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UN Rapporteur With History of Anti-Israel Animus Supports Pro-Hamas Protests on College Campuses
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories has praised the anti-Israel demonstrations that have erupted on university campuses across the US over the last week.
“Hope comes from the ‘Watermelon Revolution’ (if its brave souls allow me to call it such),” Francesca Albanese wrote on Monday, hours before the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover, on X/Twitter, referring to the ongoing college campus protests against Israel.
The nationwide protests erupted last week with an ongoing wave of anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University in New York City, where school officials were forced to shutter the campus. Footage of Columbia students — who commandeered a section of campus and named it “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” — showed them chanting in support of the Hamas terrorist group, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. Amid the chaos at Columbia, a prominent rabbi at the school urged Jewish students to leave the campus for the sake of their safety.
Beyond opposing and supporting Hamas, many demonstrators also uttered death threats directly at Jews.
The anti-Israel protests quickly spread to other campuses such as Yale University in Connecticut and continued into this week.
On Wednesday, state highway patrol troopers in riot gear and police on horseback broke up a demonstration at the University of Texas in Austin. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, 34 people had been arrested.
At the University of Southern California, meanwhile, officials declared its campus closed and asked the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to clear a demonstration. The LAPD said that 93 people were arrested for trespassing and one for assault with a deadly weapon. No injuries were reported.
Anti-Israel activists have also demonstrated at several other campuses across the country. Police officers had arrested dozens of demonstrators at Yale and Columbia for staging riotous, unauthorized demonstrations.
Despite the chaos, Albanese sided with the protesters while falsely accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.
“Recently: Columbia arrested students for protesting against Israel’s #GenocideinGaza and the university’s investments in Israeli apartheid. Universities in Europe are increasing their securitization and repression against students expressing solidarity with Palestine,” she wrote. “Simultaneously, support from states, corporations and institutions for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has continued … What lessons are Western universities and governments imparting to their young citizens and students when they attack the very values and rights that are said to be foundational to Western societies?”
Albanese argued that “this sustained, global Palestinian-driven mobilization is a bold new phase in an ongoing wave of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against Israel’s decades-old system of occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism and for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to justice, freedom, dignity.”
She then claimed that “Palestinian emancipation” has become “the center of the global struggle for justice, including climate justice, and for human rights and dignity for all, not just a privileged few.”
Such rhetoric has become routine for Albanese, who has used her role at the UN to campaign against the world’s lone Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.
Earlier this month, for example, Albanese accused Israel of destroying Gaza and committing genocide in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave, from which the terrorist group launched the current war by invading the Jewish state on Oct. 7, massacring 1,200 people, and kidnapping 253 others as hostages. At a public hearing at the European Parliament on April 9, the UN rapporteur devoted much of her time to accusing Israel — but not Hamas — of lying about its conduct in Gaza.
That hearing came about two weeks after Albanese released a report accusing Israel of carrying out “genocide” in Gaza, continuing a pattern of the UN official singling out the Jewish state for particularly harsh condemnation.
“By analyzing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza,” one can conclude “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met,” read the report, titled “Anatomy of a Genocide.”
Albanese cited Hamas statistics that claim over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, of which 70 percent are civilians.
However, independent analyses have concluded those statistics systematically undercount the number of men and Hamas terrorists killed. Israel claims it has killed more than 13,000 Hamas fighters, who embed themselves in the civilian population and use civilian sites, such as hospitals, to house their terror operation centers.
Albanese’s report did not mention any details about Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Israeli officials lambasted her findings, arguing they were misleading and excused terrorism.
Last month was not the first time that Albanese was accused of being ideologically driven.
In February, she claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza militants at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
Additionally, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling the Oct. 7 attack the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
However, Hamas’ founding charter, in a section about the “universality” of its cause, reads: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
The post UN Rapporteur With History of Anti-Israel Animus Supports Pro-Hamas Protests on College Campuses first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Set to Commemorate Yom Hashoah Under the Shadow of War and Global Antisemitism
Flares burn in the empty square of Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre to mark the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day in Jerusalem amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions around the country April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – As the sun sets on Sunday evening, Israel and Jewish communities worldwide will begin observing Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the millions of Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.
This year’s Yom HaShoah carries a larger significance, coming just months after the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, and amid ongoing war in the Middle East.
Yom HaShoah has been observed in Israel since 1951, with the date anchored in law by the Knesset in 1959.
Across the country, solemn ceremonies will take place, including a state ceremony at Warsaw Ghetto Square in Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem, where survivors will light six torches to represent the six million victims of the Holocaust. The day will also be marked by services at schools, military bases, and other public institutions.
This year, however, Yom HaShoah takes on added symbolism.
It arrives in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught, which resulted in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. With as many as 100 hostages still held in Gaza and rising antisemitism globally, this year’s commemoration carries a heightened sense of urgency and remembrance.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized the importance of remembering the Holocaust’s lessons and defending against present-day threats.
“If we do not defend ourselves, nobody will defend us,” Netanyahu stated. “Therefore, we will defend ourselves in every way. We will overcome our enemies and ensure our security – in the Gaza Strip, on the Lebanese border, everywhere.”
Reflecting on the significance of this year’s Yom HaShoah, Yad Vashem spokesperson Simmy Allen noted how the theme of “A Lost World: The Destruction of Jewish Communities” has taken on new meaning in light of recent events.
“This year’s Yom HaShoah is particularly poignant as we remember not only the victims of the Holocaust but also those who have suffered in recent attacks,” said Allen. “The resilience of survivors serves as a beacon of hope and strength in the face of adversity.”
In addition to traditional commemorations, the International March of the Living, an annual educational pilgrimage to Auschwitz, has adapted its approach this year.
Led by 55 Holocaust survivors, including some affected by the Oct. 7 attacks, the march aims to honor the memory of the Holocaust victims and educate participants about the horrors of the past. University presidents and chancellors from the United States and Canada will also participate, underscoring the importance of Holocaust education and remembrance.
US President Joe Biden also reflected on the solemn occasion, proclaiming May 5 through May 12, 2024, as a week of observance of the Days of Remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.
“During Yom Hashoah and these days of remembrance, we mourn the six million Jews who were systematically targeted and murdered in the Holocaust,” Biden said.
“We honor the memories of the victims, the courage of the survivors, and the heroism of those who stood up to the Nazis, and we recommit ourselves to making real the promise of ‘Never Again.’”
The post Israel Set to Commemorate Yom Hashoah Under the Shadow of War and Global Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Killing Spree Haunts Holocaust Survivors in ‘March of the Living’
Participants attend the annual “March of the Living” to commemorate the Holocaust at the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 2, 2019. Reuters/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
Israel’s Holocaust commemorations this year have a searing significance for six elderly survivors now deeply scarred by the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 that sparked the ongoing Gaza war.
The killing and kidnapping spree by Palestinian terrorists on a Jewish holiday morning shook the sense of security of Israelis – not least, those who had witnessed the state emerge as a safe haven after the Nazi genocide.
For Bellha Haim, 86, the upheaval is especially profound.
Her grandson Yotam – like her, a resident of a village near the Gaza border – was taken hostage by Hamas and managed to escape, only to be accidentally shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
The trauma drove Haim to return to her native Poland, which she had fled with her family as a child during World War Two, and where she will on Monday take part in the “March of the Living” at the site of the Auschwitz death camp.
The annual ceremony is timed to coincide with Israel’s Holocaust memorial day.
“I never went back, and I wasn’t convinced to go back,” she said during a meeting with other survivors ahead of the trip.
“But this time, when they told me that they were connecting the Holocaust and what I call the ‘Holocaust of October 7′ – because then in the Holocaust we (Jews) were not a united people, we didn’t have a country, and suddenly this pride of mine that has been broken, my pride in my people and my country that was shattered in front of my eyes – I said, ‘This time I will break my oath and I will go out.’”
As a teenager, Yotam had taken part in the annual Auschwitz vigil and Haim said she saw the event as a chance for communion with him and other victims of the Hamas attack.
“I will go out in the name of Yotam, who marched there when he was in high school, and I will go out there to shout out the cry of the slain, of the babies, of all my good friends that I will never meet again,” she said.
ARABIC YELLING AND GUNFIRE
Among those joining her will be 90-year-old Daniel Louz, whose hometown Kibbutz Beeri lost a tenth of its residents to the Palestinian attackers.
In some ways, he said, that ordeal was worse for him than the European war, when he escaped Nazi round-ups in his native France although half his family perished in Poland.
After he awoke to the sound of Arabic yelling and gunfire, “I was constantly busy with surviving and figuring out what to do,” Louz said. “In France, as a child, I suffered all kinds of post-traumas that I’ve learned to cope with. But in Beeri, it was the first time that I felt the fear of death.”
A neighboring house was riddled with bullets. Louz’s was untouched. He says he imagined the souls of the six million Holocaust victims steering Hamas away from him. “They probably wanted me to be here to tell this story,” he said, weeping.
Other Holocaust survivors participating in the March of the Living include Smil Bercu Sacagiu, 87, whose home was hit by a rocket from Gaza, and Jacqueline Gliksman, 81, whose home was torched by a Palestinian infiltrator.
“What was left, and luckily the terrorist didn’t see it, is my grandchildren,” she said, referring to gold figurines on a necklace she was wearing. “That’s the only thing I have left.”
Before he was seized, Haim’s grandson left a text message: “They’re burning down my house. I smell gas. I’m scared.”
She said that reminded her of a Holocaust-era song in Yiddish, invoking centuries of pogroms, with the refrain “fire, Jews, fire”. A veteran campaigner for peace with the Palestinians, Haim said she would no longer pursue that activism.
“I’m not able to,” she said. “Now what interests me is only my people.”
The post Hamas Killing Spree Haunts Holocaust Survivors in ‘March of the Living’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Says Ending Gaza War Now Would Keep Hamas in Power
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Feb. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hardened his rejection of Hamas demands for an end to the Gaza war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, saying on Sunday that would keep the Palestinian terrorist group in power and pose a threat to Israel.
Netanyahu said Israel was willing to pause fighting in Gaza in order to secure the release of hostages still being held by Hamas, believed to number more than 130.
“But while Israel has shown willingness, Hamas remains entrenched in its extreme positions, first among them the demand to remove all our forces from the Gaza Strip, end the war, and leave Hamas in power,” Netanyahu said.
“Israel cannot accept that.”
“Hamas would be able to achieve its promise of carrying out again and again and again its massacres, rapes and kidnapping.”
In Cairo, Hamas leaders held a second day of truce talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, with no apparent progress reported as the group maintained its demand that any agreement must end the war in Gaza, Palestinian officials said.
The war began after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 252 others as hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it can no longer pose a major threat to the Israeli people from neighboring Gaza.
The post Netanyahu Says Ending Gaza War Now Would Keep Hamas in Power first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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