06/12 Links Pt2: How Hollywood idol Audrey Hepburn helped save Dutch Jews during the Holocaust; White Liberals Are Turning against the Jews and Israel ~ EoZ

From Ian:

How Hollywood idol Audrey Hepburn helped save Dutch Jews during the Holocaust

Audrey Hepburn starred in a constellation of memorable roles, from Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.” The 1953 classic “Roman Holiday” — in which she portrayed Princess Ann, a royal exploring the Eternal City with Gregory Peck — earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. And Hepburn is among the select few to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award.

Yet her most important role is perhaps her least-known. It’s the story of a Dutch aristocrat, raised by parents with controversial political allegiances, who aided her country’s resistance to the Nazis while enduring tragedy and starvation — and, despite it all, becoming a prima ballerina en route to Hollywood stardom. It’s her real-life coming-of-age story, told in a new book, “Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II,” by Robert Matzen.

“Dutch Girl” is based on Matzen’s visits to the Netherlands, where he accessed hard-to-get information in archives, and interviewed people with wartime memories of Hepburn, gaining a new understanding of the star’s own statements about her wartime past. Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti wrote the foreword, and shared previously-unseen photographs, documents and mementos.

A veteran Hollywood chronicler, Matzen learned about Hepburn’s war years while researching his previous book, a biography of Jimmy Stewart, who had been a WWII fighter pilot before becoming the all-American star of such films as “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Some of Stewart’s men had been shot down over the Netherlands, and when Matzen visited the city of Arnhem, he learned Hepburn had lived there during the war. That sparked his next project, one that would bring to light Hepburn’s war experiences, which he called in an interview with The Times of Israel, “a side of Audrey that nobody knows.”

Holocaust Museum digitizing letters from Anne Frank's father

Ryan Cooper was a 20-something Californian unsure of his place in the world when he struck up a pen pal correspondence in the 1970s with Otto Frank, the father of the young Holocaust victim Anne Frank.

Through dozens of letters and several face-to-face meetings, the two forged a friendship that lasted until Frank died in 1980 at the age of 91.

Now 73 years old, Cooper, an antiques dealer and artist in Massachusetts, has donated a trove of letters and mementos he received from Frank to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington just before the 90th anniversary Wednesday of Anne Frank’s birth on June 12, 1929.

He wants the letters to be shared so that people can have a deeper understanding of the man who introduced the world to Anne Frank, whose famous World War II diary is considered one of the most important works of the 20th century.

“He was a lot like Anne in that he was an optimist,” Cooper said of Otto Frank at his house on Cape Cod recently. “He always believed the world would be right in the end, and he based that hope on the young people.”

White Liberals Are Turning against the Jews and Israel

Over the past five to ten years, writes Zach Goldberg, a new group of liberals has emerged—mostly white, mostly born after 1980, and greatly shaped by social media and Internet reporting—that has altered attitudes on the left. Recently dubbed “the Great Awokening”—after the use of the vernacular “woke” to mean awakened to injustice—the resulting changes in liberal opinion bode ill for Jews and the Jewish state:

[These] seismic attitudinal shifts . . . have implications that go beyond race: they are also tied to a significant decrease in support for Israel and—perhaps more surprisingly—an increase in the number of white liberals who express negative attitudes about the perceived political power of American Jews. . . . Then there is the marked shift in attitudes toward Israel. Between 1978 and 2014, white liberals consistently reported sympathizing more with Israel than with the Palestinians. Since March 2016, this trend has turned on its face: significantly more white liberals now report greater sympathy for the Palestinians than for Israel.

The surveys show that among white liberals, Jews are perceived to be “privileged”—at least in comparison with other historically victimized groups. . . . Jews are no longer the downtrodden collective that white liberals can readily sympathize with. Other groups lower on the privilege hierarchy and less tainted by association with “whiteness” now have priority. So long as anti-Semitism comes from whites, there is no problem here. But if the [anti-Semite is] a member of an “oppressed” or “vulnerable” group, there may be a cognitive dissonance.

To see how this logic extends to Israel consider that the same . . . outrage over the bigoted persecution of the vulnerable by the “privileged” that informs the changing policy positions on domestic issues is applied to the international arena. [In the “woke” view of things], a “white-supremacist” America holds people of color down and keeps the door shut for others, while a “Zionist-supremacist” Israel behaves in much the same way toward its minorities of color. It’s a narrow and warped perspective but one that’s easily assimilated into a broader worldview in which human relations are defined by categories of oppressor vs. oppressed; and where these roles are assigned based on one’s placement in the privilege hierarchy. . . .

As Jews have become [symbols] of “whiteness” in the liberal political imagination—to the point that Israel is considered a white state despite having a slight nonwhite majority—they have come to be associated with an oppressor class. We shouldn’t be surprised then that white liberals are significantly more likely to feel that Jewish groups have too much influence and less likely to say the same with respect to their Muslim counterparts.

The Tikvah Podcast: Yaakov Katz on “Shadow Strike”

On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad, but this time, there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert.

In his latest book, Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz tells the inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear nightmare. In this week’s podcast, Katz sits down with Tikvah Fund Chairman Roger Hertog to discuss his book. Katz sheds light on the decision-making processes of both the United States and Israel in the run-up to the bombing, explores the sometimes clashing personalities of the players involved in the deliberations over the strike, and reflects on how Israel’s bold decision to bomb the Syrian reactor protected not only the Jewish state, but also the entire world.

How collapse of communism 30 years ago benefited Israel

On December 25th 1991, my wife and I witnessed the lowering of the red flag from Moscow's Kremlin and its replacement by the white, blue and red flag of the Russian Republic, headed by president Boris Yeltsin, who outlawed the Communist Party. Like dominoes, almost all of the Soviet republics, from Lithuania in Europe to Uzbekistan in central Asia, abandoned the bloc and declared independence.

To the dismay of former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, the high priest of the status quo, continuity and quiet diplomacy, the Yalta agreement of 1945 — in which Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill divided the world into two spheres of influence — were annulled. Communism surrendered to capitalism without the firing of a single shot.

In the aftermath, and in contrast to the predictions of skeptical intellectuals, the quality of life for the citizens of the newly democratic states increased substantially over the subsequent three decades. Today, there remain only two communist countries: Cuba and North Korea.

Israel gained a great deal from the collapse of the Soviet empire. Post-communist governments initiated full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, followed by economic and strategic ties. The arms race to keep up with Soviet armaments also ended.

In a casual conversation in 1988, Gorbachev told American Jewish oil tycoon Armand Hammer that he "allows for all Jews who want to emigrate to Israel," and the report was published as a global scoop in Yedioth Ahronoth. The more than one million immigrants who have arrived in Israel since have enabled, among other things, the flourishing of Israeli high-tech, which brought the country at least $450 billion in revenue. Were it not for the sweeping victory of the anti-communist revolution of 1989, Israel would not be what it is today. It is worth remembering this.

“Omar Amin” von Leers and the Islamization of Nazism

Johannes “Omar Amin” von Leers (d. 1965), was a Nazi disciple of Hajj Amin el-Husseini who converted to Islam, found a haven in Egypt, and embraced a 1300 year-old ideology to destroy the Judeo-Christian West—Islamic jihad.

Sixty-four years ago, June 8, 1955, while still in exile in Argentina, Leers wrote a letter to W.E.B. DuBois, extolling Islam and African Muslim soldiers under WWI-era German colonial governance, as follows:

“[The] German administration was openly in favor of Islam. No African became a color sergeant in the Askari Army [i.e., African soldiers fighting under German colonial leadership] who was not a steadfast Moslem. And also in Cameroon the Germans never forgot to give power and dignities to the Moslem Amirs of the North. The Germans were convinced Islam makes good soldiers and reliable men—and that a Moslem does not drink alcohol and therefore can be used for positions of confidence. An uncle of mine who was for a long time [an] officer in the Askari Army told me, when I was a boy, ‘You must know that Islam is the best religion for soldiers. By disgrace of history, we Germans have not go it [Islam] and now cannot change the situation. ..[I]n Africa, a negro converted religion often becomes the ape of the European, imitating him in his worst aspects—but Islam makes him a noble African with a feeling of his own dignity. As an officer I like better a noble African on my side in the battle, than an ape of mine.”

As I noted in my 2013 analysis of the first fully annotated English translation of Hajj Amin el-Husseini’s 1937 fatwa on the Jews—which re-affirms canonical Islam’s Jew-hating motifs used to foment murderous violence against them by Muhammad himself, since the advent of Islam, and till now—this seminal proclamation of incitement by the “Godfather” of the Palestinian Muslim movement, was pure Islamic dogma, devoid of any themes from the writings of Nazi racial theorists epitomized by von Leers’ 1936, “History on a Racial Basis”.

Leers is a fascinating case study. By any objective standard, his career trajectory—as a favored contributor in Goebbels’s propaganda ministry, to his eventual adoption of Islam (i.e., as Omar Amin von Leers) while working as an anti-Western, and Antisemitic/ anti-Zionist propagandist under Nasser’s regime from the mid-1950s until his death in 1965—represents the “Islamification of Nazism,” rather than a “Nazification of Islam.”

When Palestinian Arabs and Jews fought the Nazis side by side

He described the number of Palestinian soldiers in the British army as “relatively small” compared to the numbers of volunteers from other parts of the empire.

“The British Indian Army, for example, grew to more than two million men during the war,” Motadel explained. “Still, Arabs played a major role in the Allied war effort. We should not forget the legendary Arab Legion of Transjordan, which fought under British command in different parts of the Middle East.”

From French North Africa, he stated, 134,000 Algerians, 73,000 Moroccans and 26,000 Tunisians helped the Allied forces liberate Europe.

Like Webman, Motadel argues that the Arab reaction to Nazism “is difficult to assess” due to the diverse range of opinions and the absence of a dominant narrative.

“In Mandate Palestine, parts of the Arab population sided with Nazi Germany – the enemy of their imperial oppressor,” he clarified. “We should not underestimate, as in other parts of the imperial world, anti-British resentments. Yet, on the other side… there was also much criticism of Europe’s authoritarian regimes and sympathy for the Allied cause.”

One of the main divisions that emerged at the time was between the influential Husseini family, which supported the Axis efforts, and its rivals, the Nashashibi clan, which supported the Allied powers.
For Abbasi, one of the goals of his research is to shed light on a lesser-known chapter of 20th century history and expose how Arab Palestinians and Jews once worked together.

“In the history of two peoples in this land, there are positive periods filled with cooperation,” Abbasi said. “If we did this in the past, it’s possible that we can do the same in the future. It all depends on us.”

Farhud mentioned in New South Wales Parliament

The Deputy Chair of the New South Wales Parliamentary Friends of Israel, Walt Secord, has spoken in the NSW parliament, Australia, about the Sydney Sephardi Jewish community’s commemoration of the Farhud on 2 June. During the commemoration, pubished poet Yvonne Green read out the poem she was commissioned to write on the 75th anniversary of the pogrom (41 mins into the video), in which at least 179 Jews lost their lives. In 2020 the Sydney Jewish Museum will stage an exhibition on Jews from Arab lands (with thanks: Vernon, Yvonne):

Here is Walt Secord's address, as reported by J-Wire:
"It is part of a welcome development in recent years to mark significant events involving the Sephardi and Mizrachi community and their history.

In 2015 the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Sephardi community marked Farhud jointly for the first time and in 2020 the Sydney Jewish Museum is planning an exhibition on Jews from Arab lands.

While I have some knowledge of the Sephardi community, which stretches back to the 1980s when I was a journalist at The Australian Jewish News and my visits to Israel, I concede that I am more familiar with the Shoah and the destruction of European Jewry. However, I have become increasingly aware of the horrific events of 1941 and the expulsion of the Jewish community from Arab lands after the establishment of the State of Israel.

A famed French-Jewish philosopher is afraid to leave his home

As a French celebrity philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut belongs to a tiny group of VIPs who get to lead normal, paparazzi-free lives despite having film star-like recognizability here.

Unlike most countries, France makes celebrities out of intellectual heroes. They’re revered, quoted and featured regularly on primetime television and even in film.

But unlike many celebrities, intellectual stars are spared the spying and harassment from the media and over-eager fans. French VIP thinkers have enjoyed the best of both worlds since before the 1930s, when the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso could be seen rubbing shoulders with ordinary Parisians at Café de Flore in the Latin Quarter here.

For Finkielkraut, though, this privileged existence has become increasingly difficult because he is a Jewish supporter of Israel.

Amid growing anti-Semitism and social unrest in France, Finkielkraut, a best-selling author and retired university history professor at the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris, has been accosted repeatedly by street protesters in violation of the law and the unwritten pact between French society and its brightest minds.

“I can no longer show my face on the street,” Finkielkraut, 69, told the magazine Marianne in April after protesters nearly prevented him from speaking at a Paris university. His lecture was announced as canceled — but it actually was moved in a cat-and-mouse game designed to throw off far-left demonstrators.

A French Politician's Battle to Defend Israel at Home

France has typically adopted a more Palestinian-sympathetic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but French parliament member Meyer Habib is attempting to combat misinformation about the conflict in support of Israel. Habib discusses with hosts Calev Ben-David and Nurit Ben.

French Imam in Jerusalem: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism

French Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, currently heading a delegation of French Muslims in Israel, said on Wednesday that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for incitement against Jews in France and Belgium.

Chalghoumi is on his second visit to Israel, which has been organized by ELNET, an NGO dedicated to strengthening Europe-Israel relations, and is leading a group of several young Muslim political, media and social leaders from France and Belgium on a tour of the country.

“Anti-Zionist propaganda is a mask; it is actually antisemitic, but is used to say antisemitic things in a more polite manner,” Chalghoumi told The Jerusalem Post through a translator.

“What characterizes anti-Zionism is hatred. If we were simply talking about criticism of the State of Israel, we wouldn’t see the hatred and talk of the need to wipe out and destroy Israel,” the imam asserted.

Chalghoumi’s current visit has been designed to help the young Muslim leaders better understand Israel and promote Jewish-Muslim dialogue at home.

The group visited the Knesset on Wednesday and met with ministers and MKs, and went later to the Western Wall, and will also visit Yad Vashem, the Temple Mount, and Israel’s northern and Gaza borders.

After a full day of touring Jerusalem, Chalghoumi said Jerusalem is nothing like he expected.

“I thought I would find closed-minded groups who had few liberties and restricted freedoms,” he said. “Yet I find an open-minded community that are excited to welcome one another with love.... Seeing everyone living here together – Jews, Muslims and Christians – is encouraging and heartwarming.”

Anti-Semitic graffiti found at home of Muslim victim of Toulouse killer

The home of the mother of a Muslim victim of the jihadist killer Mohammed Merah from Toulouse was spray painted with anti-Semitic threats.

Latifa Ibn Ziaten, whose son, Imad, was murdered in 2012, discovered the graffiti Monday, she wrote on Twitter.

One graffito, written in misspelled French, read: “Jew, soon dead.” Another said: “Your time is coming soon, dirty Jew.” A third read: “Long live Merah.”

Merah murdered Imad Ibn Ziaten, a soldier in the French army, days before he killed a teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, and two of his children, Arie and Gabriel, ages 6 and 3, and Miriam Monsonego, 8, at the Otzar Hatorah school in Toulouse.

Latifa Ibn Ziaten has campaigned with French Jews against anti-Semitism.

She has traveled to Israel in the framework of her activism against anti-Semitism and hatred, and spoke at a convention of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jews of her indignation when she hears young Muslims speak of Merah as a martyr.

“I can’t believe my ears and I tell myself this is simply not possible in the France I know,” she said in 2014.

Anti-Semitism in America is an apolitical cancer

Politics is a dirty game, but one never need to stoop so low as to attempt to harness the cancer of anti-Semitism for political gain. Unfortunately, de Blasio is not the first to try to appropriate the problem for his own benefit. He certainly won’t be the last.

It is true that the far-right, especially in Europe but also in the U.S., is home to aggressively anti-Semitic elements. Most people are familiar by now with the name of David Duke and the rise of the "alt-right." But the Left is not so innocent itself, even if its most liberal members would claim otherwise.

Anti-Semitism is rampant among ardent left-wing activists, including those involved in the D.C. Dyke March, the Chicago Dyke March, and the Women’s March. The Left continues to elevate and seek approval from noted anti-Semites such as Al Sharpton. The Democratic Party itself also launched a fierce defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., after she claimed, among other things, that wealthy Jews secretly use their money to pull the strings of Republicans in Congress.

In fact, it was Omar’s multiple anti-Semitic outbursts that won her rave reviews from Duke himself. That alone should prove that anti-Jewish bigotry transcends political boundaries.

Anti-Semitism is a cancer that plagues both the American Left and the Right. It must be addressed and excised from our culture, but we are not going to accomplish that if certain leaders pretend that the issue is only a problem for the “other team.” De Blasio, who is pointing to the other team as an excuse for his own failure to address the problem adequately in New York, makes things worse still by actually trying to take advantage of a rise in anti-Semitism to gain a political advantage for his own team.

Anti-Jewish bigotry in the United States, whether violent or casual, is real. It is deadly. It knows no party loyalty. Until our leaders see this, the problem is not going to go away.

CAMERA Op-Ed: CAIR Isn’t Credible

In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. ruled that CAIR should be tried for fraud. The case involves hundreds of people who had relied on CAIR for legal aid.

These charges weren’t made by CAMERA or any of the other non-profit organizations smeared by the council. Rather, they come directly from U.S. courts and American law enforcement.

Equally troubling, is CAIR’s history of hateful and antisemitic remarks.

In a March 1998 article in the Georgetown Voice, CAIR’s leader Nihad Awad trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy mongering, claiming that U.S. foreign policy was “driven in part by the Jewish origin of many Clinton administration officials.” Awad has also defended Hamas and Hezbollah—both Islamist terrorist groups that seek Israel’s destruction—as merely “resistance movements.”

The authors of CAIR’s “Hijacked by Hate” have a disturbing history themselves. As Bradley Martin of the Middle East Forum (MEF) has documented, CAIR’s research and advocacy manager, Zainab Arain, has promoted “the modern variation of the long-debunked blood libel that claims Israel kills Palestinians to steal their organs” and shared an article from “the white nationalist website Information Clearing House, which alleges Israeli control over American leaders.” Another co-author of the report, CAIR’s research and advocacy director Abbas Barzegar, has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories via Huffington Post.

MEF, like CAMERA, was one of several organizations slandered in CAIR’s report. Many seem to have one thing in common: they dared to highlight the extensive body of evidence suggesting that when it comes to hate and extremism, CAIR is not a watchdog—it’s a purveyor of these ills.

Rep. Zeldin Expected to Reintroduce Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in Congress

US Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) is expected to reintroduce the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in the near future, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told JNS.

The congressman has been an outspoken critic of antisemitism, including from members of Congress such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

He is scheduled to announce his intention to reintroduce legislation that has been discussed in Congress, but not made it to the president’s desk, at the annual “Ray of Light in the Darkness Dinner” sponsored by the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) on Wednesday.

The Senate version was reintroduced in March by Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Bob Casey (D-Penn.).

If enacted, it would require the US Department of Education to adopt the US State Department’s definition of antisemitism in evaluating incidents on college campuses and at other educational institutions.

“Antisemitism, and harassment on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics with a religious group, remains a persistent, disturbing problem in elementary and secondary schools and on college campuses,” the Senate bill stated. “Students from a range of diverse backgrounds, including Jewish, Arab Muslim, and Sikh students, are being threatened, harassed, or intimidated in their schools (including on their campuses) on the basis of their shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics including through harassing conduct that creates a hostile environment so severe, pervasive, or persistent so as to interfere with or limit some students’ ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by schools.”

Tlaib Still Posing With Anti-Semitic Campaign Fundraiser

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich,) has continued to attend events and pose for pictures with a campaign fundraiser who has spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories using a Facebook account which he has also used to interact with the freshman Congresswoman.

The Palestinian-American businessman Maher Abdel-qader was a top fundraiser for Tlaib in her 2018 run and helped organize events to raise her national profile. Abdel-qader came under fire in January when the Daily Caller revealed his long history of promoting anti-Semitism online.

Abdel-qader created a Facebook group called "Palestinian American Congress," in which members posted anti-Semitic content, Holocaust denials, and speculations that Israelis are committing a Holocaust against Palestinians. Abdel-qader added Tlaib to the group in February 2018, after she announced her intention to run for Congress.

Abdel-qader was the sole moderator of the group, and referred to himself as the "Israeli ISIS." He claimed that Israel runs "concentration camps" and that Jews are not actually Jewish, and, in addition, secretly controlled the media. He also shared a video which called Jews "Satanic," and questioned whether six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

After the Caller revealed Abdel-qader's anti-Semitism, he apologized for his posts and deleted them.

Jewxit: Could 300,000 Jews flee the UK?

“My kids are the only Jewish kids in their school and I fear for them more than myself. I do fear for the future. My husband and I are keeping a very close eye on the political situation and we are prepared to move to another country should it become necessary.”

These are not the words of a 1930s European Jew, but the present day sentiments of a London suburban mum. She is not alone.

A 2018 Jewish Chronicle survey has revealed that one in three British Jews have considered leaving the UK due to rising antisemitism, while the ominous term “Jewxit” has recently sprouted, referring to a doomsday scenario where the entire 300,000-strong Jewish community flees the UK following a win by Jeremy Corbyn.

The Jerusalem Post has heard from British Jews whose concerns over Corbyn’s headline grabbing antisemitism are so grave, that they have considered emigrating should the UK Labour Party leader come to power. The anxiety level within Jewish circles is such that several months back, former chairman of the Conservative Party Andrew Feldman had penned a sternly worded letter to Jeremy Corbyn saying, “I want you to know that many Jewish people in the United Kingdom are seriously contemplating their future here in the event of you becoming prime minister. This is because they can see that Labour, a party with a proud tradition of tolerance and inclusiveness, is now a hotbed of feelings against Israel and therefore the Jewish people. Quietly, discreetly and extremely reluctantly, they are making their contingency plans, and this would be a tragedy.”

This sentiment is echoed by Jonathan – not his real name – for whom the choice is clear.

“I have been worrying over Corbyn’s antisemitism for quite some time,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “Even with two children currently at school, my wife and I are confident that should Corbyn win, we are selling the house and moving to Israel.”

Dodgy 'Counter Terrorism' Think Tank Run by Hamas Apologist Who Took Corbyn to Meet Them

Staffers in Westminster have been questioning why their offices have been contacted by the bizarrely named ‘Tactics Institute for Security and Counter Terrorism’. And what expertise its director (and only employee), Tom Charles, has in counter-terrorism…

The group was first registered in February and has since been producing pro-Iran, anti-sanctions content, including a letter to trusty Foreign Office minister Mark Field defending the Iranian regime and urging the UK not to impose sanctions. Charles has also written in support of the Maduro regime on his personal blog. Not an auspicious start…

It turns out Charles might have more expertise in terrorism than first thought. In 2011, while ‘Press and Parliamentary Officer’ for the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR) – banned by Israel because of its links to Hamas – Charles took a group of politicians including Jeremy Corbyn to Lebanon to meet the terror group. Corbyn clearly enjoyed the experience enough to accept the CEPR’s subsequent invitation in 2014 to the notorious wreath-laying ceremony…

On his LinkedIn page, Charles also describes his past work on the “dissemination of its key messages in the mainstream of the Labour party” for the Labour Friends of Palestine group. What sort of “key messages” has Charles been disseminating?

Charles’ extensive commentary on Middle East issues includes “Hamas’ image problem”, where Charles bemoanes how they are “already widely seen as a “terrorist” [sic] group in the West” but suggests their new English language website will help Hamas to “improve and modernise its image”. His other insightful articles include “Will 2016 bring respite for Hamas and Gaza?” and “Hamas-Hizballah ‘association’ can’t stop Corbyn surge”. Given the current state of the Labour Party, Charles has clearly been remarkably successful in getting his ideas into the Labour mainstream…

I have no words to express my disgust & revulsion at this!

This is the moment that Jeremy Corbyn quotes the words of Anne Frank, a victim of antisemitism AND then he goes on to welcome Lisa Forbes the MP embroiled in antisemitism scandal to the House.

Sickening. pic.twitter.com/0p0XZe6iaq
— SussexFriendsIsrael (@SussexFriends) June 12, 2019

Labour leaders used trade union emails to quash antisemitism cases

UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's chief political adviser Andrew Murray intervened in a case in which a Labour member faced suspension over an antisemitic comment, according to the Jewish Chronicle, using an email outside of their servers so as to avoid scrutiny.

A "bombshell email" showed him offering advice to stop the investigation in the case of Max Tasker's suspension for denying that the Tower Hamlets mural of Jewish bankers was antisemitic. He did so using an email address belonging to Unite the Union, the British-Irish trade union.

"I am not sure about this one Sam," Murray's email read. "His more offensive comments seem to predate his [Labour Party] membership, and if people disagree about the mural in a way this not in itself [antisemitic], I would think that investigation without suspension at this stage may be sufficient."

Tasker has in the past written tweets claiming that there is a connection between Israel and ISIS, as well as accused Labour party members leaning more towards Center of "taking a bung from the Israeli government."

Top UK Jewish Group Condemns Cambridge University’s Decision to Host Antisemitic Malaysian Prime Minister

A leading British Jewish group has condemned Cambridge University’s decision to host the notoriously antisemitic prime minister of Malaysia.

The Cambridge Union debating society will welcome Mahathir Mohamad, who has a long history of antisemitic statements, including calling Jews “hook-nosed” and denying the Holocaust.

Sheila Gewolb, senior vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement, “The decision by Cambridge University Union to host Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a notorious antisemite who has made no secret of his distaste for Jews and Israel, is deeply disheartening.”

“By inviting this divisive figure, Cambridge Union is creating a hostile environment for Jews, giving a platform to a person who has repeatedly denied the scope of the Shoah, spread antisemitic tropes, and made straightforward racist comments,” she charged.

Mohamad’s antisemitism is well-known. He once famously said that Jews were “not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively.”

During a BBC interview last year, Mohamad defended this slur, stating, “There are many races in this world, I have said nasty things about them but they never accused me of being anti-this or anti-that.”

“They are hook-nosed,” he said of the Jews. “Many people call the Malays flat-nosed. We did not object. We did not go to war for that.”

240 Israeli, Jewish academics urge against calling BDS antisemitic

240 Israeli and Jewish academics urged the German government in an open letter to reject a recently passed law defining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as antisemitic and calling on governmental bodies not to support any organizations that support BDS.

"We all reject the deceitful allegation that BDS as such is anti-Semitic and maintain that boycotts are a legitimate and non-violent tool of resistance," wrote the academics in the letter.

The academics also called "on the German government to maintain its direct and indirect funding of Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organisations that peacefully challenge the Israeli occupation."

Signatories of the letter included 24 academics from the Hebrew University, 24 from Tel Aviv University, 11 from Ben Gurion University, nine from Haifa University, five from the Weizmann Institute of Science and five from the Open University of Israel.

"There is no parallel in the world to this phenomenon of hypocrisy and ungratefulness, in which these professors earn their living at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer yet at the same time work to boycott and slander them," said Matan Peleg, CEO of the Im Tirtzu organization, in response.

CAMERA Arabic Prompts Reuters Correction on ‘Palestine’

CAMERA Arabic last week prompted a correction of a June 4 Reuters article which contained an erroneous reference to “Palestine.”

The Arabic article, entitled “Palestinian Security Services forbids members of a Salafist group from performing the Eid [al-Fitr] prayer during the last day of Ramadan,” reported on the force’s intervention to prevent a local Salafist group in Hebron from observing the first day of Eid al-Fitr holiday. Only in Saudi Arabia and parts of the Gulf had that day been determined to be the date of the holiday, and the Palestinian religious establishment disputed that ruling. The Salafists, publicly commemorating Eid a day earlier, were therefore punishable by imprisonment under Palestinian Authority law.

The report concluded:
Several countries have celebrated the first day of Eid al-Fitr today, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while others have declared tomorrow to be the first day of Eid al-Fitr, among them Egypt, Jordan and Palestine. [Translation and emphasis by CAMERA Arabic].

Given that references to modern “Palestine” in the West Bank and Gaza are inaccurate, CAMERA Arabic urged Reuters to correct the statement. Editors commendably and quickly replaced “Palestine” with “Palestinian territories.” In August 2017 and in December 2016 The New York Times commendably corrected this identical error. Other media outlets which have corrected in the past include The New York Post, National Geographic, The Los Angeles Times, and Voice of America.

A map in the UK Guardian labels the city of Hebron as Al Khalil, the Arabized version of the city name, even though in English the city name remains Hebron. The name Hebron dates back to antiquity & remains in use today.

Why did they label it so? pic.twitter.com/WHNZpRSL2t
— 𝘼𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙕𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙢 (@americanzionism) June 11, 2019

BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – May 2019

The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during May 2019 shows that throughout the month a total of 449 incidents took place: 50 in Judea & Samaria, 10 in Jerusalem and 389 in the Gaza Strip sector.

In Judea & Samaria and Jerusalem the agency recorded 47 attacks with petrol bombs, four attacks using pipe bombs, one stabbing attack, one shooting attack and seven arson attacks.

Incidents recorded in the Gaza Strip sector included 16 attacks with petrol bombs, three attacks using IEDs, two attacks using pipe bombs, one attack using an improvised grenade, one shooting attack, one sniper attack, two attacks using anti-tank missiles and 362 separate incidents of rocket launches.

Four Israeli civilians were killed in missile attacks launched from the Gaza Strip on May 5th: Moshe Agadi (58), Ziad Alhamada (49), Moshe Feder (68) and Pinchas Menachem Prezuazman (21).

In conclusion, the BBC News website reported 80% of the terror attacks which took place during May 2019 and all the resulting fatalities.

Since the beginning of 2019 the BBC News website has reported 33% of the terror attacks which have taken place and 85% of the resulting fatalities.

How Germans remember the Holocaust

The Nazi race laws that led to the murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust were enacted in the city of Nuremberg. Nuremberg is a quintessentially German city, and the events that took place there have a particularly great significance in German historical memory.

In Nuremberg, Germany has constructed a museum in the north wing of the unfinished remains of Congress Hall, the grounds of the Nazi party’s enormous rallies. This area was bombed by the Allies at the end of World War II.

The museum’s introductory video makes a great effort to connect the past, the present, and the future. It contrasts what exists today in the area of the museum (green grass, sports complexes, a lake) to what was there in the past (a huge construction project designed to glorify the name of Hitler and his party).

What the video does not do is address the consequences of the decisions that were made in that place. It tries to create a comforting, generic image of yet another historical museum, rather than focus on the location’s unique status as the one-time epicenter of the Nazi party.

The video expresses curiosity and even pride at the tremendous size of the Nazi-era construction project while conveying no indication of guilt or understanding of its historical meaning. The smoothly edited video is accompanied by pleasant music, and the actors who appear in it are all young and “cool.”

CAA calls on Penguin UK to withdraw conspiracy theorist’s book and investigate how it came to be published, after reader discovered Penguin disguised the book’s antisemitism

British publishing giant, Penguin UK, has published an English translation of a Spanish book by antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Colonel Pedro Banos, called “How they rule the world” but has reportedly removed passages about the Rothschild family.

Antisemitic conspiracy myths have long placed the predominantly Jewish Rothschild family of bankers and philanthropists behind the world’s ills, accusing them of leading a global Jewish conspiracy. The myth gained widespread currency when the Nazis recognised its potency for turning Germans against the supposed hidden hand of the Jews, who their propaganda claimed were ruining Germany’s national future.

Author Jeremy Duns has exposed Penguin’s amendments to the antisemitic book and suggested that the publisher can only have done so “knowingly.” He purchased the e-book in Spanish which featured the Rothschilds. Yet, he explained that the section on the Rothschilds was missing in the English edition: “That entire section is missing from the English version of the book. Perhaps because British readers would cry foul?” There is also no mention of the Rothschilds in the book summary on the Penguin UK website.

The book cover depicts an octopus which was an antisemitic caricature used by the Nazis as a euphemism for Jewish tentacles trying to control the world.

Google Express to Ship Products in Packaging Made by Israel-Based Company

Google Express will start shipping products in packaging made by Israel-based manufacturer TIPA Corp Ltd., announced the latter’s umbrella organization, Sustainable Suite Inc., on Monday.

TIPA, founded in 2010, produces and designs compostable, plastic-like bags and packaging that decompose under humid conditions within 180 days, TIPA Vice President of Marketing Merav Koren told Calcalist.

“TIPA’s packaging is as durable and impermeable as traditional plastic packaging and works for a range of products, such as fresh produce, frozen goods and apparel, according to company statements,” reported Calcalist. “Depending on the type of packaging and shape, the compostable plastic is made up of anywhere from 20-60 percent plant-based ingredients, such as non-genetically modified corn,” said Koren.

Technion team develops medical glue to replace stitches in serious injuries

Researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed a glue gun to put the human body back together when it has been seriously injured.

The pins and stitches currently used to treat serious injuries come with drawbacks: They can be painful, they leave scars, they require high skill from the doctor, and they sometimes have to be removed after the tissues heal. Suture on the intestine, lungs or blood vessels often leak and therefore require a sealant.

The medical glue that the researchers have developed is a “two in one,” said Prof. Boaz Mizrahi, head of the Biomaterials Laboratory of the Technion. It replaces both stitches and the sealant, and is good for both external and internal injuries, he said.

All sorts of medical glues are already being used in dermatology, surgery, and other areas. Israeli startup Nanomedic Technologies Ltd., for example, has developed a medical device that it says can dress burns and other wounds with nano materials that mimic human tissue and peel off once the skin below is regenerated.

Lenovo’s Latest Virtual Reality Headset Features Technology by Israeli Startup Lumus

Lenovo Group has used technology developed by Israeli augmented reality (AR) company Lumus in its new ThinkReality A6 headset, Lumus announced Thursday. The headset, unveiled by Lenovo last month, weighs 380 grams and offers Full HD resolution for each eye and a field of vision of 40 degrees.

Headquartered in central Israeli town Ness Ziona, Lumus develops and produces transparent AR displays built with a technology reminiscent of optical fibers. The company was founded in 2000 by Yaakov Amitai, a former executive at Israeli defense optics company ELOP, which merged with defense technology company Elbit Systems in 2000. Lumus has raised $51 million to date, from investors including Alibaba Group, HTC, and Taipei-listed Quanta Computer, according to Pitchbook data.

Patriots' Kraft to receive warm welcome in Israel

Israel is rolling out the red carpet for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who arrives next week to collect the Genesis Prize, a prestigious award dubbed by its sponsors as the “Jewish Nobel Prize.”

Kraft, a longtime supporter of Jewish and Israeli causes, can expect a warm welcome during a nearly weeklong visit.

In addition to collecting the $1 million award, he is scheduled to have lunch with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and deliver the keynote speech at a lavish ceremony hosted by comic Martin Short. Dozens of VIPs are expected at the invitation-only event, including leaders of Jewish organizations, top business and political figures and the prime minister.

Throughout the visit, he is expected to be accompanied by nearly 60 former and active NFL players. The delegation is scheduled to be welcomed at a reception at U.S. Ambassador David Friedman’s seaside residence north of Tel Aviv. Kraft is good friends with both Netanyahu and President Donald Trump.

The Genesis Prize is granted each year to an individual in recognition of their commitment to Jewish values. Organizers say that Kraft has decided to donate his award to fight anti-Semitism.

Israeli start-up is working to develop a flying electric, autonomous car

The Jetsons introduced the idea of the flying car into the minds of American children. Now, an Israeli start-up is working on turning this flying car into reality.

An article published by the Israeli business site Calcalist reports that Netanya-based NFT Inc. believes autonomous flying cars will solve city road congestion and is working to develop a flying electric, autonomous car.

The company will present its ideas at the Ecomotion 2019 smart mobility show in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

Owner Guy Kaplinsky said the vehicle, which he is calling Alaska (Japanese for flying bird) will be equipped with 14 propellers and collapsible wings extracted before takeoff. The car will be around 6.5-feet wide and 39-feet wide with its wings fully extracted. It could hold up to three people and travel as far as 342 miles at up to 149 miles per hour.

And the cost? Between $200,000 and $300,000.

Pastor Saved by Bible in '72 Lod Massacre Returns to Israel

He was at the Lod airport in 1972 when three Japanese terrorists opened fire on travelers and killed 26 people, but was saved by his bible. Now, he's back in Israel and recounting the horror of the event and looking to the country for religious inspiration. Our Daniel Campos has the story.

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