Antisemitic forms of anti-Zionism have roots in the UK far left going back decades. Before Corbyn's victory in 2015 the UK far left tried in the mid 1980s to ban Jewish Student Societies on campuses because they were 'Zionist'. Sunderland Polytechnic did so. A group Corbyn sponsored ran a piece titled 'Why we support Sunderland Polytechnic' and said the ban was not 'in any way antisemitic'.
Move on a few decades and look at this cartoon. It circulated on the radical left and is a kind of summa of how the old socialism of fools has been blended with the new anti-imperialism of idiots and has then gone viral on social media. And you can be sure that those who created it and circulated it thought it 'in no way antisemitic'.
The left needs to learn that antisemitism is the most protean and changeable of hatreds and it has shape-shifted yet again. Yes, Labour was poisoned in part by the flourishing of 'classic' anti-Jewish stereotypes and slurs in the party, as my 2019 report recorded. (There were even a few 'Hitler was right' types, believe it or not.) But the heart of the problem was 'anti-Zionism' of such an obsessive, conspiracist and demonising kind that it long ago left the terrain of 'legitimate criticism of Israeli policy' and merged itself with an older set of classical antisemitic tropes, images and assumptions to create antisemitic anti-Zionism.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made of Israel, as there are of every nation-state. Ringing up a Jewish Labour MP and calling her a 'Zionist C***' is not one of them. Nor is tweeting that Israel creating ISIS.
In short, that which the demonised Jew once was in older forms of antisemitism, demonised Israel now is in contemporary antisemitic anti-Zionism: all-controlling, the hidden hand, tricksy, always acting in bad faith, the obstacle to a better, purer, more spiritual world, uniquely malevolent, full of blood lust, uniquely deserving of punishment, and so on.'
Yes, disciplinary action should now follow. It is right that Corbyn has been suspended. But it will be even more important to wage a battle of ideas against antisemitic anti-Zionism. But the useful left-wing idiots who protected Corbyn for four years are legion. They infest a bio-degraded UK left and UK academia. So here is an idea: the party should turn for help to those of us on the left who have spent a good part of our professional and political lives understanding, fighting and defeating left-wing antisemitism. We just might know something.
The EHRC fallout – Jezza – your part in his downfall
I was reporting on antisemitism in the party long before most. In Autumn 2015, after Corbyn's leadership victory, it felt like a lonely and uphill struggle. Few wanted to see the truth. We are diaspora Jews – we do not like to be seen to be rocking any boats.
It took far too long for some in the community to wake up and realise the dangers that antisemitism on the left poses. The problems that pro-Corbyn elements presented for us as Jews in the UK. There was ignorance about how antisemitism has masked itself and naivety over how quickly it spreads. Until spring 2018 a sense of 'it will pass' or 'can't happen here' was still the order of the day.
For now, lots of people are climbing to the top of the hill, metaphorically holding the head of Corbyn aloft and crowing about how they (or their organisation) are heroes. It is my hope that this pause in fighting to chest-beat and celebrate is a brief one. Does our community possess both the understanding to realise the battle is not done and the courage to accept the boat must be rocked even further? I am not sure it does.
We must turn our attention to campus. The unions must also be fought. And on the political front, Jezza's army – that sees the EHRC only as the establishment protecting itself – is still out there – and it is far larger than it was in 2015. Many local Labour Party groups remain toxic and hostile. Does anyone really believe that the antisemitic Palestine Solidarity Campaign – which actively spreads Jew hatred – will be unwelcome at the next Labour Party Conference?
Celebrate if you must, but make sure you are ready to fight again when dawn comes.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the major drivers of Israel demonization and delegitimization are the universities. The United States took action to address this last year when President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning anti-Semitic behavior and actions at colleges and universities that receive federal funding.
Further key promoters of this infamy are some of the giant international NGOs such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch and others. People assume these to be run by people of conscience committed to relieving poverty and oppression.
At a time of unprecedented loss of trust in politicians and other authority figures, NGOs such as these therefore have a massive influence. They have become, in effect, a secular church. In fact, they often peddle pure poison about Israel, singling it out for wildly unfair and twisted condemnation while sanitizing or ignoring the Palestinians' murderous targeting of Israeli civilians.
Once again, it's the Trump administration that is leading the world in trying to tackle this, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushing to brand several of them anti-Semitic and withdraw federal funding from them.
Of course, it's naive to think that the world's oldest hatred can ever be eradicated. The best we can hope for is to push it back under its stone. To do that, however, it has to be correctly called out and its proponents treated as social pariahs.
But to do that on the left means progressively minded people must acknowledge that, in this instance, their anti-racism is actually racism, and they are not on the side of the angels at all.
The problem is that the left can never accept that they are not always on the side of virtue. And that's why the anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, as more generally in progressive circles, is a moral stain that won't go away.
The EHRC has crystallised a new legal precedent that the 'Livingstone Formulation' is antisemitic. It has added to the IHRA definition of antisemitism a new archetype of antisemitic behaviour.
I first named the Livingstone Formulation in 2006 after Livingstone's bizarre spat with a Jewish journalist, whom he accused of being like a Nazi. Instead of apologising, Livingstone came back with an aggressive counter-accusation against those who said his late night ranting had been antisemitic. "For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been."
The Macpherson principle says that if a black person says they have experienced racism you should begin by assuming that they are right. The Livingstone principle says: if Jews complain about antisemitism on the left then you should begin by assuming that they are making it up to silence criticism of Israel or to smear the left.
It is antisemitic conspiracy fantasy because it doesn't just say that Jews sometimes get it wrong, but that they know full well they're wrong and they say it anyway, to increase their power.
The Livingstone Formulation is the key mode of antisemitic bullying mobilised against Jews on the left. It treats Jews as alien to the left and as treasonous. Pete Willsman accused the 60 rabbis of being Trump fanatics. Such an accusation is a way, rhetorically, of deporting Jews from their political home and making them homeless.
Livingstone himself was thrown overboard by the Corbynites in an effort to save their own skins and he has now been singled out in the EHRC report as a key example of Labour antisemitism. But Corbyn has now been thrown overboard too and is reunited with his old comrade Livingstone. There is justice in that, since they have always shared the same antisemitic politics.
Today, Sharansky sees some of the same forces that acted on him in the Soviet Union—anti-Semitic anti-Zionism that demonized the Jewish state, and an expectation that he truncate his Jewish identity to fit the dominant ideology—at work on American Jews. To be sure, the United States is not the Soviet Union; but that does not make these forces any less frightening. I asked Sharansky whether American Jews, who are facing these pressures for the first time in their lives, might not benefit from examining the experience of Soviet Jews in greater depth.
Sharansky agreed. For one thing, there is something to be learned from the Soviet Jews' "Jewish pride" that developed "as a response to anti-Semitism." Another valuable aspect is their holistic understanding of anti-Semitism.
"In Russia there was no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism," said Sharansky. "Soviet Jews knew that both the anti-cosmopolitan campaign and anti-Zionist campaigns were campaigns against Jews."
Ideological loyalty tests are fast becoming normal parts of American institutional and social life. If the recent trend to "cancel" those who fail to comply is any indication, many may soon be facing Sharansky's choice: to live in truth or retreat into the splintered life of doublethink. For the Jews, there are additional factors to consider. They include an ability to live in the fullness of their Jewish identity or excising the "undesirable" parts such as their connection to Israel. Sharansky shows that the path of least resistance—self-censorship and doublethink—is not nearly as cost-free as one might think.
When Sharansky stepped down from his position as the head of the Jewish Agency, he gave his successor a piece of advice: "To enjoy your job, not only for nine years but even for one minute, you have to answer one question: Do you love the Jewish people?" For Sharansky, the answer is an unequivocal yes. It is a question, and a challenge, that he directs at all of us. Pluralism and diversity of opinions is one of the Jewish people's greatest strengths, Sharansky and Troy write. But we also must remember that even as we debate each other vigorously, our goal is not to win. It is, instead, "to continue our journey together," as one people.
The narrative of the victory and the liberation of Latvia from Nazism was filled with anguish and despair when the soldiers began to confront the aftermath of the Holocaust. Even though many of them knew about the Aktion in Riga (Rumbula Massacre on Nov. 30 and Dec. 8, 1941) already in early 1943, they learned about the full scale of mass killing only when the Red Army returned to Latvia in 1944. Whereas Dov Zahodin confirms that many young Jews, including him, took pride in parading through the streets of Riga as the victors of the war against Nazism, the encounters with the Holocaust and the effects of the purging of Latvia from Jews was devastating upon the soldiers. The veterans confirmed that they found Jewish survivors only in Riga. In the eastern region of Latvia there was "nobody."
Israel Friedman remembers how upon the liberation of Riga he went to search for the Jews at the registration office of the survivors, where, together with a Russian sergeant and a Jewish officer, he helped to register Jewish residents of Riga, who managed to survive German occupation. The feelings of grief and torment after the victory left many soldiers wandering around the republic to find their relatives and friends who were left behind in 1941. In December 1945, Menachem Epstein was released from the army and went to Liepaja to find out about the fate of his relatives, collecting on his way the stories of the Holocaust in Liepaja. Epstein's account of the Jewish victory over Nazism in Latvia was the following: "we knew that many Latvians collaborated with the Nazis in the mass killings of the Jews; many went abroad, some walked on the streets … but there was no desire of revenge."
For many Zionist Jewish combatants, life in Soviet Latvia had no future. Israel Friedman remembers how, after completing his task of finding Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Riga, he got in contact with other Jews and discussed the possibility of Briha to the Eretz Israel: "at that time, I was almost an officer, in Jelgava was released from the service, and then we began our route to Palestine."
The spirit of volunteerism of the young Latvian Zionists, especially in the first phase of the creation of the Latvian national formations, was neither derived significantly from their loyalty to the Soviet motherland, nor was it the product of Soviet war propaganda. They did not have any particular attachment to Latvia nor Soviet patriotism. Their status in the Latvian national divisions was disruptive to the historical narrative of the Soviet-Latvian effort against Nazi Germany, but they nevertheless took pride in the fact that they contributed to the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany. What they certainly had in common was their strong ethnic identity and the motivation to fight together against the Germans as Jews under the banner of the Red Army, which made them a capable force in a Jewish war of survival.
Adapted from "Jewish Warfare on the Shores of the River of Daugava: Zionist Combatants of the Latvian Military Formations of the Red Army Remember World War II," the Kornberg-Jezierski Family Memorial Essay Prize in Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto, 2016. Reprinted with permission.
An Anglo-Arab regime controlled Libya until independence in 1951. The administration would not let Jews leave. Emigration was only legalised in January 1949. Those desperate enough were smuggled across the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats from September 1948. Some 1,300 made it to Israel via Italy between 1947 and 1949.
According to Danielle Willard-Kyle (21.30 into the video) who has made a study of the inmates of the DP camps, an additional complication is that many fleeing Libyan Jews did not have citizenship, or had been stripped of their citizenship. Arriving in the DP camps, some pretended to have Eastern European citizenship.
The international community, in the shape of the International Refugee Organisation (IRO), which had been set up to deal with the massive postwar refugee crisis, callously refused to recognise Libyan escapees as refugees. The IRO went so far as to claim that they were economic migrants. They would therefore not be eligible for asylum benefits.
The American Joint Distribution Committee, which cared for the humanitarian needs of Jews, insisted that those who had made it to Italy were bona fide refugees. But the IRO argued that if they helped the Jews, they would have to help the Arab refugees fleeing from Palestine. If the Joint had not intervened, these Jews would have been repatriated to Libya, not allowed to continue their journey to Palestine.
The Arab problem was soon dealt with by the creation of UNWRA, dedicated to this day, to helping Palestnian 'refugees. The case of the Libyan Jews in DP camps seems to be the perfect example of an international double standard when it comes to Jewish refugees.
The Times, wrote Aris Roussinos recently in the British publication UnHerd, "is no longer predominantly engaged in descriptive analysis of the rest of the world but instead in telling its readers moral fables about the U.S.; parables in which the rest of the world features as mere local colour." In the paper's coverage of Brexit and English politics generally, he writes, "Britain itself, with all its complexities, is reduced to a mere shadow play for American journalists to tell their readers improving stories about themselves."
France and Britain are not the only countries that the Times helps its readers to understand as distant reflections of us. In a December 2017 editorial, the Times expressed grave concerns that Trump's plans to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem "almost certainly will make an agreement harder to reach by inflaming doubts about America's honesty and fairness as a broker in negotiations, raising new tension in the region and perhaps inciting violence." When the new embassy was eventually opened in May of 2018, the Times' solemn coverage suggested its fears had been justified. An article titled "Killings in Gaza, New Embassy in Jerusalem, and Peace as Distant as Ever" assessed that Israel's response to Palestinian protests and attempts to breach the country's southern security perimeter had "restored international attention to the Palestinian cause with each one-sided casualty report, and revived Hamas's flagging political fortunes." The article quoted Aaron David Miller, a former White House official and fixture of Washington, D.C.'s foreign policy mandarin class. The embassy would energize not only Hamas but other jihadist groups as well, Miller warned, galvanizing "a national and religious issue around which to rally: Defense of Jerusalem."
All of that was wrong; it was a fantasy, the politics of a narrow class of Americans projected onto a distant place whose symbolic meaning was allowed to overcome reality on the ground. In fact, the much-warned-about eruption of violence in the Arab world never occurred. Hamas is more marginalized than ever. International attention to the Palestinian cause, which has always been fickle, was not revived and, in fact, diminished considerably under the Trump administration, for reasons that are only partly about American actions. The point here is not the failure of Middle East analysis, which is hardly unique to the Times, but the fact that the paper's view of the Middle East was constructed out of a set of talking points generated in D.C. and New York that had no connection to the real dynamics in the region, and which remained immune to all but the most superficial airbrushing even after they were shown to be false.
Kingsley has some Israel experience already, but it's not at all encouraging. A March 2020 article he wrote from Israel for the Times carried a whopper of a correction: "An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the number of Israelis who are of Arab ethnicity. It is about one in five, not two in five. The article also misstated Arab turnout in Israeli elections. Turnout fell below 50 percent in the April election, but it is not the case that turnout has been below that level historically." Left uncorrected in the article was the claim that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu's Middle East peace plan "would annex large tracts of Palestinian land." As I wrote then, "It's not accurate for the Times to describe it as 'Palestinian land.' Usually they call it the West Bank, or, sometimes, Israeli-occupied territory. Some Israelis refer to it as Judea and Samaria. Whether it is or isn't Palestinian land is what the Israelis and Palestinians have been intermittently negotiating about or fighting about for decades. To call it Palestinian land is to take one side — the Palestinian one — in that dispute."
An April 2019 front-page Times article by Kingsley about antisemitism was full of inaccuracies, including the false assertion that "For decades after World War II and the Holocaust, anti-Semitism was mostly consigned to the political fringes." The same article falsely claimed that Netanyahu's government "has forbidden non-Jews to exercise the right to self-determination, and removed Arabic as an official Israeli language." I commented then, "Leave it to the New York Times to turn a front-page article on antisemitism into a vehicle for spreading destructive falsehoods about the Jewish state and its prime minister."
Apparently that is the sort of thing that, at the New York Times, wins someone promotion to a plum post at a young age.
The Times memo announcing Kingsley's appointment reported that he failed the British driver's license test seven times before finally passing on the eighth try. One admires his persistence while at the same time wondering precisely how many more Kingsley failures will be inflicted on long-suffering Times readers. I wish him rapid improvement to passing level on the accuracy front, and good luck in the new job.
In November of 1945, the American Jewish Committee established a new, independent magazine of Jewish ideas, with the goal of explaining America to the Jews and the Jews to the America. This month, Commentary marks 75 years of publishing about everything from culture, politics, and history to foreign affairs, Israel, and Jewish thought. During that time, it has proven to be one of America's most influential journals of public affairs and central fora for great Jewish debates. The late Irving Kristol is said to have called it the most important Jewish magazine in history. He was probably right.
In the history of American Jewish letters, Commentary is responsible for bringing Phillip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Cynthia Ozick to the attention of the reading public. During the cold war, the magazine fought against the then-reigning foreign-policy paradigms of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Not one, but two separate Commentary essays helped secure their authors'—Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jean Kirkpatrick—appointments as United Nations Ambassadors. And in the field of Jewish and Zionist ideas thought, the magazine has over the years published such leading Jewish scholars as Gershom Scholem, Emil Fackenheim, Leon Kass, and Ruth Wisse.
Commentary was for many years edited by the legendary Norman Podhoretz, who was followed by Neal Kozodoy (now Mosaic's editor-at-large); it is now led by John Podhoretz, the guest of this podcast. In this conversation with Mosaic Editor Jonathan Silver—inspired by the magazine's 75th anniversary issue—Podhoretz looks back at his own history with Commentary, reflects on the work of an editor, recalls how Commentary shaped American Jewish history, and articulates why Commentary still matters three-quarters of a century after its birth.
Britain's main opposition Labour party was in turmoil on Friday, a day after it suspended its former leader Jeremy Corbyn following his response to a damning government watchdog report that said the party had broken equality laws in its handling of anti-Semitism complaints.
After the decision to suspend Corbyn, the former leader's allies lined up behind his vow to "strongly contest" the "political" move to suspend him, while senior Labour figures rallied around new chairman Kier Starmer, who succeeded Corbyn in April.
Speaking Friday morning, Starmer said: "I don't want a split in the Labour Party. I stood as leader of the Labour Party on the basis I would unite the party, but also that I would tackle anti-Semitism."
"I think both of those can be done, there's no reason for a civil war in our party. But we are absolutely determined, I am absolutely determined, to root out anti-Semitism," he told Sky News.
Responding to a devastating investigation released Thursday by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation — which found there were "serious failings" by the party's leadership under Corbyn when it came to anti-Semitism, that its handling of the issue broke the Equalities Act, that Jewish people were harassed, and that Labour had "inadequate processes" for handling complaints — Corbyn said he didn't accept all of its findings. He asserted that "the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media."
Labour promptly said it was suspending Corbyn "in light of his comments made today and his failure to retract them subsequently."
A landmark moment: read the JC's special edition on the EHRC report
A far-left organization that counts three members of the US Congress among its supporters has issued a statement of solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn — the former British Labour leader who was dramatically suspended from the party on Thursday, following the publication of an official report into antisemitism within its ranks.
"Solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn," the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) tweeted. "Thank you for always being a champion of the international working class."
Solidarity with @JeremyCorbyn. Thank you for always being a champion for the international working class.
DSA's high-profile supporters include Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The organization's platform is bitterly hostile toward Israel and Zionism, promoting the BDS campaign against the Jewish state.
In August, DSA activists provoked fury among members of the New York State Assembly for issuing what was denounced as a "blatantly antisemitic litmus test" to prospective New York City Council candidates.
The DSA's questionnaire to candidates included the line, "Do you pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation?"
Ocasio-Cortez — a leading figure in the Democratic Party's progressive wing — has expressed deep admiration for Corbyn in the past.
After the two spoke by phone in February 2019, Ocasio-Cortez described their exchange in glowing terms.
Corbyn was resoundingly defeated in the British general election last December, after which he resigned as Labour leader.
It was an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation with you, @jeremycorbyn!
Also honored to share a great hope in the peace, prosperity, + justice that everyday people can create when we uplift one another across class, race, + identity both at home & abroad. https://t.co/7qnz42I8du
We now have it in writing: Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite.
An investigation by the United Kingdom's Equality and Human Rights Commission released Thursday found that the British Labour Party, under the leadership of Corbyn, broke the law in its systematic discrimination against Jews.
Created by a 2006 law intended to protect citizens of the United Kingdom from all forms of discrimination, the commission concluded that Corbyn's high command interfered to suppress complaints about anti-Semitism inside the party and conspired to exonerate members fairly accused of anti-Semitic conduct.
The report lays responsibility squarely at Corbyn's feet, citing "serious failings in leadership" that created "a culture within the party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it."
Those findings are unsurprising, given the explosion of Jew hatred on the British left following Corbyn's takeover in the fall of 2015. As a backbencher in Parliament, Corbyn referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as "friends," invited the radical Islamic cleric and Hamas funder Raed Saleh—now behind bars for inciting terrorism—to Parliament, and laid a wreath at the grave of Palestinian terrorists who massacred Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
None of this stopped prominent American left-wingers from championing a man whose indulgence of hatred was obvious to Jews long before it was deemed a violation of law. These same figures never hesitate to blather about their own "lived experience," or to lecture that society must defer to the perceived oppression of any marginalized or minority group—any, that is, except for the Jews, who are not allowed to decide for themselves what constitutes overt and obvious anti-Semitism.
Take Squad darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), who boycotted an event honoring the martyred Yitzhak Rabin but slobbered over Corbyn ("an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation") on Twitter; Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), who lauded Corbyn's political achievements as a victory over "inequality"; Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), who praised Corbyn's "bold vision" and "positive populism"; and, of course, the political godfather of these lawmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), whom Corbyn has described as his political inspiration.
I wrote to Corbyn's office directly asking him to explain why he described the convicted terrorist who authorised the attack that killed my 16-year-old cousin as his "brother" and sat on a panel with him at an "electrifying and fascinating" Hamas conference. He never replied. https://t.co/OdJDeJ3EUT
Democrat vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) made an unannounced stop in Metro Detroit, Michigan, last weekend and followed up with an interview with Dearborn-based Arab American News published Wednesday, where she shared her support for reinstating aid to Palestinians in Israel, and for reoopening the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission office in Washington, DC, and the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.
Harris said of herself and Democrat presidential candidate former vice president Joe Biden:
Joe and I also believe in the worth and value of every Palestinian and every Israeli and we will work to ensure that Palestinians and Israelis enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy. We are committed to a two-state solution, and we will oppose any unilateral steps that undermine that goal. We will also oppose annexation and settlement expansion.
"And we will take immediate steps to restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem, and work to reopen the PLO mission in Washington," Harris said.
As Breitbart News reported, both Harris and Biden are wrong about the U.S. consulate being in Eastern Jerusalem:
The U.S. consulate in "East Jerusalem" was not even in "East Jerusalem," but in the Western part of the city, near downtown, on the Israeli side of the 1949 armistice line (also known as the 1967 border). Its old functions still exist, and are handled by the U.S. embassy — of which the old consulate building is now an annex.
And neither Harris nor Biden have asked for anything in return for restoring aid to the Palestinians, as also noted in the same Breitbart News report:
Imagine telling a Palestinian 'You're a sellout for meeting the Israeli who offered Arafat a state at Camp David.' Western leftists may not want peace but a great many Palestinians do, and they should not stand in their way.
The student government at Pace University in New York City adopted the widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism on Wednesday.
The resolution, obtained by JNS, was introduced by Eden Litvin, a student at the school and president of its chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), and co-signed by SSI, the university's Hillel and the Israeli-American Council Mishelanu campus network.
It states that the student government "was created as a forum for students to voice their opinions on issues presented" by the administration, faculty and student body. Moreover, Pace University "aims to create and sustain a living-learning community that embraces diversity in all its forms, challenges habits and assumptions underlying the structures of power, privilege and injustice, and works to ensure that we are inclusive, welcoming and empowering to all our members."
The resolution goes on to say that "Jewish students constitute an important part of the broader Pace University community, yet remain distinguishable from the majority by common ethnic, religious and cultural characteristics," and that the university's Jewish community is "a distinct and significant cultural community within the university, which Pace University is charter-bound to support, protect and defend."
The resolution also mentions the spike in antisemitic incidents in recent years across the country, listing instances including, but not limited to, the 2018 Tree of Life*Or L'Simcha shooting in Pittsburgh, the 2019 Chabad of Poway shooting in Southern California, the 2019 shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, a Star of David drawn on a Pace University building in feces in 2019 and the recent string of attacks against Jews in Brooklyn, NY.
Additionally, it notes that Jews and Jewish institutions are the most targeted for religious-based hate crimes in the United States.
In its ongoing campaign against the Jewish State of Israel, Foodbenders shared this post to its Instagram account today claiming that "all of Israel is a settlement."
This claim is incitement and implies that all land is tenuous and that Israel has no right to exist. This is pure antisemitism.
The prospect of the Florida high school principal at the center of a Holocaust denial scandal returning to the state's education system is "very scary," a Jewish student at the school where he served has told The Algemeiner.
The principal, William Latson, was fired from Spanish River High School in Palm Beach County last November after sending an email to a parent who inquired about Holocaust education programs that stated, "not everyone believes the Holocaust happened."
In the same email, Latson told the parent that when it came to the subject of the Nazi murder of six million Jews and millions of other people from minorities including Roma gypsies and the disabled, "you have your thoughts, but we are a public school, and not all of our parents have the same beliefs."
He concluded: "I can't say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school-district employee."
Following a year-long appeal process, however, the Palm Beach County School Board voted at its Oct. 7 meeting to rehire Latson by a narrow margin of 4-3. Latson's appeal had received an earlier boost in August when the judge at his appeal, Robert Cohen, ruled that his offense was not serious enough to warrant termination.
On Monday, Latson's case will be debated once again at the school board's regular monthly meeting. For one Jewish student at Spanish River — who spoke to The Algemeiner on condition of anonymity — his potential reappearance in the education system amounts to a "very scary" proposition.
"There are lots more students who feel the way I do, there are many Jewish students at the school as well, but they are scared to say so," said the 10th-grade student, during a phone conversation on Wednesday.
On October 25, Toronto Star Columnist Shree Paradkar claimed that a chill has descended on Canadian university campuses when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. As evidence, she cites two recent cases of academics being criticized for their views of Israel which she describes as being "moderate".
While Ms. Paradkar, the Star's "Race and Gender Columnist," is entitled to her views, sadly, she misses the forest for the trees in her analysis of what's happening on campuses across Canada.
Firstly, it's important to draw a distinction between what Ms. Paradkar terms a "moderate critique" of Israel and what went beyond legitimate criticism of Israel and which verged into borderline hate speech. York University professor Faisal Bhabha, who complains that his university has not publicly defended him against a campaign to have him fired, publicly equated Zionism with "Jewish supremacy." That is, of course, a grotesque lie. Zionism is the Jewish people's strive for self-determination in their historic homeland, and when Professor Bhabha misrepresents it as repugnant and akin to white supremacy, he not only tarnishes the vast majority of Canadian Jews, he also applies a bizarre double standard: Palestinian self-determination is acceptable, but Jewish self-determination is racism. This isn't "moderate" criticism, and his saying it was possible that Israel is "exaggerating the Holocaust" is textbook antisemitism.
As to Dr. Valentina Azarova, she's not merely a "critic" of Israel as she supports and advocates for the "one-state solution" which is a thinly veiled strategy for destroying the State of Israel and questioning its very right to exist. At its most basic level, the one-state solution denies the right of Jews to self-determination in their historical homeland and calls into question the very legitimacy of Israel as a state. A bi-national state would have the same consequence as the "right of return" – the negation of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians, by virtue of a higher birthrate, would turn Jews into a minority before voting in favor of another Muslim Arab state in place of Israel.
This is precisely why the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of Antisemitism is critically important. When individuals deny the inherent right of the Jewish people's self-determination and call for Israel's destruction, that is itself antisemitic. Anyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but spreading dangerous lies about Israel and the Jewish people is certainly not a "moderate critique."
When there are two wildly different versions of a story, and in the absence of conclusive evidence of either version being proven objectively correct, a responsible journalist should always strive to ensure that readers are presented with each narrative, along with additional relevant information, in a fair and equal fashion.
But the reporting of the recent death of a Palestinian youth in unclear circumstances in the West Bank this week by leading British newspaper The Daily Telegraph leaves much to be desired.
Two Contradicting VersionsAs the Times of Israel reported, there were two versions of the story: According to the IDF, 18-year old Amer Snobar fatally injured himself while running away after throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles. But according to the Palestinians, troops allegedly shot and beat him to death while he was driving.
It's clear that only one of these versions of the story can be true. And in the absence of certainty, journalists owe it to the readers to make clear that the circumstances behind the man's death were unclear. They should also include information that would seem to strengthen or contradict either of the side's stories
For example, the Times of Israel report mentioned that no damage from gunfire could be clearly seen on the car – highly relevant when considering the claim that Israeli troops were supposed to have shot the man while he was in the car.
The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court has ruled in favor of Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh in his defamation case against Ted Belman, the editor of IsraPundit, a news blog website.
The decision was made earlier this week.
Abu Toameh said he was gratified that Belman would need to retract comments he had written about him.
Belman's posts on his website and Facebook page relating to "Jordan is Palestine" in which he mentioned Abu Toameh had no factual basis, and he apologized for them, the court said in its ruling.
Furthermore, Belman must post his declaration and apology on his website and send it to his mailing list within 14 days of the ruling, the court said.
Should Belman republish similar baseless charges in the future against Abu Toameh, he can be fined NIS 5,000 for each new post, it said.
The court rejected Belman's counterclaim against Abu Toameh, who voluntarily agreed to express regret for one negative reference to Belman in response to Belman's years of defamatory posts.
Mudar Zahran's campaign against Abu Toameh began in 2013 and continued until 2017, when Abu Toameh sued.
The Global Imams Council (GIC) adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism on Thursday, becoming the first Imams Council in the world to do so. This was just a few days after Albania became the first Muslim-majority country to adopt the definition.
The GIC is the world's first and largest international non-governmental body of Muslim religious leaders from all Islamic denominations and schools of thought, with a rapidly growing number of over 1000 members worldwide, according to its website.
In a historic move, the GIC's Governing Board Senior Imams Committee and Advisory Committee passed on Monday a unanimous vote to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.
"We live in a time of rising antisemitism and terrorist attacks, which makes our responsibility as faith leaders greater, and even greater as Imams," GIC's members stated, adding that they are "the first Imams Council in history to invite a rabbi to become a permanent member of its Interfaith board."
The IHRA definition adopted is as follows: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." The adoption of the IHRA definition, that took effect on Thursday, will be binding on all current and future members of the GIC, including all affiliate mosques, centers, institutes and organizations operated by the Imams of this council worldwide.
A Dutch human resources firm has determined that a Palestinian man who twice vandalized a kosher restaurant and tried to set it ablaze had terrorist motives.
The NTA firm on Wednesday determined that Saleh Ali, an asylum seeker from Syria, indeed had terrorist motives when he smashed the windows of the HaCarmel restaurant in Amsterdam in 2017 and again in May 2020 while holding a lighter, Het Parool reported. NTA was hired by the Dutch government to determine Saleh's motives in the attack and prosecutors have accepted the firm's conclusion, Telegraaf reported.
Ali, 32, has not been convicted of a hate crime and served 52 days in jail for vandalism for the first attack, which he said he committed to avenge the moving of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. NTA was hired to determine his motives in the second attack, for which he now awaits trial.
A former jihadist fighter in Syria, Ali remains at a psychiatric observation center, where he threatened a fellow resident who is Jewish with a billiard ball, the Het Parool report said.
News of the NTA findings provoked ridicule on social media.
"So this wasn't a case of an unsatisfied patron who didn't like the gefilte fish," the opera critic Olivier Keegel wrote on Facebook.
Online design store #BapUp (based in #NYC) doesn't seem to think there's an issue with monetizing the murder of 6 million Jews and is featuring multiple items like these featuring #Hitler.
Email support@bapup.com and demand these disgusting item are promptly removed. pic.twitter.com/sTY281IOFw
The city government of Riga, Latvia, waived its demand for rent from a Holocaust museum whose director said it couldn't afford to pay.
The Riga City Council on Monday withdrew its intention to collect $12,000 in rent per month from the Riga Ghetto Museum, one of the Latvian capital's three Holocaust museums, Rabbi Menachem Barkahan, who heads the Shamir Association that runs the museum, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The city also revised its plan to rezone most of the area it had leased to the museum for 10 years, agreeing to take away only half of its allocated 6,500 square feet. "This will allow the museum to keep its main exhibition, Ghetto Street, as is," the Shamir Association said in a statement Tuesday.
The museum's previous 10-year lease, which expired this year, did not charge any rent.
Shamir "welcomed the decision, and thanked the council for choosing to maintain the agreement," the statement read.
The Nazis and their collaborators murdered about 70,000 Jews in Latvia during the Holocaust. The Riga Ghetto refers to areas of the city where Jews were forced to live during the Holocaust.
2020 Antisemite of the Year Contest 👉🏻 Voting is NOW OPEN! 🗳
10 semi-finalists 👉🏻 YOU chose your top 3 Jew haters through Nov. 23rd
India is regularly ranked among Israel's top-10 trade partners, but that doesn't mean doing business with companies from the sub-continent is straightforward. One of the major issues frustrating many Israeli companies, often to the extent that deals fall through as a consequence, is the time it takes to do business in India. The local business culture is nowhere near as fast as that Israelis are used to, and those gaps can sometimes end up becoming insurmountable obstacles. However, the Covid-19 pandemic may be helping to change that. The fact that for several months meetings are no longer being held in person and have moved online has not only saved travel costs for companies, but has also made the entire process more effective, and in many cases in India, also significantly shortened the time of doing business.
Natasha Zangin, the head of the Economic and Commercial Mission at the Embassy of Israel to New Delhi, is experiencing this first hand and believes it could be a positive consequence of the coronavirus crisis.
"The challenge presented by Covid-19, it has also brought with it many opportunities. One of the most significant opportunities, in my opinion, is the shortening of the time it takes to do business here," Zangin told CTech. "If in the past companies had to travel here to physically hold meetings, today they can be done over Zoom. The Indian companies have adopted the digital platforms and it is quite easy to set up introductory meetings. The Indian market is hungry for innovation and they view Israel as a hub for innovation and want to learn more about these technologies and the way in which they can integrate them. They are open to meeting online and this has resulted in more meetings than in the past."
Zangin began her role in Delhi only last month after several years working for the Ministry of Economy and Industry's Foreign Trade Administration, including in the Trade in Services and Investments department.
Israeli scientists who specialize in cleaning algae from large bodies of water were called in to save an estuary in Florida last week from an ecological disaster due to the spread of toxic blue-green algae.
The company, BlueGreen Water Technologies, was given a $945,000 state contract to keep the toxic algae in Lake Okeechobee from getting into the St. Lucie River estuary.
The algae spread in the waters of Lake Okeechobee and from there to the canals and rivers around it. Blue-Green algae create enormous damage to the local agriculture, fisheries, tourism, economy and infrastructure, in addition to being toxic in humans and animals due to bacteria that develop on top of the algae secreting toxins.
The Israeli team from the BlueGreen company have developed a unique technological solution called Lake Guard. From a raft that floats on the water, the technology disperses measured amounts of a green substance named Lake Guard Oxy, a hydrogen-peroxide based algicide which eliminates the algae and bacterial colonies on them, while preserving the surrounding vegetation, fish and animals.
The affected bacteria transmit chemical distress signals that are absorbed by additional groups of bacteria in the lake and cause them to collapse in a chain reaction.
Israel: 30% of Energy to be From Renewables by 2030
#PhotoFriday The first mass deportation of Jews took place in late October 1938 – Jews with Polish citizenship were evicted from Germany & placed in the Polish border town of Zbaszyn
This deportation took place BEFORE the Kristallnacht pogrom
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
I just found this in the JTA archives from September 5, 1968:
Since the Six-Day War, secret negotiations conducted by Spain have resulted in freeing several hundred Jewish families from Egypt, the Washington Post said Wednesday. "Possibly 500 families–Egyptian citizens as well as aliens–have been helped out of Egypt and have been dispersed" to Western countries. "Many stateless Jews," the Post said, "have been given Spanish passports." It said the International Red Cross and United States Jewish organizations have aided the effort.
"Some estimates are that 1,000 Egyptian Jews, most of them permitted to take only their personal belongings, have been helped to resettle abroad," the newspaper reported. The Post noted, however, that "an estimated 250 Jews remain in confinement, principally in the Al-Thawra prison near Cairo. Other Jews freed previously have alleged that they were forced by prison officers to submit to sexual perversion and other indignities and were beaten and tortured."
Last December the exodus was reduced to a trickle, and since July, the Post said, the Jewish exodus has apparently stopped.
Credited with the largest role in arranging the release of many of the Jews is the Spanish Ambassador in Cairo, Angel Sagaz. Mr. Sagaz, the Post noted, "played an important role in getting Jews out of Nazi Germany during World War II." The Post quoted one Jew rescued from an Egyptian prison as saying that Ambassador Sagaz "went back as far as the inquisition in order to construe for the Sephardic Jews a Spanish origin and give them a passport."
Ambassador Angel Sagaz was a hero who was not recognized during his lifetime. (His NYT obituary did not mention this episode.)
This account notes that when Sagaz found out that Jews could not even take their jewels with them from Egypt, he told them to deposit them in the Spanish Embassy in Cairo and they were later delivered by diplomatic pouch to them in Spain. He also saved some synagogue ceremonial objects.
One of the reasons that Sagaz was successful. according to this account, was that Spain at the time did not recognize Israel and was friendly with Arab states, so it couldn't be accused of "Zionist" leanings. Sagaz lobbied the police, Egypt's ministries and Nasser himself, claiming that the Jews were Spanish citizens based on a 1924 edict from Spain's leader Primo de Rivera that Sephardic Jews could become citizens. (Spanish diplomats used that same ruling to save 5000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.)
Angel Sagaz' story needs to be better known. Here's the only photo I could find of him, along with his wife, who helped him in his heroism.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Explanations given by the US in the past for an unwillingness to connect Jerusalem – any part of Jerusalem – to Israel in passports revolved primarily around the idea that the status of Jerusalem in the eyes of most countries, is still pending, and that this is a hot-button issue that needs to be determined in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The US, according to this argument, did not want to prejudice the outcome of future negotiations by taking a stand on the issue. But that argument was disingenuous, because what about Jerusalem before 1967, before Israel repelled the Jordanian attack during the Six Day War and gained control of the entire city, east and west.
Why could Israel not be Jerusalem's designated state in US passports before the Six Day War, when Israel only had control of the western part of the city?
The reason: because the US never formally relinquished its support for UN resolutions dating to the Partition Plan in 1947 calling for the city to be designated as a "corpus separatum'' – a city with a special status to be placed under an international regime. Washington's clinging on, at least formally, to the "corpus separatum" idea only really ended in 2018 when Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem, in accordance with a 1995 US law.
The long-standing American refusal to acknowledge in passports that any part of Jerusalem was an integral part of Israel spoke of a belief, or even a hope, that it was not. This reinforced the pernicious notion – an idea propagated by Palestinian propaganda and which gained traction in recent years, and was even incorporated in the resolutions of various UN bodies – that Israel had no valid historical tie or claim to the Holy City. It was high time to put that idea to rest.
The US Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so in 2015, when it ruled on a case brought by Ari Zivotofsky to force the State Department to list "Jerusalem, Israel" as the place of birth for his son, Menachem, in conformity with a 2002 law passed by Congress. But the court missed the opportunity, ruling that the president, not Congress, has the sole authority to make these types of foreign policy decisions and the court struck down the law.
That being the case, once Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US embassy there in 2018, it should have been just a matter of time for the State Department to change its procedures on this matter as well. These types of ingrained policies, apparently, are not easy to reverse, and it took over two years for this to happen.
If you conduct foreign policy as a transaction, then there is always a chance that if some part of the transaction doesn't hold up, or if the person in the White House changes, that the foreign state will renege. That means that to cement Israel's relationships with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and potentially other deals with Oman, Saudi Arabia or several other countries, the U.S. needs to continue to be a stakeholder—or Israel and its new friends need to move quickly to cement the deals.
Israel has had pragmatic relationships in the past. It reached out to Iran and Turkey in the 1950s, when Arab states were hostile, and then it signed peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan while never cultivating a particularly close relationship with either. Iran's regime is today the most hostile country to Israel and Turkey—and Turkey, which still has relations with Israel, has vowed to "liberate" Muslim areas of Jerusalem from the Jewish state. This shows how Israel's relationships in the region tend to be precarious.
How can relations with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan learn from the challenges of the pas?
First, Israel and the UAE already share a worldview on the region, and can be part of an emerging U.S. alliance with India and Greece that would create a nexus of power from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. This is predicated upon a strategic partnership with Washington built on F-35s for Israel, Greece and the UAE, and a close partnership between Israel and India that already exists. People-to-people relationships are also essential to developing ties between Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem. The business hubs in Tel Aviv and Dubai offer excellent opportunities. Already, there is cooperation on the medical front against COVID-19. The first ship has arrived in Israel from the Emirates, as well as the first flights.
The foundation for Israel's new friendships are being built. Now, the countries need to fill the new edifice with economic, cultural and, eventually, defense ties. Some of those ties are being pushed by Washington, but in the wake of the U.S. election, it is important that these new friendships grow on their own accord. Collective focus from Israeli, Emirati and other regional leaders, businessmen and civil society organizations can help make that happen.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has long been considered an anti-Israel institute, to put it mildly.
It was established following an Australian tourist's attempt to burn down Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque in 1969. Its members are the representatives of 57 Islamic states, including Turkey and Iran, and for the past four years the organization has been headed by Secretary-General Yousef Al-Othaimeen, a Saudi politician. In February, the organization rejected US President Donald Trump's Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, calling on its members not to cooperate with it.
On Monday, however, Al-Othaimeen sounded a very different tone.
In an interview to Sky News in Arabic, Al-Othaimeen said: "We need to think outside the box… This [Palestinian] issue has been going on for over 70 years. We have tried wars and throwing the Israelis into the sea; we have tried a lot. The new generation of our Palestinian brothers needs to try ideas that will lead to a solution to this problem, which is of interest to us all, but in new ways, ways that have not yet been tried, in order to reach a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of this state."
Al-Othaimeen then asked: "Why insist on the path of resistance and boycott and distancing? What should be distanced are the traditional and familiar ideas."
A few months ago such statements would have been inconceivable. That they were uttered this week, by the head of this organization, shows how the Israeli normalization agreement with Sudan, and the earlier agreements with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have generated nothing short of a Middle East earthquake.
The world view of generations of Arabs in the region, in both Sunni and Shiite states, was shaped around the Palestinian issue and the conflict with Israel. Yet here before the astonished eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslim and Christian Arabs — and especially the Palestinians' shocked gaze — that foundational worldview has collapsed. Suddenly, the Palestinians – who would wave the prospect of normalized relations with the Arab world as the carrot to try to convince Israel to resolve the conflict with them — now find themselves irrelevant. They woke up one morning to find that the presumed consensus, the very premise, the whole concept of Palestinian nationality is in real danger.
Whether US President Trump is reelected next week or replaced by Joe Biden, many of the Trump administration's novel Mideast policies should be adopted by the next administration, even if Democratic leaders shrink from crediting Trump for any breakthroughs.
Indeed, while Democrats will never admit it, Trump's Middle East policy successes can stand the test of time for all parties involved – if they are not recklessly jettisoned out of partisan revenge.
There are three intersecting axes of Mideast policy that must not be abandoned.
The first is the unleashing of a fruitful regional dynamic whereby Arab states are moving to open partnership with Israel on a wide range of issues. Already this has led to three peace agreements (between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan). Additional Arab countries should be encouraged to follow suit by any American administration.
Sustaining this momentum requires active American diplomacy in support of Arab-Israel rapprochement, with signals coming from the highest levels in Washington and concrete offers of US aid on the table (yes, including weapons).
It also requires continuing stiff American resolve in opposing Iran's hegemonic designs in the region. Tenacity is a key ingredient of the glue that brings Sunni Arab states, Israel and the US together. (More on this below).
It also requires resisting the temptation to over-prioritize the Palestinian issue. America must refrain from magnifying Palestinian grievances into the "central issue" in Mideast affairs. It never was, and certainly is not today.
That brings us to second axis of intelligent Mideast policy over the past four years: Treating Palestinians as responsible adults, with no free pass regarding the type of state/s they might establish.
Ahead of next week's presidential election, the US Jewish vote — typically heavily favoring Democratic candidates — appears to be "as entrenched as ever," the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said during a Wednesday appearance on i24 News, yet there still could be a "surprise."
How Jews vote, Dovid Efune told "Global Eye" host Natasha Kirtchuk, "boils down to a matter of priorities."
"I think there really is consensus in the American Jewish community that the president has done some incredible things for Israel and I think it's not a stretch to say that he has been the most pro-Israel president in the history of the United States — certainly in recent history," he noted. "Even on the Democratic side, there is a great deal of agreement on that point."
"Having said that," Efune added, "his opponents will tend to prioritize a host of other issues — social issues, for example. There's also a great sense of frustration over the president's character."
For a believing Jew, or simply a Jew connected to his roots and to Israel, one simply needs to examine this president's accomplishments in less than four years to understand his greatness:
-Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital city and moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem.-Closing the PLO's official office in Washington, which served until that time as a shadow embassy and a fundraising channel for terrorism.-Removing the USA from the horrible Iran deal, which had legitimized Iranian non-compliance with attempts to end their nuclear bomb program.-Recognition of the strategic Golan Heights as Israel's sovereign territory.-Declaring that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are not illegal.-Ending funding to the Palestinian Authority until it stops paying salaries to terrorists who have killed or wounded Israelis.--Denying funding to American colleges that permit anti-Semitism to flourish on campus.-Brokering normalization agreements between Israel and three Arab countries, thereby removing the Palestinian veto on such relationships.-Recognizing that hatred of Israel and hatred of the Jewish state are usually one and the same.-Pointing out the lie that the most dangerous form of anti-Semitism today is from white supremacists rather than from the radical Left and Muslim haters of Israel.
100 times President Trump supported Israel
Speaking with educator and rational settler Uri Pilochowski about his latest list.
After their son Menachem's birth in 2002, Ari and Naomi Zivotofksy asked for a passport that recorded his birthplace as Jerusalem, Israel but they received the document only this Friday - some 18 years later.
"I am honored to receive this passport as a representative of the many American citizens who were born in Israel, who can now have their official government documents reflect the fact that they were born in Israel. I want to thank my parents who started this process, long before I understood anything," Menachem said.
He spoke at a brief ceremony at the US embassy in Jerusalem, in which US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman officially handed him his passport, the first one ever to link Jerusalem with the State of Israel.
His parents, told The Jerusalem Post prior to the ceremony that they had requested to register his place of birth as Israel, fully believing such a step would happen, because a 2002 US Congressional Law that had just passed, gave them the option to do so.
They were surprised therefore when the consular office rejected their request.
The consular officer was "emphatic about it," Ari said.
They filed a legal appeal, which went twice to the US Supreme Court, that ultimately ruled that Congress has exceeded its authority and that the decision with regard to country designation was under the purview of the White House.
A great honor to present the very first passport issued to an American citizen born in Jerusalem with the place of birth designated as "Israel" to Menachem Zivotofsky, who first applied 18 years ago and litigated twice before the US Supreme Court. Mazal Tov! pic.twitter.com/IIoOkVP3jS
As EU Budget Rapporteur 2019, I have been shocked to find out that the far-left and anarchist organizations protesting outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Balfour Street in Jerusalem are allegedly financed from abroad, mainly by the EU and Germany.
On Sept. 30th, Likud MK and chair of the Caucus on Combating Delegitimization & Anti-Semitism Ariel Kallner wrote to German ambassador Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer to complain about German funding for left-wing Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF), which provides legal defense to the violent protestors.
As Chairman of the Knesset Caucus on Combating Delegitimization, Kallner wrote: "I would like to express my sincere concern about this intervention in Israel's internal affairs that constitutes an undermining of its sovereignty."
In her answer of Oct. 5, German Ambassador Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer denied the allegations. She claimed the German Government "does not support or fund any violent or illegal activities of civil society organizations", and that "any organization or project funded by the Federal German government has successfully passed a thorough and transparent screening process."
There is actually nothing transparent about German and EU funding of anti-Israel NGOs. The European Court of Auditors stated in 2018 "that the Commission was not sufficiently transparent regarding the implementation of EU funds by NGOs."
He vocally supports the Muslim Brotherhood, proscribed as a terrorist entity by many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. Earlier this month, he outrageously declared Jerusalem to be a Turkish city and fiercely opposed the historic Abraham peace accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
Erdogan has form on sponsoring terrorists. He has funded, encouraged and facilitated the proscribed group Hamas, hosting their leaders in Istanbul and allowing them to plot attacks against Israel on Turkish soil. Despite his strident self-promotion in fighting Isil, there have been indications of complicity and increasing evidence that Turkey is a permissive jurisdiction for Isil and other jihadist networks.
Standing on the frontier between Europe and the Middle East, Turkey is an important strategic ally for the West. But Erdogan is not, and appeasement will not curb his despotism. France, and Europe, cannot allow his aggression to continue unchecked.
The European Union and other Western powers should impose sanctions. Despite Erdogan's defiant bluster, this could be a particularly effective tool at a time when the Turkish lira is plunging and now sits at an all-time low against the dollar.
Turkey's membership of Nato should also be reviewed. Turkey is a significant player in the alliance, with nearly three quarters of a million men under arms. But in a challenge to Nato's integrity, last year Erdogan acquired the Russian S-400 missile system.
Even consideration of Turkey's status within Nato would represent a major blow to Erdogan's prestige as his political support in Turkey is on the decline. We can't let him get away with his misdeeds.
Turkish President Erdogan: Boycott all French goods.
Following the October 16, 2020 Islamist beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty, MEMRI has translated and published reactions to it from across the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. These reports and clips include statements by jihadi and domestic terror organizations, reformists, religious leaders, and others throughout the Muslim world. In the coming days, we will be continuing to add translations, reports, and videos on this subject to our archives.
Below are reports and clips from the MEMRI Special Dispatch Series, MEMRI TV (including the Sermons by Imams in the West Project), the Domestic Terrorism Threat Monitor (DTTM), and the Jihad & Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM).
This is the sick crap to be expected from Al-Jazeera etc. Now it's the habit of the NYT. An Islamist beheads French citizens and these media dart over the corpses straight onto the 'Islamophobia' crock. Sick, cowardly and long past its sell-by-date. https://t.co/FD9dDb4xvz
Take note: The very last voice to condemn this—if ever—will be the U.N.'s highest human rights body.
Instead, they just reelected Pakistan, whose leader stoked the flames by accusing French President Macron of "attacking Islam." https://t.co/srWo38L2ad
They cut off our heads in France while shouting "Allah Akbar," In Iran they hang us from the gallows to the chants of morning prayers. In both cases, they kill us in the name of insulting their prophet. Then they ask us why are you are afraid of Sharia? @jack Don't censor me! pic.twitter.com/n4vQAn6iQ3
Tom Gross on BBC Arabic: Palestinians should negotiate or risk becoming forgotten like North Cyprus
The Palestinians have been badly advised by some of their left-wing friends in Europe and America, people like John Kerry, who told them not to negotiate for the last four years. This was a huge mistake. Whoever wins next week's US elections, the Palestinian Authority should return to open negotiations with Israel without pre-conditions and under American auspices. Otherwise history may pass them by as the rest of the Arab world makes peace with Israel, and the Palestinians risk becoming a forgotten conflict like Northern Cyprus. Instead of continuing to praise suicide bombers and arrest Palestinians who want to have good relations with Israel, Fatah and Hamas should allow the many Palestinians who want to do so, to reach out culturally to Israelis in the way that Emiratis and Bahrainis are currently doing.
The Trump administration has updated Congress of its intent to sell F-35 advanced fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, a ranking House Democrat announced on Thursday.
The informal notification to the House Foreign Affairs Committee revealed that the White House plans to sell as many as 50 units of the Lockheed Martin-made jets for roughly $10.4 billion, a senior congressional staffer told The Times of Israel. Israel has ordered the same number of F-35s from the US, though not all of them have been transferred yet.
The committee's chairman, Elliot Engel (D-NY), will introduce legislation on Friday to prevent the sale from moving forward without strong assurances that it won't harm Israel's Qualitative Military Edge (QME) in the region and that American adversaries will not be able to gain access to the military technology, the staffer said. Similar legislation has already been introduced in the Senate as well.
The informal notification given on Thursday was a courtesy that is not technically required of the White House. However, it has been effective policy for decades to consult with the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees before an official notification of a weapons sale is submitted to Congress. This gives lawmakers an opportunity to raise objections and even try and block a particular transfer.
Thursday's update is still an early step in the process, and a formal notification from the State Department to Congress is still required. Reuters reported that the White House is hoping to submit the formal notification in December. At that point, lawmakers will have 30 days to produce a resolution to block the sale, though two-thirds of Congress would be needed to override a presidential veto.
Israeli farmers, who face stiff competition in their main export markets in Europe, might be able to sell their produce in the Persian Gulf as early as November.
The United Arab Emirates this week authorized the import of Israeli produce following the two nations' normalization agreement, Israel's Agriculture Ministry said in announcing the possible start date.
While Israeli exporters have diversified their markets in response to the mounting competition in Europe, demand hasn't been sufficient, the ministry said. The UAE imported 80% of the $10 billion in fresh produce sold there in 2018, according to the ministry, and is a trade hub for goods sent on to eastern Asia.
Israel's agricultural exports totaled $1.15 billion in 2018, according to ministry figures.
British-Saudi Journalist Othman Al-Omeir: Peace with Israel Is the Only Logical Step; We Cannot Put Our Lives on Hold over the Palestinian Cause pic.twitter.com/hYyd5vsYhU
Iranian Journalist Ghanbar Naderi: Iran Should Stop Threatening to Destroy Israel and Should Recognize the Sovereignty of Israel, KSA, Other Countries in the Region pic.twitter.com/usl6CdvaHh
Sudanese Politician Mohammadain Mohammad Ishaq: We Have No Enmity towards Israel; We Need to Abandon the Islamist, Pan-Arab Ideologies; the Palestinians Are Better Off Than Rural Sudanese pic.twitter.com/8M89Bzodc2
Turkey has been threatening many countries in recent months. But noticeably absent from the incitement campaign that Ankara tends to run against Greece, Armenia, France and others is Israel.
This is not because Turkey's ruling party likes Israel; indeed, Turkey is one of the most hostile countries in the world to Israel. Turkey's president has hosted Hamas terrorists twice this year, has compared Israel to the Nazis and has threatened to break off relations with the UAE after the Gulf state and Israel signed a normalization deal.
So why has Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the leadership in Ankara been relatively silent on Israel recently? It appears that Turkey has been wary of provoking a crisis with Israel because of strong support from the Trump administration.
When the US president took office, Turkey reached out to his team. Turkey believed that the Obama administration's policies in Syria were wrong and had accused the US of working with Kurdistan Workers Party "terrorists."
However, Turkey lost out when Trump's first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, left his job in the first few weeks of the presidency. It next turned its attention to the State Department and to Syria envoy James Jeffrey. Erdogan also became the world leader with whom Trump appeared to speak with more frequently.
An earthquake has struck near the Turkish city of Izmir and the Greek island of Samos. Reports say the earthquake was large, measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale. Destruction could be seen across the skyline of the city as dust rose and buildings collapsed. Flooding then occurred after the sea briefly retreated from the harbor, leaving boats on the sea bed before the water rushed in.
Soon after the disaster, Defense Minister Benny Gantz instructed the IDF to prepare emergency aid for Turkey.
Gantz announced that he had instructed the IDF in a tweet, adding that a conversation was opened between IDF military representatives and the Turkish military attaché in Israel.
During the conversation the IDF representatives conveyed to Turkish authorities that Israel's defense establishment and the State of Israel share their grief over the disaster and are ready to send a delegation immediately that will help rescue buildings destroyed in the area and deploy a field hospital to treat the many wounded.
Gantz announced in a separate statement that the "State of Israel and its security forces will always reach out for humanitarian assistance to civilians who are injured no matter where they are, by using the capabilities and experience gained in the IDF over the years to deal with emergencies."
The International Monetary is predicting the economies in the Arab nations of the Middle East and North Africa will contract by 5.4% in 2020-21 due to the covid-19 pandemic and the collapse in international oil prices. (I've left out Lebanon and Libya, because they face exceptional circumstances.) This means the Arab MENA region, despite being among the least affected by the pandemic in terms of confirmed cases and deaths, will suffer disproportionate economic pain.
The IMF's economic outlook for the world shows that economic contraction has been proportionate to the public-health crisis caused by the pandemic in most regions — North America, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia. The U.S. economy is to contract by 4.3%, the Euro zone, Latin America and India by 8.3%, 8.1% and 10.3%, respectively. Conversely, China is expected to grow by 1.9%, which reflects Beijing's effective containment of early outbreaks.
Now look at Arab MENA region, excluding Israel and Iran. On the public-health front, the Arab nations have done relatively well when compared to many other parts of the world. This is borne out by the data for Covid-19 deaths per million people in the period between December 2019 and October 2020. The ratios for the U.S., European Union and South American were 673.80, 360.45 and 661.29, respectively. The average for the Arab world was 79.46 per million. For the most populated Arab nations — Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia — the average was even lower, at 62.21 per million.
Even if there is some underreporting in the figures for these countries, they should be comparable to the other parts of the world with similar income levels and relatively limited state capacities to collect, process and report data.
Nobody knows for sure why some world regions are worse-hit than others. However, the situation in the Arab MENA becomes more inexplicable still when you consider that some of its most populated countries — like Egypt — never had full lockdowns for extended periods. This should have mitigated the economic impact of the pandemic, but did not. How can this be explained?
For asking Prince Zeid why under his leadership the U.N. human rights office handed over names of Uighur activists to the Chinese regime, this ex-U.N. rights chief & now Vice-Chair of Human Rights Watch has blocked us.
Israel's COVID-19 death toll crossed 2,500 on Thursday and on Friday morning stood at 2,511.
On Thursday, 36,318 coronavirus tests identified 630 new cases, a positive percentage of 1.8%, the Health Ministry reported Friday morning.
As of Friday morning, there were 11,254 active of symptomatic patients in Israel, with 738 hospitalized, 410 of whom were listed in serious condition. Of those 410, 190 were on ventilators.
Meanwhile, the Corona cabinet decided on Thursday night to allow independent shops to open for business starting Nov. 8, after the Health Ministry opposed reopening businesses starting Sunday, Nov. 1.
The cabinet also decided that synagogues would be allowed to reopen on Saturday, but would be restricted to 10 worshippers inside and 20 outside.
Rural B&B accommodations will also be allowed to return to business starting Sunday, but serve only nuclear families. Shared pools and dining rooms at the facilities must remain closed.
Hair salons, beauty salons, and alternative health treatments will also be permitted starting Sunday.
The meeting was fraught. Finance Minister Israel Katz accused the Health Ministry of "waging a war of prestige on the backs of small businesses."
Female combat soldiers will be front line combat soldiers, called on to cross borders and fight Hezbollah in Lebanon for the first time, Kan news reported.
Ten female soldiers from the IDF's field intelligence corps will make up a drone operating team within the previously all-male field intelligence battalion stationed on Israel's northern border.
The unit is expected to become fully operational in the coming weeks.
Combat soldiers are divided into front line combat soldiers and combat soldiers with the division based on who crosses into enemy territory for operational activity. Front line combat soldiers receive salary bonuses and other incentives for their service in these units.
Female combat soldiers have historically not been allowed in units that cross Israel's borders and so have not been able to fill front line combat roles.
In August, the IDF formed a committee to consider allowing women to serve in all combat positions in response to a recent petition to the High Court of Justice that asked it to force the military to allow women to try out for units that are currently open only to men.
Women are still barred from serving in infantry brigades, armored brigades, submarines and certain elite reconnaissance units, such as Sayeret Matkal and the Navy's Shayetet 13.
Israeli troops opened fire on a Palestinian car overnight Thursday-Friday after a homemade bomb was thrown from the vehicle at a junction manned by soldiers in the central West Bank, the army said.
A statement from the Israel Defense Forces said soldiers responded after the "improvised explosive device" was thrown from the speeding car.
"The soldiers blocked the road to stop the terrorist cell. The car accelerated in their direction and the fighters responded by firing at the terrorists," a statement from the Israel Defense Forces said, adding that the car was hit by bullets.
There were no reports of Israeli injuries.
Palestinian media reported that three people in the car were wounded during the incident, which took place near the West Bank city of Jenin.
The Kan public broadcaster said the three were aged 15 and 16. One of them was said to be in serious condition with the other two moderately wounded from shrapnel.
Ynet news site reported that one of those injured in the incident was the son of Zakaria Zubeidi, a former Palestinian terrorist leader charged with carrying out attacks against Israelis dating back over a decade.
Zubeidi, a 43-year-old former commander for Fatah's military wing, has been indicted on 24 counts for his role in a number of shooting and bombing attacks starting in 2003.
The question about the delayed war is what is Iran's timetable. Iran appears satisfied to continue to arm and improve Hezbollah and also to eat away at the Syrian state, co-opting regions of Syria for its own networks that plug-in to its allied militias in Iraq and Lebanon. Pro-Iranian militia leaders from Iraq, such as Qais Khazali, travelled to Lebanon in 2017 to threaten Israel. It is clear from the comments in 2019 after alleged Israeli airstrikes in Iraq that these militia leaders see Israel as a central enemy, especially if they are able to evict the U.S. from Iraq and concentrate on Israel. Similarly the Syrian regime wants the US out of Tanf to create contiguity in its territory. Russia, focused on northern Syria, can accommodate Israel for now.
It is less certain if Iran would have wanted to launch a conflict earlier had there been no campaign between the wars. It certainly would have established a much large footprint in Syria had its facilities not been targeted. As Iran has set up shop, Hezbollah has had to recuperate from losses in Syria's war over the years. When Iran did order salvos fired at Israel or a drone penetration, it used rockets with relative lack of sophistication. Iran has been achieving new precision with its missiles, as illustrated by attacks in Koya in Iraq in 2018, against U.S personnel at Al-Asad base in Iraq in Jan. 2020 and against ISIS in Syria in 2017 and 2018. These missiles, the Shahab, Zulfiqar, Qiam and similar types Iran improved over the last ten years are increasingly lethal and they may get a boost as Iran is able to get out from under an arms embargo and renew work with North Korea. Iran's use of drones and cruise missiles to target Saudi Arabia in 2019 and its technical advice and weapons trafficking to the Houthis in Yemen reveal capabilities far beyond what it has so-far used against Israel. This may be due to being deterred by knowledge of the Trump administration's total support for Israel and distraction by the US presence in Iraq. It may be testing its ordnance on what it sees as weaker countries that it is less deterred by.
How much of Iran's material in Syria that has been destroyed is not replaceable? If the air strikes have hit factories, warehouses and storage facilities, as satellite images appear to show that they have, how many of these missiles and other munitions cannot be replaced? There is lack of information on this key issue but reports about Hezbollah's attempt to build more precision guided guided missile threats through indigenous production seems to show Iran may have shifted strategy to move infrastructure to Lebanon, where airstrikes have not taken place.
Will the window close on Syria's airspace being open to airstrikes? Syria has a long way to go in this respect because of the US and Turkish presence and Russia's focus on the north while Iran gets a free-for-all between Albukamal and T-4 and Damascus. This triangle of Iranian influence, from the Golan to T-4 to Albukamal is the center of concern for Iran's entrenchment. The tensions with Hezbollah near the Golan indicate that demands that Iranian networks be kept away from the Golan have not been fulfilled due to a power vacuum in southern Syria. The Alma Research and Education Center and other reports have shown that Hezbollah infrastructure, dubbed the Hezbollah "Golan file," remains in place. If the campaign between the wars was designed to deter or remove Hezbollah entrenchment, as several Israeli defense ministers have said, then that has not happened. The overall campaign is also open ended.
This could mean that Israel's efforts in Syria begins to look more like other open-ended conflicts, such as the U.S. has fought during the Global War on Terror. Unlike Israel's involvement in Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, it doesn't involve any boots on the ground. It is an air war, like the U.S. conducts in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere against threats. However, unlike the U.S. conflicts, this is a war that is not in a far off country – but directly next door. Hezbollah's attempt to impose a price for any casualties in Syria does not appear to bode well, creating a constant cycle of crisis whenever Hezbollah wants to entrench. It also presents a Iran with opportunities to threaten Israel and to knit together its Iraqi proxies with pro-Iranian elements in Syrian and Lebanon.
The United States revealed on Thursday it had seized Iranian missiles shipped to Yemen and sold 1.1 million barrels of previously seized Iranian oil that was bound for Venezuela, in the Trump administration's latest move to increase pressure on Tehran less than a week before Nov. 3 election.
The unsealing of the forfeiture complaints, by the Justice Department, came at the same time that the Treasury Department and State Department jointly slapped sanctions on a combined 11 different entities and individuals for their involvement in the purchase and sale of Iranian petrochemicals.
The latest actions against Iran come after US intelligence officials earlier this month alleged that Iranian hackers sought to threaten some American voters by sending them spoofed emails that were made to appear as though they were from the pro-Trump Proud Boys group.
Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said on Thursday that the unsealing of the Justice Department's complaints was "divorced from politics."
"These actions started last summer. And these are fluid, organic situations," he said.
The Justice Department's forfeiture civil cases involve alleged schemes by the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to secretly ship weapons to Yemen and fuel to Venezuela.
I live in 🇨🇭 Switzerland, home of the @Olympics, and our Swiss human rights association United Nations Watch hereby calls on the International Olympic Committee to suspend the 🏴☠️ Islamic Republic of Iran for killing the country's own wrestling champion Navid Afkari. https://t.co/cA092DneWr
Former Iraqi MP Mithal Al-Alusi: I Support Anyone Who Wants to Limit Iran's Missiles, Nuclear Capabilities Because They Are a Threat to Iraq pic.twitter.com/XF634nJ2a0
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