Tuesday, February 22, 2022
The Naqba dynamic: A sobering analysis of Arab-Jewish relations
LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD
Israeli Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon, writing in the aftermath of the Arab pogrom in 1929, described reality:
"Among the people of Talpiot [in Jerusalem] were many [Jewish] optimists who said the Arabs would never come into Talpiot; after all, many of them earned their living there…On the way we met some Arabs, from their faces we could see they had come to loot. [Someone] asked if he should kill them. Krishevsky said NO! We all knew that if it had been the other way around they would have done the opposite."
In a scenario of an all-out violent struggle, the state of Israel will gain the upper hand. Its security resources and experience, national will and moral urgency, will outweigh any combination of Arab grievances, guns, and an impulse to foment turmoil. When de-escalation fails, new rules will prevail. Israel may then set a strategic goal to turn the corner in this lengthy and bitter conflict, and not be limited to just riding out the storm as a transient altercation. Were the Arabs cautious in assessing the balance of forces, they would stop short of pushing the process to the end-point. When the aggressor loses, as in the 1948 Nakba debacle, he has only himself to blame.
WHO WILL GO?
The PLO Covenant from 1964, in Article 6, recognizes the right of Jews to stay in liberated Palestine on the condition that they resided there before 1917; the rest – all of them! – must leave. Bear in mind that Palestinian refugee return will be the complement to Jewish expulsion.
Ahmad Shuqayri, the first leader of the PLO, had coined the phrase of "throwing the Jews into the sea" three days before the outbreak of the 1967 Six-Day War.
It did not happen.
Yasser Arafat, three years after the 1993 Oslo Accord, shared a forecast with Arab diplomats in Stockholm: "There will be a migration of Arabs to the West Bank and Jerusalem…We will make life unbearable for the Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; Jews will not want to live among us. We Palestinians will take everything."
This has not happened.
Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, expressed his people's anguish and wish in addressing the Israelis in 1988: "Take your names with you and go…go where you wish. We have the future…leave our country. So go, it is time for you to go. We have work to do in our land."
An anticipated Jewish national disaster demands decisive action to frustrate an evil design aimed at Israel's existence; or it could be too late. After Jordan expelled Palestinians in 1970, Lebanon in 1982, Kuwait in 1991, Libya in 1995, and Syria in 2015, it becomes morally unobjectionable for Israel to be no less forthright in responding to subversive and disruptive Palestinians in days of crisis and breakdown.
It is time for the Palestinians to go.
*The Zohar (Parashat Lech Lecha) relates that the Ishmaelites [considered the ancestors of the Arabs], descendants from Abraham, earned the right to rule the Holy Land when it is empty of everything for a long time…Then they will block the children of Israel from returning to their place – until the right of the Ishmaelites expires.
The time arrived for the Jews to return home.
Book Review _ The European Left and the Jewish Question 1848-1993 Between Zionism and Antisemitism
While many look to the rise of both Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany to understand the Left’s evolution on the Jewish question, one period of time that is often overlooked is that of fin de siècle France and Italy — the opening of a century disfigured by the Shoah and the murder of millions of innocents.Fathom – The Three Best Recent Books on the Yishuv during the British Mandate, recommended by Donna Robinson Divine
While it can be argued that the First Zionist Congress, the founding of the Bund and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1897-1898 all presented paths to the Jewish future, the ideological turmoil in France and Italy after the deaths of Marx and Engels coloured the trajectory of the European Left at the onset of the twentieth century.
During the nineteenth century, France had had its fair share of anti-Semites on the Left such as Alphonse Toussenel and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Charles Fourier, the instigator of a utopian socialism, termed the Jews ‘a parasitic sect’. French history from the defeat in the Franco- Prussian war to the Dreyfus Affair to the Petàinist regime in 1940 is peppered with the obsession of discovering the hidden Jewish puppet masters — and making them pay for their disloyalty.
Michel Dreyfus, in an excellent essay, explains that this path was not linear, but notes that anti- Semitism in France regained momentum during the inter-war period. The French Right which had always regarded the verdict in the Dreyfus Affair as ‘a judicial coup d’état’, blossomed. Figures such as Edouard Drumont, Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras feared that the Jews would gain influence in France as a social class rather than as a religious community.
Michel Dreyfus argues that Poland, Germany and Austria all revelled in anti-Semitism after 1933 and France and Italy after 1937. With the exception of the Protestant areas of Germany, these were all Catholic countries.
Before hashtags told us what to think and how to feel, it was slogans that stirred up energy for political causes. Repetition could turn the slogan into an idiom wielded by politicians but also shape how the people understood history and identity. This is how the slogan ‘Negation of the Diaspora’ – urging Palestine’s Jewish residents to cast off Jewish lifestyles forged in ‘exile’ – became a core Zionist principle shaping the narrative of the Jewish National Home in British Mandate Palestine. ‘Negating the Diaspora’ provided Palestine’s Jews with an explanation for their past as well as a direction for their national future. The hegemonic status of the slogan has hovered over Zionist historiography too, sometimes lending it a romantic quality. In recent years, however, the phrase has been critically rethought by a new generation of scholars, as illustrated by these three brilliant books about the British Mandate period.
Birthright Politics in Zion: Judaism, Nationalism, and Modernity Under the British Mandate, Indiana University Press, 2017
In her path-breaking work, Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman focuses on the reasons that drove Jewish women in Palestine to limit the number of their children. Population growth was central to the development of the Jewish National Home, but the role of women in determining family size is typically overlooked because of the many challenges in knowing how to coax out the data. Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman was among the first to place Palestine’s Jewish birthrates in the relevant comparative contexts – the Jewish world from which most immigrants came and the modernising influences they carried with them to Mandate Palestine. Ironically, Zionism’s own national ambitions triggered the very clash of imperatives that kept fertility rates low particularly for immigrants. More children generated more work for the very woman who sought liberation through agricultural labor while the harsh economic circumstances that immigrants had to endure also kept birth rates low. What Jews living in Palestine realised was that a new national identity was more easily proclaimed than summoned into existence.
Carnival in Tel-Aviv: Purim and The Celebration of Urban Zionism, Brill, 2016
While Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman has reshaped the study of the Yishuv by probing the personal, Hizky Shoham has reconstructed it by examining Jewish life in the public domain. His work concentrates on religious observance, showing that the gap between what Zionist leaders said about Palestine’s Jewish society and the way in which most people ordered their lives was striking. Even as they denounced the religion of their parents as doomed to extinction, Zionists were beholden to the Jewish canon and calendar. Whether feeling the stirring of an atavistic awe or simply continuing a lifestyle that met family and community needs, religion remained a core element of British Mandate Jewish culture. A parade at Purim or a carnival giving people of a certain social class the opportunity to show off their status helped the Jewish story take on a performative majesty displaying its rituals when European Jews were desperately trying to keep theirs hidden. Part of the goal was designed to imprint the Jewish story on Palestine’s landscape, changing identity not so much by announcement as by lived experience.
Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, Brandeis University Press, 2016
In their trailblasing study, Moshe Naor and Abigail Jacobson examine the multiple ways the Oriental and Sephardi communities identified with the idea of homeland but had a troubling relationship with many of the institutions gaining political power over Jews in the years of British rule. During the Ottoman Empire, Jews from the Middle East helped European immigrants [Zionist and non-Zionist] negotiate through what appeared to them alien imperial economic and political domains. When British rule dismantled the Ottoman Empire, it rendered the vital functions of these Jews as cultural bridges irrelevant. And in spite of sharing language and culture with the country’s Arabs, there was more demand for Middle Eastern Jews to report on Palestinians than to establish a dialogue with them based on common interests. No surprise, then, that Jews from Middle Eastern countries were recruited to become Zionism’s first generation of spies.
I've listened to antisemitism and said nothing. No more - opinion
If I have learned anything over the past month, it is that racist tropes are not harmless words. They must be actively and consistently challenged.Radical groups legitimize terror by blaming mental health - opinion
You know them and so do I. The racist tropes peddled about Jewish people are plentiful. What you may not know is that antisemitic tropes caused my friends and me to be held hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas.
Our Shabbat morning service on Jan. 15 began normally. I had just sat down after the morning Amidah. Within a few seconds, I heard that unmistakable sound of an automatic pistol chambering a bullet. A man we invited into the synagogue on that cold morning so he could warm up was screaming. He waved his gun at us and threatened to blow us up with a bomb.
Without turning around, I picked up my phone from the chair next to me, dialed 911, and returned it, screen side down, to the chair. I stood up and faced our attacker. I slowly moved so that I was in line with an exit. Many of you saw the headlines and are aware of the terror that unfolded over the next 11 hours. One of us was released after about six hours; the other three, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and me, escaped by running out a side door five hours after that.
We were fortunate. This man wasn’t like the attackers in Pittsburgh, Poway or Paris. Instead of a hate-filled white supremacist who wanted to kill as many Jews as possible, our attacker had a specific demand. He wanted to free a person being held in a US federal correction center. And he thought we could get that done.
“Jews pull all the strings. Jews control the banks. Jews control the media. Jews control the government,” he repeatedly told us.
He demanded we get the “chief rabbi of the United States” on the phone. Both Rabbi Cytron-Walker and I explained that, unlike the UK where our attacker was from, there is no head rabbi in the United States – not that a chief rabbi would have that kind of power in the first place.
Our attacker frequently told us not to worry because President Biden and former President Trump would listen to his demands rather than allow even one Jew to get hurt. He had clearly bathed in racist tropes about my community.
Attributing terrorism to mental illness excuses the radical components of ideologies. It is a balm for the uncomfortable truth of the situation, that doesn’t treat the affliction.Emily Schrader: Israel must learn from the Enes Freedom case
Mental illness is not used in the same capacity to downplay the connection between the radicalizing elements of other ideologies and terrorist action. It is easy to attribute derangement to actions beyond the frameworks of our experiences, but that doesn’t mean there is no logic or competent reasoning to them. Just because you didn’t understand why Brown would shoot at Greenberg, doesn’t mean that Brown didn’t understand as well. Perhaps Brown does have PTSD, but there are many high functioning members of society with mental illness. Any degree of mental illness, however slight, does not mean a person lacks mental competence.
Even if Brown, Akram, Brooks and others were significantly mentally unwell, this still doesn’t absolve an ideology of its radicalizing elements. The ideologies that are being cynically dissociated with these attacks have conspiratorial narratives that focus on an enemy that is the source of all evils. They promote puritanical adherence in which acolytes must prove their virtue. For those who are vulnerable, such as the mentally ill who are more limited in ability to see nuance, these ideological features prime them to commit acts of violence. Mental health is not a motivation, but it may remove inhibition to use any means to reach the end of one’s motivations.
American society is increasingly ascribing moral character to individuals based on their ethnic and religious groups. Some are seen as oppressed peoples that can do no evil and others oppressors that can do no good. The connections between radical ideological elements and terrorism are being dismissed because the groups that tend to favor the core ideology are from oppressed peoples and the targets the oppressors. In the US, Jews are considered part of the oppressor class. This is why there is no great outrage over attacks on Jews in the streets of New York City, many of which in the past three years have been done by Black Hebrew Israelite radicals. When a Jew is punched, it is considered punching up.
The dismissal of violence against Jewish, Asian or any other Americans as being caused by mental illness or any other excuse because the violence comes from a morally favored group will lead to more tragedy. Ethnic violence will become more commonplace in a sort of broken Overton window effect, in that when terrorism of such a caliber is downplayed, lesser political attacks will seem as acceptable actions.
Black Lives Matter, Black Hebrew Israelites and other ideological movements can no longer downplay and thereby support the actions of their radicals as mentally ill. They must come out against these radical elements and treat the afflictions within their movements, otherwise they will incubate an outbreak of violence.
Instead of demonstrating strong leadership in the face of a bully, the Biden administration is paving the way for the world’s worst human rights abusers to expand their powers however they see fit. But unlike with Russia and Iran, the tension with China is something that has been slowly brewing under the surface for decades, and not just between governments.
Through Chinese investment, the US economy (and even culture) has become far too dependent on China. The result? Incidents such as what is occurring to Muslim NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom today: a culture of fear that silences critics and all those exercising their democratic right to free speech.
In recent years, Freedom, originally from Turkey, has become a vocal human rights advocate and a harsh critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). His path to advocacy was forced on him when he was targeted by Erdogan’s government for criticizing Erdogan’s treatment of journalists and dissenters – despite Freedom living in the US and playing for the Boston Celtics.
The Turkish government canceled his passport while he was abroad in Indonesia and reported him as a “security threat,” creating a diplomatic incident as Freedom was not yet a US citizen.
Freedom responded by doubling down and using his voice as a professional athlete to unapologetically draw attention to the importance of free speech, and standing up to human rights-abusing regimes like Turkey, Venezuela and of course, China. In 2021, he spoke out about Chinese leader Xi Jinping, calling him a “brutal dictator.”
As China increased its brazen violations of free speech and shut down democracy in Hong Kong, Freedom used his game shoes to show solidarity with Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Uighur Muslim population, and to speak out against the CCP.
BREAKING: A global coalition of 25 human rights groups announced today that its prestigious international human rights award for 2022 will go to @EnesFreedom, the NBA athlete and activist risking his career for taking on China’s persecution of the Uyghurs.https://t.co/VMyqZpziZO pic.twitter.com/Z8Ox2FRx9K
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 22, 2022
Poll finds alarming support for BDS among US Jews
Although most American Jews (84%) define themselves as pro-Israel, a significant portion (16%) support the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a poll conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation has found.Rejecting IHRA: The Avoidable Debacle at the University of Toronto
The findings were presented on Monday to the Knesset Caucus for Strengthening the Relations Between Israel and US Jewry, which was attended by lawmakers and ministers as well as foundation president Jay Ruderman and executive director Shira Ruderman.
The survey also showed that US Jews who support the Democratic Party were more critical of Israel than those who support the Republican Party, although both parties have a fairly similar number of pro-Israel supporters.
Speaking at the event, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai urged the government to step up efforts to fight antisemitism, "which is on the rise." He said, "Israel must be at the forefront of the fight against Jew-hatred. We must say no to efforts in the international arena to delegitimize Israel."
Jay Ruderman echoed his comments and said, "Jews in America need to understand that Israel may not be perfect, but it is the only democracy in this part of the world and it has civil rights. And even if aliyah to Israel is not a solution to most American Jews, we must strengthen the bond."
Shira Ruderman concurred. "It is a partnership of destiny, and as such we much also understand that this is a marathon and not a sprint. Through extensive actions, shared values, language, and mutual understanding, I believe we can succeed in raising a generation for which the Jewish people and the State of Israel are inseparable," she said.
Misstating the Contribution of Kenneth Stern to the IHRA‘We Can’t Shut Off One of Our Identities’: Jewish SUNY Students Decry ‘Exclusion’ From Sexual Assault Awareness Group Over Zionism
The University’s Working Group on Antisemitism’s rejection of the IHRA definition and its examples rests heavily on misinterpretations and misunderstandings of the views of one individual – Kenneth Stern. This is highly problematic for three reasons.
Kenneth Stern is an academic free‑speech absolutist. His absolutism defines his overall approach to academic freedom.
Kenneth Stern is not the principal drafter of the IHRA definition he claims to be.
Kenneth Stern is not opposed to the use of the IHRA definition on campuses.
The elaborate attention to the views of Kenneth Stern in this text may seem inordinate. It is necessary, however, in view of the inordinate weight given to his views by those rejecting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Stern on academic freedom and freedom of speech
Generally, it is inappropriate to cherry‑pick the views of one individual and then to rely on select interpretations of those alleged views to make decisions. Here specifically, with the Working Group relying significantly on the views of Kenneth Stern in assessing the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the University of Toronto report manifests a selective, incomprehensibly decontextualised interpretation of his views, ultimately even misrepresenting what he advocates.
Kenneth Stern, as it is not entirely uncommon among Americans, is an academic free speech absolutist. He states:
… on a campus – at least in the U.S. – hateful statements of opinion (as distinguished from harassment or acts of physical destruction or violence) are allowed.
He has thus contended that in universities, hateful statements should be allowed. An example of a hateful statement he has given is that ‘Blacks were shiftless and lazy’. Yet, most universities would find such statements so utterly repugnant and inevitably inciting (as do we) that they would prohibit them. Is the University of Toronto really willing to be tied to Kenneth Stern’s absolutist views on free speech? Would the University of Toronto really be willing to push for or defend such free speech absolutism on campus? Would the CAUT? Yet, institutions which buy into some of Kenneth Stern views on free speech are likely to find themselves enmeshed with all of his views on the subject.
To be sure, Kenneth Stern, again, forms part of the classic absolutist free speech tradition, that insists that the answer to any speech, particularly at universities, is more speech. However, that is not the current University of Toronto policy on freedom of expression. The policy is not to limit the acceptable reactions to bigotry against target groups to counter-speech.
Jewish students at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz have called for the administration to take action after Jewish members of a sexual assault awareness group were excluded for supporting Israel, decrying it as a “pure and simple” act of antisemitism.Largest Student Union in UK Criticized for Supporting Israeli Apartheid Week
Earlier this month, third-year student Cassandra Blotner was told to leave New Paltz Accountability (NPA), a group she co-founded, over a pro-Israel social media post, the New Paltz Oracle first reported. Another third-year student, Ofek Preis, left NPA after facing pressure over her support for Israel and when the group resisted meeting with the New Paltz Jewish Student Union.
The episode has sparked a contested debate on campus, with the university initially telling The Algemeiner it was taking the episode “seriously” and calling on student organizations to practice inclusivity.
SUNY New Paltz President Donald P. Christian went further on Thursday, noting that “excluding any campus member from institutional events and activities on the basis of differing viewpoints on such matters is a traditionally defined form of antisemitism.”
“Any such exclusion … is incompatible with our campus values and the learning and inclusion goals of a public university like ours,” Christian said in a statement.
Speaking to The Algemeiner on Thursday, Blotner and Preis both emphasized that advocacy against sexual violence on campus was too important to fall prey to divisions over support for Israel.
“The idea of an anti-Zionist sexual assault club and a Zionist sexual assault club doesn’t make sense,” Preis said. “Everyone in the student body is going to be split on, ‘do we fight sexual violence with these people or with these people?’ The whole point was that all survivors and all people who support the cause should be able to participate together.”
“We can’t just shut off one of our identities,” Blotner added. “We’re both always going to be survivors, and we’re always going to be proud to be Jewish and Zionist, and I just wish people weren’t trying to make us choose between one or the other.”
The United Kingdom’s National Union of Students is facing backlash for promoting “division, not dialogue” by supporting the annual Israeli Apartheid Week that begins on March 21.
NUS, which has also backed such activities in the past, said it would “stand in solidarity” with pro-Palestinian activists this year planning the weeklong series of events on university campuses, during which they call Israel an “apartheid state,” The Jewish Chronicle reported on Thursday.
Israeli Apartheid Week, which started at a university in Toronto in 2005, is now held in 55 countries. During the week of events, Jewish students are notoriously targeted with harassment, intimidation and threats; anti-Israel campus demonstrations, rallies and lectures are held; and activists have erected mock Israeli checkpoints and walls.
Nina Freedman, president of the Union of Jewish Students, said NUS has “placed themselves in a position of division, not dialogue” with their decision to back the events.
“Israel Apartheid Week is a divisive and confrontational tool used to damage and polarize communities, rather than building consensus and co-operation around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” she argued. “We see year on year that it creates a hostile environment on campus and online for Jewish students.”
The NYTimes defines pinkwashing as “a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life”. Many other organizations utilize a similar definition when speaking about the topic.
— New Zionist Congress (@newzionists) February 21, 2022
Mandating that LGBT Jews completely disavow their national identiy in order to “fit in” is antisemitic and bigoted. Additionally, accusations that Jews are using their representation in other communities in order to trick or to manipulate has deep roots in antisemitic mythology.
— New Zionist Congress (@newzionists) February 21, 2022
You literally solicited a Saudi billionaire for a $470,000 gift by promising not to defend LGBT people in the Middle East. You then returned the money after being exposed. https://t.co/TdWXdeIbUz
— Imam of Peace ?? (@Imamofpeace) February 21, 2022
North Carolina’s lieutenant governor has Jewish community on high alert
Earlier this month, Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s outspoken new Republican lieutenant governor, organized a press conference to protest an editorial cartoon published in the opinion section of WRAL.com, a local news site in Raleigh. The drawing waded into a controversial debate around proposed education standards requiring that social studies teachers acknowledge systemic racism. But it drew fierce condemnation for its depiction of Republican school board appointees, who objected to the rule change, as members of the KKK.
“We prefer to start with a clean sheet,” read a speech bubble emanating from a menacing elephant — the GOP’s mascot — begarbed in the Klan uniform of a white hood and robe.
Robinson, who sits on the board of education, was outraged. The 52-year-old politician emerged from relative obscurity when he was elected North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor in November — and, addressing a gaggle of reporters on February 2, he railed against the admittedly preposterous suggestion that his beliefs in any way aligned with the Klan. “Free speech, yes, I’m all for it,” Robinson huffed. “But when your free speech proves you to be a hypocrite — and I will say this publicly, proves you to be a hypocrite and a liar — we won’t stand silent.”
Those familiar with the multitude of inflammatory pronouncements Robinson put forth before he became a public servant were no doubt rolling their eyes at the lieutenant governor’s complaint. During the election, Robinson came under scrutiny for a litany of troubling past comments in which he denigrated Jews, Muslims, transgender people and Black voters who support Democrats, among other groups.
The lieutenant governor, a devout Christian who presents as a brash and unfiltered conservative culture warrior, invoked a number of antisemitic tropes in the years leading up to his election. In strongly worded Facebook posts, he decried a “globalist” conspiracy to “destroy” former President Donald Trump and took aim at Black Panther, the Marvel film whose titular protagonist, as Robinson put it, was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist.” He went on to allege, using a Yiddish slur, that the movie “was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets.”
Last fall, Raleigh’s News & Observer unearthed an interview in which Robinson spoke with a fringe pastor, Sean Moon, who claimed that the modern incarnation of the four horsemen of the apocalypse includes China, the CIA, Islam and the Rothschild family of “international bankers that rule every single national or federal reserve-type style of central bank in every single country.”
Rather than objecting to the blatantly antisemitic conspiracy theory, Robinson grunted along in agreement. “That’s exactly right,” he said.
Jewish leaders in North Carolina are alarmed by Robinson’s views — all the more so because the rhetoric he has employed has not hindered his prospects at the polls. Robinson beat out eight Republican opponents in the crowded primary, going on to defeat Democrat Yvonne Lewis Holley by more than three percentage points in the general election, pulling in nearly 52% of the vote.
Reminder @mschlapp @CPAC - Mark Robinson was quoted saying the movie Black Panther "was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets created by an agnostic Jew".
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 21, 2022
Why is this antisemite speaking at your conference? https://t.co/wFUQoBnSUO pic.twitter.com/0HBdLArjRJ
Did German State-Owned Broadcaster Ignore Antisemitism Among Palestinian Journalists?
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 that its content was consumed by a record-breaking 289 million people a week in 2021.Shopify Offers Platform to Those Selling Nazi Memorabilia, Hosts John Legend Who Compared a US President to Hitler
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 later dismissed 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.’”
American singer John Legend entertained Shopify employees when he surprised them with a rendition of his hit song “All of Me” at the Canadian e-commerce giant’s internal summit.BBC News silent on attacks against Palestinian Christians
While the Grammy Award-winner is most famous for his chart-topping music and marriage to Chrissy Teigen, he is also notable for his numerous forays into thorny political issues, specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
For example, during the Hamas-initiated conflagration last May, Legend tweeted to his nearly 14 million followers, “Palestinian Lives Matter,” in a jeu de mots reference to the American campaign against alleged police brutality towards black people.
Asked about the remark in a September 2021 interview with MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan, Legend responded:
When I see what’s happening in Palestine [sic], to the Palestinian people, where they’re clearly not being able to experience [the] full rights that they deserve, it’s an extremely unfair and difficult life they’re forced to live, I had to say something. It’s not fair, it’s not just, and given that Israel is the recipient of so much American aid and support and named as one of our strongest allies, we should hold them to a higher standard, and what they’re doing with the Palestinian people is not fair and it shouldn’t be done in our name and with our resources contributing to it.”
Aside from the fact that Legend flagrantly breaches the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism; namely, by applying a clear double standard in which he claims the Jewish state should be judged according to different criteria than other democratic nations, it is worrying that host Mehdi Hassan does not bother to challenge any of his assertions.
For example, Hassan could have pointed out that last May’s conflict was triggered by Gaza’s US-designated terrorist rulers Hamas firing a barrage of rockets towards Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.
Two months ago British media outlets including the BBC and the Times produced reports relating to a much criticised Christmas season op-ed written by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem Hosam Naoum concerning ‘Christians being driven from the Holy Land’.Simon Wiesenthal Center calls for FBI anti-Semitism task force
THE SUNDAY TIMES JOINS MEDIA TRADITION OF BLAMING ISRAEL FOR RUINING CHRISTMAS
BBC TOUTS AN UNQUESTIONED NARRATIVE ABOUT ‘CHRISTIANS IN THE HOLY LAND’
THE TIMES REPEATS JUSTIN WELBY’S FALSEHOODS ABOUT ISRAELI CHRISTIANS
THE TIMES AGAIN PROMOTES LIBEL THAT ISRAEL IS DRIVING CHRISTIANS FROM THE HOLY LAND
One topic conspicuously absent from both the original op-ed and the related media coverage was that of attacks on Christians perpetrated by Palestinian Muslims, despite the fact that references to such attacks appear in a report provided to CAMERA UK by the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury in response to a query concerning the data cited.
As we noted at the time in relation to a radio report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman:
“Notably, listeners were not told anything at all about “the plight of Christians elsewhere in the Middle East” – not least those in Palestinian Authority and Hamas-ruled territories.”
Just over a month after that op-ed was published, a member of the clergy at the Greek Orthodox church of Jacob’s Well in Nablus (Schem) was assaulted. The Palestinian NGO ‘Sabeel’ described the perpetrators as “a group of lawless Palestinians” and it was later reported that the Palestinian Authority security forces had made a number of related arrests.
Neo-Nazis in Florida. Synagogue desecration in Chicago. Regular assaults in Brooklyn, N.Y. When it comes to anti-Semitism in America, it’s time to start connecting the dots.‘I Was Touching Something Gross’: Disgust and Anger Greet Latest Antisemitic Propaganda Blitz by US Neo-Nazi Group
“If we’re going to better understand the nature and scope of the threats, we need the FBI to lead, taking everyone out of their silo, getting all the information that they’re uniquely positioned to get, and then having a desk that’s going to review things and have access to other agencies—domestic and otherwise—in order for us to quantify and qualify what’s going on,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told JNS.
Cooper met this month with top FBI officials from the counterterrorism and criminal divisions at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. They included Luis Quesada, assistant director of the criminal investigative division; George Beach, assistant director of the office of partner engagement; and Jay Greenberg, deputy assistant director of the criminal division. One of the officials Cooper met with was among those who scrambled the FBI SWAT team in Washington and positioned the team in Colleyville, Texas, within three hours during the Jan. 15 hostage situation at Beth Israel Congregation. Cooper said he also met with an undersecretary from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
He went to the capital with two asks. Firstly, to urge the immediate creation of a special FBI Taskforce Against Anti-Semitism, which would make it easier for local law enforcement and other agencies to be able to have a single address in dealing with anti-Semitism and to allow for the FBI to utilize its immense resources to begin piecing together the broader picture of Jew-hatred in America. The Simon Wiesenthal Center made a similar request to former President Donald Trump following an escalating series of anti-Semitic violence in 2019.
Just one month after an Islamist gunman seized four hostages at a local synagogue, the city of Colleyville in Texas was one of several locations around the US to be hit over the weekend with antisemitic flyers blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Police in Colleyville are investigating the leafleting blitz as a hate crime and have contacted the FBI, local news channel Fox 4 reported on Monday. Residents of the city were targeted with propaganda apparently produced and distributed by the so-called “Goyim Defense League (GDL),” a neo-Nazi group that has carried out several similar stunts over the last year in several cities, pushing antisemitic COVID-19 conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. The words “goy” and “goyim” are pejorative terms in Hebrew and Yiddish for non-Jews.
Flyers distributed in Colleyville and neighboring Garland claimed that “every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish” along with another one claiming “Black lives murder white children.”
Colleyville resident Skyler Ray told Fox 4 of his shock at waking up to see the driveways in his neighborhood infested with the flyers, which were placed in transparent bags weighed down with rocks to prevent them from blowing away.
“Like, every single driveway,” he recalled. “Nobody should have to wake up and see something like that on their front lawn.”
Ray added that he had family members who were Jewish. “I’m a little scared for them,” he said. “It’s just hateful.”
Hundreds of neo-Nazi Hitler fliers were dumped throughout the Houston, TX area. A website appears as the bottom of the fliers - hosted by @GoDaddy - Aryan Freedom Network.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 22, 2022
Despite the website violating GoDaddy's abuse policy, the site still remains up at the time of this tweet. pic.twitter.com/tgyiYkvVvm
Horrific:
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) February 21, 2022
“What is the Holocaust?”
“The who?”
pic.twitter.com/hCSw2z5GV6
Ban on Displaying Nazi Symbols Unanimously Endorsed by New South Wales Parliament
Parliamentarians in New South Wales, Australia, have unanimously supported a bill that would criminalize the public display of Nazi symbols.Children’s Gaming Platform Removes ‘Disturbing’ Nazi Concentration Camp ‘Experience’ With Gas Chambers
The bill was referred in November to the bipartisan Standing Committee on Social Issues, which “expressed strong support for the bill’s protective objectives, including for individuals and groups in our community who are hurt, offended or intimidated by the public display of Nazi symbols,” according to a legislative report released Tuesday. “None of the participants in the inquiry expressed opposition to the objectives of the bill.”
Called “The Crimes Amendment (Display of Nazi Symbols),” the bill delineates a maximum penalty for an individual publicly displaying Nazi symbols — including on private property and on social media — as being an $5,500 AUD fine ($3,967 USD), imprisonment for six months, or both. The maximum penalty for a corporation is $55,000 AUD ($39,677 USD).
The bill includes exceptions for the use of Nazi symbols for historical, artistic, scientific, or educational purposes, and the display of swastikas in connection with Hinduism, Buddhism, or Jainism — which predates the symbol’s adoption by Nazi Germany — “would not constitute an offense.” The bill is set to be debated in parliament.
Darren Bark, CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, welcomed the move, saying, “The Nazi swastika is an emblem of pure evil. It represents the dehumanization of millions of people and one of the most inhumane, hate-based and murderous regimes and ideologies to ever exist.”
A free online gaming platform popular with young children around the world has removed a game called “Camp Concentration” that featured virtual Nazi soldiers, gas chambers, and dead bodies.Fireworks Detonated Near Group of Jewish Men Walking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Roblox said in a statement over the weekend to Mail on Sunday that it has “zero tolerance for content or behaviors that promote or glorify extremism, including antisemitism,” and that it has “removed the experiences in question and banned the individuals who created them.”
Roblox allows users to design and create games, as well as pick avatars and play games developed by others. There are millions of games to choose from on the website, including ones in which players pretend to work at a pizzeria, explore the ocean in a submarine, adopt a virtual pet, and take part in a “murder mystery” challenge.
In 2020, Roblox told Bloomberg that two-thirds of children in the United States between the ages of nine and 12 use its platform. The children’s charity 5Rights estimated that half of British children between the ages of six and nine play on the platform at least once a week.
In the game “Concentration Camp,” users were able to enter a room and click “execute” to release deadly gas from shower heads, Mail on Sunday reported. The game included a funeral pyre of dead avatars; German flags and a German cross hanging outside watch towers with avatars dressed in Nazi uniforms; and statues of soldiers with guns, prisoners, and a crematorium oven, according to the paper.
Players were also able to access cell blocks and lock their avatar inside to “experience” what prisoners faced in Nazi concentration camps. Outside the camp was a railway that seemed to invoke the trains that transported millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
For the fourth week in a row, the Jewish community in Brooklyn, NY, has been subject to an incident of antisemitism.Brazilian podcaster Bruno Aiub fired after calling for launch of Nazi Party in Brazil
In the most recent event, on Friday evening, a car drove slowly down a street in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Williamsburg. On security tape, the vehicle is seen stopping close to a group of Hassidic men as someone tosses something on the ground.
Moments later, an explosion could be heard as fireworks detonated near the Jewish men.
Williamsburg is home to Satmar Hassidim.
The United Jewish Organization, a local community group, urged the victims to come forward and report the incident, saying, “We can’t reiterate enough the importance to file reports and to share info so that these crimes are investigated and prosecuted.”
Both the local police precinct and the NYPD’s Hate Crimes division are reportedly investigating this latest incident.
A Brazilian podcaster has been fired and could potentially face criminal charges after he called for the launch of a Nazi Party in Brazil.Israeli Aid Experts Reach Typhoon-hit Philippines
Bruno Aiub, a 31-year-old podcaster with a following of 3.6 million on YouTube and 1 million on Twitch, said on his podcast Flow, where he interviews politicians, that “I think there should be a Nazi party recognised by law” and that “the radical left has much more space than the radical right.”
He further stated that “If someone wants to be anti-Jewish, I think they have a right to be.”
Estudio Flow, the producer of the podcast, has since removed the video from social media and fired Mr Aiub from his position as host of the podcast.
Other people who have been interviewed on the podcast in the past have asked for their interviews also to be removed from social media, while Estudio Flow also lost several sponsors and the rights to broadcast football matches of the Football Federation of the State of Rio de Janeiro.
Following the incident, Mr Aiub apologised and argued that his comments were made when he was “totally drunk”.
The public prosecutor’s office reported that it may order an investigation into the “alleged offence of apologising for Nazism”. This includes not only Mr Aiub’s comments but also comments by centrist MP Kim Kataguiri, who reportedly claimed that Germany had “made a mistake by criminalising the Nazi Party.”
Two months after December’s Super Typhoon Odette (known internationally as Rai) that affected the lives of more than 10 million Filipinos and damaged or destroyed 1.9 million homes, 133,000 people are still displaced from their homes and children are still unable to go to school.
The Covid-19 situation initially made the Philippines off-limits to foreign visitors. So Israeli non-governmental humanitarian aid organization IsraAID assembled a team of three local volunteers, including former IsraAID staff members, to bring urgent aid to communities in need. Local IsraAID volunteers bringing fresh water to residents of Southern Leyte, Philippines, December 21, 2021. Photo by Jeriel Nunez
As of last week, Israeli IsraAID team members were able to enter the country, bringing an additional five experts to assist in the continuing relief work.
“We have already seen countless examples of both extreme loss and incredible resilience,” Molly Bernstein, IsraAID’s Head of Mission in the Philippines, tells ISRAEL21c.
“People here are super strong; they’ve been through so much. Even in IsraAID’s relatively short history in the Philippines – six years in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda in 2013 — they’ve had intense storms and immense losses,” she says.
Israeli Singer Noa Kirel Named Among ‘Talented Emerging Artists’ of 2022 by People Magazine
Israeli pop singer Noa Kirel was named among the 20 “talented emerging artists making their mark in 2022” by People magazine.The scientist using nanotech to create the impossible
The list, which was released on Friday, includes actors, singing duos, rappers, K-Pop stars, country music singers, and musicians from Grenada, Sweden, and Argentina.
Kirel, 20, told People that her focus is “all about embracing yourself, being an independent woman, owning what you got and working hard to achieve your dreams.” The Tel Aviv native said she draws inspiration from artists such as Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Rosalía, “They dance, they sing, they write, they do it all,” Kirel explained. She also described herself as a fan of Justin Bieber, saying she will be “forever a Belieber.”
The “Thought About That” singer — who performed in December at the 70th Miss Universe competition in Eilat, Israel — released her debut single “Medabrim” (“Talking”) when she was 14 years old. In 2018, she joined the TV competition “Israel’s Got Talent” as the youngest judge in the show’s history.
Hossam Haick, a professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and an expert in the field of nanotechnology and noninvasive disease diagnosis, began our interview with a story about his older son, Fadi, now 13.New implant gives paralyzed man ability to walk
When Fadi was a little boy, Haick recounted, he was afraid of water.
“But one day, my wife and I were at the pool in the Technion,” Haick, 47, continued, “and an older faculty member swimming in the pool — to this day, I don’t know his name — reached out his arms and Fadi went into the water with him. And that was how Fadi learned to swim.”
Since then, Fadi has become a competitive swimmer, winning numerous awards. Haick said that he will always be grateful for the unknown man who introduced his son to water.
And that idea of experimenting and trying new things is symbolic of Haick’s pioneering work.
“When I do research, I jump into the water and then learn how to swim,” Haick said.
With a black belt in karate, Haick has an aura of someone who is calm and softspoken, yet with a steely focus. With his 32-member team — a diverse group of scientists from around the world, including China, India and Russia — he has produced more than 42 patents and patent applications, many already licensed to international companies.
He has won grants, awards and recognition including a 2008 listing on the “World’s 35 leading young scientists” of MIT’s Technology Review.
A message from @RepRitchie in Jerusalem:
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) February 21, 2022
"Israel is both modern and ancient at the same time, and it's a blessing to experience it."
???????? #StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/0uDsMHJHWx
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and it always will be.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) February 21, 2022
I’m here this week, leading dozens of House Republicans on a trip to reaffirm America’s unwavering support for Israel. ???????? pic.twitter.com/DNkrKwuV2X
ArchaeologyBeach-combing police find 1,500-year-old marble pillar near Ashdod
When two Ashdod municipal police officers went out on a routine beach patrol last week, they hardly expected to unravel a 1,500-year-old mystery.Roman Abramovich donates tens of millions of dollars to Yad Vashem projects
But spying a shiny item sticking out of the sand, they stopped to investigate and found what is likely a pillar from the remains of a Byzantine-era church, according to Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists.
Officers Eitai Dabosh and Sagiv Ben Gigi were instructed to report the find to the IAA, which has cooperated in excavations surrounding the site for the past decade. Close to the pillar is an archaeological park, Ashdod-Yam, where visitors can find remains dating back to the Late Bronze Age onwards. The IAA believes it was exposed due to recent winter storms.
Called Azotos Paralios (Ashdod by the Sea) in Byzantine times, the site was an important stronghold of Christianity, as is evident from its inclusion in the 6th century Madaba mosaic map.
Starting in 2017, Tel Aviv University Prof. Alexander Fantalkin, director of the Ashdod-Yam Archaeological Project, recovered in the northern portion of the site a variety of impressive Byzantine-era remains of a three-nave basilica and chapels from a church compound, mosaics and grave inscriptions, including of apparently female religious leaders.
“It is not inconceivable that the column that was exposed belonged to an ancient church depicted on a map of Madaba,” said Avi Levy, an IAA archaeologist in the Ashkelon sub-district, in a press release.
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, and Roman Abramovich announced Tuesday a new long-term strategic partnership aimed at strengthening Yad Vashem’s endeavors in the areas of Holocaust research and remembrance. The partnership forms part of Mr. Abramovich’s global charitable work in promoting Holocaust research and education, as well as combating antisemitism.
The pledged funding in the sum of tens of millions of dollars will go towards significantly enriching Yad Vashem's world-renowned International Institute for Holocaust Research. For three decades, the International Research Institute has been at the center of ground-breaking research initiatives in the field of Holocaust studies, which serves as the basis for both commemorative and educational activities related to the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators before, during and after the Holocaust. This new strategic partnership will expand and bolster Yad Vashem's research activities, at a time when Holocaust distortion, denial and politicization are rising alarmingly worldwide. The partnership will provide support over a period of five years, to further expand and develop the Institute's activities on a global scale.
A further commitment has been made as part of this partnership to contribute towards the establishment of a new home for the International Research Institute on Yad Vashem's Mount of Remembrance campus in Jerusalem, designed to create a vibrant environment that can sustain and enhance the activities of this prestigious academic body.
In an effort to augment ongoing activities in the area of Holocaust commemoration and documentation both in Jerusalem and abroad, Yad Vashem, supported by this partnership, will also create two new versions of The Book of Names, a unique memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Over the past seven decades, Yad Vashem has collected the names of more than 4,800,000 men, women and children who were murdered as part of Nazi Germany's genocidal plan to physically exterminate the Jewish people and their culture, and obliterate even their memory from history. Since its establishment in 1953, collecting the name of every Shoah victim has been a core component of Yad Vashem's mission: to restore the identities of each and every victim of the Holocaust. Over the years, Yad Vashem has gathered these names from various sources and has safeguarded them in its Hall of Names. The names are also accessible to the public worldwide through the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names on the Yad Vashem website.
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