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Where Are the Progressive Politicians Standing Up to the Jew Hatred on Campus?
The members of the progressive caucus in the US House of Representatives, known as “The Squad,” have recently coalesced around support for the “peaceful” antisemitic protests engulfing college campuses.
The Squad hears “ceasefire” when “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea” are chanted. They are pandering to the students who are currently calling for a Palestine “free” of Jews, and who believe their ideology that everything in the United States — and globally — is about race and an “oppressor vs. oppressed” ideology.
The litmus test for all progressive policies is that they must advance “racial justice and equity” (The House Progressive Promise). Members of the Squad justify their anti-Zionist position by falsely accusing Israel of being an “apartheid state.” This accusation is a lie, but it squares nicely with the objective of the progressive platform which is to advance their particular version of racial justice and equity — which means the demonization of whomever they deem to be “white” and “powerful.”
Members of the Squad believe that their commitment to “dismantle the systems of oppression and discrimination that allow racism to persist” obligates them to oppose Israel.
The following is a statement that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) made on October 8, 2024, while Hamas sadists were still on a killing rampage in Israel and Hamas rockets were reigning down on Israeli towns:
The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer. No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.
I believe professor and diversity advocate Mona Khoury-Kassabri, the Vice President for “Strategy and Inclusion” at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, may have a different viewpoint concerning Congresswoman Tlaib’s libelous accusation that Israel is an apartheid state, as would the Arab-Israeli doctors who are studying and practicing medicine in Israel, all Arab citizens who have equal rights and serve in the Knesset and Supreme Court, and many others.
Israel is not an apartheid state. For just the beginnings of proof, you can look here.
New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), probably the most well-known member of the Squad, hurried up to Columbia to give her support to the students of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment who demanded that Columbia University divest from all things Israel.
The following are the first two of five demands the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Organization made to the administration of Columbia (cuapartheiddivest):
Divest all of Columbia’s finances, including the endowment, from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine. Ensure accountability by increasing transparency around financial investments.
Sever academic ties with Israeli universities, including the Global Center in Tel Aviv, the Dual Degree Program with Tel Aviv University, and all study-abroad programs.
The protestors refuse to let anyone speak who disagrees with these views. In effect, they are demanding that their free speech rights are respected while calling on the silencing of Jewish and pro-Israeli voices.
The intent of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is to de-legitimize Israeli scientists, artists, politicians, entrepreneurs, athletes, farmers, industrialists, doctors, and professors — irrespective of their politics or views — and to de-legitimize the State of Israel itself.
The logic of the BDS movement is that isolating and suffocating Israeli society will create immense pressure that forces Israel to retreat to the geography of the 1967 borders — and eventually collapse upon itself. Of course, an isolated and weakened Israel will be far less likely to make any concessions because it will be unable to take the risks associated with ceding more autonomy over more land and resources to the Palestinian people. The anti-Zionist policies voiced by the student protestors, and supported by the Squad, will lead to more death and destruction in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank — not less.
The demands of the protestors also don’t include one word about the Israeli and American hostages that Hamas is currently torturing, or the 1,200 people massacred intentionally on October 7. They are ignoring Hamas and Palestinian terrorism — which are the primary cause of the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza. Protestors marching for the “global intifada” have decided that the actions of Hamas on October 7 were a legitimate act of resistance.
If they’re serious about what they believe, any non-Jewish progressive politician besides Ritchie Torres (D-NY) should step up to the bullhorn and address the students who are in a rage about the death and destruction in Gaza, and explain how and why the commitment of Hamas to slaughter Jews from “the river to the sea” is absolutely evil and not progressive.
Charles A. Stone is a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
The post Where Are the Progressive Politicians Standing Up to the Jew Hatred on Campus? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
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
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
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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