Friday, January 10, 2020
The True Motives Of Palestinian Leadership, Corruption, And Ethnic Cleansing
Sadly, Israel has demonstrated more commitment to a Palestinian state than has Palestinian leadership itself. Since 2000, Israel has proposed or accepted four land-for-peace proposals that would have created an independent Palestinian state. The PA has refused all proposals, despite one being so generous as to include all of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and 97% of Judea and Samaria. Palestinian self-sabotages at achieving statehood have been so in vain that Bill Clinton once lamented, “I killed myself trying to give Palestinians a state.”
The PA’s motive, instead of statehood, is corruption — which “thrives” as conflict exists. Conflict fuels international attention and the foreign aid that the PA has exploited to line its pockets and fortify its bureaucracy. In 2015, it was reported that the PA had received $25 billion in foreign aid since 1994. Yet Palestinians “saw no improvement in their living conditions.” This sum should startle: Palestinian foreign aid, when assessed on a per capita basis, exceeds that designated for the Marshall Plan by 25 times. Unlike the Marshall Plan, which propelled Europe’s reconstruction in four years, the “Palestinian Project” has now lasted over a quarter of a century without any end in sight.
So where has the money gone? Corruption. Arafat amassed $10+ billion, “[t]he main source” of which was “the approximately $6 billion contributed … as financial aid.” Further, Arafat’s financial advisor accumulated $500+ million, having had access to “hundreds of millions of [the PA’s] dollars.” Abbas also amassed approximately $100 million, despite being a career politician, and his two sons are millionaires who operate foreign aid contracting businesses. The PA suffers from systemic venality.
Palestinian-Arab leadership has long realized that conflict must exist for it to receive aid. Thus, in 2018, it distributed $330 million worth of stipends to thousands of terrorists and their families, thereby inspiring future generations of terror. PA leadership also realizes that its power remains dependent on keeping the Palestinian people dependent on its reign. Hence, in 2016, “[m]ore than half” of the PA’s spending on Gaza was “spent on wages to PA employees.” Further, between 1999 and 2007, the PA recruited 70,000 new government officials, while spending 70% of the Paris Conference foreign aid package on government salaries in 2008, and 58% of its entire foreign aid for 2001 on PA salaries. Through inciting violence and dependency culture, the PA exploits conflict to preserve its power and wealth.
In sum, Palestinian leadership has long been disingenuous. It wants not peace, but either a “Judenrein Palestine” or a conflict that will enable its corruption, power, and raison d’etre. If the world really wants a solution, it must stop blaming Israel, which has actually tried to establish a Palestinian state, and condemn the true motives of Palestinian leadership.
‘Experts’ Perpetuate Mideast and Palestinian Myths
No matter how many times the think-tank “experts” are proven wrong in their predictions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, they keep promoting the same old myths.John Podhoretz: Tom Cotton on Anti-Semitism
They must think that the public has a very short memory.
The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) last week unveiled its recommendations for Israeli policy in 2020. The men and women who make up its roster have impressive credentials in their fields.
Yet remarkably, they keep promoting policy positions that have been discredited again and again and again.
Myth #1: Palestinian Arab terrorism is caused by poverty.
In 2020, “Palestinian disgruntlement will be mainly channeled into international diplomatic moves against Israel, not to violent unrest — unless the economic situation in the territories worsens,” according to the JISS.
Call it the “Barack Obama Theory of the Causes of Terrorism.” In an interview on CBS’s This Morning on December 4, 2015, then-President Obama explained one view of what causes terrorism: “When people are not able to make a living or take care of their families,” they become “desperate,” and “as human beings are placed under strain, then bad things happen.”
Many of the modern-day Zionist pioneers involved in rebuilding the Land of Israel in the late 1800s and early 1900s likewise believed that the Palestinian Arabs would drop their opposition to the Jews once they saw how much they would benefit from Jewish immigration.
Jobs. Running water. Electricity. Trains. They were followed by refrigerators, telephones, mail service, and automobiles. Arabs from Syria, Egypt, and across the Jordan River poured into the country and enjoyed better jobs, better homes, and better food. But it didn’t stop them from hating Jews. In 1920, 1921, 1929, and continuously from 1936 to 1939, Palestinian Arabs shot, stabbed, and bombed Jews throughout the country, even when it undermined their own economic well-being.
On January 9, Tom Cotton of Arkansas made a speech on the floor of the United States Senate about the shocking rise of anti-Semitic crimes in and around New York City. Everyone should read it. Here it is:
This holiday season, the ancient hatred of anti-Semitism cast a shadow over New York City during Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. The New York Police Department recorded at least nine separate attacks against Jews—more than one attack for each day of Hanukkah. New attacks are reported seemingly on a daily basis.
In Crown Heights, site of the deadly anti-Semitic riots incited by Al Sharpton in 1991, a group of men beat up an Orthodox Jew and attacked another with a chair.
In Williamsburg, another group terrorized an elderly Jewish man on the street. “Jew, Hitler burned you,” one of the criminals reportedly said. “I’ll shoot you.”
And just outside the city, in Rockland County, a man with a machete stormed a Hanukkah celebration in a rabbi’s home and injured five worshippers, leaving two in critical condition. The family of one victim, Josef Neumann, says he may never wake up from his coma.
These heinous attacks are part of a growing storm of anti-Semitism that has made Jewish Americans fearful to worship and walk the streets in their own communities. They come in the wake of the deadly rampage at a kosher market in Jersey City that left four innocent people dead, including a police detective. And of course, they come in the wake of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in our nation’s history: the massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a white supremacist.
According to the FBI, our country suffered a 37 percent increase in anti-Semitic crimes between 2014 and 2018. According to the New York Police Department, the city suffered a 26 percent increase in anti-Semitic crimes in the past year alone. That increase is alarming enough. So is the fact that most hate crimes reported in New York are crimes against Jews. And while some of the increase is due to better reporting, much of it is not. Jewish Americans bear witness to this harsh reality.
Anti-Semitism is the ancient hatred, but today it can appear in new disguises. It festers on Internet message boards and social media. It festers in so-called Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an isolationist blame-America-first money pit for so-called “scholars” who’ve written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish money. It festers even on elite college campuses, which incubate the radical Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—a movement to wage economic warfare against the Jewish state. These forms of anti-Semitism may be less bloody than street crime in New York, but they channel the same ancient hatred, the same conspiratorial and obsessive focus on the Jewish people.
Arab States Have Everything to Gain from Normalization with Israel
As an Arab activist and writer, I call on the Arab world to normalize relations with Israel — a move that would be almost entirely to our benefit alone. Israel would gain very little from this in practical terms, while Arabs stand to gain tremendously.US senators introduce bill backing $3.3 billion bill annual aid to Israel
My people don’t understand that Israel is actually our friend, and that if we followed the Jewish state’s example, we too could become prosperous like America and Europe.
Israel is stronger and more stable than the Arab states on almost all fronts. If all borders were wide open in Arab states, few if any Israelis would flee Tel Aviv for Arab cities; but you would certainly see a flow of people in the opposite direction — and for the very same reason that multitudes of Arabs seek to emigrate to Europe.
The conflict over land must be put into perspective. The land which officially became the State of Israel was originally Jewish territory, one that was later controlled by a series of conquerors, including Arab-Muslims. The latter are the true occupiers, and they are fighting to reverse the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty.
Any sane person knows — or should know — that the Jews are not colonialists in this region, but rather an indigenous people. But we Arabs have grown arrogant, to the point of denying all historical records of Jewish sovereignty preceding Arab-Muslim rule in the Middle East. The Hebrew language alone is evidence enough of a long Jewish history in the land of Israel.
Two US senators from opposite sides of the aisle on Thursday introduced a bill to provide annual aid of $3.3 billion to Israel as part of a 2016 agreement.Israel raises $3 billion in record US dollar bond issue
Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Coons co-sponsored the bill, according to Reuters, which was originally part of wider legislation that stalled last year over a section that would have allowed local governments to impose punishments on those who boycott Israel. This was seen by some as an attempt to stifle free speech.
The bill would put into law the Memorandum of Understanding that was agreed between Israel and the Obama administration.
The Memorandum of Understanding has thus far been upheld by the US President Donald Trump’s administration, but theoretically could be torn up at any time. Codifying it into law would protect the aid over the life of the agreement.
Rubio told Reuters that the legislation was important given the current global climate in which Israel faces “unprecedented threats,” and Coons told the outlet that the “events of the past few days are a stark reminder of the importance of US assistance to Israel’s security.”
Israel raised a record $3 billion in foreign debt on Wednesday in an offering that received huge demand from investors despite a year-long political stalemate and rising geopolitical tensions in the region.The long- awaited report on UNRWA's misuse of donor funds
It sold $2 billion-worth of 30-year US-denominated bonds at 3.375%, or 115 basis points over comparable US Treasuries, and another $1 billion of 10-year bonds at 2.5%, or 68 basis points over Treasuries – the lowest-ever spreads for an Israeli international debt offering.
Demand for the issues, the Finance Ministry said, reached an all-time high of $20 billion and attracted more than 400 different investors from 40 countries including the United States, Britain and Germany. Among the buyers were central banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other entities that already hold Israeli securities.
The Finance Ministry said there was high demand from Asian institutional investors, including Japan and Hong Kong.
Accountant General Rony Hizkiyahu said the results reflected confidence among the world’s largest investors in Israel’s economy and its bonds.
"The level of issuance and the low cost achieved will constitute an important element in financing the government’s activities in the coming year," he said, adding Israel was well established in global financial markets.
UNRWA’s mandate has been renewed by the UN General Assembly for the past 70 years, and its current mandate is set to expire on June 30, 2020. Yet, as additional countries join the ranks of those refusing to renew this financial and managerial black hole known as ‘UNRWA,’ the continuation of the charade of ‘perpetual refugee-ism’ may be in doubt.Four European Countries Might Be Added to Anti-Semitism Watchlist
This paper examines the exorbitant, highly inflated rise of UNRWA’s budget demands over the past 10 years ($1.11 billion USD in 2018 alone), and both the misuse and the utter lack of transparency and accountability as to how those billions of dollars have been spent.
I. I. Historical Overview
On 14 May 1948, the 30-year British Mandate for Palestine was formally ended by the British Colonial Office. Britain’s chaotic evacuation of its civilian and military personnel was immediately followed by an invasion by seven Arab countries vowing to annihilate the newly declared State of Israel. In the course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, approximately one million people, both Arabs and Jews, were left displaced and homeless. In the aftermath of these developments the UNGA responded by calling to a post-World II war refugee crisis upon international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.
Download this REPORT in PDF format
Anti-Semitism watchdogs are calling on the Trump administration to designate France, Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom as countries of concern due to the rapid rise of anti-Jewish hate crimes.
At a hearing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on Wednesday, notable Jewish and human rights activist, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, advised the commission to add the four major European countries to its Tier II watchlist for anti-Semitism.
Each of the four countries identified by Cooper—associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a global human rights organization committed to confronting anti-Semitism—saw alarming increases in anti-Semitic assaults and hate crimes committed in recent years. In all instances, he said, the states failed to decisively respond.
The addition of these countries would mark a milestone in American efforts to combat anti-Semitism abroad, Cooper said.
JPost Editorial: Poland’s Israel problem
More than 40 world leaders are expected to converge on Jerusalem in two weeks for a momentous occasion.Holocaust memorial event should be in Poland, not Jerusalem, Duda says
Under the banner “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism,” the dignitaries, accompanied by Israel’s prime minister and president, will gather for the Fifth World Holocaust Forum to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland, the largest Nazi death camp in World War II.
The unprecedented event at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is to take place just ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and against the backdrop of the rise in antisemitism around the world.
It is an occasion meant to be free of politics and provide a unifying topic that all visiting leaders can unquestioningly get behind.
On Tuesday, though, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced he will not join his fellow leaders at the forum. The reason given was that he was not invited to address the gathering.
However, as Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev explained Wednesday on KAN Radio, only representatives from the four main powers of the Allied forces that liberated Europe and the world from the murderous tyranny of Nazi Germany – the United States, Russia, France and Britain – were invited to give speeches. German President Franz-Walter Steinmeier, President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the forum’s organizers, will also address the attendees.
The crux of Duda’s rejection of the invitation is the continued dispute between Warsaw and Moscow over whether their countries collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
Polish President Andrzej Duda expressed his disappointment that the fifth World Holocaust Forum is being held at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and not in Auschwitz in Poland. His remarks came at a belated Hanukkah event in Warsaw on Wednesday night.8 killed in strike on Iranian militias on Iraq-Syria border, media blame Israel
Duda said that he was “astounded” to be invited to an event in Jerusalem marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which will have the theme “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism.” He said that he has decided this week that he would not attend the memorial ceremony, because he would not be given the chance to address the forum.
“To me, it is precisely here in Poland, on our soil today, occupied back then by Nazi Germany, where those ashes are scattered,” that such an event should take place.
“This is the place of immense symbolism,” he said. “Deep within my soul, I believe this is the appropriate place, the best one. I believe that one must not deprive this place of its remembrance by transferring it somewhere else.”
The Polish president said being in Auschwitz, where it is “bitterly cold… magnifies the sense of gravity. This stiffening cold makes one truly comprehend the horror of the place.” He pointed out that prisoners in the concentration camps were there for years, with no heating and only wearing thin uniforms, many having to walk barefoot in the snow.
Eight people were reportedly killed in airstrikes against Iranian militias along the border between Syrian and Iraq, according to Ynet that quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Israel releases Syrian spy, Golan ambulance attacker, in goodwill gesture
Trucks and militants were targeted in the airstrikes on Thursday night, according to the Beirut-based TV station Al Mayadeen. Violent explosions were heard in the area and "enemy planes" were seen above the city Al-Bukamal shortly before, according to the report.
Local news source DeirEzzor24 stated that target of the bombing is believed to have been a weapons shipment to Hezbollah in the border area.
Several Arab media outlets, including Al Mayadeen, blamed Israel for the airstrikes.
According to Ynet, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization which opposes the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and his allies in Iran and the pro-Iranian militia Hezbollah, reported that non-identified fighter jets struck warehouses and equipment belonging to pro-Iranian militias.
Israel has announced the release of two prisoners — one of whom was convicted of spying for Syria — as part of a swap deal brokered by Russia.Defense minister creates new post to combat illegal Palestinian construction
Sidqi al-Maqt, from the Druze town of Majdal Shams, was sentenced to 14 years behind bars in 2017 for spying on IDF positions on behalf of Syrian intelligence. He was arrested in 2015 on suspicion of passing photographs and written reports of IDF positions to Syrian intelligence officials.
He had already spent 27 years behind bars in Israel for spying and had been released in 2012 prior to his latest arrest.
“Security prisoner Sidqi Al-Maqt will be released tomorrow, January 10, before the scheduled end of his imprisonment,” Israeli prison officials said in a statement late Thursday.
Upon his release al-Maqt thanked Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their work to secure his release.
“The Syrian resolve overcame the resolve of the occupation and the enemy,” he said. “My release was without conditions, to the chagrin of the occupation.”
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday announced the appointment of an external adviser who will be tasked with combating illegal Palestinian construction in the West Bank.IDF to demolish homes of terrorists who killed Rina Shnerb, Dvir Sorek
Kobi Eliraz, who as Defense Ministry adviser on settlement affairs from 2016 to 2019 worked primarily on regulating illegal Israeli construction beyond the Green Line, will now “coordinate the fight against illegal Palestinian construction in Area C on behalf of the defense minister,” Bennett’s office said in a statement.
Last month, Bennett declared that combating illegal Palestinian construction in the roughly 60% of the West Bank that is under Israeli military and civil control based on the 1994 Oslo Accords would be a top priority for his office.
“The future of the Land of Israel is at stake,” Bennett said in a statement introducing the appointment of Eliraz. “Unfortunately, while the Palestinians have been taking over territory in a largely uninterrupted manner, the State of Israel simply has not risen to the occasion.
“The defense establishment will begin fighting on the ground, and for this it is essential that there is someone to lead the campaign. Kobi Eliraz is the right person at the right time. He is an expert in the field and a bulldozer of a worker,” Bennett concluded.
The IDF announced on Friday that it has notified the families of several terrorists responsible for fatal attacks that their houses are going to be demolished.
Hamas-affiliated Mahmoud Atuna was involved in the attack that killed 19-year-old Dvir Sorek in August. Sorek’s body was found a short distance away from the security gate of the Migdal Oz settlement after he was stabbed multiple times. At the end of November, the army announced that it had already carried out other demolitions in connection with the attack.
Walid Hanatsheh and Yzaen Majame are among those standing trial for murdering 17-year-old Rina Shnerb in August at the Dani spring near the settlement of Dolev. The IDF added that the demolitions of other houses of those responsible for the attack are being investigated.
The families of the terrorists have the opportunity to file an appeal against the demolition.
Palestinians from the villages around Naharia came out today with their expensive construction equipment, on their own time and expense & spent the day in the cold rain helping Israelis stuck and stranded. No BDS. No Apartheid. Just Community. (Thanks to @idatheleader for photo) pic.twitter.com/vz3NxaLm3e
— Stuart (@SAs115thDream) January 9, 2020
Elections Remain Elusive for Palestinians, as Abbas Searches for Pretexts to Postpone Them
In an address to the UN General Assembly last September, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas pledged to a sympathetic gathering of world leaders that he would hold parliamentary elections.
While the announcement garnered international headlines at the time, little progress has been made in the ensuing months towards elections, highlighting what experts see as entrenched corruption and little desire among the Palestinian leadership to be held accountable by its people.
Efraim Karsh, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, told JNS that, contrary to what it seems, Abbas is actually trying to postpone elections.
While Abbas promised that he would call for elections when he returned home from New York in the fall, he has since added a stipulation that Palestinians living in eastern Jerusalem under Israeli authority be allowed to vote in any Palestinian Authority elections.
According to Karsh, Abbas’s threat “is nothing but another excuse to delay the elections.”
From Israel’s point of view, Palestinian elections are pointless. According to Karsh, “we already have security cooperation with the PA, and politically, it won’t get better than it already is.”
Abbas was last elected to a four-year term as head of the Palestinian Authority in 2005. The PA last held national elections in 2006, which resulted in a complete embarrassment for Abbas and his Fatah Party when Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group, won a surprise victory.
Next week will mark beginning of the 15th year of Mahmoud Abbas 4-year term as Palestinian Authority President. But tell me more how PA is so democratic? pic.twitter.com/TMkrXg5lCc
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 10, 2020
Hamas MP Sheikh Salem Salameh: George Washington Killed Indians Because They Were Muslims; Normalization of Relations with Israel Is Betrayal of God, Islam pic.twitter.com/ju5d1MDRL2
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 10, 2020
Victims of Paris Kosher Supermarket Attack Remembered, Five Years Later
Thursday marked the fifth anniversary of a deadly terror attack at a kosher supermarket in Paris.
On the afternoon of Jan. 9, 2015, shortly before the start of Shabbat, Amedy Coulibaly — who had pledged allegiance to ISIS — burst in to the Hyper Cacher at Porte de Vincennes in the French capital’s 20th arrondissement and took more than a dozen hostages.
A multi-hour standoff with police ensued, at the end of which the heavily-armed Coulibaly was killed in an exchange of fire.
Four hostages were found murdered inside the store.
The victims — all Jews — were Philippe Braham, 45, Yohan Cohen, 22, Yoav Hattab, 21, and François-Michel Saada, 64.
The attack occurred two days after 12 people were massacred by a pair of Islamist gunmen at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
A memorial ceremony — organized by the French Jewish communal organization CRIF — was held on Thursday evening in front of the Hyper Cacher.
The Paris office of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) tweeted an homage to those who lost their lives at the supermarket, saying, “Remember their names and faces, rather than the terrorist who cowardly murdered them simply because they were Jews.”
Philippe Braham,
— AJC Paris (@AJC_Paris) January 9, 2020
Yohan Cohen,
Yoav Hattab,
François-Michel Saada.
Retenez leurs noms et leurs visages plutôt que ceux du terroriste qui les a lâchement assassinés il y a 5 ans, simplement parce qu'ils étaient #juifs. #Hypercacher pic.twitter.com/23K5PNnbCG
Jews Must Not Sit by Idly While Antisemitism Surges in US, Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief Says
Jews must not sit idly by while antisemitism surges in the US, the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said in a recent television appearance.
While taking part in a panel discussion aired by the Jewish Broadcasting Service, Dovid Efune said recent events — such as the stabbing attack at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York — had left him feeling “motivated” to fight antisemitism.
“The question of antisemitism and where this tragic saga ends, I think it’s too big for any one person to answer,” Efune noted. “It spans millennia. How do we get rid of this? How do we root it out? People have tried. Ideas have been presented. But the best that people seem to be able to come up with is some sort of agenda for containment, if you will.”
He continued, “The question that we have control over is how to respond to it? And I think it’s incumbent upon us to think about, if we are indeed living through a historic resurgence of antisemitism, or even a rebirth of American antisemitism…if that is the case, we need to be sure it is never said that the beast of antisemitism reawakened on our watch and it did so unopposed or it was met with timid resistance.”
“It’s our job to formulate the most aggressive, compelling and impactful response that we can in the face of such atrocities and hatred,” Efune declared.
Monsey Suspect Charged With Additional Hate Crimes
The US Department of Justice announced on Thursday that five additional federal hate-crime charges have been filed against the suspect behind the machete attack on Dec. 28 at a home and prayer hall known as Rabbi Rottenberg’s Shul in Monsey, NY, injuring five of the around 100 celebrants at a Hanukkah candle-lighting party.NYPD Makes Just One Arrest for Every Four Anti-Semitic Crimes, Data Show
The new charges against Grafton Thomas, 37, include willfully causing bodily injury to five victims because of the victims’ religion and five counts of obstructing the free exercise of religion in an attempt to kill.
“Since before our founding as a nation and ever since, this country has provided refuge for people from other parts of the world who suffered violence and other forms of persecution because of their right to believe and worship as they see fit,” said US Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division.
“The United States remains today a beacon of freedom for persecuted religious people all over the world, and violent attacks against anyone because of religion is both illegal and against everything our nation stands for,” he continued. “The United States Department of Justice will continue to prosecute anyone who engages in such conduct to the fullest extent of the law.”
If convicted, Thomas could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The New York Police Department makes roughly one arrest for every four complaints of an anti-Semitic hate crime, department data show, making anti-Semitic crimes one of the least likely to result in arrest.Former DPP Lord MacDonald QC describes Labour arrest cases, prompted by CAA and LBC, as “very extreme stuff” and “well capable of comprising a criminal offence”, as the Met awaits decision from CPS
Data released by the NYPD and covering three years' worth of hate-crime complaints and arrests show that anti-Semitic hate crimes are by far the most common source of complaints, accounting for 49.2 percent of the total. Anti-Semitic offenders, however, account for just 32.6 percent of hate crime arrests.
While it is hard to conclude from these data what explains this disparity, they strongly suggest that not enough is being done to respond to anti-Semitic crime in New York City. According to one Jewish community leader who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon, the source of this issue may not be the NYPD itself, but an "impossibly progressive" mayor who has not been serious enough about combating the i
The NYPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
Lord MacDonald QC, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, has revealed that he believes not only that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has had sufficient time to review the cases of the arrested Labour members and should announce its conclusions, but that the evidence suggests that crimes have indeed been committed.Emily Thornberry: We need to get on our hands and knees and ask for forgiveness
Lord MacDonald, who headed the CPS from 2003 to 2008, made the intervention after the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, revealed that six arrests were made in connection with a secret dossier compiled by the Labour Party and subsequently leaked and referred to the Met by Campaign Against Antisemitism and the radio channel LBC, and that five of the cases were passed to the CPS in September 2019.
Commissioner Dick explained that the cases represented a “complex crime type” and that the CPS would have to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to bring charges and a public interest in prosecuting.
But Lord MacDonald opined that “these are allegations about the conduct of members of a major political party and so there is obviously a strong public interest in this being resolved, and resolved as quickly as possible.” Moreover, he noted that a long delay fuels “rumours” and “unease” and therefore that “safe conclusions are needed sooner rather than later.”
Lord MacDonald went on to say that “the sensitivity in these cases is that prosecutors have to balance two things: one is the suggestion that these messages, these posts may comprise incitement to racial hatred, or other hate crimes, on the one hand, and then on the other hand, free expression rights,” adding that this “can sometimes be a tricky analysis but I should have thought that three months is plenty of time to come to conclusions in this case.”
When an expert looks into a problem you have – whether it’s a doctor, a mechanic, or a plumber – you take their advice and follow it without thinking twice.
So when the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), and imminently the Equalities and Human Rights Commission give the Labour Party specific recommendations about how we need to root out the poison of antisemitism from our movement, our starting point must not be to dispute their proposals but ensure every single one is implemented unless we can rationally explain why not.
If I’m elected Labour leader, I hope there will be very few recommendations we can’t take on. But as a veteran of the bitter struggle inside the Shadow Cabinet to get us to endorse the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism, and all its examples, I know how hard these fights can be.
However, even that didn’t prepare me for the battle I had over Labour’s 2019 manifesto, where the advisers around Jeremy Corbyn proposed to amend the language we had used in the 2017 version to remove the condemnation of rocket and terror attacks by Palestinian groups against Israel, while rightly continuing to condemn the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the blockade of Gaza.
When I repeatedly complained that this was utterly unacceptable, I was told by Jeremy’s office that they thought this was “very balanced considering the considerable imbalance in the conflict”.
Disgustingly, attacks on Israeli civilians were being deliberately dismissed in a way that would never have been tolerated of attacks on any civilians in any other country around the world.
A vanquished Corbyn increasingly returns to familiar territory — student politics, anti-British protests and general rabble-rousing. I’m sure Press TV have already been back in touch. https://t.co/VNA56ylIE3
— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) January 10, 2020
Turning BDS into 'Buy directly from Samaria'
More disclosure would also help combat the core BDS argument. The typical anti-BDS argument is defensive, boiling down to "Israel’s really not that bad" when compared to many other countries. Israelis, as well as Jews around the world, should want something much better than this. How about "Israel is a role model that other nations should emulate"?Elite NYC prep school fires Jewish teacher who posted anti-Zionist tweets
No country rushes to aid nations in need of the way that Israel does. No other country provides heart surgery for children from all over the world, many from hostile countries. No country would bend over backward the way Israel does to help a population the leaders of which are actively seeking its destruction. No country in a similar situation would be providing energy and water to Gaza, or funding transportation and infrastructure projects in Arab communities in Judea and Samaria.
The vast majority of employment for Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is on the Israeli side of the security barrier. For example, many are Israeli-trained doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. As time goes on, there will likely be an increasing number of Arab citizens who will be willing to proudly speak up without fear of reprisal and tout the benefits of living in Israel.
The Prime Minister’s Office can also effectively support both offensive and defensive long-term disclosure strategies. For example, if a country in Europe were to consider a national boycott policy against Israel or parts of Israel, can the prime minister appeal directly to Israel’s supporters, for example, evangelical Christians across the globe, to support Israeli products made in those areas?
Israel may underestimate its friends’ willingness to help and what harnessing their buying power could mean.
Fighting BDS is important. Israel and its supporters may want to press forward with at least as much effort in an offensive long-term strategy. Increased labeling and disclosure can provide important results for Israel.
The Ethical Culture Fieldston School, an elite New York City prep school, has fired a teacher who posted tweets opposing Zionism.
JB Brager, who taught history at Fieldston, was fired Thursday. The termination comes after Brager, who is Jewish, posted multiple tweets disparaging Zionism amid a controversy over anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism at the school.
“ECFS does not comment on personnel matters,” the school said in a statement to JTA Thursday evening. “We can reaffirm, however, that the school does not tolerate hurtful, offensive, or exclusionary content or comments from any member of the community. Students, parents, employees and other members of our community all face consequences for misbehavior of this nature.”
JTA reached out to Brager via email and their website for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
The controversy began in November when a speaker at the school, Kayum Ahmed, a lecturer at Columbia University Law School and a director at the Open Society Foundations, said that the Holocaust and Israel are examples of “victims becoming perpetrators,” according to a video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Tablet magazine reported that parents were “shaken and outraged” by the remark.
If #BDS was nearly as successful as they claim it is, they wouldn’t need to go around claiming victories that don’t exist. @PSCupdates https://t.co/ryT0AHFeLX
— (((David Lange))) (@Israellycool) January 9, 2020
Neo-nazi teenager who planned to bomb synagogues and other targets and who became UK’s youngest ever convicted terrorist is jailed for 6 years
A sixteen-year-old neo-Nazi teenager from Durham has been jailed for six years and eight months by Manchester Crown Court after being found guilty of preparation of terrorist acts between October 2017 and March 2019.China’s Crackdown on Religion Hasn’t Overlooked Judaism
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is the youngest person ever to be convicted in the UK for planning a terrorist attack.
Reportedly a follower of far-right ideology since the age of thirteen, the boy had hoped to follow in Adolf Hitler’s footsteps and listed numerous targets “worth attacking” with Molotov cocktails, including synagogues, which were listed under “Areas to Attack” in his manifesto, which was titled “A Manual for practical and sensible guerrilla warfare against the kike system in the Durham City area, Sieg Heil”. Other items seized from his home included a copy of Mein Kampf and material on explosives and firearms.
During the trial, the prosecution claimed that the defendant had become “an adherent of neo-Nazism – the most extreme of right-wing ideology”, noting that he had written in his diary on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday that the Nazi leader was “a brave man to say the least. Although maybe having written proof that I admire their number one enemy isn’t such a wise idea. I will however say that I one day hope to follow in his footsteps.”
The jury did not believe the teenager’s claims that his far-right musings were for “shock value” only, and he was found guilty of preparation of terrorist acts, disseminating a terrorist publication, possessing an article for a purpose connected with terrorism, and three counts of possessing a document or record containing information likely to be useful to a terrorist.
As Beijing’s persecution of its Muslim population has grown ever greater in scope and cruelty, and its persecution of Christians who dissent from the state-controlled denominations continues unabated, it has also repressed the practice of Judaism. The Jewish community of Kaifeng, which dates back to the Middle Ages, had been absorbed into the Gentile population by the 19th century, but in the 1990s a revival began among people of Jewish descent, some of whom began to use the site where the synagogue once stood for prayer. But no longer, writes Wang Yichi:How Miami became a haven for Venezuelan Jews
Their religious activities were tolerated at the beginning, but suppressed after 2015 by the authorities, fearing they would lead to a reawakening of the Jewish faith. Traditional Jewish festivals such as Passover and Sukkot were prohibited. All Hebrew signs were removed.
In 2019, the regime once again targeted the site of the Kaifeng synagogue on the grounds that Judaism was not among the “Five Authorized Religions” that are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In April, personnel from the local [government] forced their way into the site and removed all Jewish signs, [identifying information], and Israeli flags from the doors and windows. Instead, signs promoting the government’s attacks on, and repression of, religion were hung everywhere in the site.
To restrict the growth of Judaism, the CCP has set up layers of obstacles to prevent international organizations and foreign visitors from having contact with the Kaifeng Jews. In the summer of 2019, the government rented a house next to the site of Kaifeng synagogue and converted it into “a “Community Comprehensive Cultural Service Center.” From Monday to Sunday, personnel assigned by the government are stationed there, taking turns monitoring the activities in the site and the movements of the passersby. A surveillance camera was installed at the entrance to the synagogue.
Jackeline Nichols knew it was time to leave her native Venezuela when within the span of a few months two of her neighbors were kidnapped. Though both were eventually returned after their families paid ransoms, the incidents shook Nichols.Israel researchers find way to create and control elusive terahertz waves
Then, one of her kids got sick with a stomach flu and her husband needed to go to five different pharmacies to get medicine.
These situations are not out of the ordinary in Venezuela, whose once flourishing economy has collapsed over the last few years as the country has been mired in a political crisis. Poor living conditions — including a rise in professional kidnappings alongside shortages of food and medicine — have led millions of Venezuelans to flee.
“We were putting our families at risk,” said Nichols, 43, who served as president of the Hebraica, the Caracas Jewish community center, from 2012 to 2014. “We have three children and they were getting to be teenagers, where we knew they would want to start going out with friends and going to the mall and doing the things that teenagers do, and we felt that it was no longer safe for them.”
So in 2015, Nichols’ family left for Miami.
Though her husband is American and has family in Chicago, and the couple had job offers in other cities, the choice was obvious.
“We knew that here we had half of their classmates that had already moved in elementary school,” Nichols said. “We had uncles and cousins that we could have Shabbat with. The neighborhood they were familiar with because they had been here on vacation many times. So Miami is the stepping stone. This is the easiest transition, in some ways, for many of us here.”
A group of researchers at Tel Aviv University say they have developed a new way to produce and control terahertz waves, an elusive type of electromagnetic wave, using nanometric materials.
These waves can be used to create devices with advanced imaging abilities that can see through opaque materials like plastics or paper, identify small structures and their composition, or look through paint layers in works of art, the researchers said.
Terahertz waves are considered by scientists to be very important due to their unique ability to interact with materials: this makes them useful in accurately identifying different materials. In addition, terahertz waves can pass through materials and objects that appear opaque to other wavelengths, and thus can be used to detect hidden objects and even reveal their composition.
Despite their great importance, however, the ability to produce and control terahertz waves has been very limited compared to other forms of radiation.
Now, researchers at TAU’s Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology say they have created nanometric surfaces known as meta-surfaces, which enable the “groundbreaking” and “unprecedented production and control of terahertz waves.”
Water-from-air startup awarded Smart Home Mark of Excellence at CES Las Vegas
Israeli startup Watergen, which has developed a technology to make water from air, has been named winner of the Energy Efficiency Product of the Year in the 2020 Smart Home Mark of Excellence Awards at CES in Las Vegas for its GENNY product.Egypt set to reopen Alexandria synagogue Friday after extensive renovation
The annual award, presented during CES by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), recognizes the industry’s top smart home innovations. The GENNY was also awarded a CES Best of Innovation Award in 2019.
Genny is a “water-from-air” system for homes or offices. Use of the system does away with the need for bottled water, helping cut back on plastic use, the firm said in a statement announcing the win.
Because GENNY creates water from air, which is an unending resource, the liquid is always available on demand, the company said. In addition, the water produced by the machine is of higher quality than that which runs through the filtration systems that are attached to municipal water lines, and the product also eliminates concerns of corroded water pipes that could lead to higher-than-normal levels of lead in drinking water, the statement said.
Watergen’s GENNY also works as a home air purifier, circulating clean air back into the room as part of the water generation process, the company said.
A synagogue in Alexandria, Egypt, is set to reopen Friday following the completion of multi-million-dollar renovations of the almost two-century-old building, an Egyptian Antiquities Ministry official said.A Palestinian Sheikh Finds Shelter in Jewish Settlement
The Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue is one of two remaining Jewish houses of worship in the city that was once home to a thriving Jewish community.
The heads of the Alexandria and Cairo Jewish communities are expected to attend the opening, according to Egypt’s Assistant Minister of Antiquities for Engineering Affairs Hisham Samir.
Egyptian Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani, some 25 diplomats and others are also slated to attend the synagogue’s reopening, Samir told al-Masry al-Youm, a privately owned Egyptian daily, in an article published on Tuesday.
Lior Haiat, a spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, said in a phone call that while Israeli diplomats would not be at the synagogue on Friday, they would take part in another event marking its reopening later in 2020.
Eliyahu Hanavi was once home to an estimated 30,000-40,000 Jews. Its current structure was erected in the 1850s, after the original building, which dated back to the 1300s, was badly damaged in the late 18th century, during a French invasion of Egypt. With room for approximately 700 worshipers, it is the larger of the two synagogues remaining in the city.
Sheikh Abu Hamed al Assy was forced to flee his home after criticizing the Palestinian Authority and calling for Jews and Arabs to coexist.
Hebrew nametag on ancient wine jar reopens debate on size of Israelite kingdom
When archaeologists digging in the ruins of an ancient northern town found a few broken pots in the remains of one building last year, they didn’t pay them much attention at first.
But researchers were astonished when a closer review of the clay vessels from Abel Beth Maacah revealed that one of them bore an inscription in ancient Hebrew, Haaretz reported Thursday.
In fact, the single word was a nametag of sorts. On the jar, believed to be a wine vessel, was simply written: “LeBenayau,” meaning “Belongs to Benayau.”
But that single word could lead experts to rethink their views on the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, according to the report.
Abel Beth Maacah, mentioned in the bible, is located just south of Israel’s border with Lebanon, near the modern-day town of Metula. Benayau is a Hebrew name analogous to the modern Benayahu. But while the pot is believed to be from the 10th-9th century BCE, the Kingdom of Israel had not previously been thought to stretch so far north during that period.
Hunters - Official Trailer | Prime Video
Inspired by true events, HUNTERS follows a diverse band of Nazi Hunters in 1977 New York City who discover that hundreds of escaped Nazis are living in America. And so, they do what any bad-ass vigilante squad would do: they set out on a bloody quest for revenge and justice. But they soon discover a far-reaching conspiracy and must race against time to thwart the Nazis’ new genocidal plans.
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