Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Bret Stephens: The Cheap & Easy Sanctimony of Ben & Jerry
The decision also called attention to the fact, unmentioned by Cohen and Greenfield, that the supposedly independent Ben & Jerry’s board that exists to handle its social mission was in no hurry to bless Unilever’s pledge to keep doing business in Israel.Daniel Gordis: The Bearable Heaviness of Being (Alone)
On the contrary: the Ben & Jerry’s board chair, Anuradha Mittal, is publicly furious with Unilever. NBC News reported that her board tried to put out a different statement “that made no reference to continued sales in Israel,” but that “Unilever released the statement against the wishes of the board.”
As for Unilever, it will be hard-pressed to honor its promise to stay in Israel while keeping out of the West Bank, since Israeli law forbids companies from operating that way. It will also have to seek approval from the ticked-off Ben & Jerry’s board for a new Israeli licensee once the current contract expires next year.
So much for Cohen and Greenfield bravely honoring the principle to distinguish between the West Bank and Israel. What we really have is a feckless political gesture, a corporate fiasco, a de facto boycott of the Jewish state, an enraged Israeli government, and a handful of customers who won’t get their Chunky Monkey cravings satisfied. Just how any of this translates into peace or justice, much less ending “the occupation,” is anyone’s guess.
In his book, Ramaswamy asks, “How did we come to this farcical point where your politics chooses your sandwiches”— or ice cream? “I’m tempted to say that nothing is sacred anymore, but America’s problem is actually the opposite: Nothing is allowed to be ordinary anymore.”
To have to write a whole column about the Ben & Jerry’s founders’ personal political views shouldn’t be necessary. Too bad their sanctimonious, inept, and dishonest attempt at foreign policy makes it so.
Ice cream boycotts themselves aren’t very high stakes. We can live without Chubby Hubby. Yet ice cream boycotts are a potential harbinger of much worse, still to come. If boycotting Israel gets to be in vogue, this could spread. What if it comes to include airlines? Tech companies? Those Israelis and others applauding the boycott because it applies “only” to the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” ought to ask themselves—given that there’s no obvious policy alternative at the moment (though there is much that Israel can and should do to make Palestinian life easier and better)—whether that’s fire they really want to play with.Former Ben and Jerry’s Employee Says Anti-Israel Activist Spoke to Board Ahead of Boycott Decision
The boycott has gotten all the attention in Israel that it has because it’s a reminder of the fundamental loneliness that often lies at the heart of Israeliness. It’s a reminder that a thriving economy, insanely successful tech sector, world class health care, superb universities, Tel Aviv being one of the most LGBT-friendly cities in the world, Jewish cultural creativity exploding in ways that are hard to fathom, Jews in Israel being physically safer than ever before and much more all notwithstanding, it weighs on you, this knowledge that you live in the only country in the world about which there has been—even before it declared independence—a consensus that the world might be better off if you didn’t exist.
As was noted this week in Tokyo, it took 49 years for the Olympics to formally honor the dead Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Is there any other country that would have had to wait half a century?
Obviously not.
Only one country.
A former longtime Ben & Jerry's employee said the company's decision to boycott Israel was based on advice from a BDS activist who was expelled from Israel for spearheading economic pressure campaigns against the Jewish state.
Susannah Levin, who spent 21 years as a freelance graphic designer for Ben & Jerry's before resigning last month over the company's decision to halt its sales in the West Bank, said the company's board consulted with Human Rights Watch's Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir, an advocate of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement who accused the Jewish state of "crimes against humanity."
"Omar Shakir spoke directly to the board," said Levin in an interview with Israel's Channel 2 radio on Tuesday. "He wrote the Human Rights Watch report, [which] is what they were basing their information on. It's a report that accuses Israel of apartheid."
"They believed him to be a valid source of information about Israel," she added.
Ben & Jerry's has come under scrutiny for its involvement with anti-Israel activists. The company recently hosted a conference call with anti-Zionist writer Peter Beinart, who has said he supports the destruction of the Jewish state, to address concerns about the boycott from its franchise owners, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Ben & Jerry's declined to comment on Shakir's alleged involvement with its board. Human Rights Watch did not respond to a request for comment.
Shakir was deported from Israel in 2019 due to his attempts to pressure various companies and international organizations, including FIFA, to join boycotts against homes and businesses in contested parts of Israel. He took credit for Airbnb's decision to bar Israelis in the West Bank from renting their homes on the site in 2018. The rental service later backtracked in the face of legal challenges.
Matti Friedman: Building Israel’s Dust City
Every city is a battle against entropy, and Beersheba (to paraphrase a famous saying about Jews) is like other cities, but more so. There’s one spot where you can stand on a rise of fresh grass overlooking a lovely new amphitheater that will stage cultural activities for the residents of Israel’s sixth-largest city. Then you turn around, without moving a step, and see electric pylons receding from the edge of town into the dun sea of the desert, the tin-shack Bedouin empire spreading over the slopes.University of South Carolina to Open First US Anne Frank House: ‘She Was One of Six Million’
You can call Beersheba, population 200,000, the “capital of the Negev,” and air-condition spanking new shopping malls until the jeans are cool to the touch. You can open boutique hotels and unfurl the “biggest pride flag in the Middle East.” But the desert will still hem you in, crushing you with heat at 9 a.m. If the sprinklers fail, the green grass by the new amphitheater will be trash-blown sand in a week.
David Ben-Gurion knew the future of Israel was in the Negev, which had most of the country’s land and almost none of its people, and he famously called on the pioneer youth to make it flower. In Zionist mythology, Beersheba is the city of the future. Is that still true? Unless Israelis have a pressing reason to come here, they don’t. Maybe the future arrived, and everyone has been too preoccupied with Tel Aviv real estate and vegan moussaka to notice?
Beersheba’s partisans want to think that progress, in the form of the city, is encroaching inevitably on the desert. But the place is defined by the nagging fear that it’s the other way around. For most Israelis, vague reports of a popular mayor and a facelift come on top of older assumptions about the city being one to avoid at all costs, leaving Beersheba as a question mark somewhere to the south, like the famous “textile factory” at Dimona.
As you drive down the main drag into the city you’ll see a name atop a few of the new apartment towers—AVISROR—and then on buildings all over town, so I decided to start my investigation by understanding what that meant. AVISROR seemed like it could be some kind of conglomerate: Israelis in construction, maybe some blurry Putin money or a multinational connecting the Negev with Hungary and the Punjab. It turned out to be the name of a local Beersheba patriot, formerly a peddler of dates and arak from the hinterland outside Agadir, Morocco.
The Zionist heroes that Ben-Gurion thought would make the Negev bloom were probably suntanned kibbutz socialists and not Moshe Avisror, who appears in one picture with a white suit, matching fedora, prayer shawl, and sunglasses. Moshe and his sons aren’t kibbutznik socialists. Neither are they American-style developers with business-school degrees. Their walls feature paintings of North African rabbis, like the cloaked miracle worker Baba Sali. These are the people who built Beersheba, and who are now knocking parts of it down to build it higher.
The University of South Carolina plans to build the first Anne Frank Center in North America, the school announced on Monday, connecting students and the wider community with the heroic story of the Jewish teenage diarist and Holocaust victim.Phyllis Chesler: Trying to Save Just One Afghan Woman
The 1,060 square foot center will feature World War II artifacts, as well as replicas of the sliding bookcase behind which Anne’s family hid inside the secret annex of Prinsengracht 263, and of the desk where she wrote the reflections that later became “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.”
“We would like every student here to see visually what they’ve read in history books, and by that strike a match, light a candle, for a more peaceful and just world,” said USC Interim President Harris Pastides at a Tuesday ceremony announcing the opening, local FOX57 news reported.
He also noted plans to start a traveling exhibit that would tour all 50 US states, reaching thousands of people who may never have the chance to visit Amsterdam’s famed Anne Frank House or its existing partner centers in London, Buenos Aires and Berlin.
USC junior Mary McElveen spoke of her hope to help make the area a more welcoming place for Jewish students like herself.
“We are surrounded by communities that don’t really get to be educated on the Holocaust,” McElveen said at the event. “I’ve met kids that have never seen a Jewish person before, that have never heard Anne Frank’s name before, so having this here is really amazing.”
Center Director Doyle Stevick said Anne’s own telling of her life has made her the best known child “in any school system in the world.”
“Part of what we have to do is show her and her family, her life history, and help people understand that she was one of six million people and of 1.5 million children who were murdered,” Doyle Stevick told the Post and Courier.
I have been trying to save just one woman in Afghanistan. It is proving to be an unimaginably arduous task, one that has taken up nearly all my time, night and day recently — and one in which I’ve involved at least six others in just one rescue mission.Washington Post Columnist Finds Way to Blame Trump for Rashida Tlaib’s Antisemitism
My woman in Kabul is eminently qualified for a seat on an American military plane out of a country being overrun by the Taliban. She has worked for an American university, and for a number of European NGOS and international agencies on behalf of women’s health and women’s rights. She has a degree in medical science and has lectured all over the country. She is known. Over there, she is a target; here, she will no doubt become a productive and assimilated Afghan-American.
Sadly, America’s departure from Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again.
We know what will happen next — it is already happening. There will be countless massacres, executions, Sharia-mandated amputations, and stonings. Girls and women will be permanently imprisoned at home under burqa and in purdah.
A 21-year-old woman reportedly was killed last Wednesday for wearing clothes that were considered too tight and because she was outside the home without a male chaperone.
The Taliban perpetrated a suicide attack last week on the Kabul home of Afghanistan’s acting defense minister, General Bismillah Khan Mohammedi, a former muhajideen commander “with a long record of fighting the Taliban.” He was not at home at the time, but eight civilians, including women and children, were killed and 20 people were wounded.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank has found a way to blame Donald Trump for antisemitic comments by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), saying that she is borrowing tactics from the “MAGA handbook.”Rashida Tlaib accuses Israel of 'water violence,' elicits angry responses
Tlaib’s antisemitism, and her vicious hostility to Israel, long predates the arrival of Donald Trump on the political scene. In 2006, for example, she published an article in the newspaper run by antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
She does not believe Israel should exist, and has used familiar antisemitic metaphors to express her hostility to the Jewish state.
Milbank notes Tlaib’s recent remarks that seek to tie perceived injustices by Israel to perceived injustices in the U.S.:
On Aug. 1, Tlaib announced that she had identified how Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land “really interacts” with the treatment of Black Americans. “Cutting people off from water is violence. And they do it from Gaza to Detroit,” she explained to the Democratic Socialists of America. “The structure we’ve been living under right now is designed by those who exploit the rest of us, for their own profit,” on issues ranging from human rights to health care. Making a drapes-parting gesture with her hands, she continued: “If you open the curtain and look behind the curtain, it’s the same people that make money — and yes they do — off of racism.”
A vague “they” conspiring to “exploit the rest of us for their own profit” from “behind the curtain”: These antisemitic tropes have been used against the Jews for generations. If that weren’t clear enough, Tlaib let it be known that “they” operate both in Gaza and Detroit, and only Jews meet that description. Tlaib went on to say the exploiters “made record profit” during the pandemic — an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular on the Web.
While most groups remained quiet about the statements, the American Jewish Committee weighed in on Twitter.Google and Unilever are graded 'F' for their response to 'rising anti-Semitism in the corporate workplace' - while L'Oréal and American Eagle Outfitters get 'A's' - the only two of 25 companies to score top marks in new report
"[Tlaib] has once again used an antisemitic trope claiming that Jews profit from racism in America," the AJC tweeted. "Enough is enough. Representative Tlaib's ugly rhetoric must be denounced by all."
Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism tweeted: "The impact of [Tlaib's] remarks is to perpetuate centuries of antisemitic tropes. The fight for justice cannot be won by reinforcing anti-Jewish hatred. I call on her to retract these harmful and hurtful words, regardless of her intent."
Pesner was retweeting another post by Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who said he was stunned to hear those words.
"We've heard this kind of ugly antisemitic dog-whistling before, but it's appalling when it comes from a member of Congress," he tweeted.
Meanwhile, the Republican Jewish Coalition used the remarks to again point to the lack of condemnation from its Democratic counterpart, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, asking them who they thought Tlaib was referring to.
A new report published by StopAntisemitism.org rated 25 top US corporations and found many to be lacking in their efforts to combat bigotry against JewsStandWithUs Demands University Action Against Official Online Anti-Israel Activism
Google was given a failing grade in the report over its failure to fire its diversity chief Kamau Bobb when his allegedly anti-Semitic blog posts surfaced this year
Consumer goods giant Unilever also received an F rating after its subsidiary Ben & Jerry's ice cream boycotted the sale of its products in parts of Israel
Stop Antisemitism claimed 'the corporate workplace has become increasingly hostile to American Jews' despite the country's racial reckoning last year
Companies were measured against a baseline including whether they use their 'platform to stand against the persecution of Jews'
Beauty company L'Oreal and clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters were the only two corporations to get an 'A' grade
Full report PDF
On August 10, StandWithUs initiated a national campaign encouraging university leaders to put a stop to the now-common practice of academic departments and student governments employing official university websites, social media accounts, and email listservs to promote extremist political causes such as BDS campaigns. The exploitation of official university assets for political activism violates professional codes of conduct and pre-existing ethics policies at most universities—policies that are rarely enforced. StandWithUs called on university presidents and general counsels to issue guidance to all faculty and students reminding them of these policies and announcing penalties for their violation. Such violations were commonplace during the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, when countless academic departments and student governments took over official university social media accounts and email lists and used them to promote hatred of Israel and in many cases, antisemitism.Statement by David Hirsh to the new ‘SOAS Charter on Racism, Antisemitism and All Forms of Cultural, Ethnic and Religious Chauvinism’ which appears to have been published in response to questions about institutional antisemitism at SOAS
StandWithUs’ legal letter details the numerous university policies and professional codes of conduct that this behavior violates, and the way that official promotion of extremist anti-Israel and antisemitic content marginalizes students based on their Jewish identity and/or Israeli citizenship.
Based on months of legal research and assistance from lawyers in StandWithUs’ pro bono attorney network, the letter includes suggested language that universities can adopt immediately to curtail further abuse by faculty, academic departments, and student governments as the fall 2021 semester gets underway.
StandWithUs’ letter also clarifies that barring campus political activists—be they students, professors, or administrators—from using official university channels to disseminate inflammatory, partisan, or hateful messages in no way runs afoul of First Amendment rights or the principles of academic freedom.
“StandWithUs receives hundreds of requests from alumni, students, and parents asking if a particular university is a welcoming place for Jewish and Israeli students, where they can study and enjoy campus life without being subjected to constant attacks on their identity – ones that increasingly appear to carry the endorsement of schools themselves. University leaders should make clear to these alumni, students, and parents whether their campuses will implement the crucial guidelines we recommend,” said Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs.
SOAS received a complaint from a Jewish student that it had a toxic antisemitic environment. SOAS did not investigate the claim, and when the student appealed, SOAS was told to investigate it by its own appeals panel. SOAS paid the student £15,000 in compensation apparently for the harms that he had alleged, but it still refused to investigate whether his claim was true or not, and therefore whether he had in fact suffered those harms, or not.McMaster University’s Campus Paper Publishes Op-Ed Replete With Anti-Israel Misinformation
Now SOAS has been asked whether it has a toxic antisemitic culture but it cannot answer that question because it has not carried out an inquiry. The specifics of the inquiry that it should have carried out were detailed and agreed unanimously by its own appeals panel. [See below]*
Instead of finding out whether it has an antisemitic culture, SOAS has now published a new policy which states that it abhors ‘all forms of chauvinism and discrimination’ and that it stands ‘against antisemitism and all other forms of cultural, ethnic and religious chauvinism’.
Writing a new policy on antisemitism does not tell SOAS whether it is, or is not, a hostile environment for Jews. First it must determine what the situation actually is, only then can it write policy to address the problem, if there is a problem.
It is not appropriate to respond to a specific claim about institutional antisemitism, with policy referring to ‘all forms of’ chauvinism, discrimination, and other forms of cultural, ethnic and religious chauvinism. SOAS needs to address the specifics of the claim relating to antisemitism.
SOAS ought to have understood that the ‘antisemitism and all other forms of racism’ formula, which is familiar from its routine deployment by the Corbyn led Labour Party, would ring alarm bells in the Jewish community. It was a formulation which always accompanied angry but meaningless denials of the specific charges of antisemitism.
In The Silouette, McMaster University’s student-run newspaper, Shehla Choudhary’s June 21 op-ed entitled “The role of social media activism in the current struggle for Palestinian liberation,” argues that social media engagement is critical to ending the alleged mistreatment of Palestinians, pointing to the recent violence this past May between Hamas and Israel as a symptom of that alleged mistreatment.Canary Mission: Globalize the Intifada
Unfortunately, and ironically, social media misinformation and propaganda is arguably one of the biggest contributors to the recent violence in the Middle East, and it has been used very effectively by anti-Israel activists in the region.
For example, Choudhary argues that there have been “forceful evictions” from the eastern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Shimon HaTzaddik/Sheikh Jarrah, which social media has highlighted. Tragically, misinformation surrounding this issue has spurred violence from the Palestinians. In reality, a group of non-paying tenants in a building owned legally by a string of Jewish owners for 140 years have refused to pay rent, though the ownership of the building is without a doubt, and has been proven in court, even with the acknowledgement of Arab tenants. And, in a country governed by the rule of law, the owners sought to legally evict their law-breaking tenants, which was granted by a district court, though not yet followed through with.
Nevertheless, back in the spring, spurious claims – not dissimilar from the ones made by Choudhary – began spreading that Israel is evicting tenants for some unfounded reason, and that was enough for Hamas, the terrorist group which rules the Gaza Strip with an iron fist, to sense an opportunity. In short order, propaganda began spreading, and the “Tik Tok Intifada” was born, leaving death and destruction for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
During that same conflict, one image quickly went viral around the world. In it, a tree atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was ablaze, and in the Western Wall Plaza below, jubilant Israelis danced. The rumours thus began: Israeli Jews celebrate while the Al Aqsa Mosque burns.
But once again, the facts were nowhere to be seen.
In May 2021, following the Israeli-Gaza conflict, there was a spike in antisemitism worldwide. Jews were violently attacked in the streets of New York, Los Angeles and European cities. Antisemitic incidents were recorded in New Orleans, Florida, Chicago, Philadelphia. According to the ADL, there were 251 incidents in the US from May 11th through the end of the month, an increase of 115% over the same period in 2020.
Since the year 2000, over 1300 Israelis were murdered in Palestinian Intifadas (violent uprisings). Today, BDS and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are calling to “Globalize the Intifada”. The antisemitic violence that the world saw in May is just a glimpse of what a “global Intifada” would be like. At a time when Jews are facing a wave of antisemitic attacks, BDS and SJP are advocating for a “global Intifada” - a call to normalize violence against Jews.
— Imshin (@imshin) August 10, 2021
In which Cornel West describes @Bakari_Sellers as being "very closely tied to right wing Jewish lobbyists in terms of money and status" https://t.co/EAgh1i52GT
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 9, 2021
NYT’s Peter Beinart: US Should Reveal Israel’s Nuclear Status to Level Playing Field with Iranian Terror State
Connection Between Israel’s ‘Last Resort’ and Normalization With Arab StatesBBC adoption of the Hamas narrative on the May conflict
Meanwhile, what Beinart refers to as Israel’s “hiding the truth” by not joining the NPT may actually be discouraging Middle East countries from pursuing their own nuclear weapons, according to some military analysts. Many view this policy of nuclear opaqueness as having thus contributed to regional stability because nations hostile to Israel are cognizant of the fact that the Jewish state’s deterrence strategy likely relies on the so-called Samson Option; that is, the possibility of retaliating using nuclear weapons as a last resort to counter any potentially existential threat.
This undoubtedly partially accounts for why no army has launched a conventional military attack against Israel since 1973; this, following Arab-initiated wars in 1948, 1956, and 1967. Today, even as Israel is believed to have nuclear capabilities, calls by regional states to annihilate it are increasingly being replaced by attempts to normalize relations with Jerusalem.
This was recently the case with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, which all forged open diplomatic relations with the Jewish state as part of the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords.
Beinart Ignores Iran’s Race to Build A Nuclear Bomb
While lambasting Israel, Beinart uses conspicuously passive language to describe Iran’s nuclear program:
[The] American government’s deceptive silence [on Israel’s alleged nukes] prevents a more honest debate at home about the dangers an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose.”
If fact, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu forced the Iranian nuclear issue to the top of the international community’s agenda a decade ago, causing widespread discussion about the matter. Netanyahu raised the red flag about a potential nuclear Iran during his first premiership when in 1996 he addressed a joint session of Congress.
Is Beinart unaware of this? Not possible given that he has written numerous articles excoriating Netanyahu’s nuclear policy (see, for example, here).
So is a quarter of a century not long enough to have an “honest debate at home about the dangers an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose”?
More to the point: On August 4, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz — who is widely considered left-of-center on the political spectrum — warned that Tehran was just 10 weeks away from amassing enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. Speaking at a United Nations Security Council briefing, Gantz therefore told ambassadors that “now is the time for deeds – words are not enough.”
BBC reporting however continued to present Hamas’ narrative on Sheikh Jarrah at face value, with no serious examination undertaken concerning the reason why a decades-long property dispute had suddenly become an issue on which Hamas was prepared to initiate yet another costly conflict with Israel.Rocket attacks on Israel get blinkered coverage on BBC WS radio’s ‘Newshour’
A filmed backgrounder produced by the BBC on May 13th uncritically amplified Hamas’ “Judaization” talking point by informing audiences that the Sheikh Jarrah story is “connected to a lawsuit brought by Israeli settlers and these protesters see that as part of a broader effort to drive them from East Jerusalem”.
The BBC’s Middle East editor had done the same two days earlier when he told radio listeners that “…the Palestinians would argue that actually they’re on the rough end of Israel’s policies of…ah…settlement colonialism…ahm…making Jerusalem more of a Jewish city and that these are actions of self-defence”.
As time went on, the BBC’s narrative concerning Sheikh Jarrah was distilled down to context-free promotion of unquestioned claims such as:
“As the dust settles on another Gaza war, the disputes that helped to ignite it remain unresolved. One of them concerns the fate of Palestinian families living in Arab East Jerusalem who find themselves threatened with eviction because Jewish settler groups claim the land belongs to them.”
“…a place of shade and calm at the centre of a furious incendiary dispute which helped to trigger a war. […] A dispute decades in the making exploded into violence.”
Clearly the editorial decision to include that voiceover recording in the item did nothing to contribute to audience understanding of the story, not least because listeners were not informed who “they” and “them” are.Swastikas daubed on French memorial to Holocaust survivor Simone Veil
Marshall next brought in “Sunniva Rose, a senior correspondent with the English language newspaper The National News in Beirut”.
Rose began by promoting the redundant narrative that Hizballah is ‘resisting’ Israel even though Israel left Lebanese territory – as confirmed by the UN – over twenty-one years ago.
Rose: “You know it’s very embarrassing for Hizballah because they like to say that they represent the Lebanese people and the resistance and the resistance to Israel. And to have such public opposition to the fact that they own weapons, especially during their fight with Israel – this is what they get their legitimacy from, is the fight against Israel – and it’s very embarrassing for them that Lebanese people oppose that publicly.”
Rose went on to mention the “confiscated missile platform” and the arrest of the four people. Her explanation of the incident in Chouya was that the villagers “felt…that Hizballah was endangering them because maybe Israel could retaliate and, you know, that would put them in danger, their lives in danger, obviously”.
A stone memorial commemorating the life of Holocaust survivor and former minister Simone Veil has been defaced with swastikas, police said Wednesday, sparking new concern over antisemitism in France.Norwegian imam who has promoted interfaith dialogue said Jews should be killed
The memorial to Veil at Peros Guirec in the western Brittany region was found to have been daubed with the Nazi insignia in the morning. An investigation has been opened.
Veil, born in 1917, survived the Holocaust to become a celebrated figure in French politics, fighting for abortion rights, battling antisemitism and also serving as speaker of the European parliament.
As a teenager she was deported to Auschwitz and lost her mother, father and brother in the camps.
Veil died in 2017 and in 2018 President Emmanuel Macron decreed she should have the honor of a final resting place in the Pantheon in Paris that holds the tombs of France’s greatest heroes.
“Simone Veil is a French and global figure in women’s rights, Europe and the fight against antisemitism,” junior interior minister Marlene Schiappa wrote on Twitter.
A Muslim imam in Norway who has led interfaith dialogue projects has made antisemitic statements on Facebook, including on how Jews are dangerous and “should be killed,” for years.Restaurant owners in Pennsylvania receive antisemitic remarks after asking customers for proof of vaccination
The Norway branch of Minhaj-ul-Quran, an international Muslim organization that is considered moderate and geared toward outreach, suspended Noor Ahmad Noor indefinitely on Monday following an expose published last week by the Vartland newspaper on his antisemitic statements. Noor had served for years as the branch’s director.
Police have launched an investigation into his remarks.
In one post from 2019, Noor wrote that Jews “put the world in danger” and it is “necessary to kill them.”
In a short statement to the Norwegian media, Noor said: “My posts were published in frustration over attacks in Gaza. Innocent children and women were killed. My criticism and frustration should have been directed at the regime. And not against a group of people. I apologize.”
As director of Minhaj-ul-Quran, he has participated in meetings and projects with top government officials, including Cabinet ministers and Ivar Flaten, head of the Church Dialogue Center in Drammen, the Norwegian city where Noor lives.
Flaten initially defended Noor to Vartland, arguing dialogue occurs amid disagreements, but has since called the remarks “unacceptable, shocking.”
Restaurant owners have received a torrent of online abuse, including some antisemitic remarks, after they asked customers wishing to dine indoors for proof that they had been vaccinated.“F all the Jews, Allah will kill you all…Free Palestine!” two men suspected of assaulting Jewish customers at Bournemouth bike hire shop
Christine Kondra, one of the owners of Cornerstone restaurant in Wayne, Pennsylvania, said: “There were antisemitic remarks made…I just was blown away.”
Ms Kondra stressed the importance of the health of Cornerstone’s team, guests, and the community at large. “We can’t reverse backwards as to what happened over the course of the last seventeen months,” she added.
It was also reported that some of the comments had a “violent nature” and that the owners have had to seek extra protection from the police.
Two men have allegedly assaulted two Jewish customers at a bicycle shop in Bournemouth.Bedfordshire Police remove Nazi ‘Death’s Head Units’ flag flying at private home
Two men, who were returning their bicycles after a rental session, unleashed a tirade, which continued for some time, telling them: “F*** all the Jews, Allah will kill you all” and “Free Palestine”.
The two Jewish customers, who were speaking to the owner of the shop about renting bicycles, reported that, based on the assailants’ body language and hand gestures, they believed that the assailants were going to attack them physically. Legally, an assault is an attack in which violence is feared, even if it does not materialise.
The victims took photographs of the two alleged suspects.
The alleged incident took place at 15:55 on 3rd August at outside Front Bike Hire at Bournemouth beach and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.
Bedfordshire Police have removed a Nazi skull and crossbones flag flying outside a private home.Wix rolls out tool for building apps without any coding
The flag bore the symbol of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), or ‘Death’s Head Units’, which were responsible for administering concentration camps and death camps in Nazi-controlled territories.
The flag was reported to the police, who visited the residence and issued a Community Resolution Order requiring the owner to remove it, which they did. The case was reported as a hate incident, as flying that flag is not a crime.
A spokesperson for Bedfordshire Police told the Bedford Independent: “Officers visited the resident who claimed it was his right to fly the flag. It was not a criminal act and was dealt with by way of a Community Resolution Order with the resident agreeing to take it down.”
Israeli software company Wix has launched a new tool that gives customers the ability to build mobile apps, further rounding out its package of web development services.Cloud protection startup OwnBackUp raises $240m, nearing $3.35b valuation
The new product, called Branded App by Wix, will let customers like small businesses build a tailor-made app without any coding, the company said on Tuesday.
The app tool complements the company’s drag-and-drop website builder to provide users with a digital brand platform without any coding skills.
Wix can now provide users with a domain name, the ability to create and manage a customizable website and a native mobile app for iOS and Android, among other services. Wix customers can build an app with the new tool for an additional fee.
Store owners using apps see average growth of 162 percent in online transactions, Wix said, citing its own data.
The app builder lets users create and design their own app, with personalized app icon, layout and content. Users can add and manage product pages, booking services, forums, groups, chat functions, blogs and push notifications.
OwnBackUp, an Israeli startup focused on cloud data protection, has raised $240 million in a Series E investment round, putting it near a valuation of $3.35 billion.Expo 2020 Dubai: One-On-One with Creator of Israeli Pavilion
The company said Tuesday it has raised nearly $500 million, boosting its valuation by a massive $2 billion in only six months.
OwnBackUp also said it will expand its data backup and recovery solutions to new cloud platforms, starting with Microsoft’s Dynamics 365. The firm currently offers customers automatic cloud data backup for Salesforce products.
OwnBackUp provides protection and other services to close to 4,000 organizations, including Aston Martin, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Medtronic, Navy Federal Credit Union and the University of Miami, the company said.
The latest investment round was co-led by Alkeon Capital and B Capital Group, and included investments by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and Tiger Global.
Trials of Promising Israeli Corona Drug MesenCure for Critical Patients Extended to Additional Hospitals
Israel’s Health Ministry on Wednesday confirmed that several hospitals around the county will begin treating Corona patients in critical condition with the new Israeli drug MesenCure which was developed by Bonus Biogroup.Israel's Hagar Ben Ari conquering Hollywood with her guitar
The company’s website reported that “Bonus BioGroup has developed a procedure to specifically prime the ASCs and to enhance the cells’ immunomodulatory potential while maintaining their safety. In preclinical studies, Bonus’ COVID-19 therapy MesenCure was shown to attenuate the hyper-inflammatory response in the lungs, as well as to promote the healing of the injured lung tissue.”
The health ministry’s decision followed experiments of the new drug at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, which reported good results: 14 out of 16 seriously ill patients who were treated with the drug were discharged from the hospital.
Rambam Hospital reported that the MesenCure treatment period is 4 days, and most patients were released to their homes on the fifth day. The health ministry will announce in the coming days which hospitals will be included in the next phase of testing the drug.
Dr. Shadi Hamoud, who led the experiment at Rambam Hospital, told News 12: “This is an excellent development because our experience has been that if we discover the severe patients on time then the chance of rescuing them increases dramatically with this drug. I am convinced that at least some of the patients we treated with the drug would have died without it.”
At the age of 23, Israeli bass guitarist Hagar Ben Ari dropped everything in Israel and moved to New York to pursue her musical career. The risk paid off when she was invited to join the house band of The Late Late Show with James Corden, since which she has been conquering the American music industry one chord at a time.Maccabi TA basketball team sets out to beat antisemitism
"There were times that I walked into the locker room and saw Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey or Sting," said Ben Ari, who met many famous people throughout her career. "It is incredible. One time String turned to me and said, 'Hi Hagar! It's good to see you,' and I thought to myself, 'I can't believe he knows who I am."
Ben Ari, 42, was born in Givatayim, east of Tel Aviv.
"I moved to New York when I was 23," she continued. "I played with Moby, with artists that work with Mark Ronson, with Prince. At one point, I decided to study classical music, so I began a degree at Brooklyn College in New York in classical composition. After that came the opportunity to play for James Corden in Los Angeles."
The Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club will soon be trying to score points off the court. The Center for Jewish Impact and the World Zionist Organization have enlisted the team to battle global antisemitism and spread the values of "tolerance, equality and acceptance" through sports.
August 2021 marked the 85th anniversary of the 1936 Summer Olympics. Although the competition was meant to foster international ties, the Nazi regime took advantage of the games to promote its racist propaganda.
Nevertheless, athletes from different backgrounds, most famously African-American runner Jesse Owens, rose to the occasion and overcame hatred, proving that sports can triumph over racism.
At the end of August, the three organizations will hold a special ceremony to commemorate the 1936 Olympics. The event will be attended by former President Reuven Rivlin, as well as politicians and top representatives of the sports industry.
In addition, Maccabi Tel Aviv will host representatives of Jewish communities during its EuroLeague road games and, together with the center and the WZO, hold lectures for the guests.
"The cooperation between these three organizations is unique," Maccabi Tel Aviv Chairman Shimon Mizrahi said.
"Current times, in particular, call for more cooperation of this kind as antisemitism has spiked all over the globe, especially in Europe and the United States," Mizrahi said.
#onlyinisrael does an entire unit in the army donate their hair for children with cancer @IDF ???????? pic.twitter.com/PUMjc1ZXPQ
— ??? ??? ???? Fleur Hassan-Nahoum (@FleurHassanN) August 11, 2021
Written in 1904, in America pic.twitter.com/MITOdLaivo
— Eli (@EliKohn3) August 10, 2021
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