Wednesday, November 13, 2019
David Singer: Release of Trump Deal Could Break Israel Elections Deadlock
The release of President Trump’s long-awaited and eagerly-anticipated deal of the century could be just the catalyst required to persuade Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu bloc of 8 members to join Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bloc of 55 members to form Israel’s next Government.
Trump has previously announced that he would not present his plan to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict until a new Israeli government was formed – but Trump’s position could be dramatically altered as the current political uncertainty in Israel seems to be leading to a third election being called within the space of 12 months.
New Right chairwoman Ayelet Shaked has been trying in the past week – unsuccessfully so far – to create a situation that would bring Liberman’s bloc and Netanyahu’s bloc together to enable a new government to be sworn in.
Shaked has reportedly met with Liberman. Afterwards, she also met with United Torah Judaism chairman Yaakov Litz man and Degel Hatorah chairman Moshe Gafni.
These meetings focused on a compromise on issues of religion and state – and especially the Draft Lawrequiring ultra-orthodox youth to do military service – which would allow the parties to sit together in government – as was the case throughout much of the term of the last elected Government.
Both sides reportedly were willing to listen but found it too difficult to compromise. Liberman's side is interested in recording an achievement on the Draft Law – while the ultra-orthodox seek to prevent the law from becoming too sharply-worded.
President Trump must be champing at the bit at the continuing failure of the major political parties in Israel – Likud and Blue and White – to form a Government of National Unity – that would have heralded the release of Trump’s peace proposals in September.
Trump says he worries about Israel as missiles fly, jokes at political deadlock
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was watching missiles fly into Israel with concern, and also joked at Israel’s political system. Speaking at a Jewish event, he quipped that if impeached he could move to Israel and quickly become prime minister.
“What kind of a system is it over there, right, with Bibi and…? They are all fighting and fighting,” Trump said, addressing an event hosted by the Orthodox organization America First in New York City.
“We have different kinds of fights. At least we know who the boss is. They keep having elections and nobody is elected,” he quipped, eliciting laughter.
Israel is currently in a political deadlock after an unprecedented second election within a few months, with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rival Benny Gantz having a clear path to a governing coalition. There is a looming possibility of the country going to the polls soon for the third time in a year.
The crowd welcomed Trump like a king — literally. In presenting Trump, the host, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Jacobson, recited a traditional blessing said when meeting a king or a state leader.
A source texted me this video of POTUS remarks (partial) at the America First Orthodox Jewish event today in NYC
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 12, 2019
I'm not sure if he's mentioned making calls to other leaders in the Middle East after changing the location of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. WH reporters would know. pic.twitter.com/6R1Blatb9s
Amb. Alan Baker: The European Union Labels Itself Biased
The European Court of Justice declared on Nov. 12, 2019: "Foodstuffs originating in the territories occupied by the State of Israel must bear the indication of their territory of origin, accompanied, where those foodstuffs come from an Israeli settlement within that territory, by the indication of that provenance."Israeli Winery at Center of EU Court Ruling on Labeling Refuses to Back Down
The EU-directed policy requiring member states to label products manufactured in Israeli settlements is intended to harm Israel and Israel only, as a distinct political action and as a means of pressuring Israel politically.
The EU labeling requirement represents full identification with the aims of the BDS movement to undermine Israel and to weaken the relations between European states and Israel.
The selective and discriminatory policy directed solely against Israel blatantly ignores the numerous situations in the world where states administering territories have transferred hundreds and thousands of their own citizens into the territories they are administering, such as Turkey in Northern Cyprus, Morocco in the Western Sahara, and Russia in Ukrainian territory.
The labeling directive means that the EU has taken sides and has prejudged one of the central negotiating issues - that of settlements - which is still an open issue on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating table.
Self-respecting European states that genuinely believe in the importance of advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation process cannot identify with or implement such a discriminatory measure intended to harm Israel.
The decision by the European Court of Justice to require separate labeling of products from Israeli settlements is being widely condemned by pro-Israel groups as singling out the Jewish state and injecting politics into consumer choices.Israel Rejects European Court of Justice Ruling
The ECJ on Tuesday ruled that foodstuffs originating in what they call “territories occupied by the State of Israel,” which include Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and parts of Jerusalem, cannot be labeled as “made in Israel,” but instead must provide consumers with a label informing them that they were produced in an Israeli “settlement” or “colony.”
The court stated that since it views Israel as an “occupying power” and not a “sovereign entity” in those areas, it would be misleading for EU consumers if imported products were labeled as being goods produced by the State of Israel.
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project, told JNS in response to the ECJ decision that the ruling will hurt the European Union more than it will hurt Israel.
“The ruling opens the floodgates where consumers in any EU country will be able to insist that any consideration important to them before they purchase a product—whether social, political, environmental or other—will have to be included on the labeling of any product being imported,” she noted. “Not just from Israel.”
FM Katz: The ruling is unacceptable both morally and in principle, and contradicts Europe’s position that a resolution to the conflict must be advanced through direct and unconditional negotiations, and not through legal rulings.US blasts EU decision in Psagot case
Israel strongly rejects the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which serves as a tool in the political campaign against Israel. The ruling's entire objective is to single out and apply a double standard against Israel. There are over 200 ongoing territorial disputes across the world, yet the ECJ has not rendered a single ruling related to the labeling of products originating from these territories. Today’s ruling is both political and discriminating against Israel.
This ruling only diminishes the chances of reaching peace and contradicts the positions of the European Union on the conflict. It plays into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, which continues to refuse to engage in direct negotiations with Israel, and emboldens radical anti-Israel groups that advance and call for boycotts against Israel and deny its right to exist.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz: “The European Court of Justice’s ruling is unacceptable both morally and in principle. I intend to work with European foreign ministers to prevent the implementation of this gravely flawed policy, which contradicts Europe’s position that a resolution to the conflict must be advanced through direct and unconditional negotiations, and not through legal rulings."
The US State Department stated its deep concern over the EU requirement decided on Tuesday by the Court of Justice of the European Union that Israeli goods produced over the pre-1967 line must be marked as settlement products.
“The circumstances surrounding the labeling requirement in the specific facts presented to the Court are suggestive of anti-Israel bias,” read the State Department statement on Wednesday. “This requirement serves only to encourage, facilitate, and promote boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.”
The statement by spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the US unequivocally opposes any effort to engage in BDS, or to otherwise economically pressure, isolate or otherwise delegitimize Israel. “The path toward resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict is through direct negotiations,” she said. “America stands with Israel against efforts to economically pressure, isolate or delegitimize it.”
The landmark ruling by the European Union’s top court will codify into law the labeling of settler products, making it mandatory for the first time for all 28 EU member states. Previously it had only been an advisory by the EU, and was left to the individual purview of its member states.
Yesterday’s decision by the ECJ requiring retailers to mark food made in Israeli settlements is deeply concerning to the US. We stand w/@IsraelinEU against efforts to economically pressure, isolate, or delegitimize it. https://t.co/6b27mUo9Sw
— US Mission to the EU (@US2EU) November 13, 2019
The 4,006 Palestinians the Europeans Have Not Heard Of
The Palestinians held in Syrian prisons are probably not overly concerned about whether or not a bottle of wine made by Jews is labeled by the Europeans.Their loss, not ours
The Europeans, however, who never stop moralizing to the rest of the world, take a different view: they seem to perceive settlement products as more dangerous than the repressive and brutal measures taken by the Syrian authorities against Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are meanwhile too busy hunting down critics on Facebook to pay any heed to the Palestinians in Syria.
Much better, from their point of view, for the international community to spend its time disgorging hate against Israel and Jews; after all, at least that serves the Palestinians in their real project of delegitimizing, and destroying, the region's only free and democratic state.
All these years later, not much that we can consider positive has emerged from the Oslo Accords, other, that is, than stopping the money Arafat had been funneling from Israel. The VAT that Palestinian goods were charged the value-added tax and collected in Israel was, until it was stopped, deposited directly into Arafat’s personal account in Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv, and that’s where it stayed. Even after Oslo that continued from 1994 until 2000 when Israel stopped the procedure.UNRWA is in trouble
That was minimal corruption. So enormous was the corruption under Arafat that Israeli Military Intelligence estimated his personal wealth at $1.3 billion. The International Monetary Fund audited the Palestinian Authority in 2003 and found that Arafat simply took $900,000 and deposited it into his personal account. They never reported it because, by then, Arafat was an international and diplomatic figure. Instead, they whitewashed it.
They reported that most of the funds were used to invest in Palestinian causes internally and abroad. Other audits discovered that Arafat and the PLO had $10 billion in assets abroad, including accounts in the Cayman Islands, massive shares in the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Ramallah, and a cellphone company in Tunisia. The list went on. All the while, Arafat kept maintaining that the PA was bankrupt and asking for international aid.
Strategically, Arafat was masterful. He manipulated and navigated the international community as he sponsored terrorism against Israel and became elevated to the status of hero and defender of his nation. He had a brilliant understanding of power and asymmetrical war. He knew that the world would deem Israel as oppressors when it retaliated against Palestinian terrorism.
Yasser Arafat was a tremendous threat to the security of Israel, and Israel attempted to assassinate him more than once. The missions have names, Operation Salt-Fish and Operation Goldfish are just two.
Arafat’s tradition of corruption and terrorism continue today. What is missing in today’s Palestinian leadership is his style and mastery of the art of manipulation. Their loss, not ours.
A US State Department official concurred, emphasizing that UNRWA is beyond repair: “The U.S. views on UNRWA are clear. As we have said, the fundamental business model and fiscal practices that have marked UNRWA for years – tied to UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of beneficiaries – are simply unsustainable and the organization has been in crisis mode for many years. The United States will not commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation.”
A spokesman for the German Federal Foreign Office declared that although they support the renewal of the UNRWA mandate in its existing form, they still have “been in active dialogue with UNRWA on issues such as organizational, budgetary and policy reform and standards of service. This also includes an active dialogue regarding school curricula as well as possible suspicions of non-compliance with UN values by individual UNRWA staff members. In cases of non-compliance, Germany calls for clarification and appropriate measures within the UN rules and regulations.”
However, other UNRWA donor nations seemed less bothered by the allegations against UNRWA. The Danish Foreign Ministry declared, “The EU and its member states are proud to support UNRWA's work in providing essential services to Palestine refugees, which should be seen as an inseparable part of our effort to reach a negotiated two-state solution and a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The EU and its member states are collectively the largest contributors to UNRWA.” The Danish Foreign Ministry denied any allegations of corruption: “UNRWA has rigorous processes and mechanisms in place for the implementation and enforcement of its rules, regulations and policies relating to UN neutrality.”
While the Danish Foreign Ministry and UNRWA’s denial of the issues at hand is apparent, America’s isolationist approach will do nothing more than lead to other non-democratic forces taking over UNRWA, which will only exasperate the issues at hand. Since UNRWA’s mandate renewal depends upon a UN General Assembly resolution, it is not realistic that UNRWA will simply disappear because that is what US President Donald Trump wants. Therefore, it would be much more effective for pro-democratic nations like the US to utilize their donations to UNRWA in order to ensure that the corruption, sexual abuse, ethical misconduct and war curriculum within the international humanitarian organization comes to an end. If donor nations apply enough pressure, this is within the realm of the possible. However, it simply won’t happen if America continues to promote an isolationist foreign policy.
No, EU, the opposite is true: “UNRWA has become part of the problem. It supplies the ammunition to continue the conflict. By supporting UNRWA, we keep the conflict alive. It’s a perverse logic.”
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 11, 2019
— 🇨🇭 Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis
(May 17, 2018: https://t.co/hbhyXSfjGX) https://t.co/Zp82GZj0FN
UN agency to take 'aggressive' action if sexual abuse claims substantiated
The head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has vowed to take “aggressive” action against sex abusers, following an internal survey that found multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault at the agency.Trump adviser Stephen Miller sent white nationalist materials to journalist
“If we have a claim of rape by anyone in the WFP, if we can substantiate, I can’t begin to tell you how aggressive” actions will be, executive director David Beasley told news agency Associated Press.
At least 28 employees said they had experienced rape, attempted rape or sexual assault while working at WFP.
More than 640 other people, or 8% of the 8,127 employees surveyed, said they were victims of, or had witnessed, sexual harassment. And 12%, or 950 staff, said they witnessed retaliation for speaking up about abusive practices.
The confidential draft survey, first published by the Italian Insider, revealed claims that senior management at the agency had abused their authority, committed or enabled harassment, discriminated against female employees and ethnic minorities and retaliated against those who spoke up in protest.
White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist materials to the right-wing website Breitbart News as the 2016 presidential election neared.French National Assembly Set to Debate Antisemitism Resolution Amid Row Over Inclusion of Anti-Zionism
Many of the 900 emails sent from March 2015 to June 2016 “showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency,” according to a report on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
SPLC’s Hatewatch blog reviewed the emails, which were leaked by then-Breitbart reporter Katie McHugh.
More than 80 percent of the emails relate to race or immigration, according to the report. Miller, who is Jewish and a hard-liner on immigration did not write sympathetically or neutrally at all about nonwhite or foreign-born people. Miller is a descendant of immigrants.
Miller, who recently became engaged to a Jewish woman, also sent McHugh links to VDare, a news website popular with white nationalists, and recommended that she read “The Camp of the Saints,” a racist French novel by Jean Raspail from the 1970s that has become an ideological foundation document for white nationalists.
Breitbart fired McHugh in 2017 after she posted anti-Muslim tweets. She later renounced the far right.
The French parliament confirmed on Wednesday that it would discuss a resolution on the “resurgence” of antisemitism in the country that has so far been mired in political controversy, with critics of the text rejecting the inclusion of anti-Zionism among the “new forms” of Jew-hatred to have emerged more recently.IAEA Discovery of Uranium Particles Raises Questions on Scope of Iran’s Nuclear Program
Originally scheduled for consideration last May, the National Assembly in Paris will now debate the resolution — proposed by Sylvain Maillard, the chair of the of the Assembly’s Study Group on Antisemitism — on Dec. 3rd.
At the heart of the resolution is a proposal to formally adopt the working definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The definition states that “manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”
The IHRA definition also cites as antisemitic many of the tropes promoted by anti-Zionist activists, such as “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” It asserts too that accusations that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries in which they live, or that Israeli policy toward the Palestinians resembles the Nazi persecution of the Jews, constitute antisemitism.
While the IHRA definition has been adopted by dozens of governments, political parties and law enforcement agencies around the world — with Greece being the latest country to do so last Friday — several media outlets reported that there was reluctance among several French legislators to follow suit, because of concerns that criticism of Israel might encounter censorship.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that it has discovered uranium traces at an undeclared site in Iran.Iran bans sale of Israeli author accused of Darwinism, Zionism
“The agency detected natural uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at a location in Iran not declared to the agency,” according to the IAEA report, reported AFP.
The traces have been deemed to be a uranium product that has been mined and partially processed, but not enriched.
The IAEA report verifies such allegations made by the United States and Israel.
“Recent reports about the latest IAEA findings add important color to the Iranian nuclear drama that is unfolding. Iran’s overarching strategy is incremental escalation, which is designed to heighten fears and raise costs overtime,” Behnam Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS. “This is true for regional, as well as their nuclear, escalation, which we are watching in real time with the resumption of enrichment at the Fordow bunker and the introduction of advanced centrifuges earlier than permitted at another facility.”
Barbara Slavin, who leads the Atlantic Council’s Future Iran Initiative, said that the Trump administration is to blame for the development by withdrawing in May 2018 from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
The Tehran publishers’ league in Iran said it has outlawed buying or selling books by the bestselling Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari.
Iran’s culture ministry banned his books from publication in May. The ministry alleges they promote the theory of evolution and fabricate history. The official IRNA news agency reported Monday on the new warning by the publishers’ league of “possible” legal prosecution for selling Harari’s books.
Hardliners in Iran have long criticized the circulation of his books, calling him a Zionist. They’re concerned about the influence of Western culture, seeing it as part of efforts aimed at the “soft toppling” of the country’s Islamic system.
Titles by Harari on the banned list include “Sapiens,” ”Homo Deus,” ”21 Lessons for the 21st Century” and “Money.”
Earlier this year, Harari approved changes in the Russian translation of his latest book that omit examples of lies told by Russian President Vladimir Putin and references to Moscow’s takeover of Crimea as an invasion and occupation.
So Iran's been hiding a secret nuclear site, one that the Israeli PM correctly identified as a "secret atomic warehouse."
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 12, 2019
And here's the @NYTimes response at the time, glibly calling Netanyahu's reveal a "flimflam," "disingenuous" and an "illusion." pic.twitter.com/yEj2HhMdbC
🎂Today is Iranian President Rouhani’s🇮🇷 71st birthday. He celebrates:
— Mark Regev (@MarkRegev) November 12, 2019
🚀Longer range missiles
💥Expanding nuclear capabilities
🇪🇺Terror plots in EU
🇵🇸Arming Islamic Jihad in Gaza
🏴☠️Piracy on the high seas
At least your pal Assad will be wishing you Mazal Tov @HassanRouhani! 😬 pic.twitter.com/8RvsIpS5yc
The reason Jews are scared of a Corbyn government
Yes, but the thing is, in Corbyn’s world, Zionist and Zio have become replacement slurs for ‘Jew’ and ‘Yid’. It is one of the ways anti-Semitism has grown under his watch. It is terrifying how the word Zionism, a neutral term meaning the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, has been distorted in the service of a racist agenda. My fear is if Corbyn makes it to Number 10 these racists will have an even louder voice.
The thing is, Jews are an unusual ethnic minority. We are assimilated, educated, and have a place in society (not that this has saved us from fascism in the past). But we are also the only ethnic minority in Britain that has to employ guards to protect our schools, community centres and places of worship. If Corbyn makes it to Downing Street, I cannot see him having any understanding of this need. Look how the party leadership refused to tackle the extensive anti-Semitic abuse of its own MPs, such as Luciana Berger, Dame Louise Ellman and Ruth Smeeth.
The cold hard truth is that it has been open season on Jews since Corbyn became leader of the once-great Labour party. And now there is every chance that when I wake up on 13 December he will be my prime minister. I am not, as you put it, merely ‘against him being in Number 10’, Matt. I am truly frightened by the thought.
Impossible to take such a person seriously. Man who wants to be UK Prime Minister says Al Baghdadi could and should have been arrested and tried. Why didn’t he volunteer to go to Syria to effect an arrest himself? He only advocates unnecessary danger for others never himself. https://t.co/ZIrwgSd2ia
— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) November 13, 2019
Which Terrorist Friend Would Corbyn Invite to Downing Street First
On Corbyn’s walkabout in Glasgow he was asked by a voter “Who’s going to be the first terrorist invited to the House of Commons when you’re Prime Minister?” Guido has done the runners and riders for the likely first terror invitation from PM Corbyn:
Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian hardliner and leader of Hamas in Gaza, is on friendly terms with the Labour leader and Hamas offered Corbyn their solidarity when he became leader. Would be almost rude not to invite Sinwar.
Gerry Adams is an old friend and although basically retired he is bound to be in Number 10 for Christmas drinks if Corbyn is PM on Friday, December 13. They can laugh about the old days over a few pints of the dark stuff…
Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah has got to be on the guest list, after all he too is sponsored by Iran, just like Corbyn was until recently.
In what Corbyn will no doubt consider a tragedy, Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s leader of the Al-Quds brigade Baha Abu al-Ata was killed by the IDF in a targeted airstrike last night, so he won’t be on the guest list. No doubt Corbyn will be off to lay a wreath for him soon…
UPDATE: After Jeremy Corbyn criticised the raid that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Security Minister Brandon Lewis said it showed his flawed judgement and inability to stand up to terrorists.
“Corbyn’s comments are yet more proof of his flawed judgement and inability to stand up to people who reject our values. Every time he is given the opportunity to take the side of this country’s enemies he does so. In one month, Britain could wake up to find him standing on the steps of Downing Street as our Prime Minister.”
THIS! @jeremycorbyn gets heckled by guy asking if he's not invited to the funeral of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in killed in Gaza! https://t.co/TbiDQi4nxc
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 13, 2019
Bernie Sanders’ Proposal for Fighting Anti-Semitism Involves Subsuming It in a Laundry List of Progressive Causes
In an essay published on Monday in the far-left Jewish Currents, the senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders declared himself “a proud Jewish American” and spoke of his “pride and admiration for Israel,” while expressing his concerns about anti-Semitism on the right. He also mentioned the left-wing variety, but primarily to attack his political opponents for condemning it. But the core of his argument was that “the fight against anti-Semitism and for Jewish liberation” is “connected to the fight for the liberation of oppressed people around the world”—Palestinians included—while anti-Semitism is merely a way for “the right to divide people from one another and prevent us from fighting together for a shared future of equality, peace, prosperity, and environmental justice.”Amherst hosts high-profile anti-Israel boycott conference
To Izabella Taborovsky, Sanders’ rhetoric brings to mind the universalism that the Soviet Union used to minimize anti-Semitism, and eventually to provide cover for its own:
Once we defeat the reactionary forces of the old regime, [the Bolsheviks] claimed, anti-Semitism, too, will go into the dustbin of history. Join our struggle against the universal forces of oppression and your own concerns will vanish into thin air. What did Jews have to do to join this glorious enterprise? They simply had to give up a few things that made them Jews: their “retrograde” and “oppressive” religious rites, their Hebrew and Yiddish, and their connection to the land of their ancestors—their Zionism. . . . Be like us, [they promised], and we will fight anti-Semitism for you.
History has shown how disastrous these kinds of promises turned out for the Jews the first time around. . . . Thirty years after those promises were first made, Soviet Jews . . . found that anti-Semitism was still part of their lives. But their Jewishness was now gone, leaving them with fewer resources than ever to stand up for themselves.
For the second time in six months, several high-profile proponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel shared a stage at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst — and prompting concern and counteractions from pro-Israel students.Wicked Local Misleads Readers on the Misuse of Federal Funds by Duke University’s Middle East Program
Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, Harvard professor Cornel West and other BDS supporters appeared at a Nov. 12 event at the university’s main campus titled “Criminalizing Dissent: The attack on BDS and pro-Palestinian speech.” Omar Barghouti, a founder of the BDS movement who was denied entry to the United States in April, will participate by Skype.
The event has heightened tensions on the western Massachusetts campus and prompted vocal opposition from local Jewish groups.
It also comes amid a spate of anti-Semitic vandalism at UMass and at nearby Smith College. Five swastikas were found painted on the UMass fine arts center last week, and a week before that multiple swastikas were removed from buildings at Smith. The heads of both schools condemned the acts.
In May, a Massachusetts judge refused to issue an injunction against a similar event after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of several unnamed students who argued that the event was anti-Semitic.
“Many students and members of the UMass community feel deeply upset by the scale, tenor and dogmatic messages of the anti-Israel events,” said Rabbi Aaron Fine, executive director of Hillel at UMass Amherst.
Wicked Local’s editorial only briefly mentions this central component of the Department of Education letter. Instead, the editorial veers off into a tangential issue in order to attack its intended target, Israel.CBC The Sunday Edition Airs 30-Minute Anti-Israel Invective
Wicked Local Conceals the Anti-Jewish Hatefest at Duke University
Citing a letter from a North Carolina congressman expressing concern about the anti-Israel activity of the Duke program, the editorial contends, “In recent years, there has been an almost instinctive knee-jerk reaction among some to wrongly equate criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitic hate speech…”
It then continues, “The Trump administration has regularly conflated the two in an attempt to curry favor with those who support the Israeli state. In fact, this past summer, DeVos voiced concerns about student-led efforts on college campuses to boycott Israel because of its treatment of Palestinians, going so far as to call it a “pernicious threat.”
It is revealing that the editorial praises the Duke program in the wake of several partisan events Duke hosted this year. The Duke Middle East Studies program has long been a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation. But in March 2019, it outdid itself, sponsoring a conference, “Conflict over Gaza: People, Politics, and Possibilities” that turned into an open hatefest against Jews.
The conference featured the usual denunciations of Israel and one-sided portrayals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, blaming Israel while giving the terror group Hamas a pass. But there was more, including explicit calls by invited participants to express their anti-Semitism. A Palestinian rapper asked the audience for support stating, “I can’t be anti-semitic alone” and praised the crowd for looking “beautifully anti-Semitic.”
Two weeks later, Duke hosted Linda Sarsour, who has come under scrutiny for her anti-Israel activism and apologetics for radical Islam.
The CBC’s segment entitled: “Israel violates international law with impunity, says human rights lawyer” was very concerning. CBC Anchor Michael Enright did not adequately challenge many false and highly misleading statements that Ms. Erakat made, and didn’t seem informed enough about the issues at hand, or at least willing, to ask hard and informed questions.Brazilian Jews slam magazine likening Jewish politician to Nazi propagandist
Here’s what was discussed in the program:
- The “scales of justice are permanently tipped in Israel’s favour” says Erakat.
- “No one has held Israel to account” says Erakat.
- “[International law] has served Israel more because Israel, its lawyers and its judiciary have understood this dimension of the law better than have the Palestinians,” says Erakat.
- Israel’s position on the “right of return” is a “racist argument” says Erakat. Israel “expelled” Arab-Palestinians, not that they fled at the behest of marauding Arab armies seeking Israel’s destruction.
- Israel has a law of return for Jews, but not for Arab-Palestinians says Erakat, “why can’t they (Israel) live with them?” By that she is referring to the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who would flood into Israel were the “right of return” to be implemented. The answer to Erakat’s rhetorical question is that doing so will negate the Jewish state’s very existence. Like a pot calling the kettle black, Erakat’s statement itself was racist. She then offered the following cavalier rejoinder: “Isn’t that unfortunate!”
- Israel’s position on the settlements and its presence in the disputed territories is dubbed a “legal fiction” and was “made up” by Israeli experts says Erakat. Erekat says that Israel is perpetuating “colonial dominance” and “a colonial erasure of the juridical status of Palestinians.” No mention was made by Mr. Enright about the Jewish people claiming indigenous, religious and legal rights to the land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria.
- No mention was made that UN Security Council Resolution 242 authorizes Israel, having conquered the land in a defensive war, to remain in possession of the territories. According to Resolution 242, when “a just and lasting peace in the Middle East” is achieved, Israel can withdraw to “secure and recognized boundaries.” Of course, Erakat claimed that the 1967 Six Day War was “not a defensive war”.
- Erakat says UN Resolution 181 “did say there should be a Jewish state, but also said that Palestinians can be citizens of that state and that the religious and civil and political rights would be enshrined…” This is a total fallacy. Resolution 181 called for separate Arab and Jewish states, not a one-state solution as she described.
- Erakat suggestively says: “Should we extend a terrorist designation to Israel?” No rebuttal was made by Mr. Enright to this suggestion that Israel be regarded as a state-sponsor of terror.
Several Brazilian Jewish groups are condemning a magazine news article that likened a local Jewish senior politician to Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.PreOccupiedTerritory: Devastating Cartoon Of Nazi-Like Netanyahu Fails To Free Palestine (satire)
Istoe magazine published on Friday an article titled “Goebbels of the Planalto” — a reference to Brazil’s presidential palace — that highlights the fact that Brazil’s Secretary of Communications Fabio Wajngarten is Jewish and suggests a Jewish conspiracy to back recent advertising budget cuts to media outlets that are not allied with the government.
Established in 1976, Istoe is considered one of Brazil’s three main weekly magazines.
B’nai B’rith’s president, Abraham Goldstein, told JTA that it is “outrageous” for the magazine to use Wajngarten’s Jewish heritage to display “an odious disrespect for Holocaust victims.”
“They go disgustingly beyond by involving the Jewish community and saying that ‘Israelites are known to operate in the security and information industry underworld,’ which not only is untrue but is also the vilest act of prejudice, racism and anti-Semitism,” Goldstein said.
The reaction led to a rare agreement among both right-wing and left-wing Jewish voices, who have love-or-hate opinions about President Jair Bolsonaro, a fervently pro-Israel Christian politician who commonly hails Israel and has become close friends with current Israeli ambassador in Brazil, Yossi Shelley.
A caricature of Israel’s prime minister depicting him as a bloodthirsty, swastika-wearing, land-stealing, child-killing rapist somehow fell short of removing Israeli control of territories Jews gained in 1948 and 1967, a disappointed Palestine Liberation Organization official admitted Tuesday.Teen Turns Himself in to NYPD in Connection to Attacks on Jews in Brooklyn
Jibril Shetheed, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, told reporters today the organization has begun to confront the disappointing results of a cartoon likening Binyamin Netanyahu to a monster worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, and Satan, but somehow worse because Hitler had the right idea about the Jews at least. The drawing aimed to foment anger at Israel and move Arabs at large to harm Israeli interests by any means possible, but despite appearing in numerous organs of pro-Palestine and anti-Israel sentiment, appears to have accomplished nothing.
“Reports indicate some head-shaking and grim expressions from a few dozen viewers resulted from the image, but nothing concrete yet,” disclosed Shetheed. “We had hoped to use the caricature to galvanize the Arab and Muslim world to free our homeland from the murderous usurpers, but this evidently was not a successful attempt. The Committee has voted to appoint an investigative commission to determine what may have gone wrong in the concept, planning, and implementation of this initiative so that in the future, better outcomes from such initiatives are achieved.”
A 16-year-old teenager turned himself in to the New York Police Department on Friday in connection to a series of attacks on Jewish men in the ultra-Orthodox community of Borough Park in Brooklyn, NY.2 arrested over Jewish cemetery vandalism in Denmark
The teen was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated harassment, according to PIX 11. A spokesperson for the NYPD would not identify which incident the arrest was related to.
Police said last week that the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force was investigating the string of recent attacks in Brooklyn. Three Jewish people were assaulted in Borough Park on Shabbat evening, Nov. 1, with an additional incident occurring the following night in the same neighborhood, the NYPD confirmed.
Most recently, on Saturday night, a group of youths egged a synagogue, a Jewish girls’ school, a bus and multiple residences in Borough Park.
According to the news outlet Boro Park 24, “the attacks fit a pattern of harassment that has been plaguing the area in recent weeks, with the perpetrators appearing to originate in the South Asian community that borders” the immediate area.
Two men, aged 27 and 38, were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of “gross vandalism” of gravestones in the Jewish section of a churchyard in northwestern Denmark.Jewish leader slams Kyiv for naming streets after Nazi collaborators
Danish broadcaster DR, citing information from a detention hearing that was briefly open before continuing behind closed doors, reported that the 38-year-old man was a member of a neo-Nazi group.
The men are suspected of scrawling in green paint on 84 gravestones and knocking over several of them in Randers, some 177 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of Copenhagen.
Police spokesman Klaus Arboe Rasmussen said their motive was to target “a particular group of the population based on their religion.”
The Ukrainian Jewish Committee’s director has harshly criticized a decision by the Ukrainian capital’s legislature to name streets after Nazi collaborators.Rabbi’s death in Ukraine was part of a $660 robbery, court rules
Eduard Dolinsky said the Kyiv city council ruled Tuesday to name a city street after Ivan Pavlenko, whom he described as a Nazi collaborator and war criminal. Dolinsky said on Facebook Wednesday that Pavlenko led a Ukrainian unit involved in the killing of tens of thousands of Jews during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.
Dolinsky said that the city legislators also named another Kyiv street after Nil Khasevich, an activist of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, who drew anti-Semitic cartoons and was involved in mass killings of Poles during World War II.
Dolinsky described the city council’s move as an insult to Holocaust victims. The Ukrainian authorities had no immediate reaction.
A Ukrainian court convicted four people of the robbery of a rabbi in 2016 that resulted in his death.Appropriation of Nazi-Era ‘Yellow Star’ at Paris Demonstration Against Islamophobia Outrages French Jews
Two of the defendants in the trial were minors when they committed their crimes, according to the prosecutor’s office of the Zhytomyr region. Of the four defendants, two are women, the office said in a statement Friday.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Deitsch, a Chabad rabbi who was in Ukraine for Rosh Hashanah, was assaulted in October 2016, suffering blows that put him in a coma and eventually led to his death. Deitch was 63 when he died.
The adults, aged 43 and 24, received 11 and nine years in jail respectively for robbery and causing severe bodily harm, but were neither charged with murder or manslaughter. The remaining defendants were sentenced to seven years each.
The assailants encountered Deitsch near the Zhytomyr train station at about 11 p.m. and stole a cellular phone worth about $600 and another $60 in cash, the statement said.
The official body representing French Jews and prominent Muslim leaders were among the critics of an incident at a march against Islamophobia in Paris last Sunday, during which some participants donned yellow stars embossed with the word “Muslim” in a conscious echo of the yellow Star of David which Jews living under Nazi German occupation were forced to wear on their outer clothing.Israeli artificial pancreas may one day cure diabetes
A crowd of 13,500 marched in the center of the French capital to protest anti-Muslim bigotry, in the wake of an arson attack against a mosque in the city of Bayonne on Oct. 28 in which two people were injured. One of the two men arrested in connection with the attack was a former parliamentary candidate for the National Front — now renamed the National Rally — the main far-right party in France.
According to news outlet Le Parisien, the controversial yellow star stickers were worn by a “few dozen” protesters. Among them was an 11-year-old girl who was photographed wearing the yellow star while standing alongside Esther Benbassa, a representative of the left-wing Green Party in the French Senate.
Francis Kalifat — president of CRIF, the representative body of French Jews — accused the marchers of appropriating the symbols of the Holocaust.
“It is scandalous to compare the fate of today’s Muslims to the fate of the Jews during Nazi barbarism,” Kalifat told reporters in Paris. “There were 73,000 deportees in France.”
Ahead of International Diabetes Day, November 14, Israeli startup Betalin Therapeutics announced that it is beginning the application process for clinical trials of its revolutionary artificial pancreas.In film, grandfather returns to Sweden to thank post-Kristallnacht saviors
Betalin’s Engineered Micro Pancreas (EMP) aims to free patients suffering from the most severe types of diabetes from constantly monitoring blood-sugar levels and injecting insulin. About 160 million people are insulin dependent.
The road to an Israeli-made artificial pancreas has been a decade in the making.
When ISRAEL21c first reported on Betalin in 2015, the company had just been founded, based on research in the laboratory of Prof. Eduardo Mitrani at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Mitrani is continuing his academic work while serving on Betalin’s scientific advisory board.)
In Type 1 diabetes, insulin-producing cells (known as “beta cells” – hence the name Betalin) in the pancreas don’t function properly.
Herbert Gildin was a young Jewish boy growing up in Landsberg, Germany, when his family experienced the pogroms of Kristallnacht, known in English as the Night of Broken Glass, 81 years ago on November 9-10.The Israeli Air Force Takes Part In Tetris Challenge With Fighter Jets, Helicopter And Training Aircraft
Gildin’s father, Abraham, was detained at a police station before some sympathetic soldiers helped him escape. It was then that Abraham and his wife, Fanny (Faiga), began efforts to send their three children out of Germany, though it meant they might never see them again.
With their passports revoked by Hitler, German Jews such as the Gildins had few options for escape. But the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) informed the Gildins that sympathetic non-Jews in the Swedish town of Falun were offering to host the children — Herb, who was 10 at the time, and his older sisters Cele and Margaret, who were 14 and 12, respectively. The children took refuge in the country, which remained neutral throughout World War II, along with other Jews hosted by individuals and families eager to help the victims of German Nazism.
Not only did the Gildin children successfully escape the Nazi regime, but their parents did as well, emigrating to the United States. The family was eventually reunited in Brooklyn. Herb Gildin grew up to become a successful businessman, husband, father, grandfather and — before his death at age 90 on May 14 — a great-grandfather. Decades after coming to America, he made a return visit to Sweden to reconnect with the Silow family who had once sheltered him.
Since September 1, 2019, when Zurich police published a photo on social media of two officers lying on the ground, surrounded by the contents of their car, laid out in a geometric pattern and pictured from above, police departments, firefighters, first responders as well as air force squadrons and other military units from all around the world have joined in, photographing their work equipment (and even service members) in this peculiar way.
The Tetris Challenge has since then conquered the Internet making the rounds across all the social networks. The challenge is inspired to the “knolling” a term that dates back to 1987, and it involves organizing objects and tools on the floor at right angles, allowing you to see every item clearly in a photograph. This has often been done ahead of travels, by photographers and journalists, collecting all their stuff in the same place to organize the trip. In the last few weeks, Tetris Challenge has become a way to showcase all the pieces of hardware (and personnel) that make up a service or system.
If you google “Tetris Challenge”, you will find many examples of interesting shots taken from the above. Here you can find an interesting post by our friend Tyler Rogoway at The War Zone.
But, the Challenge, when it deals with military aviation stuff, has probably a brand new winner: the Israeli Air Force.
The IAF has published on Twitter a shot taken by Rotem Rogovsky and Daniel Levatovsky from SKYPRO at Hatzerim Air Base with a Tetris Challenge image that gathers the F-15I Ra’am of the 69 Sq; the F-16I Sufa of the 107 Sq, the M-346 Lavi of the 102 Sq, as well as the G-120A Snunit, the OH-58B Saifan and the T-6A Efroni of the Flight Training Shool. Not only are the aircraft worth a look, but also their accompanying weapons, including the Israeli-developed, SPICE 2000 EO/GPS-guided bombs. Interestingly, even the only airworthy PT-17 (Stearman Model 75) of the Israeli Air Force maintained at the museum in Hatzerim can be seen in the photo.
