From Ian:
PMW: Abbas’ Fatah vows to rebuild terrorist monument in Jenin after Israel dismantled it
Palestinian Media Watch’s recent exposure of the PA’s new square in Jenin named after terrorist Khaled Nazzal who was responsible for the murders of 31 Israelis, among them 22 children, led to public protests by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and others. As a result, the mayor of Jenin briefly took down the monument in the square. However, only two days later, he changed his mind and put the monument up again. On Friday, the Israeli army entered Jenin and dismantled the terror-glorifying monument.
Now Abbas’ Fatah Movement has pledged to restore it:
“It does not matter how many times the occupation removes the monument in memory of the Martyr – it is our obligation to rebuild it.”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, June 30, 2017]
Fatah further announced that – as an act of solidarity with Jenin – a monument in honor of terrorist Nazzal has been placed by “young people” in Ramallah (See photo above). Fatah stressed that terrorist Nazzal “remains in our hearts, in our memory, in our squares, and in our streets”:
Text on monument: “This is a monument in memory of Martyr (Shahid) Khaled Nazzal, which was established as a challenge to the occupation authorities
#The_Palestinian_people” [Official Fatah Facebook page, June 30, 2017]
Posted text: “An initiative of the young people in Ramallah; Khaled Nazzal remains in our hearts, in our memory, in our squares, and in our streets, and the monument will return to Jenin in order to serve as testimony to the period, to the history, and to a special kind of fighter”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, June 30, 2017]
Already a makeshift sign marked with the logo of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) has been set up in the square in Jenin where the monument stood, announcing the “Martyr Comrade Khaled Nazzal Square.” Fatah posted a photo of it and its “inscription”:
We Were Kicked Off Chicago’s Dyke March For Not Being ‘The Right Kind of Jew’
Anderson said she has been contemplating this very issue — and she is drawing upon the wisdom of one of America’s greatest LGBT equality leaders and icons, who also happened to be Jewish.
“Harvey Milk said, ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’” Anderson said. “I think for gay people, that has been the number one tool for changing hearts and minds. I think now is the time for progressive Jews to start doing that.”
Admittedly, it seems odd at best to think progressive Jews should “come out” in America. However, it is not about merely identifying ourselves but challenging stereotypes and expectations for how we must behave in our communities.
“People just have a very one-sided view of what it’s like to be Jewish in America and all the different views Jews can hold,” Anderson said. “I understand why people have been quiet. I have been quiet. But if we don’t speak, others dictate the conversation, and we get pushed out even more.”
Grauer is optimistic that, at the very least, the strong emotions surrounding the Chicago Dyke March will force an open discussion and, ideally, change.
“Hopefully, now that we have shared how we feel, how do we come together towards something better — whether it be a way we understand each other or the way we have relationships with Israel and Palestine and with people around these issues?” she said. “I would love to see us move towards something around those lines. It may be too soon for that to happen, but that’s where I would love to see this move. I think everyone — I would hope everyone — would, as well.”
For Grauer, it is “too soon to tell” if she would march in next year’s Dyke March. “I want to make sure that we’re marching together and accepting each other [and] our differences and recognizing that we’re here for a good reason together. If that’s the kind of Dyke March it turns into, that’s the kind of one, I’d be proud to walk in it.”
Anderson, on the other hand, was dubious she would join or, for that matter, feel secure at the next Dyke March. “I think I would feel physically unsafe if I came back with that same flag,” she said. “I think I would feel physically unsafe if I came back with anything short of a forehead tattoo that said ‘Israel is the worst thing that has ever existed’ — and I am not going to play that game. I should be able to be there as a Jew without passing a test.” (h/t Think of England)
Manifesto of an Outraged Queer
Laurie Grauer, one of the women forced to leave told the Windy City Times that the flag was “from my congregation which celebrates my queer Jewish identity, which I have done for over a decade marching in the Dyke March with the same flag.” She continued, “People asked me if I was a Zionist and I said ‘Yes, I do care about the state of Israel but I also believe in a two-state solution and an independent Palestine.”
It is unfortunate at best that members of the queer community are confusing the making of spaces threatening-free and comfortable with fascism, confusing political astuteness with tyranny. Who decides which individuals and groups are considered the “in groups” and the “out groups”? Who elected these organizers as the Thought Police?
No matter how the organizers attempt to frame the issues, this is anti-Jewish oppression plain and simple! Shame on them and those who supported their decision!
Jewish Home says PM nixed bill that would’ve made dividing Jerusalem ‘impossible’
The Jewish Home party said Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed a bill that would require a special two-thirds Knesset majority on any decision to divide Jerusalem under a future peace deal with the Palestinians.
The proposal was set to face a vote in a weekly meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation early Sunday afternoon but the prime minister pulled the bill from the agenda at the last minute, the pro-settlement Jewish Home party said in a statement.
“We are sorry narrow political considerations outweigh the need to prevent the division of Jerusalem. We will continue pushing this bill, and will do all we can to advance it in the upcoming days,” the statement read. “Jerusalem will be united by actions, not words.”
The Likud party slammed Jewish Home’s announcement, saying the bill was proposed without seeking the cooperation of any coalition partners.
IsraellyCool: WATCH: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams’ Vicious Attack on Israel
Last week, the UN’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People sponsored a two-day anti-Israel hate-fest called: Ending the Occupation: The Path to Independence, Justice and Peace for Palestine. It was held to mark 50 years since Israel liberated the so-called occupied territories from Jordan, Egypt and Syria (my words, not theirs).
The speakers’ lineup is a who-who of anti-Israel scum and villainy. Friday’s keynote speech was delivered by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams. To say her speech was disgraceful is an understatement.
But hear for yourself – I compiled the “best” bits – and by best I mean worst. She blame us for the entire conflict and lack of peace; she does not mention palestinian terrorism even once, ridicules the notion that we have security concerns, claims we invent such concerns so we can subjugate the palestinian Arabs, completely rejects Israel’s narrative, promotes collective punishment against Israelis through measures like BDS, claims we are racist, justifies palestinians not giving diplomacy a chance, and calls for everyone to recognize the state of Palestine.What is it about so many Nobel Prize winners and their moral bankruptcy?
UNESCO experts: Hebron heritage request too focused on Muslim history
UNESCO experts warned the Palestinian Authority that it has overly focused on Hebron’s Muslim history, at the exclusion of the Judeo-Christian heritage, in its request that the West Bank’s city’s “Old Town” be inscribed on the “World Heritage in Danger” list.
The failure to make a full case for inscription as a heritage site combined with Israel’s decision to ban experts from visiting the city make it difficult to conclude if an emergency situation exists, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) said in an 11-page report it submitted over the weekend.
The 21-member World Heritage Committee is expected to vote on the inscription of Hebron’s Old Town and the Tomb of the Patriarchs to the “State of Palestine” this Friday in Krakow, Poland during its annual meeting that began on Sunday.
The PA’s written proposal had focused on Hebron’s “Old Town” history from the Mamluk period of 1250 and onward. This includes the Tomb of the Patriarchs, whose Herodian structure houses both Jewish sanctuaries of worship and the Ibrahimi Mosque.
CAMERA: UNESCO and the Jewish Legacy in Hebron
Palestinian historical revisionism and attempts to negate Judaism’s legacy in its homeland have been increasingly used as a political tactic by the Palestinian leadership and its Muslim allies. (See “The Battle Over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount”) What began as the absurd denial of Judaism’s historical and religious ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount by Palestinian and Muslim leaders soon advanced to the enlistment of international bodies to pass resolutions eradicating the Jewish people’s connections to their holy sites and repudiating Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Buoyed by their successes at UNESCO, which passed several resolutions condemning Jewish visits to and policing of the Temple Mount while referring to Judaism’s holiest site solely in Arabic terms, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is now using the same tactic to get the UN body to invalidate the Jewish legacy in Hebron, Judaism’s second holiest site after the Temple Mount. Turning to UNESCO’s World Heritage Center to declare the Old City of Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs a “Palestinian World Heritage Site” that is endangered by Israel, the PA sent a letter to the World Heritage Center Director Mechtild Rossler, alleging a long list of supposed Israeli violations, including the placement of security barriers near the Cave, and other Israeli security measures, as well as the purchase of property by Jewish residents of the city.
UNESCO, which is dominated by Muslim and Arab allies of the Palestinians, is voting on the matter at the 41st session of the World Heritage Committee, held on July 2-12, 2017 in Krakow, Poland.
It is noteworthy that while Hebron was in Muslim hands, Jews were often barred from their holy site and subject to pogroms by their Arab neighbors. But after coming under Israeli control in 1967, both Jews and Muslims share access to the shrine.
Those who seek to eradicate Jewish claims to their holiest sites bank on the credulity of those unfamiliar with Hebron’s long history who willingly accept Palestinian and Muslim historical revisionism and fabrications.
How the Palestinian Authority’s ‘Social Safety Net’ Encourages Terrorism
The Palestinian Authority’s decision to pay salaries to terrorists and their families has been excused by some analysts and media commentators as a form of social welfare. They overlook the PA’s own stated reasons for the payments, as well as the role that they play in promoting anti-Jewish violence and a culture of hate.
In recent commentaries for The Hill and elsewhere, some have argued in favor of the Palestinian Authority’s decision to pay salaries to terrorists and their families. But these payments violate both the terms and spirit of the Oslo accords under which the authority was created. Palestinian society and leadership promote terror by rewarding those who support and carry out terrorist attacks.
Commentators such as Palestinian-American journalist Daoud Kuttab have asserted that U.S. and Israeli efforts to force the PA to stop paying terrorists and their families constitute “collective punishment.” They maintain that the money “is not given to terrorists” and are not “a reward for acts of terror,” and instead constitute “a natural act of social support that is provided to all Palestinian families.” This is disingenuous, as a few important facts make clear.
The Palestinian Authority’s own Ministry of Public Affairs, in a 2010 report, noted that 63 percent of those imprisoned and receiving payments were single. Yet, they still received the same basic salaries as those with families, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a non-profit organization that translates Arab media in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Moreover, PMW noted, “Palestinian law explicitly refers to the payments of salaries (Rawatib), ”not “social welfare” payments as some claim. Indeed, the Palestinian Authority even treats the payments as salaries by withholding income tax on them.
State to sue terrorists’ families for compensation
Israel reportedly will soon launch a slew of lawsuits against the families of terrorists with the aim of recouping outlays on the associated costs of terror attacks.
Last month, prosecutors from the Jerusalem District Court filed the first such damages suit, in which they are seeking NIS 8 million ($2.3 million) from the widow and four children of Fadi al-Qunbar, the Haaretz daily reported Sunday.
Qunbar, a resident of East Jerusalem’s Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, killed four soldiers in January when he rammed his truck into a group of troops getting off a bus at a popular tourist site in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of the capital before being shot and killed by soldiers.
According to Haaretz, the state is seeking compensation from Qunbar’s family for the costs of the burial of the soldiers and the payments to the bereaved families, as well as for “the loss of earnings for the lost years, loss of pension and pension rights, shortening life expectancy” and “compensation for [the] pain and suffering that reflects the cruelty of the acts and the great suffering of all the murder victims.”
Fourth Palestinian suspect arrested over Israeli officer’s murder
Police have arrested a fourth Palestinian suspect in the murder investigation of 23-year-old Border Policewoman St.- Sgt-Maj. Hadas Malka, who was stabbed to death by a terrorist while guarding the Old City’s Damascus Gate on June 17.
The arrest follows an intensive investigation initiated after three terrorists from the West Bank illegally entered Jerusalem and carried out two simultaneous coordinated attacks using an improvised automatic weapon and knives.
All three assailants, who also wounded two others by Zedekiah’s Cave some 100 meters from Damascus Gate during a shooting spree, were shot dead by responding officers.
On June 21, three suspects accused of aiding the assailants were arrested, including a 52-year-old man from Isawiya who transported the terrorists to the area, and the mother and father of one of the terrorists suspected of abetting their son.
Palestinian charged in 2009 West Bank murder of 2 policemen
Military prosecution on Sunday indicted a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the March 2009 murder of two Israeli policemen in the Jordan Valley.
Muhammad Radwan Daraghmeh of the northern West Bank village of Tubas has been in police custody since being arrested by Shin Bet security forces in April.
Authorities believe he took part in the killing of Yehezkel Ramzerker and David Rabinovich eight years ago, marking a major breakthrough in a case that has stymied investigators for the better part of a decade. Two other people suspected to have been involved are still at large.
Daraghmeh was arrested over the killings, and police found an improvised gun and bullet magazine in his home during searches of his home.
According to the indictment, Daraghmeh, 35, was part of a cell of three bandits who targeted West Bank residents. The strategy of the group was to stop on the side of the road with their vehicle, pretending to have car trouble. When one of them succeeded in flagging down a truck driving by, another would pull a gun on the driver and instruct him to proceed to an isolated area. There, the three would steal the car along with the contents inside and leave the driver stranded.
MKs expected to be allowed on Temple Mount this month
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lift his ban on lawmakers visiting the Temple Mount for a trial period later this month, the State Attorney’s Office plans to tell the High Court of Justice.
According to the state’s planned response to a petition by MK Yehudah Glick (Likud) calling to overturn the ban on lawmakers visiting the Temple Mount, which went into effect in October 2015, they will be allowed back at the holy site for a five-day period beginning July 23.
During those five days, the government will assess whether the visits sparks violence or not. The assumption that they do was behind Netanyahu’s ban.
Glick said, “The decision to open the Temple Mount is right and appropriate. It’s too bad that we had to petition the High Court for it to be made.”
Israel rearrests Palestinian lawmaker for promoting violence
Israeli security forces rearrested Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar early Sunday morning in Ramallah for allegedly promoting violence.
Jarrar, a senior member of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was sentenced to a 15-month prison term in December 2015 after being convicted of inciting to violence, membership in an illegal organization—Israel considers the PFLP to be a terrorist group—participating in illegal protests, and violating a travel ban. She was released in June 2016.
“She was arrested following her involvement in promoting terror activities through the PFLP,” the IDF said in a statement on Sunday morning.
In addition to Jarrar, security forces arrested ten others, whom the IDF spokesperson alleged “were [also] participating in terror activities.”Palestine Liberation Organization leader Saeb Erekat slammed Israel for the arrests, saying they are “a part of a premeditated and continued campaign” against the Palestinian leadership and people.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that the arrests “will not dissuade [the Palestinian people] from continuing the Jerusalem intifada and its valiant resistance.”
JCPA: Nasrallah Invites the Iranian Shi’ite Legion to the Next War with Israel
In a speech marking al-Quds [Jerusalem] Day, as established by Ayatollah Khomeini to identify with the Palestinian struggle on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened that in the next war with Israel he would open the borders of Lebanon to tens of thousands of fighters from Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
In effect, Tehran received an open invitation to fight Israel with the “Shi’ite Legion” which was established under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, who is now fighting in Iraq and Syria.
Nasrallah’s words put an end to the so-called “national” claim by Hizbullah that the national consensus in Lebanon is based on the holy triangle of people-resistance-army. This claim supposedly unites Lebanon and grants Hizbullah legitimacy for its existence as a military militia. Furthermore, Nasrallah demonstrates with his words and actions contempt for the basic component of the Lebanese state, that being its borders. First, he violated the border to send troops to war in Syria on the pretext of defending the Shi’ite holy sites in Damascus. Second, Nasrallah declared after the assassination of Samir Kuntar, a terrorist released by Israel, the expansion of the borders of the conflict with Israel from Nakura, on the Mediterranean coast in the west, to the Syrian Golan Heights in the east.
Now he is threatening to violate Lebanon’s border once again toward Israel in the south, and he is inviting foreign, non-Lebanese, forces to take part in the war with Israel.
Liberman: Israel ‘won’t ignore’ new Hezbollah weapon factories
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman issued a stern warning to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons over the development of rocket manufacturing installations inside Lebanon.
“We are fully aware” of the rocket factories, Liberman told military correspondents in a briefing in Tel Aviv Sunday. “We know what needs to be done… We won’t ignore the establishment of Iranian weapons factories in Lebanon.”
Still, he cautioned against overstating the threat. Since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Israel has pulled significantly ahead of Hezbollah, he said. “There’s no need for either hysteria or euphoria on this issue.”
Asked about the spike in spillover fire from Syrian battlefields hitting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, Liberman said the Syrian army was trying to prevent further incidents.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Hezbollah Now Boasts Experience Destroying TWO Arab Countries (satire)
Analysts at Israel’s Ministry of Defense have been focusing on the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the battle experience it has gained in Syria, and now note that the organization must be considered a more formidable foe than when Israel last fought a war with it in 2006: it has now had a hand in the wanton destruction of two Arab countries, as opposed to only Lebanon.
In a report prepared for Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman in advance of a strategy session this week, the analysts warned not to underestimate Hezbollah’s sharpened ability to devastate Arab countries.
“We have already observed the organization’s capacity to bring mayhem, death, and ruin on vast swaths of Lebanon itself,” read the report’s abstract, in reference to the punishment Lebanon received when Hezbollah kidnapped several Israeli soldiers in 2005 and set off a war. “But the last five years in Syria have shown the depth and intensity of the movement’s dedication to bringing such destruction to other Arab countries.” Hezbollah, along with numerous other Shiite militia groups, have been fighting alongside Syrian regime forces against an assortment of rebel groups, and participated in some of the most destructive battles of the six-year-old conflict.
An analyst who contributed to the report outlined some of the thinking that governed its preparation. “Of course we are always considering Hezbollah’s military capabilities, especially its substantial arsenal of Iranian rockets,” began the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ministry rules. “But seldom before have we focused our attention on the specific aptitude the organization has displayed for destroying Arab countries. In addition to analyzing how that aptitude translates into direct threats to Israel’s population, our report considers how it might be possible to harness Hezbollah’s Arab-country-destroying moxie to Israel’s advantage.”
Ebrahim Bham – A Perfect Preacher for Palestine Expo
When Ismail Patel and his Friends of al-Aqsa group organise a conference on Palestine, one can be confident that the speakers will be suitable for the cause. Namely, hating Israel and loving Hamas. This is Mr Patel’s lifelong mission.
Sure enough, the prominent South African preacher Ebrahim Bham is on the bill for Mr Patel’s Palestine Expo, which will be held next weekend at the QE II Centre in Westminster.
Mr Bham’s preaching record shows that he is a perfect match for Mr Patel.
The Israeli People? Nazis!
In a sermon on Israel, Bham knows exactly where to turn. Tell people the Israelis are like the Nazis. First he quotes Goebbels:
“People tell me that Jews are human beings. Yes, I know they are human beings. Just as fleas are also animals. Just as fleas are also animals, they are also part of human beings like that.”Those words, he then says, explain Israelis today:
Using that example, the psyche of the whole people seems to be to mete out the very same treatment to others the way was meted out toward them. And that seems to be the psyche. That they don’t regard Palestinians as human beings.
Note the slur on the entire Israeli people rather than a politician, a party, or the IDF.
Spanish courts force companies to suspend anti-Israel boycotts
The Spanish High Court of Justice in Madrid last week dealt the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement two legal blows, upholding a lower court’s ruling against full boycotts of Israeli institutions, companies, and organizations or those involved in the so-called “occupation,” calling such boycotts “discriminatory.”
The court’s rulings, which came on the heals of petitions by local Jewish communities aided by the New York-based Lawfare Project, pertain to the municipalities of Castrillon and Corvera in Asturias Province in northern Spain.
The latest success in court notwithstanding, the legal victories were only partial, as dozens of municipalities across Spain in the past year alone have declared their support for the BDS movement and have decided to fully adopt boycotts against companies with ties to Israel.
In October, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported, a Spanish high court in the Asturias region declared a pro-BDS resolution endorsed by the Langreo City Council illegal and discriminatory.
The hypocrisy of the Middle East Studies Association
Two events over the last week illustrate just how hypocritical so many professors and university programs of Middle Eastern studies have become when it comes to politics and principle.
First, consider the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the oldest and most prominent professional organization for professors whose field of study loosely correlates with the Middle East.
In response to President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily freezing entry to the United States for citizens of Yemen, Sudan, Iran, Syria, Somalia, and Libya, MESA joined as a plaintiff in the lawsuit to overturn the executive order, which MESA president Beth Baron, a City University of New York (CUNY) professor, writes in MESA’s April 2017 newsletter is a “Muslim ban.” In response to the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to issue a limited stay on lower court rulings against the Trump policy, MESA released a statement declaring, “We believe that the exclusions of people from six Muslim-majority countries is discriminatory and does damage to academic institutions in the United States. We continue to believe that the EO is at odds with fundamental principles upheld by MESA including the commitment to the free exchange of ideas.” So far, so good. But, if that’s the case, why then does MESA not oppose the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli academics in which so many of its members engage? Indeed, as an institution, MESA has changed its bylaws to allow greater political activity and recently passed a “right to BDS resolution.” Baron’s program at CUNY passed a BDS resolution, as well, and Baron herself has pledged to boycott Israeli academics. In short, for all its lofty rhetoric about academic freedom and the right to travel, MESA seems to believe that such rights should be first passed through a political and perhaps religious litmus test: When it comes to the Middle East, Muslims and Arabs welcome, Jews and Israelis not.
Second, consider yesterday’s court decision allowing the US government to seize a Manhattan skyscraper owned by the Alavi Foundation to compensate victims of terrorism who won a court judgment against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Antisemitism of the so-called Jewish Voice for Peace
The time has come to state facts: Jewish Voice for Peace is not a “fringe” Jewish organization. JVP is not merely “anti-Zionist.” JVP is the vanguard of a movement of far-left antisemitism. The new JVP campaign “Deadly Exchange”?—?which alleges a moneyed Jewish conspiracy to kill innocent Americans?—?reveals how far JVP has fallen down the rabbit hole.
There was already plenty of evidence of JVP’s indulgence of antisemitism. The group has offered a conspicuous lack of condemnation when Palestinian terrorists murder Jewish civilians. The supposed “Jewish Voice for Peace” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is typically silent in the wake of such attacks on Jews. When JVP does react to terrorist attacks on innocent Jews, the reactions seem nearly indifferent in contrast to JVP’s unrestrained outrage in any number of other instances. JVP has never extended solidarity to the half of the world’s Jewish population that lives in Israel, and yet it always stands ready to express their solidarity with non-Jews, even with Palestinian killers of Jews. JVP stands proudly in solidarity with the “Palestinian popular resistance,” Palestinian prisoners, and convicted PFLP supermarket bomber Rasmea Odeh. JVP has never offered such solidarity when Israeli Jews were the targets of murderous terrorists.
JVP is not in complete denial over the possibility of antisemitic anti-Zionism. At one point, JVP cut ties with Alison Weir, not exactly for being an antisemite, but for openly sharing her blood libel with white supremacists. And yet six months later JVP returned to sponsoring talks by Weir. In September 2016, JVP supported the cancelation of a talk by Miko Peled because of his antisemitic tweets. But within days JVP backtracked, claiming “we clearly made a mistake.”
Most notable about JVP, however, has been, as the ADL reported, that it “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and to provide the movement with a veneer of legitimacy.” Whenever anti-Zionist groups face allegations of antisemitism, JVP invariably races to defend them.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Distortions and Outright Lies
Except that the rest of her article is full of distortions and outright lies.
In critiquing the 1917 Balfour Declaration that paved the way for a Jewish homeland, she writes:
In that tide of history, five million inhabitants were displaced – and the suffering of the Palestinians only got worse.
Where does this figure of five million come from? In 1948, the creation of the State of Israel witnessed the displacement of some approximately 750,000 Palestinians. A greater number of Jews from Arab countries subsequently arrived in Israel having been thrown out of their homes.
But that’s not the only exaggeration:
Propped up by its western allies, Israel ignores international laws and obligations and does what it wants. I think the country has been harmed more by its unwavering friends than by its unforgiving enemies. The US, UK and EU should have tempered Israel’s excesses which at times befit a rogue state.
Newsweek: Israel is Behind Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra
Tom O’Connor, a repeat offender when it comes to blatantly distorting facts about Israel, is at it again, in the pages of Newsweek.
This time, O’Connor makes two claims that Israel is militarily behind the Al-Qaeda linked terror organization Al-Nusra Front.
Battling for Terrorists
O’Connor says:
Israeli helicopters attacked the Syrian military Saturday as it attempted to repel an offensive by the former Nusra Front, a hardline Sunni Muslim group…affiliated with Al Qaeda.
His source for this melodramatic statement? The Syrian Army.
Yes, you read that right.
Syria has been an enemy of Israel since its creation, and during that time has been a constant source of exactly these kind of dramatic and unrealistic accusations. For example, Syria made a similar claim in March, which Israel immediately dismissed.
MEMRI: “The Media Was the Jews’ First Weapon against Islam”
UAE cleric Wassim Yousuf said that “media was the first weapon of the Jews in their efforts to make the Muslims doubt their faith” and that they continue to control the media, relying upon the “falsification of facts.” “Look at the wickedness of the Jews,” he said, speaking on Abu Dhabi TV on June 13.
Japanese central banker praises Hitler’s economic policies
A Bank of Japan policymaker praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s economic policies on Thursday, although he said they enabled the Nazi dictator to do “horrible” things to the world.
Yutaka Harada, a member of the board of Japan’s central bank, said Western policymakers had helped bring Hitler to power by being slow to apply British economist John Maynard Keynes’ proposals to fight the Great Depression. Hitler became German chancellor in 1933.
Speaking at a seminar on monetary policy in Tokyo, Harada said Hitler had taken “wonderful” fiscal and monetary stimulus steps, although these led to “something horrible for the world” as his strengthened grip on power led to the Holocaust and massive human casualties during World War II.
“Because Hitler had taken appropriate fiscal and monetary policy steps, tragedy resulted. What I’m saying is that someone should have taken appropriate fiscal and monetary policy steps before Hitler did,” said Harada, an academic-turned Bank of Japan policymaker.
Czech leader under fire over pig farm at ex-Nazi camp
Anti-racism campaigners reacted with indignation Friday after Czech President Milos Zeman said he backed keeping open a pig farm on the site of a former Nazi camp for Roma people.
“These declarations are a grave offence for victims and survivors of the Holocaust and their families,” Miroslav Broz of the anti-racism association Konexe told AFP.
The pig farm was constructed during Communist rule in the early 1970s at Lety, a village south of Prague that was the site of a Nazi-era concentration camp where hundreds of people in the Roma and Sinti minorities were murdered in 1942 and 1943.
“I am against the liquidation of a company which is prospering, as that would be a loss for the national economy,” Zeman told Czech television on Thursday.
Teen arrested in vandalism of upstate NY Jewish camp
A local teenager has been arrested and charged with vandalizing a Jewish camp in upstate New York.
Camp Shomria in Liberty, New York, run by the Hashomer Hatzair movement, was broken into on June 12. The interior and exterior of several of the buildings was damaged and covered in anti-Semitic graffiti.
Christopher Santoro, 18, was arraigned on Wednesday in the Town of Fallsburg Justice Court on felony charges of third-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime. He will return to court on July 5, the Times Herald-Record reported.
Police found in their investigation that Santoro acted against the camp out of “a dislike for the religion of the owners and occupants of the camp.” The state police hate crimes unit has been involved in the investigation.
This 400-year-old Jewish library survived Hitler and the Inquisition
Livraria Ets Haim is the world’s oldest functioning Jewish library. As such, it is no stranger to the prospect of imminent destruction.
Founded in 1616 by Jews who fled Catholic persecution in Spain and Portugal, the three-room library is adjacent to Amsterdam’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue in the Dutch capital’s center.
The 30,000-volume collection mostly contains manuscripts written by people who fled the Inquisition on the Iberian Peninsula or their descendants. The oldest document is a copy of the Mishneh Torah, the code of Jewish religious law authored by Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, or Maimonides, that dates to 1282. Ets Haim’s volume is pristine but for the scars left behind by an Inquisition censor, a Jew who had converted to Christianity and singed away entire passages of the book.
Ets Haim as a whole faced a similar fate — or worse — in 1940, when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and had 75 percent of its Jews murdered. Yet the Nazis left the Portuguese Synagogue intact, and instead of burning the library’s collection, they shipped the books to Germany. The collection was discovered there, with light damage, after the war, and returned to Amsterdam.
But the Dutch Jewish community lacked the resources to preserve the collection. Library curators determined that the Ets Haim building would need to be renovated thoroughly to ensure the proper conditions, so in 1979 the books were sent to Israel.
If you thought you were finally out of TV to binge, you are wrong in the best way.
Your favorite Haganah sniper-turned-international sex educator—that is, Dr. Ruth Westheimer—has a huge treasure trove of footage set to stream. Night Flight, a online video service focused on the crazy ’80s, will now be showing Dr. Ruth’s TV show library from the decade.
Dr. Ruth had several shows on and off in the 1980s on Lifetime, like Good Sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer and What’s Up, Dr. Ruth? She did everything from traditional celebrity interviews (Gloria Steinem, Jerry Seinfeld, e.g.) to counseling for audience members about the birds and the bees (and in at least one clip, a pirate fetish); and what turns women on. Quite frankly, I find her shows to be absolutely riveting. Dr. Ruth didn’t just build her sexy empire on good advice about condoms; on these shows she’s engaging, and charming, and warm, and all the things you like about your Jewish grandmother combined with all the openness of the Internet in a pre-Internet age.
Take, for example, the following, in which Dr. Ruth talks with a very anxious Richard Lewis, and with Jerry Seinfeld about sex.
Canada 150: A short story of Canadian-Israeli friendship
Canada will officially celebrate its 150th anniversary on Saturday, marking 150 years since the confederation of Canada in 1867. For the last 69 years, Canada has proved itself to be a close friend and ally of Israel.
Today, Canada is home to 385,000 Jews, with the community’s origins dating back 250 years, and the Maple Leaf nation has strong bilateral ties with Israel. 20,000 Canadian citizens currently live in Israel.
The Canada-Israel story commenced prior to the establishment of the Jewish state.
In 1947, Canada was one of eleven nations that made up the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. Established in May, the committee’s September report supported the termination of the British mandate in Palestine and proposed the famous partition plan that would be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 29 November 1947.
Canada, alongside 32 other countries, voted in favor of the partition proposal, Resolution 181, to gradually withdraw British forces from Mandatory Palestine and create independent Arab and Jewish states. Whereas the plan was joyfully welcomed by Jews in Palestine and around the world, Arab leaders immediately rejected the resolution.
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