| Kuwait seeks to strengthen boycott law to criminalize saying anything nice about Israelnoreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 29 Jun 04:45 AM The Kuwaiti pa | | The Kuwaiti parliament is considering adding amendments to the existing 1964 law boycotting Israel to make it illegal to even hint that one wants peace or saying anything nice about Israel.
Here is what the proposed law would entail: The proposed law prohibits all forms of dealing, normalization of ties, and conclusion of any agreements, protocols, and meetings of any nature with the Zionist entity or any its organizations around the world either directly or indirectly. It prohibits citizens and residents from sympathizing, participating, or calling for dealing or normalization through any means or insinuation that calls for cooperation, communication, contact, participation, or dealing with the Zionist entity and its organizations. It criminalizes travel to Israel either with a passport or without a passport, as well as all kinds of support, glorification, promotion or propaganda for any cultural, media, religious, social and other business transactions under any other name in covert or explicit dealings with the Zionist entity by any means. The proposed law punishes those who violate its provisions with imprisonment for a period between one year and three years and/or a fine of maximum KD 5,000.
It sounds like any Israeli can really mess with Kuwaitis by tweeting at them or commenting on their Facebook pages - starting anonymously, getting them to respond, and then...Read More |
Earlier this month, when the nation briefly noticed the attacks on Jews that crested during the 11 day Gaza war, the Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators issued a statement condemning antisemitism: The SCBWI unequivocally recognizes that the world's 14.7 million Jewish people (less than 0.018% of the population) have the right to life, safety, and freedom from scapegoating and fear. No person should be at risk because of their heritage, religion, disability, or whom they love. In the last several years, antisemitism has been on the rise globally, and has fueled a 75% increase in hate speech and random violence against Jewish people in the last few weeks alone. Because antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred, it has its own name. It is the example from which many forms of racism and violence are perpetrated. As writers, illustrators, and translators of children's literature, we are responsible for promoting equity and humanizing people in our work-all children and all families. Silence is often mistaken for acceptance and results in the perpetration of more hatred and violence against different types of people. As proof, it saddens us that for the 4th time this year we are compelled to invite you to join us in not looking away and in speaking out against all forms of hate, including antisemitism. #StopAntisemitism #StopJewishHate #NeverAgain #UniteAgainstAntisemitism...Read More |
From Ian: Truth can conquer ignorance about Zionism, antisemitism Young adults fresh out of school understand the anxiety associated with taking a test. The amount of preparation can be daunting. But when it comes to taking a test about antisemitism, Judaism or Israel, how much do young adults really know these days? I framed this question at the first B'nai B'rith Portugal European Young Leaders Program on June 21 at the new Oporto Holocaust Museum, the first such institution in the country. The adults in the audience, young and older, certainly could relate to the universal pressures of taking an important test, whether their subjects were marketing, management or dentistry. But in a time when young adults generally are far less knowledgeable or savvy about such matters as Judaism and the Jewish state, one wonders more broadly how prepared the next generation is to handle the challenges facing them on college campuses or in the workplace, where Jews have felt pressures heaped on them recently by antagonizing and attacking anti-Israel/antisemitic forces. Sadly, most students are woefully ill-prepared or ill-informed about such matters, leaving them vulnerable to believing whatever they are told by peers, and fearful as to what attacker may lurk around the corner. Perhaps students, armed with the truth, would be able to defend themselves. Clearly, the Jewish people have...Read More |
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have literally no one with any serious military experience yet they confidently talk about "war crimes" without knowing what kinds of decisions military commanders have to make with limited information.
International law takes these things into account, but "human rights" organizations do not - and therefore make flawed analyses all the time.
The New York Times' report on Israel's bombing of Wehda Street, which relied on an Israel-hating Amnesty "expert," is what prompted me to make this. * * * * * *
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This morning, former member of Congress Cynthia McKinney tweeted this: Despite the word "Zionists," this is so obviously antisemitic that it shouldn't require any explanation. It is a classic trope, with the word "Zionists" pasted in to replace "Jews."
Also this morning, I made this poster, after reading this article in Newsweek by Gil Troy: As I pointed out last week, there are only two "supremacies" that Amnesty refers to in its site: white and Jewish. This is antisemitism. It is up to the Left to fight Leftist antisemitism, but they are so frightened of being canceled or labeled Islamophobes or whatever that they only reluctantly point out the most egregious examples and sweep the rest under the rug. Where are those that truly will speak truth to power? * * * * * *
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From Ian: New York Times Video Whitewashing Hamas Is Condemned as 'Shocking' 'Hatchet Job' The New York Times is being condemned for publishing a nearly-15-minute long propaganda video criticizing Israel for an attack that "could be a war crime." The video, headlined, "Gaza's Deadly Night: How Israeli Airstrikes Killed 44 People," carries the bylines of a staggering ten people: "Evan Hill, Ainara Tiefenthäler, John Ismay, Christiaan Triebert, Soliman Hijjy, Phil Robibero, Drew Jordan, Yousur Al-Hlou, Christoph Koettl and Patrick Kingsley." The video, in typical Times style, is full of self-congratulatory and self-referential hype. "The Times spent more than a month investigating these attacks to find out what went wrong," a narrator solemnly intones. "It was a complicated and intense month-long team effort." But, also in typical Times style, all this work by all these people ultimately delivers not much. "Experts say that the type of Israeli strikes we documented can easily lead to catastrophe and could be a war crime," the script for the documentary speculates. "Could be?" After all that effort the Times can't even find an expert to say it "is," a war crime, just that it "could" be? And the expert turns out to be from the notoriously anti-Israel group Amnesty International: "Saleh Higazi of Amnesty International said that Israel should have foreseen...Read More |
There have been numerous attacks on journalists during anti-government rallies in he West Bank over the past few days. Undercover Palestinian police and Fatah members have been filmed attacking journalists, destroying cameras, and many journalists have been injured.
A number of journalists protested by cutting up their press cards, saying that the Palestinian Union of Journalists have not been protesting and protecting them. Finally, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate issued a statement condemning the PA for these attacks on journalists. They called on the PA to dismiss the current police chief, and they called for a clear apology. They said that journalists will not cover news about the government or presidency until these demands are met.
This is, as far as I know, unprecedented. The media (outside Gaza) has always been in the pocket of the PA government.
I've never seen the PA this shaky. The government insists it created a commission of inquiry into the death of Nizar Banat but no one believes that it will be impartial. The PA has also staged pro-government demonstrations and heavily covered them in their own media, while ignoring the anti-government demonstrations, which is fooling no one.
The current protests are of a different nature than...Read More |
Dr. Alex Safian of the BESA Center does an interesting analysis to estimate how many Gazans were killed by Hamas rockets that fell short last month. By calculating the lethality of Gaza rockets that fell in Israel, correcting for those intercepted by Iron Dome, assuming that the population density of the targets in Israel is roughly the same as that of Gaza as a whole, and knowing the number of rockets that landed in Gaza (680), he estimates that some 91 Gazans were killed from Gaza rockets - 36% of those killed in total in the war.
I had done a similar estimate a couple of weeks ago, although I made a mistake in saying that 12 Israelis had been killed directly by rockets - the number is 9, so my initial estimate would have been almost identical of 90 killed. However, I don't think Safian is taking into account the fact that, according to the IDF, most of the rockets that landed in Gaza fell towards the periphery of the sector, which is less populated and much of it is farmland or the Israeli-enforced no-go zone. Very few Gaza rockets fell in Gaza City, Rafah or Khan Yunis, the largest cities. Many, however, fell in Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia.
It that sense, I think that Safian's analysis falls short.
Interestingly, a similar graphic from the IDF during the...Read More |
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