April 2022 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Saturday, April 30, 2022

04/30 Links: Security guard killed in Ariel terror attack named as Vyacheslav Golev; Mossad said to foil plot by Iran’s IRGC to assassinate Israeli diplomat in Turkey

From Ian:

Security guard killed in Ariel terror attack named as Vyacheslav Golev

The security guard killed in a terror shooting at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Ariel on Friday night was identified as 23-year-old Vyacheslav Golev.

Golev was a former student at Ariel University. He had recently moved to live with his fiancée in the West Bank community. They were engaged just a few weeks before the attack.

He is survived by his parents and seven siblings who live in Beit Shemesh, and his fiancée who was stationed at the guard post during the attack.

Golev used his body to shield her from the hail of bullets, saving her life, according to military officials.

His fiancée, named as Victoria Fligelman from the southern city of Ashkelon, was not wounded in the attack

The Beit Shemesh municipality said it was embracing Golev’s family. “The security guard showed supreme heroism and saved the life of the security guard who worked with him,” Mayor Aliza Bloch said.

Mossad said to foil plot by Iran’s IRGC to assassinate Israeli diplomat in Turkey

The Mossad spy agency foiled a recent Iranian attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat working at the consulate in Istanbul, Hebrew-language media reported Saturday.

The outlets said a number of Israeli officials had confirmed earlier reporting of the plot by London-based Iran International, an Iranian opposition news outlet.

Iran International said that in addition to the Israeli worker at the consulate, an American general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France were also targeted in the plot.

According to the unsourced report, a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was arrested in an unnamed European country in connection with the planned attack. It was not clear precisely when the plot unfolded.

The suspect was said to have been a member of Unit 840 of the Quds Force, the branch of the IRGC tasked with carrying out overseas operations. He was said to also be connected to drug-smuggling networks.

According to the report, the suspect told investigators he had received $150,000 for the preparations for the assassinations, and would receive a further $1 million if he killed the three targets.

There was no official comment on the report from Turkey or Israel.

In February, it was reported that Mossad helped foil 12 plots to carry out terror attacks on Israelis in Turkey over the past two years, most of the plots linked to the Islamic State jihadist group.

Mossad agents interrogated IRGC member in Iran over assassination plot — reports

The Mossad spy agency arrested a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Iranian territory for his alleged involvement in an attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, Hebrew media reported Saturday.

The reports contradicted accounts of the arrest published earlier in the day, which said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member was detained in an unnamed European country for his connection with the planned attack against the diplomat working at the consulate in Istanbul.

According to the new reports, Mansour Rasouli, 52, admitted to Mossad agents during an interrogation at his home that he was sent to target the Israeli diplomat, as well as an American general stationed in Germany and a journalist in France.

An audio recording said to be of Rasouli was published by Israeli television networks, along with his picture. “We will assassinate these three for the Islamic Republic. They insisted this would be carried out,” a man’s voice is heard saying in the recording.

The TV reports provided no source for the audio recording.

Channel 12 news added, without citing a source, that the Shin Bet security agency — which generally operates within Israel — also participated in the arrest in Iran.

04/29 Links Pt2: Mark Regev: Why the Left went from being pro-Israel, Zionism to opposing them; Time for anti-Israel human rights NGOs to change their tune

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Why the Left went from being pro-Israel, Zionism to opposing them

This Sunday, socialists across the globe will be proudly waving red flags at May Day parades to mark International Workers’ Day.

Once widely celebrated by labor, social democratic and socialist parties worldwide (including extensively in Israel), today May Day is primarily associated with the regime-sponsored events in authoritarian socialist countries and with the familiar radical left demonstrations across the West and the Global South.

This year in cities from Johannesburg to Toronto, and from Dhaka to Athens, protesters will be advocating revolutionary change, a world liberated from the capitalist system “that puts profits before people.” Overwhelmingly, May Day 2022 marchers will also self-identify as staunch enemies of the Jewish state.

This anti-Israel hostility is not limited to strident criticism of Israel’s behavior but encompasses the repudiation of Zionism itself. Today’s militant socialists reject the legitimacy of the Jewish state, the very right of the Jews to national self-determination in their homeland.

Across the contemporary radical left, including Europe’s Mélenchonists, Podemitas, Corbynistas and Sinn Féiners, it is widely believed that the Jewish state should never have been established. They often erroneously view Israel as an illegitimate colonialist creation, a state founded on racist precepts and built on the dispossession of the land’s rightful Palestinian inhabitants.

Some remain stuck in a Marxist Cold War narrative that sees Israel as an imperialist outpost to ensure Western domination of the Middle East’s people and resources.

Sadly, today’s leftist anti-Zionism is not confined to the hard-core militants, but in its more presentable manifestations, is an all-too-fashionable liberal-progressive worldview.

Time for anti-Israel human rights NGOs to change their tune

NGOs have also played an influential role in lobbying the UN Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry to examine the charge of apartheid. The inquiry, set to convene in June, is made up of members with long-documented anti-Israel biases and extensive connections to politicized NGOs. The NGOs hope that UN involvement will create legal and political precedent for applying the "apartheid" label and reinforce NGO lobbying of the International Criminal Court to follow suit.

Most disturbingly, as shown in research by NGO Monitor, these campaigns are often financed by multiple European governments, including Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Since 2014, 13 NGOs promoting the apartheid label have received $50 million through various European governmental programs, including six NGOs affiliated with Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that Israel designated as terror fronts in late 2021.

Delegitimization, antisemitic rhetoric and terror are all tools that have long been a part of the anti-Israel arsenal. Yet, they have failed miserably. Israel in 2022 is a diverse, thriving and prosperous society. In practical terms, the BDS movement has failed to gain significant traction outside of fringe political movements. And in contrast to tired narratives of international isolation, Israel continues to form new alliances and important regional partnerships that were unimaginable only a few short years ago.

Perhaps it is time for HRW, Amnesty and their ilk to recalibrate. The future of Israel will not be shaped in offices in New York or London. Rather, it is being written in forums such as last month's Negev Summit with signatories to the Abraham Accords; the corridors of Tel Aviv startups; and the Knesset, which houses the country's most diverse government to date, with Jews and Arabs working together to make Israel a better society for all.

Ahead of Israel's Independence Day, Israel's NGO detractors should reflect on whether their rhetoric is helping to facilitate a better future, or whether they are perpetuating a narrative that has long belonged to the past.

Human Rights Watch Executive Director Stepping Down, but Remaining Israel-Bashers Stand to Carry on Legacy

HonestReporting has documented HRW’s anti-Israel libels at length; it is an animosity that has culminated in the NGO releasing numerous flawed reports and articles that peddle unfounded accusations.

In July 2021, we deconstructed a 6,500-word report titled, “Gaza: Apparent War Crimes During May Fighting,” which ostensibly detailed an investigation into the actions of the Israel Defense Forces and Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist groups during last year’s conflict that allegedly “resulted in high numbers of civilian casualties and where there was no evident military target.”

We noted that a thorough examination of HRW’s claims revealed the entire foundation upon which the report was constructed used recycled allegations from other unnamed NGOs and The New York Times, and failed to present any concrete evidence to support its accusations.

In addition, we criticized the report’s exoneration of US-designated terrorist group Hamas of all responsibility for deaths that had occurred in Gaza, despite controlling the territory with an iron fist and the well-documented fact that it uses civilians as human shields.

In December 2021, HRW continued its assault on Israel’s legitimacy — this time targeting what it deemed “discriminatory” policing during the May hostilities in which Arab Israelis carried out what many described as “pogroms” against Jews and their property.

The wave of antisemitic violence in cities including Lod, Acre, Jaffa, and Haifa was followed by a handful of attacks by Jewish extremists, who were denounced by Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum.

Yet, according to data from the Fire and Rescue Services, Arab violence against Jews formed the vast majority of assaults.

HRW chose to ignore these salient facts in its 5,000-word analysis, “Israel: Abusive Policing in Lod During May Hostilities,” and instead relied entirely on controversial pro-Palestinian sources to conclude that police had “forcibly” dispersed “Palestinians protesting peacefully.”

This, as Hamas-encouraged riots saw Arab Israelis set fire to at least 10 synagogues, 112 Jewish-owned homes, and 849 cars in the space of just five days.

Outside of his work leading HRW and overseeing the production of its anti-Israel propaganda, Roth has demonstrated his personal enmity towards the Jewish state on numerous occasions.

An epitaph for IfNotNow

IfNotNow, the hate-Israel group that used to be able to grab headlines and not much else, had been in serious trouble for a while now.

We noted last October that the group sent out a mailing to its list, asking its own people why it should exist and trying to figure out what it should do next.

Yet a look at their website shows that they have been floundering for a while. They haven't issued a press release for over a year. Their blog hasn't been updated since August 2020. And they haven't updated their news section since 2019! Even Jewish Currents noted last year that the group was imploding.

On their Facebook page, to kick off 2022, they started a fundraiser to raise $40,000 for "leading our community to reject apartheid and embrace equality, dignity, and safety for all."

They did not get a single donation.

Today, anti-Israel group IfNotNow's co-founder quit the group. He says there is a new leadership team, but they are nowhere to be found in their webpage.

On that webpage, however, they have a section describing their "principles." One of their twelve principles is the vague, and vaguely egocentric, "We show up for ourselves." And within the description they say, "We acknowledge the existence of anti-Jewish oppression, in the world and in ourselves."

The have always recognized that they are antisemitic!

This is a fitting epitaph for the childish, full-of-themselves, antisemitic hate group.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/29 Links Pt1: Phillips: The betrayal over the Iranian bomb; Glick: No one to talk to in Washington; Airbrushing Jews out of Jerusalem

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The betrayal over the Iranian bomb

As a State Department report observed last week: “Serious concerns remained outstanding regarding possible undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,” and noted that the Islamic Republic had “not fully cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is trying to investigate possible secret nuclear activity at four sites around the country”.

Moreover, as Andrea Stricker and Anthony Ruggiero write for the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies: “The Biden administration has failed at each quarterly IAEA Board of Governors meeting to recommend that the body censure Iran for its restrictions on IAEA monitoring, non-cooperation with a separate IAEA investigation into Tehran’s undeclared nuclear activities, and flagrant nuclear escalations — the majority of which have occurred on the Biden administration’s watch”.

Now the Israelis are talking to the Biden team about a “Plan B” following the likely collapse of a deal. But the awful logic of the team’s approach is that the United States won’t move on from the 2015 agreement but will treat it as a kind of zombie deal—neither dead nor alive.

As Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies told Benny Avni of The New York Sun, the more likely outcome is “a ‘plan C’: not announce that the talks have collapsed, but also not revert to pressure” on Iran.

The big lie about the Obama-Biden courtship of Iran is that this was intended to prevent it from getting the bomb. It wasn’t. It was to conceal what the United States had decided was inevitable — an Iranian nuclear weapon — because it intended to do nothing to stop it.

So does Israel have its own plan? We can only hope.

Caroline B. Glick: No one to talk to in Washington

In summary, both the content of the nuclear deal that Biden seeks to achieve and the administration's permissive responses to illicit Iranian nuclear and terror operations make clear that Biden's true object is to facilitate Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons and hegemonic power, even at the expense of US allies, strategic interests and national security.

This returns us to Tuesday's report that the Biden administration may be ready to pull the plug on nuclear negotiations and on achieving a new deal to limit Iran's nuclear operations. While it is clear that Biden's desired diplomatic end state is to get a new nuclear agreement with Iran that may extend Iran's nuclear breakout time from a few weeks to four to six months at the outside, it's possible that the administration may be willing to see Iran become a nuclear breakout state outside an agreement. While this is clearly not Biden's preferred outcome, Biden and his advisors may believe that it could be politically advantageous for them going into the midterm elections in November.

If Iran crosses the nuclear threshold outside the confines of a nuclear deal, Biden and his advisors may believe that they will be able to blame Trump for the outcome. Since taking office, despite the fact that Iran only began to significantly stepped up its nuclear operations after he was elected, and mainly since he entered office, Biden and his advisors have been insisting that Trump is responsible for Iran's actions. According to their reasoning, if the US had remained in the nuclear deal, Iran would not have begun breaching its commitments to restrain its nuclear behavior.

As for Israel, the Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government gives the impression that Israel's leaders think Biden's rhetoric is more important than his actual policies. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his partners like Biden's attacks against Trump because those attacks are aligned with their own attacks on former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Almost every day since forming their government last May, Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and their colleagues have insisted that had Netanyahu not proved to Trump that Iran was breaching the 2015 deal and that the Iranians had lied to the Americans about their intentions, Trump wouldn't have abandoned Obama's nuclear deal and Iran wouldn't be weeks from nuclear breakout.

Although reports of sabotage of Iranian nuclear and drone installations still pop up from time to time, the volume of reports has dropped precipitously since last May. Upon entering office, the Bennett-Lapid government promised the US total transparency in Israel's operations in Iran. The implication was that Bennett and Lapid were giving the administration veto power over Israel's operations.

With the precipitous drop in offensive activities against Iran's nuclear installations, the Iranians now feel free to expend less effort protecting their nuclear installations and more time using them to develop nuclear weapons.

Without effective inspections on Iran's nuclear and missile sites, it is hard to know just where Iran stands in terms of moving from breakout capacity to an actual nuclear arsenal. Israel estimates it will take Iran a year or two to move from where it ostensibly stands today on the brink of independent capacity to develop and deploy nuclear weapons to actually possessing deployable nuclear weapons.

Despite the uncertainly about when precisely Iran will become a nuclear power, what is absolutely certain is that so long as the Biden administration remains in power, Israel's leaders' faith in Washington endangers its existential interests.

MEMRI: Iran Speaks Bluntly – And We Should Listen Carefully

In an op-ed published in Hebrew on April 15, 2022 by the Israeli daily Haaretz,[1] MEMRI Iran Media Studies director Ayelet Savyon and Israeli Knesset Member Ze'ev B. Begin, formerly a Senior Fellow at MEMRI, discussed the recent surge in tough talk by the Iranian leadership , including open mention of Iran's view of nuclear weapons as an essential element of its national security.

The following is the English version of the op-ed.
As the talks between Iran and the countries that are party to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal advance, clearer positions than ever are being voiced in Iran. In light of the U.S. demand for restrictions on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) activity in the Middle East as a condition for lifting the sanctions on Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is now presenting a rejectionist position.

In a March 10 speech to Iran's Assembly of Experts, he explained: "Imagine us having no involvement in the issues of the region, just so a certain superpower does not get upset, and so it will not engage in nit-picking against us. Our involvement in regional issues is our strategic depth. It is a means of strengthening the regime, and a form of military power. Why should we lose it, when we can and should have it?"[2]

In the same speech, Khamenei openly described Iran's development of nuclear capabilities as part of its "arms of power": "The nuclear issue is a scientific issue. It is about scientific progress and our future technology. Soon – it will not take long, just a few years – we will need the product of this nuclear energy, and in full scale.

"People are talking about [the need for] making concessions to America or to others in order to become immune to the sanctions. This means severing this arm of our policy and [giving up] this bargaining chip, so that, God forbid, they won't slap us with sanctions if we display toughness. I believe that these [compromises] are mistakes. If, over the years, the people who want to chop off some of those arms of power had been given permission to do so, our country would be facing great danger today."

Some in Iran have learned a lesson in this vein from the Russian attack on Ukraine. Iranian Passive Defense Organization head Gen. Gholamreza Jalali said on March 6: "One of [Ukraine's] mistakes was that although it is one of the world's nuclear powers, it transferred all its nuclear facilities and capabilities to Europe in exchange for European security and support." Iranian Majlis (parliament) member Mohammad Ka'ab Amir was even clearer; he said on February 26: "Ukraine is an example from which the supporters of the West and the East must learn. We must insist on the nuclear rights of the Iranian people, while preserving [our] national authority and honor, so Iran will be strong, with nuclear and military might."[3]

Palestinian and Iranian media filled with predictions of Israel's demise

It's Quds Day, so that means that there are lots of articles predicting Israel's imminent destruction.

Of course, these predictions have been coming regularly for decades.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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More photos of Palestinian destruction of priceless antiquities on the Temple Mount; Israel Antiquities Authority shrugs it off

Israel Hayom reports:

In a recent letter to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, and Public Security Minister Omer Barlev, attorney and chairman of the Temple Mount Organizations Aviad Visoli claims that the destruction of antiquities on the Temple Mount was similar to the damage the Islamic State did to antiquities at Palmyra when they controlled the city during the Syrian war.

"What our people have seen following the riots on the Temple Mount on Friday and Saturday, April 15-16, 2022, was horrifying. The riots pulled out ancient stones, including sections of columns, and threw them around the Temple Mount," the letter reads.

"Hundreds of antiquities were thrown on the eastern path of the Temple Mount toward the Dome of the Rock, with the purpose of blocking the path to religious Jewish visitors who visit the Mount and circle the Dome of the Rock," it continues.

We've been discussing this since the riots began.

The newspaper shows some examples of the stones being moved and broken, many in an attempt to build roadblocks so Jews cannot walk around the perimeter of the site, especially along the eastern wall where many of the ancient artifacts are piled without protection.

Some of the stones on the eastern side were dumped there when the Waqf excavated the "Solomon's Stables" area underneath the Mount.

The Israel Antiquities Authority response is unbelievable:

Dr. Amit Re'em, the Jerusalem District archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority, responded to Visoli's letter, saying the IAA was handling the issue. Re'em stressed that most of the rocks photographed were modern, and only a few were actually archaeological remnants.

Re'em wrote that it would only be able to conduct a full assessment of damage to Temple Mount antiquities after Ramadan and the recent spate of violence were over. He noted that the IAA was keeping tabs on the situation.

"Only a few"? So that makes it OK somehow?

And forgive me if I'm skeptical about the IAA keeping tabs on the situation, because it allowed the wholesale destruction and removal of 400 truckloads of material from the Temple Mount in the 1990s, the biggest archaeological crime in history.

If the IAA is so blasé about the destruction of the most important Jewish artifacts in the world, why should we expect UNESCO or other organizations to care?

This is a crime, happening right now. Palestinians are knowingly destroying Jewish and Christian archaeological treasures. The IAA should be in the forefront of enforcing Israeli laws in protecting this site, and instead it says that "the IAA and the Waqf were cooperating on archaeological matters."

We can see the fruits of this cooperation in the photos above.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Haaretz reports:

Arab Israelis in West Bank real estate is another trend that began in recent years. In some sense, it is similar to real estate investments overseas that have also sprouted in Israel. A specific trend is investment by Israeli Arabs in Turkish real estate. With prices in Israel increasing wildly, it’s no wonder that Turkey or the West Bank are seen as good alternatives.

The price differentials are definitely alluring. A 100-square-meter apartment in an upscale Ramallah neighborhood could cost between 350,000 and 400,000 shekels (around $105,000-120,000). In Jericho, you can buy a 200-sqaure-meter villa with a 750-square-meter yard with a pool for one million shekels. In other cities, prices are even lower. An apartment in Nablus costing 150,000-200,000 shekels could be a reasonable solution for an Arab family from the Galilee whose son is studying medicine at al-Najah University in Nablus, especially since prices in the West Bank are on their way up.

The flow of Israeli Arabs students to campuses in the West Bank is another reason for buying real estate there. Some estimates put the number of Arab-Israeli students there at 9,000, 5,000 of them at the American University in Jenin, in which private residential buildings have been appearing in recent years, meant for renting out to students. Some apartments there have been purchased by Arab Israelis.

Here are Israeli citizens who are buying and renting properties in Palestinian territories.

No protests. No life imprisonment for the sellers. No talk about "Israeli settlers."

Because they aren't Jewish.

How much more evidence do you need to understand that Palestinians and their supporters are antisemitic? All their claims that they are merely against Israelis and not Jews are proven to be lies by their silence about Israeli Arabs buying, renting or opening businesses across the Green Line.

Moreover, the fact that Israeli Arabs live in the West Bank disproves the other absurd charge that Israel practices "apartheid" against Palestinians.

Let's pretend that one of these Israeli Arabs joins a riot and get arrested for throwing a firebomb. He would not get a trial in a military court but in an Israeli court - just like any other Israeli citizen. The laws that apply to him would be the laws of Israel.

Which proves that all the accusations of "racism" against Israel are lies.

This is why you don't hear much about the Israeli Arabs who have residences in Nablus, or in Ariel, or in French Hill or Beit Safafa - all across the Green Line. Because they destroy the narrative of Israel discriminating against Arabs. They disprove the claims that only Jews live in "settlements" or the lie that there are "Jewish-only roads."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/28 Links Pt2: Jordan's attitude towards Temple Mount is antisemitic and hypocritical; Gal Gadot shares grandfather's harrowing tale during Holocaust

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Growing Integration and Prosperity for Israeli Arabs at Risk from Forces that Crave Victory over Jews

Over the past few weeks there has been sustained rioting on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. From the al-Aqsa mosque, Arabs hurled stones, iron bars and petrol bombs on to Jews worshipping below at the Western Wall. This forced the Israeli police to enter the compound to restore order.

Israel's Arab citizens, who number around 1.9 million, 20% of the population, are different from Palestinian Arabs living in the disputed territories of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, or Gaza. Among Israel's own Arab citizens there has been signs of increasing prosperity and integration in recent years. The Arab Israeli middle class is growing and the share of Arab students at Israeli colleges and universities has nearly doubled over the last 12 years. In 2020, more than 1,000 volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), more than twice the number of previous years.

Yet in May 2021, when Israeli forces were at war with Hamas in Gaza, Arab Israelis rioted in Jaffa, Lod, Acre, Ramle and Haifa, where they had lived peacefully alongside their Jewish neighbors for decades. The mobs burnt synagogues and schools, stoned Jews in more than 5,000 attacks, and set homes and cars on fire. So among Israel's Arabs, both assimilation and radicalization have been simultaneously accelerating.

Jordan's attitude towards Temple Mount is antisemitic and hypocritical - analysis

Just a couple of weeks after Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh expressed enthusiasm for violence against Jews saying he “praises every Palestinian and Jordanian Islamic Wakf worker... who throws rocks at the pro-Zionists,” Amman submitted a paper to Washington to complain about Israel’s actions on the Temple Mount.

Jordan claimed Israel is violating the “historic status quo,” and seeks to have the Wakf take charge of visits by non-Muslims and have as big of a staff as it wants. It also does not like Israel using the term “freedom of worship” when referring to the site, because they view it as implying Jews may pray there.

It reeks of hypocrisy for Jordan to complain that Israel is violating the “historic status quo,” while at the same time asking to change that very same status quo in order to give the Wakf that it funds more control.

But beyond that very obvious oxymoron, there is the question of what the “historic status quo” means. The Hashemite dynasty has been the custodian of Jerusalem’s holy sites since 1924. The 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan says Israel committed to “respect the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem.” Is the entire Temple Mount a Muslim holy shrine, or just al-Aqsa?

Some reports say Jordan wants to go back to the status quo of the year 2000. Non-Muslims were free to visit the Temple Mount for most of 2000, however. Not many did, but they could. It was only after PLO chairman Yasser Arafat decided to use the Temple Mount visit by then-Likud MKs Ariel Sharon and (little-known fact) Reuven Rivlin as an excuse to launch the pre-planned Intifada in September 2000, that the site was closed to Jews.

Perhaps the most telling part of all when it comes to Jordan’s position is the complaint about Israel using the term “freedom of worship” because – God forbid! – those Jews might get the idea that they can pray. They might even think that they’re in charge of Jerusalem. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Israel will not discuss Temple Mount with Jordan after incitement – official

Israel will not hold discussions with Jordan about the status quo on the Temple Mount in the coming weeks in light of Amman’s incitement against Israel, a senior Israeli diplomatic official said on Thursday.

The official referred to Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh’s praise for Palestinians who physically attacked Israelis amid rioting on the Temple Mount, and spoke after Jordan submitted a paper to the US calling for Israel to relinquish control of the holy site.

Though Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Jordanian King Abdullah II ahead of the Muslim month of Ramadan to try to lower tensions, Israel views Jordan as having been obstructive to the aim of bringing calm to Jerusalem in recent weeks, especially in light of Khasawneh’s remarks amid Palestinian rioting when Passover and Ramadan coincided.

As such, Israel does not plan to hold discussions about the Temple Mount with Jordan, the senior diplomatic source said, until a series of potential dates for Palestinian terrorist groups to incite violence in the coming weeks come to an end: the last Friday of Ramadan this week, Independence Day on May 5, Nakba Day on May 15, and Jerusalem Day on May 29.

“We’re not talking about anything other than getting through this time quietly and peacefully,” said the source, adding that Washington did not convey Amman’s demands to Jerusalem, and is trying to reduce tension over the Temple Mount. People gather around the Dome of the Rock, in the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City October 28, 2021 (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD) People gather around the Dome of the Rock, in the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City October 28, 2021 (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)

Jordan told the US it demands that Israel respect the “historic status quo” at the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, on top of which al-Aqsa Mosque was built.

Among Jordan’s demands was that Israel end restrictions on the number of staff members from the Jerusalem Islamic Wakf, and put the Wakf in charge of all visits by non-Muslims.

Visits to the Temple Mount have grown more popular among Jews in recent years, with a record 4,625 Jews ascending the holy site during Passover. Jordan views the increased number of visitors as a violation of the status quo.

Arabs admired Nazi Germany - not in spite of genocide but because of it

Here are some newspaper clippings on how the Arab world supported Nazis after their defeat.

The Daily Times-News, Burlington NC, Thursday, August 28, 1958:

Edmonton Journal, Alberta, Canada, 22 Feb 1960:

The Jordanian English language daily, Jerusalem Times, published the following "Open Letter to Eichmann" on April 24, 1961:

Dear Eichmann,
1 address you in your glass cell to extend a word of sympathy in your present plight. German genius that has invented sputniks and missiles and all sorts of things has failed to inspire you to avert the disaster that has befallen you.
What a pity Eichmann that you allowed those swine to arrest you and stage their drama. But don't worry Eichmann it will in the end fall on their heads.
Listen Eichmann you are accused of dissimating (sic) six million of this breed. Whether this is correct or not it is not our object to debate this issue but what we like to say is this if you actually managed to liquidate six million of them and if the remaining six million have been instrumental in inflicting so much havoc and suffering on the Arabs and disgorging them from their homes we wonder what would have been the result if the dissimated (sic) six million would have been allowed to survive. It is likely that a similar drama would have been staged in another part of the Arab countries. So that by liquidating six millions you have minimized the extent of the calamity and conferred a real blessing on humanity. You can imagine dear Eichmann the feelings of the million or so of Arab refugees at this drama. . .

The object of this trial is simply to attract more tourists to the occupied section and to exploit it for fund raising and for skinning the rest of mankind.
But be brave Eichmann find solace in the fact that this trial will one day culminate in the liquidation of the remaining six million to avenge your blood and the manner in which you have been kidnapped and brought to trial by the very same people who tortured and ejected a million or so from their homes.

Similarly, from the same source:

In the Lebanese paper al-Anwar of June 9, 1960, there was a caricature showing Ben-Gurion and Eichmann shouting at each other. The text below the drawing is as follows:

Ben-Gurion: "You deserve the death penalty for killing six million Jews."
Eichmann: "There are many who argue that I deserve the death penalty for not finishing the job."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Activist Documenting All Apartheid In Israel Exhausts Research In 12 Minutes, Seeks Suggestions For Stuff To Do Rest Of Month (PreOccupied Teritory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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floating in Dead Sea Tel Aviv, April 28 - The holder of a fellowship from a human-rights-monitoring NGO came to the Jewish State several days ago to conduct a comprehensive survey of the race-based discrimination and segregation policies that his organization insists the country maintains against the non-Jewish population within its borders, but has discovered that after recording every remotely credible manifestation of the phenomenon that he can identify, he still has twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, and forty-eight minutes remaining in the thirty-day fact-gathering portion of the project, and has begun soliciting recommendations from locals and friends abroad regarding what sites, activities, or experiences to pursue with all that free time.

Grant Rider, 23, arrived in Israel last week on sponsored mission from Human Rights Watch and instructions from the latter to observe Israeli society, government, politics, law enforcement, and public policy, with a specific focus on each institution, law, or policy that features apartheid. Mr. Rider began his research as soon as his flight landed, attempting to discern whether passport control, customs, or other official functions at Ben-Gurion International Airport discriminated against incoming travelers by race - only to discover that the largely-automated processes involve none. His observational powers then turned to looking for apartheid in baggage claim, COVID testing, and transportation away from the airport, again with nothing to document. By the time Rider's formal research began two days later, following a brief recuperation from jetlag, he had conducted upwards of two dozen conversations with visitors, citizens, and residents of multiple races, none of whom could point him to apartheid.

"I know it's supposed to be rampant," the puzzled researcher acknowledged. "So I figured it should be easy to spot. But nope. I know a lot of activists like to go on about Israeli apartheid, but the only 'discrimination' I've been able to find is between citizens and non-citizens, which is what every country on Earth does. If it's race-based, I'm having a hard time seeing how two million Arabs with full citizenship and voting rights, welfare, healthcare, the whole package - how that represents apartheid. Palestinians are citizens of Palestine, or the Palestinian Authority, whatever you want to call it, so that's not race-based but citizenship-based, as I said. Is this one of those things where we change the long-established definition of a term so we can paint Israel as violating it, like we did with 'seller-colonialism,' 'ethnic cleansing,' and 'genocide'? Maybe I missed the e-mail, but my job here is done, and I have more than four weeks until I have to fly back and write up my findings. I hear the Dead Sea is good."

Rider explained that Human Rights Watch leadership reacted with dismay to the negligible tangible effect that the Amnesty International report labeling Israel and apartheid state earlier this year has had in the real world, other than undermining the credibility of human rights groups themselves. His assignment, therefore, aims to present what HRW hopes will produce an "objective" verdict that supports the Apartheid charge, and as such did not predicate his instructions on tendentious anti-Israel axioms, with results predictable to anyone outside the circle of mutually-parroting activists who populate the human rights industry.

"I'd like to go visit the Temple Mount, maybe," he suggested. "Only Muslims are allowed to pray there, which is the kind of apartheid I guess my bosses are OK with."

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04/28 Links Pt1: Bennett: Holocaust memory is part of Jews’ DNA, passed from generation to generation; Irwin Cotler: Holocaust Remembrance Day: 6 lessons in memory of the 6 million

From Ian:

Bennett: Holocaust memory is part of Jews’ DNA, passed from generation to generation

For Jews, Holocaust memory is genetic, passed from generation to generation, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said during a memorial ceremony in the Knesset on Thursday as part of a series of events to mark Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“The memory of the Holocaust is not just a memory but a layer, part of the DNA that is passed down from generation to generation,” Bennett said.

The head of Germany’s parliament, along with the prime minister, President Isaac Herzog and other Israeli officials, lit a memorial candle in the Knesset for the ceremony.

“I bow my head with humility and shame in face of the Holocaust victims,” Bundestag President Barbel Bas said in German ahead of the official Knesset ceremony “Unto Every Person There is a Name,” during which the names of Nazi genocide victims were read aloud.

“It is forbidden for us to forget and we will not forget,” she said. “From our historical guilt stems a commitment. It is upon us to fight resolutely against antisemitism in all of its forms, and it is upon us to preserve the [victims’] memory, and to pass on their memory to the younger generations.”

Likud MK Ophir Akunis said during the ceremony that he will not forgive the Germans for the Holocaust.

“Others may be able to forgive the Germans,” he said in Hebrew, after addressing Bas briefly in English, noting that 97 percent of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki, where his family hails from, was killed in the Holocaust. “I do not forget or forgive, nor will I forgive this act of pure evil, ever.”

But Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy called Bas’s participation in the Israeli parliament’s ceremonies for Holocaust Remembrance Day, which began Wednesday evening, “a significant and important expression of the special connection that exists between the countries, for the historical responsibility that Germany took for the war crimes, and Germany’s commitment to Israel’s security.”

Please take the 2 mins to watch these jarring, haunting and indescribably powerful opening remarks from President of Israel @Isaac_Herzog, speaking at the official #YomHaShoh Holocaust ceremony at @yadvashem tonight. pic.twitter.com/B4iIP9QN8T
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) April 27, 2022

Irwin Cotler: Holocaust Remembrance Day: 6 lessons in memory of the 6 million

I write on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day – a poignant moment of remembrance and reminder – of bearing witness, of learning and acting upon the endearing and universal lessons of the Holocaust.

I write also as a member of the Coalition of Special Envoys to Combat Antisemitism, convening now in Jerusalem – and having just visited Yad Vashem – where we have borne witness to horrors too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened.

I write also amid the international drumbeat of evil, including the Russian crime of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Ukraine; amid the ongoing mass atrocities targeting the Uighurs, Rohingya, Afghans and Africans; China’s multi-pronged assault on the rules-based order; the increasing imprisonment of human rights defenders and the culture of impunity accompanying it – the whole amid an ongoing international bystander community.

And I write also amid a global resurgence of antisemitic acts, assault and violence, where for example, the annual audit of antisemitism acts in Canada, just released by the League for Human Rights of B’nai B’rith, has reported the highest annual escalation in the last 40 years; where the annual audit of the Anti-Defamation League, also just released, has reported similar findings in the US, with both highlighting a dramatic increase in antisemitic violence; and where the North American experience is paralleled by similar findings in Europe.

And so, at this critical historical moment we must ask ourselves: What have we learned in the last 80 years – and more importantly, what must we do?

As we remember the victims of the Holocaust – defamed, demonized and dehumanized as prologue and justification for their killing – we must understand that the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews is not a matter of abstract statistics.

As we say at these moments of remembrance, “Unto each person there is a name, each person has an identity, each person is a universe.” Thus, the abiding universal imperative: we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.

Never again? World response to Putin shows tragic failure to act on lessons of WWII

As Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is impossible not to consider, when looking back at the Nazi genocide eight decades ago, what is unfolding in Ukraine right now — in a part of that same Europe where Jews were murdered in the millions.

Addressing the German parliament last month, Ukraine’s redoubtable president, Volodymyr Zelensky, argued bitterly that the phrase “never again” was being proven meaningless. “Every year, politicians repeat ‘never again,’” he noted. Now, with his country and people being “destroyed,” he lamented, “we see that these words simply mean nothing.”

In fact, from the Israeli and Jewish perspective, “never again” is a potent and credible commitment.

The Holocaust was rightly defined by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in his Wednesday night remembrance speech as “an unprecedented event in human history… Even the most serious wars today are not the Holocaust and are not like the Holocaust,” he went on, evidently alluding in part to Ukraine. “No event in history, cruel as it may have been, compares to the destruction of Europe’s Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.”

In the aftermath of the Nazi genocide, Israel has striven, through almost three-quarters of a century of statehood, to ensure that it can guarantee the survival and safety of the Jewish people — as their homeland and their refuge. And it has succeeded far beyond any reasonable expectation.

The initial international incoherent reaction to Russia’s invasion was a barely needed reminder that “the world” will not easily lift a finger to save nations and peoples threatened with devastation. Israel’s survival, its thriving in the face of new would-be genocidal enemies led by Iran, represents an extraordinary, independent and vital response to that reality.

“Israel is the best thing that’s happened to the Jews,” said the Romanian Holocaust survivor who addressed a Zikaron Basalon (“parlor remembrance”) event I attended on Wednesday night, speaking with passionate clarity at the conclusion of her harrowing story. “We need to protect it, and never take it for granted.”

Fumbling for the appropriate response
More broadly, however, Zelensky’s lament is an all-too valid indictment of the post-World War II international order.

Watching and anticipating Ukraine’s seemingly inevitable quashing by Russia, countries responded as their narrow interests dictated — and continue to do so as the war rolls bloodily on. Their leaders balance their nation’s and their people’s direct needs — for security, economic stability, fuel, wheat, et al — with their sense of moral imperative, and fumble toward what they consider an appropriate response to Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s plight.

But no international mechanism was galvanized to deter Putin — not NATO, and certainly not the politicized, morally debased United Nations. And no concerted international mechanism has yet mobilized to stop his killings.

This, despite the solemn guarantees of the international community to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence under the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, concluded after Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Its first clause states: “The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

Looked at today, the multiple clauses of that document read like a particularly foul joke, and a supreme incentive for nuclear arms. Trampled by Putin, they stand as an indictment of international diplomacy and ostensible commitment.

From the vantage point of Zelensky and Ukraine, those broken guarantees underline why “never again” has indeed sounded like empty rhetoric. They showcase the central challenge that the international community, which established the United Nations after World War II precisely to prevent war and maintain international peace and security, has failed to meet.

In 1938, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Johannes Stark published a paper in Nature, called "The Pragmatic and the Dogmatic Spirit in Physics."

In that paper he argues that there are two types of mindset among physicists:

I have come to recognize that there are two main types of mental attitude among workers in the field of physics.
The pragmatic spirit, from which have sprung the creations of successful discoverers both past and present, is directed towards reality ; its aim is to ascertain the laws governing already known phenomena and to discover new phenomena and bodies as yet unknown.

The physicist of the dogmatic school operates in quite a different manner in the field of physics. He starts out from ideas that have arisen primarily in his own brain, or from arbitrary definitions of relationships between symbols to which a general and so also a physical significance can be ascribed.

As one reads the paper, one sees that Stark has a marked preference for the "pragmatic" school and hi8s special loathing for Einstein.

Finally, towards the end, he comes to his point:

I have taken the field against the dogmatic spirit in Germany because I have been able to observe repeatedly its crippling and damaging effect on the development of physical research in this country. In this conflict I have also directed my efforts against the damaging influence of Jews in German science, because I regard them as the chief exponents and propagandists of the dogmatic spirit.
This reference brings me to the national aspects of the mental outlook of men of science in research. It can be adduced from the history of physics that the founders of research in physics, and the great discoverers from Galileo and Newton to the physical pioneers of our own time, were almost exclusively Aryans, predominantly of the Nordic race. From this we may conclude that the predisposition towards pragmatic thinking occurs most frequently in men of the Nordic race. If we examine the originators, representatives and propagandists of modern dogmatic theories, we find amongst them a preponderance of men of Jewish descent. If we remember, in addition, that Jews played a decisive part in the foundation of theological dogmatism, and that the authors and propagandists of Marxian and communistic dogmas are for the most part Jews, we must establish and recognize the fact that the natural inclination to dogmatic thought appears with especial frequency in people of Jewish origin.

This was published in one of the most prestigious science journals, which remains respected today!

For its part, Nature published a tepid statement slightly distancing itself from the article:

"At the moment we make no comments upon the views expressed by Professor Stark; and we gladly give him the opportunity of making them known to the scientific world. We should, however, be surprised if the limitations which these new principles impose . . . are generally accepted as the highest or the best means of promoting the advancement of natural knowledge."

But in the end they "gladly" published the ravings of an antisemitic, pro-Nazi fanatic.

Anyone who thinks that science is objective and impervious to hate needs to read about this episode.

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A Jewish ethics professor in 1893 blamed Jews for American antisemitism

Dr. Felix Adler (1851-1933) was a well-known chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University who was also the rector for the Ethical Culture School. The son of a popular Reform rabbi, he believed that the world needs a universal religion does away with God and concentrates on ethical teachings.

He was a social justice warrior before its time, supporting the popular social causes of the day.

He was quite opposed to antisemitism. He lectured about it at Carnegie Hall in 1897, saying that it was "un-Christian," and emphasizing the evils of stereotyping people.

But in 1893, speaking at a Jewish venue in New York, he pretty much blamed American antisemitism on its victims - doing what he would later decry himself by characterizing Jews as unrefined, loud and obnoxious.

He said that German antisemitism at the time was the result of nationalism gone amok, but American antisemitism came from social factors - and if American antisemites hated Jews, it must be at least partially the Jews' fault.

In this country the opposition to the Jew is not on account of his race or religion, as there is no country on the face of God's earth where the freedom to worship according to the dictates of conscience is so respected. Jews are opposed here principally from social reasons, and in keeping with that unrest which is tending to the improvement of the world in everything. It cannot be denied that Jews are despised and condemned in this country, and there must be a reason for it.

When I am injured, what should do? Should I return like for like? No. That is the reasoning of the ancients. |I should inquire if there is not a cause in me that led to the injury. As Jews we are bound to ask ourselves what it is that makes the anti-Semitic feeling in the United States.

A few ignorant persons may find fault with thé Jew because of his religion, but the great evil is that Jews have made themselves unpopular because of their habits. They lack reserve, modesty of behavior, talk loudly in public places, grab for the best of everything among others, by the lack of good manners do not consider the rights of others and render themselves obnoxious in other ways. Jews have many admirable qualities: They are temperate, domestic, virtuous aad law abiding, but the evil that they do makes the greatest impression. It is the 'loudness' of Jews that makes them disliked, and there's often good ground for the complaint.

It is said that Jews are a menace to American institutions, There will be a reform movement to take politics out of the hands of politicians and turn the city's affairs over to those who do not make a living of it, who will give the city what is needed in the way of improvements. Now, if the Russian Jews, who will join the reform party, cast 20,000 votes for good government, they will show that they are good citizens and prove that they are in favor of the republic.

Jews must cultivate self-respect, not pride, by the study of Jewish literature and history and show that they are proud of the title of gentleman. Then they will be welcomed everywhere as worthy members of society.

This philosophy echoes today among the intelligentsia, who say that only if Israel acts the way they say is refined and moral, the world will accept it and embrace it. It isn't up to Jews to decide how to act.

Other minorities must be allowed to act however they want because it is prejudiced to demand that they change their ways. Other groups cannot be judged according to the standards of others. Hate for other groups is irrational and terrible. But Jews must act as their critics say they should act, otherwise those who hate them are justified.

The bigotry is the same as it ever was. It is just dressed up in nice language.

(New York Recorder, reproduced in the Selma [Alabama] Times, June 18, 1893)

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The Holocaust was well documented even by 1943, but the world didn't care

In August, 1943, small items appeared in some American newspapers indicating that, by the way, 3,000,000 Jews had been murdered so far during the war.

The 300 page report by the Institute for Jewish Affairs was remarkably detailed, indicating that the news of the Holocaust was getting out - but no one besides Jews cared to listen.

Titled "Hitler's Ten Year War on the Jews," it goes through every country and every region in Nazi-occupied Europe and describes what happened to the people there.

It even includes counts of deaths and deportations by country as of 1943.

The New York Times reproduced this table in their one column article on this report - on page 7.

The report authors knew about gas chambers too, although not the details nor the extent of their use:

From an eyewitness who had been in Treblinka B, known throughout Poland as the “slaughterhouse,” has come a detailed account accompanied by a map. The camp of Treblinka B, which lies conveniently close to a railroad siding that receives transports directly from Warsaw, is the main extermination center where most of the Jews of Warsaw, and many from other ghettos have been murdered. When the victims arrived, they were told that they were in a quarantine distribution center for labor camps. On this excuse, they were ordered to undress for disinfection. They then were driven to the death house, a concrete windowless structure containing several chambers lined with steam pipes. Women and children first, the Germans ordered. The floors are wet, slippery; the victims fall, and others pile in on top of them. When the chambers have been packed to capacity, they are hermetically sealed, and the hot steam is released through the pipe-vents.

In short, no one can claim that the West was ignorant about the genocide of Europe's Jews. The media and the politicians knew very well. They chose not to do anything, or to portray the Jews pleading for help as exaggerating.

Jews cannot rely on others for their safety.

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04/27 Links Pt2: What have we really learned from Yom Ha’Shoah?; What do we mean when we say, 'never again'?; Does Netflix Have a Problem With Israel?

From Ian:

Dani Dayan: We're all obligated to remember the victims of the Holocaust

"Dear Berthe, this is already the fourth day. I am on the train car now. I hope, my child, that you will be able to live as a free person, even though, for now, you are without your parents. I'm traveling in the confidence that you will grow up to be a good, healthy, and smart girl. I hope to see you again soon, your father." These were the final words Aaron Livrente wrote to his daughter in March 1943, before throwing the letter from the train that had departed the Drancy internment camp in France for the Majdanek death camp in Poland, where he was murdered.

This year, the central focus of Holocaust Remembrance Day is the transport of Jews during the Holocaust. Within the framework of the "Final Solution," the Nazis and their collaborators uprooted millions of Jews from their homes and sent them to their deaths on trains destined for the death camps, ghettos, and concentration camps.

These deportations tore exiled Jews from the world of the humane, robbing them eternally of all they had known. This systematic operation was a historic event that destroyed Jewish communities – most of them entirely. The crowdedness and lack of basic conditions on the train cars were insufferable. Many found their deaths on these tortuous journeys. Some attempted to pass information to their loved ones in various ways, writing letters on pieces of paper they threw from the cars in the hopes they would somehow be found and delivered.

Others tried escaping by jumping from the trains. Few survived; many more died or were caught and turned in to the Germans by locals.

For many Jews, the deportations marked the beginning of the end. Every boy or girl, grandmother or grandfather, woman or man on those train cars – was a human being. A human being with names, desires, and aspirations.

Ruthie Blum: What do we mean when we say, 'never again'?

For one thing, most Israelis are too concerned with their personal safety in the face of shootings, stabbings, car-rammings, and Molotov cocktails to worry about the purity of their souls and adherence to an unrealistic "rules of engagement" doctrine.

For another, the very real possibility of a nuclear Islamic Republic is both looming and concrete, with Iranian forces and proxies stationed along Israel's borders.

Israelis are aware as well that Tehran is among those fanning the violent fervor of young Arabs desecrating their cherished Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by spreading the lie that Israeli forces are "storming" and "defiling" it.

Such pressing security threats, with no end in sight, help to explain the results of a poll released this week by the Pnima movement. According to the survey, conducted by Direct Polls, nearly half of the Israeli public, 47%, fears another Holocaust against the Jews.

To be sure, this level of existential anxiety may be misplaced or a function of general dread on the part of a certain slice of society. Still, given the steep rise in global Jew-hatred, coupled with the spike in terrorism against Israelis and the P5+1 countries' desperation to return to a deal that fills Iran's coffers and guarantees its ayatollah-led regime an arsenal of atomic bombs, it's not completely irrational. It's especially understandable when explicit calls for the extermination of the Jews have become so commonplace inside Israel and abroad.

Nevertheless, doomsday scenarios are not constructive. They certainly aren't conducive to a "never again" mindset or outcome, both of which require internal resolve and military might.

The same applies to those Israelis who opt to learn the wrong lessons from the Holocaust. Embracing the bogus comparison between Hitler's "final solution" and other conflicts is as ill-fated as believing that a repeat performance is inevitable. And even entertaining the idea that the Jewish state is on some kind of slippery slope to Nazism – when it's forced to defend itself against the terrorists in its midst and beyond its shores – is immoral.

These are the messages that should be going through our heads when we stand in silence on Thursday morning for the two-minute sirens that will sound everywhere in the country. Reminding ourselves of their value is the least we can do to honor the dead, pay tribute to the survivors, and mean it when we say "never again."

What have we really learned from Yom Ha’Shoah?

In my mind, Yom Ha’Shoah is not a day for crying… it’s a day for learning… which is permitted during the month of Nissan. Just 12 days before Yom Ha’Shoah – at the seder table – we sang “Ve’hee sheh’amda”. Did you pay attention to those words, especially the line that says; “In every generation they stand ready to destroy us…”??? Sadly, most Jews forget and think that all of the bad days are behind them. Nazis in Europe… who would have imagined? Hamas in Israel? Not possible. Skinheads in America? Not here. Pogroms in Paris? Maybe a long time ago. Therefore, Yom Ha’Shoah comes along to teach, to remind, to educate and to wake up a sleeping nation.

Even in Israel, a major wake-up call is needed. People tend to think that the bad guys are just in Gaza but the last month saw an unfortunate wave of terror from Arabs who lived in Jenin, Jerusalem and even Israeli-Arab citizens from cities near Hadera and Netanya. We had terror attacks from Bedouin Arabs (but I thought they just live in tents and take care of their sheep?) and also from religious Arabs celebrating their holy festival (no comment). There was terror in Hebron but also in Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv… and yes, during Pesach there were missiles fired from Gaza into Sderot.

Wake up, my brothers and sisters! Wake up NOW!!! Yom Ha’Shoah is not just the day to remember the past… it’s a day to focus on the present and the future. The enemy is alive and well and we must unite in our efforts to defeat it, sooner than later.

Therefore, on this 27th of Nissan – and the days after it as well – help strengthen the Jewish nation in any way you can. If your area of expertise is davening, then daven that Hashem pour His wrath upon those nations who oppress us (another line from the Haggadah…). If your specialty is learning then dedicate your Torah study to the IDF fighters on the front lines fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and all of our enemies.

And finally, on this day, decide that enough is enough and you – and your family - are joining the fight yourselves. Make the commitment, if you are not here already, that your future is in Eretz Yisrael to build, settle and defend the Land of Israel as long as Hashem gives you strength. Trust me that, according to all opinions, that is a Yom Ha’Shoah worth commemorating, even in the month of Nissan.