Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Cognitive War in Israel
It was not just the Israelis who thought that hasbara—propaganda—was unimportant. When I returned to the United States I tried hard to interest at least two Jewish American organizations to allow me to develop a curriculum for their staff, one that would teach them the language of oppression and liberation. I explained that this was precisely the language that would be used against Israel globally. I offered to do this pro bono. It was 1980-1981 and there was simply no interest.Gil Troy: Australia’s Jews show how to criticize Israel constructively, thoughtfully
In other words, more than 40 years ago, there was little interest in combatting the cognitive war against the Jews both in Israel and among Jewish American organizations.
This rapidly rising antisemitism was both old and new. As I (and others) pointed out in the early 21st century, anti-Zionism was now the reason for Jew-hatred.
A dedicated group in which I participate have been covering the cognitive war against Israel for the last 22-23 years. By 2012, I began calling for an Iron Dome to combat the lethal lies against the Jewish state.
Nothing less will do.
Minister Distel-Atbaryan: You have OldChinaHands and committedcognitive warriors at your disposal. Students who are focused on internet hate. Professors who are focused on academic hate. Intellectual activists, including lawyers, who are focused on Lies in the Street, the media, the governing bodies of the world.
Please consider calling upon us to serve; but, like you, we also need resources that we do not yet have.
‘What’s Bibi thinking?” Unfortunately, too many American Jews ask this question with a triumphalist I-told-you-so tone, oozing with what-do-you-expect-from-those-primitive-Israelis condescension.Bassam Tawil: Why Palestinians Cannot Resume Peace Talks with Israel
Two weeks ago, many Australian Jews asked me the question, heartbrokenly, with surprise, concern and frustration. Most Kanga-Jews are staunch Zionists. Many have long supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They dislike criticizing Israel – but are shocked at how quickly and self-destructively Netanyahu has threatened so many of his economic and diplomatic accomplishments.
Australian Jews, like North American Jews, instinctively understand the need to separate executive, judicial, and legislative powers – while distributing power widely too. As a federation of six states, with two self-governing territories, Australia fragments power, avoiding the hyper-concentration in prime-ministerial hands so many Israelis justifiably fear.
A thoughtful statement
That insight shaped the Zionist Federation of Australia’s (ZFA) thoughtful recent statement defining the community as “deeply Zionist” – but worried. From this “position of unconditional love and connection,” the ZFA expressed “serious concern” that the coalition was pushing its judicial reforms “with undue haste and in the absence of broad-based public support.” The statement wisely supported President Isaac Herzog’s mediation efforts.
Despite this anxiety, looming like one of those perpetual clouds over the Melbourne sky, my week-long pre-Pesach visit to Melbourne and Sydney was inspiring. Australian Jewry is thriving in these two urban strongholds by the Indian Ocean. Even more impressive than their infrastructure – epitomized by their popular, high-quality, Jewish day schools on majestic campuses – is their unapologetically Zionist, deeply Jewish, worldview. So many conversations began with someone mentioning “my brother in Baka,” “my sister in Ra’anana,” “my son – or daughter – serving as a lone soldier.”
It’s a pleasure to visit a community that uses the Z-word comfortably and proudly, and was happy to talk about “Identity Zionism.” Often, when I speak in the US, after I describe how Zionism can inspire alienated young people with our sense of community, history, and destiny – the questions invariably go political – from the Palestinian issue to, now, the judicial reform.
In Australia, while asking about current challenges, many listeners, young and old, happily explored this deeper, more existential approach, which doesn’t just see Israel through today’s black-and-white lens of headlines and headaches. Instead, it invites us to see Israel through a blue-and-white prism of identity and possibility, of achievements and dreams, not just asking what we can do for Israel – but what Israel can do for us.
Once a Palestinian leader makes such a serious (and false) allegation against Jews [such as "violent storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque"], he is telling the Arabs and Muslims that the Jews... should therefore be fought against, not welcomed as peace partners.
If you tell your people (again, falsely) that the Israelis are perpetrating "war crimes," "desecrating mosques" and "stealing land," what will the Palestinians think of you when they see you sitting with an Israeli? They will denounce you as a "traitor" and call for your death.
By describing the Jews as "colonizers," [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad] Shtayyeh is seeking to send a message that the Jews have no religious or historical connection to their homeland, Israel.
In the eyes of Shtayyeh and many Palestinians, all Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are "colonizers" and "settlers." These Palestinians see no difference between a Jew living in a Jewish community in the West Bank and a Jew living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. For them, all Jews are foreigners who have no connection whatsoever to Israel and Jewish holy sites and no right ever to live there. Period.
Palestinian leaders such as Shtayyeh are straightforwardly saying that they see Israel as one big illegal settlement that must be eradicated... [and not] as a place for anyone other than Muslims.
[C]ontrary to the false claim made by Shtayyeh and other Palestinian leaders, the Jews who visit the holy site have never set foot inside the al-Aqsa Mosque.
One of those who have failed to call out the Palestinians for their antisemitism and lies is US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"Palestinians and Israelis alike are experiencing growing insecurity, growing fear in their homes, in their communities, in their places of worship," Blinken argued.
If the Palestinians are "experiencing growing insecurity," it is because they are enabling terrorists to operate freely against Israel within their own communities. If the Palestinians want to live in their homes in security and without fear, they could stop terrorists from planning and executing terror attacks against Israel. If the Palestinians want to feel safe in their worship places, they could stop attacking and harassing Jews....
Caroline Glick: Netanyahu speaks to the generals
Netanyahu in his remarks emphasized three points: his predecessors’ incompetent management of Israel’s security challenges; the unity of purpose shared by all Israelis to defend the state from its enemies; and the unanimity of national rejection of refusal to serve.Netanyahu announces Gallant will stay defense minister, vows to tackle terror
At the outset of his prepared remarks, Netanyahu placed the blame for Israel’s enemies’ current sense of empowerment on the shoulders of the Lapid-Bennett government. He explained that by forming a government dependent for its existence on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Ra’am (United Arab List) Party, the previous government took no action to fight Hamas’s growing military capabilities in Gaza and Lebanon until after it had fallen in a no-confidence vote and elections were called.
Netanyahu condemned the gas deal that then-interim prime minister and current opposition leader Yair Lapid concluded with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon days before the Nov. 1 Israeli elections. That deal, which saw Israel surrender significant portions of its sovereign and economic waters and a natural gas field to Hezbollah in exchange for absolutely nothing, was supported and defended by the IDF despite the self-evident danger it poses.
Judged by its substance, the apparent purpose of Netanyahu’s assault on the previous government’s weakness was twofold. First, he wanted to remind the public how we arrived at the current moment, where Hezbollah, Hamas and their Iranian bosses believe they can attack Israel with impunity. And second, Netanyahu wanted to implicitly remind the IDF and Mossad senior brass of their own role in facilitating the irresponsible and destructive gas deal.
In light of the leaked CIA report, and the leadership role retired generals have played in fomenting the anti-government insurrection over the past three months, Netanyahu’s decision to speak from the heart of the national security establishment in Tel Aviv rather than the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem was central to the message of national unity-of-purpose he sought to deliver to Israel’s enemies. Over the course of his half-hour press conference, Netanyahu repeatedly returned to the theme that Israel’s enemies are misreading Israel’s united determination to defend the country from all aggressors. His laconic rendition of the steps the IDF has taken under his government’s orders was geared towards driving home the united seriousness of purpose and the IDF’s acceptance of governmental authority and power. Netanyahu repeatedly asserted his own authority and responsibility for protecting Israel. At one point he made this point explicit. “It is my responsibility,” he said.
The third and most pronounced message Netanyahu communicated Monday evening was the illegitimacy of refusing to follow orders. When asked about his effort to reach an agreement with the political opposition regarding judicial reform, Netanyahu responded that he has two goals vis-à-vis his work with the political opposition.
First, he said, he seeks to negotiate an agreed-upon plan to limit the powers of the Supreme Court. This is a goal, he said, that a large majority of Israelis support.
Second and clearly more important when judged by Netanyahu’s rhetorical fervor, Netanyahu said that he intends to reach—and indeed, he claimed, he has already achieved—consensus on the “absolute rejection of the refusal to serve.” Netanyahu repeated this point multiple times throughout his remarks.
This final point more than anything else he said drove home the identity of Netanyahu’s main target audience. That audience was not the jittery public, although addressing its concerns was important. Netanyahu’s main audience was the security brass from whose headquarters Netanyahu spoke and whose absence at the rostrum was impossible to ignore.
Bearing in mind Kedar’s warning and Netanyahu’s own (less dramatic but relatively detailed) recitation of the nature of the coordinated assault Israel is already experiencing, it appears that the purpose of Netanyahu’s press conference was to gently but firmly assert his authority over the generals by forcing them to contend with the real threats facing Israel.
For years, Israel’s generals have stated publicly that the gravest threat facing Israel is the divisions within Israeli society. By repeatedly making these statements, and then standing foursquare with the left and pushing its policies from within the security apparatus, Israel’s military leadership wasn’t repairing those divisions. They were stoking and exacerbating them. The consequence of their actions and statements has been the unprecedented statements over the past three months by reserve pilots and members of the IDF’s critical technology units refusing to serve under the government.
Netanyahu’s highlighting the fact that the public as a whole rejects the legitimacy of refusing to serve facilitated his assertion of his own governing authority over the recalcitrant generals. By setting out the threats Israel is now facing, and rightly asserting the all but universal rejection of refusal to serve, Netanyahu was telling the generals that Israeli society isn’t divided on core issues. It is united. The primary threat Israel faces is Iran, not domestic disunity. And under Netanyahu’s leadership, whether Gallant is defense minister or not, the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet and police are required to make defending Israel against Iran and its proxies their top and indeed their only priority.
In a Hebrew press conference that began shortly after 8:25 p.m. local time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, whom Netanyahu previously fired in a dispute over judicial reforms, would remain in office.Republicans Want To End Taxpayer Funding for Activist Group Behind Netanyahu Protests
The Israeli prime minister further pledged to bring justice to those who have attacked Israelis in recent days and to reach a broad consensus on judicial reform, which has caused much domestic upheaval in the past few months.
Netanyahu began his remarks with condolences for the British Israeli Dee family. Earlier in the day, Lucy Dee, 48, died from wounds sustained during a terrorist attack that killed her daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 15.
“May God avenge their blood,” he said.
On the security front, Netanyahu criticized the previous government, saying terrorist attacks doubled under its tenure. He also blamed the Israel-Lebanon gas deal and threats from Israeli soldiers not to serve for the recent wave of terror attacks.
“Our enemies saw the calls for refusal as weakness,” he said of the latter. However, he continued, “this is my responsibility” and “I act with responsibility.”
The prime minister added that his government brought about the decade with the least number of terror attacks in Israeli history and pledged to restore peace and quiet.
“I can’t tell you all that we are doing, but we are doing a lot,” he said.
If there are further attacks from Syria, it and its President Bashar Assad will pay “a very heavy price,” said Netanyahu. He added that Israel will not allow Hamas to entrench itself in Lebanon.
Hamas received the message from Israel in Gaza, according to Netanyahu, who promised that, if they wish it, Israel’s enemies will meet the “full power” of the Israel Defense Forces.
Netanyahu said he stands with Gallant, despite their past differences, which he admitted have been significant. “I decided to put differences aside,” he said. Of the entire dispute, Netanyahu added, “I put it behind us.”
A group of Republican senators is calling on the Biden administration to "immediately cease funding" for a far-left Israeli nonprofit that is working to unseat Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative government coalition.Netanyahu bars Jewish visitors from Temple Mount for last 10 days of Ramadan
Four Republican senators—Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), and Bill Hagerty (Tenn.)—blasted the State Department for funneling taxpayer funds to the Movement for Quality Government (MQG), a left-wing Israeli nonprofit that is leading nationwide protests against Netanyahu's government over plans to reform the country's historically powerful Supreme Court. Those plans that are on standby as a result of mass protests led by MQG.
The left-wing group has received more than $38,000 in funding from the United States since 2020, the Washington Free Beacon reported in March. The funding has raised questions about how a partisan foreign organization was able to obtain American dollars. The State Department typically avoids bolstering partisan groups to avoid the appearance of political meddling.
The funding for MQG comes amid chilly relations between the Biden administration and Netanyahu. President Joe Biden waited more than a week to call Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister's 2022 election victory and has said in recent days that he will not be inviting Netanyahu to the White House any time soon due to unrest over the Supreme Court reform effort. Biden administration officials have been critical of Netanyahu's battle with the Israeli Supreme Court, with some accusing the Israeli leader of eroding democracy in the Jewish state.
The Republican senators say the funding for MQG indicates that the Biden administration supports the opposition group's efforts to oust Netanyahu and destroy his governing coalition.
"This pattern of the State Department funding partisan organizations in an allied democracy is unacceptable," the senators wrote. "It makes no difference which side of the political divide a given organization is aligned with. If the government of a U.S. partner or ally was funding partisan organizations in the United States, we would rightly find such foreign interference in our democracy unacceptable."
The lawmakers also note that the State Department has been caught in the past channeling taxpayer funds to partisan Israeli groups that oppose Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving leader.
"Unfortunately, this is not the first time that State Department funds have been employed by left-wing partisan organizations in Israel," they wrote.
Jewish visitors will be barred from the Temple Mount from Wednesday until the end of Ramadan in ten days’ time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Tuesday, after a series of security consultations on the issue amid widespread violence linked to tensions at the holy site.Jordan Is Fomenting Violence on the Temple Mount
While the decision was in line with longstanding Israeli policy aimed at limiting friction during the holiday period, there had been speculation that the new hardline government would change course, with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir pushing to allow Jews to continue ascending the Temple Mount through the end of Ramadan, particularly on Wednesday, the last day of Passover.
The statement from Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday said that the decision to shutter the Temple Mount to Jewish visitors was unanimously recommended by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai following a consultation earlier that day.
Noticeably absent from that group was Ben Gvir, who blasted the decision as a “serious mistake that will not bring peace, rather risks escalating the security situation further.”
He claimed that the absence of Jewish visitors on the flashpoint site would mean fewer Israeli police officers stationed there, “which will create fertile ground for massive demonstrations of incitement to murder Jews and even a scenario in which stones will be thrown at Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall.”
“When terrorism strikes us, we must hit back with tremendous force, not surrender,” Ben Gvir said.
Last week, as thousands of Muslims gathered for peaceful Ramadan prayers at al-Aqsa, some 350 young men barricaded themselves in the mosque with firecrackers and large rocks, refusing to evacuate upon the request of authorities. Police then forcibly removed them to prevent further escalation and desecration of the holy site, creating a violent scene then used to stoke riots in Gaza and some parts of Israel. Benny Avni examines the role played by King Abdullah of Jordan:Egypt planned to supply thousands of rockets to Russia amid Ukraine war – report
Defying expectation for violence, prayers at Jerusalem’s holy sites since the start of Ramadan, on March 22, went on with no incident until Wednesday. So why would the Hashemite king, a close ally of America and Israel, issue a call to “defend” the mosque even before violence erupted? Why was his language so similar to that of Hamas agitators and other Iran-funded terrorist groups?
Amman enjoys the fruits of the peace treaty Jordan signed with Israel in 1994. So does Israel. Beside security cooperation, which helps to secure the Hashemite palace in an often-restive Palestinian-majority country, Israel supplies much of Jordan’s energy and water needs. Yet, “Every Ramadan, like clockwork, we see the Hashemite kingdom coming with vitriol” like this week’s statement, a Mideast watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Schanzer, tells the Sun.
On issues related to the Temple Mount, Jordan is too often the problem, rather than the solution. Beyond bromide State Department statements calling on all sides to maintain calm, Washington would do well to remind Amman of the benefits of relations with Israel, and tell King Abdullah to cool his overly heated rhetoric.
Egypt, a major US ally and recipient of American military and economic aid, was preparing to covertly supply Russia with thousands of rockets for its ongoing war in Ukraine, according to a leaked top-secret Pentagon document cited by The Washington Post on Monday.Prof. Phyllis Chesler: A new film details the collapse of belief in America
A portion of the document, dated February 17, was said to describe conversations between Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and senior Egyptian military officials on the production of some 40,000 rockets for Russia, as well as the provision of artillery rounds and gunpowder.
In it, the Egyptian leader reportedly instructed an official referenced as Salah al-Dinto to keep the plan secret “to avoid problems with the West,” to which the latter — believed to be Mohamed Salah al-Din, the minister of state for military production — said he would tell workers the rockets were for the Egyptian army.
Salah al-Din, the report said, told Sissi that supplying Russia with the weapons was “the least Egypt could do to repay Russia for unspecified help earlier,” though the details of any earlier collaboration were not mentioned.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has significantly harmed Egypt’s access to Ukrainian wheat, which the north African country relied on for 80 percent of its imports. Subsequently, Cairo has turned to Moscow for help, perhaps indicating a strengthening in relations between the two countries at a time when Russia faces significant isolation from the West.
The intelligence leak was part of a steady drip of dozens of photographs of highly sensitive US documents that have been found on Twitter, Telegram, Discord, and other sites in recent days, though some may have circulated online for weeks, if not months, before they began to receive media attention.
Gloria Greenfield is about to premiere a new movie, and that’s always very good news.
Greenfield has produced, co-produced and directed five films over the last 15 years, all passionate works in defense of truth, Israel and Western civilization. She always assembles an honorable cast of cutting-edge thinkers. These days, they are known as “conservatives.” They are, perhaps, Western civilization’s front-line defenders.
Her new film is titled “Civilization in the Danger Zone.” It is aptly titled and very timely. As Kenneth L. Marcus, Director of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights, notes in the film, “We are witnessing the greatest crime of identity theft in the history of the world.” He is referring to the demonization of American history so that only “past injustices ranging from slavery to Jim Crow” remain visible.
“We’re forgetting all that has made America great,” Marcus asserts.
Greenfield’s documentaries provide a much-needed corrective to the endless courses, programs, books and films that specialize in racism, prejudice and injustice, but rarely focus on Jews, antisemitism, the Judeo-Christian tradition, or why the demonized Western Canon is crucial to our survival.
Here’s how author Rod Dreher puts it in the film: “We’re seeing a time now when people are taught that patriotic feelings or any love for your own country is wicked. … We are racist, we are sexist. … All of these things are true. They’re true of every country on Earth. … A patriot is someone who loves his country like he loves members of his family. They’re not all perfect, but they’re yours.”
BDS activists would like you to believe that the boycott of Israel was initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005. Find out the true origins - and purpose - of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. You will be surprised! WATCH & SHARE pic.twitter.com/ShNV3xIIrq
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) April 11, 2023
New documentary spreads false facts about US anti-BDS laws
As Israel Apartheid Week sweeps across American college campuses, BDS activists have a new weapon in their media arsenal.
Boycott, a documentary film produced by Julia Bacha of Just Vision, follows two BDS activists and a newspaper editor, as they and their attorneys from the ACLU challenge the anti-BDS laws in federal courts across the United States. These laws, which exist in more than half the states, prohibit state contractors from boycotting Israel or entities that do business with it.
The film’s three heroes – Bahia Amawi, a speech pathologist from Texas; Mikkel Jordahl, a prison attorney from Arizona; and Alan Leveritt, the editor-in-chief of the Arkansas Times all refused to certify that they wouldn’t boycott Israel while under contract with their states and each lost their job or access to state advertising as a result. The film’s basic argument is that the anti-BDS laws violate the First Amendment, subordinating Americans’ free speech rights to the interests of a foreign power.
Major media outlets promote the claims
That narrative is patently false, as my academic work on this subject has shown. But that hasn’t stopped major American media outlets, like Time Magazine, the Washington Post and others, from promoting the film and amplifying its false claims since it became available for streaming, last month.
That is why I agreed to debate representatives from Just Vision and the ACLU at George Washington University during the school’s Apartheid Week in late March. But BDS activists prefer boycott to debate and, unsurprisingly, the event was surreptitiously canceled. Facts, however, cannot be canceled and here are just a few that the film badly distorts:
The legal facts are that the documentary assumes that boycotting is speech for First Amendment purposes but that is false. It is a bedrock principle of American constitutional law that the refusal to enter into an economic transaction, whether to buy or sell something, serve a patron or hire an employee is not by itself speech within the meaning of the First Amendment. That is why states can prohibit bakers from boycotting LGBTQ customers at least with respect to pre-made or off-the-shelf products. It is why the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which requires citizens to purchase health insurance, doesn’t violate the Free Speech clause. And it is why states have regulated boycotts for over 200 years without running afoul of the First Amendment.
Kuwaiti Writer Jasem Al-Juraid Criticizes Athletes Who Refuse to Compete against Israelis, Adds: I Consider Islamists to Be Disbelievers – They Disbelieve in Coexistence, Women’s Rights #Kuwait @JasemAljuraid pic.twitter.com/7izTIrn0g1
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 11, 2023
Yale respects the traditional values of Muslims but not Jews
Congratulations are owed to Yale for its dean of students’ decision to provide single-gender housing options to students beginning with the 2023-24 school year. News reports say that this decision followed “weeks of demands” from Muslim students who were being “forced to change their habits to avoid sacrificing their religious beliefs.”
“Mandatory mixed-gender bathrooms directly interfere with students’ rights to their religious practices,” said an open letter signed by advocates of single-gender housing, including the Muslim Students Association and the Black Muslim Students Association.
In fact, it took a quarter-century for Yale to acknowledge that forcing its students to live on campus in mixed-gender housing is a violation of the basic American value of religious liberty.
In 1998, I filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of four Orthodox Jewish freshmen and sophomores at Yale College that made an identical claim regarding religious liberty. Yale fought us tooth and nail. It opposed the Orthodox Jewish students’ request in meetings we had with administrators and then in the federal district and appellate courts. Yale claimed, “It would defeat the purpose of the residential-college system if students could opt out of it.”
Jewish appellate judges ruled against us. The only judge sympathetic to the Orthodox Jewish claim was James B. Moran, a visiting federal judge from Illinois. In an opinion dissenting from a dismissal of our case, he said that a trial was needed to decide “whether [Yale’s] policy had a discriminatory effect on Orthodox Jews” and “whether the mandatory on-campus policy is reasonably necessary to achieve an important business objective of Yale College.”
The religious rights denied to Jews by Yale in 1998 have now been granted to Muslims in 2023. This may reflect Yale’s greater tolerance of minority religious practices. Or it may reflect a difference in American institutions’ willingness to accommodate Muslims, in contrast to their attitude towards Orthodox Jews.
?? UT Austin propaganda:
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) April 10, 2023
???? There is no apartheid
???? There was no Palestinian state - it was a British mandate
???? Gaza has been Jew free since 2005, turned into a Hamas terror training camp
These lies further the harassment of Jewish students on campus @UTAustin @JCHartzell pic.twitter.com/duwKOsnR8G
Liberal Democrat Council Candidate's Cocktail of Religious Hatred
Local election season means Guido’s inbox is being inundated with cases of crackpot council candidates, and Liberal Democrat Fezan Khalid is no exception. Fezan is standing for election to Rochdale Council, and a quick look at his Facebook page is all you need to see that the Lib Dems’ due diligence process is failing. Yesterday, Fezan shared a post saying that Suella Braverman’s Buddhist, Indian Christian, Hindu and Jewish background provided for a “cocktail of hatred”. He accused the Board of Deputies of British Jews of orchestrating Corbyn’s suspension from Labour and shared a detailed post outlining why “Anti-semitism is a complete fraud”.
When is this crap going to end? The "Palestine Solidarity Campaign" is a racist hatred movement that openly backs terrorism. It's been abundantly and painfully clear for many years now.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) April 10, 2023
And still major trade unions support a group that is every bit as bad as the BNP.
For shame. pic.twitter.com/Hf7XWVvfvS
An antisemitic message from Charles Edward Frith, a Holocaust denier.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) April 10, 2023
Perfect for the "Palestine Solidarity Campaign". pic.twitter.com/NmpRm4tZ3I
New York Times Cheerleads for Columbia University Faculty’s Boycott of Israel
Columbia University marked the Passover holiday with the welcome news that it is opening a research center in Tel Aviv. The New York Times greeted it with a news article that emphasized criticism of Columbia’s move, taking the opposition at face value rather than recognizing it as part of a long-running campaign to wipe Israel off the map.Orthodox Jewish Group Urges Pulitzer Board Not to Reward NYT for Hasidic Schools Coverage
A better Times headline could have been, “Columbia To Open Tel Aviv Site.” It could have been “Small minority of extreme anti-Israel people on the Columbia faculty oppose Tel Aviv center.” The Times could have even gone with “Columbia faculty splits on Israel center.” Instead the print paper ran with “Tel Aviv Plan Of Columbia Is Criticized By Faculty,” a one-sided headline that highlights the critics.
Actually, more Columbia faculty reportedly have signed the letter supporting the Tel Aviv center than have signed the letter opposing it.
The Times puts the campus opposition in the context of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s judicial reforms and what the Times calls Israel’s “ongoing political crisis.” Such coverage contributes to the Times’ ongoing credibility crisis.
But the Columbia faculty leading the anti-Israel petition have been bitter critics of Israel for many decades. In 2005, Rashid Khalidi, who was born in New York, acknowledged to the New York Times he was throwing the terms “racist” and “apartheid” around about Israel. The Times also identified him in 1982 as a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, then a terrorist organization, a role that Khalidi later denied.
The Times article on the Columbia situation quotes Khalidi while omitting that context. The Times identifies him merely as a “a history professor and another of the petition organizers.”
Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization representing Orthodox Jews, on Monday sent an open letter to the Pulitzer Prize board urging them not to reward the New York Times with a Pulitzer Prize for their series of articles on New York City Hasidic schools.Not Again: CNN Producer Tamara Qiblawi Promotes Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories, Jokes About Jewish State’s Destruction
Sent via Agudath’s KnowUs project, the letter accuses the Times of engaging in “a relentless campaign of overwhelmingly negative depictions of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, their educational institutions, and their lives.”
“It is not the habit of Agudath Israel of America to interlope or intervene in the deliberations of the Pulitzer Prize Board; we believe this is the first occasion Agudath Israel has done so in its one-hundred-year history,” the letter says. “However, in light of the palpable pain in the community, present danger on the streets, and unbalanced and inaccurate reporting, we felt compelled to pen this letter.”
Avrohom Weinstock, Chief of Staff at Agudath Israel of America, told The Algemeiner that the depiction of Orthodox communities in the articles was “beyond recognition” and that Pulitzer Prize should be “off the table.”
“In this moment, one of the most influential newspapers in the world decided to paint a target on our backs, 17 times in 6 months, with lengthy, one-sided articles eviscerating numerous facets of Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish life,” Weinstock said in an interview with The Algemeiner. “The letter mentions this backdrop but focuses, in a rigorously sourced way, on how the Times stories were not only hurtful to many, but were disingenuously sourced, employed misleading data, intentionally suppressed contrary information, and really kind of took the unsuspecting reader who may have little real-world interaction with Orthodox Jews, for a lurid ride.”
Tamara Qiblawi is, of course, entitled to her personal views, even if they are uninformed. But as we previously outlined, producers with a political agenda can be selective with the information they present to the public, resulting in skewed media coverage of the Middle East conflict.
The article she helped write this week came amid the unremitting onslaught of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel and the West Bank that started in March 2022, and after last week’s Iran-linked rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
In the article, readers are led to believe that the Jewish state is to blame for the latest escalation. Studies indicate that nearly 50 percent of news consumers don’t read past the headline, yet only in the second paragraph does CNN reveal that the IAF raid in Lebanon was a direct response to “an attack the Israeli military blamed on Palestinian militants.”
The piece furthermore presents Israel as the aggressor by misleadingly claiming that it was not violent Palestinian riots, but rather the subsequent “police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem,” that triggered the most recent uptick in hostilities.
Sadly, Qiblawi is but the latest in a series of journalists whose shocking views have been exposed by HonestReporting. Since August 2022, our editorial team has uncovered six antisemitic, anti-Israel journalists, whose employers decided to remove them from their posts in order to safeguard journalistic integrity.
We have contacted CNN’s Atlanta headquarters for comment and urge the organization to protect the balance and accuracy of its Middle East coverage.
After the Charlie Hebdo massacre where 2 French Muslim members of al-Qaeda murdered 12 people, she posted: pic.twitter.com/2QQ3ImIbQA
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 10, 2023
Since @Join1440 is committed to "unbiased" news, we thought you should know:
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 10, 2023
1?Tel Aviv is NOT the capital of Israel. Jerusalem is.
2?Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981
3?3 British-Israeli women were also murdered by a terrorist over the weekend
We hope your commitment to… pic.twitter.com/RzG1ncA6K5
Do not watch this video if you are happier with the U.N. narrative about the peace-loving beliefs and goals of the Palestinian rulers of Gaza. This preacher of genocidal antisemitism is cited by the Associated Press as an official Hamas spokesman: https://t.co/JlXE4i4JqI https://t.co/aL07VC0ycd
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 11, 2023
The Guardian Features Gaza Journalist Who Wrote Pro-Terrorist, Antisemitic Social Media Posts
The Guardian has been scrutinized frequently over its uneven and, at times, outright partisan reportage on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Watering Down the Facts: Israel, the Palestinians & Access to Water
In the last month alone, HonestReporting has called out and complained about numerous pieces published by the left-wing British newspaper, including an “investigation” that simultaneously sought to downplay Palestinian terrorism and conflated the deaths of terrorists with that of their victims and a story comprising mostly agency copy that had been carefully edited to twist the facts.
Our latest analysis of the Guardian’s Israel-related output has uncovered another disturbing finding: the outlet has worked with a Palestinian journalist with a history of praising terrorists who were behind several horrific terror attacks that killed dozens of innocent Israeli civilians.
Gaza City-based Aseel Mousa was bylined alongside the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan on an April 3 piece, ‘”I am proud of my work”: the women pushing boundaries in Gaza,’ which tells the story of women seeking employment opportunities in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which is farcically labeled a “highly conservative Palestinian territory” — an interesting way of describing a place where LGBT+ individuals are jailed and where marital rape is legal.
Mousa, whose work has been featured in the Palestine Chronicle and Electronic Intifada, has posted numerous messages of support for terrorists on her personal social media accounts, such as one in which she described the Gilboa prison escapees as “brave heroes” and another that said Arabs should be “liberate[d]” from “Jews.”
One of the most pernicious lies that continues to be spread about Israel is the claim that the Jewish state purposefully denies the local Palestinian population access to drinking water, effectively creating a water-related humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza.Yahoo News Canada Polls Readers On Whether Canada Should Impose Sanctions On Israel
This libel, which is spread by influencers on social media, by a number of news organizations and by key NGOs, is usually based on a number of false and misleading assertions: That Israeli authorities withhold water from local Palestinians, that Israel steals water that rightfully belongs to the Palestinians and that Israel purposefully pollutes Palestinian water sources.
As will be seen, all of these allegations have no basis in fact and are solely meant to taint Israel’s reputation in the international arena. Does Israel Deny Palestinians Access to Water?
When it comes to the water libel, one of the most popular allegations made against the Jewish state is that Israel routinely denies (or severely limits) the Palestinians access to water in the West Bank.
This allegation is based on a manipulation of history, as well as a misleading portrayal of the West Bank’s current water regime.
Prior to 1967, when Israel gained control of the West Bank, the water system in the region was out-of-date and inefficient.
While some major cities had access to a pipeline system that was installed by the British Mandate decades earlier, most of the local Palestinian population relied on ancient aqueducts and local wells.
Following the Six-Day War, Israel moved to improve the West Bank water system by upgrading and extending pipelines.
When Jewish Israeli communities in the West Bank were first established in the 1970s, the Israeli Civil Administration worked to connect these communities to the Jewish state’s national water carrier. At the same time, it also connected Palestinian population centers to this same water carrier.
Due to this overhaul of the West Bank water system, between 1967 and 1995, the Palestinian water supply nearly doubled and per capita Palestinian water usage increased considerably, nearing Israeli levels.
It should be noted that Israel only provides water to established Palestinian communities in the West Bank and not those that have been illegally built in Area C.
In early April, during the Islamic month of Ramadan and shortly before the onset of the holidays of Passover and Easter, Israeli police officers and Palestinian rioters faced off inside the Al Aqsa Mosque, built atop the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City.Toronto Star Column Published On Passover Calls On Jews To Condemn Israel At The Seder Table
Hundreds of Palestinian rioters had barricaded themselves inside the mosque, stockpiling weapons such as large rocks, fireworks, and even homemade explosive devices, thought to be hoarded for use against Jewish worshippers in the Western Wall plaza below, as has taken place before.
In response to the estimated 400 Palestinians blockading themselves inside the mosque with deadly weapons, Israeli security forces entered and sought to prevent terrorist attacks from taking place, but were met with violence in return.
Over the coming days, Israel was falsely accused of “storming” the mosque unprovoked and of attacking innocent worshippers, and soon as a result of the ensuing anti-Israel incitement in local Palestinian media, four people in Israel died from Palestinian terrorist attacks, including a mother and her two young sisters, both British-Israeli citizens, and one Italian tourist.
Subsequent news media coverage has often distorted these events, also falling into the misinformation that Israel “raided” the mosque.
On April 6, a news article entitled: “’Canada can no longer stand on the sidelines’: Politicians, Jewish, Muslim groups condemn attack at Al-Aqsa mosque,” published by Elianna Lev of Yahoo News Canada, was an example of an outlet repeating this false information with no critical context being provided.
The article opened by referencing “an attack by Israeli soldiers on Palestinian worshippers,” and stated that “the attacks at the place of worship have left many Canadians stunned and outraged.”
In her April 6 column entitled: “This Passover, don’t recline — stand up for human rights,” Judith Taylor exhorts Jews to spend the Passover Seder not to “tell stories of my own historical enslavement” in ancient Egypt as the traditional Haggadah text used by Jews around the world outlines, but to discuss Israel’s alleged negative policies, including its “continuing to militarize the lives of Palestinians.”
Taylor’s column is heavy on invective when it comes to criticizing Israel, but she is fundamentally mistaken on two major counts.
Firstly, for all its shortcomings, Israel remains a free, stable, democratic and liberal state – the only free state in the Middle East according to a recent Freedom House report, notwithstanding Taylor’s reference to “Israel’s coup.” In short, Israel is far from the nefarious player that Taylor portrays it as.
Secondly, and perhaps more troublingly, as the 75th anniversary of Israel’s independence in 1948 approaches, it’s concerning that The Toronto Star would see fit to publish a column not just excoriating Israel’s policy, but condemning Jewish houses of worship (“our synagogues are not bringing us together”) on one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar.
Not only are Taylor’s allegations vis-à-vis Israel off the mark, but her smearing of Jewish religious practice – published on the holiday of Passover – is extremely disturbing.
This is false as a matter of Jewish history and theology, and it’s shocking that an Israeli newspaper would publish it given its exact consistency with Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda. https://t.co/QmJCClpIyz
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) April 10, 2023
I mean for 2k years Judaism has discouraged even eager converts, and normative theology is that non-Jews just have to observe the seven very basic Noahide rules to be on good terms with God. That’s a far cry from supremacism, and it’s absurd and sad that I even have to say so.
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) April 10, 2023
Yad Vashem calls for historical accuracy in Poland youth trips
Yad Vashem welcomed the renewal on Monday of Israeli youth trips to Poland for Holocaust education, while at the same time stressing the need to maintain “complete historical accuracy” over the European country’s mixed role during the Shoah.Kyiv to name street for Ukrainian Nazi collaborator after public vote
The statement by Yad Vashem—The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem comes on the heels of an agreement between the countries to mend ties and resume such educational trips. It highlights the need to show both Polish complicity and heroism towards the Jews during the German occupation.
“Yad Vashem values the importance of group visits from Israel to Poland to study the Holocaust and preserve its memory,” the statement continued. “However, it is essential that these groups be accompanied by appropriate preparation, guidance and processing while maintaining complete historical accuracy, including the role of Poles in the persecution, handing in and murder of Jews during the Holocaust, as well as in acts of rescue.
“The recent agreement to renew education trips does not appear to dictate or limit their operation in this respect,” it said.
It added, however, that a list of recommended sites the Polish side proposed to add to the youth trips’ itineraries includes “problematic sites that should not be visited in an educational context.
“In any case, the agreement does not mandate visiting these sites,” noted Yad Vashem.
The Kyiv City Council may be set to name a street after a Nazi collaborator and SS official, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, Eduard Dolinsky has reported.Florida school yanks Anne Frank book for being sexually explicit
According to Dolinsky, a street in the Ukrainian capital will be renamed following a motion passed by the city council, and will bear the name of Volodymyr Kubiyovych, who during the Holocaust was heavily involved in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien, a Nazi military force made up of Ukrainian volunteers.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Dolinsky explained that a historical expert commission within the Kyiv City Council had put forward several options for the renaming of what is currently Przhevalsky Street in Kyiv.
The names suggested by the historical commission were then put forward by the city council for a public vote on the Kyiv Digital app, where voting will remain open until April 16.
The option to rename the street after Volodymyr Kubiyovych has so far received a majority, with 31% of the vote, with the second and third highest options receiving just 18% and 10% respectively.
Once the public vote is closed, the Kyiv City Council will then vote to approve renaming the street after Kubiyovych. Who was Volodymyr Kubiyovych?
Prior to the start of the Holocaust, Kubiyovych was a strong supporter of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-M) and in April 1941, he requested the creation of an autonomous state within Ukraine in which Poles and Jews would not be allowed to live.
Later in the war, in 1943, Kubiyovych took on a key role in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien and publicly announced his willingness to take up arms and fight for the Nazi cause.
A book about Anne Frank has been removed from a Florida school library after a parent group complained that it was sexually explicit and minimized the Holocaust.Israeli youth movement opens kibbutz-style community center in war-torn Ukraine
The tome titled “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” was yanked from the shelves at Vero Beach High School in Indian River County after Moms for Liberty voiced concerns, WPTV reported.
“We think true history absolutely needs to be taught, the Holocaust, the Anne Frank diary,” Jennifer Pippin, chairwoman of the group’s local chapter, told the outlet.
But she argued that it was inappropriate that the book features illustrations of the girl strolling among nude statues, as well as a “graphic scene” where she asks a friend to expose themselves to one another.
After the grassroots parent advocacy group complained to the principal, the school determined that some portions of the book did not contribute to the themes of Holocaust education, WPTV reported.
Kyra Schafte, the district’s director of academic compliance and equity, said the original “Diary of Anne Frank” is still available in school libraries.
“When districts address Holocaust education, it does so without denying or minimizing the events of Holocaust education,” she told the outlet. “In these times, the content did not promote behaviors we would want our students to have access to.”
Ukraine has provided Israel’s Kibbutz Movement with some of its most prominent members, from late prime minister Golda Meir of Revivim to composer Mordechai Zeira of Afikim.PBS documentary focuses on ‘Jews of the Wild West’
Now, Israel’s kibbutzim are returning the favor by opening a community center and kindergarten in war-torn Kharkiv, where people of all ages will be able to receive free meals, subsidized education and daycare, and activism training based on the Kibbutz Movement’s many decades of experience.
The new center, which opened last week with an annual budget of NIS 1 million ($276,000) provided by Havatzelet, the humanitarian fund of the Kibbutz Ha’artzi Hashomer Hatzair movement, which has set up dozens of kibbutzim in Israel and is part of the Kibbutz Movement, is intended for the general population of the city, which Russian artillery targeted and partially destroyed early in its invasion of Ukraine.
Run and partially funded by members and donors of Hashomer Hatzair, a Jewish socialist youth movement that’s based in Israel but has many international branches, the opening of the Asho Center was celebrated at a particularly festive Passover Seder meal attended by 149 local Jews, according to Oren Zukierkorn, secretary general at Hashomer Hatzair World Movement.
Despite the Seder meal at the new center, which is based in a building that the municipality has made available to Hashomer Hatzair until 2027, Zukierkorn stressed that “it’s not a Jewish community center. It’s intended for everyone.”
“The staff is largely Jewish and there are Jewish movements behind it, so naturally, there are many Jews among the residents who are showing up to the new center,” he told The Times of Israel.
Amanda Kinsey, an Emmy-award-winning filmmaker, came up with the idea of a documentary on Jews who lived in the Wild West while digging through the Beck Archives in the basement of the University of Denver library.
“I was blown away by this archive,” said Kinsey. “I just thought these were beautiful stories that deserve to be told.”
The new documentary, “Jews of the Wild West,” tells those stories, including that of silent film star Max Aronson; Sephardic painter Solomon Carvalho; non-Native American tribal leader Solomon Bibo; and Wyatt Earp’s wife, Josephine Marcus Earp, a Jewish actress renowned for her beauty.
By 1912, more than 100,000 Jewish immigrants had moved to the West, according to the documentary, which records that by 1900, most “notorious” Wild West towns had Jewish mayors.
“There is the story of Jewish migration to the Western United States, and then there is the narrative of the Wild West itself,” said Kinsey. “To me, what the strength of the film is, is the intersection of those two experiences.”
“Truly, the Jewish community had a vitally important role in the development of the West—of cities, of commerce, of communities. And they always brought their faith with them,” said Rabbi Joe Black of Denver’s Temple Emanuel, who is interviewed in the film.
|
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
|
