Thursday, July 29, 2021

07/29 Links Pt2: Ben & Jerry’s is the tip of the iceberg - a meltldown is coming; "The Squad" Call to Strip Tax-Exempt Status From Pro-Israel US Charities; Why was Julian Burnside’s message antisemitic?

From Ian:

Settler colonialism backfires
With its hegemonic status secured, settler colonialism has swept away the older paradigm of Israel as an outpost of colonialism. Calling Israel a byproduct of the thoroughly discredited colonialist international order lost its currency because it failed to explain not only why the Jewish state did not follow the expected arc of decline, but also why the country forged close ties with increasing numbers of post-colonial states. Moreover, before it was discarded, the colonialism paradigm raised uncomfortable questions about the myriad failures of Palestinians to plant their national flag in any part of the land they claimed despite repeated opportunities offered to them to chart their own path to independence.

Settler colonialism takes the Palestinian cause much further than the discarded colonialism argument. It shows why Palestinians are still victims of a terrible historical wrong even as it removes the imprint of shame from Palestinians for not having stood their ground. Most importantly, a settler-colonial positing an Israel possessed of such overwhelming power that Palestinians are left with no choice but abject surrender is really a call to arms. People of goodwill everywhere are asked to serve as tribunes for Palestinians and assume responsibility for restoring their rights, however ambiguously they are put forward or however improbable their implementation.

As much as the settler colonial paradigm supposedly imposes an indelible stamp of guilt on Zionism and Israel, it also injects a brooding pessimism into the consciousness and discourse of Palestinians. Told repeatedly that they confront an enmity so implacable and evil in character that only a totally mobilized world can destroy it, Palestinians can logically conclude that the independence enjoyed by other nations is beyond their reach. If their confrontation with Zionism is a clash of civilizations, then there are no reasons for Palestinians to cultivate the capacity for flexible responses and the creation of a politics capable of responding to shifting circumstances because the settler-colonial perspective denies the possibility that Palestinians themselves can forge their own national future. Something that was recently orchestrated by the Jewish Electorate Institute that argued that 28 percent of those polled—and 38 percent of those under 40—agreed with the statement that “Israel is an apartheid state”; 23 percent of those polled and 33 percent under 40 agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” These attitudes driven by identity woke politics raise the bar of the Jewish fifth column and its growing dissatisfaction with Zionism.

By straining out the awkward decisions such as the rejection by Palestinians, not by Zionists, of a division of the country into two states for two peoples, settler colonialism has subordinated the historical record beneath a narrative that ignores facts, avoids logic and closes rather than opens up options. The deepest problem with this perspective, however, is that it deprives Palestinians of access to their actual history—to the real opportunities available for advancing their political interests and to the critical question of whether total opposition to Zionism is a self-fulfilling strategy for failure. Would sharing the land when Zionists had accepted much more equitable proposals for dividing the territory—as in 1937 or in 1947—have given Palestinians a base for their own nation-state? Engendering fatalism about politics as the art of the possible while elevating the impossible into a sacred principle may satisfy the conceit of intellectuals on college campuses, and yet, it does nothing to improve the lives of ordinary people.
Vivian Bercovici: Ben & Jerry’s is the tip of the iceberg - a meltldown is coming
Ben & Jerry’s, however, is likely just the tip of the iceberg, which may go a ways to explaining the swift and harsh reactions from Bennett and Lapid.

It’s about much more than ice cream.

Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, is publicly traded, which is the only reason this hornet’s nest has become public. There are many private companies in Israel that are being shunned and, in effect, boycotted commercially, regardless of whether they are engaged in the OPT. Speaking recently with acquaintances who own and operate global businesses based in Israel, I heard story after story of canceled investments and business dealings. Every single one occurred after the May conflict with Hamas. And every single one cited Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as the reason for the business decision.

For every B&J, there are many more boycotts that are being imposed, quietly, one suspects. Based on my own non-scientific, anecdotal inquiries, we should all be focused on the bigger picture.

Let B&J sort out their teetering house. We have to take an honest look at the lay of the broader landscape and face the future, which is now.Ben & Jerry’s is just the tip of the iceberg


Why was Julian Burnside’s message antisemitic?
In 2009, barrister Julian Burnside was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service as a “human rights advocate”.

In 2018, 2019 and 2021, Burnside has used his platform as a human rights advocate to make comparisons between both the Israeli Government and the Nazis and the Australian Government and the Nazis (see “further reading” below)

Most recently, on July 28, Burnside tweeted that “The curious thing about the Israeli stance is that their treatment of the Palestinians looks horribly like the German treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust.” He deleted the tweet, without explanation, 18 hours later.

In making this appalling accusation, Burnside – a former high-profile candidate for the Australian Greens – is not pursuing human rights. Nothing about this statement will help a single Palestinian. The statement demonstrates Burnside’s blatant disregard for the horrors of the Holocaust.

Here is a quick reminder of what German Nazis did to Jews during the Holocaust. The Nazis developed and implemented a government-directed, industrial-scale plan to foster hate against and then annihilate the entire Jewish population. The Nazis deployed vast national resources to implement this plan in a systematic way, resulting in the murder of six million Jewish men, women and children. In 2021, the world’s Jewish population has still not recovered to pre-World War II population numbers, such was the effectiveness of the Nazi genocide.

Nobody could reasonably argue that the Israeli Government or the Israeli military has made any attempts, in any way, to replicate what the Nazis did to the Jewish people.

Many people, Burnside included, are staunch opponents of Israeli Government policies or Israeli military action, but this is not the same thing as comparing Israeli policies or activities to those of the Nazis.


Tlaib, AOC Join Call for Treasury to Strip Tax-Exempt Status From US Charities ‘Supporting’ Israeli Settlements
US Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and five other Democrats have called for the US Treasury to stop granting tax exemptions to American charitable organizations active in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

In a July 22 letter sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the group expressed their “extreme concern that US charities are funding and providing direct support to Israeli organizations that are working to expand and perpetuate Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in violation of international law, including supporting the dispossession and forced displacement of Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem neighborhoods.”

“We are concerned that these policies violate US obligations under international law, as well as federal tax law,” the letter read.

“Yellen must act to enforce US law and end these organizations’ status,” tweeted Tlaib, who signed the letter along with Democratic Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush (MO) André Carson (IN), Mark Pocan (WI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Betty McCollum (MN).

The group alleged that the groups’ tax-exempt non-profit status amounts to an effective “subsidy” from the US government to fund “serious breaches of international law and violations of internationally recognized human rights related to the expansion of the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise.”

The letter specifically listed the Central Fund of Israel (CFI) as among those groups it charged with “fueling the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians,” as well as American Friends of Beit El.
The Ben and Jerry's Dispute Isn't about Ice Cream
Sometimes an ice cream cone is just an ice cream cone. But sometimes a debate that may seem to be just about dairy-based desserts can have much broader ramifications about a people’s future.

Initially, I didn’t want to write about the Ben & Jerry’s controversy sweeping through the U.S. and Israel, because I worried that discussing the life-and-death issues that frame the Israeli-Palestinian debate within the context of an ice cream boycott could trivialize such a critically important conversation.

But this isn’t an argument about desserts. It’s about terrorism and bigotry and the worst type of double standards that demonize the Jewish homeland and the people who live there. It’s the latest front in the ongoing battle that uses the threat of economic boycott and sanctions to pressure Israel into agreeing to shrink its landmass, empower its enemies and expose its citizens to an even greater threat of danger and death.

This overlap between Middle Eastern geopolitics and an American cultural touchstone demonstrates the scope of the challenge that Israel and its supporters are now facing with a U.S. audience whose support for the Jewish state has become increasingly tenuous. The legislative fights are becoming more frequent and more intense, as anti-Israel voices in Congress continue to grow. But this Ben & Jerry’s dispute is an unpleasant reminder that Israel’s challenges are spreading beyond the political arena to the broader and less manageable cultural space.

Almost every week, we hear apologies by athletes and entertainers who “didn’t understand” the hateful overtones of the jokes or the song lyrics they retweeted. Our children and grandchildren study on college campuses where progressive organizations march with pro-Palestinian zealots and then stand aside when Jewish students are demonized. Our allies in school districts and state legislatures work overtime to detoxify ethnic studies curricula that perpetuate antisemitic stereotypes, and our feminist friends battle to disentangle the national Women’s March movement from Louis Farrakhan’s apologists. Meanwhile, mainstream news media devote a comparatively small amount of attention to hate crimes committed against the Jewish community.
Israeli academics praise Ben & Jerry boycott in newspaper ad
While Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vowed to “act aggressively” against the decision by Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling its ice cream in Israeli-occupied territories, some 92 progressive Israelis thanked the Vermont-based ice cream maker on Tuesday in a full-page ad published in Haaretz.

Under the banner "Thank you Ben & Jerry," the ad stated: "Dear Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, we are writing to let you know that in Israel there are also other opinions. Thank you for your commitment to Palestinian human rights." More than 30 of the signatories included well-known academics, notably 21 professors from Hebrew University and 11 from Tel Aviv University. Academics from Haifa University, Bar-Ilan University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and Bezalel Academy also added their signatures.

Politicians also signed, including former Joint List MKs Sondos Saleh, Iman Khatib-Yasin, Wael Younis and Jabar Asakla.

Published in English and Hebrew, the bottom of the ad notes: "This statement of gratitude is directed towards Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings, Inc. in Vermont, and not to the company's Israeli franchise," which refused the demands of global Ben & Jerry's to halt sales in Judea and Samaria that were announced on July 19.

The pro-Israel watchdog organization Im Tirtzu sharply rebuked the letter in a press release on Wednesday, expressing their belief of how severe the "BDS from within" phenomenon is.
Ben & Jerry’s founders say, ‘We’re proud Jews,’ defend West Bank sales ban
The founders of Ben & Jerry’s are defending their company’s decision to put the freeze on selling ice cream in the West Bank, calling it “the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Although Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield no longer have control of their namesake company — British food giant Unilever owns it — they backed its decision on Thursday, despite the fact it has drawn fury from Israelis and New Yorkers alike.

“We are the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. We are also proud Jews. It’s part of who we are and how we’ve identified ourselves for our whole lives,” the founders wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times Thursday.

“As our company began to expand internationally, Israel was one of our first overseas markets. We were then, and remain today, supporters of the State of Israel.”

The duo added that it is “possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies” just as they’ve “opposed policies in the US government.” The men said they “unequivocally support the decision of the company to end business in the occupied territories, which a majority of the international community,” including the US, “has deemed an illegal occupation.”

In recent days, the company’s decision has been called out as anti-Semitic by critics, including Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who threatened Unilever CEO Alan Jope with consequences for the company due to the sales ban.
StandWithUs Responds to NYT op-ed by Founders of Ben & Jerry's
The article also promotes a major factual inaccuracy, stating that, "Israeli policy... perpetuates an illegal occupation". While reasonable people in Israel and around the world can and do criticize Israel's policies in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, its control over these territories is absolutely not "illegal".

The West Bank and eastern Jerusalem were unlawfully seized by Jordan in 1948 and illegally occupied until 1967, when Israel pushed Jordan out in self-defense. Writing about the 1967 War during which Israel took control of these areas, former International Court of Justice Vice-President Stephen Schwebel stated that “Israel reacted defensively against the threat and use of force against her by her Arab neighbors.” He also wrote that, "a State acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense."

In 1993, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to an international treaty called the Oslo Accords, which stipulated that Israel will fully control eastern Jerusalem and 60% of the West Bank until the two parties negotiate a final peace deal. Israel has repeatedly agreed to leave the vast majority of these territories in return for peace, but Palestinian leaders have rejected every Israeli offer. As such, Israel’s rule is entirely legal under international treaties, and continues primarily because of decisions made by the Palestinian leadership. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield do Israelis, Palestinians, and their readers a disservice by spreading misinformation and omitting crucial context about eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Finally, the article says Ben & Jerry's statement, "did not endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement." But it neglects to mention that the company's independent board chair, Ms. Mittal, has explicitly promoted BDS and implied that Israel's existence is a "catastrophe". Nor does it acknowledge that Ben & Jerry's decision came after a wave of pressure from BDS extremists who hate Israel and don't want it to exist in any territory. In fact, the loudest campaign targeting the company and celebrating this move calls the location of their Israeli factory a "settlement," when it is clearly in an internationally recognized part of Israel. It is especially telling that the global BDS movement officially celebrated the decision. They are using it to further promote their destructive agenda, aimed at strangling Israel economically and politically.

While Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield may truly support Israel and oppose BDS, the actions of the company they founded have undoubtedly contributed to this global campaign of hate. Unfortunately, this is true whether it was their intention or not.
PMW: Ice cream is out, rewarding murderers of Jews is in
Praising the decision of Ben and Jerry’s to halt ice cream sales in the area the company referred to as “occupied Palestinian territory,” PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh said the move was “testament that moral values should always prevail.”

When commenting how “moral values” should always prevail, Shtayyeh obviously missed the fact that the body he controls – the Palestinian Authority – literally spends hundreds of millions of shekels/dollars every year paying cash rewards to terrorists, including murderers.

As part of its institutionalized system to reward terrorists, the PA has already paid mass murderers such as Ibrahim Hamed, who murdered 53 people and Abbas Al-Sayid, who murdered 35 people, over half a million dollars, purely as a reward for murdering Jews. In 2020, while begging the world to fund COVID-19 treatment for the Palestinians, the head of the PA-funded PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, Qadri Abu Bakr, admitted to spending 600 million shekels/US$181 million paying rewards to terrorists. Abu Bakr recently explained that every month the PA pays cash rewards to over 12,000 terrorists.

Explaining the company's decision, Ben and Jerry’s announced that the sale of ice cream in Judea and Samaria by an Israeli licensee is “inconsistent with our values.”

Ben and Jerry’s decision is a reflection of an unfortunate truism – if one repeats a lie often enough, someone is bound to believe it.
Ben and Jerry's Rejected Pro-Peace Alternatives to Israel Boycott
Susannah Levin, a graphic designer for Ben & Jerry's for 21 years, told StandWithUs on Sunday that when she learned that the company was considering divesting from the West Bank, she proposed an alternate plan to a company executive. Levin suggested supporting a grassroots organization that promotes peace and coexistence, or backing Israeli and Palestinian educational organizations fighting hatred and incitement. She also proposed opening a partner shop in Ramallah and Jewish West Bank areas for both Palestinians and Israelis.

Levin quit after the company moved forward with boycotting Israel. Since then, she has been overwhelmed by the support she has received. "People are calling me a hero. I'm just a Jew. I'm a person with some integrity. I decided to start speaking up because...I want people to know that other Jews or other people who care deeply for the Jewish people, you can speak up....Maybe I had an effect. At least I know that they heard something from the other side."
Illinois seeks Ben & Jerry’s divestment over Israel stance
Illinois regulators plan to warn the owner of Ben & Jerry’s to reverse the company’s decision to stop selling ice cream in the West Bank and east Jerusalem or face divestment by the state, an official said Wednesday.

The Israeli Boycott Restrictions Committee of the Illinois Investment Policy Board will meet to approve setting a 90-day deadline for Unilever to reverse the decision by Ben & Jerry’s, committee chairman Andy Lappin said.

There is no date set for the meeting but it will be called specifically to address the July 19 announcement by the Vermont-based confection-maker that continuing to market its product in Palestinian-sought territories is “inconsistent with our values.”

It’s considered one of the strongest condemnations by a well-known company of Israel’s policy of settling citizens on war-won lands. Lappin said that “the egregious nature of the statement is almost unprecedented.”

The Illinois Investment Policy Board monitors compliance with state law prohibiting the investment in certain companies that do business with Iran and Sudan as well as companies that boycott Israel.

“We’ll meet in the next week or so just for this issue, asking the board to send a letter to Unilever giving it 90 days to confirm or deny” Ben & Jerry’s stance, Lappin said. “In this case, it was a blatantly open statement made by the chairman of Ben & Jerry’s and we need to determine if Unilever deems it appropriate to walk the statement back.”

A spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the state’s third Jewish governor, has refused to respond to requests for comment about the legality of Ben & Jerry’s plans.


California Democratic Delegate Hussam Ayloush condemned for antisemitic rhetoric
CAIR Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush currently serves as an Assembly District Delegate to the California Democratic Party. He has a long history of unchallenged extremist and antisemitic rhetoric. Now leaders in the local Jewish community are demanding he be held accountable for his vitriole.

In an open letter to California Governor Gavin Newson, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks, and Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel, Jewish community leaders representing Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities in the state of California expressed their concern regarding the "multiple antisemitic statements made by California Democratic Party (CDP) leader Hussam Ayloush."

They write:
As an institution whose mission is to be a “leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding” and whose Los Angeles Executive Director, Hussam Ayloush, currently serves as an Assembly District Delegate to the CDP, we are deeply concerned by CAIR LA’s role in influencing California’s Democratic Party with revisionist lies about Israel and the Jewish people, and the Middle Eastern Jewish community in particular. These lies are contributing to the rising tides of antisemitism our communities are currently experiencing, and are making the CDP an increasingly hostile place for many Jews – particularly those of North African and Middle Eastern descent.

We feel it is critical to open this letter by asserting that the vast majority of Jewish people are indigenous to Israel. As Mizrahi Jews, our ancestors lived continuously in the Middle East since the dawn of Judaism itself. In the mid to late 20th century, state-sanctioned antisemitism—frequently taken under the banner of anti-Zionism—led to the ethnic cleansing and displacement of close to one million Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. About 650,000 of these Jews fled to Israel as stateless refugees and the remainder scattered to countries around the world, including the USA, with an estimated 200,000 residing in California. Today, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews comprise over half of Israel’s Jewish population.


Oxfam-Québec Seeks to Make Israel a Pariah State in La Presse
The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is heart wrenching for all Canadians to watch, and the endemic violence has created far too much pain, loss and suffering. Clearly, there’s a need for change in how the world, and Canada specifically, interacts and attempts to influence the region.

But some proposed solutions, like those advocated by Oxfam-Québec’s Giulia El Dardiry in La Presse on July 15, won’t procure peace and will only protract the conflict, leading Israelis and Palestinians down a path of more harm, dispute and antipathy.

In her recent op-ed, “In Gaza, Canada’s words won’t be enough,” El Dardiry lays the blame for the conflict squarely at Israel’s feet, while proposing that Canada condemn Israel exclusively for its policies, and end arm sales to the Jewish State.

El Dardiry is correct that for too long, the world, including Canada, has ignored the root causes of the conflict, but she ignores the most serious impediment to Mideast peace: the refusal on the part of the Palestinian leadership to accept the very existence of a Jewish State in their midst. Both Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank (regarded by Israelis as Judea and Samaria), regularly call for the destruction of Israel.

Today, the leaders of Hamas continue to be unabashed and open in their calls for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews. The Palestinian Authority (PA), sometimes considered to be the more “moderate” arm of the Palestinian leadership, continues to indoctrinate the next generation of Palestinians with grotesque antisemitic displays in state-run schools, media outlets and mosques. The Palestinian leadership – both Hamas and the PA – have not prepared their people for eventual peace with Israel, rather, the PA continues to glorify and reward terrorism through its “pay for slay” program, indoctrinates its own people, and inculcates a culture of victimhood and corruption. Israel has shown it’s serious about peace, having made multiple peace offers to the Palestinians, including offering all of Gaza, eastern Jerusalem and Judea & Samaria to the Palestinian Authority, none of which have ever been accepted or received with a counteroffer.
CUNY Professors Leave Union in Droves Following Anti-Israel Statement
City University of New York (CUNY) professors are leaving the faculty union in droves after it passed a resolution condemning Israel as an "apartheid" state.

The Professional Staff Congress, CUNY’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, approved a "Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People" in June. The union "condemns the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli state" and formally backs the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The New York Post reported on July 25 that at least 50 faculty members resigned from the union after the resolution passed, though some professors told the Washington Free Beacon that the number could be more than 100.

The first professor to resign, Jeffrey Lax, told the Free Beacon that the union’s statement is inconsistent because it simultaneously claims that Israel is a "diverse nation state."

"Which one is it? Either you’re a diverse nation state or an apartheid state. They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth," Lax said.

The union’s statement came weeks after Hamas attacked Israel and launched more than 4,000 rockets into the Jewish state, killing several Israeli citizens. The Israeli military’s targeted counterstrikes neutralized several terrorist weapons caches and Hamas leaders.

CUNY has been dogged with accusations of anti-Semitism for years. In June, a pro-Palestinian professor and several students hacked into a Hunter College Zoom lecture and recited anti-Semitic tropes. The CUNY system’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy selected anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour as its commencement speaker in 2017. Later that year, CUNY awarded a top faculty honor to Beth Baron, a vocal proponent of boycotts targeting the Jewish state.


Barnardo’s investigating teacher over social media posts about Israel and Jews
Barnardo’s has investigated one of its teachers after Jewish News discovered social media posts apparently written by her, which claimed Israel has world governments “in their pockets”, “controlled” the media and massacres “thousands”.



Rubina Halim, a Yorkshire-based staffer with the leading children’s charity wrote on Linkedin this month: “Israel is not looking at taking over Palestine. There is far more to it than that!”

In an inflammatory message, Halim continued: “Think about their spyware – how they can hack anyone anywhere. Think about how they have governments around the world in their pockets – why else are they able to massacre thousands of people?

“Think about how the media is controlled and manipulated – how readily are unfavourable posts are (sic) taken down and the news prevented from being reported?”

In a further call for action, Halim wrote in the post made this month: “Will we wake up in time to do something about it – or will we keep our heads buried in the sand until it’s too late?”

After we alerted Barnardo’s to its employee’s posts a spokesperson confirmed the charity had taken “firm action” against Halim “pending a full and thorough investigation.”

Halim herself told Jewish News last night: “I am not antisemitic and truly do not recognise how my post could be described as antisemitic.

“My sincerest apologies if my post has offended you in any way.”


CAMERA Prompts CNBC Correction on Legality of Occupation
CNBC has corrected a factual error about the legality of Israel’s administration of the West Bank. The correction was prompted by CAMERA’s correspondence with CNBC editors.

On July 21, Shepard Smith wrongly claimed that the “UN Security Council has said the Israeli occupation is a ‘flagrant violation’ under international law.” After CAMERA informed journalists that the Security Council has made no such determination, and cited expert opinion that occupations are not illegal, CNBC acknowledged the error and posted a correction on Twitter. It stated:

CAMERA has secured similar corrections from the New York Times (twice), AFP, Bloomberg, and others.
Nation Of Islam Finally Banned From Twitter, But Not For Anti-Semitism
Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, an unabashedly anti-Semitic group, has been banned from Twitter — but not for hatred against Jewish people.

The final straw for Twitter came when the Nation of Islam criticized vaccines, The Federalist reported. Prior to that, however, the social media giant had repeatedly declined to ban or punish Farrakhan’s personal account or that of the Nation of Islam despite blatant harassment and anti-Semitism.

“Twitter moved to ban the account last week after being targeted for promoting ‘misinformation.’ In reaction to the ban, a high-ranking member in the group tweeted, ‘Unsurprisingly, Twitter, Inc. has suspended The Nation of Islam’s official account: @OfficialNOI,’” The Federalist reported. “A report cited by the White House this month said that 12 Twitter accounts are responsible for 65 percent of supposed anti-vaccine content. One of the 12 listed was Rizza Islam, a Nation of Islam member. While Twitter took action against the group after perpetual mRNA vaccines criticism, it remained silent on its previous anti-semitism.”

The Twitter ban comes after the account was allowed to operate for a decade spreading anti-Semitic messages. In 2018, for example, Farrakhan said “the powerful Jews are my enemy” during a speech, adding, “white folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”

That clip wasn’t shared to Twitter, but that same year, Farrakhan tweeted a clip of another speech where he compared Jews to termites. He captioned that video: “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”
World Service radio radically broadens BBC’s framing of spyware story
In that uninterrupted monologue Dahlia Scheindlin took BBC framing of the Pegasus story one very radical step further, imputing a broader “role in undermining human rights” to Israel while tritely distilling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to a completely context-free caricature of Palestinian victims serially abused by Israel.

Although hardly unexpected – because the inadequately introduced Scheindlin had promoted similar themes in a Guardian opinion piece just three days earlier – those allegations went completely unchallenged by Kesby.

The symbiotic result was that Scheindlin got to exploit the ‘hot’ Pegasus story to advance her own particular political agenda while the BBC used an ‘expert’ Israeli commentator to broaden its exclusively Israel-focused framing of the story with populist canards.
London Police: Antisemitic Incidents in the City Skyrocketed in May
Antisemitic violence in London skyrocketed in May, with Israel’s 11-day conflict with Hamas used as pretext to attack Jews in the city, new police data revealed Thursday.

Statistics released by the Metropolitan Police showed 87 incidents of antisemitic violence in May, which was four times higher than any month since 2018, Sky News reported.

Since May 2018, only a handful of months saw more than 20 such incidents.

Chaim Hochhauser of the Shomrim neighborhood watch organization in the heavily-Jewish Stamford Hill neighborhood in north London, said, “During May, the Jewish community in Hackney were the target of many racially motivated attacks.”

“One of these hate crimes targeted over 30 Jewish-owned vehicles whose tires were slashed. This was pure hate crime as only the Jewish cars were targeted,” he said.

“Usually when it flares up in Israel, it flares up here locally,” he stated. “In May we had the Gaza war in Israel, so that is why it has flared up in England.”

Of the May 2021 incidents, 39 were targeted at men and 43 against women.

Rabbi Herschel Gluck of Stamford Hill said, “There needs to be better security provided by the police, particularly for women in the neighborhood.”
UK greenlights plan for new Holocaust memorial outside parliament
The British government approved plans on Thursday to build a national Holocaust memorial beside Parliament, rejecting claims by campaigners that the location was unsuitable.

The government said building the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Center in Victoria Tower Gardens, a park in the shadow of Parliament, would send a “powerful associative message.”

The memorial was announced in 2016, but the choice of location has faced opposition. A group of campaigners argued that it would remove valuable green space in the heart of the city and would be better built elsewhere.

After public inquiries last year, the government said the benefits of the location outweighed the “modest loss of open space” in the park.

The 100 million pound ($140 million) memorial — designed by leading architects David Adjaye and Ron Arad — is scheduled to open in 2024 and will be free to visit. It is intended as the focal point for Britain’s national remembrance of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and all other victims of Nazi persecution, and to provide a place for reflection on “subsequent genocides” in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said “there will be something uniquely powerful about locating a memorial to the Holocaust right next to the center of the UK’s democracy.”
Former nurse who previously described NHS as the “new Auschwitz” is under investigation after comparing NHS workers to Nazis
A former nurse who had reportedly described the NHS as the “new Auschwitz” last year is now under investigation after comparing NHS workers to Nazis at an anti-vaccination rally on Saturday.

Kate Shemirani was removed from the nursing register after she was suspended as a registered nurse for eighteen months last July, pending an investigation into her past alleged comments on COVID-19 and 5G conspiracy theories.

However, it was reportedly decided last month by the NMC Fitness to Practise Committee that she would be permanently struck off from the register. Ms Shemrani can appeal this ruling in five years. In the meantime, however, she will be unable to practice as a registered nurse.

Ms Shemirani, a leading figure in the anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination movement, spoke at a rally on Saturday in which she allegedly called for the names of NHS workers before comparing them to Nazis, saying: “At the Nuremberg trials, the doctors and nurses stood trial and they hung.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan condemned the comments on Twitter, writing: “This is utterly appalling, and I have raised it directly with the Met Police. Our NHS staff are the heroes of this pandemic and Londoners from across this city roundly reject this hate.”

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police stated: “We are aware of [a] video circulating online showing a speech that occurred during a rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday 24th July. Officers are carrying out enquiries to establish whether any offences have been committed. No arrests have been made.”

Ms Shemirani’s comments have also been condemned by both the Prime Minister and the Labour Party Leader, Sir Keir Starmer.
‘Heal Hitler’ video game simulates therapy for Nazi leader, drawing outrage
A new video game that asks players to identify Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s psychological issues and “avoid” the Holocaust has drawn online outrage.

The indie game, called “Heal Hitler,” has been available for purchase since July 22 on popular video game digital store Steam.

Its description says: “POV: You are Hitler’s psychologist in 1925. Diagnose his complexes by using both Jungian and Freudian psychotherapy and attempt to heal him. Resolve Hitler’s trauma and prevent catastrophe via therapy and psychology. Succeed and avoid the war and holocaust.”

“Hitler was human too, just like you,” it argues. “If you distance yourself from him by dehumanizing him and calling him a monster, you are doing psychological damage to your self.

“In order to develop your shadow, you need to realize and admit that given the right circumstances, you could become someone like Hitler too. You are both good and evil. And if we don’t admit that someone like Hitler could come again, we are doomed to repeat history.”

The game was created by Czech developer Jon Aegis, who has denied allegations that he is a Nazi apologist, claiming that he researched psychological reports and accounts by people who had met Hitler.

When Aegis promoted the game in several Reddit forums, not all users were happy.

“This is offensive and weird. And speaks to a complete lack of personal experience with the holocaust,” one user wrote, according to Newsweek.


Google to Officially Announce Subsea Cable to Connect Europe and Asia Via Israel
Tech giant Google is expected to officially announce today the launch of its subsea cable project that will connect Asia and Europe through Israel, Calcalist has learned. The project was first revealed in the Wall Street Journal last November, but to date hadn’t been officially confirmed by Google. The project will see Google Cloud collaborate with Sparkle, a Telecom Italia company, together with other partners. The project’s budget was estimated at $400 million by Dubai-based Salience Consulting.

The project includes the laying of two subsea cables. The first, named Blue, will connect Italy, France, Greece, and Israel; with the second, named Raman, after India’s Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1930, to connect between Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, and India.

The two cables will be connected on land in Israel, with Blue to enter Israel off the Tel Aviv coast and Raman to start from the Israel-Jordan border near the southern city of Eilat.

Both cable systems will include 16 fiberoptic pairs and are set to become operational in 2024.
Kibbutz-Made Hi-Tech Monitors 10 Million Cows in 52 Countries
The high-tech company Afimilk, a success story of the Israeli agrotech industry, this week reported a new record: more than 10 million cows in 52 countries around the world are currently managed by the company’s technology.

The technological tools developed and manufactured by Afimilk make it possible to monitor parameters such as the amount of milk given by each cow, as well as the ratio of milk components and other data that help diagnose the physical condition of each and every cow.

According to Gil Katz, head of the research group that deals with data science and machine learning at Afimilk, data retrieved from the sensor on a cow’s neck can alert regarding cows that are not sufficiently rested, send a real-time alert to the mobile phone of the attending veterinarian regarding the onset of calving, or about a litter that has become entangled and needs assistance.

Afimilk was founded in 1977 in Kibbutz Afikim in the Jordan Valley. Inspired by inventor Eli Peles, the company began to focus its activities around the dairy farm in general and computerized milking systems in particular, and since then it has been its main field of activity. In 1979, a milk meter made by the company was first launched, and in 1984, Afimilk introduced a computerized management system for the dairy farm.

The company develops, manufactures, and markets advanced management solutions for cowsheds that include computerized systems, monitoring systems, dedicated software based on advanced algorithms, smartphone applications, and IoT architecture that includes smart sensors, and remote control and monitoring. Afimilk’s products are currently marketed through more than 250 vendors worldwide.
Former Israeli Intelligence Experts Are Revolutionizing Agriculture
A group of former Israeli intelligence experts are revolutionizing the fruit-tree farming industry, utilizing drones, satellite imagery, and artificial intelligence.

Tel Aviv-based SeeTree has been retained by some of the world's biggest fruit-tree farmers to provide key information on each tree's health and productivity.

Until now, farmers were unable to obtain accurate information on their trees' health, how its crops were doing, whether or not the tree was receiving enough water and sunlight, and the amount of crop-protection pesticides needed.

Garry Schiff, a forester in the U.S. for three decades who serves as a consultant for SeeTree, explained:

"SeeTree's key to success is that they can see every tree in detail like no one else. Because they can see every tree, they can help the forest owner before small problems become big problems, such as insects and diseases or drought stress. They can see when the fruit is ready....This is a game-changer for foresters."
Israel Aerospace Industries, Hensoldt to Supply Radars to German Armed Forces
Hensoldt, a Germany-headquartered defense company, is working with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to supply new radars to the German Armed Forces, the companies announced in recent days.

The radars are designed to enable Germany to modernize its airspace surveillance and create ballistic-missile defense capabilities, according to a joint statement.

“The Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support has placed an order for the delivery and installation of four long-range radars worth approximately 200 million euros,” the statement said.

For this purpose, Hensoldt has entered into a cooperation with IAI subsidiary Elta Systems in the area of long-range radars.

“Thanks to IAI’s cooperation, the German customer will receive a combination of a national partner in system integration, certification and long-term support, as well as concept-proven, market-perfected systems,” said the statement.
Kushner quitting politics to set up investment firm with Israel focus – report
Jared Kushner, former US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and onetime senior adviser, is quitting politics to focus on investment, particularly on businesses that advance Israeli-Arab peace, according to a report.

Kushner’s business will be called Infinity Partners and will be based in Miami, where Kushner and his wife Ivanka now live, Reuters reported, quoting anonymous sources. The couple live about an hour’s drive from Trump’s Palm Beach home.

Kushner will also open an office in Israel that will promote business ties between Israel, India, Persian Gulf states, and North Africa.

One of Kushner’s last acts as an adviser to Trump was leading the brokering of normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.

Much of Kushner’s emphasis while shaping his father-in-law’s Middle East policy was on peace nurtured through investment and economic development. It was a winning formula with what he dubbed the “Abraham Accords,” but failed to bring about a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Israeli cybersecurity firm Riskified holds Wall Street IPO at $3.3B valuation
Riskified, an Israeli online fraud prevention company, went public on Wall Street on Thursday at a valuation of $3.3 billion.

The company priced 17.5 million shares at $21 each, slightly higher than the planned price of $18-$21 per share. The shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RSKD.

Immediately after the offering, the stock price soared over 30 percent to $27.

Riskified was the 10th Israeli tech firm to hold initial public offerings on Wall Street so far this year. Others have listed on New York exchanges via SPAC mergers.

The company was expected to raise at least $363 million with the IPO.

Riskified was established in Israel in 2013 to combat online payment fraud. Its platform uses machine learning to weed out potential fraud for online merchants to reduce risk and uncertainty in digital transactions. The company says its technology reduces losses and operating costs, while pushing sales higher and strengthening relationships with consumers.

Its customers include Wayfair, Finish Line, Prada, Peloton, AirEuropa and Steve Madden.









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