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Tuesday, May 02, 2023

05/02 Links Pt2: Israel made the desert bloom – this is fact, not racism; The Banality of Evil on TV; A Skirt, a Wig, and a Glock-19

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: The Guardian has called everything from gardening to the countryside racist – but the real problem is themselves
Then we come to this past weekend, and the cartoon published in a paper which calls itself “the world’s leading liberal voice”.

The cartoon depicted the resignation of BBC chairman Richard Sharp.

Sharp is Jewish, though that is no reason why he — nor anyone else in public life — should be immune from criticism.

Personally, I hate almost all attempts to censor or limit what a free Press should print, draw or say.

Yet The Guardian’s cartoon on the Sharp resignation was not just criticism or lampooning. It was outright anti-Semitism.

Martin Rowson, the cartoonist in question, depicted Sharp in the most ugly, stereotypically “Jewish” way imaginable.

Dr Goebbels would have loved the work.

Sharp is shown as dusky, with great, ugly, protruding facial features.

He is seen carrying his box of possessions away from the office.

You’d have thought that the box, if it said anything, would say “BBC”.

But no, strangely, the box said “Goldman Sachs”, the Jewish-founded bank that is such an obsession of modern-day anti-Semites.

Sharp used to work there, but that is irrelevant to his current predicament.

Bizarrely, the box has a squid in it, another anti-Jewish trope where Jews are meant to have their “tentacles” around everything.

There is also a head of Rishi Sunak in the box, implying that Sharp also somehow “controls” the Prime Minister.

To his side is a slaughtered pig, surrounded by blood.

The Guardian has since withdrawn the cartoon and the cartoonist apologised.

Elsewhere there has been silence from the paper’s contributors.

All these pious men and women who always berate the rest of us, preaching from such a very high pulpit, have been silent.

I have not seen a single Guardian journalist distance themselves from what their paper published.

So what are we to make of this? As I say — The Guardian is what it accuses everyone else of being.
Scourge or Success Story: How Israel’s 75th Birthday Was Commemorated By Media and the World
Unlike the global media’s generally despondent outlook on Israel’s future, the congratulatory messages from some of Israel’s closest allies were much more joyous and uplifting.

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and the European Union’s messages all celebrated the decades-long relationships they share with the Jewish state, with the US noting that it was the first country to recognize Israel, and Australia taking pride in the fact that it was one of the first to vote for the UN partition plan.

Along with their strong friendships, the US, UK, EU and Canada’s messages also celebrated Israel’s advances in technology, science, innovation, culture and the arts.

While these messages were, of course, much more diplomatic than the media’s coverage of Israel’s birthday, the US, Canada and the UK did make subtle references to the current political climate, with the US and Canada referencing Israel’s democratic tradition and the UK reiterating its commitment to the two-state solution.

The Nakba, Ethnic Cleansing & Racism: Anti-Zionist Twitter Responds to Israeli Independence

In her special message congratulating Israel on its 75th birthday, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, stated that Israel has “literally made the desert bloom.” This led to a severe backlash on Twitter, with a number of anti-Israel personalities calling her out for what they perceived to be a “racist” statement.

Known anti-Israel persona Muhammad Shehada tweeted that von der Leyen had resorted to a “racist and colonialist trope,” while Electronic Intifada lamented the fact that her special Israeli independence message had made no mention of the Palestinians and trotted out “one foundational myth after another.”

The reaction to Ursula von der Leyen’s message was but the latest vitriolic response by popular anti-Israel social media users to Israel’s 75th birthday.

In commemoration of the anniversary of Israeli independence, Jewish Voice for Peace claimed that Israelis were celebrating “75 years of ongoing dispossession, oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” while also falsely asserting that Israel was manipulating the Jewish calendar in order to entrench the idea that the Jewish people are perpetual victims and that Israeli military might is needed in order to save them.

Not one to be outdone in publicly flailing the Jewish state, Ali Abunimah (the founder of Electronic Intifada) tweeted “Imagine how much of a sociopath you must be to see and know the horrors ‘Israel’ has been perpetrating against the Palestinian people continuously for 75 years (actually much longer) and considering that a cause for celebration.” He claimed in another tweet that Israel is a racist endeavor “perpetrated on the land of people subjected to barbaric European colonization and genocide.”

As we approach May 15, when Palestinian nationalists commemorate the founding of Israel as the Nakba (“catastrophe”), the vehement anti-Israel sentiment on social media is due to grow. Already, the Palestinian Youth Movement has advertised on Instagram that it is hosting a public gallery in Dallas entitled “75 years of resistance. 75 years of glory,” in which they will pay “homage to our martyrs and political prisoners.” The United Nations has announced that it will host a Nakba event for the first time in the General Assembly.

While world leaders celebrate 75 years of Jewish sovereignty, anti-Israel advocates vilify it online and the international press call into question Israel’s durability, the Jewish state continues to serve as an exemplar of innovation, endurance and adaptability as it looks toward its 100th birthday.


Israel made the desert bloom – this is fact, not racism
In a famous passage in 1867, Twain clearly illustrates what the region looked like before Jewish immigration. He described it as “a desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds – a silent mournful expanse... A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action... We never saw a human being on the whole route... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

Despite coming home to a barren land filled with swamps and malaria, Jewish immigrants were determined to rebuild their homeland and began to cultivate the land. They used modern agricultural techniques, such as terracing, crop rotation, and irrigation, to develop the land and increase productivity. Jewish immigrants expanded trade and tourism, making the Holy Land popular and contributing to the growth of coastal cities like Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Acre.

They also transformed the countryside toward the end of the Ottoman period with communities of Jewish farmers settling in the Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the impact made by these Jewish farmers is well documented in travelers’ accounts, official documents, and reports of explorers.

It can also be seen in pictures taken by photographers who recorded the country while providing souvenirs for the growing tourist market. Under the British Mandate, the Jewish population continued to develop the land, building roads, schools, and hospitals and establishing a thriving economy.

Fast forward to 2023, Israel is a global leader in AgriTech, even sharing its knowledge with developing countries. Since establishing ourselves as a state, we have built desalination plants and wastewater treatment facilities to conserve water sources. As a country, Israel invested in research and development of advanced technologies, including drip irrigation, hydroponics, and genetically modified crops, which have greatly improved agricultural productivity.

One of our most notable achievements was transforming the Negev desert (which covers half our territory) through innovative irrigation systems, including drip irrigation and underground pipelines, to deliver water to the crops more efficiently. Today, Israel is a leading exporter of agricultural products and technology, demonstrating the remarkable success of Jewish efforts in making the desert bloom.

Contrary to what anti-Israel figures try to say, the Jewish people transformed this region in the Middle East into a prosperous country. Saying so is a fact, not a “racist remark” against Palestinians. Our success in making the desert bloom is a testament to the Jewish people’s determination, hard work, and innovative spirit.


A Skirt, a Wig, and a Glock-19
The first thing Mushka Lowenstein does after saying her morning prayers, adjusting her wig, and serving her three kids breakfast, is take her Glock-19 out of the safe.

Then she puts on her uniform—a sweater and a skirt with hidden pants and belt loops sewn in where she places the holster for her gun. Then she grabs the portable case that carries her Glock and puts it under the stroller she uses to push her five-year-old to synagogue in Los Angeles.

It’s hot out, but she stays covered up as she treks La Brea, passing men in black hats and beards who avoid eye contact with her, and the other women in yoga bra tops walking their dogs this Saturday morning.

Lowenstein, 33, looks like any other Orthodox Jewish woman on Shabbat. And that’s just how she wants it.

Her synagogue in Hancock Park is a little run-down, with linoleum floors and drop-tile ceilings, but it’s full of life, chanting, and swaying. The space is divided between men and women. Lowenstein prays with the female congregants while scanning for threats, her pistol now removed from her case and tucked into the holster under her sweater.

She’s backed up by her longtime friend Srula Chaiton, 32, who oversees a girls’ service down the hall. As Chaiton recites a silent prayer, I notice the outline of her own Glock under her jacket.

“I carry every week in shul, on a holster on my belt,” said Chaiton.
The Banality of Evil on TV
Fascism will never die. Not if Netflix has anything to say about it. Seventy-eight years after World War II ended, the streaming giant has announced a new series titled The Patients of Dr. Garcia, which traces the activities of a Spanish doctor who joins “the fight against fascism.” The Patients follows hard on the heels of Transatlantic, a schmaltzy romantic comedy set in France, where the Nazis round up Jews and “undesirables” and send them to Auschwitz.

Unlike Transatlantic, which plays for laughs and even slapstick comedy while avoiding the gruesome and the gory, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem aims to upset and even nauseate. We might call the former style “fascism light,” and the latter “fascism heavy.” With the Second World War seemingly never going out of style, it’s worth revisiting Arendt’s controversial classic, 60 years after it’s initial publication.

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil was published in 1963, only 18 years after the end of the war. For those who had lived through them, the memories of the war years were still vibrant. Published first as a series of articles in The New Yorker, Eichmann in Jerusalem was revised in 1965 and in 1977 came out as a paperback. The first Hebrew translation appeared in 1999, 24 years after Arendt’s death. Sixty years on, the book still has the power to provoke.

As a Jew and a European intellectual—one who fled Germany in 1933 and came to the United States in 1941—Arendt, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), had to write about the trial of Eichmann, though curiously she says very little about totalitarianism in her account of the trial. Still, in chapter 10, “Deportations From Western Europe,” she observes that the Nazis “had more in common with Stalin’s version of Communism than with Italian fascism.”

In a postscript to the book she allows that “massacres of whole peoples are not unprecedented,” and that “they were the order of the day in antiquity and the centuries of colonialism and imperialism.” With that big brush stroke, which is bound to please no one except anti-imperialists, she opens a proverbial can of worms and lumps fascism together with the wars that European empires and empire builders waged against Franz Fanon’s “wretched of the earth.”

Arendt seems to have been giddy when she wrote about Eichmann. She told her contemporary, Mary McCarthy, that she was “in a curious state of euphoria.” Indeed, the book veers from despair to elation, a sense that the “banality of evil” lurks in the hearts of nearly all men and that humans are also capable of great compassion and kindness.
Phyllis Chesler: The Love Song of Varian Fry
In 1935, Fry was in Berlin and witnessed an anti-Jewish pogrom. Jewish civilians were set upon, dragged to the ground, beaten, spit upon, kicked, stabbed, murdered. The crowds cheered. According to Sauvage, in Varian Fry in Marseille, “[i]n a cafe on the Kurfürstendamm, in the heart of the city, two Nazi youth had approached a man who was quietly having a beer and who looked as if he might be Jewish. As the man put out his hand to lift the mug, he had suddenly found that hand nailed to the table by a dagger joyfully and triumphantly wielded by one of the thugs.”

Gold believed that “the image of the hand pinned to the table had been a factor in Fry’s volunteering to go to France.”

Fry attempted repeatedly to “sensitize American public opinion to the refugee crisis in Europe.” In 1942, he wrote a cover story for The New Republic, titled “The Massacre of the Jews.” He claimed that 2 million Jews had already been murdered and that these atrocities were “so horrible” that “decent men and women find them impossible to believe, so monstrous that the civilized world recoils incredulous before them.” He urged the United States to save Europe’s Jews by granting them “asylum now, without delay or red tape.”

According to Sauvage, Fry was mainly “undermined” by “American officials in Washington and in Marseille … Fry attributed his ‘final defeat’ to the ‘craven heart’ of a consul general.” Sauvage is referring to Consul General Hugh S. Fullerton (Netflix renamed him Graham Patterson) who is, indeed, presented as the villain he was.

Indeed, another of Fry’s many torments was America’s failure to open its doors to Europe’s Jews. Sauvage, drawing on Fry’s writing and on the work of historians Christopher R. Browning, Richard Breitman, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Michael R. Marrus, writes, “the door is bolted on the Allies’ side, not on the German side … the Allies were trying to resist what they considered Hitler’s totally hostile attempt to flood them with refugees.”

Fry’s own publisher, Random House, “censored” and “took a scalpel” to his memoir Surrender on Demand. They felt that American public opinion was so antisemitic and anti-refugee that book sales would suffer. One of the suppressed paragraphs reads as follows: “If I have any regret at all about the work we did, it is that it was so slight. In all, we saved some two thousand human beings. We ought to have saved many times that number … And when we failed, it was all too often because of the incomprehension of the government of the United States.”

Fry’s torment may also have been due to something else entirely. Unbelievably, with one exception, the artists and thinkers whom Fry had personally escorted out of France, once safely ensconced in America, refused to return his phone calls, help him find a publisher, or donate artwork to help fund the International Rescue Commission, Fry’s philanthropic endeavor.

Dara Horn writes:
What was perhaps most painful for Fry after his return from France was the dissolution of his relationships with the artists and intellectuals he had saved—or rather, the revelation that these relationships were themselves a sort of fiction … Pierre Sauvage pointed out to me that many of those rescued declined to even acknowledge their rescuers in later years.

Why? Did they simply want to put the horrors of the past behind them? Were they ashamed that they were once in need of rescue—and, were they incapable of either gratitude or reciprocity? Perhaps these “geniuses” were elitists, as arrogant as royalty; clearly, Fry was not one of them, and therefore he did not deserve their help.

As Horn puts it, “Varian Fry’s oddness was not that of Marcel Duchamp. It was that of an Ezekiel. The real reason no one today has heard of Varian Fry is because the gift he had is not one that we value.”
NGO Monitor: Amnesty’s War on Israel Joins Its War on Technology
On May 2, 2023, Amnesty International published “Automated Apartheid,” the latest installment in a multi-year campaign to smear Israel by exploiting that label. Amnesty alleges that Israel’s use of facial recognition technology at security checkpoints and in Hebron and Jerusalem is illegal and “fragments, segregates and controls Palestinians” – claims that were echoeduncritically in a New York Times article on the report. The report also targets companies providing camera equipment to Israel as part of Amnesty’s ongoing BDS agenda.

As with previous Amnesty attacks, this document erases the terrorism and public safety concerns that drive Israeli policy, as well as the ways in which technological advancements allow for less intrusive security measures. Amnesty also ignores the ubiquitousness of facial recognition software in countless settings around the world, treating something that has become commonplace as a unique, particularly egregious form of Israeli wrongdoing.

This is, in many ways, a joint report with an Israeli NGO, Breaking the Silence, presenting “testimonies” that contain the same ideological projection about Israeli motivations. Notably, Breaking the Silence is currently part of a €400,000 grant from the European Union for a project titled “Always Watching: Protecting Human Rights in the Digital Age.” According to the project’s description, it “aims to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms violated by Israeli state actors’ use of digital surveillance. This will be done by creating a public and legal environment protective of Human Rights in the face of current and future risks posed by surveillance technology (ST).”

Erasing terrorism
Amnesty alleges “an ever-growing surveillance network which is entrenching the Israeli government’s control over Palestinians” – pointing to the use of CCTV cameras with facial recognition capabilities in Hebron and Jerusalem. In describing the placement of cameras in Jerusalem, Amnesty opines that “Israeli authorities have targeted sites of cultural and political significance with new surveillance tools, such as the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, which has long been a place for Palestinians to meet and hold protests.”

Here, Amnesty ignores the most essential aspect of these areas, the tense and frequently violent security reality. Scores of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Palestinians against Israeli civilians and security personnel in recent years at Damascus Gate, as well as in other areas in and around Jerusalem’s Old City and the H2 area of Hebron. Since 2015, 38 individuals have been killed in scores of attacks in these areas.

Amnesty’s pseudo analysis is also refuted by the use of the same technology in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, including at the Western Wall (Kotel) plaza (in the map provided by Amnesty, its “detailed tour inside the Old City” was actually quite limited). This reflects the Old City’s status as Israel’s primary tourist attraction (which also makes it a prime target for Palestinian terror) is another key factor in where heightened technological measures are employed.

For this and other reasons, Amnesty’s demand that “The state of Israel should immediately cease the deployment of facial recognition technologies for the identification of Palestinians in the OPT, including at checkpoints” is absurd. Even if there were a Palestinian state and irrespective of Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Palestinians crossing into Israel would be required to identify themselves as they pass through security checks at border crossings. In other words, facial recognition at West Bank crossings – and the way the technology makes security processes more efficient and less onerous – is analogous to their use in transit hubs, ports of entry, and border crossings around the world.


BDS Fails, May 2023 (Stories you won't read in the UK media)
Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts documenting BDS fails – stories of Israeli success that are rarely covered by British media outlets.

Political BDS Fails
US House of Representatives passes pro-Israel, Abraham Accords resolution in 400-19 vote
Legislators voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favor of a resolution expressing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Abraham Accords, in honor of Israel’s 75th anniversary The resolution represents a strong bipartisan show of support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and highlights the robust support that Israel continues to enjoy in Congress.

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 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.”

Pax­ton Wins Major Case Defend­ing Texas’s Anti-Boy­cott-of-Israel Law
Attorney General Paxton has secured a victory in the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit while defending a Texas law that prohibits state funds from going to companies that boycott Israel.
Adidas sued for keeping Kanye despite racist views
Gerard Filitti breaks down why investors are suing Adidas for not dumping Kanye West when the company knew he harbored vehemently antisemitic views.




PreOccupiedTerritory: For Some Reason Vespasian Minted ‘Judaea Capta’ Coins And Not ‘Palestina Capta’ (satire)
Archaeologists discovered a trove of first-century coins south of this city last week, including a series commemorating the Roman victory over a multi-year revolt in they year 70 CE, with the inscriptions on the coins raising troubling questions about the ancient identity of Palestine: all of the coins refer to the land by its Jewish name, with the term “Palestine” nowhere in evidence – despite the frequent modern adducing of “Palestine” coinage minted by the British Mandate to prove that a country by that named preexisted the modern state of Israel thoroughly undermine any Jewish claim to the land.

Lead archaeologist Professor Anna Kroniszt of the University of Antwerp led a team of students and Palestinian volunteers in the dig, which uncovered layers of settlement in territory under control of the Palestinian Authority under agreements with Israel. Kroniszt noted the disturbing implications of a Jewish coin that appears to predate the common use of the country’s obviously true and ancient name, Palestine, when numismatic evidence proving that Palestine came before Israel has become a staple of Palestinian advocacy. If the modern phenomenon constitutes valid proof of a country named Palestine before there was an Israel, the logic goes, then a much older coin celebrating the capture of “Judea” must perforce demonstrate the presence of a Jewish entity and the absence of any place called, or calling itself, “Palestine.”

“It’s a bizarre thing, and if it’s a genuine thing, we’re going to have to either cover it up or make a lot of people uncomfortable,” she acknowledged. “I know if I ever want to dig here again, under Palestinian, uh, protection, I’m going to have to find a way to interpret these findings in a way that supports, rather than undermines, the ancient Palestinian claim. It’s gong to pose a challenge, at least if I have any sense of intellectual honesty.”
Whatever a British Cartoonist Had in Mind, His Latest Work Was Anti-Semitic
Last week, the head of the BBC, Richard Sharp, resigned from his position after an investigation revealed that he had failed to disclose some of his prior business dealings. The Guardian, a British newspaper, then published a grotesque cartoon of Sharp, who is Jewish, that appeared to include almost every standard element of anti-Semitic caricature. Following complaints, the newspaper—which has attracted substantial criticism over the years for its attitude toward Jews, and rarely misses an opportunity to slander Israel—removed the cartoon from its website, and published the following, by Dave Rich:
Centuries of anti-Jewish caricaturists have generated an extensive library of visual tropes to convey their hatred of, and disgust for, Jews. This is partly because anti-Semites face a challenge: how do you incite hatred against a group of people who are not always readily identifiable? Not every Jew wears religious clothing or “looks Jewish” to every beholder.

Rather than drawing a yellow star on each Jewish target, Nazi-style, artists down the ages have instead given their subjects stereotypically “Jewish” features. The outsized nose and lips, grotesque features, and sinister grin have been part of anti-Semitic imagery for centuries, a way of portraying Jews as repulsive and sinister. You can find them in medieval woodcuts of the fictitious allegation that Jews crucified Christian children and drained their blood (the ritual murder or “blood libel” charge), in Victorian cartoons in Punch and in the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.

[The cartoonist] says that Sharp’s Jewishness was not in his mind, but in a way that is beside the point. For centuries our world has taught us that this is how to imagine wealthy, powerful Jews, especially those accused of wrongdoing. The fact that his pen veered, however unthinkingly, towards these anti-Semitic motifs shows how easily, and unthinkingly, they can rise to the surface.
Guardian editor to meet with Board of Deputies over 'antisemitic' cartoon
Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner is set to meet with the Board of Deputies to discuss her newspaper’s publication of an “explicitly racist” cartoon.

Communal representatives will raise Martin Rowson’s depiction of former BBC chairman Richard Sharp and previous cartoons accused of antisemitism that were published by the left-wing newspaper.

A sketch published last Saturday depicted Sharp with stereotypically exaggerated Jewish features holding a box that contained a squid and Rishi Sunak’s head.

“[It] falls squarely into an antisemitic tradition of depicting Jews with outsized, grotesque features, often in conjunction with money and power,” said Community Security Trust director of policy Dave Rich. “It's appalling.”

On Sunday, the Board said they had written to the Guardian requesting an "urgent meeting" with Viner to discuss the cartoon.

"This is far from the first time that the paper has crossed the line in terms of highly questionable content connected to the Jewish community,” their statement added.

While a date for the meeting has not yet been agreed upon, the JC understands that the Board will also seek to discuss drawings by Steve Bell previously published by the Guardian.
Contemptuous Cartoons: The Guardian’s Long History of Satirically Smearing Israel
The Guardian remained in the news cycle this week after being unable to quell the furor that erupted after it published a blatantly antisemitic cartoon about the outgoing BBC chairman Richard Sharp.

Despite priding itself on its progressive politics and routinely lambasting rival UK news outlets for what it perceives as racism and bigotry, it is clear that Guardian editors have something of a blindspot when it comes to Jews, having failed to see why readers might find offensive the sketch of a hooked-nose Sharp hoarding a pile of gold alongside a vampire squid.

While The Guardian later took down the cartoon by Martin Rowson, there was a clue to its level of regret in the half-hearted and painfully short apology posted on its website: “A cartoon (published in the newspaper on 29 April 2023, and online the day before) about the resignation of the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, did not meet our editorial standards, and we decided to remove it from our website. The Guardian apologises to Mr Sharp, to the Jewish community and to anyone offended.”

Indeed, it is more than likely that The Guardian feels it was undeserving of such public opprobrium given the fact that the latest editorial misstep bears an uncanny resemblance to many others before it.

The fact is, the publication has an unfortunate history of printing derogatory cartoons about Jews — many of which were intended to be critical of the State of Israel — and then refusing to recognize the antisemitic undertones within the sketches when they are criticized.

Here are some of the worst that have been published over the years:
BBC’s Knell amplifies Palestinian Authority tantrum
As noted here earlier, the BBC News website did not publish any coverage of Israel’s 75th Independence Day. However on the afternoon of the following day – April 27th – the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell chose to give worldwide amplification to a Palestinian Authority tantrum concerning a congratulatory message from the president of the European Commission.

In a report headlined “Palestinians condemn EU’s von der Leyen for ‘racist trope’” Knell began by telling readers that:
“Palestinians have described remarks about Israel by the head of the European Commission as “inappropriate, false and discriminatory”.

It follows a congratulatory video message by Ursula von der Leyen on Israel’s Independence Day on Wednesday.

In it she praised Israel, including for having “made the desert bloom”.”

She continued:
“The PA singled out Ms von der Leyen’s suggestion that Israel had cultivated barren land, calling it an “anti-Palestinian racist trope”.

The phrase “making the desert bloom” is commonly used by Israel and its backers to describe what they view as the country’s success in developing the land since the founding of the modern state in 1948.

However, Palestinians argue that it erases their history and suggests that the land was previously uninhabited or untended.”

Knell provided the relevant quote from the European Commission president’s video message:
“Today, we celebrate 75 years of vibrant democracy in the heart of the Middle East, 75 years of dynamism, ingenuity and groundbreaking innovations. You have literally made the desert bloom, as I could see during my visit to the Negev last year.”

Despite there being nothing remotely “racist” or “anti-Palestinian” about the part of the EU president’s statement referring to undebatably groundbreaking Israeli initiatives to promote cultivation in the Negev desert (which makes up over 55% of Israel’s territory) and elsewhere, Knell nevertheless chose to amplify the PA’s politically motivated statement.

Moreover, Knell went on to promote the notion of linkage between a part of Israel that was included in the League of Nations mandate for a Jewish homeland, as well as for the most part allocated to a Jewish state under the proposal put forward in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, and “lands Palestinians claim for their hoped-for future state” without clarifying that the Negev is not ‘occupied’ territory.


Berlin rally turns antisemitic despite police ban
Activists of the Israeli government-designated terrorist NGO Samidoun chanted antisemitic and anti-Israeli slogans at the far-left "revolutionary May 1st demonstration," according to a video taken at the rally published on Twitter by the German Jewish organization Jüdisches Forum (JFDA).

This comes in spite of a number of bans and limitations announced by the Berlin police before the rally, meant to prevent such chants from happening again.

In the video, the Samidoun activists can be heard shouting "Boycott Israel!" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!"

Berlin police announced bans
Berlin police confirmed that they had begun legal proceedings against the activists.

Two days before the demonstration, the police had published a number of regulations specifically for the upcoming rally "for reasons of public security."

These included a ban on burning items like puppets or flags; chants calling for violence or hate against religious or ethnic groups, which specifically outlawed calling for the destruction of Israel; and finally, showing the symbols or emblems of the PFLP, Hizb ut-Tahrir or Hamas terror organizations, including their affiliated groups.

The "revolutionary May 1st demonstration" ended early because of fears of violent clashes with the police forces at the end point of the rally, German newspaper Die Zeit reported. It was attended by 12,000 protesters, according to police estimates.
Israeli FM to visit India to mark 30 years of relations
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will visit India later this month as the countries celebrate 30 years of diplomatic relations.

Cohen’s trip follows recent visits by Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.

Barkat led a delegation of Israeli business leaders during a four-day visit in April that strengthened bilateral trade and cooperation, particularly in the areas of automotive technology and fintech.

Ohana paid a visit in March that was highlighted by the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Israeli and Indian parliaments.

In an event in India celebrating the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding last week, Israeli Ambassador Naor Gilon hailed the ties that the two countries share and said he looked forward to hosting Cohen.

“These days we are fortunate to have a series of high-level visits from Israel to India. In late March, we had the visit of the speaker of the Israel parliament, the Knesset. In mid -April, we had the first-ever visit of the minister of economy and we are expecting to soon host the minister of foreign affairs and later in the year, hopefully also our prime minister,” said Gilon.

“What is common to these visits is that they return impressed by the strong sympathy and friendship between India and Israel, as well as the understanding of the growing importance of India to Israel and to the world,” the ambassador added.
‘Stranger Things’ star Brett Gelman proposes to girlfriend in Jerusalem
The Western Wall and Jerusalem skyline provided the backdrop for actor Brett Gelman’s proposal to his now-fiancée musician Ari Dayan.

The couple, together since 2019, announced their engagement Friday on Instagram.

“SHE SAID YES!!!” Gelman shared. “Can’t wait for Mr. Gelman to become Mr. Dayan,” Dayan wrote.

Gelman, 46, is best known for his roles as the conspiracy theorist and private investigator Murray Bauman on Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and as the insufferable Martin on the BBC comedy “Fleabag.” He grew up in Highland Park, Illinois, a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago.

Dayan, meanwhile, is a singer and performance artist from California. She has posted videos previously from Tel Aviv and has also shared stories about her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor whom she said inspired her song “Sara.”

The pair have collaborated in the past, including for the music video for Dayan’s 2022 song “Love” and in a Hanukkah singalong (with Dayan singing in Israeli-accented Hebrew) taped in their Los Angeles home and posted to Instagram.
Pastor Hagee on first visit 45 years ago: ‘I arrived in Israel a tourist, and I left a Zionist’
As an 8-year-old boy, John Hagee sat at the kitchen table listening on the radio to the formation of the modern-day State of Israel in 1948. “Never did I think that I would one day stand in the holy city as a participant in history,” he told JNS. “I was simply awestruck.”

One of the best-known Christian Zionists, the pastor—founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel (CUFI)—has met all 11 Israeli prime ministers since Menachem Begin, including Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has known since 1985.

But the pinnacle of his Israel experiences—what he calls participating in history—came in May 2018 when David Friedman, then Washington’s ambassador to Israel, invited Hagee to offer a prayer at the opening ceremony of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

That was an “exceptional honor and privilege,” Hagee told JNS. “Since CUFI’s founding, our position has always been that Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, and the U.S. should acknowledge that in word and deed.”

In a wide-ranging interview with JNS, Hagee reflected on why he first visited Israel in 1978 and what it has been like to return countless times over the past 45 years. He also discussed his decision to become a man of the cloth and, over the years, one of Israel’s most prominent supporters.
Jewish Actor Ben Platt Wears Star of David Necklace to 2023 Met Gala Before His Broadway Play About Lynched Jewish Man Gets 6 Tony Nods
Actor Ben Platt, who stars in a Broadway show about the true story a Jewish man falsely convicted and then lynched because of antisemitism, accessorized his outfit for Monday night’s Met Gala with a Star of David necklace.

The Tony Award-winning actor wore a custom, hand-woven black and white Wiederhoeft tweet suit and corset-like shirt with platform shoes that he paired with a Star of David necklace from jewelry designer David Yurman, who is also Jewish.

This year’s Met Gala, held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, was themed “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” in honor of Chanel’s former creative director who died in 2019. Lagerfield’s German parents were both members of the Nazi party and the fashion house Chanel has its own Nazi past starting with its French founder, Coco Chanel, who was a Nazi sympathizer and informer.

Platt plays the lead role in the Broadway revival of Parade, which is about the 1915 antisemitic lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish man wrongfully accused of raping and murdering a girl who worked in a factory in Atlanta, Georgia, that he managed. Platt’s wife in the Broadway musical, Jewish actress Micaela Diamond, also attended the Met Gala.

Nominations for the Tony Awards were announced on Tuesday morning and Parade has been nominated in six categories, including best revival of a musical, best actor for Platt’s performance, a best actress nod for Diamond and best costume design.
UK chief rabbi: Coronation is the 'greatest event that has happened in decades'
How will the UK chief rabbi participate in the royal ceremony on Shabbat, and what was Buckingham Palace’s creative solution for his arrival at the coronation in lieu of a car?

King Charles III’s coronation ceremony will have a number of Jewish elements to it, including that microphones won’t be used during a joint prayer of faith leaders.

During a quick visit to Israel, UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis sat down with The Jerusalem Post and told of the behind-the-scenes Jewish aspects for the coronation this Saturday.

“In the British mindset, the coronation is the greatest event that has happened in 71 years,” Mirvis told the Post in a Jerusalem hotel on Thursday. “I think if the Messiah comes at the time of the coronation, it will be on the back page,” he said, laughing.

“Nothing is going to get in the way of this, every tiny detail; and we welcome the fact that the inclusion of other faiths in this event is a feature of the coronation. It was not a feature in the previous one – just the church; after all, the essence of the coronation is a religious service in Westminster Abbey.”
Charles's embrace of faith shows how just how much times have changed
On 3 September 1189, Richard I was crowned King in Westminster Abbey. Jews were barred from attending, but in a spirit of heartfelt goodwill, some Jewish leaders arrived bearing gifts for the new king. They were informed that Jews were not welcome, whereupon Richard’s courtiers stripped and flogged them, and then flung them out of court.

A rumour spread that the King had given an order for all Jews to be attacked. While some Jews escaped, arsonists set fire to many Jewish homes, some Jews were forcibly converted, while others were given sanctuary in the Tower of London. Some thirty innocent Jews were senselessly murdered on the day of the Coronation, including Rabbi Jacob of Orléans, the most senior Rabbi in England at that time.

These tragic events stand in sharp contrast to our experience as Jews in 21st Century Britain.

His Majesty King Charles III has made it clear that he wants representatives of the Jewish community and other minority faith communities to be present for the coronation service. In addition, he has established an unprecedented opportunity, following the service itself, for faith leaders to be incorporated into the formal proceedings. I will be privileged, together with four other senior faith leaders, to greet the King with words of tribute and blessing. At every stage, the Palace has been sensitive to the requirements of halacha (Jewish Law) when considering how best to include us. With this in mind, in accordance with the laws of Shabbat, I will not be using a microphone.

This is in addition to The King and Queen’s gracious invitation to host Valerie and me at St James’ Palace over Shabbat, when we will cherish the extraordinary opportunity to light Shabbat candles, make kiddush, eat our specially catered Shabbat meals, sing zemirot and chant Havdalah within regal surroundings.

We are blessed to have a Monarch who holds a deep, personal conviction that there is great strength in the diversity of our country and who cherishes his warm relationship with British Jews.
Herzogs to represent Israel at weekend’s coronation of King Charles III in London
President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal will formally represent Israel at the coronation of King Charles III in London on Saturday.

The pair will stay near Westminster Abbey so that they can walk to the ceremony without violating Shabbat, the President’s Residence said in a statement Tuesday.

The Herzogs will fly to London on Thursday evening, and on Friday will attend a reception hosted by King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in honor of all the heads of state and royals flying in for the occasion.

The Herzogs also represented Israel at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II last year.

The president and his wife are not the only ones who are having to make adjustments for the Saturday event. Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and his wife, Valerie, will stay at Clarence House, the residence of King Charles III, the night before the coronation, to allow them to attend the ceremony that will also see the queen consort, Camilla, crowned.

According to the UK-based Jewish Chronicle, Mirvis will spend Friday evening celebrating Shabbat with local Jewish communities, before retiring to Clarence House, which is less than a mile from Westminster Abbey where the coronation is set to take place.
Barbra Streisand to Receive $1 Million ‘Jewish Nobel’, Donates Award Money to Non-Profit Groups Helping ‘Tikkun Olam’
Acclaimed Jewish singer, director and actress Barbra Streisand will be awarded the 10th annual Genesis Prize at a ceremony held in Los Angeles in October 2023, The Genesis Prize Foundation announced on Monday.

The foundation said that since the launch of the Genesis Prize in 2013, it has received “tens of thousands of nominations and votes” for Streisand to be given the prestigious award. In recognition of the support she has received from the global Jewish community over the past decade, the judges of the foundation’s selection and prize committees unanimously chose Streisand as the 10th anniversary Genesis Prize laureate.

Streisand has asked The Genesis Prize Foundation to direct her $1 million prize money to non-profit organizations that focus on protecting the environment, promoting women’s health, combating misinformation in the media and helping the citizens of Ukraine during the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

The annual $1 million prize, nicknamed the “Jewish Nobel” by TIME magazine, recognizes individuals for their achievements and commitment to Jewish values. Past winners include director Steven Spielberg, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, actress Natalie Portman, late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and violinist Itzhak Perlman.

“I am delighted to be honored by the special 10th Anniversary Genesis Prize and to work with The Genesis Prize Foundation to support organizations that seek to better society and our shared humanity,” Streisand said in a released statement. “I am very proud of my Jewish heritage, and have always been moved by the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, to repair the world. I hope to join and inspire others in their own commitment to build a better world.”

Using the prize money to help non-profit organizations was a tradition started 10 years ago by the first Genesis Prize winner, former New York City Michael Bloomberg. He said Streisand’s passionate commitment” to tikkun olam makes her an “incredibly deserving recipient” of the Genesis Prize.”


Congressional bills aim to give highest honor to ‘Righteous Gentile’ Roddie Edmonds
Both houses of Congress reintroduced legislation this week to honor the late Roddie Edmonds, who put his life in danger to save Jews during World War II and the Holocaust, and is one of five Americans Yad Vashem names as “Righteous Among the Nations.”

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) put the bill up again in the House after an unsuccessful bid last session. This time is different, he told JNS.

“I’ve been here a little longer. I’ve got a little more seniority, and I know a few more people,” he said. “It’s not a partisan issue.”

Burchett noted that the two Jewish members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation, Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), are among 15 co-sponsors of H.R. 2800, the Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds Congressional Gold Medal Act

On April 27, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced the Senate’s version of the bill, S.1230, to honor Edmonds, who died at the age of 65 in 1985.

“Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds embodied true American heroism in the face of indescribable evil and intimidation,” stated Blackburn. “Awarding him with Congress’s highest expression of national appreciation is an appropriate way to honor his actions and legacy.”




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