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Ithaca Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 14, 2016 9 Comments
I appeared on the Mark Levin radio show on Wednesday night, December 14, 2016, to talk about my post, VIDEO: Activists manipulate third-graders into hating Israel. Video of the event is at the link above, which also has extensive background. The short version is that Ariel Gold from Code Pink and Jewish Voice for Peace arranged for Bassem Tamimi to appear before the third grade classes at an elementary school in Ithaca, NY. Tamimi is best known for using children, including his own, to confront Israeli soldiers in the hope of creating viral photos and videos. Tamimi urged the children to become activists and "freedom fighters for Palestine."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 11, 2016 9 Comments
Anti-Israel activism by faculty at colleges and universities receives a lot of media attention in part because campuses generally are open to the public and college students are able to report on what happens. Faculty-inspired anti-Israel activism, however, is not limited to colleges and universities. I hear many parents and students complain that by the time many students reach college, they already have been turned against Israel. Far under the radar, the attempt to demonize Israel is moving down the educational chain even into elementary schools, pushed by activists who accept no boundaries even for young children. Yet because such activities take place in schools to which access is limited, and the young students are not developmentally able to report on what happens, it's rare to obtain hard visual proof. We have such proof.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2016 10 Comments
On Friday morning, September 18, 2015, the third grade classes at the Beverly J. Martin School in Ithaca, NY, heard a presentation on “human rights” by Palestinian activist Bassem Tamimi and local anti-Israel activists, led by Ariel Gold. In fact, through the investigative and litigation efforts of Legal Insurrection, it has become clear that the Tamimi event was an anti-Israel propaganda event targeting young children, and as we just learned, caused at least one student to suffer nightmares.

The Attempt to Portray the Tamimi Event as Loving and Promoting Peace

On Sunday night, September 20, Legal Insurrection broke the story, Anti-Israel activism hits elementary school in Ithaca, NY. Because of Tamimi’s notoriety for exploiting children in videotaped confrontations with Israeli soldiers, Tamimi’s mere appearance in a third grade class raised suspicions about the event.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 31, 2016 9 Comments
We recently wrote about Miko Peled after Jewish Voice for Peace accused him of posting an antisemitic tweet, Jewish Voice for Peace disavows BDS activist Miko Peled: “No place 4 antisemitism in our movement”: https://twitter.com/mikopeled/status/776147480299835392 Peled denied that the tweet was antisemitic, as detailed in the prior post. But the fact that an anti-Israel group like JVP would make this accusation against Peled and would support the cancellation of his speech at Princeton was pretty remarkable.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 27, 2016 17 Comments
The Ithaca Journal has an article today about my court victory against the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) seeking records under the NY Freedom of Information Law regarding the anti-Israel 3rd Grade event. The Ithaca Journal article, discussed below, reveals that ICSD spent over $20,000 in its fight to avoid having to disclose video and documents regarding the event. I laid out the history and the court ruling in my post, Another Legal Insurrection victory: Ct orders video released of anti-Israel 3rd Grade event. The short version is that for the second time, the court granted virtually all my requests, including forcing ICSD to release a video of the event. Before the litigation began I suggested the video be redacted by ICSD to protect student privacy, but ICSD refused to release ANY portion of the video or audio, even the portions that didn't contain student images or voices.  Instead, ICSD produced a partial transcript with obvious gaps.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 23, 2016 20 Comments
On Friday morning, September 18, 2015, the third grade classes at the Beverly J. Martin School in Ithaca, NY, heard a presentation on “human rights” by Palestinian activist Bassem Tamimi and local anti-Israel activists, including Ariel Gold of the local chapter of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (she also is a full time employee of Code Pink), and Mary Grady Flores. The event was arranged through third grade teacher Brooke Burnett, a friend of Gold and Flores. Bassem Tamimi Beverly Martin School Ariel Gold redacted w border

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 30, 2016 16 Comments
As you may have noted from some of my recent posts, we recently bought a small waterfront house in my formerly-now-once-again home State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. For the past six weeks I've been back and forth several times, and expect to split the year between Ithaca and Rhode Island again like I did for five years prior to selling our prior RI home in June 2013. During these breaks from Ithaca I've come to understand how living full time in Ithaca is a political pressure cooker. In Ithaca, everything is political. You can't escape it. You will not be left alone. You will be made to care. Even about your coffee, as I joked when we left RI for Ithaca full time:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 10, 2016 23 Comments
In January 2016, I reported how an Ithaca (NY) Black Lives Matter rally over the death of Sandra Bland and others set up a procedure to segregate speakers by race, with "people of color" being given priority over whites, At anti-racism rally, Whites allowed to speak only after People of Color:
We ask that people of color who would like to bring written statements/speeches to address the ralley [sic] please let us know below so that we can add you to the list of schedueled speakers. There will be an open speak-out afterwards for those who just want to speak. Please be sure to bring warm clothing. Please also be sure to bring any signs or pictures of thoes affected by police brutality. We will meet at the center of the commons at 1pm. Disclaimer: If you are a reporter at this event we will not be answering any questions. Disclaimer: If you are a white person at this event note that the voices of people of color will take precedence in rally space.
Ithaca Protest Sandra Bland FB Page comment white people welcome

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 24, 2016 24 Comments
Ithaca, NY, loves it some Democratic Socialism of the Bernie Sanders type. Ithaca is the second Most Pro-Sanders Zip Code in the nation, just behind the Mission District of San Francisco. https://res.cloudinary.com/crowdpac/image/upload/v1/posts/sqxrdtsjkv8eqenihsjf.jpg Here are the directions to my house, circa November 2008:
To live in Ithaca is to live in a city alive with anti-Bush, anti-war protest.  I often joke that the directions to my house in Ithaca  read as follows:  Take a right at the fifth Obama sign, a left at the third “Impeach Bush” placard, bear right at the “Support Our Troops, End the War” poster, and we are the house just after the “There’s a Village in Texas Missing its Idiot” banner.
Ithaca really is "10 Sq. miles surrounded by reality"

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 12, 2016 4 Comments
You may recall the name Janna Jihad. Janna is a member of the Tamimi clan from Nabi Saleh. Among the more infamous Tamimi members is Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who organized the Sbarro Pizza restaurant suicide bombing in 2001, and then broke out with a huge smile when she learned that more children actually were killed than she thought. The Tamimi clan also has a sophisticated media operation. Under the guidance of Bassem Tamimi and his wife, Tamimi and other village children are used as media props to confront Israeli soldiers for the cameras, including throwing rocks, hoping to create a viral image or video.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 23, 2016 13 Comments
It doesn't sound quite as good as "on the cover of The Rolling Stone." A reader emailed me a photo of a NY Times front page story today in which I am quoted. Thing is, the Times article suggests I opposed the proposal:
Ever since Mr. Myrick, 29, unveiled a plan last month for what he called a “supervised injection facility,” critics have pounced on it as a harebrained idea that would just enable more drug abuse. A Republican state legislator, Tom O’Mara, called it “preposterous” and “asinine,” and a Cornell law professor, William A. Jacobson, said it would be a “government-run heroin shooting gallery.”
In fact, in my blog post from which the quote was taken, to which The Times links in the online version, I was ambivalent:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 09, 2016 2 Comments
Bassem Tamimi has been on these pages quite frequently in the past half year, most of it related to his appearance at an Ithaca, NY, third grade class as part of an anti-Israel propaganda event organized by local Jewish Voice for Peace activist Ariel Gold (now employed by Code Pink) and one of the teachers. Tamimi is best known for using children, including his own, to confront Israeli soldiers in the hope of creating viral video and photo images. He has been quite successful at this, and many of the images resulting from these provocations have become international hits, such as this video of his daughter from several years ago: And this more recent incident:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2016 14 Comments
As detailed in a prior post, my Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) regarding Bassem Tamimi’s appearance before third graders at the Beverly J. Martin School (BJM) encountered a completely unexpected problem:
In brief, and incredibly, the teachers union in the Ithaca school district appears to have instructed its members not to produce records responsive to my FOIL Request contained on personal electronic devices and email accounts.... So I went to court and obtained a Temporary Restraining Order preserving records pending a court determination on the merits.
After responsive motion papers from ICSD and the Ithaca Teachers Association [ITA], in which ITA disputed some of ICSD's allegations, and my reply, the case was argued on January 25, 2016, before the N.Y. State Supreme Court (the trial level court in NY) in Ithaca. I was pro se in the case. ICSD was represented by a large Syracuse law firm, and ITA by the legal department of New York State United Teachers, the statewide teachers union. In a decision issued today, the Court granted most of the relief I requested, including injunctive relief requiring ICSD to make specified efforts to obtain records contained on the personal electronic devices of ICSD employees. (Full embed at bottom of post.) But first, some background for those of you not familiar with the third grade incident.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 23, 2016 39 Comments
I'll never forget my one and only visit to a heroin shooting gallery. It was my first summer of law school, and I was working at the Manhattan (New York County) District Attorney's Office. It didn't pay much; we were paid $100 a week, in crisp $100 bills handed out at the cashier's window every Friday. Seriously. The extra-curricular part of the job was the most interesting. We took a tour of the Medical Examiner's Museum, not open to the public. Use your imagination as to what we saw there. We viewed an autopsy; the one I attended was of a guy found burned in a dumpster. I walked out on it. But by far the most exciting part was my police ride-along. My law school friend and I randomly were assigned to the same patrol, West Harlem on a Friday night. The cops we rode with thought it was really funny to have two young Harvard Law School students with them that night, so they decided to show us a good time.
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