RSS
Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Blasts President for Conduct, Anti-Israel Tirade During National Holocaust Memorial
Irish President Michael D. Higgins opening the national Plaoghing Championship 2024 in Ratheniska, Co. Laois, Ireland, Sept. 17, 2024. Photo: Karlis Dzjamko/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Irish Jews were forcibly removed from a Holocaust commemoration on Monday after silently protesting the country’s president for politicizing the event by launching a tirade against Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas — a move the country’s chief rabbi later told The Algemeiner was “a disgrace.”
Irish President Michael D. Higgins’s remarks at the National Holocaust Memorial in Dublin appeared to draw parallels between Israel’s war in Gaza and the genocide of Jews during the Holocaust and were met with immediate backlash.
Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder lambasted Higgins for using the memorial to single out Israel.
“Ireland’s National Holocaust Memorial ought to be a time to remember those who suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of the Nazis. It is deeply disheartening that President Higgins opted to politicize it by singling out this war and taking issue with Israel’s response to the atrocities of Oct. 7,” Wieder told The Algemeiner, referring to Hamas’s 2023 invasion of southern Israel. The brutal onslaught, which started the Gaza war, was the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Tensions flared on Monday when several attendees protested Higgins’s speech by either walking out or turning their backs on him, only to be removed by security. In one instance a woman was seen being dragged out of the event.
It’s disturbing that the president of Ireland, @PresidentIRL who already has a documented history of antisemitic comments, was invited to address a Holocaust memorial event at all. Despite the Jewish community in Ireland specifically requesting that he not do so, he went ahead… pic.twitter.com/j9A95jHvcK
— יוסף חדאד – Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) January 26, 2025
Wieder condemned the response, saying, “It’s no surprise that some in attendance chose to show their disagreement with his speech. They did so in silence, and they were not disrupting the event. The fact that anyone was manhandled and dragged out of the room by force is a disgrace. It was completely unjustified.”
Representatives of the Irish Jewish community had previously expressed their opposition to the decision for Higgins to deliver the main address at the Holocaust Day ceremony, which also coincided with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest and most infamous of all the Nazi concentration camps.
Wieder contrasted the removal of the protesters with Dublin’s permissiveness toward openly hostile demonstrations against Israel: “Masked protesters parade Hamas and Hezbollah flags freely in the streets of Dublin and call for Tel Aviv to be bombed, as happened this weekend. It’s a glaring, embarrassing contradiction.”
Higgins’s remarks, which included calls for an end to civilian casualties in Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid, were criticized for equating Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis with Israel’s military efforts to dismantle the terror organization.
“The grief caused to families by the horrific acts of Oct. 7, and the response to them, is unimaginable. The loss of civilian lives, the displacement of people, the destruction of homes and institutions — all are beyond comprehension,” he said.
The Irish president went on to to say that the “long overdue ceasefire” that came into effect last week has been welcomed by “those in Israel who mourn their loved ones, those who have been waiting for the release of the hostages,” as well as the “thousands searching for relatives in the rubble” of Gaza.
Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, denounced Higgins’s comments as a “despicable provocation,” accusing him of using International Holocaust Remembrance Day to “echo Hamas’s antisemitic propaganda, leading Jews, descendants of Holocaust survivors, to walk out of the event.”
Higgins had “failed to rise above himself and resorted to cheap and despicable provocation,” Sa’ar wrote on X.
Referencing Ireland’s sordid history during the Holocaust, Sa’ar said world leaders should be made “acutely aware” of the “complicit actions of silence or the averted gaze of those who, by their indifference, allowed the Holocaust to be planned, prepared and to occur.”
This incident came against a backdrop of strained Irish-Israeli relations, exacerbated by Ireland’s decision last year to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state as a state as well as join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its support for redefining genocide in order to secure a conviction against Jerusalem. The move, along with Higgins’s consistent criticism of Israeli policies, has solidified Ireland’s reputation as one of the most openly anti-Israel countries in Europe.
Last month, Israel announced it was shuttering its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish government of undermining Israel at international forums and promoting “extreme anti-Israel policies.”
Ireland has “crossed all the red lines,” Sa’ar told reporters at the time, calling the Irish government’s actions “unilateral hostility and persecution” rather than mere criticism.
The announcement came after then-Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing the country of “the starvation of children” and “the killing of civilians” — remarks that Sa’ar slammed as “antisemitic” and historically insensitive. Sa’ar also noted how “when Jewish children died of starvation in the Holocaust, Ireland was at best neutral in the war against Nazi Germany.”
Those comments followed the Irish parliament in November passed a non-binding motion saying that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza.”
In May, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, prompting outrage in Israel, which described the move as a “reward for terrorism.” Israel’s Ambassador in Dublin Dana Erlich said at the time of Ireland’s recognition of “Palestine” that Ireland was “not an honest broker” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
More recently, Harris in October called on the European Union to “review its trade relations” with Israel after the Israeli parliament passed legislation banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, because of its ties to Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an Israeli education watchdog group, recently released a report revealing Irish school textbooks have been filled with negative stereotypes and distortions of Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history. The findings showed that the textbooks help foster antisemitism by downplaying the Holocaust, portraying Judaism as a violent religion, and distorting the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to make Israel out to be a villain.
In one example uncovered by Impact-se, a history textbook for eleventh graders describes Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland where 1 million Jews were murdered during World War II, as a “prisoner of war camp” rather than an “extermination,” “concentration,” or “death camp.” In other textbooks — including Inspire – Wisdom of the World, a religious studies book distributed to students as young as 12 years old — Judaism is described as a war mongering religion which “believes that violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice.”
Irish curricula is perhaps most aggressive in discussing Israel and the Palestinians, according to Impact-se. Citing Inspire again, the report revealed that the textbook’s authors chose to propagate the misleading claim that Jesus Christ lived in “Palestine,” a piece of disinformation that has been trafficked by anti-Zionist activists both to diminish Jesus’s Jewish heritage and deny the existence of a Jewish state in antiquity.
“Historical references to Jesus living in ‘Palestine’ without appropriate context can contribute to narratives that challenge Israel’s legitimacy and undermine the Jewish historical connection to the land,” wrote Impact-se, which also noted that a textbook for younger children on the story of Jesus included a comic strip with the words, “Some people did not like Jesus.” The people shown in the comic are visibly Jewish, wearing religious clothing such as a kippah.
“This portrayal aligns with antisemitic stereotypes that have wrongly blamed Jews collectively for the death of Jesus,” the group stated.
In recent weeks, the Catholic religious establishment in Ireland has come under scrutiny for targeting Israel. In a New Year’s message by Archbishop Eamon Martin, the most senior Catholic figure in Ireland lambasted Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “merciless” and a “disproportionate” response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.
Martin was not the first prominent Irish cleric to use his platform to castigate Israel in recent days.
In November, Reverend Canon David Oxley came under fire for delivering an antisemitic memorial sermon in which he suggested that Israelis and Jews see themselves as a “master race” that justifies “eliminating” other groups “because they don’t count.”
Oxley delivered the sermon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin during a Remembrance Sunday service attended by Irish Higgins and other high-ranking dignitaries.
Regarding Higgins’s latest address, Wieder accused the president of “neglecting even to acknowledge the scourge of contemporary antisemitism in Ireland, let alone do anything to address it.”
“It is so important that Irish politicians and public figures come together to honor the memory of victims of the Holocaust. Yet the awful irony is that many of them are turning a blind eye to a troubling increase in anti-Jewish hatred in Ireland today.”
The post Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Blasts President for Conduct, Anti-Israel Tirade During National Holocaust Memorial first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Jamaal Bowman Launches New PAC in Attempt to Unseat Pro-Israel Politicians
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks during the National Action Network National Convention in New York City, US, April 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Former US lawmaker Jamaal Bowman has started a new political action committee (PAC) in an attempt to raise funds for progressive candidates and unseat pro-Israel incumbents.
On Thursday, Bowman, who served in the US House of Representatives as a New York Democrat from 2021-2025, announced the creation of the “Built to Win PAC,” a new attempt to boost aspiring left-wing candidates by galvanizing minority voters. The progressive firebrand hopes that the political committee will serve as an effective competitor against groups that elevate moderate congressional candidates who, he argued, neglect the needs of working-class constituents.
“For too long, the system has failed the people. Built to Win is here to change that. We’re mobilizing Black, Arab, Asian, and Latino communities to reclaim our power. Join the movement – because when we vote, we win,” Built to Win wrote on its official X/Twitter account.
“Today, I am officially launching the Built to Win PAC. I’m back, and I’m coming back to win,” Bowman added on his own person X/Twitter page.
This is Jamaal Bowman, former Congressman from New York, reaching out to let you know that today, I am officially launching the Built To Win PAC. I’m back, and I’m coming back to win. pic.twitter.com/0JeWggAyQE
— Jamaal Bowman Ed.D. (@JamaalBowmanNY) February 27, 2025
While speaking to City & State, a media company that covers New York politics, Bowman confirmed in a new interview that the Built to Win PAC will likely prioritize targeting sitting lawmakers who support Israel.
“Any candidate that supports [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and genocide more than their constituents, any candidate that’s tied up with corrupt crypto money, any candidate tied up with the real estate lobby as opposed to renters, we’re going to go after those candidates very aggressively,” Bowman said.
The former lawmaker has also tapped Lexis Zeidan, co-founder of the anti-Israel “Uncommitted National Movement” to help build out and manage his PAC.
The Uncommitted National Movement emerged in 2024 as a result of frustration stemming from the Israel-Hamas war. The initiative sought to encourage voters to abstain from voting first for US President Joe Biden and then for his vice president, 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, unless they adopted anti-Israel policies.
During Bowman’s time in Congress, he established a reputation as a stalwart progressive and intense critic of American foreign policy. However, since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, Bowman narrowed his focus onto the Jewish state.
In the past year, the ex-congressman has made unsubstantiated allegations that Israel has conducted a “genocide” in Gaza while accusing the Jewish state of committing “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in the West Bank. He also came under fire for initially dismissing widely corroborated accusations of rape against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists during their Oct. 7 onslaught as “propaganda.”
Bowman lost his Democratic primary election in June to Westchester County executive George Latimer by a staggering margin of 58 percent to 41 percent.
In contrast to Bowman, Latimer attempted to woo residents of the affluent, heavily Jewish Westchester County community by positioning himself as an ally of Israel. Furthermore, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States, assisted Latimer in the primary, unleashing an eye-popping $14.5 million torrent of cash to benefit his campaign.
In the months following his loss, Bowman has repeatedly criticized AIPAC, whose mission is to foster bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship, for involving itself in the primary battle, condemning the organization as a “Zionist regime” operated by “racist Republicans.”
Bowman, alongside former Congresswoman Cori Bush, are also set to headline a new show on the anti-Israel Zeteo network. According to the duo, the show will deliver an unvarnished look into the “corruption, the lobbying, the big money” that influences federal politics, “and how it could all be working better for you.”
The post Jamaal Bowman Launches New PAC in Attempt to Unseat Pro-Israel Politicians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
BBC Apologizes for ‘Unacceptable’ Mistakes With Gaza Documentary, Admits Palestinian Interviewees’ Ties to Hamas
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Thursday apologized for “unacceptable” and “serious flaws” during the filming of a documentary about Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip.
The admission came after the BBC removed the documentary, titled “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,” from its iPlayer streaming platform on Feb. 21 when it was discovered that the film’s 13-year-old Palestinian narrator (now 14), Abdullah Al-Yazouri, was the son of a senior Hamas official.
The documentary was also taken down after it was revealed that two of the cameramen who worked on the BBC documentary had voiced support for Hamas, and following revelations about inaccurate translations in the film that masked the antisemitism of some participants. Examples of the latter issue include mistranslations in the film that refer to Hamas terrorists as an “army” and “jihad against the Jews” as “resistance against the Israelis,” according to Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a British volunteer-based charity. The Telegraph cited at least five instances in the film where the Arabic word for “Jew”— “Yahud” or “Yahudy” — was mistranslated as “Israel” or “Israeli forces,” or removed altogether.
The BBC has also now admitted that licensing fee payments were given to the family of Al-Yazouri, who is the son of Hamas’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri. Pro-Israel researcher David Collier said the father and son come from the same family as Hamas founder Ibrahim Al-Yazouri. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by both the United Kingdom and United States.
Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, sent an e-mail to staff on Thursday that included a statement about the documentary, remarks which were publicly shared on Friday by a BBC spokesperson.
In the statement, the BBC said it takes complete editorial responsibility for the film and admitted that the corporation and Hoyo Films, the production company behind the documentary, have made “unacceptable” flaws in the making of the documentary. “BBC News takes full responsibility for these and the impact that these have had on the Corporation’s reputation. We apologize for this.”
The spokesperson added that the BBC was not informed in advance by Hoyo Films about Abdullah’s family connection to Hamas.
“During the production process, the independent production company was asked in writing a number of times by the BBC about any potential connections he and his family might have with Hamas,” the corporation explained. “Since transmission, they have acknowledged that they knew that the boy’s father was a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas government; they have also acknowledged that they never told the BBC this fact. It was then the BBC’s own failing that we did not uncover that fact and the documentary was aired.”
Hoyo Films told the corporation that it paid Abdullah’s mother “a limited sum of money” for narrating the film by way of his sister’s bank account, according to the BBC. Hoyo Films “assured BBC” no payments were given to Hamas members or its affiliates “either directly, in kind, or as a gift,” and the corporation is “seeking additional assurance” about the film’s budget. The BBC said it will initiate a full audit of the film’s expenses and is asking Hoyo Films for financial accounts to help with the audit.
The BBC said the controversy surrounding the documentary had “damaged” public trust in the corporation’s journalism, and that “the processes and execution of this program fell short of our expectations.” The BBC also has “no plans to broadcast the program again in its current form or return it to iPlayer.” It added that it launched a review into the film, an initiative that the BBC Board discussed on Thursday.
Hoyo Films said it is working with the BBC to “help understand where mistakes have been made.” The production company added, “We feel this remains an important story to tell, and that our contributors – who have no say in the war – should have their voices heard.”
A separate statement from the BBC Board added, “The subject matter of the documentary was clearly a legitimate area to explore, but nothing is more important than trust and transparency in our journalism. While the board appreciates that mistakes can be made, the mistakes here are significant and damaging to the BBC.”
The CAA said on Friday the grave errors carried out by the BBC in connection to the documentary should result in resignations and a police investigation. The charity also called for an independent investigation into bias at the BBC and said pending the results of the investigation, the license fee should be suspended to stop additional funds from going to Abdullah’s family, and potentially Hamas. “Hundreds of people are contacting us telling us that they refuse to pay the license fee until they can be sure that the BBC is trustworthy,” the charity said.
A spokesperson for the CAA called BBC “a national treasure [that] has become a national embarrassment.”
“The BBC has now admitted that license fee funds were paid to the family of a senior Hamas official. It has not yet been able to rule out that further payments to Hamas were made as it continues to investigate where hundreds of thousands of pounds went,” the spokesperson noted. “The BBC’s statement is an exercise in desperate damage control and shows why an internal review is no substitute for an independent investigation into this documentary and the wider bias at the BBC that allowed it to be made and aired. Clearly those responsible must lose their jobs.”
“It is unconscionable that the British public should have to pay a license fee to an organization that gives that money to proscribed terrorists,” the spokesperson added. “It represents a shocking double standard in our law. Pending an independent investigation, the license fee must be suspended.”
During a press conference on Thursday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the secretary of state has had a meeting with the BBC regarding the documentary. On Friday, British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she was going to have an “urgent meeting” with BBC Chairman Samir Shah that same day.
“I want assurances that no stone will be left unturned by the fact-finding review now commissioned by the BBC’s director general,” Nandy said. “This review must be comprehensive, rigorous, and get to the bottom of exactly what has happened in this case. It is critical for trust in the BBC that this review happens quickly, and that appropriate action is taken on its findings.”
The post BBC Apologizes for ‘Unacceptable’ Mistakes With Gaza Documentary, Admits Palestinian Interviewees’ Ties to Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Jewish Rocker David Draiman Calls Kanye West a ‘Pathetic Jew Hater Without a Soul’ for Non-Stop Promoting Swastikas
David Draiman of Disturbed at Summerfest Music Festival on June 30, 2022, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Daniel DeSlover/Sipa USA
The lead singer of the rock band Disturbed intensely criticized rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, on Friday after the latter reiterated his desire to make a t-shirt that features a swastika, and now also a swastika necklace.
Ye returned to X on Friday to repeat his hopes of making a shirt emblazoned with the extremist symbol used by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. In one post, he wrote: “It was always a dream of mine to walk around with a Swastika T on.” In a separate post, he called on jewelers to reach out to him with designs for a swastika chain necklace.
David Draiman responded by writing, “Hey @kanyewest, Here’s a design for you” and he included an emoji of a middle finger. The “Sound of Silence” singer, who is Jewish, then attacked the rapper by saying, “You’re nothing but a Jew hating, misogynistic, pathetic, attention starved A–HOLE. You’ve destroyed any legacy you once had. You will be remembered as a sad, angry excuse of a man, without honor, without decency, and without a soul.”
In early February, Ye sold on his website Yeezy.com only one item – a white, short sleeve t-shirt that featured a large black swastika on the front. He purchased a commercial that aired during Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9 that encouraged viewers to visit his website and purchase the offensive shirt. The shirt went live on his website — which has since been shut down – two days after Ye went on a rabidly antisemitic tirade on X in which he talked about his hatred of Jews and his admiration for Hitler. He even called himself a Nazi and a racist.
The rapper said last week he has had the idea for the swastika shirt “for over eight years” and has continued to promote his affinity for the Nazi symbol repeatedly on social media.
The post Jewish Rocker David Draiman Calls Kanye West a ‘Pathetic Jew Hater Without a Soul’ for Non-Stop Promoting Swastikas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.