Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
This seems to be the year for Taylor Swift Chanukah parodies
Bonus track, another from Shir Soul, "Africapella":
Showing posts with label Chanukah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chanukah. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
Chanukah
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
- Tuesday, December 12, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Chanukah
Monday, December 11, 2023
- Monday, December 11, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Chanukah
Sunday, December 10, 2023
- Sunday, December 10, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Chanukah
Saturday, December 09, 2023
- Saturday, December 09, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Chanukah
Friday, December 08, 2023
- Friday, December 08, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Chanukah
Thursday, December 07, 2023
- Thursday, December 07, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Chanukah
Monday, January 23, 2023
- Monday, January 23, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- al-Akhbar, antisemitism, Arab antisemitism, Chanukah, Christians, education, Freedom of Religion, indigenous, jew hatred, Lebanon
A picture of a booklet titled “Hanukkah” was circulated on social media, distributed by UNIFIL forces to the students of Our Lady of the Annunciation School in Rmeish, south Lebanon, on the occasion of Christmas. .Indeed, it is stated in the pamphlet that Al-Akhbar reviewed, under the title Facts, that “thousands of years ago the Jewish people lived in a land called Judea (now Israel) and there were rulers who were not kind and respectful to the Jewish people... In about 165 BC, The king of Syria destroyed the temple of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, although he knew that this building was the cradle of the Jewish people, and he was deliberately trying to disturb them and make them feel despair.According to an informed source in the town, “the Irish battalion distributed it,” describing the matter as “very dangerous, because it comes in the context of attempts to normalize relations with the occupying enemy, and it includes a denial of the right of the Palestinian people to their land, and it is a kind of introductory cultural normalization because it was distributed to students.”A source in the school administration, who refused to reveal his name, ... reduced the seriousness of what these books contained, stressing that he burned them or what was left of them, “to avoid any problem.”
The story of Chanukah is a serious danger to Palestinians because it proves that Jews lived there first and that the Temple existed.
Better to burn it than to expose children to a story about fighting for religious freedom!
In case you don't think that Lebanon is institutionally antisemitic, the earliest tweet about this story I could find was from Mays al Jabal News, which was aghast that the book "talks about the Jews, and asks the student at the end to color elements symbolizing the Jews!"
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Monday, December 26, 2022
- Monday, December 26, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- anti-Zionist not antisemitic, cartoon of the day, Chanukah, humor
Sunday, December 25, 2022
- Sunday, December 25, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Abraham Accords, anti-normalization, anti-Zionist not antisemitic, Arab antisemitism, bahrain, Chanukah, Death to Israel, Muslim antisemitism, Palestine Today, protest, Zionist project
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| "Death to Israel" |
On Friday, a demonstration took place in the Sitra area of Bahrain, rejecting the holding of Hanukkah activities in the country, and all forms of normalization with the Israeli entity, and in support of the Palestinian cause.
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| "Chanukah is a Zionist project and normalization program" |
Palestine Today reports that the demonstration was repeated today, and managed to cancel a Chanukah event tonight.
Sunday evening, a massive demonstration took place in Bahrain to condemn the normalization of Manama with the Israeli occupation.Activists circulated on social media, video clips, the moment a mass demonstration began near Bab Al Bahrain, denouncing normalization and holding Hanukkah events in the country.The participants raised banners denouncing the condemnation and slogans of "Death to Israel".The demonstration led to the cancellation of the first Hanukkah activities scheduled to start this evening at Bab Al Bahrain.
Here's video with plenty of chants of "Death to Israel."
Friday, December 23, 2022
- Friday, December 23, 2022
- Ian
- 2022 terror, Abraham Accords, boycott, bribery, car ramming, Chanukah, denying Jewish history, EU, France, Freedom of Religion, Hypocrisy, IDF, Linkdump, Netanyahu, Qatar, StateDept, supporting terror, UN, unesco, unrwa
From Ian:
Report by UN Middle East envoy ignores Israeli terror victims
Showing gratitude to the IDF, the modern-day Maccabees
Report by UN Middle East envoy ignores Israeli terror victims
UN coordinator to the Middle East Tor Wennesland, reported to the Security Council on Thursday that more than 20 Israeli victims have been killed as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of 2022 – a number lower than Israeli estimations.
The Envoy reported 150 Palestinian casualties during the same time span, the largest number in recent years.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Wennesland relied on data taken from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which only recognized 19 Israeli victims in terror attacks in 2022.
According to Israeli estimations, 31 Israelis and foreign workers were killed as a result of terror attacks, while the UN claimed the cause of the additional 12 fatalities were inconclusive or their perpetrators remained at large.
The Foreign Ministry said the UN’s report ignored terror attack victims including Aryeh Shchupak and Tadese Tashume who were killed in a bombing attack in Jerusalem last November, Shulamit Rachel Ovadia who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in September, Victor Sorokopot and Dima Mitrik who were killed in a terror attack in Bnei Brak last March.
Also not mentioned were Ivan Tarnovksy who was killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem in March, Rabbi Moshe Kravitsky, Laura Itzhak, Doris Yahbas, and Meha and Menach Yehezkel who were killed in a terror attack in Be’er Sheva also in March, and Border Police officers Shirel Abukarat and Yezen Falah who were killed in a terror attack in Hadera that same month.
Wennesland did not mention that out of the 150 Palestinians who were killed since the beginning of 2022, at least 80% were what the ministry called "terrorists," describing them as Palestinian civilians.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan’s appeals to the OCHA for the reevaluation of the data presented, have so far, remained unanswered.
Want to know why a @UN Special Rapporteur is advocating on behalf of a terrorist who murdered 7 people?
— Maurice Hirsch, Adv. ???? ??''? ????? ???? (@MauriceHirsch4) December 23, 2022
It's because she is a JEW HATER who believes that Palestinian terrorists have the right tto murder Jews!
She is a stain on the already tainted UN!https://t.co/8TWouT5djw
Showing gratitude to the IDF, the modern-day Maccabees
As we reflect on the joyous holiday of Hanukkah, a commemoration of the notable and valiant fighting prowess of the Jewish people in ancient times, we also celebrate the unyielding resilience and determination of the Jewish people and our homeland.
From Maccabees to modern miracles
For this year’s Festival of Lights, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) organized a “Live the Miracle” campaign. On each night of Hanukkah, Jewish celebrities and influencers welcomed soldiers from the IDF into their homes to light candles together in a symbolic act of solidarity with Israel and the never-ending fight against the darkness that is antisemitism.
The candle lighting took place at the homes of Lizzy Savetsky, a social media influencer, matchmaker and unabashed Zionist activist; Alexei and Loren Brovarnik, stars of the hit series 90 Day Fiancé; Modi Rosenfeld, a stand-up comedian and actor; Tova Friedman, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor and recent TikTok sensation; Ashley Waxman Bakshi, a beauty, travel and fashion creator; Cathy Heller, an author and podcast host; Kosha Dillz, a rapper; and Noa Tishby, an Israeli actress, writer and activist.
In the face of social media attacks, these nine brave individuals stood up for morality, for dignity and for the young men and young women who are literally at the front line of humanity.
Hanukkah is the celebration of miracles, of right over might: of the small yet fearless Maccabee army’s defeat over the formidable Greco-Syrian forces and a tiny vessel of oil, enough to light the menorah in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount for 12 hours, that burned instead for eight days.
A group of educators, the Maccabees fought to defend the religious freedom and basic human rights of the Jewish people. Their victory over their imposing enemy ultimately emancipated the Jewish people so that they could live freely and exult each day in their fundamental humanity.
It’s time to light the candles—for Shabbat and the 6th night of Hanukkah!
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 23, 2022
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Holidays from the IDF ????? pic.twitter.com/hdcCLQeX67
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
- Wednesday, December 21, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- antisemitism, Arab antisemitism, cartoons, Chanukah, conspiracy theories, Egypt, jew hatred, Muslim antisemitism, Nazi Germany, sons of apes and pigs, The Protocols
For Chanukah, here is a list of Arab cartoons I have found that use a menorah as a motif.
It sure looks antisemitic to me.
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| During wildfires in Israel |
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| Stylizing the last letter of "Daesh" (ISIS) to look like Israel is behind the group |
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| Jew as monkey (1992, Egypt) |
Now compare with this from Nazi Germany:
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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Tuesday, December 20, 2022
- Tuesday, December 20, 2022
- Ian
- Airbnb, antisemitism, Berkeley Law, BLM, CAMERA, Campus antisemitism, Caroline Glick, Chanukah, Good news, hate crime, JCPA, Jonathan Greenblatt, Linkdump, Nazi, NYT, Ohio, Poland, Ruthie Blum, two-state solution, UK
From Ian:
Stephen Pollard: To tackle the oldest hatred, it’s not enough to just teach the Holocaust
Stephen Pollard: To tackle the oldest hatred, it’s not enough to just teach the Holocaust
In much of the West there is an assumption among both Jews and those who sympathize with them that teaching people about the Holocaust somehow inoculates them against anti-Semitism. Stephen Pollard observes that education about the Shoah in Britain is very good, but evidence shows that hostility toward Jews is nonetheless on the rise:A Festival of Light for Dark Times
Last year, I was told by the anti-extremism educator Charlotte Littlewood of her experience in one school. After giving training to a sixth form about 9/11, a teacher approached her about the session. Why, he asked, had she ignored the “evidence” that 9/11 was organized by the Jews?
Ms. Littlewood is the author of a study cited today by the government’s so-called “anti-Semitism tsar” Lord Mann in his ground-breaking report calling for all schools to have policies to recognize and combat anti-Semitism, which should also be part of teacher training. (One might also point out the inherent irony of the phrase “anti-Semitism tsar.”)
Her study found that recorded anti-Semitic incidents in schools in England have nearly trebled over the past five years. But a mere 47 schools have any kind of formal, written policy that “might make staff more aware of the vicious forms of anti-Semitic bullying”—such as making a hissing sound when Jewish pupils enter a classroom in a reference to the Nazi gas chambers.
[In fact], some of those who think of themselves as being profoundly anti-racist nonetheless harbor stereotypically anti-Semitic thoughts about Jews—that they are rich, they control the media, they stick together, and so on. They won’t even recognize that these are racist ideas, seeing them merely as statements of fact. This explains how you can teach the Holocaust and yet not make any impact on dealing with living, breathing anti-Semitism. Or, to put it another way, the bar for anti-Jewish racism is set at the level of killing Jews.
A Hanukkah message from Theodor Herzl, 125 years agoRuthie Blum: No, Gray Lady, the ‘bedrock’ of US-Israel relations isn’t a two-state solution
As noted by the historian Daniel Polisar, Herzl was likely writing autobiographically. He had customarily purchased a Christmas tree for his family and was more well-versed in Latin, Greek, and German than he was in Hebrew. But he was developing the realization that candles of national pride and Jewish tradition, once lit, could attract companions. Writing a few months after the First Zionist Congress—whose 125th anniversary was marked in Basel in 2022—Herzl hoped for the progressing of his project of national reclamation. He anticipated the most desperate, the young and the poor, would be the first to see the light.
Then the others join in, all those who love justice, truth, liberty, progress, humanity, and beauty. When all the candles are ablaze everyone must stop in amazement and rejoice at what has been wrought. And no office is more blessed than that of a servant of this light.
Though Hanukkah is undoubtedly a uniquely Jewish holiday, commemorating the bloody battle for the preservation of its ancient practices and beliefs 2,000 years ago, all Americans may find inspiration in Herzl’s depiction. After all, imagining the reinvigoration of political unity and patriotic pride in the United States today seems no less far-fetched than Herzl’s dream for a renewed Israel seemed on the eve of 1898. Even if we willed it, we undoubtedly feel, it would probably remain just a dream.
Yet, during the American colonies’ earliest decades, and as the colonists subsequently developed hope for independence from Britain, they looked to the branches of a tree to reflect the potential of shared national purpose. Old elms were deemed “Liberty Trees,” a symbol of what one observer called “that Liberty which our Forefathers sought out, and found under Trees, and in the Wilderness.” The biblically tinged image, like the menorah, acknowledges separate branches, but emphasizes the shared root that feeds its growth. It reminds us that by drawing from our common core we might yet expand outward and upward.
In the dark desperation of our current societal disunity, consideration of what Herzl termed the “marvel of the Maccabees” may serve as a hopeful reminder, a means of reclaiming our own sense of national pride and purpose. If we remind ourselves and the next generation of the faith in which we were forged, and envision a brighter, more joyous tomorrow, we may yet find companions amid the slumbering darkness. We may yet find ourselves servants of the light.
In a social media post on Sunday, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu blasted the Gray Lady for its gall.
“After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, The New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government,” he tweeted, in response to a weekend editorial titled: “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy.”
He was right to fight back, as the piece not only asserted that his coalition-in-formation poses a “significant threat to Israel’s future—its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland”; it also urged the administration in Washington and the American public to support the “moderating forces” in the country that are “already planning energetic resistance.”
Not that Bibi’s response will do any good, other than reminding those who long ago realized that the “newspaper of record”—a broken one where Israel is concerned—doesn’t deserve its self-anointed reputation as a reliable source on any issue.
Nor did its horror at the return to the helm of the longest-serving premier in Israel’s history come as a shock to anyone, least of all Netanyahu himself. On the contrary, had it expressed a more positive view of the cabinet now taking shape in Jerusalem, it would have lost the remainder of its shrinking readership to publications that refuse to compromise on their unabashed radicalism.
In fairness, albeit ill-deserved, the Times and other “anti-Israel-is-the-new-pro-Israel” periodicals abroad are taking their cue from the “anybody but Bibi” contingent at home. The latter’s way of bemoaning its uncontestable Nov. 1 ballot-box defeat has been to decry the imminent demise of democracy at the hands of extremists bent on transforming the Jewish state into an unrecognizable, racist, homophobic theocracy.
The irony is that the bulk of the wokeratti, who can take considerable credit for the electorate’s rightward pull, didn’t use to praise the country for its liberal values. The sudden nostalgia—while the current caretaker government of Yair Lapid hasn’t even left its perch—is not merely laughable, it explains the Times’s disingenuous reference to “Israel’s proud tradition as a boisterous and pluralistic democracy.”
Monday, December 19, 2022
- Monday, December 19, 2022
- Ian
- Al Sharpton, apartheid, apartheid lies, BDSFail, CAMERA, Campus antisemitism, Canada, Canary Mission, Chanukah, David Collier, Egypt, Germany, Haifa, Israel is Apartheid, Israeli Arabs, Linkdump, NGO lies, twitter, USA
From Ian:
Daniel Greenfield: The light of Hanukkah that has continued to shine for 74 years
Daniel Greenfield: The light of Hanukkah that has continued to shine for 74 years
A candle is a brief flare of light. A wick dipped in oil burns and goes out again. The Hanukkah light appears no different, but it is.Israel is one of the most progressive countries in the world
Two thousand years after the Jews had come to believe that wars were for other people and miracles meant escaping alive, Jewish armies stood and held the line against an empire and the would be empires of the region.
And now the flame still burns, though it is flickering. Seventy-four years is a long time for oil to burn, especially when the black oil next door seems so much more useful to the empires and republics across the sea. And the children of many of those who first lit the flame no longer see the point in that hoary old light.
But that old light is still the light of possibilities. It burns to remind us of the extraordinary things that our ancestors did and of the extraordinary assistance that they received. We cannot always expect oil to burn for eight days, just as we cannot always expect the bullet to miss or the rocket to fall short. And yet even in those moments of darkness the reminder of the flame is with us for no darkness lasts forever and no exile, whether of the body of the spirit, endures. Sooner or later the spark flares to life again and the oil burns again. Sooner or later the light returns.
It is the miracle that we commemorate because it is a reminder of possibilities. Each time we light a candle or dip a wick in oil, we release a flare of light from the darkness comes to remind us of what was, is and can still be.
While so-called “progressives” and biased media in the United States level a relentless stream of accusations against Israel, these “critics” uniformly ignore the fact that Israel is one of the most liberal, progressive nations in the world. If Israel’s “progressive” critics really cared about social justice, they would be the country’s most fervent supporters.General Washington’s Christmastime Hanukah Encounter
Enemies of Israel falsely accuse Israel of white colonialism, apartheid, ultra-nationalism, unfair treatment of its Arab citizens, LGBT “pinkwashing,” theocracy and violations of international law.
In fact, Israel is a mature democracy with high-functioning government and judicial institutions, plus a long track record of moral behavior and the rule of law. It guarantees expansive civil liberties, equal rights and economic opportunities to its citizens.
This includes, of course, Israel’s two million Arab citizens—20% of the population—who share all the benefits of Israeli society.
Israeli Arabs are currently represented in the Knesset by two political parties, one of which is an Islamist party that was part of the outgoing government. An Arab Muslim judge serves on Israel’s Supreme Court. An Arab Christian also served as a Supreme Court justice and was chair of Israel’s Central Elections Committee.
An Arab Muslim is the head of Bank Leumi, Israel’s largest bank. Arabs also make up 30% of the country’s doctors and 50% of the country’s pharmacists.
Thousands of Israeli Arabs volunteer for service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), even though military service is not required of Arab Muslims or Christians.
So much for the myth of Israeli apartheid.
There is a particularly American Hanukah story that occurred when Washington and his troops were at Valley Forge during Christmas of 1777. Dan Adler’s article “Hanukkah at the White House” recounts this tale of George Washington’s encounter with a Jewish soldier: “In December, 1778, General George Washington had supper at the home of Michael Hart, a Jewish merchant in Easton, Pennsylvania. It was during the Hanukkah celebration, and Hart began to explain the customs of the holiday to his guest. Washington replied that he already knew about Hanukkah. He told Hart and his family of meeting the Jewish soldier at Valley Forge the previous year. (According to Washington, the soldier was a Polish immigrant who said he had fled his homeland because he could not practice his faith under the Prussian government there.) Hart’s daughter Louisa wrote the story down in her diary.” Rabbi Susan Grossman has written that, “[l]ike generations of Jews before him, that soldier served as a ‘light unto the nations’ (Isaiah 42:6), bringing inspiration and courage to a nation in its birth pangs. And he did so in a perfectly American way, a way in which a miracle did result, the miracle by which the light from one religion helps give comfort and courage to another.”
Washington “was welcomed at the home of Corporal Michael Hart,” which is described as “a two-story stone building on the southeast corner of the public square, directly opposite the courthouse. His general store was on the first floor, his residence on the second. Michael Hart’s wife, Leah, prepared a kosher meal... in honor of the Hanukah festival, it being the sixth day of the holiday.” (To offer a mild correction, December 21, 1778, was the eighth and final day of Hanukah that year, since Hanukah ran from sundown, Sunday, December 13, 1778, until sundown, Monday, December 21st.)
Further, Louisa Hart would “proudly record” in her diary: “Let it be remembered that Michael Hart was a Jew, pious; a Jew reverencing and strictly observant of the Sabbath and festivals, dietary laws were also adhered to although he was compelled to be his own Schochet [ritual slaughterer]. Mark well that he, Washington, was then honored as first in peace, first in war and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Even during a short sojourn he became, for the hour, the guest of the worthy Jew.”
Sunday, December 18, 2022
- Sunday, December 18, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- "Al-Aqsa is in danger!" lie, 1920, 1929, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Arab antisemitism, Arab history of Judaism, Chanukah, hamas, Islamic Jihad, jew hatred, Jordan, Muslim antisemitism, open air prison, PIJ, Temple Mount
Hamas issued this press release in English:
Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad met in Lebanon, somehow escaping the Gaza "open air prison" whenever they want to, and they included threats to Israel for Jews visiting the Temple Mount:
The planned mass incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, orchestrated by Israeli settler groups under the cover and protection of the hardline right-wing Israeli occupation government to mark the so-called Hanukkah holiday, constitute a dangerous development aimed at provoking the feelings of the Palestinian people and of all Muslims.We hold the Israeli occupation government fully responsible for the repercussions of such raids and provocations. We emphasise that such policies and incursions threaten to explode the situation in the face of the Israeli occupation and colonial settlers.We call on the Palestinian citizens of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque by intensifying their presence at the Muslim sacred compound in order to foil all schemes intended to impose a new fait accompli and divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque temporally and spatially.The Palestinian people will continue to defend the Al-Aqsa compound with all means possible and at any cost.
Note that even in English, the antisemitism shines through. Not only are they saying that Jews hve no rights to visit our most sacred site, and not only are they saying that the only reason Jews might want to visit the site is specifically to provoke Muslims, and not only are they saying that their own natural violence that might erupt in the anger of seeing Jews walking around peacefully would be the Jews' fault, but they imply that Chanukah itself is a fake holiday - "so-called Hanukkah holiday" - perhaps as an excuse to do these "provocations."
In Arabic, of course, they are even more strident in their threats.
Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, called on the masses of our people and our nation to mobilize to protect the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the face of the continuous crimes of the occupation, stressing that the battle with the occupation is long, extended, complex and has multiple fronts, mechanisms and means.
Today, Sunday, Abu Obeida stressed that the occupation's threats about the further storming of Al-Aqsa are serious, and indicate the nature of the criminal structure that came to power in the entity, adding, "This requires a state of alert for our people and our nation to protect the place of their Prophet from this miserable fragmentation."
He stressed that the battle of Saif al-Quds (2021 Gaza war) was the detonator that exploded latent energies and removed the ashes from blazing embers in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and occupied Palestine in the year 48, and was an inspiring model.
Abu Obeida called on our revolutionary youth in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian interior, to continue to escalate the resistance against the occupation and settlers, stressing that the extended and escalating resistance movement is the natural state to respond to aggression and establish the next liberation stage.
He added, "We are facing a battle of existence, right, history, and the future, but victory is an hour's patience, and if the martyrs are planted despite the pain, a revolution and a real victory will grow."
Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Sheikh Mujahid Saleh Al-Arouri, Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, met with Brother Mujahid Ziyad Al-Nakhala, in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, yesterday .
The two parties emphasized joint cooperation in strengthening and activating the resistance of our people in all of Palestine in the face of the Zionist occupation and criminality, especially in the West Bank, and to confront the Zionist plans that seek to undermine the resistance and liquidate the Palestinian cause, the aggressive threats targeting Jerusalem, and the repeated storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The inflammatory and inciteful rhetoric isn't only the domain of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups. Jordanian officials joined the anti-Chanukah, anti-Jewish party:
Secretary-General of the Royal Commission for Jerusalem Affairs, Abdullah Kanaan, confirmed that the concept of holidays is usually associated with peace, unlike what is happening in occupied Palestine, which activates and intensifies the Israeli attacks and incursions against the Islamic and Christian sanctities in the city of Jerusalem.
He said that the Jews perform alleged rituals related to their festivals in a way that threatens the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque directly, and makes the idea of demolishing the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and establishing the alleged temple in its place a sacred religious principle, as is the case in the doctrine of the holiday (Hanukkah), which provokes the feelings of Muslims and Christians whose sanctities are also exposed. It clearly shows the occupation's plans to Judaize Jerusalem, and efforts to change the existing historical situation, which endangers peace and security in the region and the world.
The Ammon News site then goes on a bizarre, antisemitic reading of history, not only denying Jewish history itself but then blaming Jews celebrating Jewish holidays for Arabs slaughtering Jews:
Today, Sunday, the Jews began their celebrations of the Hanukkah or Lights)festival, which is a celebration to commemorate the so-called alleged temple, and to restore freedom of worship to the Jewish people after the success of the popular revolution led by Judah Maccabee and his brothers, according to legends on which they built their fabricated beliefs, and at the same time they oppress Muslims and Christians in the occupied territories to prevent them from celebrating their festivals.The Jewish holidays, including Hanukkah, are dominated by the nature of violations and assaults in alleged religious dress, which creates a difficult and even dangerous reality for Jerusalemites by preventing them from freedom of worship, and the exercise of economic and social activities, due to checkpoints, closures, holding Talmudic prayers, lighting candlesticks, and incursions by herds of settlers under protection and direct participation of the Israeli police and army.It is noteworthy that the Zionist gangs carried out an attack during the Prophet Musa season on 4/4/1920 under the pretext of celebrating the Jewish Passover, and on 8/15/1929, which coincided with the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday, they attacked the Palestinians under the pretext of celebrating the day of the alleged destruction of the Temple, so that occupied Palestine would witness the Buraq Revolution.
This isn't "anti-Zionism." This is Jew-hatred, and anyone who denies this simple equation supports it.
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Friday, December 16, 2022
- Friday, December 16, 2022
- Ian
- Al Jazeera, bbc, BDS, Ben & Jerry's, Berkeley Law, Campus antisemitism, Chanukah, FBI, follow the money, France, Good news, Hitler, JILV, Kanye West, LGBTQ2S, Linkdump, NYC, UK, woke, Zabludowicz Art Trust
From Ian:
Liberals, Progressives, Wokeness and Israel
Liberals, Progressives, Wokeness and Israel
Putting all this together, what the JILV survey powerfully documents is a troubling phenomenon that has pervaded the larger American political system today: namely political sorting. In its most basic form, political sorting, which is often confused with polarization, is a fairly new phenomenon and is where ideological and attitudinal positions no longer vary but are expected to align to particular liberal or conservative attitudes. The result today is that Democrats are more uniformly left-leaning and Republicans are more uniformly right-leaning than they were decades ago. Both the left and the right promote packages of ideas and attitudes that must be adopted wholesale if one is not to fall into disfavor. Today, dissent and divergence become almost impossible if one is to avoid adverse social consequences and possibly real professional ramifications as well. And for macro-political development, as Democrats are more habitually liberal and Republicans become more conservative, compromise and bipartisanship becomes harder to achieve. This is exactly what is happening with respect to Israel and ideology and represents an existential threat to the Jewish community and American support for Israel as well.Ungrateful France’s ‘national narrative’ ignores the Jews
The recent uproar at Berkeley Law School is a case in point. Nine student groups at the law school banded together to amend their bylaws so as to exclude any Zionist speaker from ever speaking at the law school. That Women of Berkeley Law, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and the Law Students of African Descent felt compelled to join forces with the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association in this endeavor, illustrates how powerful this ideological sorting can be. Under the guise of intersectional solidarity, groups that have nothing to do with the Middle East conflict institute a litmus test that permanently excludes the vast majority of Jews who believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. To be part of the community of the good is to expel people with improper beliefs.
More specifically, to understand sorting what is critical to understand is that the electorate has not changed significantly in the aggregate as generations have aged in and out, but voters have sorted. Consider that in the 1990s there were many pro-choice and pro-immigration Republicans and pro-gun Democrats. These variations have disappeared with issues all lining up on the left or right such that if you are a Democrat, you have to believe and promote a particular agenda wholesale and thus one can predict an individual’s political positions based on partisanship alone. Thus, the United States is experiencing increased partisan polarization now even though Independents have grown as a share of the electorate while the number of partisans has shrunk
Turning to the JILV survey itself, support for Israel has become part of the larger political sort of the American public. Today, vast majorities of Republicans support Israel, while Democratic backing is much lower. To be on the left these days means that one cannot support Israel and be ideologically pure; backing Israel is a conservative value and that line cannot be crossed in the ideologically sorted world of today. Thus, it is also the case that those who score lower on the woke scale are appreciably more aligned with Israel than those who are highly woke. Attitudes toward Israel are now part of the liberal or conservative packages that partisans must uniformly adopt, constituting a new norm in American politics evident in the data here. As Abrams and Wertheimer pointed out, sorting has become so deep that it has influenced views and sharply divided Americans on ideas as varied as the nuclear family, the structure-enabling philanthropy and, of course, the police and justice systems.
Moreover, views toward religion, tradition and history have become part of the story now. To be liberal today means real disdain for people of faith and their rights to religious liberty including support for Israel, while conservatives take the exact opposite approach. As Zaid Jilani has written with respect to race, the vision of the now sorted left is one where, “America isn’t a land of opportunity. It’s barely changed since the days of Jim Crow. Whites, universally privileged, maintain an iron grip on American society, while nonwhites are little more than virtuous victims cast adrift on a plank in an ocean of white supremacy.” The emergent narrative and anti-racist policy positions are now stories, “where whites are the villains and minorities are the victims” making “honest discussion of why homicide is the leading cause of death for young Black men … off limits” for instance. The JILV data show the exact same trend with respect to Israel; support for Israel, even with its faults and complex narratives, is simply on the wrong side of the story and cannot be supported if you are on the liberal side of things.
Given the growth of woke culture and the inexorable sorting process in American political life, friends of Israel must ask themselves some tough questions: Should they continue to focus attention on progressives with deeply held woke commitments who seem to be sorting themselves out of support for Israel, or seek to strengthen support among those who don’t share those ideological commitments and are more inclined to support Israel? To what extent should friends of Israel continue to focus efforts on making Israel’s case in the public realm, and to what extent should they join forces with others in opposing the ideology that gives rise to the growing antipathy toward the Jewish state?
Now is a good time to rethink the mainstream Jewish posture in American politics.
France has had Jews for over 2,000 years, and their contributions to the economy, politics, culture and science cannot be denied. But the journalist and blogger Veronique Chemla notes that Judaism and the Jews are virtually absent from the “national narrative” in school curricula and textbooks as well as in exhibitions in French museums. This post is an extract from a talk she gave about this blindspot to the Tsedek Lodge of B’nai B’rith France. She also discussed the issue in her interview with André Barmoha on Radio Chalom Nitsan on 13 December 2022.Smearing Israel from the Ivory Tower
Revolutionary, Republican, secular France fought the influence of Catholicism. The state remains embarrassed by the history of religions and by the Jews whom she nevertheless emancipated. France also feared fragmenting the nation by isolating the Jews, while not daring to seem to exclude them. The revolutionary Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre had affirmed: “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation, and grant everything to the Jews as individuals” – a phrase that still inspires French diplomacy. But even as individuals, the ungrateful homeland ignores them in its national narrative.
Other factors were a pro-European France which denied the “Jewish and Christian roots of Europe” (Jacques Chirac), choosing instead multiculturalism, cultural relativism, atonement. History was perceived through an anachronististic moral lens – the Rights of Man, “political correctness”, making France feel guilty for slavery or colonization. The Crémieux decree was hidden from view while Eurabia ( an European-Arab alliance – ed) was rejected. French Jews are caught between, on the one hand, “pedagogues’ who “deconstruct” history, and, on the other hand, “political correctness”, the disintegration of the nation, European political “elites”, the claims of the “racialized” – Eurabia in different guises.
Jewish historians – Jules Isaac, co-author of school textbooks during the first half of the 20th century, and Marc Bloch – may have felt awkward writing about their co-religionists.
Most important of all, generations of historians, whose studies have skirted around Jews and Judaism, have produced a vicious circle of ignorance, bias and misunderstandings of Jewishness, Judaism and Jews.
Israel, a tiny country the size of New Jersey, is the only state in the Middle East that substantially recognizes individual rights, such as legal equality for men and women, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to engage in same-sex relationships. Compared to its neighbors—Islamic dictatorships that trample rights and violently oppress their populations—Israel is an oasis of enlightenment and liberty. Yet many American and European professors increasingly show support for anti-Israel movements and tyrannical regimes that aim to erase Israel from the map.
Iran is among the most brutal. According to the U.S. State Department, “The Islamic regime in Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” and the “regime elites squander the people’s resources and opportunities, while suppressing freedom and basic human rights.”1 As of this writing, for more than a month Iranian “security forces” have been violently cracking down on widespread protests, which sprang up after the regime’s so-called morality police reportedly killed a young woman for not wearing a hijab correctly.2
Iranian leaders call for “death to Israel,” “death to England,” and “death to America.”3 They fund terrorist groups that wreak havoc in countries neighboring Israel, forming a “ring of fire” around it with the goal of annihilating the tiny democratic republic.4
Yet according to the academic watchdog group Canary Mission, which documents people and groups promoting hatred of the United States and Israel, more than eight hundred professors on North American campuses participate, to varying degrees, in efforts to undermine Israel. So do many in Europe. Among the most vocal anti-Israel professors are David Miller, recently fired from the University of Bristol; Amin Husain at New York University (NYU); and Marc Lamont Hill at Temple University. They are working to erode Israel’s stability, credibility, and security. This despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that Israel is a vital partner and strategic ally of the West.
Miller, previously a tenured professor who served as chair of Bristol’s sociology department, has spent years maligning Israel by advancing conspiracy theories in the classroom and via articles, social media, a website, and a talk show. In his quest to delegitimize the country—which he calls “a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”—he has claimed, for instance, that British Jewish students are “being used as political pawns.”5 Without evidence, he accuses these students of being “constitutionally bound to promoting Israel and campaigns to silence critics of Zionism or the State of Israel on British campuses.”6 To achieve his goal, Miller advocates prohibiting pro-Israel groups from exercising their right to assemble, saying, for example, that Israel “depends for its lifeblood on the transnational Zionist movement. To dismantle the regime, every single Zionist organisation, the world over, needs to be ended. Every. Single. One.”7 (Zionism is the belief in and support of a Jewish homeland.)8
- Friday, December 16, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- antisemitism, Chanukah, Freedom of Religion, Friday prayers, jew hatred, Muslim antisemitism, Temple Mount
Thousands more visited the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, spilling into the streets.
Why so many?
Because of Chanukah!
All week, there have been calls in Arabic media for Muslims to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque en masse because Jewish groups are asking Jews to visit the Mount on Chanukah, since the miracle of the oil happened there.
Which means that tens of thousands of Muslims came not because they wanted to worship there, but in order to express Jew-hatred ahead of Chanukah. If it wasn't for a Jewish holiday, they wouldn't be there.
The preacher at the mosque, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, said, "We categorically reject any violation of Al-Aqsa Mosque and its sanctity by the occupation, its aides, settlers and groups."
For these Muslims, worship is a form of antisemitism.
As usual, even though record (non-Ramadan) numbers of Arabs are visiting the Mount, every article about the crowd emphasizes how Israel tried to stop them from coming, and that they somehow prevailed.
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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Thursday, December 15, 2022
- Thursday, December 15, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- anti-Zionism, Chanukah, Comix, humor, Hypocrisy, Jewish antisemite, Jewish Voice for Peace, JVP
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