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Candace Owens Slams ‘Zionist Media Empire’ After Being Denied Visa to Australia for Comments About Jews, Holocaust
Political activist Candace Owens in the spin room at the Fiserv Forum following the first Republican presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Aug. 23, 2023. Photo: Chris Dilts/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Far-right American political commentator and content creator Candace Owens addressed Australia’s decision to deny her a visa and ban her from entering the country in Tuesday’s episode of her podcast “Candace.”
Australia’s Immigration Minister Tony Burke canceled Owens’s visa this past weekend, which prevents her from doing five live speaking events scheduled for November in Australia and New Zealand. Owens, 35, was expected to have her first ever Australia and New Zealand tour, with stops in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Auckland. Speaking to a local news outlet, Burke said he made the decision to deny Owens a visa because she has the “capacity to incite discord in almost every direction.”
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Burke said. “Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”
Owens and organizers of her speaking tour in Australia will be filing a legal appeal to a federal judge in response to Burke’s decision.
The “Candace” podcast host described Burke’s move as a “petty act of vandalism” on Tuesday and partially attributed his decision to the alleged influence of the global “Zionist media empire.”
“What you are seeing really take shape is that people don’t want me to get in front of an audience,” she added. “We all know what actually happened in Australia, [which is] really the story of me and this year: that I am not comfortable with the amount of death that is taking place in Palestine.”
“And the Zionist media empire is very powerful all around the world and they essentially say, ‘If you do not count out or at least stay mum, so you gotta be out there pretending that you don’t see all the Palestinian children being blown up and killed. You can choose silence or you can choose support,’” Owens continued. “But you cannot be reasonable and say, ‘I’m not OK or comfortable with that amount of death’ – and that’s where I’m at. I’ve made my bed and I’ve chosen to lie in it.”
Owens has made a series of antisemitic and controversial comments about Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust on social media and her podcast, as well as in interviews. She has downplayed the atrocities of the Holocaust and said medical experiments by Mengele performed on Jews during World War II sounded “like bizarre propaganda.” She has also said she believes the Star of David originated from an evil pagan deity and claimed the US “is being held hostage by Israel.”
Owens has also suggested Israel was behind the assassination of former US President John F Kennedy and called Judaism a “pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons … child sacrifice,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. She has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews and Zionists and in September falsely claimed that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late spiritual leader of the Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch movement who was also known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, “preached Jewish supremacism.”
Burke made it clear that he would reject Owens’s application for a visa even before she applied for one. He said in August, “tickets to these events are selling for $100. I hope she has a good refund policy. There hasn’t been an application for a visa, but if there is, the brief will come to me personally. My opposition to antisemitism and Islamophobia has always been on the record. I have clear legal powers to knock back a visa to anyone who would incite discord.”
During Tuesday’s episode of her podcast, Owens denied Burke’s claims about her inciting “discord” and said “of course it’s not true.”
“Nothing said is true … All of this is just to make a statement to try to present me as some very scary person akin to Adolf Hitler and we’ve seen this before,” she claimed. She then talked about being penalized for not staying silent about how the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is affecting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“The determined punishment for me for not turning a blind eye to this, for not being a coward and pretending that I just don’t see it, has been harassment; has been that I’m going to take away your money, and I’m going to ruin your reputation and I’m going to have journalists who are Zionists try to assassinate your character online,” she said. “I have accepted that because I think that is a way easier punishment to accept than what these [Palestinian] children are accepting on a daily basis.”
The post Candace Owens Slams ‘Zionist Media Empire’ After Being Denied Visa to Australia for Comments About Jews, Holocaust first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Torah cover honouring fallen IDF soldier leads to magical series of encounters in Montreal
Sometimes, says Rabbi Zolly Claman, all the cosmic tumblers fall into place—and something truly magical happens. The leader of Montreal’s Congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem (TBDJ) was looking forward to […]
The post Torah cover honouring fallen IDF soldier leads to magical series of encounters in Montreal appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Radiohead Frontman Thom Yorke Confronts Anti-Israel Fan From on Stage During Melbourne Concert
Thom Yorke of The Smile is performing during The Smile Live in Europe 2024 Tour at Cavea of Auditorium Parco della Musica, in Rome, Italy, on June 24, 2024. Photo: Domenico Cippitelli via Reuters Connect
Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead and The Smile, abruptly walked off stage during his solo concert in Melbourne, Australia, on Wednesday night after having a heated exchange with an audience member, who interrupted the show to voice his opposition to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
During a pause between songs at Yorke’s second sold-out show at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, an audience member shouted at him as he stood on stage, as seen in a TikTok video taken during the incident. The audience member claimed, without evidence, that 200,000 people have already been killed in the Gaza Strip, half of them children. He yelled at the British rocker, “How can you be silent? How many dead children will it take for you to condemn the genocide in Gaza?” as seen in footage obtained by The Age.
Yorke responded, “Hop up on the f—king stage and say what you wanna say. Don’t stand there like a coward, come here and say it. You wanna piss on everybody’s night? OK, you do. See you later, then.” He then took off his guitar and left the stage.
Other members of the audience then began booing, shouting at the anti-Israel protester and expressing frustration after Yorke walked off stage. They also chanted for Yorke, and a few minutes later he returned to perform the night’s final song, the Radiohead hit “Karma Police,” according to The Age.
@makzym8 Melbourne night 2. Guy then got got by the Karma Police #radiohead #thomyorke #melbourne ♬ original sound – Maxim
Radiohead has performed in Israel several times, most recently in 2017, despite facing intense pressure to boycott the Jewish state as part of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. At the time, Yorke called the harassment from BDS supporters “extremely upsetting,” “deeply disrespectful”, and “offensive.” He also took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to defend the band’s decision to play in Israel that year.
“Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” he wrote. “We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America. We don’t endorse [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than [former US President Donald] Trump, but we still play in America. Music, art ,and academia is about crossing borders not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue, and freedom of expression.”
This summer, Yorke’s bandmate, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, was criticized and threatened by BDS supporters for performing with Israeli artist Dudu Tassa and his band in Tel Aviv. Greenwood, who is married to Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, responded by saying that efforts to boycott Israeli artists “feels unprogressive.”
“No art is as ‘important’ as stopping all the death and suffering around us. But doing nothing seems a worse option,” he explained. “And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn’t seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict.”
The post Radiohead Frontman Thom Yorke Confronts Anti-Israel Fan From on Stage During Melbourne Concert first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Calls Mount for Chicago Public School Board President to Resign for Antisemitic Comments
The Chicago skyline seen from Lake Michigan. Photo: Mr.TinDC/Flickr
Jewish groups and Chicago officials are demanding the resignation of the city’s new president of public schools, citing his lengthy history of making what critics described as antisemitic comments about Jews and Israel.
Twenty-six aldermen in Chicago issued a letter on Wednesday stating that they were “deeply troubled” by Chicago Public School Board President Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson’s “antisemitic and pro-Hamas comments.”
“The thousands of Jewish families who send their kids to Chicago Public Schools deserve representation who values them and does not express hate towards the Jewish community. We call on Rev. Johnson to apologize and step down from his position immediately,” the letter continued. “This situation is a failure of leadership and judgment on the part of Mayor [Brandon] Johnson and his executive team. Earlier this month, Mayor Johnson told reporters his appointees would be thoroughly vetted before they were sworn in. It is clear that did not take place.”
The aldermen went on to argue that in the months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Johnson “crossed major red lines” by peddling antisemitic and incendiary rhetoric on social media. The aldermen condemned Johnson for “his explicit support for Hamas” and “collectively blaming all Jews for Israel’s military decisions.”
Johnson’s defense of the Oct. 7 slaughter as an “absolute right” is “disqualifying from public service,” according to the letter, which slammed the new school board chief for weaponizing the war in Gaza against Jewish city officials by writing, “My Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment.”
Johnson came under fire after Jewish Insider reported on his vocal support for Hamas on social media, where he also compared Jews to Nazis.
“The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” Johnson wrote in February.
“The Israeli government offers a renewal of Nazi language once directed toward European Jews, ‘savages, dogs, vermin,’” he later posted in March.
Defending Hamas’s Oct. 7 murder spree, he wrote, “I have been saying this since October 2023. People have an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary!!!”
Johnson also shared a video by anti-Israel writer Miko Peled which voiced support for the Oct. 7 attacks. He encouraged his “Jewish friends” to react to the video
“The single most direct video that has crossed my feed,” Johnson wrote. “I invite my once Jewish friends to respond to this video with honesty, integrity, and morality.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said the appointment of Johnson was “offensive and insulting to a Jewish community reeling from the attacks of this weekend and increased antisemitism over the past several months.”
The American Jewish Committee’s branch in Chicago also called for Johnson’s resignation, as did other Jewish groups.
Meanwhile,the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest said of Johnson: “It is incomprehensible that someone with these antisemitic views was appointed to lead the Chicago Public School system, designed to promote education, coexistence, and inclusion.”
Johnson said he would not resign but on Wednesday apologized, saying he was “deeply sorry for not being more precise and deliberate in my comments” and acknowledging that some of the social media posts that he shared “could be construed as antisemitic.”
“Let me start by apologizing to the Jewish community for the remarks I posted, which were clearly reactive and insensitive,” Johnson told the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ in an interview. “Since that time, I have asked for and received feedback from my Jewish friends and colleagues who helped me be more thoughtful as I addressed these sensitive matters.”
The push to oust Johnson came amid ongoing controversy over the city of Chicago’s response to the shooting of an Orthodox Jewish man in the city last Saturday.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who sparked outrage among the Jewish community earlier this year when he referred to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza as “genocidal,” released a statement on the shooting that made no mention of the victim being Jewish. In the statement, Johnson said that “our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the victim and his loved ones from this weekend’s shooting incident that took place in Rogers Park.”
The victim, 39, was shot by a 22-year-old gunman, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, in an area of Chicago home to many Orthodox Jews, according to police. The attacker reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” during a gunfight after being confronted by law enforcement.
Abdallahi was charged with six counts of attempted first-degree murder, seven counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm toward a police officer or firefighter, and one count of aggravated battery with a firearm.
Community leaders expressed outrage over Abdallahi not being charged with a hate crime among the other felony charges. Many took particular aim at Johnson for his response.
“The victim was a Jewish man, who was wearing traditional Jewish garb, walking to a Jewish place of worship on the Jewish day of rest,” said Chicago’s 50th Ward Alderman Debra Silverstein in response to Johnson’s statement. “Don’t erase his identity and don’t try to minimize the fear and anxiety my community feels after this attack. We’re scared and we need to know that our mayor has our back.”
The Chicago Jewish Relations Community Council similarly slammed Johnson for his statement, saying that the mayor “failed to identify that the victim was a Jewish man, in a densely populated Jewish neighborhood, going to synagogue for Shabbat morning prayers.”
“What will it take for you to acknowledge the Jewish community?” the organization added.
The post Calls Mount for Chicago Public School Board President to Resign for Antisemitic Comments first appeared on Algemeiner.com.