140 Olim (immigrants) from France arrived in Israel on Monday and were welcomed at Ben Gurion Airport by Israeli Minister of Immigration and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata and President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) Yael Eckstein, whose organization arranged for the flight. Photo by Olivier Fitoussi on 3 August, 2020
By: Aryeh Savir
140 Olim (immigrants) from France arrived in Israel on Monday and were welcomed at Ben Gurion Airport by Israeli Minister of Immigration and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata and President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) Yael Eckstein, whose organization arranged for the flight.
Nearly half of the Olim, 60, are children under the age of 18. 11 of the Olim are medical and paramedical professionals. 17 have careers in high-tech while 27 have experience in liberal arts professions.
Several days before her flight with her husband and three children, Barbara Simha Bohadana shared from Paris that she was fired because she was Jewish.
“A pharmacy manager, who I worked for as a pharmacist, did not even try to hide the reason for my dismissal. He just told me that a wig or any other sign of my Jewishness was not acceptable and that if I did not have them removed, I should just get up and leave. So I got up and left,” she said.
She added that her husband, Dan, an anesthesiologist, had a hard time finding a job because of his Jewish background.
“We have always been Zionists and we knew we would make Aliyah. I am so happy that we are moving to Israel and that we will never have to go through such experiences again,” she said.
41-year-old Lionel Giuili, who made Aliyah with his wife Stephanie and their three children, said that his parents live in Israel, as well as his sister and a lot of other family members.
“We always knew we would make Aliyah. We were always connected to Israel and maintained Jewish tradition. However, the Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket Siege was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and we finally decided to make Aliyah,” he shared.
The January 2015 Islamic attack on the Hypercacher market in Paris ended with the murder of four Jews.
Although Lionel and his family did not suffer any physical violence, the plague of anti-Semitism has had a direct impact on every member of the Jewish community.
“If, for example, while I was sitting and eating in my store and I heard someone enter the store, I automatically took off my kippah. Neither I nor my children walked around the street with Jewish symbols,” he recounted.
In January 2020, a survey by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) found that a staggering 70% of French Jews say they have been victims of anti-Semitism, 59% suffered physical abuse in school and 46% suffered verbal abuse at work.
Attempting to avoid anti-Semitic attacks, more than a third of French Jews refrain from wearing Jewish symbols in public, and a quarter avoids revealing their Jewish identity at work, and 40% avoid arriving at certain areas to circumvent attacks.
Some 52% of French Jews have considered leaving France while Israel has seen several large waves of Aliyah of French Jews in recent years.
Lionel had visited his family in Israel quite often before making Aliyah. “I always felt at home in Israel. I feel free in Israel, and I no longer have to hide my Jewish identity. This reflex I developed that made me take my kippah off and put it in my pocket will no longer be necessary as I will be living in Israel,” he celebrated.
Israel applauded Spain’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, the latest country to take on the fight against Jew-hatred. Photo by Ehud Amiton/TPS on 10 March, 2013
By: TPS Staff
Israel applauded Spain’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, the latest country to take on the fight against Jew-hatred.
“Congratulations to Spain for adopting the IHRA working definition for antisemitism, which sends out a strong (and tragically very relevant nowadays) message against this form of bigoted hatred,” Tweeted Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Alon Ushpiz on Sunday.
Spain stated last month that it was adopting the definition, “not legally binding,” as “a useful guidance tool in education and training.”
Serbia adopted the definition in June, and Italy, Cyprus, France and Portugal did so in recent months.
The IHRA has 34 member countries and seven observer countries. Acceptance to the IHRA depends on the counties’ adherence to the Stockholm Declaration on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research of January 28, 2000, as well as several other conditions.
The IHRA adopted in 2016 the working-definition of anti-Semitism, according to which anti-Semitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The IHRA states that anti-Semitic examples include denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and leveling accusations against Jewish citizens of various countries that they are more loyal to Israel than to their own countries.
Spain joins the United Kingdom, Austria, Scotland, Romania, Canada, Germany, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldova, Macedonia, the US, Greece, Belgium, Slovenia, Sweden, Holland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxemburg, France, Cyprus, Italy, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Serbia and Argentina.
In December of 2019, TPS reported that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided to remove the Aalst Carnival from the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List following accusations of anti-Semitic imagery being displayed at the carnival.
At the time, it was reported that Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz welcomed the “moral and principled decision” to remove the Carnival from UNESCO’s List and expressed his hope that the anti-Semitic displays will be removed from the carnival all-together.
“In the 21st century, during a time when anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head, there cannot be any tolerance for this ugly phenomenon. We expect the Belgian government to come out clearly and concisely against the inclusion of anti-Semitic displays in the carnival,” he said.
“The scourge of anti-Semitism threatens not only the Jewish people, but every society and country in which it exists. The world must come together in the fight against it,” he added.
The carnival takes place in the Belgian city of Aalst, with UNESCO’s stamp of approval. The carnival took place regardless of its appearance on UNESCO’s list.
Emmanuel Nahshon, Ambassador of Israel to Belgium and Luxembourg, said that the decision to keep the anti-Semitic displays is “unfortunate.”
“Unfortunately, they preferred anti-Semitism over the universal values of culture. We will be extremely vigilant in order to make sure that the carnival does not become another demonstration of ant-Semitism,” he said.
A UNESCO committee decided to delist the festival after the Belgian UNESCO delegation and the city’s mayor, Christoph D’Haese, asked UNESCO to remove the carnival from the list rather than change the carnival’s anti-Semitic displays.
Seth Rogen at the 33rd American Cinematheque Awards, Nov. 8, 2019, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP/Invision/Richard Shotwell)
After controversial comments on Israel, comedian Seth Rogen says he did not apologize in Zoom call with Jewish Agency head Isaac Herzog.
By: Lauren Marcus
A week after making controversial comments on Israel, comedian Seth Rogen called out the Jewish Agency for allegedly misrepresenting a conversation between himself and the organization’s head, Isaac Herzog.
During a podcast interview hosted by another Jewish comedian, Marc Maron, Rogen said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” while growing up and that the concept of the State of Israel “makes no sense” to him.
His remarks sparked an immediate backlash from Jewish organizations and social media users, and last Sunday, Rogen spoke via Zoom with Jewish Agency head Isaac Herzog about the comments.
“Had candid convo with Seth Rogen. He made clear his recent comment on Israel was said in jest & doesn’t reflect his clear belief in Israel’s right to exist,” tweeted Herzog on Sunday.
“I invited him to visit Israel’s vibrant democracy. Criticism is legit but delegitimization isn’t.”
Later that day, the Jewish Agency released a statement claiming that Herzog and Rogen had discussed “the current situation in Israel” and that Rogen “apologized” for his comments.
But in an interview on Monday with Haaretz, Rogen set the record straight, giving a version of events directly contradicting Herzog’s.
Rogen said he was surprised by the statement from the Jewish Agency.
“I did not apologize for what I said,” Rogen told Haaretz. “I offered clarity. And I think [Herzog] is misrepresenting our conversation.”
“At no point did I give him permission to publish any part of the conversation,” Rogen added.
Rogen explained that he had agreed to the call with Herzog to humor his mother.
Herzog, said Rogen, “sent a letter to my mom somehow, on official letterhead – very fancy letterhead. She implored me to call this guy and I did and told him I thought this was a private conversation and I hoped it was a private conversation.”
While Rogen has walked back his remarks on Israel, explaining that they were made in jest, he’s not willing to issue a full apology for them.
“I think both Marc [Maron] and I were highly aware of how sensitive some of the subjects he and I were working on there,” Rogen said to Haaretz.
“I actually listened back to it yesterday morning and, truly, I do [think] that the conversation we had is a very common conversation.”
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) and the US Air Force held joint the “Enduring Lightning 2” in which IAF “Adir” (F-35I) aircraft and USAF F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) trained side by side over Israel’s skies. Photo by Yissachar Ruas/TPS on 27 June, 2017
By: Aryeh Savir
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) and the US Air Force held joint the “Enduring Lightning 2” in which IAF “Adir” (F-35I) aircraft and USAF F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) trained side by side over Israel’s skies.
The exercise was held for the second time this year, as part of the two armies’ exercise program. “Enduring Lightning 1” was held in March.
In the drill, the 421st Squadron of the US Air Force, which operates F-35 aircraft, trained alongside the IAF’s 140th “Golden Eagle” Squadron, which operates the “Adir” (F-35I) aircraft.
Additionally, the 122nd “Nachshon” Squadron participated in the exercise. The squadron operates Gulfstream G550 aircraft and was responsible for conducting aerial air traffic control.
The exercise took place in southern Israel, where advanced 5th generation Israeli and American F-35 fighter jets faced various aerial and ground strategic threats. The forces worked together to locate and neutralize the threats.
Training to operate communications systems between the two forces was a focal point during this exercise.
Despite the challenges posed by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, “the IAF is fully maintaining its operational fitness and capabilities,” it stated Monday.
“Within the changing IAF coronavirus guidelines, the IAF conducts continuous joint exercises, including international cooperation, in order to maintain air superiority in the Middle East and maintain its operational fitness,” the air force added.
The IAF underscored that the two air forces enjoy “full cooperation which includes learning and drawing shared conclusions.”
“The exercise illustrates the close connection between the air forces and military echelon, enhances the cooperation of knowledge and capabilities of the F-35, and improves the IAF’s operational capabilities,” the IAF stated.
The Adir (mighty) was declared operational by the IAF in December 2017. The Israeli F-35 was the first outside of the US to be declared operational, preceded only by the US Marine Corps and the US Air Force.
The fifth-generation fighter jet, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, is considered one of the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Israel has acquired a total of 50 F-35s which are to be supplied by December 2024.
Chances for the renewal of coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in civil matters and even possibly security issues has increased in recent days. Photo by Yehonatan Valtser/TPS on 18 March, 2020
By: Baruch Yedid
Chances for the renewal of coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in civil matters and even possibly security issues has increased in recent days, TPS has learned.
The civilian coordination is focused on issues such as the population registry and transportation.
In the meantime, the security coordination continues all the time “behind the scenes,” a senior Palestinian source told TPS.
Sources in Ramallah claim that in recent days there have been behind-the-scenes contacts on the issue of the renewal of ties with Israel and that Egypt is also involved in them and therefore the Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was recently sent to Ramallah.
According to the sources, these contacts also led to the promotion of the possibility of resuming dialogue between the PA and the United States.
The PA announced in April that it was freezing coordination with Israel in response to its plan to declare sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria, as stipulated by the US-formulated Deal of the Century peace plan.
The assessment now in Ramallah is that the plans for annexation are off the table and a source says that the PA can now renew coordination on security matters to stop the deterioration in the Palestinian street and the economy.
TPS has also learned that talks have recently taken place between PA and American security officials on the question of annexation and its implications for the Palestinian arena.
The messages conveyed by the PA to the US dealt with the PA’s commitment to preventing terrorist acts from its territory and its willingness to renew the coordination channels, as well as concerns about the move to unite Fatah and Hamas, a move opposed by PA intelligence chief Majed Faraj.
PA sources say that due to the freezing of ties between Israel and the PA, Israel has lost important information on the population registration, including tens of thousands of registrations about births, deaths, ID cards and movement records of Palestinians, which may prevent them from leaving the PA.
Over the course of the last four months, Leket Israel has seen a drastic increase in demand for food from the growing population of people living below the poverty line. Photo by Kobi Richter/TPS on 24 March, 2020
By: TPS Staff
Over the course of the last four months, Leket Israel has seen a drastic increase in demand for food from the growing population of people living below the poverty line. The financial crisis generated by the Coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic has left many without work and created a social predicament.
Additionally, due to the financial crisis, many restaurants are on the verge of collapse. People whose job was to provide food to others are now dependent on others for support.
Seeking to possibly benefit both sides, Leket Israel has launched the Meal for Two initiative in which it invites the public to support restaurant owners and vulnerable Israelis through one simple donation.
Contributions are used to purchase cooked meals from restaurants impacted by the economic crisis for distribution to the needy. This project will enable restaurants to remain open while providing high quality, nutritious food to those in need.
Gidi Kroch, CEO of Leket Israel stated that “the Corona crisis caused, among other things, the collapse of many restaurants, leaving restaurant owners and employees without a livelihood and with accumulating debts. We at Leket Israel, cannot stand by idly, and have launched Meal For Two, a social initiative, that will support both struggling businesses and the growing number of poor suffering from the severe economic crisis plaguing the country.”
Leket Israel will provide the know-how, logistics and management resources required to facilitate the flow of prepared meals from participant restaurants to those in need.
“This project is a win-win situation which will help both the restaurant industry as well as provide fresh nutritious food to those in need,” Kroch added.
Leket Israel aims to raise NIS 2,500,000 and hundreds of Israelis have already joined the initiative.
Leket Israel promotes the safe and efficient collection and distribution of surplus food in Israel to those who need it. Some 200 nonprofit associations receive food from Leket and deliver it to over 175,000 needy Israelis per week.
The IDF is Leket’s largest contributor. The organization collects the leftover lunch from some 40 bases around Israel and provides the food to soup kitchens, adding another 100,000 weekly meals for Israel’s needy.
Congressman Doug Lamborn (R, CO) has sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to designate the Palestinian Authority (PA) funded Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs, and it’s head Qadri Abu Bakr, as “sponsors of terror.” Photo Credit: Lambornforcongress.org
By: TPS Staff
Congressman Doug Lamborn (R, CO) has sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to designate the Palestinian Authority (PA) funded Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs, and it’s head Qadri Abu Bakr, as “sponsors of terror.”
Qadri Abu Baker is a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council. In August 2018, PA head Mahmoud Abbas appointed him as the head of the PLO’s Committee for detainees and ex-detainees
“We cannot continue allowing the Palestinian Authority to pay salaries to terrorists or their families. I am calling on Donald Trump to designate Qadri Abu Bakr to be listed as a sponsor of terror for his evil deeds,” Lamborn stated.
The PA has a policy of paying the families of convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel a monthly stipend. The payments have been criticized as a financial incentive to commit terrorist attacks against Israelis.
According to the PA’s pay scale, the salary of an imprisoned terrorist begins at NIS 1,400 ($401) every month from his first day in prison, and gradually rises to NIS 12,000 ($3,435), in accordance with the amount of time he has been in prison.
Therefore, the more severe the attack was, the higher the stipend the terrorist is set to receive.
The PA spent NIS 517.4 million ($150 m.) in stipends to terrorists and their families in 2019, a rise of NIS 5 million and a 3% increase compared to 2018
The US Congress in March 2018 passed the Taylor Force Act, ending American aid to the PA until it definitively proves that it has stopped paying stipends to terrorists and their families.
“Since the Palestinian Authority leaders have publicly attacked the passage of the Taylor Force Act, rejected its terms, and continue rewarding terrorists and their families, the appropriate next step in the US war on terror is to personally sanction those PA/PLO officials involved in this incentivizing of terror, as defined by the law,” Lamborn wrote.
While there are many senior Palestinian officials involved in the “pay for slay” program, the institution and the person most responsible are the PA/PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and its Director Qadri Abu Bakr,” he noted.
Members of the Knesset’s Aliyah, Absorption and Diaspora Committee had harsh words for the social media giants over their inaction in the combat of anti-Semitism published in their platforms, especially in Arabic.
At a hearing held in the Committee on Monday for Twitter, Facebook, Google and TikTok on the subject of anti-Semitism on their networks, the Ministry of Diaspora presented data produced by its anti-Semitism monitoring center showing that they did virtually nothing on the issue.
The Ministry presented examples of very serious anti-Semitic incitement in Facebook groups in Arabic, which include Holocaust denial, blaming the Jews for the Holocaust, classical anti-Semitism and new anti-Semitism.
Yogev Crescenti, director of the fight against anti-Semitism at the Ministry of Diaspora, raised serious questions in the Committee about the extent to which social networks are committed to combating the content of hatred and anti-Semitism spread on their platforms.
Noting that his unit documents hundreds and thousands of anti-Semitic statements every day, he said that the networks need to change their actions and policy to make a difference.
“Focused activity on one post or another does not help reduce the phenomenon over time. In order to combat the phenomenon effectively, it is necessary to change the policy on the part of the networks,” he said.
Diaspora Minister Omer Yankelevich stated that “freedom of expression ends where anti-Semitic incitement begins.”
“Social networks must take responsibility for the content published on their platforms. The forgiveness for anti-Semitic messages in the Arabic language is unbearable,” she said
“The long nose of the Jew in an Arabic newspaper is no different from the long nose in the English or French press, anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism,” she underscored.
She demanded that social media networks immediately close the anti-Semitic group,” becoming partners in the fight to eradicate the phenomenon and not encouraging it by allowing anti-Semitic and inciting content to be uploaded online.”
Member of Knesset (MK) Michal Cotler-Wunsch said she “once again demanded from Twitter to review its policy that allows for double standards” and reminded them “that Hezbollah and Iran are praising Twitter for not censoring tweets calling for the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world. That is not something to be proud of.”
As for Google’s policy, she said it “sounds good on paper but unfortunately we do not see results on the ground. Google is unable to deal with the phenomenon of modern anti-Semitism that includes double standards against the State of Israel and against Zionism.”
The New York Jewish Voice stands out, together with both its weekly hard copy editions and its electronic web site as the outstanding source not only for news of and support for Israel but we inform our readers of American Jewish life and local city issues that concern us all.
Jews are surely the most literate people on the face of this earth. Our first consideration as parents is to give our kids a super education. No other people has as many “doctor” or “lawyer” jokes referring positively to them, as we do. Reading is the building block of our success throughout our history. So why are hard copy, black ink, held in your hands, Jewish newspapers going out of existence in our country? When our forefathers were immigrants to this land, and not literate in English, they produced dozens of Yiddish dailies for them to read, to learn about the new culture and to keep abreast of the news. The Morning Freiheit, The Forvets (The Forward), The Jewish American, The Morgen Journal, The Jewish Week, written in Yiddish or English were sold on news-stands throughout the city and gobbled up and held under swinging arms as people trudged to the subways to read on the way to work.
They have now mostly disappeared or gone into the electronic form. Perhaps the Chinese Virus pandemic was the final blow. The Forward and The Jewish Week, the latter kept alive by the Federation, was the latest to leave the printing press exclusively for online absorption. Readership for most newspapers has declined, resulting in a loss of advertising, the life’s blood of the newspaper industry. This was a crippling blow to the publishing industry. Our senior citizens are dying off and with them the concern for Jewish issues. The new generation, raised getting its information from the Boob-Tube and being “Americanized” in schools has little interest in page turning nor for Jewish issues.
Everything is done in a flash. They no longer have the same shared interests in Jewish life nor for its continuity as the older generations. A sign of the times. We, the modern day Jewish/Americans must keep the traditions of a Jewish press alive. Those sadly disappeared Jewish newspapers were the glue that kept Jewish society together. Recipes, human interest stories, tales from the old country continued and strengthened our traditions. This togetherness, this form of unity is rapidly disappearing.
The New York Jewish Voice stands out, together with both its weekly hard copy editions and its electronic web site as the outstanding source not only for news of and support for Israel but we inform our readers of American Jewish life and local city issues that concern us all. We have expenses that come close to erasing our income.
We kvell (rejoice) at each finished edition of the Jewish Voice as it is printed, bundled for distribution and hauled away on trucks to newsstands, synagogues, retail establishments and the post office to get into our avid readers’ hands and homes. We call on you to share your views of the JV with your friends and neighbors. We ask merchants and professionals to let us carry your messages to our readers through your advertising with us.
Share your family’s simchas and memorialize your loved ones on our pages. We don’t ask for handouts. We want to work with you for our survival as an ink on paper publication for many good years ahead. We want to continue to get our ink on your fingers and to fill you with Jewish news, stories, recipes, features and advertisements submitted by our supporters for many more happy, healthy years ahead.
The sinister thing about what Facebook is now doing is that it is removing speech that many may consider racist, along with speech that only some worker at Facebook decides is “racist.” Censorship is growing within these huge messaging platforms.
We’re going to talk a bit about the organizations Facebook and Google, which as you must know, are two of the most powerful, influential and in our view, possibly dangerous groups that the world has ever produced. Imagine texting a message and having it blocked because an agent hired by your provider has determined that it is racist, homophobic, anti-feminist, too political, or just “improper.” But that’s the way Facebook and Google now work with messages transmitted by their members. Countless members of Facebook have been punished and temporarily or even permanently barred for the contents of their communications. Joe Biden has gotten into the act by sending multiple letters to Facebook attacking the company for policies that allow politicians, Trump specifically, to freely make “false” claims on its site. If he becomes president, will he follow through with legislation banning what he considers “false” messages on any and all platforms?
The dangerous reality of a society in which the expression of a certain opinion is turned into a “crime” has already been seen across Europe. Dutch citizens were reportedly visited by police and warned about posting anti-mass immigration sentiments on social posts. It can happen here. The sinister thing about what Facebook is now doing is that it is now removing speech that many may consider racist, along with speech that only some worker at Facebook decides is “racist.” Censorship is growing within these huge messaging platforms. What, if in the near future, “racist” speech appears to include anything critical of a black, brown or person of color, religion, politician, sports figure or any other media star? And that decision is made by a corporation controlling the messaging? Censorship?
Mark Zuckerberg, in recent Congressional hearings stated that his company aims to allow as much free expression as possible unless it causes imminent risk of specific harms or damage. “We believe in values – democracy, competition, inclusion and free expression.” But he hires censors to go through our messages and are the judges and juries to determine if they are harmful to society. This doesn’t sound right.
Rather than initiating and participating in violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings, anger, fear hate or frustrations. Put it down in words, rather than in hurtful physical actions. If the right to speak out about ones’ displeasures is banned, only violence is left. Free speech is at stake here. Every single dictatorship in recent memory Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Castro’s Cuba, were all replete with hate-speech laws that were intended to limit free speech that the state disapproved of.
Extremism still grew and flourished. We cannot tolerate such a situation here in America. We stand for the freedom of expression, the right to speak out. Let society either accept, condemn or ignore what you say. But you have the right to voice your opinion without being censored, banished or punished. And corporations should not have the right to determine what is hate, racist or xenophobic speech. We’re treading in dangerous waters.
America fought a bloody Civil War against slavery. Kennedy and LBJ pushed civil rights legislation, the War On Poverty. 70’s America marched for civil rights and de-institutionalized “institutionalized” racism. Apparently that is insufficient for BLM and eternally guilty “progressive” Whites. A sad fact of human nature is that there will always be “racists” however, America no longer tolerates overt actions of discrimination in its hiring practices, places of business, or community governments. Burning our cities, condemning all of America’s history, all its institutions, will only serve to further polarize us. If Trump represents to you what was bad about America in the past, work hard to de-elect him.
Michele Obama urges “stay in school” as a means to effect change and improve your lot. In March 2008, Obama gave a comprehensive speech on race. He said “a more perfect United States required African Americans taking full responsibility for our own lives … by demanding more from our fathers, spending more time with our children, reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.”
Al Sharpton brought us the fabricated, racist, charges of rape by Tawana Brawley, against an innocent white police officer, but now says “get off our necks”. Where was Sharpton or the Congressional Black Caucus about the need for police “reforms” who were busy (along with Bill Clinton), standing defiantly with Black Hitler, Nation of Islam Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin’s funeral. I don’t know about you but I miss the distinguished leadership of Martin Luther King Jr.
Cures for “racism?” Instead of blaming America, or “racism” or ‘society’, blame instead your own “leaders” who are failing you by perpetuating victimhood, instead of demanding accountability for the statistically disproportionate amount of criminality, drug dealing, school drop outs, culture of lawlessness of inner city Black youths and men, and the acceptance of this as the norm. The Obamas said it best: get an education, learn a trade, be somebody.
Sincerely
Calvin Myers
The Truth & Beauty of Israel
Dear Editor:
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where the Christian population is growing. Israel safeguards Christian sites of historical significance. Israeli law affords full rights to its LGBT citizens, including employment discrimination laws. Human Rights Watch: “Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza carried out scores of arbitrary arrests for peaceful criticism of the authorities. Security forces routinely taunt, threaten, beat, and force detainees into painful stress positions for hours at a time.” Saudi Arabia now allows women over 21 to obtain passports and travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian. But the “darker reality”, includes mass arrests of women’s rights activists, a number of whom have been sexually assaulted, suffered torture including whipping and electric shocks.”
Why do we not ever hear any media coverage on Israel’s striving to maintain a true democracy, affording full civil, religious, legal rights to all its citizens, while having to maintain full security against terrorism? Arabs sit in the Knesset. Israel is the only state in the Middle East ranked ‘Free’ by Freedom House, which evaluates countries according to their political rights and civil liberties. And relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth.
No, this is not a story about David vs. Goliath. It is about Arabs using the less than 3% building on legally disputed lands to claim false victim status. It is about the West’s fear of legitimate criticism of Islam and Arabs, in favor of demonizing Israel. Since 1947, Israel has been seeking a two-state solution. But the Arabs refuse to accept the reality of the Jewish state, refuse peace offers and refuse to negotiate. That is the true obstacle to peace. And this truth goes unreported by all.
Sincerely
Asher Hassberg
And So it Begins (again): No Zionists (Jews) Allowed
Dear Editor:
What’s next? Wearing a yellow Star of David armband if you support Israel or are a Jew? And what happens after Israel and Jews are depicted as despicable, subhumans…you tell me.
Sarsour Group says “No Zionists Allowed” at civil rights rally
European Jewish Groups Outraged Over Shouts of ‘Dirty Jew’ at Anti-Racism Protest in Paris
Protesters march in New York City, chanting “Death to America and Death to Israel”
Toronto Restaurant Foodbenders, “Zionists not Welcome. Zionists are Nazis, racists, greedy & entitled”
San Diego, Boston, Anti-Israel ‘Day of Rage’ Protests Target Major Jewish Organizations, Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah, Hillel’s,none of which are Israeli organizations
A man shouted “shame Nazis didn’t put the gas higher, Germans should have killed all of them” at a Jewish mother and her baby traveling on the 67 bus in Stamford Hill, London
Gaza-based Islamic scholar, “May the race-related flames in the US burn it, along with the sons of Zion
A Brazilian pastor prayed to God to “destroy the Jews like vermin, bring about a second Holocaust” during a sermon in Rio de Janeiro
Canadian Jewish Group calls for ‘Concrete Actions’ against York Univ. professor who equated Zionism with White supremacy
Outrage Greets Pro-BDS Petition to University of California Blaming Israel for Teaching Methods That Killed George Floyd
DC Protesters Invoking ancient Blood Libel-Trying to Link Black Lives Matter to Palestinians Chant, ‘Israel, We Know You, You Murder Children Too’
Giant Swastikas and Hateful Slurs Deface Golf Course in Australian City of Melbourne With Historical Jewish Ties
Top Ukrainian Police Official Demanded ‘List of Jews’
Rapper Ice Cube cited “Honorable” Jew hater Farrakhan, Nation of Islam founder on Twitter following a series of anti-Semitic tweets that pushed Jewish conspiracies
New Oxford University Study Finds Almost 20% of Britons Believe Jews Behind Coronavirus Pandemic
Outrage After Leading Academic Association Awards Professor Who Engaged in Hate Speech Against ‘Zionist’ Students
A demonstrator raises her fist while listening to a speech during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Portland, Ore. After days of clashes with federal police, the crowd outside of the federal courthouse remained peaceful Thursday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
As in the United States, left-wing protesters in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have hitched a ride on the economic distress the pandemic has induced with the full support of the media.
By: Caroline Glick
Over the past several years, public discourse in the United States has seen a lot of new lows. It saw another one this month when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to federal officers in Portland, Oregon as “stormtroopers,” that is, Nazi Brownshirts.
In a tweet on July 18 and in subsequent remarks, Pelosi accused the federal forces deployed to Portland of “kidnapping protesters and causing severe injuries in response to graffiti.”
Pelosi’s allegations would cause a political earthquake—if they were true. But they aren’t true. And the fact that she slandered federal officers as Nazis is a deeply disturbing testament to where the Democratic Party—of which she is the senior elected official—stands today and what its intentions are.
For the past two months, the progressive city of Portland in the progressive state of Oregon, has been the scene of chaos and rioting. The liberal media have misleadingly characterized the riots as “peaceful demonstrations.”
Night after night, hundreds of “peaceful demonstrators” have vandalized and destroyed stores and other businesses, transforming downtown Portland into a war zone. Over the past five weeks, the focal point of the violence has been the federal courthouse.
For the past two months, the progressive city of Portland in the progressive state of Oregon, has been the scene of chaos and rioting. The liberal media have misleadingly characterized the riots as “peaceful demonstrations.” (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
“Peaceful protesters” from Antifa and other radical groups have been attacking the federal courthouse in Portland with incendiary devices including pipe bombs and commercial grade fireworks. Federal officers charged with guarding the courthouse have been blinded with lasers and attacked with stones, metal balls shot from slingshots, bricks and two-by-fours, among other things.
The rioters are backed in their efforts by city and state officials as well as national Democrats, who have castigated federal forces protecting the courthouse as “occupiers,” the “Gestapo” and of course, “stormtroopers.”
As for the alleged “kidnapping” of peaceful protesters, local journalist Andy Ngo explained this week that Pelosi’s statement channeled Antifa propaganda.
Ngo told Fox News, “That’s an Antifa talking point that is being repeated by sympathetic media.”
He explained that federal officers charged with protecting federal property are using plainclothes agents in unmarked vehicles to peacefully apprehend leaders of the violence. This is a routine, entirely legal tactic which Ngo explained is only being castigated now is because “it is quite effective.”
On the face of it, as Democratic politicians, Pelosi and her colleagues in Congress and Oregon should support the federal forces trying to end the riots. After all, like New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, Portland is a Democratic city. The businesses being destroyed are owned by their voters.
So why are Pelosi and her partisan colleagues and their media adjuncts instead depicting the rioters rendering downtown Portland a war zone as “peaceful protesters” and slandering the law enforcement officers defending federal property as Nazis?
The obvious answer is politics. The Democrats support the rioters because as they see things, the longer chaos reigns in the streets of America’s cities, the better their chances of defeating President Donald Trump in November.
The Democrats have a number of resources that the Republicans lack and the riots bring them all to bear.
They have fanatical progressive activists angry that Bernie Sanders isn’t the nominee but willing to burn America.
They have wall-to-wall support from the media, from NBC to The New York Times to Facebook and Twitter.
The Democrats have limitless funds to maintain the violence and mayhem indefinitely. This week, Alexander Soros, George Soros’ son, announced that the family foundation has earmarked another quarter billion dollars to Black Lives Matter. And the Soroses are not alone.
As the past four years of Trump-Russia mythology and legally baseless, politicized prosecutions and investigations have shown, the Democrats control much of the so-called deep state that controls the levers of the permanent bureaucracy.
The Trump-Russia collusion narrative largely disintegrated under the weight of evidence and the absurd impeachment process over the past several months. And with its decline the Democrats began casting about for a new cause.
They found it with the coronavirus pandemic. In one fell swoop, the virus from China swept away Trump’s fast-growing economy with record low unemployment across all ethnic and racial groups.
With schools abruptly closed and jobs abruptly lost, the optimistic America of 2019 became the destabilized, poor, frustrated and insecure America of 2020.
Yet, despite the best efforts of the commentators, support for Trump was not falling apart, at least not enough to ensure an electoral victory for Joe Biden. And Americans were beginning to figure out a way through, as the rising stock market indexes indicated.
But then came the riots. The proximate cause of the riots and protests was the police killing of George Floyd. But their context was the pandemic and the elections in November. The riots gave the Democrats a way to galvanize their radical progressive base (on the streets, in Congress and in the media) around their favorite issues—race and identity politics.
For the Democrats, the best part of the riots is that unlike the pandemic, for demonstrators and their media flacks, it is easy to make the case that Trump is to blame.
Trump’s in charge and America is burning. Trump’s to blame. Trump’s in charge and there is racism in America. Trump’s to blame.
If Trump quells the riots, he will be guilty of police brutality (with stormtroopers)—thus proving the point. If he fails to quell the riots, he is an ineffective boob. And so, with a bottomless pit of money, the riots will continue, at least so long as the Democrats feel they benefit from them and haven’t figured out something else to do.
The Israeli protesters aren’t as violent as their American peers, but their messages of hatred of Netanyahu are violent and there have been some violent incidents, which seem to be growing, over the past week or so. AP Photo/Oded Balilty
The demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that have been going on for weeks outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, with satellite demonstrations in Tel Aviv, serve a similar function in Israel. Like their American counterparts, the Israeli demonstrations are massively and sympathetically covered by the media, and enthusiastically supported by politicians from leftist parties. Like their American counterparts, they are disruptive and incredibly loud.
The Israeli protesters aren’t as violent as their American peers, but their messages of hatred of Netanyahu are violent and there have been some violent incidents, which seem to be growing, over the past week or so. Certainly, the number of death threats against Netanyahu and his family published by leftists on social media has grown steeply over the past several weeks.
The protests in Israel serve the same purpose for their Israeli organizers as the American ones do for their organizers. The demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are being conducted to incite hatred of Netanyahu as the enemy of the people and to instill the sense that the country is spinning out of control.
Just as Pelosi and her colleagues demonize law enforcement officers trying to restore order and safety in places like Portland, Seattle and Chicago, the media and Netanyahu’s opponents in Knesset condemn the police for any effort to arrest demonstrators. If federal officers are “stormtroopers,” the police outside the Prime Minister’s Residence are the “personal protection force for the Netanyahu family.”
There are stark differences between the U.S. and Israeli left, which point less to the goals of the protests than to the threat they pose to the long-term stability of both societies. The main difference is the ideological nature of the two lefts.
The American left has an ideological/religious bent. Progressivism, the creed of the American left, is a hybrid of political rather than economic communism and totalitarian messianism. It is anti-American and anti-Semitic. And while its popularity has grown, it doesn’t enjoy the support of anything close to a majority of Americans.
In Israel, in contrast, the left is post-religious and ideologically bankrupt. Its two gods—peace and surrender—came crashing down 20 and 15 years ago, respectively. The failure of the Camp David peace summit in July 2000 and the start of the Palestinian terror war in September 2000 killed the religion of peace. The left’s “unilateral withdrawal” god was shattered when months after Israel expelled its citizens from Gaza and handed the area over to the PLO in August 2005, Hamas seized power and embarked on a war against Israel that has yet to end.
Although bereft of an ideological message to sell the public, the left in Israel has considerable power. Its control over Israel’s deep state—including the entire legal system—is far more comprehensive than the American left’s control over its state apparatuses.
The Israeli left controls most media organs, the universities and cultural institutions. It has limitless funding from foreign governments and private foundations in Europe and the United States.
And the Israeli left has demonstrators who are willing to cause mayhem to promote hatred of Netanyahu.
Like their American counterparts, the demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are happening in the context of the pandemic. The demonstrators have hitched a ride on the economic distress the pandemic has induced. They also benefit from the closure of the public sphere.
With the bars and nightclubs shut down—and all travel abroad blocked until further notice—young people looking for a way to get together have only one option. The anti-Netanyahu demonstrations are the only parties in the country.
No matter who wins in November, it’s hard to see how the situation in the United States will stabilize and how order will be restored. The rise of progressive politicians at the expense of moderate Democrats indicates the radicalization of the American left is not a flash in the pan. One electoral cycle won’t fix what has been broken incrementally over five decades.
In Israel, in the absence of an ideological left, the main and most tangible danger posed by the demonstrations is that one of the incited protesters will try to kill Netanyahu and his family. Threats to assassinate the prime minister and his wife and children have proliferated on social media as the massively and sympathetically covered protests have grown more incendiary.
But as far as Israeli society as a whole is concerned, so long as Netanyahu and his family remain safe, the protests are not likely to gain much traction. The public on both the right and the left are more moderate than they were 25 years ago. Netanyahu’s public resilience—despite the left’s 25-year campaign to destroy him—is proof of the limits of the left’s power.
There are many conservative commentators on the right side of America’s unbridgeable political divide that believe the U.S. public will respond at the ballot box to the violence in their streets by reelecting Trump. Author Victor Davis Hanson wrote this week about the coming “counter-revolution.”
In Israel’s case, elections, and counter-revolutions, while necessary to enact the reforms required to rein in the deep state and restore Israel’s democratic order, probably won’t be needed to end the demonstrations. How many people will choose to stand outside screaming once the pubs reopen?
A new and most excellent work by Kenneth L. Hanson, titled Whose Holy Land? Archeology Meets Geopolitics in Today’s Middle East. Photo Credit: Amazon
The Big Lies, old and new, get crazier and crazier and those who support them feel it will protect them from the coming Mobs. It won’t.
By: Prof. Phyllis Chesler
(The following op-ed piece was originally published on the Arutz Sheva web site, www.israelnationalnews.com and is presented here with the permission of the editors at A7)
We are not on our way to Babylon or to Europe again but oh, how I am increasingly weighed down by the Jew hatred which confronts us every day and in every place: On campus, in the media, at the United Nations, in Congress, online, in rap music, and on the streets.
Aren’t you tired of this, too?
It never stops coming and the Big Lies, both old and new, get crazier and crazier and those who support them feel that such virtue-signaling will protect them from the coming Mobs.
The Ayatollahs are allowed to threaten yet another Jewish genocide (Chas v’chalilah!) on Twitter, but no kind word about Israel or the Jews, especially if it’s true, is easily allowed. No critique of such word, or of Islam, especially if true, is allowed.
Antisemites can hold forth; their critics are not allowed to repeat their words as part of critiquing them.
A friend in London just wrote me about a Lecturer, Stephen Lamonby, who was fired by Southampton Solent University for having said that “The Jewish people are the cleverest in the world” and were “much maligned because of it.” He was accused of “racism”; he now says that “all doors of all universities are now locked to me.”
I wrote an article about Israel’s new legislation against trafficking and prostitution, in these pages, posted it everywhere on social media, and tried to boost it for $10.00 at Facebook. I was so proud of Israel’s accomplishment.
Guess what? Suddenly, Facebook demanded that I copy my driver’s license perfectly, both front and back, and rejected three of my attempts to do so and took days each time to tell me that I had to do better. It might not have had anything to do with me or even with my subject. The powers-that-be informed me that when one tries to “boost” an article that has political implications, that one must prove that you are who you say you are. New rules.
By the time I managed to accomplish a really perfect photo of my driver’s license, ten days had passed.
But what’s bothered me most in the last month is the continued denial that the Jews are the indigenous people in the Holy Land. The Arab world, mainly Muslim, but also Christian, has engaged in the filthiest Lies of denial, almost equivalent to Holocaust denial.
Please allow me to recommend two books: One, is a new and most excellent work by Kenneth L. Hanson, titled Whose Holy Land? Archeology Meets Geopolitics in Today’s Middle East; the other is an oldie-but-goodie by Leon Uris and is titled The Haj.
With beautiful photos and plates, Hanson leads us to one archeological site after the other, all definitive evidence of Jewish life, not only in Jerusalem, Shomron, and Yehuda, but also extending back into the Bronze Age. There is absolutely no “Palestinian” or even continuous Arab presence in the land. The Babylonians did not linger, nor did the Romans, Egyptians, Assyrians, Edomites, Hittites, or Amalekites. Only the Jews have remained, and returned again and again all throughout history. And only the Jews are accused of stealing or squatting on Arab land.
The Ottoman Turks took the land from the Mamluks, who took it from the Ayyubids, who took it from the Crusaders, who took it from the Seljuks, who took it from the Fatimids, who took it from the Abbasids, who took it from the Byzantines and the Romans—who took it from the Jews.
(Is this possibly another version of Had Gadya?)
In clear and reasoned language, Hanson gives us a history of the Holy Land and documents it with archeological findings which the ‘Palestinians’ deny, desecrate, destroy, build over, and try to Islamize. The book will both strengthen and comfort you but it might also raise your blood pressure.
Leon Uris’s The Haj first appeared in 1984. It is middle brow and far too long and yet: Uris gives us a fictionalized, dramatic, and very valid history of the Holy Land from 1922-1956. Uris was accused of writing from a Zionist point of view—as if such a point of view is ipso facto unacceptable, and beyond the pale.
But his point of view is also deadly accurate as he depicts the Arab betrayal of both the Jews and the “Palestinians;” the brother-against-brother and man-against-woman mentality of the Arab Muslim clans and tribes, and their refusal to modernize; the cruelty of polygamy, paternal abuse of sons, and honor killing; the willingness of the Jews to work with the Arabs who rebuffed them every step of the way; the fraud of UNWRA; the Arab indoctrination into anti-infidel and anti-Zionist hatred and terrorism, etc.
Perhaps all those who tried to settle and to maintain their sovereign existence amidst such hostility, both ideological and military, had a much harder time than we do now.
And yet, I fear we are in another kind of existential free fall. Nothing is certain. Nothing can be taken for granted. All we can do is keep our wits about us, and keep fighting back no matter what. We must continue to drain the swamps of its Big Lies each and every day. We must never give up. (INN)
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D,,an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York, is a best-selling author of 18 books, a legendary feminist leader, and a retired psychotherapist whose work has been translated into many European languages and into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Hebrew. Dr. Chesler is a co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969), and the National Women’s Health Network (1974). She is a Ginsburg/Ingerman Fellow at The Middle East Forum, and a Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP).
In 2016, she published Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews and in 2017, Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing A Veiled War Against Women and in 2018, A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killings. Her forthcoming book Requiem for a Female Serial Killer, is about what happened when an American prostitute had finally had enough and began killing Johns..
While in mourning for her first husband who was killed in the Civil War, the character of Scarlett O’Hara can be seen dancing at ball with her future beau Rhett Butler in the classic film, “Gone With the Wind” – Photo Credit: Courtesy of MGM
It’s worth ending up in a re-education camp for
By: Danusha Goska
(Continued from last week)
GWTW is sophisticated enough of a work that it can present four different assessments of the Confederacy’s Lost Cause myth, back-to-back
In the book, this scene’s construction and meaning prove false any accusation that GWTW is a simple-minded potboiler veering twixt torn bodices and cheerleading for Jefferson Davis. At first, the omniscient narrator describes Southerners aflame with devotion to their glorious cause. These paragraphs could be propaganda from the Confederate government. Then, without any real break, the scene is viewed from Scarlett O’Hara’s POV. She is blind to the idealism. The entire event is meaningless to her, except as an opportunity to wear pretty dresses and flirt with desperate soldiers. Then, while she and Rhett dance, he describes the entire scene in a cynical, dystopian way. He sees himself trapped in a room full of deluded sleep walkers dancing toward a cliff off which they will inevitably fall. They exist only to provide him with an opportunity to batten off the wreckage of a civilization. Mitchell offers the reader no reason to disagree with Rhett’s jaundiced take on the entire Confederate project as an exercise in pathetic, delusional, national suicide.
Then, just after the bazaar, Scarlett reads a letter from Ashley. Ashley is asking himself why he is at the front, watching his childhood friends mangled and killed. “Not for honor and glory, certainly,” he answers himself. “War is a dirty business … we have been betrayed, betrayed by our arrogant Southern selves, believing that one of us could whip a dozen Yankees, believing that King Cotton could rule the world. Betrayed, too, by words and catch phrases, prejudices and hatreds coming from the mouths of those highly placed, those men whom we respected and revered. ‘King Cotton, Slavery, States’ Rights, Damn Yankees.’” Ashley concludes that “nothing is worth it–States’ Rights, nor slaves, nor cotton.” Win or lose, Ashley reports, the South that he and his fellows are fighting for is already gone. Both winning and losing will, in different ways, destroy everything they thought they were fighting for.
GWTW is sophisticated enough of a work that it can present four different assessments of the Confederacy’s Lost Cause myth, back-to-back. Most astoundingly, Mitchell offers no commentary. In effect, she says to the reader, “This is what the crowd thinks; this is what Scarlett thinks; this is what Rhett thinks; this is what Ashley thinks. I’m not going to grant any of these points of view my imprimatur.” Mitchell does insist that you look down on white trash as unforgivingly as she does. But her book is too complex to be understood as ordering you to admire the Confederacy. I never took it that way, not on three separate reads.
Margaret Mitchell says to the reader: “This is what the crowd thinks; this is what Scarlett thinks; this is what Rhett thinks; this is what Ashley thinks. I’m not going to grant any of these points of view my imprimatur.” Mitchell does insist that you look down on white trash as unforgivingly as she does. But her book is too complex to be understood as ordering you to admire the Confederacy. Photo Credit: biblio.co.uk
The GWTW I saw in a student dormitory in Poland in 1989 wasn’t about the South at all. During the screening, I could feel the electricity in the room. As soon as the lights came up, Poles were cheering and crying. They didn’t see Tara; they saw Warsaw. The beasts crouching in the mist were Nazism and Communism. They knew what they were reaching for: self-determination. “Tomorrow is another day” was not Scarlett’s survival ploy; it was their resolve. They would, and eventually did, see the end of Soviet communist hegemony that year.
John Matrixx, an African American YouTuber, saw a different GWTW. He didn’t much like it, but he insisted that he didn’t require HBO to serve as nanny to his reaction to the film. “The thing is,” he said, “this is not a movie about slavery. This is a movie about a conniving woman in some kind of complicated love story That’s what this is. I don’t think this movie was denying the horrors of slavery. It just wasn’t focusing on it. This is about Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh’s weird romance. She actually wants somebody else and she’s doing all these crazy things to get this other guy that she’s been in love with forever to leave his wife. I didn’t see this movie as glorifying the old South. You gotta remember. The movie is being told from a Southern woman’s perspective. Not from someone today, not from someone in the north. This is their story. Let the movie be what it is.”
Jacqueline Stewart from Turner Classic Movies delivers a new introduction to GWTW. She tells viewers that the movie does not depict slavery accurately. Under this intro on YouTube, other African Americans respond. “I’m a black man who has always loved this film.” Others concurred. “ I’m a black woman who also loves this movie despite its faults. I also own this movie.” Photo Credit: AP
Jacqueline Stewart from Turner Classic Movies delivers a new introduction to GWTW. She tells viewers that the movie does not depict slavery accurately. Under this intro on YouTube, other African Americans respond. “I’m a black man who has always loved this film.” Others concurred. “ I’m a black woman who also loves this movie despite its faults. I also own this movie.” “As someone from overseas, I learnt about slavery as a teenager because of this movie. It led me to watching Django and The Colour Purple and now I have made connections to current child slavery in the middle east and Asia.” “I’m a black woman, and I will always love this amazing movie! I’m even thinking about a tattoo! I already saw it like a hundred times, and I don’t feel uncomfortable, ‘cause I know that it’s just a past that we overcome.”
Life is complicated. The enemy crouching in the mist of my nightmares are neither Democrats nor Republicans; the enemy who must be defeated are those insisting on purity. Right now the armies of the pure are on the left. Their attack on GWTW reveals their hypocrisy. The left announces itself as the champion of the common man, and in its drive for purity it reveals its contempt for the common man. The common man, numbers show, loves GWTW. The left insists that it wants power sharing, and yet the left insists on monopolizing power and dictating how the masses respond to art. The left says it is all about diversity, but it insists that there is only one right way to view GWTW.
The top “Times Pick” comment on New York Times coverage of GWTW makes my blood run cold. A woman says that she read the book three times. At first, she “swooned over the exciting writing.” She “strategized alternative endings” to reunite Scarlett and Rhett. Reading it for a third time, she realized that Rhett was a “rapist,” that the book is all about white “privilege” and reflective of “the mentality of the Trump souther supporter.” (sic)
Legendary actor Leslie Howard stars as Ashley Wilkes, the love interest of Scarlett O’Hara in the immortal film, “Gone with the Wind.” Melanie Hamilton is played by Olivia DeHavilland. She just recently passed away at age 104.
It gets worse. She made her teenage kids watch the movie. They immediately “got it” and were “furious.”
A girl read a book about people unlike herself, and was able to feel empathy with others. Years later, she realized those feelings were wrong, and she cut them off. Her children have been so indoctrinated that they are incapable of seeing any artistry in what is widely assessed, by friend and foe alike, as one of the most aesthetically significant films of all time. In their hearts, where they might have hosted an avenue to empathy, there exists only politically correct judgment and condemnation. This is no victory, except for the self-christened purity police.
Monday, March 16, 2015, I was sitting by my sister’s bedside. I had my computer in my lap. I knew we might never have another conversation. I actually transcribed our words as we spoke.
“Antoinette, did you like Scarlett?”
“Oh, yeah, I loved her!”
“Disgusting.”
“Why?”
“She was a horrible human being! She married two men she didn’t love!”
“Women do that all the time. They’re very self-centered. I’ve never been a real fan of women.”
“Melanie was very kind,” I said.
“I really didn’t think of Melanie much.”
“But you loved Scarlett!”
“Well, I loved her at first,” Antoinette said. Then she paused. “But then … you know who was really my favorite character?”
“Who?” I asked.
“Actually,” Antoinette said, “my favorite character was Mammy. I thought she had a lot of grace and dignity.”
“I think she let Scarlett push her around too much,” I said.
“Well, what could she do?” Antoinette shot back. “She was black. That was then. Scarlett was her boss. Mammy was the only one who actually showed any dignity. She was the only one who impressed me. She was a very nice person. She took things in hand that needed to be taken in hand. She loved Scarlett and would do anything to help her out. And she was graceful in doing it. She was a lovely person. She was a rare gem.”
My sister died three weeks later. This was the last coherent conversation we had. That’s my Gone with the Wind. One in which my hero, my sister, reveals to me that her hero is a black enslaved woman. A woman who, if she had met the poor Goska kids of blue collar New Jersey, would no doubt have written us off as “Yankee white trash.” I do not begrudge Mammy this. My allowance of her prejudice against poor whites like me is the most minor of my thought crimes. If I must be made a non-person, this is the thought crime I want to be convicted for. I demand my own GWTW, which has nothing to do with glorifying the Confederacy, or misrepresenting slavery, but everything to do with compelling writing about complicated characters facing issues I face myself. That’s art, and I will defy the metaphorical firing squad for it.
The hunt for a promising vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Scores of drug makers around the globe are racing to develop and test vaccine options. There is no doubt that the pharmaceuticals all share a hope for lucrative financial profits.
The past few weeks have been filled with news of different drug makers making progress in their quest for a breakthrough. Trials are ongoing– first on animals then on humans in different stages.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, producing a vaccine requires significant funding. After success in all the trials, the next step would entail the upfront purchase of hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines. Investment companies have displayed their interest in the potential profits, gambling on pharmaceutical stocks since the start of the pandemic. So much so that a wide ranging index of bio-tech stocks saw the average value of the companies jumped roughly 65 percent in April, compared to March. It was the vaccine makers’ value that led to the exponential increase in the stock prices in just one month.
As reported by WSJ, despite all the positive news, there are many reasons for caution. First, bio-tech companies are infamous for losing value in an instant, even when things don’t go really wrong. The most compelling reason for this is that most of the drug candidates won’t ever actually hit the market, at no fault of their own. Next, the prices for the drugs may not end up being as high as drug makers hope.
Also, the expected prices for these drugs have already been calculated into the stock prices, creating a vulnerable variable which can very easily rock the value of the stocks. Pfizer and partner BioNTech, which didn’t take government research funding, received a contract for 100,000,000 doses for a total price of $1.95 billion. That comes out to roughly $39 per a two-dose treatment. That first round of doses has already been worked into the stock prices. Companies that anticipate charging a higher price over the long run, will need to meet very rigorous safety and efficacy standards, especially if they used public funds in the first place.
Gilead Sciences, the maker of a drug named Remdesivir, which it was hopeful to use as an antiviral COVID-19 treatment, is a perfect example of the dire risks bio-tech companies face. Gilead’s stock price jumped 25 percent in April, compared to March. Since then, however, the stock price is back to where it began. This is despite the steady progress their drug has made in being approved for emergency use. Gilead had donated its initial supply and started selling more over the summer, now boasting an increase in the company’s expected profit per share.
In a regulatory filing on Monday, Twitter said it received a draft FTC complaint alleging violations between 2013 and 2019. Photo Credit: Wikipedia.com
By: Denis Cyr
In a regulatory filing on Monday, Twitter said it received a draft FTC complaint alleging violations between 2013 and 2019.
The social media company is accused of using phone numbers, which are uploaded to users’ Twitter accounts for security purposes, to target people with ads.
The violations could result in $250 million in fines levied against the social media giant
The violations could potentially be in breach of a consent order against the company in 2011, when the FTC detected ‘serious lapses’ in Twitter’s data security that allowed hackers to obtain users’ private information, The Daily Mail reported.
Following the announcement of our Q2 financial results, we received a draft complaint from the FTC alleging violations of our 2011 consent order,’ a Twitter spokesperson said.
‘Following standard accounting rules we included an estimated range for settlement.’
The matter remains unresolved and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome,’ Twitter said.
Twitter claims this was inadvertent and not a deliberate way to deliver ads to Twitter users on smartphones
The phone numbers were intended to set up a two-factor authentication, in which users can secure their account from would-be hackers by using their mobile device or email as a fail-safe, but users instead ended on up on advertisement feed.
The Daily Mail reported: Twitter said it inadvertently used the information to help match users’ accounts with stores they may have shopped at.
This allowed ad partners that had access to a person’s phone number – i.e. a pharmacy or any retailer with a rewards program – to match that number with a customer’s Twitter account and advertise directly to them on the platform.
The Verge explained: Between 2013 and 2019, Twitter used phone numbers and email addresses provided “for safety and security purposes” to help target ads. Twitter disclosed the practice back in October, saying that it was done “inadvertently” and called it “an error.” The FTC evidently believes that Twitter misled consumers by not disclosing that their data may have been used in this way.
Under the 2011 ruling the FTC stated ”Twitter was barred for 20 years from ‘misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers.”
