05/13 Links: Pierre Rehov:The UN's Obsession against Israel; Lawsuit Targets American Muslims for Palestine

From Ian:

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Pierre Rehov: The UN's Obsession against Israel

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) met once again on March 20 to debate "Agenda Item 7," a mandatory subject of debate since June 2006, the only one whose goal is systematically to condemn the Israeli democracy for crimes the existence of which remain to be proven.
The agenda, officially designed to assess the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories, in the light of the reports submitted by Fatah, the PLO and various NGOs, is part of a wider campaign, carried out by countries such as Libya, Algeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Sudan and Yemen. Israel is thus the only country on the planet to benefit from the doubtful privilege of being scrutinized on the least of its actions, through an agenda decided by its enemies.
If it were only a question of expressing this obsession, born out of an old habit for the Arab-Muslim dictatorships to turn the Hebrew state into their scapegoat, responsible for all the misfortunes plaguing their societies, Agenda Item 7 would be a mere oddity, especially since the session is regularly boycotted by a majority of Western countries, and systematically by the United States.
Unfortunately, this Israelphobia has been spreading throughout the United Nations. In 1948, when Israel, after being officially recognized as a sovereign state by virtually all Western democracies, had just repelled the genocidal aggression of five neighboring countries, and hundreds of thousands of Jews were fleeing the oppression of Arab dictatorships, the UN gave birth to UNRWA, an organization designed to help Palestinian refugees exclusively. This was despite there already being a program for refugees at the UN, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The mandate of UNRWA was for one year. Seventy years later, the organization, now a lavish UN jobs program, continues to function within the Palestinian territories and neighboring countries, with an annual budget close to one billion dollars. Part of that covers salaries and pension funds for 25,000 to 27,000 employees (including many members of Hamas); schools in which the descendants of descendants of "refugees", in suburbs or villages called "camps", are inaccurately told that Tel Aviv and Haifa had belonged to them and should be returned to them, and where the myth of an impossible "right of return" continues to hold new generations of Palestinians hostage and inciting hatred of Israel and Jews.
As Said Aburish, one of Yasser Arafat's biographers and a former adviser to Saddam Hussein, told this author:
"In order to conserve UNRWA rations, Palestinians had become accustomed to bury their dead at night, so that no one died in the camps except when it was possible to accuse Israel of it. As a result, the refugee figures have always been distorted, with the passive complicity of UNRWA, as its annual budget depends on the number of souls for which they are responsible."

Lawsuit Targets American Muslims for Palestine

A national anti-Israel group and several of its activists are "alter egos and/or successors" of a Hamas-support network that was found liable for an American teen's death in a 1996 terrorist attack, litigation filed in Chicago federal court Friday claims.
After Stanley and Joyce Boim won $156 million in damages, defendants including the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and the American Muslim Society (AMS) shut down and claimed to be unable to pay. It was a ruse, the Boims' attorneys claim, as many of the same people opened up American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) at a nearby address.
A subsequent criminal prosecution found that other defendants in the original lawsuit, like the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and the United Association for Studies and Research, were part of a Muslim Brotherhood-created Hamas-support network in the United States called the Palestine Committee.
The IAP used to hold annual conventions. The year after it shut down, AMP held its first national meeting, offering the same "audience, content, management, speakers, and ... message" as the IAP gatherings, the complaint said.
Today, AMP and its financial arm, Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, continue the work done by the defunct groups in the original Boim suit, the complaint said. AMP donors and officers "are substantially identical to the management and donors of their alter egos and predecessors, HLF, IAP and AMS."

IsraellyCool: Terror Supporters JVP and AMP Stung By Flyers Accusing Them Of Being Terror Supporters

The following flyers have been placed all over New York City.
Including the homes of Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Hatem Bazian, Chairman of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), leading to this attack by Vilkomerson, JVP and AMP.
Note how they characterize the flyers as “Islamophobic” because they “attempt to link Islam with terrorism” – even though nothing in the flyers actually suggests this.
Instead, let’s look at the accusations in the flyer to see if they are founded.
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
According to the ADL – which incidentally comes out hard against “Islamophobia” – AMP is not only affiliated with terrorists, but is also antisemitic.

Jordanian man stabs Israeli policeman in Old City, is killed by him

A Jordanian citizen stabbed an Israeli police officer in the neck and head near Jerusalem’s Old City early on Saturday afternoon and was shot dead by the policeman, police said.
The assailant was identified by Hebrew media as Muhammad Abdullah Salim al-Kassji, a 57-year-old Jordanian citizen who entered Israel several days ago.
The 37-year-old police officer was taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek medical center in moderate condition after the incident near the Lions’ Gate. He had wounds in the neck and head, and was conscious and in stable condition when evacuated to the hospital.
A second man was lightly wounded, with cuts to the hand.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the attacker pulled a knife and stabbed the officer, and that the officer responded by opening fire and killing his attacker.

‘I acted to save civilians,’ says policeman stabbed by Jordanian

The policeman who was stabbed by a Jordanian man in Jerusalem Saturday before shooting his attacker dead said he acted “to save civilians” as well as his own life.
Identified as officer “N,” the officer was being treated at Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Medical Center with moderate injuries. He was visited Saturday evening by Jerusalem Police Chief Yoram Halevy, who praised his actions during the ordeal.
“We are very proud of you, proud of what you did and how you reacted,” Halevy said. “You responded correctly, you were at the right place. I am personally proud of you. Your commanders and all of us in Jerusalem are proud of you.”
“N” responded: “You don’t have any choice. You need to fight to save civilians and your own life. I tried to do everything I could for my family.”

Jordan calls killing of Jerusalem attacker a ‘heinous crime’

Jordan on Saturday said an Israeli policeman’s shooting and killing of a Jordanian assailant as he stabbed him repeatedly was “a heinous crime,” and demanded to receive details about the incident from the Israeli government.
“The Israeli government, which is the occupying force, bears responsibility for the shooting of a Jordanian citizen in occupied East Jerusalem which led to his martyrdom,” Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani said in a statement.
“The government denounces this heinous crime…and has asked Israel to provide full details about it,” he added.
The assailant was earlier identified as Muhammad Abdullah Salim al-Kassji, a 57-year-old Jordanian citizen who had entered Israel several days ago.

Palestinian woman caught with knife at Hebron checkpoint

A Palestinian woman was arrested at a checkpoint near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron Saturday after she was found to be carrying a knife.
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Officials suspect the young woman, in her twenties, intended to carry out a stabbing attack against Israeli security forces.
She was taken for further questioning.

Danish teen charged in plot to bomb Jewish school said inspired by synagogue killer

A 17-year-old Danish girl charged with planning to bomb two schools in Denmark, including a Jewish one, allegedly was inspired by the terrorist who killed a security guard at a Copenhagen synagogue in 2015.
A Danish prosecutor alleged last month that the teen looked up to the 2015 synagogue gunman, Omar El-Hussein, according to the BT newspaper.
The girl, who was not named, adopted El-Hussein’s last name on several occasions, telling the court she did so because she thought he was “tough,” according to BT.
Following a trip to Turkey, the teen became interested in Islam and converted to the religion upon returning to Denmark, according to the prosecutor. She allegedly attempted to get in contact with the Islamic State terrorist group on the internet.
The teen was arrested in 2016 for allegedly planning bombing attacks on the Jewish school in Copenhagen and another school in Denmark. She had acquired chemicals to create the explosives, according to Danish prosecutors.

JPost Editorial: Really free Pollard

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vaunted “muscular diplomacy” was missing last month, when he quietly raised Pollard’s fate with US Vice President Mike Pence in Washington. In Jerusalem in some two weeks’ time, our prime minister will have the rare opportunity to confront the new president with the justice of Pollard’s cause.
Pollard’s sentence has been condemned as unjust and excessive by many American officials, including former CIA chief James Woolsey, who commented that “spies from friendly countries, like the Philippines and Greece, normally stay in prison in the US for just a few years.”
His parole terms make a mockery of the term, instead of providing an avenue for his penitence by reintegrating him in society. Besides being unemployable – because the terms of his release make an employer’s entire computer network subject to federal monitoring – Pollard is not even allowed to have a smartphone.
“Jonathan is a Stanford graduate, a very smart and educated man, but he’s not young and not very healthy,” one associate told Ynet. “He can’t work as a salesperson at a convenience store. It’s also not fair that it is decided for him what job he could do in America.”
Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense when Pollard was arrested in 1985, told Army Radio that letting Pollard move to Israel would be the right thing to do. He said Pollard’s sentence should have been commuted long ago, and former presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama erred by not doing so.
President Trump has the moral responsibility to correct this grievous error by granting Pollard his total freedom.

Isi Leibler: Candidly Speaking: Lauder promoting Abbas as moderate is fraught with danger

Last week, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder released a series of statements confirming that he had encouraged US President Donald Trump to recognize that peace between Israelis and Palestinians was now attainable. He also stressed that he considers PA President Mahmoud Abbas to be a moderate committed to peace.
Implicit in his narrative is that the Israeli government and especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously been insufficiently flexible but that Trump could succeed in his efforts.
We have just celebrated Independence Day and are approaching commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and reunification of Jerusalem. The country is in great shape; the economy is booming and we have emerged as a formidable military power.
With a US administration that pulls no punches about its support and alliance with us, Israel is wellplaced to achieve many of its long-term strategic goals, including resolution of borders, agreed parameters of settlement activity and ultimately, formal annexation of the major settlement blocs and Golan Heights.
But these require skillful diplomacy and sensitivity to Trump’s belief that he can negotiate a peace settlement with Abbas even though his predecessors have failed.

Seth Frantzman: ISIS’s dirty secret

Islamic State was able to conduct trade, import supplies for weapons and run an effective economy even up to its last moments under siege in Mosul. Only now, confined to less than 11 square kilometers, is it finally feeling the pinch. But other Islamic State areas continue to function.
Despite a 68-nation coalition, the various armies fighting Islamic State – including Iraq and the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Syrian regime, Syrian rebels, Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish YPG – never fought a total war against Islamic State or its economy. Through 2015, Islamic State areas were benefiting from government salaries paid by Baghdad and Damascus.
The argument behind not targeting the supplies was that millions of civilians would starve. But the Islamic State war effort benefited from this. ISIS was also able to carry out its crimes in the open, such as trading in thousands of Yazidi women.
In the modern history of warfare, there has rarely been an example of an enemy entity having such open borders to trade, even via the states at war with it.
ISIS was able to prolong its resistance because it was never subjected to a total war onslaught, and its enemies – particularly the coalition which had the resources – were tepid in targeting it and seeking to destroy it quickly and effectively.

PROGRESSING THE PEACE PROCESS?

US President Donald Trump does not plan on hosting a trilateral summit with Israel and the Palestinian Authority during his upcoming trip to Jerusalem later this month, senior Trump administration officials told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
Trump will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and, barring security complications, he will also meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem during his first visit to the region next week.
But local reports suggesting Trump will host a summit with Abbas and Netanyahu are incorrect. The Trump administration is not planning such a meeting, the Post has learned, and those involved in his Mideast portfolio believe that direct negotiations at this stage may be premature.
Israelis and Palestinians hold out great expectations for Trump's arrival, hopeful the new president will articulate a path forward in their stalled peace process. But his aides are offering them caution: "We still consider this in very early stages," one official said.

Political Analyst: Israeli Government Worried About Trump ‘Shooting From the Hip’ During Upcoming Visit to Jewish State

US President Donald Trump’s address at Masada during his upcoming May 22-23 visit to the Jewish state is becoming a subject of increasingly anxious speculation among Israeli officials, a leading political analyst told The Algemeiner on Friday.
“The Israeli government is worried about what he’ll say at Masada, they’re worried about the president shooting from the hip,” Professor Jonathan Rynhold — a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan — said.
The concern over the Masada speech comes amid broader uncertainty regarding what to expect from Trump’s regional foray, with an Israeli media outlet reporting on Friday that US Ambassador David Friedman has urged Israeli officials to cooperate fully with Trump as he tries to make the “ultimate deal” to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians.
Friedman’s advice to the Israelis, Haaretz reported, “was to refrain from getting into confrontations with the president and to help him implement his Middle Eastern policies.”

UN to jailed Islamic dissidents: "You will love it"

The UN forum was sponsored by the wealthy MiSK foundation, a Saudi charity led by Mohammad bin Salman, the Saudi defense minister who led the Yemen bombing that killed 10,000 civilians and imposed a naval blockade on medical supplies, resulting in twenty million Yemenites who now need humanitarian assistance and seven million suffering from hunger.
But the Riyadh forum tells more. It tells us about the level of penetration of Islamic regimes in the UN human rights councils and commissions. In fact, in six months, Unesco has approved two resolutions that have cancelled the Jewish roots of Jerusalem, while the Saudis have also been able to get re-elected at the UN Commission on Women's Rights.
Two years ago, during the same hours that medieval Saudi justice flogged Raif Badawi, a delegation from the United Nations landed at Gedda to promote an international conference on religious freedom. No, it's not a joke. Joachim Rücker, the president of the UN Human Rights Council, was photographed smiling at the side of the guardians of the Wahhabite regime. The Obama administration also sent two envoys to the Gedda conference: the Ambassador for Religious Freedom, David Saperstein, and Arsalan Suleman, the envoy at the Organization for Islamic Cooperation.
There was also Heiner Bielefeldt, United Nations Special Envoy for Religious Freedom, a well-known scholar of Immanuel Kant, who must have seen applications of his philosophical reason in the whip that slashed the blogger.
Now, the favorite to succeed Irina Bokova is a Qatari politician and a Saudi will be the spokesman for the UN agency conference, while an Iranian will be the head of its executive board. They call it the "Islamic Troika". That is the purpose of these exclusive nights at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh whose slogan is: "You will love it!".

Israel Ranked 15th Most Militarily Powerful Nation in World, Ahead of Iran, Behind Turkey and Egypt

Israel ranks among the top 25 military powers in the world — but so do several of its historical and current adversaries, according to the latest military rankings published by military analytics website Global Firepower on Friday.
The website ranks country’s military capabilities based on 50 factors, among them: diversity and amount of weaponry, geographical position, available manpower, and whether the country is an actual or a suspected nuclear power.
Israel came in at number 15 on the list of 106 nations. Its annual defense budget is $15.5 billion and 160,000 active frontline personnel. But the Jewish state ranked beneath Egypt, at number 11, and Turkey, at number 8.
Iran — which has declared the elimination of Israel an explicit aim — was 20th on the list. The Tehran regime spends an annual $6.3 billion on its military budget. Its military capabilities include over 4,000 land-based vehicles, including battle tanks and rocket systems, and a growing airforce.
The US topped the list, its annual $600 billion defense budget dwarfing those of Russia, which came in second, and China, which was listed third.

West Bank votes in polls underlining Palestinian split

Palestinians in the West Bank voted Saturday in municipal elections that underscored deep rifts between PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and Islamist rival Hamas, the terror group which runs the Gaza Strip.
Their failure to reconcile is seen as a major obstacle to any settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The West Bank and Gaza have not participated in an election together since 2006, when Hamas swept Palestinian parliamentary polls, sparking a conflict that led to near civil war when the Islamist group seized power in Gaza in a violent coup the following year.
The international community refused to deal with any government in which Hamas participated until it renounced terrorism and violence and recognized Israel and past peace agreements.
Voting for around 300 municipal councils opened at 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) Saturday at dozens of schools across the West Bank. Polls are due to close at 7:00 p.m.

Hamas boycotts local Palestinian elections held in West Bank

Palestinians held municipal elections on Saturday in the occupied West Bank, a first democratic exercise in years, but one that has also raised tensions between the rival Fatah and Hamas movements.
With no legislative or presidential elections in sight, the municipal ballot is seen as a popularity test for Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party, caught in a deep rift with Islamist Hamas.
Underlining the political schism, about 800,000 Palestinians were expected to vote for representatives in 145 local councils in the West Bank, but not in the Gaza Strip.
Months of political and legal wrangling preceded Saturday's elections. Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, and Hamas, which runs Gaza, blamed each other for the vote not being held in the small coastal enclave.
"No doubt this is the democratic life we have promised our people," said Fatah Deputy Chief Mahmoud al-Aloul. "Unfortunately this joy is taking place in the West Bank alone because Hamas is preventing the people from practising this right in Gaza."

Hamas Wins Again at Birzeit University Student Elections in West Bank

Hamas has once again earned a political and moral victory in elections for the Students’ Association at Birzeit University, the more important university in the West Bank.
Birzeit is located in Ramallah, the center of power for the Fatah movement and the Palestinian Authority. The Hamas faction won 25 seats against just four that went to Fatah.
Hamas’ new political chief Ismail Haniyeh said that the election results at Birzeit were “a new expression of the students’ loyalty to the option of resistance and the Hamas movement.” Haniyeh added that, “This victory proves that all the attempts to diminish and exclude the Hamas movement have been unsuccessful.”
The leaders of Fatah’s youth movement called for an examination to explain the loss. The leaders attributed the loss to a lack of unity within the movement rather than to the election campaign.
Hamas sought to pour more salt on the wound and aired a video on one of their media agencies showing Palestinians near Ramallah celebrating Hamas’ victory in the elections.

Source: Hamas Orders Members To Avoid Military Escalation With Israel

Hamas members fear that a military escalation is on the horizon thanks to the financial crisis in the Gaza Strip brought on in part by the Palestinian Authority’s freeze on payments to thousands of its employees in Gaza and Israel’s cessation of electricity payments on behalf of the Gaza Strip.
A source in Hamas told Breitbart Jerusalem that the group’s military and political branches have ordered their members to prevent and avoid any step that could lead to military conflict with Israel. According to the source, the orders from Hamas’ leadership to the movement’s members were given despite public threats from its leaders against Israel.
The source noted that Hamas’s top leadership rejected the recommendation of the group’s military leaders to begin measured escalation against Israel in order to use the international community or at least the Arab countries to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to renew payments to their employees in Gaza.
The source admitted that Hamas’ position is also due to the fact that it wants to prevent a conflict that will exact a heavy price from the group and the residents of Gaza while the enclave has yet to fully recover from the last war in 2014.

Intel Report: Iran Refining Nuke Delivery System in Flagrant Violation of Ban

Iran continues to make critical technological strides in its efforts to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons over great distances, efforts that violate international prohibitions, according to the director of national intelligence, who informed Congress this week that the Islamic Republic "would choose ballistic missiles as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons."
The disclosure comes just days after Iranian leaders announced the upcoming launch of two new domestically produced satellites. Iran has long used its space program as cover for illicit missile work, as the know-how needed to launch such equipment can be applied to long-range ballistic missile technology.
Daniel Coats, America's top spymaster, informed Congress this week in an intelligence briefing that Iran's ballistic missile work continues unimpeded and could be used by the Islamic Republic to launch a nuclear weapon, according to unclassified testimony.
Iran's ballistic missile work, particularly its focus on ICBMs, runs counter to United Nations resolutions barring such activity, though it remains unclear if the Trump administration plans to pursue new sanctions on Iran.
Iran continues to perform key research and development on nuclear missile capabilities despite the landmark nuclear agreement with Western powers, according to the last U.S. intelligence assessments.

How can Canada pretend that Saudi Arabia is an honourable, peaceful country?

If you believe the official word from Ottawa it appears Saudi Arabia and Canada are on good terms. A Canadian government website, dealing with trade, takes care to assert that we share with the Saudis “many peace and security issues, including energy security, humanitarian affairs (including refugees), and counter-terrorism.” It also says admiringly that “The Saudi government plays an important role in promoting regional peace and stability.”
No wonder Canada seems willing to sell military vehicles and other products to Saudi Arabia. It sounds like a friendly government we should enjoy dealing with. Not democratic, of course, but sort of on the right side, at least sometimes.
On the other hand, UN Watch, an independent monitoring service, this week sent out a bulletin headed “UN holds lavish NGO forum in Saudi Arabia while rights activists languish in prison.” It seems that the Saudis, with support from a Saudi foundation headed by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the Saudi minister of defence, generously hosted a large global gathering of non-government organizations on the subject of Youth and their Social Impact.
It was staged in the luxury of the Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh (which advertises Distinguished Fine Dining and All-Men’s Spa) — even as, UN Watch went on, “young bloggers and human rights activists like Raif Badawi languish in prison for the crime of advocating freedom in Saudi Arabia.”

Qatar’s Anti-Christian And Anti-Semitic Policies Should Bar It From UNESCO Seat

Irina Bokova made history when she acceded to the role of Director General of UNESCO. She was the first woman and first person from a former communist state to lead the organization which has an annual budget of over half a billion dollars.
Now the race is on to find a successor to Bokova and Qatar’s former minister of culture, Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, is seen by many to be the frontrunner.
Qatar’s long history of intolerance towards Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities should dissuade the United Nations from choosing Al-Kawari as the head of UNESCO.
A host of Jewish groups have pointed out that Qatari publishers routinely publish anti-Semitic tracts which are featured at Qatar’s Doha Book Festival and other events in the region. Al-Kawari himself wrote a forward to a book of Arabic poetry which includes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Some of these anti-Semitic books were part of Qatari funded display at a German book festival.
At UNESCO, Qatar is opposed to any Jewish character for Jerusalem.
Qatar’s treatment of Christians and Christanity within the emirate is also worth noting.

For Second Time in a Year, University of California-Irvine Students Require Police Escort From IDF-Related Event Due to Intense Protests

For the second time in a year, University of California-Irvine (UCI) students required a police escort from an IDF-related event due to intense protests both inside and outside the room where the program was being held, attendees told The Algemeiner on Friday.
On Wednesday, an event hosted by UCI’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) featuring IDF reservists was disrupted for about half an hour by some 40 protesters from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), some of whom wore t-shirts with the words “UC intifada” and chanted slogans advocating the destruction of Israel and violent “resistance,” in a demonstration that had “potential to turn violent,” according to the program organizer, Kevin Brum.
Brum –the founder, president and sole member of UCI’s SSI — told The Algemeiner that he contacted the UCI Police Department (UCIPD) when it seemed the situation “was getting overly heated.” He said UCIPD acted negligently, failing to be on scene as they were scheduled to be for the duration of the “high-risk program,” and only arrived some 10 minutes after protesters had voluntarily left the room and gathered in the narrow corridor immediately outside the door.
The police then escorted program attendees down that same hallway “in a single-file line, with us walking inches away from protesters,” Brum said. The ten attendees were lead out of the building via an employee exit, a move that made some of them feel “like criminals being taken out the back way,” he noted.

Cambridge students vindicated over anti-Semitism claims

The Master of a prestigious Cambridge college has apologised to two students whose complaints of anti-Semitic abuse were inadequately handled.
Professor Jane Stapleton, Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, said on Thursday that the College now “accepts that racist and anti-Semitic conduct occurred and has apologised to the students who reported it”. She also announced changes to the College’s complaint-handling procedures.
The two students had reported suffering racist and anti-Semitic abuse in August last year while at a College party organised by two sports clubs. The College’s initial investigation failed to identify any individual perpetrator but disciplined two students for swearing and physical aggression, and restricted the societies’ social activity.
However, the complainants were left unhappy with the findings and with how the process had been conducted and communicated, and after months of further review, a contrite College statement was issued on Thursday summarising the problems and issuing a new disciplinary code.

SJP’s Blunder Exposes Its Antisemitism

I recall reading a snappy exchange in Auntie Mame, where Mame says “‘Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.’ That’s Shakespeare and it’s true.” Patrick replies: “That’s Scott, and it stinks.” Both were half right: it’s Scott and it’s true, something Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has proved once more.
Normally anti-Israel lying is expertly done so as to avoid the perils of self-contradiction. It’s not hard. You make wild, false, general accusations like “apartheid,” and then you back them up with anecdotes which, even if false and refuted, still seem to represent an unseen multitude of likely true stories. As long as that is all you do, and you have a suitably gullible audience, or, in the case of Western progressives, an all too eager audience that wants to be deceived for the sake of its own moral vanity, you are on reasonably safe ground.
It is thus worthy of note that the latest slander against Israel gives the whole game away and in such a way that even the most idiotic of the useful idiots will likely find embarrassing. “Anti-Zionists” always say they aren’t Jew-haters or antisemites. And rarely is it simply provable that they are.
Individuals occasionally slip, say, by putting a movie on Facebook that blames the Rothschilds for the world’s problems, but the main institutions of anti-Zionism usually manage — at least in view of the ludicrously low standards of truthfulness expected of them — to get a pass.

Israel’s Very Right to Exist Reportedly Debated at Lethbridge Event

No, this is not a joke. The Lethbridge Herald today reports that Israel’s very existence and the removal of the world’s only Jewish state was openly discussed as a potential solution to the Mideast’s problems at an event in Lethbridge yesterday.
In an address to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA), Mohammed Abushaban (pictured right), a Palestinian Canadian interpreter who has been working with new Syrian Canadians settling in Lethbridge, reportedly described the mere existence of Israel as a constant source of instability requiring rectification.
Lethbridge Herald city reporter J.W. Schnarr covered Abushaban’s remarks as follows:
“The existence of Israel on its own over there will cause a problem to many,” he said.
“The majority of the Middle East are Muslims. To have Israel in the heart of that area on its own is a problem.
“The West is fuelling the hate between all parties so they can easily play the card of ‘I will save you if you let me have your resources.’”
He wrapped up the talk by asking those in attendance to ask themselves what the Middle East would be like if there was no Israel, no conflict in the area between ethnic groups, and the Middle East was united.

Labour Candidate Faces Legal Action After Anti-Semitic Tweets, Accuses Tory MP of Buying Oil from ISIS

A Labour mayor and parliamentary candidate could be facing legal action from Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi after accusing him on Twitter of selling Israel oil purchased from Islamic State.
The accusation came in a string of anti-Semitic tweets by Caroline Kolek, mayor of Honiton in Devon and the Labour candidate for Tiverton and Honiton, all of which have since been deleted, The Jewish Chronicle has reported.
In one tweet to multiple news outlets, Kolek quoted Ken Livingstone’s claims to have been the victim of the “Israel lobby” for the last 35 years. Former Labour mayor of London Mr. Livingstone, who was last year suspended from the party for claiming that Hitler was a Zionist, was also quoted calling Israel “one of the most brutal regimes going”.
Another of her tweets quoted a Jesuit priest, John Sheehan, as saying: “Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can’t help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East.”
In another, Kolek claimed that media mogul Rupert Murdoch was using The Sun newspaper to “push strongly for war” with Syria in a bid to destabilise the country, thus allowing Israel access to oil in the region from which, she said, Mr. Murdoch would profit.

Video: Justice, At Last, for Rasmea Odeh (#Justice4Rasmea)

As you may be aware, Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh pleaded guilty on April 25, 2017 to one count of unlawfully obtaining naturalization. In the plea agreement, Rasmea admitted she knowingly had lied, among other ways, by denying ever having been convicted or imprisoned.
In fact, Rasmea was convicted in Israel in 1970 of the bombing of the Supersol supermarket, which killed Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. She served 10 years before being released in a prisoner exchange.
Rasmea concocted a defense that she falsely answered the questions because she was suffering from PTSD, which made her “filter” the plain wording. At multiple levels that defense was as big a lie as her lies on her immigration forms, and in the plea agreement she admitted her false statements were not the result of PTSD or any other mental condition.
But if you need a refresher on the case, and Rasmea’s other nonsense claims, see our coverage of the guilty plea, Rasmea Odeh pleads guilty to immigration fraud, and follow up post, VIDEO: Terror victim’s brother says Rasmea Odeh supporters “have to eat their words”.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism was on the Rasmea Odeh case even before we were. IPT has just released a video about the guilty plea, Spinning a Terrorist into a Victim: Justice, At Last, for Rasmieh Odeh:

New Jersey Jewish News Promotes Anti-Israel Group Breaking the Silence

On May 9, the New Jersey Jewish News ran an article highlighting a photography exhibit by Breaking the Silence, in partnership with J Street ("Picture Worth Thousands of Complicated Words"). The exhibit was shown earlier this month at Princeton University.
In the article, reporter Michele Alperin omits any mention of numerous criticisms of Breaking the Silence, such as:

• The unreliability of the statements that the group collects and disseminates;
• The group's refusal to cooperate with IDF investigators;
• Its reliance on foreign funding;
• Its promotion of its work to international audiences.

Instead of noting these issues, Alperin simplistically claims that "many who demonize Breaking the Silence claim the group is unpatriotic and undermines the state," while echoing the call from Avner Gvaryahu, the group's representative, for a "complex" understanding of Israel.
In reporting on such events, Jewish media – like all other media – should get the facts straight.

Whether Made for the Stage or TV, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Is Rife With Problems

I love Jesus Christ Superstar. I own multiple recordings of the musical. I eagerly attended the most recent Broadway production in 2012 (starring the amazing Josh Young as Judas). It’s a campy piece of work, but to call the show a guilty pleasure is an oversimplification. As a piece of art it’s flawed but moving—it’s Andrew Lloyd Webber at his pop-rock best, and Tim Rice at his Tim Rice-iest, for good or for ill. It’s a fresh take on the gospels, one that makes Judas into a sympathetic character and focuses on his relationship with Jesus. That said, the show is also aggressively problematic, ignorant of history, and explicitly anti-Semitic and offensive. It’s certainly troubling enough to not put it on TV next Easter (which is also Chol HaMoed Passover), as NBC plans to do.
The rock opera has two different types of issues—its text, and its direction. This musical has been played all over the world in different languages and I understand that not all productions are guilty of the same crime. However, there are certain racist trends that permeate the musical’s history.
For example, in several productions, Jesus is white and Judas, if not a person of color (like Carl Anderson in the 1973 film), is extremely “ethnic,” like the Jewish Josh Young with his (adorable) mop of curly hair. Offensive design elements are also common, including twisted mockeries of the costumes of the Priests that emphasize their cartoon villainy and make it synonymous with their religious roles. In the film and 2012 Broadway revival alike, this includes making their ritual garments reminiscent of S&M gear. In the stage production, this even included leather would-be tzitzit, which, you know, people might associate with modern observant Jews.
But of course, all of that can be mitigated by a director who knows what’s good for him come 2018 (at least one producer, Marc Platt, is himself Jewish). But some issues are not so easily avoided. For example, there’s the fact that the show goes out of its way to redeem Pontius Pilate, who is goaded by the priests and Jewish mob into killing Jesus for them (“You Jews produce Messiahs by the sackful!” he bellows at them as the crowd chants, “Crucify him!”). There’s the fact that Jesus’s misguided apostle, Simon Zealotes, wants to use their burgeoning movement to rise up against Rome (Which is obvious bad, according to the show’s perspective. How dare they?). There have even been attempts to rewrite lyrics throughout the years in response to complaints.

Top Jewish Human Rights Group Slams Russian FM’s Spokesperson Over Reported Holocaust Reference

A reference made by a Russian official to the Holocaust on Thursday has been condemned by a leading US-based Jewish human rights group.
In response to a Washington Post report about concerns over the presence of a photographer from the Russian state-owned Tass news agency at Wednesday’s White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a spokesperson for Lavrov reportedly said the paper was “making our correspondents feel like Jews in 1933.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper — associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles — told The Algemeiner on Friday that the Russian official’s words left him “almost speechless.”
“Of course it is disgusting and outrageous,” Cooper said.
Cooper continued, “To put it in context, I offer the famous Russian joke told furtively during the Communist dictatorship in Soviet Union. The two official newspapers were the Communist party’s Pravda (truth) and the Soviet government’s Isvestia (news). The joke was this — there is no pravda (truth) in Isvestia (news) and no isvestia (news) in Pravda!”
“Despite the demise of the Soviet Union, Lavrov’s antics confirm that some things in Russia never change,” Cooper concluded.

Belgian Eurovision singer an ardent Jewish Zionist

Israeli and Jewish music fans tuning in to Saturday night’s Eurovision contest finals hoping to witness some Zionist triumphs may have another candidate to root for besides Israel’s Imri Ziv — Belgian contender Blanche.
Blanche, a.k.a 17-year-old Jewish singer Ellie Delvaux, will perform her song “City Lights” at the glitzy competition in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
Delvaux will certainly have one group of rabid fans cheering her on as she takes the stage — her peers and pupils at the Brussels branch, or “nest,” of the Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatzair (“the young guard”).
According to the group, Delvaux has been an enthusiastic member since the first grade, and this year became a counselor for eighth graders.

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