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Sunday, October 31, 2021

Book review: Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy



I've had my share of disagreements with Batya Ungar-Sargon, most notably when she was Opinion Editor of The Forward. But she has been outspoken about the dangers of the current far-Left "woke" movement, and I've had some reasonable private discussions with her, so I bought her brand new book to see what she has to say.

Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy is centered around two themes. The primary one is that the media has swallowed the woke narrative, specifically that everything must be viewed through the prism of race. 

Ungar-Sargon traces the history of modern journalism through the lens of the New York media world since the 1820s, noting the divide between the media that catered to the upper classes and the newspapers that were aimed at the working class, derided by the traditional media as "sensationalistic." She contrasts the New York World and the New York Sun with the founding of the New York Times, which was explicitly aimed at the rich. She shows that the NYT continues with that mission today, using even digital media to aim at the most wealthy people and those who aspire to join them. Local news and stories about ordinary working class Americans are given short shrift.

Ungar-Sargon demonstrates that while the news business was a trade, with most reporters not having attended college until five decades ago and in touch with the working people, now the journalists are nearly all from a small number of exclusive universities and are in the top tier of what is now known as privilege. Even though journalism pays very little for entry level jobs, the New York media world is filled with young people who could only afford to live in the city because of their wealthy parents who subsidize them. More recently, these privileged young journalists - who have remarkably little experience with actual, on the ground reporting and instead concentrate on doing their jobs using the Internet - have been pushing out the older, experienced journalists by canceling or threatening to cancel them. The result is a remarkably homogeneous, ultra liberal, mostly white class of know-nothings. 

Batya brings much evidence that the current fashion of claiming that everything is centered on race is nonsense. Americans are less racist than at any time in our history yet the number of articles about race have skyrocketed. Intersectionality theory is equally shown to be nonsense - African women immigrants, who should according to that theory be on the very bottom of the heap, have no economic disadvantage when seeking employment in the US. She does a great job at taking apart the hypocrisy behind the NYT's treatment of the Tom Cotton op-ed and the aftermath. 

Her argument falters when it intersects with her second theme, a more implicit one that pervades the book. This theme is that while the racial problems in the US are exaggerated, there is a serious class problem that is not being addressed, especially not by the media.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide up everyone into two types of people and everyone else. Looking at the world as though everything is a class problem is just as simplistic as looking at everything through the lens of race. There are certainly class issues, but they don't explain everything, and Batya's class arguments are not convincing. While she demonstrates very well that journalists are overwhelmingly in the super liberal upper class, she does not show that the upper class itself buys into the woke narrative. In fact, she doesn't define what she means by upper class - her most consistent definition seems to be "college educated." What about Wall Street professionals - it seems unlikely that they buy into the woke/intersectional narrative even though they are clearly upper class (and college graduates.)  The American middle class is treated as being effectively part of the upper class if they are "aspirational." But how many college-educated middle class Americans really want to be part of the rarified world of the New York Times Style section? And the huge middle class who live between the two coasts don't fit into her upper vs. working class worldview in this book at all. 

As with race, this is not to say that there isn't a problem with the divide between the professional class and the working class, or with the working class not being represented by the media. The author shows that it is this very feeling of being disenfranchised that caused so many working class Americans of all races to vote for Donald Trump, who instinctively spoke to their concerns about keeping their jobs- and he even gained non-white voters in the 2020 election. (Ungar-Sargon somehow manages to say that the Republicans don't care about the working class after showing that Trump's policies were geared exactly to them.)   

Because of her conviction that class is the defining feature of American life, one of Ungar-Sargon's core  arguments does not hold up well. She claims that the young writers at the major newspapers support the idea of wokeness because they feel guilty about their white, upper class privilege, so they choose to focus on race because it is immutable - if the problem is one of race, then they don't have to examine their own privileged lives because they cannot solve the problem. There might be some truth to that, but it seems to me more likely that they learned this ideology in their universities and never questioned it as they moved from the college bubble to the media bubble. 

If there was any consistent formula that Ungar-Sargon's data indicates, it is not the importance of class, but of money, power and influence. The reason that the New York Sun succeeded wasn't because of a principled coverage of the working class but because the larger market was lucrative. The reason Bernie Sanders flipped his stances on topics like immigration between 2016 and 2020 was because his desire to be elected was more important than his interest in consistency with his principles and agreeing with Trump was not a good look for a Democrat in 2020. The reason that the liberal media is obsessed over race stories is because they get ratings. 

Bad News is an excellent book for members of  the Left. If they have any intellectual honesty, it could convince them that their philosophy is not only wrong but a danger to democracy and the nation. For people who already know that critical race theory is ahistorical and wrong, this book gives more ammunition. There is plenty of interesting history and statistics (such as data that indicates that people on the Left are more racist than those on the Right)  that make it a worthwhile read for anyone. 




10/31 Links: Why are so many Americans taking the side of groups that work with terrorists?; The Moral Incoherence of an Academic Boycott Against Israel

From Ian:

Rushing to defend terrorism-linked NGOs: Why are so many Americans taking the side of groups that work with terrorists?
In light of the wealth of publicly available information linking these NGOs to the PFLP, multiple financial institutions have previously closed accounts and denied payment services. For instance, in 2018, Citibank and Arab Bank closed DCI-P accounts, and Visa, Mastercard and American Express shut down online credit card donations to Al-Haq and UAWC.

European governments and institutions have also expressed concern that their funds were being diverted by these terror-linked actors. In August 2021, the EU opened a preliminary investigation into its financial support to PFLP-linked Palestinian NGOs, and the EU’s anti-fraud mechanism, OLAF, has also launched an investigation. Similarly, the Dutch government froze support to UAWC and initiated an outside audit.

By defending the Palestinian NGOs, some of which may be implicated in murder, groups like HRW, IfNotNow and others undermine the basic human dignity they claim to so greatly cherish. They also prevent terrorist NGOs from facing proper accountability. Their impulsiveness can be attributed either to blind reverence to Palestinian NGOs, or worse, intentionally ignoring the facts that do not accord with their political priorities.

Caution and self-reflection might have been more appropriate responses to Israel’s carefully weighed decision. Instead, oblivious to the facts, these groups instantly condemned the move and again displayed their immoral agendas for all to see.


Michelle Goldberg and Angela Merkel seek moral absolution in the wrong place
Dr. Gerstenfeld is one of the many who concluded that at least when it comes to antisemitism there is little difference between mainstream Muslims and their Islamist masters. He specialized in Israeli-Western European relations, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and authored the book “The War of a Million Cuts.”

And so Gerstenfeld noted that the report defines Islamism as a form of political extremism that aims to end democracy. Anti-Semitism is one of its essential ideological elements. He said: “The document starts by stating that for historical reasons, and in view of the country’s experience with National Socialism, anti-Semitism was long viewed as being inevitably related to the extreme right. Only gradually has it become clear that right-wing extremists do not hold a monopoly on anti-Semitism in Germany today.”

The fact that Islamists and even less politically active Muslims have extreme anti-Semitic beliefs, has long been the “elephant in the room” and leftists seek to minimize their complicity in the immigration of antisemites by misleadingly categorizing antisemitism as emanating from the Right. This became a huge problem during President Trump’s administration as leftist news media, such as The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN , only could see the “racists’ on the right, when the numbers and influence of extremist views in the Right pales in significance to the Left in mainstream media, the universities and the Democratic Party.

This report is too important to be hidden from the public. The report, as summarized by Gerstenfeld, “states that the arrival of over a million Muslims in Germany between 2014 and 2017 increased the influence of Islamist anti-Semitism in the country. It cites Anti-Defamation League statistics on anti-Semitism among the populations of Middle Eastern and North African states. Turkey—a country from which many Muslims now living in Germany originated—is one of the least anti-Semitic countries on the list, yet even it is “nearly 70 percent” anti-Semitic. The study mentions that many children in these countries are raised on a steady diet of anti-Semitic indoctrination.”

Despite Goldberg’s contention that there is little Islamic extremism resulting from the mass immigrations of 2015, the report notes the uptick in Islamist anti-Semitism, which was really made clear as a result of a demonstration that took place in Berlin in 2017. At that event, demonstrators carried placards demanding that Israel be destroyed, and set an Israeli flag on fire

Goldberg is also contradicted in Gerstenfeld’s disclosure that German Health Minister Jens Spahn remarked that the mass immigration from Muslim countries was the reason for the demonstrations in Germany; and Stephan Harbarth, deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag (the German parliament), said, “We have to strongly confront the anti-Semitism of migrants with an Arab background and those from African countries.”

Goldberg has a history of whitewashing the antisemitism inherent in anti-Zionism. She infamously wrote in 2018 that it’s entirely possible to oppose what she calls “Jewish ethno-nationalism” without being a bigot.

It is a new low for her to run interference for German antisemitic pro-Iran, pro-Hamas, leftists and join them in their attempt for a national “redemption”, once again at a horrible cost to the Jews.
The Moral Incoherence of an Academic Boycott Against Israel
Seeming to give credence to George Orwell’s wry observation that “there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them,” the fatuous members of the Virginia Tech Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) passed a “Resolution to Divest in Compliance with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement,” tendentiously pronouncing their solidarity “with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from Israeli apartheid, colonialism and military occupation.” Resolution 2021-22N3 calls on the university administration and staff, Virginia Tech administrators, and employees to “immediately begin to implement the academic and cultural boycott of Israel” by “adopting as a general principle a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and the denial of basic Palestinian rights.”

The poisonous and historically inaccurate language of the GPSS resolution, including such loaded terms as “apartheid, colonialism and military occupation,” was troublingly similar to that found in the dozens of unctuous statements that oozed from university departments, faculty unions, student groups and other organizations in the wake of the latest Gaza war in May. All of the blame and condemnation for the ongoing conflict was assigned to Israel, and conveniently, for instance, no mention was made — either in this resolution or the many solidarity statements in May — of the more than 4,000 lethal rockets Hamas had fired into Israeli towns with the express purpose of murdering Jewish civilians, nor any recognition that each of these instances of rockets being fired constituted a war crime, or that Israel had every legal right under the laws of war to suppress such aggression and to retaliate in an effort to protect its citizenry from attack.

What was different about the Virginia Tech resolution, however, is that included a demand for Virginia Tech to join the BDS campaign since, the resolution claimed, “academic institutions are not neutral arenas of knowledge production, exchange and dissemination” and, therefore, “academic institutions are demonstrably key sites of contestation that can either uphold or challenge Israeli apartheid and colonialism.” Moreover, any consideration that an academic boycott, in practice, constricts academic freedom should be ignored because, the resolution asserted without providing any evidence, “it is clear then that the existing status quo is not one which upholds academic freedom, but rather is one which violently denies Palestinian academics the ability to freely participate in academic institutions and conferences around the world.”
Literary intellectuals who pan Israel
Imagine. In 1922, Irish author James Joyce published his novel, Ulysses, and the central character Leopold Bloom, holds both court and Jewish blood. It would be remiss to believe Joyce could ever have held Anti-Semitic views,after creating such a loveable character as Bloom. Instead, you just know Joyce had to have been an ardent admirer of Jews, even though he dwells not on Bloom's Hebraic roots, but on Bloom as a personality of interest.

But where Joyce, as author, was highbrow enough to offer literary if not humanistic acceptance of a member of the tribe, certainly at a time where the same lovefest for Jews in Britain, if not the world, was questionable, the same humanity Joyce expended cannot be said today of others, including Irish authoress Sally Rooney, who has made public her distaste for Israel, the only Democracy in the Middle East.

So much so, that she decided - in a well-publicized photo opportunity - not to permit Modan, the Israeli Publishing House which had originally translated her works into Hebrew, to continue their professional relationship.

While no doubt, librarians and other enthusiasts of humane underpinnings against censorship must pity of find repugnant Rooney The Fool, her decision to relinquish her relationship with Modan, certainly shows that she has an intended audience for her latest book, Beautiful World. This elite group could include others.

How about having a literary evening with such UGLIES as Ben & Jerry, Unilever, Haaretz, Roger Waters, Lorde, The Islamic Republic of Iran, Al Qaeda, The Taliban, United Nations, UNRWA, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Jimmy Carter, Holocaust Revisionists, Britain's Labour Party, and likeminded literary intelletuals, like the JVP ones to be found on college campuses?.


Jonathan Tobin: Is This the Beginning of a New Cold War Between Biden and Israel?
It makes for a daunting prospect for those in Israel or the United States who hold on to a belief that the coming years won’t be a rerun of the nonstop battles between Washington and Jerusalem that characterized the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu from 2009 to 2016.

Yet Bennett and Lapid are not without hope that they can keep the situation from getting out of hand.

First, they can seek to hold Biden to his promise about keeping disputes with Israel private, rather than letting them play out in public as Obama did. If so, even the most bitter of disagreements won’t seem quite so bad.

Second, they can hope that Israel’s enemies will, as they have so often in recent history, overplay their hand and force Biden’s team back into Israel’s corner. Palestinian rejectionism and support for terror, and Iran’s will to achieve its nuclear ambitions — as well as its assessment that Biden is too weak to stop them from achieving any of their goals — could ultimately prove decisive.

Lastly, they may also count on the dysfunction of the Biden administration. In the past nine months, the Democrats have made a muddle of a host of challenges, including the disaster in Afghanistan, the crisis at the southern border, the collapse of the supply chain for products, and economic malaise that, along with the coronavirus pandemic, won’t go away. These issues have sent Biden’s polling numbers deep underwater, despite beginning his presidency with a vast store of goodwill and support from those who hoped he represented a calming influence and competence.

Unlike Obama, who had political capital to burn on futile Middle East policies and a pointless feud with Netanyahu, Biden has none to spare. Israelis can only hope that he is wise enough not to waste any on equally foolish spats with whoever is running Israel in the coming years — whether Bennett, Lapid or Netanyahu — that will do nothing to ensure American security priorities or the political prospects of the Democrats. Whether such hopes are vindicated is up to Biden and not his Israeli interlocutors.
Caroline Glick: Trading Jerusalem for US visas
Last Wednesday, in response to a question from Senator Bill Hagerty, (R., TN), US Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon admitted in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that under both US and international law, the US cannot open a consulate in Jerusalem without Israel's consent. In other words, the prospect of the Biden administration opening a consulate to the Palestinians in Israel's capital city without requesting Israel's permission to violate Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem is off the table.

Given the Biden administration's near-obsessive determination to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, it's just a matter of time before it presents an offer it believes Israel will be unable to refuse.

On Friday, Israeli financial daily Globes published the outline of such an offer. In exchange for an Israeli "concession to the Palestinians," US officials claim Saudi Arabia will open limited economic ties with Israel. Moreover, the US will provide limited visa exemptions to Israeli tourists.

The article suggests – and Congressional sources warn – that the "concession to the Palestinians," Israel will be required to provide is permission to the US to open a consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinians.

This brings us to the apparent US offer. Its paltriness is as breathtaking as it is insulting. As the Globes article noted, Israel and Saudi Arabia already conduct economic exchanges, including trade deals through Abraham Accords partners the UAE and Bahrain. Israel also reportedly has enjoyed strong security ties with Saudi Arabia for the past several years, which have benefitted both nations.

The Globes article reported that Saudi participation in the Abraham Accords, which involve full normalization of economic and diplomatic ties between Israel and the participating Arab states, is not on the table. To date, Saudi King Salman opposed joining the Abraham Accords directly.
At the UNHRC, Why Not Focus on Countries With Egregious Human-Rights Records?
Too many outsiders assume that the UN’s sky-high output of anti-Israel excoriations reflects the real-world misbehavior of a uniquely and wildly aggressive Israel.

In actuality, Israel serves as a convenient target for scapegoating and unjust isolation at the world body, despite an astonishingly humane record in the face of practically unequaled and unending existential threats.

Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad — all openly committed not to limited territorial or political claims but to the outright destruction of the Jewish state — have never been condemned by the Human Rights Council for their fanaticism and terror.

Meanwhile, more Arabs have been killed in just 10 years of civil war in Syria than in nearly a century of conflict over the Jews’ return to sovereignty in their small and sole ancestral homeland.

Fortunately, with more and more Arab and Muslim leaders now recognizing not only the permanence of Israel but also its legitimacy and potential to help forge a thriving Middle East, forces long accustomed to weaponizing the United Nations for cynical political purposes may find increasingly little enthusiasm for that stale cause.

As America rejoins the UNHRC, it must make clear that the body’s own legitimacy rests upon abandoning bias and bigotry in the pursuit of human dignity. Only concrete and substantial change at the council will make the body worthy of American membership and sustained investment. That change should start with ending the council’s singular fixation upon defaming Israel at the expense of highlighting the world’s most egregious and systemic human-rights abusers.


NGO Monitor: The Union of Palestinian Women Committees Society’s Ties to the PFLP Terror Group
Introduction
Founded in 1980, the Union of Palestinian Women Committees Society (UPWC – originally Union of Palestinian Women Committees) states that its mission is “to empower Palestinian women on all levels and to contribute in the Palestinian national struggle against the Israeli military illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.” According to a 2012 article published in Haaretz, UPWC “operates 21 preschools and day-care centers in the poorest communities in the West Bank.”

UPWC supports “the boycott of occupation in all forms, including economic, cultural, academic and all other forms of boycott” and rejects any normalization with Israel calling it “treason.”

As documented in this report, UPWC has multiple links to the PFLP terrorist organization. On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared UPWC a “terror organization” because it is part of “a network of organizations” that operates “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Founded by George Habash in 1967, the PFLP is a secular Palestinian Marxist-Leninist terror group, originally supported by the former Soviet Union and China. The PFLP is a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel and is involved in suicide bombings, shootings, and assassinations, among other terrorist activities targeting civilians. It is well-known for hijacking commercial airlines in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as targeting civilians in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and is responsible for countless deaths and injuries.

The PFLP assassinated Israeli Minister of Tourism Rechavam Ze’evi in 2001. In 1976, its members joined with the Baader-Meinhof Gang (a West German terror group) to hijack an Air France Tel Aviv-bound flight, diverting it in Entebbe, Uganda. In 2011, PFLP members took credit for the brutal murder of the Fogel family, including a baby and two young children. The PFLP was also responsible for the 2014 massacre at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, murdering four worshipers and an Israeli Druze police officer. In August 2019, a PFLP terror cell carried out a bombing against Israeli civilians, murdering 17-year-old Rina Shnerb, and injuring her father and brother.
BBC’s Knell uncritically amplifies PFLP linked NGOs’ talking points
On the evening of Friday, October 29th the BBC News website published a report by the Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell headlined “Palestinian groups branded terrorists by Israel say they are being silenced” on its ‘Middle East’ page.

The talking points of two of the Palestinian NGOs concerned – Al Haq and Addameer – are promoted in 165 of the article’s 669 words. Knell uses 145 words to portray negative views of Israel’s decision from the US, the EU, the UN and others, adding 12 words of condemnation from the Palestinian Authority. Criticism from two Israeli politicians on one particular side of the political map is portrayed in 91 words.

In other words, over 61% of the article’s word count is dedicated to promotion of criticism and condemnation of the Israeli defence minister’s decision, while in contrast, a third-hand statement from an anonymous Israeli security “official” is portrayed in just 48 words.

A particularly notable aspect of Knell’s report is its portrayal of the PFLP.

“The leaders of six Palestinian civil society organisations branded terrorist groups by Israel say the move will harm human rights unless it is reversed.

Last week Israel declared that the groups were a front for a militant faction which has committed deadly attacks against it since the 1960s.”

“The PFLP, a small, left-wing group that does not recognise the State of Israel, carried out a number of armed attacks and aircraft hijackings in the 1960s and ’70s. It was also behind several suicide attacks during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) in the early 2000s.”

Knell’s portrayal obviously suggests to BBC audiences that the PFLP has not carried out any terror attacks in the twenty years or so since “the early 2000s”. That of course is not the case.




Honest Reporting: Dutch 'Journalist' Spreads Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories. But No Dolphins Or Sharks, Oh My!
After HonestReporting exposed Sakir Khader's backing of the Hamas terrorist group, the Dutch-Palestinian 'journalist' doubled down on his lies about Israel. Khader alleged he was the subject of a "fake news article" and that his phone was "acting strange," an apparent suggestion Israel is spying on him.

While Khader's Twitter post is short on proof and long on conspiratorial, it is by no means unique...


IDF investigation finds intelligence gaps during Operation Guardian of the Walls
An internal IDF investigation carried out following Operation Guardian of the Walls in May found that there were significant intelligence gaps that prevented the military from meeting expectations that it had set prior to the fighting.

According to a report by Channel 12’s MAKO Pazam news site, the highly critical internal investigation found a “detached operational picture” that harmed the functioning of units as well as the public trust in the Israeli military.

Israel fought an 11-day war with terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip in May and carried out intensive strikes against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets, including what the military said were key infrastructure and personnel belonging to the two groups.

The two terrorist groups fired over 4,000 rockets and mortars to Israeli cities in the South and center of the country whenever they wanted, killing 12 civilians and one soldier.

Combined, the two groups have around 14,000 rockets – both long range and short. The majority, if not all of the rockets and mortars are locally produced. Hamas also used explosive drones, naval weaponry and more against Israel during the fighting.
Drill for 2,000 rockets a day and internal strife: IDF preps for war
Israel’s Home Front Command and National Emergency Authority (RAHEL) will hold a week-long drill starting on Sunday simulating a large-scale war in which civilians are evacuated from northern border communities and security agencies will deal with massive rocket barrages sent by Hezbollah.

The drill will take lessons that have been learned from past events in the North, as well as those from the May fighting between Israel and terror groups in the Gaza Strip – Operation Guardian of the Walls – and from the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Following the May fighting, the Home Front Command “carried out a very significant learning process with a lot of research, and this exercise is going to test what we’ve learned,” said Home Front Command Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Itzik Bar.

Israel Police and Magen David Adom will also participate in the drill, which ends Thursday, and will see all security and various governmental bodies take part.

“This exercise is also a great opportunity for all government ministries to understand the implications, starting with disruptions in the energy sector – we are talking about 24-hour power outages across the country, 72 hours in localized communities – and other such aspects in terms of continual functioning,” Bar said.

According to RAHEL head Yoram Laredo, the drill is the first time that it is working together with the Home Front Command, and it will sharpen the abilities of the two to work hand-in-hand.
With Lebanon in turmoil, threat to Israel as high as ever
In this context, Hezbollah is preparing for a surprise attack on Israel, during which if a war were to break out, it would deploy its forces to infiltrate Israeli territory and take over outposts or towns close to the border, thereby disrupting the IDF's ground maneuver capabilities.

As such, the IDF Northern Command is working to improve infrastructure along the northern border in a way that would make it difficult for the Radwan Unit to infiltrate the country. After many years of warning by the Northern Command of the poor condition of the northern border, the government has finally approved a budget for the construction of a better barrier.

Moreover, Israel has been preparing for a campaign in Lebanon for years, based on the understanding that it poses the biggest threat. The IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate has compiled a long list of potential targets in Lebanon, including regime installations, as a means of holding the government accountable for any terrorist activity conducted from its territory.

Nevertheless, despite the IDF's intense preparations, no one doubts that a campaign in Lebanon would be nothing like the 2006 Lebanon War or even the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah's rockets pose a major challenge to the Iron Dome, and should hostilities erupt, the air defense system would have to defend strategic sites at the expense of population centers.

In such a scenario, the only way for the IDF to deal with the threat from the north would be to take swift and aggressive action. To that end, it must immediately bolster the combat worthiness of its ground forces, which are currently (to put it mildly), not in their best shape.
Seth Frantzman: Hezbollah-Saudi crisis deepens and could impact Israel – analysis
Thirty years ago, Saudi Arabia was key to the Taif Agreement that ended the Lebanese Civil War. Riyadh is seen as generally supporting the status quo and Sunni politicians in Lebanon, such as Saad Hariri. Hezbollah murdered Hariri’s father, Rafic in 2005.

In recent years, Riyadh has grown tired of backing a Lebanon that continues to be swallowed by Hezbollah. Hezbollah maintains an illegal terrorist army in Lebanon with 150,000 rockets, undermines Lebanon’s foreign policy, conducts its own policies, has its own communications network and in many ways is more powerful than the state.

Israel is conducting a national readiness drill this week. Starting Sunday, Home Front Command and the National Emergency Authority (RAHEL) are holding a weeklong drill that simulates a large-scale war in which civilians may be evacuated from northern border communities in response to rocket barrages from Hezbollah, according to reports.

It is not clear if Hezbollah will exploit regional tensions in this regard. Hezbollah wants closer ties with the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran is exporting the same technology to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, such as drones and rockets. The US recently sanctioned key figures in the drone program in Iran. The US also imposed sanctions on Lebanese businessmen and a member of Lebanon’s parliament, Jamil Sayyed.

This means regional tensions are entwined and heating up. Iran used drones to attack a ship in the Gulf of Oman in July. A drone attacked the US garrison at Tanf in late October. Hezbollah has increasingly mentioned Yemen in statements. In January, reports said Iran may have sent drones to Yemen. These had a range that could threaten Israel.
i24 News: 'The Saudis are angry and something has to be done,' says former UN ambassador
Gulf states expel lebanon envoys over Yemen criticism. Interview with former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and Egypt, Itzhak Levanon.

Row with Gulf States is another blow to a country already in the grip of crippling political, economic crises

The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday it was withdrawing its diplomats from Lebanon after a similar move by Saudi Arabia, and also banned its citizens from travelling to the country.


Daytime strike on Syria meant to save Russian honor
The strike attributed to Israel on Saturday, against targets in Syria, occurred during daylight hours near the town of Al-Dimass, 20 kilometers west of the Syrian capital and the same distance from the Lebanese border, on the Damascus – Beirut highway.

According to the UK based Observatory for Human Rights, the Syrian military and the Lebanese based Hezbollah terror group have depots there, housing advanced weapons meant for the Iran backed terror group.

This mountainous road is the rout by which most Iranian weapons brought into Syria, are transported by trucks, across the border, in order to built up Hezbollah's military capabilities.

Syrian media reported the attack was carried out using surface to surface missiles fired from the Israeli Golan Heights. This is probably accurate information because both the Syrian military and the Russian forces in Syria, have missile defenses in the region and in fact according to the reports, some incoming missiles were intercepted.

The reports also claimed two Syrian soldiers were wounded. Reports coming out of Syria rarely report fatalities of their own forces or those of Iran backed militias including the Hezbollah group.

Israel allegedly strikes in Syrian territory to prevent a response by Hezbollah's missiles after its leader warned that an attack on Lebanon would not go unanswered.
IDF Fighter Jets Escort US Bomber Through Israeli Airspace
Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets escorted an American B-1 bomber over Israeli territory, the Israeli military said on Saturday.

“The joint flight illustrates the continued strategic cooperation of the IDF with the United States in the area,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a tweet.

The US flight was bound for the Persian Gulf.

The joint mission came as Israeli and US officials are mulling military action against Iran’s nuclear program, as negotiations regarding a US return to the 2015 nuclear deal appear to be at a stalemate.

“With every passing day, and Iran’s refusal to engage in good faith, the runway gets short,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned earlier this month. “We are prepared to turn to other options if Iran doesn’t change course.”


Black Shadow hackers demand $1 million in order to not leak data
The hacker group Black Shadow demanded on Sunday that $1 million be paid to it within 48 hours, or it would leak or sell the rest of the information it collected from the database of the gay dating app Atraf.

In its latest attack on an Israeli company, Black Shadow leaked data from a number of companies serviced by the Israeli Internet company Cyberserve, including Atraf, the Kavim and Dan bus companies and the tour booking company Pegasus.

The latest attack was announced by the group on Friday, with Black Shadow claiming it had damaged the servers. Cyberserve is a web hosting company, meaning it provides servers and data storage for other companies across industries. The data seized by the hackers includes a wide variety of businesses, from travel bookings company Pegasus to the Dan bus company and even the Israeli Children’s Museum.

Black Shadow claimed on its Telegram channel on Sunday that neither government officials nor Cyberserve contacted them about their ransom demand, so they had decided to allow the public to provide the $1 million ransom they were demanding. “It is obvious this is not an important problem for them,” said the group. “We know everybody is concerned about ‘Atraf’ database. As you know we are looking for money.”

The group promised that if it got the ransom, it would not leak the information of about one million people it had collected from Atraf. The group did not make any promises about any of the other data it had collected.
PMW: New PA embassy in Tunisia displays huge map of “Palestine” erasing Israel
According to “direct orders and instructions” from PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has established over 100 Palestinian embassies around the world. [Official PA TV News, Oct. 23, 2021]

One such embassy is located in Tunisia. When staff and visitors arrive they are met with a huge monument with the PA’s map of “Palestine” – the version that erases all of Israel:
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 23, 2021]

This is no surprise since the PA displays and promotes this map in all contexts possible as exposed again and again by Palestinian Media Watch. The message of the map is, of course, that Israel has no right to exist and that the goal of the PA is sovereignty over the entire area.

Ahmad Assaf, General Supervisor of the Official PA Media and General Supervisor of Fatah-run Awdah TV, alluded to this vision when he mentioned that “Palestine’s symbols” are “in every corner” of the embassy, so that visitors can “connect them immediately with what is happening in occupied Palestine” :
“The design of this embassy completely matches the nature of work of an embassy of Palestine. In this embassy we found many Palestinian symbols, in other words, one of Palestine’s symbols is in every corner. Of course, in addition to the wonderful design of this embassy, they succeeded in merging the wonderful geometrical structure and geometrical design and added to them the Palestinian symbols, in a way that every guest or visitor entering this embassy can immediately see these symbols and connect them immediately with what is happening in occupied Palestine.”

[Official PA TV News, Oct. 23, 2021]


PA TV cartoon: Israeli soldier and a Coronavirus particle join forces to “invade” a Palestinian home

PA TV cartoon demonizes Israeli soldiers as charmers of bulldozer-headed snakes



Biden Talks F-16s, Raises Human Rights in Meeting With Turkey’s Erdogan
US President Joe Biden told Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan his request for F-16 fighter jets had to go through a process in the United States and expressed a desire to handle disagreements between the two countries effectively.

Days after the NATO allies climbed down from the brink of a diplomatic crisis over jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala, Biden and Erdogan held a 70-minute meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome, where Biden also raised the issue of human rights, a US senior administration official told reporters.

Another US administration official said on Saturday that Biden would warn the Turkish leader that any “precipitous” actions would not benefit US-Turkish relations and that crises should be avoided after Erdogan threatened to throw out the US ambassador to Turkey and other foreign envoys for seeking the release of Kavala.

Erdogan later withdrew his threat to expel the envoys.

“President Biden reaffirmed our defense partnership and Turkey’s importance as a NATO ally, but noted US concerns over Turkey’s possession of the Russian S-400 missile system,” the White House said in a statement after the meeting.

“He also emphasized the importance of strong democratic institutions, respect for human rights, and the rule of law for peace and prosperity,” it said.
Now hard-Left activists boycott The Big Issue because it ran interview with Countdown star Rachel Riley where she backed Sir Keir Starmer's efforts to purge Labour of anti-Semitism
Left-wing activists are calling for a boycott of The Big Issue because it ran an interview with Countdown star Rachel Riley in which she expressed support for Sir Keir Starmer’s efforts to purge Labour of antisemitism.

Simon Maginn, who backs Sir Keir’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted that he had written to Lord Bird, who co-founded the magazine 30 years ago to help raise funds for the homeless, to protest at Ms Riley’s inclusion.

‘Very disappointed that @BigIssue would publish that Rachel Riley piece,’ he wrote.

‘I’ll be boycotting you now until you offer a right of reply. There are many other ways of helping the homeless. I won’t support or defend hate, and neither should you.’

Jackie Walker, a former official with the pro-Corbyn Momentum group who was expelled from Labour over antisemitism allegations, tweeted: ‘This is why you shouldn’t buy Big Issue again.’

Ms Riley, 35, who has Jewish roots and is eight months pregnant with her second child, has spoken about the antisemitic abuse she has faced.


Man convicted for 2018 antisemitic attack in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
A Brooklyn man has been found guilty for a brutal assault against a Jewish man walking home from a synagogue in Crown Heights 2018. The defendant, 44-year-old James Vincent, was convicted of first-degree and second-degree strangulation as a hate crime, second-degree attempted assault and third-degree assault as a hate crime, and fourth-degree criminal mischief. He will be sentenced on December 13, where he faces up to 15 years behind bars.

“Today’s verdict speaks to Brooklyn’s resolve to combatting and rooting out hate from our communities,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzales announced in a statement.

“The defendant has been brought to justice for this senseless, disturbing and hateful crime against a man simply walking home from his synagogue. Brooklyn’s strength is in its diversity and I remain committed to vigorously prosecuting bias-motivated violence.”

The attack on Menachem Moskowitz, a 52-year-old father of nine, occurred on April 21, 2018. He told the CrownHights.info news website following the attack that he said “good afternoon” to the man who was smoking a cigar on a street corner.

“As soon as [I greeted] him he began yelling at me ‘you fake Jews, who are you saying hello to? Your fake Jews and you stole all my money and robbed me, and stole my mortgage and my house. I want to kill you!’” the news website quoted him as saying.
Nazi flag flown near Brisbane, Australia synagogue over Shabbat
A Nazi flag was spotted flying from a building near a synagogue in Brisbane, Australia over Saturday in what the city's mayor slammed as a "sickening" display, The Guardian reported.

The flag was condemned by Queensland Jewish Boards of Deputies vice president Jason Steinberg, who slammed the flag's display and has called on the state's laws to make showing swastikas as unacceptable.

"We called on the banning of the swastika to be displayed and Nazi flags like this because at the moment ... it doesn't breach the serious hate or vilification law," Steinberg said over Saturday, according to the Canberra Times.

Support for this came from Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.

"This is sickening," he tweeted Saturday. "For someone to fly this symbol of hatred and genocide right above the Brisbane Synagogue on Margaret St. is pure evil. It's time for this vile flag to be banned in Queensland."

He added that "Under the current inadequate laws, this is likely to be classified as nothing more than a low-level 'public nuisance.' Not good enough!"
Nazim Ali case to be sent back to the General Pharmaceutical Council to reconsider as Court of Appeal refuses to hear an appeal
The Court of Appeal has refused ‘Al Quds Day’ march leader Nazim Ali’s request for permission to appeal the High Court’s ruling quashing a decision by the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) Fitness to Practice Committee.

The High Court ruling came after an appeal by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) against the original ruling by the Committee at the request of Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Mr Ali is the leader of the annual pro-Hizballah ‘Al Quds Day’ march in London who made antisemitic statements during the 2017 march. Since Mr Ali is a pharmacist Campaign Against Antisemitism brought a complaint to his professional regulator, the GPhC.

Last year, the GPhC’s Fitness to Practise Committee found that Mr Ali had brought the pharmaceutical profession into disrepute, following a two-week hearing that culminated on 5th November. Although the Fitness to Practise Committee had found that Mr Ali’s words were offensive, it did not find that the words had been antisemitic, and the panel let him off with only a formal warning.

Following the GPhC’s ruling, Campaign Against Antisemitism made representations to the PSA, which oversees disciplinary decisions made by the GPhC. We asked the PSA to use its statutory power to appeal the GPhC’s decision to the High Court under the National Health Service Reform and Healthcare Professionals Act 2002, on the grounds that the decision made by the GPhC panel was insufficient to protect the public because it was “irrational and perverse”.

In particular, we asked the PSA to review the GPhC’s ruling that Mr Ali’s statements were not antisemitic, including by attempting to distinguish between “antisemitism” and “antisemitic”. We have asked the PSA to consider the International Definition of Antisemitism, which has been adopted by the British Government, and the Guidance to all Judiciary in England and Wales produced by the Judicial College that makes clear that the word “Zionist” or “Zio” as a term of abuse has no place in a civilised society.
Israel’s Spike joins Facebook’s New ‘Metaverse’
Israeli email connectivity app Spike has been selected as one of the first 2D productivity apps to appear in Meta’s new virtual reality platform, following its rebrand from Facebook. It means that it is the first Israeli developer to launch an application on the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset, according to the company.

The news comes as Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook is rebranding as “Meta,” a new parent company that will operate beyond a social media network and more as a virtual reality space for work, social, and productivity purposes.

Spike was founded by Dvir Ben Aroya and Erez Pilosof, who serve as CEO and CTO, respectively. The company provides an app that transforms inboxes into chat-like interactions for messaging, collaboration, tasks, and calls in one place. Its app works on top of existing email and is available for iPhones, Android devices, desktops, and now the Oculus headset.

Spike will be joining a slew of other apps to help create a “virtual environment” that Meta hopes people will be able to go inside of — instead of just looking at screens all day. These could include more than just social networks or online shopping but could expand to fitness arenas, meeting rooms, gaming, or virtually anything app developers can think of, no pun intended.
Jerusalem-inspired Japanese animated hit sees big screen in Israel
Not just Naruto and Dragon Ball: "Yes Planet" and "Rav Hen Dizengoff" movie theaters in Tel Aviv this weekend were painted in the bright colors of Japanese anime in honor of a special screening of the hit animated film, "Fate/Grand Order THE MOVIE Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot Wandering; Agateram."

The movie is based on the free-to-play mobile game "Fate/Grand Order" – or FGO – which launched in 2015 (but is unfortunately not available in app stores in Israel) and boasts over 42 million downloads, gave birth to an empire of brand spinoffs and products, including television series, Manga comics, and even theater productions in Tokyo and Osaka. The brand has essentially become so successful in Japan, that it is even being compared to Pokemon Go, no less.

Now, amid the growing popularity of the anime genre in Israel, thanks in large part to TikTok, Israeli cinemas are now joining the party by putting the movie on the big screen. Surprisingly, the connection to Israel goes beyond mere commerce and actually pertains to the plot of the story, which takes place in Jerusalem in the year 1273, when an evil king threatens to destroy the holy city and turn it into a desert. Sounds familiar, no?
Orthodox singer Narkis stuns as Israeli wins best designer at Dubai fashion festival
Israeli singer Narkis, a religiously observant Jew, performed at the World Fashion Festival Awards in Dubai on Saturday during a runway walk showing off dresses by Israeli designer Ilanit Mizrahi, who ended up winning first place at the fashion week for best bridal designer.

Narkis performed her song "Holechet Itcha" (Walking with You) in both Hebrew and Arabic while wearing a dress with the Emirati and Israeli flags embroidered on it.

"Holechet Itcha has also arrived in Dubai," wrote Narkis on Instagram. "Much respect to Israel.

"May we merit to get to more moments like this. Believe in yourselves," wrote Mizrahi. "Israel is on the map."

Video shared on Instagram showed Mizrahi with a crowd at the awards show after receiving her award, dancing to the Hebrew song "Mitzvah Gedolah L'hiyot B'Simcha" ("It is a Great Commandment to be Happy") and a series of other Hebrew songs.

This was the first time that Israel took part in the fashion show. Mizrahi was joined by a number of other Israeli designers, including Laura Bouznah, Reut Atias, Liat Lukatch, Ilanit Reuven, Eden Aharon and Rachel H, among others.
Featured at Dubai Expo, mixed Hebrew-Arabic script takes on new purpose
When Liron Lavi Turkenich designed a writing system combining Hebrew and Arabic characters as a final project in college, she probably could not have imagined that her script would become the focal point of Israel’s pavilion at the 2020 World Expo in Dubai.

But after the Abraham Accords, in which Israel signed diplomatic agreements to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, and the peace agreements with other Arab countries that followed, the need for Aravrit, Turkenich’s script that allows both Hebrew and Arabic to be read from the same text, has expanded. The sky is now the limit for Turkenich’s project.

“I would like to get to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It’s a kind of dream. I would be happy for someone to adopt ‘El Mahar.’ An outdoor sculpture demands attention just as a language creates attention,” Turkenich told Haaretz, referring to the sculpture featured in the Israel pavilion. “El Mahar” means “toward tomorrow.”

Turkenich was first inspired to create the writing system by her upbringing in Haifa, one of Israel’s most integrated cities where Jews and Palestinians mix frequently and where Arabic is ubiquitous. But Turkenich realized that she tended to ignore that language, which she didn’t understand, and automatically paid attention to the Hebrew which she did.
7 spooky sites in Jerusalem
Oh Jerusalem! The city is holy to the three major monotheistic religions but lurking under the surface is another Jerusalem that harbors unholy mysteries, perhaps even ghosts.

The dark underbelly of Jerusalem dates back to biblical times when the Valley of Hinnom outside the city walls was a place of pagan child sacrifice. Little wonder that the place, whose Hebrew name Gai ben Hinnom (transmuted to the Latinate “Gehenna”), became analogous to the concept of “hell” and was considered cursed.

The valley served as a necropolis for an ever-expanding number of cemeteries from the Judean Kingdom (7-8th century BCE) through the Byzantine period (4-7th centuries CE). A Crusader-era structure (12-13th century CE) has been identified as a burial place for Christian pilgrims who died in the Holy Land. Its nickname: “House of Bones.”

Perhaps because the Torah forbids communicating with the spirit world, Jerusalem’s spooky places are not so much haunted by spirits as they are subject to being cursed by humans. Nonetheless, Jerusalem has its stories of apparitions, mystics, dybbuks and their rabbinical expulsions.

Old-time Machane Yehuda residents swear that as late as the 1970s some neighbors peered through a window to witness an exorcism when a flame shot out of the toe of a young girl possessed by a demon. And that’s just one of the city’s ghostly legends…
20 Israelis leading the way out of the climate crisis
As a 120-person Israeli delegation joins world leaders in Glasgow this week for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), many Israeli scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, educators, clergy and artists are working to understand and address the global climate crisis and its consequences, from food insecurity to natural disasters.

A multidisciplinary approach is critical, says University of Haifa marine geoscientist Beverly Goodman-Tchernov.

“Solving the problems of climate change is not going to happen using any single approach. It’s going to require that everyone comes to the table with their strongest tools,” she tells ISRAEL21c.

“We’ve passed the point where we can ask if climate change is really happening and who’s to blame. The real question now is whether we’re going to carry on the same ‘normal’ that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents gave us or whether we’re ready to take on a new normal where we can use the technology and knowledge we have to slow, and perhaps even reverse, the damage we’ve already done.”

Ahead of COP26, Israeli President Isaac Herzog appointed government officials, academics and businesspeople to a new Israeli Climate Forum to craft Israel’s role.

Herzog said the climate crisis is “an opportunity for us as a country to do tikkun olam, to repair the world, and to be part of the greatest positive development of our generation. Although we as a small country are not a major actor in the creation of the crisis, we can certainly be a meaningful actor in the response to it.”







In the end, it is never about "human rights" or "apartheid" - it is about desire for bloody vengeance for Jews beating Arabs in wars

There has been a huge uproar in the Arab world over the statements of a Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi saying that the seven-year war by Arab Gulf states against the Iran-backed  Houthi rebels in Yemen in "absurd" and that the Houthis are “defending themselves … against an external aggression.”

One criticism against Kordahi in a Palestinian news site conflates the war against the Houthis with other Arab wars, especially against Israel, as if they are one and the same long battle against non-Sunni Arabs.

The article by Sheikh Abdul Manan Al-Sunbali describes why these wars are not "absurd." He knows his audience - it isn't Western media or the "progressives" but his own fellow Arabs who share his anger and shame. 

Sunbali uses the pure language of shame and vengeance that reveals the real reason most Arabs hate the Jews:
It is a war to restore the Arab dignity lost for more than seventy years!

It is a war of proving and confirming the Arab identity and rooting it anew in the hearts of Arab youth!

It is a war of revenge for the defeats of 48 and 67 and the victory for the values ​​and history of the Arab and Islamic nation!

It is a war to return Yemen to the warm Arab embrace, as Palestine and Iraq should be returned, as well as Andalusia before!

It is the war to liberate the islands of Abu Musa, the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, Ceuta, Melilla, the Golan Heights and the Shebaa Farms from the hands of the greedy invaders and occupiers!

It is a war to extricate the Arab nation from the clutches of backwardness, rupture, prostration and loss, and its liberation from under the armpits and feet of the foreigner!

What's wrong with you, George?!
Sunbali goes on to say that by defending the Houthis, Kordahi might as well condemn Hamas and Hezbollah rockets, or say "that the land of Palestine originally belonged to the Jews and not to the Arabs, and that the Zionists are our cousins ​​and the closest race to us, and that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state...or you should have said that the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance factions  are terrorist groups!"

To too many mainstream Arabs, the truth is what is absurd and lies are the path to honor.




Where's the outrage from the Left over the alleged Iranian leak of Israeli LGBTQ information?

Hackers believed to be linked to Iran have breached an Israeli internet hosting company, taking down several of its sites. The hackers on Saturday night released some alleged personal information online, including from an LGBT dating site, according to Hebrew media reports.

“Atraf,” a geo-located dating service as well as a nightlife index, is a popular app and website in the Israeli LGBT community, especially in the Tel Aviv area.

According to Hebrew media sites, names of “Atraf” users and their locations were posted online. The data leak had worried users it could expose those still in the closet.
Anti-Zionists and anti-Israel groups generally try to link their hate with more broad Leftist causes. But they have been completely silent over the potential danger to Israeli gays and their privacy being leaked by presumed Iranian hackers. Those that are still in the closet, especially those who come from religious families, are anguished over the news. (Reports say that the hosting company for the information was very lax in its security posture.) 

The only mention I can find from the anti-Israel crowd is the supposition by disgraced former CNN host Jim Clancy that this was "revenge" for what he claims was Israeli hacking of Iranian gas stations - a doubly unfounded claim to blame Israel for the hack.

If this hack had been on an American site, the Left would have been all over the story with concern and anger. But Israeli gays don't deserve any sympathy from bigots who claim the mantle of "anti-racist." 



Islamic jihad, which celebrates blowing people up, defends the UN Human Rights Council



From Times of Israel:

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan chastised the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday for its disproportionate condemnation of Israel, tearing up the organization’s annual report while at the podium.

In a speech to the General Assembly, the Israeli envoy slammed the UNHRC for its “obsessive anti-Israel bias” during a special session at which the council presented its annual report.

“Since the establishment of the council 15 years ago, it has decided to blame and condemn Israel not 10 times like Iran or 35 times like Syria,” Erdan said. “The Human Rights Council has attacked Israel with 95 resolutions. Compared to 142 against all other countries combined.”

“It was on this stage at this very body that the very right of the Jewish people to have a national home was itself declared to be racist. A decision that was justly overturned. A decision that Israel’s ambassador at the time, Chaim Herzog, tore up at the United Nations,” Erdan said, referring to Herzog’s November 1975 speech. “And this is exactly what should be done to this antisemitic distorted one-sided report.”

Erdan said the report’s only place was “in the dustbin of antisemitism” before apparently ripping up it up and then leaving the podium.
In an irony that will be utterly lost on the world's media, one of the most notorious terror groups in existence - one which shoots rockets at Jewish civilians and celebrates the anniversaries of suicide bombings - came and defended the UN Human Rights Council from Erdan's attack.

A member of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, Dr. Youssef Al-Hasayneh said on Saturday  that the behavior of the Israeli ambassador, Gilad Erdan, in tearing up the papers of the Human Rights Council resolution at the United Nations on the investigation of the crimes of his entity against the Gaza Strip, is “a behavior that shows the extent of arrogance, superiority, contempt, and the crude political insolence with which this person deals.”  

He added, "It confirms his racist and aggressive tendency not only towards international institutions, but also towards the system of human values."


Yes, the people who brag about this are claiming to care about human values and fully support the UN's Human Rights Council.













Saturday, October 30, 2021

10/30 Links: A terrorist organization by any other name; Israel Ambassador Rips Up UNHRC Report During Speech; Noura Erakat's Morgue of Palestinian Resisters

From Ian:

A terrorist organization by any other name
Hashem Abu Maria, the leader of Defense for Children International, died in a firefight with Israeli forces in 2014. The organization's president was the editor of the PFLP magazine. This NGO is funded directly by Italy.

The leaders of the UAWC are almost all members of the central committee and board of the PFLP. In addition, the vice president of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, already on the list of terrorist organizations, headed the military wing of the PFLP in Gaza and was sentenced to life in prison.

Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin was accused of recruiting and organizing the training of PFLP members. Italy also directly finances Al-Haq.

The list is long and speaks volumes.

The cloaking of terrorist groups in human-rights garb is an established practice for those who want to destroy Israel, and the cynicism of international politics not only enables pretending not to understand this reality but helps the system.

So, the law goes to dust, the victim becomes persecutor, and the terrorist who ignores every democratic principle becomes the key protagonist of the NGO era.

It is sad there are Israeli politicians who are, or should be aware of the terrorist nature of these organizations, yet prefer to show how much they idolize the cause of "human rights."

It is even more tragic that the term "human rights" has become a trap, creating an absurd inversion of the very real distinction between perpetrators and victims. The ongoing dispute over Gantz's declaration should make the entire world tremble.




House Dems Praise Designated Terrorist Groups for ‘Courageous Work’
A group of House Democrats will propose a resolution urging the Biden administration to condemn Israel and support six Palestinian groups that were designated as terrorist organizations by the Jewish state.

In response to Israel's terrorist designations, Rep. Betty McCollum (D., Minn.) plans to introduce a resolution celebrating the designated Palestinian groups for the "value and importance" of their "courageous work," according to Haaretz. The resolution will be cosponsored by several House Democrats, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.).

Among the groups backed in the Democratic resolution are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. Also included is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which had funding cut from it in 2020 after the group's leadership was arrested for murdering a 17-year-old Israeli.

Rather than condemn the terrorist organizations, the group of House Democrats chose to attack Israel for its "repressive act designed to criminalize and persecute important Palestinian human rights organizations." The resolution demands that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemn Israel’s "authoritarian and anti-democratic act of repression" and support the six terrorism-tied organizations.

The other Palestinian groups in question are Addameer, Al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees.

This isn’t the first time House Democrats like Tlaib have sided with terror-tied organizations. Tlaib has fundraised multiple times this year for Baitulmaal, which pays money to the families of Palestinian terrorists. The leader of Baitulmaal, Mazen Mokhtar, has been accused of raising money for the Taliban and Chechen Mujahideen.


The end of exile: Iraqi Jew recalls escape from Baghdad 70 years ago
The Iraqi Jewish community is one of the oldest and most significant Jewish diasporas. Following Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, only 10,000 Jews remained in Iraq and most of them left after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979. Today, only three Jews still live in Iraq, according to Orly Baher Levy, chief curator of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda.

In the early 20th century, the Jewish community in Iraq lived relatively well, with many Jews holding important positions in Iraqi society and in the halls of power. It was not until the 1930s that Jews living there began to suffer from more serious persecution.

“Up until then they had been an integral part of Iraqi society; they were Jews, but they were first of all Iraqi,” Baher Levy explained to The Media Line. “And then bit by bit they started to feel like outsiders. The local populace suddenly saw them as Jews (and not Iraqis), and became jealous of them.”

The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center first opened to the public in 1988. It is the largest museum of its kind dedicated to documenting, preserving, and researching the cultural heritage of Babylonian Jewry.

In addition to exhibitions and lectures, the museum houses a large collection of Iraqi Jewish artifacts, including Judaica, manuscripts, books, and photographs.

On Tuesday, the museum will hold an event marking the 70th anniversary of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel via Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. Leading Iraqi-Israeli speakers and artists will take part in the celebrations, including Baruch Meiri. The festivities also will include traditional Babylonian Jewish music, art, and food.

Mordechai Ben Porat, 98, one of the original organizers of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah and who also spearheaded the founding of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, is slated to attend the museum celebrations.

One of the goals is to keep Iraqi Jewish traditions and history alive for the next generation. “With that Aliyah, we can say that the Babylonian exile ended,” Lily Shor, director of external relations and events at the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Museum, said.

“All the Jews around the world were once in the tribe of Judah, and they were taken to Babylon” after the destruction of the First Temple, Shor said. “During the immigration wave of the 1950s, some 110,000 Jews came to Israel and only 9,000 remained in Iraq. This means that the exile effectively ended.”
Noura Erakat's Morgue of Palestinian Resisters
Erakat’s agenda entailed unyielding Palestinian resistance to Israel’s existence, as indicated by her reading of a manifesto that emerged during Arab riots in Israeli towns and cities in May as Hamas and Islamic Palestinian Jihad launched rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip. This “intifada continues over 100 years of Palestinian resistance,” she said, rejoicing that a “new generation of organic leaders” during this unrest “has displaced the Palestinian official leadership as well as the leaders of the Oslo generation.”

Yet Palestinians are always victims for Erakat, never perpetrators, as her discussion of May’s violence demonstrated. She denounced Israeli “attacks on Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in the middle of Ramadan” on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, ignoring the Arab riots to which Israeli police reacted. She imagined subsequent indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks on Israel as a “responding” to Temple Mount violence, while Israel has made Hamas’s Gaza base into a “colonial laboratory for asymmetric warfare.”

Erakat also disregarded other Arab riots in Israel, like the “Kristallnacht in Lod,” and blamed only Israeli Jews for sectarian conflict. “Zionist mobs in Lydda and Jaffa within Israel, these supposedly mixed cities, hunted down Palestinians even in their own home, shattering the fiction of coexistence, illuminating the commitment to supremacy,” she said.

Erakat sought to create an intersectional nexus between Palestinians and the American Black Lives Matter movement, juxtaposing the Aug. 9, 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown Ferguson, Missouri, with the then-ongoing Israeli “Operation Protective Edge” air campaign against Hamas in Gaza. She promoted the myth of Brown’s innocence by distorting his death as the “latest in the vigilante and police killings of black boys, men, girls, trans folks.” In the resulting “convergence in Ferguson,” therefore, “black and Palestinian organizers worked together against the United States and Israeli state violence.” This “catalyzed renewals of black-Palestinian solidarity, which experienced its first apex during the Third World revolt,” she claimed, without explaining when this “revolt” occurred.

Erakat’s pop Marxist dreams of a revolution overthrowing Israel’s “settler-colony” might thrill her woke academic audiences. Yet her indulgence of radical chic in America can only incite more anarchy by Palestinians like her deceased terrorist cousin. The cost of such perverted Middle East studies is measurable not only in wasted tuition dollars domestically but also in lives lost abroad.
Israel Ambassador Rips Up UNHRC Report During Speech
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan tore up the United Nations Human Right Council’s annual report while at the podium.

A special hearing was held at the General Assembly on Friday, in which the yearly report was presented by the president of the human rights council.

“Since its establishment 15 years ago, the Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 95 times compared to the 142 against all other countries in the world combined,” Erdan said to the assembly.

“It was on this stage at this very body that the very right of the Jewish people to have a national home was itself declared to be racist. A decision that was justly overturned. A decision that Israel’s ambassador at the time, Chaim Herzog, tore up at the United Nations,” Erdan said, referring to Herzog’s 1975 speech.

“And this is exactly what should be done to this antisemitic distorted one-sided report.”

Erdan stated that the report’s only place was “in the dustbin of antisemitism” before ripping it up and leaving.


Ruthie Blum: Is America’s visa-waiver carrot a stick in disguise? - opinion
Nevertheless, even subsequent visa-waiver negotiations with the openly pro-Israel Trump administration did not bear fruit. When certain Israeli officials voiced optimism on this score in 2017, for instance, a State Department spokesperson told the financial daily Globes that Israel did not “at this stage” meet the “very strict requirements” of the visa-exemption program. “Specifically,” he said, “the administration in Washington continues to be concerned about the unequal treatments given to US Muslims at entry points.”

ISRAEL’S EFFORTS didn’t stop there. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly raised the visa-waiver issue with US President Joe Biden in August during their meetings in Washington. According to a White House statement, Biden told Bennett that his administration would strengthen bilateral cooperation with Israel in multiple ways, “including by working together towards Israel’s inclusion in the visa-waiver program,” and the two leaders directed their respective teams to “enhance consultations as Israel works on addressing the program’s requirements.”

Uh-oh. This sounded eerily like a not-so-veiled discussion about possible Israeli concessions on border security.

WHICH BRINGS us to the timing of Mayorkas’s seductive allusion to a potential softening of America’s stance on whether to place Israel on the same footing as, say, Estonia and Iceland – while categorizing the Jewish state as equivalent to Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania where entry visas are concerned.

Though there’s no hard evidence that it’s connected to Bennett’s stated intention last week, and follow-through on Wednesday, to allow the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria to advance plans for the construction of 3,130 housing units in Area C of the West Bank, the timing is a bit suspicious. That it came on the heels, as well, of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s designation of six “human rights” NGOs associated with the PFLP as terrorist organizations is all the more cause for pause.

If this is the Biden administration’s carrot-and-stick approach to Israeli policy, Jerusalem shouldn’t behave like a hungry bunny. Israeli tourists deserve to be handled by the US like their British, Dutch or Australian counterparts. But not at the expense of their safety and sovereignty.
Morton Klein: US attack on Israeli settlements is antisemitic - opinion
During Biden’s 2001 address at the ZOA’s Brandeis dinner, Biden insisted that the US should not publicly chastise its friend Israel, and explained that public criticism “emboldens those in the Middle East and around the world who still harbor as their sacred goal the elimination of Israel... It is not for you to tell them [Israel], nor for me, what is in their best interests. We should give Israel the right to determine what chances they will take.”

Israel has nonetheless been bending over backward to appease the Biden administration – at the cost of Jewish families who need a place to live. Specifically:
• Israel’s Civil Administration’s Planning Council did not meet for 10 months (since before Biden’s inauguration), which constituted a de facto freeze on building Jewish homes.
• The Planning Council is finally planning to meet now to approve 3,000 housing units in Judea and Samaria. This is a fraction of the housing that is needed by growing Israeli Jewish families, and the record-breaking numbers of Jews making aliyah in the wake of increasing antisemitism throughout the world.
• Israel appeased the Biden administration by lowering Jewish housing units by 39%. As Gantz told Blinken, the defense minister had reduced, to the greatest possible extent, the number of housing units for Jews that was to be approved.
• Meanwhile, Israel gave approval for the construction of 1,300 homes for Palestinian Arabs in Area C, which is under full Israeli control.
• Gantz approved (unwarranted) registration of 4,000 Palestinian Arabs in the Judea and Samaria population registry, and advised Blinken that Israel “plan[s] to take more such steps soon.”

Clearly, appeasing the Biden/Blinken administration doesn’t work.


From Tehran to Jerusalem, Uzbekistan bridges Israeli-Muslim divide
In Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, with its wide boulevards, mosques and modern coffee shops, geopolitics almost seems irrelevant when it comes to Israel.

Here is a country, with ties to Iran, that is in conversation with the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. A largely secular Muslim country, it has recognized Palestine as a state since 1994, but the topic of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation.

The Central Asian nation of 35 million is due to celebrate its 30th anniversary of formal diplomatic ties with Israel next year, and has a Jewish community that some speculate has been in existence since the time of King David.

As part of the government’s push toward Western-style democracy and with an eye to its struggles with water scarcity, Uzbekistan wants to strengthen its ties with the Jewish state.

It’s a drive that has been promoted by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who earlier this week secured a second term.

WHEN IT comes to Israel there is “heart-to-heart” diplomacy, explained former Uzbek foreign minister Sodiq Safoyev, who now is the first deputy chairman of the Senate.

He explained that he feels a strong personal and diplomatic connection to Israel, a country he admires but has never visited.

“We have one of the oldest Jewish communities that dates back more than 2,000 years,” and which made significant contributions “to the development of this region,” Safoyev said.

“I cannot imagine Uzbek culture without the contribution of the Jewish community of Uzbekistan,” he explained.
Are the PA and UAE on the path to reconciliation?
A surprise visit to Dubai last week by the head of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service Majed Faraj has sparked speculation that the two sides are close to mending their fences.

Faraj was the first senior PA official to visit the Gulf state since the signing of the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last year.

Palestinian sources said that Faraj traveled to the UAE to visit Expo 2020 Dubai, a universal exhibition held from October 1 to March 2022 with the participation of 200 countries, including Israel and the Palestinians.

According to the sources, the visit does not indicate that the PA intends to publicly endorse the normalization agreements between Israel and some Arab countries, including the UAE.

During the visit, Faraj met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Makhtoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, who toured the Palestinian pavilion at the exhibition.

“I was honored to visit the Palestinian pavilion at Dubai 2020 Expo, where Palestinian culture, history and holy sites were present,” Makhtoum wrote on Twitter. “When Palestine is present, beauty is present and history writes its presence.”

Makhtoum did not mention the meeting with the Palestinian official.

The UAE news agency WAM, which reported the meeting, did not provide any details about the encounter. The agency described Faraj as “special envoy to President Mahmoud Abbas.”
Israel said to strike near Damascus in rare daytime raid, hitting Hezbollah arms
The Israeli military bombed a number of locations surrounding Damascus in a rare daytime strike on Saturday, according to Syrian media, reportedly targeting advanced weapons heading to the Hezbollah terror group and other Iranian proxies.

The Syrian state media outlet SANA said the strikes were carried out using surface-to-surface missiles fired from northern Israel and that explosions were heard in the countryside surrounding the Syrian capital.

Strikes were reported in the areas of al-Dimas, Qudsaya and al-Mezzah military air base — all located west of Damascus. Although not unheard of, daytime strikes on Syrian targets are relatively rare.

Citing a military source, SANA said two Syrian soldiers were injured and there was “material damage” after the country’s air defense systems were activated against “hostile targets from the direction of occupied lands,” an apparent reference to Israel. The military source claimed that the missiles were “repelled,” a common claim by Syria, which Israeli military officials and independent analysts largely regard as false, empty boasts.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group of unclear funding, said Saturday’s raid killed at least five pro-Iranian fighters and wounded others. The nationalities of the people killed were not immediately known.


Saudi Expels Lebanese Ambassador, Bans All Imports From Lebanon
Saudi Arabia has summoned its ambassador to Lebanon for consultation and asked the Lebanese ambassador to the kingdom to leave within 48 hours, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported on Friday.

The kingdom also imposed a blanket ban on all imports from Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia’s decision comes days after comments made by Lebanon’s information minister that were critical of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen put fresh strains on Gulf-Lebanese relations.

The comments by George Kordahi in an interview he said was recorded on Aug. 5, nearly a month before he took office, circulated heavily on social media on Tuesday. He has said he would not resign over the incident.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati sought to avert the diplomatic fallout and said the comments made in an online show affiliated to Qatar’s al Jazeera network did not reflect the cabinet’s position.

Mikati has been hoping to improve ties with Gulf Arab states which have been strained for years because of the influence wielded in Beirut by the Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah.

“The control of the terrorist Hezbollah on the decision-making of the Lebanese state made Lebanon an arena for implementing projects for countries that don’t wish Lebanon and its people well,” the statement carried by SPA said.
Kuwait expels Lebanese envoy over Yemen war criticism, following Saudis, Bahrain
Kuwait followed Saudi Arabia and Bahrain by ordering the Lebanese charge d’affaires on Saturday to leave the emirate within two days over comments made by a Lebanese minister regarding the war in Yemen. Kuwait also recalled its ambassador from Beirut.

Later Saturday, the United Arab Emirates’ state-run WAM news agency said on Twitter that it would withdraw its diplomats from Lebanon in solidarity with Saudi Arabia. The tweet also said Emiratis would be ”prevented” from traveling to Lebanon. Travel bans have happened previously to Lebanon over politics in the past.

The moves came as the Arab League chief expressed concerns about the deterioration of ties between Lebanon and wealthy Gulf countries over statements made by Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib said Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati is in contact with foreign officials who asked him not to think about resigning. The minister added that he is in contact with the Americans to help solve the crisis.

Kordahi has described during a TV program in August the war in Yemen as an aggression by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He added that the war in Yemen is “absurd” and must stop because he is opposed to wars between Arabs.
Crisis with Lebanon Rooted in Hezbollah Dominance – Saudi Minister
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Saturday the latest crisis with Lebanon has its origins in a Lebanese political setup that reinforces the dominance of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group and continues to allow endemic instability.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries expelled Lebanese envoys in a diplomatic spat that risks adding to Lebanon’s economic crisis, following critical comments about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen by Lebanon’s Information Minister George Kordahi.

“I think the issue is far broader than the current situation,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told Reuters in a phone interview. “I think it’s important that the government in Lebanon or the Lebanese establishment forges a path forward that frees Lebanon from the current political construct, which reinforces the dominance of Hezbollah.”

He said this setup “is weakening state institutions within Lebanon, in a way that makes Lebanon continue to process in a direction against the interests of the people of Lebanon.”

The row has triggered calls by some Lebanese politicians for the resignation of Kordahi, while others opposed such a move, which could undermine the government as a whole.

“We have no opinion about the government in Lebanon. We have no opinion as to whether it stays or goes, this is up to the Lebanese people,” the minister, speaking from Rome where he was attending the G20 summit, said.

Kordahi has been publicly backed by Hezbollah and has declined to apologize or resign over the comments.
Lebanon Says Government Can’t Afford to Resign as Saudi Rift Widens
Lebanon’s government cannot afford to resign over a growing diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states, a member of a Lebanese crisis group of ministers said on Saturday following a near three-hour meeting over the widening rift.

“The country cannot be left without a government,” due to other pressing matters, and would continue to work to resolve the rift, Education Minister Abbas Halabi said after the meeting.

The row over critical comments made by Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen had spurred calls by some top politicians for Kordahi’s resignation, while others opposed the move.

Saudi Arabia expelled Lebanon’s envoy and banned all Lebanese imports on Friday, and Bahrain and Kuwait followed suit, giving the top Lebanese diplomats 48 hours to exit.

Kordahi’s resignation would have knock-on effects that could threaten Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s coalition government.

But Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said Mikati’s contacts with officials from a number of states showed opposition to the resignation of the government, formed only last month after a 13-month stalemate.

“They told Mikati, ‘if you are thinking about resignation, take that out of your head,'” he said.
The EU's Dangerous Policy Towards Iran's Mullahs
The EU also made many concessions to Iran, such as agreeing to include in the nuclear deal sunset clauses enabling the mullahs soon to have as many nuclear weapons as they like.

Meanwhile, the EU, which never stops moralizing to other countries about how they should be conducting themselves, has turned a blind eye to credible reports regarding Iran's continually violating the nuclear deal as well as pursuing clandestine nuclear activities. By February 2016, Iran had already exceeded its threshold for heavy water for the second time.

At the same time, when it comes to terrorism, members of the EU have been among the main targets of Iran's terrorist plots. The Iranian regime has been implicated in a series of assassinations, seizing European hostages and other hostile acts across Europe....

The EU might also do well to see how Iran's military adventurism in the region has escalated -- and will continue to escalate unless it is stopped.

If Iran acquires nuclear capability, it will no longer even have to use terrorism or hostage-taking -- or even its new bombs -- to blackmail Europe: the mere threat of using one should be sufficient.

Will the EU please wake up in time and alter its dangerous policy towards Iran?
Iran’s Atrocious Human Rights Record Must Be Addressed Before New Nuclear Talks
There were days in a cramped, dark room. There were days and nights at Evin prison, with bright lights and interrogations and little or no sleep. And then there was the injection, a mysterious drug his prison guards shot into Payam Derafshan’s veins, triggering convulsions and seizures that caused him to bite off half his tongue. According to one report, after doctors treated Derafshan, an Iranian human rights attorney, at a nearby hospital, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps brought him to a mental institution. According to his lawyers, he was there “subjected to electric shocks, seriously damaging his neurological system and causing him to lose consciousness.”

Records of Derafshan’s torture emerged earlier this month, the latest in a seemingly-endless line of stories of lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists jailed, tortured, and even killed by Iranian state security forces. Worse, most of these savageries were committed with the approval — if not at the command — of the man who is now Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s former chief of the judiciary.

Consequently, a group of Iranian exiles filed a claim against Raisi earlier this month in Scotland, calling for him to be held accountable for human rights abuses, including his role in the 1988 massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners. The complaint, filed with the Scottish police, sought Raisi’s arrest if he attended the UN Climate Change conference in Glasgow on October 31. (He has since declined to make the trip.) This follows a similar call by Center for Human Rights In Iran founder and director Hadi Ghaemi, that President Biden recognize the ongoing human rights abuses in future policies and relations with Iran.

Now, with Iran agreeing to reenter talks in November aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions, that call is more urgent than ever.
Iranian hackers take down servers of Israeli internet hosting company Cyberserve
Hackers, apparently linked to Iran, said Friday they had broken into the servers of Israeli internet hosting company Cyberserve, bringing down a number of widely used websites.

The Black Shadow group, which Hebrew-language media reports said was Iranian, warned the Israeli company that it was in possession of data that could be leaked. The group has not confirmed that it is Tehran-backed.

“Hello Again! We have news for you,” the hackers wrote in a message circulated on social media on Friday evening. “You probably could not connect to many websites today. ‘Cyberserve’ company and their customers [were] hit by us. You may ask what about Data? As always, we have lots of it. If you don’t want your Data leaked by us, contact us soon.”

Black Shadow stole a vast trove of information from Israeli insurance company Shirbit last year and then sold it on the dark web when the firm refused to pay a ransom.

Cyberserve’s customers include the Dan and Kavim public transportation companies, the Children’s Museum in Holon, the Pegasus travel company and the blogsite of the Kan public broadcaster.

The websites of a number of Cyberserve’s customers were unavailable on Saturday morning.
Suspected Iranian hack hits Israeli LGBT site; users fear leak of personal info
An Israeli LGBT-focused dating service was one of the many websites targeted by a hack on an internet hosting company, worrying users of a potential data leak that could expose those still in the closet.

“Atraf,” a geo-located dating service as well as a nightlife index, is a popular app and website in the Israeli LGBT community, especially in the Tel Aviv area.

Hackers, apparently linked to Iran, said Friday they had broken into the servers of Israeli internet hosting company Cyberserve, bringing down a number of widely used websites.

The Black Shadow group, which Hebrew-language media reports said was Iranian, warned the Israeli company that it was in possession of data that could be leaked. The group has not confirmed that it is backed by Tehran.

“Hello Again! We have news for you,” the hackers wrote in a message circulated on social media Friday evening. “You probably could not connect to many websites today. ‘Cyberserve’ company and their customers [were] hit by us. You may ask what about Data? As always, we have lots of it. If you don’t want your Data leaked by us, contact us soon.”

It was not clear which data the hacker group would leak, but with the sensitive personal information on Atraf, users who have not come out were worried their names could be released, according to Hebrew-language media reports.
Amid BDS Push, ‘Ethnic Studies’ Curricula Spread Anti-Israel Hate
In October, BDS saw key developments related to “ethnic studies” curricula and “critical race theory” (CRT). California governor Gavin Newsom signed the controversial bill requiring the state’s high school students to take “ethnic studies” before graduating. Long criticized for its emphasis on dividing ethnic groups into victims and victimizers, the current curriculum was modified after the backlash from Jewish and other organizations that objected to its overt hostility toward Israel and support for BDS.

The final version discusses the diversity of the Jewish community and includes “Holocaust education,” but remains hostile towards Israel, particularly in the context of “Arab-American” ethnic studies. The curriculum is also being supplanted by teachers using the earlier version, and an even more radical “liberated ethnic studies” curriculum in which ‘Palestine’ is central.

A bill mandating an “ethnic studies” requirement in K-12 education was also proposed in Massachusetts. The bill would create a “Commission for Anti-Racism and Equity in Education” and mandate “a social justice perspective” in which “ethnic studies, racial justice, decolonizing history, and unlearning racism is taught at all grade levels.”

Elsewhere in academia, BDS efforts continued to isolate Israel, in part by condemning calls for debate and declaring that supporting Israel was an issue beyond discussion. There were also more demands at universities to adopt BDS policies.

At the University of Illinois, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter strongly protested a statement from the school president that declared the Israeli-Palestinian conflict entitled “Respectful engagement around difficult issues,”with SJP saying, “we utterly reject your call for ‘respectful engagements around difficult issues’ because ethnic cleansing and genocide are not complicated issues.”

The SJP chapter at the University of Minnesota also issued a statement protesting a new study aboard program with the Technion Institute in Haifa, stating that they were “disappointed at the insistence of the University of Minnesota to persist in active cooperation with the Israeli state, the violent occupation of the Palestinian homeland, and the eradication and ethnic cleansing of its people by use of force.” An SJP campaign was also launched at the University of Virginia, demanding that the school “1. Stop the sale of all Sabra Hummus products on Grounds by the University and UVA affiliated vendors; 2. Terminate all contracts with G4S; 3. Divest public funding from any and all defense technology research supporting the Israeli Defense Forces.” Protestors at Trinity College Dublin made similar demands.
Yearlong program helps US colleges find and fix overlooked campus antisemitism
On Rosh Hashanah of this year, a student at the University of Utah reported receiving an antisemitic text message. It came from an unknown phone number, the recipient wasn’t Jewish, and an investigation later showed it to be an isolated event. Nonetheless, university officials were alarmed.

“This incident is among many being experienced by Jewish community members in higher education around the country as incidents of antisemitism are on the rise,” said a statement put out by the university.

And so while only 200 of the university’s 24,634 students are Jewish, the administration decided to take action, said Brian Jay Nicholls, special assistant to the chief safety officer at the University of Utah. Earlier this year it became one of 27 campuses participating in Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative (CCI), a year-long program designed to assess the campus climate for Jewish students across the United States.

Nicholls looks forward to using the CCI’s assessment survey to help the university better serve its Jewish students, whether it’s making sure kosher food is readily available or that exams aren’t scheduled on Jewish holidays — and, of course, fighting antisemitism.

“Just because the Jewish community is so small and underrepresented, doesn’t mean we don’t need to hear what it’s like to be Jewish on campus. On the contrary, typically when smaller voices aren’t heard as much, we need to make sure we pay more attention,” Nicholls said.

While the University of Utah incident wasn’t the most striking case of antisemitism to hit American campuses at the start of the fall semester, it nevertheless represents how widespread the issue has become. Indeed, one-third of Jewish college students experienced antisemitic hate in the last academic year, according to a new survey released by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Connecticut Public School to Address ‘Pattern of Behavior’ After Swastika Again Found
For the second time this year, a swastika was found drawn in a Darien, Connecticut public school, prompting district officials to hire a private diversity consultant to address what they called a “pattern of behavior.”

“Regrettably, we did have another incident yesterday of a swastika being drawn on a middle school boys’ bathroom stall,” Darien Public Schools Superintendent Alan Addley said on Tuesday, according to the Darien Times, speaking at a district board meeting about an incident at Middlesex Middle School.

“We do recognize that this pattern of behavior has occurred too many times and it has negatively affected the schools, community and the students’ educational experiences,” he said. “Know we’re acting with deliberate intention and interventions and actions that will make a long-term difference.”

Officials at Holmes Elementary School found a swastika scratched into a wall in March, according to local media, followed by later incidents of antisemitic comments shared by students on social media and other hateful vandalism. In September 2019, three swastikas were found at the local Middlesex Middle School, with another discovered a month later.

On Tuesday, Addley announced that a California-based diversity consultant will begin work in the district next week with a budget of $23,000. School board officials said they selected him after consulting material by the Anti-Defamation League.
BBC’s Dead Sea reports fail to tell the whole story
On October 18th the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman produced audio and filmed reports about a photoshoot by American photographer Spencer Tunick near the Dead Sea.

In the audio and televised versions of his report, Bateman’s take-away messaging was that:
“For now, the art of preserving how much water we all use is the message from this naked attraction.”

BBC audiences were told that the Dead Sea has “been starved of its fresh water supply”.

Bateman: “This expert says it’s entirely a man-made problem with the sea’s sources dammed for farming and drinking water.”

Dr Clive Lipchin: “So since the 1970s there have been large water diversions pumping water out of the Sea of Galilee westwards to Israel and eastwards to Jordan and basically, we’re slowly losing this very unique and one-of-a-kind ecological system.”

While that information is not inaccurate, it does not tell the whole story. As explained in an article last year by Sue Surkes, the problem – like the potential ways to address it – is considerably more complex than Bateman’s reporting suggests.
‘How Could They Have Murdered This Angel?’: Son of Murdered Holocaust Survivor Mireille Knoll Delivers Impassioned Testimony at Trial of Accused Antisemitic Killers
Relatives and friends of Mireille Knoll — the 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor robbed and stabbed to death in a brutal antisemitic assault in 2018 — described her as an “angel” and a “deeply loving mother” during the third day of the criminal trial of her accused killers in Paris.

Among those giving testimony at the trial of 32-year-old Yacine Mihoub and 25-year-old Alex Carrimbacus was Mireille Knoll’s son, Daniel. In calm, measured tones, he delivered a deeply personal tribute to his late mother, challenging the accused to finally tell the truth about her murder.

A grandmother who lived alone in an apartment in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, Knoll had known Mihoub, who lived with his family in the same public housing project, since his childhood. On March 23, 2018, Mihoub, who would often visit Knoll without prior notice, arrived at her apartment with Carrimbacus, whom he befriended in prison. During the visit, which began with the pair drinking glasses of port wine, Knoll, who suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, was stabbed 11 times and her apartment set alight. Since their arrest by police in the days following the murder, Mihoub and Carrimbacus have continued to pin the blame on the other for the frenzied stabbing of Knoll with a knife.

At Thursday’s court proceedings, Daniel Knoll said that he still did not understand why “these two people, these monsters, murdered this angel,” indicating the two defendants.

Referring to Mihoub, he added: “She received this man, this neighbor, in her home. How could he have conceived of such an abominable murder?”
New report states Harrow Council ignored staff's claims of antisemitism
A newly published independent race report has stated that Harrow Council ignored several claims of antisemitism that were flagged up by members of staff.

In addition to antisemitism, several cases of sexism and racism were allegedly witnessed by some members of council staff, though no action had been taken.

One participant in the report said: “A colleague reported several instances of antisemitism and racism and nothing has been done about it for years. It is no good at all to talk about combating racism, then do nothing about it when reported. We are so fed up of this and this is the reason why nothing will change.”

Other staff members reportedly said that they did not feel comfortable reporting incidents of “casual racism” for fear of losing their jobs.

The report recommended that the council issue a “formal apology”. Harrow Council has reportedly been contacted for comment.

Harrow Council adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism in 2017.
Award-winning Israeli doc on camera-hungry Nazi Albert Speer opens in NYC and LA
In her lauded 2014 documentary film, “The Decent One,” filmmaker Vanessa Lapa used SS leader and Final Solution architect Heinrich Himmler’s private family letters to expose just how deep his evil ran.

Now she is again using a top Nazi’s words against him — this time with audio recordings made by Hitler’s chief architect and minister of armaments, Albert Speer, as he worked on a script for a feature film based on his blockbuster 1970 memoir, “Inside the Third Reich.”

In her new film, “Speer Goes to Hollywood,” Lapa shows just how cunning the manipulative Speer was in whitewashing his crimes, which included enslaving 12 million Jewish, Polish and Soviet prisoners and forced laborers — at least a third of whom died of starvation, injury, or exhaustion — to produce German armaments during World War II. Creating a reputation for himself as “the good Nazi,” he was sentenced to only 20 years in prison at the Nuremberg Trials, while his co-conspirators and subordinates went to the gallows.

Speer spent his time in prison writing extensive notes for his memoir on paper napkins, and charmed sympathetic guards who illegally smuggled them out of prison for him.

Still buzzing with excitement from the film’s having won the 2021 Ophir Award for best Israeli documentary film earlier this month, Lapa recently spoke to The Times of Israel from her Tel Aviv studio, as she geared up for the United States theatrical release of “Speer Goes to Hollywood.” The film opens in New York on October 29 and in Los Angeles on November 5.
Coach of English soccer club apologizes for likening defeat to Holocaust
The manager of a professional English soccer team has apologized after comparing his team’s loss in a recent match to the Holocaust.

After his Bristol Rovers side lost 3-1 last weekend to Newport County, Joey Barton said, “The team’s almost like musical chairs. Someone gets in and does well but then gets suspended or injured. Someone gets in for a game, does well but then has a Holocaust, a nightmare, an absolute disaster.”

At a press conference Thursday, Barton apologized for the Holocaust analogy.

“I’m just going to say there were some comments made after the press conference last week where clearly no offense was meant, but some people have rightly pointed out to me the use of the analogy was not correct,” he said.

Barton said he received a reminder this week from the FA, the governing body for soccer in England, regarding “our language and communications.”

“The last thing you want to do is cause offense or upset anybody,” he said. “So if anybody was offended by that, I would like to apologize for that and I think the FA were right to write to me and remind me of that.”
Third COVID shot reduces hospitalization by 93%, mortality by 81%
A third shot of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine reduces the chances of hospitalization by 93%, serious illness by 92% and mortality by 81%, according to an Israeli-American study published Friday night in the Lancet.

The study, which compared nearly 730,000 individuals who received the third shot against the same number who were vaccinated with two shots five months or more prior and did not receive the booster, was carried out by researchers from Clalit Health Services and Harvard University. The observational study was done during the peak of the Delta wave – July 30 to September 23, 2021. It is the first study to be peer-reviewed that evaluates the effectiveness of a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine against serious outcomes while regulating for a variety of variables, including comorbidities and behavioral factors.

“These data provide immediate evidence for other countries now deliberating the need for a similar booster vaccination campaign” to Israel’s, said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief of innovation. “Every country will need to make its own decision based on its setting and the timeline of vaccinations that were provided over the last year.

“In Israel, it suggests that in view of its very early vaccination campaign and waning immunity, the decision for an early vaccination campaign was probably right and saved many lives,” he said.
IAI Signs MoU With Korea Aerospace Industries on Loitering Munitions Program
Israel Aerospace Industries announced last week that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Korea Aerospace Industries on a new program involving loitering munitions.

The MoU between the two entities secures a “new concept weapons system that will maximize the effectiveness of Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD & DEAD) missions,” according to a statement.

“The expanded cooperation between IAI and KAI will offer the South Korean military with new technologies and will establish concrete cooperation plans through joint feasibility studies between the two companies,” it added.

IAI is a lead global developer of loitering munitions systems, which combine the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. According to the company, the new concept weapon system can perform long-endurance reconnaissance missions and can strike a target immediately when necessary.

Its specific munitions, including Harpy and Harop loitering missiles, are combat-proven in many countries around the world.
Israeli Actor Lior Raz, Jewish Athlete Julian Edelman Address ‘Misconceptions’ About Jews
Edelman, the former NFL player who is the co-founder of Coast Productions, used social media to reach out to NFL athletes DeSean Jackson and Meyers Leonard after they made antisemitic comments. During the panel, the Jewish athlete discussed notions of “cancel culture” and emphasized educating those who express prejudices — “because that’s where you’re going to get progression.”

“I think it’s human nature: when you feel attacked, you put a guard up,” he noted. “But instead of putting a guard up, why don’t we give out a hand and bring a conversation out to really educate people? Because nine out of 10 times, especially in the situations that I’ve dealt with, the antisemitism has been out of ignorance. So instead of going out and attacking someone, [I’ve] always chose to say ‘Hey, why don’t we sit and talk about this.'”

He added, “If you go out and attack this guy, he’s gonna look at you and say screw you. And that’s not getting anyone anywhere. … If we can really put our feelings out on the table, that’s how we’re gonna get progression.”

Edelman also argued that Jewish communities should set positive examples as a way to counteract false information about Jews.

“People are going to hate on us for something, why don’t we rise above that and become the example,” he said. “Yes, we were the oppressed people for a very, very long time, but we’re also the standard of how to defeat oppression and also overcome it. And really go out and be an example to help other people because once you do those acts, then people can’t say anything bad about you. Everyone has misconceptions on every group but if we make a huge impact on examples , that’s really where I think you can make some hay.”

The panelists also spoke about the role of live theater in humanizing the Jewish experience, and discussed Strathairn’s show about Polish freedom fighter Jan Karski, who sought to warn the world about the Holocaust.









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