Saturday, October 30, 2021

10/30 Links: A terrorist organization by any other name; Israel Ambassador Rips Up UNHRC Report During Speech; Noura Erakat's Morgue of Palestinian Resisters

From Ian:

A terrorist organization by any other name
Hashem Abu Maria, the leader of Defense for Children International, died in a firefight with Israeli forces in 2014. The organization's president was the editor of the PFLP magazine. This NGO is funded directly by Italy.

The leaders of the UAWC are almost all members of the central committee and board of the PFLP. In addition, the vice president of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, already on the list of terrorist organizations, headed the military wing of the PFLP in Gaza and was sentenced to life in prison.

Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin was accused of recruiting and organizing the training of PFLP members. Italy also directly finances Al-Haq.

The list is long and speaks volumes.

The cloaking of terrorist groups in human-rights garb is an established practice for those who want to destroy Israel, and the cynicism of international politics not only enables pretending not to understand this reality but helps the system.

So, the law goes to dust, the victim becomes persecutor, and the terrorist who ignores every democratic principle becomes the key protagonist of the NGO era.

It is sad there are Israeli politicians who are, or should be aware of the terrorist nature of these organizations, yet prefer to show how much they idolize the cause of "human rights."

It is even more tragic that the term "human rights" has become a trap, creating an absurd inversion of the very real distinction between perpetrators and victims. The ongoing dispute over Gantz's declaration should make the entire world tremble.




House Dems Praise Designated Terrorist Groups for ‘Courageous Work’
A group of House Democrats will propose a resolution urging the Biden administration to condemn Israel and support six Palestinian groups that were designated as terrorist organizations by the Jewish state.

In response to Israel's terrorist designations, Rep. Betty McCollum (D., Minn.) plans to introduce a resolution celebrating the designated Palestinian groups for the "value and importance" of their "courageous work," according to Haaretz. The resolution will be cosponsored by several House Democrats, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.).

Among the groups backed in the Democratic resolution are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. Also included is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which had funding cut from it in 2020 after the group's leadership was arrested for murdering a 17-year-old Israeli.

Rather than condemn the terrorist organizations, the group of House Democrats chose to attack Israel for its "repressive act designed to criminalize and persecute important Palestinian human rights organizations." The resolution demands that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemn Israel’s "authoritarian and anti-democratic act of repression" and support the six terrorism-tied organizations.

The other Palestinian groups in question are Addameer, Al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees.

This isn’t the first time House Democrats like Tlaib have sided with terror-tied organizations. Tlaib has fundraised multiple times this year for Baitulmaal, which pays money to the families of Palestinian terrorists. The leader of Baitulmaal, Mazen Mokhtar, has been accused of raising money for the Taliban and Chechen Mujahideen.


The end of exile: Iraqi Jew recalls escape from Baghdad 70 years ago
The Iraqi Jewish community is one of the oldest and most significant Jewish diasporas. Following Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, only 10,000 Jews remained in Iraq and most of them left after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979. Today, only three Jews still live in Iraq, according to Orly Baher Levy, chief curator of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda.

In the early 20th century, the Jewish community in Iraq lived relatively well, with many Jews holding important positions in Iraqi society and in the halls of power. It was not until the 1930s that Jews living there began to suffer from more serious persecution.

“Up until then they had been an integral part of Iraqi society; they were Jews, but they were first of all Iraqi,” Baher Levy explained to The Media Line. “And then bit by bit they started to feel like outsiders. The local populace suddenly saw them as Jews (and not Iraqis), and became jealous of them.”

The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center first opened to the public in 1988. It is the largest museum of its kind dedicated to documenting, preserving, and researching the cultural heritage of Babylonian Jewry.

In addition to exhibitions and lectures, the museum houses a large collection of Iraqi Jewish artifacts, including Judaica, manuscripts, books, and photographs.

On Tuesday, the museum will hold an event marking the 70th anniversary of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel via Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. Leading Iraqi-Israeli speakers and artists will take part in the celebrations, including Baruch Meiri. The festivities also will include traditional Babylonian Jewish music, art, and food.

Mordechai Ben Porat, 98, one of the original organizers of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah and who also spearheaded the founding of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, is slated to attend the museum celebrations.

One of the goals is to keep Iraqi Jewish traditions and history alive for the next generation. “With that Aliyah, we can say that the Babylonian exile ended,” Lily Shor, director of external relations and events at the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Museum, said.

“All the Jews around the world were once in the tribe of Judah, and they were taken to Babylon” after the destruction of the First Temple, Shor said. “During the immigration wave of the 1950s, some 110,000 Jews came to Israel and only 9,000 remained in Iraq. This means that the exile effectively ended.”
Noura Erakat's Morgue of Palestinian Resisters
Erakat’s agenda entailed unyielding Palestinian resistance to Israel’s existence, as indicated by her reading of a manifesto that emerged during Arab riots in Israeli towns and cities in May as Hamas and Islamic Palestinian Jihad launched rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip. This “intifada continues over 100 years of Palestinian resistance,” she said, rejoicing that a “new generation of organic leaders” during this unrest “has displaced the Palestinian official leadership as well as the leaders of the Oslo generation.”

Yet Palestinians are always victims for Erakat, never perpetrators, as her discussion of May’s violence demonstrated. She denounced Israeli “attacks on Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in the middle of Ramadan” on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, ignoring the Arab riots to which Israeli police reacted. She imagined subsequent indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks on Israel as a “responding” to Temple Mount violence, while Israel has made Hamas’s Gaza base into a “colonial laboratory for asymmetric warfare.”

Erakat also disregarded other Arab riots in Israel, like the “Kristallnacht in Lod,” and blamed only Israeli Jews for sectarian conflict. “Zionist mobs in Lydda and Jaffa within Israel, these supposedly mixed cities, hunted down Palestinians even in their own home, shattering the fiction of coexistence, illuminating the commitment to supremacy,” she said.

Erakat sought to create an intersectional nexus between Palestinians and the American Black Lives Matter movement, juxtaposing the Aug. 9, 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown Ferguson, Missouri, with the then-ongoing Israeli “Operation Protective Edge” air campaign against Hamas in Gaza. She promoted the myth of Brown’s innocence by distorting his death as the “latest in the vigilante and police killings of black boys, men, girls, trans folks.” In the resulting “convergence in Ferguson,” therefore, “black and Palestinian organizers worked together against the United States and Israeli state violence.” This “catalyzed renewals of black-Palestinian solidarity, which experienced its first apex during the Third World revolt,” she claimed, without explaining when this “revolt” occurred.

Erakat’s pop Marxist dreams of a revolution overthrowing Israel’s “settler-colony” might thrill her woke academic audiences. Yet her indulgence of radical chic in America can only incite more anarchy by Palestinians like her deceased terrorist cousin. The cost of such perverted Middle East studies is measurable not only in wasted tuition dollars domestically but also in lives lost abroad.
Israel Ambassador Rips Up UNHRC Report During Speech
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan tore up the United Nations Human Right Council’s annual report while at the podium.

A special hearing was held at the General Assembly on Friday, in which the yearly report was presented by the president of the human rights council.

“Since its establishment 15 years ago, the Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 95 times compared to the 142 against all other countries in the world combined,” Erdan said to the assembly.

“It was on this stage at this very body that the very right of the Jewish people to have a national home was itself declared to be racist. A decision that was justly overturned. A decision that Israel’s ambassador at the time, Chaim Herzog, tore up at the United Nations,” Erdan said, referring to Herzog’s 1975 speech.

“And this is exactly what should be done to this antisemitic distorted one-sided report.”

Erdan stated that the report’s only place was “in the dustbin of antisemitism” before ripping it up and leaving.


Ruthie Blum: Is America’s visa-waiver carrot a stick in disguise? - opinion
Nevertheless, even subsequent visa-waiver negotiations with the openly pro-Israel Trump administration did not bear fruit. When certain Israeli officials voiced optimism on this score in 2017, for instance, a State Department spokesperson told the financial daily Globes that Israel did not “at this stage” meet the “very strict requirements” of the visa-exemption program. “Specifically,” he said, “the administration in Washington continues to be concerned about the unequal treatments given to US Muslims at entry points.”

ISRAEL’S EFFORTS didn’t stop there. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly raised the visa-waiver issue with US President Joe Biden in August during their meetings in Washington. According to a White House statement, Biden told Bennett that his administration would strengthen bilateral cooperation with Israel in multiple ways, “including by working together towards Israel’s inclusion in the visa-waiver program,” and the two leaders directed their respective teams to “enhance consultations as Israel works on addressing the program’s requirements.”

Uh-oh. This sounded eerily like a not-so-veiled discussion about possible Israeli concessions on border security.

WHICH BRINGS us to the timing of Mayorkas’s seductive allusion to a potential softening of America’s stance on whether to place Israel on the same footing as, say, Estonia and Iceland – while categorizing the Jewish state as equivalent to Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania where entry visas are concerned.

Though there’s no hard evidence that it’s connected to Bennett’s stated intention last week, and follow-through on Wednesday, to allow the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria to advance plans for the construction of 3,130 housing units in Area C of the West Bank, the timing is a bit suspicious. That it came on the heels, as well, of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s designation of six “human rights” NGOs associated with the PFLP as terrorist organizations is all the more cause for pause.

If this is the Biden administration’s carrot-and-stick approach to Israeli policy, Jerusalem shouldn’t behave like a hungry bunny. Israeli tourists deserve to be handled by the US like their British, Dutch or Australian counterparts. But not at the expense of their safety and sovereignty.
Morton Klein: US attack on Israeli settlements is antisemitic - opinion
During Biden’s 2001 address at the ZOA’s Brandeis dinner, Biden insisted that the US should not publicly chastise its friend Israel, and explained that public criticism “emboldens those in the Middle East and around the world who still harbor as their sacred goal the elimination of Israel... It is not for you to tell them [Israel], nor for me, what is in their best interests. We should give Israel the right to determine what chances they will take.”

Israel has nonetheless been bending over backward to appease the Biden administration – at the cost of Jewish families who need a place to live. Specifically:
• Israel’s Civil Administration’s Planning Council did not meet for 10 months (since before Biden’s inauguration), which constituted a de facto freeze on building Jewish homes.
• The Planning Council is finally planning to meet now to approve 3,000 housing units in Judea and Samaria. This is a fraction of the housing that is needed by growing Israeli Jewish families, and the record-breaking numbers of Jews making aliyah in the wake of increasing antisemitism throughout the world.
• Israel appeased the Biden administration by lowering Jewish housing units by 39%. As Gantz told Blinken, the defense minister had reduced, to the greatest possible extent, the number of housing units for Jews that was to be approved.
• Meanwhile, Israel gave approval for the construction of 1,300 homes for Palestinian Arabs in Area C, which is under full Israeli control.
• Gantz approved (unwarranted) registration of 4,000 Palestinian Arabs in the Judea and Samaria population registry, and advised Blinken that Israel “plan[s] to take more such steps soon.”

Clearly, appeasing the Biden/Blinken administration doesn’t work.


From Tehran to Jerusalem, Uzbekistan bridges Israeli-Muslim divide
In Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, with its wide boulevards, mosques and modern coffee shops, geopolitics almost seems irrelevant when it comes to Israel.

Here is a country, with ties to Iran, that is in conversation with the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. A largely secular Muslim country, it has recognized Palestine as a state since 1994, but the topic of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation.

The Central Asian nation of 35 million is due to celebrate its 30th anniversary of formal diplomatic ties with Israel next year, and has a Jewish community that some speculate has been in existence since the time of King David.

As part of the government’s push toward Western-style democracy and with an eye to its struggles with water scarcity, Uzbekistan wants to strengthen its ties with the Jewish state.

It’s a drive that has been promoted by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who earlier this week secured a second term.

WHEN IT comes to Israel there is “heart-to-heart” diplomacy, explained former Uzbek foreign minister Sodiq Safoyev, who now is the first deputy chairman of the Senate.

He explained that he feels a strong personal and diplomatic connection to Israel, a country he admires but has never visited.

“We have one of the oldest Jewish communities that dates back more than 2,000 years,” and which made significant contributions “to the development of this region,” Safoyev said.

“I cannot imagine Uzbek culture without the contribution of the Jewish community of Uzbekistan,” he explained.
Are the PA and UAE on the path to reconciliation?
A surprise visit to Dubai last week by the head of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service Majed Faraj has sparked speculation that the two sides are close to mending their fences.

Faraj was the first senior PA official to visit the Gulf state since the signing of the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last year.

Palestinian sources said that Faraj traveled to the UAE to visit Expo 2020 Dubai, a universal exhibition held from October 1 to March 2022 with the participation of 200 countries, including Israel and the Palestinians.

According to the sources, the visit does not indicate that the PA intends to publicly endorse the normalization agreements between Israel and some Arab countries, including the UAE.

During the visit, Faraj met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Makhtoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, who toured the Palestinian pavilion at the exhibition.

“I was honored to visit the Palestinian pavilion at Dubai 2020 Expo, where Palestinian culture, history and holy sites were present,” Makhtoum wrote on Twitter. “When Palestine is present, beauty is present and history writes its presence.”

Makhtoum did not mention the meeting with the Palestinian official.

The UAE news agency WAM, which reported the meeting, did not provide any details about the encounter. The agency described Faraj as “special envoy to President Mahmoud Abbas.”
Israel said to strike near Damascus in rare daytime raid, hitting Hezbollah arms
The Israeli military bombed a number of locations surrounding Damascus in a rare daytime strike on Saturday, according to Syrian media, reportedly targeting advanced weapons heading to the Hezbollah terror group and other Iranian proxies.

The Syrian state media outlet SANA said the strikes were carried out using surface-to-surface missiles fired from northern Israel and that explosions were heard in the countryside surrounding the Syrian capital.

Strikes were reported in the areas of al-Dimas, Qudsaya and al-Mezzah military air base — all located west of Damascus. Although not unheard of, daytime strikes on Syrian targets are relatively rare.

Citing a military source, SANA said two Syrian soldiers were injured and there was “material damage” after the country’s air defense systems were activated against “hostile targets from the direction of occupied lands,” an apparent reference to Israel. The military source claimed that the missiles were “repelled,” a common claim by Syria, which Israeli military officials and independent analysts largely regard as false, empty boasts.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group of unclear funding, said Saturday’s raid killed at least five pro-Iranian fighters and wounded others. The nationalities of the people killed were not immediately known.


Saudi Expels Lebanese Ambassador, Bans All Imports From Lebanon
Saudi Arabia has summoned its ambassador to Lebanon for consultation and asked the Lebanese ambassador to the kingdom to leave within 48 hours, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported on Friday.

The kingdom also imposed a blanket ban on all imports from Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia’s decision comes days after comments made by Lebanon’s information minister that were critical of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen put fresh strains on Gulf-Lebanese relations.

The comments by George Kordahi in an interview he said was recorded on Aug. 5, nearly a month before he took office, circulated heavily on social media on Tuesday. He has said he would not resign over the incident.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati sought to avert the diplomatic fallout and said the comments made in an online show affiliated to Qatar’s al Jazeera network did not reflect the cabinet’s position.

Mikati has been hoping to improve ties with Gulf Arab states which have been strained for years because of the influence wielded in Beirut by the Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah.

“The control of the terrorist Hezbollah on the decision-making of the Lebanese state made Lebanon an arena for implementing projects for countries that don’t wish Lebanon and its people well,” the statement carried by SPA said.
Kuwait expels Lebanese envoy over Yemen war criticism, following Saudis, Bahrain
Kuwait followed Saudi Arabia and Bahrain by ordering the Lebanese charge d’affaires on Saturday to leave the emirate within two days over comments made by a Lebanese minister regarding the war in Yemen. Kuwait also recalled its ambassador from Beirut.

Later Saturday, the United Arab Emirates’ state-run WAM news agency said on Twitter that it would withdraw its diplomats from Lebanon in solidarity with Saudi Arabia. The tweet also said Emiratis would be ”prevented” from traveling to Lebanon. Travel bans have happened previously to Lebanon over politics in the past.

The moves came as the Arab League chief expressed concerns about the deterioration of ties between Lebanon and wealthy Gulf countries over statements made by Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib said Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati is in contact with foreign officials who asked him not to think about resigning. The minister added that he is in contact with the Americans to help solve the crisis.

Kordahi has described during a TV program in August the war in Yemen as an aggression by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He added that the war in Yemen is “absurd” and must stop because he is opposed to wars between Arabs.
Crisis with Lebanon Rooted in Hezbollah Dominance – Saudi Minister
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Saturday the latest crisis with Lebanon has its origins in a Lebanese political setup that reinforces the dominance of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group and continues to allow endemic instability.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries expelled Lebanese envoys in a diplomatic spat that risks adding to Lebanon’s economic crisis, following critical comments about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen by Lebanon’s Information Minister George Kordahi.

“I think the issue is far broader than the current situation,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told Reuters in a phone interview. “I think it’s important that the government in Lebanon or the Lebanese establishment forges a path forward that frees Lebanon from the current political construct, which reinforces the dominance of Hezbollah.”

He said this setup “is weakening state institutions within Lebanon, in a way that makes Lebanon continue to process in a direction against the interests of the people of Lebanon.”

The row has triggered calls by some Lebanese politicians for the resignation of Kordahi, while others opposed such a move, which could undermine the government as a whole.

“We have no opinion about the government in Lebanon. We have no opinion as to whether it stays or goes, this is up to the Lebanese people,” the minister, speaking from Rome where he was attending the G20 summit, said.

Kordahi has been publicly backed by Hezbollah and has declined to apologize or resign over the comments.
Lebanon Says Government Can’t Afford to Resign as Saudi Rift Widens
Lebanon’s government cannot afford to resign over a growing diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states, a member of a Lebanese crisis group of ministers said on Saturday following a near three-hour meeting over the widening rift.

“The country cannot be left without a government,” due to other pressing matters, and would continue to work to resolve the rift, Education Minister Abbas Halabi said after the meeting.

The row over critical comments made by Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen had spurred calls by some top politicians for Kordahi’s resignation, while others opposed the move.

Saudi Arabia expelled Lebanon’s envoy and banned all Lebanese imports on Friday, and Bahrain and Kuwait followed suit, giving the top Lebanese diplomats 48 hours to exit.

Kordahi’s resignation would have knock-on effects that could threaten Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s coalition government.

But Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said Mikati’s contacts with officials from a number of states showed opposition to the resignation of the government, formed only last month after a 13-month stalemate.

“They told Mikati, ‘if you are thinking about resignation, take that out of your head,'” he said.
The EU's Dangerous Policy Towards Iran's Mullahs
The EU also made many concessions to Iran, such as agreeing to include in the nuclear deal sunset clauses enabling the mullahs soon to have as many nuclear weapons as they like.

Meanwhile, the EU, which never stops moralizing to other countries about how they should be conducting themselves, has turned a blind eye to credible reports regarding Iran's continually violating the nuclear deal as well as pursuing clandestine nuclear activities. By February 2016, Iran had already exceeded its threshold for heavy water for the second time.

At the same time, when it comes to terrorism, members of the EU have been among the main targets of Iran's terrorist plots. The Iranian regime has been implicated in a series of assassinations, seizing European hostages and other hostile acts across Europe....

The EU might also do well to see how Iran's military adventurism in the region has escalated -- and will continue to escalate unless it is stopped.

If Iran acquires nuclear capability, it will no longer even have to use terrorism or hostage-taking -- or even its new bombs -- to blackmail Europe: the mere threat of using one should be sufficient.

Will the EU please wake up in time and alter its dangerous policy towards Iran?
Iran’s Atrocious Human Rights Record Must Be Addressed Before New Nuclear Talks
There were days in a cramped, dark room. There were days and nights at Evin prison, with bright lights and interrogations and little or no sleep. And then there was the injection, a mysterious drug his prison guards shot into Payam Derafshan’s veins, triggering convulsions and seizures that caused him to bite off half his tongue. According to one report, after doctors treated Derafshan, an Iranian human rights attorney, at a nearby hospital, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps brought him to a mental institution. According to his lawyers, he was there “subjected to electric shocks, seriously damaging his neurological system and causing him to lose consciousness.”

Records of Derafshan’s torture emerged earlier this month, the latest in a seemingly-endless line of stories of lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists jailed, tortured, and even killed by Iranian state security forces. Worse, most of these savageries were committed with the approval — if not at the command — of the man who is now Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s former chief of the judiciary.

Consequently, a group of Iranian exiles filed a claim against Raisi earlier this month in Scotland, calling for him to be held accountable for human rights abuses, including his role in the 1988 massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners. The complaint, filed with the Scottish police, sought Raisi’s arrest if he attended the UN Climate Change conference in Glasgow on October 31. (He has since declined to make the trip.) This follows a similar call by Center for Human Rights In Iran founder and director Hadi Ghaemi, that President Biden recognize the ongoing human rights abuses in future policies and relations with Iran.

Now, with Iran agreeing to reenter talks in November aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions, that call is more urgent than ever.
Iranian hackers take down servers of Israeli internet hosting company Cyberserve
Hackers, apparently linked to Iran, said Friday they had broken into the servers of Israeli internet hosting company Cyberserve, bringing down a number of widely used websites.

The Black Shadow group, which Hebrew-language media reports said was Iranian, warned the Israeli company that it was in possession of data that could be leaked. The group has not confirmed that it is Tehran-backed.

“Hello Again! We have news for you,” the hackers wrote in a message circulated on social media on Friday evening. “You probably could not connect to many websites today. ‘Cyberserve’ company and their customers [were] hit by us. You may ask what about Data? As always, we have lots of it. If you don’t want your Data leaked by us, contact us soon.”

Black Shadow stole a vast trove of information from Israeli insurance company Shirbit last year and then sold it on the dark web when the firm refused to pay a ransom.

Cyberserve’s customers include the Dan and Kavim public transportation companies, the Children’s Museum in Holon, the Pegasus travel company and the blogsite of the Kan public broadcaster.

The websites of a number of Cyberserve’s customers were unavailable on Saturday morning.
Suspected Iranian hack hits Israeli LGBT site; users fear leak of personal info
An Israeli LGBT-focused dating service was one of the many websites targeted by a hack on an internet hosting company, worrying users of a potential data leak that could expose those still in the closet.

“Atraf,” a geo-located dating service as well as a nightlife index, is a popular app and website in the Israeli LGBT community, especially in the Tel Aviv area.

Hackers, apparently linked to Iran, said Friday they had broken into the servers of Israeli internet hosting company Cyberserve, bringing down a number of widely used websites.

The Black Shadow group, which Hebrew-language media reports said was Iranian, warned the Israeli company that it was in possession of data that could be leaked. The group has not confirmed that it is backed by Tehran.

“Hello Again! We have news for you,” the hackers wrote in a message circulated on social media Friday evening. “You probably could not connect to many websites today. ‘Cyberserve’ company and their customers [were] hit by us. You may ask what about Data? As always, we have lots of it. If you don’t want your Data leaked by us, contact us soon.”

It was not clear which data the hacker group would leak, but with the sensitive personal information on Atraf, users who have not come out were worried their names could be released, according to Hebrew-language media reports.
Amid BDS Push, ‘Ethnic Studies’ Curricula Spread Anti-Israel Hate
In October, BDS saw key developments related to “ethnic studies” curricula and “critical race theory” (CRT). California governor Gavin Newsom signed the controversial bill requiring the state’s high school students to take “ethnic studies” before graduating. Long criticized for its emphasis on dividing ethnic groups into victims and victimizers, the current curriculum was modified after the backlash from Jewish and other organizations that objected to its overt hostility toward Israel and support for BDS.

The final version discusses the diversity of the Jewish community and includes “Holocaust education,” but remains hostile towards Israel, particularly in the context of “Arab-American” ethnic studies. The curriculum is also being supplanted by teachers using the earlier version, and an even more radical “liberated ethnic studies” curriculum in which ‘Palestine’ is central.

A bill mandating an “ethnic studies” requirement in K-12 education was also proposed in Massachusetts. The bill would create a “Commission for Anti-Racism and Equity in Education” and mandate “a social justice perspective” in which “ethnic studies, racial justice, decolonizing history, and unlearning racism is taught at all grade levels.”

Elsewhere in academia, BDS efforts continued to isolate Israel, in part by condemning calls for debate and declaring that supporting Israel was an issue beyond discussion. There were also more demands at universities to adopt BDS policies.

At the University of Illinois, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter strongly protested a statement from the school president that declared the Israeli-Palestinian conflict entitled “Respectful engagement around difficult issues,”with SJP saying, “we utterly reject your call for ‘respectful engagements around difficult issues’ because ethnic cleansing and genocide are not complicated issues.”

The SJP chapter at the University of Minnesota also issued a statement protesting a new study aboard program with the Technion Institute in Haifa, stating that they were “disappointed at the insistence of the University of Minnesota to persist in active cooperation with the Israeli state, the violent occupation of the Palestinian homeland, and the eradication and ethnic cleansing of its people by use of force.” An SJP campaign was also launched at the University of Virginia, demanding that the school “1. Stop the sale of all Sabra Hummus products on Grounds by the University and UVA affiliated vendors; 2. Terminate all contracts with G4S; 3. Divest public funding from any and all defense technology research supporting the Israeli Defense Forces.” Protestors at Trinity College Dublin made similar demands.
Yearlong program helps US colleges find and fix overlooked campus antisemitism
On Rosh Hashanah of this year, a student at the University of Utah reported receiving an antisemitic text message. It came from an unknown phone number, the recipient wasn’t Jewish, and an investigation later showed it to be an isolated event. Nonetheless, university officials were alarmed.

“This incident is among many being experienced by Jewish community members in higher education around the country as incidents of antisemitism are on the rise,” said a statement put out by the university.

And so while only 200 of the university’s 24,634 students are Jewish, the administration decided to take action, said Brian Jay Nicholls, special assistant to the chief safety officer at the University of Utah. Earlier this year it became one of 27 campuses participating in Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative (CCI), a year-long program designed to assess the campus climate for Jewish students across the United States.

Nicholls looks forward to using the CCI’s assessment survey to help the university better serve its Jewish students, whether it’s making sure kosher food is readily available or that exams aren’t scheduled on Jewish holidays — and, of course, fighting antisemitism.

“Just because the Jewish community is so small and underrepresented, doesn’t mean we don’t need to hear what it’s like to be Jewish on campus. On the contrary, typically when smaller voices aren’t heard as much, we need to make sure we pay more attention,” Nicholls said.

While the University of Utah incident wasn’t the most striking case of antisemitism to hit American campuses at the start of the fall semester, it nevertheless represents how widespread the issue has become. Indeed, one-third of Jewish college students experienced antisemitic hate in the last academic year, according to a new survey released by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Connecticut Public School to Address ‘Pattern of Behavior’ After Swastika Again Found
For the second time this year, a swastika was found drawn in a Darien, Connecticut public school, prompting district officials to hire a private diversity consultant to address what they called a “pattern of behavior.”

“Regrettably, we did have another incident yesterday of a swastika being drawn on a middle school boys’ bathroom stall,” Darien Public Schools Superintendent Alan Addley said on Tuesday, according to the Darien Times, speaking at a district board meeting about an incident at Middlesex Middle School.

“We do recognize that this pattern of behavior has occurred too many times and it has negatively affected the schools, community and the students’ educational experiences,” he said. “Know we’re acting with deliberate intention and interventions and actions that will make a long-term difference.”

Officials at Holmes Elementary School found a swastika scratched into a wall in March, according to local media, followed by later incidents of antisemitic comments shared by students on social media and other hateful vandalism. In September 2019, three swastikas were found at the local Middlesex Middle School, with another discovered a month later.

On Tuesday, Addley announced that a California-based diversity consultant will begin work in the district next week with a budget of $23,000. School board officials said they selected him after consulting material by the Anti-Defamation League.
BBC’s Dead Sea reports fail to tell the whole story
On October 18th the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman produced audio and filmed reports about a photoshoot by American photographer Spencer Tunick near the Dead Sea.

In the audio and televised versions of his report, Bateman’s take-away messaging was that:
“For now, the art of preserving how much water we all use is the message from this naked attraction.”

BBC audiences were told that the Dead Sea has “been starved of its fresh water supply”.

Bateman: “This expert says it’s entirely a man-made problem with the sea’s sources dammed for farming and drinking water.”

Dr Clive Lipchin: “So since the 1970s there have been large water diversions pumping water out of the Sea of Galilee westwards to Israel and eastwards to Jordan and basically, we’re slowly losing this very unique and one-of-a-kind ecological system.”

While that information is not inaccurate, it does not tell the whole story. As explained in an article last year by Sue Surkes, the problem – like the potential ways to address it – is considerably more complex than Bateman’s reporting suggests.
‘How Could They Have Murdered This Angel?’: Son of Murdered Holocaust Survivor Mireille Knoll Delivers Impassioned Testimony at Trial of Accused Antisemitic Killers
Relatives and friends of Mireille Knoll — the 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor robbed and stabbed to death in a brutal antisemitic assault in 2018 — described her as an “angel” and a “deeply loving mother” during the third day of the criminal trial of her accused killers in Paris.

Among those giving testimony at the trial of 32-year-old Yacine Mihoub and 25-year-old Alex Carrimbacus was Mireille Knoll’s son, Daniel. In calm, measured tones, he delivered a deeply personal tribute to his late mother, challenging the accused to finally tell the truth about her murder.

A grandmother who lived alone in an apartment in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, Knoll had known Mihoub, who lived with his family in the same public housing project, since his childhood. On March 23, 2018, Mihoub, who would often visit Knoll without prior notice, arrived at her apartment with Carrimbacus, whom he befriended in prison. During the visit, which began with the pair drinking glasses of port wine, Knoll, who suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, was stabbed 11 times and her apartment set alight. Since their arrest by police in the days following the murder, Mihoub and Carrimbacus have continued to pin the blame on the other for the frenzied stabbing of Knoll with a knife.

At Thursday’s court proceedings, Daniel Knoll said that he still did not understand why “these two people, these monsters, murdered this angel,” indicating the two defendants.

Referring to Mihoub, he added: “She received this man, this neighbor, in her home. How could he have conceived of such an abominable murder?”
New report states Harrow Council ignored staff's claims of antisemitism
A newly published independent race report has stated that Harrow Council ignored several claims of antisemitism that were flagged up by members of staff.

In addition to antisemitism, several cases of sexism and racism were allegedly witnessed by some members of council staff, though no action had been taken.

One participant in the report said: “A colleague reported several instances of antisemitism and racism and nothing has been done about it for years. It is no good at all to talk about combating racism, then do nothing about it when reported. We are so fed up of this and this is the reason why nothing will change.”

Other staff members reportedly said that they did not feel comfortable reporting incidents of “casual racism” for fear of losing their jobs.

The report recommended that the council issue a “formal apology”. Harrow Council has reportedly been contacted for comment.

Harrow Council adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism in 2017.
Award-winning Israeli doc on camera-hungry Nazi Albert Speer opens in NYC and LA
In her lauded 2014 documentary film, “The Decent One,” filmmaker Vanessa Lapa used SS leader and Final Solution architect Heinrich Himmler’s private family letters to expose just how deep his evil ran.

Now she is again using a top Nazi’s words against him — this time with audio recordings made by Hitler’s chief architect and minister of armaments, Albert Speer, as he worked on a script for a feature film based on his blockbuster 1970 memoir, “Inside the Third Reich.”

In her new film, “Speer Goes to Hollywood,” Lapa shows just how cunning the manipulative Speer was in whitewashing his crimes, which included enslaving 12 million Jewish, Polish and Soviet prisoners and forced laborers — at least a third of whom died of starvation, injury, or exhaustion — to produce German armaments during World War II. Creating a reputation for himself as “the good Nazi,” he was sentenced to only 20 years in prison at the Nuremberg Trials, while his co-conspirators and subordinates went to the gallows.

Speer spent his time in prison writing extensive notes for his memoir on paper napkins, and charmed sympathetic guards who illegally smuggled them out of prison for him.

Still buzzing with excitement from the film’s having won the 2021 Ophir Award for best Israeli documentary film earlier this month, Lapa recently spoke to The Times of Israel from her Tel Aviv studio, as she geared up for the United States theatrical release of “Speer Goes to Hollywood.” The film opens in New York on October 29 and in Los Angeles on November 5.
Coach of English soccer club apologizes for likening defeat to Holocaust
The manager of a professional English soccer team has apologized after comparing his team’s loss in a recent match to the Holocaust.

After his Bristol Rovers side lost 3-1 last weekend to Newport County, Joey Barton said, “The team’s almost like musical chairs. Someone gets in and does well but then gets suspended or injured. Someone gets in for a game, does well but then has a Holocaust, a nightmare, an absolute disaster.”

At a press conference Thursday, Barton apologized for the Holocaust analogy.

“I’m just going to say there were some comments made after the press conference last week where clearly no offense was meant, but some people have rightly pointed out to me the use of the analogy was not correct,” he said.

Barton said he received a reminder this week from the FA, the governing body for soccer in England, regarding “our language and communications.”

“The last thing you want to do is cause offense or upset anybody,” he said. “So if anybody was offended by that, I would like to apologize for that and I think the FA were right to write to me and remind me of that.”
Third COVID shot reduces hospitalization by 93%, mortality by 81%
A third shot of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine reduces the chances of hospitalization by 93%, serious illness by 92% and mortality by 81%, according to an Israeli-American study published Friday night in the Lancet.

The study, which compared nearly 730,000 individuals who received the third shot against the same number who were vaccinated with two shots five months or more prior and did not receive the booster, was carried out by researchers from Clalit Health Services and Harvard University. The observational study was done during the peak of the Delta wave – July 30 to September 23, 2021. It is the first study to be peer-reviewed that evaluates the effectiveness of a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine against serious outcomes while regulating for a variety of variables, including comorbidities and behavioral factors.

“These data provide immediate evidence for other countries now deliberating the need for a similar booster vaccination campaign” to Israel’s, said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief of innovation. “Every country will need to make its own decision based on its setting and the timeline of vaccinations that were provided over the last year.

“In Israel, it suggests that in view of its very early vaccination campaign and waning immunity, the decision for an early vaccination campaign was probably right and saved many lives,” he said.
IAI Signs MoU With Korea Aerospace Industries on Loitering Munitions Program
Israel Aerospace Industries announced last week that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Korea Aerospace Industries on a new program involving loitering munitions.

The MoU between the two entities secures a “new concept weapons system that will maximize the effectiveness of Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD & DEAD) missions,” according to a statement.

“The expanded cooperation between IAI and KAI will offer the South Korean military with new technologies and will establish concrete cooperation plans through joint feasibility studies between the two companies,” it added.

IAI is a lead global developer of loitering munitions systems, which combine the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. According to the company, the new concept weapon system can perform long-endurance reconnaissance missions and can strike a target immediately when necessary.

Its specific munitions, including Harpy and Harop loitering missiles, are combat-proven in many countries around the world.
Israeli Actor Lior Raz, Jewish Athlete Julian Edelman Address ‘Misconceptions’ About Jews
Edelman, the former NFL player who is the co-founder of Coast Productions, used social media to reach out to NFL athletes DeSean Jackson and Meyers Leonard after they made antisemitic comments. During the panel, the Jewish athlete discussed notions of “cancel culture” and emphasized educating those who express prejudices — “because that’s where you’re going to get progression.”

“I think it’s human nature: when you feel attacked, you put a guard up,” he noted. “But instead of putting a guard up, why don’t we give out a hand and bring a conversation out to really educate people? Because nine out of 10 times, especially in the situations that I’ve dealt with, the antisemitism has been out of ignorance. So instead of going out and attacking someone, [I’ve] always chose to say ‘Hey, why don’t we sit and talk about this.'”

He added, “If you go out and attack this guy, he’s gonna look at you and say screw you. And that’s not getting anyone anywhere. … If we can really put our feelings out on the table, that’s how we’re gonna get progression.”

Edelman also argued that Jewish communities should set positive examples as a way to counteract false information about Jews.

“People are going to hate on us for something, why don’t we rise above that and become the example,” he said. “Yes, we were the oppressed people for a very, very long time, but we’re also the standard of how to defeat oppression and also overcome it. And really go out and be an example to help other people because once you do those acts, then people can’t say anything bad about you. Everyone has misconceptions on every group but if we make a huge impact on examples , that’s really where I think you can make some hay.”

The panelists also spoke about the role of live theater in humanizing the Jewish experience, and discussed Strathairn’s show about Polish freedom fighter Jan Karski, who sought to warn the world about the Holocaust.











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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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