Tunisian Jewish community |

Reaching you this week, where it matters!

Alan Simons

Hi there! Welcome to JewishinfoNews. Here below are what other media and news services are saying this week. Starting with BESA’s “France and the Urban Guerrilla Warfare of the Black Blocs. . . The Black Blocs originated in Germany in the 1980s and spread to other countries in Europe. They oppose the political establishment, the police, and the capitalist and global economy, operate in relatively small groups, and are connected through their own social networks. . . and at a certain stage, particularly when events are about to wind down, they attack the police with petrol bombs, large stones, and bottle fragments that they have prepared along the route of the demonstration.”

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France and the Urban Guerrilla Warfare of the Black Blocs

The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) reports: France has been contending for years with violent anarchist gangs known as the Black Blocs, who have been piggybacking on the mass demonstrations of the Yellow Vests to commit acts of vandalism and wreak considerable economic damage. The Black Blocs’ destructive riots on the Champs-Élysées prompted the French government to take tougher preventive measures against the gangs, sparking criticism from both right and left. The government will have to keep fighting the Black Blocs and the radicals among the Yellow Vests, who are trying to achieve their economic and political goals through violence.

Tunisia launches its first stamp dedicated to the synagogue of Ghriba, Tunisia.

Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF) reports: In the image of the Ghriba synagogue and on the occasion of the pilgrimage that will take place on 22 and 23 May in Djerba, the Post wanted to combine technology with “tolerance, openness and dialogue between religions so well known to Tunisia through the ages and civilizations “.

The Israeli NGO, IsraAID begins relief distributions in Colombia as thousands of Venezuelans escape worsening conditions across the border daily.

IsraAid reports: Israeli humanitarian aid agency IsraAID has dispatched an Emergency Response team to the city of Cúcuta, on Colombia’s border with Venezuela, which is a flashpoint in the ongoing Venezuelan displacement crisis. Thousands cross the Simon Bolivar bridge from Venezuela into Cúcuta every day seeking relief from the continued economic and political crisis in the country. IsraAID’s team has already started distributing relief supplies and delivering sanitation and hygiene activities for Venezuelan refugees in the city. Needs on the ground are extremely urgent with 1.2 million Venezuelan refugees already in Colombia, and the organization has already committed to remain in the country for the long-term.

Watergen (an Israeli company) provides 120 Orphans in Uzbekistan With Fresh Water From Air.

Watergen, an Israel-based innovative company that creates clean water out of air reports: It is “is now providing a source of freshwater for over 120 children living in an orphanage in Uzbekistan’s city of Bukhara. The technology comes in the form of an atmospheric water generator known as the “GEN-350,” which can produce up to 900 litres of water per day. A popular tourist destination but also associated with arid weather conditions, Bukhara has recently been experiencing serious water shortages. Earlier this month, the water supply was even disrupted for almost two days. The entire city of Bukhara was left without drinking water including several busy hotels. Since the local underground water is unusable, fresh water is currently supplied to Bukhara from the city of Samarkand, almost 300 km away.”

Far-right Facebook groups ‘spreading hate to millions in Europe’

The UK’s The Guardian reports: A web of far-right Facebook accounts spreading fake news and hate speech to millions of people across Europe has been uncovered by the campaign group Avaaz. Facebook, which is struggling to clean up the platform and salvage its reputation, has already taken down accounts with about 6 million followers before voting in the European elections begin s on Thursday. It was still investigating hundreds of other accounts with an additional 26 million followers, Avaaz said. In total, the group reported more than 500 suspect groups and Facebook pages operating across France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Poland and Spain. Most were either spreading fake news or using false pages and profiles to artificially boost the content of parties or sites they supported, in violation of Facebook’s rules.

In other news . . .

Al Bawaba, the Middle East online news site reports: “The manner in which the Trump administration deals with almost every country provokes a nationalist, anti-American response. One of the great achievements of American foreign policy over the last 30 years was that Mexico had gone from being an anti-American, revolutionary country to a pro-American partner. In 2015, before Trump’s election, 66 per cent of Mexicans had a favourable view of America. By 2018, that number had dropped to 32 per cent. Confidence in the U.S. president plummeted in that same time period from 49 per cent to 6 per cent. The pattern recurs almost everywhere. In Canada, confidence in the U.S. president went from 76 per cent in 2015 to 25 per cent in 2018. In France, it’s worse, from 83 per cent under Barack Obama to single digits under Trump. In fact, in a recent Pew Research Center survey of 25 countries, only two places expressed greater confidence in Trump than they did in his predecessor – Russia and Israel.

The Parliament Magazine (UK) reports: Antisemitism has returned to become more widespread in Europe than anyone ever predicted, against a backdrop of populism, intolerance and xenophobia, a conference has been told. The Brussels meeting heard that many had thought antisemitism had been “relegated to an inglorious past” but that France and Germany alone have reported an increase in offences against Jews of 74 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. Last year, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) conducted the biggest ever survey of Jewish people, covering 12 Member States and involving almost 16,500 Jews. The results were “shocking” with 90 per cent of the respondents sensing a growing antisemitism and 30 per cent having even been themselves harassed.

Palestinians Rally Against Germany’s Criminalization of BDS

The International Middle East Media Center (Palestinian Territories) reports: Dozens of Palestinians, representing political factions, civil society organizations, labour and trade representatives, and the National Boycott Committee, demonstrated, Wednesday, outside the German representative’s office in Ramallah, Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported. The Palestinians were there to protest the bill adopted in the German parliament, the Bundestag, labelling the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement ‘anti-Semitic’. . . Member of the Fatah Central Committee, Jamal Muheisen said that Germany is trying to punish the victim and not the executioner by talking about anti-Semitism even though the Palestinian people and the entire Arab nation are Semitic. “Today we live under a racist apartheid regime in the form of the Israeli occupation. Germany and the whole world are required to confront the Israeli government, which is going against all international resolutions, and not to play along with it, especially at this time when the US administration is plotting against the Palestinian national struggle,” said Muheisen.

New Jersey Man Charged in Threats to Pro-Israel Rally, Trump Tower

Voice of America (VOA) reports: A 20-year-old New Jersey man accused of threatening on social media to “shoot everybody” at a pro-Israel march and bomb the Trump Tower skyscraper in New York City was arrested Wednesday on a string of federal charges, prosecutors said. Jonathan Xie, of Basking Ridge, was taken into custody on charges of attempting to provide material support to Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip and which the United States designates as a terrorist organization, making false statements and transmitting threats over interstate commerce, according to federal prosecutors. “Homegrown violent extremists like Xie are a serious threat to national security,” U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said in a statement. “The actions that he took and planned to take made that threat both clear and present.”

Al Jazeera Suspends 2 for Holocaust Video saying it was ‘different from how the Jews tell it’

iMediaEthics (USA) reports: Al Jazeera has suspended two journalists for publishing a video saying the Holocaust was “different from how the Jews tell it.” Al Jazeera has unpublished the video in question and issued a May 19 statement saying the video and social media posts were deleted because they “contravened the Network’s editorial standards.” Al Jazeera noted that its executive director of digital division Dr Yaser Bishr said there would be “mandatory bias training and awareness program.” iMediaEthics has written to Al Jazeera to ask who the employees are, how long the video was published and for more information.