Critical Race Theory’s Jewish Problem
Postcolonial Theory, Israel, and Zionism It shouldn’t be far from anyone’s mind that the Woke, as a rule, are hostile to the existence of Israel. The relevant ideology is, in fact, deeply invested in uncritical support for Palestine and is openly anti-Zionist, often to the point of openly calling for the destruction of Israel. Weiss captures the public results of this attitude well, including the confusion among Jews who still think these ideologies are liberal, writing,David Collier: The decapitation of Europe's freedom
The most recent major outrage in the Jewish community, now several news cycles behind us, came on the Shabbat before Yom Kippur—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar—when many American Jews seemed dumbfounded by what was to me predictable news: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, progressive superstar, had pulled out of an event honoring Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister assassinated because of his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians. Rabin was, as Bill Clinton said at his funeral, “a martyr for his nation’s peace.”
Many Jews were shocked. If Rabin, the symbol of progressive Zionism, is out of bounds, are any Israelis acceptable? What about the 95% of Jews who support the Jewish state? Why would the congresswoman from the Bronx—representing the political party to which upward of 70% of American Jews have been consistently loyal—possibly do such a thing?
The answer to whether any Israelis are acceptable under Theory is no. For those who understand that Postcolonial Theory generally believes all actions made by the West anywhere else in the world, and especially where brown or black people live, as intolerable acts of Western colonialism and imperialism, this isn’t shocking, however. It’s perfectly consistent with what its activists continually say and its Theorists continually write. Israel would be considered in Theory as the result of white, Western imperialism and colonialism—largely in cahoots with conservative Christianity—robbing poor, brown Muslim Palestinians of their land, not least so that there is the ability to assert further Western hegemony and militarism in the Middle East (for the purpose of murdering more brown Muslims). The whole point is to establish, yet again, white supremacy in the Middle East. Its terms really are that stark. In the politically polished words of Linda Sarsour, which invoke precisely the crude racial frame of Critical Race Theory to make their effect,
Ask them this, how can you be against white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class, but then you support a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.
While Critical Race Theory sees Israel—no matter its racial makeup—as structural whiteness occupying the (brown) Palestinian Middle East, Postcolonial Theory regards the existence of the contemporary Israeli state in a way that is wholly critical (as Marx would be) of both it and the West that supports it. This is what Postcolonial Theory does; it claims that the West constructs the “East” (here: Palestine) in a way that is meant to make its own values look superior by virtue of being better than the “Other’s” values—a process now unfortunately called “Orientalism.” The point of Orientalism is to enable a means of domination that might then justify Western occupations of non-Western lands and people, which will then hold to its own ideologies, methods, and values. Within the Theoretical wing of the contemporary left, Israel is regarded as one such ongoing project even in a (Western) world that has rejected the idea of colonialism more or less entirely.
Again, as with the issue where Critical Race Theory collides with Jewry, this wretched analysis is exactly what we should expect from Postcolonial Theory’s collision with Israel. It simply lacks the tools for a more nuanced or reasonable analysis of the admittedly complex affair. Take the Palestinian-American Edward Said’s analysis in his landmark Orientalism, which is in some sense recognizable as the birthplace of Postcolonial Theory, wherein precisely this simplistic, cynical, zero-sum thinking can be found:
Thus if the Arab occupies space enough for attention, it is as a negative value. He is seen as the disrupter of Israel’s and the West’s existence, or in another view of the same thing, as a surmountable obstacle to Israel’s creation in 1948. Insofar as this Arab has any history, it is part of the history given him (or taken from him: the difference is slight) by the Orientalist tradition, and later, the Zionist tradition. Palestine was seen—by Lamartine and the early Zionists—as an empty desert waiting to burst into bloom; such inhabitants as it had were supposed to be inconsequential nomads possessing no real claim on the land and therefore no cultural or national reality. Thus the Arab is conceived of now as a shadow that dogs the Jew. In that shadow—because Arabs and Jews are Oriental Semites—can be placed whatever traditional, latent mistrust a Westerner feels towards the Oriental. For the Jew of pre-Nazi Europe has bifurcated: what we have now is a Jewish hero, constructed out of a reconstructed cult of the adventurer-pioneer Orientalist (Burlon, Lane, Renan), and his creeping, mysteriously fearsome shadow, the Arab Oriental. Isolated from everything except the past created for him by Orientalist polemic, the Arab is chained to a destiny that fixes him and dooms him to a series of reactions periodically chastised by what Barbara Tuchman gives the theological name “Israel’s terrible swift sword.” (p. 286)
Last Friday 47-year-old schoolteacher Samuel Paty was butchered and decapitated near the school at which he worked. His ‘crime’ was to teach his students about free speech. There is a horrific difference in this terror attack that is not being fully digested. This was a community effort. Some Muslims at the school were offended and a protest was launched. A parent brought in an ‘expert’ to help fight the blasphemous teacher. A fatwa was issued and a punishment for blasphemy was handed out. Worse still – despite statements of solidarity with the victim that inevitably filled the political chambers – the message was clear – and teachers all over France received it. Blasphemy in France is a crime punishable by death.The global proportion of Jews living in Europe is as low as it was 1,000 years ago. And the future there doesn’t look bright
Many writers won’t touch this subject – they are too nervous in case they make a slight mistake that will be used against them. They fear they’ll be shouted down as an ‘Islamophobe’. This in itself is indicative of the problem and shows how our rights to free speech and to defend ourselves are being removed from us. A teacher was brutally murdered for doing his job. Earlier this year a 16-year-old girl in France needed police protection for criticising Islam. We have to talk about this. The Paris attack is different
Why is this terrorist incident different? In attacks such as the Manchester bombing, 7/7, Nice or even with the murder of Lee Rigby, the specific victims were random. There was nothing random about this attack. This was the application of Islamic law on the streets of Paris. Which is where we arrive at our first hurdle- the western PC reflex to terrorist attacks by radical Islamic Muslims is to publicly state that it is nothing to do with Islam.
But what may hold some weight (I am not saying it does) when a nutcase with ISIS ideology filling his head detonates himself in a crowded venue – does not hold at all when a particular target is butchered because of blasphemy.
Simple fact : It is an argument within Islam. Those Muslims who say a blasphemer must be killed are arguing Islamic law just as much as those who say it doesn’t.
Those who say this is nothing to do with Islam should consider this – if the teacher had done this in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia or Saudi Arabia the same punishment (death) may well have been handed out – in a state sanctioned killing. In places such as Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Libya or the PA areas, he might just have spent a lengthy time in Jail. But the fact is this – one way or another all Muslim majority countries have criminalised blasphemy. All of them.
Ask yourself this question – how many devout Muslims have you spoken to who think Charlie Hebdo did nothing wrong at all?
Jews’ share of the population of Europe is as low now as it was 1,000 years ago and is declining even further, according to a landmark new demographic study.
The study published Wednesday by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research found 1.3 million people who describe themselves as Jewish in continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Russia.
That figure has declined by nearly 60% since 1970, when there were 3.2 million Jews in the same area, wrote the report’s authors, Daniel Staetsky and Sergio DellaPergola.
That decline, which follows the death of about 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust, owes mostly to the emigration of more than 1.5 million people following the collapse of the Iron Curtain, their data shows.
But Western Europe, too, has lost 8.5% of its Jewish population since 1970. It is home to just over a million Jews today compared to 1,112,000 in 1970.
In particular, the Jewish community of Germany is in a “terminal” state because more than 40% of its 118,000 Jews are above the age of 65, whereas less than 10% are under 15, the study says. This reality, which exists also in Russia and Ukraine, “foreshadows high death rates and unavoidable future population decline,” according to the study.
The project is arguably the most comprehensive survey of Jewish demographics ever completed in Europe, more far-reaching than a 2018 European Union survey — although the new survey uses some information from the 2018 EU project. It is also based on official census data and figures provided by individual Jewish communities, which are often organized into organizations with official membership tallies.
‘BBC lost its moral compass’ by giving mass murderer a platform
Despite the apology, Roth said that he was “stunned by the coldness of the BBC’s formalistic, paint-by-numbers reaction to the torrent of criticism they received from an enraged public”.PMW: Big PMW win over BBC
He added: “I urge everyone with a sense of justice to re-read the detached, distorted, disingenuous response they issued (not to me or my wife – we haven’t heard a word from them) and ask themselves whether this empty, cruel, pointless and evasive ‘sorry not sorry’ note ought to close the chapter.
“They didn’t get the name of some capital city somewhere wrong. They misplaced their moral compass. They didn’t even mention that this woman boasts of killing… the killing of which she boasts is of children. Jewish children, as it happens. My Jewish child among them.”
Tamimi proudly claimed credit for the attack in 2001. Admitting to scouting the location of Sbarro – a popular eatery in downtown Jerusalem – because it was known to be a favourite for families, she previously said that she only felt disappointed as she had “hoped for a larger toll”. She was released from an Israeli prison as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011, her husband was also released in the Shalit prisoner exchange after being convicted of terrorism for murdering an Israeli student in 1993.
Lord Michael Grade, former chairman of the BBC, told the Jewish News there were “very serious issues of balance and impartiality raised” by the broadcast and the corporation, and possibly Ofcom, should investigate.
Bob Blackman, the Tory MP and Conservative Friends of Israel officer, had written to the BBC Director General Tim Davie asking for an apology to the families of Tamimi’s victims, after Roth told Sky News Australia that he was “nauseated” by the BBC coverage.
Blackman, the MP for Harrow East added: “Giving a platform for Tamimi’s appeal to be reunited with her husband is understandably deeply distressing for the families of her victims, who will never be reunited with their loved ones”.
The Tory MP instead suggested that the BBC should dedicate more coverage to ongoing extradition attempts by the United States, where a reward of up to $5million for information that leads to Ahlam Tamimi’s arrest or conviction has been offered.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office were approached for a comment.
Last week, PMW exposed that BBC’s Arabic show “Trending,” broadcast and item whose sole purpose was to give a voiceHonestReporting: BBC Slammed for Glorifying Palestinian Terrorist
Last week, PMW exposed that BBC’s Arabic show “Trending,” broadcast an item whose sole purpose was to give a voice and sympathetic exposure to terrorist Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi planned and coordinated the suicide bombing at Sbarro Pizza in Jerusalem in 2001, in which 15 people were murdered, including eight children, among them Malki Roth, the daughter of Frimet and Arnold Roth.
PMW and Arnold Roth called on BBC to remove the item promoting his daughter’s murderer:
“Together with PMW, and in the name of our murdered child, my wife and I call on BBC management… BBC must immediately remove the videos from YouTube, and issue a sincere public apology to the families of Tamimi’s victims whose memories BBC has desecrated by promoting their murderer.”
The Jerusalem Post reported PMW’s assertion that BBC had not only glorified a terrorist murderer, but also sent a message of support to all potential terrorists:
“ITAMAR MARCUS, Director of PMW, said that in airing Tamimi's appeal in this way, the BBC has sent a signal to other would-be terrorists that their actions are justifiable.
‘Terror is successful only when the terrorists receive media attention,’ Marcus said. ‘Without media, terror would have no purpose. BBC’s “reaching out” knowingly to a child murderer of Israelis in order to be the platform for this terrorist, not only supports this past terrorist, it serves as a catalyst for those considering terror in the future. The knowledge that BBC and other media will be there to honor, promote and support them is the fuel that the terror infrastructures need to thrive.” [The Jerusalem Post, Oct. 14, 2020]
After exposing the BBC item, PMW turned to NGOs around the world, such as ACT.IL, who joined in galvanizing additional pressure on BBC.
In response, BBC removed the interview with the terrorist murderer from its YouTube channel as demanded and apologized: A BBC spokesperson told Jewish News: “Following an editorial review we found that this segment was in breach of our editorial guidelines and we removed the clip from our digital platforms last week. We accept that the segment should not have been shown and apologise for the offence caused.”
[Jewish News, Oct. 21, 2020]
The BBC recently glorified a woman who murdered eight children. By providing unrepentant terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, notorious for her role in 2001 Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in Jerusalem, with a massive platform, the news outlet showed its true colors when it comes to coverage of the Jewish state. Will the BBC's anti-Israel bias finally be exposed?
Pompeo, Carr & Cohanim Host Virtual Event
In my opinion, there are two places that Jew Hatred aka anti-Semitism has been growing over the last decade. The first place is on college campuses, both big/state university to small/local colleges.Pompeo Seeks to Cut US Funds for Major Rights NGOs Over Alleged Antisemitism
Jewish and pro-Israel college students have been targeted by far left progressive groups who refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist and choose to only fight Jew Hatred when it comes from Neo-Nazi’s and White supremacists while dismissing those who state the BDS movement is just another form of Jew Hatred.
On Columbia University’s campus, Jewish college students have woken up to Nazi Germany swastikas painted on their doors for being proud Jews who support Israel. In a September 9th report, Greta Anderson wrote about the rise of Jew Hatred on college campuses. The stories from Jewish college students over the last decade are enough to make even the strongest person want to throw in the towel. Our Jewish college students have felt like they are under attack on their campus but they are breathing a little easier now thanks to President Trump and his administration for taking bold action to counter this disturbing trend of Jew Hatred on college campuses with Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism in 2019.
The purpose of the EO is to require that the Department of Education, when reviewing whether there has been a violation of Title VI, considers an individual’s actual or perceived shared Jewish ancestry or Jewish ethnic characteristics, as “anti-Semitism” is currently defined, as part of its assessment of whether the alleged practice was motivated by anti-Semitism.
The second place that Jew Hatred runs rampant is online via social media platforms like; FaceBook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and many others. I have personally been a target of online Jew Hatred on multiple occasions.
Earlier this year, I was moderating a conversation between U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Ellie Cohanim and Jewish high school students. At the end of the zoom meeting, a Neo-Nazi appeared on video and he lifted up his shirt to show everyone his swastika tattoo on his chest.
US State Secretary Mike Pompeo seeks to officially brand several major human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as antisemitic and cease US support for them, Politico reported Wednesday.Elan S. Carr: Taking Aim at Online Anti-Semitism
According to the report, which cited a congressional aide and was corroborated by other US media outlets, Pompeo is pushing for a report by US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism Elan Carr.
The report would condemn alleged antisemitism on behalf of a number of top human rights NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Oxfam, and call for ending US financial support for them.
The document could be published as early as this week, Politico reported, adding that the material implications of ending US funding for the groups are not immediately clear.
In comments to the newspaper, all of the groups denied their alleged antisemitism and support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Earlier, Oxfam Solidarity was mentioned on a Belgian document as one of the groups working on projects with the strategic goal of “mitigating the influence of pro-Israel voices” in the EU.
In late 2019, Israel expelled a senior Human Rights Watch official over his alleged support for the BDS, which he denied.
Also in 2019, a lengthy report by a British researcher charged that Amnesty International is institutionally biased against Israel, spreads rhetoric of hate against the Jewish state, and aligns its anti-Israel campaigns with the BDS movement.
Anti-Semitism has been increasing globally for more than a decade, largely because of its propagation online. In the first eight months of 2020, 1.7 million anti-Semitic posts appeared on Twitter and YouTube alone. In the online world, increasing numbers of the world's youth are lured into dangerous virtual neighborhoods where they are vulnerable to poisonous influences and can be lost to violent radicalization. A recent European study found that radicalization to the point of violence is accomplished much more quickly on the Internet than through face-to-face interaction.Antisemitism rising in anti-vaxxer movement, UK study finds
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is hosting a conference on combating online anti-Semitism on Oct. 21 and 22, titled "Ancient Hatred, Modern Medium." Many of the conclusions and recommendations that emerge from the conference will be equally applicable to other forms of online hate and will serve as tools in the broader cause of defending human dignity and religious freedom everywhere.
Antisemitism is experiencing a resurgence among the ever-growing number of anti-vaccination advocates, prompting calls for the British government to act, the Jewish Chroniclereported Wednesday.The Importance of Blasphemy
The study is titled "From antivaxxers to antisemitism: Conspiracy theory in the Covid-19 pandemic," and was prepared by Lord John Mann, the independent adviser on antisemitism, and molecular cell biology expert Dr. Lewis Arthurton.
It details how nationwide lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic have led to a climate of anxiety among the general public, creating an ideal environment for conspiracy theories about the virus to take root, many of which are antisemitic.
The study explains that, “for many with concerns about public health measures, Facebook groups promoting conspiracy theories provide easy answers to users desiring certainty.”
This, in turn, has led to conspiracy theories regarding the coronavirus vaccine, with the report predicting that “it will be essential to quickly sideline the conspiracy theories and misinformation of the anti-vaxxers,” the Chronicle reported.
It has been said often before, but in the aftermath of the two Parisian attacks, it bears repeating—both Islamists and their ostensibly secular defenders must be resisted. They must understand that the defense of universal human rights is not a provocation, much less a “phobia,” but a moral obligation. The campaign of undisguised menace against artists and writers and cartoonists who question or mock revered scriptures and religious figures is granted too much credence in certain quarters that proclaim to merely be respecting “Muslim sensibilities.” What these peace-at-any-price observers don’t grasp, however, is that it is only recently (with the rise of Wahhabism) that the portrayal of Mohammad has been deemed blasphemous. In any case, scrutiny of religious texts and prophets is a foundational element of the Enlightenment. Surrender that keystone principle, and what remains of the larger edifice?MEMRI: MEMRI Reports In 2012 Exposed Islamist Incitement By Abdelhakim Sefrioui And His Organization, The Pro-Hamas Sheikh Yassin Collective, Against France And French Authorities; This Week, Authorities Arrested Him And Dismantled The Organization In Connection With French Teacher's Beheading
The consequence of failing to prosecute this struggle in defense of freedom of religion and freedom of speech will be the steady erosion of tolerance and inquiry in the name of good manners. It could lead to what the British writer Kenan Malik has called an “auction of victimhood,” with offended groups competing to see if they can receive special exemptions and get their taboo images removed from the public eye. A decade after Jyllands-Posten published the Danish cartoons of Mohammad in 2005, it chose not to republish the Charlie Hebdo drawings, citing its “unique position” of vulnerability. Flemming Rose, the editor who commissioned the original cartoons, told the BBC, “We caved in.” “Violence works,” he added, and “sometimes the sword is mightier than the pen.”
The cycle of Islamist intimidation and secular surrender is fraught with risk. France faces the prospect of being split into rival nations: one that lives in a secular republic and another one that lives in the shadow of sharia and blasphemy codes, even if the Islamic law is de facto rather than de jure. If this fate is permitted to come to pass, the cause of civilization will lose a vital foothold in Europe, with repercussions far beyond the old continent.
The rising secularism and pluralism of modern societies has been a crowning achievement of the West. It need not become a problem so long as there is a staunch and pervasive belief in the legitimacy of the liberal creed. Without such belief, however, societies around the globe will be poorly equipped to cope with a confident and militant faith in their midst. And as long as this faith enjoys exaggerated deference and intellectual immunity, nobody’s throats will be safe.
On October 16, 2020, Samuel Paty, a French history teacher, was beheaded by an 18-year-old Islamist Chechen in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.Paris police nab seven in attempted ramming of officer near Israeli embassy
Seven people are appearing before an anti-terrorism judge in the murder case, which began today, October 21. One of them is Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, president of the pro-Hamas Sheikh Yassin Collective and a member of the Council of Imams of France, an association of Islamist preachers.[1]
Yesterday, October 20, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Sheikh Yassin Collective would be dissolved because it is "directly implicated" in the attack on Paty.[2]
A week before the beheading of Paty, on October 8, Sefrioui met with the principal of Paty's school to protest against the teacher's use of a Charlie Hebdo cartoon in his freedom of expression class. He asked that Paty be suspended immediately, but realized that nothing would be done, and called for action.[3]
It should be noted that MEMRI published research in 2012 on the Sheikh Yassin Collective and on Sefrioui's activism and hate speech.[4]
Below are excerpts of a MEMRI report on Sefrioui and the Sheikh Yassin Collective that he heads. The report was published September 13, 2012 and titled "The Sheikh Yassin Collective, Headed By Abdelhakim Sefrioui."
Police in Paris on Tuesday arrested seven British nationals suspected of involvement in the attempted car-ramming of an officer stationed outside the Israeli embassy in the French capital.France probes contact between Syria jihadist and suspect in teacher beheading
The incident happened on Monday night, according to local media. It said a dark BMW with “three to four people” inside, followed by a Mercedes, attempted to hit an officer outside the embassy, then fled. The officer dodged the vehicles and was not hurt.
Paris police opened an investigation into “attempted intentional homicide of a person in public authority,” news site The Local reported.
The same two vehicles were seen “lurking” close to the Elysee Palace, the official residence of French President Emmanuel Macron later that evening, French news site 20Minutes reported.
A manhunt ensued and the suspects were arrested on Tuesday night, roughly 24 hours after the attempted attack.
The 20Minutes report described the suspects as being of Pakistani origin, without providing details.
The investigation into the murder of a French teacher for showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class turned to Syria on Thursday, where the killer had a jihadist contact, a source close to the case said.French paper threatened over Mohammad cartoons
Seven people have been charged with being complicit in a “terrorist murder” after 18-year-old Chechen Abdullah Anzorov beheaded Samuel Paty on the outskirts of Paris on Friday, including two teenagers who helped him identify the teacher.
France paid homage to Paty on Wednesday, with President Emmanuel Macron saying that the history and geography teacher had been slain by “cowards” for representing the secular, democratic values of the French Republic.
“Islamists want to take our future,” Macron said. “They will never have it.”
In their search for accomplices, anti-terror investigators have now established that Anzorov had contact with a Russian-speaking jihadist in Syria whose identity is not yet known, the source told AFP.
The French regional newspaper La Nouvelle Republique has received threats on social media after it published a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad on its front page, one of its journalists said on Wednesday.
On Oct. 18, the Nouvelle Republique paper re-published an earlier satirical drawing of the Prophet Mohammad from magazine Charlie Hebdo, to highlight the threat from Islamic extremists, following last week's murder of French teacher Samuel Paty.
The journalist, Christophe Herigault, told BFMTV on Wednesday that while the vast majority had given the paper's front page a positive reaction, as a defense of freedom of speech and democracy, a small number had issued threats against the paper.
I'm helping @KyleKashuv raise money for Help NYC Jewish Cafe Survive De Blasio Harassment with donations buying meals for Hatzolah members (volunteer ambulance drivers). Click to Donate: https://t.co/IuvxPZ0k3z via @gofundme
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) October 21, 2020
Northwestern University president claims activists antisemitic
Was a left-wing activist group being antisemitic when it called Northwestern University’s Jewish president “piggy Morty”?Arab Video Blogger Blasts Al Jazeera for Spreading ‘Fake News’ About Him and Israel
The president, Morton Schapiro, said it could be. The activist group said it was not.
The ensuing debate has divided Northwestern’s campus just north of Chicago this week, with the school’s Hillel offering students the opportunity to reflect on the incident virtually in small groups Wednesday.
The activist group, called NU Community Not Cops, chanted “piggy Morty” outside Schapiro’s home over the weekend, according to an open letter Schapiro wrote on Monday. The group is calling for the abolition of the Northwestern University Police Department as part of a racial justice campaign.
Schapiro wrote that while he recognizes “the many injustices faced by Black and other marginalized groups,” he opposes disbanding the police and “condemn[s], in the strongest possible terms, the overstepping of the protesters.”
He noted the chant in particular.
“Many gathered outside my home this weekend into the early hours of the morning, chanting ‘f— you Morty’ and ‘piggy Morty,'” he wrote. “The latter comes dangerously close to a longstanding trope against observant Jews like myself. Whether it was done out of ignorance or out of antisemitism, it is completely unacceptable, and I ask them to consider how their parents and siblings would feel if a group came to their homes in the middle of the night to wake up their families with such vile and personal attacks.”
Popular Israeli Arab video blogger Nas Daily slammed the Qatari media outlet Al Jazeera on Tuesday for reporting “fake news” and falsely claiming that he was a propagandist for Israel.Op-ed tried elevating Black women but didn't address Farrakhan's bigotry
The famed YouTuber, whose real name is Nuseir Yassin, posts video clips on social media that address a wide range of topics, including travel, food and the environment. His videos generally garner millions of views.
In an almost 6-minute video uploaded on Tuesday onto Facebook, he slammed efforts to smear him by Al Jazeera, which is owned and funded by the Qatari government.
“Oh my god… I can’t believe this is happening to us! This is fake news targeted at us by a government,” he began the video by saying.
Nas showed a clip from AJ+, an Al Jazeera spin-off that produces content for social media platforms, that accused him of “using words such as… openness, coexistence, peace” to “make Israel look good.”
Another AJ+ clip suggested that the blogger and his new company, the Nas Academy, were “using all the tools that the Israeli government provides him, and he is part of their official propaganda program.”
“That is comical!” Nas said. “In reality, Nas Academy is a great new startup that we started to create more creators. To teach people how to make videos. To teach people how to tell stories, so they go and create their own videos and become their own Nas Daily. That is the truth.”
He added, “We promote tourism and love, not politics and hate. And we definitely do not work with the Israeli government.”
Like many others, I quickly saw that something important was missing from the New York Times op-ed this week about the 25th anniversary of the Million Man March.
The piece, by Natalie Hopkinson, a professor at Howard University, highlighted the behind-the-scenes roles played by Black women like Cora Masters Barry and Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X. As the piece notes, hundreds of thousands of previously unregistered Black men were registered to vote, thanks largely to the tireless efforts of Barry and others.
But while the piece achieved its goal of rewriting the Million Man March story to include new voices, it also contained a shocking omission. It fails to mention — or even scratch the surface of — the serial bigotry of the march’s main organizer: Louis Farrakhan, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam.
The op-ed does note that Farrakhan needed the help of Barry and other women to massage his messaging around the march, which was viewed, as the writer points out, as “exclusionary and sexist.” And while that may be true, it does not even begin to qualify as a passing glance at the record of bigotry that belongs to Farrakhan, the antisemitic leader of the Nation of Islam.
If you were to only read Hopkinson’s account of Farrakhan and the 1995 march, you most likely would walk away with a lukewarm impression of the man. But as with any narrative around a monumental historical event or person, it is necessary — at minimum — to be willing to acknowledge the significant negative or uncomfortable aspects surrounding such leaders, so readers are able to glean a clearer picture of what is true. This is where Hopkinson, and The New York Times, dropped the ball completely.
So let’s set the record straight.
.@nytimes gratuitously invokes George Floyd in the tragic killing of an autistic man in Jerusalem.
— Gary Weiss (@gary_weiss) October 22, 2020
No knee on neck, just a new recruit who didn't follow orders. This article should be "instantly compared" to the Times' usual slanted Israel coverage.https://t.co/GzZLsCGkeL pic.twitter.com/2JPDZ60vV8
COVID-19 Given Seat on UN Human Rights Council (satire)
COVID-19 has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council, joining countries such as China, Cuba, Russia and Pakistan on the international body.Dutch Protestant Church to admit failing Jews in Holocaust
COVID-19 is the first virus to sit on the council since it was established in 2006. But electors from the General Assembly noted that the virus will fit in well with the UNHRC’s current members of death and destruction, which also include Libya, Venezuela, and Uzbekistan.
“Judging by past electees, the ability to bring suffering and death on a large portion is what makes one qualified for the Human Rights Council,” one General Assembly explained. “By this metric, there is no one better qualified than COVID.”
As of press time, rapper and presidential candidate Kanye West has also been elected to the council.
The Protestant Church in the Netherlands will admit for the first time that it stayed silent as anti-Semitism rose before and during World War II, a report said on Thursday.The Last Nazi Hunter
The confession is set to be made public next month at the 82nd anniversary of the “Kristallnacht” pogrom, when pro-Nazi mobs torched and ransacked synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany, the Christian newspaper Trouw reported.
“We fell short in speaking out and by staying silent in actions and omissions, in our attitude and in our thoughts,” the paper quoted Protestantse Kerk Nederland secretary Rene de Reuver as saying as part of a prepared speech.
“During the war years, Church authorities often lacked the courage to choose the side of the Jewish inhabitants of our country,” De Reuver said.
Less than one third of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands survived World War II. Many citizens as well as the Dutch police and railways actively conspired with their Nazi overlords to round up Jews and deport them to death camps during WWII.
This included the diarist Anne Frank, who was arrested in 1944 after two years in hiding and sent Germany where she died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp aged 15, just before the end of the war.
Efraim Zuroff, 72, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel Office, is widely known as the "last Nazi hunter." In 42 years, Zuroff has submitted the names of more than 3,000 suspected Nazi war criminals to 20 countries. In 40 cases, legal action was taken against a Holocaust perpetrator.Jewish son of Nazi officer describes growing up under shadow of Holocaust denial
In 1989, he came across the testimonies of dozens of Lithuanian survivors and identified 1,284 potential war criminals. Out of a population of 220,000 Jews in Lithuania, just 8,000 survived. There were only 1,000 Germans present during the occupation of Lithuania, with the majority of the horrors perpetrated by "willing local collaborators." "The Lithuanians didn't put people on trains," says Zuroff. "They personally killed their Jewish neighbors, usually by shooting them and throwing them, one on top of each other, into pits dug in the forest."
Zuroff cites as his biggest victory the case of Dinko Sakic, the sadistic commandant of the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia, responsible for the murder of 2,000 people. He was found living in Argentina and prosecuted in 1998. When he received his 20-year sentence, Sakic said, "I would do it again; let's finish the job."
The son of a decorated Nazi officer who discovered the nature of his father’s military service and went on to convert to Judaism and eventually join the IDF, recalled his relationship with his father and discussed his childhood in an interview with a British newspaper.Meet the Orthodox woman at the top of Israel’s cyber game
“The more I studied, the more I came to the conclusion that my father was a liar,” said Bernd Wollschlaeger in the Tuesday interview with London’s Daily Mail.
Born in Bavaria in 1958, Wollschlaeger said that he was told as a child that the Holocaust was a lie and was raised to admire his father as a decorated war hero. He said Arthur Wollschlaeger would still wear the “Knight’s Cross around his neck” at Christmas, years after the war was over.
Wollschlaeger was awarded the Iron Cross by Adolf Hitler for his actions in battle against Soviet forces.
In the interview, Wollschlaeger noted the 1972 Munich Massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists, as a major turning point in his relationship with his father.
“For the first time, at least in my life, the old wounds were opened and we were forced to deal with the past and why it’s such a big deal that Jews are being killed in Germany again,” Wollschlaeger told the Daily Mail.
“He actually referred to the slaughter of the Israeli athletes, saying, ‘Look what they do to us again! They, the Jews, are tearing down our reputation to make us look bad.'”
“On Friday morning I have on one ear a conference call and one hand mixing cholent, and with my foot I’m rocking the baby carriage,” says Ola Sergatchov. “That’s what my life looks like.”Moderna completes enrollment in large COVID-19 vaccine study
Vice president of corporate strategy at Israeli data center and cloud security company Guardicore, Sergatchov was recently selected as one of the top 25 women leaders in cybersecurity of 2020 by The Software Report.
Sheis a rarity in the Startup Nation: An Orthodox woman at the top of the game on a largely secular playing field.
“I’m a human being, a haredi [strictly religious] person, and I’m still part of this big world,” she notes. “I’m just trying to get the word out that there is a way. It’s not easy but I think you can follow that path and it’s very beneficial at the end of the day for both sides.”
“I grew up in Russia for the first 17 years of my life. I became religious in Russia and that was one of the reasons I decided to come to Israel,” she tells ISRAEL21c.
She came to Jerusalem to study economics at the Hebrew University. But when her first husband turned her attention to the fact that she had what she calls “this head for programming,” she decided to switch to computer science.
Moderna Inc. said on Thursday it had completed the enrollment of 30,000 participants in a late-stage study testing its experimental coronavirus vaccine, with over a third of the participants from communities of color.Self-Driving Vehicles Coming to Israeli Roads Sooner Than Expected
Over 25,650 participants have so far received their second shot of the vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, the company said.
Moderna said its study includes more than 11,000 participants from minority communities, including 6,000 Hispanic or Latin-American participants and more than 3,000 Black or African-American participants.
The company said it would evaluate the study's risks and benefits before submitting an emergency-use application for the vaccine to the US health regulator.
The US Food and Drug Administration requires at least two months of safety data after a full vaccination regime to review applications for emergency use authorization of an experimental vaccine.
The sight of an autonomous vehicle driving along Israeli roads is set to become an everyday reality, and a lot faster than anywhere else in the world. According to a legal memorandum submitted to the Knesset and which is set to be published towards the end of November, the Ministry of Transportation is pushing for quick adoption of a new law that would regulate autonomous vehicles on the country’s roads.
So far autonomous vehicles have conducted several test drives on Israeli roads, but these weren’t conducted in a regulated manner and in some cases included several blatant infractions of the law, for example driving without having both hands on the steering wheel.
At the end of August, a temporary memorandum was published which listed the types of autonomous vehicles that would be allowed on Israeli roads, the insurance coverage they would require, and addressed the issue of the cybersecurity standards that will be determined by the Israel National Cyber Directorate.
However, the final memorandum to be published next month is the crucial one, and according to a copy seen by Calcalist, the most important aspect of it will be the redefining of driving in an autonomous vehicle so that it is no longer characterized as experimental. Autonomous vehicles will be allowed to be used in the same way as regular vehicles, with issues like insurance and the liability in case of an accident to be determined at a later date.
One of the main reasons behind this approach is to ensure autonomous vehicles can legally drive on Israeli roads as soon as possible, especially as many of the R&D centers of the companies active in this sector are based in Israel, which will allow for a quick resolution of any problem that might arise.
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