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Monday, July 05, 2021

07/05 Links Pt2: Anti-Israel Item Before Largest US Teacher’s Union Overwhelmingly Defeated at Assembly; Students for Justice in Palestine Spreads Anti-Israel Blood Libel

From Ian:

Anti-Israel Item Before Largest US Teacher’s Union Overwhelmingly Defeated at Assembly
An anti-Israel item placed before the National Education Association (NEA)’s Representative Assembly was overwhelmingly voted down, with only 23 percent of representatives supporting it, while another was sent back to committee.

The largest union in the United States, the NEA has more than three million members, and exercises considerable influence both in national Democratic politics as well as over curriculum and other educational activities.

New Business Item 29 brought before the 8,000-member assembly employed virulent anti-Israel language that referred to Palestinian terrorism as a “heroic struggle” against alleged Israeli “military repression” and “ethnic cleansing,” and demanded the NEA “publicize its support for the Palestinian struggle for justice and call on the United States government to stop arming and supporting Israel.”

It cited a cost of $71,500 in order to implement its stipulations.

Following strong opposition, including from Jewish members, the item was defeated by a margin of 77 percent to 23 percent.

The Cleveland Jewish News reported before the vote that the NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus had mobilized strongly against the item, with chair Patrick Crabtree saying, “I’m almost positive 29 is so divisive, it will go down in flames.”

The caucus also opposed NBI 51, which calls on the NEA to “use existing digital communication tools to educate members and the general public about the history, culture, and struggles of Palestinians.”

Citing a budget request of $5,500, it would have the NEA “recognize the existence and sovereignty of Palestine and Palestinian children and families,” including by placing an article in the union periodical NEA Today acknowledging members’ work “fighting for the rights of Palestinian children and families.”

The Representative Assembly adjourned before NBI 51 came to a vote, sending it back to committee.

These items, the Jewish Affairs Caucus leadership said in a letter, “could inadvertently exacerbate antisemitic sentiment, or anti-Arab sentiment, in the United States, and G-d forbid, lead to hate crimes of some sort.”


Washington State’s ‘Native Education’ 5th-grade curriculum attacks Israel
Public school officials in the state of Washington have inserted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into mandatory 5th-grade lessons on Native American history.

Children as young as 10 are being taught to associate the Native American experience with the Palestinians’ “fight to be free from Israeli dominance.”

The lesson is part of an otherwise informative Native American curriculum called Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State, which was developed by the Tribal Leaders Congress on Education, the Washington State School Directors Association and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Subsequently, the curriculum was approved by all 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington State. It has since been widely used in K-12 public schools after state legislation in 2015 required the teaching of Native American history.

The bizarre inclusion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to be at odds with the curriculum’s self-described “place-based approach,” in which teachers and students are supposedly encouraged to focus on “the context of tribes in their own communities.”

“Unfortunately, we’re finding this sort of politicization of Israel in public schools across the United States,” said my colleague Steven Stotsky, who investigates bias in K-12 education for the CAMERA International Student Leadership Institute.

“In this case, I find it particularly troubling that the curriculum is being used by anti-Israel activists to divert attention away from Native American history,” Stotsky said. “It’s as unfair to Native Americans as it is to Jews. And ultimately, it’ll damage the credibility of the entire curriculum, as people figure out what’s going on.”

Troubled as well, I contacted the organizations behind the curriculum.


Jews who suffer from self-hatred - what does it mean?



Nordic fund KLP boycotts 16 companies over ties to West Bank settlements
Norway’s largest pension fund KLP said on Monday it would no longer invest in 16 companies including Alstom (ALSO.PA) and Motorola (MSI.N) because of their links to settlements in the West Bank.

An Israeli official contended the move, which it said harmed Israelis and Palestinians and did nothing to advance a resolution to the conflict. Along with a number of other countries, Norway considers the settlements a breach of international law.

The previous Trump administration, in contrast, held that settlements were not inconsistent with international law.

The companies, which span telecoms, banking, energy and construction, all help facilitate Israel’s presence and therefore risk being complicit in breaches of international law, and against KLP’s ethical guidelines, the pension fund said in a statement.

“In KLP’s assessment, there is an unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank,” it said.

The move by KLP follows a decision by Norway's sovereign wealth fund in May to exclude two companies linked to construction and real estate in the Palestinian territories.
Students for Justice in Palestine Spreads Anti-Israel Blood Libel
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Delaware recently hosted a Zoom event titled “The Deadly Exchange,” highlighting “the militarization of police due to military and police partnerships between the U.S and Israel.”

However, the main speaker, Eran Efrati, falsely accused Israel of perpetuating police brutality in the US, colonizing the Palestinians, and being an apartheid state. Here is why these three accusations are both unfair and inaccurate.

First, Israel does not utilize police brutality in the face of dissent.

During the event, Efrati falsely claimed that when American police return home from their training trips to Israel, they bring back the “normalization of brutality … using power to suppress dissent,” “normalization of racial profiling,” and “normalization … of deep surveillance into the communities.”

However, the exchanges between the Israel National Police and participants from the US do not promote racial profiling, aggressive police tactics, or unwarranted surveillance at all.

Steve Pomerantz, the Director of the Homeland Security Program at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) — and the architect of one of these exchange programs — explained that the programs were “launched in the wake of the September 11th attacks in order to address the well-recognized counterterrorism needs of local law enforcement in the U.S. … there is no field training involved in either the conferences or trips and no training on holds or arrest mechanics. The exchanges … focus on effective counterterrorism techniques.”
US colleges that partner with Al Quds University - take heed
The Al Quds U. website boasts that the university currently has “cooperation agreements / projects” with George Washington University, Wayne State University, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the University of California at Berkeley, and George Mason University. Al Quds also has a joint program with Bard College. How sad that those distinguished American institutions see nothing wrong in partnering with a university that celebrates and glorifies the racist murderer of an American Jewish peace activist.

From 2003 to 2013, Brandeis University, too, had a partnership with Al Quds University. This was particularly painful to me because my daughter Alisa HY”D, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995, was a Brandeis student at the time of her death. To its credit, Brandeis severed the partnership in 2013 after Al Quds hosted pro-terrorist rallies by students in military uniforms who were giving the traditional Nazi salute.

Strangely, however, to this day the official Brandeis website has a page called “Al-Quds University/Brandeis University Partnership” which sings the praises of that now-dissolved partnership and makes no mention of the reason that it ended. In fact, the page gives the impression that some kind of friendly relationship still exists—the text concludes: “Brandeis and Al-Quds are jointly documenting the partnership’s progress and outcomes through publications, videos, and still images.”

The fact that a leading Palestinian Arab university has publicly praised the Palestinian version of Dylann Roof is morally despicable. The fact that the official television mouthpiece of the Abbas regime praises him is even worse.

When a government-controlled television station teaches the viewing public that racist murderers are heroes, then many of the viewers will come to believe that it’s true. The consequence is that an entire generation of young Palestinian Arabs have been raised to think that stabbing defenseless elderly American Jewish peace activists is right, necessary, and admirable.

How can there ever be peace when Palestinian Arab leaders behave this way? And when will today’s American Jewish “peace activists”—groups like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, which claim to subscribe to the same values as Richard Lakin did—finally raise their voices in protest against the racist, anti-peace actions of the Abbas regime?
AFP Deletes Erroneous Claim That UN Considers Israeli Occupation ‘Illegal’
In response to timely communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, Agence France Presse deletes from both English and French articles today the erroneous claim that the United Nations considers Israel’s occupation of the West Bank “illegal.” Today’s story, “Norwegian pension fund sells off groups linked to Israeli settlements” (5:18 am GMT), had erred: “The occupation of Palestinian territories is considered illegal by the United Nations.”

CAMERA contacted AFP editors and noted that while the UN has made clear that any Israeli annexation of the West Bank would be “inadmissible,” and has also labeled Israeli settlements “illegal,” none of its post-war resolutions — General Assembly resolutions 2252, 2253, 2254, and 2256, and Security Council resolutions 236, 240, and 242 — argued that the capture of the West Bank from Jordan and subsequent occupation was unlawful.

The drafters of Security Council Resolution 242, which called for an Israeli withdrawal from unspecified “territories occupied in the recent conflict,” have repeatedly clarified that their resolution calls for any Israeli withdrawal to be to “secure and recognized boundaries” negotiated in peace talks between the parties to the war, and do not regard the occupation as illegal: “Until that condition is met, Israel is entitled to administer the territories it captured – the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – and then withdraw from some but not necessarily all of the land,” explained Eugene Rostow, one of the resolution’s drafters and an Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in President Johnson’s administration.

In 2019, Bloomberg corrected the identical error and The New York Times twice corrected after similarly misreporting that the international community considers the Israeli occupation illegal. Moreover, also in 2019, InfoEquitable, a French media-monitoring organization which works closely with CAMERA, prompted an AFP correction of this very point.
HonestReporting Prompts New York Times Correction in Article About Temple Mount
On June 27, The New York Times published a piece about Israel’s connection to Temple Mount that included this inaccuracy:
… Israel’s management of the Temple Mount, which Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and which is home to the sacred Al Aqsa Mosque.”

HonestReporting contacted the NYT to point out that, in fact, it is the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, an Islamic religious trust, that controls and manages the Islamic sites on and around the Temple Mount, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Meanwhile, Israel’s role is to provide security in order to ensure that members of all faiths have access to the site, albeit Jews can only visit at designated times and they are not allowed to pray there.

Such security measures are common throughout the world, including at the Kaaba in Mecca and the Vatican in Rome.

To its credit, The New York Times responded in a timely manner to the issue we raised. On July 2, the following correction was published:


By portraying Israel as being in full control of the Temple Mount, NYT readers were initially misinformed. This effectively absolved the Waqf of its role in managing one of the world’s most important religious sites. This omission could have led people to believe that the Israeli government is culpable for the unrest that periodically erupts atop the Temple Mount.
Major Canadian TV channel drops Arabic show over antisemitic tweet
Canada's largest multicultural television channel has pledged to no longer broadcast an Arabic-language program after B'nai Brith exposed antisemitic rhetoric used by the program online.

Lama TV, founded and produced by Lama Aggad, describes itself as "the largest Canadian Arabic TV show that airs on OMNI and OMNI 2 National Television channels." OMNI, in turn, is a multicultural television channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media.

On June 8, at a public national vigil for the victims of the anti-Muslim attack in London, Ontario, a speaker claimed that the horrific crime was linked to "whatever is happening in Jerusalem and Gaza." B'nai Brith swiftly condemned these remarks, pointing out that the suspect, Nathaniel Veltman, is neither Jewish nor Israeli.

Lama TV took issue with this, tweeting the next day: "Veltman is a Jewish surname. Prove to us it isn't." The tweet remains online, despite unequivocal evidence that Veltman is not Jewish.

"Disinformation like Lama TV's tweet plays directly into hateful conspiracy myths and inflames animosity against Canadian Jews, including online," B'nai Brith asserted on its website.
BBC NEWS COVERAGE OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL – JUNE 2021
The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during June 2021 shows that throughout the month a total of 185 incidents took place: 109 in Judea & Samaria, 39 in Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ and 37 in the Gaza Strip sector.

In Judea & Samaria, Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ the agency recorded 108 attacks with petrol bombs, 14 attacks using pipe bombs, one rock-throwing attack, two stabbing/assault attacks, three shooting attacks, 24 arson attacks and one vehicular attack.

In the Gaza Strip sector one shooting attack, 35 arson attacks and one incident of anti-aircraft fire took place.

One civilian was wounded on June 15th in a rock-throwing attack near Qalqilya.

In the last paragraph of BBC News website report from June 15th readers were told that on that day “incendiary balloons launched from Gaza caused at least 20 fires in fields in southern Israel, Israel’s fire service said”. Although the actual number of fires on that day was twenty-six, an additional report published the following day (after Israel had responded to the attacks) likewise informed readers that “incendiary balloons sparked 20 fires in southern Israel on Tuesday”.
JPost Editorial: Boston stabbing attack is alarming antisemitic development
JPPI president Prof. Yedidia Stern recommended that Israel “take decisive action to protect Jews in the Diaspora from this ugly wave of antisemitism.” He proposed a task force that would monitor the extent of the phenomenon, develop tools for combating it, set overall policy and launch initiatives vis-à-vis foreign governments, Jewish communities and other relevant entities.

It is clearly needed. Secure Community Network, the US organization that advises US Jewish communities on security matters, said it recorded an 80% spike in antisemitic acts in May amid Israel’s 11-day war with Hamas.

Among the acts of antisemitism it listed were “Acts of vandalism from Oregon to Virginia, synagogue desecrations from Illinois to Arizona, reports of people having bottles thrown at them, children’s playgrounds being daubed with swastikas in New York and Tennessee.”

On May 21, five leading Jewish organizations published a letter to US President Joe Biden, suggesting that his administration take six specific steps to combat the rising attacks: publicly condemn them; appoint a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism at the State Department; reestablish the position of a White House Jewish liaison; convene a meeting with White House officials and Jewish leaders to discuss antisemitism; preserve former president Donald Trump’s 2019 executive order classifying antisemitic discrimination as a violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; and provide funding to enhance security at religious institutions.

With antisemitic attacks and incidents once again becoming common on the American landscape, it’s more vital than ever for both the US and Israeli governments to take more active roles in stemming the tide.
Jewish Former Roommate Took Out Restraining Order After Being Attacked by ‘Very Antisemitic’ Man Who Stabbed Boston Rabbi
The man accused of stabbing a Boston rabbi on Thursday in a suspected antisemitic hate crime was described by his former college roommates and friends as a violent individual who was viciously racist against Jews.

Khaled Awad stabbed Rabbi Shlomo Noginski repeatedly in the arm outside a Jewish school on Thursday in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton after attempting to abduct him at gunpoint.

Eric Valiente, who befriended Awad at the University of Southern Florida while Awad was studying chemical engineering there, described Awad as “violent” and “very much antisemitic,” Boston’s local CBS affiliate CBS4 reported.

Awad “would say like all types of Jewish jokes,” Valiente said. “I thought he was joking at first and then I started to see seriousness in his comments.”

Valiente said he became “disgusted” with Awad and “was a little scared of him. I was scared of what he was capable of because I realize he was a very dark person.”

Awad’s former roommate Aidan Anderson, who is Jewish, said, “We were friends, to be honest with you. I’m Jewish. And he knew that since I moved in.” But he said their relationship took a dark turn when Awad attacked him in their shared kitchen.

Anderson then moved out and got a restraining order against Awad.

Rabbi Noginski has left the hospital and is currently recovering at home, according to CBS4.

He released a video statement on Saturday after Shabbat, saying he was “feeling relatively well, although still in pain.”

Nonetheless, Noginski said, “it could have been so much worse.”
Dieudonné sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for videos of an “antisemitic nature”
The French comedian Dieudonné has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for producing videos of an “antisemitic nature.”

Dieudonné, whose real name is Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, is a French comedian and political activist who has been convicted for hate speech and advocating terrorism, among other offences, in France and Belgium.

Mr M’Bala M’Bala, 55, was handed his prison sentence last Friday after being charged with “public insult of an antisemitic nature” and “contestation of a crime against humanity” as a result of two videos that date back to May 2020.

During his trial last May, Mr M’Bala M’Bala insisted that the man in the videos was not him and that in fact his likeness was manufactured using deepfake technology. However, the court was not convinced, stating: “The character appearing on the screen, identified by investigators as Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, has the same name, the same appearance, the same voice and the same lexical references as the defendant.”

Mr M’Bala M’Bala was also fined €10,000 last Friday after he was found guilty of “public insult to an official,” namely Frédéric Potier, the former interministerial delegate for the fight against racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBT hatred.

Earlier this year, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was instructed by the Paris Court of Appeals to pay a fine of €9,000 (over £7,700) for mocking the Holocaust in a video.

Mr M’Bala M’Bala has attacked the “Zionist lobby”, claiming it controls the world, and he has been convicted more than twenty times on charges that include defamation, hate speech and endorsing terrorism in Belgium and France. Last year, he was given a two-year jail sentence and fined for tax fraud and money laundering.
Antisemitic Gang Who Assaulted and Robbed Jewish Family in Paris Sentenced by French Court
A court in Paris has sentenced nine individuals to prison sentences ranging from four to 12 years after they were convicted for a vicious gang robbery of a French Jewish family in 2017 that was motivated by antisemitism.

Three of the nine offenders sentenced by the Assize Court in Seine-Saint-Denis were directly involved in the Sept. 2017 assault on Roger Pinto, who was 83-years-old at the time, his wife Mireille, who was 73, and their son David, who was 41. The leader of the gang received the longest sentence, at 12 years.

Two other robbers received eight and seven year sentences respectively, while the remaining members of the gang who received the money and valuables stolen from the Pintos were sentenced to four years.

The family’s ordeal began when David Pinto discovered on the morning of the attack that the electricity was not working in the family home in the Livry-Gargan neighborhood of Paris. Going down into the basement to check the electricity meter, David opened a door which enabled three assailants, who had set a trap by cutting off the electricity supply, to force their way into the house.

Having gagged David, the three men dragged him to the first floor of the family home. There, they encountered his mother, Mireille, who managed to alert her husband, Roger, before she too was grabbed by the gang. Mireille said that she was “caught and gagged” by the three men.

The gang also attacked Roger Pinto, beating him unconscious. Mr. Pinto said that as he regained consciousness, he heard one of the gang members tell him, “You are Jewish, we know that the Jews have a lot of money and you will give us what you have. If you do not give us what we ask you, we’ll kill you.”
Twice in an hour: Jewish man faces antisemitic abuse on London bus, train
A Jewish man was reportedly threatened and attacked on public transportation twice within an hour on Saturday night in London.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, a man threatened to “slit your throat for Palestine” and called the Jewish man a “f***ing scumbag” aboard a bus.

Later in the evening, a different man reportedly shouted “I f***ing hate the Jews” at him, while inside an underground train station.

London police and public transportation security said that they will be investigating the incidents after the man’s brother publicized the events on social media.

“How proud I am to be English tonight where someone visibly Jewish cannot use public transport without hearing ‘I fucking hate the Jews.’ So depressing…” tweeted the man’s brother, Shlomie Liberow.

Britain saw a dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents in May, coinciding with Israel’s 11-day conflict with Gaza terror groups.


Antisemitic graffiti spray-painted onto side of building in German village
Antisemitic graffiti was found spray-painted onto the side of a building in Wemmetsweiler, a village in the German state of Saarland, last week.

The graffiti depicts three black Stars of David along with the word ‘Jude’, the German word for Jew.

The perpetrators are still unknown. However, local police are investigating the matter.

This incident comes only weeks after Germany banned the Hamas flag as a response to the rise in antisemitic incidents.


Israeli paratroopers to recreate partisans’ WWII jump in honor of Hannah Senesh
Some 150 Israeli soldiers will travel to Central Europe later this month as part of a weeklong educational trip in honor of the 100th birthday of the Hungarian-born soldier and poet Hannah Senesh, who was captured and killed by the Nazis after she parachuted into Hungary during World War II.

The commander of the Paratroopers Brigade, Col. Yuval Gaz, told reporters that the purpose of the program, which will include a recreation of the parachute jump made by Senesh and dozens other Jewish fighters, is to “deepen the connection between the participants and the Israel Defense Forces and the State of Israel.”

The delegation, dubbed “Crash of the Heavens,” after a line from one of Senesh’s poems, will be led by the head of the IDF’s Depth Corps, Maj. Gen. Itay Virov; Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter, commander of the IDF’s 98th Division, which contains the Paratroopers Brigade; and a number of other senior Paratroopers officers, including Gaz.

The soldiers are scheduled to arrive on July 18 in Slovenia, where they will perform the jump, and then travel from there to Croatia and Hungary, before returning to Israel on July 22.

Roughly 100 of the 150 soldiers taking part in the delegation will participate in the jump, which is being staged a short distance from the original site, according to Gaz. A number of soldiers from the Hungarian, Slovenian, Croatian and British militaries will also take part in the jump.







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