Thursday, November 03, 2022

11/03 Links Pt2: Israeli Film Purports to Expose the Story of a Massacre That Never Happened; Melanie Phillips: The Jihadi Onslaught Against Christians; The Deception of Palestinian Nationalism

From Ian:

A New Israeli Film Purports to Expose the Story of a Massacre That Never Happened
Beginning this evening, the Manhattan Jewish Community Center is hosting its Other Israel film festival. Featured movies include Boycott, described as an “inspiring tale of everyday Americans” engaged in “legal battles that expose an attack on freedom of speech across 33 states in America”—namely, legislation that prevents states from doing business with entities that discriminate against and boycott Israel. Another film featured at the festival is about smugglers who help Palestinians evade Israeli soldiers, while a third film focuses on Mizra?im who were “denied their right to a better life in Israel” by the Israeli government.

At the festival’s opening night, there will be a screening of the documentary Tantura, directed by Alon Schwartz, which investigates allegations of a massacre perpetrated by the Haganah during the 1948 war. But like the “massacre” at Lydda, or the more famous one at Deir Yassin, it’s unlikely this atrocity ever took place. The distinguished historian Benny Morris sets forth the evidence:

In both [a recent article published in Haaretz] and the film, Schwarz maintains that Israeli forces, specifically the 33rd Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade, perpetrated a large massacre against the inhabitants of Tantura immediately after they captured the seaside village on May 23, 1948. The film is based on the allegations made by Teddy Katz in his master’s thesis, submitted to the University of Haifa in 1998. . . . Katz is the film’s hero and chief narrator.

Schwarz maintains in the article that his film is based on Katz’s paper and on “documents, military aerial photographs, and other archival materials.” This is just another crude lie, which points precisely at the central historiographic problem with Katz’s thesis and Schwarz’s film: there is no written evidence from 1948—not in Israeli archives, not in United Nations’ archives, and not in the archives of the Red Cross or the Western powers—that describes or even mentions a big massacre at Tantura. Katz and Schwarz base the “big massacre” thesis entirely on interviews with Arabs and Jews who “remembered” or claimed that they remembered it 40 years after the event.

Particularly damning is the absence of reports on this supposed outrage from contemporaneous Palestinian sources. Radio Ramallah, for instance, reported on the Israeli victory at Tantura, but said nothing about a massacre.

It’s noteworthy that a memorandum of the Arab Higher Committee, titled “The Atrocities of the Jews,” which was sent to the UN in early July 1948, makes no mention of Tantura—another puzzling omission if a large-scale massacre had recently taken place there. It’s worth noting that Palestinian historiography in the decades after 1948 also did not mention a massacre at Tantura. The book deemed the Nakba bible, the six-volume al-Nakba published between1956 and 1960 by the chronicler Aref al-Aref, does not mention a massacre at Tantura.
Melanie Phillips: The Jihadi Onslaught Against Christians
Last Saturday, there was violence in the vicinity of Bethlehem. You won’t have read a word about this in the mainstream media. That’s because the perpetrators weren’t Israelis but Muslim Arabs, and the targets weren’t Palestinians but Christians.

This was but the latest in a serious of attacks on Christian Arabs in the Bethlehem area. You won’t have read about those in the mainstream media either — just as you will have read hardly anything there about the horrific attacks on Christians that continue to take place in Nigeria and other African countries.

This is what happened on Saturday, according to contemporaneous reports on social media. A Christmas bazaar opened in Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem. A young Muslim Arab went to the bazaar and started taking videos of Christian girls wearing western clothes, which to his eyes probably seemed immodest.

A Christian scout leader threw him out of the bazaar. A short time later, he returned with a gang of men. They started stoning the Holy Forefathers Greek Orthodox Church near the bazaar. They smashed up cars parked nearby belonging to Christians and struck the scout on the face. In the absence of the Palestinian police, the church rang its bells — a known danger alert for churches.

Videos of these events started circulating on social media. You can see one here, in a tweet which suggests the perpetrator had tried to enter the church.
2008: The Deception of Palestinian Nationalism
The evidence that simple autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza was never the PLO’s true goal is everywhere. In 1970, US Secretary of State William Rogers suggested that the West Bank and Gaza be given up by Israel in return for peace and recognition. This plan was accepted by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Only Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, rejected it, opting instead to attempt an overthrow of Jordan’s King Hussein.

The evidence runs deeper. Yassir Arafat, who was head of the PLO until 2004, was under the direct tutelage and control of the KGB. Ion Mihai Pacepa, KGB officer and onetime chief of Romanian Intelligence, was assigned to handling Arafat. Pacepa recorded several of his conversations with Arafat when they met in Romania at the palace of brutal dictators Nicolai and Elena Ceausescu. In these conversations, Arafat unequivocally states that his sole aim is to destroy Israel.

Pacepa and the KGB were delighted. They consulted General Giap, a close associate of Ho Chi Minh, who was involved with the North Vietnamese propaganda effort during the Vietnam War. Giap recommended to Arafat that he “stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your [Arafat’s] terror war into a struggle for human rights.” It had worked in Vietnam, he claimed, because transforming the conflict from one of ideologies (Socialism vs. Capitalism) to one of an “indigenous” people’s struggle for liberty had turned the tide of popular support in the West against the war.

Similar advice was provided to Arafat by Muhammed Yazid, minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments. He wrote “wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab States, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead present the Palestinian struggle as one for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression that in the struggle between the Palestinians and Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.”

Yasser Arafat heeded this advice, and with the help of bi-weekly plane-loads of Soviet supplies brought in through Damascus as well as the Soviet propaganda machine, he began to portray the Palestinian Arabs as a supposedly indigenous population whose human rights were being tarnished by Israel.

The fact is that after the War of 1967, Israel inherited Arab refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza that were forced to live there in the period of Egyptian and Jordanian control from 1948 to 1967. Israel immediately offered to return the lands it won in 1967 (West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights) in return for a peace treaty. This offer was rejected by the Arab countries in the Khartoum Conference (Aug. 29- Sep. 1, 1967). In Arafat’s authorized biography, Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker, Arafat claims this moment as one of his greatest diplomatic victories.

It is telling that Zahir Muhse’in, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, said the following in a 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw. “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”

Palestinian nationalism is therefore a historical fabrication born out of a communist thirst for expansion and an Arab resentment of the existence of Israel. The “need” and “desire” for Palestinian is a veiled expression of the “need” and “desire” to end Israel’s existence.


Mark Regev: Yitzhak Rabin: Israeli security realist or idealist peacemaker? - opinion
The Oslo Accords breakthrough with the Palestinians was the overriding issue of Rabin’s second premiership. Peres, now foreign minister, enthusiastically embraced the process, while Rabin remained healthily cautious and skeptical. In 1994, both were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, alongside PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Rabin’s assassination at the hands of an ultra-right Jewish fanatic, occurring immediately following a Tel Aviv peace rally, begat the image of the slain prime minster as a martyr for peace.

Yet Rabin was never a bleeding-heart. He stressed security and the Palestinians’ obligation to fight terrorism. Unlike the IDF, he said, the PA could act ruthlessly without the limitations imposed by the Israeli judiciary and human rights community.

Moreover, in Rabin’s last speech before the Knesset, delivered a month prior to his murder, he articulated a vision for final status peace in which the Palestinians would suffice with “less than a state” and where Israel does “not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.” Israel’s security border would remain the Jordan Valley “in the broadest meaning of the term.”

Rabin called for expanding Jerusalem to include Ma’aleh Adumin in the east and Givat Ze’ev in the north. Settlements in “Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and others” would be incorporated into Israel.

Such positions are consistent with Rabin’s lifelong security-minded, pragmatic Zionism. This, and not some artificial creation, is the genuine Rabin legacy that should be honored on the anniversary of his assassination.
On 120th anniversary of Herzl's landmark book, did his dream become reality?

American Jewish Communal Leaders are failing
Michael Steinhardt, the great Jewish philanthropist recently wrote a book Jewish Pride which rightfully notes that Jewish institutions in the US aren’t doing enough to make Jews Jewish. And the truth is, besides Chabad, that’s absolutely true. Steinhardt rightfully has said that Israel is … “…a country with vigor, courage, creativity, and boundless self-confidence. And yes, it is still heroic to build a proud, sovereign Jewish community with a world-class military, a vital culture, and a myriad of cutting-edge technological exports. American Jews have a great deal to learn from the Israeli example.”

Yet, the liberal American Jewish community is too busy dealing with issues which have zero reality for the things that are important for Israeli Jews.

Steinhardt rightfully says, “To me, a proud secular Jew is one who knows our history; who understands our people’s heroism over many generations; who feels a powerful sense of peoplehood, including a sense of responsibility and care for other Jews around the world; and who embraces the underlying joy that a strong Jewish connection gives us.”

For all the Jewish money in American Jewish institutions, have any of them instituted initiatives for Jewish kids to learn Hebrew?

Do any of them teach about Jewish heroes? Recently visited the amazing ANU Museum at Tel Aviv University where there’s a great exhibit called “Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People” where Jews learn about Jewish heroes. In Israel, the Jewish heroes include people like Shalom Aleichem, Hanna Arendt, Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Ofra Haza, Baruch Spinoza and others. Teaching about people like this would inspire American Jewry.

“On the whole, we are not fired up,” writes Steinhardt, a co-founder of Birthright. “We are not in love. We are not, as a community, showing courage or creativity or heroism. If anything, the opposite is true. Every year, more and more young Jews seem to just drift away. However, you want to measure it… our sense of Jewish purpose seems to be dissipating.”

American Jewish organizations don’t teach these things – they focus on progressive issues, advocacy for Democratic ideas. As was recently reported, The Anti-Defamation League launched “thorough review” of its educational content to address materials “misaligned with” the organization’s values after Fox News published a story accusing the anti-hate group of including “concepts from critical race theory” and “far-left ideas.” They mention “intersectionality,” “structural racism” and “white privilege”; references to gender-neutral pronouns and the Black Lives Matter movement; books about trans and gender non-conforming children; and a post praising the Women’s March, whose founders have ties to the antisemitic Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan.

This is non-Orthodox American Jewry. This is what they think is important.

As we review college campuses, even those without blatant Anti-Semitism have people like David Myers running education at institutions like UCLA, where he holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History. Myers, formerly President of the radical New Israel Fund supports some forms of a boycott against the State of Israel. This is the people educating our children. These are the people “inside” the tent. Is it any wonder American Jewry is dwindling and seeing so many issues?


20 Democrats, including Rashida Tlaib, urge US to exclude Israel from Visa Waiver Program
Twenty House Democrats on October 27 called on the Biden administration to keep Israel out of the Visa Waiver Program, in a letter first leaked by Jewish Insider.

In the letter, led by members of Congress Don Beyer and Rashida Tlaib and addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the lawmakers cite "ethnic-based discrimination" and racial profiling, adding that Israel does not meet the criteria to enter the program and calling on the US to clamor against Israel on its army's "discriminatory restrictions" for entry into the West Bank.

Israel and the Visa Waiver Program
Israel has long coveted admission into the program, which would allow its citizens to skip the time-consuming and expensive process of obtaining visas. Israeli membership would permit 90-day visits for tourism or business, and would be a catalyst for economic cooperation, according to those in favor.

The US “continues to work with Israel towards fulfilling all Visa Waiver Program requirements, such as extending reciprocal privileges to all US citizens and nationals, including Palestinian Americans,” a State Department official said weeks before congressional Democrats sent their letter.

Vedant Patel, the department’s principal deputy spokesman, said he was “not going to get into specific bilateral negotiations” between the US and Israel.

“We seek equal treatment and freedom to travel for all US citizens regardless of national origin, but I don’t have any other updates to offer on that,” he said in a press briefing.

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides both said earlier this year that Israel could enter the program early next year. But that is less likely in light of the election results.


London theater group cancels Nazi-Jewish ‘Romeo and Juliet’ after wave of criticism
The London-based theater group behind a Romeo and Juliet-inspired Nazi-Jewish love story has canceled the play after receiving an onslaught of criticism related to the story’s premise and a botched casting call.

The Icarus Theatre Collective, the group behind the play, put out a casting call on Friday for their “Romeo and Juliet” over email and on social media, specifically calling for “non-binary artists, and/or those of global majority, black or Asian heritage” to audition for the reimagined roles of Romeo and Mercutio, as well as a female-presenting actor to play the traditionally male character of Tybalt.

But for the role of Juliet, the Jewish counterpart to Romeo’s character in the Hitler Youth, the Icarus Theatre Collective did not include a specific request for Jewish actors to audition as part of the casting call. In an era of increased scrutiny over the casting of Jewish actors to play Jewish characters, the omission drew criticism.

Speaking with the Jewish Chronicle, Max Lewendel, the Jewish founder of the Icarus Theatre Collective and director of “Romeo and Juliet,” said the initial casting call specified that Juliet Capulet and her parents be played by actors with “preferably Jewish heritage.” Lewendel said the final draft of the casting call was put out by the casting director and should have included a preference for Jewish actors.

“That is absolutely not what was intended, and apologies to anyone that was understandably affected by this,” Lewendel told the Jewish Chronicle.

In an apology tweet on Monday, the Icarus Theatre Collective wrote, “These are NOT two households both alike in dignity,” referring to lines from the prologue of “Romeo and Juliet,” which the group says it had cut from their version of the play because it put the Nazi Montagues and the Jewish Capulets on equal footing.
David Hirsh: Shockingly, I’m not shocked by NUS culture
In May 2021 loyalty pledges circulated on campuses, declaring that supporting a boycott of Israel and believing Israel to be inherently racist were foundational to scholarship and to morality. David Miller, once a sociology professor, and Chris Williamson, once a Labour MP, are now employed by the Iranian regime to make antisemitic propaganda videos, while the hundreds of academics who defended them against the “Zionist witchunt” have not felt the need to reassess their solidarity. Some students may have had their coursework marked unfairly on the basis of the anti-Zionist thinking of lecturers. Al Jazeera’s attempt to portray allegations of antisemitism as a scam has been embraced as truth by many. Universities refuse even say whether or not things said by lecturers, and complained of by Jewish students, are antisemitic.

Shama Dallali is treating her sacking as an Islamophobic attack. This antisemitic understanding, that the elected president of NUS has been deposed by racists, is widely accepted. It is based on the foundation that NUS, its independent inquiry and the Jewish students who called for it, are all part of a plot to stop anybody who has radical politics from holding a position of influence.

And our own populists continue to blame everything on a north London, cosmopolitan, globalist, privileged, educated, liberal elite that cannot understand the real Britain.

Populism, with its irrationality, its scapegoating and its conspiracy fantasy, is not over. The world economy might be in trouble, the cost of living crisis is biting and a European country is fighting a totalitarian threat.

The rise of the far right in Israel will be portrayed as evidence of “Zionism’s” unique badness but we are seeing the rise of extremism everywhere. It is also evidence of Israel’s vulgar ordinariness — or its ordinary vulgarity. But it is also related to the particular pressures on both Israelis and Palestinians that result from their appropriation as globally symbolic morality tales.

The picture with respect to antisemitism is hard to read. There are storm clouds but there are also shafts of sunlight. We should prepare for the approaching storm. But if we get sunshine instead, I’m happy to be remembered as somebody who worried too much.
Guardian continues to whitewash Shaima Dallali's antisemitism
The Guardian has again whitewashed the antisemitism of the (now sacked) National Union of Students (NUS) President, Shaima Dallali. The article (“NUS president ousted over antisemitism allegations”, Nov. 2), by Education Editor Richard Adams, reports on news that Dallali was dismissed from her role following an independent investigation into antisemitism claims against her and the student body.

Dallali’s removal is reportedly the first dismissal of an NUS leader in its 100 year history.

The inquiry – whose report has not yet been made public – found “significant breaches” of the organisation’s policies. However, the Guardian reporter seriously downplayed the accusations, by framing them as follows:
The allegations of misconduct are thought to centre around past comments by Shaima Dallali, in some cases dating back 10 years before her election as NUS president in March this year.

After Dallali’s election the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) objected to comments she is alleged to have made, including a tweet posted in 2012 that read: “Khaybar Khaybar O Jews … Muhammad’s army will return Gaza,” referencing a historical massacre. Dallali later apologised for the tweet.

However, as reported by other media outlets, that “Khaybar” incident represents only one of the documented antisemitic incidents, most of which are far more recent.

Other incidents submitted to the inquiry include:
Statements she made in support of Hamas in May 2021, with the claim “resistance with weapons is a right”.
A video she posted of anti-Israel protesters calling for an intifada, while branding a critic of Hamas a “dirty Zionist”.
A 2018 article she wrote praising extremist Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. (Al-Qaradawi has previously claimed the Holocaust as “divine punishment” of the Jews, among other antisemitic statements.)
A statement she made in 2020 that she was fundraising for the extremist group CAGE.
A tweet showing her approval of a series screened by Al Jazeera which aired claims there is a hierarchy of racism in Labour, with antisemitism given preference.
Finally, see this twitter thread on Dallali’s involvement with London protests that included extremist rhetoric.

In May and June of 2022, we posted about similar omissions by Guardian reporters concerning allegations of antisemitism against Dallali.


New York crime Isn’t Mind Over Matter
According to Governor Kathy Hochul, it seems that I have lost my mind.

Trying to minimize the crime crisis threatening to derail her campaign, Hochul asserted at a press conference last Monday that the violent crime New Yorkers are daily witnessing on the streets and subways is a figment of their imaginations. The few “high profile” crimes, the governor insisted, “created a sense of fear in people’s minds.” And she refused to cave to what she termed the “political theater” surrounding rampant crime.

This remark followed Mayor Eric Adams’ similar characterization of crime concerns being simply a “perception” problem. A statement, which itself defies reality, since major crime in New York City has surged 39% this past year alone. And a poll last June revealed that more than 7 in 10 New Yorkers fear they will become a victim of violent crime.

A day after her statement, Hochul realized that this perception problem she shares with Adams was actually her own political one. With Congressman Lee Zeldin closing in on her in the polls, she tried to switch gears at last Tuesday’s debate by admitting that “the fear is real”. But she refused to change course on the disastrous cash bail laws, even when pressed by Zeldin.

I, for one, am not falling for Hochul’s mind games. The deterioration of my quality of life in NYC is not a figment of my imagination. And neither Hochul nor Adams can change the facts on the ground when it is the ground that I walk on.
Harvard’s Jewish Quotas and Affirmative Action at the Supreme Court
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments regarding accusations that Harvard University’s admissions policies illegally discriminate against Asian Americans. At one point, the university’s lawyer, Seth Waxman, condemned the “racist, anti-Semitic policy” of A. Lawrence Lowell, who was president of Harvard from 1909 until 1933. The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Lowell, who once tried to bar blacks from Harvard Yard, . . . wanted to cap the ratio of the student body that was Jewish at 15 percent when it was running at 20 percent and when Jews were but a small sliver of the U.S. population. . . . Waxman went on to use the word “insubstantial” to describe the notion that President Lowell’s policies toward Jews are comparable to Harvard’s current policy toward Asian applicants.

In his pursuit of a Jewish quota President Lowell was rebuffed by Harvard’s governors, who argued that Harvard College must “maintain its traditional policy of freedom from discrimination on grounds of race or religion.” Thwarted in his pursuit of a hard cap, Lowell added a “character” requirement to Harvard’s admissions apparatus, using that filter to suppress the number of Jews to, by the time Lowell left, 10 percent of the student body.

If Lowell’s pivot from a hard quota to a soft tipping of the scale is hauntingly familiar, it is because the comparison with what Harvard is accused of doing today might not be so insubstantial after all. Certainly not in the view of Students for Fair Admissions, which is levying the case to reform Harvard and reckons Harvard is dodging high court doctrine that prohibits quotas but allows using race as “one factor among many.”

It’s just illogical for Harvard to disown President Lowell while it mimics him and names one of its glorious Houses for him.


State of Arizona continues its investigation of Morningstar over Israel risk ratings
Despite the investment firm Morningstar offering concessions to the pro-Israel community regarding its methods of assigning risk ratings to entities doing business in and with Israel, the company is not off the hook in Arizona.

Arizona State Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced on Monday that her office will continue its investigation of Morningstar’s activities in regard to Israel. The announcement came hours after the firm announced an agreement with a group of pro-Israel organizations on the issue.

Arizona is among some 19 states currently investigating Morningstar’s practices. The investigations are examining whether the firm has violated state laws against boycotts of Israel.

“While I am pleased that Morningstar is taking steps to alter its risk ratings for companies doing business in and with Israel, my office has not concluded our internal investigation,” said Yee. “Morningstar has failed to provide my office with the simple access to data we have requested, and I will continue to hold them accountable until our investigation is complete.”

Morningstar and its subsidiary Sustainalytics have been accused by critics of using anti-Israel sources and weighing them disproportionately in assigning Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risk ratings that are intended to guide socially-minded investors. Several American Jewish groups and state officials charged that, as a result, the resulting risk ratings were artificially inflated, amounting to a de facto boycott of Israel.

In August, Yee notified Morningstar that they were at risk of being placed on the Arizona Treasury’s prohibited investment list due to violations of Arizona law against doing business with entities that boycott Israel. She gave the company 30 days to provide written certification explaining how Morningstar’s use of ESG ratings does not violate Arizona’s anti-boycott statute.

A new Arizona law that took effect in late September requires any Arizona government entity to divest from any company on the state’s prohibited investment list. A treasurer’s office spokesperson told JNS that Arizona does not currently have any public funds invested in Morningstar.


Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets will each donate $500,000 to causes 'that work to eradicate intolerance' as the guard finally admits 'I am aware of the negative impact of my post towards the Jewish community'
The Brooklyn Nets have released a joint statement alongside Kyrie Irving and the Anti-Defamation League after their star player caused uproar by tweeting about a film based on a 'venomously anti-Semitic' book.

In a lengthy statement posted on social media on Wednesday night, the Nets said: 'The events of the past week have sparked many emotions within the Nets organization, our Brooklyn community, and the nation.

'The public discourse that followed has brought greater awareness to the challenges we face as a society when it comes to combating hate and hate speech. We are ready to take on this challenge and we recognize that this is a unique moment to make a lasting impact.

'To promote education within our community, Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets will each donate $500,000 toward causes and organizations that work to eradicate hate and intolerance in our communities.

'The Nets and Kyrie Irving will work with ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), a nonprofit organization devoted to fighting antisemitism and all types of hate that undermine justice and fair treatment for every individual.

'This is an effort to develop educational programming that is inclusive and will comprehensively combat all forms of antisemitism and bigotry.'


Charles Barkley slams NBA’s Jewish commissioner for not suspending Kyrie Irving
Former NBA star Charles Barkley slammed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who is Jewish, for not suspending Brooklyn Nets All-Star Kyrie Irving after he promoted an antisemitic film on his Twitter account.

“I think Adam should have suspended him. First of all, Adam’s Jewish. You can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion,” Barkley said, referencing Irving’s contract, during a Tuesday night segment of the popular “NBA on TNT” panels that airs on the network before, during and after game broadcasts.

The NBA has “suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs, and that was the right thing to do,” Barkley added. “If you insult the Black community, you should be suspended or fined heavily.”

Fellow former star Shaquille O’Neal, also a longtime member of the TNT panel, called Irving “an idiot” for sharing a link to a film that promotes the idea that Jews dominated the slave trade, among other antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Barkley — who has called out antisemitism from Black athletes in the past and has a Jewish son-in-law — was the latest to join a chorus of increasingly sharp criticism aimed at Irving, the Nets and the NBA over the situation. Irving, who doubled down on his right to share a link to the film but later deleted his tweet, has not been disciplined. On Wednesday, he broke his silence and in a statement apologized and said he and the Brooklyn Nets will each donate $500,000 toward groups that work to eradicate hate.

Nike, Irving’s biggest sponsor, said in a statement that the company condemns all forms of hate speech.
NBA chief to push Nets’ Kyrie Irving to apologize for promoting antisemitic movie
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday he will meet with Kyrie Irving in the next week to push for an apology from the Brooklyn Nets star for publicizing antisemitic material.

The move came a day after Irving announced he will make a $500,000 donation to groups working to eradicate hate and admitted a film slammed as antisemitic which he boosted on social media had a “negative impact” on the Jewish community.

Irving ignited a firestorm of controversy last week after posting a social media link to “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” — a 2018 film widely lambasted for containing a range of antisemitic tropes that was criticized by, among others, Nets owner Joe Tsai.

Silver, however, wants to see more from Irving than what he delivered in a statement announcing the donation, including an apology for his actions and the denouncing of the antisemitic content in the film.

“Kyrie Irving made a reckless decision to post a link to a film containing deeply offensive antisemitic material,” Silver said in a statement on Thursday.

“While we appreciate the fact that he agreed to work with the Brooklyn Nets and the Anti-Defamation League to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, I am disappointed that he has not offered an unqualified apology and more specifically denounced the vile and harmful content contained in the film he chose to publicize,” he said in the statement, adding, “I will be meeting with Kyrie in person in the next week to discuss this situation.”
Kanye paid settlement to ex-employee in 2018 after antisemitic remarks – report
Years before his recent public antisemitic tirades that sank his reputation and cost him billions in endorsement deals, the rapper Kanye West had paid a settlement to a former employee over his use of antisemitic language, NBC News reported.

In the previously unreported 2018 settlement, the anonymous former employee alleged that West, who now goes by Ye, had praised Hitler and Nazis in business meetings. West denied the claims in the settlement, but NBC spoke to six former business associates of his who confirmed that he had a history of praising Hitler and uttering antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“With this pattern that’s happening and with the doubling and tripling down of all this, it’s pretty obvious that this is some kind of disgusting, hate-filled, strange Nazi obsession,” Ryder Ripps, a Jewish artist who worked with West for years and said he witnessed multiple instances of his Nazi obsession, told NBC.

A previous report from CNN also confirmed the existence of an apparently different settlement from another business executive who worked for West, who also alleged that the star had long been obsessed with Hitler, to the point of reading his antisemitic manifesto “Mein Kampf” and wanting to name an album after him (a 2018 release that ultimately was self-titled as “Ye”).


At last! BBC apologises for its ‘disdainful’ treatment of Jewish concerns
The BBC has apologised for years of “unacceptable” handling of complaints about anti-Israel bias in its Arabic output, which activists say represented a “disdainful” attitude towards Jewish concerns.

It is an early victory in the JC campaign to restore impartiality to the broadcaster. Our petition demanding a parliamentary inquiry into its coverage of Jews and Israel is approaching 6,000 signatures and can be signed at theJC.com/BBCPetition.

Since the Gaza war in May 2021, BBC responses to complaints about Israel coverage have taken up to a year, with some ignored completely.

Even when complaints are acknowledged and upheld, issuing corrections is often delayed further or in some cases is not done at all.

The BBC Charter requires a framework that provides “transparent, accessible, effective, timely and proportionate methods” of fixing problems.

According to BBC rules, this means addressing complaints within 10 working days when possible. But it has taken the BBC an average of four months to respond to a watchdog’s complaints about its Israel coverage in Arabic, with half of complaints ignored.

In one case, the broadcaster took 12 months to accept an error in a report about holy sites in Jerusalem. Although the BBC acknowledged it, the mistake remains online more than two months later, and is still in place.

“Out of our 26 complaints, only seven received a proper, timely response and resolution,” said a spokesperson for Camera, a media watchdog which monitors Arabic language media.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We apologise for the unacceptable delay and will ensure formal responses are issued as soon as possible.” Since May last year, 14 of Camera’s 26 complaints were upheld by the BBC, with some corrections only acted upon after many weeks. None were rejected.
‘Whitewashing a Pogrom’: Jews Assail New York Times for New Failure in Crown Heights Riot Recap
Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone of the Crown Heights-based Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic group tweeted that the Times language was “absolutely bizarre” and “deeply problematic.”

An editor at the Wall Street Journal, Elliot Kaufman, wrote that the New York Times “is continuing its 30-year campaign of lies about the Crown Heights Riot.” Kaufman wrote that Yankel Rosenbaum “was killed by an anti-Semitic mob that set on him because he was an identifiable Jew. Does this sound like a ‘melee’ or clash ‘pitting groups of Hasidic Jews against mostly Black men’?”

An online news and opinion website sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation, The Daily Signal, ran an article about the situation headlined, “Jewish Leaders Condemn ‘Antisemitic’ New York Times Article for ‘Whitewashing’ a ‘Pogrom.’”

The author of the Times article, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, did not immediately respond to an email from The Algemeiner asking if she had a response to the criticism.

Times coverage of the riot has been a long-running sore point with Jewish readers. In 2011, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in the Atlantic, “It is astonishing, the lengths the Times went to prove that a riot that was antisemitic on its face wasn’t, in fact, antisemitic.” Ari Goldman, who was working for the Times, later wrote in the Jewish Week, “I read an opening paragraph, what journalists call a ‘lead,’ that was simply untrue: ‘Hasidim and blacks clashed in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn through the day and into the night yesterday.’ In all my reporting during the riots I never saw — or heard of — any violence by Jews against blacks. But the Times was dedicated to this version of events: blacks and Jews clashing amid racial tensions.”

A 2017 Times article essentially denied that Jews in Crown Heights even exist, describing the neighborhood as “a largely West Indian and African-American community.”

Thirty years after the riot, the Times still can’t get the story right.


Miniseries opens old wounds in Dutch-Israeli history
Creator and screenwriter Michael Leendertse was only 10 years old when one of the most tragic flight disasters took place in the Bijlmer neighborhood of Amsterdam took place. The boy, who would go on to become one of the most interesting names in the Dutch film industry, still vividly remembers the footage from that crash on television: the fire; the billowing smoke; the cries of survivors; and those who had lost their loved ones.

For the Dutch, the events of October 4, 1992, were the type that scar the collective memory. On that day, a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft operating El Al Flight 1862 crashed on two residential buildings in southeastern Amsterdam, in the Bijlmer neighborhood. For the Netherlands, the sheer scale of the loss that day is on par with 9/11 for Americans.

"My family lived in Rotterdam at the time, and like many people in the Netherlands, I was glued to the television screen. It was a very powerful experience," Leendertse told Israel Hayom ahead of the launch of his miniseries on the tragedy.

"The events hit me hard; I can still recall all of it as if it happened just now. The Dutch had never experienced a crash of such magnitude, and the footage on television was horrific. I remember my mother calling my aunt who was living in Amsterdam to ask her if she was OK because we could not figure out how extensive the damage was and I can still vividly remember that emotional call between my mother and my aunt. There are only a few moments in our national history that a certain generation can remember in such a visceral way, and this is probably one of them. Everyone remembers where they were when the Bijlmer tragedy struck.
CIA, Mossad, and regime change in Iran
In a loathsome speech on Saturday October 29, 2022, the notorious Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC, Hussein Salami, warned young Iranians for continuing to protest and denounced them as villains.

“Today is the last day of the riots. Do not come to the streets again. What do you want from this nation?” Salami said pompously. The core of the regime has interpreted the protests as a “threat to domestic stability which can lead to destabilizing the political system.”

Repeatedly, Iranian officials have blamed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for playing a key role in the current protests in Iran by meeting and cooperating with the leaders of Iran’s Kurdistan region. Certainly, this is a false story! Usually, the Iranian regime prefer to sweep their problems and issues under the rug. This time, however, the Iranian public opinion has overwhelmingly rejected that CIA has any role. There is no rational behind this falsification, nor the falsification that the CIA orchestrated the coup in 1953 in Iran. I would like to quote a former CIA agent as well as a friend, “All Lies!.”

In defiance of the final warning of Hussein Salami, thousands of Iranians came to the streets chanting anti-regime slogans. The day after, vicious clashes took over Iranian universities as protests endured across Iran. Hundreds of videos on social media ostensibly revealed security forces firing tear gas, live bullets of AK-47s (Kalashnikov) and armed plainclothes forces firing at young students.

It is increasingly clear that the nationwide protests and wave of public anger in Iran go beyond class, geography, ideology, and ethnicity, and show no sign of diminishing. There are various anti-regime graffiti on the walls of the cities. Day after day seems to bring another embarrassment to the mullah’s regime which is absolutely melting.

Needless to say, Iran’s brutal regime looks progressively more perplexed by the events. In this war between the Islamic regime and the Iranian society, the brave and sharp young students are becoming more ready to endanger their lives for the cause. Be sure, it’s a sign of Iran’s nationalism.

A new course in the protests has been triggered. The young students are chanting “From Zahedan to Sanandaj, I sacrifice my life for Iran.” This development may be crucial to the durability of the protests.
UN Watch Hails U.S. Bid to Oust Iran from UN Women’s Rights Commission
The non-governmental human rights organization UN Watch welcomed today’s announcement by Vice-President Kamala Harris that the U.S. will lead the effort to remove Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

“Obviously, a regime that persecutes and subjugates women should never have been elected in the first place, and we welcome this decision to undo that obscenity,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

UN Watch was the first to expose Iran’s election in April 2021 — revealing that at least four Western democracies voted for Iran — and to mobilize a global outcry.

More recently, UN Watch led a campaign to expel the Iranian regime, including by preparing a draft resolution that was submitted to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and raised in the State Department press briefing.

This week, Canada, New Zealand, and the Senate of the Netherlands declared their support for the removal of Iran.

“Every day, we see more and more how little Iran respects women’s rights and human rights, and so we commend political leaders and lawmakers in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands for supporting the removal of this moral obscenity, which is casting a shadow upon the reputation of the United Nations as a whole,” said Neuer.

“Not only is it the height of hypocrisy for the Islamic regime of Iran to hold a position of leadership on women’s rights — it is dangerous. The mullahs are using their membership on the UN’s top women’s rights committee as a platform for propaganda to suggest the Tehran regime has a legitimate concern for women’s rights. They do not.”

“It’s time to put an end to enabling murderous dictatorships like Iran to spread disinformation to justify their gross abuses against women and girls, and against the population at large.

“Now is the time for action. UN member states must show the world that they can work responsibly to oust the Iranian regime,” said Neuer.
UN resolution to expel Iran from women’s commission will pass 28 to 11
UN Watch estimates that if its draft resolution is introduced to expel the Islamic Republic of Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the motion would pass by an overwhelming vote of 28 to 11, with 15 abstaining or absent.

UN Watch reached these figures by analyzing how members of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, which determines the membership of UN functional commissions, voted on the last UN General Assembly resolution (A/RES/76/178) condemning the Iranian regime for its abuses of human rights.

“This is very encouraging news,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the independent non-governmental organization UN Watch, based in Geneva. “It is reasonable to assume that those countries that were willing to publicly condemn Iran last year would be willing to support a resolution to expel Iran from a commission on women’s rights.”

“Indeed, the vote result earlier this year on expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council closely tracked how countries had voted earlier on condemning Russia in a General Assembly resolution,” said Neuer.

“It’s entirely possible that some countries that voted yes on the General Assembly resolution may prefer to abstain, because it’s unprecedented to remove a member state from the Commission on the Status of Women, but either way, the number are overwhelming.”

“For the resolution to pass, one only needs more votes in favor than those opposed, and right now it seems only about 11 countries on ECOSOC are willing to side openly with Iran.”


WaPo: The Fabric of Iranian Repression Has Begun to Unravel
The basic demand of the Iranian uprising, now in its seventh week, that women no longer be forced to wear headscarves, challenges the primacy of the old men who run Iran's theocracy. "The world is seeing crowds successfully taking on small groups of security personnel....The regime's tactics to neutralize unrest have proven unsuccessful," said Norman T. Roule, a 34-year CIA veteran who managed the intelligence community's Iran activities from 2008 to 2017.

Hayder al-Khoei, a member of one of Iraq's most prominent Shiite clerical families, tweeted Monday: "Just landed in Tehran. It doesn't feel or look like a revolution is underway but there has clearly been massive sociopolitical changes: women now casually walking in public with no headscarves." But reform on the headscarf issue won't be an easy option. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believes that once he starts making concessions on something as seemingly small as women covering their hair, the broader authority of the regime will begin to erode.

Cracking down on this movement will be difficult, in part because the protests are led by women and girls. "Few ordinary security forces will be comfortable attacking women," Roule argued.
Iran orders probe into ‘shocking’ video of police beating, shooting prone protester
Iranian authorities on Wednesday ordered an investigation into a video showing officers savagely beating a protester that rights groups said exposed the brutality of the crackdown on demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death.

The Islamic Republic has been rocked by over six weeks of unrest following the death of Amini, 22, who had been arrested by Tehran’s morality police. The movement is now seen as the biggest challenge to the country’s leaders since the 1979 revolution.

Activists say dozens have been killed and thousands arrested nationwide in a crackdown by the security forces, who have been accused of firing on protesters at close range, bludgeoning them with batons and other abuses.

Footage that appeared late Tuesday on social media, shot at night on a mobile phone purportedly in a district of Tehran, showed a squad of around a dozen policemen in an alley kicking and beating a man with their batons, as other officers on motorbikes looked on.

The man initially tries to cover his head with his hands, before the sound of a gunshot is heard and he is run over by a police motorbike. His motionless body is then abandoned.

“This shocking video sent from Tehran is another horrific reminder that the cruelty of Iran’s security forces knows no bounds,” Amnesty International said, adding that police appeared to have a “free rein” to use violence.
WSJ($): Iran's Hard-Liners Are Starting to Crack
This time is different. The Iranian people have been protesting in the streets for more than a month. Now even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's allies are distancing themselves from the government, putting unprecedented stress on the regime. For four decades, regime loyalists have united in times of crisis. It's telling that today many influential conservatives display little compunction about criticizing Mr. Khamenei and his henchmen.

The security services have been hesitant to use lethal force. That conservatives are now critiquing Mr. Khamenei shows that the regime is losing its core strength. They seem to realize that Tehran can't kill its way to success. These men either don't have the stomach to murder thousands of women, or they believe - rightly - that doing so would only lead to mass confrontation with hundreds of thousands of angry men.

The demonstrators aren't interested in compromise. Conservatives now face a choice between joining the protest or being left behind. The Islamic Republic's rulers, like the shahs before them, know that their regime ultimately rests on the awe of unchallengeable power. That neither teenage girls throughout Iran nor foundational figures of the theocracy see this majesty any longer suggests that Mr. Khamenei's time is running out.


GOP nominee had role in Holocaust film that likened abortion, gun control to Nazism
Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in the US state of Pennsylvania who has drawn scrutiny for his association with antisemites, acted in a 2019 film about the rescue of Jews that has drawn criticism from Holocaust scholars — and from its Jewish star — for Holocaust distortions.

The New Yorker and The Washington Post this week both reported on “Operation Resist,” which purports to depict the rescue of Dutch Jews by American spies. Mastriano plays an American spy and also helped finance the movie.

The film, which is fiction, operates from a thesis that abortion and gun control pave a path to Nazi-like control.

It begins with an effort by US liberals in the present day to remove Holocaust education from a school board curriculum, then flashes back to the rescue of a Dutch Jewish girl, Miriam.

At the end, the film returns to the present, in which a Holocaust survivor who attends a meeting of the school board explains that Miriam is his sister, and uses her experience to decry abortion, gun control and government overreach.

“How about the millions of babies today whose lives are snuffed out before they’re even born because they are inconvenient? It’s time to say never again!” the fictional Holocaust survivor says. Some conservatives have invoked the Holocaust to decry policies that permit abortion and restrict gun sales, a practice that Holocaust scholars have decried as a manipulation.
‘I’m Not Going to Let This Go’: Father of Antisemitic Assault Victim Vows Justice as NYPD Searches for Assailants
The father of a young New York yeshiva student who was pelted with eggs while being forced to say “Free Palestine,” on October 24 is vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice as police call on the public to help find the attackers.

“I’m not going to let this go,” Michael Einhorn said in an interview with The Algemeiner. “The reality here is the violence and the premeditated component of this. You look at that clip and the way they’re dressed up, covering their face. That’s a different level. I think that we have to face that this isn’t just an egging incident. It’s not okay and has to be stopped.”

On Wednesday, The New York City Police Department (NYPD) released surveillance footage and photographs of several suspects involved in the attack. The images show five young men, one of whom appears to be wearing a keffiyeh, walking toward Yeshiva Ohr Shraga, a Jewish school in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, with eggs in their hands. Police say the attacking gang included a total of 11 people.

The attack took place on the corner of Avenue M and East 18th St, the location of another antisemitic outrage in May, when a Yeshiva student was assaulted by five people who similarly yelled “Free Palestine.” The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is leading the investigation of both incidents.

Police have yet to formally identify the assailants but are eyeing eleven potential suspects, some of whom may attend the Edward R. Murrow High School (ERWHS), an institution of over 4,000 students close to the location of the attack, New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov said an interview with The Algemeiner.

“When things are bad, perpetrators look at Jews as an easy target,” Vernikov told The Algemeiner. “This incident is particularly disturbing and part of a series of antisemitic attacks that have become part of daily life for the Jewish community in our city and state,” she continued. “Our leadership has failed us in Albany and a lot more can be done at the city level.”
WSJ($): Israeli Business in Saudi Arabia Emerges from Shadows at Investment Conference
Israeli businessmen addressed Saudi Arabia's flagship Future Investment Initiative conference last week, in a clear sign of burgeoning commercial ties and Israel's growing acceptance in the kingdom.

"We're proudly from a little country just down the road called Israel," Jonathan Medved, chief executive of online venture investing platform OurCrowd, told a panel that included two Saudis.

Medved said it was becoming normal for Israeli companies to operate in the kingdom.
India and Israel to Produce Electronic Warfare System for Indian Navy
India’s Centum Electronics Ltd. and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Systems Ltd. signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on October 29 to jointly develop an electronic warfare (EW) system for the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard. At present, the Indian Navy is using ‘Shakti’, an advanced indigenous system designed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

The MoU was signed between Mr. Nikhil Mallavarapu, Executive Director of Centum Electronics Ltd. and Mr. Oded Fisher, Naval Warfare System of Rafael Advanced Systems Ltd. It was signed in the presence of Centum’s president Mr.Vinod Chippalkatti, their Director of Business Development Mr. Subhash Ahlawat and Mr. Shardul Rauthela, the Naval Systems Director for Rafael.

Commenting on the deal, Mallavarapu said, “Through this partnership, we look forward to augmenting our indigenous Electronic Warfare offerings with a range of high performance, mission critical products in the domain. This MoU encompasses knowledge sharing and manufacturing in India, and will help us in our endeavour to build a self-reliant India.”

As per the MoU, the aim is to operate the EW platform in the lower frequency bands. Additionally, life cycle support of the existing EW systems is also included within the scope of this deal. Now, it remains to be seen whether the Centum-Rafael EW system will eventually replace the indigenously developed 'Shakti' that was formally handed over to the Indian Navy just last year.
Book introduces children to Jewish exodus from Iraq
While great strides have been made to acquaint adults with the story of the mass exodus of Jews form Arab countries, no material exists for children. Until now – with the publication of Sarah Sassoon’s charming book ‘Shoham’s bangle’.

Sarah Sassoon was born in Australia but now lives in Jerusalem. Her family is of Iraqi origin, from near Basra in the south. She grew up baking date pastries with her Nana Aziza. Her grandmother’s bangles jangled as she rolled b’ab’eb’ tamar dough and shared the family’s stories.

Nana Aziza’s bangles are an inspirational device for conveying the story of the great exodus of Jews from Iraq. Sarah’s grandparents, their five children and 120,000 other Iraqi Jews were airlifted to Israel as part of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah in 1951. ‘Shoham’s bangle’ also has a refreshingly Zionist message – in spite of the hardships (‘we are camping out’ says Nana Aziza, turning into an adventure the family’s stay in a transit camp or Ma’abara) the Jews are happy to be settling in Israel.

As the Iraqi government would not allow the departing Jews to take any jewellery with them, Nana Aziza secretes a bangle inside one of the pittas she has baked for the arduous journey.

The story is told gently with its young audience in mind. The bangle jangles but does not jar. It is an ingenious metaphor for what the Jews left behind in Iraq. But it’s also a reminder that what is important are not the homes Jews leave behind but those that Jews rebuild.
Did Jews Go Quietly To Their Deaths In The Holocaust?
By the 1930’s, Jewish life had prospered in Europe for over 2,000 years. Despite facing expulsion, persecution, and antisemitic rhetoric, Jews survived, sometimes through bribery for security or relocation to “safer” parts of Europe.

While this survival tactic served them for centuries, the Nazis rise to power was swift and calculated. Though historians who study this time period can theorize about where and how the tragic death of six million Jews could have occurred, hindsight is 20/20.

What the Jews of Europe endured was beyond their control. The reality is that there was nowhere to go, and escape was nearly impossible. With surrounding countries and borders closed to Jews, the pre-World War II European Jewish community of approximately nine million had only a tiny number of survivors to carry on Jewish tradition and continuity into the next generation.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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