Thursday, November 21, 2024

11/21 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The pope’s embrace of evil discourse; Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro tell thousands in Jerusalem: You are the ‘tip of the spear in a civilizational battle’

From Ian:

Unfulfilled Promise
Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s operation in Gaza constitutes genocide, according to a new book published for the Catholic Church’s jubilee year. “According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” the pope said in excerpts published Sunday by the Italian daily La Stampa.

What makes the inflammatory statements in the pope’s book especially disturbing is that they follow on remarks by the pope that appear to demonize Jews even more broadly and which are contrary to teachings of the Church. Pope Francis’ prior Letter to Catholics of the Middle East on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel from Gaza provoked widespread confusion and consternation among Jews and Catholics. While he has spoken regularly about the attack and the fighting that erupted in its wake, his inclusion in the letter of a citation of John 8:44 to denounce the evils of war was to many inexplicable.

The verse chosen by the pontiff, a vitriolic accusation that the Jews “are from [their] father, the devil,” has for centuries provoked and been used to justify Church hostility to Jews. Yet such terrible imagery of Jewish malfeasance is thoroughly out of place in a modern Catholic document. Regrettably, the pope nonetheless chose to use this notorious verse at a time when global antisemitism has reached disturbingly high levels. Such a statement threatens the intellectual work of his Catholic predecessors going back to the 1960s.

While the citation is surely troubling, more significant is the letter itself, for it is yet another example of an ongoing presentation of Francis’ extensive and controversial views on the Israel-Hamas war. This letter has made people aware of this significant body of statements and demonstrates the compelling need to understand current relations with one of the Jewish community’s most influential and important partners, Pope Francis and the Catholic Church. In the year after the attack, Francis has spoken publicly about the war at least 75 different times. The conflict is not just like other conflicts, for it occurs in a place “which has witnessed the history of revelation” (2/2/24). Not only is he understandably very distressed about the war, but he is also clearly knowledgeable about it and notes many aspects of it (e.g., hostages, negotiations, humanitarian aid, Israeli airstrikes, challenges for aid workers). With the possible exception of Russia’s war on Ukraine, no other conflict has received such frequent mention by Francis, nor has he engaged so intimately with the specific features of other, often more deadly conflicts. He addressed the war most often in scheduled gatherings for the Sunday Angelus Prayer and in weekly audiences with the general public, though he has discussed it at greater length in official contexts (e.g., Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See, 1/8/24).

Pope Francis does not just speak homiletically. His statements express his deep-seated and passionate convictions about morality and political affairs. They also both reflect and influence current trends in Catholic thinking about the Israel-Hamas war. The Holy See of course is not just a religious institution but also a state, engaged in pragmatic exchanges and negotiations with other states and organizations. The pope’s views on war and peace necessarily shape Vatican diplomacy and guide Catholic political proposals, as seen for example in the statement of the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.N. in January 2024, which is replete with references to Francis’ speeches and elaboration on his ideas.

Francis is struggling to reconcile traditional Catholic just war theory, which began with St. Augustine centuries ago, with contemporary Catholic resistance to almost any justification of war, especially without international sanction (Fratelli Tutti 258 n. 242; see also the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2302-17). The latter, more skeptical view of war has roots in the 19th century but emerged strongly after World War II and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), especially in the wake of the Shoah and the development of nuclear weapons. It continues to develop today, with Francis giving it his own emphases that reflect his roots in the global south and the influence of liberationist theology.

It is ironic, or perhaps predictable, that the Catholic Church in the modern period, now without access to military power, has moved away from just war theory and now largely deploys its more restrained views of war and peace in judging others. Given the prominence of the Israel-Hamas war in Francis’ speeches and its moral and political complexity, as well as his stature internationally, his views are relevant and influential.
Melanie Phillips: The pope’s embrace of evil discourse
In other words, his attack on Israel is far more than boilerplate liberal hostility to the existence of the Jewish state. It regurgitates the ancient Christian theological hatred of the Jews and the desire to obliterate them.

This pushes the Vatican backwards by several decades. Unlike Protestant churches, the Catholics have made significant attempts from the 1960s onwards to retract their ancient libel against the Jews and express contrition for what the church had done to the Jewish people.

Particularly neuralgic had been the behavior of Pope Pius XII, who was accused of having failed to speak out publicly against the Nazis and thus made the church an accomplice to the Holocaust.

Now Pope Francis has undone all of that progress.

Yet he has also said good things about Israel and the Jews. In Tablet magazine, Adam Gregerman points out that the pope has celebrated the change in Catholic thinking about Judaism that meant “enemies and strangers have become friends and brothers”; expressed sadness over Catholics’ past misdeeds against Jews; said “the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity”; and insisted that “to attack Jews is antisemitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also antisemitism.”

Responding to a letter from Jewish scholars written in November 2023 expressing deep concern over “the worst wave of antisemitism since 1945,” he said the Oct. 7 atrocities reminded him that the promise “never again” remained relevant, and must be taught and affirmed anew.

So what’s the explanation for the apparent contradiction?

The answer is surely that the pope is driven entirely by his identification with suffering victims—and since all wars inevitably create victims, he always opposes war. Four days after the Oct. 7 pogrom, he said: “No war is worth the tears of a mother who has seen her child mutilated or killed; no war is worth the loss of the life of even one human being.”

He is a consequentialist. Seeing only the awful consequences of war, the cause becomes irrelevant. War to stop a genocide thus becomes as bad as genocide.

That amoral thinking leads him effectively to deny any justification for a just war. He thus inevitably condemns innocent victims of aggression—in this case, the Israelis—to unlimited slaughter, torture and suffering, and ultimately the State of Israel itself to existential destruction.

Believing that war is itself a crime against humanity, he excuses, sanitizes and implicitly encourages actual crimes against humanity while anathematizing the defense against them.

By believing that this Marxist-derived ideology represents conscience, Pope Francis has made himself an accomplice of evil.
Yisrael Medad: On academic indoctrination in American universities
For those opposed to Zionism, Israel is a symbol of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism—the core evils leftists exist to oppose. This is the underlying layer of today’s debasement of anything pro-Israel, its pillars sunk into a feeling of intense and even depraved degradation of Jews and all things Jewish, especially an independent and successful Jewish state.

What has evolved is epitomized at Villanova University outside Philadelphia, where a director of counseling services can present antisemitic views at an international conference, describing Zionism as a “disease” that requires psychotherapy. FBI-style “Wanted” posters targeted Jewish faculty and staff members at the University of Rochester. The sheriff’s office in Walla Walla, Wash., was required to respond to a pro-Palestine student protest outside a Whitman Board of Trustees dinner at a winery forcing the college to relocate its dinner venue.

At De Paul University, supporting Israel landed one Jewish student in the hospital while a second student was lightly injured. At Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, the campus flagpole had a Hamas flag hoisted.

The deeper invasive connection between academia and anti-Zionism, however, is not in protests but in the educational content, or rather the indoctrination, that a student undergoes. For example, the University of California, Berkeley has announced that it is offering a course this coming spring semester describing Hamas as a “revolutionary resistance force fighting settler colonialism.” More invidious, the course description reads as if a primer for a revolutionary underground:

“With the U.S.-backed and -funded genocide being carried out against Indigenous Palestinians by the Israeli Occupying Force, many have found it difficult to envision a reality beyond the one we are living in today.”

A second example is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seminar taught by linguistics professor Michel DeGraff. The course deals with “language and linguistics for decolonization and liberation and for peace and community-building.”

His position is that Jews have no connection to Israel and that Israeli textbooks “weaponize trauma of the Holocaust.” Israeli youth, he further asserts, grow up “with this trauma that made them fear that their existence is in threat.” That may be a fair observation, but he adds that the threat comes from “anyone who doesn’t believe in the superior position of the Jewish people in Israel.”

If you perceive some racism and black supremacist theory in this explanation, you are probably correct.

This is but one sphere of influence crushing on a student. In too many cases, his/her lecturers and advisors are those who sign pro-Palestine petitions, marshal the demonstrations and sit-ins, and provide support for campus groups when they are disciplined—or more correctly, when administrations attempt to do so.

The Capital Research Center has published a study titled “Marching Towards Violence” that investigated militant left-wing antisemitism on the campuses of U.S. colleges and universities. It has identified more than 150 campus groups that explicitly support terrorism or, at the least, emphasize violent anti-Israel rhetoric.

David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, sums up the situation:

“Anti-Israel forces focused on U.S. college campuses have transformed the American university into a vector for their activist agenda … playing the long game—what activists call “the long march through institutions”—in inculcating a stark ideological worldview that portrays anyone with power or success … as oppressors.”

Is there an antidote? One is the Deborah Project, which defends the civil rights of Jews facing discrimination in educational settings. Its aim is “to use legal skills and tools to uncover, publicize and dismantle antisemitic abuses in educational systems.” Other groups and individuals work on many levels of engagement; still, if the monied Jewish establishment institutions do not get behind this, then the anarchy, irrationality and hate will at some point come to overwhelm Diaspora Jewry.


Melanie Phillips: The policing of wrongspeak
The issue blew up when a Telegraph journalist, Allison Pearson, was visited at her home by Essex police who told her that she had been accused of committing the criminal offence of stirring up racial hatred in a tweet posted a year previously. The police have indignantly denied her claim that they had first told her she was being investigated for a non-crime hate incident; but clearly an actual criminal offence is more serious, and so the treatment of Allison Pearson becomes even more invidious.

While some details remain unclear, it seems that she had called a group of demonstrators from a Pakistani political party at an anti-Israel demonstration “Jew-haters” (“seems” because in true Stasi fashion she wasn’t even told what she’d written or who had complained about it).

There have been claims that her tweet contained errors. But since when were errors or inaccuracies a reason to treat a journalist as a suspected criminal? More to the point, she had made no comment about the race of those demonstrators. So how could her comment have been an example of racial hatred?

One night be forgiven for concluding that, for the police, any criticism of the behaviour of anyone who is Asian is an example of racial hatred, regardless of whether that person’s race was the subject of the comment at all. In other words, the police have stopped assessing behaviour and are basing their decisions on racial background instead.

The police action was even more grotesque because the offending tweet was actually protesting against racial hatred. Ah, but it was hatred of Jews; and hatred of Jews seems to be a non-hate thing altogether.

For more than a year since the October 7 atrocities in Israel, huge demonstrations have taken place in the streets of London and other cities aimed at intimidating Jews, chanting for their mass murder and the destruction of the world’s one Jewish state and inciting murderous hatred by accusing Israelis of “genocide”. These demonstrations — and countless smaller but similar incidents — have left many British Jews too frightened to go into central London or use public transport.

Yet by and large the police have treated these behaviours neither as crimes (which they are on multiple counts in law) nor even as “non-crime hate incidents ” (even though they are certainly peddling hatred under any reasonable definition). The police have simply stood by and allowed the streets to be made unsafe for Jews — while harassing Allison Pearson for protesting about it.

Last month, after the Union of Jewish Students shared a message online about increased antisemitism on campus, Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Antisemitism, complained to the Cambridgeshire police that a man on X had sent him and the UJS an image of the Star of David entwined with a bloodied swastika accompanied by the message: “The irony of becoming what you once hated.”

Cambridgeshire Police replied that this did not meet the required threshold of being “grossly offensive” and that this was instead a non-crime hate incident. The force added:
As well as this, there is a balance to strike with article 10 of the Human Rights Act, which protects freedom of expression and allows people to say things that “offend, shock or disturb the state or any section of the population”.

Yet Allison Pearson was not allowed that freedom. Moreover, accusing Jews of becoming Nazis is much more than merely offensive, shocking or disturbing. It turns Jews into enemies of humanity and thus makes them the target of murderous hatred.

But when it comes to Jews, the police threshold of tolerance for attacks against them seems to be extraordinarily high.
Human rights hypocrisy: 'Forced displacement' in, Hamas out
In the absence of facts and evidence, HRW substitutes large-scale disinformation and distortion. In “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” they cite explicit statements from Israeli officials that demonstrate the legality and necessity of the Gaza strategy: “Israel justified the mass evacuation order as being for the safety of the civilian population and stated military reason... was centered on the presence of Hamas fighters and military infrastructure, including Hamas’ extensive tunnel infrastructure…”

But then, HRW devotes numerous pages to manipulating distorted and cherry-picked quotes in order to falsely claim that the initial IDF actions following the October 7 atrocities were actually designed to punish and displace civilians, with no military necessity.

Through this entirely false narrative, HRW asserts its central propaganda claim, that “there is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times.” For anyone who reads the text (and not merely the press release) with anything like an open mind, the distortion is painfully obvious.

This is another example of the systematic bias and immorality that permeates HRW, as verified by Danielle Haas, a senior editor at the NGO for 13 years.

Haas has referred to the “years of politicization” in singling out Israel, violating “basic editorial standards related to rigor, balance, and... the principles of accuracy and fairness.” Recalling this history, Haas observed that HRW staff know that the “unverified accusations would be widely cited as incontrovertible evidence.”

The clear objective of HRW’s reports, including this one, is to promote the soft-power war based on arms embargoes, boycotts, and demonization that reinforce the hard war led by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.

These bogus reports are cited blindly (or consciously) by UN demagogues, biased academics, journalists, and policymakers to prevent Israel from blocking genocidal terror and defending its civilians. By giving credibility to the propaganda produced by HRW and other NGOs, the international law and human rights community, created in the shadow of the Holocaust, has totally betrayed its mission to protect civilian lives.
Congressional committee demands IRS revoke tax-exempt status of group hosting terrorist fundraisers
Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), chairman of the congressional committee that oversees the IRS, is demanding the agency strip a progressive nonprofit organization of its tax-exempt status after the Treasury Department determined in October that one of its subsidiaries is a terrorist front group.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, uses Samidoun, which is housed within the Alliance for Global Justice through a fiscal sponsorship agreement, as a vehicle to fundraise in North America and Europe, according to the Treasury Department. Smith, as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to the IRS on Wednesday morning arguing that this kind of proximity to foreign terrorists should disqualify the AFGJ from receiving tax-exemption benefits in the United States.

“This case is not complicated, which makes the failure to revoke the Alliance’s tax-exempt status both concerning and confusing,” the letter reads. ”As you know, if a nonprofit organization conducts substantial activities that do not further its exempt purposes, such activity may result in the loss of the organization’s tax exempt status. Additionally, the IRS has found that conducting illegal activity is inconsistent with tax exemption. … Given Samidoun’s designation by the Treasury as a terrorist organization, coupled with the fact that the Alliance fiscally sponsors and provides support for Samidoun, the IRS must revoke the Alliance’s tax-exempt status immediately.”

The PFLP has ordered suicide bombings, hijacked planes, and shot rockets at civilians, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Smith noted in his letter that he previously asked the IRS to strip the AFGJ of its tax-exempt status, alongside other nonprofit organizations involved in pro-Hamas demonstrations following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.


Fighting Jew-hatred ‘greatest civil rights issue of our lifetime,’ says Lawfare Project head
Pro-Hamas protests on college campuses this fall are getting worse than last spring, according to Brooke Goldstein, the founder and executive director of the Lawfare Project and head of the End Jew Hatred Movement.

“It’s ramping up,” Goldstein told JNS. “I think that the Islamist students and the radical students feel emboldened because we’ve had several years under the prior administration—total lack of enforcement of the law.”

Schools are “tolerating a hostile environment,” according to Goldstein. “Sometimes the administrators and the teachers themselves are part of the problem,” she added. “The problem is systemic. It’s something that’s been ignored, frankly, for the last 15 to 20 years.”

Part of the problem is vast foreign funding of U.S. higher education—to the tune of at least $1 billion annually from Qatar, which not only supports colleges and universities but also K-12 education, she said.

“They have radicalized a population, an entire generation,” Goldstein said. “This is a cultural problem. It’s systemic, and I think that the American people voted to reject what they see as this extreme left, progressive ideology that involves moral equivalence with terrorism.”

As a minority group, Jews ought to “follow the playbook of the black Civil Rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s and the new and the old women’s movements,” according to Goldstein.

“It’s the same thing. It’s a combination of impact litigation, civil rights litigation, grassroots mobilization and a government that’s willing, obviously, to enforce the law,” she said. “The question is, if we replace ‘black’ or ‘gay’ or ‘Muslim’ with ‘Jew,’ can we use the same strategies and tactics to ensure that we can live in freedom and security and our children can do the same?”

“The answer is yes, we can,” she said. “That’s the beauty of this great country.”

Jews should “drop all their partisan divides and unify around a single purpose, a single goal, which is to ensure that our rights as a minority community—the oldest, most persecuted minority community in human history—our civil rights are enforced,” Goldstein said.

“This is a civil rights issue. This is, in fact, what I believe to be the greatest civil rights issue of our lifetime,” she added.
5Pillars’ latest discrimination breach shines new light on its alarming content
Muslim media organisation 5Pillars has again been found guilty by the regulator Impress of breaching the discrimination clause of its Standards Code following a complaint from the Community Security Trust.

The verdict relates to an episode of the organisation’s Blood Brothers podcast and is the second guilty verdict Impress has handed down against 5Pillars this year.

The CST told Jewish News it “welcomes the ruling and the confirmation that 5Pillars had given an unchallenged platform to air their antisemitism”.

The latest ruling relates to an interview with former deputy leader of the far-right organisation Britain First, Jayda Fransen, by host Dilly Hussain in an episode entitled ‘Britain First, Christian nationalism and the Zionist agenda’. It has been found that Fransen was able to espouse antisemitic theories without pushback, encouraging hatred or abuse towards a specific group, in this case, Jews.

The Impress adjudication states: “The interviewee’s (Fransen’s) unchallenged assertions that Jews were responsible for Pornhub, for ‘the abortion industry’ and for ‘the LGBTQPZ plus agenda’, and that there was a ‘disproportionate number of Jews occupying positions of authority’, had the effect of perpetuating a narrative of prejudice against Jewish people.”

Rejecting the claim that providing more challenge to the interviewee would have made the podcast too long, Impress recognised “the publisher had full editorial control over the scope, content and duration of the item and had an obligation to ensure that, whatever its length, it complied with the Code. Overall, the committee considered that the lack of challenge by the interviewer to the claims enabled the interviewee to encourage hatred or abuse of Jews”.

While the complaint was upheld, Impress cannot take action because it oversees a voluntary system, one which 5Pillars has quit. It gave notice it was leaving the regulator in June but had previously regularly referred to its membership to promote itself as a legitimate media organisation.
'Hatred Rises Where BDS Is Present': More Than 100 Rabbis Blast Portland, Maine, for Israel Divestment Vote
More than 100 rabbis from across the country are blasting the left-wing city council of Portland, Maine, for voting to divest from Israel. The rabbis are urging their congregants to avoid the city "until such a repeal of the bigoted divestment takes effect."

The letter, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, was signed by 114 rabbis in protest against Portland City Council’s unanimous Sept. 4 vote to divest from 85 companies doing business in Israel. Portland is home to one of the oldest and most historic Jewish communities on the East Coast, according to Rabbi Dovid Asher, one of the letter’s organizers.

"We, the undersigned, sign our names to publicly express our hurt and outrage at the City of Portland for their one-sided action against the State of Israel," the letter states. "While we all love the State of Israel, this letter is not about our support for Israel, but rather to inform Maine’s largest city of the damage and the suffering they have caused to the American Jewish community."

"Portland’s decision to align with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign only fuels the current surge of antisemitism that has overwhelmed our country," the letter continues. "Hatred rises where BDS is present. Religious persecution is caused by the demonization and the delegitimization of minorities, often resulting in the targeting of the Jewish community."

Councilor April Fournier introduced the resolution, which was sponsored by two anti-Israel groups: the Maine Coalition for Palestine and Maine’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Local leaders said the resolution was largely symbolic, but Portland’s finance director revealed that ahead of the vote, the city sold shares it held in a company that supplies Israel with screening technology used at military checkpoints, the Portland Press Herald reported.

"We want councils and any other entity to understand they can either do business with the BDS movement, or they can do business with the American Jewish community, who overwhelmingly support the State of Israel," Asher told the Free Beacon. "We want folks to be aware that they have a choice where to do business, where to vacation, and that they shouldn’t be using their hard-earned money to go to places or ownerships where people pay taxes to cities that are anti-Israel."

In the letter, the rabbis accused Portland of departing "from its natural order by taking sides in a horrific and bloody international conflict" and called on their congregants to avoid doing business with cities that codify "Jew-hatred into their by-laws by placing yet another yellow star on a Jewish entity."


UK police investigate Israeli flag burning at Jewish student party
London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating a Nov. 20 incident in which an anti-Israel protester burned an Israeli flag at a Jewish student party, according to Britain’s Jewish News.

According to several witnesses, uninvited attendees shouted “Free Palestine” at the venue, and were warned by management that they would be removed if they repeated the chant, according to the report.

One of the anti-Israel activists approached the DJ stand at the Tuesday night event and began setting the Israeli flags on display on fire. The individual was stopped and removed. Police spoke to the individual and continue to investigate.

“At 00:00 hrs on Wednesday, 20 November officers were called to a venue in Curtain Road, Hackney. An off duty officer had detained a woman on suspicion of racially/religiously aggravated criminal damage,” a police spokesperson told Jewish News.

“During the altercation, a woman was seen to use a lighter to burn one of a number of Israeli flags that had been put up as decoration,” the spokesperson said, noting that initially police had determined that no further action should be taken, but following further review decided to investigate the matter fully.

StandWithUs U.K., the non-profit education group that hosted the event, condemned the flag burning, with the group’s spokesperson saying it was “appalled by the actions of the individual who felt that they could burn the emblems of the only Jewish state in the world during a party for Jewish students.”

Isaac Zarfati, the group’s executive director, said, “Despite the hateful actions, the event was a resounding success … StandWithUs U.K. will continue to support Zionist students on campus and will not be intimidated by the actions of a few to deter support for Israel.”
Montreal college cancels classes, closes for a day in light of anti-Israel protest
A Canadian university has chosen to shut down on Thursday following a flurry of concerned emails from community members in response to a planned anti-Israel rally.

Administrators from Dawson College in Montreal sent a message to students and employees two days earlier, on Tuesday, from academic dean Leanne Bennett, saying the school “has continued to assess developments leading up to the boycott of classes on Thursday, Nov. 21, as voted by the Dawson Student Union.”

She said that “after carefully considering these concerns and reviewing all available information about the planned actions, we have decided to cancel classes and close the college on that day.”

The announcement noted that labs, studios, the library and other spaces would be closed.

“The union’s vote to boycott classes is part of a wider student movement,” Christina Parsons, the school’s communications advisor, told JNS, pointing to an announcement for citywide student protests.

Federation CJA and CIJA released a joint statement in response to the closure, describing how “campuses across Quebec are facing threats from local demonstrators inspired by calls from the U.S.-based organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)—a group with alleged ties to Hamas—to strike and shut down academic institutions this Thursday.”

The Jewish organizations said the college had “set a dangerous precedent” and opposed the “normalization” of such decisions.

“For the sake of our treasured values and institutions, as well as thousands of students across Quebec,” they urged, “academic leaders must choose strength over weakness and stand firm against intimidation, threats and hate.”


Minneapolis mayor calls for teachers union to stop speech by Jew-hater
Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, wants the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers to cancel a planned lecture by an activist who has expressed antisemitic views.

Frey, who is Jewish, released a video condemning a speech scheduled for Nov. 22, titled “Being an Educator in a Time of War & Genocide.” It features Taher Herzallah, director of outreach and grassroots organizing at American Muslims for Palestine.

In the video, Frey quoted Herzallah’s statement that “anybody who has any relationship or any support or identifies themselves as a Jewish person or as a Christian Zionist, then we shall not be their friend. I will tell you that they are enemy number one and our community needs to recognize that as such.”

Frey responded: “I don’t want someone who hates Jews to be teaching our teachers on how they should, in turn, teach our students.”

He called the planned seminar “hate, pure and simple. This is a slap in the face to students in our MPS system, to their families and a slap in the face to a number of teachers that I know do not agree with this sentiment.”

MFT Educators for Palestine sponsored Herzallah’s lecture.

Ethan Roberts, deputy executive director of the Minnesota JCRC, said “we cannot have someone who says that Jews are ‘enemy No. 1’ training public school teachers on how to teach Palestine in the classroom and indoctrinate your co-workers.”


Edinburgh University accuses Palestine Society of threatening staff, to take disciplinary action
The University of Edinburgh accused the Justice for Palestine Society of threatening its staff and Principal, and said it would be pursuing disciplinary action, in a letter to the society this week.

This comes after the group (EUJPS) occupied several university buildings, blockaded entrances, and entered the library after being banned from entering.

As of Monday, EUJPS is also occupying Gordon Aikman Hall, and has renamed it "Kanafani Hall."

EUJPS said the occupation "serves to bring forth the University's shameful complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and Israel's colonial expansion into Lebanon as well as its aggressions on Yemen and Syria."

The university called the behaviour of EUJPS "completely unacceptable" adding that it would not tolerate "bullying, intimidation and offensive behaviour, both online and in person."

The university also referenced the group's posts on social media, saying that they had taken on "an increasingly threatening tone."

The letter, signed by the VP for students, adds that Edinburgh takes threats against staff "very seriously" and asked EUJPS to immediately remove the posts.

The University added that it had decided to investigate the group for what it saw as "breaches of the Code of Student Conduct."


How Can Those Who Profess to Be for Palestine Be Against Books?
A braying, spit-flecked mob gathered outside the doors to Toronto's Park Hyatt Hotel on Monday night - replete with signs accusing Israel of genocide, and hinting at a desired genocide of their own. Is the pro-Hamas cabal actually against books?

The event at the Park Hyatt was about Canadian books, the annual award of the Giller Prize to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English, after an annual juried competition. Everyone there wanted to celebrate books generally, and Canadian books in particular. Who could be against that?

Well, the Hamas fetishists could be, and are. Last year, some creeps disrupted the Giller ceremony. They jumped up on stage with signs that falsely accused the main sponsor, Scotiabank, of "funding genocide." At this year's gala there was more security present and no Hamasniks made it inside to cause trouble.

Culturally, the people screaming on the sidewalk outside the Giller event are the new Taliban. Culture, to the Hamas apologists, is key to the establishment of a global caliphate. Their final solution is to wipe out the culture found in the West - books, music, art - and replace it with the dark, bigoted, monoculture they prefer. We can't let them.


In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, on Nov. 13 Voice of America corrected an erroneous headline to accurately reflect the scope of a United Nations’ report regarding women and children killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s war against Hamas.

Though the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner’s newly released report considered only a select sample of fatalities in the first six months of fighting, the Nov. 9 headline wrongly cast the findings as relating to the totality of those killed: “UN: Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead are women, children.”

The accompanying English-language teaser on the website of the publicly-funded German news outlet had likewise erred:
The UN Human Rights Office has verified the victim toll in the past six month in Gaza. Nearly 70% are women and children, “indicating a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.”

Yet, this figure is supported neither by the report in question nor by the accompanying video.

Both the U.N. report and the Deutsch Welle video indicate that the “nearly 70%” figure narrowly relates to the number of verified deaths during the first six months of the war (8,119) out of the total to date — which Hamas claims is 43,000. DW’s video headline erroneously suggests that the 70 percent women and children percentage relates to all the deaths from Oct 7, 2023 to the present.

In contrast, Deutsche Welle’s Nita Blake-Persen indicates in the video that the U.N.’s 70 percent figure does not apply to all of the war fatalities:
Hamas-run health authorities put the death toll at more than 43,000. The UN has verified 8,119 victims but it only includes fatalities verified by three sources and the counting is ongoing.

The U.N. report’s very title notes the limited scope of the report: from November 2023 to 30 April 2024, and includes only the verified deaths, which, on page 6, says that number is 8,119 (“Six-month update report on the human rights situation in Gaza: 1 November 2023 to 30 April 2024“).

Other news headlines, including Reuters‘, made that distinction clear: “Gaza women, children are nearly 70% of verified war dead, UN rights office says.”


Crew of Hijacked Cargo Ship Mark One Year as Houthi Prisoners
Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen seizing the car carrier MV Galaxy Leader and taking its crew hostage.

The crew remains in captivity, reportedly living aboard their ship under Houthi guard.

The Houthis illegally seized the Galaxy Leader in a commando raid as it was sailing through international waters in the Red Sea on November 19, 2023. The ship is flagged from the Bahamas, owned by a British-based shipping company called Galaxy Maritime, operated by a Japanese corporation, and crewed by 17 Filipinos, 3 Ukrainians, 2 Bulgarians, 2 Mexicans, and one Romanian. It was en route to India at the time of the attack.

The Houthis attempted to justify their act of piracy by claiming the ship was linked to Israel because Galaxy Maritime is a unit of Ray Car Carriers, a company founded by Israeli billionaire Abraham “Rami” Ungar. The hijacking of the Galaxy Leader was one of the first major Houthi pirate attacks in support of Hamas after the Gaza war began.

“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis declared in November 2023. The insurgents have launched over a hundred attacks against Red Sea shipping since then, mostly using ballistic missiles and drones. Two ships have been sunk by their attacks, and four crew members were killed.

“It seems incredible that a year has passed, and the crew of the Galaxy Leader are still being held hostage. Innocent seafarers and families who have had their lives irrevocably changed by geopolitical forces wholly out of their control,” Guy Platten, secretary of the International Chamber of Shipping, said on Tuesday.

“The seafarers, some of whom have been at sea for nearly two years, have been held against their will only limited contact with their families, friends, and loved ones. This is unconscionable and must not be allowed to endure,” Platten said.

“We are thinking of the seafarers and all of those affected at this time, and we continue to call for humanity to prevail and their immediate release,” he said.


France calls for united EU response to surge in antisemitism
On Tuesday, French officials urged a collective European Union response to what they described as “one of the worst explosions of antisemitism” in recent history. French European Affairs Minister Benjamin Haddad convened an emergency meeting in Brussels with his E.U. counterparts to discuss the issue.

The gathering, co-hosted by Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Caspar Veldkamp, brought together about a dozen E.U. ministers to tackle the surge of antisemitic violence across Europe since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7, 2023. Haddad emphasized the need for a frank conversation about the causes of rising antisemitism and the best strategies to combat it, calling for it to be made a priority for European institutions.

The meeting was prompted by the recent mob attack in Amsterdam, where Israeli soccer fans were hunted down and attacked after a Europa League match. Dutch officials reported that Israeli fans were targeted in “hit-and-run” attacks as well as other assaults, resulting in five Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters being briefly hospitalized and El Al Airlines carrying out eight emergency flights to evacuate Israelis from the country.

Speaking after the talks, Haddad declared that Europe is witnessing “one of the worst outbreaks of antisemitism” since World War II. He stressed that the issue goes beyond the protection of European Jewish communities, stating, “When we talk about antisemitism, it is not just the defense of European Jewish communities that is at stake, it is the preservation … of our fundamental values.”

Following the mob attack, Israeli intelligence officials identified Dutch organizations with Hamas ties as the primary instigators, according to a report released by Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry. The Dutch government launched an inquiry into whether alerts from Jerusalem were overlooked prior to the mob attacks.
Florida suspect arrested for allegedly planning to bomb NYSE: ‘I feel like Bin Laden’
A Florida suspect was arrested for allegedly planning to bomb the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) this week, according to disturbing court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.

Suspect Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, 30, was arrested Wednesday and allegedly intended to carry out the terrorist attack in New York City some time during the week of Nov. 18.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced Yener’s arrest Wednesday night and said he was charged “with attempt[ing] to use an explosive device to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce.”

The suspect unknowingly worked with undercover FBI agents before he was arrested.

To carry out the attack, the suspect tasked the agents with “procuring the explosive element for the device, conducting surveillance of the business, and obtaining photos of the building to identify the precise location for detonating the explosive device.”

“Yener planned on wearing a disguise when planting the explosive device outside the business and recorded a message to be delivered to the press about his reasons for the attack,” the US Attorney’s Office explained Wednesday.

“Yener anticipated the impact of the explosion would be ‘like a small nuke went off’ and that ‘[a]nything outside’ the building ‘will be wiped out’ and ‘anything inside there would be killed’.”

The FBI began monitoring the suspect in February 2024.

According to court documents filed Wednesday, agents were tipped off when they discovered Yener was “storing bombmaking schematics in an unlocked storage unit in Coral Springs, Florida,” the filings state.

The FBI searched his unit in March and found electronic circuit boards, bombmaking sketches and several watches with timers.

When agents interviewed Yener, he told them that he considered joining ISIS in 2015 after a self-identified member offered to recruit him.
Police find list targeting Jews, blacks after arrest of man on illegal gun charges
Law enforcement say a Florida man kept an arsenal of weapons with a clipboard naming targets associated with black and Jewish Americans.

Police officers in Margate, Fla., arrested John Lapinski, 41, on Oct. 31, charging him with being a felon possessing a gun and an unregistered silencer. Prosecutors had convicted Lapinski twice in 2005 for resisting an officer with violence.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a factual proffer urging for Lapinski to remain behind bars, revealing the discoveries in his apartment in the Miami metropolitan area. Police came out on a call of shots fired and determined that Lapinski was their suspect. Walking through his residence, they found a variety of weapons.

Lapinski’s collection reportedly included an AR-15 platform rifle, a Black Aces Tactical FD 12 shotgun, a second shotgun, two handguns, body armor, smoke grenades and what police believed to be illegal, unregistered silencers.

Alongside his arsenal, law enforcement reported that they found a clipboard of “targets” that included Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) and locations known for attracting black Americans and Jews, including a synagogue, Jewish cemetery, Jewish sandwich shop, parks and schools.
Massachusetts man pleads guilty to blocking FBI probe of arson attacks on Boston-area Jewish sites
Alexander Giannakakis, 37, pleaded guilty on Monday to hiding information and otherwise tampering with a federal investigation of his now-deceased brother, who set fires at four Massachusetts synagogues and assisted living homes.

Giannakakis, who was extradited from Sweden, is slated to be sentenced on March 11, 2025. He faces up to 60 years in prison for the combined three counts, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

“This defendant obstructed justice about hate crimes directed at Jewish people living in greater Boston,” stated Joshua Levy, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusett. “These attempted arsons at Jewish houses of worship and senior living facilities sent ripples of fear throughout the region.”

“We must be vigilant in holding accountable every single person who engages in or facilitates acts of hate like this,” Levy added. “Alexander Giannakakis chose to destroy evidence and conceal these hate crimes and for deciding to stand on the side of acts of vile antisemitism, he now stands convicted and awaiting sentencing.”

The defendant’s younger brother, whom the Justice Department did not name, was the main suspect in a February 2020 probe of four May 2019 fires set in the Boston area—two at a Chabad Center in Arlington, one at a Chabad in Needham, and the fourth at a Jewish business in Chelsea.

“At the time Giannakakis’s brother was identified as a suspect, he was hospitalized in a coma,” per the Justice Department. “He remained in a coma until his death later that year.” Shortly after his brother became a suspect, Giannakakis traveled to Sweden and took his brother’s documents and electronic devices, the Justice Department said.

“When Giannakakis returned to the United States in March 2020, he was questioned by investigators and made false and misleading statements. He later concealed and destroyed physical evidence being sought by investigators that implicated his brother in the arsons,” it added. “Within hours of concealing and destroying that evidence, Giannakakis fled the United States for Sweden.”


Warner Bros, Aaron Sorkin to tell story of ‘father’ of IAF
Two Hollywood institutions — the Warner Bros. film studio and award-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin — are teaming up to make a movie about American World War II veteran Al Schwimmer, who went on to help found the Israeli Air Force by smuggling fighter jets into Palestine in 1948.

According to reports on US entertainment sites, the film will be based in part on an article by David Kushner published in Business Insider earlier this year, titled “America’s greatest gift to Israel,” a reference to a description of Schwimmer by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.

In 1948, with fewer than a handful of trained pilots, no combat planes and an arms embargo by the US and the rest of the world, Israel depended for its survival to a large extent on a vast international smuggling operation of arms and aircraft, and on the skills of foreign volunteers tested in the air battles of World War II.

Schwimmer, a Jewish New Yorker, bought a fleet of some 30 American bombers and cargo planes at war surplus prices and recruited US combat veterans to ferry them overseas under the guise of a fictitious Panamanian airline, always staying one step ahead of the FBI and a hostile US State Department.

The Czech government supplemented Schwimmer’s efforts by selling knockoffs of the German wartime Messerschmitt fighter planes, whose unexpected appearance brought to an abrupt halt an Egyptian army that was marching on Tel Aviv.

According to Kushner’s article, Schwimmer was assisted in his efforts by “a diverse and unlikely gang of volunteers, including Bugsy Siegel’s publicist, the mobster Meyer Lansky, Pee-wee Herman’s father, and Frank Sinatra.”
Unpacked: The Untold Story of Arabia’s Jewish Tribes
In the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, Jewish tribes in Yathrib (now known as Medina) once thrived as integral members of their communities. But with the arrival of Muhammad, alliances faltered, and centuries-old traditions faced extinction.

The resilience and eventual fate of these Arabian Jews teaches timeless lessons about faith, unity, and survival.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:52 Geography of Arabia
01:22 Jewish tribes of Yarthrib
03:14 Who was Muhammad?
07:01 Muhammad's move to Yathrib as peacemaker
10:10 Conversions to Islam
10:38 Jewish rejection of Islam
12:11 Muslim-Meccan battles
13:28 Expulsion of Banu Qaynuqa
15:33 Expulsion of Banu Nadir
16:24 Slaughter of Banu Qurayza
19:33 Questions surrounding the events
20:06 Importance of Jewish unity




Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro in J’lem: You are ‘tip of the spear in a civilizational battle’
Two giants of political conservatism, Douglas Murray and Ben Shapiro, starred at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center on Tuesday night before a sold-out crowd of more than 3,000 in what might best be described as a mutual admiration society, with the crowd applauding its pro-Israel champions as they in turn voiced esteem for Israelis’ grit and fighting spirit.

“Thank you on behalf of Western civilization for fighting the fight the rest of the West should be fighting,” Shapiro told the audience at the “Freedom of Zion” conference.

He asked those with loved ones who had served in the Israel Defense Forces in the past year to stand up. Nearly all did. “That’s unique. It’s something that doesn’t exist in the West anymore,” Shapiro said, describing it as a “civic militarism” once common in Western societies. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro speaks at the Freedom of Zion Conference at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Nov. 19, 2024. Photo by Yaakov Nachumi/Herut Center.

“There are people here … who … put their bodies on the line defending civilization. I am merely a writer,” said Murray. “If I give you any encouragement, you should know that the encouragement you give me is 1,000-fold.”

Early reports pointed to an enormously successful event. The Jerusalem Post on Monday said that Shapiro-Murray was the hottest ticket in town, with fans “scrambling for scalped seats,” likening it to a Taylor Swift concert.

“Trying one more time. Looking for one ticket to the Ben Shapiro/Douglas Murray event in Jerusalem Tuesday evening. Willing to pay well over face value. Please DM [direct message] me,” posted a member of Secret Jerusalem, an online community of Jerusalemites.

Several Knesset members also attended the event, including Amichai Chikli, Amihai Eliyahu, Dan Illouz, Ohad Tal, Ariel Kellner and Simcha Rothman.

Murray and Shapiro are renowned in conservative circles. Shapiro, an American Jew, is host of a daily political podcast, and founder of media company The Daily Wire. He frequently speaks on college campuses and is the author of numerous books, including, “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans” and “The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.”




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 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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