23 Oct 2023

Boston-area dentist who ripped down posters of Israeli hostages has been fired: ‘It’s appalling. It’s cold-hearted. It’s evil’

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A woman who was caught on camera ripping down posters of Israeli hostages at a Chestnut Hill shopping center has been fired from a local dental office.

The video of the Boston-area dentist went viral over the weekend after she was seen at The Street shopping area taking down posters of Israelis, who have been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.

After the organization StopAntisemitism identified the woman as a local endodontist, the group reached out to her employer and she was fired soon after.

“It’s appalling. It’s cold-hearted. It’s evil,” StopAntisemitism Executive Director Liora Rez told the Herald on Monday.

“I’m not sure what sort of depraved human being would look at posters of kidnapped babies and think the appropriate course of action would be to tear them down,” Rez added. “Tearing down any attempt to bring awareness to that campaign is very frightening.”

The Herald reached out to the Boston-area dentist, but she could not be immediately reached for comment.

Since Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, groups have been putting up posters of the hundreds of Israelis who were kidnapped to Gaza.

Many people across the U.S. have been caught on camera removing the posters.

In the video of the woman in Chestnut Hill, a person can be heard saying, “Why is she taking the pictures off?”

“That is so sad. That is so sad,” the person in the video adds.

After the video went viral over the weekend, the woman was fired from Nevins Dental Center.

“Acts of terror against the State of Israel and innocent people must be condemned,” owner Marc Nevins said in a statement. “Acts of antisemitism, racism, and bigotry that assault members of our community based on their heritage or beliefs cannot be tolerated and must equally be condemned. No healthcare service institution or clinical practice should permit activities that by word or deed create the deep hurt that threatens our community and our healing.

“It has come to our attention that a clinician working as an adjunct member of our clinical practice has been accused of taking actions that are contrary to our community standards and to the basic values of my clinical practice,” Nevins added. “After having reviewed the facts and circumstances, the individual no longer works with our practice effective October 21, 2023.”

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The woman’s LinkedIn page was down on Monday, and past Facebook posts connecting her to Nevins Dental Center had been removed.

“These are profoundly troubling times causing neighbors to question neighbors and impacted communities to scream for justice,” Nevins said. “Our health care center will not employ anyone who has been found to further hate or discrimination. Our utmost concern is for the protection of our patients, our community and our employees.”

The woman in the past had been connected with Central Dental Associates in Norwood. She’s no longer affiliated with that practice, a representative for Central Dental Associates told the Herald.

23 Oct 2023

Hamas frees two Israeli women, but not their husbands

by | posted in: News | 0

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas on Monday released two elderly Israeli women held hostage in Gaza as the United States asked Israel to hold off on a ground assault to negotiate the release of more hostages.

The two freed hostages, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper, were taken out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where they were put into ambulances, according to footage shown on Egyptian TV. The two women, along with their husbands, were snatched from their homes in the kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border during Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Their husbands, ages 83 and 84, were not released.

“While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those — some 200 innocent people — who remain hostages in Gaza,” Lifshitz’ daughter, Sharone Lifschitz, said in a statement.

Lifschitz, an artist and academic in London who uses a different spelling for her name, told reporters last week that her parents were peace activists, and her father would drive to the Gaza border to take Palestinians to east Jerusalem for medical treatment.

Kindness, she said last week, could somehow save them.

“I grew up, you know, with all these Holocaust stories about how all my uncles’ lives were saved because” of acts of kindness, she said.

“Do I want that to be the story here?” she asked. “Yeah.”

Hamas apparently received nothing in exchange for the release of the two hostages, who were freed days after an American woman and her teenage daughter. Hamas and other militants in Gaza are believed to have taken roughly 220 people, including an unconfirmed number of foreigners and dual citizens.

Israeli tanks and ground forces have been massed at the Gaza border, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops there Monday to keep preparing for an offensive “because it will come.”

23 Oct 2023

Maple Grove ‘Airbnb becomes machine gunBNB,’ sheriff’s office says after 11 guns found at 17-year-old’s birthday party

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Stolen credit cards from Shoreview led Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies to a suspect who was celebrating his 17th birthday at a house party in Maple Grove, where deputies said they found 11 handguns hidden in the home.

Seven of the guns had a “switch,” which is put on a handgun to make it fully automatic, said Undersheriff Mike Martin on Monday. “… When you pull the trigger, it basically dumps out all the rounds that are in the gun and many of the guns had extended magazines, so for example, one of those guns could shoot 33 rounds in two seconds.”

Deputies tracked the teen on Saturday night to a party at a house that had been rented through Airbnb.

The sheriff’s office on its Live on Patrol Facebook page dubbed the situation: “AIRBNB becomes dangerous MACHINEGUNBNB.”

An auto sear attached to a gun “not only makes it an illegal machine gun, but it’s highly dangerous because you can’t aim,” Martin said.

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office said it found 11 guns in a house being rented for a teen’s birthday party in Maple Grove on Oct. 21, 2023. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office Live on Patrol)

The situation began Friday about 11:15 a.m. when a man reported seeing someone enter his work truck in the 4600 block of Chandler Road in Shoreview. He yelled for them to get out of his truck, but he found his wallet had been stolen.

Between 11:40 a.m. and 12:15 p.m., the man received notifications of charges to his stolen credit cards. There was $577 charges to his bank credit cards, and additional charges of $275 and were attempted on his other credit cards. The transactions happened at the Target in Shoreview.

An investigator reviewed video surveillance from the store and compared photographs to a similar theft and unauthorized card use in Lino Lakes and determined it was the same person, according to a juvenile petition filed Friday by the Ramsey County attorney’s office. Law enforcement disseminated the photos and members from the sheriff’s office Carjacking and Auto Theft team recognized the suspect, Martin said.

“Over the weekend, we learned that there was going to be a birthday party for the 17-year-old suspect … and that they had rented an Airbnb in the suburbs,” Martin said. Through “tremendous” investigative work, deputies “put together where the Airbnb was,” he said.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher and deputies went to a home in Maple Grove on 108th Avenue near Zachary Lane. The person who had rented the Airbnb wasn’t there and the sheriff’s office contacted the homeowner, who told them the rental agreement specified a maximum of 10 people allowed, and no weapons or smoking.

There were about 50 people at the home and “they had been posting pictures on social media of themselves with weapons and smoking,” Martin said. The homeowner told law enforcement, “Shut it down” and deputies did with the assistance of Maple Grove police.

The people attending the party were 15- to 21-years-old and law enforcement told them they were going to search them when they were leaving the home to ensure they didn’t have illegal guns.

“They were advised if they did have guns to keep them in the house and they did,” Martin said.

Deputies found 11 guns in the home in backpacks and purses, unfinished walls, and behind TVs and couches. One was hidden in a “Heads Up” game box and another in a McDonald’s bag on the kitchen counter, the sheriff’s office said.

“This is especially concerning to us because several of the party attendees are part of a ‘group’ that has enemies — or as they call them ‘opps’,” a reference to the opposition, the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook.

Deputies arrested the 17-year-old and prosecutors charged him with financial transaction fraud. Law enforcement is continuing to investigate the guns, including where they came from, who handled them on Saturday and whether they were used in past crimes.

“Unauthorized and disruptive parties are banned on Airbnb, and our safety team has removed the booking guest from the platform,” an Airbnb spokesperson said in a statement Monday. “We are supporting our host … and we stand ready to assist the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office as they investigate.”

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23 Oct 2023

Battenfeld: War and foreign policy become new flash point in 2024 White House campaign

by | posted in: Politics | 0

With President Biden threatening to draw the U.S. into a wider Mideast war, suddenly foreign policy – an issue almost overlooked weeks before – has become a heated flash point in the 2024 White House campaign.

Biden’s attempt to tie the Israel-Hamas conflict to support for Ukraine has drawn the ire of Republicans and presidential candidates looking to separate themselves from the crowded field. And the Democratic president’s strong stance for Israel is prompting blowback in his own party — potentially siphoning away badly-needed progressive voters.

Some candidates and their super PACs are jumping into war footing, flooding the airwaves with new ads about the Israeli-Hamas war.

“The shame of it all is that we wouldn’t be in this terrible position if Joe Biden hadn’t been so weak in Afghanistan, so slow in Ukraine, so pandering to Iran, and so absent from the border,” GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said on X. “The world is on fire and America needs strong new leadership to deal with it.”

GOP candidate Sen. Tim Scott said in a radio interview the U.S. needs to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with Israel with “no daylight” between the two countries.

“We’re seeing the devastation and the human carnage brought to the Jewish people by Hamas,” Scott said. “We have to be very, very clear that we stand with Israel.”

Republicans in Congress are vowing to block further funding for Ukraine, leading to a likely future showdown with Biden.

Sen. J.D. Vance called Biden’s attempt to tie the Israel-Hamas war to aid for Ukraine as “completely disgraceful.”

“What Biden is doing is disgusting,” Vance said. “He’s using dead children in Israel to sell his disastrous Ukraine policy to skeptical Americans. They are not the same countries; they are not the same problems, and this effort to use Israel for political cover is offensive. Hell no.”

The war is already spilling over into the campaign. Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are feuding over whether the U.S. should take in Palestinian refugees, with DeSantis accusing the surging Haley of flip-flopping on the issue. Haley has strongly denied making the remarks about refugees being accepted into the U.S.

The former U.N. Ambassador is running second to Donald Trump in New Hampshire, where the former president is making a campaign stop on Monday.

DeSantis’s willingness to engage in a skirmish with Haley indicates both are fighting to be Trump’s main opposition, with Haley surging ahead in recent weeks.

The U.S.’s involvement in supplying aid and arms to Israel could also bring the threat of surging oil prices, making that a major 2024 issue.

It’s all fun and games until the price of gas hits $10 a gallon.

Or the supply chain gets disrupted and causes inflation to skyrocket.

These potential ramifications could trigger trouble for Biden, who is already struggling with weak job approval ratings and tied or behind Trump in most polls.

Biden’s strong stance in support of Israel may win him some votes with moderates and Jewish voters but could cost him votes with progressives who are mounting protests in support of the Palestinian people.

He’s even under pressure from some far-left lawmakers like the Squad and Sen. Edward Markey to support a cease-fire in Gaza, but so far the president isn’t biting.