05/06 Links: Double standard on Holocaust denial; UNESCO: Adding more fuel to the fire of hatred ~ EoZ

From Ian:

A French political leader who referred sympathetically to a prominent Holocaust denier has been forced to resign in disgrace.
But a Palestinian political leader who referred sympathetically to the same Holocaust denier was welcomed at the White House this week. Why the double standard? Jean-Francois Jalkh, leader of France’s National Front party, resigned in disgrace on April 28 after it was revealed that in a 2000 interview he said it was “impossible” for the Nazis to have carried out mass murder with poison gas. As his source, Jalkh cited the convicted Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, whom he described as “trustworthy.”
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has referred to Faurisson in similar terms, in a bizarre and disturbing book that Abbas wrote in 1983 called The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement.
The central thesis of the book, which Abbas wrote as his doctoral dissertation at Moscow University, is that David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders “collaborated with Hitler” and wanted the Nazis to kill Jews, because “having more victims meant greater rights and stronger privilege to join the negotiating table for dividing the spoils of war once it was over.”
The “real” number of Jews murdered by the Nazis was “much lower” than six million and might well have been “below one million,” Abbas wrote. “Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions – fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand.”
One of the alleged authorities whom Abbas cited was the same Holocaust denier at the center of the recent controversy in France. “In a scientific study published by the French professor Robert Faurisson, he challenges the existence of gas chambers which served the purpose of killing living Jews,” Abbas wrote. “He claims that the gas chambers were only used to burn corpses, out of fear of spreading plagues and viruses. It would not take a great effort in order to prove and document this aspect of the truth.”

Ben-Dror Yemini: Adding more fuel to the fire of hatred

Op-ed: Resolutions like the one adopted by UNESCO on Tuesday may have no practical validity, but it’s hard to ignore their cumulative damage. Diplomatic jihad is scoring achievements, and to hell with the facts.
There is no cause for celebration, as there was and remains an unenlightened majority in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as well as in all other UN institutions. Tuesday’s vote, on Israel’s Independence Day of all days, is part of a war of attrition waged by the Muslim world against Israel. A diplomatic jihad. These may be false resolutions with no real meaning, but with one resolution after another—the attrition is working.
The problem isn’t the Muslim world, which is in a state of darkness. Between fighting against Israel and fighting for itself, it favors the battle against Israel. There is not a single point of agreement in the Muslim world, apart from the hostility toward Israel. There is no need, therefore, for resolutions against jihad, which is massacring mostly Muslims, and there is no need to settle the conflict between the Shiites and the Sunnis, and there is no need to deal with the illiteracy and improve the status of women. Nothing is important, just Israel and Israel.
This obsession is harming Israel, but it is harming the Muslims themselves much more, because there is a direct link between the hostility toward Israel and the troubles of the Muslim world. The more hostile it is, the bigger its troubles.

Can Trump Survive Abbas?

Donald Trump was something of a motivational speaker when he welcomed Mahmoud Abbas, the gerontocrat at the helm of the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the last 12 years, to the White House on May 3.
At their joint appearance, Trump was confident and beaming. Abbas, in turn, came across as eager and respectful. As Trump surely knows, to sell something you need to believe in it — and to look like you believe in it. In tone and body language, both leaders pulled that off in their comments on the prospects for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, even if they came across as overly self-conscious in doing so.
On the face of it, there is no doubting Trump’s personal investment in securing what he sees as the ultimate deal.
“Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve always heard that perhaps the toughest deal to make is the deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians — let’s see if we can prove them wrong,” Trump declared. Yet whether his administration has the mettle and the patience to pull off a lasting agreement that will suffer many false starts along the way remains very much an open question.
For his part, as he stood alongside Trump, Abbas gave the impression of playing ball more than he ever did when President Barack Obama was in charge. During Obama’s second term, Abbas refused direct talks with Israel following the collapse of the 2013-2014 negotiations, and instead pursued a policy of sulky unilateralism that aimed to secure international recognition of a Palestinian state.
“We believe that we are capable and able to bring about success to our efforts because, Mr. President, you have the determination and you have the desire to see it come to fruition and become successful,” Abbas gushed. Perhaps he can afford to do so. In Mideast policy circles right now, there is much talk of the positive response Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s international negotiations representative, has encountered among Palestinians. This, in turn, has made the Trump administration more amenable to entreaties from Arab leaders to bring Abbas into the heart of the negotiating process.

Congressmen Call On CUNY to Revoke Invite to Anti-Israel Linda Sarsour

United States congressmen are turning up the heat on the City University of New York (CUNY) over its decision to have anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour deliver its commencement address next month.
Reps. Daniel Donovan (R., N.Y.) and Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.) are both urging CUNY to revoke its invitation to Sarsour, citing numerous inflammatory comments directed towards Israel and arguing that students and their families should not be subjected to this type of speaker on graduation day.
Donovan, who was born in New York City, sent a letter to CUNY chancellor James Milliken earlier this week calling the taxpayer-funded university's decision to honor Sarsour an "embarrassment," citing her history of anti-Semitism and sexist remarks.
"I could not disagree more with the CUNY administration's decision," Donovan wrote in his letter. "It is, in my opinion, an embarrassment to the university to host a speaker with a history of derogatory, sexist, and anti-Semitic remarks to deliver the 2017 commencement address."
Donovan argues in his letter that it would be different if Sarsour was invited to speak at CUNY for an academic event, but inviting her to headline what is supposed to be a celebratory event is crossing a line.

Exclusive: Texas bank shuts out Israel haters

The giant Dallas-based bank Comerica announced on Friday that it will close a bank account held by an anti-Israel organization that promotes boycotting the Jewish state.
“Comerica Bank has taken steps to close the account. The account closing, the result of a business decision, will occur in due course. We will have no further comment on this matter,“ Wayne Mielke, the bank’s spokesman, told The Jerusalem Post by email.
The slated termination of the account for the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, which supports the BDS movement, is believed to be the first anti-Israel bank account closed by a US-based bank.
Comercia’s decision to sever its financial relationship with the association comes three days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law one of the country’s strongest anti-BDS laws. The Texas legislation bars state contracts with companies that support BDS. “You can always count on Texas,” Abbott said. “Any anti-Israel policy is an anti-Texas policy. Texas is not going to do business with any company that boycotts Israel.” He issued his statements at a ceremony marking Israel’s Independence Day that was held at the Jewish community center in Austin.
Rep. Phil King and Sen. Brandon Creighton sponsored the legislation blunting economic warfare against the Jewish state. Texas is widely considered to be one of the most pro-Israel states in America.

San Francisco State University Slammed by Faculty, Community Leaders for Failing to Confront ‘Institutional Antisemitism’

San Francisco State University (SFSU) was slammed repeatedly this week by Jewish faculty members and community leaders for failing to confront “institutional antisemitism,” according to reporting by a local paper, the J Weekly.
SFSU President Leslie Wong was accused in a series of letters sent by the campus Hillel of being complacent in the face of an increasingly “hostile” campus climate toward Jews, including failing to reject student groups’ anti-normalization policy of not engaging with Zionists or those perceived as pro-Israel, which has left many Jewish students feeling isolated on campus.
A main focus of the Jewish community’s complaints have been the handling by SFSU generally, and Wong specifically, of an April 2016 event featuring Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, which was quickly interrupted by protests. Last month, a frustrated Barkat canceled a speaking engagement on campus that was meant to be a redo of the previous year’s event because, according to the mayor, the administration and staff provided no support for the program. He said SFSU hastily threw the event together without reaching out to Jewish student groups to help organize the event and failed to properly publicize it.
Wong was accused of having extended the invitation as a political stunt.
Though SFSU launched an investigation into the 2016 Barkat protest, no students were punished. Faculty told J Weekly they were disappointed by the lack of results produced by the 11-month inquiry, and that new protocols introduced to prevent shout-downs of speakers have not been properly implemented. Wong created two new posts last summer in response to the Barkat debacle — a director of human relations and of equity programs — but both positions remain empty.

Canadian Jewish Rights Activist Alleges York University Has ‘Systemic Antisemitism’ Problem

A Canadian Jewish rights activist says Toronto’s York University has a “systemic antisemitism” problem, given what he described as a “recurring cycle” of the school ignoring anti-Jewish discrimination.
Aidan Fishman — the campus advocacy coordinator for B’nai Brith Canada — spoke with The Algemeiner on Friday to elaborate on the claims he made in an article he co-wrote with Willem Hart, a York student and human right researcher for B’nai Brith, titled “It’s Time to Hit the Reset Button at York University.”
Fishman and Hart wrote on Thursday, “While antisemitism is a problem on campuses across Canada, York’s pitiful record of anti-Jewish hatred stands out because it is systemic. Rather than consisting of isolated incidents, antisemitism at York is fostered by professors, staff and student unions, while university officials turn a blind eye.”
Fishman told The Algemeiner, “‘Systemic’ means to us that there is a repeating problem at York, where the power structures within York as an institution do not address antisemitism adequately. It’s not just individuals who are engaging in this [antisemitic] behavior, and the official structures are opposed. Rather, it is allowed to recur and it goes unpunished.”

Baroness Tonge removes antisemitic cartoon, claims she thought it was ‘two figures trying to escape Gaza’

Nobody could be in any doubt as to what it shows: the cry of ‘Never Again’ recently echoed round the world on Yom HaShoah, the day in April/May that we remember the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The figure on the left – shaped like a swastika, with a yellow star and wearing the striped uniform worn by prisoners in Auschwitz – is obviously a concentration camp victim. The figure on the right is obviously a Palestinian whose movement out of Gaza is controlled due to the risk of terrorist infiltration into Israel. The message – again obvious – is that ‘Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians in Gaza as was done to the Jews by the Nazis’. By the EUMC/IHRA Definition of Antisemitism which the UK government has adopted, the cartoon is antisemitic (‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’).
The cartoonist Latuff regularly features on this blog. He persistently uses antisemitic imagery in his cartoons. In 2006, Latuff won second prize in Iran’s grotesque ‘Holocaust Cartoon Contest’. ‘Simply the fact that he entered a competition designed to denigrate and diminish the Holocaust should have seen him permanently shunned in progressive or anti-racist circles.’
I noticed the cartoon on Baroness Tonge’s Facebook page in the morning of 2 May. I alerted the six members of the House of Lords who had previously complained about Baroness Tonge to the Standards Commissioner of the House (you can see their names in the Commissioner’s Report here (p7) and my blog about the Report here). The same afternoon Sarah Deech tweeted about it. Later on 2 May the JC picked it up and on May 3 so did Jewish News. The growing backlash cannot fail to have been noticed by the noble Baroness – and in the evening of 3 May she deleted the post.

Report Trump refused to push back Israel trip to June

Israeli officials reportedly wanted Trump's visit to coincide with the 50th anniversary celebration of the Six Day War and Jerusalem Day, which is often celebrated as the reunification of Jerusalem.
Washington declined Israel's request to push back US President Donald Trump's Israel visit to June, sources told London based newspaper Al Hayat reported over the weekend.
Israeli officials reportedly wanted Trump's visit to coincide with the 50th anniversary celebration of the Six Day War and Jerusalem Day, which is often celebrated as the reunification of Jerusalem.
The sources stated that the timing would not work out with the NATO meeting and G7 Summit, the main purpose of Trump's visit over seas.
Arriving during the celebrations in Israel could also give a biased appearance to America's Israel relations, the sources added.
It was stressed that an important part of the trip was Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia.

Outrage in Irish Parliament: Did Dublin Elect Saudis to U.N. Women's Rights Panel?

Irish FM Refuses to Disclose if Helped Elect Saudis to U.N. Women's Rights Body

Former UN Adviser Defends Female Genital Mutilation as ‘Gender-Egalitarian Surgery’

A former United Nations adviser who also previously worked for the U.S. government defended the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu, a former lead consultant at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and former health specialist at the National Institute of Child Health, has long been an advocate for FGM and voluntarily underwent the practice herself. She is an anthropologist and recently worked for the government of Sierra Leone.
Ahmadu told Carlson that she prefers the term "female circumcision" for the practice, during which part or all of a woman's sexual organs are removed for entirely non-medical reasons. She complained that Michigan doctor Jumana Nagarwala was recently arrested for performing a surgery that amounts to "a nick."
The New York Times reports that the "nick" Nagarwala performed "was so painful that [the girl] screamed and could barely walk afterward."
"If we do practice genital cutting here in the U.S. on boys, then it should not be impossible to understand that there are cultures, there are societies that practice what certain people are calling gender-inclusive genital surgeries,"Ahmadu argued.
"I just don't want it in my culture, in my society," Carlson retorted.
"Well, in our culture we don't discriminate,"Ahmadu said. "We have gender-egalitarian surgeries."

Did Trump Slight Abbas With Kim Jong-Un Comparison?

US President Donald Trump appeared to slight Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — perhaps unintentionally — when speaking to journalists earlier this week about a potential future meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
On Monday — two days before his White House sit-down with Abbas — Trump was asked, during a Bloomberg interview — whether he would be willing to meet with Kim.
“Absolutely,” the president replied. “I would be honored to do it. If it’s under the — again, under the right circumstances. But I would — I would do that. Hey, look, I’m meeting with Abbas on Wednesday, the leader of Palestine.”
Abbas could interpret the answer as meaning that Trump was honored to be meeting with him. The other interpretation is that Trump considers Abbas, like Kim, to be an enemy of America.
As to whether any comparison between North Korea and the PA is fair, the US democracy watchdog Freedom House awarded only 28 points out of 100 to the PA in its 2017 Freedom in the World report (Israel received a score of 80). North Korea got just 3 points.

EXCLUSIVE - Senior Jihadist: Hamas ‘In Plot Against Islam’ With New Charter

Hamas’ new charter, which is being sold as more moderate than its predecessor, proves that “Hamas was never an Islamic movement,” according to Egyptian jihadist Abu Abdullah Almuhajer, who is active in Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas was mistakenly considered among the Islamic movements and also falsely among the resistance movements, said Almuhajer, speaking to Breitbart Jerusalem. “The Muslim Brotherhood is part of the democratic method in which political movements treat man-made laws as the foundation of life and fight for control only in order to exchange these laws for different laws while ignoring the laws of Sharia.”
According to Almuhajer, Hamas’ new charter, in which the movement recognizes the 1967 borders, “is proof that Hamas is part of a plot against Islam and Muslims by indirectly saying that Palestine, which is Muslim holy land, can be part of a compromise with the Jews.”
Almuhajer claimed that the entire state of Israel is being “occupied by the Jews.”
He said that the Quran is clear in its commandments and according to the text, “The Muslims must fight infidels in order to put the laws of Sharia into place over the land. Non-Muslims need to pay a poll tax and need to be submissive. Hamas’ announcement, according to which they’re fighting against the Jewish occupation and not the Jews, proves its lack of understanding of the conflict and proves that its mistakenly called an Islamic movement.”

Gaza chief Haniyeh rises in the ranks to become Hamas chairman

Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was elected chairman of the Hamas Politburo, outgoing Politburo Chairman Khaled Meshaal said on Saturday. “It is a honor for me to inform our people, our movement’s members, and our nation…the election of the brother ‘Abu al-Abid’ Ismail Haniyeh,” Meshaal said in a video recording posted on social media, referring to Haniyeh by his tekonym. “I put all of my trust in Abu al-Abid.”
Haniyeh, who hails from the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, was widely expected to be the next top Hamas leader. The announcement of Haniyeh’s election coincided with the conclusion of internal Hamas leadership elections, which have been ongoing for the past several months. Hamas Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Haniyeh’s election “reaffirms that Hamas is strong…and believes in democracy and respects its results.”
As chairman of the Hamas Politburo, Haniyeh will have a variety of responsibilities including maintaining Hamas’s foreign contacts. While he still lives in the Shati camp, he may relocate abroad for his new post. Haniyeh, who has been deeply involved in Hamas and Palestinian politics for decades, is close to both the Hamas leadership in the strip and diaspora.
Haniyeh previously served as assistant to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Hamas liaison to the Palestinian Authority, PA prime minister, and Hamas Gaza chief. Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip, told The Jerusalem Post that Haniyeh’s election indicates a continuation of Meshaal’s policies.

Islamic Jihad rejects Palestinian state limited to 1967 borders

The radical Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad said Saturday that it rejects any move to accepting a the establishment of a Palestinian state limited to the 1967 borders after Hamas released a new program that appeared to marginally soften its stance on the issue while still calling for Israel’s destruction.
“As partners with our Hamas brothers in the struggle for liberation, we feel concern over the document” which Hamas adopted on Monday, said Islamic Jihad’s deputy leader, Ziad al-Nakhala.
“We are opposed to Hamas’s acceptance of a state within the 1967 borders and we think this is a concession which damages our aims,” he said on Islamic Jihad’s website.
Nakhala said that what he called the new Hamas policy formally accepting the idea of a state in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War would “lead to deadlock and can only produce half-solutions.”
Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU, apparently adopted the new document in an attempt to improve its standing in the international community, but it is deliberately ambiguous.

Leader of Egyptian ISIS Affiliate Vows to Increase Attacks on Christians

The leader of the Islamic State affiliate in Egypt has vowed to escalate attacks against Christians, urging Muslims to steer clear of Christian gatherings and western embassies as they are targets of their group's militants.
"Targeting the churches is part of our war on infidels," the unidentified leader said in a lengthy interview published by the group's al-Nabaa newsletter on Thursday. He also called on Muslims who don't join jihadists to carry out lone wolf attacks across Egypt, and complained that a large number of Egyptians were antagonistic to his group's call and mission.
The group claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings that struck two of the country's Coptic Christian churches last month, killing over 45 worshippers and prompting the president to declare a three-month state of emergency.

Syrian Children Employed Producing Fake Life Jackets For Syrian Refugees In Turkish Factory

Turkish police have seized over 1,200 unsafe life jackets destined for use by migrants trying to reach Greece by sea, in a raid on an underground workshop that used Syrian underage labor on Jan. 6.
The authorities seized 1,263 life jackets that failed to correspond to safety standards in the raid on the workshop in the center of İzmir, Doğan News Agency said.
İzmir is a major hub for refugees and migrants seeking to make the risky crossing in flimsy boats to EU member Greece, Agence France-Presse reported.
The fake life jackets seized were filled with “packaging” rather than the proper material needed to keep users alive for hours in the water.You just can’t beat Islam for peace love and understanding.

Hardliners trying to sabotage nuke deal with anti-Israel rhetoric, Rouhani

In a presidential debate in Tehran carried live on state TV, Iran's current president Hassan Rouhani battled criticism that few Iranians had enjoyed any tangible benefits from the 2015 deal under which Iran curbed its disputed nuclear activity in exchange for relief from global sanctions.
"What has changed since the deal? What has changed in the day to day lives of our people?" said hardline candidate Ebrahim Raisi, one of four sharia (Islamic law) judges who oversaw executions of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s.
However, all of Rouhani's opponents in the debate said they accepted the nuclear pact as "it was a national accord."
During the debate, Rouhani accused unnamed hardliners of trying to derail the nuclear deal, referring to a ballistic missile launch in 2016 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in which "Israel must be wiped out" was written on the missiles in Hebrew, according to Iranian media.

Iran’s army warns Rouhani over missile comments

Iran’s armed forces warned Iranian President Hassan Rouhani against discussing the country’s defense program after he criticized the anti-Israel slogans written on the side of ballistic missiles, local media reported on Saturday.
During an election debate on Friday, Rouhani took the rare step of criticizing the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp for the provocative messages they wrote on ballistic missiles before testing them.
“We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles and showed underground (missile) cities to disrupt the JCPOA (nuclear deal),” he said during the debate, which comes ahead of the May 19 election.
Armed Forces spokesman General Masoud Jazayeri responded that the missile program had “no connection” to the nuclear deal.
“We again stress and recommend the presidential candidates to avoid controversial entries into important and sensitive military and defense issues of the country and giving false information to people,” said Jazayeri, according to the website of state broadcaster IRIB.

House launches probe into claim Obama hurt national security to seal Iran deal

Congress will investigate whether the Obama administration undermined its own counterproliferation efforts in order to secure implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran, Politico reported.
The House oversight committee said Friday it had launched an investigation into Politico’s April 24 report that the administration had dropped prosecutions against several Iranian fugitives accused of posing threats to national security, while publicly downplaying the danger posed by Iranians freed in a January 2016 prisoner exchange.
Republican committee leaders Jason Chaffetz and Ron DeSantis said they had asked the State and Justice Departments to provide documents on the various cases referenced in the report by May 19, as well as make officials available for briefings by May 25.
Meanwhile 13 Republican senators have also requested numerous documents from the two departments, as well as the Treasury, in light of the allegations made in the report.
The senators said they were “concerned that President Obama and certain previous administration officials intentionally suppressed the seriousness of the charges against these individuals in order to garner public support for the nuclear deal with Iran, and we fear that these individuals may still pose a threat to the national security of the United States.”

Study 40% of Germans hold modern antisemitic views

Ahead of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s visit to Israel on Sunday, a German government study revealed that nearly 33 million Germans, 40% of the population of 82 million, are infected with contemporary antisemitism – hatred of the Jewish state.
The report, which was published on April 24, details in a section titled “Agreement to Israel-related antisemitism” that 40% of Germans who were polled showed approval of the following statement: “Based on Israel’s policies, I can understand people having something against the Jews.”
The federal government’s antisemitism report found that the proportion of Germans who agreed with the antisemitic statement increased from 28% in 2014 to 40% in 2016. The poll study was commissioned by the Social Democratic Party think tank the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Dr. Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, spoke to the Die Welt newspaper in late April, saying, “We already notice that in German society solidarity with Israel has declined. The fact alone that the word 'Israel-critic' can be established here shows this. We are also more frequently confronted with Israel-related antisemitism.”
Schuster said, however, that “the federal president should send the message [in Israel] that one can really count on this friendship [with Germany], also in difficult times.”

ADL Blasts White House Staffer for Boasting of Close Relationship with Louis Farrakhan

The Anti-Defamation League has slammed an adviser to President Donald Trump for saying that she would “look forward ” to a meeting with Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the antisemitic Nation of Islam (NoI) movement.
“Louis Farrakhan should not be made to feel welcome by anyone in the White House,” said ADL Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Greenblatt, in response to favorable comments made by Omarosa Manigault, who serves as a political aide to Trump.
“I think any of your audience would know that I’ve never shied away from having an open, and I believe a good, relationship with Louis Farrakhan,” Manigault said in a Thursday morning interview on Chicago talk-radio station WVON. “I would look forward to receiving that invitation and sitting down with him.”
The ADL pointed out that Farrakhan has been agitating against Jews and Judaism for more than 30 years. Following through on Manigault’s overture, said Greenblatt, “would only serve to legitimize his long record of conspiratorial and hateful views toward Jews. We hope that the administration will make it clear that Farrakhan and his anti-Semitic organization will find no supporters in the White House.”
Ahead of his 2015 Million March, Farrakhan declared: “I’m talking about the wicked ones in the Jewish community that run America, run the government, run the world, own the banks, own the means of communication. They are my enemies!”

German woman fined over 'Nazi' Easter eggs

A 70-year-old woman in eastern Germany was fined on Thursday after being convicted for posting a photo on Facebook of eggs she'd decorated with the Nazi swastika and other runes, wishing people "Happy Easter."
The woman, identified as Margit H., dropped an appeal against her conviction for displaying banned symbols and agreed to pay a 750-euro ($820) fine, reported The Associated Press, which cited the Dresden administrative court.
H., whose last name was not given in line with privacy laws, over Easter 2016 posted the picture of the basket of 10 eggs decorated with the Nazi German flag, and with the SS symbol and other runes.
She had tried to argue variously that she didn't know what the symbols were, that she was protected by freedom of speech, and that it was a joke, according to AP.
The use of Nazi Nazi symbolism is outlawed in Germany.

Pissarro seized in WWII turns up in Paris show

A painting by impressionist master Camille Pissarro seized from a Jewish collector in France in WWII has turned up in an exhibition in Paris, where relatives are seeking its return from a US couple who have loaned it.
“La cueillette des pois” (“Picking Peas”) painted with gouache by Pissarro in 1887, has been found on display at the Marmottan Museum in the French capital.
Simon Bauer was among Jews rounded up in the Drancy internment camp outside Paris in 1944, but he escaped being deported to the Nazi death camps because of a train drivers’ strike.
A year earlier his art collection, including the Pissarro, had been confiscated and sold by an art dealer designated by officials from France’s war-time Vichy regime.
On being released in September 1944, Bauer immediately began looking for his paintings, but he had only recovered a small part of his collection of 93 canvases by the time he died in 1947.

Justin Bieber’s Jewish Manager Scooter Braun Lights Up Instagram With Photos From Israel Trip

Justin Bieber’s Jewish manager, Scooter Braun, took to Instagram this week to share photos from his trip to Israel with the Canadian pop star, who performed on Thursday in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.
Braun posted pictures of himself praying at the Western Wall, paying his respects a Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, touring a vineyard in the Golan Heights, taking a helicopter ride with Bieber and swimming in the Dead Sea with the “Sorry” singer.
The 35-year-old Braun also paid a visit to the Israel-Syria border. “[I] got so close my Facebook checked in as if I was in Syria,” he said.
He went on to say, “While I stood on a beautiful mountain side surrounded by crops and horses I could clearly hear gun shots and explosives across the border. It was only a few miles off. I couldn’t help but think of my own safety and the safety of my family and how lucky we are. But with that luck comes a responsibility.”
During his time in the Golan Heights, Braun met Doulan Abu Saleh, mayor of the Druze town Majdal Shams. Abu Saleh recounted a story of Israeli soldiers risking their lives by entering a minefield to save a Syrian family who fled bombardments in their war-torn country. He said, “We see, but the world doesn’t see, Israeli soldiers risking their lives, going into very dangerous areas on the Israeli-Syrian border, in order to save Syrian families with children who ran away from the explosions. It’s also important for the world to see this.”

Col Kemp: Hitler's British death island: Astonishing story of how the Nazis murdered 40,000 people in Channel Island concentration camps - and planned to blitz the South Coast with chemical weapons

On a spring afternoon, the grassy headland is bursting with a joy that lifts the soul. Sunshine, blue sea and sky; splashes of golden gorse catch the light and bluebells sway in the breeze; larks float on air currents while gannets in their thousands swoop and screech on a rocky island below.
This is the southern tip of Alderney, smallest of the three main Channel Islands. Across the water, Guernsey, Sark and Jersey glisten. It has to be one of the most beautiful, tranquil and inspiring sights in the whole of Britain.
But close your eyes, take your mind back 75 years . . . and this idyll is a scene of sheer horror.
We are standing on the remains of a massive World War II gun emplacement — a German gun. To the left, a small valley leads down to the cliff top.
All those years ago it was known as the Valley of Death because down it were herded unknown numbers of slave workers, too exhausted to be of use any longer to their Nazi masters, to be thrown to their death on the rocks and swept away by the sea.
Behind us, lost in the undergrowth, are the chilling remains of a concentration camp, run by the SS as ruthlessly and inhumanely as any of its counterparts in the Third Reich, where men were whipped, bludgeoned, starved, hanged, shot, even crucified.
You have to pinch yourself to remember that this is British soil. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

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