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Tuesday, March 14, 2023

03/14 Links Pt2: Pro-Israel Groups Call for Sanctions on Morningstar for Blacklisting Israeli Companies; MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Lamely Nods Along As Former PLO Adviser Diana Buttu Spouts Lies

From Ian:

Pro-Israel Groups Call for Sanctions on Morningstar for Blacklisting Companies That Aid the Jewish State
Advocacy groups are pressing state government officials to sanction financial ratings giant Morningstar for promoting divestment from companies that help the Israeli government combat Palestinian suicide bombers.

Morningstar subsidiary Sustainalytics "treats Israel differently from all other nations," according to two pro-Israel community organizations, Christians United for Israel and the Orthodox Union. The organizations are urging the State Financial Officers Foundation, which represents officials in charge of implementing state laws against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, to cancel lucrative contracts and investments in Morningstar.

Morningstar has been battling accusations that it fuels the BDS movement by downgrading companies that work with Israel, particularly in its security sector, making them less attractive to potential investors. The pro-Israel groups say the financial ratings giant has not made good on its promises to address those concerns and implement reforms, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Free Beacon reported in February, for example, that the company is still blacklisting several firms that help Israel combat Palestinian terrorism. Those actions, the groups say, "constitute a clear violation of state laws prohibiting contracts with and/or investment in firms that boycott Israel."

"It's time for Morningstar to choose boycotts of Israel or state investments and contracts," the groups write.

The groups also want to ease concerns that Morningstar could retaliate against the states by using its ratings systems to downgrade 529 accounts, an investment portfolio used to help pay for college education.

"Given that Morningstar already uses its ratings to advance a political agenda, we recognize and respect the concern the company might retaliate against states that faithfully implement their anti-BDS laws. For instance, by downgrading the ratings of state 529 accounts," the groups write. "Rest assured, we will urge attorneys general around the country to hold Morningstar accountable should such underhanded tactics be employed."
MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Lamely Nods Along As Former PLO Adviser Diana Buttu Spouts Lies
Despite being, or perhaps thanks to her background as an ex-adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Diana Buttu has managed to carve herself out a respectable career as an academic and a media rent-a-quote on all things Israel-related.

Unsurprisingly, Buttu rarely has anything nice (or accurate) to say about the Jewish state.

And her recent appearance on Ali Velshi’s MSNBC talk show was no different.

In the six-minute segment, Buttu was given a free pass to spout a litany of distortions, half-truths and outright lies — and was not once challenged for doing so by news anchor Velshi.

Introducing her as the former legal adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas (whose own canceling of Palestinian elections and seemingly perpetual leadership in the 19th year of his 4-year term is legally dubious at best), Velshi asks Buttu to comment on the political turmoil currently roiling Israel.

Taking aim at several far-right politicians in the Israeli government, Buttu claimed that it is not just them but the entire government whose “only platform is to just try to build and expand settlements and to attack Palestinians.”

Buttu’s claim is blatant hyperbole, particularly when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own stated government’s priorities are taken into account: stymying Iran’s nuclear program, developing infrastructure including a high-speed railway, and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not to mention the controversial judicial reforms and the resultant political crisis that has consumed the government’s first months.

Continuing her inaccurate summary of the Israeli legislative agenda, Buttu goes on to accuse politicians of being preoccupied with continuing the “ethnic cleansing process” — a libel so egregious and verifiably wrong that there should have been some pushback from Velshi.
MSNBC Platforms Notorious Liar Who Unsurprisingly Uses MSNBC to Lie
Repeated Israeli peace offers have involved very limited amounts of West Bank territory going to Israel in exchange for Israel swapping some land on its side of the 1949 armistice line. For example, in the 2007 Annapolis talks, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s proposal involved the Jewish state taking every major Israeli settlement bloc, which amounted to just 5.9% of the West Bank territory, in exchange for a similar amount of Israeli territory being given to the proposed Palestinian state.

Buttu’s claims are even undermined by the admission of another former PLO actor, Saeb Erakat. Reflecting on a later peace offer by Olmert in 2008, Erakat told Al Jazeera TV:
Olmert, who talked today about his proposal to [Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas], offered the 1967 borders, but said: ‘We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage [between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip], and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.’ [Abbas] too answered with defiance, saying: ‘I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine – the June 4, 1967 borders – without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.’ This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign.

In other words, the problem was not that Israelis are “living on approximately 60% of the West Bank land” as Buttu claims, or even just the 4-6% making up the settlement blocs; it’s Jews living on any land in the West Bank.

A map depicting a peace proposal by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In this regard, it’s worth noting that while earlier in the interview Buttu accused Israel of engaging in an “ethnic cleansing process,” it’s the Palestinian Authority that has actually made ethnic cleansing its goal. Not only did its leader reject any land swaps in pursuit of peace and a two-state solution, but Abbas made clear several years later, “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli, civilian or soldier, on our lands.”

Indeed, Buttu herself echoed this position during the interview, stating “the two-state solution is only possible if there is a political decision to take the settlers out of the West Bank,” territory which has already been ethnically cleansed of Jews once in modern history during the Jordanian capture and occupation of the land.

By bringing on someone with such a record of outlandish lies, and by refusing to either push back with the facts or bring on an opposing perspective that could have countered Buttu’s falsehoods and calls to ethnically cleanse the land of Jews a second time, MSNBC once again shows contempt for credibility and accuracy.
UN Watch: PLO's Diana Buttu goes SPEECHLESS in Al Jazeera debate with Hillel Neuer
Al Jazeera tries to silence UN Watch's Hillel Neuer, but even a bit of truth managed to throw ex-PLO lawyer Diana Buttu & Human Rights Watch's Bill van Esveld on the defensive. July 24, 2014


Blocking terror, one platform at a time
(JNS) The U.S. Supreme Court heard the oral arguments this past month in two cases involving an antiquatedly obsolete law, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which has indemnified the high-tech online providers from criminal and civil liabilities in allowing terrorists to post incitement content on their bandwidths for 27 years. Silicon Valley warns that if the highest court in the land rules against them, the internet will be radically disrupted. Let’s keep our fingers crossed—the case before the nine justices, Gonzalez vs. Google, is mine. Together with my co-counsel, Robert Tolchin and Eric Schnapper, we set out years ago to demand that Big Tech finally be reined in and be compelled to regulate all the terror and hate on their platforms.

The implications of the court’s ruling will impact the world, but the origins of this fight involve Israel’s fight against terrorism and the extremists hijacking social media to promote murder and destruction.

Shurat HaDin, the human-rights NGO I founded and lead that has sued Iran, North Korea, Syria and Hamas among others in our determination to bankrupt terrorism one lawsuit at a time, turned its attention to the California-based social-media giants and how they allowed terrorists to post images, videos and incitement content online. The violence was so bad in the months between the end of 2014 and early 2016, when Palestinian Arabs urged to commit lone-wolf acts of murder on social media, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dubbed the violence the “Facebook Intifada.” Dozens of Israelis were killed and scores more were wounded in a series of stabbing, bludgeoning and car-ramming attacks across the country.

The Palestinian Arabs were among the first extremists to weaponize social media and maximize the reach of this anonymous far-reaching soapbox. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and others found the Silicon Valley-based platforms to be the ideal stage from where to broadcast antisemitic and anti-Israeli propaganda, incite murder, broadcast living wills, recruit new members, disseminate operational orders and generate donations.

The despicable posts they shared online—videos of terror attacks showing innocent dead and wounded, caricatures of Jews that looked like they originated in Hitler’s Der Stürmer and photos glorifying those responsible for acts of murder—were voraciously received by the Palestinian Arab population that was armed with mobile phones and hatred in their hearts, which had been brainwashed into a cult that glorified death and destruction.
Nary a politically conservative Jewish woman to be seen at inaugural White House Forum
(March 13, 2023 / JNS) The White House hosted more than 70 community leaders on March 9, marking the Purim holiday with its first-ever Jewish Women’s Forum. Attendees hailed the event—part-mixer, part-holiday celebration and part-Jewish affairs state of the state—for its diversity.

The event included both practicing and non-practicing Jewish women who came from across the country, and those present were communal leaders, college students and employees of a range of organizations, attendees told JNS.

“It really spoke to the ability of the Jewish community to lead and mobilize on issues that we care about, both in terms of the Jewish community but also due to our Jewish values and building a strong community more broadly,” Darcy Hirsh, associate vice president for public affairs and government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, told JNS.

Postings from attendees on social media and photos that emerged from the off-the-record event showed a who’s who of Jewish women on the left. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a close Biden administration ally, appears prominently in the front row in one photo.

Conspicuously absent were Jewish women to the right of center.

Prominent Jewish columnists Bethany Mandel and Karol Markowicz, co-authors of the book Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, which was released two days before the White House event, told JNS that neither was invited to the Jewish Women’s Forum.

The two collectively reach more than 260,000 followers on Twitter and are among the most prominent Jewish women writers for mainstream and conservative news publications.
Leftist Hooligans Storm Aliyah Event in Paris
A group of protesters against Israel’s judicial reform on Sunday stormed an Aliyah event with Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer (Religious Zionism). They screamed “Busha” (shame in Hebrew), and were met by “You should be ashamed” calls from the people who came to find out about making Aliyah.

Sofer’s office issued a statement saying: “Several left-wing Israeli activists tried to interrupt the speech of Minister of Aliyah and Absorption Ofir Sofer who is on a mission in France to encourage Aliyah. The crowd responded with cheers for the minister and sang Hatikvah.

Minister Sofer said: “The Jewish community in France supports and loves the State of Israel, and we love it.”

The tweet below was posted by Hani Zubida from Reichman University. He gloated above the video: “The minister of absorption from the racist Zionist party in a warm welcome made-in-France against the coup d’état of which he is a part. Everywhere, at every event in the world, this will be their welcome!”


PreOccupiedTerritory: Elephant In Room’s Metaphor For Awkward Unspoken Truth Is ‘Muslim Antisemitism’ (satire)
Zoologists have determined that pachyderms have an analogous concept to a common human phrase referring to an obvious but uncomfortable issue that goes unmentioned, in their case noting the human tendency to avoid bringing up centuries of Islamic hate for Jews because invoking such a valent topic it makes things politically inconvenient, a new study indicates.

Scientists writing in the journal The Double Standard described their discovery in next month’s issue. “Humans are not the only species with political considerations,” explained lead author Dr. Pilba Heder, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, in an interview. “We’ve known that about numerous social animals, especially dogs, for quite some time. Elephants, as herd animals some of the time, certainly exhibit social behaviors, a phenomenon well-documented in the literature. The new element in our study involves the nuances of that communication – or, more accurately, lack of communication, and subsequent communication about that lack of communication. Specifically, when elephants, in a room or otherwise, need to talk about the fact that no one is talking about something unpleasant or taboo, they call it ‘the Muslims antisemitism in the room.’ This fascinating phenomenon requires much further study.”

The researchers immediately grasped that the creatures were referencing the common practice among Western journalists, politicians, and “experts” to ignore fourteen centuries of Jew-hate embedded in Islamic culture, from cries of “Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud” to the euphemistic “protected” dhimmi status of Jews under Muslim rule, to prohibitions on Jews riding horses, building synagogues taller than mosques, owning weapons, resisting Islamic supremacy in any way, or pursuing, let alone enjoying, equal citizenship.
BBC’s Hardtalk unhelpful on Israeli politics
This coming Tuesday (March 14th) the first episode of a series titled “The Holy Land and Us – Our Untold Stories” will be aired on the BBC Two television channel.

The BBC’s press release about the series informs us that:
“Due to air on BBC Two and iPlayer this spring, The Holy Land And Us: Our Untold Stories follows actor and writer Sarah Agha and barrister, author and broadcaster Rob Rinder, MBE, along with four families of Jewish and Palestinian heritage, as they explore their personal family stories, and the ways in which they have been defined by events in Palestine and Israel.

Sarah will learn about the circumstances under which her family fled their village in Galilee in 1948, and Rob will follow his relative’s journey to escape the horrors of the Holocaust and start a new life in the recently established state of Israel.

2023 marks 75 years since the State of Israel was founded. For Jews across the world, this represented a longed-for opportunity to find a place of safety. For Palestinians the events of this period, which created over 700,000 refugees and resulted in hundreds of towns and villages being destroyed, are known as the Nakba, Arabic for the Catastrophe.

Through powerful and profoundly moving family stories, this series gets to the heart of what happened to people on both sides of the conflict as the Middle East was reshaped.

Rather than presenting a comprehensive history, the series lets the human stories of the time speak for themselves, enabling viewers to reach a richer understanding of the divisions that have lasted to this day. […]

Sarah Agha, Actor and co-Presenter, says: “My Palestinian father was just two years old when his family was displaced from their village near Tiberias in Galilee in 1948. I was always told they were forced to leave, but I know little about the exact circumstances in which they left, so I want to follow in their footsteps and uncover what happened. My father also told me that our Palestinian ancestors used to have a lot of land and influence in the nineteenth century. I want to find out how in less than a century they went from power-brokers to refugees.””
'We live in an age of diktat by celebrity', says former FA chairman
In a letter to The Times newspaper on Friday, one day after the controversy exploded on front pages across the country, Mr Bernstein wrote that he was "not optimistic that [the BBC] will deal appropriately with Gary Lineker’s remark", despite how "damaging" it was to the corporation's reputation.

Bernstein, who was born in 1943 as the Holocaust was underway, wrote: "Speaking as a Jew who was born during the war, the events of that ghastly period have shaped many aspects of my life, and thus my greater concern is the compulsion to compare our government’s intentions to the actions of Nazi Germany.

"This shows an ignorance of European history, a lack of proportionality and a (possibly unintentional) trivialising of the policies of a regime that perpetrated crimes that are to this day impossible to fully comprehend."

Following the BBC's announcement yesterday that Lineker would return to air this weekend without having to withdraw the remark or apologise, Mr Bernstein wrote in another letter to The Times: "Some half-hearted action followed by a climbdown and apology by the BBC is embarrassing in the extreme. We really do live in an age of diktat by celebrity.

"The BBC needs to sort out its leadership and take steps to re-establish some authority. The alternative is chaos and a further loss of confidence in our institutions."
BBC reinstates Gary Linekar
Jonathan Lis, Yoav Borowitz, and Tim Gross debate whether impartial broadcasters can and should remain apolitical.




I was a victim of an antisemitic attack and no one cares
You hear about it, you see it in the news, but it didn’t happen to you. Do you really believe it? Sometimes, you even think that possibly it happened because the victim might have encouraged it, even if you won’t admit it publicly.

Well, if you think an antisemitic attack is foreign to you, you are wrong. How do I know?

Over this past Shabbos, I was the victim of an antisemitic attack. Worse, the response from those in authority was to ignore the event.

The Attack
I am working with a lovely Black woman on an amazing project. A total stranger reached out to her for help. She and I both explained that at this point, due to various reasons, we couldn’t help him.

Rather than taking our advice and letting us reach out to him at the appropriate time, he decided to attack us in a series of emails.

In the emails, he repeated over and over again "the rich Jews", and even said, “dumb-ass Cindy who is your typical rabid Zionist see you next Tuesday.”

He even took the time to find out where I lived.

At first, I thought, just delete it. Then I remembered all of the emails and texts about if you see something then say something. After all, I watched Jewish leaders, social media influencers and politicians stand at podiums at press conferences and speak to journalists about actually fighting Jew hatred.

After Shabbos
I am luckier than most. I am friendly with elected officials, candidates, organization leaders, law enforcement officials and even members of the press.

I texted them. Some totally ignored me. The others suggested reaching out to 911.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, offered direct help or asked for details of my concern.
Antisemitic Hate Crimes Increased 20 Percent in 2021, Updated FBI Report Says
Hate crimes against American Jews increased by twenty percent and were the leading religiously motivated hate crime in 2021, according to a new, supplemental report issued by the FBI on Monday.

According to the new data, there were 817 antisemitic hate crimes in 2021 — up from 683 in 2020 — which included over 100 assaults, 175 incidents of intimidation, and one sexual assault. The bureau identified White and Black Americans as the offenders in 208 incidents while the identity of 339 offenders remains unknown. Of all identity groups covered in the FBI’s data, Jews, who represent only 2 percent of the US population, were targeted the fourth most.

The report updates previous statistics issued in December that had shown a decrease in antisemitic hate crimes and were criticized by several Jewish organizations for being “essentially useless” because the FBI had excluded antisemitic incidents from several states, including California, Florida, and New York, none of which reported their data to the bureau’s National Incident-Based Reporting System.

On Tuesday, Congresswoman Kathy Manning (D-N), co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, said the updated information will “help provide Congress and the public with a more accurate picture of the hate crime landscape across the United States, adding that “this data is critical to effectively address the rise in antisemitism and hate crimes experienced by our communities.”

The new report was praised by Jewish groups.
Pro-Nazi rallies in Europe still prevalent in 2023



Bahraini, Israeli business leaders meet in Manama
More than 300 Bahraini and Israeli business leaders attended the opening ceremony of the three-day Connect2Innovate forum in Manama on Monday.

Connect2Innovate is the first conference of its kind, gathering government officials, large corporations, international organizations, business communities and technology innovators to focus on challenges in fintech, logistics, supply change, water, energy and climate.

Minister of Industry and Commerce Abdulla bin Adel Fakhro said the event affirms the growing partnership between Bahrain and Israel. He stressed that Bahrain represents a prominent investment center, while Israel is well-known for research and development of modern technology.

“By combining both our strengths, we have the ability to transform the region and work together to meet today’s challenges and build a bright future for all,” he said.

Khalid Yusuf Ahmed Al Jalahma, the ambassador of Bahrain to Israel, said in his speech to the attendees he was “proud to say” that collaborations, in all fields, “are expanding and we always strive to grow them even more.”

Eitan Na’eh, the ambassador of Israel to Bahrain, said, “The conference will allow our business communities to explore ways to cooperate moving forward and together, by creating a model whereby close friendly relations plus cooperation in innovation equals opportunities for growth and prosperity.”
First look: Experts from Israel, Arab nations to meet to discuss water, food security
Government and non-government representatives from Israel and several Arab countries are expected to convene on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi for three days to discuss cooperation in agriculture, water and food security, the organizers of the N7 initiative told Axios.

Why it matters: Relations between Israel and the Arab world are at one of their lowest points since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020.
- The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and other Arab countries have cooled their ties with Israel and taken a much more cautious approach since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government came to power nearly three months ago.
- At the same time, tensions in the occupied West Bank continue to escalate, prompting the cancelation or delay of several meetings between government officials from Israel and Arab countries.
- The most important was the Negev Forum foreign ministers meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Morocco in March with the participation of Secretary of State Tony Blinken but was postponed.

Driving the news: Tuesday's Abu Dhabi meeting is organized as part of the Atlantic Council and the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation N7 initiative, which aims to develop ideas and practical proposals for regional projects that could be implemented by governments in the region.
- Experts, government officials, university professors and private sector executives from Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Sudan are expected to attend. The organizers say Palestinian representatives and experts from countries that don’t have relations with Israel like Indonesia are also expected to participate.
- U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) from the Senate Abraham Accords caucus are expected to address the meeting over video. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee and Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), are also expected to give video addresses.
- U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will also speak to the participants on video.
Israeli ambassador to Bahrain talks about the growing ties between the countries

Israel among lowest air polluters in western Asia, Swiss research finds
Israel was rated as having some of the lowest air pollution rates in the West Asia region, with several of its cities topping the top 15 least polluted regional cities list, according to an annual global survey by Swiss air purifier maker IQAir.

Out of all the countries in the region, Israel ranked just behind the country of Georgia in terms of air pollution quality.

But Israel was also ranked positively in terms of its cities.

Worldwide, Israel was ranked 53 in terms of air pollution severity, with Tel Aviv ranking 46 on a list of air pollution in capital cities – since IQAir doesn't consider Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel.
Demon Bowls || Let Objects Speak
The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg has one of the world’s greatest collections of art, with more than 3 million artifacts – yet the Jewish treasures of the museum have never been widely known.

Join award-winning author Matti Friedman as he takes us on a rare tour and a glimpse of Jewish history and culture as they appear in the treasures of the Hermitage.

Beit Avi Chai’s Ideas Without Borders presents the second episode of the Let Objects Speak: Jewish Artifacts in Russian Museums series that focuses on Aramaic magical bowls at The Hermitage, which reveal rather unorthodox Jewish folk practices at the time of the Babylonian Talmud.


A Mossad Agent’s Treasure Trove of Photos
On Oct. 8, 1965, the chief of Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, presented the country’s prime minister with a plan to assassinate several leading Palestinian militants based in Beirut, Lebanon, with letter bombs.

“It will be a woman doing it,” said the Mossad chief, Meir Amit, according to transcripts of the meeting with the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, seen by The New York Times. The agent would travel to Beirut and slip the bombs into a mailbox there, he said. At a later meeting, Mr. Amit told the prime minister that the woman was a Mossad agent using a Canadian passport who was working as a photographer for a French press agency.

The woman’s identity, Sylvia Rafael, and her face, later became known across the world when she was arrested as a member of a Mossad team that had planned to kill another top Palestinian militant in Norway but shot the wrong man.

Ms. Rafael and parts of her life story are widely known, but her work as a press photographer, documenting the unique access she attained in countries where foreigners were not usually welcomed, in secret training camps used by Palestinian militants, as well as to leaders of Arab states and Hollywood stars, had never been publicly revealed.

Until now.

On Tuesday, her work will be open to the public for the first time at the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv after being kept for decades in a locked suitcase in the Mossad archive, in the heart of one of the most protected facilities in Israel. The suitcase contained hundreds of negatives and contacts from her years of work for Dalmas, a now defunct French news agency.

Ms. Rafael’s work as a photographer was just a cover for her espionage activity but the photographs she took, the curators of the exhibition say, show great talent.

The pictures open a window into the two lives of a woman, as a spy and a photographer. They include portraits of regional leaders like President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and his successor, Anwar Sadat, oblivious to the fact that they were being photographed by a Mossad agent.




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