Thursday, July 13, 2023
Jury Finds Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Eligible for Death Penalty
A federal jury on Thursday decided that Robert Bowers was eligible for the death penalty for killing 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, local media reported.JPost Editorial: Britain's current transparency approach is morally wrong
Last month, the jury found Bowers, 50, guilty of dozens of federal hate crimes in the trial at the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. Federal prosecutors had charged Bowers with 63 counts, including 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death.
In the first phase of the sentencing portion of the trial, the jury briefly deliberated on Wednesday afternoon and then again for about two hours on Thursday morning before reaching their decision that Bowers was eligible for the death penalty, KDKA TV, a local CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, reported.
In the final phase of the sentencing portion of the trial, both prosecutors and defense attorneys will have the chance to make arguments on whether Bowers deserves the death penalty. Victims and families of those killed in the shooting will also have the opportunity to speak to the court. The jury will then deliberate Bowers' fate.
In federal capital cases, a unanimous vote by jurors is required in order to sentence a defendant to death, and the judge is obligated to abide by the jury's decision. If jurors are unable to reach a unanimous decision, the offender is instead sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.
On June 16, the jury found him guilty on all counts, after defense lawyers accepted that he planned and carried out the attack. Jurors heard testimony from some of the survivors of the attack and evidence of Bowers's anti-Semitism, including multiple posts attacking Jews made on a far-right website in the months leading up to the attack.
Defense lawyers argued that Bowers suffers from major mental illness, including schizophrenia, and so lacked the necessary level of intent.
In their arguments in support of making Bowers eligible for the death penalty, prosecutors said that he had the necessary intent and premeditation to qualify for the sentence. They presented witnesses and evidence to show he carefully planned the attack and deliberately targeted vulnerable elderly worshipers.
The attempt to hide the audit may be because the British government wants to avoid a confrontation with British Jewry, supporters of Israel, and other decent Britons who would be appalled to learn that funds to the Palestinians are not being carefully monitored to prevent their use in this way.Nazis and Palestinians are thick as thieves
London might hide this information from the public due to concerns that it could harm its relationship with the PA. They know that if they raise the issue with the Palestinians, the PA will surely object and will not actually alter its policies.
Ultimately, London’s concealment may stem from the shame and embarrassment of the knowledge that British funds may be used for such reprehensible purposes. The Foreign Office knows the pay-to-slay policy is evil, and perhaps it is simply ashamed of any collusion with it and thus wants to keep it hidden.
The British should – and must – confront the PA on this anyway, because these payments are indeed heinous, and if there is anything over which it is worth confronting the PA, it is precisely this. And it should be transparent with the British people about the steps it is taking to ensure that their tax money isn’t going to fund murder.
The current approach is morally wrong. The PA’s payment of stipends to those who kill Jews is repugnant. The enlightened world, including Israel, must not only express its condemnation verbally but also show its repulsion through policy.
The US did so in 2018 by passing the Taylor Force Act, which stopped certain US aid to the PA until it ceased these stipends.
Britain and other European states should follow suit.
At a time when there is much talk, including in Israel, about the need to strengthen the PA, it is critical that this is done in such a way that ensures money allocated to prop up the PA is properly accounted for, preventing it from being diverted to odious purposes.
There are ways to audit these things. The British government knows how to do it. The British public has a right to see if it is being done.
Under Arafat, the Nazis served as an inspiration for Palestinian terrorists. As Rubin wrote in a study of the PLO, more than 25 activists “chose a nom de guerre such as Hitler or Abu Hitler.” These included Fawzi Salim Ali Mahdi, who served in Force-17, a terrorist group “under Arafat’s direct command.” Ian Michael Davison, another notable Force-17 member, was a British neo-Nazi. In 1985, he helped murder three Israelis while attacking a yacht in Cyprus. The PLO group al-Fatah trained German neo-Nazi groups in Lebanon.
Having moved to Palestine after the Oslo Accords, Arafat took control of the content of Friday sermons at the al-Aqsa mosque, making them a tool of incitement. As Efraim Karsh wrote, the sermons became particularly extreme after the beginning of the second intifada in 2000. For example, in one such sermon the preacher instructed his listeners, “Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.” The echoes of Husseini’s wartime exhortations were unmistakable.
Rubin and Schwanitz stated, “Organizational links to the Axis-era past continue to the present day. The West Bank is ruled by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, created by Arafat, al-Husseini’s heir and a former Muslim Brotherhood activist.”
Gaza is ruled by Hamas, an uncompromising and deeply antisemitic branch of the Muslim Brotherhood “whose worldview is indistinguishable from that of al-Husseini and the Brotherhood in the 1930s and 1940s.” Thus, the radical forces encouraged and funded by the Nazis continue to dominate Palestinian politics.
Even Abbas, a supposed non-violent moderate, has adopted Nazi-inspired propaganda. For example, in his doctoral dissertation, he repeated the Nazi claim that a Jewish “declaration of war” on Germany caused the Holocaust. In a 1983 book based on his dissertation, Abbas claimed that Zionists colluded with the Nazis to promote immigration to Palestine. In 2018, Abbas suggested that Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves with their “social function,” including “usury and banking and such.” Last year in Berlin, he accused Israel of inflicting “50 Holocausts” on the Palestinians. Thus, much to the embarrassment of his host, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas engaged in the kind of Holocaust inversion popular on the German far-right.
It wasn’t always this way. As Lewis wrote, “European antisemitism, in both its theological and racist versions, was essentially alien to Islamic traditions, culture and modes of thought. But to an astonishing degree the ideas, the literature, even the crudest inventions of the Nazis and their predecessors have, so to speak, been internalized and Islamized.”
The legacy of this Nazi-style ideology is what Jeffrey Herf called a “tradition of absolute and uncompromising rejection of Zionism and, later, the State of Israel.” Therefore, Herf wrote, “One precondition for a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in an Arab and Palestinian rejection of the reactionary Islamist political theology that Husseini did so much to create. A frank and well-grounded coming to terms with the history of his collaboration with Nazi Germany should be part of that reckoning.”
Whoever replaces Mahmoud Abbas might want to think about that.
Podcast: Melanie Phillips: ‘My love for Israel developed over time’
Melanie Phillips is one of Israel’s most vocal supporters — so it may come as a surprise to learn she did not immediately feel at home in the Jewish State.Eugene Kontorovich: The Biden Administration Redefines Antisemitism
The columnist and broadcaster, who bought a home in Jerusalem in 2005, discussed how her connection to Israel has developed on the latest episode of Let’s Talk: The Jewish Chronicle Podcast.
Asked by the presenter, JC editor Jake Wallis Simons, if she had initially enjoyed being in Jerusalem, Phillips replied: “I thought it was so religious, so introverted, so tense and everyone was basically crazy.”
But, Phillips continued, that changed when she began to realise “how little” she knew about Judaism and the history of Jewish people.
“I had made judgments on the basis of fantastic ignorance and intolerance,” she said.
“I met a number of people through a number of different routes… and I started to become educated in what it is to be a Jew.”
As time went on, Phillips came to find the “romance of [Israel] intoxicating”, she said, though she maintained that in some ways, she could not imagine “a more insane place”.
During the conversation, Phillips also discussed her childhood and compared turning her back on left-wing British politics to leaving an abusive family. phone mockup
“For many people, because there’s so much hatred on the left, they are almost naturally set to drift into the right.”
The following is based on testimony delivered before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 22, 2023.
Opposing antisemitism is easy, because everyone is on your side. Already 100 years ago, Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent, in its notorious series “The International Jew,” complained that the term “antisemitism” is “used indiscriminately and vituperatively” against those who just want to “discuss … Jewish world-power.” Sophisticated antisemites do not come out and admit it. So to fight antisemitism, one must first define it.
This is even more challenging today, when the general anathema to antisemitism in polite society makes “anti-Zionism” a convenient and common substitute. Yet recent actions by the Biden administration show that the problem of antisemitism manifesting as “anti-Zionism” requires further clarification. By morally legitimizing the position of those who call Israel a “fascist” nation or an “apartheid state,” the Biden administration has upended, quietly and with little notice, the governing consensus on what constitutes antisemitism.
The only broadly accepted definition of antisemitism today is the working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization of over 30 member countries. After several years of consultations with academic experts from around the world, including debate about the role of “anti-Zionism,” IHRA unanimously adopted its definition in 2016. Crucially, it states that “anti-Zionist” or “anti-Israel” sentiments can be “manifestations” of antisemitism. IHRA’s definition provides several illustrations: claiming Israel’s existence is illegitimate; the regrettably widespread practice of “applying double standards” to the Jewish state; or “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
To be clear, the IHRA does not equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It explicitly states that criticism of Israeli government policies is legitimate, as with any country. However, condemning Israel based on standards or supposed norms that are in practice applied only to the Jewish state may cross over into antisemitism. Even for such double standards, the IHRA definition only creates a presumption that must be corroborated by other contextual factors.
Opponents of the IHRA definition claim it is designed to silence ordinary criticisms of Israel. A number of such organizations wrote in a recent letter to the United Nations that “the IHRA definition has often been used to … chill and sometimes suppress, non-violent protest, activism and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism, including in the US and Europe.” Yet IHRA stresses that its working definition is not legally binding, and its definition’s only role is to help create a consensus on what constitutes antisemitism—not how to regulate it. Under the First Amendment, the government must not, under almost all circumstances, restrict antisemitic speech (or other forms of hate speech), and can only deal with actual discriminatory conduct, such as boycotts. Similarly, principles of representative democracy demand that members of Congress should be permitted to say even antisemitic things, including about Israel (though this does not mean such statements should be rewarded with choice committee assignments).
The IHRA definition struck a chord, and has been formally adopted by at least 39 countries, including the U.S., and endorsed by the European Union and European Commission, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, most U.S. states, and a vast number of ideologically diverse jurisdictions, universities, and political entities around the world.
Federations ‘grateful’ to House for antisemitism envoy budget increase to $2.5m
The Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism is to see a $1 million increase in its budget next year — to $2.5 million — if the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs has its way.Biden admin implementing Trump-era executive order on antisemitism
The 66% increase is double the amount that a bipartisan group of 83 House members sought in March for the office, which Amb. Deborah Lipstadt leads.
The new funds will help Lipstadt “ensure we are leveraging all of our diplomatic tools to help improve the safety and security of at-risk Jewish communities and hold world leaders to account,” stated Elana Broitman, senior vice president of public affairs at Jewish Federations of North America.
“Jewish Federations are grateful to see Congress taking this issue seriously and providing the necessary support to keep fighting the oldest hatred,” Broitman added. “We hope this increased funding will support the addition of permanent staff in the office, among other important provisions.”
In a joint July 12 statement, Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), Kathy Manning (D-N.C.), Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Susan Wild (D-Pa.) called the increase in funding “significant.”
The monies “will go a long way to address the tangible and growing threats faced by both the American Jewish community and Jewish communities around the world,” they stated. “The dangerous and distributing rise in antisemitism requires unprecedented investments in the Office of the Special Envoy, so that the special envoy has the staffing and resources it requires to accomplish its work.”
A White House official confirmed on Wednesday that the Biden administration is continuing to use a 2019 executive order issued by former President Donald Trump that broadened how the government defines race and national origin to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.Azerbaijan’s president hosts Israeli defense minister in Baku
“The Trump EO is still in effect. No change in approach to IHRA,” the official told JI.
The order calls on departments enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including the Department of Education, to adopt the IHRA definition. The order also calls on departments to consider “‘Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism’ identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.”
Communications from the Department of Education to university administrators suggest that the Trump executive order had not been revoked, but the White House did not yet address it directly. On Wednesday, a White House official confirmed that it remains in place.
Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said the recent settlement of an investigation at the University of Vermont and the opening of a new investigation at SUNY New Paltz in New York — the latter of which occurred after the release of the administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism — demonstrate that the Biden administration is continuing to use the executive order, noting that both cases “deal overwhelmingly with anti-Zionism.”
“What’s interesting about the UVM resolution,” Lewin told JI, “is how do they describe what this kind of antisemitism is? They say you have to make sure your university policies address antisemitism, including when it manifests as national origin discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry… Title VI makes clear that you have to protect the basis of race, color [and] national origin.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met on Thursday with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku.
They discussed “various regional and global developments… [and] avenues to further strengthen strategic ties and cooperate in the face of common challenges,” according to an Israeli statement.
“They also touched on areas of security and industrial cooperation … [and] built on the previous meeting held between them this year, within the framework of the Munich Security Conference,” added the statement.
Gallant expressed appreciation for the president’s “leadership and personal commitment to deepening the bond between their countries, starting with the opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Israel.”
The leaders also emphasized shared goals for greater security, economic and technological exchanges, as well as a common desire for regional peace and stability. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Baku, Azerbaijan, on July 13, 2023. Photo: Ariel Hermoni/Israeli Defense Ministry.
In the afternoon, Gallant met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Zakir Hasanov.
“The visit to Azerbaijan at this particular time, when our region and the world face a growing number of complex security challenges, reflects our shared commitment to take our ties to the next level,” said Gallant.
“I am certain that this is only the beginning of an enduring partnership. The potential for defense, industrial and military exchanges is only growing. Azerbaijan is not only a strategic partner but also an asset with great regional influence in the economic, energy security and additional fields,” he added.
Historic. Israel's national anthem, Hatikva, plays at the entrance to Azerbaijan's defense ministry, on the soil of a Shiite-majority Muslim country and just 200 kilometers away from Iran, in the presence of @IDF officers and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. https://t.co/Ou7mb7GzWT
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) July 13, 2023
I was deeply honored to be welcomed upon arrival by such an enthusiastic, flag waving crowd. pic.twitter.com/7ojn9o1KQz
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 13, 2023
'The Holocaust should not be part of the political game': Romania's 36-year-old right-wing lawmaker makes waves
George Simion is one of the most famous names in Romanian politics at the moment. The 36-year-old politician founded his right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians faction a mere three and a half years ago but is already considered a major threat ahead of the elections for the presidency, the Chamber of Deputies, the municipal authorities and the European Parliament, to be held in 2024.Israeli anthem plays in Saudi at FIFA video game cup rehearsal, but not at ceremony
In the previous general elections, which were held about a year and a half after the establishment of the AUR, the party received a tenth of all the parliament seats, becoming the fourth largest faction.
Romania suffers from chronic political instability having had 11 governments in the past decade, mainly due to a divided political map, affairs, scandals as well as a difficult economic situation. The strongest faction in the country is still the Social Democratic Party, a member of the National Liberals, the second largest in the parliament. The rotation between the heads of the parties, which was postponed due to the waves of protest and strikes by the country's teachers, took place this week, and despite the withdrawal of one of the coalition parties, the new government won the confidence of 290 out of 465 members of parliament.
The four basic tenets of the AUR are family, nation, Christianity, and freedom. Behind Simion's desk, a window was designed as a map of Greater Romania, which also includes Moldova, and indeed the faction advocates for the unification of the two nations as used to be under the Kingdom of Romania. This, among others, is why Simion and the AUR are claimed by their opponents to be neo-fascist and pro-Russian.
The AUR defines itself as patriotic and Christian-democratic, seeks to protect the rights of Romanians, values religion, and opposes "gender ideology" and abortion.
The faction is currently trying to be accepted into the ranks of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, a faction of right-wing European parties currently headed by the Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni, and since the Romanian media is mostly mobilized on the side of the political establishment, the party has made social networks its main means of conveying messages.
Simion, "a guy from the hood" who has cultivated an image of a sincere and honest politician, lives with his wife in a modest apartment in Bucharest and reportedly donates 90% of his salary every month to charities.
In local politics, which is seen as corrupt to the core, Simion is a refreshing change. He may run for the presidency or set his eyes on the premiership.
The Israeli national anthem “Hatikva” was played this week at a rehearsal for the opening ceremony for the video game version of the FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis reportedly prevented the anthem from being played during the ceremony itself.Georgetown's John Esposito, Part 1: A Terrorist's Best Friend
At the general rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the FIFAe World Cup finals, the three gamers from Israel were filmed singing the national anthem and holding the Israeli flag.
But according to Kan news, the Saudis decided at the last moment not to broadcast teams with their anthems, and also refused to hand over a recording of the rehearsal to the Israeli delegation.
Still, a video filmed by one of the delegation members made it online.
The three gamers landed in Saudi Arabia on Friday to take part in the video game version of the FIFA World Cup, hosted in its capital Riyadh.
Although Israel and Saudi Arabia don’t have official relations, Israeli journalists, businessmen, and other figures have increasingly been allowed to visit the Islamic kingdom in recent years.
Three team members, their trainer and the deputy manager entered the country via the United Arab Emirates on their Israeli passports for the event, which will run from July 16-19, according to media reports.
Zvika Kosman, manager of the team, told Kan news that he worked with FIFA to ensure the Saudis would allow the team into the country.
On July 7, Georgetown University announced that Nader Hashemi, former director of the University of Denver's Center for Middle East Studies, would replace John Esposito as director of the Prince Alwaleed Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding (ACMCU) as of July 1. Hashemi is the genius who speculated that Salman Rushdie's would-be assassin was likely tricked into the attack by a Mossad agent posing as an IRGC operative. That ridiculous claim makes Hashemi a logical successor as the ACMCU director, but filling Esposito's shoes will be a Herculean task.
For decades, John Esposito has reigned as academia's high priest of Islamic apologetics, promoting political Islam and demonizing anyone who objects to his views as "Islamophobic." He was a professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross before Islam came into the orbit of American life and therefore well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities that came with the Iranian Revolution in 1979. And capitalize he did, climbing the academic ladder and ultimately landing at Georgetown University where he became professor of Islamic studies and founded the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, later renamed the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding for its chief patron after he donated $20 million.
In a gushing 2005 profile published in The Muslim Weekly, Scott Jaschik (co-founder of Inside Higher Ed) breathlessly pronounced him "a star – sought out by reporters, foreign governments, corporate groups, and federal agencies."
By 2019, the star was dimming, publishing less, making fewer appearances. He had stepped down as director of the ACMCU and began calling himself "founding director." When his acolytes and admirers published a festschrift in his honor in 2021, it seemed to be a sign he was ready to retire.
Esposito and Sami Al-Arian
But in 2023 John Esposito has returned, sitting for obsequious interviewers, participating in online colloquia with his protégés and admirers, and collaborating with Al Jazeera in Qatar. While he is no longer running the ACMCU, he still directs Georgetown's Bridge Initiative. Perhaps most dramatic, Esposito continues to celebrate and promote his long-time BFF, the notorious Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) shura council member and financier, Sami al-Arian.
As a professor of computer science at the University of South Florida (USF) beginning in 1986, al-Arian co-founded and directed two of the most consequential terrorist front groups in history – the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) and the Islamic Concern Project (ICP), later renamed the Islamic Committee for Palestine. He turned the USF Tampa campus into the diasporic epicenter of the Palestinian "resistance" in the 1990s. His conferences brought together jihadists from around the world, including one of America's first Jihad enemies, Omar Abdel Rahman, "the Blind Sheikh."
German Antisemitism Commissioner calls Jewish Civil Rights Legend Natan Sharansky racist because Sharansky called a tweet by the commissioner antisemitic.
— Michael Weingardt (@Michael_Wgd) July 13, 2023
I ask myself when the first Jewish activist gets arrested in Germany because of his Tweets against antisemitic commissioners. https://t.co/3hgVSrlcAk
Asseburg called on Germany to support ICC investigation of Israeli apartheid, reassess military cooperation; accused Israel of crimes against humanity, controlling the Bundestag. https://t.co/QUtrVxmdNM
— Lazar Berman (@Lazar_Berman) July 13, 2023
THIS! @lalshareef is one of the most inspiring Saudi - Emirate peace activists and champions of the Abraham Accords ... and a dear friend.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 13, 2023
Watch this video, in which he responds to anti-Israel activists like Mia Khalifa and provides a History 101 lesson about the Jewish state! pic.twitter.com/Eouxpfh1d0
Senior University Instructor @uwebristol shares antisemitism and harasses Jews on social media.
— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) July 13, 2023
Siamak Alimi, a senior IT instructor (mentioned in the leaked @UKLabour report) also spreads antisemitic fake news and uses white supremacist terms for Jews.https://t.co/WBsWJ5HYPK
Roger Waters saying nasty stuff about Jews, there's a surprise. He picks out Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel for particular insult https://t.co/gCPEdOFivo
— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) July 13, 2023
Debunking the Media Narrative on West Bank Violence
It’s a cliché that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one is free to have an opinion on who is at fault for West Bank violence. But honest journalism forbids distorting and omitting material context to conform to the journalist’s preconceived opinions. Inaccurate coverage serves no one, especially not the victims of violent conflict.Dishonest reporting on Jenin
Yet misrepresentation of facts pervades Western media coverage of the background and context surrounding violence in and emanating from the West Bank.
According to many recent flawed news accounts, the “flare-up” in violence began with the introduction of a new Israeli government and has been driven by extremist Israelis.[1]
For example, a June 15 CNN article claimed: “Since Israel’s new government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in late last December, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in the nation’s history, violence between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank has flared.”
The Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor stated it bluntly, declaring in the headline: “Israel’s far-right government is at the heart of a surge in violence.”:
The BBC’s Yolande Knell declared that “Violence between Palestinians and Israelis has flared since Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected last year.”
Is there any truth to this narrative? Based on the publicly available data, the answer is unequivocally “no.” Not only did the “flare-up” begin long before the current government took power in November 2022, but it has been overwhelmingly driven by Palestinian attacks.
Times corrects false claim about Palestinian killed in Jenin
We recently posted about an article by Catherine Philp at The Times that attempted to undermine evidence showing that Abdulrahman Hasan Ahmad Hardan, one of the Palestinians killed during the two-day IDF military operation in Jenin, was in fact a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist.CTV News Edmonton Fails To Acknowledge Extensive Palestinian Terrorism In Jenin
One of the arguments made by Philp in an effort to prove her point can be seen in the following sentence:
When Islamic Jihad posted photographs of its claimed martyrs, Abdulrahman was the only one not pictured with a firearm.
However, as a post on the official Telegram channel of PIJ shows, Abdulrahman was NOT the only one of the eight fighters pictured without a firearm. As you can see in their graphic, the bottom five Palestinians out of the eight shown similarly aren’t holding a weapon.
Editors promptly upheld our complaint and deleted the sentence in question.
This correction is important, because it further erodes the Times’ extraordinarily flimsy argument that the 16 year old Palestinians was not a PIJ fighter.
On July 9, CTV News Edmonton broadcast a news report on a pro-Palestinian rally held in downtown Edmonton, along with an accompanying article covering the anti-Israel demonstration.
The rally was held in opposition to Israel’s recent counter-terrorism operations in Jenin which was carried out in just under two days.
Regrettably, CTV News’ reporting relied exclusively on rally participants, and did not quote a single source with an opposing view, namely one supportive of Israel’s actions. Had these reports done so, viewers and readers would have been informed that Israel’s actions in Jenin were specific, targeted, and defensible.
Furthermore, both the CTV News broadcast and article written by Brittany Ekelund, a writer and digital journalist at CTV News Edmonton, failed to provide any meaningful context as to what took place in Jenin, what prompted it, and who the casualties were.
While the broadcast reported that 12 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, it did not acknowledge that according to the Israeli military, every single Palestinian death was a combatant, and consequently not one innocent civilian was killed.
One need not believe Israel to recognize that the majority of Palestinians killed in Jenin were not civilians, but terrorists. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the extremist Islamist group targeted by Israel in the operation, admitted that two-thirds of the deaths were its members.
.@CBSNews says that "Last week's operation... left at least 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead."
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 13, 2023
But CBS fails to tell its audience that all 12 of those Palestinians were combatants or members of terrorist organizations. https://t.co/Mdxp1CLlVd
Why the scare quotes, @AFP?
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 13, 2023
Is it really so difficult to call Hezbollah exactly what it is?https://t.co/eFODZG5QR1 pic.twitter.com/IBtayAGzgp
BBC coverage of Tel Aviv terror attack CAMERA UK.htm
In other words, the BBC is perfectly aware of the fact that this was an act of politically motivated violence against random civilians perpetrated by a member of a terrorist organisation which, although it is proscribed in the UK, the BBC cannot bring itself to describe other than as a “militant group”.
Nevertheless, as we see, the BBC continues its long-standing and absurd double standard of unnecessarily qualifying terrorism against Israelis even when the perpetrator is an operative of a proscribed terrorist organisation which has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Modiin – and Beyond with Rolene Marks
Simon Plosker : Editorial Director, HonestReporting
Dr Efraim Zuroff: Chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of the Center’s Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs.
Irish radio host apologises for calling parliament proceedings ‘Nuremberg trial’
An Irish radio host has apologised after he tweeted that the Committee of Public Accounts were hosting a “nonsensical Nuremberg trial”. In his now-deleted tweet, he encouraged listeners to tune into his radio show as a “distraction”.Israel is the most targeted country in the world on social media says new study
“I want to apologise unreservedly to the Oireachtas [Irish Parliament] Committee for my ill judged comment regarding this week’s hearings,” he said in a tweet earlier today. “There was no intention to trivialise the proceedings”.
The proceedings in question are the appearance of TV presenter Ryan Tubridy, host of the Late Late Show in Ireland, and his agent Noel Kelly, at the Committee of Public Accounts.
Tubridy is at the heart of an ongoing crisis for the public broadcaster RTÉ, who also host Fanning’s radio show. Noel Kelly also represents Fanning.
Numerous inquiries have been launched into the broadcaster since it admitted on 22 June that it had underreported payments made to Tubridy by €345,000 (£295,000) over five years. The scandal has been called “one of the most shameful and damaging episodes” in RTÉ’s history by the new director general, Kevin Backhurst.
Backhurst called Fanning’s comments “not appropriate,” but did not say whether RTÉ management had spoken to him.
Alan Kelly, a member of the Irish Parliament, raised Fanning’s tweet at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts. “That is not appropriate from my point of view, as an employee or a contractor working for RTÉ,” he said. “I thought it was very insulting”.
Israel is the most maligned country in the world on social media according to a new study, outpacing authoritarian regimes like Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The Jewish state is mentioned approximately 10 times more than any other country in the world in tweets pertaining to human rights violations, a study has concluded.
More than 100 million tweets posted between January 2020 and June 2022 were analysed by the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).
Academics concluded that a "double standard" against Israel was prevalent on Twitter, with human rights terms disproportionately targeting the country.
This was further fuelling anti-Zionist narratives that mirror traditional antisemitic tropes.
The discourse on Twitter also correlated strongly with real-world antisemitic incidents, which indicated social media plays a significant role in amplifying these harmful narratives.
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.
Within the timeframe, the NCRI and Ruderman highlighted alarming trends in the use of these antisemitic and anti-Zionist tropes during key moments.
Important corroboration of the accuracy of & urgency to adopt & implement @TheIHRA definition, the result of a long democratic process, enabling to comprehensively identify & address all strains of #antisemitism - from ‘traditional’ barring of individual Jew from equal place in… pic.twitter.com/2lxSZmx9vM
— ???? ?????-???? | Michal Cotler-Wunsh (@CotlerWunsh) July 12, 2023
Twitter Sued in German Court for Allegedly Failing to Remove ‘Disgusting’ Antisemitic and Racist Tweets
Twitter is being sued by two non-profit organizations that are accusing the social media platform of failing to immediately act on racist and antisemitic tweets they reported to the social media giant six months ago.
HateAid, a German organization that campaigns for human rights in the digital space, and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) reported six disturbing tweets to Twitter in January, four of which explicitly denied the Holocaust, The Guardian reported on Monday. Another tweet said “blacks should be gassed and sent with space x to Mars,” while a separate tweet compared COVID-19 vaccination to the mass extermination that took place at the Auschwitz concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Some of the accounts shared other antisemitic tweets over the next few months, including swastikas, more Holocaust denial, antisemitic conspiracy theories and accusations about Jews instigating the war in Ukraine, according to The Guardian.
The lawsuit states that Twitter ruled three of the tweets that EUJS and HateAid reported to Twitter did not violate the latter’s guidelines and Twitter failed to respond to the other tweets, the British publication added.
One tweet mentioned in the lawsuit, from January 11, said: “The holocaust is a lie, everything they told you about the holocaust is a lie, the jews have taken credit of footage that has never happened to them.” The tweet did not violate the platform’s guidelines, according to Twitter.
2/Fresh&Fit co-hosts Myron Gaines & Walter Weekes often encouraged & agreed with Fuentes, playing a sound of a cash register whenever Jewish people were mentioned. Weekes said Jews “will inevitably bring about the end of the world” and compared Jews to the Devil. pic.twitter.com/2Lm1WBWElw
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) July 12, 2023
What's the punishment in L.A. for assaulting Jews? Community service and a trip to the Holocaust museum.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 12, 2023
No we're not joking.
Remember in May 2021 when a mob of pro Palestinians attacked diners at a local sushi spot, demanding to know who was Jewish and screaming "F*ck the… pic.twitter.com/N0aSCfYq7X
Social media shows one of the antisemites being in possession and posing with a firearm. pic.twitter.com/SyQrIQLpWg
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 13, 2023
Spanish Ska Band Accused of Antisemitism Issues Defiant Response Ahead of Germany Gig
The row over the forthcoming appearance by Spanish ska band Ska-P at a music festival in Germany intensified on Wednesday, as members of the group angrily denied the accusation of antisemitism and a leading pro-Israel advocate filed a criminal complaint to stop their performance.Sainsbury's apologises after newspaper promoting antisemitism was found in stores
The Madrid-based group, who perform ska and punk-influenced songs with a left-wing orientation, is scheduled to play at Munich’s Tollwood Festival on Friday. Earlier this week, a coalition comprised of the Left Alliance against Antisemitism Munich (LBGA), the Association of Jewish Students in Bavaria (VJSB), the Association of German Sinti and Roma in Bavaria and the Youth Forum of the German-Israeli Society — Munich called for the cancellation of Ska-P’s concert, pointing to one of the band’s songs as well as its stage act as problematic.
Ska-P’s track “Intifada” — a tribute to the Palestinian struggle against Israel — was cited as unacceptable because of its comparison of Israeli behavior with that of the Nazis. The songs lyrics include the lines: “Six million Jews who were exterminated in the most horrific way/An imperialist genocide by fascist armies, we must learn from history/The victims have become executioners, everything has gone wrong.”
Roma groups have meanwhile objected to the group’s alleged appropriation of gypsy traditions, as one band member appears on stage wearing a gypsy costume and holding a crystal ball.
In a statement released via their Instagram account on Tuesday, Ska-P expressed incredulity at the accusation of antisemitism, insisting that they are “anti-Zionists” and that the two should not be conflated.
Sainsbury’s has apologised after copies of The Light, a conspiracy newspaper, were found in two stores.France passes law making it easier for Jews to reclaim Nazi-stolen art
The paper, which compared vaccination campaigns to Nazi extermination camps, suggested that doctors and nurses be punished for “crimes against humanity” in trials they have called Nuremberg 2.0.
The Light has also featured an article by blogger Lasha Darkmoon, in which she argued that people should be able to question the Holocaust. Another article referred to author Eustace Mullins, previous member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, as “renowned”. His books include The Biological Jew and Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation.
The paper previously defended radio host Graham Hart, who called Jewish people “filth” and compared them to “rats” who “deserve to be wiped out”. Hart was sentenced to 32 weeks in prison.
Retired Chief Inspector Andrew Smith found the copies of the Light at Sainsbury’s stores in Surrey and East Sussex. Smith said the paper was an “extremist pamphlet” and continued: “I could hardly believe this was being made available in a local branch of Sainsbury’s”.
Sainsbury’s told the BBC that the Light was left in stores in Warlingham and Newhaven without its permission. “We do not stock this newspaper and it is removed from any stores where it’s left,” a spokesperson for the supermarket said. “We apologise for any upset caused”.
France passed a law Thursday making it easier to return works of art seized by Nazi Germany that ended up in French museums to their Jewish owners.Unpacked: Was American Industry Involved in the Holocaust?
The law, adopted unanimously by both houses of parliament, allows “concrete legal action” for the restitution of art taken during the German occupation of France in World War II, French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak said.
Nazi Germany had a policy of seizing art as part of its persecution of Jews in occupied areas, and is estimated to have taken 100,000 works of art from France alone, according to the culture ministry.
Some 60,000 pieces were located in Germany after the war and brought back to France, where most were returned to their owners or their heirs. However, 2,200 works went to French state-owned museums.
The restitution of those 2,200 items to their rightful owners was complicated by French legislation giving museums “inalienable” ownership.
This meant that parliament had to pass a law for each collection to be handed back.
Under the new law, restitutions can be made much faster, with the government required simply to obtain authorization from a special committee.
Several well-established American companies aided Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, directly profiting from the atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish People. These include well-known businesses like IBM, which supplied data processing systems to the Nazi regime, and Ford, whose German subsidiary produced military vehicles for the Wehrmacht.
The majority of individuals involved in the decision to do business with Nazi Germany were motivated by greed rather than anti-semitism. The question remains whether or not these corporations should continue to be held responsible today for the role they played in the murder of Jews during World War II.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:30 Motive #1: Antisemitism - Ford Motors, Texaco, and Rockefeller
01:13 Motive #2: Greed - General Electric and IBM
04:32 Motive #3: Profit over patriotism - Kodak
05:39 How should we handle companies that collaborated with Nazis?
06:40 Human rights violations by companies today
07:00 Incentivizing ethical bahavior
Disabled Jordanian girl treated at Haifa’s Rambam hospital
Amal (name changed to protect her identity), a seven-year-old girl from Amman in Jordan, was treated at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa for a congenital orthopedic deformity.130 Ethiopian Olim Arrive in Israel, Second Phase of Operation Tzur Israel Complete
She was born with a dislocated hip that left her with a severe limp and one leg markedly shorter than the other. Even after multiple surgeries, Amal was in constant pain that affected every aspect of her life.
It took many months to arrange for Amal’s arrival in Israel and her surgery at Rambam. Finally, a few days ago, Professor Mark Eidelman, director of the Pediatric Orthopedics Unit in Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital at Rambam, and his multidisciplinary team performed the complex procedure of lengthening her thigh bone (femur).
“Amal’s surgery was challenging, but we were successful, and it ended well,” Eidelman said. “We repaired her femur with a plate, screws and an implant. Following the surgery, we immediately noticed an improvement in her condition. She can now walk again, has less pain, and is able to enjoy her life. Amal is calm and her parents are delighted. After being discharged, the family returned to Jordan, and in six weeks, Amal will return to Israel for a follow-up visit at Rambam. I am very optimistic.”
The Rambam’s Pediatric Orthopedics Unit is the only center in northern Israel treating disorders of the musculoskeletal system in children. Rappaport Children’s Hospital specializes in skeletal trauma, deformities, limb elongation, clubfoot and early detection and treatment of congenital dislocated hips.
A group of 130 olim from Ethiopia arrived in Israel on Wednesday, marking the end of the second phase of Operation Tzur Israel. The Olim were reunited with their families in Israel, often after a long separation.‘Cabaret’ is returning to Broadway with Eddie Redmayne — and a restored Jewish subplot
The second phase of Operation Tzur Israel, which began in June 2022 following a government decision, has brought 3,000 new Olim from Ethiopia, in addition to the 2,000 who arrived in the first phase. In total, 5,000 olim from Ethiopia have arrived so far, of whom 70% are under the age of 35, and half are children and teenagers.
Special programs were opened for the optimal absorption of the Olim, as part of the operation.
The first phase of Operation Tzur Israel, which was launched in December 2020, aimed to reunite individuals in Gondar and Addis Ababa with their first-degree relatives in Israel.
The Jewish Agency was tasked with implementing the operation and coordinated 18 special flights to bring the 5,000 olim to Israel. The Jewish Agency worked closely with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Ministry of the Interior, the Population Authority, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Health to carry out the government’s plans. The efforts were also made possible with the help of Jewish Federations, Keren Hayesod, private donors and foundations, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, as well as friends of Israel from Korea and around the world.
For the last 15 months, the undeniably Jewish musical “Funny Girl” has held court at the August Wilson Theater on Broadway. When the show closes in September, it won’t be long until the theater once again hosts a show with Jewish themes and characters.In Jerusalem, Helen Mirren says Golda Meir ‘one of the greatest’ roles she’s played
A revival of “Cabaret,” the 1966 musical about the fate of a Berlin nightclub and its patrons during the rise of the Nazi party, is slated to arrive on Broadway at the August Wilson in the spring of 2024 with a restored Jewish subplot.
Revived on Broadway several times since it was staged in 1966, the latest version of the musical by the Jewish duo John Kander and Fred Ebb will be an adaptation of the West End revival that has been playing since 2021.
The West End production emphasizes a subplot surrounding an ill-fated romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her Jewish suitor Herr Schultz — a relationship that was featured minimally in other productions and removed from the 1972 film altogether.
A 2022 review of the West End production in the Jewish Chronicle called the Jewish subplot “the emotional heart of the story, and its moral core” that “undoes an act of Jewish erasure.”
The musical arrives after a season in which shows with Jewish themes featured prominently on Broadway, including Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” the musical “Parade,” the Lorraine Hansberry drama “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” and Alex Edelman’s one-man show, “Just for Us.” Headed to the stage next season are Barry Manilow’s “Harmony,” “A Prayer for the French Republic” and “Transparent,” each with a strong Jewish theme.
British actress Dame Helen Mirren said Thursday in Jerusalem that Israeli prime minister Golda Meir is “one of the most extraordinary characters I’ve ever played.”
Mirren, who is in town for the premiere of “Golda” at the Jerusalem Film Festival Thursday evening, told reporters at a press conference in the Inbal Hotel that the late premier was an admirable figure.
“Golda is one of the most extraordinary characters I’ve ever played,” said Mirren. “Her history, her commitment to her country, her character in general… she had utter dedication to her country. Her commitment to her country was over everything — over family, over personal contentment, over personal ambition.”
Mirren portrays the iconic politician — Israel’s only female prime minister — alongside Liev Schreiber as US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Lior Ashkenazi as IDF chief of staff David Elazar and Ohad Knoller as then IDF Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon. The film, directed by Israeli Oscar-winner Guy Nattiv, focuses on Meir’s actions during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the aftermath of the devastating conflict.
Mirren said she was very enthusiastic about the role, because “all I want to do is play great women — and Golda was one of the greatest.”
Meir’s position as a woman in the very male-dominated realms of Israeli politics and security in 1973 was fascinating, said Mirren.
“She had immense power, but as you know it was called ‘Golda’s Kitchen Cabinet,’ and she was perfectly happy to toddle around in the kitchen making everyone coffee and playing the grandmotherly role,” she said. “It’s a very different attitude to power… but it’s still immense power.”
While Meir left a decidedly complex and contested legacy in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Mirren defended the woman, the politician and the leader.
Oh, hey there @QudsNen … https://t.co/Oh7uwJIUe8 pic.twitter.com/9gnXEmjxZZ
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 13, 2023
In vivid color: 1,500-year-old Huqoq mosaic depicts Samson, animals hunting
Parts of a well-preserved and colorful 1,600-year-old mosaic, including scenes from the story of Samson and depictions of a tiger hunting an ibex, were recently uncovered in an ancient synagogue in Huqoq, near the Sea of Galilee. The mosaic uncovered this year is the last part to be excavated from the 5th century synagogue, after 11 seasons of archaeological digs. The entire 20×14 meter (65×45 feet) floor is covered in vibrant mosaics illustrating biblical scenes and ornate designs from the period.
The mosaics on the synagogue floor excavated during previous seasons have included the earliest known depictions of biblical Deborah and Yael, the first known depiction of the story of the oasis of Elim during the Exodus, as well as illustrations of Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the fish, and the splitting of the Red Sea.
“There is no other synagogue like this anywhere in Israel that has so many different mosaics with so many different biblical themes and parallels,” said Professor Jodi Magness, an archaeologist and professor of early Judaism as the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Magness has been excavating Huqoq every summer since 2011, except for two years during the pandemic, along with an international team of experts, students, and volunteers. This year, the team finished excavating the interior of the Late Roman synagogue and the Mamluk synagogue from the 14th century that was built on top of it, uncovering the last unexcavated part of the mosaic.
Mosaic and more
The mosaic has generated headlines each year with the technicolor discoveries of intricately preserved illustrations, but Magness was originally drawn to the site for very different reasons.
“The mosaics get the publicity, but you have to realize we have huge quantities of other artifacts, including huge quantities of pottery, hundreds of coins, boxes and boxes of animal bones, and glass fragments,” she said. The building itself has a lot of unique architecture, including columns still retaining some of their original, colorful plaster paintings.
The mosaic was an accidental discovery, after Magness’s team first started excavating the synagogue in 2011. Her original research focuses on the impact of early Christian rule, and what happened to Jewish villages as Christianity became more widespread.
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