Tuesday, December 12, 2023

12/12 Links Pt2: Holding Jewish History Hostage; The Irony of Iron Dome; Palestinian flags flutter from the fallen cities of Eurabia; Anti-Semitism Goes to School

From Ian:

Walter Russell Mead: Hamas' Oct. 7 Attack Made Israel Stronger
Israel is more united, its citizens are more determined to fight for their state, and Jews around the world have renewed their commitment to the Zionist cause. That's my conclusion after a week in Israel.

Israeli military experts, including critics of the government, think the war is going reasonably well. Casualties are significant, and there is hard slogging ahead, but Israel is on course to inflict defeat on the deranged and misguided Hamas movement. Arab leaders appreciate as never before the value of a strong Israel to their own security and prosperity. Iran and its proxies have a vote in what happens next. But for now, Israel has rallied from the shock of Oct. 7 and is on track to re-establish deterrence.

In perhaps the greatest instance of Jew-haters shooting themselves in the foot, in the aftermath of Israel's War of Independence, Middle Eastern mobs and governments forced 850,000 Jews to flee to Israel. Those immigrants and their descendants feel no guilt for Palestinian dispossession and are skeptical of Arab intentions. They are a plurality of Israeli Jews today, and without them Israel could never have grown into the powerful state it is.

For Israel, bad Palestinian strategy is the gift that keeps on giving. Over the decades, the constant threat of Palestinian resistance movements led Israelis to develop the first-class defense and technology capabilities that make it an indispensable partner for countries all over the world.

The unspeakable barbarity of the Hamas attacks has again united and strengthened Israel while accomplishing nothing for the Palestinian people. The Jew-haters who overshadowed more peaceful and responsible demonstrators across U.S. streets and campuses have deeply damaged the Palestinian cause with centrist opinion. Such displays remind Americans that anti-Jewish bigotry and the ignorance it fosters threaten the foundations of American life.
Seth Mandel: Holding Jewish History Hostage
One of the double standards to which Israel is routinely subjected is that it is forced to defend its right to exist, not merely its existence. As part of this insult, Israel’s story is confiscated from it. Israel is not Israel; in times of peace it is apartheid South Africa and in times of war it is the German state under the direction of the Nazis.

Israel is currently at war, so the latter canard is having its time in the sun. One reason that Western writers and journalists and academics falsely accuse Israel of Nazi tactics is that doing so represents the ultimate universalizing of the Holocaust. People who don’t like Israel believe that Israel only exists because of the Holocaust; therefore, if the Holocaust didn’t really “exist” in the way we are made to understand it, Israel is null and void.

The campaign to universalize Jewish suffering is relentless, and it is made stronger by the fact that Holocaust museums and education centers tend to enable this behavior out of a misguided belief that their moral authority depends on their relevance. That relevance is guaranteed by the presence of a Holocaust happening somewhere. And if that Holocaust-like event is happening to the Jews, well that’s superfluous to the mission, isn’t it? This helps explain the current silence of Holocaust museums and education centers in the wake of the brutal Hamas assault that has as its nearest historical parallel the Nazi atrocities.

What happens when a network of Holocaust centers bucks the trend and actually insists on getting the story right? That is the fascinating case of Germany, which is coming under fire for not universalizing Jewish suffering.

In the New Yorker, Masha Gessen rejects Berlin’s culture of Holocaust memorializing. At first, Gessen says, “It was exhilarating to watch memory culture take shape. Here was a country, or at least a city, that was doing what most cultures cannot: looking at its own crimes, its own worst self. But, at some point, the effort began to feel static, glassed in, as though it were an effort not only to remember history but also to insure that only this particular history is remembered—and only in this way.”
Berlin finds Abbas’s 2022 Holocaust remarks incite hatred, but can’t pursue charges
Berlin prosecutors said Monday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s comments on the Holocaust during a visit last year amounted to inciting racial hatred, but they won’t pursue a criminal case due to his diplomatic immunity — even though Germany does not recognize the Palestinian Authority as a state.

Police in Berlin launched a probe “on suspicion of inciting hatred” in August 2022 on the basis of two complaints accusing Abbas of “relativizing the Holocaust” during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The Berlin prosecutor’s office said in a statement it had reached the conclusion that “Abbas had committed the crime of inciting racial hatred” but enjoyed “immunity so that there is an obstacle to him being tried.”

At the press conference with Scholz last year, Abbas accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians since 1947.

Scholz did not immediately challenge Abbas on his comments but, following widespread criticism, tweeted the next day that he was “disgusted by the outrageous remarks” made by the Palestinian leader.
Maura Moynihan: Cowardly City College, which refuses to denounce antisemitism, should take my dad’s name off its Moynihan Center
My mother, Liz Moynihan, passed away Nov. 7 in Manhattan, aged 94.

Fittingly, it was Election Day — Liz was campaign manager for her husband Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s four New York Senate campaigns, winning landslide victories on shoestring budgets.

After her husband’s death in 2003, Liz settled in New York City, where she championed the completion of Moynihan Train Hall and our city’s museums, performing arts and higher education.

When Moynihan served as US ambassador to the United Nations, Liz was seated in the visitor’s gallery during the Nov. 10, 1975, passage of the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution.

“A great evil has been loosed upon the world,” Moynihan declared after he strode to the lectern.

“The abomination of antisemitism,” he continued, “has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the 6 million European Jews.”

And he warned: “The terrible lie told here today will have terrible consequences.”

Moynihan was prophetic indeed: 48 years hence, New York synagogues and delis are smeared with Nazi slogans, Hanukkah celebrations are canceled, Jewish citizens are beaten and threatened daily.

Before her death, Liz watched these events in horror; she had many friends in Israel and deep ties to New York’s Jewish community.

She was especially shocked and repulsed by teachers and students at our once-prestigious universities hoisting signs that read “Gas the Jews,” “Hitler Was Right” and “Zionism Is Racism.”

This pernicious antisemitism is deeply entrenched in our taxpayer-funded state universities.


The Irony of Iron Dome
It's hard to keep up your guard. The price of security is eternal vigilance and eternal vigilance is hard for humans to maintain. We get complacent. We get overconfident. This is especially true when technology is involved. Think the Titanic, Chernobyl, the Maginot Line. Nothing is foolproof, but we start to believe that foolproof strategies exist.

On Oct. 7, Israel's intelligence failure was a combination of overconfidence in the incredibly technologically-sophisticated wall they had built on the Gaza border and an underestimation of Hamas' capabilities and desire to do harm. The misreading of the risks is always made worse with the passage of time and the lack of any evidence that bad things can happen. Human beings get lulled into a false sense of security.

We trust the technology and assume it can protect us. We forget that all technology can fail even with backup systems. We also forget that even with superb technology there is often a human element in using it that makes it much more vulnerable to failure. So when Israeli observers at the Gazan border intercepted Hamas radio transmissions discussing the plan for the Oct. 7 attack, senior officers dismissed them as "aspirational."

In dealing with security risk, the more effective the warning system or the safeguards, the more dangerous the situation becomes as the human side of the equation starts to underestimate the risk. Every day that Hamas did nothing more than launch a few rockets into Israel convinced the Israeli security apparatus that this was all they were capable of.

Iron Dome is amazing. It intercepts 90% of the rockets at risk of landing in an inhabited area. But this remarkable technology has lulled us into complacency. Every once in a while, Hamas launched rockets into Israel in an act of bravado that accomplished very little other than forcing Israel to incur the financial costs of keeping Iron Dome stocked with counter-rockets. The effectiveness of Iron Dome convinced us that Hamas was incapable of doing serious harm. We were wrong.
The Slow Methodical Cleansing of the Shijaiyah Neighborhood
I used to visit the Shijaiyah neighborhood frequently until the security services decided in 2007 that allowing Israeli journalists into Gaza was no longer safe. It's no longer a residential neighborhood; it's a town in ruins. The residents no longer have homes to return to.

Shijaiyah in December 2023 resembles scenes from World War II action movies: an abandoned town turned into a battlefield, with infantry forces and armored vehicles navigating between the ruined buildings, trying to locate the dangerous enemy hiding among the hundreds of structures, especially underneath the rubble.

Kfir Brigade soldiers have been managing a determined and tenacious four-day battle against an enemy who avoids facing them directly but primarily aims to harm them. In four days alone, the soldiers discovered 30 tunnel entrances, indicating the extent of activity beneath Shijaiyah.

When we meet the soldiers, what stands out is the stark contrast between the atmosphere of vulnerability in the rear, where the threat to life is much lower, and the motivation and sense of duty prevailing on the frontlines, where constant combat is the backdrop.

The IDF's combat is conducted in the orderly, systematic, and organized manner of a successful and focused military operation. The soldiers clear house after house, street after street, alley after alley, to cleanse the neighborhood of Hamas - backed by a comprehensive system of artillery, air force, and intelligence.

The terrorists did not abandon the battle or flee, as in other places; instead, they are conducting guerrilla warfare. They peek out from the tunnels from time to time, attempting to cause as many casualties as possible on the Israeli side. In the end, every encounter between the soldiers and Hamas terrorists ends decisively. The IDF is winning, but it takes time.
IDF Responds to Claims of Use of White Phosphorus
The Washington Post reported that remnants of white phosphorus bombs were found in a village in the area of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon in October.

In response, Israel's military said: "The IDF only uses legal military equipment. The main smoke grenades used by the IDF don't contain white phosphorus."

"Similar to many Western armies, the IDF also possesses smoke grenades containing white phosphorus, which are legal according to international law, and the choice to use them is influenced by operational considerations and availability compared to alternatives."

"The IDF's existing regulations require that smoke grenades containing white phosphorus not be used in urban areas, except in certain unique cases. These limitations align with international law and even impose stricter regulations."

"Israel has been under continuous attacks from Hizbullah and other terrorist groups in Lebanon over the past two months. The IDF is protecting Israeli citizens from these attacks."
How IDF Uses White Phosphorus to Reveal Hizbullah's Secret Bases
Despite the Washington Post report on Monday quoting human rights groups that Israel used U.S.-made white phosphorus bombs to attack villages in southern Lebanon, the use by the IDF was in unpopulated areas where military targets were found.

U.S. National Security Advisor John Kirby said the use of the weapons was not a violation of international accords if they did not target non-combatant civilians.

According to the third Geneva Convention, phosphorus bombs and shells can be used as a means of lighting or as a smoke screen but not against humans.

In south Lebanon, unpopulated areas are often used to house Hizbullah facilities and frontline bases for their Radwan force which could be used to attack Israel.

Hizbullah hides mortar and anti-tank missile launchers in those bases, which are covered by thick vegetation that prevents intelligence surveillance from the air, and has dug bunkers to protect from IDF artillery fire.

They are an immediate threat to the border region, making them a target of Israeli efforts aimed at revealing them.

By using phosphorus bombs, the IDF hopes to ignite the vegetation covering the bases and create a smoke screen that would prevent the Hizbullah force from firing anti-tank missiles at IDF soldiers and positions and Israeli civilians near the border.


Anti-Semitism Goes to School
For the moment, most of the American public seems solidly free of the anti-Semitism that infects American universities. According to the most recent Gallup poll, seven in ten Americans view Israel favorably, up substantially from the 47% that viewed it favorably in 1991 around the time of the first Gulf war. The basic truth is that Israel and the U.S., unlovingly paired by their Islamist enemies as the Little Satan and the Big Satan, are prime targets of the same antagonists.

How does intolerance for a Jewish state thrive in the very institutions that advertise their tolerance for threatened minorities? On what grounds do American universities, considered liberal to a fault, assail the only liberal democracy in the Middle East? The boycotters wrap themselves in the mantle of free speech only to silence those who stand for the kind of genuine individual and human rights that flourish in Israel. On the merits, Arab and Muslim students could never have persuaded their American peers to sympathize with repressive regimes and homegrown terrorists; blaming the Jews was the key that unlocked the door.

What a relief to have Israel on hand to represent the world's worst criminal: occupier, racist, exploiter, warmonger, aggressor-in-chief extraordinaire! Were it not for Israel, one might actually have to worry about Iran, or jihadist beheadings, or the hundreds of thousands of casualties created in Syria, or the atrocity of mass female enslavement in Africa, about all of which scarcely a tear has been shed or a nickel raised.
Arab Enslavement and Slaughter of Black Africans Must Stop
The Oct. 7 massacre which killed at least 1,200 Jews in Israel is being compared to the mass murders of the Holocaust. But, unlike the Nazis, who hid their crimes and perfected impersonal and mechanized slaughter, Hamas jihadists affixed GoPro cameras to their helmets so they could broadcast themselves exulting in their gory murder of Jewish families, some of whom they decapitated and burned alive.

For those in the Christian world who know about the decadeslong mass slaughter and enslavement of Black Christians in Sudan, which they call the “hidden Holocaust,” the scenes out of Israel were shockingly familiar. As part of a self-declared jihad which lasted from 1983 to 2005, northern Sudanese Arabs sought to subjugate and enslave the Black Sudanese of the mostly Christian south. The onslaught cost the lives of perhaps 2.5 million Black Sudanese, and the freedom of an estimated 200,000 more. The Arab Muslim government’s jihad utilized kidnapping as its terror weapon of choice, not to mention casual gang rape and mutilation.

One little known but highly detailed report of an Arab Muslim pogrom against Black tribesmen and Christians in Africa during that period shows how eerily similar the anti-Black African jihad raids are to Hamas’ pogrom against Jews. According to the report, just after dawn on March 28, 1987, Arabs from the Rizeigat tribe set upon their Black neighbors in the town of El-Daein, storming their village with axes, gasoline, guns, knives, spears, sticks, and swords, looking to murder people who sought whatever shelter they could. The night before, the raiders had attacked Black members of the Dinka tribe at the local church. Many of the hunted took refuge near the local police station.

The next day, government officials and police organized a train to evacuate the Dinka people north, but, like many Israeli safe rooms, the train station and the police barracks became death traps. In Israel, Hamas burned Jewish homes to force people out of rocket shelters so they could be slaughtered; in Sudan, the terrorists set fire to the train cars and the police station, and then shot, stabbed, and beat to death those who tried to escape. And as Hamas terrorists did in southern Israel, Rizeigat Arabs grabbed and kidnapped their victims’ children, even toddlers; one Arab, according to the report, stabbed a Dinka woman, stole her money, and snatched her 4-month-old baby.
Jew hatred, a prized feature of the anti-racist left
Among the loudest voices attacking not just Israel, but Jews here at home, are often adherents to the anti-racism movement, which is proving itself to be an utter fraud. They use any justification to dismiss worries over antisemitism. One prominent commentator complained that the Calgary menorah lighting raffled off Israel bonds: “Why are they raffling Israel bonds there? Direct financial support for Israel, as children are killed by their bombs in Gaza?” they posted on X.

They were not “war bonds,” and, as columnist Jen Gerson pointed out, these bonds had been raffled out in years past. But, sure, pin the deaths of children on a minority publicly celebrating a holiday half a world away. How very inclusive.

One Edmonton lawyer moaned that those raising concerns about anti-Jewish bigotry are cherry picking which racial issues they side with. They “only weaponize these issues in certain contexts,” he argued.

But the issues the left obsesses over are not the same thing as the antisemitic hate others are objecting to.

While racism and discrimination certainly exist in Canada, the anti-racist left is constantly on the hunt for invisible forms of discrimination — often so invisible only they can see them — in order to cudgel or label everyone a “racist,” or to describe concepts like merit and the written word as products of “white supremacy.”

Such arguments are not intended to draw attention to the way someone might behave in a discriminatory way without knowing it, rather, they are used to admonish and equate everyday people with the worst kinds of racists.

In contrast, those drawing attention to the growing tide of Jew hatred are not engaging in pointless debates about whether math needs to be decolonized or whether the use of “whiteboards” in universities is illustrative of too much “whiteness.” They are pointing to objective and concrete forms of discrimination and abuse. Like firebombing a synagogue or vandalizing an Indigo bookstore because the CEO is Jewish. Or openly calling for the genocide of Jews when chanting “from the river to the sea.”

In fact, because the anti-racist left — dominated of course by white liberals — is so obsessed with the notion of classifying everyone as either oppressor or oppressed, with Jews on the oppressor side, antisemitism is certainly not a bug. It is their most prized feature.
College Presidents Are Lying About Free Speech
Pushback against antisemitic mobs at U.S. universities is often countered with cries of “It’s free speech!” But the sudden converts to the cause of free speech, like the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT, who testified before Congress last week about not being able to define calls for genocide of Jews as actionable due to First Amendment concerns, are not engaging in good-faith debate. Having been part of several free speech-focused campus organizations at UC Berkeley, I know the law is clear: The right to free speech does not extend to threats and inciting violence. Harassment, death threats, and exclusion based on religion are not permitted in educational settings as a civil rights issue. Title IX and Title IV protect the rights of students to participate in campus activities without fear of aggression or harassment.

The discussion around free speech by campus presidents is misleading because the issue is not the law itself. Rather, college administrators have been weaponizing the First Amendment when it suits them, and blatantly disregarding it when it doesn’t. When the Proud Boys were threatening to have a presence during a protest recently, Berkeley brought the FBI to campus, just in case. For the pro-Palestine protesters too busy to do their coursework, we are being asked to use our “discretion to administer grace and flexibility” for grading so that they don’t fail their classes.

The rule of law requires that laws are enforced equally against all, so that we are not governed by the whims of the powerful but by a shared set of norms and rules that apply equally. Unfortunately, in the self-governing world of academic institutions, the rule of law is easily abandoned by like-minded ideologues working together to bring about what they call “social change,” which apparently requires that one group’s idea of the good must monopolize the entire space and mission of the university.

The technique these activists use has become a familiar one: Concepts cloaked in aspirational language such as “inclusion and belonging” are applied only to a few selected groups, while being denied to others, such as Jews, but also biological women, moderates, and conservatives. It is sobering to see that after more than $25 million has been invested in such initiatives at Berkeley annually we have created campuses that are in fact less welcoming and less inclusive than they were 10 years ago.

In positions of power, the administrators who run our new temples of conformity do not hesitate to use their positions to advance their own views and force them upon others. This sorry state of affairs reflects a short-sighted kind of moral selfishness. The selective enforcement of rules based on viewpoints is a kind of intellectual nepotism that destroys the possibilities for the very discussion and debate that were supposed to form the core of a university education. The principle of fairness has been lost. Instead, one side is clearly preferred.
Seth Mandel: Fixing Universities’ Anti-Semitism Problem Isn’t Rocket Science
The scandal of the college presidents’ testimony last week has devolved into an ouroboros of hypocrisy, a never-ending cycle of bad-faith excuses for bad-faith behavior. Institutions that are uniquely hostile to free speech claimed they can’t punish calls for the mass murder of Jews because those calls are free speech. Schools under fire for accepting foreign money from countries that share their beneficiaries’ hostility to American values are resisting demands for reform by insisting that “outside forces” should not be calling the shots.

Look, I genuinely wish these universities were capable of accepting taxpayer money and knowing what to do with it. But that clearly isn’t the case. Luckily for the overwhelmed administrators of America’s elite institutions of higher learning, the changes they need to make aren’t top secret. Here are a few examples.

Let’s start with the one everyone saw coming: ending or severely constraining DEI. Ending, if you’re in a red state and can simply implement the obvious solution; constraining, if you’re in a blue environment and are in the uncomfortable position of admitting that much of academia’s anti-Semitism comes from your brainchild or your life’s work.

When I wrote about DEI in June, I included a note from a Texas report on anti-Semitism in academia that was prepared for the state legislature. It included the following point: “None of the respondents believed that ‘hiring more DEI officials’ would have a positive impact on the campus climate for Jewish students.”

You must choose between DEI and fighting anti-Semitism. You cannot have both.

That will be awkward for embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay, who mishandled her testimony before Congress and then mishandled the mishandling of her testimony by offering a late and meaningless apology in which she referenced “my truth.” We cannot expect moral leadership from someone who doesn’t believe in the concept of objective truth.

This is especially true of Gay. According to a 2020 memo revealed yesterday, when Gay, then a dean, was a candidate for the school presidency, she outlined a plan to expand DEI across campus, administratively and academically. Gay’s fitness to remain president of Harvard is less about an idiotic 30-second soundbite and more about her single-minded focus on increasing the sources of institutional anti-Semitism.

But there will be great resistance even to freezing DEI bureaucracies in place across higher education. Yesterday, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents rejected, 9-8, a deal reached between the university system and the state legislature. The crux of the compromise was this: “Under the deal released Friday, the system would freeze hiring for diversity positions through the end of 2026 and shift at least 43 diversity positions to focus on ‘student success.’ The system also would eliminate any statements supporting diversity on student applications.… In exchange, lawmakers would release money to fund the pay raise for UW employees. They also would release about $200 million UW-Madison officials say they need to build a new engineering building on campus.”
Antisemitism on elite campuses like UPenn threatens America’s democratic future

Palestinian flags flutter from the fallen cities of Eurabia

From Vegas to Jerusalem: Global Violence Continues with Silence

GOP Faction Teams Up With ‘Squad’ and Anti-Israel Groups To Dismantle U.S. Spy Authorizations
House Republicans seeking to dismantle America’s spy authorizations are touting endorsements from members of the ‘Squad’ and far-left, anti-Semitic activist groups like CodePink and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), according to an internal email being circulated on Capitol Hill.

The House is expected on Tuesday to consider legislation by Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) that would overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a tool used by America’s intelligence agencies to track terrorists and other national security threats. The FISA authorizations are set to expire at the end of this month, and House Republicans have put forth competing bills to reform the spy measure and prevent agencies like the FBI from abusing its power to spy on Americans.

While Biggs’s bill is supported by powerful GOP voices like House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), it is being countered by a more moderate FISA reform bill that has the backing of Republican establishment leaders like former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The competing measures set up a showdown between Republican national security hawks in the House and a faction of Republicans that aims to strip America’s spy agencies of a data collection tool. It is also a test for House speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) as he tries to keep his caucus from fracturing.

Biggs is seeking to gin up support for his alternate measure by touting its embrace by Democrats like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and outside advocacy groups that include the far-left CodePink and anti-Israel CAIR, which is currently engulfed in controversy over its leader’s support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strike on Israel. Biggs’s office touted these endorsements in an email sent across Capitol Hill on Monday and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.


Emhoff mocked for social media post misstating Chanukah story
Douglas Emhoff, the Jewish husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris whom the Biden administration often tasks with representing it at Jewish events, is being mocked on social media for a post that confused the story of Chanukah.

“The story of Chanukah and the story of the Jewish people has always been one of hope and resilience. In the Chanukah story, the Jewish people were forced into hiding. No one thought they would survive or that the few drops of oil they had would last,” Emhoff claimed. “But they survived, and the oil kept burning.”

“During those eight days in hiding, they recited their prayers and continued their traditions,” Emhoff added. “That’s why Chanukah means dedication. It was during those dark nights that the Maccabees dedicated themselves to maintaining hope and faith in the oil, each other and their Judaism.”

“In these dark times, I think of that story,” Emhoff added.

The Chanukah story is not about Jews hiding for eight days with a little bit of oil. It is about the Jews, having won a military victory, rededicating the Temple and finding only a small amount of oil—enough for one day—which then miraculously lasted for eight.

“Um, this is definitely not the story of Chanukah,” wrote an attorney, who has a large following and uses the pseudonym A. G. Hamilton.

“How could this have happened?” wrote Noah Rothman, a National Review senior writer.

“I’m really hoping the second gentleman left this to some hapless and uneducated intern who couldn’t be bothered to even consult Wikipedia. Eight days of hiding? Yikes, man,” wrote Jason Bedrick, a research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.

“How to say ‘I don’t anything about Judaism’ without saying ‘I don’t know anything about Judaism,'” wrote another user, Olia Klein. “This level of ignorance is embarrassing.”


Young Jewish cricket star suspended for supporting IDF
Mandy Yachad, one of South Africa’s handful of Jewish former international cricket players, will be boycotting the current series of one-day, T20 and test matches against India in protest at the “racist” persecution of a top Jewish schoolboy cricketer.

“Not only will I not accept invitations to the pavilion as a former national player, but I will refuse to enter any of the grounds where the matches are being played,” he told the JC. “I love watching our teams, especially at the Wanderers and at Newlands, but not after what’s just happened.”

The trouble erupted when David Teeger, 18, captain of the South African under-19 team and head boy of his prestigious multi-ethnic Johannesburg school, King Edward High, dedicated a Jewish Rising Star sporting award to the Israeli soldiers presently engaged in the battle against Hamas in Gaza. The youngster remarked: “I’m now the rising star, but the true rising stars are the young soldiers in Israel. And I’d like to dedicate it to the state of Israel and every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora.”

In response to a complaint by the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance, Cricket South Africa suspended Teeger and launched an inquiry by a leading barrister and former judge, Wim Tregrove.

He found that the teenager’s remarks were in his personal capacity and unrelated to cricket, and thus not “detrimental to the sport or inter-team relations”, the official grounds alleged by Cricket South Africa. But the Jewish community remains appalled that CSA ever launched the proceedings.

South Africa’s chief rabbi Warren Goldstein accused it of a “Maoist inquisition” which was in large part the responsibility of the country’s leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The president, according to the chief rabbi, had launched blatantly one-sided attacks on Israel over the current war, stirring up antisemitism and opening the way to the targeting of, and potential violence against, the country’s small Jewish minority.


Woman hospitalized after far-right member of Polish parliament extinguishes Chanukah menorah

MEMRI: Islamic Scholars' Convention In Islamabad Calls For Jihad Against Israel, Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Tells Nuclear-Armed Pakistan: 'If Pakistan Threatens Israel, Then The Gaza War Can Stop; Jews Are Muslims' Greatest Enemy In The World'

Puma ends Israel soccer team sponsorship, in decision ‘unrelated’ to Gaza war
Puma has decided to terminate its sponsorship of the Israeli Football Association in a decision unrelated to the Israel-Hamas war, The Financial Times reported Tuesday.

The report said the decision by the German group was made a year ago, and was unrelated to consumer backlash over the sponsorship.

In 2019, supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel put up fake advertisements on a line of the London Underground, calling for a boycott of the Puma sports company over its sponsorship of Israel’s national team.

The posters featured the Puma logo along with the words “Boycott – Give Puma the boot” as well as pictures of Israeli soldiers arresting Palestinian youths.

They also called Puma “proud sponsors of Israeli apartheid.”

In response to the Tuesday announcement, the anti-Israel movement took credit for Puma’s decision, stating, “BDS works.”
Harvard 'nears deal that'll see president Claudine Gay KEEP her job' as board holds crunch talks late into the night over handling of anti-Semitism on campus: Bill Ackman claims she won't be fired so college 'doesn't look like they kowtowed to me'

'This is Definitely Plagiarism': Harvard University President Claudine Gay Copied Entire Paragraphs From Others’ Academic Work and Claimed Them as Her Own

Harvard Stands by President After Backlash Over Anti-Semitism Testimony

Harvard Faculty Rallies Around University President After Disastrous Anti-Semitism Testimony

University of Wisconsin Regents Would Rather Lose $800 Million of Funding Than Submit to DEI Reforms

40 Brown University Anti-Zionist Students Arrested After Occupying Administrative Building

NJ Democrat wants speakers banned from campus talk on Palestine
A congressman from New Jersey wants Rutgers University to uninvite a trio of speakers he says are "antisemitic, anti-Israel, and hate-filled" from speaking on campus Thursday.

The guests are scheduled to appear at a Rutgers-sponsored event called “Race, Liberation, and Palestine: A Conversation with Noura Erakat, Nick Estes, and Marc Lamont Hill" at 4:30 p.m. on the Cook/Douglass campus.

Making Jewish students feel unsafe
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J. 5th District, asked Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway to not allow their appearance as will “promote hate speech and exacerbate the potential for violence and attacks toward Rutgers’ Jewish students.”

"Students deserve to feel safe on their campuses, and allowing these speakers to present their antisemitic, anti-Israel views will promote hate speech and exacerbate the potential for violence and attacks toward Rutgers’ Jewish students," Gottheimer wrote in his letter. "While differing views are a critical part of building cultural understanding, they cannot provide a bully pulpit for those who seek to divide others and spew hate. The First Amendment does not give students the right to bully, intimidate, and instill fear onto other students."

Rutgers has 7,000 Jewish undergraduates and graduate students, the largest Jewish undergraduate population in the United States, according to Hillel International, the largest Jewish college campus organization in the world.

Who are the speakers at Rutgers?
Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice. Estes is an enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe while Lamont is a former CNN host who used the phrase “from the river to the sea" in a speech before the United Nations about Palestine. Many consider the phrase a call for the elimination of Jewish people.


Toronto Star Columnist Shree Paradkar Accuses “The Israeli Government And Its Supporters” Of Dehumanizing All Palestinians

Toronto Star Commentator Accuses Israel Of Executing “A Targeted Assault On The Very Heart Of Palestinian Society”

Toronto Star Columnist Rick Salutin Continues To Excuse Hamas Terrorism

Bribing Your Way Out of Gaza
Reports reaching Ramallah in the West Bank say the fee for arranging an exit from Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah crossing runs $6-7,000 per person, up from $4-5,000 a month ago.

One of Gaza's richest people reportedly paid $250,000 to get 25 members of his extended family out.

These payments are known as "coordination fees," a euphemism for a bribe paid to a Palestinian mediator and an Egyptian company coordinating the exits.

The Gazans who need to "coordinate" and pay huge sums are the ones not lucky enough to have dual citizenship or a job with an international organization that enabled them to build connections with a foreign embassy that helped them out.

According to the Rafah crossing authorities, 862 people deemed "foreigners" left on Dec. 2. Most if not all, I daresay, are Gazans.


MEMRI: Public Uproar In Lebanon Following Hamas-Lebanon's Announcement Of New Resistance Organization: We Don't Want 'Hamas-Land' In Lebanon

US Embassy in Baghdad Attacked With Mortars as Forces Targeted Across Region Mossad keeps fighting Iran in the shadows as Gaza war drags on

Seth Frantzman: Iran’s FM slams Ukraine in Doha

MEMRI: Sa'adollah Zarei, Member Of Editorial Board Of Iranian Regime Mouthpiece 'Kayhan': 'The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hamas, And The Rest Of The Armed Groups Have The Right To Be Provided' With Fighters, Weapons, And Military Facilities' Just As Israel Does; 'The True Representatives Of The Vast Majority Of Palestine Are Not [Palestinian Authority President] Abbas And His Ilk, But... The Leaders Of The Palestinian Resistance'

Chinese national in custody for allegedly covering Hanukkah display with swastikas

New Argentine President Names His Personal Rabbi as Next Ambassador to Israel

Jewish Federations of North America fundraising since Oct. 7 passes $700m

Michael Rapaport visits Israel, to appear on ‘Eretz Nehederet’
American actor and comedian Michael Rapaport, an outspoken voice of support for Israel in the US, landed in Israel early Tuesday morning, where he headed straight for Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, and followed this visit by taping an appearance on Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country), Israel’s premiere comedy show.

As he walked around the Hostage Square, the place where families and friends of those taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 have created various exhibits to publicize their plight, he posted video on his Instagram account, saying, “You know what’s crazy, if it were anywhere else in the world, it would be vandalized, which is so f**king ridiculous that all these posters and all this . . . people would rip this down. And the poster ripping . .. at the end of the day, it’s such a slap in the face , it’s so embarrassing, especially in my city of New York, it’s embarrassing that people have been doing that. . . Literally, this would get torn to shreds.”

Heading to the Keshet studios in Herzliya, he taped an appearance on Eretz Nehederet in a skit with the comedy show’s regulars Alma Zack, Liat Harlev, and Yuval Semo, and conferred with one of the show’s creators, Muli Segev.

The episode of Eretz Nehederet will air after the news on Keshet 12 on Tuesday night.

A long-time supporter of Israel, Rapaport has become especially vocal since the massacre that started the war with Gaza. Speaking at a rally in Washington last month, he called for the hostages to be freed and said, “I’ve never felt this prideful to be Jewish in my life. It’s been a crazy time, but Jewish people around the world, we have seen it all and we have heard it all. Israel is not going anywhere.”


Emotional David Cameron honours JFS boy he met 10 years ago who was killed in Israel
As he looked at a photograph projected onto a screen at a Chanukah celebration at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday evening, Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s voice cracked.

It showed him as prime minister standing in front of a boy in a blue school uniform and a kippah at a Chanukah celebration at Downing Street a decade before.

That boy, Lord Cameron revealed, was Nathanel Young, a member of the choir of the Beit Shvidler school in Edgware which had just sung the traditional Chanukah anthem, Maoz Tzur.

As an adult, he became known as the British IDF volunteer killed at the age of 19 by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.

Flanked by Nathanel’s bereaved parents, Nicky and Chantal, and his sister, Miriam, Lord Cameron delivered a moving tribute.

“When I met him here, that boy was a pupil at a very good primary school,” the Foreign Secretary said. “Ten years later he was murdered by Hamas, defending his kibbutz, and his family are here tonight to stand with us as we mourn that beautiful boy.

“Here was a proud soldier, a proud musician, and a proud Jew, who went home to serve his country, only to be murdered by a brutal bunch of terrorists.”

Afterwards, Nicky and Chantal Young told the JC that they had made Aliyah just three weeks ago. “Being in Israel has helped us to deal with our grief,” Nicky said. “People there have been so supportive.’

His parents spoke warmly of Nathanel after his appearance as a nine-year-old at Downing St, adding that since he visited for Chanukah, his musical career had continued: “He was known as the DJ soldier,” his father went on. “That made him quite well known. Some of the shells and rockets that have been used during the war have ‘DJ Soldier’ written on them in his memory.”

Chantal Young said: “We lost our beautiful son who went to the army just over a year ago. It was his dream. But we take some comfort from the fact that we know he died doing a good job.”




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