06/17 Links: PM demands PA condemn Jerusalem attack; Marking a decade of Hamas rule in Gaza ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Friends mourn Hadas Malka, stabbed to death near Old City, as ‘a true Wonder Woman’

Hadas Malka, 23, the Border Police officer stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant in a terror attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday evening, had sent a final selfie to her friends just minutes before the attack, wishing “Shabbat Shalom to my loving friends.” Those friends on Saturday remembered her as loving and fearless — a “real-life Wonder Woman,” said one.
Staff Sergeant Malka was a resident of Moshav Givat Ezer in central Israel. She will be laid to rest on Saturday night at 12:30 a.m. in the southern city of Ashdod. She leaves behind parents and five siblings, three sisters and two brothers.
Heartbroken friends on Saturday recalled how they heard about the attack and tried to message her, as they did every time there was an incident in Jerusalem where she served, but this time she did not reply.
“I woke up from a nap and my mother told me there had been an attack in Jerusalem. I said how can there have been an attack? She just sent us a message,” Nofar Sarusi told the Ynet news site.
“Every time there was an attack in Jerusalem I would SMS her to see if she was okay and she would answer,” Sarusi said. “Yesterday she simply didn’t answer.”
The friends spoke of how Malka had been in the navy, but wanted to be a combat soldier and transferred to the Border Police where she did the rest of her mandatory military service and then extended it 15 months ago and became an officer.

Netanyahu demands PA condemn deadly Jerusalem attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday demanded that the Palestinian Authority condemn the terror attack in Jerusalem by three Palestinians in which Border Police officer Hadar Malka was stabbed to death.
“The Prime Minister demands that the Palestinian Authority condemn the attack and expects the international community to do so too,” a statement from his office said.
The statement came after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party condemned Israeli forces for shooting dead the three attackers.
In a statement late Friday, Fatah called the deaths of the three assailants, who attacked at two locations near Jerusalem’s Old City, a “war crime.”
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman responded bitterly to the Fatah stance, saying that it “shows there is no partner (for peace) on the other side.”
Liberman praised Malha, 23, who tried to draw her weapon and fought with her assailant as he was stabbing her, for the “determination and courage” with which she acted. She was “an inspiration to all of us,” he said.

Abbas’s Fatah slams Israel for killing 3 Palestinians carrying out fatal attack

Fatah, the political faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Israel for killing three Palestinians who killed Israeli police officer Hadas Malka and injured four others in a stabbing and shooting terror attack in Jerusalem on Friday.
In a statement, Fatah called the deaths of the three assailants, who attacked at two locations near Jerusalem’s Old City, a “war crime.”
All three of the assailants were members of Palestinian terrorist organizations, according to both Israel’s Shin Bet and Hamas.
Fatah “condemns the war crime carried out by Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem against three Palestinian teens,” spokesperson Osama al- Kawasme said in a statement. Fatah added that “the international community’s silence emboldened Israel to further spill the blood of Palestinians.”
The three West Bankers, armed with an automatic weapon and knives, carried out near simultaneous attacks at two adjacent locations. Two attacked a group of police officers at Zedekiah’s Cave with an automatic weapon and knives, and a third stabbed Malka a short distance away at Damascus Gate.
The 23-year-old staff sergeant died of her wounds at Hadassah Hospital in Mount Scopus. Four other people were lightly and moderately injured in the attack — including a policeman and two East Jerusalem Palestinians. Some reports said the gun used by the attackers jammed, preventing further casualties.
The attackers were identified by the Shin Bet internal security agency as Bra’a Salah and Asama Atta, both born in 1998, and Adel Ankush, born the following year. They were shot dead by security forces as they carried out their attacks.

Benjamin Netanyahu demands world condemnation of Jerusalem attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Saturday for the Palestinian Authority as well as the whole world to publicly speak out against Friday night's terror attack that resulted in the death of a 23-year-old border policewoman.
According to the Prime Minister's Office, the premier said that he demands that the Palestinian Authority condemn the attack and "expects the rest of the world to do the same."
UN Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace Nickolay Mladenov echoed the prime minister's sentiment in a statement he issued on Saturday. The UN envoy condemned the attack and expressed his bewilderment at Hamas's glorification of the assailants. "Such terrorist acts must be clearly condemned by all," Mladenov said.
Netanyahu on Saturday also expressed his deep sorrow over the death of border policewoman Staff Sgt. Maj. Hadas Malka.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman also condemned Palestinian leadership for what he described as their "thundering silence" following the Jerusalem attack.
"The thundering silence that refuses to condemn terror coming from the Palestinian Authority, and Fatah's message that Israel murdered three innocent men, both prove there is no partner [for peace] on the other side," Liberman said in statement.

UN envoy ‘appalled’ by any who consider Jerusalem terrorists heroes

UN Middle East peace process coordinator Nickolay Mladenov on Saturday said that “terrorist acts” like the stabbing and shooting attacks near Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday the previous day “must be clearly condemned by all.”
“My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims, and I wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” he said in a statement.
“I am appalled that once again some find it appropriate to justify such attacks as ‘heroic.’ They are unacceptable and seek to drag everyone into a new cycle of violence.”
Yoav Mordechai, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) office, blamed Palestinian incitement for the attack, and slammed Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement for behaving as though the three attackers were innocent youths. Fatah late Friday accused Israel of a “war crime” for killing the Palestinian assailants.
In an Arabic-language post to the COGAT Facebook page, Mordechai said: “The three thugs who carried out their cowardly terrorist act and killed the policewoman in Jerusalem received condolences from the Fatah organization, that claimed them to be innocents… as if they were executed for no reason… This is pure incitement to terrorism!”

True or not, Islamic State’s claim of Friday attack is a statement of intent

Late Friday night, the Islamic State for the first time claimed responsibility for an act of terrorism in Israel, proclaiming that its members had carried out the stabbing and shooting attacks near the Old City of Jerusalem in which 23-year-old Border Police officer Hadas Malka was killed.
Israeli and Palestinian officials doubt the veracity of the claim. Israeli officials believe no organized terror group was behind the attacks. But the IS claim, nonetheless, points to a new strategy — a declaration of intent — from the group that has carried out attacks across Europe in recent months.
In an official statement circulated by media outlets as well as by Islamic State’s own Amaq News Agency, it boasted that three “lions of the caliphate carried out a blessed attack on a gathering of Jews in al-Quds,” referring to Jerusalem by its Arabic name.
The three Palestinians were given IS-style nicknames: Abu Bra’a al-Maqdisi, Abu Hassan al-Maqdisi and Abu Rabah al-Maqdisi. And the statement warned that this would “not be the last operation” against Israeli targets.
Islamic State usually issues claims of responsibility for attacks in which it was directly involved, to which its leadership was connected, or which were carried out on its behalf. It is far from clear that any of these links apply to Friday’s attack. The giving of nicknames to the attackers also suggests a rather desperate effort to highlight a purported IS role.

Israel Police: No link between Jerusalem attackers and any armed group

No connection has been found between three Palestinians who carried out a fatal attack in Jerusalem on Friday and any organization, Israel Police said on Saturday, after Islamic State had claimed the assault.
Palestinian militant factions have also denied that Islamic State carried out the attack, in which one Border Police officer was killed.
"It was a local cell. At this stage no indication has been found it was directed by a terrorist organization nor has any connection to any organization been found," police spokeswoman Luba Simri said.
Israel Police said on Friday that all the assailants were from Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Two of the attackers, both from Ramallah, were between the ages of 18 and 19 and the third was a 30-year-old from Hebron, Simri added.
The assaults took place simultaneously in two areas near the Damascus gate of Jerusalem's walled Old City.
Gaza-based terrorist organization Hamas praised the bloodshed but disputed the Islamic State's claim, stating that the perpetrators were affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Riot breaks out as army raids West Bank homes of Jerusalem terrorists

Israeli security forces were out in force Saturday in the West Bank village of Deir Abu-Mashal, near Ramallah, home of the three terrorists who carried out the stabbing and shooting attacks near Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday.
Officials said army troops temporarily sealed off the village, then raided the men’s homes, where they searched for weaponry, confiscated various documents and questioned family members over the attack.
Soldiers also mapped the homes of the three men in preparation for the likely demolition of the houses, a common Israeli response to attacks.
One person was arrested on suspicion of involvement with the attack.
The army said a riot broke out as forces conducted their operations, with around 200 Palestinians hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at soldiers and burning tires as they attempted to block entrances to the village.

Democrats closer to endorsing cuts to PA aid

Top Senate Democrats say they are closer to signing on to a Republican-backed bill that would slash aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) if it did not stop subsidizing jailed terrorists, JTA reported Friday.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), the minority leader in the Senate, told attendants at the Orthodox Union’s annual Washington action day on Thursday that he would support the Taylor Force Act or legislation similar to it if the Trump administration is unable to get the PA to stop the payments.
“[PA chairman Mahmoud] Abbas has to stop making payments to terrorists and their families, and all elected officials should call them out,” Schumer said, according to JTA.
Also edging closer to endorsing the legislation was Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.
“We’re going to find a way to pass the Taylor Force Act,” Cardin said, suggesting that he wanted changes to the bill before he could fully endorse it. The measure was named for an American who was murdered in a 2016 stabbing attack in Tel Aviv.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Marking a decade of Hamas rule in Gaza

I consider Gaza a state, because what has been established in that geographical strip over the past decade is, for all intents and purposes, a state. It is a governmental entity with a leader, law enforcement agency, army, military industry, internal secuirty and intelligence agencies, legal system, media, tax structure, legislature, education and health ministries, infrastructure - and every other institution a state needs. The State of Gaza even has marked borders, as well as border crossings to Israel and Egypt, its surrounding states, and it has reached agreements with those countries and others that allow for the management of daily life.
The establishment of a state, however, does not change the fact that Hamas is a terror organization through and through, not only because of its acts of terror against Israel and its Jewish population, but because of the terrible means it employs against its own residents in order to maintain its rule over them. Israel is well aware of this, but its political echelons have no intentions of bringing down the Hamas government, and even countries like Egypt which is conducting an all-out war against the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' birth mother, conducts negotiations with Gaza State representatives who arrive as official guests to its capital city.
Furthermore, the State of Gaza has succeeded in forcing Israel, its arch-enemy, to provide it with food, fuel, medicine and building materials, some used to dig attack tunnels against Israel itself. There is no other country in the world that has succeeded in getting another state - for whose destruction it continues to call - to provide it with goods. Can anyone imagine the United Kingdom, France of the USA sending so much as an overripe banana to a country which has vowed to destroy them? Israel does. it sends hundreds of tons of perfectly edible bananas to Gaza every day, despite the fact that the Islamic Covenant of Hamas - its founding document - calls in no uncertain terms for Israel's destruction.
Every single day, over a thousand trucks piled with every kind of merchandise, enter the State of Gaza from Israel. Hamas immediately confiscates anything that can be of use to its members and leaves the leftovers for the general population. In addition, Hamas levies taxes for fund its activities, and while the smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza remained open, until Egypt destroyed them, Hamas ran the smuggling industry: it allowed only its members to dig the tunnels, forbade anyone on its black list to do so, and was given a portion of the contraband goods as a form of tax.
From a political standpoint, Hamas has managed to achieve a position on the same level as that of the PLO, that of representing the "Palestinian people." Hamas, impressively, won most of the Palestinian Legislature seats in the first elections in which the organization took part. Another, just as important, achievement is the fact that Hamas leaderrs managed to get Qatar, with all the massive economic ability of that gas-rich emirate, on their side. The Qatari Emir is the first Arab ruler, and so far the only one, who visited the State of Gaza while it is under Hamas rule - and without asking the Palestinian Authority for permission to do so. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Evelyn Gordon: Blaming Bibi for Trump’s Embassy U-Turn Hurts Israel

I rarely waste time trying to debunk conspiracy theories, but this particular one has become so popular among certain pro-Israel conservatives, and is so damaging to Israel, that I’m breaking my rule. The theory is that Donald Trump signed the waiver keeping the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv this month because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked him to do so. Marc Zell, head of the Republican Party’s Israel chapter, said this openly as far back as January, and repeated it last month; just this week, I heard it privately from the head of a veteran American Jewish organization.
It’s impossible to overstate how harmful to Israel this is. Israel has striven unsuccessfully for decades to get the world to accept Jerusalem as its capital, and just this year, it has finally started scoring some victories: Russia’s Foreign Ministry surprisingly announced that it considers Jerusalem Israel’s capital, while the Czech parliament passed a resolution by an overwhelming vote of 112-2 demanding that its government show “respect” for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Yet now, some of Israel’s strongest supporters are going around the world declaring that Israel’s own prime minister doesn’t want the U.S. Embassy moved to Jerusalem. In short, they’re giving the rest of the world a perfect excuse for maintaining the status quo of non-recognition: No government will be more pro-Israel than Israel’s own, so if even Netanyahu doesn’t really want Jerusalem to be treated as Israel’s capital, what foreign government would?
Wreaking such harm might be justifiable if the charge were true. Yet not only is it prima facie ludicrous, but there’s a much simpler explanation for Trump’s decision.
To understand just how ludicrous it is, contrast it with another rumor making the rounds: that Netanyahu also asked Trump to pressure him to restrain settlement construction. Whether or not that rumor is true, it’s at least plausible, because Netanyahu has many reasons for wanting such pressure. But none of those reasons applies to the embassy issue.

IsraellyCool: The Lies They Tell: Book Review

Tuvia Tenenbom is the quick wit behind the widely acclaimed To Catch a Jew, a book I am ashamed to admit I have not actually read. But rest assured I will be doing just that (even if I have to purchase it myself and not wait for a review copy) – such was my appreciation of this follow-up effort.
In The Lies They Tell, Tenenbom decides to find out more about his fellow Americans (he has been a New Yorker for over 30 years) after realizing “like many New Yorkers” he doesn’t know much about the other 49 states. He wants to find out more about American conservatives, liberals and everyone in between. Among the mysteries to unlock: do the American people as a whole support Israel? Who are the “German Americans”? Who are the people of faith? What are the Native Americans like?
To paint a fair portrait, Tenenbom tries to visit more than half the states, making no specific plans as to which places to visit or people to meet. Rather, he decides to “let the winds blow” him wherever they may.
Through his encounters with everyday Americans, Tenenbom discovers (and confirms for us) many things. Like the utter hypocrisy of the left, who go on about the palestinians across the world, but turn a blind eye to the very real suffering within underprivileged communities in their own backyard; the disturbing and pervasive racism – including anti-Semitism – that exists; the Jewish self-loathing of many American Jews; and the correlation between believing in climate change and being anti-Israel.
Ultimately, what Tenenbom uncovers is an America that is a forced melting pot in which the majority of people are afraid to share their political and religious views with strangers.

"Tragic Inaction on Congo"

An Op-Ed in the International New York Times today discusses, as its headline puts it, "The U.N.'s tragic inaction on Congo."
The piece focuses on the tragic killing of two Westerners in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The pair were working for the United Nations, which, the authors protest, has failed to investigate the killings. The authors link the incident to a wider phenomenon: "their deaths are a reminder of how little attention is paid to the killings of hundreds of Congolese in the Kasai region since last August," they say, noting the recent discovery of dozens of mass graves in the region.
The passive voice here — "little attention is paid" — means readers aren't told who, exactly, isn't paying attention. But if history is any indication, the same newspaper publishing this Op-Ed is a prominent example of those guilty of paying relatively little attention to violence in Congo.
The book Stealth Conflicts: How the World's Worst Violence is Ignored, by Virgil Hawkins, shows that The New York Times largely overlooked the deaths of nearly two million people during the first two years of fighting in the DRC.
The discrepancy between how the newspaper covered that violence and the fighting between Palestinians and Israel starting in 2000 is highlighted by a striking graphic in Hawkins' book:

Understanding the 1953 Iran Coup

In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency helped plan and then participated in a coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Much mythology surrounds the episode.
In the decades since, for example, hagiography has painted Mosaddegh as a democrat and the rightful ruler of Iran. In reality, he was neither: He was a democratic only like Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti was a democrat—perfectly happy to utilize the rhetoric of democracy but those who disagreed with him might have found themselves lynched.
Then there’s the issue of legitimacy. A couple months ago, I debated former Ambassador Chas Freeman at Brown University. In the question-and-answer session which followed, an audience member argued that the United States committed original sin by overthrowing Iran’s rightful ruler and placing the dictatorial shah in his place. This also misreads events. The prime ministers in Iran serve at the pleasure of the shah. The shah had the power to appoint and dismiss prime ministers. Mosaddegh refused to step down when dismissed. In effect, Mosaddegh sought to stage a coup against the rightful head of state, which is why intelligence officer Kermit Roosevelt called his narrative of subsequent events Countercoup.
Roosevelt, too, bears some responsibility for subsequent inaccuracies. In Washington, ego trumps truth, and Roosevelt, an intelligence officer, seeking to cash in on his actions placed himself front and center in historical events, exaggerating the role of the CIA and downplaying the roles of others. This isn’t to absolve the CIA, but rather to argue that the first draft of history may not be fully accurate.
Lastly, conventional wisdom often ignores the co-conspirators. The idea for the coup was British in origin, and was hatched once Mosaddegh repeatedly refused to negotiate after nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. It ignores the role of the clergy, who sided with the coup conspiracy because, as religious conservatives, they distrusted the Soviet-leaning Mosaddegh. This is why, the shah in his memoirs, spoke of the red (communists) vs. the black (clergy). It was also part of the irony surrounding Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s 2000 apology to the Islamic Republic for the coup because, in effect, she was apologizing to America’s co-conspirators who were happy to feign grievance for their own advantage.

Senior Iranian Official: US Senate’s Iran Sanctions in Breach of Nuclear Deal

The U.S. Senate's decision to impose new sanctions on Iran is an "unquestionable" violation of a nuclear deal reached in 2015 between Tehran and six major powers including the United States, Iranian media quoted a senior Iranian official as saying.
The Senate approved on Thursday the sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related to the international nuclear agreement.
"The U.S. Senate’s move is unquestionably in breach of both the spirit and the letter of the nuclear deal," Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reported by media as saying on Friday.
"The Iranian committee tasked with monitoring the accord will certainly examine the congressional move and come up with a decent response."
The U.S. legislation still must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump to become law.

Jonathan Greenblatt: On the Dangers of ‘New Anti-Semitism’

As many observers know, as early as March, we publicly condemned Linda Sarsour’s offensive and problematic views on Israel, her support for BDS, and the link between Zionism and feminism. Her claim that one cannot simultaneously be a Zionist and a feminist is deeply offensive, as our Israel Director Carole Nuriel pointed out recently.
In recent weeks, conservatives have spoken out against the ADL, insisting that we should have spoken more forcefully and not defended Sarsour’s right to speak at City University of New York’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. We did applaud CUNY Chancellor James B. Milliken for his clear statement distancing the university from her views. But while I can accept the criticism that we should have been more nimble in our response, I will not accept the criticism that we were somehow accommodating Sarsour’s views simply because we defended her right to speak. That is a false choice.
At the ADL, we take the First Amendment seriously. We believe our open society and our universities flourish when they remain open to a variety of viewpoints, even those with which we may disagree. The impulse to “shut it down” is counterproductive when it is chanted by the left—and by the right. America was founded on the ideal that everyone has a right to speak—even if we despise their views. Our ability to fight hate depends on our ability to counter bad speech with good speech.
In the end, our mission is our north star.
In the years ahead, you can expect that the ADL will continue to speak out against creeping anti-Semitism from the left and right. We will seek to hear all sides of the issues and to improve our processes. We will fight ferociously against bigotry in all forms even as we work relentlessly to preserve the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment.
This is our north star and we will remain on course.

Linda Sarsour Congratulates Islamic Countries on not Pinkwashing Oppression (satire)

Following the Pride Parade in Tel Aviv this past weekend, many groups and activists condemned Israel for its policy of ‘Pinkwashing’ and congratulated Muslim countries for their continuing oppression of women, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community. ‘Pinkwashing’ is the accusation that Israel uses its open and inclusive society to cover up alleged abuses against Palestinians.
Linda Sarsour – a woman wearing a look as if she knows what you did last summer and equally condemns you for it and wonders why you didn’t invite her – decried Israel’s practice of allowing LGTBQ+ people to live openly asking, “What’s the point of being able to live without fear of persecution if it doesn’t advance my specific political view?”
Israel’s Middle East neighbors welcomed such condemnations as rightly pointing out that it is completely ridiculous to even try to offer everyone equal rights and that any such attempt was just a cover-up. A Hamas representative interviewed by The Mideast Beast said: “Hamas is happy to offer a safe space so close to Israel where gays, lesbians, and women can be persecuted without fear of equality”.
In a now deleted Tweet, Sarsour congratulated these countries for their honesty and integrity in their beliefs that all people should be persecuted equally from the safety and comfort of New York City.

Kansas Governor Signs Bill Outlawing Discriminatory Boycotts of Israel

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Friday signed a bill barring state agencies from contracting with entities that boycott Israel.
The bill, HB 2409, passed the Kansas senate last Wednesday by a vote of 39 to 3, then passed the state’s House hours later by a vote of 99 to 13.
According to the bill, state agencies may not “enter into a contract with an individual or company to acquire or dispose of services, supplies, information technology or construction, unless such individual or company submits a written certification that such individual or company is not currently engaged in a boycott of Israel.”
The bill explains that these boycotts are problematic as they are imposed “on the basis of such person’s location in such places.”
Similar anti-BDS bills have become law in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Florida, Alabama, California, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Minnesota, Nevada, and Iowa. New York governor Andrew Cuomo approved a similar measure by executive order.

Pitzer College Board of Trustees Overturn Student Government Pro-BDS Vote

The Pitzer College board of trustees announced on Friday that, following “careful consideration,” it had decided to “rescind…and declare…to be of no effect” a student government vote held during Passover to add an anti-Israel boycott into its bylaws.
The decision, made public in an email sent to the campus community, overturned the student senate amendment prohibiting the use of Student Activities Funds “to make payments on goods and services from any corporation or organization associated with the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, as first delineated by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.” Those companies included Caterpillar, SodaStream, Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, Hewlett-Packard and Sabra.
As The Algemeiner reported, Jewish students felt “ambushed” by the vote, particularly given the fact that many concerned parties were off campus to observe Passover and Easter.

Academic Association to Vote on Removing Censure of University of Illinois Over Expulsion of Professor for Vehement Anti-Israel Tweets

A committee of a leading US academic freedom organization has recommended its members vote to lift a two-year censure of the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) issued over the school’s revoking of a job offer to a professor in 2014 due to a series of controversial tweets he made about Jews and Israel.
With delegates of the the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) scheduled to gather for an annual meeting this weekend in Washington, DC, the group’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure has advised they not renew the rebuke of the UIUC administration for its handling of the Steven Salaita case, the News-Gazette reported on Thursday.
An AAUP report in April found that UIUC had a “robust” academic freedom environment and for that reason should be removed from the blacklist.
A final vote on the matter will take place on Saturday.
Salaita, formerly of Virginia Tech, was hired by UIUC in October 2013 for a tenured position in the American Indian Studies program, with plans to start teaching the following August.
His appointment still required official approval by the board of trustees, and in September 2014, the board chose to instead uphold the then-chancellor’s decision to withdraw the job offer.

Student With Ties to Notorious Anti-Israel Group Tweets: Congressman Critically Wounded in Virginia Shooting Got What He ‘Deserves’

A student affiliated with the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Illinois’s Saint Xavier University tweeted that the US congressman shot on Wednesday during a baseball practice near Washington, DC got what he “deserves.”
Student Samer Alhato, writing under the handle @WaladShami, posted a series of tweets expressing “no sympathy for white supremacists,” hours after Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four other people were wounded when a gunman opened fire at a public park in Alexandria, Virginia.
One tweet, originally exposed by watchdog group SJP Uncovered, reads: “Am I supposed to feel sorry for the Republican Representative member of Louisiana for getting shot in Alexandria today? I don’t.” Alhato paired the comment with a GIF of celebrity Kim Kardashian saying, “It’s what she deserves.”

BBC World Service history programmes on the Six Day War – part one

However, presentation of the relevant background information concerning the 1948 Jordanian invasion of territories designated as part of the homeland for the Jewish people at the San Remo conference in 1920 and the subsequent 19 year-long Jordanian occupation of parts of Jerusalem was – as is usually the case in BBC content – decidedly evasive and unhelpful to audiences.
“Since the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 it [the Old City of Jerusalem] had been controlled by Jordan but on Wednesday the 7th of June 1967, Israel captured it.”
“This city line since 1948 had divided Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem – which included the Old City with its maze of narrow alleyways and its holiest site Temple Mount – from the west of Jerusalem which the Israelis controlled.”
“No Israeli soldier had set foot in the Old City, had they? Israel had lost its only foothold there, the Jewish Quarter, in the 1948 war…”
The following day’s edition of ‘Witness’ – which also told the story of the fighting in Jerusalem during the Six Day War but from the point of view of a Jordanian soldier – will be discussed in part two of this post.

BBC World Service history programmes on the Six Day War – part two

Listeners also heard of displaced Palestinians – but not of the fact that the Arabs living in the areas occupied by Jordan in 1948 and illegally annexed in 1950 had been given Jordanian citizenship.
“On the 10th of June 1967 the war ended. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were either displaced from their homes or found themselves living under Israeli control. Israel now controlled much more territory including the Golan Heights, the Sinai desert, the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem.”
Both these BBC World Service history programmes supposedly provide audiences with information intended to enhance their understanding of historic events. Clearly the many omissions of important background in both these episodes, together with the second programme’s presentation of an inaccurate account of the timeline of fighting in Jerusalem, severely hinder listener understanding of the Six Day War.

Canadian Jews Are Top Target of Hate Crimes, According to Government Study

On Tuesday, the Canadian government’s official statistical agency released its latest figures for hate crimes in the country, covering the calendar year of 2015. As in the United States, where Jews annually top the FBI’s tally of religiously-motivated hate crimes, anti-Semitism—and Islamophobia—plays a prominent role in the new Canadian report. According to the government agency’s release:
Overall, police reported 469 Criminal Code incidents in 2015 that were motivated by hatred of a religion, 40 more incidents than the previous year. These accounted for 35% of hate-motivated crimes reported in 2015.
Police-reported hate crimes targeting the Muslim population increased from 99 incidents in 2014 to 159 incidents in 2015, an increase of 61%. At the same time, the number of police-reported crimes targeting the Jewish population declined from 213 in 2014 to 178 in 2015. Hate crimes targeting the Jewish population accounted for 13% of all hate crimes, followed closely by hate crimes targeting the Muslim population (12%).
Notably, Muslims make up approximately 3 percent of the Canadian population, while Jews make up just 1 percent, but both receive vastly disproportionate amounts of abuse.

Thessaloniki’s new Holocaust museum a sign of a city finally embracing its Jewish past

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the children of a Greek Jewish Holocaust survivor unveiled a plaque Thursday for the planned Thessaloniki Holocaust Memorial Museum, it marked a new chapter for the city’s famed, and nearly destroyed, Jewish community.
It is only now, more than seven decades since the first convoy of Jews was loaded onto cattle trucks for the journey north to their deaths in Auschwitz, that a fitting memorial is becoming a reality — a sign that Thessaloniki, or Salonica as it was known, is finally willing to come to terms with its Jewish history and the great tragedy that befell it.
Netanyahu was joined at the museum’s unveiling by Rachel and Eliyahu, the two children of Moshe Ha-Elion, 93, a Greek Holocaust survivor who this year lit a torch at Israel’s Holocaust memorial day ceremony, but was now too ill to make the journey with the prime minister.
“I would like them to join us in unveiling the plaque that will be in the museum to commemorate what happened here for two purposes, commemoration and prevention,” said Netanyahu, who was in the northern Greek city for a trilateral meeting with his Greek and Cypriot counterparts.
“We commemorate the loss of these human beings, our fellow Jews, but we also dedicate ourselves to make sure that this horror will never happen again,” said Netanyahu.

Israel, Greece, Cyprus to speed up Mediterranean pipeline efforts

Israel, Greece and Cyprus agreed Thursday to accelerate plans for the development of a pipeline channeling natural gas discovered in Eastern Mediterranean reserves to Europe.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met Thursday in Thessaloniki, Greece, to discuss the joint venture, and signed an agreement to continue their collaboration in laying what would become the longest undersea gas pipeline in the world, a proposed 2,200 kilometers (1,350 miles).
European governments and Israel agreed in April to move forward with a Mediterranean pipeline project, setting a target date of 2025 for completion. Once completed, the pipeline will transfer natural gas from Israel's offshore reserves via Cyprus, Greece and Italy to Europe.
"It's something we're very excited about," Netanyahu said. "The idea of the East Med pipeline would be a revolution. We've had preliminary studies of it. It seems promising, and we're going to look further."
Greece and Israel are also planning an undersea electricity cable link and are considering a Mediterranean data cable.
"There's a simple fact with Cyprus, Greece and Israel that brings us very close together: We are all democracies, real democracies, and when you look at our region that's not a common commodity," Netanyahu said after the meeting.

Jewish New England Patriots Owner to NFL Hall of Famers Visiting Israel: You Will Be ‘Uplifted’ by the Country

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is currently leading a group of 18 National Football League Hall of Famers on a weeklong tour of Israel.
On board the plane to Israel, the 76-year-old Kraft — who is Jewish — told the collection of former gridiron stars, “My family and I are into spirituality, and no matter what you’re background, you’ll find a way to be uplifted by the country.”
A number of photos from the ongoing trip can be found on the Patriots Twitter page.
According to the Patriots website, the ex-players were to “experience the culture and history of Israel and participate in special football events showcasing the growth of the game in the country.”
The participants in the trip include Lem Barney, Jerome Bettis, Jim Brown, Cris Carter, Dave Casper, Eric Dickerson, Marshall Faulk, Joe Greene, Willie Lanier, Joe Montana, Andre Reed, Mike Singletary, Bruce Smith, John Stallworth, Roger Staubach, Andre Tippett, Aeneas Williams and Ron Yary.

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