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

Thursday, February 28, 2019

From Ian:

The Palestinians' Automatic "No" to Peace
The Palestinian issue—once at the heart of Arab political discourse in our region—has been pushed to the margins. Mahmoud Abbas might still be able to extract a promise out of the elderly Saudi king not to go "behind the Palestinians' backs," but the entire world knows about the business his son conducts with Israel. The Arab world has a hard time understanding what the Palestinians want, and why they allow themselves to continue managing their affairs in such a failed manner.

"If you want to free all of Palestine—ahlan wasahlan ('welcome'), but you need to unite. If you want a state alongside Israel, why do you keep saying 'no' again and again when offered one?" one Egyptian TV anchor wondered.

Since automatic Palestinian refusal is a given, what exactly motivates Jared Kushner, Trump's point man on the peace process? Is he still hoping the Palestinians change their minds when they learn the details of the plan? Probably not. He didn't even bother giving an interview to a Palestinian media outlet, and instead directed his comments to the Arab world, mostly the Gulf nations (Sky Arabic, to which he gave the interview, is funded by the United Arab Emirates). In other words: he's thinking about the day after the Palestinian "no," when Arab countries could come to them and say: "You once again rejected a generous proposal, we won't remain hostages to your intransigence."

It seems farfetched, but work preparing the Arab street for relations with Israel that could be defined as "on the scale of normalization" has been going on for a few years.

"If the Palestinian leadership used the money donated by the Arabs since 1948 for Palestine, it would've already built 50 cities like Tel Aviv, 40 cities like Dubai and 30 cities like Riyadh," tweeted an Iraqi journalist this week —and got a shower of likes.

PMW: PA will cut all Palestinian salaries, except for terrorists and their families
Impending PA financial crisis follows Abbas decision to not accept Israeli transfers of approx. 670 million shekels/month after Israel decided to deduct 41 million shekels/month from PA tax money equivalent to the amount PA pays terrorist prisoners

“PA Minister of Finance announced that the [PA] government will pay the salaries of the public employees on time, but they are likely to be partial, other than the pension stipends and the allowances of the families of the Martyrs, the wounded, and the prisoners, which will be paid in full.”

PA TV: “Our Martyrs and prisoners (i.e., terrorists and murderers) are the source of our glory and pride. They are more honorable than all of us.”

PA Prime Minister: “The payment of the money to the prisoners and Martyrs' families is our responsibility, not a gift or grant but rather an inseparable part of the social contract between the state and its citizens.”

PA Minister of Finance: “There is an official decision... not to accept the tax money if even a single penny is missing from it."


Wednesday, February 27, 2019

From Ian:

Disdain For Jews Is The Sinew Of Identity Politics
Omar’s anti-Semitism drew endorsements from white supremacist David Duke and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. If there is one thing white supremacists and black nationalists share, it is hatred of Jews.

Women's March co-president Tamika Mallory, a vocal supporter of Farrakhan's, naturally added to Omar's defense, parroting Farrakhan's specious indictment of Jews as being responsible for the slave trade.

Jews provide a convenient focal point for the American Left's hate. And progressive Jews, given a choice between their leftist politics and their fading Jewish identity, have joined the Hamas chorus, lending a twisted credibility to hackneyed tropes that have resulted in inquisitions, crusader massacres, pogroms, and the Holocaust.

Max Berger, co-founder of the anti-Zionist IfNotNow, calls on his fellow Jews to stand with Omar against AIPAC, which Omar alleges buys votes from her fellow members of Congress.

Berger and Omar are obsessed with AIPAC, using old tropes of Jews and money. But somehow the various Arab lobbies, including the powerful Saudi and Emirates lobbies, escape their concern.

For all of Omar’s trafficking in allegations of Israeli apartheid, there is actually an empirical measurement of racism among states. Muslim states tend to be racist and xenophobic.

But Omar's accusations bear no relation to facts — as fellow traveler Ocasio-Cortez has said, if you are morally correct, the facts don't matter.

Neither do they matter to those who seek to mobilize a mass movement built on hatred as the sinew that ties it all together. In this pursuit, both Omar and her progressive accomplices are of one mind. Jews should take note, for those who do not pay attention to history are known to repeat it.
Douglas Murray: Must We Really Be Careful What We Do Lest We Offend Extremists?
What is striking and controversial are the repeated interventions into the debate made by the government's own 'extremism commissioner', Sara Khan. Over recent years Khan has been a hugely admirable figure. The founder and leader of the women's group 'Inspire', Khan has shown a generation of British people – including, most importantly, young Muslim women – that it is possible to be resilient against the fanatics in their faith and also to argue for the rights of women. She has been an unarguable force for good, and has had to withstand appalling pressure from Islamist groups in the UK.

"It is, I think, completely misconceived to suggest that we should change our foreign policy because it might cause some people to take up arms against us. That's a form of blackmail...." — Michael Howard, former Conservative party leader

In 2006 a small group of peers, MPs and Islamist groups sent an open letter to the then-Labour government. The signatories included the subsequently jailed Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, the subsequently disgraced (over expenses fraud) Baroness Uddin and the then-MP, now Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. This letter suggested to the UK government of the day that British foreign policy "risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad." This is a commonly heard argument of course, and is especially commonly heard from various extremist groups.

Melanie Phillips: Poland v Israel round two, Labour party antisemitism
Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired the latest developments in our crazy world. On our agenda this week: well, afraid it’s pretty much wall-to-wall antisemitism. There’s a lot of it about, alas.

We first of all discuss the row that blew up between Israel and Poland over remarks, made first by Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu and then by its new foreign minister Israel Katz, drawing attention to the complicity of Polish people with the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

As I wrote here, the Polish government tries reprehensibly to conceal the fact that there were Polish anti-Jewish programs before, during and after the Holocaust. But Poland today is warmly disposed towards Israel and its friendship is valuable.

As I say in this discussion, the way for Israel to handle this delicate situation (the second time this row has erupted) is surely to be both fair and unsparing: to insist that the Polish government is wrong to try to sanitise its country’s history of anti-Jewish hatred, while acknowledging that the Nazis slaughtered thousands of Poles too and that many Poles risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis.

Avi and I then go on to discuss the crisis over antisemitism in Britain’s Labour party from which nine MPs have now departed, either partly or wholly in revulsion at the leadership’s continued refusal to deal with this scourge.


From Ian:

Palestinians and the Disastrous Politics of Rage
Palestinian victimhood knows no reconciliation with Israel because central to identity politics is the conviction that permanent victim status must be maintained.

Palestinian identity politics hamstrings Palestinian aspirations for a better life. Grassroots criticism of the Palestinian leadership is disallowed because it threatens the collective Palestinian identity.

Failing to establish the institutions of a functioning state, Palestinian leaders turn to globetrotting in a look-busy-while-doing-nothing action plan of self-righteousness. They insist the world must come and save them.

Palestinians pluck the chords of European colonial guilt in order to receive generous aid, discouraging Palestinian self-agency and personal responsibility.

Palestinians routinely call for "days of rage," where the rage is an end in itself that fuels an identity predicated on victimhood.

The narrative of victimization loosens moral standards. When a Palestinian murders a Jew, it is explained and excused as "a natural outcome of the occupation." Ironically, Palestinians ignore just how racist their own narrative of victimization really is.

To maintain that any Israeli Jew is a fair target for murder simply because he is an Israeli Jew - is racist. To maintain that any Palestinian has license to murder simply because he is Palestinian - is racist.

Palestinian leaders will "keep the conversation going" about reconciliation interminably because of the capital they accrue with world leaders by doing so.

CAMERA Op-Ed: The Rise of Fatah, Fifty Years On
February 4, 2019 marked an important, albeit unheralded, date: the fiftieth anniversary of the ascension of Fatah in Palestinian politics. On Feb. 4, 1969, the movement’s founder, the Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat, was appointed chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). For most of the half century since, Fatah has dominated Palestinian affairs—with fateful consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Arafat, his biographer Barry Rubin wrote, “succeeded at creating and remaining the leader of the globe’s longest-running revolutionary movement.” Yet both he and Fatah would also lead “his people into more disasters and defeats than any counterpart.”

It was a swift, but uneven, rise for both.

Arafat and about fifteen others founded Fatah on Oct. 10, 1959 in a private home in Kuwait. At the time, Arafat was an engineer working for Kuwait’s Department of Public Works. Most of his compatriots were young Palestinian students or workers employed in the country, which was then experiencing an oil boom and economic growth. They called themselves Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyya (Palestinian Liberation Movement), whose acronym reversed spells Fatah, which means “conquest.”

Arafat himself was deeply influenced by his time at King Fuad University in Cairo, where he received military training from Muslim Brotherhood members who were active on the campus. Arafat, Rubin records, would later seek “to play down his connections with the Brotherhood since it posed political problems” for him in future dealings with Arab nations that viewed the organization as a threat.

But the Muslim Brotherhood nevertheless influenced his ideology. Arafat and Fatah’s role models “did not come from Arab nationalist leaders or thinkers” like the Syrian or Iraqi Ba’athists or Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, “but from the struggle of the early Muslims for whom only total victory over infidels and Crusaders was acceptable.” Indeed, as Rubin pointed out, Arafat’s chosen nom de guerre was Abu Ammar—in honor of a man the Palestinian leader described as “the first martyr of Islam.”
Caroline Glick vs. Donald Trump
Continuing his meet the candidate series, Gil Hoffman interviews New Right Knesset candidate and former Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick.

Two years after she was the keynote speaker at an influential pro-Trump rally in Jerusalem, Glick vows to “absolutely” be the opposition who stops the plan by pressuring Netanyahu to reject it.

She says she will be in the Knesset to prevent “the partition of Jerusalem and giving 90% of Judea and Samaria to terrorists,” because the plan is a “danger” and “antithetical to the US’s national security interests almost as much as it is to Israel’s.”

As a Knesset member, she promises to send that message to the Trump administration. Gil also reveals how he got the scoop on a rabbi who compared the views of an Israeli political party to Nazism.




Tuesday, February 26, 2019

From Ian:

‘Telling Israel’s story in the 21st century will have a lot less to do with the Warsaw Ghetto than it will with Kurdistan and Aleppo.’ An interview with Matti Friedman
Journalist and author Matti Friedman talks to Fathom Deputy Editor Calev Ben-Dor about his acclaimed recent book, Spies of No Country which tells the little known story of the origins of Israeli intelligence by following four of Israel’s first spies through the 1948 War of Independence. He also discusses the importance of the ‘Mizrachi’ component in Israel’s identity, arguing that without grasping its centrality, neither Israelis, Westerners nor those in the Arab world can properly understand the country

CB-D: I recently interviewed Yossi Klein Halevi about his book, Letters to my Palestinian Neighbour and one of the things he emphasised was how he wanted to tell a 21st century Zionist story. You touched on this earlier, in that the story often told is overly Euro-centric – the narrative begins with the pogroms in Russia and ends with the Holocaust. Your book, which is different in many ways, has a similar idea in that if we are to tell the story of Israel today – both to Israelis and outsiders – we need to make it more accurate to include a Mizrachi component.

MF: People still tell the story of Israel as: When the Jews of the Islamic world moved to Israel they joined the story of the Ashkenazim – so the story of Israel is the story of the Jews of Europe. But having thought about this, and having lived here for 23 years, it is clear to me that what actually happened is much closer to the opposite. The remnants of the Jews of Europe come to the Middle East and inserted themselves into the story of the Jews of the Islamic world. The State of Israel is shaped by our contact with Islam and Jews who have lived here for centuries. The dominant narrative of the European Jews is wrong.

Looking ahead, telling Israel’s story in the 21st century will have a lot less to do with the Warsaw Ghetto than it will with Kurdistan and Aleppo. And Western observers find that difficult. But if we want to understand Israel, we are going to have to make an effort to move our centre of consciousness to the Middle East because that’s where we are.


Jewish 'New York Times' writer to pen book on antisemitism
New York Times opinion editor and columnist Bari Weiss will be writing a book about fighting antisemitism.

Weiss has penned a two-book deal with Crown Publishing, a division of Penguin Random House, she announced on Twitter this week. The first book, due out in September, is titled How to Fight Anti-Semitism, and was described as “an urgent wake-up call to all Americans, exposing the alarming rise of antisemitism in this country and in Europe – and explains what we can do to defeat it.”

Weiss gave a speech on the topic of fighting antisemitism on Monday evening, at the Temple Emanu-el Streicker Center in New York City.

The Jewish writer and editor, who grew up in Pittsburgh, worked at Tablet magazine and The Wall Street Journal before landing at The New York Times in 2017.

During her time there, she has written several columns on the Jewish-American experience and antisemitism in the 21st century.

Weiss called US President Donald Trump's refusal to condemn neo-Nazis in Charlottesville an "utter moral failure," and called out Rep. Ilhan Omar for "making accusations based on nothing more than prejudiced stereotypes." Last year, after the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where Weiss held her bat mitzva, she penned a moving op-ed.

David Collier: The BBC and Guardian as fake news outlets. Enabling antisemites.
When did the BBC and the Guardian become ‘fake news’ outlets? Last week the Guardian newspaper, published a letter, written by ‘over 200 Jewish members’. It was compiled to belittle the problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party, and in support of Jeremy Corbyn. For some (as yet to be discovered) reason, BBC News even gave airtime to it. The letter is no more than a rehash of the last time the Guardian decided to give this particular rabble a voice. Nor any different from the one before that, nor the one before that. We can follow this line all the way back to 2002, when the Guardian first gave publicity to the movement that was to become BDS.

Who is inside the rabble? People like Naomi Wimborne Idrissi, who have spoken under the flag of the soon to be proscribed Hezbollah and Elleanne Green, founder of the antisemitic Palestine Live Facebook group. Without the antisemites, this group could not gather a regular ‘minyan‘, which is why they never publicly demonstrate. In other words everybody should know, including those at the BBC and the Letters Editor at the Guardian newspaper, that this fringe crowd is not a legitimate ‘Jewish’ voice.

Last September, the Independent also gave publicity to another list of Jewish organisations that upon closer inspection was also not a legitimate Jewish voice. That list even contained the vile group ‘Scottish Jews against Zionism‘. The face of ‘ScottishJAZ’ is Jolanta Hadzic:

Jolanta is just another person who spreads rabid antisemitism and Holocaust denial:

What do all these letters have in common? That it is always the same names. Some of those involved are not Jewish and some are even publicly outed hard-core antisemites. Both the Independent letter and the Guardian letter have signatories who spread Holocaust Denial. The situation is absurd. There are always people who will stand in opposition to anything. You can find Christians who oppose Christ, people who believe in Santa and Muslims who fast on Yom Kippur. There are more people who believe that they were abducted by aliens, than there are active anti-Zionist Jews in the UK. Would the BBC or Guardian run an article about alien abductees every time they aired a show featuring Brian Cox in order to ‘add balance’?

No of course not, because they would quickly be regarded as fake new junk sites. Which is exactly why we must not let them get away with how they treat Jews.

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: The UK’s Hezbollah ban is a victory for common sense
On the one hand was the military wing of Hezbollah, which has spent decades raising the levels of violence in Lebanon and bringing destruction to various neighbouring countries, including Israel and Syria, as well as further afield. But according to the UK Foreign Office this organisation was a totally separate entity from the one known as Hezbollah (political wing). Of course this division of labour within Hezbollah existed in no other realm other than the minds of a few officials in Whitehall and their counterparts across Europe. It didn’t exist in the eyes of anyone in the region. It didn’t exist when the terrorist group blew up a bus carrying tourists in Bulgaria in 2012, or attacked targets in South America. And it certainly didn’t exist in the eyes of Hezbollah itself, who must have been bemused by the division of labour which the British Foreign Office chose to impose upon people working in the same organisation.

So as I say, a victory for common sense. But also a victory for the many victims of Hezbollah’s terror across several continents. It should also be said that this is a victory for the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, who appears to be chalking up a set of wins at the moment. Though the action he announced this morning is only what any and all of his predecessors could have and should have done (these facts have all been known in Whitehall, as elsewhere, for many years) the fact that he has done it is commendable.

There is only one other thing to say. For years at radical and Islamist demonstrations in London it has been commonplace to see the flag of this terrorist organisation being waved. After such events – such as the Khomeinist ‘Al-Quds Day march’ which takes place in London each year – the police have said that they will not arrest people flying the flag of Hezbollah because the wavers might be demonstrating support for the (unbanned) political wing rather than the (already banned) military wing. From now on that distinction will quite rightly not be able to be held or claimed. So as well as pursuing any and all funds that go through the UK or UK banks for Hezbollah or any of its subsidiaries, it can be presumed from now on anybody flying the Hezbollah flag in Britain will be arrested, tried and imprisoned for supporting a terrorist group. I find myself almost looking forward to ‘Al-Quds day’ this year.
Labour Refuses to Support Hezbollah Ban
Just hours after Labour chose to impose only a one-line whip on the vote on banning Hezbollah, meaning that Labour MPs – including Corbyn – are under no obligation to vote for the ban, a Labour spokesman has gone further and directly challenged Sajid Javid’s decision to ban it:

“The Home Secretary must therefore now demonstrate that this decision was taken in an objective and impartial way, and driven by clear and new evidence, not by his leadership ambitions.”

Hezbollah is already banned in its entirety – including the political wing – by numerous states and organisations from the United States to the Arab League. Even apart from their direct terrorist and military activities, Hezbollah are prolific spreaders of Holocaust denial and egregious anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and their ultimate goal remains the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah itself has mocked the supposed distinction between its military and political wings that its apologists like to promote in the West…

Corbyn once again shows why he is completely unsuitable to be Leader of the Opposition, let alone Prime Minister. Labour MPs who talked themselves into not quitting the party yet because of his second referendum pledge must be having serious second thoughts already…

Pro-Maduro guerillas attack Jewish journalist Annika H. Rothstein
Jewish political writer and journalist Annika H. Rothstein was one of several journalists to be attacked and robbed on Venezuela’s border with Columbia.

Rothstein, a native of Sweden, was detained by paramilitary guerillas sympathetic to embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday.

“I was taken by the pro-Maduro guerilla in San Antonio del tachira, robbed and beaten along with my security and then they forced us to get on our stomachs while they held guns to the back of our heads. They took everything we had,” Rothstein tweeted on Saturday from a stranger’s phone.

“The guerilla was HEAVILY armed and I truly believed they would kill us all, they saw my camera and press pass and put guns on us all. After they finally let us go we only got 10 minutes down the road before gunfire broke out on both sides and we hid in a shed for over an hour,” she also tweeted. “They yelled at me that I was trying to infiltrate Venezuela and that what I was doing was a crime, they took my things and called it contraband and slapped me across the face when I didnt move bc of shock.”
Ricochet Podcast: Annika Rothstein Alive from Caracas
Annika Rothstein @truthandfiction, an independent journalist, has been reporting for some time on the miseries – and resilience – of the Venezuelan people. Last weekend she went to the Colombian border, where government forces had assembled to keep an aid convoy from entering the country.

The story she got was one she was lucky to survive. We speak to her in relative safety, where she recounts the story of a very bad day in a dangerous country – and what the people she encountered say about the forces wrecking Venezuela.

Monday, February 25, 2019

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: The U.S. Green Party’s Crusade against Israel
Anyone who peruses the website of the U.S. Green Party or any component of the global Green movement would naturally expect to read about the noble aims of a movement devoted to such values as ecological wisdom and environment protection. Such issues touch upon the very sustainability and integrity of our existence on the planet and should logically override partisan, political issues.

In a world that is plagued by environmental and ecological catastrophes and that faces continuing and ongoing moral and humanitarian crises such as willful bombing and wholesale killing of civilians, mass murders, mass expulsions, denial of basic social, cultural and religious rights and freedoms, assaults on immigrants and others, it is curious that the U.S. Green Party has chosen to concentrate most of its efforts on hounding Israel.

This is even more astounding because Israel is one of the only states that excels in the very values treasured by the Green movement - innovative ways to protect the environment, reduce pollution, purify wastewater, desalinate seawater, reforest, and protect natural resources.

It is all the more curious that the U.S. Green Party, as a matter of policy, considers itself sufficiently credible and authoritative as to advocate dismantling the State of Israel and replacing it with "the creation of one secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan."

On September 12, 2018, the U.S. Green Party wrote to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on behalf of "the oppressed and besieged people of Palestine peacefully protesting on a weekly basis for their Right of Return," accusing Israel of committing crimes against humanity, including genocide.

The U.S. Green Party ignores the grave Palestinian violations of some of the most basic and important ecological and environmental principles that should surely constitute the backbone of any genuine Green party, including deliberate pollution of the air through the massive burning of tires, the deliberate arson of agricultural produce through the use of explosive kites and balloons, and the deliberate pollution of groundwater resources.
Appeals Court reinstates suit against Sheldon Adelson and others over support for Israel
The U.S. Court of Appeals has just reinstated the lawsuit. Reuters reports:

In a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said a federal district judge wrongly concluded in August 2017 that all of the plaintiffs’ claims raised political questions that could not be decided in American courts….

… in Tuesday’s decision, without ruling on the merits, Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson said the only political question concerned who had sovereignty over the Israeli-occupied territories.

She said courts could rule on whether the defendants conspired to expel non-Jews or committed war crimes “without touching the sovereignty question, if it concluded that Israeli settlers are committing genocide.”

Henderson said that presented a “purely legal issue” because genocide violated the law of nations, and could support the plaintiffs’ claim under the federal Alien Tort Statute.


Of note, the courts refers to the territories in question as “disputed territory,” rather than the popular “occupied territory.” Israel has a legal claim to the “West Bank” despite the propaganda otherwise:

1 The ownership of the territory, which comprises the WestBank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, is at the heart of a decades-long dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We refer to it as the “disputed territory.”

The court clearly is wrong on the issue of whether the complaint raises non-justiciable political questions. Everything in the case turns on the issue of whether Israel and Israeli settlers properly control the “disputed territory.” That is a political and foreign policy question.

Hopefully either the D.C. Circuit will hear the case en banc, or the Supreme Court will take the case.
French Philosopher: Jews First Victims of Islamic Immigration
French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has claimed that the populist movement in Europe has largely been a reaction to demographic changes, blaming German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Finkielkraut labelled Chancellor Merkel’s infamous “wir schaffen das!” (we can do it!) phrase during the height of the migrant crisis in 2015 as “nonsense”, saying, “You see it yourself: you can not do it. This mix of extreme moralism and economic interests was repugnant,” Die Welt reports.

“The Germans wanted to buy themselves free and finally become a morally impeccable people. But that happens at the expense of the Jews, who are the first victims, as more and more immigrants are let in,” he added.

The philosopher said he would support “responsible, if not extremely restrictive” immigration policies, explaining: “I am convinced that the integration of immigrants is becoming increasingly difficult. If immigration goes on, we will have more reverse phenomena, namely that the French adapt to the culture of Islam or convert more and more.”

Last Saturday Finkielkraut was the victim of anti-semitic abuse hurled at him by a Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protestor who was later revealed to be an Islamic extremist.

Commenting on the attack, Finkielkraut said: “We are now trying to convince ourselves that this is a reawakening of old nationalist and anti-Semitic combat calls such as ‘France belongs to us’, ‘France for the French’.”

“But the one who called that, the most aggressive of them all, is a Salafist,” he said, adding: “If someone says: France belongs to us, then that means: France is destined to become Islamic soil.”
Yellow Vest leader: I would participate in an Anti-Zionist protest
Jerome Rodriguez, one of the prominent leaders of the yellow vests movement in France, who lost his eye from a rubber bullet fired by the police, told Maariv that his movement was not antisemitic. Nevertheless, he added, "Finkielkraut is someone who goes around letting everyone know what his views were." According to Rodriguez, he did not take part in a demonstration against antisemitism because he was "busy visiting his movement's checkpoints in various parts of the country." However, he added that if he had time, he would prefer to participate in a demonstration organized by an anti-Zionist organization that supports boycotting Israel".

From Ian:

Palestinians uproot trees planted in memory of slain Israeli teen
Palestinians on Sunday uprooted some 50 trees planted in the West Bank in the memory of Ori Ansbacher, who was brutally murdered in Jerusalem by a Palestinian terrorist.

The 19-year-old was attacked and murdered at the beginning of February by 29-year-old Arafat Irfayia in the woods of Ein Yael, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The trees were planted between the West Bank settlements of Tekoa, where Ansbacher lived, and Nokdim, during which a confrontation sparked between local Palestinians and the settlers, with the Israel Defense Forces having to intervene. Shortly thereafter, the settlers noticed the Palestinians had extracted the newly planted trees.

Gush Etzion Council head Shlomo Ne'eman said in response: "The State of Israel must define this agricultural terrorism as terror for all intents and purposes,l and put an end to this phenomenon. A firm stand must be taken, for we cannot allow human lives to be harmed."

Meanwhile, as part of an initiative led by drivers from the Egged bus company, poems Ansbacher wrote will be printed and displayed on the company's vehicles.


Kushner: Trump's peace plan will focus on drawing the borders of Israel
US special envoy Jared Kushner was interviewed on Monday on Sky News in Arabic, saying that "the American peace plan is very detailed and will focus on drawing the border and resolving the core issues."

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been used for years to incite extremism," Kushner said, "for years resistance to the nation of Israel has united the region, but now it is changing ... We see that Iran is the greatest threat in the region."

"We want to see the Palestinians united under one leadership, the Palestinians want a non-corrupt government that cares for their own interests," Kushner added.

Kushner also claimed that the US "managed to keep a large part of the plan secret," and that they "succeeded in formulating practical and just solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian issue that will be relevant for 2019."
'I don't see why I shouldn't have to serve': Why young, Jewish Canadians are enlisting in the Israeli military
Yonah Morrison, 20, was 15 when he first stepped off a plane in Tel Aviv.

Alone in a country he'd never visited, a strange feeling washed over him: He was home.

The Canadian teen spent the next two months in Israel as part of a program that familiarizes North American Jews with the Jewish state. While on that trip, he spent a week embedded with the Israeli military.

He says that week in fatigues left such an impression on him that three years later, in the summer of 2016, after he graduated from his Toronto high school, he decided to leave Canada and enlist in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

"I always considered Israel to be my home," Morrison said. "I don't see why I shouldn't have to serve, just because I was born somewhere else."

Military service is mandatory for almost all Jewish Israelis as of age 18, with notable exceptions, one of which — that for ultra-Orthodox men — was at the centre of a bitter political fight that triggered an early election call last December.

But Jews from other nations are also allowed to enlist. They're known as lone soldiers.

At least 230 Canadians were serving in the military, according to 2017 statistics from the IDF, with periods of service usually lasting around two years. Hundreds more go over for shorter periods of service through similar programs to the one Morrison did in 2013.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

From Ian:

Arabs continue destroying Jewish archaeology on the Temple Mount
While Israel preserves Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Arabs have proven that they cannot be trusted to respect Jewish Holy sites.

On December 15, 2017 Nadav Shragai wrote in Israel Hayom "King Herod's grand Third Palace is being systematically destroyed by the Palestinians, who are stripping its stone and building homes around it. The site is in Area A, meters from Israeli-controlled territory, but the Israeli government can do nothing...Here is a lesson that teaches us how the Palestinians today treat remnants of the past...It is unclear how much of this beauty remains.

Yaron Rosenthal, director of the Kfar Etzion Field School, who sometimes works with the Palestinian Arabs on environmental preservation projects, finds it difficult to hide his anger. "Israel sees how one of the grandest palaces ever built in the Holy Land is being destroyed, and is standing by helplessly, because under the Oslo Accords the site, which is 30 meters from Area C, was made the responsibility of the Palestinians. It's time for Israel to say, 'No more.' With all due respect to the Oslo Accords, we will not let you destroy important [archaeological] remains linked to the history of the Jewish people in their land, remains that are part of the cultural fabric of this country," Rosenthal says..."

On Jan 6, 2018 Judith Abramson reported in Jerusalemonline "Hebrew University archaeology doctoral student Haggai Cohen Klonymus described to the Israel News Company (formerly Channel 2 TV) how Palestinian tractors and bulldozers arrived at an archaeological site where the ancient city of Archelaus once stood. The Palestinians completely leveled the compound in order to locate hidden archaeological treasures to sell in the antiquities market. "Just as ISIS destroyed sites in Iran and Syria that were thousands of years old, the same situation is occurring here," he said. "This is a deliberate and systematic destruction of an archaeological site....It's just a tragedy."

In 2000 the Palestinians destroyed Joseph's tomb. Sidney Brounstein wrote for the Los Angeles Times "Oct. 8: Where is the outrage? Imagine what would have happened if Jewish police stood by and allowed a Jewish mob to destroy a Muslim holy place! Does the destruction of a Jewish holy place by an Arab mob while Palestinian police stand by (after promising to protect it) deserve no more than inclusion in a list of other damage done by rioters? Is this an acceptance of attacks on Jews and things Jewish as a normal part of life?" "It makes a mockery of any thought of giving Arabs any control of Jewish holy places. The destruction of dozens of such places in the Old City of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, along with the exclusion of Jews entirely from their most holy site, the Western Wall, was clearly of a piece with the current destruction."
Vandals draw swastikas on school playground in New York City
Vandals drew dozens of swastikas on an elementary school playground in New York City overnight Thursday.

The anti-Semitic graffiti, which included the words “Heil Hitler,” was found early Friday morning in the Rego Park neighborhood in the borough of Queens.

School staff removed the drawings and called the police, the Ynet news site reported.

The school was closed for vacation but the playground was open to the public.

“This is terrible anti-Semitism. This is a neighborhood with a lot of Jews who are proud of their Judaism and don’t hide it. It’s terrible that something like this is happening in New York,” Idan Shefi, an Israeli who lives near the school, told Ynet.

The incident comes amid a surge in hate crimes in New York City, especially attacks against Jews. The 55 hate crimes in the city so far this year represent a 72 percent increase over the same period last year, with close to two-thirds of the attacks this year targeting Jews, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Car drives on NY sidewalk, nearly hits kids from religious Jewish school
New York City police are searching for a motorist who drove around a stopped school bus onto a Brooklyn sidewalk, nearly mowing down schoolchildren.

A security camera captured the startled children as they scattered outside a Jewish school in the Borough Park neighborhood.

On Saturday, authorities looked for the driver using the car’s license plate, taken from the video as the children came off the bus Thursday morning. The children are seen heading for the Yeshiva Medrash Chaim.

A police spokeswoman says the suspect is wanted for reckless endangerment.

Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represented Borough Park, says that passing the school bus could have resulted in the driver committing murder.

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.

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