Friday, January 26, 2024

01/26 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The rotten edifice of ‘humanitarianism’; Douglas Murray - Cowardice Is Killing The West; Israel considers ending water deal with Jordan

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The rotten edifice of ‘humanitarianism’
The United Nations was set up to promote peace and justice around the world. Instead of doing so, however, it has become a key weapon against peace and justice in the global armory of evil causes.

Nowhere has this been more baleful and done such appalling intergenerational harm than in the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which administers health care, education and welfare for the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza.

The U.N. maintains that its staff in Gaza merely deal with Hamas on an operational level as the authority in charge. This is disingenuous nonsense. Wittingly or unwittingly, UNRWA behaves as a Hamas tool.

Earlier this month, the monitoring group UN Watch revealed internal UNRWA group chats that took place on Telegram. They showed that more than 3,000 UNRWA staff and teachers celebrated the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel and praised the murderers and rapists as “heroes.” Their comments included calls to execute Israeli hostages, expressions of joy and support for jihad, and cheers for video footage of the atrocities with messages such as “just wait, sons of Jews.”

When the U.N. tried to deny this, UN Watch started to publish on Twitter the names of the Telegram participants, at which point the U.N. suggested it might investigate.

Meanwhile, as a result of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, the IDF has been uncovering copious evidence of UNRWA’s links to Hamas.

Jonathan Conricus, who until recently served as an IDF spokesman, told The New York Sun: “Every UNRWA school we entered had Hamas weapons in it. Each one was a place for Hamas to hide in and fight from.”

In these schools, the IDF found a number of books glorifying militancy and spreading antisemitism. Last March, a report by UN Watch and IMPACT-se—a research body that measures school curricula against UNESCO-defined standards of peace and tolerance—revealed that UNRWA teachers regularly call for the murder of Jews and create teaching materials that encourage terrorism, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism.

UNRWA is itself complicit in Hamas’s activities.
Uncivil Combatants
The Biden administration declared in July that the laws of war require presuming persons and structures in combat areas are civilian, overturning longstanding Department of Defense (DOD) rules. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, echoing the administration’s new position, has pressured Israel to limit its self-defense, citing the effect on Gazan civilians and infrastructure. Hamas, of course, regularly disguises its combatants as civilians, and uses civilian structures such as homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals as military facilities.

Hamas’s regular violations of the laws of war, including its use of human shields, make it impossible for Israel to defend itself without also killing Gazan civilians. Hamas has long sought to force Israel to harm Gazan civilian targets in order to stop the terror group’s genocidal violence. Blinken’s blaming Israel for Gazan casualties reverses causality and rewards Hamas’s strategy.

The actual extent of civilian harm in Gaza is unknown, and given the fog of war, likely unknowable. It is also impossible to know what portion of the damage to Gaza was caused by Israel, by Hamas attacks targeting Israelis that misfired and killed Gazans, or by the explosion of Hamas munitions hidden throughout Gazan population centers. As President Biden stated, Hamas Health Ministry casualty statistics are not credible; the ministry’s reported causes of such casualties are no more reliable.

Blinken’s declaration that “far too many” civilians have been harmed in Gaza sidesteps the questions of who is a civilian, and what constitutes civilian infrastructure. As the current Department of Defense Law of War Manual notes, combatants include not just those firing weapons, but all those performing “acts that are an integral part of combat operations or that effectively and substantially contribute to an adversary’s ability to conduct or sustain combat operations.”

Gazans involved in Hamas infrastructure-building, weapons-production, transportation, and logistics are not civilians, but combatants. So are those aiding Hamas’s military operations, such as spotters, including women and children, who help gunmen target Israelis and monitor troop movements. Gazan families imprisoning in their homes kidnapped Israelis are combatants committing war crimes.

Part-time war participants do not attain protected civilian status during their down time. The DOD’s Law of War Manual rejects the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Convention (a document that the U.S. signed but has refused to ratify) provision stating that “civilians shall enjoy the protection [from being made the object of attack], unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.” In addition, Hamas combatants do not magically become civilians because they are not wearing uniforms, even if some are also reporters. In fact, Hamas’s practice of disguising its fighters as civilians constitutes “perfidy” under international law, which refers to “acts that invite the confidence of enemy persons to lead them to believe that they are entitled to, or are obliged to accord, protection under the law of war, with intent to betray that confidence.”
Eve Barlow: Think like your enemy
A while ago, a wise friend told me that when you’re trying to understand people’s motivations, or the state of play, and you’re overwhelmed and confused by trickery, the best thing to do is to think like your enemy. Put the enemy’s hat on, and ask: if you were them, what would you do?

Last week I listened to a brilliant podcast. It is one of the best explanations I've ever heard about why Islam is obsessed with Israel. It explains the wider conflict with the Arab world in a way I had never heard before courtsey of Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel. Here is an excerpt:

"The Jews – the refugees who they kicked out of every country, penniless and weak – are pushing back to conquer a piece of Islam. It’s not about the Jews, it’s about the fact that even Jews can push back on Islam. For the Iranian regime the problem of Israel isn’t that it exists, it’s that it cannot be destroyed by Muslims. If it could be, it wouldn’t have to be destroyed by Muslims because it wouldn’t be the standing symbol of Islamic weakness, and therefore distance from God. The path to Islamic redemption and renewal and return to a powerful agent in history cuts a bloody path through ‘Jewish arrogance’, which is what Israel is to them.” [This explains why there are crowds celebrating every time Israel is attacked; which is echoed across the globe in marches for Palestinian rights.] "Why would the Iranian regime, which doesn’t believe in human rights, invest billions that it doesn’t have in the idea of Palestinian rights? It has nothing to do with Palestinian rights. It has to do with Islam coming back as a force in history and proving that they are not far and distant from their god. Israel’s existence – because the Jews are so weak – is incontrovertible evidence that Islam does not have god’s grace."

This explains the intent of Hamas on October 7 while go-pro-ing and broadcasting their humiliation of Israel. That was the core message. Render Israel weak.

This coming Friday, just before Shabbat, and a day before the non-Jewish world’s annual attempt to let itself off the hook for the Shoah while talking about everything and anything except for the six million Jews who were killed by Nazis (ie, International Holocaust Rememberance Day), the International Court of (In)Justice will deliver its order on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case South Africa vs Israel. I don’t have high hopes, despite the excellent defence provided by Israel’s legal team a few weeks ago.

Why? Well I’m thinking like the enemy. That’s what I’ve been doing more of. That’s why I’m scared about the ICJ. Because if I was thinking like the enemy I’d be wanting an international legal body to kosher all the propaganda I’ve just placed in every Western institution to truly isolate the Jews and Israel and I’d hire a willing assailant to perform this exercise (ie, South Africa, who I’ve built a great relationship with going back decades now, and who aren’t exactly beacons of morality themselves), and I’d effectively negotiate for the verdict I want. There’s precedent for this, proving that it may be successful (The Dreyfuss Affair in 1906). A result here legitimizing my decades’ worth of international investment and time with The UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Western universities including Harvard and Penn, and political leaders such as Jeremy Corbyn, and Ilhan Omar, would be of high value. Worth some business.
Douglas Murray - Cowardice Is Killing The West | The Winston Marshall Show #001
Since October 7th, Douglas Murray has been in Israel covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. I spoke with Douglas at the Jaffa Hotel, in its historic chapel. It is, without doubt, the most stirring interview I have ever conducted. Has multiculturalism failed? Is Islam compatible with British values? Our country has fallen to new depths, never so apparent as we witness the weekly pro-Palestine, anti-Israel marches in the wake of the October 7th slaughter. But most striking of all, Douglas makes a cry for his country to wake up, stand up and find its courage again.


Jonathan Tobin: Gullible Americans are funding Hamas, not starving children
Ties between charities and terrorists
It’s also true that as NGO Monitor’s report about PCRF shows, the ties between the charities and the terrorists are undeniable. Just like the way Hamas has effective control of UNRWA—the U.N. refugee agency for the Palestinians—with many of its employees belonging to the Islamist terror group, the point where Palestinian nonprofits end and Hamas begins isn’t clear.

The United States has attempted to sanction the financial networks that directly fund Hamas, though given the success that its Iranian donors and their proxies have had in funneling money to Gaza in the last 16 years, it’s by no means clear that this effort has been entirely successful. Former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal was a financial bonanza for Tehran, as it enriched and empowered the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. They were, as a 2019 New York Times article reported, set back by former President Donald Trump’s sanctions and withdrawal from the nuclear deal since that led to cutbacks in Iran’s funding for the terrorists. ButBiden’s attempt to resume the push for a rapprochement with Iran was good news for the terror funders.

Regardless of America’s off-and-on-again efforts to curtail the terror funding, the Europeans and international organizations continue to pour money into Gaza. Rather than this helping Gazans, most of it was diverted to pay for Hamas’s massive military fortification program that built a vast tunnel complex that is more extensive than New York City’s subway system. And what didn’t go into building hiding places for terrorists and their weapons (and which are now also used to imprison Israeli hostages), went into the pockets of Hamas leaders living in luxury in Qatar.

Those who give money to aid the Palestinian victims of war may not be guilty of the open antisemitism of those who march in the streets and on college campuses while calling for the destruction of Israel and terrorism against Jews, wherever they live. Nor are they necessarily joining in the surge of acts of antisemitic intimidation that are happening every day. They may not intend for their donations to go to Hamas. But all the goodwill in the world can’t ensure that money raised by charities for Palestinian children isn’t going to the terrorists using them as human shields and whose crimes started the war in the first place.

Virtue signaling your support for “Palestine” by raising money for PCRF may be exactly the kind of thing that helps keep a B-list celebrity like Ella Emhoff in sync with liberal fashion. No one, however, should be under any illusion about what this sort of philanthropy funds. Anyone who really wants to help Palestinian civilians and to ensure that money raised for that purpose goes for just that should demand that Hamas surrender. Advocacy for a ceasefire now isn’t just a demand that the criminals of Oct. 7 be allowed to win their war. It’s also a guarantee that charitable donations intended for suffering Palestinians will continue to go to Hamas.


The Monaco Solution-Hamas and the PA have no place in Post-War Gaza
The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the 'West Bank' and the Gaza Strip, signed in Washington, D.C., on September 28, 1995 (known as Oslo II), formally ended even the pretense of the so-called ‘occupation’.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the Palestinian Authority (PA) admitted this inconvenient fact in UN documents such as the recent 2023 UNESCO World Heritage Site designation relating to Jericho and in connection with UN aid regarding its property tax system in 2010. They describe the period from 1967-1994 (!) as the so-called "occupation period". Indeed, the property tax documents expressly notes “After the occupied Palestinian territory was transferred to the sovereignty of the National Authority [PA], direct taxes and local taxes fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.”

Oslo II provides for self-government in the areas assigned to the PA and critical and essential security arrangements. This included Gaza, which was subsequently taken over by Hamas. Oslo II also includes extensive demilitarization requirements. Thus, while Oslo II provides for the PA to have a police force, other armed forces were not permitted.

Article XIV expressly provides:
“…no organization, group or individual in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip shall manufacture, sell, acquire, possess, import or otherwise introduce into the West Bank or the Gaza Strip any firearms, ammunition, weapons, explosives, gunpowder or any related equipment.”

Article XV requires the parties to:
“take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against each other, against individuals falling under the other's authority and against their property, and shall take legal measures against offenders.”

Had the PA and Hamas honored this milestone Agreement in good faith and kept the peace as intended, then what is commonly referred to as a two-state solution would have been implemented long ago.

Consider, for example, a similar model peace and security agreement involving France and Monaco, which has worked in practice for more than a century. Under the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1918, which was formally noted in the Treaty of Versailles, Monaco was recognized as a sovereign and independent state. However, it was France that was responsible for the defense of Monaco. France patrols the sea adjacent to and airspace above Monaco. The only security forces within Monaco are the police force and the Prince’s Guard; Monaco otherwise has no armed forces.

The foreign relations of Monaco are the responsibility of a Minister of State, who is a French citizen appointed by the Prince from among several senior French civil servants proposed by the French government. The cordial relations between the two states were further deepened in 2017 with the signing of a general security agreement.


Daniel Greenfield: Pope Francis Says Holocaust, Ended by War, Proves War is Never Justified
Instead of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, there should be Deep Thoughts by Pope Francis who has taken to spewing these nonsensical Gandhisms in place of meaningfully grappling with the moral challenges of humanity. Gandhi, apart from being a malicious egotistical hypocrite, tended to frame his arguments in absolutist terms that if implemented would have eliminated mankind and certainly anything good and decent about it. (So you can see why leftists loved Gandhi so much.)

Here, while putatively commemorating the Holocaust, Pope Francis decided to link it to a Gandhist call to end all war.

Pope Francis recalled the extermination of millions of Jews in calling Wednesday for the upcoming Holocaust Day of Remembrance to reaffirm that war can never be justified and only benefits weapons makers.

Really, never?

WWII had nothing to actually do with the Holocaust and Allied leaders generally did not care about it and found it an annoying distraction, but nonetheless it was the military defeat of Germany that ended the Holocaust.

Nothing else would have.

How would Pope Francis propose to end an ongoing mass murder of millions?
“The remembrance and condemnation of that horrific extermination of millions of Jews and of other faiths, which occurred in the first half of the last century, help us all not to forget that the logic of hatred and violence can never be justified, because they deny our very humanity,” Francis said.

Violence is sometimes necessary. The Holocaust, if anything, is a reminder of that.

But there was Gandhi’s alternative.
“Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves in the sea from cliffs…. It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany…. As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
Daniel Greenfield: NBC News Responds to FrontPage Story by Pushing ‘Anti-Palestinian’ Hate Crime Hoax Again
In early January, FrontPage Magazine’s story, ‘The Greatest Islamophobia Hoax in America Exposed’ about the “anti-Palestinian” hate crime in Burlington, VT that never was, went viral. It was picked up by Townhall, Newsbusters, Real Clear Investigations, Instapundit, HotAir, Legal Insurrection, as well as Larry Elder, and a twitter thread on it went viral.

NBC News, which I had specifically called out in my coverage, returned with a defensive interview with the three Muslim men who had been shot in a confrontation with a mentally unstable local organic farmer who, contrary to their narrative, hated America and was pro-Islam.

The Muslim activists at the center of this case once again tried to tie Israel’s campaign against Hamas terrorists to the incident. In reality, as a local news outlet already documented, James J. Eaton, the man who shot them, was an anti-American leftist who expressed support for Hamas.

After weeks and weeks of non-stop media coverage and claims by the Muslim men that the attack was a “hate crime” and had something to do with Israel and hatred of Muslims and ‘Palestinians’, not a single piece of supporting evidence turned up. Opposing evidence did.

Eaton, a Bernie Sanders supporter, had actually tweeted that “the notion that Hamas is ‘evil’ for defending their state from occupation is absurd. They are owed a state. Pay up” and “What if someone occupied your country? Wouldn’t you fight them?”

He commented on a video of a Muslim man, saying, “people of faith constantly impress me.”

Local accounts describe him as violent, unstable, “progressive” and a “hippie guy”. His LinkedIn bio stated that his causes included, “civil rights and social action” and he argued that, “we can build the world we want. First we need to redistribute wealth and income.”

Biden, Kamala, Bernie Sanders and various state officials were rushed into making statements denouncing “islamophobia” even though there’s zero evidence of any “hateful” motive.
CAIR's Leaders Hit With Sexual Harassment Allegations
A former employee of a controversial anti-Israel group is suing the organization and alleging its leaders engaged in sexual harassment.

Lori Saroya, who worked for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Minnesota, filed a defamation lawsuit last week against the organization in which she claimed she brought forth complaints of sexual assault and harassment against CAIR leaders, the New York Post reported Thursday. She claimed that one leader "engaged in a pattern of unwelcome and highly inappropriate conduct" toward her and that she left CAIR after asking the group to look into the complaints.

Saroya, who now serves on the city council in Blaine, Minn., filed the suit in response to a January 2022 press release from CAIR that accused her of "cyberstalking." In response to the alleged misconduct, the group had filed a 2021 suit against her.

"After enduring this obsessive and destructive cyberstalking for years, we decided to file a defamation lawsuit against Lori in 2021 to expose the truth and protect our team in a court of law, where the truth matters," CAIR's board of directors wrote in the lengthy message.

The group eventually dismissed the suit almost two years ago, according to the Post. Saroya claimed that the press release from CAIR appeared in job interviews, resulting in her not receiving offers.

"CAIR’s defamatory statements about me were intended to intimidate not just me but others like me. The purpose of this lawsuit is to hold CAIR and its leadership to account—something which has been much too long in coming," she told the outlet, adding that she could not comment on much else while her legal case was pending.

She added that the organization has an "unfortunate record of sanctioning and indulging serious allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination within its organization, retaliating against women who raise these issues and engaging in profoundly dishonest conduct vis a vis the public, the Muslim-American Community and even its own Board."
Revealed: October 7 post of Isis bride’s lawyer planning to stand against Labour
The solicitor who represented Isis bride Shamima Begum in her unsuccessful legal bid to retain British citizenship greeted October 7 as the moment when “the option of settler colonisation just got taken off the table”.

Mohammed Tasnime Akunjee, who is standing as an independent against Labour in Bethnal Green at the coming general election because of its support for Israel, went on to share posts claiming many of Hamas’ victims were in fact killed by Israel.

Earlier this month he also appeared to back a claim by the extreme right-wing former British National Party leader Nick Griffin that prominent Jews had offered him money to “target” Muslims.

In a post on X dated January 4, he wrote that he had held “an interesting and candid discussion with Nick Griffin… evidencing the fact that certain foreign paid shills were intent on fomenting violence between communities in the UK”. Accompanying this post was a photograph of himself talking to Griffin, and between the words “foreign” and “shills” he place an Israeli flag emoji.

Akunjee announced his decision to run against Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, on Tuesday. He said she had “refused to say anything that would end the horror” of the Gaza war or vote for an immediate ceasefire, and had become “a puppet on a string for Keir Starmer to control”.

The constituency includes the once-largely Jewish areas of Stepney and Whitechapel and now has a large Muslim population which, like both Ali and Akunjee, is largely of Bangladeshi heritage.


Israel considers ending water deal with Jordan
Kan reports that the Ministry of Energy is considering refusing to extend Israel's water agreement with Jordan due to several Jordanian officials denouncing Israel.

According to the current agreement, Israel provides Jordan with 100 million cubic meters of water, twice as much as the amount provided for in the treaty between the countries.

The water is provided in exchange for electricity from Jordan to Israel.

According to the reports, there has been no final decision, and Israel continues to monitor Jordan's behavior and the statements of its officials.

Over the course of the war, the Queen of Jordan has publicly doubted the October 7th massacre and sharply criticized Israel.

“I want to emphasize that the conflict did not begin on October 7th. For many Palestinians, the war never ended. It is a story 75 years long. It is a story of conquest, and apartheid regime that conquers lands and demolishes houses and conducts nighttime raids,” she told CNN. She has also attempted to cast doubt on claims of the murder of children in Israeli towns.

Ayman Safadi, the Jordanian Foreign Minister, has stated: “Nothing justifies the war in Gaza, a war that is not a matter of self-defense but blatant aggression by Israel, and Jordan will do anything necessary to prevent the displacement of Palestinians.”
Kassy Dillon: Harvard Employee Harasses Jewish Student Suing School For Anti-Semitism, Asks To Debate 9/11 Conspiracies
A Harvard University employee challenged a Jewish student who is currently suing the Ivy league school over anti-Semitism to a debate on Israel’s role in 9/11, according to a copy of the harassing email obtained by The Daily Wire.

“I invite you to debate me today at the Cambridge Street overpass 12-1, don’t miss it!” Gustavo Espada, an active university employee, wrote in a Thursday email to Shabbos Kestenbaum, the student. “If you don’t show up I will use a puppet or potted plant to represent you!”

Espada sent the email from his official Harvard account with the subject line, “invitation to debate Israeli role in 9/11.” He also offered to plan a “more formal” debate in a “large venue” on campus.

Your tweet on X is getting a lot of attention! That's fantastic. As such, I invite you to debate me today at the Cambridge Street overpass 12-1, don't miss it! If you don't show up I will use a puppet or potted plant to represent you! 🙂 We can always schedule a more formal one in large venue on campus.


Harvard Employee, Gustavo Espada, asked a Jewish student to debate the “Israeli role in 9/11.”

Espada is the financial and systems coordinator for the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, according to Harvard University’s website. He is also a Harvard alumni who graduated in 1996 and a member of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, according to his email signature. Espada did not agree to an on the record interview. Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.

“PS stop saying I hate Jews unless that is something you want,” Espada added in the email. “I hate Israel and Zionism with a passion and you know full well they are two different things.”


Columbia Law School To Host Anti-Israel Advocate From Terror-Linked Group
Columbia Law School is slated to host an event early next week with an anti-Israel advocate who works for an organization that Israel considers a terrorist organization due to its alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a violent militant group.

Wesam Ahmad, an official with the Al Haq nonprofit group, a leader in the anti-Semitic movement to boycott Israel, is scheduled to host a discussion on Tuesday at the elite law school, according to a flier advertising the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Ahmad will discuss "international law as applied to Palestine."

The event is sponsored by the Columbia Law Students for Palestine, Columbia Law Students Human Rights Association, and the Progressive Jewish Law Society. It comes as Columbia University is being investigated by the Education Department for a spate of anti-Semitic incidents that includes a law school student yelling, "Fuck the Jews" to a classmate wearing a yarmulke. At least 20 Jewish Columbia students accused the school last year of "inaction against anti-Semitism" following a rise in hate speech fueled by Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas.

On Wednesday, students at Columbia hosted a pro-Hamas rally on campus and chanted for an "intifada" in New York City. Earlier this month, Columbia’s Barnard College defended its decision to invite to it’s "Day of Dialogue" pro-terrorist professor Hatem Bazian who has called for the destruction of Israel and intifada in the United States.

Ahmad’s event is already drawing criticism from Jewish advocacy groups that consider his organization, Al Haq, a driving force in the anti-Israel world. Al Haq was designated as a "terror organization" by the Israeli government in October 2021 for being part of "a network of organizations" that operate "on behalf of the ‘Popular Front,'" which the United States also considers a foreign terrorist organization.


Students at Columbia University Chant for 'Intifada'
Students at Columbia University during a Wednesday pro-Hamas rally on campus chanted for an "intifada" in New York City.

The protest, which was captured in videos posted online by Columbia Business School assistant professor Shai Davidai, comes as Columbia has faced criticism for the rising anti-Semitism on its campus.

The demonstration drew around 100 students and included calls for violent uprisings and dying for the Palestinian cause.

"There is nothing, nothing more honorable than dying for a noble cause," a speaker shouted into a bullhorn.

Another speaker led students in an Arabic chant of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab"—a slogan that calls for the eradication of Jews from Israel.

During the event, students marched in a line through campus as an organizer led them in chants of "Intifada, intifada, long live the intifada!" The intifadas were violent Palestinian uprisings that targeted Jewish civilians, killing over 1,000 Israelis in the 1990s and early 2000s. That organizer also chanted, "From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada!"

A spokeswoman for Columbia did not respond to a request for comment.

Davidai said the protest was "unauthorized" and a violation of Columbia's code of conduct.

"By refusing to hold the organizers accountable, Columbia is sending a big fuck you to every Jewish and Israeli student, faculty, or staff," the professor said.

The calls for violence and cleansing Jews from Israel appear to violate the university's rules. Columbia said late last year that its "rules of conduct do not allow or condone language that promotes or supports violence in any manner."

"Calls for genocide against the Jewish community or any other group are abhorrent, inconsistent with our values and against our rules," said the statement.


MoMA hires non-binary 'Woke Kindergarten' activist who calls Israel a 'made-up place' to give children's workshop on MLK and climate change: Previously said kids could use the pronoun 'tree'
New York City's Museum of Modern Art hired non-binary Woke Kindergarten activist - who refers to Israel as a 'made-up place' - to lead a workshop about Martin Luther King and climate change.

Woke Kindergarten is a pedagogy that is pro-black, queer and transgender liberation created by abolitionist early educator Akiea 'Ki' Gross, who uses they/them pronouns. They have previously made headlines for an audiobook that said children can use 'tree' as a pronoun.

Gross was hired by MoMA to host a workshop about Martin Luther King Jr's relationship to climate justice on Saturday as part of their MLK Family Day.

The event was recommended for families with children aged six and up, and included activities such as building a model of a structure to improve your community and packaging hygiene kits for unhoused neighbors.

Its description of the event said: 'At MoMA, we celebrate creativity, openness, tolerance, and generosity. We aim to be an inclusive place—both onsite and online—where diverse cultural, artistic, social, and political positions are welcome'.

'We have a zero-tolerance policy for individuals who engage in verbal or physical harassment, discriminatory or threatening behavior, or hate speech, or who otherwise interfere with the experience of others. The Museum will refuse or revoke program entrance/participation to individuals who violate these policies,' it added.

Gross, who uses the Instagram account Woke Kindergarten, posts words for the day that are meant to teach the 'language of the resistance.'

In a post defining the word ceasefire they said: 'One place that people are demanding a permanent ceasefire for is in Palestine because they are being occupied, or controlled, by a made up place called Israel that has settlers called Zionist who are harming and killing the Palestinian people who have always live on the land.'


New York Times Airs a Grievance Against the Passover Seder
Of all the many strange and egregious things the New York Times has done since October 7, 2023—rehiring an openly Hitler-praising Gaza stringer, misquoting Israel’s defense minister and prime minister in a way that falsely portrayed their intentions, falsely claiming the war is the deadliest in 40 years, advising the president of the United States to “lose it” with Prime Minister Netanyahu—one of the oddest of all is attacking the Passover Seder.

A Times magazine article falsely claiming the old Black-Jewish alliance for Civil Rights has transformed into one against Israel includes about 1,400 words about a single far-left activist named Nicole Carty. It included this paragraph:

“I’ve been to a lot of Passover celebrations,” she added, “and it’s so weird that the story is only of Jewish subjugation, even though subjugation is still so present for other people.” She went on: “Black people still haven’t had their histories honored. We are still gaslit about the impact of slavery and the continued impacts of white supremacy.”

The passage was widely mocked on social media. “The author complains that Passover is too Jewish centric!” one commenter marveled.

Sure, there’s a distinction, as there often is, between the New York Times endorsing this attack on the particularism of Passover and merely reporting on it as newsworthy. The overall framing by the Times, though, is not as an example of black antisemitism or individual silliness, but as a description of a kind of rational and inexorable demographic and historical response to Israeli actions. The Times is perfectly capable, in other contexts, of investigating extremist ideologies while carefully signaling to readers that those ideologies are extreme or not supported by evidence. Not so here.


Herzog hosts Kindertransport survivors ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day
President Isaac Herzog this week hosted Jews who were saved by the Kindertransport – the name given to the operation that had children smuggled out of Nazi German in the months leading up to World War II – ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The event was attended by nine Holocaust survivors who received certificates of appreciation from the president, his wife, and the chairman of the International March of the Living Shmuel Roseman.

"This event is especially moving. It is moving to see survivors after 85 years, it is moving to hear the personal story of each and every one of you, and the Zionist story of each and every one of you, but it is especially moving, because of the period we are in," Herzog said. "When I look at you I know that Israel's eternity will not lie! And that the people of Israel live! It really moves me to think about your parents, who made a dramatic decision. They did not know what would happen, there was no way to predict the future. But they decided to put you on the train, thereby saving your lives, and allowing you to build amazing lives with the next generations. Each and every one of you, in and of themselves, is a wonderful story."

Among the survivors was also Mirjam Baitalmi-Szpiro, a resident of Zikim who also survived the Hamas massacre on October 7. "I was not afraid. I do not know what fear is. I'm already used to it. The day after the massacre they gave me half an hour to pack before the evacuation and suddenly I had déjà vu. I was standing there, an 88-year-old woman outside her home, and suddenly I remembered the 3-year-old girl I was. I had not remembered these things before, the feeling of being a refugee, but suddenly I returned to the place I came from. And this is the second time I'm leaving my home."

She has been living for over two months now in a hotel in Ma'ale HaHamisha and hopes to return home soon. "The house was not damaged, and even the tree I planted in the yard two weeks before the war somehow survived."


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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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