September 2021 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, September 30, 2021

09/30 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The ongoing nakba of Britain’s Labour party; After death threats, Iraqis who attended pro-Israel normalization summit recant

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The ongoing nakba of Britain’s Labour party

Conference resolutions aren’t binding on the party leadership but are nevertheless a powerful statement of Labour party feeling.

So now we know that the Labour faithful view Israel’s rebirth as a catastrophe. The Labour faithful promote the legally and historical illiterate falsehood that there is such a thing as “Palestinian land”. The Labour faithful misrepresent international law which, contrary to the persistent mis-statement of the relevant treaties by deeply anti-Israel international bodies and the British Foreign Office, the Israelis uphold.

The Labour faithful appear to believe that Israelis are not entitled to the protection of the rule of law, misrepresenting as “forced displacements” legal proceedings taken against Arab tenants in a district of Jerusalem, Shimon HaTzadik as it’s known to Jews or Sheikh Jarrah as it’s known to Arabs, because they were refusing to pay their rents.

The Labour faithful appear to believe that Israelis are not entitled to defend themselves against mass murder. Thus the motion demonised as Israel’s “militarised violence” against the al Aqsa mosque the defence of Israelis against jihadi attacks launched from the al Aqsa mosque.

The Labour faithful similarly misrepresented the deadly bombardments with thousands of missiles and rockets from Gaza as a deadly assault by Israel on Gaza — because Israel defended its citizens by taking military action against Gaza’s terrorists, an offensive that went to lengths unparalleled in the world to protect Gaza’s civilians from harm.

The Labour faithful further want to make it easier for Israelis to be murdered. Thus they demanded the destruction of the security barrier which has stopped the mass attacks committed by Arabs from the disputed territories that slaughtered more than 1000 Israelis between 2000 and 2005.

And most vicious of all, the Labour faithful smeared Israel with the libel of “apartheid” — a claim as fatuous as it is pernicious. Apartheid was the appalling system of separate development by which white South Africans not only excluded black South Africans from public life and denied them their civic and human rights but prohibited them from sharing buses, public amenities or even park benches.

By contrast, Israel is a democracy committed to the human rights of all its citizens. Arab Israelis have full equal rights, as can be seen immediately from their numbers studying in Israel’s universities, enjoying Israel’s beaches and parks, receiving treatment in Israel’s hospitals or working there as doctors and other medical staff, serving in the armed forces and as judges and members of Knesset in Israel’s governing coalition.

UK Labour party defines Israel as 'apartheid state'

Interview with Tom Gross, British journalist and political commentator.

Please stop applauding Labour for the bare minimum

Labour’s response on this should have been led by Starmer and his shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy when the summer skirmishes started. Instead, they appeared hamstrung and for several days both only attacked Israel. Hamas weren’t mentioned.

This obsession impacted on many of us during those dark days of the conflict. Our children were bullied in schools and universities, work was made uncomfortable for many of us if our colleagues were left-wingers, and there were physical attacks in the street. This demonisation of Jews because of their connection with Israel is the next obvious step; words lead to action.

The second is the uncomfortable truth that Starmer was next to Corbyn when he caused all that pain to our community. While he can insist that they rowed about it furiously in shadow cabinet meetings, we can only take his word for it; what we do know is that he barely criticised it in public, preferring to parrot the line that all this stuff about Corbyn was down to those awful creatures in the media.

When Ellman quit the party in October 2019 saying, “the Labour Party is no longer a safe place for Jews and Jeremy Corbyn must bear the responsibility for this,” Starmer was asked about what she had said by Andrew Marr. He replied: “I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that. I am 100 per cent behind Jeremy Corbyn.”

On winning the leadership, he called Corbyn his “friend” and even now he said that to win the whip back all the former leader has to do is apologise for saying the antisemitism crisis in Labour had been “dramatically overstated”.

Why has no one guilty of the antisemitism crisis – which hurt so many of us, made us feel like strangers in our home, led to many of us contemplating leaving the country – properly apologised and acknowledged what they did? Why hasn’t Corbyn, in particular, been thrust completely out of the party instead of headlining fringe events where they are still wailing ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ like cultists? Why are Labour MPs, including deputy leader Angela Rayner, still attending events with Corbyn and people thrown out of the party for antisemitism? Why hasn’t Starmer acknowledged and apologised for his own part in it?

This week I’ve been interviewing some of the brave men of the 62 Group who fought anti-fascists in the 1960s, and whose story will be told in new BBC series Ridley Road, which starts on Sunday night. They knew how you dealt with antisemites. While I’m not advocating starting fights at Labour meetings, I do think we need to put our heads up a bit higher, find a bit of Jewish pride, and only forgive the Labour party when they actually and completely solve their problem with antisemitism.

Corbyn still haunts Labour

At the Young Labour rally, in bright lipstick and with shiny hair, they thrill to protest. I think it is Oedipal, and more an emotional than a political imperative, but I am a Social Democrat. The room — called The Empress but no matter — is alive with protest; protest for its own sake. Beyond it there is nothing: certainly not power. Here, at the Empress, they would rather lead the party than have the party lead the country. That is clear. They speak to the voters, but they do not listen to them. Their voters are theoretical. Their analysis of the 2019 defeat is: not enough Corbynism, plus sabotage. The reason for their problems now is: purge.

They fete themselves, and attack the Labour leadership, which they treat like a pantomime villain, with boos and hisses. Starmer is obviously Sylvia Plath’s Daddy: “Daddy, I have had to kill you”. The leadership named this event “Cancelled” on the conference app, but changed their minds, and this is their revenge. I can hear their narcissism in their cadences, and their applause. It is their Conference. They are Labour. When a trade union leader says her union is not affiliated to the Labour Party, they cheer. The obvious question: so why are they?

We hear Richard Burgon MP, and John McDonnell MP, then Corbyn comes, still denied the Labour whip. I marvel at the vanity of this supposedly humble man, but I never believed in his humility, any more than I believed in his anti-racism. Anti-racism is only meaningful when you extend it to your political enemies, and he never did. He ignored the abuse of live female Jewish MPs but stands in solidarity with dead Jews, who need nothing from him, can’t attack him, and are as theoretical to him as voters. The humble change their minds, and he never does: his humility is performative, in a shy glance at the youthful supporters, in a tender bowing of the head. He looks sorrowful — he lost — then happy: I still have you. To be fair, he does sound like the most sensible man in the room. But that is his job: to sound sane and vexed — Magic Grandpa — while his supporters bully and scream. “In the last leadership election, our members and unions were promised unity, but instead we are given division,” he mourns. He will spend the whole of Conference inciting division, and haunting Conference with his vanity.

Labour MP apologises to members ‘purged or set up with false allegation’

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle has issued a grovelling apology to party members who he claims are being “purged or set up with false allegations.”

In a clear reference to members who had fallen foul of new rules proscribing groups that had downplayed or denied antisemitism, the Brighton Kempton MP told a rally held by Socialist Campaign Group MPs at a festival coinciding with Labour’s party conference: “I want to apologise.

“I was struck by members who feel alone in our party at the moment. I want to apologise, from me in particular, because if we have made you feel like you are alone, if we have not reached out our arms enough in these tough times when you are being purged or set up with false allegations , Ii not only apologise, I will endeavour to do better because we have to support each other. ”

One of Russell-Moyle’s colleagues, who heard his speech at Tuesday’s event at The World Transformed said they found his remarks “sickening” in a week in which leader Keir Starmer said the party was on the right path to rooting out antisemitism.

But Russell-Moyle was not the only speaker at the event to attack the suspension of members falling foul of the rules.

Sahar Karim Al-Ta'i speaking to the Erbil conference

On Sunday, I reported about Iraq issuing arrest warrants against Iraqis who attended a conference in Erbil that called for normalization between Iraq and Israel.

I have not seen news of any actual arrests yet, but one of the speakers has been fired for her government job.

Iraq's Minister of Culture, Hassan Nazim, issued a statement saying, “It was decided to dismiss Sahar Karim Al-Nusairi (Ta'i), an employee with the title of Senior Researcher at the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage, from her job, based on the provisions of Article VIII / A of the Law of Discipline of State and Public Sector Employees No. 14 of the year 1991 revised; for her actions that contradict the rules of professional conduct and represent violations of Iraq’s laws and political orientations, which makes her employment in the job harmful to the public interest.”

Sahar had told Times of Israel, “We can live under the repression of terrorism or we can die with courage.”

Here was her speech: (h/t Yoel)

Four days after the news of the arrest warrants, so-called "human rights organizations" have remained completely silent over Iraqi repression. Their vaunted protection of freedom of expression does not reach the expression of brave Arabs who call for peace with Israel, and the silence from these self-appointed moral guardians of the world is effectively support for the Iraqi government's policies of repression.

The reason is obvious. These human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty never supported the idea of normalization between the Arab world and the Jewish state, since they regard Israel as a criminal nation. They support antagonism between Arab nations and Israel because that is their own position. They will not be caught dead promoting the human rights of Arabs who support peace with Israel.

Palestinian Bureaucracy Stymies Opening Of ‘No-Kill’ Orphanage (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

barbed wire Ramallah, September 30 - Humanitarian activists have failed yet again to penetrate the numerous layers of government oversight, regulation and approval plaguing this already-inefficient governmental system, NGOs lamented today, following what the groups called the fifty-third unsuccessful attempt to gain official go-ahead to open the first shelter for parentless children that will not euthanize or otherwise dispose of its charges if a certain period elapses with no one initiating adoption procedures.

Palestinian activists hoping to launch the autonomous territory's first no-kill orphanage announced Thursday that they will keep trying to gain certification and approval for their initiative, which they claim will avoid the unnecessary cruelty rampant in shelters that set a deadline beyond which any "undesired" children get put to death or sent out to conduct suicide attacks against Jews.

"We regret that our latest application to open the Jannah Rainbow Orphanage has been rejected," announced the initiative's chief proponent, pediatrician Alsaf Qrisaa. "The reason this time appears to be a lack of documentation in support of certain proposed activities and facilities. We know, however, that we submitted that documentation along with the rest of the application, multiple times, at the request of at least three clerks within the relevant government agencies. This is all the more frustrating because we have not sought government funding at all, relying as we do on donations from concerned private individuals and generous grants from overseas governments and NGOs." Qrisaa also implied that the chief factor behind the application's repeated rejection involves his group's principled refusal to bribe various Palestinian officials.

"The existing system, if we can even call it that, for orphaned children, condemns them to the bleak prospect of euthanasia or certain violent death if they cannot find adoptive parents by a certain age or time spent in care," explained child welfare advocate Infan Tissayid. "Most, if not all, of the programs for orphans are private endeavors, the bulk of which fall under the aegis of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or one of several other Iran-funded enterprises aimed at undermining the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty by forcing Israeli security forces to kill children who threaten Jewish lives. While most of Palestinian society applauds the goal, the method in question lacks the same broad support. There's definitely both space and necessity for an orphanage, perhaps a whole network of them, that aims to raise these children to be responsible citizens and not mere tools."

"Our biggest problem," she continued, "is that the Palestinian version of 'responsible citizen' includes a prioritization of hurting Israel over improving things for ourselves."

09/30 Links Pt1: Is It Time to Say, "Who Cares"?; 2 states for 2 peoples? Try 4 states for 1 people; Why Iraqis hate Palestine; Israeli Foreign Minister in Bahrain to Sign Deals, Open Embassy

From Ian:

Is It Time to Say, "Who Cares"?

No one in the U.S., including the president, has the power to settle the conflict with the Palestinians (see the Rogers Plan, Reagan Plan, Camp David Accords, Clinton Parameters, Middle East Road Map, Kerry Plan, and Deal of the Century). There is no magic formula that is yet to be discovered to change the status quo. Peace will only come when the Palestinians decide they are prepared to give up their delusions of having a state from the river to the sea where every Palestinian can return to the homes they lived in before 1949.

Who cares what professors think about Mideast policy? The Washington Post published a survey of 557 professors where 65% agreed the current situation is akin to Afrikaner South Africa. If they are using the university to indoctrinate students with their personal agendas, they are committing academic malpractice.

Who cares about people who deny Israel's right to exist? Abba Eban said: "Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its 'right to exist.' Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement....There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its 'right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession."

Who cares about anti-Semites telling Jews the definition of anti-Semitism excludes them? Racists don't get to tell non-whites what constitutes racism. We have an internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism.

People need to stop telling Jewish students to be scared because it is making them fearful. We never did that in the past when things were no less hostile on campus. We should be creating muscular Jews - proud, knowledgeable and confident - not snowflakes.

2 states for 2 peoples? Try 4 states for 1 people

With the return to power of former US President Barack Obama's team, we are once again hearing murmurings of "two states for two peoples." It is being reinforced by political media agencies with the aim of suppressing thought, but above all else – it conceals a lie.

What is meant by the term "Palestinian people"? What Palestinian people is deserving of a state to be called "Palestine"? They all pretend as if this was a population that lives in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, based on the fiction that Israel "occupied" these territories, which in fact were occupied for generations, by the Jordanian regime, and were never under "Palestinian" rule. Does this refer only to the residents of Area A, in which the Palestinian Authority already enjoys partial autonomy? Should we add to this the Gaza Strip? What about the 5 million pseudo-Palestinian "refugees" (originally numbering 600,000 people), who have been waiting 73 years to enjoy the "right of return"? The return to what territory exactly? If we are to believe the statements from Palestinian leaders, this right of return will pertain to the State of Israel's territory on the 1967 borders.

It is clear, therefore, from the Palestinian statements that they are referring to more than the territory that was "occupied" following the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. The territory of the entire State of Israel is on the line, and no Palestinian state will yield its demand for the unification of territories and populations. Let us not forget there is yet another branch of the Palestinian "people" that constitutes 70% of the population in Jordan, in which a Bedouin minority controls the throne. A glance at this landscape raised two geostrategic questions:
How will the West Bank be connected to Gaza? Any land-based connection will cut Israel in two and expose it to the threat of infiltration, and this is in an era in which the Negev Region is already seen as a kind of no man's land. Do we intend to bring back the Polish Corridor? That territory, which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea and divided the bulk of Germany from East Prussia, was the pretext for the Nazi invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War II.

Why Iraqis hate Palestine

As the world watched the US Marines pull down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, on April 9, 2003, and as Iraqis defaced every Saddam poster or mural around the country, other Iraqis did one more thing that went uncovered. Hundreds stormed the Palestinian neighborhood in Baghdad and threw rocks on its residents, forcing them to flee. All the Palestinians in Iraq, numbering five thousand, relocated to Treybeel, on the Iraqi border with Jordan, where the UN constructed a makeshift refugee camp. The UN eventually resettled those Palestinians around the world. Today, there is barely any Palestinian who lives anywhere in Iraq. Palestinians are simply not welcome among Iraqis.

When Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to invade Kuwait in 1990, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stood next to the Iraqi tyrant as both men paraded the army that had just decimated a fellow Arab country. The more Saddam found himself isolated because of invading Kuwait, the more he leaned on the “Palestinian Cause” and Arafat, who had himself become irrelevant and living in Tunisia but was enjoying the largesse of oil-rich Iraq.

Until 1990, Saddam had sponsored Arafat’s rivals, including the most notorious global terrorists such as Abu-Nidal, who ordered the assassination of Israel’s ambassador in London, which precipitated the 1982 Lebanon War. Another Palestinian terrorist Saddam hosted was Abul-Abbas, whose claim to fame included recruiting Samir Kuntar, who killed a family in northern Israel and was serving a life in prison until Hezbollah freed him in a prisoner swap that had ignited the 2006 Lebanon War. But by 1990, Saddam was not seeking mercenaries, only legitimacy that he found in Arafat.

When America launched Operation Desert Storm that ejected Saddam’s troops from Kuwait, the Iraqi dictator calculated that he could lineup the Arabs behind him by throwing 39 Skud missiles on Israel. He threw a dozen on Saudi Arabia too. The Arabs — including radicals like Syria’s Assad and Libya’s Qadhafi — never took Saddam’s side. Only Palestinians took to the streets and cheered for Saddam, shouting “Oh Saddam our love, hit Tel Aviv” (it rhymes in Arabic).

Saddam’s love story with the Palestinians continued throughout the 1990s, but unhappy with Arafat’s peace with Israel, Saddam started sponsoring Hamas, whose campaign of suicide bombings, throughout the 1990s, aborted peace and resulted in the Second Intifada in 2000. To every family of a Palestinian “martyr,” Saddam offered 5,000 Euros.

"Human Rights organization" founder decries "herds of colonists performing Talmudic rituals" at Cave of the Patriarchs (update)

This video of Jews celebrating Simchat Torah in Hebron on Wednesday is causing a great deal of angst from bigoted Arabs who believe that Jews should be banned from Judaism's second holiest site.

Al Jazeera catalogued some of the reactions to this video.

This tweeter that they highlighted said, "The sons of Khazar are dancing around the Ibrahimi mosque burial site of Ibrahim(pbuh) patriach of the Arabs. These European Jews who have no connection to our father Ibrahim(pbuh) are testing the limits of the Arabs."

The Khazar myth is an antisemitic theory that says most Jews aren't really Jews.

The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs condemned the celebration, claiming that "extremist groups used the Jewish holidays to desecrate the mosque through massive incursions, wearing religious clothes, in an attempt to perform Talmudic prayer and lying on the ground, deliberately provoking the feelings of Muslims."

Because why would Jews want to celebrate a holiday without deliberately provoking the feelings of Muslims?

But perhaps the most telling comment came from Ramy Abdu, the founder and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, who has given statements to the UN. We've shown the anti-Israel bias of the organization, but his comment leaves no doubt that the human rights of Jews are of no concern to him.

Abdu tweeted, "At dawn today, with the support of the occupation forces, herds of colonists storm the Ibrahimi Mosque in Khalil al-Rahman and perform Talmudic prayers!"

To this "human rights expert," Jews in groups are not human, but "herds" of animals. Performing Jewish prayers (which are virtually all "Talmudic") is a disgrace. Jews do not have any rights to their own holy places.

Dozens of responses curse the Jews for having the audacity of dancing - which is how Simchat Torah is celebrated.

A human rights leader is inciting violence against Jews. And no one says a word about it.

UPDATE: This news site says that the Jews converted the shrine into a "discotheque."

This is the trailer for an upcoming violent videogame named "Fursan Al Aqsa" (Knights of Al Aqsa) showing Palestinian terrorists murdering Jewish soldiers on the way for them to "liberate Al Aqsa mosque.

The Brazilian Arab author, Nidal Nijm, describes the game this way:

Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque® is a Third Person Action Game on which you play as Ahmad al-Falastini, a young Palestinian Student who was unjustly tortured and jailed by Israeli Soldiers for 5 years, had all his family killed by an Israeli Airstrike and now, after getting out from the prison, seeks revenge against those who wronged him, killed his family and stolen his homeland, by joining a new Palestinian Resistance Movement called Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque®

Nijm says that his father was a Fatah terrorist in Lebanon.

Death is celebrated - even when the player gets killed, the graphic says that it is cause for rejoicing because he will enter Paradise to marry his seventy virgins. But it is also a reason to "spread your anger against the oppressor."

This is blatant incitement to terror, not only for Palestinian youth but for Muslims altogether.

Note the name of the protagonist. Palestinians are often named "al-Masri" or "al-Mughrabi" or "al-Shami" (The Egyptian, the Moroccan, the Syrian) but no one is named "al-Falastini" (the Palestinian.) The game author needs to make up such an identity since none exists.

Jerusalem terrorist was a troubled young mother from a terrorist family

Early Thursday morning, a Palestinian woman from Jenin was shot dead as she tried to stab police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Her name was Israa Khuzaymah, and she was the mother of three.

Her Facebook page had not been updated since last November, but she seems like she was a troubled woman - the type of person who would be attracted to being killed as a "martyr" to erase whatever demons she had.

She posted many times about Kamal Abu Waar, a Palestinian terrorist who died in Israeli custody of cancer last year. She even superimposed Abu Waar's image over her photo of herself with her three kids.

Her own family seems to have had a number of terrorist members, as this poster of her "clan" indicates:

On November 5, she posted this poem:

Sometimes...
Wrong leads us to the right path...
And wrong people make you know the value of right people...
And wrong choices make you more conscious next time...
And the blow that hurts you wakes you up...
And weakness makes you more solid...
And distraction makes you hold on to yourself more...
Darkness shows you the light you didn't see...
And loneliness teaches you self worth...
Sometimes...
The things that can hurt us the most, are the ones that save us...
The most things we think is the end
It's actually a beginning...

October 29:

😭😭😭😭 Allah suffices me, and He is the best disposer of affairs

October 5:

Repeat with me:
O Allah, take me out of the most distress to
Widen the relief.." And enter ask forgiveness and say, O Lord ′′

September 30:

Repeat with me:
′′ O Allah, satisfy my needs, relieve my anguish, forget my loneliness, and relieve my concern..
′′ And enter ask forgiveness ′′ ❤️.

If this is what she was sharing on Facebook, where people try to appear their best, Israa was a very depressed person. And being a depressed person with a family of violent terrorists apparently made want to kill oneself in a way that would make her a heroine.

VP Harris Tells Antisemitic Student “Your Truth” Has a Right to Be Heard (Judean Rose)

Vice President Kamala Harris broke with several decades’ worth of bipartisan support for the Jewish State on Tuesday when she said she “was glad” that a student had brought up concerns about funding Israel’s “ethnic genocide” and “displacement of people.”

WATCH: Kamala Harris nods as student accuses Israel of "ethnic genocide": “your truth cannot be suppressed" pic.twitter.com/FcqCyT7Uo8
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 28, 2021

The student was referring, of course, to the standalone bill approving $1b to replenish Iron Dome after terrorists in Gaza shot more than 4,000 missiles at Israeli civilians earlier this year, and this is important to state: noncombatants. The Jewish men, women, and children targeted by these missiles are not soldiers. And no one gets to call them that for just living in a city that has belonged to their people for thousands of years. They are simply just Jewish people, living their lives.

Iron Dome is purely defensive; it intercepts and destroys the rockets and shells before they can strike and kill Jews, targets by dint of the fact that they are Jewish, irrespective of where they live. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, led by The Squad, did everything it could to block the funding of Iron Dome. This is because the "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party is not really progressive at all, infested with the same old, same old antisemitism that been around for centuries. The most fervent wish of these monsters is to see photos of dead Jews. It makes them clap, shout for joy, and hand out candy.

AOC, for example, literally cried—or pretended to do so—at the thought of America defending Jews . . .

When she runs for Senate, this needs to be on a campaign ad by her opponent. "AOC cries because Jews won't be killed." https://t.co/iNH7uDsfQs
— Bruce Weingart (@bruce_weingart) September 23, 2021

. . . though she has readily admitted she has no knowledge of these things. She is just a parrot who actually thinks that socialism in America is a good idea.

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacks Israel, calls them the occupiers of Palestine.

When pressed on what she meant she struggled to give an answer and then admitted she does not know what she is talking about. pic.twitter.com/e3Uq1eupD3
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 16, 2018

But the idea of hating Israel for imaginary "colonialism" (how can an indigenous people colonize its own land?) is intoxicating. It is no wonder that the student at the George Mason University event commemorating National Voter Registration Day, echoed these so-called “progressive” sentiments of “kill the Jews” when called on by Harris. She's been well-coached:

"I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers [to free "Palestine"] . . . Just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it's ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I'm sure you're aware of this."

Harris was handed the opportunity to educate the student about Iron Dome and she failed to do so. Worse yet, she approved the student's narrative as a valid perspective—that Israel is engaged in ethnic genocide, when in fact, Israel left Gaza and has had tens of thousands of missiles raining down on its people as a result. The vice president might have used this moment to underscore America's traditional bipartisan support through successive presidential administrations, for the right of the Jewish people to defend against Arab terror. Instead, the vice president nodded as the student spoke, and congratulated her: "Your truth should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? Harris used the word "glad" to describe how she felt when the student accused the embattled Israeli populace of "ethnic genocide." From Fox News (emphasis added):

"And again, this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we're fighting for in a democracy, right?" Harris said.
Harris [then] claimed that democracy is "at its weakest when anyone is left out" of the conversation.
"Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity, right?" said Harris, later adding, "Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing*. You suppress that thing†. Let’s not deal with that thing.‡ ' That's not unity. True unity is everyone in that room has a voice.

"The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates§ in our country about what is the right path, and nobody's voice should be suppressed on that," she added.

The idea expressed here by Harris—aside from thinly veiled digs at a population she thinks it's okay to hate—is that the truth is a subjective thing: that different people have different truths. But this idea is as false as it is repugnant. The truth is not subject to interpretation. It is what it is. As Ben Shapiro so often says, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

The facts are only what they are: Iron Dome destroys missiles, not people. Iron Dome protects JEWISH civilians, preventing death by terror. No more, no less.

Contrary to what Vice President Kamala Harris told this student—who may be quite sincere, being ignorant, or, on the other hand, perfectly aware she is spreading antisemitic propaganda—it is not healthy to debate the right of Jewish people to stay alive in the face of terror. It is not healthy to encourage the voices that speak out against the rights of Jewish children, for example, to live.

“True unity” is not about ensuring that the antisemites in the room have a voice. Democracy is not about propaganda and lies. Giving a platform to antisemites and ugly-hearted people sows division, not inclusion. All humans—including Jews—have the right to live unmolested in peace.

Kamala Harris nods her head in approval of the idea that a Jewish child should be left unprotected from missiles. Israel, all the while, takes great pains to warn Arab civilians before taking out the missile launchers Hamas embeds in hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings. This makes for gruesome photos the terrorists can peddle to the Guardian and CNN, even as Israel uses roof knocks, sends leaflets, and makes individual phone calls to residents of Gaza, leaving them plenty of time to leave.

But Vice President Harris said none of this to the student. Harris' prejudice toward Jews must run deep, yet Harris likes to pretend she’s fond of the Jews. She’s married to a Jew. He is her cover, and she is his, making him feel like he's not one of THOSE Jews.

Kamala Harris talking about meeting her Jewish mother-in-law for the first time is hilarious: pic.twitter.com/MXa1rqlKaE
— Brett Rosner (@Brosner85) August 11, 2020

Her step-children call her “Momala.”

Happy birthday to our daughter, Ella. My heart is whole and my life is full with you in it.

Love, Momala pic.twitter.com/LeooS8BBaF
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 29, 2019

And she made a point of greeting us on Chanuka (albeit in a way that completely robbed the holiday of its religious significance):

From our family to yours, happy Hanukkah! May this season of celebration bring you light and joy out of darkness. https://t.co/eN7J1QSIJY
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 10, 2020

But none of this matters. Because the momentum today is toward isolating Israel, and preventing Jewish Israelis from having the means to defend themselves. Harris is going to ride the hell out of said momentum to overcome the negative publicity she has received over the flooding of the Southern border with illegal immigrants, her disappearance from the scene in general, and her cackle. She has no problem stepping on Jews in her efforts to overcome her unpopularity. She is desperate to make another run for president, something that could never happen.

In all this, "my truth" is that Harris is revolting, offensive, and evil insofar as her willingness to sacrifice the Jews. She had a chance to explain Iron Dome to this student. She had a chance to explain that Hamas terrorists shot over 4,000 missiles, unprovoked, into urban centers populated by innocent men, women, and children. Instead, she paid lip-service to the idea that all voices have a valid role in a democracy, including the voices of those who want Jews to die.

The kindest thing I can say about Harris’ approval of this student speaking out against the right of Jews to live unmolested by terror is that Harris, like the student, may be ignorant of the facts. Could it be that the vice president of the United States doesn’t know that Hamas terrorists shot over 4,000 missiles at Israeli civilians? Could it be that Harris doesn’t understand the nature of Iron Dome, a purely defensive system?

Yet, if we are to give the vice president the benefit of the doubt, this says something dire about her ability to perform the duties of her office, or worse yet—to someday become president—though she is so wildly unpopular at the moment that this is impossible to imagine.

You might say that "the whole world is watching" as momentum builds in the Democratic Party in support of Arab terror. We watch as support builds and exerts pressure against the Jewish people, with even our nightly bowl of ice cream tainted with the goal of eliminating the right of the Jewish people of self-determination—even the right to live—in Israel. Instead of repeating the usual platitudes linked to longstanding bipartisan support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terror and aggression, Harris suggests that Israel’s right to self-defense is only subjective—a quite valid matter of opinion—and that in a democracy, every person has a right to speak their own “truth.”

Even if it’s only “kill the Jews.”

*That thing=Jews

†That thing=Jew hatred

‡ That thing=those diabolical Jews

§ healthy debates=expressing the opinion that it is okay to throw Jews out of Israel

09/29 Links: VP Harris to student who accused Israel of 'genocide': Your truth must be heard; Abbas’ UN speech explains why he is no partner for peace; Labour is still overrun with anti-Israel cranks

From Ian:

VP Harris to student who accused Israel of 'genocide': Your truth must be heard

During a discussion with students about National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday, US Vice President Kamala Harris did not challenge a comment by a student at George Mason University in Virginia who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide” and defended her right to say it.

The student, who identified herself as part-Yemeni, part-Iranian and “not an American,” also expressed outrage at US funding of the Iron Dome. She said America affects her life “every day” due to military funding it gives to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“You brought up how the power of the people and demonstrations and organizing is very valuable in America,” she said. “But I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine. But then just a few days ago, there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”

The student questioned why money was going to Israel and Saudi Arabia instead of to social issues in America.

“The people have spoken very often of what they do need, and I feel like there’s a lack of listening, and I just feel like I need to bring this up because it affects my life and people I really care about’s [sic] life,” she said.

In response, Harris said she was “glad” the student spoke up.

“Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard,” she said.

Harris said democracy is strongest when everyone participates and is weakest when anyone is left out.

“That’s not only about being physically present but that your voice is present,” she said. “Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity. Unity should never be at the expense of telling any one person, ‘For the sake of unity, oh you be quiet about that thing.’ That’s not unity. Then we see where that ends up in a healthy debate about the issue.”

Regarding the student’s reference to Middle East policy, Harris said: “We still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.”

Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman expressed outrage at Harris’s statements, tweeting: “Shameful. There is truth and there are lies. No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.”

The VICE PRESIDENT of the USA is here praising an anti-Semitic twit quacking out the blood libel accusing Israel of genocide. "Your truth cannot be suppressed," she croons.
Still believe the Democrats' anti-Semitism problem begins and ends with the Hamas caucus in the squad? https://t.co/6dKVZUnF0i
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) September 29, 2021

VP Harris silent after anti-Israel comment from student

Author Douglas Murray argued Harris is 'terrible in exchanges,' 'horrible in a corner,' and is 'not a great asset' to the Democrat party. #FoxNews

HonestReporting: Truth Be Told: US Vice President Knows Israel Not Committing 'Ethnic Genocide'

US Vice President Kamala Harris failed to correct a college student who falsely accused Israel of "ethnic genocide." Harris "was glad" that the George Mason University student expressed that it "hurt her heart" when Congress approved additional funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.

The student also claimed that "all this money ends up going to inflaming Israel" instead of providing struggling Americans with affordable healthcare and housing.

The genocide charge against Israel has been thoroughly debunked. And Harris knows this given that she has visited the country. Accordingly, when asked in June 2019 by The New York Times whether Israel meets international standards of human rights, Harris replied: "Overall, yes." She also previously stated, "I believe that when any organization delegitimizes Israel, we must stand up and speak out against it."

Why not, then, when individuals do?

Furthermore, military aid to the Jewish state makes up only a fraction of a fraction of the US federal budget -- and Israel must spend the vast majority of it in America.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion... but not to their own facts. In Harris' own words, Americans should understand "the importance of fighting to make sure that we protect and respect [Israel], one of the best friends we could possibly have."

Chag sameach!

Have a chag sameach! I will be back iy"h Wednesday night or Thursday.

09/27 Links Pt2: The Left's embrace of violence against Jews; On visible and invisible Jews; David Collier: The Labour Party conference; The Holocaust That Never Happened

From Ian:

Stop Enabling the Antisemites Who Live Closest to Our Homes

We should reflect deeply on our withdrawal from Afghanistan. The lesson of Afghanistan for the Jews—a lesson we should have learned a thousand times—is that if you want to survive, you need to rely on yourself. You cannot subcontract your defense and protection to anyone, least of all to faux human rights activists and their deluded supporters who sit in ivory towers: intellectuals who write and think all day, who preen with academic arrogance, but are incapable of understanding what is really going on in people’s hearts. Preoccupied with their shallow self-righteousness, they ignore even basic human emotions, motivations, and drives; bleeding hearts who have no heart for bleeding Jews. It is all academic for them. We should have the courage, the decency, the honesty to say that our side, the liberal side, is wrong. We, too, are writing and supporting untruths—vicious, malicious, fallacious, audacious lies.

All of us, especially young adults, teenagers, and university students—you need to feel antisemitism in your kishkes. Learn to appreciate subtlety, nuance, and context. Develop the capacity to distinguish between legitimate critique and the new mutated form of antisemitism dressed up in the garments of pathological anti-Zionism. If you oppose Israeli policies, say so. Be active. Try to influence and make a difference. But whatever you do, you cannot give comfort, cooperation and credibility to those who hate your people. Often what they oppose is not the excesses of the Israeli military, but that a Jewish army exists at all. Jewish tank commanders, Jewish fighter pilots are disorienting to a world that had grown accustomed over the centuries to passive, disempowered Jewish victims—the kind that Rudi Vrba described.

President Roosevelt read the Vrba-Wetzler report sometime in the summer or fall of 1944. Although nothing like the eyewitness account and detailed sketches of the machinery of extermination were previously documented, the broad intentions of the Nazis to annihilate European Jewry were known as early as 1942. The Americans knew. The British knew. The Swiss knew. The Vatican knew. Even The New York Times knew. The victims, themselves, did not know, until the doors were slammed shut and Zyklon pellets were released into what they thought were shower rooms. The Allies never bombed the tracks or the gas chambers, as Vrba urged. Roosevelt insisted that the best way to save the Jews of Europe was for the Allies to win the war as quickly as possible.

For his entire life, Vrba regretted that his report failed to save the Jews of Hungary. George Klein reminded Vrba that he saved at least one Hungarian Jew. To save even one life is to save the entire world, according to our sages. Furthermore, said Klein, you played a role in saving at least 100,000, perhaps 200,000, Hungarian Jews.

In the aftermath of the report, international pressure was placed upon the Hungarian regent, Miklos Horthy, and he intervened to stop the deportations in July—only one week before the scheduled final transport of the Jews of Budapest. Klein suggested to his new friend that even if Hungarian Jews had read the report in full, most of them would have still gotten on those trains. “Denial is natural,” said Klein, who had himself shared the report with 12 other people. None believed him.

George Klein and Rudi Vrba went on to live full and productive lives. They made significant contributions to the well-being of the world. It is the best response to those who hate Jews. Keep moving forward. Find meaning and purpose. Help others. Show compassion. Fight for justice. Defend your people. Resist evil. Warn the world.

The Left's embrace of violence against Jews

The Rutgers faculty and the supporters of the bill to deny Israel Iron Dome share one common view: terrorism against the Jewish state is acceptable, in their minds, because they devalue Israel’s existence and because justice for the Palestinian Arabs is desirable—at any cost—including Jewish lives.

Why should Israel have the advantages of modern technology and weaponry—even with strictly defensive purposes—if the ever-aggrieved Palestinians are, in their minds, dispossessed, occupied, suppressed, and stateless? Why should Israelis be spared the threat of being murdered in their homes, schools, discos, and pizza parlors if terrorists—and their apologists—have decided they have a moral and legal right to carry out such acts because they seek "social justice" and are "victims", it is falsely asserted, of Zionism’s imperialism, colonialism, and militarism?

This explains why the Left has regularly glossed over terroristic behavior on the part of Islamists—Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Al Aqsa Brigades, or others—and has romanticized this violence as “resistance.” But that idealized world requires that state actors behave in rational ways, something that is clearly absent in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in which Islamist theology, apocalyptic views of the world, a longing for martyrdom, and genocidal ethnic hatred underlie the ideology of Israel’s current enemies, all of whom are terrorist groups and not conventional armies.

This rationalization, that violence is an acceptable, not to say welcomed, component of seeking social justice—that is, that the inherent “violence” of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism will be met by the same violence as the oppressed attempt to throw off their oppressors—is exactly the style of self-defeating rationality that in this age has proven to be an intractable part of the war on terror.

America-hating and Israel-hating academics and policymakers have not infrequently wished for harm to come to these countries at the hands of the victim groups to whom they readily give their sympathies. They frequently, and mistakenly, ascribe to poverty and helplessness the inclination to lead to terrorism on the part of otherwise weak and oppressed individuals, although a glance at terrorist backgrounds proves that false.

And, like Leftist apologists for other examples of revolutionary violence, they see an opportunity for the tables to be turned on the oppressors and an equal distribution of suffering to be brought about in the resulting power shift.

Additionally, the Left’s being in the thrall of multiculturalism has meant that radical members of Congress like the “Squad,” not to mention university faculty and students, have been seeped in an ideology that refuses to demarcate any differences between a democratic state struggling to protect itself and aggressive, genocidal foes who wish to destroy it with their unending assaults. For the multiculturalist Left, the moral strengths of the two parties are equivalent, even though the jihadist foes of Israel, for example, have waged an unending struggle with the stated aim of extirpating the Jewish state through the murder of Jews.

Thus, this inclination to worship multiculturalism forces liberals to make excuses for those cultures which have obvious, often irredeemable, moral defects, such as the Islamist foes who currently threaten Israel and the West.

It also, apparently, justifies stripping Israel of its very right to defend its citizens from being murdered by the genocidal impulses of Hamas, even when those defensive weapons protect Arab and Muslim lives as well as those of Jews. But in the name of social justice, only the perceived suffering, human rights, justice, and very lives of the "downtrodden" Palestinian Arabs are of interest to Leftist radicals, and if Jews have to die as part of Palestinian self-determination, so be it.

If this is not naked anti-Semitism played out very publicly so that anyone with a moral compass can see it, then nothing is.

The Holocaust That Never Happened

“The Holocaust That Never Happened” Hannah Baron (20, Los Angeles) interviews Efraim Donitz (83, Los Angeles)

“I hear you want to know about the Holocaust that never happened.”

This was Efraim Donitz calling me back to respond to my request for an interview. I arrived at his house in Los Angeles the next day and sat across from him in his living room.

He was only 3 when his family moved to a ghetto in Transnistria some 80 years ago. I doubted he would remember much. But I was wrong. “I remember everything,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

Despite his vivid memories, he spoke of the period like he was giving a history lecture, rather than relaying personal experience. But there were brief moments in which Efraim was overcome with emotion. They happened most frequently when he spoke about how the world remembers—or, rather, doesn’t remember—those events rather than the events themselves.

A few years ago, he and his wife embarked on a pilgrimage through the sites of the occupation. He wanted to show these places to his children and grandchildren because he had been there: “I lost my mother there, and I lost my sister. It’s a part of my life.”

When they were looking for Babi Yar in Kyiv, their tour guide took them to the wrong memorial. For a long time, they couldn’t find a driver who would be willing to take them to the actual site of the massacres. When they finally got there, they found it desecrated. Later, they were told that their tour guide and the drivers likely knew exactly where Babi Yar was, but refused to take them. It made them angry.

Back home in Los Angeles, Efraim tried to get others to hear about it. “I’ve tried everywhere, nobody wants to listen,” he said. He volunteered to teach at the Holocaust museum, and though the museum’s donors appeared very enthusiastic about the idea, he never got a call back.

“I’m just disappointed in the whole thing.” This time, the crack in his demeanor was almost a sob.

Most of the world didn’t have an obligation to remember Babi Yar, he said. But Jews do.

“That is why this is the Holocaust that never happened.”

Naftali Bennett's speech to the UN (video and transcript)

Israel is a lighthouse in a stormy sea.

A beacon of democracy, diverse by design, innovative by nature and eager to contribute to the world — despite being in the toughest neighborhood on earth.

We are an ancient nation, returned to our ancient homeland, revived our ancient language, restored our ancient sovereignty.

Israel is a miracle of Jewish revival. Am Yisrael Chai — the nation of Israel is alive, and the State of Israel is its beating heart.

For way too long, Israel was defined by wars with our neighbors. But this is not what Israel is about. This is not what the people of Israel are about.

Israelis don’t wake up in the morning thinking about the conflict. Israelis want to lead a good life, take care of our families, and build a better world for our children.

Which means that from time to time, we might need to leave our jobs, say goodbye to our families, and rush to the battlefield to defend our country — just like my friends and I have had to do ourselves. They should not be judged for it.

Israelis remember the dark horrors of our past, but remain determined to look ahead, to build a brighter future.

Distinguished delegates,

There are two plagues that are challenging the very fabric of society at this moment: One is the coronavirus, which has killed over 5 million people around the globe; the other has also shaken the world as we know it — it’s the disease of political polarization.

Both coronavirus and polarization can erode public trust in our institutions, both can paralyze nations. If left unchecked, their effects on society can be devastating.

In Israel, we faced both, and rather than accept them as a force of nature, we stood up, took action, and we can already see the horizon.

In a polarized world, where algorithms fuel our anger, people on the right and on the left operate in two separate realities, each in their own social media bubble, they hear only the voices that confirm what they already believe in.

People end up hating each other. Societies get torn apart. Countries broken from within, go nowhere.

In Israel, after four elections in two years, with a fifth looming, the people yearned for an antidote: Calm. Stability. An honest attempt for political normalcy.

Inertia is always the easiest choice. But there are moments in time where leaders have to take the wheel a moment before the cliff, face the heat, and drive the country to safety.

About a hundred days ago, my partners and I formed a new government in Israel, the most diverse government in our history. What started as a political accident, can now turn into a purpose. And that purpose is unity.

Today we sit together, around one table.

We speak to each other with respect, we act with decency, and we carry a message: Things can be different.

It’s okay to disagree, it’s okay — in fact vital — that different people think differently, it’s even okay to argue.

For healthy debate is a basic tenet of the Jewish tradition and one of the secrets to the success of the start-up nation. What we have proven, is that even in the age of social media, we can debate, without hate.

The second great disease we’re all facing is the coronavirus, sweeping the world. To overcome, we going to need to make new discoveries, gain new insights, and achieve new breakthroughs.

It all begins with the pursuit of knowledge.

The State of Israel is on the front lines of the search for this vital knowledge. We developed a model, which fuses the wisdom of science with the power of policymaking.

The Israeli model has three guiding principles:

One, the country must stay open.

We all paid a huge price, an economic price, a physical price and an emotional price, for bringing life to a standstill in 2020.

To bring economies back to growth, children back to school, and parents back to work, lockdowns, restrictions, quarantines — cannot work in the long run.

Our model, rather than locking people down in passive sleep-mode, recruits them to the effort. For example, we asked Israeli families to carry out home-testing of their children so we can keep schools open — and indeed schools stayed open. Now I can tell you that we are going to distribute dozens of these self-tests to all Israeli parents. They can be part of the fight.

The second rule: vaccinate early.

Right from the start, Israelis were quick to get vaccinated. We are in a race against a deadly virus and we must try to be ahead of it.

In July, we were the first to learn that the vaccines were waning — which is what brought a surge in Delta cases. It was then when my government decided to administer a third dose of vaccine — the booster — to the Israeli public.

It was a tough decision, given that at the time the FDA hadn’t yet approved it. We faced a choice to either drag Israel into yet another set of lockdowns, further harm our economy and society, or to double-down on vaccines.

We chose the latter. We pioneered the booster shot.

Two months in, I can report that it works: With a third dose, you’re 7 times more protected than with two doses, and 40 times more protected than without any vaccine.

As a result, Israel is on course to escape the fourth wave without a lockdown, without further harm to our economy. Israel’s economy is growing, and unemployment is down.

I’m glad that our actions have inspired other countries to follow with the booster.

The third rule: Adapt and move quickly.

We formed a national task force that meets everyday, to bypass slow governmental bureaucracy, make quick decisions and act on them right away.

Trial and error is key. Every day is a new day, with new data and new decisions. When something works, we keep it. When it doesn’t, we ditch it and move on.

Running a country during a pandemic is not only about health. It’s about carefully balancing all aspects of life that are affected by corona, especially jobs and education.

While doctors are an important input, they cannot be the ones running the national initiative. The only person that has a good vantage point of all considerations is the national leader of any given country. Above all, we’re doing everything in our power to provide people with the tools needed to protect their lives.

The ancient Jewish text, the Talmud, says that “whoever saves one life, is as if he saved an entire world,” and that’s what we aspire to do.

Distinguished delegates,

While Israel strives to do good, we cannot lose sight for one moment of what’s happening in our neighborhood.

Israel is, quite literally, surrounded by Hezbollah, Shia militias, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. On our borders.

These terror groups seek to dominate the Middle East and spread radical Islam across the world.

What do they all have in common?

They all want to destroy my country. And they’re all backed by Iran. They get their funding from Iran, they get their training from Iran, and they get their weapons from Iran.

Iran’s great goal is crystal clear to anybody who cares to open their eyes: Iran seeks to dominate the region — and seeks to do so under a nuclear umbrella.

For the past three decades Iran has spread its carnage and destruction around the Middle East, country after country: Lebanon. Iraq. Syria. Yemen. And Gaza.

What do all these places have in common?

They are all falling apart. Their citizens — hungry and suffering. Their economies — collapsing.

Like the Midas touch, Iran’s regime has the “Mullah-touch.” Every place Iran touches, fails.

If you think Iranian terror is confined to the Israel — you’re wrong. Just this year, Iran made operational a new deadly terror unit, a startup: swarms of killer UAVs armed with lethal weapons that can attack any place any time.

They plan to blanket the skies of the Middle East with this lethal force.

Iran has already used these deadly UAVs — called Shahed 136 — to attack Saudi Arabia, US targets in Iraq and civilian ships at sea, killing a Brit and a Romanian.

Iran plans to arm its proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon with hundreds, and then thousands of these deadly drones.

Experience tells us that what starts in the Middle East, doesn’t stop there.

Distinguished delegates,

In 1988, Iran set up a “death commission” that ordered the mass murder of 5,000 political activists.

They were hanged from cranes.

This “death commission” was made up of four people. Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s new president, was one of them.

Raisi’s also oversaw the murder of Iranian children. His nickname is “the butcher of Tehran,” because that’s exactly what he did — butchered his own people.

One of the witnesses of this massacre stated in her testimony, that when Raisi would finish a round of murder, he’d throw a party, pocketing the money of those he just executed, and then would sit down to eat cream cakes.

He celebrated the murder of his own people, by devouring cream cakes. And now Raisi is Iran’s new president.

This is who we’re dealing with.

Over the past few years, Iran has made a major leap forward, in its nuclear R&D, in its production-capacity, and in its enrichment.

Iran’s nuclear weapon program is at a critical point. All red lines have been crossed.

Inspections — ignored. All wishful-thinking — proven false.

Iran is violating the IAEAs safeguard agreements — and it’s getting away with it. They harass inspectors and sabotage their investigations — and they’re getting away with it.

They enrich Uranium to the level of 60 percent, which is one step short of weapons-grade material — and they’re getting away with it.

Evidence which clearly proves Iran’s intentions for nuclear weapons in secret sites in Turquzabad, Teheran & Marivan — is ignored.

Iran’s nuclear program has hit a watershed moment. And so has our tolerance.

Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning.

There are those in the world who seem to view Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as an inevitable reality, or they’ve just become tired of hearing about it.

Israel doesn’t have that privilege. We will not tire. We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

I want to tell you something: Iran is much weaker, much more vulnerable than it seems.

Its economy is sinking, its regime is rotten and divorced from the younger generation, its corrupt government fails to even bring water to large parts of the country.

The weaker they are, the more extreme they go.

If we put our heads to it, if we’re serious about stopping it, if we use all our resourcefulness, we can prevail.

And that’s what we’re going to do.

But not everything is dark in the Middle East. Alongside worrying trends, there are also rays of light.

First and foremost, the growing ties Israel is forging with Arab and Muslim countries.

Ties that began 42 years ago with Israel’s historic peace agreement with Egypt, continued 27 years ago with Israel’s peace agreement with Jordan, and even more recently with the “Abraham Accords” — that normalized our relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

More is to come.

At a ripe young age of 73, more and more nations are understanding Israel’s value and unique place in the world.

Some friends have stood with us since our founding. The United States of America is a long time, trusted friend of Israel, as we saw, yet again — just a few days ago in congress.

Alongside our old friends, we are gaining new friends — in the Middle East and beyond. Last week, this manifested itself with the defeat of the racist, anti-Semitic Durban conference.

This conference was originally meant to be against racism, but over the years turned into a conference of racism — against Israel and the Jewish people.

And the world’s had enough of this.

I thank the 38 countries (38!) who chose truth over lies, and skipped the conference.

And to those countries who chose to participate in this farce, I say: Attacking Israel doesn’t make you morally superior. Fighting the only democracy in the Middle East doesn’t make you “woke.” Adopting clichés about Israel without bothering to learn the basic facts, well, that’s just plain lazy.

Every member state in this building has a choice. It’s not a political choice, but a moral one. It’s a choice between darkness and light.

Darkness that persecutes political prisoners, murders the innocent, abuses women and minorities, and seeks to end the modern world as we know it.

Or light — that pursues freedom, prosperity and opportunity.

Over the past 73 years, the State of Israel — the people of Israel — have achieved so much in the face of so much.

And yet, I can say with full confidence: Our best days are ahead of us.

Israel is a nation of great hope, a nation that has brought the heritage of the Torah to life in modern-day Israel, a nation of an unbreakable spirit.

A bit of light dispels much darkness.

The lighthouse among the stormy seas — stands tall, stands strong. And her light shines brighter than ever.

Thank you.