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Egypt News – Latest News & Facts About Egypt – The New …

Posted By on June 4, 2015

Jun. 3, 2015

Senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders Mahmoud Ghozlan and Abdul Rahman al-Barr are arrested in Cairo after evading police for almost two years. MORE

Editorial criticizes United States and other nuclear powers for squandering United Nations disarmament conference in May; regrets dispute between Egypt and Israel that seemed to derail negotiations over weapons-free zone in the Middle East; notes deteriorating relations between US and Russia have stalled efforts to further reduce arsenals in both countries, making it more difficult to argue for restraint in smaller nuclear powers. MORE

Egyptian court acquits 17 people who had been charged with illegally protesting after they witnessed police killing of poet Shaimaa el-Sabbagh during peaceful march in January. MORE

Editorial deplores fact that Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, may be executed, act that would further inflame Islamists already incensed by relentless crackdown of Egyptian authorities on Muslim Brotherhood; notes that trial in which Morsi and 100 co-defendants were sentenced to death was sham; urges American government to display more concern about crackdown. MORE

Egypt executes six men convicted at killing two military officers in skirmish at suspected bomb factory in Cairo in March 2014 and of belonging to ISIS affiliate Ansar Beit al-Maqdis; execution brings condemnation from Amnesty International. MORE

Deposed Egyptian Pres Mohamed Morsi of Muslim Brotherhood, country's first freely elected leader, is sentenced to death, along with 100 others, for his part in 2011 prison break during revolt against Pres Hosni Mubarak; conviction is most recent sign of undoing of uprising that ended with Mubarak's ousting; sentence must still be approved by nation's top Sunni Muslim authority. MORE

Evidence points to Egyptian Pres Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's voice on two embarrassing recordings; he and his inner circle of generals are heard laughing at their Persian Gulf patrons, and manipulating the courts, news media and neighboring countries. MORE

Egyptian Justice Min Mahfouz Saber resigns in face of public outcry after saying in TV interview that children of sanitation workers could not succeed as judges. MORE

Journalist Mohamed Fahmy, naturalized Canadian who gave up Egyptian citizenship and is now facing terrorism charges in Egypt, files suit in Canada claiming that he and others were endangered by skewed priorities of his employer Al Jazeera. MORE

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Obama and his American critics on Irans anti-Semitism …

Posted By on June 3, 2015

Something unusual has begun in the Washington-New York corridor. Journalists and policy analysts have begun a critical public discussion about President Obamas understanding (or misunderstanding) of the significance and nature of the anti-Semitism of the Iranian regime. They are asking how his view on that subject affects prospects for a nuclear deal to stop the ayatollahs from getting the bomb. Insights about the history and nature of anti-Semitism that we historians have elaborated over the years are finding their way into the pages of several of our major newspapers and at least one important policy-related international relations journal.

The President himself, apparently stung by criticism that his approach to Iran is facilitating rather than preventing its path to the bomb and that he bears primary responsibility for the tensions in American-Israeli relations, initiated this discussion when he recently gave an extensive interview to The Atlantic magazine journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. The interview was published on May 21. Then, on May 22, the President spoke at Adas Israel, a Conservative Washington, D.C. synagogue whose congregants include many of the citys politics and policy leaders. There, the President spoke of unbreakable bonds and a friendship that cannot be broken between the United States and Israel. He said he was interested in a deal that blocks every single one of Irans pathways to a nuclear weapon every single path. The President eloquently recalled the role American Jews played in the Civil Rights Movement and spoke of the values we share. A week later, foreign policy analyst Michael Doran, whose excellent commentary about Iran I have discussed previously in this blog, wrote a Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends in which he argued that the existence of shared values, though important, was not the key issue. It was, instead, the necessary criticism of Obamas policies towards Irans nuclear program.

In the interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, the President finally laid out in public for the first time his view of the role of anti-Semitism in the government in Tehran. As a historian who has written a great deal about anti-Semitism, I welcome this terribly belated public discussion of anti-Semitism in the American foreign policy world. A year ago almost to the day, on June 2, 2014, I published Taking Irans Anti-Semitism Seriously in the American Interest magazine. Adam Garfinkle, that journals fine editor, combines an insiders grasp of US foreign relations with an understanding of the nature of anti-Semitism, which he discussed in an essay in 2012. In my essay, I wrote:

The scholarship on the history of anti-Semitism hasnt yet had a significant impact on the policy discussions in Washington about Iran. Perhaps too many of our policymakers, politicians, and analysts still labor under the mistaken idea that radical anti-Semitism is merely another form of prejudice or, worse, an understandable (and hence excusable?) response to the conflict between Israel, the Arab states, and the Palestinians. In fact it is something far more dangerous, and far less compatible with a system of nuclear deterrence, which assumes that all parties place a premium on their own survival. Irans radical anti-Semitism is not in the slightest bit rational; it is a paranoid conspiracy theory that proposes to make sense (or rather nonsense) of the world by claiming that the powerful and evil Jew is the driving force in global politics. Leaders who attribute enormous evil and power to the 13 million Jews in the world and to a tiny Middle Eastern state with about eight million citizens have demonstrated that they dont have a suitable disposition for playing nuclear chess.

On April 6 I returned to these themes in this blog: The Iran Deal and Anti-Semitism. Here I expressed concern about Obamas reference to the practical streak in the Iranian government. So I was very pleased to see that Goldberg had decided to raise precisely this issue in his now much-discussedwithin some circlesinterview with the President. Goldberg thought it was difficult to negotiate with people who are captive to a conspiratorial anti-Semitic worldview not because they hold offensive views, but in his words because they hold ridiculous views. Obama responded as follows:

Well the fact that you a re anti-Semitic, or racist, doesnt preclude you from being interested in survival. It doesnt preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesnt preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is anti-Semitic doesnt mean that this overrides all of his other considerations.

In reply to Goldbergs oblique comment that anti-Semitic European leaders had made irrational decisions, Obama stated:

They may make irrational decisions with respect to discrimination, with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool. At the margins, where the costs are low, they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest. But the costs here are not low, and what weve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have. Thats what the sanctions represent. Thats what the military option Ive made clear I preserve represents. And so I think it is not at all contradictory to say that there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime, but that they also are interested in maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their own country, which requires that they get themselves out of what is a deep economic rut that weve put them in, and on that basis they are then willing and prepared potentially to strike an agreement on their nuclear program.

Because Goldberg spoke vaguely about European leaders, the President either did not have to or did not choose that moment to speak about his understanding of the role of anti-Semitism in the Nazi regime and during the Holocaust. That is unfortunate, because it seemsto this historian at leastthat his grasp of the subject leaves something to be desired. The consensus among the numerous scholars who have worked on the subject is that for the Nazis, anti-Semitism was not primarily a form of discrimination or an organizing tool. It was an ideology that justified mass murder and did so not for the ulterior purpose of organizing others but because they believed that exterminating the Jews in the world would save Germany from destruction and eliminate the primary source of evil in the world. The extermination was carried out for the sake of these beliefs. Nor was this ideology at the margins of Nazi policy; it was at its center. The Presidents comments to Goldberg raise questions about whether the President fully or accurately understands the link between ideology and policy during the Holocaust. As I wrote in The Jewish Enemy, the Nazi leadership interpreted the entire Second World War through the prism of anti-Semitic paranoia in such a way as to interpret the war as one, incredibly, launched by world Jewry to exterminate the German people. Anti-Semitism then was a key interpretive framework that the Nazis employed to misunderstand the political realities of the time. If the President understands this dimension of anti-Semitism it was not evident in his interview with Goldberg.

Of course, Nazi Germany is gone and Hitler is dead. So a policy question facing any President of the United States now and in years to come remains the following: What is the place and the nature of anti-Semitism in the Iranian regime, and what impact does this ideology have on its foreign and military policy toward the United States and its allies, including Israel? For the first time in his six years in office, the President publicly acknowledged what scholarly observers of Iran, such as Tel Aviv Universitys Meir Litvak, among others, have pointed out for the past two decades, namely that indeed there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime. Aside from the obvious rejections of Mahmoud Ahmadinejads Holocaust-denial circus, this may have been the first time that any official of the United States government during the Obama years has said anything remotely approaching the Presidents remark about deep strainsin the core regime. On the contrary, during this era of euphemism, even pointing to the regimes radical anti-Semitism could raise suspicions of Islamophobia. So President Obamas long-overdue acknowledgment of what has been obvious to informed observers for decades is most welcome. Yet, in the same sentence in which he acknowledged this inconvenient truth, he suggested that the ideological imperative would give way to practical and rational interests in maintaining power. In so doing, he diminishes the impact of the ayatollahs radical anti-Semitism on the whole spectrum of Irans foreign and military policy.

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World View: Hamas and ISIS Turn on Each Other in the Gaza …

Posted By on June 3, 2015

This mornings key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

ISIS terrorist (Reuters)

A Gaza Strip group claiming to be linked to the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) has given Hamas, the governing authority of the Gaza Strip, a 48-hour deadline to stop cracking down on the members of the group.

The group calls itself the Islamic State supporters in Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) (ISIS in Gaza), and is linked to Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem), a group in Egypts Sinai that has committed numerous terrorist bombings that we have reported on several times.

The ISIS in Gaza group has been conducting terror attacks against Hamas targets for the last couple of months, and Hamas has been cracking down on the group by arresting dozens of its members.

On Monday, the ISIS in Gaza group sent a statement to the media giving Hamas 48 hours to end the crackdown. The statement did not say what the group would do if the crackdown continued.

The statement included a claim taking responsibility for a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza last week. That claim could not be verified, but the rocket firing did occur on Tuesday, and early on Wednesday the Israeli Air Force attacked four targets in the Gaza Strip in response.

However, following the rocket firing, Hamas security forces arrested a number of militants from the al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad. At the same time, Egyptian officials on Wednesday demanded that Israel hold its aggression, and practice restraint toward the Gaza strip. Jerusalem Post (27-May) and AP and Times of Israel

ISIS in Gaza has apparently been operating since last Gazas summer war with Israel, but its existence has been denied or played down by Hamas. On November 3 of last year, the group pledged allegiance to ISIS. In response to questions about whether the group would be targeting Hamas, a spokesman said:

Hamas should not have any concerns regarding the announcement of [ISIS in] Sinai. Despite their differences, ISIS does not target Hamas, since the group is confronting the Egyptian army. [ISIS in Sinai] would protect Gaza from any possible attacks by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

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Holocaust – New World Encyclopedia

Posted By on June 3, 2015

The Holocaust, also known as The Shoah (Hebrew: HaShoah) and the Porrajmos in Romani, is the name applied to the systematic persecution and genocide of the Jews, other minority groups, those considered enemies of the state and also the disabled and mentally ill of Europe and North Africa during World War II by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Early elements of the Holocaust include the Kristallnacht pogrom of the November 8 and 9, 1938, and the T-4 Euthanasia Program, leading to the later use of killing squads and extermination camps in a massive and centrally organized effort to exterminate every possible member of the populations targeted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler's concept of a racially pure, superior race did not have room for any whom he considered to be inferior. Jews were, in his view, not only racially sub-human but traitors involved in a timeless plot to dominate the world for their own purposes.

Did you know?

The Jews of Europe were the main victims of the Holocaust in what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"

The Jews of Europe were the main victims of the Holocaust in what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (die "Endlsung der Judenfrage"). The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million, though estimates by historians using, among other sources, records from the Nazi regime itself, range from five million to seven million. Also, about 220,000 Sinti and Roma were murdered in the Holocaust (some estimates are as high as 800,000), between a quarter to a half of the European population. Other groups deemed "racially inferior" or "undesirable:" Poles (5 million killed, of whom 3 million were Jewish), Serbs (estimates vary between 100,000 and 700,000 killed, mostly by Croat Ustae), Bosniaks (estimates vary from 100,000 to 500,000), Soviet military prisoners of war and civilians on occupied territories including Russians and other East Slavs, the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists and political dissidents, trade unionists, Freemasons, and some Catholic and Protestant clergy. Some scholars limit the Holocaust to the genocide of the Jews; some to genocide of the Jews, Roma, and disabled; and some to all groups targeted by Nazi racism.

Profound moral questions result from the Holocaust. How could such highly educated and cultured people as Austrians and Germans do such a thing? Why did ordinary people participate or allow it to happen? Where was God? Where was humanity? Why did some people and nations refuse to be involved? People inside and outside Germany knew what was happening but took very little action. More than a million Germans were implicated in the Holocaust. Even when some Jews escaped, they risked being handed back to the authorities or simply shot by civilians. Had all involved taken the moral high ground and refused to carry out orders, could even the terror-machine that was the Nazi regime have continued with its evil policy? Few doubt, except for Holocaust deniers, that pure evil stalked the killing camps. The world is still trying to make sense of the Holocaust and the lessons that can be drawn from it.

The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Since the late nineteenth century, "holocaust" has primarily been used to refer to disasters or catastrophes. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used to describe Hitler's treatment of the Jews from as early as 1942, though it did not become a standard reference until the 1950s. By the late 1970s, however, the conventional meaning of the word became the Nazi genocide.

The biblical word Shoa (), also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah, meaning "calamity" in Hebrew language, became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s.[1]Shoa is preferred by many Jews and a growing number of others for a number of reasons, including the potentially theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of the word holocaust. Some refer to the Holocaust as "Auschwitz," transforming the most well known death camp into a symbol for the whole genocide.

The word "genocide" was coined during the Holocaust.

Michael Berenbaum writes that Germany became a "genocidal nation." Every arm of the country's sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process. Parish churches and the Interior Ministry supplied birth records showing who was Jewish; the Post Office delivered the deportation and de-naturalization orders; the Finance Ministry confiscated Jewish property; German firms fired Jewish workers and disenfranchised Jewish stockholders; the universities refused to admit Jews, denied degrees to those already studying, and fired Jewish academics; government transport offices arranged the trains for deportation to the camps; German pharmaceutical companies tested drugs on camp prisoners; companies bid for the contracts to build the ovens; detailed lists of victims were drawn up using the Dehomag company's punch card machines, producing meticulous records of the killings. As prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property, which was carefully cataloged and tagged before being sent to Germany to be reused or recycled. Berenbaum writes that the Final Solution of the Jewish question was "in the eyes of the perpetrators Germany's greatest achievement."[2]

Considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find increasingly efficient means of killing more people. Early mass-murders by Nazi soldiers of thousands of Jews in Poland had caused widespread reports of discomfort and demoralization among Nazi troops. Commanders had complained to their superiors that the face-to-face killings had a severely negative psychological impact on soldiers. Committed to destroying the Jewish population, Berlin decided to pursue more mechanical methods, beginning with experiments in explosives and poisons.

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iTunes – Music – Anastasia / The Diary of Anne Frank by …

Posted By on June 2, 2015

Album Review

Alfred Newman's music for George Stevens' movie The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) has been issued on a good sounding and well-produced CD from Tsunami, containing eight minutes of music that was not previously available that material consists principally of the main title, intermission, and exit music, which does isolate some themes associated with specific characters and the Frank family. Given the subject matter, that this is a serious film score is no surprise as of 1958, when the movie went into production, some 14 years after the end of World War II, Hollywood had not done too many movies (forget major films) that even referred to the destruction of European Jewry by Nazi Germany, much less dealt with this event as their main subject, and everyone involved with the movie on a creative level, whatever their background, treated it as a rare and special opportunity to say something important through their work. That said, Newman's "Overture," which opens the album, has always seemed appropriately profound, but the rest is far more subtle, introspective, and lyrical, almost counter-intuitive to the moods, settings, and images that one associates with the Holocaust. That's because Newman based his score on the interior emotional life of its characters, rather than the exterior events around them. The result is one of the more beautiful bodies of movie music ever written for a Holocaust-related movie, and one of Newman's better psychologically oriented scores, surprisingly not far removed from his work on How Green Was My Valley. It also contains some of the most beautiful string writing of Newman's career. The CD production gives the decades-old recordings a full, rich sound, and the annotation is extremely thorough.

Born: 17 March 1901 in New Haven, CT

Genre: Soundtrack

Years Active: '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s

Alfred Newman (1901-1970) was, for much of his career, the most influential and respected composer and music director in Hollywood. His 44 Oscar nominations and nine Academy Awards are both records that are unlikely ever to be broken. The first-born of ten children to an impoverished produce seller in New Haven, CT, Newman manifested his musical interests very early, and by the age of eight was well-known locally as a piano prodigy. He played for virtuoso Jan Ignace Paderewski, who arranged a New...

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German FM Steinmeier due in Gaza Strip, won’t meet with …

Posted By on June 1, 2015

A day after stressing the importance of reconstructing the Gaza Strip and saying that Israels security is tied to the prosperity of Gaza, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is expected to visit there briefly on Monday.

Steinmeier joins a growing list of Western statesmen who have visited the Gaza Strip since last summers Operation Protective Edge, including the foreign ministers of Norway, Ireland, and Spain, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and outgoing Quartet envoy Tony Blair.

Like those other leaders, Steinmeier will not meet with Hamas officials. The EUs policy is that it will not engage with Hamas until the organization recognizes Israel, forswears terrorism, and accepts previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Israel has not opposed foreign statesmens visits to Gaza, as long as no meetings with Hamas officials are held.

We have to look for options which will enable renewing negotiations with the Palestinians, Steinmeier said at a photo opportunity at the Prime Ministers Office in the capital with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following their meeting Sunday. The situation in Gaza is very, very difficult, and we have to think about the reconstruction of Gaza and the economic situation, because only through the rehabilitation of Gaza and the economy of its residents, can we think about the security of Israel, which is tied to the prosperity in Gaza.

At a separate meeting with President Reuven Rivlin at his residence, Steinmeier returned to the Gaza theme and said the troubled situation in Gaza demands of us to think about concrete steps to improve daily life there without which, I am afraid, the situation is escalating.

Netanyahu, who said he and Steinmeier spoke at some length about the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, stated that the only way to move the diplomatic process forward is through direct negotiations.

Germany has not yet made any public comments regarding a resolution that France and New Zealand are expected to bring to the UN Security Council setting the parameters of a two-state solution, and a timetable to carry it out. Israel is opposed to such a move, and Netanyahu is making his opposition clear in private meetings.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully is scheduled to visit later this week, followed by the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius later in the month.

While the Palestinians have moved away from these negotiations, Netanyahu said alongside Steinmeier that he remains committed to the idea that the only way we can achieve a lasting peace is through the concept of two states for two peoples a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish nation state of Israel.

Asked by a reporter about his pre-election comment that a Palestinian state would not emerge during his tenure, he clarified that what he said was that the conditions that would enable two states for two people dont presently seem to exist.

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The Diary of Anne Frank: review | Toronto Star

Posted By on May 31, 2015

By Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. Adapted by Wendy Kesselman. Directed by Jillian Keiley. Until Oct. 10 at the Avon Theatre. 1-800-567-1600

STRATFORDHow can one of the most powerful stories of our time, acted by a superb cast, wind up as a less than satisfying theatrical experience?

Ask Jillian Keiley, because it was her direction that turned Thursday nights premiere of The Diary of Anne Frank into such a mishmash.

My heart sank as soon as I saw Bretta Gereckes set, a large, looming box made out of wooden slats. It looked nothing like the cramped garret where eight hunted Jews hid out from the marauding Nazis in the Amsterdam of the 1940s.

It didnt take a major act of clairvoyance to see that it would probably be transformed in the plays final minutes into the lethal boxcars that took people to the death camps, but why destroy any sense of realism or mood for the two hours before that?

My heart continued plummeting when the entire cast came out and addressed us all with personal anecdotes that tried to tangentially connect them to the world of the show and then vanished upstage to become part of a wordless a cappella chorus that crooned Jonathan Monros sentimental music for far too much of the show.

If there ever was a story that needed no adornment, no sentiment and no fixing of any kind, its that of Anne Frank, the precocious young woman who kept a diary chronicling the brave struggle of her family and other companions in that attic in solitude for several years.

As originally dramatized by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, then later amplified by Wendy Kesselman, its a work of great power that cant help but wring the heart . . . unless its meddled with.

Even in this production, there were some long, extended scenes, like the touching Chanukah celebration that ends Act I, when the script and the actors were allowed to work their magic.

And what actors! Sara Farb continues her winning streak of Stratford performances with an Anne who is honest and feisty and totally real, someone we love because of her faults, not despite them.

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The Diary of Anne Frank: review | Toronto Star

Why Does No One Care About Jewish Heritage Month …

Posted By on May 30, 2015

So how did you commemorate Jewish American Heritage Month this May?

If you didnt or if you didnt even know such a month existed you are in good company, that of the majority of American Jews.

But after nearly a decade of relative obscurity, Jewish American Heritage Month got national recognition this year when President Obama took a rare trip from the White House to Washingtons Adas Israel synagogue to deliver an address in honor of the month-long occasion on May 22.

JAMH organizers believe the event, which was intensively covered by national and international media, could boost the otherwise little-known celebration of American Jews and their contributions, and lift it from obscurity. But even for the month of May, they face some ruthless competition. May is also officially the month for celebrating Asian Pacific American heritage. Its Older Americans month, too.

Still, JAHM proponents saw the Adas Israel event as a potential turning point. In the first 10 years of Jewish American Heritage Month, a large part of what has been done was Jews talking to Jews about the contribution of other Jews, said JAHM board chairman Greg Rosenbaum, a private equity investor who used to head Americas largest kosher poultry producer, But in order for it to be a success, it needs to tell non-Jews the story of Jewish contribution to American society.

JAHM may not stack up as one of the nations most visible ethnic commemoration months, but that doesnt mean it has not been a lot of fun for Jewish communal figures attending events. It is what brought Obama to Adas Israel on May 22; it is the reason 250 Jewish activists crammed into a congressional hall two days earlier to mingle with lawmakers commemorating the event, and for several years, JAHM also gave the president an opportunity to throw an annual reception where the lucky couple hundred guests got a chance to rub elbows with Jewish luminaries such as Sandy Koufax, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Barbara Walters.

Dedicating a month to a certain part of the population is the governments way of making the group feel that its history, heritage and struggles are recognized by the nation.

The most well known of the 10 congressionally officially proclaimed months is clearly African-American History Month, which is marked each February in schools across the country, in TV specials and with a series of events. Other groups that can show an officially proclaimed month for their name include Latino-Americans, Italian-Americans and Indian-Americans, and there are also months dedicated to womens history, disability awareness, and gay and lesbian pride.

At best, ethnic heritage months increase awareness for a finite amount of time, said Jason Low, a publisher focused on books promoting diversity who has written on the issue. Once the month has ended, the very problem that the given heritage month was designed to address resets itself, and those books are put away and ignored for another year.

But William Daroff, senior vice president for public policy at the Jewish Federations of North America, believes that at least in the case of Jewish Americans, heritage month had an impact.

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Amnesty International accuses Hamas of torturing, killing …

Posted By on May 29, 2015

File - In this March 30, 2015 file photo, a Palestinian girl walks next to destroyed houses, in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)

Amnesty International accused Hamas militants Wednesday of abducting, torturing, and carrying out summary executions of Palestinians during last year's conflict in the Gaza Strip.

The report, the last of four released by the human rights group detailing events during the fighting, said that at least 23 Palestinians were shot and killed by Hamas, which rules Gaza, while dozens more were arrested and tortured. Amnesty said those targeted were either political rivals of Hamas, including members of the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, or people the militant group had accused of cooperating with Israel.

The report detailed one particularly brutal spate of violence, which took place this past Aug. 22.

"In one of the most shocking incidents, six men were publicly executed by Hamas forces outside al-Omari mosque ... in front of hundreds of spectators, including children," the report said. Hamas had announced the men were suspected "collaborators" who had been sentenced to death in "revolutionary courts," the rights group added.

"The hooded men were dragged along the floor to kneel by a wall facing the crowd, then each man was shot in the head individually before being sprayed with bullets fired from an AK-47," the report said of the August incident.

In one section of the report, testimony from the brother of Atta Najjar, an ex-Palestinian Authority policeman imprisoned since 2009 and killed by Hamas last August, described the violence done to him in captivity.

"His arms and legs were broken ... his body was as if youd put it in a bag and smashed it ... His body was riddled with about 30 bullets," the brother was quoted as saying. "He had slaughter marks around his neck, marks of knives ... And from behind the head - there was no brain. Empty ... It was difficult for us to carry him ... He was heavy, like when you put meat in a bag; no bones. His bones were smashed. They broke him in the prison."

The report also revealed that Hamas used abandoned areas of a hospital in Gaza City to detain, question, and torture captives, even as other parts of the facility "continued to function as a medical centre [sic]".

Hamas used the war to "ruthlessly settle scores, carrying out a series of unlawful killings and other grave abuses," Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, charged. "These spine-chilling actions, some of which amount to war crimes, were designed to exact revenge and spread fear across the Gaza Strip."

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Holocaust denial and minimizing | PMW

Posted By on May 27, 2015

Holocaust denial and distortion Holocaust desecration, denial, and abuse, have all been components of Palestinian Authority ideology. Palestinians from both Fatah and Hamas have accused Israel of burning Palestinians in ovens, and alternatively have accused Zionists of committing the Holocaust against Jews for political, financial or social gain. A PA TV childrens broadcast taught that Israel burned Palestinians in ovens, and at an exhibit in Gaza children put dolls, representing Palestinian children, in a model oven adorned with a Star of David and a swastika. A PA daily wrote: "The exhibit includes a large oven and inside it small [Palestinian] children are being burned; the picture speaks for itself, as if the exhibit was documenting something true. [Al-Ayyam, March 20, 2008] The event was sponsored by the Palestinian National Committee for Defense of Children from the Holocaust.

A senior Palestinian academic taught adults on PA TV: There was no Dachau, no Auschwitz; these were disinfecting sites. A Hamas TV documentary explained that it was Jewish leaders who planned the Holocaust, in order to eliminate Jews who were "disabled and handicapped.

A crossword puzzle clue in the official PA daily identified Yad Vashem (Israels Holocaust memorial) as a Center for the Holocaust and Lies. The same PA daily has published many articles denying the Holocaust, including one that termed the Holocaust a hen laying golden eggs.

Schoolbooks produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Education teach the history of World War II in great detail except for the history of the Holocaust, which is totally ignored. One history book goes so far as to teach that Nazism was a racist ideology and that there were trials of Nazi war criminals, but it leaves out that Jews were the target of the racism, and the crimes for which the Nazis were on trial.

Palestinian education erases the actual Holocaust from history and usurps the word Holocaust or its own wide range of malicious libels.

"They [Israel] are the ones who did the Holocaust, their knife cuts to the length and the width of our flesh... They opened ovens for us, to bake human beings. They destroyed the villages and burnt the cities. And when an oven stops burning, they light a hundred [more] ovens. Their hands are covered with the blood of our children."

[PA TV (Fatah), March 25, 2004]

Since 2012, there have been a number of statements by the PA or PLO officials acknowledging the Holocaust. This has not yet been incorporated into PA formal education.

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