08/02 Links: Rabbi Cooper: Tech giants should stop letting bigots, terrorists spread hatred online; Israel’s unique methods against the Iranian threat; Hamas leader debunks some BBC narratives

From Ian:

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Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Tech giants should stop letting bigots, terrorists spread hatred online

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and other tech giants have revolutionized our lives for the better in many ways and raked in billions of dollars in profits in the process. But unfortunately, they have also allowed the Internet to become an important tool used by racists, anti-Semites, terrorists and other purveyors of hatred and violence.

With social media and websites increasingly serving as our lifeline to news, entertainment and our children’s education, it would be irresponsible to ignore people who weaponize these essential communication tools in the service of hate groups.

I launched the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Hate Project 27 years ago, when the Internet was in its infancy. When we first met with Facebook it was a small company that owned one building. Now more than 1 billion people around the world use Facebook.

Millions of us were outraged to see neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, and other anti-Semites and white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, loudly chanting “Jews shall not replace us.” They carried torches as if they were proudly parading in Nazi Germany in the 1930s or 1940s.

But when these groups use the Internet to spread lies and hatred they draw far less attention from most Americans. Yet the groups can actually have greater impact in cyberspace in poisoning impressionable mind and infecting them with hatred.

It is irresponsible for Big Tech companies to say they are simply common carriers that transmit information the way telephone companies transmit calls. The tech companies have an obligation to set and follow rules setting limitations on what can be said on their platforms so they can degrade the online marketing efforts of purveyors or racism, anti-Semitism, and bigotry in all its ugly forms.

And since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it has become vital to our national security that the tech companies stop terrorists from using their platforms to plot deadly attacks and recruit new terrorists.

High-fives are few and far between in the struggle against hate. And there is precious little to celebrate when preparing a report card on social media-delivered hate.

Take the new social media whiz-kid on the block, TikTok, which President Trump said Friday he will ban from the U.S. However, TikTok’s general manager for the U.S. posted a video saying “We’re not planning on going anywhere,” and any move by the president to shut down the site by executive order, as he said he would do, would likely face a legal challenge. Fox Business reported Friday that Microsoft has begun talks to buy the company.

An algorithm on TikTok’s platform drove 6.5 million viewers to an anti-Semitic song that includes the lyrics: "We're going on a trip to a place called Auschwitz, it's shower time."

Jpost Editorial: Wake up Twitter, shut down Khamenei’s account

Head of Twitter Policy for the Nordics and Israel Ylwa Pettersson, participating in the meeting via video link, categorized Khamenei’s tweets as permissible political speech.

“We have an approach to world leaders that presently says direct interactions with public figures, comments on political issues of the day or foreign policy saber-rattling on military and economic issues are generally not in violation of twitter rules,” Pettersson said.

Twitter’s Vice President of Public Policy Sinéad McSweeney went further writing to Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Orit Farkash Hacohen that Khamenei’s hateful tweets did not violate their policies.

“World leaders use Twitter to engage in discourse with each other, as well as their constituents,” McSweeney wrote in a June 15 letter.

“Political issues”? “Discourse with each other”? “Foreign policy saber-rattling”? Has Twitter lost its mind? Calling for the destruction of another people is not a political issue and is not foreign policy banter. It is a declaration of genocide, against a people that has some experience in attempts to wipe it out.

In another exchange, pro-Israel activist Emily Schrader asked Pettersson about Holocaust denial on the platform, pointing out that Facebook and TikTok ban it.

Pettersson said: “As our hateful conduct policy states, if the content tries to directly threaten or harass on the basis of religion, then that is something we would enforce.”

Meaning, Holocaust denial not targeting someone specific would not be a violation.

Social media companies like to say that they do not censor what people write out of a desire to uphold freedom of speech. We agree that freedom of speech is a value worth fighting for but there have to be red lines. Antisemitism, sexual exploitation, murder, organized hate and announcing plans to kill someone.

This also needs to apply to the leader of a state calling to destroy another state. This is not political talk or foreign policy disagreements. This is beyond the pale and standing by, as Twitter is doing, will be a stain on the platform for as long as Khamenei is allowed to continue to tweet.

Take a stand Twitter. Shut down Khamenei’s account.

Deputy anti-Semitism envoy slams Twitter for double standard on Khamenei and Trump

U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism Ellie Cohanim slammed Twitter on Friday for censoring U.S. President Donald Trump, but not Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, saying that it’s “clear” that all that the social media company cares about is the November presidential elections.

In an interview on Fox News on Friday, Cohanim said that she and her family had to flee Iran during the 1979 revolution and increasing anti-Semitism.

“So, I can tell you that I personally understand the threat that…Ayatollah Khamenei presents to the Jewish people and to the world,” she said.

Cohanim also said, “The hypocrisy is so thick it becomes clear to me … that this is about one thing and one thing only and that’s the elections coming up in the United States on November 3rd.”

The lonely, angry anti-Semite

At high school, he made no friends and didn't belong to any clubs. He liked girls, but having a girlfriend was beyond his abilities. Academically, he was undistinguished, doing well in biology but failing in English. When it came to his free time, most of that was spent on the Internet. Once he graduated, he left home for a spell of military service. He lasted six months, dismissing the experience as "exhausting," "stupid," and "not a real army." From there, he enrolled as a student in a local college, but he quit that, too, after, as he put it, "falling ill."

For the last five years, he had done nothing at all. The day that ended with his name and awful deed inscribed in headlines across the world began with him as an unknown 27-year-old, unemployed and living at home with a mother whose doting couldn't quite quell the anger rising within him.

This is the portrait of Stephan Balliet – the German neo-Nazi who mounted an armed attack on a synagogue in the city of Halle last Yom Kippur – that has emerged from German media accounts of his trial, which began last week at the high court in Magdeburg.

Balliet's act, which he livestreamed over the Internet, shocked Germany and left its law-enforcement agencies heaving sighs of relief when he failed to penetrate the synagogue's heavy doors that stood between the 51 worshippers inside the sanctuary, and his bullets and grenades. But there was a death toll of innocents nonetheless: a 40-year-old female passerby who remonstrated with Balliet and a 20-year-old male customer at a Muslim-owned kebab restaurant targeted by Balliet after he sped away from the synagogue in his car. It is a macabre irony that neither of his victims was Jewish or Muslim.

As horrifying as this attack was to outside observers, by the standards Balliet set for himself – his stated purpose was to kill as many Jews as possible – it was a colossal failure. "Balliet speaks of himself like a loser," noted the correspondent of Der Tagesspiegel on the trial's second day. And indeed, much of the reporting bolstered that impression as the details of Balliet's schooling, his home life, his record of anti-Semitic and racist utterances, and his conviction that "the Jews" were to blame for both Germany's systemic failure and his own deadbeat existence were unveiled in the courtroom.

But the proceedings also revealed another side to Balliet: haughty, cruel and utterly without regret or remorse. When the video of his outrage that he livestreamed was replayed to the court, he grinned throughout like a Cheshire cat. When asked whether he would have slaughtered the children inside the synagogue had he managed to penetrate the sanctuary, he readily answered in the affirmative.

Annexation Proposal Leads to More Support for BDS

In contrast to June, when BDS was focused on alleged Israeli culpability for police violence in the US, in July anger was generated over reports that Israel would “annex” portions of the West Bank.

In San Diego the Palestinian Youth Movement organized a car caravan that drove past the county jail, a Federal courthouse, and then the University of California at San Diego Hillel, offices belonging to AIPAC, Friends of the IDF, ADL, Hadassah, and Birthright, and ended up at the county sheriff’s department. In Boston, the local BDS movement protested outside offices belonging to the local ADL branch, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), while in Los Angeles protestors gathered outside the Israeli consulate.

A street protest in Brooklyn featured cries of “Intifada, intifada,” “Death to Israel,” “Death to America,” and “From Gaza to Minnesota, globalize the Intifada!” Speakers called for the abolition of Israel, the US, and the reunification of Korea under North Korean rule. In Ontario, a rally by high school students in Mississauga featured chants of “Palestine is our country, and the Jews are our dogs!” A few days later, the pro-BDS group IfNotNow also protested “annexation” at the Jewish Federation building in Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

The formal alliance between BLM and the BDS movement that emerged in 2014 has only deepened with the recent unrest. Elements in both now represent Jews and Israel as “white oppressors” and demand Israel’s replacement, along with that of the United States. The hijacking of the BLM message represents standard procedure for the BDS movement, which has long exploited Black and other indigenous issues despite inherent Islamist racism. Their intersectional synergies and cooperation, however, suggest that both should simply be viewed as part of a conjoined if inherently unstable red-green synthesis, in which all sides manipulate and jockey for revolutionary supremacy and the Palestinian cause has a uniquely privileged position.

As has long been the case, American Jews are presented with the choice of joining a prominent left-wing cause that also has BDS and destruction of Israel as a key principle. The explicit support given to “canceling” Israel as a Jewish state by left wing Jewish intellectual such as Peter Beinart is designed to further shift public opinion, including among Jews, by projecting a tiny fringe as both indicative of a major split within the community and a “moral imperative.”

PMW: PMW report calls to designate PA leader and org as “sponsors of terror.”

In March 2018, as part of the US war on terror, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act (TFA). Named after US veteran Taylor Force who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist, TFA conditioned US direct aid to the Palestinian Authority on the abolition of the PA’s payment of cash rewards to terrorists.

Since the PA’s creation, it has paid salaries to terrorist prisoners and released terrorists. The PA also pays monthly allowances to wounded terrorists and to the families of dead terrorists (so-called “Martyrs”). These payments are known as the PA’s Pay-for-Slay policy. TFA determined that these payments are an “incentive to commit acts of terror.”

Rejecting the elementary requirement of TFA, the PA has continued to pay the terror rewards to terrorists, spending hundreds of millions of shekels/dollars every year.

Since the PA leaders have publically attacked the US’ passage of TFA, rejected its terms, and continue rewarding terrorists and their families, the appropriate next step in the US war on terror is to designate for sanctions those PA/PLO officials and entities involved in this incentivizing of terror.

Executive Order 13224 authorizes the US to designate “individuals or entities… [who] assist in, sponsor, or provide financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, acts of terrorism .” The PA/PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and its Director Qadri Abu Bakr, the entity and individual who are directly responsible for the paying of salaries to terrorist prisoners, directly “provide financial… [and] other services … in support of, acts of terrorism.” Accordingly, designating the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and Abu Bakras sponsors of terror in accordance with Executive Order 13224, is the appropriate and necessary next step toward accomplishing the anti-terror goals of TFA. The designation would be fulfilling both the letter and spirit of TFA and Executive Order 13224.
For full report in PDF click here

PMW: US congressman cites PMW report in call to designate PA leader as sponsor of terror

US Congressman Doug Lamborn wrote to US President Trump on Thursday asking him to designate the PA/PLO’s Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and its director Qadri Abu Bakr as sponsors of terror. Basing himself on PMW’s new report, Lamborn wrote:

“My legislation, the Taylor Force Act, conditions U.S. direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the abolition of the PA's payment of cash rewards to terrorists and their families… The Palestinian leadership has continued to pay the terror rewards to terrorists, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year to these monsters and their families… we have seen documented evidence, provided by the Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch that pay-for-slay stipends continue. Palestinian leaders proudly admit as much regularly in Arabic.

In 2018, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said [as PMW reported]: ‘I say this to everyone... The Martyrs and their families are sacred, [and so are] the wounded and the prisoners. We must pay all of them…’ The appropriate next step in the US war on terror is to personally sanction those PA/PLO officials involved in this incentivizing of terror … [through] designation of the Commission of Prisoners' Affairs and its Director Qadri Abu Bakr as sponsors of terror, in accordance with Executive Order 13224.”

Although other leaders of the PA are involved in paying salaries to terrorists, including Mahmoud Abbas, PMW’s new report focused on the PA’s Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and its director Qadri Abu Bakr because of their direct responsibility for the monthly payments to terrorist prisoners and their families.

JNS news service reported on Congressman Lamborn’s letter to Trump and cited the following responses by Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, and Itamar Marcus:

“Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, which was involved in the initiative, commended the move.

‘Rep. Lamborn has taken the next step after the Taylor Force Act and focused on the key Palestinian Authority bureaucrat who makes sure that the families of Jew-killers are amply rewarded for their crimes. President Trump should follow this wise counsel and designate Qadri Abu Bakr a sponsor of terror.’

Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, said one of the “great oversights” of U.S. foreign policy in the last 20 years has been ignoring the involvement of P.A. leaders in directing terrorism.

“Qadri Abu Bakr is a fundamental component in the P.A. terror-supporting infrastructure. PMW’s report on his involvement in terror financing is intended to enable the international community to treat him as they do all others involved in terror financing,” said Marcus. “If the United States will lead the way internationally by acting against the P.A. terror-supporting leadership, it will send an important message to the international community, and especially to the P.A., that no one involved in terror will have immunity.”

Palestinian slam congressman over call to impose sanctions on PA leaders

Palestinians on Sunday condemned Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) for demanding that the US impose personal sanctions on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials.

In a letter to President Donald Trump, Lamborn wrote that the Palestinian leadership “has continued to pay the terror rewards to terrorists, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year to these monsters and their families.”

Lamborn was involved in initiating the Taylor Force Act, which was signed into law by Trump in 2018. It conditions US direct aid to the PA on the abolition of the PA’s payment of cash rewards to terrorists and their families.

“Since the passing of the Taylor Force Act, and a similar law in Israel’s Knesset passed by my friends MKs Elazar Stern and Avi Dichter in July 2018, the Palestinian leadership has spent over NIS 1.2 billion, or $350 million, continuing to reward terror,” Lamborn wrote. “Since the Palestinian leadership have publicly attacked the passage of the Taylor Force Act, rejected its terms, and continue rewarding terrorists and their families, the appropriate next step in the US war on terror is to personally sanction those PA/PLO officials involved in this incentivizing of terror, as defined by the law. While there are many senior Palestinian officials involved in the ‘pay for slay’ program, the institution and the person most responsible are the PA/PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and its Director Qadri Abu Bakr.”

In response, PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat condemned “the continuous American incitement against President Mahmoud Abbas and members of the Palestinian leadership.”

Lamborn’s demand to impose sanctions on Palestinian leaders “comes to punish the victim for rejecting the Trump-[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu plan,” he said, referring to the US administration’s “Deal of the Century” vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Erekat dismissed the demand as “thuggery and blackmail” and said Israel would bear full responsibility for the Palestinians, if and when it implements its plan to apply sovereignty to portions of the West Bank.

“The Palestinian Authority was established to transfer our people from occupation to independence, and not as a tool for the continuation of the occupation,” he said.

PA home videos: Children educated to see murderers as “heroes”

Caption: “Home video”

Girls: On behalf of Allah, we send all the words of pride to the tall mountains, to the lions crouching in their dens, to the heroes of this generous people, to the heroic prisoners. You are the symbol of endurance…

Boy: “Our prisoner Anas Allan (i.e., terrorist, involved in murder of 4)... I think of him every time I see his mother and his father, my neighbors. I see the pain of separation in the eyes of Um Mahmoud… He was sentenced to 4 life sentences and 25 years... I send love and greetings to every male and female prisoner and to all the prisoners’ families.

[Official PA TV, O Children of Our Neighborhood, July 18, 2020]

Anas Allan – Palestinian terrorist who transported suicide bomber Ahmed Masharqa to carry out an attack in which 4 Israelis – Rafi and Helena Halevi, Reut Feldman, and Shaked Lasker – were murdered near the entrance to Kedumim, west of Nablus, on March 30, 2006. Allan is serving 4 life sentences and an additional 25 years.

Huwaida Arraf is not just a "Palestinian American human rights attorney, and @DNC delegate," @washingtonpost.

She is co-founder of the ISM, a radical group which engages in violent confrontations with the IDF, and has lauded suicide bombers.

Why are readers not informed? pic.twitter.com/ddcVBVP00T

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 2, 2020

Is Israel going to elections? Here are Netanyahu’s 5 options

Will Israel go to new elections in three weeks?

No one except Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to know the answer – and it’s not even clear that he has made up his mind.

In May, Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz signed a coalition agreement that said the unity government they established would pass a two-year budget. This was one of the most important clauses in the agreement for Gantz, since approval of a state budget is an easy way for someone to topple a government. Currently, if Israel does not pass a budget by August 25, it heads to a new election in November.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is said to want a one-year budget. While he makes economic and fiscal arguments, even members of his party know he is doing this to be able to potentially bring down the government again in March when the 2021 budget will have to be passed.

That March exit point is critical for Netanyahu to be able to avoid having to rotate out of the Prime Minister’s Office in November 2021 and hand over the reins of the country to Gantz.

Who will be Israel's next prime minister? 28% say Bennett

A Channel 12 poll released on Sunday has found that Naftali Bennett, current head of the Yamina party, is believed to have the strongest chance of being Israel's next prime minister, with 28% of respondents saying so.

The poll did not consider current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as fellow members of his Likud party.

It is important to note that a plurality of respondents (33%) say that none of them have a strong chance of becoming Israel's next prime minister.

Bennett was followed by Yesh Atid-Telem Chairman Yair Lapid, with 21% believing that he has the strongest chance of becoming Israel's next prime minister, followed by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot at 13%.

The poll comes amid widespread discontent among the Israeli populace and mass protests against Netanyahu's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to worsened economic conditions and increased anger towards the government's response.

Additional frustration also includes the ongoing corruption trial against the prime minister, apparent police brutality and alleged incitement by Netanyahu against anti-Netanyahu protesters.

Coronavirus: Israel's Infection rate drops to lowest since second wave

For the first time since the start of the "second wave" the infection rate has fallen below threshold 1 - each contagious person is currently infecting less than one other person, according to the country’s new coronavirus czar, Ronni Gamzu.

“The ‘R’ in the entire State of Israel is equal or close to one,” he said late Sunday, reiterating statements made by former defense minister Naftali Bennett, who shared a graph on Sunday highlighting the achievement.

"This means that if the Israeli public continues to behave properly, the epidemic will fade," Bennett said. "It is precisely now that further efforts must be made to eradicate the coronavirus and to rehabilitate the livelihoods of the citizens of Israel."

Gamzu shared this information during a press conference Sunday, which was held in conjunction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, and Health Ministry director-general Chezy Levy from the new Shield of Israel headquarters at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.

“In recent days it has been clear that we have managed to stop the rise of the virus,” Edelstein said. But he cautioned, “It's good, but still not enough. The numbers are still high and even alarming.”

Finance Ministry says it could take five years for economy to recover

It may take up to five years for the Israeli economy to fully recover from the shock it received during the coronavirus pandemic, the Finance Ministry predicted in an economic forecast published on Sunday.

In its forecast for 2020-2023, the ministry offered two distinct paths the economy could take in the coming years, one in which the pandemic is brought under control, leading to a gradual improvement in Israelis’ economic circumstances, and another in which a rise in coronavirus deaths requires the reimposition of economic restrictions, hampering recovery.

Should the pandemic stay largely under control, allowing for the economy to revive, the ministry projected the GDP will shrink by 5.9 percent in 2020, followed by 5.7% growth the following year. In this scenario, unemployment would remain around 9.7% at the end of the year.

However, in the event of an exacerbation of the public health crisis causing increased economic restrictions, unemployment would rise to 15% by the end of the year and the GDP would contract by 7.2% in 2020 and only rise 2.2% in 2021.

In either case, a full economic recovery would probably take around half a decade, and certainly will not occur before 2023.

During a national lockdown in March-April, the economy came to an almost total standstill. Unemployment soared to 26% and over a million Israelis were out of work. Over the past few months restrictions have mostly been lifted, but unemployment remains at over 20% with some 800,000 Israelis jobless or furloughed, according to the Israeli Employment Service.

Palestinian authorities share foreign aid between themselves and then blame poverty on electricity bills from Israel. If Palestinians protest, they arrest them. The moment they fear an uprising, they attack Israel so Israel defends itself and protestors run back to their homes. pic.twitter.com/oaczfHlNDZ

— Imam of Peace💡 (@Imamofpeace) August 1, 2020

Israel’s unique methods against the Iranian threat

In Iran, though, Israel’s tactics are different. When facing the nuclear program in Iran, Israel is facing a sovereign country. In Iran, it is Iranian assets that are on the Israeli radar.

At first it was Iranian scientists who were disappearing mysteriously. Now Israel has shifted to exploding non-human assets: nuclear-related sites. In this case, Israel is not exercising any military option or airstrike, it is the clandestine work of the Mossad planting explosives in various locations.

Lastly, and perhaps the most unique challenge, is Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah is neither a sovereign nor independent actor. It is a semi-governmental organization.

This is why Hezbollah can be a complex and tricky actor to handle. Recognizing this, Israel has not been exhausting its military and intelligence resources against Hezbollah, using a combination of political and financial pressures.

Israel has been applying pressure on many countries to recognize Hezbollah’s political and military arms as a single terrorist organization. By doing so, it would allow financial sanctions on Hezbollah.

At the same time, there is an effort to expose Hezbollah’s revenue stream and dry up those sources of money and disrupt the flow of cash. This requires close cooperation and coordination between legal and financial agencies in a number of countries.

Whether through military, intelligence, political or financial pressure, the extent of the Iranian threat is so great, any options are welcomed. Any opportunity a country has to weaken Iran is an opportunity worth exploring.

The complexity of Iran’s network runs through sovereign, independent and semi-governmental actors. Israel has identified and deployed different methods to tackle the various threats in the Iranian value chain. It is now our time to join Israel in recognizing the full extent of Iran’s threat to the Middle East and the world.

The world must unite in extending the United Nations arms embargo on Iran later this year and not allow Russia or China to exercise their veto powers in the UN Security Council.

CAA calls for Labour and Co-operative MP Barry Sheerman to lose the whip following doubly antisemitic “silver shekels” tweet

Campaign Against Antisemitism is calling for the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party MP Barry Sheerman to lose both parties’ whip over a tweet posted this morning.

Mr Sheerman, who has been the MP for Huddersfield since 1979 tweeted: “Apparently there has been a bit of a run on silver shekels!” After Twitter users asked what he was talking about, he posted another tweet, seemingly referring to the first, saying: “Apparently Richard Desmond & Philip Green were on the original list for seats in the House of Lords!”

As Twitter users denounced him, Mr Sheerman later deleted the tweets and instead tweeted, hours later: “I apologise for my earlier tweet. I did not intend the meaning which has upset many, and I am very sorry for the upset and offense I have caused. I will think more carefully in future and will reflect on this…I have fought antisemitism all my political life & have been a Labour Friend of Israel since joining as a student at the LSE I am deeply sorry that my clumsy tweet has caused offence.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Barry Sheerman’s first reaction on hearing that two prominent Jewish businessmen supposedly missed out on peerages is to think about ‘silver shekels’, alluding in one fell swoop to both classic and modern antisemitic tropes about Jews corrupting politics with money and being more loyal to Israel than their own countries.

“Mr Sheerman must immediately face disciplinary proceedings and lose the whip of both the Labour and Co-operative Parties. Sir Keir Starmer also has a more fundamental question to answer about his parliamentary party: how long are Labour MPs capable of going without making brazenly antisemitic statements? Labour’s antisemitism problem apparently goes well beyond the Party’s far-left contingent.”

Labour MP apologizes for 'clumsy' antisemitic tweet

Barry Sheerman, a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, apologized Sunday for posting an allegedly antisemitic tweet, according to a report from the local news website YorkshireLive.

The veteran MP apologized for cryptic tweets in relation to Richard Desmond and Philip Green, both of whom are prominent British businessmen and Jewish, in which he said, “Apparently there has been a bit of a run on silver shekels!”

When Twitter users asked him to explain the meaning of his tweet, Sheerman posted again, saying “Apparently Richard Desmond & Philip Green were on the original list for seats in the House of Lords!”

Sheerman then proceeded to delete both tweets, later saying: “I apologise for my earlier tweet."

He continued, "I did not intend the meaning which has upset many, and I am very sorry for the upset and offense I have caused.

"I will think more carefully in future and will reflect on this…I have fought antisemitism all my political life & have been a Labour Friend of Israel since joining as a student at the LSE. I am deeply sorry that my clumsy tweet has caused offence,” he added.

Guardian promotes Seth Rogen's breathtaking ignorance about Israel

Rogen also charged that Zionism represents an “antiquated thought process“.

First, the territory that is now Israel was indeed sparsely populated during the first major waves of aliyah in the late 19th century under Ottoman rule. Also, though they were a minority of the population, Jews have had a continuous presence in their ancestral homeland—a presence that predates, by thousands of years, the Arab and Islamic conquests of the 7th century.

Moreover, Jews who immigrated there didn’t displace the ‘native’ Arab population, but legally purchased and cultivated land that was often vacant for centuries – immigration which resulted in greatly increased immigration by Arabs attracted to the economic opportunities that Jewish immigration provided. The only major dislocation of Palestinians – over 700,000 – occurred, let’s remember, as a result of the Arab war against the nascent Jewish state in 1948.

We don’t know what “lies” Rogen was fed as a child about Zionism, but, contrary to the ahistorical narrative he likely digested as an adult, Jews in pre-state Israel weren’t interlopers or invaders, but immigrants who fled poverty, persecution, pogroms and mass murder in hopes of building better lives in the land to which generations of Jews in exile shared and intrinsic and intimate connection.

Finally, Rogen’s moral reasoning is compromised in several ways.

First, as a Jew, Rogen says he’s painfully aware of modern antisemitism in arguably the safest and most prosperous diaspora community in the world, yet seems unmoved by the violent and even genocidal racism faced by millions of largely poor and vulnerable European and Middle Eastern Jews from previous generations which motivated a return to their historic homeland.

Hamas leader debunks some BBC narratives

Among the narratives promoted by the BBC in recent years is the claim that Palestinian leaders aspire to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2017 the BBC dismissed our complaint pointing out that Hamas and additional Palestinian factions reject that concept.

Also in 2017 BBC audiences were told that Hamas had dropped its “long-standing call for an outright destruction of Israel” and that it continues to be a “resistance movement” because the peace process is stalled.

Another widely promoted BBC narrative attributes problems in the Gaza Strip – such as healthcare, unemployment, poverty, poor infrastructure and utilities – to the counter-terrorism measures introduced by Israel and Egypt after Hamas’ violent take-over of the territory in 2007.

Earlier this week Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh gave an interview to a Qatari media outlet (translated by MEMRI) in which he contradicted the BBC’s narrative concerning the two-state solution and explained why Hamas recently rejected an opportunity to end the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Haaretz Corrects Arch-Terrorist Samir Kuntar Not Rearrested

The error is significant as it is indicative of the following troubling points. First, the translator or editor from the English edition is apparently not at all informed about basic information concerning notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar. When exactly did this staffer think that Kuntar had been released in a prisoner exchange, if s/he did at all give it any thought? Before or after the Israeli army’s 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon? If it was the latter, the only way that “rearrest” would have been possible were Kuntar to have returned to Israel for a second time, either to carry out an attack, or some other purpose. (While we occupy the realm of the fantastic, perhaps he returned on a diplomatic mission? That fictional tale is just as far-fetched as the scenario that Haaretz reported.) Alternatively, Israeli soldiers would have had to carry a daring, cross-border, likely undercover arrest mission given that the Israeli army has had no reported boots on the ground there for two decades, aside from said Lebanon war in 2006. Second, the error also underscores the troubling possibility that the translator or editor lacked full understanding of Bar’el’s Hebrew text, mistaking “incarceration” for “rearrest.”

In any event, CAMERA applauds the editors’ immediate and thorough steps to set the record straight. In response to communication from CAMERA, editors immediately amended the online text, changing “rearrest” to “incarceration.” In addition, they commendably appended the following correction to the bottom of the article:

This is amazing!

I fully endorse the request for 6% of New York Times employees to be orthodox/Haredi Jews.

As a 500k strong community of 8.3m people in New York City the orthodox/Haredi community is ready to serve at all levels of New York Times coverage and opinion. https://t.co/1oqAy5OZg6

— Ben Judah (@b_judah) August 2, 2020

Dutch-Jewish fighter whose factory was used to make yellow stars dies at 98

Henk van Gelderen, a Dutch-Jewish resistance fighter whose textile factory was used to produce yellow stars for the Nazis, died at 98.

The De Stentor newspaper reported Tuesday about van Gelderen’s death.

Van Gelderen’s factory in the eastern city of Enschede, NV Stoomweverij Nijverheid, was confiscated by the German occupation forces soon after they invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and was used to produce 569,355 of the stars that Nazis forced Jews to wear.

Van Gelderen himself went into hiding in Amsterdam, assumed a false identity and teamed up with a resistance cell that was well-known for its high-quality forgeries of identity and travel documents for those wanted by the Nazis.

His older brother, Matthieu, who was also in the resistance, was arrested and murdered shortly before the Netherlands was liberated by Allied forces.

How did Israeli ‘Camel Startups’ turn into Unicorns, outnumbering the EU?

A recent global Unicorns list places Israel #7 in numbers of Unicorns in the world (Along with Brazil). A more pin-pointed study of companies who became Unicorns in the recent 12 months, places Israel as #1 in Europe, with almost double the Unicorn number from UK, in the second place (11 companies vs 6).

Key Points:
- Israel is playing a more important role than ever with 20 Unicorn companies in the ranks and 11 added in just the past year
- Israeli Unicorns (A Billion USD Company) are mainly B2B focused, which enabled them a steady growth of incomes, and profitability in many cases- Turning them into “Camel Startups”
- Many American Unicorns lost significant sums in the recent year, even before Covid-19 (Uber lost a total of $8.5 Billion in 2019) getting its investors to add hundreds of millions as “recovery aid”, while reconsider its “only Unicorns” attitude.

A new book by veteran investment director Alex Lazarow called Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs–from Delhi to Detroit–Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley, in which he confronts the Silicon Valley approach of “Unicons only/first,” has made waves in recent months. The book may not have anticipated the Covid-19 crisis (Coronavirus, but it was raising the question how different companies cope in times of crises, a question which is extremely relevant nowadays.

Lazarow found that there is a segment of startups with significant income, some of which are even profitable that for some reason, have been overlooked by major investors. He named such companies “Camel Startups.”

While Covid-19 saw Unicorn companies lose even more money than expected, their CEOs’ go-to move in dealing with the crisis, was mainly to return to their Silicon Valley investors, asking for more money. However, the CEO’s of “Camel Startups” had various tools to take, before looking for more funds.

Most, if not all startups, wishes to become a Unicorn at one stage, but the way to get there could reflect of the future of the company.

From Jaffa to Tel Aviv: Origins of 'The White City'

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