Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts

Saturday, February 23, 2019

From Ian:

The Destructive Legacy of Obama’s Approach to the Middle East
The chief legacy of Obama's foreign policy is not the Iran nuclear deal, but rather the visceral partisanship that he fostered at home while trying to defend the deal. As the country debated whether to support the JCPOA in the summer of 2015, recall how Obama demonized the accord's critics. He went so far as to compare them to the hard men of Iran's murderous regime. "It's those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal," Obama said in August 2015. "They're making common cause with the Republican caucus." Such language is vile and dishonest, but the president and his allies employed it consistently, using an "echo chamber" of experts and media figures to drown out any opposition, no matter how genuine and well reasoned. Obama also troubled American Jews at the time with his rhetoric, singling out Israel and flirting, perhaps unintentionally, with conspiracy theories about nefarious Jewish money seeking to influence the public debate.

The Obama administration and its allies also made support for the Iran deal a litmus test of loyalty for Democrats in Congress. "Opponents of the agreement said they could not remember another recent policy battle where the White House and [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi were so driven," the New York Times reported at the time. "In tandem, they made the Iran vote a strong test of party loyalty." Several Democrats expressed strong concerns about the deeply flawed deal, but they were pressured to fall in line, no matter their reservations. Only a few voted no.

Meanwhile, as Obama waged his campaign of demonization against the deal's critics, he carried on a similar campaign against America's traditional allies in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. Obama's contempt for the Saudis has been well documented, and, whether intentional or not, his approach to the region put the Democratic Party in the position of defending Iran and criticizing Saudi Arabia. Naturally, the Republicans did the opposite.

So what do we have now? One party effectively supports the regime in Iran and opposes Saudi Arabia, while the other party opposes Tehran and supports the Saudis. Both regimes are odious, but the Saudis are, like it or not, an essential strategic ally. They are an important security partner and ensure the free flow of oil from the Middle East. Iran's leaders, meanwhile, chant "death to America" and seek regional preeminence.

A country so divided on the Middle East cannot create effective policies in the region. American leaders cannot even agree on who their friends and enemies are. How can they possibly come to some kind of a bipartisan consensus? The DNC's resolution is a reminder of how far apart Democrats and Republicans are regarding the Middle East, and especially Iran. Of course the parties were never entirely on the same page. But the partisan divide grew substantially during Obama's presidency. His campaign to garner support for the Iran deal at all costs hurt American national security in the long run. Obama did not just cause lasting damage to the Middle East; he also caused lasting damage to Washington, D.C.
Caroline Glick: The U.S. Is Right -- Israel Should Apologize to Poland
The U.S. chose not to cut off its ties with its closest allies and partners in the Arab world — but not because it didn’t recognize their responsibility for spawning and enabling the growth of the jihadist ideology that informed the actions of their nationals. The U.S. chose to remain a close ally of the Saudis and Egyptians because doing so served its strategic interests — whether in preserving the flow of oil in the world market, or ensuring the safe passage of maritime traffic across the Suez Canal.

Was that move wrong? Of course not.

If Israel were to base its foreign policy on countries’ past record of abuse of Jews during the Holocaust — and, more generally, throughout Europe’s 2,000 years of persecution of Jews — then the only European states it would be capable of having diplomatic relations with are Bulgaria and Denmark.

The point isn’t whether or not a state has a past of persecution of Jews generally. All states in Europe have such a past.

The point is that today, some European states are becoming more antisemitic and more hostile to Israel. And some European states are becoming less antisemitic and friendlier to Israel.

Poland, like the other Visegard members, is in the latter category. France, Germany, Belgium, and other Western European states are in the former category. Israel is best served by cultivating close ties to the European states that want close ties with it, and keeping its distance from those who want close ties with Iran and the Palestinians.

The U.S. is now calling for Israel to apologize to Poland for Katz’s statement. And Washington is right.

Hopefully, someday, Poland will reconcile itself with the historical truth of its people’s dubious and decidedly mixed record of behavior towards the Jews during the Holocaust. And Israel cannot accept revision of the historic record.

But Israel also has important interests in the world. Those interests are best advanced by working with like-minded countries. And in issues that matter, along a wide spectrum of areas, Poland is a like-minded country. Israel should treat it accordingly.

British Jewish TV Presenter Rachel Riley, Actress Tracy Ann Oberman to Take Legal Action Over Twitter Abuse They Have Faced for Calling Out Labor Antisemitism
Rachel Riley, host of the UK television show “Countdown,” and actress Tracy Ann Oberman are preparing to take legal action against those who have targeted them on Twitter with abusive remarks over their efforts to call out antisemitism in the Labour party, the pair’s lawyer said on Thursday.

Mark Lewis said he was contacting “between 60 and 70 people” who are “almost exclusively Labour supporters” for alleged libel or harassment of his two Jewish clients, according to the Daily Mail.

He told The Guardian he would go to court and force Twitter to release details of social media users who made the Twitter posts if they did not voluntarily provide him with their contact information.

Oberman, 52, was previously a Labour member but left in April 2017 after the party’s decision to not suspend MP Ken Livingstone following antisemitism allegations. Livingstone resigned in 2018.

Riley, 33, was given extra security in January when appearing on “Countdown” after her criticism of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn resulted in her being threatened by his supporters on social media.

Friday, February 22, 2019

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: While hoaxes make headlines, real attacks on Jews keep happening
And it’s why American Jews who vote Democrat are muted or silent about the virulent antisemitism of people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan or Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Having told themselves falsely that Trump is a mortal threat to Jews, black people or Muslims, they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the most dangerous enemies of the Jewish people are on their own side— and that it’s Trump who is their target, not the other way round.

Hoaxes are a kind of false flag operation to cast as villains the victims of such attacks. They are a hallmark of Soviet communism’s strategy of psychological warfare in creating a looking-glass world where nothing is what it seems.

Israel is a prime victim of this hoax politics. The whole Palestinian narrative — cooked up originally by Yasser Arafat in cahoots with the former Soviet Union—is a false flag operation, a hoax that falsely blames its Israeli victim of appalling crimes of which it is innocent but of which the Palestinian perpetrator is itself guilty.

Hoax politics is an example of cultural totalitarianism that fries the brain and creates a climate of political, intellectual and moral chaos.

It’s why so many of us feel that the world has spun off its axis of reason altogether. And it’s why the whole anti-Israel and anti-Jew pathology that has erupted in the West is part of a broader and devastating cultural nervous breakdown.
The ‘Times’ and Israel: A Review of 2018
On the first day of 2018, the publisher of the New York Times wrote a letter to his readers. Quoth A.G. Sulzberger: “The Times will hold itself to the highest standards of independence, rigor and fairness—because we believe trust is the most precious asset we have.” Fairness and accuracy would be paramount, he promised, “and in the inevitable moments we fall short, we will continue to own up to our mistakes, and we’ll strive to do better.”

The date of the letter suggests it would be only fair to look closely at the 12 months of journalism that followed and judge whether the Times delivered on Sulzberger’s promise of impartial, accurate reporting. That is what the media-monitoring organization CAMERA did when producing a timeline assessing a year’s worth of the newspaper’s coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The timeline, alas, makes clear that the Times fell far short of those promised standards when it came to its coverage of Israel and its opponents.

Again and again, the newspaper distorted the news, downplayed inconvenient facts, and departed from journalistic norms. And while the chronological list of the newspaper’s stumbles is striking, a still more damning picture emerges when we sort those stumbles by common theme—a picture of a newspaper eager to tilt public opinion by glossing over news reflecting poorly on Palestinian actors while at the same time zooming in on perceived Israeli misdeeds.
“More Than Just Victims”

At one point during her tenure as public editor of the New York Times from 2012 to 2015, Margaret Sullivan delivered a stunning message to her colleagues. In an otherwise gentle 2014 column about the paper’s coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict, Sullivan called on Times reporters to remember that the Palestinians “are more than just victims.” Her colleagues, don’t forget, are professional journalists at the country’s most reputable newspaper. That the public editor felt the need to impart such a rudimentary lesson about the Palestinians, a multidimensional group that has experienced but also imposed plenty of suffering, raised questions then about how much Times journalists actually knew about the conflict, or about impartial journalism.

In 2018, the newspaper demonstrated time and again that it was unwilling to offer frank coverage of news that highlighted the Palestinian role in exacerbating the conflict. In one emblematic example, Times journalist Nellie Bowles described the Palestinian Authority’s payments to families of imprisoned terrorists as a figment of the right-wing imagination. Facebook, she lamented, has been “flooded with far-right conspiracy programming like ‘Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions for Terrorist Families.’” In fact, the Palestinian government had been perfectly open about its payments. The newspaper, at least in this case, made amends after CAMERA contacted editors. “That is not a conspiracy theory,” a correction noted.
It’s all about the Benjamins – Franklin and Herzl
Similarly, 150 years later, addressing a people scattered worldwide, not just along America’s East Coast, Herzl said: “Zionism has already brought about something remarkable, heretofore regarded as impossible: a close union between the ultramodern and the ultraconservative Jews.... A union of this kind is possible only on a national basis.”

This is not an exercise in cherry-picking selective quotes that might fit together – their ideas flow naturally together, one of many illustrations of the natural fit linking Americanism with Zionism, Americans with Israelis, the US with Israel. True, shared interests help, too. No other country backs Israel as America does, and Israel watches America’s back. Following Franklin Roosevelt’s high standard, “Judge me by the enemies I make,” the Iranian mullahocracy’s obsessive attacks on “Big Satan” and “Little Satan” honor America and Israel.

Ultimately, it’s all about the Benjamins: thanks to shared values, not just shared interest. A certain brand of transformational, aspirational nationalism, a catalytic identity, a zeal to be useful, constructive, free and redemptive drive America and Israel more than most democracies, thereby driving them together, too.

The other Benjamins – money – lack the power such bonding ideas and defining values enjoy. No lobby could ever manufacture the overlapping images, dreams and ideals that link America with Israel, while making the two peoples so close, too.

That little Israel cheers America is not surprising. But that capitalist America – with its eye on oil – sticks by Israel; that media-driven America, despite constant campaigns to delegitimize Israel, resists such lies; and that Christian America, transcending centuries of Western antisemitism, supports the Jewish state say much about Israel’s value and even more about American values. As Franklin taught: while “a friend in need is a friend indeed,” there is “no better relation than a prudent and faithful friend.”

Lobby-libelers be damned. How lucky Israel and America each are to have each other.

From Ian:

Pro-Palestinian Frauds: UNRWA Called Out For Lying About Its Own Definition Of ‘Refugee’
On Thursday morning, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — which exists as a discrete group solely to support those whom UNRWA identifies as Palestinian-Arab "refugees" resulting from Israel's 1948 War of Independence — claimed that it defines "refugee" in precisely the same manner as does its sister organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). UNHCR, in contrast to UNRWA, exists to support "refugees" resulting from every other conflict in the world besides the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The main problem, as the inestimable Hillel Neuer of UN Watch tweeted, is that this is a bald-faced lie.


As Neuer claims, UNRWA's very own former General Counsel, James Lindsay, confirmed in a 2012 Middle East Quarterly essay that UNRWA calcualtes its "refugees" in a very different manner than does UNHCR:

The UNRWA definition makes no mention of citizenship, and UNRWA makes no effort to de-register persons who were formerly refugees but are now citizens of a state. As such, UNRWA is the only refugee organization in the world that considers citizens of a state to be refugees, and there are many of these oxymoronic "citizen-refugees" on UNRWA rolls.

As Lindsay noted in his essay, UNRWA's lack of mention of citizenship is hugely consequential — and it differs from UNHCR's definition of "refugee," which "specifically does not apply to any person who 'has acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.'"

Therefore, all the millions of descendants of the Palestinian-Arabs displaced by Israel's 1948 War of Independence — a genocidal war launched by the Jewish state's Arab neighbors only after those neighbors flatly rejected the incipient United Nation's previously proffered two-state partition proposal — who have since acquired citizenship in a distinct sovereign nation, such as the 1.8 million Jordanians Neuer references, would not be considered "refugees" under UNHCR's definition but are considered "refugees" under UNRWA's definition.
Kohelet Policy Forum: UNRWA's Hereditary Refugee Status for Palestinians Is Unique (pdf)
For almost 70 years, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has created a unique category of "registered refugee" status under which the children and grandchildren of a Palestine refugee, and all their descendants thereafter, are automatically considered "refugees from Palestine."

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is responsible for all refugees except those from Mandatory Palestine. UNHCR does not define as refugees people who acquired new citizenship. More than 2 million "Palestine refugees" hold Jordanian citizenship, most of whom have been born in Jordan and have lived there their entire lives. In addition, 2/3 to 3/4 of the 1 million refugees registered by UNRWA in Lebanon and Syria have left those countries over the decades, with many acquiring citizenship in Western countries. But UNRWA's numbers never decline.

UNHCR does not define as "refugees" people who are internally displaced, that is, who have moved within the same territory. "Palestine refugees" living in the West Bank or Gaza were in fact internally displaced since they have never crossed the internationally recognized border of Mandatory Palestine. According to the rules applied by UNHCR, these people are not refugees. UNRWA is not a neutral humanitarian organization but rather a political actor aimed at perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem.

Hebrew Origins of Palestinian Arab Towns in Judea-Samaria
It is absurd to claim that the Arabs are the indigenous peoples of Israel because virtually all the place names used by local Arabs are non-Arabic in origin, and derived either from biblical Hebrew names or from later Greek or Roman names. The Romans renamed the entire region Syria-Palestina (named for the Philistines and Assyrians) after they destroyed the Second Temple so as to erase its Jewish roots. This was later shortened to Palestina, and it eventually became known as Palestine.

The region commonly referred to as the "West Bank" was known for three millennia as Judea and Samaria. Indeed, Jews derive the very name of their religion and peoplehood from the name Yehuda, the fourth son of Jacob, whose tribe settled in that region. In fact, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) referred to the region as Judea and Samaria, as do all maps published before 1948.

Israeli scholar and later president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi wrote in 1932 that west of the Jordan River, 277 villages and sites had names that were similar to or the same as Jewish villages in these locations during Second Temple times. Moreover, 1/4 of the 584 Arab localities in Israel and beyond have ancient biblical names. So, to counter those who attempt to disassociate the Jews from the Land of Israel and claim that they are colonizers, the proof is in the names

Thursday, February 21, 2019

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Antisemitism in France
Gallant said the vandalism at the Jewish cemetery was “reminiscent of dark days in the history of the Jewish people.”

“Last week, I visited the French Jewish community, which faces antisemitic attacks and a process of assimilation,” he said. “The State of Israel is the safe, national home for the Jews of the world. I strongly condemn the antisemitism in France and call on Jews [to] come home; immigrate to Israel.”

Meyer Habib, a Jewish member of France’s National Assembly, said the recent spate of antisemitic attacks raised “serious questions over the future of Jews in France.”

While aliyah is clearly an option, a report from Paris by Bernard Edinger in The Jerusalem Report indicates that immigration to Israel from France is on the wane rather than the rise.

After reaching a record 24,000 immigrants from 2013 through 2016, according to the Jewish Agency, annual immigration from France dropped in 2018 for the third year running, to only 2,660 (down from 3,500 in 2017, and 5,000 in 2016).

Despite the rise in antisemitism, according to Daniel Benhaim, outgoing head of the Jewish Agency in France, “French Jews feel that the situation is less oppressive than it was in the past, and there is less of a feeling that they should accelerate their departure to Israel.”

While we commend French leaders for speaking out against antisemitism, we urge French authorities to take aggressive action to combat all signs of it, and bring the offenders swiftly to justice.

As for French Jews, they must be on the alert – but should be assured that Israel stands by them, and will always be here for them.
Why should we hate Israel?
Back in 1994, I was still a middle school student in a small Kurdistani town called Amadiya, which had been under the control of Saddam Hussein until 1991. I recall our history teacher stepping out of the curriculum line and saying, “Although the books favor Arabs over Jews, history indicates Jews lived in Jerusalem prior to Muslims.”

The teacher got away with this statement because Kurdistan was then outside the control of Saddam. Otherwise, he could have easily been executed for making such a comment to students.

The comment made by our teacher stuck in my head, so I always questioned whether the Arab media conveyed the truth regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This month, I was fortunate to visit Israel. Understanding and analyzing a nation requires profound knowledge. While Israel is far from perfect, I learned there are many reasons to respect the country, and that the portrait of Israelis as portrayed by the Arab media is misleading.

When I arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, the passport control officer separated me from the rest of the travelers and asked me to walk to a corner office where I should wait to be called. I was questioned about my visit to Israel. The officers were very professional and respectful. I did not feel any racism or ill treatment that suggested a predetermined suspicion because of my background. At the end of the questioning, an officer stepped forward with my password and entry permit, saying, “Mr. Amedi, you are good to go.”

When I entered the airport’s main terminal, I noticed many signs in Arabic. “Perhaps it is an international facility, and that could be why Arabic is used,” I thought. One of the first steps in foreign travel is to buy local currency, and I was intrigued that the Israel shekel is printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English!
Did UNC Promote Sarsour Talk by Using Photo of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial?
As I recently reported in the Tower, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is hosting their Minority Health Conference on February 22, featuring keynote speaker Linda Sarsour. The American-Palestinian activist is known for her hostility towards Israel, having said “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and advising Muslims not to “humanize” Israelis.

Community members are now concerned that the UNC-CH Minority Health Conference may have exploited the Holocaust by using what appears to be a picture of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial to promote the conference on social media. A number of Jewish community members confidently informed me that the image in question, posted to Facebook by the Minority Health Conference on February 19, is of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

Michael Abramson, Chairman of the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust, a state agency organized under the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, said, “The Holocaust or any Holocaust Memorial commemorating the Holocaust, should not be used as an advertising tool to promote a political event. When an organization invites Linda Sarsour to speak, the organization is opening itself to politicizing its conference.”

A UNC-CH graduate student remarked, “The conference organizers seem to have a definite fixation on Jews and the topic of Israel. One would expect an academic conference on public health to focus on public health.”

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "The Slap of the Century"
Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.

All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians, and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Syria.

For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.
U.S. envoy Friedman knocks Oslo, says hand open to Palestinian people
United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman knocked the 1993 Oslo Accords and said his hand was open to the Palestinian people, when he spoke in Jerusalem on Thursday at a joint Israeli-Palestinian business forum sponsored by the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce.

“To all the Palestinian friends who are here, the US is with you, the people of the US are with you, the President of the US is with you,” Friedman said.

He spoke of his support for the grassroots initiative that brings together settlers and Palestinian in the West Bank in joint business ventures, which was started last year.

“To my Israeli friends, I say the same. We are all with you, together to support you in new out-of-the-box thinking, to build a safe and more prosperous world for Israeli and Palestinians alike,” Friedman said.

The gathering comes at a time when there are no relations between the US and the Palestinian Authority. The US has cut most of its funding to the PA, and the PA in turn has rejected all US funding, including for humanitarian projects. In a climate with few opportunities for cooperation, Israeli-Palestinian public meetings are rare.

But on Thursday, Friedman’s comments made it seem as if settlers, who are often portrayed as a stumbling block to the peace process, are now leading the way in an arena with few opportunities for joint cooperation.

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan
Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.


Wednesday, February 20, 2019

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: An odious political symmetry
We are being led to believe that a fearful political symmetry is developing which has to be avoided at all costs, exemplified by the seven MPs who resigned the Labour whip on Monday.

The seven MPs – Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker, and Ann Coffey — said they were resigning the Labour whip to sit as independent MPs in protest at two issues: that the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is facilitating Brexit rather than pressing for the second referendum that they want to see take place; and that he has failed to tackle the antisemitism displayed by hundreds of Labour members.

The latter is undeniably true. Luciana Berger, the Jewish MP who has endured sustained abuse and threats from both inside and outside her Liverpool Wavertree constituency with death threats and taunts of “filthy Jew bitch” and “a Zionist extremist who hates civilised people”, said the party was “institutionally antisemitic”.

As if to prove the point, the very next day Labour MP Ruth George astoundingly suggested that the seven MPs – most of who aren’t even Jews – were in the pay of the State of Israel. After an outcry, George deleted her comment and apologised, saying she had “no intention of invoking a conspiracy theory”.

But she did. You can’t just apologise such jaw-dropping antisemitism away.

That Labour is now institutionally not merely vilely antisemitic but extremist and tyrannical, having been captured by the hard left who pose a danger to the entire country if the party were ever to be elected to government, is demonstrably the case.

But astonishingly, an attempt is being made to draw a parallel with the Conservative party. Just as Labour has been captured by extremists, goes the argument, so too have the Tories from the other side of the political spectrum.
Jews Must Not Embrace Powerlessness
To many observers, Israel’s military strength, thriving First World economy, and democratic institutions seem to mark it as a conventional Western power—albeit one located in the Middle East. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Zionism that gave birth to Israel was a radical and revolutionary movement not only to return the Jewish people to sovereignty in their ancestral homeland, but to eradicate the narrative of victimhood that had come to define the Jews of the Diaspora after centuries of oppression and second-class citizenship. That is why Israel is one of the greatest progressive success stories of modern times.

Thus, it makes sense that many left-leaning pro-Israel activists are making valiant efforts to create a space for Zionist groups within the American social-justice movement. On the surface, the fit is an obvious one. Formerly disempowered Jews, who had been oppressed for thousands of years and had lost millions to the Holocaust, now have agency. No longer at the whim of tyrannical regimes, Israel is a powerful, if small, nation-state where the Jews can finally exercise the same rights and privileges as all other peoples.

Yet, as these well-intentioned pro-Israel groups are discovering, intersectionality—the new framework for social-justice movements and the religion of the progressive left—is inherently irreconcilable with Zionism. Pro-Israel groups will fail in their attempts at inclusion precisely because Israel did not fail in its efforts to reverse the condition of the Jew in history. Within the social-justice movement, there is no place for an ideology or an identity that is premised on the idea that Jews will no longer be victims.

In a recent article in the New York Times, columnist Michele Alexander suggested that the only reason Martin Luther King Jr. had been supportive of a homeland for Jews in his day was that “he recognized European Jewry as a persecuted, oppressed, and homeless people.” King would never, she argued, support Israel today.
In 2016 Bernie Sanders pushed the Democrats on Israel. Is he now mainstream?
This may be hard to remember, but three years ago it was a big deal when Bernie Sanders criticized Israel in public.

During a debate in New York City with Hillary Clinton, Sanders generated headlines when he said the United States should care about Palestinian rights. Sometimes, he added, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was wrong.

“In the long run, if we are ever going to bring peace to that region, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity,” the longtime Vermont senator said at the April 14 Democratic presidential primary debate. “There comes a time when we pursue justice and peace that we will have to say Netanyahu is not right all the time.”

During the campaign, Sanders also described himself as “100 percent pro-Israel.” He spoke about living on an Israeli kibbutz when he was younger and defended Israel’s right to self-defense. But he also broke norms on Israel.

Sanders was the only major candidate not to speak at the annual convention of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby (he offered to appear on video, but AIPAC said its doesn’t do that). For a hot second, his director of Jewish outreach was a co-founder of IfNotNow, a millennial Jewish group that is deeply critical of Israeli actions (and takes no “unified stance” on Zionism, the boycott Israel movement or the “question of statehood”). He said Israel’s actions were “disproportionate” during the 2014 Gaza war and overstated the number of Palestinians who were killed.

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Breaking the Silence’s Discredited Spokesman Slanders the IDF
The Journal.ie, an Irish media outlet published an opinion piece by Dean Issacharoff, the spokesperson for Breaking the Silence, a highly politicized organization that collects anonymous testimonies of Israeli soldiers of alleged and most often unsubstantiated misdemeanors or “war crimes” that it presents to a mainly foreign audience as a means of fighting Israel’s “occupation.”

As journalist Jake Wallis Simons recounted back in 2013 when he conducted interviews with BtS staff:

It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.

As is the case in all democracies, the IDF is an organ of the state, not a political decision-maker. If the goal of Breaking the Silence was simply to clean up the Israeli military, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Instead, the aim is to “end the occupation”, and on this basis it secured its funding.

It appeared, therefore, that these former soldiers, some of whom draw salaries from Breaking the Silence, were motivated by financial and political concerns to further a pro-Palestinian agenda. They weren’t merely telling the truth about their experiences. They were under pressure to perform.

Indeed, I later discovered that there have been many allegations in the past that members of the organisation either fabricated or exaggerated their testimonies.


Issacharoff himself was found to have fabricated his own testimony in 2017 after an Israeli legal investigation concluded that his claims that he assaulted a Palestinian man during his military service were false.
PMW impact: Swedish and Norwegian MPs to seek funding cuts to PA
Following Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus' recent briefings before members of parliament and government officials in Norway and Sweden, MPs from both countries said they would seek changes in their governments' funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Marcus provided numerous examples of the PA's escalating antisemitic messages, and its hate education to children, and detailed the PA's policy of financially rewarding imprisoned terrorists and families of purported "Martyrs."

Marcus discussed the PA's payments of salaries to Palestinian terrorist prisoners and allowances to families of dead terrorists, the so-called "Martyrs," with government officials. He called on MPs in Norway and Sweden to follow the example of their Dutch counterparts and set the stage for a Europe-wide uniform 7% reduction in donor funds to the PA, unless and until the PA stops its "Pay-for-Slay policy" of paying salaries to terrorist prisoners, released prisoners, and families of dead terrorists.

Appalled that Norwegian humanitarian aid could be used to reward terrorists, Norwegian MP Ingjerd Schou commented:
"I do not think it's a good idea to give any funding to prisoners... We have to use Norwegian money to make peace. We should reinforce all the good activities."
[Norwegian Parliament, Jan. 29, 2019]

Upon seeing Marcus' documentation, Swedish MP Mikael Oscarsson immediately responded:
"We want to do as they've done in the Dutch parliament to cut the funding to the PA [by 7%], because we need to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority." [Swedish Parliament, Jan. 31, 2019]

Amazon Drive is hosting terrorist content. Here's what Jeff Bezos should do about it.
Terrorist groups usually find ways to exploit the ever expanding services offered by major online platforms and tech companies, and Amazon Drive is no exception. Designed for storing and sharing photos, videos, PDFs and other forms of content, it has been adopted by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other organizations as a stable and reliable platform for disseminating their content. They upload it and then share the links to it with followers and sympathizers, primarily using the encrypted messaging app Telegram — terrorists' "app of choice."

Amazon Drive, established in 2011 and previously known as Amazon Cloud Drive, can store subscribers' photos, videos and other files for access from mobile devices, desktops or Amazon Fire devices. According to the Amazon website, "All photos, videos and other files you upload to Amazon Drive are securely and privately stored in your Files and your Amazon Photos library."

While Amazon has guidelines for its many platforms, including specific bans on terrorism, "bigotry, hatred, or illegal discrimination," or the use of its services by anyone who is "the subject of U.S. sanctions or of sanctions consistent with U.S. law imposed by the governments of the country where you are using Amazon Services," it has not been proactive in removing terrorist content.

Terrorist activity and content on Amazon Drive is the subject of a new report by my organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute and its Cyber & Jihad Lab, documenting how ISIS and other groups like it have been using this free service. The examples in the report include Amazon Drive links to content such as videos by ISIS, audio messages by its leaders, and official newsletters and other content created by the group, its secondary media organizations and its supporters.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

From Ian:

Ben Shaprio: On January 29, Two Hate Crimes Occurred. The Media Only Covered The Fake One. Here's Why.
On January 29, 2019, Chicago Police opened a hate crime investigation into the alleged assault of Empire actor Jussie Smollett. Smollett, who is black and gay, alleged that two men approached him at 2 a.m. in Chicago, where they shouted “f*****” and “n*****,” tried to wrap a noose around his neck, and poured bleach on him. He also told TMZ that the men shouted, “This is MAGA country.”

The story received unending press. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), tweeted, “The racist, homophobic attack on [Smollett] is an affront to our humanity.” Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) called it a “modern-day lynching.” Congresswoman and Fresh Face™ of the Democratic Party Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed anyone who questioned the story, tweeting, “The attack was not ‘possibly’ homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack.”

The media ran with the story. Good Morning America hosted Smollett, where he maligned anyone who asked questions as a racist and a homophobe. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin stated, “This is America in 2019.” Celebrities parroted their support for Smollett, with many blaming President Trump and Vice President Pence for the attack.

The story was a hoax.

That same night, a Jewish man in New York was beaten by three thugs. Nothing was stolen. The attack was caught on video.

Outside of a report in The Jerusalem Post, the story received virtually no attention.

This isn’t the only story of anti-Semitism in New York. Not by a long shot. Two weeks before that beating, a Jewish man, 19, was “violently assaulted” as he walked past a local laundromat by a group of teenage black males. In December, a 16-year-old Jewish teen spent a week in a hospital after being beaten by two other teens; witnesses said that the teens screamed “Kill the Jew.” The NYPD categorized the attack as “gang related” rather than a hate crime, angering Jews in the area. This weekend, vandals shattered the window of a Chabad in Bushwick as the rabbi and his family slept inside.

Ben Shaprio: How Do You Define Anti-Semitism?


Rich Lowry: Ilhan Omar’s Big Lie
The Left distorts what happened in El Salvador in the 1980s.

In a viral exchange at a congressional hearing last week, the new congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, who is quickly establishing herself as the most reprehensible member of the House Democratic freshman class despite stiff competition, launched into Elliott Abrams. She accused the former Reagan official and Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela of being complicit in war crimes.

“Yes or no,” she demanded, “would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, if you believe they were serving U.S. interest, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua?”

Omar was cribbing from the Left’s notes on U.S. Latin American policy, and doing it badly. She made much of the 1981 El Motoze massacre in El Salvador. The idea that Abrams is somehow directly implicated in this bloodcurdlingly awful event is completely absurd. He was assistant secretary of state for international organizations in the Reagan administration, then became assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs on December 10, 1981. The massacre occurred the next day. Unless we are to believe the El Salvadoran military unit took his change of jobs as a green light to indiscriminately kill villagers (which unfortunately was not a new practice), Abrams obviously had nothing to do with the massacre.

Nonetheless, the Omar attack is an opportunity to examine the premises of the Left’s narrative on Reagan’s policy in El Salvador, which supports the persistent attacks on Abrams as a “war criminal.” To paraphrase the famous Mary McCarthy line about Lillian Hellman, every word in this narrative is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

In what follows, I rely throughout on Russell Crandall’s book The Salvador Option: The United States in El Salvador, 1977–1992, a fair-minded, factual account that’s a marked contrast to the tendentiously left-wing material that dominates online.
Hypnotizing the World: Omar Has Ties to Radical Anti-Israel, Anti-American Group
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has ties to a group that includes numerous radical anti-American and anti-Israel activists on its board of directors.

Notes of support posted to the controversial congresswoman's door include a message from the organization Witness for Peace. "Keep up the good work!" the note reads, signed, "Witness for Peace Columbia Team :)."

The note appeared the same week Omar attacked Elliott Abrams, a Jewish-American and longtime diplomat who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Abrams is now the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela. Omar has sided with the socialist government in Venezuela, accusing the Trump administration of leading a "U.S.-backed coup" against Nicolas Maduro.

Witness for Peace got its start fighting the Reagan administration's anti-communist policies during the Cold War, specifically the group opposed funding the Contras in Nicaragua. Abrams, who Omar called "Mr. Adams," pleaded guilty to misdemeanors for withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, and was later pardoned.

"Faith-based peace activists founded Witness for Peace in response to the U.S. funding of the Contras," its website states. In 1984 "Witness for Peace activists across the country organized events to resist Reagan's war on Central America," the group said.

Omar attended a delegation sponsored by Witness for Peace to Honduras in November 2017. She returned to the Minnesota House of Representatives calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Honduras, a position shared by the radical group Code Pink.

From Ian:

PA deletes Jewish history from key sites in Judea and Samaria
The Palestinian Authority is violating its agreements with Israel by trying to redefine historic sites and nature reserves in Judea and Samaria, Israel Hayom has learned.

The Oslo II Accord, as well as subsequent agreements, grant the Palestinian Authority limited control over certain landmarks and nature reserves in Judea and Samaria at the discretion of Israeli authorities and only if the PA commits to coordinating the administration of the areas with Israeli forces.

The 1995 agreement, which has been only partially implemented, says that "the two sides shall each take appropriate measures in order to protect Nature Reserves, Protected Natural Assets and species of animals, plants and flowers of special breeds, as well as to implement rules of behavior in Nature Reserves."

But recent steps taken by the Palestinians suggest that PA officials have been flouting those provisions.

As part of this rogue behavior, the PA has recently placed a sign at Arugot Stream, which runs from west to east in Judea, calling it Al-Kanub Reserve. The sign states that the EU and the U.N. help support the administration of the site.

The PA has also set up a new website called Mahmiyat (which means nature reserves in Arabic), which provides tourist information on the various landmarks in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The descriptions obscure the Jewish links to those landmarks dating to biblical times.
PMW: Abbas to inflict humanitarian crisis on Palestinians, after Israel penalizes PA for its support of terrorists
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has officially announced that the PA will refuse to accept all tax money Israel transfers to the PA if Israel deducts the amount the PA uses to reward terrorists. This PA policy will lead to a grave humanitarian crisis for Palestinians.

The Israeli Cabinet announced yesterday that Israel will be deducting 502,697,000 shekels/year - $139,638,000 - from taxes to be transferred to the PA. This is the amount reported exclusively by PMW that the PA paid in 2018 in salaries to imprisoned and released terrorists. This sum does not include the PA's financial rewards to families of dead terrorists, the so-called "Martyrs," or to wounded terrorists. The deduction will be made in 12 monthly portions of approx. $11,636,500 million/month - almost 42 million shekels/month.

Information obtained by PMW from Israel's Ministry of Finance in response to a request based on Israel's Freedom of Information Act, shows that the taxes Israel collected and transferred to the PA in 2018 amounted to $2.2 billion (8 billion shekels) - an average of $186,121,569/month (670,037,651 shekels) - while PA payments to terrorist prisoners, released prisoners, and families of dead terrorists in 2018 averaged at least $204 million/year (732 million shekels/year), or $17 million/month (61 million shekels) according to PMW calculations.

Earlier this month, Abbas declared that if Israel deducts a sum equal to what the PA spends on rewarding terrorists from next month's transfer - approx. $11.6 million according to the sum announced by the Israeli Cabinet - he will refuse to accept the entire remainder - approx. $174.5 million/month - that the Palestinian population needs to keep the economy functioning:
Shamima Begum: Manchester Arena bombing 'justified' because of Syria airstrikes, Isis teenager says
The Manchester Arena attack was “justified” because of airstrikes that have killed civilians in Syria, Shamima Begum has claimed.

The 19-year-old, who is pleading to be repatriated from a detention camp in Syria, told the BBC that it was “wrong that innocent people did get killed” in the 2017 atrocity.

But she compared the Manchester bombing to the "women and children in [Isis territory] being killed right now unjustly with the bombings", adding: "It’s a two-way thing really because women and children are being killed in the Islamic State right now and it’s kind of retaliation. Their justification was that it’s retaliation so I thought ok that is a fair justification.”

Isis claimed responsibility for Salman Abedi’s bombing, which killed 22 victims including young children, with a statement that claimed it was in response to "transgression against the Muslims".

Almost identical wording citing the international coalition has been used for Isis statements claiming numerous terror attacks across Europe since spokesman Abu Muhammed al-Adnani called for global atrocities in 2014.

Monday, February 18, 2019

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Ilhan Omar & Co. Were Elected Because of Their Racism, Not In Spite of It
Hoyer as well as Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Elliot Engel (D-NY)are strongly pro-Israel. Pelosi, while less outspoken, has never been a foe of the Jewish state or of American Jews who support Israel and seek to secure continued bipartisan support for a strong U.S. alliance with the Middle East’s only democracy.

And yet, all of these leaders gave a pass to a woman who effectively said that American Jews exert malign and all-powerful influence over the Congress with their “Benjamins,” (which we now all know, thanks to Omar’s slur, refers to $100 bills).

What gives?

To find the answer it is necessary to look in two directions – first to former president Barack Obama’s consigliere, Valerie Jarrett.

By all accounts, Jarrett is the closest person to the former president. As a practical matter, it is difficult to imagine that the views she expresses contradict those of the former president even if, from time to time, he strikes a more moderate public stance than Jarrett.

Jarrett is an outspoken supporter of Omar. In a series of tweets, Jarrett has not only supported Omar, she has gushed that Omar represents the future of the Democratic party. On January 3, when Omar was sworn into office, Jarrett tweeted, “You are the change in Congress we have been waiting for. Thank you Ilhan Omar for your willingness to jump with both feet into the arena! Many in the country are both counting on you and have your back!”

In other words, Omar – and Tlaib and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), whom Jarrett also supports – are the legitimate heirs of Obama’s Democratic Party, as far as his closest and most powerful advisor is concerned. They aren’t marginal figures, radicals with no real links to the party’s power structures. Omar, as well as Tlaib and Cortez, reflect the interests and positions of the most powerful faction in the Democratic Party – the Obama faction.

When seen in this light, the congressional Democratic leadership’s decision to respond to Omar’s latest assault on Jewish Americans and the Jewish state by smacking her with a wet noodle indicates that they are mere figureheads. They have less power than Omar does. Because, as Jarrett told Omar the antisemite, Jarrett, (and by inference, Obama), has her back.

Democrat Identity Politics allow Jew-Haters to seep through the cracks
There are all kinds of Nazis. The worst ones are the Hitlers, the Eichmanns, the Goerings, the Streichers, the ones who went on trial at Nuremberg. And then there are the lower-level Jew-haters who never rise to that level but comparably harbor hate deep within their souls. Thus, Jew-haters take different forms, but they all share that same deep-rooted visceral hate that somehow ultimately targets “the Jews.” Some hate “the Jews” because of a landlord, and others hate “the Jews” because of a tenant. Some hate “the Jews” because of the same kinds of liberals that so many Jews ourselves cannot abide, and others hate “the Jews” because of conservatives like Sheldon Adelson and the comparative political conservatism of Israel’s and the growing conservatism of the Jews of England. Some blame “the Jews” for Communism (Karl Marx, Trotsky) and others blame “the Jews” for capitalism (the Rothschilds, Milton Friedman). It is what it is.

But what now is unfolding in the Democrat Party — the party that always speaks of “racism” and “sexism” and “dog whistles,” and that finds racism and this-ism and that-ism in every word that deviates from left-liberal dogma — is that real Jew-haters are starting to come out of the cracks. It is ironic that, even as Louis Farrakhan has termed Jews to be “termites,” his Democrat acolytes of hate are the ones emerging from the woodwork. We have beheld the emergence of Jew-haters (and White-haters and man-haters) Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory as the new leaders of the rapidly decomposing “The Women’s March.” And now two new Democrat Congressional representatives have emerged as outright Jew-haters: Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the once-“Nice” state where Keith Ellison, anti-Semite, likewise holds court.

Omar, who hails from Somalia, now tweets about Jews and money. Quite a thing when newcomers who themselves are members of demographic groups (Muslim, Somalian) that are labeled by stereotypes, begin stereotyping others. Omar is an irrepressible Jew-hater. The things she says and tweets about Israel, for example, are not simply the legitimate expressions of someone who articulates a political counterpoint. It is perfectly fine to disagree with this or that aspect of Israeli democracy or Israeli politics. For many years, I wrote passionately against Israel’s then-socialist economy. Nowadays my political concern is Israel’s continued failure to increase Jewish housing in Judea and Samaria and finally to annex all of Judea and Samaria — or at least the region known as “Zone C.”

In and of itself, it can be fair to express criticism of Israel. But when one criticizes Israel as a cover for going after Jews, typically reflected by holding Israel to an insanely higher standard that is not expected of any other country, then — ding! ding! ding! — we have uncovered a Jew-hater. When someone has no problem with the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia, Putin’s Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Erdogan’s Turkey, and the like — but demands uniquely that Israel be boycotted and sanctioned, and that investments in companies that deal with Israel be divested, we have not “anti-Zionism” but “anti-Semitism.” It is like saying “I am not against Catholicism. I only despise the Pope and the Vatican and the College of Cardinals and the Archbishops and Bishops and nuns and the Eucharist. But I have nothing against Catholicism.” Zionism, like kosher dietary rules, is part of Judaism.
Where Are Feminist Democrats on Afghan Women?
Protecting women has been a big part of the American effort in Afghanistan. We’ve spent more than $1.5 billion on it since 2001, opening girls’ schools, securing the place of women in Afghan politics, and setting up various projects to keep the issue at the forefront of Afghan development. That’s to say nothing of the fact that fighting the Taliban means checking its brutal Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

All this raises a question: Why did so many Democrats who’ve declared themselves as 2020 presidential candidates refuse to oppose President Trump’s terrible plan to make peace with the Taliban and withdraw U.S. forces? Earlier this month, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand voted against a bill that condemned Trump’s plan.

In Afghanistan, an empowered Taliban and the absence of American troops would mean a future that’s decidedly not female. We know Trump’s thinking on this. He doesn’t believe that protecting women from a hellish life under the Taliban is worth American military action. But all these feminist Democrats? If they explicitly agree with the president on that point, they should be made to say so.

From Ian:

Ministers approve slashing $138 million from Palestinians over terror payments
The security cabinet on Sunday approved the implementation of a law to cut over half a billion shekels in funds to the Palestinian Authority over its payments to terrorists and their families.

Applying the law has faced opposition from the security establishment, who worry it could destabilize the situation in the West Bank.

A statement from the security cabinet said that ministers agreed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could withhold NIS 502,697,000 ($138 million) in PA tax revenues, the amount Israeli officials say the PA paid out in stipends to attackers and their families in 2018.

Netanyahu also instructed security authorities to examine additional payments the PA is making in relation to terrorists and their families, the statement said.

“The amount frozen will be adjusted accordingly,” it noted.

The $138 million will likely be deducted incrementally over a 12-month period, according to local media reports.
PA fumes over Israeli ‘piracy’ after decision to deduct terror money
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denounced Israel’s decision to cut half a billion shekels in funds over its payments to security prisoners and their families Sunday.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh called the decision to implement the law “piracy of the Palestinian people’s money.”

Abu Rudeinah warned that the decision would have serious repercussions and would be placed at the top of the agenda when the PA leadership meets in the coming days.

“We consider this arbitrary Israeli decision to be a one-sided blow to the signed agreements, including the Paris Protocols,” he said, referring to an annex of the Oslo Accords that defines Israel and the PA’s economic relations.

Earlier Sunday, the security cabinet approved the implementation of a law to cut NIS 502,697,000 ($138 million) from the PA, over its payments to terrorists and their families.

Applying the law has faced opposition from the security establishment, who worry it could destabilize the situation in the West Bank. Some analysts have predicted that it may also lead to a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip should Abbas cut funds to the coastal enclave in order to continue paying security prisoners.

Abu Rudeineh said the move would not keep the Palestinians from supporting “imprisoned heroes” or the families of those killed while carrying out attacks.
Politics Drives European Aid
Let’s begin with the principle of impartiality: the provision of aid solely on the basis of need. A chart (see below) plotting the organization’s 2019 budget shows that the Middle East is the overwhelming beneficiary of EU humanitarian aid – nearly 1 billion of just over 1.4 billion euros (174 million is earmarked for reserves and bureaucratic costs). The bulk of the funds go towards meeting the costs of assistance to Syrian refugees, followed by smaller sums to Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, and North Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, receives less than one-third of that amount.

The problem with such allocations is that the overwhelming majority of people living in dire poverty reside in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Bangladesh, according to a map (below) drawn up by a group of concerned economists based at Oxford University. These countries have the highest percentage of populations with a household consumption of less than $2 a day. Only one country in the Middle East fits this sorry bill: Yemen. According to the map and the principle of impartiality, the bulk of EU aid should be going to these countries, yet they receive only a small percentage.

To get a clear picture of the reality of ECPHAO “impartiality,” one need only compare the amount Palestinians receive to the amount received by the poorest 20% of the world. According to the World Bank, 732 million people live in lower income countries. The 4.8 million Palestinians, by contrast, are classified as “lower middle class” – that is to say, in the quintile above them. Yet those 4.8 million Palestinians will receive 36 million euros, while 490 million will be disbursed for the benefit of 680 million people living in 32 other countries (not including Syria and Yemen, which are funded separately). The Palestinians, who are richer on average than those living in the poorest states of the world, will thus receive over six euros per capita, while the populations of the poorest states will receive around 0.70 euro per capita – less than one-eighth that amount.

No one has explained why Ethiopia, which has a GDP per capita one-third that of Gaza and one-fifth that of the West Bank, should receive one-eighth the amount of aid Palestinians receive on a per capita basis. This is particularly remarkable as the ECPHAO has itself acknowledged Ethiopia’s greater plight – including a massive emergency refugee problem stemming from the 37-year-old Somali crisis.

Discrimination in favor of the Palestinians even extends to Yemen, where a true humanitarian disaster exists. According to the EU, 79 million euros have been expended annually on average since the onset of the Yemeni crisis, compared to 36 million for the Palestinians. That is slightly more than double. Yet there are 4.8 million Palestinians, while the population of Yemen is estimated at over 28 million (of whom 22.5 million are in dire straits, according to the Commission). Yemenis thus receive less than half of what the already richer Palestinians receive.

Sunday, February 17, 2019

From Ian:

Amnesty tries banning Jewish history
Amnesty International has long sought to isolate Israel by lobbying governments, international bodies, and civil society to adopt boycotts against the Jewish state.

The organization reached new levels of discrimination in its recent report, “Digital Tourism and Israel’s Illegal Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” In it, the international NGO superpower attempts to criminalize Jewish and Christian tourism to holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank, erasing the Bible, and denying the Jewish people’s connection to its historic homeland.

According to Amnesty, travel platforms such as Airbnb, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, TripAdvisor and others, are “contributing to human rights violations” by facilitating and advertising travel to Judaism and Christianity’s holiest sites, because these lie beyond the 1949 Armistice line – the “Green Line.” Specifically, Amnesty presents as deeply problematic tourism to Old Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as well as to Jewish historic locations in the West Bank.

For Amnesty, biblical sites in particular, alongside other locations of importance and interest in Jerusalem and the West Bank, are inconvenient, legitimizing Israel’s historical narrative as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Regardless of the political future of these areas, there can be no denying their historic Jewish significance. Amnesty, however, is attempting to sever, erase, and even ban these ties.

In diminishing these religious and cultural connections, Amnesty accuses Israel of creating a “settlement tourism industry” to help “sustain and expand” communities beyond the Green Line. Israel’s interest in Jewish archaeology is reduced to artificial manipulation, used “to make the link between the modern State of Israel and its Jewish history explicit,” while “rewriting of history [which] has the effect of minimizing the Palestinian people’s own historic links to the region.”

The possibility that Jews and Christians would visit holy sites, and want to see archaeological remnants of biblical locations for their religious and historical significance, is not entertained.

Are France and the EU helpless against anti-Semitism?
As Mauricette Rouffignat stood before yet another desecrated Jewish site on a recent sunny morning, it seemed like a playback to darker days. "I experienced World War II and all the suffering, the Jews who were deported," said 84-year-old Roussignat, who is not Jewish, but a resident of Saint-Geneviève-des-Bois, a quiet town on the outskirts of Paris. "We cannot remain unresponsive to these events, to this growing racism and insensitivity."

Nearby, local politicians blasted intolerance and laid wreaths next to a portrait of a smiling young man, as trains rumbled by overhead. Twenty-three-year-old Ilan Halimi was dumped at the spot where they stood, barely alive, after being kidnapped and tortured for weeks. Because he was Jewish, his abductors thought his family could pay a steep ransom. They couldn't, and Halimi died on his way to hospital.

That was 13 years ago. Since then, France has experienced a raft of other horrific anti-Semitic incidents, from a 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, to 2015 terrorist attacks targeting a Paris kosher supermarket. Last year, 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll became the second elderly Jewish women murdered in as many years.

Once again, anti-Semitism is on the rise in France, with the government reporting this week a 74 percent uptick in anti-Jewish acts last year, compared to 2017. "The government has to do more," said Rabbi Michel Serfaty, who heads a Jewish-Muslim friendship association. "The fight against anti-Semitism can't just be carried out by citizens and communities. It has to become a national cause."
Democrats Tacitly Support Anti-Israel Movement While Pretending Not To
Congressional Democrats don’t want to talk about the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. And many of them really don’t want to be asked to vote on it.

In spite of such reluctance, Sens. Marco Rubio, Joe Manchin, and their allies passed S. 1, the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, 77-23 last Tuesday. The bill combined four Middle Eastern security-related bills. For many Democrats, though, the fly in the ointment was the Combating BDS Act of 2019, which affirms state and local governments’ right to avoid working with firms that support the anti-Israel BDS movement. More than 25 states currently have anti-BDS laws or executive orders, and BDS supporters have begun challenging them in court.

Rubio introduced his bill January 3 and spent more than a month fighting excuses and strawmen, as Democrats attempted to thread the needle of being anti-BDS while opposing Rubio’s economically focused anti-BDS bill and wishing the whole discussion would just disappear.

Democrats said it was improper to vote on such things during the government shutdown. They also asserted the bill was a threat to the First Amendment and attempted to filibuster it. Rubio addressed falsehoods about the bill’s constitutionality on Twitter and in a New York Times op-ed, while Republicans were repeatedly accused of politicizing Israel in an attempt to fracture Democrats.

President Obama’s former ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Bloomberg: “There’s a desire by Republicans to use Israel as a wedge issue . . . Not a single Democrat in the Senate supports BDS, so there is an opportunity to craft the provision on BDS in a way that reflects that consensus and make sure it passes constitutional muster.”

Israel should never be a political wedge issue, but Democrats need no help with divisions on this issue. As The Daily Beast acknowledges, “the Democratic Party is heading into a slow-motion, three-way car wreck [“the pro-Israel old guard, pro-Palestine young progressives, and anti-censorship liberals,” as they call them] when it comes to Israel/Palestine.” I’m skeptical that the “anti-censorship” middle ground is a meaningful long-term category, but the point remains. Democrats are undergoing a generational shift. Israel is now a subject of intra-party conflict.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

From Ian:

In hot mic comments, Netanyahu lashes EU’s ‘crazy’ policy on Israel
Unaware that his remarks were also being transmitted to reporters outside, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the European Union in unusually harsh terms on Wednesday for its treatment of Israel, urging the leaders of four Central European countries to use their influence in the organization to ease its conditions for advancing bilateral ties.

“I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear,” he said in a closed-door meeting whose content was accidentally broadcast to journalists outside the room. “I am not very politically correct. I know that’s a shock to some of you. It’s a joke. But the truth is the truth — both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy towards Israel.”

During the meeting, Netanyahu also urged the leaders of Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland to close their borders to refugees from Africa and the Arab world, and praised the administration of US President Donald Trump for its “stronger” position on Iran and Syria.

“The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, that produces technology in every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it,” Netanyahu said in the minutes before officials realized the meeting was being overheard by reporters, and cut the feed.

“It’s crazy. It’s actually crazy,” he said, referring to the EU’s insistence on conditioning some agreements with Israel on progress in the peace process. He referred the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which has not been renewed since 2000. He urged the prime ministers who were present — Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Czech Republic’s Bohuslav Sobotka, Poland’s Beata Szydlo and Slovakia’s Robert Fico — to work toward convincing Brussels to advance talks about renewing the agreement without reference to progress in the peace process.

“Please help us, and help Europe, in the expediting this association agreement,” he said.

“It’s not about my interests, Israel’s interest. I’m talking about Europe’s interest,” Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah releases video of deadly 2015 attack on IDF convoy
The Lebanese Hezollah terror group on Friday released new video footage from a deadly 2015 attack in which the group fired a salvo of anti-tank missiles at an IDF convoy, killing two Israeli soldiers.

The video aired by al-Mayadeen, a television station linked with Hezbollah, appears to show two anti-tank missiles being fired at an Israeli military convoy in the Mount Dov area near the Lebanon border, and two vehicles going up in flames.

Israeli analysts said the timing of the new footage appeared to be a message from Hezbollah to Israel that it has the capabilities to respond to Israel. In recent months Israel has repeatedly hit Iranian attempts to transfer advanced weapons to the group and uncovered Hezbollah’s cross border attack tunnels.

The release of the footage came soon after the conclusion of a massive IDF drill that simulated war with Hezbollah.

Cpt. Yochai Kalengel and Sgt. Dor Nini were killed in the attack on January 28, 2015, while another seven soldiers were injured.

Hezbollah said at the time the anti-tank fire was in retaliation for an airstrike in Syria attributed to Israel the week before in which at least seven people were killed, including a top commander in the terror organization and an Iranian general.

The commander killed in the attack was Jihad Mugniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah operative thought to have been killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008.

The video’s release also appeared to be timed to coincide with the February 12 anniversary of Imad Mughniyeh’s death.

Friday, February 15, 2019

From Ian:

David French: America Chooses Morality over Money to Support Israel
America’s long support for Israel — often in the face of fierce criticism from key allies and painful economic reprisal from the Arab world — represents an enduring, bipartisan commitment to moral clarity in the Middle East. For the quarter century following Israel’s founding, it was subjected to repeated, genocidal threats to its existence. It has served as a homeland for the Jewish people even as Arab nations rendered life intolerable for more than 800,000 of their Jewish citizens, sometimes destroying communities that existed for centuries. Israel took in hundreds of thousands of refugees, receiving them as the world’s only Jewish state.

When the attempts to invade Israel and destroy it with brute military force ended (for now, at least) with the signing of the Camp David accords, terror campaigns continued and escalated to a point that the United States (or its more anti-Israel allies) would never tolerate. Even today — with all its military might — its citizens live under a terror-threat level experienced by few other nations, and (unlike other nations) it exists in the midst of a region full of people who express feelings of outright hatred for its right to exist. Not long ago, an ADL survey found that a full 74 percent of citizens of North Africa and the Middle East harbored anti-Semitic attitudes.

Moreover, it faces a unique level of international hostility, with the United Nation Human Rights Council condemning its actions far more than it condemns all other nations combined. There exists a concerted international effort to boycott Israeli companies and academies, divest resources from Israel, and sanction Israel. Many of the founders and leaders of the BDS movement hope ultimately to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state.
WSJ: Why Do So Many American Politicians Support Israel?
American attitudes toward Israel have been shaped far more by debates among non-Jews than by the influence of Jewish organizations. The most important reason public officials support Israel is that the public does. In fact, approval is at a 17-year high, with 74% of adults reporting a favorable opinion.

Public support for Israel is not a new phenomenon. Surveys conducted between 1947 and 1949 showed that nearly three times as many Americans sympathized with Jews over Arabs in the conflict in former Mandatory Palestine.

American approval for Israel has deep historical roots in the Christian understanding of America. Leaders of Puritan New England predicted the demographic return and political revival of the Jewish people in the biblical promised land. In 1845, John Price Durbin, a Methodist who served as chaplain of the Senate and president of Dickinson College, insisted on "the undoubted fact of the restoration of a Jewish state in Palestine."

In 1891, the evangelist William E. Blackstone presented a petition to President Benjamin Harrison calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Ottoman Palestine. Americans who signed included Supreme Court Chief Justice Melville Fuller, future president William McKinley, titans of industry and finance like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, and the editors of dozens of major newspapers.
It Is Anti-Semitic to Oppose Israel's Right to Exist
Israel should be challenged and scrutinized in the same way as any other country. Yet other countries, no matter how they came into being or how they behave, do not have their legitimacy or right to exist questioned or their outright destruction called for. Anti-Zionism should not be conflated with mere criticism of Israeli policy. Anti-Zionism rejects the very idea of a Jewish state.

Zionism is the belief in the right to self-determination of the Jewish people (a right guaranteed to them by international law) in their historical and spiritual homeland, Israel. It acknowledges the Jewish people as indigenous to the land and Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, although all citizens, including Israel's 20% Arab population, have equal civil rights. For most Jews, Zionism is core to their identity.

Had a Jewish homeland been set up anywhere else, for example in Uganda, then the accusation of colonialism would have legitimacy. But in the Land of Israel, where Jewish people are the Tangata Whenua - a Maori term that means "people of the land" - accusations of colonialism are made to delegitimize the Jewish presence in their ancestral homeland.

Anti-Zionism has become the new form of anti-Semitism. The state of the Jews has become the Jew of the states. Yet Zionism is not just an idea but a reality whose elimination would mean 6.5 million Jews facing the prospect of ethnic cleansing and a return to homelessness.

Melanie Phillips: The unique disorder of hatred now destroying the Left
Although her fellow Democrats denounced her, their reaction has been wholly inadequate. A statement signed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats called on Omar to apologise for her “hurtful” comments.

“Antisemitism must be called out, confronted and condemned whenever it is encountered, without exception,” Pelosi said. “Omar and I agreed that we must use this moment to move forward as we reject antisemitism in all forms.”

No apology can ever expunge the evil of antisemitism. For this doesn’t merely cause hurt or offence: it directly adds to the demonic discourse that continues to make Jews both within and outside of Israel the target of murderous hatred. Requiring an apology is to help the antisemite get herself off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist.

If that. In Tablet magazine, Yair Rosenberg said Omar deserved “dialogue not denunciation.” He hailed Omar’s “genuine self-awareness” when she reflected upon being accused of antisemitism in 2012 after tweeting: “Israel has hypnotised the world; may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

But this “self-awareness” merely consisted of saying she could identify with her Jewish critics because experiencing antisemitism was like experiencing “white privilege.” Well no, it’s not; there’s no comparison.

She made no acknowledgment that she had perpetrated malicious incitement against the Jews. Indeed, straight after the “unequivocal” apology for her latest barb about sinister Jewish influence, she doubled down on her bigotry by “reaffirming” the “problematic role” of AIPAC as a political lobby.

This is an individual who clearly believes that Jews are a manipulative force controlling the world. And yet certain liberal Jews want to “move forward” now that she has “apologised” – and even to open up a dialogue with her.

The proper way to “move forward” with antisemites is to remove them from public life. Yet Omar will remain on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Melanie Phillips: Crazy world antisemitism, Faustian pacts, revolutions eat their own
Please join me here in discussion with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired about the latest goings-on in our crazy world. We were talking about the remarks by an official from Human Rights Watch who was peddling conspiracy theory and antisemitism, and the enduring nature of “Jewish conspiracy” theory. We discussed whether Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making deals with political “devils” through his alliances with sundry nationalists, populists, autocrats and worse. We talked about the great controversy that has boiled up in America over an apparent slide from abortion to infanticide. And we mused over how revolutions always eat their own.


From Ian:

Gerald Steinberg: Mutual Recognition Never Happened, Palestinian Leaders Are Stuck in 1948
In the Israeli election free-for-all, the prospects for peace with the Palestinians will get some attention, but without engagement from the other side, there is little to discuss.

At the same time, many Israelis are aware of the need for a change to the “temporary” status quo, which has lasted 51 years. The fundamental question that remains unanswered is: how will Israel continue to be Jewish and democratic if millions of Palestinians are included indefinitely? Although Israelis are wary of the “ultimate peace deal” that U.S. President Donald Trump promises to push after the election, it adds to the momentum for rethinking the issues.

For most Israeli political parties, the two-state formula (very few Israelis think a “solution” is realistic) has run its course, without yielding any results. Proposed in 2002 by then-U.S. president George W. Bush and grudgingly accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009, the hope was that the Palestinians would finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, in exchange for their own sovereign nation.

But this never happened – Palestinian leaders are stuck in 1948, still hoping to reverse the creation of Israel altogether. Dreams of returning to the 1949 armistice lines, including re-dividing Jerusalem, are obvious non-starters. They are also busy fighting each other, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah governing the West Bank. At the same time, terror and incitement continue, and Israelis are not convinced that the two-state approach will improve the situation (most think it will make things worse). The “international consensus” that presses Israel to take all the risks, while exempting the “powerless” Palestinians from any responsibility, has no traction here.

In this political vacuum, a number of civil society institutions are discussing alternatives, in part to pre-empt the Trump plan. After a hiatus of a decade or more, think tanks are publishing maps showing which parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) should be annexed to Israel for pragmatic, security, historic or other reasons, and which areas should be relinquished, and under what conditions.
The Key to Middle East Peace Is Getting Palestinians to Say "Yes"
The necessity for the Palestinians to make peace with Israel as a prerequisite for the establishment of a Palestinian state isn't arbitrary or the result of inherently "unfair" imbalances of power. It is a reflection of the reality that the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan of November 29, 1947, establishing two states, in favor of open-ended war. This rejectionism continues to this day.

The Palestinians have been given multiple opportunities to reverse their historic own-goal and accept statehood many times since then but have always broken off talks at the moment of truth, refusing the very independence they claim to pine for if the price is to end their conflict with Israel. Martin Indyk, President Obama's special envoy on the Middle East, told Al Jazeera in 2016: "We have [Israeli Prime Ministers] Barak and Olmert offering the Palestinians 95-97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and they didn't take it." Since 2014 the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate at all.

Israel cannot make peace on its own, nor can it be expected to accept the creation of a hostile, armed state on the doorstep of its major cities without a viable peace agreement. Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood would be rewarding the Palestinians for continuing to say "no."

Evelyn Gordon: Gaza’s self-inflicted health crisis shows why peace remains a fantasy
Gaza’s health system is on the verge of collapse, Israeli defense officials warned last week. Their report echoed an international aid agency’s findings that Gaza hospitals are severely short of doctors, especially specialists, and lack 60 percent of necessary medications, including basics like painkillers and antibiotics. Entire hospital departments have closed due to the inability to offer treatment, and patients with cancer, diabetes or renal failure are simply being sent home.

You might think this situation would prompt at least one of the Palestinians’ two rival governments to take action. But you’d be wrong.
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The Palestinian Authority, which repeatedly proclaims itself the sole legitimate government of both the West Bank and Gaza and is recognized as such internationally, receives billions in international aid to provide for humanitarian needs in both places. It ostensibly budgets 150 million shekels a year ($41.3 million) for medical supplies for Gaza. But it hasn’t paid this money in months.

Yet this same P.A. has no trouble finding $330 million a year to pay salaries to jailed terrorists. Evidently, paying terrorists is more important to it than its people’s health.
Dr. Martin Sherman: 2019 Intelligence Assessment- implications for Gaza
Last December, I was excoriated by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, for reaching what I consider to be an inescapable, fact-based conclusion that, “Eventually, there will either be Arabs in Gaza or Jews in the Negev. In the long run, there will not be both!”

Accordingly—since there appears little chance of the Palestinian-Arabs in general, and the Gazans in particular, morphing into something they have not been for over hundred years—for anyone who favors the option of Jews remaining in the Negev, there is little option but to reconcile oneself to the lamentable fact that “The solution to the problem of Gaza is its deconstruction—not its reconstruction.”

Indeed, I would be intrigued to hear what my detractors have in mind for Gaza and how they envisage the fate of the hapless enclave in, say, ten to fifteen years from today. For already, its unfortunate inhabitants are in dire straits, with most of their natural water sources polluted, with raw sewage flowing into the streets, and with electrical power available for only a several hours a day.

Significantly, this grave situation has been precipitated despite the fact that Gaza has received one of the world’s highest levels of international aid and massive flows of humanitarian merchandise from Israel, which have, almost invariably, been promptly expropriated by Hamas. Ominously for the people of Gaza, this aid appears to be diminishing, making the future seem even bleaker than the present.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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