2021 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, December 31, 2021

12/31 Links Pt2: 18 noteworthy Jews who died in 2021; BDS bigotry at the Sydney Festival; Bookseller Pulls Children’s Book That Erases Israel From Middle East

From Ian:

18 noteworthy Jews who died in 2021

Every year brings the deaths of Jewish icons who leave behind outsized legacies, from the realms of art and culture, government, business, philanthropy and beyond.

Here are 18 whom we lost in 2021 — none from COVID — presented in alphabetical order.

Sheldon Adelson
Few people have exerted as significant an influence on American and Israeli politics as Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who gave lavishly to Republican candidates and Israeli causes.

The founder and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and one of the world’s richest men, Adelson regularly set records for his donations. At $25 million, he was the largest donor to Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential bid and the biggest giver in the 2012 American election cycle, at nearly $93 million. He was also a leading supporter of Birthright Israel, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Israel American Council.

He had previously been a top AIPAC supporter, but cut off support more than a decade ago in favor of more conservative pro-Israel groups. He was also a principal backer of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He died in January at 87.

PodCast: Why the Media Keeps Getting the Jerusalem Story Wrong A fireside chat with Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem

Jerusalem is probably the most famous city in the world, but much of it is for the wrong reasons. This past May, when Hamas launched a terror war against Israel, Jerusalem was at centre stage, thanks to anti-Israel propaganda which was being spread around the world.

But Jerusalem is more than a city under the siege of misinformation; it is also the 3,000 year old home of the Jewish People, and is undergoing a historic revitalization.

One of the people most responsible for Jerusalem’s revitalization is Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, the city’s deputy mayor, who joined The Honest Report as our guest.

The Tikvah Podcast: Our Favorite Broadcasts of 2021

In 2021, 49 different guests appeared on the podcast over the course of 44 new episodes. Our conversations touched on some of the most important and interesting subjects in Jewish life, including discussions with leaders of Israel’s Haredi community, a course developer who is deploying technology to teach people Yiddish, diplomats and strategists shaping foreign-policy debates in Israel, Europe, and America, elected officials and diplomats, historians and social scientists, theologians and rabbis, academics and authors, reporters and entrepreneurs. Each guest, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, trained his or her unique perspective on some timely or enduring question that stands before the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

In this episode, we present some of our favorite conversations this year. Guests featured in this year-end episode include the Israeli rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, the foreign-policy analysts Benjamin Haddad and Michael Doran, Wall Street Journal editor Elliot Kaufman, social scientist Nicholas Eberstadt, Jewish educational leader David Rozenson, Yiddish expert Meena Viswanath, tech CEO Sean Clifford, novelist Dara Horn, and the eminent writer Cynthia Ozick.

‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ bigotry at the Sydney Festival

The Sydney Festival has been subjected to intolerable pressure for accepting a $20,000 partnership with the Israeli Embassy in Canberra. The funds are to be used to stage the dance Decadence by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin at the Sydney Opera House during the 2022 Sydney Festival in January.

Despite a number of individual performers and organisations pulling out in protest over the Israeli embassy’s sponsorship, a Sydney Festival spokesperson has said they would not be terminating their agreement with the Israeli embassy.

‘The festival is unwavering in its commitment to ensuring a culturally safe space for all artists, employees and audiences,’ the statement said.

‘[The Sydney Festival] will be reviewing all funding arrangements with embassies and cultural organisations to ensure that any continuance of these partnerships is compatible with maintaining a welcoming and culturally safe environment moving forward.’

That statement on behalf of the Sydney Festival might sound fair and reasonable however, the increase in Boycott, Diversity and Sanctions (BDS) activity in Australia should be seen as foreboding for those Australians who believe in a multicultural tolerant society because BDS is the very antithesis of that.

There are a lot of offensive Israelophobic behaviours to unpack in this sorry saga with the Sydney Festival. An article in the ‘extreme left’ publication Meanjin by a clique of pro-Palestinian activists epitomises a vicious, racist attack on artistic freedom by pro-Palestinian bullies.

Let me run through the names of those who wrote a hateful article Sydney Festival: ‘Progressive Except for Palestine’ in Meanjin. Before I do that, I would like to put paid to this ruse of ‘Progressive Except for Palestine’, which Philip Mendes has explained in an article in the journal Fathom to be the new buzzword for Palestinian supporters.

In this essay, Philip Mendes argues that the new buzzword for Palestinian nationalists, ‘Progressive except for Palestine’ aimed at progressives who do not support fundamentalist calls for the abolition of the State of Israel, is ‘not a perspective which seeks to advance principled reasonable criticism of Israel’. Rather, Mendes argues the term is ‘a viewpoint based on demonising the State of Israel and all its supporters, including the many who favour a two-state solution, and limiting freedom of speech by illiberally excluding them from progressive publications and debates’. – from Fathom.

Mendes points out that a true call should be ‘Progressive except for Jews’ with the Left having been selectively ignoring manifestations of Jewish oppression throughout history. I would go further and discount the slogan ‘Progressive except for Palestine’ as a cheap trick to demean progressiveness that ignores Palestinianism – as though there is some special virtue in supporting a cause that ignores the corrupt, misogynist, kleptocratic, and intolerant nature of the Palestinian Authority or the manifest Jew-hatred from Hamas that is abundantly evident in the annals of Palestine Media Watch.

It happens every time.

A Palestinian attacks Israelis with a knife, he gets killed, and the Palestinian media starts off with sob stories about how he in an innocent victim.

The Ministry of Health announced this afternoon the death of the young man, Amir Atef Khader Rayan, from the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, after the occupation soldiers shot him on charges of trying to carry out a stabbing attack west of Salfit.

The martyr was shot by the occupation, leaving behind his wife, who is seven months pregnant, and his sons Muhammad, 9, Jana, 7, Atef, 4, Maryam, two, and his wife, who is pregnant with a child in her seventh month.

How could a man with four kids and a pregnant wife possibly want to jeopardize that?

Perhaps because he wanted to be a hero:

The Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) mourns its martyr hero Mujahid Amir Atef Rayan from Qarawat Bani Hassan, who rose to life after carrying out a heroic stabbing operation today, Friday, with an unplanned coming.

These operations are a natural response to the crimes of the enemy and its settlers.

A thousand greetings to the spirit of the heroic martyr and to all the heroes of the stabbing and ramming operations and the heroes of the resistance who clash every night with the enemy and its settlers, and we call upon the masses of our people to confront the occupation army and its herds of settlers.

The convoys of martyrs will remain a beacon that illuminates the path for our people towards freedom and independence, and the purification of our sanctuary, our sanctuaries, and our holy sites from the impurity of the occupation and its usurping settlers.

And no one in Palestinian media ever asks why people who attack Jews and get killed are considered heroes, encouraging more.

Because that is the entire point.

12/31 Links Pt1: The UN - where anti-Israel prejudice remains supreme; US announces $100M in funding for UNRWA; AOC Staffer: Israel a ‘Racist European Ethnostate Built on Stolen Land’

From Ian:

Mark Regev: The UN - where anti-Israel prejudice remains supreme

There are clear signs that Arab hostility towards the Jewish state is on the wane. The Abraham Accords normalized Israel’s relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, an Israeli Defense Minister can make a very public visit to Morocco and even Saudi Arabia allows flights to and from Israel to cross over its territory. But there remains at least one bastion of anti-Israel enmity, the United Nations, where systematic, organizational prejudice against the Jewish state reigns supreme.

The opening act: Though not representing a member state, in 1974 Yasser Arafat was issued an extraordinary invitation to address the UN General Assembly (UNGA). His speech included a call for an end to Israel. The Jews, he said, could become citizens in the PLO’s “democratic Palestine.” Extreme content notwithstanding, and the fact that he spoke soon after his PLO massacred 25 hostages in Ma’alot, mostly high school students, Arafat received a standing ovation.

Infamously, the following year, the UNGA adopted Resolution 3379 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination”. Although that travesty was officially repealed in 1991, its annulment did not mark the end of the UN’s anti-Israel obsession – far from it.

Every year the UNGA routinely passes, with massive majorities, a series of blatant anti-Israel resolutions; in 2021 17 were enacted. Earlier this month, for example, the UNGA called upon Israel to withdraw from the “occupied Syrian Golan,” with delegates voting to hand over the Golan to Bashar Assad’s murderous regime.

But the story doesn’t end with these multiple resolutions, as some of them establish UN organs whose sole mission is to further propagate an anti-Israel agenda. The Special Committee to Investigate Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People is one such body. The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which every year organizes the UN’s annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, is another.

Melanie Phillips: New Year’s resolution? Abolish the UN Human Rights Council

These visionaries failed to grasp that, since the world was dominated by states and regimes that were both repressive and deeply imbued with Jew-hatred and hostility to Israel, any world body or supra-national system of law would itself become an accomplice to tyranny and antisemitism.

That’s why “lawfare,” or the weaponisation of international law to wage war with better PR, has become a prime weapon against Israel, singling out the Jewish people alone for such unhinged attack.

And it’s why the UN, the world body set up to ensure that never again would crimes against humanity be repeated — a global aim which it has conspicuously failed to achieve — has itself turned into a weapon with which to commit them against the Jewish people once again.

In other words, the UNHRC has become an engine of evil.

In January, the US returns to the Council as a member. The Biden administration claims it will thus be able to stop its abuses. This is unlikely.

The UN is supposedly the world’s police force. But if a police force is in the pocket of a murderous and tyrannical cult, it turns into a protection racket where the innocent get gunned down and the guilty remain free to inflict yet more carnage.

This is not just Israel’s problem. As long as the west ignores the profound corruption of the UNHRC, it corrupts itself.

How to make the world a better place in 2022? Shut down the UNHRC.

v Caroline Glick: The escalating international war against Israel

And this brings us to the Human Rights Council's permanent inquisition whose operations a large majority of UN member nations voted to fund last week at the General Assembly. As Professor Anne Bayefsky explained in a detailed report published this week by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the commission of inquiry's mandate is effectively limitless. The commission is empowered to rewrite the entire history of the Arab conflict with Israel and determine that Israel's birth was an original sin which must be undone. The commission is empowered to carry out an "investigation" on the basis of "testimonies" which EU-funded anti-Israel groups will supply them describing entirely fraudulent "war crimes" that will form the basis of indictments of Israeli elected leaders, IDF commanders and line soldiers, and Israeli civilians who reside in Judea, Samaria and unified Jerusalem. The UN's political "courts" in turn will agree to try them for these made-up crimes.

Moreover, as Bayefsky noted, the commission is charged with making "recommendations on measures to be taken by third States to ensure respect for international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem…[to ensure] that they do not aid or assist in the Commission of internationally wrongful acts."

A similar statement is made in the resolution's preamble regarding "business enterprises."

The message in both cases is self-explanatory. The reports the inquisition will publish will serve as the basis for economic boycotts of Israel to be enacted by both government bureaucrats and businesses.

Israel has no choice but to fight this commission and any business, government or judge that uses its reality-free reports. Israel must ensure that the antisemitic propaganda the commission puts out does not turn into "law" through the actions of radical justices and government attorneys. And Israel must reconcile itself to the fact that the EU bureaucracy and much of Europe is waging a war against it, and launch a vigorous counter-assault.

The Caroline Glick Show: Ep31 – Lawfare – Domestic and Foreign | Guest: Prof. Avi Bell

In Episode 31 of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, Caroline was joined by Prof. Avi Bell from Bar Ilan University and University of San Diego law schools. Caroline and Avi discussed first Israel’s legal fraternity’s transformation of Israel from a democracy to an authoritarian aristocracy of lawyers. Given Israel’s legal fraternity’s focus on seizing the power of Israel’s elected leaders, it is not surprising that if fails to understand the nature of the international lawfare being waged against Israel, first and foremost by the UN. The two discussed the nature of the UN-led political war against Israel and the central role of pseudo-legal claims play in the efforts. Caroline ended the show with a discussion of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s role in mainstreaming contemporary anti-Semitism.

Fatah holds a military parade - in a Beirut suburb

To commemorate the 57th anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah held a military parade in the Burj Al-Barajneh camp in Beirut.

They marched with weapons including rifles, bazookas and machine guns.

The camp features a mural of Palestinian terrorist heroes of all factions - not just Fatah but Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

This isn't in southern Lebanon, but in a crowded suburb of Beirut. Palestinians can openly parade around with weapons only meters from where Lebanese citizens live, and occasionally violence erupts in these UNRWA-run camps.

No wonder the Lebanese people hate the Palestinians.

The Waqf on the Temple Mount issued it annual report on "violations" by Jews of the area.

The number of Israeli settlers who stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque during 2021 reached more than 34,000.

The Director-General of the Department of Islamic Endowments and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Sheikh Azzam Al-Khatib said - today, Thursday - that "the number of Jewish extremists storming the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque during the year 2021 reached 34,112 extremists."

The settlers, according to a statement by the Director of Endowments, carried out their incursions "under the protection of the Israeli police and its heavily armed special forces, which turned Al-Aqsa Mosque into a military barracks."

Sheikh Al-Khatib warned against the dangerous escalation of Jewish extremists' incursions into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and desecrating its sanctity by performing Talmudic prayers and rituals inside its courtyards.

They then go into details of the horrible things the Jews did:

Throughout the year, incursions were carried out inside the mosque led by rabbis, soldiers, officers, intelligence agents, and former Knesset members. They deliberately organized guided tours of the “alleged temple”, delivered biblical lessons in Al-Aqsa Square, organized “rabbinic blessings” and puberty ceremonies for males and females, and announcing marriage, in addition to reading the Psalms of the Torah.

A Jewish group calling itself "Return to the Temple Mount" announced last September that the shofar (one of the biblical rituals) was blown inside Al-Aqsa for the first time since the occupation of Jerusalem. Extremists brought the fruits of the "Feast of Sukkot" and palm fronds to the mosque on the first day of their feast, and they raised the Israeli flag in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque at that time.

I cannot find any news articles about blowing the shofar or bringing a lulav and etrog to the Temple Mount. These objects would be confiscated at the entrance. It may be that someone snuck in a shofar and blew it quietly, but I cannot find it reported.

Among the most serious violations that were also recorded, the extremist Rabbi Yaakov Hayman published a picture of the Dome of the Rock, and announced the need for an engineer specialized in demolishing facilities, to present a proposal for how to remove the building and establish the “Third Temple” in its place.

Indeed, Yaakov Hayman did post that on Facebook. He used to be a leader in the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation but that organization no longer exists (the domain name was lost, its Facebook page has not been updated since 2015.) He posted it as a private person, it received no coverage in Israeli media - and the Muslim world freaked out.

Facebook banned him for a day because of how offended Muslims were.

So in the end, the most serious "violations" were: 34,000 Jews visiting (which is fewer than the number of Muslims on any given Friday,) rumors about shofars, lulavs and etrogs being brought there; people giving talks about the Temples, silent prayer, someone unfurling an Israeli flag for a second before being expelled, and a Facebook post that offended them.

Great documentary for the 85th anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic

This past weekend, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra celebrated its 85th anniversary with a virtual gala describing its illustrious history. The first 40 minutes are pretty much a documentary.

It essentially shows the history of Israel through the Orchestra, with some astonishing and moving footage.

(h/t MtTB)

12/30 Links Pt2: Remembering the Heroes; The Passion of the Antisemites; Damning new evidence undermines BBC’s Oxford Street racist slur claim; Israel approaches 9.5 million residents on eve of 2022

From Ian:

Keep calm and call someone, it’s urgent

When the BBC – one of the world’s most revered and esteemed news institutions – insists that something is so and stands by it so rigidly despite massive outcry, it can make anyone doubt themselves. There’s gaslighting and then there’s industrial-scale gaslighting of the kind that has a half a billion audience numbers, multi-billion-pound revenue and 22,000+ staff and the cultural cache of, well, being the BBC.

Despite this, members of our humble complement of staff and Honorary Officers who didn’t speak Hebrew, nevertheless put their trust in me. We published a video where I re-enact the utterance of the Hebrew phrase to make it clear to people what they are hearing and how well it fits precisely in line with the more distorted phrase from the viral footage. Many of those who had doubts said to us they were now more convinced that it was indeed Hebrew. Those who do speak Hebrew got it immediately. There was still nothing but the sound of crickets from the BBC.

We then published our open letter to the BBC top brass even copying in Department of Culture, Media and Sport Minister Nadine Dorries – not something we do lightly. The crickets were now chirping so loudly they should have a slot at The Proms. We eventually received a formal acknowledgement but then weeks went by before we received the same canned response that hundreds of other complainants will eventually have received as well. The Beeb was not backing down and the crickets were being booked for Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. While other communal organisations and leaders were raising their own complaints, we knew that we needed to escalate.

For the next step to be taken, we knew we would need something more authoritative than “trust us, we asked some Hebrews”. We also knew that it was imperative to get the absolute best quality source footage we could. Our friends at the Jewish Chronicle helped us get in contact with the person who took the footage on the bus. They were distraught by the way the BBC was reporting the story and were happy to help. After various technical and Covid hurdles we were able to secure direct access to the original file.

To verify the authenticity, we did so with the help of OSINT specialists at DigFind. We commissioned them to authenticate the file extraction, preserve the metadata, and verify that there was no tampering with the footage. The team at DigFind also brought in specialist support from D3 Forensics – experts in digital forensics who could clean up the audio, isolate the disputed segment, apply the necessary filters to make it as clear and audible as possible and together with DigFind analyse what they can hear in the audio. DigFind/D3 Forensics were commissioned with no prejudice as to any desired outcome other than to ascertain the truth. And they found it. The truth was that the BBC accused a Jewish man calling out for help in Hebrew of instead uttering a racist remark.

Damning new evidence undermines BBC’s Oxford Street racist slur claim

THE JC can reveal damning new evidence which appears to undermine the BBC’s claim that an anti-Muslim slur was uttered by a victim of the antisemitic Chanukah bus attack on Oxford Street.

The Charedi students whose panicked voices can be heard in a video clip of the attack have categorically rejected the BBC’s allegation that they used any racist phrase whatsoever.

And a dossier of exhaustive analysis by forensic audio experts and a distinguished, independent linguist, commissioned by the Board of Deputies, appears to confirm their testimony.

The revelations heap further pressure on the BBC to justify its claims to the Jewish youngsters. So far it has refused to apologise, causing outrage.

Rabbi Schneur Glitzenshtein, who organised the bus trip, told the JC that he had personally spoken to those whose voices are heard in the video. “All they were doing was trying to protect each other,” he said. “That insult did not happen.”

Separately, the Board of Deputies commissioned digital experts DigFind and D3 Forensics, who used audio technology to slow down and clean up the recording so that each syllable of the phrase in dispute could be heard.

Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann, Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages as the University of Adelaide inSouth Australia, one of the most senior experts in his field, then studied the tape.

The Professor, who is fluent in 13 languages, including Hebrew, and is a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, established that the “slur” was actually a Hebrew phrase, “Tikrah lemishu,ze dachuf” meaning: “Call someone, it is urgent.”

Independent Reports commissioned by Board of Deputies conclusively prove BBC error in antisemitic incident story

In a piece for this week’s Jewish Chronicle, Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl has described the BBC’s “misreporting” as “a colossal error”, which “has added insult to injury in accusing victims of antisemitism of being guilty of bigotry themselves…But what takes this from an egregious failure to something far more sinister is the BBC’s behaviour when confronted with its mistake. Instead of admitting it was wrong, it has doubled and tripled down.” The President also states that the corporation’s behaviour “raises serious questions about deep-seated biases within the BBC towards Israelis, and indeed towards Jews in general.”

In her article, the President also notes that “it should not have been left to us, a Jewish communal organisation, to commission an independent report to prove this point. The BBC should have done this itself, rather than apparently conducting an internal investigation and finding no wrongdoing. To us, this apparent attempt to mark its own homework is reminiscent of the behavioural pattern the corporation has displayed amidst past scandals. Once again, instead of approaching a potential error with an open mind, its default response appears to be to circle the wagons and deny everything. This is clearly a calamitous approach to retaining the public’s trust.” She has called for the BBC at the very least to apologise publicly to the victims of the Oxford Street attack, and has referred to a meeting the Board of Deputies will be holding with the BBC Director General and other Senior Executives in January, which will include “a full and frank discussion of this issue.”

Further information on the Board of Deputies’ process for conclusively proving the BBC’s inaccuracy can be found in this article written by the Board of Deputies’ Digital Communications Officer, Adam Ma’anit.

Independent Reports commissioned by BoD conclusively prove BBC error in antisemitic incident story

From Iran's Tasnim news agency:

The spokesperson for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the Zionist regime and the global arrogance have been terrified by the power of the axis of resistance.
The process of downfall of the Zionist regime has reached its most intense part over the past 70 years, General Ramezan Sharif said at a cultural meeting on Tuesday.

He said the global arrogance and the Zionists have become so frightened of the power of resistance axis that they assassinated senior Iranian commander Lt. General Qassem Soleimani.

The spokesman also noted that the blood of martyrs and the resistance of people have frustrated the Zionists and the enemies of Islam.

From looking at recent Iranian headline, it sure looks like they are the ones who are terrified. Not of a war - but of Israeli normalization with Arab countries:

PressTV: "Report: Jewish-American group visits Saudi Arabia to advance Israeli normalization"

Tasnim: "Iran Urges OIC’s Action against Normalization of Israel Ties"

IQNA: "Experts Discuss Reasons behind Normalization with Zionist Regime"

Mehr: "Iran envoy warns of danger of ties normalizing with Zionists"

ABNA: "Normalization into effect: First Zionist ambassador to Bahrain hands King Hamad credentials"

They had more coverage of the last story than Israeli media did.

Israel's Muslim enemies could always count on the unity of the 'umma in opposing Israel. That was their main source of power. That has fallen apart, and this is truly frightening Iran.

Couple Feeling Pressure To Have Same Loud, Shallow Wedding As Everyone Else (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

party Hod HaSharon, December 30 - A woman and her fiancé acknowledged this afternoon that while the two of them much prefer an intimate, wholesome celebration to accompany their upcoming nuptials, their social circle and the industry surrounding the production of their affair have aroused a sense of shame in failing to throw the gaudiest affair they can afford and then some, lest anyone get the wrongheaded idea that the event marks the start of a bedrock institution of any stable society and family instead of merely an excuse to get drunk and grope the waitstaff.

Shenhav Katz, 28, and Lior Zakenn, 30, confessed their misgivings Thursday about the wedding they plan for this coming March. The couple announced their engagement over the summer and set about making arrangements, discovering along the way that they shared a simple sensibility in celebratory occasions: small family gatherings in someone's home, rather than lavish catered affairs. Knowing that a wedding calls for more elaborate fare and a wider circle of invitees, Katz and Zakenn agreed on a wedding hall in this Tel Aviv suburb, while establishing that they intend to keep the music, boozing, and consequent shenanigans to a minimum. Disappointed, even horrified, reactions from relatives and friends in the meantime, however, have given the couple pause.

"'You mean you're not going to wear the flashiest, sexiest, most expensive gown?!' I swear, that was the first response I got," recalled Katz, who plans to wear a conservative, heirloom dress that once belonged to a beloved great-great aunt, a Holocaust survivor. "It's almost as if people think this is about partying down, which of course is an important element, but that there's no more than token space for tradition, commitment, or basic dignity."

"My friends' first reaction was to ask about the bachelor party," added Zakenn. "Where did they get that from? I've never been the boozing type, and when I do go to parties I'm all about the food and the conversation. Shenhav and I met through volunteer work in the community. I know my various friends' weddings were... festive, I guess you'd call it, but that's not my thing. But now they've given us this sense that unless we do as they did, blowing tens of thousands of shekels on a big-name DJ, flowing alcohol, kitschy party favors, an interminable slide show that everyone secretly hates, and a million other superficial things, we've deprived ourselves, or them, or something, and we're not really married? I have no idea what's happened here."

12/30 Links Pt1: Mansour Abbas crossed the Rubicon, more need to follow; The Beginning of the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict?; UN inquiry comes with new independent façade, same anti-Israel bias

From Ian:

Mansour Abbas crossed the Rubicon, more need to follow

This conflict will not end until the rejectionists accept defeat and recognize the legitimacy and permanency of the Jewish State. Let’s not forget that this is the same Abbas who once said: “Since 1948, when all of the land of Palestine was occupied by the Zionist movement gangs, and this state was established, our people have been expelled from our land.”

However, this Abbas is no more because he has accepted that this worldview will not be victorious. It has been defeated.

Mansour Abbas has demonstrated that this can be achieved in a peaceful manner in a way that benefits both the Israeli Arab community and wider Israeli society.

Nevertheless, for the process that Abbas mentions to succeed and win the battle for hearts and minds in the Arab community against those like Salah, Israeli society, especially its leaders, have to embrace it. They have to show that there is a significant carrot for those who follow Abbas and reject Salah.

The defeat of Salah, and those who have slammed Abbas, like senior Palestinian Authority officials, is not just a victory for the Ra’am leader and his followers, but for all of Israel.

Hopefully, Mansour Abbas represents a large public, and support for him grows. There is no doubt that as this public grows, so will the rejectionism by the forces that oppose recognition and cooperation.

At the same time as embracing Abbas, Israeli leaders should increase the pressure on his and our opponents. There has to be a clear message to rejectionists that it will not be rewarded. Those like Raed Salah should be sitting in jail for more than a year and five months for incitement to violence. Inciting Palestinian leaders should not receive gifts in the form of the construction of 1,000 housing units in Area C of Judea and Samaria, and financial assistance.

Abbas has shown through act and deed that, as far as he is concerned, the conflict is over, the Jewish State will be preserved. We must understand the path that Abbas has taken, and ensure that more Arabs, on both sides of the Green Line, understand that the conflict is over and violent rejectionism will be defeated. This will then be a win for all.

INSS: The Beginning of the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict?

In its familiar format, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fading away and we are now witnessing the beginning of the end. This is not the dream of peace that was promised by the Oslo process. It is possible that the threats to Israel have actually increased because of the actions of Iran. It certainly does not signal the end of the conflict with the Palestinians.

What is new is Israel's success in breaking the pan-Arab front against it, and in convincing the majority of the Arab countries to effectively acknowledge in their policy that a strong Israel is an essential condition for their survival. Violence and instability in the region remain as they were, but the axis of struggle is not between Israel and "the Arabs"; it is between an Arab-Israeli coalition, on the one hand, and Iran's Islamic Revolution and Erdogan's Turkey, on the other.

Most of the Arab states are unwilling to go to war against Israel, contribute concrete and significant national assets to the struggle against it, or refrain from cooperation with Israel on matters of importance to them. These positive trends depend predominantly on the image of Israel's power in the Arab environment.

UN inquiry comes with new independent façade, same anti-Israel bias

The notorious United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report, accused both the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian terrorists of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the Gaza War of 2008-09. Only two years later did the report’s namesake, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, publicly retract the report’s accusations that it was Israeli government policy to deliberately target citizens. The damage had been done, though.

Then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in early 2010 of a “Goldstone effect,” ranking it alongside Iran’s nuclear program and the rocket arsenals of Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorists among the three main threats facing Israel, due to the headlines it generated and its use in public discourse.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Mission to the U.N. in Geneva confirmed to JNS that Israel will not cooperate or collaborate with the new commission.

According to the spokesperson, the commission’s first report will be submitted to UNHRC in June, before a summary is turned over to the U.N. General Assembly next December. While neither the UNHRC nor the General Assembly can produce a binding resolution with the force of law, the General Assembly could make recommendations that would require another body, such as the U.N. Security Council or, more critically, the International Criminal Court, to act.

But, unlike other U.N. Commissions of Inquiry, this one won’t end after six or nine months or even a year. It is set to carry on in perpetuity.

“The Inquisition lasted hundreds of years. This inquiry might, as well,” said Neuer.

Once Again, the UN Treats Israel Like the Most Evil Country on Earth

While tens of millions of poor souls are dying and starving under brutal regimes in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Congo and Somalia, among others, the UN decided last Thursday that only one country merits an open-ended investigation - Israel. What did the world's only Jewish state do this time? Last May, Israel decided it didn't want to see thousands of its citizens - Jews and non-Jews alike - perish at the hands of Hamas terror rockets. Israel's defense of its people triggered the UN's Human Rights Council, which voted to investigate Israel for possible "war crimes."

The way the UN treats Israel significantly worse than the most murderous and evil regimes on earth is itself a crime. Not only does it undermine the UN's credibility, it adds fuel to Jew-haters everywhere.

A video surfaced this week showing a group of Belgian Beerschot football supporters singing anti-Jewish slogans such as 'Sieg Heil. Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas."

The Antwerp police have launched an investigation into the video, Het Nieuwsblad reports .

The chants were done before a game between Beerschot and Anderlecht on Monday. Anderlecht is considered to be a "Jewish" team by soccer hooligans.

Fittingly, Anderlecht won the game, 7-0. Their Israeli starter Lior Refaelov scored one of the goals.

Beerschot has the worst record in their league.

Which just goes to prove, antisemites tend to be losers.

Here's the video.

How not to treat an enemy (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

How Not to Treat an Enemy

News item:

Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday that Israel would implement a series of measures intended to prop up the indebted Palestinian Authority and ease Palestinians’ daily life. …

Israel will provide the PA with a NIS 100 million loan ($32.2 million) on tax revenues Israel collects on Ramallah’s behalf, in an attempt to reduce the PA’s spiraling deficit. Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, has seen dwindling foreign aid for years, and almost none from its biggest backers in 2021. …

According to another Israel official, Gantz told Abbas that a series of economic measures are being weighed, including lowering fees for purchasing fuel and a pilot program to allow shipping containers to enter the West Bank from Jordan via Allenby Bridge.

Such steps “would likely add hundreds of millions of shekels to the Palestinian Authority on an annual basis,” said Gantz, according to the official. …

Gantz and Abbas, in their Tuesday meeting, also discussed legalizing more Palestinian construction in the West Bank.

As you probably know, the Knesset passed a law in 2018 that requires Israel to deduct a sum equivalent to the amount that the PA pays to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and to the families of “martyrs” from tax revenues collected on behalf of the PA. This loan and an even larger one (500 million NIS) given to the PA in August partially neutralizes the law. It’s hard to see how Israel can complain about the Biden Administration circumventing its own law against the PA’s “pay to slay” program, when her government does the same thing.

The article I’ve quoted from above does not mention anything that the PA will do for Israel in return. Will they end “pay for slay?” If they had wanted to, they could have done so long ago and would not need to accept “loans” (which I am prepared to eat my hat if they repay). But the leaders of the PA, from Mahmoud Abbas on down, have consistently said that if there is only one penny left in their treasury, it will go to the prisoners.

What about incitement of terrorism? The PA actually committed to end incitement, back in the days of Yasser Arafat. Of course, as you probably know, they never did this, continuing to honor terrorists in their schools and media, and to name sporting events after them. PA officials claim regularly that Israel is planning to destroy or defile the al-Aqsa mosque, creating riots and inspiring terrorism. Incitement continued after the 500 million shekel “loan” in August, and there is no indication that it will stop now.

Improving the daily life of the Palestinians by fattening the PA is a joke, as any resident of the PA will tell you. The last thing they do with their resources is to help their citizens (except for a few “connected” ones).

So why is Israel giving cash and other concessions to the PA? The stated reason is that it is necessary to strengthen the PA; if it collapses, the territories are expected to fall into the hands of Hamas, which would turn it into a launching platform for rockets next door to Tel Aviv.

One might think that the best solution to that problem would be to weaken Hamas, rather than strengthening the PA. But our government is also concerned about protecting Hamas, which, if it collapsed, might be replaced by worse organizations, like Palestinian Islamic Jihad or even ISIS. So Israel permits the introduction of millions of dollars from Qatar in order to prop up Hamas.

There is something very wrong here. The PA and Hamas tell us in no uncertain terms that they want us to disappear. They do so in language as bad or worse than that of the Nazis. And they try to kill our citizens, with rockets and knives and bullets. Our response is to try to restrain them from killing us (doing the least collateral damage possible), and pay them. Has this ever been the way a nation successfully defended itself against its enemies?

This is also the way we deal with Hezbollah. Yes, we attack shipments of advanced weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria; but some get through on the ground, by air, and by sea. Little by little Hezbollah builds up its deterrent against us.

I am naïve, I am told. I don’t understand the realities of the complex situation. We need to gain time so that we can deal with Iran. The US and Europe will punish us if we act aggressively. The status quo, in which we buy a small, manageable amount of terrorism, is actually the best situation we can hope for. And so on.

We are giving in to extortion: from the PA and Hamas, but also from the anti-Israel regimes in the US and Europe. We are taking the easy course, which results in a slow degredation of our strategic position, against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. Our defensive, protective, strategy, which includes antimissile systems, physical barriers, interdiction of weapons shipments, as well as payments to our local enemies, is a strategy for buying time and avoiding confrontation. But it does not permanently weaken our enemies; indeed, it preserves them.

Are we waiting for some external event to come along and reverse the decline of our strategic position? Maybe a revolution in Iran? I wouldn’t hold my breath. A miracle is always welcome, but counting on one is a poor strategy. If things continue as they are now, a point will be reached when our enemies feel that they are in a position to prevail, and at that point will trigger open conflict. This was the essence of the plan described by Yasser Arafat in 1974, and it has only changed in detail since then.

There is also the psychological damage from this policy. For example, what is the message sent to the PA, when we pay them for quiet and they return antisemitic incitement against us? Does it not justify their behavior, in their minds and in the minds of their supporters around the world? The propaganda campaigns paint us as oppressors, land thieves, people who don’t belong here. Payments are construed as compensation, reparations to our victims.

A better strategy is an aggressive policy to weaken and destroy our enemies, one at a time if possible. It would be much more convenient to deal with Hezbollah if we didn’t have to worry about Hamas opening a second front; and similarly with the PA. And it goes without saying that Iran depends on Hezbollah to deter us from striking their nuclear project.

So why are we trying to avoid conflict with all of them? And why are we strengthening them?

I just found this 1936 book, The Yellow Spot, which documents in detail the beginnings of Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany, with lots of photos and facsimiles from Nazi media.

The terror in reading this book is in the knowledge that the horrific facts recounted here in mind-numbing detail - the pogroms, the arrests, the anti-Jewish laws, the ordinary Germans enthusiastically joining the hate - were only the opening act to what was to come. All of the events in this book occurred from 1933-35, more than three years prior to Kristallnacht.

The echoes to today's modern antisemitism are striking.

Just like BDS, the Nazi media had their own "cancel culture," taking photos of Germans - especially women - shopping in Jewish-owned stores and publishing them to shame them.

The German call to boycott Jewish businesses sounds a lot like the "BDS call" to boycott Israel:

We ask you, German men and women, to fall in with this boycott. Do not buy in Jewish shops and department stores ! Do not go to Jewish lawyers ! Avoid Jewish physicians ! Show the Jews that they cannot drag Germany’s honour into the mire without being punished for it ! Whoever does not comply with this demand proves himself thereby on the side of Germany’s enemies !

There are hundreds of examples of official and semi-official antisemitism. Just like the UN today says that everything Israel does is a war crime, the trade journal of the National Socialist hairdressers wrote: “A German hairdresser who enjoys ridding Jews of their bristles commits a crime against the community.”

Like the Arabs who find Jews acting like normal people are being "provocative" and saying that their attacks on Jews are the Jews' fault, we see Goebbels in 1934 saying that Jews who aren't "provocative" won't be hurt but those who insist on acting like German citizens will be justifiably attacked:

We have been very lenient with the Jews. But if they think that therefore they can still be allowed on German stages, offering art to the German people; if they think that they can still sneak into editorial offices, writing for German newspapers ; if they still strut across the Kurfiirstendamm as though nothing had happened, they might take these words as a final warning. Jewry can rest assured that we will leave them alone as long as they retire quietly and modestly behind their four walls, as long as they are not provocative, and do not affront the German people with the claim to be treated as equals. If the Jews do not listen to this warning, they will have themselves to blame for anything that happens to them.

The Nazis' propaganda wasn't only against Jews, but against "Judah"as a nation. Again, the parallels between them and the anti-Israel propaganda in Arab media are obvious.

Judah has striven to harm the German people but has given it a blessing. On Saturday, 1st April, at 10 a.m., there begins the German people’s defence against the universal criminal, the Jew. There starts a fight such as has never been dared before throughout all the centuries. Judah has asked for the fight, it shall have it ! It shall have it until it recognises that the Germany of the Brown battalions is no Germany of cowardice and surrender. Judah shall have the fight until the victory is ours! (Volkischer Beobachter, March 31, 1933)

Iranian media sounds exactly like this today.

The parallels to today's antisemitism continue. Compare this photo from Der Sturmer in 1934 to Roger Waters' inflatable pig in concert:

Compare the Nazi mistranslations of the Talmud with that of celebrated poet Alice Walker:

Der Sturmer:

This Jew (his name and address follow) belongs to the alien race that believes itself able to carry on its race defilement with impunity just as before. He is acting according to the Talmudic principles of his race. Jewesses are too good for his vileness. Accordingly he runs after non-Jewesses. Non-Jewesses are, according to the Talmud, to be regarded as cattle ; the Jew can, therefore, defile and ruin them with an easy conscience...“ A non-Jewish girl may be defiled as soon as she is three years and one day old.”

Alice Walker, in her poem, "It Is Our (Frightful) Duty To Study The Talmud:"

Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only

That, but to enjoy it?

Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?

Are young boys fair game for rape?

Must even the best of the Goyim (us, again) be killed?

Pause a moment and think what this could mean

Or already has meant

In our own lifetime.

You may find that as the cattle

We have begun to feel we are

We have an ancient history of oppression

Of which most of us have not been even vaguely

Aware. You will find that we, Goyim, sub-humans, animals

-The Palestinians of Gaza

The most obvious representatives of us

At the present time – are a cruel example of what may be done

With impunity, and without conscience,

By a Chosen people,

To the vast majority of the people

On the planet

Who were not Chosen.

Antisemitic poems in Der Sturmer sound a lot like the hypnotizing anti-Israel "from the river to the sea" rhymes we hear at anti-Israel rallies:

Jewish hands are red with Christian gore,

We demand Jewish blood and more !

The people hope one day to see a time

When shooting the last Jew will be no crime !

The Nazis carefully prepared things so that Jews literally cannot defend themselves. And that is exactly what the modern antisemites are doing with Israel, accusing it of false war crimes and false apartheid, changing international law itself to put the Jewish state in a corner, twisting anything Israeli Jews to be immoral or to be covering up for immorality, setting up UN commissions whose only purpose is to justify the eventual ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East and to call it a moral imperative. They know Jews can defend themselves militarily now, so they are using other means to try to destroy it, but the goal is the same.

Both the Nazis in this book and the modern antisemites are preparing the world to celebrate a future genocide.

Here is the entire book. It is the most frightening thing you will read this year.