RSS
What to expect during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first US trip since his return to office
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not shying away from controversy as he embarks on his first trip to the United States since his reelection last year.
Before he boarded the plane early on Monday, Netanyahu accused Israeli antigovernment protesters of “joining forces” with the country’s enemies. And he praised Elon Musk, the billionaire social media mogul who once again flirted with antisemitism on Sunday by accusing George Soros, the progressive Jewish megadonor, of seeking “the destruction of western civilization.”
Netanyahu will meet with Musk on Monday before he heads to the United Nations, where he will meet with President Joe Biden and later deliver an address to the General Assembly. The Biden meeting is one Netanyahu has sought for months, though it will take place at the U.N. and not at the White House. Biden had demurred on a White House meeting due to opposition to some of Netanyahu’s policies.
Throughout the five-day trip, during which he is also scheduled to meet with American Jewish leaders, Netanyahu is expected to meet a protest movement led by expatriate Israelis who oppose his efforts to weaken the Israeli judiciary.
In remarks at the airport, Netanyahu lumped those protesters in with Iran and the Palestine Liberation Organization, both of which are or have previously been Israel’s chief adversaries. He accused the protesters, who have already mounted demonstrations in the U.S. cities he plans to visit, of “joining forces with the PLO and Iran.”
Having to face Israeli protesters in the United States — a country where Netanyahu spent many of his early years and where he served as Israel’s United Nations ambassador — clearly irked him. “When they defame Israel before the nations of the world, it seems normal to them,” he said. “I don’t regard it as normal. When I was leader of the opposition, I never did that.”
Benny Gantz, the leader of the opposition centrist Blue and White Party, wrote on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, that likening the protesters to Israel’s enemies is “grave and must be thoroughly condemned.”
Later on Monday, Netanyahu’s office sought to walk back the comment, saying in a statement that when he “used the word ‘joining,’” he was referring to Israelis who will “be demonstrating at the same time as supporters of the PLO and BDS, which has never happened before.”
The protest movement, called UnXeptable, has projected images onto major U.S. landmarks accusing Netanyahu of seeking to overhaul the courts as a means of quashing his ongoing trial for corruption charges.
In San Francisco, where Netanyahu is set to meet Monday with Musk, the protesters projected an image of Netanyahu onto Alcatraz. the shuttered and notorious island prison, depicting him behind bars in an orange jumpsuit alongside a message reading, “Welcome Bibi.” In New York, protesters projected text onto the U.N. headquarters, reading, “Don’t believe Crime Minister Netanyahu.”
Netanyahu’s meeting with Musk on Monday is the first major item on his agenda, and will include an hourlong live conversation between the two on X, which Musk owns. The meeting comes after weeks during which Musk has attacked the Anti-Defamation League online for tanking the platform’s ad revenue, an accusation the ADL denies. Musk has threatened to sue the ADL for billions of dollars.
Musk has also repeatedly attacked Soros, the progressive philanthropist and frequent target of antisemitic conspiracies. On Sunday, Musk replied to a post that called the migrant crisis in Italy a “Soros-led invasion” — an echo of a pervasive antisemitic theory falsely claiming that Jews are seeking to replace majority-white countries with migrants of color.
“The Soros organization appears to want nothing less than the destruction of western civilization,” Musk replied. Earlier this year, Jewish groups condemned Musk for casting Soros as an all-controlling evildoer.
At the airport, Netanyahu described Musk as a pioneer, praising the tech entrepreneur’s pursuits in the field of artificial intelligence. The two had a phone conversation on that topic earlier this year.
“I will start this visit in California where I intend to meet the current leader of the most dramatic development in the new age and perhaps in general, Elon Musk,” he said. “I will discuss artificial intelligence with him and I will also work toward encouraging him to invest in Israel in the coming years. He is, to a large degree, paving the way that will change the face of humanity and also the face of the State of Israel. Israel needs to be a leader in artificial intelligence.”
On Wednesday, Netanyahu will meet with Biden. Biden has declined to invite the Israeli prime minister in part because he is concerned that Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, which would dramatically reduce the independence of the courts, is a threat to Israeli democracy. Instead, Netanyahu and Biden will meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Netanyahu is scheduled to address the body on Friday morning.
Netanyahu has traditionally used his U.N. platform to condemn Iran and its nuclear plans. He pledged to do so again and listed the world leaders he would meet with, including Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He claimed that he was much in demand on the world stage.
“Unfortunately, I cannot meet with all the leaders who made requests but I hope to meet with most of them,” he said at the airport.
—
The post What to expect during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first US trip since his return to office appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
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.
RSS
‘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.
RSS
‘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.