From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Liberal Jews plan a summer of opposing Donald Trump
Donald Trump speaks at a rally in San Diego on May 27, 2016 in San Diego, May 27, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Boycott Trump? Mock Trump? Trump, the musical?
Jewish liberals are ready to sow a summer of Donald Trump discontent in ways that aim both to bludgeon and entertain.
Bend the Arc, an advocacy group, is convening its first national conference here next week aimed in part at finding a strategy to keep the billionaire real estate magnate, who has secured the Republican nomination, from becoming president.
“We have been actively working and campaigning to make sure that Trump is defeated since early fall,” said Stosh Cotler, the CEO of the group, which was formed from the 2011 merger of the New York-based Jewish Funds for Justice and the West Coast-based Progressive Jewish Alliance. “That work will be continued at the conference.
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From Russia Today
‘Specter of break-up haunting Europe’: EU chief Tusk blasts ‘illusions’ of bloc’s unity
Published time: 31 May, 2016 00:00
European Council President Donald Tusk. © Yves Herman / Reuters
European Council President Donald Tusk has sounded the alarm, warning that Eurosceptic movements are gaining momentum in the EU because the dream of a federation-like union being pushed by EU leaders is out of touch with the views of ordinary Europeans.
“The specter of a break-up is haunting Europe. A vision of a federation doesn’t seem to me like the best answer to it,” Tusk said at a meeting of the European People’s Party, the biggest bloc in the European Parliament, Reuter reported.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish groups welcome Facebook, Twitter pledge to crack down on hate speech
Mark Zuckerberg speaking at the Samsung Electronics Co. Unpacked launch event ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 21, 2016. (Pau Barrena/Bloomberg)
(JTA) – Jewish groups welcomed a pledge by four internet giants to crack down on online hate speech, though some questioned the firms’ commitment to act.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft on Tuesday signed a code of conduct with the European Commission that requires them to delete the majority of reported illegal hate speech within 24 hours, The Telegraph reported.
The European Jewish Congress offered an “enthusiastic welcome” to the code of conduct in a statement Tuesday, but the World Jewish Congress reacted more coolly in a statement the same day, voicing “skepticism about the commitment of these firms to effectively police their respective platforms.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Israel’s ex-defense minister pledges to return to challenge Netanyahu
Outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon speaking at a press conference in which he announced his resignation from the Knesset, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, May 20, 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
(JTA) — Recently resigned Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon sent an email to former campaign donors suggesting that he would soon mount an electoral challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I regard this period as a ‘time-out’ after which I intend to return and run for Israel’s national leadership,” he wrote in English in the email, reported the Jerusalem Post.
Yaalon resigned from his post on May 20 when it came to light that Netanyahu was in negotiations with Avigdor Lieberman to bring his nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party into the ruling coalition, giving Netanyahu a more stable majority.
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From Russia Today
Israel boycott: 33% of Americans, 40% of Brits in favor, Israeli UN ambassador cries foul
Published time: 31 May, 2016 17:38
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
A third of Americans and 40 percent of those in the UK support boycotting Israel according to a recent poll. The survey has rattled the Israeli ambassador to the UN, who says those favoring the boycott were helping to spread “an ideology of hate.”
The research was conducted by the market research firm Ipsos, which conducted the surveys in the US and the UK. The company was looking to identify attitudes in the two countries towards the movement of boycotting, divestment and sanctions (BDS), which is being implemented against Israel by certain sections of society who are angry at Israel’s unwillingness to discuss a two-state solution with Palestine.
“For decades, Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, racial discrimination, and military occupation,” a statement on the BDS’ website read.
The poll, which sampled 1,100 people and was commissioned by the World Jewish Congress, showed that there was greater support towards Israel in the US, with those in the UK more likely to support sanctions against the country.
The survey showed that 33 percent of those in the US and 40 percent of Britons say that the BDS campaign against Israel is justified, but the number of people ready to actually support the campaign is lower in both countries – around a quarter in America and 33 percent in Britain.
“BDS is continuing to spread and seeks to utilize international institutions to implement its ideology of hate,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN ahead of a conference titled ‘Building Bridges, Not Boycotts’ which he hosted on Tuesday.
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From Russia Today
Russia sanctions: Still not clear what EU will decide, German FM says
Published time: 31 May, 2016 14:34
© Francois Lenoir / Reuters
A number of EU states are reluctant to extend anti-Russian sanctions, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said, adding that the big question is whether the 28-nation bloc would decide to renew them after they expire in July.
“The sanctions are there to ensure a political solution,” Steinmeier told reporters on Tuesday. “I don’t know what the European Council will decide on Russia sanctions,” he noted, adding that the release of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko from jail last week would hopefully “bring a new dynamic into the talks between Russia and Ukraine.”
Brussels must not relax sanctions on Russia until the so-called Minsk peace agreement is fully implemented, Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski told Reuters on Tuesday, noting that this would allegedly weaken the bloc’s position in its relations with Moscow.
“The sanctions on Russia were imposed not because of Nadezhda Savchenko’s capture, but because of a much wider problem, linked to Russia’s aggression on Ukraine,” he added.
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From The Times of Israel
UK Labour readmits activist suspended for blaming slave trade on Jews
Jackie Walker, reinstated after internal investigation, wrote that ‘chief financiers’ of human market were Jewish
May 29, 2016, 9:18 pm
A Labour activist who was suspended from the British party for claiming that Jews were “chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade” has been readmitted to its ranks.
Jackie Walker, vice-chair of Momentum, a hard-left group loyal to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was suspended earlier this month after her comments were brought to the party’s attention by The Jewish Chronicle. She was allowed back into the party this week following an investigation, a Labour spokesperson said.
In a post to her Facebook page in February comparing the African slave trade to the Holocaust, Walker wrote: “As I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews,” the Jewish Chronicle reported earlier this month.
“Many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean,” she continued. “So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice.”
The reinstatement came as Labour Party MPs expressed “shock” over the failure of the party to respond to an invitation by Israel’s Labor Party to visit the country, even as Corbyn fends off accusations of anti-Semitism in his party’s senior ranks.
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From PressTV
Syrian army cuts terrorists’ supply line in Damascus suburb
The Syrian army has cut a supply route used by terrorists in the Eastern Ghouta region of Damascus, wresting control of a nearby area in their push against foreign-backed militants.
The main Eastern Ghouta road was disconnected by the Syrian forces, who also managed to retake Wadi al-Dahab neighborhood in Homs Province, the Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV channel reported on Tuesday.
The Syrian troops further cut the al-Kastillio line, the only supply path used by militants in the eastern parts of the northern Aleppo Province.
The developments mark the latest in a string of victories over Takfiri elements wreaking havoc in Syria.
The Syrian military has vowed to press ahead with its counter-terror operations and drive terrorists out of their major strongholds.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main supporters of the militants fighting the government forces.
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From The Daily Mail
Louisiana rep causes outrage by implying Declaration of Independence is racist: Politician says students shouldn’t recite it as it was conceived in time of slavery
- Bill proposed students between 4th and 6th grade recite passage every day
- Barbara Norton argued against it, pointing out the inequalities that persisted despite document’s famous line that ‘all men are created equal’
- Literacy laws in Jim Crow era also disenfranchised black people, asking them to read or recite from the Declaration of Independence before voting
- Valarie Hodges shelved the bill and called amendments suggesting students recite other historial texts ‘poison pills’
- She said memorizing the passage was as important as Math, English, or conjugating verbs
A Louisiana lawmaker argued against a bill requiring public school students to recite excerpts from the Declaration of Independence because ‘only Caucasians were free’ at the time it was penned.
While the Declaration of Independence states ‘all men are created equal’, it took nearly a century later before the 15th amendment allowed men regardless of ‘race, color, or previous condition of servitude’ to vote.
Barbara Norton said it was ‘unfair’ to require children to recite the founding document, given it was written when slavery was still widespread.
Republican representative Valarie Hodges shelved the bill, which required public school students in grades four, five and six to recite a passage every day.
Barbara Norton (left) argued against a bill sponsored by Valarie Hodges (right) that would require students between the fourth and sixth grades to recite passage from the Declaration of Independence every day
During a debate in the Louisiana House of Representatives, Norton said: ‘For the Declaration of Independence only Caucasians were free.
From The Independent
UK has ‘remorseless obsession’ with Nazis, says ex-British Museum director
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Roman Polanski to face new Polish push for extradition on rape charges
French-Polish film director Roman Polanski attending a press conference at the Bonarowski Palace Hotel in Krakow, Poland, Oct. 30, 2015. (Adam Nurkiewicz/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Poland said it will initiate efforts to extradite Roman Polanski to the United States, in an attempt to reverse a October 30 court ruling that doing so would be “obviously unlawful.”
Polanski, who is Jewish, fled the country almost four decades ago after being convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl.
Justice Minister and chief prosecutor Zbigniew Ziobro said the October ruling in a Krakow court blocking Polanski’s extradition violated Poland’s extradition agreements with the U.S., and that he will appeal it to the Supreme Court, NBC reported Tuesday, citing European media.
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