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Sunday, February 06, 2022

02/06 Links: Amnesty International Tries to Put Israel on Trial; After Israel, Ben & Jerry's attacks US Ukraine policy; Kuwait bans ‘Death on the Nile’ film over Israeli actress Gal Gadot

From Ian:

Elliot Kaufman (WSJ$): Amnesty International Tries to Put Israel on Trial
Boycott, marginalization and even violent resistance follow from the apartheid label. In 1975, a year after South Africa’s diplomatic credentials were rejected, the Organization of the Islamic Conference sought to expel Israel from the U.N. as well. This failed, but as a consolation prize, the U.N. passed the “Zionism Is Racism” resolution. This diplomatic offensive was the new stage in the Arab war against the Jews, after military force had failed for the last time in 1973. In 1982 the General Assembly recommended “all Member States to cease forthwith . . . all dealings with Israel in order to totally isolate it in all fields.” In Resolution 37/43, also passed in 1982, the General Assembly grouped Israel with South Africa and affirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle . . . by all available means, including armed struggle.”

Who today would deny that the African National Congress had a right to fight Pretoria? The same was meant to apply to Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorism against Jerusalem. The U.N. reaffirmed this right to armed struggle many times, thwarting general treaties against terrorism. The OIC insisted that “anti-Israel militants be exempted,” reported the Washington Post in November 2001.

Whereas the sponsors of Resolution 37/43 had their eyes open, Amnesty International’s leaders doubtless have their eyes shut. But by invoking apartheid to single out Israel as an enemy of mankind, Amnesty implicitly rejects Israel’s right to exist and authorizes violent resistance to destroy it.

With an idea of the stakes, supporters of Israel rush to defend it from the apartheid charge. But in this strange game, the only winning move is not to play. Forget “WarGames” (1983); this is the lesson of Kafka’s “The Trial” (1925). Josef K., standing in for the Jews, is told that he is on trial, though for what, he can’t comprehend. His mistake is to mount a defense. An accusation that isn’t the product of disinterested reason won’t be refuted by recourse to it, and to defend oneself is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court. The beauty of Zionism is that Jews can finally have their own court and no longer be made to stand before the biased judges of centuries past, protesting their innocence of imagined crimes when all parties know a guilty verdict is assured in advance.

Amnesty International and a dozen U.N. bodies would love nothing more than to preside as arbiters in this latest trial of the Jews. We are lucky that they have no power to compel Israel’s participation. But if the apartheid charge were to stick, rallying an international boycott and authorizing renewed armed resistance, who’s to say the Jews couldn’t be paraded into court one more time?
NGO Monitor: Amnesty’s “Apartheid” Report: Recycled Tropes in the Guise of Research
On February 1, Amnesty International posted a 200+ page publication singling-out out and targeting Israel as an “apartheid” state, in the NGO-led campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel, based on the action plan of the 2001 Durban NGO Forum. Although Amnesty officials repeatedly referred to the document as “original research” extending over 4 years (or 3 in other cases), an examination of the contents reveals this to be a collection and repetition of the verbal contortions and discredited claims largely copied from other NGOs with the same agenda.

In particular, the Amnesty text (Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System Of Domination And Crime Against Humanity) recycles the accusations, distortions, tropes and specific language from the Human Rights Watch version, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution published in April 2021, and analyzed by NGO Monitor. The overwhelming similarity between the two documents highlights the symbiotic and self-affirming relationship between the members of the anti-Israel NGO network, and their methodology of recycling discredited tropes and misinformation.

Both publications consist primarily of the following themes:
- Antisemitic tropes such as Jewish “supremacy” or “domination”
- An artificially constructed and incoherent definition of the term “apartheid”
- Exploiting the apartheid framework while falsely claiming not to be comparing Israel to the South African system
- Singling-out Israel uniquely and without comparison to other countries (an example of antisemitism according to the consensus IHRA working definition)
- Deleting the history and the context of the conflict, including Palestinian terror and war crimes
- Recommendations of sanctions and other punitive measures to isolate and delegitimize Israel, in accordance with the 2001 Durban NGO plan of action
- Rejection of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and the denial of the Jewish people of the right to sovereign equality and self-determination (an example of antisemitism according to the consensus IHRA working definition)




< href="https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/02/06/amnesty-report-only-gives-talking-points-to-radical-extremists/">'Amnesty report only gives talking points to radicals'
The co-chairs of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus condemned Friday a recent report by Amnesty International criticized worldwide for its inaccuracy and flagrant anti-Israel bias.

"We are deeply concerned by Amnesty International's biased report on Israel, which inappropriately ignores history and context to smear the foremost democracy in the Middle East as an apartheid state," caucus co-chairs representatives Doug Lamborn and Steve Chabot said in a statement. "Israel has a right to defend itself, but Amnesty's tunnel vision downplays the real problem: Palestinian intransigence and the constant terror threat from Hamas and other armed groups."

As they explained, "Worse, it fails to recognize that the history of antisemitism, including the Holocaust, requires Israel to remain a safe haven and a Jewish state. This sort of rhetoric won't do anything to solve the underlying problems and only gives talking points to radical extremists."

The report, which was released on Tuesday, was also denounced by nearly every mainstream Jewish organization, in addition to Biden administration officials.


Jonathan Tobin: The ADL's disturbing obsession with race
Whoopi Goldberg put the issue of race and antisemitism in the headlines this week with her gobsmackingly stupid comments about the Holocaust in reaction to the banning of the graphic novel Maus by a Tennessee school board. Her claim on ABC's The View that the Holocaust wasn't about racism and was just "white people doing it to white people" reflected the intersectional myths that have become the orthodoxy of many in the chattering classes. The women on the popular morning talk show often get away with saying outrageous things; however, speaking about the murder of 6 million Jews in this manner was too egregious to pass without notice.

When, to her surprise, she was subjected to a wave of criticism for her insensitivity and ignorance, she sought aid from liberal allies. CBS late-night comedy host Stephen Colbert had her on for a friendly interview, but her doubling down about her talk about race – in which Jews are classified as merely another tribe of empowered whites – just got her in deeper water.

More helpful was the appearance of Anti-Defamation League CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt on the next episode of The View, in which he attempted to explain how the Nazis perceived Jews as an inferior race, and that her summary of the tragedy as merely "man's inhumanity to man" was inadequate. Greenfield's appearance appeared to offer Goldberg (a stage name adopted by the New York-born African-American comedian, whose real name is Caryn Johnson) absolution. But ABC nevertheless suspended Goldberg for two weeks for the incident.

While it's difficult to sympathize with her, the practice of punishing people for speech we don't like by taking away their livelihoods is deplorable. That's true even if Goldberg got off easier than "Mandalorian" actress Gina Carano or fellow comedian Roseanne Barr, who were both summarily fired and essentially rendered unemployable in Hollywood for making comments that were deemed offensive. Cancel culture is generally wrong no matter who is being targeted.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this controversy is the role that the ADL played in trying to correct the record about race and antisemitism. That's because although what Greenblatt said on The View was correct, his comments didn't reflect the way the ADL has been operating for the past two years as he has dragged the group farther and farther to the left.
Fleur Hassan-Nahoum: Race isn’t about skin color
Late last month, on Jan, 27, the world remembered and honored the victims of the Holocaust: Jews who were victimized based on their status as Jews. The perpetrator of the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, said that “the Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.”

The Jewish community was targeted and attacked based on what Hitler considered to be an inferior race to his own Aryan descent. Yet, on a recent episode of “The View,” cohost Whoopi Goldberg claimed that the Holocaust had nothing to do with race. Rather, it was an incident of “white people killing white people.” The questions then arises as to whether race is defined solely by color, and whether “race” and “ethnicity” mean the same thing?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines racism as “prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.”

I was always educated to believe that racism is a blanket term describing the discrimination of a distinct group of people by another group or other groups who believe that they are superior. Over the last few decades, there have been two parallel and concerning trends regarding the definition of racism.

The first is that racism is solely about color. The second is that every ethnicity is now defined as relating to skin color—except, of course, when it comes to the Jewish people. The net result of these two growing trends is that anti-Semitism is not considered racism, and therefore is a more tolerable form of discrimination.

The word “anti-Semitism” itself is the discrimination of Semitic people who spoke Semitic languages, namely Jews and Arabs. However, Arabs in this day and age in America are considered people of color, while Jews are not. Islamophobia is widely accepted as a form of racism against Muslims who, strictly speaking, could be any color, because Islam is a religion and not a race. This same distinction is not made for Jews, however, leading to anti-Semitism’s being disregarded as a type of racism.
Whoopi Goldberg highlights Black America's view of Jews
Hollywood has always been a source of cultural scandals. Lately, several problematic statements on Jews have slipped out of mouths of some well-known people and left us with worrying questions on the state of the American culture.

After years of delays, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles opened its doors to the public in Autumn of 2021. The museum is devoted to outlining the history, science, and cultural impact of the film industry.

Despite the fact that Hollywood is historically known to be "run by Jews," acknowledgement of the Jewish history was neglected from the museum's content.

Jewish dominance in the entertainment industry came as a result many of them escaping the terrors of the Holocaust and building a new future in a new country. With little employment options, Jews not only made up much of the employees in Hollywood, they paved the way for the institution to become what it is today.

Nonetheless, the focus of the new museum appraises African American individuals, such as Spike Lee, for their success in making room for expression of the Black community in Hollywood, hence helping them allegedly emerge stronger from years of oppression. This story goes hand in hand with this week's scandal on ABC's "The View" and one of its hosts, actress Whoopi Goldberg. The scandal exposes deep-rooted hostility towards Jews in some sector of the American culture, especially within the progressive circles. This is a battle for narrative. Who is the bigger victim of racism, and who is the minority that deserves to fulfill the American dream despite the difficulties?

Goldberg, in discussing curriculums of educational institutions, which include Holocaust-based literature, asserted that the genocide that eradicated six million Jews was "not about race". She later said, "This is white people doing it to white people, so you all going to fight amongst yourselves". This underlines not only the tensions between African Americans and Jews, but also the concerning historical and cultural gaps the American culture has created.

The inability to see race beyond skin color highlights that America's racism is narrowminded, and views everything through the U.S. prism of black and white. Excluding Jews as victims of racism, especially in the context of the Holocaust, points to ignorance and inefficiency in passing down the accounts of crucial historical events and cultures to its' people.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein on Whoopi Goldberg's Atrocious Lie About Nature of Holocaust
Morton A. Klein is the national president of the Zionist Organization of America.

This week on The View, Whoopie Goldberg declared falsely that "the Holocaust was not about race...it was about 'man's inhumanity to man,'" - Whitewashing the Holocaust!

Watch ZOA's Mort Klein detail how the Holocaust was specifically about the Jewish race, and hear Mort's take about whether or not Whoopie should be "cancelled."


Netherlands rejects UN appeal, reaffirms defunding of terror-linked NGO
In a letter to the United Nations human rights office, the Dutch government reaffirmed its decision to defund a Palestinian NGO that it found was linked to a terrorist organization, rejecting an appeal by seven U.N. monitors, led by Special Rapporteur on Palestine Michael Lynk, in defense of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).

“The PFLP is considered a terrorist organization and not a regular political movement nor party,” wrote the Dutch mission to the UN in Geneva in its reply to the UN.

“The strong findings about individual-level ties between the UAWC and the PFLP, and the UAWC’s lack of candor about the situation before or during the review, constitute serious concern and sufficient reason in the Government’s view to terminate its funding to the UAWC’s activities.”

The Dutch government’s decision to defund the deceitful Palestinian NGO followed its finding that 34 UAWC employees were tied to the PFLP terrorist organization, 12 with dual leadership roles.

Netherlands had paid the salaries of two UAWC employees involved in the 2019 PFLP murder of 17-year-old Israeli girl Rina Schnerb.
Seth Fratzman: After Israel, Ben & Jerry's attacks US Ukraine policy
The Ben & Jerry’s Twitter post has been greeted with what is called a “ratio” when a tweet is often quote-tweeted and slammed in criticism. At last count on Sunday, it had 1,600 quote tweets but only 246 re-tweets, indicating it has been “ratioed,” which generally means people disagree with it.

The quotes include claims that the tweet is ignorant or, for instance, “Tell me you don’t understand war without telling me you don’t understand war.” Some users mocked the ice-cream group as clowns using a popular graphic. Others wondered, “Why are we getting foreign policy advice from ice cream?”

It appears that Ben & Jerry’s, after having attacked Israel, is now wading into a critique of defending Ukraine. This could begin a pattern of US ice-cream manufacturers critiquing US foreign policy, or it could represent the increasing virtue-signaling whereby one company takes on tough foreign-policy choices and alienates the base of eaters of ice cream.

It is unclear if the decision by Ben & Jerry’s to target Israel and now Ukraine is part of a pattern of slamming democracies that are US partners and allies. It remains to be seen if Ben & Jerry’s will tweet any condemnation of any authoritarian regimes of human-rights violations by dictatorships or only go after US policy regarding Israel and Ukraine.


Justice Min. Sa'ar enables retaliation against Ben & Jerry's
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar took a key step on Saturday night that will allow Israel to take steps against Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever Global for its decision to end its licensing agreement with Ben & Jerry’s Israel for refusing to stop selling over the pre-1967 border.

In coordination with Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, Sa’ar permitted anti-boycott regulations against companies that harm Israel. The decision must be approved by the Knesset’s Law and Constitution Committee.

“The State of Israel must fight against attempts to boycott us, which are part of a larger strategy of delegitimizing the Jewish state,” Sa’ar said.

The Boycott Law, passed by the Knesset in 2011, enacts immediate sanctions on a boycotting company or organization.
‘A bridge to new destinations’: In op-ed for Bahrain paper, Gantz lauds growing ties
In an op-ed published by Bahraini media over the weekend, Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised the burgeoning ties between Israel and Bahrain following his visit to the Gulf kingdom last week.

The article — titled “The Abraham Causeway” in a nod to the King Fahad Causeway, a series of bridges and roads connecting the Gulf kingdom to Saudi Arabia — was published in Bahrain’s English-language newspaper Gulf Daily News Friday following Gantz’s visit to Bahrain in recent days.

“It is an honor to visit the great Kingdom of Bahrain this week — the first official visit by the leader of Israel’s defense establishment, in the Gulf country. Although I did not come with an architect’s blueprint, I did come with the intention of building a conceptual bridge between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain— the ‘Abraham Causeway,'” he wrote in the article.

In the op-ed, Gantz commended the “bravery” of the rulers of Bahrain and the UAE for joining the US-backed Abraham Accords, which saw Israel agree to normalize its relations with the two Gulf states, as well as with Sudan and Morocco.

The accords, he said, “reshaped hope in the Middle East. A piece of paper with the scribbles and hopes of leaders, forged new ties between people and opened the gates for economic growth, tourism, scientific and academic exchanges.”
Pramila Jayapal Accused Israel of ‘War Crimes’ After Visiting Holocaust Museum
“Progressive” caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) accused Israel of “war crimes” shortly after visiting Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, prompting then-U.S. Ambassador David Friedman to walk out of a meeting with her in 2018.

The story is told in Friedman’s new memoir, Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East, set to be released on February 8 by HarperCollins.

Friedman was opposed by many Democrats, but met with congressional delegations when they came to Israel — except, he notes, left-wing Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), whom Israel barred because of an Israeli law preventing those who advocate boycotts of Israel from entering the country.

Jayapal and several other Democrats had been touring Israel with a group sponsored by J Street, a controversial, George Soros-backed left-wing organization that opposes many pro-Israeli policies.

As part of the tour, Jayapal went to Yad Vashem, a memorial where visiting heads of state and dignitaries pay their respects to the victims of the Holocaust. The memorial is part of a museum that provides in-depth information about the Holocaust and its background, and is renowned both for the quality of its historical exhibits and for the deeply moving testimonies it has preserved for visitors to experience.

Friedman tells the story about how Jayapal, after visiting Yad Vashem, told Friedman that Israel had committed “war crimes” over a decision by Israel’s Supreme Court permitting demolition of an illegally constructed Bedouin village, Khan al-Ahmar.
Israel, Gulf States in discussions for air defense systems
As rocket and drone attacks against the United Arab Emirates have increased, talks are underway between Israel and several Persian Gulf states to understand what air defense systems are most relevant for the threats that they face.

Though Israel’s famed Iron Dome system has made headlines around the world for its interceptions during the numerous rounds of conflict with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and has been touted as the system most likely to be sold to countries interested in such platforms, Jerusalem has a variety of air defense systems.

Discussions with the Gulf countries centered around shared threats such as rocket and drone attacks. The discussions allowed Israeli officials to understand that the Jewish State has other systems that may be a better solution to such threats.

Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and a number of other Arab countries signed normalization agreements in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, bringing years of covert contacts into the open.
Lured by cheap prices and luxury digs, Arab Israelis are snapping up West Bank homes
During the week, Khaled lives in Umm al-Fahm, a bustling Arab Israeli town, where he works as an excavation contractor. Soon, he, his wife and their six kids ages 3-13 will begin decamping on weekends to the West Bank city of Nablus, where they are joining a tide of Israelis buying second homes across the Green Line.

“I have an apartment, with a north-facing view, on the seventh floor of an 11-story building. The view is gorgeous, the neighborhood and the streets are great,” says Khaled, a pseudonym, of his under-construction new digs in the western part of the Palestinian city.

While purchasing property in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority is not illegal, having his name published in connection with the trend could cause him problems in both Israel and the PA.

But in private, Khaled, who is an acquaintance, makes no bones about discussing his property purchase. And he is not alone.

In conversation with a large number of Arab citizens of Israel, a strong anecdotal trend emerges of purchases of houses or apartments in the 40% of the West Bank where most Palestinians live and where the PA exercises control over most civilian matters. (The other 60% is made up of areas under full or partial Israeli control, comprising the Jewish settlements and corridors between them. The trend of Jewish Israelis buying homes in those parts of the West Bank — albeit for wildly different reasons — has been well documented since 1967.)

Among the most popular areas are Jericho Gate, a new planned neighborhood on the outskirts of the Jordan Valley city; Rawabi, the first planned Palestinian city in the West Bank, just north of Ramallah; Tulkarm and Jenin, home to campuses of the American University, where almost half of the student body is Israeli; and Rafidia in Nablus, where Khaled bought his home from a Palestinian contractor when it was just a concrete shell.
Gantz signs seizure order against Lebanese companies helping Hezbollah
Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued an administrative seizure order on Sunday against three Lebanese companies for allegedly providing raw materials to Hezbollah for its precision missile project.

The companies against which the order was issued are Toufali, Moubayed and Barakat. The companies trade in machines, oils and ventilation systems that are needed for Hezbollah's production line. The order will allow the companies to be blacklisted in global financial systems and make it difficult for them to continue operating.

"Instead of helping and rehabilitating the citizens of Lebanon – Hezbollah continues to endanger the citizens of Lebanon and the entire country and sow chaos," said Gantz. "Hezbollah, with Iran's support, is undermining the ability to stabilize Lebanon. Israel will continue to reach out to the Lebanese people and offer humanitarian aid, while at the same time continuing to undermine attempts to introduce advanced weapons that will endanger its citizens, with an emphasis on promoting the Iranian precision project that works from the heart of Lebanon.”

The order is part of Gantz's directive to tighten economic pressure on the precision missile project and comes just months after Gantz signed a similar order against the Lebanese company Shreif Sanitary Co which was also providing equipment for Hezbollah's precision-guided missile project.
PMW: PA TV praises women terrorists and murderer, Fatah activist sees suicide bomber as a “mighty woman”
PA TV praises women terrorists and murderer, Fatah activist sees suicide bomber as a “mighty woman”

Official PA TV program Stories from Palestine

Official PA TV narrator: “The acts of heroism by the Palestinian women continued, especially after the launch of the modern Palestinian revolution at the start of 1965 (i.e., counted from Fatah’s first terror attack against Israel), through female Martyr Shadia Abu Ghazaleh (i.e., bombmaker), female fighter Fatima Barnawi (i.e., placed bomb in movie theater), self-sacrificing fighter Zakiya Shammout (i.e., involved in murder of 1), female Martyr Dalal Mughrabi (i.e., led murder of 37), female fighter Laila Khaled (i.e., hijacker, involved in murder of 1), and the list is long.”

Fatah activist from Jerusalem Jihad Zneid: “The women are worthy of great honor. The women who defied the occupier… I’m speaking about Wafa Idris (i.e., suicide bomber, murdered 1). When I speak about [myself and Palestinian female director] Terry Balata, when I speak about mighty women, I speak about the women who are active at all levels, women who lead, women who not only participated in political activity but also led political activity, women who fought, women who are full of initiative.”

[Official PA TV, Stories from Palestine, Jan. 22, 2022]




Student who praised terrorists as ‘heroes’ gets academic role at Sheffield Hallam University
A Palestinian student who wrote that “Zionist lobbies… buy presidents” and praised terrorists as a “heroes” has been cleared of Jew-hate and given a contract by Sheffield Hallam University, the JC can reveal.

Shahd Abusalama, a former PhD student at the university, has also urged her social media followers to watch a shocking video which claimed the Talmud permits Jews to kill and steal from gentiles.

Announcing her appointment on Twitter, she wrote: “We're celebrating a fantastic victory for Palestine today…. I have been wholly exonerated of the false charges of antisemitism.

“I will also be offered a more secure contract that will afford my employee status at Sheffield Hallam University.”

An investigation was launched by Sheffield Hallam into Ms Abusalama after she was appointed an associate lecturer in December of 2021.

The university suspended the Gaza-born activist, triggering a backlash from pro-Palestine activists.

Ms Abusalama called for supporters to write to the university, posting on Twitter: “[I am] demanding [Sheffield Hallam University] drop the ongoing investigation against me, review #IHRA definition of antisemitism, issue a public apology and put policies in place to ensure no Palestinian is subject to such malicious censorship.”
David Hirsh: Sheffield Hallam University has an antisemitism problem
The Union did not defend Shahd Abusalama on academic freedom grounds, it did not say that she’d said some silly and offensive things but they were not quite antisemitic, it treated her as a hero; a hero advocate of the oppressed, and a hero academic lecturer and researcher.

And the University itself said that the student’s discourse “fall[s] entirely within the boundaries of acceptable political commentary” and it did nothing. It cleared Shahd Abusalama; it did not use its own academic freedom to use this as a teachable moment; it was not critical of any of this “acceptable commentary”.

The student and teacher made a hero of the people who murdered Israelis, Christian pilgrims and a Canadian, at Lod airport in 1971; gunned them down as they walked through an airport.

At Sheffield Hallam, the student/teacher is now a hero, the union branch embraces her as a hero, and the university itself says that there is nothing wrong here and she is entirely fit to teach students: everything is “acceptable political commentary”.

And the Jews at Sheffield Hallam University are defeated, denounced as racists, made to feel pariahs in their union branch, and are left defenceless by their institution and undefended by their union.

What did they do wrong? They said that it’s false and offensive to denounce Israelis as being like Nazis, they said it’s wrong to murder Israelis at random, they said it’s wrong to accuse them of malicious motives, they said David Miller and Shahd Abusalama are not victims of a Zionist plot.
Fresh NYT Hire Raja Abdulrahim Bungles Her First Assignment
It’s been two decades since Raja Abdhulrahim, the New York Times’ fresh hire in its Jerusalem bureau, published a letter in her university paper denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terror organizations, and then was subsequently awarded with academic and journalism awards from the Council of American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in America’s largest terrorism finance case.

While that troubling history raises grave questions about her suitability to cover Israeli-Palestinian affairs, one hopes that the young Abdulrahim has since matured and developed an appreciation for journalistic professional ethics that at least matches her (past?) respect for Hamas and Hezbollah. Yet, multiple factual errors in her first significant New York Times assignment — the death of Palestinian-American Omar As’ad following his detainment by Israeli soldiers — signal a bumpy start. Thus, Abdulrahim’s Feb. 2 print article, “Israeli commanders punished in West Bank death,”) (and online) erroneously reports: “An autopsy showed that the man, Omar Abdelmajed Assad, died from a stress-induced heart attack brought on by injuries sustained while he was detained for about an hour on Jan. 12 by dozens of Israeli soldiers.” Likewise, her Jan. 26 article (also in print Jan. 27), “Palestinian American Held by Israel Died of Heart Attack, Autopsy Shows,” erred: “Mr. Assad had pre-existing heart ailments and was detained by dozens of Israeli soldiers for about an hour on Jan. 12 in his village of Jiljilya in the occupied West Bank.”

The Israel Defense Forces spokespersons’ unit has confirmed to CAMERA that while dozens of soldiers took place in the Jan. 12 anti-terror operation in Jaljilya to collect weapons, less than five soldiers had any contact with Assad and were involved in his detainment.
Opening of Indonesian Holocaust Museum Met With Islamist Backlash
Last week saw the opening of Indonesia’s – and Southeast Asia’s – first museum dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. The Shaar Hashamayim Holocaust Museum was built by the local Jewish community in Tondano City, Sulawesi, and was inaugurated by the German Ambassador to Indonesia Ina Lepel on January 27.

After attending the opening, Lepel posted a video to Twitter in which she hailed the museum as a crucial landmark of remembrance. “Germany will always support remembrance towards this ‘universal lesson’ and stand up against racism, anti-Semitism, and any form of intolerance,” Lepel said in her video. “We keep remembering the extraordinary crimes that occurred in the Holocaust. Otherwise, we risk repeating them again.”

But in the days after its opening, a number of Indonesian Muslim leaders, including several senior members of the influential Indonesian Council of Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) declared that the museum should be shut down, on the grounds that it could cause “communal tensions.” MUI Vice President Muhyidin Junaidi opined that “the presence of the museum is politically tendentious and a provocation to cause uproar among the people.”

“Instead of a museum about the Holocaust, the government should open a museum depicting Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia,” he added. “Or it would make more sense to show the Zionist violence against the Palestinians; this would be a way to support their right to self-determination.”
“People were getting my picture and making versions of me in concentration camps” Pink News’ Benjamin Cohen on experiencing antisemitism and homophobia
On the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism, Benjamin Cohen, the founder and CEO of Pink News, spoke on his experiences antisemitism and homophobia, as well as his feelings about the BBC.

Mr Cohen spoke candidly on his experiences of online antisemitism and homophobia. “People were getting my picture and making versions of me in concentration camps, things like that…essentially calling for me to be killed.” Mr Cohen revealed that this led to him needing to get the police involved.

He went on to say that his experiences made it “crystal clear” to him that “there is this meeting of the hatreds and that they are fundamentally the same people that hate everyone.”

When asked about the advice he would give to those experiencing antisemitism or homophobia, Mr Cohen recommended using Twitter’s quality filter and its reporting functions, which he believes has markedly improved.

Speaking on the BBC, Mr Cohen said that he was not surprised that two thirds of the Jewish community were unhappy with the Corporation’s coverage of Jewish matters, stating: “Look, I’m not a big fan of the BBC. I think the BBC has a lot to answer for on a lot of different issues.”

“I think if you did a poll of LGBT+ people, you’d find a similar percentage of people say that they don’t believe the BBC reports fairly. Maybe even higher,” he added. “To me, the problem is the BBC has this view of impartiality which means that it goes out of its way to represent contrary views in a way that I don’t believe should be platformed.


Kuwait bans ‘Death on the Nile’ film over Israeli actress Gal Gadot
Kuwait will ban a new film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s whodunnit “Death on the Nile” with a cast of Hollywood stars including Israeli actress Gal Gadot, authorities said Sunday.

The film, directed by and co-starring Kenneth Branagh, is due for release this month in the United States.

The story is one of the most famous works of British author Christie, dubbed the “Queen of Crime.”

But moviegoers in Kuwait will not be able to watch it, information ministry spokeswoman Anouar Mourad told AFP, confirming press reports.

According to Kuwait’s Al-Qabas newspaper, the decision was made following demands on social media for the film to be banned.

Social media users pointed to Gadot’s praise of the Israeli army and her criticism of the Hamas terror group during the 2014 war in Gaza.


IMF says Israel managed pandemic ‘exceptionally well,’ warns of ‘significant’ risks
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Israel has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic “exceptionally well” with a swift, efficient vaccination campaign and a rapidly recovering economy, but still faced “significant” risks to its 2022 outlook such as soaring housing prices and affordability.

In a report published Sunday, the 190-country lending agency said Israel’s “world-leading vaccination campaign boosted confidence and helped mitigate the impact of the pandemic in the face of new, virulent variants,” while the government embarked on “prompt and ample” support for households and businesses and the Bank of Israel’s “monetary and prudential measures provided liquidity, kept credit flowing, and prevented undue tightening of financial conditions.”

The IMF reported that after a relatively mild downturn in 2020, Israel’s economy recovered strongly in 2021 with real GDP exceeding its pre-pandemic level and with growth at around 6.5 percent last year. “The rebound was stronger than in other advanced economies,” the financial institution reported, echoing separate reports in December 2021 by the OECD and by multinational business information company Dun & Bradstreet that showed Israel’s economic recovery beat the global average.

The IMF, too, found that Israel’s thriving tech industry “led the recovery” as private consumption “gained speed.”

Inflation, meanwhile, “surged due to global factors and a rebound in domestic demand” though it remained within the Bank of Israel’s target range. The central bank said last month that inflation was forecast at 2.4% in 2021 and expectations for 2022 in the medium and long terms were within an annual target of 1%-3%.

“The 2021 fiscal deficit was significantly smaller than expected due to buoyant tax revenues on the back of fast-growing domestic and global equity markets and gradual tapering of COVID-related support,” the IMF said in its report. Unemployment has also declined steadily, it noted.
Unpacked: Jews and the Civil Rights Movement
The Black community continued to face discrimination under the racist Jim Crow laws in the South which led to the civil rights movement. Jews across the United States, by overwhelming majority, joined the cause to end segregation and supported the civil rights cause. The partnership between the communities was, in some ways, epitomized by the little-known story of Esther Swirk Brown, a Jewish homemaker from Kansas City, and her legal crusade to end school segregation

Disclaimer: While Jews are a diverse, multi-racial people, in this video when we speak about the interactions between the Black community and the Jewish community we are speaking about Jews of European descent.


Why haven’t more Israelis heard of Mordechai Ben-Porat?
“On 20 November 1949, I was on my way to Basra. Dressed in Bedouin robes, I crossed the Shatt-El-Arab waterway on a small boat with an outboard motor, accompanied by the smuggler Haj Aziz Ben Haj Mahdi. Neither my friends nor my parents would have recognized me in the black agal and keffiyeh (Arab headdress), adorned by a thick mustache on my upper lip.”

These are the words of Mordechai Ben-Porat in his 1998 memoir, “To Baghdad and Back: The Miraculous 2,000 Year Homecoming of the Iraqi Jews.” Thanks to Ben-Porat’s dangerous and clandestine efforts, over 130,000 persecuted Jews escaped Iraq in the early 1950s and made aliyah to the nascent Jewish state. Ben-Porat also helped some Jews in Iran escape the country on the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He passed away in Israel on Jan. 3 at the age of 98.

Ben-Porat was a visionary: a true public servant who served four terms in the Knesset, was awarded the Israel Prize and who founded the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda (est. 1973) and the Museum of Babylonian Jewry (est. 1988). A 2019 profile of Ben-Porat in The Jerusalem Report called him an “Israeli James Bond.” But guess how many Israeli Jews, or, for that matter, American Jews today recognize his name?

There are, however, some Israelis of a certain age who will assert that throughout the five millennia of Jewish history, there have been three luminaries who brought exiled Babylonian Jews en masse back to their ancestral homeland: the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet Ezra (both in the fifth century BCE), and Mordechai Ben-Porat in the twentieth century.

Ben-Porat was born in Baghdad in 1923 (his Arabic name was Murad Murad) and at the age of 19, joined the underground Iraqi branch of the Chalutz, a movement that prepared young Jews for eventual resettlement in Israel. Ben-Porat served with distinction as a company commander in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. He was wholly Arab, wholly Jewish, and totally committed to preventing a Holocaust in the Middle East. The horror of the 1941 Farhud, in which hundreds of Iraqi Jews were murdered and countless others raped and pillaged, never left his mind.
91-year-old Holocaust survivor succumbs to wounds sustained in May fighting
Naomi Perlman, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor who was seriously wounded at her Ashkelon home by shrapnel in a Hamas rocket attack during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May, died on Sunday, KAN News reported.

Perlman’s Indian caregiver, Santosh Sumaya, was killed in the attack, and Perlman was evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, where she remained until her death.

“If there is anyone who deserves to be called the ultimate survivor it is her,” her son, Shuki Perlman, was quoted by KAN as saying. “It was nine months of fighting. I did not believe she would survive. She came without a pulse and blood pressure to Barzilai.”

The Ashkelon Municipality said Perlman and her late husband, Ya’acov, had “contributed significantly to the construction” of the city, KAN reported. They immigrated from Poland in 1950.

She is survived by her son, her daughter, Tzipi, eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, including one who was born last month.

“I showed her pictures of her new great-granddaughter ,and she smiled,” KAN quoted Shuki Perlman as saying. “I flew to see my daughter and returned a week ago. I was with her last night; it was as if she was waiting for me to say goodbye.”

Perlman was severely wounded on May 11 when a rocket struck her apartment in Ashkelon. Her home had no shelter, and the closest was a minute’s run away, Channel 12 reported.







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