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» » » » » » » 04/02 Links Pt2: Jew-hatred poses as anti-racism in ‘The New York Times’; Former British PM Gordon Brown says Labour has ‘let the Jewish community down’

04/02 Links Pt2: Jew-hatred poses as anti-racism in ‘The New York Times’; Former British PM Gordon Brown says Labour has ‘let the Jewish community down’

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From Ian:
Jew-hatred poses as anti-racism in ‘The New York Times’
This week’s New York Times Magazine features an essay by the veteran Israel-hater Nathan Thrall titled “How the Battle over Israel and Anti-Semitism Is Fracturing American Politics.” Employing a variety of lies, half-truths, illogical deductions, and insinuations, it draws a contrast between wealthy Jewish donors to the Democratic party who are sympathetic to Israel and minority, primarily black, activists who are anti-Israel. Jonathan Tobin comments:

Thrall’s object is to justify [boycott-Israel] campaigns that anchor the debate about the subject in “Black-Palestinian solidarity” and the effort to view the war on Israel through the “racial-justice prism.” The result is an 11,000-word essay that seeks to . . . paint Zionism as inherently racist and efforts to destroy Israel as idealistic attempts to defend human rights, [while also seeking] to portray the pro-Israel movement’s effort to push back at anti-Semitic attacks as tainted by prejudice against African-Americans and fueled primarily by the heavy-handed efforts of Jewish donors to manipulate the Democratic party.

One of Thrall’s primary sources is the former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. . . . The article . . . amplifies Rhodes’s specious claim that President Obama’s inability to persuade Israel’s supporters to back him on the [Israel-Palestinian] issue was due to racial prejudice. He claims that supporters of Israel assumed that Barack Obama was pro-Palestinian because he was black. Rhodes’s thesis, which Thrall endorses, is that this alleged fear of Obama was the result of the pro-Israel community’s understanding that the Jewish state really was “an oppressor.” According to Rhodes, Obama’s critics were “acknowledging, through [their] own fears, that Israel treats the Palestinians like black people had been treated in the United States.”

This argument has it backward. Jewish Democrats [went to enormous lengths] to maintain their faith that Obama had been sincere in his professions of support for Israel when he ran for president in 2008, in spite of evidence to the contrary, both then and later. Far from being prejudiced against him, most American Jews stuck loyally to Obama, despite his belief that more “daylight” was needed between Israel and the United States. They even supported his efforts to appease an Iranian regime that was bent on genocide.

The assumption that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are treated the same way as the African-American victims of Jim Crow in the pre-civil-rights-era South is a big lie. . . . The standoff about the future of the West Bank exists because the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected offers of peace and statehood. They would have attained independence long ago had they been willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn.

Former British PM Gordon Brown says Labour has ‘let the Jewish community down’
Former British prime minister Gordon Brown announced Monday he has joined the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) as an affiliate member, in a bid to combat rising anti-Semitism within the opposition party.

In a video released by the Hope not Hate organization, which works to challenge racism, the former Labour leader says the party has “let the Jewish community and itself down” over the past two years, in a reference to the anti-Semitism accusations that have dogged the party and its leadership.

The clip was filmed at London’s Liverpool Street Station, where there is a statue to commemorate the nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children who were rescued in the Kindertransport during World War II. The children were taken out of Europe and fostered in Britain and as a result were often the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust.

In the video, Brown speaks passionately of “the promises we made following the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust to the Jewish community: that you will never walk alone and we will never walk by on the other side.”

He also notes that the party “should never have allowed legitimate criticism — that I share — of the current Israeli government to act as a cover for the demonization of the entire Jewish people.”


When the UK’s left-wing prime minister was one of Israel’s closest friends
Harold Wilson may be less well-known internationally than Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, but he dominated British politics for much of the 1960s and 1970s — and remains the only modern-day prime minister to win four general elections.

His return to office 45 years ago this month was as unexpected as his defeat had been four years previously when, having rewarded him with a landslide victory in 1966, the voters unceremoniously ejected his Labour government in June 1970.

But, in many regards, Wilson’s roller-coaster ride in the decade between 1964 and 1974, from victory to defeat and back again, was completely predictable.

Famously pragmatic — critics claimed unprincipled — the former prime minister’s name became for a time synonymous with the wheeler-dealing and political game-playing in which he undoubtedly reveled.

As one contemporary newspaper columnist suggested, Wilson’s image was “a dark serpentine crawling trimmer, shifty and shuffling, devious, untrustworthy, constant only in the pursuit of self-preservation and narrow party advantage.” For the historian Dominic Sandbrook, Wilson was “a brilliant opportunist.”

There was, however, a limit to Wilson’s alleged opportunism. As the left wing and veteran Zionist Labour MP, Ian Mikardo, once argued: “I don’t think Harold … [had] any doctrinal beliefs at all. Except for one, which I find utterly incomprehensible, which is his devotion to the cause of Israel.”

Wilson’s leadership arguably marked the high point of the relationship between Labour and British Jews, a bond which has today been strained by Jeremy Corbyn’s strident anti-Zionism and the allegations of anti-Semitism which continue to rock the party. It is a reminder not simply of happier times, but of the staunch support that the left once offered to Israel and the rather more ambivalent stance adopted by British conservatives.



Another anti-Semite in the Democratic Party
He has engaged in "crude anti-Semitism," according to the Anti-Defamation League. He has "consistently impugned the loyalty of American Jews," said the American Jewish Congress. And he has compared Israel to the Nazis, which according to the U.S. State Department, is anti-Semitic.

Yet, irony of ironies, longtime Democratic Party official James Zogby has emerged as one of the most prominent voices in the party defending Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and denying that her remarks about Jews being disloyal were anti-Semitic.

Zogby is a longtime leader of various anti-Israel groups – first the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, then the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and currently the Arab American Institute.

At the same time, he has also been prominent in Democratic Party leadership circles. He was deputy manager of Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1998 presidential campaigns. In 1995, he was appointed co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee. He served as senior adviser on ethnic outreach for both Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000 and Barack Obama's first presidential campaign, in 2008.

Since 2001, Zogby has been a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee. In 2006, he was also named co-chair of the DNC's Resolutions Committee. As a member of that committee, in 2012 he objected to the insertion of language affirming that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and helped draft the pro-Palestinian language that appeared in the 2016 party platform.
Shmuley Boteach: Voting Against Israel Doesn’t Stop AIPAC From Supporting Cory Booker
During a CNN town hall last week, presidential candidate Cory Booker made headlines in the Jewish press by reciting a few words in Hebrew. Asked by a pastor how his faith would influence him as president, Booker said, “Christ is the center of my life,” and added, “I studied the Torah, too.” He then referred to a song sung during the High Holidays: Ki veiti beit t’fila yikareh l’chol ha’amim — “For my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations.”

Many media outlets commented on the fact that I had taught Cory that and other Hebrew phrases. When I was the Chabad rabbi at Oxford, Cory and I studied Torah together. We developed a close friendship, so it was only natural that I would offer to help Cory when he entered politics.

Increasingly, however, Cory has used his knowledge of Hebrew and Judaism to evade questions about Israel and the problematic positions he has taken.

Last week, Cory did not deliver an address to AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference, but instead held a closed-door, off-the-record meeting with some of his constituents, which once again allowed him to avoid addressing his increasingly problematic positions on Israel in public. AIPAC praised him rather than challenge him about a series of negative votes related to Israel, including his most recent vote against anti-BDS legislation.

People who aspire to greatness, and now the highest office in the land, must pass tests along the way to fulfill their potential. Sadly, when it counted most to the pro-Israel community, Cory failed repeated tests of principle as he increasingly sought to court the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party.
When Anti-Semitism Masquerades as Social Justice
Thrall of course adds the erroneous claim that "full equality between Jews and non-Jews" would no longer make Israel a Jewish state when, in reality, such equality already exists. But he is right that BDS supporters' demand for the right to return for all Palestinian refugees, which means any descendant of anyone who left what is now Israel in 1948—would destroy the Jewish state. So, no, the BDS movement is not about pressure and just ending the occupation; it is about destruction and ending the Jewish state.

Thrall's essay is part of the political left's larger obsession with Israel and its role in American politics. And this obsession is no longer just confined to the progressive fringes. Indeed, Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I., Vt.) views have become mainstream, as are those of the younger generation of democratic socialists who have a deep hatred of Israel. Furthermore, look at former officials from the Obama administration, such as Rhodes, endorsing the current hostility toward Israel. This obsession, and the smearing of Israel that goes along with it, is illogical. Israel is powerful and capable but still a very small country—about the size of New Jersey. And the United States, objectively, benefits a great deal from its relationship with Israel. Moreover, there are—again, objectively—far worse regimes out there, even if one believes that Israel abuses human rights. So why so much attention on Israel?

If only progressives and the media would focus the same attention on Iran, where the regime executes homosexuals; North Korea, the most repressive country in the world; China, where the Communist Party is trying to brainwash its Muslim population; and so many other horrible governments that also pose threats to American interests and security. Perhaps then America's leaders could actually come to some bipartisan consensus on foreign policy and national security, and we could all be a little safer. But no, for the media and progressives, it does not get any worse than Israel.
Critics slam pro-BDS article from BBC quoted NGO writer
Those of us who follow the BBC are more than familiar with the corporation’s long-standing practice of promoting the views of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) without disclosing their political agenda (let alone funding) in breach of its own editorial guidelines.

Promoted and quoted: the BBC’s preferred NGO contributors in 2018

When the New York Times magazine recently published a very long Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) promoting essay by Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group (ICG), critics not only took issue with its content but also with the fact that readers were not informed of the relevant background to the writer’s organisation.

“Thrall, who the Times presents as a disinterested expert, serves as director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group, or ICG, a left-leaning advocacy organization that has received around $4 million from the Qatari government in the just the last year. Qatar’s donations represent around 6 percent of ICG’s total budget. Qatar is not mentioned in Thrall’s 11,500-word piece.

ICG also has raised $1 million in the past several years from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, a prolific and open funder of the BDS movement in the United States.

Another significant portion of ICG’s funding—more than $5 million in the last three years—comes from the Open Society Foundations, run by liberal billionaire George Soros. Open Society funds dozens of Palestinian organizations that are prominent members of the BDS movement.

ICG’s president is former Obama administration official Robert Malley, another Israel critic who was fired from President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election team after he met with the Hamas terror organization. He joined the Obama administration in 2014.”
NYC councilman who tweeted ‘Palestine does not exist’ loses committee seat
Kalman Yeger, a New York City councilman, lost his seat on the City Council’s Immigration Committee for tweeting “Palestine does not exist.”

The tweet, posted Wednesday, came in response to a tweet by Zainab Iqbal, a journalist for the local publication Bklyner. Yeger, who represents the Haredi Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park, also called Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar an anti-Semite. Omar has been accused repeatedly of echoing anti-Semitic stereotypes.

The City Council’s leadership team met Monday and removed Yeger from the committee, according to The New York Times. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio had condemned Yeger’s statement and said he should step down from the Immigration Committee if he does not apologize. Council Speaker Corey Johnson also said he was “uncomfortable” with Yeger sitting on the committee.

“I very vigorously condemn his comments in no uncertain terms,” Johnson said, according to The Times. “The best thing about our city is our diversity, and that includes our Jewish community and it includes our amazing Palestinian community as well who live here.”

Yeger declined to comment on the issue to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, but in a news conference Thursday he doubled down on his statement.

“There is no state by that name; there is no place by that name,” he said, according to the New York Post. “That’s a fact. I did not make it up.”
Is it Islamophobic to deny that ‘Palestine’ exists?
Kalman Yeger, a member of the New York City Council, is in trouble for denying the existence of a country named "Palestine." Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Mayor Bill De Blasio asserted that if Yeger didn't retract his comments, he should be booted off the council's Committee on Immigration.

Prior to 1948 and the birth of Israel, the only group that answered to the name "Palestinians" were Jewish residents of the British Mandate for Palestine.

Non-Jews who lived there considered themselves Arabs, not Palestinians, because there had never in history been a separate Palestinian Arab political entity or, prior to the birth of modern Zionism, a national movement that represented the ambitions of such a group. It was only after the birth of Israel that the Arabs embraced the name "Palestinian" and claimed that the country was "Palestine."

The reason why "Palestine" isn't a country is that Palestinian identity has been inextricably tied to denying the right of the Jews to a state in the same country.

When people like Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and the BDS movement they support say "Palestine," they are not referring to a separate state next door to a secure Jewish state. They are, instead, referring to their hope of replacing the State of Israel with a Palestinian state that will deny the right of the Jews to self-determination.

Opposing that ambition is not Islamophobic or even necessarily rooted in hate against Palestinians.
Ilhan Omar Investigated Over Alleged Personal Use of Campaign Funds
Freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar will soon hear the results of an investigation that took place quietly over recent months and which looked into her potential campaign-finance violations, according to a Sinclair report Monday.

Minnesota state representative Steve Drazkowski, a Republican, filed two complaints against the now-congresswoman last year alleging that she had misused around $6,000 in campaign funds during her time as a state lawmaker.

Drazkowsk's first complaint alleged Omar had used the campaign funds to pay for legal fees for her divorce attorney. Drazkowski's second complaint alleged Omar had used campaign funds to pay for out-of-state travel to Estonia and Massachusetts.

Minnesota's Campaign Finance Board said Omar's "out of state travel may not have been to events that would have helped a candidate in the performance of state legislative duties" at the time it ruled probable cause to move to a formal investigation, Drazkowski posted on his website last November.

"I'm pleased the Campaign Finance Board is taking Representative Omar’s blatant misuse of taxpayer resources seriously," Drazkowski said at the time. "Omar doesn’t get to pick and choose the rules she wants to follow, yet it appears that’s exactly what she’s been doing for the past two years."
In North Carolina, Linda Sarsour Defends Anti-Israel Attacks and Denies Her Antisemitism
What happens when a fan of Linda Sarsour has some power over the county budget? The answer could be seen in Orange County, North Carolina this weekend, when the county’s Human Relations Commission, chaired by Deborah Stroman, brought Sarsour in to speak for Women’s History month.

The Commission reportedly spent $5,000, plus travel and security expenses — all paid for in tax dollars — to do it. I wasn’t the only one unhappy with the decision, because there were protesters outside the building. The event was billed as filled, but only about 100 people attended, with plenty of empty chairs.

Linda Sarsour is a notorious critic of Israel, and has also expressed many antisemitic views, along with constant support for Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

In her speech, Sarsour desperately wanted to claim that Muslims could be placed in internment camps, just as America did to Japanese-Americans during World War II. She spoke of propaganda against Muslims, and then “years of propaganda against Japanese Americans. I’m going to take out Japanese and put in fast forward to 2019, I’m going to take out Japanese and put Muslims in there.”

She mixed this in with Holocaust denial, calling the internment camps “concentration camps.” Yes the Japanese internment camps were a terrible blight on this country, but did the US round Japanese-Americans up to murder them? No. Did they starve them to death? No. Work them to death? No. Experiment on them? No. Yet Sarsour did not hesitate before using that terminology.

“We practice modern day slavery in the United States of America,” she said, speaking of the American prison system.

On antisemitism, she stated, “Let’s be clear about who the real antisemites are. When you focus on somebody like me, something bad is going to happen … the Pittsburgh white supremacist shooter was not citing Farrakhan.”
At Women’s History Month Speech, Linda Sarsour Tries – and Fails – to Present a Less Divisive Image
Palestinian-American and Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour was the keynote speaker on March 31 in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The event was sponsored by Orange County’s Department of Human Rights & Relations and The Orange County Human Relations Commission (HRC) of NC “in honor of Women’s History Month.” Sarsour was paid $5,000 plus expenses.

As she recently tried at NYU, Sarsour attempted to repackage herself as someone tolerant of different views. However, the divisive Linda Sarsour quickly emerged.

Speaking to about 110 people in a room with room for 200, Sarsour attacked Israel and applauded the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Sarsour has been widely criticized for saying “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and advising Muslims not to “humanize” Israelis. Speaking in Hillsborough, Sarsour urged folks not to dehumanize others. Coming from Sarsour, this is a perfect example of do as I say, not as I do.

Sarsour said her movement is feministic and tolerant of debate and different views, yet neglected to mention that she has alienated Jewish women and drawn widespread criticism for saying that Zionists cannot be feminists. The national Women’s March has been rocked in recent months by allegations of their leaders’ anti-Semitism, resulting in numerous organizations breaking away from the movement, including the Democratic National Committee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Greenpeace, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It is no wonder that Sarsour, one of the Women’s March leaders largely responsible for its decline, is trying to rebrand herself as tolerant of people who hold different positions.


‘Institutionally Antisemitic’: The British Labour Party’s Cautionary Tale
How does this garbage become institutionalized? The Macpherson Report defined institutional racism as the “collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture or ethnic origin” — a failure manifested in the thoughtless, prejudiced, and hostile behavior that Stephen Lawrence’s parents experienced from the police officers investigating their son’s murder, and perpetuated by the refusal of individuals in key leadership positions to recognize the problem of racism in the first place.

Johnson applies this same reasoning to the dismissive, inherently suspicious response of Corbyn and his allies to the numerous instances of antisemitism that have stretched from Labour’s rank-and-file all the way to certain members of parliament and, many would argue, Corbyn himself. “To define the Labour Party as institutionally antisemitic,” Johnson writes, “is to say that it is not currently offering ‘an appropriate and professional service’ to a particular group, Jews; that this failure can be detected in the ‘processes,’ ‘attitudes’ and ‘behaviors’ found in the party; that the party has not ‘openly and adequately addressed’ antisemitism in the party; and that these multiple failures are common enough to adversely impact the experience of Jews, so that they are in various ways disadvantaged (as those Jews currently leaving the party keep making clear to the leader in their eloquent resignation letters).”

As grim as it is to say, we now at least have an example against which other institutions where antisemitism is a problem can be measured. Some American campus administrations might be said to be denying a professional service to those Jewish students assailed by antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism; the same could certainly be said of the police and judiciary in France or Germany, both of whom too often fail the victims of antisemitic hate crimes in those countries. For those of us outside of the United Kingdom, if there is a lesson to be gleaned from Johnson’s analysis, it’s that any political party, or civic association, or educational institution that confidently believes itself to be immune from outbursts of crude Jew-hatred should regard Labour’s wretched experience with antisemitism as a cautionary tale.
Labour PPC Wrote 'You F kin Ethiopian Jew', 'You Look Like a.. Ethiopian Jew'
Labour selected as its new Parliamentary Candidate for Aldershot last night, Abby King, who works as a staffer for the Shadow Minister for Local Transport, Matt Rodda MP.

Her Twitter history raises a lot of questions as to her attitude towards the Jewish community.

What is going on in the Labour Party..?

UPDATE: Ironically, it turns out King herself had warned about about falling into the ‘trap’ of having old tweets dug up during an interview with the Royal Holloway student newspaper last year:

Abby admits that she “loves a bit of political tweeting” during this downtime too… we agreed that politics and Twitter could be a dark place at times… younger politicians can fall into the ‘we dug out your old tweets and found this’ trap.

Guido is not sure her tweets above fall into the category of “political tweeting”. King has now locked her account…
Daphne Anson: Outside the UK Israeli Embassy, Ugly Smears, Ugly Chants from Corbynistas
"When I say Free you say Palestine ... Yes, yes BDS"

"O Jeremy Corbyn!"

On 30 March, outside the Israeli Embassy in London (with a bunch of those Shabbat-breaking "authentic Jews" the Neturei Karta lending the support of their presence) anti-Zionist ferals marking the first anniversary of the "Great March of Return", scream and cheer a succession of leftist speakers claming Netanyahu and "Apartheid Israel" and advocating the "Right of Return".

Speakers include Jewish flotilla alumnus Glyn Secker, Amos Trust director Chris Rose, and Stop the War Coalition's Lindsey German, and Joyce Hurndall.

More odious sentiments, from, among others, a trade union representative, from a member of the truly egregious Jewish Voice for Labour, and a pro-BDS song from a choir of elderly dames, as well as a talk by the PSC's Hugh Lanning:


CAA calls for police to seize additional secret internal Labour dossiers following the three arrests over leaked Labour report
Campaign Against Antisemitism has called for the Metropolitan Police Service to demand that the Labour Party hands over its further secret internal dossiers detailing antisemitic hate crimes by Party members, and for police officers to seize the dossiers if they are not provided willingly. We have also called for the Labour Party to be investigated for keeping its evidence of the crimes secret.

Three people have been arrested after Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chairman, Gideon Falter, called into an LBC phone-in with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick and made a live-on-air police report of the antisemitic hate crimes detailed in a secret Labour Party dossier which had been leaked to LBC and reviewed by a former police Commander responsible for obsessing hate crime, Mak Chishty.

Two men in their 50s were arrested as well as a woman in her 70s, all on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred, which is a very serious criminal offence.

The three are understood to have been expelled from the Labour Party after the Party learned on LBC that its secret dossier had been reported to the police by Campaign Against Antisemitism live on air.

The secret internal dossier contains over eighty pages of antisemitic hatred by Labour Party members, including numerous admissions of guilt, but the Labour Party kept the dossier secret, not even telling Jewish Labour MPs who were directly threatened within it. This is despite police considering threats to their safety to be so severe as to warrant special police protection.
Rivlin meets Trudeau, thanks him for standing up to BDS, anti-Semitism
President Reuven Rivlin on Monday met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the capital, Ottawa, as part of a state visit to Canada.

Rivlin commended Trudeau for taking a stand against anti-Semitism and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and for Canada’s support of Israel internationally, including for the parliament’s move to freeze relations with Iran.

The president spoke of Iran’s regional influence in the Middle East and said, “The world cannot allow Iran” to build “a Shiite axis in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.”

“The only way to halt Iran’s plans is by concerted international pressure and targeted military action whenever needed,” Rivlin said, according to a readout from his office.
President Reuven Rivlin, left, with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, April 1, 2019. (Mark Neiman/ GPO)

Later Monday, Trudeau and Rivlin were set to pay a visit to Ottawa’s Holocaust Memorial.

In January, Trudeau blasted the BDS movement as anti-Semitic and contrary to “Canadian values,” and accused it of intimidating Jewish students on university campuses.


Harvard student council votes to fund Israeli Apartheid Week
Harvard University will provide $2,050 to the Palestine Solidarity Committee for Israeli Apartheid Week, according to an article published by the university newspaper, the Harvard Crimson.

Harvard’s undergraduate council voted to provide the funds for the event from the student government Grant for an Open Harvard College budget, which supports “mental health, race, culture and faith relations, sexual assault and harassment prevention, social spaces and financial accessibility," according to reports.

IAW is an international series of events that seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people and build support for the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, it states on the organization’s website.

At Harvard, IAW will run through April 4.

Among the speakers visiting Harvard during IAW is Omar Barghouti, a founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.


Roger Waters lashes out after April Fool's joke
Pink Floyd front man and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activist Roger Waters is furious with Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry after they played an April Fool's joke on him.

In a tweet on Monday, April 1, the ministry's account, @4ILorg, posted that Waters would be playing in Tel Aviv on July 16, "Mark your calendars!"

Many readers picked up that the post was an April Fool's joke, but some did fall for it, tagging Waters and asking him to play in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel, while some asked that he play in the Gaza Strip as well.

"Is that before or after he converts?" joked @SussexFriends, while @heatherglasson said, "In your dreams... no way would he do that. April fool!"

Waters did not take the joke lightly, however. Early on Tuesday morning, he posted on Twitter, in capital letters, "HO! F******* HO! EXCEPT THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER."


Swastikas found in same Brooklyn neighborhood as Bader Ginsburg poster vandalism
Swastikas were found spray-painted on a sidewalk in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint on Monday morning.

Police are investigating the graffiti found on Newel Street near an intersection with Norman Avenue, according to the Greenpoint Post.

Less than a month ago, a poster hung in a Greenpoint subway stop advertising a book about Jewish Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was vandalized with a swastika and the phrase “Die, Jew bitch!”

Stickers with swastikas and other hate speech were found in the neighborhood in January, prompting responses from several local city and state lawmakers.
Ali Express pulls ‘Lego Nazis’ from site after outrage
Chinese online shopping platform Ali Express has removed the Nazi Lego set from its site following complaints, according to Arutz Sheva.

MK Uri Arial (Bayit Yehudi) expressed outrage regarding the toy set, reportedly writing a letter to billionaire Jack Ma, the owner of Ali Express, and requesting of him to remove the item from the website.

World Zionist Organization [WZO] official Yakov Hagoel also slammed the shopping platform for selling products with the Nazi German Eagle.

The set includes figurines wearing Nazi SS uniforms and includes a Lego Adolf Hitler.

“It is forbidden to honor and provide a spotlight for the enemy of mankind,” Hagoel wrote, according to Mako, saying that the Chinese firm must “remove the antisemitic products.”
‘90210’ Stars Tori Spelling, Jennie Garth in Israel for Filming of Clothing Commercial
Actresses Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, former stars of the hit television show “Beverly Hills, 90210,” are currently in Israel filming a commercial for the clothing company Castro.

Garth and Spelling — known for playing Donna and Kelly on the iconic TV series — are staying in Tel Aviv and working on a campaign for Castro’s children’s line. The Israeli clothing giant shared on Instagram on Sunday behind-the-scenes footage from the collaboration.

“Best friends in life and business,” Spelling, who is Jewish, captioned a photo of her and Garth on Monday. “So excited to be in Israel filming an amazing commercial for @castrofasion_kids with my bestie.”

Castro said filming for the commercial would begin on Monday and the actresses were to be joined by “dozens of talented children, musicians and singers” in the advertisement, The Jerusalem Post reported. The group will perform the “90210” theme song in the new campaign “as a tribute to the parents of our children,” according to the company.
Intel Capital expands Israel team, announces new $117m global investments
Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of US semiconductor giant Intel Corp., announced on Monday that it was growing its Israel team to further invest in Israeli startups and companies, having poured some $120 million into 14 Israeli ventures over the course of 2018. This is out of a total of 95 deals Intel engaged in last year to the tune of nearly $400 million in overall investments.

In Israel, Intel Capital said Roi Bar-Kat, previously with US fund Liberty Technology VC, and Noam Kaiser, formerly Amazon’s business development manager for the VC field in Israel, Spain, and Portugal, would be joining the local team as partners and investment directors. The fund’s Adi Caspi Zepkowitz was promoted to associate at Intel Capital and Shira Vissoker will be joining as a business analyst.

Intel Capital said the Israel team would continue scouting for companies in all stages, with a focus on earlier stage startups.

The announcement came as Intel Capital held its annual Global Summit conference in Phoenix, Arizona — now in its 19th year — welcoming some 600 entrepreneurs, venture investors, business leaders, and Intel executives for the three-day event focused on the chipmaker giant’s achievements and future prospects. A number of senior officials from Intel’s portfolio companies in Israel attended the summit, including from transportation data startup Moovit (in which Intel led a $50 million investment), AI processor developer Habana Labs ($75 million), and gaming tech startup Overwolf ($16 million).
The Jews Who Fought Hitler in Hollywood
Ben Urwand’s The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact With Hitler (2013) is one of two recent books arguing that the legendary Hollywood studio heads were less than “profiles in courage” in standing up to the global challenge of the Nazi propaganda machine.

But now we know the other half of the story.

Laura B. Rosenzweig’s Hollywood’s Spies (2017) and Steven J. Ross’ Hitler in Los Angeles (2017) both document the Hollywood moguls’ undercover response to the Nazi menace within Los Angeles. The books’ primary focus is transplanted Chicago lawyer Leon Lewis, who convinced the studio elite — Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, and Harry Cohn — of the very real threat posed by domestic fascism.

Both books contextualize an era when, in the wake of Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, Los Angeles was full of fascist supporters, and hundreds of local Nazi and allied “radical right” nativist and extremist “Christian” groups. All had in common the Nazis’ revulsion toward the Jews. Even before Kristallnacht, Los Angeles fascists defaced Jewish storefronts and organized “Buy Gentile/Boycott the Jews” campaigns that became a national model.

With studio money, Leon Lewis put together the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee (LAJCC), whose public face was improving “community relations,” but also infiltrated the radical right with spies. They exposed Nazi diplomatic consuls up and down the Pacific Coast, and even a fascist Mata Hari named Leslie Fry. These were the masterminds of front groups like Friends of New Germany that morphed into the German American Bund, which even used the Hitler salute.
Jon Voight Celebrates US-Israel Relations at Gala
A recent philanthropic gala celebrated the relationship between Israel and the United States. Honorees of the event included U.S. Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt and actor Jon Voight. Our Ariel Levin-Waldman has the story.


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