Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 29, 2019

"The Palestinian Authority is almost certainly a terrorist organisation under Australian law"

I don't know how much traction this can get, but it is a very interesting initiative in Australia.

From The Spectator Australia:

The designation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a terrorist organisation would have major implications for Australia’s foreign policy and foreign aid applicable to the Middle East. It would throw into disarray a recently adopted Labor policy to unilaterally recognise a ‘State of Palestine’ as that policy legitimises an entity which meets the criteria under Australian law as a terrorist organisation.

This subject in appropriate context involves two related considerations:

Firstly, an opinion obtained by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) from one of Australia’s most experienced senior criminal barristers that the PA is a ‘terrorist organisation’ as defined in Division 102 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 (Code). The legal assessment has been undertaken by Jeremy Rapke QC, former Director of Public Prosecutions for Victoria. In that role he has had substantial direct experience in prosecuting terrorism cases.

Secondly, the Australian Labor Party at its National Conference held in Decem-ber 2018, passed a resolution which inter alia ‘Calls on the next Labor government to recognise Palestine as a state…’ and identifies this as an important priority. While such a resolution is technically not binding on a future Labor government, it is significant that it was moved not by some obscure union hack but by Senator Penny Wong, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, who would likely have the responsible portfolio in a Shorten Labor government.

Australia officially refers to ‘Palestinian territories’ to describe Gaza and much of Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, and under this heading the 2019 budget allocates foreign aid of $43 million. Gaza is controlled by Hamas which is already listed as a proscribed terrorist organisation under the Code. The PA, controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas, administers much of Judea and Samaria and enjoys the world’s highest per capita international foreign aid. Abbas was elected as president of the PA on 9 January 2005 and has this year commenced his 15th year of his four-year term, not having faced any subsequent election. By any measure, the PA is a corrupt dictatorship with a shocking human rights record. While this has not seemingly deterred those in Labor who support the Palestinian cause, if the PA is also a terrorist organisation under Australian law, this would mean any form of recognition, financial support or association with the PA would be a breach of the Criminal Code.

The AJA has believed for a long time that the PA, by establishing its Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund and by advocating and encouraging terrorism, should be declared a terrorist organisation. We therefore sought legal advice at the highest level which has vindicated this view.

The objectionable activities of the PA include:

- Paying a monthly cash stipend to the families of terrorists killed, injured or imprisoned for attacking, assisting in attacking, or planning to attack Israeli civilians.

- Paying cash stipends rewarding participation in other types of politically inspired violence, including riots and throwing rocks at Israelis.

- Honouring terrorists killed or con-victed by naming schools, streets, plazas and public events after them. Often after terror events the PA immediately publicises the perpetrators as heroes on posters and billboards.

Taken together, these measures constitute what is widely known as the PA ‘Pay for Slay’ programme, an obscene system of paying murderers or their families for killing or attacking Jews in Israel. The pay scales have been published in PA budget papers. According to Palestinian Media Watch, convicted terror-ists in prison can receive notional salaries of 12,000 shekels per month plus bonus-es of 300 shekels per wife, 50 shekels per child and extra for being resident in Israel and Jerusalem. This can amount to the equivalent of about US$3,500 per month. By contrast, a teacher employed by the PA receives roughly $615 per month. From 2017 to 2018 the total PA budget-ed expenditure of its ‘Pay for Slay’ programmes was increased from US$350 million to US$403 million. Mahmoud Abbas in a speech shown repeatedly on official PA TV late in 2018, affirmed that paying martyrs and their families is the PA’s preeminent financial priority. ‘The Martyrs… are sacred, (so are) the wound-ed and the prisoners. We must pay all of them’ he said leaving no room for doubt, ‘If one penny remains in our hands it is for them and not for the living.’

Importantly, under Australian law s102.1(1) of the Code defines a terrorist organisation as meaning ‘an organisation that is directly or indirectly engaged in preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of a terrorist act’ and allows regulations to be made specifying an organisation is a ‘terrorist organisation’ if the Minister, under s.102.1(2), is satisfied that the organisation ‘advocates’ the doing of a terrorist act’.

After a detailed analysis of the meaning of these provisions, in very clear and direct language Rapke QC concludes:

‘It is strongly arguable that such payments incentivise, reward and glorify terrorism; when coupled with the public praising of, and recognition given to, terrorists (from a purely evidentiary perspective such conduct strengthens the conclusion that the PA intends to encourage terrorism) the conclusion that the PA is a ‘terrorist organisation’ by reason of its fostering of the doing of terrorist acts seems almost inevitable (my italics).

Whichever party forms Australia’s next government, it should declare the PA a terrorist organisation under Australian law as a matter of priority and immediately cease all funding, as it is illegal to provide funds, support or be associated with a terrorist organisation under Australian law. It would be a matter of enormous concern not only to the Australian Jewish community but to all citizens of goodwill were Australia to promote the creation of a rogue state led by a terrorist organisation and to assist it financially or diplomatically.

How our government approaches this issue also has important international significance as other civilised democracies who share our values may well take their lead from us. Labor must reverse the policy announced in December 2018 that if it wins office it will unilaterally recog-nise a ‘State of Palestine’. Failure to do so would effectively embrace a terrorist organisation.

Dr David Adler is the President of the Australian Jewish Association.

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The Jews at American University of Beirut 1925-1948

Middle Eastern Studies recently published an interesting paper called "The star of David in a cedar tree: Jewish students and Zionism at the American University of Beirut (1908–1948)" by Caroline Kahlenberg.

Through it we learn that the first regular female graduate from AUB was Sara Levy, from Palestine:

She was at AUB at the same time as two other Jewish women, Fortune Azriel from Haifa and Aida Goldenberg from Kiev and a former student at the American School for Girls in Cairo.

Goldenberg ended up dropping out, and Azriel graduated from dental school in 1926. She married a professor at AUB, Samuel Appelrot, and they lived in Beirut for a while at least. (I see a Samuel Appelrot had lived in Haifa in 1965 so chances are they moved back to her hometown when life for Jews became precarious in Lebanon.)

AUB tried to attract Jews, including from Palestine, advertising that they were exempt from attending classes on Saturday, availability of kosher food and a synagogue. There was a Jewish student group, the Kadima Society, where the Jews could hang out.

Here was one incident from 1938 that showed that the university's support of Jewish students only went so far:

On 2 November 1938, AUB students observed Balfour Day – a ‘day of mourning’ – by wearing black ribbons. In response, a number of Jewish students wore Zionist colors – blue and white. According to the Palestine Post report, ‘threats of violence were used on the Jews to force them to remove their ribbons’, and one student at the International College, Dani, was ‘attacked and fired at, but not hurt’. As a result, Dani left the college. The Palestine Post printed a verbatim letter following the incident from the principal of the International College, Archie S. Crawford to Dani’s uncle, Nessim Angel, who was himself an AUB alumnus. In the letter, Crawford wrote that Dani’s actions of wearing Zionist colored ribbons on Balfour Day was unprecedented among AUB students. Crawford acknowledged students’ right to express themselves but ultimately criticized this form of Zionist expression:

[Dani] has every right to wear this color or any other ribbon, but it was a tactless thing to do so on this particular day which was being observed as a day of warning by the greater proportion of our student body.

Crawford admitted that students who did not take off the Zionist ribbon upon the request of other students had the ribbon removed by ‘quite unjustified use of force’ by Arab students...

In 1948, Arab students continued attacking and threatening the Jewish students.

Lebanese General Security had decided to ask the Jewish students in Lebanon who were not nationals of Arab states to leave the country, and that the General Security had been in contact AUB administrators regarding the university’s Jewish students. The AUB committee members agreed with the General Security’s decision. The members further decided, in view of ‘the increased tension in the political situation and the consequent dangers to the safety of those Jewish students’, to advise Jewish students to abstain from classes until further instruction. The administration planned to write to these students’ parents to inform them of the situation and advise them to withdraw their children from AUB.

When this decision was brought before the University Senate later that week (in which a few Jewish faculty were present), it apparently received much discussion and perhaps pushback, as many members expressed their views on AUB’s relations with the Lebanese government and ‘the principle of academic freedom and the aims and purposes of the University’.

Two days later, on 14 January 1948, there was a student demonstration in morning chapel services. As Crawford reported to the Executive Committee, a group of Arab students came to AUB’s Vice President ‘demanding the expulsion of Jewish students, who are nationals of nonArab States’. The Vice President apparently had to take ‘measures… to protect the lives of Jewish students and ensure their safety’. In response, Crawford planned to meet with the group of Arab students and ‘impress upon them the principles involved in their behavior and in their relation to the University’. Two weeks later, the Executive Committee voted to authorize Crawford to gather the fathers of those students and discuss with them the ‘threatening attitude and misbehavior of their sons’.

The Jewish population at AUB plummeted after this.

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04/29 Links Pt1: The Palestinians' Own Goals; Israel defends right to West Bank settlements at UNSC; Poway Chabad rabbi had asked border patrol agent to pray armed – just in case

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinians' Own Goals

"We reject normalization and adopt the approach of resistance until the liberation of the entire Palestinian territory." — Statement rejecting job offers, issued by Progressive Democratic Student Pole, affiliated with the radical PLO group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

"Resistance" is a term used by Palestinians to describe the "armed struggle" against Israel, which includes carrying out various forms of armed attacks against Israelis. When the students talk about the "liberation of the entire Palestinian territory," they are actually saying that they want to destroy Israel because they do not believe in its right to exist.

A video of the protest at Bir Zeit University posted on social media shows dozens of angry students surrounding the companies' representatives, and chanting: "Normalization [with Israel] is Treason."

This is just another example of how the movement for boycotting Israel is causing damage to Palestinians. Perhaps the real motive of the people promoting these boycotts of Israel is not to help the Palestinians at all, but, like terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to destroy Israel.

PMW: The PA is begging Europe for money – but it doesn’t need a penny more in aid

Will Abbas lie to the EU as he lied to the Arab League blaming Israel for the self-imposed financial crisis?

The annual meeting in Europe of the “International donor group for Palestine” comes tomorrow as the Palestinian Authority is experiencing a major financial crisis. The PA has announced that it will be turning to the international community and asking for significant funding.

However, before assisting the PA, the international community must recognize that the entire financial crisis is self-inflicted by the PA, in two different ways.

1. The PA returned 630 million shekels ($186 million) that Israel transferred to its account

Under Israeli law, Israel must deduct the amount that the PA pays to terrorist prisoners and their families every month from the tax money that it collects and transfers to the PA. Based on what the PA expended last year rewarding terrorists, as exposed by Palestinian Media Watch in January this year, Israel is now deducting $11.6 million (42 million shekels) per month from $186 million (670 million shekels) tax money that it collects and transfers to the PA. Losing this $11.6 million would not have caused a financial crisis. However, the PA made a decision that if Israel withheld the $11.6 million the PA spends rewarding terrorists - it would refuse to accept the entire $175 million transfer from Israel.

Meeting with both French and other EU representatives, PLO Executive Committee Secretary and Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat reiterated “the Palestinian leadership’s decision not to receive the [$175 million] tax money if the [$11.6 million] deduction is carried out.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 22, 2019]

Hamas’s Leaders May Genuinely Want a Cease-Fire with Israel

Despite numerous efforts, backed by Egypt and other regional powers, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza, have been unable to come to any sort of mutual understanding. Meanwhile, writes Ehud Yaari, Jerusalem seems close to arriving at a long-term cease-fire with Hamas, even as the PA president Mahmoud Abbas is making ever-more-persistent threats to end relations with Israel. Yaari explains Hamas’s motivations:

Since becoming the top Hamas leader in Gaza two years ago, Yahya al-Sinwar has concluded that the group cannot afford an all-out military escalation with Israel, let alone achieve its demands for a free sea- and air-port in the Strip by that route. He spent 22 years in Israeli jails, speaks fluent Hebrew, and follows the Israeli media religiously, so he understands that Netanyahu’s response to another major confrontation would be far more devastating than Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Meanwhile, Hamas has lost most of its cross-border attack tunnels into Israel and is struggling to maintain its rocket arsenal after Egypt cut its smuggling routes through the Sinai Peninsula.

Given these military disadvantages and the PA’s refusal to shoulder responsibility for Gaza’s economic crisis, Sinwar has decided to build his strategy upon the Israeli leadership’s clear preference for containment over war. Backed by the Israel Defense Forces general staff, Netanyahu has repeatedly signaled his readiness to help ease Gaza’s humanitarian crisis once calm is restored. . . .

Today, both sides want a ceasefire. Netanyahu has received growing domestic criticism for his restraint, while Sinwar was excoriated for sending teenagers and unarmed demonstrators to be killed or injured. Both would like to silence their detractors by ending the [fighting].

Al Resalah has an article about how Israel "exploits Jewish holidays to attack the Palestinians."

Many Jews on vacation during Passover like to visit Biblical sites. These visits are described in the article as a fulfillment of Netanyahu's promise to annex the territories, even though this happens every year.

Ghassan Daghlas, the man that the Palestinian Authority literally pays to make up lies about Jews in the territories, does his job for this article:

"The occupation has worked to close the streets and the Ibrahimi Mosque for three days to protect the entry of more than 40 thousand settlers," he said, adding that about 2,000 people stormed the city of Jerusalem last Thursday."

"We are dealing with generations of settlers who say this is my birthplace and my birthplace is here," he said. "The problem with the new generations is exacerbated by the Israelis teaching their children."

The Cave of the Patriarchs is open for exclusive Jewish use ten days of the year. It is open for exclusive Muslim use ten days of the year as well. Those days are published in existing agreements, and the schedule for 2019 can be seen here. Nothing to do with Bibi or the elections.

And this happens every time the site is closed to Muslims as per the agreement - Arab media complains about how Israel is taking over the site.

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Jordanian newspaper Al Ghad has an explicitly antisemitic article by Jihad al Mansi that compares Palestinians to Jesus for being victims of Jewish aggression.

There in Jerusalem, yes, in Palestinian Jerusalem, almost two thousand years ago, extremist Jews tortured Jesus Christ, indulged in his torture, and rejected the message of peace he had given, called for, and sought to spread among the people.

Yes, nearly two thousand years ago, those murderers tortured Christ and his disciples, and sought to kill peace and love. They refused to coexist, made hatred to kill love, and robbed people of their joy, security, and tranquility.

In Palestinian Jerusalem two thousand years ago, Jewish militants exposed their true face to the people, showing their hatred for life, their rejection of love, tranquility and joy. They decided to hijack peace and kill it, poisoning the earth with hatred and rejection of the other.

Paradoxically, the descendants of these same people, 2,000 years later, are still practicing their own ancestors' passion to kill peace and love in people. They are still trying to prevent the holy flame from continuing in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Two thousand years ago, they rejected what Jesus had said of brotherhood, peace and love, and their descendants continue to reject them to this day. They practice a deep hatred against all those who believe and seek peace, denying the resurrection of Christ.

They desecrated the religious places, stole the land, and sought to create false truths that had no basis or history, and to steal cities that were not theirs, and temples that were not for them. They are connected to them, looking for an impact they will not find, and a Temple that has no basis in Jerusalem or in all of Palestine.

O ye murderers, you who reject the peace, the murderers of the prophets, get out of our homes, out of our old streets, and melt your hatreds, and go out. Get out of our sanctuary, and our house, and our camp and our land. Get out of our land, and go out, take your hatred and go.

O ye who have practiced in the killing, ye rogue thieves have come out of the cradle of our Christ, Christ is ours... We tell the world that you have to distinguish between the murderer and the dead, between the victim and the executioner, between the thief and the owner. You have to know that Jerusalem since the days before Christ has been Canaanite Palestinian, it was and will remain so, and that the holy sites are Islamic or Islamic under Hashemite guardianship. For those sitting in the White House let the land of Palestine know that Jerusalem is Palestinian, Canaanite Arab, and that the deal of your century or any imaginary understandings will not pass.

There seems to be a fair amount of psychological projection here for someone who claims to value love and be against hate.

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Gaza leaders hold large meeting against "Deal of the Century" - without an audience

On Friday, the leaders of various Gaza terrorist organizations met to discuss how to counter the expected "Deal of the Century."

The head of Hamas' "political bureau" Ismail Haniyeh said he is ready to meet with PA president Mahmoud Abbas any time to fix the decade-long rift between the two groups in order to put up a united front against the plan.

Islamic Jihad official Navez Azzam said that the "deal of the century" threatens the entire Arab region and not only the Palestinian cause, because the Arab countries that normalize relations with Israel fracture the Arab world. He said, "Israel is well aware that it will remain in constant danger as long as the Palestinian issue is alive." Which is, effectively, an argument against ever having peace with Israel under any circumstances.

The PFLP said, "The deal of the century is not new. It is the completion of the Balfour Declaration." it and the DFLP stressed how important it is for Hamas and Fatah to get their acts together and stop infighting.

The meeting took place in a ballroom of the Gaza Commodore Hotel, which cannot be cheap to rent. But there are no photos of any audience member.

If it was a working meeting, it would have been around a conference table. This was set up as a set of speeches.

There were a couple of dozen of people making speeches - to no one but each other.

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Interview with Kasim Hafeez, part 2

Here is part 2 of my video interview of Kasim Hafeez, Islamic extremist turned Christian Zionist, in Tel Aviv last month.

We discuss Islam in more detail, contrast it with Judaism, and talk about possible ways it could be reformed...in theory.

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04/28 Links: By its own standards, the NYTs deserves blame for the Poway synagogue shooting; Anti-Trump antisemitism: The link between Pittsburgh and Poway

From Ian:

By its own standards, the New York Times deserves blame for the Poway synagogue shooting

Does anyone else remember when a New York Times editorial blamed Sarah Palin for the shooting of Gabby Giffords because of a bulls-eye on a map?

The New York Times published a hideous, obviously anti-Semitic cartoon the day before a gunman entered a Chabad synagogue in suburban San Diego, killing one person and injuring 3.

Rabbi Yonah Fradkin, executive director of Chabad of San Diego County, says in a statement that Lori Kaye, 60, of Poway was killed. He says those injured in the shooting Saturday were Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, Noya Dahan, 8, Almog Peretz, 34.

By the standards that a 2017 New York Times editorial published after Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson attempted a mass assassination of members of the GOP House caucus, the Times bears some responsibility.

In 2011, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl. At the time, we and others were sharply critical of the heated political rhetoric on the right. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map that showed the targeted electoral districts of Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.

Keep in mind that an unsigned editorial means that it is the product of editorial board itself, not just one op-ed writer, and is this the Times’ official position

Strategic Affairs minister: Times cartoon inspired synagogue shooter

In a Facebook post about Saturday’s synagogue shooting near San Diego, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan claimed that the shooter had been influenced by a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in the New York Times earlier this weekend.

Erdan wrote that anti-Semitism in political cartoons extended beyond the pages of newspapers and turned into the “blood of Jews” being spilled in synagogues or other places “identified as Jewish.”

“That is always the true motive for terrorism and murder against our people – not ‘the territories’ or ‘concessions,’ – hatred of Jews,” Erdan wrote.

“The loathsome terrorist who carried out the murderous act in the California synagogue and killed the late Lori Gilbert Kaye was inspired to kill by the same anti-Semitic motives in the cartoon published in the New York Times – [accusations] that the Jews run the world, that the prime minister of Israel runs the world. The Israeli prime minister is portrayed as a guide dog leading a blind man. How much hatred and incitement that illustration contains,” he wrote.

“So people are saying that the newspaper supposedly apologized and that the cartoon’s publication was an ‘error in judgment.’ … You wouldn’t accept such a limp-wristed condemnation of racism and incitement if it were directed at any other minority,” Erdan continued.

Imam Tawhidi: Enough is enough, the war on Jews has to stop

Once again, the world witnesses another attack on Jewish people, this time by a white supremacist. It was only six months ago when we mourned the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States, which resulted in the killing of eleven people and injuring seven others.

Today however, the question isn't "why did it happen?", but perhaps: How we got here in the first place?

It was the last day of Passover. Members of the California Jewish community had gathered at Congregation Chabad in Poway, north of San Diego, when John Earnest, 19, opened fire at the congregants, claiming the life of an innocent 60-year-old woman. Three others were wounded, one of them a 57-year-old Rabbi.

While genuine condolences poured in to condemn the antisemitic attack, another group decided it was a good time to reveal their hypocrisy.

Let's start with the NYT, a left-leaning newspaper that's slowly becoming known for its antisemitism. Only three days ago, the NYT internationally printed an antisemitic cartoon of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The cartoon presents Trump as a blind Jew that is being guided by Netanyahu, an Israeli dog. The NYT then retracted the cartoon, and issued a non-apology. It's one thing to criticize Netanyahu and Israeli policy, and it's another thing to dehumanize an individual simply because he is Jewish.

Giant media corporations have the audacity to publish such content because they know that there is an audience willing to support their antisemitism, and in many cases, these audiences include somewhat influential figures like members of the KKK. Leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan for example, is a self-confessed antisemite. In one of his sermons, he states: "I'm not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite."

PMW: PLO: Mass murder of Christians by Muslims in Sri Lanka is same as Jewish presence on Temple Mount

The PLO sees Jews visiting the Temple Mount - Judaism’s holiest site - as similar to Muslims massacring Christians in churches in Sri Lanka during Easter.

The Palestinian National Council - the PLO’s legislative body - has compared “the deviant ideology” behind the mass murder of hundreds of Christians by Muslims in suicide bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday to “the ideology that causes settlers to break into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.”

In a strategy to try to keep Jews away from the Temple Mount, the Palestinian Authority and its leaders have declared the entire Temple Mount a part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and exclusively an Islamic site. To support this claim they vilify any presence of Jews on the mount as a “desecration," “defilement," "break-in," or “invasion” of the mosque.

This PA ideology has led to the odious comparison. The Palestinian National Council announced that the murder of more than 250 people in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka is similar to Jews visiting the Temple Mount.

The PNC described the attacks in Sri Lanka as “immoral and contrary to religious and human values,” and similar to the ideology that makes Jewish “settlers” “break in” to the Al-Aqsa Mosque:
“[The PNC] added that the deviant ideology that caused these people to commit their despicable crime against the churches in Sri Lanka is the same ideology that causes settlers to break into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, do as they please with it, attack the Muslim worshippers, and prevent them from worshipping freely during the Hebrew Passover holiday (refers to West Bank and Gaza Strip crossings being closed during the holiday due to security concerns -Ed.).”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 22, 2019]

Why was Bibi a Dachshund in the cartoon? Because it is German!

The antisemitic New York Times cartoon positioned Netanyahu as a dachshund, which is not the normal dog one would associate with being a seeing eye dog.

But that breed has often been used in political cartoons to refer to Germany.

In World War I, the dachshund was often used as a stand-in for Germany:

This political cartoon in Punch used the specific idea of a Dachshund as a seeing eye dog to lampoon Turkey's joining the war on the German side:

In World War II, the dachshund was used to symbolize Nazi Germany (including by Dr. Seuss:)

The artist of the offensive cartoon, Antonio Antunes Moreira. had previously compared Israel to Nazi Germany in this incredibly antisemitic cartoon from the 1980s:

The dachshund was not a coincidence. Moreira wanted to again compare Israel to Nazi Germany.

(h/t Irene)

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The New York Times' antisemitic cartoon, its non-apology and the silence of the "anti-Zionist not antisemitic" crowd

The International Edition of the New York Times published this editorial cartoon on Thursday:

Bibi Netanyahu, with a large Star of David around his neck, is a seeing eye dog leading a blind Donald Trump.

This image trades in the classic antisemitic tropes of the Jew as a dog, of Jews secretly controlling the US, as this Serbian antisemitic poster from the 1940s shows a Jew acting as a puppet master over both Churchill and Stalin.

Or this Arab cartoon during the 2008 presidential campaign.

If the cartoon was only that, the New York Times could excuse it as just a giant dog whistle that was meant only to criticize Israel and Trump, that was published by an "error in judgment." Which is exactly what it did:

But how can anyone explain the yarmulke on Trump's head?

No matter how much one wants to stretch one's imagination, it is impossible to look at this cartoon and not see the blatantly antisemitic message. Not a "trope," not a "dog-whistle" to antisemites - a cartoon that would have fit perfectly, unaltered, in Der Sturmer. Trump isn't merely a puppet - he is a Jew himself, making him even more odious.

Saying that this is Nazi-level antisemitism is not hyperbole. The neo-Nazi Daily Stormer said that "the image of the blind man Trump being led by the Jewish dog Netanyahu is such a powerfully accurate portrayal of their relationship."

The editorial pages of any major newspaper has multiple editors that stories and cartoons have to pass by. Seth Frantzman of the Jerusalem Post says that there are four such checkpoints in his newspaper. I know from speaking to people who have worked at the NYT that the gauntlet that pro-Israel op-ed writers have to go through to get published is crazy, much more than anti-Israel op-ed writers have to go through.

Lahav Harkov, of the Jerusalem Post, reports "Source tells me NY Times office in NY was genuinely surprised and disturbed by the cartoon. Someone in the International NY Times office in France should answer for this." I believe this; the US edition of the NYT is and has been rabidly anti-Israel and anti-Zionist for a century but it doesn't often cross the line this egregiously. And, as Mark Horowitz notes, the international edition of the NYT has a much more anti-Israel vibe than even the US edition in an front page example earlier this month:

International edition feels more anti-Israel, maybe because audience for it is. Israel features heavily, and only International puts Op Eds on front page. Never in US. So you get front pages that look like this: pic.twitter.com/RYtbWh3sFE
— Mark Horowitz (@MarkHorowitz) April 27, 2019

The conclusion? European antisemitism has been so mainstreamed, under the umbrella of "anti-Zionism," that the average NYT International Edition editor in Paris sees nothing at all wrong with a cartoon that treats Jews exactly the way Nazi propaganda did.

The New York Times' reaction is nearly as bad as the cartoon itself. It never said it apologizes, it doesn't say "sorry," it merely makes it sound like an honest mistake. There is no soul-searching, no promises to overhaul the editorial cartoon approval process, no investigative articles in its own newspaper as of yet about how it could have made such a "mistake." It minimizes the offensiveness of the cartoon by merely saying it engages in antisemitic "tropes," when in fact is is pure Jew-hatred.

Their mishandling of this explicit Jew-hatred in its pages means we can expect more such "oversights."

It is also notable that the usual anti-Zionist crowd was almost gleeful to be able to condemn the shooting at the Chabad synagogue near San Diego yesterday, in order to prove how much they are against anti-semitism and implying that the shooting proves that the only antisemitism is from white nationalists, not from their liberal friends. Not one of them - Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, J-Street - that condemned the shootings said a negative word about the New York Times.

Which proves once again that they aren't against antisemitism at all unless it conforms with their fiction that the only Jew-hatred is from the Right. That is not exactly a brave position to take.

This is a pivotal moment, and the reactions so far to this cartoon indicate that the US is well on its way to become as blind to certain types of antisemitism as Europe has been for years.

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This article in the Tehran Times has really mixed messages.

The lines highlighted in yellow are warnings about how hurting Iran's oil exports will harm the entire world. The ones highlighted in green assert that the sanctions will have no effect on Iran's oil sales whatsoever.

Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a former Foreign Ministry spokesman, has said that if Iran’s oil sale is stopped more than one country will be harmed.

“From an economic point of view, any fluctuation in oil market will cause harm to a group of countries and not just one,” he told ISNA in an interview published on Saturday.

The U.S. announced on Monday that Washington has decided not to extend waivers allowing major importers to continue buying oil from Iran when they expire in early May.

Hosseini predicted that the U.S. will be harmed by “evil” strategies that is has adopted against Iran.

“No country welcomed this decision of the White House except the Zionist regime of Israel and one or two reactionary countries in the region,” Hosseini stated.

He said Iran has a “strategic status” and will not act passively in the face of the “cruel” and “illegal” sanctions.

Over the past years Iran has learned how to circumvent sanctions, he added.

He also said that it will not be easy to find an alternate for Iran’s oil.

Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Thursday that Trump will not succeed in forcing Iran to capitulate to U.S. economic pressure because Tehran has a “Ph.D. in sanctions busting”.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a statement on Thursday that Iran will not allow any country to replace its oil sales in the global market and warned the U.S. and its regional allies of the ramifications of their decision to halt Iranian oil exports.

In remarks on Wednesday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran will be exporting any amount of crude it wants, asserting that U.S. attempts to zero out the export of Iranian oil will be fruitless.

The Leader also warned that the enemies’ hostile policies will not go unanswered because the Iranian nation would not stand idle in the face of plots.

When Iran is trying to pretend it is not nervous, it means it is very nervous!

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

04/27 Links: How the Palestinians Created Their Own Plight; New York Times prints antisemitic cartoon of Trump, Netanyahu; Can you be ‘100% pro-Israel’ and call its government ‘racist?’

From Ian:

How the Palestinians Created Their Own Plight

The Palestinians could learn a lesson from the Jewish Zionists who created Israel. In seeking a state in Palestine, the Zionists used shrewd diplomacy and went about painstaking work over decades to reach their goal. They were visionaries grounded in hard-nosed realism who not only made moral, emotional, and historical arguments for their case, but also appealed to the brain, showing those leaders with the power to help them why supporting the Zionist cause was in their interests. Take the Soviet Union, which, contrary to popular belief, was as important as the United States in passing the partition resolution. Zionist diplomats, such as Eliahu Sasson, observed that the Soviets sought to counter the British in the Middle East, and therefore could view the establishment of a Jewish state as a means by which to eject Britain from the region. Moreover, as Martin Kramer notes, Zionist leaders, recognizing the importance of Soviet support for their cause, labored extensively to convince Moscow that, despite not being communist, they were kindred spirits that valued progressivism and collectivism.

And then, when the United Nations proposed its plan, thus endorsing the Zionist goal, the Jews took what they could get. Sure, the proposal gave them less land than they wanted—much of which was desert—and Jerusalem was to be an international zone surrounded by Arab territory. But national independence movements do not reject offers of statehood—except the Palestinians.

The point is that the Zionists did not have maximalist goals and were very practical. Moreover, they adapted to changing circumstances and deftly navigated the waters of high diplomacy with the world's great powers. Simply put, the Zionists put in the legitimate work to make their dream become reality. The Palestinians have not, seeking grand declarations of statehood at the U.N. without the prerequisite efforts to give them true legitimacy, which include negotiating with the Israelis. Meanwhile, the Palestinians, unlike the Zionists, make only crude, emotional pitches for statehood, motivated at their core by hate rather than aspiration. They do not show foreign leaders why a Palestinian state would help them, or the world more broadly. Even the Jews, who have much stronger legal, historical, and religious ties to the land of Israel, did not focus on the treatment they received during 2,000 years of exile while pushing for a Jewish state in the 1930s and 1940s. And then of course there is the Palestinian corruption, incitement, and terrorism, none of which makes for a promising state. If the Zionist approach to achieving statehood was a graceful ballet, the Palestinian one is a bomb hidden inside a teddy bear: a brute approach masquerading as a heartfelt plea for justice.

The Palestinians could take a few notes. So too could the media and anti-Israel politicians, who only perpetuate the conflict by giving the Palestinians a pass on accepting responsibility for their own stateless plight.

New York Times prints antisemitic cartoon of Trump, Netanyahu

The New York Times International Edition ran a cartoon of an apparently blind US President Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke being led by a dog with a Star of David for a collar and with a face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 25.

The cartoon was part of its Opinion section and appeared next to a column by Thomas Friedman about immigration.

The cartoon was condemned by numerous people over the weekend. It appeared on the April 25 edition but in Israel was available with the end of the Passover holiday, coinciding with the holiday and Shabbat, two days when many observant Jews were not active online.

“Another disgusting display of vile anti-Semitic trope celebrated in the NY Times World. The NY Times is signaling to the world that antisemitism is real, here and welcome,” wrote philanthropist Adam Milstein.

Imam Mohamad Tawhidi condemned it on social media, saying it was reminiscent of anti-Semitic Islamist texts comparing Jews and dogs. Others noted that while it had appeared online, it had been removed by Saturday afternoon. The New York Times Opinion twitter account included an editor’s note that said the cartoon “included anti-semitic tropes.”

The Times admitted that the image was “offensive, and it was an error of judgement to publish it.” They said they had since deleted it online.

Seth J. Frantzman: New York Times pathetic excuse for printing antisemitic cartoon - opinion

At a time of rising antisemitism, when we have become increasingly exposed to the notion of dog whistles and tropes that are antisemitic, when there is a lively and active debate about this issue in the US, The New York Times International Edition did the equivalent of saying “hold my beer.”

You thought that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s comments about foreign loyalty or “Benjamins” were problematic. The International Edition of the Times just said: “Let me show you what we can do,” with a cartoon of a yarmulke-wearing, blind US President Donald Trump being led by a dog with a Star of David collar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face for a head.

I didn’t believe the cartoon was real when I first saw it. Many of my colleagues didn’t believe it either. I spent all day Saturday trying to track down a hard copy. I phoned friends, I got a PDF of the edition, and even then I didn’t believe it.

I had to see for myself. So I drove to a 24-hour supermarket. There on the newsstand was the April 25 edition. I flipped gingerly through, fearing to see Page 16.

And then I found it. It stared back at me: That horrid image of a blind US President Donald Trump with a yarmulke being led by a dog with the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Worse, the dog was wearing a Star of David as a collar.

This is what The New York Times thinks of us Israelis. Even if they subsequently said it was an error, they thought it was okay to print a cartoon showing the US president being blindly led by the “Jewish dog”?

And not only that, those who watched as it went to print thought it was fine to put a Jewish skullcap on the US president. Dual loyalty? No need to even wrestle with that question.

An awful lot of people at the NYT had to sign off on that cartoon for it to be published. Who are they, and how are they being held accountable?

This statement is a dodge. https://t.co/2PGxJHfYhe
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) April 27, 2019

Chag sameach!

The second part of Passover is upon us. I won't be blogging until Saturday night.

Have a chag sameach!

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

04/25 Links Pt2: U.S., Israel Must Recognize the Armenian Genocide; 6 Dem Senators Sell Out Jewish Terror Victims to Restore Cash to Islamic Terrorists

From Ian:

U.S., Israel Must Recognize the Armenian Genocide

Geopolitical concerns must never overshadow history. The short term gain, in relation to the memory of genocide and mass murder, is not worth momentary strategic advantages or military agreements. The relationships between Turkey alongside both Israel and the U.S. will continue, even when both countries eventually honor history and formally recognize the Armenian genocide.

On the 104th anniversary of a genocide that paved the way for the Nazi’s to implement the destruction of European Jews, it’s time the U.S. and Israel accept their responsibility to simply recognize historical fact. The longer both countries ignore reality, the longer nations around the world question the moral stature of both Israel and the U.S. For a nation forged from Holocaust survivors, and a country who defeated the Nazis alongside the Allies of World War Two, it’s imperative moral clarity take precedent over whatever benefits are derived from appeasing Turkey on this grandiose issue.

The U.S. and Israel, especially the generations of Israelis and Jews around the world who remember the murder of 6 million souls by the Nazis, must never allow short-term political considerations to overshadow historical record. Had the world recognized the reality of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children murdered in the Armenian Genocide, Hitler might not have been able to murder 1.5 million children, of which 1 million were Jewish, during the Holocaust.

Six million Jews might have lived, had the world protected the memory of 1.5 million Armenians who’s lives were stolen by the Ottoman Empire.

In addition, Raphael Lemkin stated categorically that genocide, the word he created, originated from his study of what the Armenians experienced 104 years ago. For revisionist historians, Lemkin’s own words provide all the evidence needed to prove categorically what happened to the Armenians is the same planned and orchestrated barbarism committed against the Jews and other peoples across history. As Lemkin states in a 1949 CBS interview, “I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times, it happened to the Armenians and after the Armenians, Hitler took action…”

6 Dem Senators Sell Out Jewish Terror Victims to Restore Cash to Islamic Terrorists

In 2002, Shmuel Waldman, an American from New Jersey, was shot while boarding a bus in Israel. The terrorist attack killed 2 people and left 40 injured. Among that 40 was Shmuel whose leg was blown apart, forcing him to undergo multiple surgical procedures, and leaving him suffering from PTSD.

The terrorist who shot him was Said Ramadan, a “police officer” working for the terrorists who run the Palestinian Authority. The attack had been planned by senior Palestinian Authority officials and the Palestinian Authority viewed Ramadan as a hero. Waldman joined other victims of terrorism in a lawsuit against the terrorist group, which is funded by American taxpayers, under the Antiterrorism Act.

Waldman v. PLO resulted in a record award of $655 million in damages against the Palestinian Authority terror network. But the verdict was thrown out because an American court lacked jurisdiction over the terrorist group even though the United States provides much of the cash flow that its terrorists rely on.

The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act was introduced and approved to make it clear that accepting security assistance for its "police force" would place the Palestinian Authority under judicial jurisdiction for lawsuits such as these. The PA could stop funding terrorism or face lawsuits from its victims.

A ruthless battle was waged against ATCA by a variety of groups which understood that the Palestinian Authority would not stop funding and promoting terrorism under any circumstances. These groups falsely claimed that ATCA would undermine American and Israeli security. That was a blatant lie.

The only thing that ATCA would undermine was the flow of tax dollars to Islamic terrorists.

Last year, the Palestinian Authority informed the United States that the terror group would no longer accept any aid from the United States that would expose it to ATCA lawsuits. The terror group’s letter suggested that it might revisit its refusal if the law were changed. That’s just what 6 Democrat senators, led by Senator Dianne Feinstein have set out to do, using the false claim of a humanitarian disaster.

“President Trump’s refusal to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people is a strategic mistake,” Senator Feinstein claimed, accusing him of "denying funding for clean water, health care and schools in the West Bank and Gaza."
(h/t Failexa)

Honest Reporting: The Five Commandments of Successful Israel Advocacy

How do you ‘win?’

So how do you “win?” And why engage in these discussions at all? Because the Israel-haters are not your target audience!

In society, whether you are interacting with folks face to face or in cyberspace, you will encounter three kinds of people:
1. Those who completely oppose the existence of Israel as the state of the Jewish people;
2. A much larger number who actively support Israel;
3. And, far bigger than both groups, the majority who don’t have strong opinions about this issue and usually aren’t paying much attention to it at all, except when it is brought to their attention by a flare-up of violence in the region, an action on the local university campus, or a demonstration in their community.

This last group, not your interlocutor, is the audience that you are trying to reach.

Even if you can’t earn a decisive victory, you don’t want to be afraid to engage and challenge anti-Israel activism. Perhaps you’ll get the haters to think twice, but even if you don’t, you have an opportunity to reach the same audience that they’re trying to recruit.

What you might accomplish is getting a fair-minded person, who is listening to the exchange or following it online, to think more about what you have to say. You might get them to realize that the steady drumbeat of misinformation from the other side might not reflect the reality of a complex ethno-religious conflict that is over a century old. You might even get them to engage in conversation with you, to ask you some genuine questions, and to reconsider some of what they have heard.

The Five Commandments of Successful Advocacy

To best accomplish this, we need to avoid arguing down at the level of some of our opponents. To that end, I offer you The Five Commandments of Successful Advocacy. They are just as relevant online as face-to-face. (Perhaps you were expecting a different, more biblically connected, commandment number? Sorry, I don’t want to suggest that these small kernels of advice were the result of any type of divine revelation.)

Kasim Hafeez is a fascinating person. He was a radical Muslim in his late teens and early twenties and then took a second look at everything he had been taught when he came across The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz.

I had a nice (and fun) discussion with him in a Tel Aviv bar when I was in Israel last month. Unfortunately, the first part of the video is lost due to me, um, not remembering to turn on the camera. (You can find other interviews of him where he describes his life story with less background noise.)

In this part, he talks a bit about how radical Islam works, how Muslims tend to take the Quran literally, his reading of the Dershowitz book and his first eye-opening visit to Israel.

In upcoming parts we will discuss Islam in more depth.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.