UC Berkeley Bears for Palestine Facebook Page is Managed From Jordan

Interesting tidbit from UC Berkeley.
The Bears for Palestine Facebook page is managed from Jordan.  

Real grassroots activism.

Screenshot before it goes away.

Hostile take-over! The Israeli Jewish Antifa has hacked a KKK website

 Buy these folk a beer for us.   

The Israeli Jewish Antifa has left a warning on a white power website: "We never forgive, never forget, and never stop coming."

The group has allegedly hacked a website belonging to the Patriotic Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, exposing pictures, names and rap sheets of some of the organizations leaders.  The group is one of the fastest growing Klan organizations in the US, with least different four cells in several states.

The altered website, still standing displays messages in English and in Hebrew, including "Shabbat Shalom! Good Night White Pride  ; - ) " and "Solidarity with Oppressed People Everywhere" and my personal favorite, "Yes You mouth- breathing crackers, We Got your info"

The "Imperial Kaillif" of the organization has been identified as Kevin J. Smith.

The hacked webpage includes a link to the Texas Public Sex Offender Registry, where he is registered for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl.

The hackers included a receipt as proof that Smith had paid for the website , which as of today, remains altered.

Other direct actions appear to be in the pipeline.  A message on the hacked website reads "Any Klansmen reading this, we know who you are, and we are coming for you." 

On Twitter "Justice Jew" has taken credit for the action.

Am Yisroel Chai.

Professor Kaveh Afrasiabi arrested as a unregistered agent for Iran

This is who is teaching our children. This is who is writing op eds for the New York Times. This who is lobbying Congress.

Dr. Kaveh Afrasiabi taught political science at Boston University, and Bentley College. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Binghamton University, Center For Strategic Research.

But Dr. Kaveh Afrasiabi had some secrets. 

He was working for the Iranian government.

This week, a criminal complaint was filed charging Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, also known as Lotfolah Kaveh Afrasiabi, with acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

“Afrasiabi allegedly sought to influence the American public and American policymakers for the benefit of his employer, the Iranian government, by disguising propaganda as objective policy analysis and expertise,” said Acting U.S. Attorney DuCharme.

“For over a decade, Kaveh Afrasiabi pitched himself to Congress, journalists, and the American public as a neutral and objective expert on Iran,” said John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “However, all the while, Afrasiabi was actually a secret employee of the Government of Iran and the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations (IMUN) who was being paid to spread their propaganda. In doing so, he intentionally avoided registering with the Department of Justice as the Foreign Agents Registration Act required. He likewise evaded his obligation to disclose who was sponsoring his views. We now begin to hold him responsible for those deeds.”

Read More here: 

Defendant Lobbied U.S. Officials, Published Books and Articles Advancing Iranian Viewpoints While Secretly Employed by the Iranian Mission to the United Nations

The Apartheid state of Lebanon.

The Lebanon Budget Draft for 2021 grants permanent residency in Lebanon for any foreigner that invests in real estate. As long as the investor keeps  property in their name permanent residency will be granted to the investor and their family.

Syrian and Palestinian nationals are excluded.

Over 470,000  Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps.  Palestinians in Lebanon cannot work in at least 39 professions and cannot own property. The refugee status is passed down from generation to generation.   Even third and fourth generation Lebanese born Palestinians do not have the rights of citizens.

Lebanon is an apartheid state, and the silence of the so-called Palestinian civil society and international human rights organizations is quite telling. This is one of the 3 "Ds" of Natan Sharansky's  definition of antisemitism- the double standard.  

Hamas: Killing its Own in Gaza

Earlier this week, a devastating explosion rocked Gaza, destroying homes and wounding 36 people, including many children. 

The explosion was caused by the accidental detonation of weapons stored in a home in a civilian neighborhood in Gaza.

 
Israel's military Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said on Twitter. “ Homes have been turned into warehouses for weapons... and missiles for terrorist organizations, and those who pay the price in the end are innocent civilians”

This was not the first time weapons earmarked for Israeli civilians have killed their creators.

In 2005, a  Palestinian pickup truck carrying rockets exploded during a Hamas military parade through the densely populated Gaza Strip. According to Palestinian officials at least 19 Palestinians were killed, and  over 80 were injured. The casualties included 5 children. The initial explosion triggered secondary blasts in nearby vehicles that were also carrying rockets and ammunition. 

Hamas and other extremist factions within Gaza have seldom showed any hesitation using their civilians as shields for their weapons, while targetting Israeli civilians.  Its a double war crime that rarely makes the papers.

In a rare moment of candor, even Amnesty International has admitted that Palestinian rocket fire during the 2014  war in Gaza had killed more civilians in the Gaza Strip than in Israel.  Rockets aimed at Israel  had fallen short of their target, and killed at least 13 civilians, 11 of them children, in Gaza.

After the end of the 2014 war, it was calculated that terror factions in  Gaza fired 4,591 projectiles at Israel.  3,659 struck Israeli territory, 735 were intercepted by Iron Dome and another 197 fell within Gaza, terrorizing its inhabitants, who  like the Israelis, are also victims of Hamas terror.

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:
 

Israeli aircraft hit rocket manufacturing facility, underground infrastructure belonging to terror group after 2 projectiles fired across border  

Responding to Gaza rocket fire on Israel, army says it hit rocket manufacturing facility and saw ‘secondary explosions which are suspected of causing the damage to nearby hospital’

Glorifying Terror. The death of Mahmoud Omar Kamil

 A 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.

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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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

As this document had been prepared by a committee of ‘critical ethnic studies’ proponents, several of whom had publicly endorsed BDS, none of this came as a surprise. According to its own organization, “Critical Ethnic Studies…aims to develop an approach to scholarship, institution building, and activism that is animated by the spirit of the decolonial,antiracist, and other global liberationist movements that enabled the creation of "Ethnic Studies" and that continues to inform its politicaland intellectual projects”  and “ to produce critical engagement about white supremacy, settlercolonialism, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, militarism, occupation,indigeneity, neocolonialism, migration, and anti-blackness.” 

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.”.

Here’s another cited source which also endorses BDS.  

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.

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.

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!