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Friday, February 11, 2022

02/11 Links Pt2: Jew-Hatred in America: Not as Bad as Jews Think, Not as Good as it Could Be; That ‘Palestinian Holocaust'; Yossi Shain on the Israeli Century

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Jew-Hatred in America: Not as Bad as Jews Think, Not as Good as it Could Be
Although Zionists hoped that establishing Israel in 1948 would eliminate antisemitism, the Arab-Israeli conflict unleashed new waves of Jew-hatred. Professor Judea Pearl calls this Zionophobia, noting that the vicious, irrational hatred against Israel and Zionists is as illegitimate as the vicious, irrational hatred against the Jews underlying it. Clearly not every Muslim is antisemitic, and not every Palestinian is antisemitic, but there are many haters, often wearing keffiyehs as their symbol, who clump together Islamism, pro-Palestinianism, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism. The most publicized antisemitic violence in America this past year represents this second strain. Particularly worrying were the Palestinian protesters who turned violent during the Israel-Gaza conflict in May, beating Jewish sushi diners in Los Angeles, pummeling a Jewish cyclist in Times Square, and pelting a Miami family with garbage, rape threats, and curses, including “Free Palestine, f--- you Jew, die Jew.” There seem to be far fewer antisemitic Jihadists, like the Texas hostage-taker—or like the Seattle Jewish Federation shooter in 2006, who killed one and injured five, while berating “the Jews” for supporting Israel. Such Jihadists threaten all Americans. Still, 86 percent of Jews surveyed identify “extremism in the name of Islam” as an antisemitic threat.

Fighting Islamist antisemitism is harder for American Jews. Many fear being tagged as Islamophobic. The antisemitism of the Left, centered on American campuses, but now finding a welcoming home on the margins of the Democratic party and in many intellectual circles further confuses. Stemming from a two-centuries-long addiction some leftists and Marxists have had to antisemitism, this Jew-hatred hides behind a critique of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause. Over the last 40 years, empowered by identity politics and the passions stirred by the Middle East impasse, these Jew-haters have turned increasingly self-righteous. Often masking traditional anti-Jewish tropes behind modern human rights talk, insisting “we’re not antisemitic, we’re only anti-Zionist,” they feel validated by their alliances with a few far left-wing Jews and other social justice warriors. But it defies logic that when Black Lives Matter emerged with a manifesto in 2016, it only had one foreign policy plank—targeting Israel. There is no justification for seeing cartoons and protest signs, after George Floyd’s murder, blaming the Israeli army for centuries worth of American racism and police brutality. This “deadly exchange” campaign on campuses and elsewhere was characterized by the chant reeking of the medieval blood libel: “Israel we know you—you murder children too.”

Many liberal Jews feel torn. They want to ally with these social justice crusaders on other missions. They support many of their goals. Yet most—not all—Jews note how the obsession with the individual Jew has now become the obsession with the collective Jew (Israel). Many accusations, slurs, caricatures, and now memes recycle—and update—traditional anti-Jewish libels about Jews being rich, privileged, powerful, sinister—and bloodthirsty.

For some Jewish liberals, the confusion even extends into the fourth battlefront, against the crass antisemitism of the street. Most people can recognize the bullying of Orthodox Jews in their own neighborhoods, the vandalizing of synagogues, schools, and cemeteries, as unconscionable crimes. Yet, during a spate of Jew-beatings in 2019, one progressive rabbi tweeted: “the horrible attacks on Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn & elsewhere likely relate to long-term tensions & don’t fall easily into left/right category. Not parallel to white nationalists whose beliefs are based on antisemitism.” This activist clearly was more comfortable fighting antisemitism from the Right than acknowledging the antisemitism of her allies on the Left.

It is not politically correct to say but it is true: the violence epitomized by grainy video capturing some street thugs usually targeting Orthodox Jews, mostly in the New York area, is not random. Just as Trump’s rhetoric emboldened some Jew-haters online, certain ideological trends and conversational undercurrents in their communities embolden these criminals on the street. Some of the trends are universal or fester worldwide, from the jealousy of the “have-nots” to the obsessive demonization of Israel. Some trends find validation in modern progressive discourse, including the new, sweeping, stereotype of Jews as having “white privilege,” even though so many Jews—especially Israelis—are not white, not rich, and not free of Jew-haters. And some trends reflect certain African-American tropes, especially the obsession with Jewish shopkeepers and landlords—accusations fueled by demagogues like Louis Farrakhan and denounced by other prominent African-Americans like the basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Finally, the instinctive, underlying, genetic antisemitism of yesteryear still lives. It has shrunk. It remains mostly underground. It has often been forced to coexist uncomfortably with Jewish friends and relatives. But what we might call the antisemitism of the country club or the golf cap, that age-old sense that the Jews are too different, too aggressive, too grabby, to be fully accepted in polite society survives. A recent ADL poll found that 61 percent of Americans agree with at least one of eleven statements about Jews, with accusations of clannishness, ambitiousness, and dual loyalty toward Israel most popular.
Jonathan Tobin: Jewish institutions shouldn't hire antisemites
As far as Jessie Sander is concerned, she's being persecuted for her "political beliefs." She was hired by the Westchester (New York) Reform Temple last July but was fired 15 days later after the synagogue leadership was made aware of a blog post she co-authored a few months earlier when the Hamas terrorist group was raining down hundreds of rockets and missiles on Israeli towns and cities. Titled "israel [sic] Won't Save Us: Moving Toward Liberation," it contained a litany of lies and libels directed at the Jewish state, whose name the bloggers refused to capitalize.

It spoke of the duty of "white American Jews" to support Palestinian liberation and rejected the right of the 7 million Jews of Israel to self-determination in their ancient homeland as "racism." Ignorantly declaring that Zionism was alien to Judaism, it also opposed all American aid to Israel. The article also repeated the "apartheid state" smear, and falsely accused Israel of committing "genocide" and "state-sponsored murder." As if that wasn't enough, it then repeated the antisemitic blood libel invented by Jewish Voice for Peace claiming that the Jewish state is training U.S. law enforcement personnel to murder African-Americans on the streets of American cities.

Nevertheless, in an article about Sander's lawsuit to get her job back, The New York Times characterized this litany of conspiracy theories and lies in a feature about her plight as merely a case that was about "a Jewish teacher" who "criticized Israel."

The notion that a person capable of spewing such bile at fellow Jews should be entrusted with the Jewish education of the children of families affiliated with this synagogue seems like the stuff of parody. But in the view of the Times, it was worth more attention that it routinely gives to violent attacks suffered by Jews in the Greater New York area. That this so speaks volumes about the way the paper is influenced by its increasingly left-wing staff and far-left Jews like Peter Beinart, who are doing their best to legitimize anti-Zionism as a normal thing for respectable liberal American Jews to support rather than complicity with antisemitism.

Indeed, it puts the Times in the same camp as the radical Jewish Currents publication where Beinart is also affiliated. That online magazine featured an article about the supposed injustice dealt to Sander on its home page, alongside another piece in which the expulsion from Britain's Labour Party of supporters of its antisemitic former leader Jeremy Corbyn was lamented.
That ‘Palestinian Holocaust'
Elder of Ziyon has taken note of a recent article in “the most influential newspaper in the Arab world” that calls into question the real Holocaust – the murder of six million Jews – and instead, claims that the “worst calamity” of the 20th century was the “Palestinian Holocaust.”

His article can be found here: “‘Most Influential Arab Newspaper’ says ‘Palestinian Holocaust’ worse than …The Holocaust,” Elder of Ziyon, January 30, 2022:
Ad Dustour is a pro-government Jordanian newspaper that was declared as the most influential newspaper in the Arab world in Industry Arabic’s latest rankings. It is partially owned by the Jordanian government itself, so it will never say anything that goes against official government policy.

Ad Dustour is not some disreputable checkout-counter tabloid; the Jordanian newspaper, chosen as the ”most influential newspaper in the Arab world,” must be taken seriously, even when it spouts nonsense. It can run articles like this, that question the Jewish Holocaust and bewail the real “worst calamity of the 20th century,” the “Palestinian Holocaust,” and be taken seriously by its benighted audience across the Arab world.
That includes Holocaust denial.

Columnist Rashid Hassan not only casts doubt as to whether the Holocaust actually occurred, but he parrots a claim that the “Palestinian Holocaust” was the worst calamity of the past century.

More than the Shoah. More than Cambodia or Rwanda or Darfur.

The Shoah claimed the lives of six million Jews. The Khmer Rouge killed between 1.5 and 2 million people in Cambodia. In Rwanda, between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsis were killed by Hutus. In Darfur, the Arab Janjaweed killed between 80,000 and 500,00 black Africans. In the Bangladesh war for independence in 1971, the Pakistani army and Islamist collaborators killed between 300,000 and three million Bangladeshis. During the Ukrainian Terror-Famine, or Holodomor, of 1932-1933, between seven and ten million people starved to death. During the Stalinist repression of 1937-1938, between 700,000 and 1.2 million Soviet citizens were murdered — a small part of the total of 40 million people are believed to have died because of Stalin’s murderous rule throughout the 1930s. About 80 million Chinese died unnatural deaths when Chairman Mao ran the country, most of them in the famine following the Great Lea Forward. But what are all these, compared to the “worst calamity of the 20th century” – the “Palestinian Holocaust”?
He writes about how Holocaust Remembrance Day is a cynical ploy by Israel to gain sympathy and distract the world from the real genocide.


More Than Skin Deep
Dr. Sheila Nazarian is one of the most famous plastic surgeons in LA, but it took a conflict in Gaza for her to find her voice Most of Dr. Nazarian’s audience existed outside of any pro-Israel echo chambers; they were just fans of Skin Decision. So she began to post, debunking widely circulated infographics and directing people toward educational resources. She wished her Jewish online followers strength, peace, and Shabbat Shalom.

Nothing about this activism felt easy—she felt terribly exposed and emotionally and even physically at risk. She was now spending eight-and-a-half hours a day posting from her phone in addition to her regular job, waking up with terrible anxiety, and fielding invective from online trolls (one day she sat down and blocked over 2,000 accounts). She cried for the first time in almost 10 years. But the experiences that made it anxiety-inducing to speak up also gave her an orienting sense of perspective. “I’m in America; I shouldn’t have to block what I think,” she says. “That was Iran.”

Part of having lioness energy is standing up for what you believe, even (or especially) if it scares you. These days, you’re just as likely to see a post mocking socialism or a story criticizing child mask mandates on Dr. Nazarian’s Instagram as you are to see a picture of her in Louboutins or in the operating room (though you can still find plenty of glamorous outfits on her recently verified TikTok account). She describes last year’s Gaza conflict as “her first foray into finding her voice,” a formative time that gave her the courage to speak her mind, even if it means upsetting a few people. That said, she now has private security at her home and office and owns three guns. She encourages other Jews to arm themselves for protection, too.

Dr. Nazarian has broadened the scope of her activism, tackling issues within her home state of California, where she’s grown sick of rising crime, draconian COVID policies, and their damaging effects on children. She’s stepped into the ring at her children’s school, pushing back against unscientific pandemic measures like a militantly enforced outdoor mask mandate. There, she takes a more behind-the-scenes approach, making her case by sending recent studies and statistics to the school’s medical board, an approach that ultimately worked; the school reversed the mandate just a few days ago.

It’s victories like that—tangible things that make a meaningful difference for her children and their quality of life—that animate her the most. Dr. Nazarian wants to set an example for her kids with her activism, showing them how to be brave, ask hard questions, and speak their truth even when it’s terrifying to do so. She’s vocal about her beliefs because she wants to change hearts and minds, and hopefully leave the world a better place.

“I’m a doctor,” she said. “If we want to solve a problem, we need to make the correct diagnosis so we can apply the correct treatment. I’m willing to talk about what we need to talk about, because I’m not afraid to diagnose what I’m seeing.”
Journalist Eve Barlow speaks about the impact fighting antisemitism has had on her life and mental health
On the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism, Eve Barlow, a music and culture journalist who has written for The Telegraph, The Guardian and the LA Times, opened up about how tackling antisemitism online has affected her life and mental health.

Ms Barlow revealed that in response to her increased advocacy for the Jewish community and opposition to antisemitism, she had received a torrent of antisemitic abuse and was isolated from her friends. “I found myself more and more pushed to the fringes and to the sides of people’s social circles to the extent that I really was winding up spending most of my time either with a select one or two close friends or completely alone.”

Ms Barlow added that as a result of her income decreasing due to her ever-growing profile as an activist against antisemitism, she began focusing more of her time on raising awareness of anti-Jewish racism. “I had been fighting [antisemitism] for so many years, so by the time that war happened last year, I had all the verbiage. I had experienced all of the trolling. So I found myself in a place where my verboseness and my preparation to know what to say and how to say it with effect created so much noise and attention around me that…it was kind of out of control, and my numbers were growing like mad because people suddenly needed a voice.”

Speaking on the online trolling that she has received, Ms Barlow said that when she did not take the necessary precautions to place restrictions on her social media posts, “thousands upon thousands” of people would reply with hateful comments, adding “I’ve had to take precautions to make sure that my personal security is a lot tighter.”

When asked about her mental health, Ms Barlow said that “on the whole, I put up a pretty affronted and assured and unapologetic stance” and that she felt the need to “set an example,” but acknowledged that her mental health “ebbed and flowed”. Ms Barlow also said that at times, she worried about the impact the online trolling was having on her real life.

“This viral hatred of me online…what is it reducing me to? Because people don’t see you as a person anymore, they see you as this thing…they have this idea of you…and then people who were your ‘friends’, they stop seeing you as a person and they run away from you. The amount of people who abandoned me in that moment and who have never come back to me…it speaks volumes about how humanity has been manipulated and disaffected by social media,” she said.
Obsessing about identity politics is never good for Jews
Here’s where I diverge. The Jews Don’t Count analysis is spot on, which is why it has already achieved hashtag status. But the conclusion, that Jews need to be readmitted to the left’s hierarchy of victimhood, is misguided.

I don’t think the answer to the modern left’s obsessive, at times illiberal, policing of identity and representation is to re-establish Jewish victimhood and our place in the hierarchy of suffering. I think we should reject the premise altogether, no matter what the casting directors think.

Let’s not make Jewface a thing and start building thick walls around our identity. Within reason, actors should indeed be allowed to act, as anyone who saw David Harewood’s superb portrayal of white conservative William Buckley in James Graham’s Best of Enemies, recently on at the Young Vic, can attest.

Attempting to insert Jews back into the progressive framework, which is what the Jewface critics are doing, means emphasising and amplifying every aspect of Jewish victimhood. Because to earn one’s place anywhere close to the top of the progressive hierarchy, alongside the BIPOCs and the BAMEs, would require a level of self-imposed martyrdom that simply doesn’t align with most contemporary Jewish lives. Nor would we want it to. If we accept this framework, which views any wealthy or powerful Caucasians with profound suspicion, then Jewish success will continue to be weaponised against us.

Rather than accept and negotiate with this world view, as Baddiel and Lipman are doing, we ought to repudiate it. Jews are more likely to flourish in a classically liberal world of toleration, with a diminished focus on race, rather than in the race-obsessed, identitarian morass that is modern progressivism. Or if classical liberalism isn’t your bag, then perhaps through a leftism that promotes class solidarity and doesn’t seek to manically divide and classify its adherents according to skin colour.

This doesn’t mean downplaying antisemitism or racism more generally. It’s important that Jews are not treated with double standards and we should certainly engage with wider conversations about representation and fairness. But Jews not counting is a feature, not a bug, of modern progressivism, as Goldberg’s snafu so clearly demonstrated. As long as that’s the field we’re playing on, the game will be rigged against us.
The Tikvah Podcast: Yossi Shain on the Israeli Century
The reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel changed the Jewish people, giving them a place to live in their historic home, if they wanted it.

But what about the Jews who remained and remain in the Diaspora: did Israel change their condition, and, if so, how? Yossi Shain, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University and a member of Knesset, is the author of the new book The Israeli Century: How the Zionist Revolution Changed History and Reinvented Judaism. In conversation here with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he argues that Israel is now the most important point of reference in the consciousness of the Jewish people, no matter where they live
Call Me Back (podcast): Israel’s “Radical” move to the political center — what can we learn from it?
You can order by Micah Goodman’s books here:

Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/catch-67-micah-goodman/1128089735

The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wondering-jew-micah-goodman/1136574622
David Draiman on the move from heavy metal to the pro-Israel battlefield
Lahav and Yaakov talk with 'Disturbed' lead singer David Draiman about his vocal and public stand to defend Israel and discuss as well the latest NSO police scandal and a letter the Jerusalem Post recently received from a Chinese diplomat.


Campaign to Free Terrorist Supported by Texas Synagogue Gunman Spiked Before Attack, Report Finds
A social media campaign connected to a top American Muslim organization that seeks the release of a woman convicted of attacking US troops ramped up late last year, weeks before a gunman attacked a Texas synagogue in an apparent bid to obtain her freedom, according to a new report.

Malik Faisal Akram took four hostages last month at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui. His hostages escaped after an hours-long siege. Law enforcement officers then stormed the building, ultimately killing Akram.

Siddiqui is a Pakistani national educated in the US who is currently jailed for 86 years in a federal prison in Texas for attempting to kill US military personnel in Afghanistan. She was also found to be in possession of notes that referred to a “mass casualty attack” and listed various locations in the US, according to the Justice Department, with the FBI stating that she was an operative for al-Qaeda.

Some organizations, including the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have claimed that Siddiqui is innocent and are heavily involved in a campaign for her release.

A report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), in partnership with the Rutgers University Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience, found that demands for Siddiqui’s release were relatively quiet until late August 2021, when the subject began attracting thousands of tweets daily.

The social media spike was mainly driven by Twitter accounts based in Pakistan, some of which may have been bots, according to the report, which was released by the Combat Antisemitism Movement. In September, CAIR’s Texas branch got involved after Siddiqui was allegedly assaulted in prison, with in-person and virtual events and the launch of a #FreeAafia hashtag on Twitter. At a rally hosted by the organization that month near the prison where Siddiqui is incarcerated, one speaker denounced US courts helmed by “Zionist judges.”
Hate crimes against Jews, Asians, LGBTQ, disabled underreported by media - report
Hate crimes against Jewish, Asian, LGBTQ+ and disabled Americans are underreported by Western media when compared to the reporting on attacks against other minorities, according to a new report by media watchdog HonestReporting.

“Jews are victims of more hate crimes per capita than all other groups in the United States yet HonestReporting's research shows that anti-Jewish hate crimes receive disproportionately little news coverage compared to other groups, and by a disturbingly large margin," HonestReporting CEO Daniel Pomerantz told The Jerusalem Post. "Hate crimes against Asian Americans, Americans with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community are similarly underreported in the media.”

HonestReporting reviewed 18 popular and mainstream Western media outlets and crossreferenced their coverage of hate crimes in the United States from 2018-2020 with the FBI's hate crime data from the same years. The amount of news coverage to attacks each year was averaged.

The minority group with the most coverage was Muslim Americans, with 6.32 articles per attack. Attacks on black Americans were underreported in previous years with less than 3 articles per attack in 2018, but have more than doubled since then, with 6.4 articles per hate crime in 2020. Anti-Latino attacks averaged around three articles per attack in the last three years. Antisemitism received just under 2 articles per attack, anti-Asian attacks yielded about 1.2 articles, LGBTQ people about 0.67 articles, and disabled Americans about 0.63 articles.

HonestReporting attributed the change in reportage of anti-black hate crimes to the reaction to the death of George Floyd in May 2020. Protests and riots against anti-black racism and police brutality followed in the wake of Floyd's death, creating widespread awareness of anti-black hate crimes.
Whoopi Goldberg ideology vs. Israel
A celebrity recently chose to revise and deny history on national TV during a daytime talk show that she hosts, and the outcry was swift and strong. Unlike others who deny that the Holocaust occurred or who shamefully claim that the number of Jews who were murdered is deliberately exaggerated, actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg stated that "race" had nothing to do with the slaughter, internment and persecution of millions upon millions of Jews. It was an outrageous and indecent statement, given that it is well-known and scrupulously documented that Hitler and the Nazis who executed his genocidal plan admitted they did so because they considered the Jewish people an inferior race.

Six million Jews were murdered. Millions more were physically maimed or suffered through a PTSD-plagued existence for the rest of their life – solely because of their race and their DNA.

Denying this, twisting the motive, downplaying what transpired, and trivializing the death and destruction by equating it with modern-day inconveniences and mandates are all repugnant and deserve reprimand by society.

Revisionism and support for revisionists trigger tension among Jews about the past that bleeds into the present and causes a foreboding about the future.

When celebrities, pundits, academics, politicians, diplomats, world leaders and others deny or attempt to revise other well-documented aspects of Jewish history, however, there is barely any outcry from most Jews, and the offender is neither shunned nor opprobrium.

The what's, how's, and why's regarding the Jews of the Middle East for more than 30 centuries are as well-documented and verifiable as the what's, how's, and why's regarding the Jews of Europe during the 20th century. In religious works, in the annals of the victors and the defeated, in details depicted by cartographers, in the discoveries of archaeologists – it is established fact that Jews lived in and for a long time ruled over the land today known as Israel. All of this occurred more than a thousand years before the advent of Islam and the migration north by the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula.

It is the Jewish people who are the surviving indigenous people of that land – no one else.
Concordia Student Newspaper Endorses Anti-Israel Amnesty International Report
When The Link claims that antisemitism is being used as a smokescreen to shield Israel from legitimate criticism, it is not only neglecting to mention any real criticism of the Amnesty International report itself, but also a minimization of the true impact of Jew-hatred in Canada and beyond. Furthermore, it must be noted that it was only a couple days ago that Amnesty International itself held a press conference in Israel to table this report accusing the Jewish state of “apartheid”. That doesn’t sound like a country that’s tries to be immune to criticism and to silence dissent.

Israel is not, contra Amnesty International, an “apartheid” state. Arabs and Jews alike enjoy all the rights of living in a liberal democracy, including the freedom to choose where to live, how to live, what careers to pursue, the ability to intermarry, to vote, and to hold public office.

Israel has no presence in the Gaza Strip, not since 2005, when it evacuated all Israelis (soldiers and settlers) from the entire enclave.

In Judea & Samaria, often called the “West Bank”, the vast majority of Palestinians live under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and not Israel. Furthermore, the only reason there is today not a fully independent Palestinian state is due to the repeated rejections on the part of the Palestinian leadership to Israeli peace offers, most notably at Camp David in 2000, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians all of Gaza, virtually all of Judea & Samaria, and half of Jerusalem.

Had that offer – and others like it – been accepted, the Palestinians today would have their own sovereign state within safe and secure borders.

The Link editorial mentions none of this, and instead gives a simplistic endorsement of Amnesty International’s report, and calls upon the Concordia Student Union to vote for a thinly-veiled anti-Israel motion at their upcoming council meeting which calls for a divestment from Israel in its entirety.

While troubling, this call to action is not especially surprising. The Amnesty International report was filled with misinformation, half-truths and missing context, and did nothing to further truth or the cause of peace. So too, the editorial in The Link extolling the report’s virtues, and calling for the CSU vote, does likewise: disregarding facts and accuracy in favour of disinformation, and only causing harm to any prospects of peace and coexistence among Arabs and Jews.
Dutch universities order staff to reveal their ties to Jewish and Israeli groups
At the behest of a pro-Palestinian organization whose critics say is antisemitic, administrators at more than a dozen Dutch universities are instructing their staff to list their interactions with Israeli and Jewish organizations.

The order followed a request sent last month by The Rights Forum, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, to the offices of multiple universities. The universities are gathering the information because the group’s request was certified as what is known in the Netherlands as a WOB request, meaning a query certified by the country’s prosecution service under a 1991 freedom of information law and binding on public or state-funded organizations.

It is unclear whether the universities will complete the full request by passing on the information to The Rights Forum.

In the request, Gerard Jonkman, director of The Rights Forum, wrote that under the WOB request, he is seeking documents or information on “Institutional ties with Israel universities, institutions and businesses and with organizations that propagate support for the State of Israel.”

Among the dozens of entities Jonkman listed are Elbit, the Israeli weapons and defense systems producer, Christians for Israel, and a right-wing, pro-Israel Dutch-Jewish association.

But the list also includes mainstream Jewish entities from the Netherlands and beyond that do not define themselves as Israeli or solely focused on Israel.

Those groups include the Anti-Defamation League, the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, B’nai B’rith and even the office of the Dutch government’s own National Coordinator for Fighting Antisemitism, which is headed by Edo Verdonner, who is Jewish.
Ex-Labour leader Corbyn to join webinar affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood
Former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is scheduled to participate in a webinar that will feature extremist figures affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Feb. 12 webinar—titled “2022, The Year to Combat Normalization: We Will Resist the Entity and Protect the Homeland”—is being organized by the Anti-Zionism Coordination (AZC) group, also known as Anti-Zionism and Normalization

The AZC is an umbrella organization composed of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations around the Arab world, from Jordan and Morocco to Sudan and Algeria. Several members of its “Supreme Committee” are also members of the Muslim Brotherhood branches in their respective countries, including Mahmoud Musa from Lebanon, Moath Khawaldeh of Jordan, Naser Al-Fadalah of Bahrain and Hamoud Kebour of Algeria.

Corbyn led the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, as well as the opposition, from 2015 to 2020. During his tenure, he was accused of anti-Semitism by members of his own party and by British Jewry leadership.

The Muslim Brotherhood is deemed a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Palestinian terror group Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Spanish High Court condemns the boycott against Israel in Cordoba
The Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia has rejected the appeal against the sentence that annuls the boycott against Israel.

The ruling of the Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia completely rejects the appeal presented by the Provincial Council of Cordoba against the sentence that declared illegal the adherence of institution, with the votes of PSOE and IU, to the BDS campaign (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) against Israel. The Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia also sentences the City Hall to pay the costs of the legal process.

ACOM sees reaffirmed its legal initiative against the BDS discriminatory movement that intends to use the Spanish public institutions to discriminate against the Jewish people and all who relate with it.

This is the tenth decision emitted by a Spanish Higher Court of Justice confirming prior sentences against BDS following the legal initiative of ACOM.


Unilever expects new Ben & Jerry's 'arrangement' for Israel by year-end
Investors are watching the ice cream controversy as a test of Jope's ability to balance his emphasis on marketing tied to social issues with financial results.

Speaking before Jope's remarks, Kevin Dreyer, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, whose parent GAMCO owns about 225,000 Unilever shares, said that while many Unilever consumers like its green-labeled products, some political activism by Unilever's brands could alienate some consumers.

Jope has previously said Ben & Jerry's board acted independently and that Unilever does not support efforts to isolate Israeli, where it employs nearly 2,000 people. Ben & Jerry's had said it would continue to sell ice cream in Israel "through a different arrangement."

Ben & Jerry's accounts for about 3% of the world's ice cream market. The brand's sales grew 9% last year, Unilever said, outpacing overall underlying sales growth of 4.5%. The company did not give further details on sales.

"I definitely would not make a connection between those (Ben & Jerry's) statements and its sales growth," Jope said on the call.

"The growth that we're seeing on Ben & Jerry's is driven much more by their innovation program," Jope added.
Ben & Jerry's woke posturing on Israel 'melts parent company profits’ claim campaigners
Political posturing by Ben & Jerry’s has badly damaged its British parent company’s finances, campaigners have claimed in a call for an end to costly corporate “virtue signalling”.

UK-based multinational Unilever has lost £15bn in stock market value since July 2021 - when its US ice cream brand took a radical public stance on Israel.

Critics say the loss is at least in part the result of the political fallout.

The FTSE index rose by 17 per cent over the same period.

The company’s decision to stop doing business in east Jerusalem and the West Bank last July was branded a “disgraceful capitulation” to antisemitism by Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid.

In recent weeks, Ben & Jerry’s have once again incurred criticism by objecting to military support for Ukraine against Russia.

This morning protestors from the group Campaign For Common Sense (CCS) gathered outside Unilever’s headquarters in London on Thursday morning, as the company released its full year and Q4 results.

An advertising van pulled up outside the building with a poster bearing the warning: “Ice cream and politics don’t mix", amid concerns by some shareholders that Ben & Jerry’s political posturing could impact on the brand’s commercial success.


Amazon Australia Removes Nazi Propaganda Films, Follows US Company’s Lead
Amazon’s branch in Australia has pulled from its platform more than 20 Nazi propaganda films, a leading Australian civil rights organization revealed Friday.

The move comes after Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), spoke with senior management of Amazon Australia about removing the films from its website. The company also confirmed that the movies are no longer airing on its local Prime Amazon service, ADC said.

In January, the US-based Amazon removed 23 out of 30 Nazi propaganda films that were either available for purchase on its website or streaming on its Amazon Prime video service, following criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Americans Against Anti-Semitism.

Abramovich applauded Amazon Australia for “doing what is right and acting with immediate urgency to banish this filth” in a released statement, but also said that “these evil and blood-stained productions” should have never been up for sale to begin with.

“This proper action is a mighty victory for decency and corporate responsibility, and we thank senior management for addressing our concerns,” he noted. “As we pointed out to Amazon Australia, part of the world’s largest retailer, it should not serve as a hub for abhorrent, hateful films that promote antisemitism and the violent, genocidal ideology that led to the Final Solution and the extermination of six million Jews.”
Washington Football Player Apologizes for Saying He’d Like to Dine With ‘Military Genius’ Hitler
Washington Commanders defensive tackle Jonathan Allen apologized for making a “dumb” comment on Twitter in which he said he’d like to have dinner with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, whom he referred to as “a military genius.”

“Early I tweeted something that probably hurt people and I apologize about what I said,” the NFL player, 27, posted on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. “I didn’t express properly what I was trying to say and I realize it was dumb!”

Earlier on Wednesday, the athlete offered to answer questions from his Twitter followers, and one fan asked him which three people, alive or dead, he would invite to dinner. Allen, who is a team captain, replied that he would pick his grandfather, Hitler and Michael Jackson.

When the Twitter follower asked him to elaborate on his choice of Hitler, Allen replied, “He’s a military genius and I love military tactics but honestly I would want to pick his brain as to why he did what he did. I’m also assuming that the people I’ve chosen have to answer all my questions honestly.”

The defensive lineman, who was drafted in 2017, has since deleted his tweets referencing Hitler.

Allen later added that he was not giving Hitler “props” by wanting to have dinner with him, explaining, “I probably should have used a different term but I was asked and I was giving my reason as to why I think it would be interesting to have a convo with him. He’s easily one if not the most evil persons to have ever lived but this was a hypothetical question.”
NY Cops Arrest 15-Year-Old Boy for Assault on Jewish Man in Brooklyn
Police in New York City have arrested a teenage male in connection with an attack on a Jewish man in Brooklyn last Friday night.

The 15-year-old was arrested on Thursday. He is now facing hate crime and assault charges. CCTV from the scene of the attack allegedly showed him punching a 24-year-old Orthodox Jewish man wearing traditional Hasidic clothing.

The attack occurred at around 10:30pm on Stockton Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Medics attended the scene in the aftermath to treat the victim for injuries to his face.

The assault on the Jewish man was one of at least three antisemitic incidents in Brooklyn last weekend. Minutes before the attack on the 24-year-old Jewish man, another assault was reported on nearby Myrtle Street — in this case, the victim was a 44-year-old Jewish man. Police are attempting to establish whether the same teen was also responsible for that attack.

And on Sunday morning, multiple yeshiva school buses parked in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn were discovered to have been vandalized with swastika graffiti.
Prominent Grenfell Tower volunteer aid worker Tahra Ahmed sentenced to 11 months in prison for stirring up racial hatred after being reported to police by CAA
Tahra Ahmed, a prominent Grenfell Tower volunteer aid worker who was reported to the police by Campaign Against Antisemitism has been sentenced to 11 months in prison after being found guilty of publishing written material in order to stir up racial hatred.

Ms Ahmed, 51, was exposed in The Times as having claimed that the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were “burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice.” After the tragic fire that left 71 dead, Ms Ahmed said that she had been coordinating the work of volunteers, coaching them and running workshops with the aim of empowering them. She reportedly discussed her beliefs with some of the people she has helped.

Ms Ahmed, who described herself during her testimony as “very very bright”, was found guilty of two counts of incitement to racial hatred, following the trial instigated after Campaign Against Antisemitism, CST and others reported the matter to the police.

Sentencing Ms Ahmed today, His Honour Judge Mark Dennis QC said that “stirring up racial hatred is an abhorrent act”. Noting that she had received a good education, he said: “I have no doubt you knew full well what you were doing and it’s likely affect,” adding that he had “no reason to conclude you have any remorse.”

He also read from character statements from Ms Ahmed’s family, noting that it was “unfortunate” that one of them had claimed: “There seems to be a special rule for the Jewish people…one rule for them, another rule for us. Is that fair?” A defence plea for Ms Ahmed to receive a light sentence on account of her care duties for her 74-year old diabetic mother was brushed aside as the judge observed that Ms Ahmed is not her mother’s primary carer and in fact visits about once or twice a week.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “For years we have pursued justice against Tahra Ahmed and today we are vindicated by this strong sentence, which sends a very clear message to those who seek to stir up anti-Jewish racism through conspiracy theories.
Indonesia Muslim groups demand closure of country’s first-ever Holocaust exhibition
Some Muslim groups in Indonesia are demanding the closure of the country’s first permanent Holocaust exhibition, charging that it is part of an effort to normalize Indonesia’s relations with Israel.

The exhibit launched timed to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 and is located at Indonesia’s only synagogue, Shaar HaShamayim, located in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province. “Shoah: How is it Humanly Possible?” was created by the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, which is based in Israel.

Yaakov Baruch, Shaar HaShamayim’s rabbi, said his motivation to open the exhibition was personal.

“When I had this idea to build a Holocaust museum, the reason was to remember my family who died in the Holocaust on my grandmother’s side,” Baruch said. “And I also want to educate Indonesians on the danger of antisemitism, especially the danger of hate crimes.”

But groups protesting the exhibition say they see it as part of Israel’s attempts to normalize relations with Indonesia and the occupation of Palestinian-sought territories, according to BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

“We demand any exhibition be stopped and the museum be canceled [and] discontinued,” said Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim, the head of foreign relations and international cooperation of the country’s Indonesian Ulema Council, a top Islamic clerical body known as MUI.


After 71 years, Belgian museum gives back Nazi-looted painting to Jewish family
After 71 years, a leading art museum in Belgium has returned a painting to the great-grandchildren of a Jewish couple whose property was looted by the Nazis after they fled on the eve of World War II.

The family’s attorneys had approached the Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts (Royal Museums of Fine Arts) more than five years ago, and after a briefing signing ceremony on Thursday, workers took down the painting, Reuters reported Thursday. None of the nine great-grandchildren, who live outside Belgium, were present at the ceremony.

“Altogether the family is looking for 30 artworks,” the family’s lawyer Imke Gielen was quoted saying by the news agency. “This is the first that has been really identified because unfortunately we have no images of the missing paintings.”

The work of pink flowers in a blue vase painted by German artist Lovis Corinth in 1913, belonged to Gustav and Emma Mayer, who fled their Frankfurt home in 1938 to Brussels before continuing on to Britain in August 1939, according to the report.

At the time, they were unable to take belongings, including the 30 paintings that were plundered by the Nazis.

After the war, Belgian authorities failed to establish who “Flowers” belonged to and in 1951 entrusted it to the museum, where it has hung since.

Museum chief Michel Draguet told Reuters it had been difficult to find the original owners of the artwork, since the family was not living in Belgium. In 2008, the museum appealed to the public on its website for information on the painting.
Latvian Parliament Approves $46 Million to Jewish Community in Compensation for Ravages of Nazi Holocaust
Latvia’s parliament on Thursday passed legislation to compensate the Baltic state’s Jewish community for the ravages of the Nazi Holocaust.

The new law authorizes 40 million euros (approximately $46 million) to be spent over a period of ten years on Jewish community institutions. Almost 100,000 Jews lived in Latvia prior to Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Latvia’s Jewish community was decimated by the Nazis, with only a few hundred Jews remaining in the country when the Red Army drove out the Nazi occupiers in 1944.

The law stated that the modern state of Latvia was not responsible for either the Holocaust or the actions of the Soviet regime following the war, when Latvia was incorporated into the USSR as a constituent republic. The funding provided in the legislation was “Latvia’s goodwill compensation” for unrecovered Jewish properties, a press release announcing the law’s passage stated.

“The purpose of the law is to restore justice and provide support for the Latvian Jewish community by compensating in good faith the cadastral value of property not recovered by the community, in order to eliminate the historical consequences of the Holocaust by the Nazi totalitarian regime and the Soviet totalitarian regime’s actions,” it stated.

Jewish groups warmly welcomed the Latvian announcement.

“The legislation adopted today is a meaningful acknowledgement of the unique tragedy that befell Latvian Jewry, and a powerful statement of Latvia’s abiding goodwill to its Jewish Community and to Latvian Holocaust survivors,” said Gideon Taylor, Chair of Operations at the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). The WJRO added that it would now “urge other countries who have not yet done so to follow Latvia’s lead in upholding commitments made under the 2009 Terezin Declaration.”

The non-binding Terezin Declaration was agreed







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