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Thursday, June 24, 2021

06/24 Links Pt2: Why the West loves the Palestinian narrative; Biden Admin Walks Back U.S. Recognition of Golan Heights; Google Sanctions Use of Anti-Semitic Slogan

From Ian:

Underdog appeal: Why the West loves the Palestinian narrative
The pile-on of the left against the Jewish state has with little doubt been fueled by the end of the apartheid era in South Africa in 1994. For self-styled progressives of the Left, always in want of a cause, Israel-Palestine was a no-brainer; in fact, it was there waiting. The verbal artifacts of this period, specifically “racism,” “apartheid” and “colonialism” were ready-made and easily adapted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by leftist ideologues. These have been joined with additional charges of “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” “murder of children” and “genocide” in creating the image of a society that is the epitome of evil.

The impunity with which these baseless and fallacious allegations have been leveled is facilitated by the fading significance of the Holocaust. Ironically, though, Holocaust inversion rhetoric, i.e. what the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews are now doing to the Palestinians, is also employed in the malicious campaign to defame Israel. Israelis are today’s Nazis.

The ability of otherwise well-meaning people to buy into this narrative and to look the other way at, if not actually applaud, the incessant bombardment of civilian Israeli communities, requires on their part a powerful selective filtering of reality. The throngs of pro-Palestinian Western marchers and protesters see past the terrorist organization’s war crimes and focus only on the unfortunate non-combatant residents of Gaza, who themselves are victims of Hamas.

It is like those who only saw Bonnie and Clyde as a daring young couple standing up to a corrupt justice system. This is only possible for people who view the perceived underdog and social justice as synonymous; no more need be known nor asked. The underdog is blameless. That is the bite of the underdog.

What can Israel do? In the short term there is nothing Israel can do to alter the equation in its favor. Israel is now Goliath, the Palestinians are David. That image is accepted by most of the world. But if Israel continues to advance diplomatic relations with her Muslim neighbors, it is reasonable that they would concede the need for the Palestinians to also recognize Israel’s legitimacy and negotiate a mutually acceptable settlement. Diplomatic and even economic pressure from Arab countries at peace with Israel could serve as catalyst for positive change among the Palestinian leadership and within Palestinian society. If we are fortunate enough to arrive at that stage, the hateful rhetoric and deceitful imagery that is today the Palestinian narrative will simply lose relevance. The underdog will have wandered off.
Biden Admin Walks Back U.S. Recognition of Golan Heights as Israeli Territory
The Biden administration is walking back the United States' historic recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the contested Golan Heights region along Israel's northern border, a significant blow to the Jewish state and one of the Trump administration's signature foreign policy decisions.

The Trump administration declared the territory—seized by Israel from Syria in 1967 and later annexed by the country—to be wholly part of the Jewish state in 2019. Then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo took a trip to the area in 2020 and reaffirmed that America formally abandoned a decades-long policy of considering the area occupied.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken first raised questions about the Biden administration's view on the matter in February, when he would not say if his State Department continues to abide by the former administration's decision. At the time, Blinken would only say the Golan Heights "remains of real importance to Israel's security," but that its formal status remains unclear. Pressed on the issue by the Washington Free Beacon, a State Department official said the territory belongs to no one and control could change depending on the region's ever-shifting dynamics.

The shift in policy is already causing outrage among Republican lawmakers who backed the Trump administration's decision and hoped to see it continue. It is also likely to rankle Israeli leaders of all political stripes, the plurality of whom say the Golan Heights is absolutely vital to Israel's security in light of persistent threats from the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon and other militant forces stationed in war-torn Syria.

"The secretary was clear that, as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel's security," a State Department official told the Free Beacon. "As long as [Bashar al-Assad] is in power in Syria, as long as Iran is present in Syria, militia groups backed by Iran, the Assad regime itself—all of these pose a significant security threat to Israel, and as a practical matter, the control of the Golan remains of real importance to Israel's security."

Recognizing Israel's control as a "practical matter," however, falls far short of the formal policy change ordered by the Trump administration, which became the first government to recognize Israel's complete control over the territory. As it stands now, U.S. policy on the matter is unclear, at best.
Meghan McCain Presses Bernie Sanders On Anti-Israel Rhetoric Of The Progressive ‘Squad’
Meghan McCain called out Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during an episode of “The View” over his relationship with controversial progressive members of the Democratic Party.

“You are the Godfather of ‘The Squad.’ You’re a hyper-progressive socialist, and you’re talking about social justice before it was cool,” McCain said. “But it feels like the squad today has moved even to the Left of you. How is it for you to stand by everything AOC, Rashida Talib, and Ilhan Omar have said and done, particularly when it comes to Israel and talking about ‘From the river to the sea’ and the extermination of Israel, as a right to exist? Or do you think the movement, which you started, has moved away from what you envisioned?”

Sanders responded, “Well Meghan, first of all, I don’t believe that’s what they’re saying, and second of all, it’s not my job to have to defend every member of Congress, any more than it is their job to defend every statement that I make.”

The senator went on to discuss his work on a budget, as well as efforts to rebuild infrastructure and create good jobs, citing policy initiatives that varied from taxes to child care.

“I think the … progressives in the House are doing a very good job standing up for working families,” Sanders said. “It’s not my job to comment on everything that any member of the House says, any more [than] it is for them to comment on what I say.”




Book review: Confronting radicals - what America can learn from Israel
The United States of America is in serious trouble, says David Rubin, and can solve its problems by learning from the experiences of Israel and the Jewish people.

That, in a nutshell, is the thesis of Confronting Radicals: What America Can Learn From Israel, a plain-speaking, hard-hitting guide analyzing America of 2021 and what Rubin calls its “radical leftist revolution.”

The Brooklyn-born Rubin, who made aliyah some 29 years ago, has not given up on America and says that the country’s destiny can be corrected. On the contrary, he writes, “I remain a proud dual citizen.”

“My hope,” writes Rubin in the book’s introduction, “is that by studying the recent events in the United States and comparing them to the Israeli/Jewish experience, my beloved country of birth will discover some of the necessary solutions to meet the challenges, and will succeed in preventing the radical revolution that wants to transform America from a beacon of light for a declining Judeo-Christian civilization to a confused, intolerant caricature of a Socialist Utopia that has never existed.”

At the outset, Rubin summarizes the unique relationship between the Land of Israel, the Bible and the United States. Much of the early history of the United States, writes Rubin, was influenced by biblical and Hebraic roots. A basic knowledge of Hebrew was considered necessary for early American scholars, and Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787.

Rubin explains that the founding fathers, most of whom were Christians of deep faith, looked to biblical history for inspiration and guidance and frequently noticed parallels between Israel’s miraculous story and the making of the American nation.
Rhodes to Nowhere, Review of 'After the Fall' by Ben Rhodes
If Rhodes encountered a single individual during these travels who disagreed with him, he leaves no record of it. The same goes for criticism from his interlocutors about the policies of the administration he served. In his chapters on Russia, for instance, Rhodes manages to avoid any mention of the “reset” policy that was prelude to President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Conspicuously absent from the “international community of underdogs” Rhodes interviews are any Syrians, whom Obama abandoned to the tender mercies of Bashar al-Assad after refusing to enforce his own red line against the dictator’s use of chemical weapons against his own people. Rhodes makes up for this elision with a chapter that essentially argues the case for the Middle East’s “axis of Resistance” (comprising Iran and its proxies) and bashes America’s traditional Sunni Arab allies, who along with Israel opposed the administration’s ill-fated nuclear deal with Tehran.

The most unintentionally valuable parts of After the Fall are its anecdotes. Less than a year after Obama accepted a humiliating Russian offer to “remove” Syria’s chemical weapons, the president attended a summit of world leaders in France commemorating the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Following the awkward performance of an interpretative dance routine reenacting the Second World War, Obama marvels to Rhodes at what Putin must have thought: “Man, the West has gotten soft.” The 44th president’s remarkable lack of self-awareness is matched only by that of his amanuensis, who apparently thinks it boosts his standing as a wordsmith to let the world know that he is the man responsible for coining the phrase, uttered by Obama during the 2008 election, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Elsewhere, Rhodes informs us that, on the night of Trump’s shock victory, he wrote an email to his boss stating that “history doesn’t move in a straight line, it zigs and zags,” which Obama, according to Rhodes, repeatedly told people reminded him of Ralph Ellison. (Presumably this insight struck our usually voluble narrator after the moment during Election Night when being asked for his reaction rendered him speechless for a full 30 seconds, a scene captured in the 2017 documentary The Final Year.)

Oddly for a man who prides himself on being such a nuanced thinker, Rhodes is thoroughly Manichean in his outlook. “From Trianon to the Tea Party” is the subtitle he chooses for a chapter likening Hungary’s ethnic nationalists (still obsessed with a century-old treaty dismembering the Hungarian empire) to the American anti-tax movement. The 2019 British general election, Rhodes writes, “swept the pro-Brexit conservatives into power, amplifying the nationalist trend that Orban represented,” a statement that manages to a) conflate two very different phenomena, b) omit the role played by the abominable Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and c) misconstrue the fact that the UK Conservatives have been in power since 2010. While characterizing Republicans as “fascists,” Rhodes takes umbrage at their labeling Democrats “socialists.” One of the only times Rhodes attempts to empathize with a political adversary is in a brief disquisition on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Herewith, Rhodes attempting to be charitable, “try[ing] to see it from Netanyahu’s perspective”:
Given the way the Jews have been treated over the years, if Israel doesn’t act like all the other bad actors around the world, the Jews will be screwed again. So, the thinking goes, we have to be corrupt, be nationalist, make deals with unpleasant people, take the Palestinians’ land, attack and discredit opponents with lies or exaggerations, because that’s what’s required to defend a people who have suffered.

This, from a man who constantly ridicules the political tactics of other people as nothing more than a cynical game of “Us versus Them.”


America’s failing Jewish establishment: The case of the Rochester Federation
After calling on the Palestinian Authority to end its ongoing incitement to violence, chair of the board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America Mark Wilf celebrated a longed-for Jewish unity, exclaiming on May 10: “The entire North American Jewish community stands in solidarity with all Israelis at this very difficult time.”

Twenty-four hours later, on May 11, the situation had dramatically worsened. Moments before 2 p.m. came the report: Tel Aviv had been hit, and perhaps 60 rockets had been fired in the past hour.

Then reports began to trickle in of violence against Jews on New York City and Los Angeles streets.

It did not even occur to me that our local Federation would go forward with its scheduled “Honest Conversations” event featuring Koach Baruch Frazier, a “queer, trans Jew who is working toward the day everyone experiences liberation.” Frazier sits on the board of the pro-BDS, anti-Zionist organization Jewish Liberation Fund and the Tzedek Lab, alongside IfNotNow trainers and Bend the Arc “priestesses.” He is also a board member of GSA, an organization that trains young trans teens. This “Honest Conversation” was an exercise in what could only honestly be called “normalizing anti-Zionism.” Yet even as rockets rained down on Israelis, my Federation felt the need to put on this anti-Israel show. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Rochester’s Federation spent the past two decades ignoring the Corbynism growing like cancer within the American left. Even enabling it:
1. It had brought Eric K. Ward to lecture us on “racism.” Ward sponsors JLF as a “fiscally funded project.” And he funds Hamas-tied CAIR via his position as chair of the Proteus Fund.
2. Our Federation sent its local JCRC head to a Bend the Arc Selah Training without community knowledge. Bend the Arc is virulently anti-police, and constitutes a clear and present danger to a Jewish community in need of police protection.
3. In Rochester, out-of-state anti-Zionist, pro-BDS activists are invited to speak to the community while local Black Zionist Jews are not. In addition to their anti-Zionism, the invited speakers promoted such notions that sexuality is a political statement, and that the nuclear family is a bourgeois institution preventing oppressed minorities from getting free. My Federation is so besotted by the new Progressive religion that it has helped spread these anti-Jewish ideas.
Jonathan Tobin: Left in US slides into acceptance of antisemitism
The point being that if you don't accept that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, then their cuisine is also illegitimate, and somehow a knockoff of Palestinian culture, despite the fact that its distinction from neighboring lands and peoples was virtually unknown until it arose as a nationalistic reaction to the growth of the Jewish community there in the 20th century.

It's utter nonsense that food itself is now being used to try to smear the Jews' presence in their ancient homeland as a form of colonialism, with "white privilege" a sidebar to the real problem that the Philadelphia incident exposed and which Jewish leftists still don't understand.

It may be easy, even for the likes of Beinart and Jacobs, to understand that targeting a Jew born in Israel selling the cuisine of his native land for exclusion is antisemitic. Yet once you go along with intersectional myths rooted in critical race theory that falsely label as an "apartheid state," it isn't possible to pick and choose among the various expressions of these toxic ideas.

The anti-Israel movement they have encouraged and to no small extent legitimized by giving it expressly Jewish cover is one that isn't concerned with where Israel's borders should be placed or whether its policies are correct. Its goal is to eliminate the sole Jewish state on the planet. Once you say it's OK to target Jews in this fashion, there's no way to draw careful lines between supposedly acceptable boycotts and acts of delegitimization, and those that you think show bad manners or ill will.

Just as those who approve of anti-Israel rants on the floor of Congress spoken by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), which spread lies and anti-Jewish tropes, can't be surprised when that leads to violence against Jews in the streets or leftwing activists deciding that won't tolerate Israeli food at a street fair.

Once you say that Israel can be singled out and judged by double standards, and that Jews alone are to be deprived of rights denied to no one else, there's no way to avoid heading down the slippery slope of antisemitism. By the time Israeli food sellers are the victims of prejudice, it's too late for the anti-Zionists to turn back. If you want to prevent further such incidents, the answer isn't better admission policies or security at food festivals. It involves those who have either acquiesced to the delegitimization of Israel or joined in it to acknowledge the connection between their advocacy and the actions of street thugs.
Organizer of Philadelphia Food Festival: We’re ‘Truly Sorry’ for Disinviting Israeli Vendor From Event
The organizer of a Philadelphia food festival that was scheduled to take place over the weekend apologized on Wednesday for disinviting an Israeli-owned food truck from the event, which was ultimately cancelled amid outrage.

“We understand that our actions have hurt you and we are truly sorry. We want to be very clear that we do not support antisemitism or allow antisemitism in our spaces. Our actions were ignorant and inexcusable,” said Eat Up The Borders (EUTB), one of the organizers of the “Taste of Home” food festival, in a statement.

“We now see that excluding any particular vendor in the name of trying to protect them was the wrong decision,” the statement also said in part. “We did what we thought was best in the moment, but we failed.”

The festival, coordinated by EUTB and and the group Sunflower Philly, was called off less than a day after it was announced that the Moshava food truck, which serves Israeli cuisine, was disinvited from the gathering due to antisemitic threats of violence from anti-Israel activists.

EUTB explained in its statement that Moshava took part in the food festival in May 2021 and afterwards organizers received “some pushback from activists” who criticized the Israeli vendor’s involvement. EUTB’s responded by inviting a Palestinian food vendor to its June 2021 event, which Moshava was also invited to, but the Palestinian vendor pulled out before the festival “due to time constraints.”

“After attendees noticed the absence of the Palestinian food vendor, many suggested boycotting and protesting at the event,” EUTB said. “Two days prior to the event, we decided to prioritize the safety of all — Moshava, other vendors, and our guests — and postpone Moshava’s appearance until a future event. We made it clear that Eat Up The Borders and Sunflower Philly would like to continue working with them in the future, and work together to learn how to address such a fragile situation. We offered to give Moshava 10 percent of our door sales and vendors offered to share a portion of their proceeds to a cause they were apart of.”
Rashida Tlaib’s Finance Director Bullies, Harasses U.S. and Florida Legislators Over 'Palestine'
Rasha Mubarak, an anti-Israel activist and Finance Director for US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, is destroying relationships she has spent years building in the Democratic Party. She is leading an angry group of Israel bashers on a journey to intimidate and ridicule Progressive members of the US and Florida Legislatures, who do not cater to her and her group’s full list of demands. One of these legislators, Carlos Smith, following a testy and vulgar encounter with Mubarak and co., accused the group of homophobia. It is common for Islamists and their allies to target Jews and gays, and it is like Mubarak to add more Democrats to her list of enemies.

Rasha Mubarak hates Israel, so much so that she says Israel, a sovereign nation, has no right to self-defense. She also supports Palestinian terrorists. At the end of the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict, she cheered Hamas. This past March, she posted a video on her social media honoring former PFLP spokesman Ghassan Khanafani. In June and July 2020, Mubarak posted memorials for car-ramming terrorist Ahmed Erekat, who was shot and killed after attempting to run over a female Israeli border officer. And this past November, Mubarak promoted then-jailed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Maher al-Akhras with a message to free all like him.

This month, once again, Mubarak sought to whitewash terror. On June 12th, when Israeli border guards shot dead a Palestinian woman approaching them with a knife at a West Bank checkpoint, after she ignored orders to stop, Mubarak absurdly and baselessly described the event as “Israel’s deliberate attempts at Palestinian erasure.” Also, this month, Mubarak posted a statement written by Hamas fan Samer Owaida, ridiculously claiming that “Not a single Palestinian resistance org has ever committed a war crime.” This, when suicide bombings and firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian neighborhoods are universally considered war crimes.

It is this same irrational fanaticism that has driven Mubarak, under the banner ‘Florida Palestine Network,’ to organize others in an effort to terrorize Florida lawmakers from the US and Florida Legislatures with bullying tactics and a list of untenable demands. These demands include: 1. condemning Israel for “state sanctioned violence” against Palestinians and “forced expulsions” from and “forced demolitions” of Palestinian homes, 2. ending US military aid to Israel, and 3. denouncing Florida bill H.B. 741, which protects Jews from anti-Semitism.
Supporters Furious After Ilhan Omar Goes Week Without Anti-Semitic Comment (satire)
Followers of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar are rethinking their support for the progressive lawmaker after Omar went more than a week without an anti-Semitic dog whistle.

Omar, who has won praise from progressives ranging from David Duke to Louis Farrakhan for her constant criticism of “Zionists,” has reportedly made few if any openly anti-Semitic remarks since early June, when she compared Israel and the US to Hamas and the Taliban. Her backers have counted on her near-daily claims that Israel “hypnotized the world” or her support for groups that accuse Jews of using the blood of Christian children in their matzah (unleavened Jew bread)

“I campaigned for this woman because I knew that I could count on her to regularly remind the world that the Jews are not loyal to America and that they bribe people with their pointy noses,” said Linda Sarsour, an ally of Omar who chaired the Women’s March before getting booted for her anti-Semitic sentiments. “If she goes days at a time without reminding the world how awful the Jews are, what is she even doing in Congress?”

As of press time, fellow Squad member and economic virtuoso Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), had tried to make up for her colleague’s disappointing week with an anti-Israel comment of her own. But her remarks left both anti-Semites and Israel supporters alike confused.
Labour official said during Palestine debate that Jews ‘took over… by a series of genocides’
A Labour party official told a Jewish woman during a debate about Palestine that it was a “fact” that the “Jews took over the area by a series of genocides”.

The Labour Party is being urged to investigate the comments made by Penny Vera-sanso, chairwoman of the Victoria ward Constituency Labour Party in Hackney, to Joanna De Guia in a community group chat on Facebook.

Ms De Guia said the comments were indicative of a Labour Party in which many members were still in “denial” about the scale of the problem.

The exchange was sparked by a posting that said before Israel there was “a British mandate, not a Palestinian state” and before that “there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state”.

Dr Vera-sanso, Director of Social Anthropology at Birkbeck University, dismissed this as an “appalling argument” and “playing games”.

Librarian Ms De Guia, responded: “It’s fact. It’s very far from game playing.”

However Dr Vera-sanso argued: “Picking and choosing btwn (sic) antecedents is game playing. Some consider the fact to be that Jews took over the area by a series of genocides….”

She went on to share an article with Ms De Guia promoting the argument that “the Jews occupied the land having been told to exterminate the Canaanites”.


George Galloway falsely claims Israel ‘sprayed Al Aqsa with sewage’
George Galloway has used a hustings event ahead of the Batley and Spen by-election to spread a fabricated claim that Israel this week “sprayed” the Al Aqsa compound with sewage.

Answering a question on what issues mattered to voters in the West Yorkshire seat, Galloway said: “Tens of thousands of people in this constituency deeply care for the dead and dying on the Gaza Strip – and care just as passionately that Israel sprayed Al Aqsa with sewage just 72 hours ago.

“I know that not everyone cares about that, but there’s more than 20, 000 people who care about it very passionately indeed. I’m surprised it didn’t make its way into the Labour list here of issues that matter.”

A video of Israeli security forces spraying the area in front of Damascus Gate by Jerusalem’s Old City went viral over social media last Sunday after it was shared by a journalist who claimed that the video depicted spraying “sewage” at the “gates to al-Aqsa to discourage and disburse Palestinians.”

The claims have been exposed as false.

Byline Times correspondent CJ Werleman had claimed the “sewage spray” incident took place at the “gates to al-Aqsa” when it had been the exterior of the Damascus Gate, one of the entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem.

Furthermore, his claim that “sewage” was sprayed at a crowd of Palestinians to avert a potential conflict was also wrong.
Controversial Imam with history of inflammatory comments pulled from event with Naz Shah MP after concerns raised
A controversial Imam with a history of inflammatory comments has been pulled from an event, where the disgraced Labour MP, Naz Shah, was due to appear alongside him, after concerns were raised.

The “Free Gaza, Free Palestine” fundraiser was advertised on social media and originally featured Imam Asim Hussain with Labour MPs Naz Shah and Imran Hussain also due to appear.

In his online talks, Imam Hussain has previously said that Gaza is “the largest concentration camp in the world” and that the “true Orthodox Jewish man” does not support Zionism.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.

Imam Hussain also promoted the controversial ‘Free Palestine’ convoy, whose participants drove through a Jewish neighbourhood shouting “F*** the Jews…rape their daughters” through megaphones.

On Facebook, Imam Hussain has reportedly alluded to “the media” being “controlled by certain lobbies” and that because Arabic is one of the “Semitic languages,” then “what the Jews and the west say about Palestinian Arabs is ‘antisemitic’.”
CAA submits complaint against teacher and ex-union official who referred to “dirty Zionists” and made other inflammatory remarks
Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted a complaint against a teacher and former union official who has reportedly referred to “dirty Zionists” and made other inflammatory remarks.

Latifa Abouchakra, who works in Ealing as a Citizenship and PHSE teacher, has reportedly shared a post on social media saying that “Zionism is not just racist and genocidal. It’s stark raving mad”; described the antisemitic terrorist and Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani as a “hero”; and claimed that the antisemitic US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is “considered a threat to the Zionist and Islamophobic elite in America”.

She has also share an image of a Jewish effigy represented as the devil and a post appearing to question why the Holocaust is memorialised at the expense of other genocides. She has further reportedly described Israel as an “illegal” and “colonial” state; talked of “Zionist elites” and complained of “Zionist influence in American politics”.

She also claimed, after a football player unveiled a Palestinian Authority flag at a match, that “Apparently the dirty Zionists have been complaining to Leicester City FC re the players showing their support for Palestine”.

At an event two years ago, the notorious antisemite Tony Greenstein reportedly stated that “Nazi Germany in a sense built the state of Israel at a crucial time and you can actually say that the state of Israel today is Hitler’s bastard offspring”. Ms Abouchakra, who was chairing the event, reportedly reacted saying “Can I just say that that was an excellent contribution and thank God it was a Jew that said it.” The antisemitic former Labour member Jackie Walker was among 50 attendees at that event.
Google Sanctions Use of Anti-Semitic Slogan
Google’s human resources department earlier this week sanctioned an employee’s use of the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," the eliminationist call-to-arms frequently employed by anti-Israel activists.

The company's determination came after a Jewish employee raised concerns about the anti-Semitic slogan by a top Google union official on an internal company profile. The company maintains an internal database containing contact information and personal profiles that appear in emails and other internal Google communications.

"The Googler who shared this phrase on his page did so as a show of solidarity with the Palestinian community, which Googlers are permitted to do in the workplace," the human resources employee wrote in an email response to the Jewish employee’s complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "While the phrase used is understandably divisive, it was not intended to be anti-Semitic in the way the author used it."

It is unclear whether Google’s determination extends beyond the information included on employees’ company profiles. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

A political slogan used by Palestinian nationalists and terrorist groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" describes an aspirational Palestinian state that would extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating the state of Israel.

Google’s determination comes as the tech giant faces outrage and scrutiny from Jewish employees and Jewish organizations for its silence in the wake of a Free Beacon report earlier this month on an anti-Semitic blog post authored by a top member of the Google diversity team. Google reassigned the employee, Kamau Bobb, earlier this month to a role focused on science and technology education rather than diversity strategy but said little else about the matter.

Bobb’s 2007 blog post argued that Jews have an "insatiable appetite for war and killing."


‘My Child Doesn’t Want to be Jewish Anymore’: Dutch Education Ministry Urged to Clamp Down on ‘Free Palestine’ Antisemitic Bullying
A Dutch parliamentarian is demanding that the Ministry of Education in The Netherlands take urgent measures to combat antisemitism in schools, following the publication of a shocking article that exposed the antisemitic bullying which some Jewish students suffered during the armed conflict in May between Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza.

In a letter delivered on Tuesday to Dutch education ministers Arie Slob and Ingrid van Engelshoven, the conservative parliamentarian Roelof Bisschop pointedly asked whether they were aware of the June 14 article in the Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, a Dutch Jewish newspaper, that was headlined “My child doesn’t want to be Jewish anymore.”

Through interviews with parents whose names were changed to protect their identities, the article by journalist Esther Voet presented in disturbing detail the ordeals experienced by several Jewish children attending different public schools in The Netherlands.

One Israeli-born mother of three teenagers, who gave her name as “Anna,” said that her two youngest children felt compelled to hide the fact that they are Jews, because of the vilification of Israel by classmates, often with the knowledge of their teachers.

“My middle child just changed schools and hasn’t told anyone there that he’s Jewish,” Anna said. “When classmates ask him why he has such a Jewish first name, he replies that it is a Mormon, Biblical name.”

She went on to express concern that her youngest child “has the worst insults thrown at her.

“‘Your mother is Israeli, your family kills people and your mother does that too,’ they yelled at her,” Anna said. “I kept her at home for two days after that, she was so depressed.”
A Victory Against Anti-Israel Doctors and Bias in the Media
On June 2, the venerable publication Scientific American published an anti-Israel propaganda opinion piece on its website titled, “As Health Care Workers, We Stand in Solidarity with Palestine.”

The article, now removed, was authored by a group of physicians and medical students.

Voice4Israel of North Carolina board members Drs. Stanley Robboy and Robert Gutman promptly wrote a response in partnership with Dr. Edward Halperin, Chancellor/CEO of New York Medical College. The letter was signed by more than 106 scientists and physicians — including three Nobel Laureates; more than 20 university trustees; college and university presidents, chancellors, provosts; and many professors. The authors explained:
A journal devoted to science should not publish one-sided political propaganda … Scientific American’s editors jettisoned appropriate editorial standards and ignored easily verified facts … While purporting to be a scientific statement about public health, the paper addressed important historical and political issues superficially, inaccurately, and prejudicially.

Within a few hours of sending the letter, Dr. Robboy received positive news in an email response from Scientific American’s editor-in-chief stating, “We have removed the article”; he also mentioned that the outlet was “revising our internal review processes,” and considering steps “to prevent a repetition of this error by the magazine.”

Others, including the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, also responded with impressive advocacy on this issue.
UK High Court Tells Agency to Reopen Case of Pharmacist, Al Quds March Leader Who Pinned Grenfell Tragedy on ‘Zionists’
In overturning that decision, Wednesday’s court’s order will require the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPHC) to reassess whether Ali’s comments were indeed antisemitic.

Justice Jeremy Johnson said the FTP wrongly considered both Ali’s “intention” and “character” when assessing whether his comments were “objectively antisemitic,” and failed to weigh their cumulative effect.

While leading the 2017, Ali’s speech also told attendees that “any Zionist, any Jew coming into your center supporting Israel, any Jew coming into your center who is a Zionist, any Jew coming into your center who is a member for the Board of Deputies, is not a rabbi, he’s an imposter.”

“Remember brothers and sisters, Zionists are not Jews,” he also said.

In a statement, GPHC Chief Duncan Rudkin agreed with the court that the regulatory body had erred in its decision, saying, “We will make sure the learnings from this case and the High Court judgement are shared across the organization and our committees.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism, which reported the FTP’s previous decision to the Professional Standards Authority, praised the decision, saying in a statement that “the road to justice in this case proved long and winding, but we are here again heading in the right direction.”
PreOccupiedTerritory: At Least My Suffering Will Be Invoked In An Egregious Analogy To Gaza One Day By Srul Zaiden, Sonderkommando corpse disposal squad (satire)
Belzec, June 24 – Hell on Earth. That’s the only way to get close to describing my existence at the moment, and even then, the words ring hollow, inadequate. No reason, no purpose governs this living death, but I cling to one small spark of hope: that in the distant future, my torment will serve as an example, however wrongly construed, to the plight of a people who elected a terrorist group to govern them and protest against the blockade that restricts the importation of weapons, a blockade that somehow will result in zero deaths from malnutrition.

Our grim work here at Belzec begins with the unenviable task of clearing the dead from the train, and washing out those cattle cars from the remnants of blood, waste, and decaying flesh. Some unfortunates must interact with the Jews being “off-loaded,” and trying in vain to warn them that the “resettlement in the east” the Nazis promised them means an imminent death in pain and terror. I think of the analogies advocates will make to a place where burgeoning sales of luxury cars will take place in the Gaza Strip of the twenty-first century.

Then we proceed to “processing” the possessions and clothing of the arrivals, the vast majority of whom will never see any possessions again, in the few minutes of life they have remaining. I am reminded of the painful choices the leadership of Gaza will face: invest in people, infrastructure, and building up the economy, or in killing Jews? It is the latter where the similarity rings true to me, but that will not be the salient feature of the invocation those decades from now.
Sky News reporter tweets misinformation about Sheikh Jarrah violence
Yesterday, Sky News Middle East correspondent Mark Stone quote tweeted the following:

First, the tweet Stone commented above was by Linah Al Saafin, a reporter at the Qatari propaganda outlet Al Jazeera – which is why it’s not surprising that her version of events in the east Jerusalem neighborhood, which Stone amplified to his 64,800 followers, is backwards.

As our colleague Tamar Sternthal detailed in a recent post, even Haaretz reported that the clash in question appears to have started when Palestinians launched fireworks at police, and two Palestinian teens allegedly threw a firebomb at a Jewish home. Following that unprovoked violence, a Jewish resident pepper sprayed Palestinian residents, Jews and Palestinians threw chairs and stones at each other (per the clip in the tweet), and Palestinians shot off firecrackers at Jewish homes.

In other words, what Stone tweeted was a selective clip which only showed a short episode within a larger brawl – one apparently initiated by Palestinians. To refer to the incident as “systematic state-sanctioned violence” is of course a lie.

As our readers may recall, this isn’t the first egregious distortion by the Sky News reporter.
BBC WS radio promotes inaccurate portrayal of Jerusalem Day
As we saw in a previous post, on June 15th BBC Radio 4 promoted an inaccurate explanation of the annual Jerusalem Day celebrations:

On the same day, the evening edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ advanced the same inaccurate claim.

Presenter Tim Franks introduced that lead item (from 00:51 here) as follows: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

Franks: “We begin in Jerusalem, the city venerated by so many; a source of tensions so often. Today there’s been a large march by Israeli hard-line nationalists through parts of East Jerusalem to mark its annexation by Israel after the war in 1967. The last government, under former president [sic] Binyamin Netanyahu, had postponed what’s known as the flag parade until today which meant it would be an early test for the brand new administration. Remember, this is the first in twelve years not to be led by Mr Netanyahu.”

As noted here previously, Israel of course did not ‘annex’ the Old City or any other part of what the BBC chooses to call “East Jerusalem” in 1967. The Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel was passed thirteen years later on July 30th 1980 and amended in November 2000. It does not include the word annexation.

Jerusalem Day – celebrated annually on the 28th of the Hebrew month of Iyar – in fact marks the reunification of the city on that day after the 19 years of Jordanian occupation that the BBC so carefully avoids mentioning in this item and in general.


Trial begins in France of gang accused of assaulting Jewish family
Nine individuals accused of taking a Jewish family hostage in their Paris home in 2017 began their trial on Monday.

The case involves the Pinto family, who before the attack were well-known among Parisian Jews for their active involvement in the community. They allege an antisemitic gang entered their home on Sep 8, 2017, abusing and robbing three members of the family.

The Algemeiner recounted the family's horrific experience, noting that it started when their 41-year-old son, David Pinto, woke up to broken electricity in the family home in the Livry-Gargan neighborhood of Paris.

David went to the basement to check the electricity meter, opening a door which allowed three attackers, who had set a trap by cutting off the electricity supply, to break into the house.

The three men reportedly gagged David, and then did the same to his 73-year-old mother, Mireille.

She recalled to the Algemeiner that the attackers hit, kicked, and attempted to rape her.
Connecticut JCC Receives Bomb Threat, 300 Summer Campers Evacuated
Three hundred campers and other young people were evacuated from the Jewish Community Center and sent home as investigators looked into a phoned bomb threat — and found there was no bomb.

The incident occurred Tuesday at the JCC, at 360 Amity Rd.

An anonymous caller began spouting antisemitic comments and made a threat about bombing the facility. The call came at a time when antisemitic incidents have been on the rise.

The JCC promptly evacuated the campus and notified authorities. Agents from the FBI and local and state police, along with bomb-sniffing dogs, arrived to check out the premises and confirm no explosives were present.


New York’s Orange County, Town of Chester Agree to End Biased Housing Practices Targeting Jews
A county and a town in New York have agreed to change their zoning practices as part of a settlement with the state after being hit with allegations of discriminatory housing practices that unfairly target the Chassidic community.

The settlement comes a year after New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Orange County, about 50 miles north of New York City, and the Town of Chester, of engaging in a “concerted, systemic effort to prevent Chassidic Jewish families from moving into the town in violation of the FHA.”

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) says it is unlawful to refuse to sell or rent “a dwelling based on an individual’s religion, race, sex, national origin, or familial status, among other protected classes.”

In announcing the settlement, James said noted that “the discriminatory and illegal actions perpetrated by Orange County and the Town of Chester are blatantly anti-Semitic, and go against the diversity, inclusivity and tolerance that New York prides itself on. Every New Yorker deserves equal opportunities in housing, regardless of gender, race, nationality or their faith.”

In agreeing to the settlement, neither the county nor the township admitted to any wrongdoing. They did, however, agree to a number of changes, including providing fair-housing training to its staff; designating a fair-housing compliance officer; and notifying the state attorney general’s office of any violation complaints of the FHA.

Jewish groups praised James for her action.
5,000 burgers a day: World's first cultured meat production plant opens in Israel
Israeli slaughter-free meat production startup Future Meat Technologies has opened the world's first industrial cultured meat facility in the city of Rehovot, home to the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Agriculture, the company announced Wednesday.

With the capability to produce 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds) of cultured products a day, equivalent to 5,000 hamburgers, this facility makes scalable cell-based meat production a reality.

"This facility opening marks a huge step in Future Meat Technologies' path to market, serving as a critical enabler to bring our products to shelves by 2022," says Rom Kshuk, CEO of Future Meat Technologies. "Having a running industrial line accelerates key processes such as regulation and product development."

Currently, the facility can produce cultured chicken, pork and lamb, without the use of animal serum or genetic modification (non-GMO) with the production of beef coming soon. Future Meat Technologies' unique platform enables fast production cycles, about 20 times faster than traditional animal agriculture.

Professor Yaakov Nahmias, founder and chief scientific officer of Future Meat Technologies, explains that "After demonstrating that cultured meat can reach cost parity faster than the market anticipated, this production facility is the real game-changer."
Gilad Shalit gets married, 10 years after release from Hamas captivity
Gilad Shalit, a former Israel Defense Forces soldier held captive for five years by the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group, married his fiancé on Wednesday evening, 10 years after he was released as part of a prisoner swap.

Shalit and Nitzan Shabbat, with whom he has been in a relationship for several years, were married in a ceremony in Emek Hefer in central Israel.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the only people invited were family and close friends, who were required to sign nondisclosure agreements.

The couple announced their engagement last year.

Shalit, 34, was held by Hamas between 2006 and 2011 after being abducted in a cross-border attack. He was released in a controversial exchange that saw Israel free 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners.


World to Recognize 1st Ever 'Holocaust Survivor Day'






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