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Saturday, March 12, 2022

03/12 Links: How progressive charity platforms help foment anti-Israel terror; MSNBC guest: Hitler didn't kill ethnic Germans unlike Putin to Russians

From Ian:

How progressive charity platforms help foment anti-Israel terror
In a $2 billion contract sealed last summer, the global investment firm Apax Partners announced that it would be acquiring EveryAction, a fundraising portal that currently hosts more than 18,000 organizations and serves as parent to Ngp Van, which today remains the “leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns” in America.

Also included within the landmark deal was SalsaLabs, Inc., an American fundraising company that joined the EveryAction “family” several months preceding the Apax acquisition. While providing donor management to a host of institutions ranging from Westchester Children’s Association to Wilderness Watch, SalsaLabs is also fueling the success of controversial groups like The Alliance for Global Justice (“AFGJ”).

In 1998, the Tucson, Arizona-based AFGJ was incorporated under the Nicaragua Network and today mobilizes on behalf of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist objectives. With contributors including Amnesty International and the anti-Semitic Tides Foundation, the AFGJ had grown its revenue from $3.3 million in 2016 to approximately $7 million in 2020.

The AFGJ supports convicted terrorists through fundraising for Samidoun, also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Today, Samidoun is involved in a campaign to free Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Khaled Barakat, who in 2020 was barred from entering Germany for four years over his ties to Palestinian terrorism.

Since 1997, the PFLP has been recognized by the United States as a foreign terrorist group and is listed by the United States Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets and Control (OFAC) as a Specially Designated National and Blocked Person (“SDN”). The organizations and individuals listed on OFAC’s site have their assets blocked and are prohibited from conducting business with U.S. citizens.

As a terrorist organization, the PFLP is on the SDN roster and is barred from entering into financial transactions with U.S. entities. SalsaLabs’s use of its platform to represent an establishment with documented links to a terrorist group potentially places the company in non-compliance with U.S. anti-terror laws.
New York Democrat Scrambles To Appease the Radical Anti-Israel Left
A far-left member of Congress is scrambling to boost his anti-Israel bona fides after rank-and-file members of the Democratic Socialists of America privately lashed out at him for visiting the Jewish state.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), an "active" member of the DSA, was hammered on a private message board of the organization in the final weeks of last year for traveling to Israel, with many members calling for the national organization to expel him. One socialist on the message board posting as RyanMosgrove said Bowman’s conduct was in "direct opposition" to the DSA’s "stated values and goals," and that he "should not remain a member." Another socialist posting as Gabe said Bowman's trip to Israel empowered an apartheid state.

"The impact of Jamaal Bowman’s public, repeated legitimization of Israeli apartheid extends beyond an internally voiced disagreement with the platform," Gabe wrote in his argument for expelling Bowman, which he asked his fellow socialists to keep contained to the private message board and off social media. "If we lack the organizing power in a given place to endorse a candidate who is going to put the priorities of our movement over other lobbies, especially lobbies for apartheid states like Israel, we shouldn’t endorse candidates there."

Gabe’s views were echoed by nearly all on the private message board, which the Washington Free Beacon obtained access to. The group's message board requires a login for anyone to access its posts. At issue was not only Bowman’s trip to Israel, which was sponsored by liberal anti-Israel group J Street and included a meeting with Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, but also his vote last September in support of funding Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. "Do you think Bowman’s visit and photo op with an Israeli war criminal was ok?" asked Gabe. "Do you think his Iron Dome vote was correct?"

The national organization elected not to expel Bowman, but the backlash has spurred the lawmaker to sprint to the left to win back the supporters he lost. On Wednesday night, he was one of just 15 Democrats to vote against a bill that included funding for the Iron Dome—a complete reversal of the position he held just months ago. He was joined in opposition by "Squad" members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), the most infamous opponents of funding for Israel in Congress.


Amnesty USA Head Criticized for Saying Israel “Shouldn’t Exist As a Jewish State”
Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien is currently under fire for saying during a March 9 event that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state.”

Jewish Insider (JI) reported that O’Brien was speaking at a lunch event hosted by the Women’s National Democratic Club when he made those remarks. O’Brien was arguing that he didn’t believe a 2020 poll finding that 80% of Jewish Americans consider themselves to be supporters of the Jewish State. “My gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home,” O’Brien said, per JI. He added that Amnesty holds no opinion on political matters, which includes “the right of the State of Israel to survive.” “We are opposed to the idea…that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people,” O’Brien said.

Since the JI report was published, O’Brien and Amnesty have been met with a firestorm of criticism on social media. Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt argued in a tweet that O’Brien “shamelessly and bizarrely tries to explain why most Jews don’t really feel attached to Israel and argues Israel shouldn’t be a Jewish state.” “Thanks but no thanks, @dpaulobrien,” he added. “We don’t need you to [J]ew-splain what our community should think or feel, even as you dismiss thousands of years of history. You & @AmnestyUSA ignore clear evidence of overwhelming support among Jews for #Zionism & the democratic & Jewish state. Your obsessive, relentless focus on Israel, and the erasure of the Jewish right to self-determination illustrates a dangerous degree of bias. Both @amnesty and @dpaulobrien owe the Jewish community an apology.”


Israel's rescue of Arabs from Ukraine undermines oppression narrative - opinion
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given us an unexpected snapshot of the dueling realities and propaganda surrounding Israel. The truth: Israel has done what it can to help its Arab citizens and other Arabs to whom it owes nothing to find safety in the conflict. And yet for a substantial slice of the Left, Israel is South Africa reborn, a racist state segregating Arabs out for inhuman treatment. What actually happens on the ground – see Ukraine – doesn’t seem to dent this alternate reality.

What’s actually happening:
On February 12, with tensions mounting in Ukraine, Israel warned on its Arabic Twitter account, known as Israel in Arabic, that Israelis should not travel there. Two days later, the Arabic spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Ministry tried to expedite the evacuation by announcing that five Ukrainian universities will allow Israeli students to study via Zoom amid the turmoil. Israel’s Arabic language social media messaging made sure its Arabic-speaking minority would face no language barriers while escaping Russian aggression.

Israel in Arabic’s pinned tweet from February 24, the start of the invasion, warns Israelis that the situation is dangerous and that they should leave Ukraine. The post linked to a website with specific instructions on how to exit. Israel in Arabic also tweeted the preferred border crossings Israelis should use, which crossings had Israeli officials stationed at them and how to reserve spots on buses to the border. To assist in evacuating Arabic-speaking Israelis, Israel dispatched its deputy consul in Turkey, Yara Shibli, a Bedouin, to the Ukrainian border.

Israeli-Arab parents have enjoyed tearful embraces with their children safely back in Israel. Popular Arab-Israeli media personality Eman Kassem Slimani praised Israel for rescuing hundreds of its Arab citizens from Ukraine, including many Bedouin.
The Story of Purim as told by Amnesty International Director Paul O’Brien (satire)
Greetings everybody! I’m Paul O’Brien, He/Him, and today I’m here to explain Purim to the Jews! Because to be frank, you don’t seem to be “getting it” lately. Yet I believe in my gut that what the Jewish people really want is to be educated by a Woke NGO that knows what’s best for them. So please allow me to teach you about your holiday from a perspective of Solidarity and Global Justice. Ready? Here we go!

Long ago there was a land called “Shushan” in what today is Iran. Frankly, I’m not an expert on Iran as we mostly focus on countries with poor human rights records. Anyway, there lived a King named Ahashveros who was looking for a wife. He chose a woman named Esther who was apparently quite attractive but unbeknownst to the King, was a Zio Jewish. Esther had an Uncle named Mordecai who was quite an effective Lobbyist for Jewish Interests in the Kingdom

Sadly, the King didn’t notice these activities. Yet one of his Deputies was a keen-eyed observer named Haman. As time went on, Haman saw the growing power imbalance between the Jewish subjects and the Indigenous population of Shushan. In addition, Haman’s personal interactions with Mordecai left him feeling Marginalized and Othered. Deciding to Speak Truth to Power, Haman devised a series of responses to this Structural Injustice. Some of Haman’s proposed solutions seemed rather rash. But it’s not me to judge. Amnesty takes no political views on any question, including the right of the State of Israel to survive. (NON-SATIRE TIME-OUT: He. Really. Said. This.)

Mordecai learned of Haman’s Roadmap for Restorative Justice and notified his niece Esther, who then broke with agreed-upon norms and went directly to the King with her grievances. Feeling the full weight of Queen Esther’s Hasbara, King Ahashveros relented and in a clear-cut case of State-sanctioned cruelty, put Haman to death.
FDD: While Others Debate No-Fly Zones, Take These Steps Now to Help Ukraine
In addition to continuing to rush man-portable anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and other weapons to Ukraine, the West should take five specific steps immediately:
- Share Targeting Intelligence — The U.S. government is still not sharing all the intelligence it can with the Ukrainian military to target invading Russian forces. Washington has the means to do so but the Biden administration is slow-walking the policy decision. Each day this intelligence is withheld from Kyiv helps Russian forces and hurts Ukrainians defending their homes. We are already sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. We should also give Kyiv the information it needs to best employ those weapons against invading Russian forces.

- Diversify Supply Lines — NATO and like-minded partners have conducted an impressive, if belated, effort to supply Ukraine with lethal and non-lethal aid. However, a large proportion of those supplies are being flown into a single airbase in Poland and then moving over land into Ukraine. Those supply lines into Ukraine from Poland are increasingly vulnerable to Russian attacks. The Kremlin has recently conducted strikes in Western Ukraine, and we should expect strikes on weapons convoys coming from Poland next. NATO members should open additional supply lines, including from Romania and Slovakia. Washington and NATO allies should transfer to Ukraine additional capabilities to defend those weapons convoys once they cross into Ukraine.

- Provide Secure Tactical Communications — Ukrainian forces continue to conduct much of their command and control and operational communications via unsecure channels. This allows Russia to listen in and endangers Ukrainian forces. Admittedly, this problem also afflicts some Russian forces. For that reason, giving Kyiv at least a modest means to conduct encrypted communications could provide Ukraine an important advantage. Secure communications are the backbone of coordinated and effective military action, including in the intense urban warfare that may become more prevalent in the coming days.

- Prepare for Chemical Attacks — Russia has been setting the stage to potentially conduct a chemical attack in Ukraine. Moscow has a long and deplorable record of employing chemical weapons abroad. Washington should sprint to help Kyiv prepare for a chemical attack. This should include planning assistance and the provision to Ukrainian forces of the protective equipment they would need to survive and operate after a chemical attack.

- Help Ukraine Counter Russian Jamming — There has been a recent uptick in jamming attacks from the Russians against Ukrainian forces, with some of these attacks possibly coming from Belarus. These attacks are likely intended to interfere with the ability of the Ukrainian military to fly unmanned aerial systems, including the TB-2 drones that have been so effective. The United States can help Ukraine counter jamming efforts and should do so without delay.

While pundits in Washington debate no-fly zones, taking these five steps can help Ukraine better defend itself and raise the costs for Putin’s aggression.
Noah Rothman: Russians Wanted the Soviet Union Back. They Got It.
Reliable reporting from inside Russia is increasingly hard to come by, though, because the economy isn’t the only thing that has reverted to proper Soviet form. The information environment in Russia has become a dystopian nightmare almost overnight. As the costs of his war began to bite, Putin moved quickly to crush the last few independent media outlets in Russia. Foreign social-media venues, too, have been banned—including wildly popular platforms such as Instagram parent company Meta, which has been deemed an “extremist organization.” Dissent against the official Kremlin narrative is now criminal; even calling the war in Ukraine a “war” is a prosecutable offense. The few videos still trickling out of Russia indicate that police are now stopping pedestrians on the street and searching their cell phones for evidence of subversive thought.

The information landscape inside Russia is so corrupted that Western analysts are now forced to practice the old art of Kremlinology. Regional observers have been reduced to scrutinizing Kremlin-approved photographs of regime events to glean insights into dynamics within Putin’s inner circle. Either that, or they’re carefully studying Russian talk shows to discern the regime’s thinking on a range of issues. The media environment is so degraded that no less a figure than the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense seems perfectly comfortable appearing on television to allege that the U.S. is weaponizing Ukrainian birds to “distribute biological weapons.” Such fantastical claims can only face public scrutiny if public scrutiny is a legal and compelling feature of civil society.

Amid all this, Putin seems quite pleased with himself. The Russian president’s disconnection from reality is near total. “The Soviet Union always lived under sanctions and succeeded,” the hidebound autocrat asserted this week. If Putin considers the Soviet Union’s history of violence, repression, economic stagnation, and self-dissolution a success, it’s hard to imagine that he can conceive of failure. Indeed, from his perspective, the invasion of Ukraine and all its attendant hardships is a success.

Sure, Moscow hasn’t secured any of its strategic objectives in Ukraine, and Russia is sure to emerge from this conflict an isolated and diminished global power wholly dependent on rogue states for its survival. But Putin has the visuals he wanted. Today, the flag of the Soviet Union once again adorns tanks rolling into Europe, and the 1945 victory banner flies over Ukraine. The sound of dissent arising from the streets is muted amid the terrified screams of the brutalized and oppressed. The market has been tamed, and the Russian people have been rendered placid and governable once more. This is the “greatness” Russians supposedly longed for. Now they have it.


Zelensky suggests Jerusalem host negotiations between Ukraine, Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested on Saturday that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end the war could be held in Jerusalem.

The Ukrainian leader also told media he believed Israel could provide security guarantees for his country, and said he hoped Prime Minister Naftali Bennett would have a positive influence on negotiations.

Zelensky spoke at a special briefing for reporters from Kyiv, under heavy guard.

“We generally support mediation by anyone,” he said in an answer to a question about Israel’s potential role, posed by a reporter for Haaretz. “But I wouldn’t call Prime Minister Bennett ‘anyone.’ You can play an important role because Israel is a country with a rich history.”

Zelensky added that Ukrainian immigrants were among Israel’s founders, “who brought with them their history and their desire to build a great country, as it is now. So it’s not bad at all for us to have such mediation.”

He said he told Bennett he did not believe negotiations could take place in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus.

“These are not places where we can come to any understandings on ending the war — I’m not talking about technical meetings but meetings between leaders. I believe Israel can be such a place, especially Jerusalem. I think so, and I said this to Bennett.”
Ukraine Trusts in Israeli Mediation, Denies Bennett Advised Caving to Russia
Ukraine voiced hope on Saturday for positive results from Israel‘s bid to broker peace with Russia, denying a media report that suggested Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had tried to nudge Kyiv into caving to Moscow’s demands.

Bennett, acting at Ukraine’s behest, held a three-hour Kremlin meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Saturday. He has since spoken twice with Putin by phone and four times with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, officials say.

“I believe (Bennett) can play an important role, because Israel is a country with a lot of history and parallels (to our situation), as well as having a large migration of Jews from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus,” Zelenskiy said in a briefing.

Earlier on Saturday, a top Ukrainian adviser denied a report carried by Israel‘s Walla news, the Jerusalem Post and US news site Axios that had suggested, citing an unidentified Ukrainian official, that Bennett had urged Ukraine to give in to Russia.

Israel, “just as other conditional intermediary countries, does NOT offer Ukraine to agree to any demands of the Russian Federation,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, tweeted. “This is impossible for military & political reasons. On the contrary, Israel urges Russia to assess the events more adequately.”

A senior Israeli official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, called the report “patently false.”

“At no point did Prime Minister Bennett advise President Zelenskiy to take a deal from Putin – because no such deal was offered to Israel for us to be able to do so,” the official said.


MSNBC guest: Hitler didn't kill ethnic Germans unlike Putin to Russians
MSNBC attracted criticism on social media for a segment Friday in which a guest downplayed the extent of Adolf Hitler's genocide.

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and a Stanford University professor, highlighted the controversial opinion to juxtapose Hitler's reign with the brutality of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

"One of the Russian journalists said you know there's one difference between Hitler when he was coming in and Putin. Hitler didn't kill ethnic Germans. He didn't kill German-speaking people. I think people need to remember when we are talking about cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol and Kyiv, there are large populations there up to a third and sometimes much to a half that are Russian speakers and ethnic speakers. And yet Putin doesn't seem to care about that. He slaughters the very people he's come to liberate," he said on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show.

McFaul said the "interesting" take came from a Ukrainian show on which he appeared shortly before the MSNBC hit.

A clip of McFaul's remarks posted by staffers for The Rachel Maddow Show quickly amassed over a million views before the tweet got deleted.

The segment drew swift criticism on social media. Some seemed stunned that the staff on Maddow's show tweeted the clip after it aired.
Whitehouse Russia Adviser Michael McFaul Denies Holocaust Defends Hitler Live On Maddow



My Jewish family fled the Russians too, says new Minister for Refugees
The new Minister for Refugees has told the JC of his honour at being appointed to help desperate Ukrainian refugees find sanctuary in Britain.

Richard Harrington, a Jewish former MP, was made a life peer and appointed by Boris Johnson to the role amid growing criticism of Britain’s handling of the crisis.

He told the JC that being the descendent of Jews who fled the pogroms of Russia and Poland gave him a special affinity with Ukrainian families fleeing the horror of war.

He said: “I am both honoured and moved to be chosen for this role. I am Jewish and I am descended from refugees who came to Britain and found a safe haven when they fled the pogroms.”

The former chairman of the executive board of Conservative Friends of Israel added: “I had quit frontline politics but I came back for this job because I know how important it is to give people who have been so traumatised a new home. Jewish people feel a special affinity to the refugee cause.

“This is the second time I have carried out this role – David Cameron appointed me during the Syrian crisis. My immediate priority will be getting the system going and ensuring good quality accommodation for those who are turning to this country for help.”

Born to a working class Jewish family, Mr Harrington, 63, grew up in Leeds and his father sold clothes from a market stall.

His father’s ancestors arrived in Britain when Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews to escape from the Spanish Inquisition. His maternal family were victims of Russian and Polish pogroms and arrived in the 1890s.
Why are British soldiers deserting to fight in Ukraine?
But in Sir Tony’s speech the inference was that the British armed forces might in the future jeopardise combat effectiveness for the sake of meeting diversity targets. That was also the implication of the army’s £1.6m advertising campaign back in 2018, which addressed questions such as ‘Can I be gay in the army?’ and ‘What if I get emotional in the army?’. The campaign was revealed soon after the team of General Sir Nick Carter, Radakin’s predecessor as chief of the defence staff, wrote a report suggesting the previous advertising campaign, 'Be the Best' was now ‘dated, elitist and non-inclusive’

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British operations in Afghanistan, excoriated the campaign, stating that the main attraction for young men in joining the army was the prospect of fighting. ‘The main group of people who are interested in joining aren’t worried so much about whether they are going to be listened to,’ he said. ‘They are going to be attracted by images of combat.’

This explains why some British soldiers are deserting and heading to Ukraine: they want to see some action. As I wrote on Coffee House on Wednesday they are misguided in doing so, but their courage and resolve should be respected.

Last month, soldiers were forced by their superiors to undergo a training day in order to help ‘remove barriers, maximise diversity and enhance operational capability through true inclusion’. One hopes it was a worthwhile exercise, though perhaps a more useful one would have been a live fire exercise on Salisbury Plain.

The worrying impression conveyed by several senior military figures is that they are travelling in the same calamitous direction as their counterparts in the police, pushing a progressive ideology that saps the morale and undermines the effectiveness of the fine young men and women in their ranks. To paraphrase that famous description of soldiers in the first world war as lions led by donkeys, today’s troops are lions led by dogma.


Gaza factions form body to ‘support’ Israeli Arabs
Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip on Saturday announced the formation of a “national commission” to defend and support the Arab citizens of Israel.

A committee representing the factions said that the new body would consist of representatives of “the National and Islamic factions, civil society organizations, legal experts, dignitaries, religious figures and clan leaders.”

The commission’s goal is to “emphasize the unity of the Palestinian people in all their political, national and geographical locations,” according to the committee.

Khaled al-Batsh, a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) official and coordinator of the so-called Follow-up Committee of the National and Islamic Forces, said that the commission was formed “to emphasize the unity of the [Palestinian] cause, the people and the land in the face of the occupation.”

Batsh warned that all Israeli “schemes aimed at Judaizing, annexing and confiscating Palestinian land will not pass.”

The “resistance” factions in the Gaza Strip, he said, stand with the Israeli Arabs and are ready to support them with the weapons that these groups possess.

Addressing the Israeli Arabs, the PIJ official said: “We will not allow anyone to erase our identity and the unity of our people.”
Palestinian woman recounts torture, abuse in ‘Jericho Slaughterhouse’
For the first time since her arrest by Palestinian security forces in 2018, Suha Jbara took the stand and testified last week about how she was brutally treated at the hands of her interrogators.

Jbara, a Palestinian woman with US and Panamanian citizenship, was arrested in November 2018 during a raid by Palestinian Authority security forces on her home in the town of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah.

The mother of three was charged with “collaboration” with Israel, illegal possession of weapons and distributing money to Islamic charities in the West Bank.

Jbara was held in the PA’s Jericho Prison, which is referred to by many Palestinians as the “Jericho Slaughterhouse” because of allegations of torture and abuse of detainees.

During her detainment, Jbara went on a 26-day hunger strike and was hospitalized, where she was kept shackled to her bed. She was finally released in January 2019 but has since been on trial in a Palestinian court in Jericho.

Jbara’s full testimony, obtained by The Jerusalem Post, sheds light on the harsh methods used by Palestinian interrogators against detainees.

“They took me to an unknown place,” she told the three judges, Fahmi al-Uwaiwi, Islam al-Husseini and Fatmeh al-Natsheh. “I was tired and exhausted. When we entered an office, the person asked me: ‘Do you know where you are now?’ I told him: ‘In the General Investigation [Department].’ He replied: ‘No, you are now in the Jericho Slaughterhouse.’ Then they took me to the Jericho Hospital for a pregnancy test, although I was undergoing menstruation.”


Why Are the Biden Administration, EU, Appeasing the Iranian Regime?
Many Iranians, meanwhile, in defiance of Iran's regime, gathered outside the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran to express their support for the Ukrainian people, criticize the Iranian government for supporting Russia, and chanted "Death to Putin".

As police began cracking down on the protesters, the Biden administration and the EU remained silent.

Why are the Biden administration and the EU appeasing the Iranian regime, which has for four decades attacked Americans and carried out terrorist activities and assassinations?

The Biden administration and the other members of the JCPOA nuclear deal negotiated in 2015 (China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany) -- with the European Union -- instead of holding Iran to account, are evidently determined to reward it. It is not quite clear for what. For years of unspeakable behavior, both to its own citizens and internationally?

Meanwhile, as the US has been negotiating this new agreement, US intelligence services have just identified "at least two Iranians" as trying to assassinate former officials of the Trump administration. The Biden administration is said to have been trying to cover up the plot lest it derail the negotiations to shower Iran with "rewards".

The Iranian regime, an official state sponsor of terrorism, has carried out terrorist activities around the world for almost four decades. Why are the Biden administration and the EU not implementing the same policies towards Iran's regime as they are towards Russia?


Peter Beinart’s Fleeting Concern for Consistency Results in Historical and Legal Revisionism
Writing for The Guardian on March 10, Peter Beinart makes an amateurish and fundamentally flawed attempt to rely on international law to make a comparison between “Putin’s aggression” and U.S. recognition of Israel’s “annexation” of the Golan Heights.

The gist of Beinart’s argument is that the U.S. recognition contributed to the “erosion of the norm against international aggression,” and thus it is somehow hypocritical for the U.S. to criticize Russia for invading Ukraine.

In making this argument, Beinart exposes complete disdain for and ignorance of not only history, but of the very legal concepts he seeks to rely on. He also displays his own inconsistent concern for respect of international law.

The Facts of Israel’s Control over the Golan Heights
Israel’s control over the Golan Heights was a result of acts of aggression, but not Israel’s.

Arab aggression against Israel had been a feature of life in the region since even before Israel declared independence. Syria was one of the invading armies in 1948. It launched infiltration attacks on Israel through the end of the decade and into the 1950s. During the 1960s, Syria provided substantial operational assistance and support for Palestinian Arab attacks, while frequently shelling Israeli workers and towns from the Golan Heights.

Israel then captured the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967, which had been prompted by not only incessant attacks by state-sponsored armed bands (an act of aggression itself), but also by Egypt’s blockading of the Straits of Tiran (an act of war), the removal of UN peacekeeping forces from the Sinai, and the subsequent build-up of Arab forces surrounding Israel’s border – all amidst increasingly bellicose and genocidal statements by Arab officials.

Worth noting in light of Beinart’s attempted comparison, those Arab armies had been provided with billions of dollars in military aid from the Soviet Union, the predecessor to the Russian Federation which is currently invading Ukraine. Thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, hundreds of jets, and 1,400 military advisers had been shipped to these Arab countries by the Soviets prior to the Six-Day War. Indeed, Soviet intelligence likely played a significant role in causing the war when it fed Egypt false intelligence (a similar playbook Russia is employing today in relation to Ukraine) about Israeli troop movements just a few days before Nasser decided to remove UN peacekeepers.
Sierra Club cancels trips to Israel at urging of progressive and anti-Zionist groups
The national environmental nonprofit Sierra Club, headquartered in Oakland, has canceled its scheduled trips to Israel in response to pressure from progressive and anti-Zionist groups.

The decision came after activists alleged the organization was “greenwashing the conflict” and “providing legitimacy to the Israeli state, which is engaged in apartheid against the Palestinian people,” a volunteer leader with the nonprofit summarized in an email this week.

“Greenwashing,” like “pinkwashing” which refers to LGBTQ rights, is a term used by critics of Israel to refer to the act of obscuring Israel’s treatment of Palestinians by focusing on the country’s liberal environmental values or policies.

News of the Sierra Club’s decision came in a mass email obtained by J. that was sent out by Mary Owens, the chair of the Sierra Club’s National Outings team, to hundreds of volunteers who lead part-recreational, part-educational, conservation-focused trips around the world.

For years the Sierra Club, established in 1960, has offered trips to Israel to explore the country’s biodiversity, bird migrations, desert landscape and ancient ruins. Last year’s trip was called “Natural and Historical Highlights of Israel,” offered for two weeks in March for about $5,000 per person. It advertised a “comprehensive journey through this enduring land,” with birdwatching, sea snorkeling, a visit to the Dead Sea and evenings on a kibbutz. Sierra Club outings are a major source of fundraising for the organization.

The volunteer leader for that Israel trip was Shlomo Waser of Sunnyvale. Waser did not respond to a request for comment from J.

On the Sierra Club’s website more than 250 upcoming trips are listed, including more than 200 to sites in the U.S. and others to places like Malaysia, Nepal and Antarctica. A trip to China is planned for October. The website no longer lists a trip to Israel, and a number of webpages with information on past Israel trips were down on Friday afternoon. A notice appears at the top of the Middle East destinations landing page noting “There are currently no Middle East trips scheduled.”
U of Michigan accidentally sends email vowing commitment to advancing antisemitism
Like many American universities today, the University of Michigan wants its community to know that it is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, known as DEI.

But for Jews, an email its chief diversity officer sent today inadvertently communicated the opposite effect.

In a letter to all students, staff and faculty, Robert Sellers, the university’s Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer, said the university must “renew our commitment” to “the advancement of anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-Semitism, gender equity and building a climate resistant to sexual misconduct.”

The inclusion of the phrase “anti-Semitism” among a list of inclusion-focused terms the college intends to “advance” immediately turned heads.

“They’re doing what now with antisemitism?” Justin Joque, a visualization librarian at the university, asked in a viral tweet. The error was clear: While “anti-Semitism” has the same prefix as the other terms, it refers to the hatred of Jews, while the others refer to efforts to combat hatred and discrimination.

The line flew around social media amid questions about how an internal university communication, which usually goes through several layers of copy-editing, could have been published with such a mistake intact.

University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the use of the term was “clearly an error.” Fitzgerald did not respond to JTA questions about the internal review and editing process for campus-wide emails.
A tiny Iowa museum remembers farm girls’ pen pals Anne and Margot Frank
Danville, Iowa, may seem an odd place for a Holocaust museum — until one learns that in the spring of 1940, an envelope addressed to “Miss J and B Wagner” brought letters written by Jewish sisters in Amsterdam to sisters living on a southeast Iowa farm.

That correspondence — from Anne Frank to Juanita Wagner, and from Margot Frank to Betty Wagner — is the cornerstone of Danville Station, an off-the-beaten-path museum that tells a unique story.

Nearly all of the Holocaust museums and memorials in the United States are in cities or suburbs, usually with large or historic Jewish communities. Danville, 13 miles (21 kilometers) west of the Mississippi River, is an exception by its location, a population of fewer than 1,000, and that neither the Iowa Jewish Historical Society nor other state and county history groups cite any Jewish past in the town.

The town did have a teacher who wanted students at Danville Community School to understand that there was a wider world beyond fields of corn, oats and soybeans. Birdie Mathews enjoyed travel, in the United States and abroad, and along the way collected names for her “International Correspondence Program.”

In a videotaped 2008 interview on view at Danville Station, Betty Wagner recalled how the exchange of letters with sisters attending a Montessori school in Amsterdam was arranged. At the time, Juanita and Anne were 10 years old, while Betty and Margot were 14.

“The teacher asked us if we wanted to write to someone overseas. I can remember how excited we were. It would be a great thing to do… We wrote that we lived on a farm. We had cows and chickens and pigs. It was just friendly talk. We didn’t have television and sometimes we didn’t even have a radio. All we had was a little weekly newspaper that wasn’t very worldly. So, to write to somebody overseas was a great experience,” Betty said.
The MOST Beautiful Place in Israel Right Now!





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