04/09 Links Pt2: You Say Anti-Semitism, NYU says Worthy Work!; Why Are Democrats Kissing The Ring Of Al Sharpton?; Another Israeli election, another BBC claim of a ‘shift to the right’

From Ian:

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NYU president Hamilton – Is this how you support justice?

On April 4, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced on their Facebook page that they were selected to receive the NYU President’s Service Award, given to students who have had an “extraordinary” and “positive” impact on the school’s community. It is clear to so many students on campus – Jewish, non-Jewish and pro-Israel – that this group does the exact opposite of improving the “quality of student life at New York University.” This has not yet been confirmed by NYU, but even the possibility cannot be ignored and must be addressed.

SJP has worked immensely hard each year to demonstrate their anti-Israel hatred, sometimes even violently, in more ways than one. Realize Israel, a pro-Israel group on NYU’s campus, mentioned in a Facebook post that members of SJP have defaced Israel’s flag, physically assaulted pro-Israel students, and continually present factually inaccurate anti-Israel resolutions to the Student Government Assembly. Why celebrate such behaviors with an award? Why give an award to an organization that in itself is “anti” and not to an organization that is solely “pro”?

We ask NYU’s senior vice president of student affairs, Marc Wais, if any of the pro-Israel groups on campus will be selected for this year’s award, seeing as none were chosen in 2018. We hope that NYU’s leadership recognizes that: 1) Israel is at the forefront of improving the world with its focus on human rights, diversity and equality for all its citizens; 2) Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, is leading the world in innovation within the healthcare, agriculture and various technological fields; 3) When humanitarian crises strike throughout the world, particularly natural disasters, Israel is always one of the first countries to utilize their financial resources, technology and manpower to help recover and rebuild. How ironic is it that a group which has blatantly shamed students who devote their efforts to support a country that helps communities all over the world is now being praised?

In April 2018, NYU president Andrew D. Hamilton denounced the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This was an amazing step forward for the community, and for helping Jewish and pro-Israel students feel safe on campus. The Jewish, non-Jewish and pro-Israel community thanked him then, and again say now: THANK YOU president Hamilton for standing against the BDS movement. But why is the student organization that very much supports the BDS movement allegedly receiving your prestigious President’s Service Award?

You Say Anti-Semitism, NYU says Worthy Work!

What has SJP done to have such an extraordinary and positive impact? The greatest impact they’ve had in recent months was on the passage of a boycott resolution by NYU’s student government. SJP members introduced and fought for it. That resolution, though limited in its reach, explicitly supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and made use of easily exposed propaganda.

NYU President Andrew Hamilton—presumably, the “president” in “president’s service award”—has repeatedly said that boycotting Israel, which is very nearly the sole purpose of SJP, is “contrary to” NYU’s “core principles of academic freedom” and “antithetical to the free exchange of ideas.”

But it’s not merely that SJP’s mission contradicts the university’s. Adela Cojab, past president of the NYU branch of Realize Israel, has said that for “the overwhelming majority of [her] community, Zionism is a part of who they are, and they see an attack on Israel as an attack on their Judaism.” When SJP led other organizations in declaring that they wouldn’t work with pro-Israel groups, Cojab adopted the language of the left. Anti-Zionist activities were creating “unsafe spaces” on campus for many Jews, she said.

That may be going too far, but it is shocking that this university isn’t just tolerating an organization that promotes what many Jews consider anti-Semitism but patting it on the back. Giving SJP an award reserved for those who benefit the community is a gross insult not only to Jewish pro-Israel activists but also to the many others who, just as Cojab says, consider SJP’s attack on Zionism to be an attack on Jews.

If SJP is really set to receive such an award—NYU did not respond to my request for confirmation–it should be rescinded.

Why Are Democrats Kissing The Ring Of Al Sharpton?

Then again, ruined lives are strewn across Sharpton’s career. Maybe Democrats need to be reminded that Sharpton used a tragic 1991 car accident to incite a four-day race riot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Or maybe they just don’t care. It was Sharpton who stoked anger over the imaginary nexus between “Tel Aviv” and “South Africa” and the “diamond merchants right here.” After the Jewish community protested, Sharpton said, “Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”

But, of course, Sharpton’s bejeweled and rotund frame was, as always, hiding behind bodyguards. It was his mob that took over. And one man who forgot to pin back his yarmulke was Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year old Orthodox Jew visiting from Australia who, after turning down a wrong street, was dragged from his car to the shouts of “Kill the Jews!” by throngs of angry protesters and stabbed to death. Never once has Sharpton shown any remorse for his role in this bloodletting.

When, in 1995, Fred Harari, a Jewish sub-tenant who operated a store called Freddie’s Fashion Mart, evicted his own sub-tenant, a black-owned record store owner, Sharpton, who told the protesters, “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business,” saw another opportunity to provoke chaos.

Never mind that it had been a black Pentecostal church that had asked Harari to evict the record store owner. If you’re inclined, you can listen to his ceaseless race-baiting and anti-Semitism that Sharpton allowed, and engaged in, on his show day in and out. The venomous protests, fueled in part by his show and his presence, soon began to resemble a mob. When Roland Smith Jr. went in with a gun, he asked all the black patrons to leave before he killed everyone else. The “white interloper,” as Sharpton perceptively predicted, “did not expand his business in Harlem.”

Never once, as far as I can tell, have any of his didactic colleagues on cable news asked him about these career highlights. Not once did a reporter ask any of the presidential candidates about Sharpton’s history.

As a native New Yorker, I hold a grudge. That doesn’t mean others can’t forgive Sharpton for the horrible things he’s done. It’s something else, however, when a remorseless man with a history of hucksterism and cruelty is not only being flattered as national moral leader by presidential candidates but that those same politicians are being given a free pass as they kowtow to a reprehensible character.

BDS founder Omar Barghouti heads to DC, for panel with Peter Beinart, seeks Congressional meetings

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is in the U.S. this week to promote the economic battle against Israel.

According to Congressional sources, Barghouti is seeking meetings on Capitol Hill.

Barghouti will also participate on Thursday in two panels at the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C.

The first event, co-sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace and NYU-Washington, D.C., is billed as a “candid conversation about the BDS movement” between Barghouti and Peter Beinart. The other event, later in the day, is co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace – D.C. Metro chapter.

In France Now, Anti-Semitism Is Both Ubiquitous and Invisible—Just as It Was a Century Ago

In February, the prominent French intellectual Alain Finkielkraut, an outspoken defender of the Jews and persistent critic of radical Islam, found himself recognized and then attacked by a small mob of Yellow Vest protestors, who shouted anti-Semitic epithets at him along with generic insults. Considering this incident as well as Finkielkraut’s work and thought, Paul Berman compares him with the turn-of-the-20th-century poet and essayist Charles Péguy, another man of the moderate left who stood up for the Jews. Péguy was simultaneously a devout Catholic, a defender of Alfred Dreyfus’s innocence, and a nationalist:

In Péguy’s view, the spiritual qualities of France—its mystique—arose from the entire history of the country, beginning with the kings and reaching a grand culmination in the French Revolution, with its principle of human rights and its aspiration for universal justice, which are the spiritual glories of the French republic. The glories in question, as applied to Captain Dreyfus, left no doubt as to his innocence. And the glories left no doubt that every good republican in France needed to defend the wronged and martyred victim; in sum, a patriotic love of France made Péguy a Dreyfusard.

He also sympathized with the Jews as a whole, and this was unusual. He knew that, during the dozen years of the Affair, the wave of hatred for the Jews in France was intense, and Jews of all economic classes, and especially the lower class, went through terrible experiences—lives and fortunes destroyed, careers ruined. . . .

He wrote: “I know this people well. There is not a spot on their skin that is not painful, where there is not an old bruise, an old contusion, a deaf pain, the memory of a deaf pain, a scar, a wound, a bruise from the East or the West.” He also noted that, in the eyes of the anti-Semites, Jews were powerful people who controlled the destiny of the world; and this belief made it impossible for a great many people to see the scars and the wounds. The Jewish suffering was wide and ancient and deep; and it was invisible. . . .

How Soviet Propaganda and an Affection for Dictators Turned South Africa against Israel

Last week, the South African foreign minister announced that her country’s ambassador to the Jewish state, recalled last year over Israeli efforts to contain riots in Gaza, would not be returning, and that a liaison office in Tel Aviv with “no political mandate [and] no trade mandate” would serve in lieu of an embassy. Such a move demonstrates the extent to which the preferences of the boycott, divest, and sanction movement (BDS) have become policy in Pretoria. Ben Cohen explains how this came to be:

The conventional, and largely correct, answer as to why [South Africa is so hostile to Israel] goes back to the struggle in the late 20th century against apartheid. . . . Like most of the regional struggles of that era, the African National Congress’s battle against apartheid was incorporated into the wider cold war in Africa, with the Soviet Union presenting itself as the most stalwart friend of the anti-apartheid cause. With the USSR came its allies, especially the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); by the 1970s, the supposed correspondence between “apartheid” and “Zionism” . . . was firmly established in the PLO’s propaganda arsenal.

Yet it isn’t nostalgia alone that propels current South African loathing of Israel. Enmity toward the Jewish state is a pillar of the country’s foreign policy, but it isn’t the only one. Others include an unwavering solidarity with dictators. South Africa was famously an enabler of the totalitarian nightmare imposed by Robert Mugabe on neighboring Zimbabwe; that principle has survived in the [current] government’s vocal backing for the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. In supporting Maduro, South Africa finds itself in the company of Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, and all those other notorious human-rights abusers who scream about national sovereignty [only when] their own offenses are called out. . . .

TV Star Rachel Riley Points Out Dangers To Left Of Letting Anti-Semitism Fester

Riley goes on to criticize Corbyn’s exploitation of the Palestinian cause, suggesting it is entirely possible the leader is championing Palestinian issues to forward his potentially anti-Jewish agenda. She concedes that she originally thought Corbyn’s anti-Semitic behavior came from “misplaced anger” stemming from “empathy” for the Palestinian cause. But Riley admits she believes it to be genuine anti-Semitism “driving [Corbyn’s] obsession with Israel” and that “the Palestinian cause happens to help that.”

She points directly to the fact that Corbyn is indifferent to human rights issues outside of Israel, noting that Corbyn is “very selective about when he decides to choose human rights to support which fit his world view or ideology.”

Riley’s understanding of Corbyn should be a warning sign for American Democrats who have relied heavily on the notion that their left-leaning electorate will remain largely silent in the face of ethnic hatred, as long as it is directed at Jews. Riley’s admission that she would vote Tory (conservative) in the next election on the basis of the Labour Party’s anti-Semitism offers a sharp lesson to the American left, who will face this future if they do not take steps to sharply condemn the Jewish hatred that has become the calling cards of their progressive ranks.

For now, Riley’s approach offers a blueprint for those who care deeply about a social problem but feel stifled by their apolitical backgrounds. As Riley says, “politics is supposed to be about making your society, your community, better,” emphasizing that “you don’t need to go into politics to make a difference.” Indeed, as Riley has done, you simply need to speak up.

Maajid Nawaz: Sick death threat will not stop me speaking out against antisemitism

On Sunday, a hard drive of Labour Party emails and a confidential database revealed how the party has been interfering in, delaying or otherwise completely ignoring hundreds of internal complaints of antisemitism

On the day this news broke, I dedicated an hour on my LBC show to debate the topic, declaring as I have done for months now that I believe the Labour Party to have descended into institutional antisemitism. This time though, something dark and twisted occurred.

As the debate heated up, I was sent a horrific death threat via our LBC text messaging service, live on air. I caution readers that the threat is disturbing, graphic and cruel. Nevertheless, I will go on to reproduce it here, for reasons that I will go on to explain.

Before that, it is worth recapping the sheer scale of Labour’s abject failure in addressing the complaints of antisemitism raised. Astonishingly, members who were investigated for posting comments online such as “Heil Hitler”, “F*** the Jews” and “Jews are the problem” have not been expelled.

The confidential spreadsheet revealed how 454 of 863 complaints remain unresolved, including 250 that remain totally untouched. Fewer than 30 members were expelled.

As a result, Labour’s Jewish affiliate has passed an almost unanimous no-confidence motion in Corbyn.

Natural then, for a political talk radio host to want to debate this scandal. Except that’s not how extremists work. They seek to silence instead of reflect, and they seek to instil fear instead of hope. With that, here is the violent message that was sent to me:
Maajid Nawaz, you are a Zionist jew! You filled us with great Anger! You are a Zionist Jewish superamacist (sic) and Zionist jewish terrorist and posing as a pakistani, you will be silenced! The swords are sharpened and the guns loaded, you interupt (sic) the truthful callers and call their truth misinformation, you are trained to misinform and confuse, you have Satanic attitude! You are deeply rotten! You will be smashed with a hammer on the head! you laugh like a hyena! You are a hyena!”

Senior HRW Official Slammed for Accusing Israel of “Interference” in British Politics

A senior Human Rights Watch (HRW) official has come under fire after she accused Israel of “interference” in British politics to undermine the Labour Party.

Sarah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director of HRW, asked on Twitter why “Israel interference” was “acceptable in UK politics.” She added: “Is it only a problem when Russia does this?”

Whitson made the comments in response to a tweet by disgraced Electronic Intifada writer Asa Winstanley who charged that, “We’re on the cusp of a major new wave of manufactured ‘Labour antisemitism crisis’ stories, much like spring/summer 2018.”

Winstanley has recently been suspended from the Labour Party, pending an investigation, in part for describing the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) as an “Israel Embassy proxy.”

Winstanley and other anti-Israel activists at Electronic Intifada have repeatedly dismissed concerns over sickening levels of anti-Semitism in Labour as an Israeli plot and attempt to unseat the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

The tweet to which Whitson replied linked to a post on the Electronic Intifada website in which the group claims that the Israeli government operates an app which urges people to condemn Jeremy Corbyn over false accusations of anti-Semitism.

“This is the latest evidence of an Israeli campaign of psychological warfare against the UK’s main opposition party,” the August 2018 article said. “It is part of a long-running influence operation by Israel and its lobby groups to smear Corbyn, a veteran Palestine solidarity activist, and to label the party he leads ‘institutionally anti-Semitic.’”

Bethany Mandel: How did conservative comedian Owen Benjamin became a darling of the ‘alt-right’?

During the spring of 2018, Benjamin was still able to maintain some limited visibility in the conservative world, traveling on the West Coast and appearing in two videos for PragerU, whose Jewish founder Dennis Prager has written at length about left-wing anti-Semitism, and making appearances on shows hosted by the Daily Wire (helmed by Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew).

But it was right around a trip to Los Angeles in April 2018 that Benjamin’s personal Twitter account was permanently suspended by the company. He later created and still maintains a promotional account, but it is mostly used to direct readers to content off the platform.

Between the spring and winter of 2018, his personality began to visibly unravel and his journey from ostracized comedian to one beloved by the fringes of the right began. He appeared on the Alex Jones show Infowars for the first time last September. Soon after his trip to Los Angeles, Benjamin moved from Saranac to a rural location in Washington state, and his comedic rants online lost most hints of comedy, becoming just rants about the moon landing (it was faked) to vaccine “fraud.”

Bereft of steady and accessible platforms with mainstream comedians and conservatives, Benjamin began drifting toward the fringes. A Jewish former fan and a former Patreon financial supporter told me that after “losing his spotlight and the attention he was getting on Twitter, he [began to] lash out in other ways, in more provocative ways to keep attention and to grow a fan base, as repugnant as they may be.”

On the message boards, Facebook groups and mass Twitter DMs, Benjamin’s community of UnBEARables was fracturing after an internal conflict over allegations that Benjamin’s regular opening act, Eric Nimmer, sexually harassed fans and had faked his military service background. Benjamin couldn’t even count on a community he started to provide him with positive social interactions. One former fan and frequent contributor to comments on livestreams and in message boards told me, “As he’s shut some people out, he’s losing some really good friendships,” including his close relationship with fellow comedian and conservative personality Steven Crowder and Crowder’s father.

Ilhan Omar: 'Stephen Miller is a white nationalist'

Rep. Ilhan Omar called right-wing White House adviser Stephen Miller a white nationalist on Monday night.

"Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage," Omar tweeted.

Some were quick to call out Omar’s tweet because Miller is Jewish. A reported friend of former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, Arthur Schwartz, called Omar’s attack, “on brand for notorious Jew-hating.”

Very on brand for notorious Jew-hating bigot @IlhanMN to be smearing and attacking a Jewish man like Stephen Miller. https://t.co/v6h1vs5rZX

— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) April 8, 2019

In Omar's tweet, she attached a link to a Splinter News story, which cites CNN, claiming that Miller had pushed Trump to back out of the administration's nomination for Ronald Vitiello as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On Friday, Trump said he withdrew Vitiello's nomination because he wanted to go in a “tougher direction.”

Picture of Stephen Miller briefly illustrates Wikipedia page on Kapos

The Wikipedia page for Kapos, Jewish prisoners who collaborated with the Nazis in the camps during the Holocaust, was briefly illustrated with a picture of Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, widely considered the architect of the administration’s controversial immigration policies.

The main picture on the page was replaced on Monday with a picture of Miller, but still bore the original caption: “A kapo leader at Salaspils concentration camp, Latvia, wearing a Judenstern and a Lagerpolizist (camp policeman) armband.”

By Tuesday morning, the original picture had been restored.

Miller has come into focus again following a recent White House push for a harder line on immigration, including a shakeup at the Department of Homeland Security.

Extra important context: those Palestinians have no voting right because their terrorist oppressors in Gaza and corrupt leaders in Ramallah don’t like democracy. https://t.co/vIJxvP7irD

— Julie Lenarz (@MsJulieLenarz) April 9, 2019

British Labour Party must expel its antisemitic members - London Mayor Sadiq Khan

The British Labour Party must act against antisemitism, and expel antisemitic members, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said according to the Irish Examiner. This was shortly after the Jewish Labour Movement voted “overwhelmingly,” that it had no faith in Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

It is “unacceptable that people who have said things that are clearly antisemitic” and remain within the party, Khan said according to the report.

On Sunday, The Jewish Labour Movement passed the motion of no confidence because of Corbyn's handling of antisemitism complaints.

"The Labour leadership have allowed a culture of antisemitism, obfuscation and denial to take hold of the Party," the group tweeted in early March.

Corbyn, a veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights and a critic of the Israeli government, has long been accused of failing to tackle antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Several lawmakers quit the party this year in protest against what they said was rising antisemitism within it and because they oppose Labour's position on Brexit.

Corbyn has promised to drive antisemitism out of Labour, and earlier on Sunday, Shami Chakrabarti, the party's legal policy chief, urged the Jewish Labour Movement to "stay in Labour and to tackle racism together".

Corbyn Wreath Trip Expenses Cover-Up Reported to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner

Earlier this year, the Labour Leader got off admonishment free as the Commissioner’s office took his declarations at face value. New evidence revealed by Guido shows the Labour Leader imploring staff in emails to cook the books to make the wreath-laying trip artificially appear to have come in under the reporting limit. In reality the ‘supporting evidence’ Corbyn submitted worked against his own case…

Guido’s investigation has led Andrew Bridgen to ask the Commissioner that the original case be re-opened. Read his letter in full here…

Dear Ms Stone,
Further to my letter stated 7th December 2018 on this issue and your subsequent response, I wish to bring forward further evidence that has emerged during the weekend, which I believe warrants the reopening of the investigation.

As stated on the order-order.com website in a story on 5th April 2019, ‘Despite Corbyn submitting the full itinerary for his flights to and from Tunisia, he mysteriously failed to give the investigation any documentation showing the actual cost. Instead he simply presents an ‘estimate’ of £410, with “supporting evidence” in the form of SkyScanner searches for equivalent flights four years on. Corbyn’s own “evidence” shows that the cheapest costs for the equivalent flights he took is £732:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Is it time for a different approach to BDS on campus?

BDS advocates like Students for Justice in Palestine spew hatred against Israel, assisted by Jewish fellow travelers such as Jewish Voice for Peace and others on the left. In return, pro-Israel groups make reasoned arguments, albeit sometimes undermined by their apologetic attitudes about the assertion of Jewish rights. Their willingness to acknowledge Palestinian grievances is not matched by any concern about Jewish rights and security by the other side. While BDSers spread anti-Semitic tropes, Jewish groups invite their opponents to Shabbat dinners.

While such tactics speak well for the manners of Israel’s friends, many of them have chosen – often, deliberately – to downplay the intrinsic anti-Semitism of BDS because it seems too harsh a rhetorical point. Pro-Israel groups are a little too conscious of worries about the downside of accusing opponents of hate or anti-Semitism, especially when supporters of BDS are seen as well-meaning progressives.

But any discussion about BDS that does not make it clear that hatred for Israel is not only illiberal but that it is also a noxious form of anti-Semitism will never succeed. If you feel that it is wrong – or bad manners even – to point out that BDS seeks to deny rights to Jews that are not denied to others and is inherently discriminatory, you have missed the key point of this debate.

Standing up against this hate requires courage because those doing so run the risk of being branded as reactionaries in a progressive world. But as much as persuasion is the goal, any discussion about BDS must center on the fact that its advocates are – wittingly or unwittingly – spreading hate and bias against Jews.

If that understanding is not the starting point for our efforts to push back against campus BDS campaigns, then we are doomed to fail.

Student government rejects resolution to fire president for protecting Israel study-abroad program

Debated putting ‘Zionist money’ down the memory hole

Not all members of the Pitzer College Student Senate are anti-Semitic dullards.

It voted down a nonbinding resolution, 20-12, demanding the resignation of President Melvin Oliver for protecting the school’s Israel study-abroad program, The Claremont Independent reports. Yet it unanimously passed an even more meaningless resolution denouncing “Presidents Olivers” for protecting the program.

Last month Oliver vetoed a vote by the College Council, a governing body of faculty and students, to end the program with the University of Haifa. The council hates Israel.

The identity-politics caucuses in the Student Senate have been seeking Oliver’s head on a platter because he put academic freedom above trendy politicking, at least in this instance.

The Independent notes the failed resolution was sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Coalition, South Asian Mentorship Program, Latinx Student Union, Mixed Identities Group, Indigenous Peer Mentorship Program and Muslim Student Association.

It claimed that Oliver’s veto of the council resolution – driven by his concern about taking an “unavoidably political position on one of the most controversial issues of our time” and harming the academic freedom of students – would harm Pitzer’s “fundraising ability.”

Princeton Jewish community fights over an Israel-themed Shabbat dinner

An Israel-themed Shabbat dinner has divided members of Princeton University’s Jewish community.

Some claimed the event Friday at the university’s Center for Jewish Life provided a one-sided view of the Jewish state.

The Israel Shabbat was part of the center’s “Israel Week,” during which events were held to “celebrate Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

The dinner featured Israeli food and flags, as well as speeches by Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who is now a professor at Princeton, and comedian Joel Chasnoff.

According to the Daily Princetonian, the Center for Jewish Life “was packed for the event — both the Dining Hall and Wilf Hall were almost entirely full.”

But a group of Jewish students named the Alliance of Jewish Progressives said the programming did not adequately provide any critical perspectives on Israeli policies as it relates to the Palestinians. The group called on members of the campus community not to attend the Israel Shabbat and organized an alternate dinner, which drew about 50 participants, the Daily Princetonian reported.

Resident doctor who was fired in Cleveland for anti-Semitic tweets tried and failed to join Kern Medical

It could have been a public relations disaster. Instead, Kern Medical, Bakersfield's only teaching hospital, never hired a first-year resident physician whose name has become associated with anti-Semitic declarations on Twitter.

"No offer was ever given. No contract was produced," Kern Medical CEO Russell Judd told The Californian.

Dr. Lara Kollab, a first-year resident physician, was fired from her previous position at the Cleveland Clinic in September after allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks on social media over a period of years came to light, including tweeting in 2012 that she would "purposely give all the (Jews) the wrong meds."

Months after her dismissal, Kollab — apparently trying to secure another residency position — was matched to KMC through a nationwide, computer-based organization that brings together young doctors seeking resident positions with residency programs across the country. But KMC barred Kollab from Kern Medical's Internal Medicine Residency Program before she could be hired.

"As soon as it came to light, we notified her and made it clear she is not welcome at our institution," Judd said.

According to Judd, Kollab lied on her application about why she left Cleveland Clinic, saying she left due to a death in the family.

Thank you @kmillerheidke for your fairness and willingness to learn https://t.co/VayocBwbfN #Eurovision2019 @rogerwaters

— Ozraeli Dave (((דיויד לנג))) (@Israellycool) April 9, 2019

.@AmbassadorOPTV: Evil AND dumb! https://t.co/2ursO358un cc: @TheMossadIL

— Ozraeli Dave (((דיויד לנג))) (@Israellycool) April 8, 2019

PreOccupiedTerritory: JVP, If Not Now To Cut Out Middle Man, Kill Israelis Directly

Two American organizations focused on driving a wedge between American Jews and Israel have decided to alter their approach, whereby instead of engaging in activities to undermine the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state, thus enabling violence against it to enjoy support or sympathy, they will remove the uncertainty in the process and travel to Israel themselves to conduct perpetrate such violence.

Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, two groups whose major activities involve attention-getting ploys and slandering Israel’s efforts to defend itself and maintain Jewish sovereignty, have conducted a thorough review of their organizational aims, and concluded that they could achieve those aims with greater efficiency by cutting out the lengthy, ambiguous chain of events that could embolden Israel’s enemies to attack it, and instead sending their personnel to conduct shootings, bombings, stabbings, rammings, and other attacks without waiting for others to do so.

A spokeswoman for the interchangeable groups, both funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, told reporters that the decision stemmed from what she called a “maturing” of those involved. “One of the criticisms we’ve heard is that Americans shouldn’t be dictating what others do,” explained Shoteh Hoken. “That is definitely true in many ways, though we can find any number of exceptions. However, our grassroots membership has taken this question to heart, and we will now be recruiting for trips to counter the poison that Birthright dispenses: trips during which, instead of simply yelling at Zionists for not caring about Palestinians, our participants kill Birthright participants. It’s time to match our behavior with our rhetoric.”

Another Israeli election, another BBC claim of a ‘shift to the right’

In other words, Bateman would have BBC audiences believe that disillusion among Israeli voters and politicians alike with the belief that a two-state solution can be achieved is entirely down to Netanyahu having “changed the conversation” since 2009 and has nothing whatsoever to do with years of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli citizens, Palestinian Authority glorification and rewarding of terror, Palestinian refusal to accept numerous previous offers of precisely such a solution or the Hamas-Fatah split which for over a decade has made any agreement “with the Palestinians” impossible.

Following a conversation with Ayelet Shaked of the ‘New Right’ in which she apparently did not succeed in persuading Bateman that Israeli democracy is sufficiently robust to include a broad range of opinions across the political spectrum, he continued with promotion of unsupported claims from unidentified commentators.

Bateman: “Israel has been taking a look at itself in this election. Some see the move rightwards over the last decade as decisive now. They see ideas that were once on the margins a few decades ago becoming more and more mainstream. Like the possibility of Israel annexing parts of the occupied West Bank.”

Bateman has apparently never heard of the ‘Alon Plan’ proposal of annexation of parts of Judea & Samaria devised by a Labour movement leader shortly after the Six Day War.

Finally, BBC audiences learned that even if Netanyahu does not win this election and even if a centrist/left coalition forms the next government, Israel has – according to the BBC – nevertheless shifted to the right for one reason alone.

Bateman: “Regardless of the result, there has been a marked shift to the right during Benjamin Netanyahu’s time in office.”

BBC Radio 4 religious programme does Israeli politics

BBC Radio 4’s weekly programme ‘Sunday’ purports to give listeners “a look at the ethical and religious issues of the week”. The lead item in the April 7th edition of that programme had nothing to do with “ethical and religious issues” at all.

The item relates to a political story taken rather more seriously by the foreign press than the Israeli public which emerged in an April 6th Channel 13 interview with Israel’s prime minister. During that interview Netanyahu was asked why, during his 2015-2019 term of office, he had not annexed Gush Etzion or applied Israeli law to Ma’ale Adumim. Avoiding the word annexation, Netanyahu replied that the topic is under discussion and that he intends to apply Israeli law to Israeli communities in Judea & Samaria during his next (potential) term.

While no such action is likely to happen before the US presents its proposals for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians (if at all, given that Netanyahu has in the past repeatedly scuppered such efforts when advanced by other MKs), Netanyahu’s remarks were presented to BBC audiences as a “vow” to “annex settlements”.

Dream Trip to German Soccer Stadium for Israeli Kids Ends in Antisemitic ‘Humiliation’ on Bus Going Home

A dream trip earlier this month to see one of Germany’s top soccer teams in action at their home stadium ended in an antisemitic nightmare for four Israeli children, a leading German news outlet revealed on Monday.

The youngsters — all of whom hail from economically disadvantaged families in Haifa — had traveled to Germany to see UEFA Champions League regulars Borussia Dortmund play at their famous BVB Stadion, thanks to a financial gift from the Israeli branch of the German soccer team’s fan club. But when the group boarded a bus to Amsterdam airport at the start of their journey home, their Israeli identification documents attracted the hostility of staff onboard.

“When the bus drivers saw our Israeli passports, they immediately became aggressive and humiliated us,” tour guide Itamar Eli told the German publication Welt. Eli said the drivers then prevented the Israeli group from bringing their own food onto the bus, while extending the same courtesy to other passengers

“I wanted to stow our food in my luggage, but one of the bus drivers suddenly told me that we had to throw it away,” Eli said. “He was very aggressive and angry.” Meanwhile, the driver’s colleague, who moments earlier had been speaking English with another passenger, now pretended that he could not understand the language when Eli approached him for help.

Lithuania to blacklist Holocaust denier David Irving

Lithuania has moved to blacklist Holocaust denier David Irving to prevent him from entering the Baltic EU state should he try to do so later this year, the country’s top diplomat said on Tuesday.

“Holocaust denial and praising Adolf Hitler is a crime in Lithuania. Persons who spread these ideas are not welcome in our country,” Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told AFP.

The minister said he would request the migration department to officially blacklist Irving, who could attempt to enter Lithuania later this year.

The controversial British historian, who was jailed in Austria in 2006 for denying the Holocaust, said he planned to visit neighboring Poland this year.

In 2010, Irving led a controversial tour of World War II sites in Poland, including the former Treblinka death camp, drawing outrage and condemnation from Holocaust survivors and anti-racism groups.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said in March that this time around, Irving “will not be accepted in Poland,” where Holocaust denial is also outlawed.

Ramla Hosts International Day of Sport and Peace

The city of Ramla, together with 14 NGOs, is celebrating the International Day of Sport and Peace (April 7). The event was established in 2013 by the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee to honor sport as a catalyst for social change.

Some 3,000 events in 180 countries will take place over the course of 2019. This is the first year that Israel has joined in. Four hundred young Israeli athletes are participating in 10 sports: soccer, karate, capoeira, Frisbee, taekwondo, tennis, wheelchair tennis, catchball, surfing and kayaking.

Ramla was chosen to host Israel’s Sport and Peace event due to its diverse population. Approximately 30 percent of the city’s 75,000 residents are immigrants (in particular from India, Ethiopia and the Former Soviet Union) and 23% of the city is Arab.

The local organizers, which include the National Olympic Committee in Israel and the Alliance of Middle East Peace, worked hard to ensure that athletes from all sectors of Israeli society – Jewish, Arab, Bedouin, ultra-Orthodox, immigrant, asylum-seekers and those with special needs – were included.

At most sporting events, a “red card” indicates a penalty. At the International Day of Sport and Peace, however, participants will hold up a “white card” as a gesture of equality and peace. Pictures of athletes from around the world holding their white cards can be seen by searching the hashtag #whitecard.

30% rise in foreign investment in Israel - report

Foreign investment in Israel was up by 30% between 2015 and 2017, according to a new report released by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Total foreign investment for 2017 hit $129.1 billion, an increase of 30% from 2015, when investment levels hovered around $100 billion.

The biggest area of investment is in the fields of trade and services, the CBS report said. Other top investment areas include high-tech, industry and advanced technologies.

The United States invested the most in 2017 ($2.1 billion), but there were many other countries who were among Israel’s top investors. These include the Netherlands, the Cayman Island, Canada, China, Luxemburg, Singapore and Switzerland.

Kathie Lee's directorial debut: A music video shot in Israel

Nicole Mullen and Kathie Lee Gifford were sitting and brainstorming ideas for the music video for their new song, “The God Who Sees.”

Mullen and Gifford wrote the song together, and Mullen provided the vocals while Gifford was gearing up to direct the video. The pair discussed what kind of props Mullen might use on stage, and what kind of images might be projected behind her. But then Gifford – the longtime TODAY show co-host – had a different idea in mind: “We’re going to Israel.”

So last month the duo and their crew arrived in the Holy Land to film the 13-minute music video, which was released on Friday.

“We went, and we had a wonderful time, we had a wonderful film shoot with some great, talented people,” Mullen told The Jerusalem Post in a recent phone interview. “And it was beautiful because we were able to use Israelis, Palestinians, African Americans, Caucasians – to come together to do something that says ‘God sees all of us.’”

Mullen said they filmed all around Israel, at the Sea of Galilee, on the Mount of Olives, on Mount Arbel, in the Judean Desert and in the caves of Bethlehem. Against those backdrops, Mullen both recites and sings the songs lyrics, which center on the biblical characters Hagar and Ruth, before transitioning to sing about Jesus.

“I would love for people to have their appetites whet to visit Israel,” Mullen said. “And see that it is a land of beauty, even though it is a land of history it is a land of relevance... the film will show the beauty of the land, the beauty of the people.”

Israel at the UN Humanitarian Operations V1

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