Pages

▼

Saturday, July 31, 2021

07/31 Links: Mixed judo team wins bronze, 2nd medal for Israel; Congress must fix UNRWA’s Hamas problem; GOP senators introduce bill for Israel label on West-Bank products;

From Ian:

Mixed judo team wins bronze, 2nd medal for Israel at Tokyo Olympics
Israel’s mixed team in judo won a bronze medal at the Olympics on Saturday, the nation’s second medal at the Tokyo games.

The team scored a victory over their Russian opponents in the consolation round of an event that is being held for the first time this year.

In the battle for bronze, Israeli judoka Gili Sharir lost to Madina Taimazova, giving a 1:0 lead to the Russians.

However Sagi Muki took his bout against Mikhail Igolnikov, bringing the Israelis level at 1:1.

Next up was Raz Hershko who beat Aleksandra Babintseva to take the Israelis ahead 2:1, before Peter Paltchik took the score to 3:1.

A final victory for Timna Nelson-Levy gave Israel a 4:1 win and a spot on the podium.

Muki said the whole team had given everything they had to win the medal.

“Everyone here gave their heart and soul, and together we did it,” he said.

After a week of losses for Israel’s judokas, Paltchik said that the team had finally come together on Saturday.

“Everyone had a week that was very disappointing on a personal level, but something about this special day led to everyone giving a little more for the team, and that’s what made the difference,” he said of the victory. “We were eulogized too soon.”


at

Friday, July 30, 2021

07/30 Links Pt2: Sorry, Ben & Jerry: You’re on the wrong side of history along with all who boycott Israel; CUNY Professor Claims Muslims Will ‘Erase This Filth Called Israel’ in Anti-Semitic Sermon

From Ian:

NYPost Editorial: Sorry, Ben & Jerry: You’re on the wrong side of history along with all who boycott Israel
“Imagine Whirled Peace,” a John Lennon tribute flavor, is as close as Ben & Jerry’s get to promoting actual world peace — and the founders’ claim that halting business in the West Bank puts the company on the “right side of history” is beyond bunk.

Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield wrote a New York Times op-ed in defense of the company’s move to ban sales in what it called “the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” on top of stating earlier that it was “brave.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio actually got it right: “You cannot have peace if you undermine the economic reality and create division.”

Building a functional Palestinian state requires building a functional Palestinian economy, which means boosting commerce of all kinds on the West Bank — even when the customers are Jews, it means jobs for Palestinians.

All the boycotting and divestment simply leaves Palestinians more distraught — and more prone to buy the hate-propaganda of their anti-democratic, anti-liberal rulers, who pretend that Israel can somehow be eliminated or at least turned into a majority-Arab state.

Neither of which is going to happen.

In fact, the future is in the Abraham Accords — the multiple Arab-Israel peace agreements aiming at mutual prosperity, which were reached only after Team Trump gave the hand to the goons who control the West Bank.


Dear Ben and Jerry: Ignorance is Not a Jewish Value
Why did Ben and Jerry not show a desire to go deeper and better understand a complicated conflict? Maybe because the messy truth didn’t fit their easy narrative.

Regardless of how one feels about Israeli policies, the messy truth is that chronic Palestinian rejectionism, more than any other factor, has defined the conflict. Had Ben and Jerry done just a little homework, they would have learned that the intent to eliminate the Jewish state predates any Jewish settlements. It’s a fact that when the PLO was founded in 1964 as a militant anti-Israel movement, there was not one Jewish settlement.

It makes one wonder: What incentive do Palestinian leaders have to end the occupation when they see what a useful weapon it has become? As long as they keep saying no, the international money keeps rolling in and they get to enjoy op-eds of Jews bashing the Jewish state based on “Jewish values.” And they’ve learned through the years that as long as they refuse to end the conflict, the global anti-Israel movement will march on.

Israel has made its share of mistakes, but in the old days, before peace became a pipe dream, it was the Jewish state that stuck its neck out and made significant compromises to try to resolve the conflict. Palestinian leaders, who may have panicked when Israel called their bluff, couldn’t even bring themselves to make a counter offer.

Dear Ben and Jerry: If you’re going to cover yourself in Jewish values, go all the way. Delving into complexity in the search for truth is one of the great Jewish values. By neglecting that complexity and taking the easy way out, you have reinforced the narrative of antisemites who malign Israel as a peace-hating, oppressive country, and elevate corrupt, terror-promoting Palestinian leaders as helpless victims.

That’s not Jewish or peace-loving, it’s just ignorant.
Eugene Kontorovich: What the Ben & Jerry's Boycott is Really About: Fox Business appearance
In an interview with Stuart Varney, I explain that Ben & Jerry's and Unilever are not boycotting Israeli settlements - they are boycotting Israel.
at

Brookings poll stacks the deck against Israel

Shibley Telhami at the Brookings Institution has released another poll that shows that loaded questions can prompt the anti-Israel responses he wants.

Only a few questions were published but their wording shows the bias of the pollsters:

Q67. Several members of Congress suggested withholding possible sale of arms to Israel, after its bombings of Gaza resulted in the death of over 250 people, mostly civilians, during intense fighting that also saw 12 Israelis, mostly civilians, killed by Hamas rockets.
In general, do you support linking American arms supplies to Israel to Israel’s actions toward
Palestinians?
The question starts off implying that the Congressional desire to withhold sales of arms to Israel is far more widespread than it is. The point is to make the subject primed to want to agree with what the experts in Congress believe.

The fighting is described as Israel massively bombing Gaza civilians for no reason. Israel's bombing is mentioned before Hamas rockets, making the people surveyed think that Israel started the fighting. 

The "scorecard" (>250-12) is designed to make it look like Israel's response was disproportionate. 

The "more than 250" was adding up deaths on both sides (Gaza's Ministry of Health counted 248, and they included those killed by Gaza rockets that fell short.), but implies that all deaths were Israel's fault, even the Israelis.

The "mostly civilians" is again meant to bias the respondents - the question could have accurately said that the effectiveness of Israeli airstrikes was unprecedented in urban warfare despite Hamas hiding among civilians. 

The question is designed to prime people to hate Israel - and then answer the question accordingly.

Another question clearly meant to bias the responses:

Considering the high level of civilian casualties and destruction, how would you evaluate President Biden’s effort to end the fighting?
The question says there was a high level of civilian casualties and destruction - compared to what? How many civilians killed by the US in Iraq or Afghanistan? The number killed in Syria? The amount of damage I saw was less than half a billion dollars - is that a high number? The question again pre-supposes the answer, "Biden didn't do enough" - and of course, the only side he could have pressured to end the fighting is Israel, since Hamas wouldn't listen to him. 

There really should be an independent institute to rate polls and publicize how poorly the surveys commissioned by partisans are constructed.





at

07/30 Links Pt1: The invisible victims of jihadi violence; Two killed in alleged Iranian drone attack on Israeli-managed ship; What Do Palestinians Want?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The invisible victims of jihadi violence
The death of Ruth Pearl at the age of 85 reminds us once again of the unspeakable horror that was visited upon Ruth and her family, and which served as a particularly dreadful wake-up call for the Western world.

In January 2002 her son, the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda and beheaded nine days later.

Ruth, an electrical engineer, and her husband Judea, a professor of computer science and statistics, formed the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which brings together people from different cultures through musical events, lectures, journalism fellowships and other activities.

Ruth’s immediate family members, who survived the 1941 “Farhud” pogrom in Baghdad in which 180 Jews were killed and hundreds more injured, were part of the subsequent mass exodus of Jews to Israel in 1951.

Shortly afterwards, Ruth’s brother died fighting in the Israel Defense Forces.

Such a family background in the Jewish experience of persecution and self-defense meant that when Daniel Pearl said into Al-Qaeda’s video camera just before he was slaughtered, “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish,” this had a resonance which would have escaped his murderer.

That vile individual, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, told the FBI he believed that killing a Jew would make for powerful propaganda and incite his fellow jihadis.

For Al-Qaeda wasn’t just a terror organization springing from the arcane geopolitics of the Middle East. Its agenda was driven by hatred of Jews.

Jew-hatred is indeed central to the jihadis’ aim of conquering the west for Islam.


If someone says they are going to kill you, believe them
It’s time for Jews to reconnect to our illustrious history of defending our selves. From the haggiborim, heroes of King David, to the glorious Maccabees, to the teachings of Jabotinsky to the IDF.

Do our young people even know about Jabotinsky? During his youth, Ze’ev Jabotinsky took a leadership role in organizing self­-defense units and fought for Jewish minority rights in Russia. He then traveled the length and breadth of Russia urging self-defense on the Jewish communities. He was behind the Betar Movement. In 1937, the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L) became the military arm of the Jabotinsky movement and he became its commander.

The three bodies were headed by Jabotinsky, The New Zionist Organization (N.Z.O), the Betar youth movement and the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L) were three extensions of the same movement. The New Zionist Organization was the political arm that maintained contacts with governments and other political factors, Betar educated the youth of the Diaspora for the liberation and building of Eretz Israel and the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L) was the military arm that fought against the enemies of the Zionist enterprise.

Let us not forget Meir Kahane, the ideological father of Jewish Power, the man behind the JDL; the Jewish Defence League. Yes, some say he was an extremist but his legacy should be that Jews can and must be able to defend themselves. And, today, we have the JDL in the diaspora. And we need them.

Antifa and BLM wreak havoc – well, that’s OK. We scream that Black Lives Matter and turn a blind eye to the destruction they cause. A member of the JDL stands up to defend Jews and he is accused of being part of a terrorist organization. Well, people, Jewish Lives Matter.

Too many Jews are not prepared to defend our rights to wear our kippot, our stars of David, display our mezzuzot on our door posts and stand proudly with Israel. Because of fear. When we are no longer afraid of being physically hurt we can stand up to anything. Seems we have not learned that weakness attract bullies. Ducking and hiding is never the answer.

It is time for every Jew to learn self defense. Teach it in day schools, in Hebrew schools, at Jewish camps. After school programmes. We can learn Krav Maga from the IDF or we can learn jiu jitsu like our Israeli brothers and sisters. After their smashing success, perhaps we should rename it Jew jitsu.

When the world comes to see that Jews in the Diaspora are as fearless as the IDF in Israel, they will leave us alone. When they see Jews fighting back in the streets when a Jew hater comes up and attacks, they will leave us alone.

When we honour our past, our great fighters, we will be respected and left alone to live as Jews, in Israel and the Diaspora.


American Jews Can No Longer Afford to Be Apathetic About Our History
By now, most people have read about the poll suggesting that far too many American Jews have bought into objectively false claims of “apartheid” and “genocide” in Israel. Whether the poll is accurate or not, it hints at a deep problem facing the American Jewish community that many have suspected for some time now.

There have been many brilliant recent analyses of the particular brand of rot afflicting the US Jewish community. Seth Mandel rightly pointed to the complicity of the ADL in the mainstreaming of antisemitism and anti-Israel libels. Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy eloquently traced the phenomenon of the “Un-Jews” from Tiberius to today’s “anti-Zionists.” Caroline Glick observantly pointed to the difference with the British Jewish community, which has responded to its own challenges far more successfully than their American counterparts. Another extremely eloquent Jewish advocate, Bari Weiss, has with great passion and clarity raised the alarm of the dangers bigger than those facing just the Jewish community — but which have particularly acute effects among us.

Beyond the concerning state of public education in many parts of the United States, discourse at all levels has embraced — to some degree — the trends of post-modernism and post-truth.

A society which dispenses with the need for facts, historical context, and nuance is one not likely to be favorable to the Jewish State. It’s not hard to understand why even young Jews, indoctrinated in such worldviews, would be so quick to turn their backs on their fellow Jews like a 21st century Yevsektsiya.

I do not pretend to have any keener insight than those amazing Jewish voices I previously mentioned. I also will not pretend to have a magic bullet solution. Though many antisemites seem to think otherwise, we can’t control the country, let alone the world. Nor do I think we’re in any position to do so, anyway. Like a passenger plane losing cabin pressure, we need to secure our own oxygen mask first or we risk suffocating and proving useless for those around us.
JNS: Ep. 12: Seth Mandel: 'The ADL has 'one job.' It isn't doing it.'
Washington Examiner magazine editor Seth Mandel joins JNS editor in chief Jonathan Tobin to talk about why the ADL is failing to confront anti-Semitism, polarization and home schooling.

The two discuss how the ADL is abandoning its role as an anti-Semitism watchdog in favor of partisan advocacy, the need to emphasize that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, whether the Democratic Party is being ‘Corbynized,’ the dangerous impact of polarization in American politics and why more people are turning to home schooling their children.
at

Israel haters tout anti-Israel letters signed by antisemites, terror supporters, 9/11 conspiracy crackpots

Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch tweeted:

600 academics, artists and intellectuals from 45 countries issue a public declaration calling on the Israeli government to dismantle its regime of apartheid.
The declaration actually now has over 1000 signatories. On its main page they highlight only the most prominent signers, to show how seemingly important people agree that Israel is an unparalleled evil empire, or whatever they are accusing Israel of today.

One of the signers they chose to highlight is Richard Falk.

Richard Falk was asked to resign from Human Rights Watch itself in 2012 after it was revealed that he entertained 9/11 conspiracy theories, posted antisemitic cartoons, compared Israel multiple times to Nazi Germany and Palestinian suffering to the Holocaust, excused and justified terrorism against Jews and Americans (suggesting, for example, that the US was ultimately responsible for the Boston Marathon terror attack), and acted as an apologist fo rtyerror groups saying that their actions were legal. 

Another was former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters, who has proven himself to be an antisemite who parrots Nazi lies about religious Jews. 

In a sane world, no one would seek - let alone feature - support from antisemites and explicit supporters of blowing up children. People who claim Israel is guilty of apartheid actually look at antisemites as role models whose approval they crave. And none of the other thousand signers are withdrawing their support because they do not want to be associated with such people.

Which tells you all you need to know about this letter (and Ken Roth.)





at

What does Deborah Lipstadt, nominated US envoy to combat antisemitism, think about IHRA and anti-Zionism?

The Jerusalem Post reports:
US President Joe Biden decided to nominate Deborah Lipstadt as the next US Ambassador to Combat and Monitor Antisemitism.

Lipstadt, Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, was the founding director of the Institute for Jewish Studies.

She is currently on the boards of The Jewish Forward Advisory Committee and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and serves as a judge for the Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature.  During the Bill Clinton administration, she served in several roles at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
She is an author of eight books, including The Eichmann Trial; Holocaust: An American Understanding; Antisemitism: Here and Now; and Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933–1945.
By any measure, Professor Lipstadt is an expert on antisemitism. 

The most important question is whether she agrees that much of modern antisemitism is manifested as anti-Zionism - and on that point, she seems unequivocal. In her 2019 book, "Antisemitism: Here and Now," she wrote, “The negation of Jewish nationhood is a form of anti-Semitism, if not in intent, then certainly in effect.” 

In a New Yorker interview about the book, Lipstadt seems to shy away from any definition of antisemitism as being incomplete:

I know it when I see it. Now, that’s not a sufficient definition, but it’s that way with anti-Semitism. I know it when I see it because these are the elements that are there—something to do with money, something to do with finance, that Jews will do anything and everything, irrespective of whom it harms or displaces or burdens. Both the right and the left share those kinds of stereotypes.
In a Haaretz article, Lipstadt seems to criticize the IHRA working definition of antisemitism - but not for the reasons the anti-Israel crowd does. She seems to believe that is doesn't do enough to describe right-wing antisemitism adequately:

Leading Holocaust scholar Prof. Deborah Lipstadt agrees that if you look at the IHRA definition, “you won’t find right-wing antisemitism there: you won’t find Pittsburgh there; you won’t find Poway there; you won’t find Halle, Germany, there; you won’t find what we saw from some of the groups on January 6 at the Capitol there.”
Clearly, the IHRA working definition includes the beliefs of right-wing antisemites: how Jews are too powerful, how they conspire to control non-Jews, government and the media, how all Jews are responsible for the actions of some, denying or minimizing the Holocaust.

So I believe that Lipstadt is saying that the IHRA definition and examples are incomplete, not that they are wrong - that there were some specific aspects of the antisemitism that animated Pittsburgh and Poway that are not covered by the IHRA definition.

On that point I happen to agree - whenever a definition requires examples it will always be incomplete. That is why I wrote my own definition that is meant to be complete and not dependent on examples. 


I would love to hear her critique of mine! 

Lipstadt also wants to distinguish between antisemitism that springs from deeply held beliefs and the idiots who mindlessly adopt BDS:

 I spent a lot of time on different campuses, and there are B.D.S. supporters who can’t find Israel on a map. There are B.D.S. supporters who think that, just like their parents’ or their grandparents’ generation fought apartheid with boycotts and sanctions, this is a way of improving life for a group of people that they see as oppressed and as suffering.

But I do think that the B.D.S. movement, at its heart—when you see what is really behind it, and the people who have organized it—is intent on the destruction of the State of Israel. If you look at the founding documents of the groups that first proposed B.D.S., they called for a full right of return, and, essentially, in practical terms, they’re calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. I think the ultimate objective of B.D.S. is not B.D.S. itself. If that were the case, we would all have to give up our iPhones, because so much of that technology is created in Israel. I think the objective of B.D.S., and especially the people who are the main organizers and supporters, is to make anything that comes out of Israel toxic, and I think they have had some success. So I see that, but I do not think that any kid who supports B.D.S. is ipso facto an anti-Semite. I think that’s wrong. It’s a mistake. And it’s not helpful.
Her political positions towards Israel are pretty much in line with the traditional Democratic mainstream pre-Squad.

I think the continued holding of the West Bank is problematic, because if you’re going to have a democratic state then you can’t have a whole population within that state who are not full-fledged citizens and don’t have the right to vote. It’s a time bomb.

You can criticize Israeli policies. I often say, “If you want to read criticism of Israeli policies, just start your day by going to Haaretz.com—you’ll read criticism of Israeli policies from A to Z.” That’s not anti-Semitism. And I do think there are many Jews—particularly living outside of Israel, but also many in Israel—who mix that up and who, as soon as someone criticizes those policies, tend to fall back on “That’s anti-Semitism.” I think that’s dangerous, because it diminishes real anti-Semitism. And it’s just wrong.
In fact she describes herself as "center-left."

But when asked if Israel is guilty of apartheid or colonialism, she is unequivocal:
Colonialism is when a major country or entity — Great Britain or France or whatever it might be — comes and takes over your country. What great entity were these bedraggled Zionists, these Russian Jews who were the early pioneers — what great entity were they representing? They were dying of malaria and trying to eke out a living.

So criticize but criticize accurately. Don't take other contexts and put them on this issue.

Apartheid was created so that the black South Africans could keep a small group of white South Africans rich. That's not the case here. Here there's a fight over a piece of land. It's a different kind of fight.

Lipstadt readily criticizes antisemitism from the Left (and from Muslims) as from the Right. She agrees that being anti-Israel, in the sense of wanting to end the Jewish state, is antisemitic. She is against politicizing antisemitism and the Holocaust for any reason. She is intellectually honest. She knows her stuff.

I may disagree with her political positions on Israel, but I don't sense that they would color any of her job responsibilities. Deborah Lipstadt is as good a choice for this position as we can hope for.




at

J-Street refuses to defend Israel from slanderous and false "apartheid" accusation. It is not pro-Israel by any definition.


This year it has become fashionable to accuse Israel of the crime of apartheid. First B'Tselem, and then Human Right Watch, have opened the floodgates to give the Israel haters something to point at as they use Israel as the first, last and only example of apartheid in the world.

As we and others have documented extensively, the charge is baseless - unless you completely redefine the word to apply to pretty much any nation that has some level of racism or has a preference for citizenship to people who were originally from that country, which is literally every nation on the planet. 

I wondered whether J-Street agreed with Human Rights Watch that Israel was guilty of apartheid, or if it defended Israel from the defamatory and false charge. After all, J-Street keeps telling everyone that it is pro-Israel - even though one would be hard pressed to find a single example where J-Street actually publicly defended Israel against obsessed haters like Richard Falk, Roger Waters, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar or Mark Lamont Hill.

Not surprisingly, J-Street defended Human Rights Watch's calling Israel guilty of apartheid.

We are deeply dismayed by the vitriolic response of some Jewish communal and pro-Israel organizations to the new report by Human Rights Watch titled “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” While J Street does not use the term “apartheid” to describe the current situation in the occupied territories, we believe this new report raises critical concerns that should deeply trouble both supporters of Israel and those who care about Palestinian rights.
J-Street tries to walk the line by saying that it doesn't use that specific term, it did not defend Israel against the charge - it instead defended Human Rights Watch against its critics.

And note what J-Street didn't say. It didn't say "J-Street doesn't agree with applying the term 'apartheid," it said it doesn't use the term itself. J-Street does not disagree!

Which means that J-Street effectively agrees with Human Rights Watch. It just knows it will lose support from credulous Zionist funders who still think it is a liberal Zionist organization that is merely against settlements, instead of an organization that is dedicated to slandering Israel nearly as much as Jewish Voice for Peace does, so it doesn't want to explicitly agree for fear of losing its "pro-Israel" facade. 

It's refusal to defend Israel against the charge is itself all you need to know about J-Street. It is not pro-Israel in any sense of the word.



at

Thursday, July 29, 2021

07/29 Links Pt2: Ben & Jerry’s is the tip of the iceberg - a meltldown is coming; "The Squad" Call to Strip Tax-Exempt Status From Pro-Israel US Charities; Why was Julian Burnside’s message antisemitic?

From Ian:

Settler colonialism backfires
With its hegemonic status secured, settler colonialism has swept away the older paradigm of Israel as an outpost of colonialism. Calling Israel a byproduct of the thoroughly discredited colonialist international order lost its currency because it failed to explain not only why the Jewish state did not follow the expected arc of decline, but also why the country forged close ties with increasing numbers of post-colonial states. Moreover, before it was discarded, the colonialism paradigm raised uncomfortable questions about the myriad failures of Palestinians to plant their national flag in any part of the land they claimed despite repeated opportunities offered to them to chart their own path to independence.

Settler colonialism takes the Palestinian cause much further than the discarded colonialism argument. It shows why Palestinians are still victims of a terrible historical wrong even as it removes the imprint of shame from Palestinians for not having stood their ground. Most importantly, a settler-colonial positing an Israel possessed of such overwhelming power that Palestinians are left with no choice but abject surrender is really a call to arms. People of goodwill everywhere are asked to serve as tribunes for Palestinians and assume responsibility for restoring their rights, however ambiguously they are put forward or however improbable their implementation.

As much as the settler colonial paradigm supposedly imposes an indelible stamp of guilt on Zionism and Israel, it also injects a brooding pessimism into the consciousness and discourse of Palestinians. Told repeatedly that they confront an enmity so implacable and evil in character that only a totally mobilized world can destroy it, Palestinians can logically conclude that the independence enjoyed by other nations is beyond their reach. If their confrontation with Zionism is a clash of civilizations, then there are no reasons for Palestinians to cultivate the capacity for flexible responses and the creation of a politics capable of responding to shifting circumstances because the settler-colonial perspective denies the possibility that Palestinians themselves can forge their own national future. Something that was recently orchestrated by the Jewish Electorate Institute that argued that 28 percent of those polled—and 38 percent of those under 40—agreed with the statement that “Israel is an apartheid state”; 23 percent of those polled and 33 percent under 40 agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” These attitudes driven by identity woke politics raise the bar of the Jewish fifth column and its growing dissatisfaction with Zionism.

By straining out the awkward decisions such as the rejection by Palestinians, not by Zionists, of a division of the country into two states for two peoples, settler colonialism has subordinated the historical record beneath a narrative that ignores facts, avoids logic and closes rather than opens up options. The deepest problem with this perspective, however, is that it deprives Palestinians of access to their actual history—to the real opportunities available for advancing their political interests and to the critical question of whether total opposition to Zionism is a self-fulfilling strategy for failure. Would sharing the land when Zionists had accepted much more equitable proposals for dividing the territory—as in 1937 or in 1947—have given Palestinians a base for their own nation-state? Engendering fatalism about politics as the art of the possible while elevating the impossible into a sacred principle may satisfy the conceit of intellectuals on college campuses, and yet, it does nothing to improve the lives of ordinary people.
Vivian Bercovici: Ben & Jerry’s is the tip of the iceberg - a meltldown is coming
Ben & Jerry’s, however, is likely just the tip of the iceberg, which may go a ways to explaining the swift and harsh reactions from Bennett and Lapid.

It’s about much more than ice cream.

Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, is publicly traded, which is the only reason this hornet’s nest has become public. There are many private companies in Israel that are being shunned and, in effect, boycotted commercially, regardless of whether they are engaged in the OPT. Speaking recently with acquaintances who own and operate global businesses based in Israel, I heard story after story of canceled investments and business dealings. Every single one occurred after the May conflict with Hamas. And every single one cited Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as the reason for the business decision.

For every B&J, there are many more boycotts that are being imposed, quietly, one suspects. Based on my own non-scientific, anecdotal inquiries, we should all be focused on the bigger picture.

Let B&J sort out their teetering house. We have to take an honest look at the lay of the broader landscape and face the future, which is now.Ben & Jerry’s is just the tip of the iceberg


Why was Julian Burnside’s message antisemitic?
In 2009, barrister Julian Burnside was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service as a “human rights advocate”.

In 2018, 2019 and 2021, Burnside has used his platform as a human rights advocate to make comparisons between both the Israeli Government and the Nazis and the Australian Government and the Nazis (see “further reading” below)

Most recently, on July 28, Burnside tweeted that “The curious thing about the Israeli stance is that their treatment of the Palestinians looks horribly like the German treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust.” He deleted the tweet, without explanation, 18 hours later.

In making this appalling accusation, Burnside – a former high-profile candidate for the Australian Greens – is not pursuing human rights. Nothing about this statement will help a single Palestinian. The statement demonstrates Burnside’s blatant disregard for the horrors of the Holocaust.

Here is a quick reminder of what German Nazis did to Jews during the Holocaust. The Nazis developed and implemented a government-directed, industrial-scale plan to foster hate against and then annihilate the entire Jewish population. The Nazis deployed vast national resources to implement this plan in a systematic way, resulting in the murder of six million Jewish men, women and children. In 2021, the world’s Jewish population has still not recovered to pre-World War II population numbers, such was the effectiveness of the Nazi genocide.

Nobody could reasonably argue that the Israeli Government or the Israeli military has made any attempts, in any way, to replicate what the Nazis did to the Jewish people.

Many people, Burnside included, are staunch opponents of Israeli Government policies or Israeli military action, but this is not the same thing as comparing Israeli policies or activities to those of the Nazis.
at

Another house in Silwan sold to Jews - 3rd this month



Silwanic reports that Fawzia Bader Zahran sold her apartment in the Wadi Hilweh (City of David) neighborhood in Silwan to the Elad Jewish settlement organization.

She was the wife of the late Ahmad Jum'a al-Qaq,. who put the property in her name in 1993.

Zahran herself fled to Jordan.

Family members have distanced themselves from her, saying that they did not approve the sale and that they are trying to get it annulled.

Fawzia Bader Zahran "leaked" (sold) an apartment in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood in Silwan to the Elad settlement association.

Today, Jews moved in to the house.

This is the third sale from Arabs to Jews in this neighborhood, known to Jews as Kfar Hashiloach, in the past month. In each case the family fled after selling the house to save their lives, because selling a house to a Jew can mean death.

Which is perfectly OK to "human rights" leaders who seem to agree that the worst war crime possible is Jews owning and building houses on the east side of an arbitrary line drawn in 1949 that was never a border. Certainly threatening to kill someone for selling a house to a Jew is acceptable behavior - if not laudable. 




at

Child-Sacrificing Canaanites Reject Palestinian Time-Travelers As Too Barbaric (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.


pile of bonesHinnom Valley, July 29 - A scientific effort to alter history to conform to a narrative under which Palestinians constitute the ancient indigenous people of the Holy Land hit a snag today when operatives returning from a mission to fourteenth-century-BCE Palestine reported that the population of the time, which kills babies and young children to appease the gods, considers Palestinians uncivilized, uncultured brutes deserving only of disdain and possibly abuse.

A delegation of Al-Quds University researchers and Palestine Liberation Organization security and diplomacy agents came back from their trip to pre-Israelite Palestine Thursday morning with the disappointing and frustrating news that the ancient Canaanites rejected in no uncertain terms their overtures to collaborate against the Jews. The time-travelers bore a harrying tale of miscommunication, disastrous assumptions, and a characterization by Moloch-worshipers of twenty-first-century-CE Palestinians as far too barbaric for any alliance.

"We barely got out of there with our lives," admitted Noura Erekat, whose role in the mission involved liaising with the ancient natives in Arabic, which in Palestinian sensibilities has always been the native language of the Levant. "They couldn't understand us, and we couldn't make heads or tails of what they were saying, at first. It must have been a different dialect of Arabic. We eventually figured things out, but they never dropped their hostile, suspicious attitude, and things only got worse when we explained our origins and our methods. They just stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, then started yelling and trying to stone us."

"It was the gesturing and body language, as well as the tone, that told me what was going on," added Al-Quds University Professor of Linguistics Noam Chomsky. "We managed to calm things down enough to get a rough idea of their objections, and it turns out they thought we were total animals, and deluded on top of that. We had to hop right back into the time machine, because a few more moments of that tense interaction and we'd never have come back in one piece."

"Apparently they thought it crazy, inhuman to put children in harm's way to generate international outrage at the enemy when the children come to harm," Chomsky mused. "They seemed to have this weird notion that there are limits on what you can do to children for the collective good."

"Nobody even heard of 'Palestine,'" monotoned a distraught Mustafa Barghouti. "I can't wrap my head around their initial objections to our being Philistines, which to them meant 'invaders' or something, as if we were the ones who didn't belong. You know what? I think the Zionists got there first and prevented our mission from succeeding somehow! We have to figure out when and how that was, but so far, in the numerous non-interactive exploratory missions, we haven't detected them, as if no one manipulated the ancient timeline and the Zionist narrative nevertheless fits. They're so sneaky!"

"Also I think I stepped on a butterfly," he added.




at

07/29 Links Pt1: Col. Kemp: Fighting the Blight of Durban; Biden, Bring the Sbarro massacre mastermind to justice; 3 Filmmakers Arrested in Nigeria Return to Israel

From Ian:

Richard Kemp: Fighting the Blight of Durban
Hamas started this war [in May] as part of its power struggle with Fatah... But its... acts of aggression — seen repeatedly since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 — were also intended to engender an Israeli reaction that would unavoidably lead to the deaths of Palestinian civilians, and in turn provoke vilification against the Jewish state and its isolation from the international community.

All of this takes place and is legitimised within a wider international political web with the United Nations, spider-like, at its centre. Under the instigation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation... at the end of the Gaza conflict the obedient UN Human Rights Council resolved to create a permanent "Commission of Inquiry" into Israel's treatment of Palestinians, the only open-ended inquisition of its kind against any country in the world. Its findings are sickeningly certain even before they are written.

[The UN's upcoming Durban IV conference] marks the anniversary of the Durban Declaration made at the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance. Shocking even for this corrupt ... world body, the conference was itself characterised by racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance — the direct opposite of its declared purpose. In one hate-filled speech after another, Israel was falsely accused of racism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide.

The conference and subsequent linked events in 2009 and 2011 have served to legitimise Jew-hate.

France, Italy, Bulgaria, New Zealand and Poland, each of which refused to attend in 2011, have yet to declare their intentions.

Amb. Ronald Lauder has called on President Biden to take the lead against this vitriol... by declaring such hatred beyond the pale... . Lauder says the US president is the one man in the country who can make a difference... He is right and the same applies to presidents and prime ministers everywhere.

Anything less than full support for Israel's vital and lawful defensive actions amounts to encouragement of violence by Hamas and tacit approval of its actions. Leaders who fail to support Israel and condemn these terrorists share culpability not just for antisemitic hate in their own countries but also for an increasingly violent cycle in the Middle East in which the greatest victims are Palestinian civilians, betrayed and endangered by the vicious actions of their own leadership.


Biden, Bring the Sbarro massacre mastermind to justice
Last year, 18 American Jewish organizations issued a strongly worded joint letter expressing “collective outrage over the Kingdom of Jordan’s refusal to extradite the murderer of American citizens.”

They further urged US officials to hold Jordan “accountable to its commitments under its extradition treaty with the United States and bring all pressure to bear” on the desert kingdom.

Nonetheless, earlier this year, Interpol inexplicably decided to drop its international arrest warrant against Tamimi.

And when Jordan’s King Abdullah visited Washington last week for a much-publicized visit to the White House, a US government spokesman refused to say whether the Tamimi case had been raised in discussions between the president and the monarch.

But Joe Biden did go to the trouble of lavishing praise on Abdullah in front of the cameras, calling him a “good, loyal and decent friend.” This is nothing less than scandalous.

After all, Washington sends $1.3 billion of US taxpayer money to Jordan each year in the form of foreign aid, even though the kingdom continues to harbor a terrorist wanted for the murder of Americans.

And, as Arnold Roth told the Daily Caller website on July 20, “There is an important issue of justice no one is addressing and to the extent that this woman is still free is a stain on the moral fabric of the US.”

It is time for this outrage to end and for America to demand that King Abdullah hand over Tamimi to stand trial for her crimes. The victims of Sbarro deserve no less.
3 Filmmakers Arrested in Nigeria Return to Israel
Three Israeli filmmakers landed back in Israel Thursday morning after spending 20 days in a Nigerian prison.

Pro-Israel activist Rudy Rochman, filmmaker Noam Leibman and French-Israeli journalist E. David Benaym were released from prison Tuesday night with the assistance of the Israeli Embassy in Abuja and handed over to US custody. They were then escorted to a Chabad center where they spent the night.

They departed Nigeria on Wednesday night for Istanbul and arrived to Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday morning.

Rochman, Liebman and Benaym were arrested while making a documentary on the Igbo Jewish community, who consider themselves a lost tribe of Israel but are not recognized as halachically Jewish by the State of Israel or the Chief Rabbinate.

Nigerian authorities on July 9 arrested and interrogated the men on suspicion of having coming into contact with Biafran separatists.

The group was detained at a synagogue during Friday night services in the Igbo village of Ogidi by Nigeria’s secret police and taken to Abuja.

They were in the West African country to shoot a documentary titled “We Were Never Lost,” which explores communities on the continent that claim Jewish or Israelite descent.
at

There's a reason Arabs don't want to think of Israel as a Middle Eastern country - because it makes them look bad

Al Arabiya reports:
Dubai-headquartered transport startup Swvl will list on the Nasdaq stock exchange, claiming to be the first $1.5 billion unicorn from the Middle East to list on the exchange.
Unicorns, companies that are valued at over $1 billion while still privately held, are old hat to Israel. 16 Israeli companies reached that status in 2020 alone, with ten more in the first quarter of this year alone. 

Three more companies became unicorns only this week.

Israel's biggest unicorn monday.com, was valued at $6.8 billion in its IPO last month.A couple of others are expected to become "decahorns" - worth over $10 billion - in coming months.

Even Israel's friends like the UAE still use the phrase "Middle East" to refer to the Arab world, not the region. One big reason is because they compete with other Arab nations and want to be the first, best, most important. 

Israel's existence ruins that, since Israel usually leads in many categories.

Even so, it is worthwhile to gently remind them that the Abraham Accords refer to Israel as being in the Middle East. Marginalizing Israel does not help the cause of peace in the region. 






at

Here's the evidence of tunnels under Al Wahda Street in Gaza that Human Rights Watch "researchers" couldn't find

In Human Rights Watch's report on the May fighting in Gaza, by far the most absurd statement is this one: "Human Rights Watch did not find any evidence of a military target at or near the site of the airstrikes, including tunnels or an underground command center under al-Wahda street or buildings nearby."

Wow.

Well, here's some evidence that the "experts" at HRW seem to have missed.

Here is what a tunnel strike looks like, from a different street in Gaza - Aqsa Street.


You see three small craters from the Israeli munitions penetrating the street surface. They exploded underground and collapsed the walls of the tunnel, causing the larger craters corresponding to the small ones closer to the camera. The larger craters are exactly what a crater on top of a collapsed tunnel section looks like.Notice there is no shrapnel, no debris - just a collapse.


According to Abir Khatib, here are photos from the road that leads to a hospital in Gaza. That is indeed al-Wahda Street, which leads right to the Shifa Hospital where Hamas has had a military headquarters.



This is what a collapsed tunnel looks like from Al-Wahda Street level - just like the ones on Aqsa Street.

If Human Rights Watch doesn't know that this shows that there were tunnels on Al-Wahda Street, then they are grossly incompetent. They cannot be believed about any military matter.

There is more evidence that there were tunnels beneath Al Wahda that eluded HRW. From the Wall Street Journal, May 26:
Azzam Al-Kolak [Qowlaq], 42, lived on the top floor of a three-story building that caved in. He said he escaped with his wife and children through his kitchen, which suddenly was on the ground level. He said engineers who visited the site told him the building dropped some 40 feet below street level. “It felt like I was being sucked into the ground,” said Mr. Al-Kolak.
How can a building fall 40 feet below street level unless there is a huge empty cavern underneath it? Indeed, the collapse of Mr. Kolak's building isn't evidence of IDF crimes, as HRW would interpret it, but evidence that some Hamas tunnels or bunkers extended directly underneath residential buildings - which is most definitely a war crime! 

This is solid evidence that there were tunnels under al-Wahda Street. More importantly, it is solid evidence that Human Rights Watch researchers are partisan hacks who cannot properly analyze any military forensics.












at

Hamas brags of killing Jewish children 20 years ago at the Sbarro pizza shop



The Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas loves to celebrate anniversaries of major terror attacks.  The infamous Sbarro massacre, which happened on August 9, 2001, is no exception.   Today is the Hebrew date anniversary of that attack.

It proves the utter depravity of not only Hamas but of all the Palestinians who celebrated at the time.

The ghoulish article exaggerates the death toll in order to make it sound even more "successful" than it was, claiming that 19 were killed. The facts are horrific enough - 15 murdered, including 7 children and a pregnant woman.

The Arabic text is revolting:
It caused an unprecedented state of terror and chaos among the Jews.
-....The operation is commensurate with the ability of the battalions to plan, develop and reach the depth of the enemy and in the most secure places, which astonished the enemy and made loved ones and family rejoice (and heal the hearts of a believing people).
...The mujahadeen chose the prime time for lunch at the restaurant.
Hamas freely admits that it targets Jews - not Israelis, not Zionists, but Jews. 

In a separate article celebrating the "martyrdom" of the suicide bomber, Hamas describes the happiness of the Palestinians who heard about the attack. "Jenin received the news with demonstrations and rallies that came out to bless this qualitative process that gladdened the hearts of a believing people."

Interestingly, the article did not mention Ahlam Tamimi, the 20-year old monster who chose that restaurant as the target and who accompanied the suicide bomber while disguised as a Jewish woman.

Her description of going on an Arab bus as she escaped the scene is perverted and sickening:
Afterwards, when I took the bus, the Palestinians around Damascus Gate [in Jerusalem] were all smiling. You could sense that everybody was happy. When I got on the bus, nobody knew that it was me who had led [the suicide bomber to the target]... I was feeling quite strange, because I had left [the bomber] 'Izz Al-Din behind, but inside the bus, they were all congratulating one another. They didn't even know one another, yet they were exchanging greetings...While I was sitting on the bus, the driver turned on the radio. But first, let me tell you about the gradual rise in the number of casualties. While I was on the bus and everybody was congratulating one another....I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said "three dead," I said: 'Allah be praised'...Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn't. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding.

We saw Palestinians celebrate murdered Jews only this past May. This isn't a one time thing - consistently, a vast majority of Palestinians have shown support for specific terror attacks after the fact, including, infamously, the 9/11 attacks that occurred only a month after Sbarro.

Here is a celebration after the 2014 attack at the Har Nof synagogue, killing four rabbis.



Ahlam Tamimi is still living a free, celebrity life in Jordan - not in spite of her murderous role but because of it. The parents of child victim Malki Roth, who are marking Malki's yahrzeit today, have been waging a heroic and lonely battle to convince the United States to extradite Tamimi, but even though King Abdullah visited Washington last week, nothing seems to have been done.

As gruesome as Hamas proves itself to be every single day, the international human rights community and As-A-Jew haters expend huge amounts of time and effort to try to prove that Israel is the worst human rights violator in the world while excusing the actions and words of Hamas terrorists.





at

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

07/28 Links Pt2: Thousands attend Shield of David’s ‘We Are Israel’ rally against antisemitism in El Cajon; UN discrimination against Jews ensnares Unilever and J Street

From Ian:

Thousands attend Shield of David’s ‘We Are Israel’ rally against antisemitism in El Cajon
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder were among the many high profile people who spoke at the Shield of David’s rally Sunday evening in El Cajon.

Plus, over 4,000 people attended the massive event, that was put on to fight and prevent antisemitism in the community.

The rally was organized after a 2021 survey of American Jewish people conducted by the Anti-Defamation League found that in the past five years, 63% had experienced or witnessed antisemitism, up from 54% in 2020 – and 25%, or one in four American Jews, said they had been targeted by antisemitic comments, slurs or threats. Most alarming, 9% said they had been physically attacked because they are Jewish.

With a rise of recent Jewish hate crimes, the Shield of David group “wants to empower all people to be proud of their heritage and fight for ideals of truth, justice and liberty.” Organizers said their goal was to unite people together for freedom and democracy.

There was a small confrontation when pro-Palestine protesters crashed the rally, but a few bad actors were unable to ruin the enormous event.

Monday evening, El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells joined us in-studio to discuss the historic turnout and successful event.
The price of being a Zionist woman on Twitter
In the pro-Israel world, there are few vocal female voices. This, again, is not a coincidence. Personally attacking and threatening women is a method of silencing their voices, online and in real life, and deterring new ones from speaking up. “With women there are no boundaries … The most common comment I get is sharmuta (“whore” in Arabic),” said TikTok influencer Shai Emanuel Yamin. “I saw men also suffering from hate comments, but it’s never about how they look or what they wear.”

Liora Rez, the founder and executive director of Stop Antisemitism, agreed that the online attacks against women are more personal: “From the most deranged rape threats to the doxxing (publicly revealing private personal information) of my parents’ information, antisemites have no boundaries when it comes to harassing female Jewish activists online.”

To be clear, it’s not just Jewish women being targeted. Yasmine Mohammed, an ex-Muslim and women’s rights activist with over 100,000 Twitter followers, has been the target of gender-based hate comments for years after speaking against antisemitism. In response to the Israeli-Gaza conflict, she tweeted, “I’m normally inundated with death threats, but these past couple of weeks, it’s been more vicious than ever.” In conversation, she told me, “The explosion in the intensity of hate that I receive when I speak up in support of Israel or against antisemitism … no one can ever get used to that.”

We cannot continue to shrug our shoulders and say “Just ignore it,” because the results, as we’ve already seen for Jews, can very rapidly escalate into real-world violence. Harassing women, launching public smear campaigns, levying threats of sexual violence – these are actions with real consequences that should have no place on social media, and every social media platform should have a zero-tolerance policy toward such virulent abuse.

Yet, despite the myriad risks, as Jewish and pro-Israel female voices, we must not back down in the face of cyberbullying. Instead, we must elevate female voices and encourage new voices to join the conversation and help fight back.

As Rez put it, “Antisemites just failed to realise that their hatred and obscenities do nothing but motivate me to continue and amplify what I’m doing.” It’s draining to be on the receiving end of such abuse, but it also reaffirms that what we are fighting for is worthwhile, and more important than ever before.
David Singer: UN discrimination against Jews ensnares Unilever and J Street
J Street gets it very wrong in relying on false and misleading decades-old UN propaganda when making the following claims:

- The battleground is not the “Israeli-Palestinian debate” – it is the “Jewish-Arab conflict” - begun 100 years ago with the 1920 San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres and still unresolved - when there were no “Israelis” or “Palestinians” – only “Arabs” and “Jews”.

The “Palestinian people” was not defined until 1964 – a racist and apartheid Arabs-only definition that excludes all non-Arabs and Jews who lived in Palestine after 1917.

- The “rights and freedom of the Palestinian People” specifically excluded any claim by its sole spokesman – the Palestine Liberation Organisation - to sovereignty in “the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” - or the right to establish a separate State there – in addition to Jordan – which occupies 78% of former Palestine.

- “Illegal settlements” are “legal” under article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

Words do count.

J Street’s readiness to defend Unilever’s decision is appalling. No self-respecting Jewish organisation espousing “our Jewish values” should ever defend decisions discriminating against Jews.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN – Yehuda Blum –confronted the UN General Assembly and trashed its treatment of the Jewish-Arab conflict on 16 November 1978:

"The history of international conflicts, and particularly those with complex historical origins, can only be properly written by objective historians who enjoy complete academic freedom. The practice of writing and rewriting history according to the transient interests of a political body is of course characteristic of certain regimes. It is regrettable that the United Nations has now been drawn into that pattern.”

Ben and Jerry's and J Street have seemingly swallowed the UN’s pernicious rewriting of history to justify discrimination against Jews because of where they live.


JINSA Podcast: A Legal Analysis of the Ben & Jerry’s Debacle
International lawyer Eugene Kontorovich of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School joins Erielle to discuss Ben & Jerry’s recent decision to stop selling ice cream products in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem, as well as the possible opening of a U.S. consulate to the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem.
at

How Persian Muslims mistreated Jews in the 19th century

Continuing on my excerpts from Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846-1855 by Jewish explorer Israel Joseph Benjamin, the author summarizes the plight of the Jews of Persia, not withstanding that some of them were very successful in business.

Among the Persian Jews are some who are very rich, and this wealth is the source of so many dangers, that they are obliged to conceal their treasures like crimes. — I comprise their oppressions under the following heads:
1) Throughout Persia the Jews are obliged to live in a part of the town separated from the other inhabitants; for they are considered aa unclean creatures, who bring contamination with their intercourse and presence.
2) They have no right to carry on trade in stuff goods,
3) Even in the streets of their own quarter of the town they are not allowed to keep any open shop. —They may only sell there spices and drugs or carry on the trade of a jeweler, in which they have attained great perfection.
4) Under this pretext of their being unclean they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mob with stones and dirt.
5) For the same reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans.
6) If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers by-spit in his face, and sometimes beat him so unmercifully, that he falls to the ground, and is obliged to be carried home.
7) If a Persian kills a Jew, and the family of the deceased can bring forward two Mussulmans as witnesses to the fact, the murderer is punished by a fine of 12 tumauns (600 piastres) ; but if two such witnesses cannot be produced, the crime remains unpunished, oven though it has been publicly committed, and is well known.
8) The flesh of the animals slaughtered according to Hebrew custom, but as Trefe declared, must not be sold to any Mussulmans. The slaughterers are compelled to bury the meat, for even the Christians do not venture to buy it, fearing the mockery and insult of the Persians.
9) If a Jew enters a shop to buy anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods, but must stand at a respectful distance and ask the price. Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them.
10) Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever pleases them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defence of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life.
11) Upon the least dispute between a Jew and a Persian, the former is immediately dragged before the Achund, and, if the complainant can bring forward two witnesses, the Jew is condemned to pay a heavy fine. Is he too poor to pay this penalty in money, he must pay it in his person. He is stripped to the waist, bound to a stake, and receives forty blows with a stick. Should the sufferer utter the least cry of pain during this proceeding, the blows already given are not counted, and the punishment is begun afresh.
12) In the same manner the Jewish children, when they get into a quarrel with those of the MussuImans, are immediately led before the Achund, and punished with blows,
13) A Jew who travels in Persia is taxed in every inn  and every caravanseral he enters. If he hesitates to satisfy any demands that may happen to bc made on him, they fall upon him, and maltreat him until he yields to their terms.
14) If, as already mentioned, a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (feast of mourning for the death of the Persian founder of the religion of Ali) he is sure to be murdered.
15) Daily and hourly new suspicions ore raised against the Jews, in order to obtain excuses for fresh extortions; the desire of gain is always the chief incitement to fanaticism.

As we've seen, the entire book is a damning rebuttal to the Muslim claim that Jews lived in peace among them before Zionism. No, Muslim antisemitism has always been systemic. 





at