Paryski hołd dla Gustawa Herlinga-Grudzińskiego

Z Paryża Ludwik Lewin (PAP)

Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. Fot. PAP/CAF/J. Mazur

Hołd Gustawowi Herlingowi-Grudzińskiemu, wielkiemu pisarzowi, myślicielowi i moraliście, złożono w piątek wieczorem w Bibliotece Polskiej w Paryżu. W tym roku mija setna rocznica urodzin autora „Innego świata” i „Dziennika pisanego nocą”.

Good Question: How Can Ilhan Omar Support A Two-State Solution AND The BDS Movement?

Matt Vespa

Source: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

March Madness has begun, though that’s an endless cycle in today’s political world. No, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), you’re anti-Semitic antics did not just wash away, though the Virginia Democratic Party has gotten away with murder with their racist antics concerning, its governor and attorney general admitting to wearing blackface. The lieutenant governor has been accused of sexually assaulting two women as well. 

recommended by: Leon Rozenbaum
Omar has engulfed her entire party in an anti-Semitism flap that isn’t going away. For starters, she keeps peddling this bigoted trash. In 2012, she accused Israel of hypnotizing the world, then in the House, she had the ‘all about the Benjamins’ tweet concerning AIPAC and donations. And now, she accused those who support Israel of dual loyalty. It forced the House to vote on a watered-down resolution against bad things, which was originally against anti-Semitism, but some Democrats feared it would single Omar out. The Democratic Party is rapidly becoming an anti-Jewish and anti-Israel party. Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems incapable of confronting these new radicals. And now, she’s hit another iceberg on the Israeli-Palestinian front, writing an op-ed supporting a two-state solution (via Washington Post):

I support a two-state solution, with internationally recognized borders, which allows for both Israelis and Palestinians to have their own sanctuaries and self-determination. This has been official bipartisan U.S. policy across two decades and has been supported by each of the most recent Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as the consensus of the Israeli security establishment. As Jim Mattis, who later was President Trump’s defense secretary, said in 2011, “The current situation between those two peoples is unsustainable.”

Working toward peace in the region also means holding everyone involved accountable for actions that undermine the path to peace — because without justice, there can never be a lasting peace. When I criticize certain Israeli government actions in Gaza or settlements in the West Bank, it is because I believe these actions not only threaten the possibility of peace in the region — they also threaten the United States’ own national security interests.

My goal in speaking out at all times has been to encourage both sides to move toward a peaceful two-state solution. We need to reinsert this call back into the public debate with urgency. Both parties must come to the table for a final peace deal; violence will not bring us any closer to that day.

Yeah, sounds all good, until you get to her apparent support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions movement that has been accused of being viciously anti-Semitic. Well, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, huh? Melissa Weiss, national campus director for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, asked on Twitter, how could Omar support this policy, while being a supporter of the BDS movement. The short answer is you cannot, especially when the BDS crew doesn’t hold that view. This was brought up when Omar was elected last year (via CBS Minnesota):

Congresswoman-elect Ilhan Omar’s support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has some in Minnesota’s Jewish community asking questions, as before the election she reportedly called the movement “counteractive” to the goal of a two-state solution.

… the website Muslim Girl posted an article, saying that Omar’s staff told the blog Sunday that the congresswoman-elect “believes in and supports” the pro-Palestinian movement, which seeks to put international pressure on Israel.

The staffer added that Omar, who won Minnesota’s 5th District congressional seat last week in a landslide, has “reservations about the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”

… TC Jewfolk, a website focusing on the Twin Cities Jewish community, took issue with Omar’s stance on the BDS movement, noting that it didn’t appear to gel with what she said to the Jewish community before being elected to Congress.

In August, ahead of the DFL primary contest, Omar said at a candidate forum that the BDS movement was “not helpful” to the ultimate goal of a two-state solution, TC Jewfolk reports. When asked specifically by the moderator about her position on BDS, Omar replied that it was “counteractive” to getting both sides to come to the table.

… TC Jewfolk reached out the congresswoman-elect to clarify her position. In a series of screengrabbed text messages posted to the TC Jewfolk website, Omar says that her position has always been the same: that she believes and supports the BDS movement. She defended her answers at the forum, saying that nothing she said was politically expedient.

That’s not the least of it. As mentioned prior, her history of anti-Semitism should have anyone looking for the exit when she brings up this ongoing conflict. The alleged anti-Semite is going to push for a solution to this crisis. Yeah, not going to happen. Pelosi has defended Omar over her anti-Semitism foul-up, saying, pretty much, that she’s too stupid to know what she’s saying. I used to think this was a lame defense because, but maybe she is that dense. I mean, she is a Democrat after all. Either way, you cannot be a BDS supporter and support a two-state solution. Don’t bother asking her further on the matter, however. CNN tried that; Omar ran for the hills.

At UNESCO, Austria and Poland slam Belgian carnival with anti-Semitic puppets

CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

UN cultural body to consider stripping carnival of recognition; it’s the agency’s duty ‘to be vigilant and uncompromising regarding such occurrences,’ says UNESCO director

A parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium featuring caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019. (Courtesy of FJO, via JTA)

JTA — Austria and Poland condemned at UNESCO a Belgian carnival that featured an anti-Semitic float that included giant puppets of Orthodox Jews and a rat atop money bags, and the cultural body said it would consider stripping the festival of recognition.

The unusual exchange about the March 3 carnival in Aalst occurred on Thursday at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

The Aalst carnival, one of Europe’s flashiest, was added in 2010 to the list of heritage of humanity events of UNESCO, the United Nations body on culture.

On Friday, UNESCO said it is considering possibly removing the recognition of the carnival.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said Friday it’s the agency’s duty “to be vigilant and uncompromising regarding such occurrences” at the Aalst carnival.

UNESCO representatives have decided to put the issue on the agenda of the next meeting of the committee that makes decisions on the cultural heritage list in December in Colombia. A removal decision would be a first since the 2003 convention that created the label.

The 2019 edition featured a float whose creators said was about rising prices, with grimacing Haredi Jew figures amid money bags. One figures had a puppet rat on his jacket. Dancers dressed like Haredi Jews with rat puppets on their lapels danced on the float.

In 2013, a different group designed for the Aalst carnival a float resembling a Nazi railway wagon used to transport Jews to death camps.

The people who designed the float, known as the FTP Group, marched near the float dressed as Nazi SS officers and ultra-Orthodox Jews. A poster on the wagon showed Flemish Belgian politicians dressed as Nazis and holding canisters labeled as containing Zyklon B, the poison used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews in gas chambers in the Holocaust. UNESCO condemned that display.

The 2019 display sparked an outcry. A petition urging UNESCO to delist the event has received more than 15,000 signatures. Aalst mayor defended the display. Jewish groups’ complaints over alleged incitement in the display are pending.

“It is unthinkable that such imagery is being paraded on European streets, 70 years after the Holocaust,” a spokesperson from the Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, later told reporters.

Austria and Poland condemned the display during the meeting Wednesday by a bureau, or governing body, of UNESCO. The bureau has six rotating member states. The Colombian chairmanship of the committee was instrumental in facilitating a discussion about Aalst, according to Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s international relations director.

The Polish and Austrian delegates “oppose any attempt to sugarcoat this example of what they said was anti-Semitism pure and simple,” said Samuels, whose organization is an associate partner of UNESCO.

AP contributed to this report