| 03/05 Links Pt2: The grotesque myth of Jewish privilege; Netanyahu slams ‘SNL’ joke about COVID-19 vaccine efforts; BDS Cornel West and Stealth Anti-Semitism at Harvard Posted: 05 Mar 2021 01:06 PM PST From Ian: Melanie Phillips: The brouhaha over defining Jews as an ethnic minorityThe real confusion, as the beleaguered Cohen observed on "Politics Live," arises because many people believe Judaism to be instead merely a religion.
They fail to grasp that it encompasses not just religious faith but peoplehood and that in ancient times, the Jewish people also constituted a nation in their own Jewish kingdom. The failure to understand this, coupled with the mistaken view that Judaism is merely a private, confessional faith like Christianity, is partly why so many people believe the Jews are interlopers in Israel.
It's why they make the false distinction between Zionism, which they condemn as a colonialist political ideology, and Judaism, which they fawningly sentimentalize, disdain or disregard altogether as merely a religion. The fact that this leaves secular Jews stranded in no-man's-land is why those Jews in particular desperately hang on to the ethnic minority label as their badge of identity.
Rather than acknowledge the unique characteristics of the Jewish people as a source of benefit to the wider world, the difficulty of fitting them into generally accepted categories unfortunately encourages suspicion and fear.
In the West, many assume that ethnic minorities must be dark-skinned and somehow "foreign." So the fact that most Western Jews are pale-skinned means they don't fit the template of an ethnic minority. And the notion that Judaism is both religion and peoplehood feeds the paranoid suspicions of the anti-Semite that the Jews are slippery customers who change their shape at will and thus hide in plain sight.
Jewishness is difficult to define at the best of times. Anti-Semitism is not only now running rampant in the West; worse still, both this victimization and the nature of Jewish distinctiveness itself are being widely ignored or rendered invisible.
So it's hardly surprising that the questioning of the Jews' minority status that erupted this week has rubbed already exposed Jewish nerves raw. The grotesque myth of Jewish privilegeThe BBC's flagship politics programme, Politics Live, featured a bizarre debate on Monday on the topic of whether or not Jews are an ethnic minority. Apparently, this was open to question because some Jews have reached positions of power and influence.
I am genuinely saddened that the following needs explaining – but it clearly does: groups do not cease to be ethnic minorities as they become more affluent and upwardly mobile. It may be inconvenient to simplistic identitarian narratives, which present society as a story of majority-on-minority structural oppression. But being materially deprived is not a necessary condition for being categorised as an ethnic-minority group. And successful, high-achieving individuals can still face real-life discrimination on the basis of their membership of an ethnic-minority group.
When discussing so-called Jewish privilege, it is important to note that elements of the UK's Jewish population are relatively deprived. In recent times, the rate of child poverty and material deprivation has grown at an alarming rate within Britain's strictly Orthodox Haredi communities. Studies have put this down to a 'potentially toxic mix' of large families and a relative lack of focus on secular educational qualifications, in favour of a highly observant religious lifestyle which is distanced from modern technology. Orthodox Haredi children are far from likely to be living a life of privilege. Yet the notion of 'Jewish privilege' shows us that these forms of child poverty are not commonly known and are barely discussed.
Irrespective of socio-economic status, Jewish populations at large have been subjected to the political mainstreaming of anti-Semitic beliefs. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party will forever be a stain on modern British political history. Labour was once a natural party for many of Britain's Jews. But Jewish politicians such as Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman left the party due to anti-Semitism. Ellman served as MP for Liverpool Riverside for 22 years and was a Labour Party member for 55 years.
These failings resulted in the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – a body created under a Labour government – finding the party responsible for three breaches of the 2010 Equality Act: political interference in anti-Semitism complaints, failure to provide adequate training to those handling anti-Semitism complaints, and harassment. Before Labour's disastrous performance in the 2019 General Election, a survey revealed that 47 per cent of British Jews would seriously consider leaving the UK if Corbyn became prime minister.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed a "Saturday Night Live" skit that claimed that Israel only vaccinated "the Jewish half" of its population.
"This is just outrageous," Netanyahu said during an interview Thursday on "Fox & Friends" when asked about the cringe-worthy comedy routine.
"It's so false."
"In fact, I brought vaccines and went especially to the Arab communities, the Arab citizens of Israel, and vaccinated as many as we can. I must have gone to half a dozen Arab communities already, talked with the mayors there, brought the leaders, brought the doctors there – Arab doctors," he said.
The segment last month on the show's "Weekend Update" prompted accusations that the joke was anti-Semitic and sparked protests outside the NBC studios.
"Israel is reporting that they've vaccinated half of their population. I'm going to guess it's the Jewish half," Michael Che said.
Former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind was among those blasting Che at the time for the skit's ignorance.
"But Michael Che or whoever wrote that 'joke' is obviously also ignorant of fact that Israel has Arab citizens who've received the vaccine according to the same qualifications as Jews!," he wrote on Twitter. Why do medical dramas perpetuate stereotypes of Orthodox Jews? - opinionWhy are these shows glorifying medical malpractice and the denial of religious rights? "House" outright equates being religious with mental illness, and a throwaway line in the "Grey's Anatomy" episode asks why anybody would bother with Orthodoxy — "why couldn't you be plain old Reform like everyone else we know?" In each case, Orthodoxy is portrayed as unreasonable, as a conflict that must be overcome.
So many things about these episodes make me angry. Why do none of these Jewish characters ever call and consult their rabbis? That would be the first thing most frum people would do when facing a complicated medical or ethical issue. And why are these shows making broad, sweeping, uninformed claims about things like kashrut or the use of birth control in religious communities?
These examples aren't as dangerous as the clip from "Nurses," which portrays religious Jews as horribly Islamophobic and misogynistic — a storyline that surely doesn't help Hasidim in a climate that is already so hostile toward them. But each of these episodes frame Orthodoxy as backward and unwilling to change, and frame Orthodox people as fanatics willing to die for their bigoted beliefs.
The writers fail to understand Orthodox Judaism while relying on Orthodox Jews as a cheap plot device. Maybe they look at the huge number of mitzvot (commandments) that are observed by Orthodox Jews and conclude that it's a rigid, unchangeable structure. They don't understand that breaking Shabbat to save a life is not only allowed but mandatory.
In our tradition, there are only three sins you must die for committing: idolatry, murder and adultery. The concept of pikuach nefesh (saving a life) overrides virtually every commandment. Judaism values the sanctity of human life over almost everything else. Your rabbi would encourage you to take a porcine valve or the bone graft. My mother likes to quote one of her favorite rabbis quite regularly. She says: We're meant to live by our Judaism, not die by it. It's about time these TV shows got that memo.
I understand the need to write good TV and create conflict. I understand (although do not agree with) the desire for out-of-the-box, exotic characters. But if you cannot construct a story without misunderstanding and misrepresenting an entire demographic of people, then it's simply a story you have no right to tell. Coronavirus: Israel is opening on Sunday - here are the detailsThe country is opening up further on Sunday, according to a decision by the government. This is the third stage of Israel's exit strategy.
While at first health officials were recommending slowing down Israel's opening given the reproduction rate (R) that has been holding around one, the government decided to move forward. As such, more children will return to school and additional commerce and recreation will be available to the public.
Entry into many of the new offerings are subject to a green passport, which can be obtained through the Health Ministry for anyone who has been fully vaccinated with two shots for at least a week. Children under the age of 16, who are not allowed to be vaccinated, will not be able to accompany their vaccinated parents.
Here is what will change on Sunday:
Schools - Students in grades 7-10 will return to their classrooms in green and yellow cities and those "light orange" cities in which at least 70% of people over the age of 50 are vaccinated or recovered
Restaurants and cafes - Green passport holders will be able to sit indoors or outdoors, non-vaccinated people will be able to sit outside. Restaurants and cafes will operate according to the Purple Ribbon outline.
Hotels - Will now open beyond the rooms and provide a full range of activities for green passport holders
Event halls, attractions, conferences - Open to green passport holders
Gathering limits - 20 inside, 50 outside (except in red areas where the limit remains 10 and 20, respectively)
Airports - 3,000 Israelis will be able to enter the country per day, in accordance with an aviation schedule established by the Transportation and Health ministries As transmission rate rises above 1, virus czar says 4th lockdown a possibilityIsrael could yet be forced to enter a fourth lockdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus ahead of the upcoming general election, set for March 23, a senior health official suggested on Friday.
He spoke as the country's virus transmission rate inched passed 1, indicating the pandemic is once again expanding its spread, according to Health Ministry data.
"We are concerned about the increase in infection in the coming days," coronavirus czar Nachman Ash told 103FM Radio, adding that "if we don't act responsibly, and if [citizens] don't follow the guidelines, the possibility of a fourth lockdown before the election exists."
Asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement to Fox News on Thursday that the pandemic was in Israel's rearview mirror, Ash said: "I don't know what the prime minister meant."
Ministry figures showed the virus's basic reproduction number, or R-number, was at 1.01 Friday morning. The R-number is the number of new cases stemming from each coronavirus infection, or the number of people who caught the virus from each infected person. Any number lower than 1 means the pandemic is slowing down, while a number above 1 means it is expanding. The figures are based on new case numbers from 10 days earlier due to the virus's incubation period.
The R-number had been below 1 since late January.
However, coronavirus testing also showed its lowest positivity rate in months, with some 3,600 tests coming back positive Thursday out of 92,000 tests — or some 4 percent. Only 100,000 Israelis over 50 left to be vaccinated - new dataThe reproduction rate (R) has started to stabilize around the number one, worrying health officials who know that if the rate passes one infection will once again start to spread.
At the same time, despite warnings by the Coronavirus Knowledge and Information Center, there has not been any major outbreak.
The center warned in a Friday report that Israel could be on the verge of another outbreak, with the next stage of reliefs set to be rolled out on Sunday while around 5% of people tested per day have a positive result. Though it noted that even if the number of new cases increases, it is unlikely Israel will see a spike in serious cases due to vaccination.
According to Eran Segal, a computational biologist for the Weizmann Institute of Science, before vaccination, around 27% of new daily cases were 19 years or older and today around 47% of cases fall in that age range. In contrast, 25% of new cases were 50 years or older before the vaccines. Now, only 11% of new cases are in that age range.
The number of Israelis getting the jab, although decreasing in terms of how many people get vaccinated per day, continues to be striking. So far, the Health Ministry showed Friday, more than 4.9 million Israelis have been inoculated with at least one shot, among them more than 3.6 million who have had their second shot.
Segal tweeted that 90% of people over the age of 16 in the general sector have recovered from the virus or had one dose of the vaccine. Some 70% of haredim and 67% of Arabs have also had one dose. Are COVID-19 vaccines the key to world power?Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decisions to exchange COVID-19 vaccines for an Israeli woman jailed in Syria and to offer doses to allies as a sign of gratitude are part of a shifting dynamic in which a medical serum will join energy and arms as an effective tool in wielding world power.
While economics and diplomacy have forever been intertwined, the commodities of 2021 have shifted. Today, COVID-19 vaccines are the most precious resource on the market. And some of the countries that have them are using them to strengthen and accelerate their global influence.
"The newest entry to the pandemic lexicon might be 'vaccine diplomacy,' with some countries using their jabs to strengthen regional ties and enhance their own power and global status," Dr. Michael Jennings of the SOAS University of London told The Jerusalem Post.
While it is unlikely that vaccine diplomacy will shift world power on its own, according to Eckart Woertz, a professor of contemporary history and politics of the Middle East at the University of Hamburg, it has undeniably become another "aspect of a growing power competition" between China, Russia and the West.
Take what happened with Bolivia. As the country struggled to purchase COVID-19 vaccines, its incoming president, Luis Acre, turned to Russia for help.
"It was a really marathon task," said Bolivian trade minister Benjamin Blanco of the procurement quest in an interview with a Japanese newspaper, The Japan Times, "but Russia's political will made it possible."
He said that Western vaccines makers had told the country that it would have to wait until June to receive any doses. As such, Bolivia secured enough shots from Russia to start inoculating its population in mid-January. MSNBC Coverage of Israel's Vaccine Rollout Still Leaves Room for Further ImprovementMSNBC and its parent company, NBCUniversal, have been under a spotlight lately for poor coverage of Israel and Jews in both their news and entertainment divisions. A March 3 segment on MSNBC's evening news program The Beat with Ari Melber, while a significant improvement over some of that network's past coverage, still contained numerous material omissions of critical facts about Israel, the Palestinians, and the Covid vaccine.
The overall tone of Melber's segment on Israel and the vaccine was favorable, accurately portraying Israel as a world leader in vaccinating its public. Viewers learned – some of them probably for the first time – that Israel is about the size and population of New Jersey, and Israel's universal health care system was lauded.
Melber reported, "Israel now has the record for fastest vaccination campaign across the world. Nine out of ten seniors vaccinated, over half the population has at least one dose."
After introducing his guest, Wall Street Journal reporter Felicia Schwartz, he correctly shared that, "something that's gotten some notice as we look at this country and this example, Israel will begin, they say, vaccinating Palestinians with Israeli work permits this weekend, and they provided the Palestinian authority with, they say, 2,000 vaccine doses. Another 3,000 coming, but there are another four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza." He then asked Schwartz, "this has been widely debated as a piece of the wider conflict that everyone, I think, is familiar with in the region. What is your reporting and what is your view on the equities and human rights considerations there?"
Schwartz responded:
So it's been a huge debate here. Beginning this Sunday, Israel will vaccinate, it's about 120,000 Palestinians who have Israeli work papers. They either work inside of Israel or in Israeli settlements. And it's been the recommendation of health ministry officials as well as Israeli companies who employee Palestinian workers one, to vaccinate these workers, but also to vaccinate the West Bank and also Gaza more broadly for both humanitarian reasons, but also because these societies are very commingled. And, I think it's the WHO and others like to say, no one is safe until everyone is safe. So I'm not sure where this debate will come down, but there is obviously a long history of conflict here, and there are sensitivities involved, but there is a lot, I think, under way. Guardian omits Palestinian vaccine obligations under OsloA March 3rd Guardian article ("Denmark under pressure to drop plans to work with Israel on vaccines") included the following:
Human rights organisations have argued that international law requires Israel to provide Palestinians with similar access to vaccines as its own citizens.
However, whilst providing the view of "human rights" organisations, the article, by the Guardian's Brussels Bureau Chief Daniel Boffey, omitted the fact that many argue that the Oslo Accords (specifically, Article 17) clearly calls for the Palestinian Authority to provide vaccines to Palestinians.
This omission is notable because even the Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent consistently includes this information, to provide balance, when writing about the vaccine row.
Here's one example from a recent Guardian article:
Israeli officials claim that under the 1990s-era Oslo peace accords, the authority, which has limited self-rule, is responsible for vaccinating Palestinians. Moroccan Jews reflect on their heritage and tradition post-normalization with IsraelExperts in global Jewish history believe that highlighting minority voices within the Jewish community has the power to honor its nuances and interconnectedness. JNS's new series highlighting Jewish ethnic minorities aims to elevate their voices, and in turn, celebrate the beautiful mosaic that is the Jewish people.
In December, the Kingdom of Morocco agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel, following the success of the Abraham Accords between three Arab countries (the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan) and the Jewish state.
The normalization of ties has already resulted in the reopening of Israeli and Moroccan liaison offices with the intention of opening reciprocal embassies in Rabat and Tel Aviv. The country has become the first to start teaching Jewish history and culture in its schools. Official contacts, economic cooperation, and direct and overnight flights between the two countries are also in the works.
According to Moroccan Jewish leader Rabbi Gad Bouskila of the Orthodox Netivot Israel Synagogue in Brooklyn, N.Y. (the first Moroccan Jewish community in the state), the recent normalization has made the Moroccan Jewish community in North America "very happy" for each of their homelands.
"We visit Morocco often, so this relationship will allow many young Moroccans born in Israel, who were not yet able to travel to Morocco, to see the roots of their grandparents," he told JNS. Middle East needs to learn lessons from the Holocaust - opinionDespite this, Europeans have moved past their negative history and called up the positive aspects that unite, gather and enable them to achieve their common interests, whereas the Islamic world has devolved into a series of movements, organizations and groups made up of masses of closed-minded, dark-hearted members who have proved themselves to be creative in their efforts to destroy, ruin, terrorize and intimidate people.
A delusional vision has dominated the attitudes and directions of some contemporary thinkers and educators, especially those working with the political parties that use religion to attain political purposes. These parties believe that history and heritage comprise one solid bloc that is perfect, ideal and always successful, a source of pride for all.
These same people believe that if we want to advance, we have to revive history, follow it, apply its models and means, and commit ourselves to the act of repeating it. Therefore, we find that followers of the movements and parties that hijacked Islam, to "defend" it, claiming to speak in Islam's name, believe in repeating history and reviving historical models of thought in terms of culture, politics, economy and the organization of societies.
Unfortunately, those who dominate the contemporary consciousness of Muslims impose one version of history, transforming history and heritage into a prison; a closed circle from which Muslim communities cannot escape. However, they must liberate themselves from the burdens of history to move ahead toward the future.
European civilization has used history, however harsh, as a starting point from which to transform into a global civilization, and it's time we, the Arab world, must too. While the Muslim world and European civilizations had shared interests in science, mathematics and philosophy, they took very different paths.
Curriculums must be reevaluated, teaching methodology updated. We must understand that it is not against Islam to better understand the non-Islamic world, to learn better that we are all one, we are all humanity, whatever our creed or caste.
Educational reform will be key to ensuring the future generation does not grow up blinkered like the generation of today, hidden from or denied the chance to see the world as a whole, instead of a few chapters chosen to be shared.
Whether history is tearing us apart as Muslims, or pitting Muslims against non-Muslims, we need to change this limited narrative and bravely move forward embracing the good and bad of humanity's past, to move bravely into its future. Our only option is to live together and this is why coexistence is vital to create a better future for everyone in our region. Cornel West and Stealth Anti-Semitism at HarvardThe IHRA definition does not criminalize speech; what it does do, however, is enable university leaders to reject false claims that virulent anti-Israel activism is simply "criticism of Israel," and call it what it is and what its pernicious effects are: that if the behavior of individuals on campus involves "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor," "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis," and "holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel"—opinions and accusations that West has himself expressed and which regularly animate the ideology of anti-Israel campus activists—then those expressions are not mere political commentary but are, in fact, anti-Semitic.
In 2014, for example, as Israel was conducting Operation Protective Edge against Hamas as a result of the terrorist group's bothersome habit of showering Southern Israeli towns with rockets and mortars in an ongoing campaign to murder Jews, West astoundingly described the operation as "Israeli state terrorism in action and its Jewish racism in motion."
At the same time, West was careful to sidestep any comments that might be perceived to be anti-Jewish even while he outrageously asserted that "[Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal not because he is Jewish but because he has chosen to promote occupation and annihilation."
More recently, West was a featured speaker at a February 2020 event entitled "Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine," an event which called on Harvard to "Disclose direct and indirect investments in companies complicit in human rights abuses towards Palestinians" and to "Divest all direct and indirect holdings in these companies," claiming that "Palestinians live under apartheid" and that the "recent 'peace' plan proposed by the Trump administration legitimizes this occupation of Palestinian land and restricts 4 million Palestinians to mere slivers of land simply because they are not Jewish."
West, of course, is conflicted because he must deal with competing victimhoods: one is his own as a black man and the other is that of Jews for their historical and chronic persecution and the continuing existence of anti-Semitism as manifested in enmity toward the Jew of nations, Israel. How, then, do you deprive Jewish Israelis of the insulation of victimhood? By accusing them of being racists. By claiming that they maintain and utilize a system of apartheid against the ever-aggrieved Palestinians. By accusing them of being guided by the racist ideology of Zionism and employing it as weapon through which an indigenous people are subjugated, ethnically cleansed, and exterminated as part of the pursuit of a Greater Israel free of any non-Jewish, brown people. By suggesting, grotesquely, that they are the modern incarnation of the Third Reich, Nazi-like in their behavior towards the Palestinians.
Others at Harvard participate in the campaign to delegitimize and slander Israel and, like West, they seek to malign the Jewish state and Zionism but also wish to not be characterized as anti-Semites when their ideas and behavior are judged by the IHRA definition. To game the system by which they will be exposed as bigots, anti-Israel activists resist any attempt to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and they wish to continue their incessant slandering of Israel without having to answer back to those pro-Israel individuals who call them on their attitudes. They wish to loathe and denounce the Jewish state and Jewish self-determination but not be called anti-Semites.
While West suggested that his criticism of Israel cost him his tenure bid when Jews had him punished him for his alleged bigotry, others at Harvard, such as members of the board of the Harvard Technology Review (HTR), of all things, wish to delineate very clearly what they believe to be the vast difference between Zionism-hatred and Jew-hatred, even though such subtleties are lost on the targets of that bigotry: Jews themselves. Alan Dershowitz: The New McCarthyism Comes to Harvard Law SchoolThis self-serving defense of censorship is intended to convey a crass economic threat: if you want to get a good job after law school, make sure that Harvard bans teachers and speakers who are trying to "rehabilitate their reputations and obscure the stain of their complicity in the Trump administration...."
One would also think that signatories would be aware that if these vague criteria — anti-democratic, racists, xenophobic and immoral — were applied across the board, they would result in bans on anyone who was associated with the current regimes in China, Cuba, Turkey, Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, the Palestinian Authority and other repressive governments.
It would also apply to supporters of American anti-democratic and anti-free speech groups, such as Antifa, and the very organization — People's Parity Project — that is promoting this anti-free speech petition. Indeed, historically, repression and censorship have been directed primarily against the left.
The Harvard Law School petition is directed only at Trump supporters, not supporters of left wing anti-democratic repression, either here or abroad. It is based on the assumption that there is a special "Trump exception" to freedom of speech and due process. But exceptions to free speech and academic freedom for some risk becoming the rule for all.
Much of this effort to exclude Trump supporters from campuses comes from individuals and organizations that also demand more "diversity." But their definition of diversity is limited to race, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity. It does not extend to the central mission of universities: to hear and learn from the widest array of views, perspectives, ideologies and political preferences. Report: U.S. College Groups Have Assisted A Designated Terrorist OrgA new report alleges that U.S. college groups have assisted a Palestinian terrorist organization in promoting its messaging.
According to a new report from the Clarion Project, a research organization established to expose extremist ideologies, U.S. campus organizations that claim to fight for the rights of Palestinians have assisted groups with direct links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization backed by the Iranian government.
PFLP is listed as a designated terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, the European Union, and Israel. Its stated goal is to destroy the State of Israel and remove Western capitalism from the Middle East.
According to the State Department, the PFLP is responsible for killing three Americans in Jerusalem in 2014 and more than 20 U.S. citizens in airplane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s.
The PFLP operates internationally by establishing proxy groups that appear far less menacing, but have direct ties to terrorism. In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department said that "in many cases, these organizations are fraudulent or sham charitable organizations; they are established with purported charitable aims but operate almost solely to facilitate terrorist financing or support for a terrorist group."
Addameer, a group that has a presence on U.S. college compuses, is a non-governmental institution that works to support Palestinian political prisoners held in both Israel and Palestinian prisons. The organization's activities include providing free legal representation for Palestinian prisoners and detainees — including convicted terrorists — and ensuring that prisoners have rights to medical assistance and education.
The Clarion Project's report alleges that some of Addameer's board members and staff are also connected to the PFLP. For example, the Director of Addameer, Sahar Francis, allegedly has close ties to Ahmad Saadat who was the PFLP's Secretary-General before he was imprisoned by Israel for killing Israeli citizens and planning the assassination of the Israeli Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi. Fury as South African Chief Justice is Ordered to Apologize for Pro-Israel CommentsSouth Africa's chief justice has been ordered by a judicial oversight committee to apologize publicly for criticisms he made last year of his government's hostile stance toward the State of Israel.
On Thursday, South Africa's Judicial Service Commission (JSC) — which investigates complaints made against judges — found Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng guilty of misconduct for comments made at an online seminar in June 2020, in which he appeared alongside South Africa's Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein. Mogoeng invoked his Christian faith as the reason for his "love" of Israel, criticizing the South African government for maintaining close diplomatic ties with the country's former colonizers while frequently attacking the Jewish state.
"Did Israel take away our land or the land of Africa? Did Israel take our mineral wealth? We've got to move from a position of principle here," Mogoeng declared at one point during the seminar, which was hosted by the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
In the days that followed the seminar, Mogoeng remained defiant in the face of strident condemnation of his support for Israel.
"Even if 50 million people were to march every day for 10 years for me to do so, I would not apologize," he told local media outlets on July 6, 2020. "If I perish, I perish."
The JSC's decision followed three complaints against Mogoeng lodged by three pro-Palestinian organizations, including the South Africa BDS Coalition, which advocates a complete boycott of Israel and supports the goal of eliminating the Jewish state.
The committee summarily rejected the argument that Mogoeng's comments were protected by constitutional guarantees of freedom of worship. The chief justice had quoted several passages from the Bible before telling the seminar, "I cannot as a Christian do anything other than love and pray for Israel, because I know hatred for Israel by me can only attract unprecedented curses upon our nation." German Muslim Leader Resigns After Socialist Group Exposes His Online Antisemitic CampaignThe head of an influential Turkish Muslim association in Germany resigned from his position on Thursday after his antisemitic social media postings were exposed by a left-wing group, vowing at the same time to clear his name.
Mustafa Keskin — the chairman of the branch of DITIB, a Turkish religious group, in the university city of Göttingen — tendered his resignation after his posts on various social media platforms were brought to light by Die Falken (The Falcons), a socialist youth organization.
In a post on its website headlined "Against All Antisemitism," the left-wing group said that it had been "horrified to discover that Mustafa Keskin, chairman of the Turkish Islamic Community of Göttingen, spreads antisemitic hate messages and conspiracy myths on WhatsApp and Facebook, incites against Kurds and Armenians, and refers positively to Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood."
The group noted that Keskin's "current WhatsApp profile features a picture depicting Donald Trump and Joe Biden as the 'old' and 'new' puppets, respectively, of investment bankers and, in the picture, 'puppet master' Jacob Rothschild."
"The Rothschild family has long functioned in antisemitic conspiracy myths and worldviews as a codeword for 'the Jews,' who dominate governments and the world through financial markets," the group explained.
Keskin's Facebook page, meanwhile, had featured "antisemitic and anti-Israel posts and images since 2013," the group reported. "In one personal post, for example, Israeli soldiers are referred to as 'Jewish dogs,' while other images and posts suggest that Jews and Israelis would specifically kill children. In addition, Keskin repeatedly uses identifying marks of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Keskin also makes derogatory comments toward Armenians and Kurds." Robert Halfon slams Bristol University inaction over Miller, saying 'history teaches us where this ends'The MP Robert Halfon has launched a scathing attack on Bristol University's failure to act over the conduct of Professor David Miller, suggesting "Jewish students are clearly not welcomed or safe or valued - and sadly history teaches us where this ends."
Speaking during Business Questions, the Education Select Committee chair referred to complaints made by Jewish students about the sociology professor's remarks and claimed "the university management cares nothing, sees nothing and does nothing about this.
"They appear to regard Jewish students as an inconvenience and a nuisance and refuse to take serious action."
Asking for an "urgent statement" from the Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg on the issue, the Harlow Tory MP said he had written to the vice chancellor of Bristol University this week to raise his concern at the failure to respond to Jewish student's complaints.
Responding, Mr Rees-Mogg confirmed he had passed the matter on to the Secretary of State and to the Universities Minister."We expect higher education providers to be at the forefront of tackling antisemitism, making sure it is a fulfilling experience for everyone," said the Leader of the Commons.
He also stressed the need for universities to have "robust policies and procedures in place" to swiftly investigate allegations of hate crimes.
In his letter to Professor Hugh Brady, the University of Bristol's President and Vice-Chancellor, Mr Halfon wrote that he was "extremely concerned that young Jewish students feel they are not supported by the University of Bristol and have had to go to such lengths to make themselves heard." Canadian newspaper deletes op-ed comparing COVID lockdown to Anne Frank's ordealThe Globe and Mail, a leading Canadian newspaper, has taken down an opinion piece comparing COVID-19 lockdowns to Anne Frank's experience as a hidden child during the Holocaust.
The piece was originally titled "I'm channeling Anne Frank's spirit in lockdown," and was published Wednesday by a contributing writer. The title was later changed before the piece was eventually deleted.
The essay acknowledged that Frank, who was hidden from the Nazis in an attic in Amsterdam for more than two years, was more confined than people currently experiencing COVID lockdowns.
Frank was 15 when she and her sister were killed in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her posthumously published diary has become one of the most widely-read accounts of the Holocaust.
"As my COVID fatigue has gotten the better of me in recent weeks I started to say to myself, 'What would Anne do?' or 'How would Anne describe this time?' and 'How would she cope?'" the Globe and Mail piece said.
Following backlash on social media, the Globe and Mail apologized and said the piece had been taken down. BBC NEWS COVERAGE OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL – FEBRUARY 2021The Israel Security Agency's report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during February 2021 shows that throughout the month a total of 92 incidents took place: 67 in Judea & Samaria, 24 in Jerusalem and inside the 'green line' and one in the Gaza Strip sector.
In Judea & Samaria and Jerusalem the agency recorded 80 attacks with petrol bombs, eight attacks using pipe bombs, one rock-throwing attack and two stabbing/assault attacks. In the Gaza Strip sector one shooting attack was recorded.
One civilian was injured in a rock throwing attack near Qalqilya on February 1st.
Visitors to the BBC News website during February saw no reporting whatsoever on the subject of Palestinian terrorism and in fact the last time any such coverage appeared was five months ago, in September 2020. UK school apologizes after homework assignment blames Jews for killing JesusThe director of a British educational website has apologized for and pulled offline a homework assignment in which Jews were blamed in the killing of Jesus.
Chris Spolton, who runs the Topmarks site, removed the assignment earlier this week following a complaint by a mother, Joanne Bell. Her 7-year-old son had been instructed by his religious studies teacher at school to complete the assignment before Bell saw it and flagged it on social media, the Daily Mail reported Thursday.
"What harm has it ever done to portray Jews as bloodthirsty and solely responsible for the death of the believed son of G-d, Jesus," she tweeted sarcastically.
The school whose teacher gave the assignment also apologized to Bell.
The assignment included a slide titled "The Trial of Jesus" saying that "the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus to be guilty" and "paid people to lie about him" and had him taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, on charges of insulting God. A second slide describes Pilate as bowing to the will of the Jewish masses and their "chief priests, who wanted Jesus to die," before agreeing to have Jesus crucified.
The Catholic Church in a 1965 document titled Nostra Aetate asserted that "the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ" but that this cannot be "charged" against Jews today or all the Jews who were alive during the Crucifixion.
Spolton made the slides 20 years ago when he was "young and naive," he wrote to Bell, and "based on books found in the local library." 'Annihilation' of Poland's Jewish cemeteries documented in provocative bookMost people assume that Poland's destroyed Jewish burial grounds were desecrated by the Nazis. An expert on Jewish cemeteries in Poland, however, said Polish citizens likely did more damage after the war than the country's German occupiers.
Called "The Annihilation of Jewish Cemeteries," author Krzysztof Bielawski's book — available in Polish — examines the erasure of Poland's Jewish cemeteries since World War II. So far, no book has linked Nazi-era destruction to the ensuing decades, said Bielawski, who is seeking Hebrew and English publishers.
"This work disproves a few myths, including the supposed mass destruction of cemeteries during Kristallnacht and a very common saying that 'cemeteries were totally destroyed by Germans,'" said Bielawski in an interview with The Times of Israel.
"In fact, even if a cemetery was devastated by the Nazis during the war, it was also destroyed by the local population," said Bielawski. "Giant destruction was done by the post-war Polish state."
About 20 years ago, when he was working as a travel agent in Warsaw, Bielawski, who is not Jewish, became fascinated with Jewish history. After creating a website about Jewish cemeteries in Poland, he pursued Jewish studies at the graduate level and joined the staff of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 2009.
During his years of research, Bielawski has found himself in the spotlight. Ten years ago, he reported that Jewish tombstones were used to build a Red Army plot in Warsaw's municipal cemetery. Media attention helped spur the transfer of the tombstones to the adjacent Brodno Jewish cemetery, where they "were broken up by the homeless who live in the cemetery," said Bielawski. Israeli robotic arms get FDA nod for minimally invasive hysterectomiesMemic Innovative Surgery, a medical device company, said it has received marketing authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for a robotic surgical device it has developed to perform transvaginal hysterectomies in patients.
The Hominis Surgical System developed by Memic features miniature humanoid-shaped robotic arms. It is intended for benign hysterectomy, or the removal of the uterus for non-cancerous conditions along with the removal of one or both fallopian tubes and ovaries.
"We are providing physicians and patients another minimally-invasive gynecologic surgical option for non-cancerous conditions," said Dr. Binita Ashar, director of the Office of Surgical and Infection Control Devices in the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, in a statement on March 1. "The FDA continues to support advancements in safe and effective medical devices that can improve patient experiences when undergoing surgical procedures."
Robotically assisted (RASD) surgical devices are not actually robots, the FDA explained in the statement. The devices cannot perform surgery without direct human control. RASD enable a surgeon to use computer and software technology to control and move surgical instruments through one or more tiny incisions in the patient's body in a variety of surgical procedures or operations. NBA Legend Charles Barkley Jokes About Losing Weight for the Hora at His Daughter's Jewish WeddingNBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has lost weight to make sure guests at his daughter's upcoming wedding to a Jewish entrepreneur can lift him up on a chair during the hora, he joked on Tuesday night.
The 6-foot-5 former professional basketball player, 58, told Jimmy Kimmel on his talk show, "I've been really working out hard because apparently they've got to pick me up in a chair" for the traditional Jewish dance. The "Inside the NBA" analyst added, "Listen, I need all Jewish people on deck, brother. Cause I can only get so skinny by Saturday, man. It's like I'm a soldier, all hands on deck."
Cristiana Barkley — Barkley's only daughter with wife Maureen Blumhardt — is marrying Ilya Hoffman, founder of the digital marketing company DemandByte, on Saturday.
Barkley said he's "so excited" about the upcoming nuptials and that he gets along with the groom's family, telling Kimmel, "I love his family. They're amazing people. They've been living in Long Island for a long time and it's gonna be a welcome addition to my family." Bahrain makes unique kippahDuring last week's unprecedented Purim event hosted by the AGJC a series of unique Bahraini Kippahs were on display. Ambassador Houda Nonoo wrote on Twitter, "wow, so many of you have reached out asking about the Bahraini Kippahs from last week's Purim event, and yes, these one-of-a-kind kippahs are made right here in #Bahrain. You can reach out to LilyB.of.LP.Bahrain@gmail.com for more information about them."
"Over the last few months, we've experienced an influx of Jewish tourists who are coming to Bahrain and want to visit our synagogue (the oldest in the Gulf) and Jewish cemetery (the only operational one in the Gulf) and that interest has further increased since the announcement of the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities last month," said Ambassador Houda Nonoo. "When they come visit, they often look for a souvenir to remember their time here. My cousin, Haydee Nonoo designed these kippot as a tribute to her late mother, Lily Bendahan."
The red and white kippahs, the same colors of the Bahrain flag, are one of many firsts in the region. The head coverings say "House of Ten Commandments" on them. "The Jewish community in Bahrain devised a special souvenir idea for Jewish visitors and sewed the dome of the 'Ten Commandments' named after the synagogue in Bahrain, Bahrain," a new report notes at Bhol.co.il .
The kippahs are designed for "House of the Ten Commandments" which is the name of the synagogue in Manama (Bahrain).
"We designed these kippahs in honour of our late mother, Lily, to whom Jewish traditions and values were a significant part of family life, and who loved visiting Bahrain, the kippahs are hand made locally in Bahrain, and all proceeds will go towards charitable causes in her memory," said Haydee Nonoo, founder of Lily B of LP Bahrain.
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| 03/05 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Biden abandons Middle East peace; French police prevent stabbing attack at Jewish school in Marseille; No Justice for Women Killed in Gaza Posted: 05 Mar 2021 10:05 AM PST From Ian: Caroline Glick: Biden abandons Middle East peaceThe Trump administration was on the verge of securing a peace agreement between Israel and Indonesia in its final weeks in office, according to a former senior Trump administration official involved in the efforts. The official divulged that the negotiations between Israel and the world's most populous Muslim state were run by then-President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner and Adam Boehler, then-head of the US's International Development Finance Corporation.
Israel was represented by then-Ambassador Ron Dermer and Indonesia by Minister Mohamed Lutfi. To secure peace, Boehler told Bloomberg News last December, the US would be willing to provide Indonesia with an additional "one or two billion dollars" in aid. Indonesia was interesting in Israeli technology and even wanted the Technion to open a campus in Jakarta. It wanted visa-free travel to the Jewish state and Arab and US investment in its sovereign wealth fund. Israel wanted Indonesia to end its economic boycott of the Jewish state. Direct flights from Tel Aviv to Bali were on the table.
The advantages of peace between Israel and Indonesia for both sides are self-evident. But such a peace would also pay a huge dividend to the US in its burgeoning cold war with China. An expanded strategic and economic partnership with the archipelago and ASEAN member would be a setback for China's efforts to dominate the South China Sea, particularly with Indonesia playing a role in an Islamic-Israeli alliance led by the US.
"We got the ball on Indonesia and Israel to the first-yard line," the official explained. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has dropped the ball on the ground and walked off the field.
On the surface, the Biden administration is interested in promoting peace. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have praised the Abraham Accords, as well they should.
For 26 years, the Arab conflict with Israel was ignored and left to fester. Then suddenly, in Trump's last year in office, the situation was reversed as four Arab states rapidly normalized their ties with Israel. Expanding the accords to Indonesia, with its massive population and strategic location outside the Middle East would transform a strategic regional shift into a game-changer throughout Asia.
But despite the strategic logic of expanding the Abraham Accords and the praise Biden and Blinken have given them, starting in its first week in office, the new administration's actions have served to undermine the accords by removing their American foundations. No Justice for Women Killed in GazaThe Family and Child Protection Department seeks to protect women who are subject to violence that poses a threat to their lives, by sending them to care centres or safe houses, until proper solutions have been found and reconciliation ensures they are not harmed.
Barsh attributes domestic violence and family disputes to the abuse of drugs on the part of the aggressors. She says society in Gaza is conservative, and crime is not a common occurrence. She adds that not all murders have motives, as in some cases people are killed by stray bullets.
The deaths of women in mysterious conditions in Gaza are ongoing. In every story of a new victim, there are details that people know nothing of except for what is said in the first hours following the crime.
Between the questions 'Why was she killed?' and 'Did she deserve to die?', the victims die twice, while the killers walk the streets with impunity thanks to a law that pulls their necks out of the gallows, and a society that accepts them again and sometimes hails them as heroes.
Every year, the number of missing women increases; some are murdered, some are said to have committed suicide, others die from a stray bullet or in mysterious circumstances. After the first news on the fate of the killer, the wave of public anger against them subsides. This continues in a vicious circle.
For the past ten years, women's institutions in Palestine have demanded the enactment of a family protection law in the Palestinian Territories. However, this is strongly objected to by some lawyers and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who have signed a petition rejecting the law. There have also been demonstrations rejecting it by some communities in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
This opens the door to doubts about the seriousness of the denouncements of the killing of women on the ground of defending honour, and the rejection of violence against women. French police prevent stabbing attack at Jewish school in MarseilleFrench police arrested a man who tried carrying out a stabbing attack at a Jewish school in Marseille, France on Friday morning, French media reported.
The attacker was turned away by the Yavne School security, made up of parents who serve as security on a volunteer basis, the Jewish Agency noted. The institution was immediately locked down with the students inside to ensure their safety. A police patrol car has been set up in front of the school building.
French police forces were alerted immediately, and instructed Jewish sites throughout the city to tighten security in light of the attempted attack.
After turned away from the school, the attacker tried to stab Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket in the city, where he was once again prevented from attacking anyone by the same security personnel.
"While the coronavirus has silenced the world in many ways, it has not silenced antisemitism, or the resulting danger for Jews," said Chairman of the Jewish Agency Isaac Herzog.  Seth Frantzman: The Middle East could be part of Biden's focus on great power rivalryIsrael has a message for the U.S. regarding these issues. A senior Israeli defense official recently told me how important U.S. commitments are: "There is no substitute for U.S. power and influence in the Middle East," he said. Any void left by the U.S. will be filled by other countries, such Russia or Iran. "Israel and the U.S. have an unshakeable bond based first on shared values," he noted. "U.S. bipartisan support is crucial to Israel's security. The special relationship with the U.S. is an essential part of Israel's national security, alongside the peace with Egypt, Jordan, [the United Arab Emirates] and Bahrain."
This important message conveys how the U.S. can see the region as part of a larger process of dealing with Russia and China. The challenge with Russia for the U.S. is about direct regional military influence, such as Russia's role in Syria. With China, the issue is more global economic trends, such as China's investment in ports and natural resources across Africa and into the Middle East.
The U.S. and Western allies can count on Israel in the Middle East. Israel has vowed to not allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, so any U.S. discussion with Russia about Syria or with Western allies about the Iranian nuclear deal must weigh that concern. Meanwhile, Israel has new peace deals in the Gulf and is building strategic ties with Greece and India. Israel can deal with Iran's proxy threats, such as Hezbollah, or Iran's role in the Syrian civil war, until the great powers choose to figure out a long-term agreement in Syria. An added concern is keeping an eye on Iran's role in Yemen and attacks on Saudi Arabia by the Iranian-backed Houthis. Once again, the Biden administration has signaled a shift in policy support for Riyadh's war in Yemen, but too much of a shift will embolden Iran and spread elsewhere from Yemen.
A cautious U.S. policy relying on local allies such as Israel, and also speaking to Russia about Iran's destabilizing role in Syria, while taking the Iranian nuclear threat seriously, can all fit into the wider worldview of the White House's desire to deprioritize the Middle East. But the Biden administration must be cautious not to embolden enemies. Threading that needle will be a real challenge for the U.S., its partners and allies. Seth Frantzman: Inside Iranian Gen. Soleimani's imminent threats that led to US airstrikeIn a recent 60 Minutes special on Iran's attack on US forces at al-Asad base in January 2020, details about Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani's threats are revealed.
Soleimani was killed by the US alongside Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 3, 2020. A drone was used to kill him. Soleimani was planning attacks on the US within hours or days of when he was killed, US Central Command head Gen. Frank McKenzie told the television news magazine. It was an imminent threat.
McKenzie noted that Soleimani had the blood of many Americans on his hands. "He was close to an indispensable man inside Iran. Where he went, violence and death followed." He had aided pro-Iranian groups in Iraq to kill more than 600 Americans after 2003. In 2019 and 2020, leading up to the US strike, there had been much tension with Iran and Soleimani.
There were warnings at the time that the killing could spark a war between the US and Iran. Tensions between them had been growing since May 2019. Iran had downed a US drone in June, and pro-Iranian militias fired dozens of rockets at US forces in Iraq. In December, a US contractor was killed.
The US launched airstrikes on the pro-Iranian militias. In response, Muhandis and other pro-Iranian leaders in Iraq, including Hadi al-Amiri, Falah al-Fayyadh and Qais Khazali, sent their members to storm the US Embassy compound. Washington then waited for Soleimani to appear, in a flight at night which arrived on January 3, and killed him.
It was not always clear if there was actionable intelligence about a direct threat from Soleimani at the time. Five key points on Israel's latest ICC war crimes clash - analysisHow strong is the case on Gaza?
The possibility of a war crimes suit against Israeli defense ministers and chiefs of staff and/or soldiers for alleged wrongdoings in Gaza sounds dramatic.
Bensouda had already stated her intention to examine war crimes charges against Israel for its action in the 2014 Gaza War, and against rioters along its southern border with Gaza during the Hamas-led "March of Return" that lasted from March 2018 until December 2019.
It is a danger that could pose an existential threat to Israel, because Jerusalem views IDF action in Gaza a matter of self-defense. It worries that any war crimes suits for such military action would undermine the IDF's ability to defend the state, which is under constant threat along three of its five borders.
But one of the factors the court will weigh is whether Israel has a domestic legal system that would investigate and/or adjudicate such issues. The ICC is considered to be an international tool that operates when no domestic court system exists, or when that system fails to deal with the issue.
But when it comes to Gaza, Israel has already held scores of preliminary investigations and criminal investigations. These would weigh heavily in Israel's favor, and could be a reason for Bensouda or her successor to reject war crimes suits against Israel with respect to Gaza.
Conversely, the issue of war crimes suits against Palestinians for rocket attacks against civilians are more likely to be advanced, precisely because the Palestinian legal system either in Gaza or the West Bank has no history of dealing with that matter.
How strong is the case on settlements?
The specter of a war crimes suit against Israel for settlement activity in the West Bank and Jewish building in Jerusalem sounds less dramatic. But it is precisely this issue that is most likely to be advanced to the next stage.
The Israeli courts and the government have upheld the legality of settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem, so there is a strong case for ICC involvement on this issue. The court would only be looking at settlement activity since June 13, 2014. The bulk of Jewish building over the pre-1967 lines occurred prior to that date. US Opposed to ICC Probe of Israel, Harris Tells NetanyahuVice President Kamala Harris, in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, reaffirmed US opposition to an International Criminal Court probe of possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories, the White House said.
The call, the first between the two since Harris and President Joe Biden took office in January, came a day after the ICC prosecutor said she would launch the probe, prompting swift rejections by Washington and Jerusalem.
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who will be replaced by British prosecutor Karim Khan on June 16, said in December 2019 that war crimes had been or were being committed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She named both the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas as possible perpetrators.
Harris and Netanyahu noted their governments' "opposition to the International Criminal Court's attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel," the White House said.
The two agreed to continue to cooperate on regional security issues, specifically Iran's nuclear program and "dangerous" behavior, the White House statement said.
Harris "emphasized the United States' unwavering commitment to Israel's security," the statement added.
Biden's bid to revive a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers sets him and Netanyahu on a potential collision course. The Israeli prime minister opposed the nuclear deal and applauded former President Donald Trump's decision to abandon it in 2018. Abbas praises ICC prosecutor's 'courage' in opening Israel war crimes probeThe PA president praised what he called "the independence and courage of the prosecutor in defending truth and freedom."
The announcement of the investigation came less than a month after the court ruled it had the jurisdiction to open a probe. A preliminary investigation to settle the justiciability question took more than five years.
"The investigation will cover crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court that are alleged to have been committed in the situation since 13 June 2014, the date to which reference is made in the referral of the situation to my office," Bensouda said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Any investigation undertaken by the office will be conducted independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favor," she added. US: Our Middle East allies don't get blank check to oppose US interestsThe Biden administration issued a warning this week to its allies in the Middle East not to oppose US policies and not to seek military solutions to the region's problems.
"We do not believe that military force is the answer to the region's challenges, and we will not give our partners in the Middle East a blank check to pursue policies at odds with American interests and values," it said in a document posted on the White House website that outlined its global strategic interests.
The document, titled, "Interim National Security Guidelines," was published as Israel has increasingly spoken of the possibility that it might have to use force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that the IDF was updating a military plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites if necessary. Israel and the Biden administration are at odds on how best to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power and to halt its regional and global support of terror activities.
While the two allies agree on the end goal, the Biden administration believes the best way forward is to rejoin the 2015 Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, designed to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions. Israel believes the deal only emboldens Iran and leaves it with the ability to become a nuclear power. Biden Admin to Restart Palestinian Aid as Payments to Terrorists FlowThe Biden administration will resume U.S. taxpayer aid to the Palestinians, even though the Palestinian government continues to use this money to pay convicted terrorists and their families.
State Department spokesman Ned Price confirmed this week that the administration will reverse a decision by former President Donald Trump to cut off American aid to the Palestinian government and United Nations organizations that provide services in the region. The United States now intends "to provide assistance that will benefit all Palestinians, including [Palestinian] refugees," Price said.
The decision comes as the Palestinian government continues to spend international aid dollars on a program known as "pay-to-slay," in which large portions of this money are spent caring for imprisoned terrorists and their families. The resumption of aid could also violate a 2017 bipartisan law passed by Congress that bars the American government from giving the Palestinian Authority taxpayer aid until it ends its terrorist payment program. The State Department has yet to explain how it will resume U.S. aid without violating that law, known as the Taylor Force Act.
A State Department official familiar with the matter told the Washington Free Beacon that "any decisions related to resuming assistance to the West Bank and Gaza will be consistent with requirements under relevant U.S. law."
The Palestinian government reportedly spent around $155 million on imprisoned terrorists in 2020 alone and has vowed to continue the program, despite U.S. laws such as the Taylor Force Act. Around 3.2 percent of the Palestinian Authority's budget was allocated to the program, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which monitors the government. Matt Duss expected to remain on Bernie Sanders' staffSen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) foreign policy advisor Matt Duss, who was previously rumored to be under consideration for a position in the Biden State Department, is expected to remain with Sanders instead of making the move to Foggy Bottom, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
This comes as Duss has boosted a series of tweets this week critical of the Biden administration's handling of foreign policy issues, including the decision not to punish Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and U.S. condemnation of the International Criminal Court's decision to open an investigation into Israel. On Wednesday, Duss retweeted a post from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) criticizing Secretary of State Tony Blinken's opposition to a recently announced investigation into Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza.
Some Hill staffers were skeptical that Duss was ever a serious candidate for a position in Foggy Bottom. "I think that was a progressive pipe dream advocated by the very far left and never seriously considered by Biden or Blinken," one congressional staffer, who asked to remain anonymous, told JI.
This week, the Sanders advisor started distributing a letter authored by Sanders to other Senate offices calling on Blinken to urge Israeli officials to do more to assist in the vaccinations of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Gantz on Fox News: Israel Prepared to Strike Iran's Nuclear SitesDefense Minister Benny Gantz told Fox News Thursday that Israel has identified many targets inside Iran whose elimination would damage the Islamic Republic's ability to develop a nuclear bomb (Israel updating plans to strike Iranian nuclear sites, Israeli defense minister tells Fox News).
"If the world stops them before, it's very much good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves," Gantz said.
As to Iranian's client terror militia Hezbollah, the defense minister warned it has hundreds of thousands of rockets and shared a classified map showing that many of these rockets are embedded in civilian locations on Israel's border.
"This is a target map. Each one of them has been checked legally, operationally, intelligence-wise and we are ready to fight," Gantz stated.
When asked for his opinion on the Biden administration's willingness to return to the Iran nuclear deal, Gantz responded: "The American policy should be American policy, and Israeli policy should stay Israeli policy." TV: Defense establishment probe finds no proof of Iran terror role in oil spillIsrael's security establishment is investigating the alleged Iranian link to the oil spill off Israel's coast that polluted most of the country's beaches, but has so far found no evidence of the claim that the spill was deliberate "environmental terrorism," Channel 12 reported Thursday evening.
The network said the Environmental Protection Ministry had handed over its report on the matter to security bodies, which were reviewing its findings. Sources in the defense establishment, however, were quoted as saying there was no indication the spill was deliberate.
The report added that Israel's intelligence apparatus has now also been recruited to look further into the claim of Iranian sabotage.
A Libyan-owned ship, the Emerald, was smuggling crude oil from Iran to Syria at the time of the spill, the Environmental Protection Ministry said in a statement Thursday, citing satellite images by the TankerTrackers monitoring group. The ship has since returned to Iran and is currently anchored there.
In an interview with Channel 12 on Thursday evening, Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel again insisted, without providing proof, that the spill constituted an Iranian terror attack on Israel. Thousands protest police response to Arab crime; dissident MK Abbas chased awayThousands of demonstrators marched Friday in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm to protest against what they called the police's failure to stem a rising tide of violence in Arab communities.
The latest weekly protest came after a particularly violent demonstration last week, when police fired rubber-coated bullets, tear gas, stun grenades and water cannons as they dispersed hundreds of demonstrators. At least 35 protesters were injured, including Joint List parliamentarian Yousef Jabareen and the city's mayor. Arab Israeli officials accused police of racist behavior and using excessive force and have demanded an investigation.
As the demonstration went on, police said some protesters began to launch fireworks and throw stones at officers on the scene. In videos, some demonstrators could be seen shooting firecrackers in the air.
Protesters charged on Friday morning that police had deliberately closed off main roads leading to Umm al-Fahm in order to prevent the demonstration from taking place.
"Police are preventing people from coming to Umm al-Fahm because they are scared by both the protestors and the criminal organizations," said Joint List head Ayman Odeh, who was at the protest.
In a sign of the widening cracks in Arab Israeli politics, dissident Arab MK Mansour Abbas sought to join the demonstration — only to be rebuffed by dozens of demonstrators calling for him to "get out." After some scuffles, Abbas's aides removed him from the scene. PLO says $15 million per month being paid in terror stipendsRamallah may have paid as much as NIS 600 million ($181 million) in 2020 in salaries to Palestinians imprisoned by Israel for security offenses — including terrorism — and their families, a Palestine Liberation Organization official said on Thursday.
"We pay around NIS 50 million ($15 million) per month in salaries," PLO Commissioner for Prisoners' Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr said in a phone call with The Times of Israel.
Ramallah has a longstanding policy of compensating Palestinians jailed by Israel for security offenses, as well as those wounded or killed by Israeli forces — including those killed while committing violent terror attacks.
Israel has long sought to clamp down on the practice, which it says encourages terror. As required by a 2018 law, Israel deducts the estimated cost of the stipends from tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority every month.
Abu Bakr did not immediately provide a precise figure for 2020 as a whole but agreed when The Times of Israel suggested an estimate of NIS 600 million ($181 million) for the past year, based on the monthly number he'd provided. "Yes, that's right," he said.
An Israeli military order imposes sanctions on any banks that allow Palestinians to collect the payments. After several delays, the order came into effect early in 2021. In order to avoid the sanctions, the PLO paid the salaries of prisoners three months in advance in late December. Seth Frantzman: Turkey tries insulting Egypt, Greece in imaginary maritime deal - analysisTurkey has invented a new "reconciliation," after attempts to spread propaganda stories of "reconciliation" with Israel failed last year.
In early December, after Ankara saw that Joe Biden had won the US presidential election and its days of working closely with Donald Trump were coming to an end, it sought to dupe Israel into a "maritime deal."
Israel already has close relations with Cyprus, Egypt and Greece and has delimitation of economic zones with them.
Israel, Greece and Cyprus are developing a pipeline following a deal they signed last year, and are part of a gas forum in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey sought to upset all these relationships in December 2019 by signing a deal with Libya, reaching across all the peaceful agreements that Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Egypt have, to grab greater control of the sea.
Greece and Egypt signed a deal in August, after condemning Turkey's provocative actions at sea in May along with France, the UAE and Cyprus. Turkey responded by threatening Greece, and the countries came close to a potential conflict. France was involved as well.
Then Ankara shifted gears from threats to spreading false news stories. It engineered stories in the Israeli media in which Cyprus disappeared from Mediterranean rights of water and exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and Turkey and Israel would have a magic deal over maritime borders.
But Israel rejected the deal. It is not Turkey's neighbor across the sea, despite the maps that Turkey tried to present that ignored Cyprus. Now Turkey has done the same thing by trying to implicate Egypt. This comes after the Philia forum in Athens, where it was clear how Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, France and other countries are growing more closely into an alliance system of shared interests. Turkish Textbooks Increasingly Demonize Israel and Zionism, Refer to Jews as 'Infidels,' Says New ReportA new report has found that the latest editions of Turkish school textbooks take a strongly negative view of Israel and now describe Jews as "infidels."
The report by IMPACT-se, which examines education materials on the basis of UNESCO standards related to peace, human rights, and tolerance, has found an increasing "Islamization" of the Turkish curriculum, in accordance with the Islamist AKP government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In the textbooks, three categories of human beings are posited: Muslim "believers;" Muslim "hypocrites" who try to tempt Muslims to sin; and "infidels," consisting of all non-Muslims.
The report notes that previous curricula have referred to Jews as "people of the book," but Jews are now referred to solely as "infidels," as are Christians.
Marcus Sheff, the CEO of IMPACT-se, commented, "We have identified a marked deterioration in Turkish textbooks since our last review in 2016."
"School books have been weaponized in Erdogan's attempts to Islamize Turkish society and to hark back to a nostalgic age of Turkish domination," he said. "We note increased demonization of Israel and antisemitic aspersions that must make Turkish-Jewish school students feel unsafe."
The group's report found that several incendiary attacks on Israel by Erdogan, such as those made after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in 2008, appear in the textbooks. The Palestinian cause is promoted throughout, and students are encouraged to support and take part in it. Gantz: IDF updating military plans for potential strike on Iran nuclear sitesDefense Minister Benny Gantz on Thursday said the Israel Defense Forces is continuously updating its plans for a prospective military strike on Iranian nuclear sites.
Gantz, in an interview with Fox News, said the military plans would not be finalized until right before such a strike was set to be carried out.
"Until then, we will continue to build them [the plans], to improve them… to the highest professional level possible," he said.
"If the world stops them [Iran] before, it's much the better. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves," added the defense minister.
Israel has twice conducted military strikes against the nuclear programs of its enemies — Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 — under what's become known as the Begin Doctrine, which maintains that Jerusalem will not allow an enemy country to obtain an atomic weapon.
Gantz has previously warned Israel would carry out a military strike against Iran, if necessary.
His comments came as the US seeks to reenter the Iran nuclear deal. The Islamic Republic has been openly violating the agreement clinched in 2015, stepping up uranium enrichment far beyond permitted levels. It recently barred international inspectors from its nuclear sites. Biden Declares War on Iran After Ayatollah Reads 'The Cat in the Hat' (satire)President Joe Biden has withdrawn his offer to enter nuclear talks with the Islamic Republic of Iran and officially declared war after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei read the Dr. Seuss classic 'The Cat in the Hat' at a Friday sermon.
The sermon started innocently enough, with the Ayatollah declaring "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and promising to hang any unveiled woman or homosexual that set foot in the country. But Khamenei's remarks then turned ugly, as the supreme leader started reciting the words to the recently maligned children's book.
"As the great infidel Tabib Seuss once wrote, 'Something went bump! How that bump made us jump!' Khamenei shouted to a cheering crowd. "Well, when we finally build a nuclear bomb, I will unleash a bump that will make every Jew, Crusader and infidel in the West jump like never before."
Upon hearing reports of the speech, Biden immediately sprung into action, sending warships to the Persian Gulf and preparing for a mass invasion.
"These Iranians are a bunch of Neanderthals," Biden fumed. "Don't they know that 98% of human Dr. Seuss characters are white, and that by promoting his work they are decentering marginalized people of color? C'mon man!"
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