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Elected officials and Jewish leaders decry pro-Palestinian group’s map of Jewish organizations with ‘blood on their hands’
(New York Jewish Week) — A pro-Palestinian group that calls for “intifada” and Israel’s destruction temporarily posted maps online detailing the locations of Jewish organizations in New York City and saying they had “blood on their hands.”
The posts have drawn the NYPD’s attention and sparked condemnation from elected officials and Jewish leaders. Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine called the posts “dangerous and reprehensible.”
The group, Within Our Lifetime, posted the maps on Instagram. It urged its 121,000 followers, in all caps, to “KNOW YOUR ENEMY.” The group, and others who shared the posts, had deleted them from the platform by Thursday.
The posts were uploaded during an ongoing heated debate on social media over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. They also come during a spike in antisemitism across the United States in the nearly six weeks since Hamas launched the war on Oct. 7 with its invasion of Israel.
The images recall the “Mapping Project,” an anonymous effort last year that listed the names and locations of Jewish institutions in Boston as supporters of “the colonization of Palestine.” That project was condemned and disavowed by a wide range of organizations, including pro-Palestinian groups. And in 2021, a local leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations warned an audience to beware of “polite Zionists,” including Jewish federations, synagogues and Hillels.
The posts displayed black-and-white maps with pins denoting the locations of a number of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations. Some are focused on funding settlement expansion or the growth of Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, such as the Central Fund of Israel, Friends of Beit El, Friends of Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David.
Others are broadly focused on supporting Israel and its military, including Israel’s consulate in New York, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and the Jewish National Fund. Still others are more general Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and Jewish Communal Fund, which is a donor-advised fund.
“Some of the most egregious organizations that we should be protesting every day are the fake zionist charities funding settlers in Palestine,” read one of the posts. “Make these locations a stop in your protests. picket and leaflet outside of them, make supporters of genocide uncomfortable!”
The groups “receive subsidies from the US government to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing,” one of the posts said. “These zionist charities must be exposed and confronted.”
Within Our Lifetime’s leader, Nerdeen Kiswani, shared the map and said, “Genocide supporters have been working amongst us.”
Another post from the group, headlined with one of its common chants, “Globalize the Intifada,” had a map of Israeli and U.S. companies and transit hubs. The locations listed included The New York Times, Penn Station, Grand Central Station, the BlackRock investment firm, and the Israeli tech company Check Point.
“Each of the locations on this map reflects the location of an office of an enemy of both the Palestinian people and colonized people all over the world. Today and beyond, these locations will be sites for popular mobilization in defense of our people,” the group wrote.
“May this map serve as a call for every struggle to act in their own interest,” the post said, closing with “from the river to the sea,” a slogan that critics have said calls for the destruction of Israel. Within Our Lifetime did not respond to a request for comment.
Within Our Lifetime supported the Oct. 7 Hamas attack as “whatever means necessary it takes” to achieve Palestinian liberation, and has since held near-daily street protests denouncing Israel. It has instructed its followers to chant, “Israel has got to go,” “Smash the settler Zionist state” and “We don’t want two states,” a reference to the possibility of Israel existing alongside a Palestinian state.
The group’s protests include banners that say “By any means necessary” and chants of “Globalize the intifada.” Palestinian terror attacks during the Second Intifada, two decades ago, killed an estimated 1,000 Israelis. Activists who have protested with the group have been convicted of hate crimes against Jews, and the Anti-Defamation League says the group has previously expressed support for U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.
“We strongly condemn maps of NYC that are circulating on social media with calls to ‘globalize the intifada’ in ‘direct actions’ and ‘operations’ zones,” ADL’s New York office posted online.
The NYPD said it was aware of the posts, saying in a statement, “We have been policing the protests effectively and will continue to do the same.”
Elected officials across the city decried the group’s posts.
“This posting is a dangerous and abhorrent incitement to violence and poses a direct threat to New York’s Jewish communities,” the New York City Council’s Jewish Caucus said in a statement. “It must be taken seriously and we appreciate that law enforcement is already investigating this matter.”
Democratic Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, a pro-Israel stalwart, said, “Coded calls for violence against Jews are proliferating on social media.”
Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, said, “This is not promoting peace. This is an incitement to violence against Jews and it must be taken seriously.”
One institution on one of the maps is the central office of the City University of New York, Kiswani’s alma mater, which has been grappling with allegations of antisemitism on its campuses in recent years. Kiswani and another prominent activist from Within Our Lifetime, Fatima Mohammed, gave the past two commencement speeches at CUNY Law, both of which were decried by Jewish groups and elected officials as antisemitic.
Within Our Lifetime collaborates with several CUNY student organizations that shared the maps targeting Jewish groups. All appeared to have removed the posts by Thursday evening.
Kiswani and Mohammed led a protest last year during which an activist associated with the group, Saadah Masoud, beat a Jewish man, Matt Greenman. Earlier this year, Masoud was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on hate crimes charges for the assault on Greenman and attacking Jews in two other incidents. At least two other activists who have protested with the group have been arrested or imprisoned for attacking Jews.
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The post Elected officials and Jewish leaders decry pro-Palestinian group’s map of Jewish organizations with ‘blood on their hands’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
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Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
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