I broke this story a month ago and then added to Monday night. The JTA’s report is clearly based on these two posts.
The JTA skips all mention of the involvement of Chabad’s national prison outreach organization, the Aleph Institute, and skips all mention of Chabad’s attempt to cover up its fundraising for Rubashkin (in part because it is using tax deductible donations for Rubashkin’s legal defense), and totally misses the story of Chabad’s failure to help the victims of Rubashkin’s alleged crimes – victims who are overwhelmingly non-Jews.
It also did not check with legal experts or the IRS to see if Chabad’s use of tax deductible donations is legal. Chabad is using this tax deductible money in part to advocate for and protect a private for-profit business. And the "fund" Shea Hecht mentions itself is comprised of tax deductible donations.
The JTA also fails to mention that the Aleph Institute started its legal defense fund exactly at the same time it began accepting donations for Rubashkin, and that all money donated to that fund was used for Rubashkin – in other words, this "legal defense fund" was really the "Rubashkin legal defense fund," and Aleph has no real history of raising money to defend accused criminals.
Aleph’s role in this affair may even jeopardize its access to federal prisons. But the JTA doesn’t explore the issue, either.
Also note this graph, where the JTA seriously downplays the facts:
Prosecutors claimed that a travel bag with money, silver coins and passports were found in Rubashkin’s home and that — partly because Israel’s Law of Return grants Jews automatic citizenship — the former plant manager posed a risk of flight.…
This is one of the videos banned by YouTube and then, as you’ll see below, reinstated after viewer and blogger pressure:
What you see are Hamas operatives loading Grad missiles onto a truck. Then you see the explosion after the IDF rockets the truck, destroying it and the missiles and killing the Hamas operatives, as well.
But this is not graphic footage. You don’t see body parts or blood.
Still, YouTube’s parent company, Google, felt it necessary to remove that and other videos – all of which make Israel’s case for war.
What Google has done is clearly censorship of the worst kind.
And that censorship by Google continues, as you’ll now see.
This is how the the IDF Channel’s home page looks now. Please click to enlarge:
If you click on a video there you are brought to a YouTube verify screen before being allowed to view footage. You must be 18 or older – just like porn – to view IDF videos. Please click to enlarge:
Here’s the text:
This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.
By clicking "Confirm", you are agreeing that all videos or groups flagged by the YouTube community will be viewable by this account.
In other words, if you want to watch the IDF videos showing Hamas loading missiles meant to murder Israeli civilians, you’ll also have to take the chance of seeing KKK videos or porn.
