Friday, December 13, 2019
Caroline Glick: Why American Jews slander President Trump
The royal host of the American Jewish establishment hissed that in speaking thus, Trump reinforced the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews love money.President Trump deserves our thanks for combating antisemitism
Such twaddle.
As he said, Trump was addressing his fellow real estate developers in the crowd. He was talking to them as his competitors, not as his enemies. When he said, "You’re brutal killers" he was paying them a compliment. They understood, which is why they laughed.
Trump’s claim that they would vote for him even if they didn’t like him because they feared the Democrats’ confiscatory tax policies is his standard line on Democratic tax policy. He says it to everyone, not just to Jews. The audience knew this too – which is why they laughed and applauded.
The Jewish establishment types joined the bandwagon and agreed Trump’s playful, friendly statement was anti-Semitic because they want to believe Trump is an anti-Semite. If Trump is an anti-Semite then it’s reasonable for them to remain loyal to the Democratic party which, led by "the squad" is leaping towards the anti-Semitic cliff that Britain’s Labour Party jumped off when it elected Jeremy Corbyn its leader.
In other words, they slander Trump as an anti-Semite because they prefer their partisan interests to the interests of the Jewish community in America and the Jewish people throughout the world.
Luckily, as Trump’s consistent record of support for Israel and the Jews in America and worldwide and as his warmth for Jewish people makes clear, the President doesn’t have an anti-Semitic bone in his body. And he won’t become an anti-Semite no matter how poorly the American Jewish establishment treats him.
Trump’s Jewish critics said he was trafficking in anti-Semitic "tropes" when he told the IAC, that in the U.S. "you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people – they don’t love Israel enough." But he was doing no such thing. He was telling the truth. Those Jewish people love neither Israel nor the children of Israel, the Jewish nation enough.
Thankfully, President Trump loves the Jews and Israel so much that he makes up for them.
This is an important start – but it’s not nearly enough, given how successful BDS has been in its efforts to spread antisemitism. Hatred of Jews is on the rise around the world, with more than 20% of Europeans claiming that Jews have too much influence in business, finance, media and politics, according to a recent CNN poll. France and Germany both reported marked increases in antisemitic attacks over the past year, and incidents closer to home – in San Diego this year, Pittsburgh last year and likely Jersey City this week – make clear that America has not been spared.JPost Editorial: What is the situation of American Jews, if Trump needed to issue an EO?
This rising tide of antisemitism is especially dangerous given the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors who have for decades acted as a bulwark against those who seek to propagate hatred of Jews. Without the evidence of our history – of the horrors that arise when antisemitism goes unchecked – we are liable to lose the knowledge and understanding of it as well. Once that is gone, it may not be recovered. Without it, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.
That’s why it is more important now than ever before to preserve Jewish heritage. As the chairman of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, I’ve been tasked by President Trump with protecting historic sites of great significance to US citizens and particularly to members of the Jewish community and their ancestors.
Thankfully, the president has been a tireless advocate of the commission’s work. American heritage is inextricably linked to the tapestry of identities that make up the American experience, and with President Trump’s support we have been more active in preserving that heritage than ever before.
What has the situation for Jews in the United States come to if the president needs to issue an executive order to combat antisemitism?NYTs: Executive Order on Jews Has Firm Legal Grounding
Forget for a moment about all the backlash surrounding the executive order – and there has been an enormous amount, ranging from thoughtful, qualitative considerations of free speech and criticism of Israel, and babbling debate about whether Jews are a nation, race or religion, to absurd claims that its enactment marks the beginning of an ominous era aimed at seperating Jewish people out of the collective.
Instead, let’s focus on the facts. In 2019, nearly 75 years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust – years in which American Jews experienced unprecedented freedom and opportunity and rose to become a hugely proactive force across all facets of American life – there is a remarkably frightening rise in violent antisemitism.
What is US President Donald Trump’s executive order? It directs the Justice Department and the Education Department to address discrimination cases against Jews under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which stipulates that discrimination on the basis of “race, color or national origin” is prohibited. It also adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which states that efforts to demonize, delegitimize or apply double standards to Israel are antisemitic.
President Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to use Title VI of the Civil Rights Act - the law that bars federally funded programs from discriminating on the basis of "race, color, or national origin" - to combat anti-Semitism.
His interpretation of Title VI as applying to anti-Semitism is neither new nor troubling. The characterization of anti-Semitism as a form of racial or national-origin discrimination has a secure place in American law.
In 1982, after Shaare Tefila synagogue in Silver Spring, Md., was spray-painted with swastikas, Ku Klux Klan symbols and other anti-Semitic messages, the synagogue and several members responded by suing those who had vandalized their house of worship. The plaintiffs cited the Civil Rights Act, arguing that even though Jews are not a racially distinct group, the vandals viewed Jews as a distinct race and were motivated by racial animus. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which voted unanimously in the synagogue's favor. Jewish groups cheered the ruling.
The Shaare Tefila case teaches that placing a group within a racial category for purposes of civil rights protection does not require us to endorse the idea that the group is racially distinct. Anti-Semitism can be racism for legal purposes even though Jewishness cannot be reduced to racial terms.
Jews do not fit neatly into categories of "race," "religion" and "national origin" that took their present shape millenniums after the Jewish people came into existence. The nuances of Jewish identity do not, however, shield Jews from attackers who see Jews as a nation apart. Jews can suffer national-origin discrimination regardless of whether Jewishness is a nationality.
The Education Department under President George W. Bush recognized that anti-Semitism could constitute racial or national-origin discrimination within Title VI's ambit. The Justice Department under President Obama reaffirmed that view. President Trump's executive order is consistent with those interpretations.
Like Pepsi, Democrats Need To Reverse Course On Boycotting Israel
Sen. Bernie Sanders has said the United States should divert some aid for Israel to Hamas-run Gaza. Sen. Elizabeth Warren told voters “everything is on the table” to shift Israeli government policy in her preferred direction. Iowa frontrunner Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who compared Israel to a misguided friend needing redirection, is open to leveraging aid to effect policy changes.The Tikvah Podcast: Senator Joseph Lieberman on American Jews and the Zionist Dream
There is no doubt these candidates are playing to the Democratic crowds. Rewinding to January 2018, Pew Research found that “the share of liberal Democrats who sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians has declined from 33% to 19% since 2016 . . . [while] the share of conservative and moderate Democrats who sympathize more with Israel has declined 18 percentage points since 2016 (from 53% to 35%).”
A new poll conducted by Data for Progress and trumpeted in the far-left Jewish Currents reports that while 64 percent of Republicans oppose BDS, “among Democratic voters, a majority, 53%, say that BDS is legitimate, and 44% support BDS. Nearly half of Democratic voters, 48%, oppose anti-BDS laws, while only 15% support them.”
These numbers help explain Democrats’ foot-dragging on anti-BDS legislation, along with the Democratic primary’s tenor. A growing number of Democrats tolerate, or even gladly support, the movement to boycott Israel. They justify it using the elevated language of free speech and social justice, but it’s economic warfare.
Pepsi, of course, eventually course corrected and entered the Israeli market. It’d be good to see Democrats renew their party’s previous relationship with Israel, but that would require marginalizing the boycotters. Right now, that looks less likely than Democrats embracing Pepsi’s old, discriminatory image.
Not everything needs to be recycled. Some ideas really are best left on the ash heap of history.
This past October, the former U.S. senator Joseph Lieberman was a keynote speaker at the inaugural Herzl Conference on Contemporary Zionism, held on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. His speech was published on November 7 in Mosaic in essay form as “What American Jews Can Do to Help Keep Herzl’s Dream Alive.” In it, Senator Lieberman reflects on the miracle of the modern Jewish state, the meaning of Jewish self-determination for American Jews, and some of his concerns about the future of bipartisan support for Israel, especially among the young.Deconstructing the Nakba Myth: The Palestinian Aggressors Became the Victims
Senator Lieberman has had a long, distinguished, and strikingly independent career in public service. Elected to the Senate as a Democrat, he was his party’s nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election—the first American Jew to be nominated on a major party ticket. In 2008, he endorsed the Republican nominee for president, his longtime friend John McCain. But as the political terrain shifted around him, Senator Lieberman has always remained a steadfast supporter of the Jewish state, and it was a privilege to have him join Tikvah Senior Director Jonathan Silver on this podcast.
As you listen, you’ll here the senator discuss the history of his personal relationship to Israel, how he thinks Zionism can help American Jews be better citizens, and his thoughts of whether the longstanding bipartisan support for Israel is fraying as a rising progressive movement grows at the expense of the Democratic center.
Nakba Day (lit. "Day of Catastrophe") has become the most actively performed ritual of the Palestinian myth. Hidden behind the exodus of the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 war, which this ritual commemorates, is the war of extermination launched by many Arab countries against the Jews in the young state of Israel. The Palestinians were the allies of these countries. The defeat of their armies and their political failure in opposing the partition of Mandatory Palestine are thus rewritten, with the Nakba as a congenital injustice in which the Palestinian aggressors became the victims.PodCast: #233: How to Fight Anti-Semitism" Bari Weiss
Before the British Mandate this territory had been part of the Ottoman Empire, and "Palestine" was neither a geographical nor a political entity. Furthermore, the population that was there was not completely "indigenous." At the end of the 19th century, Arabs from all of the countries within the Ottoman Empire migrated to the territory, attracted by the economic hub created by the Jews. Yasser Arafat and Prof. Edward Said, for example, were not Palestinians but rather Egyptians. During the British Mandate, the Jews were dubbed "Palestinians." It was only after the 1967 war that the Arabs of Palestine were presented as "Palestinians."
Anti-semitism is on the rise in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Jews are the targets. Democracy and free speech are also among the casualties.Was the Golden Age in medieval Spain a myth?
6 people died this week in Jersey City, New Jersey, in a shootout at a kosher supermarket. The two gunmen appear to have been motivated by anti-semitism and anger against the police. Britain's Labour Party has been rocked by widespread reports of anti-semitism. Labor's second most powerful leader has apologized to the Jewish community and admits the controversy may affect the result of this week's U.K. election.
Our guest in this episode of "How Do We Fix It?" is Bari Weiss, an opinion writer at The New York Times, who covers culture and politics. We discuss her new book, "How to Fight Anti-Semitism."
Did the medieval Andalusian Golden Age of Jews, Muslims and Christians, much vaunted by interfaith projects and Arab sources, really exist, or is it a myth? Recent research by Fernando Dario Morera and others has put the Golden Age in question.US Islamic scholar: Narrative about Muslims killing Jews predictive, not anti-Semitic
A recent Dialogia conference held in Israel examined the myth and the reality. Sociologist emeritus professor Shmuel Trigano argued that the myth was created by German Wissenshaft scholars in the age of emancipation. More recently it has been exploited to foster multiculturalism in contemporary Europe. The French education system aims to imbue its large number of Muslim students with pride in their heritage. The myth of a multi-culti paradise is generally instrumentalised to facilitate the absorption of large numbers of Muslim immigrants into Europe.
The three religions, Trigano asserted, did not live with each other, they lived alongside each other. The Jews were isolated in their ghettoes or mellahs in the shadow of the royal palace. Potentates granted them protection in return for their loyalty. Medieval kings could rely on the Jews and trusted them not to betray them. Some rose to high office, such as the vizirs Shmuel ibn Nagrela Hanagid and his son Yosef. Like Yosef, who was crucified and 4,000 of his coreligionists massacred in 1066, they could come to a violent end.
Yet a sort of 'intellectual myopia' has taken hold and the mantra 'Islam saved Jews' has been propagated by Bernard Wasserstein and others. The jizya tax on the dhimmi Jew and Christian was a ransom, said Trigano. Maimonides even converted to Islam to survive at a time of Islamic fundamentalism. We know he did this because he taught at the university of Kairouan. - only Muslims could.
The Islamic hadith stating that at the "End of Days" the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, which will call out to Muslims to come and kill them, is not anti-Semitic rather merely predictive, not prescriptive, according to prominent American Islamic scholar Sheikh Yasir Qadi.Stop Co-Opting Our Struggle
The hadith (Arabic for "narrative") refers to the record of the words, actions, and the tacit approval of the Prophet Muhammad, and is considered "the backbone" of Islamic civilization. Moreover, it is considered a source for religious law and moral guidance second only to Islam's holy book, the Quran.
A recent report by the Middle East Media Research Institute said that Qadhi, who made the remarks during lecture titled "The Signs of the End Times, Part 4" at the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas, where he is the resident scholar, went on to criticize organizations like Fox News, MEMRI and others for citing this hadith as ostensible proof of Muslim anti-Semitism.
The hadith, he explained, simply teaches that most of the Antichrist’s followers will be Jews, and describes a struggle between good and evil. Even though it explicitly mentions killing Jews, said Qadhi, "These hadiths are predictions, not prescriptions. Big difference."
He went on to add that in any case, Muslims cannot be anti-Semitic since Abraham and the Prophet Mohammed were Semites, as are the majority of Muslims.
I have written about how so-called Pro-Palestinian “activists” have co-opted the struggle of Black Americans in an attempt at intersectionality before. Now, Rashida Tlaib thinks that she has the right to co-opt the struggle of Black Israelis—as if Black people are tokens that she can bring out any time she wants to try to cover up her anti-Semitic speech with false ally-ship.
Black Israelis, along with Sephardim and Mizrahim, have traditionally supported what those in the west would consider right-wing or conservative political leaders. Tlaib, ignorantly assumes that because she (and others like her) have been able to use their Arab heritage to claim discrimination from Jews, that Black Israelis view Israel with the same hatred that she and her brethren do. She is wrong. Black Jews, along with most Jews in the US are ardent Zionists, supporting our people’s right to self-determination. We do not need someone who supports the extermination of our people trying to speak for us—it’s paternalistic, ignorant, and insulting that Tlaib thinks she has the right to speak for anyone but herself.
If Tlaib cares so much for the well being of Black Israelis, why hasn’t she called for the release of Avera Mengistu, held captive in the Gaza Strip since September 2014?
Perhaps it is because Tlaib is fine with ignoring the fact that her Palestinian brethren uphold the treatment of Black people in Arab lands—let’s ask her how she feels about “Abeed”.
If she is really concerned about that “human rights are upheld in Israel and that Palestinians and Black Israelis are treated with equality every human being deserves,” then maybe she will speak out against the brutality the LGBTQ+ community faces in Gaza and the West Bank at the hands of Palestinians
📢Israel deeply regrets #CERD's erroneous decision, stating it has jurisdiction to deal with a Palestinian complaint lodged with it against Israel. This decision is not based on solid legal grounds and is clearly selective and biased against Israel.
— Israel in UN/Geneva🇮🇱 (@IsraelinGeneva) December 12, 2019
➡️MORE https://t.co/kMhEkJSkyy pic.twitter.com/xpjuyts0rI
Israelis pessimistic about next gov’t making peace with Palestinians - poll
The majority of Israelis do not expect the next government to do more to reach a peace treaty with the Palestinians, a poll commissioned by the Geneva Initiative found.Jewish prayer has returned to the Temple Mount - exclusive
More than half (56%) of Israelis expect the next government will do less (19%) or the same (37%) to work towards a peace agreement, while 44% expect it to do more.
Most of those surveyed (53%) thought that Israel has not made enough of an effort to reach a peace agreement in the past decade, while 28% said Israel did make a sufficient effort and 19% didn’t know, and most (56%) thought that allowing the current situation to continue is bad for Israel, while 23% thought it was good and 21% didn’t know.
Of the following options, 57% preferred a two-state solution, 26% chose one state with fewer rights for Palestinians and 17% preferred one state with equal rights for all.
Jewish worshipers are able to pray on the Temple Mount with what appears to be the tacit consent of police forces at the site, The Jerusalem Post observed during a visit there on Thursday.PMW: PA ministry: First Palestinian terror wave was "glorious", Fatah pledges to use same "modus operandi"
Jewish worshipers are able to pray on the Temple Mount with what appears to be the tacit consent of police forces at the site, The Jerusalem Post observed during a visit there on Thursday.
Despite the insistence by Israel Police that there has been no change in the decades-old policy, Jews now pray – in full view of the police – in an unobtrusive and inconspicuous manner.
A senior Wakf Department official said he was unaware of any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount, but warned that any change would lead to renewed protests and spark a strong response from Arabs and Muslims.
Fatah encourages more violence and terror, pledging it continues the “popular resistance… while relying on the modus operandi of the great popular intifada”UN study: Israeli occupation costs Palestinians $2.5b. each year
Official PA daily: “The blessed Intifada”
Fatah glorifies first terror wave and arch-terrorist Abu Jihad: "There is no voice that rises above the voice of the Intifada"
Posted text: "The Stone Intifada"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 8, 2019]
This week Palestinians marked the anniversary of the outbreak of the first Palestinian wave of violence and terror against Israel – the first Intifada or “the Stone Intifada.” During this wave of violence (1987-1993), Palestinians threw stones and used car bombs, stabbings, as well as shootings to murder approximately 200 Israelis.
The PA Ministry of Information commemorated this as “the glorious Intifada” and highlighted the necessity of martyrdom for Palestinians in order to be “saved”:
“The [PA] Ministry of Information said that the Stone Intifada… proved our people’s determination to be saved through the sacrifices of the Martyrs, the moans of the wounded, the suffering of the prisoners, and the oppression of the expelled. [The ministry] emphasized that the fact that the anniversary of the popular Intifada is occurring at a time when the Israeli terror is increasing, a cruel settlement attack is occurring, and the American administration is continuing its coup against international law after declaring Jerusalem the capital of the occupation state demands national unity from our people – something that characterized the glorious Intifada.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 9, 2019]
Israeli military control of the West Bank between 2000 and 2017 cost the Palestinian people approximately $47.7 billion, or more than $2.5 billion annually, according to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report published on December 2.If Abbas Allows Elections, What If Hamas Wins?
The report, titled “Economic cost of the Israeli occupation for the Palestinian people: Fiscal aspects,” says that if these sums were invested in the Palestinian economy, they would have created two million jobs.
Khaled al-Osaily, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of national economy, told The Media Line that the real figure was probably much higher.
“This figure isn’t accurate, where there are indirect costs of the Israeli occupation that simply can’t be measured,” he said. “Israel views its illegal occupation of the West Bank as a source of income. It’s a profitable project that generates great revenues for Israel.”
Osaily added that the UN and various countries were making tremendous diplomatic efforts to limit Israeli “violations,” saying the Palestinian leadership was engaged in “certain legal preparations” as well.
“I believe the government is working with the International Criminal Court,” Osaily said.
Many in Israel wondered this week what made Abbas announce elections so resolutely. What, in fact, is the point of elections for the legislative council and PA presidency given that the split between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is practically a done deal and the leader of the PA does not have a foothold in Gaza?Gazans clash with IDF troops along border as Hamas marks founding
Hamas and the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad each hold in Gaza armed militias. Together they number tens of thousands of combatants equipped with Iranian weapons and ammunition. These two groups will surely not accept the terms that Abbas outlined in the past for unifying Gaza and the West Bank in adherence to the principle of “one law, one weapon, under one authority.” At the same time, Abbas’ rivals in Gaza are negotiating with Israel over a long-term truce, which, if finalized and implemented, would be regarded as a tremendous achievement affirming a form of recognition of their sovereignty over the enclave.
Even if Abbas and his Fatah movement, the dominant force in the PA, garner a large majority in the elections, will Hamas give up control of Gaza it wrested from Fatah in a 2007 coup and hand over control of its armored Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades to the aging PA leader? The same leader who has imposed economic sanctions on Hamas and led it to plead for a deal with Israel to save itself?
Although the Israeli Security Cabinet is supposed to discuss the PA request, its current makeup is unlikely to do so without involving narrow political considerations at a time when Israel itself is headed for elections.
By the way, one cannot help but reflect on the absurdity of Israeli Cabinet ministers facing the country’s third elections in less than a year being asked to make a decision that could affect the prospects of the first Palestinian elections in 13 years.
Several thousand Palestinians protested on the Gaza border Friday, with several hundred rioting and clashing with Israeli forces, as the coastal enclave’s Hamas rulers marked 32 years since the founding of the terror group.Congressman Urges Probe Into Georgetown University Over Support for ‘Anti-American, Pro-BDS’ Scholarship
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said five Palestinians were hurt in the clashes, which included the hurling of molotov cocktails and other objects at IDF soldiers.
Video shot near the southern city of Khan Younis showed a fire breaking out on the hood of an Israel Defense Forces vehicle after it was apparently struck by a fire bomb.
No soldiers were injured.
Around 2,000 people took part in protests at various spots along the Gaza border, according to Hebrew media reports.
Congressman Denver Riggleman (R-VA) called on the US Education Department on Wednesday to investigate a federally-funded program at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, over its links to the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign.Barnet branch of National Education Union adopts International Definition of Antisemitism
In a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Riggleman accused Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) of demonstrating “systematic support for biased, anti-American, pro-BDS individuals and scholarship,” which was “not in accordance with the mission of Title VI funds and contrary to America’s national security interests.”
Title VI of the Higher Education Act provides federal funding to international studies and foreign language centers nationwide. In 2018, CCAS announced that it received a $1.9 million, four-year grant to be a National Resource Center under the Title VI program, which would support “education outreach and public programming, and the teaching of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew.” The center was also awarded a Foreign Language Area Studies grant to support student scholarship and language study.
Despite this federal funding, “the Center is run by openly pro-BDS faculty,” Riggleman’s letter read.
Among those named were CCAS director and associate professor of cultural anthropology Rochelle Davis, as well as professors of history Osama Abi-Mershed, Yvonne Haddad and Judith Tucker. All four signed a BDS pledge in 2014 agreeing to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and committed “not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.”
“While all of these individuals are entitled to their views,” noted Riggleman, “and Georgetown’s CCAS is entitled to spend private and other funds on whatever they like, they should not be allowed to spend taxpayer funds, directed by law, in ways not in accordance with statutory mandates.”
The Barnet District of the National Education Union (NEU) has resolved to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism.Visit the Western Wall: No Special Permission Needed
The NEU is the largest education union in the UK, and was formed following the merger of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in 2017.
On 7th November its Barnet District branch held its general meeting and resounding majorities passed two significant motions related to antisemitism in the face of some vitriolic opposition. The first motion welcomed the Government’s and Labour Party’s adoption of the International Definition and the second resolved to adopt it and called on the NEU’s National Conference to follow suit.
It is understood that the motions took three years to get to this stage and pass. The motions were reportedly proposed by Raphael Kessler and seconded by Jon Cohen, both of Hasmonean Multi-Academy Trust.
Credit to Erwin Renaldi, a journalist at the Australian ABC’s Asia Pacific Newsroom, who wrote about his experience visiting Jerusalem.With Fager’s Departure, A Less Hostile, But Still Problematic Segment from 60 Minutes
Being a Muslim Indonesian and an intrepid traveller, I’d visited Mecca and Medina in neighbouring Saudi Arabia many times, but never made it west to Jerusalem despite it being on my bucket list for years.
Part of this was due to travel limitations and finances, but also due to fears about security being a journalist in addition to the fact that — while not necessarily hostile to each other — Israel and Indonesia have no formal diplomatic ties to this day.
There is no better way to dispel some of the fears and misunderstandings surrounding Israel than visiting and seeing the country for yourself. While describing some of the complications and security procedures he went through getting a visa and entering Israel as a citizen of a country that has no official relations, Renaldi writes in a fair and non-judgmental way. It is clear that his experience of Israel and particularly Jerusalem is an overwhelmingly positive one.
That’s why there is no reason to believe that a number of factual errors in his piece were made in bad faith.
Such as this:
And since a security crackdown by the Israeli Government in 2017, Muslims living in the Old City are only able to enter or pray at the mosque on Fridays and Islamic holidays.
Restrictions are also in place for non-Muslims, who are only allowed to enter the compound during certain times of the day determined by the Israeli Government.
So passing by all the guards stopping various people, with the knowledge and images of recent tensions in the air despite all the protocols and recent violence during my visit, there were no metal detectors or barriers in sight, and we pretty much walked straight in no questions asked.
Once inside it was serene and security free, but I also felt a little uncomfortable by the fact that an Indonesian Muslim could waltz right in and take a photo like the one below, while people that lived down the road for years could not.
In fact:
There are no restrictions on Palestinian Muslims living in the Old City or with Jerusalem residency from entering the Temple Mount or praying in the Al-Aqsa mosque on any day of the week.
While there was a security crackdown in 2017 during a wave of Palestinian violence that necessitated the installation of metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount compound, even then there were no restrictions. It was Palestinians themselves who refused to go through the metal detectors and preferred to pray outside even though they were not being stopped from going to their holy sites.
An Indonesian Muslim and a Muslim resident of Jerusalem are able to “waltz right in” to the Temple Mount.
Non-Muslims are only allowed to enter the compound at certain times of the day and only through the Mughrabi Gate. This is not a political decision on the part of the Israeli government but agreed upon arrangements between the Israeli Police and the Palestinian Waqf that administers the site.
Sadly, the segment’s opening lines present viewers with an obvious misstatement of fact. Whittaker reports that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent announcement that Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law was a “surprise decision” that “reversed four decades of American policy.”Print to Fit A 120-Year Exposé of the New York Times
As CAMERA researcher Ricki Hollander recently documented, Pompeo’s announcement did no such thing. “For 40 years, US presidents adopted no legal opinion on settlements despite their opposition to settlement construction at any given time,” Hollander reported.
Another howler came when Whittaker declared that the largely uninhabited city is the “first planned city for Palestinians in more than 1,000 years.” With this line, Whittker reveals that he has fallen for the pro-Palestinian line that Palestine has existed as a nation for more than a millennium. Jews have been a nation for thousands of years. The Palestinians? A few decades.
The underlying message of the 60 Minutes segment is that Masri is attempting to provide a home for a constituency of Palestinians who are more interested in promoting economic growth and freedom than they are in fighting a fruitless war against Israel. The segment reports Masri had to overcome both Israeli and Palestinian intransigence, but suggests that the delays are mostly Israel’s fault, the result of “right wing opposition.”
As a longtime media critic who closely follows the New York Times’ coverage of Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I read Jerold Auerbach’s latest book, “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel, 1896-2016,” with great interest. Having spent almost two decades analyzing New York Times’ reporting about the Jewish state, I’m well-acquainted with the newspaper’s anti-Israel bias, which is an entrenched feature of its coverage.Shame on the NYTimes Publishing an Anti-Semitic Letter
The newspaper’s negative treatment of Jewish causes has a history that has been discussed before: In her 2005 book, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper, Northeastern University journalism professor Laurel Leff described the Times’ shameful habit of burying news about the Holocaust at the back of the newspaper. Leff suggested that editors deliberately downplayed news about Nazi targeting and genocide of European Jews as part of a conscious effort by publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger to ensure the newspaper would not appear “too Jewish.” Former New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel similarly lamented “the staggering, staining failure of The New York Times to depict Hitler’s methodical extermination of the Jews of Europe as a horror beyond all other horrors in World War II” as Sulzberger “went to great lengths to avoid having The Times branded a ‘Jewish newspaper.’”
Print to Fit goes back even further, starting decades before the Holocaust. Auerbach’s contribution is to demonstrate through meticulous documentation just how much a part of its DNA is the New York Times’ animus against the Jewish state. The author, a professor emeritus of history at Wellesley College, brings his historian’s eye to dissecting the newspaper’s long course of bias against the Jewish state, tracing it back to the purchase of the newspaper in 1896 by Adolph S. Ochs.
Ochs, the American-born son of Jewish immigrants from Bavaria, was an adherent of the American Reform movement of Judaism, whose prominent members and leaders — including Och’s own father-in-law, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise — were staunch opponents of the Zionist movement. Ochs acquired the newspaper in 1896, the same year Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat, which proposed the restoration of an independent Jewish state in the Jewish ancestral homeland as a solution to global anti-Semitism. The newspaper’s coverage of the nascent Jewish national movement was influenced by the “assimilationist ideology” of the Reform Judaism that Ochs embraced.
In Friday's paper, reacting to President Donald Trump's Executive Order [EO], this letter was published:Teen suspect in assault of Hebrew-speaking Israeli on Paris subway arrested
To the Editor:
Re “Trump’s Order Protects Jews,” by Jared Kushner (Op-Ed, Dec. 12), about an executive order to withhold federal money from colleges that don’t fight bias against Jewish students:
Attacks on Jews in this country and throughout the world are very troubling. Everyone with even a meager knowledge of history is well aware of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. Also troubling are the attacks on Muslims, people of color and those who are not heterosexual.
Mr. Kushner’s father-in-law, Donald Trump, and members of the administration are largely to blame for the rise of violence and discrimination against the “other” here in this country, including Jews.
I would be more apt to support the president’s executive order if I weren’t overwhelmingly disgusted by the overt racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism displayed by this president and his supporters over the last three years. It is the president who has engaged in divisive, dangerous rhetoric, fueling the flames of white supremacy and anti-Jewish sentiment.
Instead of seeking fair treatment of all residents of this country, this president has decided to win over the Jewish vote through this transparent ploy.
Jane Carlin
Stamford, Conn.
The EO simply applies, in an equalizing fashion, the terms of the law as it has applied to other minorities. In other words, it removes any discrimination against Jews as regards protection from hate crimes they otherwise previously did not have. We Jews, and the students on campuses, surely do need that equality factor.
Moreover, the reason for that is not Trump. To blame him for radical Muslim students, their extremist progressive allies and, unfortunately, the neo-Bundist Jewish Diaspora supremacists attacking verbally and physical with threats of harm as well as harm caused by prejudiced lecturers and university administrators, is anti-Semitic. It is, again, blaming the victim.
Shame on the NYTimes.
Police have arrested a 17-year-old Madagascar native in connection with the assault of an Israeli student speaking Hebrew on a Paris subway.Frenchman gets 30 years for knife attack on soldiers guarding Nice Jewish center
The teen has admitted to assaulting the Israeli student, but denied that he had antisemitic motivations, Israel’s Kan national broadcaster reported. He has an arrest record in France.
The victim, identified as Yogev Burshtein, 30, entered the metro train at the Château d’Eau station on Monday morning and answered a phone call from his father speaking Hebrew. Two men, described as tall and of African origin, then “began to shout at him, helped by passengers who threatened him and pointed at him,” according to a statement from France’s National Bureau of Vigilance Against antisemitism, or BNVCA.
One of the men attacked the student, striking him on the head, body and face. The student fainted, according to BNVCA, and was taken to a Paris hospital after a fellow passenger called for assistance.
A Paris court on Thursday sentenced a jihadist to 30 years in prison over his February 2015 knife attack on three soldiers guarding a Jewish center in the Mediterranean city of Nice.MEMRI: American Islamic Scholar Based In Texas Sheikh Yasir Qadhi Defends Antisemitic Comments: MEMRI Jumps On Any Preacher Who Quotes Hadith About The Trees And The Rocks, But The Killing Of Jews Is Prediction, Not Prescription; Muslims Cannot Be Antisemites
Moussa Coulibaly, now 35, staged his assault just weeks after the killing of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris, the beginning of a wave of terror attacks carried out in the name of the Islamic State and other jihadist groups.
In the days following that shooting, four people were killed by a jihadist gunman at Hyper Cacher, a kosher supermarket during a hostage standoff with police. The assailant also killed a policewoman in the Montrouge suburb south of Paris where authorities think he may have initially been targeting a nearby Jewish school.
In issuing its ruling, the judges noted that Coulibaly had shown “little or no regret” for the attack, in which two soldiers were injured before a third wrestled Coulibaly to the ground.
They found “an almost fanatical determination” to apply IS calls for French citizens to carry out terror attacks on home soil.
Prominent American Islamic scholar Sheikh Yasir Qadhi delivered a lecture titled "The Signs of the End Times, Part 4" at the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC Masjid) in Plano, TX, where he is the resident scholar. He discussed a hadith that says that at the End of Times, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, which will call to the Muslims and tell them to come and kill the Jews hiding behind them. Sheikh Qadhi said this hadith is not antisemitic whatsoever, and he criticized MEMRI and Fox News for clipping Muslim scholars in the West who cite this hadith and for accusing these clerics of Hitler-esque antisemitism.ADL downplays anti-Semitism among European Muslims
Seeking to justify the use of the hadith, Sheikh Qadhi said that the hadith simply means that most of the Antichrist's followers will be Jews, and that the hadith is merely describing a struggle between good and evil. He added that even though it explicitly mentions killing Jews, the hadith is predictive rather than prescriptive, and he claimed that Muslims cannot be antisemitic since Abraham and the Prophet Muhammad were Semites and since the majority of Semites are Muslims.
Saying that Muslims would have been obligated to protect Jews from the Nazis during WWII, Sheikh Qadhi added that events that took place after 1948 have nothing to do with events that took place before 1948. He further stated: "Muslims cannot be antisemites [but] we can be anti-Zionists, and we are anti-Zionists." The video was uploaded to EPIC Masjid's YouTube channel on August 31, 2019.
Sheikh Qadhi is a Texas-based[1] Pakistani-American scholar who has studied at the University of Houston, at the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia, and at Yale University.[2]
A month after Dr. Kosova’s interview, on Nov. 21, the Anti-Defamation League released its 2019 survey data on the occurrence of extreme anti-Semitism in 18 countries, assessed between April 15 and June 3, 2019. Six of these countries – Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy – included a Muslim over-sample, allowing for a direct comparison of Muslims vs. Christians, those professing no religion, and the overall populations.
ADL’s own press release stated: "Muslim acceptance of anti-Semitic stereotypes was substantially higher than among the national populations – on average almost three times as high – in the six countries tested: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom."
However, the ADL downplayed these striking findings in its press release, listing them as the last of six bullet points.
The ADL also failed to note how compared to Western European Christians, specifically, Muslims were also some three times more likely to harbor extreme anti-Semitic attitudes as gauged by agreeing with at least six of 11 anti-Semitic stereotypes queried.
Given the worldwide pandemic of Muslim anti-Semitism ADL’s 2014 global survey revealed, it is imperative to acknowledge and hold accountable the most authoritative, mainstream Islamic religious teaching institutions – Sunni and Shiite alike – that continue to promote canonical Islam’s most virulently anti-Semitic tropes from the Quran and the traditions of Islam’s prophet Muhammad.
Sunni Islam’s Vatican, Al-Azhar University, and its previous a
BREAKING: A decade after declaring Belgium's Aalst Carnival part of the "cultural heritage of humanity," UNESCO unanimously decides to revoke that designation over "the recurrence of racist and antisemitic representations." Bad day for antisemites: first Corbyn, now this. pic.twitter.com/ljdoEKLRVA
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 13, 2019
Romanian Holocaust survivors celebrate bar and bat Mitzvahs
“I was two-years-old when they shot me in the leg, they killed 14,850 people in those few days, it was a miracle we survived.”Postage stamp features Brazilian who helped rescue Jews from the Nazis
These were the words of Rachel Kivetz, a survivor of the notorious Iasi Pogrom in Romania in which thousands of Jews were murdered by Romanian and German soldiers, members of the Romanian Special Intelligence Service, police, and masses of residents over a two-day period in June 1941.
Kivetz was part of a group of over 50 Romanian Holocaust survivors from Haifa who celebrated their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs at the Western Wall on Thursday.
The event was organized by The Claims Conference in conjunction with The Association of Romanian Olim in Haifa and The Western Wall Foundation.
The Claims Conference is a nonprofit organization that secures monetary and material compensation for Holocaust survivors around the world, hosts social activities for Holocaust survivors, and focuses on Holocaust education, among other things.
One of Brazil’s two Righteous Among the Nations — non-Jews recognized by the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for saving Jews from the Nazis — is featured on a new postage stamp in the South American country.
The stamp with the face of Aracy Moebius de Carvalho Guimaraes Rosa, who obtained visas that paved the way for several Jews to take refuge in Brazil, was released on Wednesday. She also is known by the nickname “Angel of Hamburg.”
Aracy de Carvalho served as head of the passport section of the Brazilian consulate in Hamburg, Germany. The Brazilian president at the time, Getulio Vargas, restricted the entry of Jews into the country.
“One of the tactics adopted to camouflage her actions was to omit the letter J, in red, on passports, a mark imposed by the German government as a way of identifying the Jew,” historian Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro told the UOL news website.
Born in Brazil to a German mother, Aracy de Carvalho moved to Germany in 1936. She took the job at the Brazilian consulate and married assistant consul Joao Guimaraes Rosa, who later would become a famed Brazilian writer with his masterpiece “Grande Sertao: Veredas.”
Our aid delegation to Albania has completed its mission & returned home to Israel.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 13, 2019
1,600 Albanian families can now return to their homes as a result of IDF operations to secure buildings, schools & hospitals hit by the earthquake 2 weeks ago.
🇮🇱 Mission Accomplished 🇦🇱 pic.twitter.com/hUEE0ZGxDF
Being able to send an aid delegation to help the people of Albania after an earthquake, has a much greater meaning to the people of Israel than what one would initially think. Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/h2WlhuSOaA
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 12, 2019
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