11/29 Links Pt2: What happened to the 1947 UN Partition Plan?; The Failed British Double-Cross of Israel; Kanye walks out of interview after being questioned about antisemitic beliefs ~ EoZ

From Ian:

What happened to the 1947 UN Partition Plan?

Today, Nov. 29, 2022, is the 75th anniversary of the 1947 UN Partition Plan – UN General Assembly resolution 181 - which divided the geographical area to the west of the Jordan River, into two states: A Jewish state and an Arab state. In its essence, the Partition Plan was a fundamental breach of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which placed that entire area under the governance of Great Britain, for the sole purpose of creating a Jewish state on all of the land.

The 1922 Mandate for Palestine had already taken the entire geographical area then referred to as “Palestine” and divided it in two: The eastern part of Palestine - the Arab country - was placed under the rule of the Hashemite family and changed its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The western part of Palestine was to become the Jewish state.

Despite the breach of the Mandate, the Jewish leadership of the day – represented by David Ben Gurion - accepted the plan. The Arab leadership and countries, on the other hand, rejected the plan and immediately started planning how to eradicate the Jewish state before it even came into existence.

75 years later, speaking at the UN, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has now decided to accept the plan and even demand its implementation:
“Therefore, I present today to this UN organization, the title of international legitimacy in this world, with a formal request to implement General Assembly resolution 181, which formed the basis for the two-state solution in 1947…”

[WAFA, English edition, Official PA news agency, Sept. 23, 2022]

In making this demand, Abbas ignores a number of fundamental realities.

First, Abbas is demanding the implementation of a plan that has been defunct for 75 years. Living up to their promises, even before the British Mandate came to an end on May 14, 1948, the Arab countries attacked the nascent Jewish state.

[Boston Evening Globe, May 1, 1948]

While Israel managed to survive and expand in a war in which 6.000 Israeli men, women, and children were killed, a full 1% of the population most of the areas allocated for the Arab state - Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip - were occupied by Jordan (which was not yet recognized by the UN as a state) and Egypt, respectively.

In its original charter from 1965, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is now headed by Abbas, disavowed its connection to the areas provisionally allocated for the Arab state openly declaring:
“This Organization [The PLO] does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area”.

Indeed, while Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria (which it renamed “The West Bank”), from 1948 to 1967, they and the other Arab countries refrained from creating what could have been the “Palestinian” Arab state.

The Failed British Double-Cross of Israel

When the warrior poet Avraham “Yair” Stern founder and leader of Lohamei Herut Israel (Lehi, “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”) who believed that the British had to be forced out with assassinations and bombs and would never leave voluntarily, was killed after being captured and handcuffed by British detectives on Feb. 12, 1942, no Jew could celebrate his death.

But the leaders of the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine, already then led by David Ben-Gurion, viewed Stern’s death as a gain for the national cause rather than a loss—and not only because the poet and his followers were reckless political dilettantes: Some fantasized alliances with Mussolini, even the Nazis, as well as Arab nationalists in a common anti-British cause.

At a time of maximum danger—Rommel seemed to be on the verge of conquering Egypt, with Palestine next—Ben-Gurion and his allies doggedly pursued cooperation with the British in spite of bitter disappointments. Perhaps the worst of these was the May 1939 White Paper which limited the immigration of Jews to 75,000 over five years, sentencing countless European Jews to death at the hands of the Nazis. Yet Ben-Gurion believed, and rightly so, that the British were the least-bad allies the Jews could have.

Nor did Ben-Gurion have much choice. The Americans had refused to enter the war even after the Germans had conquered most of Europe. They still refused to act when the Germans seemed on the verge of defeating Russia, which would soon mean Britain’s defeat, too. On Dec. 2, 1941, German tanks were 14.7 miles from Moscow’s Red Square. America was only at war when Stern died in 1942 because the Japanese had attacked them.

It was unimaginable that the Americans would intervene on behalf of the Jews in the distant Middle East—indeed the U.S. only lifted its total weapons embargo on Israel in August 1962!—to allow the sale of defensive antiaircraft missiles, seven years after the Soviets had agreed to deliver bombers to Nasser’s Egypt (part of a huge Soviet weapons gift package misrepresented as “Czech” at the insistence of the CIA to avert hostility from their own man Nasser: That always-wrong agency was betting on Nasser’s mighty Arab nationalism rather than on seemingly puny Israel).

When Avraham Stern was killed, the communists still gave all their loyalty to Stalin. According to Ben-Gurion and the majority of Jewish leaders in Palestine, Churchill was still the best bet the Jews could have, even after the exposure of his crass duplicity toward the Yishuv. Having vehemently condemned the May 1939 White Paper to please his Jewish benefactors while out of office and short of ready cash, Churchill refused to change the policy once he became prime minister—thus denying escape from death to millions, and incidentally preventing my father, mother, two brothers, and myself from leaving Arad, Romania, to reach safety by a comfortable Orient Express ride to Istanbul and thence Haifa. A 5-inch-by-2-inch Palestine entry slip was enough to obtain Bulgarian and Turkish transit visas, but the British refused to issue them, even in 1944—by which point detailed eyewitness accounts and impeccable documentation of the operation of every part of the Nazi killing machine had reached London and Washington.

In spite of all that, on the evidence available at the time, Ben-Gurion was still mostly right and Avraham Stern was still mostly wrong. The British did eventually, and very reluctantly, agree to the U.N.’s termination of their mandatory rule on May 15, 1948, thus allowing the Jews to fight for their state. The qualifier is necessary because a factor in the British decision was the terrorist attacks inspired by Stern, including the July 22, 1946, bombing of the British headquarters in the King David Hotel whose 91 killed set a deadliest-attack record that lasted for decades.

I Was Robbed of 70% of the Land of Israel

Jordan ruled over Judea and Samaria, Egypt ruled over Gaza and Syria ruled over the Golan Heights. For those that do not understand the importance of the sentence above, it means that all the lands that the Arabs call “occupied” were under Arab control between 1948-1967! Was there peace?

It was Jordan, Egypt, and Syria that built the refugee camps and stuck their own Arab brothers and sisters in them to create a refugee problem in order to bash Israel. If creating a new State called Palestine was the goal and all the Arab countries are in favor of such a State, why didn’t Jordan Egypt and Syria help the “Palestinian” Arabs start a State during those 19 years (1948-1967).

Israel liberated Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan from Arab States occupation and it has nothing to do with an Arab people who call themselves (since 1964) Palestinians. We never occupied an Arab place called Palestine and there never was an Arab place called Palestine before Israel that could have been occupied.

You are probably saying this is enough to completely destroy the anti-Israel propaganda, but it gets much better (or worse). Today, Jordan is ruled by a king.

Over 75% of Jordan’s population are Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians”! So why hasn’t the majority of “Palestinians” taken over? Because Jordan does not give them full rights!

In fact, Jordan has the largest “Palestinian” refugee camps!

Where is the UN? Where is UNWRA? Where are the SJWs? Where are all the Leftists who care about Human Rights?

Just to sum up, Jordan sits on 77% of British Palestine and has a majority of over 75% of Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians”. Why aren’t the Arabs, who so want to create a Palestinian State, not fighting over 77% of the Land where they are a 75% majority? Why are they fighting over a small sliver of 23% where they are the minority? The answer is simple.

This has never been a struggle to build a new state called Palestine, it’s a struggle to destroy the one called ISRAEL.

Now, can we start fighting for truth and stop giving into false diplomacy that is based on lies?

#OTD in 1947, Jews around the world celebrated as the @UN adopted Resolution 181 in favor of creating independent Jewish and Arab states.

These are all of the countries that voted in favor:

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/hyXSUgZc1w
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 29, 2022

Find out why UN Resolution 181 remains very relevant today for 3 critically important reasons????https://t.co/IbF6B2PsZX
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 29, 2022

We need a global front against antisemitism

This begs the question, why are so many critical of Israel? Why is recognizing Israel’s right to exist 75 years later conditional on whether this fledgling country has “figured it out”? Jews have been living in this part of the world for more than 3,000 years. So why is it the Jews who are singled out and told they shouldn’t be allowed to live in their ancestral homeland? They are demonized for defending their rights and receive seemingly sharper criticism than other countries, even those that have played a role in European colonialism.

Further, Israel receives no praise or acknowledgment for the steps it takes to care for non-citizens within its borders. It treats Palestinians in Israeli hospitals and gives them the same standard of world-class care that Jews receive. Israel supplies the Arabs in Gaza with electricity, even as Hamas shells the Israeli power plant in Ashkelon. Israel shared the Mediterranean gas fields that it discovered with Lebanon. It is a flourishing democracy with Arab political parties that formed part of its outgoing government. Further, Israel welcomes anyone who identifies as LGBTQ, and in doing so is an outlier in the Middle East.

When criticism and demonization of Israel is far harsher than the criticism of other countries’ faults, this is antisemitic. When criticism is denigration of Israel’s right to exist when simultaneously one does not denigrate the right to exist of other religious or ethnic groups in a land of their own, this is antisemitic. And when criticism delegitimizes Israel’s government and its people when one does not similarly criticize other nations for their shortcomings—this unique treatment of Israel is antisemitic.

Sadly, antisemitism will never go away. But if we unite and find common ground that Israel deserves the right to exist, we may be able to drown out anti-Zionism. In 2023, we must accept and denounce the existence of antisemitism, be vigilant of its current anti-Zionist form, and present a united global Jewish front to combat it.

Black history is the best tool for fighting black antisemitism

From Louis Farrakhan to Kyrie Irving, Kanye West, Dave Chappelle, Ilhan Omar, Jay-Z, Tamika Mallory, the Black Lives Matter movement and beyond, there is a seeming tsunami of antisemitism emanating from prominent black Americans, Caroline Glick argues in the new episode of the “Caroline Glick Show.”

Combined with the physical assaults against Jews by blacks in Brooklyn, Queens, Monsey, Jersey City, Los Angeles and other cities, the sense is growing that blacks and Jews in America are doomed to a pathological relationship of assailant and victim, according to Glick.

Therefore, to appraise the situation, the host is joined by Pastor Dumisani Washington. Pastor Washington is the founder and CEO of IBSI – The Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel. Through his work, he is educating black pastors about Israel and the Jews.

The two analyze the ideologies driving the hatred. They also consider what needs to happen within the black community to build solid bridges.

The importance of education
Glick and Pastor Washington then discuss the work of lowering levels of antisemitism and convincing black Americans to view Jewish Americans and Israel as kindred spirits.

A large part of this work, the pastor explains, involves educating black Americans about their own history—the lost history of 100 years of black advancement in America from the end of the Civil War in 1865 through the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

Jonathan Tobin: The whole truth about Ukraine’s past matters

It would only be decades later, largely as a result of pioneering scholarly works like historian Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow, that the extent of Soviet responsibility for genocide in Ukraine became widely known. The story of the unsuccessful contemporary efforts to tell the world about the Holodomor—as well as of Duranty’s infamy—is also told in the 2019 film “Mr. Jones.”

Even today, many who might have some knowledge of the Holocaust and be familiar with a few of the details of other genocides—such as the Turkish slaughter of Armenians during the First World War; the Khymer Rouge mass murder of Cambodians from 1975-79; the Hutu mass murder of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994; or even what is currently happening to the Uyghurs in Communist China—know little or nothing of the Holodomor.

Like the Holocaust that followed a decade later, it was an example of how a despotic government could put in motion a systematic effort, enforced by bureaucrats and police, to cause the death of millions while brushing aside any resistance. Among other lessons, it has taught us that placing absolute power, untrammeled by any constitutional or legal restraints, in the hands of any government, always leads to disaster and horror.

This brings us back to Ukraine’s own past behavior, about which the same type of veracity is warranted, as well.

When he addressed the Knesset in a virtual speech last spring to pressure Israel to join the war against Russia, Zelenskyy spoke of the Holocaust. But in doing so, he put forward the lie that the Ukrainian people had stood with the Jews targeted by the Nazis.

The truth, however, is that Ukrainians were among the most enthusiastic of the Nazis’ collaborators. This was due, in part, to their mistaken belief that anything had to be better than Stalin’s genocidal rule.

While the Ukrainians initially welcomed the German invaders, they soon realized that Hitler was no better than Stalin. But their enthusiastic participation in the Holocaust was a product of the virulent antisemitism that had been part of their national culture dating back centuries.

That was the history that Zelenskyy sought to falsify when spouting the lie about Ukrainian solidarity with Jews during the Holocaust. It was the sort of display that would have led to widespread condemnation by the Jewish world had he not already been anointed as the 21st century version of Winston Churchill for leading the defense of his country.

Sympathy for Ukraine is understandable. Tolerance for what amounts to Holocaust denial on the part of its leaders, along with a refusal to acknowledge their national movement’s unfortunate association with antisemitism, is not.

As Ukrainians justifiably seek to remind the world about the Holodomor and the legacy of Moscow’s attempts to crush them throughout history, is it really too much to ask that their leaders not lie about their own stained past?

Delegitimizing Israel and Supporting Terrorism at Tel Aviv Univeristy

On the morning of October 27, the Hadash and Balad chapters at Tel-Aviv University held a protest in support of the Lion’s Den terrorist group. This Palestinian militant group has been responsible for numerous shooting attacks in Israel, and has become wildly popular among young Palestinians in the West Bank since its emergence in August.

During the protest, Hadash and Balad members were seen chanting in support of the “Intifada,” and called the Lion’s Den members martyrs. Their chants honored the terrorists, and the Arab students declared that they would continue to fight the “occupation” in the dead terrorists’ memory.

The Lion’s Den has murdered several innocent civilians and killed two young soldiers within the course of one week, in early October. One of these victims was 21-year-old First Sergeant Ido Baruch.

Defending the Lion’s Den and supporting such violence undermines and delegitimizes the existence of the state of Israel. This kind of activism on a university campus incites violence and supports terrorism.

The protest was inspired by the remarks of Hadash-Ta’al Knesset member, Aida Touma-Silman. After the funeral of five Lion’s Den members during an IDF raid, Touma-Silman wrote on her Facebook page, “Nablus bids farewell to our martyrs today.” Despite being an Israeli MK, Touma-Silman was actively glorifying terrorism by making such remarks. Instead of agreeing with Aida Touma-Silman, these students should have condemned her hateful rhetoric.

Touma-Silman’s statement of alleged martyrdom highlights a common theme that constantly inspires terrorism in Israel. The Palestinian Authority even has a martyrs fund, which pays monthly cash stipends to terrorists, and the family members of dead or imprisoned terrorists.

What a New Middle East Scholars Survey Says About the Campus Climate for Jews

On January 25, 2016, Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian graduate student conducting dissertation fieldwork on Egypt’s trade unions, was snatched off a street in Cairo. A week later, his mutilated body was found dumped in a ditch, and four senior Egyptian National Security Agency officials were subsequently charged with his kidnap, torture, and murder.

Many Middle East scholars undoubtedly have not forgotten Regeni’s brutal killing, and are well aware of Egypt’s dismal record of harassing, intimidating, and imprisoning academics. But the findings of a recently released survey — “The Middle East Scholar Barometer” — show that few of them have reservations about holding academic workshops in Egypt or, for that matter, in a number of other repressive Middle Eastern countries.

That is actually as it should be.

Open inquiry is a value that defines the academy, including the principle that faculty worldwide should be free to present and exchange their research and scholarship with one another without restraint. Even in authoritarian countries, continued engagement with universities and research institutes is critically important in the long run, and in particular for the scholars and students who depend on those institutions.

This admirable reluctance to shutter research collaboration with colleagues in the Middle East region is reflected in the Barometer’s latest biannual survey, which was sent from Oct. 25 to Nov. 8 to nearly 1,600 self-identified Middle East-focused scholars affiliated with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the American Political Science Association (APSA), and the American Historical Association (AHA).

Unfortunately, their principled position in favor of free and unfettered intellectual exchange clearly doesn’t extend to one state — democratic Israel.

ZOA calls for counter-protest to Philadelphia-sponsored event denouncing Israel’s existence

The Zionist Organization of America has called on Israel supporters to gather in Philadelphia on Tuesday to protest a city-sponsored event critical of the Jewish state’s founding.

The city scheduled an “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” at its Municipal Services Building, hosting the affair for the second straight year. According to a promotional poster, the event is sponsored by the office of the City Representative and Mayor Jim Kenney’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. At last year’s event, Kenney and at least three members of the Philadelphia City Council spoke, along with state lawmakers.

“Too many Jews have been murdered and maimed by Palestinian-Arab violence. There have already been too many lies and too much propaganda attacking Israel’s right to exist and seeking to delegitimize Jewish heritage and Jewish rights to self-determination,” the Greater Philadelphia ZOA said in a statement. “Endorsing more violence and more lies and propaganda is beneath the obligation of officials who are supposed to represent all Philadelphians. Please do not further trample on the already-under-attack Jewish community.”

The poster for Tuesday’s Philadelphia event prominently features the flag of the PLO, a U.S.-designated terror organization responsible for the murder and maiming of thousands of Israeli civilians, along with dozens of American and European citizens, dating back to its 1964 founding.

Jewish students demand Portugal ‘never again’ harass Oporto community

Forty-four French Jewish students attending university in Oporto, Portugal, sent a petition on Monday to the Portuguese parliament asking the state to “never again unlawfully detain a chief rabbi or illegally invade a synagogue.”

The letter to the unicameral Assembly of the Republic urges the state of Portugal to never again “cooperate with nocturnal burglars [and] anonymous whistle-blowers” in order to “incriminate people and build a legal proceeding that in fact is ‘based on nothing,’ in the words of the Lisbon Court of Appeal.”

Ilan Cohen, the petition’s first signatory, said, “The discrimination of the inquisition was not enough for them to stop there. Jews remain unprotected because unlike other minorities they are always associated with money, always.”

Gabriel Senderowicz, president of the Oporto community, told JNS, “The young always represent the hope for a brighter future. Our young French members say that there is a difference between France and Portugal. In France they are protected by the state and persecuted by parts of the population. Here they live in safety among the population but they find that there are elites who persecute the Jewish community.

“In this year, our community has not only watched historical antisemitism repeating itself but also has written history in real time, with its own hands. The letter of our young members aims at laying the new chapter of the antisemitic narrative to rest.”

Anti-Semitism is creeping back into America

The progressive Left, of course, will have a field day with Trump’s unseemly banquet, and will no doubt use it to link the GOP with “semi-fascists” like Fuentes and his followers. Yet these same progressives — including powerful Jewish organisations like the Anti-Defamation League — have a history of downplaying anti-Semitism from the Left. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt admitted as much when he criticised anti-Semitic elements in the BLM movement. At a recent seminar I conducted during Yom Kippur, an ADL leader even admitted the group backed BLM because they “did not want to appear racist.”

The frightening development is not just the existence of anti-Semitism but its growing acceptability. On the Right, figures like the recently re-elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green — who once suggested Jews shooting lasers caused the California wildfires — and Rep. Paul Gosar happily attended a recent white nationalist event organised by Fuentes.

Similarly, certain Democrats have cosied up to Louis Farrakhan, who once denounced Judaism as a “gutter religion”, and widely genuflect at the feet of Rev. Al Sharpton, the same man who led an openly anti-Jewish pogrom in Brooklyn.

Perhaps most disturbing has been the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses among millennials and zoomers and, sadly, in African-American communities, where West, Sharpton and Farrakhan enjoy considerable influence. These are worrying trends, and more must be done to reverse them.

What is going on in America, long the refuge of the Jewish people? One key factor may be fading memories of the Holocaust. But it may also be the fear inspired among Republicans by the Trumpista base as well as the increasingly obvious desire of groups like the ADL to display their progressive bona fides rather than protect the tribe from wherever the threat arrives. This is not a time for lassitude or political manoeuvring. Instead, this is the moment to stand up, regardless of any other beliefs that may separate us.

Pence calls on Trump to apologize for dinner with antisemite

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Monday said Donald Trump “demonstrated profoundly poor judgment” and called on him to apologize after the former president had dinner last week with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West days after launching his third campaign for the White House.

“President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and Holocaust denier, a seat at the table and I think he should apologize for it. And he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification,” Pence said in an interview with NewsNation’s Leland Vittert airing Monday night.

Still, Pence, who is considering his own potential run against his former boss, said he does not believe Trump is antisemitic or racist and said he would not have served as Trump’s vice president if he was.

“But I think the President demonstrated profoundly poor judgment in giving those individuals a seat at the table and as I said, I think he should apologize for it,” he added. “He should denounce them without qualification.”

Trump had dinner last Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago club with West, who is now known as Ye, as well Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist with a long history of antisemitic and white nationalist commentary. Fuentes is described as a white supremacist by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Justice Department. His comments have included calling Jews a “hostile tribal elite” and saying Israel was the “anti-Christ.” He’s also questioned the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Jason D. Greenblatt: Former Trump White House envoy: Dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes should not have happened

But the question I am addressing is not about President Trump’s long, extremely positive record with respect to Israel and the Jewish people.

The question I am addressing is what I thought of President Trump having dinner with haters such as Fuentes and West. I think it’s a straightforward answer — it should not have happened. Period. I hope President Trump condemns Fuentes, West and their ilk for what they are — haters of Jews and haters of the foundations of the United States of America. People like Fuentes are dangerous to the United States. The President Trump that I know would recognize that and issue this condemnation.

Regardless of how or why the dinner happened, haters such as Fuentes and West should not be given a platform or seat at the table by anyone.

As I sit here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, catching up on the news cycle in America, it is hard to separate myself from the history that I was privileged to witness and take part in. I remain grateful for all that President Trump has done to change the face of the Middle East in so many ways. That’s why I can’t simply tweet my reaction to the West-Fuentes dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

Nor can I try to respond to this issue in a brief interview on television, especially if the anchor is looking to score political points against President Trump. We must not allow antisemitism to be politicized or condensed into sound bites. So in response to all those who have asked for my thoughts, I share them with you here.

To reformulate the words of President George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790, don’t give bigotry, hatred or antisemitism any sanction and don’t give persecution any assistance.

Let’s not let haters such as Fuentes and West undermine the sacred mission of the United States of America, a country like no other country on the planet.

‘No Room for Bigotry:’ Rapper Pusha T Criticizes Kanye West Over Antisemitic Outbursts

Top hip hop artist Pusha T has spoken out against one-time collaborator Kanye West over the latter’s recent antisemitic outbursts on social media.

“It’s definitely affected me. It’s been disappointing,” the rapper told the Los Angeles Times.

“As a Black man in America, there is no room for bigotry or hate speech. So yeah. It’s been very disappointing,” added Pusha T, whose 2022 album “It’s Almost Dry” was recorded with West and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart.

At the same time, Pusha T paid tribute to West’s influence over his own output. “We actually have a lot of the same taste, we love just barred-out rap. He would tell me things like, ‘Man, you just be the extreme version of yourself. And I’m gonna be the extreme version of myself,'” he said.

Once Again, MSNBC Invites Prominent Anti-Semite to Explain Why Fellow Anti-Semites Are Bad

What happened? MSNBC did it again. The left-wing network invited Al Sharpton, a notorious anti-Semite, on Morning Joe to explain why his fellow anti-Semites shouldn't be given a public platform.

Seriously? Yes.

Why? Because Al Sharpton supports the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party supports him.

What did he say? Sharpton was asked to discuss reports that former president Donald Trump had dinner with Kanye West, the rap artist whose ongoing mental breakdown has featured several outbursts of virulent anti-Semitism, and Nick Fuentes, the dough-faced 24-year-old incel who spouts anti-Semitism like a toddler making farting noises.

"As a preacher, I can tell you that if you just preach to the choir, if you turn around and there's no one in the audience or in the congregation, you and the choir become irrelevant," Sharpton said. "And I think that that is what [Donald Trump and the Republican Party] are doing. They've emptied out the church, so to speak, because people that really do not want to go that far and be perceived [as] or in fact be bigots, biased, anti-Semites, racists are not gonna continue to allow them to preach to the choir that they think extols this."

The anti-Semite went on to suggest that Republicans who tolerate anti-Semites "must deep down inside have some of that bias and bigotry" within themselves. "Why would you tolerate this unless there is some hidden bias in you?"

Sort of like how MSNBC tolerates Al Sharpton? Indeed.

Ah yeah. Good stuff. https://t.co/4DvGhONkxG pic.twitter.com/AtBrqBCEli
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 29, 2022

Ye walks out of interview after being questioned about antisemitic beliefs

Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) walked out of an interview on podcaster Tim Pool’s show on Monday night after being questioned about his antisemitic claims.

Shortly into the interview, Ye spouted conspiracies about Jews, alluding to Jews controlling recent U.S. presidents, claiming “Jared Kushner was next to [Donald] Trump, Rahm Emmanuel was next to [Barack] Obama.”

Also present in the interview were Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes and far-right provocateur Milo Yiannapolous.

“I think they’ve been extremely unfair to you,” Pool told Ye as he was discussing recent media coverage about him.

“Who is ‘they’ though?” Ye asked. “We can’t say who ‘they’ is can we?”

“Corporate press,” Pool responded. “I’m not using–I don’t use the word the way I guess you guys use it.”

“It is ‘them’ though isn’t it, because when you think about it, consider it, in 2018…” Fuentes said before being cut off by Ye, who asked, “What do you mean it’s not?”

Ye, 20 minutes into the show, then walked off the set.

“You leaving?” Pool asked, adding, “He’s gone.”

After Ye left the interview, Pool revealed that Ye had requested to do the interview every week.

Kanye West just stormed out of a livestream on @Timcast because Pool refused to go along with West's antisemitic and conspiratorial assertion that Jews control the corporate press.https://t.co/TRD7snV3zk pic.twitter.com/OXHiTGVmaM
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) November 29, 2022

???????? | Mental case @KanyeWest doubles down on antisemitic rhetoric, claiming "300 Zionists" rule America. pic.twitter.com/Ee9Ujcl6TB
— Terror Alarm (@Terror_Alarm) November 29, 2022

Milo then moved his antisemitic tirade onto GAB ... ranting about "Jewish powers" and "Jewish interests" pic.twitter.com/Vo5Jn1HloY
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) November 28, 2022

This follows last year's annual student meeting in which Jewish students were denied the right to define antisemitism.

At this year's meeting, no amendments to a highly contentious motion were allowed in spite of the repeated requests by Jewish students. 2/6
— Union of Jewish Students (@UJS_UK) November 29, 2022

Reuters Corrects Ancient Jewish Temples Were Located On Temple Mount

In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, Reuters today amended the text to accurately cite “The site, which once housed two ancient Jewish temples … .”

In addition, editors commendably posted the following note at the top of the article: “This Nov.25 has been corrected to clarify the location of ancient temples in paragraph 17.”

The denial of the historical fact that the Jewish Temples once stood on the Temple Mount is an anti-Israel talking point.

The article’s byline cites Henriette Chacar, who joined Reuters this year after previously writing at two fringe publications — +972 and the Intercept — but Reuters has informed CAMERA that the problematic language originated in the editing process. Before joining Reuters, Chacar repeatedly called for Israel’s dismantlement, and she has also been explicit and outspoken in her conviction that the (false) notion that Israel is a pariah state should penetrate and shape mainstream media coverage. For example, asked in an interview whether Palestinians feel emboldened by the support for the (baseless) accusation that Israel is an “apartheid” state, Chacar responded enthusiastically about what she sees as an increasing freedom to defame Israel:
One of the ways that we’re feeling it is in what we’re being allowed to say in international news media, terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “settler colonialism” that were sanitized, both in edited print pieces and interviews and now we’re seeing them make it through the edits, which I think is a very interesting process, very exciting process that we’re able to use our own language to describe our reality. (London Review of Books podcast, May 21, 2021)

To that end, she praised comedian John Oliver’s vitriolic and unhinged diatribe on Israeli “apartheid” and “war crimes” as doing a “better job providing context than seasoned journalists.”

A BBC narrative and a contradictory perspective

In November of last year we documented the BBC’s three-month-long promotion of a narrative concerning supposed Israeli “police inaction” on the issue of crime in the Arab sector:
“Bereaved families and Arab officials claim that police inaction is one of the main reasons for the endemic violence plaguing their neighbourhoods.”

Several written reports promoting that narrative remain online as what the BBC describes as “permanent public record”.

One year on – on November 25th 2022 – the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ aired an interview with Thabet Abu Rass of the NGO ‘Abraham Fund Initiatives’ on the topic of an agreement reportedly reached within the framework of coalition talks whereby Itamar Ben Gvir would take on the post of National Security Minister should Netanyahu manage to form a government.

During that interview [from 14:05 here] Abu Rass told host Julian Marshall about the current Minister of Public Security and his deputy who took office in June 2021:
“…the last government we had a minister called Omer Bar Lev and his deputy Yoav Segalovich that worked hard; they work hard to combat crime and violence and they knew how to build the trust between Arab leaders and Arab mayors and the ministry and the police forces.”

That is clearly a markedly different perspective to the one repeatedly promoted by the BBC between August and November last year. Nevertheless, it will disappear from public view a month after broadcast whereas the BBC’s chosen narrative of “police inaction” will remain available online.

He has also worked for @csmonitor,@TheIntercept, @ForeignPolicy @Article14live, @TheDiplomatMag,@BrutIndia, @BBC, @Barcroft_TV and written stories that relate to Israel.
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 29, 2022

NYC mayor to attend antisemitism summit in Greece

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is slated to depart for Greece on Wednesday to participate in the 2022 Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, according to his office.

More than 50 mayors and municipal office holders from around the world are expected to attend the event, according to Greek media.

Earlier this month, the police thwarted a planned attack on Jewish targets in the city. Christopher Brown, 21, and Matthew Mahrer, 22 were arrested at Penn Station at around 11:30 p.m. EST on Nov. 18, after a bulletin was issued by law enforcement agencies seeking to question them.

At the time of their arrest Brown was reportedly armed with a large knife, and was also in possession of a swastika armband. Authorities later seized a handgun, a high-capacity magazine and 17 9mm rounds from a bag Maher had been filmed with earlier. Brown and Mahrer had threatened on social media to attack synagogues. Mahrer is reportedly Jewish and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor.

Adams’ trip to Athens also comes amid a spate of physical assaults on Jews in and around NYC.

Antisemitic Books Pushing ‘Ritual Murder’ Myth On Display At Prestigious Fair in Poland

Crudely antisemitic books promoting Holocaust denial and depicting Jews as usurers have been showcased at a prestigious book fair in Poland that enjoys the backing of the country’s president.

Titles published by the far-right Polish imprint 3DOM — a play on the English word “freedom” — were on display at the Historical Book Fair in Warsaw, an event that is officially supported by the office of President Andzrej Duda.

Describing itself as “patriotic,” “Catholic,” and the “most politically incorrect” publishing house in Poland, 3DOM advertises more than 80 blatantly antisemitic works on its website, according to research carried out by the “Never Again” Association, a Polish NGO.

Book titles invoke “freemasonry,” “ritual murder” and other historic antisemitic canards leveled at the Jewish people. One book by Father Józef Kruszyński on the subject of the Talmud asserts: “Jews living in Christian countries and next to Christian nations are a highly undesirable element. They are like a foreign element in the body.” Its authors include Dariusz Ratajczak, who was convicted in 2002 of Holocaust denial, and Mira Modelska-Creech, a University of Warsaw academic whose book on the COVID-19 pandemic featured an antisemitic caricature of a Jew holding a bag filled with dollars on its cover. The accompanying blurb promises that readers will understand that “Jews play an important role in the practice of usury – it is this nation that pulls the strings in the most crucial spheres of the economy.”

In an interview with local news outlet WP, Rafal Pankowski — “Never Again’s” executive director — expressed frustration at 3DOM’s presence at the fair, which ended on Sunday.

“This fair was held under the patronage of President Duda, and was co-organized by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN),” Pankowski said. “This is a prestigious event taking place in the Kubicki Arcades at the Royal Castle.” A government-backed institution, the IPN has played a key role in pushing legislation that criminalizes the discussion of Polish collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.

StandWithUs: Antisemitism 2022

In 2022, antisemitism rose sharply in many parts of the world, but we will not give in. Take a stand against antisemitism this Giving Tuesday by donating to StandWithUs, a leader in the global effort to fight #antisemitism at high schools, on college campuses, and in communities worldwide.

Japan’s Fujitsu to open new R&D center in Tel Aviv, to focus on data security tech

Japan’s IT multinational Fujitsu said it will open a new R&D center in Israel in a move to expand its research activities and technologies in the field of data and security of artificial intelligence-based systems.

For the Tel Aviv-based center, which is expected to launch in April 2023, Fujitsu plans to recruit 10 employees from Israel alongside researchers from Japan and Europe.

The R&D center will be dedicated to focus on security technology solutions for AI-based communications networks as part of Fujitsu’s global data and security strategy, which is one of five key R&D technology areas the company has earmarked globally.

“As one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, Israel offers Fujitsu a concentration of talent and an environment to sustain innovation like few other places,” stated Fujitsu’s chief technology officer Vivek Mahajan during a visit to Israel. “I anticipate that our newly established teams in Israel will work with our global research network to play a central role in leading the development of Fujitsu’s future security and AI technologies.”

Adel Rouz, CEO of Fujitsu Research of Europe Ltd., will oversee the operations of the new R&D office.

Phone app successfully predicts heart failure through speech

Speech-processing startup Cordio Medical announced that its HearO app successfully predicted 82 percent of first congestive heart failure cases in patients that took part in a study, on average 18 days before the incident occurred.

The study collected 460,000 voice samples from 180 patients across 10 medical centers in Israel. The participants used the HearO app at home and sent a voice sample once a day in Hebrew, Arabic or Russian.

The company reported an 82% success rate, noting that a third of the 18% misdiagnosis rate was related to sounds from other respiratory diseases.

Congestive heart failure takes place when the heart doesn’t properly pump blood, which in turn can lead to fluid accumulation in the lungs. The HearO system detects that buildup in a person’s speech, alerting of future heart failure.

“The results of the study indicate our potential to become a standard in the field of early detection of heart failure,” says Dr. Ronit Haviv, Cordio Medical’s senior vice president of clinical, QA, and regulation.

Dubai’s DMCC brings ‘Made for Trade Live’ to Tel Aviv event

The United Arab Emirates and Israel are continuing to see new heights of trade volume. Ahmed Bin Sulayem, executive chairman and CEO of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), spoke on Tuesday about how much Israel and the UAE have to learn from each other in the wake of the Abraham Accords and how industries such as diamonds, coffee and even water can be connected.

His speech, looking back at the time before the peace deals in September 2020 and what may come in the future, was one of several important talks held at a unique conference this week in Tel Aviv.

The DMCC held a “Made for Trade Live” event at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange on Tuesday. The event showcased the growing trade between Israel and the UAE and also put a spotlight on the importance of the Abraham Accords – and how trade in commodities and other goods are transforming the region.

The center is Dubai’s largest free-trade zone, with some 21,000 member companies from 180 countries. Sulayem is one of the visionaries who has been working with Israelis since the Abraham Accords. This has included opening an office of the Israel Diamond Exchange at the DMCC in Dubai and many key meetings with Israeli businesspeople.

At the TASE event on Tuesday, many key players in Israel’s business community gathered while the digital ticker of stocks lit up an adjoining room.

Photos from the event #happeningnow this is another important symbol of the growing economic connections in the region; the #AbrahamAccords and connecting Dubai and Tel Aviv, these super-important hubs of tech and business and innovation pic.twitter.com/HSp9PHqbcu
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) November 29, 2022

UK census: Under 50% of population identify as Christian; Buddhists overtake Jews

For the first time, less than half of the population in England and Wales identifies as Christian, according to census data released Tuesday.

The 10-yearly census carried out in 2021 showed rapid growth for the Muslim population, but “no religion” was the second most common response after Christian, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

In an increasingly secular age, Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said it was no “great surprise” that the Christian proportion was declining over time.

But he said that, facing a cost-of-living crisis and war in Europe, people still needed spiritual sustenance.

“We will be there for them, in many cases, providing food and warmth. And at Christmas millions of people will still come to our services,” said the archbishop.

“At the same time, we will be looking beyond our immediate surroundings, remembering we are part of a global faith, the largest movement on Earth and its greatest hope for a peaceful, sustainable future.”

The religion question was added to the UK census in 2001. It remains voluntary to answer, but 94% of respondents did, according to the ONS.

Some 27.5 million people or 46.2% in England and Wales described themselves as Christian, down 13.1 percentage points from 2011.

Matti Friedman [PodCast]: Future of Israel: Easternization

Is Israel becoming more hawkish, religious, and tribal -- or just more “Middle Eastern”? Trying to understand the latest elections, Robert sits down with Canadian-Israeli journalist Matti Friedman to talk about culture in the Holy Land: what it is, what it's perceived to be, how it's changing, and what those changes might mean for the future. What do Israeli pop songs tell us about the zeitgeist? How does Itamar Ben Gvir's family roots in Iraq help explain his politics? Which experience better forecasts relations between Arabs and Israelis: the Abraham Accords of 2020, or the violent riots committed by Arab-Israeli citizens just a few months later?

Matti Friedman is a prominent Canadian-Israeli journalist and award-winning author. He previously served as an Associated Press (AP) correspondent and has written op-eds and essays for a number of notable publications including the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, and The Atlantic. He is the author of four non-fiction books on Israel, including his newest work, Who by Fire, the story of Leonard Cohen's concert tour to the front lines during the Yom Kippur War. Matti currently writes a monthly feature for Tablet Magazine and resides in Jerusalem with his family.

The Israeli Druze Community: A Covenant of Brotherhood

The position of the Druze community in Israel is fraught with contradictions as it is one of the most integrated groups within the Jewish state but also suffers from discrimination as a minority group.

In the past 10 years, the position of the Druze community in Israel has risen as the first Druze Israeli diplomat was appointed in 2012, the Knesset enacted an official day for recognition of the achievements of the Druze community in 2018, and the first female Druze parliamentarian was elected in 2019 before being appointed in 2021 as the first Druze emissary for the Jewish Agency.

In addition, the matriculation rate among Druze students rose from 53.5% to 82.5% in 10 years, putting it above the national average as well as above the rate of matriculation among Jewish students.

However, as a minority, members of the Druze community have suffered discrimination in the private sector, such as in housing and the hiring processes of companies.

In the past few years, one of the most striking depictions of the complex position of the Druze community in Israel has been the enactment of the “Nation-State Law” in 2018.

Following the passage of the legislation, a number of Druze lawmakers, mayors, high-ranking IDF officers and community activists joined together to publicly protest the law, claiming that it harms their rights within the Jewish state.

In response to the outcry from the Druze community, members of Knesset from both political camps have attempted to introduce amendments to the law that would seek to temper some of the community’s concerns associated with the legislation.

The enactment of the Nation-State Law, the subsequent tumult surrounding it and the attempted rectification of the Druze community’s issues with the law are the perfect illustration of the Druze community’s complex relationship with the Jewish state.