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Monday, January 18, 2021

01/18 Links Pt2: David Collier: Academia – the epicentre of global antisemitism; Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy alive in Israel

From Ian:

David Collier: Academia – the epicentre of global antisemitism
The epicentre of global antisemitic activity is – astonishingly – academia. Anti-Zionist, antisemitic academics beget more anti-Zionist, antisemitic academics, all scratching each other’s backs and agreeing with each other.

It is almost impossible to follow a research path on the subject of Israel unless you have spent several years mentored by an Islamist, a Marxist or someone who claims Palestinian heritage. If you show potential as a professional anti-Israel propagandist, or agree to research an area that they choose for your study – your fees may all be covered. Once holding your PhD, you join a club whose members praise each other’s books, sign off each other’s grants – and block access to anything and anyone that does not fit the anti-Israel profile. As a group you actively seek to silence dissent. Hey – you even get to co-sign letters to the Guardian. It is a self-protecting global factory that churns out activists who hold PhDs and who all hate Israel. This isn’t academia, it is taxpayer-funded, Islamist-sponsored, antisemitic, propaganda. This propaganda is the central pillar upon which western antisemitic, anti-Zionism is supported.

In opposition to this, we must stop spending our time putting out fires and begin to address why these fires keep starting and where the fuel for them is all coming from.

Jews on campus – a type of ‘dhimmitude’
Jewish people today on campus can be tolerated, protected or abused. At no point are they treated as equals. The best they can hope for is protection and tolerance in a hostile environment. It is reminiscent of dhimmitude under Islamic rule. On the campus the prevailing wisdom is that their beliefs in Jewish identity are fundamentally wrong.

The Woke doctrine of ‘systemic racism’ holds that Jews are ’white’ and that they are guilty of establishing the ‘settler colonial’ state of Israel. Post-colonial, post-modernist, Marxist thought dominates the universities in which they are ‘permitted’ to study, and they will be tolerated provided that they ‘behave’. In these halls Zionism is a dirty word which is equated with racism.

Jewish students can wave their flags in secret rooms but must not do it where it can provoke. They are offered the protection of being allowed to be wrong within a superior system of thought – or in other words they are second class students. If they are abused, it is far less serious than an offence against someone from the Muslim, BAME or LGBTQ communities. If an academic is responsible for the abuse (see Bristol, Leeds, Warwick) it is the academic who will be protected and the complaining Jewish student who will be victimised – even if the student can prove abuse. Academics fiercely resist the protection for Jewish students that the government is trying to implement. Jewish students that bow down before their masters will be given special favours and status. The best analogy I can find is Dhimmitude.

It has got so bad that there are some universities which are virtually Judenfrei. Why would an openly pro-Israel Jewish student want to go to a University where they will be vilified by other students and victimised by lecturers? What an indictment of the failure to deal with the problem that Jewish students choose a University not by the course content or the quality of teaching – but by the extent of antisemitism that they will encounter.
Guardian anti-Israel editorial evokes antisemitism
On Sunday, the Guardian (via their sister site, the Observer) published an article on a King’s College/YouGov poll – commissioned by Campaign Against Antisemitism – on the attitudes of British Jews, which found that “90% believe that media bias against Israel fuels persecution of Jews in Britain”.

On that same day, the Guardian published an official editorial on the recent B’Tselem report they’ve been promoting which not only accused Israel of apartheid, but characterised it as a “Jewish supremacist” state. Though their coverage up until today uncritically quoted B’Tselem’s “Jewish supremacism” charge, and included an op-ed by the NGO’s director which used that term, this editorial used that term in their own editorial voice:
Israel has a problem of historic discrimination. But under Benjamin Netanyahu’s government there has been the enactment of the nation state law that constitutionally enshrines Jewish supremacy and a plan to formally annex parts of the West Bank.

First, let’s be clear. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Israel’s prime minister, or even the nation state law. Though we’ve refuted Guardian charges that the law enshrines discrimination, our concern is with their editors’ use of a term which suggests the state is intrinsically racist, and which has a clear antisemitic history.

We contacted Community Security Trust (CST), who provided us with the following statement about the use of the term by the Guardian and B’Tselem:
“The meaning and impact of language can vary considerably depending on who is using it, the audience that is hearing or reading it, and the context in which it lands. For this reason, whatever B’Tselem’s intended meaning in Israel regarding the phrase “Jewish supremacy”, they ought to have been cognisant that this phrase has a long-standing antisemitic usage outside Israel, and journalists in the UK, writing for primarily non-Jewish audiences, should be even more mindful of the danger of such wording.”

The danger British Jews feel about such wording, per the CAA poll which the Guardian reported on, is that it demonises not only Israeli specifically, and Zionism more broadly in a manner that’s arguably antisemitic per the IHRA definition, but vilifies Jews qua Jews – insofar as most are (correctly) identified as Zionists.

We’ve complained to the Guardian, and asked that they remove that antisemitic term from their editorial.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy alive in Israel
On Monday, the US marks Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday with a national holiday. Celebrated this year on January 18, the event comes less than two weeks after historic violence on Capitol Hill, the symbol of American democracy.

King was only 39 years old in 1968 when an assassin’s bullet ended his life in Memphis, Tennessee, but his legacy as a proponent of nonviolent conflict resolution lives on.

This year, though, a different spirit – one directly affected by the attack on the home of the US legislative bodies – adds a variant to King’s heritage.

“I have also been thinking a lot this past week about Rev. Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Washington, DC, at the [National] Mall, in front of hundreds of thousands of Americans in August 1963, in which he envisioned freedom for all Americans and called for an end to racism,” Rabbi Ron Kronish, the founding director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, told The Media Line.

“How relevant this is today when racism is once again tearing America apart, as we witnessed so dramatically during the insurrection incited by US President Donald Trump last week on January 6, at the same place, in America’s capital city,” stated Kronish.

What are the ramifications of these events for Israel and the Middle East?


Sixth Anniversary of Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s Murder Revives Call for Justice for AMIA Bombing Victims
The main community center serving Argentina’s Jews on Monday called for “truth” and “justice” to prevail in the case of Alberto Nisman, on the sixth anniversary of the federal prosecutor’s assassination.

In a statement released to Argentine media, the AMIA center demanded “complete clarification” of the circumstances of Nisman’s death on Jan. 18, 2015.

Nisman spent ten years as the head of the investigation into the bombing of the AMIA building in an Iranian-backed terror operation on July 18, 1994, which killed 85 people and wounded over 300. His body was discovered in his Buenos Aires apartment just hours before he was due to formally unveil a legal complaint against former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Nisman charged that Kirchner and and several of her colleagues had conspired with the Tehran regime to block efforts to extradite the Iranian suspects behind the AMIA atrocity.

“Six years after [Nisman’s] death, our institution reiterates the urgent need for the judicial process to act quickly and impartially in the face of a tragic event that shocked the entire society,” the AMIA statement declared.

The statement emphasized that Nisman’s murder was “directly related” to his work investigating the AMIA bombing.

Often described as the 86th victim of the AMIA bombing, Nisman’s death was falsely depicted as a suicide by Kirchner and her allies for two years. A report by the Gendarmeria, a federal security agency, in 2017 concluded that Nisman had been shot dead in his bathroom by intruders.
HRC Prompts CBC On-Air Correction of Palestinian Vaccine Lie
HRC has been working round the clock to hold CBC accountable for adopting the canard that Israel denied Palestinians the COVID-19 vaccine. As we’ve consistently argued, this antisemitic trope and dog whistle lacked credibility and shouldn’t be appropriated by our public broadcaster.

On January 11, we alerted you to how CBC Radio’s The World This Weekend had broadcast a lengthy segment the day prior about how the anti-Israel NGO, Amnesty International, had parroted this accusation against Israel, accusing the Jewish state of denying Palestinians the COVID vaccine.

The CBC’s anchor interviewed Saleh Hegazi, Amnesty International’s Middle East Deputy Director, who claimed Israel is an “occupying power” of Gaza and the west bank and that Israel is engaging in “institutionalized discrimination on Palestinians.”

Importantly, no rebuttal was featured by a pro-Israel source, nor was context featured which explains that under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the healthcare of Palestinians. This report stood in violation of the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices as it was unfair and lacked balance.

HonestReporting Canada conveyed our concerns directly to the CBC, who, to its credit, swiftly acknowledged that the report did not meet the CBC’s standards for accuracy and fairness. Accordingly, the following unprecedented 1:15 on-air correction was broadcast today on CBC Radio’s World This Weekend program:
Conspiracies, Jews, and the Jewish State
Age-old anti-Semitic rhetoric has been refashioned to masquerade as a political critique of the state of Israel. The Corona conspiracy is only the latest retelling of the same historic blood libel. Since the beginning of time, false accusations of planting and spreading disease, plagues, and pandemics have targeted Jews. These blood libels rained death and destruction upon European Jewish communities from Paris to Prague and from Rome to Riga. The Iranian regime, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority have used adaptations of Nazi propaganda to fuel the latest anti-Semitic crusade against Israel. Soviet propaganda has also been retrofitted for the digital age. Jew-hatred masquerading as a political critique has also crashed onto the shores of the united states in Europe. Anti-Semites of all stripes continue to libel the Jewish state with equally slanderous false accusations of ethnic cleansing, genocide, apartheid, illegal occupation, and crimes against humanity.




NGOs slandering IDF, maligning Israel banned from lecturing in schools
Education Minister Yoav Gallant issued an order on Sunday banning groups that slander the military and IDF soldiers and call Israel an "apartheid state" from giving talks in schools.

The move came in response to a planned talk by B'Tselem CEO Hagai El-Ad at the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa on Monday. Last week, the controversial NGO launched a campaign accusing Israel of being an "apartheid state."

In response, Gallant instructed to bar the entry of such groups that "contradict the goals of the education system, including calling Israel false disparaging names, opposing Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state, discouraging meaningful service in the IDF, or acting to harm or degrade IDF soldiers during or after their service.

"We will not allow organizations that call Israel an 'apartheid state' to lecture to students who are about to enlist in the military," he stated.

In 2018, the Knesset passed a law that authorized the education minister to bar groups that "act against the goals of education and against the IDF" from entering schools.

Matan Peleg, CEO of the right-wing watchdog group Im Tirtzu, welcomed the Education Minister's decision.

"This is a correct and much-needed decision," said Peleg. "It is unclear why the school planned to host a radical group like B'Tselem that makes a living by slandering Israel and promoting international pressure against it. This disgraceful organization has no place in the education system. This is a victory for common sense."
Kurdish 'Jewish' leader Mamsani exposed as an imposter
Some five years ago, the Jewish press began reporting on the activities of Sherzad Mamsani, who claimed to represent some 450 'Jewish' families in Kurdistan when all had been airlifted to Israel in 1950. Point of No Return has always had its suspicions about Sherzad Mamsani's 'Jewish' identity. Now Times of Israel blogger Levi Clancy has exposed Mamsani as one of three imposters, who saw that there was money and influence to be gained if they posed as Jews. The one area Clancy does not investigate is whether Mamsani was an Iranian agent, and any part he might have played in the abduction of Mawlud Afand, the editor of the Israel-Kurd magazine in 2012.

For several years, the Kurdish Jewish leadership in Israel has tried to build constructively on their historic ties with the Kurdistan Region, but has been obstructed by a small group of impostors who rightly saw the actual Kurdish Jews as a challenge to their scheme. The impostors were led by publicity-seeking figures such as Sherzad Omar Mahmoud and Ranjdar Abdulrahman (under the aliases “Sherzad Mamsani” and “Ranj Cohen”), as well as Sherko Othman. These men pleaded in the media for visa cards and visa stamps — for themselves and their clients — under the false pretense of being forgotten and dispossessed Jews.

The fabricated Jewish past of Sherzad Omar Mahmoud, a.k.a. “Sherzad Mamsani”: Sherzad insisted that he was born Jewish, but at different times claimed three entirely different backstories: in one version, he had Jewish parents who raised the family as Jews; in another, he had Jewish parents who raised the family as Muslims; and in yet another, he had two Muslim parents, but with unsubstantiated Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side.
Unverified claims and Assad propaganda in BBC News Syria strikes report
On January 13th a report headlined “Syria war: Suspected Israeli strikes on Iran-linked targets ‘kill dozens’” appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page.

One notable aspect of that report is its presentation of the context to the story: after nearly a decade of conflict in Syria, the BBC is still unwilling to provide audiences with factual information about Iran’s build-up of forces – including proxy militias – in that country in its own words.

“Israel has accused its enemy [Iran] of building up a force inside Syria and using the country to smuggle advanced weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops to Syria and to have armed, trained and financed thousands of Shia Muslim militiamen – from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen – to support forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in the nine-year Syrian civil war.”

The BBC’s account of what happened in those “suspected Israeli strikes” relies primarily – as usual – on a source based in the UK.

“…the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 Syrian soldiers and 43 allied militiamen were killed. […]

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict in Syria through a network of sources on the ground, reported that 18 Israeli strikes had targeted military storage facilities and a base on the outskirts of Deir al-Zour, military installations in Albu Kamal, and warehouses outside Mayadin.

At least 57 people were killed, including 14 Syrian soldiers, 16 Iraqi fighters and 11 Afghans, and many others were wounded, the group said.

Forces linked to Hezbollah and the Fatemiyoun Brigade, an Afghan Shia militia, operated in the areas that were attacked, it added.”

The commander of the Fatemiyoun Brigade later denied that any of his men had been killed.


NPR Misleads on Vaccines for Palestinian Prisoners
A Jan. 14 article by National Public Radio’s Daniel Estrin grossly misleads, falsely suggesting that Israel withheld the coronavirus vaccine from Palestinian prisoners even as other prisoners received the jab. In fact, Amir Ohana, Israel’s Minister of Public Security had previously called for a ban on vaccines for all prisoners, and on Thursday Health Minister Yuli Edelstein overruled him, making clear that all prisoners in Israeli jails — Palestinian and Israeli alike — will start to receive the vaccines. Thus, all along, Palestinian prisoners have been in the exact same position as other prisoners with respect to access to the vaccine.

The headline deceives, singling out Palestinian prisoners: “Israel to start vaccinating Palestinian prisoners next week.” The correct headline would be: “Israel to start vaccinating prisoners next week,” or “Israel to start vaccinating Israeli and Palestinian prisoners next week.”

As Daniel Estrin himself confirmed on Twitter, “. . . Israel Prison Services says no prisoner, Israeli or Palestinian, has yet been vaccinated. They say they’re starting with prison staff and awaiting instructions from public security minister @AmirOhana.” Why then does the headline refer to the start of vaccinations only for Palestinian prisoners?

Similarly, the article’s first sentence egregiously misleads that that Health Minister Edelstein made an announcement Thursday promising vaccines for Palestinian prisoners starting Sunday, when in fact he was referring to all prisoner. Estrin wrote:
Israel’s health minister announced Thursday the country would vaccinate Palestinian prisoners against COVID-19, after Israel’s president said withholding vaccines was against Israel’s Jewish and democratic values.

In fact, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein’s announcement did not apply just to Palestinians. As Times of Israel reported (“Health Minister: Israeli, Palestinian prisoners to start vaccinating next week“):
Success: AP Updates Article to Provide Balance Over Israel ‘Apartheid’ Claim
To its credit, the AP responded by adding the following three paragraphs to its original piece, thereby providing readers with a more balanced picture of the story:

Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, says the fact that the Palestinians have their own government makes any talk of apartheid “inapplicable,” calling the B’Tselem report “shockingly weak, dishonest and misleading.”

Palestinian leaders agreed to the current territorial divisions in the Oslo accords in the 1990s, and the Palestinian Authority is recognized as a state by dozens of nations. That, Kontorovich says, is a far cry from the territories designated for Black South Africans under apartheid — known as bantustans — to which many Palestinians compare the areas governed by the PA.

Kontorovich said the use of the word “apartheid” was instead aimed at demonizing Israel in a way that “resonates with racial sensitivities and debates in America and the West.”

By uncritically portraying B’Tselem as a leading proponent of human rights, some media outlets have effectively facilitated the hijacking of the word apartheid by anti-Israeli activists whose goal is to foster doubt about the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

But because AP stories are reprinted in many other publications, its update appeared in the Washington Post, ABC News, the LA Times and many others.

We commend the AP for incorporating into its article another voice to ensure that all interpretations of a complex issue are heard.
Jewish Groups, Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Pay Tribute to Raoul Wallenberg
Jewish groups, political leaders, and descendants of Holocaust survivors paid tribute on Sunday to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, on the anniversary of his disappearance.

Wallenberg, who with Oskar Schindler is one of the most well-known “righteous among the nations,” was a Swedish diplomat posted to Budapest. In 1944, he began issuing diplomatic papers to thousands of Jews who were threatened with deportation to Auschwitz and other death camps, saving their lives. Famously, Wallenberg once leapt onto the roof of a deportation train filled with Jews and began handing passes to those inside.

On January 17, 1945, after Hungary was taken by the Red Army, Wallenberg was arrested by Soviet intelligence and disappeared. Rumors of his fate have swirled for decades, with most believing that he died in a Soviet prison sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. He was officially declared dead in 2016.

The American Jewish Committee paid tribute to the diplomat, stating, “76 years after his disappearance, we honor ‘Swedish Schindler’ Raoul Wallenberg, a hero who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary.”

“May his bravery forever be remembered and serve as an inspiration for generations to come,” they said.
Mein Kampf academic edition published in Poland as ‘homage to victims’
An academic edition of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is being published in Poland this week for the first time, with its editor responding to critics by calling it “a homage to the victims.”

Hitler’s inflammatory tract has rarely been published even after rights to the book, which first came out in 1925, entered the public domain in 2016.

“According to the critics, the publication of this book is an offense to the victims of Nazism. In my view, it is the opposite,” said Eugeniusz Krol, a historian who has been preparing the Polish-language edition for the past three years.

Pirate copies or abridged versions of Hitler’s blueprint for the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust have circulated in Poland for years. In 2005, the government of Bavaria in Germany which held the rights at the time, requested the seizure of copies of one such version in Poland.

But Krol told AFP that this annotated Polish-language edition, which runs to 1,000 pages in total, would act as “a historical source in a wider context.”

The book, which will be published on Wednesday, will be only the second annotated edition of “Mein Kampf” — after a German one that came out in 2016.
Zoom bombers shout ‘Jews in the ovens’ at online Holocaust book launch in Italy
“Zoom bombers” in Italy crashed the online launch of a book about the Holocaust and shouted anti-Semitic abuse, including “Jews, we’ll burn you in ovens.”

The Jan. 10 incident on the videoconferencing platform came during the presentation of a book titled “The Generation of the Desert” by Lia Tagliacozzo, a Jewish author who was born to Holocaust survivors, La Republica reported.

“A group of organized people entered en masse the Zoom meeting of the presentation, while my mother was talking,” one of Tagliacozzo’s children, Sara, wrote.

“They started shouting ‘Jews in the ovens, the Nazis are back, we will burn you all, you must all die,’ and they had Hitler portraits and swastikas as their personal photos.”

The Zoom bombing phenomenon became increasingly common in 2020, as many in-person encounters were replaced with online events due to emergency measures connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the Zoom bombers are anti-Semitic groups that target Jewish events.

In July, a virtual prayer session that included several Dallas-area synagogues was Zoom bombed by intruders shouting “Kill all Jews, bomb Israel.” In March, a synagogue in Connecticut reported being Zoom bombed with anti-Semitic messages during their Shabbat services.
Buchenwald Memorial Warns Visitors Sledding on Mass Graves at Site of Former Concentration Camp
The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation on Thursday asked visitors to respect the site of the former concentration camp in Germany by not engaging in winter sports at the memorial, after some were seen sledding on its mass graves.

“For the winter time, we ask visitors to the memorial to behave in a manner that is appropriate to the dignity of the place,” the foundation said in a German-language statement in its website. “We cannot tolerate violations of the visitor regulations at this location. In particular, we will report cases of disturbances to the peace of the dead due to winter sports activities near the grave complex. We ask for your understanding.”

The director of the foundation, Jens-Christian Wagner, told the German news website Der Spiegel that “masses” of visitors visited Buchenwald and the former subcamp Mittelbau-Dora in eastern Germany last weekend, and most of them came to have fun in the snow, Agence France-Presse reported. “Some of the sledge tracks ended at the mass graves,” he said, adding that “as time passes, historical sensitivity is fading.”

Buchenwald historian Rikola-Gunnar Lรผttgenau told the BBC that while sporting activities are already banned at the site, “last weekend it was used heavily, many sledge tracks were found on the graves, and the car park was full.”

“Now because of the pandemic winter sports facilities are closed in Thuringia [region], so they are using the memorial,” he said, also noting that disturbing the peace of the dead is an offense punishable by a fine in Germany. “Unfortunately more and more people have been disrespecting the place, horse-riding or riding motorbikes in the woods.”
Israeli chef Assaf Granit awarded Michelin star for Paris restaurant Shabour
Israeli chef Assaf Granit’s Shabour restaurant in Paris received its first Michelin star on Monday as the guide announced its annual pick of the top eateries in France.

The guide praised Shabour for featuring Granit’s “creative cuisine” as well as his “trademark features” of an “unbridled atmosphere, rough and ready decoration.”

Granit, who is co-owner of a number of restaurants including Jerusalem’s famous Machneyuda and London’s award-winning The Palomar, told the Ynet news site that he was overwhelmed by the announcement.

“This isn’t normal. I can’t get over it. It’s great,” Granit said. “For me the biggest thing here is that four Israeli partners from Jerusalem decided to open a restaurant in Paris and did it with their money and their vision.”

Granit also said that the Michelin awards had adapted over the years and remained relevant, even as dining expectations changed.

“The guide wisely kept up to date with the world. The guide realized that excellent meals do not have to be in lavish palaces with tablecloths and waiters. Impeccable experiences can come in all sorts of places,” Granit said.
Blind man regains sight thanks to Israeli startup's synthetic cornea
A 78-year-old man who has been blind in both eyes for 10 years has regained his sight after receiving the first implant of an artificial cornea developed by Israeli startup CorNeat, the company announced Monday.

The CorNeat KPro implant is designed to replace deformed, scarred or opacified corneas, and it integrates with the eye wall with no reliance on donor tissue.

Professor Irit Bahar, head of the Ophthalmology Department at Rabin Medical Center (formerly Beilinson Hospital) in Petah Tikva, performed the procedure.

Once the bandages were removed, the patient was able to recognize family members and read text.

"The surgical procedure was straightforward and the result exceeded all of our expectations. The moment we took off the bandages was emotional and significant. Moments like these are the fulfillment of our calling as doctors. We are proud of being at the forefront of this exciting and meaningful project which will undoubtedly impact the lives of millions," Bahar said.



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