Showing posts with label AIPAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIPAC. Show all posts

Monday, August 14, 2023

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Not Everything Is Tisha B’Av
It is with this in mind that we must approach the reaction of many when the Knesset, three days before Tisha B’Av, approved limitations on the Israeli Supreme Court. The Times of Israel immediately presented us with the remarkable headline: “Judicial overhaul opponents see parallel to Tisha B’Av, saddest day in Hebrew year.” Indeed, comparisons to the destruction of the Temple abounded. A meme with the words shisha b’av, “the sixth of Av,” was circulated on the Internet, with the comparison to Tisha B’Av being made even by prominent Israeli writers. Some Israelis announced that though they did not usually fast on the Ninth of Av, they would do so this year to mourn what the Knesset had wrought.

I do not wish to discuss the merits or flaws of the government proposal. Rather I want to make one point only: One cannot compare the tragedies of the Jewish past to a democratic vote by the Israeli Knesset, however mistaken one might believe that vote to be. To make this comparison is to recommit the sin of the spies and their audience among the Hebrews, and to repeat the error of our ancestors in the desert millennia ago. Sharing a meme with the words shisha b’av dangerously demonizes a vast part of the Israeli electorate by comparing voters to the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem. And one can react only with horror to the statement by a Jew that a vote by the Knesset is more worthy of mourning than the deaths of Jews throughout history.

In arguing that the memories of Tisha B’Av obligated him to protect the physical well-being of the Jewish state, what Begin was also implying was that in the story of Israel, some—though not all—of what the Romans had wrought had been undone by the rise of the State of Israel and the miracles that followed. The Temple is not yet rebuilt, and hatred of the Jews still festers, but a rebuilt, united Jerusalem stands under Jewish sovereignty. If those who suffered in the events marked on the Ninth of Av would have been shown images of our own age—a united Jerusalem featuring a Jewish government, a Judean desert in bloom, and Jewish homes rebuilt throughout the Holy Land—they would have rejoiced at this vindication of Jewish yearnings. And if they would have been told that during all this, the parliament of the Jewish state would then vote to limit the ability of a Supreme Court to pronounce administrative decisions as “unreasonable,” their awe would not be diminished by an iota, no matter the flaws or virtues of this vote.

And so it must be stressed—though as I type these words, I still cannot believe that it must be stressed—that however much one might disagree with the Israeli coalition’s agenda, it is not Tisha B’Av. It is not the Holocaust. It is not the destruction of the Temple. It is not the expulsion from England, or Spain. It is not the auto-da-fé. It is not the massacres of the Crusades. To argue otherwise is to desecrate the memory of the martyred and the murdered, the exiled and the expelled, those who died with faith in the future of Jerusalem on their lips, and who would react with wonder at the miracles of our age.
Obama’s Calculated Tolerance of Black Anti-Semitism
I believe Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s account; she has nothing to gain by such a story, while the calculating Obama, determined to leave her because he was sure that as a white woman, she would be a political liability as his wife, made sure in his own memoir, Dreams of My Father, to leave out the Cokely episode, including his failure to condemn Cokely for his charge that “Jewish doctors” were deliberately committing “genocide” on “black babies.” This variant on the medieval blood libel about Jews killing Christian children so as to use their blood in making matzos, was a charge so explosive that it could well have resulted in murderous attacks by credulous African-Americans on Jewish doctors. When Sheila Miyoshi tried to convince Obama to denounce Cokely, he refused. He had decided that if he condemned Cokely, he would lose more support among black antisemites than he would gain in Jewish support. Clearly, Obama did not share the anguish of Jews at such charges, an updated version of the medieval blood libels. He was perfectly willing to pass over in silence Cokely’s disgusting and absurd charge of “genocide” by “Jewish doctors” of “black babies.” Sheila Miyoshi was appalled at Obama’s indecent political calculus, and told David Garrow so; that, she said, was her reason for the breakup. Obama, ever the calculating arriviste, determined to rise high, felt no need to reassure Jews that he stood with them. Instead, his silence about Steve Cokely’s charge suggested he had no interest in condemning even the worst antisemitic charges if to do so might hurt him with a black electorate that was also predominantly antisemitic.

Obama’s betrayal of a longstanding American commitment to veto all anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council, when instead of a veto he had Samantha Power abstain from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where a half-million Israelis lived, to constitute a violation of international law, was bad. An American veto would have killed the resolution. With the Americans not vetoing it, UNSC 2334 passed by a vote of 14-0. But Obama had done worse than that, when as a thrusting young Chicago politician he refused to do the right thing; he never denounced Steve Cokely for his extreme antisemitism, reflected in his charge that “Jewish doctors” practiced “genocide” on “black babies.” Obama’s tolerance of the worst kind of antisemitism was then, and remains, a form of antisemitism.
Antisemitism Still Haunts the European Left
Why the double standard? Why identify and condemn antisemitism from the right but not from within the left’s own ranks?

A large part of the answer sheds light upon a problem for the left not just in France, but in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom—the other countries covered by the ADL report—as well. In essence, antisemitism is not seen as a pernicious ideology targeting Jews as the root of the world’s ills, but rather as an instrument to be deployed in political conflicts. If antisemitism comes from a source that you would have no truck with anyway—in this case, an organization that believes fervently that Catholic doctrine should lie at the foundations of law and public policy—then there is no hesitation in condemning it, particularly when, as was true with the Civitas episode, there is no mention of Zionism or the State of Israel. But if antisemitism comes from an ally, like Corbyn, then you are duty-bound to deny it and dismiss it as a smear. In such an environment, any analytical consistency and certainly any attempt to point out the glaring overlap between far-left and extreme-right antisemitic tropes—dual loyalty, financial clout, disproportionate political and cultural influence—becomes impossible.

While the ADL report highlights the differences between the four countries under the microscope, there are also some key commonalities. “In all four countries, the two dominant findings were that antisemitism was used in anti-Israel contexts and in anti-capitalist contexts,” it observed. “In anti-Israel contexts, antisemitic themes included (1) accusations that Jewish cabals control politics and media and prevent either criticism of Israel or support for Palestine; (2) Holocaust trivialization as a means of arguing that Palestinians are no less victims today than Jews were during the Holocaust; (3) equating Israel with the Nazi regime, thus demonizing Israel; (4) accusations of antisemitism are in bad faith and employed to silence criticism of Israel. In anti-capitalist contexts, antisemitic themes included (1) Jewish control of financial markets; (2) Jewish obsession with money; and (3) Jewish exploitation of workers.”

The point, however, is that large swathes of the European left are either incapable of recognizing these themes as antisemitic, or they believe that the upsurge in hatred against Jews is solely a result of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. “They have learnt nothing from what happened to them in Europe. Nothing,” ranted Tariq Ali, a British far-left leader, at an anti-Israel rally in May 2021. “Every time they bomb Gaza, every time they attack Jerusalem—that is what creates antisemitism. Stop the occupation, stop the bombing and casual antisemitism will soon disappear.”

Ali did not spell out the lesson that he believes the Jews should have learned from the Nazi era, but the implication of his words is that they are receiving their just desserts for dispossessing the Palestinians. And that their choice now is to either give in—and thereby suddenly and miraculously banish antisemitism from public discourse, or to carry on fighting and accept antisemitism as an inevitable consequence. Until this mode of thinking is banished from the left, Jews will have little reason to trust its representatives, even on those occasions when they do condemn antisemitism.

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: The Triumph of Trump’s Amateurs
And yet the conflict served an unexpectedly creative purpose. It provided the leverage the United Arab Emirates needed to justify its decision to normalize relations with Israel. In the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United Nations, published an op-ed blasting the annexation idea. But while ostensibly critical of Israel, the column offered the possibility that the Arab world would open its arms to the Jewish state—because putting off annexation indefinitely would provide a rationale for normalization by Arab nations that were eager for an excuse to ditch the Palestinians.

Kushner and his chief aide, Avi Berkowitz, with the enthusiastic support of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who had replaced Tillerson in 2018), went to work securing what would become the Abraham Accords. The UAE went first, but the Kushner-Berkowitz team also got Bahrain and then Morocco (at the cost of American recognition for its occupation of the former Spanish Sahara) to join in.

The establishment of Israeli diplomatic relations with these countries was by any objective standard a historic achievement. It added to the total of Arab nations that recognized Israel after more than seven decades of the Jewish state’s existence; only Egypt and Jordan, both former direct combatants in the wars against Israel, had normalized relations before this point. Even more important, as Kushner’s book makes clear, the normalization was also done with the acquiescence of Saudi Arabia. The accords demolished the claims that peace with the Arab world could only follow a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

Trump’s amateurs proved that John Kerry’s notorious 2015 answer of “no, no, no, no,” when he was asked about the possibility of a wider peace, had been a function of the foreign-policy establishment’s tunnel vision and not a reflection of diplomatic reality. It provided the template for future peace agreements along the same lines with other Arab nations and could, in theory, prod a new generation of Palestinian leaders to seek an agreement with Israel and the United States that would be similar to the Peace Through Prosperity formula.

That the amateurs had arrived at this point by an indirect route, and only after years of struggle both inside the U.S. government and in futile attempts to engage the Palestinians, doesn’t detract from their achievement. But so deep is the contempt for Trump and Netanyahu within the ranks of the Washington establishment, and so entrenched are their preconceived notions about the Middle East, that not even the reality of the Abraham Accords and their significance are enough to change minds.

With the same cast of characters who so conspicuously failed in the Middle East under Bill Clinton and especially Barack Obama now back in control of American foreign policy, the familiar refrains about Israel needing to make concessions to encourage the Palestinians are once again in vogue. Though the Palestinian reputation for intransigence has made it difficult for even President Joe Biden’s team to find any meaningful way to appease Abbas and Company, Trump’s successor has failed to follow up on the Abraham Accords, thus squandering the opportunity for more peace deals and a united front against Iranian aggression and nuclear threats.

That is why the four books by Trump’s amateurs deserve to be read—and, despite their pedestrian renderings of everyday diplomacy (and Kushner’s deeply unattractive efforts at revenge and score-settling), understood as a useful guide to how Washington can break its addiction to policies that have been tried and proven to fail. Their authors may suffer from the opprobrium that the educated classes attach to anyone connected to Trump. But their successes deserve to be remembered and honored, and they stand as a lesson to all who will follow in their footsteps.
Ruthie Blum: The making of a Palestinian martyr
Her grieving uncle’s contradictory accounts of the night in question were just as big a giveaway, albeit unintentional. He told one outlet that his niece had been at home minding her own business when the sound of gunshots overhead spurred her to race to the roof. He was quoted on Twitter as claiming that she had gone to the roof to find her missing cat.

Both stories are revealing; most young girls would have responded to the noise of gunfire, all-too-familiar in Jenin, by cowering under their beds, not rushing to get in on the action. It’s puzzling that no adult blocked her exit from the apartment under the circumstances.

As Israeli soldiers and Border Police were in pursuit of terrorists, three of whom were known to be plotting imminent attacks, residents of the area hurled rocks, Molotov cocktails and explosives at them. Experience has taught both the murderers and those seeking to arrest them that rooftops are the best perch for this. IDF snipers were thus appropriately positioned.

The one who ended up shooting Zakarneh was simply doing his extremely difficult, dangerous job—in pitch darkness, no less. Had the young woman not been next to the targeted terrorist, filming the exchange to post on social media for propaganda purposes, she would still be alive and well.

But, then, mobs of hate-filled Palestinians would have been robbed of the ritual of carrying her flag-draped body through the streets of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) city that has become a key base for arms-hoarding and terrorist activity against the “Zionists.” It’s par for the making of a martyr, whose family will be rewarded with a generous monthly stipend from the P.A.

That’s a given, as is the vile way in which the whole scenario will be depicted in Gamba’s report.
Amb. Alan Baker: The Annual UN General Assembly Resolution Calling on Israel to Give Up Nuclear Weapons – “Much Ado about Nothing”
As part of the annual three-month “Israel-bashing” festival at the United Nations General Assembly, an automatic majority of 146 states adopted, on 7 December 2022, one of its annual resolutions calling upon Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and to place its nuclear facilities under international supervision. Only six states voted against the resolution – Canada, the U.S., Palau, Micronesia, Liberia and Israel.

Anyone familiar with the annual ruminations and musings of the UN General Assembly should not be surprised or even bothered by the automatic repetition of old, archaic resolutions, year after year, singling out Israel for all the various ills of the world.

Apart from elements within Israeli media seeking to sensationalize and dramatize such resolutions, as well as some politicians and officials unfamiliar with the machinations of the UN, no one gets excited or bothered by such resolutions.

Even within the UN itself, the annual festival in the General Assembly of “Israel-bashing” resolutions based on an automatic, politically driven majority has for decades become a routine and unavoidable annoyance and irritant for all except the Arab and African states that sponsor them. Such resolutions certainly do not and are not intended to advance the cause of Middle East peace. Nor do they achieve anything other than stain the reputation of the organization.

They are endured by most states that, out of political correctness and fear of Muslim backlash, simply go along with them and even support them, knowing that they are meaningless.

Substantively and legally speaking, such resolutions, like all General Assembly resolutions, have no binding legal authority and represent nothing more than the collective, partisan political viewpoint of the automatic majority of states that regularly vote against Israel, no matter what the subject.

Thursday, December 01, 2022

From Ian:

UN to mark ‘Nakba Day’ - Israel’s establishment as catastrophe
The UN General Assembly voted Wednesday afternoon in favor of holding a commemorative event in honor of the 75th “Nakba Day,” the Palestinian name for Israel’s establishment, which translates to “catastrophe.”

The vote was 90-30, with 47 abstentions. The United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom were among those who opposed the move. Most of the European Union also rejected the motion, save for Cyprus which supported the measure.

Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan tweeted that the UN in "passing such an extreme and baseless resolution, the UN is only helping to perpetuate the conflict."

In a UN General Assembly plenum debate prior to the vote, Erdan called for the UN to “stop ignoring the Jewish Nakba,” referring to the 750,000 Jews expelled from Arab and Muslim countries in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment.

“What would you say if the international community celebrated the establishment of your country as a disaster? What a disgrace,” Erdan said.

Erdan showed the General Assembly a front page of The New York Times from May 16, 1948, with a top headline stating: "Jews in grave danger in all Moslem lands."




UN passes resolution calling Israel's founding a 'catastrophe'
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution to mark Nakba Day, recognizing the Palestinian version of events that depicts the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as a "catastrophe".




UNGA call for Israeli-Palestinian peace parley in Moscow
The United Nations General Assembly called for an International conference in Moscow to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine which has turned it into an international pariah.

The call was included in a broad-based text called the "peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine" which was approved 154-9, with ten abstentions.

Even Ukraine voted in favor of the resolution.

Overall, the 15-point resolution called for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks based on the pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli settlement activity.

Item number three in the text called for 'the timely convening of an international conference in Moscow as envisioned by the Security Council in is resolution 1850 (2008) for the advancement and acceleration of the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement." 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (credit: REUTERS) 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (credit: REUTERS) Who was in opposition?

The revolution was part of an annual group of more than a dozen pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli texts, which the UNGA approves every year.

The UNGA passed five of those texts on Wednesday afternoon. The countries that opposed this specific text were: Canada, Hungary, Israel, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and the United States.

Australia, which has historically voted again the text, chose this year to slightly downgrade its support for Israel at the UN and abstained.

The Australian representative at the meeting said that the shift did not signify a lack of support for Israel.

"Australia shifted from 'no' to 'abstain' on the resolution .. because we believe in a just and enduring two-state solution negotiated between parties," she said.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

IfNotNow sent an email to its mailing list asking for money - by making up a lie about AIPAC.

This is a lie.

AIPAC was founded in two stages. The first was in 1951, as a lobbying arm of the American Zionist Council. It was essentially a one-man operation run by Isaiah (Si) Kenen to strengthen the Israel/American relationship. He immediately went to work on getting funding from Congress for resettling Jewish refugees in Israel. He had great relationships with many members of Congress - but the State Department was notably hostile to Israel. 

In 1953, he had some heated battles, mostly over Israeli access to water - Israel and Syria strongly disagreed over allocating water from the north and Syria wanted to ensure that Israel wouldn't get enough. Israel in turn started a project to create a canal/hydroelectric station, which angered the Eisenhower administration and the State Department. Later in 1953, the Qibya incident occurred, and there was more pressure on Israel from the US. 

But the AZC lobbying arm had nothing to do with that, and it wasn't "founded  to justify this massacre." That is absurd. It is not a hasbara organization. 

In 1954, it was decided to spin off the lobbying group as its own separate organization with its own funding, supported by a larger base of Zionist organizations, as the battles in 1953 were time consuming (Congress reduced its funding of Israel in 1953 by about 25%.)  Kenan headed the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs, registered in March 1954.

That group was renamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 1959.

All of this can be read in Kenen's 1981 book, "Israel's Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington."

As usual, Israel's enemies rely on lies - even (especially) to fundraise.  Because they know that very few people will bother to research the truth. 

(h/t Kweansmom)



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!

 

 

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Palestine Today has an article about the Congressional race in Pennsylvania that was won by Summer Lee.

AIPAC had supported Lee's opponent Mike Doyle with a large infusion of cash in the final days of the race.

Palestine Today positioned this as "a crushing loss for the Jews in Pennsylvania"in Arabic (autotranslated):



For the Jews?

That's a strange way to look at it, since Pennsylvania's new governor, Josh Shapiro, is Jewish, and his campaign featured his weekly Shabbat dinners and that he sends his kids to Jewish day schools. 

Sounds like a victory for Jews in Pennsylvania.

By the way, Shapiro is not even Pennsylvania's first Jewish governor. That was Milton Shapp, who served two terms from 1971-79, and whose birth name was...Shapiro.

Shapiro isn't even Pennsylvania's second Jewish governor. That would be Ed Rendell, who served two terms from 2003-2011. 

Somehow, when Palestine Today says "Jews," they appear to mean something else. 




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!

 

 

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Dragons and dragon-slayers in Israel and America
Israel is indeed a state for the Jewish nation. However, membership in a nation confers obligations on its people to behave as a nation.

After all, the Torah itself tells us that when the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh said they wanted to settle east of the Jordan because the pastures there were more fertile, they were told they could do so only on condition that they first fought alongside the other tribes to conquer the land of Israel.

But American Jews such as those in Mercaz Olami don’t feel bound by any such obligation. They not only choose not to live in Israel but also choose not to fight in its defense.

Instead, ensconced in a faraway land they prefer, they lob verbal missiles at the tribe from which they have separated themselves when it defends its Jewish identity in ways of which American Jews disapprove.

Their statement said Netanyahu’s coalition would include politicians “whose positions regarding basic elements of democracy and diversity … significantly differ from the values which have guided Zionism since its inception.” As a result, it threatened, Israel would lose the support of American Jews.

But that support is being lost anyway. Indeed, America’s Jewish community is losing its own members at an alarming rate.

The Conservative-Masorti movement’s pick-and-choose approach to Jewish laws, and their emptying out of Judaism by claiming as Jewish values ideologies that actually negate them, are causing the American Jewish community to hemorrhage.

The core reason is that such Jews have lost any sense of themselves as a nation. Instead, they have chosen to endorse a “progressive” view of the world that views the nation as illegitimate and therefore to be superseded by kumbaya universalism.

This is why most American Jews are on the wrong side of the titanic struggle in the U.S. over whether it still wants to be the nation it has always understood itself to be—or whether, given the divisions over uncontrolled immigration, it wants to be a nation at all.

The one thing all Israeli Jews understand is that Israel is their nation state. Therefore, their overwhelming concern when electing a government is that it should defend that state against the dragons that breathe fire against it.

That’s why, regardless of the undoubted unease within Israel over its new government and the internal battles that are unquestionably to come, its people are in a far better situation than those in America and the West—both Jews and non-Jews—who are now reloading their fraying slingshots to attack it.
With Europe at War, Israel’s Position Has Grown Stronger
Since Russia greatly expanded its war on Ukraine in February, much has changed in international relations. Eran Lerman examines how these changes have affected the Jewish state:
Israelis are sensitive to the tragic aspects of the crisis, and sentiments of support have been aroused by the Ukrainians’ resolute stance and by the unique figure of Zelensky. . . . At the same time, in almost all aspects, the war has enhanced Israel’s national security equation—and bolstered its position in world affairs.

An element of immense importance, from a national and Zionist perspective, is the dramatic rise in the number of people making aliyah, in the face of danger and deprivation in both warring nations. Over 13,000 olim from Ukraine have arrived in Israel since February, and almost alone among the millions of war refugees, it has been the Jews (including those who may be non-Jews but are entitled to aliyah because they have one Jewish grandparent) who had a home to go to. A steadily growing flow is coming from Russia, as socioeconomic conditions keep deteriorating and the partial mobilization of reserves has been declared.

Meanwhile, . . . Israel’s defense industries, which provide an indispensable contribution both to the IDF’s qualitative edge and to the national economy, have been on the unimaginable brink of really taking off ever since the war broke out. During Prime Minister Lapid’s visit to Berlin, the option of a contract with Germany for the sale of Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system for more than $2 billion was put on the table.


Moreover, Lerman notes, the war has made the West more sensitive in general to the sorts of military threats Jerusalem faces every day, and in particular to the dangers posed by Iran, which has remained loyal to Moscow.
"Palestinian Authority to End Push for International Court Ruling on ‘Occupation’"
A senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed to the Tazpit Press Service that Ramallah has acceded to a request by the U.S. and Israel to end efforts to refer Israel’s “occupation” to the International Court of Justice.

The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, offers legal opinions on questions referred by either the United Nations Security Council or General Assembly. Jerusalem regards the court as biased and fears that a ruling would give a legal imprimatur to the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions campaign against Israel.

Although the US has veto power in the Security Council, the PA has wider support in the General Assembly.

The source also confirmed that PA leadership is sticking to its positions for the end of “attacks by the Israeli occupation,” settlement activity, Israel’s so-called “assault” on the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the return of tax money Jerusalem is withholding from Ramallah over the PA’s controversial stipends for PA terrorists and the families of “martyrs.”

He also said the PA particularly wants Israel to end to Operation Breaking the Wave. Near-nightly arrest raids, mostly in the areas of Shechem (Nablus) and Jenin, have foiled hundreds of Arab terror attacks. The operation was launched following a spate of deadly Arab terror attacks in the spring.

The source stressed that while US President Joe Biden has previously opposed unilateral PA measures, Jerusalem and Washington refuse to respond to Ramallah’s demands.

Wednesday, November 09, 2022

From Ian:

The Jewish Studies Professors Who Traffic in Antisemitism
What is particularly disturbing is the fact that Jewish studies scholars have no compunction in deploying antisemitic tropes to further their agenda. Myers and Sokatch write: “The apparent return of Benjamin Netanyahu to power in Israel is a gut punch to people concerned about the state of democracy and the rule of law in the world. Netanyahu has been a key pillar in the global movement of illiberal leaders who have taken control and altered the rules of the democratic game—including in Turkey, Hungary and the United States in the Trump era.” While at first glance such a statement may seem little more than an anti-Netanyahu screed for his dictatorial propensities and underhanded machinations (which to be fair, is not unreasonable), a closer reading of this op-ed’s opening salvo reveals its perniciousness, the antisemitic trope embedded in their choice of words. Suggesting that Israel is a “key pillar” in a “global movement” to subvert democracy implies that the tiny Jewish state exerts disproportionate power in world affairs and it is exercising such power through collusion with actors who seek to enshrine white supremacy (or a local variation of fascism) in their own domains. Interestingly enough, they do not impugn Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or Iran, who are regional hegemons, in a manner that little Israel could never be, except in the minds of those who have read the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The wording is subtle yet clear, hiding in plain sight, echoing fantasies of Jewish power that have led to unimaginable violence against Jews in modern history.

Less subtle is the use by some Jewish studies scholars of the term “Jewish supremacy.” Professor Joshua Shanes of the College of Charleston has repeatedly used it in his op-eds and public Facebook posts. Although he is applying this phrase to the land “between the River and the Sea” and not to any global Jewish conspiracy, the very construction of this locution is antisemitic, insofar as it was a staple piece of Nazism and continues to be used by David Duke and others today (I invite readers to Google “Jewish Supremacy” and examine the results). “Jewish supremacy” is idiomatic and by definition it evokes images of the racial war between the Jews and Western civilization forewarned by Wilhelm Marr, Houston Steward Chamberlin and, of course, Adolf Hitler. However oppressive Israel’s policies vis-à-vis the stateless Palestinians may be, using this slogan to describe it is irresponsible and endangers the security of diaspora Jewry.

What’s even worse is that uttering “Jewish supremacy” today inexorably leads one to think of “white supremacy.” This is no accident, insofar as the Jewish people have been branded as white adjacent and even “hyper-white,” enjoying all the benefits of (and complicity in) whiteness while simultaneously claiming to be an oppressed minority. The centering of the Palestinians as the universal victim in the social justice movement has necessarily led to the branding of the Jews as a global oppressor. Paradoxically, “Jewish supremacy” marks the Jew as a racial scourge upon the world in addition to being an extension of the white European imperialists who not only enslaved Africans and decimated Native Americans but also committed history’s most systematic genocide against these very same Jewish people.

Myers and Shanes are professors of Jewish studies. They have written and taught extensively on the history of antisemitism. They cannot but know that their choice of words is pleasing to the ears of antisemites, all across the political spectrum. The people who hate the Jews, whether attendees at a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville or eminent academics like Marc Lamont Hill who celebrate Palestinian terrorists, yearn for confirmation of their fantasies of Jewish power. For if the leading Jewish experts insist that the world’s only Jewish state is a key pillar in the global campaign to subvert democracy in order to institute Jewish supremacy at home, then their fantasies cease to be illusions, and their struggle against us becomes defensible. As such, liquidating “Jewish power” becomes a matter of ethical urgency.
‘Arab Jew’ is another manifestation of Arab denial
The Juifs d ‘Orient: une histoire plurimillenaire exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris earlier in 2022 broke with conventional taboos and commendably illustrated Jewish history and culture in their own right, although the Arab antisemitism that precipitated the Jewish exodus was glossed over – presumably so as not to upset the IMA’s Arab funders. At the time, an open letter from a group of Arab intellectuals and artists objected to Israel ‘usurping Arab-Jewish culture’ for the purposes of the exhibition. Elie Beressi and Noémie Issan-Benchimol writing in K. magazine take issue with the expression ‘Arab Jew’ beloved of the letter-writers, which reduces the Jews to a subset of Arab identity (with thanks: JIMENA and Edna):

Starting with the Nahḍa, the Arab renaissance of the nineteenth century, and under the influence of European nationalist ideas being imported the former Ottoman Empire, Arab identity was to be constructed as a national category, including Christians, but excluding Jews, despite the important contribution of the latter to the intelligentsia and state apparatus, particularly in Iraq, Egypt and Morocco[6].

This is why it is appropriate to question the use of the expression “Arab Jews” by Arab intellectuals and artists. How can we interpret this a posteriori recognition of the Arabness of these Jewish populations, after they have left the Arab territories, after having ceased to be an important element of Arab societies? The general rhetoric of the above mentioned open letter gives us the answer. In the expression Arab Jews, the function of the adjective is to abolish the nature of the noun Jew, to make it only a facet of the real subject, the Arab subject. Less than a Jewish-Arab culture, there would in fact be only a “Jewish component of the Arab culture“. The Jews are not a reality in their own right, but a part of the Arab heritage. Consequently, it is only possible to talk about them in terms approved by the Arab intelligentsia, and this is precisely what the IMA exhibition does not do, as it gives the floor to Jews from Arab countries, but not the “good” ones according to Elias Khoury, who puts forward an Israeli anti-Zionist academic, Ella Shohat. Born in Israel in 1959 to Iraqi Jewish parents, professor of Cultural Studies at New York University – author of “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the standpoint of its Jewish victims”. Social Text (1988) – Shohat sees the category “mizrahim” as a Zionist artifice to uproot Jews in Arab countries from their Arabness in favour of a uniquely Jewish identity, which she sees as being contrived, with a purpose to enlist them in the oppression of the Palestinian people. For her, the Mizrahim category is constructed in mirror image of the Ashkenazim category and is imbued with the negative archetypes linked to Orientalist representations.

These theses of Shohat are perhaps worth considering, but her claims to define Arab identity as the only authentic identity of the Mizraḥim and the irreducible opposition she portrays between this Arabness and Zionism as well as the claim of the Jews to self-define themselves as a people distinct from Europeans and Arabs, are nonetheless very objectionable.
How did Medieval Jewish Tombstones End Up in an Italian Monument?
In 1960, the Italian city of Ferrara undertook the renovation of the columns that flank the entrance to the ducal palace—which are among the city’s most important architectural landmarks. Workers soon discovered that one of the columns had been constructed using 36 fragments of local Jewish tombstones from the 16th and 17th centuries. Henry Abramson writes:
A noted patron of the arts, [the 15th-century duke Borso D’Este] and his immediate successors also made Ferrara a haven for Jews, especially those expelled from Spain and refugees from the Inquisition in Italian territories to the south. Under the House of Este, Jewish life flourished in Ferrara 1598, when the Papal States exerted control over the northern Italian city. The Jewish badge was instituted shortly thereafter, and Ferrarese Jews who once lived and worked throughout the city found themselves shut in the confines of yet another ghetto.

The column was first erected in the 1450s, and it had stood for over 200 years before it was heavily damaged by a fire on December 23, 1716. A chronicler of the period, Nicolò Baruffaldi, mentions that Marquis Francesco Sacrati secured the stones from the Jewish graveyards, “paying in full for their value to the masters of the ghetto.” It is highly unlikely that the Jewish community would have willingly surrendered the gravestones of their ancestors, especially since many of the graves belonged to people the contemporary Ferrarese Jews would have actually known—the grandparents and even parents of the generation alive at the time.


As Abramson explains, there is evidence of the confiscation of Jewish tombstones in contemporary Jewish records, although there is no extant mention of those used for the column. He adds:
Amazingly, [the fragments] were not returned to the Jewish community; they were rather put back into the column where they remain to this day. In fact, they were desecrated still further, with pieces removed and discarded to make room for a reinforced concrete core to protect the column from seismic activity (a devastating earthquake had hit Ferrara in 1570, which Pope Pius V blamed on the Este family for their historic protection of the Jews).
Matti Friedman: The Rich Past, and Promising Future, of the Middle East’s Date
If there’s one thing that unifies the people who live in the area stretching from Morocco to India, writes Matti Friedman, it is their appreciation for the fruit of the date palm:
Long before refrigeration, dried dates could keep for years, making them invaluable for travelers across seas and deserts. They can be turned into honey by boiling and straining the fruit; in fact, the biblical phrase “land of milk and honey” refers to honey from dates, not bees. They can also be fermented into liquor, like the date wine enjoyed by ancient Babylonians, according to the historian Herodotus. The tree itself was a source of fiber for ropes and baskets, fronds for shelter and shade and columns for construction. That led one rabbi to remark at least 1,500 years ago, long before environmentalism was cool, “This date palm—no part of it is wasted.”

“A righteous person will flower like a date palm,” goes the verse in Psalms, one explanation being that the date palm, like the righteous, grows straight and sustains others with its fruit. A scientifically minded rabbi in 12th-century Yemen, Netanel al-Fayyumi, explained that just as the pinnacle of the animal kingdom is people, and the pinnacle of the human species is prophets, the pinnacle of the plant kingdom, according to God’s design, is this tree. “And among the plants,” wrote the rabbi, “He created the most honorable species, which is the date.”


And perhaps even more than Iran, it might be the threat posed to the crop by the red palm weevil that will bring Israelis and Arabs together:
The enemy is at the gates, and this is what brought me to Abu Dhabi, the scene of the International Date Palm Conference. . . . Of particular interest at the conference was the presence of a few Israelis, which would have been hard to imagine a few years ago, before the American-engineered agreements known as the Abraham Accords inaugurated official ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. If we understand the date palm as a unifier in a divided part of the world, dates offer an obvious field of cooperation. A weevil sensor manufactured by an Israeli company, for example, has already been drilled into thousands of trees in the UAE and Morocco, as well as in Arab countries that won’t trade directly with Israel but purchase the sensors through a third party. The sensor picks up the vibrations of weevil larvae and sends a warning to an app installed on the farmer’s smartphone.

Wednesday, November 02, 2022

From Ian:

The Stories She Never Told
My mother loved to talk politics, real estate, and cooking. She’d happily offer intelligent insights on nearly any subject except one: her own life. With stops in prewar Hungary, Auschwitz, the Sorbonne, Mexico, and finally Manhattan, my mother’s life was extraordinary, but she kept it to herself. I hated that, but I knew why. So tender-hearted that news of terrorist attacks or natural disasters brought her to tears, she needed to distance herself from the pain of her own past. Still, as her child, I needed to understand her and the world that created her.

As a teenager and young adult, I plied her with questions, but I was only partly successful. I uncovered the scaffolding of her past but not its interiority. My mother is gone now, but my curiosity remains. I still search for her by immersing myself in stories of prewar Hungarian Jewry. Surprisingly, a new book about a Sephardic Holocaust survivor has opened a window into my mother’s inner life.

One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World, a Natan Award winner, is a Tuesdays with Morrie-style recollection of journalist Michael Frank’s conversations with nonagenarian Stella Levi, who grew up on the island of Rhodes. My mother was born thousands of miles and a universe away in the Romanian city of Satu Mare, the small Romanian city better known by its Yiddish name Satmar—the birthplace of the Satmar Hasidic sect—yet their lives seem to mirror each other.

They were born within two years of each other in the mid-1920s; both grew up in religiously observant but non-Hasidic families (prewar Satmar was home to many non-Hasidic Jews), and both belonged to the last generation of Jews to feel deeply rooted in their European birthplaces. My mother’s forebears had lived in or around Satmar for more than two centuries. Levi’s family had been part of the Juderia, Rhodes’ Jewish district, since the Spanish Inquisition. Both grew up in the embrace of aunts, uncles, and cousins in a world that moved to the eternal rhythms of the Jewish calendar.

Living within a 5-mile radius in Manhattan, both Levi and my mother viewed themselves as consummately modern women, yet both were intensely nostalgic for their childhood homes. Levi spoke of “a place where old women sat outside and told stories … took dishes to be baked in the communal oven … and where a granddaughter learned to prepare her grandmother’s sweet and savory dishes.” Unable to access the right words, my mother expressed her longing to recreate the flavors of her childhood and by carrying a crumpled photograph of her doomed aunts and cousins inside of her wallet.
Daniel Greenfield: The Holocaust Is Not Your Metaphor
"A production of Romeo and Juliet for non-binary performers"

This is what happens when the Holocaust becomes universalized, a free-floating metaphor and finally woke kitsch.

Yes, that’s the problem there.

This production, which has now been canceled, comes on the heels of things like the various Anne Frank revisions, including the Latino/ICE one. The underlying problem though is the use of the Holocaust and Hitler as a metaphor for everything bad.

The Holocaust is not a lens. It’s certainly not a lens for whatever woke nonsense is trying to appropriate Jewish history to make claims about the “rise of fascism” today.

There, is to a much lesser degree, similar objections to Netfix’s Dahmer movie which distorted and rewrote the history of the murders to score political points.

Treating real events, especially the murder of people, as a metaphor reduces the dead to the means of a political end while robbing them of their voice, their history and their identity.

The Holocaust is not slavery, slavery is not the Holocaust, whatever some sexual minority is upset by is not either one, and real events are not interchangeable. Neither are real people.
The Balfour bogeyman
In the eyes of the Palestinian Authority, one historical act is attributed with all future Palestinian suffering. That act is the Balfour Declaration, issued today, Nov. 2, in 1917. The declaration was the first contemporary, internationally recognized expression of the right of the Jewish people to establish a national homeland in the geographical area known as “Palestine”.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

As exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, the PA Ministry of Information called the Balfour declaration: “The greatest crime in the history of mankind,” and the official PA daily called it “The crime of the century.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who also serves as the PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge recently claimed that the Balfour declaration violated international law:
“Israel’s very existence contradicts international law. On what right do you bring people who have no connection to this land and plant them here and tell them: This is your national home? Who gave Britain a right to give a national home? Was Palestine the land of [former British Foreign Secretary Arthur] Balfour’s father?”

[Facebook page of the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Oct. 10, 2022]


So how then, can one answer the PA’s claim?

While the Balfour Declaration was an important statement of policy on the part of the UK government, it certainly did not have the ability to bring about the creation of the Jewish state without wide international consensus.

Historically, the declaration was issued as part of a new regional order that was born out of World War I and the demise of the Ottoman Empire, which, inter alia, had controlled most of the Middle East for centuries. As part of the new order, new borders were drawn and countries were, for the first time, carved out.

In the Ottoman Empire, “Palestine” as the separate national country and identity, as the PA claims, never existed. Rather, the region was merely just another region of the empire with no specific definition.


Abbas’ advisor: Israel’s existence contradicts international law

Wednesday, August 03, 2022



Tuesday's primary is over, and in the closely watched Michigan congressional race between two incumbents, moderate Haley Stevens and "progressive" Andy Levin, Stevens trounded Levin by 20 percentage points.

The result is being painted by the far-Left crowd as AIPAC stealing the election by spending millions of dollars through their PAC, UDP, to pay for ads for Stevens. While AIPAC did spend the money, the margin of victory is not because of them - it is because Stevens was heavily backed by moderate Democrats.

One byproduct of the race, though, is that is exposed J-Street's hypocrisy.

J-Street went all out for Levin, no less than AIPAC did for Stevens. They falsely painted Levin as having mainstream positions in the American Jewish community.

The truth is quite the opposite, and it shows J-Street's extremism.

In their message after the race, J-Street wrote:

It is alarming that this race, like many other Democratic primaries this cycle, was heavily impacted by the aggressive outside spending of AIPAC and its SuperPAC, the United Democracy Project. They spent nearly $5 million to target and defeat Levin, far more than was spent by any other group. While Rep. Levin is a proudly pro-Israel Jewish-American, AIPAC smeared him as “anti-Israel,” “fringe” and “hostile.” They targeted him for holding principled, mainstream views about US diplomatic leadership in the Middle East, and for proposing legislation to help uphold Palestinian rights and secure Israel’s future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.
...

With their overwhelming spending, AIPAC hopes to send an intimidating message to others: Cross our red lines, and you could be next. While political space for open and healthy debate over US foreign policy has opened up considerably in recent years, they appear determined to close it down. Instead of building sustainable bipartisan support for Israel, AIPAC has harmfully turned Israel into one of the sharpest wedge issues in American politics.

To respond to this new challenge, Democratic Party leaders should make absolutely clear just how harmful and unwelcome AIPAC’s interventions in its primary contests are. Candidates in future primaries should disavow and decline the support of AIPAC and its SuperPAC – which have come as a surprise to at least some of them.

J Street remains committed to doing all that we can to represent the views of the majority of Jewish Americans and American voters. We will keep up our work to ensure that our national political and policy debate about foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted in honest fact, shared democratic values, and a commitment to lasting peace.
The hypocrisy shown here is off the charts.

Levin's positions are not mainstream in the Jewish community. His centerpiece "Two State Solution Act" has no traction and zero co-sponsors because it is abhorrent to pro-Israel Americans. It makes demands on Israel and none on Palestinians. It defines the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall as "occupied territory." It also defines Gaza as "occupied" even though no Jews have lived there in nearly two decades. 

J-Street's hand wringing over AIPAC's spending is also hypocritical because before AIPAC created their superPAC, the largest Jewish political PAC was JStreetPAC - by far.

But far more telling is what Haley Stevens positions on Israel are that J-Street opposes. From her campaign website section on Israel:

Chief among my priorities are safety and security, both here in the U.S. and abroad, and I believe that our strong and enduring partnership with the State of Israel is a cornerstone of maintaining these goals. The United States and Israel have maintained a steadfast partnership for over seven decades, bound by our shared commitment to common values. The U.S.-Israel partnership is one that must continue to thrive – and importantly, cannot become a partisan issue. I stand firm in my commitment to the U.S.-Israel alliance and will continue working in Congress to support policies that strengthen our strategic alliance. 

I had the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time in 2019, where I experienced its deep history, cultures, and natural beauty. I was also able to learn more about the innovative technologies Israel has created that Americans depend upon for agriculture, energy, healthcare, commerce, transportation, and national security, among many others. I look forward to finding new ways to develop strategic plans to build on these technological successes. 

I stand alongside Israel against the BDS movement, which seeks to undermine Israel’s economy and legitimacy. Its main goal is to delegitimize Israel’s existence and inflame tensions in communities and on college campuses, which undermines the prospects for peace. At a time when anti-Israel boycotts are prevalent around the country and globe, and the Anti-Defamation League is reporting a dramatic uptick in anti-Semitic hate crimes, it is now more important than ever to stand beside Israel and oppose state-sponsored BDS. 

I believe in Israel’s fundamental right to self-defense. As the only democracy in the Middle East and our strongest ally in the region, Israel’s safety is paramount to our interests at home and abroad. Congress must continue to unconditionally support critical programs that help Israel upgrade its fleets in air, land, and sea, enhance the mobility of its ground forces, and continue to strengthen its missile defense capabilities. The landmark Memorandum of Understanding reached under the Obama Administration provided Israel with robust funding to accomplish these goals, and I will continue to support funding from this historic agreement, as I have each year. We must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and further destabilizing the region. Diplomacy must be the first option and is the best solution but all options must remain on the table. 

I believe in the worth and value of every Palestinian and every Israeli and will work to support a negotiated solution resulting in two states—a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable, democratic Palestinian state—living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition. This peace process should be settled by the parties directly. 

Our countries share a commitment to justice and equality for all. From standing up for women’s rights to affirming our support for the worldwide LGBT community, our common values are what unite us. That deep sense of justice – born out of a shared commitment to repairing the world – is why we can always count on each other.
This statement says more positive things about Israel than J-Street has during its entire existence. Moreover, it is clearly within the mainstream of the American Jewish community - supporting a two state solution, supporting a strong US-Israel relationship, supporting Israel's right to self-defense, supporting Israel's liberal values, and opposing BDS.

These position are what J-Street opposes. Which makes J-Street an extremist group, not a moderate pro-Israel group.

I am deeply concerned by the persistent and growing effort to demonize Israel, the world's only Jewish state and a close American ally, on the international stage. Whether through the chronic bias displayed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) or accusations put out by groups like Amnesty International, I stand opposed to efforts to unjustifiably brand Israel as an "apartheid state," and I will always work to mitigate the threat of delegitimization against our closest friends in the Middle East. Since its inception in 2006, the UNHRC has created 33 Commissions of Inquiry, out of which nine have dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There have been no UNHRC commissions of inquiry into Iranian or Chinese human rights violations. Israeli Arabs are represented in the Israeli Knesset, Supreme Court, Governing Coalition, and Defense Forces, in short. Instead of holding the world’s only Jewish state to a double standard, we should investigate why its adversaries are so keen on finding new methods to undercut its legitimacy as a vibrant, multi-ethnic democracy. This disastrous characterization of Israel will not serve to end the conflict and suffering in the region but will rather serve to incite violence and hatred toward the world's largest hub of Jewish life amid a time of overwhelming concern for the international Jewish community. I support good faith efforts to address the underlying causes of recurrent tensions and instability in the region in pursuit of peace, but I fervently condemn this campaign to vilify our close American ally with these displays of hateful discrimination.”
This is mainstream American Zionist and Jewish opinion. But I cannot find a single J-Street statement opposing the UN Commission of Inquiry.They issued no condemnation of the antisemitic statements of its member  Miloon Kothari that the "Jewish lobby" controls social media. 

J-Street's opposition to Stevens proves that they are not pro-Israel at all.

Moreover, I cannot find a single statement from Andy Levin decrying those who call Israel an "apartheid state." His silence is tacit support. J-Street says it is against that specific term - but they fully support the anti-Israel reports from HRW and Amnesty that make that accusation. 

There is a further hypocrisy from J-Street in their letter. They pretend to be upset that AIPAC is turning Israel into a wedge issue - yet that is J-Street's entire purpose, to divide the American Jewish community and to promote the ideas and candidates whose opinions are anathema to most American Jews.

And their self-righteous posturing that billionaire money corrupts democracy is even more hypocritical.  J-Street was formed with the early support (within six months of its founding) of billionaire George Soros, a fact that they tried to hide.

All you need to know about J-Street can be seen in this one campaign. And it proves that J-Street holds fringe opinions on Israel that they try to obscure behind their mantras of "pro-Israel, pro-peace, two states."





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Thursday, July 28, 2022









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

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Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, July 25, 2022

The Israel Lobby is in the news again, as left-wing media has become obsessed with AIPAC's spending to promote pro-Israel candidates for Congress.

Rep. Andy Levin is a scion of a powerhouse Michigan political family. His father Sander was a member of Congress for 36 years and was twice the Democratic candidate for governor of Michigan. His uncle Carl Levin was a powerful senator for Michigan for 36 years as well. 

He is one powerful Jew.

Yet he is portraying himself as a victim of the evil, all powerful, Israel lobby, whining on MSNBC that "AIPAC can't stand the idea that I am the strongest Jewish voice in Congress standing for... human rights for the Palestinian people." He's saying this behind a graphic warning about "DC's Dark Money."


Left unsaid, of course, is that Levin introduced a bill to consider the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall and all the Jewish holy spots in Jerusalem as "occupied Palestinian territory." The bill has no other sponsors and has garnered zero support from his fellow members of Congress, proving that Levin's ideas are an outlier and his ideas are extreme. AIPAC isn't opposing him because he is pro-Palestinian - they are opposing him because he wants to rip Jerusalem away from the Jewish state, something no "pro-Israel" politician would ever demand.

AIPAC's new PAC is indeed spending millions - $22 million so far this election cycle, more of it to promote pro-Israel candidates than to oppose anti-Israel candidates. This is only about 4% of all outside spending for this election cycle. It is virtually the same amount spent by the Protect Our Future liberal SuperPAC

But only AIPAC is being singled out for doing what every single other political lobby does by definition - spend money to influence the government. 

If you look at the major lobbyists in Washington, AIPAC and its UDP SuperPAC are powerful but hardly unique. The media attention given to them is definitely unique. Because the meme of powerful Jews controlling who gets elected is as irresistible to modern antisemites as it is to classic antisemites. 

Also interesting is what doesn't get reported. 

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires any country that spends money to influence Americans politically (or even to encourage tourism) to report how much it is spending. 

In 2018, the State of Israel was the top spender of any government, spending $35 million directly in the US according to FARA filings with another $15 million from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

That number has plummeted to practically nothing - $16 million in 2019, $2 million in 2020, $600,000 in 2021 and a mere $263,000 so far this year from the government of Israel.

The literal Israel lobby spending has gone practically to zero. But the media won't report that, because it doesn't fit the narrative of Israel controlling the US. 

Now, how much do you hear about how much these countries spend to influence US policies last year?

Country2021 Spending
China$84,376,408
Qatar$46,687,439
Japan$46,426,178
Russia$36,657,417
South Korea$33,694,710
United Arab Emirates$31,544,866
Marshall Islands$30,032,779
Liberia$29,868,477
Canada$26,721,869
Saudi Arabia$25,006,629


The obsession we are seeing with the Israel lobby cannot be explained by its actual influence. It can only be explained by wanting to convince people that powerful Jews are controlling American politics. 

There's a name for that.




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Sunday, July 24, 2022

USAID is the US government's humanitarian aid arm. It has worked with Palestinians on various projects.

In 2020, Congress allocated $250 million over five years through the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA) "to advance peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians to enable a sustainable two-state solution." 

Most of MEPPA funds are funneled through USAID:
The funds allocated to USAID will be guided by a fifteen-member Advisory Board with twelve members appointed by Congress in addition to a chair and two international members appointed by the USAID Administrator. The Board is tasked "to consult with, provide information to, and advise USAID and other U.S. Government agencies" on the efficacy of programming and partnership options to ensure the advancement of the goals of the Partnership for Peace Fund. Members are selected from diverse backgrounds, and their collaboration is governed by the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
This Advisory Board held its first meeting in April, and it appears that it is interested in building institutions for Palestinians where they can supposedly work together with Israelis.

But they intend to build these institutions in Area C, which is under Israeli control, even though some 95% of Palestinians live in Areas A and B.


The transcript of their initial meeting in April included this:
Hiba Husseini: The other recommendation I would make is an Area C.  Area C can be utilized both for the private sector, which I propose that we develop a logistics and distribution center, for example, in Area C.  These distribution centers require large space and employ large number of people and create a lot of IT-related systems.  So, I think logistics, distribution centers in Area C to serve the West Bank would be a very innovative idea and would bring the two sides -- the two businesses and create the integration that some of my colleagues have spoken about.
Another Area C project I envisage is the youth -- joint youth education in -- like IT incubation in Area C.  So, take cool kids during the summer breaks and then create more advanced programs, maybe even leading to an IT university of sort or IT training center.  We need the skills.  And Israel has the skill, so I think jointly kids can start learning from the high school level moving forward...

George Salem (Chair):...I took pride to take careful notes of what everyone had to say.  I would add, you know, the idea articulated by Ms. Husseini about expansion of programs for businesses in Area C is one I think that could be really fruitfully explored, as well as IT training, and perhaps even establishing a university there, as well as tourism.
You can be sure that when they are talking about these initiatives, the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in Area C are meant to be excluded. Which means that this is a means to help Palestinianstake over parts of Area C - much as the EU has done over the past decades.

To pass muster with USAID, these programs are supposed to be officially joint Israeli-Palestinian initiatives, but if Palestinians are meant to reap the benefits, why not place them where the Palestinians mostly live? 

MEPPA has two goals: economic development of the Palestinian private sector and "person to person" peacebuilding programs. Building a Palestinian high tech university on Israeli-controlled lands is not either of these - it is a land grab. Even if some of the instructors are Israelis. 

Husseini and Salem are both Palestinian. They know exactly what they are doing. 

The advisory board's recommendations are non-binding, and some members seem to be staunch Zionists including Sander Gerber of AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Hopefully any agenda that undermines Israel, like the Area C proposals here, will be quashed before any damage can be done. 

(h/t  Irene)




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

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