Monday, December 11, 2017
100 years later, Allenby returns to Jerusalem
British conquest was hailed by Jews as a Hanukkah miracle
The Old City's Tower of David Museum launches an exhibit in honor of the centennial of the capture of the Holy City from the Ottoman Turks by British forces
Viscount Henry J. H. Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe and John Benson are not typical Jerusalem tourists.
The great-great nephew of Field Marshal Edmund Allenby and the great-grandson of Major General John Shea, respectively, Allenby and Benson are currently in Israel to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the capture of the Holy City from the Ottoman Turks by British forces led by their military leader ancestors.
Benson and Lord Allenby, along with Lord Allenby’s mother Sara Viscountess Allenby, are in the capital at the invitation of The Tower of David Museum, which on Monday will stage a public reenactment of General Allenby’s proclamation delivered from the front of the ancient citadel inside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate on December 11, 1917.
The special guests received a preview on Sunday of the museum’s new exhibition, “A General and A Gentleman: Allenby at the Gates of Jerusalem,” which officially opens on Monday. The exhibition focuses on the events of three pivotal days in December 1917, from the the moment the Ottomans surrendered to Britain’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force on December 9 to Allenby’s proclamation of martial law on December 11.
The proclamation, issued in seven languages (English, French, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and Greek), promised protection for the holy places and assured freedom of religious practice for all the city’s inhabitants:
However, lest any of you should be alarmed by reason of your experiences at the hands of the enemy who has retired, I hereby inform you that it is my desire that every person should pursue his lawful business without fear of interruption…Therefore do I make known to you that every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest of customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred.
Barry Shaw: December 11, 1917: The Liberation of Jerusalem
That door began to close by 1919 when Jew hating British administrators, brought up to Jerusalem from Egypt, reneged on their duty to carry out orders. In a treasonable act of defiance and anti-Semitism, they ignored official British policy.As Jews evacuated from Aden bloodbath, a daring mission to rescue a Torah scroll
General Money, the Chief Administrator, ordered that “The walled city of Jerusalem is placed out of orders to all Jewish soldiers from the 14th to the 22nd April inclusive.” It was no coincidence that this period was the pilgrim festival of Passover. This outraged Colonel John Patterson, the commanding officer of the Jewish Legion, who wrote, “I cannot conceive a greater act of provocation to Jewish soldiers, or a greater insult. Not since the days of Emperor Hadrian had such a humiliating decree been issued.”
The Balfour Declaration stipulated that His Majesty’s Government would use their “best endeavours to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
Instead, in 1920, they defied British policy, ignored their duty to implement the terms of the Declaration, and duplicitously colluded with anti-Jewish Arab rabble-rousers, including Haj Amin al-Husseini, later to meet with Adolph Hitler to plan the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle East, to incite violence against Jews. They chose the annual Nebi Musa festival to riot in the Old City while the British stood aside.
With cries of “Death to the Jews!” Jewish women were raped, men were killed, and Jewish property destroyed. This British and Arab anti-Semitic collusion and violence was the first major Palestinian act of terror attack against Jews.
With typical British “even-handedness,” Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who had been an officer in the British army, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms, namely three rifles and two pistols, despite the fact that the Governor, Colonel Ronald Storrs, was aware that he possessed them. This was the same sentence imposed in absentia on Al-Husseini who had fled Palestine, following the Arab murder and rape of Jews and the destruction of Jewish property.
The rest is history.
In June 1967, the fury of the Arab world at Israel’s lightning victory over its enemies hit Aden, a tiny British colony at the southwestern tip of today’s Yemen on the Arabian peninsula. The once-thriving Jewish community — already much depleted — was once again a target.
“I have never seen such hatred and deliberate destruction,” one survivor later recalled. “Even the young Arabs were screaming out that they wanted to kill us. It was terrible.”
Three Jews trapped in the Crater district of the port city were attacked by an armed mob; two were brutally murdered, the third was found alive but barely able to breathe.
For those old enough to remember, history appeared to be repeating itself.
Twenty years previously, in the wake of the UN vote to partition Palestine, Jewish businesses, stores, and homes had been attacked in Aden. Two Jewish schools were burned down. At the end of three days of violence in December 1947, more than 80 Jews were dead.
“There were not riots but murder,” Joseph Howard, a child at the time, later remembered.
A British commission of inquiry into the disturbances later found that “trigger happy” firing by soldiers of the Aden Protectorate Levies — an Arab military force trained and armed by the UK to protect its colony — were responsible for many of the Jewish deaths. These local forces, the inquiry concluded, were sympathetic to the rioters, and did not attempt to control them. The inquiry recommended British troops be permanently stationed in the colony.
The Middle East 'Peace Process' meme: What peace process?
The earliest “Middle East Peace Process” for twenty years from 1948-1967 included a solution: simply drive the Jews to their deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the solution’s neatness and elegance, the Arab Muslim world changed that meme from “Drive the Jews into the Sea” after the June 1967 war. In time, it became “The Peace Process” — without any thought as to the actual relocation of 620,000 Jews. But, if they are not to be slaughtered — a solution that the intransigent Israeli Likud government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resolutely continues to oppose despite United Nations intractability, as do most other Israeli political parties — what indeed is that part of the “peace process”?Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief Discusses Trump’s Peacemaking Approach, Netanyahu’s Legacy and the Importance of Listening to the Other Side
For those who would ask “Well, can’t Israel just absorb 620,000 people into . . .” — it’s tough to finish that sentence. In August 2005, the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon uprooted 8,600 residents living in Gush Katif from the Gaza Strip so that Abbas could have that land as his own — land that rapidly was taken from his corrupt “Palestine Authority” and that instead became the home base of the Hamas terrorist campaign. More than a decade later, Israel still has been unable to resettle them and get their lives back to normal. They lost their homes, jobs, often families. Thus, relocating and resettling 620,000 Jews is a puzzlement.
One more thing:
Look at the logo of the Hamas terrorists. See that green jagged “dagger” on the center-top? Now look at the logo of the Palestine Authority’s Al Fatah terrorists. See that same green jagged “dagger” in the middle, partially obstructed by the two superimposed rifles? And now look at the logo of the terrorist Islamic Jihad. See that same jagged “dagger,” only this time in red and in the middle?
One picture is worth a thousand words — yet another meme. That depiction is not a jagged dagger. Rather, it is the map of “Palestine” that Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad all are determined to attain as part of the “Middle East Peace Process.” Thing is, for the uninitiated, that “Palestine” on their mind is not a map of Gaza and the “West Bank.” Rather, that is the exact map of all of Israel, down to Tel Aviv, Haifa, Hadera, Tiberias, Masadah, Eilat, and Ben Gurion Airport. For the Arab Muslim world, “Palestine” is Israel — all of it. Nothing has changed. One need not be fluent in Hebrew nor in Arabic to grasp this, simply capable of looking at four pictures. Want more pictures of more Palestine “Middle East Peace Process” aspirants? Here they are — they all want the same thing as their “Palestine”: all of Israel. That’s all.
The “Middle East Peace Process”? What Peace Process?
Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief Dovid Efune recently appeared on JBS’ “L’Chayim” program and held a wide-ranging discussion with host Mark S. Golub about many pressing issues related to the Jewish people and State of Israel.
On America’s effort to revive the long-dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Efune credited President Donald Trump for paying “far more attention to the facts, to the truths, of the conflict than any previous administration has.”
“He’s created sticks, if you will, that are suspended over the Palestinians that are, frankly, ready to fall if they don’t respond to some of the issues he’s been pushing,” Efune said.
One such matter, Efune noted, is the Palestinian Authority’s policy of providing funds to terrorists and their families. This issue is the focus of the Taylor Force Act, which is currently making its way through Congress.
Turning the PA’s “pay-to-slay” policy into a central issue, Efune said, has been “one of, if not the, greatest blessings for Israel from the Trump administration.”
Efune praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bringing the Jewish state “into a new era, in terms of its relations with countries across the world.”
“This prime minister, I think, will go down in history as one of the Israeli greats,” Efune predicted.
In parts of France, it is not good to be white, female or Jewish
Bouteldja officially supported the “resistance" of Hamas. She said “Mohamed Merah is me," regarding the Islamic terrorist barbarian who killed four Jews, including three children, in Toulouse) and she proudly posed next to a graffiti reading “Zionists in the Gulag”. Close to the galaxy of the left, France's Insoumise party and spokesperson for the “Indigenous of the Republic”, Bouteldja says she is able to point out the Jews “among a thousand” people.Doctors stabilize security guard wounded in Jerusalem attack
Anti-Semitism would be the prerogative of whites, anti-Zionism is instead an instrument of emancipation.
The signatories of the academic appeal write that “the banalization of anti-Semitism starts when the university and some of its actors no longer distinguish scientific research from activism”. The Jews in France are increasingly “assimilated, in indigenist thought, to the colonialists."
An apprenticeship in-service training session for teachers was organized by the SUD-éducation 93 union in Saint-Denis, with “non-mixed” tables and seminars, some “reserved for non-whites” only. It was organized over the last few weeks. There was also the Collective against Islamophobia, a sort of militant inquisition that orchestrates campaigns to criminalize every criticism of Islam. These kinds of initiatives have been taking place in France for several years. They are called “decolonized” initiatives, like the summer camp of Reims.
A kind of multicultural apartheid, so far from abstract, conceptual and romantic France, the France of the beautiful neighborhoods and the élites.
Areas where it is not good to be a woman, it is not good to be white and it is not good to be Jewish. It is connected to the explosion of anti-Semitism. Because in France, today, the Jew is a 'white' at its finest.
The condition of the security guard stabbed in the chest by a Palestinian terrorist at the entrance to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station Sunday has stabilized, doctors at Shaare Zedek Medical Center said Monday morning.'If victim would've gotten to us 2 minutes later, he'd be dead'
Asher Elmaliach, 46, sustained serious injuries when he was stabbed in the heart Sunday afternoon.
He showed early signs of awakening, but remains unconscious and connected to a respirator in the intensive care unit, a hospital spokesperson said.
Israeli security forces raided the home of the terrorist, 24-year-old Yassin Abu al-Qur’a, overnight Sunday in the West Bank town of Tubas near Nablus. The army said the forces interrogated his family members and searched for “incitement materials.”
Graphic video footage from the scene showed Abu al-Qar’a slowly handing his belongings to Elmaliach, who was checking travelers at the door to the station, before suddenly taking out a knife and plunging it into the guard’s chest.
When a 24-year-old Arab terrorist from Shechem (Nabulus) stabbed Asher Elmaliach through the heart, it looked like there was little hope of saving the 46-year-old security guard.'Facebook gave the terrorist the knife'
Elimaliach, a resident of the town of Adam near Jerusalem, was working as a security guard for the central bus station in the capital on Sunday, when 24-year-old Yassin Abu Al-Keraa approached a bus station entrance.
As he removed his jacket, Abu Al-Keraa suddenly drew a knife, stabbed Elmaliach, then fled.
The knife penetrated Elmaliach’s heart, leaving him struggling to survive.
While police quickly apprehended Abu Al-Keraa, Elmaliach was rushed to Shaarei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, his condition critical.
Yet despite the severe wound, doctors at Shaarei Tzedek managed to stabilize Elmaliach’s condition overnight.
But according to doctors, Elmaliach just barely survived, and would have almost certainly succumbed to his wounds if had been evacuated to the hospital’s intensive care unit any later.
“Had he come in two minutes later there would have been nothing we could do,” hospital staff said Monday. “That’s all that separated life from death.”
Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, the head of the Shurat Hadin legal organization, said that social media was to blame for the terrorist stabbing attack in Jerusalem Sunday.Israelis back presidential pardon for Elor Azariya
"Today the actual terrorist was the one who carried out the stabbing attack, but Facebook was the one who gave him the knife," said Darshan-Leitner.
"Unfortunately, more and more innocent victims continue to be added to the $1 billion lawsuit we are conducting against Facebook in US courts. Facebook does not see fit to stop the incitement on their site which leads to murder.
Darshan-Leitner continued: "What [Facebook] refuses to do voluntarily will instead be accomplished through legal means. This attack today proves that all attacks begin on Facebook."
Hours before the attack, the terrorist, a resident of the PA-controlled city of Shechem (Nabulus) in Samaria, Abu Al-Keraa, wrote on his Facebook account that he hoped to “raise the banner” for “Allah’s sake”.
A majority of Israelis believe former IDF soldier Elor Azariya, who was convicted of manslaughter for the shooting death of a wounded terrorist, should be granted a presidential pardon and freed from prison, a new poll shows.Finance Committee approves budget for bullet-proof buses
In March 2016, Elor Azariya, then an IDF sergeant, shot and killed a wounded Arab terrorist in Hevron, shortly after a stabbing attack that left one soldier wounded.
While Azariya claimed that the shooting was justified, due to his own state fear that the terrorist may have had a bomb concealed in his jacket, an army court found Azariya guilty of manslaughter in January 2017. A month later, Azariya was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot later cut four months from the sentence, in response to an appeal by Azariya’s legal defense team. Azariya began serving his 14-month reduced sentence in August.
After entering prison, Azariya appealed to President Reuven Rivlin for a pardon, only to be rejected in November.
In his response, the president wrote that any pardon or further reduction of the sentence would “harm the resilience to the Israel Defense Forces and the State of Israel.”
But a poll conducted by Tel Aviv University in conjunction with the Israel Democracy Institute shows that an absolute majority of Israelis believe Rivlin was wrong to deny the pardon request.
Among Israeli Jews, 53.2% say the president erred in denying the request, compared to 37.7% who say he made the right decision.
The Knesset's Finance Committee on Monday afternoon approved the transfer of 45 million NIS ($12,800,000) to bulletproof Judea and Samaria buses.Israel clears 300 landmines in major Golan Heights operations
Following the announcement, Jewish Home MK Moti Yogev said he would not follow through on his threat to cease voting with the coalition.
"This budget is a literal lifesaver for students and travelers in Judea and Samaria," he said. "The shooting attack on a bus which occurred just last night would have ended with people wounded if the bus had not been bulletproof."
On Sunday night, terrorists opened fire on a bulletproof Israeli passenger bus carrying students near the town of Ofra in Samaria, north of Jerusalem Sunday night, damaging the vehicle. No one was injured.
Yogev also thanked Finance Committee Chairman Moshe Gafni (UTJ) and Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich for their "efforts in the fight" for the budget's approval.
Israel cleared 300 landmines in the Golan Heights on Monday in the largest controlled explosion to date in an ongoing project to secure the strategic platuea.After Slamming ‘Judaizing’ Of Jerusalem, EU Decries ‘Turkification’ Of Turkey (satire)
The operation began in August and is expected to continue for two to three years.
The plan is to clear thousands of mines from an area of two to three square kilometers (0.7-1.15 square miles), which makes up some 10 percent of the total mined area in the Golan and on the bank of the Sea of Galilee.
The mines were laid by the Syrian army some 50 years ago, prior to the 1967 Six Day War.
European leaders followed up their negative reaction to American recognition of Israel as Jerusalem’s capital Wednesday by addressing another historic wrong in the region: the alien presence and control of Turkey by non-native peoples, an ongoing injustice that undermines the country’s eligibility for membership in the European Union.Palestinian reconciliation hits ‘obstacles’ on deadline, Fatah says
Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, announced this afternoon that the European Union’s decades long review of Turkey’s application to become a member of the European Union has been terminated with prejudice.
The EU’s action came in the wake of a determination by the European Court of Human Rights that Turkey is not actually Turkish. The court’s review was triggered by a complaint made by Anatolia’s indigenous Hattians and Hurrians, the non-Indo-European peoples who have inhabited central and eastern Anatolia, respectively, since as early as about 2300 BCE.
The court found that Turkic peoples invaded Anatolia and that they are not native to the region. Turkey is not actually Turkish, but merely the result of a colonialist “Turkification” project begun in the latter half of the 11th century CE, when Seljuk Turks began to establish “facts on the ground.” Mogherini stated the European position that no application for Turkish membership would be considered until the descendants of the Seljuks who occupy the country and positions of power dismantle their illegitimate apparatus, cities, and infrastructure and return whence they came.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed dismay and frustration at the European action. “The EU is making these claims only because of my recent condemnations of Israel for Judaizing the ancient Jewish capital and holy city of Jerusalem,” he declared.
A planned handover of power in Gaza from Hamas to the Palestinian Authority under a landmark reconciliation accord hit “obstacles” on Sunday’s deadline to do so, a top official said.Watchdog: Palestinian Authority Science and Math Textbooks Promote Jihad
The Hamas terrorist group was originally due to transfer power in the enclave on December 1 under the reconciliation agreement with rival faction Fatah, but that deadline was initially put back by 10 days.
Hamas said at the weekend that it was handing over all government ministries to the Palestinian Authority, but Fatah’s top negotiator said that was not yet the case.
“There have been obstacles today,” Azzam al-Ahmad said in a statement on Sunday published on official news agency WAFA.
“I hope they will be resolved before this evening so our people will feel that their national factions are honest with what they agreed on and pledged.”
Ahmad said that after the handover takes place, a meeting would be held in Cairo — Egypt mediated the reconciliation deal — to discuss next steps.
The Palestinian Authority recently published a new school curriculum in which “radicalization” is more pervasive than ever before, with more pressure put on children to carry out acts of violence against Israelis, a watchdog group said.Hamas says 2 terrorists killed in destruction of terror tunnel
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that textbooks issued for the new academic year for grades 1-11 are more inflammatory than ever before, with zero “respect, tolerance and understanding toward the Israeli and Western ‘Other,’ his/her culture, achievements, values and way of life.”
“There is denial and demonization,” the report said.
“An attitude of hatred and scapegoating fosters an atmosphere of non-responsibility. The curriculum agitates against regional and local cooperation with Israel (the PA’s chief economic partner) while advocating boycott and violence of that partner,” it added.
The textbooks further endorse the idea that there will a “long war of attrition” after which there will be a return of the Palestinian masses to Israel, which even in its current state is presented as “Palestine.”
For example, a 10th grade geography textbook declares Israel’s Negev Desert to be territory constituting “about half of the area of Palestine.”
Even seemingly benign subjects, such as the sciences, are infused with references to jihad.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization, warned Sunday that Israel would pay a heavy price for "breaking the rules of the game by destroying a terror tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip into Israel.Keeping the peace on the Israel-Lebanon border
The terror group also said that two of its members were killed in the tunnel.
"The enemy's leaders and decision-makers must understand the magnitude of the stupidity with which they conduct the confrontation with the organizations of the struggle," the Al-Qassam Brigade said in a statement.
Israel, according to the Al-Qassam Brigades, will regret its policy of destroying terror tunnels, since the campaign "for the sake of Al-Aqsa continues all the time from above and below the ground and thousands of fighters are preparing for the campaign to liberate "Al-Quds" (the Arabic name for Jerusalem).
Hamas called the destruction of the tunnel an act of "aggression" and a "crime" against Palestinian Arabs. The terror group sent its blessings to the Arabs who have rioted throughout Israel in protest against "the unjust aggressive decisions of the American President Trump."
UNIFIL has a mandate to ensure that no armed groups other than its own peacekeepers and the Lebanese army operate in southern Lebanon — that means no Hezbollah and no Israel.Commander of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia seen on Lebanese-Israeli border
They patrol nearly 1,000 square miles of land south of the Litani River looking for infractions and making sure neither side breaches the Blue Line, the unofficial boundary to which Israeli forces withdrew in 2000.
The biggest infractions are openly acknowledged by both sides. Hezbollah has not disarmed; Israel violates Lebanese airspace on “a daily basis” and still occupies Lebanese land.
Those routine violations aside, 90 percent of ground infractions witnessed by the UN force in the three months up to October were committed by shepherds and their herds wandering over the poorly marked boundary.
During that same time, the Israeli army provided UNIFIL with information on what it said were three Hezbollah “installments.” UNIFIL troops investigated the locations but found no evidence to back up the allegations.
Critics of the UNIFIL mission say the peacekeepers are powerless to exert any pressure on Hezbollah in its own backyard, and that they wouldn't be able to do much if another war broke out. That UNIFIL is unable to find any Hezbollah missiles despite the group admitting to a massive arsenal is proof of its weakness, they say.
UNIFIL says it is focused on stability.
“It’s pretty calm actually,” Corzo concedes. “And we hope that when the winter starts, activity will lower even more.”
That hasn’t stopped saber-rattling on both sides. (h/t Zvi)
Qais al-Khazali, the commander of Iraq’s Iranian- backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, has been filmed in south Lebanon overlooking Metulla and Kiryat Shmona.U.S., Foreign Leaders Warn of Terror Groups Converging With Organized Crime in Latin America
“We here with Hezbollah declare our total readiness to stand together with the Lebanese people and the Palestinian cause against Israeli occupation,” Khazali is heard saying in a video.
The video, which appeared on social media late Friday, showed Khazali at the Fatima Gate, also known as the former Good Fence Crossing, west of Metulla, in military garb, declaring his readiness to support “resistance fighters” and to come to the “rescue” of Palestinians and Jerusalem.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a 33-day war in 2006, which came to an end under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that called for disarmament of Hezbollah, withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanon, and the deployment of the Lebanese Army and an enlarged UN force in southern Lebanon.
Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst, told The Jerusalem Post that the timing of Khazali’s visit suggests that Hezbollah is trying to highlight that it is now a regional power with international partners ready to fight alongside it.
The merging of Iranian-backed terrorist groups with transnational criminal organizations in Latin America has become a mounting national security threat to the United States, according to several U.S. and foreign officials.During Surprise Syria Visit, Putin Orders Pullout of ‘Significant Part’ of Russian Forces From Country
South America's tri-border region, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay converge, is of particular concern given the longstanding presence of Hezbollah militants, who operate as money launderers for drug cartels. The collaboration generates tens of millions of dollars for the Iranian terror proxy with a cut set aside for drug lords.
The 10th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum brought together Trump administration officials, U.S. lawmakers, and 150 foreign delegates from over 50 countries on Thursday to discuss joint efforts to combat global terrorist financing.
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R., N.C.), chairman of the congressional taskforce on terrorism and unconventional warfare, who organized the event, warned of an uptick in Hezbollah’s activities in the tri-border area and said he fears the Islamic State or affiliated groups will establish funding channels in the region.
"Hezbollah has been there for a couple of decades, but you now have an expansion of it," Pittenger told the Washington Free Beacon. "The tri-border area is fairly open, it needs more oversight, particularly with the flow of cars, boats, etcetera involved in narcotics and illicit financing."
President Vladimir Putin ordered “a significant part” of Russia’s military contingent in Syria to start withdrawing on Monday, saying Moscow and Damascus had achieved their mission of destroying Islamic State in just over two years.NGO Monitor: French Funding to anti-French and anti-Israel Propaganda by UJFP
Putin, who polls show will be re-elected comfortably in March, made the announcement during a surprise visit to Russia’s Hmeymim air base in Syria, where he held talks with President Bashar al-Assad and addressed Russian forces.
The Kremlin first launched air strikes in Syria in September 2015 in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, turning the tide of the conflict in Assad’s favor, while dramatically increasing Moscow’s own influence in the region.
Syrian state television quoted Assad as thanking Putin for Russia’s help, saying the blood of Moscow’s “martyrs” had been mixed with the blood of the Syrian army.
Russia’s campaign, which has been extensively covered on state TV, has not caught the imagination of most Russians. But nor has it stirred unease of the kind the Soviet Union faced with its calamitous 1980s intervention in Afghanistan.
The use of private military contractors, something which has been documented by Reuters but denied by the Defense Ministry, has allowed Moscow to keep the public casualty toll fairly low.
In October 2017, Union Juive Française pour la Paix (UJFP) released a series of ten video clips “Paroles juives contre le racisme” (“Jewish words against racism”). The videos feature highly incendiary remarks against the State of Israel, Zionism, and France. UJFP is active in discriminatory and illegal (according to the Court of Cassation) anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns in France and is a member of the Platform of the French NGOs for Palestine.Tahra Ahmed, a Grenfell Tower volunteer coordinator, reportedly claimed the victims were “burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice”
This project received the support of the office of the Commissioner General for Territorial Equality (CGET), a branch of the French Prime Minister’s Office, and aims to be used “in schools, in public meetings in working-class neighborhoods, wherever the fight against racism, against discrimination, against police violence and State racism are taking place.” Additionally, France provided UJFP with €18,000 in 2016.
The following are select examples of problematic statements made by UJFP activists in the videos. (Translations by NGO Monitor, emphases added throughout.)
Accusations against Zionism and the State of Israel:
From “Antisemitism and Zionism?” video:
- “Zionism for me is the question of the separation of the world into races. So my Judaism says that on the contrary the Jew is the wandering Jew, the Jew of the diaspora. ” (1:35-1:47).
- “Anti-zionism is anti-racist. Zionism is racist. I would even say that Zionism is antisemitic. In the history of Zionism, at no time Zionism fought against antisemitism in Europe, it [Zionism] always fed itself with it [antisemitism]. Zionism is a crime against Palestinians and suicide for Israelis and Jews in general.” (3:15-3:35).
- “To be anti-Zionist is to oppose the logic of the Israeli policy of creating a Jewish state in Palestine at the expense of the other inhabitants, at the expense of the Palestinians. As a result, Zionism as a political phenomenon is intrinsically a racist policy because it denies the rights of the people it wants to replace on this land. ” (3:45- 4:08)
Tahra Ahmed, who holds a prominent role as a Grenfell Tower volunteer coordinator, reportedly claimed the victims were “burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice.” The Times has today reported about Ms Ahmed’s many alleged antisemitic outbursts.Labour campaigner Daniel Harris reportedly suspended after posting video of councillors wearing Jewish prayer shawls and hats
After the tragic fire that left 71 dead, Ms Ahmed said that she had been coordinating the work of volunteers, coaching them and running workshops with the aim of empowering them. She has reportedly discussed her beliefs with some of the people she has helped. When The Times confronted her about her views, she said that she did not care about other people’s opinions.
According to the paper, she reportedly said: “Watch the live footage of people trapped in the inferno with flames behind them. They were burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice. Grenfell is owned by a private Jewish property developer just like the twin towers. I wonder how much Goldman [Goldman Sachs, a bank often targeted by antisemites] is standing to make in the world’s most expensive real estate location [Kensington].”
Attending a town hall protest two days after the fire, she told reporters there that the fire was a “holocaust.” She has allegedly previously described the Holocaust as the “holohoax” and posted on Facebook: “Hitler and the Germans were the victims of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy Germany.” She is also a proponent of the antisemitic conspiracy theory that the 9/11 terror attacks were faked by Jews. In one Facebook comment found by Campaign Against Antisemitism after The Times published its article, she wrote: “All the leadership of ISIS is directly recruited by CIA and the leadership are all Arab Jews, trained by Mossad.”
Councillors in Kensington and Chelsea are reportedly so worried about unchecked volunteers’ involvement with Grenfell Tower survivors that they have written to the Secretary of State to complain.
Daniel Harris, a Labour Party housing campaigner in Brighton and Hove, has reportedly been suspended from the party pending an investigation after posting a Chanukah video on Facebook into which he allegedly added the faces of council leader Warren Morgan and his colleagues, Anne Meadows and Caroline Penn. They are seen wearing the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, and the black hats of charedi Jews, while animated Stars of David hang in the background and are visible on floor.AP Adds Info on 2014 Tunnel Attack: Five Israeli Soldiers Killed
Former Hove MP Ivor Caplin told the Brighton and Hove News: “I was appalled that any member of the Labour Party could think that this is any way you could treat Labour councillors.” He said that two of the three councillors in question had significant Jewish connections, adding that this was a time for the Party to show zero tolerance “to this kind of antisemitism.”
After being accused of antisemitism, Mr Harris reportedly described the video as “a bit of fun”. He shared the news of his suspension in a Facebook post and reportedly said that he would fight his suspension.
A Labour Party spokeman reportedly told the JC: “The Party takes all complaints extremely seriously. A Labour Party member has been suspended from the Party pending an investigation.”
Following the correspondence with CAMERA, AP commendably updated the article, adding that five soldiers were killed in the Hamas attack. The amended article now states: "Although they did not manages to reach civilian areas, the infiltrations caught Israel off guard, killing five soldiers in one attack, and terrified the local population."Newsweek Corrects: Susiya Not Under 'Palestinian Control' Since 1830s
CAMERA's timely action vis-à-vis yesterday's AP article underscores the value of the organization's work monitoring and responding to wire stories in the same news cycle as they appear. With this preemptive work, CAMERA improves coverage in wire service stories before they appear in media outlets around the world.
If a West Bank Arab village called Susiya has been in place since the 1830s – (B'Tselem claims it has existed "for at least a century," but then goes on to qualify that "photographs from 1980 show cultivated farmland and livestock pens," but not homes) – it was not under "Palestinian control" at that time or any time. Indeed, the land where Susiya is located was under Ottoman control until 1917, at which point it fell under British control as part of the Mandate. In 1948, when the British withdrew, and Israel's war of Independence ensued, the West Bank land where Susiya is located fell under Jordanian control. The Jordanians ruled that territory until the Six Day War, at which point, Israel gained control of the West Bank, including the land where Susiya is located. Israel has maintained control of that area to this day.How Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theorists Sustain Their Convictions
As for the Palestinians, the first Palestinian government ever in history came into existence in the 1990s, thanks to the Oslo Accords, which established the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, the Oslo Accords determined that Susiya is part of Area C, meaning that it is under full Israeli civilian and security control. The status of that land has not changed since that time. Thus, contrary to Bellesteros' claim that Susiya has been in "Palestinian control since the 1830s," not for one day in history has Susiya been under Palestinian control.
Following requests to correct from CAMERA staff and members, Newsweek commendably removed the false claim that Susiya has been under "Palestinian control since the 1930s."
All modernists share the common reflex of dismissing as a smear tactic any charge that they are anti-Semites. In their various ways, they have ensured that the essence of the Protocols—the fundamental insistence that the freedom of Jews necessitates the enslavement of gentiles—is as influential today as at any other time in recent history.Anti-Semitism in France has deep roots and ‘new masks,’ French PM says
I say this because we can see plainly and on a regular basis the profound material impact of these poisoned conspiratorial notions. For example: in September and October, the Iranian regime, the Iraqi government, and Turkey all colluded in crushing the aspirations of the Iraqi Kurds who voted overwhelmingly for independence. Part of their justification for doing so was the fatuous lie that an independent Kurdistan would be—in the phraseology of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi—a “second Israel,” a new homeland for 250,000 Jews of Kurdish origin just waiting for the signal to colonize another part of Islam’s domain.
Or look at France, whose 750,000 Jews, despite constituting less than 1 percent of the population, were the targets in 2016 of 30 percent of violent hate crimes in the country. Over the last decade, there has been a growing trend of young criminals, frequently from immigrant backgrounds, targeting Jews for kidnapping and robbery as a consequence of the genuinely-held view that all Jews are rich. In one especially ugly instance last September, Roger Pinto, a Sephardi leader, was tied down by intruders in his Paris home who beat his wife and son as they demanded the liquid cash and jewelry that they knew, for sure, were stashed somewhere.
Where do these ideas come from? In the French case, there is a toxic blend of native anti-Semitism and streetwise Islamist loathing of the snooty Jews, most of which can in fact be traced back to the Protocols. In the case of Erdogan and the others, anti-Semitism is a political strategy, based on deeply-held convictions about how Jews, as a global collective, manipulate power. In the other cases in Europe and America discussed by Laqueur, any charge of anti-Semitism, after being instantly characterized as merely another tool in the armory of the Jewish lobby, is countered with a seemingly inexhaustible stream of novel and inventive conspiracy theories: that Hitler “supported Zionism,” that the IDF “smuggles human organs,” that Jews stand in equal measure behind, on the one hand, “globalists” like George Soros and, on the other hand, “fascists” like Donald Trump, that the hand of Israel lies behind the barbarians of Islamic State—and so on and so forth.
In the final analysis, anti-Semitism is a dirty case that can be advanced only by dirty means. The anti-Semites of Tsar Nicholas’ time may not have been entirely convinced of that, but any lingering doubts have long since been dispelled.
Amid attacks in Europe on Jews following the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe condemned anti-Semitism “that always tries to justify itself with new pretext,” and which he said has deep roots in France.IsraellyCool: ESPN: Israel “Exceptionally Desirable Place to Live For Majority of Americans and Foreign Players”
Philippe’s remarks, which were unusual for his acknowledgment of the phenomenon’s depth in his country, came Sunday during a speech before approximately 700 participants in the eight annual conference of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.
“In our country, anti-Semitism is alive. It is not new, it is ancient. It is not superficial, it is well-rooted and it is alive. And it hides always behind new masks, attempts to justify itself through diverse reasons. This ideology of hate is here, it’s present and it’s making some French Jews to make aliyah,” Philippe said, using the Hebrew word for immigration by Jews to Israel. “It should be a spiritual choice but it pains all citizens of the republic when it’s a form of self exile, made out of insecurity and fear.”
Following President Donald Trump’s declaration Wednesday on Jerusalem, a kosher restaurant was attacked in the Netherlands by a Palestinian waving his national flag, and 20 men hurled firebombs at a synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden. In Paris and Lyon, protesters against the declaration promoted a boycott of Israel, which is illegal in France, and cheered and called for freedom for Palestinians convicted of murder charges who are in Israeli prisons.
Philippe also reported that anti-Semitic attacks in France had dropped by 20 percent this year over 2016, with a total of 216 incidents between January and October of 2017. On Trump’s recognition, which France opposes, Philippe said: “No one can deny the attachment of the Jewish people to Jerusalem.” But, he added, peace between Israel and the Palestinians must be “negotiated on the basis of international laws,” and this makes France “worried about unilateral decisions of any country.”
In a piece on the Top basketball leagues in the world outside the NBA, ESPN has ranked the Israeli Basketball Premier League at number 13, just under Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL).Archaeologists uncover bittersweet end of 1,800-year-old Tiberias menorah
But it’s what is written about Israel that brings a smile to my face.
13. Israeli Basketball Premier League
While the money in Israel is relatively low outside of the two traditional power clubs, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem, no league in the world is able to garner so many players for salaries often well beneath their market value. This is largely because Israel is an exceptionally desirable place to live for the majority of Americans and foreign players. Money is always paid on time, players are treated well by both the clubs and fans, and the quality of life in Israel is very good.
Why would Crusaders decorate a staircase with the carving of a menorah? This archaeological mystery — almost two millennia in the making — was recently solved, seven years after the Jewish symbol was discovered in a Hebrew University excavation of ancient Tiberias.
The massive menorah, originally carved on a basalt tomb door, is tangible evidence of the city’s dramatic historical periods in the past centuries, under the world’s three major monotheistic religions.
The 68×78-centimeter (27×31 inch) seven-stemmed menorah was uncovered in a dig led by The Hebrew University’s Dr. Katya Tzitrin Silverman, which has been ongoing since 2009. The door the menorah decorated was typical of a Jewish tomb from circa 150-350 CE, said Silverman in conversation with The Times of Israel on Monday.
The point at which the circa 1,800-year-old menorah was uncovered in Tiberias. (Hebrew University)
After the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem, Tiberias was a center for Jewish life. It is thought that the Sanhedrin, the court of Jewish law and scholarship, sat in Tiberias from circa 190 CE.
Following Muslim conquest in 635 CE, the city became a seat for the early caliphate. It was during this period, archaeologist Silverman said, that the menorah door was reused as the base of a mosque, which was built on an earlier mosque, said Silverman.
Because the door was not found in situ, researchers cannot exactly pinpoint its provenance. However, said Silverman, it is clear that the use of this door by the Muslims in building a mosque was highly intentional. The mosque, she said, also contained reused pagan and Christian pillars, which were put on display as corner pieces.
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