MEDIA-OCRITY OF THE WEEK
The Right’s Disney Freakout: Michelle Goldberg, NY Times, Apr. 1, 2022
“[Laroya Raveneau, an] executive producer at Disney. . .was a speaker at a recent virtual all-hands company meeting about Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill [not its official title—nowhere in this bill does it say “don’t say gay”! –Editor] … Ravenau stepped up to defend the company’s queer friendliness, only to become a national object of right-wing fury and disgust. On a video call, Raveneau spoke about her initial apprehension about taking a job at Disney, fearing she wouldn’t be allowed to include gay characters in the projects she worked on. Instead, she said, everyone she’s worked with has welcomed her ‘not at all secret gay agenda,’ letting her add ‘queerness’ to the animated show she directs, a revival of an early-aughts series called ‘The Proud Family’ “
The article notes that “conservative activist” Christopher Rufo “hissed” that Raveneau and other Disney officials were “sexualizing children”. Rufo, in fact, supported Florida legislation (the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law) prohibiting the teaching of sexuality and “gender” issues to kindergarten to grade three children in Florida schools. He pointed out the law has broad support from parents across the political spectrum, and that Disney (heavily invested in China), utters not a peep about Chinese human rights violations and persecution of the Uyghurs) has forbidden staff to use the terms “Ladies and Gentlemen” and “Boys and Girls” in its theme park publicity and announcements. (U.S. Senator John Kennedy (R.- Louisiana) has characterized Disney’s “woke” CEO Bob Chapek, as a miracle, “a human being able to walk upright without a spine”—Editor.)
“To some witnesses and survivors of the most recent shootings in B’nei Brak, a city in central Israel, the attack by a West Ban Palestinian that killed five people there on Tuesday calcified the perception that Israel has no partner for peace among the Palestinians and that the creation of a Palestinian state would only make life more dangerous for Israelis… ‘We need harsh punishments for the families of the terrorists’, said Moshe Waldman, an accountant in B’nei Brak who witnessed part of the attack. ‘Destroy their homes. Let’s have real acts of deterrence. The world always tells us “you need to sit and negotiate. … But that’s not the reality here. We are getting killed because they hate us.’”— columnist Patrick Kingsley. (NY Times, Apr. 1, 2022)
“We know that this is not a withdrawal but the consequences of being driven out. But we also are seeing that Russia is now concentrating its forces for new strikes on Donbas, and we are preparing for this”—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 30, 2022)
“[It] is very difficult to talk when you see what they’ve done here. [Our troops are] day by day [finding] bodies in cellars; people tortured, people killed. You can see around what was done to this modern town. That’s a characteristic of Russian soldiers: they treat people worse than animals. This is real genocide, what you have seen here today. These are war crimes and will be recognized by the world as genocide.” — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, visiting the massacre site at Bucha, a town outside Kyiv. (Daily Mail, Apr. 4, 2022)
“Russia is not our brother. We will win this war. Ukraine will win. What they have done here is unspeakable”–Sacha, a 61-year-old resident of Bucha, standing by a mass grave there. (The Telegraph, Apr. 5, 2022)
“[Will U.S./NATO] provide real accountability for alleged Russian atrocities, or will they be another symbolic gesture designed to give the illusion of action? … [Russian claims that] the Ukrainians orchestrated a fake massacre … are laughable … but [their] increasingly hostile rhetoric [about] most Ukrainians being passive Nazis [who] must be punished … suggests that the Bucha massacre might not be an aberration … Should Ukraine fall, the whole world will be complicit.” — columnist Adam Zivo. (National Post, Apr. 4, 2022)
“To my knowledge, Dr. Lott is the first scholar to examine the most recent U.S. presidential election at the voting precinct level and actually present statistical evidence supporting allegations of fraud in at least two key states (Georgia and Pennsylvania).” — Utah State University professor and Public Choice editor William F. Shughart II. He referred to an academic study on voter fraud by John R. Lott Jr. suggesting that the “push to relax voting standards created new opportunities for electoral mischief.” (Washington Times, Mar. 28, 2022)
BRITAIN, ALLIES TO SEND MORE LETHAL AID TO UKRAINE (London) — A 36-nation donor conference had agreed to provide Ukraine with long-range artillery, armored vehicles, counter-battery systems and anti-aircraft and coastal-defense weapons, but not the tanks and combat aircraft they requested. (US News, Mar. 31, 2022)
ISRAEL, UAE FINALISE ‘MILESTONE’ FREE TRADE DEAL (Jerusalem) — Israel and the United Arab Emirates have concluded negotiations for a free trade agreement. The UAE and Israel have between $600 million and $700 million in bilateral trade/ The UAE and Israel formally established relations in 2020 as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that also included Bahrain and Morocco. (Reuters, Apr. 1, 2022)
SINGAPORE ANNOUNCES ESTABLISHMENT OF EMBASSY IN TEL AVIV (Singapore) — Singapore will set up an embassy in Tel Aviv, more than half a century after establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. The announcement came at the start of a three-day visit by Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan to Israel. (The Diplomat, Mar. 23, 2022)
AZERBAIJAN OPENS OFFICIAL TOURISM OFFICE IN ISRAEL, SIGNS COOPERATION AGREEMENT (Baku) — Azerbaijan opened its first tourism office in Israel. The chairman of the State Tourism Agency of Azerbaijan Fuad Naghiyev and Israel’s Minister of Tourism Yoel Razvozov signed a cooperation agreement to work together to further the industry. (JNS, Apr. 1, 2022)
NYC PALESTINIANS DECLARE SUPPORT FOR TERROR AMID KILLING SPREE IN ISRAEL (NYC) — Amid the ongoing terror wave that killed nearly a dozen Israelis in the past week, a pro-BDS group in New York City held a rally in front of the offices of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) urging to “globalize the intifada.” During the event, Nerdeen Kiswani, who heads the group Within Our Lifetime (WOL), led the chant ”from New York to Palestine, globalize the intifada,” which was perceived as a call to conduct acts of terror against Israelis or Jews around the world. (United With Israel, Apr. 3, 2022)
YOUTUBE WHISTLEBLOWER: MY WARNINGS OVER TERROR VIDEOS WERE IGNORED (California) –. Former moderator Khaled Hassan, 31, who was employed to identify extremism in Arabic language videos until two months ago, accuses YouTube of routinely ignoring warnings from its own moderators to take down antisemitic videos, including some that inspired the Texas synagogue gunman. (JC, Mar. 31, 2022)
MCGILL TRIBUNE PUBLISHES ANTI-ISRAEL EDITORIAL DEFENDING “PALESTINE SOLIDARITY POLICY” RESOLUTION (Montreal) — In an editorial published on March 29 entitled “The Palestine Solidarity Policy must stand,” the Editorial Board of The McGill Tribune newspaper defended a recent anti-Israel referendum held by McGill University’s student union, the Students Society of McGill University (SSMU). Calling the March 21 vote a “historic win,” the editorial took issue with the subsequent backlash from McGill University’s administration, which condemned the vote and called for “remedial action” to be taken by the student union. (Honest Reporting Canada, Mar. 30, 2022)
CHICAGO SYNAGOGUE OFFICIALLY DESIGNATES ITSELF ‘ANTI-ZIONIST’ (Chicago) — Tzedek Chicago was founded, in part, to create a Jewish community free from a strong attachment to Israel. The 200-family-member congregation now becsme the first synagogue in the country to be affirmatively “anti-Zionist.” It added a statement decrying the creation of Israel as an “injustice against the Palestinian people – an injustice that continues to this day.” (Forward, Mar. 31, 2022)
GERMANY GETS APPROVAL FOR ISRAEL’S ARROW 3 MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM (Berlin) — The U.S. and Israel approved Germany’s request to purchase the Arrow-3 missile defense system. The head of the German Air Force Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said that the Arrow 3 is the most relevant system for the threats facing the European nation. (Jerusalem Post, Apr. 5, 2022)
REPORT: UN TO NAME INVESTIGATOR ON ISRAEL WHO COMPARES IT TO NAZI GERMANY (Geneva) — The U.N. Human Rights Council is appointing a new investigator on Palestinian human rights who exults in calling Israel an “apartheid” state and repeatedly compares the Palestinian situation to the Nazi Holocaust, according to a new report by UN Watch. Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer who worked in Jordan for UNRWA, is slated to be the next “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.” Her mandate is actually to investigate solely “Israel’s violations.” (UN Watch, Mar. 29, 2022)
RUSSIA’S AGGRESSION PROMPTS CALLS FOR THE U.S. TO WEAN ITSELF OFF URANIUM IMPORTS (Moscow) –The US is the world’s largest importer of uranium fuel for nuclear power-plants; Russia provides 16%, with 30% from Russia’s close ally, Kazakhstan (and a smaller amount from Uzbekistan). Furthermore, the Energy Department announced plans in 2020 to invest up to $3.2 billion in the development of a new generation of advanced reactors that rely on a more enriched variety of uranium that is only produced at commercial scale by Russia. (Environmental regulations and Biden Administration issues have marginalized US production of uranium in Wyoming, Texas, and New Mexico.) (NY Times, Apr. 1, 2022)
CHINA RESISTS EU’S CALL TO PRESS MOSCOW TO END UKRAINE WAR (Beijing)—Despite imprecations/warnings (e.g., after two-hour meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and a video call with President Xi Jinping), European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen—who warned of “major reputational damage” if China supported Russia economically or militarily—got nowhere, saying “we exchanged clearly opposing views”. (WSJ, Apr. 1, 2022)
WATCH: BBC Journalist Praises Terror Attack That Killed Two Israelis: United With Israel, Apr. 5, 2022 — While it’s not news that the BBC has promoted antisemitism and has an anti-Israel agenda, sometimes the coverage is beyond shocking.
Exposé: Arab Meretz Minister Served for 12 Years as Hamas Association’s Accountant: David Israel, Jewish Press, Mar. 31, 2022 — On Tuesday, Israeli media revealed that the Jordanian Waqf, which runs things on the Temple mount since the sacred place was liberated in June 1967, has been running a Hamas-affiliated association on the Temple Mount for the past 30 years, give or take.
