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White House blasts Fox News host’s claim that ‘you had to be useful’ in death camps
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In an extraordinary swipe at a popular Fox News Channel host, a White House official condemned Greg Gutfeld’s claim that “you had to be useful” to survive Nazi death camps.
“What Fox News allowed to be said on their air yesterday –- and has so far failed to condemn –- is an obscenity,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday in an unsolicited email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The comment came as Gutfeld berated a Jewish cohost who was critiquing a Florida Department of Education curriculum that recommends teaching that slaves acquired useful skills. “Did you ever read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’?” Gutfeld said. “Vic Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills! You had to be useful! Utility! Utility kept you alive!”
The 1946 classic by Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, posits that inmates were likelier to survive if their lives held meaning. The search for meaning in everyday actions was for Frankl — who was not known to have gone by “Vic” — transcendent, not utilitarian.
“In defending a horrid, dangerous, extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of Americans who suffered from the evil of enslavement, a Fox News host told another horrid, dangerous and extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of people who suffered from the evils of the Holocaust,” Bates said.
The singling out of a Fox personality was rare for the Biden White House, signaling how fraught culture wars are figuring large in the political landscape less than a year and a half before the presidential election.
Gutfeld, who helms a popular nighttime program, was appearing on a daytime show he cohosts called “The Five,” which routinely includes at least one liberal to debate the issues of the day with another four conservatives. In this case the designated liberal was Jessica Tarlov, a Jewish essayist.
The panel was discussing Vice President Kamala Harris’s condemnation of a new Florida middle school curriculum covering the history of American slavery. In a section entitled “Analyze events that involved or affected Africans from the founding of the nation through Reconstruction,” the curriculum recommends, “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
“Just yesterday in the state of Florida they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” Harris said last week ahead of a trip to Florida. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.”
Harris, typical of many incumbent vice presidents, is taking on a role as political attack dog ahead of the 2024 election. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running for the Republican nomination, although he is currently distantly trailing former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis, who has come under fire for removing books from school libraries and curricula, called Harris’ claim a lie, which is what prompted “The Five” session, where the panelists discussed whether rHarris had fairly represented the curriculum. Tarlov said she thought Harris had a point.
“And frankly, I’m just fundamentally uncomfortable with this sentence that Blacks benefited at all from this,” Tarlov said. “And, you know, it made me think of someone — obviously, I’m not Black, but I’m Jewish — would someone say about the Holocaust, for instance, that there were some benefits for Jews right while they were hanging out in concentration camps. We learned a strong work ethic, right? Maybe you learned a new skill.”
Gutfeld’s response suggesting that Tarlov’s hypothetical was reasonable, not offensive, angered many.
“Let’s get something straight that the American people understand full well and that is not complicated: there was nothing good about slavery; there was nothing good about the Holocaust. Full stop,” Bates said in his email. “Americans deserve to be brought together, not torn apart with poison. And they deserve the truth and the freedom to learn, not book bans and lies.”
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The post White House blasts Fox News host’s claim that ‘you had to be useful’ in death camps appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove explores the connection between errant arrows on Lag ba-Omer and comments that hit the mark
Are these kids the worst archers you have ever seen? Based on where their hands are, it is not obvious how the arrows will fly (which is probably a good thing, since most of them are facing each other). This 1910 postcard printed by the Hebrew Publishing Company of New York depicts the holiday of […]
The post Treasure Trove explores the connection between errant arrows on Lag ba-Omer and comments that hit the mark appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Israel’s Gantz Demands Gaza Day-After Plan By June 8, Threatens to Quit Cabinet
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz speaks at Reichman University on Nov. 23, 2021. Photo: Ariel Hermoni / IMoD
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz demanded on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to an agreed vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after the war with Hamas.
Gantz told a press conference he wanted the war cabinet to form a six-point plan by June 8. If his expectations are not met, he said, he will withdraw his centrist party from the conservative premier’s broadened emergency coalition.
Gantz, a retired top Israeli general who opinion polls show is Netanyahu’s most formidable political rival, gave no date for the prospective walkout but his challenge could increase strains on an increasingly unwieldy wartime government.
Netanyahu appears outflanked in his own inner war cabinet, where he, Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant alone have votes. On Wednesday, Gallant demanded clarity on post-war plans and for Netanyahu to forswear any military reoccupation of Gaza.
If the prime minister were to do that, he would risk angering ultra-nationalist coalition parties that have called for Gaza to be annexed and settled. Losing them could topple Netanyahu, who before the war failed to enlist more centrist partners, given his trial on corruption charges he denies.
“Personal and political considerations have begun to penetrate the Holy of Holies of Israel‘s national security,” Gantz said. “A small minority has seized the bridge of the Israeli ship and is piloting it toward the rocky shoal.”
Gantz said his proposed six-point plan would include bringing a temporary U.S.-European-Arab-Palestinian system of civil administration for Gaza while Israel retains security control.
It would also institute equitable national service for all Israelis, including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are now exempted from the military draft and have two parties in Netanyahu’s coalition determined to preserve the waiver.
The post Israel’s Gantz Demands Gaza Day-After Plan By June 8, Threatens to Quit Cabinet first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Pushes Into New Parts of Northern Gaza, Recovers Another Slain Hostage
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia refugee camp northern Gaza Strip, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
Israeli troops and tanks pushed on Saturday into parts of a congested northern Gaza Strip district that they had previously skirted in the more than seven-month-old war.
Israel’s forces also took over some ground in Rafah, a southern city next to the Egyptian border that is packed with displaced people and where the launch this month of a long-threatened incursion to crush hold-outs of Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas has alarmed Cairo and Washington.
In what Israeli media said was the result of intelligence gleaned during the latest incursions, the military announced the recovery of the body of a man who was among more than 250 hostages seized by Hamas in a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 that triggered the war.
Ron Binyamin’s remains were located along with those of three other slain hostages whose repatriation was announced on Friday, the military said without providing further details.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
Israel has conducted renewed military sweeps this month of parts of northern Gaza where it had declared the end of major operations in January. At the time, it also predicted its forces would return to prevent a regrouping by the Palestinian Islamist group that rules Gaza.
One site has been Jabalia, the largest of Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps. On Saturday, troops and tanks edged into streets so far spared the ground offensive, residents said.
“Today is the most difficult in terms of the occupation bombardment, air strikes and tank shelling have going on almost non-stop,” said one resident in Jabalia, Ibrahim Khaled, via a chat app.
“We know of dozens of people, martyrs (killed) and wounded, but no ambulance vehicle can get into the area,” he told Reuters.
The Israeli military said its forces have continued to operate in areas across the Gaza Strip including Jabalia and Rafah, carrying out what it called “precise operations against terrorists and infrastructure.”
“The IAF (air force) continues to operate in the Gaza Strip, and struck over 70 terror targets during the past day, including weapons storage facilities, military infrastructure sites, terrorists who posed a threat to IDF troops, and military compounds,” the military said in a statement.
RISING DEATH TOLL
Armed wings of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and Fatah said fighters attacked Israeli forces in Jabalia and Rafah with anti-tank rockets, mortar bombs, and explosive devices already planted in some of the roads, killing and wounding many soldiers.
Israel’s military said 281 soldiers have been killed in fighting since the first ground incursions in Gaza on Oct 20.
In the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 1,200 people were killed. About 125 people are still being held in Gaza.
In Rafah, where Israeli tanks thrust into some of the eastern suburbs and clashed with Palestinian fighters there, residents said Israeli bombing from the air and ground persisted all night.
Israel says it must capture Rafah to destroy Hamas and ensure the country’s security.
The post Israel Pushes Into New Parts of Northern Gaza, Recovers Another Slain Hostage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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