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Monday, August 14, 2023

08/14 Links Pt2: The Jews in Defiance of History; Obama’s Calculated Tolerance of Black Anti-Semitism; Antisemitism Still Haunts the European Left

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Not Everything Is Tisha B’Av
It is with this in mind that we must approach the reaction of many when the Knesset, three days before Tisha B’Av, approved limitations on the Israeli Supreme Court. The Times of Israel immediately presented us with the remarkable headline: “Judicial overhaul opponents see parallel to Tisha B’Av, saddest day in Hebrew year.” Indeed, comparisons to the destruction of the Temple abounded. A meme with the words shisha b’av, “the sixth of Av,” was circulated on the Internet, with the comparison to Tisha B’Av being made even by prominent Israeli writers. Some Israelis announced that though they did not usually fast on the Ninth of Av, they would do so this year to mourn what the Knesset had wrought.

I do not wish to discuss the merits or flaws of the government proposal. Rather I want to make one point only: One cannot compare the tragedies of the Jewish past to a democratic vote by the Israeli Knesset, however mistaken one might believe that vote to be. To make this comparison is to recommit the sin of the spies and their audience among the Hebrews, and to repeat the error of our ancestors in the desert millennia ago. Sharing a meme with the words shisha b’av dangerously demonizes a vast part of the Israeli electorate by comparing voters to the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem. And one can react only with horror to the statement by a Jew that a vote by the Knesset is more worthy of mourning than the deaths of Jews throughout history.

In arguing that the memories of Tisha B’Av obligated him to protect the physical well-being of the Jewish state, what Begin was also implying was that in the story of Israel, some—though not all—of what the Romans had wrought had been undone by the rise of the State of Israel and the miracles that followed. The Temple is not yet rebuilt, and hatred of the Jews still festers, but a rebuilt, united Jerusalem stands under Jewish sovereignty. If those who suffered in the events marked on the Ninth of Av would have been shown images of our own age—a united Jerusalem featuring a Jewish government, a Judean desert in bloom, and Jewish homes rebuilt throughout the Holy Land—they would have rejoiced at this vindication of Jewish yearnings. And if they would have been told that during all this, the parliament of the Jewish state would then vote to limit the ability of a Supreme Court to pronounce administrative decisions as “unreasonable,” their awe would not be diminished by an iota, no matter the flaws or virtues of this vote.

And so it must be stressed—though as I type these words, I still cannot believe that it must be stressed—that however much one might disagree with the Israeli coalition’s agenda, it is not Tisha B’Av. It is not the Holocaust. It is not the destruction of the Temple. It is not the expulsion from England, or Spain. It is not the auto-da-fé. It is not the massacres of the Crusades. To argue otherwise is to desecrate the memory of the martyred and the murdered, the exiled and the expelled, those who died with faith in the future of Jerusalem on their lips, and who would react with wonder at the miracles of our age.
Obama’s Calculated Tolerance of Black Anti-Semitism
I believe Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s account; she has nothing to gain by such a story, while the calculating Obama, determined to leave her because he was sure that as a white woman, she would be a political liability as his wife, made sure in his own memoir, Dreams of My Father, to leave out the Cokely episode, including his failure to condemn Cokely for his charge that “Jewish doctors” were deliberately committing “genocide” on “black babies.” This variant on the medieval blood libel about Jews killing Christian children so as to use their blood in making matzos, was a charge so explosive that it could well have resulted in murderous attacks by credulous African-Americans on Jewish doctors. When Sheila Miyoshi tried to convince Obama to denounce Cokely, he refused. He had decided that if he condemned Cokely, he would lose more support among black antisemites than he would gain in Jewish support. Clearly, Obama did not share the anguish of Jews at such charges, an updated version of the medieval blood libels. He was perfectly willing to pass over in silence Cokely’s disgusting and absurd charge of “genocide” by “Jewish doctors” of “black babies.” Sheila Miyoshi was appalled at Obama’s indecent political calculus, and told David Garrow so; that, she said, was her reason for the breakup. Obama, ever the calculating arriviste, determined to rise high, felt no need to reassure Jews that he stood with them. Instead, his silence about Steve Cokely’s charge suggested he had no interest in condemning even the worst antisemitic charges if to do so might hurt him with a black electorate that was also predominantly antisemitic.

Obama’s betrayal of a longstanding American commitment to veto all anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council, when instead of a veto he had Samantha Power abstain from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where a half-million Israelis lived, to constitute a violation of international law, was bad. An American veto would have killed the resolution. With the Americans not vetoing it, UNSC 2334 passed by a vote of 14-0. But Obama had done worse than that, when as a thrusting young Chicago politician he refused to do the right thing; he never denounced Steve Cokely for his extreme antisemitism, reflected in his charge that “Jewish doctors” practiced “genocide” on “black babies.” Obama’s tolerance of the worst kind of antisemitism was then, and remains, a form of antisemitism.
Antisemitism Still Haunts the European Left
Why the double standard? Why identify and condemn antisemitism from the right but not from within the left’s own ranks?

A large part of the answer sheds light upon a problem for the left not just in France, but in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom—the other countries covered by the ADL report—as well. In essence, antisemitism is not seen as a pernicious ideology targeting Jews as the root of the world’s ills, but rather as an instrument to be deployed in political conflicts. If antisemitism comes from a source that you would have no truck with anyway—in this case, an organization that believes fervently that Catholic doctrine should lie at the foundations of law and public policy—then there is no hesitation in condemning it, particularly when, as was true with the Civitas episode, there is no mention of Zionism or the State of Israel. But if antisemitism comes from an ally, like Corbyn, then you are duty-bound to deny it and dismiss it as a smear. In such an environment, any analytical consistency and certainly any attempt to point out the glaring overlap between far-left and extreme-right antisemitic tropes—dual loyalty, financial clout, disproportionate political and cultural influence—becomes impossible.

While the ADL report highlights the differences between the four countries under the microscope, there are also some key commonalities. “In all four countries, the two dominant findings were that antisemitism was used in anti-Israel contexts and in anti-capitalist contexts,” it observed. “In anti-Israel contexts, antisemitic themes included (1) accusations that Jewish cabals control politics and media and prevent either criticism of Israel or support for Palestine; (2) Holocaust trivialization as a means of arguing that Palestinians are no less victims today than Jews were during the Holocaust; (3) equating Israel with the Nazi regime, thus demonizing Israel; (4) accusations of antisemitism are in bad faith and employed to silence criticism of Israel. In anti-capitalist contexts, antisemitic themes included (1) Jewish control of financial markets; (2) Jewish obsession with money; and (3) Jewish exploitation of workers.”

The point, however, is that large swathes of the European left are either incapable of recognizing these themes as antisemitic, or they believe that the upsurge in hatred against Jews is solely a result of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. “They have learnt nothing from what happened to them in Europe. Nothing,” ranted Tariq Ali, a British far-left leader, at an anti-Israel rally in May 2021. “Every time they bomb Gaza, every time they attack Jerusalem—that is what creates antisemitism. Stop the occupation, stop the bombing and casual antisemitism will soon disappear.”

Ali did not spell out the lesson that he believes the Jews should have learned from the Nazi era, but the implication of his words is that they are receiving their just desserts for dispossessing the Palestinians. And that their choice now is to either give in—and thereby suddenly and miraculously banish antisemitism from public discourse, or to carry on fighting and accept antisemitism as an inevitable consequence. Until this mode of thinking is banished from the left, Jews will have little reason to trust its representatives, even on those occasions when they do condemn antisemitism.


The Jews in Defiance of History
My grandmother’s lacking Jewish background is not attributable only to her parents having been briefly duped into dreams of a new dawn for humanity. Soviet Communism had done everything in its power to quash Jews’ connection to Judaism. It waged war on the Jewish soul consistently and resolutely.

This was not merely a byproduct of life in a totalitarian society. Morgenthau saw the Soviet war on religion, and Judaism in particular, as fundamental to the regime’s claim on power. When a regime sees its power as stemming from itself, he argues, it cannot live in peace with God. By extension, the regime cannot live in peace with His people on earth, the Jews. It is the very existence of the Jews as Jews that constantly reminds the Communists that this is God’s world and not theirs. “Judaism, in particular, presents a challenge to any totalitarian regime, for the prophetic tradition of Judaism has made its business, since the times of the prophets of the Old Testament, to subject the rulers of Israel to the moral stands of the other world,” Morgenthau told Congress. “A regime for which truth is a mere by-produce of its own power cannot fail to recognize in this Judaic claim an element of subversion.”

Just as history had required the arrest and execution of hundreds of thousands of men and women in 1937–38, it demanded the Jewish people’s spiritual destruction. Seen in this light, how could anyone expect Soviet Jewry to survive such an onslaught?

But survive they did. Not only in name, but in many thousands of instances, in much more than that. My grandmother, despite lifelong protestations that Soviet education had made it impossible for her to be religious, was clearly deeply connected to the God of the Jews. She read the weekly Torah portion, attended Shabbat meals without fail for decades, and fasted on Yom Kippur. For three decades, and until the end of her life, one of her dearest possessions was a dollar bill from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. Considering the arc of her life, this is nothing short of miraculous.

The Rebbe was a Jewish leader with deep insight into the Soviet Jewish condition. He was born and raised in what became the USSR, witnessed the October Revolution, and participated in both his father and father-in-law’s defiant work to preserve Judaism in the land of the Soviets. His father-in-law and predecessor as Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, had been released from Soviet imprisonment. But his father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, was not, and he died in remote exile in 1944. Following his own 1927 departure from the USSR, the Rebbe never forgot about Soviet Jewry, championing their plight abroad while directing a network of underground activists within.

When speaking about Soviet Jewry, he’d often quote a Midrash on the Exodus, the redemption of the Jewish people that seeded all future redemptions. “Rav Huna said in the name of Bar Kappara,” the Midrash goes, “Israel was redeemed from Egypt … because they did not change their names: they went down as Reuven and Shimon, and they returned as Reuven and Shimon.”

During their long Egyptian enslavement, the Jews had given up on Jewish life and practice. They’d forgotten about God Himself—did they have a choice? But they’d retained their Jewish names. A person’s name is a reflection of their essential being, what’s left when all externalities have ceased to exist. The Kabbalah teaches that the essence of the soul, called yechidah, is the spark within each Jew that is a literal part of God. It connects each individual to God and establishes the Jewish people as an eternal holy nation. This spark is above time and space and incapable of being disconnected from God. Want to summon it? Just as you would revive a fainting victim by calling their name, call it by its name. At its core, this is the stripped-down title “Jew.”

“The Jews in Russia haven’t had a moment of tranquility in all matters of Jewish life and practice, for more than 60 years” the Rebbe remarked painfully in 1983. “And nevertheless, ‘they went down as Reuven and Shimon,’ and ‘they will return as Reuven and Shimon.’ You can see it. I receive information from there [regularly], sometimes photographs—it’s Reuven and Shimon!”

How did they do this? With a Jewish song, a memory, a sigh. Some might not even know what a Torah scroll is, the Rebbe observed on another occasion, “but this they know: Their grandmother told them that they’re Jewish.”

Towards the very end of her life, my grandmother suddenly remembered her mother showing her and her younger brother how she could write the Alef-Beis. Russian, like most languages, goes left-to-right, but this one was strange. “See?” her mother told them. “I can write from right-to-left.”

Olga Levenson passed away on Lag BaOmer of 2021 at age 96 and was buried in a Jewish cemetery in Boston. While her father’s remains lie in the forests of Kommunarka outside of Moscow, his true memorial can be found on his daughter’s gravestone. It reads, in Hebrew: “In memory of Shlomo Zalman the son of Avraham … May God avenge his blood. Murdered in the days of terror in Russia, 21 Sivan, 5698.”

More than a century after Solomon Levenson was named Shlomo Zalman at his bris, despite the horror, persecution, and erasure of the Communist epoch, he was once again recalled by his Jewish name, an eternal memory for a son of the eternal nation. Reuven and Shimon had indeed returned.
Act Against The Antisemitic Slanderers And Definitely Those In Power
The list of antisemitic slander goes well beyond members of Congress and college campuses.

The United Nations has declared that any Jew living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines – lines specifically negotiated between Israel and Jordan to not be construed as a border – do so illegally, even in the Old City of Jerusalem, which even the U.N. had conceived of as an international city for everyone to live in under the 1947 Partition Plan.

That same global body and much of the world have said that Jews cannot pray at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount, with some validating their reasoning by falsely stating that Jews never had a temple at the location.
United Nations map which falsely shows the Temple Mount as only a holy place for Muslims

Politicians around the world claim that the Jewish State is practicing ethnic cleansing in the holy land, even though the number of non-Jews in the region has grown faster than Jews since Israel’s creation. The anti-Zionists shout that Israel is an apartheid state, even though it is the most liberal democratic country for 1,000 miles in any direction.

Jews are discriminated against on college campuses, denied internships and scholarships because they are Sabbath observant or viewed as too White to be a minority. They have to hide their kippahs and signs of being Jewish lest they get berated by professors and fellow students with false charges of being homophobic, insular and enjoy seeing Arab babies killed for fun.

Some Jews have opted to say nothing in response to the hail of lies. Cowering behind the recognition that most people listen to idiots and cannot be swayed, they hope for the moment of hatred to pass and do not confront the slander in fear of fanning the flames.

As discussed in “Organized and Disorganized Antisemitism“, hiding is not the appropriate response. Organizations and platforms like the United Nations, Democratic Socialists of America and Nation of Islam should be fought, boycotted and sued as aggressively as possible to remove their power and influence. Conversely, individuals should be swarmed and educated to get to know and appreciate Jews around the world.

The Jewish prophets warn us to not let antisemitic slander pass without confrontation. Today, that includes calling our members of congress and chancellors of universities to stop advancing Jew hatred, suing colleges which discriminate, and registering as Democrats and voting in the Democratic primary to kick antisemitic DSA members out of Congress.
More than just victims How the media whitewash Palestinian responsibility for the conflict
One of the major elements of anti-Israel media bias isn’t actually about Israel at all. It concerns the media’s coverage of Palestinians – or, more precisely, its failure to devote real coverage to Palestinian affairs, including the irresponsible and often destructive decisions by Palestinians and their leadership that serve as impediments to peace. The media’s narrow framing of Palestinians as merely victims denies news consumers vital insight into the “root cause” of the conflict.

Last week, our co-editor Adam Levick gave a talk on this extremely problematic dynamic, which you can watch in full here:




German Climate Change Activist Group Splits Over Holocaust Trivialization
A sharp internal split has emerged among a group of radical climate change activists in Germany concerning the links between some of its members with a prominent environmentalist accused of trivializing the Holocaust.

The row within the “Last Generation” group, which is active in Italy and Austria as well as Germany, centers on comments made by Roger Hallam, the British co-founder of the “Extinction Rebellion” (ER) group that staged a number of high profile environmental protests before announcing a shift away from its direct action tactics earlier this year.

In a 2019 interview with the news outlet Die Zeit, Hallam diminished the significance of the Nazi Holocaust, describing it as “just another fuckery in human history.”

“The fact of the matter is, millions of people have been killed in vicious circumstances on a regular basis throughout history,” he said.

He then compared global warming with the gas chambers operated by the Nazis at several concentration camp for the purpose of exterminating Jewish and other prisoners. Climate change was the “pipe through which gas flows into the gas chamber,” Hallam argued. “It’s just the mechanism by which one generation kills another.”

Hallam’s comments resulted in the German branch of ER severing ties with him as they condemned his “belittling and relativizing statements about the Holocaust.” However, Hallam continues to exercise influence over many German climate change activists, including leaders of “Last Generation” such as Lars Werner, Melanie Guttman and Lea Bonassera, the news outlet Bild reported.
Guardian promotes the Squad's anti-Zionist agenda
As we noted on these pages, last year McGreal insidiously accused Jeffries, the first Black person to lead a major political party in Congress, of being on “the wrong side of history” due to his strong support for Israel.

McGreal then devotes three paragraphs to the aforementioned Justice Democrats, three to the leader of Americans for Peace Now, two to J Street (an advocacy organization that focuses on criticism of Israel), and one to B’tselem (an organisation that effective opposes Israel’s right to exist). In contrast, the only pro-Israel organisation mentioned is the ostensible subject of the article, AIPAC, and they were only allotted one truncated sentence defending the Congressional delegation.

McGreal fails to challenge any of the groups’ charges, including comments by the president of Americans for Peace Now vilifying AIPAC for spending large sums of money to defeat “progressive” candidates, when Jeffries himself is an AIPAC-supported progressive Democrat, having been a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus.

The Guardian reporter also writes that members of Congress and the Justice Democrats are merely “critical of Israeli policies”, when several support BDS and some, such as Rashida Tlaib, even reject the right of Israel to exist – which is defined as antisemitic by the IHRA Working Definition.

McGreal’s broader argument in the article, that AIPAC doesn’t represent the views of most Americans, is an assertion contradicted by decades of polling consistently showing overwhelming support for Israel.


As much wishcasting that McGreal engages in an effort to paint AIPAC’s pro-Israel position as extreme, and to suggest an erosion of American support for Israel, the fact remains that its the fringe group of Corbyn-style, anti-Zionist members of US Congress who are the political outliers on the issue.
The Guardian Covers For Anti-Israel ‘Squad’ Members in Conspiratorial Piece About AIPAC
Of course, there is nothing “pro-Israel” about a group like J Street which has, among other activities, promoted political candidates who support the BDS campaign and once gave the honor of speaking at its national conference to none other than octogenarian Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

McGreal also provides cover for the so-called “Squad,” which he mutedly states is “critical of Israeli policies.”

Yet, Squad heavyweights like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have done a whole lot more than merely criticize Israeli policies. Rather, each of them has, at some point or another, called for the destruction of the Jewish state.

For example, in 2019 Ocasio-Cortez and Omar sponsored a bill defending the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which seeks to entirely dismantle the Israeli state, while Tlaib is on record advocating for a single Palestinian state to replace Israel.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that McGreal or editors at The Guardian even approached AIPAC for comment, which given the critical tone of the story, should be standard practice.

Indeed, this is the second story in the space of a few weeks where McGreal has demonstrated that his priority is giving a platform to fringe anti-Israel organizations and personalities in an attempt to pass them off as mainstream.

As far back as 2006, McGreal promoted the Israeli apartheid libel in The Guardian. Sadly, it is becoming clear that he is using his latest posting in the United States to continue his anti-Israel campaign from afar.

And, alas, it’s The Guardian on Israel — it’s what we’ve come to expect.
Majority of Jewish Australian students hide identity at universities
Sixty-four percent of Australian Jewish university students reported experiencing antisemitism during their academic journey, according to a new survey that was published on Monday.

One out of every five students has actively avoided campus to escape bigotry, while more than half have felt the distressing need to hide their Jewish identity, the survey said.

The survey, representing the experiences of roughly one out of every 14 Australian Jewish university students, was conducted by the Zionist Federation of Australia and backed by the Australian Union of Jewish Students and the World Zionist Organization.

“It is unconscionable that such a large fraction of Australia’s Jewish university students have felt the need to hide their identity,” Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said, adding that he had pressed the Australian government for an immediate response and suggested the formation of “a working group to critically assess and determine the measures universities, as well as state and federal governments, should undertake in response to this unsettling situation.”

Australian Union of Jewish Students president Alissa Foster said: “The data corroborates what I witness on a day-to-day basis. Our universities have glaringly failed Jewish students, making many feel the need to conceal their identity.”

Survey finds reluctance among Jews to report antisemitic incidents
“This startling data will prompt decision-makers to introspect and act, ensuring that Jewish students receive the recognition, voice, and representation they deserve,” she said.

The survey highlighted a reluctance among Jewish students to report antisemitic incidents due to skepticism about universities’ responsiveness. Many indicated that having a concrete definition of antisemitism would encourage them to voice their concerns.
CUNY profs allege retaliation for criticizing anti-Israel exhibit
A pair of pro-Israel Borough of Manhattan Community College professors are under investigation by the school — for daring to publicly criticize its pro-Palestinian programming.

Assistant mathematics professor Avraham Goldstein and a colleague, who requested anonymity, spoke out over events organized by the school’s Social Justice and Equity Centers, which hosted a lecture in March that discussed “the structure of apartheid” in Israel and an exhibit featuring a display ripping it for “settler colonialism, military occupation, land theft, and ethnic cleansing.”

BMCC, which is part of the City University of New York system, apologized for the display, but last month, its Office of Compliance and Diversity told the professors they were being investigated for speaking to the press over the school’s March events.

“It is evident to me that this investigation against us is a retaliation by CUNY Administration for our activity — for us publicly complaining about the antisemitic events on BMCC campus, and for our complaints against those responsible for these events,” said Goldstein

The school said its probe stemmed from complaints by Nadia Saleh, the Social Justice and Equity Centers’ then-multicultural center program coordinator, according to letters sent to the professors, copies of which were obtained by The Post.

In her complaints, Saleh accused the professors of harassing her by contributing to the news coverage of the March controversy, where outlets published false information based on her ethnicity and religion.

Saleh said she was additionally harassed by Goldstein over his sharing those articles on social media.


New York Times Finds $32 Billion in Israel High-Tech Investment Not Fit to Print
If there’s a single consistently emphasized theme of the New York Times coverage of judicial reform in Israel, it’s been that the effort may devastate the Israeli high-technology economy.

“Netanyahu’s Judicial Coup Could Destroy His Start-Up Nation,” was the headline over a February 14, 2023, Thomas Friedman column. “As a general rule, investors don’t like investing in countries roiled with protests and chaos. And that is why some have started pressing the pause button,” Friedman wrote.

In case any Times readers missed the point, the Times followed up with a February 23, 2023, news article, headlined “Tech Leaders in Israel Wonder if It’s Time to Leave.” The article itself pressed the claim beyond just wondering, declaring, “The luminaries of Start-Up Nation, as Israel has been known for decades, are eyeing the exits. Several have already announced that they are relocating or moving money out of the country…” The Times reported that people “are reappraising what it means to operate here and deciding that if the government retools the judiciary, it is time to leave.”

Catastrophe-predicting context about this is a consistent staple of Times incremental ongoing coverage of protests and parliamentary action related to the judicial reform. The proposal “prompted… business leaders to scale back their investments,” the Times reported June 14. “Hundreds of high-tech industry leaders said they’re considering moving their businesses abroad,” the Times reported in a July 26 update from Jerusalem.

Doubtless plenty of Tel Aviv venture capitalists (and plenty of other people, too) indeed do find noxious elements of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition, its judicial reform proposals, and the way Netanyahu has advanced the plans. Honest journalism, though, involves leveling with readers about facts that don’t neatly match a narrative. By that standard, on this topic, the Times has flunked, by failing to inform readers of some significant developments.

The Times imposed a blackout on June’s news that chipmaker Intel will invest $25 billion in Israel. To find out about the Intel investment, Times readers would have to read the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, or Bloomberg, all of which reported the news. The Times found it not fit to print.
Hamas and PA statements at odds with BBC framing
In our latest overview of BBC News website coverage of Israel and the Palestinians we noted that among the news from areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas which the corporation ignored during July were demonstrations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Additional protests planned for the following week were disrupted by Hamas security forces.

“Protests were scheduled to take place once again throughout the strip on Monday. However, Hamas came prepared to thwart them.

“In all the locations where we announced that gatherings would take place, there was a heavy presence of civilian and military security, and police cars everywhere,” a source inside Gaza told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

“Whenever two people were walking together, they were forbidden to stop on the street, after not even a minute [security forces] would go up to them and tell them ‘get out of here or we will take you with us,’” he said.

But on social media, at least, it appears that the protest movement is maintaining its momentum.”

Those developments likewise did not receive any BBC coverage.

As reported by the Jerusalem Post and others, the background to those protests includes the cost of living and shortage of electricity.

‘“We are protesting against poverty and unemployment,” said Salah Naim, a political activist from Khan Yunis. “The entire people took to the streets because they are fed up with the situation. We are angry not only against Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority as well.”’

Over six years have passed since BBC audiences last saw an accurate explanation of the reasons behind the chronic power shortages in the Gaza Strip. The BBC’s default ‘explanation’ for that and other issues negatively affecting the territory’s civilian population is of course the counter-terrorism measures imposed by Israel (and Egypt) following the violent Hamas coup in 2007 and the subsequent rise in terror attacks from the territory. As recently as July 19th, BBC News website audiences were told that:
“…the blockade has crippled Gaza’s economy and living conditions are dire. Human rights groups say it constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of international humanitarian law.”
Holocaust Puns, Nazi Jokes and Lots of Blaming ‘The Jews’: Welcome to TheJournal.ie Reader Comments
With more than 750,000 readers and almost the same number of Twitter followers, TheJournal.ie is one of Ireland’s leading news organizations.

The online publication has taken a notably hostile editorial stance toward Israel over the years — so much so that it has caught the attention of HonestReporting on a handful of occasions.

In 2019, for example, we questioned why the outlet had published the first-person account of a Breaking the Silence activist who was accused of fabricating testimony that he had beaten a Palestinian man while serving as a soldier in the Israeli army. This after a number of IDF soldiers and commanders had publicly disputed his account.

And it appears that TheJournal.ie’s anti-Israel slant is reflected by its readers, who leave hundreds of comments on Israel-related stories, including many that cross the line into outright antisemitism.

Hosted by the website on pieces going back several years are numerous comments from readers that conspiratorially suggest it was a Jew who perpetrated terror attacks carried out by Palestinians; make light of the Holocaust, and compare the Jewish state to Nazi Germany.

Several replies were posted to stories that suggest the Israeli government is treating Palestinians in a “similar way” as Jews during Nazi Germany, a clear breach of the internationally recognized IHRA working definition of antisemitism.

Another comment on a piece about a terror attack on innocent Israeli civilians disputed the labeling of Palestinian terrorists as “militants,” justifying the atrocity on the grounds that Palestinian assailants are “resistance fighters” because Israel has “no right to be in the West Bank.”
Lights, Camera, Anti-Zionism: Pop Tingz’s Biased Celebrity News Pop Tingz Questions Israel’s Right to Exist
While Pop Tingz’s use of the terms “Zionism” and “Zionist” to denigrate Jewish and Israeli celebrities is more subtle, its questioning of Israel’s very existence is much more blatant.

In December 2021, Israel hosted the 70th Miss Universe Competition in the southern resort town of Eilat. Unlike the disputed territories (such as the West Bank and Gaza), Eilat has been an Israeli city since the end of the War of Independence.

However, this didn’t stop Pop Tingz from advertising the competition as taking part in “Occupied Palestine.”

Similarly, in May 2023, the British singer Sam Smith cancelled their Israeli concert, reportedly due to unforeseen logistical difficulties. Even though the concert was set for Tel Aviv and not the West Bank, Pop Tingz wrote in its post announcing the cancellation that the performance was scheduled to take place on “occupied lands.”

Likewise, in its panning of the inclusion of the Sabra character in the Marvel universe series of movies, Pop Tingz claimed that Sabra is “a term used to refer to Jews born in the occupied territories.” Even though “Sabra” connotes a Jewish person born anywhere in Israel, Pop Tingz’s use of “occupied territories” clearly indicates that it considers all of Israel to be “occupied.”

Occupation, Human Rights & Israel: Pop Tingz’s View of Israel
The most flagrant instance of Pop Tingz’s anti-Israel bias took place in July 2022.

In response to a question on Twitter about artists being pressured into not performing in Tel Aviv, Pop Tingz responded with an array of libelous claims about the Jewish state, including that it violates human rights “out in the open,” that it kills “in the most brutal ways daily” and that it is “very anti-LGBTQ+.”


Like Oil and Water: Pop Culture & Radical Politics
As a popular source for celebrity news, Pop Tingz has a large (and growing) audience interested in all things pop culture.

When Pop Tingz injects its political bias into its entertainment reporting, it is subtly introducing an anti-Israel narrative and talking points to an unsuspecting audience.

The more the audience is exposed to such extreme views as “Zionism” being a dirty word or calling into question Israel’s existence, the more this narrative becomes legitimized in the public sphere.

While Pop Tingz is free to share its views, no matter how extreme, it’s probably best that it stick to sharing the latest glamor shots and celebrity gossip instead of infecting the public discourse with lies, distortions and falsehoods.


Dani Dayan: Remembering the Treblinka rebellion
The survivors—courageous individuals who bore witness to unimaginable horrors—are living bridges to the past, connecting us directly to the darkest chapter in Jewish and human history. However, as the years go by, we are preparing for the day when there will be no survivors left to share their firsthand accounts of the Shoah.

Survivor testimonies and decades of meticulous documentation and research have laid bare the horrifying truth of the Holocaust. Attempts to deny or trivialize these unparalleled crimes of antisemitic hatred—whether state-sanctioned or by malicious individuals—are an affront to the memory of the victims and survivors. Holocaust denial and distortion must be firmly rejected. We can and must counter falsehoods with evidence and irrefutable historical records. This responsibility of remembrance falls not on Jews but on all of humanity.

As we commemorate the Holocaust, we must confront challenging questions with sincerity and transparency. How can we present the most accurate account of what transpired? How can we avoid diminishing the centrality of Jewish Holocaust remembrance? How can we engage the younger generation in this legacy without compromising the accuracy and complexity of history?

The 80th anniversary of the Treblinka rebellion serves as a poignant reminder of our collective duty to honor the memory of those who suffered. Through educational initiatives, remembrance events and the preservation of historical records, we can keep the flame of remembrance alive even in a world without survivors. By empowering the younger generation with knowledge of the Holocaust, we equip them with the tools to become stewards of remembrance and advocates for tolerance and understanding.

Now is the time to redouble our efforts to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust endures and serves as a perpetual reminder of the consequences of antisemitism, hatred and bigotry.

As we gathered in Treblinka, surrounded by the silence of the fields and forests, I heard the voices of the hundreds of thousands of victims murdered there calling out from the ground. Let us remember and pledge to preserve their legacy for all time.


Asian nation buys Israel's anti-tank Spike missiles in $30 million deal
Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has announced that it has been awarded a new contract with an Asian nation to provide comprehensive maintenance support services for operational systems employed by its navy.

The multi-year agreement is worth an estimated NIS 100 million ($30 million dollars) and will include maintenance services for the navy's TYPHOON and MINI-TYPHOON remotely-controlled naval weapon stations, Naval SPIKE ER and NLOS missile systems, EO surveillance systems, as well as EW Integrated Decoy Systems (IDS). Poland purchasing missiles through Refael industry partner

In addition, the Polish Defense Ministry, through its Armament Authority, announced that it is purchasing hundreds of SPIKE LR Missiles through Rafael's local industrial partner, MESKO, in a deal worth around $100 million.

As Rafael's local Polish industrial partner, MESKO has already manufactured SPIKE Missiles for the Polish MOD, and this will be the third such deal involving the SPIKE Missile Family. MESKO and RAFAEL have collaborated in working with the Polish market since 2003, allowing for the sale of completely Poland-made missiles to be provided for the Polish user. The robust local manufacturing capabilities have provided the Polish MOD with over 3,000 SPIKE missiles that are entirely Polish-made.

Spike missiles are innovative and precise electro-optical missiles, which can be launched from about 45 platforms on land, at sea and in the air. 41 countries around the world use the Spike missiles, of which 21 are EU countries and NATO alliance countries.
Egyptian teachers visited British mandate Palestine in 1926
Exploding the myth that Arabs have always been hostile to Zionism, Zac Rothbart in Times of Israel (reprinted from The Librarians) recounts how 100 Egyptian teachers visited Palestine at the invitation of Chaim Weizmann in 1926 and were warmly welcomed by the Yishuv. But they received a cooler reception from Palestinian Arabs.

“Long live King Fuad! Long live Palestine!”

The cries rang out in the spring air of Tel Aviv, as the chief rabbi and Zionist dignitaries looked on. The gathering concluded with both the Egyptian national anthem and “Hatikvah.”

It marked the beginning of a whirlwind 1926 Zionist tour of British Mandate Palestine, on which more than 100 Egyptian educators and officials visited Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, and elsewhere.

The group had been personally invited by Chaim Weizmann, the legendary scientist and leader of the Zionist movement who would become the State of Israel’s first president. Just a few weeks earlier, Weizmann had joined a delegation of Jewish teachers visiting Egypt under the auspices of the Zionist Executive, with the support of the Egyptian consul in Palestine and the Egyptian government, which had interceded to issue entrance visas for the group of about 80. The visitors from the Land of Israel had been warmly welcomed by local Jewish organizations, as well as Egyptian officials, provided with accommodations, celebratory banquets, kosher food, discounted rail fares and programming during their stay – including visits to schools, museums and even Al Azhar University, the prestigious center for Islamic learning founded in the 10th century.




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