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Saturday, May 02, 2020

05/02 Links: Coronavirus death toll rises to 229 as new daily infections dip below 100; Danon calls UNRWA Gaza schools 'terror storage facilities'; Parents of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl appeal acquittals

From Ian:
Coronavirus death toll rises to 229 as new daily infections dip below 100
Two more coronavirus deaths brought the national death toll to 229 Saturday evening, totaling four fatalities over the past 24 hours.

The rate of new infections dipped below 100 for the first time since March 21, with 84 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours.

The total number of virus cases in the country was at 16,185, but with a majority of those having recovered from the illness, the currently diagnosed sick was at 6,363.

Of those infected, 105 were in serious condition, of whom 82 were on ventilators. Sixty-two people were in moderate condition, while the rest were experiencing mild symptoms.

On Wednesday, the number of Israelis who have recovered from COVID-19 surpassed those who are sick for the first time since the start of the pandemic, a trend that continues.

In recent days, Israel’s infection rate has dropped off significantly, with the number of new cases over 24-hour periods consistently falling below 200 since Sunday evening.
Danon calls UNRWA Gaza schools 'terror storage facilities'
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has charged that UNRWA schools in Gaza are “terror storage facilities” and has called on the UN to condemn the organization, which is the main provider of services to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.

He sent a letter to UN senior officials on the matter, after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported a few weeks ago that a grenade and a military vest had been found in one of its Gaza facilities.

UNRWA schools, he wrote, “are UN-funded terrorist storage facilities. This is not the first time UNRWA and other schools have been used for military purposes by Palestinian terrorist groups. Indeed, there have been several incidents of such grave violations of international law and Security Council resolutions.”

Danon called on the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, to condemn such incidents and to cite it in the UN Secretary-General’s Special Report on “Children and armed conflict.”

In a statement to the media, Danon’s office explained that this was not an isolated incident and that weapons and terror tunnels had been found in UNRWA schools in the past.
BBC World Service radio’s UNRWA puffery highlights nine-month silence )
Failing to take that opportunity to provide listeners with any information which would help them understand those “reputational challenges” and why UNRWA’s “relevancy” is questioned, Coomarasamy refocused audience attentions on the two-year old story of US defunding.

Coomarasamy: “How do you get over that? How do you rebuild bridges for example with the Trump administration?”
Lazzarini: “Listen, I have to rebuild the trust. There have been a huge political support at the time of the renewal of the UNRWA mandate last December and my task will be to translate this political support into matching resources. And I want to also to portray UNRWA in the future as being part of the solution in the region and definitely not as part of the problem.”
Coomarasamy: “Well how do you go about changing an impression in both Israel and the United States that UNRWA has been essentially an anti-Israeli organisation?”
Lazzarini: “You have to focus on the mandate. You have to focus on delivering education for all, to focus on health and in a certain extent, bringing UNRWA mandate into the broader agenda – the famous Agenda 2030 – saying we have to leave no-one behind, we are building the future generation of this region and investing in UNRWA you invest in peace and security.”

Listeners heard no challenge to those talking points and nothing whatsoever about relevant issues such as UNRWA’s links to extremism and its perpetuation and inflation of the Palestinian refugee issue.

Coomarasamy: “…And how positive, how optimistic are you? You say that the world, the UN, backed UNRWA with this new mandate but we’ve also talked about some of the big challenges you face. What would you consider a success?”
Lazzarini: “I think the first success will for the organisation to be able to maintain all its activities here in the region.”
Coomarasamy: “And can you keep those without getting back the American money?”
Lazzarini: “I mean so far all the services have been maintained. There have been other countries having shown solidarity and step in at the time of the US defunding. But I do not [unintelligible] that sooner or later additional funding, additional support be provided to the organisation. I took up this challenge in believing we can address it.”

While a prime focus of this soft-ball interview was resurrection of the two year-old topic (more than generously covered by the BBC at the time) of US withdrawal of funding from UNRWA, its main purpose was obviously to provide Lazzarini with a comfortable platform for unchallenged amplification for his organisation’s talking points. For years the BBC has refrained from holding UNRWA to account or reporting accurately and impartially about the controversial agency. Apparently the scandal that prompted the resignation of Lazzarini’s predecessor – which the BBC managed to completely ignore for nine whole months – has not affected that editorial policy.



Parents of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl appeal acquittals
The parents of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl filed an appeal with Pakistan’s Supreme Court Saturday to reverse a decision overturning the longstanding convictions of four men in the case.

A Karachi court sparked outrage last month when it acquitted British-born militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other men convicted in Pearl’s 2002 kidnapping and beheading.

“We have filed an appeal of this decision to the Pakistan Supreme Court,” Pearl’s father, Judea Pearl, said in a video message.

“We are standing up for justice not only for our son but for all our dear friends in Pakistan so they can live in a society free of violence and terror and raise their children in peace and harmony.”

The appeal doubles up on a petition prosecutors already filed with the court.

Following the acquittals, authorities re-arrested Sheikh and the others, who will be held for at least three months while the appeals play out.

Pearl’s killing provoked international condemnation, pressuring Pakistan’s military government just as it was remaking its image following years of backing the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.


Germany's Partial Ban of Hezbollah: A Half-Measure
The ban is in fact a compromise measure between German lawmakers who want to take a harder line against Iran and those who do not. As a result, the ban falls far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah and appears aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allows Germany to claim that it has banned the group even if it has not.

According to the German Parliament, the Bundestag, a complete ban of Hezbollah is impossible because the group's structures in Germany are "not currently ascertainable."

It is utterly implausible that Germany, one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries in Europe, is unable to ascertain the organizational structure of Hezbollah within its own borders. More plausible is that Germany wants to project a public appearance of cracking down on Hezbollah while maintaining direct access to its leadership.

"Your resolution has two central weaknesses. The first weakness is that you are asking for only an activity ban (Betätigungsverbot). We want a specific organizational ban (Organisationsverbot). According to the Crime Fighting Law (Verbrechensbekämpfungsgesetz) of 1994, the activity ban is the weaker legal means when compared to an organizational ban. There is no reason in the world why you would fight a terrorist organization with the weaker means and not the stronger." — Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.

"What is needed is the complete ban of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's propaganda and terror financing in Germany must be stopped. The mosque associations that exist must be disbanded, and most importantly, Hezbollah supporters must be deported. This, by the way, is also demanded by the Bundestag's Anti-Semitism Resolution, which expressly calls for the deportation of supporters of anti-Semitism. If this does not apply to supporters of Hezbollah, which wants to send Jews to the gas chambers, and wants to destroy Israel, then to whom could it apply?" — Beatrix von Storch.

"Today's completely late action by the federal government is primarily a symbolic gesture. If the government were really serious about annihilating Hezbollah in Germany, it should have established a special commission and provided the security authorities with financial and human resources to identify and dismantle the group nationwide." — Stefan Schubert, German security expert.
Mossad gave Berlin intel on Hezbollah ops on German soil ahead of ban — report
Israel’s Mossad spy agency gave information to Germany on Hezbollah’s activities on its soil ahead of the country banning the Lebanese terror group this week, Channel 12 news reported Saturday.

Germany branded the entirety of the Iranian-backed group — both the military and political wings — a “Shiite terrorist organization” on Thursday, with dozens of police and special forces storming mosques and associations across the country linked to the group.

According to the TV report, Israel carried out a months-long delicate operation to assess the group’s operations in Germany and presented its findings to German intelligence and law agencies.

Mossad reportedly gave Germany information about warehouses in the south of the country where Hezbollah stashed hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate, a material used to make explosives.

Israeli intelligence was also said to have handed over details of key individuals in Hezbollah’s operations in Germany, including money networks used to launder cash and transfer millions of euros into the terror group’s bank accounts as well as to fund activities within the country.

An unnamed Israeli official told Channel 12 that the operation was complex and provided key evidence to German authorities.

“The move is the result of many months of work with all parties in Germany. The heads of services were required to present explicit evidence and legal proof… linking the organization to significant terrorist activity, and that is what we did,” the official said.

“Bruno Kahl, the head of the German intelligence organization BND, is a close friend of Mossad,” he added.
US intelligence director urges France to ban Hezbollah
The US acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, conveyed to France’s government the pressing need to outlaw the Lebanese terrorist movement Hezbollah.

“Grenell, in his capacity as acting director of national intelligence, spoke with Emmanuel Bonne, the foreign policy adviser to the president of France, to press him on banning Hezbollah in France and working to support an EU-wide ban,” reported FoxNews.com on Thursday.

The US news outlet added that “The American official has visited Brussels several times to push for an EU-wide ban. Grenell also organized the entire embassy around working to ban Hezbollah. His team met weekly to strategize and use the latest intelligence to push for the ban in Germany.”

Germany’s government banned all Hezbollah activities within its borders on Thursday and classified Hezbollah a “terrorist movement.”
France, Austria and the EU have banned Hezbollah’s “military wing" and allow the Shi'ite organization's "political wing" to operate.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas calls emergency meetings to discuss annexation
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to chair emergency meetings of PLO and Fatah officials in Ramallah in the coming days to discuss Israel’s plan to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.

The meetings will take place as Abbas faces increased pressure from some PLO and Fatah officials to take drastic measures in response to the Israeli plan.

Several officials have urged Abbas to cancel all signed agreements with Israel and halt security coordination between the PA security forces and the IDF.

“President Abbas has called for separate meetings of the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee to discuss [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s US-backed plan to annex Palestinian territories,” said Azzam al-Ahmed, member of the Fatah Central Committee. “These are Palestinian territories, and no one has the right to determine their fate other than our people and leaders.”

The Fatah official said that despite the world’s preoccupation with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Palestinian leadership continues to closely monitor Netanyahu’s “attempts to exploit the crisis to annex the Jordan Valley and settlements.”

Ahmed expressed satisfaction with the “positive” responses of several international parties and countries, including the European Union, Russia, China and Japan to the Palestinian stance towards the Israeli plan. He also praised the Arab League foreign ministers who last week strongly condemned the plan, dubbing it a “new war crime.”


Hasidic leaders defend NY mayor and call on community to socially distance
Two Hasidic synagogues defended New York Mayor Bill de Blasio from charges of anti-Semitism and called on members of their communities to adhere to government social distancing requirements.

The letters – issued on Thursday by two rival factions of the Satmar Hasidic community in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn – offered praise for the mayor.

De Blasio, who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Hasidic community, was widely criticized this week for singling out “the Jewish community” after a large Hasidic funeral drew a crowd of thousands into the street. Both letters denounced de Blasio’s critics, in particular those who accused the mayor of anti-Semitism, while calling on their communities to work with law enforcement to avoid behavior that endangers lives.

“Our positions remain consistent,” Mayer Rispler, a leader of the Aronim faction, wrote. “We do not condone any behavior that puts people at risk and pledge to keep working alongside the brave men and women of the NYPD in addressing and eliminating any such occurrences.”

“At the same time, we want to disavow the attacks and derogatory language against our mayor, from people from outside the community and from reckless people among us,” Shaul Perlstein, a leader of the Zaloynim faction, wrote in a letter that was shared widely on Twitter. “We call upon the entire community not to be drawn into their views and not be influenced by those big-mouths on hotlines and the internet who are trying to kindle a fire of hate, it shall never happen.”




AOC: Suicide Bombers Should Blow Themselves up Rather Than Go Back to Work (satire)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has told The Mideast Beast that suicide bombers should not accept a reopening of the economy and instead blow themselves up in protest.

“We have this discussion about ‘going back’ or ‘reopening’ — I think a lot of people should just say, ‘No, we’re not going back to that. We’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so we can put food on the table and not feel any sort of semblance of security in our lives,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Flailing her arms like Tube man, she continued her diatribe, “There is nothing liberating, you know, about going back to work and I think that this is where suicide bombers can play an important role. They should seize this opportunity to just blow themselves up in protest of this toxic oppressive capitalist notion of, like, you know, jobs. Perhaps that will make some people think twice”.

The Chairman of the International Federation of Suicide Bombers, Mahlouf Abu-Jihad did not appreciate AOC’s suggestion.

“Ms. Ocasio-Cortez appears to have misunderstood the nature of our work and in the process, she has completely minimized its importance. Suicide bombers are driven by great passion and occasionally, eh, some coercion, but we deserve respect for our unique contributions to world civilization. What she is suggesting is that we should waste our most valuable resources on protesting a reopening of the economy, which quite frankly, we think is a bloody good idea. We have literally had very little work come our way lately”.
B’nai B’rith Int'l slams German diplomat for defending pro-BDS academic
The fallout from an alleged anti-Israel scandal embroiling Germany’s foreign ministry widened this week with B’nai B’rith International blasting a diplomat for defending an academic who promotes the BDS movement, spreads antisemitism, and trivializes the Holocaust.

The Jerusalem Post has exclusively obtained the letter B’nai B’rith sent to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

“On behalf of B’nai B’rith International’s more than 100,000 members and supporters in over 40 countries, we write to express our deep dismay at recent tweets by Andreas Görgen, the Ministry’s director for culture and communication. Mr. Görgen has posted multiple times on his official twitter feed in defense of Achille Mbembe, a Holocaust-minimizer and denier of Israel’s right to exist,“ the organization wrote.

BDS is an abbreviation for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state. The German Bundestag classified BDS last year as an antisemitic campaign.

B’nai B’rith added that “Mbembe has signed an abhorrent BDS petition against scholars from Ben Gurion Univeristy. He has called for the ‘global isolation’ of the Jewish state and has compared apartheid to the Holocaust. Görgen’s pro-Mbembe tweets, meanwhile, include the posting of an article accusing Mbembe’s detractors of conducting a 'witch hunt' against him.”

The Jewish organization said it “is alarmed that a senior Foreign Ministry official would use his official twitter feed to defend the bigoted pronouncements of a demagogue who engages in the sort of malicious behavior encapsulated in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, such as the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. We would expect the Ministry to forcefully denounce Mbembe, rather than defend him.”
Doctor on BBC’s PPE documentary is PSC activist with ten year ban from Israel
Guido has reported on the leftist background of the interviewees in last week’s Panorama programme which blamed government mistakes for the inadequate stocks of PPE. Lee Harpin in the JC has covered the antisemitic comments of Professor John Ashton, the health expert who appeared several times in the programme.

Dr Irial Eno also appears several times. Guido notes she is ‘anti-Israel’.

In fact when she was at Birmingham University she chaired the University PSC. Subsequently she was refused entry to Israel and banned for ten years.
Icke antisemitic conspiracies viewed over 30 million times, new research shows
Antisemitic conspiracy theories circulated by former sports presenter David Icke - including a claim that Jewish cultists or "Sabbatian Frankists" are responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic - have been viewed over 30 million times on social media, a new report has revealed.

Millions have also watched Mr Icke explain how Bill Gates and "the Rothschilds" form part of that cult, and how 5G networks and vaccines have made people more vulnerable to the disease.

Research for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) suggests the conspiracy theorist's audience of over two million followers could be worth up to £20 million in annual revenue, primarily generated by advertisers.

His YouTube videos generate ad revenue both from Google Ads and from his sponsor, an investment firm seeking to exploit the paranoia of Mr Icke’s followers.

The CCDH has called on social media company's to remove content by Mr Icke.
Facebook Deplatforms Antisemitic Conspiracy Theorist David Icke Over False Coronavirus Claims, Including Blame of Jews
Facebook has removed the official page of British antisemitic conspiracy theorist David Icke for publishing “health misinformation that could cause physical harm,” the BBC reported on Friday.

According to the report, the 68-year-old Icke — a bestselling author who believes that an alien race of humanoid reptiles secretly controls the world — has promoted a number of false claims about the coronavirus, including a charge that Jews are responsible for the pandemic.

Icke tweeted on Friday, “Fascist Facebook deletes David Icke – the elite are TERRIFIED of him because they are terrified of the truth.”

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has launched a campaign to have Icke widely deplatformed.

In an open letter to social media companies, the CCDH wrote, “We, the undersigned, call on you to remove David Icke’s accounts from each of your platforms.”

“Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Icke has used your platforms to spread dangerous conspiracy theories and medical misinformation to his audience of millions of followers and subscribers,” it said. “The potentially harmful claims he has made include denying the existence of Covid-19; linking the current crisis to 5G mobile technology; suggesting that Jewish cultists are behind the crisis; that viruses cannot be transmitted through direct physical contact or intermediary objects; and that people with healthy immune systems are safe from contracting the virus. Videos of Icke making these claims have been viewed at least 30 million times.”
In ‘confession of guilt,’ German Catholic Church admits ‘complicity’ with Nazis
In a new report after decades of ambivalence, Germany’s council of Catholic bishops has finally admitted to the church’s complicity in the actions of the Nazi regime during World War II, The Times reported Friday.

The 23-page document by the council reportedly states, “Inasmuch as the bishops did not oppose the war with a clear ‘no,’ and most of them bolstered the [German nation’s] will to endure, they made themselves complicit in the war.”

This included providing hundreds of priests who joined Nazi soldiers on the front lines of the war to offer spiritual guidance between 1939 and 1945 and the conversion of thousands of church properties into military hospitals where tens of thousands of nuns worked as nurses, says the document, produced 75 years after the collapse of Hitler’s Third Reich.

It added: “The bishops may not have shared the Nazis’ justification for the war on the grounds of racial ideology, but their words and their images gave succor both to soldiers and the regime prosecuting the war, as they lent the war an additional sense of purpose.”

One Catholic Church official cited by The Times called the report a “confession of guilt” by the church.

The document said most German bishops, motivated by nationalism and anti-communist sentiment and a desire to preserve the church by avoiding confrontation with the Nazis, told their followers to support the regime during the war.

On Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939, churches flew Nazi flags and prayed for protection of the “Fuhrer and the Reich.”

“Even if we can perceive that the bishops’ perspective on events shifted over the course of the war, they did not pay enough attention to the suffering of others,” The Times quoted Heiner Wilmer, bishop of Hildesheim and head of the conference’s foreign affairs committee, as saying.

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