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» » » » » » » 07/25 Links: Twitter faces 48-hour boycott over ‘failure to tackle antisemitism’; Jewish group asks head of Philadelphia NAACP to resign after anti-Semitic Facebook post

07/25 Links: Twitter faces 48-hour boycott over ‘failure to tackle antisemitism’; Jewish group asks head of Philadelphia NAACP to resign after anti-Semitic Facebook post

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From Ian:
Twitter faces 48-hour boycott over ‘failure to tackle antisemitism’
Anti-racism campaigners and public figures have joined calls for a mass walkout from Twitter in protest at the site’s failure to sufficiently tackle antisemitism.

Users of the platform are being urged not to post on the platform for 48 hours from Monday at 9am. The action comes after Twitter failed to remove the account of British grime artist Wiley following a string of hate-filled posts to his half-a-million followers between Friday and Saturday morning.
Grime artist Wiley has been dropped by his management company over accusations of anti-Semitism.( Photo credit : Matt Crossick/PA Wire)

“Wiley’s is just one of a recent number of high profile and influential Twitter accounts that has incited racial hatred against Jews, receiving an insufficient response from the platform provider,” said organisers of the campaign that includes actress Tracy-Ann Oberman. “This incident reflects the need for clear legislation, such as the Online Harm Reduction Bill.”

Activist Saul Freeman, who tweets under @nuddering, approached Oberman with the idea of a mass walkout after she tweeted on Friday night that she might stop using the platform.

Twitter faced sustained criticism from the Jewish community and high-profile figures beyond including Piers Morgan after only removing a few of Wiley’s tweets and slapping him with a week-long ban, rather than taking down his account.

Among dozens who have already pledged to join the walkout before it was even publicly announced are anti-racism campaigner Sir Trevor Phillips, singer Beverley Knight, comedian Shappi Khorsandi, former MP Luciana Berger, broadcaster Maajid Nawaz and writers Nick Cohen and Sathnam Sanghera. The call for action also has the backing of the CST, Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council.

CAA calls for prosecution, revocation of MBE and closure of social media accounts of musician Wiley over unhinged incitement against Jews
Campaign Against Antisemitism is calling for the prosecution of the musician known as Wiley over his unhinged incitement against Jews. We have also called for the revocation of his MBE and asked Twitter and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, to close his social media accounts.

The rapper, whose name is Richard Kylea Cowie but who is known as Wiley, has spent today engaged in an escalating rant which has culminated in calls for Jews to be shot and for black people to go to “war” against them.

After a day spent likening Jews to the Ku Klax Klan and claiming that Jews had cheated him and were “snakes”, Wiley tweeted that Jews should “hold some corn”, which is a slang expression meaning that they should be shot. He added “Jewish community you deserve it”.

He also called on “black people” to go to “war” with Jews.

Wiley repeatedly evoked conspiracy theories that Jews were responsible for the slave trade and that modern-day Jews are in fact imposters who usurped black people — a conspiracy theory that has incited acts of terrorism against Jews, such as a stabbing attack in Monsey in New York in December.

As Wiley spewed his antisemitic venom, Campaign Against Antisemitism responded with the facts, for example that the conspiracy theory that Jews were responsible for the slave trade has been described by the Legacies of British Slave Ownership project at University College, London, as based on “no evidence whatsoever”.

Wiley’s racist ramblings, which he apparently referred to as “Black History Lesson For Today”, come after the musician known as Ice Cube tweeted a picture of an antisemitic mural and several other celebrities have promoted the antisemitic hate preacher Louis Farrakhan. During his rant, Wiley praised Ice Cube.
Police probes British rapper Wiley after an antisemitic tirade on Twitter
British rap artist Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., most commonly known as Wiley, is facing a police investigation after a string of antisemitic comments appeared on his social media accounts, prompting his management to drop him.

“If you work for a company owned by 2 Jewish men and you challenge the Jewish community in anyway of course you will get fired,” Wiley wrote and then added, “Infact [sic] there are 2 sets of people who nobody has really wanted to challenge #Jewish & #KKK but being in business for 20 years you start to undestand [sic] why.”

In several other tweets, Wiley claimed that Jews control "the Law," and made several claims about Israel not being a Jewish country, "Listen to me Jewish community Israel is not your country I'm sorry."

When confronted about his tweets, Wiley wrote "Anti Semetic? What's it called the way you rip us off in business then? What's that called when you tell us there is 1 rule for us and another rule for you lot? What's that called?" He added "Anti Semetic? Are u stupid? Do you know what these people do to the world?"

Police confirmed they had received complaints about Wiley.






Jewish group asks head of Philadelphia NAACP to resign after anti-Semitic Facebook post
The NAACP and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia have a long history of working together to combat racism and bigotry.

So, Jewish leaders say it was shocking to learn Rodney Muhammad, the president of the Philadelphia Chapter of the NAACP, had shared an anti-Semitic post on his Facebook page. They are now calling for his resignation.

"Disgusting, unbelievably wrong thing to do," said Steve Rosenberg, the chief operating officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

An image allegedly posted by Muhammad showed images of actor and rapper Ice Cube, Philadelphia Eagles star DeSean Jackson and TV host Nick Cannon - all three who have recently made anti-Semitic posts - and a man crushing people with his hand with the words: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

"A horribly disgusting image of DeSean Jackson and an image of a hook-nosed Jewish man pushing people down," said Rosenberg. "To call the Jewish people oppressors with everything that we had to overcome over all these years is wrong in every level."

The post and any reference to it have since been taken down.

Action News reached out to Muhammad, but did not hear back.


German city enlists rapper who joked about Holocaust for social distancing PSA
The city government of Germany’s second-largest metropolis is facing criticism for enlisting a Muslim rapper whose lyrics mocked Holocaust victims to promote social distancing.

The municipality of Düsseldorf posted a public service announcement featuring Farid Bang on its Facebook page Wednesday. In 2018, Bang and a collaborator released a song in which they rapped about having “bodies more sculpted than Auschwitz inmates,” and contained lyrics about “another Holocaust; let’s grab the Molotov” cocktails.

When the two artists won a top music award that year, several other winners returned their awards in protest. German prosecutors investigated the artists but decided the song was merely tasteless, not a violation of laws prohibiting Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism,

The commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia criticized the decision to involve Farid Bang in the social distancing promo.

“The choice of rapper, Farid Bang, for a public project, which is supposed to shed light on the topic of the coronavirus, is hard to bear,” the commissioner, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

Düsseldorf Mayor Thomas Geisel defended the decision to hire Bang as intended to reach a young target audience that has displayed indifference to social distancing rules, Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday.
In fight for Zionism Jewish education is needed now more than ever
Progressive American pubic intellectual Peter Beinart sent shock waves through the Jewish world earlier this month with his op-ed in The New York Times, “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State”. His article chips away at a central tenet of discourse in the Jewish world and of American foreign policy by making the case that a two-state solution has failed. In its stead, he reasons, should be a single bi-national state.

Beinart’s argument, an old one at that, has many detractors. Dan Shapiro, Former US ambassador to Israel under president Barack Obama, wrote, ”Calling for one state for Israelis and Palestinians is neither original, nor a remotely viable solution to this long-running conflict,” He continues, ”It’s a disaster in the making for Israelis, the Jewish people, Palestinians, and US interests.”

What concerns me about Beinart’s article is that it echoes sentiments of a growing number of young Jewish progressives who no longer see Israel as the underdog and exemplar of an egalitarian society. The days when Israel was thought of in the romantic terms of the kibbutz, or of making the desert bloom, have withered and in its place has arisen a critical post-Zionist and even anti-Zionism ethos informed by misplaced notions of social justice.

As a Jewish historian and educator, Beinart’s argument and the progressive cultural tsunami upon which it rides, touches a raw nerve. It is painfully undeniable that Israel is no longer the principal focus for many young Jews. Frustration, engendered by a conflict that never ends, has even led many into the pernicious reaction of self-blame. Young Jews increasingly suffer from a withering of Zionist motivation and depletion of Jewish spirit. Most can scarily articulate how Israel has transformed the very nature of being a Jew because most have little to no understanding of the Jewish condition prior to statehood.
AIPAC praises Israel-related funding as it sails through Congress
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee praised the Senate and the House of Representatives for authorizing $3.8 billion in defense assistance for Israel.

The pro-Israel giant thanked an array of Democrats and Republicans in Congress for shepherding through the funding this week as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, saying the money “will help Israel protect itself against continuing security threats.”

The funding, once unremarkable, now faces calls for cuts from a small group of Democratic Party left-wingers, who say it should be leveraged to pressure Israel not annex parts of the West Bank.

Also included in the House version of the NDAA was $1 million for the office of the State Department’s anti-Semitism monitor, doubling the current amount. Jewish Insider reported that the two Jewish Democrats behind the doubling were Ted Deutch of Florida and Max Rose of New York.

Separately, the House on Friday approved $250 million in funding for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue programs and Palestinian business development. The Alliance for Middle East Peace, an umbrella group for dialogue programs, led lobbying for the funding. The $50 million a year over five years breaks down over time to $110 million for the dialogue programs and $140 million for the investments.

“We know the transformative power of people to people interactions and believe them to be a prerequisite for long-term peace,” ALLMEP said on Twitter, praising particularly Nita Lowey of New York, the pro-Israel stalwart who is chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee and who championed the spending.


Arab League: “There’s no ‘We’ in Uighur” (satire)
After weeks of replacing the 2020 Olympic gymnastics with the mental gymnastics of calling Israelis ‘genocidal’ while ignoring a very real genocide of Muslims in China, the Arab League released a statement in favor of their current relationship with China, stating: “Contrary to popular belief there is no ‘We’ in Uighur.”

In their much-anticipated statement, the Arab League made it very clear that nothing – not mass sterilization, forced abortions, or even good old fashioned, clear-cut evidence – is more important when discussing genocide than semantics.

Following an Arab League circlejerk, one spokesperson publicly announced, “Our thoughts and prayers go out to our Muslim brothers and sisters that they become better educated to see how wonderful the CCP is for business, I mean, world peace”. “Normally, we’d totally have their backs and all but we’re kind of busy right now. If you think about it, in this economy it’s actually really unfair for them to put us in a situation that we literally can’t benefit from at all.”

“People are upset because they’ve created a surveillance state for Muslims with strict rules and devastating punishments” said another minister. “Uh, so have we…and it’s working great for us. In fact, it’s pretty weak of them to let any journalists report on what’s going on. Don’t they know how to properly take care of those pesky reporters? All one needs is a hacksaw, preferably a backroom (consulates are perfect), and 12 conflicting stories and your golden!”

Despite some backlash from the statement, many global leaders saw the continued ignoring of the Uighurs as understandable given that they’re so far away. It’s not like Saudi Arabia, for example, is also ignoring the annihilation of an entire country right on its borders.
Record Numbers of Coronavirus Cases in Every Global Region
Almost 40 countries have reported record single-day increases in coronavirus infections over the past week, around double the number that did so the previous week, according to a Reuters tally showing a pick-up in the pandemic in every region of the world.

The rate of cases has been increasing not only in countries like the United States, Brazil and India, which have dominated global headlines with large outbreaks, but in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel, among others.

Many countries, especially those where officials eased earlier social distancing lockdowns, are experiencing a second peak more than a month after recording their first.

“We will not be going back to the ‘old normal.’ The pandemic has already changed the way we live our lives,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week. “We’re asking everyone to treat the decisions about where they go, what they do and who they meet with as life-and-death decisions – because they are.”

The Reuters data, compiled from official reports, shows a steady rise in the number of countries reporting record daily increases in the virus that causes COVID-19 over the past month. At least seven countries recorded such increases three weeks ago, rising to at least 13 countries two weeks ago to at least 20 countries last week and to 37 countries this week.
Thousands protest across Israel against Netanyahu amid coronavirus crisis
Thousands of protesters gathered on Saturday night in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem to express civil unrest at the “detached and failing government,” calling on Netanyahu to resign immediately.

The protesters gathered from Paris Square at the corner of the street and up until a barricade formed across from the prime minister’s residence by police.

“The goal here is that the government [will] no longer be populated by corrupt people,” Ilona Harpaz, a protester leading chants with a megaphone, told The Jerusalem Post. “They see themselves first and the people later.

“How is it that a prime minister who has been indicted... is still leading?” she continued. “If it were the principal of a school, he would not be allowed to continue working. He is supposed to manage the country, not deal with these cases.”

Six people were arrested on Saturday night during the protests in Jerusalem, including a 27-year-old suspected of taking part in an assaults in the area. The suspect was carrying a flare, gas spray and a substance suspected of being a dangerous drug.
Israel records 1,021 new coronavirus patients in 24 hours, 7 deaths
Health Ministry statistics released after nightfall on Saturday showed 1,021 new coronavirus cases were recorded since the start of Shabbat on Friday evening, with the number of infections since the start of the pandemic passing 60,000. Seven further fatalities were recorded over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 455.

Of the 33,160 active cases, there were 312 people in serious condition, 94 of whom were on ventilators. Another 158 were in moderate condition and the rest have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic.

According to the ministry, there have been 60,496 virus cases recorded in Israel since the beginning of the outbreak and 26,882 have recovered from COVID-19. The ministry said 23,154 tests were performed on Friday and 4,208 so far Saturday. Testing levels typically drop significantly over the weekend.

Israel has seen a marked increase in cases over the past several weeks. On Friday, Health Ministry figures showed 2,022 new cases over the previous 24 hours.

Despite the rise in the number of coronavirus infections, the percentage of those killed by COVID-19 is markedly lower, Ran Balicer, an epidemiologist and executive at Clalit Health Services, told Channel 12 news on Saturday. While the death rate was 2.1 percent during the initial outbreak, it is now 0.8%, Balicer said.

Balicer said possible explanations for this are that authorities are now detecting a larger number of asymptomatic carriers and are doing a better job of protecting at-risk groups. Hospitals have also improved their ability to treat those sick with the virus, he added.
Jewish doctors in Warsaw Ghetto stopped epidemic in its tracks
Jewish doctors were able to stop the spread of a typhus outbreak in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust, according to a new report by the scientific journal Live Science.

Typhus initially broke out in the ghetto in 1941 and was expected to spread rapidly through the inhabitants, but rather it died out quite quickly using strict containment measures carried out by the Jewish community of the ghetto.

The study, performed by researchers from Israel, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Berlin, found that doctors had enforced social distancing, quarantine, and given lectures to educate the captives of the ghetto.

Typhus symptoms in common with the pandemic plaguing the world today: the novel coronavirus. It gives those ill a high fever, chills, coughing and severe muscle pain. Approximately 40% of cases which are left untreated prove to be fatal.

Approximately 120,000 people in the ghetto caught typhus, of which 30,000 died directly from it, according to Medical Xpress.

Models in the new study show that the epidemic, which broke out mid-year, should have reached its peak in the ideal conditions of the fall and winter months, but did not do so - likely due to "anti-epidemic activities in the ghetto," according to Live Science, citing researchers of the study.
Israeli diplomats buy tahini boycotted over LGBT support
The Arab Israeli owner of a popular tahini brand facing a boycott for donating to an LGBTQ rights group has some friends in the Israeli diplomatic community.

Dozens of Israeli diplomats in the country and around the world have purchased more than 600 pounds (272 kilograms) of the tasty sesame paste to support Julia Zaher, who owns Al Arz tahini in Nazareth.

The packages arrived Wednesday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Jerusalem. Some will remain in Israel, with the rest sent to diplomats in the United States, Tokyo, Singapore, Taiwan and Uzbekistan.

Galit Peleg, the former consul for public diplomacy in New York, has been friendly with Zaher for years and enlisted dozens of diplomats to make a group purchase of the popular sesame paste.

“Julia — aside from the fact that she is a role model for female entrepreneurs and a breakthrough for businesswomen in the Arab society — has made a lot of important contributions towards promoting minorities in Israeli society, especially within the Arab community,” Peleg said in a statement.

Zaher made a “significant” donation to the Aguda rights group to create a hotline for Arabic-speaking LGBT Israelis. After Aguda tweeted appreciation in Arabic and Hebrew, some Arabs called for a boycott of her brand.
Joint List may break up due to division on conversion therapy - report
The Joint List has been embroiled in internal conflicts recently, following disagreements regarding the recent vote on the law banning psychologists from performing conversion therapy, which passed in a preliminary reading in the Knesset this week, Kan News reported on Saturday.

After the list's chairman, Ayman Odeh, who belongs to the Hadash Party, voted in favor of the law, Ra'am Party leader Mansour Abbas said that the existence of the Joint List depends on the behavior of its members in the near future.

Abbas further said that the electorate who voted for the list is angry at the support some of its members have shown for the law, and are demanding the dissolution of the list.

The bill was drafted by Meretz leader MK Nitzan Horowitz and passed with the support of 42 MKs against 36 who opposed.

Israel's two first LGBTQ ministers, Amir Ohana and Itzik Shmuli, supported the proposal as the coalition's vote was split, with Blue and White and Labor voting in favor, religious parties voting against, and the Likud Party having mixed votes.

The results of the vote caused a crisis in the coalition, with the heads of the ultra-Orthodox parties sharply criticizing Blue and White and the Likud, and even declaring that they would consider their next political steps. Shas announced that party members would not participate in the plenum vote until further notice.
IAF retaliates, strikes Syrian army posts
IAF attack helicopters struck several Syrian Arab Army targets on Friday night, including observation posts and intelligence facilities in bases near the town of Quientra. According to Syrian media, two military personnel were wounded in the strikes.
"The IDF sees the Syrian regime as responsible for the fire earlier today and will continue to act with determination, retaliating for every violation of the sovereignty of the State of Israel," the military said in a statement.

On Friday, US Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley landed in Israel and met with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and other senior defense officials as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During the visit, Kochavi stressed to the American general that the IDF will continue to defend the State of Israel.

“We are preparing for a variety of scenarios and will act to the extent necessary to remove any threat that endangers the sovereignty of Israel or its citizens,” he said.

On Friday the military announced it was upping its alert along the northern border over concerns of an attack by Hezbollah. Several roads along the border were closed to military vehicles and additional troops were deployed to reinforce divisions in the north.

On Thursday the military deployed reinforcements - one battalion and a number of additional troops - to the Northern Command’s Galilee Division due to the heightened tensions.

Earlier in the week, Hezbollah announced that one of its members was killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Damascus on Monday night. The strike targeted several sites around the capital including a major ammunition depot and killed several Iranian and Syrian personnel as well as Hezbollah member Ali Kamel Mohsen.


MEMRI: Rajaa Al-Halabi, Head Of Hamas Women's Movement: We Are Destined To Do Allah's Will, Finish Off The Treacherous Jews; Palestine Will Be Their Graveyard
Rajaa Al-Halabi, head of the Hamas Women's Movement, said at a rally in Gaza, that aired on July 9, 2020 on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas – Gaza) that Allah will punish the Jews, whom she described as treacherous slayers of prophets. She said that the Palestinians' conflict against the Israelites and the Zionist enemy is a conflict of faith, and that this enemy has no place in Palestine. She added that the Palestinians are destined to do Allah's will by finishing off the Israelites and that Allah has brought the Jews to Palestine so that it can become their graveyard.

"These Are The Israelites. These Are The Jews... Who Slayed The Prophets... Who Acted Treacherously And Violated [Sanctities]"

Rajaa Al-Halabi: "Indeed, these are the Israelites. These are the Jews. They are the ones who slayed the prophets, the ones who acted treacherously and violated [sanctities].
[...]
"Our Conflict With The Zionist Enemy Is A Matter Of Faith, Not Of Borders"

"Indeed, my dear sisters, our conflict with the Zionist enemy is a matter of faith, not of borders. Needless to say, we will not make do with what we have here. We will not make do with partitioning the land and taking only a part of it. This land will be ours in its entirety, Allah willing, because our conflict with the Zionist enemy is an existential conflict, not a conflict about borders.

"This Is Our Fate, My Beloved Sisters – To Be Allah's Hand On Earth, The Hand That Will Finish Off The Israelites"

"This enemy, who came from all corners of the world, has no place here, but this is what Allah wanted for them... This is our fate, my beloved sisters – to be Allah's hand on Earth, the hand that will finish off the Israelites, this Zionist enemy, Allah willing. Allah brought them here in droves, so that Palestine becomes their graveyard, Allah willing."
MEMRI: 'Recognized' But Not Legitimate: A Muslim Brotherhood Alliance Of Turkey And Qatar Managed To Acquire International Recognition For A Usurper Libyan Islamist Government
Libya's political situation is characterized these days by a civil war between a mostly Islamist side based in Tripoli, in west Libya, and a mostly non-Islamist side based in Tobruk, in east Libya, with both sides being aided by foreign governments with conflicting interests. The confusion is further exacerbated by the fact that according to the 2015 UN-sponsored agreement between the rival parties, the so called "UN-recognized" or even "internationally recognized" West Libya side is not the legitimate one, and is actually a usurper.

The UN-led Libyan Political Agreement of December 2015 sought to give temporary legal cover – until new elections in 2016 – to both political rivals: an elected parliament in east Libya and an (Islamist) executive in Tripoli that needed the parliament's approval. However, the elected parliament did not approve the Islamist government in two confidence votes, and thus the government failed to meet the required stipulation in the 2015 UN-sponsored agreement. Nevertheless, the Tripoli government has continued to rule in west Libya and is still considered "the UN-recognized government." The continued illegal rule of the Libyan Islamists is a repeat of their refusal to transfer power to the newly elected parliament following their humbling defeat in the 2014 elections.

This quest for dominance is in line with the Muslim Brotherhood motto: "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our constitution; jihad is our way; dying for Allah is our highest hope." The movement's emblem shows two crossed swords under the Quran and the word "prepare," originating in the Quran in reference to the non-believers: "And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them, whom you do not know (but) Allah knows them."

Muslim Brotherhood emblem with the words "Prepare" and "The Muslim Brotherhood"
Thus, the UN-brokered agreement now serves as a fig leaf for the actual development – a creeping Islamist militia takeover propped up by Turkey and Qatar. In response, their regional rivals in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates support the other side. The following update is aimed at explaining the source of current Libya's complexities.

The Libyan Islamists Rejected The Election Results
After the 2011 toppling of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Al-Qadhafi, with NATO intervention, two elections were held in Libya, in 2012 and 2014, to replace the interim legislative body which was established shortly after the beginning of the anti-Qadhafi popular uprising. The two election rounds were run transparently, but had low turnout and were accompanied with threats to candidates and voters.

The first nationwide elections in more than 40 years were held in July 2012, with 2,600 candidates, most of whom were independents, and 400 who represented political parties. In the democratically elected 200-member General National Congress, a moderate coalition won 39 out of the 80 seats reserved for parties while its Islamist rivals, a political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, won 17. The remaining 120 seats were won by ostensibly independent candidates.




IOC apologizes, deletes ‘throwback Thursday’ tweet about 1936 Berlin Olympics
The IOC apologized on Friday and deleted a Twitter message which some saw as celebrating Nazi Germany’s hosting of the 1936 Olympics.

Joining a message thread on Thursday one year before the Olympic cauldron is lit at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games, the International Olympic Committee used its official account to tweet a film about the first-ever torch relay entering the Berlin stadium.

“This is turning out to be quite a #ThrowbackThursday already! Berlin 1936 marked the 1st Olympic torch relay to bring the flame to the cauldron. We can’t wait for the next one in (Japan),” the tweet said.

“We apologize to those who feel offended by the film of the Olympic Games Berlin 1936,” the IOC wrote on Friday.

“We have deleted this film, which was part of the series of films featuring the message of unity and solidarity, from the @Olympics Twitter account.”

Replies to the IOC’s original message on Thursday expressed surprise by Twitter users at broadcasting footage from the Berlin Games, and suggested the Olympic body lacked awareness of history.

The official museum at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp added its reply to the IOC in the message thread on Friday.

“For 2 weeks the Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character,” said the Auschwitz museum’s verified account. “It exploited the Games to impress foreign spectators with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.”
Foreign Policy’s Faux Pas on Boycotts, Israel, and ‘Annexation’
Foreign Policy claims that its mission is “to explain how the world works.” But when it comes to Israel, the magazine frequently allows misleading commentary. Take, for example, several recent op-eds on “annexation.”

For several weeks it seemed that—in keeping with the parameters of a peace plan that Israelis accepted and Palestinians rejected—Israel would apply legal sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank, and the Jordan Valley. Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that such a move would occur by July 1, 2020. It never did. But this hasn’t stopped numerous media outlets from inaccurately reporting on the possibility.

Indeed, publications like Foreign Policy have repeatedly referred to the application of sovereignty as “annexation.” But this is inaccurate.

As the international law scholar Eugene Kontorovich has noted: “Annexation in international law specifically means taking the territory of a foreign sovereign country.” And neither the Jordan Valley nor the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) belongs to a “foreign sovereign country.” Further, as Dore Gold, Israel’s former Ambassador to the U.N., has highlighted: one can’t “annex territory that has already been designated as yours.” The League of Nations Palestine Mandate, adopted later by the United Nations, calls for “close Jewish settlement on the land” west of the Jordan River in Article 6. The UN Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80, upholds the Mandate’s provisions. The 1920 San Remo Resolution and the 1924 Anglo-American Convention also enshrined Jewish territorial claims into international law.

Unsurprisingly, this historical and legal context has been omitted in numerous media reports, including those by Foreign Policy. Instead the magazine has run several op-eds that misinform as much as they omit.
Memorial to Holocaust Victims Unveiled in Moldova
A new Holocaust memorial was unveiled in the ex-Soviet republic of Moldova this week on the site of a former Jewish ghetto.

The memorial in the city of Cahul — in the south of the landlocked nation that is sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine — was the site of mass executions of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. The massacres in the ghetto were carried out on the orders of the wartime Romanian dictator, Ion Antonescu.

Local Jewish leaders said that the monument was “a symbol of perseverance and the preservation of Holocaust memory in honor of these victims.”

Speaking at the inauguration of the memorial on Tuesday, Alexander Bilinkis — president of the Jewish Community of the Republic of Moldova — said that it was “not enough to talk and write about the Holocaust.”

“Our words must be followed by actions, and our actions must commemorate those who paid with their lives for the tough lesson taught by the Holocaust,” he said.

Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu also addressed the gathering.

“This is how our children will learn about the horrors of this unjust war,” Chicu remarked. “The past is what unites us for our future, making responsible for tomorrow.”
Russian Police Arrest Suspect in Murder of Holocaust Survivor
Russian police have detained a woman suspected of murdering a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor in her Moscow apartment.

The body of Irina Shur — an academic who taught musical theory and cultural history at Moscow’s VGIK film school — was discovered in her apartment in a residential building on Moscow’s Kutuzovsky Prospekt on July 19.

The police did not name the alleged killer nor disclose any motive for the killing. They said that the detained woman was a former social worker who had worked with Professor Shur in 2016 and had remained in contact with her.

The Tass news agency reported on Friday that the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, had instructed subordinates to report on the “ongoing investigative actions” in the case.

Shur’s body was discovered by a friend who came to her apartment, concerned that she had not answered her phone for two days. Shor suffered multiple stab wounds during the assault. There was no sign of forced entry into her apartment, indicating that she knew her killer.

Students of Shur spoke fondly of their teacher’s passion for her subject and their shock at her death.
Amazon, Google and Wish take down neo-Nazi, KKK merchandise
Amazon, Google and Wish have taken down neo-Nazi and white supremacist merchandise that was sold on their platforms.

The removal of the products comes after a BBC investigation found neo-Nazi books and Ku Klux Klan paraphernalia could be bought on the companies’ websites, the British broadcaster said Saturday.

The report said algorithms used by e-commerce sites Amazon and Wish would also suggest other white-supremacist goods, including those of the far-right libertarian group, the Boogaloo movement.

Among the items sold on Amazon was a flag with a Celtic Cross, which the Anti-Defamation League said was “one of the most important and commonly used white supremacist symbols,” as well as another flag bearing a symbol used by the gunman who killed 51 people last year at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Several KKK products were available on Wish, including a cartoon and a hood resembling those worn by members of the white hate group.

Both Amazon and Wish removed the items after being contacted by the BBC, while Google took down racist content from Google Play and Google Books.
The hijackers of Entebbe - The full story
The hijacking, famously included a separation of Israeli and Jewish hostages from non-Israeli and non-Jewish passengers.

In this regard, it is worth noting recent claims that this selection included only Israeli Jews. Such claims are false. It is beyond dispute that at least 10 non-Israeli Jews were obliged by the hijackers to join the group of 84 Israelis. It is also indisputable that a number of Israeli dual nationals and non-Israeli Jews succeeded through subterfuge in joining the group that was released. These two facts suggest, unsurprisingly, that the hijackers were unable to ascertain with forensic certainty the ethno-religious identity of all their hostages.

But the undisputed involuntary presence of a number of non-Israeli Jews among the hostages refutes the notion that the hijackers did not also target people of this description among the passengers. Such benign indifference would have been entirely out of character for members of the Revolutionary Cells, given their known targeting of non-Israeli Jews in Germany.

In the event, almost all the hostages, Israeli and non-Israeli, were rescued. The long journey of Bose, Kuhlmann and their colleagues ended in their encounter with the IDF’s General Staff Reconnaissance Unit at the Entebbe Airport Terminal on July 4, 1976.

The structure that carried out the hijacking of Flight 139 seems rather distant now. The USSR has gone. The Peoples’ Republic of South Yemen was soon to follow it. The Revolutionary Cells, starved of their funding, disbanded in 1991. The PFLP remains in business in a minor way. It has long been eclipsed by the organizations of political Islam as the most active face of Palestinian militancy. Some young Europeans are still attracted to the Palestinian issue. Many came to volunteer with pro-Palestinian organizations in the 2000-2004 period. Few, though (in contrast with their Islamist comrades), today seem inclined to take up arms for the cause.

It is nevertheless worthy of recall that 44 years ago, the joint efforts of a shadowy international network bringing together the resources of a superpower, the territory of an Arab state, the structures of a major Palestinian political movement and the beliefs and complexes of a number of leftist German radicals was engaged in the deliberate hunting of Israeli and Jewish civilians worldwide.
“When experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual,” in the words of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, and “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
IDF honors Holocaust survivors who died during 1948 Independence War
On Sunday, military officials visited the graves of "last eagles," who were Holocaust survivors that immigrated to Israel following the Second World War, and then died during Israel's 1948 Independence War without leaving behind any family.

During the visit, a memorial was held for Yitzhak "Izo" Nueman, a "last eagle" who died while dismantling mines during the war.

"This is very emotional for me," said IDF Chief Engineering Officer Brig. Gen. Ilan Sabag during the ceremony. "I feel as though I waited my whole to get to be able to stand here and salute Yitzhak Nueman as a part of the Combat Engineering Corps, and when I tell him to watch our combat soldiers from above, I know he's proud of them."

Upon learning about "The Last Eagle" project, Sabag took the opportunity to instruct battalion commanders within his division to study and teach their soldiers about the last three "Fallen Eagles" of the war - an important lesson in his book.

"I think the significance of his actions, the responsibility of protecting the home, the fact that he was willing to do anything for his friends and everything for the mission, is inspiring," Sabag continued. "These are undoubtedly the moving moments, the ones that remind us of what wins wars, remind us of the reason why we serve the people and the homeland. I think commanders must adopt ways and methods and embrace such moments and positions in order to strengthen the connection to the mission."

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