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Saturday, April 30, 2022

From Ian:

Security guard killed in Ariel terror attack named as Vyacheslav Golev
The security guard killed in a terror shooting at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Ariel on Friday night was identified as 23-year-old Vyacheslav Golev.

Golev was a former student at Ariel University. He had recently moved to live with his fiancée in the West Bank community. They were engaged just a few weeks before the attack.

He is survived by his parents and seven siblings who live in Beit Shemesh, and his fiancée who was stationed at the guard post during the attack.

Golev used his body to shield her from the hail of bullets, saving her life, according to military officials.

His fiancée, named as Victoria Fligelman from the southern city of Ashkelon, was not wounded in the attack

The Beit Shemesh municipality said it was embracing Golev’s family. “The security guard showed supreme heroism and saved the life of the security guard who worked with him,” Mayor Aliza Bloch said.


Mossad said to foil plot by Iran’s IRGC to assassinate Israeli diplomat in Turkey
The Mossad spy agency foiled a recent Iranian attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat working at the consulate in Istanbul, Hebrew-language media reported Saturday.

The outlets said a number of Israeli officials had confirmed earlier reporting of the plot by London-based Iran International, an Iranian opposition news outlet.

Iran International said that in addition to the Israeli worker at the consulate, an American general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France were also targeted in the plot.

According to the unsourced report, a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was arrested in an unnamed European country in connection with the planned attack. It was not clear precisely when the plot unfolded.

The suspect was said to have been a member of Unit 840 of the Quds Force, the branch of the IRGC tasked with carrying out overseas operations. He was said to also be connected to drug-smuggling networks.

According to the report, the suspect told investigators he had received $150,000 for the preparations for the assassinations, and would receive a further $1 million if he killed the three targets.

There was no official comment on the report from Turkey or Israel.

In February, it was reported that Mossad helped foil 12 plots to carry out terror attacks on Israelis in Turkey over the past two years, most of the plots linked to the Islamic State jihadist group.
Mossad agents interrogated IRGC member in Iran over assassination plot — reports
The Mossad spy agency arrested a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Iranian territory for his alleged involvement in an attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, Hebrew media reported Saturday.

The reports contradicted accounts of the arrest published earlier in the day, which said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member was detained in an unnamed European country for his connection with the planned attack against the diplomat working at the consulate in Istanbul.

According to the new reports, Mansour Rasouli, 52, admitted to Mossad agents during an interrogation at his home that he was sent to target the Israeli diplomat, as well as an American general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France.

An audio recording said to be of Rasouli was published by Israeli television networks, along with his picture. “We will assassinate these three for the Islamic Republic. They insisted this would be carried out,” a man’s voice is heard saying in the recording.

The TV reports provided no source for the audio recording.

Channel 12 news added, without citing a source, that the Shin Bet security agency — which generally operates within Israel — also participated in the arrest in Iran.


Ukraine as an argument against anti-Zionists on the Left
Walzer rejected the notion that being Left and a Zionist is a dying breed in the US, and said that, “in an odd way, the Ukrainian war is going to help us.”

The Ukrainian fight against the Russians, he said, is the paragon of a “just war.”

The Ukrainians, he explained, “are fighting an unprovoked attack, defending themselves. There is a line from [military theorist Carl von] Clausewitz that says every invader would like to march unopposed into the other country; it is the people who resist the invasion who start the war. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin thought there would not be much resistance.”

The Ukrainians, he said, “proved that the Russian war was one of aggression by resisting it, by fighting, by risking their lives for their country’s freedom.”

So how does that help left-wing Zionists defending Israel on often hostile US campuses?

“Because Ukraine is the nation-state of the Ukrainian people, with a 20% [Russian] minority, and Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, with a 20% [Arab] minority inside the Green Line. They are very similar, and if you realize the importance of Ukrainian nationhood, I think it is much easier to realize the value of Jewish nationhood.”

Walzer said that while there are some on the Left who blame everything on NATO expansionism and American imperialism and apologize for the Russians, and others on the far Left who criticize the Ukrainians for not surrendering, because they feel that preventing the loss of life is more important than Ukrainian freedom, “there is an awful lot of people on the Left, the liberal Left, who are very strongly supporting Ukraine. And I think we should be making the point that if they support a nation-state like Ukraine, they should support a nation-state like Israel.”

But don’t hold your breath.

As Walzer himself wrote in a 2019 essay in Dissent called “Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism,” the most common leftist version of anti-Zionism derives from a “strong opposition to nationalism and the nation-state.” Yet this opposition is selective, he noted, and when the second half of the 20th century witnessed the collapse of the British, French and Soviet empires, most on the Left “supported pretty much all the postimperial creations... except one.”

Walzer wrote that the Left supported the Vietnamese, Algerian, Burmese, Sudanese, Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian nationalist aspirations, but did not support those same aspirations of the Jews.

That being the case, is there any real reason to think that the Ukrainian example will alter the equation?

Regardless, he said, this is an argument well worth making.
Acclaimed Filmmaker Ken Burns Focuses New Documentary on US Role, Response to Holocaust
A three-part movie from award-winning American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns about the role the US played before, during and after the Holocaust is scheduled to premiere in September on PBS.

“The US and the Holocaust” is inspired partly by an exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Americans and the Holocaust.” The film examines the US government’s response to the Holocaust as it unfolded in Europe and the controversies surrounding its decisions — including the discussion about whether the Allies should have bombed the Auschwitz concentration camp, and an incident in which more than 900 Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis were denied entry to Cuba and the US in 1939, forcing them to return to Europe.

The documentary will also explore the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in relation to global antisemitism and racism, and American policy on topics like race laws in the south, the anti-immigration views of former US President Calvin Coolidge, and the Lend-Lease bill, which allowed the US to supply military aid to its foreign allies during World War II.

The film, written by Geoffrey Ward, will be directed and produced by Burns alongside Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, who is making her directorial debut on the project. Narrators will include Liam Neeson, Matthew Rhys, Helena Zengel, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep, Werner Herzog, Joe Morton and Hope Davis.

“History cannot be looked at in isolation,” said Burns this week. “While we rightly celebrate American ideals of democracy and our history as a nation of immigrants, we must also grapple with the fact that American institutions and policies, like segregation and the brutal treatment of indigenous populations, were influential in Hitler’s Germany. And it cannot be denied that, although we accepted more refugees than any other sovereign nation, America could have done so much more to help the millions of desperate people fleeing Nazi persecution.”

The documentary will also feature first-hand testimonies of Holocaust witnesses and survivors, as well as interviews with leading historians and writers. The film will confront “competing myths that Americans either were ignorant of the unspeakable persecution that Jews and other targeted minorities faced in Europe or that they looked on with callous indifference,” PBS said in a press release announcing the project.
What The New Yorker Didn’t Say About a Famous Writer’s Anti-Semitism
Here’s what i don’t understand, in the case of the New Yorker essays and in the broader sense: Of all the forms of hatred in the world, why is anti-Semitism so often presented as somehow less evil than the others? Alice Walker’s beliefs are every bit as repugnant as Flannery O’Connor’s. Yet even The New Yorker is willing to dismiss them as the consequence of boomerism, of the sorrow and oppression of her youth, of YouTube—as a late-in-life aberration. It is willing to print an assessment of And the Truth Shall Set You Free that describes it as promoting “anti-Semitic crackpottery.” Crackpottery? That’s one way of putting it. I realize now that this phrase includes the only appearance of the term anti-Semitic in the essay. If you didn’t come to this essay with a preexisting understanding of Walker’s hateful ideas, I expect it would be very easy to read these sentences about her beliefs and not really know what they are.

Would The New Yorker publish an article on someone with vile beliefs about gays, for example, and never mention those beliefs until the very end—and then in such a coded way that a reader might miss them altogether?

It wouldn’t and it shouldn’t. So why is hatred of Jews treated so gently—and in The New Yorker of all places? Something is rising, and it’s happening right in front of us, and somehow we are all sleeping through the part when there is still time to step in. Last year, David Baddiel, a Jewish comedian from Britain, wrote a book, Jews Don’t Count, arguing that “a sacred circle is drawn around those whom the progressive modern left are prepared to go into battle for, and it seems as if the Jews aren’t in it.” Why? ??“There are lots of answers. But the basic one, underpinning all others, is that Jews are the only objects of racism who are imagined—by the racists—as both low and high status … somehow both sub-human and humanity’s secret masters.”

I’m also a “proper Boomer,” born in 1961, 16 years after the end of the Second World War. And like a proper Boomer, I read Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl as a teenager. The opening entries made the deepest impression on me—how joyous Anne’s life still was. The book begins with the occasion of her 13th birthday—the presents and flowers from her parents, the plate of cookies she baked and shared with her classmates, the weekend viewing of a Rin Tin Tin film. But already the yellow stars have been sewn on, the curfews implemented. The danger is rising, rising.

The Franks had two daughters, Anne and her talented older sister, Margot. The family was forced into hiding when Margot was “called up.” I didn’t know what that phrase meant. It meant that she received a letter ordering her to leave her home and report to one of the camps. I had an older sister too, and she was also the smarter, more patient one. What if someone came for her? What would we do?

The Franks went into hiding, and almost made it to safety: They lived in the secret annex for two years, and weren’t discovered until August of 1944—less than a year before victory in Europe. The family was sent to Auschwitz, and then the sisters were moved to Bergen-Belsen. Within a few months they died there, and neither of them was ever again seen on the face of this Earth.

Never let anyone—not David Icke, not Alice Walker, not the editors of The New Yorker, not anyone, ever—try to convince you that this hateful ideology is less serious than any other.
Eight heavy transport aircraft belonging to UAE landed in Israel in past two weeks
At least eight C-17 Globemaster heavy transport aircraft belonging to the United Arab Emirates Air Force have landed in Israel over the past two weeks.

The Boeing C-17A Globemaster III is a four-engine, heavy transport aircraft that can accommodate huge payloads of 164,900 pounds, fly 2,400 nautical miles and land on runways of 3,000 feet or less on a small airfield.

All the aircraft landed at Israel Air Force’s Nevatim airbase in southern Israel and took off about an hour after landing.

It is unclear why the heavy transport aircraft were in Israel though it is believed that they were likely transporting equipment related to defense contracts signed between the two countries.

Earlier in April, Sibat, the military exports unit of the Defense Ministry, said military exports by Israel brought in $11.2 billion last year, with 7% of that to Arab countries who have signed the Abraham Accords.

The UAE is part of a Saudi-led military campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and in recent months has been attacked by them several times with missiles and drones.

Israel has offered support to the Emirates against such attacks. Following a January missile and drone attack that killed three people in Abu Dhabi, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that he “ordered the Israeli security establishment to provide their counterparts in the UAE with any assistance” that could help to protect against future attacks.
How the Biden Admin Is Protecting Syria’s Assad From Sanctions
The Biden administration is trying to shield Syrian president Bashar al Assad from sanctions via a congressionally mandated report, according to lawmakers who say it is "late, lackadaisical, and riddled with errors."

The State Department was required on Tuesday to issue a report to Congress detailing the Syrian dictator’s financial empire but failed to meet that deadline. After requests for information on the report from the Washington Free Beacon and a pressure campaign from Republican foreign policy leaders, the State Department posted the report late Thursday.

The final report contained several errors, little-to-no new information about Assad’s empire, and left Republican lawmakers livid over what they say is the Biden administration’s bid to withhold critical information that could help Congress craft sanctions on Assad’s family and financial allies, including his benefactors in Iran.

Prior to the report's release, Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee told the Free Beacon that the Biden administration was withholding the report in order to avoid irritating Iran amid negotiations over a new nuclear agreement. They expected the report, which was legally mandated in bipartisan legislation passed last year, to provide details on Assad that would help Congress target the illicit financial channels that have enabled the dictator’s mass human rights crimes in Syria.

"What was released was late, lackadaisical, and riddled with errors," Rep. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon. "One cannot help but to think that this may have something to do with the erroneous negotiations taking place with Iran."

Fallon said the administration’s "trend of failing to apply the rule of law to its fullest degree to terrorist regimes such as this is deeply troubling" and called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "immediately issue a full and robust report."
Guard killed in W. Bank terror attack shielded girlfriend with his body, saving her
The 23-year-old security guard killed by two Palestinian gunmen in an overnight terror attack at the entrance to the settlement city of Ariel used his body to shield his girlfriend and saved her life, it was reported Saturday.

The woman, who was also stationed at the guard post, was not wounded in the attack, according to reports.

The two have not been publicly named — according to some reports, the couple was engaged.

The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday morning that when the gunmen began their attack, the security guard shielded his partner and moved to block the entrance to the settlement, thus saving countless other lives.

The man was shot and medics from the Magen David Adom ambulance service declared him dead at the scene.

Israeli security forces continued their hunt Saturday morning for the two Palestinian gunmen, whose attack was captured by security cameras at the entrance to Ariel.

Footage showed a blue Suzuki vehicle driving up to a guard post, where a gunman in the passenger seat opened fire.

The gunman and the driver then both got out and both fired into the guard post before driving off.


Terrorists captured by Israeli forces after killing Ariel security guard
Late on Friday night, 20-year-old security guard Golev Vyacheslav was killed after two Palestinian terrorists opened fire on him and then stabbed him at the Western entrance to the West Bank settlement city of Ariel.

At around 11.20 PM the two Palestinians pulled up to the entrance in a Suzuki with Israeli license plates. Security footage from the scene then showed them exit the car and open fire on the security post with what is believed to have been a Carlo submachine gun.

The men then returned to the car, before returning to the post to stab him before making a U-turn and driving away. The car was later found burnt out in the nearby Palestinian town Salfit.

Vyacheslav, who was from a Hardei (ultra-Orthodox) family of seven from Beit Shemesh, was guarding the entrance with his fiancee, Victoria Fiegelman, and shielded her with his body, saving her life.

The two men, along with the weapons used in the attack, were arrested in the West Bank village of Qarawat Bani Hassan “following intensive intelligence and operational activity by the Shin Bet, IDF and Israel Police,” read a joint statement released by the IDF, police and internal security agency.

“The security forces will continue to work to bring to justice those who are involved in terrorist activities and with anyone who assisted them.” the statement continued, adding that they were taken by the Shin Bet for further investigation.
Terror groups laud Ariel 'heroic operation,' call for escalating attacks
Buoyed by Friday night’s terrorist attack in Ariel and massive support during rallies at the Aqsa Mosque compound (Temple Mount) over the past few weeks, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have called for stepping up the fight against Israel. In separate statements, the groups also welcomed the Ariel attack, which resulted in the killing of a security guard.

Hamas officials said over the weekend that they consider the rallies that took place at the compound as a “referendum” in support of the armed “resistance” against Israel.

During the rallies, thousands of Hamas supporters chanted slogans in support of Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif and the group’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yayha Sinwar. The demonstrators also called on Hamas to bomb Tel Aviv and “blow up the heads of the Zionists.”

“The decision of the Palestinian people is that the resistance is the option and the shortest way to liberate Palestine and Jerusalem,” said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar.

But a leaflet distributed by Fatah activists in east Jerusalem on Friday criticized the worshippers for raising Hamas flags at the holy site. The leaflet also attacked the worshippers for chanting slogans against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.


Mansour Abbas: Coalition crisis with Ra’am remains unresolved
The crisis between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government and the Ra’am (United Arab List) Party has not yet ended. The party’s membership in the coalition is still frozen, Ra’am head Mansour Abbas said in an interview with Channel 12 on Saturday night.

Abbas denied reports that he had reached an agreement with Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid for Ra’am to resume voting with the coalition after the Knesset recess ends on May 9 – which would end the freeze that began over violence on the Temple Mount.

“We are currently negotiating and trying to reach solutions,” Abbas said. “Meanwhile, we have not reached a framework to end the situation we are in. On one hand, we are not interested in elections, which would not bring anything. On the other, we cannot continue living in uncertainty.

“Therefore, our preference is to advance issues in this coalition – and I hope, by the end of the recess, we will succeed in reaching understandings.”

Abbas faced criticism from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Saturday for remaining in the coalition despite police violence on the Temple Mount. Sinwar said Abbas was guilty of an “unforgivable crime.”

In the Channel 12 interview, the Ra’am leader said he does not owe Sinwar anything and he would continue to do what is right for Israeli-Arab society and the Palestinian people.

“We won’t be scolded by him,” Abbas said. “We believe the processes of partnership and tolerance that we are leading in Israel will bring peace between Israel and the Palestinian people closer.”
"Hamas Leader Threatens to Attack Synagogues Abroad Over Al Aqsa Mosque"
The head of Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization, Yahya Sinwar, has threatened to attack synagogues around the world if Israel “violates” the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Speaking on Saturday night in a speech that lasted more than an hour, Sinwar said, “Our people must prepare for a great battle if the occupation does not cease its aggression against the Al Aqsa Mosque. Violating Al Aqsa and Jerusalem means a regional, religious war,” he said.

The “aggression” referred to by the Iranian-backed terrorist leader has to do with Israeli police entering the mosque to disperse rioters on the holy site.

At the conclusion of the dawn prayer in Al Aqsa Mosque on Friday, hundreds of Palestinian Authority rioters began carrying out attacks in the Temple Mount courtyard which included throwing stones and launching live fireworks at Jews who were praying at the nearby Western Wall, forcing Israeli police to disperse them.

Referring to a photo projected behind him that showed Israel police officers inside the mosque on the Temple Mount, Sinwar threatened, “Whoever makes the decision to allow this photo to be repeated, the violation of Al Aqsa…has decided to allow the violation of thousands of synagogues all across the world.”

Filled with praise for the recent terrorist attacks that have taken the lives of 15 Israelis, Sinwar urged Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority to continue the attacks but focused the majority of his hate-filled speech on Al Aqsa.

During his speech, Sinwar also explained what he meant in a referral to the “important” number of “1,111” after the terror group’s war on Israel last May, ignited under similar circumstances.

The Hamas leader said in the next conflict, Hamas would fire 1,111 rockets at Israel in a single burst, to honor the anniversary of the death of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, who died on 11/11/2004, according to Middle East terrorism analyst Joe Truzman.

During the 2021 conflict, Hamas claimed that 100 rockets were fired in single bursts at Tel Aviv. “Sinwar’s claim would be significant, if true,” Truzman wrote.


Special Report: The Bone-Chilling Insanity of Iran's 'Jewish Studies Center'
Within the nexus of unaccountable bodies that make up the Iranian state, the Revolutionary Guards, the Foreign Ministry, Religious Endowments Organization and a number of others are also supporters of a virulent antisemitic supposed think-tank by the name of the Jewish Studies Center.

Since its inception in 2016, the site has published more than 1,000 antisemitic articles, reports, comment pieces, books and videos, arranged into 10 categories with such titles as the “Jews and the Media”, "Jewish Methods" and "Jewish Corruption". IranWire’s correspondent took on the thankless task of poring through the content of this website as an addendum to our earlier, longer examination into Iranian state-sponsored antisemitism.

The managing editor of the so-called Jewish Studies Center is a young Isfahani clergyman by the name of Kayvan Ezzati, also the editor-in-chief of the website Rasekhoon, which is similarly saturated with antisemitic content but belongs to Iran’s Religious Endowments Organization. In 2018, Ezzati won an award at the anti-Israeli “International” Hourglass Festival, whose biggest sponsor is the Seraj Organization: the IRGC’s most important online affiliate.

The festival was dedicated to antisemitism under the guise of supporting Palestinians. In its final ceremonies that year, among the honored guests were Ahmad Vahidi, president of Iran’s Supreme National Defense University, General Esmail Ghani, now the commander of the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force, Abdallah Safi-Al-Din, Lebanese Hezbollah's envoy to Iran, and Ahmad Ghayoumi, vice president of Seraj. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, now Iran’s heavily IRGC-aligned foreign minister, was the head of the organizing committee.

Ezzati and other operators of his “think tank” claim the site is “completely private, its articles prepared with the collaboration of university professors and seminary teachers, not funded by the government, its budget provided by financial contributions from members”. It has so far refused to disclose what the budget is or who the members are.

The reason for this secrecy – or at least, the reason given by career antisemites – is a fanciful idea, often touted by the Islamic Republic, that activities against Jewish people and the Baha’i community could put a person’s life at risk.
Giving Carrots to Iran Will Not Alter Its Brutal, Expansionist Plan
"The Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ... will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God's way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God's law throughout the world." – Constitution, Islamic Republic of Iran

"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle." -- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, 1981

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world." --Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, The Economist, November 20, 2007

Does anyone seriously think that having a bomb and billions of dollars will make the mullahs less aggressive?

It is time for the Biden administration and the European Union to see that, as with Putin's Russia, no amount of appeasement or concessions is going to pressure the Iranian regime – called by the US State Department itself "The world's worst state sponsor of terrorism -- to change its ruthless, expansionist program for the better.


Harvard Crimson endorses BDS movement while rejecting antisemitism
For years, the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper at Harvard University, has declined to back the movement to boycott Israel, even as it expressed concern about Israeli policies and supported the free-speech rights of Harvard student groups that did advocate for a boycott.

That changed Friday, when the newspaper published an unsigned editorial offering a full-throated endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in a potent symbol of a changing campus climate around Israel.

The editorial also expressed support for Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group that has for the past week been hosting the school’s chapter of the annual “Israel Apartheid Week” international event.

“We are proud to finally lend our support to both Palestinian liberation and BDS — and we call on everyone to do the same,” the Crimson’s editorial board wrote.

It was a notable shift from the paper’s history of opposing BDS, which the board cited in its editorial. As recently as 2020, the Crimson expressed ambivalence.

“In the past, our board was skeptical of the movement (if not, generally speaking, of its goals), arguing that BDS as a whole did not ‘get at the nuances and particularities of the Israel-Palestine conflict,'” the editorial said. “We regret and reject that view.”

What changed, the Crimson’s editors said, was “the weight of this moment — of Israel’s human rights and international law violations and of Palestine’s cry for freedom.”

Whereas past Crimson editors had called comparisons between Israel and Apartheid-era South Africa “offensive” and “repugnant,” the editorial published Friday favorably compares BDS tactics to the anti-Apartheid movement, while adding that “Israel remains America’s favorite first amendment blindspot” because individuals and companies that criticize Israel regularly face criticism and consequences, sometimes dictated by state law.
Jewish Groups Denounce Endorsement of BDS by Harvard Crimson Student Newspaper
The editorial board of the storied Harvard Crimson student newspaper endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel on Friday, prompting a swift reaction from the campus’ Hillel and national Jewish leaders.

“It is sad to see the Harvard Crimson’s Editorial Board endorse BDS in an unsigned editorial on behalf of the paper this morning,” Rabbi Jonah C. Steinberg, Executive Hillel Director and Harvard Chaplain, wrote Friday in an email to community members seen by The Algemeiner. “Sadder still is the alienation some of our students connected with the Crimson feel, as well as the way this move on the part of the Crimson will reflect on Harvard generally in the perception of Jewish and other people far and wide.”

In an article published earlier Friday, the Crimson’s editorial board announced its support for Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, which drew recent controversy by installing a “Wall of Resistance” on campus that featured messages such as, “Zionism is racism.”

“Palestinians, in our board’s view, deserve dignity and freedom. We support the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement as a means to achieving that goal,” the board wrote Friday. “In the past, our board was skeptical of the movement (if not, generally speaking, of its goals), arguing that BDS as a whole did not ‘get at the nuances and particularities of the Israel-Palestine conflict.’ We reject and regret that view.”

It also pushed back against “accusations” of antisemitism over its stance, condemning “antisemitism in every and all forms, including those times when it shows up on the fringes of otherwise worthwhile movements.”

“BDS remains a blunt approach one with the potential to backfire or prompt collateral damage in the form of economic hurt. But the weight of this moment — of Israel’s human rights and international law violates and of Palestine’s cry for freedom — demands this step. As a board, we are proud to finally lend our support to both Palestinian liberation and BDS — we call on everyone to do the same.”

The BDS movement, which rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, calls for academic, cultural, economic and political boycotts against the country.
Joel Pollak: Harvard Crimson Calls for Boycott of Israel; Demands ‘Free Palestine’
The editorial does not explain why destroying the one Jewish state in the world, and the only guaranteed refuge for Jews facing persecution, would not be antisemitic. It claims, instead, that antisemitism is a shield against criticism of Israel.

The “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement is regarded by many critics as antisemitic, since it singles out Israel for condemnation, while doing nothing to pressure Palestinians, and doing nothing about human rights abuses elsewhere.

Elsewhere on the opinion page, the Crimson published a somewhat dissenting view of a student who is critical of Israel but opposes the use of the “apartheid” analogy. There was no editorial published that represented a pro-Israel point of view.

Separately, Harvard University reported this week that it had benefited from slavery, both through the ownership of 70 slaves by individuals associated with the university, and the receipt of donations from those who made fortunes in the slave trade.


Melbourne University Student Union passes BDS resolution
Melbourne University Student Union passed a resolution 10 votes to six on Friday that accused Israel of ongoing ethnic cleansing, apartheid, attacks on innocent worshipers and described Zionism as a “racist, colonial ideology.”

Zionist Federation of Australia President Jeremy Leibler said, “the student union has shamed itself with this motion. Zionism is Jewish self-determination and it is a central component of modern Jewish identity. This motion denies to Jews – and only to Jews – the right to self-determination. It is intrinsically antisemitic.

"The motion is also replete with easily disproven lies, and goes out of its way to avoid mentioning the decades of Palestinian violence and terrorism, which are the primary reasons Palestinians remain stateless.”

Leibler continued, “It is difficult to imagine the impact that this antisemitic resolution will have on the wellbeing and safety of Jewish students on campus at Melbourne University. It seems that the student union has great regard for all minorities on campus other than the Jewish students. I commend the Australian Union of Jewish Students for their advocacy in relation to this issue.”

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council expressed its disgust at an extreme anti-Israel and antisemitic motion passed by the Council of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU).

AIJAC Executive Director Dr. Colin Rubenstein stated, “this deplorable motion uses language we would have expected to have come from Hamas or Hezbollah, as terrorist groups committed to the destruction of Israel, not from the student union of an esteemed centre of learning here in Australia.

“Those behind the motion have created a fictitious, one-sided narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which Palestinians are natives and any Jewish connection to the land is denied. Based upon that falsehood, as constructed, the motion is antithetical to all that institutions of higher learning are meant to stand for, and will do untold harm to the credibility of both UMSU and the University of Melbourne.
Is a Rutgers University professor advising allies of BDS?
A representative of an organization whose mission is to “bolster the Palestine solidarity movement by challenging efforts to threaten, harass and legally bully activists into silence and inaction” said during a virtual program sponsored by Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., that the group has been responding to reports of students being “canceled” by being falsely accused of anti-Semitism at universities and colleges.

Amal Thamateh, the Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal, spoke on April 20 at the program, “Know Your Rights: College Activism on Palestine” on behalf of the Center for Security, Race and Rights, part of Rutgers School of Law.

The center engages in “research, education and advocacy on law and policy that adversely impact the civil and human rights of America’s diverse Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities.”

Its website also states the center works through an interfaith, cross-racial and interdisciplinary approach, and was formed after 9/11 as a response to discrimination and attacks against members of those communities.

Sahar Aziz, director of the center and professor of law and chancellor’s social-justice scholar, did not return email requests for comment on whether Muslim students are being targeted on Rutgers’ campuses, or pro-Palestinian students have felt canceled.
Resolution Backing Israel Boycott Passed by Marquette University Student Gov’t
The student government of Marquette University has passed a resolution endorsing the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, a campus newspaper reported Tuesday.

Launched in 2005, the BDS campaign opposes Zionism and rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation-state, seeking to isolate the country with economic, political, and cultural boycotts.

The BDS measure passed unanimously at a Marquette University Student Government (MUSG) meeting on Monday, according the student Marquette Wire news site. The student government president must now sign the resolution for its adoption, the report said.

The MUSG did not immediately return an Algemeiner request for comment and for further details about the resolution.

On Tuesday, the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter called the resolution’s passing a “monumental moment.” A separate petition circulated by the group called on supporters to help “get Sabra hummus removed from our campus and divesting funding/partnership from any Israeli companies/organizations.”

Commenting on the news to the Marquette Wire, Marquette University law professor Andrea Schneider called boycotts of Israel “problematic.”

“It ends up targeting and harming exactly the people, Palestinians and more liberal Israelis, [that] you want to help,” Schneider told the outlet, noting that the relocation of a West Bank SodaStream factory, following pressure from BDS activists, led to the loss of jobs for Palestinians.
University of Liverpool Students Reject Movement to Boycott Israel in Vote
Students at University of Liverpool rejected the boycott, sanctions, divestment (BDS) campaign against Israel in a school-wide referendum that was held this week.

On Friday, the Liverpool Guild of Students (LGS) announced that a proposal to endorse BDS was defeated by 72 votes, with 820 students voting against it and 748 voting in favor. 1,568 students, or 5.5% of the student body, participated in the referendum.

According to the LGS, the measure was first suggested in October on the “Change It” page of its website, a forum where students can request that the Guild endorse an idea or action. It was later debated on February 8 in LGS’ Guild Summit, a randomly selected body of 50 students that decides if “Change It” proposals should be sent to LGS’ Board of Trustees for final approval.

The question of whether to endorse BDS divided the Guild Summit, however, triggering a referendum in which the student body would have the final say.

“The referendum gave all students the opportunity to express their views on this topic and shape the action we should take,” LGS said, noting that it recognized the “sensitive nature of the referendum and the impact it has had across both sides of the debate.”

“We are committed to continuing to build positive campus relations and will be putting steps in place to ensure this,” it continued.
French Interior Minister’s Dissolution of Palestinian Solidarity Organization Overruled by Council of State
A high court in France has reversed a decision of the country’s interior minister to dissolve a pro-Palestinian organization accused of inciting antisemitic hatred.

In a ruling on Friday, the French Council of State — the supreme court for administrative matters — annulled a decision by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin to dissolve the “Collectif Palestine Vaincra” (“Palestine Will Overcome Collective”).

Darmanin had announced on March 9 that the Collective would be dissolved along with another solidarity organization calling itself the Palestine Action Committee. “As detailed in the executive order I presented, it called for hatred, violence and discrimination,” Darmanin said of the Collective.

Darmanin has also launched an offensive against Islamist groups in France during the last year, closing down several mosques around the country that were alleged to have been radicalized.

According to the Council of State, Darmanin’s ban was “neither necessary nor appropriate and constitutes a disproportionate attack on freedom of expression and freedom of association.”

The ruling added that the Collective “does not cause or contribute to discrimination, hatred or violence, that its positions vis-à-vis Israel and Zionism do not present an antisemitic character, that it has always condemned antisemitism, that the campaign to boycott Israeli products constitutes a legitimate means of expressing protest.”
Louisville Jewish mayoral hopeful resumes campaigning after being shot at
Louisville mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg had a bounce in his step as he made his way from house to house in search of voters on a cold spring afternoon. But when people recognized him, it wasn’t for reasons he’d anticipated when he announced his run last year.

Some had seen news reports from February 14, when a man showed up at Greenberg’s campaign headquarters and fired multiple rounds at the candidate and his staff, who barricaded the door with tables and chairs. No one was hit, but a bullet grazed Greenberg’s sweater. A local social justice activist was charged in the attempted shooting.

Now Greenberg, who is Jewish, has resumed his campaign in a city roiled by racial tension, a spike in gun violence and deep misgivings many harbor about the Louisville police department.

Not long after the attempt on Greenberg’s life, the only officer criminally charged for his actions in the Taylor raid was acquitted by a Kentucky jury, leaving many with a sense that the justice system had fallen short.

The suspect in Greenberg’s shooting, Quintez Brown, 21, was also on the May 17 ballot, a candidate for metro council. Now he’s in federal custody, charged with state and federal crimes that could put him away for the rest of his life. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Brown, who is Black, was released two days after the shooting when the Louisville Community Bail Fund paid his $100,000 bond. Republican minority leader Senator Mitch McConnell took to the floor of the US Senate almost immediately, calling Brown’s release “jaw-dropping” and suggesting that it reflected badly on his political rivals on the left.

But the blowback from Brown’s release crossed partisan lines. Charles Booker, a Louisville Democrat running for the US Senate seat held by Republican Rand Paul, insisted that “anyone who has been arrested for attempted murder — and is feared to be a harm to themselves and others — should be in custody.”


Toronto Police: Jewish community most victimized by hate crimes
The Jewish community was the “most targeted” for hate crimes in Toronto, according to the Toronto Police Service’s 2021 Annual Hate Crime Statistical Report, which was released earlier this week.

“The Jewish community represents 3.8% of the population in the City of Toronto but was victimized in approximately 22% of the total hate crimes,” the report stated.

Of a total of 257 hate crimes recorded last year throughout the Canadian city, 56 of them directly targeted the Jewish community. An additional 14 cases involving Jewish individuals were classified under a “multi-bias” criteria, as the victim also identified with another minority group, such as black, LGBTQ2S or Israeli.

“The new TPS report is deeply disturbing, even if not surprising, given the overall upsurge in anti-Semitism we’re seeing across Canada,” said Michael Levitt, president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC). “Yet again, Toronto’s Jewish community has the unwanted distinction of being the most-targeted group of the city’s racists and bigots.”

Levitt added that “we know the situation is even worse than the official statistics as many victims of hate crime never report them to the police, especially when it comes to the widespread anti-Semitism and other hate-filled content online. The report underlines the urgency of training and providing tools to police, as well as additional efforts by government officials and schools, to combat this scourge which undermines the very fabric of our diverse society.”


Germany takes Italy to UN’s top court over Nazi compensation claims
Germany has filed a case against Italy at the United Nations’ top court in a long-running dispute over World War II reparations. The International Court of Justice announced the filing late Friday.

The German case refers back to a previous ruling made by the UN court in 2012 in which it confirmed that Germany has legal immunity from being sued in foreign courts by victims of Nazi atrocities.

That ruling said that Italy’s supreme court violated Germany’s sovereignty in 2008 by judging that an Italian civilian was entitled to reparations for his deportation to Germany in 1944 to work as a slave laborer.

In its new case, Germany argues that despite that ruling, “Italian domestic courts, since 2012, have entertained a significant number of new claims against Germany in violation of Germany’s sovereign immunity.”

In the case that it won in 2012, Berlin argued that the Italian supreme court ruling threw into doubt a restitution system put in place after the Nazis’ defeat that has seen Germany pay tens of billions in reparations since the 1950s.

Germany’s new case asks judges at the Hague-based court to declare that “Italy has violated, and continues to violate, its obligation to respect Germany’s sovereign immunity by allowing civil claims to be brought against Germany” linked to Nazi war crimes and by planning to auction off four German-owned properties in Rome.
Vienna exhibit explores persistence of conspiracy theories around the Rothschilds
From 19th-century antisemitic caricatures to disinformation linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rothschild international banking dynasty has been a favorite target of conspiracy theorists blaming it for the world’s ills.

Now an exhibition at the Vienna Jewish Museum seeks to debunk some of the wild rumors and explore why the Rothschild name continues to attract them, especially as some people on social media look for what they say is proof that the elite is making money out of the virus.

“We often hear the names of George Soros or Bill Gates, Jewish or non-Jewish people who are responsible for everything,” exhibition curator Tom Juncker told AFP.

“And the name Rothschild keeps coming up, although no specific Rothschild is named, but the name Rothschild is used as a wild card,” he added.

The fame — and conspiracy theories — that the Rothschilds have long drawn have their roots in the family’s success in banking.

With “their rapid success,” the Jewish family — which made its fortune setting up banks in the 1800s around Europe — became “the face of the emerging banking industry,” drawing public attention and comment, Juncker said.

After censorship was abolished in the Habsburg Empire in 1848, cartoons and caricatures about them became ever more virulent and began to evoke an “alleged worldwide Jewish conspiracy, which has in fact continued until today,” he said. A screenshot from the Russian Channel 1 segment depicting the Rothschilds as a sow, and Israel, the CIA, MI6, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram as nursing piglets. (Screenshot/MEMRI-TV)

One of many items on display at the exhibition, which runs until June 5, is a 19th-century lithograph depicting family patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild, overweight and with a hooked nose, manipulating the ruling classes like juggling balls.
London exhibit charts 150 years of Europe’s antisemitism – and the fight against it
A new exhibition at London’s Wiener Holocaust Library showcases 150 years of efforts in France, Germany and the UK to battle Jew-hatred. Called “Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today”, the exhibit runs until September 2022. Among the objects on display are French newspapers proclaiming the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, leaflets that aimed to refute antisemitic Nazi propaganda in the 1920s, and photos depicting Jewish former servicemen protesting against fascist meetings in post-war Britain.

It highlights the depressing endurance of antisemitism in Europe and noble attempts to counter it, as well as presents some more positive developments in the attitude of the state and law-enforcement agencies. “Much of what we know about antisemitism over the last century comes from the work of those who have monitored and challenged it,” according to the exhibition.

The decision to stage the exhibition, says senior curator and head of education Dr. Barbara Warnock, was sparked in part by concerns about the rise in antisemitism charted by the Community Security Trust (CST). In February, the CST, which monitors antisemitism in Britain and protects Jewish venues, recorded the highest-ever total of anti-Jewish hate incidents in the UK. Those figures were exacerbated by the spread of antisemitic conspiracy theories online during the pandemic.

The exhibit, Warnock adds, is also linked to the library’s desire to display documents about its own role in the fight against Jew-hatred. The library houses the world’s oldest and Britain’s largest collection of original archival material on the Nazi era and the Holocaust. Its origins lay in the work of Dr. Alfred Wiener, who campaigned against Nazism during the 1920s and ’30s and gathered evidence about antisemitism and the persecution of Jews in Germany. After fleeing Germany with his family in 1933, Wiener established the Jewish Central Information Office (JCIO). It collected information about the Nazis, facilitating campaigns to raise public awareness of their crimes.

Documents displayed for the first time by the library include those which show the culture of printing and publishing in France at the time of the Dreyfus Affair. Both supporters of Dreyfus, who was convicted of espionage and treason on the basis of false evidence, and opponents, who waged a scurrilous antisemitic campaign against him, fought their battles through books, newspapers and pamphlets.

The “Dreyfusards” viewed their fight as part of a wider defense of liberalism and French republican values. As the journalist and writer Bernard Lazare said in 1897: “It is because he is Jewish that he has been judged; it is because he is Jewish that he has been convicted.”
Israel’s Timna Nelson-Levy wins historic gold medal at European Judo Championships
Israel’s Timna Nelson-Levy won a gold medal at the European Judo Championships in Bulgaria on Friday, only the second Israeli woman to win in the history of the tournament.

Nelson-Levy beat Olympic silver medalist Sara-Leonie Cysique in the final of the women’s under 57 kg contest.

Her teammate Shira Rishony won a bronze medal in the under 48 kg category.

Nelson-Levy, 27, a native Jerusalemite, born to American parents who immigrated to Israel shortly after getting married, is the first Israeli woman to win a gold at the European Championships since Yael Arad in 1993.

“It’s a dream,” she said after her win. “I gave everything, I felt great throughout the tournament and I had a really good preparation.”

Friday was the first day of the competition that runs through May 1.

Nelson-Levy previously won a bronze medal in the mixed team event at the Tokyo Olympics.

Judo is one of Israel’s strongest sports, with Israeli judokas taking home five of the nine Olympic medals won by the country.
He helped save 10,000 Jews from the Nazis; his family only found out 63 years later
Adi Daliot was in his 60s when he found out that his father, Hubert Pollack, helped save over 10,000 Jews in Nazi Germany during the years leading up to the Holocaust.

Sworn to secrecy by his co-conspirator, Jewish Anglo-German philanthropist Wilfrid Israel, Pollack kept his story quiet — even from his family. It was only after Daliot (the family adopted a Hebrew surname after moving to Israel) came across a written account by Pollack in 2002, nearly 35 years after his death, that Pollack’s heroic role became known.

Pollack is to posthumously receive the Jewish Rescuers Citation along with 12 other Holocaust-era heroes on Thursday, which marks Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, at the Forest of the Martyrs in the Jerusalem hills. Six million trees have been planted there in commemoration of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

The award was created in 2011 by the B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust (JRJ) to honor and recognize the Jewish rescue of fellow Jews during the genocide.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and museum, awards the Righteous Among the Nations designation for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews, but does not have an official honor for Jews who saved their own.

“The forms of Holocaust research and commemoration in Israel are largely set by the Yad Vashem Law, which lays out the institution’s scope of responsibility,” said B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem director Alan Schneider.

“The heroism of Jewish rescuers who risked their lives in an effort to save other Jews are not within Yad Vashem’s formal purview. Motivated by rescuers and rescued alike, B’nai B’rith World Center and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish rescuers decided to shine a spotlight on these selfless men and women through the establishment of the citation,” Schneider told The Times of Israel.

Pollack’s grandson, Ofer Daliot, said his father, now 84, has been waiting to see Pollack’s deeds recognized for years.
56 soldiers added to list of Israel’s fallen since last Memorial Day
Fifty-six soldiers were killed during their military service since Israel’s last Memorial Day, according to figures released by the Defense Ministry on Friday.

Another 84 disabled veterans died due to complications from injuries sustained during their service.

The numbers brought the total to 24,068 of those who have died during service to the country since 1860.

The annual figures include all soldiers and police who died in the past year, whether as a result of accidents, illness, or suicide.

Israel’s Memorial Day will commence next Tuesday evening when a one-minute siren will blare across the country. On Wednesday morning, a two-minute siren will sound ahead of national memorial ceremonies at Israel’s 52 military cemeteries.

Memorial Day is one of Israel’s few national, non-religious holidays, during which large swaths of the Israeli public typically visit the graves of loved ones and comrades.

In 2020, during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Memorial Day ceremonies took place without audiences, and smaller events planned for municipal cemeteries across the country were canceled for fear of coronavirus outbreaks. Last year, there were still some outdoor virus-related restrictions in place, but this year they have been lifted entirely.






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