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Jewish Reality Star Julia Haart Rails Against Liberals, Feminists, LGBTQ+ Community for Not Condemning Hamas
Julia Haart speaking on Israel’s ILTV news program. Photo: Screenshot
Julia Haart, a fashion designer and author who stars in the Netflix show My Unorthodox Life, told Israeli media on Thursday that she is frustrated that some feminists and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community refuse to condemn the Hamas terrorist organization that perpetrated the Oct. 7 deadly massacre in southern Israel.
Haart, who is also the co-owner of the international fashion talent management Elite World Group, is in Israel with some of her children touring the country and the Gaza Strip to learn firsthand about the Hamas atrocities that took place in October. She traveled with troops from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to Gaza and filmed footage of civilian homes that housed weapons used to attack Israel, such as grenades, bombs, and rocket launchers. She also met with families of those taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 and spoke with an Arab Muslim commander in the IDF who denounced the actions of Hamas.
During an interview with Israel’s ILTV Israel News on Thursday, Haart said she was baffled that feminist organizations have not spoken out against the atrocities that women faced on Oct. 7 at the hands of the Hamas terrorists, such as sexual molestation and rape. Israeli actress Gal Gadot previously slammed the international community for staying silent about the sexual abuse women experienced, and there were calls to disband United Nations Women — the UN agency for gender equality and women’s empowerment – for not immediately condemning the sexual violence.
“I’m so sick of hearing the word ‘but.’ ‘Oh yes it’s bad to rape women — but.’ It’s bad to take away their rights — but.’ There is no but,” Haart said. “How can you consider yourself a liberal, a feminist, when you’re only applying those ideals to everyone but Jewish women?”
Haart then noted that she has spoken across Israel to Muslims, transgender people, members of the Druze community, and individuals who attend an LGBTQ+ vocational and training college called Marsha.
“They all said to me, ‘We don’t understand what’s happening in the world. Don’t they get Hamas will kill all of us?’ If you support Hamas, you’re supporting the murder of LGBTQ+ people,” Haart explained. “You’re supporting [a terrorist group] that says women can’t travel without a husband’s permission, women get married off as teenagers and children and have lots of babies. These women have no autonomy in their life, no self-determination. How can you be a liberal and support a terrorist, murderous, monstrous organization that will kill the very people who are supporting it? I don’t understand it.”
Haart’s journey of leaving the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is explained in My Unorthodox Life. She has four children, who include a non-religious bisexual app creator and a Shabbat-observant Instagram influencer and TikToker. The show’s second season premiered on Netflix in Dec. 2022.
The entrepreneur told ILTV that she hopes to continue using her fame and public platform to support Israel and help the world learn the truth about the Jewish state during its ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “I needed to come here; I needed to show my physical support,” she said. “I needed to let people know that this country is a bastion of democracy and freedom, and that I will stand behind it with every ounce of strength in my body.”
“I believe in destiny and fate, and I think perhaps all the fame that we acquired may be for this particular reason,” she added. “Maybe the reason my Netflix show was successful, maybe the reason I had to become a public figure, was so the day that the Jewish people were in danger, I could utilize my voice, and my children could do the same, to help klal Israel [the nation of Israel]. To be sitting on my couch yelling would not have the same effect.”
The post Jewish Reality Star Julia Haart Rails Against Liberals, Feminists, LGBTQ+ Community for Not Condemning Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Turkey Backing Syria’s Military and Has No Immediate Withdrawal Plans, Defense Minister Says
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Turkey is training and advising Syria’s armed forces and helping improve its defenses, and has no immediate plans for the withdrawal or relocation of its troops stationed there, Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters.
Turkey has emerged as a key foreign ally of Syria’s new government since rebels – some of them backed for years by Ankara – ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December to end his family’s five-decade rule.
It has promised to help rebuild neighboring Syria and facilitate the return of millions of Syrian civil war refugees, and played a key role last month getting US and European sanctions on Syria lifted.
The newfound Turkish influence in Damascus has raised Israeli concerns and risked a standoff or worse in Syria between the regional powers.
In written answers to questions from Reuters, Guler said Turkey and Israel – which carried out its latest airstrikes on southern Syria late on Tuesday – are continuing de-confliction talks to avoid military accidents in the country.
Turkey‘s overall priority in Syria is preserving its territorial integrity and unity, and ridding it of terrorism, he said, adding Ankara was supporting Damascus in these efforts.
“We have started providing military training and consultancy services, while taking steps to increase Syria’s defense capacity,” Guler said, without elaborating on those steps.
Named to the post by President Tayyip Erdogan two years ago, Guler said it was too early to discuss possible withdrawal or relocation of the more than 20,000 Turkish troops in Syria.
Ankara controlled swathes of northern Syria and established dozens of bases there after several cross-border operations in recent years against Kurdish militants it deems terrorists.
This can “only be re-evaluated when Syria achieves peace and stability, when the threat of terrorism in the region is fully removed, when our border security is fully ensured, and when the honorable return of people who had to flee is done,” he said.
NATO member Turkey has accused Israel of undermining Syrian peace and rebuilding with its military operations there in recent months and, since late 2023, has also fiercely criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
But the two regional powers have been quietly working to establish a de-confliction mechanism in Syria.
Guler described the talks as “technical level meetings to establish a de-confliction mechanism to prevent unwanted events” or direct conflict, as well as “a communication and coordination structure.”
“Our efforts to form this line and make it fully operational continue. Yet it should not be forgotten that the de-confliction mechanism is not a normalization,” he told Reuters.
The post Turkey Backing Syria’s Military and Has No Immediate Withdrawal Plans, Defense Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Norway Lawmakers Oppose Blanket Ban by Wealth Fund on Companies in Gaza, West Bank
A view of new buildings around the Israeli settlement Talmon B near the Palestinian town of Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the West Bank, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Norway‘s parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposal to have the country’s $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, divest from all companies with activities in the Palestinian territories.
The minority Labour government has for months been resisting pressure from anti-Israel campaigners to instruct the fund to divest from all firms with ties to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and parliament had been expected to vote against.
“We have an established ethical regime for the fund,” Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the chamber earlier in the day, during a debate on several aspects of the way the fund is run.
“We divest from the companies that contribute to Israel’s breach of international law, but we do not divest from all companies that are present on the ground.”
Lawmaker Ingrid Fiskaa from the small Socialist Left opposition party told the chamber: “Without Norwegian oil fund money, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to demolish the homes of Palestinian families.”
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, wrote to Stoltenberg to alert him to what she called the “structural entanglement of Israeli corporations … in the machinery of the occupation both in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and the violence that sustains it.”
“International corporations benefiting from [the Norwegian fund‘s] investments are critical components of the infrastructure sustaining the economy of the occupation,” she wrote, in a letter dated May 20.
Stoltenberg replied that the government was “confident that the investments do not violate Norway‘s obligations under international law.”
He noted that the fund follows ethical guidelines set by parliament, and that compliance is monitored by a separate body.
That watchdog has over the past year recommended divestments from Israeli petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq and is looking at more potential divestments in Israel.
The post Norway Lawmakers Oppose Blanket Ban by Wealth Fund on Companies in Gaza, West Bank first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
i24 News – The United States has warned the UK and France not to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference scheduled for June 17 in New York, the Middle East Eye reported Tuesday.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host this conference on the two-state solution, with Paris reportedly preparing to unilaterally recognize Palestine. France is also pressuring London to follow this path, according to sources from the British Foreign Office.
French media reports indicate that French authorities believe they have the agreement of the British government. Meanwhile, Arab states are encouraging this move, measuring the success of the conference by the recognitions obtained.
This initiative deeply divides Western allies. If France and the UK were to carry out this recognition, they would become the first G7 nations to take this step, causing a “political earthquake” according to observers, given their historical ties with Israel. The Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer threatened last week to annex parts of the West Bank if this recognition took place, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
In the United Kingdom, Foreign Secretary David Lammy publicly opposes unilateral recognition, stating that London would only recognize a Palestinian state when we know that it is going to happen and that it is in view.
However, pressure is mounting within the Labour Party. MP Uma Kumaran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the government was elected on a platform that promised to recognize Palestine as a step towards a just and lasting peace. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, believes that there is no legitimate reason for the United States to interfere in a sovereign decision of recognition, while highlighting the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump on this issue.
The post Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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