Thursday, August 31, 2023

08/31 Links Pt2: HRW's Jihad Against Israel; ‘Israel Lobby’ Author Takes Cash from ‘Putin-Approved’ Think Tank; History and revisionism about the Oslo Accords

From Ian:

Rabbi Leo Dee: Our Arab neighbors are being abused by their own governments – they need our help
I have recently been reading Natan Sharansky’s excellent autobiography, “Never Alone,” where he recounts how Communist Russia used demonization of the United States as a technique to justify its abuse of the human rights of its citizens. Because of this experience, Sharansky has been the consistent voice of common sense in peace negotiations with Israel's Arab neighbors, urging that peace cannot be made with nations that abuse the human rights of their own citizens. His logic: the abusive regime will always need an external “enemy” in order to continue its subjugation of its own population – just like the Turpins. And in the case of the Arabs, that enemy is Israel.

There are few nations as abusive to their own citizens as the 12 Arab nations that surround us in the Middle East, including the Hamas regime in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority within our borders. According to Freedom House, the international standard for monitoring human rights, we are surrounded by some of the most abusive nations in the world. Syria, on our northern border, has a human rights score of 1%, the lowest on this planet. And it is terrifying to consider that over half a million people have been massacred there by the government and civil war in the past 10 years.

Iran has a score of 13% with women and gays being persecuted daily while dissidents are rounded up and never seen again. And so, too, for the other Arab countries in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority has a score of 22% and Gaza 11% signaling societies where citizens are not free to protest about their leaders, nor vote in free elections. Israel, meanwhile, scores 77% for human rights. Not the 90% of the US or the 80%+ of the UK, but certainly free and democratic.

We are currently witnessing the ability of the Israeli populace to campaign publicly about the government and we should be proud of that. Out of the 100 million Muslims in our region, the only Muslims who are “free” are Israel’s 2 million Arab citizens.

As Sharansky points out in his book, human rights abuse is not just an internal issue for those unfortunate citizens, but a global threat to peace. The Cold War, that stretched from 1947 until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, almost led the world to nuclear obliteration.

Today, the threat of a nuclear Iran, with its abusive human rights record, is real and imminent. In fact, if one were to consider the current threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of Russia, China and North Korea, one might reconsider allowing nations with no human rights from acquiring technology for “nuclear power."
Bassam Tawil: Human Rights Watch's Jihad Against Israel
[T]he report fails to mention that during this period Israel has faced a massive wave of terrorism sponsored and funded by the Iranian regime and its Palestinian terror proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

One of the cases "investigated" by HRW is that of Mahmoud al-Sadi, 17, reportedly killed by Israeli security forces as he walked to school near the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on November 21, 2022. Notably, the HRW report does not mention why Israeli troops had entered the refugee camp.

The Jenin Battalion terrorists, who are heavily armed, are mostly affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an extremist Islamist organization responsible for countless terrorist attacks that have killed and injured hundreds of Israelis in the past few decades. There is no mention of this militia or its activities in the HRW report. Evidently, HRW does not want to the facts to spoil its effort to slander Israelis by depicting them as child-killers.

While HRW presents al-Sadi as an unarmed teenage boy, Palestinians posted a photo of him carrying a M-16 rifle. Apparently, for HRW such photos, where Palestinian teenagers are featured brandishing weapons and dressed in military outfits, are irrelevant because they do not serve its anti-Israeli propaganda.

Bizarrely, HRW does admit that the remaining three "children" allegedly killed by Israel were involved in terrorist attacks. Yet, as far as HRW is concerned, Israeli soldiers or police have no right to defend themselves when they are attacked with stones, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks. Why? According to the logic of HRW, the perpetrators are "only" teenagers.

Does HRW really expect Israeli soldiers and policemen to ask someone who shoots or throws a Molotov cocktail at them how old they are before firing back to defend themselves?

Instead of denouncing the Palestinians for using children as combatants, HRW is condemning Israel for defending itself against terrorism.
‘Israel Lobby’ Author Takes Cash from ‘Putin-Approved’ Think Tank
The realist scholar John Mearsheimer, best known for his tome The Israel Lobby, has a curious acknowledgment in the preface of his latest book, How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy.

Mearsheimer expresses gratitude to the Valdai Discussion Club for a grant that funded his research. What is the Valdai Discussion Group? The Moscow-based think tank, which has been described as a "Putin-approved" organization, hosts the Russian equivalent of Davos, gathering global elites to hear the latest talking points from the Kremlin.

The Valdai Discussion Club, which says its goal is to "promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elite," is staffed by former Russian state media figures and regularly hosts Russian president Vladimir Putin, as well as other high-ranking government officials. The group was founded by the Russian International Affairs Council, a think tank launched by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mearsheimer is a University of Chicago professor and the co-author of The Israel Lobby, a 2007 book that argues pro-Israel forces in the United States control American foreign policy, to the country's detriment.

Mearsheimer's grant from the Valdai Discussion Club is notable given his contention that one particular foreign government exerts too much influence in the United States. In The Israel Lobby, published in 2007, Mearsheimer argued that pro-Israel forces in the United States control American foreign policy, to the country's detriment. He has since been a mainstay in the anti-Israel advocacy world, even endorsing the work of an alleged "Hitler apologist and Holocaust revisionist."

But Russia appears to be more than just another nation-state for Mearsheimer, a non-resident fellow at the anti-interventionist Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His work blaming the West for Russia's aggression toward Ukraine has been highly influential in the United States. After Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation last year, Mearsheimer's 2014 Foreign Affairs paper, "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault," was widely cited by those who sought to limit U.S. involvement in the war. Updated versions of his argument—that NATO's expansion into Russia's sphere of influence directly caused the invasion—appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Economist, and the New Yorker and were favorably cited in left-leaning publications like Current Affairs, the Nation, and the Atlantic.

Mearsheimer has long enjoyed ties to the Valdai Discussion Club and participated in its annual gatherings that take aim at American leadership across the globe. Mearsheimer, for instance, traveled to Sochi in 2016 to hob-knob with Russian oligarchs at the Discussion Club’s yearly confab, which featured Putin as a speaker that year.

During the conference, Mearsheimer argued that the United States had "foolishly driven Russia in the arms of the Chinese."


The Abraham Accords, three years on
Almost three years have elapsed since the signing of the Abraham Accords on the White House lawn. Everything appeared to be progressing smoothly until last month, when a planned visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to Bahrain was postponed due to “scheduling issues.”

This set off concerns that Israel’s relationship with Manama is unstable. Critics at the time blamed the alleged cooling of relations on Israel’s security policy in Judea and Samaria, conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians in Huwara and incidents like the ascent of government ministers to the Temple Mount.

However, the reality seems to diverge from this narrative. Although no concrete explanation was provided for Cohen’s postponed visit, it is evident that the diplomatic, economic and security ties between the two nations are progressing in a mutually satisfactory manner.

Eitan Na’eh, Israel’s ambassador to Bahrain, told JNS that while there is still opposition to the Accords in the Gulf state, “We are seeing those numbers decreasing.”

Furthermore, opponents of the normalization agreement “tend to raise their voices because of the positive result of the Accords, so we choose to look at it through a positive lens,” he said.

The impact of the Accords is reverberating throughout the region—even in countries which Israel doesn’t currently have relations with, said Na’eh.

“There is a new discourse and narrative regarding Israel, in which some Arab thought leaders and even government officials are talking and writing about how Israel is very much a part of this region and its economic, energy, communication and security architecture,” he said.

Recent headlines about a looming Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement have been accompanied by headlines about the Saudi-Palestinian relationship and the demands and conditions the Palestinians are trying to set regarding any future Saudi deal with Israel.
History and revisionism about the Oslo Accords
There’s a lot of revisionist history about Oslo.

Many people warned from the start that it was a Trojan Horse; Palestinians had no interest in peace and saw negotiations for a state as the first stage towards their goal of liberating all “Palestine.”

Yitzhak Rabin knew the Palestinian agenda as well as anyone. Oslo was a calculated risk. After 26 years of being vilified by the world for controlling the lives of millions of Palestinians, Rabin adopted an incremental approach that had been successful with Egypt. Even after signing the peace treaty with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, there was never any guarantee he would fulfill its terms. He was tested, however, years before Camp David when Israel agreed to disengage from part of the Sinai Desert it captured in 1973. Israelis were reassured by the fact that Egypt kept the peace. In 1977, Sadat broke the psychological barrier that made it difficult for Israelis to believe he was sincere by coming to Jerusalem. People remember him speaking to the Knesset but not the substance of what was an uncompromising speech.

Naively, many people believed PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s recognition of Israel represented a similar breakthrough.

Though a man more knowledgeable about Israeli security than almost any other has been reviled for Oslo, I’ve always contended that Rabin was motivated less by a gullible belief that Arafat was interested in peace than a desire to save Israel from the burden of governing every aspect of Palestinians’ lives. That was coupled with the demographic dilemma of annexation, which would force Israel to choose between denying Palestinians the right to vote and ceasing to be a democracy or absorbing them and changing the Jewish character of the nation. That is why he essentially withdrew unilaterally from territory despite Palestinian violations of the agreements.

The dilemma is the main reason that all the right-wing prime ministers—from Begin to Benjamin Netanyahu—have talked about Greater Israel, and none have annexed the territories. Just two years ago, Netanyahu promised to apply Israeli sovereignty to the communities in Judea and Samaria without annexing the West Bank but reneged to secure the Abraham Accords.

Also, despite their vitriol against concessions, two of those right-wingers ceded more territory.

‘Jewish blood on his hands’
In his otherwise well-researched critique of the Oslo process and what followed, historian Efraim Karsh skipped over Netanyahu’s tenure during that period (Karsh also criticizes Rabin and Ehud Barak for negotiating with Syria and ignores Netanyahu’s talks). After the opposition leader incited opposition to Oslo and vowed never to shake Arafat’s hand, newly elected Prime Minister Netanyahu pledged to respect the terms of the agreement he found so dangerous during his campaign, and, only three months into his term and less than a year after Rabin’s assassination, grasped the hand of the man with “Jewish blood on his hands.” Netanyahu, who spoke at a rally where the crowd chanted “Rabin is a traitor,” now heard some Likud Party activists call him a traitor, prompting him to threaten to fire any cabinet minister who didn’t accept his decision to talk to the Palestinians.

Karsh and other critics ignore that it was Netanyahu who made concessions on the holiest place in the territories: Hebron. Furthermore, Netanyahu complained that the Labor government had given up 27% of Judea and Samaria, but he agreed to cede more territory. At the 1998 Wye River talks, Netanyahu pledged to withdraw from another 13%, and he negotiated even as terrorism continued. He also acknowledged the Palestinians would ultimately control 40% of the West Bank.

Twenty-two years later, Netanyahu would call the Trump peace plan, which would have created a Palestinian state (something Rabin specifically ruled out) in 70% of the West Bank, a “historic breakthrough.”

Critics of Oslo talk approvingly about how 98% of the Palestinians are now governed by their leaders but ignore that without the agreements Israel would still be responsible for all of them.


Howard Jacobson: Some of us look like Einstein, others like Barbie. Go figure
All right — let’s take this Goyjew, Barbenheimer hilarity to its logical conclusion. If, as many maintain, Oppenheimer should have been played by a Jew, then so should Barbie.

Shul for shul there might not be much to choose between them, but Barbie’s origins were more avowedly Jewish, or at least less awkwardly non-Jewish, than Oppenheimer’s.

Put it this way: though pre-war America forced a degree of ethnic scene-shifting on all Jews, Barbie’s progenitors would seem to have taken fewer pains to nudge her Jewishness out of sight than did the Oppenheimers who sent their son to an Ethical Culture Society School whose motto was “Deed before Creed”. For whatever reasons, Barbie’s creator, Barbara Handler, chose not to send her bubbule there.

Should the idea that Barbie was more antecedently Jewish than Oppenheimer strike you as preposterous, that can only be because a) you’re an intellectual snob, and expect every Jew to have gone to Harvard, or b) you’re an antisemite and can’t accept that a Jewish woman might be blonde, blue-eyed, sweet-tempered, narrow-hipped and double-jointed.

If you don’t think the part was tailor-made for Miriam Margolyes, what’s your objection to Tracy-Ann Oberman or Sarah Silverman in a sheitel? And should your taste run to a more ironic and rebarbative Barbie, then Maureen Lipman would be the natural choice. I’d pay double to see that movie.

As for Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose — I don’t see the need for it myself. As long as Bradley Cooper’s circumcised he’s Jew enough for me. Enough with the tomfoolery.

Much as I decry the parochialism of Jewish humour — rubbing the magic lamp someone gave us for our bar mitzvah and falling about laughing when the genie turns out to be Shlomo Finkleburger from Borehamwood in a yarmulka — I am as guilty of it as anyone.

It’s a family thing. A love of close connection, a shared delight in the poetry of our names, a hugger-mugger joy when a word like “bagel” or “bris” opens the secret locker of our faith. But there is another side to this innocent kvelling.

The excessive pleasure it gives us to hear someone outside the family saying something nice about us.

All right, there are places where support is welcome. Let a band none of us have heard of tell Roger Waters and his BDS cronies to jump in the lake and agree to perform for half-an-hour in the Negev and it’s as though we’ve been chosen all over again.


Australian Jewish Association: Settler vs ABC - Michael Lourie, The Only Aussie to Found a 'West Bank Settlement'
The only Aussie to found an 'Israeli Settlement'

Michael Lourie made Aliyah from Australia and founded a community overlooking the Dead Sea in Judea-Samaria or what the left calls the 'occupied West Bank'.

Pnei Kedem, which currently houses 70 families, including a Senior Cabinet Minister, is growing rapidly and was formally approved this year.

Michael was the subject of an ugly anti-Israel hit-piece from Australia's ABC a few weeks ago.


The Caroline Glick Show: Israeli Left Takes Over the BDS Campaign
In her analysis this week, Caroline exposed how the Israeli left, in its effort to unseat the democratically elected Netanyahu government, is now leading the international charge to boycott Israel. She moved then to expose what stands behind the Left's frenzied effort to block the government's decision to form a commission of inquiry led by a retired judge - to investigate the illegal use of counter terror spyware against innocent civilians.


The Caroline Glick Show: After Trump Mugshot, There is No Turning Back
With former President Donald Trump now charged with more than 90 felonies in what looks like a political show trial and with the evidence of massive corruption on the part of President Joe Biden mounting daily, it feels like America’s political system is broken. Have the Democrats pushed so far that all bets are off? Did Donald Trump's mugshot ensure him the GOP Presidential nomination? Can Americans trust their institutions?

Given the centrality of the United States to Israel’s strategic position and the outsized role it plays in the life of the Jewish state, what happens in America matters deeply to Israel.

To discuss the political and social straits the most powerful country in the world finds itself, Caroline’s guest on this week’s Caroline Glick Show as Breitbart News senior editor-at-large, author and popular commentator Joel Pollak.

They discuss - The mounting evidence of Biden family corruption
- Why Trump's mugshot is a turning point for the GOP and US political system
- Comparing the left in Israel to the left in the US


The Israel Guys: THIS Has NOT Been Done On Mt. Ebal in OVER 3,000 YEARS (feat. Aaron Lipkin)
On today’s show, Luke goes to Joshua’s Altar on Mt. Ebal and joins Aaron Lipkin to do something that has not been done in over 3,000 years.

Don’t miss this special episode!


IsraelCast PodCast: Episode 175 - Colonel Richard Kemp CBE
Colonel Richard Kemp is no stranger to conflict. For over 30 years, Colonel Kemp has commanded troops in hostile territory and been at the forefront of the battle against terrorism. Now, Kemp also advocates for Israel, often in places where Jew hatred runs rampant, from college campuses to news outlets. Host Steven Shalowitz sits down with Colonel Kemp to discuss the relationship between the British and Israeli military, his experiences advocating for Israel on college campuses, and where he thinks anti-Israel bias comes from.

Colonel Richard Kemp was a soldier for 30 years, commanding British forces in some of the world’s worst conflict hotspots, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. He was also the head of the international terrorism intelligence team at the British Prime Minister’s Office. Kemp was wounded in a terrorist attack in Northern Ireland, and his name appeared on an Al Qaida kill list found in Syria. Now a media commentator, writer, and public speaker, Kemp frequently defends Israel against lies, bias, and distortions around the world, including at the United Nations.
Taxpayers fund mosques that host hate preachers
The Government has vowed to stop giving taxpayers’ money to mosques that host antisemitic hate preachers after a JC investigation revealed that at least four had received grants totalling millions of pounds.

The largest grant was a £2.2 million award to a Birmingham mosque which has hosted a speaker who has described Jews as “people of envy” who “killed the prophets and the messengers”.

In a viral video, its leading imam was filmed teaching how adulterous women should be stoned to death. The money has now been “paused” pending official inquiries.

Three other Muslim centres with a history of offering pulpits to extremist speakers have also received large sums, the JC can reveal.

Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, which hosted an Egyptian imam who pledged to “liberate” Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem from the “filth of the Jews”, received almost £300,000 from the Labour-controlled Islington Council between 2017 and 2022.

The mosque’s general secretary, Mohammed Kozbar, praised Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the wheelchair-bound founder of Hamas who was killed by Israeli missiles in 2004, as a “martyr” on a visit to Gaza in 2015.

Lewisham Islamic Centre in south London, whose chief imam Shakeel Begg once called on young Muslims to “go to Palestine and fight the Zionists”, was given £540,000 between 2015 and 2020, in what its accounts describe as “local authority grants”.
Not just a collection of anti-Zionist conspiracy theories: ‘Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew’ by Avi Shlaim
This autobiographical narrative by the Israeli-born revisionist historian Avi Shlaim has already caused a lot of controversy. That contention is the result of both his declared anti-Zionist bias, and his provocative theory that Zionist agitation, rather than the combination of institutional and popular racist anti-Semitism, was principally responsible for the sudden exodus of about 110,000 Jews from Iraq during 12 months from June 1950-June 1951:

My advice to potential readers is that, irrespective of your views on those topics, this book is definitely worth reading. Much of the text is a beautifully written account of a very young Shlaim growing up in an upper middle class Jewish family in Baghdad from 1945-1950. And post-the mass Jewish exodus to Israel, the text provides an equally compelling story of the challenges faced by Iraqi Jews in their new country from 1950 till 1966 when Shlaim leaves permanently to study in England.

But his arguments about the causes of the abrupt mass Jewish exodus (what is often considered to be a case study in ethnic cleansing) from Iraq seem to be highly contentious, and based on the most flimsy of evidence. Shlaim, who identifies as an ‘Arab Jew’ whose family shared a non-nationalist ‘common cultural heritage and language’ with Arabs (p.8), argues that Jews were well accepted and tolerated within contemporary Iraq typified by what he frames as dominant manifestations of ‘religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful coexistence and fruitful interaction’ (p.14).

Nevertheless, Shlaim admits (p.21) that Jews were treated as ‘dhimmis’ (i.e. protected, but second class citizens) whose rights were dependent on the goodwill and tolerance of the ruler of the day rather than secure liberal democratic structures. And during the 1930s, Jews experienced overt forms of discrimination in education and employment. He adds that what he calls ‘persecution of the Jews’ (p.154) had become hegemonic by 1950 encompassing all of government, the judiciary and public opinion. This included the judicial murder of the prominent anti-Zionist Jewish businessman Shafiq Ades which ‘stunned the Jewish community’ (p.103), and is now the subject of a full-length book by Israeli historian Adi Schwartz: https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/2022/11/shafiq-ades-the-trial-of-the-iraqi-dreyfus-was-a-turning-point.html

Yet Shlaim oddly blames a combination of Arab nationalism (i.e. the nationalism of the oppressor) and Zionism (i.e. the nationalism of the oppressed minority) post-1948 for the sudden transformation of Jews from protected, if not equal, citizens to exiles. Yet, this argument in my opinion reverses cause and effect, and seems to be implicitly based on blaming the victim assumptions.

It was not Zionism which inspired outbreaks of popular anti-Semitism such as the traumatic farhud or pogrom in 1941 seven years prior to the birth of Israel which killed 180 Jews and injured nearly two thousand:
In List of Arab Grievances, Hating Israel Is Way Down
The "Arab Spring" that began in Tunisia in 2010 accelerated the withering of the Palestinian cause. Hating Israel and Western imperialism is now way down the list of regional grievances.

The Arab intelligentsia, which sustained and drove anti-Zionism since the 1920s, effectively no longer exists.

Anti-Zionism is probably a much more passionate subject on Western campuses than it is in Arab universities - outside of Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan.

Lost causes, which is now what the quest for a Palestinian state most likely is, can have astonishing resonance.

But geography is destiny: Jerusalem simply can't afford to allow militant Palestinians the capacity to launch drones and short-range missiles into Israel.

Palestinian leadership has either egged on, co-opted, or been incapable of stopping radicals.
Princeton Case Shows That When Jews Get Attacked, It Suddenly Becomes “Academic Freedom”
Many defenders of the course, the book and the professor, including President Eisgruber, have thrown on the sheltering cloak of “academic freedom” to justify their refusal to do anything about Larson’s course and Puar’s book. What this defense misses is that what Puar has written, and what Larson is providing to her students is not entitled to the shield of academic freedom because it is not “academic” at all: It is blatantly political.

In addition to the abandonment of truth as a goal, as a source, or as an inspiration, the activity of this professor and the use of this book violates the Internal Revenue Service Code section governing tax-exempt entities such as Princeton. IRS regulations, rephrased and enshrined by Princeton’s own internal rules, make clear that at all tax-exempt non-profit corporations, of which Princeton is one, “Studies which in and of themselves might be bona fide academic research might also be designed for partisan political purposes. The University’s resources cannot be used for such work nor to advance other causes not directly related to the mission of the University, unless it is paid for from non-University funds and at the regular rate plus the standard surcharge applicable to such work.”

Our letter to Princeton’s president noted his “commitment to ensuring academic freedom, including the need to protect members of Princeton’s academic community when they advance ideas that some may find troubling or even wounding.” But as we explained to Mr. Eisgruber, “Larson’s ‘political commitment’ to advancing her own political agenda in the classroom is, quite plainly and by her own proclamation, not academic activity; it is instead ‘pressure’ intentionally placed on her students and others, to further her own political goals and the conferral of status as ‘authoritative’ upon particular people simply by virtue of who they are and not based on their credentials or analysis.”

As we explained to Mr. Eisgruber, “Larson’s ‘political commitment’ to advancing her own political agenda in the classroom is, quite plainly and by her own proclamation, not academic activity.

Even as legal advocates for a people that has been, throughout history, on the receiving end of murder-inducing vitriol, we readily acknowledge the duty to endure and indeed to be open-minded toward unpleasant or painful ideas when advanced in the cause of the search for truth. But no member of the Princeton community has any such duty to submit to tax-exempt Princeton’s funding of attacks on his or her nationality, ethnicity or religious commitments, when such attacks come not in the course of an open-minded search for truth but as part of a frankly and publicly acknowledged ideological campaign.

The use of the book “The Right to Maim” and the signing of Palestine & Praxis make clear that Larson and Puar use the academy as a weapon in a political and ideological and antisemitic battle. That is not an intellectual pursuit. It is not entitled to the shield of academic freedom. It is antithetical to western intellectual freedom, reaching back to the Greeks and the roots of intellectual heritage that brought Princeton University into being, committed as all these traditions are, to the search for truth and not the advancement of ideology.

It is unacceptable that while non-Jewish students get protection from microaggressions, Jewish students don’t merit protection from macroaggressions, especially when those aggressions have nothing to do with academic freedom.
French rapper accused of antisemitism asked to talk at three left-wing political events
A new chapter may have opened in French politics after a rapper accused of antisemitism was invited to talk at three left-wing political events.

Some MPs from the radical-left France Unbowed party said they were “honoured” that Médine Zaouiche, known as Médine, attended their rallies, while others accused critics of the rapper of having a racist narrative.

The invitation to Médine came from France Unbowed and the Greens, and the Communist Party has invited him to its annual festival on September 16.

Médine, who is popular among French youth, has been pictured making the antisemitic “quenelle” gesture made popular by Dieudonné, a former comic.

He is linked to several antisemitic public figures and is reported to have had links with the Muslim Brotherhood. He made headlines when he wanted to sing his album Jihad in the Bataclan concert hall, where terrorists carried out a deadly attack in 2015.

When Rachel Khan, a writer of Jewish descent, attacked him on X/Twitter, saying Médine is like “waste” that needs to be recycled, he replied that Khan was a “ResKHANpé”, mixing the word “survivor” or “rescapée” with the writer’s name.

This was seen by many as an antisemitic comment, because Khan’s mother escaped deportation in the Second World War and her grandfather is a death camp survivor.
Major Media Outlet Regurgitates Vile BDS Lies & Falsely Claims Tel Aviv is Israel’s Capital
After being called out by HonestReporting for publishing blatant propaganda and outright lies on several occasions, it would appear that South Africa’s oldest news site Independent Online (IOL) has still not learned its lesson.

This week, the outlet printed a piece reporting the news that a “pro-Palestinian lobby group, Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions South Africa (BDS)” is urging the Swimming South Africa sporting body to withdraw from the World Junior Swimming Championships in Israel next month.

First, describing BDS South Africa as merely a “pro-Palestinian lobby group” requires considerable mental gymnastics. This is, after all, a group that campaigns for an economic chokehold designed to alienate and eventually dismantle the world’s only Jewish state.

Second, a deeper dive into the article reveals it is nothing more than BDS propaganda masquerading as legitimate news.

The entire piece is actually based on a BDS South Africa press release that was published on its website. There is no indication Swimming South Africa is even considering boycotting the event in Israel, and the group’s attendance is confirmed on its website.

Worryingly, there is no indication that the author of the piece, political journalist Sihle Mavuso, even bothered to contact Swimming South Africa for comment. This is despite the fact that the so-called “right to reply” for subjects mentioned in news pieces is considered an ethical obligation by reputable media organizations.

A quick scan of the press release upon which the article is based also reveals it to be replete with misinformation about Israel that has been sloppily regurgitated by IOL, including its claim that more than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year and repeating the well-worn apartheid libel.

Mavuso, whose X (formerly Twitter) account reveals he holds extreme anti-Israel views, even managed to insert his own little lie into the story.

In the last paragraph, Mavuso refers to how BDS South Africa also pushed for the Orlando Pirates soccer club to pull out of a match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, which he falsely claims is “based in the capital city of the Jewish state.” As our readers will know, denying that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital or downplaying the Jewish connection to the holy city is a common tactic used by BDS supporters.
After six years, GPhC finally admits pharmacist Nazim Ali’s comments at pro-Hizballah rally were antisemitic, but still lets him off with just a warning
Following six years of dogged action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has finally admitted that comments by the pharmacist Nazim Ali were antisemitic, but has still let him off with just a warning.

The GPhC’s Fitness to Practise Committee ruled that Mr Ali’s conduct while leading the pro-Hizballah ‘Al Quds Day’ march in London in 2017 brought his profession into disrepute due to comments made over a public address system that the Committee found to be antisemitic.

Today’s hearing comes after a previous decision by the GPhC to let Mr Ali off with a warning was quashed following action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, which, along with others, took the matter to the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Campaign Against Antisemitism has also brought a private prosecution, launched a judicial review, and submitted the initial complaint to the GPhC, in our efforts to secure justice.

Ultimately those efforts have succeeded today, much as the final sanction is unacceptably weak.

At the hearing in London today, two of the four comments made by Mr Ali at the ‘Al Quds Day’ march in London on 18th June 2017 were found to have been antisemitic, based on how a “reasonable person” would have understood the comments.

The two comments, made before a crowd holding Hizballah flags and placards proclaiming “We are all Hizballah” were: “Any Zionist, any Jew coming into your centre supporting Israel, any Jew coming into your centre who is a Zionist, any Jew coming into your centre who is a member of the Board of Deputies, is not a Rabbi, he is an imposter”; and “They are responsible for the murder of the people in Grenfell. The Zionist supporters of the Tory Party,” referring to the tragic fire in which seventy-two people had perished four days prior to the march. The Committee found that it was “proved” that the comments were antisemitic.


BBC’s Bateman promotes a one-sided view of restrictions on movement
A report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman which appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page on August 25th under the headline “US condemns Israeli minister Ben Gvir’s ‘inflammatory’ Palestinian comments” includes a particularly remarkable example of the use of the ‘Israel says’ formula which is regularly – but often redundantly – employed by BBC journalists:
“Palestinians in the West Bank already endure severe restrictions on the right to movement, including being unable without permits to freely travel to Jerusalem or their ancestral lands inside Israel. The Israeli authorities say this is done for security reasons.”

In order to write that paragraph, Bateman had to erase several factors from the picture he presented to BBC audiences worldwide.

First is the fact that “Palestinians in the West Bank” are not Israeli citizens and therefore do not have “the right” to “freely travel” in that country, including its capital. Secondly, and relatedly, Bateman erases from the picture the Oslo Accord agreements – signed by the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people – which state in Article IX that:
“Entry of persons from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel shall be subject to Israeli laws and procedures regulating entry into Israel, and residents of these areas shall be required to carry the identity card as agreed upon in this Agreement, as well as documentation specified by Israel and notified through the CAC to the Council.

The provisions of this Agreement shall not prejudice Israel’s right, for security and safety considerations, to close the crossing points to Israel and to prohibit or limit the entry into Israel of persons and of vehicles from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

In other words, the PLO agreed to clauses limiting travel from areas under Palestinian control into Israel nearly three decades ago.
Fetterman, Lipstadt visit Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh post-trial
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Deborah Lipstadt, special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, met on Tuesday at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue with survivors of the attack and family members of the 11 Jewish worshippers who were shot and killed during prayer on Oct. 27, 2018.

“It was humbling, powerful and truly filled me with sadness to return to the Tree of Life synagogue this morning with the families of those killed in the tragic, antisemitic attack nearly five years ago,” tweeted the senator. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time and grace.”

Lipstadt wrote, “I heard the horrific details, learned how first responders rushed into the building, knowing a shooter was inside. At the archives, I saw the doors and prayer books with bullet holes.”

“I left Pittsburgh with the words of the founder of Chassidism, Israel ben Eliezer, Baal Shem Tov on my lips: ‘Forgetfulness leads to exile; remembering is the key to redemption,’” she added.

The synagogue’s Rabbi Jeffrey Myers joined the group.

Earlier in August, a Pittsburgh jury agreed unanimously that the shooter, 50-year-old Robert Bowers, should receive the death penalty.


Israeli martial arts champ says there's a 'crazy' rise in antisemitism in US
An Israeli martial artist has said the recent rise of antisemitism in America is "crazy", as he reflected on recent fight against an anti-Jewish troll.

Natan Levy, who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, told news site TMZ.c the amount of abuse he receives online has increased in recent years.

"I always got messages with pictures of Hitler, pictures of the Holocaust," he said.

"Half of them say the Holocaust didn't happen, the other says we need a second Holocaust, so which one is it? The rise [in antisemitism] is crazy."

A string of attacks against kosher restaurants in Los Angeles that took place last week demonstrate the threat faced by American Jews, Levy claimed.

Early on a Saturday morning, five establishments were robbed and had their front windows smashed.

Eran Nitka, who owns one targeted businesses, told Ynet he did not know why his restaurant was targeted, but thought thieves may have known Jews would not be at work on Shabbat.

Speaking to TMZ, Levy added: "This violence online, people allowing themselves to say anything they want because they're behind a computer screen, this actually turns into physical violence in the real world and even not [just] to restaurants but to actual human beings.


Backed by Google and Nvidia, Israel AI startup nabs $155m, soars to $1.4b valuation
Israel’s AI21 Labs, a natural language processing (NLP) startup, as been valued at $1.4 billion after raising $155 million in its latest funding round backed by tech giants that include Alphabet’s Google and Nvidia.

The Series C financing round was led by the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Walden Catalyst, Israeli VC Pitango, Thailand’s SCB10X, European venture firm b2venture, Samsung Next, and AI21’s co-founder Prof. Amnon Shashua, who is also the co-founder of Mobileye (an Intel company).

The current investment values AI21 at $1.4 billion and makes the Tel Aviv-based startup a new Israeli unicorn — a company valued at $1 billion and over — and comes a year after the creator of AI generative text models raised $64 million at a valuation of $664 million.

AI21, which has a vision to bring generative AI to the masses, said it will use the funds to fuel R&D and expand the reach of its AI natural language models to more businesses and developers. To date, the startup has raised a total of $283 million from investors, it said.

NLP is the ability of a computer program to understand human language by speech and by text. With the recent hype over ChatGPT, a so-called large language model that uses deep learning to spit out human-like text, other startups such as AI21 Labs have been quick to come out with competing AI models.
What you didn't read about NYC Mayor Eric Adams's visit to Israel
“The reason you’ve survived layers and layers of difficulties and you’re still here is not because of the soil but because you’re made of good quality. It’s the people, folks!” Mayor Eric Adams poignantly remarked in front of start-ups and venture capitalists in Tel Aviv at the end of his 72-hour trip to Israel last week.

Of course, he’s right. As someone who had the honor of accompanying Adams on his UJA-Federation-sponsored trip, in my capacity as the former highest-ranking Jewish elected official in New York City and as the current CEO of Met Council, the largest Jewish charity fighting poverty in the United States, I can affirm the vital significance of our less-publicized engagements with Israeli businesses, start-ups, and venture capitalists – and what impressed us most: the people of Israel.

Much of the news coverage of Mayor Adams’ trip was understandably focused on his diplomatic overtures, including his meetings with the prime minister, the president, and the mayors of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as well as the mayor’s forceful condemnation at Yad Vashem of antisemitism.

Yet some of the most important meetings the mayor had were related to future investments in Israel, learning about innovative Israeli technology, and promoting trade with New York and the United States during this challenging time.

US-Israel trade while venture capital funds are down
Particularly striking is the alarming data which shows that venture capital funding of Israeli start-ups is down 74% so far this year. While investments in start-ups have dropped globally due to a variety of factors, including rising interest rates, the investment decline in Israel is 50% greater than the rest of the world. This stark disparity is widely attributed to the controversy surrounding proposed judicial reforms.

Mayor Eric Adams and the New York delegation participated in a series of significant meetings that explored these concerns while also focusing on how we can collectively boost Israel’s economy.

From discussions with Israeli start-ups to dialogues with venture capitalists and officials from the Bank of Israel, we explored the multi-dimensional challenges posed by the impending judicial reforms, and listened intently to both proponents and protesters with an eye on the future of Israel’s economic health.
Moms for Liberty summit rescheduled to avoid Rosh Hashanah
Moms for Liberty, a parents-rights group and Orthodox Jewish ally that the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a hate group, announced recently that its third annual Joyful Warrior Summit has been rescheduled to Aug. 28-31, 2024 in Washington, D.C.

“Immediately after announcing the original dates for our 2024 national summit, our Jewish members made us aware that it was also Rosh Hashanah,” Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, the group’s co-founders, told JNS. “We updated the contract and changed the dates.”

Bethany Mandel, a conservative columnist and co-author of the 2023 book Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, told JNS that conservative conferences often get scheduled on Jewish holidays.

“I suspect that hotels and convention centers give deals on days other groups won’t book events,” Mandel said.

But when she saw that the summit was slated for the High Holidays, she notified Justice.

“I joked that they were in fact antisemitic by booking it on a holiday,” Mandel said. “Justice immediately replied in seriousness and said they had already been notified of the error, that they considered it an error, and they would be changing the dates immediately.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' avatar is teaching Israeli students in Hebrew
In a meld of tradition and technology, the teachings of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, one of the paramount Jewish thinkers from Britain, have been brought back to life through an avatar. Nearly three years after his passing, the AMIT network schools have announced an initiative to incorporate his teachings, using the Metaverse platform, popular among today's youth.

Sacks was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, and author. He served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations from 1991 to 2013 and was the spiritual leader of the United Synagogue, the UK's largest synagogue body. He held the title of Av Beit Din (head of the Rabbinic Courts) of the London Beth Din and was the Emeritus Chief Rabbi at his passing.

Elad Bar Shalom, the head of Torat Chaim in the AMIT network, expressed his excitement about this innovative approach. "Incorporating Rabbi Sacks' teachings through the Metaverse is our way of harmonizing age-old wisdom with modern technological advancements," he said. He added, "The Lubavitcher Rebbe once said technology should serve the sacred. This project is a testament to that vision."

As part of the new curriculum, seen by The Jerusalem Post, students will navigate a virtual realm using their avatars, immersing themselves in Sacks' teachings. Guided by a virtual representation of Sacks himself as a Hebrew speaking avatar, they will receive lessons, guidance, and tasks. This digital embodiment of Rabbi Sacks was made possible through a partnership with Inpris, a start-up company. Sack's avatar speaks fluent Hebrew, though with a slight British accent.

Bar Shalom further noted the significance of this initiative, stating, "Rabbi Sacks addressed timeless questions about Jewish identity and our mission. Through this platform, we hope students can deeply connect with these teachings in an engaging, modern context."


Frank Bright, one of the last Jewish Holocaust survivors remaining in Britain, dies aged 94
Frank Bright MBE, one of the last Jewish Holocaust survivors remaining in Britain, has died aged 94.

Born Frank Brichta in Berlin in 1928, Bright was just four years old when the Nazis came to power in Germany.

In an interview with the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), he recalled seeing mocking antisemitic cartoons on street corners and signs banning Jews from entering shops and cafes, images which held fast in his mind despite his young age.

For their safety, Bright’s parents moved their small family to Prague in 1938, a city quickly filling with German and Austrian refugees, as Bright observed.

Any peace the family might’ve experienced in Prague was swiftly ended by Czechoslovakia’s secession of the Sudetenland to Germany. Most of the six Jewish families in the flats where Bright’s family lived perished by 1942.

He recalled hearing the Gestapo knocking on doors during home-to-home searches, and the terror he felt at that ominous sound.

Though Bright was still able to have a bar mitzvah, he called the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia then as ‘one of fear, prohibition, and rules.’

In 1943, Bright’s family was transported to Theresienstadt ghetto in a locked train compartment.

There, Bright lived in the boys’ quarters and worked in the vegetable garden outside the ghetto, then later worked in the metal workshop.

Though he could not go to school, he was tutored in mathematics by a teacher in the ghetto.

“Every 2-3 days, transports took 1500-2000 people to Auschwitz, leaving the ghetto half empty,” he recalled to the AJR.

On Bright’s final birthday at the ghetto, he found a sweet that his father had hidden him as a treat. Soon after, his father ‘disappeared’, and Bright never saw him again.

In October 1944, he and his mother were transported to Auschwitz. When they arrived, his mother was directed to the left, and Bright to the right. She died in the gas chamber that day, and Bright was left wondering ‘which of the flames was my mother’.

Bright, meanwhile, was sent in a cattle truck to a factory on the outskirts of the Sudetenland region. There, his mathematics skills were used in the calculations required to construct aeroplane propellers.

Bright recalled that the mathematics teacher from the ghetto had, in a very real sense, saved his life.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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