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Monday, January 17, 2022

01/17 Links Pt2: David Collier: Wikipedia butchers history and promotes terrorism; Tu B’Shvat: The Festival That Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel

From Ian:

David Collier: Wikipedia butchers history and promotes terrorism – part 1
A stream of content-empty, repetitive books is included – but there is no entry for the blood-curdling cries of the Arab leaders. Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League’s first secretary-general, said that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to “a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.“. Wikipedia editors obviously believe that the horrific and murderous ideology promoted by Arab leaders is not as worthy of mention as books that almost nobody bothered to read.

And looking at anti-Zionism today, nothing has changed. All around us we see violent threats, and antisemitism spreading through anti-Zionist thought. The false image that anti-Zionism has a friendly, peaceful face may be all you will see on the page, but as Bret Stephens pointed out in the NYT not everyone got the memo:
“Not the people who, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Death to Jews,” according to a witness, assaulted Jewish diners at a Los Angeles sushi restaurant. Not the people who threw fireworks in New York’s diamond district. Not the people who brutally beat up a man wearing a yarmulke in Times Square. Not the people who drove through London slurring Jews and yelling, “Rape their daughters.” Not the people who gathered outside a synagogue in Germany shouting slurs. Not the people who, at a protest in Brussels, chanted, “Jews, remember Khaybar. The army of Muhammad is returning.””

These incidents are just a snippet, but provides an image absolutely representative of anti-Zionism in the modern era. Just as the Hamas Charter represents the 1980s, the three Nos of Khartoum the 1960s, and the genocidal call from the Arab leaders the 1940s. Where is all this in Wikipedia’s sanitised timeline of anti-Zionism?

This isn’t an encyclopedia – it is a propaganda site.
The timeline of anti-Zionism page is an exercise in carefully polished propaganda. It is not real – it is not history – it does not even try to be balanced. All that exists is a page for anti-Israel propagandists to use as a reference guide.

Is this really what Wikipedia’s founders imagined the website would become – and more importantly – is this really what Wikipedia donors are supporting? A Marxist / Islamist vision of the world? This is a single page – there are 1000s of them. Every page that deals with Jews, Zionism, the Palestinians, or Israel is tainted.

I cannot stress this enough Wikipedia is a hostile website that spreads anti-Jewish disinformation and hate – much of it written by the hands of Islamists. This is even more important given what will be exposed in part two of this story – evidence that ‘Wikipedia promotes terrorism’. Coming soon.
Why do neo-Nazis love ‘Haaretz’?
A neo-Nazi website claims that Orthodox Jews treat women “like filth,” and says that doing so is commanded by Jewish law. The claim is backed up with quotes from an article from the far-left daily, Haaretz, and even includes a direct link to the Israeli newspaper’s site.

Another post on the neo-Nazi forum claims that Orthodox Jews are spreading the COVID-19 virus in Australia. This, too, is backed up with quotes from and a link to Haaretz.

A third neo-Nazi post includes a call by Haaretz to reprint Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic, genocidal book, Mein Kampf, and put it back on sale in German bookstores. Germany currently outlaws the book.

There are actually hundreds of anti-Semitic posts on the site based on “news items” from Haaretz—1,400 references, to be precise. And if it were a little-known publication, perhaps such citing would be inconsequential. As the leading paper among Israel’s ruling elite, however—with subscribers including Supreme Court justices, government ministers, leading journalists, Israel Defense Forces generals and cultural icons—the powerful Hebrew broadsheet with an English-language edition wields enormous influence, both inside and outside the country. Nor is it only the secular elite who read Haaretz. Many left-wing religious Jews are also subscribers.

The neo-Nazi website in question is Stormfront, described by Wikipedia as a “neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web’s first major racial hate site … primarily focused on propagating white nationalism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, anti-Catholicism and white supremacy.”


Tu B’Shvat: The Festival That Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel
The Jewish calendar has many holidays. Some celebrate the survival of the Jewish people over various enemies, and some are solemnly spiritual in nature — but others exist, too. One such festival, Tu B’Shvat, is perhaps the greatest proof of the Jewish people’s deep connection with the Holy Land.

Tu B’Shvat is a Jewish holiday heralding the blossoming of trees and the beginning of the coming cycle of fruit. The name actually derives directly from the Hebrew date of the holiday, which occurs on the 15th day of Sh’vat. “Tu” stands for the Hebrew letters Tet and Vav, which have numerical values of 9 and 6 respectively, which add up to 15.

Tu B’Shvat’s roots can be traced all the way back to the Jewish Talmud. While Rosh Hashanah, the main Jewish new year festival, is familiar to many people, there are actually a number of new year dates in the Jewish tradition. The Talmud records a debate with various opinions, leading to the establishment of four new years:
- The first of Nisan as the “new year for kings and festivals”;
- The first of Elul as the “new year for the tithe of cattle”;
- The first of Tishrei as the “new year for years,” including the calculation of the calendar and sabbatical years; and
- The 15th of Sh’vat as the “new year for trees.”

Many centuries ago, a variety of different taxation methods were employed. One of the most common was called tithing. Tithing required separating percentages of produce, and handing them over to the local authorities. In ancient Israel, Tu B’Shvat marked the date when calculations of the forthcoming fruit crop would begin.

The Talmud records this date as being the point in time when trees in the Land of Israel are said to awaken from their winter hibernation and start the process of renewal. While the date can naturally only be approximate, the month was selected because “most of the yearly rainfall has passed” (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah, 14a), causing the trees to renew and their fruit to ripen.


Vic Rosenthal: “The Axis” vs. the Jews of Judea and Samaria
In an unintended irony, the EU insists that Israeli control of the area amounts to “belligerent occupation” although the area being “occupied” by Israel was previously illegally occupied by Jordan (which illegitimately transferred its stolen property to the PLO in 1988). So in effect the liberation of the territories put Israel in control of all the land that had been originally earmarked by the Mandate for a Jewish homeland.

The EU then misinterprets Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which was originally intended to prohibit acts like the deportation of German Jews to occupied Poland for the purposes of forced labor and murder, as rendering the unforced movement of Jews across the Green Line (which has no political significance) a violation of international law.

In this day when college professors can be fired for using language that is deemed inappropriate and offensive, it should be noted that the terms “West Bank,” “settler,” and “settlement” are precisely those things. But their employment is supremely important for the psychological and diplomatic/legal war against the Jewish state. The abandonment of Judea and Samaria would be blow to the security of the Jewish state that might be fatal, because they are necessary to maintain defensible borders, and to prevent the establishment of a Gaza-like terrorist enclave next to Israel’s population center. The loss of the holy sites in Hevron, eastern Jerusalem, and other places that would fall under Arab control, and the loss of the optimism for the future created by the victory of 1967, would be a spiritual and psychological defeat, a great victory for the Arab-European axis that wishes to see the Jewish state undone.

And we mustn’t fool ourselves into thinking that a retreat from Judea and Samaria would be the end of it. The PLO has never abandoned Arafat’s “Grand Strategy” to bring about an Arab Palestine from the river to the sea, which depends on first reversing Israel’s gains in the 1967 war. The plan got a great boost with the Oslo Accords, that gave legitimacy to a PLO-ruled entity (and later gave birth to one ruled by Hamas). It’s certain that an Israeli withdrawal would immediately be followed by demands for the Arab “refugees” to realize their “right of return.”

Unfortunately, many Israeli politicians seem to have internalized the mindset that is promoted by the psywar campaign; otherwise, they wouldn’t be so quick to bend when pressure is applied from Europe or the US on questions of Jewish and (illegal) Arab building in Judea and Samaria.

Judea and Samaria are the spiritual heartland of the Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael and are essential to her security. There is no other single goal that is more critical to Israel’s long-term survival than establishing a strong Jewish majority there and fully incorporating them into the state – and rejecting the antisemitic lies of our enemies.
Melanie Phillips: Speaking truth to bigotry Resignation isn’t the right answer to the BBC's Jewish problem
I am a regular BBC contributor. I have viewed the Chanukah bus affair with astonishment and anger. Yet I have no intention of resigning.

Over the years, I have watched and listened with horror as the BBC has turned into a global megaphone for blood libels, falsehoods and double standards against Israel as well as casual anti-Jewish ignorance.

Whenever I can, I use my access to BBC platforms to defend Israel and to call out the BBC on air for its bigotry against Israel and the Jewish people. Is it seriously being suggested, therefore, that I have no Jewish pride and am not a self-respecting Jewish person?

Why, indeed, stop at the BBC? This bigotry is endemic across the mainstream media. So does any Jew who contributes to any of these media outlets also have no Jewish pride?

And why stop at the media? In my view, Britain is a country with antisemitism hardwired into its cultural DNA.

Some years ago, I decided that I could no longer stand being made to feel that my Britishness was conditional upon denouncing Israel. I was no longer prepared to be a Jew on my knees or watching over my shoulder. As a result, Israel is where I now spend most of my time.

But everyone has their own tipping point. I would never say that it is wrong for any self-respecting Jew to remain in Britain, with the implication that doing so betrays the Jewish people. It’s a purely personal matter for every individual.

Too many diaspora Jews keep their heads down, taking refuge in the fiction that by conforming they will be accepted as equals. That’s a matter for profound regret and alarm.

But it’s important to understand the desperately difficult diaspora game we are in. We are far too few to afford gestures. Our platforms are too rare to give up. We need more platforms and more fighters, not fewer.

Why oh why, Rabbi YY?
Florida State Drops Middle East Studies Association Membership As Group Moves Towards Israel Boycott
MESA has nearly 2,700 individual members and 54 institutional members, including major public universities, such as Florida State University and the University of Arkansas.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office issued a statement rejecting the MESA boycott with the expectation that public universities in Florida would do the same, DeSantis Office: Florida Opposes Middle East Studies Association Conducting BDS Anti-Israel Academic Boycott Through FSU:
Florida has long had a strong relationship with the State of Israel. As a matter of law and principle, the State of Florida does not tolerate discrimination against the State of Israel or the Israeli people, including boycotts and divestments targeting Israel (the BDS movement).

Recently, this problem has arisen with corporations, such as Ben & Jerry’s earlier this year. Here’s the statute that applied in that case: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0200-0299/0215/Sections/0215.4725.html

As you can see, the law is designed to ensure that the state of Florida is not doing business with companies participating in boycotts of Israel. It does not explicitly address public postsecondary institutions. Nevertheless, Governor DeSantis’ position has been clear: It is unacceptable for Florida taxpayer funds to subsidize BDS or any other anti-Israel activist movement.

It is our expectation that Florida State University will not permit MESA to operate a boycott of Israel through a public institution, will not accept the academic boycott of Israel, and will not allow university funds to be paid indirectly or directly to any organization that endorses BDS. The same goes for any other institution that receives state funding.

Florida State University Middle East Center
We have reached out to MESA’s institutional members for comment on the proposed MESA boycott, and among other things, whether MESA institutional membership would be continued if it adpots the BDS boycott. We will be reporting on some of those responses in coming days.

But there was a very important response from Florida State University, whose Middle East Center was a MESA institutional member. A communications officer for FSU responded to our inquiry by indicating that FSU has not renewed its membership and no longer is a MESA member:

“The FSU Middle East Center did not renew its annual membership in MESA for the 2022 calendar year. Membership expired Dec. 31, 2021.”

No further explanation was provided, but the timing is pretty clear. MESA’s business meeting overwhelmingly adopted the BDS boycott, which reflects that the leadership of the organization supports and advocates BDS. FSU then chose not to renew its membership.

We will continue to follow these developments. (h/t MtTB)




Hook-handed hate preacher's TOXIC family: Abu Hamza's seven sons are all criminals or extremists who have clocked up 40 years in jail between them (and the whole clan has cost taxpayers £10MILLION)
Career crook Tito ibn Sheikh appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court this week.

But his crime — plotting to launder hundreds of thousands of pounds of stolen money for which he was sentenced to nearly four years — was perhaps less shocking than his notorious family background.

He was born Hamza Mustafa Kamel before changing his name to Tito ibn Sheikh, which roughly translated means 'son of a venerable man' in Arabic.

This could not be a less appropriate title in the circumstances.

His father — the so-called 'venerable man' — is Abu Hamza, the infamous 'hook-handed' cleric of Finsbury Park mosque who is now serving life without the possibility of parole in the U.S. for terror offences there and in the UK.

Tito ibn Sheikh, as he is now, is one of Abu Hamza's six sons.

Four of them have criminal convictions for offences including terrorism, armed robbery, drug dealing, fraud and burglary, and the remaining two have a track record of Islamic extremism.

Every one of them, in other words, has been a blight on this country.

Between them — and a seventh stepbrother — they have collectively chalked up 40 years in British jails and, along with Abu Hamza, have cost the British taxpayer millions in legal aid, benefits, healthcare and prison stays.

Could there be a more toxic family anywhere in the country, or anyone who has exploited the system more ruthlessly than the Hamzas?
It’s Not the Economy: Axios Article Diagnoses Intra-Palestinian Violence As Ailment, Prescribes Wrong Remedy
Fatah Targets Palestinians
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s atrocious human rights record inside the territories it administers is essentially ignored by Axios. PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah is depicted as little more than an impotent bystander in the latest developments taking place in the West Bank. Yet Axios is not alone in this regard. A report published by the US government alleging that the Palestinian Authority targeted – and in some cases tortured – participants of the 2019 “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop in Bahrain has been almost entirely ignored.

As such, Axios correctly describes the events in Jenin as being the “worst in a series of violent incidents in the West Bank over the last several months.” But the piece’s implied reason for the escalation is off the mark.

It’s Not the Economy, Axios
Axios uncritically cites Fatah’s assertion that economic problems, particularly “widespread youth unemployment,” are closely linked to the violence gripping parts of the West Bank administered by the Palestinian Authority. This contention falls apart once one realizes that for twenty-five years international agencies have been providing the PA with the highest per capita funding ever given to a state or population. Yet, the Palestinian leadership has failed to lay the groundwork required to establish a functional state.

With regards to the theory alluded to in the quote that the plight of the Palestinians living under Fatah rule is somehow connected to the ‘occupation,’ it’s worth noting that 95 percent of West Bank residents are living under full PA control.

Axios nonetheless perpetuates a narrative that automatically blames Israel, going so far as to include a photograph containing the Israeli flag in the story’s cover image.
Is It Always Sunny for Hamas in Philadelphia?
“If I was a Palestinian kid, growing up in East Jerusalem’s Silwan [neighborhood],” Abraham Gutman tweeted, “I’d probably hate Jewish people.” Gutman, an opinion and editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, later deleted the tweet after he was exposed by CAMERA’s Adam Levick. It is, however, far from the only instance of Gutman’s outrageous rhetoric on the Jewish state.

Indeed, the Inquirer writer was unrepentant, later clarifying that “98 percent of the time that I delete a tweet [it] is because I don’t want to deal with you — not because I regret what I said.” In his since-deleted tweet, Gutman justified antisemitism, writing “neighbors expelled from their homes — by Jews. … Houses demolished — by Jews. … Jewish symbols towering over the neighborhood to mark dominance” and then asking “what conclusion would you make?”

The proper conclusion, in Gutman’s own words, was to “hate Jewish people.” Not, it must be noted, “Israelis,” but Jewish people.

Regrettably, it is not the only instance of the Inquirer writer making inflammatory statements.

In a Jan. 1, 2022 tweet, Gutman said: “Both Israeli and Palestinian media report of IDF airstrikes in Gaza. The attacks are in response to 2 rockets from Gaza that exploded off the coast of Jaffa — which Hamas says they [sic] were fired due to weather-related malfunction. Gaza didn’t get 24 hours without strikes.” Gutman subsequently lamented that “a bunch of people are upset about this tweet, calling me a Hamas apologist for … quoting Israeli media.”

One doesn’t need to be a “Hamas apologist” to realize that taking a US-designated terrorist group at its word is problematic at best. Indeed, had Gutman done some digging, he would have quickly found that Hamas has a long history of claiming that “weather-related malfunctions” cause rockets to be “accidentally” launched. Instead, he chose to believe the claims of a terrorist group that calls for a Jewish genocide.
Partial portrayal of Negev Bedouin rioting on BBC WS radio
The final item in the November 13th evening edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ related to a story which had by that time been going on for several days.

Presenter Tim Franks introduced the item (from 49:21 here) as follows:
Franks: “For the fourth consecutive day in southern Israel there’ve been clashes between protesters and Israeli riot police over a government tree planting scheme. Nomadic Bedouin communities say the project in the Negev Desert is intended to push them off the land. The Israeli authorities deny the claim. The uproar is also causing a political crisis. Israeli nationalist parties and the United Arab List – all of whom are members of the government coalition – are deeply split over the issue.”

The tree planting is actually being carried out by the Jewish National Fund (JNF or KKL) and the Bedouin communities concerned are not “nomadic”.

Listeners were not told of the violent incidents perpetrated by some those it described merely as “protesters” which included assault, the torching of a car, incidents of rock-throwing and the placing of rocks on a train track.

Franks then introduced his sole interviewee, with no effort made to meet BBC editorial guidelines concerning ‘contributors’ affiliations’ which require information about “affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints” to be provided to audiences.

Franks: “Wisam Salah is the general director of the advocacy group ‘Bedouins without Borders’. It’s based in Bethlehem. What happened today?”

Listeners were hence not informed that the NGO concerned is sponsored by foreign donors and the Palestinian Authority or that Wisam Salah previously worked for the PFLP-linked NGO ‘DCI-Palestine’.
Elliott Abrams: Biden’s Ready-Made Excuse for a New Iran Deal
How could the Biden administration defend a terrible nuclear deal with Iran? Simple: blame Trump.

An awful agreement was never inevitable, mostly thanks to the ayatollahs: Their demands may be so excessive that not even the EU3 and the Biden negotiators can accept them. But it seems increasingly likely that the United States will soon acquiesce to a deal in which Iran does one thing — such as agreeing to stop enriching uranium to 60 percent — in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. A recent visit to Vienna by South Korean officials suggests that unfreezing the $7 billion Iran has on the books there will be step one. Step two will likely be lifting all sanctions on Iranian oil exports, allowing the regime to increase sales to China and others in Asia immediately. My own guess: In exchange for Iran’s ceasing to enrich uranium to 60 percent, virtually all U.S. sanctions will be lifted.

This “less for less” deal would be a terrible agreement. It could really be termed “less for more” — Iran does less and gets more. It would ignore Iran’s subversion of the IAEA and its refusal to allow serious inspections. It would ignore Iran’s refusal to deal with the “previous military dimensions” of its nuclear program, which are quite obviously real (the nuclear archive purloined by Israel proved that) and still exist today. It would ignore Iran’s use of advanced generations of centrifuges and would certainly permit enrichment above the 3.67 percent limit agreed in Obama’s 2015 deal. And it would supply the regime with billions — likely tens of billions — of dollars to use, for instance, subverting Iraq, fighting in Yemen, and supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

So how would the Biden administration possibly defend such a deal? Trump! Here is how a Politico story began this week:
The White House sought Wednesday to reframe the Washington debate about the Iran nuclear deal, asserting that former President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the agreement is what has led to an Iran on the verge of an atom bomb.

In other words, “We had no choice.” You may not like this agreement, they will argue, but the United States was left with no alternative.

We should expect to see this line come from the White House, the State Department, CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the echo chamber. But it is false. The “maximum pressure campaign” of sanctions that began in 2018 had, by the end of the Trump administration, had a devastating impact on the Iranian economy.
Iran's 'charming' online rhetoric has come to an end - opinion
The Iranian foreign minister now also uses Twitter to emphasize Iran’s growing international profile. Tweets published by the foreign minister suggest that Iran is no pariah. On Twitter, the foreign minister frequently engages with Western nations such as the UK, or global powers such as Russia. Images shared on Twitter suggest that Iran was even the “belle of the ball” at the recent UN General Assembly, as Iran’s foreign minister held meetings with counterparts from Spain, Ireland, Belarus, Venezuela, Ireland and more.

These tweets may also be an important signal sent by Iran to the negotiators in Vienna according to which Iran is not as isolated as it was in 2015, and, as such, it is not desperate to reach a new deal.

Finally, the Iranian foreign minister has published several tweets deliberately highlighting disagreements with world powers. In one such tweet, the Iranian foreign minister “denounced” the EU, “condemned” the US and rebuked the UK. In other tweets, the foreign minister accused European countries of trampling on the rights of Palestinians and distorting facts regarding the oppression of Palestinians.

These tweets are more than just signals or press releases. The Twitter activity of diplomats can offer unique insight into nations’ policy goals and foreign policy shifts. The Iranian foreign minister is using Twitter to emphasize that Iran is no longer motivated by a desire to join the international community or enhance the prosperity of its citizens. Rather, Iran is negotiating from a position of strength. It is a confident world power, one that has many allies and one that is not afraid to escalate tensions with other, powerful nations.

These all translate into a firmer Iranian position in the negotiations taking place in Vienna, and a diminished willingness to oblige the international community.

The charm offensive is over. All that remains is an offensive.
Israel should not attack nuclear Iran alone, but should join a NATO 2.0
However, the formation of NATO 2.0 in and of itself will not suffice in deterring Iran from acquiring military nuclear capabilities, or even from attacking its neighbors with a nuclear bomb once it has one. A new military doctrine must be adopted vis-à-vis Iran. During the Cold War, the MAD (mutual assured destruction) doctrine deterred both the US and the USSR from deploying their nuclear arsenal against each other. The knowledge that, should one superpower succeed in surprising the other with a swift nuclear attack, the other side had a second-strike capability that would destroy the attacker, served as an effective disincentive for starting a nuclear war.

But mutual assured destruction may not be enough to deter the messianic, fundamentalist Islamic Republic of Iran from using nuclear weapons. NATO 2.0 should therefore adopt a new military doctrine; instead of MAD, this international alliance should establish an “AID” doctrine – assured Iranian destruction. The ayatollahs should know that they are being monitored by a determined, strong and capable international nuclear alliance which is locked and loaded and just waiting for them to make a strategic mistake.

The only hope of deterring Iran’s leaders is to persuade them that if they dare to attack any member of NATO 2.0 with a nuclear bomb, they will be destroyed. This may deter them from crossing the nuclear military threshold and will certainly deter them from using a nuclear bomb in the future.

In the absence of the creation of NATO 2.0, the entire burden of deterring Iran will be on the shoulders of the United States, and with what the Iranians perceive as ongoing American weakness, isolationism and hesitation, the potency of this deterrence is questionable.

Without a concrete and credible “stick,” Iran has no reason to agree to any American condition in the Vienna nuclear talks; even if the Iranian leaders do ultimately sign a new deal, they will most probably not hesitate to deceive the world and ignore their commitments.

Therefore, NATO 2.0 is a critical factor in reaching an effective new nuclear deal with Iran, in securing this deal, and in deterring Iran from violating it. Should a new deal fail to be reached, NATO 2.0 will still deter Iran from crossing the nuclear military threshold and from attacking any of its neighbors with a nuclear bomb.
Three Killed in UAE Fuel Truck Blast, Yemen Houthis Claim Attack
Three fuel trucks exploded, killing three people, and a fire broke out near Abu Dhabi airport on Monday in what Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said was an attack deep inside the United Arab Emirates, the region’s commercial and tourism hub.

If confirmed, a Houthi drone strike on the UAE capital would take the war between the group and a Saudi-led coalition to a new level, and may hinder efforts to contain regional tensions as Washington and Tehran work to rescue a nuclear deal.

The UAE, a member of the coalition, has armed and trained local Yemeni forces that recently joined fighting against the Houthis in Yemen’s energy-producing Shabwa and Marib regions.

“With (nuclear) negotiators running out of time, the risk of a deterioration in the region’s security climate is rising,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, Principal MENA Analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

The Houthi movement has frequently launched cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, but has claimed few such attacks on the UAE, mostly denied by Emirati authorities.

Three people were killed and six wounded when three fuel tanker trucks exploded in the industrial Musaffah area near storage facilities of oil firm ADNOC, state news agency WAM said. It said those killed were two Indians and a Pakistani.

Unverified footage on social media earlier showed a thick plume of black smoke billowing from what appeared to be Musaffah. Police closed the road leading to the area.
Iran’s regime sentences boxer to death for his peaceful protest vs. corruption
The clerical regime in Iran is continuing its execution spree of athletes, targeting the boxing champion Mohammad Javad for protesting the theocratic state’s economic corruption in November, 2019.

The journalist and women’s rights campaigner Masih Alinejad tweeted on Saturday: “Death sentence for another athlete in Iran for the crime of protesting in Nov 2019.

Mohammad Javad, 26, is a boxing champion. They sentenced him to death for ‘spreading corruption on Earth’. We couldn’t save Navid Afkari Iranian wrestler. Global athletes may help us this time.”

Iranian human rights experts have noted that the charge of "spreading corruption of Earth" is frequently used against protestors and dissidents in the Islamic Republic to purge the country of any resistance against the policies of the regime's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The micro-blog Twitter was abuzz with tweets from Iranian-Americans demanding that Javar not be executed.


Anne Frank may have been betrayed by Jewish notary, new book claims
A cold case investigation led by an ex-FBI agent has identified a Jewish notary as the prime suspect in the mystery of who betrayed teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis, a new book claims.

Arnold van den Bergh may have revealed the Franks’ hiding place in Amsterdam in order to save his own family, according to a six-year probe detailed in “The Betrayal of Anne Frank” by Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan, which is to be published on Tuesday.

The case against Van den Bergh, who died in 1950, is supported by evidence including an anonymous note sent to Anne’s father Otto after World War II naming him as the betrayer, according to elements published in Dutch media Monday.

The Anne Frank House museum told AFP that the results of the probe, led by retired Federal Bureau of Investigation detective Vincent Pankoke, were a “fascinating hypothesis” but needed further investigation.

Theories have long swirled about the Nazi raid on August 4, 1944, that uncovered the secret annex where Anne and her family hid from the Holocaust for two years.

Van den Bergh’s name had previously received little attention, but came to the fore during the investigation using modern techniques including artificial intelligence to sort through huge amounts of data.

It narrowed the list of suspects to four, including Van den Bergh, who was a founding member of the Jewish Council, an administrative body the Nazis forced Jews to establish to organize deportations.

Van den Bergh had managed to have himself categorized as a non-Jew, Pankoke found. But he was later redesignated as Jewish after a business dispute.


Torah Hid From Nazis Returns to Synagogue in Germany That Survived Kristallnacht
Four Torah scroll fragments rescued from a synagogue that was on fire during Kristallnacht 83 years ago have finally been returned to the Jewish house of prayer in eastern Germany, reported The Jewish Chronicle.

When a fire broke out in the synagogue in Gorlitz during Kristallnacht on Nov. 9, 1938, an unknown person shoved the Torah-scroll parchments into the hands of a young German policeman, the father of now-retired pastor Uwe Mader.

The policeman gave the parchments, which are believed to be around 300 years old, to a lawyer to keep them away from Nazis. The parchments were passed down to Mader “under the seal of secrecy” in 1969 when Görlitz was part of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Mader kept the parchments hidden in his office under wallpaper and later locked them in a steel cupboard.

“I was very suspicious,” said Mader, who is now 80. “Politics in GDR times had not been very friendly to Jews. Therefore, it was clear that I had to maintain official secrecy.”

The synagogue in Gorlitz was the only Jewish temple in Saxony not destroyed during Kristallnacht because its fire was quickly put out, wrote the Chronicle. The synagogue, which was built between 1909 and 1911, was neglected and began to deteriorate during the GDR rule, but was eventually restored and reopened in July 2021 as a cultural center.


Israel working to provide aid to Tonga after volcanic eruption
Israel is exploring options to provide aid to Tonga after the archipelago was hit by a volcanic eruption and a tsunami on Saturday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced on Sunday.

"On behalf of the people of Israel, I send my heartfelt sympathy to the people of Tonga impacted by the recent volcanic eruption & tsunami," tweeted Lapid. "Israel is exploring options to provide assistance, including ensuring access to safe drinking water, through our aid agency, Mashav."

MASHAV was launched in 1957 to provide humanitarian aid and to share Israeli expertise with developing nations regarding a variety of topics to help train professionals in medicine, development, education and agriculture.

Tsunami-hit Tonga remained largely uncontactable on Sunday with telephone and internet links severed, leaving relatives in faraway New Zealand praying for their families on the Pacific islands as casualty reports had yet to come through.

An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Saturday, triggering warnings of 1.2-meter tsunami waves and evacuation orders on the shores of the island nation as well as several other South Pacific islands, where footage on social media showed waves crashing into coastal homes.

Internet and phone lines went down at about 6:40 p.m. local time on Saturday, leaving the 105,000 residents on the islands virtually uncontactable.
Post MLK: Black-Jewish Alliance Replaced By Black Leader’s Antisemitism
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a big supporter of the Jewish people and a proud Zionist. One of his close allies and friends was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Polish-born American rabbi who is considered one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. And he was a leader of the civil rights movement. In many pictures of 1960s civil rights protests, including the famous one in Selma, the Reverend and Rabbi marched close together in the front line. The two great men of faith forged a close alliance between African American and Jewish national Leadership.

But after Dr. King was assassinated, the Leadership of the black community began to feel that American Jews were their competition for getting into the “middle class” and began to spew Antisemitism.

At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The Exodus began, but is far from having been completed.

Those were the words with which Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel opened his address at the 1963 National Conference on Race and Religion in Chicago. At that same conference, Rabbi Heschel first met the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the keynote speaker at this national gathering. The two became close friends and allies, working together to achieve equality for their communities.

Theologically as well as politically, King and Heschel recognized their own strong kinship. For each there was an emphatic stress on the dependence of the political on the spiritual, God on human society, the moral life on economic well-being. Indeed, there are numerous passages in their writings that might have been composed by either one. Consider for example, Heschel’s words: “The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference,” a conviction that he translated into a political commitment: “In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” King writes, “To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system.” In so doing, he went on, “the oppressed becomes as evil as the oppressor.” Not to act communicates “to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.”

Reverend King knew that the only way his dream would ever be realized was to invite people of all colors and beliefs to join him. Rabbi Heschel knew the struggle for civil rights was a holy one, and participation was required by Jewish law. The two prophets of different faiths soon became fast friends and allies. When Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, he and his family were scheduled to be guests at Rabbi Heschel family’s Passover Seder eight days later.

Sadly after Reverand King was assassinated, some of the African American leaders who replaced him felt the Jews were not their allies but their competition. That competitiveness quickly morphed into Antisemitism.







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