Wishing my readers a sweet and healthy New Year!
I will not be blogging until Tuesday night or Wednesday.
Ktiva v'chatima tova!
President Reuven Rivlin wished Israeli citizens and Jews around the world a happy Jewish new year in a new video.
"Another year has past and a new year starts," Rivlin said. "In our prayers, we say, 'let the new year and its blessings begin.' After a difficult year for the safety of Jewish communities and relations between Israel and the Jewish world, let the new year be better and different."
Rivlin stated, "Over the last year, I have been honored to meet so many of your from across the Jewish world. Your commitment to the future of the Jewish people and to the State of Israel is inspiring.
"Despite the difference and the disagreements between us, we must take care to protect our relations and ensure they are strong and silent," he emphasized. "I believe our bonds are stronger than any difference."
Rivlin took pride in the country's accomplishments, noting that Israel "got to the moon, even if the landing was not entirely successful. We hosted the Eurovision, we printed an artificial heard and we have a Judo world champion.
"Many of those achievements are shared with you," he concluded. "I want to thank you for your partnership and for standing with the people and the State of Israel. Israel was and will remain your home, the home of all Jewish people. Happy new year!"
US President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a message to the Jewish community in honor of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah.
“As the High Holy Days commence, Melania and I wish those observing Rosh Hashanah a blessed and happy New Year.”
“This sacred day marks the start of a 10-day period of both celebration and reflection. Throughout the High Holy Days, those in the Jewish community engage in prayer and repentance, which culminate in the holiest day of the year in Judaism, Yom Kippur. Each day, with the blowing of the shofar, the Jewish people embark on a new spiritual journey to grow closer to Hashem and find a renewed sense of purpose in their faith,” said Trump.
“As men, women, and children around the world partake in traditional liturgy and enjoy customary meals with loved ones, we are all reminded of the virtues we can incorporate into our lives to better us as a Nation—kindness, compassion, and love. Together, with devotion to these ideals, we can form more sincere bonds with people of all faiths to help spread peace and prosperity in the United States and abroad.”
“Melania and I pray that those celebrating Rosh Hashanah build a more meaningful relationship with God throughout the High Holy Days. May the Almighty bless you all,” the President concluded.
President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS wish all those celebrating Rosh Hashanah a happy New Year. pic.twitter.com/iVhkTF4U00
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 29, 2019
I peered into one of the shops. Its Arab keeper tried to sell me a dagger, then a cricifix, then a Jewish candlestick. "You sell Israeli things?" I asked.Similarly, many Gazans voluntarily left to go to Jordan in 1967 because they didn't want to be ruled by Jews, even though Egypt turned Gaza into a large ghetto for Palestinians. Those Gazans' children and grandchildren are still in Jordan, still stateless, still living in camps.
He avoided my stare. ...."Our people take work from the Israelis because they have to. They've no choice."
"You can't grow to like them?"
He jerked back his head in denial. ..."None of us here minds whether we belong to Jordan, Egypt or Palestine - what does it matter? So long as we're ruled by Arabs." With a dark bitterness, he added, "Only take away Israel. That's all we ask. Set us free from Israel."
Screenshot from video accusing Abdelmajid Taboun of being Jewish |
A man calls you a pig. Do you walk around with a sign explaining that, in fact, you are not a pig? Do you hand out leaflets expostulating in detail upon the manifold differences between you and a pig ("A pig has a snout, I have a nose; a pig wallows in mud, I only occasionally step in a puddle, and then, of course, inadvertently...")? Do you stand on a soap box and discourse eruditely on why, in general, it is extremely not nice to call people pigs, and appeal to the populace to please have no truck with an individual rude and nasty enough to say such things about an upstanding citizen like yourself?Weiss' chapter does not have the effective anger of the Maghen piece, but her advice boils down to the same thing: call out injustice, don't hide, engage more with Judaism and be proud of your beliefs rather than hiding them. These is not exactly earth shattering ideas but, unfortunately, many liberal American Jews need to hear this. (No, having a seder to push the latest progressive agenda while ignoring anything about Judaism doesn't count.)
Fellow Jews, where in hell is your dignity? Where is your abhorrence of useless, thoughtless, counterproductive endeavor? Of course we want people to befriend us, to treat us with proper regard, that's only natural. Of course we desire and advocate amicable relations between ourselves and other ethnic and religious groups (after all, who came up with "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore"-a Martian?). But let's make a moment's inquiry, shall we, into the analogous microcosm of a healthy, strapping, youthful, well-adjusted organism-say, the reader- and examine how s/he interacts socially toward the same ends in his/her individual life.
You want people to like you, right? Well, and how do you go about achieving this? Do you launch a campus-wide "Don't Dislike Dan!" campaign, replete with billboard, petition, full-page ads, a couple of lobbying organizations and occasional sky-writing? If some miscreant simply won't be your pal, in fact actually takes an overt aversion to you despite all your exertions to woo his affection and heal the breaches, would you....picket in front of his dorm? Or do you run your life a bit differently, concentrating your time and effort on being the best "yourself" that you can, growing and learning and living and enjoying, treating others fairly and kindly, setting up criteria for right and wrong and trying like the dickens to adhere to them and if despite all this a few folks nevertheless persist in being incurable slimeballs and absolutely refuse to interact genially and courteously........@!%#?& them, as my grandmother says-you move on.
Clearly any sane human would opt for the latter course, seeing as the alternative is not only laughably ludicrous, but profusely demeaning and unforgivably ineffective. And yet as a group, as a people, we Jews have inexplicably chosen to live this very same absurd alternative. The current trend among the vast majority of American Jewish youth is lamentably not toward being the best "ourselves," the best Jews, we can be; for most Jewish young people in this country the condition is rather one of fundamental ignorance of the enormous treasure and incomparable high that is full, glorious, meaningful Jewish life. At the same time, the preponderance of highly-funded Jewish organizations in America today (and the ones gobbling up the largest chunks of young, activist Jewish talent), rather than confronting this lethal problem, are focused almost entirely on one thing: perimeter "defense." So terribly many of us have never experienced the warmth and splendor of a genuine Shabbat, have never learned a word of our language or set a foot down in our homeland, so terribly many of us are assimilating and intermarrying at a rate auguring nothing short of national oblivion-yet dare anybody disturb us during this gradual (not so gradual!) disappearing act by calling us names or painting swastikas on our walls, and we and our organizations will raise a hue-and-cry so loud, so fierce and so heavily financed that it will be sure to accomplish..nothing. Instead of brilliant rays of edifying, stimulating light pointed inward at our own people, we have dull, feckless, tinker-toy weapons (like those demonstrations) trained outward at "them."
The extremist "Temple Communities" commissioned a Jewish artist to prepare an attractive design depicting the Temple building.
The design is to be used as a central greeting card for the so-called Hebrew New Year Day next Monday and Tuesday, September 30, October 1.
The Temple Group, which holds 45 percent of the seats in the current caretaker government, is planning major incursions into al-Aqsa during the holiday season.
These groups are also looking to change the status quo in Al-Aqsa, circulating ideas such as "closing Al-Aqsa completely to Muslims during the holidays."
Polish portals such as Wiadomosci began to fill with hateful comments against Israel and Jews on Friday when news broke out that Polish President Andrzej Duda allegedly blamed antisemitism in Poland – on Israel.
The report, by the Jewish Insider, was quickly denied by the office of the President as well as people who were at the meeting such as Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and President of B’nai B’rith International Charles Kaufman. Yet, at least online, Polish anger began to shape in hundreds of comments, the Algemeiner reported.
“I used to feel sorry for the Jews, but having observed Israel’s actions over the last year, I now understand that they are guilty,” one person wrote.
“Poles don’t like Jews because Jews exploit Poles with privatization, they rob Poles because they are cunning and better-organized, and they own newspapers like the New York Times that slander Poles,” another added.
Duda did speak in the New York meeting with Jewish leaders about a February statement made by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who said that Poles "suckle antisemitism with their mother's milk."
Katz was repeating a famous statement made by the late prime minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir, who said so during a conversation in which he confessed that his father was murdered by Poles.
Duda said Katz's comments were a "humiliation," and seemed disappointed that Katz never apologized for them, Boteach wrote.
Duda went on to say that several advisors had suggested that he should not go to Israel until Katz apologizes.
One Polish online user, unaware that the Polish leader never accused Israel of responsibility for antisemtisim in Poland, said “Finally, we have a President who isn’t afraid of the truth.”
“Yes Jews — draw your own conclusions from this,” he added.
Swedish protest leader and teenager Greta Thunberg on Friday posted images to Twitter from a protest in Tel Aviv amid dozens of other pictures on her feed from demonstrations across the world demanding swift action on climate change, which brought messages of support as well as comments on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.Austrian Parliament MPs pledge to classify BDS as antisemitic
Thunberg posted the first image, simply captioned “Tel Aviv!” in the same style that she used for publicizing all cities participating in the social action. The image had over 7.2 thousand likes and more than 400 comments, many of them urging a “free Palestine” or calling on Thunberg to do more “research” on Israel.
Some social media users suggested that the protests should be about the Palestinians rather than climate change. “Awesome! Now if only they would protest the brutal occupation and institutionalized racism of Israel,” wrote one user in a comment on a video from the Tel Aviv protest retweeted by Thunberg. The footage drew over 140,000 views and almost 8,000 likes.
Leading Austrian lawmakers have vowed they will declare the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting Israel as antisemitic during the next legislative session.
“We hope that words will be followed by deeds and that ... there will soon be a parliamentary resolution,” wrote the organization of Jewish-Austrian students, which hosted the politicians at its event in Vienna earlier this month.
In response to a question at the event from college student Noah Scheer, who asked if the Austrian parliament will replicate the decision of the German Bundestag in May to classify BDS as antisemitic, the MPs pledged to do so.
Sibylle Hamann from the Green Party compared BDS to the Nazi-era “Don’t buy from Jews” campaign. She said the Nazi slogan “resonates” with the BDS campaign.
The other Austrian MPs present were Pamela Rendi-Wagner (Social Democrats), Wolfgang Sobotka (People’s Party), Helmut Brandstätter (NEOS), and Peter Pilz (JETZT).
In 2018, Vienna’s city council passed an anti-BDS resolution, which unanimously prescribed the organization as antisemitic and banned support for “events that advertise for BDS.”
Howewer, the national parliament has yet to pass a similar resolution.
The lawmakers did not specify a specific target date, although elections for a new parliament are on Sunday.
The United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly condemned BDS in July.
TV presenter and campaigner against antisemitism Rachel Riley, spoke at Algemeiner’s J100 gala, where she received the US paper’s illustrious ‘Warrior for Truth’ award.
The Countdown host addressed the New York event on Thursday, picking up the prestigious gong alongside British actor Sir Ben Kingsley.
Billed as the Jewish answer to the TIME 100 gala, past honourees and participants have included Elie Wiesel, Michael Gove, Donald Trump, and Bernard-Henri Levy.
Riley was honoured for taking on antisemites in wake of the Labour antisemitism row, using her public profile to call out hate. She has recently helped set up a campaign against abuse online, called ‘Don’t Fed The Trolls’, and the ‘Stop Funding Fake News’ initiative, against media organisations which deny or downplay antisemitism.
Read Rachel’s full address to the J100 Gala here:
Rachel Riley (Credit: Yakir Zur)
It’s probably the biggest honour of my life to be here with you today. I am here because of something that started for me, a year ago. Back then, I was just a maths geek, a Manchester United fan and daytime TV gameshow host.
A secular, atheist Jew.
Social media was a great way to connect with people. It helped me promote the things I cared about: education, getting more girls into STEM subjects, and frequently, my favourite football team. But watching the news one day, I saw something really peculiar.
British Jews protesting in Parliament Square against the growing rise in antisemitism.
At first I thought this can’t be real.
Antisemitism wasn’t a “thing” anymore, was it?
Just a relic of the past?
The cumulative effect of this concerted effort has been both counter-factual and unfortunate. Already in 2006, the World Heritage Site Committee of the United Nations Economic, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution referring to the Temple Mount -- the holiest site in Judaism -- solely by its Arabic, Islamic name, al-Haram al-Sharif.New York Times Iran Story Relies on Analyst Tied To BDS-Backing Rockefeller Fund
Nonetheless, extensive documentation from antiquity and countless archaeological finds continue to confirm both Judaism's ties to Jerusalem and the Jewish people's millennia-old presence in the land of Israel.
Foremost among the findings that provide proof of ancient writings about the Jews and Jerusalem -- apart from the Bible, much of which is magnificently displayed by the new excavation of the City of David – are the written histories by Josephus Flavius (37-100 AD), The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. There are also extraordinary excavations by the Israeli archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazor, who in 2012 unearthed a Solomon-era wall and other related sites. This followed and preceded many other discoveries, such as a wide street filled remnants of shops and tunnels, as noted in the New Testament, that runs near the Western Wall.
Where Palestinian propaganda is concerned, however, none of the above appears to matter. During the very week in early September that the City of David Foundation revealed the ancient Hebrew seal found near the Western Wall, Dr. Ghassan Weshah, the head of the History and Archaeology Department at the Islamic University of Gaza, told the Gaza news service Felesteen:
"One of the biggest lies of the Zionists with regard to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is that it was built on the ruins of the Temple, which was destroyed on August 21, 586 BCE. This is a false statement. There is no other building under the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
If statements such as Weshah's were not taken seriously by members of the international community, they would be dismissed as the propaganda tools they are by the reams of irrefutable scientific evidence to the contrary. It is thus incumbent on all honest academics to be vigilant and determined about setting the record straight.
The Times doesn’t explain to readers what this “Project on Middle East Democracy” is or who funds it. The organization’s website says the group was formally established in 2006. Its most recent readily-available tax return, filed in 2017, reports 13 employees and total revenue of $1,642,238.
Online records show the group received $845,000 from 2012 to 2019 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a charity that has been well documented by NGO Monitor, Bloomberg News and The Algemeiner itself as funding an array of efforts both to boycott Israel and to promote a nuclear deal that provided Iran with sanctions relief over the objections of Israel’s government.
For the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Project on Middle East Democracy, getting quoted in the New York Times article is a win. It’s not so clear, though, that it’s a win for Times readers to hear from an “analyst” funded by boycott-Israel-but-trade-with-Iran advocacy Rockefeller money, especially when that funding is not disclosed. Whenever there’s a pro-Israel or anti-Iran policy move in Washington, the Times is quick to describe it as transactional, a “return on investment” for pro-Israel campaign contributors. Yet on the anti-Israel or pro-Iran front, the Times is remarkably incurious about the money trail. As usual with the Times writing about Israel, it’s a double standard.
An argument’s ultimate test, in the end, is less the source of its funding than its logical strength. By that measure, the claim by the Times-quoted Miller that “penalties imposed by the Trump administration are what set Tehran on its current course of confrontation with the United States” is laughable. As a different Times news article conceded this week, “Since its inception, the Islamic Republic has made rejecting the United States a subject of street performance, from the chants of ‘Death to America’ at Friday prayers to the branding of the country as the ‘Great Satan.’” That regime’s “inception,” in 1979, long predated the Trump administration.
I am exercising my right to free speech. Why is it that I can’t say something against the Jews, when a lot of people say nasty things about me, about Malaysia? I didn’t protest, I didn’t demonstrate.Does Malaysia really treasure free speech?
We have to be willing to listen to views which are not in our favor because of free speech. Free speech is about free speech. When you say, ‘no, you cannot say this, you cannot be anti-Semitic,’ then there is no more free speech.
The elements of the Trump administration’s plan which have been rolled out could also be read as undercutting a key component of the rejectionist position: the so-called “right of return” for Palestinian refugees in neighboring Arab countries. At the “Peace to Prosperity” conference, which the administration organized in Bahrain in June, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner presented a plan to invest $50 billion in the Palestinian territories and in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. While the investment aims to encourage “Strengthening Regional Development and Integration,” it also might suggest an incentive to turn the page on the “right of return” fantasy. At any rate, this ought to be the US position, thereby putting an end to American indulgence of Palestinian maximalism, which the Obama White House chose to sign onto with UNSCR 2334.The diplomatic developments that 5779 didn't offer ... and those it did
As of now, there’s no information on the proposed shape or nature of the Palestinian polity. In July, the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman pointedly spoke of “Palestinian autonomy” and self-governance, but shied away from any talk of Palestinian “statehood.” The history of the Levant, from ancient times to the present, is full of such polities acting as buffer or vassal states for larger neighboring powers. To be sure, the existing arrangement between Israel and Jordan in the West Bank is the only thing preventing that territory from becoming an Iranian satellite, more or less like Gaza, the Iranian outpost between Israel and Egypt.
This, after all, is the main point of the entire exercise. President Trump’s approach returns the issue of the Palestinians to its real size and function in the Levant as well as in US policy in the region. It readjusts America’s focus away from the fractured Levant and back on a sound geostrategic approach centered on the states on the Levant’s outer rim.
Bearing this in mind, the US cannot allow itself to be sucked into the irrelevant minutiae of the “peace process” enterprise and such fictions as “state institutions” in the Levant — already a proven failure in Iraq and Lebanon, where the state institution-building chimera has only strengthened Iran’s position.
Instead, the path forward for the US is to continue to strengthen Israel’s position as a security pillar in the region while shoring up the US-allied Arab states and fostering closer cooperation between them and the Israelis against Iran. Key to this effort is the dismantling of the central tenets of the rejectionist position, namely the 1967 lines. This would not only nullify the Obama administration’s attempt to realign the US position, but also would make it all but impossible for that legacy to be revived in the future.
What matters for the US in the region is to consolidate its state alliance system to contain Iran and its assets. Progress in peace talks with the Palestinians is a matter of far less concern.
Israel knows from dramatic diplomatic years.
The Hebrew year 5738 (1978) was such a year, with the White House signing of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel.
Another such year was 5752 (1991), with the onset of the Madrid Conference. So was 5753 (1993) with the Oslo I Accord, 5755 (1994) with the signing of the peace treaty with Jordan, and 5778 (2018) with the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.
But not 5779, which will end Sunday night with Rosh Hashanah. This year will by no means enter the annals of the country’s history as one of those dramatic diplomatic years. It is not as if nothing happened diplomatically; there were some significant events – and especially nonevents – but it was by no means a diplomatic red-letter year.
Here’s a look at some of the key diplomatic events – and nonevents – that shaped 5779.
Our Person of the Year 5779 is not a scientist, artist, athlete or indeed any representative of merit.
Unlike other choices we have made along the years, like Nobel laureate Ada Yonath (5770) or world-renowned economist Stanley Fischer (5769), this time we could not flee to any of the many stories of Israeli excellence, for two reasons: first, there was no such major story this year, and second, 5779 was one of the most intensely political years in Israeli history, and our choice must reflect that distinction.
For that reason we also cannot choose this year a world leader, the way we did last year (Vladimir Putin) and three years ago (Donald Trump), or a Middle Eastern leader, as we did with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohamed Morsi and Bashar Assad in 5766, 5772 and 5773, respectively.
Nor can we nominate a humble person who sacrificed for a cause, like Yigal Gueta (5777), the Shas MK who attended his gay nephew’s wedding even though it cost him his Knesset seat; or a martyr like Muhammad Bouazizi (5771), whose self-immolation sparked pan-Arab revolt; or a war victim like Alan Kurdi (5775), the Syrian toddler whose shipwrecked body was washed to a Turkish shore.
At the end of a year in which Israel held two general elections within five months, our choice must reflect this unprecedented distinction, the way we chose Alef (5767), the code-named woman whose accusation of Moshe Katsav triggered the president’s downfall, or Moshe Talansky (5768), whose testimony signaled Ehud Olmert’s political demise.
Having understood this, our choice of 5779’s Person of the Year is a no-brainer: Avigdor Liberman.
THE 61-YEAR-OLD tennis enthusiast who single-handedly thrust us into monumental tumult shaped this stormy year more than anyone else. All the rest of the year’s political protagonists seemed like pawns on Liberman’s chessboard.
My friends,Global damage?
Collective action is also vital for ending bitter crises and conflicts. And no crisis has done more global damage than the core conflict in my region, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
It begins with respect for the holy sites and rejecting all attempts to alter the legal status of East Jerusalem and the authentic historic character of the Holy City, Jerusalem. What lessons do we teach young people, when armed personnel enter Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif, even as Muslim worshippers gather to pray?I'll tell you what lesson you are teaching them. You are teaching them that if Jews enter the site, they must be torn limb from limb, and therefore Jews must visit under protection.
Forty years ago, my father, His Majesty the late King Hussein, who loved peace, stood in this very chamber, and decried the occupation and attempts, in his words, "to eradicate from the world's memory centuries of history and tradition and of spiritual, moral, and cultural ideals."Israel has done far more to save and preserve Muslim history in Jerusalem than King Hussein ever did. The difference is that Israel also preserves Jewish history, and King Hussein and his father before him did everything they could to erase that.
In conclusion, I salute all our Palestinian people in Palestine, in the refugee camps and Diaspora and across the world and express our pride in them. I tell them: we are confident that this occupation, like all occupation that preceded it, will inevitably end; that the dawn of freedom and independence is coming; and that the oppression and aggression they have endured for so long will not last. A right is never lost as long as someone strives to claim it.The official Arabic transcript adds that Abbas' speech explicitly supported paying terrorists to the last penny of the PA's budget, and the video of the UN translation added an additional bizarre claim about how most countries have been "occupied." Here is the UN version as Abbas said it; you can watch it here starting at 23:15.
We salute our honorable martyrs, courageous prisoners and wounded heroes, and salute their resilient families who we will not give up on their rights. We salute to those remaining steadfast in our beloved homeland. The date of our freedom and the independence of State with its eternal capital Al-Quds is soon approaching.
In conclusion, I salute all our Palestinian people in Palestine, in the refugee camps and Diaspora and across the world and express our pride in them. I tell them: we are confident that this occupation, like all occupation that preceded it, will inevitably end. Many countries have been occupied, including the United States - it was occupied once, and that occupation ended. In Europe and Africa, Latin America, we have seen many forms of occupation, and we say that the occupation of Palestine will end, Allah-willing, as it has ended in other countries, and we will continue to call for respecting our rights. A right is never lost as long as someone strives to claim it.I have no idea what he is talking about when he says the US was occupied. Texas in the Mexican American War?
We salute our honorable martyrs, courageous prisoners and wounded heroes. We salute their resilient families. We will protect your rights regardless of the cost. I will not accept the claims of Israel. Even if I have only one penny left, I will give this penny to the families of the martyrs , the prisoners and heroes, and I will not accept these demands.
Peace, mercy and blessings of God.
To distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, 20 years ago I formulated the 3D test for anti-Semitism. The three Ds are demonization, delegitimization, and double standards - the three main tools that anti-Semites employed against Jews throughout history. This test shows that the same tools are being used today against the collective Jew - the Jewish State.The United Nations Delegitimizes BDS
Many who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement may do so out of a naive belief that it is working to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the movement takes it cue from the BDS National Committee based in Ramallah in the West Bank. It has one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel - a goal cleverly masked behind the veneer of fighting for human rights.
When caricatures against Israeli leaders repeat the worst anti-Semitic caricatures of Czarist Russia or Nazi Germany, depicting Israelis as crucifying Palestinians and portraying Palestinians as living in Nazi death camps - that is demonization.
When the legitimacy of the Jewish State is denied and, in the language of some of the founders and key promoters of BDS, there is no place for a Jewish state in the Middle East in any borders - that is delegitimization. Indeed, the movement's leader, Omar Barghouti, has said unequivocally: "Most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.''
When the Jewish State is singled out for criticism that not even the vilest dictatorship is subject to and it is held to standards that not even the most vibrant democracy is judged by - those are double standards.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, just released a report titled, “Combatting Antisemitism to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief.” Sadly, it came as no surprise to read about the proliferation of antisemitism across the globe, and about its multiple sources from across the political spectrum.
But when I read the Rapporteur’s recommendation that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s “Working Definition of Antisemitism” be regarded as a source of guidance for identifying future acts of antisemitism, I recognized that a new chapter in the opposition to the BDS campaign against Israel had arrived.
As noted in the report, the IHRA’s Working Definition defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” The definition continues: “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The report also provides the definition’s multiple examples of “contemporary antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere” — two of which could have been taken from the BDS playbook. They include:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
In concert, these two examples clearly reveal the antisemitic nature of the BDS campaign.
The @BDSmovement has been officially recognised as antisemitic by 15 countries, the EU and 33 US states who have adopted @TheIHRA definition of antisemitism.
— The Mossad: Elite Parody Division (@TheMossadIL) September 25, 2019
Why do they still have a blue checkmark?#UncheckBDS#UnmaskBDS @4ILorghttps://t.co/ZsdvzKqU93 pic.twitter.com/rGvLcM1RQ6
So where do British Jews go?
It would be nice to be rooting for the opposition, but I can’t root for Jeremy Corbyn or for Jeremy Corbyn’s party. What’s the more terrible? This is something that all the Jews I know say: What’s more terrible, Boris Johnson and his cynicism or Jeremy Corbyn and his rigid anti-Semitic ideology? He doesn’t think he’s an anti-Semite. He doesn’t call himself as an anti-Semite, but he’s an anti-Semite. Everything he says, everything he does, all these predilections, all the things he doesn’t notice. It’s anti-Semitism. So we can’t want him to win.
He doesn’t call himself an anti-Semite, but he’s an anti-Semite. Everything he says, everything he does, all these predilections… It’s anti-Semitism
I wouldn’t say it’s a perilous time for Jews, but it’s an anxious time for Jews.
Is the anti-Semitism people talk about in the UK as bad as it seems from the outside looking in?
Well, I mean, it’s not as though I go out onto the streets and fear for my life. I shouldn’t say that because I’m gonna get knifed today, but I don’t. I go around, I appear in public, I say things and I don’t get attacked for them. I’m not on Twitter, otherwise I might discover that people are abusing me roundly all the time. And there are places, of course, where people are attacked. There are places where if you were an Orthodox-looking Jew, and you’ve got a kippah and you’ve got your tzitzit [fringes], then you could be attacked, and some are attacked.
It’s an intellectual tone that’s discomforting. You never know how these things move from the opinion makers, the intellectuals, the politicians, the universities down into the mob. I think we can call them a mob again; they’re behaving like a mob. The universities are hotbeds of that form of anti-Semitism which claims it isn’t anti-Semitism, and says it’s anti-Zionism, which is nonetheless anti-Semitism. Those who say “I’m an anti-Zionist, I’m not an anti-Semite,” I will not admit that distinction. If they say “I don’t like Israel’s foreign policy, I don’t care for Netanyahu,” fine. That’s not anti-Semitism.
To not see the necessity of Zionism, or to refuse to see the necessity of Zionism, and to think of it as an ideology of cruelty, you have to be an anti-Semite, you have to be uneducated and ignorant. Then once you’ve been shown the truth, to persist in the idea, as Corbyn does, that “Zionism is a racist endeavor” — that’s the phrase that Corbyn likes — I think that’s a deeply anti-Semitic thing to say.
Since Hamas' rise to power in the Gaza Strip, Christians living in the sector have become the scapegoats and a target for harm from both Hamas and extremist Salafis. Due to their predicament, most of them fled; out of a community of 4,200 people twelve years ago, there are now several hundred left.So why haven't there been any reports by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch or Oxfam about the plight of Christians in Gaza?
Until recently, Kamal Teresi was there to,o but managed to escape 4 months ago: "The Hamas people took over my house and turned it into a war room," he says.
Teresi provides a rare glimpse into the unbearable reality he and his community have had to face every day. "I was put in a number of prisons, and the Hamas prison is nothing but beating and psychological torture," he recalls. According to him, the attacks on Christians in Gaza has become routine, and it does not stop even in times of war.
"We Christians are not bystanders in Palestine, we have been in Palestine for two thousand years, we are not guests," says Kamal painfully. "They are harassing and hurting the Christian public and Christian institutions, churches and associations."
...One thing is certain for Kamal: he no longer has a way back: "I can't go back to Gaza, returning would be a death sentence."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been given the chance to form a government for the sixth time on Wednesday, after succeeding in his five terms in office but not having the opportunity to do so following the April election.
President Reuven Rivlin formally gave Netanyahu four weeks to form the government, after a meeting at the President’s Residence with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz failed to bring about a breakthrough. The deadline will be October 24.
“Netanyahu had the best chance to form a government,” Rivlin said in a speech alongside the prime minister.
A Channel 12 poll broadcast Wednesday night found that the public prefers Netanyahu go first in a rotation with Gantz. But to avoid another election, a majority of respondents would like to see Likud replace Netanyahu with another candidate.
The survey of 700 respondents representing a statistical sample of the population was taken by pollster Camil Fuchs. The margin of error was 4%.
Rivlin said he gave the mandate to Netanyahu because he received 55 recommendations from MKs, compared with Gantz’s 54. He called upon parties to stop disqualifying each other and lamented that a unity government was not formed.
UNRWA staff members, including teachers regularly share antisemitic and pro-terrorism content on social media and face no consequences, according to NGO UN Watch.PMW: Why is Fatah hiding its Facebook Account?
In a report published on Wednesday, the Geneva-based organization exposed posts from 10 United Nations employees that included praises of terrorism against Israelis, and a picture of Adolf Hitler describing him as a humanitarian.
The latest cases bring the total number of staff members uncovered sharing similar content to 100, according to the report.
“Despite our prior identification of UNRWA teachers who endorse Hitler and call for killing Jews, I am not aware of a single UNRWA teacher who has been fired as a result,” commented director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer. “Why is it that an ostensibly neutral UN agency that claims to teach tolerance continues to employ terrorist-supporting and antisemitic staff?”
UNRWA has often drawn widespread criticism for its soft stance on terrorism, including allowing Hamas to place rockets and weapons in its schools in 2014.
Moreover, the United Nations is currently investigating allegations of ethical misconduct by its senior staff members.
According to a report leaked to the media in July, the officials are accused of engaging in “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain.”
Following the allegations, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and New Zealand announced that they were temporarily suspending their financial contributions to the agency.
UN Watch collected the material included in the report based on information displayed publicly on Facebook, and by searching for UNRWA-related key words.
Yesterday, Palestinian Media Watch reported that Fatah's terror promoting Facebook page had been closed. This came two weeks after PMW released a new report on Fatah's use of Facebook during 2019, documenting its continued terror promotion. This was joined by PMW's public pressure campaign, in cooperation with ACT-IL, in which thousands of people sent complaints to Facebook demanding that Fatah's page be permanently shut down.PMW: Vile Antisemitism on Fatah's Facebook Page
Following the closure of the page, Facebook notified the press yesterday that they are still reviewing the complaints against Fatah's Facebook page and had not yet made a final decision and were not the ones who closed the page.
Yesterday evening, the editor of Fatah's Facebook page, Munir Al-Jaghoub, told The Times of Israel that Fatah itself closed the page because of PMW's campaign, apparently to hide it so that people won't be able to make complaints. Al-Jaghoub explained:
"We decided to close it down for a period of time as a precautionary measure. We were worried that Facebook would shut it down permanently because of that Israeli organization's [PMW] campaign and complaints against it." [The Times of Israel, Sept. 25, 2019]
The Times of Israel further reported that "He [Al-Jaghoub] and his [Fatah] staff decided to temporarily deactivate the page after they grew concerned that Facebook would shut it down over mounting complaints against its content... Jaghoub said he and his team intend to reactivate the page in the future, but have not settled on a date yet.
'We will be patient,' he said. 'We can reactivate it at any moment, but we want to make sure we do that after this wave of attacks against the page passes.'"
PMW views Al-Jaghoub's statement as a striking indicator of the terror content of Fatah's Facebook page that Fatah itself decided to close it down and hide it from public scrutiny to prevent their page from being shut down by Facebook.
There is no justification for Facebook to permit Fatah to reopen its page. We hope that Facebook will recognize what Fatah itself understands, namely that its Facebook page promotes terror, and keep Fatah's page permanently closed.
How Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah sees the Jewish role in the world:Fatah: Jews allied with Nazi Germany to burn Jews for profit
- "The [Jewish] tribe led the project to enslave humanity"
- "[The Jews] were hated because of their racism and their filthy behavior"
- The Jews allied with Nazis to burn Jews "to accumulate wealth"
- The Jews say: "Only we are people, and all the others are our animals"
- "Non-Jews... according to their worldview are snakes"
- The Jews established "ghettos in order to separate from other people out of arrogance and disgust for non-Jews"
- "Seventy years have passed since the artificial state's [Israel's] establishment... They [the Jews] have not removed from their consciousness the view of the other as inferior and the right to spill the blood of the nations"
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