The Guardian
Antisemitic incidents in UK rise 11% in first six months of 2016
Jewish charity Community Security Trust says biggest increases were in months when Labour antisemitism was in news
Community Security Trust staff on patrol at a school event.
Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Thursday 4 August 2016 07.08 BST Last modified on Thursday 4 August 2016 10.10 BST
Incidents of antisemitism rose by 11% in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2015, according to the Community Security Trust.
The overall figure of 557 cases of malicious acts was the second highest ever recorded during a January-June period, the CST said.
There was no obvious trigger for the increase, said the organisation, which provides security to the UK Jewish community. Two years ago, the war in Gaza led to a big rise in antisemitic incidents in the UK.
But the biggest increases this year were recorded in April, May and June, months when antisemitism in the Labour party was the subject of widespread media coverage. Racism and xenophobia were part of the campaign discourse in run-up to the EU referendum on 23 June.
The most common type of incident recorded involved verbal abuse of Jews in public. Other types of antisemitism included graffiti, abuse via social media, threats, damage and desecration of Jewish property and leaflets. There were 41 violent antisemitic assaults among the 557 incidents, a 13% drop on the comparative 2015 period.
More than three-quarters of the incidents were recorded in London and Manchester, the two largest Jewish communities in the UK. In London there was a 62% increase in incidents, whereas Manchester there was a 54% fall.
Commenting on the figures, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said: “I condemn the deplorable rise in antisemitic hate incidents in the first half of this year and will continue to work with law enforcement partners and with the Jewish community to ensure their safety and security.” The government provided £13.4m for security measures at Jewish sites, she added.
Andy Burnham, shadow home secretary and campaigning to be Labour’s candidate in the Manchester mayoral election, said the overall increases were worrying but he welcomed the fall in reports of incidents in Manchester.
“Labour will always lead the way in tackling any form of hatred or prejudice but we are being hampered in that fight by a small number who are not welcome in our party,” he said.
John Mann, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on antisemitism, said all political parties should adopt the recommendations made by Shami Chakrabarti in her report into antisemitism in the Labour party, published in June.
“This is a worrying rise in incidents set against a backdrop of increasing hate crime across the country,” he said. “The message should go out to everyone that we will not stand for antisemitism, perpetrators of hate crimes against Jews will be caught and prosecuted and the bystanders must be educated. Britain should expect better than this.”
Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said: “The worrying increase of anitsemitic hate incidents in the UK once again highlights our need to unite throughout Europe to stamp out intolerance.
“We have seen time and time again that the UK is not immune from the Europe-wide trend of increased hate and violence against minorities. More must be done by the British leaders to protect their Jewish communities.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/04/us-military-veterans-donald-trump-petition-john-mccain
The Guardian
Donald Trump
Military veterans demand Republicans unendorse Trump and his 'ignorance'
Group of veterans visit Capitol Hill to present petition to Senator John McCain urging him and other Republican leaders to disavow presidential nominee
One military veteran said during the visit to Capitol Hill: ‘Senator McCain, please be brave and courageous as you have in the past and please rescind your endorsement of Donald Trump.’
David Smith in Washington and Tom Dart in Houston
Thursday 4 August 2016 20.22 BST Last modified on Friday 12 August 2016 00.44 BST
The backlash against Donald Trump escalated on Thursday as angry US military veterans arrived on Capitol Hill urging Republican leaders to withdraw their support for the party’s nominee.The protest came after a torrid week for the maverick candidate, whose criticism of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, triggered a Republican revolt.
The veterans presented a petition on Thursday to the office of Senator John McCain , a Vietnam war veteran and former prisoner of war who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. McCain joined the condemnation of Trump this week, but stopped short of withdrawing his endorsement of him.
“Donald Trump and his surrogates have demonstrated that their bigotry and hate speech know no bounds,” Nate Terani, the first Muslim American to serve in the US Navy Presidential Honor Guard, told reporters. “Donald Trump is a racist and bigot and wholly unfit for this position.”
Terani and other veterans gathered under trees on a lawn outside the US Capitol building, urged McCain to put country before party and “unendorse” the nominee. They said their petition had more than 100,000 names in less than a day, including veterans, their families and ordinary voters.
Alexander McCoy, a former sergeant in the marines, said: “Donald Trump’s reckless ignorance about America’s responsibility to the world shocks me to the core ... I am done listening. I have heard enough. Senator McCain, you served and you sacrificed in ways Trump cannot begin to understand. You have heard enough too.”
Jim Lyons, a former nuclear machinist mate 2nd class in the navy, added: “He sows hate, fear and division ... His bigoted and racist and divisive remarks are not taken lightly by those on the receiving end of them ... From one veteran to another, Senator McCain, please be brave and courageous as you have in the past and please rescind your endorsement of Donald Trump.”
And Crystal Cravens, an ex-army sergeant, said: “When Trump attacks the Khan family, he attacks all military families who have lived experiences that Trump will never know. Trump’s message seeks to divide our country, and a nation divided against itself cannot stand.
“Do not be afraid to condemn this man; he does not represent what this country stands for. Senator McCain, please stand with your fellow veterans, good men and women who sacrificed themselves for this country.”
The petition on MoveOn.org was started by Perry O’Brien, who served as a medic in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division and was discharged as a conscientious objector in 2004. “Every vet I know is absolutely outraged,” he said on Wednesday. “Trump is someone who clearly does not share core American values and the values that we in the military hold dear: respect, sacrifice, selflessness.
“When he said he’s always wanted a Purple Heart, it showed he doesn’t know what a Purple Heart is. It’s like saying: ‘I want to be shot in the face’ or ‘I want to be blown up’. He doesn’t have a certain awareness that there are some things you don’t do or don’t say in this country. Even George W Bush knew not to personally slander a gold star mother.”
Trump received five deferments – four for university, one for medical reasons (heel spurs) – from the military draft for the Vietnam war. O’Brien, an organiser of the #VetsvHate campaign and Common Defense political action committee, added: “I’ve heard a lot of Vietnam veterans joke: ‘Thank God he got a deferment and I didn’t have Donald Trump at my back.’”
Asked about the prospect of Trump as commander-in-chief, O’Brien remarked: “His recklessness, his instinct towards authoritarianism, his unhealthy attraction towards dictators – all these things raise questions. Why would a soldier go to fight knowing that, if they’re killed, President Donald Trump would slander their family? Who would enlist knowing he would attack their mother if she disagrees with him?”
During rallies, Trump has repeatedly stressed his support for the military and pledged to improve conditions for veterans. A Fox News poll, based on interviews with 1,022 randomly chosen registered voters from 31 July to 2 August, found him still leading Hillary Clinton among veterans by 53%-39%. But the survey also found that 77% of voters are familiar with the exchange between Trump and the Khans, and 69% describe his attacks on the family as “out of bounds”.
The Khans appeared at the Democratic convention last week. Brandishing a copy of the US constitution, Khizr Khan criticised Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country and said Trump has “sacrificed nothing and no one”. Trump hit back by denigrating the Khans on Twitter and in television appearances, including suggesting that Ghazala Khan did not speak on stage because “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say”.
His attitude towards the Khans – known as “gold star” parents because of their loss – seems to have crossed a line for some. David Callaway, a former Marine corps physician who served in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, said: “For me it boils down to this: when you are in the military, you swear this oath and it’s service above self. For Trump, it’s all about service to self.
“He has never served any other cause except for his own greed and wealth, and for veterans the idea that this man would support and defend the constitution and the ideals on which our country was founded – that being liberty, equality, opportunity – initially was comical and now it’s just frightening.”
Callaway, 42, from Charlotte, North Carolina, added: “There’s no longer anybody who can make a rational argument that he’s just being unpredictable or he’s trying to keep our opponents on their toes, or he wants to spice up the debate. He’s just a petty demagogue and he will attack anybody at the slightest provocation and that’s not who we need as the commander-in-chief of our military.”
A friend, Dan McCready, served in the marine corps from 2005-09, and was then an inactive reserve, rising to captain. “In my view, Trump is the greatest threat to our constitution and our democracy of my lifetime, and people must view this as a final straw,” the 33-year-old said.
“I think a lot of Americans are living in a Facebook and Fox News distortion field. What I hear from many friends who are conservative is that Clinton is just as bad, that people view the selection as two equally bad choices. I think if you look at the facts and draw your information from reasonable sources, what Trump is doing and what he said is a thousand times worse than what Hillary has done and what Hillary has said.
“It makes me sick to my stomach,” McCready continued. “I think of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave up their one precious life for our country. He completely dishonours them. I think Mr and Mrs Khan represent what’s best about America and his belittling them, it really makes me sick.”
Not everyone agrees. In a response to questions from the Guardian posted on the Veterans for Trump website, the webmaster, Michael Kelly, said: “I struggle to understand how so much media attention is given to Mr Khan and virtually nothing given to Pat Smith and Charles Woods [parents of soldiers who died in the 2012 Benghazi attack who have criticised Clinton]. No, I still support Trump over Clinton.”
He added: “Donald Trump displays the ‘rugged individualism’ that makes America great. He exemplifies leadership qualities that I came to admire during my 23 years of military service.”
On Wednesday, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman who is a veteran of the Iraq war, said he cannot support Trump in the wake of the row. “I don’t see how I get to Donald Trump anymore,” he told CNN. “Donald Trump for me is beginning to cross a lot of red lines of the unforgivable in politics.”
The Trump Taj Mahal is a casino and hotel on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States. The casino is owned by Trump Entertainment Resorts, a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises, and managed by Tropicana Entertainment.
The casino was inaugurated by its then-owner Donald Trump in 1990, and was built at a total cost of nearly one billion dollars. Restaurants at the Taj include Dynasty, Il Mulino New York, Moon at Dynasty, Robert's Steakhouse, and Hard Rock Cafe. It is also the home of Scores, the country's first in-casino strip club.
The Taj Mahal came to the brink of closure in 2014 as its parent company went through bankruptcy, but ultimately remained open under the new ownership of Icahn Enterprises.
Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for bankruptcy on September 10, 2014,] and announced plans to close the Taj Mahal on November 13 if the casino did not get concessions from its unions. A sister property, the Trump Plaza did close in 2014.
Workers from the casino marched to Mayor Don Guardian's office on the morning of November 3, 2014 to ask him to reconsider granting concessions, which the casino said were necessary to remain open. About 1,000 employees signed a petition calling on the mayor and other officials "to do everything possible" to keep the casino open. At the time, four of twelve casinos in Atlantic City had closed and Trump Taj Mahal would have been the fifth if it were to close.
On November 14, 2014, Trump Entertainment Resorts announced that the casino would shut down in December unless its main union, UNITE HERE, dropped its appeal of a court-ordered cost-savings package, which had effectively cancelled the workers' health insurance and pension coverage. However, it was revealed that the closing was to happen because it has not received the state and local tax breaks it sought.
In filing a revised reorganization plan in Delaware bankruptcy court, Trump Entertainment Resorts said its board had approved a shutdown of the casino by December 12, 2014. The shutdown date was later pushed back to December 20. On December 18, two days before the scheduled closure, UNITE HERE reached a deal with Trump Entertainment Resorts that saved the Taj from closing. The same day, billionaire Carl Icahn committed $20 million in financing for the Taj.
In February 2015, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network settled an investigation of Trump Taj Mahal with the assessment of a $10 million civil fine for "significant and long-standing money laundering violations" which were described as "willful and repeated" contraventions of the record-keeping and reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. The casino agreed to periodic external audits to comply with anti-money laundering statutes,[38] and admitted to multiple violations as part of its settlement. The U.S. Treasury made note of casino violations dating back to 1998, when Trump Taj Mahal paid a $477,700 fine for violating currency transaction requirements, as well as violations in 2003, 2010, and in 2012, for which the company was "repeatedly warned". Trump Taj Mahal was "far from meeting" standards required to protect the U.S. financial system "from exploitation from criminals, terrorists, and other bad actors", the Treasury said in a press release.
In February 2016, Trump Entertainment Resorts exited bankruptcy and became a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises. The casino retained the name "Trump Taj Mahal", though Donald Trump no longer held any ownership stake. Shortly thereafter, an agreement was announced for the Taj Mahal to be managed by another Icahn affiliate, Tropicana Entertainment. Icahn also stated he would withhold a planned $100-million investment into the property if New Jersey approved casinos in the northern region of the state.
On August 3, 2016, it was announced that the Trump Taj Mahal would be shut down permanently after Labor Day.
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