Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Josep Borrell needs to realize the EU is an OBSTACLE to peace

High Representative of the European Union gave a remarkably but unsurprisingly tone-deaf speech against the American "Peace to Prosperity" plan where he unwittingly explained how the EU has been contributing to endless conflict.

For too long we have been witnessing a conflict that has caused endless suffering for generations of Israelis and Palestinians alike. The increasingly dire situation on the ground – including violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion, illegal by the way, and the consequences of the ongoing occupation – has destroyed hope on both sides and reduced the viability of a two-state solution.

At an international level, for a number of years, there has been little or no substantive engagement in efforts to resolve the conflict. Indeed, as one observer pointed out to me recently, there is neither peace nor a process.

In recent years, we on the European Union side, are perhaps the only actor to have stayed the course.

We have been vocal in our support for a negotiated two-state solution, based on the internationally agreed parameters and in accordance with international law. This means a two-state solution based on the parameters set in the Council Conclusions of July 2014 that meets Israeli and Palestinian security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation that began in 1967, and resolves all permanent status issues in order to end the conflict.

Our European vision is a principled one and a pragmatic one. It reflects our broader attachment, as Europeans, to the rules-based international order.

In short, the EU is committed to a solution based on the Oslo process - a peace process decisively rejected by the PLO with a years-long terror spree.

The EU doesn't mention that.

Even worse, Borrell thinks that unconditional support of the EU to Palestinian rejectionism is the best solution to the conflict, when it is the major factor that prolongs it:

We are also active on the ground. No other international actor has been as engaged as we have been in practical efforts to build a future Palestinian state. In 2019 alone, the European Union and its Member States had an open portfolio of some €600 million in assistance to the Palestinians. I have said it during my hearing, €600 million is almost €1.5 Million a day.

And what has that €1.5 Million a day done for peace? Or even for governance, for that matter?Not only has it turned the PA into one of the most corrupt governments in the world, but it has also allowed Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies to point to EU support as evidence that their intransigence is the correct response to any peace plan. The EU is saying every day that the fictional "1967 borders" are the only "legal" solution and compromise on that point is a reward to Israel for breaking international law, so Mahmoud Abbas has no incentive to bargain with something that the EU (falsely) says is legally his.

Throwing money and unconditional support to the PA has been shown not only to be ineffective but supremely counterproductive. The PLO has become more intransigent and less interested in negotiations than ever before - and EU diplomatic and monetary support are the major reason for that. Now that even Arab countries have realized that the PA is a bad investment, the EU remains the only supporter of the failed wannabe state.

The proof is in the polls. The Palestinian people are less oriented towards peace with Israel than they have been in years. Apparently, none of that €600 million spent annually by Europe with no strings attached on a corrupt, anti-peace Palestinian Authority has not moderated them one bit.

Imagine that.

(h/t Irene)

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The latest Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll shows that nearly two thirds of Palestinians support terrorism as a response to the Trump "Peace to Prosperity" plan.

We proposed to the public 10 possible responses to the American plan and asked it about its support and opposition to each response...

Public support is highest (90%) to the response of ending the split and reunifying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, followed by waging a diplomatic warfare against Israel in international organizations (85%); withdrawing Palestinian recognition of Israel (84%); waging non-violent popular demonstrations (78%); ending security coordination (77%); ending the implementation of the Oslo Agreement (69%); waging an armed struggle or return to an armed intifada (64%).

Notice that people could choose more than one answer, so at first glance it appears that more people support non-violent "resistance" than terror. But that isn't true. When asked to choose only the preferred response to the status quo, terrorism beats out negotiations 2-1 and it beats "non-violent resistance" 3-1:

The most preferred way out of the current status quo is “reaching a peace agreement with Israel” according to 22% of the public while 45% prefer waging “an armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.” Only 15% prefer “waging a non-violent resistance” and 14% prefer to keep the status quo.

And when the question is reframed, terror beats out any other alternative by a huge amount:

When asked about the most effective means of ending the Israeli occupation, half of the public (50%) chose armed struggle, 21% negotiations, and 23% popular resistance. Two months ago, 47% chose armed struggle and 26% chose negotiations.

Some 25 years after Oslo, Palestinians still are overwhelmingly supportive of terror.

Which is the main reason why peace is not possible.

It is too bad the world ignores that quite basic fact.

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Abbas' new Map That Lies that he showed to the UN

Palestinian Authority dictator, Fatah leader and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas showed the UN a map created for the occasion by the Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO.

It is a new version of The Map That Lies, but it adds some additional lies and false implications, starting with the header - that these are maps of Palestinians' "historic compromise."

The first frame says "1917 - Historic Palestine."

That's a lie. Historic Palestine was on both sides of the Jordan and parts of Lebanon and didn't generally include most of the Negev.

In fact, the map shown here as a 1917 map is actually the British Mandate map of 1923; before that it included all of today's Jordan.

The second frame shows the proposed partition of Palestine by the Peel Commission. It was rejected by the Arabs, so it was never a "compromise" by the then-fictional "Palestinians."

The third frame is the UN partition plan, again completely rejected by the Arabs and therefore irrelevant. If they would have accepted it they could be celebrating the 72nd anniversary of Arab Palestine this year.

The fourth frame says "1967 Border Lines Endorsed By the PLO in 1988 as a Historic Compromise for Peace." They were never "1967 border lines" or any borders; they are the 1949 Armistice cease fire lines. They were never meant to be considered a border. And before 1967 Palestinians didn't even claim them as their own land.

In 1988, the PLO issued a declaration of independence that said nothing about borders or Israel. It can only be implied to accept, at best, an Israel on the UN's recommended 1947 partition lines that the Arabs roundly rejected. A separate memorandum called for an international peace conference based on UN Resolutions 242 and 337, but it never said that it accepted those resolutions that would recognize Israel on the 1949 armistice lines. Now they tell the West that they made a historic compromise, but the language is slippery and far from clear.

As far as the fifth frame is concerned, notice that the PLO dropped the fourth frame from the old Map That Lies which shows the current areas controlled by the PA. There's a good reason for it - because the Trump Plan gives them more than double the amount of area they control now, and the fifth frame would look like a great deal if they compared it with the actual areas controlled by Palestinians now, as I pointed out when Abbas brandished the old Map The Lies at the Arab League earlier this month:

Put all of this together, and you can see how much the PLO tries to fool the world by picking and choosing facts and half truths. Practically no reporters are competent and knowledgeable enough to confront the PLO with their slippery language that can be interpreted to make them sound flexible to Western ears but allows them to continue their policy of rejectionism and their aim of destroying Israel without lying in their official documents.

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02/11 Links Pt2: Palestinian Child Soldiers Can No Longer Be Ignored; David Collier: The Methodist Church promotes antisemitic conspiracy theorist; Natan Sharansky marks 34 years since arrival in Israel

From Ian:

Palestinian Child Soldiers Can No Longer Be Ignored

Indoctrination in violence frequently begins in the Palestinian-Arab education system. Countless reports of inflammatory material propagated on official Palestinian Authority- or Hamas-run media have been published, yet have received little condemnation internationally. It took until August 2019 for the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to issue its first ever condemnation of incitement and anti-Semitism found in Palestinian Authority textbooks. The textbooks included glorification of terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi, who viciously slaughtered 38 civilians, including 13 children, during the 1978 “Coastal Road massacre.” Even kindergarteners are not off limits from Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based terror group, even runs terrorist summer boot camps for about 10,000 children.

The tragedy of Palestinian child soldiers — or any child soldier, for that matter — does not end once the child takes off the uniform. Those who survive their ordeal often exhibit severe psychological trauma that hinders their ability to adjust to civilian life. The evil people who turn children into tools of war for their own political gain do not merely rob children of their childhoods; they rob them of the joy of living normal lives.

On February 12, 2020, the word commemorates the annual “Red Hand Day,” which is meant to draw attention to child soldiers. There is no better time to shine a light on the plight of Palestinian-Arab children suffering at the hands of their oppressive, corrupt leaders.

Indeed, some have already to take matters into their own hands. A multi-NGO campaign is underway on social media and college campuses to raise awareness about the nightmare that so many Palestinian-Arab children are forced to endure. This campaign encourages citizens to send open letters to their governments and public leaders. Yet this is merely the first step.

We all have a duty to raise awareness and pressure Palestinian-Arab leaders to cease these exploitative practices. Palestinian-Arabs must know that they can have more to life than death and murder — and are worth more than ammunition. Even if no one else will tell them this, we must.

British government says changes will be made to Palestinian textbooks

The British Government has said “changes will be made” to Palestinian textbooks from September, following a recent meeting in London.

News came from Middle East Minister Dr Andrew Murrison in response to a question on Palestinian education in the House of Commons late week.

Describing “the active role that we have taken to ensure that no inappropriate material is used,” he said: “I spoke recently to the Palestinian education minister. I know that this issue is at the top of his agenda, and in advance of the academic year in September, changes will be made.”

It follows a meeting at the Department for International Development (DFID) on 22 January between Murrison and Palestinian Education Minister Marwan Awartani, who was in the British capital for the Education World Forum.

After a UK call for action, the European Union agreed to lead an independent review of the content in Palestinian textbooks. This is currently ongoing, as is British government funding for Palestinian education.

“In the last year, UK aid has supported 26,000 children to go to school in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and is also helping to educate 500,000 Palestinian refugees across the Middle East,” a DFID spokesperson said.

“UK aid does not pay for textbooks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We are working with the Palestinian Authorities on a thorough review of its textbooks to make sure they do not incite violence.”

In the last year, the UK gave £20 million to fund Palestinian teachers’ salaries and £65.5 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports the education of 500,000 Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.

Why does PSC laud a man who thinks Israel shouldn’t exist?

Barghouti also makes crank comparisons of Israeli behaviour to the Nazis: “Many of the methods of collective and individual “punishment” [in] the occupied Palestinian territories are reminiscent of common Nazi practices against the Jews.”

His stances are a disgrace. They cause huge offence to Jews here in the UK, let alone in Israel, by denying their peoplehood and right to self-determination, and comparing the actions of a country they feel an affinity with to those of the Nazis who attempted to exterminate the Jewish people.

So why did the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) invite someone who repeatedly makes prima facie antisemitic statements to be the keynote speaker at their AGM on Saturday 25 January and greet him with a standing ovation?

Why did Brian Eno host a gathering for him the next day with musicians and singers?

Why did the PSC and KCL Action Palestine society bring him onto the King’s campus to speak, surreally, as part of a panel on “Forming an anti-racism front”?

Why is a person with these repugnant views being lauded by the PSC and artists like Eno? Why can’t all UK advocates for the Palestinians promote peace instead of hatred and antisemitism? Many do manage to make the Palestinian case without antisemitic tropes or hatred for Israel, its time the PSC learned how to this, and took a lot more care about which voices it promotes.

Completely normal for leading Democrat party candidate (Bernie Sanders) campaign surrogate, Linda Sarsour to attack Muslims, accusing them of trying to “humanize” Israeli Jews https://t.co/gTLlgBTHZY
— Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) February 11, 2020

If you haven't voted in the Zionist elections yet - DO IT

There are 15 slates running in the 2020 US Election for the 38th World Zionist Congress.

Many of them are excellent - Herut, Eretz Hakodesh, Mizrahi, Kol Yisroel, the ZOA Coalition.

One of them is terrible: Hatikvah.

Hatikvah is a slate for "progressive Jews" who want to weaken Israel and strengthen Israel's enemies. Here are the "progressive" organizations that support it and want to grab part of the billions of dollars at stake to spend on hurting the Jewish state.

If you have not yet voted, look at the slates and make a decision. It doesn't cost much but it is very important to have a say.

You only have until March 11 to vote. Don't delay it any more.

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.

The questions that reporters should, but won't, ask Mahmoud Abbas in NYC today

A journalist asked me what questions I would ask Mahmoud Abbas if I could.

I doubt that any of these will actually be asked to him today, because for some reason journalists are more polite to someone who pays terrorist salaries than to politicians of the party that they dislike, but here's my list:

Most Palestinians can trace their family trees a few centuries back, often to prominent families in Arabia. Is your family descended from the Banu Abbas family from the dawn of Islam?

Do you regard Jews who quietly walk on the Temple Mount to be desecrating the area? You referred to them as having "filthy feet," do you still think so? Do other non-Muslims who visit the site also desecrate it, or just Jews?

Do you believe that there is a Jewish people, or that it is merely a religion?

At the UN today, you showed a map that implied that Palestinians accepted compromise on the land in 1937 (Peel) and 1947 (UN.) Of course, Arabs rejected those plans. Why are you showing the world maps of "Palestinian compromise" that are clearly historically false? pic.twitter.com/cd5LquMXzI

Chaim Weizmann once said that he would accept a state the "size of a tablecloth." The Palestinian attitude seems exactly the opposite - you will NOT accept a state unless your laundry list of demands (Jerusalem, "Return," prisoners, borders) are exactly what you demand and nothing less. How much do you really want a state when you claim on the one hand that your people are suffering terribly but on the other hand you have demands that Israel can never accept?

Why should Israel trust that you are interested in peace when you and your government routinely praises terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi?

Given a choice of a true peace with Israel and unification with Hamas and Islamic Jihad while they remain armed and sworn to destroy Israel, which would you choose?

It's been over 25 years since Oslo. In all that time, you could have prepared a generation of children to live in peace with Israel. Instead, you teach them in schools and on TV that all of British Mandate Palestine is theirs, that they have a "right to return" to a state you consider your enemy, that martyrdom is their sincerest wish. If you want peace as you keep saying to diplomats and the Western media, why has nothing been done to actually teach peace with Israel to children?

And a few years ago I made a poster of lots of other questions for Abbas.

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02/11 Links Pt1: Requiem to the Israeli Left's Apartheid Argument; Senior Fatah official: "Palestine" stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea

From Ian:

Ha'aretz: Requiem to the Israeli Left's Apartheid Argument

In this day and age, with progressives tending to bestow automatic moral rightness on the weak and to assign automatic moral blame to the strong, the left is inclined to be furious at the very suggestion that the occupied are to blame for the continued occupation. Part of this fury is based on denying Palestinian recalcitrance and rejectionism.

But the other part is actually more poignant: Some on the left believe we must end the occupation regardless of the price we’ll have to pay, since it is an evil one cannot acquiesce to. From this perspective, the infringement on Palestinian human rights is so grave that it undermines Israel’s moral foundation – to the point of voiding its very right to exist. If Zionism rests on the universal right to self-determination, the argument goes, it cannot exist at the expense of another people’s ability to exercise that same right.

I don’t know if the historian with whom I dined subscribes to this extreme view, but I think this is what many who see the “apartheid” argument as closing the case believe.

Still, one is obliged to ask if what we are talking about here is an offense so abhorrent, so inhumanly odious, that one must die rather than commit it. Should we really end the occupation even if it means collective suicide for Zionism and probable death to most of its sons and daughters (or at least to those who cannot afford to emigrate)?

Undeniably, there are crimes one should die before committing. Genocide would probably be the obvious example. But it is hard to stretch this argument to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would seem there is not much moral weight to the idea that we should choose our own death only to save the Palestinians from the consequences of their rejectionism and their turn to murderous terrorism. There is also little point in committing suicide only to replace Israel’s military rule with a more brutal regime that will deprive the Palestinians of human rights to an even greater extent, as Hamas has done in Gaza.

The truth is that, short of attempting to justify collective suicide, the moral argument from “apartheid” has no use. As long as we refuse to die, it will not save us from having to limp along with no full solution in sight to the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire.

We will have to brace ourselves for a long stretch of political awkwardness and moral ambiguity. Which is still far better than jumping together, with our hands at each other’s throats, into the lava around us. The incantation “apartheid” will not make any of those harsh circumstances disappear.

Is ICC being equal with Israeli settlements, Turkish occupation? - analysis

Amid the all-important International Criminal Court debate about whether Israeli settlements are a war crime, almost completely ignored has been the question of Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus.

The Palestinians officially asked for ICC intervention in January 2015, and ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda essentially declared Israeli settlements war crimes on December 20.

In contrast, the first complaint by a Cypriot official, represented by Shurat Hadin, against Turkey’s settlements in Northern Cyprus was filed in July 2014 – half a year earlier than the claims against Israel.

Seven weeks after Bensouda decided against Israel, all that has been said about the Turkish occupation of Cyprus is that a decision is anticipated at some undefined point later in 2020.

How did the Turkish case fall to the back burner as compared to the case against Israel?

Does this unequal situation prove anti-Israel bias by the ICC, as some claim?

Will anti-Israel case go unanswered at The Hague? Israeli lawyers already have a plan

The Israel Bar Association will try to represent Israel in the International Criminal Court at The Hague to push against the charges laid by the Palestinians, Israel Hayom has exclusively learned.

The IBA's move is designed to give Israel a voice in the court without having the country officially join.

Israel has refused to sign the Rome Statute and is hence not part of the ICC. The Jewish state also says the court has no jurisdiction on matters pertaining to Israeli territory because Israel is not a party to the convention, but the court has nevertheless begun proceedings that could culminate with a full-fledged investigation against Israel over its actions in the Gaza Strip and in various Palestinian cities.

Israeli leaders have slammed the court for taking that position.

The IBA's governing body approved Monday a motion that could pave the way for the organization to represent Israel in cases concerning the state. "In order to avoid having the Palestinian Authority's position go unchallenged, we have discussed the possibility of becoming an amicus curiae in the court and we have assembled a task force to facilitate that," the motion reads.

On Sunday, Iran failed for the fourth time to successfully place a satellite into orbit:

Iranian government officials admitted Sunday that an attempt to place a small Earth-imaging satellite into orbit was unsuccessful, the fourth consecutive launch failure for the country’s space program.

A Simorgh rocket launched at around 1545 GMT (10:45 a.m. EST) Sunday from the Imam Khomeini Spaceport, located in Semnan province in the north-central part of the country, according to Iranian government officials and state media sources.

But the Simorgh booster did not place its payload — an Earth observation satellite named Zafar 1 — into orbit as planned, according to Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s minister of communications and information technology.

The failure Sunday of the Simorgh rocket, the larger of Iran’s two tested satellite launchers, marked the fourth straight Iranian mission that has failed to place a satellite into orbit since 2017. That does not include an accident in August in which a Safir rocket — Iran’s other orbital-class booster — appeared to explode during preparations on a launch pad at the Iranian spaceport.

US and Israeli officials have always been concerned about Iran's attempts to place a satellite into orbit, because the same technology that allows space flight allows intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Did Israeli or US cyberweapons help ruin this mission?

The evidence is light but interesting.

First of all, the consistent failures of the Iranian space program point to more than coincidence and more than Iranian incompetence.

The second interesting thing about what happened last Sunday is that it came close after a massive hacking attack against Iran on Saturday:

Iran was sabotaged with an unprecedented cyber attack on the eve of its failed attempt to launch a satellite into orbit, the regime has claimed.

Last night, a rocket launch from Imam Khomeini Spaceport was scuppered due to low speeds which stopped it breaking into orbit.

It was a humiliating blow to Tehran, which the United States believes is developing rocket technology to advance nuclear capabilities.

But hours before the failure, Iran's deputy information minister Hamid Fatah had revealed the country's communications network had been hit with 'the most widespread attack in Iranian history'.

He tweeted: 'Hackers today launched the most widespread attack in Iranian history against the country's infrastructure.

'Millions of origin targeted millions of destinations and are seeking worldwide disruption to Iran's Internet network'.

The satellite launch was originally intended to be on Saturday, and it was delayed a day - possibly due to this cyberattack, which was even worse than Iran seems to be admitting.

Iran claims that the cyberattack was not done by state actors. However, a massive denial of service attack can help hide an actual targeted cyberattack happening at the same time.

There is another tantalizing piece of evidence that Israel might have been involved in the failure of the launch. At the Likud conference in Nahariya on Sunday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We were told today that Iran failed to launch a satellite. They also failed to deliver weapons to Syria and Lebanon, because we are constantly operating there."

This could be psychological warfare, or it could be a tacit admission that Israel was involved. However, Iran is clearly getting closer to success in their space program, and there is no reason to assume that this program is not military.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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Right now, in conjunction with Mahmoud Abbas' speech to the UN today, there is a large rally in Ramallah against the Peace to Prosperity Plan.

What the organizers don't want you to know is that the Palestinian Authority is pulling out all the stops to increase the number of participants.

They closed down all government offices - and the Palestinian Authority employs some 200,000 workers.

They provided buses for people outside Ramallah to come to the rally.

It seems that the schools are closed, since the Teacher's Union urged all teachers to go to the rally.

In other words, this is not a popular rally - it is a Palestinian Authority and Fatah rally where they did everything they could to make it look impressive.

It would be interesting to know whether UNRWA schools are also shut down today.

The brainwashing of the people against the peace plan has been effective. A poll released yesterday showed that 66.5% of Palestinians "strongly opposed" the plan while another 22.7% "somewhat oppose it." Of course, one cannot find a single objective news report about the deal in the Palestinian media, essentially controlled by Fatah and Hamas. (Even ostensibly independent media understands that anyone who writes in support of the plan would be metaphorically or literally lynched.)

Meanwhile, a column in Felesteen (translated here) had perhaps the best description of why peace is impossible:

Their “deal” includes economic peace, prosperity, projects, facilities and other relatively petty tools that have no place in the ongoing battle to expel the Israeli occupier from the land of Palestine and liberate the Islamic religious sites.

The only "peace" plan acceptable to the Palestinians is one where Israel disappears, or one that gives them a path to destroy Israel.

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Palestinian media are reporting:

The Israeli army canceled the entry of hundreds of Jews to the Tomb of Joseph in the West Bank city of Nablus, last night, due to fears of clashes between its forces and the Palestinians, who are always protesting such provocative incursions.

And the Israeli public radio said it was that the Israeli army canceled the entry of 1500 Jews to Joseph's tomb, and that the army explained its decision that it "is trying to prevent frictions with the Palestinians, and could lead to other confrontations and the deterioration of the situation."

The Israeli army added that it was decided to reduce the incursions of Jewish groups into Palestinian cities, "as an operational necessity only."

Israeli radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that a decrease in the IDF incursions into Palestinian cities has been observed since the confrontations in the city of Jenin last Thursday-Friday, during which a Palestinian policeman was killed.

The Israeli army claimed that there was no connection between the martyrdom of the Palestinian policeman and the decision to cancel the entry of Jews to Joseph's grave, but admitted that it was trying to calm the situation in the West Bank.

The fact that Palestinian media is reporting this indicates that they are teaching their readers that riots pay off.

It isn't like the Palestinians are going to show good will for the Jewish pilgrims being canceled by rioting less - the lesson is that violence prompts the mighty IDF to penalize Jews for Arab violence

This may have been a big mistake.

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Mysterious video of a person who claims to be a Jew in Saudi Arabia, inviting Jews to visit him

This video has been making the rounds of Arab, especially Saudi, media the past week.

It shows a man who claims to be a Jew from Najran, a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the Yemen border.

There were a number of Jews originally from Yemen who had conquered Najran in pre-Islamic times. In 1934, the town came under Saudi rule and the Jews were persecuted. In 1949 the Jews fled back to Yemen and from there they went to Israel.

This man, however, claims that he still lives in Najran as a Jew and he is inviting Jews from around the world to visit him, where he can show them ancient synagogues -one that is a thousand years old and one that is over 1500 years old.

It is not unreasonable to assume that there was at least a few synagogues in Najran over the 1500 years that Jews lived there, but no one seems to be aware of them.

Could there still be crypto-Jews in Najran? It is certainly possible. In the comments on this article in Slaati, one person claims to know this man, whose last name he says is Mizrahi, and confirms that there are still some hidden Jews in Najran.

I cannot find any mention on the web of synagogues in Najran.

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02/10 Links Pt2: Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel; Confirmation Bias and Antisemitism; Hakarot Hatov: ‘Week of Thanksgiving’ to the Druze

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Celebrating Tu Bishvat, New Year for the trees

Tu Bishvat, the 15th of Shvat in Judaism’s lunar calendar, which we celebrate today, is also known as Rosh Hashanah Le’ilanot - “New Year for Trees.” Judaism’s arbor day celebration is a good opportunity to take stock and consider some environmental New Year resolutions.

Tu Bishvat is one of the Jewish festivals that is uniquely tied to the Land of Israel and is widely celebrated here by Jews – religious and secular – while less well known or marked in the Diaspora.

Tied so inextricably with nature, the festival has taken on a more universal environmental theme. Tu Bishvat is a reminder that environmental laws and precepts are not a modern invention. From the earliest times of the Bible, we have been commanded to respect the land, animals, plants and trees. Today, we face a peculiar situation in which both the means of destruction are more widespread and massive but also the ways of protecting the environment are much more advanced.

Tu Bishvat expresses down-to-earth Zionism, highlighting the link of the Jewish religion and people to their homeland. While environmentalism is becoming something of a new world religion, Zionism is out of fashion. Sadly, as the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to launch balloons and kites attached to incendiary or explosive devices, fire is being used as a form of ecoterrorism. Fortunately, environmental issues can also create common ground to bring Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians together to solve problems which do not recognize man-made borders. Israeli R&D is famous worldwide for its contribution to water management, alternative energy and agriculture, to the benefit of all.

This is the festival when the sentence in Deuteronomy (20:19) that “A person is like the tree of a field” most comes to mind. People, like trees, need the correct balance of natural elements including water, sunlight, clean air and good nourishment.

Honest Reporting: Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel

In contemporary Israel, tree-planting is central to the Tu B’Shvat experience. The practice can be traced back to the time when the Jewish pioneers began to settle in the Land of Israel. For them, working the land became an ideal, and they began a process of afforestation in order to overcome the desolation of the land.

The planting of trees on Tu B’Shvat gradually became customary, and in 1908, the Jewish National Fund and the educational system officially adopted the custom. Since then, Tu B’Shvat has been known in Israel as a holiday for planting trees, on which schoolchildren and their teachers plant trees all over the country. The tree-planting ceremonies symbolize the renewed connection between the nation and its land.

By 1948, approximately 2% of Israel was covered by trees. Over the space of the seventy years thereafter, the percentage had grown to roughly 8.5%, making Israel the only country in the world with a net growth in trees over the course of the twentieth century.

So strong is the connection to Israel’s identity, that on February 14, 1949, Israel’s Constituent Assembly convened for the first time in the Jewish Agency building in central Jerusalem. The Hebrew calendar date that day was Tu Bishvat. Each year, the Knesset celebrates its establishment on the New Year of the Trees, and on that day, its members participate in tree-planting ceremonies around the country.

Outside of Israel, Tu B’Shvat generally remains a minor holiday, with no special prayers recited in synagogues and no connection to any particular historical event. Nevertheless, Jews around the world view the day as an opportunity to be grateful for the planet we live on, and specifically for the Land of Israel. Even if one is unable to relocate to Israel, we are all able to partake in this day, enjoy fruits and grains grown in Israeli soil, and celebrate the millennia-old connection the Jewish people have with the region.

While Jews have lived all over the globe, Jewish tradition has always centered around the Holy Land, and these rituals and their specifics serve to highlight the centrality of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people’s identity.