Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

10/29 Links Pt2: J Street, blank checks and putting the "squeeze" on Israel; Apologist for Terror: Hamas Suicide Bombings Were ‘Unwise Strategy’; Max Blumenthal: Tyranny’s Mouthpiece

From Ian:

J Street, blank checks and putting the "squeeze" on Israel

“Our aid is not intended to be a blank check,” J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami, stated on October 27, at the organization's annual conference.

This type of so-called "conditioning," "linking," and/or "squeezing" of Israel over US aid and support has an unfortunately long history in Washington and it is time for it to stop, once and for all. It's unseemly and the US - Israel relationship loses its value for both nations every single time this road is gone down.

Ben-Ami's proposed tactics seem very close to those actually employed by Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Kissinger is due to speak at an upcoming Jewish conference in New York, and it’s worth considering the real cost of this type of rhetoric and strategy.

Distinguished Israeli diplomat Yehuda Avner (1928-2015) saw this close up in his role as a speechwriter, secretary, or adviser to five different Israeli prime ministers, from both sides of Israel's political spectrum—Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. He also served as Israel’s ambassador to both Britain and Australia, as well as in other senior diplomatic positions.

In his widely-acclaimed book, The Prime Ministers, Avner shared numerous remarkable anecdotes—including some troubling episodes involving Secretary of State Kissinger during both the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1974-1975 shuttle diplomacy between Egypt and Israel.

Avner bluntly refers to American officials—meaning Kissinger—who “tied” Golda’s hands on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, telling her “in no uncertain terms not to fire the first shot,” and even “warned” her “against full-scale mobilization” of Israel’s reserve forces. Over 2600 Israeli soldiers died as a result.

Kissinger did not want Israel to win a decisive victory because he thought that would make it hard to wring concessions out of the Israelis after the war.

Apologist for Terror: Hamas Suicide Bombings Were ‘Unwise Strategy’

It’s widely accepted that Israeli society has drifted to the political right since the breakdown of the Oslo process. Palestinian terrorism played a significant role in destroying faith in the peace process and the political left, and enabled the more risk-averse and security-minded Benjamin Netanyahu to become the dominant political figure of the age.

Outrageously however, for Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, an Israeli “peace activist” writing in The Independent, it’s not Palestinians who are responsible for terrorism but Israelis:

Although easier to paint “the other” as the guilty party, it’s more painfully honest, especially for promoting healing of that trauma, to acknowledge at least partial Israeli responsibility for those suicide bombings.

Yes, you read that correctly – Israel is partially responsible for the indiscriminate murder of hundreds of its own people in Palestinian suicide bombings.

This, Godfrey-Goldstein attributes to an environment of right-wing incitement, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir, the election of Benjamin Netanyahu and the appalling massacre of Palestinians at Hebron’s Cave of the Machpela by Baruch Goldstein in February 1994.

In Godfrey-Goldstein’s alternative reality, the absence of peace is not due to Palestinian violence but primarily the figures of Yigal Amir, Baruch Goldstein and Benjamin Netanyahu.

While it is legitimate to argue the impact these people and their actions have had on the peace process, treating Palestinians as incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions and blaming Israeli victims for terrorism is not.

Tyranny’s Mouthpiece

On September 8, 2019, Syria’s state news agency published an article about the beginning of the Third International Trade Union Forum in Damascus, which hosted “dozens of intellectuals, journalists, (and) political and social activists from Arab and foreign countries.” Among the attendees were the American journalists Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek.

If you want to know why Blumenthal and Khalek were welcome at an event organized “under the auspices of Bashar al-Assad”—aside from the fact that they’re frequent contributors to the Russian propaganda outlets Sputnik and Russia Today—the rest of the article should give you an idea. It condemns the “aggressive terrorist war” launched against Syria, along with the “economic war that constitutes terror in and of itself” (a reference to U.S. sanctions). It calls for a media campaign to galvanize world public opinion in support of the Syrian government and “reveal the truth about the U.S. policy of besieging independent and free countries.” It points out that the “real goal of the war on Syria is to stop it from being a force that opposes U.S. and Israeli plots in the region.” And it emphasizes the importance of “exposing the practices of international imperialism.”

In other words, Syrian government propaganda is almost perfectly aligned with the arguments Blumenthal and Khalek have been making for years. Like the Syrian Ministry of Information, they present the Assad regime as an embattled and encircled victim of a jihadist-led coup backed by the United States and other Western powers.

For example, Blumenthal constantly emphasizes the atrocities of jihadist groups like Jaish al-Islam and al-Nusra because they give him moral and political cover for defending Assad, who has committed atrocities on a far greater scale. When he posted a picture of himself in a “neighborhood east of Damascus occupied by the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam until early last year,” he didn’t bother mentioning the fact that he was also surrounded by notorious government interrogation sites that are part of what Human Rights Watch describes as the regime’s “torture archipelago.” Nor did he mention that he was just down the road from the sites of the Ghouta chemical attacks in August 2013, which HRW reports “killed hundreds of civilians, including large numbers of children” and which can “almost certainly” be blamed on government forces.

White ( non Venezuelan) Cosplay socialists Max Blumenthal & Ben Rubenstein assaulted an older women who’s an actual Venezuelan and part of the altercation IS recorded... and now they’re upset that they’re being held accountable.. 🎻 pic.twitter.com/TXynY2a0ZK
— Naomi S. 🍑 the 🍊 #freesyria (@NomiBlockS) October 29, 2019

On January 28, 2010 -- just one day after Holocaust Remembrance Day -- Udo Pastors made a speech, where he stated that "the so-called Holocaust is being used for political and commercial purposes" and condemned a "barrage of criticism and propagandistic lies" and "Auschwitz projections"

At the time, Pastors was a member of the Land Parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, so his speech got some attention.

Enough attention so that in August 2012 a district court convicted him of violating the memory of the dead and of intentionally defaming the Jewish people.

In March 2013, he launched an appeal -- and it was dismissed.

Human Rights Without Frontiers summed up the ruling:

the court found that Mr Pastörs had used terms which amounted to denying the systematic, racially motivated, mass extermination of the Jews carried out at Auschwitz during the Third Reich. The court stated he could not rely on his free speech rights in respect of Holocaust denial. Furthermore, he was no longer entitled to inviolability from prosecution as the Parliament had revoked it in February 2012.

But Mr. Pastors was nothing if not persistent.

Finally, on March 10, 2019 a decision was passed down by the European Court of Human Rights -- and it was unanimous on the issue of Mr. Pastor's free speech rights:

The Court found in particular that the applicant had intentionally stated untruths to defame Jews. Such statements could not attract the protection for freedom of speech offered by the Convention as they ran counter to the values of the Convention itself. [emphasis added]

The "Convention" being referred to is The European Convention of Human Rights, which upholds the right of freedom of expression -- but with restrictions:

ARTICLE 10

Freedom of expression

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States
from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. [emphasis added]

Of course, Mr. Pastor's own rights had to be taken into account, which the court addressed in their conclusion:

Summing up, the Court held that Mr Pastörs had intentionally stated untruths in order to defame the Jews and the persecution that they had suffered. The interference with his rights also had to be examined in the context of the special moral responsibility of States which had experienced Nazi horrors to distance themselves from the mass atrocities.[emphasis added]

Here the court is apparently claiming that beyond the law, those countries that experienced "Nazi horrors" have a special "moral responsibility" to protect Jews from those who try to defame them with the Holocaust.

Logo of The European Court of Human Rights

This may be something new.

According to The European Court:

o It is a fact that the Holocaust happened
o  To say otherwise is a lie
o  Holocaust Denial is against the law not only because it is a lie, but because it defames: it damages the reputation and character of Jews
o  Europe has a special obligation "to distance themselves from the mass atrocities"

But is this really such a breakthrough?
Is this ruling good news for the Jews of Europe who are facing a sharp increase in antisemitic attacks across Europe?

Probably not.

Not if Europe limits its recognition of antisemitism to the speech of right-wing extremists, while ignoring the actual attacks by others.

For example, there have been multiple cases in France of denying the Jew-hatred behind attacks on Jews:

o In 2003, Sebastian Selam, was stabbed to death by a Muslim who said afterward: “Mother, I’m going to heaven. I killed a Jew!” The murderer, Adel Amastaibou, was found unfit to stand trial -- even though he had no previous history of mental illness.

o  In February 2006, Ilan Halimi was kidnapped and held for 3 weeks for ransom. He was tortured by his captors, led by a Muslim immigrant, and died from the injuries. French police initially dismissed the idea of antisemitism, even after one of the suspects confirmed it.

o  In 2015, a Muslim man, Farid Haddouche, was deemed unfit initially to stand trial for his stabbing attack of Jews in Marseille -- because of mental issues. He shouted about Allah during the attack. He had no history of mental illness. After protests by Jewish groups, Haddouche was sentenced to four years in jail.

o  Sarah Halimi, a Jewish physician, was murdered in Paris in 2017 by Kobili Traore, a Muslim. A review by an independent panel of psychiatrists determined that Traore was generally mentally competent, but because not on the night of the murder, because he consumed cannabis. The judge in the case went so far as to order a third psychiatric examination -- independent of the defense attorney. More recently, in February 2018, the investigator finally admitted in writing that the attack was antisemitic. But by May 2019, Traore was still being considered unfit for trial.

But even in Germany, recognition of antisemitism seems only to extend to speech --

In 2017, a German regional court ruled that the firebombing of a synagogue in 2014 was an act of criminal arson -- but not anti-Semitic: it was a protest against Israel by 3 Palestinian-born Germans who wanted to “call attention to the Gaza conflict.”

There appears to be a certain ease with which neo-nazis and fascists can be publicly condemned for their expressions of Jew-hatred, and that does not extend to Muslims.

This apparent effectiveness in censoring hate speech is itself deceptive, when attacks on Jews can be reinterpreted as protests against Israel.

Meanwhile, back in the US, a recent poll indicates that a growing number agree with The European Convention of Human Rights that free speech should be limited.

Just last week The Washington Free Beacon reported that according to a poll, a Majority of Americans Want First Amendment Rewritten:

Nearly 60 percent of Millennials—respondents between the ages of 21 and 38—agreed that the Constitution "goes too far in allowing hate speech in modern America" and should be rewritten, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers and 47 percent of Baby Boomers. A majority of Millennials also supported laws that would make "hate speech" a crime—of those supporters, 54 percent said violators should face jail time.

Yet, over the past few years, we have seen the difficulty and unreliability of policing "hate speech." Just look at all of the stories about Facebook, YouTube and Twitter stepping over the line and targeting conservatives in particular, while confusing those who merely publish examples of hate with those who are actually disseminating it.

Even if the proposed decision would be made by a court, not everyone will be so obliging as Mr. Pastors. If the accusations of hate speech and racism tossed back and forth on Twitter are any indication, we are a long way from any kind of consensus of definition, and the whole idea may well be nothing more than an attempt to weaponize hate speech against political opponents.

And that is likely to leave Jews once again as defenseless in the US as they are in Europe.

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The slanderous J-Street straw man that Israel misuses US aid for settlements or "annexation"

Jeremy Ben Ami of J-Street said on Sunday night:

Clarify that US assistance to Israel is to be used solely for the country's defense and that the United States will not foot the bill for annexation or pay for... a one state outcome. An important conversation has been started in this campaign about American policy regarding the uses for which American assistance to Israel can be put. Already in this presidential campaign we are hearing real conversations, real proposals, from several leading candidates, around ensuring that our assistance isn't being put to uses that actually deepen Israel's security challenges, whether it's annexation or settlement expansion. Current law is actually explicit as to the purposes that US security assistance can and can't be put by recipient countries including Israel. Our aid is not intended to be a blank check. Congress and the next administration at a minimum should take the necessary steps to gain visibility into how our assistance is being used, how our dollars are being spent, and to ensure that all existing laws regarding those uses are being followed.

Ben Ami is right about one thing: existing US laws allow for only certain uses of foreign aid.

But what he is demanding - and what some candidates are happily parroting from him - already exists. There are already audits as to how American money is being spent.

The US looks closely at how its aid is used, and when it finds a violation, it calls it out. The last time this happened for Israel was in 2006 when, as a recent Congressional Research Service report says,

After Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, the State Department issued a preliminary report to Congress concluding that Israel may have violated the terms of agreements with the United States that restrict Israel’s use of U.S.-supplied cluster munitions to certain military targets in non-civilian areas.

No violations have been found since then.

In 2016 - during the Obama administration - some members of Congress formally asked for an investigation into whether Israel used American funds to allegedly extrajudically kill some specific Palestinians. The State Department investigated and found that no American money was involved in the incidents.

Similarly, the CRS report says that there is some aid to Israel that is specifically meant to be used within the Green Line - for immigrant absorption and for some binational foundations, such as the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and this is audited as well.

99.8% of US aid to Israel is earmarked for specific military purposes - the vast majority for missile defense systems, F-35s and anti-tunnel defense systems. None of that money can be repurposed. The remaining 0.2% goes to immigrant absorption and homeland security - research into technologies for first responders and early warning systems that can be used in the US.

This demand by J-Street to further investigate that which is already being carefully vetted is a straw man to imply that Israel has been misusing US aid. As such, it is a slander. It is also a slander against the US government by saying that the existing extensive audit mechanism is not adequate, and that Israel can somehow pull the wool over the eyes of the US.

If that is true, then aid to other countries really need to be looked at more closely as well. But J-Street doesn't care about whether US aid to Jordan or Egypt is audited and money secretly going to terrorists. They only accuse Israel of using American money to break the law.

This is reprehensible. But then again, this is J-Street.

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10/29 Links Pt1: Noah Rothman: How Trump Can Avoid Obama’s Terror Trap; Missing The Point Of The Latest Middle East Protests; Lebanese PM al-Hariri resigns

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: How Trump Can Avoid Obama’s Terror Trap

Obama’s impulse to dismiss the threat posed by Islamist insurgents in the wake of bin Laden’s death explains why he was so quick to dismiss the first wave of ISIS terrorists even as they sacked Iraqi cities. “The analogy we use around here sometimes,” the former president told the New Yorker’s David Remnick, “is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Obama’s commitment to this narrative applied not only politically but in terms of policy, too. Though he conceded that “terrorism” remained a threat to the American homeland in a May 2014 address to cadets at West Point, the former president also claimed that the terror threat could not be alleviated by military means alone. “A strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naïve and unsustainable,” the president insisted. By the end of the year, though, ISIS would have conquered vast swaths of territory in the Middle East, and American troops and airpower would again be unleashed on targets in both Iraq and Syria.

And though Obama would eventually acknowledge his failure to anticipate ISIS’s rise or to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat it, his administration still stubbornly refused to acknowledge the obvious when it came to radical Islamist terror. As late as the summer of 2016, following the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, administration officials made a concerted effort to “shift the conversation more to hate and not just terrorism,” according to CBS News reporter Paula Reid. Indeed, it’s hard to explain why the Justice Department scrubbed references to ISIS and al-Baghdadi in the transcript of the shooter’s confessional 911 call in the absence of a directive aimed at minimizing the revivified Islamist terror threat.

Like his predecessor, Donald Trump seems committed to the idea that ISIS has been “decimated” and can no longer recruit foreign fighters or effectively export terrorism. He’s been saying as much since February, and the death of ISIS’s chief executive will only make that narrative more irresistible. The evidence that Trump has begun to believe his own hype is not hard to come by. Experts have warned that the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. forces from forward positions in Syria would sow the seeds for an ISIS resurgence at least since Trump began to flirt with the prospect last December. If anything, those expert analyses underestimated the humanitarian and strategic setbacks that would follow such a withdrawal. American military and diplomatic officials appear clear-eyed about the potential for an ISIS comeback, but the president remains far more sanguine about the Islamist terrorist threat than his subordinates.

The dispatching of al-Baghdadi is a welcome development, but it does not make up for the strategic initiative sacrificed in the lead-up to this weekend’s successful operation. Today, as American special forces reportedly retake Syrian positions they’d abandoned only weeks or days earlier, U.S. positions in eastern Syria are reinforced with mechanized forces, and the State Department rallies a Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in anticipation of the worst, it would behoove Trump to internalize a lesson his predecessor learned too late. He’d do well to hedge his bets.

Missing The Point Of The Latest Middle East Protests

In Lebanon and in Iraq, millennials have taken to the streets to protest their respective governments. It stands to reason — in both countries, services are minimal, jobs are non-existent, and the best way to make a living is to leave. Garbage piles up in the streets of Beirut and forest fires have decimated the country. In Iraq, corruption is endemic. But in both countries, there is more afoot.

The demonstrators, representing a variety of religious and ethnic groups in countries that have been wracked by sectarian fighting, are in agreement that the presence of Iran and its proxies in their homelands has deformed politics and economics alike.

Young people want Iran out.

Association with the Islamic Republic means that assets are taken and used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not by the civilian government, and it means religious and ethnic tensions are stoked to ensure that a unified public cannot impede Iran’s regional ambitions. Iran wants Iraq for the oil and also for the passageway through Sunni territory to Syria, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean Sea. It helped create the instability of ISIS in Iraq by “offering” to help contain the threat via Shiite militias commanded by Iranian officers. Those Shiite militias remain in the largely Sunni western part of Iraq and in the Kurdish areas.

The story in Lebanon goes back farther — to the early days of the Islamic Republic. Iran created Hezbollah and had its hand in the 1982 Marine barracks bombing that killed 244 Americans. It fostered and enlarged Hezbollah and planted an arsenal of rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon (in violation of U.N. Resolution 1701) and missile factories closer to Beirut. Lebanese civilians live between the Iranian/Hezbollah arsenal and potential Israeli retaliation if that arsenal is used.

Permanent revolution, permanent warfare, permanent upheaval — stoked by an outside force — makes it impossible to create the workable, modern, growing economy millennials demand; particularly in Lebanon, where there is a well-educated generation that crosses sectarian divides.

The strategic utility of mocking Abu Bakr al Baghdadi

Announcing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's death, President Trump didn't hold back on Sunday. Baghdadi, Trump said, "died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way."

That was only the first of a number of insults Trump lobbed at Baghdadi and the Islamic State during his speech. But while some are condemning the president's rhetoric, I believe it was both morally justified and strategically valuable.

Although it might appear that Trump was resorting to standard-fare rhetorical excesses, the president seems to have intended his words to carry a broader strategic effect here. Note, for example, Trump's repeated focus on dogs, an animal regarded by most Islamic teachings as unclean and unworthy of companionship. Describing Baghdadi's desperate attempt to escape, Trump noted how "our dogs chased him down." Trump later observed that many ISIS fighters are "very frightened puppies" and concluded by saying that Baghdadi "died like a dog — he died like a coward."

This canine focus is extremely odd unless it is intentional, which I suspect it is. And that would be a good thing. ISIS presents itself as the holiest citadel of warriors, as a group serving God's pure and ordained will on Earth. But when the leader of ISIS's most hated adversary mocks its deceased caliph (emperor) as a fool who ran into a dead-end tunnel while being chased by lowly dogs, it erodes ISIS's credibility. It underscores how the organization, which at one point nearly qualified for its own seat at the United Nations, is now perceived as a sad joke.

This story from JIMENA has not received the publicity it requires:

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State has been signing Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) agreements with foreign governments that blockade the entry of cultural property to the USA and deny Jews and Christians from Arab countries the rights to their historic heritage. Through the MOU process, our government is transferring ownership of confiscated Jewish property to various Arab governments that expelled or forced their Jewish populations to flee antisemitic persecution under duress. Despite the protestations of Jewish communal organizations, including; ADL: The Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, B’nai Brith International, Simon Wiesenthal Center, World Jewish Congress of North America, and many others, MOU agreements have been signed with Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Syria.

The signing of the MOUs is done under the auspices of The Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA). This law provides for the US to enter into agreements with foreign nations to temporarily restrict the import of “significant” cultural items as part of a multi-nation effort to deter looting of ancient archeological sites. Over time the State Department has broadened the scope of the law to provide for “near permanent” bans on the import of ALL cultural items to the present time. The MOUs recognize those nation’s claims and seizures of all cultural property, including the personal property of individuals and the communal property of religious and ethnic groups.

The MOUs are based on a flawed premise – that Jewish cultural property constitutes the national heritage of Arab governments. In fact, under the color of law, Jewish cultural property in Arab countries was expropriated from private homes, schools, and synagogues. It is the heritage and patrimony of the Jewish people. Arab governments have done little to preserve the remnants or memory of Jewish history in the countries and verified reports describe Jewish synagogues, pilgrimage sites, homes, and cemeteries being looted and destroyed. Jewish holy sites throughout the Middle East and North Africa have been appropriated and many demolished.

There are hearings on this topic today and tomorrow to review the MOU for Yemen and Morocco.

Hopefully the State Department will realize that their stated desire to save cultural identity is actually erasing it.

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Yesterday at the J-Street conference Bermie Sanders said that as president he would tell Israel, “If you want military aid, you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship with the people of Gaza. In fact, I think it is fair to think that some of that $3.8 billion should go to humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Others have already noted how crazy what he said was:

Just when you thought Bernie Sanders couldn’t get any more radical, he outdid himself. He wants to take money we give to Israel to defend itself from terrorists, and give it to Gaza, which is run by terrorists?? Unreal. Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong?
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 29, 2019

But Sanders doesn't even have his facts about Gaza right.

Gaza is a hellhole, no doubt about it. But Israel has been working to help the innocent people of Gaza, a fact that the media largely ignores.

Israel decided this year to allow day laborers into Israel from Gaza. Nearly 4000 Gazans now have entry permits into Israel, and another thousand are approved.

The number of Gazans entering Israel every month is now nearly double what it was in 2018.

The number of Gazans entering Israel is more than double the number that enter Egypt.

Sanders claimed that many of the items denied by Israel into Gaza were items that could not be used for military purposes. This hasn't been true for many years. If Gazans can order the items and find a seller, they can get it.

Israel allows and promotes infrastructure projects in Gaza. The amount of waste Gaza spills into the sea is now half what it was in January. The desalination plant is up and running.

Surprisingly, Gaza now imports about twice as much fuel from Egypt as from Israel, almost certainly because the PA cannot tax the fuel from Egypt so Hamas can get it for cheaper.

(Most of these statistics come from the UN.)

Israel has worked closely with Qatar to bring in aid to Gaza. The relationship started when Egypt refused to allow Qatar to ship construction materials into Gaza through its border. It was Israel that agreed with an Arab country that is friendly with Hamas in order to help ordinary Gazans.

The shortages of medicine and power in Gaza are usually more the fault of the Palestinian Authority which has been trying to use economic warfare against Hamas, collectively punishing all Gazans. When was the last time you heard the word "collective punishment" used against Palestinians that was not blaming Israel?

Israel has done other things but reserves the right to modify them (like how far Gaza fishermen can go into the Mediterranean) when there are rockets or other attacks from Gaza. Lately, things have been quieter and as a result things are getting slowly better for Gazans.

In many ways, Israel is helping Gazans more than any Arab country (including the PA) outside of Qatar. (Iran, meanwhile, payrolls Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, a small fact that wouldn't be mentioned at J-Street either.)

So what would Bernie propose, specifically, that Israel do more than it already is? Gaza's problems are a result of Hamas and Palestinian Authority infighting, Hamas prioritizing terror over governance, and Arabs at large sick and tired of supporting the Palestinian issue.

It isn't the blockade. It's not as if Gaza is exporting goods to Egypt. Nothing is stopping that - except Egypt doesn't want to buy. Would Bernie force Israel to buy Gaza goods it doesn't want?

Living in Gaza is awful. Israel is doing a great deal that the media (and of course J-Street panelists and speakers) do not report on, because demonizing Israel is the order of the day.

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"Students for Justice in Palestine" proud of harassing a Holocaust survivor

This video was proudly uploaded by a branch of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Earlier this week, Holocaust survivor Harold Kasimow spoke at Benedictine University about his experiences and the horrors of living as a Jew in Europe during the Shoah.

A Palestinian student named Ayah Ali decided to harass him, asking him whether he opposed the "exile and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people" that, she says, is "similar" to the systematic genocide of millions of Jews.

Although the question is ludicrous and patently offensive, Kasimow tried to be polite and say that he is not expert enough to opine on that, that it is a complicated issue and that others could discuss the Palestinian issue with more authority, although he did say he thinks Israel should exist and he hopes for peace between the two sides.

Ali did not deserve to be treated politely. Kasimow should have told her that if Israel existed in 1939, his family could have been saved - and she would have preferred that they die. He should have said that she has no idea what genocide and ethnic cleansing means and should take a basic class on the subject before lecturing him. He should have said that he knows a thing or two about antisemitism and she is the one who qualifies for wanting to continue the Nazi Final Solution.

The obnoxious student didn't stop and kept trying twice more to corner him into a yes or no answer that he politely refused to provide.

The student called herself a "survivor of the intifada," literally comparing herself to the Jews of Europe in the 1940s, as if the intifada was an Israeli action against Palestinians rather than a terror spree of bus bombings and shootings of Jews.

Ali left in a huff because she pretended to be so "hurt" that Kasimow didn't regard her suffering as comparable to the Shoah.

Benedictine SJP was very happy with the sick display of Arab antisemitism, tweeting:

Inspired by his words and beliefs, an SJP Benedictine member mentioned a current situation that is ongoing: the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and exile of Palestinians living in under occupation. Palestinian children have suffered from the lack of basic human rights and are targeted because of their identity. However, to our surprise, Mr. Kasimow was in full support of the Israeli state that is built upon the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

To make this even more absurd, in 2017, Ayah Ali explicitly advocated genocide of Jews.

She would love to see a genocide six million Jews.

(h/t American Zionism)

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10/28 Links Pt2: Jewish Unity Required to Combat Anti-Semitism; Islamists impersonating Jews; Disguised as Agricultural Work, French Pro-BDS Org also Supports Terrorism

From Ian:

Jewish Unity Required to Combat Anti-Semitism

A neo-Nazi gunman's attack in Halle, Germany, on Yom Kippur, the Jewish people's holiest day, made the mounting security threat we face that much clearer. For American Jews, the wake-up call came exactly one year ago in Pittsburgh, when the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history struck the Tree of Life building housing three synagogues. Six months later, another synagogue attack occurred in Poway, California, on the final day of Passover.

The physical attacks are unmistakable signs of a long-brewing worldwide epidemic of anti-Semitism. Each day brings another harrowing headline. From cyber abuse to street insults, to vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, to intimidation and threats in public, Jews around the world are living in a constant state of fear due to the simple fact that they are Jews.

Anti-Semites do not discriminate when it comes to their victims. Those looking to harm us could care less whether we wear a kippah or to which synagogue we belong, if at all. In the face of this shared threat, the Jewish people must stand united in purpose and action.

Protecting Jewish life from hatred and bigotry is a central component of the Jewish Agency's DNA. We are combating this surge in anti-Semitism by working closely with leaders across the globe to coordinate combating hate crimes against Jews, investing in education for tolerance and understanding, and increasing security for Jewish communities in need.

Ultimately, counteracting this scourge of hate goes far beyond bolstered security. It starts within our own hearts and minds, through an uncompromised commitment to Jewish unity.

The BDS mindset is a challenge to liberal democracy here, as well as in Israel. Centrists must defend a precious inheritance.

It is all too easy to dismiss the movement boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) as insignificant—having sway only among academic radicals, student activists, and the extremist fringes of the Democratic party. But to do so would be a serious mistake, writes William Kolbrener:

[T]he ideas that inform BDS, and which have influenced parts of the Democratic Party, are part of an ideological status quo at humanities departments across the United States. Specifically, the creed of “intersectionality” positions Zionism and Israel as beyond the postmodern pale: the embodiment of fundamentalist religion, ultra-nationalist politics, and militarism. . . .

Like Satan in John Milton’s great epic Paradise Lost, in order to win BDS must merely create a moral equivalence between the heavenly and satanic angels. BDS does not need . . . to bring centrist liberals to their Devil’s party. Just suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and its adversaries is enough to persuade life-long liberals to entertain the devil’s fictions: that, for example, the seventeen-year-old girl who was killed last month after swimming with her brother and father “was a settler, after all.” . . .

Those in the BDS movement, and especially their radical Islamist allies, understand the ideological exhaustion of liberals. They cultivate the growing, if still somewhat suppressed, notion among them that the institutions of democracy are irrevocably tainted by colonialism, racism, and sexism.

UK Lawyers for Israel tells YouTube it's promoting violence; Reinstate CNEPR

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has sent a letter to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki demanding that the channel of the Center for Near Policy Research (CNEPR) be reinstated. The channel was shut down earlier this month for what the social video giant claimed were “repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines on Violence or Graphic content.”

CNEPR works to uncover corruption within the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The organization has produced several mini documentaries that highlight violence, antisemitism and extremism in UNRWA schools.

Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI, signed the letter to Wojcicki. In it he wrote that “CNEPR... sought to demonstrate the existence, nature and consequences of the Indoctrination” of UNRWA’s work in its videos. “This was all done in context so as not to shock or disgust or encourage the commission of violent acts. On the contrary the aim was to stop the encouragement of violence. The videos complied with YouTube policies.”

Turner goes on to explain that in his legal estimation, “the censoring of these videos is an unjustified restriction of freedom of expression and information regarding the activities of UNRWA, contrary to the core values of YouTube.

“This censoring is all the more serious at the present time, since States that contribute to UNRWA are currently considering whether to renew its mandate and, if so, on what terms,” the letter continues. “In short, by restricting the visibility of CNEPR’s videos, YouTube risks contributing to a continuation of the promotion of violence, antisemitism and extremism.”

“What is going on in UNRWA schools is a very serious matter,” Turner said. “We should try to ensure [that the materials] get published and UNRWA gets stopped.”

Islamists impersonating Jews

We've uncovered a network of Islamists that are impersonating orthodox Jews to try and create the impression there's mass opposition to Israel from Jews. ???? 95% of the world's Jews support Israel ???? A tiny group of orthodox Jews do not That's why they need to fake it.

One of the most common challenges to the Divest-nista crowd is why they don’t call and march for divestment against Sudan, China, Syria or any of the totalitarian dictatorships whose daily human rights abuses dwarf anything Israel could have possibly done over the course of 60 years.

Generally, their first response is to ignore the question and move onto their next accusations (real or imagined) against Israel, hoping that no one will peek behind the curtain. While such stonewalling can work for a while, those trying to sell BDS to the general public must eventually explain the apparent double standard whereby Israel must be punished while its dictatorial critics are left alone. Some of the more easily dismissed excuses I’ve seen from US-based divestniks include:

· Israel is a democracy and thus our protests can have an impact there (ignoring the obvious corollary that the best way to avoid the wrath of these alleged “human rights” champions is to be a dictatorship)

· Israel is an ally of the US, and thus as Americans we are obliged to criticize our friends more than our foes (ignoring the obvious question as to why their limitless hostility does not extend to other US allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt)

· “Israel receives [pick your sum, ranging from three-billion to eleventy-jillion dollars] in US aid so as a US citizen it’s the use of my tax dollars I’m protesting” (never specifying why a country like Egypt, which receives 2/3 as much US aid as Israel - a formula calculated at Camp David decades ago - receives <1 66="" against="" boycotters="" direct="" hostility="" israel="" o:p="" of="" rather="" than="" the="">

Clearly, these are just excuses or rationalizations for people who have a political agenda (hostility towards the Jewish state) who feel a need to dress up their attitudes in the ill-fitting garments of legitimate principle. Yet even if such hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue, the excuses BDSers use to explain their obvious double standards only stretches so thin, often with embarrassing results.

My favorite example of over-reach in an effort to explain away the double standard was the UK academic boycotters who claimed their effort to sanction Israeli universities would be particularly effective because of the Jews unique love and respect for learning. Needless to say, this implied dissing of the scholarly passions of non-Jewish societies did not go over well with the boycotters' third-worlder constituency.

Within this rickety pile of excuses, the only one that is backed by enough fact to not be immediately dismissed as a smoke screen is the claim that the call for boycotting Israel welled up from the Palestinians themselves in the form of a 2002 boycott call from the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (or PACBI). Because the PACBI BDS call (unlike so many divestment hoaxes) actually exists, poking holes in this argument takes a little more effort. But not much…

To be continued…

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Omar Shakir proves he has lied about his actions since joining @HRW and does advocate boycotting all of Israel, today

Omar Shakir from Human Rights Watch responded to his critics that wanted him deported from Israel last April:

Israeli authorities say they’re deporting me because I promote boycotts of Israel. Setting aside the paradox of the region’s self-proclaimed “only democracy” deporting a rights defender over peaceful expression, the claim isn’t true.

Human Rights Watch neither supports nor opposes boycotts of Israel, a fact that Israel’s Ministry of Interior acknowledged last year. Rather, we document the practices of businesses in settlements as part of our global efforts to urge companies, governments and other actors to meet their human rights responsibilities. We also defend the right of individuals to support or oppose boycotts peacefully, as a matter of freedom of speech and conscience.

Initially, the Israeli government said it revoked my work visa based on a dossier it compiled on my long-past student-activist days, before I became the Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director in October 2016. When we challenged the deportation in court, noting that the Interior Ministry’s own guidelines require support for a boycott to be “active and continuous,” they shifted to highlight Human Rights Watch research on the activities of businesses such as Airbnb and our recommendation that they cease operating in settlements.

His entire argument is that advocating businesses boycott settlements is not a boycott of Israel but a human rights activity against occupation. He says he hasn't advocated boycotting Israel since he was hired by HRW.

His latest tweet shows this to be an absolute lie:

Shakir is now explicitly calling for Airbnb to boycott Israel itself.

By this criterion, Airbnb couldn't operate anywhere in the Western Hemisphere or Australia because all land is "stolen." Is that HRW's position? Or is it, as always, only Israel that has to fit these bizarre and arbitrary criteria to be considered moral enough?

This also shows that the rhetoric against the "occupation" has always been a smokescreen by critics of Israel. They are against Israel, period, and they latch onto the "settlements" as an easier target, but their true aims are shown here.

Including the true aims of Human Rights Watch.

(h/t Michael Elgort)

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10/28 Links Pt1: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rapist, led genocidal 'caliphate,' died in tunnel; Abbas Orders To Rebuild Home Of Mother Of Six Terrorists; PA child abuse: Kids taught to offer their "blood"

From Ian:

Seth J. Frantzman: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rapist, led genocidal 'caliphate,' died in tunnel

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a rapist. Like most jihadists, his main motivation was murder and genocide, combined with far-Right religious hatred. In Islamic State, the organization and "state" that he led, he was able to exploit various strands of followers to create the closest thing the Middle East has seen to a short-lived, Nazi-style country.

He spent his days as leader raping women the group had kidnapped while his men died on the front lines. Like Hitler, he enjoyed the good life while his Sunni soldiers suffered under the bombs of the US-led coalition and struggled to stop the rising tide of Shi’ite militias and Kurdish fighters arrayed against them.

For much of his time in the leadership of ISIS, the rapist Baghdadi was a kind of mirage, a shadowy figure who was reportedly killed several times. Yet he survived, escaping again and again as his enemies closed in. Baghdadi was a religious devotee as a young man, and was detained by the Americans after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Born in central Iraq, he joined an extremist group, was picked up near Falluja, and held at Camp Bucca in 2004. Rukmini Callimachi, the New York Times correspondent who covers ISIS, writes that by the time he was detained, he was not only radicalized but he “began inciting attacks against Shia prisoners, using metal shanks.”

In his hatred of Shi’ites, Baghdadi was channeling a new kind of jihadist zeal. While al-Qaeda and others had launched a war against the West and against local totalitarian and corrupted governments under the banner of “Islam,” the concepts floating around Iraq in 2004 viewed non-Sunnis as sub-humans. They all had to be killed: Christians, Shi’ites, Yazidis and other groups such as Kurds.

This was a truly Nazi-style ideology that saw the world in terms of believers and sub-humans. It was helped along by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq who pushed for more targeting of Shi’ites and minorities. Mass attacks in 2004 on Shi’ite shrines were carried out in Karbala, killing hundreds. Baghdadi was paying attention.

Seth J. Frantzman: Eight takeaways from the Baghdadi raid

The US raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was executed in the first hours of October 27. It has many similarities with the raid to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011. President Donald Trump’s theatrics have made it sound more interesting. We don’t know all the details, but here are some of the takeaways.

It took an hour to get there
Trump says that the eight helicopters had to fly over an hour to their target. This has led to speculation about where they came from. Martin Chulov at The Guardian says that the raid began just before 3:30 a.m. and the copters flew from Erbil in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region. It was a 70-minute flight. But Trump, in subsequent comments to the press on October 27 said the copters landed in a “friendly country” in a “port.” The port comment has led to a bit of a mystery, and it’s also not entirely clear if Trump would refer to Iraq as a friendly country.

Thank you: Russia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Kurds

Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and the Syrian Kurds were all given thanks for their support. The Syrian Democratic Forces have been warning for months about Baghdadi trying to get to Idlib province in northwest Syria, where he was eventually found. In March, they had indicated that he might be there. The SDF is the main partner of the US on the ground in Syria, but Trump’s decision to leave Syria enabled a Turkish attack on the SDF.

The US had to fly over areas with Turkish and Russia air defense. It had to inform Russia, the Syrian regime and Turkey.

Trump was seeking to leave Syria as intel found Baghdadi
Trump was about to announce the US withdrawal from parts of Syria on October 6 when intelligence began to pinpoint Baghdadi, who had released tapes in September and April. Many believed he was in his home country of Iraq, or in the Syrian desert. There are up to 14,000 ISIS fighters there in the desert regions of Iraq and Syria, so he could hide with them. But as it turned out, a man appeared in mid-September before Iraqi intelligence who had smuggled two of Baghdadi’s wives through Turkey and two of his brothers. Iraqi intelligence was then able to penetrate Baghdadi’s family and handed details to the CIA.

As the information came in, Trump was already making his move to leave. But the intel led to several false starts. For weeks, Baghdadi was under surveillance. Three raids had to be cancelled, Trump said. Finally at the end of October they had him, in a house next to the Turkish border, home to another extremist group called Hurras al-Din. Baghdadi might have been seeking to go across into Turkey, or to revive ISIS in Idlib. He had to be taken down before he could move again. Trump agreed.

Col. Richard Kemp: Islamic State leader killed in Syria

Some experts claim the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is only a symbolic success against the Islamic State. That’s wrong. It’s a major blow to IS and Islamic jihadists around the world, at least as important as the killing of his former leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

Al-Baghdadi was a hugely influential and inspirational figure for radical Muslims everywhere, his claim to be directly descended from the prophet Muhammad’s grandson widely accepted. A Koranic scholar at the University of Baghdad, he had a religious authority that armed his followers to counter claims that IS was a distortion of Islam.

Al-Baghdadi had been on the run and his Islamic State in retreat for many months following intensive coalition attacks against them. His death signals their final defeat but only in its current form. It does not mean the end of al-Baghdadi’s brutal vision any more than Bin Laden’s death was the end of Al Qaida, which has since increased its strength in various parts of the world.

Two months ago he named his successor but experience shows that terrorist groups evolve like the hydra, sprouting multiple heads, with subordinate leaders freed to carry out their own malevolent and sometimes more effective plans. Al-Baghdadi himself gained power after the killing of his former boss Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Islamic State in Iraq.

Yamine Mohammed is an ex-Muslim who now helps Muslims and ex-Muslims deal with their circumstances with their communities and families.

Her recently published memoir, Unveiled, is a truly harrowing account of her life. It is ultimately a heroic story of how she managed to overcome a sickeningly abusive childhood and to escape her circumstances, while shining a light on how millions of Muslims are forced to live.

To be sure, most Muslims do not have to endure what Yasmine did. Her mother has severe psychological problems and turned to extreme Islam in order to find order in her own life. She married (according to Islam) an abusive man who was already married and who insisted on strict application of rules that he called Muslim. This man sexually abused Yasmine.

But the real abuse came from her mother. She only got pregnant with Yasmine in order to try to keep her first husband from leaving her and since that plot failed, she treated Yasmine like an unwanted excretion from her body that she was stuck with. (She would actually tell her that.)

Her mother embraced the most extreme Islam of her husband in order to find meaning in her own damaged life.

To a large extent, the book is Yasmine's relationship with, and attempts to break free from, her mother - a woman who would tell her husband that 6-year old Yasmine didn't do her prayers properly so that he would brutally beat his stepdaughter on the bottoms of her feet so the bruises wouldn't show.

Yasmine grew up believing that she was worthless and that her mother held the key to allow her into heaven, so she was in a never-ending cycle of trying to gain love from a woman who truly hated her. But she would always question the rules she was forced to live under, and sometimes she would meet others who liked her for who she was, giving her a glimmer of much-needed self-esteem under the crushing weight of the twin burdens of her family and Islam.

So many times in her life it looked like she would finally break free, only to be reeled back in by circumstances.

Chillingly, Yasmine finally gave in to be married to a man her mother chose for her that her mother herself tried to seduce. This man imprisoned her in every real sense, even beating her for idly singing the alphabet song when looking up something in a reference book. Their baby's birth both cemented her prison sentence and gave her the resolve to escape so her daughter would never have to live through the same hell she did.

She finally managed a (Canadian) divorce, and only later found out that her husband was a major Al Qaeda terrorist.

Slowly, sometimes agonizingly so, Yasmine manages to escape the hell of her upbringing.

How much of her awful childhood was a result of Islam and how much from a psychotic mother and abusive stepfather/"uncle"? Yasmine brings statistics and plenty of anecdotes from other Muslims and ex-Muslims about things like female genital mutilation, sexual assault and the psychological pain from wearing a hijab and (later) a full burka. She mentions a friend who broke free, and when she fell and hurt herself and her boyfriend ran to see if she was OK she assumed he would berate her for being so stupid. That's how generations of women are taught to think about themselves.

There is no way most Muslims grow up in such an environment, certainly not in Canada where Yasmine was born, but her story is not so different from how many Muslim women are forced to live in Muslim-majority countries. She had opportunities to meet others, especially the years she was allowed to go to public school, and to start to question things. Most Muslim women in Islamic countries do not even have that lifeline.

Her final chapter is an appeal to today's feminists, who are so anxious to find something to protest that they spend their time blowing up truly minor issues like whether to remove the "e" from "women" yet they ignore the patriarchy and often abuse that is imposed on hundreds of millions of girls and women, today, in Muslim-majority countries. Fear of being labeled "Islamophobic" wins out over helping so many who are imprisoned as Yasmine was. It is a damning indictment of today's Western feminism and a world where Nike would never consider to put its logo on Mormon women's underwear but happily places it on a hijab that so many wear not out of free will but out of fear.

This is a frightening and ultimately uplifting book about a remarkable woman and her incredible journey.

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