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Nicaragua Breaks Off Diplomatic Relations with Israel
i24 News – Nicaragua is breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel, the Central American dictatorship said on Friday, branding the Israeli government “fascist” and “genocidal.”
Nicaragua’s government, in a statement, said the break in relations was due to Israel’s military actions in Gaza. The nation’s congress had, earlier in the day, passed a resolution requesting Nicaragua take action to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war, sparked by the deadliest antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023.
The conflict, the Nicaraguan government said, now also “extends against Lebanon and gravely threatens Syria, Yemen and Iran.”
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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.
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Famed YouTuber Pauses Interview to Confront Anti-Israel Protesters Outside NYC Office With Israeli Flag
YouTube star Casey Neistat stopped his interview with a fellow Jewish YouTuber and content creator at his office building in New York City recently to wave an Israeli flag outside a window of his office as anti-Israel protesters demonstrated outside.
Neistat, who has 12.6 million subscribers on YouTube, is a Jewish New York-based filmmaker, writer, blogger, director, and star of the 2010 HBO documentary series “The Neistat Brothers.” He co-founded a multimedia company called Beme that CNN purchased in 2016 for $25 million. He has talked openly on social media about being Jewish and his support for the Jewish community and Israel. He also condemned the “barbarism” carried out by Hamas-led terrorists during their deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in a YouTube video titled “Jew” that he published four days after the terrorist attack.
On Nov. 2, the Connecticut-born veteran YouTuber was a guest on the YouTube show “Created,” which is hosted by Jewish content creator Jon Youshaei. The interview took place in Neistat’s office in New York City, and toward the end of their conversation, anti-Israel protesters began loudly demonstrating outside the building. The noise interrupted the interview, and Youshaei addressed the situation on air.
“There’s a protest outside; we hear a lot of the noise,” said the host of “Created.” A second later, Neistat got up from his chair, grabbed an oversized Israeli flag he had in his office, opened the window in the room, and then proceeded to wave the flag outside as the anti-Israel protesters walked by. After the demonstrators left the street, Neistat brought his Israeli flag back inside.
“It’s always something in this city,” Neistat stated. “I think that was some sort of pro-Palestine march. They like to go down [the road] Broadway.” Explaining his decision to wave the Israeli flag outside of his window right as anti-Israel protesters walked by, he said, “You gotta show the love, you know … That was an anti-Israel march going down Broadway and when that happens I like to wave either my American flag, or an Israeli flag, or some combination of both.”
Youshaei afterwards asked Neistat how he feels speaking publicly about Israel despite how “polarizing” the subject is. Neistat replied that it is “challenging” at times.
“I’ve never been one to hold my tongue. I think that exasperates for me the frustration in speaking out against antisemitism,” Neistat added. “Because long before I spoke out against antisemitism, I was quick to speak out for pro-LGBTQ rights. And I was very loud in speaking out in my support of African Americans and why it’s important that we stand up if there’s a moment in this country when our fellow Black Americans are feeling like they’re being unfairly. I’ve never held my tongue. So when it becomes about antisemitism, for me it’s certainly different because I think one is only able to truly understand prejudice-ness through which the lens they experience it … I know what it’s like to be treated differently because I’m Jewish and I feel like I can speak on that in a different way.”
Neistat then reiterated his support for Israel, talked about loving the country and its people, and visiting the Jewish state. He noted that while it’s “fair” to criticize Israeli politics and leaders, he gets upset when people try to deny Israel’s right to exist and defend its borders.
“I think what’s so frustrating about this conversation is you’re not allowed to say, ‘I want innocent people living in Palestine to not be suffering and I want them to have good lives. But I also believe — I don’t just believe, I’m convicted in the fact — that Israel has every right to exist and when attacked, Israel has every right to protect itself and to fight back.’ And you’re not allowed to say those two things,” Neistat told Youshaei. “You’re not allowed to say that you think there are good people in Palestine and that you support the state of Israel.”
He then referred to the anti-Israel demonstrators who were just outside his office building and told Youshaei: “If I went down there and tried to say that to those people screaming, marching down the street, they would not be receptive to that conversation. And that is really hard. It’s super hard to have that conversation and it’s frustrating. So it’s not hard to speak up. It’s hard to try to reconcile that we can’t be civil and have an honest conversation about such a volatile, dangerous, personal matter.”
“Realistically, there would be violence if I went down there with an Israeli flag,” he added. “I don’t mean to generalize; perhaps there would be people down there willing to engage in conversation. But in my experience, because I go to a lot of counter-protests, there’s no willingness to engage in a conversation.”
The post Famed YouTuber Pauses Interview to Confront Anti-Israel Protesters Outside NYC Office With Israeli Flag first appeared on Algemeiner.com.