Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 15, 2016

NYC City Council candidate uses black/Hispanic Jew-hatred to attract votes

City pols are blasting City Council candidate Thomas Lopez-Pierre for his latest inflammatory comments about “greedy Jewish landlords.”

Lopez-Pierre, who ran a fringe campaign for an uptown Council seat in 2013 that drew attention for his racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, is now running against incumbent Mark Levine.

He blasted out a fund-raising e-mail earlier this month with the subject line “SAVE HARLEM from Greedy Jewish Landlords.”

“Greedy Landlords and NYC Council Member Mark Levine are working together to push Black and Hispanic tenants out of Harlem!” he wrote, going on to charge that Levine, “the only Jewish person in the race,” only won in 2013 because there were eight black and Hispanic candidates running against him.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Controller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Letitia James, Rep. Jerry Nadler and others penned a letter to Lopez-Pierre demanding he apologize.

“Such rhetoric has no place in our society, and certainly does not belong in a political campaign,” they wrote.

“Your repeated references to ‘greedy Jewish landlords’ in your most recent email play on a long-established anti-Semitic trope,” the group of 14 elected officials wrote.

“Your reference to your opponent as the ‘only Jewish candidate in the race’ and frequent depiction of him in religious garb amount to gratuitous targeting of him based on religion.”

Lopez-Pierre's webpage doubles down on the accusation, citing a Forward article about Jewish landlords as evidence that "fighting Jewish landlords isn't anti-semitic." He chooses a photo of Mark Levine in a yarmulka for his site even though Levine does not normally wear one.

It is true that there are many corrupt Jewish landlords in New York. There are also many corrupt non-Jewish landlords and many Jewish landnords who care deeply about the people in their buildings. Lopez-Pierre is using black and Hispanic antisemitism as his main campaign theme to run for office.

I had a feeling that the Daily News was downplaying Lopez-Pierre's antisemitism, and sure enough, I found this open letter he wrote in 2013 to a local journalist during his previous campaign where he he tried to explain exactly why he isn't antisemitic - because he enjoys sleeping with Jewish women:

Let me use this email to state as plainly as possible my views on Jewish people without you interrupting me.

I have dated some very sexy Jewish women, I just love Jewish women; the sex was always good if not at times great.

The truth is that as I am sure you must know, Jewish women have great oral skills - they really know how to communicate their interest to Black men - smile.

And if it's NOT your birthday, you can forget all about Black women………………..trust me I know, I dated my fair share of Black women.

As you may know, Jewish women just love them some big Black men (yes, the stereotype is true - do NOT hate - trust me, take my word for it or ask any Black women who also dates Jewish men - she will tell you how small Jewish guys are compared to Black men)!

Forgive me, I digressed.

As I was saying, I have the greatest respect for Jewish women and I am honored to call many Jewish males, friends.

...My people [Blacks and Hispanics] are angry and scared and they fear that they will be next to be pushed out of their homes by White/Jewish landlords.

And the sad truth is that today, in Upper Manhattan we have Uncle Tom Nigger Black and Hispanic elected officials who have taken campaign funds from White/Jewish landlords to look the other way while thousands of thousands of Black and Hispanic tenants were pushed out of their apartments for people who would pay higher rents (mostly White/Jewish people who were priced out of the rental market downtown).

As a candidate for the 7th NYC Council District, I believe it is very important for me to fight for those Black and Hispanic tenants being pushed out of their homes by White/Jewish landlords.

I want Black and Hispanic voters to know who is behind the ethnic cleansing in Upper Manhattan and it is White/Jewish landlords with the help of Uncle Tom Nigger Black and Hispanic elected officials.

My opponent is Mark Levine, a White/Jewish upper middle class, Harvard educated, son of a doctor, political opportunist who has taken thousands of dollars of campaign money from greedy White/Jewish landlords - and lives outside of the 7th NYC Council District with his wife and children in a high-end condominium apartment

...I fear that Mark Levine, the White/Jewish candidate will steal the election because of the long history of White/Jewish people in Upper Manhattan supporting their own people.

I have to tell you that I have the greatest respect for Jewish people. Jewish people are never ever afraid to take political and economic power from other racial groups even if their numbers do NOT warrant such a power grab.

One of my political role models is NYS Assembly Member, Dov Hikind; a Democrat who endorsed Republican candidate Michael Bloomberg for mayor against a member of his own political party - why? Because Michael Bloomberg is Jewish and gave his people a better deal.

The Uncle Tom Nigger Black and Hispanic elected officials in Upper Manhattan have a lot to learn from NYS Assembly Member, Dov Hikind.

NYS Assembly Member, Dov Hikind is never ever afraid to put his people and the State of Israel before the interests of the United States.

I, Thomas Lopez-Pierre have the greatest respect for NYS Assembly Member, Dov Hikind.Let me end by saying that I am sorry if I hurt your feelings by saying bad things about White/Jewish landlords.

Yeah, I'd say I'm on safe ground to call Lopez-Pierre an antisemite.

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.

Hamas terror training video shows how "crowded" Gaza is

Here is the latest propaganda video from Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Notice that you can barely find any towns in any of the scenes. Hamas has plenty of room in "the most crowded place on Earth" for military training exercises.

But beyond that is that Hamas doesn't ever fight the IDF in the open - but in the crowded cities of Gaza, hiding in their extensive networks of tunnels and bunkers as well as hiding in residential houses and buildings, where they use the population as human shields.

So this is propaganda on two levels - one to show off their supposed military might to their people, but also to pretend to the same people that they are defending them, rather than using them for military advantage.

NGOs like HRW and Amnesty bend over backwards not to accuse Hamas of endangering the population, but they try to find excuses by claiming that Hamas doesn't have a choice but to fight in urban areas.

This video is exhibit A that this is a lie.

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.

Masralarabia.com is one of the most popular news sites in Egypt, ranked #23 for that country (for comparison, in the US MSN.com is #23 and the New York Times website is ranked #24.).

On Saturday, Masralarabia published video and text of interview with "Israel affairs expert" Dr. Ahmad Hammad, a professor of Hebrew at Ain Shams University.

In that interview Dr. Hammad claimed that Nazi gas chambers were a myth, saying that the only reason the Europeans go along with the "fairy tale" is because they are afraid of being labeled antisemitic. He said that it made no economic sense for Germany to build gas chambers to kill Jews and they would have been far less efficient than simply shooting Jews. At any rate, Nazi Germany didn't single out Jews but all minorities for persecution.

Hammad claimed that Hitler only wanted to expel Jews from Europe, not murder them, and he colluded with Zionists on that mission.

Surprisingly, he said that the concept for "greater Israel" had nothing to do with a Zionist state between the Nile and the Euphrates, but instead refers to something far more insidious: "economic colonization" and "colonization of minds" of Arab states which he says he has warned about for decades.

According to Hammas, the Arab media is sometimes more Zionist than Zionists are. As an example, he derided Arab media for referring to Israel as the Jewish state, claiming that the people in Israel have nothing to do with actual Jews.

Despite the closer ties between Israel and Egypt, antisemitism in Egypt remains embedded in the fabric of that society, and antisemitic articles like this can be found weekly in major Arab media.

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.

Another Olympic-sized lie

Mondoweiss pretends to do some reporting:

Last month we interviewed Mary al Atrash, a 22-year-old swimmer from Beit Sahour in the West Bank who was part of the largest delegation Palestine has ever sent to the Olympic Games.

She told us about her difficulties to train in a swimming pool that does not match the Olympic standards, and explained that although she technically lives close to Jerusalem, where such swimming pools, exist, she could not go there to train.

After our story was published, a controversy started: Israeli authorities explained that Mary never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem.

After COGAT –the Israeli Ministry of Defense organization coordinating civil affairs between Palestinians and Israelis in the Palestinian territories- published a statement saying Mary al Atrash never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem, we contacted Mary and the organizations that supervise her training such as the Palestinian Swimming Federation and the Palestine Olympic Committee.

Indeed, it seems that Mary never applied for a permit, and neither did a lot of other Palestinian athletes. They explain this situation by emphasizing their movement restrictions. They say they can be stopped at any point while going from one place to another and therefore don’t feel safe moving from one city to another. They also mention that roads or checkpoints are sometimes closed which implies a chance of wasting time that they could use to train.

The Palestinian Swimming Federation stressed “the difficulties, that all the athletes face, to enter Jerusalem for training” and that “permits are for a limited time” and that athletes still have to go “through checkpoints” even if they have a permit to train in Jerusalem which makes their situation unstable and puts them at risk of wasting their training time.

So that is the new narrative - that Palestinian athletes all decided that it is too risky to train in Israel because of the chance that they will be delayed?

Somehow, tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs manage to enter Israel every day, work for an average of 7 hours, and go home. But if you are to believe this article, Palestinian Olympic hopefuls don't have the same drive to succeed as the average construction worker.

Too bad that Mondoweiss didn't bother reading, or actively ignored, the tweet from Reuters' Luke Baker where he said explicitly that Palestinian (leaders) oppose letting athletes train in Israel.

I would point to the tweet itself, but it has been deleted. Apparently the narrative of the Palestinians as only victims and without any responsibility for their own destinies was too strong for a Reuters reporter to admit otherwise, even though that admission was to defend a story that implied that Israel had banned the al-Atrash, not her own people.

However, looking at the Palsport.com webpage for all Palestinian sports news, one can see that the idea of "normalization" with Israel is a very big taboo. For example, this article rails against any attempts by Israeli sports federations to work together with Palestinians. There are no articles that argue that Palestinian athletes should cooperate with Israelis in any form.

Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, has said himself that "there will be no normalization - will not normalize with Israel because we are under occupation and the Israelis do not recognize the Palestinian sports entity ....We defend our national cause and will not relent...The occupation is the enemy number one of Palestinian sport....the occupation seeks to besiege our people including by preventing movement of the athletes..."

How can Rajoub keep saying that if Israel allows his athletes to train in Israel? Much easier to ban his athletes from training and then blaming Israel for it!

To Rajoub, Mondoweiss is a reliable propaganda outlet that will parrot, without any skepticism, the idea that Israel is the reason why Palestinians cannot train in Israel. It is simply not true. Reuters knows it, Rajoub knows it, and Mary al Atrash knows it. But that narrative simply doesn't fit the agenda of Reuters, the PLO and Mondoweiss.

The deleted Reuters tweet also says volumes about how Reuters prefers narratives to truth.

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.

For those who think Neturei Karta represent Judaism because they dress in black...

This video is going around of a couple of Chassidim, probably Israeli, who are so angered by the anti-Israel chants and signs from two Neturei Karta protesters that they take two signs from them.

It looks like this happened in New York.

A lot of people who hate Israel love to point to Neturei Karta idiots and, since they dress in traditional Jewish garb, pretend that they must somehow be more authentic Jews than other Jews are. NK actively supports this lie with their literature. Yet NK represents only a tiny part of even the haredi ("ultra-Orthodox") Jewish community; most of the other religious Jews consider them sick impostors.

And here, a couple of them prove it.

By the way, remember that Neturei Karta has in the past (and possibly today) been paid by the Palestinian leadership to pretend that they are somehow more legitimate than the hundreds of thousands of religious Jews who consider them anathema.

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.

08/14 Links: Soros Leaked Files Show Millions Contributed to Anti-Israel Causes; 'Nasrallah hides in a bunker while Israeli children play outside'

From Ian:

DC Leaks Publishes George Soros’ Files Showing Millions Contributed to Anti-Israel Causes

Jewish Hungarian-American business magnate George Soros, whose company files were hacked by the same outfit that in June hacked the DNC computers, was a major contributor to anti-Israel and anti-Zionist causes, as appears from an archive of leaked documents of the DC Leaks website.
Soros, one of the 30 richest people in the world, is known as “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England” in 1992 with his short sale of $10 billion in British pounds, which made him a profit of $1 billion and brought Black Wednesday upon the UK currency, has a special spot for groups that fight Israel and Israelis on multiple levels.
The list of groups hostile to Zionism and to the Jewish State that received funds from Soros is very long:
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, received a $400,000 grant in 2014-15 and 14 additional grants since 2001 totaling $2,688,561. The recently released document under the banner of the Movement for Black Lives, labeling Israel as an “apartheid state” and accusing Israel of committing “genocide” against Arabs, is the handiwork of Nadia Ben-Youssef, Adalah’s US representative, which the document lists as an “author and contributor.”
Incidentally, according to NGO Monitor, Adalah’s promotion of BDS directly contravenes the stated policies of its funder, the New Israel Fund (NIF). NIF’s position on BDS states that it “will not fund global BDS activities against Israel nor support organizations that have global BDS programs.” Nevertheless, from 2008-2015, NIF donated $1,975,826 to Adalah.
And, lo and behold, NIF is also listed as a recipient of Soros’ support, 9 grants totaling $837,500 since 2009. One of these grants, for $60,000, was given in 2015 to the Herman Schwartz Human Rights Law Fellowship, to “strengthen the capacities of young Palestinian legal professionals in legal advocacy by undertaking an LL.M. degree in human rights law in the US along with internships opportunities in Israel.”
Talk about Tikkun Olam…

Douglas Murray: Islamic Islamophobia: When Muslims Are Not Muslim Enough, What Does It Promise for the Rest of Us?

Of course, if Mr Shah's murderer had been a non-Muslim, there would be a concerted effort by the entirety of the media and political class to find out what inspirations and associations the murderer had. Specifically, they would want to know if there was anybody -- especially any figure of authority -- who had ever, for instance, called for the murder of Muslim shopkeepers. Yet when a British Muslim kills another British Muslim for alleged "apostasy," and local religious authorities are found to have praised or mourned the killers of people accused of "apostasy," the same people cannot bother to stir themselves. There is talk of being "taken out of context" or there are warnings not to "generalise" or be "Islamophobic" or any number of other fatuous get-out clauses.
What happened this week in court when Tanveer Ahmed was found guilty and sentenced for the murder of Asad Shah was even more revealing. After the judge read out the sentence, Tanveer Ahmed raised his fist and started shouting in Arabic "There is only one prophet." Supporters, who made up around half the people in the public gallery, joined in with his cries. All of which made it understandable that the family of Mr Shah had been too terrified to turn up in court during the trial of their relative's murderer, and are apparently planning to leave Scotland.
Then, outside the court, a news reporter from LBC Radio confronted some of the murderer's family members. The video is worth watching. "Did Asad Shah deserve to die?" he asks the killer's family as they head to their car. They refuse to comment.
When another supporter is asked whether he thinks it was "respectful" for the killer to do the chanting he did in the dock, he becomes threatening and says, "Yeah, he's respecting his prophet. He's saying 'I love my prophet'. What's wrong with that?" Asked if he thinks the sentence was fair, the man replies "No." Asked in what way, he replies, "No comment."
It is, of course, a good thing that the criminal justice system has done its job and done it swiftly. Asad Shah's murderer has been brought to justice and been given a suitably long sentence. But this case should have provided a learning moment for politicians, the media and wider society to finally understand the full threat to our society that this type of fanaticism poses, as well as a realistic awareness of how widespread that fanaticism actually is. Instead, on glimpsing for a moment how deeply this problem goes, it seems that the UK has decided once again to turn away and avert its gaze, for fear of what it might otherwise find out.

Palestinian woman attempts to stab IDF soldiers in northern West Bank

A Palestinian assailant was arrested Sunday evening after she stabbed and lightly injured a female soldier at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank, Israeli officials said.
The Palestinian woman emerged from a car at a checkpoint near the settlement of Shaked, west of Jenin, then pulled a knife out and lunged at the soldiers, the army said.
The troops at the scene subdued the attacker and placed her under arrest, without the use of force. The wounded soldier, who suffered a very mild injury to the shoulder, was treated at the scene.
The assailant was taken for questioning by security forces.

The Muslim world was still upset over the Egyptian judoka loss to an Israeli on Friday, where Islam El Shahaby refused to shake hands with Israeli Or Sasson after his defeat.

So they have made up a story of Olympic revenge to restore Muslim honor.

Egyptian, Palestinian and other Arabic media are reporting that the Muslim world exacted revenge on Israel for this loss by inflicting a humiliating defeat on another Israeli judoka. 112th ranked Mathews Punza defeated 6th ranked Israeli judoka Golan Pollack in a huge upset (video), and Pollack could not believe that he lost, cradling his head in his arms afterwards.

Two problems with this story of supposed revenge.

The first one is that the Pollack/Punza match occurred five days before the Sasson/Shahaby match.

The second is that I have no evidence that Punza is a Muslim. Zambia is an overwhelmingly Christian country, and a name like "Mathews" sounds more Christian than Muslim. While it is possible that Punza is Muslim, it seems unlikely.

Once again, it is all about honor, and the narrative of a Muslim humiliating a Jew as revenge is not only an irresistible story for Arabs, but a necessary one because they simply couldn't live with themselves otherwise. They had no other opportunity for vengeance and the idea of being a good sport about losing to a Jew is simply impossible for them to accept.

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.

I was going to name this piece "The Death of American Politics" but American politics has been dying since it was born.

That is, American politics has been so partisan and so toxic for so long that it has become virtually impossible to separate fair assessments of truth from media-driven propagandistic bullshit which, today, almost always favors the Democratic Party.

The gang rape of Donald Trump makes for an interesting case in point.

It no longer matters much what Donald Trump says because even if he says "boo" the media will clobber him on behalf of the Clinton campaign, which is to say, on behalf of the dysfunctional Democratic Party status-quo.

No matter what Trump says the progressive-left and the Democratic Party will defame him as a racist and a sexist.

The great irony, of course, is that the progressive-left is the most racist political movement in the West today, outside of political Islam, and a great enemy, along with political Islam, of the Jewish people. Even as progressives and many Democrats decry the lone, sole Jewish state as a racist, colonialist, imperialist, militaristic monstrosity - despite its democracy and liberalism and general decency compared with so much of the rest of the world - they perpetually whitewash and make excuses for the very worst aspects of political Islam.

A Muslim slaughters 49 people in a Gay nightclub in Orlando in the name of the Islamic State?

Blame the Republicans or blame Trump or blame generalized American bigotry and homophobia or some alleged violent American "gun culture." But whatever you do, do not blame political Islam because that would make you a "racist." The progressive-left and the Democratic Party consider "people of color" to be something akin to little children that must be protected from the foreseeable consequences of their own behavior. It is the twenty-first century version of "White Man's Burden."

And it is the most prominent form of bigotry today among westerners.

This form of bigotry - otherwise known as humanitarian racism - like all prominent forms of bigotry, has wide-ranging consequences. Because white western "liberals" consider non-white-westerners to be naturally inferior and, therefore, in need of protection, they refuse to criticize political Islam. This means that the hard-core boys in the Islamist organizations (like ISIS and Hamas and Boko Haram and on and on and on) flourish, while the true Muslim moderates and secularists are shunted aside by the West even as under physical threat from their Islamist brothers.

{They embrace Islamists like Tariq Ramadan as they spit hatred toward reformers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.}

It means that Arab and Muslim homophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and generalized anti-non-Muslim bigotry and persecution, are given a pass because to do otherwise opens oneself to charges of racism and, therefore, to social ostracism (among the political and intellectual sectors) and potential loss of employment.

It means that ISIS gets a pass even as it buries Yazidi kids alive in mass graves and beheads Christian Copts by the dozens and blows priceless antiquities (the very birthright of humanity) to smithereens.

Donald Trump is not a racist for wanting to hold back Islamic immigration until we develop effective screening methods. Political Islam - like Nazism or Soviet Communism - is an ideologically violent political movement and we know that a certain percentage of emigres will be Jihadis. Thus any normal functioning intelligence would conclude that holding back Arab and Muslim immigration into the United States is merely common sense. This does not mean that we keep a Muslim grandmother from Manchester from seeing her grandkids in Michigan. Nor does it mean that we prevent a Muslim physician from Toronto from traveling to Manhattan to perform a surgery.

What it means is necessary due diligence so that San Francisco does not start looking like Paris with blood running in the streets.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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.

08/13 Links: A Growing Trend: Brave Muslim Zionists; Freelance jihad; Reporter SLAMS State Department: 'Am I Not Speaking English?'

From Ian:

A Growing Trend: Brave Muslim Zionists

Muslims and Arabs who openly identify as Zionists are growing in number – powered by the freer flow of information and ideas made possible by social media and the search for answers in the wake of the Arab Spring and Islamist terror.
A new Facebook page for Arab supporters of Israel has attracted about 20,000 visitors. The page, which shares content in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, was founded by a religious Jewish woman and an Arab man. It posts examples of Israel treating Arabs and Muslims with kindness and shares surprising Arab support for Israel from across the Middle East, including Tunisians who created an Israeli flag after being unable to buy one, and who have faced threats for their views.
Muhammad Zoabi entered the spotlight as a proud Arab, Muslim Zionist in the summer of 2014. Just 17 at the time, Zoabi began to advocate for Israel in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. He posted a video demanding that Hamas release three Israeli teens who had been kidnapped a few weeks before Operation Protective Edge. Death threats soon forced Zoabi into hiding, and he found shelter with Kay Wilson, who had survived a brutal 2010 terrorist stabbing attack.
Zoabi became so popular that he reached his maximum friend limit (5,000) on Facebook, where there is even a page calling for him to be prime minister of Israel. Zoabi's Zionism is hardly surprising, given his upbringing. His mother, Sarah Zoabi, revealed her Israeli patriotism on national television. She introduced herself on the popular Israeli show "Master Chef" as an "Arab, Muslim, Israeli, proud Zionist" from the northern city of Nazareth. "I believe in the right of the Jewish people to have their own country, which is the state of Israel, the Holy Land.... I want to say to all the Arabs of Israel to wake up," she continued. "We live in paradise. Compared to other countries, to Arab countries – we live in paradise."
Zoabi's family also includes some fierce Israel haters, like his cousin Haneen Zoabi, who is a member of Israel's parliament but regularly uses her position to defame Israel and side with its enemies.

Douglas Murray: Why the Prevent strategy isn’t the problem

All this is, in any case, woeful buck-passing. If you had to call for anything in the wake of the news from Syria I would think a much better thing to call for would be an investigation into how people who should take some responsibility for the radicalisation of such young people consistently evade any and all such responsibility.
For instance, after the three Bethnal Green schoolgirls went to Syria, the father of one of them – Abase Hussen – was all over the media looking teary, hugging a teddy bear and berating the police for not stopping his daughter from going to Syria. How might she have imbibed her radical ideas, he was asked. ‘Total mystery’ was the gist of his reply each time. Mr Hussen soon appeared in front of Keith Vaz’s media-hungry Home Affairs Select Committee and used the opportunity to blame the police again. Soon the police were hauled before the same committee and given a very tough time of it. Why didn’t they know what Mr Hussen claimed not to know about the girl sleeping in the next door room to him? One might at this stage point out that one of the criticisms of Prevent is ‘spying’ yet each time the authorities miss something they are asked why they don’t spy more than anyone possibly could. But ‘police failure’ is always such an easy thing to grandstand over.
But what was this? A couple of weeks later and a video emerged of sweet old teddy-cuddling Mr Hussen at a demonstration outside the American Embassy in London in 2012. Led by Anjem Choudary and standing alongside one of the killers of Lee Rigby (and this time without his teddy) the video of the demo shows a shrieking Mr Hussen next to a burning American flag while standing behind a banner that reads, ‘The followers of Mohammed will conquer America’.
Anyone wondering how extremist ideas might infiltrate into the mind of a young girl could do with looking into what people like Mr Hussen actually believe, where in the community they get their ideas from and what can be done to stop the spread of the same. It might also ask how people like Mr Hussen are able to so constantly fool decent liberal-minded societies into believing that everything to do with radical Islam is the fault of our liberal societies rather than the fault of the people whole espouse and believe radical Islamic teachings. But as I say, too few people want to do that. Instead the Muslim community and almost every elected and unelected representative uses every opportunity to attack Prevent and slip any and all personal or communal responsibility for a problem they more than anyone know is there.

Freelance jihad

If we reject the term "lone wolves," some asked, what shall we call them? In a succinct message, Daniel Pipes offered a wonderful replacement: "freelancers."
Likewise, the Palestinian jihad against Israel was once dominated by organizations like the PLO, PIJ, Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and others. During the deadliest period of the "second intifada," the proliferation of organizations meant that recruiters, handlers and dispatchers were ubiquitous, and freelancers were rare. And while those organizations show no signs of going away, the current so-called "Knife Intifada" has brought about a tactical shift. Kitchen knives and even screwdrivers are the tools of freelance jihad in Israel. When these are unavailable, an opportunistic freelancer can always deploy cars, trucks even bulldozers as weapons
In the late 20th century, jihad terrorism was conducted primarily by organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and al Qaeda. The attacks were meticulously planned over the course of months and even years. In the 21st century, it is beginning to look like jihad terrorism might become dominated by freelancers whose attacks may be near-spontaneous strikes requiring little planning.
The term "freelancer" captures precisely the entrepreneurial spirit of today's jihadist who works without ties to an organizational hierarchy but follows the same pattern concerning targets, tactics and goals. Economically, freelancers represent the cheapest form of jihad. Operationally, they are less likely than "members" to attract the attention of law enforcement officials. "Training" can be conducted online.
Even if they have "no direct links" to an organization's leadership and have never set foot in Syria or Iraq, American and European Muslims who conduct attacks in the name of the Islamic State or al Qaeda, or "in defense of Muslims," are just as much a part of the movement as anyone fighting in Aleppo or Sana'a.
They are not lone wolves and their motives are not unknowable. They are freelancers in the global jihad.

08/12 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: Black Lives Matter must rescind anti-Israel declaration; Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver – From Israel-Hater To Zionist

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Black Lives Matter must rescind anti-Israel declaration

To give Black Lives Matter a pass on its anti-Jewish bigotry would be to engage in racism. Black anti-Semitism is as inexcusable as white anti-Semitism or white racism. There can be no double standard when it comes to bigotry.
I write this column both in sorrow and in anger. In sorrow because I support the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement — I have long been involved in efforts to expose and prevent police abuses — and worry that this obnoxious and divisionary platform plank may destroy its credibility with regard to police abuse in America by promoting deliberate lies about Israel. It is also alienating Jewish and other supporters who could help them achieve their goals here at home — as many such individuals have historically done in actively supporting all aspects of the civil rights movement.
I write it in anger because there is never an excuse for bigotry and for promoting blood libels against the Jewish people and their state. It must stop. And those who engage in it must be called out for condemnation.
Black Lives Matter should rescind the portions of the platform that falsely accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid. If it does not, it risks ending in the dustbin of history, along with other discredited bigoted groups.
It would be sad if the good work done by Black Lives Matter were now to be sidetracked by the mendacious and irrelevant accusation of “genocide” and “apartheid” against one foreign democracy — Israel. (h/t Max Mendelbaum)

Research Report: #BlackLivesMatter more about radical social upheaval than “Black Lives”

Using Black Lives Matter movement to redefine the American experience into anti-Capitalist upheaval
If you think the Black Lives Matter movement is just or even primarily about “Black Lives,” then you don’t understand the movement.
A new research report, based on detailed interviews with those active in the movement, demonstrates that the organized movement is a vehicle for a radical leftist anti-Capitalist agenda, using “Black Lives” as the hook.
The research is by Anne Sorock of The Frontier Lab using a “deep values” methodology. Several years ago Anne was a regular contributor to Legal Insurrection, but that has fallen off as she devoted herself The Frontier Lab.
Deep values research is something pioneered by Dr. Brian Wansink at the Food & Brand Lab at Cornell University. Anne received her MBA at Cornell and worked with that group. Deep values research seeks to understand not just what consumers like or want, but what deeply held values lead to such decisions.

IsraellyCool: Know Your History: Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver – From Israel-Hater To Zionist

With the Black Lives Matters movement being co-opted by Israel haters and antisemites, now seems like a good time to look at Eldridge Cleaver, a prominent activist of the Black Panther Party, who began as a rabid Israel hater.
For instance, this from the New York Times, July 23, 1969:

We’ve heard this all before, and certainly echoes the kinds of things we are hearing now – from within the Black Lives Matters movements, and from without.
There’s also this photo of Cleaver (right) holding hands with arch terrorist Yasser Arafat.
But then something interesting happened. During his trip to Algeria, he saw how the Arabs enslaved Africans, and had an epiphany. From then on, he became an ardent Zionist.
The following articles give insight into this part of his transformation.

Why Anti-Israel Activists in Black Lives Matter Are Trying to Turn ‘Genocide’ on the Jews

Yet it seems unlikely that the Movement for Black Lives would agree to such a labeling. It identifies with anti-Zionist movements in the Middle East; it would object strenuously to being deemed complicit in a genocidal project. Their reticence, in turn, calls into question whether they seriously believe in the new definition they’re forwarding—will they apply it to friend as well as foe? I was talking the other day to the executive director of a prominent Middle Eastern Jewish organization who was incensed about the MBL platform and (especially) the demands by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace that all Jews endorse it without reservation (On JVP: “They completely ignored us for over a decade and now they want to speak on our behalf?”). It’s not that her group wants to call what happened to Jews like her a “genocide” (though they have used “ethnic cleansing”); but she is well aware that this discursive reframing is not done on her behalf and is not being made available to her.
We could push the argument further—groups like Hamas call for a genocide of Jews in a very “traditional” sense, but even some of the purportedly progressive anti-Zionist organizations operating in MBL’s circle who would abhor such exterminationist desires nonetheless campaign for a Middle East where there is no longer a sovereign and independent space of Jewish life capable of self-creation and self-determination. Is that project properly termed “genocidal”? Are they willing to cop to the legitimacy of that label? Discriminatory application of the new persuasive definition is an identifiable wrong, and one that is worth calling out. It suggests that the term is not being used as part of a genuine egalitarian political program, but as a “ticket good for this ride only.”
But there is a deeper problem here worth interrogating. The term genocide, as many of the MBL platform defenders do recognize, has a special significance and sensitivity to the Jewish community. Its significance to the Jewish community, in turn, has been the subject of considerable frustration to those who frequently find themselves at odds with the mainstream Jewish community. Often, they treat the Holocaust as a sort of unearned advantage for Jews—a chip or a card that Jews can use to tilt the discursive game in our favor, as when Naomi Klein accused Jews of thinking “we get one get-away-with-genocide-free-card.” The contemporary Jew, they seem to think, is downright lucky that his or her relatives perished in the camps—look at the bounty it’s gotten us! How fortunate we are, to have this talisman of the Shoah that we can wave around to ward off all criticism going forward! They treat the Holocaust not as a source of trauma but as a source of privilege, and an unjust privilege at that.

By now, everyone has read about the Egyptian judoka who refused to shake hands with his Israeli opponent after his loss in Rio

Israeli judoka Or Sasson defeated Egyptian rival Islam El Shahaby in the first round of the men’s over-100kg competition at the Rio Games on Friday, and was left standing when his opponent refused to shake his hand at the end of the match.

In judo it is customary to both bow to opponents — a sign of respect in Japan — and shake hands after a bout is over.

El Shehaby had been well beaten but stood impassively and then backed away as Sasson tried to shake his hand.

As he left the mat area, El Shehaby was called back to the center by the referee to bow.

But he was then loudly jeered out of the arena by angry supporters.

He later announced he was quitting judo.

There was lots of pressure on El Shehaby not to compete with an Israeli to begin with. It is possible that El Shehaby was trying to make everyone happy, which was a very big mistake - the story is all over mainstream media now.

Perhaps most surprising is that The Egyptian Olympic Committee is not standing by El Shehaby:

The Egyptian Olympic committee said judoka Islam El-Shehaby should have upheld sportsmanship values after he refused to shake hands with an Israeli opponent following a game which he lost the Rio Games on Friday.

"El-Shehaby was instructed to conform to the principles and standards of sportsmanship during his game against the Israeli judoka," the committee said in a statement.

"It's just a judo game in a global showpiece. What happened after the match was only an individual action from the Egyptian judoka."

Last year an Egyptian judo champion beat his Israeli opponent, and also refused to shake his hand. Perhaps El Shehaby thought that he could do the same in front of a world audience.

A poll ahead of the match at Arabic RT asked readers if El Shehaby should forfeit reather than go against the Israeli. 63% said no.

Any way you look at it, this is a stunning defeat for Arabs who are against any sort of normalization with Israel.

UPDATE: The same thing happened in 2011.

UPDATE: The letter from the Egyptian Olympic Committee:

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.

Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, occurs tomorrow but will be marked on Sunday. It is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, marking the destruction of both Temples and various other catastrophes that occurred on that day.

Surprisingly, it appears that it is marked by some Christians as well, although in an unrecognizable way.

The 19th century book The Rest of the Words of Baruch: A Christian Apocalypse of the Year 136 A.D states:

Nor were they without some' encouragement to this belief from the actual event. One of the things written across Jewish history was the fatality connected with the 10th of Ab. [sic] We may get some idea of the import of this day by recalling the language of Josephus concerning it: "the fated round of times was come, the tenth day of tho month Lous, on which aforetime' the city had been burnt by the Babylonians" (Bell. Jud. VI. 4. 5). He does not hesitate to say that the time had been calculated by God: "one might rightly marvel at the accuracy of the cycle; for it was the very same month and day on which the city was formerly burnt by the Babylonians" (Bell. Jud. VI. 4. 8).

So deeply was this day marked with black in their calendar that there is reason to suspect that from that day to this it has been kept as a day of mourning both by Jews and Christians. With the Jews, of course, this is obvious: but tho following considerations suggest that the Christian Church also shared this mourning with them. The Greek Church keeps a special memorial of the fall of the city on the 4th of November, and reads on that day, as we shall see, a portion of the very Apocalypse which we are engaged upon. But the question naturally arises as to was how a memorial designed for the Fall of the City came to be read on this date. The answer is that Ab, which is the eleventh month of the Hebrew Calendar, has been replaced by November, the eleventh in the Julian year, while some reason not known to us has displaced the day from the tenth to the fourth. We may, therefore, suspect that Christians as well as Jews concerned themselves to note the fatal day.

Sure enough, if one looks at the Greek Orthodox Book of Saints (in Greek, naturally), one sees that among the list of saints commemorated on November 4th comes "Narration in the Lamentations of Prophet Jeremiah on Jerusalem."

(The Rest of the Words of Baruch is also related to Tisha B'Av, as it includes the text of Lamentations but also some text called 4 Baruch that supposedly includes parts of Jeremiah that were not included in the canon. It also includes an early Rip Van Winkle story.)

I will not be posting anything until Sunday afternoon. (But there is no reason for Ian not to post the normal linkdumps in the meanwhile if he wants to.)

Previous Tisha B'Av posts:

2005: A sad anniversary
2006: A reason to keep mourning on Tisha B'Av
2007: Tisha B'Av, 1948
2008: Weeping over the ruins of Jerusalem
2009: The Kotel, 1912
2010: A reason to cry
2011: Judaism's holiest site is being desecrated today
2012: Documentary on Israel's disengagement of Gaza
2013: The Churban underneath the Mount
2014: 2000 years of mourning for the Temple

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.