Tag: anti-semitism

Joy Reid Accused of Blaming Jews for COVID-19 in NYC

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid is facing serious allegations of antisemitism after a former production assistant revealed that she went on a vile, unchecked rant blaming Orthodox Jews for the spread of COVID-19 in New York City.

The shocking accusations, which have only now come to light, paint a troubling picture of the leftist media personality who long claimed to champion so-called marginalized groups.

According to the former MSNBC staffer, Reid made the offensive comments during a morning conference call in the summer of 2020, as the pandemic was gripping the nation.

The ex-staffer, who is Jewish, stated that Reid claimed Orthodox Jews “only care about themselves” and that they were the reason COVID-19 was spreading rapidly in New York.

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ADL’s Stats Twist Israel’s Critics Into Antisemites

Media outlets continue to print headlines about antisemitism based on Anti-Defamation League statistics known to be faulty and politicized. In doing so, they grant undeserved credibility to the ADL as a source.

Producing statistics helps the ADL to claim objectivity when they assert that antisemitism is increasing dramatically, prevalent in all fields of society, and emanating from the left as well as the right. Those “facts” are then used to justify policy recommendations that fail to respond to actual antisemitism, but succeed in undermining the free speech rights of Palestinians and their supporters, including those of us who are Jews.

While it frames itself as a civil rights organization, the ADL has a long history of actively spying on critics of Israel and collaborating with the Israeli government (Nation, 1/31/24). (FAIR itself was targeted as a “Pinko” group in ADL’s sprawling spying operation in the ’90s.)

Though it professes to document and challenge antisemitism, it openly admits to counting pro-Palestinian activism as antisemitic: In 2023, the ADL changed its methodology for reporting antisemitic incidents to include rallies that feature “anti-Zionist chants and slogans,” even counting anti-war protests led by Jews—including Jewish organizations the ADL designated as “hate groups.”

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Florida: Jewish Man Shoots Two Israelis ‘After Mistaking Them for Palestinians’

A Jewish man in Miami on Sunday shot two Israelis after “mistaking them for Palestinians” and yet the media is reporting on the incident as an “anti-Semitic attack.”

From NBC Miami, “Man faces attempted murder charges after shooting 2 in Miami Beach: Police”:

A man accused of shooting two people in Miami Beach was arrested on Sunday, police said.

Mordechai Brafman, 27, was charged with two counts of attempted second-degree murder.

Police said on Saturday, surveillance video in the 4800 block of Pine Tree captured Brafman’s car going southbound on Pine Road and then making a U-turn at 48th Street where a vehicle with two victims was stopped.

The arrest report said that Brafman drove past them and stopped directly in front of them.

Brafman then got out of his car, stayed near the driver’s side and started shooting the vehicle as it drove past him, the report said.

The victims’ vehicle, the report said, was shot 17 times and struck both people inside.

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Trump orders review to identify, punish and deport antisemites — including students on visas

President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday instructing federal agencies to identify “all civil and criminal authorities” available to combat antisemitism — including finding ways to deport anti-Jewish activists who violated laws.

The order, first reported by The Post, requires agency and department leaders to provide the White House with recommendations within 60 days and outlines plans for the Justice Department to investigate pro-Hamas graffiti and intimidation, including on college campuses.

“Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault,” the order says.

“It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”

The executive order calls for the deportation of resident aliens — including students with visas — who broke laws as part of anti-Israel protests following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks that sparked the invasion of Gaza.

“[T]he Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security… shall include in their reports recommendations for familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens,” the order says.

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George Mason University Student Charged With Planning ‘Mass Casualty Attack’ Against Jews in New York

A student at George Mason University was arrested this week over claims he was planning a “mass casualty attack” on the Consulate General of Israel in New York, according to court records.

Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, an Egyptian national who is only 18, allegedly operated several social media accounts that were promoting “radical and terrorist-leaning behavior.”

While the accounts were run anonymously, investigators managed to trace it back to Hassan using his provided email address, phone number and IP address.

According to prosecutors, Hassan regularly posted about “revering Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri” and operated “several pro-ISIS and al Qaeda accounts that promoted violence against Jews.”

After developing an obsession with terrorism, Hassan eventually began the process of planning a “mass casualty attack at the Consulate General of Israel using an explosive device and rifle.”

Hassan discussed his plan in great detail with an FBI informant he believed to be an admirer of his ideological mission.

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The West Buries a Genocide – by Making Victims of Israel’s Football Thugs

If the West was really worried about Europe’s Nazi past, it would be better advised to stop stoking an all-too-real new antisemitism: incitement against Arab and Muslim minorities

There has never been a harder time to do political and media analysis than right now. Each day, the western establishment unmoors itself further from reality. Its priorities are so inverted, so obscene, that the most appropriate response is ridicule.

The latest example was the reaction late last week to violent clashes in Amsterdam before and after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local team Ajax.

The ridiculous framing from western politicians, assisted by mainstream media outlets, was that the visiting Israelis were “hunted down” in what supposedly amounted to a “pogrom” by Dutch street gangs, comprising mainly youths of Arab and Muslim heritage.

According to this official narrative, the violence on Amsterdam’s streets was further proof of a rising tide of antisemitism sweeping Europe and imported from the Middle East. More, the attacks were presented as having disturbing echoes of Europe’s Nazi past.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden claimed the Israeli fans faced “despicable” attacks that “echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted”.

Israel, of course, helpfully stoked this idea by promising “emergency flights” to “rescue” its football fans – seeking to evoke memories of its airlifts in the 1980s of Ethiopian Jews to escape famine and reports of persecution, or possibly of the 1975 airlift of US embassy staff from Saigon.

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NATO states denounce “anti-Semitism” after Israeli football hooligans riot in Amsterdam

On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Israeli football hooligans ran riot in Amsterdam, tearing down Palestinian flags, assaulting Arabs, and chanting anti-Gaza slogans. Some clashed with residents of Amsterdam, where a protest was planned against holding a game between the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam football clubs during the Gaza genocide. Five people were taken to hospital, and yesterday the Israeli Foreign Ministry said all Maccabi fans were accounted for.

But Washington and European governments reacted with a deafening propaganda campaign, denouncing those who clashed with the hooligans as “anti-Semitic.” While no one was killed, far-right Dutch government strongman Geert Wilders is demanding a police crackdown, supposedly to stop a deadly “pogrom” against Jews. As of yesterday, at least 62 people had been detained in a wave of arrests across the city.

This propaganda campaign is a pack of lies, spun by governments complicit in genocide by their support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. While they are outraged that five Israeli football hooligans were taken to hospital with light injuries, they support the mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden tweeted: “The Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are despicable and echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted. We’ve been in touch with Israeli and Dutch officials and appreciate Dutch authorities’ commitment to holding the perpetrators accountable. We must relentlessly fight anti-Semitism, wherever it emerges.”

European governments made similar comments. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the clashes as “intolerable” because they “attack us all,” and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof called them a “terrible anti-Semitic attack.” Equating the clashes with the Holocaust, French President Emmanuel Macron “firmly condemned” violence that he claimed recalls “the most horrific hours of history.” Within the Netherlands, the press campaign is largely directed by Wilders himself.

“A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam,” Wilders claimed in one tweet, adding: “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER. The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, said he views the “incident with the utmost gravity.” He demanded “vigorous and swift action” by Dutch authorities.

These hysterical, unsubstantiated claims that the football clashes were anti-Semitic acts, or even deadly pogroms, aim to justify a mass police crackdown. No one was killed, nor have Dutch authorities provided evidence that the hooligans who were punched, or in one case thrown into a river, were targeted because they were Jewish. Rather, there is massive video evidence, backed up by statements of Amsterdam police, that Maccabi hooligans’ assaults on people and property in Amsterdam, together with their pro-genocide chants, provoked an eruption of anger.

There is reason to believe, moreover, that this was a deliberate provocation arranged between Israeli authorities and the far-right Dutch government. In the days before the Maccabi-Ajax game, Dutch newspapers De Telegraaf and Voetbalzone reported that agents of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency would be traveling among the Maccabi fans, supposedly to protect them from Dutch protesters.

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At UN, Netanyahu blames Israel’s isolation on ‘anti-Semitism’

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on 27 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the condemnation of Israel at the UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) on anti-Semitism, saying allegations of war crimes have nothing to do with Israel’s actions, including its slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

“It’s not about Gaza,” he claimed. “It’s about Israel” and its very existence.

“[U]ntil this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce,” Netanyahu claimed.

“What hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke,” he said to applause from Israel supporters.

The assembly hall was otherwise almost empty after several delegations walked out as Netanyahu reached the podium.

On 27 September, the UN member states voted overwhelmingly in the General Assembly to adopt a resolution calling on Israel to comply with international law, withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.

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Zuckerberg’s Meta Cracks Down On Speech Criticizing “Zionists”

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, announced Tuesday an update to its policies on so-called “hate speech,” specifically users discussing “Zionists.”

The company’s social media platforms will begin removing posts that use the words “Zionism” or “Zionist” to refer to Jewish people or Israelis.

The updated policy will target those who mention Jews are found in prominent roles in financial, political, and media institutions.

Users who compare Zionists to animals or use the term to deny the Holocaust will also be punished under the new rules.

Perhaps using the power of the world’s most wealthy companies to silence your detractors isn’t the best way of convincing them you’re not secretly pulling the strings of the global elite.

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Three Columbia deans permanently removed over disparaging texts containing ‘antisemitic tropes’

Three Columbia University deans have been “permanently removed” from their posts for sharing “very troubling” texts that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” school officials said Monday.

The three administrators — Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick and Cristen Kromm — have been on leave since last month since it emerged they’d been involved in the disparaging text exchange that unfolded during a panel discussion about antisemitism on campus.

“This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” Columbia president Minouche Shafik said in a statement.

“Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our university’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.”

Provost Angela Olinto said that “the three staff members involved have been permanently removed from their positions at Columbia College and remain on leave at this time.” It was not immediately clear what their current status was on staff.

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