Tuesday, May 15, 2018
The Quran, The Gospels And Tanach Say Jerusalem Is Jewish So Why Doesn’t Everyone?
According to UNESCO, the Palestinians, and the Muslim States, Israel, and the Jewish People have no right to Jerusalem. It is this fake belief that until Donald Trump became president, kept the U.S. from recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the Jewish world. Most of the world outside America continues to believe the Palestinian/Muslim propaganda that ignores that the ancient Greeks, Romans, Christians, and even the ancient Muslims, reported Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were the property of the Jewish people.John Podhoretz: The Embassy Moves
Let’s start out with the basics. Jerusalem was NEVER part of a Palestinian State because there was never an independent state of Palestine. After the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, the Romans punished the Judeans (Jews) for revolting for the second time in sixty years. They changed the name of their country from Judea to Syria Palaestina (after the ancient enemy of the Jews, the Philistines who were destroyed a thousand years earlier). At the same time, they changed the name of the holy city from Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina (literally Capitoline Hill of the House of Aelius). After the Romans threw out many of the Jews, the holy land was ruled by the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and finally, the British mandate before it once again became a Jewish State in 1948. During all that time, the holy land including Jerusalem had a very large population of Jews.
During the period of 135 CE through 1948, which was when Jordan began to occupy Jerusalem, there were large populations of Jews in Jerusalem. In fact, beginning with the earliest information available (1844), there were more Jews in Jerusalem than any other faith.
To the ancient Muslim, Greek, and Roman pagan authors, Jerusalem was a Jewish city. Their text indicates the unanimous agreement that Jerusalem was Jewish by virtue of the fact that its inhabitants were Jews, it was founded by Jews, and the Temple located in Jerusalem was the center of the Jewish religion.
So it has happened. The American embassy in Israel is now in Jerusalem, moving from Tel Aviv 70 years to the day the Jewish state came into being and 22 years since U.S. law declared it would move.Ben Shapiro: Why Democrats Missed the Boat in Jerusalem
Richard Haass, who runs the Council on Foreign Relations, this morning tweeted that the Embassy move was an iatrogenic mistake—iatrogenesis meaning a disease you catch from treating another. Well, that’s fast. There’s no evidence whatever there is any new disease. In fact, there is evidence of diseases healing all over the place.
Last week Arab states expressed support for Israel’s bombing raids on Iranian positions in Syria. I doubt Haass expected to see such a thing before the creation of a Palestinian state. Instead, what we’re seeing is Arab states apparently abandoning their insistence on a Palestinian state as the sine qua non for any relationship with Israel.
Yes, there are staged riots in Gaza right now, but in what sense is that new? Gazans have launched wars with Israel thrice in the past decade. If Haass truly thinks this is about the embassy and not about deeper and longer trends, I have a bridge from Gaza to the West Bank to sell him. The Gazans are goading Israeli forces into firing on them, and Europeans and American Leftists are screaming murder. And, again, what else is new.
Intersectionality posits that Western civilization has victimized particular groups, and that those groups therefore must have the leading role in discussing politics.
Thus, Israel’s success has actually cut against Democratic support: by becoming more prosperous and powerful, Israel now becomes a perpetuator of the “system” intersectionality wishes to attack. Thus, gay Jews waving rainbow flags with stars of David have been barred from Dyke Marches in Chicago on behalf of Palestinian sympathizers – even though rainbow flags likely end with beatings under Palestinian rule. Thus, Linda Sarsour, an openly anti-Semitic fellow traveler of Louis Farrakhan, continues to maintain her popularity with the Women’s March, even as she tweets hatred about Israel.
Israel has become too successful to maintain its appeal to the coalition of victimhood promulgated and celebrated by the intersectional Left. And so Israel must be denied legitimacy.
The problem for Democrats is that in order to deny Israel legitimacy – especially at a time when Palestinians are ruled by terrorist groups Hamas, Palestinian Authority, and Islamic Jihad – Israel’s historical ties to the land of Israel must be soft-pedaled. These terrorist governments have no moral claims to the land – not when they are busily pursuing murder and repression and impoverishment of their own people. So they must make historical claims that deny the Jewish connection with Israel. This, they do with alacrity. At the very least, then, intersectionality dictates that Democrats soft-pedal Israel’s Jewish roots in Jerusalem.
Never has there been less of a case for Democrats to split with Republicans on Israel – not in the face of Iran’s genocidal aspirations, Syria’s horrors, and the rise of terrorist groups on all of Israel’s borders. Yet the split grows wider, not narrower. Until Democrats throw aside victimhood ideology in favor of the morality that used to govern their party, it will continue to widen.
US embassy opens in Jerusalem | Full ceremony
Prof. Eugene Kontorovich on the American embassy move
VP Pence: Trump Has ‘Made History’ With Opening of U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem
Vice President Mike Pence will tell a distinguished group of U.S. officials and diplomats at an event hosted by the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the opening Monday of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem that President Donald Trump "has made history" with his decision to relocate the embassy from Tel Aviv, according to an advance copy of Pence's remarks obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.Pence Celebrates Opening of Embassy in Jerusalem: ‘America Stands With Israel’
"From King David's time to our own, President Trump has now etched his name into the ineffaceable story of Jerusalem," Pence will tell the crowd during his keynote speech marking the embassy's opening.
The United States, according to Pence, is taking a bold stance in the region by recognizing the "fact" that Jerusalem is Israel's capital.
"By finally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the United States has chosen fact over fiction–and fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace," Pence states in the written remarks. "And as President Trump made clear this morning, ‘our greatest hope is for peace.'"
Vice President Mike Pence spoke Monday at an event in Washington, D.C., to mark the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
Pence credited President Donald Trump for being the strongest defender Israel "has ever had in the oval office" and accepted a medal honoring him as a protector of Jerusalem. Speaking about the long history of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, Pence said Trump’s willingness to recognize it as the capital city of the state of Israel is a historic moment.
"From King David's time to our own, President Trump has now etched his name into the ineffaceable story of Jerusalem," Pence said.
He said the decision is merely a recognition of reality, and he said it provides a firmer foundation for peace negotiations.
"By finally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the United States has chosen fact over fiction," Pence said. "And fact is the only true foundation for a just and lasting peace. As President Trump made clear this morning, our greatest hope is for peace, and as Jared [Kushner] also said, the United States of America is prepared to support a peace agreement in every way we can."
In Pence’s view, a peace that benefits Israelis and Palestinians is possible.
"We believe peace is possible, for both sides to gain more than they give so that all people can live in peace, secure from danger, free from fear, and able to pursue their dreams," he said.
Schumer Praises Trump for Moving Embassy to Jerusalem: ‘Long Overdue Move’
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) praised President Donald Trump Monday upon the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem, calling it a "long overdue move."Former Australian PM Abbott: MOVE OUR EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM
Trump fulfilled a long-made promise by politicians of both parties, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Avi of the Jewish state's founding. It opened Monday at a festive ceremony attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Republican Senators Ted Cruz (Texas), Dean Heller (Nev.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and officials from around the world.
While no Democrats attended the opening, Schumer applauded the occasion.
"In a long overdue move, we have moved our embassy to Jerusalem," Schumer said in a statement. "Every nation should have the right to choose its capital. I sponsored legislation to do this two decades ago, and I applaud President Trump for doing it."
Tony Abbott is right: Australia should indeed consider moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. In fact, we should do it. It recognises a reality and says the terrorists cannot scare us into shunning either the truth or Israel.The Ben Shapiro Show: If I Forget You, O Jerusalem Ep. 538The US embassy is now in West Jerusalem, which has been Israel's capital for nearly 70 years. Australia should consider following Trump's move.
— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) May 15, 2018
But Malcolm Turnbull immediately rejects it, claiming it's "more conducive to the peace process" not to.
But what "peace process"?
Staying in Tel Aviv just emboldens the hardliner rejectionists.
The Ben Shapiro Show: The Media's Blood Libel Ep. 539
Michael Dickson on US Embassy Move to Jerusalem
Crowder: JERUSALEM EMBASSY: Why Trump’s Right & Palestine Deserves NOTHING! (a few minor errors)
WATCH: Nikki Haley honored with rare artifact for aiding US embassy move
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, honored US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on Monday for her support of the historic move of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.The UN Hates Israel — America’s Embassy Move Proved It
Danon presented Haley with an ancient coin from the Great Revolt of 68 CE, with a personal dedication that read: "This is a historic day for Israel and the United States. I thank you, Ambassador Haley, for your strong support of this great move."
On the coin, which is from the old city of Jerusalem, are written the words "Freedom of Zion," on one side, and "Year Two of the Revolt" on the other, which references the Jewish revolt nearly 2,000 years ago against the Romans.
"This coin," Danon said, "proves that Jerusalem has always been the capital of the Jewish people."
Haley then raised a toast, "In honor of our friendship, our partnership and now the US embassy in Jerusalem!"
Haley has long been a supporter of the Jewish State, staunchly defending Israel's right as a sovereign nation to protect itself and to choose its own capital. Haley has also sharply reprimanded UN bodies for their disproportionate focus on Israel despite frequent and egregious human rights violations by other nations that go largely ignored by the UN.
“When the Human Rights Council treats Israel worse than North Korea, Iran and Syria, it is the Council itself that is foolish and unworthy of its name,” Haley said in a March statement slamming the UNHRC.
Danon wrapped up the ceremony by stating that "The people of Israel are grateful for your leadership and for President Trump's leadership!"
When President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would be moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the capital of Jerusalem, the U.N. showed its true colors.
Days after Trump’s announcement in December, the U.N. voted 128 to 9 to condemn the decision — just the most recent vote in the U.N.’s long history of anti-Israel resolutions. In response, America’s U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley, made a veiled threat, pointing out that the U.S. contributes more money to the U.N. than any other country, and promising that the U.S. would remember where countries fell on the embassy vote.
The General Assembly adopted 26 resolutions that criticized a country in 2016 — 20 of which were directed at Israel. Ten critical resolutions were issued in a single day, including language that condemned “acts of violence, destruction, harassment, provocation and incitement by Israeli settlers” in what the General Assembly called “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
In 2016, the U.N. World Heritage Committee claimed Muslims — not Jews — hold a prior claim to the Temple mount, despite the Jewish people building the temple under King Solomon more than 1,600 years before the birth of Islam.
Days later, a bipartisan coalition of 39 members of Congress sent a letter to the body to rebuke its resolution.
Israel = Controversial, Cuba = Historic
The United States officially moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Monday. The move comes after President Donald Trump took historic action and bucked decades of foreign policy tradition to announce the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.Israel = Controversial, Cuba = Historic | SUPERcuts! #591
Reporters and cable news hosts noted the historic move by Trump but were quick to pivot to the controversy surrounding the decision. A look back at when former President Barack Obama announced the U.S. would normalize relations with the communist country of Cuba shows those in the media reported the historic action with smiles on their faces and with little to no mention of the controversy surrounding the decision.
Hamas Official Sheikh Ahmad Bahr: "Criminal" Trump Is Digging His Own Grave - Scenes of Gaza "Return March" pic.twitter.com/zENnLnMiOZ
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 15, 2018
Anti-Semite Linda Sarsour Rips Claim Trump Is Best President Ever For The Jews
On Monday, the virulently anti-Semitic icon of the Women’s March, Linda Sarsour, decided to attack the idea of President Trump as the greatest president for the Jewish people in American history in the most ironic way possible: by sanctimoniously citing someone else’s supposed anti-Semitism.Jewish Convert Jenna Jameson Zings Anti-Israel Activist Linda Sarsour Over Jerusalem Embassy Tweet
Sarsour’s odyssey into hypocrisy was precipitated by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s simple homage to Trump:
Sarsour responded:
He sent an antisemitic evangelical pastor to open the US Embassy in Jerusalem who believes Jews will go to hell. You have a very interesting definition of great. https://t.co/yUl7VBEFg4
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) May 14, 2018
Sarsour was apparently referring to Robert Jeffress, the Southern Baptist preacher who is open about his faith teaching him that only those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved. Jeffress was not referencing Jews alone, but any non-believers when he made his position known at the 2011 Values Voter Summit in 2011. On Monday, he reiterated, "Historic Christianity has taught for 2,000 years that salvation is through faith in Christ alone. The fact that I, along with tens of millions of evangelical Christians around the world, continue to espouse that belief, is neither bigoted nor newsworthy.”
The salient point is that Jeffress has been an ardent supporter of the state of Israel for years. Sarsour, on the other hand, has consistently demonstrated her own anti-Semitism, including her support of the BDS movement targeting Israel. For her to cite Jeffress as an anti-Semite when all of his actions support the Jewish homeland is only too typical of her.
Jewish convert and former porn star Jenna Jameson confronted anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour on Twitter on Monday after the latter commented negatively on the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.Tamika Mallory Thinks Hamas Use of Human Shields Can be Viewed as “Bravery”
After Sarsour — a public supporter of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — tweeted, “Today is a sad and enraging day. #Jerusalem,” Jameson shot back, saying, “Today is joyous and enlightened day. #Jerusalem.”
Jameson — who completed her conversion to Judaism in 2016 and is married to Israeli businessman Lior Bitton — has openly defended Israel many times on Twitter and written posts against “Palestine,” which she says does not exist.
BDS supporters and Israel haters have targeted the mother-of-three with antisemitic messages regarding her unwavering support for the Jewish state, but she told The Algemeiner last year that the abusive remarks would not stop her from speaking up in defense of Israel.
Women’s march co-founders Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour have not surprisingly been among those slamming Israel for acting against palestinian rioters. Among the things that Mallory tweeted yesterday was this, in response to someone who pointed out Hamas’ evil use of human shields:Zakaria: Jerusalem Embassy Move 'Major Concession' Without Anything in Return - 'Very Nonstrategic'
As of the time of this post, she does not seem to have backed down from these despicable comments either.
Her support of antisemite Louis Farrakhan and now this….I am beginning to think she does not like Jews.
On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” CNN host Fareed Zakaria stated that moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is “very nonstrategic” in that if it was part of a broader plan, giving Israel such a “major concession” would be in exchange for something by Israel.MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell: ‘Appalling’ How U.S. Moved Embassy to Jerusalem
Zakaria said, “I think it was a very nonstrategic move, by which I mean to say, Trump is supposed to be the master of the art of the deal. It’s very rare to make a major concession to one side without getting something from the other. This has been a prize. Look, there are 86 countries that recognize Israel. All their embassies are in Tel Aviv. This is a very big gift to Israel. You would normally imagine that if it were part of a larger strategic plan, you would ask the Israelis, in return, to do a certain number of things, settlement freezes, whatever it is. Instead, it has been a pretty lopsided thing.”
Zakaria continued that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, and he has no problem with that, but other countries haven’t moved their embassies to Jerusalem because of Palestinian claims to the city, the number of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, and the large number of Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem. He added that conventional wisdom is that “this matter should be settled in the context of the overall Palestinian-Israeli negotiation. Here what you’ve done, is unilaterally made a concession. It looks very striking and bold, but when you sort of think to yourself, ‘Wait, what did you get for that?'”
MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell said it was "appalling" that the U.S. moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem without obtaining any concessions from Israel.Twitchy: ‘Disgusting’! NY Daily News’ cover about Ivanka Trump & Gaza riots is a NEW LOW for ‘journalism’
Mitchell expressed astonishment at the Trump administration placing the blame for violence solely on Hamas, who instigated riots along the border in Gaza. White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah on Monday did not call for Israel to soften its response to the riots, leading Mitchell to decry the administration’s support for Israel.
"I've never seen anything like that," Mitchell said. "Even the strongest supporters of Israel in administrations Republican and Democratic would at that point say, ‘Be proportional and be cautionary.’"
She blamed Israel’s actions on their empowerment due to closeness with the administration, specifically on Iran.
"There was no restraint," Mitchell said. "Israel is now so empowered because of the administration's enmity with Iran that they now feel, clearly, that they can do anything."
She opined that it was "appalling" the U.S. moved its embassy to Jerusalem without extracting concessions from Israel on its settlement-building.
"It's just to me appalling that we have no vision at all, we got nothing for it, no pullback on settlements. There's no balancing act here," Mitchell said.
On Monday there was a ceremony to dedicate the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. There was also plenty of media coverage of the Gaza riots, and many in the American media are clearly blaming the Trump administration following through with a decades’ old pledge by the U.S. government to move the embassy to Jerusalem for all the violence. With that in mind, get a load of this New York Daily News cover:
Abbas pans new US embassy as a ‘settlement outpost’ in Jerusalem
Hours after the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on Monday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas slammed the new mission as a “settlement outpost.”AFP Captions Call Jerusalem Parade Participants Settlers
Abbas vowed that the Palestinians will not engage in peace talks mediated by the US “in any way, shape or form.”
He convened an emergency meeting in Ramallah following the dedication of the new embassy, which he said was “a new settlement outpost, just like the Israeli settlements,” and an “assault on our sovereignty, an assault on our established rights,” according to a translation from Al-Jazeera.
“Palestine is for the Palestinians and is not, as the Jews claim, the land of their ancestors,” he said, echoing comments he made in several recent speeches, including an address earlier this month that was widely denounced as anti-Semitic.
The new US embassy is housed in the compound that was previously the US consulate in Arnona, at the southern edge of Jerusalem. The compound straddles the pre-1967 armistice border known as the Green Line.
Numerous Agence France-Presse photo captions generalized all participants in Sunday's Jerusalem Flag Parade as "settlers," despite the fact that the crowd hailed from across Israel, within the Green Line, as well as outside. A sampling of the misleading captions follows:Iranian Group Offers $100,000 to Blow Up New U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem
Isreali [sic] nationalist settlers wave their national flags in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on May 13, 2018, as they celebrate the Jerusalem Day with the dome of the Rock in the background. For Israelis, Sunday is Jerusalem Day, an annual celebration of the "reunification" of the city following the 1967 Six-Day War. MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP
Israeli youths hold their national flags in Jerusalem on May 13, 2018, as Israeli nationalist settlers celebrate the Jerusalem Day in the Old City. For Israelis, Sunday is Jerusalem Day, an annual celebration of the "reunification" of the city following the 1967 Six-Day War. Thomas COEX/AFP
A hardline Iranian organization is reportedly offering a $100,000 reward to any person who bombs the newly opened U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, according to a translation of Farsi language reports.
A group known as the Iranian Justice Seeker Student Movement is reported to have disseminated posters calling for an attack on the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, which has been opposed by Palestinian and Iranian officials as an affront to the holy city.
"The Student Justice Movement will support anybody who destroy the illegal American embassy in Jerusalem," the poster states in Farsi, Arabic, and English, according to an independent translation of the propaganda poster provided to the Free Beacon.
There will be a "$100,000 dollar prize for the person who destroys the illegal American embassy in Jerusalem," the poster states.
U.S. comedians mock Jerusalem embassy opening
American late night comedians took aim at the news of the day in their monologues on Monday night - including the moving of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.IsraellyCool: The Onion Hits New Low With Outrageous Piece About March of Return Deaths
Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show, said US President Donald Trump was "futzing with the Middle East" by making the move.
“Now he’s just got to destabilize Antarctica, and he’ll have global crisis bingo,” Colbert joked.
The comedian said that Trump couldn’t attend the opening in Jerusalem, “so, instead, he sent Peace Treaty Barbie and Collusion Ken,” i.e. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Seth Meyers, the host of Late Night, also discussed the embassy opening, and Kushner’s speech during Monday’s ceremony.
“During his speech today, Jared Kushner credited President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Meyers said. “But don’t ask Trump to name the capital of any other countries, though... ‘We are, I’m so excited to announce we’re moving the embassy in Italy to where it rightfully belongs – Italy City,’” he said, mocking the president.
Over on The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah lamented the loss of life in the Gaza Strip, and blamed the US for fanning tensions. Noah also noted that at one point Trump reconsidered the embassy move – but only because he was told it would cost too much.
Over a month ago, I lamented how satire site The Onion had gone full blood libel, perpetuating the myth that the IDF wantonly kills palestinians.Man Frequently Compared To Hitler Recognizes Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital (satire)
Well, they’ve gone ahead and done it again, with an equally offensive, malicious and mendacious piece about recent events.
Besides not being funny in the least, it is also full of lies. Israel did not outright murder anyone, the protestors were engaged in extreme violence beyond merely”throwing glass bottles”, and no-one celebrated the death of any of the rioters, let alone a 13-year-old child.
As I mentioned last time, the Onion has a huge audience of what I suspect are mostly young people. These kinds of libels are particularly damaging.
A man whose detractors frequently compare him to Nazis and even Adolf Hitler fulfilled a promise Monday by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and officially recognizing the historic city as the capital of Israel.NYTs: The Zionist Founders of the Human Rights Movement
The man, none other than President Trump, made the move long requested by Jews living in Israel in a show of good faith, all while being called a “fascist, Nazi dictator” by various media outlets.
“This man is even worse than the Nazis,” a commentator on CNN said during a live report on the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. “President Trump is literally—and I say this without any exaggeration or embellishment—he is literally Adolf Hitler reincarnated.”
At publishing time, multiple sources had confirmed that the man who has been called “Hitler” more often than any other public figure in recent history has a daughter who married a Jew and converted to Judaism.
These mirror-image caricatures distract from a simpler explanation. Both Zionism and international human rights changed over the course of the many decades that separate 1948 and 2018. For Zionism, Israeli wars of survival in 1948, 1967 and 1973 yielded to expansionist dreams of Greater Israel that blur the line between religious ideology and security. Israel rightly claims with pride its status as a vibrant if imperfect democracy up to the green line. Across that nonborder, however, the Israeli occupation presents an ongoing challenge to Jewish democracy. That ethical dilemma cannot be wished away by demonizing human rights organizations as enemies of the Jewish nation.Daniel Pipes: Enjoy the Jerusalem Embassy — But Don’t Get Giddy
But if Zionism changed, so too did the human rights movement. Starting in the early 1960s, even before the Six-Day War of 1967, the international human rights community began to parrot the Soviet and Arab propaganda lines about Israeli racism and Zionist fascism. When Jewish leaders raised the subject of anti-Semitism at the United Nations in the 1970s, they were answered with a horrible meme that went viral: “Zionism is Racism.” That same decade, Amnesty International broke with its longstanding policy of not sponsoring prisoners who use or endorse violence and took up the cause of Palestinian Fatah members.
Furthermore, a deeper, insidious logic is also at work for many human-rights organizations. They readily point to the Holocaust as history’s wake-up call that sparked the human rights movement. But they selectively ignore a key fact of that history: it was Zionist activists who gave us so many of the ideals and instruments of modern human rights. They fought for human rights out of their particular experience as Jews — which is the very thing that drove them to embrace Zionism.
The shared anniversary of Israel and the human rights project places in stark relief the double amnesia that ails the world today. The cost of that forgetting is the perpetuation of a false dichotomy between particularism and universalism. By recalling this twinned history, we can help the human-rights movement recalibrate its moral compass and expose the real dangers imperiling the Jewish people.
Turning to the Middle East, Trump has two grand priorities: reducing the Iranian threat and accomplishing the “ultimate deal” of bringing an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The two goals are related because the only way to build a powerful alliance against Iran is by including Israel, and that in turn means resolving the Palestinian issue, so that the Saudi and other Arab governments will fully cooperate with Israel. Therefore:The Real Dispute Driving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Step One: Give the Saudi leadership what it most wants — lots of attention and armaments.
Step Two: Do the same for Israel, giving it what it longs for — a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
NR's afternoon roundup of the day's best commentary & must-read analysis.
Step Three: Do the same for the Palestinians — “Palestine” with a capital also in Jerusalem, demanding in return their giving up the right of return and promising to live in peace with the Jewish state of Israel.
Boom, Trump has his anti-Iran alliance and his Arab-Israeli resolution. Nobel Prize, anyone?
There’s just one big hitch: Palestinian leaders shamelessly say whatever they need to, to get some benefit, only to renege on their promises with alacrity; we’ve seen this many times before, most notably in the 1993 Oslo Accords. This deceit compels the Israelis to crack down with checkpoints, make arrests, and even shoot Palestinians, which then (as we are witnessing lately on the Gaza–Israel border) gets them called genocidal aggressors. So, this story ends very badly for Israel. Was Jerusalem recognition worth Palestine?
The most significant political divide in Israel today is no longer between right and left, but between right and center: right-wingers who believe that there is no partner for peace and so Israel should settle and annex the West Bank, and centrists who believe that there is no partner for peace but Israel still needs to try to extract itself from the occupation, even unilaterally if necessary. Neither camp believes in the possibility of reconciliation with the Palestinians any time soon.Israeli MFA sets up Facebook page for the Iraqi public
Israelis and Palestinians are caught in what could be called a “cycle of denial.” The Palestinian national movement denies Israel’s legitimacy, and Israel in turn denies the Palestinians’ national sovereignty. The cycle of denial has defined this shared existence since the creation of Israel 70 years ago.
No matter how vigorously the international community condemns the occupation, it won’t move the Israeli public—including those who see the occupation as a long-term threat to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state—so long as Israelis believe that no matter what their country does, the other side will continue to see its existence as illegitimate.
According to polls, a majority of Israelis believe two things about the conflict. The first is that ending the occupation is an existential necessity for Israel itself. The second is that, given the denial of Israel’s legitimacy within the Palestinian national movement, a Palestinian state will likely be irredentist and itself a potential existential threat to Israel.
The key to ending the occupation, then, is beginning a new conversation on peace between Palestinians and Israelis—not only about the technical details of an agreement, but about the intangible issues of legitimacy and rootedness of two indigenous peoples fated to share the same tortured land. The international community can help by expressing its vigorous opposition not only to Israeli settlement building, but also to the Palestinian campaign that portrays the Jewish return home to any part of the land as a colonialist affront.
A wave of nostalgia for their ex- Jewish citizens is sweeping the middle and intellectual class in Iraq.A young man called Taj claims to speak for all Iraqi Musims. He salutes his ' beloved Israelis and calls on the Iraqi government to fulfil their ' legal and moral responsibility ' to compensate Iraqi Jew who were stripped of their rights for no other reason than they were Jewish.How we really became refugees 13 Palestinians tell their personal stories
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched a new Facebook page, specifically dedicated to engaging and creating a dialogue with the Iraqi public. The page, called “Israel in Iraqi-Arabic”, will serve as a digital bridge between the two peoples. The new page focuses on content of interest to Iraqi audiences, such as touching stories about the large Jewish-Iraqi community that previously lived in Iraq and today lives in Israel, as well as similarities between the Israeli and Iraqi cultures. The Facebook page will also introduce the diversity and achievements of Israel to the Iraqi audience.
Yuval Rotem, Foreign Ministry Director-General, noted, “The Facebook page is intended to address the growing interest of the Arab world in Israel. Social networks allow us to reach this audience – our neighbors – and to introduce them to the true face of Israel in ways that were not possible before. Beyond our general Arab-language accounts on Facebook and Twitter (@IsraelArabic) we chose to dedicate a page to engaging with Iraqis in light of the glorious history of the Iraqi Jews (who today live in Israel), and the rising interest of Iraqi citizens in our story in recent years, something we became aware of after receiving many positive comments on our existing social media accounts from Baghdad and across Iraq. We believe this Facebook page will promote a positive, fruitful dialogue that will lead to a closer acquaintance between Israeli society and Iraqi society in all its components - Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and other populations.”
Tehran Friday Sermon - Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami Warns: We Will Turn Tel Aviv and Haifa to Rubble pic.twitter.com/eDOIDC0PE3
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 15, 2018
Joint List MK: Boycott the Eurovision in Jerusalem
Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen has called for a boycott of next year’s Eurovision singing contest, which is slated to be held in Jerusalem.Dublin mayor: Ireland should boycott Eurovision 2019
“Yes we should boycott the Eurovision,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “We have to punish the right-wing government in Israel for its crimes against the Palestinian people and its denial of their rights.”
Jabareen said the boycott is also justified as a protest against the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem "in sharp contrast to the position of the Europeans and the rest of the world." He said he will ask the European Union to consider joining in his call.
Almost immediately, several other MKs slammed Jabareen’s statement.
Likud MK Amir Ohana said it is “so terrible for you when it is good for Israel, huh Yousef?”
Writing on Twitter, Ohana said “you can continue to rage, to protest, to burn and to punish while the citizens of Israel will continue to blossom, to thrive, to celebrate and to break records – and, yes, to protect ourselves from murderous Arab aggression.”
The mayor of Dublin called on Sunday for Ireland to not take part in the Eurovision 2019 competition since it will be held in Jerusalem.
Lord Mayor Micheal Mac Donncha told Dublin Live earlier this week that he would be in favor of boycotting the contest: “I don’t think we should send a representative...
I think the horrific ordeal of the Palestinian people needs to be highlighted,” he said.
Last month, Mac Donncha was banned from visiting Israel by the Interior Ministry due to his support for the boycott movement.
But officials misspelled his name, and the mayor entered through Tel Aviv and traveled to Ramallah.
Mac Donncha’s proposal was echoed by several Irish European Parliament lawmakers.
IsraellyCool: WATCH: NZ TV Presenter Can’t Resist Jab at Israel In Discussion on Eurovision Win
Israel’s Eurovision win came up as the subject of conversation on New Zealand TV’s Breakfast program. One of the presenters – Hayley Holt – could not resist getting political, putting “air quotes” around the idea that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. (hat tip: Justin)Campus Unmasked:
According to Wikipedia, Holt stood in the 2017 general election for the Green Party.
Nuff said.
Left-Wing Outlet Asks If Peterson Enables ‘Jew Hatred’
Progressive Jewish outlet The Forward published a piece entitled “Is Jordan Peterson Enabling Jew Hatred?” which sported a picture of the University of Toronto professor slapped on top of one of Adolf Hitler (the outlet since changed the picture). And author Ari Feldman gathered the opinions of people who are not at all politically-motivated like a professor and activists from the Southern Poverty Law Center and People for the American Way.Left-Wing Outlet Asks If Peterson Enables ‘Jew Hatred’
The author mentions Peterson’s April blog post in which the professor links Jewish over-representation in positions of power and competence to a higher Jewish IQ. Feldman calls this argument “an old anti-Semitic dog whistle.”
But Feldman doesn’t address the obvious, which is that anti-Semitism doesn’t lie in acknowledging IQ differences but instead in what people CHOOSE TO DO about those differences.
The Forward interviews Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt, who thinks Peterson’s assertions are “suspicious.” She says: “It’s not [Holocaust] denial, but when people start asking questions like that, I begin to get leery,” Lipstadt said. “The question is, is he a self-help guru who find[s] the Holocaust a convenient way of attracting attention, or is there serious thought going on here?”
Lipstadt seems to think that when Jordan Peterson argues that aspects of the human nature like revenge and disgust played a role in causing the Holocaust, he undermines the role that anti-Semitism played. But it doesn’t take more than a cursory YouTube search to find that Peterson has discussed both.
I spoke with the professor and he told me:
“Feldman appears to assume 1 that anti-Semitism is the true and final cause of the Nazi phenomenon and 2 that anti-Semitism itself isn’t a mystery worthy of explanation….But anti-Semitism is in fact a mystery, and it was to solving that mystery (and the issue of pathological tribalism in general) that I devoted all 500 pages of Maps of Meaning.”
Peterson noted that Feldman attempted to smear him by pointing to the professor’s citation of a critique of Professor Kevin MacDonald, who thinks Jewish people use a “group evolutionary strategy.” But Peterson linked to an article REFUTING MacDonald’s theory.
"the postmodern Marxists/progressive leftists... have co-opted this ancient hatred and joined it with Arab and Muslim world ideology, using Zionism as the contemporary form of Jew-hatred, demonizing, boycotting, & propagandizing about the State of Israel." https://t.co/ErQH1aqrNH pic.twitter.com/01qQE3KhE2
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) May 13, 2018
Hard-Left Israel Paper Haaretz Publishes Piece Calling Israeli Government 'Alt-Right'
On Monday, in keeping with its anti-Israel perspective which it has promulgated since its inception, the hard-left Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an op-ed by none other than Diana Buttu, a former advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who maleficently (and stupidly) called the Israeli government “alt-right.”PreOccupiedTerritory: BDS Subcontracts Economy-Destroying Work To Histadrut Labor Union (satire)
Forget the fact that one of the core principles of the alt-right is its anti-Semitism, making Buttu’s charge patently ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stewardship preserving the Jewish state and the Jews within it in the face of former president Barack Obama’s machinations against it was nothing short of extraordinary; Buttu then complacently repeats the long-standing canard that Israel is an apartheid state, citing Israel’s “nearly 51 years of military occupation and the denial of freedom.”
Occupation of what? Land that has been the homeland of the Jewish people for 3,500 years?
How much does Buttu want Israel gone? Try this: “It is easy for Israel to celebrate. It's gotten what it wants: land, international recognition, a quisling Palestinian leadership that maintains security for Israel and barely a whisper of condemnation from world powers.”
Right. The same Palestinian leadership that pays the families of terrorists killing Jews surely wants to “maintain security for Israel.”
Years of questionable success at crippling Israel’s economic position and prosperity have led the leaders of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement to engage Israel’s largest public-sector union in the effort, as the latter has a proven track record of damaging the country’s economy in ways the movement never could.UKMW prompts Telegraph correction to claim ‘it’s forbidden to fly Palestinian flags in Jerusalem’
BDS movement founder Mustafa Barghouti told reporters today that the occasional triumph of bullying an entertainer not to perform in the Jewish state, or of ramrodding an anti-Israel resolution through an organ of student government on American campuses pales in comparison to the real damage the Histadrut causes with its work stoppages, extortion of taxpayer money, and entrenched ineffficiencies and corruption.
“We’re outclassed, plain and simple,” admitted Barghouti. “When we first launched this initiative in Durban, South Africa, seventeen years ago, most of us thought we’d have a much easier time scoring hits on Israel’s economy to punish the country for existing, but that’s been tougher than anyone anticipated. We’re a proud bunch of activists and organizations, but by now we’ve been forced to admit that we’ll never be able to compete with the Histadrut for negative impact on Israel’s economy. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, is what I’m saying.”
According to Histadrut representatives, the BDS leaders have hired union-picked cronies to design and implement a campaign to shut down various crucial elements of Israel’s public sector, an exercise the Histadrut performs with some regularity.
“We’re the people you want to get this kind of job done,” boasted chief Avi Nissenkorn. “We’ve been doing this for decades, and no one’s better at it.”
The Telegraph published an article by their photo editor which focused on Ahmad Gharabli, an AFP photographer who won an Arab Journalism Award in the photojournalism category for a photo he took of a Palestinian protest in Jerusalem last year.Channel 4 News suggests Israel’s to blame for Gaza woman abusing her daughter
The piece (Behind the Shutter: Palestinian photographer Ahmad Gharabli on documenting protests in Jerusalem, May 12) quoted Gharabli talking about his work, and the particular challenges of covering the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and included the following claim about the legality of waving a Palestinian flag:
The claim that it’s “totally forbidden” to carry or display a Palestinian flag in Jerusalem is simply false. We confirmed this during a conversation with Israeli Police Foreign Press Spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld. Further, as we tweeted yesterday, the photographer himself has published photos depicting Palestinians with Palestinian flags.
Hi @gharabli_ahmad, your claim in @Telegraph https://t.co/3SUApQ4tii to Telegraph photo editor @cvpalazzo that it's "totally forbidden" to fly the Palestinian flag in Jerusalem is not accurate, according to @IL_police, and according to photos you've published at @AFP pic.twitter.com/7nu5IHnKjr
— UK Media Watch (@UKMediaWatch) May 13, 2018
Following our complaint to Telegraph editors, the quote by Gharabli was revised, reflecting, it seems, his acknowledgment that his original claim wasn’t accurate.
Even by the low standards we’re accustomed to, a recent Channel 4 News report on Gaza’s suffering – in the context of border protests – is appalling, failing to even feign objectivity, balance or any semblance of professional journalism.Tunisian Police Foil Stabbing Attack Outside Historic Synagogue in Capital
The piece, (Gaza suicide crisis: ‘We’re dead already’, May 10th) by presenter Jonathan Rugman, about ‘rising’ incidents of suicide in Gaza, doesn’t ever explicitly blame Israel for the problem of Palestinian suicide, but it doesn’t have to. Viewers would inevitably be led to this conclusion by the presenter’s contextualization of the topic by employing the counter-factual cliché about Gaza as “the world’s largest open air prison”, his false suggestion that humanitarian goods can’t enter the coastal strip and the presenter’s failure to so much as mention Hamas – the proscribed terrorist group which runs the enclave – and the group’s role in perpetuating Palestinian suffering.
Further, though the report implies that suicide has increased in recent years, the presenter later acknowledges that no official statistics are kept of suicide rates, thus undermining the entire premise of the report.
However, the most insidious suggestion – illustrative of the media’s tendency to infantilze Palestinians – appears at the 3 minute mark of the film, where a Gazan woman named Nahed Shweikh admits to physically abusing her young daughter, an act which the reports connects to the mother’s ‘hopelessness’ and poverty.
Here’s a still frame of the girl, with scars (presumably from the beating) visible on her forehead.
Police in Tunis overpowered a knife-wielding assailant who attacked a security patrol outside the city’s historic synagogue on Tuesday.Boeing signs accord with Israeli startup that secures 3D printing of parts
The 45-year-old man tried to stab a group of police officers standing guard at the Grande Synagogue on Avenue de La Liberté in the Tunisian capital — an imposing structure opened in 1933 that is no longer in regular use by the 1,000 Jews who live in the North African country.
Local news outlets quoted witnesses saying that the man was shouting anti-Israel slogans. The man is now in the custody of the anti-terrorism department of the Tunisian police.
Additional police reinforcements were deployed outside the synagogue following the incident.
Boeing, a multinational manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense and space systems, has signed an accord with Israel’s Assembrix Ltd. for the use of the startup’s software to secure Boeing’s intellectual property during the 3D manufacturing of parts. Boeing will also invest an undisclosed amount of money to jointly further develop the software with the Israeli company.U.S. chipmaker Intel submits plans for $5 bln Israel expansion
Boeing and Assembrix said on Monday that they signed a memorandum of agreement that will allow Boeing to use Assembrix software to manage and protect the intellectual property it shares with vendors during design and manufacturing of parts using 3D printing.
“This agreement expands Boeing’s ties to Israeli industry while helping companies like Assembrix expand their business,” said David Ivry, president of Boeing Israel. “Boeing seeks suppliers globally who meet stringent quality, schedule, cost and intellectual capital, and Assembrix does all of that.”
Assembrix has developed cloud-based software that optimizes 3D printing processes for industrial use. It also secures the intellectual property of companies when they use subcontractors for their 3D printing jobs. The software will enable Boeing to transmit its manufacturing design information to 3D printers using a secure distribution method, that enables the protection of data from being intercepted, corrupted or decrypted during the distribution and manufacturing processes.
Intel Corp said on Tuesday it had submitted plans to expand its production operations in Israel, with the government saying the US chipmaker would invest about $5 billion.
Intel is one of the biggest employers and exporters in Israel, where many of its new technologies are developed. The new investment will upgrade its Kiryat Gat manufacturing plant in southern Israel, the company said in a statement.
Intel did not provide financial details.
Israel's Finance Ministry said the company would invest about 18 billion shekels ($5 billion) in the factory between 2018-2020 and had agreed to spend 3 billion shekels on local suppliers.
"According to company officials, this investment is expected to pave the way for a future significant investment for a technological upgrade at the Israeli site," the ministry said in a statement.
In return, Intel will be granted an extension of its reduced tax rate of 5 percent until 2027. The Finance Ministry said it was also considering giving Intel a 700 million shekel grant, with a second grant of the same size to come with future investments.
Awesome: Rio de Janeiro's iconic landmark, Christ the Redeemer, is illuminated in blue and white in celebration of Israel's 70th Independence Day. Obrigado Brasil! 🇧🇷🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/D5uN3tz1rJ
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) May 14, 2018
