Wednesday, July 12, 2023

07/12 Links Pt2: The Democratic Socialists of America just endorsed ethnic murder; Caroline Glick: Meet the Non-Jewish Judge Spearheading the Fight Against BDS in the US

From Ian:

The Democratic Socialists of America just endorsed ethnic murder
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest left-wing organisation in the United States and a prominent backer of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. DSA Palestine recently sparked controversy by claiming about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that ‘One could (and should) very well argue that in a settler colonial context there are no such things as “civilians”’ and by endorsing a right of ‘resistance in all forms’. By erasing the distinction between combatants and non-combatants DSA Palestine is defining all Israeli Jews as legitimate targets for murder. Ari Allyn-Feuer calls for the upcoming DSA conference to apologise, explain, and reconsider its recent lurch to crude ‘Smash Israel’ politics.

Introduction: DSA endorsed ethnic murder
Something extremely strange happened last week. Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organisation in the United States, endorsed the idea that there is a particular ethnic group whom one is entitled to murder. Despite this stance being condemned by many, the DSA has not retracted or apologised. It has, rather, reiterated and defended its position that Israeli Jews are legitimate targets for murder.

The matter has gotten much less attention than it deserves, particularly on the left. This article encourages decent people within the organisation to reverse this position at its national convention next month. In the likely event that this does not happen, decent people outside the organisation should recognise the DSA should be shunned.

DSA Palestine
The original statement was posted on the Twitter account of the DSA BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group, an official organ of the national DSA organisation, created by a charter from its national convention in 2019, and whose website is a subdomain of the national DSA organisation’s website. Where it is necessary to distinguish between the national organisation and the BDS and Palestine Working Group, I will refer to the latter as ‘DSA Palestine,’ its Twitter handle.

DSA Palestine’s tweet said this: ‘One could (and should) very well argue that in a settler colonial context there are no such things as “civilians”, but disregarding that even, it’s total folly to honestly compare settlers perpetrating pogroms to resistance groups deploying violence to liberate themselves.’

This is a stunning statement. The distinction between civilian and military personnel, non-combatants and combatants, in an armed conflict is the dividing line between those who have the protection of international law, whom it is a war crime to target, and those who may be intentionally killed, legitimately, without limit or sanction, anywhere in the theatre of conflict. Saying that there are no Israeli civilians (not even women, children, or the elderly) is saying that DSA considers it legitimate, as a general rule, to kill any Israeli.
The BDS Campaign Against Israel “De-Localizes” the Palestinian Cause, Focuses on Global Surveillance
Over the past few years, there has been more than one wave of alarming news items about repressive governments in the Middle East using software developed by the Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO to eavesdrop on their domestic opponents. Irina Tsukerman argues that the evidence for the abuse of this technology has always been thin, and bear some familiar marks of other attempts to slander the Jewish state:

On the strength of commercial spyware, Jerusalem has been able to translate security relationships into diplomatic breakthroughs as its more trusted partners were able to address some of their most significant threats coming from terrorist groups, revolutionary opposition, ideological extremists, and organized crime. The media scandal surrounding the now infamous Pegasus software allegedly used by a number of allies and ally-adjacent countries is just one example of how the BDS [boycott, divest, and sanction] movement has succeeded in associating Israel with alleged human-rights abuses.

The politicized human-rights organizations behind this campaign [to demonize NSO]—the Canada-based Citizen Lab, Amnesty International, ACCESS NOW, and Front Line Defenders—have never provided evidence of a Pegasus’s presence for independent verification. These organizations were criticized by several technical experts for their failure to abide by the scientific method and to meet academic standards of transparency, verifiability, and independent peer review. Their response was to dismiss, ignore, or outright smear the experts who took issue with their reports.

No longer focusing exclusively on the Palestinians, this anti-Israel nexus is now focused on tainting Israel’s cybersecurity industry in the eyes of the world as a weapon that supports corrupt regimes against peaceful civilians. These attacks deliberately ignore legitimate threats posed by supposedly peaceful dissidents and journalists who often double as political operatives, spies, and ideological extremists. Thus, the effect is not only the besmirching of Israel’s cybersecurity programs but a tarnishing of associations with Israel.
Companies Morningstar still flags for operating in Judea, Samaria deal in infrastructure
Morningstar trimmed a list of companies it flags for doing business in Israel-controlled territory from 26 to seven, JNS reported exclusively last week. Now, a JNS analysis and conversations with the Chicago-based investment giant shed light on the seven remaining companies, which largely operate in infrastructure projects, potentially affecting land access.

The “controversy ratings,” which Morningstar and its environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) ratings subsidiary Sustainalyics have applied to allegedly-offending companies attach an element of risk, which can sway investors away from those companies.

Morningstar has been under fire for alleged anti-Israel bias in its ratings methods and sources, and at least 20 U.S. states are investigating it for potential violations of anti-BDS (boycott Israel) laws. Morningstar has consistently denied being anti-Israel, and it has worked since October to fulfill an agreement with a coalition of U.S. Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to root out potential bias.

Sarah Wirth, a Morningstar spokeswoman, told JNS that the company trimmed its controversy rating list of companies, which operate beyond the 1949 armistice line, in agreed-upon methodological changes, including eliminating biased and pro-BDS sources. She cited Morningstar’s progress tracker, which she said shows the process is nearly complete.

That includes “identifying ineligible sources, adding a third-party source evaluator, strengthening our criteria for assessing source relevance and timeliness and creating methodology around sourcing to promote consistency,” Wirth told JNS.

“By strengthening source criteria in terms of sources’ relevance and timeliness across the human rights category, we saw a removal of 704 incidents, including 78 incidents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict area, thereby affecting the controversies,” she added.

The seven companies that Morningstar still flags are B Communications, Bezeq, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles SA, Elbit Systems, Elco, Electra and Shapir Engineering and Industry.


The Caroline Glick Show: Meet the Non-Jewish Judge Spearheading the Fight Against BDS in the US
Caroline’s guest on the Caroline Glick Show this week has demonstrated that the most unlikely people can make a massive difference. As a South Carolina State Legislator, he passed the first state law banning the South Carolina’s state government from doing business with companies that participate in BDS campaigns against Israel.

Last week, New Hampshire became the 37th state to pass similar legislation.

Judge Clemmons explains how he became involved, what he achieved, and why he was successful in doing more to defeat BDS and to combat anti-Semitism than anyone else in the United States in the past generation.


Podcast: The True Story Of Zionism, The National Liberation Movement Of The Jewish People: A Fireside Chat With Daniel Gordis, Internationally Renowned Scholar, Author & Commentator
There are few terms in the English language which have been as widely misunderstood and misrepresented as Zionism. While anti-Israel detractors claim that Zionism is synonymous with racism, settler-colonialism, and oppression, in reality, it refers to the national liberation movement of the Jewish People.

But what exactly does that mean, and in particular, what does Zionism mean for Israel today, a country that gained its independence 75 years ago and despite challenges, is likely as stable and secure as it has ever been?

The success of anti-Israel activists in falsely redefining Zionism has not only contributed to the delegitimization of Israel in the international arena; it has also helped drive a wedge between Israel and many Jews, particularly younger Jews, in the Diaspora.

Joining us this week to share his expertise on the true nature of Zionism, and its relevance in the contemporary world, we are joined by Daniel Gordis. Daniel is a Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College. He is the author of 13 books, including Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, and also hosts a popular blog and podcast, Israel from the Inside.


Book Review | Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of Memory in the Service of State and Nation
Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of Memory in the Service of State and Nation is perhaps the worst book I’ve ever read. It has little narrative flow, doesn’t consist of a full review of the work undertaken by the Zionist movement against the Nazis, offers little to nothing in the way of context for the actions described by the author and is filled with contradictions and even antisemitic assertions.

In his introduction Greenstein claims that ‘Zionist criticism of this book, however shrill, will make little or no reference to its contents’ and in his conclusion that ‘this book and its author will no doubt be heavily criticised by Zionism’s propagandists while ignoring the content.’ Perhaps Greenstein makes these claims because he’s essentially written a book about Zionism during the Holocaust that ignores the work that the Zionist movement, be that the Jewish Agency Executive in Palestine or the Board of Deputies in Great Britain, or the Zionist world more generally did to fight Hitler. It also ignores the challenges faced by the Zionist movement in their efforts to convince the major powers to direct their efforts towards helping Jews at their moment of greatest need. In any case, it appears that he was wrong in his assertions because this Zionist ‘propagandist’ will indeed be looking at the content, mainly so that you don’t have to.

Essentially, Greenstein’s argument in the book is that there was a ‘Zionist policy of obstructing the attempts of others to provide a safe haven to Jewish refugees’, an accusation I find both ludicrous and false. In terms of who is at fault in the Holocaust he writes that ‘The charge of collaboration should though be primarily applied to the Zionist leadership in Palestine and not to the behaviour of individuals living under Nazi occupation’. Greenstein then goes on to ignore his own assertion throughout the book. He does it when discussing the German Zionist group ZVfD and when discussing Hungarian Jewry, especially Rudolf Kasztner, and usually when he mentions the Judenrate and Zionists in occupied countries. To support his perspective he offers quotes from prominent figures in the Zionist movement and connects them with some actions by various Jewish groups from different parts of the world. So far as I can see, many of his quotes serve to obscure the meaning of the sources they’ve been taken from and fail to offer serious proof to substantiate his claims against the ‘Zionist movement’.

While it appears on the surface that Greenstein has managed to omit every substantive act of resistance Zionists took against the Nazis he has been forced to include some aspects of their fight. For instance, in his section entitled ‘The Zionist Silence about the Hungarian Holocaust’ (p. 181) he references ‘Ehud Avriel, who was involved with Aliyah Bet’ being in Istanbul cabling information on the situation of Hungarian Jewry to Jerusalem. A few lines later he refers to ‘Vanya Pomerantz of the Agency’s Istanbul Mission’. But Greenstein never explains what the Istanbul Mission was, who Avriel and Vanya Pomerantz were or what Aliyah Bet was. This is a shame given the work of Avriel, Pomerantz and others such as Teddy Kollek who were sent to Istanbul and tasked with conducting operations to help Jews trapped in the Third Reich and countries allied to Germany. One could be forgiven for being surprised that such things have been left out of the book, bearing in mind its title.

Another nugget of information as to what Zionists actively did to help Jews during the Holocaust is buried in the section on Hungary entitled ‘The Affair of the Parachutists’. Here he notes that Haganah agents were dropped by the British into German occupied territory. Greenstein gives this episode short shrift by claiming ‘The 32 agents who were sent to Europe were unlikely to have any effect on the capabilities of the already extant resistance. Their true purpose was to reconstruct the crumbling youth movements there after the war.’ For me, this episode serves as an interesting insight into Zionism during the Holocaust. It shows that the Jewish Agency Executive succeeded in convincing the British to drop Jews from Palestine behind enemy lines to carry out operations that might help Jews. For Greenstein, apparently it does not. It’s worth highlighting this absence of conversation about the various plans and acts of resistance against the Nazis that emanated from the Jewish Agency Executive during the war. Greenstein seems to favour things he can use to serve a different perspective.
An Open Letter to Lev Golinkin
It was deeply exasperating and disappointing to read the latest screed published in The Forward regarding neo-Nazi influence within the now-infamous Ukrainian Azov battalion. The article, from Mr. Lev Golinkin, was necessarily both exasperating and disappointing to anyone who cares about these issues, and about Ukraine. It was, however, especially disappointing to me, a onetime contributor to The Forward, where I published my first reviews as a fledgling literary critic. The unceasing attacks on the heroic defenders of Ukraine in the midst of the Kremlin’s genocidal war are merely the latest indicator of its protracted decline into irrelevancy.

As multiple Ukrainians and Ukraine experts, including me, have tirelessly explained, the independent Azov battalion was indeed founded a decade ago by some very unpleasant men with often-questionable politics, at the moment when the basically defenseless Ukrainian state desperately needed to mobilize volunteers to fight the regular Russian army. The volunteer battalion would be very shortly assimilated into the Ukrainian armed forces. Doubtless, there still exist characters within Azov’s ranks with all sorts of unsavory beliefs, and some of them will be very happy to roll up their sleeves and to flex their pagan rune tattoos if you go drinking with them, as they have for me. But the battalion has long since been domesticated and taken under the firm supervision of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Though the name of the fighting force remains, it is now a professional and elite special force that is led into battle by officers selected from the regular army recruitment pool. Those officers rise through the army ranks based not on ideology but rather on strict fidelity to the chain of command, which ends at the desk of Ukraine’s Jewish commander in chief.

The formation still contains a plurality of Russian-speaking fighters among its several thousand men at arms. Among these are Azeris, Chechens, Greeks, Russians, Belarusians, Poles, and Jews who have previously served in the ranks of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The many articles about Azov that have appeared over the years in the Western press have done tremendous damage to the credibility of the Ukrainian armed forces. These interventions in the debate are routinely and cynically exploited by Russian propaganda—both for internal and external consumption. So it needs to be stated outright in an unambiguous and axiomatic fashion: There exists no serious neo-Nazi threat in Ukraine. None at all. This is a phantom fear lurking within the minds of various fantasists and neurotics. Inasmuch as historical parallels can be drawn, the main fascistic threat comes from the occupying Russian army, which commits war crimes and mass rape against the population and furthermore attempts to reprogram them with propaganda accusing pluralist democrats of being Nazis.

The Forward debases its proud historical legacy of anti-authoritarianism by publishing such nonsense. The article in question by Mr. Golinkin represents a rehashing of his numerous previous interventions in the debate. I only wish that he knew what he was talking about. What makes his argument worth engaging with is that similar beliefs remain widespread among a swath of post-Soviet emigres who are older than 50, at the same time as they are becoming commonplace among a segment of the American progressive left.
Is antisemitism always delusional? The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s penalty could hinge on the answer.
To try to save his client from the death penalty, a lawyer defending the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter spent hours this week pressing a prominent psychiatrist on a question that has occupied many over time: Is hating Jews a manifestation of mental illness?

Robert Bowers was convicted last month of committing the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history when he attacked the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. His lawyers essentially conceded the charges, choosing instead to focus on trying to save him from the death penalty.

One way to do that would be to persuade jurors that the gunman’s intentions were clouded by mental illness. Such a determination by even a single juror would close the door to execution and bring to an immediate end to a trial that has at times been a vector of American Jewish fear and identity.

The government, on the other hand, is pressing for the death penalty and making the case that Bowers was animated by hate, not delusions, when he attacked the synagogue. In recent days, it called a star witness, Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist who for decades has been a go-to expert witness in marquee trials.

Starting last Thursday, Dietz contended that Bowers is a garden-variety antisemite, and not suffering from schizophrenia, as the defense has argued.

On Tuesday, Michael Burt, one of the defense lawyers, sought to poke holes in Dietz’s argument that Bowers’ murderous antisemitism is consistent with rational — if evil — behavior, and instead sought to depict Bowers’ hatred of Jews as a manifestation of mental illness.

He reminded Dietz that decades ago, the psychiatrist assessed a man who believed plastic surgeons were committing genocide against Aryans by making Aryan and non-Aryan noses indistinguishable.

“You concluded in that case that that client suffered from a delusional disorder and as a result you thought he was insane,” Burt said. “Conspiracy theories and delusions are not exclusive; they can interact?” he asked.

Dietz agreed that conspiracy theories and delusions were not necessarily mutually exclusive, but that there had to be clues that an antisemite was suffering delusions in addition to being susceptible to antisemitic tropes.

“The difference is the presence or absence of a mental illness,” Dietz said. “The uniqueness of the belief system, its idiosyncratic nature, its personal nature are all clues that it springs from the mind … and not the external group.”
How Hostility to Israel Brought about the Ban on Cluster Munitions
On Friday, the U.S. announced that it will be providing the Ukrainian army with cluster bombs to use against invading Russian forces, bringing condemnation from Russia apologists and anti-Americanists, and much handwringing from pro-Western countries that are among the 111 signatories of a 2008 pledge not to use these weapons. Benny Avni notes that the Convention on Cluster Munitions was prompted by Israel’s use of these weapons in its 2006 war with Hizballah:

Cluster munitions, which break into hundreds of bomblets, have been used in battle since the Vietnam War to hit wider areas than other artillery or aerial-dropped bombs. Critics have long zeroed in on the weapons’ high rate of unexploded munitions, or duds, which pose dangers to civilians, including children, well after wars end. While human-rights groups have long raised such concerns, the push for banning the munitions gained crucial speed following the 2006 war, in which Hizballah shelled Israeli cities daily from missile launchers placed inside villages and towns in southern Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces’ use of cluster bombs to neutralize the threat led to criticism at the United Nations and in Congress. Unlike when NATO employed cluster bombs against Serbia a few years earlier, or when the allies used those arms in Iraq and Afghanistan, the IDF was widely accused of violating the rules of war.

Israel’s Winograd commission that investigated the IDF’s conduct in the war criticized the army command’s lack of clarity on when and where cluster bombs would be used. Yet, the IDF’s top legal official, Avichai Mandelblitt, ruled that the army was acting according to the rules of war relating to proportionality.

The cluster munition is a useful weapon of war that can help the Ukrainian army defeat a well-dug-in Russian force. Countries that never fathom fighting wars tend to frown on almost any weapon that kills. Those who do fight wars face a much more complex decision-making process.
MEMRI: Columns In Urdu Daily Call For Release From U.S. Prison Of Al-Qaeda Suspect Aafia Siddiqui: 'Even The Judge Who Sentenced Dr. Aafia Siddiqui Was Of Jewish Descent'; 'Only A Few Pages Of The Story Of Aafia's Torture [In U.S. Prison] Have Reached Us'
On May 31, 2023, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist and Al-Qaeda suspect serving an 86-year jail term for trying to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan, met her visiting sister Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui, at the Federal Medical Center, in Carswell, Texas. Her lawyer Clive Stafford Smith was also present. Two more meetings took place between the two sisters on subsequent days in which Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan was also present.

Pakistani media has always alleged that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was abducted from Karachi in a joint operation by the CIA and the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and subsequently taken to Afghanistan where she was arrested. After returning from the meetings with her sister, Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui has not spoken publicly, possibly as a result of governmental pressure. However, some of her conversations alleging torture against her sister in the U.S. prison have been reported without giving many specific details.

Following the meetings between the two sisters, Roznama Jasarat – an Urdu-language daily published by Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan – published two articles. In one article, titled "Dr. Aafia's Captivity And The Jewish Mentality," the author Javed Ahmad Khan made antisemitic observations, blaming "the same prejudice of the Jews against Muslims [that] has been prevailing for centuries" and noting that the judge who delivered the verdict was a Jew.

In an article titled "The Release Of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui – A Debt To The Nation," the author Inamul Haq Awan accused successive prime ministers of Pakistan, including Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan, of failing to work for the release of Siddiqui from the U.S. prison. Inamul Haq Awan also called on youths to call on social media for the release of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, whose supporters appear to be Islamist groups. For example, British Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, a public supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS), has called for freeing her "physically or by ransom."[1]

Following are excerpts from Javed Ahmad Khan's article:[2]
"When The Prophet [Muhammad] Migrated From Mecca To Medina, There Were Three Jewish Tribes Living In Medina At That Time; These Tribes Were Banu Nazir, Banu Qurayza, And Banu Qaynuqa"

"When the Prophet [Muhammad] migrated from Mecca to Medina, there were three Jewish tribes living in Medina at that time. These tribes were Banu Nazir, Banu Qurayza, and Banu Qaynuqa. These tribes were under the protection of Aws and Khazraj, the major tribes of Medina. Bani Nazir and Bani Qurayza were under the protection of Aws while the third Jewish tribe was under the protection of Khazraj.

"The Ghassani tribe and the people of Saba lived in the Arabian Peninsula. Then in 450 CE there was a great flood in Yemen. As a result, these tribes moved to different nearby areas and some of these tribes came to Yathrib [Medina], where people from these tribes were already living.


MEMRI: Following Quran-Burning Incident In Stockholm, Egyptian Journalist Calls On Arabs In Sweden To Test This Country's Tolerance By Holding Protest Against 'Zionist Lies About Crematoria'
Following the burning of the Quran in Stockholm in late June 2023 by an Iraqi-born refugee, Egyptian journalist Ahmad Rif'at, a columnist for the independent Egyptian weekly Veto, urged the Arabs living in Sweden not to respond by burning the scriptures of other religions, but rather to show respect for all religions. Instead, he advised them to put Sweden's tolerance to the test by holding protests "against the Zionist lies about the crematoria" or by marking the anniversary of Hitler's death.

The following are translated excerpts from his column:[1]
"To the Arabs in Sweden!

"No matter what insane the crimes or distortions [are perpetrated] by some party or other -- whether [this party] helps or supports [the burning of the Quran] or keep silent [about it] -- it is inconceivable that a Muslim, even an extremist one, should ask permission to burn the divine scriptures of some other religion, or even contemplate [this possibility]! That would be grounds for expelling [this Muslim] from the fold of Islam itself.

"This country [Sweden] has laws and standards of its own -- especially when it comes to its attitude to religions -- which it formulated years ago based on [its] different attitude to religious norms…, and which gradually accumulated. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to go in that direction [of burning the scriptures of other religions].

"Moreover, by [refraining from this response] we can highlight the Muslims' love and respect for all religions and our absolute conviction that degrading any religion [is an act that] degrades us all. This may help amend the wrong impression [people have] about Islam and the Muslims!

"[Instead], we should put the Swedish authorities to a real test by holding a protest against the Zionist historical lies about the crematoria [in the Holocaust] and about other issues, [lies] which caused an intellectual of the caliber of French philosopher Roger Garaudy to be prosecuted without mercy, even though he was in his 90s.[2]

"So demand to hold a demonstration to mark the anniversary of Hitler's death, for example, and then we can finish this conversation!"


Dutch Universities Respond to Antisemitic Bullying Allegations
Two Dutch universities on Tuesday responded to allegations that anti-Zionists activists have subjected Jewish undergraduates to hate speech and unruly demonstrations.

According to a report published by Folia, the official student newspaper of University of Amsterdam (UvA), earlier this month a mob of pro-Palestinian protestors stormed the halls of University of Amsterdam’s Roeterseiland campus, shouting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” During the fracas, one student, Tamar Efrati, was confronted by a protestor who yelled, “Dirty Zionist!”

The report added that a similar demonstration took place at Vrije Universiteit (VU), which in English translates literally to Free University, but the students who reported it were told to wait three months to speak with an administrator.

“The university should be a place where you can have conversations,” Nati Banet told Folia. “What happens now is that emotions often run high and it quickly turns to swearing.”

On Tuesday Real Amsterdam News reported that University of Amsterdam denounced the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement but denied having knowledge of any student’s being singled out for harassment.
Maccabi Haifa Champions League match halted after Maltese fans chant 'Palestine'
Maccabi Haifa fans were taunted with 'Palestine' chants during a UEFA Champions League qualifying match.

The Israel side played Maltese team Hamrun Spartans in the first leg of their first qualifying round match for the top European competition at the Centenary Stadium in Malta on Tuesday.

However, there were clashes between fans after it emerged some Maltese supporters chanted "Palestine, Palestine" to taunt Maccabi fans.

It is understood Maccabi supporters launched flares onto the pitch in response to the Maltese supporters' chants.

Video footage also shows Maccabi fans throwing various items at their Spartans counterparts. Several punches were also thrown.

Five Israeli supporters were arrested, according to The Times of Israel, with Malta Today reporting that two were to be formally charged on Wednesday.

Some fans searched by police on entry to the stadium were found to be smuggling flares in their underwear, Maltese police said in a statement. Despite the searches, others managed to get the flares past the police.
Blues Legend Buddy Guy Cancels Israel Concerts, Citing ‘Military Operations’ in the Region
Blues giant George “Buddy” Guy announced on Monday the cancellation of his two concerts scheduled to take place next week in Israel, saying he has decided to not travel to the area.

“To all of my fans in Israel,” the multi Grammy-winning blues guitarist and singer, 86, wrote in a social media post. “Due to ongoing unrest and recent military operations, I am choosing not to travel to the region, and unfortunately, I will be canceling my July 19 and 20 performances. From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry for any inconvenience. I wish you all peace and love. – BG.”

Guy, a pioneer of the blues scene in Chicago, was set to perform at the Caesarea Amphitheater and the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv as part of his final tour, called the Damn Right Farewell Tour, that kicked off in February. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee has previously performed in Israel. His concert in 2018 featured Israeli guitarists and proceeds from the show were dedicated to Krembo Wings, a youth movement in Israel for children with and without special needs.

“We deeply regret receiving this message from Buddy Guy,” the Israeli producers of the cancelled shows said in a statement cited by Ynet. “We extend our sincere apologies to our incredible audience. Ticket buyers will receive an automatic refund to their original payment method within 45 days.”

Guy’s career spans over 50 years and he has released almost as many studio albums, with the most recent being titled The Blues Don’t Lie. He has influenced some of the greatest rock guitarists including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He has won eight Grammy awards and 37 Blues Music awards, the most any artist has received.
‘Anti-Zionism feeds antisemitism. To fight racism, Labour must recognise this’
At the heart of the shocking growth of antisemitism in the Labour party after 2015 rested a myth – widely adopted by elements of the far-left – that the State of Israel is somehow symbolic of, and central to, all the world’s ills.

It’s a myth which, unsurprisingly, echoes traditional antisemitic tropes about the pernicious and malign influence of Jews.

And it is one which, LFI’s new publication, Antisemitic anti-Zionism: The Character and Origins of an Ideology, suggests, we need to expose and tackle if we’re to maintain the huge progress Keir has achieved since 2020 in ridding our party of the scourge of anti-Jewish racism.

As one of our contributors, Izabella Tabarovsky, details, the central tenets of antizionism were constructed and spread way beyond the confines of the Iron Curtain by the Soviet Union’s propaganda machine.

Over time, this worldview – which drew on ideas peddled by a loose far-right, antisemitic Russian nationalist movement which emerged in the 1950s – came to infect and warp the thinking of the hard left in many western democracies. Its consequences are still felt by Jews three decades after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Indeed, as recent research from the US-based Anti-Defamation League exemplifies, there is a “substantive correlation … between belief in anti-Jewish tropes and anti-Israel sentiment”.

So how does Labour, as it prepares to shift from the politics of opposition to the responsibilities of government, continue to fulfil Keir’s mission of eliminating antisemitism from our party?

There are five overlapping and interrelated steps upon which I believe we should focus.

First, prejudice thrives amid ignorance. The British Jewish community’s sense of security will remain shaken for many years, perhaps indefinitely, after the shocking experience of the Labour party descending into antisemitism. Yet many Labour members may forget how quickly and easily our party slid into the hard left abyss. This horrendous part of Labour party history must never be forgotten. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.


Islamic Lecturer Who Has Posted Hateful Antisemitic Propaganda On Social Media Featured As Prominent Guest At MuslimFest
On July 7-9, MuslimFest kicked off in a number of Canadian cities, including Mississauga, Ottawa and London.

The festival, now in its 20th year, is billed as the world’s largest Muslim arts and culture program of its kind in North America and features a variety of speakers and programs, including comedians, artists, musicians and a sampling of different cuisines.

One headliner this year, Mishari bin Rashed Alafasy, or Shaykh Mishary as he is known among followers, was a prominent Kuwaiti preacher, singer and imam, and, according to promotional materials, was part of “An Evening of Inspiration With Sheikh Mishary Alafasy” at MuslimFest.

But Alafasy hasn’t limited himself just to Islamic teachings or songs. He also has a long and sordid history of making comments that we regard as being antisemitic.

In August 2020, Alafasy posted on his personal Twitter account – which currently numbers 15.1 million followers – about how a number of Muslim-majority countries had signed peace agreements with Israel, including Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but rather than celebrating the peace deals, Alafasy made his views known, writing in Arabic: “There is no benefit in normalization with the treachery/betrayal of the Jews. No matter what [countries] signed agreements with them.”

HonestReporting Canada has independently verified the translation of Alfasy’s words from the original Arabic.

In the same post, Alafasy then quoted a Quranic passage, which read “The one with whom you made a treaty but then they break their pledge every time, and they do not fear Allah.”

In our view, Alafasy’s hate targeting Jews is not a new phenomenon; his antisemitic posts stretch back years.
NY Times Runs Another Ode to Palestinian Violence
The author’s first reference to Palestinian “resistance,” and his first minimization of Palestinian violence, appears in the third paragraph, where Baconi goes through the motions of “correcting” Israel’s prime minster:
At a Fourth of July event in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli Army had attacked “the most legitimate target on the planet — people who would annihilate our country.” He was referring to months of armed resistance against Israeli settlers by young men in the Jenin refugee camp.

But as the text of Netanyahu’s speech made clear, he was referring to “terrorists [who] perpetrated savage attacks, murdering Israeli civilians, men, women and children.” He was referring, for example, to the mass shooting on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv on April 7, 2022, where the “resistance” was random gunfire sprayed at young Israelis sitting outside a lively bar, and the “settlers” were three murdered Jews from Kfar Saba and Givat Shmuel — cities that, like Tel Aviv, are not settlements.

Like Netanyahu, the U.S. ambassador to Israel condemned this “cowardly attack on innocent civilians.” The E.U. ambassador called it a “terror attack against Israeli civilians.” Even the Palestinian president straightforwardly described the “killing of Israeli civilians.” Only in a world of euphemisms and deceit — the space beneath Barconi’s byline and the New York Times logo — was the prime minister referring to “resistance” against “settlers.”

And though Barconi hopes to dehumanize the diverse group of murdered Jews by concealing their deaths and calling them all settlers, those living in settlements, like the two young brothers gunned down on Feb. 26, 2023 when a terrorist opened fire at their car in the West Bank, are equally civilians, and equally protected under international law.

Not that the gunman, a Hamas militant, would care where they live. Hamas is known for its murderous suicide bombing and rocket attacks targeting cities inside Israel. It is, as the prime minister correctly noted, an internationally designated terrorist group. And it is, as the prime minister correctly noted, sworn to the annihilation of Israel.

Eight more times, Barconi refers to “resistance” while erasing the Israeli dead, concealing Israeli peace offers, and denying Israel’s right to defend its citizens. Murder, by contrast, is cast as a Palestinian right. “With the absence of any hope for statehood, and with no viable political leadership to lead the struggle, some take matters into their own hands through armed and unarmed forms of resistance,” Baconi writes, though he knows that Palestinian terrorism has coexisted with (and in fact undermined) past hopes for peace, and knows that Palestinians lack a state because their leaders have rejected multiple offers of statehood.

But it is a staple of anti-Israel propaganda to erase those peace offers, which after all expose the dishonesty of those charging Israel with seeking to perpetuate the conflict.
Israel is targeted more than any other country on Twitter, study finds
In a troubling new study, it was found that "Israel was mentioned approximately 10 times more than any other country in tweets pertaining to human rights violations."

This disturbing trend reveals a deep-seated double standard against the country, perpetuating a disproportionate focus in social media discussions. According to the study, Israel is mentioned 12 times more than China on issues of violating human rights; 38 times more than Iran, 55 more times than Iran and 111 more times than North Korea.

The groundbreaking study, a collaboration between the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), reveals the chilling echo of these harmful narratives across millions of tweets and their impact on society.

The report was unveiled during today's Knesset Caucus for Israel-American Jewry Relations. The caucus is headed by four MKs: Ohad Tal (Religious Zionism Party), MK Boaz Bismuth (Likud) , MK Orna Barbivai (Yesh Atid) and Michal Shir Segman (Yesh Atid).

The study, analyzing close to 100 million tweets from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022, demonstrates the shifting popularity of antisemitic and anti-Zionist narratives on Twitter, particularly in response to real-world events. "This 'pendulum' effect highlights how political circumstances or changes in leadership, as well as conflicts and domestic unrest, can influence which narrative is favored," the report states.

"We have identified a clear correlation between social media discourse and its influence in the real world," said Shira Ruderman, Executive Director of the Ruderman Family Foundation. "The fact that Israel is measured differently from other countries in the world, using a double standard, is alarming. This issue crosses political lines and worldviews and is an opportunity for elected officials, from all sides of the political spectrum, to denounce this disturbing phenomenon."
Columnist Gwynne Dyer Claims Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Operations Serve To Distract From “Seizing Ever More Palestinian Land”
Dyer does not acknowledge any details of these counter-terrorism operations, presumably because they distract from his major thesis: that Israel conducts these steps only to distract from the Jewish State’s apparent attempts to continue “seizing ever more Palestinian land, which is more easily done when Palestinians and Israelis are busy killing one another.”

Not only does Dyer’s thesis presume that Israel should accept ongoing Palestinian terrorism against its civilians, it also makes the claim that violence between Israelis and Palestinians is apparently caused by Israel’s counter-terrorism operations.

This neat and tidy assessment – that Israel should simply refrain from defending itself, lest it cause Palestinian terrorism – is not uncommonly heard, but if there is one group that doesn’t seem to follow it, it is Palestinian terrorist groups themselves, who are nothing if not consistent in their ideology.

These groups do not simply see themselves as opponents of Israel’s presence in Judea & Samaria, lands won by Israel in 1967 following its defensive victory in the Six Day War, but rather are violently opposed to the very concept of Israel as a Jewish State, and see it as a holy duty to wage war against the country until it is destroyed.

Whatever one’s views on the specific military tactics used by Israel in its attempt to challenge Palestinian terrorist infrastructure in Judea & Samaria, there is no doubt that not only does Israel have very a legitimate rationale for defending itself, it also has a moral responsibility to protect its citizens from violent Palestinian groups who eagerly murder innocent Israeli civilians because they see it as their religious obligation to do so.

Palestinian terrorists will not lay down their weapons if Israel discontinues its “mowing the lawn” operations, and assessments like those of Dyer which appear to suggest that violence will slow if Israel stops its counter-terrorism operations are simply not grounded in reality, but fantasy.
BBC News continues to under inform on the Jenin Battalion
Over the past year at least two BBC film crews have travelled to Jenin – apparently with the approval of BBC management – in order to interview members of the Jenin Battalion. Audiences have not been told who initiated, arranged and facilitated those visits by BBC staff to a terror group comprised, among others, of members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The underwhelming results of those two visits were the four sentences in Tom Bateman’s July 2022 filmed report – which do not include the names of the terrorist organisations that make up the Jenin Battalion but which was nevertheless repromoted on the BBC’s July 3rd live page – and the inaccurate and misleading claims promoted by Yousef Eldin in June 2023.

As we see above, two of the BBC News website’s five written reports on the topic of the July 3rd/4th counter-terrorism operation in Jenin included just one paragraph providing a description of the terror group that is a prime cause of that operation but with no mention whatsoever of its outside funding or the sources of its weapons.

Clearly the BBC has a very long way to go before it can claim that its reporting on the Jenin Battalion meets the public purpose of “build[ing] people’s understanding” of one of the main causes of the recent counter-terror operation and any future operations.


The Washington Post Makes the Palestinian Authority Disappear
The Palestinian Authority is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that rules over most Palestinians. The PA is dependent on foreign aid, much of it from the United States. Indeed, the U.S. government helped create the PA more than three decades ago. And for better or worse, the PA has remained a lynchpin of U.S. strategy and the much vaunted “peace process” that helped birth it.

But now that the PA is on the verge of collapse, its power and reach diminishing by the day, one of the foremost advocates of peace processing is nowhere to be found. In report after report, the Washington Post has not only failed to highlight the slow rolling collapse of the PA, but it has also failed to even note its very existence. It is as if the PA doesn’t exist.

Take, for example, a July 10, 2023 report by Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix and reporter Sufian Taha. That lengthy dispatch, on Israel’s recent counterterrorist operation in the town of Jenin, received star treatment. Running more than 1,000-words, the report appeared on the center of the front page and above the fold and featured six photographs.

The Post’s report was meant to highlight the plight of a Palestinian family living in Jenin. What it really highlights, however, is the Post’s penchant for misleading omissions.

In a thousand-plus words, the Post didn’t mention the Palestinian Authority, which rules Jenin, once. The Oslo Accords created the PA under the condition that it renounce and prevent terrorist attacks and work to resolve outstanding issues with Israel. These terms remain the basis for both the authority’s legitimacy and the considerable largesse that it receives—and often pilfers.

Yet, the PA has failed to live up to its promises. As CAMERA has frequently highlighted, PA leaders pay tax-deductible salaries to those who murder and maim Jews—or those they mistake for being Jewish. The PA’s official media, educational arms, and rulers, encourage anti-Jewish violence. And instead of preventing terrorist attacks, operatives from the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) have perpetrated them.


Germany to give $1.4B Holocaust survivors globally in 2024
The organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis said Thursday that Germany has agreed to extend another $1.4 billion (1.29 billion euros) overall for Holocaust survivors around the globe for the coming year.

The compensation was negotiated with Germany's finance ministry and includes $888.9 million to provide home care and supportive services for frail and vulnerable Holocaust survivors.

Additionally, increases of $175 million to symbolic payments of the Hardship Fund Supplemental program have been achieved, impacting more than 128,000 Holocaust survivors globally, according to the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also referred to as the Claims Conference.

"Every year these negotiations become more and more critical as this last generation of Holocaust survivors age and their needs increase," said Greg Schneider, the Claims Conference's executive vice president.

"Being able to ensure direct payments to survivors in addition to the expansions to the social welfare services is essential in making sure every Holocaust survivor is taken care of for as long as it is required, addressing each individual need," Schneider added.

The Hardship Fund Supplemental payment was originally established to be a one-time payment, negotiated during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and eventually resulted in three supplemental payments for eligible Holocaust survivors. This year, Germany again agreed to extend the hardship payment, which was set to end in December 2023, through 2027.

The amount for each of the additional years was set at approximately $1,370 per person for 2024, $1,425 for 2025, $1,480 for 2026, and $1,534 for 2027. The survivors receiving these payments largely are Russian Jews who weren't in camps or ghettos, and aren't eligible for pension programs, the Claims Conference said.

As children, they fled the so-called Einsatzgruppen – Nazi mobile killing units charged with murdering entire Jewish communities. More than 1 million Jews were killed by these units, which operated largely by shooting hundreds and thousands of Jews at a time and burying them in mass pits.
Landmark exhibits shed light on life in German displaced person camps after the Holocaust
Rachel Salamander was born in an in-between time and place: The time was just after the end of the Holocaust, when no one knew what the future would bring for the remnants of European Jewry.

The in-between place was a displaced persons camp at Deggendorf, Germany. Her parents Samuel and Riva — survivors from Poland — were among the flood of refugees arriving from the east.

The refugees and other local DPs, as they were nicknamed, were “survivors of concentration camps or gulags, or just people who had everything taken away from them, totally at the end of their rope physically and mentally,” says Salamander.

Her family moved from Deggendorf to another DP camp, in Föhrenwald, and eventually settled in the Munich area. “They gave all their love and attention to us children, because we were their future, their hope.”

Life in the DP camps is the subject of a collaborative exhibition between Munich’s Jewish Museum and its City Museum, situated across the square from each other in the city’s center. Called “Munich Displaced: The Surviving Remnant,” and “Munich Displaced: After 1945 and without a Homeland,” the twin exhibits, which run through January 2024, tell the stories of tens of thousands of displaced persons — Jewish and non-Jewish — in post-war German limbo.

The exhibition project is, say its organizers, the first to focus on the lives and fates of all those people who fled, were displaced or deported during World War II and then found themselves in or near Munich after 1945.

After Germany capitulated in May 1945, there were more than eight million so-called displaced persons in Germany, Austria and Italy. For some 250,000 Jews, including about 75,000 in Germany, the DP camps — administered by the Allied authorities and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) — were places where they could regain their strength and perhaps find lost family, or create a new one.
“The Voice of the Silence” Holocaust Awareness project CEO talks with I24
Founder and CEO of “The Voice of the Silence” Holocaust Awareness project, Samantha Rodrígue talks with ÑEWS24 about the importance of the project for the Mexican non-Jewish community to learn about the Holocaust, keep the memory of the victims and survivors alive and teach against discrimination, hate crimes and more


Amazon removes ‘racist’ book which claims Jews conspired against Catholic church
Amazon has been urged to remove a controversial book which claims Jews conspired against the Catholic church.

The book from 1962 was written by a group of Mexican priests under the pseudonym Maurice Pinay and is filled with antisemitic rhetoric.

Four versions of the book are being offered for sale on the website, with two being sold by Amazon directly.

The book claims to have “a magnificent and imposing compilation of documents and sources of undeniable importance” which prove a great conspiracy against the Catholic church.

In the item description of the book, the authors say Judaism is an “enemy” of the Catholic church.

They also write that “Jews, Masons and Communists” are using the Catholic church to further the aims of “atheistic communism.”

In addition, they say Catholic clergymen are “betraying the Holy Church” and “assist Communists, Masons and Jews in their subversive activities.”

Speaking on Tuesday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) urged Amazon to remove the product from sale immediately.

A spokesperson said: "Selling a product whose sales pitch includes references to the 'subversive activities' of Jews is repugnant and has no place on Amazon.

“The retailer must remove this unashamedly racist material from its platform. We shall be writing to the company."

It comes after a chapter of the controversial book was lifted by Spanish public broadcaster RTVE in 2015 for a program.

The broadcaster titled it “From the Inferno — The Jewish People: Propagator of the Satan Cult”.

However, they later removed the programme after critics claimed it contained “more than a half-hour of unadulterated anti-Jewish conspiracy theories”.


Cycling ‘peace race’ to be held in Israel, Bahrain and UAE
A season-ending international cycling race will be held in Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates next year, in a major sports event celebrating peace and the Abraham Accords, organizers said Tuesday.

The event, which is being dubbed “the peace race” and is the initiative of Canadian-Israeli philanthropist and entrepreneur Sylvan Adams, is slated to take place in October 2024 and will be divided into three stages between the countries beginning in Israel.

The planned sports competition is the latest sign of growing regional ties in the wake of the 2020 Abraham Accords that saw Israel make peace with four Arab countries, led by the UAE and Bahrain.

“This will show how the sport of cycling, and sports in general, can be a force for good in bringing peoples and nations together, creating bridges, and having a more peaceful world through sport,” Adams told JNS from the Tour de France competition currently underway.

He noted that the countries had come to an agreement on the three-staged event, and it has won the approval of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the governing body of cycling.
Turkey’s Remake of Hit Israeli Series ‘Shtisel’ Gets Second Season Following Local Success
Turkey’s adaptation of the Israeli television drama series Shtisel has garnered so much popularity in the Muslim-majority country that it has been renewed for a second season, it was announced on Tuesday.

Ömer, from the Turkish production company OGM Pictures, has a storyline that focuses on the country’s religious Muslim community while Shtisel revolved around a family that lives in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. The Turkish show was first announced in January and airs on Star TV. Its first season — consisting of 21, two-hour episodes — surpassed Star’s average share double and consistently ranks number one in ratings, according to the Dori Media Group (DMG), which handles international licensing for Shtisel.

OGM Pictures will release the next season of Ömer in September.

“Since the first episode was released, Ömer has continued to gain the undeniable momentum and audience appreciation born with Shtisel,” said DMG President and CEO Nadav Palti. “We are honored that such an excellent Turkish production company has placed our internationally acclaimed treatment in harmony with Muslim culture and traditions. The success of the first series of Ömer is a testament to the universality of themes explored in romantic dramas in particular … We are excited to see this international triumph continue.”

Ömer follows Ömer Ademoglu (played by Selahattin Pasali), a muezzin in a mosque where his father Resat (played by Baris Falay) is an imam. Ömer soon meets a single mother named Gamze (played by Gokce Bahadir) and together they are tested by family, tradition and the love they have for each another.

Ratings for the show steadily climbed since the pilot, starting at around 4.46 percent in early January and rising to 14.81 percent by late February, when it was ranked as the most-watched show.
Latin American Jewish communities' leaders sign Israel-Diaspora Relations declaration
Presidents and executive directors of Latin American Jewish communities signed the “Cancun Declaration” about the Israel-Diaspora relations

I24 speaks with businessman, community leader, and philanthropist Marcos Meta Cohen about the impact of the declaration


Rachel Riley and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis receive honours at Windsor Castle
Rachel Riley and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis have both received Britain’s highest honours in a special ceremony at Windsor Castle.

Rabbi Mirvis was given a knighthood by King Charles in the 2023 New Years Honours list for his “significant services to the Jewish community, to interfaith relations and to education”.

Rachel Riley received an MBE at Windsor Castle on Wednesday for her work in raising awareness of the Holocaust and combating antisemitism.

The Countdown presenter, 37, was honoured for her services to Holocaust education as an avid campaigner in the New Year Honours list.

As part of his work in interfaith relations since being appointed, Chief Rabbi Mirvis has organised ground-breaking Jewish and Muslim interfaith workshops and has travelled to Greece and India and, most recently, went on a historic visit to the UAE.

He also spoke at a London mosque to call for unity following the terrorist attack on a Muslim place of worship in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

In addition, Chief Rabbi Mirvis has spoken up for China’s persecuted Uyghur Muslim population.

Speaking at the time of receiving the news of his knighthood in January, he said: “I am enormously honoured and deeply humbled by this award.




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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 over 19 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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