Pages

▼

Saturday, May 22, 2021

05/22 Links: The New Furies of the Oldest Hatred; Fantasies of Israel’s Disappearance; Liberals can't be silent as the left incites anti-Semitism

From Ian:

Peter Savodnik: The New Furies of the Oldest Hatred
Take a good look at who is speaking out against Jew-hate. And who is staying silent.

Let us dispense with the fiction, once and for all, that hating the Jewish homeland, which contains the largest Jewish community on Earth, is different from hating Jews.

It has been exceedingly difficult in our blinkered, hyper-secularized present, so removed from the primal animosities of not so long ago, to conceive of a world in which tens or hundreds of millions of people who have never visited Israel or never met a Jew want Jews dead. We’ve been blinded by the oceanic success of life under the Pax Americana. We think this is how people are.

This is not how people are. This is a wondrous aberration. There were 2,000 years of ghettos, blood libels and pogroms, of dehumanization and second-class citizenship that culminated with the Shoah. For the past several decades — a sneeze in the span of Jewish history — we American Jews have been maundering through the happy, mournful echoes of the recent past.

That recent past meant that we weren’t shocked to see this violence from the Europeans, who have never stopped hating Jews, but who had been forced, by the camps, to camouflage their Jew hate in their criticism of Israel, their obsession with it.

But America?

We were not steeped in the Old World hatreds. We were deeply flawed — who wasn’t? — but our flaws were always in conflict with our identity. One of the many problems with antisemitism, like Jim Crow, was that it made a mockery of our ideals, which made it impossible to hold onto the old bigotries forever. One had to reject Jew-hate and support the Jewish right to self-determination for the same reason one had to dismantle literacy laws that limited voting rights: It was central to the American weltanschauung. It was part of our animating ethic. The progress was glacial and uneven but inexorable. It was America becoming more American.

We were supposed to have transcended the old blood-and-soil stupidities. But they can’t be transcended. That was a beautiful myth, a myth that was fundamental to our idea of ourselves. But we are losing ourselves.
BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY: Eyeless in Gaza
Hamas has no clear objective that might be the subject of a dialogue and eventual compromise.

More precisely—because “objective” can be translated in two ways in Carl von Clausewitz’s language—it has no Ziel (a concrete, rational aim about which the antagonists could negotiate during and after a ceasefire), but it does have a Zweck (that is, one strategic objective, which is the reaffirmation of its utter merciless hate and intended annihilation, spelled out in its charter, of the “Zionist entity.”

I ask myself another simple question, as should others, whenever thousands of demonstrators take to the streets in Paris, London, or Berlin “to defend Palestine.”

Is it the death of Palestinian civilians that bothers them? If so, it is hard to understand why they are silent when it is Palestinians who are pursuing, tormenting, gunning down, assassinating, or using artillery to attack other Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel or Fatah.

Are they concerned with human rights, everywhere and under all circumstances? Then one wonders why, without going all the way back to the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda or the massacres of Muslims in Bosnia and Darfur, we hear nothing from the protesters in defense of the Uyghurs being “cleansed” by the Chinese dictatorship, the Rohingyas being “displaced” by the Burmese junta, or the Nigerian Christians being exterminated by Boko Haram and Islamist Fulanis. We hear nothing about the violations of human rights being committed on a grand scale in Afghanistan, Somalia, Burundi, and the Nuba Mountains, places I’ve visited and know well and where it’s not hundreds, but thousands, and even tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians who are dying from conflict, some at a simmer, some at a boil.

Are the demonstrators outraged by the indifference of a complicit West that allows a Muslim city to be bombed? If so, why didn’t they spill into the streets to show their solidarity with the Kurds of Kirkuk, assaulted in October 2017 by planes financed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards? Or with the Kurds of Rojava bombarded by Erdogan in 2018 and 2019? Where were they when Syrian cities were barraged by the planes of dictator Bashar Assad, supported by those of Vladimir Putin, with a savagery seldom seen.

No.

However you look at it, there are crowds of people in France, the United States, and Great Britain who are not truly interested in human rights, forgotten wars, or even the Palestinians. They simply seize the opportunity to demonstrate only when it enables them to kill two birds with one stone and chant “down with Israel” or “death to the Jews.”
Fantasies of Israel’s Disappearance
As Munayyer sees it, the Hamas-initiated Gaza war represents the Palestinian goal of “breaking free from the shackles of Israel’s system of oppression.” These “shackles” include “the impending expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.” The only problem (ignored by Munayyer) is that these homes are not theirs; in 2008 the Israel Supreme Court affirmed that the property is owned by the Sephardi Jewish community, which purchased it more than a century ago.

Grounded in this false claim, Munayyer writes: “Palestinians across the land who identified with the experience of being dispossessed by Israel rose up, together.” In translation, Palestinians were justified in pursuing their false claim of property ownership with waves of violence in Jerusalem and a cascade of rockets from Gaza. Palestinian defiance, especially in Gaza where Arabs are “caged and besieged,” exposed the “ugliness” of Israeli rule. The only problem is that Israel does not rule Gaza; Hamas does, and bears full responsibility for launching waves of rockets — against Israel.

Munayyer seems to favor the (preposterous) goal of “equal rights in a single state if the two-state solution fails.” But the two-state solution has failed because Palestinians have repeatedly rejected it, preferring the disappearance of Israel, by war if necessary. The alternative, for Munayyer, is another fantasy: “equal rights in a single state.” That would only require Israel to relinquish its identity as the Jewish state that it is, and always will be — a state, he fails to notice, where twenty per cent of its population are Arab citizens.

But even a two-state “paradigm,” Munayyer suggests, is “dead.” Why? Because, predictably, “Israel buried it under settlements long ago.” In the end Munayyer is the perfect New York Times advocate for the disappearance of the world’s only Jewish state. Not coincidentally, it located in the Biblical homeland of the Jewish people.


The truth about Hamas
It’s also odd for American lawmakers to ignore Hamas’s crimes against their own countrymen. Indeed, Hamas has killed at least 25 Americans in Israel since 1993. Some of these attacks were drive-by shootings on teenagers; others were suicide bombers who detonated their explosives in crowded buses and cafes. One was a car-ramming of a 3-month-old in Jerusalem in 2014.

President Joe Biden got it right, at least for most of this recent conflict. As the fighting dragged on, he pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wrap up Israeli operations. But to his credit, for more than a week, he let the Israelis defend themselves as they saw fit. It was a green light to fight terrorism.

This should not be surprising. Biden as a senator helped spearhead the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, which prohibits American assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it is “effectively controlled by Hamas.” In other words, he understood the deadly nature of Hamas when he was a legislator and sought to deprive it of American aid.

Of course, this raises questions as to why Biden appears so eager to return to the horrendously flawed 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. America’s role in that agreement will yield billions of dollars of sanctions relief to Tehran.

One can only hope that the White House reverses course. But if it doesn’t, Hamas will eventually benefit from Tehran’s financial windfall. Cash will flow to Gaza. This will enable the group to develop new ways to attack Israel during the next round of conflict.

Perhaps in the next round, we’ll see a new fleet of armed drones, or unmanned underwater vehicles — two weapons seen on this most recent battlefield. This would put Israel under threat, and the Middle East on tilt. Just as Iran likes it. Perhaps a few legislators like it that way, too.


America's Foreign Policy 'Experts' Are Projecting Their Own Failures Onto Jared Kushner
One again, the reign of peace process experts lead to spasms of violence.

When this happens, and then an interregnum of policy by people mocked by experts leads to four mostly quiet years, and then the return of the experts leads to a new round of violence, it's fair to ask if there might be a pattern and what might lie behind it. Instead, the smart commentary chose to pin the current failures, however implausibly, on Kushner himself. It brings to mind the repeated insistence in the 1990's after each suicide bombing and each Arafat pronouncement about jihad, that the Oslo framework was a good one and its Israeli critics were just opposed to peace.

Whether he was aware of it or not, Kushner's approach to peacemaking in the Middle East was based on three core assumptions: First, that there really was an Arab-Israeli conflict. Second, Israel largely won that conflict. And third, acknowledging this is not a bad thing.

The upshot of this was a regional diplomatic push on peace moves that could benefit all interested parties and an end to the pattern of incentivizing rejectionism by rewarding each new round of violence with better terms for the side that rejected peace, initiated war, and was defeated.

This didn't involve any new ideas in conflict resolution, but rather the application of standard diplomatic procedure that has been used in mediating international conflict in nearly every context for centuries—except, for some reason, conflicts involving the Jewish state.

Why that was treated as such a great departure from precedent and common sense by people smart enough to know better is a separate question. It certainly wasn't because their approach has brought anything remotely resembling better results.
Jonathan Tobin: Liberals can't be silent as the left incites anti-Semitism
The other is that many left-wing Jews are more ready to blame Israel for defending itself against terrorism—as thousands of missiles and rockets were launched from Gaza at Israeli civilians—than they are to focus on the lies being told about it being an apartheid state or an oppressor of innocent Palestinians. The acceptance by so many liberals of the illiberal ideas behind intersectionality, critical race theory and talk of “white privilege” associated with the Black Lives Matter movement has been readily applied to Israel.

So pervasive is the success of the calumnies hurled at Israel that many Jews are either willing to go along with them or are unwilling to connect the dots to those promoting these lies for political or ideological reasons. For many progressives, the rights of Jews to their ancient homeland—and even their right to defend themselves against terrorism and groups like Hamas dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state and the slaughter of its people—are readily erased in the name of solidarity with intersectional allies.

But when prominent figures in minority communities and much-admired politicians signal that Israel and its Jewish supporters are responsible for human-rights abuses and have commandeered American taxpayer dollars in order to finance such alleged crimes, what do you think will happen? How can anyone be surprised when some of those who listen to them are willing to act out their hatred for Jews?

That is why it is long past time for Jewish Democrats to not merely register polite disagreement with the left-wing activist base of their party and its standard-bearers—if they’re even prepared to do even that—but to call them out for their legitimization of anti-Semitism. They need to recognize that the ideologies underpinning the Black Lives Matter movement have given a permission slip not merely to theoretical anti-Semitic attitudes, but to real-life anti-Semitic violence. They need to realize that treating these radicals as allies is no longer acceptable. They must cut ties with them, just as they demand that conservatives have nothing to do with right-wing extremists. What’s more, they need to understand that if the lies of these Israel-haters are not merely answered but properly labeled as Jew-hatred, then we may well see an even greater surge in incidents that can no longer be ignored or minimized.
JPost Editorial: Israel still needs Biden's support after Gaza conflict - editorial
US President Joe Biden surprised many Israelis during the last two weeks with his steadfast support for Israel. While he consistently called for a deescalation, Biden was clear and unequivocal about Israel’s basic right to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks.

During Operation Guardian of the Walls, he articulated consistent support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the barrage of missiles coming from a terrorist organization bent on destroying it, and swam against a rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment among progressives and selected cultural icons, such as John Oliver, whose 10-minute diatribe against Israel on his popular Last Week Tonight television show went viral on social media.

Within his own party Biden came under pressure not just from members of the so-called “Squad” like Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) or Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) who called for America to stop military support to Israel, but also from mainstream Democrats who were urging a reassessment of US ties with the Jewish state.

“It’s just simply a fact that there was never this kind of pressure vocally from the Left on issues related to Israel during the Obama years,” Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration, told NPR.

When Biden took office in January, there were parts of the Israeli establishment and particularly within Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party who were concerned of a return to the Obama years, which included calls for freezes on settlement construction, a return to the pre-1967 borders culminating in the refusal to veto UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which blasted Israeli settlement activity as lacking any legal validity, in the last weeks of Obama’s presidency.

So far though that has not happened. What also didn’t happen was the imposition of extreme pressure on Israel during the operation to reach a ceasefire. While Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for an end to hostilities, there are ways to lay on the pressure and that didn’t happen.
RONNA MCDANIEL: Republicans stand with Israel. Can Biden and Democrats say the same?
When you consider the anti-Israel, antisemitic rhetoric from Biden’s Democrat Party, his refusal to lead here becomes less surprising. In recent years, the Democrats have elevated antisemites Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib as leading faces of their party. Omar has accused Israel of “hypnotizing the world,” alleged that Jews buy influence with money, and submitted a resolution to the US House comparing boycotting Israel to boycotting the Nazis. Her rabid antisemitism earned her The Jerusalem Post’s 2019 “antisemite of the year” award, as well as a full-throated endorsement from notorious white supremacist David Duke.

Tlaib, for her part, once posted a tweet promoting Hamas’s slogan “from the River to the Sea.” This earned multiple rebukes from antisemitism watchdog organizations. Just days ago, she spoke to and affirmed a group of protesters chanting that very same slogan. That is unrepentant behavior, and it speaks to her true disregard for the Jewish state’s right to survive.

These are some of the leading voices in Biden’s party, key figures on the far-left wing who drive so much of his radical policy. His own vice president, Kamala Harris, joined a long list of 2020 Democrats in boycotting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference last year, a break from longstanding bipartisan support for AIPAC’s mission. Well-known, leading Democrats like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are calling for America to withhold aid to Israel. Biden’s party is allowing antisemitism – implied and outright – to seep into its ranks, even as Hamas unleashes more violence against Jews.

By contrast, the Republican Party understands that our shared history, shared interests and deep bond with Israel compels us to support them at every turn. Despite what violent Hamas terrorists or antisemites might believe, Israel has a right to exist, and America must make clear we stand with our Israeli friends, especially when they are under attack. I urge Biden to stand up to the antisemitism in his party’s ranks and do the same.
David Singer: A strong Israeli Government can curb domestic Arab Jew-hatred
The display of unadulterated Jew-hatred shown by a large number of Israel’s Arab residents during the past week – provoking condemnatory retaliatory responses by a small, fringe number of Jewish individuals - can only be dealt with and eradicated by a strong Israeli Government.

Israel’s current caretaker Government headed by Likud’s leader - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - and Blue and White’s leader - Defence Minister Benny Gantz - has shown it is more than capable of dealing with its arch Jew-hating neighbour in Gaza - Hamas - which has fired more than 2000 rockets indiscriminately into Israel’s population centers in five days.

Yemina leader Naftali Bennett, Yisrael Beyteinu leader Avigdor Liberman and New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar now need to put aside their personal aversion towards Netanyahu by joining forces with Netanyahu’s current coalition parties to secure an overwhelming majority of 72 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.

Gantz’s party could also be invited to join - giving Israel’s next Government 80 seats.

Either outcome would enable Israel to introduce urgent laws to regain control of the streets and begin ending the real threats posed to the lives and property of Jews - who comprise 80% of Israel’s population - and Arabs - who make up the remaining 20%.

Burning synagogues, attacking Jews and mass demonstrations of support for Hamas witnessed over the past week in the mixed Arab-Jewish population cities of Lod and Ramle and on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem cannot be allowed to continue.

Any inadequacies in Israel’s existing laws to end the current Arab riots needs to be rectified.

Any support for Hamas, such as the pro-Hamas demonstration held in front of the Dome of the/ Rock on May 13, must be made illegal. Such demonstrations are inflammatory and clearly designed to incite violence. Those identified at such gatherings need to be identified, tracked down and jailed.

Any Israeli political party supporting Hamas must be banned.


Thousands of Jews and Arabs march in Tel Aviv for peace, coexistence
Thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening in a show of support for peace and coexistence between Jews and Arabs amid two long weeks of intense violent riots waging across the country.

Protesters also voiced support for the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect early Friday, calling on the government to take immediate action to end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and to reach peace with the Palestinians.

The mass march was organized by the "Standing Together" and "Breaking the Silence" movements. It left Rabin Square in Tel Aviv and made its way toward Habima Square.

Speakers included well-known Israeli novelist and left-wing activist David Grossman, author ʻAwdah Bishārāt, Joint List leader Ayman Odeh and MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz).

"I hear politicians and security officials speak about another round of fighting in a few months or years, while being blind to the 7 million Palestinians living between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea," Odeh said. "There are two peoples living here and both deserve the right for self-determination."

"These past few days have shown us how life in this country can look like - a nightmare," Zandberg added. "We don't want to start waiting for the next war, but to change direction toward peace - to live together in true partnership."
Avi Issacharoff: Why Hamas (most of all) and Netanyahu (for now) are the winners of this mini-war
After 11 days of bitter fighting between Hamas and Israel, with more than 230 Palestinians and 12 Israelis dead, hundreds injured and thousands of Gazans having lost their homes, Hamas and the Israeli government are returning almost precisely to where they were before the start of this round of conflict.

Israel from Friday will allow goods into the Gaza Strip, while Hamas will apparently impose the ceasefire, for now, on all the various terror groups. The era which began a decade ago, in which the government of Israel permits the transfer of funds and other concessions worth billions to ease Hamas’s rule, and in which Hamas in return keeps things calm between rounds of conflict, remains in place.

The only uncertain factor is how long this ceasefire will hold. And given the results of this mini-war, it seems unlikely it will last five months, never mind the five years some Israeli generals have said would represent a success.

While both sides can claim certain achievements and certain failures, the big winners are Hamas, in the medium term, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the short term.

Netanyahu for the simple reason that this round of conflict leaves him safely ensconced in the Prime Minister’s Residence on Balfour Street.

And Hamas because it is perceived in the Arab world and in the Palestinian sphere, though rather less when it comes to Gaza itself, as the regional victor.
UN Security Council urges ‘full adherence’ to Gaza ceasefire
The United Nations Security Council on Saturday called for “full adherence to the ceasefire” that ended the 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

After failing several times to pass a resolution on the conflict as it unfolded, Council members “welcomed the announcement of a ceasefire beginning May 21 and recognized the important role Egypt [and] other regional countries” played in it, while stressing “the immediate need for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, particularly in Gaza.”

It also “mourned the loss of civilian lives resulting from the violence.”

“The members of the Security Council stressed the urgency of the restoration of calm in full and reiterated the importance of achieving a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognized borders,” the resolution said.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry criticized the Council for not mentioning Hamas’s firing of rockets at Israeli population centers during the fighting.

“The full responsibility for the escalation is on the Hamas terror group, which chose to open rocket fire at Israel’s capital Jerusalem, the Gaza periphery and other Israeli cities,” a ministry statement said. It accused the Security Council of “ignoring” the over 4,000 rockets fired toward Israel during the 11 days of fighting.

“We expect the international community to condemn Hamas, disarm it and ensure the rehabilitation of the Strip while preventing the flow of money and weaponry for terror,” it continued.
How Hamas grew and upgraded its weapons arsenal to strike Israel
The Israeli military estimates that before the current round of fighting, Hamas had an arsenal of 7,000 rockets of varying ranges that can cover nearly all of Israel, as well as 300 anti-tank and 100 anti-aircraft missiles. It also has acquired dozens of unmanned aerial vehicles and has an army of some 30,000 terrorists, including 400 naval commandos.

In this latest war, Hamas has unveiled new weapons like attack drones, unmanned submarine drones dispatched into the sea and an unguided rocket called “Ayyash” with a 250-kilometer (155-mile) range. Israel claims those new systems have been thwarted or failed to make direct strikes.

The Israeli military says Operation Guardian of the Walls has dealt a tough blow to Hamas’ weapons research, storage, and production facilities. But Israeli officials acknowledge they have been unable to halt the constant barrages of rocket fire.

Unlike guided missiles, the rockets are imprecise and the vast majority have been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. But by continuing to frustrate Israel’s superior firepower, Hamas may have made its main point.

“Hamas is not aiming for the military destruction of Israel. Ultimately, the rockets are meant to build leverage and rewrite the rules of the game,” Hinz said. “It’s psychological.”
Violent Attacks on American Jews Prove ‘Anti-Zionism’ Is Anti-Semitism
Note, these weren’t clashes between pro-Israel demonstrators and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. These were attacks by the latter on whatever Jews they could find. And they should prove the falsehood of the narrative that “anti-Zionism” is distinct from anti-Semitism.

What is consequential in the long term is the normalization of the sentiments that drive this hatred. If it’s not the Washington Post running op-eds arguing that “justice” and a Jewish homeland can’t co-exist, it’s the Obama Bros, who helped to transform the Democratic Party on the Israel issue, asking their millions of followers to donate to the Islamic Relief charity even after the Biden State Department cut ties to that organization for promoting anti-Semitism (the tweet making this appeal has since been deleted). The union at The New Yorker — once the most prestigious magazine of culture in America, with central importance to many American Jews — tweeted out “solidarity with Palestinians from the river to the sea,” the latter phrase a Hamas-inspired genocidal slogan the plain meaning of which is the elimination of Israel. (That tweet, too, was deleted and replaced with a revised one still expressing “solidarity” but, you know, sorry about that Hamas language.)

Perhaps The New Yorker union was inspired by Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), a member of the “Squad” and one of a contingent of Hamas supporters now vocally present in one of the major American political parties. One wishes the media gave the Squad’s recent House floor statements slandering the Jewish State a fraction of the attention they give the rantings of largely powerless white supremacists. The Squad gins up anti-Jewish anger by lying about U.S. aid to Israel, falsely (and ludicrously) alleging that Israel practices apartheid, lying about Israel’s counterterrorism efforts and the causes of the present conflict, and comparing Hamas’s openly anti-Semitic mission to the struggle of black Americans against police brutality. All this is going on as craven Democrats cower.

These are the same people, incidentally, who lobby the Biden administration to take it easy on the Chinese communists, a regime unleashing genuine widespread repression and ethnic cleansing on Muslim minorities. Tell me it’s not about Jews.

It’s not surprising that the intersectional ideas of the American progressive are now being transposed onto issues that have nothing to do with race. Then again, the hard Left has always — since Marx sounded off on “the Jewish question” — viewed Jewish identity as problematic. And since Israel’s founding, “anti-Zionist” terrorism and harassment — whether perpetrated by Palestinians, Soviet-backed Arab states, theocratic Arab states, the Iranian government, terror groups such as the German Baader-Meinhof Gang, or bands of leftists on college campuses — has targeted Jews as a whole, and not merely Israelis. This began long before Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister, long before Gaza was under the control of Hamas, and long before the West Bank was an “occupied territory.”

“Anti-Zionism” is the leading justification for violence against Jews in the world. But don’t be fooled. Rather than claiming that Jews are members of secret unpatriotic international cabals or accusing them of using the blood of Christian children to bake their bread, today’s anti-Semites accuse the Jewish State — which acts as any responsible nation would in protecting its citizens from terror — of existing for nefarious purposes.
‘Palestinians’ Assault Jews Across New York
The city saw instances of pro-Palestinian protesters seizing public commons in ominously anarchic fashion. A car with a Palestinian flag loudly drilled doughnuts into the residential street at the base of the Washington Square arch. “We are terrorists,” demonstrators hogging all of 13th Street proudly declared.

The most bizarre and alarming of this spate of incidents took place in Manhattan’s Diamond District on Thursday. Young men, perhaps inspired by a combination of anger at Israel and the example of Palestine supporters who drove around threatening to assault Jews in Golders Green in London, cruised the area, an iconic site of New York Jewish industriousness, to scream poison at whomever happened to be around. But mere harassment proved too passive an activity for some. Footage taken on a sidewalk showed a small incendiary device emitting billows of white smoke; later, a man was filmed curled up on the ground nearby. Media reports indicate that roving aggressors threw several commercially-purchased fireworks from a convoy of vehicles, burning a 55-year-old woman. Whether one would identify the weapon as a firework or a smoke bomb is semantic. It was a pyrotechnic with the ability to injure, and it was set off to spread chaos and fear in a place popularly associated with Jews.

The response from the city and its leadership has been neither muted nor all that loudly condemnatory. “Antisemitism has NO place in our city,” Mayor Bill de Blasio proclaimed. Leading mayoral candidates Eric Adams and Andrew Yang both tweeted their disapproval of the city’s dark turn, though, like the man they’re running to replace, they waited over 12 hours after Thursday night’s series of attacks before saying anything. The NYPD is investigating the second Times Square beating as a hate crime. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents close to a million New Yorkers in Congress, hasn’t spoken up yet, but she might get around to it as soon as she’s done attempting to cut off military assistance to Israel amid a bombardment by U.S.-designated terror groups.

Still, social reality is never the sum total of what a group of politicians are or are not willing to say or do at a given time. Perhaps the norms that protect Jewish and pro-Israel New Yorkers are eroding beyond any leader’s ability to stop it. Eroding how far? During the inevitable next Middle East flare-up, and probably even sooner than that, the city might be in for another series of hints at how bad things have really gotten. But no one should act too surprised.
Seth Frantzman: Militia-like pro-Palestinian gangs attack Jews across US, West - analysis
These types of militant groups, their dress, manner and actions, are common in Iraq, in Gaza and other places. They are properly called far-right style groups, either Islamists or Palestinian nationalists.

No investigation has begun to analyze why this conflict triggered, within days, similar systematic attacks on Jewish communities from Germany to the UK, Canada and the US.

In previous conflicts there have been large anti-Israel rallies. However, the use of car convoys, megaphones and groups of men seeking out Jews and beating them appears to support a pattern of coordinated methods as well as targeted hate violence.

It also appears that the coordinated attackers knew the location of large Jewish communities, systematically seeking them out in Montreal, Edmonton, New York, Los Angeles, London and places in Germany. The methodology appeared to be to “find the Jews, get the Jews in your local community.”

Who organized this and disseminated it across different communities thousands of kilometers apart is unclear. That it appears to be militia-style hate crime sectarian violence is clear.

These attacks were not about Israel. They were about ethnically cleansing the streets of England, Canada, the US and other countries of Jews and anyone who wears a kippah or works in a Jewish area or goes to synagogue.

Convoys of men waving flags calling out: “rape their daughters,” is what ISIS did in Iraq. The militia-style of ISIS, now under the Hamas banner, appears to have come to more western countries under the guise of pro-Palestinian activism.

There were no rallies like this in Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, India, Japan or many other non-western countries. This is something that happened mostly in English-speaking countries which claim to be tolerant, democratic and against hate, but harbored ISIS supporters. There have been no large protests against the attacks.
Israel Advocacy Movement: Jews attacked on the streets



Jewish man assaulted in Berlin in apparent antisemitic attack
Police in Germany said they are investigating a Jewish man’s report of being punched in the face and abused with antisemitic language while walking home in Berlin early Saturday.

A Berlin police news release said the 41-year-old man wearing a traditional skullcap, or kippa, passed three other men in Duerer Square at about 2:15 a.m. One of three punched him in the face, knocking him against a shop window, and added an antisemitic insult, the man told police when he reported the incident at a local precinct.

He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released. Police said the men have not been located.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel used her weekly video podcast on Saturday to condemn anti-Jewish statements heard at recent protests over the recent fighting between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in Gaza.

Merkel said that “whoever takes hatred of Jews to our streets places himself outside our constitutional order.”

She added: “Such acts must be punished severely.”

The head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany also condemned antisemitic chants during the protests.

German police made some 60 arrests last Saturday while some 100 officers were hurt as a pro-Palestinian rally in Berlin turned violent.
‘Thought I was going to die’: NY Jewish man details assault by pro-Palestine mob
A Jewish man who was badly beaten by a pro-Palestinian mob in New York City on Thursday has spoken out about the experience, saying he thought he was “going to die” during the attack.

New York police are conducting a hate crimes investigation into the attack.

Joseph Borgen, 29, was beaten by a group of people shouting antisemitic statements in the middle of the street as he was walking to a pro-Israel rally.

Borgen was wearing a kippa at the time. He was hospitalized, and a picture that has circulated on social media shows him in the hospital with a neck brace.

“I was surrounded by a whole crowd of people who proceeded to physically attack me, beat me, kick me, punch me, hit me with crutches, hit me with flag poles,” he told the Daily Mail on Friday after being released from hospital.

“I was literally just in a fetal position, trying to guard my head and face, literally just trying to make it out of their alive,” he said. “I thought I was going to die. I thought I was really going to die.”

Borgen said his attackers shouted things like “You filthy Jew. We’re going to fucking kill you. Go back to Israel. Hamas is going to kill you.”
‘Hope they kill more IDF and zionists’
AMID rising tensions on campus with anti-Israel sentiment spilling into virulent antisemitism, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) felt it had no choice but to cancel a Shavuot event for fear its members would not be safe.

The decision came as Jewish students across the country came under fire online, with groups such as “Monash StalkerSpace” – a Facebook discussion page created independently by students at Monash University – becoming a medium for people to post abusive comments and incite violence.

One Jewish student who finished at Monash last year, tried to defend Israel but was told “this isn’t your safe eruv Israeli friendly bubble so step by step waltz the f**k out of here w [with] your amoral, victim blaming attitude to systemised ethnic cleansing”, before another student continued, “All Zionists are bastards, report that you f**king gronk.”

The student, who doesn’t want his name published due to the fear of being attacked again, told The AJN, “I try to stay out of any conflicts but when Jewish students don’t feel safe to go to campus and don’t feel safe to express their opinion then that is where my issue is.”

Other messages directed at him included, “Hope they kill more IDF and zionists” and “A support for Israel is support for massacre, genocide, rape and displacement.”

The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) also saw a flood of antisemitic comments on their Facebook page, one reading “Is it okay for my friend to come along?” alongside a picture of Hitler, while another student added, “it’s such a shame he didn’t finish his job.”




Suspect Arrested in Attack on Jewish Man in New York’s Times Square
A man was arrested and several others were being sought in connection with an attack on a Jewish man in New York’s Times Square that drew the attention of several politicians and is being investigated as a hate crime, police said on Friday.

The attack on Thursday, captured in a video that was shared on social media, followed rival pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations in midtown Manhattan over the fighting in Gaza, which ended in a ceasefire hours later. The demonstrations resulted in 26 arrests.

The 29-year-old Jewish man was attacked a short time after the demonstrations and was taken to a hospital where he was in stable condition, Sergeant Jessica McRorie, a police spokeswoman, said. The victim’s name was not released.

“The victim was approached by a group of five or six males who knocked him to the ground, assaulted him while making antisemitic statements,” McRorie said by phone. “They punched, kicked, pepper-sprayed and hit him with some crutches during the assault.”

The man who was arrested was identified as Waseem Awawdeh, who police said used a crutch in the early evening assault. He faces charges of second-degree hate crime assault, a second-degree gang assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.


Apple Employees Demand Company Stand With Palestinian Muslims
A group of Muslim employees at Apple is pushing the tech giant to publicly condemn Israel's "illegal occupation" of the Gaza Strip following a recent spate of violence caused by the terrorist group Hamas.

In a letter to CEO Tim Cook, members of the Apple Muslim Association on Monday expressed their "sadness, anger, frustration, and disappointment" about "the struggle and pain of the Palestinian people, and their decades-long existence under military occupation." The letter calls on Apple to support the Palestinian cause, noting that the company "has led the way not only on products, but on human rights issues."

The employees, however, have yet to speak out about the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China, where Apple’s supply chain is largely located. Up to one million Uyghurs are imprisoned in "reeducation camps" in the western province of Xinjiang. A recent report found photo and documentary evidence that seven Apple suppliers use Uyghur forced labor to make iPhone parts.

More than 1,000 Apple employees have signed the letter, which boasts that Apple employees "reached out to support and will continue to support our Asian communities in the face of anti-Asian hate and attacks." The letter also notes that Apple employees "will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Black and Brown communities in their fight for justice and equity."

The signatories demand Apple not use the words "conflict" or "clash" to describe the fighting in Gaza, "as those words imply a power symmetry that simply does not exist." The letter similarly demands Apple refrain from commenting on "both sides" of the conflict in Gaza, "as doing so would feel to us as the equivalent of ‘all lives matter’—a minimization of the disproportionately larger pain and suffering of the Palestinian people."

Workers at other tech companies have also called on their employers to formally condemn Israel. On Wednesday, a group of "Jewish and allied" Google employees called on the company to formally terminate its contracts with the Israel Defense Forces.
NYC principal under fire for email imploring staff to support Palestinians
A Brooklyn middle school principal this week urged teachers and administrators to demand government sanctions against Israel — sparking outrage and a pending probe by the school system’s independent investigator, The Post has learned.

In an email sent amid the since-suspended fighting between Israel and Hamas terrorists, Principal Amanda Bueno told staffers at MS 136, “If you have been watching the news in absolute horror, you are not alone.”

“You can take action today by protesting, attending a vigil, making a public commitment to Palestinian Liberation, signing a petition, or calling your government officials to place sanctions on Isreal (sic),” she wrote Wednesday morning.

“The time is now to take a stand for those impacted by state-sanctioned violence and crimes against the humanity of the most vulnerable in our world.”

Bueno — who titled the email, “Day of Action in Solidarity with The Palestinian Uprising & General Strike” — also included a list of links.
GOP sticks up 'I stand with Israel' posters in AOC's hallway in message to 'Hamas Caucus' and Squad members who say the ceasefire is NOT enough
Republican lawmakers who share a hallway with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have placed 'Stand with Israel' posters outside their congressional offices in a bid to get the attention of the outspoken 'squad' member.

The posters, which went up before Israel and Hamas reached a cease fire Thursday, went up with the New York Democratic lawmaker in mind.

'Our allies, our most critical ally in the Middle East, Israel, is being attacked by Iranian-backed terrorists. launching rockets at Israeli civilians while hiding behind their own civilians,' said Rep. Michael Walz (R-Fla.) in a video he tweeted out May 14th.

He spoke as he slapped a 'Stand with Israel' poster outside his office.

'We stand with israel and i want everyone to know it. I'm putting up this sign today next to my congressional office. We're not going to let a couple of progressive left voices stand between us and our Israeli allies,' he said.

A GOP source told Fox News Waltz put up the sign 'to ensure that Ocasio-Cortez would see it every time she left her office to go vote.'

In comments to the neetwork, Waltz appeared to link his hallmate to a movement the U.S. government classifies as a terrorist group.

'It's absolutely astonishing that we have members of Congress attempting to equate Israel's right to defend itself to the terrorist attacks being orchestrated by Iran-backed Hamas,' he said. 'Americans need to hold firm in reminding our country that we stand with our strongest ally in the Middle East and remind the newly formed Hamas Caucus that these fringe views will not be accepted in Congress.'


Facebook REFUSES to remove advert linking Rep. Ilhan Omar to Hamas which her staff claims could lead to 'harassment and death threats'
Facebook is refusing to remove an advert from its social media platform which claims Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has links to Hamas.

Omar's office reached out to the company to inform them the message was incorrect, with fears if could incite people to make death threats towards the lawmaker.

The advert was made by a pro-Israeli lobbyist group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In one ad, Omar's face can be seen superimposed onto a scene of Hamas firing rockets towards Israel. The accompanying text reads: 'When Israel targets Hamas, Rep. Omar calls it an act of terrorism.'

The ad is a twist on a tweet made by the congresswoman in which she said that Israeli airstrikes that kill civilians in Gaza was an act of terrorism.


Police officer who shouted 'Free Palestine' at a protest is named as 20-year-old new recruit who joined the force just six months ago
A police constable who shouted 'Free Palestine' at a protest is named as a 20-year-old new recruit who joined the Met just six months ago.

PC Nusheen Jan raised her fist in the air and joined in with protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington, west London, last weekend.

Demonstrators were calling for 'immediate action' and an 'end to occupation' amid the ongoing conflict with Israel that has led to the deaths of hundreds of people.

It can now be revealed that the officer in question, PC Jan, had started with the Metropolitan Police's Roads and Transport Policing Command six months ago - after completing her three months of training.

The Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed and are investigating the full circumstances of this incident and to determine what further action is appropriate'.

A friend told The Sun: 'Nush has been upset by scenes from Gaza and the emotion caused her to do what she did.'

In footage taken at the protest last weekend, the policewoman is shown holding the hand of an activist having been handed a white rose.

PC Jan appears to say she is 'praying day and night' to Allah.
Erdogan’s Backing of Hamas Precludes Turkey’s Rapprochement With Israel
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a call in December for better ties with Israel.

“No surprise if Turkey-Israel relations normalize soon,” read the headline of a column in one of Turkey’s pro-government dailies last month. The author went as far as to claim, “it is safe to say that there is now no ‘conflict of interest’ between Turkey and Israel.”

That claim may have fallen on deaf ears in Jerusalem, given that Erdogan has been a vocal supporter of Hamas, and even publicly hosted designated terrorist leaders of the group at one of his presidential offices in Istanbul. Even so, Erdogan pursued his charade of outreach to the Jewish state, because the Turkish president is starved for allies in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The act continued right up until Hamas began to barrage Israeli cities with rocket fire. In late April, the government in Ankara invited Israel’s energy minister to attend its forum on innovative diplomacy, scheduled for June. Had the visit taken place, it would have been the most senior official contact in years between Israel and Turkey. Yet when the Jewish state began to launch retaliatory strikes against Hamas, the Turkish president rushed to slam Israel as a “terrorist state,” and uninvited the Israeli minister.
Palestinians Riot on Temple Mount After Friday Prayers
Fresh clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police broke out at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount compound on Friday, two weeks after unrest at the flashpoint site precipitated the latest round of rocket attacks on Israel by the Gaza-based terrorists of Hamas.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said “riots broke out” outside the Al-Aqsa mosque.

“Hundreds of people threw rocks and petrol bombs at police officers who responded at the scene and began dispersing the rioters,” Rosenfeld said in a statement.

“Police units (are) at the scene,” he added.

Days of unrest at Al-Aqsa during Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan led Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group that controls the Gaza, to demand Israeli forces vacate the compound by May 10.

Hamas then fired rockets at Jerusalem when the deadline expired, leading to the worst escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2014. It apparently came to a close after a ceasefire agreement went into effect Friday night.
PA mufti expelled from prayers at al-Aqsa for not supporting Hamas, Gaza
In an unprecedented move, Muslim worshipers on Friday expelled Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Mohammed Hussein from al-Aqsa Mosque and prevented him from completing his sermon.

The protesters shouted slogans in support of Hamas and denounced Hussein for his affiliation with the Palestinian Authority.

Hussein is considered the most senior representative of the PA at al-Aqsa Mosque compound. A resident of east Jerusalem who holds an Israeli-issued ID card, Hussein often appears next to PA President Mahmoud Abbas at public events.

The protesters accused Hussein of “ignoring” Hamas and the Gaza Strip and forced him to stop his sermon.

“We are the men of Mohammed Deif,” hundreds of angry worshipers shouted as bodyguards whisked the mufti away from the mosque.
Hamas warns Palestinians: Don’t talk about the sites targeted by Israel
Hamas on Saturday warned Palestinians not to talk about the sites that Israel targeted during the 11-days of fighting.

The warning, issued by the Hamas Internal Security Agency (ISA), called on Palestinians to “raise the level of security awareness.”

The ISA warned Palestinians against “the transmission of information and holding unnecessary conversations related to what happened during the [Israeli] aggression, especially about the places and sites that were targeted.”

The ISA claimed that Israel has stepped up its intelligence activities “to gather information about the resistance and its movements as part of an effort to update its bank of targets.”

The Hamas security agency also warned Palestinians against making statements to “suspicious parties impersonating relief or charitable institutions.”

Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said the warning was given in an attempt to hide the damage caused to its tunnels and weapons arsenals during the Israeli air strikes. The sources pointed out that the headquarters of the ISA were completely destroyed by Israel during the fighting.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad: 19 of our men killed by Israel
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization announced on Saturday that 19 of its members were killed during the 11-days of fighting between Israel and the Gaza-based terrorist groups.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry, meanwhile, announced that 243 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,900 injured during the fighting with Israel. It said that the victims included 66 children and 39 women.

It was not clear whether the figures included Hamas and PIJ members.

The PIJ’s military wing, al-Quds Brigades, said in a statement that its members were killed “while performing their Jihad (holy war) during the ‘Sword of Jerusalem’ battle.”

The group published the names of all the slain PIJ members. They include senior military operatives such as Husam Abu-Harbid, 37, commander of the northern Gaza Strip region, Sameh al-Mamlouk, 34, commander of the rocket unit in the northern Gaza Strip, and Mohammed Abu al-Ata, 30 and Kamal Qureiqi, 34, senior commanders of one of the group’s rocket unit in the Gaza Strip.

Photos of the slain PIJ members dressed in military uniform appeared in the statement published by the al-Quds Brigades.


6 killed by blast at pro-Palestinian rally in restive southwest Pakistan
At least six people were killed and another 14 wounded by a bomb at a pro-Palestinian rally in a Pakistani city bordering Afghanistan on Friday, officials said, the latest violence to hit the restive area.

“It was an improvised explosive device which went off as participants began to disperse,” said Tariq Mengal, a senior local administration official in Chaman, Balochistan province.

A second official confirmed the incident and toll.

Thousands of people rallied in support of the Palestinians across Pakistan Friday, hours after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and Hamas, the terror group which governs the Gaza Strip.

Demonstrators hold placards and shout slogans as they march in an anti-Israel protest rally in Islamabad on May 21, 2021. (Aamir QURESHI / AFP)

Friday’s blast comes just weeks after a suicide bombing in the provincial capital of Quetta struck a luxury hotel where the Chinese ambassador was being hosted.

That attack was later claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
Letter on Gaza Conflict Signed by Over 70 Harvard Faculty Decries ‘Denial’ of Palestinian ‘Right to Resist’
Over 70 Harvard faculty members signed a letter published Thursday affirming their “support for the Palestinian liberation struggle” and demanding that the United States “condemn Israeli state aggression.”

“As US-based scholars who oppose racism and colonial violence in all its forms,” the letter read, “we write to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination.”

The letter called Israel an apartheid regime fueled by American support, and lambasted the Jewish state for facilitating “right-wing extremist attacks on Palestinians” and “the military attack on Gaza.” It made no mention of the thousands of rockets fired by the Hamas terrorist group at civilians in Israel during the conflict.

It also alleged that Palestinians are “denied the right to resist,” arguing that “Palestinian resistance in all its forms is criminalized by Israel and the US.”

“Every measure of self-defense by a people without a state or an army against a nuclear power backed by the US is subject to immediate censure while Israel continues its violent aggressions with impunity,” the letter continued.

The letter was signed largely by members of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences, including ten affiliated with Harvard’s Department of African & African American Studies, 13 from the schools Anthropology Department, and 17 affiliated with the History and History of Science departments. Signatories included writer Teju Cole, composer Vijay Iyer, historian Walter Johnson, philosopher Susanna Siegel, and Evelynn M. Hammonds, an African American studies scholar and a former dean of Harvard College.
The AP’s Empty Gesture
The Associated Press on Thursday announced it had parted ways with Emily Wilder, a cub reporter whose anti-Semitic tweets were the subject of a Washington Free Beacon report published two days earlier.

Wilder's "cancellation" has become the latest cause célèbre of the navel-gazing Beltway media, who are using the incident to accuse the right in general, and the Free Beacon in particular, of supporting the "cancel culture" we typically decry.

"Imagine being the world's largest news organization and caving to the Washington Free Beacon," tweeted the former AP correspondent Jonathan Myerson Katz, who called the brouhaha an embarrassment for the AP.

Wilder herself weighed in Thursday in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle: "There's no question I was just canceled," she said. "This is exactly the issue with the rhetoric around ‘cancel culture.'"

The Free Beacon report chronicled Wilder's history as a left-wing campus activist and her derision of the late Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson as a "naked mole rat." No fans of cancel culture, we oppose her dismissal, which appears to have been a result of the wire service's sensitivity to charges of anti-Israel bias and unprofessional conduct in its ranks after news reports revealed that its Gaza bureau shared an office building with the Hamas terror organization.

Anti-Israel bias, political activism, and intemperate social media posts clearly do not disqualify one for work at the AP, so Wilder's dismissal is puzzling if it is seen as anything other than an organization looking for a quick fix to a public relations headache.
Music Magazine Continues to Prove It Can’t Keep Up in The Middle East
Bort informs readers in the first paragraph that the current fighting “has left more than 200 people dead, including dozens of Palestinian women and children.” What about Israeli women and children? Mr. Bort doesn’t see fit to tell us. He does mention much later in the article, that ten Israelis were killed, but doesn’t lead with it, and makes no mention of Israeli “women and children.” The Associated Press article that Bort relies on notes that there were “eight dead on the Israeli side, all but one of them civilians, including a 5-year-old.” But Bort ignores this.

Outrageously, Bort “reports” that “Republicans … remain largely united in their support of the bombardment of Gaza.” The current round of fighting began on May 10, when Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. Since then, nearly every part of Israel has been affected, with Hamas rockets fired from within civilian areas inside of Gaza, indiscriminately at Israeli cities and towns. Somehow, though, Bort believes that only Gaza is “bombarded,” and later in the article refers to “Israel’s aggression against Palestine” (again, it’s not a country).

In reporting Palestinian casualty figures again later in the article, Bort claims they come from the “Palestinian Ministry of Health,” ignoring that Gaza casualty figures are reported by Hamas’s own operatives. CNN, for example, has referred repeatedly to the “Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.” (The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has its own Ministry of Health.) He ignores, as well (as did the slide feature) that numerous Hamas rockets are misfiring and exploding inside of Gaza, and that it’s been documented that two of the Palestinian children killed, were killed by rockets launched from inside Gaza.

Though Rolling Stone editors are well-aware of the antisemitic statements made by the magazine’s former cover girl Representative Ilhan Omar, her position critical of current Israeli actions is cited with no mention of her past comments. (For example, in 2012 she tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel.”)

Nor is it true, as Bort claims, that “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a staunch Israel defender … has co-sponsored legislation that would make boycotting the nation over its oppression of Palestinians a felony.” The bill in question was clear that it would have provided only for fines for cooperating with boycotts imposed by international governmental organizations (i.e., the U.N.).*

Two years ago, I asked in an op-ed in the Algemeiner, “Is It Downhill From Here for ‘Rolling Stone’?” Since then, the publication has moved much of its news reporting behind a hard paywall. This week’s mess of coverage comes at a time when China, the location of its newest venture, is being criticized for its human rights policies in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. In addition, Rolling Stone has been under fire for, among other things, owner Jay Penske’s ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Ironically, some on social media have even called to “#BoycottRollingStone.”
Toronto Star’s Sponsored Advert Says “Palestinian Families & Children Are Being Killed. Why Is It So Quiet?”
HonestReporting Canada was appalled to see the Toronto Star create a sponsored post (advertisement) on Facebook with the inflammatory headline: “Palestinian families and children are being killed. Why is it so quiet?”

The Star used a commentary by Shenaz Kermalli that we critiqued this week which compared Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian terrorists and their infrastructure to Al Qaeda’s attacks on 911 that killed close to 3,000 people. As we said in our critique, this column was beyond the pale and fanned the flames of hatred.

In response to our complaint about Karmalli’s op-ed, the Star’s public editor, Bruce Campion-Smith, sent the following email this week to many HonestReporting Canada subscribers:
Good afternoon . . . thank you for the email and the feedback.
I note your concern with the column by Ms. Kermalli expressing her personal perspectives on the conflict, notably the 9/11 reference. I heard from many readers on this topic. I have made senior editors aware of the concerns expressed by you and others.
The Star strives to be fair to all sides. This week, the Star has published columns by Michael Levitt, Amira Elghawaby and Michael Coren offering their viewpoints.
I know the Star will endeavour to provide a diversity of viewpoints in the opinion columns selected for publication.
Bruce Campion-Smith
Public Editor
Toronto Star
TikTok Removes ‘Anti-Palestinian’ Content at Indonesia's Request
The information technology ministry of Indonesia said Friday that it asked social media platform TikTok to restrict content deemed insulting to Palestinians, and the request was granted, with several audio tracks removed from public circulation.

“TikTok has restricted audio so that it can no longer be used,” said ministry spokesman Dedy Permadi. “The audio content was categorized in its high-risk library so we should expect that it won’t come up again.”

Coconuts Jakarta called the news part of a “disturbing trend” on Indonesian TikTok over the past week during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which “young people are bashing Palestine and its people amid the ongoing crisis in the Middle-East.”

“This has resulted in the expulsion of a high school student in Bengkulu, as well as the arrest of a 23-year-old man in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) who now faces six years in prison under the Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE),” the article said, its tone suggesting the part of the story its authors found “disturbing” was the anti-Palestinian speech, not the censorship.

The 23-year-old who faces six years in prison is an unnamed janitor who posted a video calling for the “slaughter” of Palestinian “pigs.” The 16-year-old high school student was expelled for “posting a similar message.”
HRC Files Complaint With Globe About Errors Related To The Chronology of Israel’s Creation
HRC has communicated our concerns directly to the Globe and Mail about a May 15 article by Mark Mackinnon that was replete with errors.

To start, the sub-headline appropriated by Globe editors erroneously stated: “This weekend is the anniversary of the 1948 war that created Israel, and deadly violence in Gaza and beyond has underscored how far Israelis and Palestinians are from peace and mutual understanding”

Contrary to this statement, Israel was established on May 15, 1948 and after the announcement of the declaration of independence of the state of Israel, there was an invasion by five Arab armies seeking Israel’s destruction. The war didn’t create Israel, the creation of Israel as per the Partition Plan triggered a war of annihilation by the Arab world seeking the Jewish state’s destruction.


‘I’d Rather Die Than Be a … Jew’: Belgian Soccer Star in Shocking Chant After Team Wins National Title
Belgium was roiled in a controversy over antisemitism on Friday after video of a top soccer player leading supporters in singing an antisemitic song went viral.

Noa Lange, who plays for Club Brugge, was filmed in raucous scenes that followed his team winning the Belgian national title this season. Lange led overjoyed fans in chants of “I’d Rather Die Than Be a Sporting Jew” — a derogatory reference to Brugge’s rivals Anderlecht, who are often derided by hostile supporters as a “Jewish” club.

Yet despite a new mood to oppose racism in European soccer — with players in leagues across the continent symbolically taking a knee before games as an anti-racist gesture — Club Brugge’s management issued a statement firmly backing Lange and offering no apology for the antisemitic chant.

“Brugge supporters are called ‘nags,’ Mechelen supporters are called ‘bourges,’ Genk supporters are called ‘smurfs’ and supporters of RSC Anderlecht are called ‘Jews,'” a club statement declared.

“These are all nicknames that are adopted by the supporters of these teams,” the statement added. “There is absolutely nothing antisemitic about Noa Lange singing with our supporters on Thursday evening after we won the national title.”

If anyone was offended, this was unintentional, the club insisted. “Noa didn’t want to hurt or offend anyone in any way. The whole great family of Club Brugge now hopes to continue celebrating our title in a positive way,” it said.
AirBnB host kicks out renter because of association with Israel
Even though operation Guardian of the Walls looks to have ended after a ceasefire with Hamas went into effect, its effects on Jewish life abroad can still be felt.

One incident which exemplifies these effects can be seen in a tweet posted on Friday by Israeli/Australian Twitter user Jono Rose, who tried to find a place to stay in Iceland through Airbnb and encountered an unfortunate response from the apartment's owner, who sports the username Raghediur.

"In the news last days there has been a lot about Israel and their cruelity, even against children. What can you say about this? Do you expect that every door in Iceland will be open for you?" the response by the apartment owner read.

Rose turned to Airbnb's help center, which responded to his claim by saying that they do not tolerate discrimination.

Later, in a more detailed response, Airbnb said "We have reached out to Raghediur, informed them of the violation, issued a warning and advised them that any future violations of our nondiscrimination policy could lead to suspension or removal."
Marjorie Taylor Greene compares mask mandate to holocaust-era 'gold star'
US Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene received a fresh wave of backlash on Thursday from Jewish organizations after she compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to continue requiring mask-wearing on the chamber floor to the 'yellow badges,' or 'yellow stars' which the Nazi regime used to mark Jews during the Holocaust.

Greene - who has a long history of making racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic remarks, as well as supporting the antisemitic "QAnon" conspiracy theory - made the comments in a conversation with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody on Real America's Voice TV show "The Water Cooler."

"What is this, the honor system?" Pelosi told reporters in a clip which was shown to Greene immediately prior to her remarks. "The honor system? As to whether somebody has been vaccinated? Do you want them breathing in your face on the strength of their honor?"

"You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated as second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany," Greene said, responding to Pelosi's remarks in the video.


Bangladesh lifts ban on travel to Israel
Bangladesh has reportedly lifted its travel ban to Israel in an unexpected move welcomed by the Foreign Ministry's Deputy Director General for Asia and the Pacific Gilad Cohen on Saturday.

Passports for Bangladeshi citizens, up until now, have had a caveat written on the document stating that the document was valid in "all countries of the world, except Israel."

Despite having no formal diplomatic ties with Israel, Bangladesh's home affairs minister Asaduzzaman Khan confirmed to the Bangladesh-based the Weekly Blitz that newly issued passports will no longer explicitly single out Israel on official travel documents, opening up the possibility for Bangladeshi citizens to legally travel to the Jewish State upon renewal of their passports.

Bangladeshi citizens who have traveled to or attempted to travel to Israel in the past have been arrested and charged with high treason, or threatened with that fate if they ever stepped on Bangladeshi soil again.

This was the fate of journalist Salah Choudhury, the editor of the Weekly Blitz, who attempted to travel to Israel in 2003 to attend a writer's seminar in Tel Aviv. He was subsequently imprisoned and charged with treason, sedition and blasphemy.
Holocaust survivor Roman Kent who negotiated billions in restitution, dies at 92
Roman Kent, a Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz survivor who would negotiate with the postwar German government for billions of dollars in compensation for Jewish Holocaust survivors, died Friday at his home in New York City. He was 92.

Kent, who immigrated to the United States in 1946, was a longtime board member of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, where he served variously as treasurer, co-chair of its negotiating committee and special adviser to its president.

In those roles, said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, Kent negotiated billions of dollars in pensions and compensation for Jewish survivors from the German government and championed survivor interests with insurance companies, German industry and Eastern European governments.

Just last year, Kent recorded a video as part of a campaign to demand that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg remove Holocaust denial content from his entire social media network.

“Roman made himself available for every cause that we put in front of him, tirelessly giving of his time and energy,” said Gideon Taylor, the Claims Conference president, in a statement. “He will be remembered as an unwavering force of good will and an undeniable advocate for the global Jewish community.”

Kent also served as the chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants; as president of the International Auschwitz Committee; and also as president of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which assists non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.







at