In Israel, in contrast, the left is post-religious and ideologically bankrupt. Its two gods – peace and surrender – came crashing down 20 and 15 years ago, respectively. The failure of the Camp David peace summit in July 2000 and the start of the Palestinian terror war in September 2000 killed the religion of peace. The left's "unilateral withdrawal" god was shattered when months after Israel expelled its citizens from Gaza and handed the area over to the PLO in August 2005, Hamas seized power and embarked on a war against Israel that has yet to end.
Although bereft of an ideological message to sell the public, the Left in Israel has considerable power. Its control over Israel's deep state – including the entire legal system – is far more comprehensive than the American Left's control over its state apparatuses.
The Israeli Left controls most media organs, the universities, and cultural institutions. It has a limitless funding from foreign governments and private foundations in Europe and the US.
And the Israeli Left has demonstrators who are willing to cause mayhem to promote hatred of Netanyahu.
Like their American counterparts, the demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are happening in the context of the pandemic. The demonstrators have hitched a ride on the economic distress the pandemic has induced. They also benefit from the closure of the public sphere.
With the bars and nightclubs shut down – and all travel abroad blocked until further notice – young people looking for a way to get together have only one option. The anti-Netanyahu demonstrations are the only parties in the country.
No matter who wins in November, it's hard to see how the situation in the US will stabilize and how order will be restored. The rise of progressive politicians at the expense of moderate Democrats indicates the radicalization of the American Left is not a flash in the pan. One electoral cycle won't fix what has been broken incrementally over five decades.
In Israel, in the absence of an ideological Left, the main and most tangible danger posed by the demonstrations is that one of the incited protesters will try to kill Netanyahu and his family. Threats to assassinate the prime minister and his wife and children have proliferated on social media as the massively and sympathetically covered protests have grown more incendiary.
But as far as Israeli society as a whole in concerned, so long as Netanyahu and his family remain safe, the protests are not likely to gain much traction. The public on both the Right and the Left are more moderate than they were 25 years ago. Netanyahu's public resilience – despite the Left's 25-year campaign to destroy him – is proof of the limits of the Left's power.
There are many conservative commentators on the right side of America's unbridgeable political divide that believe the US public will respond at the ballot box to the violence in their streets by reelecting Trump. Author Victor Davis Hanson wrote this week about the coming "counter-revolution."
In Israel's case, elections, and counter-revolutions, while necessary to enact the reforms required to rein in the deep state and restore Israel's democratic order, probably won't be needed to end the demonstrations. How many people will choose to stand outside screaming once the pubs reopen?
Amnesty International is a human rights NGO lionized by the media that disproportionately singles out Israel for condemnation. Even when occasionally denouncing human rights violations in other Middle Eastern countries, it endeavors to impute much of the responsibility directly or indirectly to the Jewish State.
Lately Amnesty has been targeting Israel through its fixation on Pegasus, a software that can be "injected" into smartphones to track the user's location, calls, messages, etc. (a technique known as "spear phishing"). Pegasus was developed by NSO Group, an Israeli cybersecurity company founded in 2010 for combating the incessant terrorist attacks that target Israel's civilian population. It was, and continues to be, instrumental in saving the lives and limbs of countless men, women and children.
It stood to reason that this important tool could be equally effective in preventing terrorist attacks all over the world, as well as disrupting drug and human trafficking and various other crimes. To minimize the possibility of it being misused, the company chose to sell this and other technologies only to "authorized governments," more recently "in alignment to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights."
The Israeli Defense Ministry licenses the export of Pegasus to foreign governments but not to private entities. To cite just one of numerous examples, the Mexican government reportedly recaptured the notorious drug lord El Chapo in 2014 by means of the Pegasus software.
It is common knowledge that even life-saving medications may cause undesirable and at times dangerous side-effects. Penicillin and acetaminophen can and have caused deaths. Practically no human inventions, including software programs, are totally and predictably risk-free or immune from misuse.
That was the case with Amnesty's allegation that Saudi Arabia used Pegasus to spy on, and later murder, Jamal Khashoggi, according to analyses performed by Citizen Lab at the behest of Amnesty that indicated that certain "domain names point[ed] to websites that appear to be part of NSO's Group's Pegasus infrastructure."
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the uncertainty provided by words such as "appear to be" is often absent in Amnesty's reports, as are other Citizen Lab caveats like "apparently," "believe" and "suspected."
In March 1965, the West German Bundestag overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to bring to an end the hunt for Nazi war criminals and introduce a statute of limitations for their crimes.
The months leading up to the debate had seen a wave of opposition to the plans across the world. Thousands took to the streets from Tel Aviv to Toronto and Los Angeles to London. Nobel Prize winners, politicians, playwrights and the future Pope Benedict XVI raised their voices in protest. And in Germany, a bitter and divisive national debate broke out about how the country should atone for its sins and how widespread the responsibility for them truly lay.
But in those months another effort had also been launched to derail the German proposals. Hatched in secret by Israel's intelligence chiefs and approved by prime minister Levi Eshkol, it was one that was nonetheless designed to focus the world's attention on the hundreds, if not thousands, of perpetrators who had never seen the inside of a courtroom or prison cell — and likely never would if the Bundestag approved the statute.
It was also an effort in which Israel itself would act as judge, jury and executioner. Israel's foreign intelligence agency the Mossad, it was decided, would hunt down and kill Herberts Cukurs — the "Butcher of Riga" — who was accused of being personally responsible for the deaths of at least 30,000 Latvian Jews.
Cukurs's assassination, for which Israel would claim no responsibility, would publicize and punish his terrible crimes. It would serve, too, as a warning of the kind of rough justice that would be meted out to others if Germany provided an amnesty to war criminals.
The story of the mission to kill Cukurs is told in journalist and author Stephan Talty's new book, "The Good Assassin: Mossad's Hunt for the Butcher of Latvia." It is a brilliantly written, heart-stopping, and, at times, heartbreaking tale; one that crosses continents from the "bloodlands" of Eastern Europe to the jungles of South America.
At the center of Talty's retelling lie two men: Cukurs and the undercover agent dispatched by Mossad to ensnare him, Yaakov "Mio" Meidad.
Known in the agency as "the man with the hundred identities," Meidad was a German-born Jew whose parents had perished in the death camps. He had helped abduct Adolf Eichmann and bring him to Israel for trial.
Talty, who first encountered the story of the mission when reading Ronen Bergman's "Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations," was fascinated by both Cukurs and Meidad, as well as the events that had brought them together.
"It was this idea that these two characters existed on either side of a terrible historical moment and now they had to meet, and Mio had to basically form a friendship with someone who was sort of the face of the 'ordinary men' of the Holocaust," Talty told The Times of Israel.
Nick Cannon and Bari Weiss exploded into the news within a day of each other this month. So perhaps it is only fitting that the entertainer, who found himself in hot water after making anti-Semitic comments on his podcast, ended the month by reviewing the former New York Times writer's 2019 book, "How to Fight Anti-Semitism."
Cannon apologized after his remarks came to light and promised to educate himself about Judaism and anti-Semitism. In addition to meeting with a rabbi whose focus is on combating anti-Semitism, he also committed to reading Weiss' book.
Today, he posted his review on Instagram "after a full day of fasting, meditation, study and prayer honoring for the first time Tisha B'av," calling the book "an insightful and powerful read."
In his post, he said he had learned about Weiss — who resigned from the New York Times in an open letter that accused the newspaper of fostering a hostile workplace — because she had retweeted a story that criticized him. He wrote:
"In this insightful read, the words that stood out to me were "Anti-Semitism is fueled by the malicious but often feeds on the ignorance of the well-intentioned." Asking myself, is she talking about me? Knowing that my intentions have never been hateful but recently I had fallen into the same category that the author despises and writes about like Henry Ford, Charles Coughlin, and more recently the abhorrent American Terrorist Robert Bowers, who on Oct. 27, 2018 murdered 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the author's home neighborhood in Pittsburgh, which ultimately inspired her to write this book. …
"In her solutions to fighting Anti-Semitism she suggests building community, loving your neighbor and praising those who do the right thing, along with not 'worshiping the group over the dignity of the individual in fear of worshiping another false deity.' … So TOGETHER let's bring Light into this world and get rid of what is known as its oldest hatred."
Nick Cannon says criticism of his recent antisemitic comments has inspired him to read Bari Weiss pic.twitter.com/oHFZ60BhCC
The Voice, a British weekly aimed at the African-Caribbean community, pulled an interview with the rapper Wiley in which he repeated antisemitic tropes about Jews.
But in a statement Friday, the paper defended its decision to publish the interview.
"The Voice has not, and makes it clear again, supported or in any way condoned the outbursts by Wiley that the Jewish community finds offensive," the statement said. "We do not support the stereotyping of any race or group."
But the paper said that its role was to give voice to Black Britons and that should not be construed as an endorsement of every view it publishes.
"As a black media outlet, we are here to give our people a voice," the statement said. "That doesn't mean we will always agree with everything that is published."
Wiley, who this week was banned from Twitter and Facebook over his views, said of British Jews: "They see us as slaves."
Speaking about Jews, Wiley also wondered in the interview "why all of these families are rich, or all of these people have heritage, not just England, like, worldwide." The interview followed Wiley's apology for previous remarks about Jews.
In the article, the paper's arts and entertainment editor, Joel Campbell, weighed Wiley's claims that Black artists depend on Jewish lawyers to succeed.
The pop star and producer Mark Ronson has hit back at claims made by the antisemitic rapper Wiley about Jewish domination of the music industry.
Reacting to the publication of the inflammatory interview with the Grime star published by black newspaper The Voice, Mr Ronson tweeted: "Jews do not run the music business in some secret cabal (and if they do it's mad f**ked up i havent been invited yet). [sic]"
The musician - best known for his Uptown Funk hit and his work with Amy Winehouse - also took issue with comments made by the Voice journalist, who wrote of claims "you need to get a Jewish lawyer in order to progress in the music business".
Mr Ronson, who has regularly discussed his pride over his Jewish background, responded by tweeting: "MY LAWYER IS ITALIAN. My label is run by a Gentile, & owned by a Japanese board."
Addressing Wiley's claims that Jewish music business executives were responsible for offering contracts that left artists being treated like slaves, Mr Ronson wrote: "Many of us know that record deals can often be some of the most god-awfully unfair contracts in business.
"But that shitty record contract Wiley's talking about? I promise my own record contract contains ALL the same standard shitty terms."
He then criticised The Voice for the tone of the article, published on Wednesday, saying: "Throwing fuel on the fire with poorly researched articles that perpetuate dangerous myths by pretending to pose questions is not the way forward."
Mr Ronson added: "We must address systematic racism."
Biden and his surrogates say they intend to act quickly on the following:
– Middle East: Restore assistance to the Palestinian Authority that the Trump administration has eliminated, as well as to agencies that support Palestinian refugees. Biden hasn't said he will reverse Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital or return the embassy to Tel Aviv.
– United Nations: Restore US membership in UN agencies such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and possibly the UN Human Rights Commission.
– Europe: Tone down rhetoric Trump has used to berate and insult European allies. Biden can be expected to try to warm relations among NATO partners.
– Africa: Try to raise America's profile on the continent, which has become a new battleground for competition with China.
– Asia: Revert to a traditional US stance supporting the presence of American troops in Japan and South Korea. Biden has also criticized Trump's personal relationship with Kim.
– Latin America: Cancel Trump administration agreements that sent asylum-seeking immigrants to Mexico and other countries while they await court dates and halt all new construction of the southern border wall. Biden also wants to restart Obama-era engagement with Cuba.
Fifteen European countries have issued a formal diplomatic complaint to the Foreign Ministry over construction in the E1 area and Givat Hamatos.
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and the EU issued the demarche in a video conference, reiterating their "grave concerns" about the construction in the areas in and around Jerusalem.
"Settlements are illegal under International Humanitarian Law," the French Embassy in Israel tweeted. "Any further settlement construction in this strategically sensitive area will have a devastating impact on a contiguous Palestinian State, as well as severely undermining the possibility of a negotiated two-state solution in line with internationally agreed parameters."
Givat Hamatos is in Jerusalem's municipal lines on the southern end of the capital, adjacent to Gilo, Beit Safafa and Ramat Rachel, while E1 is to the east, between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim.
Israel recently authorized the construction of over 1,000 housing units in Givat Hamatos, while plans to build thousands more homes in the neighborhood are at various stages of the authorization process.
Earlier last week, Peace Now claimed that Israel plans to promote 3,412 new homes in E1; the organization plans to file an objection to the plan, together with NGO Ir Amim.
Past plans to build in the E1 area have been brought up several times since former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin first advanced it, but were always frozen due to international pressure.
US House of Representatives passed on Friday an aid package to Israel valued at $500 million designated for assistance to Israel in missile-defense, JNS reported.
The financial aid will mostly go towards the Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow missile defense systems.
$500,000,000 shall be for the Israeli Cooperative Programs...for the procurement of the Iron Dome defense system to counter short-range rocket threats...for the Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense (SRBMD) program... for co-production activities of Arrow 3 Upper Tier systems in the United States and in Israel," the bill specified.
The funds allocated are part of the 2016 MOU between the countries, worth $38 billion over a decade.
Apart from the missile defense systems, out of the total budget, $47.5 million will be allocated towards anti-tunnel technology cooperation, $4 million for new US-Israel collaboration on coronavirus research and $6 million for joint US-Israel cooperative programs in energy and water, according to JNS.
The bill will next head to the Senate, where it is expected to be ammended.
The White House on Friday blasted Twitter for allowing tweets by Iran's supreme leader calling for Israel's destruction to be posted without censorship, with Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany saying the social media company's police was "appalling."
A Twitter official on Wednesday told the Israeli Knesset that such tweets by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei do not violate the company's rules against hate speech, and indicated that they are considered mere "foreign policy saber-rattling."
Asked about Twitter's statement on the matter, McEnany drew a comparison between the company's stance toward Iran and the position it has taken toward controversial tweets by US President Donald Trump, some of which which have recently received warning labels and other restrictions from the company for violating its rules.
"I thought it was very eye opening and it tells you where these social media companies stand, where they're not willing to assess the Ayatollah Khomeini's tweets but they are willing to assess President Trump's tweets," McEnany said.
"It's really appalling and it just speaks to their overwhelming, blinding bias against conservatives and against this president," she added.
McEnany noted that the administration was seeking to take action, submitting a petition to the Federal Communications Commission "to hold social media companies accountable for their censorship" by making them liable to "civil lawsuits for their own speech, fact checks and de-platforming."
Stores could be open next weekend, the skies by mid-August and schools on September 1, as Israel's new coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu – or as he likes to be known, "director of the Shield of Israel program" – leads a new coronavirus decision-making process.
The Health Ministry announced Friday that Israel will soon have a uniform procedure for determining when and how to establish restrictions at places of work, cultural events and even synagogues. The plan will begin to be formulated by Health Ministry director-general Chezy Levy and Gamzu, along with the relevant parties from the various government ministries, at the start of this week.
According to the Health Ministry, "round tables" will be convened and relevant parties will meet as often as three times a week to make decisions effectively and coherently about restrictions.
Among the discussions expected to happen this coming week: Opening schools and the skies. In an interview with N12's Dana Weiss, Gamzu said that opening schools is a "complicated question," but one that he plans to deeply investigate in the coming week with hopes that "we will have a decision by the end of the week."
Last week, Gamzu said in a separate interview that he believed schools could open by September 1.
Also, he said there will be discussions about opening the skies by mid-August, at least for visitors from green states and maybe to travelers from additional locations, as well.
The World Health Organization on Saturday warned the coronavirus pandemic was likely to be "lengthy" after its emergency committee met to evaluate the crisis six months after sounding the international alarm.
The committee "highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic," the WHO said in a statement, and warned of the risk of "response fatigue" given the socio-economic pressures on countries.
The panel gathered Friday for the fourth time over the coronavirus crisis, half a year on from its January 30 declaration of a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) — the WHO's highest level of alarm.
"WHO continues to assess the global risk level of COVID-19 to be very high," said its latest statement.
"The committee highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts."
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 680,000 people and infected at least 17.6 million since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
Unsurprisingly, the panel, comprising 18 members and 12 advisers, unanimously agreed that the pandemic still constituted a PHEIC.
The 2020 state budget will not be presented on Sunday, rendering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans for passing two one-year budgets nearly impossible to carry out and increasing the likelihood of another general election.
"The prime minister will not bring the budget for a vote tomorrow," Finance Minister Israel Katz told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night. "We are ready to present the budget. The prime minister will make a decision in the upcoming days."
Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz has insisted on passing one two-year budget and preventing Netanyahu from using the failure to pass a budget to enable the initiation of an election in which Netanyahu would serve as caretaker prime minister.
Sources close to Gantz said on Saturday night that they were not surprised that Katz backed down from his promise to present a budget on Sunday, but did not rule out reaching a compromise to end the political impasse.
"We hope a solution will be found but to say we are optimistic would be an exaggeration," a source close to Gantz said.
The deadline for completing the process of passing a budget into law is August 25, 100 days after the formation of the government. If neither a budget, nor a bill to extend the deadline is passed by then, an election in November would be initiated automatically, which would be Israel's fourth election in under 19 months.
An undercover police officer was reportedly injured by a rock thrown at the group by the anti-Netanyahu protesters. Speaking to Jaffa Precint Commander, Chief Superintendent Yitzhak Cohen on N12, Sekler accused police of collaborating with the attackers, allegedly affiliated with the far-right La Familia group.
"The officers did not understand who is who when looking at the group fleeing the scene," Cohen told Sekler. "A rock was thrown, and had it hit [the officer's] head, the damage would have been more significant," he added.
"The reason why that officer was injured was that he was walking within the attackers group, with them," Sekler said, responding to Cohen. "I came up to the officers asking for help, and they refused."
Three members of the group were arrested by law enforcement after being identified on video footage from the incident. They were subsequently freed from police custody following a court hearing, as the judge said it was unclear who started the fight.
Following the violent incident, Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz said violence between conflicting factions could lead to a civil war. "Violence against protesters could lead to civil war," Gantz said in an interview with Channel 13 last week. "We must stop this hatred and incitement."
Gantz continued, saying neither Netanyahu's supporters nor those rallying against him "can engage in this hatred of the other," adding that former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin "was not assassinated because of hate on the Left."
President Reuven Rivlin also warned of an escalation of political violence in Israel, saying the "murder of a demonstrator protesting in Israel nor that of an Israeli prime minister are not imaginary scenarios."
Slaughterhouses typically crowded with Palestinian Muslims buying sheep for the annual Eid al-Adha "feast of sacrifice" were nearly empty this week as coronavirus curbs weigh on the economy in the disputed West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has imposed a partial lockdown over areas under its control to battle a surge in new cases, forcing many businesses to close and sending unemployment to an estimated 18 percent.
"Who exactly can afford (sheep) to sacrifice?" livestock merchant Daoud Ebayat asked at a hillside market in Bethlehem. "People are unable to cover expenses for their children, there's no work."
Around 115,000 sheep and ten thousand calves were sold during Eid al-Adha in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem last year, according to ministry data.
But with many out of work, and public servants on reduced pay as the PA attempts to weather a financial crisis, local officials say sheep sales have plummeted.
"There will be a decrease, some are saying, of about 20% or more," said Tareq Abu Laban, an official at the Palestinian agriculture ministry, noting that final figures were not yet available.
— Eye On Antisemitism ✡️ (@AntisemitismEye) July 31, 2020
Dear one-staters, whether on the right, who think Israel could afford to annex West Bank or large swaths of it, or those on the left, who believe that a single Israel/Palestine would be a utopia of equality and co-existence, this is how it ends. Take note.https://t.co/ueerpMWNzM
Iran on Saturday said it had detained a leader of a little-known California-based opposition group for allegedly planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry also alleged Jamshid Sharmahd of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran planned other attacks around the Islamic Republic amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US over its collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
It remains unclear how Sharmahd, whom Iran accused of running the opposition group's Tondar militant wing, ended up detained by intelligence officials. Requests for comment sent by email to the Glendora-based Kingdom Assembly of Iran were not immediately answered and a telephone number for the group no longer worked.
Iranian state television broadcast a report on Sharmahd's arrest, linking him to the 2008 bombing of the Hosseynieh Seyed al-Shohada Mosque in Shiraz. It also said his group was behind a 2010 bombing at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran that wounded several people.
The report also alleged without providing evidence that Tondar, or "Thunder" in Farsi, also plotted attacks on a dam and planned to use cyanide bombs at Tehran's annual book fair.
The Kingdom Assembly of Iran, known in Farsi as Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran, and Tondar seek to restore Iran's monarchy, which ended when the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country in 1979 just before its Islamic Revolution. The group's founder disappeared in the mid-2000s.
Tasnim revealed the same details put out by France24, including that the group was founded by someone whose whereabouts are unknown and that Sharmahd is a more recent leader. It also accused the group of planning to bomb a hotel in 2009 and trying secure chemical or biological weapons.
The Tasnim report also claims the group may have wanted to target a Russian consulate in Rasht and targeted tanks and oil facilities. It may be that Iran is tying the group to all these sites to not only create better relations with Russia but also pin the blame for recent explosions in Iran on this group.
Reuters notes that Sharmahd's detention was not confirmed by the group and that the Thunder group called the reports an "abduction." An attempt to find references to this group prior to Sharmahd's detention, reveals only a few results in Persian media. It is mentioned in 2012 at Mehr news as one of many opposition groups that have carried out assassinations and attacks in Iran.
A 2011 post claims that there is a photo that was obtained that shows Iran's far-right politician Mohsen Razaee meeting with the Thunder group. This far-fetched claim appears to want to link Razaee, now a key member of the Expediency Discernment Council, to the group.
Many questions remain about this operation. Did Iran abduct Sharmahd from a third country? Some have suggested that country could be Turkey or Iraq. How would Iran have done that during the COVID-19 crisis when people are not traveling internationally often? Reports say that Sharmahd had connections in Germany.
Iran has carried out operations in Europe in recent years, including attempted assassinations, but illegally kidnapping someone in Europe seems a bridge too far for Iran. There was an attempted assassination of an Iranian-Kurdish dissident in June in the Netherlands.
It appears Iran's timing is an attempt to send a message to the US. This message is that the US backs "terrorism." Iran has concentrated on an obscure group to spread this message. It often targets relatively small and obscure groups in such operations.
For instance, in September 2018 Iran fired missiles at a Kurdish group near Koya to show off its abilities, and then did the same targeting ISIS after an attack in Ahwaz. It tends to focus also on dissident groups in Europe, even if the groups are not involved in major dissident activities. Iran has shown in the past it is willing to use forced confessions, kidnappings and also timed "detentions" of activists to showcase its abilities and try to embarrass enemies. It frequently claims, for instance, to have discovered some US or "Zionist" plots. Whether this latest plot is more of the real variety or more propaganda from Tehran, using a scapegoat, is not fully clear.
The United Arab Emirates on Saturday announced the startup of its Barakah nuclear power plant, a first for the Arab world.
"UAE first nuclear reactor at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant has achieved first criticality and successfully started up," tweeted Hamad Alkaabi, the country's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"This is a historic milestone for the nation with a vision set to deliver a new form of clean energy for the nation," he tweeted in English.
The UAE has been constructing four nuclear reactors at its Barakah power plant, the Arab world's first nuclear power station.
The UAE premier and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, tweeted that work at Barakah had "succeeded in loading nuclear fuel packages, carrying out comprehensive tests and successfully completing the operation."
"Congratulations on realizing this historic achievement in the energy sector & marking this milestone in the roadmap for sustainable development," Al-Maktoum said.
The UAE started loading fuel rods into the reactor at Barakah in February, after regulators gave the green light for the first of the plant's four reactors, opening the way for commercial operations.
US President Donald Trump has requested that the Iranian government dumps their enriched uranium stockpile on Portland. The move comes after weeks of unrest led to federal law enforcement agents storming the Pacific Northwest city.
"I found a solution. A great solution. The best solution," said Trump in a 6,000-person rally which included 5,950 people above state restrictions. "Iran has nuclear weapons; they can't keep them so what do you do? You have to get rid of them. And where do you do that? Well you can either drop it on people who follow the law or people who don't. 'Outlaws' is the term I came up with for them."
Trump's move prompted widespread anger from Democrats who claimed that they would not approve Trump's decision unless it was more secretly hidden in the Pentagon budget. Attorney General Bill Barr assured Americans that the move would be constitutional. "The constitution clearly states that Americans have a right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' and this falls under the President's happiness." It is worth mentioning that Barr was in fact quoting the Declaration of Independence and not the constitution.
"We just want this all to end," said Portland mayor Andy Wheeler. "Portlanders just want to go back to doing what Portlanders do best: telling people from other cities that Portland is better."
Harrowing read in @australian today about Kylie Moore-Gilbert's continued detention in Iran and transfer to Qarchak prison. pic.twitter.com/kQIlCB3MvA
SODEV, another pollster, found that 60.5% of youths supporting Erdogan said they would prefer to live in Christian Switzerland with half the salary they would have earned in Muslim Saudi Arabia.
"These kind of social engineering efforts targeting the younger mind almost always end up with opposite results, primarily because the new generation do not like to be told what's good and what's bad for them. Freedoms for most youth are more important than prayers. This is what conservative politicians often miss." — Turkish university professor who asked not to be named.
In just the first 65 days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 510 Turks were arrested for "spreading baseless and provocative messages in social media." Before that, by the end of 2019, Turkey had banned access to 408,494 web sites, 7,000 Twitter accounts, 40,000 tweets, 10,000 YouTube videos and 6,200 Facebook accounts.
Erdogan might sit down and ask himself: Why do the youths whom he wanted to make "devout" want to flee their Muslim country and live in "infidel" lands?
A Turkish colonel, who worked for the country's Special Forces Command intelligence division (OKK), testified in a court proceeding that the former head of the OKK issued an assassination order against one of the organizers of the 2016 coup because he reportedly had knowledge of illicit Qatari funding of jihadi groups in the Syrian civil war, according to a Friday report on the website of Nordic Monitor. "[Brigadier General Semih Terzi] knew how much of the funding delivered [to Turkey] by Qatar for the purpose of purchasing weapons and ammunition for the opposition was actually used for that and how much of it was used by public officials, and how much was embezzled," Col. Firat Alakus said.
Terzi was reported in 2016 to have been one of the organizers behind the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Nordic Monitor added that Alakus said the Qatari case was not the only example of how financial graft unfolded after monetary transfers to Turkey for use in the Syrian civial war.
According to the Sweden-based news outlet, Alakus testified at the Ankara 17th High Criminal Court on March 20, 2019.
"Now, Semih Terzi was targeted because of his intimate knowledge of affairs relating to Syria, Your Honor. What is this information? If you want, I can expand on it, some of which is critical," Alakus said at the court hearing.
Terzi "was aware of which public officials were assisting in arms smuggling to Syria and for what purpose," noted Alakus.
"[Terzi's murder] had to do with a trap devised by Zekai Aksakallı, who did not want such facts to come out into the open," he continued.
Bruh 😫
The only game I brought with me to the @NBA bubble is Turkish Monopoly 🤦🏻♂️
Malaysia is often seen as one of the world's most anti-Semitic countries.
Up until recently, it had a prime minister who described himself as a proud anti-Semite. A survey by the Anti-Defamation League has found it harbors one of the highest rates of anti-Jewish sentiment in the region, if not the globe.
But a researcher who analyzed the Malaysian people's sentiments towards the Jewish people and the State of Israel and has just written a book about the issue sees encouraging signs of change.
"We should not mistake loud noises for big noises. Anti-Semitism is part of a 'backlash' against the breakdown of social control — it is ugly and it is loud, but it is a backlash against wider social changes that are a force for good," said Mary Ainslie, of the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China, in an interview last week.
"Perhaps these views are becoming stronger amongst those who hold them, but I do not believe they are increasing among the general population. Instead, the opposite is true."
The Southeast Asian country, whose official religion is Islam though roughly 40 percent of the population belongs to other faiths, certainly hosts the most virulent forms of Jew-hatred outside the Middle East. According to the ADL, 61 percent of its inhabitants harbor anti-Semitic sentiments, which is significantly higher than neighboring Singapore (16%) and Thailand (13%) and even Muslim-majority Indonesia (48%).
Mahathir Mohamad, who served as the country's prime minister until March — he still sits in parliament and is planning to return to power soon — notoriously said he was glad to be called anti-Semitic.
Police in Cleveland, Ohio, have released a photo of a man they say is wanted in connection with spray‐painting of antisemitic slogans and grotesque images on several Jewish-owned businesses this week.
The photo shows a white man whose features are obscured by dark glasses, a baseball cap and a surgical mask. Police said the suspect was approximately 6 feet tall and in his early‐to‐mid 20s.
The man is wanted for two separate incidents, local media reported. On July 21, Heinen's and CVS stores were targeted with offensive messaging. Then, on July 25 and the morning of the July 26, several Jewish-owned businesses were defaced with antisemitic language and symbols.
Lt. Todd Kinley of the police department in Cleveland's University Heights neighborhood told reporters that the vandal could face hate crimes charges.
"That will be up to our prosecutors to ultimately decide what charges, if any, to file against somebody should we develop a good suspect. But it's certainly on the table," he said.
An eyewitness who reported the graffiti to the police described the words and images left by the vandal as deeply disturbing.
Michael Levine said that large phallic symbols, the number 666, curse words and other bizarre images and phrases were visible up and down the outer brick walls of two of the buildings targeted — Mika's Wig Boutique and the Waxman Torah Center.
"There was some writing on the other side of the Torah Center and on Mika's — it was a full wall," said Levine. "It had to take them a while, at least a half hour."
Synagogues in Dallas, Texas, had their joint virtual prayer service hijacked on Thursday morning by an antisemite who shared threatening messages targeting Jews and Israel.
A number of local Orthodox synagogues and rabbis gathered for morning prayers on Zoom with over 100 participants when at around 10:30 a.m. someone infiltrated the service and published messages on the screen that included "Kill all Jews," "Bomb Israel," "Free Palestine" and "Hail Hitler." The swastika symbol was also displayed, as well as "F–k Judaism" and other remarks with expletives targeting Hinduism and African Americans, Rabbi Ariel Racovsky from Congregation Shaare Tefilla, one of the synagogues that participated in the prayer service, told The Algemeiner.
A video of the "Zoom-bombing" was posted on Instagram by one of Shaare Tefilla's congregants, social media influencer and activist Elizabeth Savetsky. According to the clip, the messages were shared by a user who went by the name Andrew Rodriguez.
The incident took place on Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, on which Jews fast to commemorate a number of disasters in history, primarily the historic destruction of both temples in ancient Jerusalem.
The hate messages appeared for just a few minutes before the account hosting the Zoom call managed to remove the hijacker and shut down the conference, Rabbi Racovsky explained. The congregations then began a second Zoom conference, which attracted more participants than the first call.
Rabbi Racovsky said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were notified about the messages, which constituted a federal hate crime.
A construction firm in Uzbekistan is attempting to have a 124-year-old synagogue demolished to make way for a luxury apartment complex, according to a Russian-Jewish publication.
Absolute Business Trade, a company based in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, earlier this year sued the Jewish Ashkenazi Community of Tashkent, claiming they are illegally occupying an "apartment" in a complex purchased by Golden House, the Russian-Jewish weekly L'Chaim reported on Wednesday.
According to L'Chaim, the apartment in question is home to the First Ashkenazi Synagogue of Tashkent, which is reportedly holding up a plan to build a luxury apartment block on the site.
Orient Group, the parent company of both ABI and Golden House, has offered to build the community another synagogue, but the community has turned that offer down. The next court hearing is scheduled for August 5.
Former Tashkent Mayor Rakhmonbek Usmanov promised that the synagogue would not be evicted. But he has since left that position to head the Uzbek Agency for Road Transport. A successor has not yet been appointed.
At least three fires have occurred outside the synagogue since 2018 in what local Jews say is an attempt at intimidation, the report said.
There is an old Yiddish folk saying, "If your heart aches, laugh it off." For many, this pro-tip especially applies to the Holocaust.
When it comes to humor surrounding the topic of the Holocaust, it is critical to remind ourselves that we are not laughing at the severity and devastation of the Holocaust. Rather, as proposed by scholar Terence Des Pres, "[Holocaust] laughter is used to dispel and to embrace, a kind of comic ambiguity that diffuses hostility, on the one hand, and on the other prompts charity toward those who suffered, those who remember, and also those who might simply wish to know."
Considering the intellectual, educational, creative, and cathartic facets of comedy, it is understandable, even inevitable, that Holocaust humor has become integrated into popular culture. Of course, joking about the Holocaust has the potential to go very, very wrong. But when such jokes are skillfully and mindfully crafted, they serve as a mode of memory transmission with the ability to challenge, enrich, and preserve history.
Don't believe me? The Holocaust-centered skits, characterizations, and narrative arcs exhibited in these five TV shows explore new ways for Jews — and everyone in our entertainment-focused society — to understand, cope, and heal.
Israelis who don't want to see racy content have a new streaming service that allows them to skip the immodest parts.
The Tov TV service, dubbed the "kosher Netflix" by the Israeli daily Haaretz, is geared toward observant Jews who follow the religious laws of modesty.
Women pre-screen films and television series to identify the problematic content, according to the newspaper report.
Viewers can choose their level of censorship, from a warning text that pops up during a scene, allowing the viewer to press a button and skip that part, to shows in which some content is previously erased. Some shows are taboo, including "Game of Thrones," according to Haaretz.
The service, which has been two years in the making, is the brainchild of Israeli businessman Israel Zeira, who supports the national religious Jewish Home party. Zeira has already invested over $1 million in the project, according to Haaretz.
Tov TV believes its target audience includes about 400,000 Israeli households, according to the report.
Up to 70 percent of the wastewater in the world is untreated. That's a problem, both for the communities without sewer systems and for neighboring communities that suffer from contaminated groundwater leaking from cesspits.
Villagers in Umm Batin, a Bedouin village in Israel's Negev desert, don't want to dump their dirty water into the ground. But they're lacking the millions of shekels it would cost to build a modern sewer system.
Clive Lipchin from Israel's Arava Institute for Environmental Studies has developed a portable, cost-effective solution: a solar-powered, self-operating wastewater mini treatment plant that doesn't need to be connected to the national sewer system.
In Lipchin's system, the wastewater flows from household toilets, kitchens and sinks into a septic tank from where it is pumped into a series of treatment containers. Inside those containers, bacteria, fungi and algae remove the contaminants. The resulting treated water is not fit for drinking but can be used safely for agriculture.
Israel has long been a leader in processing wastewater for agricultural uses.
"It goes back to the 1970s and sends a strong message to the world that wastewater has value and should not be just disposed of," Lipchin tells ISRAEL21c. "It can be treated and re-used as a way to offset water scarcity and to become less reliant on fresh water. That's becoming even more important given the unpredictability of climate change."
Raw sewage kills
Small Bedouin villages – as well as those in the Palestinian Authority territories – have not benefited from Israel's wastewater expertise.
Lipchin hopes his invention will change that – first locally and then for the world. The need is great; raw sewage is estimated to kill 1.7 million people a year, almost half of them children.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
That enduring moral blindness means the progressive world is fated to replicate its role as the antechamber to evil. Today, that's why it supports the anti-white racists of Black Lives Matter. It's why the universities – the supposed crucibles of reason – have turned into cauldrons of intimidation and censorship.
It's why we have descended into a nightmarish Orwellian world in which those deemed to be part of a victim group present lies as truth, justice as injustice, and their own anti-white racism as anti-racism.
And it's why Israel-bashing has become the poster cause of the Western left, and open season has been declared against the Jews.
This way of thinking now dominates progressive politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular. That's why Democrat politicians are tacitly or actively supporting violent attacks on civic order.
As Barr observed: "This is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our great two political parties – the Democratic Party – are not coming out and condemning mob violence and the attack on federal courts. Why can't we just say, you know, violence against federal courts has to stop? Can we hear that?"
Jews are directly in the cross-hairs of those who are intent on overthrowing Western values. That's because Judaism, mediated through Christianity, gave the west its civilized moral precepts.
So attacks on Jews are symbiotically connected to left-wing attacks on western civilization.
Of course, there are still decent Democrats and those who remain sympathetic to Israel. But in general, the Democrats, like Britain's Labour Party and other progressive folk, have drunk the anti-Western Kool-Aid.
The tragedy is that so many Jews are incapable of seeing this. So they'll continue to vote Democrat, just as they'll continue to read The New York Times.
Reaction against the onslaught on American and Western values is what brought Trump to power. Many are outraged and exasperated by him. I share many of their criticisms.
But the choice at this coming presidential election is a fateful one; and for all who care about protecting American and Western core values, as well as Israel and the Jewish people, a Democrat victory is much to be feared.
On Wednesday I opened my Twitter account for the first time in two days. I'd been following the 48 hour social media ban which I (and Saul Freedman) had instigated , in response to social media sites allowing grime artist Wiley to repeatedly post anti-jewish hate speech, leaving some posts visible for 12 hours.
Our grassroots ban under the title #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate snowballed into a global phenomenon with high profile politicans, journalists, lawmakers, actors, musicians and hundreds of thousand of others demanding why Twitter, Instagram and Facebook had effectively given a megaphone to Wiley to spew out Jew hate to over 600 thousand followers.
I've been overwhelmed by the heavyweight commitment that I have received on this. From the Prime Minister down and across the house. Most significantly social media CEOs have had to sit up and see what I have been saying for a very long time. That anti-Semitism is running rampant, unchecked, infecting social media sites.
Back to Wednesday morning. I logged in to Twitter and first tweet of the morning to me read: "Fucking shut up, sticking your nose into literally everything apart from an oven where it actually belongs".
When I was four years old my mum and dad, in a mad moment of 1970's parenting, took me to The Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. My Dad went into the Hall of Names to look for relatives who he wanted verified had died in the concentration camps. I was pretty much left to wander around on my own. No four-year-old should have to process what I saw that day – pictures of skeletal bodies PILED in open graves, a pile of Jewish children's shoes, teeth and hair. The picture I have never been able to erase from my memory, even after years of trying, was of a naked dead Jewish female body being placed into an oven to be incinerated. That would be the "oven" the tweeter told me I deserved to be in.
My great Uncle Josef who survived the Warsaw ghetto and two concentration camps was my hero. When I would ask how the world allowed the Holocaust to happen, in all its modern industrial German mechanised precision, he would answer in his thick Polish accent, "because people looked the other way. They didn't want to see it."
I'm a successful actress and a writer. I'm not a politician or an activist. It was never my aim to take the job of speaking out against race hate especially to Jewish people so vocally and vociferously. But I have spent my life making sure that I would never be one of those people who would "look the other way". By standing up on social media (Twitter especially) I have become the target of much anti-Semitic and misogynistic abuse.
I've been called a "Jewish whore", "a zio baby killer", "a grooming paedophile", "a tax evading shill", and have been accused of "exaggerating the Holocaust for my own nefarious ends" and more. I've been told by Twitter that many of these tweets don't "violate their terms and conditions".
If you never heard of Seth Rogen, just as well. He made a splash in some off-beat movies, and became famous as an actor.
Turns out he is more than an actor. Or less than an actor. But more of a comedian, and not so funny.
In a normal world we would not care either way. So why do we care?
Nowadays we have to listen to idiots because they run our world, and he is one of them. He is also Jewish, which proves it takes all kinds.
He tells us that his Canadian parents are "radical Jewish socialists." No kidding.
So this apple did not fall far from the tree, as we hear him tell an interviewer that "Israel makes no sense." He questions why the state should exist, a story Al-Jazeera was quick to pick up.
That's right. We do not need Farrakhan when we've got varieties homegrown. Alas, Rogen's voice makes a sound throughout his "woke" generation.
Along comes this rebuke from Richard Trank, who uses gentle persuasion in the hope of showing Rogen the way to a Jewish heart…which would mean a love of Zion.
A lost cause.
Because Israel, from the ancient to the modern, is in your heart, mind and soul, or it isn't, and if it isn't, nothing's going to help if you insist on being a wise guy.
Actor and comedian Seth Rogen will team up with former Iranian President and die-hard Tupac fan Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a comedy about the duo's marijuana-filled attempt to launch a terrorist attack on Israel, Point Grey Pictures announced.
Ahmadinejad will play himself in the film, as he looks to cap off his career of public service with a devastating suicide bombing of the Dizengoff Center mall in Tel Aviv. Rogen, meanwhile, will play a Jewish millennial who becomes angry at his parents and disillusioned with his pro-Israel upbringing after reading a tweet by pop star Selena Gomez.
Ahmadinejad recruits Rogen's pot-loving character, named Seth Rothberg, to help him carry out the attack, and smoke-filled hilarity ensues, according to a teaser put out by the studio.
"We've already started doing some guerilla marketing for the film," Rogen told The Mideast Beast. "Like, I've been doing interviews in character as Seth Rothberg and saying all sorts of crazy shit, like 'Hey, maybe Israel shouldn't exist,' and, 'You know, those Ayatollahs aren't such bad guys after all,' and not telling anyone I was playing a character."
"And everyone is like, dude, what the f#%k?" Rogen continued. "Like, even my mohel called me and said, 'I should have cut your d#$k off when I had the chance.' It's been kind of fun to see everyone freak out."
"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others." – president John F. Kennedy.
During the recent worrying rise in antisemitism around the world, the Jewish people have been blessed to have a few friends of tremendous courage who have stood up to be counted by openly condemning the oppressive hate language being used by well-known figures in sports, entertainment and other opinion-shapers.
Earlier in the month, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar courageously penned an op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter, not just calling out antisemites in the black community, but also railing against the apathy toward hate in general.
It is certainly not surprising to me that Kareem would take such a strong stand. I have known him to be a humanitarian and a philanthropist, steeped in a long and enduring commitment to tolerance, acceptance and working tirelessly toward a better society. Just as he did during his storied basketball career, Kareem stands out above all in demonstrating the best example possible to those around him.
In 2017, while I served as Israel's consul general in Los Angeles, I hosted Kareem at an Iftar break-fast meal at my official residence during the month of Ramadan. He led various Jewish and Muslim leaders in a wide-ranging conversation promoting discourse, appreciation and mutual respect between local Jewish and Muslim communities.
I was inspired by Kareem's efforts in promoting harmony and unity between people of different faiths and backgrounds, especially between Muslims and Jews. He said that the basic values of Islam, Christianity and Judaism are the same values, based on compassion, tolerance and helping the needy. Those who incite us toward each other do so not out of religious belief but out of their own political and economic ambitions. Therefore, we, the believers, need to take advantage of every opportunity to sit together and share our messages of unity with all those who seek peace and a thriving world.
This is the basic message which informs everything that has made Kareem an even greater legend to my mind off the court than on it.
I began to understand that he has a special sensitivity to antisemitism because a close friend of his father's, fondly known to Kareem growing up as "Uncle Smitty," was in a US tank division that liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. The stories Kareem heard growing up were first-hand memories of what can happen to Jews when no one speaks up for or stands with them.
MANY YEARS ago, when he was about to embark on the film version of a book Brothers in Arms that he co-authored, dealing with the American troops who liberated Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, he visited Israel and made a special effort to meet with Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who had been liberated as a young child from Buchenwald by Uncle Smitty.
In fact, it had been his father's dying wish that Kareem would visit Israel and meet the little boy who had been rescued from Buchenwald and who became a prominent rabbi.
Even when racism speaks publicly, it is still usually bound up in disclaimers of not being racist. The practice of denial of racist intent—"I'm not racist but … "—is now deeply embedded in everyday discourse. As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva has argued, in the United States racism has become "color-blind," with a multitude of techniques used to speak of race without speaking of race. A willful "ignorance" of white implication in persistent racial hierarchies has long been a central part in their maintenance long after officially mandated discrimination was abolished.
This habit of denial even compels those on the far right who really should embrace the identity of racist to avoid the term. "Race realist" or sometimes "racialist" are often preferred, framing racism as the disinterested recognition of what they see as irrefutable differences between races. Further, they affirm the language of anti-racism when complaining about "anti-white racism" and the threat of "white genocide." This simultaneous affirmation and disavowal of racism can be absurd. The U.S. Proud Boys movement simultaneously states that anti-racism and "Anti Racial Guilt" are central tenets, and describes the ideal Proud Boy as a "Western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world." One of the most extraordinary examples of this simultaneity was posted on the popular blog Boing Boing in January 2017: A photo of the door of a pickup truck in New Mexico featuring a Confederate flag with the slogans "Secede!" "Anti-Sodomy" "Common Decency" "Pro-Life" and … "Non-Racist."
This drive to deny racism extends to anti-Semitism. Indeed, denial may actually be stronger when it comes to anti-Semitism. As Kenneth Marcus in The Definition of Anti-Semitism argues: Nowadays virtually everyone is opposed to anti-Semitism although no one agrees about what it means to be anti-Semitic. Indeed, it may be argued that virtually every anti-Semite today is also a professed enemy of anti-Semitism.
One of the reasons for this is that, for many of those on the left who are accused of anti-Semitism today, the accusation is an assault on one's very identity. It is fair to assume that, for the person who painted "non-racist" on his racist truck, to be accused of racism would be annoying, but they are unlikely to view non-racism as the very core of their being. That is not the case for many of those on the left who have been accused of anti-Semitism in recent years. In the post-war period, the left has often been in the vanguard of the fight against racism and anti-Semitism. Indeed, the "new left" that began to emerge in the 1960s became increasingly focused on anti-racism as a central component of the struggle for human liberation. To call self-defined anti-racist activists anti-Semites is to tell them that they are not what they claim to be. This is one of the reasons why Jeremy Corbyn and others like him have had so much difficulty in dealing with the issue: it is bewildering and unsettling to be accused of traducing one's deepest-held beliefs.
Of course it is also a serious charge to call a Christian Zionist like John Hagee, who loudly proclaims his love for the Jewish people, an anti-Semite. But it is perhaps less wounding to dub someone an anti-Semite who is, at best, apathetic to other forms of racism, than it is to attack the reputation of someone who sees themselves as opposed to all racisms. Sometimes there is a poverty of low expectations when it comes to anti-Semitism on the political right. It's notable that many definitions of anti-Semitism, including the IHRA definition, are silent as to whether Christian statements that Jews are going to hell unless they convert are anti-Semitic or not. Inevitably though, those who proclaim themselves to have a universal standard when it comes to anti-racism are going to be scrutinized more closely.
It is also inevitable that anti-racists accused of anti-Semitism will draw on widely available cultural resources in order to deny those claims. We now have decades of experience in developing sophisticated discursive tools for the denial of racism, and while those on the left may not have been in the avant-garde of the creation of those tools, they are capable of taking advantage of them when needed. Which isn't to say that accusations are always fair or denials always unreasonable, but that the process of denying anti-Semitism may be identical regardless of how justified the accusation is.
Where is the outrage from the media over this? Where are the teammates coming out to slam these vile and disgusting comments? Where is the mass outrage from the NFL? Where is the cancel culture mob who so viciously attacked Drew Brees just weeks ago? The double standard when it comes to antisemitism versus other types of hatred is glaringly obvious and equally atrocious.
Apparently to the Left, it is not that big of a deal to post outright antisemitic images online, but when you support our flag, our country, and the people who died for it, that is unacceptable, hateful, and insensitive.
The BLM movement also has deep roots of antisemitism in their organization. At anti-racism protests around the country, antisemitic chants and signs were seen and heard as antisemitism was a major theme in many of their protests.
In Washington DC, black lives matter protesters marched while chanting "Israel we know you, you murder children too" and at an anti-racism rally in Paris inspired by Black Lives Matter, protesters wore T-shirts reading "Justice for Palestine" and waved Palestinian flags while chanting "dirty Jews" as they marched. This is happening and is a common occurrence at Black Lives Matter protests across the country and around the world.
An organization that's stated goals are to fight bigotry and hatred, has been hijacked by antisemites spewing just the kind of hate they claim to fight, and for the most part, the leaders of the BLM movement are silent.
This applies to all those Democrat leaders who also support the BLM movement without calling out the vicious antisemitic roots embedded in the organization.
As the Democratic Party continues to lurch to the Left, they have a growing antisemitism problem which is no longer subtle. Although some Democrats have come out and condemned the antisemitism in the party, as long as they refuse to take action to eradicate it, it will continue to fester and grow. The Democratic Party must show commitment to stand against all forms of hatred, not just the ones that benefit them politically.
Antisemitism has no place in our communities and country, and now more than ever, it is important to stand up and destroy it wherever it rears its vile head.
Yet another reason why the national media's silence over @NAACP Philadelphia head Rodney Muhammad's #AntiSemitism is so troubling
The Voice, which is the only national Black weekly newspaper in the UK, published on Wednesday its interview with Wiley under the headline "Systematic oppression and Wiley."
In the interview the 41-year-old repeated antisemitic slurs about Jewish wealth and power, and at one point claimed, "They see us a slaves."
The "Eskimo Dance" singer was banned from several major social media platforms after going on an antisemitic tirade on Twitter on July 24. On Thursday, the Board of Deputies urged YouTube to "follow the example of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and delete Wiley's account."
Instead of challenging the artist regarding his hateful remarks, the journalist conducting the interview, Joel Campbell, the arts and entertainment editor of The Voice, asked: "within his ranting were there any salient points?"
Campbell wrote that Wiley was "not alone in his thinking, that there is an unspoken systemic oppression that blights the lives of young black creatives in the entertainment space" and that "some of the views espoused by Wiley are the great unsaid outside of the black community."
Campbell then suggested "[p]utting anything remotely near considered Anti-Semitic to one side of course, in fact out the window in the bin, not too many seem prepared to vocalise their consternation for some of the recurring themes Wiley believes is the stranglehold one community seems to have over another in particular relation but not confined to, the music business."
Later in the article, Campbell stated that "the hypothesis that you need to get a Jewish lawyer in order to progress in the music business may be a complete fallacy…but yet it remains. I've never seen anyone Jewish refute or confirm this (maybe there was never a need felt to do so), but maybe, it's a discussion that needs to be had?"
A senior volunteer at Campaign Against Antisemitism has written on our behalf to the Ivors Academy calling for it to rescind Wiley's 2019 Ivors Inspiration Award.
In his letter, Joe Glasman, an award-winning composer, Ivors member and former Ivors award panellist, noted that Wiley has "spent the last several days on an antisemitic tirade" and wrote that it would be "untenable for an individual who holds such horrific antisemitic views to continue to be held up as worthy of such an award by the Academy, an honour bestowed specifically upon those whom the Academy considers to be inspirational role models for composers and young artists."
Mr Glasman went on to note that the Academy is "rightly dedicated to diversity, equality and inclusivity" but that this means that the Academy "must be a safe space for all minorities, and that includes Jews."
Mr Glasman observed that he could not remain a member of the Academy if it fails to revoke Wiley's award, but expressed confidence that Ivors would make the right decision.
THREAD: CST is extremely concerned about comments made by @BristolUni Professor David Miller about CST at an event on Tuesday evening organised by the group Labour Against the Witch hunt. pic.twitter.com/NtH6fnpSUd
Thanks to the readers and commenters who have supported this blog over the past ten years. Regular readers from the United States and Israel, from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, the Ukraine, and many other countries besides, including, intriguingly and flatteringly, a regular visitor from a certain Arab state, I thank you all, and wish you all well. You, and the State of Israel.
This blog began in June 2010, in the wake of the Mavi Marmara incident and the exponential rise in antisemitism that followed in its wake. I've posted a number of pieces on historical facets of Israel and Zionism, including several pertaining to the origins of the overt anti-Israel bias of the BBC, identifying the late Keith Kyle as the first of that particular tribe. These historical posts were the ones I particularly enjoyed, and which I feel were the most useful. Some have been reprised on the Jews Down Under website, and others can still be found archived on the Elder of Ziyon blog (sincere thanks to the famed Elder for having invited me to contribute those guest posts).
Having an interest in Jewish-Christian relations, and mindful that if it had not been for a Jew who lived some 2000 years ago there would be no such profession as Christian priest I've exposed the excesses of the Reverend Stephen Sizer, and was the person who took this notorious 9/11 screenshot that went viral (thanks to the UK Jewish News, to whose editor I emailed it after a reporter from the "Voice of Anglo-Jewry", the Jewish Chronicle, had informed me that they had no interest in it!) Shame on you, JC reporter. (You know who you are).
It goes without saying that we who love Israel must be ever vigilant regarding the mendacious propaganda of the New Israel Fund and similar groups, the equation of "Islamophobia" with antisemitism, the Islamic antisemitism infiltrating the West, the leftist propaganda of the ABC and the BBC, and the increasing hostility towards Israel of often unashamedly antisemitic propagandists in academia.
Oh, the stupidities of the Jewish Left, going on, seemingly, for ever!
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has been banned from Twitter for breaking the social media platform's site's rules forbidding hate speech.
The company said Friday that Duke's account "has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter rules on hateful conduct."
It didn't specify what exactly Duke posted that triggered the ban, but its policy on hateful conduct prohibits promoting violence or threatening attacks against people based on religious affiliation, race and ethnic origin.
Twitter said the ban was in line with its recently updated policy aimed at cutting down on harmful links. Under the new rules, the company may suspend accounts dedicated to sharing hateful content or that try to get around its blocks on sharing links to the material.
The American Jewish Committee welcomed the move, saying that: "For over ten years, Duke used Twitter as a megaphone to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. Such hate is unacceptable."
Duke's final tweet included a link to an interview he had conducted with Germar Rudolf, who was convicted of Holocaust denial in Germany.
In his tweet before that, Duke promised to expose the "systemic racism lie," while another claimed to expose the "incitement of violence against white people" by Jewish-owned media.
Interestingly, Bateman had nothing to tell audiences about UN Security Council resolution 1701 or the supposed role of the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon in preventing such incidents along the border. Neither did he or Franks adequately clarify that the threats to 'retaliate' against Israel come from a foreign-backed terrorist organisation which is part of Lebanon's government.
In response to Franks asking "what do we know for sure" about the July 20th strike on military sites south of Damascus, Bateman replied:
Bateman: "Well I mean Israel routinely carries out airstrikes in Syria. Its intention is to roll back the influence of Iran in Syria and also of weapons transfers from the Iranians to Hizballah which is fighting in Syria on the side of President Assad. Now that is a red line for Israel, particularly the development by Hizballah, or its plans for precision guided missiles. Now what happened last week according to Hizballah when Iranian backed militants were targeted, one of its fighters died in those Israeli strikes close to Damascus airport. Israel doesn't confirm that, hasn't confirmed that, but Hizballah has said previously that it will avenge any of these strikes and so the Israelis were clearly expecting something; a flare-up on the border. They were beefing up infantry troops over the last few weeks and also missile defence systems."
Hizballah has in fact said that it would retaliate if its members were killed in such strikes rather than to the strikes themselves and the increased military activity on Israel's side of the border took place over the last week – rather than weeks – following Hizballah's threats after the July 20th incident.
Franks: "I guess the concern in both Israel and in Lebanon is that sometimes these sorts of apparently small-bore clashes can mushroom into something much bigger."
Bateman closed with promotion of equivalence between a sovereign country and a terrorist organisation.
Bateman: "This is one of the most combustible borders in the region. And remember in 2006 that Israel and Hizballah fought a war after the killing of Israeli troops over that border. And we've seen how close conflagration has come. There was a similar incident in the autumn: two Hizballah fighters killed in Syria and then the group fired an anti-tank missile, narrowly missing Israeli troops across the border. And the point is, I mean, there is a prevailing wisdom – and I think it's true – that neither side seeks a clear escalation into war, particularly with health and economic and political crises in both countries. However the balance of power between the two is such that they always need to be seen by their own constituents to respond to these kind of events and you can see how very easily things can slip out of control."
Tom Bateman also contributed 'analysis' to a report which appeared on the BBC News website's 'Middle East' page on the evening of July 27th under the interestingly punctuated headline "Israel 'thwarts Hezbollah infiltration from Lebanon'".
Bateman appeared to be unsure about the intentions of armed members of a terrorist organisation who infiltrated a border.
Kotaku should stick to gaming instead of trying to weave their distorted political opinion.
The Independent Doctors Federation hosted Prof. John Ashton earlier this week, despite the public health expert's long history of antisemitic comments.
Prof. Ashton's record includes comparing Israel to the Nazis and holding Jews responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, both of which are breaches of the International Definition of Antisemitism, as well as trolling Jewish women MPs.
The Independent Doctors Federation describes itself as the leading membership organisation representing Independent medical practitioners in the UK for both specialists and general practitioners.
It is likely that the Federation was unaware of Prof. Ashton's views when he was invited and hosted.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is grateful to one of the members of the Federation who brought the event to our attention.
After thousands signed our petition calling on the BBC, ITV and Sky News to stop featuring Prof. Ashton on their programmes, Prof. Ashton appears to have had fewer bookings by major broadcasters.
Campaign Against Antisemitism calls on all decent organisations and individuals to shun Prof. Ashton until he makes amends for his history of anti-Jewish racism.
Two advocacy groups representing the Jewish and Polish communities in Canada joined forces this week to demand the removal of a monument at a cemetery in Ontario that honors Ukrainian volunteers in the Nazi SS.
A cenotaph honoring Ukrainian volunteers of the 14th Waffen SS "Galicia" Division stands prominently on the grounds of the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in the city of Oakville.
Created in 1943, the division was responsible for the murders of thousands of Jews, ethnic Poles and other ethnic minorities throughout Eastern Europe. However, the cenotaph has been portrayed as a commemoration of those who fought for Ukrainian independence, in what its defenders call "the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army."
A joint statement from B'nai Brith Canada and the Canadian Polish Congress denounced the "glorification" of Nazi collaborators in a country that fought on the Allied side during World War II.
"Nazi Germans and their collaborators mercilessly ripped millions of people out of their loved ones' hands and slaughtered them like cattle ‐‐ for the sole crime of having a different ethnicity, religion, level of physical ability, sexual orientation or political viewpoint," the statement declared. "Countless brave and heroic Canadians gave their lives to stop this evil. It is unfathomable that Nazi glorification be allowed to continue in this country, or that these facts not be understood."
The statement concluded with a call for "the removal of this monument, and all others like it that glorify Nazis in Canada. Such monuments dishonor the memory of the victims and those who fought against Nazi Germany in World War II."
In light of new DNA samples provided by his nephew, Heinz Erich Tuchmann will be recognized as one of the victims of the Ardeantine massacre carried out by the Nazi regime in 1944, according to The Jewish Chronicle.
The Ardeantine massacre was an infamous mass execution carried out near Rome on March 24, 1944 by Nazi German occupying soldiers during World War II.
After 33 Nazi soldiers were killed by Italian partisans, the Germans decided to execute 335 men, including 76 Jews who were imprisoned in Rome's jail to be sent to death camps.
After the war, most of the remains were identified, but for nine of them this was not possible. The massacre is remembered every year in Italy through a simple roll call of the dead taking place at the monument erected in their honor, and Italian authorities regularly visit the site to honor the victims.
The Italian government has, since 1944, organized efforts to discover the names of each of the victims. As it sits, out of the 335 dead, only five names have yet to be identified.
Several Jewish groups paid tribute to the late Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara on Friday, the 34th anniversary of his death.
Sugihara ‐‐ who was serving as Japan's vice consul in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas when World War II broke out ‐‐ is credited with saving thousands of European Jews from the Nazis by ‐‐ in defiance of Tokyo's instructions ‐‐ issuing them transit visas that enabled them to escape eastward.
His life story was detailed by The Algemeiner three years ago.
Sugihara was forced to resign from the Japanese Foreign Ministry shortly after the war, and he lived in obscurity for the next two decades.
In 1968, however, he was located by an Israeli diplomat based in Tokyo who, as a teenager, had received one of the visas. Sugihara visited the Jewish state the next year, and a lobbying campaign began to have him recognized by Yad Vashem.
This effort bore fruit in 1984, when Sugihara was granted the "Righteous Among the Nations" title.
Sugihara passed away less than two years later, at the age of 86.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) said on Friday, "Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, saved thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust by providing visas to those fleeing Nazism."
"Today, on the anniversary of his passing, we honor his memory," it added. "The righteous among the nations will never be forgotten."
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) published a video highlighting Sugihara's deeds.
Israeli startup StoreDot said Wednesday that its ultra-fast battery charging technology can now be used to charge commercial drones in just five minutes, in what it says is a "world first."
The company said the technology can help overcome a major barrier that is hampering drone development.
Today, it typically takes 60 to 90 minutes to charge a commercial drone, with a full charge giving a flight time of just over 30 minutes. As a result, drones spend far longer in the charging station than in operation — "an unacceptable level of downtime for any application," the company said in a statement.
The technology will be "disruptive" for the drone industry, said Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot in a phone interview. If drones can be charged really fast, "then there is minimal downtime."
Today, to overcome the problem of long charging times, additional batteries must be purchased and swapped between flights. This process is costly and requires a person on-site to replace the batteries, said Myersdorf, which defeats the autonomous operation of the drones and limits them to flights near charging locations that are easily accessible to humans.
All of this greatly reduces their operational efficiency and restricts their use in harsh or dangerous terrains — often where they could bring the greatest benefits, the company said in a statement.
"By reducing battery charging time to just 5 minutes – which is up to 18 times faster than existing drone batteries – and eliminating the need for human intervention, drone operators have far greater freedom about where they can site charging stations. As a result, continuous, fully-autonomous drone operation is finally being made a reality," he said.
Israeli scientists have accidentally discovered a new way to predict the likelihood of cancer patients developing potentially life-threatening secondary tumors.
One of the biggest worries of cancer patients is that after the removal of their primary tumor, secondary tumors will develop. Such secondary growths — known as metastasis — are responsible for 90 percent of cancer-related deaths, but it normally takes time after surgery until a pathology report gives patients an idea of their risk level.
Prof. Daphne Weihs told The Times of Israel her biomedical engineering lab at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has discovered how to use a special gel to give an instant assessment of how likely a patient is to develop a secondary tumor.
"Our method is more rapid, accurate and quantitative than pathology results," she said.
Weihs said her method will prove "life-saving," as accurate information is key to ensuring that patients are monitored correctly for their risk level, so that new secondary tumors are picked up early or prevented before they have a chance to develop. She claimed her innovation cuts down the chances of patients being told they are safe from secondary tumors when they aren't, compared to pathology reports.
Weihs said that "like all the best science" the method was discovered unintentionally when her lab prepared a polymeric gel and placed cancer cells on it for general observation. "We made it to study interactions of aggressive cells with their environment and ran into an unexpected phenomenon."
Modern inhabitants of Israel experience the Sharon Plain as a highly congested and intensely populated environment. For those approaching Tel Aviv from the north driving along Route 20, the Glilot Junction, which marks the last opportunity to turn inland before entering the traffic of the city, might not appear significant in any way.
However, it was in its immediate proximity, albeit in a very different landscape, that an iconic historical event took place over 800 years ago: on September 7, 1191, Christian forces led by Richard I of England, celebrated as "The Lionheart," defeated the troops of An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, better known as Saladin, in the Battle of Arsuf.
While the confrontation represents one of the most famous events of the Third Crusade, the memory of its exact location had been long lost. Or so it seemed until Israeli archaeologist Dr. Rafael Lewis, using a combination of historical records, archaeological sources and innovative techniques, managed to pinpoint a specific area between Herzliyya, Kibbutz Shefayim and the villages of Rishpon, Kfar Shmaryahu, modern Arsuf and Arsuf-Kedem, as he explained in a recent paper in the Monographic Series published by the Tel Aviv University Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology.
"Our profession as archaeologists starts with researching time," Lewis, a senior lecturer at Ashkelon Academic College and a researcher at Haifa University, told The Jerusalem Post. "In most cases, the discipline considers prolonged periods of decades, if not centuries. However, the area of battlefield archaeology focuses on events that last only a few hours or at most a few days, whose sites are therefore challenging to be investigated archaeologically."
A leading Israeli archaeology professor claims that a handful of small male figurines associated with horse statues dating to the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, discovered in multiple sites from the ancient Kingdom of Judah, are in fact representations of the biblical Israelite God, Yahweh.
Hebrew University Prof. Yosef Garfinkel published his theory on Friday in an article for the popular archaeology-themed magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review, in its Fall 2020 issue.
"Yes, I think that people in ancient times believed these figurines to represent the face of Yahweh," Garfinkel told The Times of Israel on Friday.
His theory was firmly rejected by all archaeologists who agreed to respond to Garfinkel's premise. Some would not give it the time of day, while others said it is not coincidental that his article was printed in a mainstream magazine and not an academic journal.
"Unfortunately, this article is pure sensationalism that caters to popular, money-generating, demand, in presenting an unfounded and (at best) tentative identification as factual as he ignores existing professional research and studies, including avoiding reference to any of the publications by the excavators," wrote Tel Motza excavation co-directors Shua Kisilevitz (Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University) and Oded Lipschits (Tel Aviv University), whose finds served as a major basis for Garfinkel's article.
What has led Garfinkel to believe that he holds a statue of Yahweh in his hands is a combination of an anthropomorphic biblical verse from the Book of Habakkuk, the fact that neighboring nations in the biblical era had national gods, and the relative scarceness of male figurines made of clay such as the one his team uncovered at his Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation, some 20 miles or 30 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem.
About a decade ago Garfinkel's team discovered what he said was a rare male head at his Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation in a layer that he says is securely dated to the 10th century through over 30 radiocarbon dated organic samples.
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An article in the New Socialist crystallizes the discomfort that many socialist Jews have had with the Twitter 48 hour boycott campaign – by claiming that targeting a Black antisemite is actually racist:
Recent stories, and much longer-run patterns of discourse, have seen many people, including some Jews, attempting to "ethnicise" antisemitism. To construct it as a peculiarly "Black problem" or "Muslim Problem." This is not a new phenomenon but it does seem to be gaining ground in the current moment - not coincidentally amidst the largest global Black liberation struggle in several generations. The thinker Adolph Reed has aptly noted in his essay "What Colour is Anti-Semitism" that,
Anti-semitism is a form of racism, and it is indefensible and dangerous wherever it occurs. What doesn't exist is Blackantisemitism, the equivalent of a German compound word, a particular - and particularly virulent - strain of anti-Semitism. Black anti-Semites are no better or worse than white or other anti-Semites, and they are neither more nor less representative of the 'black community' or 'black America'."
Part of the specification of a particularised "Black antisemitism" seems to be connected to the seeming relish with which many white people, including some white Jews, see instances such as Wiley's outburst as an opportunity to call Black people "racist." There is a tendency to impose collective responsibility on Black or Muslim "communities" for instances of antisemitism (and for many things other things) in ways that Neo-Nazis like David Duke or Nick Griffin (both of whom, incidentally, not banned from Twitter) [this article was written before Duke's suspension – EoZ] are never held to be representative of white, English or American culture. Except, of course, that is what they are. The discourses and violence that make up the long history of antisemitism are far more organic to the cultures of white, Christian Europe and its settler colonies than anywhere else. Attempts to ethnicise antisemitism today are regularly mobilised, often by non-Jews, as a means to derail and discredit justice and liberation movements and their demands. This comes with its own grim irony, given that justice and liberation movements aim at the undoing of precisely these cultures of white, Christian Europe that were formative for and continue to reproduce antisemitism.
I can only speak for myself, but this is absolutely false.
Most blacks are not antisemitic. While a higher percentage of blacks are antisemitic than of the general population, the percentage of blacks who hold antisemitic opinions has gone steadily down since the 1990s when it was about 37%.
I have no glee speaking about Black antisemitism or Muslim antisemitism or white supremacist antisemitism. But I do think it is critical to not put them all in the same bucket.
If one wants to fight antisemitism, one needs to understand it. And the recent public examples of Farrakhan/Griff/Wiley antisemitism are much different from traditional Christian antisemitism, much different from neo-Nazi antisemitism, much different from Muslim or Arab antisemitism. They are also somewhat different from what Black antisemitism was like in the 1960s.
All kinds of antisemitism have a righteous justification. No one says "I hate Jews for no reason." One way of fighting antisemitism is with education, and it is critical to take away the justifications for antisemitism by directly attacking the assumptions of the antisemites.
Just like there is no one type of antisemitism, there is no one way to combat antisemitism. (This socialist article went on to pretend that there was only one antisemitism and it looks at it through a class lens, which is ridiculous. Antisemites come in all classes, colors, political affiliations and religions.)
When Rabbi Abraham Cooper went on Nick Cannon's show, I was upset because he did not directly attack the fundamental myths that were the basis of Cannon's and Griff's rants. And the comments on that YouTube video show that practically the entire Black audience were not swayed by Cooper's words – he was speaking the language of victimhood, of the Holocaust, of historic Black and Jewish commonality, while Cannon's fans are convinced that they are the true Hebrews. This was the wrong argument. I looked at the root of what we can call Black replacement theology, where Jews are frauds and Blacks are the true Jews. That is what Rabbi Cooper should have done.
But Muslim antisemitism is different. Arab antisemitism is different even than Muslim antisemitism although there is huge overlap. Christian and scientific and philosophical and, yes, modern anti-Zionist antisemitism are all different, and it is not racist to call that out.
Of course racism exists and it is a serious problem. But only people who already look at the world through a lens of race will find racism literally everywhere.
