Jew-hatred must not pay
What is shocking is that the United States has both very powerful tools and a clear legal mandate under the Taylor Force Act and Koby Mandell Act to demand and assure that justice is done. Under these acts, funds can and should be withheld from the Palestinian Authority, which under its current “pay for slay” program financially rewards terrorists and their families. Yet the current administration appears blithely to continue aid while in effect mildly rebuking the offenders.There should be no hierarchy of antisemitism
The callous disregard for the law is so egregious that a bipartisan group of 50 members of Congress (30 Democrat and 20 Republican), led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on July 18, stating:
For some Palestinians, terrorism literally pays. As you know, the Palestinian Authority has for decades provided financial compensation and other benefits to families of terrorists jailed in Israeli prisons and “martyrs” killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis. These payments cost the P.A. more than $300 million annually, at 8% of its budget.
Referring to the Taylor Force Act, the letter went on to state:
In an effort to cut off “pay for slay” at the source, many of us helped pass this much-needed, bipartisan legislation that prohibits U.S. assistance to the West Bank directly benefiting the P.A. In January 2023, following an attack by a Palestinian terrorist that killed 7 in a Jerusalem synagogue, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza celebrated the carnage by handing out sweets, blasting festive music from their cars, and lighting fireworks. Days earlier, Akram Rajoub, the mayor of Jenin, said that the “P.A. will not stop the transfer of funds. … President [Mahmoud] Abbas made it clear that the Palestinian Authority will not stop funding the families of our martyrs even if we are down to the last penny.”
The letter went on to note:
In late February, a Palestinian terrorist killed Columbia University graduate Elan Ganeles, a native of Connecticut. In early April, a Palestinian terrorist killed British-Israeli mother Lucy Dee and her two daughters in an ambush in the West Bank. Those behind these heinous acts are lauded by Palestinian society, and it is abundantly clear that these payments continue to reward and incentivize terror.
The continuation of funding the P.A. under these circumstances effectively condones and is tantamount to complicity with the heinous “pay for slay” program.
We must remember and take to heart the wise and immortal words of the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.”
Curing the world of hatred requires ending Jew-hatred in all its mutating and malignant forms.
Actions speak louder than words. When the Trump administration curtailed aid to the P.A., the terrorist attacks substantially decreased. Ever since the Biden administration renewed and significantly increased such aid, terrorist attacks have escalated.
The Biden administration must enforce the Taylor Force Act and cease funding directly or indirectly the immoral P.A. “pay for slay” program. Let the verdict in Pittsburgh be a clarion call not to tolerate Jew-hatred, no matter who the offender may be, and to end it once and for all.
This touches on the foundation of the problem many have with Palestinian antisemitism. It is not considered the same as antisemitism in the West, and is thought, at least in part, to be just part of the politics of the ongoing conflict.World Indigenous Day: Recognizing Jews' ties to the Land of Israel
This is an increasingly rampant form of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Parts of the international community do not expect the same behavior of the Palestinians that it expects of others. This is bigotry, bordering on racism.
It allows the Palestinian Authority and its leaders to continue with its incitement and antisemitism and continues to fete and welcome Abbas as a legitimate leader.
Rarely do members of the international community strongly condemn Abbas’ antisemitic excesses, especially when made locally rather than on an international stage. They do not push and prod Abbas publicly to end the antisemitism, by making this conditional on aid and assistance.
Far too many see it as merely part and parcel of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and believe it is rooted in injustice. They see it as part of the war.
Nonetheless, people like Fuentes also believe they are in a struggle against the Jewish people. Only a few days ago, he said, “We will make them (Jews) die in the holy war.”
The primary difference is that Palestinian antisemitism is societally endemic and leads to massive and ongoing bloodshed on both sides of the conflict, whereas Fuentes only has a fringe following.
Thus, Palestinian antisemitism should be treated at least as seriously as other forms.
The bottom line is, antisemitism is antisemitism, and all forms of hate against Jews must be countered with equal vigor.
There should be no hierarchy of bigotry.
The international community must treat the antisemitism and incitement against Jews that emanates from within or by the Palestinian Authority as it would if it came from a white supremacist or neo-Nazi source.
This is not just important so as to equalize hate, but it will also send a new and demanding message to the Palestinian leadership that there is now zero tolerance for antisemitism, and they will be shunned and lose any aid and assistance if they do not stop.
If this can lead to an end to Palestinian state-sponsored antisemitism, many lives will be saved, and peace will be closer to realization.
Today is World Indigenous Day, as set out by the United Nations. This should be a significant day for Jews and Israel, because, after all, Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel.PreOccupiedTerritory: European Names That European Governments Forced On Jews Proves Jews Are European, Not Levantine by Faisal al-Kurd, activist(satire)
However, due to misrepresentations of Jewish identity, many Jews feel disconnected from this concept. Nevertheless, in order to reclaim our story and define our own experience and identity, Jewish people must acknowledge that they are an indigenous people, and that Jewish communities everywhere constitute a Middle Eastern Diasporic community.
To understand indigeneity, it’s important to examine its etymology. It comes from the Latin noun indigena (native), which was formed by combining old Latin indu (in or within) with the verb gignere (to beget). This is the essence of the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the land from which we emerged, or literally, were born.
By definition, indigenous peoples are diverse and unique, sometimes making them difficult to pin down precisely. The United Nations enumerated seven criteria:
1. Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member
2. Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies
3. Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources
4. Distinct social, economic, or political systems
5. Distinct language, culture, and beliefs
6. Form non-dominant groups of society
7. Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities.
Except for the sixth criterion, which we shall set aside as it suggests that an indigenous community must be non-dominant and does not give room for decolonization, the other criteria strongly resonate with the Jewish experience. In fact, they appear to precisely affirm the Jewish narrative, as we can see from the following:
Guys, guys! I’ve got the argument that will silence those stupid Zionists and their ridiculous claims that Jews from Poland, Russia, and wherever are indigenous to Palestine: show how the family surnames that Napoleon, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, the Romanovs, and the other post-Enlightenment rulers imposed on the Jews in their domains indicate origins for those Jews in those places, and not here. You with me?
I got the idea from the Zionists themselves, that’s the poetry of it. We all know fellow Palestinians whose last names attest to ancestry not in Palestine: names that mean “from Aleppo,” “the Egyptian,” “the North African,” and my favorite, obviously, “the Kurd,” among many others. You might see them making the rounds on Zionist hasbara social media. Well, I thought, how about we turn the tables? Everyone knows “Teitelbaum” and “Ostrovsky” aren’t Levantine names! Those are names that were forced on Ashkenazi Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries all across Europe, which proves that the Jews who came from Europe are European, and can’t claim to be “returning” to our land from which they say their ancestors were exiled.
Oh, I’m not worried about the question getting examined too closely. There might be some angry Zionists arguing that the names came long after those Jews arrived in Europe, but for our purposes, those countermeasures will be too little, too late. At that point we’ve landed our rhetorical blow, and our sympathizers far outnumber theirs. Those technical objections about so-called historical accuracy will be drowned out by the jeers, retweets, and uncritical parroting of our rhetoric that has long formed a centerpiece of mainstream Western journalism on the conflict here.
UN Watch: U.N. condemns Israel alone for violating women’s rights
UN Ignores Palestinian Abuses, Violators Worldwide
The resolution turns a blind eye to how Palestinian women’s rights are impacted by their own governing authorities — the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza. Nor does it make any criticism or any reference at all as to how women and girls are discriminated against within patriarchal Palestinian society. On the contrary, the resolution praises what it calls Palestinian “initiatives at the legislative, administrative and security levels to advance women’s rights.”
“ECOSOC’s 2023 session completely ignored the world’s worst abusers of women’s rights, refusing to pass a single resolution on the situation of women in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Iran, Algeria, Chad or Mali, which rank among the 10 worst violators of women’s rights in the world, according to the 2023 Global Gender Gap Report, produced by the World Economic Forum,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.
Neuer condemned the delegates’ “hijacking” of the UN body as a forum to target Israel. “At a time when rape is used as a tactic of war in Libya, UN experts have accused the Taliban in Afghanistan of ‘gender apartheid,’ Nigeria has 20 million female genital mutilation survivors, women can face jail time in Qatar for reporting sexual assault, and Zimbabwean women leaders are subjected to politically-motivated sexual violence and bullying, it is the theatre of the absurd for these misogynistic regimes to be singling out Israel — alone in the world — as an alleged violator of women’s rights,” said Neuer.
Britain & America Take the Floor to Call out Bias
Britain and the United States both took the floor to denounce the resolution’s selectivity. “We oppose the singling out and disproportionate focus on Israel in this resolution,” said the British delegate.
“We remain troubled by this body’s insistence on including political elements and one-sided condemnations that detract from the real challenges at hand,” said the American representative.
“This council needs to refocus its energy toward shared goals, as this resolution is unhelpful to all involved. Politicizing these issues brings into question the impartiality of assistance that so many provide to assist Palestinian women.”
“Politicized resolutions such as this do nothing to improve the situation. As such, we have no choice but to vote against this resolution,” added the American delegate.
UN Watch Calls Out France, Belgium, Italy For ‘Joining the Jackals’
UN Watch commended Britain, the United States, Canada, Czechia and Liberia for joining Israel in opposing the one-sided text.
“Yet we are disappointed in those democracies which joined the jackals in scapegoating the Jewish state, including Belgium, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and South Korea,” said Neuer.
ECOSOC also condemned Israel in a second resolution for allegedly violating the economic and social rights of Palestinians.
Discussion of the resolutions followed the presentation of a biased report by Tarik Alami, representative of the Beirut-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the UN regional body for the Middle East that includes 18 Arab states, but not Israel.
Results of the vote to rebuke Israel on women’s rights:
37 YES: Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lao, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Oman, Peru, Portugal, Qatar, South Korea, Slovenia, Sweden, Tunisia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe.
6 NO: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Israel, Liberia.
4 ABSTAIN: Croatia, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Slovakia.
3/ Out of 19 items on the UN Economic and Social Council’s 2023 agenda, only one—Item No. 16 against Israel—targeted a specific country. All the rest are generic topics. There was no agenda item on Russia bombing Ukraine, Syria bombing Syrians, or China persecuting the Uyghurs. pic.twitter.com/ThoX0lSA8c
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 8, 2023
U.N. singles out Israel for violating women's rights
Israel's best UN allies are the Pacific Islands
This year, Papua New Guinea and Fiji announced that they would establish embassies in Israel. However, few in the Middle East know much about the island nations in the continent of Oceania, and less about their ties with Israel.Should Palestinian athletes be allowed in the Paris Olympics?
The vast expanse of sea that encompasses 14 sovereign island nations and their potential for building ties is yet to be explored both metaphorically and diplomatically. More importantly, they have the best record of voting in staunch favor of Israel at the United Nations – a place where allies are rare and should be valued, especially if the small nations can punch higher than their weight in terms of voting ability.
In Jewish, ocean-related lore, Jonah was stuck inside a sea creature, and the biblical tribe of Dan was known for its skilled sailors. Centuries later, the Pacific Ocean, the world’s biggest stretch of water and one of six inhabited continents. While it is the only continent with no known native kosher animals, it holds great potential for Israeli trade, diplomacy, and cultural exchanges.
The importance of the Pacific Island nations for Israel
Australia is the largest Oceanian nation and has a Jewish population of more than 100,000. The next biggest Jewish community is in New Zealand. These two nations constitute two-thirds of the continent’s population.
The continent’s 12 other smaller sovereign nations don’t have a European-origin majority. The Jewish communities there are so small that even international Jewish organizations like Chabad-Lubavitch have yet to make significant inroads.
Most Oceanian nations have small populations, yet they have seats at the UN, which means more say per capita at the international forums where issues – notably sovereignty over Jerusalem – are often debated. Countries that have voted in Israel’s favor at several resolutions are the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, and Nauru. Yet, most Israelis probably haven’t even heard of these countries let alone learned how to point at them on a map.
After Australia and New Zealand, the nation of Papua New Guinea has the largest population (nine million). The rest contain less than a million people combined. There are 22 Arab nations and 27 European Union member states with a complicated, love-hate history with Israel. In contrast, the Pacific, with almost no history of antisemitism or anti-Zionism, is less frequently discussed. Despite the aquatic barrier, in the age of long-distance communication, why does this matter?
Given such incitement, it should not surprise us that not only was a patrolman murdered in Tel Aviv this summer, but six Israelis were wounded in a terror attack in Ma'ale Adumim, that nine Israelis were wounded in a car-ramming attack in July or that three Jews were wounded in a terror attack in Tekoa that same month, and the list just goes on.‘Shameful:’ Antisemitic Outrages Continue to Roil Germany, New Government Data Shows
And yet, despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority leadership systematically condones this violence, Palestinian athletes are still going to be competing in the Paris Olympics, as if none of these terror attacks took place and the Palestinian Authority was not inciting violence against a UN member state. This is a complete and utter outrage.
Countries like the Czech Republic ban Russian athletes from partaking in sporting events within their borders. Russian tennis player Vera Zvonareva was barred recently from Poland. In recent years, Russia has been entirely banned from participating in the Olympic Games due to the crimes against humanity that they have committed in Ukraine.
But according to an article published in the Russian media titled "Visa with a trick," this year, the International Olympic Committee is banning Russians from partaking in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris unless they are ideologically opposed to the war in Ukraine, act under a neutral flag, and have nothing to do with the Russian security agencies. In other words, the restrictions against Russians have been lessened, but not eliminated. However, Russian athletes faced these restrictions, even though Putin never glorified terror as badly as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his government have. Yet, the Palestinian Authority still gets to compete as if nothing happened, without any restrictions. This is a sham that should be challenged at every available opportunity.
The number of antisemitic incidents recorded in Germany during the first half of 2023 remained disturbingly consistent with the previous year, with nearly 1,000 outrages reported, according to data released on Wednesday by the Federal Criminal Police Office.Jew-Hate in Germany
A total of 960 cases were reported, compared with 965 over the same period last year. The incidents included 25 acts that involved violence. The majority of the incidents were assigned to the category of “right-wing extremism,” with further incidents labeled as emanating from a “foreign” or “religious” ideology, which usually refers to Islamism.
Many of the incidents involved incitement to hatred and were committed online. In addition, police reported bodily harm, verbal insults and the use of banned symbols such as the Nazi swastika.
Germany’s Jewish community expressed concern at the findings. “We are dealing with a mindset that does not include Jewish life in Germany,” Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of German Jews, said in a statement. “As a society, we have to work against this every day.”
Schuster further remarked that “anyone who believed the conspiracy ideologies would disappear after the [COVID-19] pandemic will now learn otherwise.”
Germany’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, said that the statistics were “shameful.”
“It is important to counter right-wing extremist antisemitism as well as Islamist-motivated hatred of Jews and Israel,” Faeser said.
Faeser called on the police to prosecute offenders, arguing that “antisemitic crimes must have clear consequences for the perpetrators.”
The Arab-Muslim migrants in Germany pose a serious threat to the Jewish Community in Germany, and the Jewish leadership in Germany has acknowledged that. Still, when you have a native German who attempted to kill Jews during services in a Halle Synagogue, there is a problem. Unfortunately, some skinheads and neo-Nazis have been associated with AfD. The left-wing media in Germany, just like its counterpart in the US, would blame every evil manifestation, and virtually all antisemitic acts in Germany on the AfD, or “right-wing extremists.”Europe’s far-left normalizing antisemitism, ADL warns Anti-Defamation League's Jonathan Greenblatt speaks about the case studies researched by his team about the worrying trend of left-wing antisemitism in Europe, and why this should concern Jews around the world.
The Left in Germany for its part, is actually excusing the violence perpetrated by the Muslim migrants, and the Red-Green (Leftist radicals and Muslim radical) alliance is dangerously anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.
Last May, a German court in the north German town of Ploen, acquitted a Thai-German microbiologist named Sucharit Bhakdi of incitement to hatred for comments he made about Jews and Israel. The Court resolved that the comments, including the statement that described Israel as “worse than Nazi Germany,” did not amount to spreading antisemitic hatred toward Jews. He merely criticized the Israeli government and its policies. In a 2021 video published online, Bhakdi said that “the terrible thing about Jews is: they learn well,” and he described Israel as a “living hell.” The Court concluded, however, that it couldn’t determine without reasonable doubt that Bhakdi had been spreading antisemitic hatred. Yet, under the definition of antisemitism established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a slightly edited version of the original European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). The EUMC was subsequently replaced by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), which resolved that antisemitism includes drawing analogies to the Nazis (as Bhakdi did), declaring Israel to be a racist, and thus an illegitimate endeavor, holding it to standards expected of no other democratic state, and holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions.
No amount of German Euros paid in reparations can erase the memory of the most heinous crimes in history, committed during the Holocaust against the Jewish people by the Nazis in the name of the German people.
Although most European countries are guilty of the persecution of Jews through the ages, Germany stands out as the one nation that sought under Hitler to erase an entire people. The German Jews made vast contributions to Germany. A large portion of Germany’s Nobel Prize winners have been Jews. And the Jews were never the enemies of Germany. Still, Germans murdered two-thirds of Europe’s Jews. The fact that antisemitism and Jew hatred is a rising phenomenon in Germany is a badge of shame for its people.
SNP leader Humza Yousaf: 'Jews should tell antisemities to f*** off'
Jews and other people being discriminated against should respond with a firm “f*** you” to the haters, Scotland’s First Minister has said.Campaign Against Antisemitism: David Hirsh | Podcast Against Antisemitism | S4 E15
Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader, insisted people needed the confidence to fight back against bigotry.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Matt Forde, Scotland's first Muslim first minister admitted it was an "uncomfortable message" and "not first ministerial language" but sometimes appropriate.
The Glasgow MSP said: “This is maybe an uncomfortable message for some, but I’ve spent most of my political life being told by mainly middle-aged white Conservatives, both in politics and frankly some in the media, that I’m not smart, I’m out of my depth.
“Essentially saying you don’t belong here in the political realm.
“And, yeah, I hope that any other person, whether it’s your colour, whether it’s your gender, or whether it’s your background, if you get told ‘actually you don’t belong here’, you should, kind of look at me, and say: ‘f*** you’.
“It’s not first ministerial language, but you should say, You know what, I do belong here. Because you very much do.
“This is your country, and whatever field you’re working in you should absolutely have confidence that you’re able to achieve the highest level.”
Yousaf also said that he recognised there was a lot of diversity in Scotland that hadn’t yet made it through to the political ranks, including having a first Jewish member of the Scottish Parliament.
David Hirsh is an expert in antisemitism, the Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and the founder of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He has written extensively about modern antisemitism and anti-Zionism and is responsible for coining the term, the “Livingstone Formulation”.
In this episode, David talks to us about Goldsmiths’ recently-launched antisemitism investigation, how he was smeared as a “far-right white supremacist” by its former Students’ Union President, and why it is vital for universities to adopt the International (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism.
Video contents:
00:00 - Intro
01:30 - David’s book: ‘Contemporary Left Antisemitism’
03:26 - Excluding Jewish university staff
08:12 - Goldsmiths’ antisemitism investigation
28:43 - IHRA and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism
39:44 - The Livingstone Formulation
45:42 - Antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party
49:23 - #ItWasAScam
54:06 - How can people who are not Jewish help tackle antisemitism?
58:16 - Final words
"Itwasascam" is a like the Nazi stab in the back myth.
— David Hirsh (@DavidHirsh) August 9, 2023
It says Corbyn would have won if it hadn't been for people "on our side", or pretending to be, joining "the enemy" from behind the lines.
It is a pledge to be more aggressive next time against traitors crying antisemitism. https://t.co/ca8JywTt8w
Oh, a Jew list workshop with David Miller, Asa Winstanley, and a Khomeinist band. What japes!
— habibi (@habibi_uk) August 9, 2023
Remember, the self-styled Islamic Human Rights Commission is "extremely helpful" and represents "all that's best in Islam". https://t.co/ZF6h4qkGgh pic.twitter.com/qNCNBBhDga
David Miller condemned for 'Jews are not discriminated against' claim
Disgraced academic David Miller has been condemned for claiming that Jews are overrepresented in positions of power and do not face discrimination.Why I'm not surprised at David Miller's latest outburst
The sociologist, who was sacked by the University of Bristol after an investigation found he had breached behavioural standards, made the controversial comments on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He said: “If you are not Jewish, do not be cowed by racial supremacists who want to hector you into political subservience.
“Judeophobia barely exists these days. Educate yourself about Zionism and the tactics used by its adherents.”
He added: “The facts: 1. Jews are not discriminated against.
“2. They are over-represented in Europe, North America and Latin America in positions of cultural, economic and political power.
“3. They are therefore in a position to discriminate against actually marginalised groups.”
Miller has since said he will begin drawing up lists of overrepresented Jews.
"Please could you provide a detailed list with names/positions they hold re. their being members of an over-represented group," a Twitter user asked. "A second column in the list could be for any gentiles involved."
The sociologist responded: "Coming shortly!"
Previously, Miller’s antisemitism had to be deciphered, with explanations noting that his version of anti-Zionism merely acts as a facade for deep-rooted antisemitism.Oops, David Miller forgot to substitute the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’
However, this week’s outburst requires no uncovering. Rather the truth has been laid bare for all to see.
This truth must surely be hitting home for the hundreds of academics who defended the indefensible.
More than 200 academics signed an open letter in support of Miller. Do those academics still support him after this latest outburst? This truth must surely be hitting home for those who shamelessly donate to Miller’s crowdfunding campaign.
And this truth must surely be hitting home for universities across the UK and Ireland, who have continually dismissed Jewish student concerns.
While this naked antisemitism is alarming, it must be caveated with a message of hope and optimism.
It is nearly two years since Bristol’s Jewish students and UJS bravely guaranteed their own future by standing up against this antisemitic hatred on campus.
And having spent the last two months working with Jewish students and student leaders as president of UJS, I have never felt more hope and optimism for the great future we are building together.
When our community is united against our detractors, our future will never be in doubt.
Yet at the time of Miller’s ousting, hundreds of academics from around the UK signed an open letter condemning what they described as “prolonged harassment of a highly-regarded scholar.”
The signatories predictably claimed to “oppose antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism”, before reaching the crux of their ‘argument’ – “We also oppose false allegations and the weaponisation of the positive impulses of anti-racism so as to silence anti-racist debate.”
Even now, the names of those academics remain attached to the online letter on the “Support David Miller” website.
This is despite Miller since becoming a regular contributor to Palestine Declassified, a Press TV show hosted by failed politician Chris Williamson, in which he and others promote conspiracy theories about British Jewish organisations and individuals.
Press TV is controlled by the Iranian regime. Miller also writes for Al-Mayadeen, a Beirut-based pro-Hezbollah media outlet.
And now, of course, we have his latest statements about Jews, where even some of those within our community who often deny examples of antisemitism on the far-left have been forced to conclude that this goes well beyond “anti-Zionism”.
The hundreds of academics working at UK universities who publicly lent their names to support Miller in 2021 now have a decision to make. They can just as publicly make clear that they find his statements loathsome and that they disassociate themselves thoroughly from him. Or they can remain silent, leaving us little choice but to conclude that they continue to hold the same high opinion of him and contempt for his critics.
If they take the latter course, vice chancellors at universities across the country, including Bristol itself (20+ academics in support), Leeds (16), UCL (14), KCL (12) and many others – may want to consider what sort of message that sends to the Jewish community about their institutions.
Even now, as he makes such statements, Miller is planning to take Bristol University to an employment tribunal to try and get his job back. Reportedly his lawyers have described this as a “test case”, where those adjudicating will need to consider whether anti-Zionism is a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act.
It certainly is a test case. Will a deeply disturbing individual be reinstated to a role he never should have had in the first place? Or will common sense prevail? The Jewish community will be watching closely.
Fascinating watching a few regulars who defend every antisemite going suddenly admit this racist professor, is as such, when he switched his usual ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’.
— Rachel Riley MBE 💙 (@RachelRileyRR) August 9, 2023
That’s the point AS campaigners have been making for years. It’s exactly the same old stuff, barely disguised. https://t.co/tSuDXQydyv pic.twitter.com/u6Oglsr6l1
The comments he tweeted earlier he said on the Not The Andrew Marr show in May. They weren't challenged.
— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) August 8, 2023
Miller isn't the only one on the left who holds antisemitic views about Jews, he's just the one who says the quiet part out loud.pic.twitter.com/XXHFE161BO
Dear @OwenJones84, those people include your friends at @NovaraMedia who still have an article defending him live on their website. Maybe take it up with them directly, instead of more PR bullshit in your “all out war”. pic.twitter.com/u0Jb42YXqA
— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) August 9, 2023
In antisemitism discourse around Jamie Foxx’s ‘Jesus’ post, evidence of a ‘culture clash’
In the immediate aftermath of Foxx’s posts, multiple Jewish groups called him out. StopAntisemitism, a watchdog with 72,000 Twitter followers, posted a screenshot of the “Jesus” post and wrote, “Did Kanye hack Jamie Foxx’s Instagram account?” That was a reference to the rapper and fashion mogul formerly known as Kanye West, who went on an antisemitic tirade last year.
After Foxx apologized, StopAntisemitism tweeted, “Words matter. And those with massive audiences on social media have a responsibility to be careful with their content to not incite more hatred than already exists.”
On Saturday, the American Jewish Committee released a statement referencing the initial post and the apology. It praised Foxx’s apology — and conveyed that the “Jesus” post was antisemitic, regardless of his intent.
“The deicide charge, falsely implicating Jews in Jesus’ death, has fueled antisemitic hatred for centuries,” the statement said. “Jamie Foxx did the right thing by apologizing for this statement. It is important for everyone, including Foxx’s millions of followers, to know why his post was harmful.”
The condemnation spread beyond Jewish activists. The actress Jennifer Aniston, who had initially liked Foxx’s first post, wrote on Instagram: “This really makes me sick” and “I do NOT support any form of antisemitism.”
Several Twitter users wrote that what Foxx had initially posted was a phrase understood among many Black Americans to refer to betrayal among friends, rather than to an antisemitic dog whistle. Yvette Nicole Brown, the actor and comedian known for her roles on the TV show “Community” and a range of other shows and films, tweeted that Aniston “owes Jamie an apology.”
“The phrase ‘They killed Jesus, what you think you got coming?’ Has been a phrase in Black churches & homes FOREVER,” Brown tweeted on Monday. “It has ALWAYS been about #FakeFriends. It is NEVER said as a dig against Jewish people. NEVER!”
Last week @iamjamiefoxx made headlines for his post seemingly blaming Jews for killing Jesus. My comment on Jamie Foxx’s apology has almost 700 responses — and sadly the majority of them are not even defending Jamie, but using the events to bash Jewish people and anyone who calls… pic.twitter.com/YWb3LucBNk
— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) August 8, 2023
New version of BINGO just dropped. https://t.co/1N9XvEUoim
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) August 8, 2023
Press Advisory France 24 Fires Dina Abi-Saab, The Second Arabic Reporter Let Go After CAMERA Exposé
A second reporter has been fired from France 24’s Arabic department after media watchdog CAMERA revealed in March that several journalists employed by the state-owned French news network expressed support for terrorism and antisemitism in their Arabic social media accounts.LBC radio talk show host faces Ofcom complaint over ‘Jewland’ remark
During a heated French parliamentary question period on July 18, French MPs Meyer Habib and Caroline Yadan confronted France Médias Monde, the parent company of France 24, with the disturbing findings of CAMERA Arabic’s investigation.
France Médias Monde CEO Marie-Christine Saragosse responded to the parliamentary interrogation by saying that three Arabic-language correspondents — Laila Odeh, Sharif Bibi, and Dina Abi-Saab — were asked to sign the company’s ethics charter.
The ethics charter states that journalists must reject “any incitement to crime, violence, hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, intolerance and stigmatization.”
Odeh and Bibi signed the charter. But Abi-Saab refused to sign, leading to her termination from the company, according to Saragosse’s testimony.
Oddly, Abi-Saab still presents herself as a France 24 employee on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It is France 24’s responsibility to ensure that she removes false employment references from her private social media accounts, according to CAMERA.
Abi-Saab’s refusal to sign the company’s code of ethics suggests she stands by her social media posts that show her celebrating rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population and cheering on war crimes with a “resistance” hashtag.
A graveyard shift talk radio host is facing a complaint to the broadcasting standards watchdog after referring to "Jewland" during a live show and claiming some Jews in the capital lived in “ghettos”.Superficial BBC reporting on alleged Syria strike
Richard Spurr, a presenter on LBC, the London-based talk radio station, made the controversial remark in a discussion with a listener about whether Jews are ‘a race’ .
Ofcom, which maintains standards on commercial radio, is now examining if Spurr, who previously worked on BBC local radio in Nottingham and refers to himself as a radio and television broadcaster, voice artist, food critic and podcaster, broke its rules.
Speaking in April during an exchange with a listener, Spurr asked: “Are Jews a race, would you say?
The listener replied: “I believe so because…” Spurr interjected: “They come from many different countries, don’t they? There’s no such place as ‘Jewland’”.
However, the listener replied: “Well, it’s called Israel.”
Spurr went on: “But Jews historically have lived in many countries and have been almost to an extent nomadic.”
Readers are left to guess for themselves to which “Iran-backed militants” the unidentified writer of this report refers and why “military sites” linked to them are “frequently targeted”.Holocaust scholars in India debate ‘Bawaal,’ controversial new Bollywood movie about couple visiting Auschwitz
It goes on:
“Israel’s military rarely acknowledges specific strikes on targets in Syria, where Iran’s influence has grown in recent years.”
Readers are not told why or in what ways “Iran’s influence has grown” in Syria “in recent years”. Neither are BBC audiences reminded that the regime whose media arm and military are uncritically quoted in this report is to a large extent dependent upon Iran.
The article closes:
“Israel and Iran are bitter foes and in recent years have been engaged in what has been described as a “shadow war” of unclaimed attacks on each other’s assets, infrastructure and nationals.” Predictably, the BBC avoids providing an explanation of why “Israel and Iran are bitter foes”. While any information concerning Iran’s multi-front strategy against Israel is absent from this report, the BBC does however promote false equivalence between Israeli and Iranian actions – even though it knows full well that the latter include the targeting of random Israeli civilians abroad.
To sum up, all BBC audiences found in this report was uncritical amplification of a version of events presented by the Syrian regime, a mention of videos posted on social media, a link to an inadequate previous BBC report on a similar topic and three paragraphs of ‘background’ which in fact do absolutely nothing to enhance audience understanding of the context to this story.
Mehak Burza is the first to admit that the state of Holocaust awareness in India is abysmal.Fortnite Holocaust museum maker receives antisemitic threats
“You will not get a very positive response on this,” she said with a laugh.
Indian schoolchildren are taught next to nothing about the events of the Holocaust, and what does make it to textbooks does not mention Jews, Burza said. Public opinion on Hitler ranges from neutral to positive, with politicians, TV characters, and businesses having adopted his name and dress as aspirational symbols over the past few years.
“They always see the Holocaust as an alien event,” Burza, who teaches English literature at several universities in New Delhi, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
All of that, Burza said, is why — despite some serious reservations — she is pleased with the new Bollywood movie “Bawaal,” which follows a conceited history teacher as he learns about the events of the Holocaust while trying to repair his strained relationship with his wife. The movie, which debuted on Amazon Prime two weeks ago, tracks its protagonists Ajay and Nisha as they visit European World War II sites of note, including the beaches of Normandy, Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, Hitler’s bunker in Berlin and the Auschwitz death camps.
“Bawaal” has been heavily criticized both by people who happened to tune into the movie and also by Jewish groups like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which objects to the characters in the film’s climax imagining themselves as Jewish prisoners of the camp. The film is rife with historical inaccuracies and barely mentions Jews; it also has lines of dialogue that Burza admits are deeply offensive and off-putting. In the most egregious example, one actor playing an Auschwitz survivor tells the protagonists, “Every relationship has its own Auschwitz.”
When Burza heard that line, “I had to pause the movie and go and get a breath of fresh air,” she said. “You’re trivializing Auschwitz with your marriage!”
Yet Burza, who is also the head of Holocaust studies at the Global Center for Religious Research, still thinks “Bawaal” is a positive start to the subject that will encourage many Indians to do further research into the Holocaust.
“Being the first Bollywood movie to take up this issue is very, very challenging, and a very big step for an Indian audience,” she said. “As a Holocaust scholar, I can point out hundreds of mistakes in the movie. But as a first-time audience, I see, OK, it’s a welcome step to those who don’t even know anything at all.
“The only disappointing thing that quite irritated me throughout the movie,” she added with a laugh, “was the pronunciation of ‘Auschwitz.’” (In the movie, the characters make it sound like “office.”)
The video game maker and educator responds to an ad by Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), pointing out the antisemitism he experiencedMan allegedly brandishes machete while driving by Jewish camp funded by Kars4Kids
Video game maker Luc Bernard made a Holocaust museum in the popular video game Fortnite. He was then hounded with “thousands” of anti-Semitic threats.
“I’ve gotten messages saying Hitler should finish the job, for me to kill myself, etc…” Bernard wrote on social media, adding “it’s by the thousands. It’s all out there.”
The video game maker and educator then reached out to Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), saying the original projected was not funded by the organization, thinking a clarification on the matter would help.
He had created a virtual building within Fornite, called the Voices of the Forgotten museum, in which players would be able to see plaques describing the genocide perpetrated against Jews by Nazi Germany, as well as photos of Jewish resistance fighters and heroic individuals who rescued Jews.
"I feel a responsibility to make sure those who died are still remembered," Bernard told Axios.
The independent developer also created a free video gamed titled "The Light in the Darkness", that was set during the Holocaust, and released earlier this year. Physical Holocaust museums are invaluable, but in Bernard’s view, have their limits, telling Axios "it's time to adapt."
The charity Kars4Kids is citing an incident outside its Jewish camp in upstate New York in pressing its case to arm staff.
In the July 23 incident, a man allegedly brandished a machete when approached by a staffer at The Zone, the Orthodox Jewish camp that Kars4Kids operates in Gilboa, New York, through Oorah, its Jewish education charity arm.
Robert O’Malley, a facility manager at The Zone, said he was directing buses out of the camp that morning when a man driving a green Jeep Cherokee wearing a Coast Guard veteran cap began yelling at him to “get the f— off the road,” according to O’Malley’s sworn July 30 statement, which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained.
After O’Malley waved the man over, the man brandished a large knife, according to the statement filed with the Schoharie County Sheriff’s Office. In a photograph attached to the complaint, a man is holding up a machete through the open window of his car.
“The actions of this male made me fearful and scared,” O’Malley said in the complaint. The complaint does not say that the man said anything about the camp or campers’ Jewish identity, which resolved without violence.
The CEO of Oorah and Kars4Kids, Eliohu Mintz, and a camp staff member are challenging New York State’s concealed carry law in court, claiming that its restrictions leave staff and children vulnerable to antisemitic attacks. The law prohibits private citizens from carrying guns in places where religious activities are conducted.
The machete incident “vividly illustrates the very real, imminent and pressing need for staff of the camp to be properly armed,” Wendy Kirwan, Kars4Kids’ communications director, said in an email to JTA.
Pictured: (top) Kessler Ferry, Nicholas Ferry
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 9, 2023
(bottom) Wyatt Fowler, Waylon Fowler pic.twitter.com/dtzzzh3aTl
We are only 8 days into August and the white supremacist group 'Goyim Defense League' (GDL) has targeted the following states with their vile antisemitic flyer campaigns:
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 8, 2023
- Missouri (St. Louis)
- Wisconsin (Waukesha County)
- Indiana (Indianapolis)
- Georgia (Fulton County)
-… pic.twitter.com/nU6qc8hBgk
More from @jeff_tischauser here: https://t.co/Cd4J2C2EKH
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 8, 2023
Israel-based Laminar gets snapped up by Microsoft-backed cybersecurity firm Rubrik
US cybersecurity company Rubrik said it is acquiring Israel-based startup Laminar, a data security platform provider that helps businesses and organizations monitor and protect sensitive data stored in public clouds.The Jewish Hematologist Who Inspired “Indiana Jones”
As part of the deal, Rubrik will turn Laminar into its new cybersecurity research and development center. Rubrik currently operates R&D centers in Bangalore, India and at its headquarters based in Palo Alto, California.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed, but the deal value is estimated at $100 million to $250 million, according to a report by TechCrunch.
Founded in 2020 by Amit Shaked, the CEO, and Oran Avraham, the chief technology officer, Laminar has built a data platform for security and leakage protection for everything stored and run in public cloud accounts.
Shaked and Avraham, who met in high school at the age of 14, both served in Unit 8200, the intelligence corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces, focusing on collecting signal intelligence and code decryption.
Laminar’s platform provides autonomous and continuous data discovery and monitoring across all major public cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google and Snowflake. It includes data visibility tools that scan data, using AI and machine learning, to detect and remediate breaches without interrupting data flow.
George Orwell once lamented the “decline of the English murder.” In his review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Benjamin Weiner similarly laments “a sharp decline in the quality of its Nazis” when compared with its predecssors in the series. The film, like the others, involves a daring archaeologist’s search for a powerful ancient artifact—the sort of plot device that Alfred Hitchcock termed a “MacGuffin.”Jewish Groups Launch Summer Project Highlighting Golda Meir’s Leadership Ahead of ‘Golda’ Film Release
Here [the magical object is] an Archimedean time machine that [is] also a thoroughly secular MacGuffin. Those of the original trilogy—Raiders, Temple of Doom (1984), and Last Crusade (1989)—were supernaturally religious all the way down. Indy, in reverse order, sipped a healing draught from Christ’s Holy Grail, achieved worldly salvation through the ethereal radiance of Shiva’s sacred stones, and withstood the wrathful angels that came writhing out of a violated Ark of the Covenant.
[The producer, George] Lucas, was big enough to admit the Ark made the best MacGuffin, even though it wasn’t his idea. The inspiration came from Philip Kaufman, a comrade in the close-knit circle of now legendary New Hollywood filmmakers that also included Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. Initiated into Ark lore as a child by his Uncle Morrie, “a revered Ḥasid,” Kaufman’s fascination intensified when he was treated for mononucleosis by Raphael Isaacs, a renowned hematologist who had also published a “spellbinding” monograph on the Ark as a sort of mystical ham radio.
When, [in the movie] the Ark was forced open by Indy’s nefarious rival, it poured out the spectral horror of unbridled wrath, which was all the more compelling because its Master was the God of the Hebrews and its trespassers were Nazis. . . . The Nazis of Dial of Destiny, by contrast, are products of the Indiana Jones series’ auto-nostalgia.
Raiders grounded its light entertainment in the living memory of Nazi villainy. It was a cartoon but one with moral and historical ballast. By contrast, the convolutions of Dial of Destiny emerge in a moment when Nazism is becoming just another rootless meme.
A project launched this month aims to teach the public about Israel’s former Prime Minister Golda Meir ahead of the theatrical release of Golda, a dramatic film, starring Oscar winner Helen Mirren in the lead role, that is based on the true story of Meir’s leadership during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.Tiny beating heart created from stem cells is 'game changer' for cardiac patients
The Golda Summer Project (GSP), also called in Hebrew Kayitz Zahav (Summer of Gold), is a collaboration between over 15 leading, US-based, Jewish or Israeli organizations, the Golda Meir House Museum in Denver, The Golda Meir Institute for Leadership in Tel Aviv and Mean Streets Management.
Starting at the beginning of August, information about each organization’s connection to Meir as well as videos and photos was sent to those who sign up for the project once or twice every week leading up to the release of Golda on Aug. 25. GSP hopes to “educate and engage the public about Meir’s connection to the US, and Israel’s history during the 60’s and 70’s, including the Yom Kippur War and the Peace Accords with Egypt.”
“Golda Shabbat Parsha Sheets” will also be sent every Thursday to GSP members that can be printed and then discussed over Shabbat. They will be written by a Jewish community educator, who will tie the weekly Torah portion to Meir and Israel’s history during the 60’s and 70’s.
Israeli scientists have created a minuscule beating heart using stem cells that is smaller than a grain of rice.Record 20,000 expected in Uman for Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage
The tiny heart model, which is around the same size as half a grain of rice, has been hailed as a “game changing” development, marking a “new era in cardiovascular research”.
Unlike previous models, which have been composed solely of heart muscle cells, this version contains all the essential features of a beating heart including ventricles, atria, an outer shell and inner lining, researchers said.
Known as an “organoid” – a self-organised 3D tissue that is typically derived from stem cells – when the heart is connected to a sensor, researchers can track metabolic and electrical activity.
The team, led by Professor Yaakov Nahmias of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and biotech company Tissue Dynamics, said its work has the potential to transform drug testing and cardiovascular research.
Organoids such as this grant scientists a depth of analysis customarily possible only with non-human model organisms, which have their drawbacks.
“If you want to study the heart, you have a huge problem if you’re using animals,” Nahmias told The Times of Israel.
“A lot of things like the channels in the mice hearts are very different from humans and a lot of the drugs and a lot of the diseases simply don’t translate.”
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen arrived in Moldova Monday in preparation for the arrival of a record number of pilgrims to Ukraine's Uman ahead of Rosh Hashanah.120 new French olim arrive in Israel
Cohen's was the first visit by an Israeli foreign minister to Moldova, which became the main entry point for travelers to Uman since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, in over a decade. The site is the burial place of the revered Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.
The foreign minister met with his Moldovan counterpart Nicu Popescu as well as the President of Moldova Maia Sandu, with whom he discussed, among other things, preparations ahead of the arrival of the pilgrims and ensuring a quick and smooth passage into Ukraine.
Cohen was accompanied by Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Minister Meir Porush and MK Eliyahu Revivo (Likud), who are leading the preparations for the Uman festivities in the government and the Knesset.
As many as 71 direct flights are expected to fly from Israel to Moldova, with tens of thousands to cross the border into Ukraine over a period of three days.
The Israeli officials also met with representatives of the Jewish community of Moldova. Porush and the representatives toured the local airport to examine the possibility of increasing capacity and manpower.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials discouraged traveling to Uman due to the ongoing fighting.
Israel welcomed 120 new olim from France on Tuesday. A plane landing with 57 of these olim was met with an emotional reception ceremony attended by Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer, and chairman of the World Zionist Organization Yaakov Hagoel.
The influx primarily consisted of young families, with the average age being 29. Among them were 27 minors, with the youngest being a mere 7-month-old baby and the oldest aged 78.
Interestingly, a notable 18 families chose Yakir, a settlement in Samaria, as their new residence, a community which had already taken in 12 French immigrant families this summer. Other olim dispersed among cities including Jerusalem, Netanya, and Ashkelon.
Minister Sofer praised the olim as “the new pioneers” and emphasized efforts made under the ‘France Program’ to support such immigration. He extended his gratitude towards partners like the Jewish Agency and the Klitat Kehilot Israel (Israel Community Absorption) organization for their unwavering dedication to Jewish aliyah.
🇮🇱 Exciting news from Israel! 🛬✨ 120 new olim from France have found their new home in Israel.
— Zvika Klein צביקה קליין (@ZvikaKlein) August 8, 2023
🏡🇫🇷🇮🇱 The arrival of 57 olim was marked today by a moving ceremony, graced by Aliyah Minister Ofir Sofer and World Zionist Organization's Yaakov Hagoel. 🙌❤️ @Jerusalem_Post pic.twitter.com/8qLHuijkTQ
Nechama Tec, Holocaust survivor whose book inspired the film ‘Defiance,’ dies at 92Israel might be predominantly Jewish, but which other members of society thrive here?
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 8, 2023
Samaritans, Druze, Baha'i, and others. We take a quick look around the country and the significant positions some of these people hold within Israeli society. pic.twitter.com/eIONXqi6pU
Nechama Tec, a Holocaust survivor and historian whose book about a group of Jews in Belarus who successfully defied the Nazis was made into the 2008 film “Defiance, “ died August 3 in New York City, following an illness. She was 92.
Tec, a member of one of only three Jewish families from Lublin, Poland, to survive the Holocaust intact from a prewar population of some 40,000, was for decades on the sociology faculty at the University of Connecticut in Stamford. Her books included “Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust” (2003) and “When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland” (1986).
Prior to the film adaptation of her 1993 book, “Defiance: The Bielski Partisans,” Tec was best known within the academic world and the tight-knit community of American Holocaust survivors.
The film version of “Defiance” was directed by Edward Zwick and starred Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as the Bielski brothers, Tuvia and Zus. Under the brothers’ leadership, Jewish partisans rescued Jews from extermination and fought the German occupiers and their collaborators in what is now western Belarus.
Historians had long known of uprisings at the Auschwitz and Treblinka camps, in addition to the better-known rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto led by Mordecai Anielewicz, but the story of the Bielskis differed fundamentally in that it was successful.
When Tec set out to write a book about the Bielski brothers, she sought to fill in omissions and correct distortions created by their almost-total excision from historical accounts of the Holocaust.
“The omission is the conspicuous silence about Jews who, while themselves threatened by death, were saving others,” Tec wrote in the opening to “Defiance.”
“The distortion is the common description of European Jews as victims who went passively to their death,” she wrote.
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