Sunday, December 27, 2020

More Gaza Lies and Fauxtography

 Via Emunah.

On Christmas Day, terrorists in Gaza launched 2 rockets into Israel.  Both were intercepted by Iron Dome.  The IDF retaliated by bombing military targets, including a rocket manufacturing site,  underground infrastructure and a military training  post.  The airstrike at the munitions factory triggered secondary explosions at the site, causing damage to other buildings in the area, including factories, a children’s hospital.

Anti-Israel activists sprung into action,  with misleading headlines claiming  "Israeli warplanes bomb Pediatric Hospital in Gaza"



Soon, the lies were being reinforced by fauxtography.   


The editors at "Absolute India" may not have noticed the Hebrew on the rescue workers coveralls.  Oops.

The lies spread quickly, while the truth was looking for its pants...

Interesting enough, the photo (perhaps fauxto is more accurate?)  they used is an Israeli home, damaged last year by a Hamas rocket.
Israel home damaged in Gaza rocket attack


For accurate information on what really happened in Gaza on Christmas Day, see:
 

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Glorifying Terror. The death of Mahmoud Omar Kamil

 17-year-old from the Palestinian village of Qabatiya  opened fire at police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday evening, using a modified submachine gun. Mahmoud Omar Kamil was neutralized after a brief chase.

The response from the local Arab community was predictable, with the teen heralded as a holy martyr, with posts urging others to follow in his footsteps.





Its often been said that "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us. "   Looks like peace will remain elusive as long as violence and terror is glorified and Palestinian children are taught that martyrdom is a goal worth pursuing.

Friday, December 11, 2020

Hanukkah Menorah Vandalized in Alameda.

A menorah erected outside Alameda City Hall was found toppled and broken on the first day of Hanukkah.   The City owned menorah is now repaired and has been returned to the plaza.

From the Facebook Page of the City of Alameda:

Last night, on the first night of Chanukah, the Menorah at City Hall was destroyed. In Alameda, we have no tolerance for hate. If you have any information that could help our investigation, please call 510-337-8340. Chanukah is a time for joy and dedication. We celebrate to remember that hate does not win when we rise up against oppressors. 2020 has been an incredibly difficult year, but Alamedans are resilient, and we will recover. For most of us, our new Menorah will shine brighter than ever before. In Alameda we believe strongly that everyone belongs here in our inclusive community.



If you have any information about those responsible for this incident, please contact the Alameda police at 510-337-8340.

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Jewish Voice for Peace Celebrates the Murder of Jews

What kind of "Jewish" organization celebrates the death of Jews?   Really?

Earlier this week, JVP tweeted out a celebration of the first Intifada, a series of riots and terror attacks that lead to the deaths of hundreds of civilians.  Their "L'Chai'im Intifada" tweet glorified murder, terrorism, and violence.


Jewish Voice for Peace celebrates violence

The response from Jewish Twitter was fast and furious.

From Elder of Ziyon


From Avi Mayer

From Stand With Us


Even Palestinian peace activist Bassem Eid expressed his dismay at JVP's blatant disregard for Jewish lives, writing "@jvplive cannot claim to stand for peace while celebrating the deadly terrorist attacks of the First Palestinian Intifada."




Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Palestinians Re-writing history: Life Magazine

 Via Emunah:

During its prime, Life Magazine featured some of the greatest writers, editors, illustrators and photographers of the time.  Life chronicled daily life in America and across the world.  It profiled celebrities- from world leaders to entertainers.   And it documented a world at war.

Recently, Palestinian activists have been re-purposing the iconic photos of the Life Magazine collection, in an effort to create a history that hadn't existed before.  

The Palestine Project has reproduced and recaptioned photos from the Life Magazine collection, replacing references and captions of "Arabs" with "Palestinians", and removing the photos from their historic context.   They are literally re-writing history, seeking to misled, rather than inform.


Original photos describes a 13 year old Arab boy
Altered caption describes a 13 year old Palestinian boy


Original caption  describes Arab refugees

Altered caption describes Palestinian refugees

Original Caption


Altered caption


Original caption describes Arab refugees ferried across the bay to Acre




Altered caption describes  "exiled" Palestinian refugees

The Life Magazine archives are fully digitized and are available on Google books for future reference.
Interestingly enough,  in their attempt to re-write history, the Palestine Project neglected to include this very interesting photo and caption, which describes the principal Arab field commander Fawzi Bey, an ally of the Nazis during World War II.



Sunday, September 20, 2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Zionist

 Via Emunah:

To Linda Sarsour, who once angrily proclaimed that you cannot be a feminist if you are a Zionist, meet  our fearless Jewish feminist champion, Ruth Bader Ginsburg z"l.

Proud and unapologetic Zionist.

“I am sometimes asked ‘Who were your role models?’” Ginsburg said. “The term role model was not yet in vogue in my childhood,” she added, with a Hermione Granger-ish glint. “But thinking back, I recall two Jewish women both raised in the USA whose humanity and bravery inspired me in my growing up years.”

“Emma Lazarus was a Zionist before that word came into vogue,” Ginsburg said, praising the 20th century Sephardic writer. “Her poem ‘The New Colossus,’ etched on the base of the Statue of Liberty, has welcomed legions of immigrants including my father and grandparents — people seeking in the U.S.A. shelter from fear, and longing to find freedom from intolerance.”

Letting this swipe at anti-immigration politics — or, depending how you look at it, accurate representation of US history — hang in the air, the Justice went on. “My next inspirer: Hadassah-founder Henrietta Szold.” Szlold, who was apparently gifted with the same bottomless energy as Ginsburg, was a university lecturer, a prolific writer and editor, and an organizer who helped save thousands of Jewish children during the Holocaust. She also started night schools to educate Jewish immigrants who arrived in America in the late 19th century, the same kind, the Justice added, that educated Ginsburg’s father when he first arrived in America.

Additionally, as Ginsburg proudly added, “She was a Zionist even before Theodore Herzl came on the scene.”

Read the whole interview here:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Feminist Role Models Are Two Jewish Women



Sunday, August 2, 2020

Puma: Boycott fail. Luton Town refutes BDS Lies

The BDS campaign against Puma has been going on for a while.  Consisting mostly of self righteous and angry letters to company execs and equally self-righteous and angry posts on social media,  the campaign seemed dead in the water from the very beginning.

How dare Puma sponsor the Jews, (and Christians and Muslims) of the Israel Football Association? How dare Puma sponsor one of the most diverse squads in the region?

Recognizing the absurdity of the boycott, people across the world began posting photos of their Pumas, captioned BDS fail. A Facebook page, Selfies Support Puma Against BDS  showed people playfully posing with Pumas.  Bloggers also picked up on the Puma buycott movement.

Puma BDS fail

Puma BDS fail


Puma BDS fail
Puma BDS fail
Faced with a dead-end campaign, the Puma BDS holes drew strength from the foundational (lack of) principles of their movement, and resorted to bold faced lies. They needed a victory, and they'd pull one out of the ether, if necessary.

Look how quickly the BDS hive mind takes off.   Fact-checking is a burdensome barrier to advancing their cause.  So they just skip it.


Luton Town got wind of the BDS claims, and they were not amused, writing

Our new partnership with Umbro begins after four seasons with outgoing supplier Puma, who had provided us with first-class first-team and replica kit since the 2016-17 season.

We are aware that there have been a number of statements in the public domain from organisations claiming that our decision to change kit supplier is a success for their own causes.

We would like to make it a matter of public record that Luton Town FC is an organisation that does not make commercial decisions based upon politics or religious matters, and that our decisions to switch kit supplier was made solely on our own criteria in the current sporting marketplace.

Its been 4 days, and not a single BDS site has retracted their claim, or linked to the Luton Town statement.   Nothing but nothing is allowed to stand in the way of the rich fantasy life of the BDS hole.






Saturday, August 1, 2020

California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum: New and….Improved?

A guest post by an old friend.

Cross posted at Bluetruth
California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum: New and….Improved?


Last summer, California’s Department of Education unveiled a model curriculum for teaching Ethnic Studies. In addition to being loaded up with politically correct woke jargon (“critique empire and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.”), it had 500 pages in which Jews were mentioned 3 times. Arab Americans, however, had 25% of the curriculum, in which a significant portion was devoted to the Palestinian struggle, figures such as Linda Sarsour and Ilhan Omar, and included song lyrics about “Free Palestine”, and Israelis “using the press so they can manufacture”. The glossary defined BDS as a “a global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions”. In terms of being representative of California’s demographics, there are more Jews of Persian descent in Los Angeles County alone than Palestinian Americans in all of California. In its list of kinds of hatreds against minority groups in California, there is no mention of antisemitism. Two antisemitic hate groups heralded in the ESMC as "African American spiritual and religious traditions" and so were recommended for study -- Nation of Islam and Black Israelites. The latter group’s teachings motivated the mass murders in Jersey City last December. Both groups are designed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center


The outcry was immediate and fierce. On July 29, the Legislative Jewish Caucus submitted a letter signed by every member which stated—“We have been advised that this exclusion appeared to be intentional and reflected the political bias of the drafters of the ESMC. This purposeful exclusion is deeply insulting, fundamentally inconsistent with the purposes of ethnic studies, harmful to Jewish and non-Jewish students, and indicative of an anti Jewish bias in the ESMC that would be dangerous to institutionalize in our curriculum.”  Recordings of the meetings of the ESMC committee do show that they considered, and deliberately excluded, Jews as well as other minorities (Hindu-Americans, Armenian-Americans, Korean-Americans) in favor of those who were represented on the committee. 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond held a pressconference on August 14 with members of the JLC and stated that the curriculum draft would be revised to reflect the experiences and contributions of Jewish Americans and all oppressed groups.

"To the concern that there is not enough balance in the model draft, we agree that there
can be more work done to achieve balance," Thurmond said. "We are being contacted
by many other groups that feel their story needs to be told."

Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the state Board of Education, issued a statement
“A model curriculum should be accurate, free of bias, appropriate for all learners in our diverse state, and align with Governor Newsom’s vision of a California for all. The current draft model curriculum falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed AB2016 into law, called the draft “deeply offensive in so many ways” and vowed it would “never see the light of day.” Luis Alejo, the former Assemblyman who sponsored AB2016, called the draft curriculum“a setback” in need of revision. Assemblyman Jose Medina, who had introduced legislation to make ethnic studies courses based on this new curriculum a high school graduation requirement, was one of 16 state legislators who signed a letter stating that they were “strongly opposed” to the draft curriculum moving forward “without significant revisions.

In all, over 18,000 comments against the draft were received by the Board of Education, most of them the result of activism by Jewish groups.

Given all this, the Department of Education agreed to rework the project and take it up again in 2020. And almost immediately, the promises made to our community began to be backtracked. Tony Thurmond talked about keeping other minorities outside of the “Ethnic Studies” course. there are ways to include in some of the references opportunities that speak about other groups that have experienced mistreatment—to talk about the Holocaust, to talk about the experience of Jews in America and in the world, to talk about the Armenian Genocide, to talk about many groups. And so while it will while we are recommending to the IQC [Instructional Quality Commission] and the State Board that it be grounded in those four groups, there will be opportunities to have conversations about the experience and struggle of other groups..we owe it to those who founded the ethnic studies movement to kind of keep a sense of fidelity there. But please be sure that the California Department of Education will be leading conversations statewide about how we address hate, acts of violence, and how we promote the beauty of the diversity of what our students represent in this state. And so it's not limited to just what happens in ethnic studies. And we'll be making sure to have broad and inclusive conversations for anyone who's interested."

And the Critical Ethnic Studies proponents formed a group, the Save Our Ethnic Studiescoalition, that sought to get school boards across the state to endorse the original 500 page draft on the grounds that any deviation from that document would be equivalent to rejecting ethnic studies entirely. They also falsely claimed  that the only opposition came from “white supremacist culture,privileged advocacy groups and institutional racism.”  

Now, the Department of Education has finally released their updated draft. You can find it here  (under agenda item 2/A/4), though it is split into multiple smaller documents. 

This new document, to its credit, has removed from its text the entire deeply flawed and jargoned “glossary” of the original. And there is no mention of the Israel-Arab conflict. But once again, while there are plenty of references to white supremacy, antisemitism (which led to the murder of 1/3 of the world’s Jews in the last century for the crime of not being white) is nowhere to be found. Nor, in the multiple lesson plans from around the state provided as models, are Jews. Well, except in a mention, together with Irish Americans, in a lesson on how we have gained “racial privilege”. 

And a dive into the sources and footnotes reveals that while the offending material is out of the text, it’s not out of the curriculum. One of the guidelines for the curriculum reads: “conceptualize, imagine, and build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance, critical hope, and radical healing.” The footnoted source is “Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and Edward Curammeng, “Pedagogies of Resistance: Filipina/o Gestures of Rebellion Against the Inheritance of American Schooling,” in Tracy Buenavista and Arshad Ali, eds., Education At War: The Fight for Students of Color in America (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2018), 233–238.” Tintiangco-Cubales is a Critical Ethnic Studies proponent who co-chaired the group that produced the disastrous first draft. And that source includes this sentence: “The United States*is*war. Schools are battlefields where war is waged, and the fight is between the imperial and the colonized, white supremacy and antiracism, and dominance and resistance.”

But wait, there’s more! Another article that is cited in the section on “Connecting Ourselves to Historical and Contemporary Resistance Movements That Struggle for Social Justice on the Global and Local Levels”. It’s called “Meeting Asian/Arab American Studies:Thinking Race, Empire, and Zionism in the U.S.” and it calls Israel a “settler-colonial state”, and calls for “Grappling with ways to connect anti-Zionism in the context of Middle East politics to anti-racist and anti-imperialist movements in the U.S.”.


So—is relegating sources that promote antisemitism into the footnotes going to be an adequate fig leaf to get the Jewish community to ignore them? Is erasing Jews and other minorities (Hindus, Armenians, Koreans) from lessons on Ethnic Studies acceptable in California? I guess that’s what we are going to find out.


Thursday, July 30, 2020

Asa Winstanley bugs out

Asa Winstanley is a self described " investigative journalist" and a writer for the agitprop Electronic Intifada.  The Electronic Intifada  according to Media Bias Fact Check has a "strong pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli bias",  citing their "lack of transparency regarding funding, as well as strongly loaded emotional wording that may be misleading."

Likely Asa Winstanley fits in quite well with the EI  "stretch the truth to the breaking point" crowd.

This morning the acclaimed author Einat Wilf linked to an article in Haaretz regarding the eradication of malaria in Israel, writing  

"And once and for all (I wish!): The only ones that Zionism displaced were mosquitos. The lands Zionists acquired to establish themselves were malaria ridden, and they reclaimed those lands. Those were the lands then allocated to them in the partition map."


Apparently reading comprehension skills are not required to be an "investigative journalist" at the EI. Asa went buggy, writing "Former Israeli MP calls 800,000 Palestinians "mosquitoes" -- genocidal rhetoric from a "left-wing" Zionist."


Feedback on Twitter was swift and merciless.

But 12 hours have passed, and Winstanley's tweet is still up.  Its never been about truth for Asa Winstanley and his comrades.  Its about advancing an agenda.


Saturday, July 25, 2020

Palestinian Car Dealership, not Covid-19 Testing Center, demolished in Hebron.

Lately,  it seems that any Palestinian structure that has been demolished has been retroactively claimed to be  a "Covid-19 treatment center" or a  "Coronavirus Testing Center".

Even when its a car dealership.

Last week,  an unlicensed structure built in Area C(under exclusive Israeli control) was demolished and immediately after, sources on social media claimed it was a Coronavirus testing center.


No, the computer generated picture of a building with English lettering didn't seem to be a red flag to the "Israel is always wrong" cru.

Here's what the building actually looked like



And again, the lie went half-way across the world before the truth was done with its coffee.
.
From an article written by Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post:
Israel demolished Hebron car dealership, not 'COVID-19 center'

Civil Administration inspectors, who first noticed the structure on July 12, issued an order banning the continuation of the work. The car dealer, however, ignored the warning.

Palestinians working at the site told the inspectors that they were building a car exhibition for a Palestinian businessman from Hebron. The inspectors also spotted a sign with the name of the new car dealership business.

On July 21, Civil Administration bulldozers arrived at the site and demolished the illegally built structure.


Do some Palestinians and their Western enablers attempt to exploit a global pandemic for personal gain?

Yes they do.

“Contrary to the false claims, this was not a center for coronavirus testing,” a Civil Administration spokesman told The Jerusalem Post. “Also, it was not a health clinic. That’s a total lie.”

The unlicensed structure was being built for personal use, the spokesman said, adding that the Israeli authorities had not received any request from the PA or any international organization to build a coronavirus center.

“We condemn the cynical use of a global crisis at the expense of the Palestinians in Hebron,” he added.


The Palestinian Ministry of Health was also unaware of any pending plans to build a coronavirus testing center in Hebron.


Anti-Israel activists groups were quick to spread the lies-  but not so quick to update them.  Most accounts on social media have not been updated to reflect this new information. 

For more information on this latest blood libel, check out Palestinian Media Watch
The birth and spread of a new anti-Israel libel: The claim that Israel destroyed a COVID-19 testing center in Hebron is false!

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Gravity: It still works. Even for the Palestinians.

No, gravity is not one of the laws that can be ignored as "Palestine exception."

The Palestinian National Council for Promoting Values is now promoting the concept that "what goes up must come down", and is encouraging people to refrain from "celebratory gunfire".



Who would ever have guessed that shooting in the air is harmful behavior that could possibly hurt someone? Yet in the Palestinian territories it takes a public service campaign to get the message across that gravity still works.



A fatwa had been issued earlier, but it had been largely ignored.

Fatwa: The reign of shooting in the air
Shooting shots on occasions, such as joys, success, and funerals, is legally forbidden, a Muslim is not permitted to do so; for the following five reasons:

1. These actions include harm to Muslims without right; they may cause infallible death, or injury, and one of the reasons for the deserving of painful punishment, the Almighty said: {And those who harm the believers and the believer without gaining, have lost Endure slander and manifest sinthmạ [Parties: 58].

2. The intimidation of the Muslim is forbidden and of the great, and the shooting in the air is not without intimidation of women, children and passers by; Abdul Rahman bin Abi Layla said: The owners of Muhammad peace be upon him told us that they were with the Prophet (peace be upon him) Peace be upon him, a man of them fell asleep, so some of them went to a rope with him, and he took him, so he panicked, and said, ′′ Peace be upon him, ′′ It is not possible for a Muslim to terrorize a Muslim ′′ (Abu Dawood: 5004), and about my father Huraira (May Allah be pleased with him) said: (Whoever refers to his brother with iron, the angels curse him until he calls him, even if his brother to his father and mother) (Muslim: 2616).

3. Islam has forbidden to carry arms exposed; lest it harm Muslims accidentally; for the hadith of Abi Musa, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: (If anyone passes in our mosque or in our market with nobility, let's catch On her blade, or he said: Let his palm be arrested if one of the Muslims afflicts something) (Bukhari: 452, and Muslim: 2615).

As the law forbids pointing arms at a Muslim; lest it remove his hand; Abu Huraira, may Allah be pleased with him, said: (No one points to his brother with weapons, he does not know anyone may Satan takes off in his hand, and falls into a pit of fire) (Bukhari: 7072, and Muslim: 2617; how can he who uses weapons, and fires in the air, and between alleys, and in the roads?!

4. Shooting in the air is a waste of money in his legitimate face, and this is a forbidden waste, Allah forbade him by saying: {Indeed, the wasteful were brothers of demons and Satan was for his Lord is honorable} [Isra: 27].

5. The possession of weapons is a law to defend religion, to lie about souls and symptoms, and to provide it to the jihad for the sake of Allah from the power we have been commanded to prepare, it cannot be used in vain and oppression, otherwise it will become a use of weapons There is no intention, and in this is disbelievers, and God forbid.

According to the above: The shooter in the air is legitimately sinful, and guarantor of all that reckless acts of people's lives and property, and if shooting in the air kills a soul - God's destiny - it is semi-intentional killing, In which the penalty is severe; he deliberately fires without legitimate need, knowing that he is a thought of destroying souls.

The judicial and police authorities are also legally required to prevent these mischievous acts; the consequent corruption that harm people in their souls, their eternal and their money, and it is known that the duty of the Sultan is to preserve the interests of Muslims; to bring benefits to them, and pay Corrupting them, allowing fools to shoot shots on different occasions is a great corruption.

God Almighty knows.

✍️ Muhammad Suleiman Nasrallah Alfra
Friday 22 Shawwal 1439 AH
6 July 2018 AD


As of this week, the campaign appears to be a failure. A paramedic was wounded near Nablus, and given the nature of the wound, it likely from "celebratory gunfire".


Killing their own or wounding their own may not actually matter to the Palestinians because they can always blame Israeli "snipers" and the world will believe them.

Friday, July 3, 2020

Antisemitic Incidents up 12% in California

Antisemitic crimes in California have increased nearly 12% , according to the 2019 publication Hate Crimes in California, released on Thursday by the state’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center.


 
Overall, hate crimes overall declined statewide by 4.8%

Antisemitic bias events rose from 126 in 2018 to 141 in 2019, an increase of 11.9 percent. Anti-Islamic (Islamophobia) bias events fell from 28 in 2018 to 25, a decrease of 10.7%


Anti-Semitic hate crimes have been steadily increasing in California since 2014.

Thursday, July 2, 2020

What are American Police Learning in Israel?

What are American police learning in Israel?   We've heard the lies spread by groups such as JVP and If Not Now.   CAIR also ran with the lies, and went as far as recommending that city governments:

"End police exchange and training programs with Israel and other foreign governments
that engage in human rights violations, including violence against protesters, choke
holds and other forms of police brutality"

in their publication "Ending Racist Police Violence in America"


Has anyone thought to ask American police what they learned from visiting Israel?

In 1992, in an effort to secure the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia State University and the law enforcement community established the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE).
There were three objectives:
*  To enhance inter-agency cooperation between State of Georgia law enforcement agencies and the police force of the State of Israel
*  To offer an educational professional program to senior Israeli law enforcement officials in Georgia, primarily in the area of community policing
*  To offer an educational professional program to senior Georgia law enforcement officials in Israel, primarily in the areas of counter-terrorism and drug interdiction


Kimberly Payne, Major, Atlanta Police Department (2018)
The GILEE experience was one of the highlights of my career. This enriching and impactful experience enhanced my professional development as a leader. The experience with the Israel Police reaffirmed the need to create diversity within the agency so that it is a clear representation of the community served. This then helps gain public trust.”

Ricky Rich, Deputy Commissioner, Georgia Dept. of Driver Services (2017)
“I was most impressed with the intensive training programs for the Israel Police. Integrity, professionalism, determination, and courage, protecting human life, and patriotism are among their core values"

John P. Quigley, Captain, Atlanta Police Department (2016)
“A clear priority, evident to all of us during our visit, was the sensitivity, awareness and commitment of the Israeli National Police Leadership toward ensuring every meeting with citizens, and every police/citizen encounter was focused on earning the trust of the community...Our pride in the brotherhood of Law Enforcement could not have been more inspired by those we met in the Israeli National Police. They are the pinnacle of professionalism, devotion to duty, and commitment to all people and religions. "

Rodney Bryant, Major, Atlanta Police Department (2014)
“One of our greatest challenges in American policing is serving a community that is vastly more diverse than the local police department. Comparatively, the Israeli police are responsible for serving a variety of demographics. I was impressed by the level of community policing efforts employed by the Israeli Police to build relationships and maintain peace among such diverse populations.

Steven D. Heaton, Chief, Fayetteville Police Department (2009)
“I think I can speak for the entire delegation when I say that this program was the highlight of many of our careers. The information learned and shared with our Israeli counterparts was invaluable. The Israel Police are one of the best trained, professional, warm, and accommodating group of people I have met"

The truth is out there. You just need to ask the right people.


Monday, June 29, 2020

Could Ann Arbor voters pick a worse choice than Mozhgan Savabieasfahani for Ward 4?

Could Ann Arbor voters possibly pick a worse choice than Mozhgan Savabieasfahani for Ward 4?

If you lived in Ann Arbor, a leafy enclave in Michigan,  you might be concerned about the cost of housing, or the deteriorating infrastructure. You might want to elect representative to the City Council with a commitment to fix "the damn roads".

Or not.

Mozhgan Savabieasfahani is hoping what motivates Ward 4 voters is local involvement in an intractable foreign conflict thousands of miles away from Michigan.  She is running for Ann Arbor City Council on a "Divest from Israel platform"
Mozhgan Savabieasfahani , Candidate for Ann Arbor City Council

Savabieasfahani is no stranger to activist politics.  Her facebook page is full of the language of demonization and dehumanization as she urges her followers to boycott Israeli "butchers"


Most alarming, Mozhgan Savabieasfahani is part of a contingent that has been harassing members of a local synagogue every Shabbat, when they go to pray.  Much of the signage is unabashedly anti-Semitic.
Photo from the Ann Arbor News 

Photo from the Forward 


The harassment has been going on for years, but was given wider attention when the Lawfare Project filed a lawsuit against the City, and the  protesters. The plaintiffs are Beth Israel Congregation member Marvin Gerber and Ann Arbor resident Dr. Miriam Brysk, a Holocaust survivor.

Brooke Goldstein, Executive Director of The Lawfare Project described the situation:

"The City of Ann Arbor has completely abdicated its responsibility to protect the Jewish community from targeted, racist harassment at the hands of these protesters. There are few greater civil rights violations than impeding the free exercise of worship and assembly, and we are here to demand the city hold the protestors accountable under existing federal, state, and local laws."

Marc Susselman, co-counsel in the lawsuit, added:

"Not only are the protestors harassing innocent people on their way to synagogue, they are actually in violation of the city's ordinances. However, the city has long refused to place even modest restrictions on them. The City of Ann Arbor could have at the very least enforced its own city code to substantially limit the protests, but instead city leaders have done nothing and allowed the harassment to continue for over a decade and a half."

In spite of her history of activism, the Iranian born Savabieasfahani is reported to have registered to vote only recently, in October of 2019.

From the Jewish Journal:

The County chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus Joan Lowenstein has stated “Mozhgan Savabieasfahani’s hate-filled candidacy for Ann Arbor City Council is an affront to the universal values so integral to this city, as one of Michigan’s great intellectual centers.”

For more information on the blatant antisemtism of  Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, see

Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, Candidate for Michigan City Council, Under Fire for Anti-Semitic Synagogue Protests

and 


The election will be held August 4.