Friday, January 21, 2022

01/21 Links Pt1: Remember Deir Yassin!; Debunking Another False Narrative about Sheikh Jarrah in Israel; Biden saves Iran from itself; BDS cost Unilever $26 billion

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Remember Deir Yassin!
Deir Yassin. For decades it was the main count in the Palestinian indictment against Zionism and Israel. In the 1970s, when Palestinian terrorists butchered schoolkids and Olympic athletes, they and their supporters cried “remember Deir Yassin!” In the 2000s, when Palestinian leaders blew up the Oslo Peace Process by dispatching suicide bombers to Israeli buses and cafes, they and their supporters cried “remember Deir Yassin!” Even today, the massacre of 254 Arabs, including 25 pregnant women, 50 breastfeeding mothers, and 60 other women—followed by mass rapes and other atrocities in this pastoral village just outside Jerusalem—remains one of the prime movers of anti-Zionism, an often-invoked justification for the rejectionism and crimes of Palestinian extremists. In their still-defining book on 1948, O Jerusalem, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre describe Jews cutting open a pregnant woman’s stomach “with a butcher’s knife,” and slashing at least two people “from head to toe,” as they “killed” and “looted,” then, “finally they raped.”

But what if, as professor Eliezer Tauber argues in his new book, Deir Yassin is The Massacre That Never Was?

Tauber’s book, subtitled The Myth of Deir Yassin and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, may have been 2021’s most snubbed yet significant scholarly work. Originally published in Hebrew in 2017 as Deir Yassin: Sof Hamitos ­(Deir Yassin: The End of the Myth), it was ignored then, as it is being ignored now.

Tauber, who founded Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Middle Eastern Studies, is a tenacious researcher, offering nearly 100 pages of Arab, Israeli, and British sourcing to back 208 pages of text. He painstakingly recreates the battle of Deir Yassin, noting who fought where, who had how many guns, and who died. Sixty of the Arabs who died were men, and 41 were women—some dressed as men and armed to fight. Tauber concludes that 61 of the 84 Arabs whose circumstances of death were ascertained “were killed under battle conditions.”

The battle began early on Friday, April 9, 1948, five weeks before David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. Since the United Nations had voted a Jewish state into existence on Nov. 29, 1947, Arab extremists in Palestine had launched a guerilla war against their Jewish neighbors. The British, who controlled Palestine under the 1920 Mandate, were counting down to their U.N.-mandated departure on May 14. Jews and Arabs were scrambling for strategic advantage—and starting to clash over land. Arab irregulars were besieging Jerusalem, and three different fighting forces were defending the Jews while competing aggressively with one another, too.
Erielle Davidson: Debunking Another False Narrative about Sheikh Jarrah in Israel
Those groups lambasting the evictions, such as the Israeli group Peace Now, insist that the plans to build a yeshiva down the road (also on public lands) should be scrapped in order to place the school there. However, the yeshiva site is farther from the residential areas of the Arab neighborhood, and, furthermore, not one argument has been made as to why the yeshiva project is unworthy of completion. In short, Peace Now wants to hold the education of Palestinian special-needs children hostage in hopes of possibly derailing a Jewish seminary at a different location.

Peace Now also argues that demolishing the home of the Mahmoud Salihye family is not necessary to build the school. However, one glance at the proposed building plan reveals how fatuous this argument is. The compound touches the anticipated school building. There is no physical space for a squatter (or any individual, for that matter) to essentially reside on the property of a school. Schools have various forms of infrastructure — playgrounds, fencing, and gates — designed to keep children safely on the property and to provide them with recreational space. It would also stand to reason that a school of this nature may require even more recreational space.

The manufactured outrage at the eviction, when considered in conjunction with the yeshiva, shows that progressives embrace the goal of a Jew-free eastern Jerusalem to such a degree that they would be willing to block a special-needs school for Palestinians in the hopes that it would keep Jews from studying Torah there. It is worth noting that none of these groups claim that the evicted tenants have any legal claim to the land — only that Jewish property rights should be ignored, that the needs of Jerusalem’s most vulnerable population be ignored, and that the areas purged of Jews by Jordan in 1948 remain essentially Jew-free forever.

A war crime, indeed.


Richard Goldberg: Biden saves Iran from itself
Iran’s response was predictable. The regime cut back U.N. access to its declared nuclear sites, produced uranium metal, a key component of nuclear weapons, and increased its enrichment purity level to 60% — dangerously close to weapons-grade. Considering Tehran’s failure to cooperate with the IAEA’s investigation, the obvious course of action presented itself: Refer the matter to the Security Council and restore U.N. sanctions on Iran. But in June, September, and November, Biden opted against any action that could provoke Iran at the IAEA’s quarterly board meetings.

Biden made other poor choices as well. He chose not to respond militarily to the March death of a U.S. contractor in Iraq. He chose not to respond militarily for months thereafter despite continuous drone and rocket attacks targeting U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. And the two times he authorized a U.S. military response, he directed fire at non-Iranian personnel or installations rather than targeting the Revolutionary Guard commanders orchestrating the attacks.

Biden also gave a green light to Iranian adventurism in the region, a large source of chaos, instability, and deadly violence. In Yemen, Biden ended U.S. military support for a Saudi-led campaign against the Iran-backed Houthis and rescinded the group’s designation as a foreign terrorist organization. On Tehran’s orders, the Houthis responded by increasing missile and drone attacks against Saudi and Emirati citizens. In other words, Iran responded to Biden’s concession with more violence against U.S. allies. How did Biden respond to this pattern? By rewarding it. The administration removed American missile defense from the Saudi kingdom, which invited more Houthi attacks. In mid-January, a combined drone, ballistic missile, and cruise missile attack on Abu Dhabi left at least three people dead.

If the supreme leader had any doubt left about whether he could establish Iran as a nuclear weapons threshold state without fearing a U.S. military response, Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, looking the other way as the Taliban marched on Kabul, sealed his calculus.

All the while, Biden let Iran’s economy stabilize. He suspended sanctions, which gave the regime access to billions of dollars more in frozen funds. And he refused to crack down as China increased its imports of Iranian oil. As Tehran’s regional violence increased and its nuclear transgressions continued unabated, Washington essentially helped the mullahs avoid a financial crisis.

Never has a U.S. president given up so much leverage so quickly for absolutely zero gain. To borrow a football analogy, Biden started his presidency with Iran backed up against its own goal line, and he deliberately allowed the regime to march all the way to America’s red zone, the threshold of nuclear weapons.

The president made a bet one year ago that abandoning maximum pressure in favor of maximum deference would somehow induce the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism that pledges “Death to America” to make concessions. He lost that bet. And every time he doubles down on that bet instead of admitting his mistake, he loses again.

Biden came into office and implemented a new Iran policy. He owns its failure.


The Patriarch of Jerusalem is spreading false and incendiary claims about my city
On the day before Christmas Eve, I stood in the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem with Issa Kassissieh, who is a Christian Arab and, as Jerusalem's only Santa Claus, a local celebrity. We spent the day giving out Christmas trees, as the Jerusalem municipality does every year, and has done for nearly a decade.

This event was just one part of the celebratory week. The City of Jerusalem outfitted streets with cheerful Christmas decorations and organized a Christmas market by the recently upgraded New Gate entrance to the Christian Quarter. This is only a sampling of the initiatives undertaken by the municipality to support Christian life in Jerusalem. Further down towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for example, the Stations of the Cross were recently made wheelchair-accessible, a mammoth task that took years to plan and execute.

Over the past seven years, in particular, unprecedented resources have been channeled into the Old City and East Jerusalem to close the social gaps that had festered for years and herald a new era of shared society and equal opportunity.

This is why the recent attacks by Church leaders on Jerusalem are so surprising and deeply disappointing - as was the refusal of The Times, who gave them a platform, to publish my response.

In his recent article, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III claims that there is regular desecration and vandalism of Christian sites in Jerusalem, as well as rising violence against Christians. These allegations are uncorroborated by the city and the police. If there was truly a trend of rising violence against Christians, wouldn’t we expect such incidents to be reported to local law enforcement before being aired to the foreign press?

The City of Jerusalem and its police authorities are completely engaged in protecting the Christian population, and any reported acts of intolerance are acted upon quickly and decisively. Theophilos’s claims paint a false narrative of the tolerant culture we have so carefully nurtured in our city.
Biden Frees Gitmo Terrorist Linked to Chanukah Murder of Israeli Children
Last year we learned that 229 former Gitmo detainees had returned to terrorism. And yet last month, Biden complained that the defense spending bill prevented him from closing Gitmo.

Bajabu is one of five Islamic terrorists freed by Biden from Guatanamo Bay. The radical administration is determined to free as many of the enemy as possible to kill again.

"Today's decision is wonderful news,” the terrorist’s lawyer declared, and claimed that his client “longs to be reunited with his family.”

That is a privilege forever denied to the families of his victims.

Biden has relentlessly exploited the death of his son for political gain, but he has shown no empathy for the losses and suffering of the children killed by the terrorists he is protecting, whether in the Palestinian Authority, in Hamas, or even in our custody in Guantanamo Bay.

Rahamim Anter said that he had taken his family on vacation, "to look for calm far from the intifada to take the children on safari, but I brought back their little bodies to put them in the ground".

When Biden addressed the anti-Israel J Street lobby group, he closed with a poem by Seamus Heaney, "History says, Don’t hope, On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime, The longed-for tidal wave, Of justice can rise up."

Whatever justice comes to the Islamic terrorists of Gitmo and to their victims whose coffins rode those four planes on a Chanukah two decades past, it will not come on this side of the grave.

Or at least not if Biden and his pro-terrorist administration have anything to say about it.

After the attack, the Israeli Defense Minister had vowed that the "killers of children" would face a reckoning. "Our hand will reach them.”

Biden, his radical regime, the multitude of lawyers who lobbied for the terrorists, hoped to help Bajabu, but they may have instead ensured that he faces justice on “this side of the grave.”
‘Because He Was a Jew’: Kidnapping and Murder of Ilan Halimi in Paris Commemorated Amid French Election Battle
Against the background of this year’s presidential election in France, Jewish organizations and French politicians have marked the sixteenth anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a young French Jew, by an antisemitic gang.

“Sixteen years ago today, a 23-year-old French Jew named Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured for three weeks and murdered for one reason only: he was Jewish,” the European Jewish Congress (EJC) declared on Twitter Thursday. “He is not forgotten. May his memory be for a blessing.”

A potent symbol of the rise of antisemitism in France over the last 20 years, Halimi was kidnapped on Jan. 20, 2006, by a mainly Muslim gang calling themselves “The Barbarians.” Lured into the gang’s hands by a young woman who flirted with him in the cellphone store where he worked as a salesman, Halimi subsequently spent three weeks in captivity, during which he was constantly beaten and burned with cigarettes while tied to a radiator.

Throughout the ordeal, the gang attempted to extort 450,000 euros in ransom money from Halimi’s relatives, believing them to be wealthy because — as one of the gang members later explained to French police — “Jews have money.”

On February 13, 2006, Halimi was dumped, barely alive and with burns on 80 percent of his body, near a railway track on the outskirts of Paris. Discovered by a passerby who called for an ambulance, Halimi died on his way to the hospital.


Turn on the Light, Extinguish the Fire: Israel's New Way of War
During Israel's last operation in Gaza in May 2021, the Israel Defense Forces intercepted 90% of all Hamas rockets. What can the IDF do to improve their response? Future Israeli ground maneuvers in enemy territory will need to expose the enemy's projectile-firing capabilities and destroy them. Israel will need to "turn on the light" by employing a network of advanced sensors and "extinguish the fire" by linking those sensors to firepower in order to attack the missile launchers and intercept missiles ascending from enemy territory.

The first obstacle in dealing with enemy missile salvos is the difficulty in locating them. Intelligence gathered before a conflict, as important as it is, is not sufficient against an enemy that has designed its posture around avoiding Israeli airpower. All advanced militaries are developing means of saturating the battlefield with ground and air sensors designed to detect the enemy. Tactical radar networks spread around the battlefield at appropriate locations, alongside land-based and aerial launch detectors, could discover the source of rocket, mortar, surface-to-air missile, and anti-tank fire accurately and in real time.

Emptying a multiple-barrel missile launcher takes at least half a minute from the moment of first launch. A sophisticated sensor network could identify the enemy within seconds, which would allow forces either to attack or to track the enemy to his hiding position.

Proximity allows the Israeli military to exploit improved sensing capabilities, place networked missiles in a tactical rear but physically close position, and quickly attack the sources of enemy fire. Enemy deployment of anti-tank weapons, mortars, rockets, and even surface-to-air missiles would go from relatively safe to very dangerous with the immediate attack of sources of enemy fire.

Forward interception, also known as ascent-phase interception, is also possible thanks to the relative proximity to enemy launch sites. This type of interception would reduce the threat to the home front and create a sense of futility in the enemy about continuing the fight.

Iranian-sponsored terrorist armies have flourished on Israel's borders, additional enemy launch bases are being developed in the region, and the Iranian regime has not changed its agenda. The concept presented here leverages the enemy's addiction to rockets in order to defeat him. The technology is available. It is time to turn it into an operational capability.
Noura Erakat’s advice to Israelis: Trust us not to kill you
“The greatest threat in anti-Semitism is not Palestinian; it’s white supremacy,” claimed Rutgers University assistant professor of Africana Studies Noura Erakat during the Jan. 13 webinar “Two-State Solution Is Dead—Now What?” While appearing on a like-minded panel hosted by the anti-Israel group Nonviolence International (NI), she repeated her usual anti-Israel diatribes, all the while making absurd assessments about the dangers Jews face in the real world.

NI founder Mubarak Awad, who introduced the panel, is a strange spokesman for nonviolence. He has previously not excluded violence as a means of opposing Israel, particularly given that he has condemned a “Jewish state in the Middle East” as “impossible.” The profiles on NI’s “Many Faces of Nonviolence” webpage include Angela Davis, whose violent past landed her on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list before a controversial 1972 trial acquitted her.

Other NI “Faces of Nonviolence” include anti-Israel activists Rachel Corrie, who was a member of the violence-supporting International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and Ann Wright with Code Pink. NI also honored its protégé We Are Not Numbers (WANN), which promotes Palestinian propaganda from the Gaza strip. In its profile was a description of a “resistance fighter” from Hamas’s “Al-Qassam Brigades—so quickly assumed to be ‘terrorists’ even by many pro-Palestinian activists.”

Erakat’s fellow anti-Israel panelists included the Palestinian-American anti-Israel agitator Jonathan Kuttab, whose new free book Beyond the Two-State Solution occasioned the event. His comrade-in-arms Jeff Halper expressed the participants’ common mind regarding a relentless “settler-colonial” Zionist movement, adding for good measure that the “Zionist side is not a legitimate side.” Historically, “for Zionism there is nothing to compromise on, there is nothing to negotiate” over an “exclusive claim to this country,” he lied, despite numerous Israeli offers for a two-state solution going back to 1937.
Is UAE changing UN Security Council's tone on Israel?
It was a ministerial-level meeting for which almost no one sent a foreign minister. And it seems to be reflective of how stale and tired the United Nations' regular debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become.

Norway, the longtime UN penholder of the Israeli-Palestinian file, holds the presidency of the UN Security Council this month and sought to upgrade the monthly meeting on the issue to, in its words, refocus the Council's attention on the topic.

"My hope is to contribute toward renewed efforts to solving the conflict. The two-state solution is the only viable path to peace and security for both peoples. I invite the Security Council to join me in calling for this. The current situation is volatile and could flare up at any time, bringing violence and hostilities. … My fear is that we forget this conflict, and it is in Norwegian interests to keep attention on it," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt before the open debate got underway on Wednesday.

Despite Norway sending its foreign minister to chair the discussion, Ghana was the only other Security Council member to bring its top diplomat to New York. Norway set the tone early, chiding Israel for settlement activity and evictions of Palestinians in Jerusalem, while lamenting the Palestinian Authority's "severe financial difficulty," leaving unmentioned the Ramallah-based government's rampant corruption and its policy of paying a substantial portion of its budget to terrorists who kill and maim Israelis, including civilians.


UAE Textbooks Temper Anti-Israel Material, Champion ‘Peace and Tolerance’
A year and a half after the Abraham Accords normalized ties between the United Arab Emirates and the Jewish state, an Israeli education watchdog found that K-12 textbooks in the Emirates embrace the treaty and generally shun anti-Israel and antisemitic material.

Released Thursday by the Israel-based IMPACT-se, the report — “When Peace Goes to School: The Emirati Curriculum” — found that the textbooks promote tolerance of and positive engagement with Jews and Christians based on principles based in Islamic theology.

“It is by far most tolerant and peaceful Arab or Muslim majority country curriculum that the institute had reviewed, in over a quarter of a century of research,” the group’s CEO, Marcus Sheff, told The Algemeiner.

In one example, grade 12 Emirati students are taught that the Prophet Muhammad visited a sick Jewish child, and in another, that Omar bin Al-Khattab, the second Rashidun caliph, ruled in a favor of a Jew in a civil case.

“Textbooks offer a realistic approach to peace and security, teach patriotism, anti-radicalism, commitment to defending the homeland, and cooperating with allies; peacemaking is by the priority,” said the report. “The large Islamic education program emphasizes tolerance, coexistence, and friendly relations with all non-Muslims and ethnicities.”
Emirati Curriculum: A Model For Peace and Tolerance

Facebook apologizes for threatening to delete UN Watch director's account
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, apologized on Tuesday after restricting and threatening to remove the Facebook account of Hillel Neuer, the executive director of the NGO UN Watch.

According to UN Watch, Facebook deleted a post by Neuer which showed a photo of Taliban gunmen with the caption "Prediction: Ben and Jerry’s will never announce a boycott of the Taliban." A warning from Facebook said the post went against "Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organizations," adding that a few more violations would lead Facebook to delete his account permanently.

Facebook additionally reduced the distribution of Neuer's page and implemented other restrictions on the page due to what it called "continued Community Standards violations."

In a letter to Meta's chief legal officer in December, UN Watch stated that Facebook was threatening to remove Neuer's account on "entirely baseless grounds." The NGO stressed that the post was meant to condemn the human rights abuses committed by the Taliban and to criticize Ben & Jerry's for turning a blind eye to gross human rights abuses worldwide while targeting Israel.

The same post was published on the UN Watch Facebook page without being flagged.


Thanks, Ben & Jerry!
The BDS movement declared "victory" when the board of Ben & Jerry's decided last summer to stop selling its products in the West Bank. If anything, however, this was a disaster for the movement that once again laid bare that its goal is the destruction of Israel, that it contributes nothing to peace or the welfare of Palestinians, and that it creates a backlash that energizes BDS critics. Even more devastating is the fact that Israel's international relations are flourishing, completely undermining the BDS agenda of turning Israel into a pariah that can be defeated like the Afrikaner regime in South Africa.

The negative response to the BDS movement in the United States is reflected by the 50 governors (and the mayor of Washington, D.C.) who signed a letter rejecting "efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel," and the 35 states that have adopted laws, executive orders or resolutions designed to discourage boycotts against Israel.

Since the Ben & Jerry's announcement, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas have put its parent company, Unilever, on their list of companies barred from receiving investments (Texas also has B&J on its list). Several states have already divested their investments in Unilever. Israel has not collapsed, and the Palestinians have not benefited from depriving Jews in the territories ice cream. Instead, the company has gotten a flurry of negative publicity and alienated Israelis and pro-Israel consumers.

Not to waste time on the specious South Africa analogy, but a neglected point is that pressure worked in that case because it was directed at an unrepresentative regime that was reviled globally. Israel is a democracy that will not disappear due to any economic or political pressure campaign. For proof, see the failure of the Arab League's 76-year boycott, which technically remains in force but long ago crumbled with the peace treaties signed by Egypt and Jordan. Those were cold peace treaties, as opposed to the recent Abraham Accords, which has not only led to the normalization of relations but a torrent of cooperative activities and an explosion of trade between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Reportedly, other countries may join the peace party and further spoil the BDS strategy of isolating Israel.

Despite the vocal support of BDS by leftists in Europe, their governments have continued to sign military contracts and expand trade and other forms of cooperation with Israel. In France, promoting the boycott of Israel is illegal. The United Kingdom – one of the birthplaces and strongholds of the boycott movement – has closer ties than ever with Israel. In November, for example, the two countries signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding for deepening ties on issues such as cybersecurity, technology development, defense, trade and science.
Unilever’s Israel boycott said to cost company $26 billion
Unilever’s stock has plunged 20.7% in the six months since it informed Avi Singer, the owner of Ben & Jerry’s Israel, that his contract was over unless he stopped selling the company’s ice cream in Judea and Samaria.

That amounts to a $26 billion loss, according to Channel 12 News, which first reported on the story.

The loss stems from the withdrawal of investments, holdings and pension funds by dozens of U.S. states who have anti-boycott laws in place, such as New York, Illinois and Texas.

“This is a tremendous boost to the dogged struggle I am waging these days against Unilever’s unfounded demand not to see ice cream in all parts of Israel,” said Singer, according to the report.


Dozens of settlers assault Palestinians and left-wing activists in West Bank
Jewish extremists attacked Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists in Burin in the West Bank Friday morning with clubs and stones, wounding at least six and burning a car, according to police, witnesses and footage from the scene.

The Israeli army and police were called to the scene after the attack began, but arrived after the perpetrators had apparently fled. A police spokesperson said officers were investigating the incident.

“Police will act decisively and forcefully to find the lawbreakers, capture them and bring them to justice,” he said.

Israeli activists affiliated with Rabbis for Human Rights said they’d arrived at Burin, near Nablus, on Friday morning, to help Palestinian farmers plant trees on land inside the boundaries of the village.

About an hour and a half later, dozens of masked figures descended from the nearby illegal Israeli outpost of Givat Ronen, wielding clubs and stones. At least six Israelis were injured during the attack, witnesses and medics said. It was not clear how many Palestinians were hurt.

“They threw rocks through the windows of the car, poured gasoline on one of the cars, lit it on fire, and then turned their attention to throwing rocks and hitting any volunteer they could get their hands on,” said Daniel Roth, an American-Israeli activist who works with Rabbis for Human Rights.
Be prepared to bury the two-state solution, Palestinian FM warns
Prepare to eulogize the two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki warned on Wednesday, as he called on the international community to force Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.

“There is urgency because this conflict has a solution that may still be available today and that will no longer be viable tomorrow,” Malki told the UN Security Council during its monthly meeting on the conflict. “The two-State solution... does not need you by its bedside to share comforting words. It needs you to save it. Absent this sense of urgency, prepare yourself to attend the funeral of this solution with all the consequences of such a death for the lives of millions of people, Palestinians and others.”

Malki spoke in the midst of a prolonged absence of any peace process to resolve the conflict.

Malki told the UNSC that it was a mistake to wait to take any action, as if time would allow for the issue to resolve itself.

“Can anyone seriously argue that we should wait for Israel to be ready to end its occupation on its own, to wake up one day wiser and decide to redeem itself?” he asked. “Is there anyone around this table who believes this is a rational or winning strategy?”


Iran drives antisemitism in the Muslim world - analysis
It’s not a secret that for many years antisemitism was well accepted in most parts of the Middle East, and often propelled by various regimes, both conservative and progressive. Antisemitic sermons were read at the mosques and antisemitic tropes were taught in classrooms at schools and universities. However, today, when more Middle East countries are developing warmer relations with the Jewish state, and the Abraham Accords signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as well as a peace deal with Morocco are flourishing, it seems that the tide is finally turning, even though it might take many years to undo the indoctrination of the past. Yet, Iranian leadership – as well as Muslim Brotherhood offshoots around the world – keep promoting the same old hate-filled agenda against the Jews and the Jewish state, relying on several sources rooted in religion.

While Islam recognizes Judaism as a monotheistic religion and sees Jews as the “people of the book,” relations between the Prophet Muhammad and the Jews weren’t always easy. While the hadiths – a traditional collection of the sayings of Muhammad and of his tacit approval or criticism – contain information about the care and concern the prophet had for his Jewish neighbors, the Quran and the Hadith also mention that Muhammad had fought against the Jewish tribes that refused to embrace Islam. These verses are often recited and quoted by antisemitic religious and political leaders in the Muslim world; however, the verses are often misquoted and their meaning is distorted, according to Haras Rafiq, interim managing director of ISGAP – The Institute for Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy and a trustee of the British charity Muslims Against Antisemitism.

“When we look at traditional, classical Islam we see that Jew is not a derogatory term. This phenomenon is approximately 100 years old. Today, when you want to attack somebody in the Muslim world, you call him Jewish. It’s the worst kind of a slur among the Muslim majority around the world. When Imran Khan became a prime minister of Pakistan, there was a fundamentalist extremist organization that called him a Jew,” he told The Media Line.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the vacuum was filled with various ideologies such as fascism, communism, Islamism, Baathist and more, Rafiq says. “Leaders, such as the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini merged the European form of antisemitism with misinterpreted verses from the Quran and turned it into a religious issue,” Rafiq said.
Iran hostage crisis survivor goes on hunger strike

Despite Mass Slaughter of Muslims, Iran Arming Military Regime in Myanmar: Report
The Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is delivering weapons to a regime accused of committing genocide against a Muslim minority group, a new report on Thursday claimed.

An investigation by the Asia Times news outlet found that Iranian planes had been landing in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where the military seized power and suspended democracy in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. The Iranian arrivals “raised speculation of secretive military-to-military cooperation, including possible sensitive Iranian weapons sales amid rising international calls to impose an arms embargo on the rights-abusing junta.”

The paper reported that “diplomatic sources based in Southeast Asia who requested anonymity said that an Iranian delegation that landed in Myanmar on January 13 was either the second or third to visit since the military seized power.”

Iran has provided extensive military backing for terrorist groups around the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shi’a Islamist militias in Iraq. However, Iran is not known to have had military ties with Myanmar, which relies mostly on Russia and China as well as India for its armaments.

In 2017, Myanmar’s army launched a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Muslim Rohingya minority, murdering thousands of civilians, carrying out mass rapes and other abuses and driving a flood of refugees into neighboring Bangladesh. Among the countries protesting the slaughter at the time was Iran, several of whose leaders called for the creation of a “Joint Islamic Army” to defend the Rohingya.
Congress Seeks To Reimpose Sanctions on Iran-Backed Houthis After UAE Terror Strike
Congress is moving to reapply sanctions on the Houthi rebels in Yemen following the Iranian-backed terror group’s strike this week on Abu Dhabi that drew widespread condemnation from the Biden administration and U.S. lawmakers.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and a coalition of Republican foreign policy leaders are set to introduce on Friday new legislation that would re-designate the Houthi rebels as a terrorist organization, according to a copy of the new sanctions measure obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon. Former president Donald Trump listed the group on the U.S. terror list early last year, but that designation was reversed during the Biden administration’s first week in office—a decision critics viewed as an effort by the new administration to generate goodwill with Iran prior to the resumption of nuclear talks.

Following Monday’s missile strike on Abu Dhabi’s international airport, the Houthi rebels and their Iranian backers are facing a new wave of opposition on Capitol Hill. Cruz’s bill, a version of which failed to pass Congress in November, would direct President Joe Biden to designate the Houthis and all their affiliates as a terror organization within 30 days of the bill’s passage. With the Senate evenly split along party lines, and the Houthis’ latest attack generating a wave of concern, the legislation could attract Democrats. Biden also said the designation was under consideration during a Wednesday press conference.

Cruz’s bill is already backed by some of the Senate’s top foreign policy hawks, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), and Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.), among several others, and is expected to garner more supporters in the coming days.

"President Biden made it an immediate week-one priority to unwind pressure on Iran and its proxies, including by lifting terrorism sanctions on the Houthis," a spokesman for Cruz told the Free Beacon. "This appeasement predictably caused Iran to escalate its aggression across the region, and in Yemen the Houthis launched a broad offensive within hours of the Biden administration’s announcement they would lift those sanctions. Sen. Cruz criticized the decision at the time and has consistently sought to reimpose those sanctions, and believes that if the Biden administration is unwilling to do so then Congress should mandate that they do."









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