UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday it has embarked on a fundraising campaign that will likely include a ministerial-level donors conference next month to fill the gap left by the Trump administration’s sudden cut of tens of millions of dollars in funding.
UN agency for Palestinian refugees fundraises after US cuts | NZ Herald
Israeli court rejects appeals in murder of Palestinian teen | NZ Herald
Yosef Haim Ben David (centre)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected appeals filed by three Israelis convicted in a high-profile murder of a Palestinian teenager in 2014.
Yosef Haim Ben David and two underage accomplices were convicted in 2016 of abducting 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir and burning him to death. Ben David appealed the sentence, pleading insanity.
The court on Thursday upheld Ben David’s sentence of life plus 20 years. His two accomplices, both minors at the time, also appealed and their sentences, one to life in prison and the other to 21 years, were upheld.
Ben David and his accomplices said the killing was in revenge for three Israeli teens abducted earlier that summer and killed by Palestinians allied with the Islamic militant group Hamas. The incidents helped propel Israel to war in Gaza.
Former Polish PM: ‘Of Course Poles Took Part in Holocaust’ | Algemeiner
Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, former PM of Poland
A former prime minister entered Poland’s fraught debate over a new law that prohibits discussion of Polish collusion with the Nazi Holocaust, bluntly telling a leading newspaper that “of course” there were cases of Poles collaborating in the extermination of the Jews.
Emphasizing that “today’s generation is not responsible for what happened,” Cimoszewicz — a social democrat politician who was Poland’s prime minister during the mid-1990s and also served as the country’s foreign minister — urged Poles to talk “openly and honestly ” about the experience of Nazi occupation.
Among the historical examples he cited were the “tens of thousands” of “szmalcowniks” — Poles who informed on Jews or extorted their property. At least 60,000 Jews had been denounced by Poles to the Nazi Gestapo, Cimoszewicz said.
The former prime minister also noted that more than 6,000 Poles had been honored as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. “We are all obliged to remember these heroic people, but we must not allow their heroism to cover the crimes and wickedness of a much larger group of Poles,” he continued.
“Antisemitism was and remains endemic in our country,” Cimoszewicz said.
Read more.
Israeli killed by Palestinian in West Bank stabbing attack | NZ Herald
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli officials say a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man to death near a West Bank settlement before fleeing the scene. The military says a soldier chased the assailant after he stabbed a civilian at a bus stop…
Israel honors foreign dipolmats who saved Jews in WW2 | NZ Herald
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s foreign ministry has unveiled a monument honoring diplomats who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
African Deportations Are Creating a Religious Controversy in Israel | Atlantic
TEL AVIV—Around 9:30 p.m. on a recent weekday night, four men sat waiting on the sidewalk outside Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority office. In a broken mix of Hebrew, English, and Arabic, they told me they were waiting for it to open so they could turn in their applications for refugee status—the next morning. According to local activists, the office only processes a handful of these forms each day, so asylum seekers arrive the night before to ensure their place in line.
These men are among the roughly 40,000 African migrants who have been stuck in limbo in Israel for years. Many crossed into Israel through the Sinai desert between 2006 and 2012, according to Israel’s African Refugee Development Center, fleeing the harsh political conditions in Eritrea or genocide and war in Sudan. The Israeli government has argued that these migrants are simply in Israel looking for work. Human-rights organizations, however, claim that most or all are here out of fear of persecution in their home countries. Of more than 13,000 people who had applied for asylum as of last summer, only 10 have been recognized as refugees, according to the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli human-rights organization.
Now, as Israel prepares to send them back to Africa, the country is facing challenging questions about the meaning and purpose of the Jewish state, itself created as a harbor for Jews fleeing anti-Semitic persecution in Europe and the Middle East. The situation lays bare a central tension for Israel, which has both a particular obligation to protect Jews and, some Jews believe, a general responsibility to represent Jewish values to the world.
Last week, Susan Silverman, a Jerusalem rabbi (and sister of the comedian Sarah Silverman), started a campaign to get Israelis to hide African asylum seekers facing deportation in their homes, comparing their situation to that of Anne Frank. More than 2,000 people surrounded the Rwandan embassy in Herzliya to protest its participation in the deportations. Pilots for El Al, the Israeli airline, have called for a boycott of deportation flights, although the company said it has not been required to fly refugees, according to Haaretz. And more than 850 rabbis and cantors, mostly outside of Israel, have signed a petition opposing the removals.
Since its founding, Israel has had to negotiate its dual identity as a democracy and as the world’s only Jewish-majority state. Netanyahu has long referred to the migrants as “infiltrators,” claiming that they pose a threat to the state. And many of the migrants’ neighbors in South Tel Aviv complain that the area has become overcrowded and crime-ridden since the newcomers arrived. Yet, advocates argue, Jewish identity should be built on values and ethics, not just membership in a tribe. What, they say, could be more Jewish—and more faithful to the history of Israel—than welcoming the stranger?
Kin of Japanese diplomat who helped Jews escape Nazi persecution work to keep his legacy alive | Japan Times
Madoka Sugihara (from left to right), Maria Kamm, Kamm’s daughter Susan Hearst and Sugihara’s daughter
Madoka Sugihara never had a chance to hear directly from her grandfather, Chiune Sugihara, about his heroic effort as a diplomat during World War II to issue visas allowing thousands of Jews to escape Nazi persecution.
But through the stories of the offspring of the survivors, who were offered the visas to flee from Europe, Sugihara, 51, feels the ongoing significance of what her grandfather did in defiance of the Foreign Ministry’s policy at that time.
“In an age when conflicts show no end, I want to speak out about the value of human life and the importance of having the courage to take actions,” she said, adding that her mission is to pass on the stories about her grandfather, often dubbed Japan’s Oskar Schindler after the German who provided Jews with a safe haven during World War II.
BBC News Kicks Israel in the Face | Algemeiner
Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor
On Friday Feb 2, TVNZ aired portions of an interview between Jeremy Bowen of the BBC and Oren Hazan regarding the upcoming trial of Ahed Tamimi. During that interview Hazan said if he had been the soldier, he would have violently retaliated against Tamimi for the slap. Pesach Benson shares his opinion of the interview.
Of the 120 Knesset members that the BBC could have interviewed for an Israeli point of view on Ahed Tamimi’s trial, reporter Jeremy Bowen chose a disgraced, provocative politician — and well-known enfant terrible — Oren Hazan.
Viewers of “Is a Slap an Act of Terror?” on the prime time “BBC News at Ten,” wouldn’t be aware that Hazan, a Likud MK, has a history of disgraceful PR stunts and character issues — or that he had been suspended from the Knesset the same day that the segment aired.
This was not a random selection made by Bowen, the BBC‘s Mideast editor.
Quote of the Day:
Earlier today, we shared an insightful article by J P Pagano published on Forward. His article gave rise to our quote of the day, and is worthy of particular attention:
We live in a time of hateful rhapsody where truth is relative and fear prevails.
This is a conspiracist moment and it’s bad for the Jews.
Read more: https://forward.com/opinion/393107/how-anti-semitisms-true-origin-makes-it-invisible-to-the-left/
How Anti-Semitism’s True Origin Makes It Invisible To The Left | Forward
…the left is doomed to erase anti-Semitism because it’s ill-equipped to understand it.
For in a key sense, regular racism — against blacks and Latinos, for example — is the opposite of anti-Semitism. While both ultimately derive from xenophobia, regular racism comes from white people believing they are superior to people of color. But the hatred of Jews stems from the belief that Jews are a cabal with supernatural powers; in other words, it stems from the models of thought that produce conspiracy theories. Where the white racist regards blacks as inferior, the anti-Semite imagines that Jews have preternatural power to afflict humankind.
This is also why the left is blind to anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism differs from most forms of racism in that it purports to “punch up” against a secret society of oppressors, which has the side effect of making it easy to disguise as a politics of emancipation. If Jews have power, then punching up at Jews is a form of speaking truth to power — a form of speech of which the left is currently enamored.
In other words, it is because anti-Semitism pretends to strike at power that the left cannot see it, and is doomed to erase — and even reproduce — its tropes.
