Seth Mandel: How the Media Has Globalized the Intifada
Everyone has their own reasons for distrusting major media, so Gallup’s latest polling isn’t surprising. The new survey finds trust in media at a low point, tying the nadir it reached in 2016. And although modern media giants recoil at the suggestion that they have only themselves to blame, an honest rendering of history reveals that simple explanation to be the accurate one.The Weaponization of Medical Misinformation and the War in Gaza
Take, for example, an issue with as much resonance today as a century ago: conflict in the Middle East. Reading Yardena Schwartz’s superb, meticulous and hauntingly detailed account of the 1929 Hebron Massacre—Ghosts of a Holy War, which was published earlier this month—I was struck by some of its minor sections on the role of the media then and now. This isn’t the focus of the book, which knowledgeably traces the causes and legacy of the massacre that wiped out a millennia-old Jewish community in its place of birth and set the mold for the next hundred years of Arab-Israeli conflict. But it is a key part of the story.
And it is the part of the story that highlights a test that media companies passed in 1929 but continually fail today. Reversing those failures, as the book shows, is a matter of life and death for Jews around the world.
The Hebron Massacre, which set the stage for everything that followed it, was part of a Palestine-wide campaign of violent riots. The prime mover of these riots was deliberate incitement by Arab leaders, specifically the Al-Aqsa Blood Libel—the lie that Jews were going to seize the mosque compound built by imperial Muslim conquerors atop the site of the ancient Jewish temple as a demonstration of supremacy over the land’s original inhabitants.
Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the first Palestinian Arab nationalist leader (and later well-paid Nazi recruiter and envoy to the Muslim world), was Jerusalem’s grand mufti and had been chipping away at Jewish prayer rights at the Western Wall. Contradicting the city’s own official Islamic guides to the area, Hajj Amin began claiming that the Western Wall was a Muslim site, not a Jewish one. British suppression of Jewish prayer services gave the mufti the opening he needed to widen the propaganda war and mobilize a pogrom. The mostly Arab police force either stood by or joined the slaughter.
The gruesome scenes, as Schwartz notes, would be echoed on Oct. 7, 2023, the next time the Jews in their homeland would be subject to that level of barbarity on such a scale.
The British response to Hebron was to further empower Hajj Amin and the Arabs of the Mandate while arresting Jewish self-defense volunteers and restricting Jewish immigration. Thus rewarded, Hajj Amin’s Palestinian nationalists had established a blueprint they would return to time and again, and the contours of the conflict were set.
In the images from the New York Times story, a bullet appears to rest within the skull and neck of a child. The damage inflicted by any bullet is dependent on the mass and the speed of the bullet. As a rule, the higher the kinetic energy, the higher the wounding capacity and lethality. Any Increase in mass and velocity of the bullet will result in a higher kinetic energy. However, for practical purposes, there is always a limit on how high the mass and the speed can be for any weapon to remain portable.Christine Rosen: Mao-Maoing the News Anchors
The IDF uses the 5.56 x 45 mm NATO cartridge. The bullet fired from this cartridge is very light and designed to inflict damage by fragmentation within the tissue (terminal ballistics). To attain this, this light bullet must strike the target at a very high velocity. The bullet has different variants, each designed to fulfill an intended purpose (antipersonnel, barrier penetration, tracer, etc.).
The muzzle velocity of the 5.56 mm round, when fired from the standard rifles used by the IDF, like the American-made M4 or Israeli-made IWI X95 (Tavor), depending on the barrel length and the variant of bullet, is between 2,900 and 3,100 f/sec. The capability of the bullet to fragment decreases significantly when the bullet speed decreases below 2,500 ft/sec, which is approximately 150 and 200 yards of travel in the air. However, a bullet traveling at that speed is very likely to still pass through an adult human torso and not get lodged within the tissue.
The bullets in the radiograph showed minimal to no deformation and were lodged in the soft tissue. This would suggest they were likely fired from a long distance, possibly at least 500 yards. However, beyond 300 yards, the accuracy of such a light bullet, like the 5.56 mm, is seriously compromised and can be affected even by minimal wind. While it is true that accurate shots with 5.56 x 45 mm bullets are still possible at long distances, this requires a very steady platform and exact calculations of distance to target and wind speed and direction. These conditions are far from those encountered in a war scenario, where rapid target acquisition while avoiding being shot at tends to be the norm.
Although it is technically possible to shoot a small target the size of a child’s head at a distance for the bullet to remain lodged within the soft tissues, to do this consistently, as the authors suggest, is extremely unlikely, if not impossible particularly when considering multiple other variables, like the fact that a child is doubtful to remain stationary, wind conditions in an urban environment, and the expectation of incoming fire.
If one assumes by an extraordinary circumstance that a fired bullet should lodge within the head of a child, it cannot be known with certainty who fired that bullet and why. The IDF uses the standard NATO rifle that shoots a 5.56-round. Hamas favors an AK rifle, but some variants also fire a 5.56 bullet. Also, on occasion, Hamas has been able to obtain NATO-style weapons. So-called celebratory gunfire is the shooting of a bullet directly into the air in celebration. Such practices are known to occur in parts of the Middle East. In the US, celebratory gunfire is generally illegal because it can be associated with severe injuries, including head injuries from falling bullets.
For the healthcare worker in Gaza, politics are prevalent. Israel has just barred six medical NGOs from operating in Gaza. One of these groups, the Palestinian American Medical Association, had members in the New York Times report. No one disputes that children are being injured and killed in Gaza. Still, healthcare workers ceased to be effective advocates for health and safety when they speculated or lied about the nature of injuries they claimed to encounter. Medical accounts of injuries and deaths in an active war zone are critically valuable in making sense of the risks to the civilian population in the battle space. Medical personnel risk acting as purveyors of disinformation when departing from impartial accounting.
One cannot imagine the shooting of innocent children is in the strategic interest of the IDF. Further, the ballistic facts make such targeting impossible. The medical profession must be unbiased. The banning of medical NGOs might be the final straw after a series of pernicious NGO-generated propaganda. In this war, the patients are the losers. The media, with a publish now, retract later approach, has created confusion in the desperate pursuit of a story. Now, more than ever, a calm and impartial appraisal on the part of healthcare and the media is desperately needed. When the war ends, as it indeed will, an accounting of the facts by combatants, including Hamas and its enablers, will seek to identify any crimes committed, and punishment will follow crime accordingly.
The CBS meltdown is notable for a few reasons. First, we learned that CBS News personnel (with the rare exception of legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who defended Dokoupil’s tough questioning) are more conversant in the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as the popular mental-health tropes of trauma and phobia, than they are in the common standards of professional journalism.
Second, despite some small signs of sanity in recent years, mainstream media clearly have not yet retreated from “peak woke” madness. It was new but unsurprising information that CBS News employs a Race and Culture Unit, distinct from the network’s traditional Standards and Practices division, with a mission as Orwellian as its name. The unit, created in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd four years ago, boasts that it has a “four-pronged role at CBS News and stations as a reviewer, an incubator, a producer and a library.”
Its “primary role” is the one it exercised in the Dokoupil–Coates fracas, and that was to “review”—which sounds innocuous but is in fact anything but. The unit functions “in concert with the CBS News Standards and Ethics department to ensure all stories have the proper context, tone and intention.” This includes working “with CBS News network shows, the streaming network and stations by reviewing scripts and screeners as well as providing input in the ideation stage of story ideas.”
The Race and Culture Unit is itself part of a broader “Content for Change” program sponsored by CBS News’s corporate parent, Paramount Global. That program is described as “a global companywide, cross-brand initiative that seeks to use the power of the company’s content creation ecosystem to break down the narratives that enable intolerance, hurtful stereotypes, and systemic racism to exist and grow.”
If the Dokoupil incident is any guide, while CBS News is intent on preventing “systemic racism” from gaining purchase, it has no problem seeing journalistic standards wither. Amid the Dokoupil meltdown, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes. A short social-media clip of the interview featured an answer by Harris to a question about Israel and Gaza. But when the full interview aired, a different answer by Harris was used—prompting questions about whether CBS had edited her remarks to make her response better. According to CBS’s own standards, “Answers to different questions may not be combined to give the impression of one continuous response.”
And yet, that appears to be what CBS has done—and it’s doubtful any of its staffers objected. The once-hallowed network is no longer known for its reporting but for its falsehoods, staff tantrums, selective editing, story suppression, tone-policing, and tape-splicing.
The chief of Paramount Global, Shari Redstone, clearly is not with her own company’s program. She told reporters that Dokoupil “did a great job with that interview” and provided “a role model of what civil discourse is,” adding, “I was very proud of the work that he did.”
She could make changes at CBS News that reflect her views by disbanding the Race and Culture Unit and punishing the chiefs of the division for their surrender to the Maoist DEI regime that was determined to punish Dokoupil…but she just sold the place.
As for Coates, he told a podcast host that he might well have participated in October 7 himself had he been a resident of Gaza. So who’s to say he might not have murdered Jews and raped Jews and kidnapped Jews and burned Jews alive by the thousands?
That would seem to warrant a follow-up question, no?
How post-colonialism is fuelling antisemitic protests across the West: Obaid Omer for Inside Policy
Post-colonialism activists accused Israel of being a vassal of the US while at the same time claiming that Jewish interests held dangerous sway over American politics. By the 1990s, animosity toward Israel among the extreme left had turned to outright hostility in the US and the West in general.Redefining evil: How postmodern ideologies twist biblical morality
In addition, academics and activists began to inject the concept of “intersectionality” into their teaching, with critical race theory and other ideologies intertwining with post-colonial theory. In this framework, European colonization was inherently evil. By extension, Israel, as a “colonizer state,” deserved to be dismantled “by any means necessary.”
The October 7 terror attacks that saw Hamas use to rape, murder, and kidnapping as tools of “resistance” caused the mask to slip off post-colonialism. To post-colonialists, Hamas terrorists are freedom fighters whose every action, however vile, is justified. This insidious ideology, fuelled by outside agitators and even authoritarian regimes like Iran, Russia, and China, has infected college campus and cities across Canada and the United States.
Ironically, pro-Palestinian activists regularly ignore evidence of Arab colonization (such as the building of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of a Jewish temple in the seventh to eighth centuries) while calling Israel an apartheid state that warrants destruction. To them, violence is a necessary tool to achieve decolonization and “globalize the Intifada.” And Israel isn’t the only democracy in their sights. Adherents of post-colonialism also view Canada and the US as illegitimate colonial projects to be dismantled.
A lack of political leadership
With antisemitism rising across the West, too many political leaders, especially on the progressive left, are playing both sides of the issue. Post-colonial theory has impaired their vision: they see the Middle East solely in black and white. To them, Islam is a subjugated religion, and the Palestinians are an oppressed people, ruled by Jewish colonizers.
This leads to an abdication of leadership when we need it the most. Consider the situation that arose in 2021 during pro-Palestinian protests in Montreal and Toronto. When clashes broke out between protesters and counter-protesters, Jewish Canadians were chased through the streets by a baying mob. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first reaction, however, was not to condemn the antisemitism on display. Rather, he urged Canadians to be wary of Islamophobia. This has been a common refrain both leading up to, and after, the October 7 terror attacks.
The Trudeau Liberals and the NDP under Jagmeet Singh are both heavily influenced by critical social justice ideologies, including post-colonial theory. This ideological capture causes them to ignore the ideologies’ inherent antisemitism. Repeatedly, the federal government has shown its bad judgement in this area – from hiring Laith Marouf as an “anti-racism” expert, to selecting Birju Dattani as the head of the Human Rights Commission.
Across the Middle East and North Africa, Islamic fundamentalists are using the ideology of post-colonialism to impose theocratic rule and deny their citizens of basic human rights and freedoms. These values, treasured in most of the Western world, are derided as attempts at colonization. Too many progressive academics in the West support this dangerous view.
If Canadians are serious about combatting antisemitism, they must hold their political leaders to account. Canada must reject post-colonialism and champion human rights and equality (rather than equity) for all. We must also support Israel, which continues to fight courageously for its survival, while surrounded by a sea of Islamist nations – including many countries that were themselves colonized by Arabs centuries.
In the realms of war and peace, the liberal world has replaced the distinction between aggressors (bad) and defenders (good) with an ideological litmus test that instead divides the world between ostensible “colonizers” (bad) and victims of colonization, who are automatically good. Regardless of the massive destruction and atrocities that the so-called victims commit, such as murder, rape, and other forms of brutality, they are treated like children, and cannot be held morally accountable for their actions.Jonathan Tobin: Affirming the ‘genocide’ smear against Israel fuels antisemitism
Not coincidentally, this framework only recognizes Western colonialists and their “Global South” or “people of color” victims. For example, Arab colonialism, which originated in Saudi Arabia and spread throughout the world under the flag of Islam, as well as its victims, are erased.
In this false morality and reversal of good and evil, the Jewish people and Israel are absurdly relegated to the category of Western colonizers, and Palestinian Arabs are the unquestioned victims who cannot be held accountable for their actions. Seventy-six years of war and terrorism, leading up to the atrocities of October 7, are relabeled as “resistance,” and whatever Israel does to defend its citizens against these horrors is immediately and mindlessly twisted into “war crimes,” “genocide,” and “apartheid.” Military strength used against the evils of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran is merely evidence of Israel’s “violations of international law.”
For these reasons, Western liberals are blind to evil that is amplified by officials who control the United Nations, the international pseudo-courts, and the powerful industry of nongovernmental organizations marching under the flag of human rights, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Among many, the illusion that these institutions remain the cornerstones of a “rules-based international order” continues to be unquestioned despite the blatant evidence that, for many years, they have been leading sources of hate propaganda and antisemitism.
When four presidents of prominent universities recently told a US congressional committee that categorizing the mob attacks and intimidation targeting Jews as acts of hatred and antisemitism “depended on the context,” they were not merely pretending to be naive innocents to avoid responsibility for their repugnant inaction. They were also repeating the postmodern blindness to the essential difference between good and evil and between justice and injustice.
These distinctions, unambiguously presented in the opening chapters of the Hebrew Bible and maintained until the advent of “enlightened liberalism,” are essential to a moral human society.
Yet the interesting thing about these two incidents is that neither the Times nor any of the other liberal mainstream outlets had any interest in reporting Harris’s comments about Gaza.Reject Israel ‘genocide’ charge ‘directly,’ AJC urges Harris
Given the openly partisan nature of the coverage of the election in the legacy media, it’s not unreasonable to speculate about the reason for suppressing the story. It was likely motivated by the knowledge that there are far more votes to be lost by the Democrats among pro-Israel centrists than to be gained on the anti-Israel left.
That was backed up by another Times story labeled “news analysis” in which they made the case that Harris would be unlikely to break from Biden on Israel and Gaza, and take a harder line against the Jewish state as her Republican opponents assert.
Yet the buzz on the left in recent days is all about its dissatisfaction with Harris’s intermittent attempts to take a centrist position on a wide range of issues, including illegal immigration, crime and the economy, on which Trump is perceived to have an advantage.
Curiously, the anti-Israel left seems unpersuaded by Harris’s expressions of sympathy for their position, as social media has been flooded with posts excoriating her for being unwilling to falsely claim that Israel is committing “genocide.” Whether that means that they—and Arab and Muslim-American voters in Michigan—won’t vote for her is a question that won’t be answered until November.
But their anger at her desire to have it both ways on the issue seems to demonstrate not merely how their ideological rigidity seems influenced by deeply entrenched attitudes of Jew-hatred. It also shows how oblivious they are to the stands of an administration that, while not breaking completely with Israel, has been determined to try to undermine its efforts to defeat Iran’s terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Throughout the year since the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, Harris has been clear that she wanted the war in Gaza to end, regardless of whether it meant that Hamas would not be disarmed and left in power. She supports Israel’s right to self-defense but seems to oppose any exercise of that right. In the spring, she claimed to have studied the maps, and any Israeli action to eliminate Hamas’s remaining military formations in Rafah would be unacceptable and might lead to a U.S. arms cutoff. She repeated that recently when she said that the death last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar—in Rafah—is the latest reason to end the war.
Though loathe to take action against Israel that might hurt Harris’s chances of defeating Trump, the administration’s foreign-policy team has not been shy about their desire to end the Jewish state’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranian terror proxy that continues to fire on northern Israel. They also want to prevent the Israeli government from striking sensitive Iranian targets like the Islamic Republic’s oil or nuclear facilities.
The fact that Israeli plans to attack Iran were leaked by Washington by the White House, intentionally or not, is also part of a series of incidents that calls into question whether Jerusalem can trust its American ally.
This is why the significance of Harris’s comments about the beliefs of Israel-haters is not so much a question of misspeaking. Rather, it’s linked to the way she and President Joe Biden have been speaking out of both sides of their mouths about the post-Oct. 7 war for the past year.
Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, called on U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to more forcefully denounce the claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza on Monday, following footage circulated of the Democratic nominee for president appearing to agree with an anti-Israel heckler.CAIR to honor outgoing Rep. Bowman with 2024 Champion of Justice award
“The protester’s charge of ‘genocide’ is an outrageous and dangerous lie,” Deutch wrote. “While I appreciate the Harris campaign official stating that ‘this is not her position,’ I urge Vice President Harris to forcefully reject the charge of genocide directly.”
On Thursday, a heckler confronted Harris at a campaign event for students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and accused her of having invested “billions of dollars in genocide.”
“What about genocide?” the man said, as security removed him, “19,000 children are dead and you won’t call it a genocide.”
“What he’s talking about, it’s real,” Harris replied. “I respect his voice.”
Video clips of the exchange went viral on social media on Saturday after they were first reported by the New York Post.
Harris campaign officials have denied that Harris was accusing Israel of committing genocide.
In response to the anti-Israel protester’s charge that Israel is engaged in “genocide,” a Harris campaign official told JNS “that is not the view of the Biden administration or the vice president.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced on Oct. 18 that it plans to give an award to outgoing Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who lost his primary in June for New York’s 16th Congressional District.
A frequent critic of Israel, Bowman is slated to receive CAIR’s 2024 Champion of Justice award on Nov. 22, when he is also scheduled to deliver a keynote at the group’s 30th anniversary gala.
CAIR, which blamed Israel for being attacked by Hamas and Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, said the congressman “has dedicated his time in Congress to advocating for racial justice, civil rights, economic fairness and a just foreign policy, including in the Middle East.”
“He was one of the first members of Congress with the moral courage to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and has consistently condemned the Israeli government’s genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people,” CAIR said. “AIPAC spent more than $14 million to silence his voice. In response, Rep. Bowman vowed to continue advocating for the liberation of Palestine.”
PS: The highest number of child deaths on earth occurred when 1.5 Million Jewish children were murdered by the Nazi Regime after a racist Jew Hate propaganda campaign similar to the one Amandla frequently shares with her followers.
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) October 22, 2024
Former President Trump says that when he came close to announcing that the United States was going to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel, he received a round of calls from various heads of state and heads of government,… pic.twitter.com/KL64AtceI1
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 22, 2024
US official praises Palestinian Authority’s financial assessment
Wally Adeyemo, the deputy U.S. secretary of the treasury, spoke on Monday with Mohammad Mustafa, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, per a U.S. readout.
The U.S. and Palestinian officials addressed “security and economic stability in the West Bank, as well as the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to improve its anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regime,” per the U.S. readout. (The Biden administration and others refer to Judea and Samaria as the West Bank.)
Adeyemo “stressed the importance of preventing terrorists and violent extremists from raising, using and moving funds in the West Bank,” according to the Treasury Department. He also noted the authority’s “progress on strengthening its countering the financing of terrorism regime,” including “completing key milestones” in assessing “risks within its jurisdiction and bolstering effective compliance with international standards,” according to the readout.
The U.S. official also “commended the Palestinian Authority for completing a risk assessment of their financial system” and for scheduling an evaluation of its banking system.
“These are both critical steps for ensuring financial linkages between the Palestinian territories and the international financial system continue,” the Treasury Department added. “They discussed the importance of the correspondent banking relationships between Israeli and Palestinian banks to the security and economic stability of the region.”
According to a 2024 U.S. State Department report, the “Palestinian public views favoritism (locally known as wasta) and nepotism as the most common forms of corruption according to a September 2022 poll by the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability, the Palestinian chapter of Transparency International.”
Palestinian schoolbooks teach hate.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 22, 2024
In science and math books, terrorists are praised.
Despite the EU’s financial support, these books haven’t changed for years.
Whenever we propose withholding funds until antisemitic pages are removed, the budget committee rejects our… pic.twitter.com/Bxu23WP4Ql
2/2:
— Documenting Israel (@DocumentIsrael) October 22, 2024
While them being there was illegal as they had no authorization from the IDF, it was not right that the PA police beat them.
Imagine this was Israeli police doing this to Arabs. There would be hell to pay, yet nobody in the world gives a damn when they do it. pic.twitter.com/MClfWWysF3
The Israel Guys: The Fake Palestinian Population in the West Bank | Episode 4
In episode four of this series, the five hosts at The Israel Guys take you on location in Judea to show the reality of the demography in the West Bank. Are the radical, extremist settlers really taking over land in Judea and Samaria, whilst forcing Palestinian-Arabs out? Or is the reality on the ground much different? Watch today’s episode to find out.
In this stunning episode, you will hear details and statistics never before heard or seen in the mainstream media. We know you will be shocked to find out that everything you’ve been told about the “West Bank”, two-state solution, and so much more is propaganda and lies.
While skepticism about the feasibility of the two-state solution is growing in Israel and amongst clear-headed thinkers around the world, support for Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is growing. We’ll let you watch today’s episode, however, to decide what you think. Be sure to post your opinion in the comment section!
Banned from France, Israeli defense companies welcomed warmly in DC
As the three-day Association of the United States Army annual meeting and exhibition wound down on Oct. 16 in Washington, word spread among Israeli defense companies that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, intended to ban them from the upcoming Euronaval defense fair outside Paris.
A spokesman for a major Israeli defense company told JNS on Wednesday at the Washington event that France’s decision to bar Israeli companies “is not surprising,” referring further questions to the Israeli Defense Ministry. A ministry representative at the event declined to comment.
That same day, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said Macron’s “actions are a disgrace to the French nation and the values of the free world, which he claims to uphold.”
“The decision to discriminate against Israeli defense industries in France a second time aids Israel’s enemies during war. This builds on the decision to place an arms embargo on the Jewish state,” Gallant stated. “France has adopted, and is consistently implementing, a hostile policy towards the Jewish people. We will continue defending our nation against enemies on seven different fronts, and fighting for our future—with or without France.”
Paris also uninvited Israeli companies to the larger Eurosatory exhibit in June. A French court overturned that decision, but it was too late for the Jewish state to participate. The court further ruled that it was discriminatory to bar Israeli citizens from the show unless they signed a waiver declaring they were attending in personal rather than official capacities.
At the event in Washington, Israeli defense sector leaders told JNS that they felt welcome in the United States.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is “very proud of our relationships and very happy to present our products that help protect the forces of democratic countries,” Yoav Turgeman, the company’s CEO, told JNS.
“Unlike perhaps Eurosatory—a very unfortunate event—we are very, very welcome here,” Turgeman said. “We are received in a very good way.” He cited the “quantity and degree” of potential customers who visited the company’s display.
“The powers in the world know how to appreciate this,” he said.
Ireland eyes revival of bill to ban trade with Israeli settlements
Ireland’s government is seeking to introduce a bill restricting trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank after it said a UN court decision freed Dublin to make trade decisions independently of the European Union.
The “Occupied Territories Bill” was first tabled in 2018 by an independent lawmaker and despite receiving broad support in Ireland’s parliament, the government said it could not bring it forward because the European Union, not member nations, is responsible for the bloc’s trade policy.
However, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on Tuesday that an advisory opinion by the United Nations’ highest court in July — asserting that Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza (despite the military’s withdrawal from the Strip in 2005) is illegal — had changed the context of how the government might move forward on the issue.
“Trade is an exclusive EU competence and so the government’s focus has been on achieving action at the EU level,” Martin said in a statement.
“The Attorney General has clarified that if this is not possible, there are grounds in EU law allowing states to take action at a national level. It is in that context that the government will now look again at the Occupied Territories Bill.”
He said the bill will be reviewed and amendments prepared in order to bring it into line with EU law and Ireland’s constitution, adding that a range of complex policy and legal issues remained to be resolved.
"Passing the Occupied Territories Bill is 'very challenging', says Tánaiste".
— Ireland Israel Alliance (@irlisrAlliance) October 22, 2024
That's because it's fundamentally illegal, as we've been advising the government since 2018 and in our subsequent correspondence 4 weeks ago.
No more than a wild goose chase!https://t.co/LD1o0h36f6
Local BDS activists discussing who to boycott next...https://t.co/mKv2ww6bis pic.twitter.com/tLUphBML8E
— David Collier (@mishtal) October 22, 2024
German politician resigns from the Left Party over handling of antisemitism
Henriette Quade, a long-time member of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), has resigned, citing the party’s insufficient response to antisemitism. Quade, who has been a member of the Left Party for 24 years and a deputy in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament since 2011, will continue to serve as an independent member of parliament, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung.'Since the Oslo Accords, we've been obsessed with Israel': How Israel-Norway relations fell apart
In a statement shared on her website and on X/Twitter), Quade criticized what she described as a “culture of silence” regarding antisemitism within the Left Party, arguing that an uncompromising fight against antisemitism is not possible “in and with this party.”
Her resignation was triggered by a recent resolution passed at the federal party conference in Halle, which called for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas but failed to mention antisemitism. Quade criticized the resolution for omitting any reference to “murderous antisemitism,” despite its focus on alleged violations of international law by the Israeli army.
“The resolution did not mention, with a single sentence, the murderous antisemitism that has been urging for the destruction of Israel since the first day of its existence,” Quade stated, as reported by Spiegel Online.
She also took issue with the party’s call to stop weapons deliveries to Israel, arguing that such a policy would leave Israel defenseless. “As long as Israel is militarily threatened, it can only avert attacks through military force,” Quade added, likening the party’s stance to its policy on Ukraine, which she described as “a policy of letting people die.”
It wasn’t always this way. The collapse of Israel-Norway relations - as illustrated in recent months with Norway’s recognition of a Palestinian state and Israel’s diplomatic blitz against Norway – is reminiscent of an ugly divorce, each partner taking out their years of pent-up anger and resentment on the other.
It began as a love story between two countries who found common ground, caring for one another and optimistically trying to bring peace to the Middle East. Three decades later, the experiment blew up in dissolution.
“I think Norway’s unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state is an admission of failure,” says Hilde Henriksen Waage (65) of Oslo University, a leading expert on Israel-Norway relations and the Oslo process in Norway.
“After the Cold War, in Norway, there was a desire to build up an image to make it stand out and remind the US that we’re here, that we’re more than a border with Russia and that contrary to our geographical location, we’re in the middle of the action. It was decided we’d offer the world peace. And it’s failed. Not only is there no peace, but things have gotten much worse. And the finger’s being pointed entirely at Israel’s current government.”
Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Kravik views Norway’s unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state somewhat differently: “We did it to advance peace and recognition between Israel and Palestine. This is something we’re committed to," he says.
"We saw that the Oslo Accords took negative directions that have created a lack of security for both Israelis and Palestinians. So, we were forced to think differently about how to embolden the moderate elements, weakened in this brutal conflict. Both sides deserve peace, but there’ll be no peace without a two-state solution. And as the war in Gaza rages on, we have to preserve the two-state solution alternative.”
Norway took another step against Israel when it supported an arms embargo against Israel at the UN, while most European countries (including Sweden) abstained. Until the mid-'70s, the Norwegian public, along with the country’s political organizations, were clear Israel supporters.
Spanish Member of the European Parliament @hermanntertsch says that the far-left and Islamists have formed a “red and black alliance.”
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 21, 2024
He says that this anti-Western alliance is something that the Venezuelan communist terrorist Carlos “The Jackal” dreamed about decades ago. pic.twitter.com/uNei4CeutN
Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev: Russia Will Not Participate in Combat Operations in the Middle East; Nobody Is Coordinating Their Strikes with Us; We Faced Sanctions over “Fabricated” Massacres in Ukraine, Yet Nobody is Sanctioning Those Behind the War Crimes and… pic.twitter.com/wb5gsBHyKX
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 22, 2024
Two pro-Israel activists arrested for violent counterprotest at UCLA last spring
Two pro-Israel activists have been arrested in the latest fallout from a violent clash at UCLA’s pro-Palestinian encampment last spring.
On Friday, Adam Tfayli, student body president of the University of California, Los Angeles, announced on Instagram that two people were arrested on felony charges first made in early August, and have preliminary hearings scheduled. The statement also said an additional two people have active warrants for arrest — one on a felony warrant and one that was initially charged as a felony but has since been reclassified as a misdemeanor. There is a fifth case currently being reviewed.
The statement did not include names, but the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, identified the arrested suspects as Eyal Shalom and Malachi Joshua Marlan-Librett. UCLA and campus police did not return requests for comment.
The arrests came nearly six months after a group of pro-Israel activists — including Shalom and Marlan-Librett — attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment at the school on April 30. The fracas led to numerous physical altercations as demonstrators threw objects and fireworks at the pro-Palestinian activists. Security guards were present at the scene but police did not clear the area until hours after the clashes began.
The violence from pro-Israel activists drew national attention, particularly in a climate where Jewish students at campuses across the country said that pro-Palestinian encampments created a hostile and antisemitic atmosphere. Classes were canceled at UCLA following the incident, and condemnations poured in, including from local Jewish leaders and Jewish UCLA students and faculty. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass called the violence “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable.”
I believe this is him: pic.twitter.com/dNDd59BlDo
— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) October 22, 2024
NYU Students for Justice in Palestine, a group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, posts "L'Chaim Intifada."
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 22, 2024
L'Chaim means "To Life," while intifada means the mass death of Jews. pic.twitter.com/xcCfqJE8qP
The purpose of their act is tokenist politics, not religious ritual, and therefore fair game. I agree that you shouldn't dunk on Jews who make mistakes if their aim is simply to practice Judaism. https://t.co/oSIEDz10MH
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) October 22, 2024
JVP is appropriating Sukkot to try to get around campus rules by making its political protest structure also a sukkah.
— Daniel Day Jewish 🔥 (@DanielDayJewish) October 21, 2024
JVP then complains about "weaponizing false claims of antisemitism" etc https://t.co/ODsGEqblx0
Padilla is the classicist whose goal is to destroy the study of classics so, you know, he's really a positive force for universities, our civilization, and the idea that spending $350,000 for a Princeton education is more than simply throwing that money in the garbage can. https://t.co/aPnITmlNgw
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) October 22, 2024
Shai Davidai explains one of his reasons for rallying on campus at the University of Toronto, taking shots at masked individuals attending in counter protest.
— Caryma Sa'd - Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) October 22, 2024
📸 Oct 21, 2024#cdnpoli #Toronto #Palestine #Israel #Gaza #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/mxFGETdRNY
"I have nothing to apologize for. Nothing."@ShaiDavidai unleashes on the University of Toronto — and on the terror supporters who try to interrupt him.
— dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ (@DahliaKurtz) October 21, 2024
And I am here for it. Pressing record. To share with you.
Because everyone should learn from this Columbia professor.🍿 pic.twitter.com/jKWsxrVkaC
The great @ShaiDavidai doing what he does best; educating students. Thanks Shai for always showing us the light pic.twitter.com/PCD3Bc0mjf
— Danielle Lieberman (@delieberman) October 22, 2024
Student: “Why can’t I go in?”
— Shoshana Aufzien🎗️ (@shoshanaaufzien) October 21, 2024
Faculty Member: “Because the students have said that.”
Student: “But I’m also a student…are they better students?”
Faculty Member: *shrugs* https://t.co/Nkk9q9EANL
If you are a Penn parent, alumni, student, or just a concerned community member, please call Penn's hotline to voice your disgust toward the university administration.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 22, 2024
Here is seven minutes of an Instagram live outside the occupation. pic.twitter.com/RPS066ttdY
— Stu (@thestustustudio) October 21, 2024
Anti-Israel protesters arrested after occupying University of Minnesota building
Police arrested around a dozen anti-Israel protesters who briefly occupied a University of Minnesota administrative building and blocked staff from being able to leave, the school said Monday.
Demonstrators demanding the school divest from Israel entered Morrill Hall on Monday afternoon, using furniture to barricade doors and causing other damage before police were called in to remove them, the university said in a statement.
“Once inside the building, protesters began spray painting, including covering lenses of all internal security cameras, breaking interior windows, and barricading the building’s entrance and exit points,” the school said. “A number of staff were working in the building at the time, and several people were not able to exit, with some being unable to exit the building for an extended period of time.”
Authorities said 11 people were arrested inside the building, though the Minnesota Daily student newspaper put the number of arrests at 13, citing police. A reporter for the paper was also briefly detained, it said.
Merlin Van Alstein, an activist with Students for a Democratic Society, said about 30 protesters had occupied Morrill Hall, with a larger group gathered outside. Demonstrators demanded that the university divest from Israel and repeal its political neutrality agreement.
During the takeover, the group symbolically renamed the building “Halimy Hall,” in remembrance of 19-year-old Palestinian TikTok creator Medo Halimy who died in August in an apparent Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said it was not aware of the strike that killed Halimy.
BREAKING: Arrests have already begun at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Student activists occupied Morrill Hall earlier today to protest in favor of divestment.
— Stu (@thestustustudio) October 21, 2024
📽️: @wordfromward pic.twitter.com/Ljk1FQCosj
More on Maura Finkelstein here: https://t.co/z34Wkn6gmR
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 22, 2024
Update: Shane Hazel is no longer employed by Swan.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 22, 2024
Furthermore the company said in a statement to StopAntisemitism:
“Swan is co-founded by Yan Pritzker, a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, and the company does not condone hatred nor division.” https://t.co/5wYP7CxCs2
Very sorry about this mistake. The following tweet explains what happened. We only discovered this problem today and quickly worked to fix it. The tweet explains what happened. https://t.co/T8wK9BCR4U
— Daniel Clancy (@djclancy999) October 21, 2024
➡️ Twitch claims that it "inadvertently" failed to re-enable sign-ups.
— Jew Hate Database (@jewhatedb) October 21, 2024
➡️ Users criticized Twitch for blocking sign-ups, stating phone verification also faced issues.
➡️ Concerns over the platform's moderation have arisen, particularly regarding the handling of Jew hatred… pic.twitter.com/iQwFBqR3Ke
"claims" https://t.co/rPw1ilwVbD
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) October 22, 2024
Twitch blocked Israeli users from their platform?
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 21, 2024
With Senior Trust & Safety people like Fadzai Madzingira - who was already booted from one job due to her anti Israel bias - gee, who could have seen this coming?!
Time to clean house. https://t.co/OFMNmN0JIj pic.twitter.com/DefMnko3EJ
StopAntisemitism has received the code proving Twitch has been blocking users from Israel from accessing their platform since 10/13/2023.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 21, 2024
Twitch, owned by Amazon, is based in CA, a state with strong anti BDS laws. StopAntisemitism calls on Governor @GavinNewsom & the CA state… pic.twitter.com/HVogWGrhjT
Breaking - internal Twitch chat shows platform moderators located in Egypt.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 22, 2024
With the rise of Jew hatred and terror promotion on Twitch, perhaps a U.S. based company needs to bring Trust and Safety back home. pic.twitter.com/oCrnuFP7Gz
Frogan admitted her cousin was a Hezbollah terrorist who died in the war lmao https://t.co/qLGuCeiTgj pic.twitter.com/yH3kqup9lK
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) October 22, 2024
Frogan not knowing who the Druze are really drives home how all the twitch political radicals are LARPing about issues they know nothing about
— Swann Marcus (@SwannMarcus89) October 21, 2024
It's especially wild given she claims to care deeply about her ancestral homeland in Southern Lebanon https://t.co/hzqw3Xkm7e
CBS Producer in Gaza Has History of Antisemitic, Anti-Israel Commentary: ‘Are Jews Really Human Like Us?’
In early October, to mark a year of war in Gaza, CBS News turned its cameras at one of its own: Gaza-based producer Marwan Al Ghoul.
Because foreign journalists are not allowed in Gaza on their own, CBS relies on Al Ghoul to report on what’s happening on the ground there, anchor Norah O’Donnell told viewers.
Over the last year, Al Ghoul has reported from the rubble of bombed-out buildings and chaos of overwhelmed hospitals. He’s interviewed aid workers and displaced families. He’s “very angry” about what’s happened to his homeland, Al Ghoul told foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer in the video, adding that “like anybody, we want to be free.”
Palmer called Al Ghoul’s resolve “simply astonishing.” Another correspondent said that Al Ghoul is “much loved here at CBS News.” One CBS editor called Al Ghoul “an incredibly courageous man and a fantastic reporter.”
But CBS News leaders are not answering questions about Al Ghoul’s public views on the war and his often controversial comments about Israel and Jews. In Facebook posts, Al Ghoul has displayed a clear anti-Israel bias and has regularly alleged that Israel is engaged in a genocide. He and his son, a cameraman, appear to have praised terror attacks against civilians and even questioned the humanity of Jews. Al Ghoul’s son identifies himself on social media as a CBS worker. CBS denies that the network employs or pays Al Ghoul’s son.
CBS’s October 7 story featuring Al Ghoul aired while the network’s executives were dealing with the fallout from another episode involving the Israel-Gaza conflict. This month, it was revealed that CBS News leaders reprimanded morning show co-anchor Tony Dokoupil, who is Jewish, for his pointed questioning of Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of a new anti-Israel book that claims the country was “built on ethnocracy” and “apartheid.” CBS leaders alleged that the “tone” of Dokoupil’s interview didn’t meet “the legacy of neutrality and objectivity that is CBS News,” according to news reports.
Critics say reprimanding Dokoupil for a fair but aggressive interview of an Israel critic while ignoring its own producer’s history of anti-Israel commentary smacks of a double standard.
“It just seems to us that CBS is willing to ignore or excuse antisemitism from its staff while penalizing journalists who challenge anti-Israel narratives,” said Jonah Cohen, a spokesman for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).
CAMERA, a pro-Israel media-monitoring organization, has been leading the effort to expose Al Ghoul’s commentary and what it sees as CBS’s hypocrisy. National Review has reviewed the Al Ghoul Facebook posts CAMERA flagged, which pre-date the October 7 attack, as well as other seemingly one-sided posts he has made over the last year.
CAMERA has also flagged several social-media posts made by Al Ghoul’s son, Fares Marwan Alghoul, who has served as his father’s cameraman in Gaza. The son has made several posts over the years cheering terrorist attacks and praising terrorists.
Here's just one example of how viral his content can be. 10,500,000 views for a completely unverified, unverifiable BS story.
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 22, 2024
There are numerous other posts of his showing alleged "massacres" that end up being amplified by mainstream Western accounts (Mehdi Hasan, etc.) pic.twitter.com/AJ4rXwnCTQ
"God is Great God is Great
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 22, 2024
Thousands of settlers fled the Gaza Strip" pic.twitter.com/5gWfcV2Wpc
And here he is in 2017 with Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar pic.twitter.com/smXFPQGP0X
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 22, 2024
Some examples of Anas being amplified in the media:
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 22, 2024
AP, Reuters, and the New York Times pic.twitter.com/LjDDXtFBcb
Wikipedia's page on Zionism is partly edited by an anti-Zionist
Wikipedia’s page on “Zionism” is being partly edited by a user with strongly anti-Zionist views, The Jerusalem Post discovered on Monday.
The anonymous user, DMH223344, has re-framed the content of the page so that Zionism is defined as a colonialist movement, and has cited multiple anti-Israel sources when providing evidence for the claims.
Actor and activist Roi Dolev first shone light on the issue in a post to his Instagram, after researching DMH223344.
At the time of writing, when googled, the Wikipedia definition of Zionism is that “Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinians as possible” something that was defined in part by DMH223344.
The Post found that the user was suspended on October 9 2024 from editing the Zionism page, “for violating the one-revert rule at Zionism (revert 1 & revert 2) after previous warnings.”
The one revert rule is Wikipedia’s ban on editing wars, which happens when multiple editors revert and un-revert each other’s work.
According to Callanecc, the user that initiated the suspension, DMH223344 had “already been warned twice in a few months about edit warring and 1RR.”
"Just over one year ago, Hezbollah launched rockets at Israeli positions across the border in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Israel responded in a war ..."
— Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) October 22, 2024
Somebody, please tell the "journalists" from @nytimes about thousands of Hezbollah rockets fired at Israeli civilian… https://t.co/sUcQgipOXE pic.twitter.com/GVysknAZPU
Former LA Times, current NYT writer impressed by Hamas's commitment to the war they started as part of their explicitly genocidal campaign to wipe out the Israel.
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) October 21, 2024
Say what you will about contemporary journalists, but you can't deny their message discipline. https://t.co/bSZitGu2ym
Al-Mohtadi Mobile Store is selling iPhones 16 Pro Max, new in the box. Address: Deir al-Balah Cannon, opposite Baladna Supermarket, Central Gaza Strip.
— Imshin (@imshin) October 21, 2024
I'm told this is a new model that has just been released.
TikTok timestamps: 4 days ago + 1 day ago
[This guy also has a… pic.twitter.com/ujDtQDzQ7H
"Starvation" that gives you gout."
— George Hall (@geehall1) October 22, 2024
Now I HAVE heard everything. https://t.co/68sBI0CPL5
Prices of free food aid in a North Gaza market:
— Imshin (@imshin) October 22, 2024
Can of tomatoes - 15 shekels ($4)
Corned beef - 35 shekels ($9.26)
Packet of biscuits fortified with vitamins - 8 shekels ($2.12)
TikTok timestamp: 14 hours ago#TheGazaYouDontSee
Link in 1st comment pic.twitter.com/7z74FWV3Pr
Seth Frantzman: Will death of Turkish cleric Gulen lead to a more peaceful Turkey?
Turkish cleric Muhammed Fethullah Gulen died in Pennsylvania this week. Gulen and his movement were accused by Turkey’s ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) of attempting a coup against Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. The coup attempt came at a time of transition in Turkey and was used by the government as an excuse to purge hundreds of thousands of political opponents from all parts of society.Turkey's Halkbank not immune from US prosecution in Iran sanctions case
It also led the Turkish state to use all means abroad to crack down on institutions and people linked to Gulen. This included extrajudicial renditions around the world.
Gulen was 83 years old. The history of how the current leadership of Turkey came to view Gulen and his movement as a “terrorist” group is not entirely clear. What is clear is that the AKP Party has dominated Turkish politics for the last two decades and it has thrived on finding various enemies along the way that it then accuses of plots so that it can then purge them. These enemies have includes accusations against secular officers in the military, as well as the Gulen movement and the Kurdistan Workers Party.
An opening for Turkey?
The death of Gulen could serve as an opening in Turkey because the ruling party may be less paranoid now. It’s not clear if the death will lead to an opening, but let’s review how we got here in Turkey.
Turkey’s current ruling party first won elections in 2002. Because Turkey has a history of coups that have been used to keep the right-wing Islamist elements out of power, the AKP moved carefully at first. It wanted to transform Turkey into a more conservative Islamic power. It wanted to reorient itself from being pro-Western and pro-NATO to being close to Russia, Iran, China, and also leading both the Turkish world and the Islamic world.
In the beginning the AKP sought to have a policy of “zero problems” with Turkey’s neighbors. This enabled the party to focus domestically. Gulen and his institutions were not seen as rivals initially. Instead, the leadership sought to crack down on secular opposition elements.
This meant going after the secular-nationalist media and targeting universities, students, and NGOs linked to the West. This was a model picked up from Putin’s consolidation of power in Russia.
A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected a request by Turkey's state-owned Halkbank HALKB.IS for immunity from US criminal charges that it helped Iran evade American sanctions. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said it found no basis in common law for a foreign state-owned corporation to be absolutely immune from US prosecution for alleged criminal conduct related to its commercial activities.US charges IRGC official, 3 others in plot to assassinate dissident journalist
The United States has issued fresh charges over an attempted Tehran plot to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian-American journalist in New York, and has indicted an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official among others in the case, according to a court document on Tuesday.
Ruhollah Bazghandi and three other men were charged in the updated indictment against those accused of trying to abduct and kill Masih Alinejad.
The Iranian opposition activist and journalist has been living in exile in New York City. Her identity is not in court papers, but she confirmed to The Associated Press that she was the intended target.
Bazghandi and the other newly-charged suspects are based in Iran and remain at large, prosecutors said.
They said that Bazghandi’s internet activity, as well as that of the three other individuals whose names were unsealed on Tuesday, pointed to their involvement in multiple assassination plots.
“Today’s indictment exposes the full extent of Iran’s plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime,” said US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray.
US prosecutors have previously charged other suspects in the case, including Khalid Mehdiyev, who was arrested for having a rifle outside Alinejad’s Brooklyn home, and Rafat Amirov. Both are in US custody and have pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges.
BREAKING:
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) October 22, 2024
U.S. Federal prosecutors have charged Ruhollah Bazghandi, a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and three other men connected to the Islamic Republic of Iran with participating in a failed plot to assassinate me on U.S. soil.
The… pic.twitter.com/9tkmioCs5J
They don’t even care about Palestinians!
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) October 21, 2024
This is Mohammad Mahdi Mirbagheri — a representative of Semnan Province in the Assembly of Experts (Islamic regime in Iran). He is an advocate for the Islamization of sciences, apocalyptic war theory, internet restrictions, and the… pic.twitter.com/2QdIQnVo5X
“Jews are our enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing.”
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) October 21, 2024
Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub on Al-Rahma TV:
“If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never… pic.twitter.com/D2H7nBd7Rt
Beloved author and vicious antisemite Roald Dahl gets complex treatment in new play
Hailed as “one of the greatest storytellers” of the 20th century, Roald Dahl wrote some of Britain’s most beloved children’s books, sprinkled with magical characters like “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Matilda,” and “Danny, the Champion of the World.”New Jersey defamation suit to proceed in case of Jewish teacher smeared online
He was also a vicious antisemite.
That paradox rests at the heart of Jewish playwright Mark Rosenblatt’s new play, “Giant,” which opened last month at London’s Royal Court Theatre.
It is set in the summer of 1983 when Dahl — newly divorced and recently engaged to his mistress — finds himself plunged into a media storm. With his new book “The Witches” weeks from publication, the Welsh-born novelist had authored a review of a photobook about the 1982 Lebanon War.
“In June 1941 I happened to be in, of all places, Palestine, flying with the RAF against the Vichy French and the Nazis,” the piece began. “Hitler happened to be in Germany and the gas chambers were being built and the mass slaughter of the Jews was beginning. Our hearts bled for the Jewish men, women and children, and we hated the Germans.”
“Exactly forty-one years later, in June 1982, the Israeli forces were streaming northwards out of what used to be Palestine into Lebanon, and the mass slaughter of the inhabitants began. Our hearts bled for the Lebanese and Palestinian men, women and children, and we all started hating the Israelis,” Dahl continued.
“Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers. Never before has a race of people generated so much sympathy around the world and then, in the space of a lifetime, succeeded in turning that sympathy into hatred and revulsion. It is as though a group of much-loved nuns in charge of an orphanage had suddenly turned around and started murdering all the children.”
And that wasn’t all. “The authentic tales of horror and bestiality throughout this book,” he wrote, “make one wonder in the end what sort of people these Israelis are. It is like the good old Hitler and Himmler times all over again.”
As for the United States, Dahl said, it was “so utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions” that it “dare not defy” Israel.
The only way for Jews outside Israel to redeem themselves, Dahl argued, was for them to become anti-Israeli. “But do they have the conscience,” he asked. “And do they, I wonder, have the guts.”
The review was rightly savaged in the press. Under the headline “An affront to decency,” the historian Paul Johnson labeled it “the most disgraceful item to appear in a respectable British publication for a very long time.”
A case can move forward to restore the reputation of Tamar Herman, a veteran teacher in the South Orange-Maplewood School District in New Jersey, after online accusations by Olympic fencer and author Ibtihaj Muhammad that she discriminated against a Muslim second-grade student by asking her to remove her hijab.
The Lawfare Project announced on Monday that the New Jersey Appellate Division had rejected a motion for dismissal and upheld the defamation lawsuit the group had filed in support of Herman.
“These accusations—published to Ms. Muhammad’s hundreds of thousands of social-media followers—led to widespread antisemitic attacks, physical threats and irreparable damage to Ms. Herman’s career and personal life,” the Lawfare Project stated.
“The malicious defamation campaign against Ms. Herman was a calculated, antisemitic effort to harm a respected member of the community, motivated by her Jewish identity,” said Benjamin Ryberg, COO of the Lawfare Project. “Ms. Muhammad must be held accountable for the significant trauma she has inflicted.”
Wearing a shirt that says “anti-Jew” will not help Palestinians caught in Hamas’ war, but it will however terrorize the Parisian Jews you encounter in the metro. pic.twitter.com/X5mcGGW6fA
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) October 22, 2024
Antisemitism envoy grateful for Catholic Schools’ stand against hate and bigotry
Catholic Schools NSW has jointly hosted a roundtable on antisemitism in education with Jillian Segal, Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia.
Held at Australian Catholic University, the roundtable identified and assessed the challenge of antisemitism in schools, presented responses to antisemitism and discussed opportunities for future collaboration.
Led by a keynote address from Ms Segal covering her work as special envoy, the roundtable showcased successful antisemitic initiatives and programs undertaken by Sydney Catholic Schools, led by its director of religious education and evangelisation, Anthony Cleary.
Following the presentations, Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney moderated a discussion among the attendees, focusing on the various perspectives from the representative heads of various organisations.
In a show of unity, over 3000 schools were represented, including all three schooling sectors, as well as Christian, Anglican and Jewish schools, and the Secretary of the NSW Department of Education, Murat Dizdar.
Ms Segal said it was “heartening to hear around the table strong condemnation of antisemitism in our society and acknowledgement of the essential role schools have in countering it and ensuring they educate future leaders about it”.
“I am very grateful to Catholic Schools NSW for their strong and ongoing stand against hate and bigotry,” Ms Segal said.
Mr McInerney said school leaders have a “unique responsibility” to ensure that schools are welcoming and safe environments for all students”.
“We have Jewish students in all three sectors of NSW education, and today, we send a powerful message that antisemitism has no place in our schools and education is the best antidote to bigotry.”
Only in Latin America will you find two Presidents who are a pro-'Palestine' Jew and a pro-Israel 'Palestinian'. pic.twitter.com/T3rWRp9QAz
— 𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) October 22, 2024
I just want to use this opportunity to thank all my non-Jewish friends on this app, who've been fighting side by side with us against disinformation and hatred.
— Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) October 22, 2024
Your voice is immensely important.
Thank you. https://t.co/frh4XqqMhD
Former boxing champ gives Israeli rescue group 100 bulletproof vests
American boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. is donating $100,000 to buy 100 bulletproof vests for Israeli medical volunteers on the front lines, in his latest show of support for the Jewish state.
The gift was announced on Monday evening, at an annual Jerusalem concert for the United Hatzalah volunteer emergency-rescue service that raised funds for the purchase of 1,000 protective kits for its volunteers.
About 3,000 people attended the sold-out event organized by the Jerusalem-based service at the city’s International Convention Center, which included performances by Israeli singers Ishay Ribo, Gad Elbaz and Shmuel Star.
“Your presence shows that even in difficult times, we can find strength in unity,” said Eli Beer, United Hatzalah president and founder. “Let’s continue to stand together for our soldiers, our volunteers and our community.”
Mayweather, 47, from Las Vegas, is a boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed between 1996 and 2017. He retired undefeated with a 50-0 record and won 15 major world championships spanning five weight classes from super featherweight to light middleweight.
Earlier this year, he visited Israel in a wartime solidarity trip wearing a large Star of David necklace. At the time, he dedicated a fleet of ambulances to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
🙌🏽 EXCLUSIVE: Legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather is donating $100,000 dollars to purchase bulletproof vests for United Hatzalah volunteers to keep them safe amidst the war.
— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) October 22, 2024
The donation was announced by United Hatzalah President Eli Beer in Jerusalem tonight at their annual Sukkot… pic.twitter.com/CUvhhqLvR3
We must stand united against anti-Semitism and rebuild harmony in our country.
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) October 22, 2024
Today, I’m proud to announce that a Coalition Government will commit $8.5 million to expand the Sydney Jewish Museum, ensuring future generations learn the lessons of history.
Learning from history… pic.twitter.com/ExQHTNJLMV
I have said for over twenty years that Israel is the first real case of a successful land back decolonization movement. If Israel is a colonial project please tell me what country it was colonised on behalf of and what foreign language and religion they imposed on the locals.
— Ryan Bellerose (@Ryanknowsthings) October 21, 2024
My speech on 10/7 at the Constitution Center (watch till the end 😌🇮🇱🔔)#jews #israel #america #philladlephia #indepencehall #constitution #palestine #gaza #iran #lebanon #middleast #peaceinthemiddleeast #war #philly pic.twitter.com/NrnerUhQ2i
— Zach Sage Fox (@zachsagefox) October 21, 2024
My dear friend @PatriciaHeaton and I will be traveling to @Cornell on Nov 11th to perform and speak on campus in support of the Jewish students, faculty, and community. One does not have to be Jewish (we are not) to condemn the evil that is Hamas, merely human. 🇺🇸🇮🇱🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/n5F15vUhnd
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) October 21, 2024
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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