Sunday, October 31, 2021

10/31 Links: Why are so many Americans taking the side of groups that work with terrorists?; The Moral Incoherence of an Academic Boycott Against Israel

From Ian:

Rushing to defend terrorism-linked NGOs: Why are so many Americans taking the side of groups that work with terrorists?
In light of the wealth of publicly available information linking these NGOs to the PFLP, multiple financial institutions have previously closed accounts and denied payment services. For instance, in 2018, Citibank and Arab Bank closed DCI-P accounts, and Visa, Mastercard and American Express shut down online credit card donations to Al-Haq and UAWC.

European governments and institutions have also expressed concern that their funds were being diverted by these terror-linked actors. In August 2021, the EU opened a preliminary investigation into its financial support to PFLP-linked Palestinian NGOs, and the EU’s anti-fraud mechanism, OLAF, has also launched an investigation. Similarly, the Dutch government froze support to UAWC and initiated an outside audit.

By defending the Palestinian NGOs, some of which may be implicated in murder, groups like HRW, IfNotNow and others undermine the basic human dignity they claim to so greatly cherish. They also prevent terrorist NGOs from facing proper accountability. Their impulsiveness can be attributed either to blind reverence to Palestinian NGOs, or worse, intentionally ignoring the facts that do not accord with their political priorities.

Caution and self-reflection might have been more appropriate responses to Israel’s carefully weighed decision. Instead, oblivious to the facts, these groups instantly condemned the move and again displayed their immoral agendas for all to see.


Michelle Goldberg and Angela Merkel seek moral absolution in the wrong place
Dr. Gerstenfeld is one of the many who concluded that at least when it comes to antisemitism there is little difference between mainstream Muslims and their Islamist masters. He specialized in Israeli-Western European relations, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and authored the book “The War of a Million Cuts.”

And so Gerstenfeld noted that the report defines Islamism as a form of political extremism that aims to end democracy. Anti-Semitism is one of its essential ideological elements. He said: “The document starts by stating that for historical reasons, and in view of the country’s experience with National Socialism, anti-Semitism was long viewed as being inevitably related to the extreme right. Only gradually has it become clear that right-wing extremists do not hold a monopoly on anti-Semitism in Germany today.”

The fact that Islamists and even less politically active Muslims have extreme anti-Semitic beliefs, has long been the “elephant in the room” and leftists seek to minimize their complicity in the immigration of antisemites by misleadingly categorizing antisemitism as emanating from the Right. This became a huge problem during President Trump’s administration as leftist news media, such as The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN , only could see the “racists’ on the right, when the numbers and influence of extremist views in the Right pales in significance to the Left in mainstream media, the universities and the Democratic Party.

This report is too important to be hidden from the public. The report, as summarized by Gerstenfeld, “states that the arrival of over a million Muslims in Germany between 2014 and 2017 increased the influence of Islamist anti-Semitism in the country. It cites Anti-Defamation League statistics on anti-Semitism among the populations of Middle Eastern and North African states. Turkey—a country from which many Muslims now living in Germany originated—is one of the least anti-Semitic countries on the list, yet even it is “nearly 70 percent” anti-Semitic. The study mentions that many children in these countries are raised on a steady diet of anti-Semitic indoctrination.”

Despite Goldberg’s contention that there is little Islamic extremism resulting from the mass immigrations of 2015, the report notes the uptick in Islamist anti-Semitism, which was really made clear as a result of a demonstration that took place in Berlin in 2017. At that event, demonstrators carried placards demanding that Israel be destroyed, and set an Israeli flag on fire

Goldberg is also contradicted in Gerstenfeld’s disclosure that German Health Minister Jens Spahn remarked that the mass immigration from Muslim countries was the reason for the demonstrations in Germany; and Stephan Harbarth, deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag (the German parliament), said, “We have to strongly confront the anti-Semitism of migrants with an Arab background and those from African countries.”

Goldberg has a history of whitewashing the antisemitism inherent in anti-Zionism. She infamously wrote in 2018 that it’s entirely possible to oppose what she calls “Jewish ethno-nationalism” without being a bigot.

It is a new low for her to run interference for German antisemitic pro-Iran, pro-Hamas, leftists and join them in their attempt for a national “redemption”, once again at a horrible cost to the Jews.
The Moral Incoherence of an Academic Boycott Against Israel
Seeming to give credence to George Orwell’s wry observation that “there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them,” the fatuous members of the Virginia Tech Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) passed a “Resolution to Divest in Compliance with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement,” tendentiously pronouncing their solidarity “with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from Israeli apartheid, colonialism and military occupation.” Resolution 2021-22N3 calls on the university administration and staff, Virginia Tech administrators, and employees to “immediately begin to implement the academic and cultural boycott of Israel” by “adopting as a general principle a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and the denial of basic Palestinian rights.”

The poisonous and historically inaccurate language of the GPSS resolution, including such loaded terms as “apartheid, colonialism and military occupation,” was troublingly similar to that found in the dozens of unctuous statements that oozed from university departments, faculty unions, student groups and other organizations in the wake of the latest Gaza war in May. All of the blame and condemnation for the ongoing conflict was assigned to Israel, and conveniently, for instance, no mention was made — either in this resolution or the many solidarity statements in May — of the more than 4,000 lethal rockets Hamas had fired into Israeli towns with the express purpose of murdering Jewish civilians, nor any recognition that each of these instances of rockets being fired constituted a war crime, or that Israel had every legal right under the laws of war to suppress such aggression and to retaliate in an effort to protect its citizenry from attack.

What was different about the Virginia Tech resolution, however, is that included a demand for Virginia Tech to join the BDS campaign since, the resolution claimed, “academic institutions are not neutral arenas of knowledge production, exchange and dissemination” and, therefore, “academic institutions are demonstrably key sites of contestation that can either uphold or challenge Israeli apartheid and colonialism.” Moreover, any consideration that an academic boycott, in practice, constricts academic freedom should be ignored because, the resolution asserted without providing any evidence, “it is clear then that the existing status quo is not one which upholds academic freedom, but rather is one which violently denies Palestinian academics the ability to freely participate in academic institutions and conferences around the world.”
Literary intellectuals who pan Israel
Imagine. In 1922, Irish author James Joyce published his novel, Ulysses, and the central character Leopold Bloom, holds both court and Jewish blood. It would be remiss to believe Joyce could ever have held Anti-Semitic views,after creating such a loveable character as Bloom. Instead, you just know Joyce had to have been an ardent admirer of Jews, even though he dwells not on Bloom's Hebraic roots, but on Bloom as a personality of interest.

But where Joyce, as author, was highbrow enough to offer literary if not humanistic acceptance of a member of the tribe, certainly at a time where the same lovefest for Jews in Britain, if not the world, was questionable, the same humanity Joyce expended cannot be said today of others, including Irish authoress Sally Rooney, who has made public her distaste for Israel, the only Democracy in the Middle East.

So much so, that she decided - in a well-publicized photo opportunity - not to permit Modan, the Israeli Publishing House which had originally translated her works into Hebrew, to continue their professional relationship.

While no doubt, librarians and other enthusiasts of humane underpinnings against censorship must pity of find repugnant Rooney The Fool, her decision to relinquish her relationship with Modan, certainly shows that she has an intended audience for her latest book, Beautiful World. This elite group could include others.

How about having a literary evening with such UGLIES as Ben & Jerry, Unilever, Haaretz, Roger Waters, Lorde, The Islamic Republic of Iran, Al Qaeda, The Taliban, United Nations, UNRWA, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Jimmy Carter, Holocaust Revisionists, Britain's Labour Party, and likeminded literary intelletuals, like the JVP ones to be found on college campuses?.


Jonathan Tobin: Is This the Beginning of a New Cold War Between Biden and Israel?
It makes for a daunting prospect for those in Israel or the United States who hold on to a belief that the coming years won’t be a rerun of the nonstop battles between Washington and Jerusalem that characterized the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu from 2009 to 2016.

Yet Bennett and Lapid are not without hope that they can keep the situation from getting out of hand.

First, they can seek to hold Biden to his promise about keeping disputes with Israel private, rather than letting them play out in public as Obama did. If so, even the most bitter of disagreements won’t seem quite so bad.

Second, they can hope that Israel’s enemies will, as they have so often in recent history, overplay their hand and force Biden’s team back into Israel’s corner. Palestinian rejectionism and support for terror, and Iran’s will to achieve its nuclear ambitions — as well as its assessment that Biden is too weak to stop them from achieving any of their goals — could ultimately prove decisive.

Lastly, they may also count on the dysfunction of the Biden administration. In the past nine months, the Democrats have made a muddle of a host of challenges, including the disaster in Afghanistan, the crisis at the southern border, the collapse of the supply chain for products, and economic malaise that, along with the coronavirus pandemic, won’t go away. These issues have sent Biden’s polling numbers deep underwater, despite beginning his presidency with a vast store of goodwill and support from those who hoped he represented a calming influence and competence.

Unlike Obama, who had political capital to burn on futile Middle East policies and a pointless feud with Netanyahu, Biden has none to spare. Israelis can only hope that he is wise enough not to waste any on equally foolish spats with whoever is running Israel in the coming years — whether Bennett, Lapid or Netanyahu — that will do nothing to ensure American security priorities or the political prospects of the Democrats. Whether such hopes are vindicated is up to Biden and not his Israeli interlocutors.
Caroline Glick: Trading Jerusalem for US visas
Last Wednesday, in response to a question from Senator Bill Hagerty, (R., TN), US Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon admitted in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that under both US and international law, the US cannot open a consulate in Jerusalem without Israel's consent. In other words, the prospect of the Biden administration opening a consulate to the Palestinians in Israel's capital city without requesting Israel's permission to violate Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem is off the table.

Given the Biden administration's near-obsessive determination to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, it's just a matter of time before it presents an offer it believes Israel will be unable to refuse.

On Friday, Israeli financial daily Globes published the outline of such an offer. In exchange for an Israeli "concession to the Palestinians," US officials claim Saudi Arabia will open limited economic ties with Israel. Moreover, the US will provide limited visa exemptions to Israeli tourists.

The article suggests – and Congressional sources warn – that the "concession to the Palestinians," Israel will be required to provide is permission to the US to open a consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinians.

This brings us to the apparent US offer. Its paltriness is as breathtaking as it is insulting. As the Globes article noted, Israel and Saudi Arabia already conduct economic exchanges, including trade deals through Abraham Accords partners the UAE and Bahrain. Israel also reportedly has enjoyed strong security ties with Saudi Arabia for the past several years, which have benefitted both nations.

The Globes article reported that Saudi participation in the Abraham Accords, which involve full normalization of economic and diplomatic ties between Israel and the participating Arab states, is not on the table. To date, Saudi King Salman opposed joining the Abraham Accords directly.
At the UNHRC, Why Not Focus on Countries With Egregious Human-Rights Records?
Too many outsiders assume that the UN’s sky-high output of anti-Israel excoriations reflects the real-world misbehavior of a uniquely and wildly aggressive Israel.

In actuality, Israel serves as a convenient target for scapegoating and unjust isolation at the world body, despite an astonishingly humane record in the face of practically unequaled and unending existential threats.

Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad — all openly committed not to limited territorial or political claims but to the outright destruction of the Jewish state — have never been condemned by the Human Rights Council for their fanaticism and terror.

Meanwhile, more Arabs have been killed in just 10 years of civil war in Syria than in nearly a century of conflict over the Jews’ return to sovereignty in their small and sole ancestral homeland.

Fortunately, with more and more Arab and Muslim leaders now recognizing not only the permanence of Israel but also its legitimacy and potential to help forge a thriving Middle East, forces long accustomed to weaponizing the United Nations for cynical political purposes may find increasingly little enthusiasm for that stale cause.

As America rejoins the UNHRC, it must make clear that the body’s own legitimacy rests upon abandoning bias and bigotry in the pursuit of human dignity. Only concrete and substantial change at the council will make the body worthy of American membership and sustained investment. That change should start with ending the council’s singular fixation upon defaming Israel at the expense of highlighting the world’s most egregious and systemic human-rights abusers.


NGO Monitor: The Union of Palestinian Women Committees Society’s Ties to the PFLP Terror Group
Introduction
Founded in 1980, the Union of Palestinian Women Committees Society (UPWC – originally Union of Palestinian Women Committees) states that its mission is “to empower Palestinian women on all levels and to contribute in the Palestinian national struggle against the Israeli military illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.” According to a 2012 article published in Haaretz, UPWC “operates 21 preschools and day-care centers in the poorest communities in the West Bank.”

UPWC supports “the boycott of occupation in all forms, including economic, cultural, academic and all other forms of boycott” and rejects any normalization with Israel calling it “treason.”

As documented in this report, UPWC has multiple links to the PFLP terrorist organization. On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared UPWC a “terror organization” because it is part of “a network of organizations” that operates “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Founded by George Habash in 1967, the PFLP is a secular Palestinian Marxist-Leninist terror group, originally supported by the former Soviet Union and China. The PFLP is a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel and is involved in suicide bombings, shootings, and assassinations, among other terrorist activities targeting civilians. It is well-known for hijacking commercial airlines in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as targeting civilians in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and is responsible for countless deaths and injuries.

The PFLP assassinated Israeli Minister of Tourism Rechavam Ze’evi in 2001. In 1976, its members joined with the Baader-Meinhof Gang (a West German terror group) to hijack an Air France Tel Aviv-bound flight, diverting it in Entebbe, Uganda. In 2011, PFLP members took credit for the brutal murder of the Fogel family, including a baby and two young children. The PFLP was also responsible for the 2014 massacre at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, murdering four worshipers and an Israeli Druze police officer. In August 2019, a PFLP terror cell carried out a bombing against Israeli civilians, murdering 17-year-old Rina Shnerb, and injuring her father and brother.
BBC’s Knell uncritically amplifies PFLP linked NGOs’ talking points
On the evening of Friday, October 29th the BBC News website published a report by the Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell headlined “Palestinian groups branded terrorists by Israel say they are being silenced” on its ‘Middle East’ page.

The talking points of two of the Palestinian NGOs concerned – Al Haq and Addameer – are promoted in 165 of the article’s 669 words. Knell uses 145 words to portray negative views of Israel’s decision from the US, the EU, the UN and others, adding 12 words of condemnation from the Palestinian Authority. Criticism from two Israeli politicians on one particular side of the political map is portrayed in 91 words.

In other words, over 61% of the article’s word count is dedicated to promotion of criticism and condemnation of the Israeli defence minister’s decision, while in contrast, a third-hand statement from an anonymous Israeli security “official” is portrayed in just 48 words.

A particularly notable aspect of Knell’s report is its portrayal of the PFLP.

“The leaders of six Palestinian civil society organisations branded terrorist groups by Israel say the move will harm human rights unless it is reversed.

Last week Israel declared that the groups were a front for a militant faction which has committed deadly attacks against it since the 1960s.”

“The PFLP, a small, left-wing group that does not recognise the State of Israel, carried out a number of armed attacks and aircraft hijackings in the 1960s and ’70s. It was also behind several suicide attacks during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) in the early 2000s.”

Knell’s portrayal obviously suggests to BBC audiences that the PFLP has not carried out any terror attacks in the twenty years or so since “the early 2000s”. That of course is not the case.




Honest Reporting: Dutch 'Journalist' Spreads Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories. But No Dolphins Or Sharks, Oh My!
After HonestReporting exposed Sakir Khader's backing of the Hamas terrorist group, the Dutch-Palestinian 'journalist' doubled down on his lies about Israel. Khader alleged he was the subject of a "fake news article" and that his phone was "acting strange," an apparent suggestion Israel is spying on him.

While Khader's Twitter post is short on proof and long on conspiratorial, it is by no means unique...


IDF investigation finds intelligence gaps during Operation Guardian of the Walls
An internal IDF investigation carried out following Operation Guardian of the Walls in May found that there were significant intelligence gaps that prevented the military from meeting expectations that it had set prior to the fighting.

According to a report by Channel 12’s MAKO Pazam news site, the highly critical internal investigation found a “detached operational picture” that harmed the functioning of units as well as the public trust in the Israeli military.

Israel fought an 11-day war with terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip in May and carried out intensive strikes against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets, including what the military said were key infrastructure and personnel belonging to the two groups.

The two terrorist groups fired over 4,000 rockets and mortars to Israeli cities in the South and center of the country whenever they wanted, killing 12 civilians and one soldier.

Combined, the two groups have around 14,000 rockets – both long range and short. The majority, if not all of the rockets and mortars are locally produced. Hamas also used explosive drones, naval weaponry and more against Israel during the fighting.
Drill for 2,000 rockets a day and internal strife: IDF preps for war
Israel’s Home Front Command and National Emergency Authority (RAHEL) will hold a week-long drill starting on Sunday simulating a large-scale war in which civilians are evacuated from northern border communities and security agencies will deal with massive rocket barrages sent by Hezbollah.

The drill will take lessons that have been learned from past events in the North, as well as those from the May fighting between Israel and terror groups in the Gaza Strip – Operation Guardian of the Walls – and from the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Following the May fighting, the Home Front Command “carried out a very significant learning process with a lot of research, and this exercise is going to test what we’ve learned,” said Home Front Command Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Itzik Bar.

Israel Police and Magen David Adom will also participate in the drill, which ends Thursday, and will see all security and various governmental bodies take part.

“This exercise is also a great opportunity for all government ministries to understand the implications, starting with disruptions in the energy sector – we are talking about 24-hour power outages across the country, 72 hours in localized communities – and other such aspects in terms of continual functioning,” Bar said.

According to RAHEL head Yoram Laredo, the drill is the first time that it is working together with the Home Front Command, and it will sharpen the abilities of the two to work hand-in-hand.
With Lebanon in turmoil, threat to Israel as high as ever
In this context, Hezbollah is preparing for a surprise attack on Israel, during which if a war were to break out, it would deploy its forces to infiltrate Israeli territory and take over outposts or towns close to the border, thereby disrupting the IDF's ground maneuver capabilities.

As such, the IDF Northern Command is working to improve infrastructure along the northern border in a way that would make it difficult for the Radwan Unit to infiltrate the country. After many years of warning by the Northern Command of the poor condition of the northern border, the government has finally approved a budget for the construction of a better barrier.

Moreover, Israel has been preparing for a campaign in Lebanon for years, based on the understanding that it poses the biggest threat. The IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate has compiled a long list of potential targets in Lebanon, including regime installations, as a means of holding the government accountable for any terrorist activity conducted from its territory.

Nevertheless, despite the IDF's intense preparations, no one doubts that a campaign in Lebanon would be nothing like the 2006 Lebanon War or even the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah's rockets pose a major challenge to the Iron Dome, and should hostilities erupt, the air defense system would have to defend strategic sites at the expense of population centers.

In such a scenario, the only way for the IDF to deal with the threat from the north would be to take swift and aggressive action. To that end, it must immediately bolster the combat worthiness of its ground forces, which are currently (to put it mildly), not in their best shape.
Seth Frantzman: Hezbollah-Saudi crisis deepens and could impact Israel – analysis
Thirty years ago, Saudi Arabia was key to the Taif Agreement that ended the Lebanese Civil War. Riyadh is seen as generally supporting the status quo and Sunni politicians in Lebanon, such as Saad Hariri. Hezbollah murdered Hariri’s father, Rafic in 2005.

In recent years, Riyadh has grown tired of backing a Lebanon that continues to be swallowed by Hezbollah. Hezbollah maintains an illegal terrorist army in Lebanon with 150,000 rockets, undermines Lebanon’s foreign policy, conducts its own policies, has its own communications network and in many ways is more powerful than the state.

Israel is conducting a national readiness drill this week. Starting Sunday, Home Front Command and the National Emergency Authority (RAHEL) are holding a weeklong drill that simulates a large-scale war in which civilians may be evacuated from northern border communities in response to rocket barrages from Hezbollah, according to reports.

It is not clear if Hezbollah will exploit regional tensions in this regard. Hezbollah wants closer ties with the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran is exporting the same technology to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, such as drones and rockets. The US recently sanctioned key figures in the drone program in Iran. The US also imposed sanctions on Lebanese businessmen and a member of Lebanon’s parliament, Jamil Sayyed.

This means regional tensions are entwined and heating up. Iran used drones to attack a ship in the Gulf of Oman in July. A drone attacked the US garrison at Tanf in late October. Hezbollah has increasingly mentioned Yemen in statements. In January, reports said Iran may have sent drones to Yemen. These had a range that could threaten Israel.
i24 News: 'The Saudis are angry and something has to be done,' says former UN ambassador
Gulf states expel lebanon envoys over Yemen criticism. Interview with former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and Egypt, Itzhak Levanon.

Row with Gulf States is another blow to a country already in the grip of crippling political, economic crises

The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday it was withdrawing its diplomats from Lebanon after a similar move by Saudi Arabia, and also banned its citizens from travelling to the country.


Daytime strike on Syria meant to save Russian honor
The strike attributed to Israel on Saturday, against targets in Syria, occurred during daylight hours near the town of Al-Dimass, 20 kilometers west of the Syrian capital and the same distance from the Lebanese border, on the Damascus – Beirut highway.

According to the UK based Observatory for Human Rights, the Syrian military and the Lebanese based Hezbollah terror group have depots there, housing advanced weapons meant for the Iran backed terror group.

This mountainous road is the rout by which most Iranian weapons brought into Syria, are transported by trucks, across the border, in order to built up Hezbollah's military capabilities.

Syrian media reported the attack was carried out using surface to surface missiles fired from the Israeli Golan Heights. This is probably accurate information because both the Syrian military and the Russian forces in Syria, have missile defenses in the region and in fact according to the reports, some incoming missiles were intercepted.

The reports also claimed two Syrian soldiers were wounded. Reports coming out of Syria rarely report fatalities of their own forces or those of Iran backed militias including the Hezbollah group.

Israel allegedly strikes in Syrian territory to prevent a response by Hezbollah's missiles after its leader warned that an attack on Lebanon would not go unanswered.
IDF Fighter Jets Escort US Bomber Through Israeli Airspace
Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets escorted an American B-1 bomber over Israeli territory, the Israeli military said on Saturday.

“The joint flight illustrates the continued strategic cooperation of the IDF with the United States in the area,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a tweet.

The US flight was bound for the Persian Gulf.

The joint mission came as Israeli and US officials are mulling military action against Iran’s nuclear program, as negotiations regarding a US return to the 2015 nuclear deal appear to be at a stalemate.

“With every passing day, and Iran’s refusal to engage in good faith, the runway gets short,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned earlier this month. “We are prepared to turn to other options if Iran doesn’t change course.”


Black Shadow hackers demand $1 million in order to not leak data
The hacker group Black Shadow demanded on Sunday that $1 million be paid to it within 48 hours, or it would leak or sell the rest of the information it collected from the database of the gay dating app Atraf.

In its latest attack on an Israeli company, Black Shadow leaked data from a number of companies serviced by the Israeli Internet company Cyberserve, including Atraf, the Kavim and Dan bus companies and the tour booking company Pegasus.

The latest attack was announced by the group on Friday, with Black Shadow claiming it had damaged the servers. Cyberserve is a web hosting company, meaning it provides servers and data storage for other companies across industries. The data seized by the hackers includes a wide variety of businesses, from travel bookings company Pegasus to the Dan bus company and even the Israeli Children’s Museum.

Black Shadow claimed on its Telegram channel on Sunday that neither government officials nor Cyberserve contacted them about their ransom demand, so they had decided to allow the public to provide the $1 million ransom they were demanding. “It is obvious this is not an important problem for them,” said the group. “We know everybody is concerned about ‘Atraf’ database. As you know we are looking for money.”

The group promised that if it got the ransom, it would not leak the information of about one million people it had collected from Atraf. The group did not make any promises about any of the other data it had collected.
PMW: New PA embassy in Tunisia displays huge map of “Palestine” erasing Israel
According to “direct orders and instructions” from PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has established over 100 Palestinian embassies around the world. [Official PA TV News, Oct. 23, 2021]

One such embassy is located in Tunisia. When staff and visitors arrive they are met with a huge monument with the PA’s map of “Palestine” – the version that erases all of Israel:
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 23, 2021]

This is no surprise since the PA displays and promotes this map in all contexts possible as exposed again and again by Palestinian Media Watch. The message of the map is, of course, that Israel has no right to exist and that the goal of the PA is sovereignty over the entire area.

Ahmad Assaf, General Supervisor of the Official PA Media and General Supervisor of Fatah-run Awdah TV, alluded to this vision when he mentioned that “Palestine’s symbols” are “in every corner” of the embassy, so that visitors can “connect them immediately with what is happening in occupied Palestine” :
“The design of this embassy completely matches the nature of work of an embassy of Palestine. In this embassy we found many Palestinian symbols, in other words, one of Palestine’s symbols is in every corner. Of course, in addition to the wonderful design of this embassy, they succeeded in merging the wonderful geometrical structure and geometrical design and added to them the Palestinian symbols, in a way that every guest or visitor entering this embassy can immediately see these symbols and connect them immediately with what is happening in occupied Palestine.”

[Official PA TV News, Oct. 23, 2021]


PA TV cartoon: Israeli soldier and a Coronavirus particle join forces to “invade” a Palestinian home

PA TV cartoon demonizes Israeli soldiers as charmers of bulldozer-headed snakes



Biden Talks F-16s, Raises Human Rights in Meeting With Turkey’s Erdogan
US President Joe Biden told Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan his request for F-16 fighter jets had to go through a process in the United States and expressed a desire to handle disagreements between the two countries effectively.

Days after the NATO allies climbed down from the brink of a diplomatic crisis over jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala, Biden and Erdogan held a 70-minute meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome, where Biden also raised the issue of human rights, a US senior administration official told reporters.

Another US administration official said on Saturday that Biden would warn the Turkish leader that any “precipitous” actions would not benefit US-Turkish relations and that crises should be avoided after Erdogan threatened to throw out the US ambassador to Turkey and other foreign envoys for seeking the release of Kavala.

Erdogan later withdrew his threat to expel the envoys.

“President Biden reaffirmed our defense partnership and Turkey’s importance as a NATO ally, but noted US concerns over Turkey’s possession of the Russian S-400 missile system,” the White House said in a statement after the meeting.

“He also emphasized the importance of strong democratic institutions, respect for human rights, and the rule of law for peace and prosperity,” it said.
Now hard-Left activists boycott The Big Issue because it ran interview with Countdown star Rachel Riley where she backed Sir Keir Starmer's efforts to purge Labour of anti-Semitism
Left-wing activists are calling for a boycott of The Big Issue because it ran an interview with Countdown star Rachel Riley in which she expressed support for Sir Keir Starmer’s efforts to purge Labour of antisemitism.

Simon Maginn, who backs Sir Keir’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted that he had written to Lord Bird, who co-founded the magazine 30 years ago to help raise funds for the homeless, to protest at Ms Riley’s inclusion.

‘Very disappointed that @BigIssue would publish that Rachel Riley piece,’ he wrote.

‘I’ll be boycotting you now until you offer a right of reply. There are many other ways of helping the homeless. I won’t support or defend hate, and neither should you.’

Jackie Walker, a former official with the pro-Corbyn Momentum group who was expelled from Labour over antisemitism allegations, tweeted: ‘This is why you shouldn’t buy Big Issue again.’

Ms Riley, 35, who has Jewish roots and is eight months pregnant with her second child, has spoken about the antisemitic abuse she has faced.


Man convicted for 2018 antisemitic attack in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
A Brooklyn man has been found guilty for a brutal assault against a Jewish man walking home from a synagogue in Crown Heights 2018. The defendant, 44-year-old James Vincent, was convicted of first-degree and second-degree strangulation as a hate crime, second-degree attempted assault and third-degree assault as a hate crime, and fourth-degree criminal mischief. He will be sentenced on December 13, where he faces up to 15 years behind bars.

“Today’s verdict speaks to Brooklyn’s resolve to combatting and rooting out hate from our communities,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzales announced in a statement.

“The defendant has been brought to justice for this senseless, disturbing and hateful crime against a man simply walking home from his synagogue. Brooklyn’s strength is in its diversity and I remain committed to vigorously prosecuting bias-motivated violence.”

The attack on Menachem Moskowitz, a 52-year-old father of nine, occurred on April 21, 2018. He told the CrownHights.info news website following the attack that he said “good afternoon” to the man who was smoking a cigar on a street corner.

“As soon as [I greeted] him he began yelling at me ‘you fake Jews, who are you saying hello to? Your fake Jews and you stole all my money and robbed me, and stole my mortgage and my house. I want to kill you!’” the news website quoted him as saying.
Nazi flag flown near Brisbane, Australia synagogue over Shabbat
A Nazi flag was spotted flying from a building near a synagogue in Brisbane, Australia over Saturday in what the city's mayor slammed as a "sickening" display, The Guardian reported.

The flag was condemned by Queensland Jewish Boards of Deputies vice president Jason Steinberg, who slammed the flag's display and has called on the state's laws to make showing swastikas as unacceptable.

"We called on the banning of the swastika to be displayed and Nazi flags like this because at the moment ... it doesn't breach the serious hate or vilification law," Steinberg said over Saturday, according to the Canberra Times.

Support for this came from Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.

"This is sickening," he tweeted Saturday. "For someone to fly this symbol of hatred and genocide right above the Brisbane Synagogue on Margaret St. is pure evil. It's time for this vile flag to be banned in Queensland."

He added that "Under the current inadequate laws, this is likely to be classified as nothing more than a low-level 'public nuisance.' Not good enough!"
Nazim Ali case to be sent back to the General Pharmaceutical Council to reconsider as Court of Appeal refuses to hear an appeal
The Court of Appeal has refused ‘Al Quds Day’ march leader Nazim Ali’s request for permission to appeal the High Court’s ruling quashing a decision by the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) Fitness to Practice Committee.

The High Court ruling came after an appeal by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) against the original ruling by the Committee at the request of Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Mr Ali is the leader of the annual pro-Hizballah ‘Al Quds Day’ march in London who made antisemitic statements during the 2017 march. Since Mr Ali is a pharmacist Campaign Against Antisemitism brought a complaint to his professional regulator, the GPhC.

Last year, the GPhC’s Fitness to Practise Committee found that Mr Ali had brought the pharmaceutical profession into disrepute, following a two-week hearing that culminated on 5th November. Although the Fitness to Practise Committee had found that Mr Ali’s words were offensive, it did not find that the words had been antisemitic, and the panel let him off with only a formal warning.

Following the GPhC’s ruling, Campaign Against Antisemitism made representations to the PSA, which oversees disciplinary decisions made by the GPhC. We asked the PSA to use its statutory power to appeal the GPhC’s decision to the High Court under the National Health Service Reform and Healthcare Professionals Act 2002, on the grounds that the decision made by the GPhC panel was insufficient to protect the public because it was “irrational and perverse”.

In particular, we asked the PSA to review the GPhC’s ruling that Mr Ali’s statements were not antisemitic, including by attempting to distinguish between “antisemitism” and “antisemitic”. We have asked the PSA to consider the International Definition of Antisemitism, which has been adopted by the British Government, and the Guidance to all Judiciary in England and Wales produced by the Judicial College that makes clear that the word “Zionist” or “Zio” as a term of abuse has no place in a civilised society.
Israel’s Spike joins Facebook’s New ‘Metaverse’
Israeli email connectivity app Spike has been selected as one of the first 2D productivity apps to appear in Meta’s new virtual reality platform, following its rebrand from Facebook. It means that it is the first Israeli developer to launch an application on the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset, according to the company.

The news comes as Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook is rebranding as “Meta,” a new parent company that will operate beyond a social media network and more as a virtual reality space for work, social, and productivity purposes.

Spike was founded by Dvir Ben Aroya and Erez Pilosof, who serve as CEO and CTO, respectively. The company provides an app that transforms inboxes into chat-like interactions for messaging, collaboration, tasks, and calls in one place. Its app works on top of existing email and is available for iPhones, Android devices, desktops, and now the Oculus headset.

Spike will be joining a slew of other apps to help create a “virtual environment” that Meta hopes people will be able to go inside of — instead of just looking at screens all day. These could include more than just social networks or online shopping but could expand to fitness arenas, meeting rooms, gaming, or virtually anything app developers can think of, no pun intended.
Jerusalem-inspired Japanese animated hit sees big screen in Israel
Not just Naruto and Dragon Ball: "Yes Planet" and "Rav Hen Dizengoff" movie theaters in Tel Aviv this weekend were painted in the bright colors of Japanese anime in honor of a special screening of the hit animated film, "Fate/Grand Order THE MOVIE Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot Wandering; Agateram."

The movie is based on the free-to-play mobile game "Fate/Grand Order" – or FGO – which launched in 2015 (but is unfortunately not available in app stores in Israel) and boasts over 42 million downloads, gave birth to an empire of brand spinoffs and products, including television series, Manga comics, and even theater productions in Tokyo and Osaka. The brand has essentially become so successful in Japan, that it is even being compared to Pokemon Go, no less.

Now, amid the growing popularity of the anime genre in Israel, thanks in large part to TikTok, Israeli cinemas are now joining the party by putting the movie on the big screen. Surprisingly, the connection to Israel goes beyond mere commerce and actually pertains to the plot of the story, which takes place in Jerusalem in the year 1273, when an evil king threatens to destroy the holy city and turn it into a desert. Sounds familiar, no?
Orthodox singer Narkis stuns as Israeli wins best designer at Dubai fashion festival
Israeli singer Narkis, a religiously observant Jew, performed at the World Fashion Festival Awards in Dubai on Saturday during a runway walk showing off dresses by Israeli designer Ilanit Mizrahi, who ended up winning first place at the fashion week for best bridal designer.

Narkis performed her song "Holechet Itcha" (Walking with You) in both Hebrew and Arabic while wearing a dress with the Emirati and Israeli flags embroidered on it.

"Holechet Itcha has also arrived in Dubai," wrote Narkis on Instagram. "Much respect to Israel.

"May we merit to get to more moments like this. Believe in yourselves," wrote Mizrahi. "Israel is on the map."

Video shared on Instagram showed Mizrahi with a crowd at the awards show after receiving her award, dancing to the Hebrew song "Mitzvah Gedolah L'hiyot B'Simcha" ("It is a Great Commandment to be Happy") and a series of other Hebrew songs.

This was the first time that Israel took part in the fashion show. Mizrahi was joined by a number of other Israeli designers, including Laura Bouznah, Reut Atias, Liat Lukatch, Ilanit Reuven, Eden Aharon and Rachel H, among others.
Featured at Dubai Expo, mixed Hebrew-Arabic script takes on new purpose
When Liron Lavi Turkenich designed a writing system combining Hebrew and Arabic characters as a final project in college, she probably could not have imagined that her script would become the focal point of Israel’s pavilion at the 2020 World Expo in Dubai.

But after the Abraham Accords, in which Israel signed diplomatic agreements to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, and the peace agreements with other Arab countries that followed, the need for Aravrit, Turkenich’s script that allows both Hebrew and Arabic to be read from the same text, has expanded. The sky is now the limit for Turkenich’s project.

“I would like to get to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It’s a kind of dream. I would be happy for someone to adopt ‘El Mahar.’ An outdoor sculpture demands attention just as a language creates attention,” Turkenich told Haaretz, referring to the sculpture featured in the Israel pavilion. “El Mahar” means “toward tomorrow.”

Turkenich was first inspired to create the writing system by her upbringing in Haifa, one of Israel’s most integrated cities where Jews and Palestinians mix frequently and where Arabic is ubiquitous. But Turkenich realized that she tended to ignore that language, which she didn’t understand, and automatically paid attention to the Hebrew which she did.
7 spooky sites in Jerusalem
Oh Jerusalem! The city is holy to the three major monotheistic religions but lurking under the surface is another Jerusalem that harbors unholy mysteries, perhaps even ghosts.

The dark underbelly of Jerusalem dates back to biblical times when the Valley of Hinnom outside the city walls was a place of pagan child sacrifice. Little wonder that the place, whose Hebrew name Gai ben Hinnom (transmuted to the Latinate “Gehenna”), became analogous to the concept of “hell” and was considered cursed.

The valley served as a necropolis for an ever-expanding number of cemeteries from the Judean Kingdom (7-8th century BCE) through the Byzantine period (4-7th centuries CE). A Crusader-era structure (12-13th century CE) has been identified as a burial place for Christian pilgrims who died in the Holy Land. Its nickname: “House of Bones.”

Perhaps because the Torah forbids communicating with the spirit world, Jerusalem’s spooky places are not so much haunted by spirits as they are subject to being cursed by humans. Nonetheless, Jerusalem has its stories of apparitions, mystics, dybbuks and their rabbinical expulsions.

Old-time Machane Yehuda residents swear that as late as the 1970s some neighbors peered through a window to witness an exorcism when a flame shot out of the toe of a young girl possessed by a demon. And that’s just one of the city’s ghostly legends…
20 Israelis leading the way out of the climate crisis
As a 120-person Israeli delegation joins world leaders in Glasgow this week for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), many Israeli scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, educators, clergy and artists are working to understand and address the global climate crisis and its consequences, from food insecurity to natural disasters.

A multidisciplinary approach is critical, says University of Haifa marine geoscientist Beverly Goodman-Tchernov.

“Solving the problems of climate change is not going to happen using any single approach. It’s going to require that everyone comes to the table with their strongest tools,” she tells ISRAEL21c.

“We’ve passed the point where we can ask if climate change is really happening and who’s to blame. The real question now is whether we’re going to carry on the same ‘normal’ that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents gave us or whether we’re ready to take on a new normal where we can use the technology and knowledge we have to slow, and perhaps even reverse, the damage we’ve already done.”

Ahead of COP26, Israeli President Isaac Herzog appointed government officials, academics and businesspeople to a new Israeli Climate Forum to craft Israel’s role.

Herzog said the climate crisis is “an opportunity for us as a country to do tikkun olam, to repair the world, and to be part of the greatest positive development of our generation. Although we as a small country are not a major actor in the creation of the crisis, we can certainly be a meaningful actor in the response to it.”









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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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