A cringy woke apology for complaining about Hezbollah T-shirt at a gay pride event

Two weeks ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that anyone who engaged in a homosexual act should be killed.

A week later, at the Berlin Whole LGBTQ festival, a person was seen wearing a Hezbollah T-shirt on the stage, which upset a Lebanese citizen at the event, who complained about seeing someone wear a symbol of oppression to gays.

He then apologized for complaining!

This apology is truly remarkable.

The hezbollah t-shirt on beach stage

@Chris on #general -

@Chris on July 31, 2023: 

To the person who was wearing a Hezbollah t shirt on the beach stage, I'm sorry if my complaint caused you upset. I unfortunately felt triggered by the t-shirt because the party leader recently encouraged the killing of queer people. I understand that wearing the t-shirt was used as a trendy fuck you to the hypocrisy of what is called terrorist vs what is not, and I understand being told that it's not ok to wear it by a white man can be triggering - however, given that whole is about celebrating queerness, I feel that perhaps there are other symbols to wear that are less complicated politically and more inclusive to the different experiences of people. I'm sorry again that it happened this way, I hope you are ok now. To the security people who listened to me and talked to the person, thank you. I wish you let me speak to him directly, it would have been validating and perhaps he would have understood the nuances of my views given that I'm Lebanese myself, but I also understand you wanted to make sure we are both heard. 

Needless to say, we don't have any similar apology from the Hezbollah T-shirt person.

A week earlier, at a different Berlin gay festival, someone was seen wearing a gay version of a Lion's Den terrorist group T-shirt, with pink submachine guns.

At these same demonstrations, anti-Israel posters and rhetoric are commonplace.

There must be a name of the psychosis where one loudly supports those who would murder them and opposes those who fight for their rights.

We could apply that same terminology to the small set of "progressive" Jews as well who avidly support those who want to destroy Jews. 

---

---

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!

 

Read More

German schoolbooks biased against Israel

What do you do when your hate becomes socially unacceptable?

Find an alternative that people won't blame you for!

From TheJC:

Textbooks in German schools display a strong political bias against Israel, according to a new report.

It reveals a disturbing trend of blaming Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians.

And it says teachers in German schools tend to shy away from discussing Israel in class because of fears of sparking unmanageable debates.

The report, conducted by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and the Mideast Freedom Forum, focused on 16 history and politics textbooks used in secondary schools in Berlin and Brandenburg.

The Amadeu Antonio Foundation described textbooks as “inadequate, often one-sided and tendentious” in their depiction of Israel.

It said there is a “different weighting of the victims on the Palestinian and Israeli sides.

“A mostly paraphrased David versus Goliath narrative is dominant. Terrorist attacks and other acts of violence are sometimes played down or ignored.

“Most of the textbooks portray Israel as a war-mongering crisis state and the sole aggressor in the conflict.

“Uprisings and violent attacks on Jewish civilians are given a kind of legitimacy because of the dominant image of Israel.

“The focus of knowledge transfer at school is on the Six Day War, which is also often presented in a distorted way.”

The report says the Second Intifada is “largely ignored in educational material” and there is an “uncritical representation of Hamas” while the failure of the peace process is often blamed on Israel.

Israeli settlement building, construction of the security wall and Israeli rejection of the Palestinian right of return are presented as obstacles to peace.

But Palestinian terror against the Israeli civilian population is not, says the report.  

I'm sure it isn't only Germany.

---

---

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!

 

Read More

02/15 Links Pt2: The Truth Behind the Palestinian ‘Catastrophe’; Irwin Cotler: To combat antisemitism, we must first agree how to define it; Moral idiocy: Academics fuel Palestinian terror against Israel

From Ian:

The Truth Behind the Palestinian ‘Catastrophe’

ON AUGUST 5, 1948, not quite three months after the new state of Israel was invaded by five Arab armies, a short volume titled Maana al-Nakba (later translated as The Meaning of the Disaster) appeared in Beirut to popular acclaim. The author was Constantine K. Zurayk, a distinguished professor of Oriental history and vice president of the American University of Beirut.

Zurayk was the wunderkind of the Arab academic world. Born in Damascus in 1909 to a prosperous Greek Orthodox family, he was sent off at 20 to complete his graduate studies in the United States. Within a year he had obtained a master’s from the University of Chicago. One year later, he added a Ph.D. in Oriental languages from Princeton. He then returned to Beirut and the American University.

Zurayk soon became one of the leading advocates of the liberal, secularist variant of Arab nationalism. After Syria won its independence in 1945, he was chosen to serve in the new nation’s first diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C., and also served with the Syrian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly.

Zurayk’s book reflected the sense of outrage among the Arab educated classes over the 1947 UN partition resolution and the creation of the Jewish state. Zurayk’s anger was even more personal, since he had participated in the UN deliberations on the Palestine question. His 70-page book then became a reference point for future pro-Palestinian historians and writers. Yoav Gelber, a prominent Israeli historian of the 1948 war, cited Zurayk’s work when he told me he didn’t think there was much new in Arafat’s 1998 Nakba Day declaration. “The Nakba was at the basis of the Palestinian narrative from the beginning,” Gelber said. “Constantine Zurayk coined the phrase in 1948.”

In previous writings about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, I wasn’t able to comment on Zurayk’s book. A limited-edition English translation of Maana al-Nakba appeared in Beirut in 1956, but it was never published in the United States. It was only recently that I found a rare copy in a university library and finally read the real thing.

It was not what I expected. The Meaning of the Disaster actually isn’t about the tragedy of the Palestinian people. According to Zurayk, the crime of the Nakba was committed against the entire Arab nation—a romantic conception of a political entity that he and his fellow Arab nationalists fervently believed in. And, it turns out, Zurayk was no champion of an independent Palestinian state.

In an introductory paragraph, Zurayk writes about “the defeat of the Arabs in Palestine,” which he then calls “one of the harshest of the trials and tribulations with which the Arabs have been afflicted throughout their long history.” Zurayk’s only comment about Palestinian refugees is that, during the fighting, “four hundred thousand or more Arabs [were] forced to flee pell mell from their homes.” (All italics added.)

Zurayk predicted that all Arabs would continue to be threatened by international Zionism: “The Arab nation throughout its long history has never been faced with a more serious danger than that to which it has today been exposed. The forces which the Zionists control in all parts of the world can, if they are permitted to take root in Palestine, threaten the independence of all the Arab lands and form a continuing and frightening danger to their life.”

Irwin Cotler: To combat antisemitism, we must first agree how to define it

The IHRA definition provides examples of both forms of antisemitism. The examples addressing older forms include stereotypes of Jews as controlling the media, world governments and the economy. Examples of newer forms include denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel.

These latter examples have provoked some opposition, with opponents alleging that the IHRA definition will stifle criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, as well as advocacy for Palestinian human rights. This claim is as misleading as it is unfounded.

In fact, distinguishing between what is and what is not antisemitic enhances and promotes free expression and peaceful dialogue. In particular, the IHRA definition explicitly states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

Accordingly, the definition serves to protect speech that is critical of Israeli policy — which I have myself engaged in — so long as it does not cross the delineated boundaries into antisemitism. Conversely, using this definition, genuine antisemitism, such as those examples listed above, can be defined and recognized.

The IHRA definition therefore sets the parameters for a healthy, democratic, tolerant debate and dialogue. It fosters non-hateful communication, and prevents both actual instances of antisemitism as well as unjust labelling of antisemitism. In doing so, it aligns with Canadian values of equality, diversity and human rights.

My hope for 2023 is that the Canadian jurisdictions that have not yet adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism will do so, and that the ones that have adopted it begin to implement and use it. The IHRA definition is an indispensable resource in helping to identify, recognize and define antisemitism, and adopting it is the critical first step towards Canada’s collective effort to combat the rising tide of antisemitism.

Gil Troy: Moral idiocy: Academics fuel Palestinian terror against Israel - opinion

Imagine the hate required to overrun fellow humans at a bus stop. Imagine the super-sized evil required to keep accelerating when you notice six- and eight-year-old brothers standing there, innocently chatting with their dad. And imagine the perversity involved in celebrating such murders. Friday proved – again – how deep anti-Jewish demonization has been drilled into too many Palestinian hearts, deforming their souls.

Until the world acknowledges this wickedness – which on Friday ended three lives – more such murderers will be mass-produced – with Western dollars, progressive encouragement, and, in modern Jewry’s sickest trend, some Jews’ validation too.

Too many Blame-Israel-Firsters discount this cultivated ugliness which mocks their delusions that peace will descend once Israel retreats, creating a Palestinian dictatorship – er, state – next door. These pie-in-the-skiers keep deciding that Palestinian abominations confirm Israeli iniquity. They theorize that only desperate individuals driven by evil “occupiers” would act so viciously.

Jews have often been blamed for their enemies’ enmity. This Palestinian addiction to violence, however, reveals more about the killers than those killed.

This, the real cycle of violence, with Palestinian rejectionism and antisemitism fueling terrorism, poses the biggest obstacle to peace. The terrorist rot infects Palestinian identity. Contrast Israel’s army, which will abort legitimate missions to minimize civilian casualties, with Palestinians’ death cult, which targets kids and often blackmails the most vulnerable Palestinians into terror.

The Terrorist-Intellectual Complex
An academic recently challenged some other centrists and me for attacking the Netanyahu-Deri corruption yet ignoring the “occupation’s corruption.” Actually, I’m struck by many critics’ corruption, judging us long-distance through ivy-clouded lenses.

Their “Terrorist-Intellectual Complex” perpetuates violence. Palestinians keep deluding themselves that terrorism works, emboldened by ever-accumulating stacks of UN resolutions, academic treatises, “human rights” proclamations, and student petitions – amplified by retweets and likes.

Many have long noted that only intellectuals could figure out how to call themselves “progressive” while supporting sexist, homophobic, Jew-hating, murderers. Today, “woke” parents training their kids in self-abasement and cravenness to dodge confrontations, even in self-defense, nevertheless cheer Palestinians’ killing cult. And self-proclaimed “Social Justice Warriors” justify this most unjust movement, forgiving the Palestinian Authority and Hamas autocracies.

Read More

01/26 Links Pt1: Mark Levin, Eugene Kontorovich Explain Israel’s Judicial Reforms; 9 Palestinian gunmen killed as IDF foils terror cell in Jenin; The Saudis are growing sick of Palestine

From Ian:

HRC Op-Ed In The Hill Times History Doesn’t Support Giving Israel An ‘Occupier’ Label

HRC’s Op-Ed entitled: “History Doesn’t Support Giving Israel An ‘Occupier’ Label” was published in The Hill Times on Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, is not an “occupier” of its own land and of its own eternal and undivided capital, Jerusalem.

No UN resolution or political proclamation can distort these historical truths.

Furthermore, Jews have historical ties to Judea and Samaria which dates back thousands of years. Israel strenuously disputes claims that it’s an “occupier,” citing pre-existing legal, ancestral, and biblical claims to lands it acquired in a war of self-defence in 1967 against pan-Arab armies seeking its destruction and as there was no recognized sovereign of these areas at the time.

Jordan controlled the area now regarded as the “West Bank” from 1948-1967 following the War of Independence, which saw combined Arab armies try to wipe the nascent State of Israel off the map. Jordan didn’t have rightful title to the land according to international law. Same equally applies for Egypt, which controlled the Gaza Strip from 1948-1967, unlawfully, and which Israel acquired in 1967, but from which, in 2005, it unilaterally disengaged, removing 21 settlements, 8,000 settlers, and its combined armed forces in a unilateral concession for peace.

Importantly, the Palestinians have never had sovereignty and statehood, and according to Israel’s position and many leading international jurists, the laws of occupation aren’t applicable.

Melanie Phillips: Netanyahu at bay, but what about the facts?

So, how’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faring in his supposed program to smash democracy at the behest of the religious extremists in his government?

Well, as Israel’s newly-minted dictator, he’s not doing too well in that regard.

Consider: Netanyahu has demonstrated his supposed craven subjection to the ultra-nationalist Bezalel Smotrich, to whom he gave authority over civilian administration in the disputed territories, by brutally slapping Smotrich down when he attempted to overrule an IDF and Defense Ministry decision to tear down an illegal Israeli outpost.

Netanyahu has shown his allegedly despotic determination to ditch the rule of law by bowing to the Supreme Court’s ruling against his minister and long-time ally Aryeh Deri and firing him.

And Netanyahu showed himself captured, bound and gagged by the zealots in his government who want to turn Israel into a theocracy when he effectively overruled the Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, who said he would stop funding cultural activities on Shabbat.

In other words, in every case, Netanyahu has chosen to uphold the existing order rather than overthrow it.

Undoubtedly, the fight between Smotrich and the defense establishment has further to go. Netanyahu has said he will somehow bring Deri back into his government. We have yet to see how these and other issues will turn out.

Maybe Netanyahu will yet morph into a cross between Viktor Orban, Herod and Mussolini. But so far, he has been behaving as a cautious, risk-averse prime minister determined to keep the liberal, constitutional show on the road.

Of course, this has received no acknowledgment from the “progressive” Jewish world, both in Israel and the Diaspora. To such people, Netanyahu is personally irredeemable, and because the government he has formed is committed to defending Jewish interests rather than left-wing principles, it is deemed incapable of doing anything sensible or good.

Gadi Taub: The Struggle for Israel’s Democracy

In his previous administrations Netanyahu was careful not to pick a fight with the country’s judicial oligarchy, preferring to spend his political capital on other subjects—primarily Iran and economics. He assumed, based on experience, that Israel’s judicial oligarchy would continue to abide by an unwritten rule: If a politician doesn’t try to reform the justice system, they will leave his person—though not necessarily his policies—alone. The flip side of this arrangement was, in any case, more obviously true: Try to advance a reform, and you almost always end up with a criminal investigation, often one that was fabricated, as in the cases of Yaacov Neeman and Reuven Rivlin, both of whom were among those barred from serving as justice ministers by contrived investigations that ended up with nothing. The judiciary had its own praetorian guard in the Office of the State Attorney, which cultivated a culture of promiscuous yet slow-moving investigations that made sure politicians didn’t step out of line.

After Netanyahu won his fourth term in 2015, the despair on the left reached a fever pitch, and the various centers of left-wing power began to clamor for Netanyahu’s head. The press led the way with investigative pieces accusing Netanyahu of corruption. Despite the speculative nature of these investigations, law enforcement pursued them with new vigor, leading, finally, to indictments.

The indictments had a paradoxical effect on the struggle for power between bureaucracy and democracy. First, they showed Netanyahu that the judicial oligarchy posed a direct threat to his political fortunes that could not be reasonably abated through the usual program of mutual noninterference. Second, the attacks by the judiciary on Likud’s undisputed leader had an energizing effect on his voters.

While removing a justice minister can be seen as a peripheral event, taking down a prime minster, and thus overturning the results of a national election, is a wholly different matter. It can fly, even with his supporters, when a prime minister is clearly proven to be corrupt, as was the case with Ehud Olmert, who ended up serving jail time. But when more than half the public feels its standard-bearer was framed and its ballots effectively shredded, it is unlikely to just accept that result. So both Netanyahu and his voters came to see, more clearly than before, the severity of the problem and the urgency in restoring the balance between the branches of government.

But the indictments and later trial also threatened to neutralize Netanyahu’s ability to act. It is difficult for a prime minster to reform the judicial system and put checks on politicized law enforcement when he himself is facing a trial. How would he escape the obvious suspicion that he is trying to save himself and is willing—as the left dramatically phrases this talking point—to “smash the justice system just to save his own skin”? True, judicial reform is unlikely to interfere with an ongoing trial, except maybe by making the judges more hostile. But perception is crucial here, and so Netanyahu seemed caught in a bind. The question came down to this: Will voters support a reform, or will enough of them see it as cynical, self-serving move on his part?

Last year’s election turned precisely on that question. And the voters gave a clear answer.

Read More

Someone complained about one of my @KenRoth tweets to Twitter in Germany (update)

Ken Roth, formerly of Human Rights Watch, has been having a meltdown lately. 

Over the summer, Harvard's Kennedy School did not offer him a fellowship, reportedly because rich Zionists who fund the school didn't like his record of crazed anti-Israel tweets and reports.

We have no information about whether this is really the reason. But Roth is pushing that narrative as mentioned in the original Nation article about this non-story.

 As a propagandist, Roth waited until he could get media coverage for the insult to his vaunted expertise and now he is tweeting about the supposed loss of "academic freedom" that this represents - now that he has found another fellowship at another Ivy League school.

He's been tweeting constantly about this.

Anyway, I responded to one of his tweets where he demeaned anyone who called out his anti-Israel obsession as a form of antisemitism:

So Roth, or one of his German fans, tried to show how much they care about freedom of speech by reporting me to Twitter!

I received an email:

Hello,

Twitter is required by German law to provide notice to users who are reported by people from Germany via the Network Enforcement Act reporting flow.

We have received a complaint regarding your account, elderofziyon, for the following content:

Reported Tweet

@KenRoth We're not idiots, Ken. We know what human rights advocacy looks like. We know what "criticism of Israel" looks like. And we know what antisemitism looks like.

Your obsessive hate for Israel (and even now, blaming rich Jews for not getting the Harvard gig) is antisemitism.

We have investigated the reported content and have found that it is not subject to removal under the Twitter Rules (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) or German law.

Sincerely,

Twitter ------------------------------------------------------

Roth would post every single time someone complained to Twitter about one of his tweets, pretending he is a champion of free speech and evil Zionists were trying to silence him. (Even though Human Rights Watch under him banned me from their Twitter feed!)

So....who is trying to silence me, and does Roth support them?

UPDATE: They complained about a second tweet of mine! 

---

---

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!

 

Read More

01/09 Links Pt1: Obama’s Anti-Imperialist Fantasy Bears Bitter Fruit; Israel moves ahead with transfer of PA funds to terror victims; The year Iran lost normalcy

From Ian:

Mark Dubowitz: Obama’s Anti-Imperialist Fantasy Bears Bitter Fruit

Unsurprisingly, Iran often seemed to exist for Obama not as a threat to U.S. interests but as a historical victim of Western imperialism, which supposedly overthrew a “democratically elected” Iranian prime minister and installed the shah. Iran’s repressive theocratic regime seemed less notable for its blatant offenses against its own people, or its efforts to destabilize neighboring states, than for its role as the bête noire of warmongering neoconservatives in the United States, who supported a regional structure that put America on the side of troublemakers such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. Faced with the choice between the Islamic Republic and its enemies, Obama found it surprisingly easy to take the side of the mullahs—putting himself and the United States crossways both to U.S. interests and the hopes and dreams of the Iranian people.

Obama’s big Iran play, which continues to shape U.S. regional policy to this day, was therefore neither “values-driven” nor purely pragmatic. His apparent goal was to extricate the United States from a cycle of endless conflict—one of whose primary causes, as he saw it, was Western imperialism. In doing so, Obama sought to be the first anti-imperialist American president since Dwight Eisenhower, who had backed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser against the British, French, and Israelis in the 1956 Suez war. (Eisenhower later admitted that backing Nasser and abandoning the United States’ traditional allies had been one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency.)

Yet the Iranians were not, in fact, powerful enough to play the “balancing” role Obama envisioned for them, as their failure to stabilize Syria proved. He therefore stood aside, willingly or not, as the Russians intervened on the Iranian side to bomb the Syrian resistance. For rescuing the Islamic Republic and its allies in Syria, Putin was allowed to invade Crimea and the Donbas with minimal opposition from the Obama administration.

Anti-imperialist narratives were clearly important to Obama, and make sense as products of his unique upbringing. The fact that they utterly failed to correspond to regional realities caused multiple problems on the ground in the Middle East. Obama’s policy of trying to put the United States on the side of his own preferred client states created a slaughter in Syria that in turn led to multiple other slaughters throughout the region. The rise of ISIS was fueled partly in response to vicious Iran-backed attacks against Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis. The shocking rise of the Islamic State required Obama to send U.S. troops into Syria and back into Iraq. It also emboldened Putin, who invaded Ukraine for the third time in 2022.

Obama’s ongoing and catastrophic policy failure, which has blocked the Biden administration from developing any kind of workable strategic vision for dealing with current realities in Iran and throughout the region, demonstrates that substituting American narratives about purity and guilt for hard-power realities is a dangerous business. Ideologically driven anti-Western narratives led the United States to place dangerous and wrongheaded bets on Sunni Islamists and Shiite theocrats at the expense of our own interests and friends. Poorly executed policy led to a fatally flawed nuclear agreement that continues to bedevil the Biden administration and America’s European and Middle Eastern allies. The JCPOA was a big mistake. The longer we refuse to admit that, the higher the price we will continue to pay.

The European Union's War on Israel

A confidential leaked document, composed by the EU mission in east Jerusalem, shows that the Europeans are actively working with, and on behalf of, the Palestinian Authority to take over Area C of the West Bank -- although the area was clearly agreed on, by both Israel and the Palestinians, until further negotiations, to be under Israeli control.

"[T]he EU... insists that its positions are based on meticulous compliance with international law, EU law and charter, and also the Oslo Accord. This claim is surely defied by the leaked document in which we can see an activist EU striving to help the Palestinians take over Area C, the very area that is designated to Israel's control per the Oslo Accord which the EU claims to uphold." — Jenny Aharon, Jerusalem Post, December 28, 2022.

Aharon noted that while the EU was insisting that Israel abide by the Oslo Accords and that a Palestinian state should be established within the framework of a comprehensive peace agreement, the EU, at the same time, is trying to strip Israel of its rights according to that same agreement, which gave Israel responsibility over security, public order and all issues related to territory, including planning and zoning, in Area C.

The EU, in short, is encouraging the Palestinians not to return to the negotiating table with Israel. Instead, the EU is telling the Palestinians that the EU will help them steal land as an alternative to reaching a peaceful settlement with Israel through negotiations.

"The EU's reported clandestine activity to undermine Israeli control in Area C and to advance illegal Palestinian development in those areas constitutes a clear and present threat to the security of the State of Israel, and is an act of blatant hostility and aggression." — Letter from the Israel Defense and Security Forum, consisting of 16,000 former military, security and police officers; i24 News, December 21, 2022.

"As this document confirms, Europe's use of labels like support for 'civil society' and 'human rights' were designed to hide the millions of euros given every year to selected allied NGOs, particularly in Area C, to create facts on the ground." — Dr. Gerald Steinberg, quoted by JNS, January 5, 2023.

These revelations show that no one should be surprised when the E.U. condemns the new government for trying to save land in Yehuda and Shomron [the West Bank] — they [the EU and Palestinians] are the ones responsible for stealing it. – Dr. Eugene Kontorovich, quoted by JNS, January 5, 2023.

In 2022, illegal Palestinian construction in Area C increased by 80%. The report documents 5,535 new illegal structures built in 2022, compared to 3,076 structures in the same period in 2021. — Regavim, October 11, 2022.

Jews are the owners of the Temple Mount - opinion

The Sages said: “There are three places about which the nations of the world cannot deceive Israel and say we have stolen them out of their hands, and they are the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Temple and the Tomb of Joseph.” All three sites were purchased by our forefathers, Abraham, Jacob, and King David, at a fair price.

“There are three places about which the nations of the world cannot deceive Israel and say we have stolen them out of their hands, and they are the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Temple and the Tomb of Joseph.”
The Sages

The First Temple stood proudly on the Temple Mount, 1,500 years before the Prophet Muhammad was even born.

It goes without saying that security and diplomatic acumen are extremely important, but we cannot forget the basic facts. We Jews are not guests on the Temple Mount; we are its original owners. No other nation shares this history, no other nation has had the same capital for 3,000 years and has never had another one, and Jerusalem was never the capital of any other nation.

The criticism aimed at Israel is ludicrous and outrageous. It ignores the 3,000-year connection between the people of Israel and Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

Jordan’s audacious response of summoning the Israeli ambassador for a reprimand is particularly egregious. What is the Jordanian royal house anyway? A Saudi Arabian family that ruled the Islamic holy places in the Hejaz, Mecca and Medina, for hundreds of years. When it was defeated almost a century ago by the Al Saud family, it fled.

The British, to whom the family offered its services against the Turks in World War I, found it a new job and established the “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” in a bid to maintain an open route to the oil fields in Iraq. The royal family, which lived very well at the expense of the British taxpayer, protected British interests in the region.

The peace agreement between Israel and Jordan stipulates that Jordan has a “special role” at holy shrines in Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

That’s ridiculous. What is Jordan’s connection to the Temple Mount? Does the fact that Jordan conquered east Jerusalem in the War of Independence, razed the Jewish Quarter along with its synagogues, and ruled over it for 19 years give it some sort of special privileges?

Dear President Abbas: Mazal Tov, Mabrouk and Congrats on entering the ???????? ???????? of your ?? ???????? term as Palestinian President. ????

This must be what you call '??????????????????'? pic.twitter.com/DofT9jVRnR

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 9, 2023

Read More

12/19 Links Pt2: The light of Hanukkah that has continued to shine for 74 years; General Washington’s Christmastime Hanukah Encounter; Children discover 2,000-year-old lamp in the ground

From Ian:

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.

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.

Israel is one of the most progressive countries in the world

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.

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.

General Washington’s Christmastime Hanukah Encounter

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.”

Read More

11/28 Links Pt2: IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Is Only "Polarizing" to Israel's Detractors; Anti-Israel activists and human sacrifice; Ye x Milo x Fuentes

From Ian:

IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Is Only "Polarizing" to Israel's Detractors

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) "working definition" of antisemitism is not polarizing to anyone other than Israel's detractors and antisemites.

The IHRA definition has been adopted by three dozen nations, at least six Canadian provinces and numerous states in the U.S.

The IHRA's detractors refuse to acknowledge that modern antisemitism is often tied to the Jewish State (e.g., Jewish soldiers being called Nazis).

They accuse those of us who defend the definition of being "right-wing" and of "weaponizing antisemitism" in order to defend Israel.

This is meant to undermine our efforts to protect ourselves against hate.

In the case of the IHRA definition, it's often the same people who call for universal rights and freedoms who oppose those very same rights for the Jewish people, particularly as they define their relationship with the State of Israel.

The IHRA definition is not "polarizing" to anyone other than those who either lack an historical understanding or are with an agenda to exacerbate the problem of hate and defame the Jewish state.

Anti-Israel activists and human sacrifice

In the anti-Israel context, there is the more recent case of Rachel Corrie. A college senior, Corrie became a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a terror-connected NGO that exploits foreign activists in service of the Palestinian cause. It is likely that she had already been indoctrinated in anti-Israel ideology, but the ISM almost certainly compounded it by orders of magnitude via a cult-like environment of hate.

Corrie lived for some time in Gaza, where she became infatuated with the people and decided that Israel was committing genocide against them, in which, as an American, she was complicit. In 2003, she knelt in front of an Israeli bulldozer, ostensibly in protest of a house demolition. The driver could not see her, and she was crushed to death.

She has, of course, become a martyr, and her letters and emails have been transformed into books and plays. Yet what they reveal is a deeply insecure and troubled young woman, possessed by existential guilt and desperate to redeem herself. Corrie’s death, in other words, was less a tragic accident than a kind of seppuku—a ritual suicide that she hoped, perhaps unconsciously, would be a moral expiation. She did not come to this conclusion on her own. She was the victim of unscrupulous people who wanted, or at least knew they were likely to acquire, a martyr.

One should not look away from what this means: Emotional blackmail kills. It is a kind of murder. Murder at third hand, perhaps, but murder nonetheless.

It is also part of a very ancient tradition. What the blackmailers are after, in the end, is the most primal of all forms of absolution: the human sacrifice. It is sometimes an emotional sacrifice, but far too often it is also physical.

From their origins in prehistory, such sacrifices were, almost invariably, expiatory acts. They were attempts to redeem a person or a community from their sins, to appease the gods and turn them away from stern judgment. And above all, such sacrifices made the victim a sacred object.

There are many among us, often young and vulnerable, who wish to become sacred objects and are told that if they sacrifice themselves, whether in life or in death, they will become so. It is tragic that many choose to believe this, but that does nothing to redeem those who lead them to the altar.

Judaism has always seen human sacrifice as an abomination, which indeed it is. We should not forget this admonition. No one, however righteous they consider themselves to be, has the right to demand such things from anyone. Like the priests of Moloch, those who use emotional blackmail of vulnerable individuals to achieve such an end stand accused.

Ye x Milo x Fuentes

Stop me if you've ever heard this one before:

Fueled by his hatred of Jews, one of the most recognizable black man of his era decided to forge an alliance with one of its most high-profile white nationalist, or, at the very least, the one whose juvenile stunts attract the most attention. One of the men behind the scenes who worked on arranging the meeting is himself Jewish, though he has long repudiated his heritage, is known to have engaged in antisemitism, as well as for being a grifter, and is distrusted by many in the movement. On the other hand, he has shown an uncanny ability to ingratiate himself with its leaders and keep the spotlight on himself. All of this revolving around grand political ambitions on both sides.

Obviously, I'm referring to the infamous 1961 entente of George Lincoln Rockwell, Malcolm X, and Daniel Burros which culminated in years of friendly relationships between the American Nazi Party and the Nation of Islam.

On June 25th, 1961, ten members of the American Nazi Party quietly arrived at the Nation of Islam rally in Washington, DC. In the Uline arena, they were surrounded by more than 8000 members of the Nation of Islam. They were not there to disrupt, attack the attendants, to protest the speech; instead, they were front-row guests. That night, Elijah Muhammad had called in sick, so Malcolm X took the stage to give the keynote speech in his stead. Rockwell contributed $20 to the cause and, while having his picture snapped by Jewish photographer Eve Arnold, he barked at her, 'I'll make a bar of soap out of you.' (She answered, "As long as it isn't a lampshade”).

At first glance, it would seem highly bizarre that members of the American Nazi Party, in full regalia and occasionally Sieg Heiling, would be tolerated amongst the Black Nationalist movement. Still, it more than made sense once you realized that they shared the same antisemitism and views on racial separatism. There was also a historical precedent; the units described as the most vicious, brutal, and antisemitic of the SS were the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar, composed almost entirely of Muslims.

Eight months after their first public meeting, George Lincoln Rockwell addressed more than 12,000 black audience members at the Chicago International Amphitheatre, urging them to ally with Nazis to be truly uplifted. "You know we call you niggers," he addressed the crowd. "But wouldn't you rather be confronted by honest white men who tell you to your face what the others all say behind your back?". He later praised the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad as the 'Adolf Hitler of the black man.'

The Decline of Islamism, and the Rise of the Muslim-American Far Left and Far Right

Born in St. Louis, Umar Lee (né Brett Darren Lee) converted to Islam at the age of seventeen, and was quickly drawn to its stringent Salafist form, and to Islamist political radicalism. He subsequently broke with extremism, although he remains a committed Muslim. In conversation with Dexter Van Zile, Lee discusses his own experiences—including a recent visit to Israel—and his observations about Islam in the U.S.
Islamism is no longer popular. Back in the day, it was very popular. . . . I attribute that to reality—the failure of the Arab Spring, the disaster of what happened in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Islamist politics has become so unpopular in the Muslim world that historians in 100 years are going to write that there was a 40-year period—from the mid-to-late seventies until the late 2010s—of Islamist political revival that faded away after the Arab Spring. In the U.S. we don’t see people talk about Islamist politics.

Conversion had some negative consequences [for me]—a period of extremism and Islamist politics—but it also kept me out of trouble and away from a criminal lifestyle. You have to remember that a very high percentage of guys who grew up where I did ended up addicted to drugs, or alcoholics. Many didn’t live to see forty and quite a few didn’t make it to twenty-one. For all of the problematic aspects of the Muslim experience in America, there is a track record of conversion keeping some men off the streets and clean.

On the subject of how American Muslims fit into contemporary political divides, Lee comments:
What you’re increasingly seeing in the Muslim community in America is a gender divide. You’re seeing that progressive politics [are] very popular, especially with women, especially young women. We know after 9/11 there was [a] leftward shift in the American Muslim community. . . . But you’re [now] seeing an insurgency led by men, particularly younger men, that are rejecting this progressive shift. They’re rejecting it in very harsh terms and going very far to the right. What you’re seeing in the Muslim community is—especially the young people—the left, and now this segment of the far right, are really taking up all the oxygen and moderate politics is very unpopular.

Unfortunately, there is more uniformity when it comes to attitudes toward the Jewish state:
By far, the least popular thing you can do [in the Muslim community] is support Israel. I could get on video and drink liquor [or] smoke weed and people would say, “Hey everybody, no one’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes.” I could be in a [pornographic film] and people would say, “Hey, well, . . . ” But support Israel? That is the worst thing that you can do.

When it comes to Israel, everyone is still unhinged. It doesn’t matter what segment of the communities they’re in. There are very few rational people. And even the rational people I talk to, [who] agree with me in private, won’t say anything in public.

Read More

11/26 Links: Second person dies of injuries days after Jerusalem bombing attack; How do human rights orgs operate in the West Bank?; Kanye West's antisemitism inspired by Louis Farrakhan

From Ian:

Second person dies of injuries days after Jerusalem bombing attack

A victim of this week’s terror bombing in Jerusalem succumbed to his injuries on Saturday, raising the death toll from the attack to two.

Tadese Tashume Ben Ma’ada was critically injured in an explosion Wednesday morning at a bus stop at the main entrance to Jerusalem, one of two bombings that rattled the capital.

A statement from Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem said trauma and ICU teams “fought for his life but unfortunately his injuries were too serious.”

“We offer our deepest condolences to the family,” the hospital added.

Ben Ma’ada’s family said they were thankful for the support they’d received since the attack but asked the public and the media to respect their privacy.

Ben Ma’ada, 50, immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia 21 years ago. He leaves behind a wife and six children.

Responding to the reports of Ben Ma’ada’s death, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu sent his condolences to the family and praised medical teams who had treated him.

“Last week, I visited his dedicated family, who wrapped him with love, and the doctors who bravely fought for his life. I embrace the family at this difficult hour. May he rest in peace,” Netanyahu said on Twitter.

Outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid said he was “heartbroken” to hear of Ben Ma’ada’s death.

The double attack in Jerusalem initially left one person dead and 22 others injured. The first victim was named as 16-year-old Aryeh Schupak, a yeshiva student from Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, and a dual Israeli-Canadian national.

How do human rights orgs operate in the West Bank?

All the material that journalist Zvi Yehezkeli gathered for the documentary series Double Agent(Shtula in Hebrew), which just began airing on Channel 13, sat in his desk drawer for three years, until it was approved for broadcast.

“I’d gathered 3,000 hours of footage and recorded numerous interviews for which we needed legal approval in order to use them,” Yehezkeli explains. “This type of content involves a great number of individuals, and so the risk of being saddled with international lawsuits is huge. The whole process was absolutely insane. I’d never worked on such a long series before,” he says.

The series Yehezkeli created is being broadcast on TV as the security situation in the West Bank is worsening, just after the controversial gas agreement with Lebanon was signed and while protests over the wearing of the hijab in Iran are escalating.

“If you’ve spent any time with regular people who live in Iran, you’ll see that the story is different from what you hear about the Middle East,” says Yehezkeli, the Arab Affairs correspondent at Channel 13.

“They want to be like us – they admire us. They don’t care at all about Khamenei and all the complicated politics. This is a generation that grew up after the Islamic Revolution, and they want freedom. They want to be able to make money.

“The intensity of this wave of protests has shown us how stressed out Iranians feel, and that Iran is like a powder keg that is going to explode at any moment.”

The Double Agent series follows a pro-Palestinian Swedish woman who arrives in Israel as a tourist to study architecture. One day she meets a man from the settlement town Eli, who explains the Israeli angle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to her.

“Slowly, she integrates herself into a human rights organization in the West Bank and becomes an intelligence agent for the Israelis,” Yehezkeli explains.

“After a year, she goes to a meeting with senior Hamas leaders, who reveal details to her about their fundraising apparatus, and the connection between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas headquarters in Europe and the human rights organizations. In other words, the human rights organizations, including BDS, are operated by Hamas personnel.

“This agent ends up uncovering a wealth of intel, including secrets that Hamas operatives told her, some of which are documented in written correspondence.

“So, we started creating a documentary series. It’s extremely complicated, since we used a lot of hidden cameras, and we also need to make sure that our agent remains safe.”

Why German intellectuals link Nakba and Holocaust

It’s not just a shocking exception. This summer, the German Documenta, one of the world’s most important art shows – also publicly funded – was run by an Indonesian curators’ collective that included BDS supporters and presented at least one blatantly antisemitic artwork. Despite ongoing attempts to help them make it right, its organizers proved incapable of issuing a clear apology, taking responsibility, and engaging in a productive debate about what had transpired.

The state-funded House of World Cultures in Berlin is now run by a director who wrote this Facebook post: “They will pay a million fold for every drop of blood in GAZA! Palestine shall be free!” and a Palestinian activist, speaking to an applauding audience at a House of World Cultures event this past June, referred to debates about the Holocaust as “Jewish psychodrama.” Again, these are institutions funded by the German state.

Frequently, such events are framed in terms of postcolonial perspectives on the assumption that Israel is a colonial project that has violated an indigenous people’s rights without even questioning whether that assumption applies (it doesn’t, but it’s obviously a topic that needs to be discussed). Yet that still doesn’t really explain the strange urge to mix in Palestinian narratives when the topic is the Holocaust or Holocaust remembrance. What does the German culture of remembrance, or “Erinnerungskultur” – a broad term that refers to the nation’s historical consciousness or, simply put, to those parts of its history that German society deems worthy of remembering and that is widely used to refer to the Third Reich – have to do with the Nakba, one may ask?

Many Germans think that the State of Israel defines itself as the answer to the Holocaust – that the Shoah is basically its raison d’etre. This incorrect and specifically German take on Israel courses daily through the media, statements by public figures, and cultural events. And that very deeply-rooted German view of Israel comes with an underlying sense of guilt and responsibility towards the Palestinians as victimized by Israel’s status as a reparation for Germany’s crimes. The title of the indefinitely postponed Goethe-Institut event suggests this, too, because it includes the Nakba in the German culture of remembrance.

It would be productive and enlightening to launch a discussion about whether the German culture of remembrance has anything to do with the Nakba at all – to start at the root, so to speak, and to shed some light on the assumptions guiding those who think it does. Why do decision-makers in German cultural institutions think it makes sense to discuss the Nakba together with the Holocaust rather than, say, within the obvious historical context of the war that Arab states waged on the Jewish state after it became independent – also a source of pain from an Israeli perspective? Has the German culture of remembrance taken on the tragedy of the Palestinians to relieve its very own heavy load? Hopefully, after all the scandals of these past months and years, these are some of the questions that will be debated at cultural institutions in Germany in the future.

‘Nabka’ ??

Maybe he meant Babka? Everyone loves a good chocolate babka! pic.twitter.com/4tULEoxh17

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 26, 2022

Read More

11/18 Links Pt2: Theodor Herzl was gone, but his message survived; BBC broadcasts folksongs that glorify attacks on Jews; FBI Director: Jewish Community Under Threat ‘From All Sides’

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Theodor Herzl was gone, but his message survived

Editor’s note: Excerpted from the new three-volume set “Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings” edited by Gil Troy, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People, now available at www.theljp.org. This is the 11th in a series.

In 1897, Theodor Herzl essentially described himself when he wrote about a man who once “deep in his soul felt the need to be a Jew,” and who, reeling from Jew-hatred, watched “his soul become one bleeding wound.” Finally, this man “began to love Judaism with great fervor.”

In this short story, “The Menorah,” Herzl saluted his step-by-step Judaization and Zionization. Celebrating Hanukkah, he delighted in the “growing brilliance” candle by candle, gradually generating more and more light.

The “occasion became a parable for the enkindling of a whole nation.” Flipping from the reluctant, traumatized Jew he had been to the proud, engaged Jew he was surprised to see in the mirror, Herzl admitted: “When he had resolved to return to the ancient fold and openly acknowledge his return, he had only intended to do what he considered honorable and sensible. But he had never dreamed that on his way back home he would also find gratification for his longing for beauty. Yet what befell him was nothing less.”

Herzl concluded: “The darkness must retreat.”

Seven years later, Herzl spelled out Zionism’s dynamic power, its spillover effects. “For inherent in Zionism, as I understand it, is not only the striving for a legally secured homeland for our unfortunate people, but also the striving for moral and intellectual perfection,” he wrote.

This vision made Herzl a model liberal nationalist. He believed that “an individual can help himself neither politically nor economically as effectively as a community can help itself.”

Mark Regev: Did Israel's famed diplomat Abba Eban lack clout back home?

The 20th anniversary of the passing of Israel’s legendary foreign minister Abba Eban on November 17 is an opportunity to ask whether the acclaimed diplomat, with his stellar global reputation, was as effective in defining Israeli policy as he was in advocating it abroad.

An outstanding student at England’s Cambridge University, Eban graduated in 1938 with an exemplary triple first, positioning him to pursue a lifetime career as a respected academic.

But the South Africa-born Eban could not sit out the impending world crisis that would so heavily impact the Jewish people. Drawn to Zionism, he worked at the London headquarters of the World Zionist Movement under the leadership of Chaim Weizmann (who later became Israel’s first president).

With the outbreak of World War II, Eban joined the British military to fight the Nazis, serving as an intelligence officer in Mandatory Palestine. Discharged at the end of the war, Eban joined the staff of the Jewish Agency’s political department and was sent to New York where he became the Jewish Agency’s liaison with the UN’s Special Committee on Palestine, helping steer it toward recommending Jewish statehood. Subsequently, Eban was part of the lobbying effort that produced the necessary two-thirds majority General Assembly vote for partition on November 29, 1947.

After successfully orchestrating Israel’s acceptance to the UN in May 1949, Eban became the Jewish state’s permanent representative to the organization. In parallel, he also served as Israel’s ambassador to the US, concurrently working in both Washington and New York throughout the 1950s.

Eban was a celebrity. His remarkable intellectual and oratorial prowess made him one of the foremost English speechmakers of the period, on a par with Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. Henry Kissinger wrote: “I have never encountered anyone who matched his command of the English language. Sentences poured forth in mellifluous constructions complicated enough to test the listener’s intelligence and simultaneously leave him transfixed by the speaker’s virtuosity.”

Howard Jacobson: Ulysses Shmulysses

Homeric he is not; but a hero for our time he is. Ulysses is first and foremost a comedy of exile. Joyce wrote it while living in Trieste, Zurich, and Paris. That Dublin went on calling to him throughout the years he lived elsewhere is clear from the novel’s intense recreation of the city’s bursting vitality. But novelists thrive on being away, and Joyce needed to be anywhere but Dublin, free from Irish politics, the church, and his own memories of personal and professional failure. Leopold Bloom is not given that choice; Joyce does not buy him a ticket from Dublin to Tiberias. But he is already, in his Jewishness, exile enough for Joyce. Behind the epic figure of Odysseus, in this novel, looms the shadow of the mythical Wandering Jew who, for having jeered at Jesus on the way to the cross, is doomed to roam the earth until the end of human time. Call him a figment of early Christian antisemitism. And while antisemitism isn’t a major theme in Ulysses, it shows itself with some unexpected savagery from time to time as in the figure of the headmaster Mr. Deasy who gets a kick out of declaring “Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the Jews … and do you know why? She never let them in. That’s why.” “That’s not life for men and women,” Bloom responds, “insult and hatred.” Those who are not let in, must find somewhere else to go.

This has been in large part the Jewish story for 2,000 years. And the homeless Jew is the metaphorical undercurrent of Ulysses. Joyce is said to have worked up the the character of Leopold Bloom from the Jews he met in the course of his own wanderings in Trieste and Zurich. He must have studied them attentively, for Bloom is no mere token Jew. In his queer lapses from Judaism, mistaking words and confusing events, he is every inch the part-time, no longer practicing Jew, making the best of the diaspora, more Jewish to others than to himself.

And in him, unexpectedly but triumphantly, Joyce sees a version of his own rejections and rebuffs. Without going into what we know or think we know of Joyce’s own sexual predilections, it is accepted that there are similarities between Bloom’s submissiveness and his creator’s, and that Joyce chose Bloom’s Jewishness as the perfect vehicle to express the passive, much put-upon and all-suffering openness to life that he needed to drive—or, rather, be driven by—this novel. At home in being far from home, content to be cuckolded and remaining in love with the wife who cuckolds him, pessimistic and yet happy enough, dialectical, pedantic—in one lunatic scene he morphs into “The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft who tendered medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, according to the best approved tradition of medical science … produce in the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centre”—Bloom makes being a stranger in a strange land an enticing condition.

One of the best jokes made about Bloom is that he was once a traveler for blotting paper. His absorbency might not make him the most forceful husband for Molly, but it is the key to the novel’s plenty. With Bloom around to soak in every misadventure without complaint, there’s no limit to what Joyce might plausibly invent. Ulysses first appeared in 1922. Worse things than exile were still to happen to Jews. And for many novelists in the ensuing years, the Jew would become the perfect protagonist, the very model of humanity in extremis—homeless, tragic, patient, funny. But James Joyce got there first.

La Revue Blanche

The Dreyfus affair was not the only social battle in which the Revue engaged. In 1897, across two issues, it published a remarkable “Enquete sur la Commune,” a series of brief, firsthand accounts of the great uprising of 1871 whose specter still haunted France. A century and a half later it remains one of the best accounts of that event.

The repressive legislation passed in response to the anarchist bombing wave of the early 1890s, laws which effectively banned anarchist propaganda and activity of any kind, was harshly criticized in the pages of La Revue blanche. The strongest criticism was an article signed “Un Juriste.” The author described the legislation as, “Everyone admits that these laws never should have been our laws, the laws of a republican nation, of a civilized nation, of an honest nation. They stink of tyranny, barbarism, and falsehood.” The pseudonymous author was the future three-time prime minister of France, Léon Blum.

An 1898 volume of anti-militarist articles released by the review’s book publishing arm, provocatively titled L’Armée contre la Nation (the army against the nation) would lead the minister of war to press a charge of defamation against the publishers, a charge the Natansons were able to successfully defend themselves against by claiming the book contained nothing but articles that had already been published elsewhere and not been found criminal.

By the turn of the century French intellectuals began withdrawing from the political field. Charles Péguy later described the letdown felt during and after the Dreyfus affair by lamenting that “everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” At the same time, the editorial staff and stable of writers at the review had turned over several times. One of its later editors, Urbain Gohier, was a barely disguised antisemite who would become an important figure on the anti-Jewish fringe. Yet the quality of the contributors was still high. If Mallarmé’s poetry no longer appeared in its pages, the young Guillaume Apollinaire did. Alfred Jarry became a regular contributor, the Revue publishing his masterpiece, Ubu Roi, as well as Octave Mirbeau’s classic Diary of a Chambermaid, serially and in book form by its Editions de la Revue blanche. That enterprise also published what is considered to be France’s first bestseller, a translation of—of all things—the Pole Henryk Sinkiewicz biblical epic Quo Vadis.

By the first years of the 20th century only one Natanson brother, Thadée, remained on the magazine. Embroiled in a lengthy divorce, he seemed to have grown tired of the magazine. It was losing money, but then, according to Thadée’s wife, later famous as Misia Sert, that had always been the case. In 1903 La Revue blanche published the last of its 237 issues. Its closing was in no way an indication of failure. It had set out to be the voice of a new France, of a more open country, both politically and culturally, and was, in the end, both its begetter and its voice.

Read More

11/17 Links Pt2: Antisemitism should test America’s conscience; Liberal network funnels cash to charity sponsoring Palestinian terror-linked group; Robert Clary, Corporal LeBeau on ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ Dies at 96

From Ian:

Antisemitism should test America’s conscience

The memory of the brutal Holocaust may be fast fading; yet, the evil that brought it about appears to be creeping upon us, once again. Hate speech, defamation, history revision and violence are being directed towards Jews of all ages. Perpetrators appear to be gradually “testing the waters” to see what they can get away with before upping the ante of hostilities; especially in a freedom of speech driven America.

Enemies of Jews recognize now, unlike in times gone by, that Jews no longer stand alone, and will not quietly succumb to another existential threat. This is due, in no small part, to the existing sovereign State of Israel, which now serves as a vocal advocate and refuge for Jews since its rebirth in 1948. Anti-Jewish forces recognize that Israel will not sit idly by, while the blood of our people is spilt; as was the case in its absence, during the 1930’s and 40’s; enabling the “Final Solution” Holocaust.

Indigenous Israel is and never was merely incidental to Judaism, but rather integral to the Jewish faith and its survival. Our enemies appreciate this reality. The protection afforded is so formidable that those who hate us have come to the conclusion that they must first eliminate Israel before challenging our Jewish viability. To assist in their cause and by trial and error, they came upon diversionary tactics; including cloaking their hostility towards Jews under the guise of ‘Anti-Zionism.’

This augmented with the malicious “Boycott, Divestment and Sanction terror tactics (B.D.S.),” has gained traction within the media and support from some, self-labeled progressive politicians including a number who appear to reside within the legislative branch of our government; if not covertly elsewhere, as well.

Ignoring the present day escalating antipathy towards Israel and by extension towards Jews in Israel, Europe and now in the United States, is only serving to reinforce contempt for them, in general. The ugliness manifests through opportune acts of targeted property destruction, including defacing head-stones of our dead and violence towards our living where they feel they can get away with it.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Is Germany ending its ‘culture of memory’ of the Holocaust?

If the Israelis and Zionists are today’s Nazis, they should be attacked on the streets of Berlin, London, and Los Angeles. Germans may read that last year there was another 29% spike in antisemitic crimes in their cities – 3,027 in 2021. But why should they care? After all, they weren’t alive during World War II, let alone personally linked to Nazi Holocaust. In addition, in 2022, human rights NGOs like Amnesty International paint Israel as an apartheid state and antisemitic diplomats are given free rein to crank out one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly. Meanwhile, the German cultural elite, instead of rallying behind beleaguered Jewish citizens, greenlighted and defended a prestigious art exhibition rife with ugly antisemitic stereotypes.

And German Jews woke up on the anniversary of Kristallnacht to this catchy campaign on the KFC app: “Memorial Day of the Reichspogromnacht [Kristallnacht]: Treat yourself to more tender cheese with the crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”

Any wonder why a prominent German Jewish leader just announced he can’t live in Germany anymore? He’s leaving for Israel and urging the rest of German Jewry to follow.

It’s small solace that Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, had to personally intervene with the secretary-general of the Goethe Institute to cancel the event entirely.

Before it is too late, it’s time for Germany’s political and cultural elite to denounce all those who facilitate the demonization of Israelis; time to hold antisemites accountable for their deeds and crimes, whether from far right neo Nazis, Islamists, or Jew-haters from the far left; time to end blatant antisemitic exhibitions to dress up pornographic Jew-hatred as artistic freedom; time for all German states, cities, and municipalities to fully adopt and implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism; and to endorse the Bundestag vote that labeled the anti-peace Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as antisemitic.

For decades, Germany and Israel and Jews the world over have worked hard to rebuild relations between our people in the wake of the Shoah. But where are the German voices today that rebuke those who demonize Zionists as Nazis at home, and that speak out in the face of the Iranian regime’s serial Shoah denial? Where is the public display of solidarity with Jews?

Eight decades after the Shoah, Germany must connect younger generations to the nation’s self-declared culture of memory, or it will wake up one day soon to see Hitler’s dream of a Germany that is Judenfrei, free of any Jews, become a reality.

Liberal dark money network funnels cash to charity sponsoring Palestinian terror-linked group

AFGJ, which also got $210,000 from the New Venture Fund in 2020, is based in Arizona. The self-billed "progressive" and "anti-capitalist" group is an offshoot of the Nicaragua Network, a group that backed the socialist Sandinista political regime in Nicaragua.

Samidoun, which is one of up to 130 projects that AFGJ sponsors, was designated a terrorist group by Israel in February 2021 for operating as an arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. Samidoun aims to free Palestinian prisoners, who in many cases have ties to the PFLP, according to NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog group.

Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy found in a 2019 report that one Samidoun activist was "trained by" the Islamist terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon. That activist allegedly paid money to PFLP activists in Belgium.

On the heels of this report, Mastercard, Visa, and American Express said they would not allow their services to be used by Samidoun. Similarly, Paypal, Plaid, and Donorbox, three major global payment providers, shut down online donation portals for Samidoun in 2019 because of its PFLP ties.

In October, the Netherlands banned Samidoun's leaders from entering the European Union. Discover, the credit card company, said in 2021 it would quit processing donations to AFGJ because of its ties to Samidoun.

"If you have a mechanism that enables regular Americans to give money to a terrorist organization, that is a problem," Itai Reuveni, a spokesman for NGO Monitor, told the Washington Examiner.

Read More

11/16 Links Pt2: Meir Soloveichik: The Prime Minister and the Minyan; A UN Seminar Teaches Antisemitism, Encourages Bias; Israeli company on the edge of finding diabetes cure

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Prime Minister and the Minyan

While Jabotinsky’s own appreciation of civic religion may have grown over time, there was no guarantee that the nascent Israeli right in 1948 would have been sympathetic to the Jewish state being a place that cherished traditional Jewish faith. It was Begin who, as prime minister three decades after the founding, first demanded kosher food when making state visits abroad; and it was Begin who, as prime minister, first insisted that Israel’s airline not fly on the Sabbath. He argued, as Yehuda Avner recounts in The Prime Ministers, that “one need not be pious to accept the cherished principle of Shabbat. One merely needs to be a proud Jew.” It was Begin, in other words, who understood the role religious tradition would play in the Israeli future.

This understanding has been vindicated. Much has been written on the various and very different views of the members of Israel’s newest government. But less focus has been given to the remarkable fact that this seems to be the first Israeli coalition with a majority made up of Orthodox Jews. This includes not only the members of the religious parties themselves but also those MKs from the Likud who are part of the Orthodox community. And this is an accurate representation of what the country has become. As Maayan Hoffman noted in an article titled “Why the Israeli Election Results Should Not Be Surprising,” the makeup of the future Knesset reflects plain sociology: “Around 80% of Israel’s population is either traditional, Religious Zionist or ultra-Orthodox, according to official reports.”

Begin was a singular figure in Israel’s history—one who seamlessly joined deep familiarity with, and knowledge of, Jewish tradition, a personal, natural faith in the God of Israel, and a Zionism that defended both Western democratic traditions and the Jewish right to the Land of Israel. But there is no question that Israeli society today reflects the fact that only Begin among the nation’s founders sensed what the future of Israel would be.

No one, under the new government, will be forced to eat gefilte fish. But all future successful political leaders will have to understand and address the central role that traditionally religious Israelis are now playing in the country’s polity. In the ministerial offices of Israel’s 37th government—and its 47th, and its 57th—there will be many more minha minyanim yet to come.

Time for an Israeli victory, end 100 year rejections against Israel - opinion

ALL OF the polls undertaken by the Israel Victory Project show growing support for the idea that peace will only become possible when the Palestinian leadership recognizes that it has lost its fight against Israel, and that Israel is here to stay.

This is reflected in a growing acceptance among politicians and even senior IDF officials that Israel has to return to winning wars and not be continually stuck in a cycle of violence with no way to escape the loss of life and bloodshed.

It is not a simple task to defeat Palestinian violent rejectionism as it has been allowed to fester for generations but as with all wars throughout history, once the will of the antagonist to continue fighting has been broken and that their war aims will not be reached are accepted, the war can finally end.

This is the strategic solution that the government must reach now.

It might be painful and difficult but it is the only one that will finally end the conflict for the good of both Israelis and Palestinians.

It will be good for Israelis because the country will finally see peace without the threat of endless military operations and can focus on potentially greater threats like those posed by a nuclear Iran. It will allow Israel to dictate the terms for peace that will ensure its permanent security needs.

For the Palestinians, it will free them of hate that unrelentingly permeates so much of their lives, whether in the media, the education system or in the mosques. It will free up the budget of violent rejectionism that incites and pays for mass murder which can then be freed up for social welfare, education, health and public services. This will mean a better future for Palestinian society which is being crushed by its own crucible of hate and rejectionism. It will ensure that Palestinians elect leaders who do not distract and deflect from allowing greater progress, development and democracy for their people by constantly blaming Israel for all of their ills. It is a win-win for all.

Just as importantly, the international community is starting to understand that wars are still simply won and lost, and diplomacy, unfortunately, isn’t enough when one party insists on playing a zero-sum game.

A UN Seminar Teaches Antisemitism, Encourages Bias

So, who does control the media and the “strong machine,” according to Marai, a featured panelist at the UN seminar?

That would be the “Center of Powers,” declared Marai, who confided to the audience it makes him “scared to say anything” because of unfair accusations of antisemitism the “Center” employs against people like him. The same Center also targets Palestinian journalists “even out of Palestine,” he added.

Marai’s cited evidence for the existence of this monolithic media-controlling entity is the case of several Deutsche Welle journalists who lost their jobs after CAMERA exposed their promotion of anti-Jewish terrorism and tropes, including their claims of Jewish control and “fabricating” the Holocaust.

Conveniently omitting the journalists’ own objectionable rhetoric, Marai suggested they lost their jobs over unproven allegations of antisemitism and that this, in turn, is evidence of a shadowy “Center of Powers” that controls the media by weaponizing antisemitism for its own nefarious purposes.

The moderator of the panel, Director of the UN Information Service Alessandra Vellucci, did not challenge any of Marai’s conspiratorial and bigoted rantings. Rather, she expressed her gratitude towards Marai for his remarks, thus imitating earlier silent acquiescence by other UN officials to such claims of “Jewish lobby” control during the July 2022 anti-Israel UN Commission of Inquiry.

One might forgive Marai for conspiratorial thinking regarding media control, given that he works for an outlet controlled by the repressive Qatari government. However, many inside the UN seem all too comfortable with suggestions that a manipulative Jewish cabal controls the levers of power.

Meet @UN_HRC's @FranceskAlbs, the "new favorite" rapporteur of the Syria regime and who believes Jews should be murdered, because Israelis don't have a right to self-defense against Palestinian terror. https://t.co/uDI26rrWeR

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 15, 2022

Read More

11/15 Links Pt2: O Ye of Little Faith: The Anti-Semitism of Kanye West; Another Palestinian BDS fail; Smearing Israel from the Ivory Tower

From Ian:

A New Legal Approach to Jew-Hatred

It’s what makes Jews one people even if they speak different languages, have different color skin, and observe Judaism with different practices. And so, the concepts and terminology that the anti-Israel left chooses to employ now actually pit anti-Israel zealotry against American anti-discrimination laws.

We counsel an updated application of Natan Sharansky’s famous Three D’s test. “Criticizing” Israeli Jews for being white colonizers does not merely aim to delegitimize Israel; it delegitimizes Jews by severing them from their constitutive national symbols, holy books, and beliefs. It demonizes Jews by casting them as “white occupiers” who exploit non-white people. And it engages in rank double standards against Jews by singling out for scrutiny, among all the nations of the world, their interrelated claims to their ancestral homeland and national unity.

Just imagine the uproar if whites on university campuses told Afro-Caribbean students that they were not really black and could not share the banner with black students from other parts of the world. The victims of such harassment would quickly and rightly have administrators in their corner. The school could lose its federal funding for allowing an out-group to tell an in-group who they are and who they are not, and which national bonds emerging from the mists of time are sufficient to confer unity. Yet that is what happens every time activists deploy the indigeneity canard to demonize Zionism as a colonialist project.

And this is how progressives tantalized by the success of the postcolonialist anti-racist movement in the United States have badly overplayed their hand. They have run headlong into the Civil Rights Act. Lawyers up to the task of defending Israel and American Jews can and should sue institutions that fail to protect Jews. The lawyers must identify and explain the horrific and patently anti-Semitic implications of calling Ashkenazi Jews “white”—not because there is anything wrong with being white, but because it is maliciously inaccurate—and calling Israel a colonialist state.

When campus activists call Israel “colonialist” or Israelis “white Europeans,” they trace Jewish history back only to Europe. But history is more than a millennium old, and Jews can trace their heritage back much further, all the way to Jerusalem and Beersheba and Yavneh, well before the Romans first renamed Judea “Palestine” to sever the Jewish connection to the land. Referring to Arabs as “indigenous” or “native” similarly rewrites history and the Jewish tradition by erasing the Jewish national and religious connection to the Land of Israel—possibly the most foundational element of Jewishness no matter how abstractly defined.

As elite institutions adopt the trendiest, crassest anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the Jewish legal defense creates itself. Indigeneity may be a silly value to champion, but if that is the framework that progressives insist on, it will collapse under the weight of its own bankruptcy and hypocrisy. Postcolonial anti-Semitism will fall apart as soon as Israel’s defenders expose its delegitimization, double standards, and demonization for what they are: the oldest form of hatred, going by its latest name.

Antisemitism and Jew-hatred are not the same - opinion

Jew-hatred is on the rise in the US. I’m not talking about antisemitism, I’m not calling it antisemitism. I’m talking about Jew-hatred. Antisemitism and Jew-hatred are not the same.

Jew-hatred is a visceral hate. It is emotional, it is not at all rational. Other than diving into the dark corners from which it emanates, there is almost no true response or method to combat Jew-hatred.

The only way to confront Jew-hatred is to make it unacceptable in public spheres. Like other behaviors that are unacceptable in public, Jew-hatred needs to be rejected. Racism is unacceptable, and so is Jew-hatred. Xenophobia is unacceptable, and so is Jew-hatred. Homophobia is unacceptable, and so is Jew-hatred.

Decent people need to step up and say a loud and clear “no” to those promoting and professing Jew-hatred. They need to say “stop” no matter how subtle the message. They need to send out their message on social media and in person.

There is no logic to Jew-hatred. And because it is illogical, there is no reasoning with Jew-haters. A Jew-hater cannot be convinced that he/she/they are wrong. There is only shaming. Shaming – public shaming and private shaming – is the only language they understand. It is the only message they will receive and internalize.

What is the difference between Jew-hatred and antisemitism?
Plain and simple, that is the difference between Jew-hatred and antisemitism. Antisemitism is a philosophy. Antisemitism is based on principles. It is wrong – but it is not visceral. It is based on a set of ideas.

Today’s Jew-hatred is filled more and more with anger and vitriol. Today’s Jew-hatred smacks of medieval-style Jew-hatred, which was deeply seeded in religious hate.

Social media allows for and even permits the free flow of this hatred. It goes unchecked. It flourishes.

O Ye of Little Faith: The Anti-Semitism of Kanye West

In response to a series of anti-Semitic outbursts, several fashion companies severed their business dealings with the rapper Kanye West, as did the agency that represented him. Elliot Kaufman cautions against seeing this reaction as evidence of civic health:

The naïve view is that the refusal to defend West marks a sea shift in black attitudes toward Jews, transcending the impulse to defend the indefensible just because it was done by a fellow African American. The cynical view is that if West hadn’t first angered black people with his comment that slavery was “a choice,” and betrayed black leaders with his decision to put on the MAGA cap, the reaction would have been entirely different.

West now simply has reason to paint himself as a victim of Jewish power. Meanwhile, Kaufman writes, the forms of anti-Semitism that have particular purchase among African Americans are not going anywhere:

Any confrontation with black anti-Semitism incurs risk for Jews, but it is necessary. First, black anti-Semitism places traditional Jews in physical danger every day on the streets of Brooklyn and not only there. Many Jews have moved to neighborhoods where they can usually avoid being mugged by such a reality, but some won’t—or can’t afford to. They are owed practical, moral, and political support, including against progressives whose policies release criminal Jew-haters to the streets, where they can attack again.

Second, black anti-Semitism has a unique ability to strike at the heart of liberalism, the older kind that has often made exile in America seem for Jews like a vacation from history. Jewish success and prominence in America—taken by some as a standing insult—have hinged on liberal principles of merit, equality before the law, pluralism, free expression, and individual rights, as opposed to group privileges. Black anti-Semitism, in denying the legitimacy of Jewish success and prominence, is also an assault on those ruling principles. Its deeper meaning is to call the American system a fraud, a manipulation, and a conspiracy.

MEMRI: Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan on Kyrie Irving, Kanye West Antisemitism Scandals

In a speech livestreamed on The Collective 9 YouTube channel on November 10, 2022, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan spoke about the accusations of antisemitism that NBA star Kyrie Irving and rapper Kanye West have been facing recently. Farrakhan said that the Anti-Defamation League should look into the “horror” that their parents have done to blacks in America and throughout the world, and he said that Jews consider 1,000 black lives to be worth less than the fingernail of one Jew. He said that the Jews have not apologized to African Americans for the transatlantic slave trade or for the killing, raping, castration, and enslavement of blacks. He also claimed that the Jews are responsible for African Americans seeing themselves as “Tarzan”, as “blackies”, and as “little black sambo”. In addition, Farrakhan said that the Nation of Islam’s views on the Jews are based entirely on quotes from Jewish rabbis, scholars, and historians.

The MEMRI Lantos Project exposes anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East region and Middle Eastern communities in the West with the aim of supporting legislation and educating media and the general public.

Read More