Monday, April 24, 2023

04/24 Links Pt2: Itamar Marcus explains how PA terror is enabled by the West; If Americans for Peace Now had its way, Israel would be punished for arresting murderers; Which Israel are you celebrating on its 75th birthday?

From Ian:

PMW: Itamar Marcus explains how PA terror is enabled by the West, in interview in Hungarian magazine
Earlier this month, Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus was interviewed to The Hungarian Conservative by Sáron Sugár, a research fellow at the Budapest-based think tank, the Danube Institute. The interview highlights and brings focus on the critical challenges Israel faces today, targeted by a Palestinian Authority that openly promotes and rewards terror, yet is financially supported by the world’s Western democracies:
- The PA’s indoctrination of Palestinian children to hate Israel, carry out terror attacks, and seek death as “Martyrs”
- How the EU and US’s financial aid enables Palestinian terror
- Hungarian government’s efforts to cut EU aid because of PA terror support
- Christian life in Israel and Judea-Samaria/West Bank
- Why the media is not reporting the true story
- Will a third Intifada break out?

Read the interview here:
‘Hungary is a Beacon of Goodness in a World of Intense Hatred Towards the State of Israel’ – An Interview with Itamar Marcus

[Question]: Could you tell us about how and why Palestinian Media Watch was founded?

[Itamar Marcus]: Palestinian Media Watch was founded soon after the signing of the Oslo Accords to find out what the Palestinian Authority was teaching its people, especially its children, about Jews, Israel, and peace. We very quickly discovered that there were two distinct worlds: the English language world for foreign consumption and the Arabic language world for its own people, and there was no resemblance between the two. Whereas in English and in foreign capitals, the PA presented itself as peace-loving, to its people all the statements in Arabic and the actual activities of the PA pointed to a strategy of hate and terror that aims to continuously weaken Israel, eventually leading to Israel’s destruction.

[Question]: At the end of 2022, you published a report titled ‘Teaching Terror to Tots’. The report is dedicated to the memory of Dalya Lemkus, a 26-year-old Israeli woman who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in 2014. The Palestinian Authority-issued children’s magazine, WAED, teaches Palestinian children that her murder was ‘a heroic car ramming’ and that the terrorist who murdered her ‘has the most beautiful smile’. What were some of the most disturbing examples of how WAED indoctrinates children to the hatred of Israeli Jewish people, and what impact do you believe this kind of education has on the attitudes and behaviour of young children exposed to it?

[Itamar Marcus]: The fundamental purpose of WAED magazine is to raise a generation of children who hate Israelis and Jews, feel obligated to fight and kill Israelis and Jews, and will be willing to kill themselves in the process. WAED’s fundamental messages are that Israelis are foreign colonialist invaders, and therefore, Israel has no right to exist. Israel is coined as the ‘thieving entity’, and Israelis are demonised as the ‘Jewish invaders.’ Fatah proclaims it will destroy Israel by ‘liberating Palestine from the thieving Zionist entity’. Israel’s destruction is packaged in various euphemisms such as: ‘the period of Zionism will eventually pass’ and ‘The Zionist invaders will go to the garbage can of history,’ after which the Jews will all be expelled. Fatah presents Algeria as the historical precedent: ‘Algeria’s experience assures that the Jewish settlers in Palestine will disappear in the end.’ The Palestinian ‘absolute right’ to destroy Israel creates the ‘right’ to use terror, which they call the ‘…right to wage an armed struggle to take back its stolen homeland’ This PA/Fatah education will be the driving force for Palestinian hate and terror for another generation.
If Americans for Peace Now had its way, Israel would be punished for arresting murderers - opinion
According to Israeli Army statistics for the period 2000-2003, there were 29 suicide attacks carried out by Palestinian Arabs under the age of 18 – not to mention 40 attempted suicide bombings and 22 shooting attacks by teenagers under 18.

If McCollum and Americans for Peace Now had their way, Israel would have been penalized if its security forces arrested any of those murderers or would-be murderers, including this 15-year-old terrorist.

In the American judicial system, juveniles who commit certain heinous crimes are tried as adults. Terrorism surely qualifies as a heinous crime and its perpetrators deserve appropriate punishment, whether they happen to be younger than 18 or older. Israel should not be punished by the media, members of Congress or the Jewish Left for following this sound American principle.

I can’t say I’m surprised that openly extremist groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), have endorsed the McCollum bill.

But Americans for Peace Now is in a different category because it is a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Conference represents the mainstream of American Jewry. Groups that gain admission do not have to agree with every position taken by the conference, but they do have an obligation to stay within the parameters of the broad pro-Israel, anti-terrorist consensus that the Conference of Presidents represents.

So, I ask: How can penalizing Israel for arresting young terrorists possibly be considered to be within the pro-Israel, anti-terrorist consensus of the American Jewish community?

The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack, in 1995. He is the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror and is an oleh hadash (new immigrant).
Johnathan Tobin: Which Israel are you celebrating on its 75th birthday?
The Jewish state that was reborn in 1948 didn’t exactly conform to Herzl’s personal vision. Nor was it quite the socialist paradigm to which the country’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion subscribed. From its start, it was a confounding mix of different peoples, cultures and ideas. Its first 75 years have been an unprecedented experiment in which Jews from throughout the world gathered in one tiny country and attempted—in a process strewn with trial-and-error tests of governance—to live together, and to build and secure a country. It hasn’t been easy for disparate and often warring tribes of Jews to coexist, let alone pull together towards the accomplishment of national goals.

Yet that is what they have done, and the result is that an impoverished and beleaguered small nation survived repeated efforts by the Arab and Islamist world to destroy it, creating a country with a First World economy and a military that has made it a regional superpower.

The experiment, however, continues, and the process remains as bruising and divisive as it has always been, despite the positive spin its advocates have put on everything it does. And if there is anything everyone should have learned by now it’s that a country that seeks to be a home for all of the Jewish people must acknowledge and respect all Jews, even those whose ideology and practices are not akin to everyone’s individual tastes. That is an observation that cuts both ways as both the secular liberal sector and their nationalist/religious counterparts find it increasingly difficult to respect or even tolerate one another.

If Israel is to survive to see future Independence Day celebrations with special numbers, both sides and those who sympathize with them from abroad must remember that if you love Israel, it can’t only be the Israel of your political allies but one that encompasses all Jewish people.

The blessing of living in a time when there is a Jewish state is such that historian Gil Troy’s suggestion that we all eat ice-cream for breakfast on Yom Ha’atzmaut to celebrate it is quite apt. Yet that happiness at this great wonder must be tempered by the knowledge that the formidable forces still bent on the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet have not given up and are only encouraged by the current domestic strife.

Yet many on the left seem to be saying that Israel won’t be a legitimate state if its democratic system continues to produce majorities for the right. That reflects a failure to understand that Israel’s enemies don’t care who runs the Jewish state. Israel exists to protect the Jewish people against those who would victimize and subjugate them anew. We may not always like who wins elections, but the notion that Israel doesn’t deserve our devotion and support if its leaders pursue policies or ideas we don’t like is the sort of short-sighted partisanship that has unknowable and possibly disastrous consequences.

Israel’s 75th birthday is an occasion that ought to transcend the tribal culture wars that are dividing the Jewish people. Both sides must remember that and re-learn the difficult yet inescapable imperative to love and respect our fellow Jews despite our differences. The alternative is as unpalatable as it is unthinkable.


Yisrael Medad: Restoring the Jews
The Christian theological conceptualization of the Jewish people's restoration to their national home dovetailed with the Biblical and Talmudic idea of the return to Zion. There is another meaning to "restoration" which is interpreted as the "restoration of the Israelites, who were formerly rejected, and the bringing them back to the communion of God in Christ". As is recorded: "In July of 1696, the New England Puritan Cotton Mather wrote in his diary: “This day, from the dust, where I lay prostrate, before the Lord, I lifted up my cries […] For the conversion of the Jewish Nation, and for my own having the happiness, at some time or other, to baptize a Jew, that should by my ministry, be brought home to the Lord.”"

This concept of Jewish restoration to Palestine as was argued by some of its proponents "for Jewish supremacy over Gentiles in the millennial period." For those who promoted the idea, there was an element of "Judeo-centrism".

I have extracted a considerable amount of quotations from this source to show that the idea of Jews going home ot the Land of Israel was a constant throughout the centuries, from the 13th on. (The footnotes can be found at the source)

one who held to a Jewish restoration is Gerard of Borgo San Donnino (around 1255). He taught that some Jews would be blessed as Jews in the end time and would return to their ancient homeland.18 John of Rupescissa (ca. 1310–1366) could most likely be viewed as a Christian Zionist. “For him the converted Jews would become God’s new imperial nation and Jerusalem would be completely rebuilt to become the center of the purified faith. For proof he drew on a literal exposition of the Old Testament prophecies which until then had been read by Christian exegetes to apply either to the time of the incarnation or to the heavenly Jerusalem in the beyond.”19

it was out of the English Puritan movement that this belief sprung. “Starting with the Puritan ascendancy,” notes Tuchman, “the movement among the English for the return of the Jews to Palestine began.”32 Why the Puritan? Puritans were not just dissenters, they were a Protestant sect that valued the Old Testament to an unprecedented degree in their day.
Yisrael Medad: Israel's hollowing out of the Holocaust - opinion
Yad Vashem’s press release explained that the group trips must maintain “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... ” But it ominously added, “Nevertheless, the annex of the agreement contains a list of sites, compiled without Yad Vashem, which includes problematic sites that should not be visited in an educational [trip] context.”

As all groups take the lead from Yad Vashem, I am sure those sites will be explained to all trip coordinators. Yet there is another aspect to Yad Vashem’s pronouncement which includes the above-mentioned “Yad Vashem will not be involved in group visits to any site suspected of distorting the events of the Holocaust or presenting a historically inaccurate narrative.”

Yad Vashem only just recently added a small, and in my opinion, a nigh insignificant piece of information on the Warsaw Ghetto revolt that the revisionist Betar underground fighters – Jewish Military Union (ZZW) – participated in the fighting. Chaim Lazar published in Hebrew Muranowska 7, Masada of Warsaw covering this in 1963 and it appeared in English in 1966. Moshe Arens published Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto in 2011, over a dozen years ago. Had Yad Vashem been distorting Holocaust history for decades?

As for “rescue,” a Yad Vashem internal decision defines the activities of the Jabotinsky Movement in the United States on behalf of Holocaust rescue, a group that is popularly known as the “Bergson Boys” and extensively researched by, among others, Prof. Rafael Medoff, as outside the scope of Yad Vashem’s museum.

Exactly which institution involved in trips to Poland, then, had been presenting a historically inaccurate narrative, one distorting events?

Left-wing educators dating back to the late education minister Shulamit Aloni complained that the trips to Poland and visits to Auschwitz and other concentration camps instill students with nationalistic feelings at the expense of universal values which could be interpreted as making them think too much about themselves as Jews. Other critics see too much emotional trauma inflicted on teenagers and the high financial cost imposed on parents in addition to the “nationalist message.”

I, for one, having been on the staff of one trip, can attest that prior to leaving, while on the buses and at the hotels at night, deep discussions are held by the educators. I have faith no distortions will occur.

To return to the list of Israel’s recommended sites, I found that the Kotel, the Western Wall, is not included. If anything, that should be a target of criticism.
An Overshadowed Holocaust Story
A few months later, the Jewish refugees were shipped to Siberia. They were housed in the most primitive labor camps. Within months many perished of hunger, cold, and lack of adequate clothing. The intellectuals were the first to die. Since there was no need for writers, and thinkers, and the work to be done was mostly outdoors, it took an immediate toll on these people. Folks who had trades like tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, mechanics, etc. were recruited to provide the needs of the Red Army. They made uniforms, and shoes, and received an extra loaf of bread. Sanitary conditions, however, were virtually non-existent. For Stalin and the KGB, the Jews were essentially free labor to be exploited. Although the Russian soldiers were not the cruel and sadistic German Nazis, the labor camps for the Jews were harsh places.

In Siberia, the cold and hunger stifled much of the cultural life of the Jews. Still, babies were born including my brother Baruch. My mother had to feed two children now with a meager diet of potatoes and turnips. Observing the Jewish dietary laws, pork and shellfish she would not touch, not that any meat or foul was available. Willpower alone kept my parents going and having two small children made them determined to survive. Eventually, allowed by permission from the Soviet authorities, they joined my mother’s parents in Uzbekistan.

My father’s dad, my grandfather, a renowned and beloved teacher, was murdered by the Nazi Germans in a roundup of Jews. Together, 1500 of them, including my grandfather were shot and buried in a common grave. My father’s two sisters and their children who remained in Ulanow, were sent to the Belzec death camp, and gassed. My dad’s brother Noah was killed in battle, his wife and daughter murdered. His other brother Hersh was executed by the Gestapo in Katowice.

After the war, my parents were allowed to be repatriated to Poland, but learning that father’s family was murdered, they bypassed Poland and ended up in A DP (Displaced Persons) camp in Germany. As soon as they were able to, they were smuggled by the Bricha operation, (Palestinian later Israeli soldiers of the Jewish Brigade), to Italy, and from there to the new Jewish state of Israel.

Eventually, my dad connected with his surviving brother, Samuel, who remained in Poland, and in 1956, made Aliyah to Israel.

My parents story exemplifies the voyage from Holocaust in Europe to redemption in the Jewish state of Israel.
Be a Rebel: Dare to Be a Zionist
Few words are less popular in polite society today than the word "Zionist." But the true rebel thinks: the hell with polite society. Rebel Zionists know that Zionism is the dramatic manifestation of a people yearning for 1900 years to return to their biblical homeland. They know they are part of one of humanity's greatest and most miraculous stories. If that means they get looked down upon by the self-righteous cliques of Zionist bashers, they see that as a badge of honor.

The rebel Zionist doesn't apologize for the fact that Israel must be very strong just to survive in the world's most dangerous neighborhood. The rebel Zionist knows that Israel would be a lot more popular with progressives if hundreds of Israelis would die during rocket attacks instead of protecting themselves in bomb shelters. Sorry, we won't die just to make you love us.

The rebel Zionist has no problem telling Palestinians that peace is a two-way street and they must do their share if they want a better future. Rebel Zionists, in short, understand that their people need them. They are not at all embarrassed that Israel is powerful. Just the opposite: They think it's really cool to not be victims and to stay alive.
Richard Goldberg: Morningstar Blacklist May Violate State Anti-BDS Laws
The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) last week reported that Sustainalytics — the environmental, social, governance (ESG) ratings arm of Morningstar, Inc. — imposes negative “controversy” ratings on “26 companies doing business in Israel-controlled territory.” This blacklisting of companies that operate in parts of Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Golan Heights may violate several U.S. state laws related to boycotts of Israel-based companies.

Much like the blacklist of companies published by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2020, Morningstar’s ratings use anti-Israel assumptions and sources to convince investors that Israel-connected companies are at risk of violating international human rights standards simply because of where they operate. Thus, the Morningstar blacklist includes telecommunications and financial services firms that provide the same services in the West Bank they do elsewhere. To justify this approach, Morningstar Sustainalytics relies heavily on sources that promote the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

In response to such anti-Israel activism, more than 30 U.S. states have adopted laws or executive orders intended to deter companies from engaging in BDS activities targeting the Jewish state. Some states prohibit contracting with companies that boycott Israel, while others mandate divestment of state funds, including pension fund investments, from such companies. Several states enforced these laws after Unilever subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s announced a boycott of Israel.

In that case, Ben & Jerry’s refused to renew its Israeli licensee’s license, punishing the Israeli company for selling ice cream in parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank. Similarly, Morningstar punishes companies that operate in these same areas using its own unique economic leverage: controversy ratings designed to influence investment decisions. According to JNS, Morningstar Sustainalytics’ blacklist includes every Israeli bank and cellphone company in addition to defense contractor Elbit Systems, which also appears on Morningstar Sustainalytics’ Global Standards Screening watchlist for selling Israel counterterrorism technology.
North Dakota signs anti-BDS legislation
North Dakota has become the 35th state to pass a law countering the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

The legislation—with nine sponsors and signed by Gov. Doug Burgum—prevents those contracting with the state from participating in boycotts of Israel and bars the state from investing in companies that “would have the effect of requiring or inducing any person to boycott Israel.”

William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, praised the “nearly unanimous” passage of the law, which, he stated, demonstrates “North Dakota’s firm commitment to Israel, as the goal of the BDS Movement is to end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”

“The BDS movement and its organizers do not seek peace in the Middle East, but rather to destroy Israel and the promise of the Jewish homeland through targeted economic warfare,” he added.

Other states that have passed anti-BDS legislation in recent years include Arkansas, Texas, Iowa, Utah, Missouri, Idaho and West Virginia.
‘Antisemitic’ Roger Waters Concert in Frankfurt May Now Go Ahead, German Court Rules
A previously-canceled concert in the German city of Frankfurt by the former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters may now go ahead, after a court ruled on Monday that the decision by local authorities to ban his performance on the grounds of his alleged antisemitism violated his artistic freedom.

The May 28 concert at the city’s Festhalle — where more than 3,000 Jews were assembled and abused by the Nazi regime in Nov. 1938 prior to their deportation to concentration camps — was canceled two months ago, after the city government, which jointly owns the venue with the state of Hesse, accused Waters of being “one of the world’s best-known antisemites,” citing his backing for the campaign to subject the State of Israel to a regime of “boycotts, divestment and sanctions” (BDS). It also highlighted the use of antisemitic imagery in Waters’ past concerts, including a balloon shaped like a pig and embossed with a Star of David and various corporate logos.

At the end of March, Waters announced that he was taking legal action to reverse the decision, claiming: “I fight for all of our human rights, including the right to free speech. We are on the road to Frankfurt. Frankfurt, here we come!”

The Frankfurt Administrative Court ruled in favor of Waters on Monday, arguing that the memory of the Jewish deportees who were forcibly gathered at the Festhalle would not be tainted by the singer exercising his “artistic freedom.” While the court conceded that Waters use of Nazi imagery in his stage show was “tasteless,” it was also the case that the singer “does not glorify or relativize the National Socialist atrocities or identify with National Socialist racial ideology,” a spokeswoman for the court told local media outlets. Post–war Germany instituted a series of laws that outlaw pro-Nazi organizations and their associated symbols as well as the denial of the Holocaust.

The decision can still be appealed at the Administrative Court for the state of Hesse.
CNN Omits Antisemitism in Flattering Profile on Pro-Palestinian Celebrities
“A group of celebrity activists are trying to destigmatize being Palestinian, telling the human stories of an oppressed nation in a new documentary,” is how CNN gushingly describes a recent film collaboration by a handful of A-list antisemites.

Featured in the arts section of the news outlet’s website, the piece by multimedia producer Zeena Saifi, who was notably the lead byline on CNN’s criminally flawed “investigation” that concluded Israel forces deliberately killed Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, claims British graffiti artist Banksy’s headline-grabbing Bethlehem hotel venture “inspired celebrity activists to tell the Palestinian story.”

So, who are these celebrities selling the Palestinian plight to their starry-eyed fans?

According to CNN, they include none other than former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters, and the model, musician and general nepotism beneficiary Anwar Hadid.

Roger Waters
Of course, readers may already be familiar with them both for another reason than their celebrity status: they have publicly expressed antisemitic and/or anti-Israel views.

Waters, for example, once claimed the United States is controlled by Jewish-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, that a “Jewish lobby” controls the music industry, and likened Israel to Nazi Germany.

Yet, this is how Saifi sanitizes Waters’ virulently anti-Jewish opinions:
Waters has been a years-long advocate for Palestinian rights but has stirred controversy at times, with some critics accusing him of antisemitism. He has rejected that, saying his antipathy is toward Israel’s government, not the Jewish people.”

Fact check, CNN, Waters’ antisemitism is not alleged — it is proven.

Then there is Anwar Hadid, the lesser-known brother of fashion models Gigi and Bella Hadid, who once made light of the murder of a 13-year-old Israel girl who was stabbed to death by Palestinian terrorists and stated that he wished to see every member of the IDF “erased from the planet.”
NDP Releases Anti-Israel Proposal Calling on Government to Follow Anti-Israel Boycotts
On April 20, the NDP Critic for foreign affairs & Member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona, Heather McPherson, released a statement on behalf of the NDP, calling on the Trudeau government to take a harsher stance towards Israel.

The statement, which was shared by McPherson on her Twitter account and to her 11,200 followers, made a number of false and misleading claims about Israeli actions and policies and singled out Israel for censure and opprobrium.

McPherson, known for her long-time criticism of Israel and who recently apologized for sharing a podium at a press conference with an individual accused of antisemitism, referred to the recent “terrifying, disturbing and brutal violence at al-Aqsa during Ramadan,” which she described as being “the third year in a row where worshippers at al-Aqsa were attacked, drawing international condemnation.”

While there was indeed disturbing and brutal violence at the Al Aqsa Mosque recently, McPherson’s phrasing omits key and critical information.

The mosque, which is built atop the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem, is Judaism’s holiest site, but this went entirely unmentioned in her statement.

Contrary to her suggestion that Israel attacked Palestinian worshippers unprovoked, in reality, hundreds of Palestinians holed themselves inside the mosque, armed with deadly weapons including rocks, improvised explosives, and fireworks, in preparation for a standoff with Israeli police.

The concern of Israeli Police was not fantasy; in previous years, Palestinian rioters had used their position on the Temple Mount to lob potentially deadly rocks onto Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall plaza below.


The Harvard Crimson at 150: How the Nation’s Oldest Student Newspaper Went off the Anti-Israel Deep End
The Harvard Crimson, the prestigious student-run newspaper at America’s most elite university, has produced journalists who have gone on to populate positions of power in major news organizations throughout the nation, including The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and Foreign Policy, and counts over 25 Pulitzer Prize winners among its alumni.

That is, perhaps, what makes the recent radical shift in its editorial stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict especially disconcerting.

Exactly one year ago this week, the newspaper, which celebrates its sesquicentennial this weekend in the presence of hundreds of supporters and former writers, officially endorsed the controversial Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate and demonize Israel.

Notably, the Crimson’s April 29, 2022 editorial titled, “In Support of Boycott, Divest, Sanction and a Free Palestine,” marked a 180-degree reversal of the paper’s longstanding stance against boycotting the Jewish state, and was approved for publication amid a deadly campaign of Palestinian terrorism targeting Israeli civilians.

Now, a dive into the Crimson’s 2022-2023 coverage of Israel and Jewish issues suggests that some of its current staff has fully gone off the deep end of activism disguised as journalism, as blatant anti-Israel editorializing has become a regular occurrence on the pages of the country’s oldest continuously printed student daily.

The Harvard Crimson’s Israel Obsession
Between April 24, 2022, and April 24, 2023, the Harvard Crimson ran almost 40 news articles and op-eds that touched upon Israel and the Palestinians — considerably more than the combined total of pieces it published about Iran’s women’s revolution (seven), the catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria (five), and the shocking human rights violations surrounding Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup (one).

While the excessive focus on just one Middle Eastern state in opinion essays can possibly be explained as a symptom of proven rampant anti-Jewish sentiments among swaths of the student body, several Crimson editors have also personally demonstrated a clear bias in the publication’s news columns.

For instance, reporting on an April 9, 2023 rally by extremist campus groups in response to altercations between Palestinian rioters and Israeli security forces at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, staff writers Cam Kettles and Neil Shah charged the Jewish state with “police violence.” In truth, anti-riot officers only entered the Muslim holy site on April 5 to restore order after agitators, armed with fireworks, batons, and stones, refused to leave. According to eyewitness reports, masked rioters had closed the mosque’s doors, locking peaceful worshippers inside.
Systemic obfuscation
In January last year, Whoopi Goldberg declared on The View that “the Holocaust isn’t about race”. How can the Nazi persecution of Jews be considered “white supremacy”, she asked, when Jews and Nazis were “two white groups of people … fighting amongst themselves”. Amidst the fog of cancellation, she tweeted out an apology, before then doubling down later that day.

For this she attracted much scorn and derision, deservedly so, and a two-week suspension from ABC. Her comments were not only offensive but ignorant: of course the Nazis were racist towards Jews, and of course the Holocaust was about race. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for her. She was, after all, simply giving voice to the logical conclusion of a conception of racism currently in vogue. This is a conception of racism that holds that racism is “prejudice plus power”. Power dynamics being constituted the way they apparently are, it is impossible for white people to be on its receiving end. It is a conception of racism that takes the American experience to be its default, chauvinistically imposes it onto all other contexts, and cleaves firmly, as a result, to the notion that it is somehow wrong or improper to apply the concept of “racism” even to Jews under the Nazis, let alone Jews today. Since Jews, in countries like America and Britain, tend to be perceived as white — even if they weren’t in Nazi Germany — it is natural that such ideas about racism will lead one to some very strange places.

Perhaps Goldberg should have “known better” than to say what she said — but perhaps academics in sociology faculties the world over, and activists at civil rights NGOs, also should “know better” when they propound conceptions of “racism” that entail such obscene conclusions.

Consider, for example, the Anti-Defamation League, which tied itself into knots in the process of condemning Goldberg’s comments. The ADL has an illustrious history of protecting Jewish civil rights and combating antisemitism in America. Yet its own definition of racism, drafted in 2020 (when else?), contained within it the very premises that Goldberg was operating under. “Racism”, it said, “is the marginalisation and/or oppression of people of colour based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people”. In what position, then, was the ADL to offer a full-throated condemnation of Goldberg’s comments? CEO Jonathan Greenblatt recognised that this definition of racism — blind, by design, to most racist antisemitism in America — fell short, and that it had to be rewritten. It reflects poorly on Greenblatt’s judgement, and on the ADL’s grasp of its own raison-d’être, that it took a gaffe by Whoopi Goldberg for them to realise this.
Sir Keir Starmer: Diane Abbott letter was 'antisemitic'
Diane Abbot’s claim that Jews do not suffer racism was antisemitic, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The Labour leader refused to comment on whether she would be allowed to run for Labour at the next election, however, in his first public comments on the veteran MP’s comparison between anti-Jewish bigotry and the discrimination people with red hair face.

Asked several times if Abbot’s comments were antisemitic, Sir Keir said: “In my view what she wrote was to be condemned, it was antisemitic. It is absolutely right that we acted as swiftly as we did.”

He added: “I said we would tear out antisemitism out by its roots and I meant it.

“That's why we acted so swiftly yesterday. I think it's a mark of how far the Labour party has changed that we acted so swiftly and we take it so seriously, but I condemn what she said.”

Asked if “zero tolerance” to antisemitism meant the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP could not run again for the party, he said: "As you know there's an investigation going on... there's an investigation going on at the moment, that's the right thing.

“The whip has been suspended, that was done very, very swiftly, and I have condemned what she said, along with many other people."

Sir Keir was “disappointed,” to be talking about antisemitism within the Labour party instead of economic issues.
BBC condemned by Jewish groups for reporting of Diane Abbott's suspension
The BBC has sparked outrage by focusing on "a tiny fringe group completely unrepresentative of British Jews" when reporting on Diane Abbott's suspension.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the National Jewish Assembly have all condemned the framing of the news story in a bulletin on BBC Breakfast this morning.

In a clip which was circulated on social media, presenter Victoria Cook emphasised: "Jewish Voice for Labour has criticised the suspension of the MP Diane Abbott over her comments on racism in the Observer."

She also quoted a JVL statement that called Abbott's suspension "yet a further attack on our freedom to debate very important issues in the Labour Party".

Claudia Mendoza, co-CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council, told the JC: "The idea that the BBC would cite a tiny fringe group completely unrepresentative of British Jews as a legitimate voice of the Jewish community is really quite surprising.

"JVL’s sole purpose is to discredit any accusation of antisemitism. This is not the first time and after seven years, BBC News should really know better."

Marie van der Zyl, President of the Board of Deputies, said: "It is extremely disturbing to see that BBC London decided to lead a broadcast with the views of a group on the very fringes of the Jewish community.


‘Leave New York’s yeshivas alone,’ writes Wall Street Journal
“Are Jewish moms and dads who send their children to religious schools lawbreakers? Or are they exercising their right to live by their beliefs—even if those beliefs are out of fashion with modern American sensibilities?”

So asks William McGurn, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member, in an op-ed in the paper. The piece comes to the defense of Orthodox Jews, who have come under regular fire in The New York Times, and who are being investigated by the state’s education department.

At issue is a state law, more than 125 years old and with anti-Catholic origins, which requires instruction at private schools to be “substantially equivalent” to that of public ones. In a city and state with an enormous student population, the Times has trained its scope on some 50,000 Chassidic children.

Unlike public schools, where students often do poorly on math and science tests, Chassidic schools “are succeeding at something else: providing an advanced education in Jewish texts and law in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic,” writes McGurn. “It’s just not the education the state wants, because yeshivas aim for something different: a Jewish life in service of God and the community.”
The New York Times’ Eid al-Fitr Gift to Hamas
Eid Mubarak, happy Eid! As Muslims worldwide rejoice at the end of Ramadan, New York Times reporter Raja Abdulrahim celebrates with a holiday gift to Hamas, a designated terror group which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.

In 2019 and again in 2022, Gaza residents launched the “We Want to Live” campaign, protesting Hamas corruption, taxes and policies which condemn citizens to a life of poverty. (The tweet below by Gaza journalist Eyhab Fasfous shows Gaza merchants dumping their produce in protest of a heavy Hamas tax crushing Gazans struggling to make ends meet.)

But Hamas, it seems, can count on The Times’ Abdulrahim to be more compliant than ungrateful Gaza residents. Indeed, Abdulrahim’s 1200-plus word article highlighting the dire financial situation of the Gaza Strip does not mention Hamas once, a glaring omission sure to have brought great holiday cheer to the territory’s repressive regime (“As Gaza Celebrates Eid, a Gift for Women — and a Duty For Men,” in print April 21).

Since her university days, Abdulrahim was groomed to provide coverage favorable to Hamas. As a student sponsored by CAIR (the Council on Islamic American Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States’ largest terror finance case in history), Abdulrahim defended anti-Israel terror groups, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terror organizations which have murdered innocent Israeli civilians. Now, as a Times reporter, she churns out propaganda on behalf of Palestinian terrorists, justifying CAIR’s long-ago investment in the young writer.

Her latest lengthy feature in service of Hamas covers in great detail the coastal territory’s enduring custom of giving cash gifts to female relatives despite severe economic hardship. “Despite economic pain, Palestinian Muslims follow a costly annual custom,” is the subheadline in today’s international print edition.
Media Omit Terrorism From Munich Olympic Massacre
Following a concerted campaign by relatives of the slain Israeli athletes, the German Interior Ministry announced that it had convened an international commission of experts to analyze the events surrounding the Munich Massacre.

Some mainstream news organizations, however, softened the language in their coverage, effectively downplaying the terrorist nature of the atrocity and those responsible for committing it. Media Turns ‘Massacre’ Into ‘Attack’

Following the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by members of the Black September terror organization, it became widely known as the “Munich Massacre” in both Israeli circles and the international arena.

For instance, in articles published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary in 2022, the BBC, NPR, France 24 and DW News all referred to it as a “massacre.”

This makes it all the more glaring that the Associated Press (AP), New York Times and Reuters all chose to refer to the incident not as a terror attack or a massacre but simply an “attack” in their recent reports on the German government announcement, effectively downplaying the extent of the atrocity.

Media Turns Terrorists Into ‘Militants’
The AP and Reuters also avoided using the term “terrorist” when referring to the members of the Black September terror group responsible for the massacre.

Instead, the AP referred to them variously as “Palestinian militants,” “captors,” “attackers” and “assailants,” while Reuters referred to them as “gunmen.”

The New York Times did use the term “terrorists” but only once near the end of its story, mainly referring to Black September as “Palestinian militants.”


BBC report on Paris synagogue bombing trial blurs terrorism
Late on April 21st UK time a report by the BBC’s Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page under the headline ‘Paris synagogue bomber convicted after 43 years’.

Schofield’s report relates to the sentencing in absentia of Lebanese-Canadian Hassan Diab to life in prison for the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris in which four people – including an Israeli journalist – were killed.

Schofield’s account of that terror attack and the subsequent legal proceedings includes some interesting language. Readers are told that:
“The Rue Copernic attack was the first to target Jews in France since World War Two, and became a template for many other similar attacks linked to militants in the Middle East in the years that followed.”

However just five paragraphs later it is evident that Schofield is fully aware of the fact that the bombing of the synagogue during the Simchat Torah festival was a terror attack:
“Finally in 2021 an appeal against the closure of the case was upheld in the Supreme Court, the first time this had ever happened in a French terrorism case.”

Even more curious is Schofield’s portrayal of the organisation responsible for the attack:
“The bomber was identified as having a fake Cypriot passport bearing the name Alexander Panadriyu.

He was believed to have entered France from another European country as part of a larger group, and to have bought the motorbike at a shop near the Arc de Triomphe.

He was thought to belong to a dissident Palestinian group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations (PFLP-SO).”
Anti-Semitism and Propaganda in the South Caucasus
Since 1988, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in a dispute over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh; this temporarily frozen conflict flared up again in 2020. Vladimir Khanin examines the sizeable presence of anti-Semitism in both countries’ political conversations about the subject, and Iran’s role in fomenting it.

On the one hand, Tehran is interested in weakening Azerbaijan as much as possible, as Azerbaijan is the Jewish state’s close ally, Israel’s leading oil supplier, and a large-scale buyer of Israeli military and civil technologies. On the other hand, Tehran wants to enhance the dependence on Iran of Armenia, its own strategic partner, in view of the drastic reduction of the Russian presence in the South Caucasus.

Anti-Semitism has become part of the efforts of the Iranian secret services to destabilize Azerbaijan. This task is not easy, however, as the country has traditionally shown a highly tolerant attitude toward Jews and Israel. Jerusalem has shown itself to be a reliable ally for Azerbaijan, playing a critical role in its security and technological development, and Baku has opened its embassy in Tel Aviv. As a result, Israel’s popularity has boomed among Azerbaijani citizens, mitigating Tehran’s efforts to stir up anti-Semitic ferment. The Iranians have had to limit their attempts, for example, to delegitimize “the Zionist regime of President Aliyev.”

Along with the surge of anti-Israeli propaganda against Baku, which accompanied Iranian military drills near Azerbaijan’s borders and the activation of disruptive local detachments of Tehran within the country, a significant escalation of anti-Semitic rhetoric is also taking place in Armenia. The concurrence of these two trends, including a sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stories appearing online and in other Armenian media, suggests that Iran is playing a significant role in this case as well.

All this anti-Semitic delirium [appearing in Armenia] is written in Russian—often quite good Russian. This could be because of the desire to influence both Russian speakers outside Armenia and Russian migrants inside Armenia, the number of whom now exceeds 100,000.
Hate Crime Cover Up Exposed in the 71st Precinct After Jewish Man Assaulted by Hate Spewing Teens
A female police officer in Crown Heights’s 71st NYPD Precinct – who decided to cover up a possible hate crime – is now in the hot seat after the enraged victim went public with his shocking story.

The incident unfolded Motzei Shabbos on Eastern Parkway alongside Rochester Park between Utica Ave and Rochester Ave around 2:15am when the Jewish victim and two friends were approached by a group of five black male teenagers. One of the group suddenly veered towards the victim, saying “You [Expletive] Jewish murderers” as he slapped him in the back of the head and knocking his yarmulka off.

According to the shocked victim, the attacker continued to spew hate as he walked away saying “Gotchu you monkeys” as they entered Rochester Park.

The incident was witnessed by another Jewish man who quickly took action to intervene. Shomrim and 911 were called, with the volunteers and responders from the 77th Precinct arriving quickly. Unfortunately, as the incident took place in the 71st Precinct, nothing could be done by the NYPD until an officer from the correct Precinct arrived.

And when they did finally arrive, things went from bad to worse.

“We called the police and got a call back,” the victim told CrownHeights.info. “She says ‘Why would someone slap you?’ She gave me the feeling that she did not believe me so much.”

The arriving officer, identified as 16 year veteran of the NYPD Officer Jennifer Livingston, stepped out of her patrol car, and without even doing any investigation, is quoted by the victim and witness as having said “I already spoke with my supervisor, it’s not going to be a hate crime.”

In front of the shocked victim and witnesses, the officer went on to downplay the incident and refused to call for a supervising officer even when asked to directly.

The incident went downhill from there.

“I felt that the attitude of the policewoman was not too positive,” one of the witnesses of the assault told CrownHeights.info. “She was questioning our story, questioning our validity that such a thing could happen.”
How Fans of Korean Music Mobilized Anti-Israel Sentiment
In the past decade, popular music from Korea—known as K-Pop—has gained a broad international audience, and the devotees of the genre have developed a reputation for their enthusiastic and sometimes aggressive activity on social media. Amos Hervitz, David Siman-Tov, and Javier Shocron explain the way the online “K-Pop community” has used such platforms as Twitter and TikTok to generate an intense sense of fellow feeling, and in turn directed that feeling toward political aims. In one case, for instance, K-Pop fans appear to have engaged in the organized sabotage of a political rally for Donald Trump. They have also turned their considerable influence against Israel:

During Operation Guardian of the Walls (May 2021), the K-Pop community engaged in a cognitive campaign to promote pro-Palestinian messages, including the distribution of anti-Israel content. The campaign also included an attempt to harm social-media companies. . . . At first, the campaign was spread by users identified as Palestinians, such as a user named Bashar, who claimed that social-media companies are pro-Israel and therefore contribute to the suppression and blocking of the Palestinian narrative while promoting Israel’s messages.

This campaign did not achieve the desired impact. . . . However, a significant turning point came when the K-Pop community rallied to help the Palestinian campaign. This change took place when a Malaysian influencer (username Ad-Dien), who is identified with K-Pop, shared the Palestinian campaign, leading to its broad distribution among many users affiliated with this community. They began amplifying the campaign and significantly increased its spread.

With the support of the K-Pop community, the anti-Israel campaign mushroomed and included hundreds of thousands of tweets against Israel every day, reaching tens of millions of users. The community’s involvement in the campaign was especially blatant because seven out of the ten central accounts involved in mass distribution of the campaign’s content were affiliated directly or indirectly with the K-Pop community.
Fascist sympathizers take to street as Falange founder's body exhumed
Three people were arrested on Monday after police clashed with sympathizers of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of Spain's fascist Falange movement that supported the Francoist regime, whose body was exhumed from a mausoleum near Madrid.

Spain on Monday dug up the body of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the fascist Falange movement that supported the Francoist regime, and removed it from a mausoleum carved into a mountainside near Madrid as sympathizers gave fascist salutes.

A handful of supporters gathered outside the gates of the complex formerly known as the Valley of the Fallen made the gesture and held up banners saying "Jose Antonio is present" or shouted "Long live Spain" as his hearse drove past.

Police struggled to hold back a larger crowd of about 150 Falange supporters gathered outside the San Isidro cemetery in southern Madrid, where he was to be reburied. They gave the fascist salute and sang the Falangist hymn "Facing the sun."

His exhumation, which follows the 2019 removal of the remains of dictator Francisco Franco, is part of a plan to convert the complex built by Franco, which last year was renamed the Valley of Cuelgamuros, into a memorial to the 500,000 people killed during Spain's 1936-39 civil war.

Presidency Minister Felix Bolanos on Friday hailed the exhumation as another step in giving the valley new symbolism.


'A real force of nature': Pakistani-Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah dead from cancer at 73
Tarek Fatah, the Toronto Sun columnist, has died at the age of 73, his family has said.

In more than a decade writing columns for the Sun, Fatah, who identified as a secular Muslim, distinguished himself with his acidic opinions on Islam and contempt for religious extremists and Pakistan nationalists.

He also, in his later years, veered sharply to the right, supporting Donald Trump, promoting Kremlin propaganda on the war in Ukraine and siding with the Assad regime against Syrian rebels. As do many who spend their life in punditry, Fatah leaves a complicated legacy — at least in his political life.

His death, reported Sun colleague Lorrie Goldstein, was from cancer. Natasha Fatah, his daughter, called him the love of her life and a voice for the “down-trodden, underdogs, and the oppressed.”

Fatah was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1949. Fatah studied biochemistry, and worked as a journalist in Pakistan before he and his young family moved to Canada in 1987 — but not before fleeing Pakistan in 1978 after being charged with treason, and relocating to Saudi Arabia to work for an advertising firm in Jeddah. The move, Fatah said in 2011, “saved us from a disastrous period of unemployment and isolation with intelligence goons watching my every move.”

In 1996, he began hosting a weekly television show called Muslim Chronicle, and hosted a handful of radio programs over the years as well. Fatah joined the Toronto Sun in 2012. He has authored two books, The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism, published in 2011, and Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, published in 2008.

On social media and in his columns, Fatah repeatedly criticized Pakistan: “How does one country produce so many rectums?” was the sort of tongue-in-cheek, but altogether caustic query he’d make. Controversially, he was also an advocate for an independent Balochistan, the largest province in Pakistan, and had predicted that Pakistan would collapse within a couple of decades. The distaste was born from seeing the melding of government and religion in his homeland.
Jewish Actor Judd Hirsch Delivers a Great Performance in ‘iMordecai’
In “iMoredcai,” Judd Hirsch — a two-time Emmy winner, who just received an Oscar nomination for his role in “The Fabelmans” — plays a man who fled Poland and escaped the Holocaust, though some of his family didn’t.

We see an animated segment where his ball goes into the next yard, and the neighbor chases him and tells his father, “Get your Jew rat son the hell off my property.” Some of his family members were killed in Treblinka..

Hirsch plays Mordecai Samel, who is now 80, and has a flip phone that is ready for the garbage and a car that leaks and has water in it. He has helped his son, Marvin (Sean Astin), fund a business for cigars. He befriends Nina (Azia Dinea Hale), who is patient with Mordecai and teaches him how to use his new iPhone, which is no easy feat.

Mordecai says that he mostly enjoys klezmer music, and is amazed he can hear it again, though by accident he leaves the store with headphones he didn’t pay for. His wife, Fela, played by Carol Kane, has dementia and thinks her husband is having an affair. Marvin feels that Mordecai is bad luck, and is hoping that a man named Fernando Vasquez may buy his company.

In a touching moment, when a friend who is a comedian is dying on stage because his material is terrible, Mordecai gets on stage and talks about being a plumber and a painter, and pretending to be two different people.

It is rare for a live-action film to include animated sequences at different times, including one where Hitler and Stalin shake hands, signifying the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but all the scenes mesh well together.

Mordecai says he’s not ready to be an old man. Hirsch is 88 and still rocking. There’s a sweet moment when Mordecai and Fela sing in Yiddish and kiss.
Israel Is a Major Player in Supporting Africa
Israel has gone through the stages of a developing country. From a barren desert, the size of Kruger National Park, Israel became one of the world's leaders in science and technology, innovation and creativity.

The Israel Technical Cooperation Agency - Mashav - was established in 1958 to share Israeli knowledge and expertise with developing countries. Some 36,000 people from various sub-Saharan African countries have been trained in Israel, while 31,000 professionals have benefited from courses conducted in Africa.

In the medical field, Israel provides equipment as well as training and follow-up support. For example, two neonatal units were constructed and equipped in Kumasi, Ghana, and local doctors and nurses went to Israel for training. Intensive care and trauma units were set-up and equipped in Gonakry, Guinea, where Israeli doctors arrived to train local professionals. Israel renovated and equipped maternity units in Abobo Gane in the Ivory Coast. Similar medical projects occurred in Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Eritrea and Mauritania.

Ethiopia benefited from Israeli experience in avocado cultivation, with the crop becoming one of the main Ethiopian agricultural exports. Agricultural equipment and Israeli irrigation systems were installed at the Gambia School of Agriculture. In Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, an agricultural demonstration farm was established. Similar projects took place in Malawi, Rwanda, Togo, Uganda, Cameroon, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. Israeli agricultural experts based in Nairobi and Lilongwe support and supervise these activities in Africa.

The Israeli NGO "Innovation Africa" has for the last 15 years connected water and electricity to more than four million people in Africa using Israeli technology. More than half a million people in Limpopo and Mpumalanga have access to running water thanks to this NGO.


Israel’s population approaches 9.73 million
Israel’s population stands at 9,727,000, according to figures the Central Bureau of Statistics released on Monday, on the eve of Independence Day.

Of them, 73.5% are Jewish, 21% Arab and 5.5% non-Arab Christians, members of other religions, and those without a religious classification in the Population Registry.

Since the previous Independence Day, Israel’s population grew by 216,000 people, or 2.3%. During the period, some 183,000 babies were born, approximately 79,0000 immigrants arrived and 51,000 people died.

At the time of the state’s establishment, Israel’s population numbered 806,000 people.

By 2030, the population is expected to reach 11.1 million, and by 2040 13.2 million. In Israel’s centenary year, the population is predicted to hit 15.2 million.

Since its rebirth in 1948, more than 3.3 million people made aliyah to Israel, of whom about 1.5 million (43.7%) arrived as of 1990. About 60,000 Israeli citizens alive today were born in 1948, and more than 3,300 are over 100 years old.




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

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