Equipto's attack on a progressive establishment in San Francisco

Manny's is a welcoming and inclusive community gathering spot in San Francisco's Mission district.
Its advisory board is reflective of the diversity and values of our local community.

A local musician (member of Bored Stiff ) and a self described "thug", Equipto (given name Illych Yasuchi Sato) has been spearheading an active campaign against Manny's on social media.

Equipto is of Columbian and Japanese heritage and knows little about this conflict, beyond a few  buzzwords, repeated often and with gusto.   Equipto thinks he's  "progressive", yet Equipto's exclusionary racist banter is biased, ignorant and racist.

Empire!

  Empire? What empire?

Zionist!

"When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism,” Dr. Martin Luther King.

Yo- Equipto: Zionism is the civil rights movement of the Jewish people.  If you dont believe Jews are entitled to civil rights, well, we have a word for that.

Apartheid!

                         

In the world according to Equipto,  Jews, er "Zionists" should be relegated to special parts of the city.  We've seen that before.  Can you say "ghetto"?  I think you can.

The shallow analysis, reductionist, zero sum game of Equipto's tweets have made him today's Anti-Zionist not Anti-Semite of the Day over at Israellycool.

Classy, Equipto.  Classy.    Manny is of Afghani heritage, btw.

Diablo Magazine lauds Terror Supporter Reem Assil

h/t Israellycool

The latest issue of Diablo magazine  ( the "only monthly publication written specifically for the San Francisco East Bay market—from Central Contra Costa, into the Oakland and Berkeley Hills, and throughout the Tri-Valley") features an article called "40 under 40". One of those featured is Reem Assil, owner of Reem's Bakery in Oakland   The editor of the piece, Lauren Bonney could have and should have spent more time researching Reem's background

Yep. This is the same Reem Assil who features a mural of a convicted Jew-killer in her bakery. The same Reem Assil who has promoted other PFLP terrorists from her Twitter account.  The same Reem Assil who did nothing while her friends and customers attacked elderly protesters in front of her bakery.

Lauren Bonney's oversight wasn't lost on the commentators,  including David Rosenberg, who wrote:

It is unfortunate that you honored Reem Assil in the 40 Under 40 article without mentioning her support of terrorism and that she decorated her bakery with a full wall mural of Rasmea Odeh. Rasmea Odeh is a member of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was convicted for the murder of Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe (two students in Israel) and lied about it when applying for U.S. citizenship. In April 2017 Rasmea Odeh pleaded guilty to failing to disclose her previous conviction on her citizenship application. Her U.S. citizenship was revoked and she is being deported from the U.S. As long as Reem Assil honors Rasmea Odeh and supports her terrorism, I think that Reem is unfit to be included in the 40 Under 40 (or be recognized for anything other than her support of terrorism).

Michael Harris added· 

To put Reem Assil's giant mural of the unrepentant murderer Rasmea Odeh in perspective, imagine a restaurant serving Southern cuisine that featured a giant mural of Dylann Roof, who murdered 9 African Americans in cold blood in South Carolina. Or an Israeli restaurant decorated with a mural of Baruch Goldstein, who murdered dozens of Arabs in a house of worship. Either of these would appropriately be met with widespread revulsion. Reem deserves no less.

Maria Parker  concluded:

I wish you had done your due diligence researching this article. Reem Assil is no more a role model than is Rasmea Odeh, the convicted terrorist portrayed in her restaurant.

Touche. At least some people are paying attention.

Asoomii Jay spreads modern day blood libel

Assma Galuta, known to her YouTube Fans as Asoomii Jay, is a self described  "activist, blogger, model, and designer."

Asoomii Jay's Facebook page has 298,991  "likes"  and apparently she has a significant following.

On her facebook page, she posts this image, and writes

"This is not a shot from a movie; this is a heart breaking and outrageous image of Palestinian youth who just got shot in his chest by the terrorist Zionist army.
He died with pride, with dignity, and his head up facing this world full of hypocrisy and brutality.
Rest in peace.
May Allah grant you paradise.”

Except, Asoomii, that it is a scene from a movie.

This modern day blood libel has been exposed by the team at IsraellyCool- it is a scene from a movie "Kingdom of the ants"

The image can be found in a collection of stills from the movie

This is how hate goes viral.  Please contact Asoomii Jay and let her know that the fake image she has circulated (that has been shared, as of now,  over 2,800 times) is from a movie, and in the interest of truth, it needs to be removed and  retracted.

So many Palestinian "activists" live in a truth optional world. She may not respect the request, but at least she won't be able to claim that she didn't know.

True Confessions of an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) Volunteer

Just this week, Paul Larudee of the Northern California International Solidarity Movement (ISM) issued an “ an urgent call for volunteers to join us in Palestine”

He doesn’t offer much in a way of a job description, instead stating

The campaign will begin during the last week of September and will last around 5 weeks.  We request a minimum one week commitment from volunteers, but stress that longtermers are needed as well. We ask that volunteers start arriving around the 20th of September, so that we will be prepared when the harvest begins.

We request a minimum two week commitment from volunteers, but stress that longtermers are needed as well. The ISM will be holding mandatory two day training sessions which will run weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please see the join ISM page or contact palreports@gmail.com for further information.

Fortunately, our friends at Israellycool are able to fill in the blanks, with a post by a Swedish activist, Daniel Borg, who joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) a few years back.

Before joining ISM group in Hebron I had my training in Ramallah during two days. How to obstruct IDF ops? How to freely walk in a neighbourhood and alert the coordinators the movements of incoming IDF patrols? When to go out and show your presence to the military, so that they dont dare shoot at your direction? Shield a house that IDF want to demolish? Shield stone-molotov-throwing militants? Yes. Our job. PLO (now Fatah, but it is the same) uses well meaning idealistic western youngsters to aid, shield and make-possible their terrorist agenda. The Fatah-coordinators made it clear to us that ISM uses only non-violent means of resistence, but in the meantime stressed that if the Palestinians chooses to use violence our job is to shield them. It is the Palestinians that live under occupation and humiliation, not us western activists, so we should let them make the operational decisions and we internationals are there to act like human shields and protect them from the IDF.

Daniel’s personal observations of interactions between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians lead him to believe that much of what he has been taught is not true

Yes I was extremely astounished. This encounter between the IDF soldier and the Palestinian kid contradicted everything I was being told and what I thought was the normal mode of IDF-conduct. Surely this soldier’s behaviour must be a very rare glimpse of humanism in the overrall aggressive IDF, like a dolphin swimming in a sea of sharks. But no, it was not. It was rather the normal mode of conduct. I monitored the same group of soldiers from early morning to late evening, and their basic way of treating the Palestinians was that of non-interference and respect. Not once did I see anything that comes close to a violation. I spent three weeks monitoring the IDF soldiers, with my camera around my neck. There was nothing to film, no transgressions whatsoever ...

Daniel concludes

The irony did not cross my mind at the time, that I went to Hebron to document Israeli war crimes but came home with IDF-humanism and Palestinian war crimes.

During my time in Hebron I did not know about the incessant terror attacks against the extremely small Jewish community of Hebron. I did not know that Jewish residents are killed whenever they are not protected, children, women, elderly. I did not know that Israel has effective control of a very small portion of Hebron. I did not know that the actual Apartheid in Hebron is directed from the Arabs against the Jewish community. I did not know the religious and historic importance of Hebron, as the number two capital of the Jewish people.

How could I know? How could my collegues know? We are immersed in the pro-pal false narrative. Fueled by CNN, New York Times, Le Monde, all centrist and leftist poltical parties in Europe, all our left leaning teachers, all our cultural establishment. Among many others. I got social, political, educational status by joining ISM, an anti – Geneva Conventions, terrorist organisation.

Read it all at Israellycool

Pallywood on the Temple Mount

Yascher koach to our friends at Israellycool and Elder of Zion.

This photo has been making the rounds on social media.  Its been spread by the likes of Max Blumenthal, ostensibly to show the dignified steadfast Palestinians vs the irrational hateful Jews., er, "settlers".

Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Via Israellycool:

What would an Arab woman be doing with a book of Psalms? One could assume she stole it from the Jewish man, which could explain his angry demeanor.

Both the Elder of Ziyon website, and Israellycool have video clips showing the theft, and the subsequent reaction. Check it out, and  remember never to take anything tweeted out by Max Blumenthal at face value.

Ryan Bellerose in Israel

There is a reason the anti-Israel bigots at UCLA have focused their wrath on students who have taken educational trips to Israel.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

 Its why Birthright scares the haters. 10 days in Israel exposes their lies, their bias and their agenda. Israeli sunshine is, and always will be the best disinfectant to BDS hate.

And its for this reason, we all owe StandWithUs thanks for having the insight and the compassion to send First Nations advocate Ryan Bellerose to Israel. Ryan was an intellectual Zionist- his attachment to Israel was the result of careful study. But now his attachment is stronger and deeper.

Via Israellycool

It can hardly be said that Ryan didn't know Israel when he got here. Or at least, through his copious reading of a wide range of historical and religious sources, he thought he knew Israel. He's written a thesis on the Merkeva tank, but he'd never before met someone who fought in one. He's read the gospels but he'd never walked along the Via de la Rose. He's read of the decadence of Rome but he'd never stood in the amphitheatre of Caesarea. He's read about Jews being blocked from their Temple Mount but he'd never reached the front of the line and been refused entry himself. He's read about the Syrians shelling civilians but he'd never stood on a hill a mile away and watched shells fly.

He did all of those things and many more.

Read Ryan’s impressions of Israel, published at Israellycool. And if you can, send StandWithUs a donation, so they can continue to sponsor trips to Israel that open hearts and minds and broaden horizons for so many people

Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein: Caught in a web of this own paranoia

Does anyone still take Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein seriously?

Ever indebted to the team at Israelycool  for their documentation of all the times Silversteins' been wrong, terribly wrong, laughably wrong,  simply wrong, and sincerely wrong.

From Israellycool:

With the media once again getting duped by anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein, and based on a number of requests by readers, I have compiled this list of links pointing to Silverstein’s:

• Unreliability, whether it be lies or lack of factchecking
• Defence of Hamas and palestinian terrorists, or otherwise explaining away their crimes
• Ignorance of Israel and Judaism, despite his claims of expertise
• Hypocrisy
• Possible crimes 
• Following by antisemites     

Via Israellycool: Richard Silverstein caught in Another Lie

In his latest rant, anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein posts about being ostracized at his synagogue for his political views. His diatribe includes the following conspiracy theory regarding the “leaking” of the news his son had an upcoming bar mitzvah.

Silverstein goes on to accuse various staff members of Seattle's  Congregation Beth Shalom of various improprieties and of violating his families privacy (though he had no qualms about violating their privacy on his blog.)

But as Israellycool points out,  it was Silverstein himself who leaked the news of his son's upcoming bar mitzvah and there are screenshots from his own timeline to prove it. Oops.

Will Silverstein rise to the occasion and apologize to those he has publicly slandered?  Not likely. Given his reputation, he'll dig his heels in even deeper and insist all along that he is the victim.


 UPDATE:Read the Mike Report's take on the recent events:

Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein is well known for his hatred of Israel and for flying loose and light with the facts. With the obsessive drive of a Captain Ahab and the energy of a toddler primed on Skittles and Coca Cola, Silverstein has sent out over 29,000 tweets and near countless Blog posts. Despite his tenuous relationship with accuracy, Silverstein appears to have a good number of followers and admirers who share his ideological bent.

Silverstein has doggedly pursued and excoriated countless unwary visitors who have crossed his radar or the transom of the comments section of his blog. Whether it be blaming Israel for motivating terrorist attacks against a Jewish family in India or vilifying a Gazan activist for being critical of Hamas, whatever red line there may have been, Richard crossed it long ago.

    And we have an apology from Silverstein.

Last night I published a post dealing with my relationship with my local synagogue, the local StandWithUs pro-Israel loyalists, and a Twitter user who used my son’s impending bar mitzvah to insult me.

I made an error believing that an employee of the synagogue leaked private information about the event to the Twitter user. After correcting and updating the information in the post , and adding an apology, I republished it. Though all the information in the republished post was accurate–on reconsideration, I realized that a significant portion of the post dealt with old history, some of which I’ve even already recounted here. What wasn’t old history, my discussion of the growing dysfunction and irrelevance of many American synagogues, can be saved for another post. Undoubtedly, there will come a time when this will be appropriate to republish. Until then, I thought it best to remove it and leave this explanation in its place.

I apologize of course to those I wrongfully blamed and to those who may be confused by this unusual situation.

                   
          

Has Richard Silverstein finally seen the light?

Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles. Has anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein seen the light, just in time for the days of Awe? His website at http://www.richardsilverstein.com/ has undergone a dramatic make-over.



Aussie Davie at IsraellyCool writes about it here: Now THIS Is Tikun Olam. He implies that this ultimate makeover might not have been entirely voluntary.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

From IsraellyCool- Have authorities identified the Bulgarian suicide bomber?

From our friends at Israellycool

Bulgarian media on Thursday named the suicide bomber who blew up a bus full of Israeli tourists, killing five Israelis and a local bus driver, in the Black Sea resort of Burgas on Wednesday as Mehdi Ghezali.

There was no independent confirmation of the veracity of the information. The reports surfaced soon after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly accused Hezbollah, directed by Iran, of responsibility for the bombing. The Prime Minister’s Office made no comment on the reports.

The Bulgarian reports, rapidly picked up by Hebrew media, posited various versions of how the bomber had detonated the bomb, including the suggestion that the bomber had not intended to die in the blast, but may have wanted to place the bomb on the bus and flee.

Ghezali was reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Following a lobbying effort by Swedish prime minister Göran Persson, Guantanamo authorities recommended Ghezali be transferred to another country for continued detainment, and he was handed over to Swedish authorities in 2004. The Swedish government did not press charges.

He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009.

This information has NOT been confirmed.

UPDATE
From The Times of Israel:

The five Israelis killed in Wednesday’s terror attack in Burgas were named on Thursday evening as Amir Menashe, 27; Itzik Kolengi, 27; Maor Harush, 26; Elior Priess, 26; and Kochava Shriki, 42.

The five fatalities from the attack were set to be flown home on Thursday evening. A ceremony was being planned for their arrival, with Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov set to represent the government.

Channel 2 reported that Menashe and Kolengi were childhood friends who traveled to Bulgaria with their wives, who were both injured in the attack. The Kolengis had celebrated the birth of their first daughter four months ago and planned a long weekend away without the child, who was left in the care of her grandparents.
Galit Kolengi was seriously injured in the explosion that killed her husband and and was to be flown back to Israel Thursday night. Natalie Menashe was lightly injured in the blast.

Harush and Priess were both from Acre. When news of the attack reached the Harush home, family members hoped for the best, but their hopes were dashed when they were asked by authorities to provide DNA samples.

In the hours following the explosion Itzik Shriki, who was lightly injured in the attack, searched for his wife until the terrible truth of her fate became clear. She was taken to a hospital in Sofia, without him being told. According to Channel 2, the couple had recently succeeded in becoming expectant parents after several years of frustrated attempts.

“Two of them have gone, she and her baby,” wailed Yael Mored, Shriki’s sister. “They just went for three days of holiday and now she will come back in a coffin.”
Itzik Kolengi was to be buried in Petah Tikva’s Segula cemetery on Friday at 10.30. Amir Menashe was to be buried in the same cemetery an hour later.

Aftermath of the Burgas terror bombing

Richard Silverstein exposed by Israellycool's Aussie Dave

Someone, buy this man a beer for me.

Israellycool's Aussie Dave lay a trap for Blogger Richard Silverstein, in an effort to expose him as the shoddy and unscrupulous person that he is. And Silverstein fell for it, big time.

From Israellycool:

"For years, I have been posting about his hatred for Israel and nastiness, which makes a mockery of his blog’s name Tikkun Olam (“Repairing/Healing the World”). Recently, he was cited by the mainstream media, due to his posts blaming Israel and the Mossad for explosions in Iran and Lebanon, as well as for leaking online some FBI surveillance transcripts of conversations caught on F.B.I. wiretaps of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Although I have demonstrated on numerous occasions the inaccuracies in his posts, I knew I had to step things up a notch to really show how unreliable and careless with the facts he is.

So I set a trap."

Did he ever.

In one fell swoop, Dave exposed the truth about Richard Silverstein:

From Dave:
So to summarize what we have here:

Despite claiming to want to “repair the world”, Silverstein reveals what he thinks is my name and address, potentially placing my safety and the safety of my family at risk
Silverstein posts this on the basis of an anonymous source he knows nothing about, and a Facebook Profile with my URL and one friend!
Silverstein does not recognize the photo of someone heavily in the news in Israel, despite his claims about being knowledgable about goings on there
Silverstein invents facts based on nothing more than speculation, despite being presented with a more realistic alternative interpretation
Silverstein lies about me publishing his personal details

But please, read the whole sordid tale at Israellycool

****

Oh, Yitz. I really did read your blog post on the mitzvah of the rebuke.

"It is called tokhachah (תוכחה) and comes from the Torah in Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:17 as both an expression of mutual concern and responsibility. The mitzvah calls upon every Jew to assist one another with constructive criticism based on love. Specifically, it states:

לא-תִשְׂנָא אֶת-אָחִיךָ, בִּלְבָבֶךָ; הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת-עֲמִיתֶךָ, וְלא-תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא
Hate not your brother (sister) in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin (because of him/her)."

I understand, and it really is a virtue to aspire to. Yet I can't help but think that an exception should be made for the likes of Richard Silverstein.