December 2018 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, December 31, 2018

12/31 Links Pt2: The good side of 2018; David Collier: 2018 and Antisemitism, a year in review; The Intellectual Dishonesty of 'I’m Just Criticizing Israel'

From Ian: JPost Editorial: The good side of 2018 Newspapers tend to be in the business of bad news far more than good news. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a well-known adage. The downside is we often forget how good things are. Between rockets from Gaza, terrorist attacks, corruption, murder and whatever else makes headlines most days, there are plenty of great events happening...

Know How to Answer #4 - "Israel expelled 700,000 Arabs in 1948"

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument. Here's part 4. We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israe...

From Ian: Ten New York Times Journalists Accuse Israel of ‘Possibly a War Crime’ The Times article concludes by claiming that Najjar “has become a symbol, perhaps not of what either side had hoped, but of a hopeless, endless conflict and the lives it wastes.” That’s a dodge, because the gist of the rest of the piece is that it’s not the “conflict” that killed her, but an...

More trouble in the Gaza paradise as Hamas arrests hundreds of Fatah members

According to Palestinian media, some 500 members of Fatah were arrested in Gaza over the past day. Apparently, Hamas doesn't want to see a major celebration of the 54th anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack, on January 1, 1965. But why should arrests of hundreds of Palestinians be newsworthy? When Israel can't be blamed, it is just another Monday. Here is the official Fatah video celebrating the anniversary. It isn't exactly peaceful. ...

One of the themes of this site is that Palestinian leaders aren't interested in building a state, but in destroying one. One of the biggest proofs for this can be seen in the annual statistics of the Palestinian Authority presented today. 42% of all "Palestinians who live in the State of Palestine" - their words - are "refugees." If they are Palestinians and live in...

If Not Now tweeted this graphic: So the original name for the areas is meant to erase the history of the one that came thousands of years afterwards. Beyond the stupidity of that assertion, the West Bank is a Jordanian name, not a Palestinian name. (The term was not consistently capitalized until after the Six Day War.) Even the UN referred to Judea and Samaria...

Did you miss the angry protests on the Kuwaiti citizenship law decision?

From Arab Times Online: KUWAIT CITY, Dec 27: The parliamentary Interior and Defense Committee on Thursday rejected the proposal to grant Kuwaiti citizenship to non-Muslims in accordance with Article Two of the Constitution which stipulates: “The religion of the State is Islam and Islamic law shall be the main source of legislation.” The Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee previously approved the proposal on grounds that the Nationality Law...

Know How to Answer #3: "Zionists always intended to ethnically cleanse Arabs"

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument. We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israe...

From Ian: Ruthie Blum: Ill-Boding News for Israel’s Enemies Netanyahu’s and Norkin’s words were not only directed at the new group of fighter pilots tasked with keeping Iran and its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, from attempting to annihilate the Jewish state. The joint message was also aimed at Tehran, Damascus, Beirut, and Moscow. The verbal warning was as clear as Tuesday...

Times of Israel reports: Israel welcomed some four million tourists over the course of 2018, breaking a new record, the Tourism Ministry reported this week.This year saw an increase in tourist arrivals of 13 percent compared to 2017, and 38% compared to 2016, while tourism revenue exceeded NIS 24 billion ($6.3 billion), according to the ministry. I found the statistics from...

Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss writes an essay about the joys of celebrating Christmas with his Christian wife, and how proud he is of the IfNotNow members who disrupt Birthright tours, and then: Over the years, some Christians have said to me, Stop thinking that you’re Jewish, it’s neurotic. But I’ve not been able to do that, or anyway I never tried. I don’t like the entitlement...

From The Forward: Manny’s, a new business in San Francisco’s Mission District, is part cafe, part bookstore, part political event hall. Owner Manny Yekutiel, a 29-year-old rising star in the world of liberal political organizing, calls it a “civic social gathering space.” It’s hosted incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, activists with...

12/29 Links: The elephants of antisemitism in the European room; Why do prominent black anti-Semites get a pass?; IDF strikes Hamas post following rocket fire

From Ian: Melanie Phillips: The elephants of antisemitism in the European room These progressives overwhelmingly link antisemitism to attitudes they consider to be “right-wing”, anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant. Accordingly, their chief European bogeyman is Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban. He is widely deemed to be antisemitic, largely because of his campaign against the...

Arutz-7 reports: Israel's Foreign Ministry lodged a protest after Jordan's Information Minister and Government Spokeswoman Jumana Ghunaimat was seen stepping on an Israeli flag. Ghunaimat had trampled on the Israeli flag during a visit to Amman's trade union headquarters, where a Jordanian government meeting was held. The trade union headquarters in Jordan stuck an Israeli...

12/28 Links Pt2: What if the Six-Day War never took place?; What Bret Stephens Missed About Trump and Israel; Pallywood Rears Its Ugly Head Again

From Ian: Dr. Martin Sherman: Palestine: What if the Six-Day War never took place? If the “West Bank” was part of the “Hashemite Kingdom” up to 1967, how did it suddenly become the Palestinian Arabs’ long-yearned-for homeland which, up until then, they were submissively willing to cede to an alien potentate? Not since the time of Dr. Goebels [Head of the Nazi Propaganda Machine]...

From Ian: NYPost Editorial: Hizbullah's Tunnels Are a Clear Threat to Israel - and the UN Doesn't Care Israel will not “accept the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. Yet it’s the tunnels, all of which were later destroyed, that are of special concern. Built in urban areas, they were surprisingly large and equipped with...

Egypt denies mistreating Jews in the 50s and 60s. They are lying.

Egypt remains riled up at the article written by Fatima Naoot on December 10 that blames the nation for expelling its Jews. Historians, politicians and journalists are falling over themselves to "prove" that when tens of thousands of Jews left the country in the 1950s and 1960s, they all left voluntarily or were spies. But Egypt loved its Jews. This is a lie. Under Nasser, Egypt systematically reduced and eliminated the rights of Jews. Here is...

The only Jews with "white privilege" are the ones who hide their Jewishness. That isn't privilege - that's living with oppression.

I have been looking at a lot of Twitter threads about whether "white Jews" have "white privilege" or not. People are arguing back and forth but they are missing the point. They'll say that since Jews can pass as white, they have "white privilege." Yet in all those threads, I didn't see anything about Jews who are identifiably Jewish. The closest I saw was this: Mmhm. My grandma shared with me this maxim from her childhood: “Look British, think...

A longish podcast but it really gets going in the second half. I'll try to summarize: IfNotNow's example questions are: The first question presupposes that there is a capital O "Occupation." From the perspective of international law, this is not true. The definition of “occupation” comes from Hague Convention of 1907: Territory is considered occupied when it is actually...