Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 10, 2021

The paragraph of an international convention that proves Human Rights Watch twists international law against Israel

After another tweet by Ken Roth (roughly #130 this year) claiming that Israel practices apartheid, I decided to look further into the actual legal definition of apartheid and see if and how Human Rights Watch twists it.

All the relevant definitions of apartheid use specific language that it is a crime of racial discrimination. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid says "For the purpose of the present Convention, the term 'the crime of apartheid', which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them" and then goes on to give lots of examples always using the term "racial group."

The Rome Statute defines apartheid as "inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."

The April HRW report accusing Israel of apartheid says that "racial group" doesn't really mean racial group. They have no proof from the source materials, for which the definition of "racial group" was obvious enough not to be defined. Since the actual conventions didn't define the term, HRW took the definition from a completely different Convention.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which was adopted in 1965 and came into legal force in 1969, defines “racial discrimination” as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the UN body charged with monitoring the implementation of the ICERD, has consistently found that members of racial and ethnic groups, as well as groups defined based on descent or their national origin, face racial discrimination.[47] Rather than treat race as constituting only genetic traits, Human Rights Watch uses this broader definition.

On first glance, that sounds like a pretty good argument for an expansive definition of racial discrimination, although perhaps not for a definition of a racial group. (I think an argument can be made that the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute intended the narrower definition, and that the expansive definition is explicitly only meant for ICERD ["In this Convention, the term 'racial discrimination' shall mean..."]. Others have argued that the definition of apartheid is specifically based on race alone. But let's set that aside for now. )

Once HRW is relying on ICERD to define what racial discrimination is, they must then include the very next paragraph in ICERD, which applies directly to Israel - and which they do not quote in their report.

This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens.

This one paragraph completely destroys HRW's "apartheid" argument.

Israeli laws do not distinguish between Israeli Jewish citizens and Israeli Arab citizens. They distinguish between Israeli citizens and non-citizens - which every nation on Earth does.

HRW and others will base their "apartheid" arguments on claims like saying that Jewish "settlers" in the territories have different laws than their Arab neighbors. HRW says that Israeli "policies include limiting the population and political power of Palestinians, granting the right to vote only to Palestinians who live within the borders of Israel as they existed from 1948 to June 1967." But that is a lie - there are thousands of Israeli Arab citizens who live across the Green Line in French Hill, Beit Hanina, Beit Safafa and other communities, who can vote in Israeli elections, just like Israeli Jewish "settlers" can.

And if someone like, say, Peter Beinart decided to move to Ramallah to prove that Palestinians are wonderful people who wouldn't murder him, he would not be allowed to vote in Israeli elections even though he is a Jew - because he is not an Israeli citizen.

Virtually every example of discrimination in the HRW report, as well as in other articles that make the claim of "apartheid," is based not on whether someone is Arab or Jewish, but on whether they are citizens or non-citizens - the exact distinction that the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination made clear is not to be considered racial discrimination.

This one paragraph in the ICERD demolishes their entire 213 page report.

The authors of the Human Rights Watch report definitely knew this when they decided not to quote the other section of the ICERD that they base their entire argument on.

If this was an issue of conflicting legal arguments, then one could let the lawyers argue it out. But if it was a legal argument, one would assume good will from both sides, pointing out their own interpretations of the law. By quoting only the definitions that agree with HRW's pre-determination of Israeli "apartheid" and pretending that the definitions that disprove the argument don't even exist, HRW shows that its own arguments weren't based on the law to begin with, but on a bastardization of international law meant to attack only one state.

10/09 Links: US: 'Our position against unilateral Israeli settlement activity is clear'; Bernie Backs Iron Dome Funding – If Schumer Promises $1B for Gaza, Too

From Ian:

Biden administration to host Abraham Accords trilateral

The Biden administration plans to host an Abraham Accords trilateral meeting in Washington this Wednesday, between US, Israeli and Emirati officials.

"They will discuss progress made since the signing of the Abraham Accords last year, future opportunities for collaboration, and bilateral issues including regional security and stability," the US Embassy said in a statement about the meeting.

The trilateral will be held with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and his United Arab Emirates counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Blinken will hold separate bilateral meetings with Lapid and bin Zayed prior to the trilateral. The secretary of state tweeted on Saturday night that he looked forward to his meetings with both foreign ministers.

Lapid will be in the US from October 12-14, on his first visit since taking office in May.

Lapid has been the most visible government figure involved in the continuation of the Abraham Accords which were initiated by former US President Donald Trump and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The accords normalized ties between Israel and four Arab states; the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Lapid has traveled to all but Sudan.

US: 'Our position against unilateral Israeli settlement activity is clear'

The Biden administration has clearly opposed unilateral settlement activity, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington, in response to a query about US pressure on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to halt such action.

“Look, we don’t always – in fact we never read out our private diplomatic conversations, the back and forth we have, whether that’s with our Israeli partners or any partner around the world,” Price said.

“But suffice it to say we have made our position very clear, and when it comes to unilateral action like settlement activity, we have also made that very clear,” he said.

“And in fact, I just reiterated where the United States stands on settlement activity. There should be no question about that,” Price said on Thursday.

He spoke in the aftermath of a report by The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Walla, that the Biden administration was quietly calling on Israel to restrain settlement activity.

Price, however, has been fairly blunt about the Biden administration’s opposition to it, including at the Washington briefing on Thursday. “We believe it is critical for all parties to refrain from those unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and, again, undercut efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution,” he said. “That includes, as I was saying before in a different context, annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions and evictions” and “incitement to violence.”

10/08 Links Pt2: Mark Regev: The problem with Corbyn, AOC and left-wing antisemitism; Museum unveils 14th century hand-painted scroll depicting ancient Israel

From Ian:

Mark Regev: The problem with Corbyn, AOC and left-wing antisemitism - opinion

FOR BRITISH Jews, the Corbyn phenomenon was highly unsettling. The outbreak of antisemitism at the top tier of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition was a genuine shock, especially as it was centered on the individual who challenged three consecutive Tory prime ministers for the keys of 10 Downing Street.

American Jews also took notice. Prior to COVID-19, delegations to Israel from American Jewish organizations were always looking for something new to attract participants, and years ago started including a stopover of interest in the itinerary – a tour of Jewish Prague, a visit with Morocco’s Jewish community or even a meeting in Amman with the Jordanian foreign minister. During my tenure as Israel’s ambassador in Britain, more and more they included a stopover in London.

A UK visit was not just a matter of showing solidarity with a Jewish community undergoing a difficult period. The American Jews I met in London were anxious that Corbyn’s takeover of Britain’s Labour could be a sign of things to come in the Democratic Party.

Such fears were exacerbated following the 2019 phone call between Corbyn and US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a conversation that took place after Corbyn’s antisemitism had already received significant media coverage in the US. Corbyn, who at the time had legitimacy issues with social-democrats across Europe, thoroughly enjoyed his 45-minute discussion with the New York representative, tweeting: “Great to speak to @AOC on the phone this evening and hear first-hand how she’s challenging the status quo.” AOC responded with a warm tweet of her own: “It was an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation with you, @jeremycorbyn!” Consistent with honoring Corbyn, she later pulled out of an event hosted by the dovish American Friends of Peace Now to commemorate assassinated prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yitzhak Rabin.

Does the Iron Dome funding episode indicate that “the chickens have come home to roost?” Unclear. In Britain, the Jewish community played a decisive role in the effective public campaign against antisemitism in the Labour Party. If American Jews and their allies act with a determination akin to that shown in Britain, the Iron Dome funding affair may turn out to be just a troubling aberration. If not, the incident could very well be a milestone in the growing Corbynization of the Democratic Party. The latter development may have highly problematic implications for the American Jewish community and for the US-Israel partnership.

A discredited Corbyn was ultimately forced to resign his leadership after Labour’s unprecedented losses in the 2019 national elections, with the party’s faithful increasingly convinced that Corbynism was a prescription for keeping Labour out of office in perpetuity. Hopefully, Democrats are closely following developments across the pond.

Dreyfus, Zionism, and Sartre

A Jew most often combats the antisemite’s onslaught by being reasonable. He asks for fair treatment, as Dreyfus did, but this, Sartre points out, is a frail defense, which causes the Jew to further victimize himself, while inflaming the malice of his accusers.

Sartre has gotten much bad press for his claim that “it is the antisemite who makes the Jew.” But Sartre was being polemical—he ignored the rich resources of Jewish self-definition so he could focus on the Jew who was anxious about being a Jew. Such an anxious, inauthentic Jew, Sartre says, “has allowed himself to be persuaded by the anti-Semites ... He admits with them that, if there is a Jew, he must have the characteristics with which popular malevolence endows him, and his effort is to constitute himself a martyr, in the proper sense of the term [i.e., a witness], that is, to prove in his person that there are no Jews.”

Sartre’s analysis applies to those Jewish anti-Zionists who wish to wipe Jewish nationalism from the map and turn the Jew into the universal man or woman—a purely virtuous apostle of human rights (while at the same time applauding Palestinian nationalism). By contrast, Sartre was a committed Zionist who argued that the United Nations ought to have armed the Jews when the British departed from Palestine. In 1949, he said that the creation of Israel was one of the rare events that “allows us to preserve hope.” “I will never abandon this constantly threatened country whose existence ought not to be put into question,” he remarked in 1976. In Anti-Semite and Jew, composed before the birth of Israel, he wrote that the Jew “may also be led by his choice of authenticity to seek the creation of a Jewish nation possessing its own soil and autonomy.” Though Sartre also says one can be an authentic French Jew, this seems a less attractive option given pervasive French anti-Semitism.

For Sartre, as for Herzl, the Jew’s problem was rootlessness: the Jew ran the risk of becoming nothing except a defender of universal rights, and so not Jewish at all. By default, his loyalty, like Dreyfus’s, would belong to the nation-state that oppressed him. A new Jewish rootedness—Zionism—was needed instead. And so Sartre’s logic leads in a Zionist direction, though this remains less than explicit in Anti-Semite and Jew.

Near the end of his life, Sartre gave a lengthy interview to Benny Lévy, his young Maoist secretary, who later abandoned Marx and became a rabbi in Israel. Sartre shocked his leftist comrades by telling Lévy that Jewish messianism was superior to the Marxist ideology he had long championed. For the Jews, Sartre argued, each virtuous act is justified because it contributes to the coming of the Messiah, and this seemed to him a better idea than Marxist class warfare, since it spoke to Sartre’s ideal of committed personal action.

Most European Jews, instead of emigrating to Palestine, had either remained loyal like Dreyfus to the nations that scorned them, or simply hoped they could survive the coming persecution without leaving their homes. Their hopes were ruined. Outside Paris’ schools, the visitor can now see plaques commemorating the thousands of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis with the active assistance of the French state.

Dreyfus’ nephews fought and died for France in World War I. His son Pierre, who passed through the hell of Verdun, earned the Croix de guerre. Dreyfus himself died in 1935, too early to see French gendarmes deport his favorite granddaughter, Madeline, to Auschwitz.

Museum unveils 14th century hand-painted scroll depicting ancient Israel

The Israel Museum unveiled the Florence Scroll on Wednesday, a hand-painted scroll from the 14th century which is now displayed unrolled to its full length inside the glass vitrine of a museum gallery.

The nearly 11-meter parchment is the focus of “Painting a Pilgrimage,” the exhibit depicting the pilgrimage of a medieval Egyptian Jew from Cairo to the Land of Israel, the earliest known visual travelogue of the Holy Land.

It’s a scroll dominated by the cherry red, leaf green and ochre yellow lines that make up its 130 illustrations, displaying holy sites located from Egypt to Lebanon and offering one painter’s idea of what the region looked like 700 years ago.

“Scrolls are usually rolled up and kept out of the light, so the colors are kept sharp and bright,” said Rachel Sarfati, the senior curator who has been researching the scroll for the last 14 years.

The parchment includes illustrations of Egyptian and Lebanese landscapes, a central drawing of the Temple Mount, others of Mount Sinai, the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Tower of David.

It’s a relic that depicts sites and places built and visited in ancient times, yet in a landscape that is very familiar to the museum visitors, accentuated in the “Painting a Pilgrimage” exhibit with hands-on, digital maps and two wall-sized slide shows offering a pictorial view of those locations in modern times.

“Rachel Sarfati curated this, she realized its importance and brought it to light,” said museum director Ido Bruno at the opening on Wednesday night.

Ethnic cleansing, illustrated (infographic)

I has seen variants of this graphic, but I wanted to emphasize the percentage loss of Jews in Arab countries.

10/08 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Europe's deadly hypocrisy; Ruthie Blum: UNRWA’s deceitful ploys to stifle Israeli truth-telling; Golda Meir: World will ‘throw us to the dogs’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Europe's deadly hypocrisy

The European Commission released on Tuesday its first official strategy on fighting antisemitism and promoting Jewish life.

The programme is intended to prevent antisemitism in all its forms, promote Holocaust research, education and remembrance, and initiate programmes to raise awareness about Jewish life and culture in Europe.

The commission says it will lead the creation of a network of organisations across Europe to flag antisemitism content online, and will develop “counter-narratives.” It will also work with tech companies and retailers to prevent the online sale of Nazi-themed merchandise.

Yet the European Union continues to funnel money to the Palestinians even while they pour out antisemitism and remain committed to eradicating Israel. Their educational materials, for which the EU helps pay, promote hatred of Jews and incitement to murder Israelis and steal their land.

The EU also enables the Palestinian Authority to pay the families of terrorists for murdering Israelis. Last December, the PA announced that the EU had contributed 54 per cent of the cost of benefits for “needy” families.

By so substantially helping provide for the “Palestinian needy,” the EU allows the PA to use its own funds in order to pay rewards for terror. The purported wall between welfare assistance and “pay-for-slay” is an illusion.

The EU is also pouring money in to create a de facto Palestinian state, regardless of the Palestinian strategy of using such a state to destroy Israel — and while the EU condemns Israel for “illegally” building homes for Israelis in these disputed territories.

Ruthie Blum: UNRWA’s deceitful ploys to stifle Israeli truth-telling - opinion

Given the nature and mission of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan was prevented on Monday from entering the General Assembly hall with a prop proving the point he intended to make at a meeting about the organization.

The item was a poster illustrating the antisemitic views of an UNRWA school teacher in Gaza by praising Adolf Hitler. Erdan had equipped himself with the placard to refute the statements he knew were going to be made by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

He had good reason to want to come prepared with visual evidence. The corrupt body, whose ill-deserved status as an agency for “refugees” keeps it in financial cover, continues to employ educators who regularly incite terrorism against Jews, both in the classroom and on social media.

This was one key impetus for the decision by the administration of former US president Donald Trump in 2018 to cut America’s entire aid budget to UNRWA. In the first place, the bloated agency has spent the many decades since its inception perpetuating the “refugee crisis,” rather than using its mandate to settle the approximately 600,000 “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict [Israel’s War of Independence].”

Second, and even more egregiously, it has actively and passively abetted terrorism. Not only does it hire people affiliated with Hamas, but the terrorist group that rules Gaza uses UNRWA schools and other buildings as facilities for the storage of weapons.

LIKE THE current White House, which in April restored massive aid to UNRWA, Lazzarini doesn’t seem to know or care that this is the case. Instead of vowing to root out such evil, he took the opportunity of the meeting in question to say that he’s “proud of UNRWA’s education system and its resources.”

UNRWA, he stated, “uses host country curricula in line with the best practices in refugee education.”

Visiting US envoy raises human rights with Israelis, terror payments with PA

The Biden administration’s envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raised human rights concerns during his meetings with Israeli officials, and US objections to the Palestinian Authority’s payments to security prisoners during his sit-downs in Ramallah this week.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was in the region from Monday to Thursday, meeting with government officials and civil society leaders with the stated goal of “equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians,” the US State Department said in a Thursday statement.

“Amr found his meetings with Palestinian civil society focused on the importance of human rights, as well as the need to provide hope, opportunity, and a political horizon, especially for young people. They also discussed the challenges activists and journalists are facing with freedom of expression and peaceful demonstration,” the State Department added.

The decision to highlight the desire among Palestinian civilians for greater freedom of expression appeared to be a shot at the PA, which cracked down brutally on protesters earlier this year and has been accused of ordering the killing of prominent government critic Nizar Banat, who died while in police custody this past June.

The US condemned Banat’s death and called for an independent probe into the incident. While the Biden administration views the PA as an important partner in the region, one it seeks to strengthen at the expense of the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group, Washington has grown frustrated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s authoritarian tactics, according to an official familiar with the matter.

But the frustration among those in the Biden administration dealing with the region is not limited to the PA. The US is also deeply concerned about Israeli plans to approve thousands of settlement units in the West Bank, the official added.

The Israel Guys: This Would Be the Worst Thing for the Palestinian People

Four different world leaders on all sides of the political spectrum have recently said that a Palestinian state is not a viable option. On today’s show, we talk about why a Palestinian state is suicide for both Israel, and the Palestinian people.

B’Tselem, who is supposed to be a human rights organization, got caught red-handed this week trying to frame Israel for setting fire to an Arab building. They didn’t realize an IDF soldier was watching.

Is there a building freeze happening in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria? Watch today’s show to find out.

(from a Twitter thread last night)

1. If you are pro-Palestinian, you are actively supporting the one group that has the highest percentage of antisemites in the world (Pew poll.)

2. If you are anti-Zionist, that means you say Jews - alone among all peoples = have no right to their own homeland in their historic home.

3. Israel-haters hate context: they compare Israel with a shining ideal but have nothing to say about anyone else. Singling out the Jewish state for vitriol is antisemitism.

4. Today's anti-Zionists have something in common with Hitler - they both hated Zionism.

5. The Israel-boycott movement says Israeli Arabs are Palestinians. They only boycott Israelis - meaning, only Jews. Textbook antisemitism.

6. There is a direct historical line between the Arabs boycotting Jews in the 1920s-40s and people boycotting Israeli Jews today.

7. Anti-Israel Arab media is unrepentantly antisemitic in Arabic. If you don't call it out, you condone it.

8. College campuses with the biggest anti-Israel populations are also the most antisemitic, according to studies.

9. Be real: the only reason anti-Zionists obsess over Israel when other countries are far worse is because it is filled with Jews.

10. Obsessive Israel-hatred is more a cult than a sober opinion. The only obsession comparable to it in history is classic Jew-hatred.

11. The Khazar theory is only popular among Israel haters because it says today's Jews have no historic right to the land of Israel. It's pure antisemitism.

12. Saying that Zionists control America and/or the media is literally identical to what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion says.

13. If you create or use definitions of "apartheid" or "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" in a way that only applies to Jews, you hate Jews.

14. The accusation of "Jewish supremacy" is directly out of the Nazi playbook.

15. Israel is a pretty remarkable country in thousands of ways. If you can't admit any of them, you aren't just a "critic of Israel." You hate Jews.

16. If you say that Jews do not have the right to pray on the Temple Mount, their holiest spot, you have a problem with Jews.

17. If you complain about "Judaization" of Jerusalem or any other important Biblical city, you have a problem with Jews.

18. If you claim to support Palestinians but don't have anything bad to say about how badly the Arab world treats Palestinians, you are just a Jew-hater.

19. If you twist Jewish ritual into anti-Israel ritual, you have a problem with Jews and Judaism.

20. Saying that you hate Nazi-style antisemitism but being okay with Soviet-style antisemitism means you support antisemitism.

21. The Palestinian nationalist movement was literally founded by someone who collaborated with Nazis because they both saw Jews as a common enemy.

22. Even the UN admits that calling for the destruction of Israel, including when the BDS movement does it, is antisemitic.

Yes, the UN.

Times of Israel's coverage on the Jerusalem court's decision that it is not a crime for Jews to silently pray on the Temple Mount adds some important details - and they indicate that this isn't as positive a move as it seems at first glance.

The background: A Jewish man, Aryeh Lippo, was "caught" by Israeli police silently praying on the Temple Mount, and they banned him from returning for 15 days.

Jerusalem magistrate court judge Bilha Yahalom ruled that his silent moving of lips could not be considered a crime and overturned the police ban.

She wrote: “The appellant stood in the corner with a friend or two, there was no crowd around him, his prayer was quiet, whispered.”

“I have not found that the religious acts carried out by the appellant were externalized and visible,” she ruled, determining that such prayer did “not violate police instructions,” and canceling his ban from the site.

This is a very narrow ruling. It doesn't legalize prayer; it just determines that silent prayer said alone does not violate the existing police instructions and the police overstepped their bounds by banning him.

The magistrate court is the lowest court, for minor offenses. This is not a major ruling. And the Israeli police are appealing it.

Advocates for equal rights for Jews on the Temple Mount are not impressed with the ruling:

Long-time activist for Jewish Temple Mount prayer Arnon Segal stressed that despite the ruling’s sentiment, “the simple truth is that (Jewish) prayer is prohibited on the Temple Mount.”

“There’s no change in policy,” he wrote on Twitter, noting that on Thursday police had detained a Jewish man for silent prayer, accusing the state of “trampling” the rights of those prevented from praying.

Segal further told AFP that not only was the ruling was not a precedent, but it would also likely harm his cause.

“The harsh Palestinian reaction to the very weak ruling will deter the justice system and the state from even enabling quiet prayers,” he said.

Indeed, the Muslim world is up in arms, with condemnations coming in from Turkey's Foreign Ministry to the Arab League.

Keep in mind that Jews have been unofficially performing communal prayers daily at the Temple Mount for years now - far beyond what Lippo was detained for. When Naftali Bennett said that Jews have such a right, the reaction caused his office to backtrack and support the bigoted "status quo."

Notably, Bennett did not delete his original social media posts saying Jews have the right to worship.

If the Israeli government and Israeli police are not vocally supporting the Jewish right to worship on the Temple Mount, and they are willing to cave to Arab pressure on the issue, then this ruling will backfire.

A much more important ruling on the issue was made by Israel's High Court earlier this year.

In a ruling earlier this year on a petition demanding Temple Mount prayer rights for Jews, Israel’s Supreme Court found that “every Jew has the right to pray on the Temple Mount, as part of the freedom of religion and expression.”

“At the same time, these rights are not absolute, and can be limited to take into account the public interest.”

This is far more expansive and it asserts that Jewish worship is a right - something that the detractors are denying. It is true that public safety is an important concern, but to say that silent prayer endangers public safety is to say that fanatic Jew-hating Muslims have unlimited veto power over Jewish rights by simply threatening violence for the slightest perceived affront.

The fact is that the twice daily prayers that Jews have been performing for years at the little-traveled eastern section of the Temple Mount have not caused any riots or disturbances. Even the Arab Waqf guards are there and watch. The prayers don't disturb anyone.

This ruling, paradoxically, can endanger this new status quo of respectful Jewish prayer - because the antisemites will use any excuse to escalate tensions against Jews. Which is exactly what we are seeing today.

If you have any doubt about the antisemitic intentions of the people supposedly outraged at a Jew moving his lips, here is a video from the Palestinian Safa news agency about the topic - with discordant, scary music playing while showing religious Jews praying at the Western Wall.

Jew-haters should not determine what Jewish rights are.

The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, has issued his final report on antisemitism.

It is actually good.

The litmus test is whether the report admits that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and it definitely does.

Excerpts:

The Special Rapporteur also takes note of numerous reports of an increase in many countries of what is sometimes called “left-wing” antisemitism, in which individuals claiming to hold anti-racist and anti-imperialist views employ antisemitic narratives or tropes in the course of expressing anger at the policies or practices of the Government of Israel. In some cases, individuals expressing such views have engaged in Holocaust denial; in others, they have conflated Zionism, the self-determination movement of the Jewish people, with racism, claimed that Israel does not have a right to exist and accused those expressing concern about antisemitism of acting in bad faith. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes that it is never acceptable to render Jews as proxies for the Government of Israel. He further recalls that the Secretary-General has characterized “attempts to delegitimize the right of Israel to exist, including calls for its destruction” as a contemporary manifestation of antisemitism.

The Special Rapporteur further notes the claims that the objectives, activities and effects of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are fundamentally antisemitic. ...He recalls that international law recognizes boycotts as legitimate forms of political expression and that non-violent expressions of support for boycotts are, as a general matter, legitimate speech that should be protected. However, he also stresses that expression that draws on antisemitic tropes or stereotypes, rejects the right of Israel to exist or advocates discrimination against Jewish individuals because of their religion, should be condemned.

The Special Rapporteur received numerous reports that in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Jews are frequently conflated with Israel and Zionism, even in countries with a deep history of Jewish life. Literature demonizing Jews is prevalent in the media in the region. 31 It was reported that school textbooks in Saudi Arabia contained antisemitic passages, with some even urging violence against Jews. In August, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed serious concern “about the existence of hate speech, in particular hate speech directed against Israelis, which at times fuels antisemitism towards this group, in certain media outlets, in particular those controlled by Hamas, as well as on social media, in public officials’ statements and in school curricula and textbooks, which also fuels hatred and may incite violence” (CERD/C/PSE/CO/1-2, para. 19 (c))

He is a little more nuanced in his discussion of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, but he ultimately endorses it:

The Special Rapporteur notes that critics of the working definition have expressed concern that it can be applied in ways that could effectively restrict legitimate political expression, including criticism of policies and practices being promoted by the Government of Israel that violate the rights of Palestinians. Such concerns are focused on three of the illustrative examples attached to the definition, namely, claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour; requiring of Israel a behaviour not demanded of other democratic States; comparing the government policy of Israel with that of the Nazis. The Special Rapporteur notes that the definition developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance does not designate them as examples of speech that are ipso facto antisemitic and further observes that a contextual assessment is required under the definition to determine whether they are antisemitic. Nevertheless, the potential chilling effects of the use of those examples by public bodies on speech that is critical of policies and practices of the Government of Israel must be taken seriously, as should the concern that criticism of Israel sometimes has been used to incite hatred towards Jews in general, including through expression that feeds on traditional antisemitic stereotypes of Jews. Therefore, the use of the definition, as a non-legal educational tool, could minimize such chilling effects and contribute usefully to efforts to combat antisemitism. When public bodies use the definition in any regulatory context, due diligence must be exercised to ensure that freedom of expression within the law is protected for all.

...The Special Rapporteur recognizes that the working definition of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance can offer valuable guidance for identifying antisemitism in its various forms and therefore encourages States to adopt it for use in education and awareness-raising and for monitoring and responding to manifestations of antisemitism. The Special Rapporteur recommends its use as a critical non-legal educational tool...

Notably, this comes on the heels of the EU 10-year Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life which also supports the IHRA working definition.

UPDATE: Apologies, this report came out in 2019. I thought it was new because the author's original tweet for it was retweeted.

10/07 Links Pt2: Antisemitism in Ireland – an exclusive report on anti-Jewish hatred; Glick: Kamala Harris Flunks her “Sister Souljah Moment”; French Senate adopts IHRA definition of antisemitism

From Ian:

David Collier: Antisemitism in Ireland – an exclusive report on anti-Jewish hatred

Today I publish a 202-page report on antisemitism in Ireland. It is the result of several years of intense research that involved 1000s of hours of online swimming in extremist sewers. The examples and findings presented in the report should sicken anyone interested in combatting antisemitism. What makes it even worse is the level of ‘antisemitism denial’ coming from the Irish politicians, academics and activists.

When you see what is in the report you will understand that there is no denying this – nor does it have anything to do with ‘criticism of Israel’. Personally I have been down this road before, with in-depth studies of antisemitism in anti-Israel groups in the UK and of course the Labour Party – but what I saw in Ireland – managed to shake even me.

There are almost 200 pages of evidence, and I cannot even begin to do it justice in a single blog. Perhaps it remains possible to give voice to what is inside the report in a single word – and that word is ‘horrific’. The situation is horrific at the political level, horrific at the academic level and horrific at the street level. It is almost impossible to overstate how toxic the situation in Ireland has become.

The evidence is all in the report which can now be downloaded. For those that want the story of ‘antisemitism in Ireland’ in shorthand, here are just a few nuggets:

Politicians in Ireland
Dozens of Politicians in Ireland were found to contribute towards rising antisemitism, and this occurs in a number of ways. The report covers the issue in full detail.

Here is just one example. Some of Ireland’s politicians love to share the most outrageous fake news about Israel.

This is a post about an attack on the trees of Palestinian farmers that was shared by Sean Crowe, a member of the Dail – (the Irish Parliament). Except it is fake news. The video is actually of a cull of citrus trees in Morocco in 2019, which has been repackaged as anti-Israel propaganda.

Acts such as this, spread hatred on the street. And these politicians do not seem to care about the source of their fake news. The post that Sean Crowe TD shared in order to demonise Israel, was from the FB account of Waleed Al Alami – who is a hard core antisemite and Holocaust denier:

There are lots of examples – and the Crowe shared post is far from the worst. One sitting politician even seems to have liked a post suggesting Hitler ‘may have not been too far wrong‘.

The Irish TD’s don’t hold back – they are at the forefront of the report, and dozens are included. And when it comes to antisemitism – the same old tropes are rolled out over and over again.

This blatant ‘Mossad did it‘ tweet came from Reada Cronin TD. In her world the British electorate didn’t reject Jeremy Corbyn because of his party’s extremism or illegal harrassment of Jews – the British were made to do it by Israeli spies:

The full report with the whole horrible story can be downloaded here.

“Gaza is Palestine”: NGOs and Rep. Tlaib Push BDS

On October 7, 2021, the “Gaza is Palestine” campaign will host a virtual event featuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and a number of BDS activists. These include individuals who have celebrated violence against Israelis.

The campaign seeks to halt US military assistance to Israel and is spearheaded by two pro-BDS NGOs: Adalah Justice Project (AJP) and MPower Change. This event exemplifies the deepening relationship between politicized NGOs seeking to advance BDS policy through members of Congress.

This phenomenon was manifest last month (September 2021) in attempts by US lawmakers to block funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and the sale of $735 million worth of precision-guided Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) to Israel.

These initiatives were the result of lobbying efforts by pro-BDS NGOs, some with links to terror groups. (For more information on NGO lobbying against American security assistance to Israel, see “The NGO Congressional Campaign Against Funding for Israel’s Iron Dome”.) The Sponsors of the “Gaza is Palestine” Campaign: Adalah Justice Project:
- Originally a project of Haifa-based Adalah, AJP, based in Boston, engages in BDS and other forms of demonization. For example, then AJP Director Nadia Ben Youssef was initially listed as an “author and contributor” of the 2016 “The Movement for Black Lives” platform. The document included BDS calls, labeled Israel an “apartheid state,” argued that US military assistance makes Americans complicit in human rights abuses, and accused Israel of “genocide.”
- AJP collaborates with organizations that have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) a US and EU-designated terrorist organization. These NGOs include Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and Al-Haq.
- AJP is fiscally sponsored by the Tides Center, which also transfers funds to organizations such as Palestine Legal, and Dream Defenders. In June 2018, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund authorized a $160,000 grant to AJP via the Tides Center.

MPower Change:
- Established in 2016, MPower Change co-sponsored a petition demanding that Congress end military aid and sanction Israel, describing it as “apartheid.” The NGO also promoted an event open to everyone besides “cops and Zionists.”
- Executive Director of MPower Change Linda Sarsour is an anti-Israel activist with a history of making antisemitic comments. In 2019, Sarsour stepped down from her leadership role with the Women’s March, after it emerged that she had ties to notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan.
- According to its website, donations to MPower Change are processed through ActBlue Charities, “a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.”

Video Game That Has Users Slaughter Israelis as Palestinian Militant Violates Anti-Terror Laws, Legal Group Says

The game is already generating fierce pushback in Israel, and a leading legal advocacy organization is petitioning Valve, Steam’s parent company, to remove the game from its store, maintaining that distribution of the title violates U.S. anti-terror laws.

"This game, with its unhinged glorification of violence and incitement to terror, may place Valve in direct violation of United States anti-terror laws and subject to potential civil litigation," the International Legal Forum, a nonprofit advocacy group that combats anti-Semitism and represents more than 3,500 lawyers and civil society activists across the globe, wrote to Valve on Monday, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

"In allowing the use of your platform for the glorification and incitement of terror, your company may be in breach of a number of U.S. anti-terrorism laws, including, but not limited to, Section 2339 of the United States Code, which prohibits the providing of ‘material support or resources’ in the ‘preparation for, or in carrying out’ a violation of certain offenses, including terrorism," the group wrote.

Valve has not yet responded to the International Legal Forum’s letter and also did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment. While video game makers have large artistic leeway in the titles they publish, a game centering around Palestinian terrorism could be seen as a recruitment tool for jihadist militant groups that want to destroy Israel and kill Jewish people.

Arsen Ostrovsky, chairman and CEO of the International Legal Forum, told the Free Beacon that "although for some in the gaming world, this might be mere virtual reality, for Israelis, this is depiction of real life, having sustained decades of Palestinian terror, intifadas, and ongoing sprees of stabbings, vehicular ramming, and shooting attacks."

U.S. citizens, he added, "have also been killed during such attacks. In the event further attacks and loss of life arise out of this display in pure barbarism masquerading as a ‘virtual game,' not only blood, but legal liability, will be on the hands of Valve."

As a photojournalist I know publications much prefer to use free or stock photos rather than pay a photographer. That is expected. It has become the norm. However, what also should be expected is integrity in the use of old photographs.

Elder of Ziyon wrote on the negative reactions reported in Arab media to the proposed hotel development in the Jerusalem Armenian Quarter parking lot.

His piece was republished the next day in the Algemeiner with a suitable heading: Palestinians Upset at Armenian Church Leasing Out Land to Australian Jew; Not Israeli, But Jew

However, it was the image used for Elder's piece that had me seeing red. Algemeiner's photo editor selected an old photograph taken at the Western Wall Plaza during corona over a year ago! An image not near the Armenian Quarter or its parking lot.

So upset at the error, I sent Elder messages and photos from my previous visits to the site which I have watched for years. The prospect of a hotel on the spot is an old story. I have documented its progress and slow development.

Bothered enough, I went back this morning to verify the scene and check the distances.

Why make such a big deal over one photo?

For decades, close to a century, Arab leaders having troubles with their rule over unhappy populations have shouted "Al-Quds" as a distraction. And it has worked time and again.

The latest survey and report by Khali Shikaki on Domestic and Palestinian Authority/Israel issues showed 78%, a 10 % increase over the last poll in March, wanted Abu Mazen to resign. Abu Mazen knew he was in trouble when he called off the elections. The disappointment of those who expected elections and the death of Nizar Banat only added more bad news for him.

Then yesterday we saw multiple scenes on social media with thousands of Gazans wanting proposed work permits in Israel. Hamas used 'save Jerusalem' in May as a rallying call over the flimsy excuse of a few security barriers.

To use a photo of the Kotel Plaza for a situation in the Armenian Quarter is not good journalism. It is not only wrong, it could be dangerous.

I went back this morning to do a video of the area near the Armenian Parking lot. It should look familiar to anyone who went by taxi or the small buses to the Kotel in the past.

In Jerusalem, nothing is simple (or flat), and even searching on Google maps or taking still images, it is often difficult to show the real Jerusalem streets.