"Here in Australia, as in a number of other countries, a misleading campaign has been led by unelected and unrepresentative organisations claiming to represent the Jewish community. Most of these organisations are uncritical defenders of successive Israeli governments with close connections to Israeli intelligence agencies.
The key claim of these unrepresentative organisations has been that the opposition and protests against the Israeli army’s war in Gaza is led by ‘antisemites’, and that many of the students and other participants in the protests are ‘antisemitic’."
"I was ... deeply surprised and deeply disturbed when I heard that Australian vice-chancellors were going to follow in the footsteps of heads of American universities in calling the police to dismantle student encampments at Australian universities.
@wdlindsy@JBShakerman All the R soapbox oratory about #antisemitism is merely pandering for votes. Disgusting. This liberal Jew and her liberal Jewish friends will continue to vote Democratic.
HEC (House Education Committee) is the new HUAC (House Unamerican Activities Committee): only instead of being grilled on one's ties to communism, it is University Presidents and Public School Superintendents and Principals being grilled on their loyalty to Israel and U.S. support of genocide in Gaza, and being berated for not cracking down more violently, viciously and instantaneously on protected student expressions of Free Speech.
The bipartisan committee agreed that the traditional Palestinian slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” was a call for the extermination of the Jews, not a demand for democratic rights and equality.
Several of the education administrators who they accused of antisemitism were Jewish. One was black.
Democrat Bobby Scott pointed out the hypocrisy of having these hearings against "antisemitism" but having nothing in response to the overtly and violently antisemitic Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally in 2017.
#ICC / EU's Borrell says some European countries are trying to intimidate judges
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused some European countries of trying to intimidate International Criminal Court (ICC) judges over a case against Israeli leaders. Borrell urged countries to respect the court's independence and not try to influence the judges' decision.
He also rejected criticism that recognizing a Palestinian state would strengthen Hamas, saying it would instead support the Palestinian Authority.
Additionally, Borrell mentioned that other European countries are considering recognizing a Palestinian state, but did not provide further details.
[...] "Every time someone takes the decision to support Palestinian state-building, something that everyone in Europe supports...Israel's reaction is to turn it into an anti-Semitic attack."
Hey @EyalL your not a coward running from a conversation, don't you? So it seems like you blocked @DropBear by "mistake". Just want to make sure that you won't miss his reply:
Israeli Zionism (as distinct from other forms of Zionism, Jewish and otherwise) is the notion that someone who claims to be Jewish is entitled to take the home of a Palestinian, solely because they claim to be Jewish. Such injustices precipitated the October 7 atrocities and continue to endanger Jews worldwide.
Abuse of the term "antisemitism" has effectively neutered the concept. Here's a definition for you: https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/
As Miko Peled observed, Israel and Palestine are the same place. He believes that Jews and Arabs can live together peacefully. That may be true, but by all appearances, it's true of probably less than 20% of the population. You are evidently not among that 20%, EyalL. https://mikopeled.com/
The International Court of Justice will announce a decision today on potential orders against Israel regarding its ongoing attack on Gaza, specifically in Rafah. Israel fears the court will order a halt to the to the war, or at least the Rafah operation, due to worsening humanitarian conditions. Such an order would put Israel in a difficult position - defying it could lead to international sanctions, though the U.S. would likely support regardless of the legality of its actions in Gaza, as it did so far.
#Maariv is reporting that according to the assessment of "diplomatic officials," the likelihood that the court will accept South Africa's request and order a halt to the war in Gaza tomorrow, is not very high, but nonetheless, this time it is "realistic and certainly not negligible."
If this scenario materializes - Israel will be dependent on the U.S. vetoing the order. But according to assessments in Israel, in the current situation the American veto is not guaranteed, and it is possible that Washington will condition it on Israel taking one action or another. For example, in exchange for Israeli agreement to the Saudi initiative.
National Security Minister Ben-Gvir: "To the irrelevant order of the antisemitic court in The Hague there should be only one response - conquering #Rafah, increasing military pressure and the absolute crushing of Hamas - until achieving complete victory in the war."
"Last Saturday, the Minnesota Republican Party formally endorsed Royce White, a former NBA basketball player, to be the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate."
As Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria report, White wrote in 2022 that "many of the Jewish people have lost their faith in a loving God," and their faith has been replaced by "materialism."
"White defended Ye (formerly Kanye West) after the rapper praised Hitler in 2022. At the time, White criticized Jews for focusing on the Holocaust 'to provide a victimhood cover for their own corrupt practices.'"
In 2023, White stated In July 2023, White lamented that “women have become too mouthy.” He has stated that “[t]he LGBTQ movement is the brainchild of radical feminists and their cucked men.”
Canada’s largest private high school recently organized a genocide solidarity trip in which students cooked for Israeli soldiers. In a sane world, the school’s charitable status would be revoked.
It looks like @EyalL has blocked me. Here is the reply that I was going to send him:
Israeli Zionism (as distinct from other forms of Zionism, Jewish and otherwise) is the notion that someone who claims to be Jewish is entitled to take the home of a Palestinian, solely because they claim to be Jewish. Such injustices precipitated the October 7 atrocities and continue to endanger Jews worldwide.
Abuse of the term "antisemitism" has effectively neutered the concept. Here's a definition for you: https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/
Today in Labor History May 22, 1968: New York police broke through the barricades at Columbia University, busting the student occupations there. As a result, 998 were arrested and over 200 injured. Students were demanding a black studies program and an end to military recruitment and ROTC on campus. Sound familiar? However, today’s student protests are bringing back the worst of 1960s-‘70s police brutality and university intolerance for Free Speech along with McCarthy era firing, blacklisting and doxing of academics for the crime of criticizing the Israeli government, under bogus claims of antisemitism.
#ICC / Prosecutor asks for arrest warrants for three leading Hamas leaders, as well ass Netanyahu and Galant
[...] The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Monday said it was seeking arrest warrants against three leading Hamas militants for their alleged roles in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Watch: ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan explains the charges against top Hamas and Israeli leadership in detail in this excerpt from his interview with @amanpour this morning at The Hague
[cont'd] The Israeli press is failing in its duty in covering the war in Gaza
The media, especially the news channels, are creating a black hole in Israelis' worldview. So there is a disconnect between how Israelis perceive the conflict and how it is viewed internationally, with Israelis struggling to understand the "sudden hatred" against them worldwide. Potential Israeli explanations range from the world forgetting the events of October 7th to ... yes, #antisemitism.
Over at "The Seventh Eye" (investigative online magazine dedicated to journalism and the media) Chen Egri writes that the real reason is that Israelis are largely unaware of the massive humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties in Gaza due to lack of media coverage on the issue. All major Israeli outlets except #Haaretz are ignoring basic facts about Palestinian deaths, injuries, displacement, etc.
This lack of knowledge creates an "unexplained gap" between international condemnation of #Israel's actions and how Israelis view the situation through the limited lens provided to them of defeating Hamas and Palestinian militancy.
[...] If in online and print journalism it is still possible to find some articles and reports on the civilian reality in Gaza, in television news channels, the main source of news information for Israelis, the situation is appalling. Channel 12 News, the news monopoly watched by most Israelis, refuses to report on the situation in Gaza.
[...] On the fundamentalist Channel 14 website, a counter of "the terrorists we have eliminated" is still prominently displayed. At the time of publishing this column, it stands at 34,971. Most of them, even according to #IDF estimates, were civilians who did not participate in the fighting. Like Hamas, Channel 14 also does not distinguish between infants and fighters. The counter on the N12 website does not wallow in bloodlust like Channel 14, but only shows the number of Hamas militants killed. Civilians are simply not mentioned.
[...] A search on the #N12 website yields a single-digit number of articles on what is happening in the Strip since the outbreak of the war, and even those mostly focus on the resentment of #Gaza residents towards #Hamas and the disaster it has brought upon them, with headlines like "Channel 12 News camera in Gaza: What do the Strip's youth think about Hamas?" What do the Strip's youth think about Israel? Channel 12 News does not address Israel's part in the situation of the Gaza Strip and its residents, or even simply the situation itself.
#Spain / Rallies in Madrid on 18 and 19 May amid political summit by Spain’s Vox party, including Israel's Minister of Diaspora Affairs (Amichai Chikli)
[...] The summit will reportedly be attended by representatives of various right-wing parties across Europe, leading several Spanish left-wing organisations to lead protests condemning the summit. Several thousand people are likely to attend.
Chikli not mentioned, but was reported to be attending.
Chikli is continuing Netanyahu's work of portraying Palestinian resistance to their 76 year long occupation as a form of #antisemitism by embracing actual neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists who are doing Israel's bidding (at least for the time being). https://leftodon.social/@Gomeravid/112463747129631039
[cont'd] It seems the definition of #antisemitism should be revisited... or ignored
Diverse perspectives on antisemitism exist, including the 2016 IHRA definition, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, and the 2020 Nexus Document, among others. While the exact wording may not be as crucial as the underlying concept of hostility and discrimination towards #Jewish people, Israel's Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, appears to disregard this distinction. By forging controversial alliances with far-right and potentially neo-Nazi parties in Europe, despite their histories of antisemitism and extreme ideologies, he makes his stance abundantly clear.
While engaging these groups under the premise of being pro-Israel, Chikli has previously stated he has no interest in building bridges with Diaspora Jews who protest against Israeli policies.
In his own words: "A Jew who feels at home surrounded by a mob chanting 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' I do not consider him a Jew [...] I do not want to build a bridge with such individuals."
@DropBear@serge There is so much wrong with your post that it would take forever to properly unpack... Primarily you are tokenizing Jews via one of the most fringe sects out there. Secondly, you fundamentally do not understand what Zionism is.
Until your post popped up in my feed, I'd never heard of Babka @serge so I can't have been "suspended" from it.
You're evidently confused.
You're evidently also confused about what constitutes antisemitism. If you're trying to use the IHRA Definition, that's understandable:
"...the IHRA Definition is unclear in key respects and widely open to different interpretations, it has caused confusion and generated controversy, hence weakening the fight against antisemitism."
As much as I respect many of the signers of the Jerusalem Declaration, it has its own flaws. For instance, it provides as an example of antisemitism "Requiring people, because they are Jewish, publicly to condemn Israel or Zionism (for example, at a political meeting"
It does not include the practice of requiring Jews to swear allegiance to Israel or Zionism as a condition of being "Jewish." The insistence that Jews must support Israel is just as antisemitic as requiring people to condemn Israel.
The Jerusalem Declaration doesn't include condemnation of Christian bigots who fetishize Jews like antisemite Rep. Virginia Foxx who attacks freedom of speech at universities because her religious extremism sees Jews as a "special" people.
The Jerusalem Declaration is a start but is still fundamentally flawed and doesn't provide guidance against all #antisemitism
Today in Writing History May 16, 1906: Margaret Rey was born. Rey was an author an illustrator of children’s books. She cowrote the Curious George books with her husband H.A. Rey. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, she studied art at Bauhaus and later worked in advertising. In 1935, she fled Germany to escape the Nazis, moving to Rio de Janeiro. There she met H.A. Rey, also a German Jew who had fled the Nazis. Many of us remember the Curious George stories fondly. George was a monkey, who was kind of like an adorable little boy. Yet in every one of the stories, he does something naughty that disappoints his “daddy,” (The man in the Yellow Hat), and has to win back his affection doing something dangerous. In one story, he is exploited by a cook and must wash dishes without pay. In another, he is hired as a window washer on a skyscraper. Even his origin story is fraught, with the Yellow Hatted Man kidnapping him from his home in Africa. In this video clip, hear Werner Herzog’s creepy satire on the stories: