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Thursday, January 05, 2023

01/05 Links Pt2: Biden Admin Delays Civil Rights Protections Against Antisemitism to December; Palestinian Group Lauds Move; Jihadi Who Attacked NY Cops on NYE Cites US Support of Israel As Motive

From Ian:

Biden Administration Delays Civil Rights Protections Against Antisemitism to December; Palestinian Group Lauds Move
The Biden administration has again delayed issuing new federal regulations — first proposed by President Trump — that would apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to civil rights investigations, which lawmakers and advocates have long said would help protect Jewish students from anti-Zionist discrimination and harassment.

The proposed guidelines, based on a directive given in Dec. 2019 by former President Donald Trump in response to rising anti-Zionist discrimination on college campuses, will not be instituted until at least December 2023, according to a copy of the proposed rule on the website of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism includes examples of anti-Israel bias, including “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” “denying the Jewish people their right to self determination,” and “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

The Department of Education had initially pledged to issue new regulations in September 2020. After President Joe Biden was sworn in on January 20, the administration indicated that it had embraced the IHRA working definition but delayed codifying civil rights protections based on it until January 2021.

In February, thirty-nine members of the US Congress released a letter urging the Department of Education to speed the process up.

On Wednesday, however, OCR Assistant Secretary Catherine Lhamon issued a statement affirming that the Biden administration’s “commitment to applying Executive Order 13899 on Combating Antisemitism” while noting that OCR opened in 2022 several investigations based on complaints of anti-Zionist discrimination and harassment.

Palestine Legal, a nonprofit legal and advocacy organization, lauded the move.

“We are reassured to see @EDcivilrights do the right thing: #RejectIHRA, and focus on rising threats of bigotry & racist attacks by white supremacists,” the group said in a Tweet.
Bedein vs. Palestinian Authority: 'First entity in the world to endorse murder of Jews'
David Bedein of the Israel Resource news agency urges new gov to crack down on incitement in PA textbooks and go after 'pay for slay.'

David Bedein, Director of the Israel Resource news agency at the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research, has a strong message for the new right wing Israeli government to be very careful regarding the Palestinian Authority.

“We’re taking about the first entity in the world to endorse the murder of Jews. We didn’t even have that with Nazi Germany. It was there but always kept quiet,” he says.

Bedein points out that the PA endorses the murder of Jews in its legal code.

A new law that the PA enacted, which the Nahum Bedein Center was able to get a copy of through a Palestinian Arab journalist who works with them, states that “if you murder a Jew, you get a salary for life,” he explains.

“The government of Israel has never asked that that law be cancelled and repealed,” he says. “Until anyone involved with ‘pay for slay’ is arrested, is stopped – in any normal country in the world if someone sends a bank transfer to you because you just killed someone, you get arrested. Where’s the government of Israel in this?”

“Same thing with the school books,” he adds, noting that every year the PA textbook come out they go through them.

“It’s now come to more than a thousand school books. And these school books are an instrument of teaching not hatred but how to kill Jews,” he says. “Every aspect of the school system is how to kill Jews, whether it’s in their prose, in their songs, in their art, and in their school books.”

These textbooks are also used in UNRWA schools in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem, he adds.

“There are certain things that we as a Jewish country and as a normal country [cannot allow],” he says. “When we showed this to the UN Secretary-General and his staff, they were shocked.”

According to Bedein, since Oslo the original PLO Palestinian Covenant from 1964 has remained the main document taught in PA schools.

“Children are taught to continue the war,” he says.


Knife-Wielding Jihadi Who Attacked New York Cops on New Year’s Eve Cites US Support of Israel As Motive
The 19-year-old man who attacked three police officers with a knife in New York on New Year’s Eve told authorities he had come to the city “in order to kill people and carry out jihad,” prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Maine resident Trevor Bickford also allegedly said that all government officials were legitimate targets in his view, including Muslims since “they cannot be proper Muslims because the United States government supports Israel.”

Bickford was charged Wednesday by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with attempted murder in the first degree and attempted assault. The attack occurred shortly after 10 p.m. on Saturday just north of Times Square.

Bickford, who is understood to have converted to Islam within the past year and a half, uttered the words “Allahu akbar” before hitting one officer over the head with a long knife known as a kukri, according to court documents. He then charged another officer, dropping the knife in the process, and made an unsuccessful grab at the officer’s gun before another officer used his service weapon to wound him in the shoulder.


Jeffrey Herf: "The international context of the establishment of the state of Israel"
London Centre Study of Contemporary Antisemitism: Presentation at LCSCA conference, Sep 2022.


Miss Iraq Is Bridging the Divide Between Muslims and Jews
When Sarah Idan won the title of Miss Iraq in 2017, she posed for a picture with Adar Gandelsman, Miss Israel, at the Miss Universe Pageant. Idan posted the picture on her Instagram and wrote, “Peace and love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” Idan said.

But it was. The response from some fellow Iraqis was swift and harsh.

“People said I was committing treason,” Idan said in an exclusive interview with Aish.com. “They said we didn’t have any relations with Israel because of the occupation in Palestine. I thought it was all Saddam Hussein and that mentality died with him, but apparently it didn’t.”

Adar Gandelsman, Miss Israel, with Sarah Idan Miss Iraq.

The situation escalated: Idan started receiving death threats. And in the aftermath, her family still living in Iraq was forced to flee.

“I spoke too early for an Arab,” she said. “We didn’t have the Abraham Accords yet. I didn’t really know what was going on in the Middle East because I was in the United States.”

Idan, who was born in 1990, grew up during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq.

“It was like North Korea,” she said. “We were cut off from the world. There were only three channels on our TV, and the government controlled them. Everything told to us came from Saddam. We didn’t know what was going on. We were living in a bubble.”


Breslov rabbi Eli Goldsmith speaks to the CAA podcast about antisemitism, activism, and professional wrestling
Eli Goldsmith, the podcaster, musician, and rabbi behind Unity Bookings, a global entertainment promotion, appeared on the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism where he spoke about tackling antisemitism through art and entertainment, and revealed his own experiences of antisemitism.

Commenting on previous podcast guests, musicians Westside Gravy and Moshe Reuven, and comedian Elon Gold, three talents whom Mr Goldsmith has worked with and who use their respective art forms to combat antisemitism, the promoter said that such acts were “saving lives”.

“We have to create a youth movement in the Jewish world and empower musicians,” he said.

Additionally, he encouraged social media users to share content that they find empowering to help in tackling anti-Jewish hate.

He said: “For us to just be passive is a massive mistake. The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that you have to be an active participant in life.

“That means each of us individually, every day, practically need to like and share, a few times a day, something of meaning and purpose that can bring some light to the internet experience.”

Mr Goldsmith is, however, no stranger to antisemitism himself. Speaking candidly, he revealed that as a teenager growing up in North London, he was on the receiving end of antisemitic abuse.


Four Worst Ways the New York Times Slimed the Jews in 2022
It was an ugly calendar year for The New York Times in terms of coverage of issues related to Israel and Jews—so ugly that choosing the four worst specific examples is a challenge.

Looking back, though, it’s possible to group the worst Times outrages of the past year into four overarching themes.

Cheerleading the Iran nuclear deal: The Times mischaracterized President Biden’s campaign promise about re-entering the Iran nuclear deal and also passed along, unchecked, a false claim that doing so would have no domestic political cost. The paper initially refused to publish an ad with language critical of the deal. The Times made support for sanctions-relief for Iran a key issue in its editorial endorsement in a Democratic primary election in a Manhattan congressional district. The Times relentlessly, breathlessly, incrementally hyped the claim that a new deal was on the way. January 12, 2022: “…the US and Iran Inch Closer to a Nuclear Pact.” January 31, 2022: “US and Allies Close to Reviving Nuclear Deal With Iran….” March 8, 2022: “Iran Nuclear Deal Nears Completion…” Thank goodness, it didn’t happen. Nevertheless, the Times misled its readers, wasted their time, and squandered whatever remained of its own credibility.

Error-prone Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley and his colleagues: The Times has a Jerusalem Bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, who, when he was appointed in October 2020, was known to have had a history of mistakes in writing about Israel. Kingsley’s own articles for the Times and those from the bureau this year were repeatedly riddled with factual inaccuracies about everything from Israel’s capital to the legal status of the West Bank. Some of them the Times corrected in print and online. Others were left uncorrected. The most whopping correction may have been the “editor’s note” about the fish tale that Israel had somehow devastated Gaza’s fishing industry, the Times article’s main premise, which turned out to be false.
Battling the BBC’s bias against Jews and Israel
The BBC’s chronic bias against Israel has repeatedly handed a victory to antisemites in the court of public opinion. The blame for this falls squarely on two parties: First, the BBC itself, whose long-term reluctance to listen to and act on the Jewish community’s concerns has allowed bias to flourish. Second, establishment Jewish community leaders, whose preference for direct talks rather than comprehensive action does nothing to ameliorate the situation and harms the Jewish community in general.

A new parliamentary inquiry, comprised of MPs and peers, has promised to examine evidence of bias in the BBC’s reporting on Israel and Jews, and offer recommendations for improvement. They have their work cut out for them, not least because of the BBC’s lack of an effective system for handling complaints and its failure to make timely corrections, even after admitting to reporting errors.

U.K. regulator OFCOM has already ruled that the BBC has breached its editorial rules. Non-governmental media watchdog group CAMERA has published dozens of examples of the BBC’s bias, failure to report accurately, omission of crucial context and misrepresentation of facts in coverage of Israel and Jews.

Among the most disturbing examples was the BBC’s coverage of an incident that occurred on Nov. 29, 2021, in which a group of Jewish students was subjected to an antisemitic attack while traveling on a privately-hired bus on Oxford Street, London during Hanukkah. The BBC not only failed to accurately report the facts of the incident but also inverted the victim/aggressor dynamic, falsely claiming that the Jewish students used derogatory language to refer to Muslims.

Then there’s BBC Arabic. The outlet has an audience of 36 million people worldwide and is seen as a voice of authority in the Middle East, raising fears that its repeated errors and outright distortions have contributed to growing antisemitism.
European Parliament Suspends Quincy Author Over Unregistered Work for Qatar and Morocco
A contributor to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s flagship website was suspended in late December from an advisory role at the European Parliament amid allegations he was working as an unregistered operative for Qatar and Morocco.

Eldar Mamedov, who has authored more than 50 op-eds for the isolationist think tank bankrolled by billionaires George Soros and Charles Koch, was referred to Belgian authorities as part of an investigation into foreign influence peddling, according to Politico. Mamedov’s suspected role in the operation is raising questions about how he used his perch at Quincy to advocate in favor of increased ties with Iran—one of Qatar’s closest regional allies.

But the allegations against Mamedov could explain why he used his perch at Quincy to push for increased relations with Tehran. While he hasn't written there about Morocco or Qatar specifically, he has used his position to press issues important to the latter. Mamedov’s writing focused on opening relations with Iran and reentering the 2015 nuclear accord, which also is a chief priority for the Quincy Institute. In October, for instance, Mamedov argued the anti-regime protests erupting across Iran "make restoring the [nuclear deal] more urgent than ever." In August, he advocated the United States take "a more nuanced view of Iran." A new nuclear deal with Iran would boost Qatar’s clout in the region and enable it to continue doing business with the country’s hardline regime.

While the Quincy Institute bills itself as immune to the whims of a "narrow elite in Washington," it has struggled to beat back accusations that some of its scholars are doing the bidding of America’s adversaries. Quincy executive vice president Trita Parsi, for instance, has long been dogged by accusations he served as an unregistered lobbyist for the Iranian regime. And Quincy Institute fellow Amir Handjani, formerly a registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Public Investment Fund, is alleged to have played a central role in a hack-and-leak operation funded by a wealthy kingdom in the United Arab Emirates.

"It's bad enough that Quincy peddles dictator-friendly ideas. But it's even worse that it does so with people who appear to be mired in conflicts of interest, commercial ties with tyrannical regimes, and in one case alleged to be connected to a major bribery scandal," Kaveh Shahrooz, an Iranian dissident and Toronto-based senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon. "This think tank and its views ought to be ignored by every decent person."
Honest About Israel: After Barbara Walters, The Other Media Stars Who Go to Bat For the Jewish State
The death of acclaimed journalist, anchor and talk show host Barbara Walters at the age of 93 on December 30 was met with sadness in the media world.

Described as “trailblazing” and a “legend” in tributes, Walters was known for her tough interview style that saw her grill some of the world’s most famous politicians, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who she memorably quizzed on whether he had ever personally ordered anyone’s death, and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

A lesser-known detail about Walters that Jewish media outlets have highlighted was her long-standing affinity with Israel, which reportedly began after paying a visit to interview the then-Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1973 after which Walters was said to have commented: “To my great surprise, Israel overwhelmed me and aroused feelings I never knew I had. I couldn’t get over the beauty of the land itself, at once rocky and arid, yet lush where the Israelis had ingeniously brought water to the desert. I felt a starting and quite strong connection.”

In addition, Walters is said to have maintained friendships with several high-profile Israeli politicians, including the late PM Yitzhak Rabin and military leader and former defense minister Moshe Dayan.

It should also be noted that one of Walters’ most significant television moments was her joint interview with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977 — amid the negotiation of the historic Egypt-Israel peace treaty — which marked the first time the political adversaries had ever spoken publicly together.

While Walters may have been trendsetting in many ways, normalizing the support of Israel in the media world was sadly not one of them.

Legendary journalist Barbara Walters recently passed away
For, it is an unfortunate fact that in today’s climate, being vocally supportive of the Jewish state can be potentially career-damaging and draw the ire of angry online mobs, who are likely to hound and harass anyone who sticks their head above the parapet where Israel is concerned.
US-Designated Senior Terrorist Exploits Twitter Spaces To Promote Violence
A U.S.-designated terrorist is using Twitter spaces to encourage violence in the Middle East, specifically against Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces.

Ziyad al-Nakhalah, deputy secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), was labeled a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” by the U.S. Department of State in 2014, according to a department press release. In December, the Lebanese news channel Al-Mayadeen, which has an official Twitter account with Twitter Blue for Business, hosted Nakhalah on a Twitter space.

Nakhalah’s interview was initially taken down, but Al-Mayadeen contacted Twitter and it was allowed to continue, according to the second part of the interview. During the interview, Nakhalah said that he was hopeful the PIJ would have the opportunity to “abduct Israeli soldiers.”

“We will not cease the attempts to free our imprisoned [comrades], whether through abducting Israeli soldiers…. God willing, the resistance in the Gaza Strip….. will have the opportunity to abduct Israeli soldiers,” Nakhalah stated.

Nakhalah is unable to obtain a Twitter account due to his status as a designated terrorist but was allowed to have a platform via Al-Mayadeen’s account. Al-Mayadeen is considered the “mouthpiece” of the terrorist group Hezbollah, also an official U.S. designated terrorist group, and has 1.9 million followers on Twitter, according to Yahoo News.


London Antisemitic Crime Wave Shows No Signs of Stopping According to Latest Data
Antisemitic hate crimes in London were slightly higher in December than the preceding month, according to the latest data issued by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

MPS recorded 44 such incidents in the British capital last month. There were 43 in November, bringing the total for 2022 to 575. A total of 3,211 antisemitic hate crimes have been recorded since 2018, with incidents peaking in 2021, when there were 853.

The new year has already witnessed a fresh wave of attacks on the Orthodox Jewish community in London, one of the largest in Europe. On Tuesday, Shomrim Stamford Hill, a Jewish community defense group, reported that a man entered a Jewish bakery and attempted to assault a Jewish woman after asking, “Are you Jewish?”

Last week, Jewish man and his infant son were assaulted and the father was slashed while taking a walk in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of North London, where large concentrations of Orthodox Jews live. In another separate incident, a woman in \ Stamford Hill was stalked and assaulted by an unknown perpetrator.

Earlier in December, a man in the Stamford Hill stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting “Dirty Jew,” and then snatched her shopping bag, “spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing,” according to Shomrim Stamford Hill, which provides security and support to London’s Orthodox Jewish community.
Neo-Nazis are blasted for 'cowardly' act at Melbourne primary school: 'To desecrate a place where children play is abhorrent'
Vandals who defaced the playground of a Melbourne primary school with a swastika have been slammed as 'evil' over the 'cowardly' act.

A Nazi swastika graffiti was discovered by a local Jewish woman on the basketball courts at Toorak Primary School, southeast of Melbourne, on Wednesday.

Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dr Dvir Abramovich issued a damning statement on Thursday following the shocking incident.

'Another day, another antisemitic and racist incident in our city,' he said.

'It's clear that the contagion of unbridled hate that has defiled Melbourne continues to spiral out of control and reach an ominous pitch fever.'

Dr Abramovich- who spearheaded the five-year campaign that led to the Victorian parliament legislating a ban on the public display of the swastika last year - said the 'cowardly act' was a blatant attack on the values of Australian schools, which ought to be a 'haven' for students, family and staff of all backgrounds.

'To desecrate a place where children play and learn with neo-Nazi vandalism is ugly and abhorrent,' he said.

'I hope that those individuals who perpetrated this sickening outrage are identified and prosecuted to the full extent of the new law that bans the public displays of the Nazi swastika.'

Dr Abramovich said the despicable graffiti was unfortunately part of a disturbing nationwide trend and served as a reminder 'that there are people in our city with burning malice in their hearts'.
Trailblazing Female Muslim Arab Is IDF Major
Ella Waweya, 33, the first Muslim Arab woman to become a major in the IDF, is its deputy spokesperson for the Arabic media. She is from the Israeli Arab city of Qalansawe and, from a young age, felt that she wanted to be part of Israeli society. She enrolled in an Israeli college to study communications and volunteered to perform a year of national service, concomitant to her studies, in the emergency room of an Israeli hospital at night. A hospital security guard from the Bedouin minority, who had been in the army, led her to realize that IDF service was a possibility.

At a media conference in Eilat, she spoke with then-IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai and the late veteran military correspondent Roni Daniel, who heard her say she wished she could join the IDF. Two days later, Waweya was summoned for an interview at the IDF Spokesperson's office in Tel Aviv and was accepted to work in the military's press office at age 24.

A year and a half later, she enrolled in officer's training and was selected as an outstanding soldier who would be honored by the president. Several dozen people from her city were inspired to either enlist or perform national service. Nearly 400 Muslim Arabs including Bedouin enlisted in the IDF last year.
Women in the Israel Air Force
Women in the Israel Air Force (IAF) are busy protecting the country. Lt.-Col. M, who is married and has three children, has been protecting the skies of Israel for 22 years. She is responsible for the aerial picture of Israel's skies.

Captain A is the head of advanced flight training at the IAF drone school. According to A, drone operators have one of the most interesting positions in the military. While they may be located far from the enemy, "you do feel as if you are on the frontlines. You see everything." Over the past decade, the operational use of drones by air forces around the world, including the IAF, has increased dramatically. Though the majority of operations are reconnaissance and surveillance of targets, Israeli drone operators are involved in carrying out deadly strikes against terrorists and destroying enemy targets that pose an imminent threat.

1st Lt. R serves as a weapons system operator on an F-16. She is on the frontlines, flying some of the most complex operations side by side with her male colleagues, deep behind enemy lines.
Israel-made nanosatellite launches on SpaceX vehicle Falcon 9
Prof. Meir Ariel, head of the Nano-Satellite Center, shares details on the third nanosatellite launched into space in the past two years and the first to be fully designed, developed and built at Tel Aviv University.


Australian Actress Ruby Rose Visits Israel, Claps Back at ‘Free Palestine’ Supporters on Social Media
Australian actress Ruby Rose is currently in Israel visiting her friend and costar, Israeli actress Rona-Lee Shimon, and is not letting anti-Israel supporters on social media ruin her trip.

The former Batwoman stars in the action thriller Dirty Angels with Shimon, who is also a cast member of the hit Israeli series Fauda, and has been touring the Jewish state with the Israeli actress. On Tuesday, Rose posted on her Instagram page a carousel of photos from her travels so far in Israel and in the caption said that from the moment that she met Shimon, “I knew that we would become deep, dear friends.” She told her 20 million Instagram followers that the actress has become like family to her and added, “I feel so lucky to be considered as such by this angel.”

Shimon responded in the comments by writing: “My sweet angel! I feel so blessed we got to meet on our film. You went straight into my heart. I love your gentle loving heart so much. You literally had me at Hello.”

Rose’s Instagram post was also bombarded with messages from anti-Israel supporters who wrote “Free Palestine” and criticized her for visiting “apartheid Israel.”

In response to one such comment, Rose replied, “I am visiting a friend. Not making a political statement.” Since then, the Australian actress and model has also shared on her Instagram Stories multiple posts about antisemitic attacks and anti-Jewish incidents that took place in 2022.
Israel among top 10 countries with longest life expectancies - report
Israel has the 10th highest life expectancy in the world, according to research conducted by NiceRx, which claims Israelis have a life expectancy of 83.49 years: 81.98 years for men, and 84.91 years for women.

Taking the number one spot on the list is Hong Kong followed by Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Italy, Spain, Australia, Iceland, and South Korea.

The list is comprised of OECD countries. Hong Kong, which headed the list with a life expectancy of 85.29 years (82.38 years for men and 88.17 years for women), has seen its life expectancy rise to such a degree, largely, due to beneficial lifestyles and healthcare opportunities that mitigate risks from diseases and chronic conditions.

As a whole, all over the world, fewer people are succumbing to diseases, injuries, or other such things that may cut their life short. As a result, life expectancy all over the world has risen in the past century.

The average life expectancy of someone born in 1960 was 52.5 years, but today the average is 72, according to the BBC.


'When you have little, give a little; when you have a lot, give a lot'
Tamar Uriel-Beeri, managing editor of Jpost.com, interviews Sir Frank Lowy, Australian-Israeli businessman and philanthropist, to discuss his life, philanthropic philosophy, and his recent donation of $18 million (NIS 65 million) to Tel Aviv University (TAU), expanding the activities of its International School, which has been renamed the Lowy International School in Memory of Shirley Lowy, his wife who passed away in 2020.

Lowy was born in 1930 in Czechoslovakia, moved to Israel in 1946, and fought in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. In 1952, he moved to Australia and founded Westfield Development Corporation, the commercial real estate company and shopping mall operator. Lowy moved back to Israel at the end of 2018.

Comparing the land of Israel of 1946 to Israel of today, Lowy tells Uriel-Beeri, “When I first arrived, 600,000 Jews were living here. Today we have more than seven million Jews living in Israel. With that, great changes have occurred here, mostly for the better. Nothing is perfect in life, neither in Israel, nor anywhere else in the world.”

For Lowy, his return to Israel has been a rebirth of sorts, and he mentions three significant events, or ‘births’ – his actual birth in 1930 in Czechoslovakia, his first move to Palestine in 1946, and his return to Israel several years ago.

Lowy’s major gift to Tel Aviv University’s International School, he explains, is intended to make the school an umbrella for all of TAU’s international students, equip students to discuss issues that concern Israel and the Jewish world, and ensure that they become ambassadors for the university and the State of Israel.

He explains that the renaming of the International School after his wife Shirley is intended to honor her memory and her two dreams that she was able to realize during her lifetime – studying and receiving a university degree, which she accomplished in her 40s, and moving to Israel, which she achieved in 2018.




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