Saturday, November 23, 2019
John Podhoretz: The Irony of Netanyahu’s Crisis
In a classic political Rorschach test, you can view these as horrible examples of deep corruption. But, generally speaking, many if not most people who do so have personal or ideological beefs against Netanyahu and see all this as the way to get him out of power. Or you can see them as an act of revenge against Netanyahu by one of the almost countless number of Israeli political figures who were once allied with him. That’s Bibi’s claim against attorney general Avichai Mandalblit, whose original appointment in 2015 by Netanyahu was viewed by anti-Bibi forces as the installation of an ally who would protect him from precisely the sort of thing that has now happened.
So the ironies abound. It’s more than merely conceivable that Netanyahu can beat these charges in a court of law, but can he defend himself and remain prime minister at the same time? The very idea of granting immunity from prosecution to an elected leader during his tenure is to prevent distractions of this sort—on the grounds that the country’s interest is more important. You can see how this might work at a time when Israel is girding itself for a possible two-front war against Iranian proxies.
Bibi would seem to be the best person to be at the helm at this moment. But statutorily, that might not be the case. Given that he has been unable to form a coalition—twice—he is effectively running a caretaker government. It’s far from clear what specific claim he has on the PM’s office given that fact—or that, given what has happened, he has an argument he needs protection from prosecution because he is the legitimately elected leader. The horrible fact is that Israel might need him more than ever, but it won’t be able to have him.
The Bibi Indictments
For more than two years, Israel has anticipated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may well be indicted on multiple counts of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. That it has actually happened leaves the nation stunned. Respected by his enemies for his brilliance, tenacity, and political genius, and revered by his supporters, Netanyahu is cornered, angry, desperate. As might anyone be in his circumstances.David Horovitz: Asking us to side with him against state, Netanyahu harms his beloved Israel
On Thursday evening, a very somber Avichai Mandelblit, Israel’s attorney general, spoke on national television, saying that this moment—the first time a sitting Israeli PM will be charged criminally —was not partisan. This very sad occasion, he intoned, must remind us of the duty to safeguard fundamental democratic institutions, founded on equality and accountability for all.
A former career military prosecutor and hand-picked cabinet secretary to Netanyahu from ‘13 to ‘16, Mandelblit was then appointed AG. His tenure has been marked by consistent and accelerating attacks by right-wing political interests, including Netanyahu, on the integrity of the justice system. Mandelblit and his staff have been anything but impetuous, moving glacially before getting to this point, very mindful of the grievous damage that an unsubstantiated prosecution might do to the state and the individual.
Then Bibi took to the airwaves. Shakespearean in his fury, he raged against the conspiracy of interests determined to ruin him and his family. “It is a coup,” he said, “of the justice system to topple his government.” He demanded that the investigators, whom he accused of bias, be investigated. He railed against the police and judiciary. They would not succeed, he warned, because he and his power bloc would not allow it. Condemnation of Bibi from his political adversaries was swift, but support from his allies was slower than usual in coming, a marked change from past political crises. By Friday morning, several of Bibi’s key political allies issued tepid statements affirming their belief in his innocence but saying little more.
Earlier this week, Blue and White Leader Benny Gantz conceded that he could not form a governing coalition. So now, in another first for Israel, all 120 elected MKs now have 21 days in which to attempt to do it somehow—a long shot that may, however, actually result in the unity government desired by the vast majority of Israelis.
Among Israelis and those who care about Israel, there should be no celebrating the attorney general’s announcement Thursday that Benjamin Netanyahu is to stand trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, an astute, intelligent and articulate leader who has repeatedly won the public’s trust at the ballot box and steered Israel through the past decade’s multi-threatening challenges in a dangerous, unpredictable Middle East.
But neither should there be any underestimating the gravity of the conclusion carefully drawn by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit — at the end of a protracted investigation, and after weighing a final effort by Netanyahu’s attorneys to dissuade him — that the prime minister must answer in court for his actions in the three graft cases against him.
The allegations that the prime minister criminally abused his office are “grave,” Mandelblit made clear in a 15-minute appearance Thursday evening at which he exuded a mixture of competence, responsibility, certainty about his decision, and sorrow about its consequences.
Since it was his firm conclusion that there was “a reasonable likelihood” Netanyahu would be convicted of the offenses, Mandelblit stressed, “it was my legal obligation to press charges — not a choice, but a requirement.” At the same time, he stressed, Netanyahu retains the presumption of innocence; it is the judges who will decide his fate.
Thursday’s announcement marks the first time in Israel’s history that criminal charges have been issued against a serving prime minister, but it does not automatically mark the end of the road for Netanyahu. He can seek immunity from prosecution via the Knesset — a process that could take months, given that Israeli politics is largely paralyzed in the wake of April’s and September’s deadlocked elections, and the Knesset House Committee that would consider an immunity request has not been selected and may not be functional for weeks or even months.
Sacha Baron Cohen Claims Facebook Would Allow ‘Hitler To Post 30-Second Ads.’ Here’s How Media Treated Hitler Back Then.
During a recent speech, actor Sacha Baron Cohen skewered Facebook, claiming it and other tech giants were “the greatest propaganda machine in history.”106 Democratic House members decry White House’s softened stance on settlements
Cohen made the remarks during his speech accepting the International Leadership Award presented by the Anti-Defamation League at their Never Is Now summit on Thursday. Cohen focused much of his speech on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming the billionaire is one of the most damaging Jewish-Americans in America today.
“Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem,’” Cohen said. “So, here’s a good standard and practice: Facebook, start fact-checking political ads before you run them, stop micro-targeted lies immediately, and when the ads are false, give back the money and don’t publish them.”
The problem, of course, is that fact-checkers have proven themselves to be partisan and mostly left-leaning. And Cohen seems to not realize that every politician pushes the boundaries of truth in their political ads – and that has occurred since the dawn of political ads. Propaganda and misleading ads didn’t start when Facebook was founded, and the same people who are decrying the ads now didn’t seem to have a problem when these same ads were on television or the radio.
Even beyond that, Cohen’s claim that Facebook would have allowed Hitler to post a 30-second ad “on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem,’” is a perfect example of exactly what Cohen was condemning.
Cohen insists Facebook would have helped Adolf Hitler, completely ignoring the fact that mainstream media outlets – such as The New York Times, which Cohen no doubt considers a truthful and worthy outlet – helped support Hitler in the early half of the 20th century.
A 1922 Times article suggested Hitler’s anti-Semitism wasn’t genuine and shouldn’t concern readers. In 1941, the Times let Hitler use its opinion page to publish an article literally titled, “The Art of Propaganda,” which included excerpts from “Mein Kampf.”
Over 100 Democratic House members on Friday excoriated the Trump administration for softening its position on Israel’s West Bank settlements.German neo-Nazi, Green Parties celebrate EU’s punitive branding of Israeli products
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law,” breaking with decades of US policy.
The move, legislators wrote in a letter to Pompeo, made the possibility of an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement more difficult and hurt America’s interests in the Middle East.
“The announcement… has discredited the United States as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, severely damaged prospects for peace, and endangered the security of America, Israel, and the Palestinian people,” the letter says.
Orchestrated by Michigan Representative Andy Levin, a freshman Democrat, the missive was signed by several other prominent members of Congress, including Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, Rhode Island Representative David Cicilline, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, and others.
The lawmakers warned that the Trump administration’s decision “blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention” regarding the rules governing the actions of an occupying power.
“In ignoring international law,” the letter says, “this administration has undermined America’s moral standing and sent a dangerous administration to those who do not share our values: human rights and international law, which have governed the international order and protected US troops and civilians since 1949, no longer apply.”
The liberal Mideast advocacy group J Street supported the letter.
The German neo-Nazi party The Third Way and the Green Party welcomed the EU top court ruling that mandates Israeli products from the disputed territories must be branded with a label to show consumers that they were not produced in Israel proper.Germany’s Merkel to make first visit to Auschwitz as chancellor
The Third Way “has been calling for years to boycott all products from the terrorist state of Israel,” declared an entry on the party’s website earlier this month after the EU’s top court ruled Israeli goods from the territories must be labeled with a punitive demarcation system.
The Third Way added a link to an article from 2014 titled: “Israel Boycott: What anyone can do against Zionist genocide.”
A graphic on the Third Way’s entry states: “Boycott products from Israel: 729=Made in Israel.” The number 729 is used in bar codes to identify Israel-based products and companies.
The intelligence agency for the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate wrote in its 2018 report: “The Third Way’s slogan ‘Boycott Products from Israel’... betrays significant parallels to the anti-Jewish agitation of the National Socialists.”
German intelligence officials in the state of Baden Württemberg wrote in a 2018 report that propaganda from the Third Way calling to boycott Israeli products “roughly recalls similar measures against German Jews by the National Socialists, for example, on April 1, 1933 (the slogan: ‘Germans! Defend yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews!’).”
MPs from the German Green Party have sought to label Jewish products from the West Bank, Golan Heights and east Jerusalem since 2013.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was planning to visit the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz for the first time in her 14 years in office, according to a report Thursday.King Abdullah: Israeli-Jordanian relations are at ‘an all-time low’
The Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said that Merkel had accepted an invitation to attend the 10th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, located in modern day Poland, on December 6.
Merkel’s office confirmed that a visit is planned but declined to specify the date as her appointments are generally announced only a week in advance.
Last month, the World Jewish Congress gave Merkel its Theodor Herzl Award for her efforts to foster Jewish life in Germany and her support for the state of Israel.
Nazi Germany killed more than 1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland during World War II, most of them Jews transported there from across Europe.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said that relations between Jordan and Israel, which fought two wars before signing a landmark peace treaty 25 years ago, are now at their worst point ever.Top Israeli rabbis laud Trump and his settlement policy decision
“The Jordanian-Israeli relationship is at an all time low,” Abdullah said Thursday at an event in New York City hosted by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a US think tank.
Recent weeks have seen Amman recall its ambassador to Israel, no joint ceremony marking the quarter-century anniversary of the peace agreement and the termination of special arrangements that allowed Israeli farmers to easily access plots of land inside Jordan.
“Part of it is because of the Israeli domestic matters,” Abdullah said, in an apparent reference to the political gridlock in Jerusalem which could lead to a third election in less than a year.
“We are hoping Israel will decide its future — whether it is in the next several weeks or three months,” Abdullah said in an edited video of his remarks that was posted on the Royal Hashemite Court’s YouTube page on Friday night.
Later in his talk, Abdullah said: “The problems that we have had with Israel [are] bilateral… Now I hope, whatever happens in Israel over the next two or three months, we can get back to talking to each other on simple issues that we haven’t been able to talk about for the past two years.”
The most senior religious-Zionist rabbis in Israel have sent US President Donald Trump an adulatory letter of praise and thanks for his policies towards Israel and the settlements, saying he will go down in history “for all eternity,” for standing up for the Jewish state.
Among the signatories were Rabbis Haim Druckman, Yaakov Ariel, Zalman Melamed and Shmuel Eliyahu, four of the most revered and respected rabbis in the religious-Zionist community, along with more than 200 other rabbis from the sector.
Rabbis from the religious-Zionist community have made encouraging, advocating for and defending the settlement movement one of their principal priorities for several decades.
It was the Trump administration’s decision to reverse the previous US position that settlements were illegal that prompted the rabbis’ outpouring of thanksgiving, which was replete with Biblical and even messianic references.
Amazing video from Israel’s recent attack on Damascus. Pay attention to the sad trajectory of the anti-aircraft missiles. No doubt as result of Israeli electronic warfare, Assad’s missiles hit the ground in Damascus just seconds after launching. pic.twitter.com/EdADusiZ9t
— Mike (@Doranimated) November 22, 2019
Hamas leader says Netanyahu indictment raises Palestinians’ morale
The leader of the Hamas terror group on Saturday said the announcement of plans to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges has raised the Palestinian people’s morale.Turkey to offer $700,000 bounty for exiled Palestinian strongman Dahlan
Ismail Haniyeh told reporters in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip that the serious criminal charges against Netanyahu increased the “steadfastness” of the Palestinians.
The Hamas leader, who was attending a groundbreaking ceremony for a new hospital in Rafah, said the indictment would encourage more “resistance, both popular and armed.”
On Thursday, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced he will indict Netanyahu for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes, making him the first sitting premier to face criminal charges.
The longest-serving Israeli leader is scrambling after two inconclusive elections this year and possibly an unprecedented third national vote early next year.
Turkey said Friday it would offer four million lira ($700,000) for information leading to the capture of former Palestinian strongman Mohammad Dahlan, now exiled in the United Arab Emirates.Iran TV: Our missiles can strike Israel’s southernmost regions
Turkey accuses Dahlan of being a mercenary for the UAE and involved in the 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told the Hurriyet newspaper that Dahlan would be placed on the most-wanted terrorists list.
Dahlan became a fierce rival of his former ally in the Palestinian Fatah party, Mahmoud Abbas, before fleeing into exile.
Turkish media regularly accuse Dahlan of involvement in the 2016 abortive coup, and recently of playing a role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul last year.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu last month accused the UAE of harboring a terrorist: “(Dahlan) fled to you because he is an agent of Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.
IRINN TV, an Iranian television station, aired animated video called “The Rise of the Missiles,” which described several types of Iranian missiles in detail, including their capacity to attack Israel.U.S. Sanctions Iranian Leader Who Shut Down Country’s Internet
The narrator Fateh-110 “Iran’s most accurate missile” and discussed Iran’s overall missile capabilities on November 12, according to MEMRI. The cartoon’s narrator claimed that many of the Fateh-110s went to Hezbollah in Lebanon and that they could reach Israel’s south.
"This is the Fateh-110 short-range missile,” the narrator said.
“Fateh-110 was tested in 2007, and since it is the most accurate Iranian missile, large quantities of it have been provided to the resistance forces of Hezbollah. From Lebanon, even the southernmost parts of the occupied land are within its range. In addition, with the supply of the Khalij Fars missile – the naval version of the Fateh-Class missile – all the warships of the Zionist regime will face this crushing and dangerous threat. The Zionist regime's Sa'ar ship was decimated by weaker cruise missiles in the Mediterranean Sea during the 33-Day War [Second Lebanon War]."
The Trump administration on Friday issued new sanctions against a senior Iranian official responsible for shuttering the country's internet amid widespread protests against the hardline regime that have already resulted in many deaths.Iran says army and Guards helped quell unrest, blames 'U.S. agents'
As Iranian protesters take to the streets to challenge their government, Iranian leaders have sought to stifle the demonstrations through violence and by shutting down internet access, a tactic routinely employed by oppressive regimes seeking to stop their people from organizing.
The Trump administration said it would not stand by while Iran dashes the democratic hopes of its people. As part of that effort, new sanctions will be applied to Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran's minister of information and communications technology.
"The United States stands with the people of Iran in their struggle against an oppressive regime that silences them while arresting and murdering protesters," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement issued Friday.
"While Iranian regime leaders maintain access to the internet and social media accounts for themselves and their cronies, they deprive their people of these basic tools of expression and communication," Pompeo said. "This hypocrisy simultaneously supports a corrupt religious mafia and oppresses the Iranian people. No country or company should enable the regime's censorship or human rights abuses."
The Trump administration will continue to expose Iranian officials who seek to abuse their citizens, the secretary of state said.
Iranian troops and members of the elite Revolutionary Guards helped police quell violent unrest in Kermanshah province this week, Iranian officials said on Saturday, accusing "U.S. agents" of being among the armed protesters.
Rights group Amnesty International said at least 30 people were killed in the western province, making it the worst-hit by days of protests over gasoline prices rises in which more than 100 people were killed nationwide. Iran rejected the death toll figures as "speculative."
The unrest appears to be the worst violence at least since Iran stamped out a "Green Revolution" in 2009, when dozens of protesters were killed over several months.
"All the forces of the Revolutionary Guards, the (paramilitary) Basij, the Intelligence Ministry, police, and the army took part actively in controlling the situation," Parviz Tavassolizadeh, the head of the judiciary in Kermanshah, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.
"Tavassolizadeh said the rioters were armed," Fars reported. "They confronted agents ... and burned public property."
Chilling video from BBC on #IranProtests, showing #Iran’s state instruments of repression and terror in action. pic.twitter.com/fLPHEfaUEU
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) November 22, 2019
Douglas Murray: The carnage inside Charlie Hebdo: an eyewitness’s account of the attack
It is almost five years since two trained jihadists went into the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris and killed 12 people. Philippe Lançon survived the editorial meeting that was taking place as the gunmen burst in. Published to huge acclaim in France last year, Disturbance is his account of events. It is long, perhaps too long, with numerous discursions. But who would edit such painful, painstaking testimony?
On the morning of the attack, Lançon had been weighing up whether to go to Charlie or to Libération, where he also worked. He chose to go to Charlie, whose difficult, brilliant, brave team had kept producing the magazine, despite a decade of growing attention from Europe’s modern-day blasphemy police. Lançon describes these editorial meetings, where ‘words ran like hungry dogs from one mouth and body to another’ and writers and artists used humour as ‘a guide, an outlet, and a corrosive’.
Over the decades, Charlie had taken aim at everything. All religious and political figures — especially the French far right — had been in their sights. But after the Danish cartoon crisis of 2005, Charlie found a vigorous new seam of opposition. While numerous people called for solidarity with the Danish paper that had printed those cartoons of Mohammed (to prove a point about curtailments on free speech), Charlie republished them in the spirit of solidarity. Too few did, and so instead of the risk being spread around it became focused on these few.
Lançon is under no illusions about this process: ‘This lack of solidarity was not merely a professional and moral disgrace. By isolating and pointing the finger at Charlie, it helped make the latter the Islamists’ target.’ Death threats and ‘filthy emails’ to the staff were common for a decade. But until 7 January 2015 ‘few people in France were prepared to say “I am Charlie”’. Lançon relates how newspaper sellers would increasingly say that they hadn’t received the paper. Subtly but surely, the atmosphere around the paper changed. The magazine was dragged through the French courts by various French Muslim organisations and in 2011 the offices were firebombed. Lançon recalls that around this time, ‘not without shame’ he stopped reading Charlie on the Paris metro. But the editor, Stephane Charbonnier (‘Charb’), refused to budge. Lançon recalls Charb telling him over wine one evening: ‘If we start respecting people who don’t respect us, we might as well close up shop.’
Someone has uploaded the segment from the BBC yesterday where a conversation was attempted. https://t.co/ewwD61ZZwP
— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) November 23, 2019
Podcast: By the Rivers of Babylon
Jews first arrived in what is today Iraq in the sixth century BCE, after the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar sacked Solomon’s Temple. It was from there that Ezra and Nehemiah led returning exiles back to Jerusalem. It was there that the Babylonian Talmud was debated, compiled, and codified. And it was there, in 1941, that the Farhud—a violent pogrom—left hundreds of Baghdad’s Jews dead and thousands injured.The Anti-Hitler Movie That Was Never Made
While there were many phases in this 2,600-year-long history, Jews knew numerous prosperous periods in the land between the two rivers. They were politicians, jurists, doctors, businessmen. There was even a Jewish Miss Baghdad.
Today that community is all but gone.
In the prologue, ”My Heart Is in the East,” host Mishy Harman talks to Edwin Shuker, whose family fled Baghdad in 1971, about his hopes for a new Golden Age for Iraqi Jews.
In March 1933, Herman J. Mankiewicz, a respected Hollywood screenwriter and producer, took a leave of absence from Metro Goldwyn Mayer to write a screenplay about Adolf Hitler. The former New York newspaperman, playwright, theater critic, and Algonquin Table habitué was known for his sophistication and irreverent wit. But Mankiewicz was also deeply political, and as he watched the Nazis tighten their stranglehold on Germany, he understood the implications and felt he had to act. Abandoning his usual ironic detachment, he wrote The Mad Dog of Europe in a desperate attempt to awaken the American public to the danger of Hitler’s rise to power. The story of his screenplay’s ultimately fruitless journey offers a portrait of American culture in the years leading up to World War II and the obstacles facing those who shared his prescience.Former Labour MP Denounces Party as ‘Institutionally Antisemitic’; Jews Were ‘Bullied’ Out
Set in “Transylvania,” The Mad Dog of Europe has two storylines. The first tracks the rise of housepainter “Adolf Mitler.” The second follows a pair of families, one Jewish and one Christian, who live in Gronau, Transylvania (Gronau was an actual German town). The screenplay opens with an “earnest and impressive” voice reciting: “This picture is produced in the interests of Democracy, an ideal which has inspired the noblest deeds of man. It has been the goal towards which nations have aspired—one after the other having asserted a determination to overthrow tyrants and erect a government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’ Today the greater part of the civilized world has reached this stage of enlightenment.”
Onscreen is: “THE INCIDENTS AND CHARACTERS IN THIS PICTURE ARE OF COURSE FICTITIOUS. IT IS OBVIOUSLY ABSURD TO ASK ANYONE TO BELIEVE THEY COULD HAPPEN IN THIS ENLIGHTENED DAY AND AGE.”
To accompany the sarcastic disclaimer, Mankiewicz wanted the haunting melody of the Kol Nidre, the prayer associated with the holiest day of the Jewish year, “with the military phrases of DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES audible as an undertone.” Then, “a large swastika fills the screen, upon which the title is superimposed. The swastika gradually fades to the form of a cross with a figure crucified upon it.”
A former British Labour MP denounced the party for being “institutionally antisemitic” and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as unfit to be Britain’s next prime minister during her speech Thursday morning at the Anti-Defamation League’s “Never Is Now” summit.Labour suspends councillor over post calling video by ex KKK wizard ‘eye opener’
Joan Ryan left the Labour Party in February, after being a member for more than 40 years, citing its tolerance of a “culture of anti-Jewish racism.”
A recent poll showed that a significant 87 percent of British Jews consider Corbyn to be an antisemite.
Ryan referenced that statistic on Thursday, noting that since Corbyn became leader of the party four years ago, “Jewish MPs have been bullied out of the party, Jewish members have been abused, harassed and threatened, and antisemitism has been curled up, dismissed and ignored.”
“I could not remain in such a party. And I could not, and will not, campaign for Jeremy Corbyn to become Britain’s next prime minster,” Ryan adding, referring to the upcoming elections on Dec. 12.
A post was discovered on a senior Labour councillor’s Facebook timeline praising a video produced by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.
Jewish News understands Leicester City councillor Mustafa Malik has now been suspended pending an investigation.
Duke’s video contains the antisemitic canard that the “Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking.”
The 15-minute clip, entitled “CNN Goldman Sachs & the Zio Matrix,” appears on Malik’s timeline twice – once in 2014 and again in 2016.
The second post is accompanied by the words: “an eye opener video.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said it “takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures and any appropriate action is taken. We cannot comment on individual complaints.”
Malik, who sits on Leicester City Council and is the assistant city mayor for jobs, skills and communities, was reported to the Labour Party on 20 November.
WATCH-Tonight a man challenged Corbyn during #BBCQT about his fears for his daughters after seeing a video of Corbyn happily engaging with a man who would later be thrown out of Labour for antisemitism
— SussexFriendsofIsrael (@SussexFriends) November 22, 2019
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Corbyn lied! pic.twitter.com/q4IOmNdTRl
Please read this very important thread on Cenk Uygur who is running for congress. He is a hard-leftist who has a show called the Young Turks, which has featured some extremists like David Duke. Reminds me of an InfoWars on the left. https://t.co/VUKMC596zG
— AZ (@americanzionism) November 22, 2019
Argentine university condemns 2 professors for promoting antisemitism
An Argentine university has condemned two professors for social media posts that criticized “dual loyalty” and said “Zionist Judaism is the greatest catastrophe for humanity.”A Syrian refugee’s view of the unrest at York University
On Wednesday, the leadership of the University of Cuyo, located in Argentina’s northwest, published a resolution that called the professors “discriminatory and promoters of antisemitism.” The resolution comes after a yearlong investigation of Julio Alejandro Neme Dorah and Silvia Sassola.
On May 1, Neme Dorah, who teaches Arab studies, called for a rebellion against “Talmudist usurers.” He is regularly interviewed by a campus program called Arab Debate, and has claimed that “Zionist Judaism is the greatest catastrophe for humanity. … Masters of the lie, they poison every people and are the enemies of humanity. The Talmud and Torah are the true Sword of Damocles.”
Sassola, a journalist, accused Argentine Jews of “double loyalty” and has echoed other anti-Semitic stereotypes.
The resolution requests that both professors work “in respect of cultural diversity.” It also requires Sassola to remove the name of the university from his Twitter bio.
The Argentine Jewish political umbrella organization, DAIA, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent the resolution to the organizers of an upcoming conference hosted by Neme Dorah called “From Versailles to Gaza.” They are requesting that the event be canceled.
Last year, the Wiesenthal Center flagged the professors’ antisemitic speech in a letter to the university administration.
The effect on the mostly Jewish attendees of the event was understandable. Rather than talk about the planned topic – the experience of former Israeli soldiers and their efforts to combat the falsehoods of the BDS movement – the event turned into an anguished discussion on how unsafe the attendees felt as Jews.
They felt singled out. They were made to feel unsafe in their own city because of who they are. It was the very thing I had prayed I would never be made to feel in Canada.
One lady compared the happenings of that night with her experience under the KGB in the Soviet Union. KGB, Syrian intelligence – their the same thugs. Policing and imposing an orthodoxy of thought. No dissenting opinion to be tolerated. Just as the angry crowd outside were not about to tolerate any opposing opinion.
At the end of the event, it was decided that the attendees would require police escorts back to their cars. In 2019, in Toronto, Jews are not safe enough to walk alone back to the parking lot at one of the city’s institutes of higher education. My fellow attendees were angry, apprehensive, but even through the banging on the doors, and the non-stop slogan shouting, they carried on with the event. It was an act of defiance.
And that was the very reason for the anger outside – the defiance of the Jews. The survival of the world’s only Jewish state. Israel had won.
So what is a rabid Israel-hater to do? Bang on doors, shout slogans, wave flags – and tell themselves that this is a “victory.”
Executive director @AMPalestine -Missouri Neveen Ayesh has been tweeting hateful anti-Semitism since college. Things like “I should put a sign on that door that says if your yahoodi [Jewish] please kill yourself cause you aren't welcome anywhere.”https://t.co/zeBB3fSFFx pic.twitter.com/I43u957t6N
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) November 22, 2019
Muslim woman intervenes to stop anti-Semitic abuse on London Underground
A Muslim woman won praise after intervening to try and stop a man from unleashing an anti-Semitic diatribe on a Jewish family with small children who were traveling on the London Underground.
The incident was filmed Friday and prompted widespread condemnation, but also praise for the woman who continued to try to get the man to stop, even as he threatened to assault other passengers.
Police said Saturday they were looking for the man.
“A video circulating online showed passengers being harassed and being targeted with anti-Semitic abuse,” British Transport Police said. “Anyone who knows the identity of the man in the image is asked to contact BTP.”
In the video, the man can be seen pointing to passages in what appears to be a Bible and shouting at a father and several small children who are wearing kippas, talking about the “synagogue of Satan.”
“It was the children that really got me and everyone else, he was just screaming at these children. It was horrific in every sense,” the BBC quoted Chris Atkins, who filmed the incident, as saying.
“He… said in the Bible [that] Jews killed Jesus and they are all slave masters. I’ve lived in London for 20 years and you’re used to people ranting on the Tube – it was only after a minute I realized, ‘hang on this is really, really anti-Semitic.'”
When one passenger tried to stop him, the man threatened him: “You need to get out of my face or I will smack you right in your nose, man. Back up from me. I’m not no Christian pastor. Back the f#ck up from me.”
Around noon I witnessed appalling anti Semitic abuse towards this Jewish Family on the northern line. Fair play to other passengers who stood up to him. If you recognise the guy please report to ?@metpoliceuk? pic.twitter.com/YxzwAnDqTJ
— Chris Atkins (@scatatkins) November 22, 2019
New Assault on Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn Reported
Yet another Orthodox Jew was assaulted in Brooklyn on Thursday night, the latest in a series of violent incidents that have set Jewish communities in several of the borough’s neighborhoods on edge.Belgian Prosecutors Step Back From Legal Action Against Soccer Fans Who Chanted ‘Jews Burn Best’
Thursday’s assault was caught on camera shortly before midnight on Sanford Street near Willoughby Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Police said the unprovoked attack was carried out by a 32-year-old man, who punched his 21-year-old victim without exchanging a word with him.
The suspect was arrested on assault charges shortly after.
More than half of the hate crimes reported in New York City this year have been antisemitic in nature, with over 150 incidents targeting Jews — a rise of 63 percent from the previous year, according to figures released by the New York Police Department in September.
Speaking to The Algemeiner in an extensive interview earlier this month, Rabbi Yaacov Behrman — the founder of the Brooklyn-based Jewish Future Alliance — said that the spate of attacks over the last two years against Orthodox Jews in the Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park neighborhoods were overwhelmingly perceived within the community as driven by antisemitic hatred.
Public prosecutors in Belgium announced on Friday that they had backed away from legal action against four soccer fans who were caught on film chanting a violently antisemitic song, drawing an angry protest from the country’s sole Orthodox Jewish parliamentarian.Jerusalem has one of world's 'smartest' transportation systems
The four identified fans were among a larger group of supporters of the FC Brugge soccer club who were recorded singing the offensive chant in the team’s stadium. The incident occurred on Aug. 26 last year, following a top-flight match between Brugge and rival Anderlecht. Celebrating Brugge’s victory in that contest, the fans chanted the words: “My father was in the commandos/My mother was in the SS/Together they burned the Jews/Because the Jews burn best.”
Officials from Club Brugge later identified the four fans and banned them from attending the team’s matches. As a result, according to the public prosecutor’s office in the region of West Flanders, no further measures were needed against the fans.
“We won’t be bringing them to justice,” public prosecutor Johan Lescrauwaet told news outlet De Standaard. “The stadium ban that Club Brugge handed them is, we think, a sufficient punishment.”
But Flemish nationalist MP Michael Freilich — who last May became the first Orthodox Jew to be elected to the Belgian parliament — expressed outrage at what he called an “incomprehensible decision.”
The City of Jerusalem was chosen as a finalist for the Smart City Expo’s award for the world’s ‘smartest’ transportation city, at this week’s competition in Barcelona, Spain.TIME Magazine Includes Israeli-Water Technology in Top 100 Inventions of 2019
The Smart City World Congress event, which began Tuesday and ended Thursday, highlighted technological innovations and hi-tech urban planning in cities around the globe.
Seven cities, representing seven different categories, netted awards at the expo, out of a total of 450 cities which competed. Of the 450 entries, 28 cities made it to the expo’s finals.
Jerusalem, one of the 450 cities entered into the competition, was among the 28 finalists.
While it did not win the award, Jerusalem was one of two runners-up for the Mobility Award, in recognition of the integration of its light rail train system and traffic light network with a cutting-edge artificial intelligence program.
Thanks to the integration of Axilion’s AI-based, Azure-powered traffic signal network optimization system, timing of traffic lights across Jerusalem are optimized to give the city’s light rail trains faster rides across town.
Since the integration of AI optimization into the traffic and light rail systems, ridership has jumped by 50%, from an average of 40,000 riders per day to 60,000, while travel time has decreased from an average of 80 minutes to get from one end of the light rail system to another, to 42 minutes.
A machine that makes safe, clean drinking water out of ambient air—manufactured by the Israel-based company of Watergen—was included in Time magazine’s list in 2019 of the top 100 inventions published on Nov. 21.Odd 13th-century Bulgarian worship hall may be country’s sole medieval synagogue
Resembling a typical water cooler and designed especially for homes and offices, the machine, which is named “GENNY,” can produce as much as 27 liters of water per day.
The apparatus makes water by using Watergen’s patented, heat-exchange GENius technology. It first collects water vapor in the air and then cools the air at its dew point. Subsequently, the water goes through physical, chemical and biological treatment, followed by a mineralization process, to maintain its cleanliness, tastiness and healthy quality.
Essentially, the “GENNY” not only functions as a dehumidifier, but also provides an environmentally friendly alternative to bottled water. Like Watergen’s other water generators, it needs no infrastructure to operate except for a source of electricity.
The GENNY was also recognized in January by the Consumer Technology Association at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, earning “Best of Innovation Honoree” in the “Tech for a Better World” category. It was also distinguished as an honoree in the “Home Appliances” category.
Watergen has been active in making its technology available to many developing countries, including India, Vietnam, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Uzbekistan and South Africa.
What may be the sole archaeological remains of Bulgaria’s medieval Jewish community are currently being uncovered in the country’s ancient capital of Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo). At a November 11 press conference in Sofia, archaeologist Dr. Mirko Robov proposed that a large, two-roomed 13th century structure he is excavating is not a church as originally thought, but rather a synagogue.
The proposed Jewish house of worship was discovered on the outskirts of a medieval fortress complex located on the city’s Trapezitsa Hill. Although digging began there in 2014, so far only a quarter of the structure has been excavated, Robov told The Times of Israel this week in an email interview. It is a large building that was built during the 1240s and survived until the fall of Tarnovo during the Ottoman conquest in 1393 when the town was completely razed.
The northern Bulgarian city of Veliko Tarnovo is often referred to as the “City of the Tsars” in a nod to its historical place as a capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Located close to modern day Turkey, its position along the Yantra River is important both strategically and for trade routes. The old town is spread out on three hills, Tsarevets, Sveta Gora, and Trapezitsa, where the potential synagogue was found.
The only European country to have more Jews in its borders after World War II than before, Bulgaria boasts a 2,000-year-old Jewish community, some of which has been documented to have lived in a Jewish quarter on the Trapezitsa Hill during the Middle Ages. “Trapezitsa was the second most significant fort in Metropolitan Tarnovo. As a capital, Tarnovo was an ethnically diverse city. One of the ethnic groups we know of were the Jewish people,” said Robov.
If confirmed as a synagogue after further research, it would be the only one from Bulgaria during this era, and one of only a handful that have been discovered throughout the continent.
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