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Wednesday, August 25, 2021

08/25 Links Pt2: Nevergreen: A Victim of Cancel Culture Strikes Back With a Devastating Campus Satire; Eichmann Was Turned in By Anti-Nazi Geologist, German Paper Reveals

From Ian:

Nevergreen: A Victim of Cancel Culture Strikes Back With a Devastating Campus Satire
7 years ago, Professor Andrew Pessin, a respected teacher of religion and philosophy at Connecticut College, criticized Hamas. Back then, cancel culture wasn’t the familiar buzzword that it is now, but when the local Students for Justice in Palestine affiliate and the college paper came after him, the college leadership sided with the mob and against their own professor.

Front Page Magazine took on the story back then, exposing the radical hate of the mob’s leaders. In the years that have passed, Pessin’s experiences have been replicated on campuses across the country. Social media mobs have spread beyond the campus, coming for ordinary people with the misfortune to appear on some social justice Twitter influencer’s radar.

And college campuses have only gotten crazier and more dangerous in the last 7 years.

Now, Andrew Pessin is back with Nevergreen. Though none of the events of the novel reproduce his own encounter with campus cancel culture (that would be life, not art), and there is no Nevergreen College (although there is an Evergreen College which was the epicenter of one of the worst radical campus meltdowns), Pessin’s novel distills the madness that has taken over campuses across the country in a still of literary satire that is all the more devastating because it’s so disarming.

There are the "atheists in the 'Be Grateful God is Dead Club'" and a character is described as wearing "the official t-shirt of the campus tea shop, Chai Guevara, featuring the iconic image of the revolutionary leader sipping a mug of chai itself emblazoned with the Chai Guevara logo".

A professor named “Peace” teaches conflict studies while making threats, and the students campaign for a wheelchair ramp for the high diving board.

“‘It’s for the principle, the principle of inclusion,” the earnest young woman explained when J. asked whether any wheelchair-bound person were likely to actually use the diving board.”

At Nevergreen College, 1984’s Two-Minutes-Hate is countered with an “official Two Minutes of Hate-Hate later this afternoon”. And Nevergreen’s protagonist J becomes its target.


Eichmann Was Turned in By Anti-Nazi Geologist, German Paper Reveals
Sixty years after infamous Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was captured by Mossad agents and brought to Israel for trial, a German media outlet has revealed, for the first time, the identity of the person believed to have turned Eichmann in.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung ran a feature article this week describing the role German geologist Gerhard Klammer, who opposed the Nazi regime and worked with Eichmann in Argentina, played in revealing Eichmann’s true identity to the Mossad.

According to the report, Klammer worked for the Capri building firm in the Argentinian city of Tucuman, where he met Eichmann, who was employed at the same company under the fictitious name “Ricardo Klement.” Eichmann reportedly revealed his true identity to Klammer in the 1950s, and Klammer made multiple anonymous attempts to alert authorities in both Germany and Argentina, hoping they would take action against Eichmann for his war crimes.

Associates of Klammer said that Eichmann’s true identity had been an “open secret” in the German community in Argentina and that supporters of the Nazis worked to protect him. But Klammer had opposed the Nazi regime, and therefore sought to have Eichmann face trial.

In the 1960s, the building company encountered financial difficulties and Eichmann left Tucuman to try and find work in Buenos Aires. At that time, Klammer returned to Germany, where he told a close friend—a priest who had served in the German army—where Eichmann was and the cover story he had adopted.

The two delivered the details of Eichmann’s false identity, as well as a picture of him, to Fritz Bauer, the prosecutor responsible for the Eichmann case. Bauer had already heard about Eichmann’s whereabouts from a German Jew whose daughter dated Eichmannn’s son briefly. The son told the man’s daughter about his father’s new secret identity, but many details were missing. Klammer’s evidence gave Bauer proof that Eichmann was alive and in Argentina, and the prosecutor reached out to the Mossad, whose agents began searching for him, eventually locating him in a small town near the Argentine capital.
Poland’s Troubling Legislation, and the United States’ Unwavering Commitment to Holocaust Era Justice
Immediately after the “yes” vote, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his deep concern, urging President Duda not to sign the bill into law. After the bill was signed by President Duda, Secretary Blinken reiterated his stance by emphasizing: “We deeply regret the adoption of these amendments [severely restricting restitution and compensation for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland’s communist era]. Further, we urge the Polish government to consult with representatives of affected parties and to develop a clear, efficient, and effective legal procedure to resolve confiscated property claims and provide some measure of justice for victims. In the absence of such a procedure, this legislation will harm all Polish citizens whose property was unjustly taken, including that of Polish Jews who were victims of the Holocaust.”

In July, when the proposed bill was sent to the Polish Senate, it also came under scrutiny when 12 prominent US Senators, led by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to President Duda urging him to “press for the withdrawal of the bill from the Polish Senate, but if the bill is passed, veto it.”

International leaders at the highest levels also expressed their condemnation of the bill.

We do not suggest in any way that Poland is responsible for the crimes of Nazi Germany. This is about Poland addressing the wrongs committed by its own post-World War II Communist government. The house or shop or factory in a town in Poland affected by this legislation was taken by Poland after the war, remains today in Poland, and has benefited Poland for more than 76 years.

For many Holocaust survivors and their families, a home is the last remaining physical connection to the lives they once led, to the countries where they were born, and to the towns where they grew up, before their lives were shattered.

We also must not forget that there are many other countries in Europe that have yet to fulfill their commitments on Holocaust era property restitution, as the JUST Act Report articulates.

As a matter of urgency, we call upon Congress to convene a hearing on the JUST Act Report, and hold accountable all countries that endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration, including Poland.

Progress on Holocaust justice depends upon continued and heightened United States leadership. We must help survivors secure what is rightfully theirs. For Holocaust survivors, restitution or compensation for property is about justice and fairness. It is an acknowledgment of the destruction of their families and an opportunity to restore and reconnect with at least a small part of a life and culture that was so wrongfully taken from them.

Tragically we are losing survivors every day. Time is of the essence. We must address this dark chapter in human history by facilitating the restitution of or compensation for wrongfully confiscated property. This issue will not go away until justice is achieved.


Twenty years after the Sbarro massacre: A Zev Brenner audio interview
Our thanks to Zev Brenner whose popular Talkline radio/audio show has been an influential fixture of Jewish life in the US, and especially the New York area, for decades.

Rabbi Brenner recently hosted Arnold Roth on his August 9, 2021 program to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Sbarro Jerusalem massacre which violently ended our daughter Malki's life

From the promotional notes:
Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was killed in the terrorist bombing of Sbarro Pizza 20 years ago talks about what happened. Mr. Roth is also seeking justice by having Malki's killer extradited from Jordan where she enjoys the good life. Unfortunately he's been stymied by politicians here and in Israel. Click to hear his quest for justice. This podcast is powered by Jewish Podcasts. Start your own podcast today and share your content with the world.

Click to listen to the audo of the Zev Brenner/Arnold Roth interview

Or hear it via Jewish Podcasts.
Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib Say PA’s Arrest of Protesters “Deepens the Violence of Israel’s Apartheid”
Representatives Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), both of whom are members of “The Squad,” issued tweets on August 23 condemning the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) arrest of protesters as emboldening “Israel’s apartheid.”

The PA arrested at least 23 protesters on August 21 in Ramallah, with more arrests coming, The Times of Israel reported. The protesters were calling for the PA to answer for the death of Nizar Banat, a staunch critic of the PA who died in June while in PA custody.

Bush tweeted, “Shame on the Palestinian Authority. Suppressing dissent and criminalizing protest only deepens the violence of Israel’s apartheid system. We stand with Palestinians against the violence of the Palestinian Authority’s authoritarianism. Freedom for political prisoners now.”

Tlaib similarly wrote: “Dear [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, This is NOT how you protect and serve the Palestinian people. Shame on you for suppressing Palestinian voices who are trying to seek liberation from not only the Israeli apartheid government, but from your corrupt leadership.”

Stop Antisemitism tweeted out screenshots of both Bush and Tlaib’s tweets and wrote: “It’s almost like they share the same social media person that has no clue what apartheid truly means.”

Most of the outrage on Twitter was directed at Bush’s tweet.

“The sheer blindness and Jew hatred of someone like @CoriBush, that the only way she could condemn [the] Palestinian [Authority], is if she found a way to twist it into Israel!” Human Rights Lawyer and International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovksy tweeted.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Israeli ‘Genocide’ Of Palestinians Seen As Model To Boost Population Growth (satire)
Countries facing a demographic crisis now seek out the input of those responsible for genocide of the Palestinians in a decades-long process that has resulted in a tenfold increase in that demographic, experts observe.

Population statistics scholars noted this week a developing trend among states with populations that reproduce at lower than the replacement rate, or which require demographic growth that exceeds the current projections in order to maintain economic sustainability: find out whatever it is that Israel has done with its widely-decried mass-extermination of Palestinians, which has boosted the Palestinian population nine hundred percent in just over seven decades, according to Palestinian and United Nations figures, and implement that.

“Most people naturally assume genocide results in population reduction,” explained Prince Hussein Abu Bakr of Jordan, who runs a royal task force on the subject. “That holds true for most, but not all, genocides: of Jews in Europe, of course, but also of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire; of Tutsi in Rwanda; of Ukrainians under Stalin; and of Uighurs under Communist China, just to name a few. But the curious exception remains Palestinians under Israeli occupation, which, despite ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate killing, poisoned water and air, and countless other things human rights activists have told us Israel is doing to them, have seen only exponential growth, both in the occupied territories and the refugee camps elsewhere. That phenomenon got us thinking: we should do to our own people whatever it is Israel is doing to genocide the Palestinians, because that’s the outcome we want to see.”
New York Times Attacks Israel, Erases Millenia-long Jewish Connection to Temple Mount
Jewish Prayer — Not Muslim Intolerance — Leads to Conflict?

Noting the increasing number of Jews allowed to pray at Judaism’s holiest site, Kingsley and Rasgon see “a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict.”

Really?

Instead of this exercise in crass victim-blaming, the Times should be asking why the Palestinians are so offended by praying Jews that there was an unofficial ban on Jewish prayers at the Temple Mount for decades. Why should Jews be forbidden from praying anywhere, much less their holiest site? Surely such a policy constitutes a severe breach of religious freedom.

The reason why there is “instability in East Jerusalem” is because of a lack of tolerance on the part of Palestinians. Penning an article that frames Jews seeking to exercise their basic rights as liable to provoke renewed hostilities exposes the depth of The Times’ inability to understand how Palestinian bigotry and discrimination drive the conflict.

Not for the first time, international media outlets simply can’t seem to admit that Jews are deeply connected to Jerusalem.
The Antisemitic Gall of a ‘Liberated’ Ethnic Studies Curriculum
Alarmingly, the LESMC’s ambitions are not limited to California. Just last month LESMC co-founders, along with a coalition of more than a dozen anti-Zionist organizations, announced the launch of a new organization — the National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition — dedicated to fighting “Zionist and rightwing attacks” while promoting their antisemitic curriculum across the country.

The “Liberated” group is clearly on a roll. And if AB 101, the ethnic studies high school graduation requirement bill currently making its way through the California legislature, is signed into law in the coming month or months, it is likely that LESMC’s “liberated” curriculum — including its blatantly antisemitic lessons — will be adopted by many if not most of the state’s more than 3,000 high schools. And it’s only a matter of time before many other states follow California’s lead.

Unfortunately, although members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus were vehemently opposed to the antisemitic first draft of the state’s model curriculum, they have been disappointingly silent about the dangers posed by the “liberated” curriculum should AB 101 become law. In fact, all 10 of the Jewish Caucus Assembly members voted to support the bill when it was heard on the Assembly floor earlier this summer.

Make no mistake: a curriculum whose core tenets include an ideology that calls for and works towards the destruction of the religious and historic homeland of the Jewish people, and that encourages Jewish students to reject their identity and disparage their community, is a morally depraved curriculum, and rotten to the core.

So, too, is a bill that would facilitate the adoption of such a virulently antisemitic curriculum by every high school in the state. As AB 101 makes its way to the Senate floor, Jewish Caucus senators must stand up on behalf of Jewish students and the Jewish community in California and well beyond, and do their utmost to stop this extremely dangerous bill.
Spanish University Cancels Course Comparing Gaza to Auschwitz, Says Local Pro-Israel Group
A literature course comparing the Gaza Strip to the Auschwitz extermination camp has been cancelled by the University of Santiago of de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, a leading pro-Israel group said Tuesday.

Titled “Auschwitz/Gaza: A Testing Ground for Comparative Literature,” the class was scheduled to be taught by Professor César Domínguez this fall, according to the Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) organization, a Spanish pro-Israel advocacy group that had previously criticized the course.

“The iconography and main theme of the program established, and not by coincidence, a correspondence between Gaza, an area controlled by Hamas, a jihadist organization that subjects its population to a regime of terror, and the Auschwitz extermination camp,” ACOM said in a statement.

“We celebrate that the University has rectified, eliminating from its academic offer a course designed only from the utmost clumsiness, fierce sectarianism, and a shameless sense of impunity, a true enormity that trivializes the Holocaust, even awarding academic credits for it,” the group said.
Will There Be a BDS Movement Against the Taliban?
The BDS movement and its followers might actually have the opportunity to do something good this week. No, really.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, which usually devotes most of its time to criticizing Israel for defending itself against terrorist attacks, has called an emergency meeting to examine potential human rights abuses committed by the Taliban during their takeover of Afghanistan. There are already reports of Taliban militia ordering women to give up their jobs and to remain indoors, closing schools for girls and forcing young women to marry their fighters, not to mention the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities and whippings, beatings and other violence against Afghani civilians.

It would seem that this should be an open-and-shut case for a U.N. entity with the expressed purpose of promoting and protecting human rights around the world. But over the years, the HRC has dedicated the overwhelming majority of its time to Israel-bashing, to the point where the Jewish state has received an official condemnation from the Council on no fewer than 78 occasions since it was reconstituted in 2006—more than the rest of the world combined. In other words, the atrocities, cruelty and barbarism that is a feature of daily life in Iran, North Korea and Syria, just to name a few countries, is of less concern to the commission’s members than Israel’s efforts to protect its citizens against constant threats of violence from its foes.

The United States, the European Union and Canada have all criticized the tribunal for its single-minded focus on Israel, as have two former U.N. secretaries-general and even the HRC’s own former president. But earlier this year after Hamas launched several days of missile attacks against Israel, the HRC launched an unprecedented permanent “fact-finding mission” against Israel—the first time in the U.N.’s history that a member state has been subject to such an inquiry. The council also commenced an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by the Jewish state, and for good measure called for an arms embargo to be imposed on Israel as well.


BBC Blames Israeli Arab Crime Wave on Israel
The violence in mixed cities (with both Arabs and Jews), such as Lod and Ramle, began with unprovoked attacks by Arabs on Jews who in response, girded their loins and organized to fight back and give as good as they got. These disturbances had nothing to do with “discrimination” against Israeli Arabs because there was, and is, none; the Arabs in the mixed cities simply wanted to help the Arabs in Hamas-ruled Gaza during the May war, by opening a new front against the Israelis.

Knell echoes the Israeli Arabs who blame Israel for the crime wave in their own communities. She does not explain how much money and effort the Israelis have expended on this problem.

Nor does she discuss the refusal of so many Israeli Arabs to report crimes or criminals to the police, out of a quite baseless distrust of Israeli authorities. The local Arab leaders do nothing to ameliorate this problem; instead of encouraging the Arabs to collaborate with the police, they simply repeat the claim — which is then disseminated by the BBC, and such reporters as Yolande Knell — that the crime wave is the fault not of the criminals, but of the Israelis, who are accused of ignoring the problem because they supposedly don’t care about the wellbeing of Israeli Arabs: “They [victims and perpetrators] are Arabs, so let them kill themselves.” Those one billion shekels Israel just allocated to catch criminals, and reduce crime, in Arab communities, suggests quite otherwise.

But why should we be surprised at Yolande Knell’s take on things? She works, after all, for the BBC, where such Israel-haters as John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen, Lyse Doucet, and Orla Guerin have for decades been poisoning the minds of hundreds of millions of listeners, causing them to despise Israel as a nasty little settler-colonial state, and to feel deep sympathy for the Palestinians and their supposed “plight.”

To this list of Israel-haters – John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen, Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin – we can now add the name of Yolande Knell, latest and, one hopes, least of the lot. But what did you expect? She is, after all, coming to the world from Bush House in London — that is, the BBC.


BBC News promotion of HRW report again erodes claim to impartiality
The BBC’s article goes on to promote the Hamas-favoured narrative concerning the background to that outbreak of violence.

“It began after weeks of spiralling Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. Hamas – the militant Islamist group which rules Gaza – began firing rockets after warning Israel to withdraw from the site, triggering retaliatory air strikes.”

In addition to providing a direct link to this latest HRW report on the topic of four high-rise buildings destroyed by Israel between May 11th and May 15th, the BBC also promotes links to two of its own previous articles about the NGO’s earlier reports, both of which include links to HRW material.

The BBC has no comment to make about the report’s methodology of phone interviews with a grand total of eighteen “witnesses” who live under the rule of (and in some cases, under the same roof as) a widely-proscribed violent theocratic terrorist regime.

“HRW’s investigation was based on interviews with 18 Palestinians who witnessed the strikes or were affected by them, along with analysis of videos and photographs.

It found no evidence that members of militant groups involved in military operations had a current or long-term presence in any of the towers at the time they were attacked.”

The fact that HRW once again “found no evidence” does not of course mean that evidence does not exist but the BBC preferred to present the topic using predictable ‘he said-she said’ framing.

“Israeli authorities said the buildings housed offices of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, including the headquarters of certain units and military intelligence. One tower included offices for “the most valuable Hamas technological equipment” for use against Israel, it says.”

The BBC’s report also includes a link to one of its own articles from June in which it amplified baseless claims from Al Jazeera.
Neo-Nazi sentenced to 3 years for threatening journalists, Jewish activists
An organizer of a neo-Nazi campaign to threaten journalists and Jewish activists in three states was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison after apologizing for what he did and saying he is a changed man.

Cameron Shea was one of four members of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division charged last year with having cyberstalked and sent Swastika-laden posters to journalists and an employee of the Anti-Defamation League, telling them, "You have been visited by your local Nazis," "Your Actions have Consequences," and "We are Watching."

"The defendant wanted the victims to feel unsafe in their own homes," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Shea, 25, pleaded guilty in April in US District Court in Seattle to two of the counts in the five-count indictment: a conspiracy charge that carries up to five years in prison and interference with a federally protected activity, which carries up to 10. Prosecutors sought a term of more than four years.

In a letter to Judge John C. Coughenour, Shea apologized, saying, "I cannot put into words the guilt that I feel about this fear and pain that I caused."

Shea wrote that he was homeless, struggling with addiction and dealing with a friend's death when he began researching neo-Nazism. He said he had befriended detainees of other races while in custody and he now understands that journalists play a crucial role in holding institutions and individuals to account.
Four alleged neo-Nazis charged with conspiracy to damage US power grid
Four men who allegedly colluded through a neo-Nazi forum were charged last week on suspicion of devising a terrorist attack on the power grid in Idaho and the US Northwest, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

On Friday, Paul James Kryscuk, 35, Liam Collins, 21, Jordan Duncan, 26, and Joseph Maurino, 22, were indicted in North Carolina. According to the DOJ document, Collins and Duncan are former Marines previously assigned to Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. The defendants are charged with conspiracy to damage the property of an energy facility in the US, the document stated.

If convicted, Collins, Duncan, Kryscuk and Maurino could each face up to 40 years in prison.

According to the charges, the defendants researched, discussed, and reviewed in depth a previous attack on the power grid by an unknown group that used assault rifles in an attempt to explode a power substation. Between 2017 and 2020, Kryscuk produced firearms while Collins stole military gear, including magazines for assault rifles, and had them delivered to the other defendants. During that time, Duncan collected information, some military owned, regarding firearms, explosives, and nerve agents.

The indictment also states that the group members discussed using homemade Thermite, a combination of metal powder and metal oxide which burns at over 2,200 degrees Celsius to destroy power transformers.
Prominent Grenfell Tower volunteer aid worker appears in court charged with publishing written material in order to stir up racial hatred, following report by CAA
A Grenfell Tower volunteer coordinator has today appeared in court charged with two counts of publishing written material in order to stir up racial hatred, which was reported to police by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Tahra Ahmed, who was running a volunteer network to assist victims of the fire, is alleged to have made inflammatory comments about supposed Jewish involvement in the Grenfell fire tragedy.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court declined jurisdiction, sending the case up to the Old Bailey.

Today’s hearing identified the defendant and addressed case management. A plea hearing is expected later this year.


Hackers threaten online shiva for Brazilian Jewish educator
Hackers posting death threats, including “I’ll enter synagogues and kill everyone,” broke into the online mourning ceremony for a former Jewish school principal in Rio de Janeiro.

“Death to Jews,” “I’ll explode,” “Sieg Heil” and “dirty Jews” were also part of the attack during the shiva session Sunday on Google Meet in honor of Dora Fraifeld, a beloved figure at the pluralistic Eliezer Max School for nearly 40 years. Fraifeld died last week.

The hackers also used scenes of Adolf Hitler along with Nazi symbols and slogans, as well as pornography and loud music, in threatening Jewish community members and institutions.

The session, which had some 50 participants, was terminated and continued on a different link.

Brazilian authorities are investigating.
Assistant Principal in Texas reassigned after Facebook post comparing vaccines to Holocaust surfaces
The Assistant Principal for Houston High School in Texas has been reassigned after an alleged Facebook post surfaced in which she compared vaccines to the Holocaust.

Houston High School Assistant Principal Janna Matykiewicz seemingly posted a Facebook status on 18th August that said: “What is the difference between vaccine papers and a yellow star? 82 years.”

The comparison has been made across the world, including in the United States, Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere, as anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

Germantown Municipal School District spokesperson Kate Crowder said this past Tuesday that “Ms. Matykiewicz is no longer an administrator at Houston High School, but is still employed by the district.” Crowder was said to have specified that Ms. Matykiewicz has been reassigned as a homebound teacher and interim liaison teacher. “Portions of the investigations are ongoing,” Ms Crowder added.

The creator of a Change.org petition titled “Fire Ms. Janna Matykiewicz” said that Ms Matykiewicz’s post was not only “a complete [sic] ignorant statement” but that it was “also completely antisemitic”. The creator also alleged that this was not Houston High School’s “first Holocaust-related incident” and asserted that the school’s yearbook featured people dressed up as Nazis.

It appears that a history teacher at the school, Tony Benzing, is also under investigation after he replied to her post with one of his own that read: “82 years…apparently a generation that doesn’t seem to know their History…the yellow star just targeted Jews…the vaccine papers don’t discriminate…but remember they first gamed the system to get Hitler appointed as Der Fuhrer, then they took over the media, police force, & educational system (Hitler Jugend)”


Watchdog: IOC must take action against PA for urging boycotts of Israeli athletes
Palestinian Media Watch sent a complaint to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) against the chairman of the Palestine Olympic Committee for his support of boycotts against Israeli athletes.

PMW wrote in its letter to the IOC on Aug. 15 that Jibril Rajoub praising an Olympic athlete for refusing to compete against an Israeli opponent is a “fundamental breach of not only the Olympic spirit,” but also the IOC Charter and Code of Ethics.

As an example, the watchdog group cited how Rajoub cheered on Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine when he withdrew from a competition in the Tokyo Olympics in July to avoid facing Israel’s Tohar Butbul.

The letter also noted that last year, Rajoub “conveyed blessings to Arab athletes who have refused to compete with Israeli athletes” and demanded a worldwide Arab boycott of Israel in sports.

PMW added that it first submitted a complaint to the IOC about Rajoub three years ago and again in November 2020; both, it said, were ignored by Olympic officials.

According to the watchdog group: “As the IOC ignores the repeated breaches of its Charter and Code of Ethics by Rajoub and the Palestinian Olympic Committee, the Palestinian Authority celebrates the terrorists who carried out the 1972 Munich massacre of the Israeli Olympians, and Rajoub refers with reverence to the planner of the attack as one of the people who left the Palestinians a ‘heritage.’ Before Rajoub’s hate speech leads to another massacre, it is time the IOC took firm action.”
The Jewish doctor who escaped the Nazis and founded the Paralympics
The 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games opened on Tuesday. Much like the Olympic Games in the Japanese capital, there are plenty of Jewish athletes to support, like emerging track and field star Ezra Frech and veteran swimmer Matt Levy.

But unlike the Olympic Games, the Paralympics have an inspiring Jewish origin story — thanks to its founder, Ludwig Guttmann.

Guttmann was born on July 3, 1899, in Tost, Germany (now Toszek, Poland), to a German-Jewish family. In 1917, while working as a volunteer at a hospital for coal miners, Guttmann encountered a patient with a spinal injury and paraplegia. At the time, paraplegia was effectively a death sentence; unfortunately, this proved true for the young coal miner. However, the memory of this patient had a deep impact on Guttmann.

Just a year later, Guttmann began training in medicine at the University of Breslau before transferring to the University of Freiburg in 1919, where he graduated with his medical degree in 1924. At Freiburg, Guttmann became an active member of a Jewish fraternity that tried to stop the spread of antisemitism in universities. Eventually the fraternity also became a center for physical activity and fitness, so that “nobody needed to be ashamed of being a Jew.”

By the 1930s, Guttmann was working as a neurosurgeon at the Wenzel Hancke hospital in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), as a university lecturer and as an assistant to Otfrid Foerster, a pioneer of neurosurgery. Guttmann was on track to be the next big German neurologist — until the rise of the Nazis in his country. In 1933, Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws, which among its other antisemitic stipulations prohibited Jews from practicing medicine. Guttmann was expelled from his university appointment, fired from his hospital job and stripped of his doctor title. He was assigned to work at the Breslau Jewish Hospital.

Not long after came Kristallnacht.

“On the 9th of November I took my car and went to the synagogue,” Guttmann remembered later. “And there, the whole thing was surrounded by hundreds of people, burning, and SS men playing football with prayer books. I stood there and realized that my tears were running down. But I became quite determined to help persecuted people.”


Paralympic swimmer Iyad Shalabi wins Tokyo gold, is 1st Arab Israeli medalist
Israeli athletes made a winning start to the 2020 Paralympic Games on Wednesday, when swimmer Iyad Shalabi won a gold medal on the first day of competition in Tokyo.

Paralympic medals are common for Israel — the country’s athletes have now won a total of 375 Paralympic medals compared with 13 Olympic medals — but Shalabi made history as the first Arab Israeli to achieve that feat.

He won his 100-meter backstroke final with a time of 2:28.04, after no preliminary rounds were held due to the low number of participants. Silver was taken by Anton Kol of Ukraine and bronze by Italy’s Francesco Bettella.

Shalabi finished fourth in Beijing 2008 and in London 2012, narrowly missing out on medals in both Games.

Shalabi, 34, was born deaf-mute to a Muslim family from Shfaram and is paralyzed in all four limbs following an accident at age 13. He competes in disability classification S1, reserved for those with the most severe activity limitations.

He trains at a Haifa center run by ILAN — Israel Association for Children with Disabilities, closely accompanied by his father, Yusef.







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