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Evacuees From Israel’s Northern Border Warn US: ‘We Won’t Allow Another Oct. 7 to Happen Here’
Israeli soldiers stand by, as a mobile artillery unit fires on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
Evacuated residents from northern Israel on Monday issued a harsh call to the Biden administration to prevent Hezbollah from carrying out a massacre similar to the Hamas attack on Israel’s south on Oct. 7, saying that the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon must be forced to retreat further away from the border.
In a letter to US President Joe Biden and senior administration officials, Lobby 1701, a civilian organization representing the residents of northern Israel, called on the US to give “its full support to the government of Israel to act with the necessary force” to safeguard the north.
Of more than 230,000 evacuated citizens, more than 60,000 are residents residing within five kilometers of the northern border, now effectively a front line.
Lobby 1701, established in the wake of the Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7, gets its name from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 during the Second Lebanon War. It called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and the deployment of Lebanese and UN peacekeeping forces, UNIFIL, in southern Lebanon.
Monday’s letter slammed the ineffectiveness of both the resolution and UNIFIL in preventing an assault on Israel’s north, which has seen intense fighting since Oct. 7.
“We speak in the name of the 60,000 residents of northern Israel who were evacuated from their homes and turned into refugees in their own land. For more than 70 days, we have been ‘living in exile’ due to Hezbollah firing daily at our homes, and the inability of Lebanon to properly implement UNSCR 1701,” the letter stated.
It called on the US and “the international community to prevent the next massacre.”
Nisan Zeevi, co-founder of Lobby 1701, expressed frustration over the collapse of the Security Council resolution’s stated aim and called for a terror-free buffer zone. “The failure of UNSCR 1701 has left us with no choice but to demand genuine security through a Hezbollah-free buffer zone. We refuse to return to our homes without concrete assurances of safety. We demand a change of the present reality: From a buffer zone within Israel to a buffer zone within Lebanon,” Zeevi said.
“The time for diplomatic resolutions has passed. Oct. 7 showed the whole world what these jihadi organizations are capable of, and our safety demands a clear and resolute stance against terrorism,” he said.
According to a report by the Axios news site last week, Israel told the US that a diplomatic agreement designed to reduce tensions with Lebanon must include the withdrawal of Iran-backed Hezbollah forces to a distance of 6 miles from the border.
The Wall Street Journal on Saturday reported that Israel had intended to carry out a preemptive strike against Hezbollah on Oct. 11, but that the action was averted at the last moment after Biden intervened. Netanyahu’s office later denied the report.
Zeevi told The Algemeiner that the ultimate decision regarding Israel’s security should be made by Israel alone. While acknowledging Biden as “a great partner and ally of Israel,” he went on to say the US president “can’t be the one to decide how to take care of the security of tens of thousands of families living here on the border.”
The Biden administration cannot “decide the future of me and my family,” he said.
“This is only our decision; this is not the US’s decision,” Zeevi added.
Despite being within a few miles of the border, some of Israel’s northern residents are not in the official evacuation zone and have self-evacuated. They are forced to either manage the expenses of dual residences or stay with family elsewhere in the country.
Kibbutz leaders from Manara, a northern community, reported on Sunday that since the onset of Hezbollah-led attacks in October, 86 out of 155 houses in their area have suffered damage due to rocket strikes as well as anti-tank missiles launched by terrorist groups operating out of Lebanon.
A Hezbollah-affiliated correspondent for the Al Mayadeen network, Ali Mortada, this week released a taunting video in which he mockingly greeted his Israeli audience and commented on the damaged state of Manara, which he filmed from a distance. “Hello my enemies; I hope you are having a bad day,” he said. Mortada chuckled over the destroyed kibbutz and ended with a warning: “Manara is a ghost city. Don’t go back. Don’t ever go back.”
Hello my enemies pic.twitter.com/xUPyg2HASF
— Ali Mortada || علي مرتضى (@aliimortada) December 24, 2023
The post Evacuees From Israel’s Northern Border Warn US: ‘We Won’t Allow Another Oct. 7 to Happen Here’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Top Teachers Union Votes to End Alliance with ADL Over Israel Support
NEA Headquarters in Washington, DC. //WikiCommons
On Sunday, the National Education Association (NEA) voted to cease its relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), citing the latter’s defense of the Jewish state.
The policymaking, 7,000-member assembly of the nation’s largest teachers’ union approved “new business item 39,” a measure that resolved: “NEA will not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics. NEA will not participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.”
In response to the decision, the ADL called it “profoundly disturbing, that a group of NEA activists would brazenly attempt to further isolate their Jewish colleagues and push a radical, antisemitic agenda on students.”
The ADL declared: “We will not be cowed for supporting Israel, and we will not be deterred from our work reaching millions of students with educational programs every year.”
Cautioning that “there’s an internal NEA process that deals with issues like this, and it is far from a completed process,” the ADL vowed: “We will continue to call out this antisemitism and prioritize our Jewish students and educators.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a consistent and influential critic of Israel’s right to exist, praised the teachers union’s rejection of the ADL.
“We welcome the NEA’s vote to stop exposing public school students to biased materials provided by the Anti-Defamation League due to its long history of spreading anti-Palestinian rhetoric,” CAIR said in a statement.
“The ADL has only become worse under its increasingly unhinged director Jonathan Greenblatt, who has repeatedly smeared and endangered students in recent years,” the group said. “This principled move is a significant step toward fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools, who must receive an education without facing biased, politically-driven agendas.”
In a post Wednesday on X, ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote: “The answer to the surge in antisemitism in our classrooms isn’t to exclude the Jewish community from the conversation. Anti-Israel activists within @NEAToday cannot poison U.S. classrooms with politics. @ADL‘s priority is, and has been, to support Jewish students and educators. Our nation’s school systems should have access to the best resources for education on the Holocaust and antisemitism.”
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‘Transparently Antisemitic’: Google Founder Sergey Brin Blasts UN in Internal Company Forum
Sergey Brin of Google
(Source: ReutersConnect)
Google cofounder Sergey Brin criticized the United Nations in a company forum, calling it “transparently antisemitic” after the release of a report that accused Google and other tech firms of enabling Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Brin was responding to a UN report that claimed companies including Alphabet, Google’s parent company, profited from what it called “the genocide carried out by Israel” by providing cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government and military.
“Throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides,” Brin wrote in a discussion thread on a Google DeepMind employee forum. “I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the U.N.”
The report was the brainchild of Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. The Trump administration has accused her of antisemitism and has called for her removal, saying she has demonstrated consistent antisemitic biases in her work and has unfairly singled out Israel.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US was imposing sanctions on Albanese under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.”
In a post on X, Rubio accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on “human rights violations” that Israel allegedly commits against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and rationalize Hamas attacks on the Jewish state. In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7 atrocities across southern Israel, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
Google has faced internal uproar over the company’s $1.2 billion Project Nimbus deal with Israel. The deal has faced sustained criticism from human rights activists and some Google employees, who argue the technology could be used to enhance Israeli military operations and surveillance of Palestinians. According to a recent UN report, the agreement provided Israel with key cloud and AI infrastructure after Hamas launched its deadly October 7, 2023 attack against the Jewsih state, killing approximately 1,200 people and prompting a large-scale Israeli military response in Gaza.
Google has previously punished employees who protested the company’s relationship with Israel. After a wave of internal demonstrations in 2024, CEO Sundar Pichai issued a companywide memo urging staff not to use the workplace to debate political issues.
In the months following Oct. 7, Israeli defensive military operations in Gaza have led to the deaths of more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Hamas, the terrorist group that runs the Gaza Health Ministry, has repeatedly fabricated casualty statistics in the past.
The UN report accused US tech firms of exploiting a lucrative opportunity created by the conflict and Israel’s need for digital tools. It singled out Google and Amazon as being complicit in Israel’s so called “genocide” in Gaza.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
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