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‘The New York Times’ Erases Extremism and Violence from ‘Pro-Palestinian’ Protests
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.
The extremism is a pattern. So is The New York Times’ commitment to concealing it.
This month — in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. — anti-Israel activists wished for Hitler’s return; chanted for the murder of “Zionists”; assaulted, threatened to kill, and slurred a rabbi; threatened a Jewish family by painting a symbol of Hamas violence on their home; held banners supporting the terror group behind the Oct. 7 massacre; donned the headbands of the terrorists; waved their flags; glorified their “resistance” broadly; justified the murders at the music festival specifically; smashed and bloodied the face of a security guard; and downplayed the Holocaust.
The New York Times covered each of the “protests” where the ugly episodes occurred. But it hid each one of the above incidents, as well as other examples of the demonstrators’ extremism.
Washington, D.C.
At a June 8 demonstration in Washington, D.C., a group of demonstrators, faces covered with keffiyehs, held a large banner aligning themselves with “al Qassam,” a reference to Hamas’ gunmen who led the Oct. 7 attack. They called for murder: “Hezbollah make us proud, kill another Zionist now!”
A man holding a “Stand with Hamas” sign defended the October 7 slaughter as “brilliant,” while decrying what “the Jews — yeah, the Jews” are doing to the Palestinians. Another sign justified “resistance.”
The Times, whose article on the demonstration cast them as little more than a “call for an immediate cease-fire,” said nothing about the celebration of terrorist groups, the explicit calls for “killing,” or the defense of Oct. 7.
‘Free Palestine’ protestors are demonstrating against the White House, calling for the murder of Zionists (i.e. most Jews).
When you live in a political culture that systematically dehumanizes “Zionists,” the eventual outgrowth of dehumanization is violence. History tells us… pic.twitter.com/g8Knc1MGbc
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) June 8, 2024
Statues in D.C.’s Lafayette Square were vandalized with pro-violence and eliminationist graffiti. “Glory 2 the resistance”; “Long live Hamas”; “Intifada”; “From the river to the sea”; “Death to Amerikkka.” And there were plenty of upside-down red triangles, the symbol used in Hamas propaganda videos to mark targets for violent attack.
The New York Times referred only to “handwritten scribbles” that read “free Palestine.”
Men wearing the headbands of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated terrorist groups known for their suicide bombing attacks on Jewish civilians, shouted, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!”
The newspaper disingenuously steered readers to believe the calls were more or less innocuous:
Many of the protesters on Saturday chanted slogans that some groups have said incite violence against Jews, such as “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution,” as well as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
But according to one protester, such slogans were not a call for violence against Jewish people, but for a broader resistance against the status quo.
DC: Protester holds up a bloody mask depicting President Joe Biden. Another protester burns American flag behind him as statue is sprayed with “FJB” outside of the White House during Pro-palestine protest.
Video by @yyeeaahhhboiii2 Desk@freedomnews.tv to license pic.twitter.com/viHOfVToDq
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) June 8, 2024
The gathering was co-organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, a group that responded to the Oct. 7 attacks, on the day of the massacre, with celebratory “long live the resistance” calls, and they had previously called for “resistance and intifada until victory.” (The group has made clear that victory, to them, means the elimination of Israel.)
The New York Times absurdly characterized it as a “left-leaning” group.
Palestine youth movement was organizing rallies in support of the slaughter of innocent civilians while the blood hadn’t even dried yet pic.twitter.com/1DT67PMMQq
— ~Jachnun Supremacist~ נפתלי בן מתתיהו (@JachnunEmpire) October 20, 2023
Although video from the demonstrations showed demonstrators throwing objects at a park ranger and punching park police, the story had failed to mention this, even while noting in the first paragraph that police used pepper spray on a protester.
(Two days after the piece was published, the paper did add a statement from the National Park Service noting “an assault of a park ranger” and “injuries to two U.S. Park Police officers.” According to the reporters, the statement described empty water bottles being thrown at the park ranger. Fuller versions of what appeared to be the same statement, published elsewhere, made no reference to empty bottles.
Manhattan
On June 10, the extremist group Within Our Lifetime, which supports the Oct. 7 massacre, organized a demonstration in Manhattan.
At Union Square a man told counter-protesters, “I wish Hitler was still here, he would’ve wiped all you out.” Other demonstrators unfurled a large banner reading, “Long live October 7th.”
#NOW Protesters unfurl banner that reads “Long Live October 7th” in Union Square NYC pic.twitter.com/UH82UL92Vf
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) June 10, 2024
After a mass subway ride, during which demonstrators insisted “Zionists” identify themselves and insinuated harm would come to them if they didn’t leave the train, demonstrators converged on Wall Street, where they waved the flag of the group behind the Oct. 7 massacre and that of another terrorist organization.
They came to protest an exhibit memorializing the hundreds of civilians murdered by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival, to justify the murders, and to minimize the Holocaust by claiming the kids gunned down at the festival were worse than the commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp.
The New York Times initially ignored the hate fest. A day later, after members of Congress, the mayor of New York City, and the White House condemned the rally and its antisemitism, the paper did report on the condemnation.
But the piece said nothing about the pro-Hitler language, and nothing about the terrorist flags. (The paper was surely aware of the flags. It quoted from of White House statement that criticized the flying of “profane banners of terrorist organizations,” but ignored that line. And it quoted from a statement in which the NYC mayor criticized the terror flags, but ignored that line.)
And while the story did refer to demonstrators shouting “long live the intifada” — the call for violence that the paper had previously suggested might not be a call for violence — it didn’t quote those same demonstrators’ chant that “resistance is justified,” a defense of the Oct. 7 massacre that, while sickening on its own, also underscored the true meaning of their intifada calls.
Brooklyn
Two days later, vandals smeared paint on the homes of the director of the Brooklyn Museum and two of its trustees. On the home of the director, who is Jewish, they painted the upside-down red triangle that symbolizes a Hamas target, a menacing threat of violence.
The newspaper’s story about the graffiti did not mention the Hamas triangle. (It can be seen in a photo on the online piece, but the caption and the story itself said nothing of the symbol, let alone what it means.)
Vandalism outside the home of Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak. Photo: New York Mayor Eric Adams’ Twitter account.
UCLA
On the other side of the country, demonstrators gathered at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
As the school’s Chabad rabbi recorded video of the event, a demonstrator wearing a checkered headscarf smacked the phone out of his hand, threatened to kill him, slurred him as a pedophile, and called for “death to Israel and anyone who supports that shit.” Another demonstrator told him to “go back to Poland.”
The New York Times covered the rally. It said nothing about the antisemitic incident or death threats.
WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT (Updated video)
RABBI PHYSICALLY & VERBALLY ATTACKED WHILE LIVESTREAMING @UCLA (6/10/24)
The slurs yelled at Chabad House Director Rabbi Dovid Gurevich are deeply offensive, explicit, and include descriptions of pedophilia. This was livestreamed… pic.twitter.com/pTS7Z6HScP
— Stephanie (@stephsvox) June 11, 2024
Elsewhere on campus, a security guard was battered in the face and bloodied with a hard object. The New York Times — of course — said nothing about this violence. (The piece did, however, twice make a point of referencing aggression by pro-Israel protesters from months ago).
These stories, in which the Times manages to erase vile extremism from four separate demonstrations, are hardly the first example of the paper coming to the aid of anti-Israel extremists.
It had previously come to the aid of those tearing down posters of Israeli hostages by suggesting this was perhaps just a “release valve” for the “anguished,” while giving equal weight to the idea that those putting up the posters might be the real problem. Another piece absurdly suggested that calls for a Palestine “from the river to the sea” did not necessarily refer to a Palestine from the river to the sea.
This is clearly a pattern at The New York Times.
Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The post ‘The New York Times’ Erases Extremism and Violence from ‘Pro-Palestinian’ Protests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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