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John Legend Urges Kamala Harris to Condition Aid to Israel, Use It as ‘Leverage’ Amid War in Gaza
American singer-songwriter John Legend wants US Vice President Kamala Harris to make America’s aid to Israel conditional and use it as “leverage” as Israel continues its military operations in Gaza targeting Hamas terrorists in the Palestinian enclave, he said in an interview published on Wednesday.
Speaking with Mehdi Hasan for the podcast series “Mehdi Unfiltered,” the “All of Me” singer criticized Harris and the Democratic party’s unconditional support for Israel’s ongoing military actions during the war in Gaza. Hasan asked the Grammy-winning singer if he thinks Harris needs to do something different from the Biden administration, “policy-wise,” in terms of America’s relationship with Israel as the Israel-Hamas war rages on in Gaza.
“It really revolves around the idea of accountability and using our aid to Israel as leverage,” Legend replied. “I don’t think we should we writing blank checks to any country that we’re allied with and that any kind of assistance we provide, any kind of weapons we send, should come with conditions. I think that’s a very sensible way to conduct foreign policy. We do it just about everywhere else. So let’s do it there, too.”
The “Green Lights” singer, a longtime Democratic Party supporter who performed at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in August, also condemned Israel’s attacks targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the Palestinian children who have been killed in the crossfire.
“It also makes me very frustrated how easily we dehumanize certain people based on where they live, the color of their skin, their religion, whether or not they’re allies with our country. No matter what political disagreements and political animus and anger we have at Hamas and the leadership in Gaza, those kids are innocent,” he said.
Hasan additionally asked Legend why so many people have stayed silent about the war in Gaza. Legend blamed it on the “cancel culture” that has made celebrities hesitate to speak out about the violence in the Middle East.
“They’ve seen people get punished for it. You know, they’ve seen people lose their agent or lose jobs from it. And I think some people are afraid of that possibility,” he said. “They’re afraid they’ll suffer professional consequences.”
The post John Legend Urges Kamala Harris to Condition Aid to Israel, Use It as ‘Leverage’ Amid War in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove salutes the Jewish-Canadian woman who made the first Remembrance Day poppies
The poppies that we wear at this time of year are our visual pledge to remember the brave Canadian soldiers who served and sacrificed to preserve and defend our democracy. […]
The post Treasure Trove salutes the Jewish-Canadian woman who made the first Remembrance Day poppies appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Hasidic Man Attacked in Third Antisemitic Assault in Brooklyn in Eight Days
An antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York struck its latest victim on Wednesday, wreaking an “excruciating” beating on a middle-aged Hasidic man.
According to Yaacov Behrman, a liaison for Chabad Headquarters — the main New York base of the Hasidic movement — the victim was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery.
“The victim is in excruciating pain and is currently in the emergency room,” Behrman tweeted. “The police are investigating the incident.”
A Chasidic man was beaten in Crown Heights tonight near Utica and President at approximately 7:30pm. The assailants, one was wearing a mask, demanded the victim’s phone, but when he refused, they chased him and beat him. The victim is in excruciating pain and is currently in the… pic.twitter.com/s4mn1K6HtV
— Yaacov Behrman (@ChabadLubavitch) November 7, 2024
The perpetrators were two Black teenagers, according to COLlive.com, an Orthodox Jewish news outlet.
Tuesday’s attack was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. In each case, the assailant was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
On Monday morning, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish Crown Heights neighborhood
Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.
Numerous antisemitic hate crimes have occurred in Crown Heights in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Meanwhile, according to a recent Algemeiner review of New York City Police Department (NYPD) hate crimes data, 385 antisemitic hate crimes have struck the New York City Jewish community since last October, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas perpetrated its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, unleashing a wave of anti-Jewish hatred unlike any seen in the post-World War II era.
Beyond New York, anti-Jewish hate crimes in the US spiked to a record high last year, and American Jews were the most targeted of any religious group in the country, according to a report published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hasidic Man Attacked in Third Antisemitic Assault in Brooklyn in Eight Days first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Huge Victory’: Netanyahu Calls Trump to Congratulate Him on Election Win
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called US President-elect Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory in the US presidential election earlier this week.
“Netanyahu spoke to President-elect Donald Trump and was among the first to call to congratulate him for his victory,” the Prime Minister’s office said on Wednesday. “The conversation was warm and cordial, and the two agreed to work together for Israel’s security and discussed the Iranian threat.”
During Trump’s first term, his administration had a “maximum pressure” policy with regard to Iran, aimed at making it more difficult for the country to make a nuclear weapon and fund its terror proxies — such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — across the Middle East.
However, some observers are concerned the incoming US administration will not be as strong on the Iranian threat as it was in its first term. Late last month, US Vice President-elect JD Vance said on a podcast that the US and Israel can at times have conflicting interests and warned that Washington should seek to avoid a war with Iran, the Jewish state’s chief adversary in the Middle East.
“Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct — like sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests. And our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran,” Vance said.
He then argued that a war with Iran “would be [a] huge distraction of resources; it would be massively expensive to our country.”
In addition to the phone call, Netanyahu’s office will also reportedly announce “the appointment of a new ambassador to Washington who will work with the new Trump administration” within the next 24 hours, according to Axios reporter Barack Ravid.
Netanyahu was the first world leader to congratulate Trump on his victory.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” he wrote on X/Twitter. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
He added, “This is a huge victory!”
During Trump’s first term, he and Netanyahu were close allies, working together to sign the Abraham Accords and move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. However, their relationship reportedly strained when Netanyahu congratulated then-US President-elect Joe Biden on his victory against Trump while Trump was still actively disputing the results of the election.
“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with,” Trump reportedly said at the time. “Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake.”
“I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty,” he added. “The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape.”
Heading into Trump’s second term, there have not been indications that this tension still lingers.
The post ‘Huge Victory’: Netanyahu Calls Trump to Congratulate Him on Election Win first appeared on Algemeiner.com.