Thursday, August 25, 2022
Anti-Israel journalists cover up the Palestinians’ murder of numerous Americans
Who are the primary victims of the bloodlust supposedly uncovered by The Intercept and Le Monde?You can't fight antisemitism while ignoring its supporters on the Left
One is Rachel Corrie, a young woman originally from Olympia, Washington who died in 2003. The other is Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist who obtained U.S. citizenship through relatives in New Jersey. She was fatally wounded by gunfire in May.
But Israel did not dispatch agents to Washington and New Jersey to kill these two women. Nor did Israelis conspire to harm them at all.
Corrie was killed after journeying to the Gaza Strip as an anti-Israel activist. She was hit by an Israeli bulldozer that was demolishing structures near the Egyptian border. It was doing so as part of an effort to stop the smuggling of weapons to Palestinian jihadists who explicitly seek Israel’s destruction. Corrie was affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement, a self-declared “non-violent” Palestinian-led group that endorses “legitimate armed struggle”—that is, terrorism—against Israel. According to an ISM witness’s own account, Corrie approached the military bulldozer, climbed onto it, fell off and was then dragged by its shovel, which caused mortal injuries.
Akleh was killed in Jenin in Judea/Samaria. An Al Jazeera correspondent, she was there to cover an Israeli counterterrorism raid that followed a wave of gruesome Palestinian attacks that murdered 19 people across Israel. When Israeli security forces attempted to apprehend Palestinian suspects, a fierce gun battle erupted and Akleh was fatally wounded. Al Jazeera, a Qatari state-owned network whose funders do not recognize Israel, asserted immediately that “Israeli occupation forces assassinated” Akleh while she was “covering their brutality.” However, there was no proof that the bullet came from the Israelis’ position, let alone that Akleh’s death was intentional. Palestinian leaders refused to share physical evidence with Israel or conduct a joint investigation.
Of course, neither the actions nor the personal politics of Rachel Corrie or Shireen Abu Akleh dispel the tragedy of their deaths. But to suggest that their demise indicates calculated, systemic Israeli malice towards Americans is absurd. On the contrary, Israel has every reason to prevent such deaths, as it knows very well that they will be exploited to maim Israel politically. Israel expressed sadness over Corrie’s demise and left the questions surrounding Abu Akleh’s death to be answered by a full investigation.
What Speri and Filiu ignore is as significant as their wild accusations. Put simply, they engage in the wholesale omission of American victims of brutal and deliberate Palestinian violence.
Over the three decades since Israel gave the Palestinians autonomy, which eventually included a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, some 60 Americans have lost their lives to Palestinian terrorism. Here are some of their names:
Koby Mandell, 13, was stoned to death.
Malki Roth, 15, was killed in a suicide bombing in a pizzeria.
Nachshon Wachsman, 19, was taken hostage and then shot dead.
Naftali Fraenkel, 16, was kidnapped while hitchhiking and killed.
Hannah Rogen, 92, died in a bombing of a Passover seder.
Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59, was killed in a hacking and shooting attack on a synagogue.
Marla Bennett, 24, died in a bombing of a Hebrew University cafeteria. I was a student there at the time.
Kristine Luken, 44, a Christian, was bound and fatally stabbed during a hike.
Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, was stabbed to death in her own bed.
Chaya Zissel Braun died in a car-ramming attack. She was just three months old.
During the time these atrocities took place, the Palestinians received more than $6.3 billion in U.S. aid. Yet Palestinian leaders continue to be implicated in endemic, shocking glorification of violence, and they officially dispense payments to those found guilty of terrorism.
Each victim of these attacks had a past, a stolen future and a grieving family left behind.
Will The Intercept and Le Monde speak their names? Or do their lives—and the Palestinian atrocities that took them—not matter?
No less than governments, journalists must be held accountable. Truth isn’t pursued with one eye closed.
Jews face threats from numerous directions. Unfortunately, viewers may be left with the impression that the far Right is dangerous, the far Left makes unpleasant comments, and any other threats are vague. For the sake of American Jews’ safety, though, a comprehensive threat overview is necessary.
Viewers saw a picture from the Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 Jews were massacred in October 2018, and watched the shooter from the April 2019 Poway Chabad attack play piano — both of those men identified with the far Right. However, that’s not always the case.
There was no mention of the Black Hebrew Israelite influence on the attackers who killed Jews in Jersey City, New Jersey, or Monsey, New York, in 2019. While the January 2022 Colleyville, Texas, synagogue attack was spotlighted and the deputy director of the FBI mentioned the hostage-taker's interest in freeing a convicted al Qaeda terrorist, his Islamist ideology was not made explicit. There was no discussion of the attacks on New York’s visible Jews or increased anti-Zionist attacks on Jews walking to a pro-Israel rally or eating sushi in May 2021.
The special did rightly reference the trope of Jews as disease vectors, pointing to Orthodox Jews being blamed for spreading COVID-19 in 2020. This narrative was irresponsibly furthered by New York City’s mayor, who tweeted about breaking up a Jewish funeral and locked playgrounds in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, while New York’s governor appeared to lie to Jewish leaders about gathering limits and blasted an Orthodox Jewish community over a wedding. However, this wasn’t new. New York’s Orthodox Jews were also blamed for measles in 2019.
The special also zoomed in on social media’s fueling of antisemitism. However, a cited investigation focused overwhelmingly on user reports of far-right antisemitism, which were almost entirely ignored. Reality is undoubtedly uglier.
Bash's comment that "experts across the board caution antisemitism is growing on the Left, but it is not equivalent to hate from the Right” was unhelpful. Antisemitism is a problem on the Left. Debating whether the far Right or the far Left is “worse” is a waste of time — both pose dangers to American Jews. Given how heavily featured the far Right was, though, it’s worth remembering that America's society already stigmatizes the far Right, but the far Left is culturally embedded. Further, given how many Jews live in Blue America, most Jews in the United States are more likely to encounter problems from the far Left.
Finally, education was offered as an antidote to antisemitism. Yet, there were no specifics for those interested in learning more. This was a missed opportunity. Beyond offering a list of organizations fighting antisemitism on campus and in the country at large and a reading list, viewers should have been directed to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism. If well-intentioned people can’t recognize antisemitism, there’s no way they can help combat it.
From the Nazis to Hamas: The Mass Appeal of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ Persists (VIDEO)
This week marks 119 years since the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forged antisemitic document portraying a worldwide Jewish plot to manipulate the economy and media. The Russian newspaper Znamya is believed to have first printed portions of the conspiracy theory in August 1903, under the headline “The Jewish program for the conquest of the world.”
In 1921, The London Times presented conclusive evidence that the Protocols were “clumsy plagiarism.” Its authors had in fact concocted the conspiracy theory by appropriating a satirical essay that made no mention of Jews, The London Times found.
Though thoroughly debunked, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been peddled and published by Judeophobic movements throughout history — including the German Nazi party, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority.
Meanwhile, some major news outlets have also promoted tropes about Jewish world domination.
The Anti-Semitic ‘Right-Hand Woman’ in Rashida Tlaib’s Congressional Campaign
On Primary election day, August 2nd, Mubarak tweeted a picture of herself with Tlaib – the two decked out in Tlaib campaign regalia – with the following message: “It’s official. We sending our sister Rashida Tlaib back to Congress! We won, again, y’all!” And while Mubarak took a few days to bask in the victory, it did not take her long to focus her attention (and animosity) back on the Jewish state.Jewish Student’s Civil Rights Violated by Arizona School District, Feds Say
On August 6th, Mubarak twice (and again the next day) retweeted anti-Israel messages written by Noura Erekat, a Palestinian activist who was condemned for her antisemitism, only this past April, by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC). SWC stated, “Noura Erekat’s hatred of Jews is so pure it would have made Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels happy.” In December 2020, Mubarak featured Erekat as her guest, on her first Unbought Power podcast, to honor Erekat’s terrorist cousin, Ahmed, who had just been shot and killed after attempting to run over a female Israeli border officer, at a checkpoint east of Jerusalem.
Also on August 6th, Mubarak retweeted former PLO spokeswoman Diana Buttu’s post, “Palestinians have a right to defend themselves and their land. There is no right to defend a military occupation.” This idea of Israel having no right to self-defense is not new to Mubarak; she has been saying as such for years. In 2012, she tweeted, “#LiesImTiredOfHearing, Israel has the right to defend herself.” In 2013, she said, about Israel, US diplomats mouth the words “‘right to defend itself’… when they snore.” And in 2019, after Hamas fired hundreds of deadly rockets at Israeli civilians, she tweeted against anyone who dared defend Israeli retaliation.
Further on August 6th, Mubarak retweeted a post from a fan of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group named Yara, who wrote “Long live the Palestinian resistance.” Mubarak echoed these sentiments, this past September 11th, when she tweeted her adoration for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)-linked prisoner escapees, writing “The Palestinian diaspora is grieving today as a total of 4 of the 6 Palestinian political prisoners from #thegreatescape were detained. Nonetheless, the hope these 6 Palestinian freedom fighters have offered us, will not be short lived – we will resist to exist.”
For Mubarak and her radical friends, including Congresswoman Tlaib, “resistance” means one thing, violence against Jews. The liberation of Israel they seek is one based on death and destruction carried out by masked terrorists, who launch rockets into civilian neighborhoods and blow themselves up in suicide attacks.
In fear of losing constituencies, like that of Tlaib, Democratic leadership has cowardly allowed this murderous bigotry to permeate their party, legitimizing the hate. Antisemitism is on the rise among Democrats, and the re-election of Tlaib is proof of this. Mubarak is being groomed for political office, as well. Democrats have failed to purge their ranks. If Democrats do not wake up, soon the party will be saturated with this type of bloodthirsty fanaticism, to the point that raving antisemites like Mubarak and Tlaib will cease being the exception but will be the norm.
The US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has ruled that Kyrene School District in Arizona violated the civil rights of a Jewish student who was harassed by antisemitic bullies for months.USC grapples with responding to (and defining) incidents of anti-Semitism on campus
DOE’s ruling, announced on Tuesday, resolves a complaint filed on behalf of a female, Jewish eighth-grader who complained to a school principal that several students called her antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew,” “stinky Jew,” and “filthy Jew.”
In her presence, students also joked about the Holocaust, pretended to speak in German, and goose-stepped while pantomiming the Sieg Heil salute.
“Although the district confirmed that antisemitic harassment occurred on campus and in classrooms, including by finding that nine students had engaged in antisemitic harassment for several months, the district did not assess whether the verified, widespread harassment negatively impacted other students,” OCR said in a press release. “The harassment the student experienced and the district’s failure to provide the student with a safe school environment caused her to suffer significant and enduring academic and emotional harm.”
OCR added that Kyrene School District subjected the student to a “hostile environment that was sufficiently persistent, or pervasive, that it interfered with the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program.”
As part of its agreement with the agency, Kyrene has committed to providing the Jewish student with counseling, updating its anti-discrimination policies to explicitly include antisemitism, and training its employees in best practices for responding to complaints of all discrimination based on “race, color, and national origin.” The district will also educate students about discrimination and conduct a “climate survey” at the student’s school to “assess the prevalence of harassment” there.
On the same day that University of Southern California president Carol Folt accepted recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Jewish life on ways to combat anti-Semitism on campus, a window at the USC Hillel was discovered shattered when employees arrived for work.
In a letter to the school community on Tuesday addressing the advisory recommendations, Folt wrote: “The committee’s recommendations give us tangible direction across nearly every aspect of Jewish life at USC, including experiences of anti-Semitism, university processes and policies, the Jewish experience on campus, and education and training.”
“The next phase is implementation,” she said. “While many of these recommendations are already underway, we will work to implement them as quickly as we can.”
In a statement to students and supporters, Dave Cohn, the executive director of USC Hillel, addressed the release of the advisory committee’s recommendation and the broken window, noting that “the building was not occupied when this occurred.”
“At this time, we do not yet know the motives or identities of any involved, and we are not prepared to characterize the incident. We do not know whether the damage was accidental, a random act of criminal vandalism or if it specifically targeted our facility,” he wrote. “That said, within a half hour of opening our building this morning, we were working closely onsite with the USC Department of Public Safety to begin an investigation.”
Cohn, who was a member of the Advisory Committee on Jewish Life, said the report sent to Folt included input from students, faculty and staff, as well as organizations such as the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League.
“The committee,” he went on to say, “will now become a standing body charged with monitoring the ongoing implementation of these recommendations and responding to new issues as they emerge.”
The recommendations include responding quickly and publicly to anti-Semitic incidents; reiterating the university’s opposition to the BDS movement; showcasing the work that is already being done by Jewish organizations and individuals on campus; and “explore the possibility” of creating a full-time director of Jewish life, “similar to positions at other peer universities.”
Institutions these academics are part of include:
— Daniel Sugarman (@Daniel_Sugarman) August 25, 2022
University of Bristol (where Miller was): 23
Leeds: 16
UCL: 14
KCL: 12
Liverpool: 9
Queen's Belfast: 9
SOAS: 7
Manchester: 7
Warwick: 7
Edinburgh: 7
Open University: 6
Sheffield: 5
Bath: 5
Leeds Beckett: 4
Brunel: 4
Glasgow: 4
We are asking the public not to listen to this classified leaked conversation between @HowardFeldman and @TheMossadIL. @chaifmhttps://t.co/SOjHQaoCth
— The Mossad: The Social Media Account (@TheMossadIL) August 25, 2022
A play in three acts pic.twitter.com/rxn3Y42Hl2
— DEI Lead at British East India Co. (@AnikVJoshi) August 24, 2022
‘Bursting With Hatred for Israel:’ Antisemitic Video Exhibited at Scandal-Plagued Documenta Art Festival
The ongoing Documenta festival of contemporary art in the German city of Kassel was the site of yet another scandal involving antisemitism on Wednesday, as a German media outlet highlighted a video installation that allegedly glorifies Palestinian terrorism and explains the creation of the State of Israel by way of conspiracy theories.Italian Winemaker Says Hitler Wines Will Be Discontinued Next Year
The installation, called the “Tokyo Reels,” brings together 20 pro-Palestinian propaganda films from the 1970s and 1980s, assembled by a group of Japanese and Palestinian artists to win attention for “the largely overlooked and undocumented anti-imperialist solidarity between Japan and Palestine,” according to an article by antisemitism scholar Jakob Baier in the German daily taz.
One of the initiators of the project is Masao Adachi, a former member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) terrorist organization. Founded in 1971, the JRA was known for its rigid Marxist ideology and the punishing, often violent, internal discipline meted out to its supporters. In May 1972, the group carried out one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in Israel’s history, when three JRA terrorists launched a gun and grenade attack in the arrivals terminal at Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion Airport) near Tel Aviv. Twenty-six people were murdered and 80 injured during the attack, with a group of Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico and the renowned Israeli biophysicist Prof. Aharon Katzir among the dead.
Other false claims contained in the film according to Baier include the accusations that the IDF sabotages toys with explosives for the specific purpose of “murdering children,” and that the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut, executed by Lebanese Christian Phalangist forces, was carried out by Israeli troops.
Baier asserted that the films gathered for the “Tokyo Reels” installation were “bursting with hatred for Israel.”
“They describe the establishment of the Jewish state as the result of a ‘Zionist conspiracy,’ claiming that Israeli soldiers desecrated corpses in a Christian cemetery and destroyed shrines in a church,” he wrote. The video’s claim was accompanied by a voiceover commentary that declared, “respect and reverence for the dead is taught by all religions, but even that meant nothing to the Zionists.”
Following years of condemnation from Jewish groups and tourists in Italy, an Italian winemaker said that next year he will finally stop selling a collection of wines that have pictures of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on the labels.Hamilton school board candidate quits race after antisemitic comments surface
Vini Lunardelli started selling the Hitler bottles in 1995 as part of his Historical Series of wines, which include bottles that also have on their labels images of dictators like Francisco Franco, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and Benito Mussolini. The wine bottles are being sold in stores across Italy and the ones showcasing images of Hitler include Nazi slogans such as “Mein Führer” (“My Leader”), “Sieg Heil” (“Hail to Victory”) and “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer” (One People, One Realm, One Leader”).
Lunardelli’s son, Andrea, told VICE World News that the winery will discontinue the entire Historical Series of wines starting in 2023, when he takes over running the company from his father, because he does not like the collection and is tired of the backlash it receives. He also defended the products, saying, “Whoever buys [the Hitler wine] is a collector, or remembers history, or wants nationalism against the current policies of multinationals… not against Jews. Besides, Hitler was a teetotaler, so we can even say that alcohol and Hitler are a nice joke.”
Andrea insisted to VICE that he is “absolutely not a Nazi” and that the Hitler wines are produced for customers who want to “remember” history. He also explained that there is a demand for the bottles.
AHamilton school board candidate has dropped from the race after antisemitic comments he made on social media surfaced over the weekend and current board members are calling for his running mates to do the same.
Candidates Monica Quaste and Stacy Byrne are running on a ticket in the Mercer County township titled, “Traditional Education Advocates.”
They had been running with Nicholas Ferrara until he dropped out of the race Saturday, a day after antisemitic comments came to light in several media reports. In a post on Gab from January, he said he was “FOR execution of the marxist/communists jews.”
Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin called Ferrara’s comments “vile and disgusting.”
“Hate has no home anywhere but especially not here in Hamilton - home to so many people from different religions, living in harmony with their neighbors,” Martin said. “No one with such hate should serve in any elected capacity.”
Current board members Susan Ferrara (no relation to Nicholas Ferrara) and Susan Lombardo issued a public statement late Monday calling for Quaste and Byrne to also quit the race.
Quaste and Byrne reiterated Tuesday their rebukes of Nicholas Ferrara’s words, and said they are staying in the race.
“Our crime was out of ignorance not malice,” Quaste said in an email to NJ Advance Media, for both candidates. “We are parents not politicians and we learned an important lesson via this process. We rebuked Nick’s ideology and asked him to remove himself and he did.”
“im going to kill the horrible people you call Zionists <Jews>” - Mahmoud Habbiyyieh
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 24, 2022
Content warning: audio file contains strong profanity in Arabic pic.twitter.com/sRyQAk94Nr
The Israeli doctors saving the faces of children in Africa
Israeli oral and maxillofacial surgeons Oded Nahlieli and Michael Abba have performed complex procedures on dozens of children in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea on the African West Coast since 2014.Israeli, German archeologists reconstruct Hasmonean destruction of Greek city
On their most recent trip, they trained local doctors to use a remote surgical collaborative system developed by ORVizio, an Israeli startup headed by Abba.
ORVizio allows surgeons in Israel to guide complex surgeries anywhere, in real time.
“In the past, we had to use WhatsApp” to provide telemedical support, Nahlieli tells ISRAEL21c.
Abba explained that his startup addresses a problem that the pandemic highlighted.
“It isn’t enough for Western doctors to travel to third-world countries to perform surgeries every few months. We saw during corona that this paradigm doesn’t work. The Western world stopped going there,” he said.
He became convinced that the best approach is to set up local education programs to give onsite doctors the ability and techniques to do complex procedures themselves, with the backup of remote support from experienced practitioners.
When exactly did the Hasmoneans – descendants of the Maccabees of Hanukkah fame – destroy the Greek town Tel Iztabba in present-day Israel by a military campaign? Until now, it has been suggested by archaeologists that the ruling Hasmonean dynasty did so between 111 BCE and 107 BCE.
But according to new Israeli/German research, based on the remains of chicken bones, snail shells and plant remains – as well as written evidence – the year, as well as the exact season in which this occurred, has been determined.
Prof. Oren Tal Marco Nadler of the Institute for Archaeology at the Tel Aviv University and Prof. Achim Lichtenberger from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster in Germany determined for the first time that this historical event took place in the spring of 107 BCE.
“The seasonal nature of archaeological evidence has come to the forefront of archaeological research in recent years,” they wrote. “Historical events are often recounted in history books as simply part of a year’s occurrences. The time of the year and accompanying season, however, also have an impact on the course of historical events.”
Moreover, if such events leave archaeological traces, the particular season, which can affect the population’s behavior, may affect the structure of the archaeological record, they continued.
“In other words, whether an event, such as the destruction of a domestic building, took place in summer or winter is reflected in the archaeological record. Consequently, the archaeological evidence needs to be interpreted with a consideration of seasonality in mind.”
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