Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Good news

Showing posts with label Good news. Show all posts

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Egypt gets rid of much of the antisemitism in school textbooks

This story from YNet did not get the publicity it should be getting:

A newly released study showed Egypt was successful in removing antisemitism and other hatred from its school books, The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found. The research and policy institute that analyzes curricula around the world through UNESCO-defined standards, has released its second full report on the Egyptian curriculum, from its London office.

This latest IMPACT-se report evaluated 271 textbooks from the Egyptian national curricula, published between 2018 and 2023. The study focuses on the Arabic language, Islamic and Christian religious education, social studies, values and respect for others, history, geography, philosophy, and more. Egypt has the largest education system in the Middle East and North Africa, with 25 million children currently enrolled in its schools - the largest in the Arab world.

"Our findings show major improvements in attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in the revised textbooks, part of the year-by-year reform of the Egyptian national curriculum between 2018-2030 across all grades, which has already reached Grade 5," IMPACT-se said.

"Promisingly, elementary school textbooks rewritten since 2021 do not include traditional, harmful antisemitic stereotypes such as attributing evil deeds and negative traits like disloyalty, fraud, greediness, and violation of contracts to Jewish people. These were replaced with values of tolerance and coexistence between Islam and Judaism, highlighting common ground such as Islam's recognition of the Torah, and permission for Muslims to eat Kosher food."

Students are required to memorize the provisions of the peace treaty, and describe the “advantages of peace for Egypt and the Arab states.” A photograph of the peace treaty signing at the White House is shown for the first time. Passages such as “recognition of the sovereignty of each side in the conflict over its territory” were changed to “respect by each side of the other’s sovereignty and independence,” and establishing “normal relations” between the two countries, was changed to establishing “friendly relations.”

The article notes that it is not all great; older grades still use the older textbooks with explicit antisemitism, and even in the new ones students are taught that it is an Islamic duty to end the "occupation" which appears to include all of Israel based on the map they still use.

But even so, this is a very positive change. Egypt is just about the most antisemitic nation there is and the indoctrination in the textbooks is part of the reason why.

IMPACT-SE has not yet published the complete study

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/03 Links Pt2: World Vision, Prominent U.S. Evangelical Charity, Caught Funding Jihadis; How J Street Turned Democrats Against Israel; Telling a Story Founded the Jewish Nation

From Ian:

World Vision, Prominent U.S. Evangelical Charity, Caught Funding Jihadis

When U.S. officials discovered that World Vision was funding a designated terror group, they ordered WV to stop paying ISRA, but WV maintained its relationship with the organization. In January 2015, WV said it had "discontinued any future collaboration." Yet almost a year later, WV posted a job position working with ISRA in December 2015, apparently indicating it had not ceased collaborating as it claimed.

Around the same time, World Vision partnered with yet another group that "has helped fund the Hamas military wing," the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH).

In 2012, World Vision was exposed using Australian government dollars to fund a terrorist front group operating in the West Bank. World Vision was funding the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a front group for the U.S. terror designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Australian Solicitor Andrew Hamilton, who worked with the Israel Law Center which exposed the funding, told the Jerusalem Post that, "The Union of Agricultural Work Committees is an integral part of the proscribed terror organization, the PFLP, that Australian citizens and corporations are prohibited from providing support to."

In an email to FWI, Hamilton called on the recently elected Australian Government "to initiate a detailed criminal investigation into the Halabi scandal."

"For more than a decade, World Vision Australia has avoided justice in Australia for its criminal activities in funding PFLP terrorism using Australian taxpayer money obtained by deception," Hamilton told FWI.

"It would be reasonable to assume that if a smaller organization, whose CEO [Tim Costello] was not the brother of a former federal Treasurer [Peter Costello], had similarly deceived the Australian Government to obtain taxpayer funds which were then sent to terrorists, then they would have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law." (FWI has attempted to obtain a response from the Costellos and from World Vision Australia, but has been unsuccessful.)

In 2010, World Vision partnered with a group headed by a PFLP operative, Khaled Yamani, who led the Palestinian Children and Youth Foundation in Lebanon. And a few years prior to that, WV signed joint memoranda with the U.S. designated terror group Interpal, a financial supporter of Hamas.

WV responded to FWI's inquiry regarding the claims made by Cliff Smith in an email declaring, "We remain adamant we are committed to a positive relationship with Israel in our humanitarian work and we do not now, and never have, supported terrorism."

World Vision portrays itself as a "global Christian humanitarian organization." McDonnell asks how WV's support of Islamist terrorists is really in line with the Gospel message it presents. "To see this activity from World Vision in Sudan and then continuing in Israel too—it just makes me wonder: 'What kind of Christians are supporting a group that is funding terrorists?'"

Yisrael Medad: Update on Cordoba: "cultural reductionism"

Spanish Church ‘accused of glossing over Muslim identity of Cordoba’s Great Mosque’

February 28 2023,
The Catholic Church has been accused of glossing over the Muslim identity of the Great Mosque of Cordoba with a visitor centre that emphasises its Christian origins.

The Church’s planned centre for the mosque, which has served as a cathedral since the Spanish city’s reconquest by Christian forces in 1236, aims to “correct” what it deems to be an overly Islamic vision of the city’s past.

“The need to redesign the entire space [of the mosque area] derives from the finding that Cordoba is marked with a very powerful cultural label: that of a Muslim city,” said a report by Demetrio Fernandez, the Bishop of Cordoba.

The mosque has served as a cathedral for hundreds of years and is used for traditional processions at Easter

“The cultural reductionism is so strong that it has the capacity to eclipse the brilliant Visigoth, Roman and Christian [periods]..."

So, Muslims are engaged in cultural reductionism of Jerusalem as the capital of Judea, where the Temple stood on Mount Moriah?

Telling a Story Founded the Jewish Nation

Many of the basic fundamentals of the seder—not only eating matzah and bitter herbs, but also relating the story of the liberation from Egyptian bondage to one’s children—can be found in Exodus 12, which is set in Egypt just before the tenth plague. By imagining what this archetypal seder might have been like, Cole Aronson explores the ritual’s meaning for Jewish history:

You don’t tell the children they were once slaves in Egypt, because that’s all they know. But it wasn’t always so, you tell them—long ago, their ancestors enjoyed over a century of freedom under God. God chose to raise the patriarchs up from the idolatry of their native culture and gave them a covenantal life. A famine some generations later compelled the chosen family to live in Egypt, first as guests and then—until now—as slaves. Tonight, God will keep His promise to the patriarchs and restore the Israelites to His service.

What the parents of the Exodus told their children was the very first maggid the first “telling” of Passover night. But the story as originally told didn’t commemorate the founding of the Jewish nation. Telling the story founded the Jewish nation.

Until the Exodus, the before-time of the patriarchs was a rumor whispered by strangers subjugated in a strange land. On the Exodus night, teaching the children about God’s choice of Abraham converted his descendants into his self-conscious heirs. A free nation was created by restoring a memory of itself. The pageantry of the seder is often and correctly said to recreate the Exodus night in order to tell a story. The reverse is also true. Jews recreate the Exodus night in part by telling a story that the Exodus parents must have told their own children 3,500 years ago, and with the same function—initiating youngsters into the chosen people of God.

03/08 Links Pt2: Expedia, Tripadvisor urge tourists to visit biblical heartland in ‘Palestinian territory’

From Ian:

Remembering The Scorpion Pass Massacre of 1954

March 17 this year will mark 69 years since one of the worst terrorist attacks on Israelis since the establishment of the State in 1948. Although I was only nine years old, this episode, called the Scorpion Pass Massacre, has a prominent place in my memory, perhaps because of the intense discussions it aroused in the Jewish community of Montreal that I was a part of, or perhaps because I was the same age as the Israeli boy who was severely injured. Or, perhaps it was the exotic name of the site of the attack, Scorpion Pass (Maale Akrabim).

The name obviously comes from the common appearance of scorpions (akrabim in Hebrew), venomous animals with two pincer claws and an articulated tail and stinger. Scorpions resemble crustaceans such as lobsters or crayfish, but are in fact related to spiders, mites and ticks. With an evolutionary history going back hundreds of millions of years, they were certainly around in biblical times. Maale Akrabim appears three times in the Tanakh (Numbers 34:3, Joshua 15:3 and Judges 1:36), as an indicator of the southern boundary of the Land of Israel.

The attack took place in 1954, when the population of Israel was 1.6 million and the southern port of Eilat, Israel’s only connection to the Red Sea, was a small development town with 500 inhabitants. As is true today, travellers from Eilat to central Israel could either fly (Arkia began flying from Eilat to Lod Airport, now Ben Gurion Airport, in 1950), or drive the 150 miles to Beersheba. In 1954 the drive to Beersheba was a lonely one that included a long and narrow grade with 18 hairpin turns, known as Ma’ale Akrabim. The ascent, about 60 miles south of Beersheba, is a 1000 foot escarpment that connects the Arava Valley of the south-eastern Negev to the central Negev plateau.

The attack was carried out in the middle of the day on an Egged bus (Israel’s largest bus company) containing 14 passengers plus a driver. The attackers shot at the bus as it was travelling very slowly around one of the hairpin bends, killing the driver. They then boarded the bus and shot most of the passengers. Eleven riders (ten passengers and the driver) were killed and three passengers were injured. One of the injured a nine year-old boy, Chaim Fuerstenberg, survived in a semi-conscious and paralysed state for 32 years, dying in 1986.

Morningstar lowers investment ratings of 28 Israeli companies for operating in contested territory

(This article has been taken down by the Jerusalem Post, apparently for inaccuracies.)

The Jerusalem Post has learned that Morningstar, a financial services firm that rates companies’ investment potential, has reduced the ratings of 28 Israeli companies due to their operations in what the firm’s ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) rating subsidiary Sustainalytics considers to be Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Of the 28 companies, 15 have been given a human rights score of “category 3” (significant controversy) or higher. The list includes several leading companies such as Elbit Systems and Caterpillar, as well as Israel-operating banks and telecommunications companies including PayPal Holdings and Motorola Solutions, which have been given their high controversy ratings due to their operations within East Jerusalem, the West Bank and/or the Golan heights — which Sustainalytics considers to be a human rights abuse.

Considering Morningstar’s significance within the financial ratings market, its negative rating of these companies is cause for concern to those who consider such actions to be in-line with BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) activity.

As well, over 30 American states have laws that prohibit investment or contracts with companies that cause economic harm to those based in Israel. As such, even if just one Israeli company is unfairly targeted on a Morningstar watchlist, it could potentially violate state laws.

Morningstar is now in the process of consulting with human rights experts in order to determine how to proceed with its assessment of these companies.

Dem Senators Blasted Ticketmaster Over Taylor Swift Debacle. They Have Nothing to Say About It Raking In Cash From Farrakhan Hate Rally.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) last fall trained their fire on Ticketmaster after bungled sales for Taylor Swift's concert tour led to price-gouging and automated scalping, calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the ticketing giant. But when the company doled out tickets to Louis Farrakhan's rally—in which the Nation of Islam leader defended Adolf Hitler and predicted another Holocaust against Jews—the Democratic duo had nothing to say.

Blumenthal went on a crusade against Ticketmaster in November, saying "consumers deserve better than this anti-hero behavior." Klobuchar said she had "serious concerns" about Ticketmaster's failure to get the so-called Swifties tickets efficiently and wrote to the company's chief executive officer demanding answers.

Neither Blumenthal, who has warned that the "horrors of the Holocaust" could happen again if Americans don't fight anti-Semitism, nor Klobuchar, who has pledged "to confront anti-Semitism," have criticized Ticketmaster for profiting off of the Farrakhan ticketing sales. The two senators, who sit on the Senate's Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, did not respond to requests for comment.

Farrakhan during his speech claimed that Jews control the levers of power in Washington, Hollywood, and global finance and are using these powers to corrupt the world. "Somebody has to take on the synagogue of Satan," he said. "We cannot let them take the country." Critics had urged Ticketmaster, which charges service fees on each ticket it sells, to drop the Farrakhan event from its sales platform, but the ticket giant did not budge.

Among House Democrats, there has also been silence from lawmakers who criticized Ticketmaster in the past. Last November, more than two dozen House Democrats sent a letter to Ticketmaster, saying it "strangled competition for ticketing in the live entertainment marketplace." The Washington Free Beacon reached out to 28 members who signed the letter and are still in Congress to get their thoughts on Ticketmaster’s decision to sell seats at the Farrakhan event. None of them responded.

Democrats who signed the letter included Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.).

03/08 Links Pt1: Leave the IDF out of the protest; IDF kill Palestinian terrorist responsible for Huwara attack; Israel slams 'disgraceful' South Africa vote to downgrade diplomatic ties

From Ian:

Overhaul protesters gear up for ‘day of resistance’ throughout the country Thursday

The protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plans was set to conduct a second major campaign to disrupt daily life in Israel on Thursday, in what activists are calling a “day of resistance.”

The day notably includes plans to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport in an attempt to make it difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get there for his flight on an official visit to Italy. This in addition to marches, temporary workplace strikes, the blocking of main thoroughfares, disruption of train services and rallies outside the homes of top government officials.

The protest events were laid out in detail on a dedicated website and map (Hebrew), with organizers promising “many surprises,” indicating there were more planned actions that had not been announced publicly.

“It is a civic duty to resist the dictatorship and this is the only way to return Israel to the path of democracy. This is a great battle for the independence of Israeli citizens against the tyranny that will destroy what we have built here for over 70 years. We call on the entire public to participate in protests,” the organizers said in a statement.

Protest heads have specifically called for demonstrators to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu and his wife are scheduled to depart on their flight to Italy. The trip previously faced setbacks when national carrier El Al was unable to find a crew to man the prime minister’s flight — an issue blamed on crew shortages but which may have also been affected by growing public anger at the government as it pushed forward with efforts to weaken the justice system.

Some media reports indicated Netanyahu was looking at possibly taking a helicopter to the airport to avoid the expected road disruptions.

A major rally in Tel Aviv was to set off from the city’s Habima Square. In addition, protests by workers from the tech sector were planned at 15 locations around the country.

Police said they too were preparing for the demonstrations, with 3,000 cops set to be deployed across the country.

Ruthie Blum: IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi should call his troops to order

Those who defended Bar’s remarks (delivered several weeks before the Knesset election) did so on the grounds that terrorists apprehended by the Shin Bet told their interrogators that internecine strife in the Jewish state was bolstering their confidence and resolve. In other words, since perception influences enemy actions, security bigwigs have a responsibility to monitor and caution about pitfalls in this realm.

It’s a logical position, particularly in view of the gleeful way in which the international Arab and Iranian media outlets are depicting the present crisis in the country. That they’re being given a serious boost by the Israeli press may be extremely disconcerting, but it’s the price—and privilege—of free speech.

Soldiers don’t enjoy this luxury, however. On the contrary, their individual ideologies are irrelevant to the assignments they are charged to execute. Halevi has the duty to remind them of this in no uncertain terms. His failure on this score only encourages the very foes that the IDF, thankfully, is still fighting on more than one front.

“When we are on the battlefield, we don’t look to the right and left to discern the political views of our brothers and sisters,” said Netanyahu on Monday, after attending a Purim megillah reading at a Border Police base in the Jewish community of Beit Horon. “We [do it] with the knowledge that together, shoulder-to-shoulder, we are storming our enemies, in order to safeguard our security and future.”

This, he stressed, “is the first and most important foundation of our existence in our land. It rests on the deep understanding that whatever the controversies among us, we are always united against those out to kill us. This is how it was during all of Israel’s wars.”

He went on: “Refusal to serve threatens this existential foundation, and thus has no place in our ranks. Israeli society always condemned the refusal to serve.… We never allowed it a foothold—neither in the regular army nor in the reserves; neither in the security forces nor anywhere else. It had no place in the War of Independence, the Oslo Accords or in the disengagement [from Gaza]. There is no room for it now, nor should there be in the future…. because the minute that we give this illness legitimacy, it will spread and become systemic…in controversies to come.”

Netanyahu concluded with a Purim analogy.

“When Haman sought to find the Jews’ weak spot, he said, ‘There is one people that is scattered and divided.’ But…we rose as one; we banded together and achieved victory for generations. We will do it again this time, as well.”

It’s a message that Halevi would do well to hear, heed and repeat.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Leave the IDF out of the protest

This is one of the most legitimate protests in Israel's history.

Some have tried to quash it by pointing out a handful of Palestinian flags flown at rallies, but for every such flag, a thousand Israeli flags were raised, so that fell flat.

Others claimed the protest wasn't about the judicial overhaul at all but rather an attempt to overrule the will of the voter, but that too missed the mark. This protest's success lies in its expansion to more and more audiences, it's not merely a left-wing protest. Prominent religious and right-wing figures have also joined in, and while most of them don't take the streets, they make their voices heard by appealing for dialogue and broad consensus.

Are they too anarchists? Who are you trying to fool?

As for those screeching voices on the margins flying the BDS flag, let them, they clearly do not represent anything.

But the protest also brings the pain. The fissure is here. And 37 out of 40 pilots of the Israeli Air Force's elite 69 Squadron declaring they won't report for training is the closest thing to mutiny.

We must not allow this terrible scourge to become the face of the protest for there is a fine line where a protest shifts from an opposition to the government to an opposition to the state. There are too many elements on the left that had done so, there's no need for the protest to tread the same line.

Crossing that red line would only harm the protest since it draws its success from the fact that it has become a consensus in and of itself, and public opinion polls show as much.

As soon as the protest crosses these red lines, it will become a sectoral protest of the extreme left. This was not the intention of the pilots who declared that they won't report for reserve duty, but this may be the result. So yes, we must apply pressure to prevent harm to democracy. But there is no need for the protest to exacerbate that harm.

The Caroline Glick Show: Politics is poisoning the IDF

Mob violence against Sara Netanyahu; 37 out of 40 elite Air Force reservist pilots refusing to show up to duty. These are, but two of the most recent examples of the protests against the judicial reform proposed by the Netanyahu government.

To discuss the shocking turn of events and the leading role that retired leftist generals are playing in the left’s efforts to coerce the government to shelve its efforts to restore Israeli democracy, the guest on this week’s show is Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi.

Avivi is the founder and CEO of the Israel Security and Defense Forum (Habithonistim), a social movement and think tank comprised of retired senior officers, soldiers and concerned citizens working to reinstate the Zionist ethos in the IDF. Glick and Avivi also discuss at length the issue of Iran, which the United States now acknowledges had become a threshold nuclear state..

In addition, Glick devotes her opening remarks to an analysis of the central (hostile) role the Biden administration is playing in the events on the ground in Israel.

Every country is proud to help earthquake victims. Only Israel is vilified.

Romanian media are reporting that a team from Romania rescued a family from under the rubble in Turkey.

Chinese media are proud that a Chinese team rescued a pregnant woman.

The UK government issued a press release about the large team they sent to Turkey.

Algerian officials are proud of their rescue team.

So are Palestinians.

UAE media are similarly reporting on their own teams who have rescued people in Syria.

It is natural to be proud that your own people are helping others. Even local media in Los Angeles are showing pride that rescue dogs being sent by the US were trained in Ventura County.

Yet when Israel sends a massive number of experienced experts to set up a field hospital, and shows pride in helping save ten people so far, some people bristle.

Palestinian media have had multiple articles that say that Israel's rescue efforts are only for PR purposes, and they are not interested in saving any Muslim lives.

"Rabbi" David Mivasair calls it "cynical propaganda." Someone named Dan Easterman gleefully tweeted and defended, "Every time there is an earthquake or humanitarian disaster, Israel immediately tries to exploit the tragedy to gain political capital and improve it’s [sic] international image. The cynicism makes me sick."

This has been a theme for previous rescue missions, where "critics" even accused Israel of using the rescuers as cover for doing crimes in the disaster zone.

It is yet another case where Israel acts like every other country on Earth - and people single it out as being immoral.

Yes, this is the definition of antisemitism.

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!

A Sudanese commentator puts Israel in proper perspective

Ever since Israel first started taking steps to normalize with Sudan, that country has shown the that its media is more free than most Muslim nations. There is robust debate with articles both for and against. (In Morocco, the media seems to be instructed not to say anything negative about Israel, and anti-Zionist Moroccans are only covered by Algerian media.)

This commentary by Yusriya Muhammad al- Hassan is titled "Welcome to our Cousins."

Whoever says that the State of Israel must be wiped out of existence is delusional. Now the Israeli Knesset has more than twenty Palestinian members. The Palestinian leaders signed peace treaties with Israel, and the first one to sign a peace agreement from the Arab leaders was the late Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat - Camp David Accords. Egypt was the first Arab nation in the lines of defense. The whole Arab world is now heading in the same direction in signing permanent peace agreements with Israel.

Most of the countries of the continent have opened or will open their embassies in Israel. So I say we have wasted a lot of time chasing after false slogans raised by regimes for their absent peoples and from under the table looking for Abrahamic normalization with Israel (the Al-Bashir regime as a model!!)... Israel is a country that implements true democracy to the letter and its people practice responsible freedom in full transparency, as is the government. How many television screens have broadcasted to you public trials of the Prime Minister of Israel on charges that they see and announce publicly - there is no one above the law!!

Compare to here and watch a country whose government raises the Book of Religion!! Corruption in the noses, thefts in broad daylight, your fate is known !!! And they deafen your ears morning and evening with prophetic hadiths and Quranic verses that forbid murder, theft and corruption!!

It is time for us to extend our hands without harm to everyone who desires relations between his brother and him. The State of Israel is very welcome. I believe, like others, that this is a great opening for our two countries in the field of investing in our country which is full of enormous natural resources. It will open the door for Israeli investors and others from the four corners of the world, which will benefit our country with abundant goodness, especially in the agricultural field. Israel possesses modern agricultural technologies, which makes it the first in the world in this field.

So, all that is said about the fear of this step in full normalization between Sudan and Israel is basically a form of political chaos for the self-interests of a group isolated from society. This country will be extricated from the total destruction that was just around the corner. Freedom is ours, so give good news, O beautiful country, of a better tomorrow after the darkness of the night has been lifted, the dawn of salvation has dawned, and the emancipation from the clutches of international isolation has begun.

This is interesting on two levels. For one, it is a full throated support for closer relations between Sudan and Israel. And the other is that, at the same time that Israeli and world media are screaming about how Israel is sliding towards "fascism" and "theocracy,"Muslims dream to live under a government that is as flawed as Israel's.

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!

Sudanese website: Welcome to the Jews!

With the announcement last week that Israel and Sudan plan to complete a signed agreement this year, Sudanese media has been discussing the pros and cons of normalizing relations with Israel.

Here's one that is very supportive by Salah El-Din Awdah:

And with logic we speak; And logic does not know the language of emotion; Rather, it is the language of the mind. And this language we respond to those who reject normalization.

Whether with Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, or the Emirates, finally with Sudan.

From a religious standpoint, there is nothing that precludes the conclusion of peace treaties with the Jews. Our Holy Prophet himself did it before.

And from a political point of view, every treaty is possible with any side; Politics is the art of the possible.
From a moral point of view, there is no crime in such a step.

Nor can we Sudanese be more Palestinian than the Palestinians. The Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords with Israel And that during the life of its late leader, Arafat.

My attitude towards the Jews is not new.

I have praised their democracy as opposed to our government. I have said that they have a million reasons to be proud of it; they describe it as an oasis in the middle of the desert, a democratic and rustic oasis, in the midst of a totalitarian arid desert.

It is strange that among the things that these rejecters blame Israel for is its killing of the Palestinians. They do not blame Islamic regimes for the same thing.

Israel kills those it considers its enemies and does not kill its people. As for these Muslim regimes, they kill their own people....even killing because of a veil, as in the Iranian tragedy of Mahsa. Or because of a protest, as in Syria. Or because of a social grievance, as in Al-Bashir’s Sudan. Or because of opposition to the government, as in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Or because of a political dispute, as in Abdel Nasser’s Egypt.

Those who oppose any agreement with Israel belong with all these killers. They are either Baathists, Nasserites, or Bashirites or even Iranians, as the mullahs of Iran arm their people and kill Mahsa without her veil.

Then there is an argument: What do we gain from the relationship with Israel? As if this Israel is a charitable organization and not a country like the rest of the world.
We respond to their question with a counter- and logical question: Why do we not ask such a question when establishing a relationship with any other country? Are relations between countries based on this condition?

Welcome to the 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!

Israel allows a lot more Palestinians to visit the Temple Mount than you would know from the media

This morning's article at the official Palestinian Wafa news agency is pretty much identical to articles written every Friday for months:

Tens of thousands performed Friday prayers at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, despite the strict military measures imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities at the gates of the mosque and the entrances to the Old City in occupied Jerusalem .

The Islamic Endowments Department in Jerusalem estimated that about 60,000 worshipers performed Friday prayers in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, from Jerusalem and the West Bank, and within the lands of 1948 [how Palestinians refer to Israel.]

Our correspondent reported that the occupation forces deployed in the streets of the city and the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and stationed at its gates, and stopped the worshipers and checked their identity cards .

I read these every week, with the only difference being the number of estimated worshippers - 70,000 last week, 75,000 two weeks ago, 55,000 three weeks ago.

But what I hadn't noticed is that the worshippers are coming from the West Bank as well as Jerusalem and Israel.

I thought that Israel didn't allow West Bank Palestinians to enter the compound. That's how things used to be, except for Ramadan.

Apparently, Israel eased the restrictions last Ramadan - and continued easing them. From AP, April 5:

Israel will allow women, children and men over 40 from the West Bank to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday in an apparent bid to help calm tensions during the holy month of Ramadan.

The government said in a statement that it could further relax restrictions if things stay quiet.

I cannot find any articles since then on whether Israeli officials further loosened restrictions since then, but it appears that they have, even after Ramadan. In previous years articles would complain that "occupation forces prevented the entry of hundreds of citizens from the West Bank to Jerusalem to perform the Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa." That verbiage is gone. Now I'm only seeing that Israeli police are checking identity cards and not allowing a few people to enter, probably based on their inciting disturbances in the past.

If younger men from the West Bank were being restricted from coming, I think that Palestinian media would be reporting it. Probably young men need entry permits to worship, but that's it.

If this conjecture is true, that means that Israel quietly, without fanfare, allows thousands of Palestinians to enter Jerusalem every week to pray, very possibly including young men.

And no one has reported this change in policy!

This is yet another proof that there is no "apartheid." Israel is concerned about the security of its citizens. The level of restrictions against non-citizen Palestinians has nothing to do with their being Arabs or Muslims or non-Jews; it is entirely based on their potential threat to Israeli citizens and whether they are inciting violence.

The media, keenly interested in Israeli restrictions on Palestinians, loses interest when those restrictions are eased. After all, no one is rioting so why inform readers that things have changed?

If anything, Jews in Jerusalem should be concerned that there are so many more potentially violent West Bank Palestinians coming every Friday.

What are the rules? How is security done? What is done to ensure that the visitors don't stay in Jerusalem after prayers? These are the sorts of questions that Israeli media should be researching.

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!

Saudi Arabia to allow Jews and bikinis in new tourist islands

Globes reports:

Sources familiar with the matter have told "Globes" that Saudi Arabia will allow Israelis to vacation on the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, which it purchased from Egypt in 2016. Saudi Arabia plans building a bridge linking the islands to Egypt.

The long-range vision of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to develop his country and open it up to the world including huge tourism ventures along the Red Sea coast right up to the Gulf of Eilat. The Saudis also plan to make the islands of Tiran and Sanafir into busy tourist destinations with hotels and casinos.

...a solution is emerging that will leave Egypt with a vestige of sovereignty, thus achieving two goals: firstly, Egypt will have a veto on what happens on the islands; secondly, maintaining the peace agreement and giving Israelis the opportunity to vacation on the islands. Israeli passport holders entering Egypt from Taba or Sharm el-Sheikh airport, will be able to spend time in the hotels and casinos operated by Saudi companies on the islands.

The planned tourist spots will be specifically geared towards in international audience. For Saudi Arabia, this includes unprecedented freedoms for tourists:

Saudi Arabia’s giga-project, Red Sea Destination is set to welcome visitors in 2023, ahead of their opening RSG’s senior travel trade director Loredana Pettinati announced that women will be allowed to wear bikinis at the destination.
Pettinati when asked about the current regulations in the kingdom, said at a press conference in Dubai that no restrictions will be imposed on women and there will be no specific gender rules in place at the destination.
Pettinati also explained that as a European expat, she feels comfortable and said that “across Saudi Arabia, we do not have to wear an abaya, women are allowed to drive. There will be no distinction between women and men entering any facility, anywhere.”
She also explained that a man and woman booking a hotel will not be asked if they are married or not.

Saudi Arabia is still a huge violator of human rights, but its modernization is highly significant and pushes it in the right direction. These moves should be celebrated.

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!

Popular Arabic children's media empire, founded by a self-described Palestinian, targeted because it has connections to Jews

Fozi Mozi and Tutti is a hugely popular children's show on YouTube and on digital platforms, with billions of views.

Most of their videos are in Arabic, although they have branched out into English, Turkish, Hindi, Spanish and other languages.

It was founded by Fawzi Saeid, who calls himself a Palestinian on his LinkedIn page.

The characters have played to large audiences worldwide - and even went to Gaza recently to perform for children there.

Fozi Mozi is a true Arab success story.

But the Ultrapal news site has uncovered some shocking news - Fozi Mozi is partially owned by Mememe Studios which is owned by Dori Media which was founded by Nadav Palti - an Israeli Jew!

Horrors!

Naturally Ultrapal discovered that Palti was in the IDF decades ago.

The partnership between Saied and Israeli distributors is not surprising and it is probably the reason for Fozi Mozi's success. Fawzi Saeid is almost certainly an Israeli citizen; he is an Arab Christian who lives in Haifa and attended schools in Israel from his youth.

The Ultrapal expose doesn't talk much of that. They are far more upset over Palti's involvement than Saied's being a citizen of Israel.

And this is the way things work. Ultrapal's problem with Fozi Mozi isn't that Saeid is Israeli himself; it is that he partners with Jews.

This is the same as BDS as a whole, one doesn't boycott Israeli Arabs, only Israeli Jews.

The antisemitism is as obvious as it is denied by the BDSers.

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!

01/17 Links Pt2: Even the PLO knows the Jews are indigenous to Israel; The NYTs and the PLO are made for each other; The real reasons Ken Roth was bounced by Harvard’s Kennedy School

From Ian:

A New Study Shows That the U.S. Has More Anti-Semites Than Jews

According to a recent survey conducted by the Antidefamation League (ADL), disturbingly large numbers of Americans answered “yes” when asked if they believe Jews “go out of their way to hire other Jews” or “are more loyal to Israel than to America,” and to other similar questions. Kevin Williamson reflects on these results, and what they say about the persistence of this “strange prejudice.”
About 3 percent of Americans agreed that all of the anti-Semitic tropes in the ADL survey are “mostly or somewhat true,” suggesting that there are millions more anti-Semites in the United States than there are Jews. This is not entirely surprising, given the small size of the Jewish population.

Anti-black racism has of course been the most consequential prejudice in American history, but anti-Semitism remains strangely vital. Like its cousin, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism is more than a prejudice and more than a visceral hatred—it is, in its most extreme form, a kind of “theory of everything” in politics. Anti-black racism may exist with or without an attendant conspiracy theory, but anti-Semitism is almost without exception rooted in a conspiratorial view of the world. The fact that anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise on college campuses is entirely predictable in that campus culture is as much conspiracy-driven as talk-radio culture or Fox News culture, with different villains and a slightly more refined rhetoric: not “Jews” pulling the strings from the shadows, but “Zionists.”

Williamson also notes the confusion, and the bad faith arguments, that have emerged from the term “anti-Semitism.”
The Semitic languages famously include both Hebrew and Arabic, but also Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Aramaic, and Maltese. But when T. S. Eliot wrote, “But this or such was Bleistein’s way:/ A saggy bending of the knees/ And elbows, with the palms turned out,/ Chicago Semite Viennese,” he wasn’t talking about the Catholics down in sunny Malta.

The real reasons Ken Roth was bounced by Harvard’s Kennedy School

The claim that Jewish influence and money can force non-Jews to serve the selfish interests of the Jews is, of course, a classic antisemitic trope. In the modern context, this trope usually claims that these Jewish conspirators are doing their dirty work to benefit Israel.

Roth also claimed that Elmendorf’s decision was “a shocking violation of academic freedom.” Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), agreed, saying, “If Harvard’s decision was based on HRW’s advocacy under Ken’s leadership, this is profoundly troubling from both a human rights and an academic freedom standpoint.”

It appears that Roth and Romero do not understand the nature of academic freedom. An applicant for a fellowship or faculty position does not enjoy academic freedom at the institution—in this case, Harvard—where they wish to work. They have freedom of speech to express their ideology and beliefs like all other citizens, but Roth would not have enjoyed the protection of academic freedom, which would allow him to express his views, no matter how corrosive or biased, until he became part of the Harvard community. Obviously, this never took place.

Moreover, hiring committees normally vet applicants during the application process. It appears that in the initial stages of Roth’s application, the committee inadvertently, or perhaps purposely, ignored Roth’s hostility to Israel. So, it is very likely that when the choice of Roth was made public, Harvard stakeholders had the opportunity to inform the dean about the darker aspects of Roth’s career. Dean Elmendorf then did what the hiring committee at the Carr Center should have done in the first place: Examine HRW’s and Roth’s defective scholarship and singular focus on Israel, objectively.

One particularly grotesque example of Roth’s shoddy scholarship and tendency toward outright falsehoods was a 2021 HRW report titled, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” the title of which makes its content clear.

No apartheid exists in Israel, but that did not prevent HRW from presenting the 217-page report as fact, effectively redefining apartheid to make their case. The Israel-based watchdog organization NGO Monitor, however, produced a report of its own that eviscerated HRW’s libels. NGO Monitor concluded that “the HRW publication is fundamentally flawed, using lies, distortions, omissions and blatant double standards to construct a fraudulent and libelous narrative demonizing Israel.”

“A careful examination of the text shows that HRW conducted almost no primary research,” NGO Monitor noted. “Rather, the text is bloated with cut-and-paste phrases, and quotes and conclusions taken from third-party sources—notably, other political NGOs participating in the same ‘apartheid’ campaign against Israel.”

“The omissions are even more egregious than the errors and misrepresentations, rendering HRW’s report as nothing more than propaganda,” the watchdog group asserted.

Even the PLO knows the Jews are indigenous to Israel - opinion

To deal with the inconvenient historical fact that Jews are the indigenous population of Israel, the drafters of the PLO charter created an arbitrary dividing line to determine who would be considered a Palestinian. First, the PLO charter deems any Arab who had lived in the entirety of what is now modern Israel prior to the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland to automatically be Palestinian, without regard to whether they were residents in the land. Further, the PLO charter deemed any Arab (but not Jews) born after 1947 to a Palestinian father to be a Palestinian.

Jews, on the other hand, were excised from their own national identity under the PLO charter. Only Jews who had resided in what is now modern Israel prior to “the Zionist invasion” would be considered Palestinian. And what did the PLO even mean when they called it “the Zionist invasion,” 1948 or the 1800s? The latter, of course.

Jews were forcibly removed from Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple and dispersed across the globe, making Palestine, as conceived by the PLO charter, a nearly Jew-free land before the Zionist movement was ever founded.

Imagine if, at the time of the founding of modern Israel, Jews had made a similar declaration with regard to Arabs. To wit, Israel would only recognize those “Arab Palestinians” who resided in the land and identified as “Palestinian” prior to the time of Abraham. This would obviously be an impossibility since the term “Palestinian” was created by the Romans after the Bar Kokhba revolt in around 130 C.E., while Abraham arrived in the Land of Israel approximately 2,000 years before the first use of the term Palestine.

Recently, antisemitic activists have escalated their attacks on Jews, claiming we are “settler-colonists” of a land they call Palestine. In my latest new law review article, I examine the question of colonialism and Israel. Part of my research involved tracing the history of the Jewish presence in Israel and comparing it to the waves of actual settler-colonists, ending with Palestinian Arabs, who displaced the indigenous Jewish population.

The only way that anti-Israel activists can strip Jews of our status as the indigenous people of the land and eliminate Jewish self-determination is to do as the PLO charter did: ignore history and designate a time when Jews had been ethnically cleansed from our own homeland as the point in time when Jewish history in Israel starts.

There are settler-colonists in Israel, and they are Palestinian Arabs. Nonetheless, Israel welcomes these settler-colonists and provides them with rights that no other country would provide to invaders and occupiers. It’s time for Palestinian Arab activists and their supporters to accept history and thank Israel for the gracious hospitality extended to newcomers.

Based on a true story. Israel has never occupied another people’s land in all her 4,000-Year recorded history; Israel is the world’s most accused country of illegally occupying another peoples’ land.
Ten Deceptions: https://t.co/4qiCALoxOJ #israel #palestine
— Joseph Shellim (@PhotoshopTruth) January 17, 2023

01/16 Links Pt2: How identity politics fuels anti-Semitism; Ken Roth’s Main Contribution is to Antisemitism, not Human Rights; MSNBC Claims Ilhan Omar’s Antisemitism the Fault of ‘Right Wing Hatemongers’

From Ian:

How identity politics fuels anti-Semitism

For several decades, the NUS has been closely wedded to the cultural politics of identity. As an institution, it works as a kind of coalition of identity groups that are all governed by an ideology of victimhood. Within the ranks of the NUS, identities perceived as ‘victims’ enjoy formidable authority.

But the NUS has apparently made an exception in recent years when it comes to Jews. In this, the NUS follows the identitarian mindset now widespread in our culture, which positions each identity within a hierarchy of victimhood – and which inexplicably places Jews near or at the top of that hierarchy.

Among devotees of identity politics, the Jewish identity has lost much of its claim to moral authority. The status held by Jews since the Holocaust has been revised. Jews are once again being portrayed as powerful, privileged and as aggressors. They are equated with the state of Israel and presented as the oppressors of a highly acclaimed victim group – the Palestinians.

In a world in which victim status trumps all others, this shift has had significant consequences for Jews. It is not that identitarians set out to cultivate anti-Semitism. But identity politics has helped to create a cultural and political climate in which Jewishness is increasingly perceived with hostility, as a negative identity. The validation of some identities always implies a devaluation of others – it is a zero-sum game. Today, the Jewish identity is on the losing side of that game.

Jewish identity is gradually becoming what sociologist Erving Goffman, in his classic 1963 study Stigma, characterised as a ‘spoiled identity’. A spoiled identity is one that lacks any redeeming moral qualities. It is an identity that invites stigma and scorn. Today, this is demonstrated by campaigns against the age-old Jewish practice of male circumcision, implying that Jews are perpetuating a barbaric custom. In a similar vein, attempts to ban kosher meat in parts of Europe signal an air of condescension toward Jewish culture, which is viewed as inhumane.

Bigotry has returned through the seemingly innocuous medium of identity politics. Back in March 2021, Politics Live, the BBC’s flagship politics programme, featured a bizarre debate on whether or not Jews are an ethnic minority. Apparently, this was open to question because some Jews have now reached positions of power and influence in British society. For identitarians, Jews have joined the ranks of the oppressors. Jewish privilege is seen as another version of ‘white privilege’.

This identitarian mindset has fuelled the new anti-Semitism. It must be confronted – not just within the NUS, but across British society.

The Baffling Appeal of "Jews Don’t Count"

Though Jews Don’t Count may be a weak and frivolous exercise in moaning, it has nevertheless struck a chord with that section of UK Jewry who, by virtue of their acculturation and success, are best positioned to make their voice heard. Of course, no one is completely immune to the kind of narcissistic self-pity that Baddiel and his guests have to offer, but this popularity is still, at first sight, surprising. Surprising, that is, until we understand its subtext, which contains an attempt to answer the central question of what Shaul Maggid has called “post-Judaism”: what does it mean to be a post-ethnic and post-religious Jew?

In Jews Don’t Count, Baddiel interviews over a dozen Jews, but there are few Israelis, religiously observant Jews, or Zionists among them. He thus deemphasizes or excludes something like 80 percent of the Jewish people from his analysis. The only time we see a yarmulke is in the background when Baddiel visits a New York deli and observes that Jews like pickles. Jews Don’t Count is, in other words, very clear about what Judaism isn’t (religion, Israel, and, of course, being white), but it is silent on the question of what positive content being Jewish has. Baddiel has stated elsewhere that “I’m really interested in and connected to the culture, the comedy, and obviously the identity, which is core to my being.” (Baddiel is, of course, a vocal atheist, and someone who doesn’t even care enough about Israel to oppose it, though he makes no bones about not liking it very much.) But what does that identity, which is the core of his being, consist of? What exactly is Baddiel identifying with?

In lieu of any indication that there is something other than anti-Semitism that Baddiel finds interesting about Judaism, the alarming answer to that question appears to be that Baddiel’s Jewish identity consists precisely of being a member of a persecuted group. The otherwise baffling popularity of Jews Don’t Count indicates he is far from alone. While, historically, many Jews have abandoned their faith and people in order to shed the burdens of being a loathed minority, the post-Jew does the opposite: clinging desperately to that legacy of persecution as the essence of being as a Jew. For some Jews, a denial of God’s existence, the divine authorship of the Torah, or their eternal connection to the Land of Israel is more than just an argument they disagree with: it’s an attack on their fundamental being. For post-Jews, the same blow is received when someone tries to gently point out that they are not a victim of anything but their own inability to quit while they are ahead.

The undeniable link between Anti-Antisemitism and America’s decline - Opinion

The New Antisemitism
The modern rise of antisemitism also known as the New Antisemitism kicked off at the start of the 21st century with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. With the Islamo Leftist alliance behind it, BDS, with its agenda to demonize the Jewish people and destroy the State of Israel, quickly moved from the fringes of our society and into the mainstream. Civil society organizations, American universities, and far-left politicians would come to endorse the BDS ideology.

Behind BDS, there has always stood a burning hatred of America, its exceptional liberal democratic and capitalist character, and worldwide influence, which is why it has been embraced by the far left and radical Muslims.

With American Jews unable to mount an effective defense against BDS due to our small numbers, division, and aversion to conflict, a door was opened for BDS to get incorporated into the Left’s radical ideologies as they have gained popularity over the past twenty years, normalizing antisemitism as an integral part of anti-Americanism.

Antisemism is now part of the Left Radical Ideologies
BDS and CRT are now intimately intertwined through the left-wing theory of “intersectionality”, and are being aggressively implemented in the workplace and school through CRT-adjacent policies like DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and Ethnic Studies Curriculums. Americans from an increasingly early age are being indoctrinated to view America as intrinsically evil that must be totally remade according to racialized and socialist ‘Woke’ standards.

Although Jews are a major target of these groups, the struggle is not really about us—the ultimate target has always been America.

American Jews need to create alliances with other Americans focused on helping the public to understand that anti-Semitism spreading BDS, CRT, Ethnic Studies and DEI are first and foremost a threat to our core American values. Nothing less than the future of America – and the Jewish American community – is at stake.

01/09 Links Pt2: ‘The great unpunishment’: How, why so many Holocaust perpetrators got away with it; The Need to Curb Black Anti-Semitism; UAE will teach Holocaust in national school curriculum

From Ian:

‘The great unpunishment’: How, why so many Holocaust perpetrators got away with it

After spending 18 years bringing “Getting Away With Murder(s)” to fruition, British filmmaker David Wilkinson faced wall-to-wall rejections when he shopped the documentary to global broadcasters and subscription services such as Netflix.

Clocking in at three hours, Wilkinson’s film is a detailed indictment of the so-called “great unpunishment” faced by nearly all of the Holocaust’s perpetrators. The film focuses on specific German war criminals — and non-German collaborators — to explain how so many mass murderers avoided accountability.

“The lack of justice for the victims of the Holocaust is the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of mankind,” Wilkinson told The Times of Israel. “The world needs to know this,” he said.

“Getting Away With Murder(s)” will finally land on several US streaming platforms on January 27, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The film has been airing in 11 European countries since July, said Wilkinson.

“It has been a slog all the time with this documentary,” said Wilkinson, who has produced or distributed 125 films in a career spanning more than four decades.

“In some ways, ‘Jews Don’t Count’ should have been the name of this film,” said Wilkinson, who had to fund much of the documentary himself, along with his wife, costume designer Amy Roberts of Netflix’s “The Crown.”

Even Israeli broadcasters, said Wilkinson, were not keen on supporting the sprawling Holocaust documentary.

“I was told a few times that Israel has more Holocaust documentaries than any other country,” said Wilkinson, whose film was also rejected by the Berlin Film Festival.

However, after the slew of commercial rejections, “Getting Away With Murder(s)” became a favorite of British critics. Wilkinson has been compared favorably to Claude Lanzmann of “Shoah” fame, and the influential “Guardian” voted the film its top documentary of the year.

“It was the power of the free press. Without them championing the film, I really do think it would have been ignored,” said Wilkinson.

The Need to Curb Black Anti-Semitism

In fact, Irving has neither apologized for any unintended incitement nor even acknowledged the phenomenon of growing animosity and violence toward Jews—especially among American blacks. If he had actually wanted to defuse the hold of these ideologies on some of his fans, he might have tried saying something like this:
There is no truth in the claims in Hebrews to Negroes that there was no Holocaust or that today’s Jews usurped Judaism from blacks and should be punished for it. In fact, roughly 6 million Jews were murdered for being Jews during World War II; there is no historical support for a religious usurpation; and it is never okay to harass or attack Jews. If your religion tells you that they deserve it, then your religion is despicable.

And he might have added:
Jews make up about 2 percent of the U.S. population but routinely suffer 60 percent of religion-based hate crimes. Here in New York City, nearly half of all hate-crime victims are Jewish—in a city only around 7 percent Jewish—and in cases where the attacker’s race is known, 42 percent of attackers are black. Brooklyn has experienced 186 hate crimes so far this year, at least 74 of these against Jews. This is shameful, and anyone who commits crimes against Jews needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

If anything, Irving’s peace-and-love non-apologies served as a dog whistle to those whose ideologies he refrained from condemning. On his reinstatement day, scores of Black Hebrew Israelites, outfitted in the uniform of the group Israel United in Christ, amassed in military formation in Grand Army Plaza shouting: “Hey Jacob, it’s time to wake up. We have good news: we are the real Jews.” Still shouting, they army-marched to the nearby Barclay’s Center, where Irving was finally back on court, to distribute fliers promulgating the same brand of libel against Jews that Irving could have explicitly countered, but didn’t. Nothing that Irving has said or done since has stopped Hebrews to Negroes from becoming the best-selling book in multiple Amazon categories or delegitimized its hateful message.

Perhaps conscientious education can cure people of prejudice; certainly, dialogue is a critical and healthy part of civics. Anti-Semitism, however, is an age-old malignancy that leapfrogs bias to become something irrational, suffused with magical thinking and the potential for violence. Maybe to combat this growing surge, we need to focus less on explaining why anti-Semitism is not nice and more on discovering what forces of misplaced grievance and fear in the black community are inflaming it now.

UAE will teach Holocaust education in national school curriculum

The UAE will be adding Holocaust education to its school curriculums, the UAE Embassy in the US confirmed on Twitter last week.

"In the wake of the historic Abraham Accords, the UAE will now include the Holocaust in the curriculum for primary and secondary schools," was written in the tweet which added a quote by one of the Emirati brokers of the Accords Ali al-Nuaimi.

"Memorializing the victims of the Holocaust is crucial," he said. "Public figures failed to speak the truth because a political agenda hijacked their narrative, yet a tragedy on the scale of the Holocaust targets not only Jews but humanity as a whole."

The UAE is the first Arab state to officially include Holocaust education in its school curriculum.

"This means a lot," said US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides in a comment to the UAE Embassy's tweet. "Great to see it coming to fruition."

'Holocaust education is imperative for humanity'
"Pleased to see this important step being taken by the United Arab Emirates," wrote the US Special Envoy to Monitor Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt. "Holocaust education is an imperative for humanity and too many countries, for too long, continue to downplay the Shoah [Holocaust] for political reasons. I commend the UAE for this step and expect others to follow suit soon."

“The United Arab Emirates has been leading the way in peace and tolerance education in the region for some years,” said CEO of Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) Marcus Sheff. "IMPACT-se is delighted that they have taken this important step in educating about the Shoah and humbled to have partnered with the Ministry of Education.”

01/02 Links Pt2: The New York Times in Bibi-land; A new book challenges progressive Jews; Posters Glorifying Palestinian “Martyrs” Found in LA

From Ian:

The New York Times in Bibi-land

The New York Times is in panic mode. A front-page article by Jerusalem reporter Isabel Kershner (Dec. 30) began with an expression of trepidation that Israel’s “right-wing and religiously conservative government,” led by newly elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “will undermine the country’s liberal democracy.”

How so? By ensuring “increased tensions with Palestinians,” “undermining” judicial independence, and “the rolling back of protections for the L.G.B.T.Q. community” and “other” (unidentified) “sectors of society.”

But for Kershner it gets even worse. The Netanyahu governing coalition has “declared the Jewish people’s exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” including biblical Judea and Samaria (until the Six-Day War identified as Jordan’s “West Bank”). It has also “pledged to bolster Jewish settlement in the West Bank,” which would undercut the “recognized formula for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.” In translation, Israel would reclaim its biblical heritage.

Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, Kershner writes, might “complicate” Israeli-American relations. Although President Biden proclaimed his eagerness to work with Netanyahu (“my friend for decades”), he reiterated American support for “the two state solution” that the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas (now beginning the 18th year of his four-year term) have repeatedly rejected.

A new book challenges progressive Jews

David Bernstein’s “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews” is making waves in Jewish communities across the Western world.

David Bernstein is the founder and CEO of the Maryland-based Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV), as in classical liberalism and moderate politics. He has been involved with Jewish organizations throughout his life, leading several, and identifies as politically liberal. But changes in recent years inspired him to leave these organizations and create a new one.

“I have spent my entire career in the Jewish world, and had always felt proud of the openness to varied opinions, even if the organizations ultimately took sides on an issue,” Bernstein shared with JNS. But starting “around 2020….People refused to discuss and debate key topics, especially on sensitive issues.”

He soon realized that the same ideology that was shutting down debate was also fueling antisemitism.

Realizing the harm that this does by labeling Israel and Jews as “oppressors,” he was inspired to write his book, “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews.” The tome is full of Bernstein’s anecdotes on his journey from being a child bullied in school for being Jewish, to a liberal Jewish student on college campus witnessing a new form of antisemitism.

He also details the origins of woke ideology on the far left and how it has begun to attack Jews and Zionism. Troublingly, it is being gradually adopted by many mainstream American Jewish organizations.

In the book, Bernstein isn’t shy about admitting that he considers himself a Democrat and supports socially-liberal causes. Yet he points out that much of the political movement he considered himself a part of has drifted away from the values it claims to espouse.

He says that American Jews must fight against antisemitism from all fronts–Islamists, the far right and the far left–or else American Jews will begin to feel disenfranchised and see life become unbearable.

Posters Glorifying Palestinian “Martyrs” Found in LA

Various posters glorifying Palestinian “martyrs” were found in Los Angeles on December 16.

The Palestinian Youth Movement announced in an Instagram post that they had put the posters around Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland Empire; some posters were found on Wilshire Boulevard. The posters stated, “Glory to our marytrs!” and featured the faces of various Palestinians that were killed by “Zionist forces.” One such face was Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was shot and killed while covering an Israel Defense Force (IDF) raid in Jenin in May. The State Department announced in July that their investigation concluded that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh “likely” came from the IDF but was probably unintentional; however, damage to the bullet “prevented a clear conclusion.” A separate CNN investigation, on the other hand, concluded that the IDF had intentionally fired at Abu Akleh.

Other faces included on the posters included Oday al-Tamimi and Tamer al-Kilani, who were both members of the Lion’s Den terror group, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL listed al-Kilani as a founding member of the terror group. The poster also included faces of those killed during clashes between the IDF and Palestinians in the West Bank, such as Omar Manna. Manna was killed on December 5 when the IDF were executing a raid to arrest three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); the IDF said at the time that “during the operation, suspects threw stones, Molotov cocktails, and explosives at the troops, who responded by shooting.”

The posters on Wilshire Boulevard were taken down on December 21.

Jewish groups denounced the posters in statements to the Journal.

“There is nothing wrong with mourning those who die from the tragic and ongoing violence between Palestinians and Israelis,” StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein said. “However, this anti-Israel poster includes and glorifies terrorists, such as former Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander Farooq Salameh. It implies Israel alone is to blame, ignoring that groups like PIJ seek to destroy Israel and trap both peoples in an endless cycle of suffering and conflict. Hopefully one day Palestinian leaders will accept that Israel is in the region to stay, so both peoples can focus on building a better future together.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda Rabbi Abraham Cooper also said, “Importing [a] culture of death where children are brainwashed to believe [that] martyrs are not mere cannon fodder for genocide-seeking Hamas and corrupt pay-to-slay Jews Palestinian Authority teaches youngsters here to hate Jews is a disaster in the making.”

“Their martyrs are our murderers,” Stop Antisemitism Executive Director Liora Rez said. “It’s always disturbing to see people idolizing terrorists like this.”

12/26 Links Pt2: It’s time for Jews to say, ‘Sorry, not sorry’; The American Jewish left’s endorsement of antisemitism; Glick: Jason Greenblatt: Two State Solution is meaningless

From Ian:

It’s time for Jews to say, ‘Sorry, not sorry’

There are many Jews out there who blame Israel for antisemitism:

“If only we didn’t ‘occupy’ the ‘Palestinians,’ there would be no antisemitism.”

“If only those ultra-Orthodox Jews wouldn’t dress like that and stick to their ‘primitive ways,’ people wouldn’t hate us so much.”

But they’ll never accept our apology, so it’s time we stop apologizing.

The new government is too right-wing for you? You must have confused me for someone who cares about your opinion.

Foreign aid? Go ahead, Biden, try to pull it. Try to boycott Israel, BDS. Go for it, let’s see how that goes for you.

We don’t need you any more than you need us.

Allow me to officially declare that the era of the apologetic Jew is dead. It should rest in peace.

Now let me introduce you to a new creature: the proud Jew.

We have a lot to be proud of.

20% of all Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews. We have the most moral army in the world. We are able to balance our military power with our unwavering need to behave morally and ethically, sometimes too ethically.

We lead the world in life-changing tech: Medicine, food, you name it, we are at the forefront of it all.

We took a desert that Mark Twain famously referred to as “a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land” and transformed it into one of the most flourishing societies in the Middle East and the world, and it only took us 75 years.

So, it’s time we all declared the apologetic Jew dead and introduced the world to a new breed of Jew, the proud Jew.

If we don’t respect ourselves, how can we expect the world to?

Our new government, despite its shortcomings, represents the proud Jew. There has never been more Torah learning than there is right now. We have never been stronger physically or economically. That’s something to be proud of.

This new government will support Torah. It will support the land of Israel—all of it. It will support our needs, not the needs of our enemies.

We have always talked about and prayed for the people of Israel, with the Torah of Israel, in the land of Israel. And now, we have arrived, not yet to the final destination, but we are well on the way.

For that, we, the Jewish people, should be proud, not ashamed and apologetic.

Or, in other words: Sorry, not sorry.

The American Jewish left’s endorsement of antisemitism

Once upon a time, identifying an antisemite required the proverbial duck test. If it quacked like an antisemite, then it probably was an antisemite.

Back then, antisemites had ways to avoid responsibility, but this has changed in recent years due to the widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism, which is now used by 38 countries, including the United States.

The IHRA definition, which includes examples of antisemitism directed against Israel, fits Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) perfectly.

For years, Omar has used the vocabulary of antisemitism delineated in the IHRA definition, such as tweeting “Israel has hypnotized the world” and that U.S. politicians’ support for Israel is “all about the benjamins”—a reference to hundred-dollar bills.

Even the Democratic House leadership, headed by outgoing speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that Omar “engaged in deeply offensive antisemitic tropes.”

One of the IHRA definition’s most important examples of antisemitism is “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel.”

Omar did precisely that in Feb. 2019, when she angered fellow House Democrats Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey (both of New York) by saying in reference to Israel, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Omar has also repeatedly applied double standards to Israel and singled out the world’s only Jewish state for her attacks, both of which are also included in the IHRA definition. She even equated Israel and the U.S. with Hamas, Afghanistan and the Taliban.

But despite all that quacking, several left-wing groups that label themselves “Jewish” and “pro-Israel” recently had the audacity to pretend that Omar is not a duck.

Who came to Omar’s defense when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pledged to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee?

It was J Street, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Habonim Dror North America, the New Israel Fund, T’ruah and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.