Tuesday, January 16, 2024

01/16 Links Pt2: ‘Footballing While Jewish’ and Other Crimes; Oct 7 massacre shows UN's irrelevance; The left’s Houthi apologism; MLK: The Six Day War interview

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: ‘Footballing While Jewish’ and Other Crimes
You’d be surprised how sensitive people can be about the possibility they or their family will accidentally see or hear a Jewish person. Last month the Telegraph reported that British Airways had decided to “pause” a plan to include the Jewish sitcom Hapless in its in-flight entertainment offerings just after Oct. 7. The airline didn’t want to “take sides.” The Telegraph had seen the internal messages confirming the airline’s decision.

The series they chose not to show is about a Jewish newspaper in London. I don’t know how to pretend this decision isn’t completely insane.

“Pause” is a word that comes up a lot these days in the post-Oct. 7 entertainment industry. Haaretz reports that “Netflix has hit the pause button on broadcasting several Israeli series. One of them is the action drama ‘Border Patrol,’ which it acquired in September following its premiere on the Hot cable TV channel. Another is the original Israeli comedy drama ‘Through Fire and Water,’ created by Hanan Savion and Guy Amir, which was scheduled to premiere on Netflix in early November but was postponed.” A third series was put on ice by Netflix shortly after.

Producers told Haaretz that European companies were more easily spooked by their association with Israel than American ones were. Some told Israeli producers, “we have to stop and wait for better days.”

Perhaps after some time has gone by, everyone will be more comfortable watching actors portray Jewish characters, or playing hockey or soccer or cricket with Jewish athletes. I don’t think we have much to worry about, though: No one seems particularly bothered by it all, at all.
Brendan O'Neill: Gary Lineker and the bigotry of the virtue-signallers
Let’s be clear about BDS: it is sectarian intolerance masquerading as social justice. It invites the middle classes – those most inclined to cultural boycotts – to obsessively avoid any foodstuff, book, idea or person that originates from the evil state of Israel. It makes a virtue of being ‘Israel-free’. Protect your pristine life and pristine self from the moral pollution of the Jewish State – that, in a nutshell, is what the cult of BDS says to the right-thinking sections of society. The fast track to moral glory in leafy, right-on Britain is to foreswear all things made by Those People.

The impact of BDS has been horrible. We’ve seen violinists booed and jeered at the Proms for the crime of being Israeli. Israeli dance troupes have faced furious protests in the UK. A theatre in London pulled the plug on a Jewish Film Festival. Authors like Alice Walker and Sally Rooney have declined requests for their books to be published in Israel (I guess that’s one upside of BDS for Israelis). Israeli produce is ostentatiously shunned and sometimes even destroyed. A few years ago, ‘pro-Palestine’ protesters in Birmingham stormed a Tesco and hurled Israeli food products on to the floor – proof of the irrational dread of all things Israeli that BDS stirs up in its supporters.

The hypocrisy of the BDS cult is extraordinary. These people will go to mad lengths to dodge oranges grown in Israel and films part-funded by the Israeli government, but they’ll happily buy their kids toys made in China and go on holiday in Turkey. The plight of the Uighurs and Kurds make not a dent in their conscience. The double standards of the BDS mentality can be glimpsed in Lineker himself. He retweets the suggestion that Israel should be kicked out of football yet he’s happy to watch Iran play football. In fact, he’s happy to commentate on Iran playing football.

During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Lineker anchored the England-Iran match for the BBC. This was at the precise time the Iranian authorities were slaughtering hundreds of their own citizens, young women and men, who had dared to rise up against the law of mandatory hijab-wearing and against theocratic tyranny more broadly. No red card for Iran? Why not? Is the killing of young Iranian women who want to show their hair in public less bothersome to the virtue-signallers than the killing of Gazan civilians in the Israel-Hamas war? Lineker’s cant should be treated with the contempt it deserves. This is a man happy to host matches from a misogynistic, homophobic regime (Qatar) featuring a nation that murders its own citizens (Iran), and yet he thinks Israel should be kicked out? What a tosser.

Banning Jewish film festivals, boycotting shops with links to the Jewish State, screaming in fury when a musician from the Jewish nation starts to play… does this remind Mr Lineker of anything? How striking that Lineker hears echoes of the 1930s in so many things – including in Suella Braverman’s comments about immigration – but not in this noisy, feverish boycotting of all Jewish State stuff. That he’s happy to swan around in Qatar, a nation that funds Hamas, the terror group that carried out the worst attack on the Jews since the Holocaust, and then get on his social-media soapbox about Israel is not only preposterous – it’s sick-making.

I would wager that many Brits with dual Israeli citizenship, or just British Jews who have an affinity with Israel, now feel even more isolated from the public broadcaster following Lineker’s promotion of BDS bigotry. Seriously, Gary – do you have no shame?
Melanie Phillips: Anti-western ideology is infecting public sector
The term “far right” is routinely used to smear anyone whose attitudes challenge progressive dogma. The loudmouth and undeniably offensive Joe Rogan was more accurately described by CNN as “libertarian-leaning”.

Murray’s own thought-crime is to be a passionate and articulate supporter of Israel and a clear-sighted analyst of Islamist extremism. The similarly robust Shawcross had to fight a determined attempt by Home Office civil servants, who subscribed to the “Islamist extremism is exaggerated” mindset, to prevent his government-ordered report from ever seeing the light of day.

Shawcross and Murray play a courageous role in the struggle to defend Britain and the civilised world against its enemies. For lecturers in counterterrorism to dismiss, smear or try to cancel them in this way shows how deeply the rot in society has penetrated.

Stanley resigned from the Foreign Office and has emigrated to Israel in despair at what she perceives as the institutionalised dogma fuelling epidemic Jew-hatred and wildly distorting Britain’s foreign policy by helping forces hostile to the West.

The universities and other institutions are riddled by anti-western thinking. But these tropes are also being used to service the agenda of Islamists intent upon undermining the free world. King’s enjoys close links with Qatar, which funds the university’s centre for global banking and finance. A decade ago, King’s had a four-year teaching contract with the Qatari government worth £26 million. Professor Denise Lievesley, the dean of the university’s faculty of social sciences and public policy, called Qatar “comparatively liberal” for the region.

But Qatar funds Hamas and supports the Muslim Brotherhood, as was laid out in a 2022 Policy Exchange report by Sir John Jenkins, formerly the Foreign Office’s senior Arabist. He said that although both Conservative and Labour ministers had hailed Qatar as a “friend and partner”, it had often pursued a foreign policy at odds with British and western interests.

Significant and often disguised funding by Qatar, said the report, had been used to support Islamist groups in the US, Britain and Europe over the previous two decades. Such funding had openly supported university departments and think tanks studying “highly contested regional issues,” including King’s, Bristol University and St Antony’s College, Oxford, and built influence within parliamentary and other official circles.

Questions in parliament perhaps should go further than merely this disturbing course at King’s. Britain not only refuses to heed the warnings of people like Jenkins, but has spawned a culture that is actively helping promote the enemies of civilisation.
Tom Tugendhat orders review of Left-wing civil servant training over ‘indoctrination’ fear
Just yesterday Home Secretary James Cleverly announced he is to add Hizb ut-Tahrir to the list of proscribed terrorist groups, a group he described as an “antisemitic organisation that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling 7 October attacks”.

The same civil servant training course that downplayed Islamic terrorism also described Spectator journalist Douglas Murray, and US podcaster Joe Rogan, as “far-right”.

The lecturer invited those in attendance to deliberate “to what extent should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed”, and argued “society needs to find other ways to suppress them”.

Following the deeply concerning reports, Mr Tugendhat is demanding answers and action.

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, he told MPs: “If courses aren’t high quality and politically neutral then civil servants shouldn’t be attending them.”

Addressing the debate held at the training day, around whether they could define terrorism, Mr Tugendhat provided the left-wing lecturers with a straightforward answer.

He said: “We know what a terrorist is, the law knows what a terrorist is and this government knows what a terrorist is - that’s exactly why we’ve just proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

A King’s College London spokesman argued the training course was “taught by eminent experts using impartial and evidence-based resources in an environment where different theories, concepts and questions are shared to prompt discussion”.


Seth Mandel: Fortress Gaza
Possessed by the dybbuk of liberal guilt, Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to expunge his sins and cleanse his soul of his recent transgressions—chiefly that brief period of time when he refused to take Hamas’s side in its global war of annihilation against the Jewish people.

He’s very sorry he did that, apparently. So today he’s forcing to the Senate floor a vote to “freeze all U.S. security aid to Israel unless the State Department produces a report within 30 days examining whether the country committed human rights violations in its conduct of the war,” the New York Times reports. “If the Biden administration misses the deadline, the aid would be restored once Congress receives the report, or takes separate votes to ensure the assistance continues uninterrupted.”

Sanders talked to the Times about why he was forcing the bill to the floor, given that it almost surely won’t pass. He made the following accusation, and it’s worth paying special attention to it:

“There is growing concern among the American people and in Congress that what Israel is doing now is not a war against Hamas, but a war against the Palestinian people. That with American military aid, children are starving to death, is to me—I mean, I just don’t know what adjectives I can use. It’s disgraceful. And I think I’m not the only one who feels that.”

“There is growing concern” is basically “people are saying.” Sanders is generally more honest than most when it comes to justifying his legislative intentions. But here he’s at a total loss. He’s forcing a bill to the floor based on the toxic libel that Israel is deliberately killing Palestinian children under the cover of waging war on adult terrorists.

Sanders knows that if Israel wanted to wage “a war against the Palestinian people,” it could very easily do so. Instead of telegraphing its attacks by designating noncombatant zones for people to get out of the way; instead of spending hours on the phone with individual Gazans explaining to them why Hamas has put their building in harm’s way and therefore that the IDF is going to attack right in their neighborhood; instead of pausing offensives for the provision of humanitarian aid and suspending surveillance; instead of sending its soldiers in on the ground to fight house-to-house when it could flatten the entire strip from the air—it could just, you know, not do those things.
Nearly 150 lawmakers to introduce bipartisan resolution condemning Hamas sexual violence
A bipartisan group of nearly 150 House lawmakers is set to introduce a resolution on Tuesday condemning the sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on and since the Oct. 7 attacks, the latest move by lawmakers seeking justice and accountability for victims of sexual violence and other crimes by terror group.

The legislation, led by Reps. Lois Frankel (D-FL), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Kathy Manning (D-NC) and Jen Kiggans (R-VA), summarizes the reports and photographic, video and forensic evidence of sexual violence by eyewitnesses, hostages and survivors.

It condemns “all rape and forms of sexual violence as weapons of war, including those acts committed by Hamas terrorists on and since October 7th,” calls on “all international bodies” to condemn such actions, expresses U.S. support for investigations of these attacks and emphasizes Congress’ support for the survivors of Hamas’ crimes.

The bill’s co-sponsors — 79 Democrats and 67 Republicans — include some of the lawmakers who have been deeply critical of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and are supporting a cease-fire.

“This resolution really adds Congress’ voice to supporting the survivors, to supporting an investigation and unequivocally condemning Hamas terrorists for murder, rapes, sexual assault and kidnapping,” Frankel told Jewish Insider, “and of course asks that all perpetrators be held accountable.”

Frankel said she was “very happy” for the broad bipartisan support that the resolution had garnered.

“This is going to be the first of what I hope will be bipartisan effort, especially by women — and then I hope it’s the women of the world — to say that rape and sexual violence as a tool or weapon of war is not acceptable, it is morally unacceptable,” she continued. “It is inhumane and it should be criminalized in every sector… it’s got to be a universal crime.”
Snow Thwarts Anti-Israel Government Employee 'Walkout'
Anti-Israel government employees planning a "walkout" to protest the Biden administration's military support for Israel had their plans foiled after a snow day shut down all federal offices in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Anonymous protest organizers claimed that "hundreds" of employees from the White House and other agencies, including the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Agency, were set to skip work to participate in a "Day of Mourning" for Gaza, Al-Monitor reported last week.

But their protest was thwarted when D.C. was hit with over three inches of snow late Monday, leading the Office of Personnel Management to announce an all-office closure for the following day.

The snow day came after Republican lawmakers vowed to punish any Biden administration employees who joined the anti-Israel walkout and as legal experts warned that staffers should expect to lose their jobs if they participated in it.

Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics counsel under former president George W. Bush, said it would be "wildly inappropriate" for any political appointees—particularly White House staff—to participate in a walkout.

"It would be highly unusual if the president didn't fire you," he told the Washington Free Beacon. "I would expect President Biden would fire White House officials and political appointees for openly participating in demonstrations against the president's Middle East policy."

Painter said such protesters could also put their security clearances at risk.

"If people have the bad judgment to be doing this while a political appointee, and not resign their job, I think there's some concerns," he said.
The left’s Houthi apologism
We can certainly debate the effectiveness and wisdom of this operation. For the moment, it doesn’t seem to have deterred the Houthis, as their attempted missile attack on another US warship on Sunday suggests. The impact of these US-led strikes, which allowed the Houthis plenty of time to conceal their weapons, is likely to have been limited.

But those self-styled progressives marching in Western capitals, chanting their support for attacks on ships, aren’t concerned about what’s actually happening in the Red Sea and in Yemen. Instead, they’re projecting on to these skirmishes their simple-minded anti-Western worldview. They might doll up their politics as anti-imperialist, but beneath the leftwing-ish jargon, there lurks little more than a loathing of the West. And it’s this reflexive anti-Westernism that has led them to automatically portray the US and its allies as evil imperial aggressors and, even more incredibly, to see the Houthis as a noble resistance force.

This, after all, is the Houthis we’re talking about. This is a militia that has played its own not insignificant role in the humanitarian catastrophe that has engulfed Yemen since 2015; it’s a brutal Islamist movement that has crushed dissent, deprived women of their rights and persecuted homosexuals throughout its northern Yemen strongholds; an anti-Semitic insurgency whose motto is ‘Death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews’. The Houthis have even been known to perform the Nazi salute during marches. Yet so morally and politically lobotomised are large swathes of today’s left, that they are willing to throw their support behind this, one of the nastiest and most reactionary forces in the world right now. Yemen, Yemen, make us proud…

We should all hope that the conflict in the Middle East does not broaden or escalate. But it seems that too many on what passes for the left today clearly don’t share that hope. At every stage of the Israel-Hamas war, they have shown themselves only too willing to champion the most divisive and brutal Islamist forces in the region. They claim to be anti-war, but it sure as hell doesn’t look like it.
Einat Wilf: Zionism as Therapy
At its core, then, Zionism was a therapeutic project. Zionism was about healing the Jewish sickness engendered by the contorting and corrupting effect of centuries of powerless exile. Since, in the Zionist analysis, this Jewish “sickness” was the result of living at the mercy of others, healing that “sickness” would require that Jews attain power of their own. Zionism sought to correct this corruption of Jewish existence by making Jews masters of their fate, powerful once again, normalized political actors among the nations. Zionism provided both the diagnosis and the cure.

But precisely because the cure was so effective, Jews had to be told it was actually toxic. Those who bullied Jews throughout the centuries needed Jews to believe the problem was with themselves, so that they would be amenable to efforts to make them no longer Jewish. Like an industry that profits by keeping people sick and therefore invests heavily in making simple, cheap cures appear toxic and unreliable, civilizations that required Jews to feel they needed to be less Jewish had to paint Zionism as so toxic that no Jew would want to touch it.

But touch it is exactly what the course did. Successful therapy taps into the molten lava that runs deep below the surface. Jewish leaders, rabbis, and organizations who thought they could escape the onslaught by avoiding discussions of Zionism and Israel discovered that the attacks never relented. The more they ran away, the more they were chased. Jews were told that Zionism was a sin and therefore they had to disavow it. In reality, Zionism was the cure that endangered the entire malignant project of de-Judaizing Jews.

This is why the course proved so therapeutic. Students discovered that their ailment had been diagnosed long ago, and an effective cure already found. Exposing the ancient roots of anti-Zionist bullying provided young Jews with understanding that while it appears tempting to disavow or contort Jewish identity to buy a reprieve from the bullies, this reprieve, if ever given, is at best temporary. Rather, Zionism already formulated a response to that bullying by refusing to play into its ever-increasing demands.

Bullies everywhere prey on weakness and shame. But if one is neither weak nor ashamed, they move on to easier targets. The course offered students the ability to understand the genealogy of attacks Jews face today while simultaneously generating an empowered appreciation for the vigorous debate and revolution that produced Zionism. It created excitement and confidence in the modern Jewish project and identity.

By robbing anti-Zionists of the power to shame them, students of these century-old texts discovered they had the power to rob their bullies of their prey. If anti-Zionists are met with Jews who are proud Zionists, who embrace their Jewish identity fully, and who understand the nature of the attacks against them, it is nearly impossible to shame them into handing over another pound of flesh.

What they realized by the end of the course was that the only effective, tried and tested response to anti-Zionism is, well, Zionism.
Sharon Hodgson MP: Antisemitic anti-Zionism is nothing less than the latest iteration of the oldest hatred
Our country – which rightly prides itself on its tolerance and its rejection of extremism – cannot allow antisemitism to go unchecked and unchallenged.

We need swift, tough, and comprehensive action to tackle anti-Jewish racism.

First, as the shadow home secretary has rightly argued, we need an increase in policing, stronger action to tackle and monitor antisemitism and we must ensure the police have the powers they need to tackle hateful extremism.

Second, it is appalling that Jewish venues and institutions need extra levels of security and protection. But while that remains the case, it is imperative that the CST receives the funding it needs to do its vital job.

Third, what is said online rarely stays online. The hateful conspiracy theories and lies about Jews and Israel which are peddled on social media by antisemites directly contribute to racism on our streets. Social media companies must enforce their own rules against hate speech and, where crimes are committed, must cooperate with the police to ensure the guilty are punished.

Fourth, universities, the National Union of Students and student unions must do more to fight antisemitism and ensure the safety of Jewish students. At the same time, surveys indicate both shocking levels of ignorance about the Holocaust and strong public support for greater Holocaust education. The work of the Holocaust Education Trust is of paramount importance: in the war against antisemitism, HET is on the frontline of the battle for hearts and minds.

Finally, Iran is a leading purveyor of Holocaust denial, antisemitism and extremism. Its terrorist proxy armies slaughter Jews, while its ideological army, the IRGC, attempts to incite and perpetrate violence and spread disinformation globally, including in Britain. As Labour has argued, we must proscribe the IRGC and begin to turn off this pipeline of hatred.

So, let’s mark the horrors of 80 years ago with a renewed recognition of the fragility of freedom.

And let’s remember too that without security, there can be no freedom. Freedom from fear and violence is the prerequisite of any civilised society. We cannot allow Britain’s Jews to be denied this freedom.
The legitimization of anti-Zionism shows failure of Jewish leadership
Jews must understand Jewish history and identity. And this must extend way beyond an education that centers on Jews as a religion. Jews are not a religion. We are a people who have a religion and this is a very clear distinction. We must understand our history. That we are indigenous to the Land of Israel – together with all that connection entails. Including how this shapes our identities as modern Jews.

Jews must also understand Jew-hate. They must understand how it manifests, functions, and mutates. More importantly, they need to understand how Jew-hate impacts us. We have to grasp the corrosive nature of shame and trauma, which leads to internalized anti-Jewishness.

My second book, Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride, was one of the first books in generations that discusses this critical subject – a telling phenomenon in its own right.

Above all else, we Jews need to be taught to feel pride in our Jewishness. This is not some intangible idea.

Yes, it is a feeling. But it is one that we can reinforce with education as well as action. Jews – all Jews – should be taught that they have a right and a responsibility to participate in active Jewishness.

We have inherited a rich civilization – one that has survived because we have passed it on for countless generations. Jews need to understand the rich traditions from which they came and understand how these are still relevant to our lives today.

And yet, all is not lost. If we act swiftly, a crisis can be averted. We can, for example, halt the advance of anti-Zionism in our community. But it’s up to each one of us to take on that responsibility and move forward toward a solution.
American Jewish leaders’ inexcusable failure
In 2008, I circulated a paper: “War Gaming: The Public Relations Front,” and argued that, like the Israeli Ministry of Defense or Pentagon, Israel’s supporters needed to prepare for future engagements. Some may never occur, and the plans stay in a drawer, but others are more predictable. I outlined, for example, the issues likely to arise from a conflict with Hamas and argued that we needed answers to questions about civilian casualties, proportionality and humanitarian crises.

I noted that the PR strategy must be prepared assuming the media’s bias. Based on prior experience, the media could be expected to:
Ignore Israeli casualties and focus on Arab victims.
Accept fabricated Arab statistics.
Interview unreliable Arab sources.
Air stories without researching their accuracy.
Focus on dramatic photos and stories without context.
Use “fixers” with political agendas.

Some of the charges that could be expected to be lodged against Israel included:
Disproportionality.
Interference with the freedom of movement of Palestinians.
Provoking a refugee crisis.
Denying health care to those in need.

Does any of this sound familiar?

We had multiple opportunities to plan but did not, before operations “Cast Lead,” “Pillar of Defense,” “Protective Edge” and “Guardian of the Walls.” Afterward, I reiterated my views in War-gaming’ hasbara’, published by JNS in 2021. I wrote that it was inevitable if another conflict occurred:

The Palestinians (or Hezbollah) will immediately disseminate lies about what is taking place.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International will “investigate” and publish their own distortions of Israeli actions.
The media will not verify information and disseminate anti-Israel propaganda as fact.
Israel will be denounced by the United Nations, “progressives,” anti-Israel organizations and Israel’s detractors among faculty, students and celebrities.

I concluded, “I have no illusions about how Israel will fare in the media no matter how well-equipped we are for the PR battle, but being prepared will give us at least a fighting chance of shaping the narrative.”

By happenstance, a friend interested in developing a proactive plan for the American Jewish Committee contacted me in September, and I laid this all out.

I am neither soothsayer nor genius to have recognized what should have been obvious to the leaders of the Jewish community. They failed us and Israel. They should be held accountable.

In the meantime, the 10/7 Project should be prepared for the next crises—an all-out war in Lebanon and an attack from or on Iran.
America's culture wars erase Jewish suffering
Jews on campuses become scapegoats for anti-Israel hatred
AMONG CALLS to “globalize the intifada” and other thinly veiled slogans calling for violence against Jews and Israelis, Jews on Harvard’s campus (and many other campuses) have become the scapegoats for the hate leveled at Israel.

Most Jews on campus (and in America in general) feel a connection to the Jewish state, but it is not political in nature. They are not representatives of the Netanyahu government, and many have never even been to Israel.

Despite these facts, Jews are often made to either hide their Jewish identity, condemn the state of Israel unequivocally, or face ostracization and social rejection in some progressive settings, just because they are Jewish and seen as “Zionist agents” and oppressors.

The Anti-Defamation League reported that between the October 7 massacre and December 7, there was a 337% increase in antisemitic incidents in the US compared to the same period in 2022.

In at least 750 of these incidents, synagogues and Jewish institutions on campus were targeted. Yet in the wake of the congressional hearing, this issue is strikingly absent from the anti-racist discourse.

Following Gay’s resignation, Ibram X. Kendi, the prominent author and the founder of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, took to X (formerly Twitter) to lament the alleged racial motives of those who advocated for Gay to step down.

He said, “Racist mobs won’t stop until they topple all Black people from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the structure of racism.”

What about the racism against Jews?
Sports becomes new battleground in wartime anti-Israel campaigns
Zohar, who spoke on the condition that his remarks be published after Jehezkel’s arrival in Israel in order not to endanger his release, expressed concerns specifically about Israeli athletes playing in Turkey. He said he called on athletes to return to the Jewish state in October after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a fiery speech against the war in Gaza.

“Turkey’s behavior is very problematic,” he said. “They are actively supporting and hosting Hamas’ people on their land, members of a Nazi terrorist organization [Hamas] that wants to harm Israel.”

The minister warned that Erdogan is part of an axis that includes Iran and Hezbollah and said that Israel needs to rethink its future relations with Ankara.

As for whether the Israeli Culture and Sports Ministry is helping Jewish athletes facing antisemitism at this time, Zohar said: “We care about the problems of every Jew in the world, Israeli or not.”

However, he called the case of the South African cricketer one in which “our help would do more harm than good.”

“It’s a country that clearly supports Hamas, as we saw in The Hague,” Zohar said, referring to the case South Africa brought before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in the war in Gaza. “It’s a case in which the government is very biased. It would be a waste of our energy and we wouldn’t help,” he said, “but we will make sure that he does not face physical antisemitism that would endanger him or his family.”
Gary Lineker is undermining confidence in the BBC's impartiality and making its managers look utterly foolish. He can offend who he likes, but not while he is employed by the corporation

Former Chelsea manager Avram Grant attacks Gary Lineker for his anti-Israel post on Instagram and accuses him of being 'totally silent about a massacre where babies were killed and women were raped'

South Africa’s Top Cricket Body Knocks Back Jewish Community Concerns Over Removal of Jewish Player as Team Captain
South African Jewish leaders on Tuesday encountered frustration after a meeting with Cricket South Africa (CSA) — the sport’s governing body in the country — failed to restore the captaincy of the U-19 national team to David Teeger, the Jewish player who was stripped of his role just one week before the commencement of the Cricket World Cup on Friday amid accusations of antisemitism.

At an online press conference, Prof. Karen Milner — the national chair of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) — relayed that the group’s meeting with CSA board chair Lawson Naidoo and other members of the executive over the decision had resulted in a stalemate, with virtually no points of mutual understanding between the two sides.

Teeger’s removal from the U-19 captaincy was the consequence, according to last week’s CSA statement, of its concern “that protests related to the war in Gaza can be anticipated at the venues for the tournament.”

It added that such protests would likely focus on Teeger — an observant Jew and resident of Johannesburg who made his professional cricket debut in 2023, scoring an impressive 51 runs for the South Africa Emerging Players side against North Cape. Teeger was only appointed to the captaincy of the U-19 team last month.

The targeting of Teeger could result “in conflict or even violence between rival groups of protesters,” CSA said. Invoking its “duty to safeguard the interests and safety of all those involved in the World Cup,” it said that Teeger had been “relieved of the captaincy … in the best interests of the players, the U-19 team, and David himself.” Teeger would “remain an important and active member of the team and we wish him and the team every success in the tournament,” CSA concluded.

Teeger first became a target for the vocal pro-Hamas movement in South Africa just weeks after the Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel. Receiving an award at a Jewish communal ceremony that same month, Teeger dedicated it to “the State of Israel and every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora.”
Diadora executive in South Africa announces boycott of Jewish cricket player
An executive at the South Africa office of the sportswear maker Diadora said that the company would not sponsor events featuring David Teeger, a Jewish cricket player who was demoted for praising Israeli troops in Gaza.

The report of a boycott action by Diadora South Africa against Teeger appeared in a document published last month by Wim Trengove, a jurist who is heading an independent inquiry into the conduct of Teeger, who was stripped of the captainship of South Africa’s under-19 team for the 2024 Cricket World Cup.

Many Jews and others see Teeger’s demotion as a form of political persecution with a chilling effect on the freedom of expression of South African Jewry, one of the world’s most outspokenly Zionist Jewish communities.

Cricket South Africa, the national association for the sport, demoted Teeger, 19, for saying in a speech on October 22 that he is dedicating an award he’d received “to the State of Israel and to every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the Diaspora.” The Association said the demotion was designed to protect the team from hostile action by pro-Palestinian activists, but many believe it is merely punishing Teeger as it investigated complaints alleging his remarks violated ethical rules.

South Africa has dragged Israel before the International Court of Justice, a UN tribunal, accusin

g it of perpetrating a genocide in Gaza. Israel invaded the Gaza Strip following the murder by Hamas terrorists of some 1,200 Israelis, among a string of atrocities. Israel’s actions against Hamas have resulted in 24,000 deaths, according to unverified statistics provided by medical authorities in Gaza.
October 7 massacre shows UN's irrelevance
Israel, an important member state of Middle East, has some genuine grievances against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a UN body that looks after Palestinian refugees, but those complaints are never heard or addressed.

More stunning and glaring is the complete silence of UN Women, the flag-bearer organization championing women’s rights and empowerment issues, on the reported rapes of Israeli women during and after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attacks. There was total and complete silence by UN women and its affiliated bodies on the issue, despite multiple media reports.

Hamas terrorists not only killed civilians on that fateful day but they also stormed the kibbutzim and used rape as a tool of terror. Several women’s bodies were found carrying evidence that they had been raped before being killed.

Similarly, the conduct of WHO during COVID-19 and its outright impotence to compel China to share COVID data and its history were stunning, to say the least.

So, now moving on to the next question: What is the solution? Doing away with the UN altogether? Reform it? Or replace it with another more credible and effective body? The answer is probably all of the above.

In its present form and shape, the UN has failed to live up to its charter goals and ideals. The reason for its ineffectiveness lies in the structure of Security Council, where two permanent member states have their own agendas, which are often incompatible with the free world.

The world is already divided into democracies, or aspiring democracies, and dictatorships, or aspiring dictatorships. So, this makes the UNSC and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) incapable of building a consensus on any serious issue. This doesn’t look like a temporary or passing phase.

It looks like these two distinct blocs will continue to vie for power and influence in the foreseeable future.

Reform? This needs consensus at the UNSC and the UNGA. That is not forthcoming, which would make any attempt at a meaningful reform a non-starter.

The solution lies in accepting the reality that the world is divided both vertically and horizontally, and it needs a new bloc or representative body of countries that are democratic or believe in democracy, free markets, and civil liberties. These could be regional groupings or a universal collaborative platform of friends and like-minded nations.

The goals and aspirations these new instruments pursue could include peace and security, free trade, and innovative technologies.

Times – and the world – have moved on. It’s time to let the decadent institutions die.


Pollak: What Black Lives Matter Can Learn from Zionism
Jews inspiring blacks
Black civil rights activists — in the United States, and around the world — have long taken inspiration from Zionism in their own struggles for equal rights and self-determination.

That is a bolder claim than the mere observation that Jews have helped black civil rights struggles, or that blacks and Jews have built important political partnerships. The emergence of radical black nationalism as a political force, and the alignment of some black movements with anti-Israel movements, has complicated that relationship. It has also obscured the fact that some black leaders drew inspiration from Zionism — and have also been Zionists themselves. ​

But the history is real. Nelson Mandela noted in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, that the Zionist example provided crucial inspiration to the African National Congress after the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. That event, when police fired on unarmed protesters, killing dozens, led many of South Africa’s black leaders to conclude — reasonably — that non-violent resistance against racial segregation had run its course, and that their struggle needed a military component. ​Mandela, who had been forced to go “underground,” pursuing his political activities while in hiding, took refuge on a farm called Liliesleaf, in a northern suburb of Johannesburg. ​

He wrote:
Soon after this Arthur Goldreich and his family moved into the main house as official tenants and I took over the newly built domestic worker’s cottage. Arthur’s presence provided a safe cover for our activities. He was an artist and designer by profession, a member of the [liberal, white] Congress of Democrats and one of the first members of MK [Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress]. His politics were unknown to the police and he had never been questioned or raided. In the 1940s, Arthur had fought with the Palmach, the military wing of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine. He was knowledgeable about guerrilla warfare and helped fill many gaps in my understanding. A flamboyant person, he gave the farm a buoyant atmosphere. (334)

Goldreich was later arrested when the police discovered and raided the farm. He later escaped from jail and fled the country. He moved to Israel, where he founded the department of architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. He was a Zionist who made a direct and lasting contribution to Mandela’s struggle, to black South Africans, and the cause of democracy generally. ​

And he was not alone. Mandela also noted that he was inspired by the example of Menachem Begin, the militant leader who commanded an underground paramilitary force in Palestine, and later became Israel’s first conservative prime minister. Mandela recalled his research on guerrilla war:
What I wanted to find out were the fundamental principles for starting a revolution. I discovered that there was a great deal of writing on this very subject, and I made my way through the available literature on armed warfare and in particular guerrilla warfare. …I read The Revolt by Menachem Begin and was encouraged by the fact that the Israeli leader had led a guerrilla force in a country with neither mountains nor forests, a situation similar to our own. (325-6)

The Zionist example has inspired many other leaders, as well — and not just militants. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who famously championed non-violence as a political tactic and moral principle, is often quoted for his defense of Zionism, and his declaration that anti-Zionism was essentially the same as antisemitism: “Don’t talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” ​


Covert Watchdog Group Opens Up About Efforts to Expose Antisemitism, Anti-Israel Hatred
Canary Mission, an antisemitism watchdog group, has made headlines since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war for its work exposing groups and individuals that support the Palestinian terror group and express hatred for the Jewish state.

Critics have accused Canary Mission of what they call unfair “doxing,” or publicizing information about a person or organization without their consent. However, that has not stopped the watchdog from calling out a wide range of entities for allegedly antisemitic behavior and spreading hateful ideology throughout North America, especially on college campuses.

The organization, which operates anonymously, spoke to The Algemeiner about its work since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel. To stay anonymous and protect the safety of staff, the group did not attribute its remarks to a specific individual.

Since the outbreak of the war, Canary Mission has been working on what it calls four “significant” developments.

“First, there has been a sharp escalation in global antisemitism, both in frequency and severity,” a representative said. “We are no longer discussing simple breaches of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Discourse has alarmingly shifted to overt expressions of hate, including endorsements of Hamas’ violence against Jews, coupled with a stark indifference to the suffering of kidnapped, raped, and murdered Jews.”

Antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed globally since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7. Most recently, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported a 360 percent surge in such incidents over the past three months, with about two-thirds directly related to the Israel-Hamas war.

“Second,” Canary Mission continued, “antisemites on the left and right seem even more willing to work with each other in their common cause against Jews and Israel.”

“Third, a bipartisan consensus has emerged with a clear recognition of the extreme antisemitism fostered within the anti-Israel movement,” the group added.


Susan Sarandon slammed again for ‘anti-Semitic’ post
Hollywood actress and activist Susan Sarandon has been criticised for her new post about the Israel-Hamas war.

Ms Sarandon posted a message on ‘X’ which read, “Don’t let anyone tell you it started on October 7th 2023”.

It was posted one day after the 100-day anniversary of the attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists.

Some people responded to the post describing it as “anti-Semitic”.

“Imagine the good you could do if you just exhibited empathy for both sides of this conflict, and called out Hamas for its uniquely horrific actions, and its responsibility for setting off what ensued,” one user wrote.

Ms Sarandon apologised last year for comments she made at pro-Palestine rally, where she declared American Jews “are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim" amid a rise in anti-Semitism.




Harvard Jewish Student Antisemitism Lawsuit

Thirty Jewish families transfer out of Oakland public school district after Pro-Palestine teachers proposed 'draw the Zionist bully' kids activity during anti-Israel 'teach-in'

New York Times Erases Hostages From Soccer Player’s Gesture, Calls It a War Message
A reference to “the start of the war?” The New York Times has no trouble understanding that commemorations of 9/11 memorialize “victims of the worst terrorist strike in American history,” and not the war the attack precipitated. Could a paper that sees itself as a sophisticated observer of the world be ignorant of what 10/7 represents in the Israeli psyche: the hostages, but also Hamas’s wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women, and children during the terror group’s invasion of Israel?

No. Editors were informed that Jehezkel spelled it out explicitly. “Ultimately, I decided to make a humanitarian gesture to the Israeli hostages in Gaza,” he told the soccer club’s leaders, the Israeli media reported. The statement was one of “empathy for the abductees who are there for so many days.” Even after learning of this message, the New York Times stood by its misrepresentation.

Other news outlets had no trouble understanding what 10/7 means. Jehezkel “expressed solidarity with hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza,” the Associated Press reported. It was an “on-pitch protest in support of hostages held in Gaza,” explained CNN. A “gesture of solidarity with hostages,” per the BBC. Even the Guardian, which initially succumbed to the same strange temptation as the New York Times, corrected a headline that erroneously cast the gesture as a “war message.” (The article itself got it right: “The message was a reference to the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the number of days that more than 130 Israeli hostages have been held in Gaza.”

The New York Times, though, insists on erasing the Israeli victims from Jehezkel’s gesture. It is the journalistic equivalent of tearing down posters of the kidnapped — vandalism against the truth, at the expense of the hostages.
Guardian corrects misleading headline on arrested Israeli footballer

MSNBC Associate Producer Accuses IDF of Rape, Mutilation
Velshi has brought on his show many pro-Palestinian commentators who have legitimized Hamas’s attacks. On October 7, the same day Hamas waged its attack against Israel, Velshi invited Palestinian activist Nour Odeh on his show to discuss what Velshi called “Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation.”

To think that the “record number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli occupation forces, a record number of Palestinian homes demolished by Israel, a record number of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian villages where homes and businesses were set on fire, where Palestinians were injured or killed by armed Israelis,” wouldn’t “have consequences, or wouldn’t have a reaction from the Palestinians, all Palestinians, was delusional,” Odeh said.

Odeh also stressed the importance of recognizing the “context in which all of this is happening, the fact that Israel is an occupying power, the fact that Israel has violated international law and Palestinian rights.” At the time Velshi invited Odeh on the show, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had just declared war on Hamas, and Israeli Defense Forces were still calculating the magnitude of Hamas’s attack.

Velshi has also urged the United States not to “reward Israel’s bad behavior” and has called Israel’s democratic system “ostensible” because “millions of people, Palestinians who live under illegal occupation, are subject to Israeli persecution and prosecution without either its protections or the right to vote.”

As a video producer, McReynolds shapes the direction of the show by creating news packets, pitching news segments, and compiling video clips for on-air stories.

Maslow’s post attracted a host of pro-Palestinian activists who seconded McReynolds’s unsubstantiated claims.


Al Jazeera doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt
On Jan. 7, an Israeli airstrike killed two Al Jazeera journalists in the Gaza Strip. The Qatar-run news outlet immediately accused Israel of targeting journalists and labeled their death an “assassination.”

No serious journalist, diplomat, or human rights activist should give Al Jazeera benefit of the doubt. Terrorists have long used media to amplify reach. Chechen rebels would cancel missions rather than move without cameramen to leverage their attack into effective propaganda.

During the Iraq War, U.S. soldiers became accustomed to seeing Al Jazeera journalists pre-positioned to film booby-traps meant to maim and murder Americans. Legitimate journalists do not know about attacks before they occur; terrorists do.

Al Jazeera has a long history of crossing the journalistic line. Al Jazeera journalist Fahad Yasin, for example, used Qatari cash to propel himself to become Somalia’s intelligence chief, a position he used to fund terrorism further.

Were Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, the two Al Jazeera employees Israel killed, illegitimate targets? No. Both were traveling in a vehicle with a terrorist. They were operating a drone to surveil Israeli forces and enable Hamas attacks. To knowingly travel with a terrorist with the purpose of supporting that terrorist forfeits one’s immunity, just as medics or school teachers lose their immunity if they transport terrorists or give cover for their operations. If press freedom groups are angry, they should not blame Israel but instead launch lawsuits against Al Jazeera for violating the Geneva Conventions in a manner that imperils all war correspondents.

It is in not only Gaza, however, where Al Jazeera violates the norms and ethics of journalism in pursuit of terrorism, violence, or espionage, but also on Capitol Hill. As Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) has pointed out, Congress credentials 136 Al Jazeera “journalists” to enable them into House and Senate galleries and expansive access to senators, members of Congress, and staff. Compare that to the New York Times that credentials only 82 members. The discrepancy in coverage — the New York Times produces far more — suggests that something other than journalism may motivate Al Jazeera.
BBC Scotland fails to disclose a contributor’s affiliations in three reports

Bassam Tawil: How to End the Suffering of the Palestinians
Palestinians in Lebanon are "prevented from employment in 39 professions such as medicine, law and engineering... are socially marginalized, have very limited civil, social, political and economic rights, including restricted access to the Government of Lebanon's public health, educational and social services and face significant restrictions on their right to work..." — United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees, updated September 2020.

Arab citizens of Israel.... can own, buy and sell property, can vote and run in national and local elections, have equal access to free public healthcare, education and other services.... Many Arab Israelis serve in senior positions in hospitals, universities and colleges, courts, the civil service, and even in the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces.

Neither Syria nor Lebanon grants citizenship to the Palestinians living there...

[W]hat is happening inside the Syrian detention centers against the Palestinians is "a war crime by all standards." – Action Group for Palestinians of Syria, alquds.co.uk, November 29, 2023.

By ignoring the profound suffering of the Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon, these self-proclaimed "pro-Palestinian" activists and groups are once again proving that their goal is not to help Palestinians, but only to make Israel into a pariah state.

If these activists and groups want to end the suffering of the Palestinians, they should be demanding that the Arab countries end their discriminatory and repressive measures against their Palestinian brethren. The activists and groups should also be raising the plight of the Palestinians at every available international platform instead of blaming Israel.

The real anti-Palestinians are not the Israelis at all, but the same old racist Jew-haters and antisemites who cannot be bothered to learn the truth when it comes to the actual human rights abuse of Palestinians: it is delivered from the hands of Arabs.


MEMRI: Why Do The U.S. And Israel Tolerate Qatar's Blatant Anti-U.S. And Anti-Israel Policies?
Dr. Jekyll Qatar
Qatar presents itself as a Western-oriented regime engaged in primarily economic enterprises in the West, helping in peace mediation and conflict resolution worldwide, and as a seemingly Western ally hosting the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, from which U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) protects American interests in the region. It initiated the opening of branches of American universities in Doha, and hosted the World Cup. It donates massively to American universities, supports cultural centers in Europe, and uses its media outlet in the West, Al-Jazeera TV in English – which is completely different from its Arabic-language channel – to present a positive picture of the Qatari regime to the West.

It also engages in criminal activity with politicians in Europe and the U.S. – for example, the "Qatargate" scandal, in which, in December 2022, the European parliament stripped Greek MEP Eva Kaili of her position as vice president of the assembly over accusations she accepted bribes from Qatar. In the course of the investigation, Belgian authorities found "bags of cash" in her home.[3] Also, earlier this month Sen. Bob Menendez, former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, was federally indicted for allegations that he took bribes in exchange for an agreement to help the government of Qatar.[4] [5] (Qatar has also spied on U.S. politicians, as will be revealed very soon.)

Indeed, Qatar assisted in the efforts to secure deals for the release of some of the hostages in exchange for the release of terrorists held in Israeli prisons and for a pause in the fighting and provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In a more recent mediation efforts, Qatar was instrumental in bringing in medicine to the hostages, as well as to Hamas members.

(Both these deals, however, were minimal in scope, and benefited Hamas no less than Israel.)

Mr. Hyde Qatar
In the Arab and Muslim world, every person on the street is well aware of Qatar's Mr. Hyde face: that Qatar is the mega-promoter of Islamism and terrorism worldwide. The top political, military, and intelligence echelons in the West, however, turn a blind eye to this.[6]

Qatar's activities in the Arab and Muslim world are motivated by the extremist Wahhabi ideology.[7] This can be seen in a discussion between the former Qatari Emir and the late Libyan ruler Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi, in which the Emir boasted that he himself is an heir and grandchild of Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (see MEMRI TV clip Late Emir Of Qatar Hamad Bin Khalifa Says Imam Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab Was His Forefather, In Recorded Conversation With Libyan Dictator Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi.)

It is also noteworthy that the largest mosque in Doha is named for Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab.[8]

The pillar of Islamist Wahhabism in Qatar was the former minister of religious endowment Abdullah bin Khalid Aal Thani, who later became minister of interior affairs – the second most important position after the Emir. It was Abdullah bin Khalid Aal Thani who brought Khaled Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the future mastermind of 9/11, from jihadi missions in Bosnia to Qatar and gave him money and logistical support to organize terrorist attacks against American and other targets. It was Abdullah bin Khaled Aal Thani who was behind the coup carried out by Hamad bin Khalifa Aal Thani, father of the present Emir, against his own father, Khalifa bin Hamad Aal Thani.

For two decades now, Qatar has supported all Islamist terrorist organizations, both Sunni and Shi'ite, as well as Islamist movements, primarily the Muslim Brotherhood.

The terrorist organizations supported by Qatar include Hamas, the Taliban, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the Al-Nusra Front, Hizbullah, and even the Houthis, with whom the U.S. is currently engaged in a battle in the Red Sea.[9]

With regard to Al-Qaeda, it was Qatar who, in 1995, gave safe haven to KSM. Furthermore, when the FBI came to arrest him, informing only the Emir, KSM disappeared within hours.[10] Other Al-Qaeda attacks on American targets include the failed "Bojinka" plot to bomb 11 U.S. commercial planes, the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.[11]

The murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens in September 2012 in Benghazi was perpetrated by the Qatar-supported Al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar Al-Sharia. Another case of Qatari support for terrorism was the plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II in Manila in 1995; however, a fire broke out in the apartment a week before the assassination was to take place and the plot was discovered.[12] KSM, who orchestrated this attack, fled back to Qatar.
World Economic Forum Invites Iranian Foreign Minister to Elite Confab

Bais Yaakov founder’s grave vandalized in Jewish cemetery in Krakow
Polish police are looking for vandals who destroyed the gravesite at Krakow’s New Jewish Cemetery of Sara Schenirer, the founder of the Bais Yaakov movement, who is known as the “mother” of formal Jewish education for Orthodox girls.

A new tombstone was erected in the early 2000s for Schenirer (1883-1935), whose original burial place was destroyed during the Holocaust. Vandals toppled the stone, damaging it, and uprooted concrete pilings that held up a small chain fence surrounding the site.

The site is adjacent to the KL Plaszow Memorial Museum, an open-air exhibition on the site of a former Nazi concentration camp.

“The perpetrators, who used an excavator to demolish the statue and fence around it, are wanted,” said local authorities, urging anyone with information to come forward.

“The community was shocked and outraged by the vandalism,” Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow, told JNS. “Krakow is very proud of Sara Schenirer and her influence on Jewish education. Generations of young Jewish women received proper education due to her vision and groundbreaking work.”

Krakow, said Orenstein, “is a very safe place to be Jewish, and antisemitic incidents are few and far between, and taken very seriously by the police and local authorities.”

He added that the city has said it will rebuild the gravesite “ASAP.”

Schenirer founded dozens of Jewish schools for religious girls in the early 1920s under the banner of Bais Yaakov, Hebrew—in the Ashkenazi pronunciation—of the biblical phrase “the house of Jacob.” In a phrase in which God instructed Moses to tell something to “the house of Jacob” and to the “sons of Israel,” rabbinic commentators took the former to refer to Jewish women and the latter to Jewish men.
German court imprisons Turkish man for 2021 arson attack on synagogue
A German court on Tuesday sentenced a Turkish man to two years and nine months in prison for attempting to set fire to a synagogue in the southern city of Ulm.

The 47-year-old was found guilty of serious arson and damage to property for the incident in June 2021, described by judges at the court in Ulm as an “antisemitism-motivated attack.”

The accused is said to have poured gasoline on a wall of the synagogue and set fire to the fuel.

A police officer intervened before the flames spread, putting the fire out with an extinguisher.

The attack left burn marks on the building and one of its windows covered in soot.

The accused, who lived in Ulm before the attack, fled to Turkey but returned to Germany in July 2023, where he was arrested. The ruling can still be appealed.

Germany has grown increasingly alarmed in recent years about rising anti-Jewish sentiment eight decades after the end of the Holocaust.
Man accused of Nazi salute faces maximum penalty of year in jail
Prominent Melbourne white supremacist Jacob Hersant has responded to allegations he performed the Nazi salute just days after it was outlawed in Victoria, saying he does not regret it – even if it means spending time behind bars.

Hersant is facing up to a year in prison for allegedly making the gesture outside the County Court of Victoria on October 27 last year, just six days after it became illegal to intentionally display or perform a Nazi gesture or symbol in public.

The 24-year-old appeared at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday afternoon for a brief hearing to request an adjournment in the case to give him time to again apply for legal aid for a lawyer.

“They’ve refused me, but I’m trying to get a review of that,” Hersant told the court. He smiled and waved at photographers and TV cameras as he walked outside of court after the hearing.

“I just think that it is absurd that we are supposed to live in a democracy, yet the government is trying to jail me for moving my arm in a particular way, in a particular gesture,” Hersant told reporters.

“They didn’t think there was a chance of imprisonment, but the prosecutor made it clear that there is a chance of imprisonment, so I presume I will get legal aid now.”

During the hearing, magistrate Peter Reardon asked the prosecution what the maximum penalty would be if Hersant was found guilty of publicly performing the salute.

The prosecutor confirmed a term of imprisonment was within the options being contemplated in the case, before pointing out that Hersant had a criminal history.


Cycling star supports ride to bring hostages home
British Tour de France winner Chris Froome OBE joined the global bike ride on Sunday to raise awareness of the plight of the hostages.

As a member of the Israel-Premiere Tech cycling team, Froome, 38, cycled in Israel, calling on his millions of social media followers to join him by tying a yellow ribbon on their bike.

He said: “As a human being, as a father myself, I cannot stand idly by.” He said the suffering of the captives held in the Gaza Strip had “deeply” affected him.

In London, around 500 cyclists rode through one of the capital’s most iconic parks, bearing Israeli flags and yellow ribbons as part of a global initiative to express solidarity with the Jewish state and to demand the safe return of hostages.

On October 7, Hamas murdered around 1,200 people in the south of Israel and took some 240 people hostage. Over 130 are still held in captivity.

Organiser Howard Kayman, who oversaw the London leg of the #RideToBringThemHomeNow, which was held in 40 cities across the globe, said the seven laps around Regent’s Park were “magical” and “something I will never forget”.

“Everyone arrived on time, and there were no mechanical problems,” he said. “The way the community came together was awesome, and I pray that the hostages will be released soon, so we can ride again to celebrate.”
Israel’s Christian Community Booming, Data Show
The Israeli-Christian population is growing rapidly and continues to enjoy high educational and professional attainment levels, according to numbers recently released by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

According to the report from last month, 187,900 Christians reside in Israel, an increase of 1.3 percent from the year before, marking the third consecutive year the population has grown.

In 2021, the Christian population rose to 182,000 with an increase of 1.4 percent, and in 2022, the growth was 2 percent to 185,000 people, according to the CBS’s data. The vast majority of the Christian population — 75.3 percent — are Arab Christians, while Christians make up 1.9 percent of Israel’s total population.

The largest Arab Christian population centers in Israel are Nazareth (20,800), Haifa (16,800), and Jerusalem (13,000).

CBS data has shown that Arab Christian women have some of the highest educational attainment levels in the country.

The latest report found that 55.1 percent of Arab Christians continued their studies toward a bachelor’s degree within eight years of graduating high school, compared to only 34.6 percent of the total number of high school graduates in the Arab school system and 48.1 percent of all graduates in Hebrew education.
How the DEI Obsession with Race Has Undermined King’s Legacy
The most powerful idea in the American project is the idea of progress. Take away that word, that idea, that ideal, and there is no America.

The ideal of progress is what helped a poor kid from the backwoods, Abraham Lincoln, to become president and keep the country united and end the shameful scourge of slavery.

The ideal of progress is what drove President Barack Obama to say that “our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man — a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake.”

The ideal of progress is what fueled Martin Luther King’s dream “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Since today is MLK Day, it’s worth reflecting on his legacy of progress. A good place to start is with Project 21, a black leadership network that has been a leading voice of black conservatives for over 30 years and is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

On its website today, it argues that “while there have been tremendous leaps forward, the progressive drive for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies threatens that progress. The push for DEI in so many of our institutions and corporate entities shines a bright light on the fallacy of such policies, and reminds us that they are the antithesis of Dr. King’s dream of a colorblind society.”

Whether you agree with Project 21 or not, it’s worth paying attention for the simple reason that you’ll never read about them in the mainstream media. That’s because they represent a more conservative viewpoint that doesn’t fit the progressive winds of the day. But regardless of which side of the ideological fence we’re on, it’s worth putting on our curiosity hats to hear what they have to say.


MLK: The Six Day War interview
This year, I want to introduce a text that I quoted years ago: an interview of King on ABC’s news program Issues and Answers, June 18, 1967. King, asked whether Israel should return the territory it had taken earlier that month, said this: “I think that for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs.”

The Israel-Hamas war has led some to seize upon this quote, and insist that King stood up for Palestinian rights. Garrison Hayes, a reporter for Mother Jones, suggested as much in November. “We don’t have to imagine what King thought about Israel’s relationship with the Palestinian people,” he wrote. “He spoke for himself.” Hayes then highlighted the ABC quote. I corresponded with Hayes before and after he published his piece, and I don’t doubt his sincerity. But I think he’s put an impossible burden on the quote. “What are your views?”

To understand why, you have to read the whole exchange, which you won’t find today anywhere on the internet. The interviewers were Tom Jerriel (ABC Atlanta bureau chief) and John Casserly (ABC Washington correspondent). The questions about the Middle East followed a discussion of the Vietnam War.

Q: Let’s go to the other war for a moment, Dr. King. What are your views as a Nobel Peace Prize winner on the complex situation in the Middle East?

MLK: Well, it is certainly a very complex situation. I think first that we must work passionately and unrelentingly through the United Nations to try to grapple with this years-old problem in the Middle East. I would hope that the Middle East will not become an arena for power politics, whether we refer to Soviet Russia here, or the United States of America. We have got to achieve peace in the Middle East and in the Middle East achieving peace means two things.

Peace for Israel means security. The world and all people of good will must respect the territorial integrity of Israel. We must see Israel’s right to exist and always go out of the way to protect that right to exist. We must also see that Israel is there and any talk of driving the Jews into the Mediterranean, as we have heard over the last few weeks or the last several years, is not only unrealistic talk, but it is suicidal talk for the whole world and I think also it is terribly immoral. We must see what Israel has done for the world. It is a marvelous demonstration of what people together in unity and with determination, rugged determination, can do in transforming almost a desert into an oasis.

But the other side is this, that peace in the Middle East means something else. It means for the Arabs development. After all the Arab world is that third world, a part of that third world of poverty and illiteracy and disease and it is time now to have a Marshall Plan for the Middle East. I think this is going to be finally the only answer. So long as people are poor, so long as they find themselves on the outskirts of hope, they are going to make intemperate remarks. They are going to keep the war psychosis alive. And what we need to do now is to go all out to develop the underdeveloped, and we must see that there is a grave refugee problem that the Arabs have on their hands and the United Nations through all of the nations of the world must grapple very constructively and forthrightly with these problems.

Q: Should Israel in your opinion give back the land she has taken in conflict without certain guarantees, such as security?

MLK: Well, I think these guarantees should all be worked out by the United Nations. I would hope that all of the nations, and particularly the Soviet Union and the United States, and I would say France and Great Britain, these four powers can really determine how that situation is going.

I think the Israelis will have to have access to the Gulf of Aqaba. I mean the very survival of Israel may well depend on access to not only the Suez Canal, but the Gulf and the Strait of Tiran. These things are very important. But I think for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs.

Q: But Israel indicates, Dr. King, that for its own security it should keep certain territory, particularly in Syria, the approaches to Israel, in order to maintain its own security.

MLK: Well, there again I am putting my hope in the United Nations. And I know the United Nations will not be effective if these major powers will not cooperate with it, so I am hoping that they will cooperate with it and that the UN itself will place a peacekeeping force there, so that neither of these forces, whether it is the Israeli forces or the Arab forces, will continue to engage in these brutal battles. And the other thing, I think there is a great need for greater disarmament, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world.

The first striking thing about this exchange is King’s exquisite care in formulating his answers. He knew that every word carried meaning in the charged moment, and he carefully crafted a response. As I showed elsewhere, those who now claim that King did not know enough about the conflict miss the mark. He had an informed and nuanced grasp of all its aspects.

Second, King’s position on Israel is forthright: “Peace for Israel means security.” Not only did he praise “marvelous” Israel, he defended Israel’s “territorial integrity” and its “right to exist,” while rejecting the “unrealistic,” “suicidal,” and “terribly immoral” call to destroy it.

The third striking thing, from today’s perspective, is that he did not mention the Palestinians. That’s because in 1967, the Palestinians weren’t an independent party to the war. The territories occupied by Israel in 1967 belonged to Egypt (Sinai and Egyptian-administered Gaza), Syria (the Golan Heights), and Jordan (the West Bank and East Jerusalem). At the time, all proposals for Israeli return of territories meant giving them back to these states. King specifically emphasized the conditions for Israel’s return of the Sinai to Nasser’s Egypt, Egypt being the leading Arab state and Israel’s primary enemy.




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EoZ Book:"Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism"

 Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM


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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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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