From Ian:
IsraellyCool: Saeb Erekat Flounders In Face of Difficult Questioning
Chief PalestinianNegotiatorPropaganda Minister Saeb Erekat recently sat with Tim Sebastian of DW’s Conflict Zone. The result is priceless.I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Another one at least.
I don’t know where to start. Just watch and enjoy!
Warning: attempting to play a drinking game where you drink a shot every time Erekat lies could lead to alcohol poisoning!
‘Something to do with Palestine’: Paid protesters rally against embassy move
Indonesian rent-a-crowd ‘protesters’ were paid less than $3.50 each to attend a rally opposing any move by the Australian government of its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.About 250 people attended the rally on Friday, the fourth rally in the last five days, outside Australia’s sprawling embassy compound in Kuningan, south Jakarta and which was organised by the Indonesian Muslim League, a little-known group.
Protesters, some of whom were paid to attend, sit around bored at a rally outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.Protesters, some of whom were paid to attend, sit around bored at a rally outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
But while some attending the protest appeared to be genuinely fired-up by the prospect of Australia shifting its embassy to Jerusalem, perhaps half the crowd appeared largely disinterested and showed little enthusiasm for the speaker imploring them to agree to “occupy” the embassy.
Fairfax Media confirmed with three of the ‘protesters’ hanging around on the fringes of the rally that many had been paid to attend.
Many members of the crowd looked bored, posed for selfies, played with their phones, hid in the shade away from the afternoon sun and appeared not be listening to the speakers at the rally.
The ‘protesters’ said they and at least 35 of their friends had been paid to come to the rally on Friday and express their ‘opinion’ – a practice that is common in Indonesia.
Airbnb Sides with Palestinians Against Jews in Biblical Heartland
Professor Eugene Kontorovich, director of International Law at the Kohelet Policy Forum, said the Airbnb policy is discrimination.“Airbnb’s policy discriminates grossly against people of the Jewish faith and people of the Jewish ethnicity. They treat Jews living in the West Bank different[ly] from any other group,” he said.
Kontorovich said that in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, the PA punishes Palestinians who sell land to Jews with death.
“So if you have an area where Jews are not allowed to buy houses, Jews are not allowed to live and Airbnb says, ‘there we have no problem listing.’ You have the Jewish areas where anybody can come, anybody can go, there’s free access and Airbnb says, ‘you’re not allowed to list’. So Jews living in their biblical homeland is the one group that Airbnb is keeping off their platform and that should be very disturbing,” he said.
Kontorovich also noted that in the whole world, Airbnb chose to make its point here.
“There is indeed a political dispute about the West Bank, but they’re not saying, ‘we’re not taking listings from the West Bank, they’re saying, ‘we’re not taking listings from Jews in the West Bank. That’s not just a double standard, that’s naked discrimination,” he said.
Yisrael Medad: Marc Lamont Hill’s Slip Up and Slide Down
Typical of the defense mounted by radical non-Zionist Jews, IfNotNow demanded in an online petition that “CNN reinstate Marc Lamont Hill because advocating for Palestinian rights should NOT be a fireable offense. In supporting Palestinian freedom, Marc Lamont-Hill was in no way being anti-Semitic.”They neglected to include his “river to the sea” remark, which was the easy way for Jews-bereft-of-rationality to avoid the central essence of his thinking.
We need not forget what framework Hill was speaking in. Riyad Mansour, the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine, said at that Nov. 29 meeting,
“The Palestinian people’s struggle is not directed against Judaism as a religion, but against the colonial occupation of their land and people, said during a special observance today.”
As Hill knew, he was not attending a neutral forum of discussion, but was yet another actor castigating Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people’s right to national identity. This is the framework in which Hill spoke during that 393rd meeting of the UN’s Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on Nov. 29.
Let us now take advantage of Hill’s words and try to set the record straight, for our attention should be devoted less toward Hill himself (although this cross-fertilization process among progressive politics, fanatical Islam, and simple Jew-hatred deserves its own analysis) and more about the actual content of what he spoke, and the truth of his words and his insights.
No other people until the 20th century, except Jews, had a national identity in “Historic Palestine.” Arabs conquered and occupied it only in 638 CE, and lost it quickly to Crusaders, Mongols, Mamelukes, and Turks, and then the British. They never established a state or even an entity of geopolitical character. They insisted throughout the first two decades of the British Mandate over Palestine that they were Southern Syrians and that Palestine should be united with Syria.
The genocidal ideology of Marc Lamont Hill
On the morning of May 30th 1972, three Japanese nationals landed in Tel Aviv on a layover stop between Rome and Tokyo. The three men, neatly dressed, calmly collected their carry-on luggage, exited the plane, and entered Lod airport (now known as Ben Gurion airport).Upon entering the crowded baggage claim area, they quietly opened the violin cases they carried, removed submachine guns, and tried to kill as many people as possible. They murdered twenty six people, most of whom were Christian missionaries from Puerto Rico, and injured eighty people.
Most people associate terrorist attacks in Israel, or against Jews, with radical Jihadists or delusional Neo-Nazis. The Japanese men that carried out this slaughter were neither. They were members of the Japanese Red Army, trained and equipped by the Marxist and revolutionary faction of the PLO, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The attack was carried out as part of an international effort for a leftist world revolution. In the words of the lone surviving perpetrator, Kozo Okamoto, “to support and defend the cause of the oppressed.”
The attack at Lod airport is an example of a radical, revolutionary ideology motivating and inspiring a violent atrocity. This is genocidal anti-Semitism.
On January 16th, 2015, a video of Marc Lamont Hill was published to Youtube. The video opens with him solemnly staring straight into the camera. Behind him, we could see members of the group the Dream Defenders standing in eerie silence, almost reverence, holding hands.
Anti-Semitism hiding in plain sight
So, from now on, my reports highlighting this racist crime will be headed by the title ANTI-SEMITISM HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT.Feel free to share my reports starting with these three examples of Anti-Semitism hiding in plain sight;
Linda Sarsour, ally of the rabid anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan, calls for jihad in America. supports Sharia law, calls for the annihilation of the Jewish State of Israel, is held up as the darling of the feminist movement in America, and is grotesquely supported publically by Jewish co-director of Code Pink, Ariel Gold, who said of Sarcour, “We have no greater ally in the Jewish community than Linda Sarsour.”
If Sarsour is the greatest ally of American Jews, then American Jews are in deep trouble.
Sarsour is playing American Jews for fools, and there is no greater fool than Ariel Gold.
The world against the Jews.
The United Nations General Assembly is set to reject any Jewish connection to Jerusalem and its holy places.
No doubt European nations will take the cowardly and immoral step and abstain.CNN Commentator, Marc Lamont Hill, shows his college miseducation by calling for the annihilation of Israel based on an “ethical and moral outline,” whatever that means.
He did it at a meeting of the United Nations and his remarks were met with wild applause.
He’s wrong, and as a “prominent lawyer” he surely knows it. What’s his game here?Whatever the answer, it makes me laugh to see a dopey left-wing canard like “hate speech” being used against someone for pushing radical-left propaganda like “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” Maybe the chairman’s using the term for that reason, because he thinks it might help campus lefties grasp why Hill’s comments were “problematic,” to borrow another liberal buzzword. Either that or he’s using the phrase to try to teach them a lesson, showing them how “hate speech” prohibitions can be used as a sword against them too, not just their enemies, and should therefore be avoided.
Nah, I’m probably giving him too much credit.
[University chairman] Patrick O’Connor called Hill’s remarks, which cost him his position as a commentator on CNN, “lamentable” and “disgusting.”
“It should be made clear that no one at Temple is happy with his comments,” said O’Connor, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer. “Free speech is one thing. Hate speech is entirely different.”…
“I’m not happy. The board’s not happy. The administration’s not happy. People wanted to fire him right away,” O’Connor said. “We’re going to look at what remedies we have.”…
If Hill worked in private industry, O’Connor said, he and others would have moved to “fire him immediately.” O’Connor said he had instructed Temple’s legal staff to explore its options in response to Hill’s remarks.
Headline Fails: CNN Removes Marc Lamont Hill
However, judging from some media headlines, you’d think it was simply because a few Jews disagreed with Hill’s opinions or wished to curtail his freedom of speech.Take this from the Washington Post (also republished in The Independent):
Hill did not simply criticize Israel. Nor did he call for a ‘free Palestine,’ something that plenty of Israelis and Jews would have no problem with as long as it did not mean the end of a free Israel next to it. The Washington Post’s headline removes the real context of his remark.
The Guardian‘s understated “speech on Israel” in its headline uses a sub-header to imply that the end of Hill’s CNN contract was due to pro-Israel groups condemning him for “advocating a boycott.”
Again, this fails to portray what actually got Hill into hot water. After all, could CNN have been expected to even contemplate sacking Hill for supporting a boycott of Israel? Probably not.
And certainly Hill would not have prompted CNN to terminate his employment if he had criticized the Israeli government, something that plenty of Israelis do themselves.
Cue a terribly misleading and inaccurate headline from the Huffington Post:
Criticizing the Israeli government is perfectly legitimate and all governments can and should be held accountable for their policies. Hill went way beyond that.
IsraellyCool: The Incredible Sulk: Mark Ruffalo Defends Marc Lamont Hill
Bounding in clumsily like his movie character, Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo seems determined to defend the indefensible.It is disheartening to think so many kids out there idolize this guy as a hero, given he plays one in the movies. Because he happens to be a real life douche with no sense of right or wrong.
If only it was that simple.
Labour has told members who report antisemitism within the party that if they talk publicly about the case, any investigation may not only be dropped but they may be punished themselves.According to the Mail on Sunday, Labour members who report other people within the party for antisemitic statements or actions are being told to “ensure you keep all information relating to your complaint private and do not share it with third parties or the media (including social media).’
“If you fail to do so, the party reserves the right to take action to protect confidentiality, and we may be unable to consider your complaint further.
“You may also be liable to disciplinary action for breach of the party’s rules.’
In September, Labour’s leadership denied a planned new Code of Conduct for antisemitism would include punishing those it deemed to have made accusations in bad faith, for factional reasons.
At the time the party’s compliance unit was said to be close to collapsing, with hundreds of investigations into Jew-hate unsolved, and only one person left in the unit to look through cases.
One high profile case which remains unresolved is that of Jackie Walker, a former vice chair of the pro-Jeremy Corbyn Momentum group.
She was initially suspended from the party in early 2016 over her claims that “many Jews were the chief financiers of the slave trade”. (h/t Zvi)
Seth Frantzman: How Bush’s Mideast plans got overturned by a multi-polar world
Baker had excoriated Israel on its policies in 1990, and he saw Israel as run by right-wing obstructionists who didn’t care about peace. Nevertheless, Shamir said in November 1991, “with an open heart we call on the Arab leaders to take the courageous step and respond to our outstretched hand in peace.”The Bush administration helped push to annul UN Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism and racism.
In the end, Bush left office unable to craft the new world order of which he had sought to be an architect. He left the world a more peaceful place than he found it and he devoted great energies to create a framework for US humanitarian intervention and support for democratization. Today we are seeing the undoing of many of these policies for which Bush pushed.
The world is drifting toward a multi-polar world where US global hegemony is decreasing amid a rising China, Putin’s Russia and other regional states that policies divergent from the US. The Bush administration members would be surprised to see that their ideas for an Israel-Palestinian peace have not come to fruition. Theirs was a worldview that stood firm for US global dominance in world affairs and saw the US as a guiding light. It was also a world in which they sought consensus, globalization under US power and treaties shepherded through with Washington’s benevolence.
It was a unique time, those four short years. It was also a very naive time in America, one in which many took for granted that the US was on the right side of history, confirmed by the Soviet failure, and that this kind of walk in the clouds of dreams about a reordered world would continue into the 21st century.
Those who grew up in that era, like I did, were shocked to find out that just 10 years after Saddam was thrown out of Kuwait, that all the evils that his regime conjured up would soon be visited by many other people around the world, and the religious, ethnic and nationalist fanaticism festering under the surface in Baghdad would come to flow throughout the world. Bush won the war in 1991, but he never had a chance to win the peace.
Bush’s Israel legacy: A mixed bag of positive steps but little warmth
“After reciting the litany of what the Bush administration had done for Israel, I was asked, ‘If things are so good, why do I feel so bad?’” Ross wrote.And that sentiment sums up to a large degree Bush’s Israel legacy. On the one hand he did a lot – from efforts to rescue Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry to ushering in unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation after the first Gulf War – yet on the other hand, his extremely difficult relationship with Shamir and the public browbeating of Israel by his secretary of state James Baker left a sour taste in the mouths of pro-Israel supporters.
So sour, in fact, that Bush’s support among US Jews plummeted from 35% in the 1988 elections when he defeated Michael Dukakis, to just 11% when he lost to Bill Clinton four years later. That was the lowest level of support by Jews for a Republican presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater garnered only 10% against Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
In his book, Ross listed that litany of what Bush did for Israel.
This included maintaining $3 billion worth of assistance to Israel each year, and in the aftermath of the Gulf War, providing an additional $650 million to Israel to compensate for damages caused by Scud missile attacks, even though that was much larger than the actual damage inflicted.
The US-Israel Joint Political Military Group, which began under Bush’s predecessor Ronald Reagan to enhance US-Israel cooperation, was expanded under Bush, enhancing R&D cooperation, joint exercises and training, military contracts and pre-stocking military material in Israel.
Two Patriot missile batteries were deployed in Israel after Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles on Israel in 1991, requiring the unprecedented deployment of 700 US troops to Israel to operate the missile defense system.
In addition, a direct communication link was set up under Bush between the US defense secretary and Israel’s defense minister.
In addition, Ross noted, the administration mobilized and led efforts to repeal the UN Zionism is Racism resolution in 1991, brought about the Madrid Conference, and was instrumental in helping Israel establish diplomatic ties with dozens of countries after that conference and the fall of the Iron Curtain.
148 nations disavow Jewish ties to Jerusalem, Temple Mount
The UN General Assembly in New York on Friday approved six anti-Israel resolutions including two that ignored Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.The primary resolution on Jerusalem, that passed 148-11 with 14 abstentions, also disavowed Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.
Both that text and a second more global one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which passed 156-8, with 12 abstentions, spoke of Judaism’s most holy site – The Temple Mount – solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.The votes comes as Israel is working to shore up international support for its sovereignty in Jerusalem.
A third text, which was approved 99-10 with 66 abstentions, called on Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights.
The United States, Canada and Australia voted against all six resolutions, which are the first batch of some 20 resolutions that the UNGA annually passes against Israel.
“We live in a time of many crises, crises that are raging around the Middle East and around the world. It is a shame that rather than addressing these crises, the UN passes so many biased resolutions,” said Israeli Deputy Permanent Representative Noa Furman.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Islamic Cleric: Jews Judaizing Judaism (satire)
A prominent Muslim preacher sounded an alarm this week that Jews are attempting to make their foundational documents, beliefs, and practices seem Jewish, a development that continues what he called an ongoing Jewish effort to appropriate ideas, places, and resources.Sheikh Mahuj Dambut of the Jasqil Demal Mosque in the Egyptian capital downtown area warned during a sermon broadcast on national radio Tuesday that Jews have not been content to restrict their nefarious activities to the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the ancient Jewish homeland despite Muslim objections – they have also spent thousands of years trying to make everyone think the ancient set of books recording Jewish history, prophecy, and wisdom, as well as the practices that flow from them, are somehow Jewish.
“These parasite usurpers will stop at nothing,” he declared. “If they succeed in the evil project of convincing the world the Jewish Scriptures are Jewish, what will follow? We cannot allow this travesty of truth to continue. All Muslims must fight those who associate Jews with so-called Jewish heritage; who make the spurious connection between the culture of the Hebrew Bible and the culture of those who follow its teachings; and who have demonstrated time and time again that they care nothing for the sensibilities of the vast majority of humanity who would rather see them under someone else’s boot, and defined by the wearers of the boot.”
In ‘challenge’ to Netanyahu, Erekat says Abbas willing to meet PM anywhere
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is willing to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu anywhere in the world, according to a senior Palestinian official.“I challenge Mr. Netanyahu [to meet Abbas], officially. He can choose any country, any country on earth. Moscow, Beijing, London, Berlin,” Saeb Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle last week. “He will meet him. This is a challenge, a declared challenge.”
Another PLO official, who asked to remain unnamed, said Erekat meant to say Abbas is willing to meet Netanyahu anywhere other than Washington, DC.
“We will not participate in a meeting sponsored by the Trump administration,” the official said.
Both Abbas and Netanyahu have frequently declared their readiness to meet, but have not held formal talks in several years.
“The rifle will never fall,” declared Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki on PA TV, using the anniversary of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s death to reiterate that Palestinians have a UN-protected “right to use the armed struggle.”
For years, Palestinian Authority leaders and officials have defended and promoted Palestinian violence by quoting UN resolution 3236, which “recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means.” The PA claims “all means” includes attacking and killing Israeli civilians, which is why PA leaders claim that Palestinian terrorists are legitimate “freedom fighters” and terrorist prisoners are “prisoners of war.”However, the PA has chosen to ignore the continuation of the UN resolution which states that the use of “all means” should be “in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations…” The UN Charter prohibits targeting civilians, even in war. Chapter 1, Article 1, opens by saying that “international disputes” should be resolved “by peaceful means.”
But regard for Israeli civilian lives is never a concern for PA and Fatah leaders when justifying and rewarding use of violence and terror against Israel to the Palestinian population.
“The UN allows the Palestinian people to use the armed struggle… the rifle will never fall” – says senior Fatah official
Read more about this here: https://t.co/sz3FPcd9rX pic.twitter.com/QZLMqNPs1D
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) December 2, 2018
Cruz calls on Trump administration to defund UN agencies that allow Palestinian membership
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has called on the Trump administration to act on two laws that demand automatic defunding of U.N.-affiliated agencies that have allowed the Palestinians to join as a state.The two laws, passed by Congress in the early 1990s, were meant to deter the U.N. and specialized agencies from accepting the Palestinians as a full member and not to allow groups that aren’t recognized as a state to join.
In a statement to Fox News, Cruz said that “Congress has spoken clearly and repeatedly,” on the issue and that “the Palestinian campaign is a diplomatic offensive against Israel that undermines the prospect for peace, and there must be consequences for U.N. entities that enable and promote that behavior.”
Cruz pointed to the most recent example of a U.N. agency allowing them to join: “The law requires the Trump administration to restrict funding from agencies like the Universal Postal Union, and the administration should clearly convey to the Postal Union that it intends to enforce the law.”
Vice President Mike Pence: World should know US stands with Israel
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called Israel America’s “most cherished ally” in an address to the annual conference of the Israeli American Council on Saturday.Pence’s attendance at the conference, which kicked off Nov. 29 in South Florida, was a highlight for the organization, which now serves as a national framework for building an engaged and united Israel-American community that strengthens Israeli and Jewish identity and the bond between Americans and the State of Israel.
“Today on behalf of [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump and our entire administration, it’s my great honor to say as a trumpet among the nations: If the world knows nothing else, let the world know this: America stands with Israel.”
Pence said the U.S. stands with Israel “because her cause is our cause, her values are our values and her fight is our fight. We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, good over evil, liberty over tyranny. We stand with Israel because support for the Jewish state is not a partisan issue, it is an American issue.
Twice bereaved Israeli mother welcomes Pence’s ‘words of hope’
A heartwarming meeting took place at the annual conference of the Israeli American Council in Florida on Friday, when twice bereaved Israeli mother and Israel Prize laureate Miriam Peretz embraced U.S. Vice President Mike Pence after his speech at the event.“U.S. Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech about love and ties with the people of Israel, a speech that moved us,” Peretz wrote on Twitter.
“When he finished his speech, I told him that I had lost two sons to war, and his speech has given me strength because it was a speech of hope, and that’s what we needed to hear. Thank you very much,” Peretz wrote.
Peretz was awarded the Israel Prize this spring for her work as an educator.
Her two eldest sons, Uriel and Eliraz, were killed in the line of duty – Uriel in Lebanon in 1998 and Eliraz in Gaza in 2010.
Police recommend charging Netanyahu with bribery, fraud in Case 4000
The Israel Police recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara on bribery, fraud and breach-of-public trust charges on Sunday in the corruption investigation known as Case 4000.Sunday’s recommendation is another setback for Netanyahu’s legal woes, as in February police recommended Netanyahu be indicted for bribery and breach of trust in Cases 1000 and 2000.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit gave his permission for the publication of the recommendations and will make the final decision on whether to indict Netanyahu.
“The police recommendations have no legal standing,” Netanyahu said in response to Sunday’s announcement. “But they are not surprising.”
“I am sure that, even in this case, the relevant authorities, after examining the matter, will reach the same conclusion: that there will be nothing because there was nothing,” Netanyahu added.
Police Chief Roni Alsheich issued the recommendations on his last day in office – a parting shot in one of the most tense prime minister-police chief relationships in years.
Supreme Court: ‘Completely demolish home of terrorist who murdered IDF soldier’
Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from the family of a terrorist who murdered an Israeli soldier earlier this year, paving the way for the total demolition of the terrorist’s home.On Sunday, the court ruled against the family of Islam Naji Abu Hmeid, the terrorist responsible for IDF 1st Sergeant Ronen Lubarsky’s death in May.
In August, IDF Central Command chief Major General Nadav Padan issued a demolition order for the entire four-story building where the terrorist had resided prior to the terror attack which killed Lubarsky.
The terrorist’s family, however, appealed to the Supreme Court, hoping to nullify the demolition order or have it reduced in scope, so that most of the building would be left intact.
The court did not accept the family’s argument, however, and ruled that despite the harm caused to the family by the loss of their home, Israel’s security concerns and the need to maintain deterrence against future attacks outweighed the harm to the terrorist’s relatives.
“I am aware of the harm the demolition will cause to the building’s residents,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Yael Willner.
“However, in taking all of the relevant considerations into account, and given the importance of an effective deterrence in our case and in general for the physical security of Israeli citizens, I am of the opinion that none of the harm [to the terrorist’s family] involved here, as serious as it is, that would justify reducing the scope of the demolition order.”
Court orders release of Jerusalem Palestinian Authority official
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Sunday ordered the release of the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governor, Adnan Ghaith, who was arrested last week for allegedly collaborating with the Palestinian Authority security forces, Ghaith’s lawyer said.“The court decided to set Adnan free on the condition that he remain under house arrest until Thursday evening, does not enter the West Bank for 14 days and pays [NIS] 500 bail,” Rami Othman, Ghaith’s lawyer, said in a phone call.
Israeli law bars East Jerusalemite Palestinians from working with the PA security forces, Othman said.
Efrat Oron, a court spokeswoman, referred questions to the police, whose spokesperson referred them back to the Magistrate’s Court.
The court also ordered the release of nine East Jerusalem residents under the same conditions as Ghaith, Othman said.
Pitzer President Criticizes Faculty Support of Israel Study Abroad Suspension
Amid the recent decision by Pitzer College’s faculty to vote in favor of suspending the college’s only study abroad program in Israel with the University of Haifa, the Pitzer College Council—a faculty and student governance board—held a discussion about the conflict during their November 29th meeting. During the meeting, Pitzer College President Melvin L. Oliver criticized the faculty vote, which he questioned as a “repudiation of Pitzer’s values.”At the beginning of the Council discussion, Oliver gave up provost power to speak on the matter. Speaking on the faculty’s motion to suspend the college’s study abroad program with the University of Haifa, Oliver stated that “this [suspension] would be paltry support for Palestinian rights and a major blow to Pitzer College’s mission,” adding that the suspension would be “inconsistent with Pitzer’s core values,” and “foolishly alienate Jewish and non-Jewish constituents,” including students, alumni, donors, and faculty.
In his argument, Oliver stated that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that students’ political values cannot be used to exclude entry to Israel. Oliver also questioned whether the United States Supreme Court upholding the so-called Muslim ban would cause foreign universities to drop study abroad in the United States if entry laws are the standard of deciding suspensions.
Oliver also questioned why Pitzer should cancel its study abroad programs in Israel when there are other countries with contentious issues in which Pitzer has study abroad programs.
“China currently has 1 million Muslims imprisoned in re-education camps. Why would we not suspend our program with China?” Oliver asked. “Or take our longest standing program in Nepal where the Pitzer in Nepal program has been run for over 40 years. During that time they have had a bloody civil war that killed 19,000 people. Why Israel?”
PayPal refuses to shut neo-Nazi account post Pittsburgh attack
The giant US online payment service PayPal declined to close an account it provides to the German neo-Nazi organization, The Third Way, The Jerusalem Post revealed Saturday.German intelligence reports in 2018, which were reviewed by the Post, documented the radical antisemitic and xenophobic activities of the organization. When asked numerous times, in view of the lethal antisemitic attack in Pittsburgh, via email and on Twitter by the Post, if PayPal plans to close the The Third Way account, the American company declined to comment.
The national director and chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, told the Post that he plans to “work on” the case of PayPal’s account with The Third Way. The ADL seeks to combat hate and antisemitism.
In October, far-right extremist and raving antisemite Robert Bowers allegedly murdered 11 Jews in the Tree of Life of synagogue in Pittsburgh. The deadly assault, the worst antisemitic violence in US history, wounded an additional seven people.
PayPal’s decision to continue to allow the German far-right extremist entity to continue to raise funds to recruit new members and spread its ideology comes on the heels of a CNN survey in late November that revealed antisemitism is boiling in Europe.
Israel condemns depiction of Hungarian Jewish leader surrounded by banknotes
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Saturday condemned the depiction of the leader of Hungary’s largest Jewish group surrounded by banknotes on the cover of a pro-government magazine, saying there was no place for anti-Semitism in the central European country’s politics.The image of Andras Heisler, head of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz), was featured on the front page of the Figyelo weekly.
The Prime Minister’s Office said a diplomatic adviser to Netanyahu spoke with Hungary’s ambassador to Israel and condemned the magazine cover.
“The adviser said Israel demands the Hungarian government denounce every variation of anti-Semitism in Hungary’s internal disagreements,” it said in a statement.
The PMO did not indicate if a similar condemnation was relayed directly to Hungary’s government or Heisler.
Orthodox Jewish man punched in head in Williamsburg
An ultra-Orthodox man was beaten Friday in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg in New York, and hit on the head.The man was wearing religious garb, including a fur streimel hat typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men on the Sabbath and holidays, but police said they weren’t treating the incident as an anti-Semitic attack, NBC New York reported.
Police said the attacker yelled “Blah!” as he ran up to the 32-year-old man on Throop Avenue.
The brutal attack, which was captured on camera, came days after two Orthodox Jewish boys were attacked in Brooklyn in one day.
A passerby repeatedly punched a 9-year-old in the face on Sunday evening in Williamsburg, police told the New York Post. The boy was walking with his mother when the attack occurred in the heavily Hasidic area.
Jewish athletes condemn anti-Semitism in wake of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
Memphis Grizzlies forward Omri Casspi, who was born in Israel, was early in his NBA career when he saw a picture of himself defaced with a swastika. Arizona Cardinals quarterback Josh Rosen grew up with kids who made fun of the size of his nose.New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman has heard anti-Semitic taunts during games, but he had been willing to write them off as opposing fans “just trying to get underneath your skin.”
“You’ve been called stuff here and here,” Edelman said. “But nothing to the extent where it’s got me feeling the way a lot of Jews are feeling right now.”
In the month since a massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh killed 11 and injured six others, Jewish athletes said they were shocked by the shooting yet not concerned for their own safety as they travel, train and compete.
“There’s crazy people out there, and it is what it is,” Casspi said. “The notion is that anti-Semitism is dead — it’s always going to be (around). Some people are just like that. There’s going to be racist people, there’s going to be anti-Semites.”
Miami police officer suspended after video emerges of him tossing Jewish bible
A Miami police officer has been suspended after video surfaced of him tossing a Jewish holy book and a box engraved with a Star of David, describing it as “crap,” and saying he was “taking out the trash,” NBC Miami reported Friday.In the video, said to have been unearthed by attorneys John and Andrea Cunill with no details given as to how the film came into their possession, Roberto Destephan throws a copy of the Tanach (bible) and the box into a trash truck.
“We don’t need this s**t either, man,” Destephan can be heard saying in the video. “This crap? F**k this. Taking out the trash, dawg.”
According to NBC Miami, Destephan serves as vice president of Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police, which released a statement in support of the officer, saying the video was doctored.
HOT series ‘Uri and Ella’ picked up by CBS
The popular HOT series Uri and Ella will be adapted for the United States by CBS. The news was announced over the weekend at the C21 media conference in London.HOT confirmed on Sunday that the show was picked up by CBS, and will be written by none other than famed British writer Nick Hornby.
Hornby has written many novels that were adapted for film, including About a Boy, Fever Pitch and Juliet, Naked.
The show, which first aired on HOT in 2016, deals with the relationship between a father and his adult daughter after the death of their wife and mother. Uri and Ella become particularly close in the wake of the family tragedy, and Ella begins to reconsider many of her life choices.
Uri and Ella won six prizes at the Israeli Academy for Film and Television Awards last year, including best drama, best actor in a drama and best direction of a drama.
In October, CBS Studios International announced it will co-produce a new Israeli series called District Y, from the creators of Fauda. And earlier this year the network said it will be adapted the Israeli show Ta’agad under the name 68 Whiskey, with Ron Howard directing the pilot.
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