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Sunday, March 20, 2022

03/20 Links: In Knesset address, Zelenskyy asks Israel to help Ukrainians facing 'final solution'; Toulouse terrorist attack - the turning-point for European Judaism

From Ian:

In Knesset address, Zelenskyy asks Israel to help Ukrainians facing 'final solution'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Knesset via Zoom on Sunday as part of his flurry of speeches to legislative chambers around the world in an effort to convince governments to actively support his country in the face of the Russian invasion.

With the parliament in recess and undergoing renovations, most MKs and ministers tuned into the virtual event from various locations. Those without access to Zoom, and Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy, who hosted the event, gathered to view the address from a specially designated hall in the parliament. All participants' were muted to prevent interruptions during the speech.

"We want to live but our neighbors want us dead, there is not a lot of room for compromise," Zelenskyy said, paraphrasing former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

"Just like you were wandering around the world, looking for safety, our people are now wandering the world. This is an unjust war, with Russian trying to destroy anything that makes Ukrainians who they are," Zelenskyy continued. "Our history and your history are histories of survival," he continued. "Listen to what the Kremlin is saying, they're using the same terminology of the Nazi party. What they sought to destroy all of Europe, they didn't want to leave any of you, and now from of us. They called it the 'Final Solution'."

"We made our choice 80 years ago, and saved Jews as Righteous Among the Nations, and now we expect you to make your choice," he concluded.

Levy delivered an opening speech just before the president began his remarks. "I want to thank you for dedicating time during these tough months to discuss with us in Israel," Levy said. "I would like to extend our solidarity with the pain of the Ukrainian people," he continued. He said that "We should do everything to end the fighting as soon as possible," and added that he hoped the mediation efforts of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett "bear fruit."
'Why won't Israel give Ukraine weapons?' Zelensky criticizes Knesset
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used his address to Knesset members and ministers by videoconference on Sunday evening to plead with Israel to send its Iron Dome missile defense system to protect Ukrainian civilians from Russian airstrikes.

Zelensky praised Iron Dome as the best missile defense system in the world and complained that Israel was not supplying Ukraine with even defensive weapons.

"We are turning to you and asking whether it is better to provide help or mediation without choosing a side," he told the MKs and ministers. "I will let you decide the answer to the question, but I do want to point out that indifference kills."

Criticizing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has mediated between him and Putin, Zelensky said mediation can be between two sides but not between good and evil.

Comparing what his country is enduring to the Holocaust, Zelensky said the Russians are using terms like "the final solution" against Ukraine. He said the February 24 date of the Russian invasion was the same date the Nazi party was founded in 1920 and pointed out that Ukrainians saved Jews in the Holocaust.
Zelensky's Address to the Knesset



Jeff Jacoby: Make no mistake: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism
If Jewsplaining were an Olympic event, Paul O’Brien would be a contender for the gold.

O’Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, was the guest speaker at a March 9 luncheon hosted by the Woman’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C. His topic was Amnesty’s recent report labeling, or rather, libeling, Israel as an “apartheid” state. In the course of defending the report, O’Brien told his audience that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state” and suggested that most American Jews share his view. When a questioner cited a recent poll showing that lopsided majorities of American Jews identify as pro-Israel and feel an emotional attachment to the Jewish state, O’Brien replied: “I actually don’t believe that to be true.” What his “gut” told him, he said, was that “Jewish people in this country” don’t think Israel needs to be a Jewish state, that it’s enough for it to be “a safe Jewish space” that Jews can “call home.”

It takes astonishing chutzpah, or remarkable tone-deafness, for a non-Jew born and raised in Ireland to declare that the Jews of America don’t really want Israel to be what it has been for 74 years: the reborn nation-state of the Jewish people.

O’Brien’s remarks were at times rambling and contradictory, and when they generated a backlash, condemnation came from sources as diverse as the New York Post editorial page and all 25 Jewish Democrats in the US House, he claimed that he had been quoted out of context. But there is no mistaking his bottom line: “We are opposed to the idea, and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate, that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people,” he told his audience.

This is anti-Zionism: the belief that it is illegitimate for Israel to be an avowedly Jewish state and that Israel’s explicitly Jewish identity must come to an end. And those who promote anti-Zionism are no less antisemitic than those who promote the claim that Jews were responsible for spreading COVID-19. Or the white supremacist vow that “Jews will not replace us.” Or Louis Farrakhan’s condemnation of Judaism as a “gutter religion.” Or the chants of “Jews to the gas!” that have erupted at European soccer matches.

No doubt O’Brien would disagree. He would protest that one can be anti-Zionist, opposed to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, without being guilty of bigotry against Jews. In his remarks to the Woman’s National Democratic Club, he described antisemitism as “a real, live threat” and insisted that he and his organization “firmly oppose antisemitism.” Many anti-Zionists bristle at being charged with antisemitic bias, since their animus, they say, is not against Jewish people; it’s against a Jewish country, one in which Jewish ethnic, religious, and national identity is linked to statehood.

But that argument doesn’t withstand scrutiny.
Russia's War Reaches into the Middle East
War cannot happen in a vacuum. The tentacles of the hideous Russian invasion of Ukraine are reaching outward to involve not only the two parties in the conflict, but other countries and other policies.

Let's start with the revived Iran nuclear deal meetings that have convened in Vienna. The U.S. administration has made no secret of the fact that it covets a deal and has been willing to provide benefits to Iran up front, including waiving sanctions on Iran's "civilian" nuclear program. But Russia has been a major player in the negotiations; until now, Washington and Moscow had been coordinating their positions. As a historical competitor of Iran's, Russia was not particularly interested in having Tehran produce nuclear weapons, so it was willing to push for certain U.S. points.

On the other hand, Moscow is much more concerned about Sunni jihad than Shiite jihad. Russia's Muslims are mostly Sunni and Putin's vicious Chechen war was about stamping out Sunni jihad as much as anything else. (That should have been a warning about what sort of war Russian president Vladimir Putin was prepared to wage in Ukraine, had the West been paying attention.) And Russia's criminal participation in the Syrian war was, among other things, about killing Sunni jihadists with the help of Iranian Shiite militias.

Aligning with Iran in Syria made sense from the Russian point of view, but aligning with the U.S. in Vienna did as well.

Until Putin invaded Ukraine. His interest in helping U.S. President Joe Biden get a win at any level disappeared. Furthermore, Putin is relying on Israel—the only country both Moscow and Kyiv accept as a conduit—as a negotiator with Ukraine. While Israel's primary objective in that role surely is to end the horror of Russia's conventional war, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett almost certainly raised the issues of Iran, nuclear weapons and Russia's position in Vienna while he was at it. A hard Russian line in Vienna would help Israel.

Russia is now taking that hard line. Now embargoed by much of the world, Putin & Co. added a proviso in Vienna that Russia wouldn't agree to a deal unless the U.S. lifted energy sanctions on Russia stemming from the war—a move consistent with Moscow's current interests. The U.S., naturally, refused this apparent ploy to end the Vienna talks. The talks are now on "pause," postponing and possibly sinking a revived Iran deal.
Mariupol Says Thousands Deported From Besieged Ukrainian City
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s siege of the port city of Mariupol was “a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” while local authorities said thousands of residents had been taken by force across the border.

“Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory,” the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.

Russian news agencies have said buses have carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.

Many of Mariupol’s 400,000 residents have been trapped for more than two weeks as Russia seeks to take control of the city, which would help secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

President Vladimir Putin calls the assault on Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, a “special operation” to demilitarize the country and root out people he terms dangerous nationalists. Western nations call it an aggressive war of choice and have imposed punishing sanctions aimed at crippling Russia’s economy.

Ukraine and its Western backers say Russian ground forces have made few advances in the last week, concentrating their efforts instead on artillery and missile strikes — often into urban centers.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said on Sunday there had been a relative lull over the past day, with “practically no rocket strikes on (Ukrainian) cities.” He added that front lines were “practically frozen.”


UN says 10 million have fled their homes in Ukraine since Russia invasion
Ten million people — around a quarter of the population — have now fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia’s “devastating” war, the United Nations refugees chief said Sunday.

“Among the responsibilities of those who wage war, everywhere in the world, is the suffering inflicted on civilians who are forced to flee their homes,” said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi.

“The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million have fled either displaced inside the country, or as refugees abroad.”

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said Sunday that 3,389,044 Ukrainians had left since the Russian invasion began on February 24, with another 60,352 joining the exodus since Saturday’s update — a flow roughly the same as the day before.

Some 90 percent of those who have fled are women and children. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military call-up and cannot leave.

UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said more than 1.5 million children are among those who have fled abroad, warning that the risks they face of human trafficking and exploitation are “real and growing.”


First BBC News report on Ukrainian refugees in Israel
Additional stories which BBC audiences have yet to hear include the evacuation of paediatric cancer patients, injured Ukrainians and Holocaust survivors to Israel. The donation of six generators and four bullet-proof ambulances to Ukraine as well as the establishment of an Israeli field hospital which is due to open in the coming days have also not been covered by the BBC.

“Seventeen tons of equipment needed to set up an Israeli field hospital in Ukraine were loaded onto a cargo plane of national carrier El Al Thursday, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The cargo will be flown later in the day to Poland and from there sent to the town of Mostyska in western Ukraine, where the hospital, dubbed “Kohav Meir” (“Shining Star”) will be set up.

A delegation of doctors led by David Dagan, chief of the State Hospitals Directorate at the Health Ministry, will fly out Sunday to staff the hospital. The delegation will include doctors and medical staff from across Israel’s health system, the statement said.”

The BBC News website report titled “How many refugees have fled Ukraine and where are they going?” which first appeared on March 1st – and has since been updated twenty-two times – still does not mention Israel despite thousands having arrived in the country since the Russian invasion began.
Telegraph deletes debunked claim over Bennett-Zelensky talks
Last week, we posted about an op-ed in The Telegraph by Anthony Harwood (“Israel’s position on Ukraine spells disaster for the West”, March 14) that included the following, in the context of ongoing mediation efforts by Naftali Bennett in hopes of achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine.
As we noted, reports and “rumours” that Israel’s prime minister was encouraging Ukraine to make major concessions to Russia was based entirely on anonymous sources, and had been debunked several days ago, with Reuters and other outlets reporting that high-ranking officials from both countries emphatically denied the claim.

Our complaint was upheld, and the paragraph in question deleted:


2 police officers injured in Jerusalem stabbing, suspect at large
Two Israeli police officers were injured in a stabbing attack Sunday in east Jerusalem's Ras al-Amud neighborhood while another person suffered light injuries, Israel Police announced. Police forces entered the neighborhood following reports of a torched car.

One police officer is around 20-years-old and suffered a stab wound to the upper body. He is conscious and in moderate condition, according to Magen David Adom (MDA). He was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

Another officer was lightly injured, suffering an injury to the hand, but received treatment at the scene.

Clashes between residents of the predominantly Arab neighborhood and police developed on the spot, with two residents getting injured as a result, according to KAN.

Two suspects were arrested in connection to the attack, but one suspected attacker was not apprehended and has fled. According to Israeli media, the suspect was seen fleeing into Jerusalem's Old City. Police forces are on the scene and continuing to search for the suspect.

The stabbing comes amid an ongoing uptick of similar incidents in the city over the past few weeks.


PMW: Palestine Marathon erases Israel
True to PA policy of denying Israel's existence, the logo of the “Palestine Marathon” erases all of the State of Israel.

Painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, the logo of the marathon shows the PA’s map of “Palestine” that presents all of Israel and the PA areas as “Palestine,” with a runner inside the map. Next to the logo is written in English: “Palestine Marathon: Freedom of Movement.”

The Palestine Marathon, which takes place on March 18, 2022, and starts and ends at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, is held under the auspices of the PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, which is headed by Jibril Rajoub. The council is an official government body subordinate to the PLO. Palestinian Media Watch has documented extensively the PA’s denial of Israel's existence in maps, including the use of such maps to teach children about Palestine in summer camps held by the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports.

PMW has also exposed Rajoub as a passionate proponent of anti-normalization with Israel in sports.

The PLO council has been posting ads for the marathon like the one below that include the logo erasing Israel:


PMW: The bottomless UNRWA pit of despair
According to the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) will continue to function “until the refugees return.” In other words, what Shtayyeh is saying is that UNRWA will continue to function forever, catering to an ever growing population.

“Yesterday, Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh discussed UNRWA’s severe financial situation and the monetary deficit in its budget with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini and UNRWA Adviser on Strategic and Diplomatic Policy Ronald Stinger… Shtayyeh said: ‘We are working together to ensure the continuation of UNRWA’s programs and its continuation as an international institution that over 5.5 million Palestinian refugees benefit from until a just and permanent solution is found for the Palestinian cause and until the refugees’ return.’”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 4, 2022]

As Palestinian Media Watch has already shown, the so-called “return” of the “Palestinian refugees” is a PA euphemism for forcing Israel to fundamentally change its demographic composition by settling and giving citizenship to an additional six million Arabs who have never set foot in Israel.

The number of “Palestinian refugees” has grown from 711,000 in 1948 to a staggering 5,703,546, as of December 31, 2020. Outrageously, since 2010 alone, the number of “Palestinian refugees” has risen by 883,317 people.

In comparison, two days after the establishment of the State of Israel, the headline of the New York Times declared that Jews were “in grave danger in all the Moslem lands” and that 900,000 would “face the wrath of their foes”:


JCPA: Mahmoud Abbas Seeks to Neutralize Firebrand Marwan Barghouti Sitting in Prison
Abbas explained through his associates that having the security prisoners’ representatives take part in the Eighth Fatah Conference could undermine the reopening of the PLO offices in Washington and the transfer of the American consulate to east Jerusalem.

The decision angered the Fatah security prisoners, who threatened to come out openly against Abbas; some even threatened to split the movement. Abbas sent Fatah Secretary-General Jibril Rajoub to calm the furies, and Rajoub authorized security prisoner Karim Yunis to try to work out understandings.

Yunis is a member of the Fatah Central Committee serving a life term for the murder of Israeli soldier Avraham Bromberg in 1981.

Barghouti managed so far to temporarily block Abbas’ effort to destroy him politically, but the Fatah Conference will not be held until the second half of May. Although Abbas fears an explosion in the movement that he heads, he is determined to crush Barghouti, who is challenging his leadership.

Barghouti enjoys a considerable lead over the 86-year-old Abbas in Palestinian opinion surveys, and the Palestinian street sees him as the right candidate for the next PA chairman. Preventing his victory was one of the reasons Abbas deferred elections in the territories a year ago. Fatah sources claim Abbas torpedoed Barghouti’s release in the 2011 Shalit prisoner exchange deal and is now working with Israel and the United States to prevent his release as part of a new prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas. Neither Abbas nor Barghouti has said his last word in the affair.

Abbas is already prepared for the next stage. According to senior Fatah officials, as the Eight Fatah Conference approaches, he is planning to freeze the membership of 150 Fatah activists who support Barghouti and thereby weaken him in the internal elections for the Fatah institutions.
International law permits terror, claims Palestinian professor of public law

Abbas repeats vow to pay terrorist salaries:Any amount [of money] we have will be earmarked for them



'If Iran strives for normalcy it must exercise transparency'
International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi has a very busy schedule these days. As world powers gear up to sign a new nuclear deal with Iran and with Russia targeting nuclear facilities in Ukraine, Grossi struggles to maintain the global nuclear balance.

Grossi, 61, finds that he has to walk a very fine line, and between mysterious explosions in sensitive facilities in Iran and the ayatollas' regime's subterfuge, the IAEA chief has found himself at the center of the shadow war between Jerusalem and Tehran.

Q: Do you understand Israel's concern about the Iranian nuclear program?

"Of course. First of all, I would like to say that I had the honor to speak with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on these issues and with the leaders of other countries as well. As you can imagine, the issue of Iran or issues concerning North Korea, Iraq, Syria, what is currently happening in Ukraine – what the agency is doing is of great interest among heads of state and, of course, in Israel because clearly, in the Middle East. the issue of nuclear weapons and the development of nuclear weapons has been a constant concern.

"Therefore, I fully understand the concerns that exist and my duty as head of the IAEA is to explain the situation. I found in the prime minister a very sophisticated interlocutor, who understands the problems with Iran well. As I mentioned, there is an open dialogue with him and we will continue with it, of course."

Q: With your permission, let's explore a more pessimistic scenario. What do you think could happen if Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear facilities?

"I hope this never happens. First of all, I am a diplomat with 40 years of experience dedicated to international peace and security. I always believe in diplomacy, in negotiations, and that there is always a way to prevent war. I want to say that any attack on a nuclear facility is prohibited under international law. I understand you're speaking theoretically, but I believe it's something that should never be allowed to happen."

This scenario, he added, has also been examined with respect to the crisis in Ukraine, where an attack on a nuclear power plant could result in uncontrollable radioactive fallout in the area, "so it would become a threat not only for the attacked country but as in the case of Chernobyl, these are effects that cross borders quickly. I believe that using nuclear facilities as military targets is something that must not happen."

Q: Any message to the Israeli government and public?

"First, that Israel is a very important partner and friend of the IAEA in a number of activities related to the application of nuclear technology that the public may not be familiar with, but are very important, even if they do not go through the strategic path we have described so far.

"Secondly, I want to say not only to Israel but also to the international community that the IAEA has the necessary, strong, and objective means to ensure that there will be no proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is why the support of all of the members of the organization is so important to us. The IAEA's strength is derived from the strength its members themselves lend it.

"This is why I found the conversation I had with Prime Minister Bennett a few days ago so satisfactory – for us, it is essential. The support for the international organization in these historical moments, when there is so much uncertainty and when the scenario by which countries want to procure existing nuclear weapons, is something that I see as essential."
Iran to provide new answers to IAEA about Mossad-seized documents
Iran was due on Sunday to provide new answers to the International Atomic Energy Agency to try to talk its way out of evidence the Mossad had obtained in 2018 of the nuclear dimensions of its program.

In the already legendary Mossad raid of the Islamic Republic’s secret nuclear archives, the spy agency provided to the world’s nuclear watchdog evidence that led it to discover four concealed nuclear sites and certain traces of illicit nuclear material.

Since then, Tehran has tried to stonewall the IAEA’s attempts to get explanations about the items it had been concealing.

But on March 5, the sides announced a dramatic deal in which the ayatollahs would finally provide more comprehensive responses to the IAEA’s questions in exchange for the nuclear inspectors ending their probe sometime around June.

At the time, most observers believed that this deal had been struck in parallel to an imminent return to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers.

Iran might not like to admit having concealed certain items, but it might finally be willing to do so, given guarantees that the JCPOA would be back in place.

However, as of Sunday night, the IAEA had issued no public statement indicating Iran had complied and did not respond to repeated inquiries regarding the matter.
Dropping IRGC from blacklist would be boon for terrorism
The US decision to remove Iran's Revolutionary Guards from its foreign terrorist organization blacklist would not only be a distortion of truth and adoption of a double standard distinguishing between terrorism and terrorism but worse yet: an American show of surrender to Iran and a reward to the main perpetrator of terrorism of its time, the one that sows chaos in the Middle East and the entire world, from Syria and Lebanon to Argentina.

And yes, it will also be a blow and put sticks in the wheels of Israel and America's other allies in the region, who deal with destructive terrorist plots daily, courtesy of the Revolutionary Guards.

At the time these lines are written, Washington has not yet made a decision in this regard. The very fact that this discussion is taking place at Iran's demand, raised by the regime moments before the suspension of nuclear talks, is already a form of insult to the United States.

Were it not for steps previously taken by the Biden administration, one could have suspected that the discussion on the matter was a tactical move by Washington designed to provide them with an opportunity to respond negatively and assume an uncompromising stance, to dull down the arrows of criticism pointed at them for surrendering to Tehran's demands.

Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to think of such a possibility seriously, when one recalls the words of Russia's main negotiator in Vienna about Iran's achievements during the talks. Iran got much more than it expected – Mikhail Ulyanov said.

Moreover, removing the Revolutionary Guards from the blacklist does not seem far-fetched when remembering that one of the first decisions the Biden administration made was removing the Houthis from the same listing only two days after they attacked Saudi Arabia and refrains from adding them back onto the list ever since, despite the fact that rebels conducted more attacks, this time against the United Arab Emirates as well.


Colorado Pension to Divest Unilever Shares Over Ben and Jerry’s
Colorado’s state pension fund will divest a $42 million investment in Unilever PLC after the company’s Ben and Jerry’s subsidiary took economic action against Israel by halting ice cream sales in West Bank settlements, The Denver Post reported Friday.

The divestment is required by a state law pledging support to Israel and opposing sanctions against the country by international corporations such as Unilever for the occupation of Palestine, the Post said.

The Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association, which manages $61 billion in assets, last month announced it would divest its $7.2 million investment in Russia’s Sberbank, in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Ben & Jerry’s Israeli partner said the decision to stop sales in West Bank settlements will illegally terminate a 34-year business relationship. Ben & Jerry’s announced its pullout in July.


Harvard Law School calls Israel an Apartheid Regime
Right on the Harvard Law School website (here) one can learn that the school has deemed and recognized Israel in a recent report to the United Nations as “an apartheid regime.”

The full 22 page report can be read here, and claims that Israel systematically discriminates against Palestinians and suppresses their civil and political rights.” Harvard’s report "finds that Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank are in breach of the prohibition of apartheid and amount to the crime of apartheid under international law."

Other statements include that “Since 1967, Israel has exerted full control throughout most of the occupied West Bank”, the “regime functions in purpose and effect to create a two tiered structure of rights and protections, systematically privileging Jewish Israeli settlers and discriminating against Palestinians.”

The report further criticizes Israel for banning six Palestinian organizations which Israel has accused of terrorism. In a section headlined “Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank”, the report says that “A finding of apartheid in the occupied West Bank requires ascertaining whether the Israeli occupation has committed: (i) inhuman act(s), (ii) with the intent to establish or maintain domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians, (iii) in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic racial discrimination and oppression.”

The report goes on to state that “Israel’s prevalent and well-documented practices of arbitrarily detaining Palestinians under the guise of broadly defined security offenses, denying Palestinian detainees’ basic fair trial and due process rights, using ill-treatment and torture with impunity, and placing Palestinians in prolonged administrative detention without charges or trial, together can amount to the inhuman act of denying Palestinians the right to liberty of person.”

They further accuse Israel of “inhuman acts”, “and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group by denying them basic human rights and freedoms.”

Harvard Law School goes on to accuse Israel of “persecution”, severely restricting Palestinians’ exercise of their basic rights to free expression and free association and assembly (of which surely there is a lot of under the Palestinian Authority). Nowhere in the report is there any nuance – no mention of terrorism against Israel, security concerns, the Palestinian Authority’s human rights records, Israel’s rights to any of the land.


Surfside, Fla., Elects Its First Orthodox Jewish Mayor
Shlomo Danziger was elected on Tuesday to be the first Orthodox Jewish mayor of Surfside, Fla.

Danziger, 42, beat two incumbents—Mayor Charles Burkett by 33 votes and Vice Mayor Tina Paul by 23 votes—and garnered about 35 percent of the total votes in the mayoral race, reported Local10.com.

The businessman, father-of-five and native of Brooklyn, NY, moved to Surfside in 2010. He ran for a commission seat in 2020 but was unsuccessful.

In fact, seemed surprised by his election victory on Tuesday and told The Miami Herald: “We got much higher than we thought we were going to get.”

The swearing-in ceremony took place on Wednesday.

Last month, Surfside approved a resolution to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
Toulouse terrorist attack - the turning-point for European Judaism
If then in 2012 no one could imagine that a massacre of children just because they are Jewish could happen in Europe of the 21st century, these days, unfortunately, none of us are surprised anymore.

Governments have since tried to combat antisemitism across Europe, and endless conferences that raised awareness for this terrible phenomenon have taken place. Yet still, any day, we can, unfortunately, wake up to another situation of mass murder of Jews, just because they are Jewish. Yet it is no longer just a European phenomenon; endless antisemitic incidents took place in the past few years in the US, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

It took Monsenego and his wife, Yaffa, five years to finally speak about the worst day of their lives.

“It burns if you get close, so we run away from it,” Monsenego told me five years ago, with tears in his eyes.

He said that “I remember then-president Nicolas Sarkozy coming to visit the school immediately afterward, along with other senior officials. But we were in a different world.”

As a father and school principal, how do you deal with such a crisis?

Monsenego: “I totally let loose. I was completely disconnected, not in this world.

“There is no longer any point in living as before,” he told me five years ago. “I don’t have the same strength I used to have, not the same enthusiasm. The feeling is that you are carrying a ton on your shoulders; you have to carry a very heavy weight, and still move forward.”

The question is, can we really fight the forces of extreme Islam across Europe? Even with all of the money in the world that would have been invested in combating antisemitism – the grassroots hate toward Jews and Israel exists across the continent in high levels. Security is important, but issues of education and influencing Muslim religious and thought leaders are even more important.

Ten years ago, as I made my way to the main train station in Toulouse, I felt heartbroken. I wrote then, “The situation in France and Toulouse is difficult and complicated and it is not yet clear how the recent events will affect daily life in the city. But one thing is for sure, the latest attack is not a one-time event but part of a growing phenomenon that threatens not only French Jewry but all of European Jewry.”


France marks 10 years since Toulouse terror attack —Herzog and Macron Speech





Read all about it here!
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