#SorryNotSorry #UCLA student gov’t sends apology to Hillel over anti-Israel resolution being “inadvertently hidden from the Jewish community and the public at large”

JEWISH JOURNAL
UCLA Student Gov’t Passes Resolution Accusing Israel of “Ethnic Cleansing”
by Aaron Bandler
March 5, 2021

The UCLA student government passed a resolution on March 3 alleging that the Israeli government is committing “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians. The Journal obtained a copy of the resolution, titled “A Resolution Calling for the UC to Divest from War.” The resolution called for the University of California system to divest from “the war industry” and for “the university to sever itself from companies that engage or aid in the oppression of any people.” But what Jewish groups and students have taken issue with is that the resolution states that divestment is a legitimate tool to fight against injustice, citing “South African apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing in Palestine by the Israeli government.” READ MORE

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Contrary to what the mullahs broadcast, there’s a “strong pattern of pro-Israel sentiment in Iran”

SPECTATOR UK
Iran doesn’t hate Israel
by Jake Wallis Simons
February 27, 2021

…Shortly after the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh near Tehran last year, two banners appeared on a prominent bridge nearby. The first was a handmade sign saying, ‘thank you Mossad’. The second was an Israeli flag. This was more than a stunt by a small number of near-suicidal activists. It represented a strong pattern of pro-Israel sentiment in the country. If you search Farsi social media in the aftermath of any Israeli attack on Iranian forces in Syria, you’ll find an outpouring of jubilation. If you visit key sites in Iran, where Israeli flags have been painted on the floor to be trampled, you will see passers-by carefully avoiding them…READ

TABLET MAG The Magic of Tahdig Jews and Muslims love the Iranian rice dish in equal measure. Could the food be a kickoff to long-lasting peace?…“It’s fried food and fried food is celebration food,” said chef and cookbook author Louisa Shafia, whose mother is an Ashkenazi Jew who grew up in Philadelphia and whose father is an Iranian Muslim. “People just get happy when they have crunchy carbs because they hit our systems like sugar and give us a burst of energy”

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Ex-antisemite Tufts dental student Adam Elayan: “I am truly sorry for the pain my words have caused. I have wanted to publicly apologize for, and disavow, my past posts for years now”

JNS
Turning my back on my ugly, anti-Semitic teenage tweets
by Adam Elayan
March 8, 2021

When I was a teenager six to nine years ago, I tweeted horrible anti-Semitic statements. I made generalizations about Jewish people; I promoted stereotypes about Jews; and I blamed Jewish people for bad things in my life. Since 2017, various groups have been circulating my old tweets, which long ago ceased representing my true thoughts and feelings…My views changed as I matured and learned more about the world, including the complex issues in the Middle East. With education and self-reflection, I learned that I was unjustly blaming and demonizing an entire group of people. Throughout college, my experiences helped me realize how misguided my anger at the Jewish community was. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Miami Heat place Meyers Leonard on leave after anti-Jewish slur video The Miami Heat placed center Meyers Leonard on indefinite leave Tuesday, hours after a video surfaced of the reserve center using an anti-Jewish slur during a video game livestream. Leonard called an opposing player “k—,” in between other vulgarities, while playing “Call of Duty: Warzone” on Monday.

TIMES OF ISRAEL NBA’s Leonard get Shabbat invite from Julian Edelman after apologizing for slur Jewish NFL star reaches out to player under fire for using word ‘kike’ during a video game livestream

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#BLM The goal of “dismantling the Zionist project” can mean only one thing, no matter how much they deny being antisemites

ISRAEL TODAY
Black Lives Matter Wants to Destroy Israel, Says Top Activist
by Ryan Jones
March 3, 2021

Anyone still living under the illusion that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the US is not wholly hostile toward Israel, and by extension the Jewish people, need only listen to the latest rant of Marc Lamont Hill…But as with many other sectors of American society, with the waning of Biblical Christian faith, support for Israel has turned to antagonism and an alignment with the Palestinian nationalist cause and its dangerous end goals. “Black Lives Matter is very explicitly talking about the dismantling of the Zionist project…and very explicitly embracing BDS (the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement) on those grounds,” said Hill in a brief video clip posted to social media. READ MORE

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“A proposed curriculum magnifies differences, encourages tribal loyalties and advances ideological group think”

NEW YORK TIMES
California’s Ethnic Studies Follies
by Bret Stephens
March 9, 2021

The first time California’s Department of Education published a draft of an ethnic studies “model curriculum” for high school students, in 2019, it managed the neat trick of omitting anti-Semitism while committing it. More than a million Jews live in California. They are also among the state’s leading victims of hate crimes. Yet in a lengthy draft otherwise rich with references to various forms of bigotry, there was no mention of bigotry toward Jews. There was, however, an endorsement of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, which essentially calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. There was also an approving mention of a Palestinian singer rapping that Israelis “use the press so they can manufacture” — the old refrain that lying Jews control the media. READ MORE

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“After delays, ministers approve return of much of Israel’s economy under restrictions; studies to resume for grades 7-10 and in universities, colleges”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Cabinet gives final okay to reopening of restaurants, event venues and more
by TOI Staff
March 6, 2021

The cabinet on Saturday night gave a final stamp of approval to the reopening of much of the economy, including restaurants, cafes, school grades 7-10 in low-to-medium infection areas, event venues, attractions and hotels. It also approved new regulations at Ben Gurion Airport that sideline a highly controversial committee that has been deciding who can enter the country while the airport remains largely shuttered. There will no longer be an approval process for returning Israelis. In the coming days, 1,000 people a day will be able to enter the country from four locations — New York, Frankfurt, London and Paris — with the number expected to go up to 3,000 later this week. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Pfizer CEO’s Israel visit canceled because he is not fully vaccinated Pfizer CEO Bourla said in December that he has not yet received the vaccine yet because he does not want to “cut in line.”

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Harris and Netanyahu discuss ICC probe and Israel’s COVID vaccination program

REUTERS
U.S. opposed to ICC probe of Israel, Harris tells Netanyahu
By Jarrett Renshaw, Eric Beech
March 4, 2021

Vice President Kamala Harris, in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, reaffirmed U.S. opposition to an International Criminal Court probe of possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories, the White House said. The call, the first between the two since Harris and President Joe Biden took office in January, came a day after the ICC prosecutor said she would launch the probe, prompting swift rejections by Washington and Jerusalem…Harris and Netanyahu noted their governments’ “opposition to the International Criminal Court’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel,” the White House said. READ MORE

JEWISH INSIDER Biden admin ‘enthusiastically embraces’ full IHRA definition of antisemitism Secretary of State Tony Blinken wrote that the Biden administration “enthusiastically embraces” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, including its full list of examples. In a letter to American Zionist Movement President Richard Heideman obtained by Jewish Insider, Blinken said the administration is “eager to work with allies and partners to counter Holocaust distortion and combat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance abroad while we strengthen our efforts at home.”

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“In keeping with the expectations of Democrat voters, Biden and his team are making efforts in domestic and foreign policy to erase the entirety of Trump’s record in office”

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Biden abandons Middle East peace
by Caroline B. Glick
March 5, 2021

The Trump administration was on the verge of securing a peace agreement between Israel and Indonesia in its final weeks in office, according to a former senior Trump administration official involved in the efforts. The official divulged that the negotiations between Israel and the world’s most populous Muslim state were run by then-President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and Adam Boehler, then-head of the US’s International Development Finance Corporation…”We got the ball on Indonesia and Israel to the first-yard line,” the official explained. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has dropped the ball on the ground and walked off the field. READ MORE

GATESTONE Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs Warn Biden: We Do Not Want Another Obama Prominent Arab political analysts and commentators are dumbfounded that the Biden administration has chosen to appease Iran and Islamists instead of working with Washington’s traditional and long-time allies in the Arab world. In a series of articles published after the release of the US intelligence report on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, many Arab analysts and columnists have warned that the Biden administration was harming US interests in the Middle East.

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“According to Fortune, other OPEC ministers largely went along with the Saudi gamble on price increases”

BREITBART
Saudi Energy Minister Declares End of American Energy Revolution: ‘Drill, Baby, Drill Is Gone Forever’
by John Hayward
March 5, 2021

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, crowed at Thursday’s OPEC meeting that the American energy revolution is over, OPEC would soon regain control over oil markets, and “Drill, baby, drill is gone forever.”…Falling oil prices, driven by surging American supply, not only propelled the robust American economy that would be ravaged by the Wuhan coronavirus in 2020; they were a powerful driver of geopolitical change. Among other things, cheaper oil weakened the malevolent regime in Iran and helped propel reform in Saudi Arabia, where plans to shift the economy away from oil and renovate the Kingdom’s politics to attract more foreign investment suddenly took on new urgency. READ MORE

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Nikki Haley asks “If China, Russia, and Cuba started an organization that celebrated their tyranny in the name of human rights, would the United States want to join?”

ARUTZ SHEVA
Nikki Haley lambasts Biden for rejoining UNHRC, renewing funding to UNRWA
by Elad Benari
March 5, 2021

Former US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, on Friday blasted US President Joe Biden for rejoining the UN Human Rights Council and restoring funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees”. The US, which was previously UNRWA’s largest contributor, cut a full $300 million in funding to the agency in 2018, when Donald Trump was President and Haley was UN Ambassador. Trump also withdrew from the UNHRC in 2018, citing its longstanding anti-Israel bias. However, the Biden Administration returned to the organization last month, even though it acknowledged its “disproportionate focus” on Israel. READ MORE

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