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Kamala Harris Refuses to Affirm Netanyahu as an ‘Ally’ of the United States

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US, Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Erica Dischino

US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris refused to affirm that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu is an “ally” of the United States, dodging a direct question on the subject and fueling doubts about her commitment to the Jewish state. 

During an interview with the long-running news program “60 Minutes,” Harris was pressed on the Biden administration’s struggles to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has totally ruled Gaza since 2007. Journalist Bill Whitaker asked the incumbent US vice president whether Washington, DC wields influence over Netanyahu and whether the Biden administration considers the Israeli prime minister a trusted partner. 

“Do we have a real, close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?” Whitaker asked.

“I think, with all due respect, the better question is do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes,” Harris responded. 

Over the course of the interview, Whitaker accused Netanyahu of ignoring American requests to tone down Israeli military activity in Gaza and Lebanon. Harris did not voice disagreement with the journalist’s claims. 

“We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid. And yet, Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a ceasefire. He’s resisted. You urged him to not go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. He has promised to make Iran pay for a missile attack, and that has the potential of expanding the war. Does the US have no sway under Prime Minister Netanyahu?” Whitaker asked. 

US officials have said in recent weeks that Hamas has refused to agree to a ceasefire deal, pointing the finger mainly at the terrorist group’s top leader, Yahya Sinwar.

Meanwhile, Israel has in recent weeks been launching more intensive military operations against the terrorist group Hezbollah, which for the past year has been firing rockets, missiles, and drones at northern Israeli communities almost daily.

Iran, which supports both Hamas and Hezbollah, launched over 180 ballistic missiles at Israel directly. The Jewish state has vowed to respond to the attack.

Harris responded to Whitaker, arguing that American military aid has allowed Israel to “defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles” aimed at killing the Jewish state’s civilians. “It is without any question,” she continued, that the federal government has an “imperative” to help Israel mitigate threats from belligerent entities such as Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The vice president added that Israel has an obligation to allow “humanitarian aid” to enter the Gaza Strip and cooperate with ceasefire negotiations. 

Harris added that American pressure against Israel has “resulted in a number of movements in that region” that have helped improve living standards for Palestinians in Gaza. 

Since ascending to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket in July, Harris has sought to shore up support among the Jewish community as well as the Arab and Muslim communities in the US. The vice president has also been dogged by accusations that she maintains only mild support for Israel.

In an official White House statement commemorating the Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people throughout southern Israel, the vice president vowed to “do everything in my power to ensure that the threat Hamas poses is eliminated, that it is never again able to govern Gaza, that it fails in its mission to annihilate Israel, and that the people of Gaza are free from the grip of Hamas.”

In the same statement reflecting on the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Harris dedicated a paragraph to seemingly criticizing the Israeli war effort. The Democratic nominee promised that she “will always fight for the Palestinian people.”

“Hamas’s terrorist attack on Oct. 7 launched a war in Gaza. I am heartbroken over the scale of death and destruction in Gaza over the past year — tens of thousands of lives lost, children fleeing for safety over and over again, mothers and fathers struggling to obtain food, water, and medicine,” the statement read. “It is far past time for a hostage and ceasefire deal to end the suffering of innocent people. And I will always fight for the Palestinian people to be able to realize their right to dignity, freedom, security, and self-determination. We also continue to believe that a diplomatic solution across the Israel-Lebanon border region is the only path to restore lasting calm and allow residents on both sides to return safely to their homes.”

The post Kamala Harris Refuses to Affirm Netanyahu as an ‘Ally’ of the United States first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Three New Yorkers Charged With Hate Crimes for Antisemitic Vandalism of Homes of Brooklyn Museum Officials

A security guard stands in front as protest is held outside Brooklyn Museum on Sept. 20, 2024 over the police shooting of four people at a New York City subway station over an alleged $2.90 fare evasion. Photo: Laura Brett/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

A woman and two men in New York have been indicted on hate crimes charges for allegedly vandalizing the homes of officials from the Brooklyn Museum, including its Jewish executive director, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Monday. 

Taylor Pelton, 28, of Astoria, Queens; Samuel Seligson, 32, of Brooklyn; and Gabriel Schubiner, 36, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, were charged in a 25-count indictment in connection with the antisemitic incidents that took place in June in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The indictment includes charges such as making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, making a terroristic threat, third- and fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, third- and fourth-degree criminal mischief, making graffiti, possession of graffiti instruments, and fifth-degree conspiracy. Schubiner was arraigned on Monday and released without bail, and Seligson and Pelton are expected to be arraigned next week.

The defendants allegedly targeted executives of the Brooklyn art museum who had Jewish-sounding names, but only one of their victims was in fact Jewish — Executive Director Anne Pasternak. Gonzalez did not reveal the names of the victims, but it was previously reported that they included the museum’s President and Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Panicek-Trueblood, Board Treasurer Neil Simpkins, and Chairman of the Board of Directors Barbara Vogelstein. Panicek-Trueblood’s husband is Jewish.

“Acts of vandalism that target individuals in their own homes are a deeply disturbing violation meant to intimidate, terrorize, and instill fear,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “These defendants allegedly targeted museum board members with threats and antisemitic graffiti based on their perceived heritage. These actions are not protests; they are hate crimes, and we are deeply committed to holding accountable anyone who uses such unlawful tactics in Brooklyn.”

The three defendants allegedly committed their acts of vandalism during the early morning hours of June 12.

According to prosecutors, Pelton drove the defendants, and three unapprehended others, to the neighborhood of Boerum Hill in Brooklyn and from there, they were caught on surveillance video walking with black bags to Douglass Street, where a member of Brooklyn Museum’s board of directors lives. Schubiner allegedly painted over a video camera at the location, in an attempt to conceal the group’s identity, and the defendants then proceeded to deface the home with red paint and the words, “Brooklyn Museum, blood on your hands.”

The alleged assailants also left a banner that featured the victim’s name and claimed she had “blood on your hands, war crimes, funds genocide,” prosecutors claimed. The banner included several inverted red triangles, which is a symbol used by the terrorist organization Hamas in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets they plan to attack. A stencil found on the ground at the site had a fingerprint covered in red paint that belonged to Schubiner.

Pelton then allegedly drove the group in her car to Pasternak’s residence in another area of Brooklyn. A video camera was painted over again to hide their identity as the defendants defaced the entrance of Pasternak’s apartment building with red paint, including an anarchy symbol and red inverted triangles, prosecutors said. The assailants allegedly hung a banner that described Pasternak as a “White Supremacist Zionist” with red handprints and accused her of funding genocide. Gonzalez said the banners also had the words “Blood on your hands.”

The defendants then headed in Pelton’s car to Manhattan, where Schubiner and the unapprehended others were captured on surveillance footage spraying red paint on a building in Lenox Hill where Vogelstein lives, according to prosecutors. They allegedly painted her name, the red inverted triangles, and an anarchy symbol.

Shortly after the alleged hate crimes took place, an anonymous group claiming responsibility for the vandalism released a statement to Hyperallergic in which they cited the Brooklyn Museum’s “complicity in the Palestinian genocide” and ties that its board members have to weapon manufacturing and Israeli military interests, claims that museum officials have denied. The anonymous group said the vandalism was done in response to a heavily policed pro-Palestinian protest on May 31 at the museum, where dozens were arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

“Our action is a retaliation against the museum’s direct connections to the networks that materially support the genocidal entity as well as its collaboration with the fascist NYPD,” the statement said.

Mass anti-Israel protests took place in late May outside the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Activists demanded that the institution divest from Israel and demonstrators from groups like the pro-Palestinian organization Within Our Lifetime hung a banner over the museum’s main entrance that called on the institution to “divest from genocide.” More than 30  protesters were reportedly arrested at the museum after occupying much of the lobby area, clashing with police inside and outside of the building, and defacing an outdoor sculpture with graffiti.

“There was damage to existing and newly installed artwork on our plaza,” a museum spokesperson said at the time, as reported by Reuters. “Protesters entered the building, and our public safety staff were physically and verbally harassed.”

The post Three New Yorkers Charged With Hate Crimes for Antisemitic Vandalism of Homes of Brooklyn Museum Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump, Harris Spotlight Antisemitism, Gaza War in Closing Rallies Heading Into Election Day

Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump looks on during a rally at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale, New York, US, Sept. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Amid a surge of antisemitism across the United States and frustration over the ongoing war in Gaza, presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Kamala Harris sought to win over skeptical Jewish and Arab American voters in their final campaign rallies on Sunday and Monday.

On the eve of the election, both campaigns have scrambled to convince Jewish voters of their commitment to both protecting Israel and combating antisemitic violence on American soil. In their closing pitch to US voters, Harris and Trump presented contrasting visions on how to bolster Jewish security and end the Israel-Hamas war. 

During a rally on Monday night in Raleigh, North Carolina, Trump reflected on the fatal shooting of a Jewish man in Chicago by an illegal immigrant from North Africa, casting blame on the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies for allowing the assailant in the country. 

“An illegal alien from North Africa, who Kamala let into our country with her horrendous, open border — just a dangerous, horrendous situation — traveled to a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago and tried to execute a Jewish man on the street, shooting him in the back as he walked to synagogue,” said Trump, a Republican. “He then opened fire on police and paramedics, shooting an ambulance before police returned fire and ended his rampage fairly quickly.”

Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, a 22 year-old migrant from Mauritania, allegedly shot a Jewish man who was walking to a synagogue on Oct. 26. Prosecutors issued terrorism and hate crime charges against Abdallahi after police unveiled evidence which, they said, showed he purposefully sought to violently target Jews. 

Meanwhile, Harris, a Democrat, promised to do “everything in her power” to end the Israel-Hamas war if she wins the White House while speaking to voters at Michigan State University on Sunday. The presidential hopeful also revealed that she had a private conversation with “leaders of the Arab-American community.”

“This year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon,” Harris said in her remarks to the crowd. “It is devastating.”

“As president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza,” Harris said, “to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, securit,y and self-determination.”

Harris’s statements on the war in Gaza echoed previous sentiments she made during a campaign stop in Detroit on Sunday. 

“I am honored to have the support of many Arab American leaders who represent the interests and the concerns also of the Arab American community,” Harris said in Detroit. “But I also know well enough to know it is not a monolith.”

“The level of death of innocent Palestinians is unconscionable,” she added. “We need to end the war, and we need to get the hostages out.”

Over the course of her campaign, Harris has repeatedly vowed to secure an elusive ceasefire deal between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which rules Gaza. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday that Hamas rejected the latest temporary ceasefire agreement presented by Egypt. The 12-day proposal would have reportedly started with a 48-hour ceasefire followed by Hamas releasing four hostages who the terrorist group kidnapped last year from Israel over the next 10 days.

In exchange, Jerusalem would release around 100 Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails, and over the 12-day period, Israel and Hamas were to hold indirect talks on extending the truce.

Since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July, Harris has attempted to strike a balance between demonstrating support for Israel and calling for more restrictions on their defensive military campaign while expressing sympathy for the Palestinian civilians of Gaza. Recent polling indicates that Harris’s strategy has not panned out as she hoped. Anti-Israel Green Party nominee Jill Stein edged out Harris among US Muslim voters by a 42-41 percent margin, according to a poll conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The post Trump, Harris Spotlight Antisemitism, Gaza War in Closing Rallies Heading Into Election Day first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Obituary: Lloyd Newman, 90, a passionate supporter of Nova Scotia’s cultural groups and Jewish community

Lloyd Newman, who built a family clothing business into a 20-store chain, served on the board of nearly arts institution and Jewish organization in his adopted province of Nova Scotia. […]

The post Obituary: Lloyd Newman, 90, a passionate supporter of Nova Scotia’s cultural groups and Jewish community appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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