Last week, outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order that prohibits city officials from taking actions that would “discriminate” against Israel.
Officials “who fail to follow this directive may be subject to disciplinary action by their agency” warns the order.
In a tweet, Adams made it clear that his action is intended to stifle the BDS movement.
“Executive Order 60 makes it clear: BDS has no place in our city. The movement is antisemitic in nature and discriminatory in practice,” he wrote. “NYC contracts and pensions must serve the public good. Discrimination is illegal. Antisemitism is abhorrent.”
The move is a clear challenge to incoming mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has faced consistent attacks from pro-Israel groups over his criticisms of the country and the city’s connections to it.
Adams announced the executive order at the North American Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, which was organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
“You are being targeted,” he told the crowd. “And we have to be as intelligent and as focused, as strategic as possible. … That’s why I am signing an executive order today to deal with BDS, so we can stop the madness that we should not invest in Israel.”
Mamdani waved off the issue when pressed by reporters about it.
“The mayor is free to issue as many executive orders as he’d like with the less than 30 days that he has in office, and then we will be taking a look at every single one once we actually enter into City Hall,” he explained.
The city’s pension system currently holds about $300 million in Israeli bonds and related assets.
Additionally, Adams signed an Executive Order that directs the NYPD to evaluate proposals that prohibit protests outside of houses of worship.
This is a direct response to a protest outside of Park East Synagogue that was organized by the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation last month.
The activists were smeared as antisemites over the action, but the protest was targeting an event held by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a group that assists Jewish individuals in relocating to Israel.
Two days after the protest, Mamdani met with Rabbi Marc Schneier, who is president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
Schneier said he used the meeting to urge Mamdani to support legislation that would prohibit protests near any house of worship.
Bondi memo
According to a leaked memo, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered federal law enforcement to investigate “extremist groups.”
The memo, which was published at Ken Klippenstein’s Substack, calls on the FBI to compile a list of organizations that express “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”
Bondi also wants an enhanced tipline and a new “a cash reward system” to get more information from the U.S. population about these groups.
The memo uses language similar to what’s found in NSPM-7, the September memorandum that Trump signed after right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk was murdered.
Klippenstein was interviewed on Democracy Now after the memo was published.
“It essentially takes NSPM-7, which advances the view that the major threat of terrorism is coming from these anti-Trump sentiments, and it puts it into effect,” he explained. “It uses tools available to the federal government, and federal law enforcement in particular. For example, it directs the FBI to go through its past half-decade or so of intelligence on antifa and on some of these other groups that I’ve been talking about, and tells them to make criminal cases around those and to circulate intelligence about it.”
The Bondi memo specifically calls on the FBI to investigate “applicable tax crimes” and potential IRS violations, which has been a common tactic aimed at left-wing organizations, including many Palestine groups.
Last year, Congress nearly passed a bill that would have enabled the Treasury Secretary to strip tax-exempt status from nonprofits deemed as “terrorist supporting.”
Further Reading
- ‘Genocide is not an Oakland value:’ inside Oakland’s grassroots campaign to end military shipments to Israel
- Harvard Crimson: BDS Boston Protests Outside Harvard Square Capital One Bank
- Workers World: State of Michigan Retirement System drops all investments in Israel Bonds
- NBC: North Carolina sells $6.4 million in Israeli government bonds
- Palestine Legal: How to Shield Yourself From Risk When Planning Actions on Campus
- The Conversation: Labeling dissent as terrorism: New US domestic terrorism priorities raise constitutional alarms
Another chapter in the whole strange Mamdani story:
In the lead-up to New York City’s mayoral election last month, Elliot Cosgrove emerged as one of the most outspoken rabbinic critics of Zohran Mamdani, the anti-Zionist activist who is now the mayor-elect….On Monday, speaking to a convention of Zionists, Cosgrove turned his critique toward U.S. Jews, saying that supporters of Israel “shouldn’t be surprised” by Mamdani’s roughly 33% tally among Jewish voters….“For a liberal Zionist disillusioned by the Israeli government, Mamdani’s anti-Zionism is a difference of degree, not of kind,” said Cosgrove, who leads Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side. “He understood the fissures of our community better than we ourselves did, and the question we face now is, what are we going to do about it?”…Speaking at the the convention of the American Zionist Movement, Cosgrove laid out a vision for a “new chapter of American Zionism,” calling for his audience to “avoid the reductive and destructive tactic of labeling people with whom we disagree either as self-hating Jews or colonialist aggressors.” He said a rigid vision of what Zionism should look like had been damaging for the Jewish people….“By making unconditional support for the Israeli government a litmus test for Jewish identity,” Cosgrove said, “we ourselves have inflicted harm on the Jewish future.”…“Leaving aside the role of historical revisionism and progressive identity politics, the unresolved status of the Palestinians, lacking as they are in freedom of movement and access, self determination and other accoutrements of sovereignty, forms a wedge issue between an increasingly liberal-leaning American Jewry and an increasingly right-leaning Israeli Jewry,” said Cosgrove.
NYC rabbi who spurred anti-Mamdani push turns his criticism toward Jews and Israel at Zionist gathering – Jewish Telegraphic Agency
On the surface this seems like a positive development….
Further reading: IMO this interview with Assaf David** about the nature of the Israeli army is absolutely must-read. A few excerpts:
Before 7 October, denial was the rule throughout Israeli society; the cruelty of the occupation for the Palestinians was utterly ignored. Besides which, the West Bank was people’s main concern. Gaza seemed far away. Nobody was interested in what happened there….The 7 October upended the whole society. The army’s initial powerlessness seemed incomprehensible to the population at large. No one saw it coming. The idea of “managing the conflict” disappeared. What followed was a catastrophe….But after its initial panic, the army had a chaotic reaction which dragged the whole of society into an abyss…. the Israeli regime has fallen into the hands of the messianics. From now on it is they who impose their vision – and this also affects the army. They are to Judaism what the Jihadists are to Islam. Judaism is instrumentalized to terrible ends…. the decisions to commit certain acts are often taken by officers without the previous approval of their superiors or even against their orders. He also shows that superior officers sometimes do just as they please. Especially those who follow the messianic persuasion….Israeli society has changed a lot. The two main factors here are the lack of any political solution with the Palestinians and the rise of religious nationalism. Taken together, these have led to a collective acceptance of the dehumanization of the Palestinians – and a delegitimisation of the political left. You put all that in a shaker and mix it vigorously and you come up with a very different army….
** a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute (also in Jerusalem) specialising in the armies of the Middle East. Born in a religious settlement, he spent 11 years three decades ago in unit 8-300 of the Israeli army, a unit specializing in technological intelligence.
« The Israeli Army has become a professional militia army » – <span lang=”fr”>Sylvain Cypel</span> – Assaf David
+Today in Atlanta, Pam Bondi appointed U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg perp walks GA State Rep.Sharon Henderson for PPP loan; she’s up for re-election in 2026.
“This is the first of what will be several indictments against members of the state legislature for taking funds for which they were not entitled,” Hertzberg said.
+ WSB: Georgia lawmaker arrested, charged with fraudulently taking $17K in pandemic unemployment
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/georgia-lawmaker-arrested-charged-with-fraudulently-taking-17k-pandemic-unemployment/OCKNWGW3YJBGDOMVMP3QSUFF4U/
“It is shocking that a public official would allegedly lie to profit from an emergency program designed to help suffering community members,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “Politicians who violate the public trust and steal from the needy to enrich themselves will be held accountable.”
Q: I’m trying to understand how these organizations were more in need of PPP loans?
After hosting Naftali Bennett’s campaign tour, Hillel of Georgia CEO, Larry Sernovitz had a shrapnel in the butt freak-out when AtlantaJewishTimes published his photo with Sen. Jon Ossoff. (Ossoff rejects IHRA)
Larry says: “…Equally troubling, public officials must not use such meetings as photo opportunities to suggest consensus or communal approval that does not exist. Doing so is not just misleading — it is dangerous…”
Q: When can we place a FARA Monitor in every Hillel?
HILLELS OF GEORGIA INC.
Atlanta, GA
Loan Status
Forgiven as of Dec. 20, 2021
Loan Amount
$229,137
Date Approved
April 20, 2021
Recipient
HILLELS OF GEORGIA INC
ATLANTA, GA
Loan Status
Forgiven as of May 11, 2021
Loan Amount
$176,400
Date Approved
April 30, 2020
TOTAL: $405,537
MARCUS JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF ATLANTA INC.
Atlanta, GA
Loan Status
Forgiven as of May 24, 2022
Loan Amount
$2,000,000
Date Approved
Feb. 3, 2021
Recipient
MARCUS JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF ATLANTA, INC.
ATLANTA, GA
Loan Status
Forgiven as of Oct. 8, 2021
Loan Amount
$2,909,800
Date Approved
April 30, 2020
Recipient
JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER ATLANTA, INC.
ATLANTA, GA
Loan Status
Forgiven as of April 22, 2021
Loan Amount
$1,006,900
Date Approved
April 14, 2020
Recipient