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Wednesday, July 21, 2021

07/21 Links Pt2: Biden Passes Up Chance To Press Jordan’s King for Terrorist’s Extradition; Biden's reward to UNRWA for bad behavior; Antisemitism in America: what would Émile Zola say?

From Ian:

Biden Passes Up Chance To Press Jordan’s King for Terrorist’s Extradition
In the face of emotional pleas from a young terror victim's family, President Joe Biden on Monday passed up an opportunity to press Jordan's King Abdullah II on the Palestinian terrorist who remains a free woman in the Middle Eastern kingdom.

Although the White House maintains it is working to extradite Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi from Jordan, Biden neglected the issue entirely during his Monday afternoon meeting with King Abdullah. Neither the public meeting nor the White House readout of what the leaders discussed privately included any mention of Tamimi.

Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter was killed in the 2001 bombing of an Israeli restaurant carried out by Tamimi, said the United States is "betraying its own values" by not raising the issue.

"The United States is betraying its own values, its own commitment to justice, and this I find to be inexplicable," Roth told the Washington Free Beacon following Biden’s meeting with Jordan’s king. "There’s always a price when you trash core values."

Ahead of Biden's meeting with the Jordanian king, Roth and his wife Frimet took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, urging Biden to press for Tamimi's extradition. "The president, a grieving parent himself, pledged during his inauguration speech to write ‘an American story of decency and dignity,'" the parents wrote last week. "Is anything more dignified than doing justice?"
After Jordan's king visited the State Department yesterday
At the end of yesterday's well-publicized meeting between the Jordanian delegation and the State Department people, there was a press briefing, presided over by State's spokesperson, Ned Price.

As important as the Tamimi case is, and as much as we have tried to create media and pubic awareness of the open deception by two governments over what is and is not being done to bring Tamimi to her long overdue appointment with a federal court, here is the only official public comment made by the American side. It comes from the official transcript of the State Department Press Briefing (July 20, 2021)

NED PRICE, DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON JULY 20, 2021

QUESTION: Can I ask you very quickly about Jordan, the meeting with the king this morning and the Secretary? I just want to know if the Tamimi extradition issue came up. As you’re aware, last year the then-ambassador nominee but now the ambassador told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that withholding aid or aid could be used as leverage to secure her extradition to the States to face murder charges.

MR PRICE: Well, I expect we’ll have a readout of the Secretary’s meeting with His Majesty the King later today. When it comes to Ms. al-Tamimi, she is on the FBI’s most wanted list for her role in the 2001 Hamas attack in Jerusalem. We continue to seek her extradition. We’ll continue to work to ensure that she faces justice.

QUESTION: Yeah. Well, did it come up?

MR PRICE: I’m not in a position to speak to the meeting, but we’ll have a readout —

QUESTION: Well, are you – I mean, are you – has this administration yet raised it with – raised the matter with Jordanian authorities, the King or not? Or is this something that would have just come up for the first time today?

MR PRICE: This issue has been raised with our Jordanian partners.

What did the Jordanians say when it was raised? How did the US respond to King Abdullah's response? Does he know about the Tamimi case? Does he know about the 1995 Extradition Treaty proudly signed by his father?

Imagine getting answers like this from your doctor, your lawyer, your spouse, your child, your work colleague. We all have some sense of when we're being treated like idiots. This was one of those moments for us.
Let us hope Lapid-Bennett consensus buries Biden’s renewed two-state solution bid
The likelihood of President Biden being the American President finally overseeing an end to the 100 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews - promisingly advanced by President Trump’s Abraham Accords - was dashed this week when Israel’s Foreign Minister – and its next Prime Minister in 26 months’ time - Yair Lapid - told the EU Foreign Affairs Council:

"A future Palestinian state must be a democracy that seeks peace with Israel"

Israel’s current Prime Minister – Naftali Bennett – shares Lapid’s opinion:
“Self-determination also depends on democracy so that the people are able to determine what they want. Almost none of our neighbours enjoy democracy and if they did they would cease to be.”

Bennett and Lapid’s consensus democracy-demand is also supported by two former American Presidents:

President Bush on 30 April 2003:
“A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established”

President Trump in his 2020 Peace Plan:
“The following criteria are a predicate to the formation of a Palestinian State and must be determined to have occurred by the State of Israel and the United States, jointly, acting in good faith, after consultation with the Palestinian Authority:

-The Palestinians shall have implemented a governing system with a constitution or another system for establishing the rule of law that provides for freedom of the press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protection for religious freedom and for religious minorities to observe their faith, uniform and fair enforcement of law and contractual rights, due process under law, and an independent judiciary with appropriate legal consequences and punishment established for violations of the law.

-The Palestinians shall have ended all programs, including curricula and textbooks, that serve to incite or promote hatred or antagonism against its neighbours, or which compensate or incentivize criminal or violent activity.




Ruthie Blum: Biden's reward to UNRWA for bad behavior
The United States transferred $135 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on Saturday. This was in addition to the nearly $33 million that it gave to the organization in May to help the Gaza Strip, ravaged by Hamas rockets and Israel's response to them during Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The latest cash bonanza also came three months after Washington provided an initial gift of $150 million to "restore" the aid that was cut in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.

It's not necessary to do the math in order to calculate how nicely the coffers of UNRWA have been padded since April alone. Nor is the reopening of the faucet for the flow of funds into the corrupt UN agency the least bit surprising.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had announced with great fanfare that doing so would be part of the new administration's efforts to repair America's relations with the Palestinian Authority. You know, the ones that Trump supposedly destroyed by holding the PA accountable for its actions, chief among them its "pay for slay" policy.

As UNRWA's largest donor, the United States has sway that it hadn't bothered to leverage until Trump came along and made the money contingent on comprehensive reforms. Not only did the "humanitarian" body abuse its original mandate, which wore out its welcome and purpose a short time after its inception more than 70 years ago, but it worked tirelessly to perpetuate the problem that it was established to solve.

Furthermore, its entire existence is based on a contrived UN definition of "refugee" that enables Palestinians to be categorized as such for generations. It's this special status that has led to an outrageous situation, whereby the number of Palestinian "refugees" hasn't declined over the decades but has increased exponentially. So, UNRWA continues to provide "relief, human development and protection services" to people who aren't "refugees" by any measure other than a fabricated one.
How Cultural Marxists Are Exploiting America’s Racial Reckoning
One of the important tenets of many radical leftists has been a hatred of Jews. As Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin point out in their book “Why the Jews?”, Fascists have accused Jews “of being Communists, and Communists have branded them capitalists.” Long before that, Voltaire, the key Enlightenment philosopher of modern leftism, believed that the Jewish fealty to God and his commandments formed the basis for moral laws, individual rights, freedom of expression and private property—all of which stood in the way of the French philosopher’s utopian vision.

Marx was not to be outdone. In his infamous pamphlet “On the Jewish Question,” he attempted to smear the Jews for accumulating wealth “for practical need,” “self-interest” and “huckstering.”

This anti-Jewish sentiment is a feature of the effort to reject both the Hebraic roots of western civilization as well as the Protestant work ethic. When combined as the foundations for democratic capitalism, these philosophies empower individuals to see themselves as co-creators with God to build economies that overcome poverty and to create the conditions for meaningful charity.

Key elements of the liberal establishment are now leveraging historical antisemitism on the left. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), for example, influenced by Louis Farrakhan’s bitter denunciations of Jews as devils, has built much of her political career on undermining Jews and Israel.

In 2015, Black Lives Matter leadership, after a ten-day trip to the West Bank, organized a statement signed by over 1,000 activists that denounced Israel for “occupation … cruelty … colonialism … apartheid … ethnic cleansing … land theft.” BLM called for the cutting off of all U.S. aid to Israel and wholeheartedly endorsed the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement, an antisemitic initiative seeking to economically strangle the Jewish state.

Recently, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers union, sought to smear the entire Jewish community (among the most liberal and philanthropic in the nation) by asserting to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class … those who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.”
Antisemitism in America: what would Émile Zola say?
The current trend began during the Obama administration, when more than seven-thousand bias incidents and hate-crimes were reported, including vandalism, arson, and violent assaults against Jews and their institutions.

Those who do not believe this could happen in the US should consider that Theodor Herzl feared a conflagration would consume the Jews of Europe regardless of the spread of liberal democratic values across the continent. Eerily, the public outcry against French Jews during the Dreyfus Affair foreshadowed the antisemitic sloganeering that has polluted the American landscape and been ramped up by radical protest movements, leftist academics, and progressive Democrats who give antisemitism political cover.

The current trend began during the Obama administration, when more than seven-thousand bias incidents and hate-crimes were reported, including vandalism, arson, and violent assaults against Jews and their institutions. Though President Obama did not call for these outrages, neither did he denounce the Jew-hatred that permeated his political base. He said nothing when antisemitism raged through college campuses and minority communities, he obfuscated his relationships with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, and he validated the odious Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement. He also extended White House hospitality to people with anti-Jewish baggage – including Al Sharpton, who logged more than sixty visits during Mr. Obama’s tenure.

When forced to address specific acts of antisemitism, Obama’s remarks were often restrained to the point of irrelevance. In addressing the deadly assault by Islamic terrorists on a Parisian kosher market in January 2015, for example, he characterized it as a “random attack” to obscure the Jewishness of the victims. Likewise, when he mentioned the subsequent Har Nof synagogue massacre, he did not acknowledge the terrorists’ antisemitic motivations and seemed to imply equivalence between the murder of Jewish worshippers and the deaths of Arabs killed while attacking Israelis. Conversely, he never missed an opportunity to downplay Muslim antisemitism, disparage former PM Netanyahu, or diminish Israel’s historical integrity.

His failure to condemn Jew-hatred within his political base or acknowledge the Jews’ ancestral connection to and presence in their homeland since time immemorial created fertile ground for antisemitism to flourish – and flourish it did. And the problem was subsequently exacerbated by Democratic ambivalence whenever progressives legitimized ancient slanders or radical mobs turned against Jews, their synagogues, schools, and businesses.

Despite his own culpability, Mr. Obama blamed Donald Trump for laying the groundwork for today’s antisemitism. There is a bright line between irony and dishonesty, however, and this revisionist claim certainly crossed it.
70 years ago, Jordan's king assassinated by Palestinian on Temple Mount
Tuesday marked 70 years since Jordanian King Abdullah I was assassinated by a Palestinian on the Temple Mount, as Abdullah was visiting Jerusalem to meet with Israeli officials amid his efforts to reach a settlement with Israel.

Abdullah was assassinated at the age of 69 by a Palestinian gunman while exiting al-Aqsa Mosque after Friday prayers with his grandson Hussein. The assassin, Mustafa Shukri Ashshu, was associated with the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, who sparked riots against Jews in Mandatory Palestine and was close with Adolf Hitler during World War II. Those associated with the ex-mufti were "bitter enemies" of Abdullah, as the ex-mufti supported the establishment of a Palestinian state, which Abdullah seemed to have thwarted by annexing the West Bank, according to a Guardian article from the day after the assassination.

A few days before the assassination, Riad al Sohl, the first prime minister of Lebanon, was also assassinated in Jordan. Ali Razmara, prime minister of Iran, and Abdul Hamid Zanganeh, former education minister of Iran, were also assassinated in the months before Abdullah's assassination. The assassinations were seen as a sign of increasing instability in the region.

Abullah was succeeded by his son Talal, who was forced to abdicate about a year later due to mental illness. Talal was succeeded by Hussein, who ruled until 1999, when he was succeeded by the current king of Jordan, Abdullah II.

King Abdullah of Jordan was known for his efforts to reach at least some form of peace with Israel, although he was assassinated 43 years before a peace treaty between the two nations was finally signed.
Swalwell Had Meetings With Qatari Charity Tied to Terrorist Groups
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee member who was targeted by a foreign spy during his early days in Congress, has met twice in the past nine months with a Hamas-linked charity that spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to influence U.S. universities.

Swalwell and four other House members visited the Qatar Foundation headquarters in April during a four-day trip hosted by the US-Qatar Business Council, according to an itinerary of the junket. The delegation met with Qatar’s emir, government leaders, and Qatar Foundation officials to discuss business opportunities for the members’ districts. The trip drew attention after photos surfaced of Swalwell and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) riding shirtless on camels in Qatar’s desert. Swalwell also visited Qatar Foundation headquarters with two fellow Democrats during a trip to Doha last October.

Swalwell’s meetings with the controversial charity raise additional questions about his position on the powerful House Intelligence Committee. Republicans called for Swalwell to be stripped of his committee assignment last year after it was revealed that he had a close relationship through 2015 with an alleged Chinese spy named Christine Fang. Fang helped raise money for Swalwell’s 2014 congressional campaign and allegedly placed an intern in his congressional office.

The Qatar Foundation, founded in 1995 by Qatar’s then-emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, says its mission is to promote scientific research and educational advancement in the Middle East and across the globe. The foundation has faced scrutiny in recent years over its alleged links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Its funding of satellite campuses for dozens of U.S. schools has also fueled concerns that the foundation has infiltrated the colleges in order to push its political views and downplay the Qatari royal family’s close ties to terror groups.

The Lawfare Project, a legal group based in New York City, said in a report last year that the Qatar Foundation’s "infiltration" of American schools has turned "school teachers into de facto agents of the Qatari government, conveying its political (and anti-Semitic) views to students and the general population without any acknowledgment of the origins of these views."
Canada’s Green Party self-immolates over Israel, throws its black Jewish leader under the bus
What does it take to make a political party self-destruct? Answer: An unhealthy and unnatural focus on Israel.

The beleaguered leader of Canada’s Green Party, Annamie Paul, has been denied funding for her own campaign in the upcoming federal election by the Green Party executive, which is dominated by a party faction that wants her out in large part because of her views on Israel-Palestine.

In May, while the Israel-Gaza conflict was raging, Paul, a black Jewish woman (the first black Jewish leader of a Canadian federal party), issued a statement calling for an end to the violence. Two of the Green Party’s three MPs in Canada’s 338-seat House of Commons publicly criticized Paul for not singling out Israel for condemnation. That prompted one of Ms. Paul’s advisers, Noah Zatzman, to issue a blistering critique of the MPs, accusing them of antisemitism. The party’s executive committee then decided not to renew Zatzman’s contract, which was due to expire a month later. That should have been the end of it, but not for the obsessive anti-Israel faction in the Greens, who then demanded Paul denounce her former advisor, which she has yet to do. Meanwhile, one of her three MPs defected to the ruling Liberals (who demanded she apologize for her anti-Israel remarks as a condition for joining. She did, adding that she condemns anti-semitism; surprisingly she didn’t add “islamophobia and other forms of racism.”)

Paul has been the Green Party leader for 9 months. She faces a non-confidence vote by the party’s federal council on July 20. If she gets 75% support she will then face a party-wide vote sometime in August. She needs 75% support to proceed to a party-wide vote the following month, at which the party’s grass roots will have the final say on her leadership.


PreOccupiedTerritory: EU Furious: Terrorist Attacks It Funded Didn’t Kill Only Jews (satire)
European Commission officials voiced their shock and displeasure today at reports that monies they had provided to Palestinian “human rights” groups fronting for violent, antisemitic militant groups ended up paying for shootings, bombings, and other incidents against Jewish Israelis that resulted in the deaths of non-Jews, as well.

Senior figures in the foreign policy arm of the European Union expressed outrage Wednesday upon discovering the phenomenon has persisted despite numerous previous occasions on which the same officials vowed to reform the funding process to better address the funding of Palestinian terrorism, following reports by watchdog groups such as NGO Monitor that the flow of money has continued even as the ties between the grantees and terrorists became more and more obvious.

“This is unacceptable,” declared EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. “Our funding guidelines dictate strict adherence to specific purposes, with robust auditing and reporting mechanisms to ensure compliance with our protocols and pursuit of our declared foreign policy aims. Operations that end up killing non-Jews, even if the latter carry Israeli citizenship, cannot and will not be tolerated.”

“Well, except for indiscriminate rocket attacks that kill more Palestinians that Jews,” he allowed, referring to the latest round of conflict this past May between Hamas and Israel. “That’s an acceptable ratio of non-Jews to Jews, because in that case the deaths of those Palestinians in Gaza were portrayed by Hamas and a compliant news media as resulting from Israeli strikes, which undermines Israel’s moral position and legitimacy, an outcome that does advance European Commission aims. Unfortunately, the attacks discussed in the reports in question do not fall under that category, and that is what me must address. It is distressing that we must still do so.”
Protecting Sderot — and Israel
“The Accidental Philanthropist” by Sandor Frankel (Simon and Schuster, 2021)

The Helmsley Charitable Trust, which began active grant-making in 2009, has quickly become one of the world’s largest philanthropic funders to Israel — having given over $411 million to Israeli causes thus far.

Sandor Frankel is the lead trustee of its Israel program. His memoir, “The Accidental Philanthropist,” will be published in August. It recounts his childhood, career, and, ultimately, the formation of the Helmsley Trust and grantmaking of its Israel program. Below is an excerpt from his book:
No rockets were fired during our visit to Sderot. The town was peaceful. We visited a school in the center of town. Outwardly, it was like any other school, with children in a classroom, teachers teaching — except here, one of the rooms was a bomb shelter, and many of the children’s drawings were of bombs falling and body parts flying.

There’s a playground outside. In the center of the playground is a sculpture of a long, tall, brightly colored caterpillar, unusual in its size, hollowed out on the inside, that a handful of children were running in and out of.

When rockets are fired at Sderot, Israeli high-tech sensors sound an alarm warning that rockets will strike the ground in ten seconds; every day, at every moment, every resident of Sderot must be within ten seconds of a bomb shelter. There are many bomb shelters in Sderot, and there is a monument for a young man who didn’t reach one in time and suffered a direct hit.
4 more to be charged over Jewish mob attack on Arab man in Bat Yam
Police on Wednesday announced that four more suspects were to be charged over a brutal mob beating of an Arab Israeli man in the central city of Bat Yam in May, bringing the number of people accused in the ethnically charged attack to ten.

Saeed Mousa was seriously injured in the attack, which was caught on live television and came amid severe ethnic tension between Jews and Arabs inside Israeli cities alongside an armed conflict between Israel and Gaza terror groups.

The four suspects arrested last week were not initially identified, but police said three of them are in their 30s, from Bat Yam and nearby Holon, and the fourth is a minor from a central town.

So far, six suspects have already been officially charged over the attack.

Thirty-five-year-old David Bitayer was hit with a terror-related aggravated assault charge. Shai Simhon, 40, was charged with racially motivated theft and aggravated intentional assault. Yaakov Cohen, 31, was indicted on an intentional impairment of a vehicle charge. Netanel Binyamin, 25, was charged with attempted murder. Lahav Ohanina, 18, and an unnamed 16-year-old minor were indicted on terror charges.

Mousa was on his way to the beach in Bat Yam when he was set upon by a group that had gathered to attack Arabs and Arab-owned businesses in the Tel Aviv-area city, according to a previous charge sheet.
Is the Palestinian Authority Secretly Financing Environmental Terrorism in West Bank?
Between May and July 2021, Palestinian rioters from the West Bank town of Beita burned over 70,000 tires, severely damaging the environment and posing a serious health threat for West Bank residents – Arabs and Jews alike.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, burning tires break down into hazardous materials including gases and heavy metals. They can burn for months, constantly generating unhealthy smoke. Furthermore, on average, burning just one passenger car tire produces over two gallons (7.6 liters) of toxic oil runoff, inevitably contaminating soil and groundwater.

By creating harmful smoke clouds, in addition to employing so-called “night confusion” tactics — first developed by terror groups in the Gaza Strip — Palestinians try to drive out residents of nearby Jewish communities. For the last few months, their intensifying efforts have focused on Evyatar, a newly established but highly contested outpost in the Samaria region of the West Bank.

CNN, Reuters and AFP all covered what they described as Palestinian “protests” against the establishment of Evyatar, but neglected to note the obvious environmental disaster caused by these aggressive demonstrations. More importantly, they ignored evidence that points to the likely involvement of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling Fatah faction in the environmental terrorism perpetrated by night confusion units.

Research by HonestReporting indicates that Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were heavily involved, and the Western-backed PA recently provided Beita’s residents with almost a million US dollars to “strengthen their steadfastness.”

‘An appropriate Zionistic response to murder’
Evyatar was first established in 2013 after the murder of Evyatar Borovsky, a 31-year old father of five who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant at the nearby Tapuach Junction. Within hours after the attack, Fatah praised the terrorist as a “hero.” Subsequently, local residents erected a building in Borovsky’s memory, but the Israeli army razed the structure within days, as it was built without permission from the IDF.

In the aftermath of the May 2021 shooting that killed Israeli student Yehuda Guetta (19), which also happened at the Tapuach Junction, members of the Nachala Settlement Movement re-established the community of Evyatar. Within six weeks, some 50 families moved to the new town, including Evyatar Borovsky’s widow, describing their presence as an “appropriate Zionistic response to murder.”


PMW: New PA libel: Israel uses unqualified Russian doctors to treat Palestinian prisoners
A fundamental policy of the PA is to disseminate libels and lies that demonize Israelis and Jews, in order to entrench hatred. For years, the PA has been accusing Israel of not giving sick terrorist prisoners proper treatment and has even accused Israel of using them for Nazi -like medical experiments. This week the PA fine-tuned its libel: Israel they say uses unqualified Russian immigrant doctors who did not pass the "The Israeli Medical Association” qualification tests as doctors for terrorist prisoners.

The following is the libel disseminated by Amjad al-Najjar, director of the Palestinian Prisoner Club in the Hebron District:
“The doctors who work in the prisons… are Russian [immigrant] doctors, these doctors failed the "The Israeli Medical Association” test and are even brought from human resources companies… They are content with low salaries, and willing to carry out all kinds of medical neglect or even give medicines that are not suitable for these heroic prisoners."

[Official PA TV July 17, 2021]




Iranian Terrorists Claim 150 Attacks Against U.S. Troops This Year
Iranian-backed militant groups claim to have launched at least 150 attacks against American forces in the region in 2021 alone.

A video posted on the social media site Telegram by the Kawthariyoun Electronic Team, a channel associated with Iran-backed militias in Iraq, indicates the United States faces immediate danger amid Biden administration efforts to pull forces from Afghanistan and decrease the U.S. footprint across the region. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a jihadi watchdog group that monitors these communications, translated the terrorist group's latest propaganda film.

A one-minute video posted on Telegram, which is preferred by terrorist groups due to its anonymity, showed a militant "pointing to a map of Iraq to show the geographical distribution of military housing U.S. forces," according to MEMRI. "The battle with the American forces is a battle over who will control the border strip between Iraq and Syria," the militant was quoted as saying as he described a number of attacks directly aimed at American positions.

The terrorist groups claim to have doubled the number of attacks between April and July this year, indicating that Iran's armed proxy groups have no intention of pulling back as the Biden administration engages in diplomacy with Iran aimed at inking a revamped nuclear deal. The video also claims to have disrupted communication between U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Syria. While the Defense Department is pulling U.S. forces and military equipment from the region, citing a decreased threat from Iran, the sheer number of attacks by these militant groups is likely to raise questions about the Biden administration's pivot away from the Middle East.

Rep. Bryan Steil (R., Wis.), a member of the Republican Study Committee's foreign affairs task force, expressed concern this week that the Biden administration is seeking to appease Iran and jumpstart the stalled negotiations by agreeing to remove several American anti-missile batteries from allied countries in the area, including Saudi Arabia, a chief target for Iranian militants. Steil is demanding the administration brief members of Congress about the decision and provide evidence about its claim that Iranian militants now pose a reduced threat, according to a letter the lawmaker sent to the White House and obtained on Monday by the Washington Free Beacon.
‘Fauda’ Becomes First Israel TV Show to Be Dubbed in Farsi
The critically acclaimed Israeli TV series “Fauda” is about to mark another historical achievement by being dubbed into Farsi.

The Farsi version of the show is slated to air on Manoto TV, an international Persian-language channel based in London.

Manoto TV is available via six satellite signals in Iran, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and West Asia, and reaches about 25 million Farsi speakers worldwide. According to a BBC report, in 2008 Manoto TV reached 30 percent of households in Iran.

“Fauda,” which means “chaos” in Arabic, became a global hit almost immediately after its first season aired in Israel. The show, which has bilingual scripts in Hebrew and Arabic, has been praised internationally for its gritty realism and unsparing portrayal of undercover commandos who pose as Arabs to pursue terrorists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The New York Times listed it as one of the best shows of 2017, while pro-Palestinian campaigners have criticized it as Israeli war propaganda.

Co-created by Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff and produced by Yes Satellite Television Company, “Fauda” is considered the strongest TV brand exported by Israel. To date, it has aired in 190 countries through Netflix.


Water Crisis Protests Continue in Iran, With Chants in Capital: Reports
Street protests over water shortages in southwest Iran continued for a sixth night on Tuesday amid rising violence, while residents in the capital of Tehran chanted anti-government slogans, according to videos posted on social media on Wednesday and Iranian news outlets.

Several videos uploaded by social media users showed security forces using teargas to disperse protesters, and the semi-official news agency Fars said “rioters” shot dead one policeman and injured another in the port city of Mahshahr in the Khuzestan province.

In the town of Izeh, a video showed demonstrators chanting “Reza Shah, bless your soul”, a reference to the king who founded the Pahlavi dynasty which was overthrown by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After various opposition groups and activists called for demonstrations to support the Khuzestan protesters, videos, which surfaced on late Tuesday and early Wednesday, showed women chanting “Down with the Islamic Republic” at a Tehran metro station. At night, some people in the capital vented their anger with chants against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Reuters could not independently authenticate the videos.

At least two young men have been shot dead in the protests. Official have blamed armed protesters, but activists said on social media they were killed by security forces.


Tony Greenstein and Piers Corbyn make Nazi comparisons in speeches at far-left demonstration outside Labour Party HQ, in anticipation of significant NEC meeting
Nazi comparisons abounded at a far-left demonstration outside Labour Party headquarters earlier today, with support for the antisemitic former Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on show and several references to antisemitism as a “smear“ campaign made by participants.

Among the speakers at the demonstration, which was observed by Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Demonstration and Monitoring Unit, were “notorious antisemite“ Tony Greenstein and the conspiracy theorist and Mr Corbyn’s brother, Piers Corbyn, both of whom made comparisons to the Nazis.

The demonstration was organised by far-left Labour activists who were protesting Sir Keir Starmer’s reported decision to purge the Party of “toxic” fringe groups, including Labour Against the Witchhunt, as well as to demand that Jeremy Corbyn have the whip reinstated after his suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

One of the organisers of the demonstration was Labour Against the Witchhunt, which was set up to protest the expulsion of Labour members for alleged antisemitism and which opposes “the false antisemitism smear”. It is one of the groups whose members are reportedly threatened with expulsion from Labour.

Mr Greenstein, who was recently declared bankrupt by a judge after failing to comply with court orders to pay Campaign Against Antisemitism after his humiliating abortive defamation claim against us, was one of the speakers at the rally. In his speech, he referenced his past suspension for comparing Israel to the Nazis, in breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Alluding to the “fake antisemitism campaign”, Mr Greenstein said: “I was told I was suspended for comments I’d made. They didn’t tell me what I’d said. But two weeks later, I read in The Telegraph and The Times that I had compared Israel’s marriage laws to that of Nazi Germany. So, I told my inquisitor, ‘Well, yes. The great political philosopher of the last century, Hannah Arendt, herself a refugee from Nazi Germany, made exactly that point’. So, let’s be clear. It’s not about antisemitism.” Mr Greenstein was also recorded giving an inflammatory interview at the rally.
Endemic misogyny, bullying and anti-Semitism found in Liverpool Labour Party
Red rose members in the city found themselves facing a toxic culture, lack of tolerance and unhealthy petty rivalries, the report to the national executive committee says.

“Nothing less than a full reset of the Labour Party in Liverpool is needed,” it concludes.

The scathingly frank verdict comes four months after government commissioners were sent into run parts of Liverpool City Council – which is led by Labour – following the devastating Caller Report.

In that, government inspectors detailed a dysfunctional authority in which “dubious” contracts were regularly handed out, key records were routinely destroyed and those who dared raise concerns were intimidated.

Members in the city described key figures as running parts of the local party - and the council - like a fiefdom; while, separately, there were also growing concerns about a rise in anti-Jewish sentiment following a surge in members attracted to the party by Jeremy Corbyn’s former leadership.

Now, the new Labour review – initiated as a result of The Caller Report but with a wider internal remit – appears no less excoriating.

The panel, it says, was “told of a toxic atmosphere…where often members especially women were targeted for bullying or abuse”. It was also presented with “evidence of a history of antisemitism that already has led to expulsions and suspensions”.
SNP MP apologises and deletes “Murdering babies wasn't on the Nazi manifesto” tweet but second tweet seemingly comparing Tories to Nazis remains
A Scottish National Party (SNP) MP has apologised for, and deleted, a tweet in which he wrote that “Murdering babies wasn’t on the Nazi manifesto.” However, another tweet in which he appeared to compare the Conservative Party to the Nazis still remains on his Twitter account.

Peter Grant, MP for Glenrothes, posted the now-deleted inflammatory tweet last Thursday in reply to veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil after Mr Neil had shared a post from the Auschwitz Memorial. The post told of how a Jewish toddler from Hungary was murdered before his first birthday.

Mr Neil shared the post, adding: “As accusations of fascism are bandied about today like confetti by the ignorant, ludicrously devaluing the word of any meaning, a reminder of what real fascism can do. And of its unconscionable evil.”

Mr Grant replied to this tweet by saying: “You’re more right than you care to admit. Murdering babies wasn’t on the Nazi manifesto. Not until they’d been in power several years & stoked up fear & hatred against innocent citizens. Then, and only then, did they show their true colours.”

Mr Grant was heavily criticised for his tweet. Scottish Conservative Chief Whip, Stephen Kerr, said: “For an elected SNP MP to post this was hugely offensive as well as being completely inaccurate. It beggars belief that any elected representative would think this sort of language was appropriate as part of a political debate. It has absolutely no place in civil discourse. This was a warped tweet and gave a worrying insight into what this SNP MP believes. Peter Grant must urgently apologise and reflect on this shameful behaviour.”

Mr Grant posted an apology on Twitter for his tweet, writing: “I want to apologise unreservedly for a highly insensitive tweet I posted. While I strongly believe we must always be vigilant to the seeds of racism, antisemitism, and fascism, I deeply regret how I made that point and I have deleted the tweet.”
Human Rights Watch Head Deletes Tweet Pinning UK Antisemitism on Israel, Claims Critics ‘Misinterpreted’
After facing social media accusations of blaming the Jewish state for rising antisemitism in the United Kingdom, the head of the NGO Human Rights Watch deleted a tweet on Tuesday, while accusing his critics of “misinterpreting” its meaning.

On Sunday, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth tweeted, “Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government’s conduct doesn’t affect antisemitism.”

He had also shared an article from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reporting record-high levels of antisemitic incidents recorded in the UK.

That post triggered a furor of responses, with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt charging Roth of “justifying” antisemitism.

On Tuesday, Roth removed the post, writing, “I deleted an earlier tweet because people misinterpreted its wording.” He also linked to the Haaretz article anew, “without commentary.”

Several critics of the original post criticized Roth for the lack of an apology, and for blaming their reaction on a misinterpretation.

Hillel Neuer, head of the NGO UN Watch, wrote, “No, Ken, people didn’t ‘misinterpret’ you. We understood exactly what you said. And you doubled down and reiterated your ugly stance in a subsequent tweet, even after you were called out by leading figures worldwide for legitimizing antisemitism.”
HRC In Prince George Citizen: Anti-Israel Protest Did More Harm Than Good
In the Prince George Citizen on July 18, HRC Marketing and Community Relations Associate Robert Walker commented on the actions of anti-Israel detractors in Prince Rupert, B.C., who refused to unload the cargo of a ship belonging to an Israeli company.

As Robert put it, the anti-Israel protest did more harm than good:
Boycotting Israel, whether by blocking Israeli ships in British Columbia, or any other action, not only is based on an egregious – and easily disproved – lie, but it serves to produce absolutely no benefit to the Palestinians, either. The only solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel is to deepen and expand dialogue and cooperation, not to sever it.”

In his recent oped “Opinion: Principled acts take courage,” Gerry Chidiac lauds the actions last month by workers at the Port of Prince Rupert, who refused to unload the cargo of a ship belonging to an Israeli company.

Chidiac writes that the actions were part of a larger movement called Block the Boat, which “seeks to draw attention to the injustices suffered by Palestinians by preventing Israeli ships, often transporting weapons, from docking at ports all around the world.”

It is profoundly disappointing to see anyone, particularly a high school teacher like Chidiac, promote this “protest” movement. There are two reasons to oppose these protests, both for ideological and practical reasons.

Firstly, while Chidiac compares these protesters to those defending Indigenous Canadians and Black South Africans under Apartheid, the comparison is ludicrous.


Media Blame Peaceful Jewish Worshippers for Palestinian Temple Mount Violence
This is the story you probably missed: On Sunday, July 18, some 1,700 Jews ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — Judaism’s holiest site — on the occasion of Tisha b’Av, the fast day marking the destruction of both Temples and other calamities in Jewish history. Despite incitement by Palestinian terrorist groups, and the brief outburst of violence that ensued, the duly assembled peacefully congregated at the plateau that has been the focal point of Jewish worship for over 3,000 years. Under police protection, some Jewish visitors to the Mount uttered their prayers, like thousands of Muslims do on Islamic holy days.

However, media reported that Jewish prayer at the holy site “immediately raised alarms” (The New York Times) and that Israeli security personnel “forcibly cleared the area for Jews to observe their day of mourning” (The Washington Post). An AP headline even spoke of “Jewish prayer at mosque,” a blatant lie echoing the Hamas propaganda line that Jews stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site — even though non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the building.

Hamas’ Campaign of Hate
As has been the case during previous riots in Israel’s capital, these reputable outlets opted to ignore the core issue, that of Palestinian incitement, while emphasizing the alleged culpability of Jewish worshippers for the unrest in Jerusalem.

Yet facts are stubborn things. Two days before Tisha b’Av, Hamas issued a call to arms that most major news outlets omitted from their coverage. In a statement, the US-designated terrorist group called on Palestinians to “confront the colonists’ [Israel’s] roistering and their arrogance” throughout the holy city. It furthermore ordered residents of the Gaza Strip to “keep their fingers on the trigger.”

Other Palestinian terror factions also incited violence against Jews marking Tisha b’Av on the Temple Mount. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine already hinted at a “battle in defense of the occupied capital” on Saturday, a day before the fast day, referring to Jewish pilgrims as “settler flocks.” Palestinian Islamic Jihad instructed its followers to “confront the settlers [Israelis]” and “ignite confrontations in all areas.”
Trauma Apparent, Hamas Hidden AP’s Portraits of Gazan Children
The Associated Press’ photo essay today, “War’s trauma apparent in portraits of Gazan children,” features the personal stories of a number of Gaza children traumatized by Hamas’ conflict with Israel in an egregiously partisan and defamatory manner highly reminiscent of The New York Times’ “They Were Only Children” toxic front-page anti-Israel item last month.

Like their colleagues at The Times, AP’s Aya Batrawy and Felipe Dana falsely identify Israel as virtually solely responsibility for the children’s trauma, all but ignoring Hamas’ role in the tragedies:
Altogether, 66 children were killed in the fourth war on the Gaza Strip — most from precision-guided Israeli bombs, though in one incident Israel alleges a family was killed by Hamas rockets that fell short of their target.

“Where when war erupts, there is no safe place,” the AP article states, without providing any indication whatsoever that Hamas and other terror groups fire at Israel from densely population neighborhoods, twice endangering their own population by 1) inviting return fire — (while Israel’s targeting of rocket-launchers embedded in civilian areas is permitted under international law, the terrorists’ indiscriminate firing of rockets towards Israeli civilians from civilian areas is a double war crime) — and 2) risking rockets that fall short. Hamas also stores weaponry among civilians and houses its command offices in residential areas, a fact acknowledged by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Moreover, while Hamas has built hundreds of kilometers of well-fortified tunnels for its fighters, including under civilian homes, it has not provided any shelters for its civilian population. All of this information is highly relevant to a report on the lack of safe places for Gaza’s population, and yet AP omits it.


Three Brooklyn Men Indicted Over Brutal Attack on Jews Outside Synagogue
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office has announced the prosecution for hate crimes of three men in two brutal attacks on Jews in May.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez stated that Daniel Shaukat, 20, of Bensonhurst; Haider Anjam, 21, of Midwood; and Ashan Azad, 19, of Midwood have been charged in a 68-count indictment that includes — among other charges — third-degree assault as a hate crime and second-degree menacing as a hate crime.

The DA stated that on May 22, 2021, the three men exited a vehicle outside a Borough Park synagogue and verbally assaulted Jews standing outside, yelling, “Free Palestine, kill all the Jews!”

After the victims retreated into the synagogue, the men banged on the synagogue door and shouted antisemitic and violent statements.

Fifteen minutes later, the men attacked two Jewish men on Ocean Parkway. The victims were ordered to say “free Palestine,” punched multiple times, and one was placed in a chokehold.
Entrenched Antisemitism Among Imams Serving US Muslim Communities Needs to Be Challenged, Scholar Tells Major Conference
“I was wrong,” said Mohammed Al-Azdee, with disarming candor.

An associate professor of communication theory at Bridgeport University in Connecticut, the Iraqi-born Al-Azdee was speaking to The Algemeiner in detail about his latest research project: examining the content of khutbahs, the weekly sermons delivered in American mosques by imams. He emphasized that some of the core assumptions he had made in advance of his research turned out to be in error.

On Tuesday, Al-Azdee presented his latest findings to the ongoing conference on antisemitism in the United States organized by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA) at Indiana University, Bloomington. “Whatever generalizations are made about imams in the Arab world, many in the US want to believe that Islam is a religion of peace, and that imams in America embody that perspective in their comments about Jews and Israel,” he told the audience attending a Tuesday panel on anti-Zionism.

Al-Azdee himself subscribed to that belief until quite recently, when his research indicated that the opposite might be true. He saw that worshipers attending US mosques were regularly exposed to the sorts of hostile, antisemitic messages about Jews and the Jewish state one might encounter at some mosques in the Middle East.

While he hadn’t expected to discover any particular warmth towards Israel, Al-Azdee did anticipate that imams would carefully distinguish between Jews, Zionism and Israel, so that criticism of the Jewish state’s policies would be separated from crude antisemitism. “That’s what I was wrong about,” he explained during an extensive conversation last week. “They talk about ‘the Jews.’ And even when they talk about Zionism or Israel, their frame is still ‘the Jews.'”
Caught on video: Woman smashes windows of Williamsburg Jewish school with hammer
A woman was caught on video smashing the windows of a Hasidic Jewish school with a hammer.

The Williamsburg News shared the video on Twitter. The woman is seen walking up and smashing the school’s windows on Franklin and Flushing avenues with a hammer before walking away.

Police tell News 12 there have been no complaints filed on the incident at this time.

This comes days after a vicious attack on a Jewish man who was on his way to a synagogue in Flatbush.


First Anne Frank Animated Film Debuts at Cannes Festival
The first animated film based on “The Diary of Anne Frank” debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews from film critics, reported Deutsche Welle.

“Where is Anne Frank?” which premiered last week, revolves around a character named Kitty, Frank’s imaginary friend and alter-ego to whom she dedicated her diary.

The film is set in present-day Amsterdam and across Western Europe, as Kitty embarks on a journey to find Frank by referencing the latter’s diary. Along the way, she meets other youngsters who are fleeing conflict.

“That reminds Kitty of Anne and the fact that Anne did not have an opportunity to flee during her relatively short time in hiding,” explained the film’s Israeli director Ari Folman, who was nominated for an Oscar for 2008’s “Waltz With Bashir” and is the child of Auschwitz survivors.

“This experience turns Kitty into an activist,” he added. “At the same time, she realizes her powers to promote a movement for children’s rights.”

The Anne Frank Fonds Basel, which was founded by Anne’s father Otto Frank after World War II, approached Folman eight years ago with the idea of making an animated movie. The film’s artistic director, Lena Grubman, said the hope was that animation would make Frank’s story “more accessible” to a younger generation.
Bronze figurines shed light on Egypt-Israel trade in King David’s time
Did a massive trade route exist some 3,000 years ago between Egypt and Timna, home to the iconic copper mines which have become famous as “King Solomon’s Mines,” located in the southern region of modern Israel?

A new innovative study led by Dr. Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, Israel Museum curator of Egyptian archaeology, and Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, head of the archaeometallurgical laboratory at Tel Aviv University and director of excavation at Timna, suggests that the answer is yes.

The study analyzed the bronze composition of four 3,000-year-old figurines from the museum’s collection found in the necropolis of Tanis, an Egyptian city in the Delta region that served as the capital of its regional kingdom. The researchers were able to ascertain that the copper used to produce the metal was mined at Timna.

The findings – recently published in the academic journal Journal of Archaeological Science – shed new light on the relations between Egypt and the populations of the Levant.

According to Ben-Yosef, the findings support his view that a nomadic kingdom at the time could constitute a wealthy and sophisticated society capable of entertaining complex commercial relations with foreign entities. The findings offer important insights not only into what was happening in Timna – which he believes was, at the time, part of the biblical Kingdom of Edom – but also into the Jerusalem of King David and King Solomon.
IDF marks Hannah Szenes' 100th birthday with jump into Slovenia
Seventy-seven years after Hannah Szenes and 36 of her Jewish comrades from pre-state Israel parachuted into Slovenia during the Second World War, 107 Israeli paratroopers jumped into the European country on Tuesday, near their original drop zone. The event marked the week of Szenes' 100th birthday anniversary.

The historic parachute reconstruction was carried out at Krki Airport in Slovenia. The Israeli contingent was joined by paratroopers from Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and England.

The event included two jumps. On Monday, eight Israeli paratroopers jumped at 12,000.

feet with European paratroopers. Then on Tuesday, about 100 delegation members parachuted from 1,000 feet. Among the delegation members was the commander of the IDF's Depth Corps, Maj. Gen. Itai Virov, Paratrooper Brigade commander Col. Yuval Gez, and Brig.-Gen. Ofer Winter, commander of the 98th Paratroopers Division.

After landing, the paratroopers marched through the forests near the town of Draga where Partisan fighters lived during the war.

The members of the delegation were divided into four teams of 27 participants, each including a commander with a rank of Lt. Col. and above, as well as an expert guide in the Holocaust, who accompanied the troops throughout the journey. One of the guides will be Lt. Col. (ret.) Simcha Goldin, the father of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose remains currently are being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.







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