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Holocaust Survivors Confront Denial Posts From Social Media in New Digital Campaign
The Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati has created a Holocaust gravesite marker to honor survivors of the Holocaust who were victims of Nazi persecution between 1933-1945. The photo is taken in the Walnut Hills Cemetery in Walnut Hills, April 17, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) will share videos of Holocaust survivors from around the world reading and responding to posts from social media that deny the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews as part of a new digital campaign launched on Thursday ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah).
In each video as part of the #CancelHate campaign, Holocaust survivors introduces themselves, read social media posts about Holocaust denial, and then address the lies they’ve read while sharing their personal experiences under Nazi persecution. Every video ends with the tagline, “Words matter. Cancel hate.”
Starting on Thursday, the Claims Conference will post a video every day for 30 days on social media and on the organization’s website. The month-long campaign aims to tackle the issue of Holocaust denial and distortion on social media, showing how these false narratives promote antisemitism and spread hate.
“Holocaust denial is cruel. When it is on social media it has the potential to spread misinformation even faster,” Holocaust survivor and #CancelHate campaign participant Abe Foxman told The Algemeiner. “It is important that we all do what we can to combat denial and disinformation.”
Thirteen members of Foxman’s immediate family died in the Holocaust. As part of the #CancelHate campaign, he read a post from social media in which the writer said in part: “There were no gas chambers. Every single thing we know about World War II is a lie … I have the same goals as Hitler: exile the Jews and keep their degeneracy and corruption and lies out of society.”
Posts on social media that deny the Holocaust “are hateful and deny the suffering of millions of people,” said Foxman. “We must take our words seriously. Our words matter.”
#CancelHate: Abe Foxman survived the Holocaust but 13 members of his immediate family did not. Today he reads a post found on social media that denies that history. These posts are hateful and deny the suffering of millions of people. #WordsMatter #YomHaShoah Hate will not win. pic.twitter.com/YcrQIFar5X
— Claims Conference (@ClaimsCon) May 2, 2024
“Campaigns like #CancelHate are incredibly important in the fight against Holocaust denial and distortion,” Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told The Algemeiner. “We are seeing these hateful posts while we still have survivors here to tell their stories. Imagine when we don’t. These kinds of hurtful posts are an epidemic of hate online and we cannot let them go unanswered.”
Announcing the campaign on Thursday, he said: “We all saw what unchecked hatred led to — words of hate and antisemitism led to deportations, gas chambers, and crematoria. Holocaust survivors from around the world are participating in this campaign to show that hate will not win. Those who read these depraved posts are putting aside their own discomfort and trauma to ensure that current and future generations understand that unchecked hatred has no place in society.”
Herbert Rubinstein, a Holocaust survivor in Germany who read a denial post shared by a social media user in his home country, added: “I lived through the Holocaust. Six million were murdered. Hate and Holocaust denial have returned to our society today. I am very, very, very sad about this and I am fighting it with all my might and strength. Words matter. Our words are our power.”
In January, Meta’s Oversight Board announced that it would not allow Holocaust denial content on its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram. It said the “prohibition is consistent with Meta’s human rights responsibilities” and that “it is important to understand Holocaust denial as an element of antisemitism, which is discriminatory in its consequences.”
The post Holocaust Survivors Confront Denial Posts From Social Media in New Digital Campaign first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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