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Thursday, April 14, 2022

04/14 Links Pt2: Amnesty International’s Cruel Assault on Israel: Systematic Lies, Errors, Omissions & Double Standards; Jewish A Cappella Group Six13 Releases Billy Joel-Inspired Passover Parody

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Amnesty International’s Cruel Assault on Israel: Systematic Lies, Errors, Omissions & Double Standards in Amnesty’s Apartheid Report
In February 2022, Amnesty International (“Amnesty”) released a 280-page report titled “Israel’s Apartheid Against the Palestinians.” Amnesty asserted that Israel is and always has been an apartheid state, both inside Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza. Statements by Amnesty officials and the report’s recommendations highlight that Amnesty’s objective is the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

As documented below in great detail, the Amnesty publication is fundamentally flawed, using lies, distortions, omissions, and egregious double standards to construct a fraudulent and libelous narrative of Israeli cruelty. A careful examination of the text shows that Amnesty conducted almost no primary research. Rather, it is bloated with cut-and-paste phrases and quotes and conclusions taken from third-party sources – notably other political NGOs that are part of the same libelous campaign against Israel. The footnotes are glaringly thin on primary documents, such as official Israeli government statistics, Palestinian documents, court documents, Knesset transcripts, interviews from leading officials, and much of the data is obsolete (often well over a decade old).

In preparing this report, we examined and critically assessed every line of the Amnesty publication and closely read the sources and citations provided. We uncovered five categories of faults: Errors, Misrepresentations, Omissions, Double Standards, and Dead Citations. This systematic review conclusively shows, contrary to Amnesty’s claims, that Amnesty’s allegations have no substance or merit. Click Here for Full Report
NGO Monitor: NGO Credibility in Human Rights and Conflict Reporting: The 2021 State Department Human Rights Report
The annual country reports on human rights published by the US State Department often rest largely on claims made by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as is clearly the case in the section on Israel. A number of developments in 2021 highlight the need to scrutinize these NGOs – specifically the detailed documentation of the terror connections of prominent Palestinian groups and the actions of the Israeli government (see below). Furthermore, in their publications and statements, many NGOs continue to distort and manipulate events, with the stated aim of isolating Israel internationally and encouraging the International Criminal Court (ICC) and United Nations to investigate Israeli officials.

NGO Monitor has prepared this short analysis of several key dimensions related to this issue in 2021, highlighting the extreme ideological positions and methodological failures that define NGO reporting on Israel.

Israel’s designation of Palestinian terror-linked NGOs
On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) designated six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the MoD, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Al-Haq, Addameer, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), and Bisan were included on Israel’s list of terrorist organizations based on detailed evidence that they are operated by and for the benefit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. (A seventh PFLP-linked organization – Health Workers Committee (HWC) – was designated in January 2020.)

On July 20, 2020, the Dutch government announced it was freezing funding to Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) citing the NGO’s close links to the PFLP. Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Development Minister Sigrid Kaag revealed that an internal government audit concluded that Dutch funds were used to pay the salaries of two UAWC employees – Samer Arbid and Abdel Razeq Farraj – currently standing trial for their alleged roles in an August 2019 bombing that murdered an Israeli civilian. In January 2022, the Dutch Foreign Minister announced that the Netherlands had ceased all funding to UAWC, after an 18-month long independent investigation verified that at least 34 UAWC employees (2007-2020) were PFLP members.

In December 2021, Al-Haq revealed that the European Commission suspended its funding in May 2021, after apparently receiving information from the Israeli government. Additionally, European media reported that the EC instructed its grantee Oxfam “to cut funding to the Union of Agricultural Works Committees until the situation has been clarified.”
David Collier: They all have blood on their hands
Across the anti-Zionist activist space (and this includes media, academia, politics and NGOs) there are people who portray Zionists as sub-human evildoers. The lies these people tell and the hate that they spread has real world consequences. These people have the blood of innocents on their hands.

The blood flows on Israeli streets
In just the last few weeks fourteen Israelis have been murdered by Arab terrorists. Let me just begin with the obvious statement: those directly responsible for the terrorist attacks in Beer Sheva, Hadera, Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv are the terrorists who carried out the brutal slaughters.

But terrorism is never as simple as one man with a weapon. Nobody just wakes up in the morning and thinks they should go and slaughter civilians – unless they have been primed to do so within an ideologically twisted environment. Terrorists always believe that their horrific crimes are justified.

And this key fact is so relevant when discussing Israel. Because behind the bullets and knives, behind those slaughtering innocent civilians in Israeli streets, even behind the radical Islamist terrorist groups – sits a well-oiled industry of Jew-hate – with international factories that are churning out endless material that is enabling, empowering, and providing justifications for the monsters that wish to kill Jews.

Millions of people far removed from the actual conflict zone, also consume this hatred – and go on to spread and promote lies and demonising propaganda about Israel. In the end all this anti-Jewish disinformation combines to create an evil atmosphere that rationalises the murder of innocent Israeli civilians.

This does not mean that without the lies and constant demonisation, there would be no terrorism at all against Israelis, but there would certainly be a lot less of it. The situation has become so twisted these days, that radical Islamist terror groups often play to a western audience.

And we all understand this concept, wherever we sit on the political spectrum. When Jo Cox was murdered, the finger of blame was pointed far wider than just at Thomas Mair. And when Patrick Wood Crusius slaughtered 23 people in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, the New York Times wasted no time in blaming the atmosphere created by Donald Trump.

Language matters. Truth matters.


A Remarkable Outbreak of Antisemitism at NYU Law School
NYU Law's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine circulated a statement that, besides casually endorsing the murder of Israeli civilians, argued that "framing is everything and the Zionist grip on the media is omnipresent" and also referenced the "Islamophobic, Zionist-funded US and Western media."

Let's be clear--criticism of Israel, no matter how harsh, isn't necessarily antisemitic. And there are marginal cases where harsh criticism of Israel is skirting the borderlines of antisemitism, sufficient at least to give the critic plausible deniability.

This is not one of those cases. First, the objectionable language noted above is not criticism of Israel, it's criticism of the "Zionist" media in the US and the West.

Second, the clearest, most obvious form of antisemitism that tries to obscure itself behind antizionism is when one can substitute the word "Zionist" for the word "Jew," and one is left with an obvious, longstanding antisemitic trope.

The SJP statement falls exactly into that category. Anyone who knows anything about the modern history of antisemitism knows that Jewish control of the media is about as clear as antisemitic trope as there is. "Controlling the media" is even listed as one of the most prominent "antisemitic canards" in Wikipedia's entry on that topic.

If you are unfamiliar with this trope and doubt my account of it, maybe David Duke's statements can help educate you. For example: "There is a problem in America with a very strong, powerful tribal group that dominates our media…" And "Wow, I think this whole Trump University case, really, if we exploit it, can really expose the entire Jewish manipulation of the American media." Sometimes Duke, like NYU Law's SJP, somewhat more subtly refers to "Zionist control" of the media.

Finding an SJP chapter mimicking classic Nazi-style antisemitism is, unfortunately, not a surprise, as this is the sort of thing SJP has become known for. What's remarkable instead is the reaction of other student organizations.
BDS referendum appears to fail at Princeton University
A Princeton University referendum tied to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement failed on Wednesday after a contentious campus battle, the second time in seven years that an that an anti-Israel measure has failed in an all-campus vote at the Ivy League school, Jewish Insider has learned.

The referendum called on the university to “immediately halt” the use of Caterpillar construction machinery on campus, “given the violent role that Caterpillar machinery has played in the mass demolition of Palestinian homes, the murder of Palestinians and other innocent people, and the promotion of the prison-industrial complex.”

The measure required a majority of votes cast in the referendum to pass, and according to unofficial results posted on private social media accounts and obtained by JI, 1,124 (44%) students voted in favor of the referendum, while 1,029 (40%) students voted against it. A further 424 students (16%) abstained, meaning that some 56% of voters either opposed or abstained from the measure. The website used by Princeton to conduct the referendum required students to choose between three options — yes, no, abstain — before submitting their ballots.

Undergraduate Student Government President Mayu Takeuchi would not confirm the leaked results, which had circulated on social media on Wednesday afternoon, saying that official results would be posted “no earlier than this Friday, April 15 at noon.”

Princeton for Palestine, a group of students supporting the referendum, claimed victory in a since-deleted Instagram post on Wednesday night.
Princeton's Caterpillar Referendum Overlooks Important Realities
I am a junior at Princeton and a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). I cannot support Referendum No. 3, which calls on Princeton University to boycott Caterpillar equipment because it is used by Israel.

Jewish people have lived in historic Palestine for millennia, and the Palestinian leadership has rejected the two-state solution on multiple occasions. Since 2000, at least 1,392 Israeli citizens - including women and children - have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists. I have personally watched hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza fly over my head towards Israeli cities.

The referendum ignores the fact that Caterpillar machinery is often used to de-escalate violence. In the IDF, I frequently worked with Caterpillar D9 tractors to preemptively set structural boundaries for Hamas-orchestrated riots. Without Caterpillar tractors, Israeli soldiers would have to face the impossible task of stopping thousands of people from charging towards Israel's border at once. I was there. I watched Caterpillar tractors minimize disaster and prevent calamity. The equipment was used to protect the lives of protesters in Gaza and civilians in Israel.

Boycotting Caterpillar would also harm the Palestinian Tractor & Equipment Company (a designated Caterpillar distributor) which describes itself as "a leading participant in Palestine's economic and industrial development." This referendum is precisely the kind of performative, empty activism that non-stakeholders use to solve a problem they scarcely understand.
OSU student government president won’t sign divestment resolution
A resolution inspired by the boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel that The Ohio State University student senate approved April 6 has died after the outgoing student senate president, Jacob Chang, failed to sign it.

Ethan Wolf, an alternate student senator who is a senior at The Ohio State University in Columbus, told the Cleveland Jewish News April 13 the resolution – targeting Hewlett Packard and Caterpillar Inc. for their business interests in Israel – was doomed from the start.

“Whether the president signed it or not, whether it made it through the trustees or not, at the end, the end game was the same, because it was never going to be implemented,” Wolf said.

“It’s illegal in the state of Ohio to pass the divestment bill from the State of Israel specifically,” he added, referring to anti-BDS legislation passed by the Ohio legislature in 2016. “So it was a toothless bill that just put Jewish people at risk.”

The resolution passed by a vote of 14-8 with two abstentions.

Its main impact, Wolf said, will be to affect campus climate.

“There’s still a lot of students that I think are going to be pretty upset with that,” he said, adding that because of the way the process was framed, no public forum took place before the vote, although more than 40 Jewish students had spoken about the resolution March 30. “I’m pretty upset that when people tried to bring those concerns to the table to be heard, they were silenced and shut out of the room.”
UIUC Kills Student BDS Bill
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) killed a student government bill endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in March.

The bill, presented to the Illinois Student Government (ISG) Senate by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and obtained by the Journal, would have been presented as a referendum question asking if the university should “divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from or engage in human rights violations in US Prisons, at the US-Mexico Border, and in Occupied Palestine.” It specifically singled out companies like Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Company for conducting business with the Israeli military.

The bill passed the ISG Senate on February 23 by a margin of 17-14, with two abstentions; however, the university and the ISG Judiciary found that there were technical issues with the bill’s passage, and thus it was nullified. The ISG Judiciary noted in their March 9 ruling, which was obtained by the Journal, that there were three specific issues. First, the bill had passed via secret ballot at the behest of those opposed to the bill, which is unconstitutional in the ISG. The Judiciary lambasted the Speaker and Parliamentarian for failing “to detect such a breach,” calling it “appalling” and “damaging to the Senate’s case.” The bill also only obtained a simple majority vote (meaning the majority of senators present at a meeting) as opposed to the majority of the entire Senate body; the latter is required for referendum questions. Additionally, the ISG Judiciary found that the agenda for the meeting was released 24 hours prior to the meeting, in violation of the ISG Constitution’s requirement for the agenda to be released 48 hours before a meeting.

Prior to the ISG Judiciary’s ruling, Vice Chancellor Danita Brown wrote in an email, obtained by the Journal, to the Illinois Student Government (ISG) Leaders on March 3 that the bill will not be allowed on the ballot. “There were too many procedural concerns surrounding the presentation and narrow passage of the resolution,” Brown wrote. “I encourage you to still move forward with your judiciary process, but please note, regardless of any decision by the ISG Judiciary, my decision still stands.”


Funding for ‘Blatantly Antisemitic’ Speaker Draws Concern From Jewish Students at ASU, Duke
High-dollar honorariums that several university student governments paid to bring a controversial Palestinian activist to campus are being denounced by Jewish student groups, pointing to his record of unrepentant antisemitism.

An American college campus tour by 23-year-old Mohammed El-Kurd, in support of his new book, “Rifqa,” has included stops at Arizona State University (ASU), Duke University and American University. Currently a columnist for the left-wing magazine The Nation, El-Kurd has trafficked in antisemitic tropes, demonized Zionism, and falsely accused Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians.

Ahead of El-Kurd’s recent appearance at ASU, at the invitation of the ASU Palestine Cultural Club (PCC), a coalition of Jewish groups condemned the use of some $9,955 in student government funding for the event — describing his views as diametrical to the university’s values of inclusivity and peaceful dialogue.

“We strongly condemn the use of undergraduate student government funding to host a blatantly antisemitic speaker,” ASU Hillel and other groups posted on March 30.

“While we understand the laws of free speech protect even the most horrific hate speech, we are disappointed that funding from [Undergraduate Student Government-Tempe] will be supporting the visit of El-Kurd, and we are further frustrated that other student clubs would deem him an appropriate speaker for our campus community,” the groups said, calling on Jewish students to write to ASU officials to “express their concerns.”

Despite their protestations, the event went as planned on Sunday. “After months of planning, the Rifqa Book tour was a success; Mohammed read some of his favorite poems, gave us some insight to his writing, and engaged in our audience Q&A giving us hope to not feel disparity as a Palestinian and to use our voice and platform to reach bigger audiences in spreading awareness to our cause in freeing Palestine,” the PCC said.


The New York Times Erases Jews. (Again.)
An “Exclusively Arab” Jewish Quarter
A New York Times editorial about American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital similarly conceals Jewish history by telling readers that East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, had been exclusively Arab before Israel’s meddling:

“Palestinians anticipated being able to locate their capital in East Jerusalem and to have access to Muslim holy sites there,” the editorial states — ignoring throughout the presence Judaism’s holiest site). “East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967,” it continues, “but Israel has steadily built settlements there, placing some 200,000 of its citizens among the Arab population and complicating any possible peace agreement.”

But this part of Jerusalem was “exclusively Arab” for only 19 years, and this was only because it was ethnically cleansed of its Jews in 1948. By using 1967 as the only historical reference point, the paper hides thousands of years of Jewish presence behind a miniscule 19-year stretch that stands out as an anomaly and a disgraceful stain on the history of the area.

Concealing the Israeli Narrative Behind a Palestinian One
Perhaps it is only fitting that Abdulrahim’s piece this week erases Jewish history, since its apparent purpose is to erase the Jewish narrative in the face of a wave of Palestinian terrorism.

The piece, written by someone who, at least in her youth, defended Hamas and Hezbollah violence, takes aim at Israel’s security barrier precisely at the time that its importance was highlighted by a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks, including two attacks, in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak, by Palestinians who infiltrated Israel from the West Bank. Despite a few lines acknowledging that the barrier is a security measure, the piece promotes the Palestinian narrative that the barrier is a “land grab” by Israel.

Incredibly, the article says nothing about the terror attacks in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak, though they are clearly relevant to any discussion of the barrier. It seems this recent history, just like ancient Jewish history, doesn’t fit the narrative.
New York Times Bias Shows as Paper Smears Brooklyn Jews as Racist Profiteers
The New York Times bias in news articles shows itself in editorial decisions about what to attribute, and how to attribute it — and about what to leave unattributed.

It’s a subtle and perhaps abstract point, but a few recent examples may help to show what I mean.

One Times article, a “West Bank Dispatch” by Raja Abdulrahim, mentions Israeli settlements and says, “Most of the world considers those settlements a violation of international law, though Israel insists that there has been a Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years.”

The phrase “Israel insists” was flagged by Gilead Ini, a senior research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis. Why is it needed? Does the New York Times doubt the veracity of it? The Times could have simply written, “though there has been a Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years.” Or: “though extensive archeological and textual evidence attests to the fact that there has been a Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years.”

Instead, you get the strange formulation of an entire country — Israel — insisting on something, as if it’s a cranky restaurant customer or a petulant child. It’s almost like the Times is afraid of investigating the underlying facts for fear that they might disturb the newspaper’s far-left readers, or hamper the reporter’s ability to operate freely in the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank.
Yes, the Media Bury the Race of Murderers—If They’re Not White
Frank James, the man arrested for Tuesday's New York City subway shooting, is a black nationalist and outspoken racist who railed against whites, Jews, and Hispanics. A careful reader of the New York Times could be forgiven for overlooking that. In a nearly 2,000-word article on the attack, James's race is not mentioned. The same is true for the coverage offered up by Reuters; the Washington Post only mentioned James's race in relation to his condemnation of training programs for "low-income Black youths."

Media critics on the right say that the conspicuous omission of James's race from these news reports illustrates a trend among prestige papers, which deemphasize or omit the race of non-white criminals while playing up the race of white offenders. But is it a real pattern?

Yes. A Washington Free Beacon review of hundreds of articles published by major papers over a span of two years finds that papers downplay the race of non-white offenders, mentioning their race much later in articles than they do for white offenders. These papers are also three to four times more likely to mention an offender's race at all if he is white, a disparity that grew in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020 and the protests that followed.

The Free Beacon collected data on nearly 1,100 articles about homicides from six major papers, all written between 2019 and 2021. Those papers included the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis's Star-Tribune—representatives of each paper did not return requests for comment for this article. For each article, we collected the offender's and victim's name and race, and noted where in the article the offender's race was mentioned, if at all.
Media Spotlight on Religious Freedom in Israel Doesn’t Extend to PA’s Jailing of Christian Pastor
As the holidays of Passover, Ramadan, and Easter converge, Israel’s need to strike a delicate balance between facilitating access by members of numerous religious denominations to their respective holy sites, and keeping Jerusalem and Israel secure amid a Palestinian terror wave, has been covered widely (see here, here, here, and here).

Yet as tens of thousands of worshipers of all faiths flock to the Old City, the story of a Palestinian evangelical pastor who was jailed for 40 days after being arrested for meeting with a Jewish former member of Israel’s parliament, hasn’t generated a mention from international news outlets.

And this latest incident was just part of a pattern, largely unreported, of the Palestinian Authority (PA) persecuting Christians.

Local media outlets reported on April 11 that Palestinian security forces had released Pastor Johnny Shahwan from prison.

Shahwan was detained on March 2, and his Christian community center — Beit Al-Liqa in Beit Jala — was shut down following a purported meeting with former Israeli parliamentarian Yehudah Glick.

The Palestinian leadership “accused Shahwan of promoting normalization with the ‘Zionist entity’ and welcoming an ‘extremist Zionist settler.’”
At my high school, the Holocaust is barely taught in history class. That scares me
In middle school, I invited my grandfather to speak to my classmates about his experiences during the Holocaust. He spoke about his good luck: He’d been playing ball with friends when he drew the short straw and had to retrieve water for the group from home — and encountered his panicked family almost out the door. He talked about his parents’ decision to accept the help of Italian soldiers at the Swiss border, despite the risk of betrayal, and about his dreary and demoralizing life as a teenager in a refugee camp.

My peers listened with their mouths open, much like I do every time I hear these stories. After he finished, he had tears in his eyes. Then someone asked, “What were non-Jews doing to stop this?”

I’ve heard so little about the Holocaust during my years in school that if I didn’t have intimate personal connections to it, I could easily put it in the back of my mind. My 10th grade history class in Virginia spent weeks elaborating on the way of life of ancient Mesopotamians and less than a day on the Holocaust. It’s hard to fathom. Rose Schindler holds up the identification number tattooed by Nazis upon her arrival at Auschwitz in 1944. She expresses a responsibility to accept speaking invitations because “somebody has to do it.”

Virginia requires four years of high school history, and World History II is the only course that touches on the Holocaust. State guidelines for this class include teaching 61 broad topics — one of them folds the Holocaust into “examples of genocide in the 21st century.” It’s not enough.

Such gaps in education about the Holocaust make me afraid. I’m afraid that the collective ignorance and ongoing hatred of Jews will grow into something so much more, and it makes me fear for my loved ones and myself. I’m afraid that I’m seeing seeds of civil unrest, and educators aren’t doing enough to stop it.

When my friend made that joke in seventh grade, I said nothing because I didn’t want to be ostracized for ruining his “funny” moment. I now recognize that his comment stemmed from ignorance. Each generation needs to be taught about the events and ideology that allowed the Holocaust to occur so that it can be given an opportunity to understand the horrifying consequence of unchecked hate and ignorance.

We need to make sure the lessons of the Holocaust outlive the last survivors.
Notorious antisemite Alison Chabloz sentenced to jail once again after action by CAA
The notorious antisemite Alison Chabloz has been sentenced to jail today once again, after being found guilty of a communications offence following action by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Last week’s two-day trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court concerned a video of the scene in the classic Oliver Twist film when Fagin, a fictitious Jewish criminal (a character that has come under significant criticism over the past century for its antisemitic depiction), is explaining to his newest recruit how his legion of children followers pick pockets. Ms Chabloz uploaded the video and sings an accompanying song of her own about how Jews are greedy, “grift” for “shekels” and cheat on their taxes.

The video appeared to be either a bizarre fundraising effort for her mounting legal costs due to numerous charges she has faced, including several ongoing prosecutions in which Campaign Against Antisemitism has provided evidence, or an attempt at mockery of Campaign Against Antisemitism for pursuing her in the courts.

At court, Ms Chabloz tried to suggest that the video was part of a personal quarrel and that her racism is directed not at “Jews” but at “Zionists”. She expressed scepticism about the facts of the Holocaust on the stand, and replicated a racist Quennelle gesture, which she has performed in the past. She rather insightfully observed that “antisemitism is not a crime. If it was, the prisons would be full.”

Summing up, Judge Nina Tempia said that the defendant “was making up evidence” as she went along, and she did not accept Ms Chabloz’s claim that her song was about the controversial activist Tommy Robinson, describing that suggestion as “ludicrous”. Instead, Judge Tempia said, “I have not doubt” that the song related to Jews. She further noted that, given Ms Chabloz’s previous convictions, she “knew exactly what she was doing” and that she had a propensity to commit these types of offences.

The prosecution asked the court to take into account that the whole Jewish community was a victim in this crime and that Ms Chabloz had an incomplete report of her previous sentences.
NJ man targeting Jews warned of ‘blood bath’ before attacking victims: prosecutors
An antisemitic New Jersey man went on a shocking hours-long crime spree targeting Hasidic Jews — having warned his family to expect “a blood bath,” according to police documents.

Dion Marsh, 27, was charged with three counts of attempted murder as well as bias intimidation for allegedly running down two men and stabbing another in the chest on Saturday, Ocean County prosecutors said.

The spree started with a violent carjacking in Lakewood Township just after 1 p.m. — and only ended nearly 10 hours later when he was arrested at home in Manchester, prosecutors said.

Two of his victims — including an Orthodox Jew who was stabbed — were listed in critical but stable condition, police said.

Marsh was identified after an anonymous citizen tipped off cops after recognizing him in security video of the carjacking, according to court documents obtained by NJ.com.
Germany arrests anti-vaxxer neo-Nazis for plot to kidnap health minister
German investigators on Thursday said they had arrested four members of a far-right anti-lockdown group with pro-Russian leanings for planning violent attacks, including a plot to kidnap the country’s health minister.

The suspects from the “Vereinte Patrioten” (United Patriots) group are accused of “preparing explosive attacks and other acts of violence,” as well as the “kidnapping of well-known public figures,” prosecutors in Koblenz said in a joint statement with the Rhineland-Palatinate police.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach confirmed he was among their targets and had received police protection.

A central goal of the group was to “destroy power supply facilities in order to cause a prolonged nationwide blackout,” the investigators said.

“This was intended to cause civil war-like conditions and ultimately overthrow the democratic system in Germany,” they said.

Investigators had identified five German suspects aged 41-55, and on Wednesday carried out searches leading to four arrests and the seizure of around two dozen guns, including a Kalashnikov.


Two Tennessee Measures Target Israel Boycotts, Antisemitism in Classroom
Jewish leaders commended the Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday for passing a measure that prohibits companies participating in BDS-style boycotts of Israel from receiving state contracts, while separate legislation combatting antisemitism in the classroom advanced in the state House.

Signed into law by Governor Governor Bill Lee on Friday, SB 1993 decreed that state contracts must include “a written certification that the company is not currently engaged in, and will not for the duration of the contract engage in a boycott of Israel.”

The second bill, a measure applying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to K-12 disciplinary proceedings, was passed by the House on Monday, and will be voted on by the Senate on Friday.

“We applaud the Tennessee legislature and Governor Bill Lee for passing and signing the legislation prohibiting state contracts with companies engaged in the bigoted Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement,” leaders from the Conference of President of Major Jewish Organizations said on Tuesday, of the first effort. “Tennessee joins a majority of US states that have taken this critical step in the fight against antisemitism and discriminatory boycotts in the form of adopted laws, executive orders, and resolutions.”

The group also said the bill “demonstrates Tennessee’s firm commitment to Israel” and criticized BDS for aiming to “destroy Israel and the promise of the Jewish homeland through economic warfare” instead of proposing measures that foster peace in the Middle East.


Why does NYC still honor two French Nazi collaborators? - opinion
Statues of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt were recently removed from, respectively, the New York City Council chamber at City Hall and the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West. Municipal officials, acting amidst a wave of sensitivity to historical slights, noted Jefferson’s role as a slaveholder and the Roosevelt statue’s demeaning depiction of Native Americans.

Regardless of their shortcomings, neither US president has ever been accused of dispatching tens of thousands of people to be killed in gas chambers. But two people honored by New York City have been.

For most of the past two decades, plaques honoring Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval, under whose watch as leaders of the Hitler-allied Vichy regime approximately 77,000 Jews living in France were murdered, have been on prominent display in New York City.

The Pétain/Laval government promulgated draconian antisemitic laws, “aryanized” or seized Jewish property and rounded up thousands of Jews for deportation from France to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland.

Yet black granite markers engraved with Pétain’s and Laval’s names remain untouched on Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan.
Proceeds of Monet Artwork on Auction Will Go to Heirs of Painting’s Original German Jewish Owner
A landscape painting by Impressionist painter Claude Monet that its original Jewish owner was forced to sell before he fled Nazi Germany will be auctioned next month, with a portion of the proceeds of the sale going to the heirs of the original owner, ARTnews reported.

Monet’s “La Mare, effet de neige” (1874-75), will be sold at Christie’s in New York on May 12. A legal settlement organized by Christie’s restitution department states that proceeds from the sale will be divided between the descendants of the work’s original owner, Richard Semmel, and a French family who are the painting’s current owners. The artwork is expected to be sold for $18-$25 million.

The owner of a textile factory in Germany who had a vast art collection, Semmel purchased the Monet painting from a German dealer in 1898. The artwork was previously exhibited at the “The First Impressionist Exhibition” in 1874.

Semmel was targeted by the Nazis for being Jewish, wealthy and a member of the German Democratic Party. Before he fled Germany to the Netherlands in 1933, he auctioned hundreds of pieces from his art collection. “La Mare, effet de neige” remained unsold and later came into the possession of French art collector Philip Leary, and eventually his descendants, who are the painting’s current owners, according to ARTnews.

Semmel fled the Netherlands in 1939 before the Nazis invaded the country and arrived in New York in 1941, where he lived until he died in 1950. His only heir was his friend and caretaker Grete Gross-Eisenstädt, who died in 1958. Her descendants were informed about the painting in March, after Christie’s restitution department reviewed the artwork, and a settlement was finalized in one day.
Creator of first ever video game about the Holocaust aims to educate future generations on the Shoah
Luc Bernard, a video game developer and the creator of the first video game about the Holocaust, appeared on the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism where he spoke about how video games could be an instrumental resource in teaching young people about the Shoah.

Mr Bernard, whose grandmother assisted children who arrived in the United Kingdom on the Kindertransport, an initiative in 1938-39 to rescue nearly 10,000 Jewish children from Europe, described his motivation in the creation of his game, The Light in the Darkness.

“Some don’t believe video games can be educational. That’s something I disagree with,” he said. “The problem is, no one has thought about what is the next step, or how do we continue education in new ways? Because I think education is trying to get the digital generation to adapt to them, rather than trying to adapt to the digital generation.”

Pointing to the successes of previous artforms in providing Holocaust education after meeting initial resistance, Mr Bernard said: “Comic books were viewed as insane at one point until Maus came out. Films were kind of viewed like, ‘I don’t know, man,’ until Shoah came out, and Schindler’s List. Video games need to be able to tackle the subject because we’re the number one form of entertainment, and I think rather than discourage game developers towards doing it, we should actually be able to guide game developers and encourage them to make these games, because then there would be more awareness.”

The story of the game revolves around Polish Jews in France during the Holocaust, Mr Bernard told our host. “You follow a Polish Jewish family in France, so you get to play, more like interact and experience, the story from France before the occupation, up to the occupation, antisemitism rising…we’re kind of going through every single step.
'Buy Palestinian Matzot!'- 1927 ad
'Buy Palestinian Matzot!' was a call to support Zion back in the days of the British Mandate.

On April 28, 1926, a headline for a Jewish Telegraphic Agency story read, “Arrangements Are Made to Sell Palestine Matzos in the United States.” It was part of an effort to further expand the growing Palestinian Matzo industry.

Palestine is a name of the land, it is not a nation. It is a title that has been often used for well over two thousand years. During Ottoman (1517-1917) and subsequent post World War One British Mandatory rule, the inhabitants of Palestine whether Jews, Christians, or Muslims were often known as Palestinians.

Palestine Matzos! Those are Matzot from the land of Israel, produced by Zionist industry. Products of the land whether it was wine, honey, or oranges and so many other industries was Palestinian in name and Zionist. Purchasing these products was a way of supporting the Zionist movement. In 1926, a greater push was made to sell Palestinian Matzot to Jews worldwide.

It was a time when there was a wave of Jewish immigrants. Sixty-seven thousand had arrived very recently from Poland. More vibrant industries were needed to provide jobs supporting the Yishuv-(the Jewish community of Palestine).
Jewish A Cappella Group Six13 Releases Billy Joel-Inspired Passover Parody
The Jewish a cappella group Six13 created a mash-up of classic tunes from Jewish musician Billy Joel for their new Passover song, aptly titled “A Billy Joel Passover.”

The music video for the track begins with the group’s rendition of Joel’s “Piano Man,” which they turned into “Pharaoh Man.”

Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was converted into “God Set a Bush on Fire” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” was morphed into “Scenes from a Seder Night.” Joel’s popular song “Movin’ Out” is also included in the parody to help describe the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

The video is shot around New York, which is the singer and Six13’s hometown, including in the subway and outside Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan.


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