Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 23, 2018

07/23 Links Pt2: The ‘If Only Israel’ Syndrome; Ireland's Anti-Israel Bill and the Muslim Brotherhood; Israeli masochism versus Dutch hypocrisy; Dem Candidate Touts HRW Past

From Ian:

The “If Only Israel” (IOI) syndrome is the misguided notion — peddled in the name of Israel’s “best interests” by some in the diplomatic, academic, and media worlds — that if only Israel did this or that, peace with the Palestinians would be at hand. But since Israel doesn’t, then the Jewish state constitutes the principal, perhaps the only real obstacle to a new day in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Striking, isn’t it?

Poor Israel. If only it had the visual acuity of these “enlightened” souls, including, most recently, a slim majority of Irish senators, then all would be fine. After all, according to them, Israel holds all the cards, yet refuses to play them.

The thinking goes: Why can’t those shortsighted Israelis figure out what needs to be done — it’s so obvious to us, isn’t it? — so that the conflict can be brought to a screeching halt?

If only Israel reversed its settlements policy. If only Israel understood that Gaza’s tunnel-diggers and kite-flyers are just exercising their right to “peaceful protest.” If only the IDF restrained itself. If only Israel stopped assuming the worst about Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. If only Israel went the extra mile with President Mahmoud Abbas. If only Israel got beyond its Holocaust trauma. If only Israel ______. Well, go ahead and fill in the blank.

The point is that for the IOI crowd, it essentially all comes down to Israel. And IOI syndrome has only been strengthened by its adherents’ assessment of the current Israeli government, of course.

After all, many media outlets, from the Associated Press to CBS News to Der Spiegel, branded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “hardline” from the get-go. Their word choice simply reinforces the notion that the conflict is all about alleged Israeli intransigence, while generally avoiding any descriptive judgement of Abbas and his entourage.

David Collier: Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, so much love, so much hate

21 July 2018. Saturday morning, 5am and I am on my way to spend the weekend at the Tolpuddle Martyrs festival. I don’t get to choose these dates, and my wife is none too happy about me missing her birthday. Three years ago, Bournemouth Action for Israel had a stall at the Tolpuddle event. On the Saturday they faced some poisonous verbal abuse. When they turned up for the Sunday, they were told it was advisable to leave as ‘their safety’ could not be guaranteed. They’ve been denied a presence ever since.

I wonder how Tolpuddle reconciles the contradiction between the core history upon which the event was built – the 1834 arrest, on trumped up charges, of a group of workers uniting to strike – with the organisers failing to protect the rights of a group of Zionists who were there to defend themselves from people making wild accusations against them.

Silencing those Zionist voices, denying the right to free speech and bowing down to intimidation from those who hold power, is EXACTLY what the Tolpuddle festival is meant to oppose. Instead, like most of what is happening on the left these days, the movement itself has become a corrupted and perverse inversion of it’s own core value system.

This weekend those Zionists are returning. They are going to stand with banners, flags and leaflets as the march walks past. For my research into antisemitism inside the Labour camp, I could not miss this opportunity.

Here is what happened:

Ireland's Anti-Israel Bill and the Muslim Brotherhood

Classified cables exchanged in 2006 between the State Department and the US Embassy in Ireland -- and published by Wikileaks in 2011 -- revealed that the administration of George W. Bush was trying to find out whether the European Council for Fatwa and Research and other such groups were working to legitimize Sharia (Islamic) law in Western Europe.

According to James Kenny, the American ambassador to Ireland at the time, a certain journalist claimed that outside of Qatar, Ireland had the strongest Muslim Brotherhood presence, and that al-Qaradawi "runs Islam in Ireland."

The White House's concern may have been warranted concerning some Muslim Brotherhood zealots in Ireland. But there are other Irish Islamic leaders who are more willing to compromise with Ireland's values, if not assimilate. In his 2014 book, Islam and Education in Ireland: An Introduction to the Faith and the Educational Challenges It Faces, Dr. Ali Selim -- the ICCI spokesman and secretary general of the Irish Council of Imams -- called for a reform of Ireland's education system, to make it more "inclusive" for Muslims. Among the changes he advocated was gender segregation in gym, music and art classes, where there could be "a clash of values" with Islam. Selim was interviewed in the Irish press and asked whether he favored Sharia to be implemented in Ireland. He responded that only in the case where Muslims are a majority is Sharia likely to be enacted.

Nor is Islamic extremism in Ireland limited to the ICCI campus alone. The leaked US Embassy cables also indicated that even some Irish Muslims refer to a certain mosque in Dublin as "Tora Bora," a cave complex on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. One of the mosques imams, Yayah al-Hussein, originally from Sudan, is a member of Hamas, and many of its congregants are Bosnian and Afghan jihadists.

That jihadist groups feel comfortable in Ireland is understandable, given the country's genuine societal openness to Islam in general and Muslim immigrants in particular. In addition, Irish politics tend to favor the narrative of Palestinian Arabs in their conflict with Israel. This is due, in part, to their viewing -- inaccurately -- the plight of the Palestinians through the prism of their own history of occupation by England. But the Irish never aspired to displace Great Britain.

Continuing the discussion from last time, until very recently, “international law” consisted of agreements such as treaties, alliances and trade deals negotiated between individual nations to cease hostilities, form alliances, or define political and economic spheres of influence. While “nations” might refer to tiny city states of a few hundred thousand people or empires ruling millions, the treaty – a binding contract between the specific parties to the contract – was the cornerstone of internationalism.

While some broader “internationalist” principles such as diplomatic immunity evolved over time, these were primarily means to facilitate, rather than transcend, inter-state communication and negotiation. The notion that there might exist a distinct body of law that bound all nations, and institutions separate from and above nation states (other than empires) that could interpret and possibly enforce such law on a global basis, is a very modern concept.

With the emergence of the nation state (itself a recent phenomenon), political activities - including war - primarily took place between countries. And as new weapons and ways of waging war entered national arsenals thanks to the industrial revolution, these inter-state wars became particularly brutal.

It was after what people felt was the most brutal war that could ever take place, World War I - “The War to End All Wars,” that the notion of an international organization that all nations would defer to - a League of Nations - was born.

This first attempt to lay the foundations for a broader international order was based on the assumption that no nation wanted to go through anything like the First World War again, and thus national interests and international interests would forevermore be in aligned with the goal of preventing such a war. All that was needed was an institution to facilitate communication, interpret emerging “international law” that transcended the laws of nation states, and work together as a global alliance to ensure the peace was kept.

There are a number of reasons why this experiment failed its first test: the challenge of an emerging Fascism which led to World War II, but at its core the assumption that national interests and international ones would naturally fall into alignment was at best utopian, at worst delusional. For once a nation capable of projecting power and mobilizing international diplomacy towards its own ends emerged, what was to stop it from making demands on the new international order, rather than accepting dictates from it?

After World War II, a new international peace-keeping organization – the United Nations – was created. And since the fall of the Soviet Union, hundreds, if not thousands, of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have emerged, many of them dedicated to laying the foundation to a new set of rules – a new truly international law – that will bind all states to behave in ways that do not disrupt global peace, prosperity and progress.

We’ll dive more deeply to the glass-half-empty side of this development next time, but even if you consider this trend to be all for the best, this newly emerging international law runs into an immediate problem in that it does not rest on the two pillars discussed previously that undergird the successful legal systems you find within nation states: consent and enforcement.

Like treaties negotiated between states, membership in international organizations is not derived from the consent of the governed, but by the decisions of national leaders to negotiate a treaty or join an alliance. And while one can claim that elected leaders are empowered to make such decisions on behalf of the governed, most nations - including most nations in the UN and other international bodies - are not democracies which means that decisions to participate - and how to participate - in international institutions are being made by an unelected individual or a ruling elite.

Regarding enforcement, even the largest and most powerful international agency, the United Nations, has virtually no military power of its own and must call upon nation states, which still remain the only actors able to exercise and project power, to volunteer to implement UN mandates. In theory, it does this by moral suasion: by convincing “members of the international community” (i.e., nation states) to demonstrate their commitment to global stability by providing the manpower and resources needed to keep the peace and prevent war and genocide.

Glancing through the last few decades, one can make an argument that this system has been effective with UN-initiated action stopping a Communist takeover of Korea or an Iraqi takeover of Kuwait, and UN peace-keepers deployed to separate warring parties in places like Yugoslavia. But if you look a bit closer at each of these examples, enforcement of UN-interpreted international law only seems to have taken place when it was in the interest of a nation or set of nations to do so.

It was in the interest of the US and its allies to prevent Communist encroachment in Asia, just as it was in the interest of the US, Europe and many Middle East states to prevent Saddam Hussein from adding oil-rich Kuwait to his dominion. And thus the inviolability of national borders was enforced in the case of the 1991 Gulf War, even though this principle was not enforced, or even invoked, when powerful nations such as the US, USSR and China penetrated borders in placed like Panama, Hungary and Tibet.

Similarly, ending genocide on the European continent was in European interests, and thus the UN intervened in Yugoslavia but only stood by impotently as Rwanda descended into murderous chaos.

Some people have noted that the emergence of a global legal system is bound to encounter growing pains, but that it must be supported and nurtured if we are to ever evolve away from a system where only nation states get to call (and fire) the shots.

This is a fair argument, but if and only if those who make it are willing to answer - or at least ask themselves - the key question of what is to prevent an international order that is not based on consent or enforcement from becoming dominated by the very state actors they are meant to impartially judge, limit or control?

To be continued…

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Linda Sarsour’s triumphalism on the Temple Mount (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

Linda Sarsour never tires of emphasizing how “unapologetically Muslim” she is. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but perhaps she gave a useful example when she recently visited the Temple Mount.

Sarsour posted a short clip showing the Dome of the Rock to her Instagram account with the text: “God is GREAT all the time. The beautiful Dome of the Rock in #Palestine. #Jerusalem”

For most Muslim tourists, I would consider this an unremarkable post. After all, Muslims are indoctrinated to believe that the Dome of the Rock is part of the “Al Aqsa mosque compound,” which they are told to consider as Islam’s “third holiest site.” The fact that it is Judaism’s holiest site is always adamantly denied or dismissed as a fabricated idea. At the same time, Palestinian and other Arab Muslim media never tire to churn out vicious libels about Jewish attacks on the site, and Jews are accused of falsely claiming that the Islamic buildings were erected on the ruins of their ancient temple, while every good Muslim knows that it was the biblical Adam or his son, or Abraham and his son Isaac, who built the Al Aqsa mosque.

I’m sorry if the idea of biblical figures building a mosque long before Muhammad introduced Islam sounds a bit crazy, but this is what you can learn from Linda Sarsour’s dear friend Imam Omar Suleiman – who was recently listed by CNN (where he also has published op-eds) as one of 25 Influential American Muslims (needless to say, Linda Sarsour is also included in the list).

Sarsour has said that Suleiman makes her “more proud to be a Muslim and a Palestinian,” and perhaps she fully shares his Temple denial and his vicious anti-Jewish theological views.

Her recent Instagram post is certainly remarkable for someone who claims to be not only “progressive,” but who also wants to be considered as a credible opponent of antisemitism.

Sarsour is surely fully aware that the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, but that – due to constant threats of Muslim violence – Jews are banned from praying anywhere on the huge platform, which measures about 150,000 square meters (37 acres). And as Sarsour surely also knows, the fanatically imposed Muslim supremacy restricts the access of all non-Muslims, including Christians for whom the site has significance in their faith.

So when Sarsour stands in front of the Dome of the Rock and says “God is GREAT all the time”, she is triumphantly joining the Muslim fanatics who make sure that only Muslims are allowed to do anything that can be construed as worship on the Temple Mount. Any Jew or Christian who would stand in front of the Dome of the Rock and would declare “God is GREAT all the time” would risk being attacked by a Muslim mob and/or being swiftly arrested by police.

That’s clearly perfectly fine with the “unapologetically Muslim” Linda Sarsour, who for good measure places the Dome of the Rock in “#Palestine”. With this she makes clear that the building that was erected on the orders of a Muslim emperor to obliterate the ruins of the Jewish Temple and prevent its rebuilding for all time should indeed continue to serve as “a symbol of the permanent supremacy and governance of Islam and the Muslims over the … Noble Sanctuary or al-Haram al-Sharif.”

I guess if you’re as “unapologetically Muslim” as Linda Sarsour, Islamic imperialism remains a most wonderful thing that – unlike all other imperialist regimes – should still be celebrated in the 21st century.

Both Linda Sarsour and Omar Suleiman are heavily promoted in the media as modern Muslims who have nothing in common with Islamist fanatics. If you don’t agree, both Sarsour and Suleiman and the media will denounce you as “Islamophobic.” But the truth is that any Muslim who is unwilling to acknowledge the historic Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and unwilling to accept that Jews have the right to visit freely and pray somewhere at the site has something very fundamental in common with Islamist fanatics.

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07/23 Links Pt1: The hypocrisy in opposing Israel's Nationality Law; Trump to Iran: ‘Never, ever threaten the United States again’; Australia's ABC - Dancing to terror’s tune

From Ian:

The hypocrisy in opposing Israel's Nationality Law

Israel has just approved the law on the “state of the Jewish nation”. Critics in global circles and the media have been spouting forth on the “attack on pluralism and democracy”.

After 70 years, Israel lacks a constitution. It is a quite a unique anomaly among Western countries, because constitutions are the cornerstone of democracies, they define their identity and purpose.

Israel has “basic laws” on individual rights (in that sense, Israel is as liberal as New Jersey) and the separation of powers, but not a fundamental law that defines the identity and purpose of the state. The new law is approved in order to fill the void.

Without a Nationality Law, the “law of return” (a tenet of Zionism which guarantees automatic immigration rights to Jews, for example to the French Jews now under Islamist attack) could one day be overthrown as “discriminatory”, as well as the anthem of Israel (which expresses the faithfulness of two millennia of Jews to their land), the flag (another Jewish symbol with the Star of David) could be challenged in court for ignoring the rights of the Arab minority and the Menorah (the Knesset symbol also engraved on the Arch of Titus in Rome) could be considered “racist”. The law protects all these.

Opponents argue that declaring Hebrew to be the official language of Israel, while guaranteeing a “special status” to Arabic, is detrimental and racist toward the Arab minority. But even the Constitution of France states that “the language of the Republic is French” (article 2) while recognizing the “regional languages” as part of the “French heritage” (article 75). Has anyone ever attacked France for this, despite its having a large Arab minority from its former colonies? Every road sign and recorded announcement in israel is in both Hebrew and Arabic (English as well, and sometimes recordings have a Russian option)

The Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights. Not only that, but Israel is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women have always been able to vote. The Arabs hold numerous seats in the Knesset and the only party ever banned by Israel is a Jewish one (Kach). Israeli Arabs have also held various government po‎sitions.

At the time of the foundation of Israel, only one Arab high school was open, today there are hundreds of Arab schools.

Watch my appearance on @msnbc tonight debating Israel's nation-state law: https://t.co/7IIpKanXAe
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) July 22, 2018

Evelyn Gordon: Iran May Be Wearing Out Its Welcome Even in Syria and Iraq

It’s no secret that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates loathe Iran. What’s far more surprising is that Iran seems to be wearing out its welcome even in the Arab countries with which it is most closely allied. That, at least, is the message of both a recent study of Syrian textbooks and a recent wave of violent protests in Iraq.

In Syria, Shiite Iran has been the mainstay of the Assad regime (which belongs to the Alawite sect of Shiism) ever since civil war erupted in 2011, pitting the regime against Sunni rebels. It has brought more than 80,000 troops to Syria to fight for the regime, mostly either from Shiite militias it already sponsored in Lebanon and Iraq or from new Shiite militias created especially for this purpose out of Afghan and Pakistani refugees in Iran. It has also given the Assad regime astronomical sums of money to keep it afloat.

Scholars estimate its combined military and economic aid to Syria over the course of the war at anywhere from $30 billion to $105 billion. Without this Iranian help, the regime likely wouldn’t have survived until Russia finally intervened in 2015, providing the crucial air power that enabled Assad to regain most of the territory he had lost.

Given all this, one would expect the regime to be grateful to its Iranian benefactors. Instead, as the textbook study shows, Assad is teaching Syrian schoolchildren a healthy dose of suspicion toward Iran.

The study, by researchers from the IMPACT-se research institute, examined official Syrian textbooks for first through twelfth graders used in areas controlled by Assad in 2017-18. Unsurprisingly, these books present Russia as a close ally. Students are even required to study the Russian language.

The portrayal of Iran, in contrast, is “lukewarm at best,” the report said. In part, this is because the “curriculum as a whole revolves around secular pan-Arabism” and Syria’s position as an integral part of the “Arab homeland,” to which non-Arab Iran emphatically doesn’t belong. And in part, it’s because Iran has historically been the Arab world’s rival.

Dancing to terror’s tune

If when you woke on the morning of Sunday 15 July, you made the error of watching the ABC television news bulletin, you would have seen that the lead item began: ‘The Israeli military has launched a wave of airstrikes against dozens of militant targets in the Gaza Strip.’ The bulletin included video clips of bombs exploding buildings, narrated as Israel’s targets in Gaza, and went on to describe ‘the operation is one of Israel’s broadest since the 2014 war.’ Anyone not informed about events in the region could be forgiven for concluding Israel had just initiated a war and had done so with no clear provocation.

Omitted completely by the ABC was the critical contextual information that in the previous 24 hours Israeli citizens in the south of the country had been targets of over 170 rockets and mortars which in turn followed weeks of fire bombs delivered by kites, balloons and inflated condoms. These attacks were orchestrated against Israel by the proscribed terrorist organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hardly a trivial oversight.

The ABC did mention that three Israelis had been injured by a (singular) rocket in Sderot but failed to mention the sequence or anything of the scale and timeframe of the attacks against Israel. Or even who was to blame for their injuries.

Indeed, the ABC reporting was so biased and one-sided it could have been scripted by Hamas. Imagine, if you will, a meeting in the Hamas command-and-control centre which is actually located in the basement of Al-Shifa hospital – a gross example of terrorists using human shields. In the room made smoky by nagilas are large signs with slogans ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’. The only way to enter the doorway is to walk on flags of the USA and Israel painted on the floor.

The purpose of this fictitious meeting is to draft instructions for the ABC in Australia. The meeting settles on a set of four instructions to guide the ABC for its news bulletins.

Firstly, don’t mention that Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired over 170 rockets and mortars into Israel in the preceding 24 hours during the Jewish Sabbath and don’t mention the hundreds of firebombs sent out of Gaza into Israel in the weeks prior.

Secondly, don’t mention that Hamas rockets deliberately aimed at residential areas hit a home, a children’s playground and a synagogue.

Thirdly, the opening statement of the news bulletin must refer to Israel having launched an attack without any reference to preceding attacks initiated by Hamas.

Fourthly, when video is shown on television for illustration, only show resultant destruction in Gaza and do not show any video evidence of destruction caused in Israel.

15 year old killed in protests near Bethlehem seems to have been a junior PFLP terrorist (update)

YNet reports:

The IDF said Sunday it is examining the Palestinian report according to which a 15-year-old boy was shot dead during a series of arrests in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem.

In an extensive series of raids to arrest wanted suspects, violent riots took place including hurling Molotov cocktails, stones and improvised explosive devices at the IDF forces, as reported by the IDF.

The IDF force responded with crowd-dispersal means and live shooting at main instigators.

There were no casualties among the IDF soldiers.

The photo of Arkan Thaher Mezher, 15, shows him shrouded with a PFLP flag, which is not at all normal for people under 18 who are killed in clashes.

The PFLP put out a full announcement of martyrdom for "the cub" Mezher, which I believe means he was a member of a PFLP youth militia or quasi-millitia. At any rate it sure appears like he was a member of the terror group.

UPDATE: The PFLP announcement referred to him as a "comrade," which means member (h/t Ibn Boutros.)

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From TOI:

A large boulder from the Western Wall was dislodged from the ancient structure on Sunday morning, tumbling down onto an egalitarian prayer platform, which was empty at the time.

There were no reported injuries in the incident near Robinson’s Arch, south of the main prayer plaza.

...Al-Aqsa Mosque director Omar al-Kiswani denied that anyone on the Temple Mount pushed the rock down to the bottom.

I'll admit I'm no expert, but to me the stone looks like it was pushed with some force in the video above. The left part of the stone lands a couple of meters past the wall and then bounces back from the metal platform towards the Wall. It doesn't seem like a collapse.

Admittedly, though, it would take a great deal of force to push a boulder of that size.

I don't know exactly what is on the other side of the wall at that precise point, although it looks like it is the Islamic Museum.

I found a high resolution photo from 2013 (by RealJerusalemStreets) and identified the stone, which was cracked then:

There are two reverse ledges that make it appear that the stone that fell may have been already a half meter or so further out than the wall at the base, so that might explain some of the distance it seemed to fall away from the wall.

I hope that the experts are looking at all possibilities.

UPDATE: Real Jerusalem Streets sent me this photo from shortly before the collapse. The crack definitely grew a lot in the past few years.

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The FIDE/World Chess Federation Handbook says, "FIDE rejects discriminatory treatment for national, political, racial, social or religious reasons or on account of sex."

Yet...we have this:

Schoolgirl Liel Levitan from Haifa is unable to accept an invitation to play in the World Chess Championship because host nation Tunisia will not allow Israelis to compete, it was reported Thursday.

This is not the first time Israeli chess players have been denied the opportunity to participate in international tournaments due to their nationality.

Israeli athletes often face difficulties when competing in the Middle East or against Middle Eastern countries, due to hostility toward the Jewish state.

“Just a few months ago, a World Chess Championship was due to take place in Saudi Arabia,” chess player Lior Aizenberg told Hadashot news. “It was clear to everyone that outstanding Israeli chess players would not be able to participate.”

Let's look at what happened in Saudi Arabia:

The Israel Chess Federation said Tuesday it is seeking compensation from the organizers of a tournament in Saudi Arabia, after the Gulf state refused to issue visas for its players.
The King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Championships is the first international chess competition held in Saudi Arabia, perceived as a display of the conservative kingdom’s growing openness to the West.
The regulations of the organizers, the World Chess Federation (FIDE), stipulate that no player should be refused the opportunity to participate, but players from three states — Iran, Qatar, and Israel — had initially not received visas.
On Monday, FIDE announced it had “secured visas for Qatar and Iran,” though officials from the world chess body failed to reach an agreement with the Saudis to allow the Israeli players to enter the kingdom for the games.
A Saudi official said Tuesday the kingdom was “maintaining its policy” on Israel.
Riyadh “has historically not had diplomatic ties with a specific country,” spokeswoman for the Saudi embassy in the US Fatimah Baeshen wrote on Twitter, without naming Israel.

FIDE's press release on securing the visas for Qatar and Iran - which doesn't mention the is as hypocritical as it gets:

As everybody clearly understands from the above, FIDE and the Saudi organisers are always ready to welcome any participant.
FIDE's principle is that its World Chess Championships are a vehicle for promoting peace and development of friendship amongst all nations. FIDE will adhere to this principle and will continue to work in this direction.

They wrote that the Saudis are ready to welcome any participant knowing full well that Israelis weren't welcome.

If FIDE is serious about its principles, it would cancel and move the Tunisia championships immediately. It is not like it hasn't seen this behavior before. Yet it always happens.

Other sports bodies have made it clear to Arab nations that if they boycott Israel they lose the privilege of hosting their events. In every case I am aware of, the Arab nations gave in to the demands of the organizations.

One must wonder why FIDE so easily violates its own regulations in order to cave to the demands of bigots.

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07/22 Links: Aviv Levi, 21, named as IDF soldier killed on Friday; Nikki Haley, Jared Kushner: For Gaza peace, tell the truth about Hamas; Israel wins praise for rescue of Syria’s White Helmets

From Ian:

Nikki Haley, Jared Kushner: For Gaza peace, tell the truth about Hamas

For the first time in the United Nations, more nations than not acknowledged that peace between Israel and the Palestinian people must be built on a foundation of truth regarding Hamas. They recognized that reconciliation is impossible if reality is denied for the sake of scoring political points. And part of that reality is recognizing the primary responsibility Hamas bears in perpetuating the suffering of the people of Gaza.

Unfortunately, Hamas' malign activity is pushing Israel to engage in increasingly significant acts of self-defense. As in the case of past conflicts, Hamas starts a clash, loses the battle and its people suffer. That is the reality that needs to change.

That foundation of reality underscores our administration's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital was a reflection of reality. Any realistic person knows that Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel under any peace agreement. But as President Donald Trump said when he made that decision, he made no judgment about the final borders of Jerusalem; the President directly called on all parties to maintain the status quo at Jerusalem's holy sites. Those questions are for the parties to decide.

The peace proposal we will make will be similarly realistic, recognizing the legitimate needs of both Israel and the Palestinians as well as the interests of the broader region. No one will be fully pleased with our proposal, but that's the way it must be if real peace is to be achieved. Peace can only succeed if it is based on realities. We got a glimpse of that at the United Nations on June 13. We expect to see more of this in the days ahead. The battleship is turning around.

‘Paradigm shift’: Top Trump officials say UN may be ‘turning around’ on Israel

The officials said such a “realistic” attitude also underscored the administration’s approach to the conflict as a whole and to its upcoming long-gestating peace initiative.

Just as US President Donald Trump recognized “reality” of Jerusalem being Israel’s capital, “The peace proposal we will make will be similarly realistic, recognizing the legitimate needs of both Israel and the Palestinians as well as the interests of the broader region.”

They added that “No one will be fully pleased with our proposal, but that’s the way it must be if real peace is to be achieved. Peace can only succeed if it is based on realities.”

The United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council in June, with Haley branding the global body a “cesspool of political bias,” and adding that the council has a “chronic bias against Israel.”

Since Trump took office, the United States has quit the UN cultural agency UNESCO, cut UN funding, and announced plans to quit the UN-backed Paris climate agreement.

PA: We have obstructed Trump’s ‘conspiracy’ peace plan

The Palestinian Authority claimed on Saturday that the Palestinians have managed to “incapacitate” US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East, which has been referred to as the “ultimate deal” or the “deal of the century.”

The PA repeated its charge that Trump’s unseen plan was aimed at “liquidating” the Palestinian cause and national rights, and urged Palestinians to rally behind PA president Mahmoud Abbas.

The PA cautioned that although the Trump plan – which it called a “conspiracy” – has “subsided, it still hasn’t gone away completely.”

Palestinian sources said they believed the PA’s announcement referred to “unsuccessful attempts” by the US administration to “bypass” the PA leadership by establishing direct and indirect channels with some Palestinian figures and parties, including Hamas.

On Friday, three senior Trump administration officials – Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman – offered to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in return for an end to Hamas “aggression.” The offer was made in an article the three top officials published in The Washington Post.

Both the PA and Hamas see such offers as being part of Trump’s “deal of the century.”

Hamas: Trump’s envoys have become IDF spokesmen

Hamas on Saturday rejected as “trivial” an offer from the US administration to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in return for ending attacks on Israel.

In response to an article published in The Washington Post by US President Donald Trump’s advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, in which they called on Hamas to cease provoking or coordinating attacks on Israelis and Egyptians, and on infrastructure projects sponsored by donor nations and organizations, the terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip accused the senior American officials of serving as spokesmen for the IDF.

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, commenting on the article, claimed that the top US administration officials have “endorsed the Israeli narrative.”

Abu Zuhri said that the continued attacks on Hamas “reflected the US administration’s triviality.” Officials of the US administration, he added, have become “spokesmen for the occupation army.”

On Sunday, over 1000 Jews visited the site of the Holy Temples on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to commemorate the anniversary of their destruction.

9 of them were detained by police for the unpardonable crime of praying or bowing.

Here's Arab video of the Jews peacefully strolling on the Mount, as well as praying outside of it.

This is of course too much for darlings of the liberal West.

Not only did Hamas and Islamic Jihad condemn these visits, but the Kingdom of Jordan issued a formal diplomatic complaint against allowing Jews to exercise freedom of religion.

The Jordanian embassy in Tel Aviv presented a diplomatic protest note to the Israeli Foreign Ministry thison Sunday morning "expressing the Kingdom's strong condemnation of these violations and demanded an immediate halt," the Jordanian minister of information, Jumana Ghneimat, said in a statement.

Ghunaim condemned what she described as the "continuous Israeli violations and provocations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially the provocative incursions of extremists and settlers that took place today in large numbers on the sanctuaries of the Al Aqsa compound under the protection of the Israeli police. Such condemnatory and reprehensible practices, which are protected by the Israeli police, violate the sanctity of this holy place and provoke the feelings of worshipers and Muslims all over the world."

She added, "This is a violation of all international conventions that emphasize the need to respect places of worship for all religions," she said.

The irony of banning Jews under the pretext of respecting religion is apparently lost on the Muslim world and its Western supporters.

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Newest libel: "Israelis chasing poor old Palestinian woman"

This video was going around social media. Note the tweet:

WATCH: Cowardly #Israeli #Jewish colonists attacking a poor old #Palestinian woman crossing a street with stones & plastic chairs after a failed attempt to run her over with a car.
Later on, they beat her up badly just because she was a #Palestinian.pic.twitter.com/LSNegCQ4Wj
— Saif Bitar (@BitarSaif) July 21, 2018

Someone asked me to look at it, and it was immediately apparent to me that the woman had a knife - she is chasing a man at the start of the video and she is later seen with her arm up in a stabbing position in case anyone comes near. That would explain why someone was trying to chase her with a chair, to keep out of arm's length, and why someone tried to stop her with his car.

A little research and I found the story, from 2016, with another angle of the video showing the woman (who is not old at all) trying to stab multiple people in the street while they throw things at her to keep her at bay:

A female Arab terrorist on Sunday tried to stab civilians and succeeded in wounding one victim in the coastal city of Rosh Ha'ayin, located southeast of Tel Aviv, before being neutralized. The stabbing has yet to be officially classified as a terror attack.

The incident took place on Hamalakha Street in the city, where a female Arab suspect with two knives was arrested.

She had tried to stab passersby and lightly wounded one woman aged around 30. The victim was fully conscious and received treatment from Magen David Adom (MDA) medical teams.

Video from security cameras at the site show how civilians rushed to try and apprehend the Arab woman and prevent her from continuing to stab, and one driver tried to knock her over with his car to stop her. Witnesses report she shouted: "I'll kill you!"

According to the police, a security guard in the city's industrial region overpowered her, knocking the knife from her hand without opening fire. She had another knife in her bag.

Police noted that the stabber is being investigated to understand her motives.

Yet the anti-Israel lie kept getting far more retweets even after I exposed the truth than beforehand!

Anyone who has the slightest actual knowledge about Israel knows that 20% of Israelis are Arabs. The idea that Israeli Jews chase random Arab women for no reason is ludicrous. Yet that is what is easily believed by 2000 people so far, from a Twitter user who is not even very popular.

This is modern antisemitism in action - people willing to believe the most absurd lies about Israeli Jews without the least bit of critical thinking, swallowing lies that take seconds to debunk.

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Tisha B'Av - repost

I will not be blogging until Sunday afternoon because of Tisha B'Av.

Meanwhile, here is something I wrote about it a few years ago.

It was not that long ago that Jews cried real tears for the Temple - and not only once a year. Countless Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem chronicled the heartbreaking sight of Jews gathering at the Kotel, then known then as the Wailing Place of the Jews, every Friday.

From Dwight's American Magazine, Volume 3, 1847:

I have said how proud and prosperous looked the Mosque of Omar, with its marble buildings, its green lawns, and gaily dressed people, some at prayer under the cypresses, some conversing under the arcades ; female devotees in white sitting on the grass, and merry children running on the slopes; all these ready and eager to stone to death on the instant, any Christian or Jew who should dare to set his foot within the wails. This is what we saw within. Next we went around the outside till we came by a narrow, crooked passage, to a desolate spot, occupied by desolate people. Under a high, massive, and very ancient wall was a dusty, narrow space, enclosed on the other side by the backs of modern dwellings, if I remember right. The ancient wall, where the weeds are springing from the crevices of the stones, is the only part remaining of the old Temple wall; and here the Jews come every Friday, to their Place of Wailing, as it is called, to mourn over the fall of their Temple, and pray for its restoration. What a contrast did these humbled people present to the proud Mohammedans within! They were seated in the dust, some wailing aloud, some repeating prayers with moving lips, and others reading them from books on their knees. A few children were at play on the ground; and some aged men sat silent, their heads drooped on their breasts. Several young men were leaning against the wall, pressing their foreheads against the stones, and resting the books on their clasped hands in the crevices. With some, this wailing is no form; for I saw tears on their cheeks. I longed to know if any had hope in their hearts, that they or their children of any generation should pass that wall, and should help to swell the cry, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in!" If they have any such hope, it may give some sweetness to this rite of humiliation. We had no such hope for them; and it was with unspeakable sadness that I, for one, turned away from the thought of the pride and tyranny within those walls, and the desolation without, carrying with me a deep felt lesson on the strength of human faith, and the weakness of the tide of brotherhood.

From Home Life in the Bible, 1881:

Among the impressive sights of Jerusalem for the traveller, none perhaps is sadder than the Wailing-place of the Jews, which affords probably the only example of national ceremonial mourning in the world. The resident Hebrews assemble every Friday at the base of the wall of their ancient Temple in the Valley of the Tyropean, and with prayers and tears bewail before God the fallen glory of his chosen people. The formal lamentation consists of chanting certain appropriate portions of Scripture, such as the words of Isaiah: "Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste" (Isa. lxiv. 9—11); and those of the Psalmist: "O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance ; thy holy temple have they defiled ; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place. O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us ; for we are brought very low" (Ps. lxxix. 1, 6-8). This touching custom is very old; and during periods of foreign oppression the Jews maintained it only by paying a heavy tax for the precious privilege of touching and kissing the stones of their once glorious sanctuary. In the reign of Constantine the expelled race were allowed to enter the city only once a year to wail over the ruined Temple.

From The Church of England magazine, 1869:

A very striking sight is the wailing ot the Jews at the Temple wall, which any traveller may witness on a Friday afternoon about four or five o'clock. There is a narrow passage along the west side of the Temple area between what are known as Robinson's and Wilson's arches. The wall rises to a considerable height, and the lower part is formed of very large stones, which are supposed to bo remains of the Temple. They are much ruined, and the grass and herbage grow in the shattered crevices of the once neatly-joined masonry. In these crevices the Jews place little scrolls of parchment, on which are written prayers to the messiah to come and deliver them. Before this wall are gathered a throng of Jews: most of them are women, who wear long mourning veils of linen over their heads. Some are close to the wall, kissing the sacred stones and watering them with their tears. Others are seated on the ground, reading passages of scripture to one another from the Lamentations of Jeremiah and penitential psalms. All seem to be absorbed in deep and genuine grief. At one end may be seen a party of rabbis rocking themselves backwards and forwards in almost frantic grief, reciting in a wild chant psalms and passages of holy scripture, which are responded to by several boys in a sort of chorus.

A mere century ago, Jews keenly felt a personal bereavement of the loss of the Temple. They sobbed and wailed over the fact that the beautiful Temple, the symbol of their nationhood as well as their faith, was being desecrated daily, that the Holy of Holies was being treated like a playground, or worse. The Wall symbolized the loss of Jerusalem and the millennia of exile of the Jewish people.

We should be crying today as well - for the fact that we no longer cry.

The triumphant words of Colonel Motta Gur, exclaimed in 1967, that "הר הבית בידינו" -"The Temple Mount is in our hands!", seems like a cruel joke today. It was in our hands - for only a matter of hours. In what can only be regarded as a modern Jewish tragedy, Moshe Dayan decided to hand the keys of the Temple Mount to the Waqf of Jordan.

Now, as before, Muslims continue to do whatever they want in Judaism's holiest spot - but the tragedy is multiplied, because now it is Jews who are stopping other Jews from ascending and it is Jews who are allowing the defilement of our holiest space to continue.

The Kotel, formerly a bitter symbol of destruction, now is characterized as a plaza of victory. Yet it is merely a retaining wall for a platform upon which is found Judaism's holiest spot. The focal point of Jewish yearning has never been the Wall - the Wall has always been, and remains today, a stark reminder of the loss of the Temple. The focus is only a few meters beyond the Wall, to a place that continues to be desecrated every minute of every hour of every day. The Kotel is not a place to celebrate - it is a place to mourn that continuing desecration..

We used to gather three times a year at that location. All personal differences dissolved during each Chag. The festivals were national celebrations, a family reuniion, the happiest times of the year. That has been lost.

Why aren't we crying? Why have we lost sight of the tragedy that still exists, today, in the Har HaBayit? At the very moment of the culmination of Jewish national aspiration for 1900 years, during the giddy and emotional high of finally returning to the epicenter of our forefathers' yearnings, we faltered. We acted as if we really were not masters of our own land. We failed the generations before us. The millions of tears of those who cried at the Kotel for hundreds of years are wasted.

Giving up the Temple Mount was not an act of peace. Instead, it was a guarantee for perpetual war. Because we did not take control of this supremely important place, we now are in a position of bargaining for our own capital - as if it doesn't really belong to us. Even with political sovereignty, we are still acting as if we need to get permission from others in order to assert our rights.

It is of course a wonderful thing to see Zechariah's prophecy come true, with children playing on the streets of Jerusalem again, to see the Hurva resurrected, to see Jews return to the center of their universe - but today's Jerusalem has a cancer in its very heart. A cancer that is spreading.

The tragedy is even keener than it was before 1948, before 1967. The tragedy today is our own fault. The Psalmist asks, "?מי יעלה בהר ה' , ומי יקום במקום קדשו," "Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? and who shall stand in His holy place?" How can we answer that question today without tears?

Yet we have forgotten how to cry. We have masked our bare, painful emotions with intellectualism and secularism. We have discarded our hearts and act as if we can survive with only our brains.

We cry at movies, at sports events - but we don't cry on Tisha B'Av. As much as we should be weeping for the loss of the Temples, we should also be weeping at the loss of our ability to internalize that loss.

We need to look at the tears of the Yerushalmi Jews of old and understand their source. Because the tears of loss are necessary to give us the strength to win.

I wish my Jewish readers an easy and meaningful fast. May this be the last Tisha B'av we observe as a day of mourning.

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07/20 Links P2: Trump and Putin may attempt a return to pre-PLO and Hamas days; Phillips: Institutionalizing antisemitism in UK’s Labour Party; Time to Rethink Our Attitudes Toward ME Refugees

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump and Putin may attempt a return to pre-PLO and Hamas days

The 1964 PLO Charter said: “This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area..." Good idea.

When Security Council Resolution 242 was passed on 22 November 1967:
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was not the sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs - having only being so appointed at the 7th Arab League Summit held in Rabat in October 1974.

Arabs living in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) (“Territories”) were Jordanian citizens and possessed Jordanian passports following these Territories being unified with Transjordan on 24 April 1950 and subsequently being renamed Jordan.

The PLO was expressly not claiming territorial sovereignty in the Territories or Gaza - article 24 of the PLO Charter proclaiming:

“This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

No additional Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – was contemplated.

Hamas had not been founded.

Resolution 242 still contains the only internationally agreed formula for peacefully ending the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

A conference to resolve this long-running conflict in accordance with Resolution 242 - co-chaired by America and Russia – would see Israel and every Arab State in the area attending but would exclude non-States PLO and Hamas.

Such a conference now looms as a possible Trump-Putin initiative - putting Trump’s unannounced “ultimate deal” on the backburner.

Going back to 1967 could indeed be the key to resolving the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Caroline Glick: Who is betraying America?

When Putin endorsed Israel’s position that the 1974 Syrian-Israeli disengagement agreement must be implemented along the border, he told the Iranians that in any Iranian-Israeli war in Syria, Putin will not side with Iran.

Time will tell if we just averted war. But what we did learn is that Israel’s position in a war with Iran is stronger than it could have been if the two leaders hadn’t met in Helsinki.

And this is exceedingly important.

Trump is being condemned for adopting a conciliatory tone towards Putin while employing a combative tone towards the Europeans and particularly Germany at the NATO summit. This criticism ignores how Trump operates in the international arena.

Trump views his exchanges with foreign leaders as separate engagements. He has goals he wishes to advance with China; with North Korea; with Russia; with Canada; with Mexico; with Europe; with Britain; with US Arab allies. In each separate engagement, Trump employs a combination of carrots and sticks. In each engagement he adopts a distinct manner that he believes advances his goals.

So far, unlike Obama’s foreign policy by this point in his presidency, none of Trump’s exchanges have brought disaster on America or its allies. To the contrary, America and its allies have much greater strategic maneuver room across a wide spectrum of threats and join adversaries than they had when Obama left office.

Trump’s opponents’ obsession with bringing him down has caused great harm to his presidency and to America’s position worldwide. It is a testament to Trump’s commitment to the US and its allies that he met with Putin this week. And the success of their meeting is something that all who care about global security and preventing a devastating war in the Middle East should be grateful for.

Melanie Phillips: Institutionalizing antisemitism in UK’s Labour Party

The Jewish leadership has always been nervous about linking Israel with antisemitism, believing that Israel merely “complicated” the issue. But today, it is the issue.

Now British Jews find themselves caught up in an internal Labour Party war over it. The real agony for them is that the climate in Britain has deteriorated to such a point that Labour feels licensed to treat British Jews – as Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has said – with unprecedented contempt.

They plan a continuing campaign to get Labour to adopt the full IHRA definition. But that is to continue avoid confronting the elephant in the room.

This is the fact that so many on the progressive side of politics have swallowed the Big Lies about Israel. And that includes a dismaying number of British Jews themselves, who do things like recite kaddish for Hamas terrorists killed by Israel to prevent them murdering Israelis.

These Jews for Injustice against Jews who demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel provide cover for Labour’s new antisemitism. This stretches far beyond the Corbynite hard Left; it is in fact the default position for most of liberal and left-wing society.

The real task, therefore, is not to adopt the IHRA wording. It is to start telling the British public that virtually everything they hear about Israel from the media and intelligentsia is a lie; that anyone who supports Palestinianism is endorsing the most profound and demonic kind of antisemitism; and that Israel stands unambiguously for law, justice, truth and human rights, and that those who vilify it are themselves repudiating all these things.

Will British Jews finally step up to the plate and start saying all this? Unlikely. Why? It’s not just their timidity. They first need to start believing it themselves.

If Israel passed a law to protect puppies..... (poster)

The sheer amount of lies about the Nation State of the Jewish People law prompted me to create this....

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07/20 Links P1: Stop funding UN agencies that welcome the PLO; Get Over It—Israel Is the Jewish State; U.S. consulate cancels visit to Nablus following Palestinian protests

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Stop funding UN agencies that welcome the PLO

Last month, two UN agencies, whose membership is limited to sovereign countries, gave a “member state” seat to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Under a law passed with overwhelming and bipartisan support in Congress over two decades ago, that means these UN bodies can no longer get taxpayer funding.

Yet US contributions continue — along with money to two other UN organizations the Palestinians joined in recent years.

Continuing to pay a total of $40 million a year for these agencies flouts US law and undermines American credibility. Ambassador Nikki Haley has been commendably pressing for UN reform, but Turtle Bay may sneer at such demands if the US isn’t even following its own legally mandated restrictions. Moreover, it encourages the Palestinian Authority to continue its campaign of “internationalizing” the conflict.

The law bars any congressionally appropriated money from going to UN agencies that accept the PLO as a “member state.” It seeks to deter the PLO from using the UN, where it enjoys an automatic majority of support, to purport to confer upon it the status of a sovereign state that, in turn, would be used by the Palestinians to present Israel with a diplomatic fait accompli, and completely remove any pressure on the Palestinians to make any compromises.

Once the Palestinians join such organizations, they hijack their agendas, and turn these organizations, already heavily biased against Israel, into platforms for nakedly anti-Semitic agendas.

Khaled Abu Toameh: U.S. consulate cancels visit to Nablus following Palestinian protests

Palestinians boasted on Thursday that they had forced the US consulate-general in Jerusalem to cancel a visit by its officials to Nablus and the nearby town of Sebastiya.

The Palestinians said the visit of the US delegation was canceled following protests by various Palestinian factions and figures.

The Palestinian Authority leadership has been boycotting US administration officials since President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017.

Nasr Abu Jeish, a senior official with the Palestinian People’s Party, formerly the Palestinian Communist Party, told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency that the visit to Nablus was called off after representatives of various Palestinian factions protested outside the Palestine Securities Exchange offices in Nablus.

The US delegation was scheduled to visit the offices of the Palestinian Securities Exchange in the city and tour Sebastiya.

Abu Jeish said the Palestinians were opposed to the visit because of the US administration’s “bias” in favor of Israel and “attempts to impose the ‘deal of the century’” on them, referring to Trump’s yet-to-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.

US indicates readiness to work with Hamas if it ends terror; Hamas says no

The Trump administration indicated it was prepared to work with the Hamas terror group which controls the Gaza Strip if it first recognizes Israel’s right to exist and renounces violence.

US Middle East envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, together with US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Post late Thursday that the US and other countries were prepared to offer humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Strip, but were stymied by Hamas’s commitment to fighting Israel.

On Friday Hamas rejected the offer, dismissing the US envoys as “spokesmen of the Israeli occupation.”

“International donors are conflicted: Should they try to help the people directly, at the certain risk of enriching terrorists, or withhold funding to Hamas and watch the people it is supposed to govern suffer?” the Americans wrote.

“There are engaged, interested parties with resources who are ready to get to work. Yet without real change accompanied by reliable security, progress is impossible,” they said in the opinion piece. “If Hamas demonstrates clear, peaceful intentions — not just by word but, more importantly, by deed — then all manner of new opportunities becomes possible.”

Hamas Official Talal Nassar: Hamas Will Never Accept "Deal of the Century" Even If We Are Turned to Ashes; Israeli Soldiers Wear Diapers in Their Tanks pic.twitter.com/JCsYBfncFB
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) July 20, 2018