#least grants jews protection from antisemitism

[mashpotatoe]

its nauseating to see the star of david on that flag

#of course an institute built on (white) jewish supremacy insists on being inherently linked to jews and judaism as a whole #its painful to see them... partially succeed at it. and those who do believe the two are linked often feel safe in assuming it at the very #least grants jews protection from antisemitism #completely blind to the necessity of innerjewish discrimination #because theres no peaceful coexistence in an aparthaid ethnostate as long as it rules whos worthy of living on its premises ! #the circle of those worhy will always get smaller and those outside of that circle will only get more and more discriminated against #starting with palestinians and arabs down to mizrahi/middle eastern jews and any jew who fights for their rights

[bisphenol-a]

Tomorrow, Friday November 17, the German Bundestag will vote on a draft law that could decide that naturalization for residents would be dependent on a commitment to Israel’s right to exist.

The bill, which includes a law that would change the criminal code, was submitted by the Christian Democratic Party’s (CDU) parliamentary group.

It would impact individuals seeking residency, asylum, and naturalization, and its intent is to “provide better protection against the further entrenchment and spread of antisemitism that has “immigrated from abroad.”

“Since the day of the attack,” the law states in its introduction, “disgusting rallies and demonstrations have also taken place on German streets, expressing unconcealed joy at the deaths of Jews and revealing an alarming level of antisemitism.”

A majority of protests across Germany have not only been peaceful but have only called for the German government to back a ceasefire to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people.

I attended multiple demonstrations across Germany, and the only visible threat to public safety has been from the police. In fact, I was a witness to one demonstration in Frankfurt where the police banned it from taking place mere minutes before it was about to begin. Hundreds of people were met with water cannons, extreme levels of police presence, and kettling by law enforcement that led to the detainment of over 300 people.

In another I attended in Mannheim, the only act of antisemitism committed was a man on the sidelines of our protest raising his hand in a Nazi salute to antagonize and intimidate pro-Palestinian demonstrators. He was arrested soon after, and local publications reported he was, in fact, not a part of our planned demonstration.

In 2022, over 80 percent of all antisemitic crimes in Germany were committed by the German far right, according to the federal police. However, the new draft bill does not include these statistics. Instead, it attributes violent antisemitism with sympathy with “Hamas terrorism,” which they claim is “cheered and propagated on German streets and schoolyards.”

The bill clearly singles out Arabs and migrants, claiming antisemitism in Germany is now only “imported.”

“A significant portion of those are obviously immigrants from countries in North Africa and the Middle East, where antisemitism and hostility towards Israel have a particular breeding ground,” the draft law states, backed by no concrete evidence for such remarkable claims.

It continues: “as well as their descendants, the instruments of residence, asylum and citizenship law must be used more consistently than before- in addition to general means such as criminal law- in order to combat antisemitism in Germany more effectively.”

In summary, the law not only creates a prerequisite where a citizenship application will only be granted if the individual declares a commitment to Israel’s right to exist and swears that they did not pursue any endeavors directed against Israel, but it can also strip the residency status and the citizenship of dual nationals who have been convicted of an antisemitic crime. This would also include a prison sentence of at least one year.

“Maintaining the legal status quo is not an option,” the draft law says, “as the current legal situation is clearly not suitable for effectively combating the specific antisemitism that is widespread among some foreigners in Germany.”

In Germany, what constitutes an “antisemitic crime” is extremely ambiguous. In 2017, the federal government officially adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. Advocates, scholars, and legal experts at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) as well as other organizations for example, have long criticized the IHRA definition, arguing it redefines antisemitism by wrongly conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish racism.

According to a report conducted by ELSC and published earlier this year, the invocation of the definition almost exclusively targets Palestinian rights advocacy, harming Palestinian and Jewish activists in particular.

Now that Germany has specifically labeled the protests as examples of antisemitism that should be criminalized, there is much cause for concern for pro-Palestinian activists. Already, there have been examples such as the stripping of refugee status from a Palestinian activist from Syria and denying residency to Palestinian doctors who have only been a part of a Palestinian cultural group.

...

“Violent excesses at demonstrations- such as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in October 2023- must be appropriately sanctioned. However, the increasing abuse of the right to demonstrate can often not be adequately punished,” the draft law says. “The regulation of breach of the peace is too narrow.

We have already witnessed banned demonstrations in cities and violent police arrests detaining people only carrying flags and wearing keffiyehs or simply holding anti-war signs. In Berlin, home to one of the largest Palestinian diasporas in Europe, there have been regular police presence and clear examples of racial profiling, and harassment against anyone who might “look” like they are attending a previously banned demonstration. 

[lacangri21]

It's behind a paywall so

"

Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, campus life in the United States has imploded into a daily trial of intimidation and insult for Jewish students. A hostile environment that began with statements from pro-Palestinian student organizations justifying terrorism has now rapidly spiraled into death threats and physical attacks, leaving Jewish students alarmed and vulnerable.

On an online discussion forum last weekend, Jewish students at Cornell were called “excrement on the face of the earth,” threatened with rape and beheading and bombarded with demands like “eliminate Jewish living from Cornell campus.” (A 21-year-old junior at Cornell has been charged with posting violent threats.) This horror must end.

Free speech, open debate and heterodox views lie at the core of academic life. They are fundamental to educating future leaders to think and act morally. The reality on some college campuses today is the opposite: open intimidation of Jewish students. Mob harassment must not be confused with free speech.

Universities need to get back to first principles and understand that they have the rules on hand to end intimidation of Jewish students. We need to hold professors and students to a higher standard.

The targeting of Jewish students didn’t stop at Cornell: Jewish students at Cooper Union huddled in the library to escape an angry crowd pounding on the doors; a protester at a rally near New York University carried a sign calling for the world to be kept “clean” of Jews; messages like “glory to our martyrs” were projected onto a George Washington University building.

This most recent wave of hate began with prejudiced comments obscured by seemingly righteous language. Following the Oct. 7 attacks, more than 30 student groups at Harvard signed on to a statement that read, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” There was no mention of Hamas. The university issued such a tepid response, it almost felt like an invitation.

Days later, at a pro-Palestinian rally, the Cornell associate professor Russell Rickford said he was “exhilarated” by Hamas’s terrorist attack. (He later apologized and was granted a leave of absence.) In an article, a Columbia professor, Joseph Massad, seemed to relish the “awesome” scenes of “Palestinian resistance fighters” storming into Israel. Most recently, over 100 Columbia and Barnard professors signed a letter defending students who blamed Israel for Hamas’s attacks. To the best of our knowledge, none of these professors have received meaningful discipline, much less dismissal. Another green light.

Over these last few weeks, dozens of anti-Israel protests have been hosted on or near college campuses. Many of these demonstrations had threatening features: Masked students have chanted slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which many view as a call for the destruction of Israel. Others have shouted, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution.” The word “intifada” has a gruesome history: During the Aqsa intifada of the early 2000s, hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed in attacks.

On at least one occasion, these student protests have even interrupted candlelight vigils for the victims of Oct. 7. And they haven’t been condemned by the leadership at enough universities. In recent days, some universities, including Cornell, have released statements denouncing antisemitism on campus. Harvard also announced the creation of an advisory group to combat antisemitism.

The terms “Zionist” and “colonizer” have evolved into epithets used against Jewish students like us. These labels have been spit at some of us and our friends in dining halls, dorm common rooms, outside classes and at parties.

Failure by any university to affirm that taunts and intimidation have no place on campus legitimizes more violent behaviors. We are seeing it play out before our eyes.

At Columbia, an Israeli student was physically assaulted on campus. Near Tulane, a Jewish student’s head was bashed with the pole of a Palestinian flag after he attempted to stop protesters from burning an Israeli flag. And students at Cornell live in fear that their peers will actualize antisemitic threats.

All students have sacred rights to hold events, teach-ins and protests. And university faculty members must present arguments that make students uncomfortable. University campuses are unique hubs of intellectual discovery and debate, designed to teach students how to act within a free society. But free inquiry is not possible in an environment of intimidation. Harassment and intimidation fly in the face of the purpose of a university.

The codes of ethics of universities across the country condemn intimidation and hold students and faculty to standards of dignity and respect for others. Campuses are at a crossroads: The leadership can either enforce these ethics or these places of learning will succumb to mob rule by their most radical voices, risking the continuation of actual violence.

Simply affirming that taunts and intimidation have no place on campus isn’t enough. Professors violating these rules should be disciplined or dismissed. Student groups that incite or justify violence should not be given university funds to conduct activity on campus.

Furthermore, in line with anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, established university initiatives that protect minority groups must also include Jews. Universities should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, as a mechanism for properly identifying and eliminating anti-Jewish hate.

No students should be subject to discrimination, let alone outright threats and hostility, on the basis of their identity. This standard must be applied to Jewish students, too.

Finally, it is vital that individual campus community members — students, professors, alumni, staff members and parents — act against intimidation and incivility. Stand with your Jewish friends at peaceful assemblies. Call on universities via letters and petitions to restore civility on campus.

Although one may think antisemitism has an impact only on Jews, history shows it poisons society at large. Universities have a moral responsibility to counter hateful violence in all its forms. When they fail to do so, they fail us all."

#Israel #left-wing pendejismo #racism #white savior #antisemitic terrorism

[feretra]

i found a bunch of family headcanons about salome's cousin, miriam, last night. just... when did i have the time to dedicate this much time to her family tree?

Maternal Family Notes

In Morocco, the family name was “Kablan” but was changed by Marcel upon arrival in France to “Kaplan.”

Marcel and Bernadette were protected in Morocco by the King during the Holocaust. However, in a post-war Morocco controlled by France and the growing antisemitism in Marrakesh, they emigrated to Paris. This was shortly before the King stifled the attempts of Jews to move abroad, while France was still in the control of the French.

Were always Orthodox but Sephardic.

Galya and Rachelita are twins, but fraternal.

Shprintza lives in Jerusalem with her husband. They are not Orthodox nor do they have children.

Paternal Family Notes

Family’s original name was ‘Grunglas,’ and was also changed somewhere my Miriam’s father.

Israel lived in what was the Soviet Union most of his life, until he was allowed to emigrate elsewhere.

I had originally intended the family to be from Minsk from pre-Holocaust to the end of World War II with emigration to France to avoid the Soviet antisemitism but I realized later that this would likely be entirely unfeasible. Instead, I’ve determined that they were from Minsk — at least for several generations — before the rise of the Second World War. This is feasible because of the Russian Empire, which under the Tzars had limited Jewish life exclusively to the Pale of Settlement in what is now parts of Belarius, Poland, Ukraine, etc. Historically speaking, it made sense for them to be in Minsk, given the dense Jewish population. This also means that they were secular — at least to a degree — likely having ties to Yiddish literary culture and other secular Jewish beliefs that came in the wake of the emancipation from the shtetl and then the Haskalah. Since prominent leaders were working to improve education in Jewish community centers and cities, etc. 

Israel and his father were glass workers, and it was a family tradition. Hence their surname, likely adopted late or forced onto them.

When the second World War happened, I imagine that Elisha was likely part of the Red Army for the Eastern Front. However, his family and Basya’s, both being from the Byelorussian SSR, were likely evacuated eastward into Russia proper. Most likely Leningrad. Then once the war had finished, they likely returned to Minsk. 

Israel and Mariya weren’t born until 1960 and 1965, respectively.

Israel wasn’t particularly religious, but once he was granted an exit visa in the early 1980’s, he came to France and was able to openly practice Judaism. He sort of returned to the shtetl image of the Haredi Orthodox shortly before he met and married Galya.

He still does glasswork but I imagine he owns a small Jewish bookstore in the Le Marais district in Paris.

Elisha and Basya are (were? this be old now) still alive — in Minsk — where they are taken care of by Mariya. 

Mariya, or so Miriam tells me, was not well liked by the Soviets. She was very politically and Jewish-ly active during a time when it was excessively frowned on. She was considered a refusenik in her younger years and was put into a woman’s prison apparently for a few years.

#miriam ( hc ) #[ my college specialization showed up real hard for this headcanon post ] #[ like it came and conquered and never came back ] #[ return from the war history degree ]

[pargolettasworld]

During the most recent iteration of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict™, an acquaintance of mine sort of bemoaned on Facebook the (it appeared to them) suspicious silence of (presumably non-Israeli) Jews about the violence of the moment.  Someone else, who knew them better than I did, politely scolded them for crossing the Antisemitism Line, and they promptly gave a tepid apology and took down the post.  If I knew this person better (we’ve been remotely introduced as colleagues, but we haven’t met in person), here’s something that I might have said to them:

You don’t hear American Jews discussing Israel.  I wonder why that is.  Is it because you’re only listening for the Jewish voices condemning Israel unequivocally, and you’re not hearing as many of those voices as you’d like?  I wonder why that could be.  I wonder why your American Jewish friends don’t discuss their thoughts about Israel where you can hear them.  I wonder why American Jews might want to keep our complicated thoughts about this complicated, foreign-but-not-foreign country hidden from where you could hear them.

You’re eager to demand that American Jews step up and take responsibility for Israel, a country where we don’t live, where we aren’t citizens, and where we can’t vote.  Are you as eager to step up and defend us when we’re attacked and assaulted in revenge for actions committed by the government of Israel, that country where we don’t live, where we aren’t citizens, and where we can’t vote?  If you claim to be anti-Zionist but not antisemitic, how can you lump all Jews together like that and expect us to take you seriously?

Israel is a country with Problems.  I know it.  Most American Jews know it.  Most Israeli Jews know it.  Personally, I tend to think of Israel the way that a lot of non-New Yorkers think about New York.  It’s a lovely place to visit, but I’m not sure I’d want to live there.  But, despite its Problems, Israel has one thing going for it that almost no other country in the world does.  It is institutionally committed to providing a safe place for Jews to be openly, proudly, freely Jewish, without apology or threat.

Granted, Israel has pretty much failed at this promise, largely because of the kind of policies that get it involved in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict™ on a regular basis to begin with.  But at least it tries.  At least Israel recognizes that providing a safe place to be Jewish is a goal worth striving for.  Even if it hasn’t actually succeeded in being that safe place, it’s still interested in trying to be.  And, honestly, that’s more than I can say for the United States at the moment.

When Jews are attacked and assaulted for being Jewish, and the reaction of both the American Right and the American Left is a big fat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . . . no.  I am not going to loudly proclaim that Israel has zero right to exist and should by all rights be wiped off the map.  Because if you won’t protect me, then don’t try to wipe out one of the few places that at least wants to try.

#antisemitism #jumblr

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The Guardian has, once again, disseminated the erroneous claim that Israel has “50 racist laws,” in an op-ed by Sami Abu Shehadeh, an Arab MK who was recently revealed to have attended an event marking the release of a terrorist convicted of conspiring to murder Israelis.

The op-ed (“Israel’s pact with the UAE is not about peace. It’s a business deal”, Oct. 14), included the following:

Discrimination and racism against Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, an indigenous population that makes up over 20% of the country’s population, is present in every aspect of life. More than 50 laws discriminate against non-Jewish citizens. Israel’s trains do not stop in a single Arab city. [emphasis added]

There are actually two problems with that last sentence.

Turning to the second sentence we highlighted, that Israeli trains “don’t stop in Arab cities”: This is extremely misleading. There’s an Israel Railways station called Lehavim/Rahat, serving Rahat, the largest Arab Bedouin city in Israel. (The train station is a mere 18-minute drive from the town.)

Now, regarding 50 laws that allegedly discriminate against non-Jewish citizens, which, though unsourced, is almost certainly based on a report by the radical anti-Israel NGO Adalah.

However, CAMERA and other watchdog groups have refuted Adalah’s claims of racist laws — a term they use so unseriously that even an Israeli public health law requiring parents to vaccinate their children is included as an example of “racist” legislation.

A comprehensive analysis of the “50 racist laws” claim was conducted by the Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS), and included the following highlights:

The overwhelming majority of the laws featured in the list (53 out of 57) do not even relate to the citizens’ ethnic origins, and those that do are designed to prevent and avoid discrimination. For example, the Law and Administration Ordinance (1948) that defines the country’s official rest days, and the Law for Using the Hebrew Date, both explicitly exclude institutions and authorities that serve non-Jewish populations for whom the law provides for definitions and procedures appropriate for their specific needs.

In 21 cases, Adalah’s claims of discrimination stem from the organization’s extremist stance that rejects the nature of Israel as a nation-state in general and as the nation-state of of the Jewish people in particular. For example, the Yad BenZvi Law is defined as a discriminatory law because of the institution’s objective of promoting Zionist ideals.

Eighteen of the laws reflect customs in other Western democracies, whose democratic character no one would disparage. For example, according to Adalah, the flag constitutes a discriminatory law. Needless to say, this unfounded reasoning would mean that any country, the flag of which bears a cross or crescent, discriminates against its non-Christian or non-Muslim minorities. A more in-depth comparison between laws frequently found that Israeli legislation is actually characterized by a higher degree of tolerance for its national minorities.

In at least 13 cases, a large disparity exists between the explicit content of the laws and the biased (and sometimes warped) interpretation accorded to them by Adalah. In some instances the claimed discrimination is difficult to identify. For example, the Golan Heights Law is considered discriminatory due to its objective of “according a legal basis for the implementation of Israeli law on the territory of the Golan Heights conquered by Israel.” It would seem that only Adalah is capable of explaining a law intended to grant equal rights to all residents of the Golan Heights as being discriminatory.

Eight laws are intended to protect the security of all Israeli citizens regardless of religion, race, or gender. Included in these laws are a number of legislative amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law and the Prisons Ordinance aimed at assisting the security forces in preventing terror attacks. These laws adversely affect only those clearly suspected of engaging in terror activity without distinguishing between Jews and Arabs. In effect, this very claim is woefully discriminatory because it presumes that Arab citizens of Israel are generally hostile and prone to terror activities.

Seven of the laws do not even relate to Israel’s Arab citizens but rather to those non-citizen individuals towards whom the State is not obligated to act with equality. The absurdity in Adalah’s approach can be demonstrated by the example of the Trading with the Enemy Act (a law evolving from British Mandatory law) being included in the list of discriminatory laws because “the countries declared as such (Iran, Syria and Lebanon) are Arab and/or Muslim states.” Presumably the law could be remedied by adding other, non-Muslim and non-Arab enemy states.

In the case of some of the laws mentioned in the list, the supposed discrimination in question actually affected the Jewish majority and not the Arab minority. For example, Clause 7a of the Basic Law: the Knesset, the objective of which is to prevent the candidacy of political parties acting against the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, has been implemented only against Jewish parties on grounds of anti-democratic objectives. Similarly, amendments to the Absorption of Discharged Soldiers Law are indicted by Adalah for discriminating in favor of Jewish citizens, but these citizens are the ones specifically obligated to serve three years of military service for sub-minimum compensation and living conditions, thus postponing their university education and professional advancement. It is the Arab citizen who enjoys the option of exemption from military service altogether or alternatively, of volunteering for national civil service which does not place them in harms way but which nevertheless affords them the same benefits awarded to discharged soldiers.

In a number of cases, Adalah misuses objective crime statistics to claim discrimination. According to this logic, if members of the Arab sector of the population are the main criminal violators of a certain law, then that particular law perforce is deemed racist. This could apply to laws against theft of property, against sex crimes, or against driving through red lights. The constructive and proper solution to disproportionate violations is not annulment of necessary laws, of course, but rather, educating and encouraging observance of the law among all sectors of the population — without distinction or favoritism.

A large portion of Adalah’s racism claims, they add, stem from their belief that Zionism is intrinsically racist, and that the Jewish state, within any borders, has no right to exist — a view considered antisemitic by the IHRA Working Definition.

The fact that such a patently false, unsourced claim smearing Israel got past Guardian editors is just another example of the media group’s institutional anti-Israel bigotry that we’ve been documenting on these pages over the last 11 years.

#israel #racist laws #adalah #the guardian

[eretzyisrael]

A post by CAMERA Arabic.

On November 6th the BBC Arabic website reported Vladimir Putin’s reference to Russian aid he purportedly directs at Jews who still remain in Syria and their properties (“Putin helps the Jews of Syria, but where are they?”). The report included a timeline of Syrian Jewry, whose history spreads well over two millennia. This is how it was introduced to the readers (translation by CAMERA Arabic):

“TIMELINE

“The San Francisco-based JIMENA website, interested in documenting the history and heritage of oriental Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, summarizes the history of Jews in Syria as follows:”

In fact, the timeline is not directly taken from any of JIMENA’s three relevant webpages – two brief summaries elaborating on the history of Syria’s Jews in English and Arabic, and one timeline in English – but it is apparently based on all three. In comparison to JIMENA’s original webpages, the BBC’s version is heavily edited; its anonymous writer added entries that did not appear in any of the three webpages but removed other historical events that were mentioned in all three. For instance:

The BBC added Paul the Apostle’s successful attempt to convert a large group of Damascus Jews to Christianity in 49 AD.

The BBC added the Mongol capture of Aleppo in 1260, resulting in the slaughter of many Jews.

The BBC removed JIMENA’s description of the Aleppo Codex’s arrival to Aleppo, allegedly in 1375.

The BBC’s cherry-picking of historical details – which goes against basic principles of trustworthy quoting and its own editorial guidelines – could have been quite unnoticeable had it been limited to antiquity and medieval times. However, once modern era entries were altered, the history of the Jews of Syria was distorted to such an extent that anyone even slightly familiar with Jewish history of the 19th century could notice at least some of BBC’s edits.  For example:

The BBC removed JIMENA’s account of the 1840 Damascus blood libel, a true landmark of 19th century history of the Jewish people as a whole. To quote the original JIMENA timeline (originally in English, in-bracket remarks by CAMERA Arabic): “1840 –Eight members of the Jewish community were falsely accused of ritual murder of a Christian monk during the Damascus Affair. The men were tortured, killed and forced to convert to Islam [all tortured, and some of them were either killed or forced to convert]. The Jewish synagogue of Jobar is destroyed [its interior was pillaged and vandalised by an angry mob]”. Notably, the affair influenced not only the Jews in Damascus (and the Ottoman Empire which controlled it between 1516-1918) but was also pivotal to world Jewry – operating globally to protect fellow Jews in a way that was unbeknown to remote communities until then. To get a better idea of just how gross of an omission it is to remove the Damascus blood libel from a chronicle of Jewish history in Syria, it should be emphasised that it appeared not only in all of JIMENA’s three webpages, but also in many other online chronicles of the history of Syrian Jews.

The BBC kept the following entry in place: “In 1850, many Jewish families leave Syria for Egypt, then [depart] from it to England”. However, it removed JIMENA’s phrase that made a connection between the departure and the blood libel, thus creating the false impression that it was spontaneous or due to an unknown reason.

The BBC added an entry, stating that “in the 1800s Jews were granted a legal status known as ‘Dhimmis’, and they were required to pay the head tax [Arabic: Jizya جزية]”. In fact, the Dhimmi legal status, historically granted to members of some religious minorities who were subjected to Muslim rule, as well as the obligatory Jizya tax that was imposed on them along with it, are both thought to be almost as old as Islam itself; a few of the most ancient Islamic texts (in the case of Jizya, even the Qur’an) refer to them. Specifically regarding the Jews of the areas which now consist modern Syria, their designation as Dhimmis who owe mandatory tax to the state was in effect up to 1856, under the Ottoman Empire as well as under the Muslim rulers that preceded it. Between 1856-1909 Jizya was replaced with a different tax, “Badal Askari”, that Jews and Christians paid in order to become exempt from military service. However, at least some of them considered the new tax as “Jizya with a new name”.

The way BBC chose to assemble the part of its timeline that deals with the 20th century, based on JIMENA’s webpages, is also misleading and far from perfect. The report made absolutely no mention of several violent attacks against Syrian Jews that JIMENA’s English timeline and summary do document.

The 1947 government-encouraged Aleppo pogrom, killing 75 local Jews and displacing around 7,000 (the BBC timeline counted this group along with the Jews who left Syria in the late 1940s following state-sanctioned persecution: dispossession of properties and dismissal of all government jobs).

The 1949 Damascus synagogue bombing, carried out by a militant group composed of Syrians, Egyptians and Palestinians, killing 12 Jews.

The 1974 rape and murder of four Jewish women – the three sisters of the Zeibak family and their cousin, Eva Saad – who tried to flee Syria in disguise. Their mutilated bodies were discovered in a cave near a town adjacent to the Lebanese border, along with the bodies of two young Jewish men who were murdered there earlier – Natan Shaya and Kassem Abadi. All bodies were returned to their families by the Syrian police shortly after the discovery, apparently with no further investigation ever conducted.

By editing out hostilities and atrocities carried out against the Jews of Syria by some of their neighbors and fellow citizens, often with the indirect support of local authorities, the BBC’s timeline whitewashes these ugly episodes from the country’s history. Specifically, by removing the Damascus blood libel from the chronology, BBC also knowingly avoided an opportunity to combat one of the Arab world’s, and particularly Syria’s, most common and venomous antisemitic myths.

#bbc #bbc arabic #syria #jews #history #jimena

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/trump-creates-new-nation/

Philip M. Giraldi: “Trump Creates A New Nation”

Written by Philip M. Giraldi; Originally appeared at The Unz Review

Executive order implies that “Jewishness” is now a nationality

The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act does not include religion, Trump’s order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth “Jewishness” is a nationality.

The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions are based on “the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, ‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities’; and (ii) the ‘Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism’ identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.”

The IHRA “contemporary examples” supplementing the basic description are important. They considerably broaden the definition of anti-Semitism, to include “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations” and “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” The examples also included holding Israel to a higher standard than other nations when criticizing it, and IHRA offers no possible mitigation even if the accusations are, in the case of the behavior of some Jews and of Israel, accurate.

Those who are confused because in the past expressions like “Italian” or “Irish” or “British” meant actual countries should recognize that Trump-speak never respects any connection with reality when there is political advantage just sitting out there waiting to be snatched and exploited. And that imperative is considerably multiplied when one is referring to either the state of Israel or of Jews in general, particularly as seen by the Trump White House, which clearly and repeatedly sends the message that it reveres both. Trump’s order will in effect constitute a government-promoted argument that Jews are a people or a race with a collective national origin, like Italian or Polish Americans, an assertion that clearly is untrue.

In fact, suppressing criticism of Israel on college campuses using a “weaponized” claim of anti-Semitism has long been a major foreign policy objective of the Israeli government even though nonviolent assembly and free speech are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Congress has several times considered a comprehensive Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, though it has not passed due to legitimate free speech concerns. The nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (B.D.S.), which is very active on American campuses, has been particularly targeted and criticism of it is frequent in the media and from Congress while also emanating from the White House. As most accredited colleges receive federal funding, which can be considerable at a major research university, the executive order will create a major dilemma over how to respond, particularly for those schools that have Middle East study programs.

Work on the presidential executive order was initiated in the summer inside the White House by a team led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, together with his close aide special assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz. They sought to develop a formula whereby government policy would equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and Donald Trump both agreed with that assessment and followed through on it. On December 8th he promised to take action against B.D.S. and other critics in a speech delivered before the Israeli-American Council. The speech is worth reading in full by anyone who is concerned that the United States now has a government that favors one already privileged, wealthy and powerful constituency in particular and is not committed to upholding the civil liberties of all Americans.

Israel is an apartheid state. Covering up for its crimes against humanity as well as its war crimes is something of a growth industry in the United States, with Zionist billionaire oligarchs launching new foundations on a regular basis. Jewish power in the U.S. means that Israel always has been given a pass, even when it deliberately attacked and sought to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American Naval vessel in international waters in 1967. Thirty-four crewman died in the assault. The subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed by the president, secretary of state and the Navy department while the survivors were threatened with imprisonment if they revealed what had occurred. That is how a powerful and ruthless Israel acting through its traitorous domestic proxies operates and it illustrates how feeble the Establishment is in standing up to it.

This latest outrage, in which free speech and association will be denied to benefit one group on the basis of its claimed perpetual victimhood, had its genesis earlier this year when the federal government’s Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to reorganize the Consortium for Middle East Studies program run jointly by the two colleges in part based on their failure to include enough “positive” content relating to Judaism. The demand came with a threat to suspend federal funding of Title VI Higher Education Act international studies and foreign language grants to the two schools if the curriculum were not changed.

The Education Department was particularly irate over a conference in March called “Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities.” A Republican congressman was outraged by the development and asked Secretary DeVos to investigate because the gathering was full of “radical anti-Israel bias.”

Coverage of the story revealed that “Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education.” Her deputy who has served as a focal point for the effort to root out anti-Israel sentiment is Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who might reasonably be described as “a career pro-Israel advocate,” the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which he has used to exclusively defend the rights of Jewish groups and individuals against BDS and other manifestations of Palestinian pushback against the Israeli occupation of their country. He has not hesitated to call opponents anti-Semites and has worked with Jewish students to file civil rights complaints against college administrations, including schools in Wisconsin and California. In an op-ed that appeared, not surprisingly, in The Jerusalem Post, he observed that even when student complaints were rejected, they created major problems for the institutions involved. “If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students.”

Last year Kenneth Marcus reopened an investigation into alleged anti-Jewish bias at Rutgers University that the Obama Administration had closed after finding that the charges were baseless. Marcus indicated that the re-examination was called for as his office in the Education Department would henceforth be using the IHRA-derived State Department definition of anti-Semitism that also includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” making virtually all criticism of Israel a civil rights violation or even a hate crime.

Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish, are uncomfortable with being placed by government into one category, noting inter aliathat ALL students are de facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination illegal. And they also note that the law was never intended to protect individuals whose feelings were hurt or who claim to be unwelcome or even threatened by someone saying something that they disapprove of. Since such protection is clearly the intention of the executive order, it is undeniable that the Trump’s latest ploy is little more than a mechanism to pressure colleges into effectively banning B.D.S. and other groups critical of Israel.

And the order itself raises at least one unpleasant thought: if “Jewishness” is a nation even though it is demonstrably not one, what is the alleged Jewish nationality all about? Is this just one more example of the politics of Jewish identity or is it really some form of dual loyalty, with American Jews divided between those who are loyal to the U.S. and those who are loyal to some supra-nationality or allegiance? The fact is, that Donald Trump himself has several times expressed the view that American Jews, particularly those who are politically liberal, should be more loyal to Israel.

Trump’s maneuver is unfortunately part of a well-funded and highly coordinated federal and state campaign to pass laws to criminalize critics of Israel. And the issue has also surfaced within the Democratic Party among those campaigning for the presidential nomination. Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced Representative Ilhan Omar to apologize after she criticized proposed anti-boycott legislation. More recently Bernie Sanders is being smeared as an anti-Semite even though he is Jewish because he associates with critics of Israel and has spoken out in favor of defending free speech while also supporting Palestinian rights.

There is a certain irony in all of this political theater, that the wealthiest and most powerful identifiable group in the United States should yet again be playing the victim is in itself astonishing. And making it a crime to deny Israel legitimacy while at the same time denying the same thing to Palestinians should give anyone pause.

And there is also considerable hypocrisy in that pro-Israel groups on campus have been if anything better funded and more aggressive in promoting their point of view than B.D.S. has been without any consequences. Canary Mission, for example, claims to “document people and groups that promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses” by posting their names, photos and personal information on its website. Israeli-American real estate investor and billionaire Adam Milstein is reported to be its principal funder while the site’s listings have been allegedly used by the Israeli border security officials to deny entry to pro-B.D.S. American citizens and also with potential employers to deny applicants jobs.

The Lawfare Project’s Campus Civil Rights Project meanwhile helps aggrieved Zionist students to “take legal action to ensure that schools live up to their legal obligations to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, and discrimination.”

So here we are again. Special privileges for the perpetual victims. And no one in the media is willing to tell it like it is, while the handful of meek voices in congress have been effectively silenced. So sad, particularly as an election year is coming up and there will undoubtedly be much more of this. When the Israelis occupy nearly all of the West Bank with Donald Trump’s approval and start “relocating” the existing population, who will be around to speak up? No one, as by that time saying nay to Israel will be a full-fledged hate crime and you can go to jail for doing so.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

#Donald Trump #U.S.A