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Friday, October 23, 2020

10/23 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Fighting the new commissars; Melanie Phillips: What sanitising Louis Farrakhan tells us about the west

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Fighting the new commissars
When word got out this week that Facebook had squelched Shibbolet – again – Likud MKs Amit Halevy and Ariel Kelner published posts on Twitter threatening to take legislative action against Facebook. The threats worked. Shibbolet's account was reinstated. In fact, the account Facebook "permanently" froze in April quickly thawed.

While this is a positive development, it isn't a business model. Conservative businesses – and business owners – cannot build their commercial model around faith that lawmakers will defend them on Twitter or that the trillion-dollar conglomerates will long care what lawmakers say or do.

Recognizing the dimension of the threat, Wednesday Halevy initiated Knesset action on the issue. He submitted a bill titled, "Social Media Responsibility for Content Published on its Platforms."

If passed into law, Halevy's bill will divide social media companies into two categories: those that interfere in content posted on their platforms and those that do not. Currently, both types of companies enjoy immunity from lawsuits related to content posted or blocked on their platforms.

Halevy's bill would maintain the exemption for social media companies that do not interfere with content on their platforms without a court order or a clear legal obligation to do so. On the other hand, social media companies that interfere with the content on their platforms would no longer enjoy immunity from legal actions by users harmed by the content on their platforms.

Halevy's bill also requires companies that interfere with the content of its platforms to operate in a transparent way. They would be required to explain precisely what sort of content they censor. And they would be required to publish annual reports delineating precisely which posts they censored and why. Users would be notified before the companies take action against their content and be given an opportunity to defend themselves.

President Donald Trump and prominent Republican lawmakers have pledged to take similar action against Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants after the election. The Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google earlier this week.

These initiatives are critical. And they shouldn't stand on their own. They should rather be the first shots of concerted campaign to limit the power of these gargantuan companies that control nearly all global information.

Freedom of expression and the free flow of information are the foundations of free societies. Rather than use their unprecedented power to secure both, social media giants are manipulating information and censoring speech with a power that no one could have fathomed just 20 years ago. Optimism and hope for their positive potential blinded many of us to their actual dangers. The time has come to take on this new and pernicious threat to the future of free nations and free people.
BBC apologizes for broadcasting appeal of convicted Hamas terrorist
The BBC apologized on Thursday for broadcasting an appeal by convicted Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, mastermind of the Sbarro Pizza parlor bombing in Jerusalem in 2001, to be reunited with her husband, after the families of Tamimi's victims and the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) spoke out against the broadcast.

On October 1, 2020, Tamimi's husband Nizar, who is also a convicted terrorist, was deported by the Jordanian authorities to Qatar.

Seven days later the BBC's Arabic TV service broadcast a report in its program Trending on how Tamimi had called into a popular Amman-based radio station in a bid to appeal directly to King Abdullah II to intervene and have her husband returned to Jordan.

The BBC's report glossed over key elements of Jordanian-born Tamimi's story, reporting that she had been "accused" of the Sbarro terror attack but not that she had boastfully pled guilty to the charges in an Israeli court – or that she had said she would be happy to carry out such an attack again.

Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life sentences following the attack, but only served ten years as she was released in the deal that secured the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas's hold.

The BBC's Arabic service, which is funded by Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, further failed to mention any of her victims by name.
Melanie Phillips: What sanitising Louis Farrakhan tells us about the west
Moreover, such self-styled progressives believe this constitutes their whole moral and political identity. It bestows virtue upon them because it is based on the ideal of the perfect society where war is no more, lions lie down with lambs and prejudice is obliterated from the human heart.

Anyone who challenges it, therefore, isn’t just wrong, but right-wing and evil. So anything they say — however truthful or evidence-based — is right-wing and evil. And so truth has become a right-wing concept and is to be exiled, along with the truth-tellers, from acceptable society.

But Farrakhan is immune from criticism as a result of the core doctrine of identity politics that says members of an “oppressed” minority are victims and can therefore do no wrong.

Liberal Jews in America go one stage further. They have convinced themselves that “social justice,” which is in fact anti-social and unjust and stands utterly against the particularism which is the essence of Judaism, actually embodies Jewish ethical precepts.

So when they look at the Democratic Party, they make excuses and continue to vote for it. When presented with the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry of The New York Times, they make excuses and continue to buy it. When confronted by the violence of Black Lives Matter, they make excuses and continue to call anyone who opposes it “racist.” And when they cannot make excuses, as over Farrakhan, they look away.

Because they have made a religious faith out of this illiberal liberalism, which classifies all who challenge it as evil by definition, most of their minds have become hermetically sealed thought systems. They will never be prised open.

In her essay, Weiss is rightly aghast at what this signifies for the Jews who have adopted this mindset. “That leaders and philanthropists charged to protect and nurture our community are entertaining, and at times embracing, such nihilistic and anti-American ideas is a scandal.”

More than that, it’s a tragedy in the making—not just for American Jews, but the west.


Deplatforming the Campaign to Deplatform the Jews
The irony of this is that pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic forces on university campuses have been perhaps the foremost practitioners of deplatforming anywhere in the United States. Pro-Israel events are regularly disrupted, pro-Israel and even simply Jewish speakers are harassed and shut down, and Jewish and pro-Israel students are systematically subjected to campaigns of hate, violence and intimidation.

This has gone so far as to force Jewish students off campus; as was the case with the CUNY law student Rafaella Gunz, whose horrible odyssey was reported by this publication. And often, these acts of violence are enabled and supported by faculty and administrators.

The obvious goal of all this is to violate precisely those principles Khaled’s defenders claim to advocate and thus brutalize Israel and Judaism’s campus defenders into surrender and silence. In other words, they want to deplatform the Jews. The question, then, is whether we ought to do the same to them.

On the one hand, it is an uncomfortable question, given that many of us disapprove of deplatforming itself and oppose attempts to deplatform the Jews on precisely that basis. But that is essentially an argument over ideals, and we do not live in an ideal world. Whether we like it or not, the other side has laid down the rules of the game. When student mobs, faculty and administrators collaborate in an attempt to deplatform the Jews, it is no longer an issue of free speech. It is an issue of power: who has it and who doesn’t. And is only by empowering ourselves that we can fight back, as was successfully done against Khaled and her supporters.

Moreover, if the deplatformers, whether students or faculty, wish to continue using the tactic, they must be consistent. They claim hate speech is an actual threat to life and limb, the moral equivalent of physical violence and even murder. By this definition, groups like Students for Justice in Palestine that incite violence against Israel and Jewish students, and often call for the outright genocide of Israel’s Jewish population, are unquestionably hate groups, and thus certainly qualify for deplatforming according to the deplatformers own standards. Against this, our opponents can simply have no argument. They have chosen to live by that sword, and can hardly complain when they die by it.

Of course, it could be said that if we start to live by that sword, we will also die by it. But we are already dying by it, and it is only by seizing it for ourselves that we can effectively defend ourselves. These are the values, after all, that those who ought to know better have embraced, and it appears that, sadly, it is only by adopting them that we can force them to act according to those values, which they allegedly hold so dear.
Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief: ‘Woke’ Labeling of Jews as White Intended as Pejorative
Are Jews white? No, said the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner during a Wednesday appearance on i24 News, and the false claim that they are is a “slur” that must be refuted.

“In the language of wokeness,” Dovid Efune told “Global Eye” host Natasha Kirtchuk, “‘whiteness’ isn’t just a description of the lowest rung on the ladder of victimhood — it’s a pejorative, it’s an accusation. It refers to an oppressor, a ruling class…an occupier or a colonialist.”

Efune recalled that his own great-grandfather, who perished in the Holocaust, was considered by the Nazis to be of an inferior race.

“So it really is the height of irony and insult that when Jews express concern about antisemitism being ignored and a blindness to antisemitism, they’re then lumped into the white category,” he noted.


Remembering Rabin, as the 25th anniversary of his assassination approaches
I have mentioned these memories before. They haven’t changed. But this year, more than ever, we need a reminder that Rabin was neither a saint nor the devil.

If he hadn’t died the way he did, we would probably still hear now and again his Knesset speech comparing Golan Heights residents opposed to withdrawal to “spinning propellers.” That would be the everlasting sound bite rather than Eitan Haber’s stark statement telling of the assassination.

It seems strange today to recall how Rabin’s last term as prime minister was marked by arguments over leaving the Golan. I even remember residents of Jewish communities in Gaza making a solidarity trip to the Golan Heights, where people seemed to be under the imminent threat of losing their homes.

Today, we can appreciate just how disastrous handing the Golan Heights over to the Assad regime in Syria would have been. The same way as even those who ardently supported Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza recognize the dangers of the ever-increasing rocket attacks and the terror attack tunnels like the one discovered just this week.

It’s tempting to play “What if?”: What would have happened had Rabin not been murdered? It’s impossible to know, but I don’t believe he would have remained in power. While the Left often claims that Rabin’s assassination killed the peace process, it was already literally blowing up before he was shot. The Left focuses on the incitement (some of it by Shin Bet agents provocateurs like Avishai Raviv) that preceded his murder, but the Palestinian suicide bombings that accompanied the Oslo process were just as much a part of the background.

Similarly, there’s no way of knowing whether Rabin would have continued along the path that Shimon Peres was pushing him down, or done a reverse. It was Rabin, after all, who took a tough stand during the First Intifada and deported hundreds of Hamas terrorists to Lebanon.

It was these actions that Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decided to focus on recently, as the timing of the anniversary overlaps with the height of election fever in the US. AOC, as she is known, pulled out of a commemoration event organized by Americans for Peace Now following a social media storm by Palestinian supporters. She apparently did not want to be associated with the Israeli leader even though he won the Nobel Peace Prize – along with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres – for his role in the Oslo Accords.

That Peace Now’s credentials are not liberal enough for AOC does not bode well for any of us.
AOC's snub of a tribute to an assassinated Nobel Peace Prize winner sure makes it seem like all Israeli leaders are too problematic for the progressive left
Upon Rabin’s death, Arafat called his partner in the peace process, “a brave man in war and a brave man in peace.”

That’s what’s missing in the progressive audit of Rabin twenty-five years later, that he was in a state of war. And wars make people dehumanize other people. That’s not a defence of anything Rabin or Israel have done to the Palestinians, far from it. But it does, as Ellison said, make Rabin’s later sacrifices for peace all the more powerful.

The strange optics of Ocasio-Cortez playing a video game for a massive audience on the night of the Rabin memorial probably came about accidentally. That the livestream also featured Ilhan Omar — who has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks, is a staunch opponent of the Israeli government, and a supporter of the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement which does not believe in a two-state solution — is simply fuel for the Israel hawks looking to paint AOC as an opponent.

In a 2018 PBS interview AOC clumsily referred to Israel’s “occupation of Palestine,” which some critics interpreted as a view that Israel was illegitimately occupying the full body of land that once constituted the British Mandate for Palestine, which includes Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. But after conceding she’s “not the expert on geopolitics on this issue,” AOC also said she believes “absolutely in Israel’s right to exist” and is “a proponent of the two state solution.”

The congresswoman also shares in Peace Now’s opposition to the Israeli’s government threat to annex land on which it has illegally built settlements in the West Bank, much of which is the only land still available for a future Palestinian state.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not return multiple requests for comment, which is a shame because without clarification, it’s fair to assume that a vocal and growing portion of the progressive left are slowly making it clear that seemingly no Israeli leader — not even a martyr for peace — is worthy of tribute or legitimization.

And that makes it tough to unpack AOC’s true positions. If she supports a two-state solution and Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, why not participate in a memorial for Rabin — who did more than any single Israeli to push toward a two-state solution?

If AOC shares the view that Rabin, like all Israeli political leaders, is irredeemably tainted by actions in defence of what many progressives see as a racist, colonial state, she should lay her cards on the table and say that. If she doesn’t, it’d be illuminating to know which Israeli figures are not so problematic.
The Squad Telegraphs Its Priorities
The Rabin event, hosted by the decidedly left-wing Americans for Peace Now, was no Zionist affair. It was attended by teachers' union president Randi Weingarten and Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, who honored Rabin's legacy as a peacemaker. This was an event for those who loathe what the Zionist project has become—confident, capitalist, and prosperous—but nonetheless wish to associate themselves with the kind of progressive Zionism that Rabin has come to represent.

But even progressive Zionism, the support for the hypothetical Jewish state that might exist if its proponents could isolate and boycott and berate Israelis into living with unacceptable threats, is intolerable to AOC and her allies. As Jewish Insider reported earlier this month, the congresswoman has shunned New York's progressive Jewish leaders, some of whom have spent two years trying to get on her calendar. Those leaders are "perplexed" and "befuddled," the report says.

Tuesday evening's antics should bring some clarity. In addition to Piker, AOC was joined by her colleague Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who has argued that American support for Israel is solely a product of Jewish money—shared values and enemies don't factor for a congresswoman who rejects those values and embraces those enemies—and that it constitutes "allegiance to a foreign country." She believes that "Israel has hypnotized the world."

For Omar, 9/11 was an attack perpetrated by "some people" who "did something." For Piker, it was the attack America deserved.

AOC, who never seems to be at a loss for words, has had precious little to say about the atrocity inflicted on America that day but has never failed to defend her allies, like Omar, when they provoke criticism and backlash.

Her actions suggest that she believes the United States had it coming, that U.S. support for Israel is driven only by Jews and the support they can buy, and that Yitzhak Rabin was an irredeemable colonizer and occupier. As the saying goes, when someone shows you who they are: believe them.
Time to call out ‘human rights’ groups for their anti-Semitism
The facts about these groups aren’t a secret. All three are guilty of supporting the anti-Semitic BDS movement with words and deeds, and seek to undermine the right of Israelis to self-defense against terrorism, as well as to promote false charges of war crimes against the Jewish state. Their approach to alleged inquiries about life in the only democracy in the Middle East is inherently prejudiced. Indeed, these three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) act in perfect concert with institutions like the U.N. Human Rights Council, where anti-Semitism and bias against Israel have become its raison d’être.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Oxfam dates back to the Second World War, the efforts of Quaker groups to aid starving populations in countries devastated by the impact of the fighting and Nazi occupation. But it eventually broadened its agenda to a general goal of fighting injustice. And, like other organizations connected to the Quaker faith, it developed a particular animus for Israel and a desire to support the Palestinian Arab war to destroy it. As NGO Monitor—a vital source for information about the anti-Semitic activities of non-governmental organization—details, it has become a huge booster of BDS and other anti-Israel activities.

Human Rights Watch was begun in 1978 as part of an effort to hold the Soviet Union accountable for its atrocities and oppression of dissidents and Jews. But it, too, eventually expanded its scope and ironically wound up becoming an ardent foe of Israel. As one of its founders noted in a blistering attack on it published in The New York Times in 2009, it had become an enabler of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, and was short-changing the far more egregious human-rights offenses going on in the Arab world because it was obsessed with attacking Israel.

Amnesty International also had a sterling reputation as a foe of oppression around the world. But it became a pivotal ally of the BDS movement, supporting embargos against Israel, falsely labeling it an “apartheid state” and defending those linked to terror under the bogus excuse that they were victims of human-rights abuses by Israel.

Let’s be clear that these three groups are not being accused of anti-Semitism because they are critical of Israel’s government or its policies. Rather, it’s because their activities and advocacy have been consistent with the widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism that has been promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance—precepts that have been officially endorsed by the government of the United States that rightly labels delegitimizing, demonizing and applying double standards to Israel, the one Jewish state on the planet, as acts of Jew-hatred.

Why then are so many liberal groups rising to defend them against the State Department?

The answer has more to do with politics than anything else.


ADL slams US effort to declare human rights groups ‘anti-Semitic’
The ADL said calling the groups anti-Semitic “is neither accurate nor helpful to the fight against anti-Semitism.”

Democratic Congressman from Michigan Andy Levin, who used to work for Human Rights Watch, also criticized the move.

“Criticizing Israel’s policies is not anti-Semitism. I know because I do so out of love for a country I want to thrive,” he said on Twitter.

He also said the groups “do essential, often dangerous work to protect human rights.”

News of the reported declaration came just before an international conference on anti-Semitism, which featured Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a range of other officials and analysts. The conference focused on online hate and emphasized anti-Semitism from the left and Islamic terrorists, including anti-Israel activism.

While no panelist focused solely on far-right anti-Semitism, officials, including Netanyahu and others, did mention neo-Nazis among the dangerous groups facing the Jewish people.

“Contemporary anti-Semitism feeds off its more traditional precursors, often focusing on the State of Israel, which for the modern anti-Semite is the manifestation of the collective Jew,” Netanyahu said.

“Today people with opposing political agendas can nevertheless find themselves united in hatred for Israel and the Jewish people. The neo-Nazi, the ultra-left revolutionary, the Islamist militant might agree about nothing else, but they all do share a common hatred towards us and that hate is awash across the internet,” he added.
France’s Anti-Islamist Crackdown Continues After Schoolteacher Is Beheaded in Paris
Tablet’s correspondent attended the Sunday Paris demonstration in the central Republique square in solidarity with Paty, which appeared to show high levels of public support for Macron’s initiatives and the French values they are meant to protect. The demonstration was tens of thousands strong and militantly serious. Schoolteachers were out in force. Numerous people waved their copies of Charlie Hebdo. The demonstrators represented a cross section of the population, and their placards were plaintive, generous, and occasionally witty.

Yet, perhaps because of exhaustion or built up trauma, the demonstration, which was very touching and somber in many ways, did not draw the millions who had attended previous demonstrations. As the second wave resurgence of the coronavirus has overwhelmed French hospitals and brought infection rates back up to unacceptable levels, mandatory nighttime curfews on free movement have been reimposed in various cities throughout France. Many Parisians have become visibly exhausted by the cycle of violence, and the somber atmosphere on the square showed it. Yet the single violent incident that Tablet’s correspondent observed involving an angry middle-aged French man left open the question of how bright the future for communal cooperation might actually be.

A dedicated band of Algerian democracy protesters that gathers with Algerian national flags and posters every Sunday shared the side of the square with the demonstration in honor and defense of Paty. Their stall was assaulted by a tall and rotund middle-aged French man, dressed in a working class sort of leather rocker outfit and bedecked with numerous steel rings. The French man threw the Algerian flag to the ground, showed the Algerians his middle finger, and began fighting with some of them. Upon barreling through the crowd and pushing me to the side he was himself pushed to the floor, with some of the Algerian men having to keep their enraged comrades from stomping his head into the sidewalk beneath the statue of Marianne. The gendarmes then twisted the troublemaker’s arms behind his back and dashed him against the side of a blue police van in an efficient display of concerted violence.

On Wednesday the French government sent an unmistakable message as Samuel Paty was posthumously awarded the Légion d’honneur.
MEMRI: Days After International Union Of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) Posts, On Its Website, Article By IUMS Secretary-General Claiming French Teacher's Beheading Was Staged By French Authorities, IUMS Removes It – Along With Articles Inciting Against President Macron
Over the past two days, reports and articles that included incitement following the October 16 beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty, as well as condemnations of French policy in response to Islamic terrorism, have been removed from the website of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). One of the articles that was removed was written by IUMS secretary-general Ali Al-Qaradaghi, who claimed in it that the murder had been staged by the French authorities and that "the real murderer is still alive." Al-Qaradaghi's article, as well as statements containing incitement he voiced following the attack, were identified, translated, and published by MEMRI on October 20.

The Doha-based IUMS has been supported since its founding by the Qatari regime and by Turkey. It was established in 2004 by Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi, who also headed it until late 2018. He is considered to be the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and has resided in Qatar and enjoyed the backing of its regime since the 1960s. The IUMS website has for years promoted extremist discourse, including incitement to jihad and terrorism and hatred of Jews and Christians.[1] It should be noted that there is a French version of the IUMS website, but that it is different from the Arabic website.

The following are examples of articles that the IUMS removed from its website:

In response to Paty's October 16 murder, IUMS Secretary General Al-Qaradaghi condemned it in a statement on the IUMS website. In the statement, Al-Qaradaghi also placed the blame for the murder on senior French officials and on the victim himself, underlining that a teacher's role is to "instill peace in the young, rather than incite them." Going even further, the same day he published an article on the website that included a conspiracy theory according to which the murder had been meticulously staged by the French authorities with the aim of linking Islam and terrorism, and that "the real murderer is still alive." (For more on Al-Qaradaghi's response to the beheading, see Secretary-General Of International Union of Muslim Scholars, 'Ali Al-Qaradaghi, Resumes Jihadi Incitement: Claims Murder Of French Teacher Was Staged By French Authorities And Real Killer Is Still Alive.)

Two days later, the IUMS removed Al-Qaradaghi's conspiracy article from the website, along with other articles condemning French President Macron's stated intention to eradicate extremist Islamism in France.

On October 21, 2020, Al-Qaradaghi published a statement of clarification and denial, stating that he "condemns the incident and does not cast any doubts on it."[2] However, it should be noted that the article still appears on Al-Qaradaghi's Facebook account.[3]
I’m a Jewish UoB student and I’m sick of worrying about professor David Miller
David Miller is a sociology professor at the University of Bristol and for the past year and a half he has taken up far too much of my attention.

You might have come across him – his comments on Zionism and the Labour party, and the controversy that followed, are covered in the national press. He appeared at events alongside outcast former Labour MP Chris Williamson, and has also claimed the White Helmets were responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.

Since last January he has been brought up in roughly every other JSOC (Jewish society) committee meeting. Why? Because some Jewish students have been feeling intimidated by what he’s been teaching for months.

He’s accused Keir Starmer of receiving ‘Zionist money’ Miller has a history of controversial comments about Israel and Zionism. In 2018, at UCL, he argued that accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour party are “mostly false”. Yet according to a 2017 YouGov survey, 80+ per cent of British Jews believe the Labour party tolerated anti-Semitism. At the same event he claimed the reaction of some Jewish students was a result of “propaganda which they have been schooled with”.

In June, Miller accused Keir Starmer of receiving “Zionist money” and resigned from the Labour party because of the “Zionist movement”. The idea that Jews or Zionists are using their money to manipulate politics is a trope as old as time. Miller says he is “simply describing the facts” and that a donor to Starmer’s campaign, Trevor Chinn, is “arguably, de facto one of the most senior officers in the UK Zionist movement”.

Theories he uses in lectures leave some Jewish students feeling uncomfortable His lectures in his “Harms of the Powerful” module have made some Jewish students feel increasingly uncomfortable and unwelcome in his classroom.

A Jewish student in his class, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: “I was one of the only Jewish students in David Miller’s class. Honestly it was scary because he is a teacher so people believed the anti-Semitism he was spreading. I was scared because I am one voice and felt I couldn’t stand up to him or tell him what he was saying was wrong.”
Jewish Students at U. Illinois File Education Department Complaint Over Campus Anti-Semitism
Jewish students at the University of Illinois filed a formal complaint with the Department of Education alleging "an unrelenting campaign of anti-Semitic harassment" on campus, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The complaint, filed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring discrimination at institutions receiving federal funding, alleges that University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) officials systematically swept multiple instances of campus anti-Semitism under the rug. "Despite repeatedly being placed on notice of the developing hostile environment on UIUC’s campus, the UIUC administration has failed to take the measures necessary to provide Jewish and pro-Israel students with a discrimination-free academic setting," the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which is helping to handle the case, said in a statement.

During the past several years, Jewish students at UIUC have come under attack from pro-Palestinian activists, far-left student groups, and white supremacists. Swastikas have been painted across the campus and Jewish ritual items, such as menorahs and mezuzahs, have been vandalized. The campus’s Jewish fraternity houses also have been subject to attacks, including having bricks thrown through their windows. The complaint was filed seven months ago, but made public on Friday due to the school’s alleged refusal to address the matter.

The landmark complaint with the Education Department is the latest attempt by American Jewish students to ensure their safety on campus. Jewish students across the nation are increasingly under attack from liberal activists who oppose their support for Israel and belief in a Jewish homeland. Anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses have hit historic levels in recent years. Much of this activism has been tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged by professors intolerant of pro-Israel voices.
Roger Waters Calls BBC ‘Completely Corrupt’ for Ignoring Pitch of Documentary Denying Labour Antisemitism Problems
Ex-Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters claimed the BBC was “completely corrupt” for failing to respond to his proposal to make a documentary to counterargue claims of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.

The musician and vehement anti-Israel activist attacked the British public broadcaster during an online panel discussion last week — hosted by anti-Zionist author and American-Israeli activist Miko Peled — that focused on defending Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Waters referenced a July 2019 documentary by the “Panorama” program, screened by BBC1, that examined antisemitism in the Labour Party, charging it “was a shocking put-up job that just floated away on the clouds of rubbish that come out of the Ministry of Truth never to be seen again.”

“We can’t live with the disgusting nature of the deceit — the BBC having become completely corrupt,” he added, before saying, “I wrote to the BBC and suggested we make another ‘Panorama’ program showing the other side of the argument about alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party. They didn’t even answer.”
Chomsky, Waters, Demand Banning Canadian Jewish Schools’ Salute to IDF Events, Calling Them ‘Recruitment’
An open letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, Ken Loach, former MP Jim Manly, poet El Jones, author Yann Martel, and more than 170 Canadians, was delivered this week to Canadian Justice Minister David Lametti asking him to investigate recruitment taking place in Canada for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The authors of the open letter also launched a formal legal complaint with the Justice Minister, since it’s a crime in Canada to recruit anyone for a foreign military. Advertisement

A website close to the petition and the complaint listed the offenses carried out by Jewish schools in Canada in violation of the country’s Foreign Enlistment Act.

Netivot HaTorah Day School last January posted on its Facebook page that its “donut day” initiative raised more than $750 for Gar’in Chayalim, a program that supports IDF lone soldiers.”
Bialik Hebrew Day School states on its website: “Tzedakah programs such as Shai Le’chayal help students feel a sense of responsibility to the Israeli community by sending gifts to Israeli soldiers. Similarly, having the opportunity to interact with IDF [entertainment] Band soldiers, who visit to perform for the school, reinforces these feelings.”
The Toronto Heschel School invited the IDF Nachal Band to play there last September.
Families affiliated with the Leo Baeck Day School hosted Israeli teens for a year before they enlisted in the IDF. When they returned to Israel, they engaged with students over Skype.
Leo Baeck students also pay tribute to Israel’s fallen heroes and fundraise for Beit Halochem Canada/Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel.
The IDF Orchestra performed in several Canadian Jewish schools.
Leo Baeck’s alumni magazine advertised the Judy Shaviv Memorial Fund “Keren Yad Yehudit” which assists graduates to spend time in Israel in the IDF, in study programs, or as volunteers. The high school celebrates its graduates who have served in the IDF, inviting them to share their experiences with the students.
The Israeli Consulate General in Toronto in May 2019 sent IDF Colonel Barak Hiram to speak to high school students, telling them about “being a new recruit and a seasoned commander in the Golani Brigade.”
Some of the Jewish high school teachers’ biographies state that they served in the Israeli military.
Bnei Akiva honors alumni who served in the IDF on its website.


Sounds like nothing short of those Central African children’s armies doesn’t it…
Former CAIR Employee, SJP President Running for Florida City Commissioner
A former leader of a campus anti-Israel group and employee of an organization that was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror case is running for a seat on the Coral Springs City Commission in Florida.

Noor Fawzy, a civil litigation attorney at statewide law firm Conroy Simberg who previously worked at the Broward County Attorney’s Office, has a history that includes being president of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Florida Atlantic University in 2012, where she graduated the following year, according to her LinkedIn page.

From June to August 2015, she served as a legal intern at the office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Sunrise, Fla., according to LinkedIn. CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case that proved connections to the US-designated terrorist group Hamas and other radical Islamic entities.

In 2012, when Hamas launched rockets from Gaza into Israel, Fawzy posted on Facebook, “Israeli warmongers justify their operations on the basis of ensuring safety and security for their citizens. During the Gaza Massacre (2008-2009), resistance fighters hit areas farther and farther into Israel proper. It saw a record in the number of Palestinians wishing to fight on behalf of its Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades. Its support increased, and its international legitimacy was enhanced.”

“Now, the resistance has targeted even farther areas, including Tel Aviv and Occupied al-Quds, for the first time in 20-30 years,” she continued. “This is unprecedented.”


Cuomo’s Claims about Hasidic Wedding Deserve Scrutiny
As for logistics, the synagogue in question could never hold a crowd of 10,000, as Satmar leader Rabbi Moshe Dovid Niederman explained to Cuomo during a Sunday call, published in the Orthodox daily Hamodia. The hosting congregation even published a statement explaining that “this wedding was designed differently,” because of COVID-19. So, only “a small circle of close family members” were expected to attend the ceremony and celebratory meal. The statement also noted that “unwarranted attacks on this event” were “detached from the facts” before remarking, “It’s sad that nobody verified our plans before attacking us.”

Americans Against Antisemitism founder Dov Hikind considered that statement credible. During a call, he asked rhetorically, “Are the Satmar so out of their minds that they’re planning a wedding with 10,000 or even 1,000, and TV cameras would’ve been down there? It would have been a disaster.”

Another nagging question remains: Why didn’t Cuomo just call Satmar leaders? On Sunday’s call, Cuomo described knowing Rabbi Niederman for “over 20 years.” Given that, Cuomo could easily have buzzed Niederman to fact-check. Hikind commented, “Why didn’t the governor pick up the phone before making it into a national story? That’s being sensitive? That’s not being a friend.” A friend would inquire directly. Further, if anything in the original wedding plans didn’t fully comply with state health guidelines, a friend would offer private guidance on how to remedy shortcomings.

Cuomo’s response to Niederman during Sunday’s call truly stands out, though: “In this crazy world, everything gets blown out of proportion. And you’re right, the press comes to me, they ask me a question, with an asserted fact in it. ‘There is a wedding that’s gonna have 10,000 people, how can you let that happen?’ They assert the fact, and then it’s hard to say to the reporter, ‘Well, I don’t know if you, if that’s true or not.’ And I understand that things are said.”

But Cuomo clearly accepted the premise of a large wedding taking place, and his words have had consequences. Reporters descended on Williamsburg on Monday, something locals did not appreciate. Further, harassment and anti-Semitic graffiti continue apace for New York’s Orthodox Jews, as does the cementing of the dangerous narrative that Orthodox Jews deserve unique blame for COVID-19’s spread.

If New York is to conquer COVID-19, there must be universal compliance with public-health guidelines. However, public officials must simultaneously demonstrate true leadership. In Governor Cuomo’s case, that includes ending his recent, troubling pattern of singling out New York’s Orthodox Jewish community. Perhaps he could start by publicly taking responsibility for the response that launched a thousand nasty news stories.


Why Is Radio-Canada Promoting an Anti-Israel Art Exhibit?
To that end, the RCI report includes a reference to a news release from M.A.I (Montreal, arts interculturels) that states:

This exhibition is a response to the ongoing violation of Palestinian human rights with the continued sieges on Gaza, the shooting of peaceful protestors, night raids and the arrest of thousands of Palestinians including over two hundred children and women. Live in Palestine seems particularly crucial at this moment as Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ sponsors Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank, in defiance of International and Humanitarian Law.”

There was no context about Israel’s perspective on these many issues and no balance is featured in this RCI report. On the issue of the security barrier, what is referred to in this report as a “wall,” no mention was made that it’s in place to prevent Palestinian terror that has killed over 1,000 Israelis, injuring hundreds more and that its implementation has seen a drastic reduction in terror attacks by 90%, Israel says. With respect to Palestinian prisoners, no mention was made that Israel considers these individuals to be terrorists or they were incarcerated for their role in supporting acts of terror and/or for being security threats. Israel says they are not “political prisoners” and this report leads you to that false conclusion. Lastly, with respect to the now postponed Israeli plan to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria (west bank), Israel claims it’s within its rights under international law, citing its historical, legal and ancestral claims to the lands, along with pressing security concerns. The U.S. now supports the Israeli position that Israel’s presence in these areas is not “illegal” and do not violate international law.

The article also links and drives traffic to the M.A.I exhibit and the Arts and Resistance blog.

In a complaint sent to senior editors at Radio-Canada International, we conveyed our concerns that this isn’t a news article in any sense, it’s really just a promotional piece of this anti-Israel “art” exhibit without any context and consideration for Israel’s perspective on these many controversial issues.

Accordingly, we respectfully requested that corrective action be immediately undertaken by RCI to set the record straight.

We await RCI’s response to our complaint. Stay tuned to this page for any future updates.
CAMERA Prompts NY Times Correction on Flotilla Raid
After CAMERA’s communication with editors, the New York Times corrected a recent story about an al Qaida financier that had misrepresented the violence on board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a 2010 flotilla to the Gaza Strip.

The story initially stated that in 2010, the al Qaida operative “was a student activist in Australia who was shot when Israeli naval commandos killed nine activists on a ship that was carrying aid to Gaza.”

The suggestion that Israel arbitrarily killed activists seeking to deliver aid is egregiously misleading. The Mavi Marmara was not carrying aid for Gaza. And while other ships in the flotilla did carry aid, a UN report questioned the “true nature and objectives of the flotilla organizers.”

No less important is that the flotilla was seeking to breach a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. That blockade was a “legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law,” the UN report found. The Mavi Marmara ignored several warnings and demands that the vessel turn back, and when Israeli forces boarded the ship, they faced “organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers,” the UN report explained. Three Israeli soldiers were captured, and several were injured in the violence.

In short, the passengers on the Mavi Marmara weren’t killed because they were charity workers. They weren’t killed because they were part of a flotilla delivering aid. They weren’t even killed because, as the UN report put it, they “acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.” Instead, they were killed during a frenzied battle, in which they initiated the violence. The Times story ignored all of this. To refer to the death of the passengers without mentioning their violent attacks is to flagrantly mislead readers.
Telegraph clarifies settler violence 'statistic' is just a Palestinian claim
We pointed out to editors that, based on our research, this 400 figure was merely an unsubstantiated (and, as we demonsrated in our post, highly dubious) claim by a Palestinian activist, and not based on any actual source.

Editors upheld our complaint and amended the sentence to make it clear that the number only represents a claim:

After some claims of 400 incidents in Kisan and the surrounding area, the villagers say they have had enough and installed a camera system that can monitor clashes with the settlers and hopefully provide evidence for prosecutors.

As we often remind journalists and editors, the Accuracy clause of the Editors’ Code requires that media outlets “distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact”.
Wartime Dutch Couple Who Saved Jewish Boy From Nazis Honored by Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial
An Australian school teacher on Thursday collected a “Righteous Among the Nations” award from Israel’s national Holocaust memorial on behalf of her Dutch grandparents, who protected a two-year-old Jewish child from the Nazis by passing him off as their own.

Ingrid Bradford — a teacher from the Australian city of Brisbane — received the award in a virtual ceremony on Thursday evening hosted by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Bradford’s late grandparents — Klaasje van der Haar and her husband Jacob — cared for the infant boy, Joseph Gokkes, alongside their own children for more than three years in the Dutch city of Hoogeveen.

Following the defeat of the Nazis, Joseph was safely reunited with his parents, Gila and Benjamin.

Also participating in the ceremony were the daughter of Joseph Gokkes, Inbal, and her mother, Shifra, who live in Israel.

Bradford said that the family had been overwhelmed by the recognition of their grandparents’ heroism.
Newly-Developed Jerusalem Convention Center to Be Named After Shimon Peres
Jerusalem’s International Convention Center (Binyenei HaUma) at the entrance to the city will be renamed in memory of the late Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, who died four years ago at the age of 93. His last political position was as the ninth president of the Jewish state, serving from 2007-2014.

The commemoration received the blessing of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and chairman of the Jewish National Fund Danny Atar.

JNF is expected to take ownership of the site as part of its redevelopment, together with the Jerusalem Municipality. The management of each organization, as well as the board of directors of the International Convention Center, approved the decision.

The convention center, which was inaugurated in 1956 near the government building complex in Givat Ram, is expected to become the largest and most advanced conference center in the Middle East in the coming years, covering an area of 55,000 square meters.

Additionally, a new business center will be built on the site with nine skyscrapers and another 15 10-story buildings—a project estimated to add 60,000 new jobs in the city of Jerusalem.

The construction of the entire project, expected to take place over the next decade, is estimated at $530 million.



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