Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: IHRA

Showing posts with label IHRA. Show all posts

Monday, June 19, 2023

Latest EoZ memes, comics, posters

This is a good batch.

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!

Some good editorial cartoons (for once)

I was looking through a collection of editorial cartoons, and many of them dealing with Israel are horrific - antisemitic, ignorant or both.

But there were a few good ones that hold up..

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!

J Street opposes the IHRA definition - because it shows the politicians they support are antisemitic (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Last week the Biden Administration unveiled its plan to address the growing antisemitic violence that threatens Jews nationwide.

No one can deny the importance of fighting antisemitism, and the attempt by the Biden Administration to formulate a plan to do this is of course a positive step. However, some issues undermine Biden's plan from the outset.

One of the organizations Biden included to implement the plan is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is not known to be friendly to Jews. On November 27, 2021, Zahra Billoo -- the executive director of CAIR in San Francisco -- described to the American Muslims for Palestine’s (AMP) Annual Convention for Palestine that Zionists and their synagogues are enemies:

We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation[sic]. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. Just because they're your friend today doesn't mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights…know your enemies, and I'm not going to sugarcoat that they are your enemies.

CAIR claimed that Billoo's comments were taken out of context and CAIR would "continue to proudly stand by Zahra." According to the White House Fact Sheet, this is the same CAIR that will be responsible to "launch a tour to educate religious communities about steps they can take to protect their houses of worship from hate incidents."

Another organization listed on the fact sheet as part of the fight against antisemitism is the National Action Network, which was founded by Al Sharpton, and used by Sharpton in 1995 to stage the protest at Freddy’s Fashion Mart, during which Jews were called “bloodsuckers” and the protesters threatened, “We’re going to burn and loot the Jews.” In the end, one protester killed 7 people. In December 2019, the executive director of NAN's North Jersey chapter -- Carilyn Oliver Fair -- stood up for Jersey City Board of Education trustee Joan Terrell-Paige. Paige had defended the 2 shooters who targeted a kosher grocery store, killing 3 people inside and another at a different location. According to Fair:

[Paige] said nothing wrong. Everything she said is the truth. So where is this anti-Semitism coming in? I am not getting it.

Obviously, in order to fight antisemitism, it is necessary to recognize antisemitism when it occurs. For that reason, many organizations wanted to see the Biden Administration explicitly and unambiguously support the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition of antisemitism is widely accepted as the gold standard for defining antisemitism. It is used by the US, has been adopted by 26 US states and by 36 other countries -- as well as by the EU, the Organization of American States and the Council of Europe.

Contrast the wide acceptance of the IHRA definition with the claim made by J Street.

Dylan Williams, senior vice president for policy and strategy at J Street claims that the IHRA is no help at all in the fight against antisemitism:

efforts to give the force of law to a single, controversial definition of antisemitism that focuses disproportionately on criticism of Israel does a disservice to Jewish Americans targeted by this hatred.

What has been widely accepted is, according to J Street, controversial. And as far as criticism of Israel is concerned, the IHRA makes it very clear:

criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

J Street is also among those who claimed that IHRA would be a threat to freedom of expression and criticism o f Israel. This is a claim that has been made without giving actual, concrete instances where this has happened. On the other hand, a report on Understanding Jewish Experience in Higher Education has been published in the UK. It was researched over a 6 month period at 56 different universities. Besides noting the "underlying fear of being targeted," the report went further and pointed out:

Despite concerns expressed by some academics, none of the 56 universities spoken to could identify a single example of the [IHRA] definition restricting freedom of expression. [emphasis added]

Instead of using the IHRA definition, J Street is pushing for the definition of antisemitism given by the Nexus Task Force.

According to the Nexus definition:

Paying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of antisemitism. (There are numerous reasons for devoting special attention to Israel and treating Israel differently, e.g., some people care about Israel more; others may pay more attention because Israel has a special relationship with the United States and receives $4 billion in American aid). [emphasis added]

This is wonderful news!

As Lea Speyer points out, we can now attribute the UNHRC fixation with singling out Israel to it either "caring more" about Israel or because of Israel's "special relationship" with the US. The Nexus excuse for applying a double standard to Israel and singling it out for condemnation and punishment is worse than laughable.

Yet J Street supports the Nexus definition -- and no wonder.

Daniel Greenfield points out that J Street leader Jeremy Ben Ami is on the Nexus advisory committee, and this is made clear on the website:

Ben-Ami's interest in a contrary definition of antisemitism is not surprising. In fact, it could very well be that J Street opposes the IHRA definition on principle -- if it were to accept the IHRA definition, many of those whom J Street supports and allies itself with could be labeled as antisemitic.

For example, that would explain why J Street couldn't get their story straight about receiving money from George Soros.

In 2010, Eli Lake wrote in the Washington Times that from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009 Soros and his 2 children contributed $245,000 to J Street. Lake writes that at the very time that Ben-Ami claimed to be "very proud" to have the support of Soros, the J Street website featured a "myths and facts" section which denied receiving any money:

George Soros very publicly stated his decision not to be engaged in J Street when it was launched — precisely out of fear that his involvement would be used against the organization.

Soon afterward, the website was amended with an addition:

J Street has said it doesn’t receive money from George Soros, but now news reports indicate that he has in fact contributed.

At the same time, a spokesman for Soros had no problem stating publicly stated Soros was very clear about his desire to be involved with the group and “has made no secret of his support" for J Street.

J Street's reluctance was based on Soros's anti-Israel stance.

In 1995, Soros admitted to the New Yorker:

I don’t deny the Jews their right to a national existence — but I don’t want to be part of it.

A 2004 article in Commentary notes that in a speech to the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in 2003, "Soros likened the behavior of Israel to that of the Nazis," an example of "his coldness toward the Jewish state. The IHRA definition explicitly points to comparisons of Israel with Nazis as antisemitic. On the other hand, the Nexus definition does not.

In 2007, The New York Sun quoted from a piece that Soros wrote for The New York Review of Books:

The current policy of not seeking a political solution but pursuing military escalation -- not just an eye for an eye but roughly speaking ten Palestinian lives for every Israeli one -- has reached a particularly dangerous point.

Soros's claim that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian Arabs mendacious.

Tablet Magazine noted in 2016 that in 14 grants since 2001, Soros had given over $2.5million to Adalah, which accuses Israel of war crimes. In 2013, the groups published a database claiming to have found 101 Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian Arabs. NGO Monitor has an article debunking Adalah's claim.

The Tablet article, Soros Hack Reveals Evidence of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias, concludes:

there can be little doubt about the Soros-funded extensive and deliberate effort to delegitimize Israel while doing comparatively very little to address real human rights abuses in the Palestinian Authority or elsewhere in the region.

No wonder J Street was reluctant to admit to accepting money from Soros.

Similarly, J Street -- which claims to be pro-Israel -- has itself supported politicians who are antagonistic towards Israel.

Take for example J Street's initial support for Rashida Tlaib:

J Street supported Tlaib despite the fact that Tlaib:

o supported Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh
o supported Islamic Relief, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
o accused Harris of “racism” for meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
o retweeted a post from Linda Sarsour supporting Ahed Tamimi, who was jailed for incitement and assaulting an IDF soldier -- and upon release voiced support for suicide bombing.

Did J Street consider any of this to be antisemitic? Apparently not. Maybe all of this merely falls under the category of criticism when in fact Tlaib was demonizing Israel.

The only reason they withdrew support from her was that Tlaib did not support a two-state solution. Nevertheless, J Street still gushed over Tlaib:

We strongly support and are encouraged by her commitment to social justice, and we are inspired by her determination to bring the voice of underrepresented communities to Capitol Hill. We wish her and her campaign well, and we look forward to a close working relationship with her and her office when she takes her seat in Congress next year. [emphasis added]

Then there is Betty McCollum, senator from Minnesota, who in 2018 was the first elected US official to accuse Israel of Apartheid.

Despite this, J Street insisted on their website at the time:

Rep. McCollum has been a strong ally of the pro-Israel, pro-peace community since her election to Congress.

While Amnesty and HRW had to cobble together different definitions of Apartheid to single out Israel, McCollum did not back up her claim, and J Street simply ignored it.

In its most recent support for McCollum, J Street no longer praises McCollum for being pro-Israel -- but rather pro-Palestinian and uncritically accepts her claim that Israel holds children in military detention and praises her stance against evictions from Masafer Yatta without any context:

J Street also supports Mark Pocan, the representative from Wisconsin, who in 2017 anonymously reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum organized by organizations that support boycotts while not attending the anti-Israel forum he sponsored. A senior Congressional official was quoted as saying that Pocan "chose to facilitate a pro-BDS smear campaign using taxpayer dollars without even showing his face at the event."

Pocan's sole support for boycotting Israel as opposed to any other country represents a double-standard, which explains his hiding his support at the time.

In 2016, Pocan was one of a handful of Democratic congressmen who met an Arab terrorist affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Shawan Jabarin was described as the General Director of Al-Haq, for a discussion on “Palestinian political prisoners,” but in fact

A member of the PFLP, Jabarin was convicted for his efforts to enlist support abroad for attacks on Israel. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but was released after nine months due to respiratory difficulties.

But J Street continues to support Pocan, in part because

Lacking in J Street's description is any mention that the destruction of homes is a measure taken against terrorist attacks or that "expanded settlements" refers to the building of homes within settlements, not building additional settlements. Similarly, J Street gives no details on how Pocan's "strong support for Israel's security" manifests itself or support for human rights of Israelis facing terrorist attacks. Also, no mention of Pocan's support of BDS and how it fits in with the J Street policy of not supporting BDS but not opposing BDS that supports a two-state solution, assuming that such a thing exists.

J Street's part in drawing up the Nexus definition of antisemitism shows that their support is not based on inpartiality. This is the definition they want and their claims about the flaws in the IHRA definition is merely gaslighting in an attempt to defend and maintain the double-standard that Israel is held to in the UN and by self-proclaimed "human rights" groups. J Street supports the disproportionate focus on Israel.

Back in the day, Ben-Ami bragged that J Street saw itself as Obama's "block back."
Just who is J Street blocking for now?

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!

This week's memes, posters, cartoons

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!

Study indicates antisemites took advantage of Twitter's tumult after Elon Musk took over

A new study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue looks at the amount of antisemitic tweets before and after Elon Musk took over the company - and found that the amount of Jew-hate more than doubled:

New research from CASM Technology and ISD has found a major and sustained spike in antisemitic posts on Twitter since the company’s takeover by Elon Musk on October 27, 2022. Powered by the award-winning digital analysis technology Beam– and based on a powerful hate speech detection methodology combining over twenty leading machine-learning models– researchers found that the volume of English-language antisemitic Tweets more than doubled in the period following Musk’s takeover. In total, analysts detected 325,739 English-language antisemitic Tweets in the 9 months from June 2022 to February 2023, with the weekly average number of antisemitic Tweets increasing by 106% (from 6,204 to 12,762), when comparing the period before and after Musk’s acquisition.

There is a lot in the 32-page report, and its methodology appears to be largely sound. (I think if they would use my definition of antisemitism rather than the IHRA Working Definition, they might find it to be more accurate.)

But one statistic stood out to me: Antisemites were eager to take advantage of the apparent loss of moderation by creating new accounts at a much higher rate than before:

We identified a significant surge of new accounts posting plausibly antisemitic content. 3,855 such accounts were created between Oct 27 and Nov 6, an increase of 223% compared to the 11 days (the equivalent timespan) leading up to Oct 27.

To me, this indicates that much of the antisemitism on social media is not simply unintentional or naïve antisemitism. People go out of their way to not only post antisemitic content but to create new accounts dedicated to hate.

I would be interested in finding out if there was a similar surge in new accounts dedicated to racist, anti-Asian, homophobic or misogynist tweets in that time period. I'm sure there was an increase - if for no other reason than that antisemites have other targets of their hate - but I have a feeling that the antisemites are far more activist and willing to take the extra effort to showcase their hate than other bigots

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!

The PLO writes a book claiming Jews exploit antisemitism to persecute Palestinians

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency describes a new book written by the Palestinian Liberation Organization Research Center.

The Palestine Liberation Organization-Research Center has issued a new book, entitled: "Zionism, Israel and Anti-Semitism: Exploiting the Suffering of the Jews to Persecute the Palestinians," by the researcher and journalist specializing in Israeli affairs, Khaldoun Barghouti.

In the book, Barghouti discusses the motives and stages of developing the definition of antisemitism from “racism against Jews on an ethnic and religious basis” to new definitions, mainly targeting those who adopt anti-Zionist positions as a colonial-settler idea, and those who criticize Israel as a country that practices military occupation and apartheid against the Palestinians. They are accusing them of being racist against Jews, "that is, antisemites," with the aim of suppressing and silencing these voices.

The book focuses on the IHRA’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, which was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA in 2016, after it was issued in 2005 by a European organization that cooperated with Israeli and Western academics and Zionist organizations, with the aim of suppressing critics of Israel’s policies against the Palestinians during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which began in 2000.

The book also reviews the most prominent areas in which this definition is used by Zionist organizations defending Israel, especially in the United States and Europe, and some forms of using this definition, with a review of the most prominent countries that adopted it through membership in the IHRA organization .

Its importance lies in its being the first Palestinian and Arab in dealing with the process of developing the definition of anti-Semitism in order to divert it from its original and historical context, and exploit it for political purposes, causing injustice to the Palestinian victims of Israel on the one hand, and to the Jewish victims of anti-Semitism in its classical concept on the other hand, by conflating their suffering with the . Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and its exploitation to suppress critics of the occupation.

The cover betrays the mission of the book: not to analyze the IHRA Working Definition but to oppose it, and the arguments within are not sober analysis but a polemic masquerading as an objective look at antisemitism.

Palestinian and other Arabic media are filled with antisemitism every day. Just today, Jordan's Al Ghad has an article responding to a piece by Robert Satloff arguing that Arabs should learn about the Holocaust. "Who says we don't know about the Holocaust?" Al Ghad writes, saying that Palestinians live through a much worse holocaust every day, and adding for good measure that the "six million" figure is certainly an exaggeration.

If Holocaust denial and minimization isn't antisemitism, nothing is.

The official position of the PLO is that anyone who points out endemic Palestinian antisemitism is a liar who supports their persecution. We've seen this position before, mostly among the Left, and certainly they provided this author with the underlying arguments he uses. It is an inversion of the truth: Anti-Zionists attempt to silence discussion of Arab antisemitism to justify Palestinian incitement, hate and terrorism.

IHRA, for all its faults, accurately notes that much of modern anti-Zionism is simply a repackaging of the same hate we have seen for thousands of years.

There is a direct line from the explicit Arab antisemitism of the 1940s and the attempts to hide it as a mere political position today. The hate hasn't changed, but because groups like MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch started publicizing Arab Jew-hatred the Palestinians became embarrassed and started obfuscating the hate a little more by substituting "Zionist" for "Jew," with sometimes absurd results where one can see articles about how "Zionists" have been the source of evil since Biblical times.

Arab antisemitism is undeniable. The PLO has written an entire book to not to combat it but to support it as a valid political position.

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!

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.