“The violence at Israel’s formation was the “War of Extermination” declared by the Secretary-General of the Arab League, promising to do to the Jews in the Holy Land what Hitler had done in Europe. And the ethnic cleansing was of Jews from Arab states, over 850,000 driven from their homes, the majority of whom found refuge in Israel. By contrast, the Arab population of Israel has grown more than tenfold since 1948. It is beyond vile to falsely accuse the victims of ethnic cleansing of being its perpetrators. But it is not unprecedented: in Nazi Germany, Julius Streicher described Jews as bacteria feeding upon others. It should not need to be said, but rhetoric from Nazi Germany does not belong in Congress.” — Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values in a statement. He responded to an antisemitic tweet by Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who, reacting to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s friendly visit to Israel this week, posted a vicious comment on social media against the Jewish state from her official government account. “Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day.” (WIN, May 3, 2023)
“The Talmud says that royalty of flesh and blood is a reminder of royalty of the heavens, meaning that when you see human royalty, it reminds us of how great God is. And obviously the King of Kings is of a far superior nature. But when I saw, literally in front of me, the King and Queen with their crowns on, at that moment — it was something very, very special. There was an aura about it, it was palpable, it was just there, and you could sense it. And that was something I wasn’t prepared for: it just came, and was very powerful. So it was an enormous privilege for me to be there at that moment, to represent our community.” — UK Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, recalled his “Shabbat like no other” at the palace of King Charles III on the day of his coronation. (WIN, May 8, 2023)
“. . .Warsaw’s old town is the only one in the region ‘to be entirely rebuilt in the image of its former self. . .yet the re-creation also marginalized the memory of the district’s Jewish inhabitants. Leafy parks and massive housing estates built in the official communist style rose atop the rubbled plinth of Muranòw, the center of Jewish life until the Nazis transformed it into a ghetto. . .The Spanish novelist Carmen Laforet, visiting Muranòw in 1956, called it ‘the happiest place in all of Warsaw.” — Benjamin Balint. (WSJ, May 5, 2023)
“And the happy grandfather [Vladimir Putin] thinks that he is good. If he turns out to be right then may God grant everyone health. But what will the country do, our children, grandchildren who are the future of Russia, and how can we win this war if – by chance, and I’m just speculating here – it turns out that this grandfather is a complete ****head?.” — Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin making a cryptic but profanity-laced comment about those in charge of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The remark risks getting him into more trouble with the Kremlin. (Jerusalem Post, May 9, 2023)
“. . .Solzhenitsyn[‘s Gulag Archipelago [published fifty years ago] cautions ‘Alas, all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth [and] that those who commit the greatest harm think of themselves as good. [I]deology, this is what gives the evil-doer the necessary steadfastness and determination. . .the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good. . .in his own and others’ eyes. [T]he line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, either, but right through every human heart. . . [This expresses] the truth of all religions of the world. They struggle with the evil inside a human being, (inside every human being).” — Gary Saul Morson. (WSJ, May 5, 2023)
”Chinese communists today are not only better at economics than Mao and the Soviet chowderheads. They are also smarter politically. The old communists wanted to conquer the world by alliance with the underdogs and the poor. [Today] they align with the rich. . . [Then] they would murder or exile their opponents, confiscate their wealth, and throw their supporters in the gulag. . . Today’s communism wears a very different face. No social revolutions, no fanatical armies of revenge-minded peasant guerillas. . .The old communists sought to mobilize what they categorized as oppressed classes against existing elites. Today’s adversaries want to mobilize existing elites against a global status quo [dominated, they argue, by the U.S. and the Group of Seven]. . . What elites and ordinary people in the Global South want is something that makes many greens and progressives in the G-7 countries unhappy. They want economic growth, and they want it now. … ” — Walter Russell Mead. (WSJ, May 8, 2023)
“Bureaucratic agencies never return unused funds. They always spend them regardless of the merits. If these unobligated funds, which agencies haven’t found worthwhile uses for in more than two years, stay with the agencies, they will be obligated and spent. The funds should be returned to the Treasury. That would reduce the deficit and restore decision-making authority to Congress. If future projects are truly valuable, lawmakers should fund them.” (Congress appropriated $4.6 trillion for pandemic response and recovery in six Covid-19 relief laws. More than two years later, $444 billion remains unspent (more than $114 billion hasn’t even been “obligated” or committed to pay for goods and services ordered or received) — Joel Zinberg. (WSJ, May 7, 2023)
“I will clear the statement with the Publication Review Board at CIA tomorrow.” — Ex-CIA chief Michael Morell, assuring ex-CIA intelligence officials to whom he had sent the phony letter (which he had written) claiming that the New York Post’s bombshell article describing Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop was Russian disinformation. If they signed, he promised, he would—as required by law—obtain clearance from the CIA Publication Review Board “the next day”. Fifty-one intelligence officers signed the letter, specifically described as central to President Biden’s upcoming October debate with President Trump—”we want to give [him] a talking point to use in response”– without ever seeing the document, and the CIA Board’s approval was never obtained. Biden used the letter to describe”as garbage” Trump’s claim, that the Hunter laptop was authentic and proved the Biden family’s corruption, and the mainstream print and social media ignored it entirely. Analysts indicate that had the laptop’s content been confirmed and made known widely, ca.15-17% of the 2020 Democratic vote for Biden would have been lost, and Trump would have won the election. (NY Post, May 7, 2023)
SHORT TAKES
RED ALERTS SOUND IN TEL AVIV, ROCKETS BOMBARD SOUTH (Tel Aviv) — Red alert sirens sounded in areas close to the Gaza border and across Ashkelon early on Wednesday afternoon, as a barrage of rockets was fired into Israel for the first time since the IDF struck Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza early on Tuesday morning. The Sderot Municipality confirmed that nine rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip, and that all of them had been successfully intercepted by the Iron Dome. The Ashkelon Municipality confirmed that they were investigating the rocket launches and that, at this stage, there were no reported casualties or damages. (Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2023)
ISRAEL BUILDS DEFENSIVE WALLS ALONG GAZA TO PROTECT FROM HAMAS ANTI-TANK MISSILES (Jerusalem) — The Defense Ministry announced that it is making significant progress in an operation to install defensive walls at key junctions in the Gaza corridor to protect against Hamas anti-tank missiles. The walls are designed to protect open areas through which Gaza corridor residents travel through even in an emergency situation. The walls started going up in recent weeks as part of a pilot program and are expected to spread to a larger number of Gaza corridor areas. (Jerusalem Post, May 9, 2023)
ISRAEL OFFICIALLY MUM AFTER EUROPEAN UNION CANCELS EVENT TO AVOID BEN GVIR SPEECH (Jerusalem) — The Israeli government has so far remained silent over the European decision to cancel a scheduled Europe Day reception in Tel Aviv to prevent far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from speaking there. (Times of Israel, May 9, 2023)
US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL TO LEAVE POST OVER SUMMER, CITING ‘PERSONAL REASONS’ (Jerusalem) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides is set to depart his position this summer after two years in the post. The ambassador had informed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that he wanted to step down during a trip to Washington last week. He cited personal reasons, having been away from his family since December 2021. (WIN, May 9, 2023)
EL AL CANCELS SUMMER FLIGHTS TO AVOID SHABBAT DESECRATION (Jerusalem) — Israeli airline El Al is making a move to strengthen its Shabbat observance policy by cancelling during the summer months of its longstanding Saturday-night flight from London to Tel Aviv. While the airline takes care not to operate flights on the Jewish Sabbath, the check-in procedure during the summer months for the post-Shabbat flight from London to Tel Aviv has until now started before the conclusion of Shabbat, so that the flight can depart on time. (United With Israel, May 8, 2023)
KING CHARLES III CROWNED WITH JERUSALEM OIL IN PRESENCE OF UK CHIEF RABBI (London) — King Charles III was crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey, receiving the bejeweled St. Edward’s Crown in a ceremony built on ancient traditions at a time when the monarchy is striving to remain relevant in a fractured modern Britain. In an ancient display of kingly power, Charles was anointed with oil from the Mount of Olives in the Holy Land and presented with an orb, swords and scepters, before Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby placed the solid gold crown bedecked with more than 400 precious stones on the monarch’s head. As trumpets sounded, gun salutes were fired across the UK. (WIN, May 6, 2023)
‘I WILL KILL ALL YOU JEWS’: LONDON ANTISEMITIC HATE CRIME WAVE CONTINUES (London) — A wave of antisemitic hate crimes has hit Jewish Londoners in the last month, according to a slew of reports by neighborhood watch group Shomrim Stamford Hill. Since April, the group has reported on a stranger’s approaching a Jewish woman and shouting “One day I will kill all you Jews,” the defacement of a Jewish family’s door and theft of their mezuzah, and an incident in which a Jewish mother and her infant were verbally abused and spit on, leaving the mother “traumatized and seeking support.” 162 antisemitic hate crimes have occurred in London so far in 2023, according to data reported by MPS. Members of the city’s Orthodox Jewish community, one of the largest in Europe, were victims in a substantial portion of the 3,280 antisemitic hate crimes that MPS has recorded since 2018. 853 were tallied in 2021 alone. (Algemeiner, May 8, 2023)
‘THUGS’ THREATEN JEWISH CHILDREN IN LONDON, BLAST PRO-TERROR MUSIC (London) — Two men in a passing car blasted music with lyrics praising the Hezbollah terrorist organization at Jewish schoolchildren walking in London on Israeli Independence Day. The two “thugs,” as the paper calls them, uploaded a 16-second clip of their deed, which they found hilarious, to Tik Tok. It shows the driver laughing as he drinks from a cup while a song blares out with Arabic lyrics that said in part, “We are Hezbollah, be our witness you son of the most righteous of prophets.” (WIN, May 8, 2023)
TLAIB’S TWEET CALLING ISRAEL ‘APARTHEID STATE’ GETS TORN APART BY INSTANT FACT CHECK (Washington) –Twitter’s new fact-checking system hit back at Rep. Rashida Tlaib after the Michigan Democrat called Israel an “apartheid state.” “Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Tlaib said Monday on Twitter. “75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day.” Tlaib’s tweet, which was in response to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s post noting the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S., was the subject of an instant fact check by Twitter, with notes pointing out several errors. The fact check first points out that Israel was created by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, linking to the document on the U.N.’s official website. (Fox News, May 3, 2023)
IRANIAN PRESIDENT MEETS PALESTINIAN OFFICIALS IN SYRIA (Tehran)– The presidents of Iran and Syria signed a series of long-term cooperation agreements on oil and other sectors to bolster economic ties between two allies the United States has long tried to isolate. Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi, leading a large economic and political delegation, met with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, after landing in the war-torn country for a two-day visit — the first visit by an Iranian president to Damascus since 2010. Tehran has been a main backer of Mr. Assad’s government since a 2011 uprising turned into full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide of the conflict in his favor. (Washington Times, May 4, 2023)
IRAN HANGS 2 IN RARE BLASPHEMY CASE AS EXECUTIONS SURGE (Tehran) — Iran hanged two men Monday convicted of blasphemy, authorities said, carrying out rare death sentences for the crime as executions surge across the Islamic Republic following months of unrest. Iran remains one of the world’s top executioners, having put to death at least 203 prisoners since the start of this year alone, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. But carrying out executions for blasphemy remains rare, as previous cases saw the sentences reduced by authorities. (AP, May 8, 2023)
SYRIA READMITTED TO ARAB LEAGUE, BRINGING ASSAD BACK INTO THE FOLD (Damascus) — Arab leaders have agreed to bring Syria, ostracized since its civil war began in 2011, back into the Arab League, a decision signalling the waning of American influence in the Middle East. (WSJ, May 7, 2023)
CHRISTIE’S UNDER FIRE FOR SELLING JEWELS THAT BELONGED TO BILLIONAIRE WIDOW OF NAZI (NYC) –A sapphire and diamond necklace that has an estimated sale price of some $1.5 million was acquired at the elite Van Cleef & Arpels. Worn to the Met Gala, the shimmering piece would have surely turn heads. But Nazi origins creating the fortune that made the original purchase of this shimmering necklace possible may repel to some. This is one of 700 jewels being put up for auction by Christie’s beginning online May 3 and in person May 10. Expected to gross $150 million— aided by items such as a jadeite and diamond necklace with a high-water price of $16.5 million — this auction promises to be one of the biggest jewelry sales in history. (NY Post, May 2, 2023)
BELGIUM DETAINS 7 ON SUSPICION OF PLANNING TERROR ATTACK (Brussels) — Authorities have detained seven people, most of them Chechen origin, on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Belgium. Three of the suspects are Belgian nationals, according to federal prosecutors. The office’s statement said all seven allegedly belonged to a group of “strong supporters” of the Islamic State extremist group. (WIN, May 4, 2023)
FOR FURTHER REFERENCE
Antisemitic Messages? A Guide to High-Quality Annotation and a Labeled Dataset of Tweets: Gunther Jikeli, Sameer Karali, et al, Indiana University Bloomington, USA, 1, Technical University Berlin, Germany — One of the major challenges in automatic hate speech detection is the lack of datasets that cover a wide range of biased and unbiased messages and that are consistently labeled. We propose a labeling procedure that addresses some of the common weaknesses of labeled datasets.