Many Chassidim have the custom of the "mitzvah tantz" at a wedding:
The mitzvah tantz (mitzvah-dance) is the Hasidic custom of the men dancing with the bride on her wedding night, after the wedding feast. The bride stands perfectly still, holding one end of a long sash while rabbis, the groom’s father, her own father or her grandfather holds the other end and dances with her.
A video of a mitzvah tantz has been popping up in Arab social media, and the person who tweeted it said that the groom was tying the bride up, which is not in the least what was happening.
رابط زوجته بحبل مثل النعجه مراسم زواج يهودي .. لكم الحكم!! لو كان هذا الفيديو للمسلمين بنفس الهيئة ..لامتلأ الفضاء نباحاً وعويلاً #صباح_الخيرpic.twitter.com/DCikQJncTz
Admittedly, in this mitzvah tantz the father or rabbi is a bit too enthusiastic and not realizing that she has to spin around to avoid being indeed tied up. Circling the bride that many times in a mitzvah tantz seems unusual.
The tweeter said that if a Muslim would do that to his bride at his wedding, the world would be howling.
Well, yeah, if a groom tied up his wife it would look pretty bad!
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On Monday, the Women’s March made a shocking announcement: it had cut ties with three of its four founders––Linda Sarsour, Bob Bland, and Tamika Mallory. Sarsour and Mallory had become controversial figures due to allegations of anti-Semitism, including a cozy relationship with rabid anti-Semite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Monday’s announcement should have been a turning point for a movement that has been tainted by the recurring strain of anti-Semitism. Instead, in a move both remarkable and disheartening, the Women’s March has managed to find yet another anti-Semitic Muslim woman to serve on its board.
Consider Zahra Billoo, an attorney and the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. Billoo’s hateful and anti-Semitic tweets, particularly in relation to Israel, were brought back into focus when she was “promoted” to board member within the Women’s March.
In a June 2012 tweet, Billoo wrote, “Apartheid Israel kills children as a hobby.”
In February 2015, Billoo responded to the Obama administration program to counter radical Islamic terrorism in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack by writing, “DHS and FBI should launch CVE [Countering Violent Extremism] programs targeting Israel supporters because Zionism is a very real threat to our national security.”
Billoo also made direct comparisons between the Jewish State of Israel and the terrorist Islamic State, posting on Twitter, “Who has killed, tortured, and imprisoned more people: Apartheid Israel or ISIS?”
She disparaged Zionists and even accused the FBI of recruiting for the Islamic State, writing, “I’m more afraid of racist Zionists who support Apartheid Israel than the mentally ill young people the #FBI recruits to join ISIS. #CVE.”
Unfortunately, Billoo’s racist tweets do not stand alone. They seem to reflect the views of most prominent Muslims in America on the Left.
Palestinian activist and co-founder of the BDS movement Omar Barghouti will speak on a panel at an event taking place alongside the British Labour Party Conference.
Barghouti plans to discuss “British state and non-state actors” using “a variety of methods to suppress the democratic mobilizing of those working for progressive causes” on Sept. 24 at “The World Transformed,” an annual four-day political festival running beside the Labour Party Conference.
The Labour Party Conference is not officially associated with the festival, though Labour Party members, including leader Jeremy Corbyn, have made appearances there in recent years.
A spokesman for the festival defended Barghouti’s involvement on the panel, saying, “Omar Barghouti is one of a number of internationally recognized human-rights defenders we have at this year’s festival, which features a range of distinguished speakers representing struggles from across the Global South. Mr. Barghouti has spoken extensively at universities, festivals and events around the world to defend the rights of the Palestinian people as recognized by international laws.”
Barghouti co-founded the BDS movement in 2005, and two years later, the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which has links to the US-designated terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
A Democratic Florida congressional candidate has accused Israel of systematically eradicating Palestinian homes with civilians still inside them, an out-of-context claim that is routinely used by Israel’s detractors to inaccurately paint the Jewish state as committing acts of ethnic cleansing.
Christine Olivo, a self-described "humanitarian" who is running for Congress in Florida’s 24th district, made the claim Monday on Twitter while expressing frustration that anti-Israel activism is perceived by many in the mainstream of politics as anti-Semitic in nature.
"Everyone thinks that if you side with the Palestinians then you’re anti-Semitic. WTF [What the Fuck]!" Olivo wrote in response to an article about the upcoming Israeli elections that was tweeted by a cofounder of the virulently anti-Israel organization IfNotNow, which has accused sitting members of Congress of "dual-loyalty" to Israel.
"We can't turn a blind eye to the suffering that they're enduring at the hands of people that have endured great suffering themselves," Olivo wrote. "THEIR HOUSES ARE BEING BULLDOZED WITH THEM IN IT!"
Olivo's claim, which was offered without evidence, is often deployed by Israel's critics to falsely accuse the Jewish state of carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in disputed territories.
The AMCHA Initiative just released their report on antisemitic and anti-Zionist activity on college campuses, and things are getting worse.
Excerpts:
o Classical antisemitic harassment decreased by 42% from 205 in 2017 to 118 in 2018.
o Israel-related harassment increased by 70% from 71 in 2017 to 121 in 2018.
o Antisemitic acts involving the singling out of Jewish and pro-Israel students and groups for personal vilification more than doubled, with a tripling of expression falsely implying these students or groups are linked to “white supremacy.”
o Antisemitic acts involving the unfair treatment of Jewish and pro-Israel students or attempts to exclude them from campus activities more than doubled, with expression calling for the total boycott or exclusion of Zionist students or expression from campus life nearly tripling.
The number of incidents of academic BDS promotion or attempted
implementation involving individual faculty or academic departments
nearly quadrupled.
o The number of events sponsored by academic departments that contained
the demonization or delegitimization of Israel increased by 85%.
o The number of departmentally-sponsored events at which one or more
speakers advocated for or condoned violence against Israel or Israel’s
elimination nearly tripled.
Expression of BDS supporters acknowledging that the goal of BDS is to bring about or facilitate the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state increased dramatically, with one incident reported in 2017 and 32 incidents in 2018.
Being a Zionist Jew on campus in 2019 is like going into battle. It shouldn't be that way.
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My bill, HR 2407, prohibits U.S. military aid from being used to detain, abuse, & torture Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation. Children should never be mistreated, caged, or tortured with our tax dollars – anywhere. https://t.co/CmjNhgv5va
First of all, McCollum's bill is a lie. Israel doesn't torture kids, despite the anti-Israel NGOs who claim otherwise.
US military aid to Israel is for weapons systems and missile defense, not on prisons.
But the real hypocrisy is that McCollum is pretending to care about children and our tax dollars. In fact, the only children that she seems to actually care about are those whom she can use as political pawns against Donald Trump or Israel.
Israel currently holds some 210 children, 27 between 14-16 and only 1 under 14, according to B'Tselem.
That's over 53,000 children locked up in the US, today.
4,600 kids are in in adult prisons, where they are far more likely to be sexually abused than adults are.
There are 500 kids 12 or under who are locked up!
These children are incarcerated with US tax dollars, whether on the state or federal level. (Yes, there are children in federal prisons as well.)
Yet somehow, McCollum's interest in children and tax dollars evaporates when the children are in her own back yard.
Cloaking her hate of Israel is the mantle of morality, Betty McCollum shows what a hypocrite she is. There is no love of children in her bill - only hate for the Jewish state.
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Ironically, withdrawal of Israeli control would condemn Arab Palestinians to Hamas control and promote violent power struggles between warring Muslim factions. This chaotic situation would enable other countries and Islamic militants in the region to join the conflict and would likely destabilize the entire region. In addition, it would further Syrian aspirations to recover the Golan Heights, and encourage Islamic militants – such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah – to continue attacking Israel.
This scenario is the danger of the “two-state-solution” (TSS). The TSS would not resolve any Arab and Palestinian objections to Israel’s existence as declared in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter; it would neither change their fundamental narrative of the Nakba, and the “Right-of-Return” for Arab “refugees,” nor their demand that Israel return to the UN-proposed plan of 1947. The TSS means, therefore, ending Israel’s existence.
On the other hand, declaring Israeli sovereignty over Area C – annexation – would confirm and protect the right of Jews to live in their homeland and it would promote a constructive, productive future for all residents of the area. It would eliminate the “military occupation” by the IDF/COGAT. It would allow Israel’s security forces to apprehend terrorists in PA towns and cities. It would strengthen Israel’s security and would enable Arabs in the area to live in peace and enjoy economic and social benefits.
Opposing annexation, however, does not and will not prevent Israel’s enemies from denouncing “the occupation” and engaging in anti-Israel activities. And, the issue of “settlements” continues to fracture Israeli society and diminish our national cohesion. It’s a “lose-lose” strategy.
Although Israeli leftists oppose annexation, they offer no reasonable or practical alternative. Moreover, they are oblivious to the consequences of not annexing Area C. Opposing the implementation of civilian Israeli authority (annexation) and continuing the “military occupation” of Area C, therefore, serves no one; it makes no sense.
Israeli leftists have a responsibility and obligation to explain how their plan would work. Refusing to do so means that they are not serious and don’t care about the damage they cause. Do they stand with Israel and Zionism, or not? Are they with us, or against us (meaning the vast majority of Jews in Israel)? Jewish communities in Area C are facts of life. Abandoning them is not an option. The choice, therefore, is simple: Annexation or “Occupation” – sovereignty or self-defeat.
So, if the response to Iranian aggression is not unconditional diplomatic re-engagement, what should it be? The Trump administration remains committed to an admirable and arguably successful effort to use financial and diplomatic tools to destabilize the Iranian regime from within. But that commitment forecloses on retaliatory strikes on Iranian targets. Such a course would provide the regime with the opportunity to rally the public against the United States, shifting the nation’s focus away from the regime’s failures and toward an exogenous threat.
The White House’s reluctance to undermine that strategy and the president’s desire to avoid “disproportionate” loss of life or collateral destruction is commendable but flawed. The Iranian regime is not interested in proportionality. Its interests lie in fomenting conflict in the region, breaking the resolve of America’s European allies to maintain a united front, and ultimately relieving the economic pressure on the regime.
The timing of this latest attack affords the Trump administration an opportunity to turn the tables against the Iranian regime. As the world’s leaders gather in New York City ahead of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Trump administration should use that platform to make the case against the Iranian regime. It should reveal the intelligence its officials claim to have proving why Iran was behind this act of war. It should expand upon its theory of the case: That Iran’s provocations are part of a deliberate effort to destabilize the region, sow tension within the Western alliance, and divide and conquer. It should compel the civilized nations of the world to deploy naval assets to the region to deter further acts of Iranian piracy, which have not abated even in the wake of the strikes in Abqaiq. And finally, the Trump administration should reserve the right to use incommensurate retaliatory force against Iranian regime targets with or without the support of its allies.
The Trump administration should do all these things, but it won’t. Iran will continue to test its freedom of action until it miscalculates and ignites an international incident that necessitates an immediate military response to reestablish what the Trump administration confessed broke down long ago: deterrence. We can only hope that the damage that will be done and the lives that will be lost in that event will be minimal. But there can be no question that, on the present course, it is coming. (h/t IsaacStorm)
Noting that every action the US has taken in the Middle East for roughly seven decades has been wrong, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has adopted the ‘George Costanza Doctrine’ of doing the opposite of policymakers’ instincts.
“Every decision we have made – who to bomb, where to invade, who to ally with – has gone disastrously wrong,” Pompeo explained. “We counted on the Shah of Iran to stay in power, we threw our weight behind the Oslo Peace Process, we invaded Iraq, we bombed Libya, we stayed out of Syria – and nothing has worked out since oil was discovered in the Arabian Peninsula.”
Pompeo continued, “If our instincts are always wrong, then the best way to achieve our desired outcomes may be to do the opposite of what we think is correct.”
So far, the new approach has led to some policy successes. When Israel revealed plans for a new round of settlement construction, the US announced its support and added that it would soon be building settlements for American Zionist Christians in the Jerusalem suburbs. President Trump then announced that he would respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria by opening the door for an influx of Syrian refugees and by banning non-Muslims from immigrating into the US.
And when a caravan of Middle Eastern men in Humvees were spotted near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the military decided against taking them out with a Predator drone. This move also paid off – though the men turned out to be terrorists, they soon blew themselves up when an explosive device planned to be used in a suicide bombing exploded prematurely.
“Crooked Hillary and Obama the Communist Kenyan never thought of this opposite stuff!” Trump considered tweeting, before thinking better of it and logging off Twitter.
One thing you can say about Bernie Sanders: He sure does have some unexpected friends and admirers.
Bernie Sanders and Farrakhan
Farrakhan was very clear in 2016 that he was not supporting Bernie Sanders.
You won't find him supporting Sanders for president now either.
And yet in 2016 Farrakhan went out of his way not to attack him as one of those "Satanic Jews".
According to Farrakhan, Bernie Sanders is one of those "decent" Jews:
"I have to say this about Mr. Sanders: he's a Jew, not a so-called Jew. He's trying to be decent..."
Earlier this year, Omar attacked AIPAC and accused her Jewish fellow Congressmen of dual loyalty:
Bernie Sanders wasted no time. During a conference call hosted by James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, Sanders confirmed that he had talked to Omar that night to give her his support.
Of course, it did not take long for Omar to again accuse Jews of dual loyalty:
two of Sanders' appointments to the 15-member platform committee are so stunning. Professor Cornel West not only has called the Israeli prime minister a war criminal, but openly supports the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions), the most important attempt in the world to ostracize and delegitimize Israel.
West is joined on the committee by the longtime pro-Palestinian activist James Zogby. Together, reported The New York Times, they "vowed to upend what they see as the party's lopsided support of Israel." [emphasis added]
Actually, lopsided would an apt description of Zogby's defense of Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists.
Zogby: I've said from the beginning that [Hezbollah's] behavior was reckless and provocative. But Israel bears the responsibility. It's like saying what Mort is saying and what those who want to make that case is saying, the girl who wore the short skirt deserved to get raped--
James Taranto commented:
Zogby's claim that Hezbollah bears no responsibility for civilian casualties is outrageous, and his likening of Hezbollah to a rape victim is scandalously so.
ZAHN: Mr. Zogby, how much responsibility do you think Yasser Arafat should bear for the ongoing troubles in the Middle East?
ZOGBY: Well, listen, it's -- we live in a kind of an "Alice in Wonderland" world here, where Ariel Sharon is the man of peace and Arafat becomes the obstacle to peace. We've lionized one and demonized the other, and I simply don't think this picture is accurate. The man has flaws...
Imagine a world where Ariel Sharon removes every last Israeli from Gaza and gives it, along with the infrastructure intact, to Hamas while Arafat rejects Clinton's attempt to forge a peace deal -- this is the "Wonderland" Zogby inhabits. Arafat did not have flaws -- he was responsible for the deaths of unarmed civilians because they were Jews.
Bernie Sanders and Cornel West
Krauthammer writes about Cornel West:
West doesn't even pretend, as do some left-wing "peace" groups, to be opposing Israeli policy in order to save it from itself. He makes the simpler case that occupation is unconscionable oppression and that until Israel abandons it, Israel deserves to be treated like apartheid South Africa -- anathematized, cut off, made to bleed morally and economically.
Like Zogby, Cornel West, a BDS proponent, also makes excuses for Palestinian terrorism, writing that the actions of Hamas “pale in the face of the US-supported Israeli slaughter of innocent civilians.” West once accused President Obama of being “most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want.”
Of course, Bernie Sanders is different.
Bernie Sanders and Linda Sarsour
Last weekend, Sanders made Sarsour his surrogate, allowing her to campaign on his behalf, creating a unique situation considering, as The Jerusalem Post put it, "that Sanders is Jewish and Sarsour is known as an anti-Israel, antisemitic activist."
Actually, what does he have to lose?
The Democrats have the Jewish vote anyway.
With Sarsour -- as with Simone Zimmerman before her -- Sanders can tap into the energy of progressives with minimal cost to a Jewish base which sided with Hillary anyway during the last election and is unlikely to flock to him this time around either. A poll in May showed Biden getting 47% of the Jewish vote among registered Democratic voters, compared to 11% for Sanders and Pete Buttigieg is doing better than either of them in terms of Jewish contributions.
Now we find out that 2 months ago, Sarsour -- along with Bob Bland and Tamika Mallory -- left the Woman's March.
The Women’s March is replacing three inaugural board members who have been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, infighting and financial mismanagement.
That article also ties the issue of antisemitism not to Sarsour but to Mallory, who is a big supporter of Farrakhan.
Seth Mandel, editor of the Washington Examiner, was more on-target -- both Women's March in general and Sarsour in particular win:
Whether Sanders will benefit by this arrangement is an open question.
California imam Ahmed Billoo recently called for the mass extermination of Jews. Apparently impatient at the border-security protocols at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, he posted a prayer to Twitter with the hashtag "Zionists": "Oh God, reduce their numbers, exterminate them, and don't leave a single one alive."
Ahmed Billoo's sister is Zahra Billoo, director of the San Francisco branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She is also an important figure in the Women's March movement, and has appeared alongside her brother at Women's March events.
...[Zahra Billoo] was curiously unwilling to offer any criticism when it came to her brother advocating mass-murder. On the contrary, Zahra Billoo made a heartfelt post to her brother on Facebook a mere few hours after he prayed for the extermination of Jews, apparently in relation to another public stand he had taken: "My brother makes me proud often, but there's a special kind of appreciation I have when he does this - puts his privilege to good use, asserting his rights, speaking out against border harassment, and thereby making it at least somewhat easier for those who are afraid or unable." [emphasis added]
Bernie Sanders is a convenient shield for antisemites.
He is Jewish -- but does not advertise that fact.
Sanders rarely talks about it publicly.
He may support Israel, but he adopts the progressive narrative about the extent of Gazan casualties during war between Israel and Hamas, as well as the narrative that makes armed Gazan rioters trying to break through into Israel as nothing more than peaceful protestors.
Maybe Kampeas is right, and Sanders it typical.
But Sanders does come across as shy about his being a Jews and more defensive than most when it comes to Israel.
More to the point, I don't know if we can be so sanguine about this "norm" of Jewish American.
What really is so Jewish about being progressive?
Daniel Gordis writes that
most American Jews, having lost a sense of peoplehood and then a commitment to religion or Torah, have recently assumed an identity that is focused on little but politics. Yet as a form of politics, Judaism has, so far, found little to say that is uniquely Jewish.
Gordis concludes the thought rather darkly:
And if we have nothing unique to say, does it really matter if American Jews do not survive?
I would suggest that if we Jews in America cannot identify as Jews and feel unique as Jews, then there are those out there who will be only too happy to define our Jewish identity for their own purposes.
And the names of some of those people are on this page.
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Al Resalah has an interview with Bassam Abu Sharif, political advisor to late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
According to Abu Sharif, the Oslo Accords was an "ambush" to Palestinian dreams and, despite being warned, Arafat only realized this in January 1997, when the Hebron Agreement was signed.
"From that time he started preparing to resist the occupation, and that is why they murdered him with poison – because he decided to resist, " Abu Sharif charged.
Abu Sharif said that that Arafat renounced the Oslo agreement from the time that he discovered the supposed deception, and he "decided to complete the path of struggle through a number of popular waves, be it the (Western Wall) Tunnel riots or the Second Intifada."
The Western Wall Tunnel Riots were in September 1996, months before the Hebron Agreement, so the timing here is a bit off. Nevertheless, here is an Arafat aide that says that Arafat planned the Second Intifada at the height of the Oslo "peace" process, and three years before the Camp David summit.
There is far more independent evidence that Arafat was behind the Second Intifada. Hamas admits openly that Arafat instructed them to start attacking Jews. Arafat's wife Suha says that he warned her to leave Palestine after Camp David's failure because he planned to start an intifada.
Even if Abu Sharif is making this entire story up, it shows that Palestinian leadership is proud of violence and killing Jews.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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Syrian website Geiroon has an article about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which completely believes the myth.
Somehow the article manages to avoid saying the word "Jews" as is describes how “Some elements of the Zionist conspiracy throw the seeds of controversy and riots in all countries, through secret societies: political, religious, artistic and sports, Masonic forums, clubs of various activity, associations of every color, as well as the transfer of states from tolerance to political and religious extremism, pornography, chaos, impossibility of justice and the principles of equality."
Throughout the article the word "Jews" is replaced with "Zionists" as if the Protocols was written about Israel.
But the illustration for the article reveals the sham of simply replacing the word "Jew" with "Zionist" to avoid the charge of antisemitism:
It comes from a Spanish edition of the Protocols from 1930:
Nah, nothing antisemitic about that.
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The commissioner of the Hessian Federal State Government for Jewish Life and the Fight Against Antisemitism has filed a criminal complaint against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s chapter in the German city of Wiesbaden.
Uwe Becker told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that he made such a move after the chapter posted several tweets that targeted the Jewish state and also led to anti-Jewish incitement.
“[The] Wiesbaden branch of the antisemitic BDS movement stoked incitement on social media that targeted an American synagogue with antisemitic insults” on September 12, Becker said. “Wiesbaden termed the State of Israel, in its statements on social media, as a ‘Zionist colony’ and the flag of the Jewish state as a symbol of a genocidal, colonialist ideology.”
The BDS group’s tweets were replies to a post by American philanthropist Adam Milstein. Milstein tweeted a video showing the Baba Sale Synagogue in Los Angeles, which was vandalized with “Free Palestine” graffiti on September 11.
Milstein condemned the graffiti, tweeting that “BDS is the 21st Century #Antisemitism, it radicalized all other extremist movements, promotes violence against Jews and resembles the Nazi methods to boycott The Jewish people.” Wiesbaden’s BDS chapter replied with several tweets.
The commissioner said he considers the group’s statements on social media “deeply antisemitic” and that the tweets exceed the threshold of incitement.
Oxfam faces a $160 million counter-terror claim in a New York court. The case, brought by a pro-Israel lawyer and activist, alleges that the NGO contravened US law during its work in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
The lawyer behind the case told The New Humanitarian he has filed five other similar cases, which remain under seal in the US courts.
David Abrams, who runs the Zionist Advocacy Center, alleges that Oxfam’s work on an agriculture policy project in Gaza constituted “material support” to Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group.
The seven-page filing claims that Oxfam should have acknowledged the Gaza project when signing other grants with USAID, the US federal government department that administers aid and development projects, amounting to $53 million.
The agriculture project was largely funded by the Swiss government and the USAID grants mentioned include projects in Iraq, Ethiopia, and the Philippines. Under the alleged offence, the other USAID contracts don’t need to be related to the alleged material support; what matters legally is that Oxfam signed agreements to receive US government monies.
In response to questions, Oxfam emailed TNH a statement saying, “Oxfam takes such matters extremely seriously. We are aware of the lawsuit and reject the allegation made in it."
If Linda Sarsour wanted to ponder which side of history her longstanding association with AMP puts her, she could check out AMP’s slideshow on “Jerusalem in the crosshairs.” The third slide is a good example of the vileness on display: it justifies the murderous violence incited by the notorious Haj Amin al-Husseini against the Jews of British Mandate Palestine exactly 90 years ago, in 1929.
Arabs murdered 133 Jews and wounded hundreds, but as far as AMP is concerned, the victims were to blame: “The uprising was sparked after Zionist groups came to the wall and planted Zionist flags, declaring that ‘This wall is ours.’” The wall in question is the Western Wall, which had been designated as a Jewish place of prayer for hundreds of years. Revealingly, AMP prefers the term “al-Buraq Wall” since this term is popular among those who want to erase Jewish history on the basis of the myth that one night, a flying horse named Buraq conveyed Islam’s founder to the Al-Aqsa mosque, which of course didn’t exist during Muhammad’s lifetime.
While Linda Sarsour presumably feels she and groups like AMP are on the right side of history, Bari Weiss can only be commended for being on the other side. What angers Sarsour so much is that Weiss doesn’t buy into the illusion promoted by many of today’s self-described “progressives,” who insist that the oldest hatred stopped evolving with the Nazis and, therefore, only right-wing Nazi-style antisemitism deserves to be considered dangerous. But as Bari Weiss points out, “Neo-Nazis, in a way, are straightforward. We know they wish us dead. Antisemites with PhDs, the ones who defend their bigotry as enlightened thinking, are harder to fight.”
Linda Sarsour may not have a PhD, but she’s still rather good at defending her hatred for the world’s only Jewish state and her whitewashing of murderous Islamist Jew-hatred as enlightened thinking. And she arguably deserves a dishonorary PhD in hypocrisy and cynicism for pretending to cheer Bernie Sanders’ candidacy as a historic Jewish milestone, while dismissing mainstream Jewish concerns about contemporary antisemitism as “being on the wrong side of history.”
So antisemites in 1920s North America referred to their Jewish friends, who were much better than the other, disgusting Jews, as "white Jews."
The term is used by antisemites today, too - just they consider "white Jews" to be the bad ones.
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Dismantling the Villa in the Jungle: Matzpen, Zochrot, and the Whitening of Israel
Johannes Becke
Abstract
As a contribution to the debate over Zionism and Jewish whiteness, this essay establishes a typological framework that analyzes the history and politics of Israel’s self-whitening. The typology argues the Zionist emphasis on self-westernization has resulted in three modes of Ashkenazi-Israeli whitening: while colonial whitening describes the acquisition of whiteness by means of conquest, anticolonial whitening consists in the self-critique as colonial settlers, a process of acquiring whiteness by denouncing it. In contrast, postcolonial whitening shifts its emphasis to the politics of memory and atonement, a form of becoming white by means of white guilt. In order to explore the continuities and ruptures throughout the process of Israel’s whitening, the analysis focuses on both Zionism and Anti-Zionism, with a special emphasis on the two left-wing organizations Matzpen and Zochrot. Based on the typological framework, the essay argues all three forms of Ashkenazi-Israeli whitening might best be compared to what Edward Kamau Brathwaite describes as “bastard metropolitanism,” the long-distance Eurocentrism and denial of Creolization which characterizes the elite culture of postcolonial societies.
The actual paper shows an obsession both from this author and from those he quotes to ascribe "whiteness" to Jews, or mostly to Ashkenazic Jews.
The introduction shows that the "color" of Jews has changed over time, but the reasons he gives are telling:
While American Jews became white by suburbanization, Israeli Jews did so by colonization (Brodkin 1998; Goldstein 2006; Sicher 2013). In both cases, the crossing of the colour line coincided with the crossing of geographic boundaries. Like other “ethnic” immigrants from Europe (especially Italian and Irish Catholics), American Jews became white by leaving the inner cities in a process described by Painter as the “third enlargement of American whiteness” (2010, 359). In contrast, European Jews transformed from an “Orientalisches Fremdlingsvolk (a foreign Asiatic people)” (Reinharz and Shavit 2010, 136) into a “white settler community in Palestine” (Owen 2000, 19) by crossing the Mediterranean. Throughout this process of whitening, racialized discourse on Jewish otherness switched into reverse. As long as Jews represented the “internal Orient” (Rohde 2005) of Europe, their Orientalization went hand in hand with speculations about their Middle Eastern descent.1 Once Israeli Jews came to represent the “internal Occident” of the Middle East, their Occidentalization was increasingly expressed in the form of speculations about their whiteness, since (to quote Joseph Massad) “they look like other Europeans,… they speak European languages” (Massad and Morris 2006, 163).
So what are Mizrahi Jews? If they are colonialists, they are white, if they are oppressed by whitened Jews, they are black.
This obsession with "color" gets even more absurd, as the author posits that Israeli "whitening" makes American Jews more white as well:
Both US Jews and Israeli Jews gained a certain sense of whiteness as part of the boundary expansion of European colonialism, a process in which ever expanding geographic boundaries coincided with shifting notions of racialized discourse.
It is obvious throughout the paper that "white=evil" and "black=good." "White" represents colonialism and racism, but only for Jews as alleged European proxies. Arab colonialism is never described in academia as "whitening."
This next section is telling. He knows that there is really no racial distinction between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East; he knows that it is too simplistic to categorize people as either black or white. But he has to!
The binary classification of human beings into “black” and “white” seems woefully ill-equipped to capture the multi-ethnic reality of Jewish peoplehood (Azoulay 2001). Given its origins in the pseudo-science of racial theory, the dichotomy could easily be dismissed as too unscholarly, too Eurocentric, and too recent to illustrate the formation of Jewish-Israeli identity. The categorization as “white,” for instance, would have made little sense to earlier generations of Zionists and Arab nationalists: both had been influenced by the complex racial theories of nineteenth-century Europe, which understood Jews and Arabs as too closely related to stand on different sides of the racial divide of “whiteness.”
However, since the discourse on Ashkenazi-Jewish whiteness has come to structure core elements of the Arab–Israeli conflict and Israeli identity [by idiot academics but not by the parties themselves - EoZ] , the process of Israel’s (self-)whitening deserves to be studied from a historical perspective (Sasson-Levy 2013). Whiteness has become a crucial category for the self-understanding of the “white sabra” (Benvenisti 2012),5 the distinction between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews as “white Jews” and “black Jews” (Chetrit 2010) as well as the Arab nationalist understanding of Zionism as a form of settler colonialism by people who “look like other Europeans” (Massad and Morris 2006, 163). The terminology of “whitening” and “self-whitening” deployed here already indicates the fluid, socially constructed, and ultimately contingent nature of racialized discourse (Tessman 2001). Even for a trained observer, it might be hard to distinguish Jews from Arabs and Ashkenazi Israelis from Mizrahi (or Middle Eastern Jewish) Israelis on the streets of Jerusalem.
This is academically approved racism. The author admits that there is no scientific distinction between "white" and "black" Jews or Arabs, but there have already been so many papers written that embrace that distinction, so we might as well embrace it.
There is a further irony. This author admits that Israelis now do not self-identify as white at all, and look upon themselves as indigenous. This threatens the thesis of "self-whitening." So who comes to the rescue? Leftist Jews who blame Israel for all the problems of the region, who are doing this because they identify as white and they suffer from white guilt!
The colonial whitening of Zionist Orientalism transformed Jewish immigrants in the Land of Israel/Palestine into cultured Europeans, eager to liberate the Middle East (and themselves) from the “Orient.” In contrast, the anticolonial whitening of anti-Zionist Occidentalism turned a handful of New Left activists into “white revolutionaries” who would bring down their Zionist settler-state in order to ensure the survival of their community in a non-Zionist non-state. While both cultural formations still breathed the colonial vitalism of white (or maybe whitish) supremacy, the postcolonial whitening of Zochrot (or rather its elaborate staging of pseudo-postcoloniality) might be interpreted as the reflection of an increasingly post-western world order and a post-western Israel, in which the declining appeal of whiteness can only be savoured in the bitter-sweet aftertaste of white guilt.
Note that the German author finds these uber-Leftist Jews to be just as distastefully "white" as other Jews.
To give an idea of how offensive this all is, imagine saying that Barack Obama is white, given his perfect elocution of "white" English and his full acceptance as an ideal person by white liberal Americans. Obama would be offended, and rightly so.
Yet calling Jews who nearly all originated in the Middle East as white - when the word is used as an epithet to mean colonialist, racist, European Westerner - is not at all looked down upon by the very people who are conditioned to find offense in the slightest seeming act that can be interpreted as racist or orientalist.
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Instead of acknowledging their responsibility for failing to combat the drug trafficking, the leaders of Hamas have been trying to blame everyone but themselves.... These leaders are trying hard to convince Palestinians that Israel and Hamas's rivals in the Palestinian Fatah faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are responsible for flooding the Gaza Strip with illegal drugs.
The Palestinians' attempt to establish a connection between Israel and illegal drugs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is no less dangerous than their terrorist attacks against Israel. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are sending the following message to their people: The Jews are conspiring to destroy Palestinians by delivering illegal drugs to our communities. Therefore, we need to fight these Jews to prevent them from achieving
The Palestinians have never provided a shred of evidence to corroborate this false accusation against Israel. Why should they allow the truth to get in the way of a good story? Palestinian leaders are experts when it comes to blaming Israel and Jews, instead of the real sources, for all the miseries of their people.
Palestinian leaders are also unlikely to denounce the criminals and terrorists who planted the narcotics in the shampoo and cream bottles of ill women before they traveled for medical treatment in Egypt. Instead, Palestinian leaders will continue to incite their people against Israel and Jews, spreading blood libels of every sort at every turn. In that way, Palestinians will continue to hunt down Jews -- whether they are behind trees and rocks or in plain sight.
‘I had a call today with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of moving forward with a Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Israel, that would further anchor the tremendous alliance between our two countries,” US President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday. “I look forward to continuing those discussions after the Israeli Elections when we meet at the United Nations later this month!”
Netanyahu thanked Trump in a subsequent tweet: “The Jewish State has never had a greater friend in the White House... We will continue full steam ahead with our common battle against terrorism.”
In Hebrew, Netanyahu tweeted: “On Friday, I received support from President Trump, and [Blue and White chairman] Benny Gantz received support from [talk show hosts] Ophira and Berko.”
Thus a treaty between Israel and its greatest ally, the US, was reduced to an election campaign gimmick.
A mutual defense treaty between Israel and US would be a major development – whether good or bad remains to be seen.
The benefits of such a treaty seem obvious. It codifies American support for Israeli defense. The US has generally had our backs in times of trouble, but this would mean an official commitment on paper, that if Israel were under attack, the US would be there to help us, perhaps even with troops on the ground, something that has never happened before.
However, there are quite a few downsides to the treaty. Netanyahu himself opposed it in the 1990s, when then-prime minister Shimon Peres pursued it. On his first visit to Washington as prime minister in July 1996, Netanyahu argued that he would not even consider a treaty that could limit Israel’s military independence. His defense minister, Itzik Mordechai, similarly said that the cost of a defense treaty could be greater than its usefulness to Israel. Former US president Bill Clinton also offered such a treaty to Netanyahu in exchange for concessions of Israeli sovereignty to the Palestinians, according to negotiator Dennis Ross’ memoirs, and Netanyahu turned it down.
I want to express gratitude to Jason who is a great leader. Everything that has happened under the president is because of his leadership and his team. We have honored Jason in the City of Jerusalem with the Friends of Zion Award and we will miss him dearly. We know Jason Greenblatt – nothing will change with his love of Israel and his commitment to Israel.
The award we bestowed on Greenblatt is earned by world leaders and influential figures that have gone “above and beyond” for the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Others who have received this award are: US presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Bulgarian president Rosen Plevneliev, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and, most recently, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.
The Friends of Zion Museum reveals fascinating stories emphasizing the support and heroism of the many friends of the Jewish People and the State of Israel. It serves as a platform to fight global antisemitism and to stand strong against the BDS movement.
The Museum is launching a $100 million project to help educate pro-Israel supporters around the world about the Jewish state, its challenges, and its achievements. FOZ is developing an Ambassador Institute, which includes the first Christian Zionist think-tank, a communications center and an online university. It has become one of the top must-see sites in Israel for all tourists and Israeli residents.
Currently sitting on the board is IDF General (res.) Yossi Peled as the head of the FOZ Israeli Board of Trustees, along with other distinguished members. The Friends of Zion Museum was honored to have as its former international chairman, the late president Shimon Peres.
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Weekend long read
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1) At the Spectator, Jonathan Spyer explains ‘Why Hezbollah miscalculated –
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Weekend long read
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1) At the Spectator, Jonathan Spyer explains ‘Why Hezbollah miscalculated –
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Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
