Wednesday, July 08, 2020
Since we’re debating labels, stop calling it anti-Semitism. It’s Jew hatred.
Should we capitalize the “b” in Black? Hundreds of publications across the country, including bellwethers like The New York Times and Associated Press, have adjusted their style guides, arguing that capital-B Black reflects a common identity and heritage.Don’t erase Jesus’s Jewish identity
It’s time for a similarly introspective debate about the language we use to describe discrimination against Jews.
Most leading authorities and publications use “anti-Semitism.” I prefer “antisemitism,” the spelling used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. But this debate obscures the core issue: Whether spelled anti-Semitism or antisemitism, we should retire the term entirely and begin calling it what it really is: Jew hatred.
Consider the history of the word. While the phenomenon of Jew hatred is inscribed in ancient texts, the term “anti-Semitism” is actually of relatively recent vintage, about as old as the telephone or the lightbulb. The German journalist Wilhelm Marr coined the term “anti-Semitism” in 1879 to give an air of modernity to long-embraced animosity toward the Jewish people.
Earlier Germans were blunter: They called it “Judenhaas,” literally Jew-hatred. Wilhelm, himself a deeply anti-Jewish political agitator, sought a pseudo-scientific and therefore more palatable word. He knew the term “Semitic” had historically referred to a family of languages that originated in the Middle East. So he refashioned the word to mean prejudice against Jews alone.
In his 1880 bestselling propagandist pamphlet, “The Way to Victory of the Germanic Spirit over the Jewish Spirit,” Wilhelm freely used the German term “antisemitismus.” And in the same year, Wilhelm founded the Antisemitenliga, the League of Antisemites, the first organization committed to combating the alleged Jewish takeover of Germany and German culture.
In other words, the term “anti-Semitism” was coined not to marginalize Jew hatred but to mainstream it.
It was in this spirit, I think, that the Archbishop of York said, ‘Jesus was a black man, and he was born into a persecuted group in an occupied country.’ The trouble is, it isn’t true. Jesus wasn’t a black man. He wasn’t a northern European either. He was a Jew. A Jew from the Middle East. And that is a scandal. The ‘Scandal of Particularity’, as it is called.A Textbook Case of Discrimination as Palestinian Authority Schools Edit out Christians — and Jews
It is a scandal that Jesus was born at a particular time in a particular place among a particular people as a particular sex. It is far easier to believe in a God who never gets tied down by human specifics. If God is nothing, God can be anything: God can be white, God can be black, God can be British (or German or French) and God can cheer us on against our enemies. God can be trans, or straight, or gay.
But when you rip divinity out of its comfortable atemporality and give it – give him – a name (something God stoically refused to tell Moses on Mount Sinai), a family, an education, a station in life, a group of friends, and, of course, a political world with which he interacted… suddenly he cannot be all things to all men.
At its best, art that puts Christ in a different context takes us out of our reality and put us into his scene; we become actors in his drama. At its worst, we end up ripping Christ from his reality and making him an actor in our drama – national, racial, or personal. The gap between good art and bad art is a chasm that is almost as deep as that between good theology and bad theology – and takes us to the same place.
The best art, like the best theology, takes the particular and makes it universal. We should be able to see ourselves (whoever we are) as Thomas putting his finger into the side of Christ, or as Matthew being called from his counting house, or as one of the soldiers pushing the crown of thorns onto Christ’s bleeding head.
The worst, however, cancels historical fact and replaces it with whichever passing particularity suits your narrative at the time. It leaves us without an historical Christ in whom we can (or can’t) believe on his own terms, and gives us an ever-flexible puppet of our own creation – in which it isn’t worth believing whatever the terms. Having removed the Jewish identity of their Saviour, it’s unsurprising that so many Christians are indifferent to that of their Jewish neighbours. Having abandoned the Middle East, you can see why the plight of their Christians can no longer interest us.
Now is not the time to erase the Middle Eastern Jew from the Christian story.
Seventy-six percent of Palestinian Christians gave the Palestinian Authority (PA) failing marks for how schools teach the history of Christians, according to a recent survey commissioned by The Philos Project.
“Palestine has a long, rich history of Palestinian Christians,” said Khalil Sayegh, a Christian from Gaza and Philos Advocacy Fellow. “The Palestinian textbooks and curriculum, however, just choose to deny all of that.”
Sayegh shared his insights during a June 17 online discussion with Robert Nicholson, executive director of The Philos Project, and Dr. Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), who conducted the survey.
Christians are a dwindling minority, accounting for a mere 1 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the comprehensive survey examines challenges this religious minority faces, including Israeli settlements and the PA educational system. The survey has a sample size of 995 with a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
“The history that we learn [in school] starts with the Islamic conquest of the land,” Sayegh said. “Anything before will focus on the pre-Israelite era. I understand that. It’s trying to deny the narrative of the Torah and biblical history because this, to a certain extent, is used to justify the existence of Israel. However, this leads to Palestinian Christians looking like foreigners.”
Crusader, infidel, and foreigner are all epithets Sayegh experienced in grade school. And the survey revealed he was not the only Christian in the Palestinian Territories who had the same experience. Twenty-seven percent said that they have been exposed to racist curses or epithets, and 43 percent said that they feel most Muslims do not want them in the land.
Taught by his secular-minded father that Christians have little that distinguishes them from Muslims, Sayegh learned in school that they do. One teacher warned him of hellfire if he did not convert to Islam. While only 23 percent of those surveyed admitted to being asked to convert to Islam, 70 percent said they had at one time heard a Muslim state that Christians will go to hellfire.
'The Los Angeles political elite basically threw law enforcement under the bus'
Manfred Gerstenfeld interviews Rabbi Abraham CooperThe Evil of Louis Farrakhan vs. the Morality of Frederick Douglass
Most of the violence and looting accompanying the antiracism demonstrations in Los Angeles in late May and early June 2020 took place on the second day of Shavuot, May 31, which was also Shabbat. There was a mostly peaceful protest in the Pan Pacific Park in the Fairfax area, sparked by the murder of George Floyd. This is near a heavily Jewish area.
“After the protest some left the park and attacked businesses and buildings on Melrose Avenue, Beverly Boulevard and on La Brea Avenue. Some rioters reached sites on La Cienega Boulevard attacking mostly strip malls.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, born in New York 1950, is the Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. For about forty years he has overseen the SWC's international social action agenda, which ranges from worldwide antisemitism, Nazi war crimes and restitution, to extremist groups and tolerance education.
“The next day there was a rampage in Santa Monica, which is adjacent to Los Angeles proper. Hundreds of businesses were looted and torched in the area. The police were concentrated a few blocks away, monitoring a mostly peaceful protest. There were scenes caught on camera of instances in which police did not intervene. Eventually, during the week that followed, curfews were imposed and hundreds were arrested. Yet most looters have not been caught. The impact of an apparently helpless police force standing down in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the US will be felt for a long time.
“The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was overwhelmed and ineffective for days. This was primarily because the mayor refused to concentrate on the violence. He instead chose to exclusively focus on peaceful protesters and the themes of social justice and equity while embracing Black Lives Matter.
Despite the riots and continuing protests, the mayor quickly endorsed and pushed through a $150 million decrease in the Police’s budget. A similar amount was taken from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
The Los Angeles political elite basically threw law enforcement under the bus. Only one City Councilman, Paul Koretz, who is Jewish, made mention of concern over the hate graffiti tagged on a synagogue.
In W. E. B. Du Bois’ view, every generation of African-Americans has had to contend with “two souls,” or clashing visions. Today, there is no better example of this contrast than Frederick Douglass’ speech in Rochester on July 5, 1852, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” with Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan’s latest July 4th screed.Farrakhan betrays today's black slaves
Frederick Douglass:
The 4th of July … to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders,
[Above] your … tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! … If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”
[B]ut interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.
Louis Farrakhan:
In Jewish tradition, in the Talmud, the way they recognize that you are really from God — they poison you.
My [Jewish] enemies have raised the Talmud above the Torah and then spread the lie against God, that they are stronger than God …
Mr. [Jason] Greenblatt [of the ADL], you are Satan. Those of you who say that you are Jews, I will not even give you the honor of calling you a Jew — you are not a Jew. You are so-called [Jews]. … It is my job now to pull the cover off of Satan, so that every Muslim, when he sees Satan, [will] pick up a stone, as we do in Mecca.
The reason they hate me [is] because they know that I represent the end of their civilization. I represent the uncovering of their wickedness, fulfilling the judgment, that God has come to bring down on America and the world.
You mayors, you governors, stop your police from going to Israel to learn how to kill better. Your days of killing us without consequences are over.
Based partially on Jewish and Biblical history, Douglass affirmed that the Constitution would eventually triumph over racial prejudice. Farrakhan ended his villainous tirade with his prophecy that both the US and Israel are headed for eternal damnation. Who will finally have the courage to condemn this evil man?
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is now the most popular and dangerous anti-Semite in America. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are surely a problem for Jews, but polite society rejects them. Their best effort to date – a "national rally" in Charlottesville, Va. – drew a few hundred people, whereas Farrakhan's rants excite adoring crowds many times that size. His online influence is growing.Alan M. Dershowitz: Farrakhan's Threats for Advocating Vaccinations
Unlike alt-right rallies, a Farrakhan event will never be shut down by toughs throwing fists. Unlike the white anti-Semites, Farrakhan has open sympathizers in positions of power. What Louis Farrakhan says about Jews will only reach more and more people. His July 4 address to the nation was pulled by Fox TV's Soul channel after sparking outrage among decent people, but millions will still see what he has to say on social media. Billboards advertise his talk along the highways of Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Compton, Dearborn, Detroit, and Phoenix.
Though he is a clear and present danger to Jews, Jewish leaders find it difficult to press black activists to renounce Farrakhan because the black community perceives him as a black liberator. That is why it is more important than ever to understand precisely how this is untrue: Farrakhan has covered up and sought to deny the modern-day enslavement of Africans by Arabs and Muslims. He has been and continues to be an obstacle to their liberation.
In the early 1990s I, along with Mohamed Nacir Athié, a Mauritanian African Muslim refugee, launched an American movement to free black chattel slaves in North Africa. In Sudan, as part of a war waged by the Arab north against the black, mostly Christian south, Arabs stormed African villages, killed the men and captured the women and children to serve as goatherds, domestics, and sex slaves. In Mauritania, Muslim Berbers, who had conquered the area centuries before, have since kept black people as slaves even when they had long ago been converted to Islam.
When Athié and I appeared on PBS's national black-focused news show – Tony Brown's Journal – the Nation of Islam pressured PBS to allow its spokesman, Akbar Muhammed, equal time. Akbar claimed that reports of slavery were a "big lie," and part of a "Jewish conspiracy" against Minister Farrakhan.
As it turned out, Akbar was Farrakhan's man in Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, itself a slaving hellhole. According to Clarence Page of The Chicago Tribune, Gaddafi loaned Farrakhan $5 million in 1984.
For anyone who has followed Farrakhan's hate-filled career — praising Hitler, calling Jews termites, calling Judaism a gutter religion, attacking gays — the content of any Farrakhan speech comes as no surprise.Jonathan S. Tobin: How much anti-Semitism does it take to cancel an NFL star?
Farrakhan — like Nazis and Communists — has a First Amendment right to tell his lies and spread his hate. But no media has an obligation to promote or disseminate his bigotry.
Nor does it demand silence from responsible Black and Muslim leaders, whose voices should be heard condemning Farrakhan's devaluation of Jewish lives, gay lives, and the lives of people suffering from Covid-19.
Under the principles espoused in Brandenburg v Ohio and other leading cases, "advocacy" of violence is constitutionally protected but not "incitement " to "Imminent lawless action." The line between advocacy and incitement has not always been easy to draw.
Of course, there is no way to interpret those lines as anything but an attempt to spread hate.
Should that cause the former All-Pro player, who is known as much for some of the egregious blunders he’s committed on the field as for his talent, to lose his career?
As Katai knows, far less than that can get you permanently canceled. Still, Eagles fans—like most of those who loyally follow professional sports teams—only care about whether or not their team wins. If they were ready to cheer for a person who had been convicted of cruelly slaughtering and forcing dogs to fight to the death as a form of “entertainment” (like former quarterback Michael Vick), then I imagine they can live with Jackson as long as he’s able to help the team tackle games.
Sports is a business, and if a team believes that it will lose more money by employing someone related to a racist, as is the case with Katai, than if they are actually guilty of the grossest anti-Semitism, as is true of Jackson, then they will cut one but hold on to the other.
Yet to the extent that Jackson’s infamous hate is being noted, the discussion is not focusing enough on the fact that his rants were clearly inspired by Farrakhan.
The upsurge in anti-Semitism among African-Americans got some attention last year as a result of surge of violence against Orthodox Jews in the Greater New York area. But most of those who commented about these crimes were eager to avoid the fact that Farrakhan’s influence within the African-American community has helped legitimize hateful attitudes towards Jews.
Farrakhan continues to be treated as a respected figure in a black community that values what it sees as his positive attributes and resents being told by whites—or Jews—who deserves to be spoken of as one of its leaders.
And though his views are as hateful as, say, a Klan leader like David Duke, his followers and those who are influenced by the Nation of Islam movement number in at least the hundreds of thousands rather than the small number of adherents that neo-Nazis and other white nationalists can claim.
Nor is there enough attention paid to the way Farrakhan’s hate dovetails with intersectional smears of Israel and Jews that are promoted by many on the left.
Whether or not Jackson is judged by a more generous standard than others associated with prejudice isn’t all that important. But as long as Farrakhan’s influence is dismissed rather than addressed head on by African-American faith and political leaders, as well as their non-black friends and allies, we should not be surprised when statements such as Jackson’s or outbreaks of hateful violence occur. The willingness to downplay the anti-Semitism inspired by Farrakhan and his movement is a problem that can’t continue to be ignored.
If you're using a picture of a Jewish terror victim who died at the hands of the PFLP in Istanbul in 1976, and pinning a fabricated quote from a white nationalist publication on to it, then
— The Mossad: Espionage at = 2 metres (@TheMossadIL) July 8, 2020
YES YOU IDIOT. IT IS ANTISEMITIC. https://t.co/0npqFweqo6
Damn, now @Chiefs ex-running back Larry Johnson goes full Khazar. You never go full Khazar. https://t.co/ciR4pg7fnw
— John-Paul Pagano (@johnpaulpagano) July 8, 2020
Funny because our families were gassed, murdered, and displaced during the Holocaust for NOT being white.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) July 7, 2020
Now Jew haters like @tariqnasheed claim we ARE white!?
Color us confused. pic.twitter.com/IHRQeF3P2F
Freebeacon Editorial: The BDS Democrats
Last week, the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo broke a small but important story: While circulating a letter among Democrats that threatens Israel with the elimination of military aid, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) touted the support of leading anti-Semitic groups that push for boycotts of Israel. At the time she was circulating it, the letter had yet to be made public.Anti-Israel Soros Groups Cash In on Coronavirus Relief Funds
This means Rep. Ocasio-Cortez intentionally sought endorsements for her letter from some of the most poisonous and extreme groups on the far left, including American Muslims for Palestine, a leader of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that celebrates Hamas, and Defense for Children International Palestine, which is credibly seen as an nongovernmental organization front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.- and European Union-designated terrorist group. This rogue's gallery of hate and violence merchants aren’t groups that just happened to support Ocasio-Cortez’s letter—they are the groups she sought out.
The letter was signed by a dozen House Democrats plus Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). It falsely accuses Israel of "apartheid" and numerous human rights crimes and threatens the elimination of U.S. military aid if Israel applies sovereignty to parts of the disputed West Bank, which it is currently considering. "Should the Israeli government continue down this path, we will … pursue legislation that conditions the $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel," Ocasio-Cortez writes. Made clear is that the prospect of Israel applying sovereignty is merely one of many alleged misdeeds that could be cited—and surely will be cited—as a pretext for sanctioning the Jewish state.
The military assistance package, most of which takes the form of a credit that Israel must spend in the United States, forms the bedrock of a strategic alliance between the two countries that dates back to the Yom Kippur War in 1973. That alliance, which benefits the United States in the form of military technology, intelligence sharing, and regional stability, has always been treated as separate from the Palestinians or the peace process.
The Democratic signatories to the letter are thus advocating a massive and historic downgrade of the alliance by subordinating it to the Palestinians or, more precisely, by subordinating it to the extensive demands American progressives make on behalf of the Palestinians.
But whereas the old, crude style of BDS simply called for economic and diplomatic warfare against Israel, the new sophisticated progressive strategy is to normalize BDS and build a congressional coalition to support it. This time, BDS advocacy is couched in earnest-sounding but utterly dishonest policy concerns.
Two anti-Israel groups bankrolled by liberal billionaire George Soros accepted as much as $1.3 million from the Trump administration’s coronavirus relief fund, public records show.Progressive Firm Linked to AOC, Shaun King Took Hundreds of Thousands in PPP Cash
The far-left Middle East advocacy group J Street and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a pro-Tehran group central to Iran’s propaganda efforts in America, both accepted loans from the Paycheck Protection Program.
J Street, which has consistently criticized the Trump administration for its pro-Israel agenda, received between $350,000 to $1 million for its Education Fund, a nonprofit arm that organizes educational initiatives, according to public reporting records. NIAC, a chief proponent of the Iran nuclear deal, accepted between $150,000 to $350,000 from the PPP program. Both organizations accepted the money in April.
J Street and NIAC are both beneficiaries of Soros’s massive funding network, which includes support for Democratic organizations and advocacy groups that seek to delegitimize Israel and boost the Iranian regime. NIAC, for instance, was a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s pro-Iran "echo chamber." J Street also lobbied in favor of the international accord and continues to sponsor efforts aimed at undermining the pro-Israel community in America.
J Street and NIAC have also been critical of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, arguing that economic sanctions on Tehran have exacerbated the virus’s spread across the Islamic Republic and hindered the country’s response—a talking point echoed by the Iranian ruling regime. The Trump administration provided sanctions exceptions for Iran’s medical needs and never targeted its import of humanitarian goods.
The PPP loans constitute a sizable percentage of both groups’ funding. J Street reported more than $7 million in revenue in 2017, while NIAC reported just under $2 million. J Street has reported at least $50,000 in funding from George and Alex Soros every year since 2014, according to its financial statements. NIAC has not disclosed how much Soros gives the organization, disclosing only that he is a major donor.
J Street has been less than forthcoming about its association with Soros and his Open Society Foundations. Disclosures of Soros’s ties to the group first emerged in 2010, when J Street was caught hiding its support from Soros. He continues to give the organization sizable donations.
A progressive political consulting firm that receives large payments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D., N.Y.) reelection campaign and activist Shaun King's PAC raked in hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money meant to help small businesses.Ilhan Omar has paid $878G to new husband’s consulting firm, data show: report
New data show that between $350,000 and $1 million flowed from the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal program created to help small businesses cope with the economic downturn caused by coronavirus, to Middle Seat Consulting, a Washington, D.C.-based digital firm that provides services to far-left Democrats. Just 13.5 percent of companies received more than $150,000 from the PPP program, putting Middle Seat among the upper echelon of recipients.
The liberal consulting firm applied for and took the loan despite already receiving large sums from Ocasio-Cortez's campaign, King's Real Justice PAC, and other liberal groups. Middle Seat has raised more than $9 million from other left-wing committees this election cycle. Its receipt of up to $1 million in taxpayer cash could raise concerns among political watchdogs that the firm—along with other liberal activist groups, legal firms, and companies linked to Democratic politicians—took government loans that could instead have gone to struggling small businesses.
The consulting firm is Ocasio-Cortez's top 2020 campaign vendor. So far this cycle, the Democrat's campaign committee has dished out more than $875,000 to Middle Seat for email lists, ad commission, and consulting, Federal Election Commission records show.
King's Real Justice PAC, which works to elect far-left district attorney candidates, has provided more than $270,000 to the group. During the 2018 cycle, Real Justice paid another $354,000 to Middle Seat, which was cofounded by one of the PAC's original leaders.
Justice Democrats, the progressive group that propelled Ocasio-Cortez into office, has also paid Middle Seat six-figure sums. Justice Democrats PAC has paid Middle Seat $540,000 this election cycle for digital advertising and fundraising consulting. The group was started by another Middle Seat cofounder, Zack Exley, among others.
When U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar got remarried in March following her divorce, the Minnesota Democrat tied the knot with a man who was a member of her political consulting team.New Report Reveals Increased Campus Anti-Zionist Activism Linked to Rise in Harassment of Jewish Students
Now, campaign data show Omar has paid Tim Mynett’s consulting firm a total of more than $878,000 since 2018 — including $189,000 just weeks after the couple announced they were husband and wife, the New York Post reported.
In the first quarter of this year, Mynett’s E Street Group has received more than $292,000 from Omar’s campaign for digital advertising, fundraising consulting and research services, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported in April, citing data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Payments for 2019 totaled more than $500,000, the Star Tribune reported.
Omar’s campaign is her husband’s firm’s biggest client by far, Open Secrets data suggest – with E Street Group receiving about one-third of all the Democrat’s campaign cash, the Washington Examiner reported.
The arrangement is possible because of a 1960s federal anti-nepotism statute that prohibits members of Congress from hiring relatives for government jobs but does not block family members from doing campaign work, a former chief ethics lawyer from the administration of former President George W. Bush told The New York Post.
“It should not be allowed,” attorney Richard Painter said. “I think it’s a horrible idea to allow it, given the amount of money that goes into these campaigns from special interests.”
Jewish students seeking to avoid antisemitic harassment at college now have new research showing the factors which fuel on-campus bigotry.Germany’s moment has arrived to tackle European antisemitism
On Tuesday, the AMCHA Initiative — a non-profit formed in 2012 to track and fight antisemitism at universities — released its annual report, “Understanding Campus Anti-Semitism in 2019 And Its Lessons for Pandemic and Post-Pandemic U.S. Campuses.”
The research and analysis of the report again affirmed a connection previous annual studies have demonstrated: campuses with strong anti-Zionist activist groups, primarily Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), have increased levels of anti-Jewish harassment.
The report showed how JVP’s campus activity had grown in 2019, increasing 45%, rising from 118 events or initiatives in 2018 to 171 in 2019.
The study also offered some unexpected findings. For a second year in a row, “traditional antisemitism” of the Nazi and classic stereotypes variety fell dramatically — 49% from 203 incidents in 2018 to 104 in 2019.
However, the apparent gains of this drop were largely offset by an increase in anti-Zionist antisemitism, which jumped 60% from 121 incidents in 2018 to 192 in 2019.
Much of last year’s anti-Zionist activism was linked to efforts to challenge a school’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which includes anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism.
AMCHA discovered that 94% of challenges against the definition were put forth by SJP, JVP and other campus anti-Zionist groups. This form of antisemitism nearly quadrupled, from 34 incidents in 2018 to 126 in 2019.
The report said that “schools where these challenges occurred were more than twice as likely to host anti-Semitic incidents targeting Jewish students for harm, and the more challenges the higher the number of incidents.”
On July 1, Germany took on the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.German MPs part of BDS calling for Israel’s destruction in art exhibit
Of course, policy disagreements exist between Germany and Israel, not least over possible annexation. However, none of this can overshadow the deep and warm relations between the two countries, carefully nurtured over many decades. Undoubtedly, Berlin remains steadfastly committed to Israel’s security.
Furthermore, Germany continues to work tirelessly for the continued prosperity of its Jewish community and the well-being of Jewish communities worldwide. As such, Germany is at the forefront of the global fight against antisemitism, which is worryingly rearing its ugly head with renewed vigor.
As the coronavirus crisis continues to grip the world, the age-old disease of antisemitism is also rapidly infecting societies. Like COVID-19, antisemitism too easily spreads undetected. Like coronavirus, it has no respect for borders, nor does it discriminate between communities, between young and old, religious and secular, rich and poor.
Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Pakistan have a history of disagreement and animosity toward each other. Nonetheless, they are united in Jew-hatred.
Religious leaders, bloggers and ordinary individuals in both countries point the finger at Jews and the State of Israel, alleging that they are to blame for the coronavirus pandemic. The same ancient conspiracy theories have been propagated recently by the far Right in the United States and also in parts of Europe.
A shocking new art exhibit urged the complete dissolution of the Jewish state that was designed by the vice president of the German-Palestinian Society in which three members of the federal parliament have posts on the advisory board of the pro-BDS organization, The Jerusalem Post can report.New York Jewish Week Suspends Print Edition After Wave of Layoffs as Effects of COVID-19 Take Toll on Revenue
The latest alleged antisemitic scandal engulfing the German-Palestinian Society (DPG) unfolded in June in the university town of Jena in the east German state of Thuringia. The DPG vice president Ursula Mindermann showed her exhibit titled “The Wall—photographs from Palestine” at the Café Immergrün,
The group “Falcons Jena Socialist Youth” slammed the exhibit because it said the work promoted antisemitism by displaying the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
According to a statement on the website of the Jena Socialist Youth: “The current exhibition was designed by the vice president of the German-Palestinian Society Ursula Mindermann, who was refused entry to Israel last year. A fact that is not surprising when you look at the message of the pictures: slogans like ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ bluntly question Israel's right to exist. Statements like this are a common formula in the so-called ‘Israel-critical’ spectrum. ‘River' means the Jordan and by ‘sea’ the Mediterranean. In between, Israel should no longer exist, only Palestine.”
The pro-Israel socialist group added that “This wording therefore contains the antisemitic demand for the annihilation of Israel. The fact that this picture should at the same time be minimized with an anti-war rhetoric fits the typical approach of the anti-Zionist ‘peace movement.’”
Venerable New York City Jewish newspaper The Jewish Week has decided to suspend its print version and laid off several employees due to the economic blow it has suffered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.Reviewing BBC R4 Today’s idea of ‘balanced’ coverage – part one
In a message posted online, Kai Falkenberg — president of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Week Media Group — and Andrew Silow-Carroll — the paper’s editor-in-chief — stated, “Recognizing both what we’ve learned from the coronavirus crisis and how it has hurt our bottom line and that of our advertisers, The Jewish Week has decided to move faster in the direction of a digital-first enterprise.”
The paper will halt its print edition starting in August and “concentrate on bringing you an all-digital model that will satisfy our longtime audience, find a new generation of readers and enable us to more precisely target our journalism and advertising to the wide geographic expanse of the New York Jewish community.”
Silow-Carroll told The Algemeiner, “It’s been a tough year and COVID made it tougher. These are the institutional struggles of every major newspaper, compounded by the pandemic.”
He added, “We’ve had to lay off people from each of our departments since the beginning of the COVID crisis.”
The Algemeiner has independently confirmed that among those laid off were staff writer Steve Lipman and associate editor Jonathan Mark.
Silow-Carroll expressed hope that the publication would thrive in the all-digital format, saying, “We want to do it right and we want to come out of this with something better.”
“A lot of people are invested in the success of The Jewish Week, we’re not going to let it die,” he stated.
Absurdly, Robinson rounded off the item not by asking the PA and PLO representative why the Palestinian leadership has refused to engage with the US administration’s peace plan that proposes to establish a Palestinian state, but for his “view” on internal Israeli politics.Reviewing BBC R4 Today’s idea of ‘balanced’ coverage – part two
Robinson: “One last one if I may, Mr Zomlot, sorry to rush you but we’re a bit short of time and I’d like your view on this. This is the first day when Mr Netanyahu could do this. But there are a lot of people speculating that he might not, the divisions in the Israeli cabinet means he’s reluctant to go ahead. What’s your sense of it?”
Zomlot: “Well I think…I think it’s a matter of time for him. He might delay it a bit because of some pressure internally and outside and from the region but I believe the calculus for him remains to be an end game. He wants to do it for his personal gain, he wants to do it for Trump and the base of Trump. This is feeding the base of ultra-nationalism, of racism. He wants to do it for strategic purposes. He is anti-two-state solution, anti-peace ideologically. He looks down at people’s aspirations and of course he wants to do it also as a political diversion. So so far all the that come from the world does not really tantamount to changing his calculus.”
Robinson failed to challenge any of those claims – including the suggestion that Israeli actions ‘feed’ racism in the United States – either before closing the item, telling listeners that they would subsequently be hearing an Israeli point of view.
The BBC has a long record of airing interviews with Husam Zomlot in which no effort is made to challenge or question his gross propaganda and hyperbole and this nearly five-minute long item was no exception. Obviously such content does nothing to enhance audience understanding of the issues concerned and as we will see in part two of this post, the promised ‘balance’ provided to Radio 4 listeners was not delivered.
Listeners heard no explanation of why the term annexation is not applicable to the case in point but Robinson did then finally notice that his interviewee was not on the line.IHRA Condemns Efforts Around Globe to Rehabilitate Reputations of Holocaust Criminals
At 2:46:05 Haskel was brought back and Robinson repeated his previous question.
Robinson: “I’m sorry your line went. The question I was asking you, Sharren Haskel, was whether after you declare sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank, what many people call annexation, will the Palestinians in those areas be given full rights as Israeli citizens? Would you treat them as full Israeli citizens?”
The audience heard less than one minute of Haskel’s reply on an extremely bad line before Robinson interrupted her with a gratuitous ‘apartheid’ analogy.
Robinson [interrupts]: “Yeah but many of your critics…just want to give you a chance to respond to the critics who say this looks like the Bantustan plans that were in apartheid South Africa which is why the British prime minister has condemned the plan, it’s why the EU has condemned the plan, which is why the leaders of many Jewish communities in Britain have condemned the plan.”
Robinson provided no evidence of a leader of a Jewish community in the UK who has said “this looks like the Bantustan plans that were in apartheid South Africa” and the British prime minister’s op-ed made no such irrelevant comparison.
Listeners heard one minute and nine seconds of Haskel’s explanation of why the ‘apartheid’ slur is inapplicable – again on a very bad line – before Robinson closed the interview.
As we see, the ‘Today’ programme’s idea of ‘balanced’ coverage of this topic was almost five minutes of unchallenged and unquestioned propaganda from a Palestinian Authority official, nearly three minutes of comment from the BBC’s Middle East editor and a total of two minutes and 39 seconds of ‘right of reply’ in instalments from an Israeli MK on a very bad line, peppered with interruption and highly partial comment from the BBC interviewer.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) issued a statement on Tuesday condemning “any attempts to rehabilitate the reputations of anyone who was complicit of the crimes of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma.”Israeli Intel plant rolls out new Thunderbolt 4 cable port
The statement was unanimously agreed upon at a virtual IHRA plenary meeting.
“At a time of multiple crises, when the facts of history are increasingly distorted, it is essential the IHRA take a clear stance when it comes to the rehabilitation of such problematic figures,” IHRA President Ambassador Michaela Küchler said. “This issue, which violates our common principles, affects countries involved in the IHRA and beyond.”
Addressing the meeting, Dr. Robert Williams – the chair of the Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial — noted, “Our shared memories of the past are inherently flawed and malleable. To do justice to the loss of the Holocaust and to help affirm a better public and common understanding, our memories need good history built on facts and analysis because, at the end of the day, history always stands a better chance of proving that old British axiom: truth will out.”
The head of the UK IHRA delegation, Lord Eric Pickles, declared, “Failure to remember truthfully demeans the living and disrespects the dead. The issue is simple: participants in the Holocaust, whether directly or indirectly, are incapable, within a civilized society, of having their reputations rehabilitated.”
Intel rolled out its newest port called Thunderbolt 4 on Wednesday, which the company said was made in Israel. Easily recognized by its light-bolt logo, the port is a forerunner to the soon to be released Tiger Lake processors meant to hit the market in a few months, the company said.30-minute COVID-19 test developed in Israel; inventor predicts it will go global
“Our group is responsible for this product from top to bottom," said Client Connectivity Engineering Group leader Yehonadav Moshe.
The new port will be friendlier for users as it will connect to a variety of devices, bringing an end to the search for the right cable to fit a specific USB. Able to transmit 40GB per second, the cable will allow users to get more work done with the computer people already have. For example, users will be able to download photographs while watching a high-resolution film, Moshe explained.
“The Thunderbolt 4 can work with any computer that uses USB4,” he said, “not just the silicon-based computer manufactured by Intel.”
The Thunderbolt 4 docks offer up to four ports, making them extremely useful in workplaces, and longer cables that are up to two meters long.
An Israeli company says it has developed a half-hour coronavirus test kit, and predicts it will become a globally available screening solution.Israeli tech firms raise $2.5 billion in Q2 amid pandemic, data shows
Izhak Haviv, chief scientist of AID Genomics, said his company has changed the enzymes and other components normally used in test kits in order to enable small batches of “VIP” tests to be processed in 30 minutes, and bigger batches in around double the time.
“To process a planeload of passengers would take me 75 minutes, and I can push it down to an hour,” he said, adding that he expects the kits to be manufactured and used internationally, and have similar levels of accuracy and false positives as existing kits.
There are various attempts around the world to reduce times for processing tests, and the current low is believed to be 90 minutes. Such tests, however, are generally seen as a premium product, mostly reserved for hospitals given their high cost. Haviv said his testing will be significantly cheaper than existing express services.
The new kit has been sent for approval to regulators, including the US Food and Drug Administration, said Haviv.
“They are taking samples and subjecting them to my kit, and they should be done in two to six weeks,” he said.
Israeli tech firms raised $2.5 billion in the second quarter of the year in 170 deals, up 13.1 percent in money terms from the same period a year earlier, but almost 9% lower than the amount raised in the first quarter of the year, as the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation.Australia-Israel Relationship a ‘Mateship’ Based on Trade, Trust and Mutual Values
In the first quarter of the year, Israeli tech firms raised $2.74 billion in 142 deals, data presented by IVC Research Center and attorneys Zysman, Aharoni, Gayer & Co (Zag-S&W) shows. In the second quarter of 2019, Israeli tech firms raised $2.21 billion.
The data indicates a “slowdown” in the ability of tech firms to raise capital, said Shmulik Zysman, founding partner of ZAG-S&W, “as everything drew to a complete halt in March” — and could be an indication of a continued downward trend for the rest of the year.
Even so, he said, the figures are not as bad as feared, because even if lower, the amount of money raised in the second quarter of the year is still one of the “highest ever” posted in a quarter, he said.
During the first six months of 2020, Israeli tech firms raised a total of $5.25 billion in 312 deals, the data showed.
Most of the investments in the quarter were follow-on deals, in which existing investors injected more funds into the startups in their portfolios to get them through the crisis.
Foreign investors accounted for 52% of the investments made in the quarter, with the share of Israeli investors increasing their activities in the period. Foreign investment in Israeli tech firms has declined since the fourth quarter of 2019, to $1.58 billion in the second quarter this year from $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019.
At the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that recently concluded, Australia was the only country to vote against all five anti-Israel resolutions, including the notoriously biased Agenda Item 7.'Israel Unveiled': South African Christian TV Host Loyiso Bala in Israel
In Australia’s position paper explaining the votes last month, it noted, “Australia has been consistent in its principled opposition to biased and one-sided resolutions targeting Israel in multilateral forums. We have reiterated this position before this Council every year of our membership. Our position has not changed. It is our firm view that the Human Rights Council’s disproportionate focus on Israel—through an unmatched five single country, targeted resolutions every year—damages its credibility. These resolutions do nothing to contribute to lasting peace and stability for Israelis and Palestinians.”
The perfect voting record, according to Australian leaders, underscores the vital relationship between the two nations.
“Australia regards the biased and one-sided targeting of Israel in multilateral forums as unhelpful to efforts to build lasting peace and stability,” Australian Ambassador to Israel Chris Cannan told JNS. “Australia has been consistent in its principled opposition to the singling out and unfair targeting of Israel, and one-sided resolutions, in the HRC,” he said. “It remains Australia’s firm view that the HRC’s agenda Item 7—the only standing agenda item that focuses on a single country situation—expresses this bias and is inappropriate.”
He said of the bilateral relations: “Australia and Israel have a close, longstanding and bipartisan, bilateral relationship. … Our contemporary relationship is at a high point; with reciprocal prime ministerial and head of state visits having taken place in the past three years.”
Still, he noted, “Our support for Israel has always been accompanied by a commitment to a two-state solution, negotiated directly between Israel and the Palestinians.”
Today, posed Cannan, “Australia is continuing to contribute to Israeli and regional peace and security through our contribution to the Multilateral Force and Observers in the Sinai and the UN Truce Supervision Organization.”
Unprecedented 4,200-year-old rock art etching of animal herd found in Golan tomb
An extremely rare example of megalithic rock art was recently identified in northern Israel’s Yehudiya Nature Reserve inside a 4,200-year-old stone burial chamber.
The unique discovery of a clearly composed, artistic rendering of a herd of animals is shifting the way archaeologists think about the little-understood peoples who created the thousands of massive stone burial chambers, or dolmens, that dot northern Israel’s Golan and Galilee.
“This is the first time we see this kind of rock art in dolmens in the Middle East,” said Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Uri Berger in a video accompanying the IAA press release on Wednesday. The findings were published in a scholarly article co-authored by Berger and Tel Hai College’s Prof. Gonen Sharon last week in the peer-reviewed journal Asian Archaeology.
“These megalithic structures were built more than 4,000 years ago. They are ancient burials and they were built by a group of people of whom the only thing we know is that they built their dolmens,” said Sharon in the video.
Recently discovered inside one of the ancient stone burial chambers were six different animals carved into the rock. In the panel, one can clearly see animals in different poses, even looking at each other. On a facing wall, one can see what appears to modern eyes as three windows, complete with panes.
“You can see for sure that there’s a composition… It meant something for the culture that built this dolmen,” said Berger.
