Caroline Glick: Europe’s war against the Jewish state
Europe is the epicenter of the political war against Israel. Europe fights Israel on the streets of Europe. Europe fights Israel in the corridors of power in Brussels, other Western European capitals and the UN. Europe fights Israel in Israel itself.Ben Shapiro: No, Protests And Violence Against Israel Aren’t Trump’s Fault. They’re Just Anti-Semitism.
Europe’s war against Israel is a passive-aggressive campaign fought and denied simultaneously. But in recent years, the mask has fallen over and over again.
In the days that have passed since US President Donald Trump’s dramatic announcement that the US recognizes that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and is beginning to take concrete steps to move its embassy to the city, Europe’s war against Israel has again become impossible to deny or ignore. Europe’s response to Trump’s announcement has been extreme, violent and more outspoken than the response of the Arab world.
The EU-funded Palestinian Authority reacted to Trump’s move by exhorting its subjects to riot and attack Israelis.
Sunday, Yassin Abu el-Qura heeded his call. Qura stabbed Asher Elmalich in the heart and critically wounded him. Elmalich was a security guard at Jerusalem’s central bus station.
According to Channel 2, Qura is a member of a prominent family of Fatah members with close ties to the PA and its EU- and US-funded and trained security forces. His father is the commander of one of the security forces in Salfit, in Samaria. Two of his brothers are also PA security officers.
Around the same time Qura was stabbing Elmalich, the British government announced it was providing the PA with 20 million pounds in supplemental budgetary funding.
Qura’s attack was notable because it took place against the backdrop of lackluster attendance at PA-organized protests. As former US Middle East mediator Aaron David Miller tweeted on Sunday, the low attendance at these demonstrations, like the low attendance at anti-US and anti-Israel demonstrations in the Arab world is an “indication of how much the region has changed [in recent years] and the loss of centrality of [the] Palestinian issue. [The] Palestinian street is exhausted; the Arab street has disappeared.”
But while the Arab street was indifferent to Trump’s declaration, the European street went berserk. Thousands of protesters assembled in London and Paris, in Berlin and Stockholm. They burned Israeli flags and called for the annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews.
On Monday, a would-be suicide bomber failed at killing Americans in the same way he failed at life: self-implosion followed by utter shame and humiliation. But Ayaked Ullah, 27, still garnered a hint of media sympathy by stating that Israel’s recent bombings of the Gaza Strip had driven him to action. According to CNN:
Recent Israeli actions in Gaza compelled Ullah to carry out the attack, a law enforcement source said. The suspect was upset, in his words, with the "incursion into Gaza," the source said, but did not elaborate on what incursion he may have been alluding to. Israel launched airstrikes this weekend against what it said were Hamas targets in Gaza after several rockets were fired out of Gaza towards Israel. This came amid widespread protests over President Trump's move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
This is asinine. The attack was planned for a certain amount of time; the only incursions into Gaza happened this weekend. But this is the constant lie from Islamist sympathizers: that it’s Israel that lies beneath their evil. That’s not true. It’s hatred of Jews.
In Malmo, Sweden, a synagogue was firebombed, supposedly in retaliation for President Trump’s announcement that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem. What does the synagogue have to do with Trump’s announcement? Nothing. But Jews are Jews, and must be attacked. Protesters in Malmo chanted, “We want our freedom back, and we will shoot the Jews.” A second synagogue was firebombed in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Meanwhile, in London, protesters chanted, “Khybar, khybar,” a Koranic call to violence against Jews. And in New York, Imam Mohammad Qatanani of Passaic, New Jersey chanted, “With our souls and our blood, we will redeem you, oh Aqsa!” Nerdeen Kiswani, representing the New York City Students for Justice in Palestine, shouted that all of “Palestine” should be liberated, including Tel Aviv. Demonstrators chanted “Khybar” as well.
Does any of that have to do with Jerusalem? Does any of it have to do with Israel? Or does all of it have to do with religious hatred of Jews?
Trump Did Not Bring Jerusalem Crashing Down
On Friday, it seemed that every journalist in Jerusalem was waiting for something to happen at the Damascus Gate in the Old City—one of the most popular entrances Muslims use to reach the famous Al-Aqsa mosque for Friday afternoon prayers, and a common site for big protests. Yet the resulting melee was not the massive demonstration everyone seemed to be waiting for.
Israeli soldiers stood in dozen-person groups at the entrances Muslims use to reach Al-Aqsa, and in frequent smaller clumps all along the way. I asked one soldier stationed at the corner of Al-Wad, the street leading to the mosque, whether this Friday was any different from others, and whether he expected any problems. He smiled, and said it was the same as any other day. A few feet away, a man selling bread concurred. “Every day is a day of rage,” he told me in Arabic.
The divided city is one claimed by both Israelis (in West Jerusalem) and Palestinians (in East Jerusalem) as their capital, and American presidents have typically treated its status as an issue to be resolved through negotiations. In the wake of Trump’s announcement, people in the Palestinian half of the city are angry, but few seemed eager for the new intifada, or uprising, that some Muslim leaders are calling for.
Crowds of men began streaming into the city for midday prayers. A few older women obligingly shouted things like “Trump is bad!” when they saw the waiting crowd of foreign journalists. All was quiet for about an hour, and then the same giant crowd streamed back out, many people stopping to shop on their way back to the Damascus Gate, where the cameras were conveniently waiting.
The area outside Damascus Gate is literally set up like a stage: Big steps lead down on three sides to the lowered platform where people emerge from the Old City. A few dozen people stood on the steps and chanted in Arabic, holding a sign featuring a truck that called on America to “dump Trump” and another sign showing Trump’s lips as urinals. A throng of journalists surrounded this group, outnumbering them roughly three-to-one. As protesters moved, the cameras shifted around them, moving like a flock of birds near a power line. Most Palestinians, however, went home.
John Bolton: Trump's Jerusalem Declaration Long Overdue
At a stroke, Trump has also extinguished numerous fantasies still thriving at the United Nations and in many national capitals around the world. The first is that several General Assembly resolutions from the U.N.'s early days in the late 1940s still have any force or effect. Trump's announcement, for example, means that Resolution 181 (creating an Arab and a Jewish state out of Britain's Palestinian mandate and establishing Jerusalem as a corpus separatum — an independent city under U.N. Trusteeship Council authority) is a dead letter. Moreover, the so-called "right of return" for Palestinian refugees arising from Israel's 1947-49 war of independence, long out of date and flatly rejected by Israel, is now also on history's trash heap.Trump’s actions have confirmed historical truth
Trump's embassy decision helps bring into focus the real issues that now need to be addressed. The Middle East peace process has long needed clarity and an injection of reality, and Trump has provided it. Palestinian leaders have for decades said that moving the embassy would bring negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to a grinding halt. That is true only if the Palestinians wish it, and would demonstrate that their commitment to true peace that recognizes the permanence of Israel was a snowflake, insincere from the start.
No lasting peace can be based on illusions, and Trump's approach has made that objective more rather than less likely.
Unfortunately, the primary obstacle to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Day 1 has been and continues to be the Palestinians’ rejection of the right of self-determination for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland - including Jerusalem - and that is the crux of the problem and, quite possibly, the reason for Trump’s dramatic change of policy.
To undermine any basis for compromise with Israel, Palestinian leaders flatly deny any ancient Jewish connection to the land. They claim that there never was a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. Yet their own history belies this claim. In 1929, the Supreme Moslem Council’s publication: "A Brief Guide to the Haram Al-Sharif," stated on p. 4 that "(The Temple Mount’s) identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute." (After 1954, however, all such references to the biblical Temples disappeared from this publication). In addition, neither the PLO’s National Charter nor the Fatah Covenant drafted during Jordanian rule (1948-1967) even mention Jerusalem, let alone called for its establishment as a Palestinian capital.
Though Trump affirmed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he did refrain from calling it the undivided capital of Israel - suggesting that the US would still support potentially dividing Jerusalem between the Israelis and the Palestinians as part of any future peace negotiations. Indeed, he explicitly stated that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty and Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations of a future peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis, although Palestinian actions over the decades, unfortunately, suggest that such an agreement is unlikely to say the least.
For peace to come, the Palestinians must decide that they have more to gain by giving up the conflict and recognizing Israel than by perpetuating the conflict until Israel has been annihilated. But that is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future because according to a recent study by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Palestinian Authority budget has committed $154 million for salaries of imprisoned and released terrorists and $192 million for the families of those "martyred" in their war to murder Israelis and to exterminate Israel, for a total expenditure of $346 million!
My debate on @france24 tonight on consequences of US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem- "Game Changer? Middle East Diplomacy after Trump's Jerusalem Move" https://t.co/fMMqZuXz8M— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) December 11, 2017
Shmuley Boteach: Jewish groups’ disgraceful rejection of Jerusalem recognition
This notion that Israelis and Palestinians have not reached an agreement because the Einstein of peace negotiations has not been born yet reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of the conflict. There is no shortage of peace plans, many of which seem reasonable. The problem is not the plans, it is the Palestinians’ refusal to contemplate any compromise that accepts the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.Jewish Agency chief: Reform criticism of Trump’s Jerusalem move was ‘terrible’
Never was this clearer than in 2000, when prime minister Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip (before Israel did so unilaterally in 2005) and 97% of the West Bank, evacuate most settlements and give the Palestinians sovereignty over some parts of Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat vetoed the deal, and Abbas rejected a similar offer in 2008.
The dispute is not about land: it is historical, geographic, political, psychological and, perhaps most important, religious. It is unacceptable to the Palestinians that Jews should rule over Muslims or have a state on what they consider Islamic territory. Look at their maps and their symbols, which show “Palestine” replacing Israel. I defy anyone to show me an official Palestinian map that depicts a Palestinian state beside Israel – with or without east Jerusalem as its capital.
And, incidentally, what right does J Street have to speak for the people of Israel in offering to divide the capital of the Jewish people?
Talk about chutzpah.
Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky on Tuesday lambasted the Reform movement’s critical response to US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last week.Response to Trump move is about Jew hatred
“The Reform response to the recognition of Jerusalem was terrible,” Sharansky, an influential backer of the Reform movement’s position on the Western Wall and other matters, said in a Hebrew-language radio interview.
“Everything that comes out of Trump is bad, from their perspective. When the leader of a superpower recognizes Jerusalem, first you have to welcome it, then offer disagreement. Here it was the opposite,” he told Israel Radio.
After last Wednesday’s recognition by Trump, the head of the Reform movement’s synagogue umbrella body, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, wrote that Trump’s declaration “affirms what the Reform Jewish movement has long held: that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Yet while we share the President’s belief that the US Embassy should, at the right time, be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, we cannot support his decision to begin preparing that move now, absent a comprehensive plan for a peace process.”
Jacobs also said that the White House should not undermine efforts toward making peace between Israel and the Palestinians by “making unilateral decisions that are all but certain to exacerbate the conflict.”
The statement has already come under criticism from Israeli officials. Last week, Israel’s consul general in New York, Dani Dayan, called Jacobs’s statement “deeply frustrating and disappointing because Jerusalem is the uniting force of the Jewish people.”
To anyone unfamiliar with the burning cauldron of Mideast politics, it must seem bizarre.
How can people around the world be rioting, firing rockets at Israel, firebombing a synagogue in Sweden and threatening even more terrorism over U.S. President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel?
And promising to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv within three years?
After all, Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital since its founding in 1948.
It’s the home of Israel’s parliament, Supreme Court, many government departments and the prime minister’s residence, similar to Ottawa in Canada.
But in Israel, to be understood, everything has to be seen through the prism of the stalled peace process intended to create an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside a secure Israel.
Because of those negotiations, the United Nations — whose Security Council, except for the U.S., of course, officially condemned Trump’s announcement on Saturday — refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Antisemitic Chants, Calls for New Intifada at a Times Square Demonstration Protesting Trump's Jerusalem Declaration pic.twitter.com/HE3EXEHPpS— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 11, 2017
Watch: Fighting online BDS in wake of Jerusalem declaration
President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital received many reactions and the anti-Israeli organizations did not hesitate to respond as well.
Following the declaration, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, together with the head of the leftist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), held a live video chat on the JVP's Facebook page this past weekend.
Members of the Act.il initiative decided to take action and fight against the anti-Israeli campaign within the Facebook broadcast itself.
“Act.il is a joint venture between IDC Herzliya and the IAC, which is the Israeli-American Council,” says Alyse Lichtenfeld, a student at IDC Herzliya and an intern at Act.il.
The goal of the project “is to build online communities to act on behalf of Israel on social media platforms.”
Pence, an architect of Jerusalem recognition, plans triumphant visit
Over the course of six weeks, as staff for Vice President Mike Pence consulted with Palestinian officials in Washington to plan meetings and fashion an itinerary for his December trip to the West Bank, Pence himself was quietly pushing President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital – a move the Palestinians now believe rendered their conversations moot.'What country is Jerusalem in?'
Pence and his team were not surprised when Palestinian Authority leadership called off their meetings in the wake of Trump's December 6 announcement on Jerusalem – and have already filled in much of his scheduled day in Bethlehem with alternative plans, senior administration officials tell The Jerusalem Post.
Sources say little effort was made to salvage the meetings, and there has been virtually no direct communication between Pence's staff and Palestinian officials since the two sides began sniping over the Jerusalem decision in the press.
Pence proved instrumental in Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to initiate the relocation of America's embassy there from Tel Aviv, despite opposition from the rest of the world and much of the president's national security council. Trump's announcement was intentionally correlated with Pence's upcoming travel to Israel, an administration official said, where he will tout the move as a historic achievement for Christians and specify its meaning in US policy terms.
Last week, the vice president stood beside Trump as he made the announcement in the White House diplomatic reception room, and offered praise for the move that aides say comes from the heart. He was one of the most enthused advocates of the move– one warmly welcomed by the Israeli government. His trip there will be a triumphant tour and defense of the policy from a true believer who has supported recognition of Jerusalem for many years.
But Pence's trip was never meant to focus on the Middle East peace process – a subject not within his portfolio. The vice president is not formally involved in efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks, led by Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, and Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations. Palestinian leaders privately question his commitment to the peace effort.
Jerusalem might be the capital of Israel, but the United States is still hard pressed to say that it is actually part of the state of Israel.After Iron Dome shoots down rocket fired at Ashkelon, IDF hits Gaza targets
“What country is Jerusalem in?" Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asked Acting Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs David Satterfield last Thursday at a press briefing in Washington.
To Israelis, his question might be akin to asking if the sky was blue. But Lee was not being facetious.
It was just one day after US President Donald Trump’s dramatic announcement that the US Embassy would be relocated to Jerusalem.
Still, Satterfield did not respond to Lee with the simple one word answer: Israel.
Instead he explained, “The President [on December 6th] recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.”
Lee pressed on, asking if the US “officially recognized” that Jerusalem was part of Israel.
Satterfield clarified during the briefing that Trump’s statement did not mean US policy had shifted with regard to Israeli sovereignty over the city.
Israeli forces attacked Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip early Tuesday after Palestinians fired a rocket toward the southern city of Ashkelon, the army said. The rocket was intercepted by an Iron Dome anti-missile battery.Wave of road terror across Judea and Samaria
After the rocket fire, Israeli aircraft and a tank attacked Hamas sites in the Strip, the army said, noting that it holds the terror group, which runs Gaza, responsible for all rocket attacks.
This was the second round of Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli responses in the day.
The rocket, fired at about 11:30 p.m., triggered early warning sirens in Ashkelon, the Lachish region and in the area around the Gaza Strip.
The IDF said the Iron Dome successfully intercepted the rocket. No injuries were reported.
A wave of Arab terror attacks have swept Judea and Samaria roads in the past 24 hours, according to Moked 443.IDF demands answers after Palestinian ambulance filmed carting protesters
Terrorists threw stones at passing vehicles last night near Al Fawar south of Hevron, damaging two vehicles as a result.
Similarly, terrorists threw stones on the Husan bypass road near the town of Beitar Illit south of Jerusalem, damaging the windshield of a passing vehicle, and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at passing vehicles near Maale Adumim.
On Route 458 northeast of Jerusalem, a woman reported a laser pointer being pointed at her face in an attempt to impair her ability to drive.
Near Ariel, a burning tire was reported to have been placed in the road. Security forces dealt with the incident.
In the past several hours, more stone-throwing attacks were reported near Yitzhar in Samaria, and near the Arab village of Tekoa [not to be confused with the Israeli town of Tekoa nearby].
Miraculously, nobody has been reported injured in the most recent slew of terror incidents.
A senior Israeli commander demanded answers from the Palestinian Red Crescent on Monday after one of its ambulances was captured on video appearing to drop off masked protesters at an active demonstration in Ramallah.PMW: Trump - "America's crazy man" - is the new Balfour
The video distributed by the IDF shows masked men disembarking from the ambulance that then continues to the scene of the confrontation, at a demonstration against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
"A Red Crescent ambulance was documented aided Palestinian rioters in Ramallah, under the guise of providing medical treatment,"wrote Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Major General Yoav Mordechai, in what the IDF termed a "sharp letter" to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross. "I view this with the utmost severity and demand the incident be investigated and that I be updated on its findings."
On its Arabic Language Facebook page, COGAT wrote that by taking the actions seen in the video, the Red Crescent violated its self-declared mission to remain neutral by avoiding taking sides in any political, religious or ethnic conflict.
The Red Crescent and the ICRC have yet to issue a public response.
Although it is too early to say if there's any connection, today’s attempted terror attack in NY follows intense Palestinian Authority incitement against Israel and the US including calls for violence, in response to Pres. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last week has by PA leaders been compared to what they call "the ominous Balfour Promise" - the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which then British foreign minister Arthur Balfour expressed Britain's support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
The NY Times "Explains" Jerusalem – and its Mistakes Explain Much
Trump's declaration is seen by the PA as "a second version" of the Balfour Declaration, and they describe Trump's "crime" in the same terms: "One who is not the owner gave to one who has no right":
"[PA] Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is said that the American administration's decision against the holy city [of Jerusalem] constitutes a blatant provocation towards the Arabs and Muslims, and described it as the second Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration), which was given by one who has no ownership to one who has no right. He emphasized that Jerusalem is Arab, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an Islamic mosque by virtue of a divine decision, and is not subject to any decision such as this or another." [Ma'an, independent Palestinian news agency, Dec. 7, 2017]
Secretary-General of the PA Islamic-Christian Council for Jerusalem and the Holy Places and Fatah Revolutionary Council member Hanna Issa also reiterated this analysis of the American recognition:
"Yesterday was the second Balfour Promise or the Trump Promise, [in] which one who is not the owner gave to one who has no right."
[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, Dec. 7, 2017]
Did the United Nations designate Jerusalem as "a special international zone." No it did not. Instead the United Nations General Assembly passed in 1947 UNGA Res. 181, the so-called "partition resolution," which called for the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state out of the territory of the British-run Palestine Mandate. According to that resolution Jerusalem and its environs would be a "corpus separatum" under UN trusteeship for up to 10 years, after which the residents would decide its fate by referendum.PA leader urges Arab world to rally against US Jerusalem decision
But as a General Assembly resolution it couldn't "designate" or determine anything, it could only suggest. The Israelis accepted the resolution, while all the Arab states denounced it, voted against it, and vowed to destroy Israel the moment the British left.
The Arabs were true to their words and invaded Israel the moment the Mandate ended and the British departed, but much to their surprise they lost the ensuing war. Their decision to ignore and violate the resolution rendered it moot, so there never was a UN designated "international zone" for Jerusalem.
Of course, had the Arab states and the Palestinians accepted the resolution and chosen to live in peace with Israel, there would be a Palestinian state about to celebrate its 70th year of existence, and there wouldn't have been a single Palestinian refugee. But the Times writers either don't know this or don't want their readers to know it.
And there's more wrong with the above excerpt – calling Jerusalem a "sacred site" for Israelis and Palestinians misleads much more than it explains, since the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the holiest site for Jews, with no other site coming close. It is as holy to Jews as Mecca and Medina are to Muslims, and there is no similarly holy site in Jerusalem for Muslims.
The Times also writes that during the war in 1948 "Israel seized the city's western half [and then] seized the eastern half during the next Arab-Israeli war, in 1967."
Israel didn't seize the western half of Jerusalem, which was created and populated almost entirely by Jews, it defended it against Arab invaders, but lost the ancient Jewish quarter of the Old City and other parts of what is often termed east Jerusalem to the invading Jordanian forces.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday intensified efforts to rally Middle Eastern countries against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, setting up talks with Arab leaders beginning in Cairo.Official PA daily columnist: Israel is the enemy of all the Arabs and targets all the Arab states
Abbas met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who has been a key broker in past peace talks with Israel and between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.
Abbas and el-Sissi agreed to continue high-level coordination and to use the widespread rejection of the U.S. move to maintain the rights of the Palestinians, a statement from the Egyptian presidency said.
Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said there would be an Arab move to preserve the rights of the Palestinian people soon.
Abbas was scheduled to head to Istanbul later on Monday to give a speech at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Arab states condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's Jerusalem decision last week, and vowed to press international bodies to take action against it. The Arab Parliament held an emergency meeting on the issue in Cairo on Monday, state news agency MENA reported.
Palestinian official urges Istanbul summit: Recognize Jerusalem as our capital
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to bring together Muslim countries in Istanbul on Wednesday as part of Ankara’s response to Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This is likely to ramp up tensions in Jerusalem after the Turkish president on December 10 called Israel a “state of occupation and a terror state,” according to Hurriyet Daily News. The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governor, meanwhile, called on countries that will attend the meeting to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.Turkey chides Arab leaders for 'weak' reaction ahead of Jerusalem summit
On December 6, Erdogan invited the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to an emergency meeting in Istanbul. Ibrahim Kalin, the president’s spokesperson, said Erdogan had spoken with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and other Muslim heads of state in Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tunisia and Indonesia.
Ankara was outraged by the US president’s Jerusalem decision. “We will continue to stand with the oppressed. We will use every opportunity we have for our first qibla, Jerusalem,” the Turkish president said on Sunday, according to Turkish media, referring to Islamic prayers and the holy city. Turkey has accused the US of being a “partner in bloodshed,” and Turkish media have been awash with a photo of a blindfolded Palestinian teenager being led away by IDF troops.
This comes in the context of Turkish anger over the US support for the Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria, which Turkey sees as a partner of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, as well as the Kurdistan Workers Party, which it and other countries view as a terrorist organization. In October, the US and Turkey were embroiled in a controversy over visas and the two countries have strained relations.
Turkey criticized what it said was a feeble Arab reaction to the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying on the eve of Wednesday's Muslim summit in Istanbul that some Arab countries were scared of angering Washington.Poll: 91% of Palestinians oppose Trump Jerusalem move
President Tayyip Erdogan, who has accused the United States of ignoring Palestinian claims to east Jerusalem and "trampling on international law," has invited leaders from more than 50 Muslim countries to agree a response.
Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam's third holiest site and has been at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.
US President Donald Trump's announcement last week recognizing the city as Israel's capital angered many Muslim countries, but few governments have matched Turkey's warning that it would plunge the world "into a fire with no end."
Several countries had still not said who they would send to Istanbul, a Turkish minister said.
"Some Arab countries have shown very weak responses (on Jerusalem)," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. "It seems some countries are very timid of the United States."
A new Palestinian opinion poll finds overwhelming opposition to US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Female terrorists in Gaza threaten intifada after Trump announcement
The poll found that 91 percent consider Trump’s declaration last week a threat to Palestinian interests.
Almost half, or 45%, believe the Palestinians should cut all contacts with the US, submit a complaint to the International Criminal Court and launch an armed uprising.
While Trump said his declaration does not prejudge future talks on the status of Jerusalem, 72% of respondents said they believe his administration will not submit any peace plan. It also found widespread distrust of the Palestinians’ Arab allies.
Dozens of female members of the Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades marched through Gaza this week in protest of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Malmö was the canary in the coal mine warning of European Islamist anti-Semitism
Accompanied by hundreds of burqa-clad women, the armed fighters, who are part of the military wing of the terrorist group, burned the US flag and vowed to “redeem Palestine with our souls and our blood,” according to video footage posted by Lebanese U-News on Monday and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
One fighter told the US president, “Trump, Jerusalem is ours,” and slammed the other Arab nations for ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. “As for the Arabs,” she said, “No matter how much we talk, they remain asleep, especially Saudi Arabia and its allies.”
Another woman threatened: “Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem. We will strike Tel Aviv,” while a third said that an intifada would continue until Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque had been liberated.
Elsewhere, in the Al-Ameen Mosque in Gaza, in another clip translated by MEMRI, an elementary school student, Ubeida Abu Kmeil, could be seen giving a sermon calling for the liberation of all of Israel from the “plundering Jews.”
The canary has died.
Malmö, Sweden, is in the news again, and a lot of people are paying attention, because of chants of “Shoot the Jews” at protests against American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Along with the firebombing of a synagogue in Göteborg, and chants of “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning” in Malmö, Berlin and London, there is shock at the rise of Islamist-driven anti-Semitism in European cities.
[“Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud” celebrates Muslim victory over the Jews.]
But it should come as no shock. At least not if you have been reading our coverage of Malmö dating back to February 2010, with the post Malmö Syndrome:
Demonstration in Malmö, Sweden in Protest of U.S. President Trump's Jerusalem Declaration: Shoot Jews, the Army of Muhammad Is Coming Back pic.twitter.com/vKLMtDKj4r— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 11, 2017
Second Jewish building in Sweden attacked with firebombs
Swedish police on Monday said they were probing an attempted arson against a Jewish chapel after a similar attack against a synagogue, which came in the wake of the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.After 2nd firebombing, Swedish anti-Semitism watchdog warns of wave of attacks
Two burning objects were thrown at the chapel, located at a Jewish cemetery, in Sweden’s third largest city of Malmo, the Jewish assembly said in a statement on Monday.
The Local news website said Molotov cocktails had been thrown at the building.
Malmo police spokesman Lars Forstell told AFP that the incident is being investigated “as an attempted arson” and that the motive is unclear.
No serious damage was done to the building and no one was hurt.
But the Jewish assembly in Malmo said it sees the incident as “extremely serious.”
In the aftermath of a second anti-Semitic attack this week in southern Sweden, the spokesman for a local watchdog group said the Jewish community must prepare or a wave of attacks but will not go underground.PreOccupiedTerritory: Swedish Court: Firebombing Synagogues Is Protected Speech (satire)
Willy Silberstein, spokesman for the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism, spoke to JTA on Monday hours after an incident in Malmo in which police said they discovered traces of a flammable fluid near a Jewish cemetery that they suspect had been targeted by arsonists.
There is a wave of anti-Semitic attacks right now, and I suspect this won’t be the last incident,” Silberstein said.
A spokesman for the Swedish police said there were no suspects in custody in connection with the incident.
On Saturday night, several men hurled firebombs at a synagogue in the nearby city of Gothenburg hours after hundreds marched through the city in protest of the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on Wednesday in a White House announcement by President Donald Trump. Three arrests were made.
A magistrate in this Scandinavian city has ruled that the perpetrators of two Molotov cocktail attacks against Jewish houses of worship in the last three days may not be prosecuted under criminal law, as they were exercising their legal right to freedom of expression.Palestinians Pushing UN Security Council to Reverse US Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital
Judge Lars Ferwerds ordered fourteen men detained Saturday and Monday for the firebomb attack be released immediately and the charges against them dropped this morning, and criticized the police for infringing on the men’s rights. The group had participated in assaults on synagogues to protest US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The attack forced dozens of Jews inside one of the the buildings to seek shelter in the basement as they awaited rescue.
“Shame on the police for limiting freedom of expression,” pronounced the judge. “European civilization has advanced to the point where vehement disagreement is now treated as a legitimate position, not to be repressed.”
Lawyers for the defendants praised the judge’s decision. “It has long been recognized that Muslim anger may not be restrained by law enforcement,” stated a pleased Dimi Svensen, who represents four of those arrested. “This is especially the case when the anger is directed merely at Jews. The Court was correct in admonishing the police that the antisemitism is even more venerable and sacrosanct than all other notions in European legal tradition.”
The Palestinians are pushing the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to demand that the US reverse its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.IsraellyCool: Antisemitic and Anti-Israel Celebrities Attack Trump Over Jerusalem In Lie-Riddled Letter
At an emergency session of the UNSC on Friday convened by eight of the council’s 15 members, 14 member states condemned the US move.
“We are satisfied that there are 14 countries in the Security Council that are defending international law, defending Security Council resolutions as they relate to Jerusalem and rejecting the unilateral, illegal decisions by President [Donald] Trump two days ago,” said Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour.
Due to US being one of five permanent members of the UNSC, the passage of a resolution on the matter is unlikely.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley defended the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, stating that America remains a credible peace partner in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She blamed the world body for being the real obstacle to peace.
“The United States has credibility with both sides. Israel will never be, and should never be, bullied into an agreement by the United Nations, or by any collection of countries that have proven their disregard for Israel’s security,” Haley said.
The US ambassador added that the UN has done “much more to damage the prospects for Middle East peace than to advance them.”
A number of celebrities already known for their anti-Israel and even antisemitic views (including Roger Waters and Ken Loach) have written a letter to The Guardian attacking Donald Trump for announcing recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.The PSC Lied
Naturally, it is full of scandalous lies.
You report (10 December) President Macron’s comment that recent US moves on the status of Jerusalem are a threat to peace. They are much more than that. In recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Donald Trump seeks to achieve through a declaration what Israel has been trying to do for 50 years through force of arms: to erase Palestinians, as a political and cultural presence, from the life of their own city. The Palestinian people of Jerusalem are already subject to municipal discrimination at every level, and a creeping process of ethnic cleansing.
In addition to the continuing policy of house demolitions, in the last 15 years at least 35 Palestinian public institutions and NGOs in occupied East Jerusalem have been permanently or temporarily closed by the occupying forces.
Cultural institutions have been a particular target. At the same time, Israeli authorities and entrepreneurs have spent millions in clearing Palestinian neighbourhoods to create “heritage” projects that promote a myth of mono-ethnic urban identity, said to stretch back 3,000 years.
Note also use of the words “their own city” – which suggests Jerusalem is a palestinian city. Yet at same time, talk of a 3,000-year Jewish identity in the city is characterized as a “myth”, in a denial of Jewish history that reeks of antisemitism.
These “artists” also object to the legal purchase of Jerusalem property. Apparently, people spending “millions” of their own hard-earned money (and conversely, others receiving millions of dollars) is a crime against humanity.
One also has to wonder what they mean when they say they “celebrate the resilience of Palestinians living under occupation.” I guess resilience=resistance=terrorism.
“As artists and as citizens, we challenge the ignorance and inhumanity of these policies.” No! The ignorance and inhumanity is your own.
In a statement put up on their Facebook page the Palestine Solidarity Campaign claimed the following;Headline Fail: ‘West Bank Colonization’
Unsurprisingly they’re lying. The chants took place throughout the demonstration. It’s not the first time they’ve refused to respond to the problems in their ranks. In fact it’s an ongoing theme with them. From David Collier’s report that they point blank refused to take seriously, to Tapash abu Shaim staffing their stall at Labour Party Conference (not to mention still being on their NEC) this is a movement that if it took serious action against antisemitism in its midst would have to clear out some its most important activists.
The Irish Times has a history of hostility towards Israel and its journalist Lara Marlowe has a history of anti-Israel articles, which has documented.No Back to Basics for the New York Times on Jerusalem
So it’s no surprise that the Irish Times’s report on a meeting between Israeli PM Netanyahu and French President Macron ran this headline along with Marlowe’s text:
It’s safe to assume that President Macron wouldn’t publicly use such a loaded term as “colonization” to discuss issues of Jewish settlements in the disputed territories, given the diplomatic sensitivities.
Therefore, Marlowe and the Irish Times have deliberately chosen to use that language.
Why?
Because the term, irrespective of one’s political views on settlements, implies that Jews are a foreign implant on the land and not indigenous to the region. Colonization also plays to the view of Israel itself as a product of colonialism and therefore illegitimate.
The New York Times offers its readers “The Jerusalem Issue, Explained.” It asks:IsraellyCool: Daniel in the Lions Den
If the NY Times was bothered about the basics, it would add some desperately needed context instead of falsely implying Israel simply “seized” Jerusalem in two wars.
Both the 1948 and 1967 wars were defensive. In 1948, Israel came to control the western half of Jerusalem after defeating invading Arab armies that had mounted a war of annihilation. In 1967, Israel took the eastern half of the city from its Jordanian occupiers, after the Jordanian army started shelling Israeli positions from within eastern Jerusalem.
In addition, the NY Times fails to note that the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan that would have implemented a UN-administered Jerusalem. The Jews had accepted the plan, which was, of course, rendered moot by the outcome of the war.
Kudos to this fine young man standing his ground with the Israeli flag – in the face of unadulterated hatred (including from a very young child) – at an anti-Israel demonstration at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Note at the end how his flag is ripped from his hands. Which is quite symbolic, given what they are trying to do to Israel itself.