamas organization, whose written constitution pledges its votaries to “kill Jews wherever you find them,” and who use the billions of dollars sent them by charitable organizations to achieve that aim.

Sanders wants America to send funds intended for Israel to Gaza so its rulers will have money to pay for electricity and groceries, lest they be forced to divert the fabulous sums of money they now receive for more sanguine purposes, especially underground tunnels into Israel to perpetrate raw murder.

Warren, less patient than Sanders, would like to give the Palestinian Arabs joint control of the city of Jerusalem so that they can plant their “capital” city in Israel’s capital. The Arabs never, in their long history in the region, thought of making Jerusalem even the capital of a province. But when their war of 1948 against the nascent Jewish state gave the Jordanians half of the city, they showed, apparently unbeknownst to Warren, what happens in such an arrangement: they proceeded to destroy the synagogues, the cemeteries, the holy places, and the Jewish inhabitants of their half with a savagery that would have shamed animals.

Since in this enterprise of Middle East peacemaking, nothing succeeds like failure, the Palestinians were again, in later years, offered control of eastern Jerusalem by Ehud Barak and other Israeli doves, but to no avail.
Sanders Proposes Sending Israel’s Military Aid to Mel Gibson (satire)
Accusing the Jewish state of committing “atrocities” against the Oscar-winner’s acting career, US Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed ending military aid to Israel and instead giving the funds to Mel Gibson.

“It is not anti-Semitic to acknowledge that the Jewish people have completely destroyed this man’s career just for speaking the truth,” Sanders said during a conference hosted by J Street. “Why are we sending $3.8 billion to Israel instead of helping poor Mel rebuild his life?”

Sanders is just the latest Democratic presidential candidate to propose conditions for US military aid to Israel. Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed ending security coordination with Israel until the Jews let the “toothbrush mustache” come back into style.
U. of Detroit Mercy Prof and BDS Activist Amer Zahr Joins Bernie Sanders Campaign
Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders has brought yet another anti-Israel activist into his campaign: University of Detroit Mercy adjunct law professor and stand-up comedian Amer Zahr.

Zahr was behind the vicious BDS campaign that caused a Lebanese-American man to cancel the planned opening of a Burgerim restaurant in Dearborn (MI) in July, due to threats to his family. The burger chain was founded in Israel, but it is now headquartered in California. Nevertheless, Zahr insisted that Burgerim was built on "on stolen Palestinian land."

Moreover, as JNS's Jackson Richman points out, Zahr "not only endorses BDS, but also has a record of vicious attacks on Jews and Israelis. He refers to the latter as 'foreign colonialist settlers.' He has said that: 'Describing defenders of Israel as "scumbags," "pigs" and "bastards" is not necessary. "Zionist" is sufficiently insulting.'"
Erdogan Ally Met With Omar, Contributed to Her Campaign
Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has received a $1,500 campaign donation from a lobbying group with ties to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The donation, first reported by the Daily Caller, was made on September 30 by the Turkish American Steering Committee (TASC), a non-profit group that has been active in lobbying efforts on behalf of the Turkish government.

Omar was also photographed at a TASC event with organization co-chairman Halil Mutlu, who is Erdogan’s cousin. Mutlu was present at a 2017 clash between Erdogan’s bodyguards and pro-Kurdish protesters in Washington, D.C. A video of the incident shows Mutlu leading a pro-Turkish government chant from the sidelines.

On Tuesday, Omar refused to back a House resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide, opting to vote “present.” The resolution passed overwhelmingly, 405–11.

“Accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as a cudgel in a political fight,” Omar said in a statement explaining her decision.

“A true acknowledgement of historical crimes against humanity,” she continued, “must include both the heinous genocides of the 20th century, along with earlier mass slaughters like the transatlantic slave trade and Native American genocide.” She also voted against imposing economic sanctions on Turkey in a separate resolution.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Omar Warns Recognizing Armenian Genocide Leads To Recognizing Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Rights
One of the few Congressional representatives not to vote in favor of a resolution recognizing the organized mass-killing of more than a million Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War a century ago explained her decision not to join the vast majority of her colleagues by noting that recognition of that atrocity sets one in the direction of accepting other problematic phenomena as having existed, such as the mass-slaughter of Jews under Nazi rule and, the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and there being such a thing as Jewish rights of any sort.

Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar spoke following the vote by the House of Representatives to recognize the Genocide that began in 1914-15 and continued intermittently for several years, even as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated and a more secular Turkey took its place. The 435-member chamber voted 405-11 in favor of the resolution, with Omar the lone Democrat not to support it.

“I feel for the Armenians, I really do,” she insisted. “It’s just that this is not the time to engage in such measures, which open the door to all sorts of problems. I’m not just talking about our relations with Turkey, which of course does not accept there was a genocide. I mean the implications for other events. What’s next, recognizing that the Nazis and their collaborators killed millions of Jews in an organized fashion just a couple of decades later? That would in turn lead to a conclusion that some sort of refuge for Jews in their own sovereign homeland might be necessary, and we all know what such thinking means. It’s unthinkable.”




Polls: Despite mixed opinions on Brexit, 93% of UK Jews won’t vote for Labour
While the Jewish population is small, anti-Semitism in the Labour Party does appear to be registering among the wider electorate. Polling carried out in April found that more than half of all voters — including almost a third of those who backed Labour in 2017 — believe Corbyn’s failure to address the issue of Jew-hatred shows that he is not fit to be prime minister.

As Claudia Mendoza, director of policy and public affairs at the Jewish Leadership Council, argues: “From the polling we have done, there is no doubt that Corbyn’s inability to tackle anti-Jewish racism has had an impact beyond the Jewish community. Jews have friends, neighbors and colleagues who will have seen the strength of feeling.”

Mattinson points to another effect of the anti-Semitism issue. For quite a long time, voters in focus groups didn’t know what anti-Semitism meant, but that’s now changed.

“The electorate now feel that they know [Corbyn] and some of the things that they know about him they don’t like,” she says. “In some ways, the biggest thing it says to them is not so much that he’s racist, but that’s he unable to manage his very divided party.”

There are signs, however, that Jewish support for the Tories rests more on antipathy to Labour than affection for Johnson’s party. Last week’s Jewish Chronicle poll showed that 42% of Jews — a figure which rose to 57% among 18-34 year-olds — said they would consider voting Labour if Corbyn wasn’t leader.
UK Jewish Labour group won’t campaign for Corbyn-led party in December elections
Britain’s Jewish Labour Movement on Thursday announced that it would not send members out to canvass for Labour Party candidates ahead of the elections scheduled for December, amid a rift with the party over its handling of charges of anti-Semitism.

The movement, which has been harshly critical of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said it would only support candidates in “exceptional” cases.

“This crisis of anti-Semitism in the Labour party stems from a failure of leadership from Jeremy Corbyn. When the answer has been to take swift, decisive action, the reality has been equivocation and token gestures,” the movement said in a statement..

“We will not be campaigning unless in exceptional circumstances and for exceptional candidates, like our parliamentary chair Ruth Smeeth, and members of the parliamentary Labour party who’ve been unwavering in their support of us. We will not be giving endorsements to candidates in non-Labour-held seats,” the organization said.

“Political interference is endemic in the system, which is used to protect the leaderships’ friends and allies, rather than ensure the party is a safe space for Jews,” the movement charged.
Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than other faith groups, CAA analysis of Home Office stats shows
An analysis by Campaign Against Antisemitism of new Home Office statistics shows that Jews are almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Police forces across the country record hate crimes against Jews as religious hate crimes, and these records show that in the year 2018/19, a record 1,326 hate crimes were committed against Jews, compared with 672 in the year 2017/18, making Jews the target in eighteen percent of the total number of religious hate crimes.

These figures mean that there is an average of over three hate crimes directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales. Hate crimes against Jews are also still widely believed to be under-reported, and also do not reflect the extent of antisemitic material and abuse on social media.

However, when one accounts for the miniscule size of the Jewish population, it emerges that Jews are statistically almost four times more likely to be the targets of hate crimes than any other religious group, with some 255 hate crimes per 100,000 of the Jewish population in 2017/18 rising to 503 hate crimes in 2018/19.


Israel frets as imminent EU ruling expected to force settlement labeling
Israel is worried about an expected court decision that would enshrine in law the requirement for European countries to label Israeli products made in the settlements.

On November 12, the Court of Justice of the European Union is set to issue its final decision on a case that began when an Israeli winery in the West Bank and a pro-Israel advocacy group appealed a French court’s decision that determined that wines produced by Israeli settlers may not be labeled as “Made in Israel.”

The EU court is widely expected to rule that settlement goods must indicate that they were produced in Israeli settlements, as opposed to in sovereign Israel.

The court’s decision cannot be appealed and will be legally binding on all EU member states. In practice, it would allow any pro-Palestinian activist to take legal steps against West Bank products labelled as as made in Israel, Israeli officials said this week.

Furthermore, Jerusalem fears the forthcoming ruling could have a chilling effect on European businesses currently considering whether to import settlement products, which has the potential to seriously hurt Israeli exporters.

“We are concerned about the expected verdict,” an Israeli diplomatic source told The Times of Israel. “We expect European countries that value the peace process and that deem the relationship with us important not to implement the ruling in a manner that would damage our relationship.”
Toronto Raptors Object to BDS Claiming Victory Behind Canceled Israel Trip
Despite activists from the anti-Israel BDS claiming victory over the Toronto Raptors canceling their planned visit to Israel this summer after winning the NBA championship this year, the team’s co-owner Larry Tanenbaum said the issue pertained to scheduling conflicts.

Tanenbaum, who is Jewish, said that the #RaptorsDontGo campaign by the Canadian BDS Coalition played no role in the trip not transpiring.

“Following our NBA championship win, as an organization, our intention was to take the Raptors to Israel, but as you can imagine, managing a group of championship basketball players with increasingly demanding schedules, as well as having many of our players and coaches participating in the FIBA World Cup in China during August, made it simply impossible to find dates that worked for the whole team in this shortened off-season,” Tanenbaum told The Canadian Jewish News.

“I find it curious that anti-Israel activists, about whom I have little knowledge, are taking credit for our scheduling challenges. I think legitimate questions can be raised about the intentions of a group that is attempting to sow division through sport,” he continued. “It seems to me that sport should be used as a vehicle to bring people together. Look at the Raptors. Our approach to diversity, in part, won us a championship.”
New Yorker Corrects Headline Which Presumed Israeli Firm’s Guilt
Following communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, New Yorker editors today corrected a headline which presumed the guilt of an Israeli firm facing a lawsuit filed by WhatsApp for alleged exploitation of the platform to enable governments to spy on human rights activists and journalists.
Although the veracity of WhatsApp’s accusations have not yet been confirmed, the headline had stated: “WhatsApp Sues an Israeli Tech Firm Whose Spyware Targeted Human-Rights Activists and Journalists.”
Numerous leading media outlets carried headlines which carefully qualified the charges in the suit as claims, accusations, or allegations. Examples follow.
New York Times: WhatsApp Says Israeli Firm Used Its App in Spy Program
Wall Street Journal: Facebook Sues Israel’s NSO Group Over Alleged WhatsApp Attack
BBC News: WhatsApp Sues Israel firm over phone hacking claims
BBC Arabic radio promotes Israel-free map of ‘Palestine’ for children
The October 24th episode of BBC Arabic’s radio show “Dardasha Layliya” (‘Nightly Chat’) included an interview with an Israeli Arab environmental engineer called Omar Asi who identified himself as being a resident of “the interior of Palestine” and who was described by the BBC presenter as calling from “Palestine”.

In that interview – presented by BBC Arabic’s Heba Abd al-Baqi – listeners were acquainted with Asi’s project: a child-friendly map of “Palestine” from the river to the sea. The map and a link to the programme were also promoted on the BBC News Arabic Facebook page.

(all translations, emphasis and in-bracket remarks by CAMERA Arabic):
“(26:55) What distinguishes this map is that we see a lot of diversity, a lot of colours in it, and the colours […], indeed, aren’t coincidental, I mean, Palestine is always characterized by [this], it is said that during certain times [of the year], it has four seasons on the same day, in the Negev you’d see summer, in the North you’d see winter, and there’s a lot of diversity in Palestine, in terms of climate, even in terms of biodiversity, I mean, if we look at the map we’ll see that in Jaffa there are oranges, in Hebron there are grapes, in Nablus there’s kenafeh [a type of dessert], and in Jerusalem there are bagels, all of this diversity, it would be impossible for the child to get it from maps he sees in schools, the traditional maps. That is if he [even] sees maps of Palestine, I mean, many children like me, who went to schools which are called ‘Arab-Israeli schools’, children from the interior of Palestine, they don’t see maps of Palestine, they see maps of Israel…”.

The BBC News pot and the Washington Post kettle
October 28th saw the publication of a report headlined “Washington Post criticised, and lampooned, over Baghdadi headline” on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ and ‘US & Canada’ pages.

“The Washington Post faced criticism on Sunday for calling Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group who had died the day before, an “austere religious scholar”.
The newspaper amended its headline to call him an “extremist leader”.
Vice president of communications Kristine Coratti Kelly said the headline “should never have read that way and we changed it quickly”. […]
The first version of the Washington Post’s headline called Baghdadi “terrorist-in-chief”, before it was changed to “austere religious scholar at the helm of Islamic State”.”

The BBC is of course itself no stranger to problematic portrayals of terrorists and terror attacks. As we have documented on these pages over the years, the corporation has described the terrorist Leila Khaled as “beautiful”, “sultry-eyed”, “iconic” and a “dissident”.

Other Palestinian terrorists have also been portrayed by the BBC as “dissidents” and terms such as “militant”, “guerrilla” and “political prisoner” have been employed in BBC reporting for nearly five decades. In 2014 the BBC’s Jon Donnison reported the death of a Palestinian ‘charity worker’ without mentioning that the PFLP described him as a “fighter commander” in its ranks.
Senators Launch Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Antisemitism
Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) on Monday launched the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism.

The collaboration is the first of its kind in the US Senate, serving as a corollary to the House of Representative’s Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, of which Rosen was a member when she served in that chamber.

This week’s launch coincided with the one-year anniversary of the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 Jewish worshippers were shot and killed during Shabbat-morning services—the deadliest American Jewish history.

“In the United States, we’ve seen evidence that antisemitism and acts of hate are growing at an alarming rate,” wrote Rosen and Lankford in a joint opinion piece announcing the launch of the Task Force. “As Members of Congress, our responsibility to our neighbors, to our friends, to our community and to our children is to work together in a bipartisan way to prevent antisemitism before it starts—to educate, to explain and to empower.

“The mission of this Task Force will be to collaborate with law enforcement, federal agencies, state and local government, educators, advocates, clergy and other stakeholders to combat antisemitism by educating and empowering our communities,” they wrote.

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives’ Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism was relaunched.
Nazi flag seen hanging in California parole office
Why was a Nazi flag hanging on the wall inside a California parole office over the weekend?

The state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has launched an investigation to find out.

An anonymous video uploaded Saturday on Imgur, a video and photo sharing website similar to Instagram, shows a red Nazi flag with a black swastika in the center visible through the window of a CDCR office in downtown Sacramento. The video also shows what appears to be a second flag, black with SS bolts, hanging below it.

“This is a trashy way to represent this beautiful city, especially in a state building,” a caption on the online post read.

By Tuesday, the video had been viewed more than 23,000 times.

A CDCR spokesperson confirmed that the flag had been hung in its state parole office at 1608 T St. In a statement emailed to J. on Tuesday, press secretary Dana Simas said the office deals with high-level offenders and often comes into contact with “objectionable” items.

“While CDCR has a zero tolerance policy for the display of objects that are derogatory in nature, in an office that covers gang members and high-risk sex offenders we will come into contact with items that may be considered objectionable,” the statement read. “However, we take this issue seriously and have removed the item and are looking into the circumstances for why the flag was displayed in potential view of the public.”
‘I Had to Face a Whole Clique Every Day’: Berlin Jewish High School Students Tell German Justice Minister of Rampant Antisemitic Bullying
Germany’s justice minister visited a Jewish school in Berlin on Tuesday where she met with students driven out of the city’s public education system by antisemitic bullying.

According to a report in the German news outlet Bild, the minister, Christine Lambrecht, was “horrified” by the stories she heard from the students, who now attend the Gymnasium Moses Mendelssohn. Reopened in 1993 as the city’s Jewish high school, its building had served during the Nazi era as a deportation center for Berlin’s Jews.

One student, who gave her name as Emily, told Lambrecht, “I didn’t say at my old school that I was Jewish, I didn’t wear my Star of David.” She explained that the “aggressive hatred” she faced at the school had compelled her to hide her identity.

When Lambrecht expressed outrage at Emily’s treatment, arguing that it was the perpetrators who should be forced to leave a school rather than their victims, the 17-year-old replied, “That would have been difficult. It wasn’t just one person, it was a whole clique that I had to face every day.”

Another student, David, told Lambrecht: “If I forget to remove my kippah when I’m outside, I receive stupid insults.”

Continued the 17-year-old: “It’s hard for me to come out as Jew.”

Nineteen-year-old Rafet told Lambrecht of a personal connection to the attempted massacre on Oct. 9 of worshipers attending Yom Kippur services at a synagogue in Halle. The gunman, a neo-Nazi, murdered two people outside the synagogue after failing to break through the building’s security doors.

“A friend of mine was in that synagogue — if those doors hadn’t held, he would have been dead,” Rafet said.
Mayor of French City Condemns Rising Antisemitism After Frenzied Individual’s Attack on Jewish School is Foiled
The mayor of the southern French city of Nice has strongly condemned rising antisemitism in his country following an incident at a Jewish school in which a man yelling antisemitic epithets tried to break into the building.

Christian Estrosi — the mayor of Nice — declared on his Twitter feed that such acts were “intolerable.”

Referring to the attempted intrusion at the Or Torah School on Tuesday, and noting the “antisemitic threats” made by the offending individual, Estrosi said, “I condemn these intolerable acts. I cannot accept the rise of antisemitism in our country.”

According to local media reports, security guards at the school swiftly overcame the intruder and hauled him outside, where he carried on yelling threats and antisemitic invective. Police officers arrived at the scene quickly, and there was no direct threat to the children inside the school at any point during the incident.

Estrosi also paid tribute to the “professionalism of the officers of the Municipal Police of Nice and the National Police.” The school’s security guards, too, had acted “calmly and courageously,” the mayor said.


Court blocks sale of Holocaust letter by Yad Vashem board member
The Tel Aviv District Court issued an injunction against the sale of a letter written by a young girl killed in the Holocaust after her surviving relatives sued to prevent a prominent Haredi activist from bringing it to auction.

The letter, one of several that was set to be auctioned off as a lot on Tuesday evening, was written by Rachel Mintz, a Jewish girl from Poland, when she was 11 years old. It described life in 1937 Poland and her desire to immigrate to Israel.

Mintz was the the youngest of five brothers and sisters. Her older brothers fled east and survived the Holocaust while she and her mother remained in Poland and hid. They were eventually murdered after a Jew from the town informed the Germans of their hiding place. She was 16.

The letter was found along with other letters sent by Jewish children from Poland and were intended to be delivered to children at a school in Haifa. The school principal took the letters home, and after his death, they ended up into the hands of a merchant who sold them.

From there they came to Dudi Zilbershlag, a Haredi businessman, activist and journalist who is a member of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum council. He in turn offered them to the Dynasty auction house.
Free College Tuition for American Jews
With universities becoming increasingly hostile to Israel, Liel Leibovitz suggests that American Jewish philanthropists should offer to pay the tuitions of young American Jews willing to attend college in the Jewish state. After demonstrating the economic sense of his proposition—tuition at Israeli universities runs about $3,000 a year—he touts its potential benefits:

What could better appeal to young American Jews of all political leanings and persuasions [than a free education]? . . . It should also appeal to parents who are paying upward of $70,000 a year to send their children to universities where they are being turned into progressive piñatas in a bankrupt system in which ideological indoctrination has largely replaced the teaching of history, literature, and political philosophy.

For about $60 million a year, paid for by whatever combination of generous American benefactors and the Israeli government, we can send a cadre of about 1,000 American Jewish students to Israel each year, each one of whom can serve as a human bridge that will help bring our two worlds closer together. Some of them may want to undertake aliyah, serve in the army, and marry an Israeli, and [thus] strengthen the interfamilial bonds between the two Jewish communities in the most direct ways possible. A majority will hopefully return to America after four years of college in Israel, speaking fluent Hebrew and able to form a powerful core for the next generation of American Jewish communal leadership.

Some may return after a year or two, or four, and continue their education in an American college, equipped to face whatever awaits them there. But all of them will get to know Israel as few young American Jews know it now—and, just as important, introduce American Judaism to an Israeli society largely ignorant of its beauty and richness.
Report: Mnuchin Proposes FDA Branch in Israel, Meets With Health Officials
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met on Tuesday with Israeli health officials to discuss opening an Israeli branch of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a Treasury spokesperson told JNS.

Calcalist first reported the meeting.

The meeting, which included Marius Nacht, co-founder of life sciences and healthcare venture capital fund aMoon, as well as senior executives from Israeli health-maintenance organization Clalit and Sheba Medical Center, was held at the home of US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman in Herzliya.

The FDA has few branches outside the United States, including those in China, and several European and Latin American nations.

“At first glance, Israel is too small to meet the FDA criteria for a local branch, but the matter is being considered due to the country’s unusually large concentration of biotech and medtech companies,” reported Calcalist, citing a source familiar with the matter. “While it will not replace the need to apply for FDA clearance in the US, it could shorten the application process for Israeli companies.”

Estimates are that such a branch could be established in Israel in the near future, the person said.
Jaguar-Land Rover Partners With Israeli Car Fleet Management Startup Fleetonomy
Tel Aviv-based car fleet management startup Fleetonomy has signed a collaboration agreement with Jaguar-Land Rover and its investment arm InMotion Ventures, the company announced Monday. Under the agreement, Fleetonomy will provide Jaguar with technology to launch and operate its premium electric chauffeur service Havn.

Founded in 2016 by Lior Gerenstein and former Check Point Software Technologies executive Israel Duanis, Fleetonomy develops a cloud-based fleet management service for carmakers, car rental companies, and ride-sharing services. The company employs 25 people and has raised $4.5 million to date.

In recent years, there is increased demand from international automotive manufacturers for technology that could be used not only to manage car fleets, but to optimize services in real-time and improve them over time, Gerenstein said in a statement.

The right technology partner is critical for the entire service, Lars Klawitter, managing director of Inmotion’s Studio 107, said in a statement.
Pakistan: The Australian Consul-General's wife tale
If you visit the Israeli town of Ramleh, you will find a synagogue built by Pakistani Jews. It is named Magen Shalom, after the synagogue in Karachi which no longer exists. The Jews of Pakistan once numbered about 3,000, but the violent repercussions to the Arab-Israeli conflict have driven the community away. (In addition, as the case of Asia Bibi has shown, Pakistan is hardly today a beacon of religious freedom.) The following story is based on real events and centres around the Jews of Karachi, who were desperate to cross the closed border with India in the 1970s. Wayne Croning has recreated the story in his own words...names are made up.

Hannah made the driver cover the number plates of the Mercedes, even made him remove the flag from the bonnet. She got in front and gave him the address. Jamila Street, in the Ranchore.

Her husband David was posted to Karachi a few months previously, as the Australian Consul-General. Hanna and their children arrived a few weeks later. They had been to several countries, including some in South America. The city reminded her of Bombay, where she and her family once lived.

Crowded, bustling, hot and humid. But she loved it. She loved the food, the people and the culture. The first thing she did on arriving at any new country was to look up the Jewish population; being Jewish herself. After a short search with help through a high ranking local official, she found to her amazement, that there was indeed a small but thriving Jewish community with a decent-sized synagogue in the commercial hub of the city.

As they drove from Clifton to Saddar, they eventually got onto Bunder Road (M.A.Jinnah Road), and took a turn off this busy street.The street they were on now was narrow, but crowded with people, cars, rickshaws, motorcycles. The synagogue was not hard to find. A large stone and brick building soon appeared on their right. Above the steel gate, and on the building itself was a sign: 'Magain Shalome Synagogue’.
Ex-Australian PM, John Howard, honors soldiers of Battle of Beersheba
The sound greeting the hundreds of participants who came to the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Thursday to commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba was the indigenous Australian musical instrument the didgeridoo played by Chris Williams, a descendant of the Waka Waka tribe that lives in the island continent’s northern state of Queensland. The didgeridoo realistically emulates the sounds of nature.

Among the arrivals were former Australian legislators, Australian and New Zealand representatives of seven Zionist youth groups, as well as diplomatic representatives and military attaches from the embassies of the United Kingdom, United States, France, Canada, India, Germany and Turkey who participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the catafalque that was led by Australian Ambassador Chris Cannan and New Zealand Ambassador Wendy Hinton.

Also among the wreath layers was a representative of Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, who attended despite the fact that the Foreign Ministry is on strike, and that for some weeks now its representatives have not attended diplomatic events hosted by the ambassadors of other countries.

Declaring that the Battle of Beersheba – which was decisively won 102 years ago by Australian and New Zealand Forces – changed the course of history in the region and the world, former Australian prime minister John Howard honored the memories of all brave soldiers, friend and foe, who fell in battle in 1917.

“We are here not in triumph but in tribute,” he said in the course of his address at the cemetery where 1,241 British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers are buried. Of these, 173 have been identified as Australians.

The year 1917 was a miserable and traumatic one for Australia, with so much slaughter on the battlefields, said Howard,

“In October 1917, more Australians died on the battlefield than in any other war before or since.”

Howard attributed the ultimate success of the campaign to “very basic Australian bravery and daring.”


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