Monday, July 15, 2019

  • Monday, July 15, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
As Daled Amos reported, the radical group IfNotNow has started a strategy of "bird-dogging" Presidential candidates in order to corner them into saying that they support the organization's extreme anti-Israel agenda.

They executed their plan against a number of candidates this weekend. Cory Booker seemed prepared for them and didn't let himself get cornered the way Elizabeth Warren appeared to. This frustrated them far more than it frustrated him:




Joe Biden as well seemed prepared for them and steered back to his own talking points rather than let himself be co-opted by their language:



Look at the question they asked both candidates, and presumably others: whether they consider the situation in the West Bank to be a "human rights crisis."

The idea that the West Bank is in crisis and, by implication, one of the top human rights concerns for the United States is insane.

I can find no objective survey of human rights issues in the world that mention the "occupation" as being in the top ten or twenty human rights crises worldwide.

Freedom House puts Israel in the "free" category.

Maplecroft has an objective report on human rights worldwide. Although it doesn't publish it publicly, its 2014 report indicates where the worst human rights crises are worldwide:

Other observers give various lists of the worst human rights abusers in the world, and Israel is never on any list that actually tries to compare it with everyone else.

IfNotNow does not want the US to spend its time and resources on helping the worst human rights victims. The only non-Israeli causes it cares about are the ones that it wants to hijack into making people hate Israel.

In short, IfNotNow is an anti-Israel hate group.

Look at this more expansive response by Biden about his vision for Middle East peace - one which is very much in line with the accepted Obama-era principles, with the UN and the EU, that includes pressuring Israel but also giving Palestinians responsibility for peace.



The IfNotNow ambusher simply does not want to consider anything but pressuring Israel. The idea that Palestinians must eliminate hate and accept a Jewish state is treated like irrelevant at best, wrong at worst.

Which means that their interest in peace is literally zero.

The entire purpose of the group is anti-Israel, not pro-peace. These videos prove it.



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Sunday, July 14, 2019

  • Sunday, July 14, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch pretends to condemn Hamas' Fathi Hamad's Friday statements (that was first reported here) threatening to kill all Jews  of the world - but he ends up praising Hamas instead!



Human Rights Watch considers Hamas is a "freedom movement"???

By using those words, HRW shows that it actually likes and supports the international terror group Hamas, and is only upset that one of its more visible members (in the "political wing," no less)  said something distasteful.

Notice that Shakir didn't mention the other things Hamad said - that Palestinians have built explosive vest factories that should be distributed now, that Jews in Israel including Judea and Samaria should be blown up and murdered by knives that cost 5 shekels.

He doesn't condemn that because the intended victims are Israeli Jews, and presumably deserve death at the hands of the "freedom movement" he admires so much.

Hamad also said that Palestinians worldwide have been "warming up" to perform terror attacks in the countries that host them.

If you go through Shakir's long social media history, you will never find him describing Israel in any positive terms, let alone praising it the way he characterizes Hamas on the very day that we find out beyond any doubt that Hamas has never left its antisemitic genocidal ways behind.

What little dignity Human Rights Watch has remaining after its history of anti-Israel bias has evaporated by one of its most visible members openly praising the innovators of suicide bombings, bus bombings, anti-tank missiles aimed at school buses, tunnels dug into civilian communities to kidnap women and children, using their own people as human shields, and shooting thousands of rockets at civilians, as a freedom movement.

If HRW wants to continue being viewed as a human rights organization, Shakir should be fired, period. This is absolutely disgusting.

Here's a longer excerpt of Hamad's speech.








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  • Sunday, July 14, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last week, a very small story was reported in Palestinian Arabic media.

Dr. Kamal al-Sharafi resigned from the presidency of Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

The interesting part is who he sent his letter of resignation to.

Not to a Board of Directors. Not to the Minister of Education.

No, his resignation was accepted by PA president/PLO chairman/Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Just more proof that nothing happens in the Palestinian Authority run areas (and Al Aqsa is evidently part of the PA even though it is in Gaza)  without Mahmoud Abbas' personal permission.

There was 25 years between the beginning of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency and the rebirth of Israel, where the new government was up and running immediately.

It has now been 25 years since the Palestinian National Authority has been created - and it still runs like the PLO ran under Arafat, with secret money and no trust, no government, only an autocracy.




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From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: The Problem With Opposing Israel’s ‘Occupation’
As far as the Palestinian Authority’s official media and education system is concerned, Tel Aviv and Haifa, let alone Jerusalem, are every bit as “occupied” by the Jews as the most remote hilltop settlement in the West Bank.

Left-wing American Jewish activists, as well as most of the mainstream media and liberal politicians like Warren, also ignore the fact that the reason why a Palestinian state in the West Bank doesn’t already exist is because the PA has repeatedly rejected Israeli offers that would have given them one. These refusals centered on the Palestinian leadership’s fear of being branded as traitors for agreeing to any pact that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state within any borders. Doing so would effectively end the century-long war on Zionism in which most Palestinians still refuse to concede defeat.

The same is true for complaints about the checkpoints and the security fence that Palestinians say make their lives miserable. They only exist because of the carnage that the Palestinians unleashed on Israelis during the Second Intifada, in which they answered a peace offer with a terrorist war of attrition.

And while the Palestinians carp that the autonomous rule of the PA over the Arab population of most of the West Bank isn’t the same as independence, their ability to govern themselves in this manner also undermines claims of Israeli oppression.

But the main point about the talk about “occupation” is that while the status quo in the West Bank isn’t ideal for either side, the obstacle to peace remains the Palestinians’ futile clinging to their fantasy of occupying all of Israel.

And though groups like IfNotNow couch their advocacy in the language of human rights, when they oppose the right of Jews to visit Israel until the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees have a right to “return,” what they’re effectively endorsing is Israel’s elimination. The same is true of their support of an antisemitic BDS movement, which is similarly linked to a war to wipe Israel off the map.

That is why even if we were to give Warren the benefit of the doubt for what she said to these activists, Americans should be wary of being lured into statements opposing “occupation.” Doing so sounds right for any liberal. But what it really does is fuel the intransigence that makes peace impossible, encouraging Palestinians and their allies to continue to pursue the goal of denying the Jews rights to their ancient homeland.
Noura Erakat Recounts Her ‘Anxiety’ Over Israel’s Existence
To bolster her anti-Zionism, Erakat appropriated the struggle of Mizrahi Jews — those who hail from the Middle East and North Africa — against what is, in fact, rapidly diminishing discrimination in Israel. She wanted “to cut across the native-settler binary. Instead of it being Palestinians versus Jewish Israelis, why don’t we do it as a racial struggle against .. the racial hierarchy within Israel?” Erakat rejected the terms “Middle Eastern Jews” or “Mizrahim,” claiming they serve “to separate them from the Arab world, so they cannot be both Jewish and Arab.”

As noted by Israeli Mizrahi journalist Hen Mazzig, anti-Israel ideologues like Erakat are imposing an Arab identity upon unwilling Jews. Jewish presence in the Middle East, along with other non-Arab communities such as Aramaic Christians, predates the region’s Arabization following the Islamic conquests in the seventh century. Moreover, Jews suffered greatly under Muslim rule in Arab countries. Such realities make a mockery of Erakat’s “vision for Jewish Israelis in the region” that would be supposedly “better than what Israel has been able to offer.”

Equally absurd were Erakat’s theories about the alleged “relationship between queer theory and Palestinian liberation,” given the mortal dangers to gay individuals in Palestinian society. Invoking intersectionality, she declared that if Palestinians are part of “emancipation on all levels, then we can’t stop at the door of homophobia,” even as she dismissed Israel’s tolerance for homosexuality as “pinkwashing” and “homonationalism.” Nonetheless, she admitted Palestinian society might not be so accepting when she warned that outsiders must let them “define that on their own terms.”

Erakat and her allies in Washington, D.C., and beyond form a leftist/Islamist, red-green coalition centered intellectually in Middle East studies, which in recent decades have abandoned principled scholarship for grievance-based, politicized writing and teaching. Lacking an empirical foundation for their claims, these activists in scholars’ robes invent false narratives that propagandize students and policy makers and willfully blind journalists. Academe’s unwillingness to reform itself leaves the job of countering and defeating these lies to extra-university organizations and concerned stakeholders, including alumni, donors, and legislators. Absent sustained efforts, today’s outrageous claims will become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.
Pope Francis sends letter to Jewish group on AMIA bombing anniversary
Pope Francis sent a letter to the Argentine Jewish political umbrella organization DAIA ahead of the 25th anniversary this month of the attack that killed 85 people at the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires.

“Since the first day, my heart has been with the relatives of the victims, Jews or Christians,” wrote the pope, who was born in Argentina as Francisco Bergoglio.

In 2005, Francis was a Jesuit archbishop when he became the first public personality to sign a petition for justice in the AMIA bombing case.

Francis then criticized terrorism in a message to Argentine leaders on the 20th anniversary of the attack.

“Terrorism is lunacy. Terrorism’s only purpose is to kill. It does not build anything, it only destroys … May justice be done!” Francis said in a video message.

  • Sunday, July 14, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon



This Disney video from 1929, called The Opry House, includes Mickey Mouse performing on stage as both an Arab (with the Muslim star and crescent in the background, 3:30) and a Hasidic Jew (short piece at 4:29) dancing to the old Klezmer-style Mazel Tov tune:




On a quote different note, Teresa on Twitter pointed me to this poignant thread about a Jew who was sent to a Vichy camp before being forced to Auschwitz. He made a cartoon about how the ever optimistic Mickey Mouse would fare in his internment camp in Gurs.


The plot is simple: Mickey is arrested while strolling through Vichy France, and sent to Gurs, where he is detained. His response is bafflement rather than anger.

Yet if Mickey is bemused by the camp, it is likewise unable to get a read on him. In one panel the clerk tries to work out if Mickey is a Jew or a communist - but of course he is neither, unable to be dehumanised because he is already non-human.

At the end of the strip, Mickey decides that whatever Gurs is, it is not for him. And so he erases himself out of the strip altogether. 'And so, because I’m nothing more than a drawing, I rubbed myself out with a stroke of the eraser… and… ta-da…!!!' 

(h/t The Jewish Press for The Opry House)





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The Arab world's discrimination against Palestinians continues.

On July 10, Lebanese Labor Minister Kamil Abu Sulaiman launched a campaign to combat "illegal foreign workers" in different parts of Lebanon, including the closure of shops that employ foreign workers illegally and the seizing of companies employing foreign workers without work permits, in order to give priority to local Lebanese workers. 

It is meant to be a response to the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon who need work, but it disproportionately affects the Palestinians who have lived in Lebanon for decades but are still considered foreign workers who are banned, by law, from many jobs.

Lebanese law prohibits Palestinians from practicing more than 60 professions. In addition, they have to go through extra administrative tasks beyond that in order to obtain work permits.

Palestinian factions protested the government move, saying that they are appreciative to Lebanon's government for opposing the "Deal of the Century" but expressing concern over these new laws that will affect them disproportionately.

According to the 2017 census, the number of Palestinians in Lebanon stands at 174,422 individuals living in 12 camps and 156 communities in different areas of Lebanon. UNRWA says there are over 450,000 "registered Palestine refugees." Which means that conditions in Lebanon are so bad for Palestinians that over 60% of them had no choice but to leave with their families.

Needless to say, Palestinians under "occupation" in the West Bank do not emigrate in such high numbers.

This supposedly friendly Arab country treats Palestinians worse than Israel does by every single metric. Yet the media and supposedly "pro-Palestinian" groups are virtually silent at official Lebanese policy to disenfranchise Palestinians.

Which just proves that the real reason anyone pretends to care about Palestinians is because they hate Israel, not because they give a damn about Palestinian human rights.

Indeed, even the criticisms of Lebanon by Palestinians themselves is muted and attenuated with praise for their supposed - and fictional - support for the Palestinian cause. The only vitriol is for Israel, which seems to care more about their actual human rights than most Arabs do.



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  • Sunday, July 14, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon


There are many articles this morning in Arab media about a speech that Hamas politburo member Fathi Hamad made at the Friday Gaza rally.

Hamad gave Israel a deadline of one week before Hamas will start a terror spree worldwide targeting Jews.

"If the enemy does not break this siege, and if the understandings are not implemented, we will not allow the Palestinians to enter Gaza," Hamad said in a speech to demonstrators participating in the "return marches" east of Gaza City. "We have a lot of means and methods in our arsenal."

"We are about to explode and the explosion will not be in Gaza, but in the occupied West Bank and abroad as well," Hamad said.

He then said, "We must attack, slaughter and kill every Jew who exists in the world."

Hamad was chided for that last statement by Hamas leaders.

Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef sent an open letter to Hamad, saying that his speech was in error.

"My brother, Fathi Hamad (Abu Musab), I understand your anger at the crimes of the occupation against our people, but the language of knives and explosive belts is not the language of politicians, and talk about the killing of Jews is a violation of religious and moral law, and even contrary to what is stated in the Hamas political document."

He is referring to the Hamas manifesto released with much fanfare in 2017 that was more conciliatory to Jews but was falsely reported as a replacement for their charter which indeed calls to kill all Jews.

Yousef's letter continues to say, "O brother, Abu Musab, your hurried enthusiasm [caused you to say things that] will give all pretexts to the occupation to tighten the siege and the practice of further aggression, and will contribute to the abandonment of our people in the Gaza Strip.

Yousef said: "The leadership of Hamas and the head of its political bureau needs to correct the error and explain the situation, because the cost of this speech can be high, and its consequences painful."

Other Palestinians disavowed Hamad's words, saying they do not hate Jews.

Mahmoud al-Zaq, a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, said "This speech can  is harmful, which harms our people and turns us from victim to murderer."

Dr. Hossam al-Dajani, a writer and political analyst who is close to Hamas, called Hamad's call to kill the Jews a "strategic mistake and a coup against the Hamas political document."

He said: "This is a serious mistake that Hamas will pay for and should immediately disavow this speech because its repercussions will be serious, especially if a Jew were killed in any foreign capital, the charge would be justified."

"The language of slaughtering in the media is not successful, especially as it is linked to world public opinion which closely links [Hamas] with terrorism and brings the consequent phobia of Islam."

This pushback is rare, as there are antisemitic articles in Arab media all the time. However they rarely reach the level of explicit calls to genocide, and much (but not all) of the criticism centers more on the ramifications of Hamad's words in world public opinion than the immorality of his call to kill all Jews.

UPDATE: Here's the excerpt (sorry, no translation yet:)






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Saturday, July 13, 2019

From Ian:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Can Ilhan Omar Overcome Her Prejudice? (click on the tweet link
The problem of Muslim anti-Semitism is much bigger than Ilhan Omar. Condemning her, expelling her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, or defeating her in 2020 won’t make the problem go away.

Islamists have understood well how to couple Muslim anti-Semitism with the American left’s vague notion of “social justice.” They have succeeded in couching their agenda in the progressive framework of the oppressed versus the oppressor. Identity politics and victimhood culture also provide Islamists with the vocabulary to deflect their critics with accusations of “Islamophobia,” “white privilege” and “insensitivity.” A perfect illustration was the way Ms. Omar and her allies were able to turn a House resolution condemning her anti-Semitism into a garbled “intersectional” rant in which Muslims emerged as the most vulnerable minority in the league table of victimhood.

As for me, I eventually unlearned my hatred of Jews, Zionists and Israel. As an asylum seeker turned student turned politician in Holland, I was exposed to a complex set of circumstances that led me to question my own prejudices. Perhaps I didn’t stay in the Islamist fold long enough for the indoctrination to stick. Perhaps my falling out with my parents and extended family after I left home led me to a wider reappraisal of my youthful beliefs. Perhaps it was my loss of religious faith.

In any event, I am living proof that one can be born a Somali, raised as an anti-Semite, indoctrinated as an anti-Zionist—and still overcome all this to appreciate the unique culture of Judaism and the extraordinary achievement of the state of Israel. If I can make that leap, so perhaps can Ms. Omar. Yet that is not really the issue at stake. For she and I are only two individuals. The real question is what, if anything, can be done to check the advance of the mass movement that is Muslim anti-Semitism. Absent a world-wide Muslim reformation, followed by an Islamic enlightenment, I am not sure I know. (h/t IsaacStorm)


The forgotten American victim of terrorism
It was a time when the term "suicide attack" was unknown. It was also a time when everyone assumed that a terrorist attack had to be carried out with a bomb, or a gun, or a knife.

Thirty years ago this month, that assumption was shattered when an unarmed Palestinian terrorist turned an Israeli civilian passenger bus into a weapon. On July 6, 1989, a terrorist named Abdel Hadi Ghneim boarded a bus from Tel Aviv, headed for Jerusalem. As the bus passed a steep ravine alongside the highway, Ghneim attacked the driver, seized the steering wheel and turned it sharply so that the bus went hurtling into the ravine below.

Fourteen passengers were killed, and many others were injured.

The attack was deeply shocking to the Israeli public because two aspects of it were so different from what they were used to.

First, it was clear that the terrorist expected to die. He was willing to give his life just so that he could murder Jews. This was different than typical terrorist attacks, where someone would plant a bomb in an Israeli supermarket and then sneak away, or ambush Israeli traffic with sniper fire and then escape before the army or police arrived.

Second, Ghneim had no weapon. He simply took advantage of circumstances that created an opportunity to murder Jews. A security guard checking bags could not have stopped it. A metal detector would not have made a bit of difference. Any Arab terrorist could board any bus without detection and do something similar.

For American friends of Israel, the attack carried an extra measure of pain because the most severely injured passenger was a well known beloved attorney from Philadelphia. For twelve agonizing days, Rita Levine, 39, hovered between life and death, until, on July 18th, she passed away.
The trap of the ‘two-state-solution’
As long as some American and Israeli leaders continue to support the “two-state solution” (TSS) and oppose annexation or incorporation of Area C, the Palestinians (and their supporters) will continue to believe that they will win. This is because the Palestinians present themselves not only as a geographic and demographic entity but, more important, as an ideology: Palestinianism.

This is what the late Robert Wistrich explained in one of his last lectures to the World Jewish Congress. Arab Palestinians cannot and will not abandon their raison d’etre, which is the “liberation of Palestine.” This explains why they “always miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” to resolve the struggle. It is, for them, existential. It’s in the PLO and Hamas charters. It is a fundamental value, and it is the basis of their policy and strategy to defeat and destroy Israel.

The Arabs’ rejection of a Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael, or Palestine, began over a century ago. They opposed the Balfour Declaration (1917) and attacked Jewish communities during the 1920s and ‘30s. They call Israel’s establishment in 1948 the “Nakba” (catastrophe) and engage in terrorism, or as they call it, “resistance.” The conflict is not about boundaries, civil and humanitarian rights, or statehood. A TSS offers no incentive to change their narrative, or their behavior.

Why offering “bargaining chips” doesn’t work
Despite a history of failures, some suggest that offering the Palestinians more concessions if they agree to recognize and accept Israel’s existence. These include giving away parts of Area C of Judea and Samaria and evacuating Jewish communities; giving away parts of eastern Jerusalem; and facilitating formal, official statehood. Rather than serve as inducements to accept Israel, however, these measures only encourage Arab leaders to reject all offers and demand more. This “land-for-peace” slogan conveys the message that Israel is desperate, vulnerable and uncommitted.

The trap of the TSS is that it is entangled with other issues, including: 1) the “right of return” for descendants of former residents of Palestine currently living in UNRWA-sponsored towns and villages in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan; 2) “the occupation” of land and properties claimed by Arab Palestinians; 3) accusations of “stealing Palestinian land”; 4) compensating Arabs who claim dispossession; 5) demanding boundaries based on the UNGA plan in 1947, or reversing the results of the war in 1948-49; 6) abandoning strategic security areas, such as the Jordan Valley; 7) freeing convicted terrorists from Israeli prisons; 8) allowing “pay-to-slay” cash rewards to terrorists and their families; 9) anti-Israel incitement, including BDS and support for terrorism.

Friday, July 12, 2019

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Why the Labour party can't deal with its Jew-hatred
This contemporary expression of the oldest hatred didn’t start with Corbyn and it won’t end with him. It has been around for decades and is endemic in progressive circles, not just in Britain but throughout the West.

Support for the Palestinian cause is the signature motif of the left. And that cause is founded upon blood libels, conspiracy theories and other murderous and ancient anti-Jewish tropes.

Mahmoud Abbas, viewed by the western left as a statesman-in-waiting, has a doctorate in Holocaust denial, explicitly venerates the Palestinian Nazi-ally Haj Amin al Husseini who undertook to slaughter every Jew in the Middle East in the event of Hitler’s victory, and uses his media outlets to transmit medieval and Nazi-style demonization of the Jews.

At the end of last year, a preacher said typically on Palestinian Authority TV that the Jews “expose their fangs whenever they get the chance… always fighting, always scheming and always plotting against humanity… ”

So why should Labour Party members who support the Palestinians with their agenda of Holocaust denial, attacks on Judaism and unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish power now be so shocked that other party members are themselves coming out with Holocaust denial, attacks on Judaism and unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish power?

This was true of the Labour Party even under leaders such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who were themselves personally sympathetic to Israel and the Jewish people. But because they also believed in the power of reason, compromise and “peace processes” to resolve all conflict, they blinded themselves to the implacably anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist foundations of the Palestine cause which they also championed as “deserving.”

This is why anti-Zionism has weaponized antisemitism in progressive circles.

The Labour Party may be destroyed altogether by the twin issues of Brexit and antisemitism. The former has the capacity to reshape British politics altogether. The latter threatens to destroy the party because if Labour isn’t a moral project it is nothing.

That applies in turn to the left in general; which is why it is now philosophically bankrupt, repudiating decency, evidence and reason itself while supporting abuses of intellectual, political or religious power and abandoning their victims throughout the Western world.

The routine and horrific anti-Semitism in Labour
The programme painted a picture for the general viewer of just how routine and horrific anti-Semitism has become in the Labour party. Izzy Lenga, the international officer of the Jewish Labour Movement, said she’d been subjected to anti-Semitism ‘every single day’, including being told ‘Hitler didn’t go far enough’ and witnessing Holocaust denial in Labour meetings. Another activist, who voted for Corbyn as leader, told Panorama: ‘They might not call me a “dirty Jew” but they’ll call me a “dirty Zionist”, with pride.’

One Jewish interviewee said: ‘We are very frightened of what Corbyn might do because we have seen these behaviours before.’ Another admitted: ‘We feel like we don’t belong here and we have to do far more than anybody else to prove that we do.’ The same member said he’d been called ‘a fucking Jew’ and ‘a Jewish pig’.

MP Louise Ellman spoke about anti-Semitism in her Liverpool Riverside constituency, where one activist had said ‘Zionists are targets and deserve to feel uncomfortable’ while another declared: ‘Every Jew is a Zio-fascist’. Party investigations officer Ben Westerman was sent to Liverpool to assess the problem. At the end of one interview, a party member confronted Westerman, who is Jewish, and demanded: ‘Where are you from?… Are you from Israel?’

The pressure took its toll on the staff. Withers Green was diagnosed with depression and anxiety; Buckingham had a breakdown; Matthews contemplated suicide. Another staffer felt her work had meant nothing when she learned that, as of the Spring, just 15 members had been expelled for anti-Semitism. She and the rest of her former co-workers exuded utter dejection, the ideal mood for watching the programme because, in the end, very little will come of it. Labour’s anti-Semites will continue to be anti-Semitic and their enablers will continue to expect credit for the occasional strongly-worded tweet in rebuke.

What secures Jeremy Corbyn in post is not the anti-Semites in the grassroots but his MPs, who even now are preparing to campaign to put him in Downing Street if the new Prime Minister calls an election. Faced with a choice between the Jews and their latest miserable persecutors, Labour MPs have not only chosen to back the latter — they’ve chosen to be the latter. They are not merely feckless bystanders, they are knowing accomplices. They are this century’s guilty men and women and Panorama viewers glimpsed the horrors in which they are complicit.
The Labour elite are willing to sacrifice Jews for their messianic belief in a Leninist future
The reaction of the Labour party to the Panorama programme reflects the desire of the Corbynista elite to pull up the ideological drawbridge and, in true Leninist fashion, not to cede any concession to their critics.

Following the student protests of the 1960s, a small group on the far left within the Labour party including Jeremy Corbyn perceived a middle ground between the parliamentary socialism of the Labour party and the revolutionary activism of the New Left.

Figures such as Corbyn were therefore happy to work with and appear on platforms with the extra-parliamentary far left. This belief superseded any concern that antisemitic comments might be uttered on these platforms.

The decision in 2013 to allow “supporters” to join Labour facilitated the far left’s entry into the party – to overcome a barrier that they had been trying to traverse for almost a century.

Today the party is being run by past fellow travellers from both the pro-Kremlin wing of the Communist party and the Trotskyist Militant Tendency. As Jon Lansman’s withdrawal from seeking the post of General Secretary of the party last year illustrated, even the Bennites have been sidelined.

The Jewish question is ideologically unimportant for many in Labour’s inner circle today because it has always been regarded historically as a peripheral issue in Marxism-Leninism, an irritating diversion from the long march to achieve a more just society.
Is the UK Becoming Unlivable for Jews?
Jews in Britain are fearing the worst: Jeremy Corbyn taking power. With a documented rise in UK anti-Semitism and Corbyn in the running for prime minister, British Jews may soon begin mass migrating to Israel. Our Ellie Hochenberg has the story.


  • Friday, July 12, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon


























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  • Friday, July 12, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Just watch it:






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From Ian:

Time puts Netanyahu on the cover, says he ‘tests the limits of power’
Time magazine has once again put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on its cover for its upcoming July 22 edition.

Noting that Netanyahu on July 17 will “surpass David Ben-Gurion, the closest thing Israel has to a founding father, to become the longest-serving Prime Minister in the country’s history,” the interviewer, Brian Bennett, writes that the Jewish state’s future “remains mortgaged to Netanyahu’s approach to power.”

The article is less flattering than the last time Netanyahu was on Time’s cover, in a mostly sympathetic 2012 interview that branded him “King Bibi.”

“Inside the country, many Israelis have been alarmed by Netanyahu’s efforts to remain in power,” Bennett tells his readers. “The moves compound the impression, already articulated by critics, that Israel’s Prime Minister has embraced the same populist authoritarianism rising elsewhere around the world.”

Time has occasionally put Israel on the cover in recent years, usually to criticize it. A September 2010 cover story was headlined, “Why Israel doesn’t care about peace.” An August 2012 edition looked at a battle for control over a Jerusalem neighborhood.

The latest cover story follows a similar line, citing “a growing chorus of critics” who “condemn Netanyahu not for any personal indulgences but for undermining Israeli democracy itself.”

It depicts the upcoming September 17 election as a referendum pitting “the Prime Minister’s self-declared role as Israel’s protector, ‘indispensable Netanyahu,’ against ‘Bibi fatigue,’” in the words of former US ambassador Dan Shapiro.

Abe Greenwald: The Magical Misery Tour
On and on it goes, the students were treated to tales of Israel’s razing homes, harassing Palestinians, and restricting their freedom of movement. All of it seemingly without the context of the Palestinians’ unending war on Jews.

Finally, Halbfinger relays how students on the trip were turned off by Israel and Zionism: “By dinnertime, two participants said they were reconsidering their belief in a Jewish state.” He quotes one: “I came in here a very ardent Zionist . . . You never know when a Holocaust might happen again. Yet, coming here, I’m starting to doubt whether a two-state solution is possible—and whether Zionism is even worth pursuing anymore.”

This is, of course, the goal of the entire undertaking. It’s not about painting a nuanced picture of the conflict or moving toward peace. It’s about Jews showing other Jews what a terrible and misguided place Israel has become. Increasingly, that’s J Street’s mission. Despite its denials, the group has supported the boycotting of Israel on college campuses and targeted pro-Israel activists. Now, it’s packaging the supposed evils of the Jewish state for students to see up close.

Birthright, for the record, doesn’t ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It just operates with an understanding that Israel is more than its efforts to combat terrorism. And those efforts are overwhelmingly noble.

The good news is that J Street has taken only 28 kids on a single trip. Put that against Birthright’s estimated 650,000. It will take a lot of David Halbfingers to make up the difference.
In NY Times Coverage of J Street, Advocacy Journalism for Anti-Israel Advocates
Later, the lens turns to Israel: “While the Israeli government and news media usually say the same things in Hebrew and English, Palestinians and Israeli critics say they also do little to promote the idea of a Palestinian state.”

Then there is the rationalization: “Some explain the overheated language [by Palestinians] as a natural expression of such a long-running conflict, and say that any real education in the language of peace is unlikely to come before negotiators resolve the core issues.”

And again, skepticism of the critics: “Some Israelis struggle with the practice of monitoring the Palestinian news media, acknowledging the importance of knowing what is being said in Arabic, yet disturbed by how its dissemination is exploited by those not eager to see Israel make concessions.”

It would be one thing if this were how the Times reports on critics of both Israel and the Palestinians. But as the J Street story reminds us, the newspaper’s standards are shifty. There is no commentary about J Street and their fellow critics looking to score “propaganda points.” No “arguable” interpretations. No “natural expression” of the conflict. No “exploitation” by anti-Israel extremists. The journalistic skepticism and right of reply that was seemingly important when reporting on Palestinian Media Watch disappears entirely in the report on J Street.

This isn’t impartial, hard-hitting journalism. It’s advocacy for anti-Israel advocates. And despite repeated promises of fairness, the paper can’t seem to avoid such partisan reporting.

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