Thursday, January 04, 2024

01/04 Links Pt2: Do You Have Any Other Place to Live?; The Book That Saw October 7 Coming From a Mile Away; Sharansky: A Dictator Can't Bring Peace to Gaza

From Ian:

Gadi Taub: Do You Have Any Other Place to Live?
It’s hard to understand what Israel is going through without taking measure of the yawning chasm between Israel’s patriotic citizenry and its progressive elites. For most Israelis, a powerful instinct of self-preservation kicked in on Oct. 7, and they responded with the rage and determination one would expect from a healthy society. Israel’s progressive elites also responded as one would expect: Regaining their balance after the initial shock, they fell back on their usual wariness of patriotism. For them, the instinct of self-preservation itself is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

This chasm has vast political implications, though it’s not, itself, strictly political. This is why it can be elusive. But it was captured with force in a one-minute-and-47-second excerpt from a TV interview. The interview with Galit Valdman, the mother of IDF Major Ariel Ben-Moshe, who fell on Oct. 7, was conducted by journalist Ilana Dayan. A screenwriter could not have done a better job of conveying so much about Israel’s current state of mind with so little dialogue. It’s worth looking at closely, line by line.

Ilana Dayan is the unrivaled star of Israeli highbrow broadcast journalism. She’s the anchor of Israel’s most influential investigative journalism show, Uvda (Fact), roughly equivalent to CBS’ 60 Minutes. She embodies the spirit of Israel’s progressive elites not just in the views she expresses but also in her persona. She wears sparse makeup and rimless glasses, and she sports a crisp Ashkenazi, modern Israeli accent, which flows softly and effortlessly in well-formed sentences. But not so much this time.

Granted, it’s never easy to interview the close relatives of recently fallen soldiers. The media’s hunger for the sensational is at odds with ordinary decency, and it is a delicate act to straddle the contradiction. But Dayan is a true master of the genre. With her unassuming appearance and soft demeanor, she bestows a veneer of journalistic dignity on what is, in fact, media voyeurism. She therefore did not start this conversation as so many others may have, with a hushed “So how are you?” Rather, she signaled awareness of the danger of vulgarity. “Is there any point in asking you how you are?” she said.

Valdman, who seemed to sense where this was going, just said, “Yes.” So Dayan went ahead.

Ilana Dayan: How are you?

Galit Valdman: Very proud.

That answer was clearly unexpected. Dayan hoped to elicit a display of emotions. But she didn’t miss a beat, coming back with what sounded like a subtle reprimand:
Andrew Pessin: The Book That Saw October 7 Coming From a Mile Away
Richard Landes's "Can the Whole World be Wrong?"

‘Caliphators’ advocating for the global triumph of Islam see Western values as signs of weakness and decadence. A new book argues that too many Western thinkers, championing progressive liberalism, insist on proving them right.

When it’s all over, when Israel is gone, the Jews are gone, the world as we thought we knew it is gone, this is the book people will read in order to understand what happened. Landes is a medieval historian, an expert on millennial apocalyptic movements, which gives him a unique perspective on current affairs. This book attempts to bring you into that perspective and, to the degree that it is successful, suddenly everything might look different to you, like the gestalt switch in perceiving the ambiguous image, the beautiful young woman suddenly yielding to the crone. Once seen, however, you can’t unsee it, and you will now see so many current events through its lens, including the October 7 massacre by Hamas.

And it will terrify you.

Or at least that’s its aim.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that this book saw October 7 coming from a mile away. But since it is too deep and wide-ranging to do it justice in a short review, I will just highlight a few points, noting only that Landes supports everything with extensive documentation from a wide variety of sources, including Islamic texts historical and contemporary, public media across the Islamic world including sermons, and scholarly lectures and works. In short, it aims to turn everything you think you understand about the Jews, Islam, and the West upside-down—because it exposes how “lethal [activist] journalism” inverts reality in the ways it portrays these issues and conflicts, which in turn informs the left-leaning, progressive mindset largely in charge of Western policymaking. In so doing the book argues that we have been profoundly and dangerously misled by the Western mainstream media, which turns out, in the end, to be working in service to a globalist Islamist movement that in fact seeks to destroy not only the Jews but the West, including those same media.

So, can “the whole world be wrong” about Islam and its relation to the West in general, and about the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular that is at the heart of this book (or as I prefer to call it, to highlight its complexity, the Israeli-Palestinian-Jewish-Arab-Muslim Conflict)?

Landes writes:
As a result of a confluence of intellectual trends (postmodernism, postcolonialism, anti-Orientalism …) the role of honor-shame motivations in key [Arab] decision-making in this conflict since the Oslo Accords has been systematically ignored. Indeed the entire ‘Peace Process’ was predicated on the rational, positive-sum assumption that, offered the right deal, the Palestinians will say yes. As a result, scholars and policymakers alike have ignored abundant evidence of a limbic captivity to honor concerns among Arab patriarchal elites.

So begins not merely an ordinary strategic analysis of the conflict but something more like a theoretical exegesis. Landes takes the reader through the “premodern mindset” of “zero-sum honor,” which produces a contemporary “Caliphator” apocalyptic millennial movement, one which believes that “in our day, in this generation, Islam will triumph over all other religions and establish a global Caliphate.” He contrasts that with the modern Western enlightened “positive-sum” mindset that produces the familiar liberal values of individual autonomy, freedoms, and rights, mutual toleration and respect for differences, the embrace of self-criticism, democracy, egalitarianism, pluralism, negotiation, concession, and compromise, with peace as an ultimate value. In painstaking detail he shows how Western “cognitive egocentrism” (we assume Islamist non-Westerners share our own values) and Western postmodernism (with its affiliated intellectual trends such as critical race theory) produce a literally deadly combination of “premodern sadism” (the violent hostility of the premodern mindset toward the “other”, i.e. us) and “postmodern masochism” (the Western self-critical tendency to find its own Western culture to be the most evil culture of all), in which, in effect, Western thinkers and policymakers end up allying themselves with Islamist Caliphators—against themselves. And thus when Caliphators violently attack Western democracies—Landes documents numerous attacks, large and small, in the U.S., England, France, Spain and elsewhere in the past two decades, not to mention in Israel—the dominant response of these thought leaders is to blame the democracy.
Stephen Pollard: Pilger gave us the word to describe how the BBC distorts its coverage of Jews
The journalist John Pilger died last week. He became so notorious for skewing his reports to fit his preconceived agenda that his behaviour gave rise to a new word: to Pilger, which its originator, Auberon Waugh, defined as “presenting information in a sensationalist manner in support of a particular conclusion.” Now Pilger is no longer with us, the verb needs updating.

It’s obvious really, isn’t it? To BBC. There are so many examples of this that we could fill an entire issue, let alone this one column. But when it comes to BBCing stories, nothing beats the BBC’s attitude to Israel — and, indeed, to Jews.

Remember how it covered the attack on Jewish children in Oxford during Chanukah in 2021, when the BBC repeatedly and baselessly accused one of the victims of making an “anti-Muslim slur”, so it would seem he was somehow to blame? The coverage was entirely BBCed.

The very next month, in January 2022, the BBC’s reporting of the Beth Israel shul siege in Texas, when a rabbi and three other Jews were taken hostage, was also thoroughly BBCed. It refused to mention any notion of antisemitism being a factor in gunman Malik Faisal Akram’s actions, citing only his supposed mental health problems.

The reporter then carefully BBCed President Biden’s reaction, saying — correctly — that, “The US president has described what happened here as an act of terror” but omitting Biden going on to label it as an antisemitic attack. The omission was not merely striking; it was grotesque.

As for the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s military action against Hamas — it’s difficult to find a report that hasn’t been BBCed, such as when its Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen reported that the Al-Ahli hospital had been flattened when it had not been touched.

Or when Jon Donnison said after an explosion at the same that, “It’s hard to see what else this could be really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes”. Except it wasn’t an Israeli airstrike, it was a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket — and it wasn’t in the hospital, it was in a car park.


First Lady Michal Herzog talks amid Israel-Hamas war - interview
Israel’s first lady, Michal Herzog, has found herself at the center of discussions about the atrocities, especially the rapes, carried out by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 after they stormed the Gaza Strip border and rampaged through southern Israel, slaughtering over 1,200 people and abducting more than 240 others.

"It took some time to digest the scale and nature of the outrages directed specifically against women," she says. But after she did, she penned an op-ed in Newsweek, the weekly news magazine, titled “The Silence From International Bodies Over Hamas’ Mass Rapes Is a Betrayal of All Women.”

That article has drawn wide-ranging international attention and reactions. Dressed in a midnight blue suit, Michal Herzog met The Media Line for an intimate discussion at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. The conversation revolved around the realities of the current war with Hamas, the lack of world response to the violence against Israeli women, her priorities as first lady at a time of great need, and her takes on the viability of the Abraham Accords and responses to the wave of antisemitism being witnessed worldwide.

As we spoke, a mosaic on the wall behind us, found in Caesarea and dating from the sixth to seventh centuries BCE, shed light on the ancient history of the Jewish state and on the charming Mrs. Herzog, herself.

Michal Herzog was born Michal Afek in 1962 in Kibbutz Ein Harod in northern Israel but grew up in Tel Aviv and the neighboring city of Ramat Hasharon. While doing military service in the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Corps, she met future President Isaac Herzog. The couple married in 1985 and have three sons. Michal Herzog completed a law degree at Tel Aviv University in 1988 and worked as a lawyer for some years before turning to charity and philanthropy. She served on the board of directors of Ma’aleh, an organization that works to promote issues of corporate responsibility in Israel, as well as chairing and serving on the boards of various charities and companies. When her husband became president in July 2021, the family moved to Jerusalem.
Lihi Lapid: ‘I expect all women to support all women’
It’s been nearly three months since Hamas’ mass terror attack and despite the mounting evidence that the thousands of Palestinian terrorists who infiltrated into southern Israel on Oct. 7 raped, brutalized and kidnapped women and girls in a cruel and systematic way, some of the world’s most prominent women and leading feminists have remained ominously silent.

For author and journalist Lihi Lapid, one of Israel’s leading feminist voices, their failure to speak out against what happened to Israeli women on Oct. 7 is both shocking and disappointing.

“I expect all women to support all women,” Lapid – who is also the wife of Israel’s former prime minister and current opposition leader, Yair Lapid, told Jewish Insider in a recent interview.

“What happened [on Oct. 7] is a matter that should worry every woman, everywhere,” she said.

Lapid said she believes that the world’s silence about the rape and brutalization of Israeli women, including around a dozen women still being held hostage in Gaza, is largely political.

“Many times, when women’s issues are discussed in parliament or in Congress, it does not matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, a right-winger or left-winger, everyone comes together to help empower and advance women,” said the author, who is set to release the English translation of her novel, On Her Own, in March.

“In this situation, I feel like the world is talking about what happened with a political opinion that relates to what they think or feel about Israel and Palestine,” Lapid continued. “This is something that should be outside of the political story.”
Yisrael Medad: Labeling Jews as 'settler-colonialists' flips the truth
Zionists need to remember simple facts

This is but one factor to be challenged. Zionist education needs to return to the basics. It needs to restate fundamental truths.

Following almost 1,500 years of Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, during which time it was ruled by a tribal federation led by judges, and two periods by a monarchy, including a short few decades of exile and return as well as a priestly commonwealth, Jews lost political independence to Rome. That imperial power renamed Judea as “Palaestina,” a name previously used to describe the Eastern Mediterranean coast from Syria to Egypt, after a series of Jewish wars of liberation.

Arabs, as a collective, appeared in the area only in the early 7th century as conquerors and occupiers, part of the first great wave of imperial Islam sweeping out from the Arabian Peninsula. Their historical, cultural, linguistic, artistic, and economic influence and achievements in this region were minimal and not at all unique. In no way did they develop any national identity that could compare to that of the Jewish nation in any form or expression. Their stealing of Jewish national identity, starting with Jerusalem, is anathemas.

All through the period of occupation by foreign powers – Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mameluke, or Ottoman – a continuum of Jewish presence throughout the country was an indisputable fact. Not for naught did the League of Nations include in the opening section of its mandate decision that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” and, on the other hand, pointedly exclude any mention of an “Arab” people. In 1922, the truth was known and apparent.

Moreover, the Arabs resident in the Mandate entity expressed at the outset their demand that the area of Palestine be southern Syria and should not become a separate country. Even the anti-Zionist King-Crane Report noted that “the world is to look forward to Palestine becoming a definitely Jewish state,” while local Arabs “ask that there should be no separation of the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine.”

Whatever rights, whether political or otherwise, that Arabs in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea demand to be recognized, there is no question that Jewish national identity takes precedence.

The writer is a researcher, analyst, and opinion commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.
The solution that dares not speak its name
Why a plan with the best chance of providing peace, prosperity and security for all parties will never see the light of day.

We live in an irrational world, and particularly so when it comes to the affairs of the Middle East. Protests against Israel erupt the day after 1,200 of its citizens are savagely butchered and hundreds taken hostage. Queers and feminists rally for Hamas. Top-ranked universities that demote and/or expel academics and students for even slightly deviating from unfounded orthodoxies about race and/or gender invoke freedom of speech arguments to rationalize anti-Jewish hate on campus.

So it’s hardly surprising that amid all the hand wringing about what to do about the war between Israel and Hamas and how to arrive at a permanent settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, one potential solution that offers a good chance for peace, prosperity and security for both peoples is never discussed and likely never will be: namely, returning the territories occupied by Israel to the countries that lost them the 1967 Six-Day War: Egypt and Jordan.

The reason why this potential solution is permanently off the table – even though it is precisely how so many conflicts have been resolved in the past – is that it is anathema to pretty much all the parties concerned: the Palestinians, many Israelis, other Arab and Muslim countries – notably including Jordan and especially Egypt – and the entire international community.

Since 1967, when Israel offered to return all occupied territories and received the “three No’s” in return from the Khartoum conference of Arab states – no peace with Israel, no recognition, no negotiation – the idea of returning land to Jordan and Egypt has been rejected out of hand. It became even more unattainable after 20 Arab countries at the 1974 Arab Summit in Rabat, Morocco recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (which is now in charge of the Palestinian Authority) as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
Natan Sharansky and Bassem Eid (WSJ): A Dictator Can't Bring Peace to Gaza
We each warned 30 years ago, after the Oslo Accords, when the free world chose to install Yasser Arafat as dictator over the Palestinian people, that this would undermine the prospects for peace. We both have intimate knowledge of dictatorships. We knew Arafat would never promote peace with Israel because all dictators need an external enemy. Only by mobilizing his people against the Jewish state could Arafat deflect their dissatisfaction with him and retain control.

In the years after Oslo, Arafat destroyed the beginnings of civil society, seized control over the economy, preserved refugee camps as a source of mobilization against Israel, and created an education system geared almost exclusively to promoting hatred of the Jewish state. Nevertheless, Israel remained under permanent pressure to give him - and later his successor, Mahmoud Abbas - more territory, money and weapons in the hope that at some point he could serve as Jerusalem's partner in peace.

Everyone in Israel remembers the crowds of Gazans who cheered the Oct. 7 terrorists as they paraded their victims. But one need only compare pictures of Germans demonstrating their loyalty to Hitler in 1943 with pictures from 1945 and 1955 to see that such enthusiasm is fleeting. Expressions of disillusionment with Hamas will increase as soon as Gazans are less fearful of their leaders - and there are signs this is already happening.

What does the "day after" look like for Gaza? There must first be a transitional period during which security remains in Israel's hands. Administrative control should pass to a coordinating body of representatives from the West and Arab countries that recognize Israel.

The mission of this body should be to rebuild the Palestinian education system, purging it of jihadism; destroy the refugee camps, giving their residents normal housing; and respect civil-society organizations, granting them the freedom to promote human rights and the rule of law. Only after this should elections be held; elections in a society that isn't free will have no significance.
Bassam Tawil: Why The Palestinian Authority Is No Better than Hamas
The Biden administration has yet to spell out what it means when it talks about a "revitalized" Palestinian Authority.

If the Biden administration is hoping that the PA leadership will halt its ongoing campaign of incitement against Israel in the mosques, media and the rhetoric of Palestinian officials, it is living in a dream world. If the Biden administration believes that the PA, as part of a "revitalization" process, will cease its endless glorification of terrorists and systematically rewarding them with monthly stipends for murdering Israelis, it is also in for a rude awakening.

The Biden administration... can continue to dream about "revamping" the PA, but... every Palestinian child knows that this will never happen as long as Palestinian leaders continue to pay handsomely for the murder of Jews and call for the elimination of Israel.

As the Biden administration doubtless knows, replacing Hamas with the PA will change nothing in the Gaza Strip.
Douglas Murray: Claudine Gay has exposed the rot at the heart of the woke establishment
Last month’s Congressional hearings on anti-Semitism on US campuses will go down as one of the biggest disasters in modern academic history. The presidents of three major US universities all proved unable to answer the question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews would be considered beyond the pale on their campuses. The president of the University of Pennsylvania – Liz Magill – managed to ride out the backlash for a few days. Harvard’s president held on rather longer. But this week she, too, finally resigned.

Claudine Gay might have weathered the storm because she had the protective cover of being Harvard’s first black female president, and in an age of identity politics that puts her very close to the top of the oppression Olympics that now dominate everything in American public life. You can be rich, privileged and the president of Harvard. But it transpires that you can still claim to be a victim if you are Claudine Gay.

That is what she tried to claim in her resignation statement on Tuesday. She said that there had been “racial animus” in the attacks on her. In fact, the attacks started because of her glaring inability to stand up to racism, followed by allegations that Gay’s distinctly meagre academic work, included a significant amount of plagiarism. The plagiarism story had been around for a while, but after her Congressional embarrassment, a larger number of people – including Leftist media – started to look into these serious allegations.

At first, Harvard tried to ignore them. Its board embarrassed itself by repeatedly expressing its full support for her. Ordinarily, basic academic failings like seeming to lift whole chunks of work – including acknowledgements – from the works of others would have seen a student censured. But not the Harvard president, apparently.

Finally it became too much. Gay’s resignation letter on Tuesday could have confessed to her failings and apologised. But it did no such thing. She went out the same way she had got in: on a blizzard of victimhood.
‘Completely shambolic performance’: Douglas Murray slams Claudine Gay
Author Douglas Murray says former Harvard president Claudine Gay delivered a “completely shambolic” performance at a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism.

“Reaction to the resignation of the (former) president of Harvard Claudine Gay has been predictably divided,” Mr Murray said.

“For some, the university’s first black head deserved to lose her job after accusations of plagiarism and a completely shambolic performance at a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism last month.”

The former president resigned following public outrage over her testimony on anti-Semitism.

Ms Gay was asked, "At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment – yes or no?"

Ms Gay responded with, "It can be, depending on the context".

“Amazing – all depends on the context apparently,” Mr Murray said.

“Anyway, some people are ignoring that and are claiming there is actually a sinister racial agenda in this sacking.”

Mr Murray was joined by author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali to discuss the controversial issue.


Bill Ackman: How to Fix Harvard
In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.

I first became concerned about Harvard when 34 student organizations, early on the morning of October 8—before Israel had taken any military actions in Gaza—came out publicly in support of Hamas, a globally recognized terrorist organization, holding Israel “solely responsible” for Hamas’ barbaric and heinous acts.

How could this be? I wondered.

When I saw then-president Claudine Gay’s initial statement about the massacre, it provided more context (!) for the student groups’ statement of support for terrorism. The protests began as pro-Palestine and then became anti-Israel. Shortly thereafter, antisemitism exploded on campus as protesters who violated Harvard’s own codes of conduct were emboldened by the lack of enforcement of Harvard’s rules, and kept testing the limits on how aggressive, intimidating, and disruptive they could be to Jewish and Israeli students, and the student body at large. Sadly, antisemitism remains a simmering source of hate even at our best universities among a subset of students.

A few weeks later, I went up to campus to see things with my own eyes, and listen and learn from students and faculty. I met with 15 or so members of the faculty and a few hundred students in small and large settings, and a clearer picture began to emerge.

I ultimately concluded that antisemitism was not the core of the problem. It was simply a troubling warning sign—it was the “canary in the coal mine”—despite how destructive it was in impacting student life and learning on campus.

I came to learn that the root cause of antisemitism at Harvard was an ideology that had been promulgated on campus, an oppressor/oppressed framework, that provided the intellectual bulwark behind the protests, helping to generate anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate speech and harassment.


Matthew Foldi: Bizarre Anti-Israel Campaign Shows Jewish Organizations a Way Forward
Ben Shemony, a classmate of mine, wrote and organized the response letter. He told me that he did so because he “wanted to make it crystal clear that these people do not represent Judaism as a religion and do not represent the views of Jews whatsoever.” His nay-saying classmates, to him, “are a tiny minority, and they use their Judaism to give our enemies the perfect justification for mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of Israelis and Jews.”

The significance of the response letter is twofold: both that the sheer number of signatories, which currently clocks in at around 1,000 current and former students, parents, teachers — including Omer Balva’s sister and father — dwarfs the initial letter, and that following Shemony’s letter, JDS itself issued a statement, making it clear that as a Jewish educational institution, it won’t be straying from one of its central missions: ahavat yisrael, love of Israel.

Rabbi Mitch Malkus, the head of the school, emailed all alumni making it clear that the school rejects any attempts to pressure it to stray from its Jewish values. “Our school is pro-Israel and Zionist. As a school committed to history and Jewish history, we reject terms like apartheid and colonialism being applied to Israel. We teach a dual narrative approach and expose our students to multiple perspectives in our Israel education, something that was not acknowledged by all our alumni.”

Another student who signed Shemony’s letter heaped more praise: “JDS’s response in wholly repudiating the letter is extremely heartening. The future of the Jewish people depends on both Jewish education and on the safety and security of Israel. JDS has long made ahavat Yisrael a core value of its curriculum and is enriched by the many Israeli teachers and students at the school.” Despite the claims of a one-sided, reflexively pro-Israel education, the student noted that “JDS never shied away from criticism of Israel. If anything, it makes students far more pro-Israel because they know that they aren’t being fed a one-sided account.”

At a time when tiny fringes of the Jewish community are invoking the blood libels of our enemies to attack our historic homeland, and when the Jewish Second Gentleman botches the meaning of Hannukah, it’s imperative that Jewish educational institutions like the one I attended for 13 years stand stronger than ever. In the face of absurd condemnation by a few alumni, it’s relieving to see that it did so. Mazel tov to JDS — and may its actions here be an inspiration to other Jewish institutions across the globe in the tumultuous year ahead.
Baltimore lawmaker seeks to remove CAIR from Md. hate crimes commission
A legislative effort is underway in Maryland to remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations from a state hate crimes body after the organization’s Maryland director published a series of antisemitic Facebook posts after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, a lawmaker confirmed to Jewish Insider.

“We are working on legislation to remove CAIR from the [Maryland Hate Crimes] Commission,” Del. Dalya Attar, a Baltimore Democrat, said on Wednesday, a week before the start of Maryland’s 2024 legislative session. “Legislation will be drafted and submitted then.” Attar said she has the backing of several other Jewish legislators.

CAIR Maryland’s director, Zainab Chaudry, was temporarily suspended from the commission in November after JI revealed that her Facebook posts after Oct. 7 had glorified Hamas and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. But she was reinstated in December when Maryland’s attorney general determined he lacked the power to formally remove her from the body.

The law creating the commission, passed last year, explicitly named the organizations that would be represented on the body — and CAIR was named in the legislation, meaning even if Chaudry is removed, the group would still be represented by someone else. Several lawmakers have called for Chaudry’s removal. (Chaudry has said that her posts don’t violate the body’s standards.)

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said in November that he “was happy to see” the Oct. 7 attack, which he characterized as “self-defense.” Those comments earned a rebuke from the White House and a promise that CAIR would not be part of the ongoing Biden administration effort to craft a national strategy on Islamophobia.
Anti-Israel Group Peddles Children's Book That Glorifies Jewish State's Eradication
An anti-Israel group whose founder said he was "happy to see" Hamas attack Israel is urging local libraries to feature children's books that push propaganda against the Jewish state—including one that contends all of Israel belongs to "Palestine."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in late December released its "Palestine Beyond Borders" toolkit, which it said aims to "encourage libraries and bookstores to feature book displays on Palestine" and foster "a deeper appreciation for the multifaceted aspects of Palestinian history." Included in the kit are a dozen children's books, one of which calls on kids to "unlock all the truths about Palestine and educate everyone about its true history."

That book, Baba, What Does My Name Mean?, takes a fictional child "refugee" on a "journey to Palestine," which, according to a map displayed prominently at the beginning of the book, includes all land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The map displays Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other Israeli cities as part of "Palestine," the capital of which, according to the book, is Al-Quds, an Arabic name for Jerusalem. The book ends by stating that "through persistence and perseverance," Palestinians will "one day … be free."

CAIR, which did not return a request for comment, bills itself as "the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization." It has deep ties to the White House and Democratic Party, with the Biden administration earlier this year tapping the group as a partner in its "National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism." In 2019, meanwhile, scores of congressional Democrats privately issued letters of support for CAIR ahead of the group's Washington, D.C. gala, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote that CAIR has his "utmost thanks and appreciation" in a November 2022 letter.

Since then, CAIR's leader, Nihad Awad, has praised Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

During a Nov. 24 speech, Awad said he "was happy to see" Gazans "break the siege" on Oct. 7 before arguing that "Israel, as an occupying power, does not have a right to defend itself." CAIR also blamed Hamas's attack on Israel, urging Congress to address the "root cause of Mideast violence," which it identified as the "Israeli government's apartheid policies."

In addition to Baba, What Does My Name Mean?, the group's toolkit features at least one children's book that glorifies Palestinian terrorism.


Warner Bros amends description of Holocaust film One Life to include ‘Jewish’ following backlash
Warner Bros has been criticised over their wording of the synopsis for the newly released Holocaust film One Life highlighting the real-life heroism of Sir Nicholas Winton.

The synopsis failed to highlight an important element of the story which was that the hundreds of children Sir Nicholas rescued from the Nazis were Jewish.

Put forth by UK distributor Warner Bros, the short summary reads: “The story of British humanitarian Nicholas Winton, who helped save hundreds of Central European children from the Nazis on the eve of World War II.”

Even in Warner Bros’ longer summary of the film, which provides further details about the characters and plot, there was no mention of the children’s Jewish identity until Thursday afternoon.

Warner Bros has now altered the wording of the synopsis on its site to include the phrase “predominantly Jewish children”. See-Saw Films, the company who produced One Life, similarly neglected to mention the word ‘Jewish’ in their marketing material for the film.


Konstantin Kisin: "I Came, I Saw, I Copied": Why DEI Must DIE

Eli Lake: How Texas A&M’s Deal with Qatar ‘Puts American Security at Risk’
What does Qatar get for its investment in U.S. universities? The answer may surprise you. In addition to the prestige and the influence of affiliating one’s national philanthropy with elite schools, Qatar is also accumulating the kind of technical research that was once the prize of American universities.

Consider Texas A&M University, one of the best places in the country to study nuclear engineering. Last month, The Free Press obtained exclusive access to a copy of the latest contract between Texas A&M and the Qatar Foundation that shows all of the intellectual property developed at the university’s campus in Doha belongs to the Qatar Foundation, a national philanthropy owned by the country’s royal family.

“The Qatar Foundation shall own the entire right, title, and interest in all Technology and Intellectual Property developed at (Texas A&M University Qatar) or under the auspices of its Research Program, other than those developed by non-TAMUQ employees and without financial support from the Qatar Foundation or any of its affiliates,” says the contract, dated May 25, 2021.

This kind of arrangement is common for large research universities in America. But TAMUQ is not your ordinary university. It is entirely funded by the Qatar Foundation. Kelly Brown, a spokeswoman for Texas A&M, told me that Qatar “pays for all faculty and staff salaries” as well as the physical campus, labs and equipment, housing, transportation, and travel allowances for professors.

It’s no small matter. The intellectual property generated by Texas A&M University in Qatar, or TAMUQ, includes highly sensitive research in a variety of fields ranging from computer science to bioengineering. Last year, TAMUQ inked an agreement to develop projects with a subsidiary of Barzan Holdings, Qatar’s largest arms manufacturer.


Claudine Gay’s resignation not about Jew-hatred, says anti-Israel congressman

George Washington University Professor Accused of Antisemitism Leaves School, Heads to Qatar-Based Institute

Toronto Star Columnist Says Demands By Five MPs For University Presidents To Condemn Antisemitism Risks Free Expression

Taken out of context: Britain's misunderstanding of Israel's Gaza offensive
For a dual citizen of Britain and Israel, and a historian, it is astonishing to read attacks made by British commentators on Israel’s conduct of the current war. These betray a grotesque misunderstanding not only of the past, but also of the present. Countering these mistaken views is vital for the future both of Israel and of the West, for if these opinions prevail and inform policy, a far worse disaster than October 7 will soon follow.

The first significant problem that is apparent when considering British critiques of Israeli policy is a misunderstanding of the scale of the catastrophe that Israel has already experienced. Any comparison between the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Israel-Hamas war, as attempted by the former Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace MP, is simply facile. A total of 3,532 people were killed during the Troubles, of whom 1,397 were either British or Loyalist. These killings spanned a period of more than 30 years. In Israel, more than 1,200 people were slaughtered with inhuman savagery onOctober 7. In a single day. Another 129 remain hostages in Gaza. The scale and intensity of the casualties bears no comparison with events in Northern Ireland.

To properly understand the scale of the mass murder that took place, it is necessary to remember that Israel’s total population is less than 9.8 million people. This is more than six times smaller than Britain’s 66 million. Adjusting Israel’s losses to Britain’s greater population size, more than 8,000 would have been murdered in Britain in an equivalent attack, twice as many as were killed during the entirety of the Troubles, on both sides.

The second problem with British attacks on Israel’s actions is a failure to understand the strategic context. If Britain had been subjected to such an onslaught, there is doubt that it would have responded with extraordinary violence. When Britain fought the Nazis during the Second World War, 60,595 civilians were killed by German bombing and rocket attacks on the British Isles. In response, Britain and later also America unleashed the single most extensive bombing offensive in human history, killing some 353,000 Germans, as far as can be determined from incomplete records.

There was no talk of proportionality then, or of its absence. Britain was fighting a war of national survival, and its goal was not “obliterating vast swathes” of enemy territory, as Mr. Wallace charges Israel is now doing. It was, to remember the words of a more illustrious Conservative politician, Mr. Churchill, “victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
CBC News Article Misleadingly Compares Gaza To Allied Bombings Of Dresden In World War Two

BBC News continues to promote previously corrected inaccuracy

Toronto Star Commentator Falsely Accuses Israel Of Indiscriminate Bombing

California Senate candidate Barbara Lee to join cease-fire rally with Rashida Tlaib
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), one of the three leading Democratic candidates for California’s Senate seat, is set to participate on Thursday in a digital rally pushing for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

The event, organized by the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)-linked political group Our Revolution in connection with IfNotNow, highlights how Lee, a longtime progressive one of the earliest supporters of a cease-fire in Congress, has leaned on her support for a cease-fire as she seeks to secure the progressive vote in the Senate primary. Lee has polled fairly consistently in third place behind Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Katie Porter (D-CA) in her Senate bid.

An announcement about the event from Lee’s campaign claimed she’s the only candidate in the race calling for an “unequivocal ceasefire in Gaza.” Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) is also supporting a cease-fire, conditional upon the release of hostages and the removal of Hamas from power in Gaza.

The event announcement from Our Revolution said the event would touch on “the urgent need for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict and the current effect this conflict is having on the 2024 election landscape” and “the different solutions on the table, including diplomatic and legislative solutions.”

Lee recently declined to submit a questionnaire on Israel policy and antisemitism to Democrats for Israel CA, a local pro-Israel group, in contrast with her two competitors.

Lee had participated in a virtual forum with the group in April 2023, during which she aimed for a conciliatory approach, highlighting her “commitment to a two-state solution and to Israel’s security and a Palestinian state,” and noting that she’s previously taken criticism from both the pro- and anti-Israel communities.
US Lack of Resolve Incentivizing China on Taiwan
Bluntly put, the nations of the Free World have allowed global commerce to be held hostage by the revolutionary group of theocrat terrorists in Iran and their tribal terrorist tool in Yemen.

The primary problem seems to be that so far at least, there has been no attempt to hold the ringleader, Iran, accountable economically, militarily, hold-on-power or any way. This, incidentally, is the same Iranian regime that has lately escalated its enrichment of uranium to near-nuclear weapons capability, and has now moved a warship to the Red Sea.

That is why the Iranian regime has proxies: so that they will do the dirty work and take the hits -- while the Iranians tuck into dinner.

You can be sure that Communist China's leaders are closely evaluating the inadequate US responses to more than 100 attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq -- just since October.
MEMRI: Chinese Military Expert Yun Hua: The Houthi Crisis In The Red Sea Benefits China, Weakens America's Maritime Hegemony

Rabbi Leo Dee: Switzerland: Stop Supporting Terror!
The UN was established in October 1945 in order to bring sustainable peace to the world after the horrors of the Second World War. In fact, the Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN in December 1948 and it signified the commitment to ‘never again’ allow the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis across Europe.

Scroll forward 77 years. In 2022, the UN approved 15 anti-Israel resolutions last year, versus 13 resolutions criticizing other countries. Saudi Arabia, China, Lebanon, Turkey, Venezuela and Qatar, which have some of the lowest human rights records in the world, faced no resolutions at all.

The Swiss Parliament has long been aware of the anti-Israel bias of the UN. Recently, a Member of Swiss Parliament, David Zuberbühler, said: “It’s an open secret that schools run by the United Nations Relief Works Agency, UNRWA, continue to glorify terrorism, incite violence, and promote antisemitism.” In the words of the Swiss Foreign Minister, Ignazio Cassis, in May 2018: “UNRWA is part of the problem, not part of the solution…. UNRWA is perpetuating the refugee problem, not solving it… and the fact that we’re paying for it is perverse”.

However, Switzerland, together with the rest of Europe, US and the UK, continue to fund UNRWA to the tune of over $1bn per year. There are seven times more UN staff in Gaza – mostly Palestinians – than refugees in the largest refugee camp in the world (Cox Bazar in Bangladesh). The number of UN staff in Gaza is approximately equal to the number in Geneva and New York combined!

UNRWA’s sole achievements have been the radicalization of Palestinian children and keeping Palestinians in “refugee camps” for four generations. Some of the Israeli hostages taken on 7th October were kept in UNRWA schools, and these schools are also used as bases for terror across Gaza. UNRWA allows Hamas and other radical militant groups to carry out arms training and missile fire near its premises, using civilians as human shields.

The Executive Director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, explains that UNRWA has “taken what were a few 100,000 refugees back in 1948 and made them into 6 or 7 million. And they’re doing everything not to resettle them. If someone from Gaza wants to flee and go to America or to the West, UNRWA will say “No, you are always a refugee and you always need to go back to pre-1967 Israel.”
France’s Terror Wave and Its Relations with Israel
As often happens, war between Israel and Palestinian jihadists has sparked violence on the streets of France. But unlike in previous instances the terror hasn’t been directed solely or even primarily at Jews. Yaron Gamburg explains the situation, its connection to Paris’s clumsy handling of the Israel-Hamas war, and the state of Franco-Israeli relations:

Since October 2023, France has confronted a new wave of violence attributed to Islamic radicalization in the country. On October 13, a young Chechen Muslim murdered a literature teacher in the northern French city of Arras, three years after a similar attack shook the country. On December 2, a young man of Iranian descent murdered a tourist in central Paris, avenging the death of Muslims “from Gaza to Afghanistan.”

France was particularly outraged by a violent incident on November 18 in the town of Crépol in southern France, an outlying agricultural area that is less exposed to the Islamization threat. During a party of young people, about ten Muslim youths from a nearby town raided the party, shouted that they would “kill all whites,” brutally attacked the participants, and murdered a sixteen-year-old boy. Apart from the event’s racist and brutal nature, the public was outraged over the government’s response. Law-enforcement authorities delayed announcing the suspects’ names to avoid exposing their Muslim heritage, and the government even attempted to bar demonstrations in solidarity with the victim.

Israel’s strategy in managing its relations with France should consider these trends. . . . It is essential to support the French government’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, which are currently associated with the alliance between the extreme left and radical Islam.


Cartoon of ex-chief justice Hayut stabbing IDF soldier in back sparks outrage
A political cartoon portraying former chief justice Esther Hayut killing an IDF serviceman drew intense criticism on Thursday, sparking a debate over the balance between incitement and freedom of the press.

In the illustration, which was published in the national religious weekly Shvi’i, Hayut can be seen jamming a flag bearing an image of the scales of justice into a soldier’s back, as he lays dead on the ground in Gaza.

Following the outcry and accusations that it was inciting violence, Shvi’i announced that they would reprint the magazine without the offending cartoon.

The cartoon’s message appeared to echo rhetoric on the right implying that two recent High Court rulings harmed the country’s war effort against Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government suffered two major legal defeats this week — with the High Court of Justice striking down legislation barring courts from evaluating government decisions on the basis of the judicial standard of reasonableness and postponing the implementation of a bill meant to shield the prime minister from being ordered to recuse himself from office.

Although Hayut had stepped down in October, she was able to rule on the cases under procedures by which justices can rule on cases they have heard for three months after their retirement.


Arabs vandalize Joshua’s Altar on Mount Ebal
Arabs vandalized an archaeological site in Israel’s biblical heartland that millions of Jews and Christians revere as the location where Joshua built an altar, an Israeli NGO said on Thursday.

The reports of renewed damage to the site on Mount Ebal known as Joshua’s Altar, which is under joint control with the Palestinian Authority, highlights anew the need for the preservation, upkeep and safeguarding of Israeli archaeological sites in P.A.-controlled areas after decades of neglect.

Israeli activists from the Forum for the Struggle for Every Dunam who visited the site reported that local Arab residents burned tires at the site outside Nablus [Shechem] in Samaria, spray-painted Arabic graffiti and erected a PLO flag on the altar.

“The grave incident that took place this week is a direct result of the lack of Jewish presence on this hill,” the organization said in a statement. “Today, it is clearer than ever that only the fixed Jewish presence of a farm or town will guarantee there is really control over the site, and prevent further damage or destruction of the altar.”

The group said it will hold a prayer service at the site on Friday.

Last year, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pledged that Israel would not allow Palestinians to damage archaeological sites in Judea and Samaria. Israel has prevented the Palestinians from carrying out construction work on a new neighborhood near Mount Ebal.

“The right-wing government that has spoken out so fiercely in the past against damage to the site must order the establishment of a new community on the hill no later than today. Otherwise, any damage or takeover by Arabs will become an eternal blot on its record,” the Forum said.
PMW: PA lies and libels: “Israel deliberately… spread(s) lethal epidemics and infectious diseases among children in Gaza”

Abbas’ deputy: Israel and the US “are the root of evil and terror”

PA libel: US aircraft carriers commit “75% of the bombings in the Gaza Strip”

Israelis are “students of Hitler,” “army of Palestinians in Europe will fight to expel” them



Saudi Cancels Flight Permits For Iranian Pilgrims

Fictional Film Set at Auschwitz Is Offensive and Lacks Power
At a time of rising antisemitism, when college presidents are okay with calls for Jewish genocide and younger Americans are getting false information about Jews from social media, an informative film about the Holocaust could be helpful.

Unfortunately, the new film, The Zone of Interest, removes Jews from the Holocaust. I knew this going in, as it’s based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name, which focuses on a Nazi (Rudolf Hoss) who is the commandant of Auschwitz, as well as his wife and children.

We see Hoss in his underwear, doing mundane things, with his family acting like regular people. Who cares?

There are movies that focus on Christians who resisted the Nazis, either with violence or means of protest. There’s the 2001 film Conspiracy, with Kenneth Branagh as SS General Reinhard Heydrich, one of Heinrich Himmler’s top deputies. The film centers on the Nazi leaders who came together for the Wannsee Conference in which details of the Final Solution were agreed upon. They are fine films. One can make a Holocaust movie without Jews if it has an emotional punch regarding the epic brutality that took place. This film doesn’t even have a slap.

The Zone of Interest is the most offensive Holocaust movie I’ve seen.

You are supposed to be enamored by the fact that the actors didn’t know where the cameras were. I’m not. There is supposed to be some harrowing feeling seeing the smoke rise from the most notorious death camp in history, without seeing any of the actual Jews in pain. In one of the most bizarre cuts in film history, the movie suddenly jumps from the Holocaust to see current day shoes belonging to Jews who were slaughtered by Nazis behind museum glass. Don’t give me shoes. Give me the people who stood in them.

I was well aware that The Zone of Interest was shot near Auschwitz, and that the house of the commandant was re-created based on the exact specifications. What a complete waste of time! I was well aware the supposed “point” of the film was to show that Nazi families were regular people who played with their kids. Then, the father went to a death camp where Jews were slaughtered in systemic fashion in numbers never seen in the world.

But the movie fails as art. The key is to make someone feel something. There must be conflict. There is virtually none in this film.
Germany must ‘wake up’ to huge antisemitic surge, says Israel’s envoy to Berlin
Israel’s ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor says there is a desperate need for people in the country to “wake up” to skyrocketing antisemitism.

Since October 7, anti-Jewish hate crimes in Germany have surged, with many Jews now afraid to express their identity in public.

“The fact that Jews are afraid to go out on the streets with a yarmulke or speak on their cell phones in Hebrew, that just can’t be right. We have to wake up,” Prosor, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the UK and the United Nations, told the DPA news agency.

He added that many Jewish parents are now reluctant to send their children to school without adequate protection.

“These are conditions that are not normal. The fear is really there,” he said.

“Increasing antisemitism is not a purely German problem. But in Germany, it is even more important than elsewhere to change that.

“When Molotov cocktails are thrown to set synagogues on fire, you can’t just respond with words. You have to do something practical.”

Prosor called for immediate action in schools to address the growing problem. “We have a real problem with young people. The younger they are, the more alienated they are towards Israel.”
UK podcast pair jailed for neo-Nazi series, incitement to terrorism

US anti-racism campaigner criticised after claiming ‘Zionist’ doctors give ‘worse care to black and Muslim patients’
A Gaza activist has criticised a US anti-racism campaigner who claimed that Jewish doctors give worse care to black and Muslim patients.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib spoke warmly of how Israeli doctors saved his hearing after an IDF bomb blast as he hit out at Saira Rao.

Rao was accused of antisemitism after posting on X/Twitter on Monday: “Realizing how many American doctors and nurses are Zionists and genuinely terrified for Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Black patients - even more than usual. And usually it’s bad.”

But Alkhatib, who escaped Gaza as a teenager and is now an American citizen, called Rao “hateful” as he relayed his own story.

“I have significant asymmetric hearing loss in my left ear from an IDF bombing that almost killed me in Gaza as an 11-year-old & killed two friends of mine,” he posted on X/Twitter.

“This injury still causes me complications to this day. When I came to the US from Gaza as a teenager (alone/without my family), an Israeli American neurologist whom I met through a dialogue group worked tirelessly to set me up with MRIs, CT scans, and hearing care to understand & manage my condition.

“When my dad, a former UN physician who worked in the Jabaliya refugee camp, Dr. Fouad Alkhatib, was diagnosed with cancer in 2019, an Israeli team at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem worked entirely for free for over a year to help provide medical care for his lung cancer, which unfortunately took him from our family in 2020.

“Jewish & Israeli doctors are some of the kindest, loveliest, most caring people I’ve ever met.


Michigan announces new Raoul Wallenberg Institute to counter antisemitism

New book by Alice Hoffman to imagine Anne Frank’s life in Amsterdam before her diary

New film on 1506 massacre of Lisbon Jews garners worldwide attention

Stars and MPs back calls for ‘Jewish History Month’ amid rising antisemitism in UK
A host of politicians, historians and celebrities have called for a British Jewish History Month to celebrate the community amid rising antisemitism across the UK since October 7.

Conservative backbencher Nickie Aiken will propose the “absolutely inspired” idea at a debate in Parliament on Thursday.

Names backing the plan include Maureen Lipman, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Churchill’s biographer Lord Andrew Roberts, Golders Green MP Mike Freer and Stephen Crabb MP, chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel.

The Coronation Street actress told the JC: “If you ask anyone how many Jews there are in England, they will say four million. The truth passes them by that there are more trans people than there are Jews.

“But the important thing is what we do for the entire community, not what we do for just Jewish people.”

She added: “Let’s make sure it's about what we've contributed to English life, in terms of for all people. I would support it in principle much more than building monuments because cities are full of monuments that you walk past, but education on our contribution to mainstream English life, political and social, entertainment and scholarship, that's worth writing down.”

Lord Roberts also welcomed the idea, calling it “absolutely inspired”. He said: “No minority has been so influential on British history in such a positive and fundamental way over the centuries as the Jews.

“It would also remind Britons that in the years when the Jews were expelled and banned, Britain languished, whereas when they returned, we thrived. What a marvellous way to celebrate the massive contribution to our national story.”

But fellow historian Simon Schama was sceptical. Speaking to the JC, he said that although he was in favour of “anything that contributes to a better and deeper understanding of Jewish history, which is desperately needed right now”, he did not think a Jewish History Month was the best approach.

“It's meaningless to separate out the history of this country's Jews from the rest of its history,” he said. “And ‘months’ worth of history runs the risk of calendrical tokenism, I think.

“Much better would be a commitment to an ambitious new museum of Jewish history, and to seeing that history taught in schools.”
Alanis Morissette on finding her Jewish roots, fates of family in Holocaust

Kindertransport survivor celebrates 100th birthday in Jerusalem
Kindertransport survivor Walter Bingham, recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living working journalist, celebrated his 100th birthday in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Born Wolfgang Billig in 1924 in Karlsruhe, Germany, Bingham escaped Germany after Kristallnacht in 1939 by way of the Kindertransport, which sent nearly 10,000 unaccompanied children, most of them Jews, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig to Great Britain.

Bingham served in the British Army, earning honors for rescuing soldiers in the Normandy Landings. He later worked as a translator, including interrogating former Geman Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Following the war, Walter became a journalist and launched an acting career, landing a role as a wizard in two Harry Potter movies.

Today, living in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, Walter is a proud father, grandfather and great-grandfather and an enduring symbol of resilience, the International March of the Living Holocaust education NGO said.

“Persecuted as a child by the Nazis, he became a decorated fighter against the German army, immigrated to Israel at 80, and remains active from his home in Jerusalem,” March of the Living deputy CEO Revital Yakin Krakovsky noted.

“We are privileged to work with him in promoting Holocaust education and remembrance and we look forward to marching together on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland this year and for many more years to come, she added.

Bingham said he “always felt a deep connection to the Jewish people and our homeland.


Jewish activists fight antisemitism on streets and online
Journalist, Feminist and Jewish activist Eve Barlow and Israeli-American rapper and activist Kosha DIllz joins i24NEWS to discuss how to combat antisemitism, on the streets and online.


Italian Jewish leader cooks for soldiers in Israel's southern city of Sderot
Italian Jewish leader Riccardo Pacifici, the Vice president of European Jewish association cooks for soldiers in Israel's southern city of Sderot.




Israeli research uses Earth's magnetic field to verify event in Bible's Book of Kings
Using a “breakthrough” technology based on measuring the magnetic field recorded in burnt bricks, researchers at four Israeli universities have corroborated the occurrence of an event described in the Bible’s Second Book of Kings – the conquest of the Philistine city of Gath by Hazael, King of Aram.

The discovery – achieved by scientists from Tel Aviv University (TAU), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), Bar-Ilan University (BIU) in Ramat Gan, and Ariel University in Samaria – will make it possible for archaeologists to identify burnt materials discovered in excavations and estimate their firing temperatures.

“Our findings are important for determining the intensity of the fire and the scope of destruction in Gath – the largest and most powerful city in the land at the time – and also for understanding construction practices in the region,” they wrote in the journal PLOS ONE under the title “Applying thermal demagnetization to archaeological materials: A tool for detecting burnt clay and estimating its firing temperature.”

Applying their method to findings from ancient Gath (Tell es-Safi, located between the cities of Ashkelon and Beit Shemesh in central Israel), the researchers validated the biblical account: “About this time. Hazael King of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem” (2 Kings 12, 18).

They explain that, unlike previous methods, the new technique can determine whether an item such as a mud brick underwent firing even at relatively low temperatures, from 200°C and up. This information can be crucial for correctly interpreting the findings.

Clays are rich in magnetic-iron minerals, depending on the local geology. Yet, it is common to all iron-bearing clay minerals that, when they are heated to temperatures starting from about 150°C and up to 700°C, they are transformed into stable ferrimagnetic minerals such as magnetite, maghemite, and hematite.

The multidisciplinary study was led by Dr. Yoav Vaknin from TAU’s Nadler Institute of Archaeology Entin Faculty of Humanities and HU’s palaeomagnetic lab. Other contributors included: Prof. Ron Shaar at HU’s Institute of Earth Sciences; Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef and Prof. Oded Lipschits from TAU’s institute; Prof. Aren Maeir from BIU’s Martin (Szusz) Land of Israel studies department; and Dr. Adi Eliyahu Behar from Ariel’s the Land of Israel studies and archaeology department and its chemical sciences department.




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