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Sunday, December 06, 2020

12/06 Links: Boycotting Jews is nothing new. It is as old as antisemitism; Netanyahu thanks Trump on third anniversary of Jerusalem recognition; Unconfirmed Reports: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Is Dead

From Ian:

David Collier: Boycotting Jews is nothing new. It is as old as antisemitism
Making the moderates and soft Zionists aware
It is important to make headway with more moderate elements of the left, just as it was and remains vitally important to educate them on the issue of antisemitism. Make no mistake, without these elements of the left – you will not win the argument, as many will come out to defend the right to boycott even if they do not adhere to the movement themselves.

This is made worse by the deliberate vagueness of the BDS movement. As boycotting settlement goods adheres to one of the three BDS goals, left-wing Zionists become reluctant to call it out for what it is. Part of their politics aligns with some of the goals of BDS and therefore they see aligning with BDS detractors as a defacto support of Israeli settlement policy. These people must be made to realise that standing up against an antisemitic movement that seeks the destruction of the state of Israel is the ethical thing to do.

The problems with BDS
Therefore, if the antisemitic discrimination inherent in BDS is to be challenged, some of the problems with BDS must be made clear:
- Why does BDS make up stories about Jewish people committing crimes? This is what antisemites have always done.
- BDS does nothing to protect Palestinians in Lebanon, where they face severe persecution. So BDS cannot claim to be about human rights or protecting Palestinians.
- Why does BDS claim it is a ‘call from within’. Not only do they lie about their formation but they also target Israel – Israelis made no such call.
- BDS is deliberately vague. They are not explicit in their goals because they need to hide them.
- Why does BDS make demands about Israeli Arabs, when they are by far the freest Arabs in the region?
- Why do BDS talk about laws that do not exist and then say the Jews must conform to those laws or be punished. This is what medieval Christianity did to the Jews.
- Dozens of despotic nations are serial human rights abusers. Far, far worse that Israel. Why pick on the one Jewish state?
- If BDS is about human rights, why do so many supporters wave flags from despotic Islamist nations?


Call ‘boycotting Jews’ out for what it is
BDS simply needs to be called out for what it is. This is not about free speech. You are not free to illegally discriminate. BDS is just another in a long line of antisemitic movements that chooses boycotting Jews as an initial way of weakening them. It has no place in unions, on campus or on our streets. The BDS movement should be treated as we would treat any of the antisemitic boycott movements from the last 2000 years. They should be shunned wherever they try to sell their hate.
JPost Editorial: The UN has failed Israel with its anti-Israeli resolutions
It is likely that the Palestinians would not have been able to hold out for another four years and would have eventually returned to the negotiating table with Israel, although this time with an understanding that compromises would be necessary.

The question now is what will the Biden administration do if it even finds the time to try and restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. What happened at the UN last week should serve as a reminder of what is not needed. Israelis and the Palestinians don’t need plans, resolutions and proposals that look good on paper and at academic conferences, but have nothing to do with reality.

The countries that voted in favor of the five anti-Israel resolutions at the UN showed that they are detached from reality and from what is happening in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Moreover, anti-Israel resolutions and meetings of the Security Council are not going to bring the sides together.

What can work? An understanding by the Palestinians that they will not simply get what they want and that they will need to compromise to achieve independence, statehood and peace.

For them to understand that, Biden will need to make it clear that the US is not going back to the days of president Barack Obama and the refusal to veto anti-Israel resolutions like 2334 that passed at the end of his presidency.

Now is the time to make that clear.
The Declining Credibility of Palestinian Objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
A group of Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, 122 in all, endorsed a statement last week published by The Guardian newspaper that attacked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. These intellectuals were concerned because the definition continues to be adopted by hundreds of governments, local authorities, and civic associations in the United States and across the world as an effective instrument for countering the hatred of Jews.

As is often the case with statements such as these, what wasn’t said was as telling to the critical reader as what did make the text.

It’s not that these Arab intellectuals endorse antisemitism. They declare early on that “no expression of hatred for Jews as Jews should be tolerated anywhere in the world.” They recognize, too, that antisemitism “manifests itself in sweeping generalizations and stereotypes about Jews, regarding power and money in particular, along with conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.”

Yet despite featuring the names of some of the Arab world’s most respected academics, writers, and filmmakers (arch-foes of Israel all), the statement on the IHRA definition at no point acknowledges that antisemitism as a social and religious phenomenon is deeply embedded within the Arab civilizations that these intellectuals represent. Instead, antisemitism is depicted as someone else’s problem, primarily Europe’s.

It is hard to take seriously the expressed commitment to fighting antisemitism in this statement in the face of such blatant airbrushing of Middle Eastern history. For millennia, Jews occupied a precarious place in Arab and Islamic societies, occasionally experiencing more benign rulers, but frequently serving as the targets of official discrimination and popular violence. That history, importantly, includes the Holocaust, as witnessed through the destruction of Jewish communities in German-occupied North Africa; the anti-Jewish riots in Baghdad, Cairo, and other cities; and the broader ideological affinities between the Nazis and Arab nationalists, many of whom would come to power and expel their Jewish populations in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, and other countries in the coming decades.


Netanyahu thanks Trump on third anniversary of Jerusalem recognition
Israel is “deeply grateful” for US President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, the third anniversary of that proclamation.

Netanyahu and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman hung a copy of the proclamation in the Prime Minister’s Office, next to former US president Harry Truman’s 1948 recognition of the nascent State of Israel.

“These two historic proclamations will never be forgotten by the Jewish people and the Jewish state. They will be cherished for generations,” Netanyahu said. “We are deeply grateful for all you did for Jerusalem and Israel, bringing peace and taking the US-Israel alliance to unprecedented heights.”

Netanyahu further thanked Trump for recognizing both Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are not illegal per se, as well as for Trump's peace plan that Netanyahu said is “realistic… acknowledged those rights [in the West Bank] and maintains Israel’s ability to defend itself.”

The prime minister also commended Trump’s work in bringing about the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, which he said “ushered in a period of peace in the Middle East, which is dramatically changing.”


Knesset may require referendum for West Bank settlement withdrawal
The Knesset may hold an initial vote this week to require a national referendum prior to any evacuation of West Bank settlements. “I intend to bring forward this bill this week,” said MK Tzvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) who chairs the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The private members bill was filed with the Knesset in August and can be brought forward at this juncture if Hauser should so chose. If approved, it would still need to pass three readings before becoming law.

The proposed legislation would extend the 2014 Knesset basic law that requires a public referendum or approval of 80 parliamentarians for any Israeli withdrawal from territory in Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.

Hauser’s bill would make the same step necessary should Israel decide to evacuate any of the 130 West Bank settlements where some settlers live.

US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict had allowed for Israel to eventually annex up to 30% of the West Bank.
FM Ashkenazi: Normalization with UAE, Bahrain an ‘opportunity’ for Palestinians
The landmark Abraham Accords that Israel has struck with two Gulf states are an opportunity for the Palestinians and have not come at their “expense,” Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Sunday.

The UAE and Bahrain broke decades of Arab consensus with their move, condemned as a “stab in the back” by Palestinian leaders for abandoning the position that there would be no relations with the Jewish state until it made peace with the Palestinians.

But at the Manama Dialog, a regional security conference, Ashkenazi said that the diplomatic shift could help resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, after talks between the two sides were frozen in 2014.

“The Abraham Accords do not come at the expense of the Palestinians. Quite the opposite, they are an opportunity that should not be missed,” he said in a virtual address.

“I call on the Palestinians to change their minds and enter direct negotiation with us without preconditions. This is the only way to solve this conflict,” he said.

“We believe as Israel moves from annexation to normalization, there is a window to solve this conflict,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreeing to put annexation plans on hold in return for the normalization deal.
Massive Israeli delegation heads to UAE GITEX trade show
Bank Hapoalim and the Israel Export Institute will lead a large delegation of 200 entrepreneurs and businessmen to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday to participate in GITEX, the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition, an annual electronics trade show and conference.

GITEX will host pavilions from Israel, Bahrain, Brazil, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States, as well as a conference including more than 350 speakers.

The Israeli delegation includes Adiv Baruch, chairman of the Israel Export Institute; Ruben Krupik, chairman of Bank Hapoalim; Dov Kotler, Bank Hapoalim CEO; and David Leffler, director-general of the Economy Ministry, as well as executives from different Israeli industries.

Emirati speakers include Mariam bint Hareb Al Mheiri, Minister of State for Food and Water Security; Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Al, Digital, Economy and Remote Work Applications; and Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Alfalasi, Minister of State for entrepreneurship & SMEs.
El Al, Gulf Air sign MOU for direct Israel-Bahrain flights
El Al has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Bahraini flag carrier Gulf Air, which will allow for direct flights between Tel Aviv and Manama for the first time in history.

The agreement was signed by El Al board of directors chairman David Brodent and his Gulf Air counterpart Zayed Al Zayani, who also serves as Bahrain's economy, trade and tourism minister, during the latter's official visit to Israel.

In a statement, Al Zayani welcomed the move as a way of furthering ties to achieve peace in the region.

The first direct flight between Tel Aviv and Manama is set to take place on January 7, 2021, according to the Israeli financial daily Globes. The move follows similar agreements made between El Al and Eithad Airways in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, which will see direct daily flights between Tel Aviv and the UAE starting March 28. There, just as the case with Gulf Air, the flights will be timed to connect with flights in Europe, Asia and Australia.
Saudi prince: Bully Israel steals land, puts Palestinians in concentration camps
A Saudi prince and former senior government official on Sunday launched a blistering attack against Israel, describing the Jewish state as a belligerent and apartheid-practicing occupier, and saying that peace will remain elusive until the creation of a Palestinian state along 1967 lines.

“Israeli governments have arrested thousands of the inhabitants of the lands they are colonizing and incarcerated them in concentration camps under the flimsiest of security accusations — young and old, women and men who are rotting there without recourse or justice,” said Turki al-Faisal al Saud, the former head of the kingdom’s intelligence service, at panel discussion in Bahrain that was also attended by Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi.

“They’re demolishing homes as they wish, and they assassinate whomever they want to. And yet, the Israeli Knesset passed a law that defines the citizenship of Israel as exclusively Jewish, denying the non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel equal rights under the law. What kind of democracy is that?”

He also lamented Israel’s construction of the West Bank security barrier, which he called the “apartheid wall.”

The Saudi prince, who until Sunday’s appearance had been thought relatively well-disposed toward Israel, made the comments at the concluding session of the Manama Dialogue conference hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In backtrack, Bahrain won’t import settlement and Golan goods as made in Israel
Bahrain will distinguish between Israeli goods from disputed territories and those made in Israel proper, the country’s foreign minister said on Saturday, in comments that walked back a statement made earlier in the week by the Gulf kingdom’s trade minister.

Speaking at a security conference in Manama, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani said he spoke with Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Friday and clarified Bahrain’s view on the import of products from West Bank settlements as well as the Golan.

“A clear statement was issued yesterday explaining our position,” Al Zayani said.

On Friday evening, the Industry, Trade and Tourism Ministry of Bahrain issued a statement saying that remarks a day earlier by the trade minister had been “misinterpreted” and that Manama remained “committed to UN, Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation resolutions regarding settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.”

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which was passed in 2016, calls on all countries to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

The ministry statement was made after Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed R. Alzayani told reporters in Jerusalem on Thursday that all goods and services offered by Israelis will be treated as products of Israel, indicating that even goods from the West Bank and the Golan will not require special labels.

When asked by The Times of Israel if goods from settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights were welcome in Bahrain and can be marketed as “Products of Israel,” Alzayani responded in the affirmative.
Why Pakistan should recognize Israel posthaste
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan have taken the first step in thawing the relationship between Israel and the Muslim world. We are witnessing history in the making and we will soon see other Muslim countries follow suit.

As a Pakistani-born Canadian Muslim, I too had reservations before my first visit to Israel about 13 years ago. Concerned fellow Muslims had warned us about being detained at the airport, armed personnel on the streets and threats of violence.

My experience was exactly the opposite. I was welcomed to the country without any excess questioning and the visit was an eyeopener in every way. I travelled across Israel meeting both Arab and Jewish Israelis, asking open-ended questions and observing with great interest that the only way one can understand what Israel is really about is to personally visit the country.

Since then I have gone back over a dozen times to the point that on my last visit the immigration officer asked me “and where is your Israeli passport”?

I also travel to Pakistan regularly and am dismayed at the conspiracy theories that abound regarding Israel and Jews.
Qatar rules out normalizing ties with Israel 'for now'
Qatar's foreign minister said Friday that his country remains committed to the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem, and that progress on that front would need to be "at the core" of any agreement to normalize relations with Israel.

"Right now, I don't see that the normalization of Qatar and Israel is going to add value to the Palestinian people," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at Italy's annual Mediterranean Dialogue.

There was speculation that Qatar – which already cooperates with Israel in providing aid to the Gaza Strip – might be the next Arab country to normalize relations after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan established diplomatic ties with Israel earlier this year.

But the foreign minister said Qatar remains committed to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which Arab countries would recognize Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from territories siezed in the 1967 war and the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

The foreign minister noted that his country has a "working relationship" with Israel to provide aid to Gaza, where the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.

"But for the full normalization, I believe that the [Palestinian issue] needs to be at the core of any agreement of normalization between Qatar and Israel," he said.
Erdogan confidant sends Israel another message of reconciliation
Following years of diplomatic strife, Turkey over the weekend signaled to Israel yet again its desire for rapprochement. On Monday, former admiral Cihat Yayci, a close confidant of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is expected to publish a first-of-its-kind proposal for an agreement on the countries' shared exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea. The article will appear in the Israeli academic journal Turkeyscope –published by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University – indicating in and of itself a desire to quell tensions with Israel.

Israel Hayom has learned this was the second such signal of reconciliation from Turkey as it pertains to Israel's energy market. Four months ago, officials in Ankara sent their Israeli counterparts a clear message about Turkey's desire to launch talks on the matter. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, the process stalled. The next proposal followed a report last week in an Erdogan–affiliated Turkish media outlet about secret talks between Mossad officials and their Turkish counterparts. According to the report, in these talks, too, Erdogan's representatives expressed a desire to readjust relations with Israel. The report also said that in recent months the Turkish leader has ceased making belligerent statements about the Jewish state.

According to Yayci's proposal, meanwhile, the maritime borders between the two countries will come together at the expense of Cyprus. From the perspective of the Turks, the deal proposed to the Israelis is an extension of the maritime border the former admiral constructed with Libya. That deal was signed in Tripoli on November 27 of last year and is the source of the current tensions between Ankara and Athens. If to this point the Greeks were already enraged over their maritime contiguity with Cyprus being severed – then such a deal would make things even more difficult for Athens and Nicosia.


First and foremost, the former Turkish admiral is focusing on transferring blocs 8,9,11 and 12 from Cypriot to Israeli hands. Bloc 12 is the location of the significantly sized Yishai-Aphrodite gas field, northwest of Israel's Leviathan gas field, controlled by Israeli company Delek, industry giant Shell, and US-based Noble Energy. The gas field, discovered off Cyprus' shores in 2011 by Texas-based Noble Energy, is estimated to contain between 7-10 billion cubic meters of gas on the Israeli side and about 100 billion cubic meters on the Cypriot side. As a reference, the estimated value of 100 billion cubic meters of gas is about $9 billion.
Israel Triples Moderna Vaccine Pre-Order to Six Million Doses
Israel’s Health Ministry has signed an agreement with pharmaceutical giant Moderna to triple the quantity of vaccines it will purchase from the company in 2021 from two million to six million doses, according to a joint statement by the ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Six million doses will be sufficient to inoculate three million citizens, according to the statement.

Israel had previously pre-ordered doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines currently in clinical trials in the United States, pending their approval by health regulators. The country is also developing its own vaccine, called BriLife, which began clinical trials on Nov. 1.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the new Moderna deal was cause for hope, but warned that it wasn’t time to celebrate just yet.

“I am pleased to announce that today we signed with Moderna for the supply of six million vaccines for you, citizens of Israel. This is triple the number of vaccines in the original contract with Moderna. This gives us hope. We see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

He emphasized, however, that the pandemic was not over yet, and that the public needed to maintain discipline.
PMW: Palestinians sue Britain - as thanks for over half a billion dollars in aid
Britain has donated no less than £473,038,638.64 ($632,443,199) to various Palestinian causes in the last five years alone [UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office website], and will continue in 2021. In an ironic expression of gratitude, a group of Palestinians submitted a lawsuit to the Palestinian Authority court system against Britain for issuing the Balfour Declaration and for alleged “crimes” of British soldiers against the Palestinian people during the Mandate period.

While the lawsuit, which was submitted to a PA court, was initiated by ostensibly private individuals, its narrative entirely adopts the narrative of the PA: That the Balfour Declaration is the cause of Palestinian suffering:
“The lawsuit, which has a political impact and a media aspect, lays the responsibility on the government of Britain for the consequences of the Balfour Promise, which gave Palestine as a national homeland to the Jews and enabled the Zionist gangs to occupy Palestine, and the consequences that stem from its behavior that contradicts international rules, morals, and law.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 23, 2020]

As absurd as this trial may be, the PA courts are not only entertaining the lawsuit, but are also hearing evidence:
“A 100-year-old witness began to speak before the Nablus Trial Court about the cooperation between the Zionist gangs and the British Mandate army. He brought examples of the exchange of roles and transferring of camps full of weapons to the Zionist gangs in that period.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 18, 2020]


Iran’s Khamenei Transfers Power to Son Over Health Concerns
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has transferred his powers to his son Mojtaba Khamenei due to health concerns, Newsweek reported Saturday.

The news outlet cited an Iranian journalist as saying that the supreme leader required urgent medical assistance.

Khamenei reportedly had to cancel a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani on Friday, and his condition is said to have deteriorated overnight.

The report did not specify the possible health condition but suggested it could be prostate cancer.
Unconfirmed Reports: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Is Dead
Unconfirmed reports from Iran say the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, returned his soul to his maker. According to the same reports, an official announcement will be made only after the transfer of powers to his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, are completed (Health Deteriorating, Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Transfers Power to Son).

Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, 81, was the supreme leader of Iran since 1989. He previously served as the president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Reports on Saturday suggested that doctors from the Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran were rushed to the supreme leader’s home, and that some of his powers were being transferred to his son.

Mojtaba Khamenei played a leading role in orchestrating Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory, and that he was a key figure in orchestrating the crackdown against anti-government protesters in June 2009. He is reputed to be in charge of the paramilitary, clandestine Basij. In 2009, Mehdi Karroubi, former chairman of the Iranian parliament and a reformist candidate in the 2009 presidential vote, explicitly accused Mojtaba Khamenei of participating in a conspiracy to rig the election.
Abrams Predicts Iran Unlikely to Retaliate for Fakhrizadeh Assassination
Iran is most likely not going to retaliate in the wake of the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, so as not to jeopardize the chance of sanctions relief, according to US Special Envoy for Iran Elliott Abrams on Thursday.

Fakhrizadeh was killed in Tehran on Nov. 27 in what was believed to be an Israeli operation, although no one has taken responsibility for the action. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has not commented on the issue.

In an interview with Reuters, Abrams said, “If they want sanctions relief, they know that they’re going to need to enter some kind of negotiation after January 20, and it’s got to be in their minds that they don’t want to… undertake any activities between now and Jan 20 that make sanctions relief harder to get.”

Fakhrizadeh’s death has increased tensions between the United States and Iran since the former withdrew in May 2018 from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, reimposing sanctions and enacting new ones as part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign.

Abrams has said that in the final weeks of the Trump administration, the United States will continue to increase its pressure on Iran.
Iran’s Coronavirus Deaths Surpass 50,000 – Health Ministry
Iran’s total deaths from coronavirus surpassed 50,000 on Saturday, with more than one million people infected, although transmission rates in the Middle East’s worst-affected country were slowing, state TV reported.

Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, shopping malls and several other businesses re-opened after a two-week shutdown, following a 10-percent drop in infections over the past days.

Officials cautioned that the situation remained “fragile” in Tehran and in the other cities that have moved from the coronavirus red alert to the lower risk orange level, said the broadcast.

Iran’s health ministry recorded a total of 50,016 coronavirus deaths on Saturday with 321 new fatalities in the past 24 hours.

Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that 12,181 people had been infected with the coronavirus since Friday, taking the total number of COVID-19 infections to 1,028,986.

President Hassan Rouhani warned against complacency.
Ahmadinejad Hangs Self After Realizing He’s Attracted to Elliot Page (satire)
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was found dead in his Tehran home Saturday, taking his own life after discovering that he is sexually attracted to actor Elliot Page.

Ahmadinejad reportedly discovered his attraction to the actor, who is formerly known as Ellen and recently came out as transgender, while watching the 2007 Oscar-winning film Juno. Ahmadinejad, who has frequently condemned homosexuality, only discovered later that Page is a man.

“I have betrayed my family, my country, and all of Islam by pleasuring myself to the sight of Mr. Page,” Ahmadinejad said in a note left at the scene. “I have long maintained that there is no homosexual phenomenon in Iran. As long as I am alive, that will not be true.”

Page’s transition has also impacted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad texted the Ayatollah shortly after Juno came on television, urging him to “check out the cute chick in this film.” Khamenei also did not discover Page’s gender identity until after he had masturbated to the film, but unlike Ahmadinejad opted for gender reassignment surgery to maintain his standing as a heterosexual Iranian.
Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock Campaign With Man Who Compared Jews To ‘Termites’
Georgia Democrat Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock reportedly campaigned over the weekend with a politician who compared Jews to “termites” just a few years ago.

The trio reportedly campaigned together on Saturday during a drive-in rally hosted by county-level Democrat parties in their attempts to drive voter registration.

Ossoff and Warnock’s decision to campaign with Hank Johnson, who has made anti-Semitic remarks in the past, comes as Warnock has faced scrutiny on the campaign trail for controversial comments that he made a few years ago about Israel.

In 2016, the Free Beacon reported that Johnson “compared Jewish Israeli settlers to termites” while speaking at an event “sponsored by an anti-Israel organization that supports boycotts of the Jewish state.”

The Free Beacon reported:
“There has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming,” Johnson said during an event sponsored by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, an anti-Israel organization that galvanizes supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS.

“It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other,” Johnson continued. “And then with the building of walls and the building of check points that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.”


Foreign Policy Op-Ed Convicted Palestinian Terrorists Are ‘Political Prisoners’
Western nations do not regard convicted, incarcerated terrorists as political prisoners, as the European Council definition makes clear.

From Venezuela, to Burma, to Iran, to Russia, Foreign Policy has applied the term to refer to citizens arrested by their own government for non-violent anti-government activities. Palestinians who carry out terror attacks against Israeli citizens are not protesting their own (Palestinian) government with non-violent activity.

Undoubtedly, it is in the interest of the Palestinian government to whitewash the terrorists for whom it pays out hundreds of millions of dollars as “political prisoners.” According to a Palestinian source, Salem Barahmeh’s Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy is reportedly PLO-affiliated and “has been working on amplifying the positive image of Palestine,” and thus his interest in adopting the propagandistic terminology is apparent. (The Institute’s reported PLO affiliation is not disclosed on Barahmeh’s FP piece.)

While Foreign Policy is free to publish a wide variety of opinions, including those that justify payments to terrorists and their families, it should not deceive readers about the reason that the prisoners in question are incarcerated, depicting them as “political prisoners” — which the public widely understands as those imprisoned for non-violent activity opposing their government — as opposed to convicted terrorists who carried out lethal attacks.

Separately, CAMERA prompted a revision of Barahmeh’s reference to the “displacement of entire Palestinian communities,” purportedly enabled by the Trump administration. According to the United Nations, Israel last month demolished a large part of the Khirbet Humsa encampment in the Jordan Valley — not the entire encampment. The UN statement reported: “Three quarters of the community’s population lost their shelters, making this the largest forced displacement incident in over four years.”

If that was the “largest forced displacement incident” in years, according to the UN, and it did not involve an “entire Palestinian communit[y],” then which entire Palestinian communities have been displaced, according to Barahmeh? (Incidentally, the residents of Khirbet Humsa received donated replacement shelters days if not hours after the demolition early this month. So, any “displacement” was extremely short-lived.)

In response to communication from CAMERA, Foreign Policy amended Barahmeh’s unfounded reference to the displacement of multiple “entire Palestinian communities” (in plural). The piece now refers to a singular “entire Palestinian community.” Contrary to common journalistic practice, editors did not append a note to the article alerting readers to the change.
Roald Dahl Story Company finally issues discreet apology for author’s antisemitism as his estate signs lucrative Hollywood deals
The Roald Dahl Story Company has finally issued an apology for the author’s antisemitism as his estate has signed lucrative deals to adapt his work for the screen.

The famous children’s author is also well-known for inflammatory comments about Jews, such as: “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity… even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” He also said of the Jews that nobody had ever “switched so rapidly from victims to barbarous murderers,” an apparent breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism, which considers “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” to be an example of antisemitism.

He also claimed that the Jews owned the media and that positive American relations toward Israel was because of excessive Jewish power.

In 2014, the Royal Mint declined to issue a commemorative coin to celebrate the centenary of Mr Dahl’s birth because of his antisemitism.

Mr Dahl died in 1990, and the Roald Dahl Story Company has finally issued an apology for these sentiments.

In a discreet part of its website, the Roald Dahl Story Company wrote: “The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements. Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl’s stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations. We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words.”
Antisemitism is taking new form in Europe and it’s time to fight back
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the continued prevalence of numerous social ills that governments around the world had worked hard to counter in recent years – isolation and loneliness, economic insecurity, long-term physical health problems and overwhelmed healthcare systems.

These more obvious by-products have dominated headlines for much of the year. Less attention, however, has been directed toward the role of the pandemic in providing fertile ground for xenophobic and racist prejudices to flourish.

US President Donald Trump’s frequent referencing of the “China virus” has placed the Asian-American community in the United States on high alert, fearful of reactionary attacks from his nationalist support base, while in India, government ministers have conjured links between the pandemic and a Muslim conspiracy to weaken the majority Hindu community. Leaders in both of these countries are known to use attacks on minority groups to develop their constituencies, and so their rhetoric should come to us as little surprise. But so, too, is another trend quietly developing: age-old antisemitic tropes have combined with new conspiracies around the role of Jews in spreading the virus to drastically undermine the security of Jewish communities throughout Europe, the United States and the Middle East.

In Germany, banners displaying antisemitic wording have been held aloft at anti-mask demonstrations. One, photographed in Cologne in May, read “Maske macht frei,” a play on “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work sets you free”), the slogan that had greeted Jewish, disabled, gay and other prisoners as they arrived at Auschwitz. Other protesters wore striped clothing redolent of concentration camp uniforms – a nod to recent restrictions on movement introduced by the German government that protesters claim echo those targeted at Jews during the Nazi regime.
‘D is for David’: Germany to return to pre-Nazi alphabet table with Jewish names
Germany is planning a return to pre-World War II alphabet tables that existed before the Nazis removed all names with Jewish associations, local media reported Thursday.

The old version of the tables that use names to help children learn to spell — such as “A for Anton” and “B for Berta” — will be used from autumn 2021, according to the Funke media group.

A new version using mainly city names is in the works and will be rolled out from autumn 2022, with the so-called Weimar version to be used in the meantime.

The Nazis removed all Jewish names from the alphabet tables in 1934. For example, “D for David” became “D for Dora” and “North Pole” was swapped in for the original Nathan.

Although there was a revision in 1950, most of the old names were not reinstated.
US Supreme Court to hear 2 cases on Holocaust restitution
The US Supreme Court will hear two cases on Dec. 7 related to the issue of Holocaust restitution.

The court will decide if the United States has the jurisdiction, in accordance with the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, to rule about crimes that happened abroad where there was no American involvement.

Although foreign governments usually cannot be sued in US courts, exceptions for acts of terrorism or acts of property confiscation violating international law have been made in the past. The plaintiffs in both cases will seek to have their cases heard based on the latter.

"The Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act gives our courts jurisdiction over lawsuits alleging property was taken in violation of international law, for instance, if the perpetrators took it as part of an effort to deliberately create conditions of life which were calculated to destroy a religious or ethnic minority group, and so violated international law by committing genocide," Arthur Traldi, who was of counsel in filing a brief on behalf of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists in support of the petitioners, said.
Israel wins international tunneling award for archaeology
The Israel's underground project won international recognition at the International Tunneling and Underground Space Association (ITA) Awards, specifically taking hope top prize in the Oddities of the Underground category, due to its creativity and innovation in archaeology.

The awards, given out virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, were focused on various innovations and accomplishments in the field of tunneling. Awards are not purely archaeological in nature, and in fact most of the eight categories were given to projects related to railroads and construction.

But Israel's project is very archaeologically focused, especially given the rich history that lies beneath the surface of much of the country, especially in cities thousands of years old like Jerusalem.

And it is in Jerusalem where much of the real innovation in archaeological tunneling can be seen.

"The sensitive environment demands great dexterity and flexibility," the ITA said in a statement regarding the award. "Unexpected finds can lead to sudden changes in the direction of excavation, often accompanied by low overburden heights and difficult ground conditions."
Altar to Greek god found in wall of Byzantine church raises questions
An Israeli team of researchers excavating a Byzantine church in the Banyas Nature Reserve in Northern Israel believed to be from about 400 CE recently discovered a Roman-era temple to the Greek god, Pan, beneath the church, and made another find that sheds further light on the way that the lives of the later Christians were intertwined with those who worshiped the earlier faiths: a 2nd- or 3rd-century CE altar with a Greek inscription found in the walls of the church.

The church, which is one of the oldest ever found, was important to early Christians, according to Prof. Adi Erlich of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, who is leading the excavation of the site with Prof. Ron Lavi. “This site would have had tremendous significance for Christians of the Byzantine era, who believed that this is where Jesus told Peter, ‘I give you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven,’” said Erlich.

This excavation, which is supported and was initiated by the Nature and Parks Authority, is now focusing on figuring out how this pagan altar came to be part of the church wall and what the inscription means. The inscription is being studied by Dr. Avner Ecker of Bar-Ilan University. The inscription, which is in Greek, reads, “Atheneon son of Sosipatros of Antioch is dedicating the altar to the god Pan Heliopolitanus. He built the altar using his own personal money in fulfillment of a vow he made." Two main things are interesting about this inscription – the combination of Pan with Heliopolitanus, a name normally associated with Zeus, and the origin of the donator from faraway Antioch, some 400 km to the north, located on what is now the on the Turkey-Syria border. “It seems that this cult place was visited by pilgrims coming from afar,” said Erlich.

The Banyas excavation is in a unique location that features a cave, cliff and springs, alongside a terrace formed from the partial collapse of the cliff. The temple was built not long before the beginning of the Christian era.

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