Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Preoccupied

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Thursday, January 28, 2021

God Fails To Get J Street's Approval Before Promising Land To Jacob (PreOccupied Territory)

ur weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

File source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blake_jacobsladder.jpg Beth El, January 28 - A group of left-wing American lobbyists voiced dismay today following a divine commitment to an Israelite patriarch to grant the Holy Land to his descendants, objecting that the Almighty made that promise without consulting them.

J-Street Director Jeremy Ben-Ami convened a press conference Thursday to protest his organization's exclusion from the event, which took place overnight as Jacob fled to the land of Haran, northeast of the Holy Land, to seek both refuge from a vengeful older brother and to find a wife from among his mother's clan. Ben-Ami insisted that American Jewry in general, but especially his organization, must have a say in what happens from "the River of Egypt to the River Euphrates."

"It's not just a slap in the face to the largest Diaspora community," charged Ben-Ami, "but an irresponsible move. We would have warned God that making such a dangerous promise is a one-sided measure that establishes facts on the ground prejudicing the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and weakens Palestinian moderates by undermining the assumption that non-violence and negotiations will achieve anything. It plays into the hands of the extremists on both sides. But the Lord chose not to seek our input, and that is regrettable."

Ben-Ami expressed hope that despite the divine misstep, the Biden administration and international organizations will work to put things right. "We'll always have the UN to support a more balanced - which is to say, anti-Zionist - approach," he acknowledged. "We, of course, have to dress up our uncanny agreement with anti-Zionist positions as 'pro-Israel, pro-peace,' but they don't have to resort to such mental and rhetorical gymnastics. Right now we're conducting consultations on the feasibility of bringing a case against God to the International Criminal Court for violating I'm not sure what yet. Probably something about the Geneva Conventions or that ever-shifting phenomenon called 'International Law.' We'll see."

Ben-Ami dismissed the notion that the vast majority of American Jews, and the mainstream organizations that represent them, endorse the divine promise. "If they knew better, as we do, they would think otherwise," he insisted. "We and our allies represent the true face of American Jewry; ignore all those other organizations representing only 95%. We represent right-thinking American Jews, which is to say, American Jews who think as we do, and agree with rabid antisemites on a striking number of issues."

He also suggested J-Street will not oppose efforts to boycott God over the move.

I Think The Other Hamas Fighters Trapped In This Collapsed Tunnel Are Closer Than 2 Meters (PreOccupied Territory)

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I Think The Other Hamas Fighters Trapped In This Collapsed Tunnel Are Closer Than 2 Meters

by Hussein Halabi, Hamas commando

rubble Somewhere underground near the fence between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, January 21 - Oh God. I think both of my legs are broken. And several ribs. And I can't feel my left arm. There's so little air in here, and it's dark. We were on our way across the border to wreak havoc among the Zionists, but then we heard a rumble and everything came tumbling down. And I think some of my comrades are half-crushed right near me in a non-socially-distanced manner!

This can't be good. No one can hear me, and it hurts to yell - I think that's my broken ribs. I don't hear anyone else, but maybe that's just my ears still malfunctioning after the loud crunch... I don't know. I'm really concerned I could get COVID my being so close to someone carrying the virus by spending all this time cooped up together with them in a confined space. If I don't suffocate or dehydrate and I end up surviving this, I could be in big trouble.

Oh, God, every part of me hurts. There's blood on my head from somewhere, probably a gash. My face feels like it's been battered in a boxing ring. I probably have dozens of cuts that will get infected from all the dirt getting in, but what concerns me most is possibly being near my buddies, one of whom might be a coronavirus vector. It can't be good to be stuck down here with that risk. My mask got torn off in the tunnel collapse and there's no way I can even dig to find it, let alone hope it's in any shape to be used; my guess is the same thing happened to the other seven guys, assuming any of them are still alive, meaning they could be breathing a viral load out into this enclosed area and I've got no choice but to inhale.

I've been so careful! I was always so considerate of the people around me. When we launched incendiary balloons at the Jews I always made sure to social distance. When we launched rockets at their school and hospitals I made sure my mask was always on. Same as when we came down this passage, both during practice runs and this, the real thing. And now, just my luck, I'm going to breathe in the pathogen and contract the disease. After all that preventive behavior. I call B.S.

Wait, is that light someone coming to rescue us? It seems to be drawing me closer... Whoever that is, keep your distance, I don't want to infect you...

Jerusalem Bakery So Far Resisting Urge To Weigh In On Trump Removal (PreOccupied Territory)

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braided loaf Jerusalem, January 14 - Proprietors of a neighborhood establishment specializing in pastries, breads, and various confections has to date not voiced opinions on behalf of the enterprise regarding the ongoing political turmoil in the US, thus defying a recent trend that has seen business after business jump onto the political stability concern bandwagon.

Political observers noted with surprise today that the Mahane Yehuda franchise of the English Cake chain has placed no signs or placards in its windows denouncing or expressing worry over the developments in Washington over the last week, nor has its social media presence devoted even a single tweet or Facebook post to the violence in and around the US capitol building, the president's apparent encouragement of that violence, mutual right-left recriminations over treatment of the violence versus the various social justice confrontations over the last several years, the mass purging of conservative voices from said social media, or other burning issues of tremendous political or societal import.

"It's just business as usual," noted a shocked Haaretz journalist. "The folks running this place don't seem to feel the visceral, dare I say universal, or at least it should be universal, drive to filter everything through political biases and interpret every development in a way that confirms those biases. I confess I don't know how they do it without fear of being totally crushed on Twitter, or at least left behind when everyone *I* know can tell what political basket they should put their eggs in."

Others noted that the establishment's previous political behavior aligns with its current silence on Trump. "This isn't anything new for this branch of English Cake," observed Israel Democracy Institute fellow Dunning Kruger. "They remained mum during the first Trump impeachment brouhaha as well. And I can find in their social media history not a single mention of Black Lives Matter, the Proud Boys, the wall with Mexico, the Muslim ban, or any other pivotal issue of our time. Not even the Iran nuclear deal. One wonders how a business can even function if it focuses only on production, quality control, marketing, management, and accounting, and totally ignores its relationship with the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle."

Perusal of the franchise's Instagram account bore out that claim; it also revealed a troubling lack of diversity among the few staff members whose photos feature there, none of whom appear to be transqueer Muslim immigrant women of color.

IDF Critics Note That Nazis Also Used Weapons, Helmets (PreOccupied Territory)

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helmet Geneva, January 7 - Human rights groups and international organizations drew dark parallels today between Israel's military and Germany under Adolph Hitler, noting that the soldiers of both states carried guns, wore protective gear, operated armored vehicles, and engaged in logistics.

Six human rights organizations, among them Amnesty International, B'tselem, and Human Rights Watch, submitted a report today to the United Nations Human Rights Council, urging action against Israel, specifically the Israel Defense Force, for engaging in activities that the Nazi military also did, such as march to music and prepare field rations.

"We regret to inform the Council that once again, the Israeli military engages in constant emulation of the vilest armed force in history, known for its atrocities and perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity," the report read. "Among the practices that the IDF and the Wehrmacht - including the notorious Waffen SS divisions - share are drafting, training, operating an air force, maintaining naval facilities, and wearing uniforms."

"It's actually kind of frustrating to have to point these things out again and again," lamented Dean Issacharoff of Breaking the Silence. "During my own service with the IDF, I engaged in numerous behaviors that you would find just as easily among the soldiers of Nazi Germany: learning to clean a weapon; maintaining certain standards of dress and neatness; digging trenches and foxholes; handling armaments; safety procedures; salute protocols; and that's just the basics. I could spend all day detailing the eerie parallels between the Israeli military and the Wehrmacht, but seldom is there anything that anyone does about it. I hope this report to the UN shifts things in the right direction." In 2020, the Human Rights Council denounced Israel seventeen times, and other countries a total of six.

Observers questioned the rhetorical wisdom of the move. "OK, fine, the Jews are the new Nazis, I get it," shrugged pro-Palestinian activist Ali Abunimah. "We've known that since we were allying ourselves with the actual Nazis in the 1930's and 40's. Old news. But the same analogies haven't gotten us very far, so you have to wonder whether it makes sense to keep beating the same stupid drum. There has got to be a better approach to constantly reminding everyone we think of Jews as the epitome of evil who should never be allowed to live peacefully. Few of these useless reports to the UN have resulted in anything more than a mere apologia for violence against Jews, and that's a far cry from rallying the entire world to destroy them."

Progressives Torn As Bus Under Which To Throw Jews Fails Emissions Test (PreOccupied Territory)

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hippie van Sacramento, December 31 - Stalwarts of forward-leaning politics voiced consternation today at a new dilemma that may force them to choose as never before between the values of ecological sensitivity and steamrolling Jewish concerns in pursuit of those values.

Progressive figures across California expressed dismay Thursday after the 48-seater vehicle, under which they had intended to throw Jews while pursuing the progressive agenda, could not meet the state's air pollution limitations, the toughest such thresholds in the nation. As never before activists observed, they must decide whether to proceed in their endeavors to implement a progressive agenda if in that pursuit they do not end up harming Jewish interests.

"It's not a problem we gave much thought to," admitted Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY). "All of us just kind of assumed that throwing Jews under the bus was an automatic consequence of pursuing our vision for the twenty-first century in ecology, economics, race relations, everything. But it turns out sometimes you have to go out of your way to make harming Jewish interests, or at the very least disregarding the expressed concerns of the vast majority of the American Jewish community, an outcome. We need to have some serious conversations about how far out of our way to go to ensure that outcome, and what the other costs might be to such a direction."

Previous conflicts between Jewish concerns and the progressive agenda have tended to make Jewish concerns secondary or irrelevant to the desired outcome, as when prominent progressives have declared support for Jewish sovereignty and security in the ancestral Jewish homeland to be at odds with progressive values. "It's not Israel-Palestine per se that's the issue," explained activist and Women's March founder Linda Sarsour. "My buddies in the Nation of Islam probably couldn't care less whether Israel exists, or who rules the Palestinians, just as the Arabs in Palestine couldn't care less when they were under foreign rule for many centuries. It's the Jews of America that bother Brother Farrakhan, not the Jews of Tel Aviv, although licking the latter in the teeth might also be good. No, it's about maintaining the Jew as an enemy, and as time passes, our sensibilities have increasingly painted the Jew as the source of our community's problems, because it's more convenient to blame someone else than to fix your own problems, and hey, look, the Jews are right here, always available as scapegoats."

"But this time it's a little different," she acknowledged, "because now we have to determine whether harming Jews is simply a positive side-effect of our efforts, or a goal in itself, and if the latter, then does it outweigh other progressive goals? I think we all know what the decision will be in the end, but it looks good to have a 'conversation' about it that really only involves people who want Jews to just go away with their irritating insistence that people treat them with the same humanity and respect we demand for everyone else."

Isolated Iran Encourages April 1945 Hitler: 'You Have Them Right Where You Want Them' (PreOccupied Territory)

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Berlin ruins 1945 Tehran, December 24 - High-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a message today to boost the confidence of the German Führer hiding in his bunker as the Red Army closed in on Berlin more than seventy-five years ago, urging the Nazi leader to view the developments of the previous two-and-a-half years positively, in that the convergence of several army groups vastly outnumbering the remaining Wehrmacht and irregular German forces on the capital of the Third Reich means that the main body of the Soviet military now lies within striking distance.

"Herr Führer, you have them right where you want them," urged Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif in a communiqué to the April 1945 Adolf Hitler in his Führerbunker. "After a series of Red Army 'victories' on the entire Eastern Front since the winter of 1943, your enemy has grown complacent, and ripe for easy defeat. You have bided your time well, lulling them into what they assume to be a routine of triumph after triumph. Soon you will bring down the hammer that crushes the enemy and energizes the citizens and soldiers of the Reich to restore the glory it has too long been denied."

"The operations at Stalingrad and Kursk were especially convincing," continued the message. "Allowing the Sixth Army to be destroyed, with the masterstroke charade of all the disagreement between you and General Paulus, to make it appear an unmitigated disaster, made all the Soviet 'maskirovka' techniques during the whole war pale by comparison. Then, to follow that up with 'losing the initiative' at Kursk must certainly have nurtured an unhealthy sense of inevitability and invincibility that subsequent Soviet advances only augmented. Now, with the enemy at the gates of Berlin, they will assume their 'final' offensive to be a cakewalk, unaware that the entire time, you, in your proven strategic and tactical brilliance, have orchestrated the entire campaign to lead to this very instant, when you sweep the rug out from under the Slavic horde at the precise moment they have been so expertly conditioned to think will belong to them, and the entire Stalinist edifice comes crashing down like the Jewish-backed Communist house of cards it is. Kudos."

The communiqué also stressed the common Aryan heritage of Hitler's "master race," noting that the term "Aryan" is the very source of the name "Iran." Zarif and the other signatories then expressed the hope that their increasingly-isolated, sanctions-plagued regime can follow a similarly dramatic path to victory as Muslim state after Muslim state joins an emerging anti-Iran coalition that even includes their onetime mutual foe Israel

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Audience Can't Believe 2020 Writers Think They Find Another Last-Minute Israel Election Drama Believable (PreOccupied Territory)

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Israeli ballot Tel Aviv, December 17 - Observers expecting something original out of the ongoing Israeli political morass voiced their disapproval this week over yet another predictable twist in the narrative, noting that talk of an eleventh-hour deal to thwart early elections could be spotted months away in the story arc, and that the writers have rested on their laurels of late, relying on hackneyed devices instead of genuine creativity.

Likud and Blue and White representatives met again Thursday to hammer out a deal that would obviate a new parliamentary contest in March, less than a year after the previous elections and the fourth such contest in two years. Audiences groaned at the development, with the dominant sentiment among them that whether or not elections occur soon, the writers of 2020 have apparently run out of ideas and have fallen back on recycling tired tropes that surprise exactly no one.

"This is the least shocking thing to happen since the last Trump Twitter diatribe," lamented Ramat Gan viewer and vocal critic Yariv Ben-Yakir. "It's tiresome at this point. Unfortunately we're a captive audience, and we don't really have a choice if we're going to pay attention to politics. The writing team needs to either buckle down and do serious work or just quit. Not a single original idea since like 2012."

"Having Naftali Bennet performing strongly in polls a couple of months ago could have been a promising plot element," acknowledged Ashdod resident Alex Dobrov. "No one on the left, or even in the center, could make a credible challenge to Netanyahu for claim of the Knesset's largest faction and the right to try forming a government first. Bennett, from the right, with Ayelet Shaked at his back, could have mounted a believable campaign to unseat Bibi from the right. But then the writers went absolutely nowhere with that. It had so much dramatic potential, and lent an element of unpredictability that audiences would have oved, but then the writers' cowardice must have taken over, because that plot line disappeared in a hurry. It's too bad."

Viewers have also refused to take seriously the Likud splinter faction now slated to run on an independent list under longtime Netanyahu rival Gid'on Sa'ar. The New Hope Party has performed well in public opinion polls, but most viewers harbor no illusions that after the next elections the party would not quietly reabsorb into Likud, with our without Netanyahu at the helm.

Tlaib:"Stop Misinterpreting The 'From The River To The Sea' Call For Genocide As A Call For Genocide" (PreOccupied Territory)

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Stop Misinterpreting The 'From The River To The Sea' Call For Genocide As A Call For Genocide

by House Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

Rashida Tlaib Washington, December 3 - A few days ago I felt compelled to remove a message I reposted from elsewhere on Twitter, a message that contained the oft-repeated slogan of Palestinian national liberation, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free." I decided to undo the retweet because, I belatedly understood, too many people would choose to distort the meaning of that aspiration for rendering the Jews and their welfare once again at the mercy of outside powers as an aspiration to render the Jews and their welfare once again at the mercy of outside powers.

Of course, once tweeted, even if untweeted, content on the internet can never truly be removed, all the more so when that content comes from or through a public figure; screen captures and other techniques ensured that my deletion of the post did an incomplete job of undoing it, and my political opponents proved all too ready to exploit my error for their own propaganda purposes. They now argue that a call to place Jewish survival in the hands of a culture that allied itself, under Mufti Husseini, with Hitler's genocidal regime, betrays a desire to pursue a genocidal agenda. How many attacks against Jews and Jewish interests will it take to convince the public otherwise? I shudder to consider the answer.

This hardly represents the first time the noble goals of Palestinian liberation, of freeing historic Palestine from the villainous Zionist usurper rapist descendants of apes and swine, has been miscast as driven by animus for Jews or their sovereignty. Palestinians have no objections to Jewish sovereignty; only to Jewish sovereignty that in any way attenuates the contingent, vulnerable status Jews have always held in Muslim society. Stop trying to twist that principle into something antisemitic.

My opponents will never truly be satisfied with these explanations, a fact that merely demonstrates the lack of good faith behind their position. When a pro-Palestine activist finds himself or herself restricted from intimidating Jewish students into silence over the actions of a group of Jews on a different continent, that carries disturbing implications for freedom of speech. When Islamic charities face criminal charges for raising funds for Hamas and other Palestinian liberation groups, that carries disturbing implications for freedom of religion - all because propagandists insist on misinterpreting the Palestinian call to facilitate genocide as a Palestinian call to facilitate genocide. And that must stop.

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Twitter Fails To Apply 'Disputed' Label To Mother-In-Law's 'World's Best Brownies' Claim (PreOccupied Territory)

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brownies2 Bat-Yam, November 26 - Sources close to the father of a local family reported today that he has yet to receive an explanation from the social media giant Twitter as to its failure to date to indicate his wife's mother's post last week asserting that her baked chocolate snack food has proved superior to all others, even as the company rushes to append such disclaimers to other, less manifestly-false tweets, notably those surrounding the recent US presidential election results.

Boris Gurevich, 34, voiced exasperation and confusion Thursday upon discovering that despite his reporting it on the day she posted, Twitter has yet to append a 'This claim is disputed' alert to his mother-in-law Iris Mandel's tweet last weekend to the effect that her brownie recipe remains far and away the best on the planet. Mr. Gurevich noted that Twitter's alacrity in combating misinformation in some contexts makes this omission all the more glaring and damaging.

"Twitter can't take half measures here," insisted the father of three. "Once the company started down the road of plying arbiter of what's reliable and what's not reliable among its users' content, anything it doesn't label a 'disputed' or 'official sources called the results of this differently' by default enjoys the imprimatur of credibility. I know for sure that's just not the case. My own mother's brownies are far superior to Iris's in every possible way. I even offered to send [Twitter CEO] Jack Dorsey samples to prove it, but nothing. Zero. It's almost as if Twitter only cares about certain perspectives."

"In terms of flaky top, chewiness, richness, sweetness, salt, and of course chocolatiness, there's objectively, demonstrably, manifestly no question whose product is better," he continued, his voice rising. "I know it. My whole side of the family knows it. Even some folks on my wife's side of the family acknowledge it. My wife and kids claim not to notice or care, but I know they don't want to be seen as taking sides, and I respect that. Even though I know they agree with me. And you know what? It's fine for Iris to make that claim. People make all sorts of exaggerations in everyday communication. But for Twitter to assume the mantle of fact-checker and then fail to do its due diligence when faced with such a flagrant flouting of objective, measurable fact, well, that calls into question the whole enterprise of that fact-checking. Next you're going to tell me they also haven't labeled any propaganda tweets by Palestinian leaders, either."

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Scholar Posits Textual Anomalies In Bible The Result Of Autocorrect (PreOccupied Territory)

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Cambridge, November 19 - An innovative approach to analysis of ancient documents has led at least one researcher to the hypothesis that numerous deviations in Scripture from the expected forms of words stem not from copyist errors, as commonly assumed, but from software similar in function to modern text media that automatically changes words or phrases to match its preconceived idea of the writer's intent, using an algorithm that on occasion results not in the intended words, but a distortion of them.

Oxford University Professor of Semitic Languages Edward Hargreaves suggests in a forthcoming article that various Biblical textual phenomena fit neatly into a framework that parallels the "Autocorrect" function of numerous text-based communication platforms, and that ages of scholarship and polemics on the subject of Biblical textual integrity have therefore largely been a waste of time.

"Our team looked at thousands of so-called textual anomalies in the Hebrew Scriptures," the professor explained in an interview. "The most common of these were the k'ri vs. k'tiv variety, in which the traditional enunciation of a word differs from its spelling in the text; others involve the 'hapax legomenon,' a word or root that appears only once in the entire corpus, and which, quite often, leaves the reader at a loss regarding its true meaning, because of a lack of comparative instances from which to understand it. Still others involve apparent discrepancies between manuscripts of the same text, or between different occurrences of the same phrases or verses in disparate parts of the Bible."

"We've found that upwards of 95% of these occurrences can be explained by Autocorrect," he continued. "The does not mean that many indeed occurred through that phenomenon, but that they are consistent with such a process. Among the exceptions, for example, are terms that various traditions have of specifically reading a word differently from its appearance, for purposes of euphemism, but with acknowledgement that the actual text is different. A good instance of this is the Jewish practice of refraining from the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, one of the most common names for the divinity, instead using a less-common one. That one alone accounts for the bulk of the exceptions to what I've taken to calling the 'Autocorrect Hypothesis.' But for the most part Autocorrect helps to explain anomalies that scholars have debated basically forever."

As for the few cases that do not fit into the hypothesis, Professor Hargreaves insisted he does not give a flying duck.

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If Reinstated, Corbyn Vows To Minimize Carbon Footprint On Way To Lay Wreaths At Terrorist Graves (PreOccupied Territory)

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: Credit: Chris McAndrew via Wikimedia Commons

London, November 12 - Ousted UK Labour Chairman Jeremy Corbyn continued to argue today in favor of revoking his expulsion from the party following an inquest finding that he failed to address burgeoning antisemitism in Labour's ranks, with a promise to do better by his constituents and all of Britain by demonstrating greater ecological sensitivity than before while engaged in paying tribute to antisemitic practitioners of violence as a political tool.

An investigation by Britain's non-partisan Equality and Human Rights Commission determined last month that under Corbyn, Labour failed to take adequate measures to deal with rampant manifestations of Jew-hate among its members, and even attempted to obstruct investigative and remediation efforts that did take place. The EHRC verdict imposes legally-binding actions on Labour as a result, and the party revoked Corbyn's membership; he had previously stepped down as its leader following an embarrassing electoral showing for Labour earlier this year, with analysts attributing much of the damage to the party's poor handling of the antisemitism allegations.

Now, however, the former chairman has vowed to fight his removal. He announced today (Thursday) that while he acknowledges errors and oversights in the party's bureaucratic bungling of the issue, he remains "opposed to racism in all its forms, including antisemitism," and resolved both to appeal to the courts to reinstate him as a Labour member and to improve his conduct as a beacon of hope and tolerance by committing to use only ecologically sound methods of travel when visiting the burial sites of murderous antisemites to lay memorial wreaths.

"I do not give up easily, as my friends in Hamas and Hezbollah can attest," he insisted. "I maintain my staunch support for peace-loving movements from Ireland to Idlib, where Western imperialism has destroyed lives and civilizations and led to prejudiced depredations of the worst sort. Simply ask Basher Assad what he thinks of the issue and you will get a similar answer. But I understand I have had, in my zeal for universal human equality, some blind spots, and I resolve to correct them. No longer will I mindlessly board a polluting aircraft when I pay my respects to fallen revolutionaries who all happen to have Jewish blood on their hands. The environment represents our future, and we cannot squander the glorious socialist future that awaits us by failing to protect the environment."

"I deplore bigotry in all its forms, as I have said repeatedly over the years," he intoned. "Systemic racism is real: it's what you get when policies result in discriminatory outcomes across the board. But let us not rush to assume that when my policies and rhetoric result in dead Jews across the world, that has any bearing on whether I harbor a single antisemitic bone in my body. That is a distraction from the real issues, one of which is why Jews conspired to paint me as condoning, even encouraging, rhetoric that calls them manipulative and sinister."

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Despite Industry's Failures In 2016, 2020, Abbas Trusts Polls Showing He Better Not Call Elections Ever (PreOccupied Territory)

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ballot box Ramallah, November 5 - The President of the Palestinian Authority believes public opinion surveys showing the deep unpopularity of him personally and of his governing faction among Palestinians, even though the field demonstrated serious shortcomings in the last two US presidential contests, failing to paint an accurate picture of the situation. As such, aides disclosed, he will not announce a vote anytime soon, if at all, as his administration approaches the seventeenth year of its four-year term.

Nabil Sha'ath, adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, informed journalists Thursday that while the polling industry has it problems, the president nevertheless gives surveys of Palestinians enough credence to refrain from allowing his constituency any say in who gets to lead them, for the foreseeable future.

"Nate Silver, Qunnipiac, and all the others certainly need to get their houses in order," acknowledged Sha'ath in a series of telephone interviews. "It's unacceptable that both this year and four years ago, the so-called experts got so much wrong. Relying on them going forward will prove a shaky proposition. The thing is, while the accuracy of the art and science of polling might fall into question, they haven't been off by such an order of magnitude that we can disregard their findings altogether. Bottom line, no elections for the time being. In that respect the will of the people is dangerous to our careers, so we can't afford to let the will of the people be expressed at the moment. Or ever again."

Abbas won election as President of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005, following the death of the previous officeholder, his mentor the iconic Yasser Arafat. Parliamentary elections occurred the following year; neither type of contest has been held since. Abbas's popularity has never approached that of his predecessor, and his Fatah faction also faces a surging Islamist rival in the Hamas movement, which favors armed conflict, not compromise, with Israel. Presidential confidant and former peace negotiator Saeb Erekat cautioned that expert analysis has often proved wide of the mark, but that does not mean ignoring the experts is a wise move.

"The experts also predicted the Arab street would explode in response to every move Trump made in the Middle East," he observed. "They explained that no progress in this region could occur, no normalization with Israel, without resolution of the Palestinian issue. The events of the last several years - the Jerusalem embassy move, the pronouncement on the legality of Israeli settlements, the recognition of Israeli Golan annexation, the hard line on Iran, the Abraham Accords, you name it - the collective Arab shrug, even endorsement, in response to all those things gave the lie to the experts' learned opinions. But we're still not going to tempt fate on this one.

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Commission: Israel Not Truly Jewish State Without a Second Knesset that MKs Boycott (PreOccupied Territory)

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Jerusalem, October 29 - A governmental fact-finding committee on the relationship between state and religion published its findings today following two years of research into the delicate issue, and made several important determinations, among them that the country billing itself as Jewish cannot make a credible claim to that effect unless and until its official institutions follow the venerable Jewish tradition of pointedly not patronizing one of two or more communal institutions. Historically the practice has manifested in refusal to attend a specific synagogue, but in the case of a political entity, the committee determined, the legislature serves as the analogous institution that serves as the litmus test for whether a community has embraced ancestral Jewish practices and ethos that involves having one for purposes of not attending to make a petty personal point.

The Bar-El Commission, appointed in 2018 to study Israel's intersection of religion and politics, released thee results of it's research Thursday. It found that Israel cannot qualify as a Jewish state, despite decades-long insistence on that very matter and fundamental guiding principles of the Zionist movement, if its most prominent expression of governance ignores the definitive Jewish custom of having two parallel institutions, one to attend and one to not attend. The report contends that Israel can only lay claim to the status of Jewish State once it adopts that practice by maintaining two Knessets, one that lawmakers will, in theory, attend, and another that they will specifically not.

Commission chairman Liron Bar-El told journalists at a press conference this morning that his group's research found several other indicators of Israel's Jewishness that also call into question the bold assertion of that as a given. "I might also point out that certain government-run institutions have an unfortunate reputation for punctuality," he observed, a disqualifying notion vis-à-vis established Jewish practice. "This may not be the case for the majority of institutions or personnel, but it poses some significant countervailing evidence."

"There's also the matter of answering a question with a question," he continued. "For example, witnesses in Israeli courtrooms and depositions are asked whether they undertake to tell the truth, and seldom, if ever, is the response in interrogative form. That on its own might not constitute a compelling datum, but realize that the courts in this ostensibly Jewish state do not mandate such a format. Such a basic element of Jewishness must feature more prominently in the country's institutions and protocols if we are to accept the assertion that the character of the Jewish state is, in fact, Jewish."

Some analysts dismissed the report's main finding, noting that MKs hardly even attend the existing Knesset when it is in session, and that dovetails with established Jewish practice, as well.

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Socially-Distanced Riots Hamper Terrorists Trying To Hide Among Civilians (PreOccupied Territory)

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: Credit: IDF

Nebi Saleh, October 22 - Palestinian stone- and firebomb-throwers confronting Israeli troops in and near this village north of Jerusalem face a stark choice in recent months: continue to blend in among children and other non-combatants, thus risking the spread of COVID, or adhere to precautions that minimize such proximity, thus rendering themselves separate from the noncombatants and easier for IDF personnel to neutralize them without harm to the non-combatants.

Nebi Saleh has long served as a flashpoint for clashes between protesters and the IDF, but distancing guidelines issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in nearby Ramallah mandate at least two meters of space between members of different households. Such restrictions on conduct in the public space makes it difficult, if not impossible, for significant numbers of violent demonstrators to use women and children as human shields, several veteran demonstrators reported Thursday.

"I've been confronting the occupation soldiers for years," observed Faisal Tamimi, 22. "But it's different now. Fewer demonstrators are willing to engage in that confrontation unless closely accompanied by young children, a pregnant woman, or an old lady. The soldiers are reluctant to shoot at us like that, but we're also reluctant to hurl things at them without that protection. We haven't had anyone shot this year at all, and that's put a serious damper on our propaganda. With no wounded children to show, there's less outrage-generating material for our advocates to share around the world, and our cause attracts less and less support."

Demonstrators' concerns go beyond the simple realm of activism and publicity. "If the troops arrest someone, the government in Ramallah pays the family," explained Fares Tamimi, a cousin. "But social distancing means fewer people participating in the Molotov-cocktail-throwing, which means fewer people getting shot at, which means fewer people getting injured, and with lower participation overall, that means fewer arrests and thus less revenue. We're talking about livelihoods here. Just like almost everywhere else in the world, social distancing and lockdown policies are destroying the economy."

Even before the official restrictions went into effect, Tamimi clan members felt a difference in atmosphere. "It used to be automatic that some of us would get in the solders' faces," recalled Ahed Tamimi, whose blonde hair and blue eyes have featured in numerous Palestinian photos and clips aimed at generating sympathy from Western activists. "Can't do that now. We have to assume the occupiers are deploying coronavirus-positive soldiers to infect us. We might declare day and night that our highest goal is martyrdom for Palestine, but when we say that we're thinking of going out in a single moment, a blaze of glory. Suffering for weeks in isolation as our respiratory systems fail isn't the kind of shaheed I want to become. There's a limit to my ambitions in that respect."

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'BDS' Much Shorter Than 'Movement To Make Jews Feel Unsafe Anywhere' (PreOccupied Territory)

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: Credit: Takver, via Wikimedia Commons

Berkeley, October 15 - Activists campaigning for the economic, diplomatic, and cultural isolation of the world's only Jewish state disclosed today they prefer the three-letter shorthand term for their movement to any more honest name, which would require them to use a cumbersome moniker indicative of the real-world negative effect the movement has not on Israel, but on Jews everywhere else.

Local chapter leaders of several groups billing themselves as pro-Palestinian or focused on human rights, but who somehow muster their numbers and voices only against Israel, explained in interviews that the initials of "Boycott, Divest, Sanctions" lend themselves to punchier, more nimble rhetorical use than any name that would convey the actual outcome of the groups' activities, such as "The Movement to Make Jews Feel Unsafe Anywhere" or "The Committee for Thinly-Veiled Threats of Antisemitic Violence on Campus."

"Speaking out our actual aims, not to mention accomplishments, would be a real mouthful," lamented Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace coordinator Timothy al-Masri. "Many of us would like to think that our campaigns have resulted in even a single instance of boycotting, divesting, or sanctioning Israel, and we can sometimes even glom onto an instance of someone canceling a concert there, or whatever, and claim our pressure did it, but we also know deep down no one actually cares what we think, and that Israel is far too powerful economically and politically for us to have any hope of real impact. The truth is most of us just really hate Jews and loathe the idea of Jewish sovereignty. Our real accomplishment isn't in the metrics of celebrity visits to Israel canceled, or corporate partnerships prevented, but in creating an environment here in Berkeley, or across the US and Europe, where Jews feel threatened. That's what happens as if my magic everywhere we do our thing. It just doesn't have a catchy set of initials to capture it, so we go with 'BDS' instead. That's a compromise we're all willing to accept."

Some activists have suggested rebranding with even shorter, catchier, terminology: several suggestions have emerged for various phrases whose initials spell out SS, such as Sanction the Shlomos and Sovereignty Struggle. These ideas have found little resonance among activists, most of whom view the nomenclature as a distraction from their chief mission: singling out Jewish sovereignty as a unique evil, the fight against which requires support for actions that demonstrate what happens to Jews in the absence of such sovereignty.

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Goliath Polling +24% After Verbal Exchange With Israelites (PreOccupied Territory)

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Israeli ballot Elah Valley, Philistine-Israelite border region, October 8 - A rhetorical confrontation between a Philistine warrior champion and his opponents, led by Saul, king of Israel, concluded this morning with the former emerging as the clear favorite in the eyes of potential voters, a series of surveys has found.

Goliath, a giant who has taunted the Israelites for several days, continued his jibes against the Hebrews and their God today, with the Israelites barely able to muster a retort. The Philistine warrior dared his foes to send a single combatant to face him instead of settling the conflict with a full-scale battle, a challenge that Saul and his military commanders have so far not accepted. Polls showed the Philistine warrior leading the Israelites by and average of 11% two days ago, and the gap has only increased in the interim, growing to 24.3% as of the unanswered challenge this morning.

Analysts expect a landslide Philistine victory. "Voters know a strong candidate when they see one," explained Doe Egg, an electoral statistician. "The Israelites' inability so far to mount an effective response to counter Goliath's arguments has only hurt them. Some experts believed that ignoring his barbs might make them seem above the fray and the Philistines uncultured and immature, but those analyses failed to account for the visceral resonance Goliath's talk produces. If the numbers hold when voters go to the polls officially, were looking at the Israelites being lucky to garner even forty percent of the votes. That's landslide territory. It's hard to see how Saul and his camp will recover from this development at this stage, let alone close the gap that already existed before the debate."

The Israelite king has struggled to maintain morale among his constituents and loyalists as Goliath has landed rhetorical punch after rhetorical punch. Saul has had to allocate manpower and resources to stem the hemorrhaging of voters, instead of to rebutting Philistine talking points or criticizing Goliath's record or policy proposals, let alone putting forth a positive vision of the future he seeks to create.

As spokesman for the Israelite campaign sought to downplay the significance of the debate. "There are plenty of hours until that actual contest, and a lot can change in that time, and besides, people overstate the impact of debates on these things, since the vast majority of voters have made up their minds," insisted Abner ben-Ner of the royal Chiefs of Staff.

A last-minute write-in campaign in Israelite ranks seeks to name David, a shepherd from Hebron and the youngest of eight brothers, as champion. Experts consider the effort a long shot.

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New 'Gen Z' Siddur Includes Translation Into Emoji (PreOccupied Territory)

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smileys New York, October 1 - Educational and communal institutions continue to struggle to reach and attract young people, but one such organization has hit on a novel way to engage the youth in the liturgical aspects of Jewish tradition: a prayer book that contains concise the visual imagery of online chat media to convey what the ancient, sometimes abstruse, text means.

The Modern Online Jewish Institute (MOJI) introduced its Emoji Siddur today, aimed at late Millennials and "Generation-Z" youth whose twenty-first-century upbringing has rendered them more comfortable in the language of online communication than of the traditional printed variety. The book contains the liturgical text on one page, while the facing page features the same text rendered in emoji so that today's youth will find it more accessible and meaningful, a MOJI spokesman asserted in an interview.

"Each generation's needs are different," explained Rabbi Mendel Now. "Vernacular English was good enough for the last few editions of Jewish texts in America, but that's not the case anymore. Today's young Jews are more fluent in smileys, memes, and gifs than in the stodgy verbiage of the Birnbaum, Artscroll, Koren, or even Sim Shalom siddurim. With no disrespect to the august personages behind those volumes, we sensed the need to adapt our ancient prayers to a language more suitable for the emerging Jewish polity."

The Emoji Siddur is available in both hard copies and downloadable as an app; the hard copy opens from top to bottom in the manner of a traditional checkbook or notepad, instead of the typical right-to-left orientation of a siddur. This configuration allows the user to "scroll" with his or her finger to the next page, in the manner that one does on a device. Rabbi Now called the innovation one of a series of "enhancements" the product offers.

"Obviously the hard copy edition can't include animated gifs or emoji," he noted. "Still, the app even includes visual instructions, such as a smiley covering its eyes right before the recitation of Sh'ma, and a figure taking three steps back, then forward, before the Amidah, as is customary. One of the advantages of the emoji format is that a single image can convey a set of complex ideas, whereas even in a concise language such as Hebrew the same idea might take several words or sentences to communicate."

Rabbi Now also remarked that the emoji translation represents as much an advance as a return to the roots of human written communication, hieroglyphics.

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