From Ian:
Ahead of 5779, Netanyahu Offers a Hopeful Message, Despite Threats Against Israel
In advance of Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provided a message of hope despite the threats his country faces, such as Iran.“We live in a challenging area and we are equal to the task. We hit our enemies when necessary and we are capable of hitting them even more,” Netanyahu told the personnel who work under him in a toast, according to a spokesperson for the prime minister. “We are defending our borders, and we are also dealing with threats while they are far away and have yet to reach us, with foresight, preemptively.
“But I must tell you that while we are doing this, we are acquiring friends around the world and within the region here,” he continued. “They see our strength and they see our commitment to defend our state—to develop it and become an economic, technological, military, and intelligence power, and this brings us friends.”
“Who but you, the employees of the Prime Minister’s Office, knows this?” he asked rhetorically. “This tent is like a railway station; leaders from around the world arrive every day, sometimes several times a day, hundreds of leaders.”
On this day: Remembering the devastation of the Munich Massacre
46 years ago, September 5, 1972 Palestinian terrorist group Black September took hostage and later killed 11 Israelis Olympic athletes and a German police officer during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.As the Israeli team member slept, eight members of the terrorist group scaled a fence to to enter the Olympic Village at 4:30 a.m. Clad in tracksuit and carrying duffel bags of weapons, the Black September members entered the two Israeli apartments with stolen keys.
Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano were killed during an initial struggle.
The intruders captured nine hostages: Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, sharpshooting coach Kehat Shorr, track and field coach Amitzur Shapira, fencing master Andre Spitzer, weightlifting judge Yakov Springer, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, and weightlifters David Berger and Ze’ev Friedman.
Soon after the massacre began, a Black September spokesman called for the release 234 Palestinian prisoners and West German-held founders of the Red Army Faction, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.
Why is Germany silent on Corbyn’s praise of Munich terrorists?
The barn-burning revelations in the British newspaper Daily Mail in August that Jeremy Corbyn – head of the UK’s Labour Party – laid a wreath at the graves of the Black September terrorists who executed 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer 46 years ago today (September 5) raise unsettling questions about Germany’s reaction to the events of Munich in 1972.Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and her social democratic Foreign Minister Heiko Maas have remained silent about Corbyn’s 2014 visit to Tunisia to commemorate the Black September Palestinian terrorists. Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post that Germany’s government “should have said something” because Black September murdered German police officer Anton Fliegerbauer.
“It was out-and-out terrorism in the heart of Europe, in Munich,” said Zuroff, of the Munich massacre. “This is something you would assume would get universal condemnation,” he added.
Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, believes “Germany is hoping to avoid any sort of confrontation with Corbyn because Brexit is not a done deal. If Corbyn comes to power, Corbyn could bring England back into the EU.” The German government is an energetic proponent of the European Union and opposes the UK’s decision to the exit the 28-state union.
Corbyn’s visit to honor the Black September terrorists prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tweet: “The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves of the terrorists who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone – left, right and everything in between.”
IsraellyCool: Piece on Racism Against “Black Palestinians” in Gaza Also Honest About Origins of Palestinians
A website dedicated to mainly Somalia-related news has published a piece on the “subtle racism” faced by “Black palestinians” in Gaza.Besides showing that claims that the palestinians are against all forms of racism is simply not true, it is honest about the origins of these “palestinians” – as well as the origins of other ones.
Spoiler alert: not the Canaanites!
Gaza: Black Palestinians constitute a minority of one per cent of the total population of the two million inhabitants living in Gaza Strip.While its is difficult to accurately pin their exact origins, many say they came from Ghana, Sudan and Egypt — or at least that’s what has been passed down through their oral history.
Many first came to Palestine during the Islamic conquests as slaves to serve their owners in the seventh century.
It is also reported that another wave of Africans emigrated to Palestine in the late 19th century to work as merchants or fighters under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Despite their deep roots in Palestine, many still encounter racism and discrimination, although it is to a much less degree as how poorly people of colour are treated in other countries — particularly the US.
Islamophobia and Post-Colonial Guilt
Pascal Bruckner’s ‘brave and necessary’ new book examines how Muslims came to be known as victims of the WestIn the fall of 1978 Michel Foucault, France’s cutting-edge intellectual capo, was busy celebrating the political event of his time that excited him like nothing else: the Iranian revolution. Looking around the streets of Tehran, he saw history on the move, and it made him ecstatic. With the ascent of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s brand of Islam, Foucault gushed, a new “spiritual politics” was being born. Fans of democratic rights need not worry, he added: Islam was a tolerant religion. “By Islamic government,” Foucault wrote, “nobody in Iran means a political regime in which the clergy would have a role of supervision or control.”
Foucault was not ignorant about the men who would make the Iranian Revolution, or what their vision was for their society. He had met personally with Khomeini in Paris. Yet, it seemed, he had somehow missed what the ayatollah wrote in his Little Green Book: “Cut off a thief’s hands; kill the murderer instead of putting him in prison; flog the adulterous woman or man.” The judge who inflicts such medieval penalties can “dispose of” up to 20 cases a day, Khomeini added, unlike Western courts where justice might take years. A few months after Foucault penned his utopian fantasy, the ayatollah’s enforcers were in the streets whipping offenders.
Foucault established a precedent, the noted French essayist and social critic Pascal Bruckner argues in his brave and necessary new book An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt. In recent years left intellectuals have been waxing rhapsodic about Islam, which they see as a de facto part of the left. Burqas, terror armies and honor killings offer exciting alternatives to the racist colonialism of the tired old West. Meanwhile, the fight against Islamist radicalism gets tarred as “Islamophobia,” a term that, as Salman Rushdie commented, “was created to help the blind remain blind.” Islamophobia, we are told, is a form of racism, even though Muslims are not a race. (h/t steelraptor from Saturn)
Inviting Farrakhan to sit as an honored guest at Aretha Franklin’s funeral was an insult to the memory of a performer who spent a career respecting and collaborating with Jewish artists, such as Jerry Wexler, who worked with Franklin to transform “Respect” into a powerful feminist hymn. Through Wexler, Franklin met and created hits with other Jewish songwriters, including Burt Bacharach (“I Say a Little Prayer”), Carole King and Gerry Goffin (“Natural Woman”), and the trio of Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Phil Spector (“Spanish Harlem”).Racism and antisemitism were foreign concepts to Franklin. She told Jet magazine early in her career: “It’s not cool to be Jewish, or Negro, or Italian. It’s just cool to be alive, to be around.”
We may never know what machinations led to Farrakhan’s place of prominence at her funeral. Worse, with the rise of identity politics in the United States, criticism of his presence at the event may lead many African-Americans to rally around him, boosting his popularity.
The day after Aretha Franklin’s funeral, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were speaking at the funeral of their erstwhile rival Senator John McCain. President Trump did not attend because the family had made it clear that he was not welcome. Sadly, no one involved with Aretha Franklin’s funeral saw fit to send the same message to Louis Farrakhan.
Sohrab Ahmari: The Rot in the Labour Party
On Tuesday, Britain’s Labour party adopted the working definition of anti-Semitism that prevails across the civilized world. But don’t break out the champagne and party blowers quite yet. A formal declaration of the kind won’t wash the stain of Jew-hatred left by leader Jeremy Corbyn and his triumphant entourage of keffiyeh-clad cranks and unreconstructed Stalinists.At issue was the definition of anti-Semitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, and specifically the 11 examples that help clarify that definition: “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.” “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.” “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” And so on.
Apparently these propositions are a source of great agony on the British left. The Guardian newspaper said the debate inside the party’s National Executive Committee “overran by several hours.” After two hours, “the meeting broke for tea.” You know things are tense when Britons have to break for tea mid-meeting.
In the end, the committee voted to adopt the definition and all 11 examples, but not before adding its own little addendum: “This does not in any way undermine the freedom of expression on Israel and the rights of Palestinians.” That freedom-of-expression caveat is especially hilarious in Britain, where nothing can quite boost a literary or celebrity career like bashing Israel. Just ask Roger Waters. Or Coldplay. Or Tariq Ali. Or Tilda Swinton…
Still, by the British media’s lights, the final document was an improvement over what Corbyn had in mind. He wanted to add an amendment to the effect that “it should not be considered anti-Semitic to describe Israel, its policies, or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact.” That, of course, would have run afoul of one of the 11 IHRA examples: “Contemporary examples of anti-Semitism … include … claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
Former Prime Ministers Denounce Labour Anti-Semitism
On the cusp of a major vote by Britain’s Labour Party over the definition of anti-Semitism, two former Labour prime ministers have issued stark warnings about growing anti-Semitism in the party under its current leader, Jeremy CorbynPrime ministers Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown have both publicly rebuked Corbyn in recent days. Their statements come as the Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) prepares to vote Tuesday over whether or not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. In Labor proceedings earlier this year, objections were made to language in the IHRA criteria that critics claimed would stifle criticism of Israel by, for instance, classifying accusations of double loyalty against British citizens as anti-Semitic.
In an interview published over the weekend in Euronews, Blair discussed the controversy over the NEC vote in the context of broader issues of anti-Semitism in Labour. “This has been a truly shameful episode for the Labour Party and it’s causing real difficulties for those of us who stay in the Labour Party and want to see it come back to sense,” the former prime minister said. Adding, “to see a situation in which the Jewish community in this country feel really alienated and worried and anxious and that’s a terrible thing to have done.”
Over the weekend, Blair’s successor Gordon Brown appeared at the Jewish Labour Movement conference where his impassioned speech calling on the party to accept the IHRA definition “unanimously, unequivocally, and immediately” was met with a standing ovation from the crowd.
IsraellyCool: Former Canadian PM Stephen Harper Rips Jeremy Corbyn & Antisemitism of the Left
This is one of the most glorious rippings of Jeremy Corbyn and the far Left I have ever seen.As published in the UK’s The Telegraph, Lord Trimble and I caution against the rising and blatant anti-Semitism in Europe.
The rise in antisemitism across Europe should be alarming to all of us, and not just for moral reasons. History shows that the mindset which embraces antisemitism rarely restricts its hatred to the Jewish minority.
Today’s threats against Europe’s Jewish populations are both different and more diverse than those in the past. Far-right extremism is still with us, but now represents only one slice of the problem. Radical, jihadist Islam is now the much larger threat. However, the far-left has also become a substantial source of antisemitism.
Today’s hard-left exhibits a particularly pernicious form of antisemitism – one couched in anti-racism rhetoric to make it socially acceptable in polite company. It is not the Jews, they claim, who are uniquely evil among the nations. It just happens to be Israel, the Jewish state, that is the source of such malevolence.
And so we arrive at the sorry phenomenon that is Jeremy Corbyn – a man who lays wreaths at the graves of anti-Semitic terrorists, and then thinly papers over his actions with nonsensical hair-splitting. Mr Corbyn’s comfort in the company of anti-Semites and other extremists whom he calls “friends” speaks for itself. While he claims to embrace such individuals in the name of “peace,” it is a peace that only ever involves the enemies of the West generally and of the Jewish people specifically.
CAA says Labour Party’s adoption of International Definition of Antisemitism is just the first step
The Labour Party has reportedly adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism, with a caveat.Gideon Falter, Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “This sounds like a positive step, but the Labour Party’s adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism should never have been in question. It is appalling that it has taken them until now, two years after the Government adopted the definition, to finally accept something as basic as what constitutes antisemitism, albeit under duress.
“However, those who surround Jeremy Corbyn have succeeded in adding an addendum based on a fallacy that the definition prevents free speech. Any such addition is an attempt to undermine the definition’s validity, despite its adoption around the world and the fact that the definition is already heavily caveated. We have also seen an amendment that Jeremy Corbyn attempted to add to the definition, which adds to the clear evidence that he himself fears the undiluted definition because of his past actions.
“There is now a mountain of antisemitism cases that the Labour Party needs to address, beginning with our disciplinary complaint against Jeremy Corbyn himself over his personal breaches of the definition over the course of many years. There are also crucial questions to answer about the Party’s conduct, such as its apparent decision to conceal from police the disturbing secret dossier of antisemitic crimes leaked this morning.”
Last week, senior members of UKIP blocked acceptance of the definition by the Party, claiming that it would restrict “freedom of speech”.Elizabeth Jones, a UKIP National Executive Committee (NEC) member, insisted that the definition would restrict party members’ freedoms in response to fellow NEC-member Pat Bryant’s suggestion that adopting the definition would “put Labour on the back foot”.
Other senior UKIP officials voiced their concern about signing up to the globally recognised definition of antisemitism during election campaigns and as antisemitism is already covered in the Party’s existing rules against discrimination.
The Party’s General Secretary, Paul Oakley, challenged this stance by saying that it would be right to adopt the definition as anyone spreading antisemitic abuse would be in breach of the Party’s constitution.
If the Liberal Democrats accept the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism without caveats or unnecessary additions, it will leave UKIP and the Labour Party as awkward bedfellows, out in the cold.
Gideon Falter talks to the BBC’s Huw Edwards
CAA Chairman Gideon Falter talks to the BBC’s Huw Edwards about the Labour Party’s onging wrangles over the adoption of the International Defintion of Antisemitism
The Metropolitan Police Service is investigating a secret hate dossier after Campaign Against Antisemitism Chairman Gideon Falter reported it to Commissioner Cressida Dick live on air.LBC’s Political Editor, Theo Usherwood, revealed live on the Nick Ferrari show this morning that LBC had obtained and investigated a secret leaked dossier of cases that had been put before NEC Disputes Panel.
Mak Chishty, who was the Commander in charge of hate crime at the Metropolitan Police Service before retiring last year, reviewed the leaked dossier for LBC and found 45 cases of antisemitism in it. He classified 17 cases as ”race-hate incidents” which should have been reported to the police. According to Mr Chishty and Charlie Sherrard QC, a criminal barrister who works with Campaign Against Antisemitism, at least four further cases warranted criminal investigation. Mr Chishty said the incidents were “abhorrent” and described the language used as “absolutely horrible.”
According to Mr Usherwood, the four cases that Mr Chishty and Mr Sherrard agreed should potentially be prosecuted were as follows:
- An activist who attacked a Jewish Labour MP as a “Zionist Extremist” who “hates civilized people” and was “about to get a good kicking” for spreading “Zionists propaganda”;
- An activist who posted an article containing Holocaust denial and antisemitic cartoons of Jews from a blog claiming to provide “intelligent antisemitism for the thinking gentile”;
- A Party member posting that “we shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all” and that “these Jewish f***ers are the devils”; and
- A party member accused of physically and verbally abusing a seven-year-old boy using racist epitaphs including “Paki” and “Jew-boy”.
Corbyn tried in vain to give Labour the okay to say Israel’s existence is racist
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tried in vain Tuesday to get his party to declare that it should not be considered anti-Semitic to describe Israel and/or the circumstances of Israel’s establishment as racist.At a Labour National Executive Committee meeting Tuesday, the party belatedly approved an international definition of anti-Semitism, in a bid to quell a long-running storm over Labour’s failure to stamp out anti-Semitism and its leader’s own alleged anti-Semitic statements. The NEC adopted the provisions of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance‘s definition of anti-Semitism, together with a vague and controversial caveat declaring that the commitment to the IHRA definition “will not in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of Palestinians.”
Corbyn, however, sought to further dilute the significance of adopting the IHRA definition, by having the meeting also approve a statement declaring that it should not “be regarded as anti-Semitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist.”
His proposal did not gain support, and was not brought to a vote. The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism does not preclude criticism of Israeli policies. However, it does state that it is anti-Semitic to claim that Israel’s very existence is racist.
Corbyn himself would appear to have breached clauses of the IHRA definition, and his failed push for the approval of his statement may have been designed to offset further controversy over his alleged breaches.
Corbyn is more than your average politician. He is a full-fledged ideological project aimed at control over the radical left in Britain and the country itself. Corbyn wants to be Hugo Chávez more than he wants to be Barack Obama, which is why identifying with the Palestinians against Israel is so important to him. For a long time, he was considered a fringe character, a caricature, a clown from Labour’s back benches. His main enemies hail from Labour’s “right-wing” camp, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown loyalists whom Corbyn views as “Zionists.”Now, after ascending to the summit of the party, he and his people are waging a cleansing campaign. This isn’t a simple makeover, it’s a complete sex change operation, after which Labour will be very different. The first victims of his “targeted assassinations” are supporters of Israel.
In just three years, Corbyn has transformed Labour into a political force of nature on the Western Left and in all of Europe. He turned a failing opposition party into the largest in Europe, with some 600,000 members. If elections were to be held in the coming months in Britain, due to the failure of Brexit talks, Corbyn would have a significant chance of winning despite the claims of anti-Semitism within the party. His considerable flock of supporters treats him like a Messiah, in the religious sense of the word. He is bringing tidings to a society desperate for fundamental change and “salvation,” spiraling out of control in the Brexit vortex with no idea how to get out.
But instead of leading the British people to his socialist Garden of Eden, he must divert attention to a minor issue like anti-Semitism. And only Israel is to blame. Because of Israel, the Jews are forcing him to accept this definition of anti-Semitism; because of Israel, the Jews are waging a “witch hunt” against him, which serves the Conservative government. Corbyn is the victim – of the Jews. Any future failure will be attributed to the Jews. Any success will be built on their backs.
Mindful of several weeks of international media coverage spotlighting the antisemitism in its ranks, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of Britain’s Labour Party voted on Tuesday to adopt in full the definition of antisemitism drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).The Labour Party had initially sought to adopt only the first part of the definition, leaving aside the examples it provides of the antisemitic nature of several of the tropes and messages uncritically adopted by anti-Israel activists — for example, the depiction of Israel as a “Nazi” state engaged in a “Holocaust” against the Palestinians, or the conspiracy theory that Diaspora Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own countries. But after a storm of protest from British Jews, as well as from Labour Party grandees including former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the NEC adopted the IHRA definition in its entirety at its Tuesday meeting.
At the same time, however, the NEC adopted a parallel statement clarifying that the adoption of the IHRA definition will not “in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of the Palestinians.”
A party spokesman said the NEC also welcomed a statement from Labour’s far-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn, calling for “action against antisemitism, solidarity with the Jewish community and protection of Palestinian rights as an important contribution to the consultation on Labour’s code of conduct.”
David Duke: “Corbyn is right on Israel”
Let’s cheer up poor old Jeremy Corbyn. On another tough day, he’s had a new endorsement! From none other than the notorious racist and former KKK leader David Duke.Eyeing wicked “Jewish power” plots, Duke says Corbyn stands out on the left and in his party:
So the biggest issue of all, whether they raise somebody up to honour status, like Nelson Mandela, or, for that matter, a Bernie Sanders, or a leftist like Hillary Clinton, is whether or not they abide not only the state of Israel, they all do that, it seems like even the Labour party does in a sense defend Israel half the time, but they all, what’s really important to them is their agenda.And because Corbyn has dared, and we don’t like Corbyn’s position on immigration, obviously, he’s in alliance with a lot of the non-British people, but at the same time he has told the truth that it’s not necessarily in the interests of the British people to support the Zionist Jewish state of Israel and how the Zionists have a huge amount of influence in our media, they’ve got a huge amount of influence in our government, they’ve got a huge amount of interest and influence in political fundraising and propaganda, and they have a huge amount of influence in even the Hollywood media.
The bottom line is clear for Mr Duke:
Corbyn on the issue of immigration is wrong and I don’t support him. But on the issue of Israel, he is right. And of course he is right.
IsraellyCool: Danny DeVito: The Jewel of Denial
I used to like Hollywood actor Danny DeVito. Let’s face it – he looks like a cuddly teddy bear, and he was the lovable sidekick in some great movies of the eighties, including Twins and Romancing the Stone.Then a few years ago, he showed his support for Jeremy Corbyn. And even though the laundry list of Corbyn’s antisemitic statements and associations has grown since then (or at least awareness of them), DeVito continues to back him.
Hollywood star Danny DeVito has defended Jeremy Corbyn, saying events from his past have been “dug up” to make him “look bad” during Labour’s ongoing antisemitism row.DeVito, 73, endorsed Mr Corbyn during the 2017 general election and said he is “absolutely” still a fan of the politician.
The Labour leader has been criticised for attending a wreath-laying ceremony at the Palestinian Martyrs’ Cemetery in Tunisia in 2014.
The cemetery contains the graves of a number of the founders of the Black September terror group, which carried out the Munich massacre in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Olympics.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said he had attended a wreath-laying ceremony to pay tribute to the victims of a 1985 airstrike and to promote peace in the Middle East.
Speaking in Los Angeles at the season 13 premiere of his sitcom It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, DeVito told the Press Association: “That’s the kind of thing that’s dug up by everybody to, ‘you know this guy is doing something that we don’t want and let’s figure out a way to make him look bad in front of everybody’.
“We all know that, that’s Hollywood, that’s the way it happens in Hollywood, the same way it happens in politics.
“You do something, people go, ‘oh, s***, let’s attack this guy for something that happened 25 years ago’.”
Berlin classifies BDS movement as an anti-Semitic organization
The city-state of Berlin has decided to classify the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement – which promotes the boycott of Israel as a way of promoting the Palestinian cause – an anti-Semitic movement.Last week, the Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution included a section titled “Special Topic: Antisemitism” in its annual report for 2017. The report based its characterization of anti-Semitism on a definition proposed by an independent group of experts appointed by the Bundestag, the German parliament.
The office said that elements of the BDS movement “question Israel’s right to exist and accuse Israel entirely [as a whole] of racism.”
The report comes a year after Berlin Mayor Michael Müller announced that he intended to take steps to bar the BDS movement from using city funding or buildings for their events.
“BDS activists stand with anti-Semitic signs in front of Berlin businesses [that sell Israeli products],” Müller said. “These are unacceptable practices from the Nazi era. We will do everything in our power to prevent BDS from obtaining halls and funds for its anti-Israel incitement.”
Vassar College Condemns ‘Provocative’ Disorientation Guide That Urged Students to ‘Slap a Zionist’
The president of Vassar College has condemned a “Disorientation Guide” published by students that endorsed physical attacks against Zionist peers, calling it “provocative of violence and anti-Semitism.”The guide — sent on Friday in an email to some 400 students, and first reported on by the blog Legal Insurrection — was authored by a self-described “group of radical students” who said they aim to expose “the white supremacist, cisheteropatriachal, capitalist values that govern the college.”
In a section outlining some recommended actions to confront Vassar — which they alternatively called a “MONSTER of a college,” “a corporation,” “a bourgeois invention,” “part of a sustained colonial project,” and “evil” — they encouraged students to “Slap a zionist
YouTube Flags Video Featuring Holocaust Survivor As ‘Inappropriate Or Offensive To Some Audiences’
A newly-released video featuring a Holocaust survivor was flagged by social media giant YouTube as “inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.” The nearly three-minute video, released on August 28, bore the designation for one week. Google, YouTube’s parent company, finally removed the label only after an official appeal and a press inquiry.For decades, Holocaust survivor Irving Roth has shared his experiences for audiences of all ages and backgrounds, so the world will never forget what happened as a result of the Nazis’ “final solution.”
In April 1945, Roth walked out of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Upon his arrival the previous year, the teenager watched in horror as members of his family were marched into the gas chamber. When the Allies freed him, he was thankful that he would live to see his sixteenth birthday.
The video, produced by Christians United for Israel (CUFI), highlights Roth’s work with the largest pro-Israel organization in America. In the video, Roth is seen showing young people — mainly college students — the death camps in Poland.
Another anti-Israeli article in the American pro-Armenian press
It is a historical fact that no country in Eurasia has closer or warmer ties with Israel than Azerbaijan. The relationship between the two countries is particularly surprising because Azerbaijan is a majority Muslim secular and strong country in the region of South Caucasus. Over the 26-year history of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Israel, there have been many positive and worthy events between the two countries and peoples, demonstrating the strategic value and vitality of these relations. These countries proved the necessity and viability of the relationship between the Jewish state and the secular state with the Muslim majority. Our friendly states act as true and stable strategic partners and relations continue to strengthen.Azerbaijanis have never viewed Jews as foreigners or aliens. The Jewish people have never experienced harassment, insults, pogroms and antisemitic actions in Azerbaijan. Every Jew who has ever visited Azerbaijan can confirm that the Jews living here can quietly visit a synagogue without going through a police cordon, walk around the city in their national clothes and head covering, whereas doing so even in some developed countries of the West can be dangerous.
In contrast, the American Armenian newspaper Asbarez recently published a hostile antisemitic and anti-Israeli article, called “What Would Happen If an Armenian Diplomat Questions the term Holocaust while in Israel?”
The article’s author, Ara Khachatourian, wrote, “‘The tragedy of the Armenian nation is a historical question of what to call it, but what has happened is a fact that everyone accepts. It is not a matter of political discussion. Let historians decide what to call the tragedy.’ This is what Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Ben-Zvi [he is actually a deputy of the Eurasia Department of Israeli Foreign Affairs] said on Tuesday when visiting the so-called ‘Armenian Genocide’ Memorial Complex.
Hatred, DNA link California man to gay Jewish student’s slaying
A Southern California man was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges that he murdered a gay University of Pennsylvania student in a hate crime after prosecutors linked him to the stabbing through DNA and showed he had troves of homophobic and hateful material on his mobile phone.Samuel Woodward is accused of stabbing Blaze Bernstein at least 20 times after the two former high school peers met at a park last January. He has pleaded not guilty.
Woodward, 21, told investigators he was disgusted when Bernstein kissed him on the lips in his SUV and pushed him back, but didn’t say he did anything violent toward him.
Investigator Dylan Jantzen testified during a one-day preliminary hearing in Orange County Superior Court that Woodward wanted to call Bernstein an expletive and slur for homosexual men.
Bernstein, 19, went missing Jan. 2 and Woodward was arrested about a week later after the body was found in a shallow grave in the Lake Forest park where the two had gone that night.
Australian tabloid censured for ‘final solution’ joke
An Australian newspaper was found to have trivialized the Holocaust by publishing a text message after Israel won the Eurovision song contest.In May, NT News – an Australian tabloid owned by News Corp. – published a message in its “Txt the Editor” column several days after Israel’s Netta Barzilai won the Eurovision. The message read “I am not happy about the Eurovision winner and I would prefer another grand final solution.”
In a ruling last week, the Australian Press Council said the message “would be taken by many readers to be a reference to the Holocaust.”
“The effect was to trivialize the Holocaust and imply that another holocaust may be a remedy to the author’s displeasure at Israel winning the contest and hosting the next grand final,” the press council wrote. “Whether the language used was the result of poor expression or an ill-advised attempt at humor rather than being deliberately offensive, it was likely to cause substantial offense and distress to readers.”
The council noted that the publication reviews all of the messages before publishing them, and should have understood the offense that would likely be caused.
Italian universities to apologize for expelling Jewish staff, students in WWII
In the first half of the 20th century, the royal family of Italy enjoyed spending their summers in San Rossore, an idyllic estate in the Tuscan city of Pisa. King Vittorio Emanuele III, a passionate shooter, was especially fond of tranquil San Rossore’s good hunting and untouched beaches — so much so that each year he would move the royal court there from June through November.It was in San Rossore that the king received news of the Fascist march on Rome in October 1922 — and chose to ignore prime minister Luigi Facta’s request to enact a state of martial law. The king thus opened the doors to dictator Benito Mussolini, whom he appointed as prime minister a few days following the march.
And it was again in San Rossore that 16 years later, on September 5, 1938, Emanuele signed the first decree implementing anti-Jewish laws in Italy: Law Number 1390, “Measures to Defend Race in Fascist Schools.”
The law expelled all Jewish students, teachers, academics from Italian schools and universities, starting from the upcoming school year. From universities alone, 96 full and associate professors, 133 assistants, and hundreds of lecturers were kicked out, together with 1500 students.
All together, Jews made up seven percent of Italian academia — an enormous per capita rate, with the country featuring a Jewish population of 45,000 out of 43 million citizens.
Fore! Israel drone system to drop food to North Dakota golfers
Israel’s Flytrex, a startup that uses drones to deliver sushi, hamburgers and beer to hungry Icelanders, is now setting its sights on bringing food and drinks to famished golfers in the US.The drone maker has struck up a partnership with North Dakota’s King’s Walk Golf Course and EASE Drones, a US provider of drone services, to launch what they are hailing as “the first fully operational golf course drone delivery system in the US.”
The service will enable patrons to order food and beverages from the course’s clubhouse restaurant, Eagle’s Crest Bar & Grill, straight to the greens, and have their items lowered directly to them.
The new service is set to cut back on waiting time, as the restaurant staff will no longer need to bring customers food and beverages to their locations, Flytrex said in a statement.
Israel, US researchers develop software that predicts blood pressure instability
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem have developed software to predict blood pressure instability in intensive care patients.The software can monitor vital signs in real time and applies algorithms to predict impending episodes of hemodynamic instability, such as hemorrhagic shock, potentially up to several hours before symptoms first appear on currently available monitoring systems.
This is a critical window when clinical intervention is most successful, the researchers said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Ben-Gurion University’s technology transfer unit is now looking for a partner to help further develop and commercialize the technology.
Company Founded by Israeli Who Developed Tool to Save His Own Life Sold for $75 Million
If you’re an Israeli entrepreneur and you’re facing a life-threatening disease with no cure, what do you do? For Avi Yaron, the choice was clear: he’d invent one.Now, 20 years after he was diagnosed with what his doctors told him was an inoperable brain tumor, Visionsense, the company Yaron founded to make possible the kind of surgery he needed, was sold this year to US medical equipment company Medtronic for $75 million. That’s a tidy premium over the $20 million invested in the company over the past two decades.
It almost didn’t happen, Yaron tells ISRAEL21c. “Investors would say to me, politely and with all due respect, you have a ticking time bomb in your brain. Even the best surgeons can’t remove it. And you want us to invest in you?”
Yaron was 26 years old when in 1993 his motorcycle crashed and he was rushed to the hospital. While in the MRI machine to check for damage, the doctors discovered something far worse: a tumor smack dab in the middle of his brain.
“Avi, you’ll survive,” the doctors told Yaron. “But you need immediate surgery, after which you’ll probably end up handicapped, paralyzed on one side, you’ll suffer from cognitive dysfunction and you might have epilepsy, too.”
Yaron, then an electrical engineering student, was floored. “Before that, I had been healthy, active, high on life,” he says. “I refused the surgery. I don’t know if it was amazing intuition or pure denial, but that decision saved my life.”
Tel Aviv Expected to be Site of 2019 Eurovision Contest
Israel, which won the annual Eurovision Song Contest in May and therefore gets to host in 2019, has recommended Tel Aviv as the site of next year’s singing competition.In Lisbon, Portugal, 25-year-old Netta Barzilai won the event with her song “Toy.” It was Israel’s fourth Eurovision win.
Israeli network KAN, which will be the host broadcaster, submitted the proposal to the European Broadcasting Union, whose members participate in the event, and expects the EBU to “accept” it.
The EBU recently visited Israel, where representatives scouted potential host cities, including Eilat, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Eilat was eliminated as a potential host because the venue proposed did not meet EBU requirements, leaving only Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. EBU executive and supervisor Jon Ola Sand said that hosting the contest without having to violate the Jewish Sabbath would be impossible. That left Tel Aviv, which is more secular than Jerusalem, as the only logical choice.
Were Tel Aviv to be selected, its mayor, Ron Huldai, said the city would cover the expenses behind the venue.
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