Pages

▼

Thursday, December 09, 2021

12/09 Links Pt2: False Knowledge is Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State; Did Resolution 181 create the State of Israel?

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: False Knowledge is Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State
At the beginning of 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and B’Tselem published reports alleging Israel to be responsible for, and Israeli officials to be guilty of committing, the crime against humanity of apartheid. These publications were accompanied by an extensive PR campaign. Concurrently, NGOs were influential in the establishment of two UN bodies where the claim of apartheid will prominently feature, and these same groups are vigorously lobbying the International Criminal Court to include allegations of apartheid in its investigation into Israel.

However, the definition of apartheid used by HRW, B’Tselem, and other NGOs is not legally substantiated. Instead, these groups promote artificial and manufactured definitions designed to extend the ongoing campaigns that seek to delegitimize and demonize Israel.

Beyond its pejorative colloquial meaning (“apartheid state,” “vaccine apartheid”), apartheid is also criminalized in some treaties as a crime against humanity and/or a war crime, establishing individual criminal responsibility. In addition, states are prohibited from practicing apartheid in other treaties and by customary international law.

Apartheid is a grave allegation both for the individuals accused as well as the country they represent. A conviction comes with long terms of imprisonment, while the accusation alone can result in severe penalties including sanctions and international isolation. It is not a claim to be made casually, and the crime itself must be precisely defined. However, the definition of apartheid is untested in international law as no courts have yet examined the crime, and there is little detailed analysis available. As a result, central actors in the delegitimization campaign have exploited this gap to advance narrow, and destructive, political agendas.

This report presents a corrective. First, it analyzes the policy and practices of apartheid as pursued historically in South Africa. Second, it examines the nature and evolution of the apartheid allegation levelled against Israeli officials. Third, it addresses the legal vacuum and provides a full analysis grounded in international law of apartheid’s definition as a crime against humanity.

In early 2022, NGO Monitor will issue a companion report, assessing whether apartheid, as defined here, is applicable to Israel and territories under its administration.
Did Resolution 181 create the State of Israel?
Although the League of Nations was superseded by the United Nations following WWII, Article 80 of the UN Charter stipulated that the UN would not alter existing states, peoples or mandates. This meant that the UN preserved and recognized the legal right for the establishment of a Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which was the boundary of the Mandate for Palestine.

Additionally, this boundary delineated Israel’s borders; under the customary international law doctrine of uti possidetis juris, newly forming countries acquire their pre-independence administrative borders.

In 1947, Britain resigned as the “mandatory” and gave control over to the United Nations. The UNGA passed Resolution 181 in November of that year, recommending the partition of the land into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem and the areas surrounding it placed under international control.

However, Resolution 181 did not declare statehood, as all UN General Assembly resolutions are non-binding recommendations that carry no force of law. Instead, Resolution 181, as former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dore Gold stated, “provided international legitimacy for the Jewish claim to statehood.” Gold stated that what establishes countries is declarations of independence as opposed to actions in the UN. Israel would declare its independence on May 14, 1948.

As of today, the Mandate for Palestine also provides legal rights for any claims Israel has to the disputed West Bank. Eugene Rostow, former US under secretary of state and Yale Law School dean, commented that the West Bank is an “unallocated part of the British Mandate.”

As an unallocated part of the British Mandate, the terms of document are still binding today even though the British resigned as the mandatory 74 years ago.

Rostow confirmed this by explaining, “Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in 1947, when the British government resigned as the mandatory power. This is incorrect. A trust never terminates when a trustee dies, resigns, embezzles the trust property, or is dismissed. The authority responsible for the trust appoints a new trustee, or otherwise arranges for the fulfillment of its purpose.” Therefore, the international community is obligated in implementing the terms of the mandate.

In summation, it was the Balfour Declaration and the documents that enshrined it as a binding part of international law that created Israel, as opposed to the United Nations. These documents still apply today when it comes to Israel’s rights to the West Bank.
On This Day: Ottomans surrender Jerusalem in World War I
December 9 marks 104 years since the Ottoman surrender at the Battle of Jerusalem, winning major morale and strategic victory in a key city in this important World War I battle.

The battle itself was the culmination of a long, bloody campaign in the Middle East by the British against the Turks, something that had been up to a rough start for a while.

Throughout World War I, British forces suffered multiple humiliating and costly losses against the Turks. This included the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, the Battle of Kut in modern-day Iraq and two losses in Gaza.

Taking the holy city was important, not just because of the religious symbolism for the largely-Christian UK, but because it was vital for Ottoman supply routes and for the British to establish a stronger position.

Fortune began to change when, after a second loss at Gaza, the commanding general of what had been dubbed the "Egyptian Expeditionary Force," Gen. Sir Archibald Murray, was replaced with Gen. Edmund Allenby, who had been given instructions by the prime minister: Capture Jerusalem by Christmas.

This was easier said than done. The Ottoman front line dominated the South with trenches, redoubts and fortifications, as well as key roads and railway lines.

But at the end of October, Allenby finally led the British to victory over the Ottomans in the Battle of Beersheba, beginning the British Army's advance into the region, pushing back the Ottomans.


The Israeli Government's Designation of Six Palestinian NGOs: A Reply to Critics
Writing on behalf of the New Israel Fund (UK), David Davidi-Brown’s remarks on the Israeli government’s designation of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist fronts were disappointingly devoid of substance. Instead of carefully weighing the facts, Mr. Davidi-Brown repeats ideological tropes and political spin that deny the existence of detailed evidence and substitute allegations of a nefarious Israeli government plot against human rights, ostensibly led by Defense Minister Gantz.

In contrast to the effort to trivialise the classification of the six groups as arms of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), plus a seventh named in May, the process follows a complex evidence-based procedure involving a number of officials, including the Attorney General.

The most blatant evidence of NGO terror links, entirely erased in the NIF-UK response, emerges from the August 2019 murder of Rina Shnerb, which in addition to being attributed by Israel to a PFLP cell, was claimed publicly by the organisation itself. Five NGO officials were among those arrested for financing the operation, recruiting the cell members, placing and then detonating the explosive that killed Rina and injured her father and brother. Samer Arbid was financial director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) at the time of his arrest, and had previously been among the leaders of Addameer, an NGO claiming to promote human rights that advocates for PFLP prisoners. Both NGOs were among the six designated as terror fronts in October. Abdul Razeq Farraj, another UAWC official, was also indicted for his role in this attack.

The attempt to dismiss this and the other details systematically linking the PFLP to a network of NGOs as ‘guilt by association’ or the actions of a few individuals, with no implications for the activities and agendas of the organisations, is deceitful. Similarly, in making his case, Davidi-Brown ignored the open-source evidence, posted on social media and in Youtube videos, published by NGO Monitor, showing direct links between more than 70 PFLP officials and many of the NGOs involved. The picture that emerges from this independently verifiable research is not consistent with the claim that banning the organisations as terrorist fronts is nothing more than a ‘smear campaign’ fabricated for political objectives.
Nadhim Zahawi: ‘Education should be the vaccine against antisemitism’
“Education should be the vaccine against antisemitism”, declared Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to the Tel Aviv University Trust, in what is thought to be the first time a government minister in that role has spoken at an Israeli university event.

Mr Zahawi was speaking together with Professor Ariel Porat, president of Tel Aviv University, as the two shared thoughts and experiences about the pre and post-Covid educational world. The event was held at Google’s headquarters in London and was moderated by broadcaster and journalist Samantha Simmonds.

The Education Secretary, previously in charge of vaccine rollout, paid heartfelt tribute to teachers, nurses and doctors, who had kept society going throughout the pandemic, particularly during lockdowns.

In a pointed reference at the beginning of his remarks, he said he wanted to thank the South African authorities for alerting the world to the presence of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. South Africa has complained bitterly that it is being penalised unfairly in the international arena — Mr Zahawi was extending an olive branch.

The Iraqi-born Kurd has become a warm friend of the Jewish community and spoke with sincerity and passion of his recent visit to Auschwitz, his first international visit as Education Secretary. He said: “I do think everyone must visit Auschwitz. It was life-changing for me. The Holocaust Education Trust set up part of my visit.The real, hard-to-describe part is Auschwitz 2, where Hitler decided to scale up, industrialise the extermination of the Jewish people. It’s beyond belief. No film reel will ever do it justice”.

He worried about antisemitism, Mr Zahawi said. “It’s not a long time ago when 7,000 people would go to work every single day to exterminate Jewish people, in the heart of Europe. I am really pleased that the IHRA definition of antisemitism has been adopted by so many universities — but I want them all to adopt it. It’s not just a document that you hang on a wall in a university president’s office. They have to think about how they deal with it, and how they make sure that university campuses are safe places for Jewish students, for Jewish lecturers, for the whole of the community. Education, in my view, is the vaccine against antisemitism, which is why I make it my mission to deal with this scourge, that I think is truly evil”.
Jonathan Tobin: Skirting the line between a lukewarm friend and an enemy
Both of the following things can be true: Israel needs all the friends it can get, including those who don’t always support its policies. At the same time, giving a pass to those who traffic in distortions about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, as well as legitimizing groups who are openly anti-Semitic, is a profound mistake.

That’s the dilemma presented to the pro-Israel community by the ongoing battle to win the heart and mind of a Democratic congressman from New York. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who considers himself part of the left-wing “Squad” headlined by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). He is someone who seems to want to have it both ways on issues relating to the State of Israel. And in a political environment in which support for the Jewish state is increasingly rare on the left-wing of the Democratic Party, getting Bowman—who like AOC is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—to move closer to a position of support, however tentative, has become a priority for supporters of Israel.

Democrats who care about the Jewish state are worried about the disturbing trend in which the party’s activist base has become increasingly enthralled by intersectional ideology. That has led many among the Democrats’ left-wing core voter group to buy into the false idea that the Jewish state is an expression of white privilege bent on oppressing a suffering Palestinian people.

So when Bowman agreed to join a mission to Israel led by the left-wing J Street lobby, it was viewed as a big win for liberal Zionists. The mere presence of Bowman on the tour, which included visits with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, caused a stir, especially with his fellow Socialists.

The response from the DSA was instructive. Bowman was roundly condemned by the group. Many of its chapters wanted to expel him. They were not just furious about the visit but also “disappointed” by his refusal to embrace the BDS movement, his talk about Israel’s right to exist and his vote for U.S. funding for the Iron Dome air-defense system earlier this year.

That, in turn, generated enormous sympathy for Bowman from many Jews. A group of rabbis and activists from Westchester and Bronx Counties—Bowman’s district straddles the two—signed a joint letter commending his visit to Israel, as well as his willingness to resist pressure from the far-left on the issue.


CAIR’s Antisemitism Fails to Draw Media Scrutiny
As war raged in Gaza last May, and Hamas terrorists fired rockets toward Israeli civilians, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported about the Biden administration’s position. Some Muslim advocacy groups, she noted, were boycotting a traditional White House event marking the end of Ramadan “to protest the White House’s support for Israel.”

After Mitchell’s set up, viewers then saw Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), saying President Biden was “the only leader in the world that we believe that can stop this” fighting.

Awad was quoted in Politico two days earlier, calling on Biden “to stand on the side of the victims and not the victimizer.”

But neither story mentioned Awad and his organization’s deep connections to a Hamas support network in the United States, let alone his 1994 public pronouncement that he “used to support the PLO,” but switched to “support of the Hamas movement.”

This information has been in the public domain for years. It’s the kind of detail an audience might want to know, but rarely receives.

In fact, Politico needed only to look at its own archives. A 2009 story, for example, reported on the FBI’s decision to cut “formal contacts” with CAIR until it determined “whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.”

And this ongoing failure by the media to fully inform readers and viewers about CAIR’s history is a key reason why it is considered a legitimate Muslim advocacy organization. In addition, Awad and other CAIR officials have amassed a lengthy record of antisemitic rhetoric that draws no mention.

Until now.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) will spotlight CAIR’s bigoted statements in a forthcoming book.

Awad is a soft-spoken man and careful not to use blatantly antisemitic language. But his consistent message in 27 years as CAIR’s only executive director meets the definition of antisemitism accepted by the US State Department in 2016. Criticizing the Israeli government or its policies is not antisemitic. But insinuations that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States are. So are “demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews, or the power of Jews as a collective” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”
Anti-Israel campus activity vilifies Jewish students in US - ADL report
A new report by the Anti-Defamation League has found that rhetoric used by anti-Israel groups on US college and university campuses frequently demeans and ostracizes pro-Israel Jewish students, and occasionally descends into antisemitism.

In preparing the study, ADL experts identified what, they said, was “a pattern of anti-Israel groups and activists blatantly demonizing pro-Israel and Zionist students,” who also on occasion espoused antisemitic tropes, such as those alleging Jewish or Zionist power and control over the media and political affairs.

ADL’s Center on Extremism, which monitors anti-Israel activities across the country, found this language primarily came from a handful of student activist organizations that often work in concert to spread anti-Israel and anti-Zionist messages on US campuses.

Such activity negatively impacts large sections of the Jewish student community “for which a connection with Israel is an integral component of their religious, social, or cultural lives and identities”

According to the study, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was the most active anti-Israel group on campus in the US, with a network of some 180 chapters across the country mostly in the Northeast, Midwest and California, along with around 20 chapters in Canada.

Another of the primary anti-Zionist campus organizations is Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) which works closely with SJP.
17 BDS resolutions considered and 11 passed at US colleges last year, per ADL report
Student governments considered resolutions to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel at 17 college campuses in the United States during the 2020-2021 school year, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.

The watchdog group, which released the data Wednesday as part of its annual reporting, called the BDS resolutions a “cornerstone of anti-Israel campus activity during the last year.”

During a school year in which a May conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was accompanied by widespread criticism of Israel on and beyond college campuses, the number of student governments entertaining BDS resolutions was not dramatically higher than in the recent past.

Of the bills supporting the Israel boycott, 11 passed, according to the report released Wednesday.

That was fewer than in the 2015-2016 school year, according to the ADL’s report about that year, when it documented 23 BDS resolutions, of which 14 passed. The following year, student governments considered 14 BDS resolutions, passing six; the year after that, five of 12 resolutions passed. (In the 2019-2020 school year, just four BDS resolutions came before student governments; the lower number is likely explained by the pandemics abrupt school closures.)


BDSers Denied: Ahead of ‘Universe’ Pageant in Israel, HonestReporting Goes Behind the Scenes With Miss Iraq 2017
Sarah Idan rose to international prominence when she became the first woman in 45 years to represent Iraq at the Miss Universe pageant in 2017.

While at the glitzy show in Las Vegas, she inadvertently sparked a social media storm when she posted a smiling selfie posing next to Israeli contestant Adar Gandelsman.

Enraged critics flocked to Instagram to slam what they felt was Idan harming the Palestinian cause, including users who accused her of being a “Zionist shill” and of “happily posing with the beauty queen of occupation and brutality.”

Idan, however, refused to delete the image and explained the purpose of her post was “only to express hope and desire for peace between the two countries,” adding it does “not signal support for the government of Israel and does not mean I agree or accept its policies in the Arab homeland.”

Yet, the backlash did not subside and, a short time later, Idan revealed she had been stripped of her Iraqi citizenship in an interview uploaded to YouTube:
I was in Miss Universe and I took a selfie with Miss Israel, which caused the Iraqi government to decide to take my Iraqi citizenship from me. Basically my family ended up leaving Iraq. I had to leave Iraq just for taking a selfie with Miss Israel.”

Undeterred, Idan has carried on speaking openly and honestly about a number of topics relating to Israel and conflict in the Middle East, including a speech in 2019 to the United Nations Human Rights Council.


Two Major Sponsors of Famed London Theater Back Out After Play Promotes Antisemitic Jewish Stereotype
Two corporate sponsors of Britain’s famous Royal Court Theatre said they will no longer provide financial support for the venue after it faced allegations of Jewish stereotyping and promoting antisemitism.

A spokesperson for the law firm Kirkland & Ellis told the BBC, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms any and all forms of racism and discrimination, including anti-Semitism, and in light of the recent events, we were unable to continue our sponsorship.”

The law practice Weil, Gotshal & Manges — the theatre’s only “gold” level corporate sponsor — said, “Weil strongly condemns any form of antisemitism or discrimination, whether conscious or unconscious, and we will be withdrawing our support for the Royal Court.”

The Royal Court Theatre opened last month a play titled “Rare Earth Mettle,” by British playwright Al Smith, that featured a fictional, power-obsessed Silicon Valley billionaire and “Edison Motors” CEO named Hershel Fink. Promotions for the show described it as a “brutally comic exploration of risk, delusion and power.”

After receiving complaints about giving the character a Jewish-sounding name, despite the character not being Jewish, the Royal Court Theatre and Smith apologized for “perpetuating an antisemitic stereotype” and changed the character’s name to Henry Finn. They added that the incident was “an example of unconscious bias.”
CBC Airs Outrageous Claim That Israel Develops And Tests Weapons On Palestinians For Profit
On December 4, CBC Our Montreal broadcast a report about a new exhibit at Montreal’s Musée d’art Contemporain which documents how the Pegasus malware was used by governments to target hundreds of journalists and human rights workers.

CBC host Catherine Verdon-Diamond spoke with filmmaker Laura Poitras and Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture, two of the artists behind the exhibit.

The report focused on the NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons manufacturer that created cyber surveillance and military-grade cyberweapon through malware.

There’s nothing wrong with CBC conducting a report on this private Israeli company which has been under scrutiny, but CBC crossed the line when it broadcast a statement by Eyal Weizman, of the British “research agency” Forensic Architecture, who outrageously claimed that Israel uses its domination and “occupation” of Palestinian civilians as a “laboratory” to test and develop new weapons which it uses to export worldwide and turn a profit.

Weizman said the following: (Queue to the 6:17 mark of the video)
The NSO Group is one of an ecosystem of Israeli cyber-surveillance and cyber security companies that have developed in the shadow of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The domination of Palestinians, in Israel and the occupied territories, is some kind of a lab in which new technologies and new weapons are being designed and exported worldwide. In fact, a lot of Israeli intelligence work, requires and relies on cyber capacities. Israel regional power is, Israel regional domination in the area rests on its cyber capabilities. Palestinians in the occupied territories are surveilled as they’re moving between their home, the workplace and that has provided an enormous laboratory for Israel to develop these technologies that are therefore and later marketed and tested in action and become products on a global market.”

As HonestReporting has previously reported, Eyal Weizman is an Israeli expat who also conducted research on behalf of B’Tselem on the “planning aspects of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank,” and who has close ties to multiple radical left-wing organizations operating in Israel. He has also been declared a “security threat” by the United States and denied entry to the country.

HonestReporting notes that “the research firm in question, Forensic Architecture, has conducted 66 investigations to date, of which 14 focused on the actions of Israeli soldiers or the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. In other words, one in every five investigations it has carried out has looked into Israeli behaviour.”
Lebanese TV Station’s Antisemitic Propaganda Creates New Headache for German Public Broadcaster’s Extensive Arab Media Ties
Germany’s public broadcaster was under renewed pressure again this week over its content partners in the Arab world as evidence emerged of yet another partner channel spreading antisemitic propaganda.

Deutsche Welle (DW) — a taxpayer-funded international channel broadcasting in more than 30 languages — had already experienced sustained criticism for its links with Roya TV, a Jordanian station whose antisemitic social media posts were the subject of an investigative piece on Vice’s German language site. Those revelations quickly followed the news that several journalists and editors working for DW’s Arabic service had tracks records of making virulently antisemitic remarks — a scandal that is now the subject of an external investigation.

On Wednesday, a fresh article in Vice examined DW’s partnership with Al Jadeed TV, a Lebanese station that regularly praises Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi’a terrorist organization, as well as radical Palestinian factions.

Vice highlighted a 2015 report broadcast by Al Jadeed that focused on the “heroic deeds” of Samir Kuntar — a Palestinian terrorist who murdered five Israelis in the city of Nahariya in an April 1979 attack, among them four-year-old Einat Haran, whose skull was smashed with the rifle that Kuntar was wielding. Released from an Israeli prison in 2008, Kuntar was killed in Syria in 2015 by an Israeli air strike.

Al Jadeed’s report on Kuntar described him as an example of “moral steadfastness,” whose “blood will be avenged.” This empathy with terrorists was highly visible elsewhere in the station’s coverage, Vice reported, such as in references to “predatory Zionists” and headlines reading, for example, “Two suicide operations in less than 72 hours against the Zionist enemy.”
Forbes Labels Hamas Merely a ‘Political Group’ in Fact-Omitting Piece About Gaza Woman
It started out as a series of articles in Forbes about Israeli and Palestinian women and their efforts to “promote equality and coexistence between both groups of people.”

Nevertheless, as HonestReporting previously noted, the series’ author Allison Norlian seemingly used what should have been a platform to highlight individuals dedicated to real peacemaking to instead disseminate biased impressions of Israel.

Norlian’s latest Forbes piece, which is not technically part of the series, strays almost entirely from the ostensible goal of her past writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and therefore further calls into question the appropriateness of her having been chosen by the publication’s editors in the first place to pen the other stories.

‘Growing Up In Gaza: A Palestinian Woman’s Experiences’ is a profile of a woman who does not seem to be involved in any specific efforts to foster good relations between Israelis and Palestinians but is, nevertheless, described as “a superhero for the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

Norlian has crafted what is seemingly a sympathy-eliciting tribute about a young woman whose opportunities have been limited due to her having been born in the Palestinian coastal enclave.

It is also a piece replete with omissions and distortions.

Take the first paragraph, for example. The reader is told that on May 10, 2021, Maram Faraj, aged 23, was shopping at a market when her ears were “pierced” by a loud blast.

“Faraj immediately knew what was happening because she’d experienced it many times before — the Israeli government was bombing Gaza,” the article continues.

The incident is presented entirely without context, thereby allowing it to seem as though the airstrike in question was part of a pattern of politically-motivated nefarious bombing by Israel.
CAA to hold “BBC News Stop Blaming Jews!” protest outside Broadcasting House on Monday 13th December following outrageous coverage of antisemitic incident on Oxford Street
Campaign Against Antisemitism has announced a “BBC News: Stop Blaming Jews!” protest outside the BBC’s headquarters at Broadcasting House this Monday 13th December.

We are demanding explanations over the BBC’s outrageous coverage of the recent antisemitic incident on Oxford Street during the Jewish festival of Chanukah, when the BBC’s reports victim-blamed Jewish teenagers for being attacked.

This incident is one of many in which the BBC has victim-blamed Jewish people for antisemitism, downplayed racism towards Jews, platformed antisemites and fuelled antisemitism in Britain.

This bias against Jews has not gone unnoticed. Polling conducted last year for our Antisemitism Barometer revealed that two thirds of British Jews are deeply concerned by the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish concern, and 55% by its handling of antisemitism complaints.

The BBC must provide explanations for its recent coverage, adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism and finally take up our offers of antisemitism training for its staff and reporters.
Times Higher Education removes questionable quote attributed to Israeli archeologist
A Nov. 2 article in the British magazine Times Higher Education reviews the graphic novel ‘Tunnels‘, by Israeli writer Rutu Modan, and includes context suggesting that Israeli archeology doesn’t always support the ‘Zionist narrative’. The piece (“Archaeology in Israel: Zionism, politics and disappointing finds”) included the following, evidently quoting directly from Modan’s book:
Israel Finkelstein, one of Israel’s most celebrated living archaeologists, has ruefully summed up the state of the research: ‘A formless, tasteless mound of trash compared to the illustrious cultures neighbouring us, such as Egypt, Greece, and Babylon.’”

The alleged quote by Professor Finkelstein, a leading figure in Israeli archeology, seemed suspect. So, we searched in both English and Hebrew and couldn’t locate any variation of the words attributed to him. We then emailed Mr. Finkelstein who responded that he had no recollection of ever writing or saying such a thing.

Following our communication with Times Higher Education editors, they removed the passage pending an investigation.
New BBC documentary on UK antisemitism doesn’t cut the mustard
Nevertheless, Tom Brada apparently thought it appropriate to give Mohammed Hijab four minutes of BBC airtime in which to whitewash his anti-Israel activism – and antisemitism – with what can at best be described as weak and ineffective challenge from Brada.

Apparently Mohammed Hijab was so pleased with that interview that he uploaded it in its 44-minute entirety to YouTube and promoted it on Twitter. There, readers can see for themselves which parts the BBC chose to edit out, including the apartheid tropes, the admission of cooperation with the fringe anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, Hijab’s claim to be “a Semite” and his assertion that it is “impossible for a Muslim to be antisemitic”.

Any serious journalist (regardless of whether or not he or she is “British and Jewish” as the BBC took pain to repeatedly point out in Brada’s reports) aspiring to tackle the issue of rising antisemitism in the UK obviously has a great deal to investigate and present comprehensibly to the audience. This film, however, does very little to help audiences unfamiliar with that topic to understand its roots, its manifestations and its effects on the British Jewish community.

Interestingly, Tom Brada’s social media promotion of his film included linkage to the incident on Oxford Street a few days earlier:

Especially – but not only – given the BBC’s abysmal performance on that story, the failure of Brada and his colleagues to explain in this film that anti-Israel activists exploit the fact that “Israel is in the news” in order to promote their already existing agendas is particularly notable.

If Brada really wanted to investigate the spikes in antisemitism in the UK whenever conflict erupts thousands of miles away, a very good place to start would be some serious examination of the influence of media coverage of both that foreign conflict and antisemitism in the UK over the years, and in particular the record of his own outfit, Britain’s national broadcaster.
Holocaust Survivor Testifies Against Former Typist at Concentration Camp Who Signed His Father’s Death Certificate
An 83-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor testified in court on Tuesday against a German woman who was a stenographer at a Nazi concentration camp and stamped his father’s death certificate.

Josef Salomonovic was the first Holocaust survivor to testify at the trial of Irmgard Furchner, 96, who is accused of being an accessory to the murder of 11,412 people at the Stutthof concentration camp in northern Poland between 1943 and 1945, a charge she denies. Furchner, who has been called the “secretary of evil,” was 18 when she started working as a typist for the camp’s commandant.

“It is not easy to go over all this again. It’s a moral duty. It’s not pleasant,” Salomonovic, whose family was from Czechoslovakia, told the court as he held up a photograph of his father, as reported by the Independent.

Salomonovic was six years old when his father was killed with a lethal injection to the heart in Stutthof, he told the court. He recalled the pain of losing his father at such a young age and, when asked by a prosecutor if he wanted to tell Furchner anything, he said, “Maybe she has trouble sleeping at night. I know I do.”

He also spoke about his mother being stripped of her clothes and possessions by the Nazis and how they shaved her head. Salomonovic told the court he survived eight concentration camps, including Auschwitz, but judged Stutthof to be the worst.
Newly found Nazi documents shed light on levies against Jews
During the dictatorship of the Nazi regime, around 3,000 Jews had to hand over jewels, jewelry and precious metals, Silverware, jewelry, watches to cuff links or shirt buttons at the Städtische Pfandleihanstalt (Municipal Pawnshop) in Stuttgart.

These findings come from files that the Städtische Pfandleihe, as the successor institution, has now handed over to the Wirtschaftsarchiv Baden-Württemberg.

The documents contain detailed records of how the handing in of valuables was implemented in Stuttgart. According to information provided by the Stuttgarter Zeitung, around 3,000 procedures concerning expropriations have been documented. These include chronological lists of names, a list of objects, valuations and receipts.

Also included are documents on the realization of the objects as well as files on the many compensations of former owners and their descendants.

The complete documents are "probably unique," said the director of the Wirtschaftsarchiv, Britta Leise. "Such documents are usually not complete.“

"The Jewish fellow citizens were also deprived of part of their family history with the silver. And of course, when it came to seven-branched candelabras [menorahs], for example, also a part of their religious identity," she added.

The Municipal Pawnshop had also not initially realized how extensive the documents were. "We were aware that we had a historical file on this," said managing director Jürgen Barth.
NYPD Stats: New York Hate Crimes Doubled in 2021, With 50% Spike in Antisemitic Incidents
Hate crimes in New York City have risen a shocking 100% over the past year, including a serious spike in antisemitism, the New York Police Department said Wednesday.

NYPD statistics showed 503 reported hate crimes, twice the 252 reported in 2020.

The major factor in the spike is anti-Asian hate crimes, likely connected to the coronavirus pandemic, which shot up a stunning 361%, with 129 incidents as opposed to 28 last year.

Antisemitic hate crimes rose sharply as well, with 183 incidents, a rise of 50% over 2020’s 121 incidents.

“We have to shine a very bright light on this, and then making sure that everyone knows that when you do something like this, number one, you’ll be held accountable,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday. “Number two, it’s not acceptable, not only in this city, but anywhere.”

NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig tried to put a positive spin on the news, noting that hate crimes arrests were up 106%.

The spike has had serious effects on the Jewish community. Over the last three months, a spate of attacks on Jews in Brooklyn has included a man struck with a projectile from a moving car, another who was beaten outside a nightclub, and a pregnant woman who had a drink thrown in her face.


Antisemitic Killer of Sarah Halimi Refused Treatment From Jewish Nurse at Psychiatric Hospital, French Parliamentary Inquiry Told
A French parliamentary inquiry into the April 2017 murder of a Jewish woman in her own home by an antisemitic assailant has heard that the accused killer refused to be treated by a Jewish nurse at the psychiatric hospital where he is under observation.

The inquiry into the murder of 65-year-old Sarah Halimi by Kobili Traore — who chanted Islamic prayers as he beat his victim senseless, before throwing her body out of a third-floor window — learned details of Traore’s daily life in hospital from a French journalist who gave testimony. Earlier this year, France’s highest court excused Traore from a criminal trial, on the grounds that his intake of cannabis on the night that he murdered Halimi had rendered him temporarily insane, drawing furious protests from the Jewish community.

Quoting an unnamed source in the hospital where Traore presently resides, Christophe Dansette, a journalist with broadcaster France 24, told the Dec 1. hearing that Traore was not receiving any treatment from doctors there.

“He is not sick, he is a great impersonator,” Dansette said.

Dansette revealed that his source told him that as well as continuing to smoke cannabis, Traore was supplying it to other patients at the hospital.

The source said that Traore “watches TV a lot, never misses one of the five [Muslim] prayers of the day and that he gets angry easily.”
Michigan Holocaust Museum Receives $15 Million Gift, Single Largest in Its History
The Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills, Mich., has been given a $15 million donation that will go towards an endowment fund to support the museum for years to come.

The donation was from the Zekelman family and Zekelman Industries, it was announced on Tuesday. The Holocaust Memorial Center said the amount will go towards its $100 million comprehensive campaign to establish a permanent endowment fund for the museum.

The gift is the largest single charitable donation in the center’s history.

“This major donation will enable us to expand the important work we do to teach the lessons of the Holocaust and confront antisemitism and hatred,” said Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Center.

Barry Zekelman, chairman and CEO of Zekelman Industries, noted that “with antisemitism and hate crimes on the rise, we feel a sense of urgency to help organizations, like the Holocaust Memorial Center, that are passionately working to combat it.”

The Zekelman family and Zekelman Industries are longtime supporters of the Holocaust Memorial Center. A $10 million gift from them in 2006 helped reduce the center’s debts after it built its new campus in Farmington Hills, reported The Detroit News.
Russia agrees to return pre-WWII Jewish archives to Greece
Russia will return to Greece the prewar archives of Jewish communities that were stolen by Nazi forces, the Mediterranean country’s Jewish council said Thursday.

“Our history returns home,” the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KISE) said in a statement.

KISE said Nazi forces in July 1942 had plundered archives, books and religious artifacts from 30 synagogues, libraries and communal institutions in Thessaloniki, which at the time was home to one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe.

They were transferred to Moscow after the Red Army took Berlin in May 1945.

“Their restitution would mean justice and would transmit knowledge about a part of the Greek people that contributed to the progress of the country and no longer exists, that of the 60,000 Greek Jews who were deported to and exterminated in the Nazi death camps,” the board said.

The arrangement was announced Wednesday during a visit to Moscow by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Israel Has Become a Powerhouse in Quantum Technologies
Ron Folman, a quantum physicist, was taken aback when a delegation of top officials from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency paid an unexpected visit to his lab at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) about 15 years ago. “I asked them, ‘Why are you here? You have a thousand times more money, scientists, and space,’” Folman recalls. “The head of the delegation answered, ‘I heard what you guys are doing, and I wanted to see with my own eyes this Israeli chutzpah.’”

To Folman, the quote neatly characterizes Israel’s outsize global footprint in quantum science and technology.

It’s no accident that Israel is punching above its weight in quantum fields. Despite the turmoil that has roiled Israeli politics in recent years, the Knesset committed 1.25 billion shekels ($400 million) to a five-year National Quantum Initiative, which kicked off in late 2019. Tal David, an experimental physicist who heads the initiative, says it gained a boost from Israel’s economic stimulus program during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program includes $60 million to build the country’s first quantum computer, which is expected to consist of 30–40 qubits. Assembly is due to get underway early next year.

“We don’t aspire at least in the next few years to beat IBM or Google,” says David. “We need to first form a basis for an ecosystem in Israel and that will be the purpose of the project. Maybe in a few years, we’ll be able to jump into the deep end of the pond and compete with the big ones.”


Despite Gaza rockets, Sderot real estate booms

Maccabiah Games in Israel Back on Track, Slated for July
The largest Jewish athletic tournament in the world will take place in Israel this summer after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Maccabiah games, which has been referred to as the “Jewish Olympics,” will be held from July 12 to July 26 across Jerusalem, Haifa and Netanya. The competition is the third-largest sporting event in the world and takes place every four years in Israel.

The event is organized by the Maccabi World Union, the largest and longest-running Jewish sports organization, which spans more than 60 countries, 450 clubs and 400,000 members.

“The principal mission of the Maccabiah is to facilitate a worldwide gathering of young Jewish athletes in Israel, staging the highest possible levels of sports competitions, and strengthening their connection to the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” according to the event’s website.

Four separate competitions take place as part of the Maccabiah; Open, Junior, Masters and Paralympics. Any qualifying athlete between the ages of 15-18 can compete in the Junior category. Masters are separated into a variety of different age categories, to accommodate older participants, and the Open division “is generally unlimited in age, subject to the governing international rules in each sport, and is intended for the best athletes from each delegation.” The Maccabiah program also provides athletes with the opportunity to tour Israel and engage with Israeli society by participating in cultural events.

The first Maccabiah took place in 1932.







at