Elder of Ziyon 10/16 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The BBC's problem is worse than "wokeish" bias; Rabbi Sacks, former chief rabbi of England, diagnosed with cancer
Last month, the Jewish Chronicle reported that the City of David organisation had complained to BBC executives about Rosie Garthwaite, a senior BBC producer working on a new documentary about Israeli activities in eastern Jerusalem. Its vice president wrote she had "repeatedly presented us with one-sided and inaccurate statements" and that the program "intends to vilify Israel, Jewish history and Jewish charities and present a number of false and misleading claims."
The paper also discovered that Garthwaite admitted sharing "inaccurate" pro-Palestinian propaganda on social media and had shared several other false or controversial claims about Israel, including attacking "British duplicity" over the signing of the Balfour Declaration, wrongly suggesting Gaza's "one" border was controlled by Israel and retweeting an article from Middle East Eye describing the troublemaker Ahed Tamimi as an "icon for Palestinian resistance."
These are but a tiny sample of the BBC's institutionalised hostility towards Israel. For years, it has uncritically recycled Palestinian propaganda as innately credible and true, while treating demonstrably factual Israeli statements as mendacious propaganda.
It systematically downplays or disregards Palestinian attacks on Israelis and generally treats any eruption of violence as a story which only "kicks off" (as one BBC reporter said gleefully during an escalation of hostilities) when Israel retaliates with force. Israeli victimisation is simply not seen as a story at all.
When Israel is forced to defend itself, the BBC frequently portrays its armed forces —the most ethical and human rights-obsessed military in the world — as monstrous child-killers and aggressive destroyers.
The immediate and demonstrable effect on the British population is hatred of Israel and a spike in attacks on British Jews. It is no exaggeration to say that when it comes to Israel, the issue is not BBC bias. It is BBC incitement to baseless hatred.
The BBC is regarded around the world as a byword for objectivity and accuracy. That's why its departure from those ideals is so pernicious.
Perhaps the most chilling thing about it, though, is this. BBC executives are genuinely, painfully aware of the news outlet's unique power and reach, and of their duty under its founding charter to uphold objectivity and fairness and hold the line for the middle ground.
But they are simply unable to process the fact that they view Israel, among other issues, through a profoundly distorting ideological prism. And that's because they believe implacably that the positions they hold are unarguably objective and fair, that they do represent the middle ground, and that therefore by definition those who claim the BBC is biased are themselves extremists and can be safely disregarded.
In other words, BBC group-think is a hermetically-sealed thought system. Which is why, if whoever takes over at the top wants to restore the once iconic BBC to elementary standards of objectivity, fairness and decency, they will have their work cut out for them.
Campaign Against Antisemitism contacted the BBC this week for an update on how it has dealt with an employee caught in a controversy over antisemitic and trolling tweets, but the BBC refused to disclose whether it has taken any action beyond launching an investigation. Today, however, The Times has learned that the journalist, Nimesh Thaker, has resigned, leaving questions about how seriously the BBC took the matter and why it refuses to divulge its actions.
Last month, Campaign Against Antisemitism and the JC revealed that Mr Thaker, who has been a BBC journalist for more than twenty years at BBC World News, used a Twitter account in his name and then an anonymous account to post controversial and even antisemitic tweets, in clear breach of the BBC's guidelines.
Mr Thaker used both accounts to conduct official BBC business as well.
Using an account in his own name, Mr Thaker posted tweets describing antisemitism accusations against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party as "smears" and trolled public figures who were campaigning against antisemitism. He also used the account to troll Campaign Against Antisemitism and to harass the editor of the JC and the actress and writer Tracy-Ann Oberman, tweeting at them dozens of times. He has also retweeted controversial political activists who themselves have come under fire for antisemitism, such as the notorious antisemite Jackie Walker, trolled Labour MPs over antisemitism, and defended Ken Livingstone and supported the disgraced former Labour MP, Chris Williamson. He also trolled his own BBC colleagues. The JC showed that he also behaved similarly with an anonymous account.
The Culture Secretary called the revelations "very concerning", and the BBC launched an investigation, during which Mr Thaker reportedly resigned, thereby apparently escaping scrutiny.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, was recently diagnosed with cancer, a spokesperson for his office announced on Thursday.
"Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has been recently diagnosed with cancer and is currently undergoing treatment to aid his recovery," a spokesperson for his office said.
Rabbi Sacks will be stepping back from his work for a short period of time to focus on his treatment. His office noted that he is looking to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible.
For those who wish include Rabbi Sacks in their prayers, his Hebrew name is Harav Ya'akov Zvi ben Liba.
The applause was nearly universal. After a determined campaign on the part of the Anti-Defamation League and a broad coalition of Jewish groups and other organizations, Facebook has agreed to ban posts that contain Holocaust denial on its ubiquitous site.
For Jews and others who are rightly concerned about the troubling rise of anti-Semitism, this is good news. Holocaust denial is something that has been promoted by the far-left, as well as by Israel haters such as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who got his doctorate from a Moscow university with a thesis on Holocaust denial that was later published as a book. But most of the concern centers on white supremacists and others on the far-right who seek to deny the truth of the Shoah and minimize or falsify the number of Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.
This represents a 180-degree turnabout on the part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who came under a storm of criticism when, in the aftermath of the August 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., he defended the rights of Holocaust deniers to use his platform. At the time, he said he was defending the principle of free speech, a stance he reiterated a year later when he further pledged that his company would not fact check or censor political speech.
In the meantime, an effort to force him to change his mind – largely led by the ADL and supported by many other important Jewish groups – continued to gain ground. Last year, the issue got a lot of attention when actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen publicly challenged Zuckerberg at an ADL event in which he likened the social-media giant to a restaurant that chose to serve Nazis rather than kicking them out.
A proposed boycott of the site by those demanding a change in policy ramped up the pressure. But Zuckerberg says the belief that the hate promoted on Facebook led to an increase in anti-Semitism changed his mind.
A history teacher who had shown caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammed in class was on Friday decapitated and his assailant shot dead by French police as they tried to arrest him, police and prosecutors said.
The attacker, whose identity has not been established, shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he was confronted by police, a police source said. The Muslim phrase, meaning "Good is Great," has often been heard in jihadist attacks.
French President Emmanuel Macron was to visit the scene of the attack later Friday, his office said.
French anti-terror prosecutors said they were investigating the assault which happened on the outskirts of Paris at around 5 pm (1500 GMT) near a school in Conflans Saint-Honorine, a western suburb of the French capital.
According to a police source, the victim was a history teacher who recently discussed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed in class.
Prosecutors said they were treating the incident as "a murder linked to a terrorist organization" and related to a "criminal association with terrorists."
The allegations are similar to charges brought last month against a 25-year old Pakistani man who wounded two people in a meat cleaver attack to avenge the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed by the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
After the September 25, 2020 stabbing of two people outside the former Paris offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the French police initially detained at least seven people, including the main suspect.[1]The main suspect is a Pakistani immigrant who gave his age as 18 and took "responsibility" for the stabbing.[2] Other reports give his age as 25.[3]
A court in France is hearing a 2015 case in which a dozen people, mainly editors, were killed by two jihadi brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi at the office of Charlie Hebdo after the weekly published cartoons depicting Muhammad. At least 14 accomplices of Said and Cherif Kouachi are standing trial for the 2015 attack. In this year's attack, the main attacker was identified as Zaheer Hassan Mahmoud, whose family lives in the town of Mandi Bahauddin in Pakistan's Punjab province.
Following are excerpts from a report published in the pro-jihad Urdu Pakistani daily Roznama Ummat:[4]
"Zaheer Mahmoud Is Being Considered A Hero Across All Of Pakistan, Including [In The Town Of] Mandi Bahauddin"
"On the other side, Zaheer Mahmoud is being considered a hero across all of Pakistan, including Mandi Bahauddin. Zaheer Mahmoud's father Irshad Mahmoud says he is proud of his mujahid son. The relatives of the attack... present in Pakistan are proud of him. Zaheer Hassan Mahmoud, born in Mandi Bahauddin, accepted the attack saying he carried out the attack as a reaction against Charlie Hebdo for publishing the blasphemous cartoons once again.
"It should be noted that a wave of anger and sadness ran through the entire Islamic world after the republication of the blasphemous cartoons by Charlie Hebdo recently at the beginning of the court trial of the case involving the 2015 attack on magazine, which is an enemy of Islam.
"During the protests in Pakistan against this blasphemous act, tribute was paid in glowing words to Zaheer Mahmoud, the main player in the [September 2020] Charlie Hebdo attack. At this time, Zaheer Mahmoud has been declared a hero in Mandi Bahauddin and the areas surrounding it... Zaheer Mahmoud belongs to the Kothli Qazi area of Mandi Bahauddin."
Twenty years ago this week the American guided-missile destroyer USS Cole was bombed and disabled while refuelling in the harbour of the Yemeni port city of Aden by two jihadi suicide bombers sent by Al-Qaeda.
Seventeen American sailors were killed and another 39 were injured as the worldwide jihadi network exhibited its own David vs. Goliath show that ultimately led to the 9/11 attack.
One would have hoped that in the milieu of the 2020 U.S. elections, the anniversary of the USS Cole disaster would trigger some discussion on the country's national security.
But no. The fly that landed on Vice-President Mike Pence's head got time and space on CNN and America's liberal newspapers, but not one word on Al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood, who have a presence both inside and outside the U.S. and inspired the USS Cole attack and 9/11.
I do not wish to be the Prophet of Doom, but the dead silence in America on matters that threaten our civilization does cause me to worry. It seems America has learnt little in the decades since the CIA vs. FBI territorial tug of war that let Al-Qaeda hit the Twin Towers.
In 2013, President Obama made a cavalier declaration: "We (have) achieved our central goal ... which is to de-capacitate al-Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can't attack us again."
I just dispatched the attached letter to President @realDonaldTrump asking for DOJ to investigate Tyrant King Cuomo's actions against the NY Jewish communities
It's clear to any rational observer the governor is using COVID as cover for his vengeful incitement against Jewish ppl pic.twitter.com/UIBATwqa3J
It reminded me of the stalls of "anti-Zionist" literature you see at hard left events. Except nowadays antisemites have to hide their hatred of Jews by using Israel and Zionism as an excuse. pic.twitter.com/t67CfhX1Ob
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) funneled an additional $1.1 million to her husband's company, bringing her total payments to the firm to $2.7 million for the election cycle, new filings show.
Omar's campaign filings, released Thursday, show that she sent $1.1 million more to the E Street Group, a political consulting firm owned by her husband, Tim Mynett. The payments account for nearly 70 percent of the $1.6 million Omar's campaign has disbursed between July 23 and the end of September. They have helped cover advertisements, consulting, travel expenses, and production costs.
Omar has faced criticism on a number of issues since she entered Congress in 2018. Among other things, her lack of transparency about her past marriages has come under fire, and the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board has ordered her to repay thousands for a campaign finance violation.
She now faces a complaint for potentially running afoul of House ethics rules in relation to an advance she received for her memoir.
The freshman "Squad" member has showered her husband's company with cash this cycle. The E Street Group is the highest paid vendor from the campaign, and Omar had already sent $1.6 million to the group.
With the $1.1. million in new payments, the firm has now received a total of $2.7 million from Omar's campaign for the 2020 elections.
Ruffalo's condemnation of Israel lacks balance and objectivity. There is no sign of empathy for the suffering of innocent Israelis, or any criticism of Hamas' goal to destroy the Jewish state or of its reign of terror on both Israelis and its people. There is no call for reconciliation or compromise.
Whether he intends to or not, Ruffalo has repeatedly strayed into the demonization of the Jewish state and singling out Israel for unreasonably high standards — two of Natan Sharansky's three tells for antisemitism. In 2014, the actor accused Israel of needlessly and heartlessly bombing a Gazan hospital, which is a modern-day blood libel.
He seems genuinely pained that people would think that he is antisemitic, yet falsely accuses the Jewish homeland of heinous acts and leaps to defend Hamas' humanity. When it came out that the terrorist organization knowingly put patients in the line of fire, Ruffalo naively tweeted: "Do you honestly think these people [Hamas], these fellow human beings, would use their own children as shields? Use your heart."
It is time to erase the delusory line between demonization of Israel and Jew-hatred, as the former feeds the latter. When people describe the Jewish state as racist and immoral, they are tilling the soil for global antisemitism.
Ruffalo is entitled to his opinion, but as a public figure with an outsized microphone, he must get the story straight. If he spent 30 minutes reading Hamas' charter with its pledge to destroy Israel — or researched how it treats homosexuals and regards women, and contrasts it to the rights of gays, women, and minorities in Israel — he might be moved to treat all the players with a fair hand. Maybe then he may end up truly helping the Palestinian people.
A Jewish group is speaking out about the upcoming appearance of a Rutgers University professor who has been criticized for her antisemitic and anti-Israel writings, and who is set to serve as a keynote speaker this weekend at the New York State Communication Association's 78th annual convention.
The American Jewish Committee sent a letter to the group in late August expressing concern about speaker Jasbir Puar, a professor in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the state university in New Jersey. In its letter, AJC said that Puar has "sought to lend academic legitimacy to a modern-day blood libel that the bodies of young Palestinians are being mined for organs for scientific research by Israel … ," and that she advocates for "armed resistance to Israelis."
"Such sentiments cross the line between legitimate criticism to incendiary demonization of the Jewish state. Simply put, there are no values advanced by giving her a forum to express her hateful and false views," the AJC wrote in its letter.
They added that the topic of Puar's Oct. 17 address—"Spatial Debilities: Slow Life and Carceral Capitalism in Palestine"—has little, if anything, to do with the association's work.
"The NYSCA conference focuses on how individuals communicate personally and professionally, and the future of communication," said AJC's Long Island Regional Director Eric Post, one of the signatories to the letter. "Demonizing Israel because of alleged mistreatment of the Palestinians has nothing to do with this theme and takes away from the content of the conference."
According to Post, a member of the NYSCA who is concerned about the speaker and her topic initially brought the matter to their attention.
On October 18, Georgetown University's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter will be hosting a speaker who once tweeted that Jews are known for being "sleazy thieves."
Georgetown SJP and the university's Qatar SJP chapter will be hosting Miko Peled, an Israeli-born Jew who is the son of an Israeli general and a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, on a Zoom webinar event titled "Anti-Zionism vs. Anti-Semitism." The event is open to the public.
There have been calls for Georgetown to cancel the event. Walid Tamtam, an Arab student at the University of Toronto, wrote in The Times of Israel on October 15 that Peled has been canceled from speaking at prior events. Tamtam noted that in 2016, San Diego State University's (SDSU) SJP chapter canceled Peled after he tweeted that "Jews have reputation [for] being sleazy thieves." Peled was reacting to the ten-year, $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the United States and Israel agreed to at the time.
"#apartheidisrael doesn't need or deserve these $$," Peled wrote.
Following that tweet, SDSU SJP announced their Facebook page that they would be canceling Peled's speaking event because his comments were "offensive," although they claimed that Peled's "comments are not reflective of Mr. Peled's principles or character." The Princeton Committee on Palestine also canceled its Peled speaking event at the time over his remarks.
Peled defended his comments by stating in a Facebook post that "the very people who cry anti Semitism all day long are demanding billions of dollars. This is criminal and it lends itself to the claims of Jews being sleazy money grabbing [people]. It's not my tweet that gives legitimacy to the stereotype – it's the actions of the government of Israel that causes hatred of Jews. And since they claim Israel represents Jews and mainstream Jews in the US Support Israel the danger in making the stereotype fit is clear. (h/t Zvi)
Adam Elayan, a current dental student at Tufts University, has been spouting antisemitic rhetoric since 2012. Now, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), is imploring Tufts' president, Dr. Anthony Monaco, to remove him.
"Tufts can and should ensure a level playing field when dealing with bigotry -- including when that bigotry targets Jews," wrote Rabbi Cooper in a letter. "The Jewish community is under assault from another virus which has no known cure or vaccine -- the virus of [antisemitic] hatred.
"It manifests in brutal attacks on the streets of major cities, in desecrations of synagogues and cemeteries by Jew-haters," he continued. "The hatred, repackaged for online consumption by new generations, is promoted and marketed 24/7 across multiple social media platforms, spawning violent lone wolf domestic terrorist attacks and poisoning impressionable young minds."
Canary Mission, an organization that tracks and combats antisemitism in all its forms on college campuses throughout the US, has been tracking Elayan's activity since late 2016. His remarks are collected mainly from Twitter, where his handle was once @FalasteenPrince. The account no longer exists.
According to the SWC, Tufts' dental school has a "long history of hateful and violent threats against Jews."
That article includes the following false claim: "According to some reports, Israel moved Ethiopian Jews, known as Falashas, to the Shebaa farms in the 1980s."
In addition to the question of why the BBC chose to promote the derogatory term 'Falashas', one may wonder where it got the idea that Israel had "moved Ethiopian Jews…to the Shebaa farms" – a military zone.
The answer to that question was provided by Avi Jorisch in 2002:
"Hizballah's own website (www.moqawama.org) states the following about Shebaa: […] Ethiopian Jewish immigrants have settled in Shebaa."
Jorisch clarified that:
"…there are no Israelis living on "Israeli" Shebaa, as it is a restricted military zone."
In other words, the BBC amplified a false claim made by a terrorist organisation while whitewashing its source.
The same article also claims that the Shebaa Farms area "includes a ski station". The ski resort is of course located on Mount Hermon, which is not part of the Shebaa Farms area.
With the talks concerning the maritime border between Israel and Lebanon set to continue in the coming weeks, the BBC would clearly do well to make the effort to avoid omissions and inaccuracies which hinder audience understanding of the full context to that story and the additional issue of the land border between Israel and Lebanon.
But the @guardian and British press? No, no. Heaven forbid. Still masquerading their Antisemitism behind some fake progressiveness. Even the Arabs are far more principled and ahead of them! https://t.co/wo2ix2Kili
A self-described white supremacist pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal hate crime and explosive charges for a botched plot to blow up a historic Colorado synagogue last year, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Richard Holzer, 28, who was arrested in November following an undercover FBI sting, admitted to planning to bomb the Temple Emanuel synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado, the US Attorney's Office said in a statement.
Holzer, who lived in Pueblo, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to obstruct religious services by force, and to one count of trying to destroy a building used in interstate commerce, according to a plea agreement filed in US District Court in Denver.
The temple, built in 1900, is the second oldest synagogue in Colorado and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
"The actions Holzer admitted in the plea agreement meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism as they involved criminal acts dangerous to human life that were intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population," US Attorney Jason Dunn said in a statement.
A Swedish Muslim "integration expert" and school principal has admitted to making antisemitic and homophobic comments online for years under a pseudonym.
Over a period between 2011 and 2016, Hamid Zafar is said to have made numerous offensive posts on different websites and social media platforms and has claimed that they were made in reaction to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, where he was born, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"In retrospect, I look back on it as a very destructive period. But that's what it looks like on social media, there's a lot of opinions and I was part of it," Zafar told Swedish broadcaster SVT after newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed his comments.
Zafar, who worked as an integration expert for the centre-right Moderate Party, added, "Since I have re-evaluated my opinions, I have thought that it would come to light, that it was only a matter of time."
According to Dagens Nyheter, Zafar made several comments including one on a book about the Holocaust for Swedish students saying, "The purpose of the book is to create a kind of collective mass psychosis in which students are fed with how terrible the Holocaust was."
He also spoke against the highly liberal and pro-LGBT Chruch of Sweden saying to another person on Twitter, "What does your master say about blessing sodomites in His Church?"
An employee was sacked by one of the world's leading banking groups after he was found to be running a conspiracy theory website which attracted millions of visitors.
An investigation into Jason Gelinas, an information technology specialist with New York City-based Citigroup, began after a fact checking website showed that Mr Gelinas was the "sole developer and mouthpiece" of a QAnon website. This was apparently in violation of Citigroup's policy of engaging in paid business activity outside the company. He was put "on leave in mid-September" while the investigation was pending, and was subsequently sacked.
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that believes that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, consisting of political figures, celebrities and billionaires, is running a global paedophilic ring and plotting against the President, who is planning to make a stand against the secret group.
At the height of its popularity, Mr Gelinas's site was attracting ten million visitors a month, according to the traffic-tracking organisation, SimilarWeb. It also reported that the site was receiving around $3,320 (£2,654) a month in donations made via Patreon, a US-based artists' platform.
The firing came within days of an announcement by Facebook that it will no longer host pages linked to QAnon in line with its policy of stopping the promotion of conspiracy theories.
At least a dozen campaign signs supporting a Jewish congressional candidate were defaced with antisemitic graffiti.
At least one sign supporting Josh Eisen's campaign was tagged with the words "Nazi lover," according to News12, a local station in Westchester County.
"I wouldn't think someone would have to go through some criminal proceeding over this, but someone needs to understand this is unacceptable and despicable," Eisen said.
Eisen is running as an independent to represent New York's 17th congressional district, an area north of New York City that covers Rockland County and part of Westchester and has a large Jewish population. The solidly Democratic district is currently represented by retiring Democrat Nita Lowey, who is Jewish.
The congressional race is expected to be won by the Democratic nominee, Mondaire Jones, whose campaign spokesperson said in a statement to News 12 that they "wholeheartedly condemn all hate" and "take all acts of antisemitism very seriously."
French Jews continued to react furiously on Thursday to the announcement from the Paris public prosecutor's office that antisemitic provocation was not among the charges facing a man who allegedly sprayed series of large red swastikas along the French capital's landmark Rue de Rivoli last weekend.
In a post on Twitter, CRIF — the representative body of French Jews — declared its "total incomprehension" at the prosecutors' decision.
"How can you spray 20 swastikas without being prosecuted for antisemitism?" CRIF asked.
The offender in the case — a 31-year-old man from the Republic of Georgia — will be remanded in police custody until his trial begins.
But while he faces charges of causing damage to property, the prosecutor's office insisted that there was no legal basis for a crime aggravated by religious or racial hatred.
The prosecutor's reasoning was based on the observation that the swastikas were daubed on the columns of a building with no historic Jewish associations, and therefore "the damage was committed without specifically targeting buildings identified as being linked to the Jewish community."
Meanwhile, a lawyer in the case representing LICRA — a leading civic organization combating antisemitism and racism in France — declared herself "stupefied" by the decision.
The decision not to include antisemitism among the charges was also a "great moment of indignation and anger," lawyer Dorothée Bissacia-Bernstein tweeted, adding: "To be continued."
A painting of two young, 19th-century skaters that was looted by Nazis from a Jewish family in 1933 and recently discovered at a small museum in upstate New York was returned Thursday after 87 years.
The painting "Winter," by American artist Gari Melchers, was part of a cache of more than 1,000 pieces of art and artifacts seized from the Mosse family, prominent and well-off Jewish residents of Berlin who became early targets of the Nazi Party. Heirs have been tenaciously seeking to recover the lost pieces for the past decade.
"The Mosse family lost nearly everything because they were Jews. But they did not lose hope," acting US Attorney for the Northern District of New York Antoinette Bacon said at a repatriation ceremony at the Albany FBI office. "While this certainly does not take away the pain that the Mosses endured, I hope it provides the family with some measure of justice."
The Mosse Art Restitution Project was started in 2011 to locate and restitute the stolen artworks on behalf of the Mosse heirs. They have completed three dozen restitutions covering more than 50 items from public and private museums as well as private individuals in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Israel and the United States.
The road to this restitution started after the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York, noted its seasonal closing in January 2017 with a friendly Facebook post urging readers to "Enjoy Winter!"
The post was illustrated with an image of the painting "Winter."
Israel was set Thursday to honor the Polish couple who hid Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski from the Nazis as a child, according to Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.
The late Stefania and Jan Buchala will receive the Yad Vashem title of "Righteous Among the Nations" for those who helped save Jews during World War II.
"Despite their very difficult economic situation, the couple agreed to take in the Jewish boy as their own son, and keep him safe," Yad Vashem said.
Their grandson will accept the medal at the ceremony in southern Poland, which has been kept under wraps for security reasons and which local media say Polanski himself could attend.
The controversial film director was just six years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, triggering the war and forcing the family into the Krakow Ghetto.
After his father smuggled him out through the barbed wire and got friends to take him in, Polanski was shuffled around, then sent to the Buchalas. Devout Catholic peasants with three small children, they gave him shelter for nearly two years in the village of Wysoka, asking for nothing in return.
Ma'aleh Film School wants everyone to take a brief break from Netflix and make their own short films about home, now that everyone's spending so much time there.
The Jerusalem film school launched "Homeward," a home movie competition, soliciting creators to make movies of up to two minutes about home.
Movies must be received by Sunday, October 18 and the three best films will win prizes of $1,000, $2,000 and $3,000. Five audience favorites will win $500 each.
"We've never had a situation before in which the entire world is dealing with the same condition," said Neta Ariel, Ma'aleh's director. "We're all in the same boat, all dealing with this pandemic, and all stuck at home."
The school created a competition that is open to anyone and any kind of film, said Ariel, given that they can make a two-minute film on their phone.
Ma'aleh joined forces with other organizations with which it works on a regular basis, including the Joint Distribution Committee, Nefesh b'Nefesh and the Jerusalem municipality, while getting a boost from local celebrities, including writer David Grossman, singer Yehoram Gaon, local chefs and a comedian.
The judging panel includes Hollywood producers Zvi Howard Rosenman and Nancy Spielberg, actress Ayelet Zurer, and "Shtisel" screenwriter and creator Ori Elon, who is a graduate of Ma'aleh.
In the near future, fleets of autonomous trucks and bulldozers will work at mining sites in Australia, communicating with one another and with control stations as they move raw materials and conduct heavy earth work.
The vehicles will use technology provided by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which announced at the end of September a new joint venture with Australian logistics and materials company, Bis Industries.
Together, the two companies founded a joint venture called Auto-Mate, which will provide autonomous systems for the mining industry.
"The idea is to convert existing vehicles into autonomous platforms," Elad Abbo, vice president of strategy and product at Auto-mate, and a former deputy manager of robotics at IAI-Elta, said.
"We are talking about networks of vehicles linked by a data system to control centers that plans their missions, tracks them and conducts debriefings, if necessary," said Abbo.
According to an official statement, Auto-Mate combines the "demonstrated operational experience of Bis in the mining sector with IAI's industry-leading in autonomous technologies."
Tel Aviv, often dubbed 'the city that never sleeps', is famed for being Israel's start-up capital. Israel - often dubbed the 'start-up nation' – has the highest concentration of start-ups per capita globally and is the global leader in deep technologies. With barely any available natural resources, Israel has pursued a path of embracing innovation early on in numerous industries such as water, agriculture and ICT with the aim of becoming the world's leading powerhouse. The spirit of 'chutzpah' (A Yiddish word that means audacity and extreme self-confidence), constant questioning and challenging of the status quo, combined with an ambitious aim to target global markets from the get-go due to its small domestic market, have created an aggressive entrepreneurial mindset within the country. Global tech giants such as Google and Microsoft saw huge opportunities and potential in Israel and, as such, support start-ups in the country both with investment and acquisition. Many entrepreneurs that enjoy successful exits become serial entrepreneurs and patrons to new start-ups that are being formed by the great flow of human capital in Israel, and this virtuous cycle keeps the ecosystem sustainable and vibrant.
Israel's compulsory military service also plays a part, by providing unique programmes for conscripts that boost their technological skills and help to nurture their creative mindset – all of which encourages them to pursue an entrepreneurial path after leaving the service.
The Innovation Authority of Israel has broadened its mandate to further foster Israel's innovation ecosystem. This body is responsible for developing innovation infrastructure, provides grants and financial support for innovative technologies and connects the Israeli economy with the outside, as well as promoting and encouraging programmes, policies and laws, all to maintain Israel's status as the 'start-up nation'. Israeli start-ups raised a record $8.3 billion in funding in 2019, a rise of 30% on the previous year, thanks to larger foreign capital investment pouring in, driving industries such as software, internet, life sciences and semiconductors.
There has been a significant rise in investment in AI companies as well as in traditionally strong sectors such as cybersecurity, life sciences and fintech.
In November of 2018, at the National Arts Club in New York City, I attended a screening for the film Sobibor, which was described in the program as "First Russian Oscar Contender About Holocaust" (sic). The screening was part of a promotional campaign to secure a nomination in the best foreign film category, and was presented by the film's producers, along with the Alexander Pechersky Foundation and the Russian American Foundation. Annexed to the auditorium where the screening was to happen was a small exhibition about Alexander "Sasha" Pechersky and the uprising he led at the Sobibor concentration camp, which was the subject of the film.
Konstantin Khabensky, the film's star and director, had come to the screening from Russia. A panel of historians and experts was convened. The audience consisted of members of the local Jewish community and the Jewish press, not a few of them Russian-speaking. A group of elderly Russian Jewish war veterans, some in uniform, all decorated with their medals, were seated near the front of the room. Among them was a woman who wore a yellow star button on her blouse to identify her as a Holocaust survivor.
In opening remarks, a scholar of Soviet Holocaust cinema commended the producers for making a Russian film about the Holocaust, a suppressed subject for most of the Soviet period. In fact, any acknowledgment of the unique nature of the tragedy experienced by Soviet Jews in painting, sculpture, poetry, fiction, history, public monuments and other forms of remembrance was practically forbidden. In a nation that suffered so profoundly, with as many as 27 million citizens perishing during the war, the official position was that it was wrong to divide the victims. At sites of mass killings, if there was any commemoration at all, it memorialized "peaceful Soviet citizens" who had died at the hands of "the German occupiers." Sobibor might therefore be regarded as the Russian equivalent to Schindler's List.
Films are subjective things and it's not my intention to engage in criticism of a film released two years ago. Also, the quality of the film is of negligible importance to the larger story of Alexander Pechersky's life and legacy. But there were many people in the auditorium who were moved to tears by the film, gasped at acts of brutality or laughed at an incident of comeuppance against the Nazis, just like they were watching a regular movie. Unless they'd read the literature about Sobibor and Pechersky, none could have detected the places where the film departed from historical fact, though a partial list would include: Leon Feldhendler (spelled "Felhendler" in recently-discovered archival documents), one of the leaders of the camp underground, wasn't killed during the revolt; Pechersky didn't carry the corpse of a young woman named Luka out of the camp in his arms; a Nazi named Frenzel wasn't shot by Pechersky; there was no crematorium smokestack in Sobibor; and Shlomo Szmajzner, a young Polish prisoner, didn't, as the end titles assert, hunt down and kill Gustav Wagner, perhaps the camp's most notoriously brutal SS officer, and 17 other Nazis in Brazil.
At the conclusion of the film, one audience member did inquire about historical accuracy, in response to which the gathered historians offered a general defense of the artist's right to bend documentary truth for the sake of the emotional one. The Holocaust survivor, a small but pugnacious woman in the Russian Jewish mold, rose to praise the film, which she had now watched for the second time, though it caused her pain in every cell in her body. "Never again!" she proclaimed. One of the veterans took the floor and affirmed that the film showed what had happened in his generation and hoped it would serve as a lesson for the future. He proceeded to make some observations about Arab aggression and, after meeting with a mixed response, resumed his seat.
"Shalom Aleichem" is the traditional melody Jews sing to welcome the Shabbat.
Staff Sgt. Yitzhak Eliezer welcomes the Shabbat with this special rendition of the song from his base in northern Israel. pic.twitter.com/PZIGx0jRwE
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WE HAVE discussed the decline of the Middle East ossifying dictatorial regimes since 2010 and the defeat of insurgencies and rise of Turkey, as well as Israel's lessons from past wars. What is missing in this discussion?
First we need to acknowledge that with the new generation of leaders, such as the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia and Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ) in the UAE, there is a new era. The era of jihad, embodied by Osama bin Laden, is largely over. Even the Hamas leaders who now meet with Turkey's Erdogan are not the Islamic rabble-rousers of the 1980s.
It may be that the Islamist extremism which grew out of the region and led to ISIS is being reduced. It is being replaced by Turkey's sponsorship of extremism, but this state sponsorship is quite different than the 1980s when Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and later the Taliban were dabbling in extremism. It is no longer as chaotic. The unstable areas of the Middle East, stretching from the Sahel to Somalia, Yemen and Iraq, may be more stable today.
Iran has largely entered the vacuum where there was chaos. That means the old jihadist lines that led via the Euphrates River Valley to Iraq are now being digested by an Iranian octopus with bases of Shi'ite militias where jihadists once roamed. Iran has its fingers in Yemen too. This means that much like the Soviets took over former Nazi properties in eastern Europe, Iran has taken over the property of Sunni insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere. Iraq is now Iran's "near abroad," as Ukraine and Poland were for imperial Russia.
This era of changing leadership in the Middle East is festooned with younger men trying to fill the shoes of fathers and grandfathers. Bashar Assad in Syria, Saad Hariri in Lebanon. The Emir of Qatar. The King of Jordan. Masrour and Nechirvan Barzani, as well as Qubad and Bafel Talibani in the Kurdistan region. The new leaders of Kuwait and Oman are similar, as is the King of Morocco. This is a region still rooted in monarchy, family, tribe. That has been challenged by revolution, whether Nasser's Arab nationalism or Ba'athism, or the Islamic Revolution and Muslim Brotherhood. But not everything changes in the region.
What does change is the US administration. The American election in November could bring Joe Biden to the White House. Countries in the region are concerned about what that change could mean. Tehran hopes Trump will be removed. The Taliban, oddly, reportedly prefer Trump, as does Erdogan in Turkey and the Gulf allies of Israel. That's a group of strange bedfellows, but it is brought about by the transactional nature of the Trump administration and its doctrine of combining pro-Israel support with the desire to end the US role in Syria and Afghanistan, and overturning the Iran Deal.
It's unclear what a new US administration will bring. Most countries in the region assume the US is drawing down its role. This means larger regional and global powers such as Russia, China, Iran and Turkey will play a leading role in the Middle East. The West's role is declining.
If we look back at that Sirte meeting 10 years ago, it represented the end of an era of powerful Arab leaders. Today the region is more about Erdogan and Iran, alongside an emerging Israel-Gulf-Greece alliance system. (h/t Zvi)
The Knesset on Thursday approved Israel's normalization deal with the United Arab Emirates with an overwhelming majority, all but ensuring that it will be ratified in the near future.
Eighty lawmakers voted in favor of the agreement, including many from the opposition.
Only 13 parliamentarians — all from the Arab-majority Joint List — voted against the agreement, criticizing it as a scheme to undermine the Palestinian people.
There were no abstentions, while 27 MKs did not participate in the vote.
The vote took place after nearly nine hours of an at times stormy debate, during which more than 100 ministers and MKs spoke. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the plenary twice — at its start at 11:00 a.m., and right before the vote after 8:00 p.m. — hailing the agreement as a paradigm shift in the Arab world's approach to Israel, while touting his role in bringing many Sunni nations closer to Israel due to his vociferous public opposition to Iran.
"Since the start of Zionism, one of our hands has been holding a weapon in defense and the other hand was stretched out to everyone who wants peace," he declared in his early speech. "They say peace is made with enemies. False. Peace is made with those who have stopped being enemies. Peace is made with those who desire peace and who no longer remain committed to your annihilation."
Netanyahu said the agreement with the UAE was different from Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan in that it does not require Israel to relinquish any territory. "It's a warm peace, between peoples," he said, recalling being moved at seeing social media footage of Emirati children draping themselves in an Israeli flag.
A month after the historic peace treaty was signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at the White House, the Kohelet Policy Forum, Shiloh Forum and Israel Hayom have teamed to host a special digital conference on the regional peace process.
Titled "The Abraham Accords: Towards a New Middle East?" this digital international symposium will feature high-ranking Israel and US officials, as well as senior members from the Arab media, and prominent Israeli academics.
The conference, slated to be held on Oct. 21-22, seeks to delve deeper into the implications of the historic Abraham Accords, especially against the backdrop of the rapidly developing ties between Israel and the UAE.
It will begin at 5:00 p.m. (Israel time) and will be livestreamed by Israel Hayom's English and Hebrew editions, as well as on the Kohelet Policy Forum and the Shiloh Forum's websites.
The conference will focus on the changing regional paradigms, such as the "peace for peace" equation, new regional alliances, the economic implications of the peace deal and more, as participants try to assess the impact of the peace agreements on Israel's status in the international arena and especially among Arab countries.
A future plan to establish an Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian free trade zone in the Jordan Valley will also be revealed.
"Thanks to a man sitting in the White House, we have a new Middle East, based on peace that derives from a position of power, sans buses exploding in the streets or ceding Israeli land," said Israel Hayom's Editor-in-Chief Boaz Bismuth.
"The old paradigms have dissolved and a new chapter in the region is being written right befor our eyes. The international digital conference will present the meanings of the peace agreements and the new faces of our friends from Arab countries, who are happy to talk with us about shaping a new future."
Kohelet Policy Forum Chairman Moshe Kopel said, "After the colossal failures of trying to strike peace through unilateral concessions, we have changed course. The conference seeks is to present a new approach with all it implies. Advancing the new Middle East runs through cooperation – not capitulation."
The first official delegation to Israel from the United Arab Emirates may remain at the airport and fly home the same day, rather than conduct a wider visit, due to coronavirus precautions, an Israeli minister said.
Israel is under a second coronavirus lockdown, which it plans to begin easing next week, after a surge in cases.
Science Minister Izhar Shay, whose ministry is taking part in talks with the UAE delegates due to arrive on Tuesday, said the visitors would stay for several hours under a coronavirus protocol.
"Right now it looks kind of 'touch and go'. It's possible that the meetings will be at the airport or close to it," he told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM.
Officials have said the UAE delegation will involve eight or nine groups working on various areas of bilateral cooperation, as a follow-up to talks launched in Abu Dhabi during an Aug. 31 visit by an Israeli delegation.
The UAE and Bahrain signed diplomatic deals establishing formal ties with Israel at a White House ceremony on Sept. 15.
Two other officials involved in the planning, one Israeli and the other US, said it was possible the UAE delegation visit would take place entirely at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv. The UAE has yet to confirm the delegation visit.
The small but growing Jewish community of Dubai is getting its second full-time rabbi, the Jewish Council of the Emirates (JCE), one of two Orthodox congregations in the country, announced Friday.
Beirut-born Elie Abadie, a prominent rabbi and scholar of Sephardic Judaism currently living in New York City, will relocate to the Gulf metropolis to serve as the community's senior rabbi. The JCE is the country's oldest congregation and the only one recognized by local authorities.
"I feel like I'm coming home to my roots, to the region where I was born, to the language that I first spoke, and to the beautiful traditions and customs with which I grew up," Abadie said in a statement.
"I look forward to meeting, teaching and praying with all of the congregants and members of the Jewish community at large. I will be honored to share and celebrate in all of your semahot [life cycle events] and rejoice in all of our holidays together. Together we will grow the seeds of the UAE Jewish community."
Abadie will assume his post on November 1, the JCE said in a press release.
"The Jewish community of the Emirates deserves nothing less than a true renaissance man, a scholar, pastor and visionary builder," said Yehuda Sarna, the JCE's New York-based non-resident chief rabbi. "He comes not only with a sense of indigeneity, being of the region, but also of internationalism. His fluency in both Arabic, as well as six other languages, positions him as a unique resource to the entire region."
Sarna will remain in the US but will continue to connect the Dubai community "to global Jewry and building bridges of cooperation with Emirati authorities and international stakeholders," according to the JCE press release.
Violating local laws and risking possible criminal prosecution, a handful of activists from Sudan participated Thursday in an online forum discussing with Israelis their country's relations to the Jewish state.
Amid reports saying Khartoum may be next in line to normalize ties with Jerusalem, the activists, including journalists and artists, said the Sudanese public is largely in favor of ties with Israel, but also discussed how they occasionally face opposition for their activism.
"The Sudanese people are very interested in normalizing ties with Israel, especially since the meeting between [Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah] al-Burhan and Prime Minister Netanyahu in February," said El-Sadig Ishaq, a human rights activist and co-founder of the Sudanese-Israeli Friendship Society, an organization founded several months ago.
"This trend of interest in ties with Israel continues to grow. As opposed to what many outside Sudan are saying, that the public tends to be against normalization — we see the opposite," he added. "The trend is in favor, and it continues to gain momentum. That's what we hear and see on the street, especially with young people. That's why we felt encouraged to create the Friendship Society, because it reflects the will of the people."
Despite years of government-promulgated anti-Israel propaganda, many Sudanese simply ignore what they were taught in school and are told by state-controlled media, he said.
"Especially young people have been able to get their news from alternative sources and have been seeing the true face of Israel for a long time. And we do our best to disseminate accurate information about Israel, as well," Ishaq said.
Saudia Arabia's top diplomat on Thursday called for direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, while again suggesting the kingdom won't normalize ties with the Jewish state until the decades-old conflict is resolved.
In an interview with a US-based think tank, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud underlined the kingdom's support for the Arab Peace Initiative, which sees a Palestinian state as a prerequisite to rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world.
"We welcome the recent efforts to bring the parties together towards a comprehensive peace plan because an important step for a secure… Middle East remains a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. All other things will follow from that," the Saudi foreign minister told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"I believe that the focus now needs to be on getting the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table. In the end, the only thing that can deliver lasting peace and lasting stability is an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. If we don't manage to achieve that, we will continue to have that festering wound in the region."
Invoking the 2002 Saudi-led peace initiative, the foreign minister added: "We always envisioned that normalization would happen but we also need to have a Palestinian state and we need to have a Palestinian-Israeli peace plan."
Saudi leaders, including Al Saud, have previously ruled out forging ties with Israel before a Palestinian state was created, even as they welcomed the normalization deals between the Jewish state and Gulf Arab states signed in Washington last month.
Saudi Arabia is presiding over a virtual global interfaith forum that began on Tuesday, with participation from Muslim clerics, Jewish rabbis, Christian priests and other religious figures.
The kingdom is hosting the online event as part of its presidency this year of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations.
Saudi Arabia has embarked more assertively in recent years on an outreach effort to Jewish and Christian groups. Some of those efforts have coincided with a broader alignment of interests and emerging ties between the Gulf Arab states and Israel, which share a common foe in Iran.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also overseen efforts to supplant a religiously conservative Saudi identity with one rooted in hyper-nationalism, following decades of adherence to a hard-line interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism, which has flourished in the kingdom.
Faisal bin Muaammar, who heads the Saudi-funded International Dialogue Center organizing the five-day forum, told The Associated Press the purpose of the event is to enhance relationships among different faiths.
"We are talking about a relationship between religions, between Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus. The dialogue has no political agenda at all, or a political direction in terms of political conversations or negotiations," he said.
Critical questions and concerns have emerged as the International Criminal Court at The Hague nears its final decision whether to launch a criminal investigation into Israel for alleged war crimes violations. Join Shurat HaDin and a panel of legal experts this upcoming Sunday, October 18th, at 12 PM EDT for a fascinating webinar on the potential threat of an ICC war crimes investigation into Israel.
The court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has opened investigations targeting Israel and the United States, even though both countries are not ICC members and boast their own independent judicial systems.
Why is the ICC so preoccupied with Israel? Does the court pose a real threat to the Jewish state and its leadership? What are the implications of a criminal investigation into Israel for other democracies? How should Israel and the U.S. respond to the prospect of foreign nations arresting their citizens and extraditing them to the ICC for trial? Is there a real danger of IDF officers and troops being detained and charged with war crimes while traveling abroad?
Shurat HaDin's live webinar will feature the following distinguished participants:• Joseph Lieberman, former U.S. Senator from Connecticut• Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the ICC• Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to Australia and Former Israeli Permanent Representative to the UN • Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Attorney-at-law & President of Shurat HaDin
European powers on Friday condemned Israel's decision to approve thousands more settlement homes in the West Bank, calling it a "counterproductive" move that undermines regional peace efforts.
Jordan, meanwhile, said the move violated international law and called for global pressure to prevent construction.
A joint statement from the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain said: "The expansion of settlements violates international law and further imperils the viability of a two-state solution to bring about a just and lasting peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"As we have emphasized directly with the government of Israel, this step furthermore undermines efforts to rebuild trust between the parties with a view to resuming dialogue," they said, urging an immediate halt in settlement construction.
The ministers said pushing ahead with more settlements would be a "counterproductive move in light of the positive developments of normalization agreements reached between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain."
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi called the decision "a violation of international law… illegitimate steps that undermine the two-state solution and the chances of achieving a comprehensive peace.
"A clear international position to reject these [homes] and put pressure to block them is necessary to protect peace and protect international law," al-Safadi said.
Israel agreed to suspend plans to annex swaths of the West Bank under the US peace plan in exchange for the normalization deals with the Gulf states.
The Palestinian Authority warned the United Nations that Israel had paved the way for apartheid and a one-state reality with its advancement and approval this week of plans for 5,288 new settler homes.
"Such duplicity cannot be ignored as Israel persists with its violations and further undermines the two-state solution on the pre-1967 lines, paving way for an apartheid one-state reality, while it simultaneously disguises itself as a regional partner who believes in advancing peace and stability, attempting to promote its standing in the international community based on false credentials," the PA Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour wrote in a letter on Friday.
"This is the direct result of lack of accountability for an occupation that has only expanded its territorial control by the day over the last 53 years. Given its complete departure from the two-state solution, Israel's calls for 'peace' should not be trusted," he said.
He spoke out after the Higher Planning Council for Judea and Samaria held its first meeting in eight months on Wednesday and Thursday, during which it approved and advanced plans for the construction of 5,288 homes, bringing the annual total of such plans to 9,333. This does not include the deposit of plans for 3,165 homes for Ma'aleh Adumim's E1 project.
The approvals took place on the sidelines of Israel's historic Knesset vote on Thursday, by which it overwhelmingly approved a peace deal with the United Arab Emirates. It is only the third such deal that exists, following the Egyptian one in 1979 and the Jordanian one in 1994. Bahrain has also agreed to a normalization deal with Israel, but that has not come to a vote yet.
Both Arab states required Israel to suspend its plans to annex portions of the West Bank as a prerequisite for the agreements.
The independent human rights group UN Watch condemned today's election of rights-abusing governments in China, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan to the UN's top human rights body, and expressed alarm that the percentage of non-democracies on the UN human rights council now goes from 51% to a staggering 60%.
"Today is a black day for human rights," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization, which deemed those countries to be "unqualified" in a Joint NGO Report, on account of the regimes' domestic human rights records as well as their voting records on UN resolutions concerning human rights.
At a UN Watch online press conference on Friday, human rights dissidents who were persecuted for their activism by China, Russia, Cuba and Pakistan joined in calling on all UN member states to oppose those countries' bids for election to the 47-nation council.
UN Watch regretted that the regimes won support today from more than 70% of the 193-nation UN General Assembly:• Cuba: 170 votes (88%)• Pakistan: 169 (87.5%)• Uzbekistan: 169 (87.5%)• Russia: 158 (82%)• China: 130 (72%)"Electing these dictatorships as UN judges on human rights is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade," said Neuer.
"Neuer is an outspoken, eloquent critic of the UN & his work exposes the reality of the organization's moral corruption. While Neuer's group is dedicated to holding the UN accountable, in my view the UN's moral failings are fundamental and beyond remedy." https://t.co/Q51F6HgVrg
Israel has declined to renew the visas of most of the international workers of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the months after its publication of a blacklist of companies doing business in Judea and Samaria.
OHCHR spokesman Rupert Colville confirmed on Thursday that nine out of 12 foreign staff members have left Israel since August, because their visas were not renewed. Three other workers who were to begin working in Israel were not allowed entry, and another three remain until their visas expire in the coming months.
The Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the matter but referred to a statement from former foreign minister Israel Katz about the OHCHR's settlement blacklist.
The UN published its database in February of 112 businesses operating in east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria. It was the first list of its kind about any country.
Although the list did not specifically accuse the companies of violating international law, Israel, which argues that such business activity is legal, feared the blacklist would be used to support boycotts.
At the time, the Foreign Ministry announced it was cutting ties with the OHCHR, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "whoever boycotts us will be boycotted."
Some OHCHR staff visas were renewed for short periods in March and June, but all renewal requests submitted since June have been rejected. (h/t Zvi)
Ronni Gamzu, the leader of the government's efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, estimated on Thursday that infection rates in Israel could reach the threshold for easing some lockdown restrictions in the coming days, while warning that the current downward trend could still be reversed and that it was too early to draw definite conclusions.
Health Ministry figures published Thursday morning showed 2,004 new cases were confirmed throughout Wednesday, just over the 2,000 mark below which authorities have determined that measures can start to be eased.
However, as Gamzu has clarified, the target number of 2,000 daily infections — along with a positive test rate of under eight percent and a basic reproduction number of less than 0.8 — must be met as a daily average for an entire week.
"According to this morning's data there has been another drop in confirmed [carriers] and it is currently around 2,000," Gamzu told Army Radio. "The positive rate is under 8%, and the basic reproduction number reached its goal. However, we need to consider the number of daily infections while looking several days back and see the daily average over at least a week."
Gamzu said authorities would check early next week whether the target numbers have been reached, and expressed optimism.
"I believe we will reach the target number, and that is what I will tell the cabinet," he said, referring to a key meeting of the so-called coronavirus cabinet taking place Thursday, during which ministers were discussing separate exit plans for cities with low and high infection rates, as well as reopening preschools and allowing restaurants to offer takeout in addition to the current delivery-only services. There are reported differences of opinion among ministers regarding allowing businesses that don't see customers to reopen.
"We will have to double-check the numbers, but my opinion is that at the beginning of next week, we will definitely be able to take the first step in easing the restrictions," Gamzu said. That phase is expected to return the private sector to normal operations, excluding businesses that receive customers in person, and reopen kindergartens and preschools.
Former Shin Bet Deputy Director Yitzhak Ilan died overnight Friday from the coronavirus. He was 64.
According to Channel 12 News, Ilan contracted COVID-19 last month and had been hospitalized in critical condition.
Ilan served as the Israel Security Agency's chief detective in Ramallah during the First Intifada in the late 1980s and as head of its Samaria division during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. He headed the Shin Bet's counterterrorism unit in Gaza and later headed its Investigations Department.
He was named deputy director of the Shin Bet in 2010 and served in this position for nearly two years. He was slated to replaced Director Yuval Diskin in 2016, but , but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision name Nadav Argaman to the post led to him retiring.
Dozens of Israeli Border Police officers have taken part in recent days in the arrest of suspects making fake entry permits into Israel, transporting illegal residents an stealing property in Jerusalem surroundings, the Israel Police said Friday.
Four suspects have been arrested during Border Police operations in the villages of Bidu, a-Ram and Katana in cooperation with Special Forces.
As part of the operation, the Border Police raided numerous houses in Palestinian villages where four suspects were arrested for forging permits, transporting illegal residents and stealing property in the Jerusalem district.
The battalion commander who was responsible for the mission explained that "the way in which fake permits to enter Israel are obtained and the illegal entry routes leading to Israel may also serve terrorists who will try to harm civilians and security forces, and therefore we are fighting that phenomenon."
The Border Police is investing a great deal of effort and advanced capabilities to eradicate the illegal infiltration of Palestinians into Israel.
Get ready for the onslaught of sympathetic media coverage for Maher al-Akhras, who is approximately 80 days into a hunger strike against the powers that be in Israel. He had recently appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court for release from Israeli custody, but the court ruled against him. Given that most hunger strikers die sometime after 60 days into their strike, it's reasonable to conclude that al-Akhras will soon die.
His death will be a fruitless tragedy that could have been avoided if Palestinian elites had negotiated in good faith with Israel at numerous points over the past few decades, but they didn't. Barring some miracle or change of heart by al-Akhras, his death seems inevitable.
Predictably, al-Akhras, who is currently in an Israeli hospital, has been lionized in all the usual places — Al Jazeera, 972, and Mondoweiss — for his Gandhian protest against the evils of the Jewish state. In the event of his death, there's a good chance that Western media outlets, which have largely ignored his plight, will seize on his case to generate clicks from the anti-Israel crowd and to demonize Israel just as growing numbers of Arab leaders conclude that using Israel as a unifying political agenda is a losing strategy.
The Palestinian elites haven't gotten the memo, nor have their Palestinian Christian stooges in Bethlehem. And pro-Palestinian activists in the West haven't gotten the memo either.
If Western media outlets take up al-Akhras' cause, their audiences need to remember one thing: the man is a terrorist. While his wife denies that he's a member of Iran-backed Islamic Jihad, media outlets affiliated with that organization and Hamas did, at the time of his previous arrest in 2018, describe him as a "commander," a phrase they regularly use to refer to active members of their organizations.
Allowing al-Akhras to drape himself in the flag of Gandhian non-violence will be profoundly irresponsible given that his coffin will be draped with the flag of a terrorist organization responsible for 30 murderous suicide bombings in the Holy Land.
While the Palestinian Authority finds itself mired in a state of deep depression, it seems as though Fatah secretary-general and central PA official Jibril Rajoub is shining in triumph.
Rajoub is using the strategic crisis brought on by Israel's normalization agreements with Bahrain and the UAE to build himself up and claw his way into the president's seat the day after Mahmoud Abbas vacates it.
Rajoub is solidifying his position by inciting against Israel, calling for the nullification of all agreements, advancing the peace talks between the Fatah-dominated PA and the Hamas terrorist organization and promoting a model of "popular resistance" - fighting against Israel mainly by way of rioting and civil unrest.
This method, Rajoub insists, will facilitate cooperation with long-term rival Hamas and will even be received with understanding and even sympathy in the international arena.
The rest of the PA leadership, Abbas included, have displayed caution and even reluctance towards the moves being pushed by Rajoub. But despite this, Rajoub's vigorous promotion of such ideals may end up turning these plans into reality.
Such a step would return the PA leadership to a familiar pattern of being mired in an unwanted situation despite fighting to avoid it.
Murdering Israeli/Jewish civilians is legitimate according to TV series produced and broadcast by Hamas.
In a scene on the show Self-Sacrificing Fighter (Fida'i), which was produced by Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV and rebroadcast recently, an armed terrorist enters a restaurant in Tel Aviv and shoots and murders Israeli/Jewish diners. Following the attack, a Palestinian woman is being interrogated by an Israeli investigator. She explains that while Islam forbids murdering civilians, killing Israelis/Jews is justified because Israelis/Jews are all "criminals": Woman under investigation: "If you know everything, then what do you want me to say?" Israeli investigator: "No. When it is told by a heroine, the story is better and more beautiful. Are you not a heroine? Didn't you set out to murder innocents in Tel Aviv?" Woman: "We're not criminals like you and we're not murderers. Our religion [Islam] forbids us from murdering civilians!" Investigator: "So who did you set out to murder?" Woman: "I set out to murder criminals like you!" Investigator: "Murderer!" [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Aug. 25, 2020]Palestinian Media Watch has exposed that Hamas broadcasts similar messages to Palestinians – MPs call for "death to Israel", officials threaten violence, and TV fillers glorify suicide bombings,
Lebanese Journalist Fadi Boudaya: Negotiation of Maritime Borders with Israel Is a Victory for the Resistance pic.twitter.com/7jjAJrllxr
A new bill designed to prevent money laundering by Hezbollah has been introduced in the US House of Representatives by a group of Republican congressmen.
The bill calls upon the President to make a determination that areas currently under Hezbollah's control are "primary money laundering concerns" under section 311 of the PATRIOT Act. The regions in question are south Lebanon and the tri-border region in South America, which encompasses three cities in three different countries: Puerto Iguazu in Argentina, Ciudad del Este in Paraguay and Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil. The latter region is widely recognized as a major hub for illicit activities including money laundering, with some US$ 6 billion a year in illegal funds thought to be laundered there annually by organized crime groups and rogue operators.
"This bill represents the toughest sanctions on Hezbollah ever proposed by Congress," said Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who introduced the bill. "By cutting off banks in areas under the terror group's control from the international financial system, this bill will go a long way towards drying up the Iranian terror proxy's resources to conduct murderous attacks against the US and our allies.
"This bill will make it much harder for Hezbollah to do Iran's bidding in propping up the criminal Assad regime, the Houthis in Yemen, and continue to destabilize the Middle East," said Congressman Wilson. "I am grateful that twelve of my colleagues on the Republican Study Committee joined me on this bill as original co-sponsors and I hope that it will send a strong message to the White House that Republicans in Congress continue to support a hard line on Iran."
Unnamed Hizbullah Operations Officer Threatens Israel: We Will Use Missiles and Legions of Fighters Who Will Storm the Enemy's Barracks and Settlements pic.twitter.com/peIIQplHRd
Iranian hackers contracted by the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted prominent Israeli companies in a series of ransomware attacks last month, a pair of cybersecurity firms reported Thursday.
The attacks were attributed to "MuddyWater," which Microsoft exposed earlier this month as a contractor for the IRGC — designated by both Israel and the US as a terror group.
Dubbing the Iranian effort "Operation Quicksand," the Clearsky and Profero cybersecurity firms said they "uncovered the first known instance of a potentially destructive attack executed by MuddyWater, focusing on prominent organizations in Israel and in other countries around the world."
The firms said they identified and thwarted the attacks before any harm could be inflicted, but were now raising an alarm to the methods used, indicating that they could have been employed in earlier hacking attacks that might have gone unnoticed.
The names of the Israeli firms targeted in the ransomware attacks were not identified in the report, ostensibly for security reasons.
The Trump administration brought home two American hostages held in Yemen by an Iran-backed militia, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Washington negotiated a hostage exchange for humanitarian worker Sandra "Sam" Loli and businessman Mikael Gidada, whom the Houthi militia group had held in Yemen for over a year. The negotiations were rapid because of Loli's deteriorating health condition. The United States also secured the remains of Bilal Fateen, a third American the Houthis had taken hostage.
"Today is a day we have long hoped for," said Richard Boni, Loli's husband. "Our family is filled with immense relief and gratitude that Sam—a beloved wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend—has been released and reunited with her family."
In exchange for the American citizens, the Trump administration offered over 200 Houthi loyalists. The Iran-backed insurgents are currently locked in a bitter civil war with Yemeni security forces, which have the support of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis were instrumental in securing this latest hostage deal.
Hostage retrievals continue to be a major effort for the Trump administration, which has so far brought home over 50 hostages from 22 countries. In August, the president invited six of these former hostages to the Republican National Convention stage.
"We're very proud of the job we did," Trump told the crowd.
Dr. Imad Eddine Hamrouni, a Paris-based Tunisian expert on geopolitics, said in a September 20, 2020 interview on Al-Alam TV (Iran) that Zionism and Freemasonry control the West, its economy, its ideology, and its regimes. He said that religion and religious values have died out in the West and that only the values of Islamic resistance have survived. Dr. Al-Hamroun elaborated that the leading non-Muslim intellectuals in the West have adopted the principles and values of the "Islam of resistance" and defend Iran and the "axis of resistance."
"Zionism And The Freemasons Stand Against Religious Values, Especially Islamic Values"
Dr. Imad Eddine Hamrouni: "There is a crisis of Zionism in the West. There is a Zionist economic hegemony, the Freemasons control the regimes and the ideologies. Zionism and the Freemasons stand against religious values, especially Islamic values.
"The Interests Of The Weak Are [Islam's] Top Priority"
"Islam is the most influential factor... Today Christianity has collapsed in the West. There are no more Christians in the West. In France, only 20-30% [of the population] is Christian. There are no more Jews left [in the West], Judaism has become a race and nationality. What else is left? There is Communism, which has collapsed, and there is Islam. Which Islam? Islam of resistance – and the interests of the weak are its top priority.
Leading European Intellectuals "Defend Resistance, The Islamic Republic Of Iran, And The Values Of Islam"
"We see that the leading intellectuals in France – Christians or leftist-secularists – have started supporting Islam of resistance. What do I mean by 'Islam of resistance?' They are not becoming Muslims, rather, they adopt its mode of conduct and the axis of resistance. Today we have intellectuals in Belgium, Germany, Britain, Italy, and France, who defend resistance, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the values of Islam, which carries the prospect of an [Islamic] awakening."
French Islamic Scholar Imam Hassan El-Houari: Muslims Built, Liberated France; Terrorism Has Come from France's "School," Not from the Mosque pic.twitter.com/G0jC0TesyS
On October 14, 2020, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave an interview to three pro-Kremlin radio stations: Sputnik, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Govorit Moskva (Radio Moscow). The interview started with Moscow's efforts to obtain a ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but the questions quickly turned to Russia's relations with Turkey. Recently, a rare consensus has emerged between Putin's critics and supporters that Russia has been too deferential to Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan, and he must be put in his place.[1] Lavrov was hard pressed by the normally deferential interviewers to defend the current policy in light of Turkey's recent actions, and sought to distinguish between Turkey's legitimate pursuit of its national interests and competition for influence in the Islamic world, and the illegitimate pursuit of American interests in Syria and elsewhere (including America's brokerage of the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, bypassing the Palestinians). However, even he acknowledged the build-up of anti-Turkish sentiment and witnessing a tee shirt with the caption "if they don't listen to Lavrov, they will listen to [Defense Minister Sergei] Shoigu" and interjecting the comment "naturally, there could be situations when there is aggression against you, and you must strike back".
The lengthy section from Lavrov's interview on Russia's relations with Turkey follows below[2]:
Question: Mr. Lavrov, the current war in Nagorno-Karabakh, if we call a spade the spade, has been inspired by Turkey. In general, we regularly "run into" Turkey, in Libya, as well as in Syria, where Ankara is emerging as a military opponent to us rather than an ally. At the same time, we regularly declare that it is our strategic ally. How will all of this work today in the light of the current developments? Where do we, and Turkey, stand? What are we in relation to each other?
Sergey Lavrov: Turkey has never qualified as our strategic ally. It is a partner, a very close partner. In many sectors, this partnership is of a strategic nature.
In fact, we are working in Syria, and we are trying to help settle the Libyan crisis. Turkey is also seeking to promote its interests in this region. The main thing is that this is absolutely legitimate, if interests are legitimate, be it Turkey, Iran, UAE, or Qatar. Many countries in this region have interests of their own, which are projected outside of their state borders.
In what Syria is concerned, I think that these transparency and legitimacy have been ensured, despite the fact that the Turkish military are present on Syrian territory without an invitation from the legitimate authorities. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his government have accepted and supported the establishment of the Astana format. They are cooperating in the implementation of all those initiatives that have been advanced by the threesome of the Astana guarantors. In this sense, the Russia-Turkey-Iran partnership plays a very important role. It is this actual partnership that has made it possible to cut down the terrorist-ruled territories, in fact, as far as the Idlib de-escalation zone.
"Some countries in our region did not exist yesterday, and they may not exist in the future...." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, addressing parliament on October 1, 2020.
"His [Erdogan's] crimes against the Arab peoples must be exposed, such as his massacres against the Syrian people, against the Kurds in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and in Libya...." — Abdel Aziz Razan, a Saudi adviser at the Center for Arab-Russia Studies, Okaz, October 4, 2020.
Such powerful responses made by Saudis and other Arabs to Erdogan's contemptuous statements show that the Arabs now understand it is Erdogan and his friends in Iran whom they should fear. In the eyes of these Arabs, Erdogan and his Iranian connections represent the real threat to their security and stability.
In light of such reactions, perhaps more Arab countries will follow the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in signing diplomatic agreements with Israel. The State of Israel, as it turns out, is a strategic and strong ally that can help Arab countries stop Turkey and Iran from spreading their contagion of terror in the Middle East.
Acknowledging that the term is considered offensive, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman apologized for executing homosexuals based on their "sexual preference" rather than their sexual orientation.
Bin Salman's apology came after Kyle Griffin, a senior producer for MSNBC, pointed out on Twitter that the Saudi penal code called for "the beheading of the homosexual evildoers, who defy the will of Allah with their sexual preference."
"Sexual preference, a term used in the Saudi penal code, is offensive and outdated," Griffin tweeted. "News organizations should not cover these executions without providing that important context."
Bin Salman, known as MBS, told The Mideast Beast that he checked Merriam-Webster's dictionary earlier this week to make sure that he was using the term correctly.
"I really do not recall reading anything about it being an offensive term, but when I went back and checked today, the entry clearly stated that it is considered offensive. I could've sworn it said something different," MBS said. "I can ensure you that this language will never be used again."
The Saudi penal code was soon changed, and future beheadings will be punishment only for the perpetrators' "sexual orientation."
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Dr. Nasser al Lahham, editor of the independent Ma'an news agency, wrote an explicitly antisemitic editorial today where he accused all rabbis in Israel of wanting to enslave Arabs and he predicted that Arabs will eventually take brutal revenge against Jews.
He started it off by claiming two alleged racist quotes from Israeli Jews. the first, which he attribute to a "settler" who had cut down olive trees speaking to Palestinian farmers, is that "we are the children of God and you serve us." The second was supposedly from a Tel Aviv restaurant owner who is claimed to have said, "I want Arabs and Arab girls to serve me, for Fatima to clean the bathrooms and Aisha to be work in the kitchen."
I cannot find either quote anywhere. I have never even seen any quote from any Jew who admitted to cutting down olive trees. I asked Dr. Lahham for the source but have not received an answer.
This doesn't mean that there aren't Jewish racists - of course there are - but like any bigot, Lahham extends the alleged racism of two random Jews based on probably fabricated quotes into all Jews in Israel.
He claims that "The rabbis of Israel have lost their mind - the rabbis of Safed issue rulings to enslave Arabs, steal olives and cut down trees." This is fiction.
He then ludicrously claims "we see Jewish settlers from Hebron and Yitzhar entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque and insulting the Prophet Muhammad inside the mosque." This is an absurd lie. Jews never even enter the mosque, and Jews visiting the Temple Mount are interested in the holiness of the site and its history, not in insulting any Muslim prophet.
Once Lahham incites his readers to hate Jews with lie after lie, he then goes on to issue a warning to American rabbis. Unless they do something to reign in the rogue Israeli racist Jews who want to enslave and murder all Arabs, Lahham warns, "no one, not even Facebook, Fox News, or a loud Trump will be able to prevent hundreds of millions of Arabs from taking revenge and tearing up Jewish flesh on the streets."
Ma'an claims to be a professional news organization with the highest standards of journalism. Its editor literally makes things up and reports them as fact - with the intent to incite violence. Then, like any mobster, he "warns" that unless people do what he wants, bad things will happen - which happen to be the bad things that he himself is encouraging with his bald-faced lies.
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