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We Must Implement the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism
US President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time address to the nation about his approaches to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and continued support for Ukraine in their war with Russia, from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, US, Oct. 19, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Pool
The White House released the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism last May in response to a dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents. No one could have foreseen that the strategy would be tested so soon by the response to the horrors of October 7.
In the wake of Hamas’ brutal attack, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, already surging rates of antisemitic incidents tripled nationwide.
According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, as of December 5, 2023, there had been a 60% year-over-year increase in reported hate crimes for the period after October 7. Most of that increase was driven by crimes against Jews.
The Secure Community Network (SCN) reported a 112% year-over-year increase in North American antisemitic incidents in 2023, the highest increase it has ever recorded. There was a record number of monthly antisemitic incidents in December 2023.
This is exactly the kind of situation that the National Strategy was designed to mitigate — but how is it being employed?
In August 2023, AJC created a Task Force to spearhead the implementation of the National Strategy. Since October 7, AJC has been in nearly weekly meetings with the White House or with the secretaries of Federal agencies. In every encounter, these officials speak about the National Strategy and the important tools it has afforded them in this dark moment.
This summer, AJC began working with the Small Business Administration (SBA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other agencies to implement the National Strategy, signing a Strategic Alliance Memorandum with SBA. Reflective of this work, Federal agencies issued rapid statements of support and solidarity shortly after the October 7 attacks. The USDA even helped organize groups of American farmers and volunteers to travel to Israel to harvest crops that otherwise would have withered.
AJC has been in constant contact with the Department of Education to relay its concerns, flag cases, and help make sure that antisemitic incidents are recorded. The Department’s Office for Civil Rights has specified that Title VI’s protection from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin extends to students who are or are perceived to be Jewish. The Department released an updated complaint form to make filing a complaint easier and pivoted its commitment to hold listening sessions in schools to have “interventions” with the most problematic educational spaces in America.
AJC’s CEO Ted Deutch made recommendations to the Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism on Capitol Hill in October. Since then, he has kept regular correspondence with Senators and Congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle, and has pushed them to fully implement the National Strategy and support Israel and the Jewish people.
Countering antisemitism is a whole-of-society effort. It requires all of us to act and make our voices heard. Indeed, the National Strategy does not just include action items for Federal agencies, it includes recommendations for every sector of American society.
As the first line of defense in many instances of antisemitism, local law enforcement must understand antisemitism and Jews. Our newest guide, designed for law enforcement, was released last month in partnership with SCN, the National Sheriffs’ Association, and the Major County Sheriffs of America, to ensure they do.
Here are a few steps we can take to ensure the safety and security of the Jewish people.
First and foremost, we can’t be shy about the antisemitism we experience. Whether it’s a potential hate crime, an incident of harassment at an educational institution, or an inciting post on social media, we must report it. Complaints drive data; data drives policy.
We must urge social media platforms to counter antisemitism and Hamas propaganda. After Hamas’ murderous pogrom and the accompanying increase in antisemitism, we all must address increased antisemitism online by implementing policy recommendations from the Call to Action Against Antisemitism, which have been echoed in the National Strategy.
Since October 7, there have been frightening levels of antisemitism on college campuses. We must urge university presidents to take proactive steps against antisemitism on campus by adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, and taking concrete steps to protect Jews on campus, as recommended in the National Strategy.
IHRA’s Working Definition is the most concise, accurate, and globally recognized definition of antisemitism. It is a proven tool for recognizing and fighting antisemitism.
The National Strategy is a detailed, thoughtful document that dedicates a broad range of governmental and non-governmental resources to the fight against Jew hatred. It represents the most serious Presidential commitment to fighting antisemitism in history.
We have the toolkit. It’s time to use it.
Julie Fishman Rayman is the Managing Director of Policy and Political Affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
The post We Must Implement the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Why Does the Media Not Tell the Truth About Hezbollah’s Attacks on Israel?
Firefighters respond to a fire near a rocket attack from Lebanon, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, near Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, June 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Last month, the BBC News website published a report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Lucy Williamson under the headline “Fires in northern Israel fuel demands to tackle escalation with Hezbollah.”
The following day, the BBC News website published another report by the same journalist on the same topic titled “Israelis using gardening tools to fight wildfires sparked by Hezbollah rockets.”
A couple of weeks later, that pattern was repeated. On June 19, the BBC News website published a report by Williamson headlined “Israel and Hezbollah play with fire as fears grow of another war,” which was previously discussed here.
Late on June 22, the BBC News website published another report titled “Unable to back down, Israel and Hezbollah move closer to all-out war,” which is credited to “Lucy Williamson, Reporting from the Israel-Lebanon border.”
If one assumed that the reason for the appearance within days of a second report on the same topic by the same journalist was the emergence of new information concerning the situation on Israel’s northern border, one would be wrong.
A considerable proportion of Williamson’s second report (which was also translated into Swahili) consists of interviews with people on both sides of the border: Israelis from Kiryat Shmona and Malkiya, and two residents of southern Lebanese villages.
Failing to clarify that her interviewee lives in a town described as one of the “bastions of strong Hezbollah support” where a strike against a Hezbollah command center took place in March, Williamson tells her readers that:
Fatima Belhas lives a few miles (7km) from the Israeli border, near Jbal el Botm.
In the early days, she would shake with fear when Israel bombed the area, she says, but has since come to terms with the bombardments and no longer thinks of leaving.
“Where would I go?” she asked. “[Others] have relatives elsewhere. But how can I impose on someone like that? We have no money.”
“Maybe it is better to die at home with dignity,” she said. “We have grown up resisting. We won’t be driven out of our land like the Palestinians.”
Readers may recall that just days earlier, another BBC report from southern Lebanon promoted that same “Nakba” comparison.
Similarly failing to note Hezbollah’s presence and infrastructure in Mays al Jbal (also Meiss al Jabal), Williamson continues:
Hussein Aballan recently left his village of Mays al Jbal, around 6 miles (10km) from Kiryat Shmona, on the Lebanese side of the border.
Life there had become impossible, he said, with erratic communications and electricity, and almost no functioning shops.
The few dozen families left there are mainly older people who refuse to leave their homes and farms, he told the BBC.
But he backed the Hezbollah assault on Israel.
“Everyone in the south [of Lebanon] has lived through years of aggression, but has come out stronger,” he said. “Only through resistance are we strong.”
Williamson fails to remind her readers that Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon 24 years ago, and that the only “aggression” has been in response to attacks by Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, such as the cross-border attack that sparked the war in 2006.
As in her previous report, Williamson portrays the events resulting from the Lebanese terror group’s decision to attack Israel on October 8 as “tit-for-tat”:
But as the tit-for-tat conflict grinds on, and more than 60,000 Israelis remain evacuated from their homes in the north, there are signs that both Israel’s leaders and its citizens are prepared to support military options to push Hezbollah back from the border by force.
Also, as in her own previous reports and in most other BBC content, Williamson fails to explain to her readers that according to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah should be nowhere near the border with Israel ,and that the UN’s “peacekeeping force” in Lebanon has failed to enforce that resolution since it was passed in 2006.
Williamson’s framing of the situation in the north of Israel includes the following:
The dangerous stalemate here hinges largely on the war Israel is fighting more than 100 miles (160km) to the south in Gaza.
A ceasefire there would help calm tensions in the north too, but Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keeping both conflicts going, mortgaged by his promise to far-right government allies to destroy Hamas before ending the Gaza War. [emphasis added]
And:
Demands for political change are likely to increase when Israel’s conflicts end.
Many believe Israel’s prime minister is playing for time: caught between growing demands for a ceasefire in Gaza, and growing support for a war in the north.
In other words, Williamson’s framing ignores the fact that Hamas chose to attack Israel on October 7, and that Hezbolah chose to attack Israel on October 8, and almost every day since then. She erases the fact that Hamas has rejected multiple ceasefire offers in order to promote a narrative whereby it is Israel’s prime minister alone who is “keeping both conflicts going”.
Moreover, she tells BBC audiences that:
The problem for Israel is how to stop the rockets and get its people back to the abandoned northern areas of the country.
The problem for Hezbollah is how to stop the rockets when its ally, Hamas, is being pounded by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Williamson cites a statement made by the UN Secretary General on June 21:
Hezbollah is a well-armed, well-trained army, backed by Iran; Israel, a sophisticated military power with the US as an ally.
Full-scale war is likely to be devastating for both sides.
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said it would be a “catastrophe that goes […] beyond imagination”.
Like the UN Secretary General, Williamson has nothing to tell her audiences about the Lebanese state’s decades-long failure to tackle the Islamist terrorist organization that has repeatedly dragged that country into conflict, and has nothing to say about the failure of the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions designed to prevent further conflict.
The BBC’s sidelining of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and its whitewashing of the failures of the UN forces that are supposed to enforce it, did not begin in October 2023: that editorial policy has been evident for many years.
Now, however, that policy is being used to advance framing of a potential escalation after over eight months of continuous attacks on Israeli communities by Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations, as something that is the responsibility of Israel alone.
Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Why Does the Media Not Tell the Truth About Hezbollah’s Attacks on Israel? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months
The University of Toronto has received an injunction to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on its property. The 98-page decision from Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said that members of the encampment must take down the tents within 24 hours, by 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3. Toronto Police will have […]
The post University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal
Vandals in Canada targeted a Jewish cemetery. Photo: Screenshot
Vandals have targeted notable Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio and Montreal, Canada, sparking outcry and concern over mounting threats of antisemitism.
Vandals at Montreal’s Kehal Yisrael Cemetery placed memorial stones in the shape of a Nazi swastika on top of tombstones. Ones with the last names Eichler and Herman were targeted in the antisemitic attack.
Placing memorial stones on graves is an ancient Jewish custom to memorialize the dead. Jewish cemeteries oftentimes have stones nearby tombstones for mourners.
Canadian leaders decried the vandalism.
“It is absolutely abhorrent and revolting to defile the dead with swastikas,” Jeremy Levi, the Jewish mayor of a Jewish-majority suburb of Montreal, commented on X/Twitter. “This desecration at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal is beyond contempt. [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country. May this Kohen’s neshama have an Aliyah on high.” One of the tombstones vandalized belonged to a Kohen.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Canada’s parliament and candidate for prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, lambasted Trudeau and denounced antisemitism. “We cannot close our eyes to the disgusting acts of antisemitism that are happening in our country everyday,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The prime minister must finally act to stop these displays of antisemitism. If he won’t, a common sense Conservative government will.”
Canada, like many countries around the world, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile in Cincinnati, vandals targeted two historic Jewish cemeteries this past week, toppling and shattering ancient tombstones — some dating back to the 1800s.
According to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 176 gravesites in Cincinnati’s West Side were ruined “in an act of antisemitic vandalism.”
“Due to the extensive damage and the historical nature of many of the gravestones, we have not yet been able to identify all the families affected by this act,” the statement continued. “Our community [is] heartbroken.”
The Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incidents.
The destruction of monuments is the latest in a greater trend of antisemitic vandalism. In an incident over the weekend, vandals in Australia targeted war memorials dedicated to Australian veterans who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Vietnam with pro-Hamas graffiti.
A couple weeks earlier, vandals in Belgium defaced two memorials for Holocaust victims with swastikas and a phrase calling for violence against Israel. In Germany, meanwhile, at least seven stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks in the sidewalk meant to mark Jewish homes seized by the Nazis, were defaced with the message “Jews are perpetrators.”
The US, Canada, Europe, and Australia have all experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the B’nai Brith, antisemitic incidents in Canada more than doubled in 2023 compared to the prior year.
The post Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.