Globe Briefs November 19
Hillel chapter joins Amherst protest against alleged bias on campus
The Amherst College chapter of Hillel joined more than 50 campus groups in a coalition demanding changes to create a more “inclusive environment” on campus.
Amherst Uprising is one of a spate of collectives on campuses across the country seeking to address what members see as campus environments hostile to minorities.
The manifesto posted last week demands an apology from the elite college in Amherst, Mass., and from its president, Carolyn “Biddy” Martin, for an “institutional legacy” of a number of bigotries, among them anti-Semitism.
The statement also seeks the disciplining and “extensive training for racial and cultural competency” of students behind posters on campus declaring “All Lives Matter” and “in memoriam of the true victim of the Missouri Protests: Free Speech.”
“All Lives Matter” is a slogan that has emerged as a retort to the “Black Lives Matter” movement that started as a response to the killing of blacks by law enforcement. The University of Missouri has been the scene in recent weeks of tensions arising from racist online harassment of blacks and racist graffiti as well as a counter-movement that has sought to silence some media coverage of its protests. The school’s president and chancellor have resigned.
El Al plane bound for LA makes emergency landing in Montana with 300 aboard
An El Al flight with nearly 300 people on board made an emergency landing in Billings, Mont. Warning lights showed that there was a fire in the right engine, the Billings Gazette reported Sunday. The passengers had to exit using a landing ladder, according to the newspaper, as the Boeing 777 was too large to park at the terminal.
A spare plane was being sent from New Jersey to allow the passengers to finish their journey, which started in Tel Aviv.
With no U.S. Customs agents stationed at the Billings airport, officials were sent from Great Falls to handle the passengers, the Gazette reported.
Israel to file protest against Palestinian Red Crescent, saying it ignored wounded Israelis
Israel will file a protest with the International Committee of the Red Cross after accusing a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance of not stopping to help Jewish victims of a terror attack.
Also, on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, to lodge a formal complaint against the Red Crescent with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Netanyahu had spoken on the phone with Noa Litman, wife and mother of the two men slain late last Friday afternoon in an attack on a car carrying seven members of the same family to the Shabbat pre-wedding celebrations of their daughter and sister.
Litman told Netanyahu that the Red Crescent ambulance did not stop to assist the victims, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
In a recording of the call made to emergency services by Litman’s 16-year-old son broadcast last Friday night on Israeli television, the teen says, “There are two wounded here, but we have the Red Crescent with us.” Then he says, “The Red Crescent ambulance drove away from us, I don’t know why.”
In a statement issued late Friday evening by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the organization denied allegations that its paramedics did not stop to assist the victims.
“A PRCS team arrived at the scene and started providing First Aid to the wounded. A few minutes later, two Israeli ambulances, one belonging to the Israeli army and another from Magen David Adom, arrived at the scene,” the statement said. “The ambulances’ teams headed toward the wounded persons, brandishing their weapons. Given that Israeli paramedics had arrived and were providing medical care to casualties, the PRCS team left the scene, which they felt had become unsafe.”
The driver of the Israeli ambulance told Israel’s Channel 10 that Red Crescent paramedics did not alight from their vehicle before driving away.
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