Friday, February 18, 2022
Danny Danon: Amnesty International should be ashamed
To apply the term "apartheid" to Israel in 2022, or ever, is literally to distort reality to fit a false narrative and stigmatize the Jewish state for a crime that it is not committing and has never committed throughout its history. One doesn't even need to rely on third-party sources to discover this. All those who wish to come to Israel and see the reality for themselves can do so.America’s future depends on our relationship with Israel
Or perhaps they could listen to the truth from Bassam Eid, who said in response to the Amnesty International report: "As a Palestinian peace activist and founder of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, I am here to set the record straight. The international community is yet again lying about Israel. While it is not a perfect country, Israel is definitely not an apartheid state."
At the same time as Amnesty International falsely accuses Israel of crimes of which it is innocent, its report also entirely fails to mention that the situation of the residents of Gaza is entirely different from that of Israel's Arab citizens because the Gazan population is living under terrorist rule. The same applies to the Arabs who live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.
The situations of both are dire – due to their own leadership, not because of Israel. It is their leaders who subject them to poverty, unemployment and a lack of education. It is their leaders who flood their education systems with hate and incitement.
It is their leaders who disgracefully pay and glorify murderers when they mutilate, bomb and assassinate innocent Israeli citizens. It is their own leaders who keep them in a state of victimhood. I suggest that Amnesty International turn its attention to these crimes perpetrated by Hamas and the P.A.
Amnesty International, an organization that claims to campaign "for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all," has drafted a report that is nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to generate headlines through highly charged, erroneous language.
The only thing this report does is stir up hate and antisemitism and attempt to encourage the isolation of the innocent party, Israel. It does nothing to further progress or dialogue in the region.
By blaming Israel for crimes of which it is innocent, Amnesty International should be held responsible for enabling the real crimes to continue. The so-called "human rights" organization should thus be ashamed of itself.
We’re not the only nation in Western civilization to have politicians making poor choices regarding Israel and her descendants. We have watched in recent years as there has been a dramatic rise in antisemitism in Britain, including within the Labour Party which has been the traditional home for Jewish voters, and all of this on a continent that should mind some extra caution given its history with antisemitism.Abraham Sion Faithfully Examines the Promises of the Promised Land
We all know where intolerance can lead if left unchecked, and that oppression and opposition to Jews is nothing new.
That being said, whether or not our politicians, professors and pundits leave Israel alone, I’ve got a feeling that Israel is going to be just fine.
After originally reaching their promised homeland, the people of the young nation were continually attacked by hostile tribes and other nations. In 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered northern Israel and deported its people. In 586 BC, Babylon conquered southern Israel and exiled its citizens. The Jews returned to their homeland 70 years later, but the Romans finally crushed them in AD 70, leaving them without a country for 1,878 years.
Even in the countries of their exile, the Jews were oppressed, denied rights, isolated in ghettos and persecuted. In 1933, there were nine million Jews living throughout Europe, but by 1945, two out of three European Jews had been gassed, beaten, starved to death or died of disease in Nazi concentration camps. The Holocaust led to the elimination of one-third of the world’s Jewish population.
Since 1948 and the establishment of the modern state of Israel, despite being hemmed in on all sides by hostile nations, and against all odds or human logic, Israel has survived all-out war and constant threats of domestic terrorism. The nation has been forced to maintain a continual state of warfare throughout its sixty-eight years of existence. Yet increasingly, the international press portrays Israel as an aggressor nation, an occupying force, a brutal regime afflicting poor and disenfranchised Palestinians who have had their land stolen out from under them.
Indeed many among the Palestinians genuinely want a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. But a Palestinian nationalism continues to thrive with its singular fixation: the death of Israel. The Palestinian leaders pay stipends to terrorists and their families who kill Israelis, financed in part by the Israel-hating regime of Iran.
It is almost a cliché to note that today too many historians and laypeople erroneously look at history through modern lenses that distort the picture and prevent an honest understanding of historical events.
But many others still want to read about history through the lens of as it was, not as today’s talking heads would have it. For those folks, Abraham Sion’s “To Whom Was The Promised Land Promised?” is a breath of fresh air.
Sion’s book is over 400 pages of thorough but eminently readable legal and historical analysis of the key moments and documents that led to the creation of a Jewish State in the land in which it was reestablished.
From the late 19th-century origins of modern Zionism to the British White Papers of the 1930s, the book provides a wealth of fascinating details on the legal and political understandings of the times that underpinned documents from the Balfour Declaration to the Hussein-McMahon letters.
The importance of these details to today’s debates is correctly identified by Sion, who notes in the context of the constant attacks on Israel’s legitimacy by institutions like the United Nations:
“Only by ignoring or overlooking these original treaties and resolutions could the international community arrive at the decisions adopted incessantly by the United Nations and other international organizations. These fundamental truths are ignored by the international community, and they are treated as if they never existed.”
“To Whom Was The Promised Land Promised” is at its best when it is examining the terminology found in agreements and declarations. Sion not only provides contemporary documentary sources to clarify the original meanings, but he also includes the words of key personalities of the times. The views of important figures – such as Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, Emir Feisal, Woodrow Wilson, and many others – are illustrated throughout in relation to the conferences, correspondences, and agreements in which they partook.
The book contains fascinating and thorough examinations of the debates and negotiations inside the British Cabinet, the San Remo Conference, the drafting of the Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne, the De Bunsen Committee, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Importantly, it does not treat these conversations and events as isolated from each other or unrelated, but rather as inter-connected and reinforcing.
Yes, we're exasperated
First, as we wrote in a tweet earlier today, thanks to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the bomber, one of only 25 individuals named as FBI Most Wanted terrorists, remains free today - and continues to actively encourage more terror.
Who allowed this to happen? Who, if anyone (apart from the families of the Jordanian woman's victims) is outraged by it?
As parents of one of the bomber's many child victims, we're exasperated by the passivity - sometimes calculating, often ignorant - of a long list of officials, politicians and media figures - CNN's Fareed Zakaria is among the most puzzling of them, though far from the only one. Not one of his exclusive interviews with Jordan's king has touched on the kingdom's harboring of the world's most wanted female terrorist. That, and the kid-gloves treatment Jordan gets, has caused justice to be thwarted for far too long.
We're now serving notice, as we wrote in our Twitter account today, on those we have tried over and again to engage in this pursuit of justice.
Our message: If you aren't demanding publicly now that Jordan extradite the blood-drenched @Sbarro bomber to Washington, you're standing with her. And standing with the woman who says she has never regretted what she did at the Sbarro pizzeria is disgraceful.
I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were [in the 2001 attack on the Sbarro pizzeria]. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That's out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner.
And for those out there who don't run community organizations or departments of major governments or edit great metropolitan newspapers or their Internet-era equivalents, what you can do - and we seriously hope you will no matter what country's citizenship you hold - is sign our petition. Please - we seriously need all the help we can get.
Dem Heavyweights Back BLM Bail Fund That Freed Would-Be Assassin
The bail fund that freed a Louisville, Ky., Black Lives Matter activist charged with trying to murder a Jewish mayoral candidate is backed by Democratic fundraising juggernaut ActBlue, a progressive political group affiliated with the "Squad," and a liberal nonprofit funded by George Soros.Louisville Jewish politician ‘traumatized again’ by the release of his assailant
The Louisville Community Bail Fund, an affiliate of the city's Black Lives Matter chapter, posted $100,000 bail on Wednesday to spring Quintez Brown from jail following his arrest on charges of trying to assassinate Jewish Democratic mayoral hopeful Craig Greenberg. The group's ability to quickly procure such a hefty sum comes thanks to its support from prominent Democratic organizations.
The bail fund, for example, has an active page on ActBlue, the political fundraising platform used universally by Democratic candidates across the country. Justice Democrats—a far-left PAC that supports Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.)—also actively fundraises for the bail group on the platform. Contributions sent to the Louisville Community Bail Fund through ActBlue are routed through the Tides Center, a liberal dark money behemoth that has received millions of dollars from Soros. Tides gave nearly $740,000 to the bail fund in 2020, tax filings show.
The Louisville Community Bail Fund's presence on the Democratic Party's leading fundraising platform undercuts party leaders' repeated denials of being soft on crime. The Democratic National Committee used ActBlue to rake in nearly $500 million in 2020, the same year Vice President Kamala Harris used the platform to promote a similar bail fund that freed an alleged domestic abuser weeks before he was arrested again for murder.
ActBlue, Justice Democrats, and the Tides Center did not return requests for comment.
On Monday, police charged Brown with attempted murder and four counts of wanton endangerment after he allegedly entered Greenberg's campaign office, pulled a gun, and began shooting. A prominent Louisville activist, Brown accused police of working to "maintain the status quo of the spectacular Black death" in a 2021 Louisville Courier Journal column. Greenberg, meanwhile, is an unabashed supporter of police—his campaign is centered on a plan to root out violent crime by hiring more law enforcement officers.
The Jewish mayoral candidate in Louisville, Kentucky, who was the target of a shooting Monday said the release of the alleged gunman has left him and his family “traumatized again.”
“Our criminal justice system is clearly broken. It is nearly impossible to believe that someone can attempt murder on Monday and walk out of jail on Wednesday,” Greenberg, a Democrat, said in a statement today to local news outlets.
Meanwhile, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents Kentucky, is citing the incident as evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement is dangerous.
The suspect, 21-year-old Quintez Brown, had been an organizer with Black Lives Matter Louisville and an independent candidate for the city’s municipal council. The Louisville Community Bail Fund, an arm of the local Black Lives Matter chapter, paid the bail that secured his release, local outlets reported.
“This far-left Black Lives Matter activist and defund-the-police cheerleader walked into a Jewish Democrat’s campaign headquarters and opened fire,” McConnell told Fox News. “Less than 48 hours after this activist tried to literally murder a politician, the radical left bailed their comrade out of jail.” (McConnell’s tweet on the issue omitted the words “Jewish Democrat.”)
Statement from mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg after the man accused of shooting at him was released from jail —> pic.twitter.com/HBKyI4T7q7
— Fallon Glick (@FallonGlick) February 17, 2022
Just days before allegedly trying to shoot dead Louisville mayoral candidate @RunWithCraig, who is Jewish, #BLM activist Quintez Brown was recruiting for an armed black nationalist group, the Lion of Judah Armed Forces. They're linked to the antisemitic Black Hebrew Israelites. pic.twitter.com/Kx2NS7TNBH
— Andy Ngô ?????? (@MrAndyNgo) February 17, 2022
.@DrRickyLJones, who authored a @courierjournal article defending the greatness of the Louisville attempted murder suspect, should perhaps examine his own role in radicalizing his student. Brown was introduced to ideas of black nationalism & revolutionary socialism at @uofl. pic.twitter.com/wFQR69FgpK
— Andy Ngô ?????? (@MrAndyNgo) February 17, 2022
To you he’s a golden boy.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 17, 2022
To Jews he’s a dangerous, bigoted propagandist who mimicked tropes of Jewish power and control.
Thankfully he failed in his mission to murder a Jewish man. https://t.co/o1Nq9tva7R pic.twitter.com/PiFRiZkk2I
The Media Hangs on AOC’s Every Word — Except When it Comes to Israel
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is a media phenomenon. She has 12.8 million Twitter followers, 1.8 million friends on Facebook, and 8.5 million followers on Instagram. Even though AOC is a relative newcomer to politics, her election to a second term in the House of Representatives was reported on around the world (see, for example, here and here). She has also appeared on the cover of numerous publications, including TIME Magazine and Vanity Fair.Congregants Appeal to Supreme Court Over Protests at Michigan Synagogue
And Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, has harnessed this notoriety into political power. Case in point: she raised more money for her reelection campaign than any other House Democrat — including Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Yet for all the media’s focus on Ocasio-Cortez, they are looking the other way when it comes to the Congresswoman’s disconcerting views on Israel.
Several recent incidents, almost exclusively covered by Jewish news websites, have raised the question of whether Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a severe issue with Israel.
For example, Jewish Insider on February 14 reported that AOC described Marc Lamont Hill’s firing from CNN in 2018 — after he called for a “free Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” in front of the United Nations — as an example of “cancel culture”:
Marc Lamont Hill was fired [from CNN] for discussing an issue with respect to Palestinians, pretty summarily. There was no discussion about it, no engagement, no thoughtful discourse over it, just pure accusation.
For the record, during his speech, Hill stated:
We have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires and that is a free Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.
In effect, Hill called for the dismantling of Israel, and his words echoed the founding charter of the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization, which is committed to the Jewish state’s destruction.
A Jewish man from Ann Arbor, Mich., is hoping that the US Supreme Court will consider whether anti-Jewish protesters outside a local synagogue on Shabbat morning violate his right to freely practice religion.Expelled ‘Jew process’ cllr pushing BDS motion for Merseyside pension funds
“I think Jews have to stand up for themselves against people who are obviously Jew-haters,” said Marvin Gerber. “People of Beth Israel have the right to be free from harassment.”
The case stems from weekly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish protests led by Henry Herskovitz in front of Beth Israel Congregation. Every Saturday morning for 18 years, the protesters have gathered outside the synagogue as congregants arrived for services and carry signs such as “Israel: No right to exist,” “Jewish power corrupts” and “Israel attacked America 9/11/2001.”
In April 2020, Gerber of Beth Israel and Miriam Brysk, a Holocaust survivor whose congregation meets in the annex attached to the synagogue, filed a lawsuit against the protesters and the city of Ann Arbor. In August of that year, US District Court Judge Victoria Roberts dismissed their case, claiming Gerber and Brysk did not have standing. It then went to the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which this past September overturned Roberts’ decision on standing, but dismissed the case by ruling that the protesters’ right to free speech overrode all other considerations.
According to one of Gerber’s attorney, Ziporah Reich with the Lawfare Project, “the lawsuit was in no way an attempt to shut down the protesters’ speech. The plaintiffs were well aware that the First Amendment protects all kinds of speech, including hate speech. However, as with all rights, freedom of speech is not absolute.
“In this case, the protesters were using their speech rights to infringe upon the congregants’ right to practice religion free from intimidation and harassment,” she said. “The congregants were simply asking the court to balance the conflicting rights by imposing reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the protesters’ conduct.”
A councillor expelled by Labour over her support for a proscribed group, is behind a pro Boycott Divestment and Sanction motion targeting nine Israeli companies.
Jo Bird, a councillor in Wirral, Merseyside, was kicked out from Labour last November over her involvement with the Labour Against The Witch-Hunt group – an organisation that denied and downplayed antisemitism allegations.
She had been previously been suspended by the party over speeches in which she joked about “Jew process” and claimed anti-Jewish racism was given preference over other forms of discrimination.
But Bird, now an independent in the Bromborough ward, has led demands for Wirral’s Pension Committee to pass a motion that would make the linked regional Merseyside Pension Fund call into question its continued investment in the nine companies, accused of supporting settlements in the West Bank.
Luke Akehurst, director of We Believe In Israel, told Jewish News:”It is disappointing that a councillor expelled from the Labour Party, Jo Bird, appears to be calling the shots on whether a major local authority pension fund continues to invest in companies connected to Israel.
“Given that the Conservative and Labour Parties nationally are opposed to BDS, we call on councillors of all parties on the Pensions Committee concerned to oppose this step towards divestment.
“This looks like an attempt to push a local government BDS move under the wire at the last minute given that government has expressed intention to legislate to ban BDS by councils.”
In evidence supporting her move, Bird, who was on the Pensions Committee when she was still representing Labour, has submitted a letter written to her by Amnesty International’s Peter Frankental, the human rights organisation’s Programme Director of Economic Affairs.
Breaking: the University of Toronto Student Union passed a BDS resolution limiting Jewish students’ access to resources and Jewish life on campus. @UofT has a pattern of letting Jewish students down, and it is more important than ever that the administration break that cycle.
— Jewish on Campus (@JewishonCampus_) February 17, 2022
Jewish Groups, Students Denounce University of Toronto Student Union’s Israel Boycott Vote
Jewish groups and students on Thursday denounced the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) for endorsing a motion linked to the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
The measure passed on Wednesday by a vote of 299 in favor and 243 against during a special general meeting held by UTSU, which governs more than 38,000 students.
It instructs the union to “wholly divest funds & further forbid investment to firms complicit in the occupation of Palestinian Territory.”
Evan Kanter, a student leader at Hillel UofT, said he was “disappointed” by the outcome of the vote.
“Once again, the UTSU has decided to stoke the flames of antisemitism, rather than working to improve the student experience,” he said. “It saddens me that prospective students considering UofT will have to wonder, ‘Am I welcome here as a Jew? Will I have a student union who cares to represent me, though I’m Jewish?'”
“Dozens and dozens of Jewish students attended the meeting today to voice opposition against this antisemitic motion,” Kanter continued. “Today’s events highlight the inadequacy of the University’s choice not to adopt the [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] IHRA definition of antisemitism. It’s hard to fight antisemitism if we have to keep convincing people how it’s defined.”
Hillel Ontario, which serves the UofT campus, had been working to defeat the motion for the past week, Chief Communications & Public Affairs Officer Jay Solomon told The Algemeiner.
The less likely possibility is that you‘re dumb enough to believe protesting hummus will stop a genocide.
— Claire (@Claire_V0ltaire) February 18, 2022
The far more likely option is that you know there’s no genocide, but get off on terrorizing Diaspora Jews, & want an excuse to call yourself the good guy while you do it.
Curry College offers reward for information in investigation of racist, antisemitic graffiti
Just witnessed a presentation in class that claimed:
— Jack Elbaum (@Jack_Elbaum) February 16, 2022
1) The Six-Day War was a major motivator of the Balfour Declaration
2) Arabs cannot vote in Israel
3) Many Arabs left the land in the 1930s in order to be nice and give Jews a "right of return."
Sir Keir Starmer shows pragmatism over principle in revealing interview with Channel 4 News
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This interview is revealing. Once again, Sir Keir Starmer has not apologised for standing by Jeremy Corbyn through the years of Labour’s antisemitism crisis, and he has declined to show leadership by actively deselecting the former leader, relying instead on Mr Corbyn being automatically replaced by virtue of his ongoing suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Even with regard to the future of that suspension, Sir Keir avoided taking responsibility, asserting that it was not a matter for him but for the Chief Whip. The only bright spot was that he could not foresee Mr Corbyn having the endorsement of the Labour Party in the next General Election.Media Manipulation: How Fringe Jewish Group Neturei Karta is Used to Attack Israel
“This is illustrative of how Sir Keir is addressing antisemitism in the Labour Party: passively letting things happen in the hope that the antisemites will go away without showing real leadership by calling it out racism against Jews for what it is and actively expelling it. This is about pushing the problem away rather than seeking justice; it is pragmatism over principle.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has lodged a complaint against Jeremy Corbyn, holding him responsible for conduct that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Labour Party, as the Leader during the period of the EHRC’s shameful findings. Given the serious detriment that this conduct has caused, we are seeking Mr Corbyn’s immediate resuspension and, if the complaint is upheld, we will be requesting his expulsion. On the day of the publication of the EHRC’s report, we also submitted a major complaint against Mr Corbyn and other sitting MPs. These complaints are yet to be acknowledged by the Party, and they must be investigated by an independent disciplinary process that the EHRC has demanded and Sir Keir has promised but has yet to introduce.
The Labour Party was found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to have engaged in unlawful discrimination and harassment of Jews. The report followed the EHRC’s investigation of the Labour Party in which Campaign Against Antisemitism was the complainant, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence and legal argument. Sir Keir Starmer called the publication of the report a “day of shame” for the Labour Party.
Neturei Karta Today: 0.03 percent of the Worldwide Jewish PopulationDid German State-Owned Broadcaster Ignore Antisemitism Among Palestinian Journalists Who Denied Holocaust, Called Jews ‘Poison’ and Israel a ‘Cancer’?
Today, the Neturei Karta reside mostly in the Israeli neighborhoods of Batei Ungarin and Meah Shearim. They also have a presence in London and New York, where they continue to publicly express their opposition to Israel.
For example, Jews on January 2 held a rally in Brooklyn after two 21-year-olds wearing IDF shirts were harassed and called “dirty Jews.” A counter-rally was held across the street, organized by Neturei Karta along with the pro-Palestinian group Al-Awda. Neturei Karta posted a Youtube video of the event. In the accompanying description, Neturei Karta claimed that the pro-Israel protest effectively “defend[ed] a boy who engaged in provocation in a Palestinian neighborhood in New York.”
On July 31, 2021, an ‘Honor the Martyrs of Palestine Memorial and Rally’ was held in Brooklyn. Despite the fact that the event was scheduled on the Sabbath when driving is prohibited in traditional Judaism, Neturei Karta members journeyed an hour and a half in order to attend. They thereafter posted another Youtube video and accused Israel of “murder[ing] in one week a number of Palestinian civilians including children.”
Neturei Karta currently consists of some 5,000 members — a mere 0.03 percent of the worldwide Jewish population. Yet, the fringe group somehow manages to make it into the news on a regular basis.
German state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) is one of the largest media outlets in the world. Its journalistic output is published in 32 languages and the company claims its content was consumed by a record-breaking 289 million people a week in 2021.
On February 7, DW was thrust into the headlines when it announced it had sacked five journalists, who were all of either Palestinian or Lebanese descent, following an external investigation
A further two staff members – both of them German-Palestinian – were dismissed this week as a result of the same probe.
The independent probe, which was led by German Justice Minister Sabine Leuthauser Schanberger and Arab-Israeli psychologist Ahmad Mansour, centered around a number of social media posts made by the former employees.
One such post, a Facebook comment in July 2014 by then DW Arab service journalist Zahi Alawi, read: “What the terrorist state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians is a repeated Holocaust.”
Alawi’s ex-colleague, senior content television producer Farah Maraqa, reportedly told her social media followers she would consider “join[ing] ISIS if it was to fight for the liberation of Palestine,” and likened Israel to a “cancer”. She also claimed that “Jews have always put poison in history” and expressed a desire to “personally kiss the feet” of Hezbollah terrorists who had murdered three Israeli soldiers.
Incomprehensibly, Maraqa has since suggested that her words were taken out of context in a lengthy defense published as part of a nine-part essay series entitled, “Chronicles of a new ‘Anti-Semitism Scandal’.”
A thread of those who went to bat for flagrant antisemitism in the wake of the Deutsche Welle report:
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) February 17, 2022
1/ A Deutsche Welle investigation found some of its employees had posting antisemitic statements on social media. Those employees are among 7 fired after the investigation.
4/
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) February 17, 2022
* "most of the stories of the Jews are questionable…"
* "if the compass points to Jerusalem and slaughters the usurpers, then I will not hesitate to be a follower of that compass."
18/ Naturally: pic.twitter.com/LO1eY51WQn
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) February 17, 2022
‘Shocking, Not Surprising’: German Interior Ministry Records Steep Rise in Antisemitic Crimes During 2021
Antisemitic outrages in Germany once again rose precipitously in 2021, with a 30 percent increase in attacks targeting Jews, according to data released by the Federal Ministry of the Interior on Friday.Antisemitic Boston arsonist set fires while target of federal probe, FBI admits
The data showed that 3,028 antisemitic crimes were recorded in 2021, with incidents involving violence rising as a proportion of the total. The police registered 63 violent assaults in 2021 — six more than in 2020, with a casualty toll that included four deaths and at least 24 injuries.
The report noted that nearly half of the incidents (1,306) occurred in the second quarter of last year, during the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip that witnessed antisemitic violence accompanying “Free Palestine” demonstrations around the world.
On May 15 alone — marked by Palestinian rejectionists as “Naqba Day” to protest the “catastrophe” of Israel’s founding — 59 antisemitic incidents were reported, alongside the 30 pro-Palestinian demonstrations that were mounted nationwide. In Berlin, protestors shouted “Israel murders children” as they pelted riot police with stones and bottles, while elsewhere in the capital two young Jewish women were assailed as “Zionist whores” when they and a male Jewish friend were accosted by a pro-Palestinian mob.
A series of arson attacks on Jewish institutions in Massachusetts in 2019 was likely perpetrated by a man who once wrote, “We must kill all Jews.”
But while the man was under investigation for domestic terrorism at the time of the attacks and police collected evidence that could tie him to the arsons almost immediately, he was not identified as a suspect until months later. By then, he was in a coma from which he never recovered.
Federal prosecutors revealed these details Wednesday with the announcement of an indictment of the suspected arsonist’s brother, who stands accused of obstructing the investigation by taking evidence of his brother’s antisemitic beliefs to Sweden, where he was living.
Alexander Giannakakis was arrested Wednesday near Stockholm by Swedish law enforcement and faces extradition to the United States. He had worked as a security guard for the US Embassy in Sweden.
The FBI believes that Giannakakis’ brother was the arsonist behind three fires at two Chabad Jewish centers and a fourth case of arson targeting a Jewish-affiliated business in May 2019. The name of the suspected arsonist is not being released because he is dead.
The rabbi of one of the Chabad centers said he is grateful for law enforcement and thanked God for having been unharmed by the arson attack.
ARRESTED - @NYPDHateCrimes announced the attacker who jumped out of a van & assaulted a Jewish Orthodox man last weekend has been detained.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 18, 2022
It is unclear if the driver of the minivan was also arrested. https://t.co/IqNFLlKGer pic.twitter.com/TMXQKm6Xxd
‘F— Jews’ sprayed outside Israeli restaurant on Upper West Side
A recently opened Israeli restaurant on the Upper West Side has been vandalized with vulgar, antisemitic graffiti.
On Thursday morning, staffers arrived at Miriam, an Israeli eatery on Amsterdam Ave. and 74th St. that opened on Jan. 24, to find the words “F— Jews” spray-painted three times on its outdoor dining shed.
According to Patch, the NYPD arrived on the scene around 12:20 p.m. and began the process to remove the hateful scrawl. An officer said they were investigating the incident a hate crime, but did not provide additional details, the news site reported.
Local politicians, meanwhile, took to Twitter to condemn the incident.
“My constituents woke up to hateful & disgusting antisemitic graffiti outside the Upper West Side’s new restaurant Miriam on West 74th Street and Amsterdam,” New York State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, who represents the Upper West Side, wrote. “I encourage our neighbors to support Miriam.”
The Jew hatred that has infected NYC is shocking - today a kosher restaurant, Miriam, was vandalized with repeated "F*ck Jews" graffiti on the Upper West Side.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 17, 2022
h/t @Eve_Barlow pic.twitter.com/EgNfYqHuwW
David Friedman's book 'Sledgehammer' hits record sales in first week out
Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s new book, “Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East” has sold more than 10,000 copies in its first week out, achieving what no book on Israel has achieved in 10 years, according to its publisher.
Eric Nelson, Vice President and Editorial Director of Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, said that based on sales, it was the “biggest first week of sales in Bookscan for a book about Israel in nearly 10 years.”
“Sledgehammer” tells the story of how the Abraham Accords came about from Friedman’s perspective. He takes readers into the Oval Office and through the Middle East during his tenure as the US ambassador to Israel until 2021.
1 year ago, an AGJC board member started tweeting each Friday wishing Jews around the world a #ShabbatShalom from Bahrain with her @shabbat_col kit. It quickly morphed into #ShabbatWithAGJC where people shared their pictures from all around the world, reaching 10+ million people pic.twitter.com/gtbRxElk1r
— Association of Gulf Jewish Communities (AGJC) (@gulfjewish) February 17, 2022
The most pro-Israel country in the world…nope not the US! Welcome to #Guatemala!
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) February 18, 2022
pic.twitter.com/lAvT5E07n5
