Monday, April 26, 2021

  • Monday, April 26, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon
On Sunday we began our look at Human Rights Watch's latest anti-Israel screed.

The 223 page Human Rights Watch report that is being published Tuesday completely hinges on defining Israel as being guilty of apartheid. In order to do that, it has to become very creative in its definitions.

It says, accurately:

The Apartheid Convention defines the crime against humanity of apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” The Rome Statute of the ICC adopts a similar definition: “inhumane acts…committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
But HRW has a problem. Both definitions are very specific that the crime of apartheid depends on one racial group oppressing another, which means that the liberals of HRW are saying that Jews are a different racial group from other humans. That is a little problematic for those who know a little history of what happens when Jews are considered a distinct race.

HRW therefore tries to fudge things:
Both the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute use the term “racial group,” but neither defines it.  The development of the Apartheid Convention against the backdrop of events in southern Africa in the 1970s, as referenced in the text of the Convention, as well as the non-inclusion of other categories beyond race, and the rejection of proposals by some states to expand the treaty’s scope, could lead to a narrower interpretation focused on divisions based on skin color.  While discussion of the meaning of “racial group” during the drafting of the Rome Statute appears to have been minimal,  its inclusion in the definition of apartheid, after the end of apartheid in South Africa and when international human rights law had clearly defined racial discrimination to include differences of ethnicity, descent, and national origin, indicates that “racial group” within the Rome Statute reflects, and would likely be interpreted by courts to reflect, a broader conception of race.
HRW makes an assumption that the definition of apartheid not only includes racial groups but also groups that share descent, national or ethnic origin. It's entire argument rests on the idea that Israel discriminates against Palestinian Arabs based on their national origin, which is interesting for a people who have literally no national origin. 

For HRW to make its argument, it further has to prove that Israel systematically oppresses Palestinian Arabs.

Now, let's look back at the definitions of apartheid, and do a test based on HRW's assumptions. 
  • Is Lebanon guilty of apartheid based on its laws that limit where Palestinians can live and what jobs they can have? Sure it is. 
  • Is Jordan guilty of apartheid based on how it treats Palestinians who never lived in the West Bank, denying citizenship and its benefits? Sure it is.
  • Is the PLO guilty of apartheid based on its laws that anyone who sells land to a Jew is liable to the death penalty? Sure it is.
  • How about Kuwait, which expelled over 400,000 Palestinians because they were Palestinian? Or Libya, 
  • Is Hamas guilty of apartheid for shooting rockets (inhumane acts) with the purpose of destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state (committed with the intention of maintaining that regime)? Sure it is.
  • What about the US, with its spate of police killing people of color? HRW's American friends would be the first to say that this is systematic oppression and domination meant to maintain the US racist regime.

So not only is everyone racist, but everyone is guilty of apartheid! 

Yet only Israel is given that description by Human Rights Watch.

HRW needs to go through additional rhetorical hoops  in its zeal to pretend that Israel is guilty of apartheid. It needs to prove that Israel is discriminating against Palestinians who live under the government of the Palestinian Authority, which is recognized as the "State of Palestine" by 138 members of the UN. Since it is obvious that people who live under a completely different national government are not victims of apartheid by a different government, HRW needs to airbrush the Palestinian Authority out of the story.

Indeed, it does - the PA is not mentioned once in terms of Palestinians living under that authority.

Then HRW has to pretend that Arabs who live in Israel are discriminated against because they are Arabs. As we showed yesterday, like many nations, Israel gives preference to its own people for citizenship, but HRW twists that into discrimination against Palestinians - and implies that any state that does that is racist. (Sorry, Italy!)

The rhetorical knots the report is forced to tie itself in gets almost humorous:
Israeli policies have also denied residency rights to thousands of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and left many without nationality. Since its annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, it has applied its 1952 Law of Entry to Palestinians from there and designated them as “permanent residents,” the same status afforded to a foreigner who wants to live in Israel. Permanent residents may live, work, and receive benefits, but that status derives from their presence, can be revoked at the Interior Ministry’s discretion, and does not
automatically pass to one’s children or non-resident spouse even if they have lived in Jerusalem for years. A path to citizenship exists for Palestinian Jerusalemite permanent residents, but the vast majority have chosen not to pursue it, as it involves recognizing Israel, the occupying power, as the legitimate sovereign.
So first HRW says it is terrible that they are not citizens, then says they can become citizens if they want to, but most don't want to, and who can blame them for not wanting to?  

It goes on:
The vast majority of those who applied did not receive citizenship. Authorities rejected many applicants for failing to demonstrate that Israel, and not the West Bank, was their “center of life,” or for their having a criminal record, insufficient knowledge of Hebrew, or “lack of loyalty [to Israel].”
Does any other country allow people to become citizens without a vow of loyalty to the state? Only for Israel does the ordinary become criminal.

Of course, HRW doesn't address the fact that if Israel allows thousands of Arabs to become full citizens even today (and it doesn't mention the many Arabs in the Golan Heights that are now seeking citizenship,)  then Israel clearly does not discriminate against Palestinians as a national group! 

Its historic review likewise does not mention that Israel gave citizenship in the early 1950s to tens of thousands of Palestinians who managed to get back to their previous homes and offered citizenship to 100,000 more, and some 20,000 more in the 1990s and 2000s under "family reunification." This again is inconsistent with "systemic oppression and domination."

This report characterizes itself as a "detailed legal analysis" on the question. However, any real legal analysis looks at both sides of an issue. This report most emphatically does not do that - on the contrary, it tries mightily to lead the reader away from any other arguments, let alone debunkings.

In summary, Human Rights Watch will grab onto the most tenuous threads to pretend that Israel is guilty of apartheid, and it will go to great lengths to avoid any proof that shows it isn't. 

Which makes this book-length report nothing but propaganda.





Sunday, April 25, 2021

  • Sunday, April 25, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon



Human Rights Watch is releasing a new report on Tuesday that is over 220 pages long, all meant to demonize Israel.

The report, called "A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution," tries to prove that Israel is guilty of apartheid - by both twisting what Israel does and what apartheid means.

I'm only starting to go through it, but its intellectual dishonesty is stark and clear.

Here's only one example, where HRW attacks the very reason for Israel's existence:
The 1950 Law of Return, which guarantees Jews the right to immigrate to Israel and gain citizenship, defines “Jew” to include “a person who was born of a Jewish mother,” embracing a descent-based, as opposed to a purely religious, classification.
Of course, the Law of Return says "For the purposes of this Law, 'Jew' means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion."

In other words, the Law of Return is echoing the definition of a Jew in Jewish law. HRW, in its zeal to call Israelis racists, refers to the beginning of the definition but not the entire thing. 

Most significantly in demonstrating Israel’s demographic goals is the 1950 Law of Return. It guarantees Jewish citizens of other countries the right to settle in Israel, and its 1952 Citizenship Law entitles them to citizenship. 96 The same Citizenship Law, by contrast, denies Palestinian refugees and their descendants, 5.7 million of whom were registered as of February 2021 with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 97 the ability to enter and live in areas where they or their families once lived and have maintained links to.
Every nation has the right to determine who is eligible for citizenship, and many countries favor those whose ancestors belong to the same nation. This is not racism. 

Throughout the report, HRW asserts that Israel's laws that give preference to Jews - as one would expect in the world's only Jewish state, especially when most of its neighbors are irredeemably antisemitic - are not pro-Jewish laws, but anti-Palestinian laws.  This is absurd, because no non-Jew can receive automatic citizenship. The entire basis of the report is that Israel is discriminating against Palestinians and it simply does not allow that it is moral for Jews to have and maintain their own state where they can be safe from persecution. 

This law creates a reality where a Jewish citizen of any other country who has never been to Israel can move there and automatically gain citizenship, while a Palestinian expelled from his home and languishing for more than 70 years in a refugee camp in a nearby country, cannot.
And every single Arab country has laws banning Palestinians from becoming citizens - laws that were on the books since the 1950s, ostentibly to "support" Palestinians. Unlike Israel's laws that give preference to Jews becoming citizens and that do not discriminate against Palestinians specifically, the laws in all Arab League states say that all Arabs can become citizens except Palestinians. For over 70 years, they have been languishing in the countries they were born in and have not had a path to citizenship. 

If Israel's laws giving positive preference to Jews (similar to laws in Spain, Italy, Poland and many other nations) is "apartheid" and "racial discrimination," then most certainly every Arab country whose laws specifically discriminate against Palestinians is guilty of the same.

But HRW never says that. Isn't that interesting? The epithet "apartheid" only applies to the Jewish state. Isn't that a super interesting coincidence?

HRW has a problem with the entire concept of a Jewish state, and by extension with the idea of a Jewish people:

Demographic considerations, in particular the quest for a strong Jewish majority, have long underlined Israeli government policy. The key declarative line of Israel’s Proclamation of Independence proclaims the “establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel.” The proclamation largely narrates the history of the Jewish people and twice in the short document underscores the centrality of Jewish immigration. While the proclamation does commit itself to “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants,” it presents the newly established state as belonging to the Jewish people, describing Israel
as “their state.”
And here is the best evidence that Human Rights Watch has a problem with Jews. Throughout its mentions of the Law of Return and Israel's Citizenship Law that favors Jews, not once in 220-odd pages does it mention a possible reason why Israel might want or need to have a state of its own. It goes through the history of these laws without once mentioning the word "Holocaust." Not a single mention of "antisemitism." The word "persecution" is only mentioned as an accusation against Israel of persecuting Palestinians. To HRW, the entire purpose of the Jewish state is to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs. 

Yes, that is antisemitism. There is not even a pretense of being even-handed, of explaining things from Israel's viewpoint, or even pretending to care that perhaps Jews have a reason for wanting to be free from antisemitic hate - hate that Palestinian Arabs have had throughout their own brief history of nationalism.

As I hope to show more clearly in future posts, HRW twists laws and definitions to put Israel in the worst possible light, ignoring any other interpretation or context. Any counterexample, or any example that shows that Israel is acting like other nations, is ignored or downplayed. 

Because Human Rights Watch has a problem with Israel - and a problem with Jews who dare to assert their own national rights on par with every other people.







From Ian:

Protesters mass in France, Israel, UK to demand justice for Sarah Halimi
Protesters gathered in Paris, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and London on Sunday to demonstrate against the ruling of France’s highest court that the killer of a Jewish woman in the French capital was not criminally responsible because he had smoked marijuana before the crime.

Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman, was pushed out of the window of her Paris flat to her death in 2017 by neighbor Kobili Traore, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic).

But in a decision earlier this month, the Court of Cassation’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld rulings by lower tribunals that Traore cannot stand trial because he was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.

Thousands of protesters, many of them Jewish, gathered in Paris to demand justice for Halimi.

Under the banner of “Justice for Sarah Halimi,” the rally at Trocadero Square overlooking the Eiffel Tower reflected the widespread indignation of many French Jews at the April 14 ruling by their country’s highest court.

It was held under tight security arrangements in a cordoned-off enclosure where the Jewish umbrella group CRIF played a video on a giant screen in which French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia demanded another “trial of facts,” even if it ends without sentencing of Traore.

The rally Sunday was the first time in decades that a large number of French Jews gathered to protest against organs or actions of the French state.
#JeSuisSarah: Social media campaign launched demanding justice for Sarah Halimi
The Combat Anti Semitism Movement launched a social media campaign Sunday to protest what it called the “unfathomable” decision of France’s highest court that the murderer of Sarah Halimi was not criminally responsible because he had smoked marijuana before the crime.

The umbrella organization of various groups tacking anti-Semitism said that the campaign, which utilizes the #JusticeForSarah and #JeSuisSarah hashtags, is aimed at showing solidarity with Halimi’s family and France’s Jewish community, whose leaders have called for a mass public rally in Paris Sunday afternoon in protest of the ruling.

Halimi, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties, died in 2017 after being pushed out of the window of her Paris flat by neighbor Kobili Traore, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic).

But in a decision earlier this month, the Court of Cassation’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld rulings by lower tribunals that Traore cannot stand trial because he was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.

Traore, a heavy pot smoker, has been in psychiatric care since Halimi’s death. The court said he committed the killing after succumbing to a “delirious fit” and was thus not responsible for his actions.

“The recent legal ruling in France sets a dangerous precedent that murderous anti–Semitism can go unpunished. It is a shocking blow not only to the family of Sarah Halimi and to French Jews, but to anyone who cares deeply about combating racism, anti–Semitism and intolerance. It must not go unchallenged,” said Sacha Roytman-Dratwa, director of the Combat Anti–Semitism Movement.

“By bringing our voices together and speaking in one unified voice, we can make a powerful statement to the world that anti–Semitism will not be excused or tolerated,” she said.


Massive Protest in Paris Over Ruling in Murder of Sarah Halimi



Rally for #SarahHalimi in Tel Aviv: 'French Jews Feels Abandoned'

  • Sunday, April 25, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon


A video is being shared showing members of a Jewish organization giving out food packages at a synagogue to a long line of destitute Moroccans for Ramadan, under police supervision.




Most of the comments in YouTube are quite negative. While a smattering praise the Jews, most of the commenters say that they are ashamed that these people are taking charity from Jews and that the people accepting the aid are filled with shame and humiliation.

Oh God, hunger and humiliation 😂😂😂
The culture of humiliation and begging of foreigners is entrenched among groups in society. 
The deadly person has made his people a prey for the people of Zion
There is an old Algerian proverb that says: Shame is longer than life Lives perish, but shame is passed on to generations 🤮🤮🤮
My Algerian brothers, as Muslims, we must send planes packed with Ramadan stands to our free Muslims fasting brothers in Morocco. So that Allah's enemies would not humiliate them.
The themes of the critics are that Jews are not true Moroccans, and that their intent in handing out food is to shame and humiliate Muslims. 

It is interesting that accepting charity from Jews is utterly humiliating but accepting aid from UNRWA or the EU is not at all problematic for people who are supposedly so sensitive to shame.






  • Sunday, April 25, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon



Since the Jews were in Egypt, there has been Jew-hatred. The entire time, the Jew-haters justified their hate with reasons that sounded reasonable to that generation.

Pharaoh said Jews would be a fifth column. Haman said Jews didn't respect the King's laws. Antiochus said the Jews refused to assimilate. Christians said Jews killed their god. Jews were accused of killing Gentiles, especially their children. Jews charged interest on loans. Jews lived apart. Jews tried to assimilate and take over nations. Jews represented capitalism. Jews represented communism. Jews were a subhuman race. 

Practically no one said that they just hated Jews for no reason. They always had a reason. But later generations could easily see that each reason wasn't a reason at all - it was an excuse to justify the hate. 

In each case, the hate came first - and then the excuse. 

At the time these things were happening, some Jews would believe the reasons were valid, and they would try to distance themselves from the "bad" Jews to ingratiate themselves with their oppressors. Hellenists, early Jewish Christians, the medieval apikorsim and minim, the German Reform movement, all sought to some extent to escape persecution as Jews by identifying with the antisemites of each era. To a large extent, they accepted as fact the criticisms of Jews and felt that they can escape that hatred by identifying with each era's antisemites. 

In this sense, the new antisemitism is indistinguishable from the many old versions. 

People don't hate Israel and Zionism because of Zionist philosophy or Israeli government actions. They hate Israel because it is Jewish. The many reasons they give to justify that hate is all ex post facto.  This was very obvious in the early days of Zionism through the rebirth of Israel, but in the wake of the Holocaust explicit Jew-hatred was no longer fashionable so it was replaced with hatred of the Jewish state, which remains today. The class of people who say they hate "occupation" hated Israel before 1967; the people who call it "colonialist" hated it before that word became an epithet. 

Their reasons are excuses, and this is obvious because their hate doesn't extend to other nations that have the same supposed traits. 

Today, no one can seriously read the objections to a Jewish state given by Arab leaders before 1948 and think that they are anything but excuses for their desire to ethnically cleanse Jews from the region. No one can look at the history of Jews in Arab nations in the 20th century and believe that their leaders were really only against Zionism and not against Jews. 

In a generation or two, the same will apply to today's arguments against Israel - but they will be replaced by others. 

The new antisemites are keen on separating Zionism and Israel from Jewishness. They want to hang onto their excuses and pretend that the reasons for their hate are legitimate. When one truly sees that today's anti-Zionism is an elaborate fiction and nothing more than a new manifestation of the "oldest hatred," it is easier to see how their arguments mirror those of the antisemites of old. Jews/Zionists have too much power! Jews/Zionists relish killing non-Jews! Jews/Zionists think they are better than everyone else! The world would be better off without Jews/Israel! It is a new label on a very, very old bottle. 

Just as we've seen so often through history, there are plenty of Jews who are enthusiastically taking up the arguments of today's antisemites. Jews who, like their Hellenist and Reform forebears, hope to not be the objects of today's antisemitism by identifying with the new haters - and even surpassing them.

The new minim are as proud of their hate as the old ones were. They use their Jewish background to buttress their arguments against Jews as generations of Jewish converts to Christianity did. They generalize the actions of a few Jews to stereotype all the Jews of Israel in a classic display of pure bigotry and claim that they are anti-racist. 

The hypocrisy that proves that their arguments are worthless doesn't stop there. People who often have only the most tenuous connection to Jewishness pretend to define Jewishness. People who justify modern antisemitism pretend they can define antisemitism. People who are quick to justify violent riots by people they support are even quicker to condemn far less violent demonstrations by Jews. 

The excuses for antisemitism have always morphed over time in relation with whatever is considered most offensive in every generation. The Holocaust didn't end antisemitism - it merely prompted antisemites to come up with new justifications for the same hate, and Israel is the perfect target for that hate. 

The antisemites always have reasons. You need to look at the history of antisemitism to realize that their justifications for their crazed, irrational hate are as grotesque as the excuses of their predecessors were.







  • Sunday, April 25, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon
UNSCOP committee meeting at the Jerusalem YMCA



Here is testimony from Eliahu Eliachar, the founder of the World Sephardi Foundation and a co-founder and vice president of the World Sephardi Federation, speaking before the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), held at the YMCA in Jerusalem, July 15, 1947. 

It is a good summary of the situation of Jews in Arab countries at the time.

Notably, Eliachar was a peacenik, wanting dialogue with Palestinians and a Palestinian state in the West Bank in the 1970s. He was also deputy mayor of Jerusalem

The meeting was held in private, as Eliachar explains, so as not to endanger the Jews in Arab countries further.

Mr. ELIACHAR: Mr. Chairman and honourable Members of the Committee:

We thank you for granting us this hearing in camera. Not that we have anything to say that we would not like everybody to know, but for fear that this may endanger the position of our brethren in the Arab countries, as we shall explain further.

The Sepharadi and the Oriental Jews are an integral part of the Jewish People. The differences are those created by different environments, habits and the use of slightly different Prayer Books and rituals,

“Sepharadi” means a descendant of Jews from Spain and Portugal, as against Ashkenazi, a descendant from Jews of Germany and Central Europe. The denomination Sepharadi includes all Jews using the same Prayer Books and following the same rituals; therefore it includes all Jews of the Oriental and Middle Eastern countries.

In Palestine, with the revival of Hebrew, these differences are gradually disappearing and one nation, with one religion and the same ideals and aspirations is growing.

As you have been told already, gentlemen, Jews resided in Palestine without interruption ever since the dispersion by the Romans. The most ancient community is that of the Oriental Jews who never left Palestine or the Middle Eastern countries, and they were followed by the Spanish Jews returning here after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Our Community, which we have the honour to represent today, was organised and has continued to exist since 1276, without interruption. We number, in Jerusalem, over 50,000 Jews of the Oriental Communities. Our number exceeds 160,000, or probably more than one-quarter of the entire Jewish Yishuv. Jerusalem has always had a majority of Jews. We would like to stress this point. Before the British and allied occupation of the Middle East, this entire area was under Turkish rule and domination. It appears that this point has not been made clear to you. We want to insist on this point; that this was a territory, together with all the other Middle Eastern countries which are now called Arab countries, Arab independent states, which for hundreds of years was under Turkish domination, and there were no so-called independent states before the occupation of the Middle East by the British and their Allies sometime in 1916 and afterwards. Jew and Arab alike were subjected to the iron fist of the Turk. None had any advantage over the other, except the advantages granted by Moslem law to Moslems over the infidels. Jews of Turkish nationality were allowed to move about freely, to settle anywhere they liked, to buy land wherever they pleased. Immigration from outside the Turkish Empire was regulated, but illegal immigration was flourishing. The only difference with present times was that no immigrant was expelled once he had entered Palestine and no British fleet or Turkish fleet took them to British concentration camps in Cyprus, with all the ensuing misery and suffering.

Arab-Jewish relations were good in the social and economic fields. They traded freely together, they met socially, and Jewish schools were attended by the upper classes of the Arabs. I have myself studied with many of the present day Arab leaders in Palestine and abroad, and many are still my best friends. We were comrades in arms during the first war, and better friends it is difficult to find.

The Turks did not tolerate any disorder. Allow us, gentlemen, to stress this point with all our might. No disorder prevailed for centuries in this country. What is the cause? We leave it to you to consider. A special system granted foreign protection to certain Christians, Jews, and even Moslems. Without both these preventives, the Arab masses, who are generally of a peaceful character, are, due to their illiteracy and fanaticism, easily aroused to bloodshed.

Arab nationalism was non-existent, or at least dormant before the occupation of Palestine. The Balfour Declaration was accepted tacitly by the Arabs of Palestine. Only outside intriguers aroused opposition. The word of King Hussein and that of his son, Emir Feisal, was taken by the Arab world and the Arabs of Palestine at the time as the final law and the final word of law. But gradually opposition was organised by the Christian-Moslem Association founded for this specific purpose in Palestine. The masses of the Arabs were inflated on religious grounds, which resulted in the terrible massacres of Jaffa, Hebron, Jerusalem, Safad, Mosca and so forth. These massacres were perpetrated by the Arabs against their erstwhile friends, neighbours, partners. The Community of Hebron, the most ancient Jewish settlement in Palestine, was thus destroyed and evacuated. It remains so until today. A town, a whole Jewish community in Jerusalem, which had existed for over eight or nine centuries without interruption, has been wiped out under British rule. [This refers to the Jewish community in Silwan/Kfar HaShiloach - EoZ.]Such a destruction could not have happened to the Jews under the Turks, particularly since the Government was aware that the Arab masses were being incited and encouraged by their leaders to believe that the Government supported these deeds. “Al Dole Maana” was the password in those days.

Many Arabs condemned these murders. Many have resumed their friendly relations with the Jews, but the fact remains that no longer can Jews inter-mingle freely in Arab towns and villages, even if they be of the Oriental Communities and of the oldest inhabitants.

On the strength of our experience of generations past and of recent events, we cannot visualize our dependence on an Arab State. Our bare lives will be in danger, and the fate of the Hebron Community may be ours too.

Without going into the causes which have brought the change of attitude, we cannot but deplore that present day Arab leadership is most extremist and most outspoken as to their intentions. No Jew can depend on the Mufti’s goodwill or that of his lieutenants. Using his religious position and prestige, he has been calling for massacres of the Jews ever since he fled to Germany.

May I quote to you a few words from Mr. Crum’s book* on this subject. 

 “In 1941, the Mufti fled to Germany for refuge. He immediately set to work with all his influence to agitate against ghettoization of the Jews and for a final solution: extermination. The result was the third stage of Nazi Policy, the planned destruction of the Jewish race… Instead, he said, they should be sent to a place in which they would be ‘under stringent control as, for instance, Poland’. The Mufti’s protest was successful. No children’s transport left Bulgaria after July, 1943.

A few weeks later he dispatched a similar letter to the Foreign Minister of Rumania, concerning eighteen hundred Jewish children. This time he again suggested Poland, pointing out that they would be under what he called ‘active supervision’, a euphemism for the gas chambers…

This ‘common enemy’, of course, was Britain. He went on to say, ‘But most of all they have definitely solved the Jewish problem.’”

We therefore proclaim before the great nations of the world that no Jew in Palestine of sound mind will ever accept being in a minority any longer in Palestine,

The Arabs of Palestine are not organised democratically. Their present-day leaders have never been elected. Self-appointed, they have destroyed and continue to destroy any opposition by gun and dagger. Recent murders are an indication of what may be the fate of the Arab opposition unless the authorities put an end to it.

I would like very much to quote from a little booklet I have here, published by one of the leaders of the opposition, who was murdered in Baghdad, Fakhri Nashashibi. It may take some time, but I would not like to have you escape from hearing this, so that you may realize our position. I have the booklet here and I will present it to the Committee. In the memorandum which Fakhri Nashashibi presented to the High Commissioner, he declares that the Mufti does not represent the Arabs of Palestine. “It will not be an exaggeration if I state that the leaders who oppose Haj Amin el Husseini and his destructive ideology represent seventy-five per cent of Arabs with special interests in Palestine, and those supporting them and their views exceed half of the Arabs of Palestine. In order to eliminate all opposition within the Arab Community, Haj Amin destroyed them. During 1937-1938, a hundred Arab leaders and heads of families were murdered under his direction. Those who remained alive fled the country. The numbers of heads of families, tribal chiefs and leaders who were destroyed or left the country reached 150.” He names here the best, the flower of the youth of the Arabs of Palestine, who were killed. I shall read only a very few names: Hassan Sidki Dajani, members of the R’sheyid Family, Farid El-Hamdallah, Abdel Salam e-Barkawi, Haj Khalil Taha, Haj El-Huneidi, Haj Ali El-Karzoun, Nasr Ed-Din, Vice-Mayor of Hebron. This is what he contends at the time was called a democratic imposition of the views of the present day leaders of the Arabs.

This, coupled with the statements by Crum, gives you a correct view of our reasons for objecting to any minority regime in Palestine.

We have not touched upon the Jewish case as a whole. This has been submitted to you by the Jewish Agency, of which we form part and parcel. We summarized our position in Palestine before the British occupation:

About one million Jews reside in the various Arab or countries. Their position is one that requires all your attention. Their case has been linked to the Palestine problem by the force of events and of the acts of their rulers.

Whilst we deplore the fact that you have not as yet visited the D.P. camps in Europe, which would have enlightened our problem more than any reports and speeches — too many speeches have been given to you, too many reports have been submitted to you — nothing, absolutely nothing will convince you of the imminence of the danger unless you have seen, as I have, one miserable day last year, a glimpse of what is happening in the D.P. camps in Europe. To come to Palestine, to discuss the Palestine problem, to approach it through books, through reports and speeches will have only tired you, will have only made you probably so tired that you will not be able to digest the real issue of the problem. The real issue of the problem, Gentlemen, is in the D.P. Camps. I have had a glimpse of it. And, Gentlemen, Members of the greatest nations representing the entire united world, you cannot talk about, you cannot understand the Palestine problem until you devote a few more days of your time — all the trash that has been going on in Palestine, submitting to you words and words will have disappeared and you will see the problem as it is. What is Palestine? What is Zionism? What does it mean? Thousands and thousands are looking to you to settle their means of life, to give a verdict, to approach the problem from the real point of view. Gentlemen, do not rely on any speeches. Do not rely on any report reading. You cannot possibly have had the time even to read the hundreds of pages which were submitted to you. We cannot believe that you can digest them all. You can digest the whole problem in twenty-four hours, in one single day, by passing through any concentration camp in Europe. I have had the unpleasant position of being there. I myself have never had to suffer. I was born a free man in Palestine. For over six hundred years, my family has resided here. All the time we realized one thing; that the Jewish problem, even as a Jew could see it — whether he lives in Washington, London, the Argentine, Palestine, or anywhere else — is totally different from what you will see for yourselves in one day in the D.P. Camps.

There is another thing which you have to see if you want to appreciate the problem that is facing you, that is demanding a solution. These are the ghettoes of the Arab States, of those independent, sovereign, democratic Members of the United Nations. The ghettoes in these Arab States, in the Yemen, in Iraq, in Damascus — if you will visit any of them, all the reports, all our speeches, all our proofs as to whether such and such a prophet was born on such and such a day, all that will have vanished and you will face the problem of humanity in the raw demanding a solution.

It is through you that we are in duty bound to sound the alarm, and call upon the human conscience of the world to take stock before it is too late. What has happened under the Nazi regime in the West may happen under the rule of certain Governments, Members of the United Nations Organization. Many hundreds of thousands of Jews look up to you, Honourable Gentlemen, to prevent a repetition of massacres such as those in Baghdad under Rashid Ali, when hundreds were killed, or in Tripolitania under the British flag of occupation, where 120 men, women and children were brutally butchered. It is an open secret that the Arab League and the Arab Government consider the Jews in their realms as hostages for the Palestine problem. They have declared this openly. If you require any evidence, we have the evidence with us. We do not want to take too much of your time, but if you want any evidence on these statements made by the Arab League, made by various governments, made by Dr. Jamali, the Foreign Minister of Iraq, we are ready to give them. Jew-hatred and Jew-baiting is growing daily in almost all Arab countries. What has happened once in Baghdad, Tripolitania, Urfa, the boundary of Syria and Turkey where a whole family was massacred overnight, in Egypt, what happened on 2nd November, 1945, Balfour Declaration Day, may happen again with increased violence.

So-called democratic countries, members of the United Nations, sitting with you are indulging in racial discrimination bearing the seeds of unrest, maltreatment and eventual massacres.

Gradually and methodically the Jews in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Egypt, are being subjected to a special treatment which is enforced administratively but cannot be traced in legal documentation.

Threats to individuals are a daily occurrence.

A strait-jacket is tightening on Jews there in their economic life. Any Jewish-Hebrew culture is objected to. Any connection with Jewish Palestine is discouraged. Obstacles and difficulties are placed in the way of all Jews desirous to visit Palestine for any reason. Passports are marked “Not valid for Palestine”. All Iraqian Jews are held prisoners and may seldom leave Iraq and only against heavy cash deposits. Jews of all nationalities — American, British or any other — cannot cross Iraq even in transit and no transit visas are granted to Jews by any State Members of the Arab League except under great pressure. Recently all transit of goods to Iraq via Palestine has been officially prohibited, so as to tighten the boycott against Palestine Jews.

Racial economic boycott, supposed to be condemned by the Atlantic Charter, is openly declared and enforced by all Arab States against Jewish Palestine. Notices to this effect can be seen exhibited at certain customs stations. It is a continual cause of amazement that this continues to be tolerated to this day by the Mandatory who is supposed to protect our interests, and by the United Nations, who have accepted the Four Freedoms.

Heavy penalties are imposed upon Jews trying to leave Syria for Palestine, and should anyone succeed in escaping, his relatives left behind are persecuted and imprisoned. That these anti-Jewish campaigns have reached alarming proportions is evidenced by the recent broadcasts of Premier Nokrashy of Egypt and Dr. Recep Peker, Premier of Turkey, appealing to their peoples for moderation. We have referred to Iraq, Syria and Egypt . Conditions in the Yemen, Afghanistan, Tripolitania and elsewhere are incomparably worse. In Afghanistan there is terror.

Mr. Chairman, at this point I want to make a special appeal to one of the members of the Committee. Over 280 refugees from Afghanistan are living in India. They have run away for their skins and lives. They are not permitted to remain in India for longer than six months at a time. Thanks to all sorts of intervention, India granted them an extra six months. These six months are nearly over. May we appeal to the Indian representative that to this small case of 280 Jews, human beings — if you tickle them, they laugh, if you prick them, they cry — who are sitting there in India waiting for a decision as to where to go. In India they cannot remain; to Afghanistan they will not return because if they return to Afghanistan they will be murdered. To Palestine they cannot come. We do not know where to send our brethren from Afghanistan. May I appeal to you, Sir Abdur Rahman, to appeal to your Government to be lenient, to retain them there and not force them to go hack to their territory, to their own country of origin where their lives are endangered, until such time as we may have an opportunity to find a refuge for them, in the only place and the only country in the world which is ready, as far as their co-religionists are concerned, to receive them.

About Yemen I am not going to speak. This is something from the Middle Ages. I advise the members of this Committee only to note the Arab-Christian writer’s book, Amin El Rihani. If you read only a few pages of that book, I do not think that any man who believes that he was born a man can stand and tolerate, in the twentieth century, such treatment of man by man.

Conditions in Morocco, Algeria and Tunis are now deteriorating due to anti-French feelings growing high, and as usual the Jew is the first to suffer. In many countries, such as Egypt, xenophobia is the basis of all these events and moods, but the Jews — the usual scapegoats — with no power to back them, will have to pay for the lot.

Religious Fanaticism, coupled with national chauvinism and mass ignorance, are fraught with dangers, particularly since an anti-Jewish campaign is kept ablaze everywhere under anti-Zionist pretences.

If the Jewish communities in all the countries referred to cannot come forward and make their own statements to you, if those communities denounce all our evidence, we rely on your judgment to realize that they cannot do otherwise. It is sufficient to read Crum’s statement about the evidence given by the Damascan Jews before the Anglo-American Committee. They were granted twenty-five minutes. They spoke for forty-five seconds. That was enough.

We are entitled to speak for them because of our direct connection and kinship as well as our relative security. Furthermore, the presence of His Eminence, the Chief Rabbi — the recognized highest religious authority of Sepharadi Jewry throughout the world, as his title FIRST IN ZION denotes — may suffice to bear evidence of our grave forebodings. Our numbers in Palestine are gradually and regularly increasing by immigration from those countries in the face of all obstacles, dangers and risks for the immigrants themselves and for their relatives and friends remaining behind. Suffice it to note that the Community of. Damascus, which numbered about 20,000 before the First World War, now numbers not more than 2,000 souls, most of them having reached Palestine.

Another illustration is the ‘illegal boat’, among so many illegal boats, named after our great Zionist of 700 years ago from Spain, the famous recognized writer-poet and philosopher of the Arab world as well as the Jewish world, Yehouda Halavi. That boat carried 350 passengers from North Africa, from Tripolitania and Tunisian soil. There are no persecutions yet in North Africa, but if 350 souls, 350 men dare risk and venture all the difficulties entailed to sail, packed in those small boats and leave that country when they know they will be intercepted by the strongest fleet in Europe and they will be sent to concentration camps in Cyprus, when they know that in Cyprus they will not know how long they will remain there, you cannot find in any country 350 men, of any religion, ready to leave and embark upon such a dreadful adventure unless they fear that their lives and skin are in danger. This is not propaganda. You have to see them to realize that it is not propaganda paid by the Jewish agency or anyone else. If people dare risk sailing in an unseaworthy ship, crowded as they are, and finishing in Cyprus, it is because they are afraid that what happened in Tripolitania will happen to them tomorrow. And they are ready to leave anywhere, naked, leaving everything behind, provided their brethren sympathize here, where they can live as men, as other men under the sun-,

Having been born in Oriental countries, knowing their customs and languages, their mode of life and their ethics, the Sepharadim are called upon to play a greater role in the establishment of harmony and peace throughout the Eastern countries, provided the United Nations Organization is strong enough to impose upon all their members to enforce the tenets .of real and true democracy, the tenets of the Atlantic Charter and the practice of the Four Freedoms.

Most of the Arab countries, with the exception of Egypt, are underpopulated. No Arab country is in a position alone to put to good use the extensive areas allocated to them so very generously by the victors of the First World War.

It is high time that the wrongs done to Judaism in the West be somewhat repaired by the assistance required to establish a haven of refuge for them in their national and historical cradle. The more so, before more and irreparable wrong is done to the Jews of the East by the Arab rulers.

For these and many more reasons given to you by the official spokesmen of the Jewish people, it is imperative that the gates of Palestine be thrown open to receive not only those who escaped the Hitlerite crematoria, but for those in imminent danger for their lives in certain countries of the Middle East. Oriental Jewish Immigration into Palestine will not alter the number of Jews in the Middle East. To believe Fadil Jamali, the present Foreign Minister of Iraq, any satisfactory solution in Palestine will he revenged upon the Jews in the Arab countries. We shall produce evidence to you on this if it is required.

Our present position in Palestine is degrading. From free citizens we were turned — I am speaking of the Jewish population of this country — into second-rate citizens by the White Paper of 1939, and this, against all provisions of the Mandate and contrary to our own status under Turkish law. There are closed zones established by the Mandatory; these were open to us before the British occupation. Such is Transjordan, such are other zones in Palestine itself, details of which were given to you by our official spokesmen

Against such discriminations we protest. Against discrimination in taxation we protest. We are not rich. Someone in this Committee mentioned that we are rich. We are not rich. This is a fallacy. May I venture to invite you to visit some of our quarters a few hundred yards from Kadimah, your present residence.: May I invite you to visit these quarters to give you an idea of our street urchins, our slums, our overcrowded families, which are a flat denial of the myth of our riches.
...

Summarising the picture, we now see with grave apprehension that with the tacit consent of the Governments that could prevent it, men such as the Mufti in Cairo, Yunis El Bahri in Transjordan, Raschid Ali in Baghdad, Anton Saade in the Lebanon, Kawkaji in Syria, Drause in Damascus re helping to shape the future. Does it surprise you if we are worried?

We therefore appeal to you for an equitable solution on the lines claimed by our official spokesmen.

As the indigenous population of Palestine, we demand the restitution of our rights, the abolition of the White Paper of 1939 and all it stands for and the opening of the gates to all Jews in need of a home, whether from East or West. Not wanted anywhere — undesirables everywhere — this germ of restlessness and despair is eating us up root and branch.

To impose upon Palestine a permanent Jewish minority is to add insult to injury. Knowing what we have to expect under Arab rule, we cannot declare to you that, one and all, we shall be faced with Samson’s desperation.

The courageous establishment of a haven of refuge for the most persecuted people since man was created may bring peace to this country, to the Middle East and to the world, in collaboration with all our Semite and Arab brethren.

Honourable members of this Committee, representatives of great nations, millions upon millions are awaiting your verdict; for the sake of humanity, do not let us despair of humanity.
Mr. Eliachar does not distinguish between Sephardi and Ashkenazic Jews - and refers to them all when calling Jews "the indigenous population of Palestine." 





Saturday, April 24, 2021

From Ian:

Lyn Julius: To combat Holocaust denial, call out Arab antisemitism
As a result of Palestinians' failure to defeat Israel militarily or through terrorism, their intention to commit genocide has morphed into politicide, through the demand of the "right of return" of Palestinian "refugees" to Israel proper, "lawfare"' to delegitimize Israel in international fora and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Satloff's strategy has been to create empathy among Arabs by attempting to find Muslims who saved Jews. But this approach has its pitfalls: Holocaust education has been manipulated to confirm Palestinians in their victimhood. Spurious, morally equivalent comparisons are made between the Nazi victimization of the Jews and the "Nazi-like" behavior of Israelis towards Palestinians.

A Holocaust museum set up in Nazareth by Khaled Mahamed, an Arab Israeli, was initially praised by Yad Vashem until he displayed a Palestinian flag, photos and posters of the so-called nakba, the "catastrophe" of the exodus of Palestinian refugees from Israel in 1948. Yad Vashem condemned Mahamed for "conflating the Holocaust with other events and contributing to the misappropriation of the Holocaust as a tool against Israel."

The Anti-Defamation League spokesman in Israel pronounced himself "troubled" that Palestinians were said to be paying the price for European guilt over the Holocaust.

Professor Mohammed Dajani won praise as one of the few Palestinians to campaign against Holocaust denial. He led a group of students from Al-Quds University on a visit to Auschwitz in 2014. Consequently, he found himself in hot water with his own people, and promptly lost his job; he went to work for Satloff at the Washington Institute.

On a previous visit to Auschwitz, however, he had said: "We do not compare the nakba and the Holocaust as if the atrocities that occurred are on the same level." But he made just such a comparison when he stated: "I feel we must have empathy for each other, in the sense that I, as a Palestinian, must understand what the Holocaust meant to a Jew and a Jew must understand what the nakba is to a Palestinian."

The best way to prevent distortion and manipulation is to raise awareness of antisemitism in the Arabs' own backyard – eliminationism against Israel and the Jewish nakba of almost a million Jews from the Arab world, who now comprise more than half of Israel's Jewish population. The Jewish nakba has been thought of as collateral damage of the Arab failure to destroy Israel, yet we know that the Arab League drafted a plan to persecute and dispossess their Jewish citizens before a single Palestinian refugee had fled Israel.

The League states applied Nuremberg-style laws, criminalizing Zionism, freezing Jewish bank accounts, instituting quotas and imposing restrictions on jobs and movement.

The path to true reconciliation surely lies in a balanced view of history, where Jewish victims of Arab antisemitism are allowed to tell their stories, and Arab states are called to account for their own actions.
Liat Collins: Justice for Sarah Halimi and justice for all
In a recent incident caught on security cameras in a Jewish neighborhood in London, a man crept up on a pregnant ultra-Orthodox woman, placed a bag over her head and punched her in the stomach. A vile hate crime – or just high jinks by somebody who can’t be considered responsible for his actions?

In Jerusalem, there has been a string of assaults by Muslim youth on ultra-Orthodox Jews since the start of Ramadan last week in what is being called “TikTok Attacks.” Far from denying the crimes, the perpetrators have posted them on social media, particularly on the TikTok platform. This leads to copycat attacks. And it can quickly spiral out of control from there.

Hate crimes are exactly that – crimes. They are not carried out by bored kids just looking for a bit of fun. No responsible parent, educator, religious or community leader – of any religion or community – can condone such attacks (or revenge attacks).

The cannabis excuse is a smoke screen. A murderer is hiding behind it and the smoke will allow more attacks to take place. No one will be safe – the young, the old, the disabled, people of every skin shade and religion are at risk.

Sarah Halimi’s family is reportedly now considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights after the Cour de Cassation in the Palace of Justice in Paris proved that it couldn’t distinguish between human rights and wrongs.

Last week’s verdict is not good for France and it’s not good for the world at large. Several protest rallies are being organized on Sunday, including in Paris and outside the French embassies in London and Tel Aviv.

It has become almost trite to hold a sign saying “Je suis Sarah Halimi” or with the names of other victims of hate crimes. But unless the severity of the incident is recognized the fact remains that we will all be potential Sarah Halimis – from a criminal’s hash to a victim’s hashtag. Where’s the justice in that?
Biden SBA Pick Serves on the Board of Anti-Israel Group
President Joe Biden’s nominee for a top Small Business Administration job sits on the board of a group that lobbies in favor of the anti-Israel boycott movement and describes Israel as an "apartheid" state.

Dilawar Syed, Biden’s pick for deputy administrator of the SBA, has served on the board of the Muslim-American advocacy group Emgage Action since 2017, according to his public financial disclosure form submitted as part of his nomination process. Emgage Action is a staunch defender of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) that seeks to hurt Israel with economic pressure.

The stance could be an obstacle for Syed ahead of his confirmation vote by the Senate Small Business Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal opponents of BDS. Emgage Action denounced Cardin's 2017 anti-BDS legislation as "unconstitutional."

Emgage Action has described the BDS movement as a "constitutionally protected nonviolent response that seeks to end the occupation" and says it "support[s] the right to boycott, divest, and sanction, as well as the Right of Return of Palestinians." The organization also describes Israel as an "apartheid" state, stating on its website that Palestinians "continue to suffer under racist, undemocratic Israeli apartheid rule that steals their land and destroys their homes to make way for illegal Jewish settlements."

Syed is CEO at the health care company Lumiata. He served on the White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders under President Obama and as a liaison with the SBA and the Department of Commerce, according to the White House.


Friday, April 23, 2021

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Nation of the Dry Bones
In April 1945, the BBC’s Patrick Walker described to the world one of the most remarkable Jewish prayer services in the history of Judaism. It took place on a Friday afternoon, on the eve of the Sabbath in Bergen-Belsen, only days after the concentration camp had been liberated. The worshippers, survivors all, had not participated in a minyan in years. The prayers concluded with words Walker assumed were standard Sabbath liturgy but were actually the words of “Hatikvah,” the anthem of the Zionist movement, and later of the State of Israel. As their voices faded, one of the chaplains leading the service declaimed three Hebrew words, a clarion call that can still be heard on the recording of the broadcast: Am Yisrael chai, the people of Israel liveth!

Walker was witness to what would become the perfect embodiment of the current period of the Jewish calendar, when Israel and world Jewry mark, one week apart, the worst and then the most miraculous moments in Jewish Diaspora history: first Yom Ha’shoah, the commemoration of the Holocaust, and then Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day.

In order to understand why this is so, we can begin with the Jewish chaplain whose final words defined the service, and whose later recollections and obituaries allow us to see the moment through his eyes. Leslie Hardman, staffed to Britain’s second army, had not been with the troops when the camp was liberated but was told two days later, “Keep a stiff upper lip. We’ve just been into Belsen concentration camp and it’s horrible; but you have got to go there—you’ll find a lot of your people.” He first encountered a Jewish woman whose decrepit appearance was so horrifying that he instinctively backed away, provoking her to cry out in Yiddish, “Farloz mir nit!! Geh nit avek fun mir!” Do not leave me! Do not go away from me!

Hardman walked with her and then saw the others: “Towards me came what seemed to be the remnants of a holocaust—a staggering mass of blackened skin and bones, held together somehow with filthy rags,” he recalled. “‘My God, the dead walk,’ I cried aloud, but I did not recognize my voice.”
Melanie Phillips: The delirium of Jew-hatred
The reason for this indifference is obvious. The murder of Sarah Halimi and the attacks on other French Jews over the past few years tread heavily on some neuralgic left-wing toes.

To acknowledge that people in France are being repeatedly attacked and murdered simply because they are Jews destroys the all-important fiction that attacks on Jews are motivated principally by hostility to Israel.

To recognise the motivation for these French attacks means acknowledging something that the left refuses to say and punishes others for saying: that antisemitism is rooted in Islamic religion and culture.

One further aspect of the court’s ruling has a baleful significance well beyond French society. The court held that cannabis-induced delirium precludes an antisemitic motive because delirium wipes out an individual’s “discernment or control.”

But antisemitism is itself a form of delirium. Those in its grip are innately and inescapably delusional. They believe that the Jews possess diabolical and cosmic powers, that they are a secret conspiracy to control global affairs in their own malign interests, that they are responsible for all the ills in the world.

Does anyone seriously suggest that this is not a form of lunacy? Those in its grip cannot discern the reality of Jewish existence and as a result are sometimes unable to control their aggressive behaviour towards Jews. Antisemites are fundamentally irrational.

And yet, whether dealing with the Iranian regime’s genocidal clerics who declare almost daily their hatred of the Jews or with the Nazi-worshipping Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, the west treats such delusional individuals as if they are rational actors. It refuses to acknowledge that antisemitism is itself the infallible marker of a deranged personality.

What the French courts have done is not merely to thwart the delivery of justice for a terrible murder. By stating in effect that antisemitism requires the “discernment and control” negated by delirium, they have also reinforced a far more widespread failure to understand the crucial point about antisemitism and so have also reinforced the resulting failure by the west to stem its terrifying rise.
Halimi Family Lawyers Announce Bid to Extradite Antisemitic Killer of French Jewish Woman for Trial in Israel
Lawyers representing relatives of Sarah Halimi — the French Jewish woman brutally murdered in her Paris apartment by an antisemitic intruder in April 2017 — say they are launching an effort to have her accused murderer extradited to Israel to face trial, following the decision of France’s highest appeal court on April 14 to excuse him from legal proceedings on the alleged grounds that his consumption of marijuana had rendered him temporarily insane.

The decision meant that Halimi’s killer — Kobili Traore, a 31-year-old petty criminal who frequented an Islamist mosque near the Paris housing project where he and Halimi both lived — would never have to face trial in France, causing a furious reaction among French Jews.

Speaking to the newspaper Le Monde on Thursday, Halimi family lawyer Francis Szpiner argued that the legal foundations were in place to try Traore in an Israeli court.

“Israeli criminal law provides that when the victim is Jewish and the crime is of an antisemitic nature, Israeli justice has jurisdiction, regardless of the country where the events took place,” said Szpiner, who represents Esther Lekover, the sister of Sarah Halimi and an Israeli citizen.

Israel’s Penal Law of 1977 contains a provision to extend Israeli criminal justice, under certain circumstances, to offenses committed abroad. This includes antisemitic attacks against “the life, body, health, freedom or property of a Jew, as a Jew, or the property of a Jewish institution, because it is such.”
French Jews Plan Mass Rally in Paris to Demand Justice for Sarah Halimi
The Jewish community in France is planning a mass rally in Paris on Sunday afternoon to demand justice for Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old French Jew who was murdered in her home by a Muslim neighbor in 2017.

France’s high court ruled last week that Halimi’s killer, who shouted “Allahu akbar” and threw her from her apartment window, could not be prosecuted because he had taken marijuana before the assault and was therefore not in control of his actions. The ruling was met with derision from many corners and has led French President Emanuel Macron to call for changes to his country’s laws.

For the Jewish community in France, it was the latest blow in their fight against antisemitism. According to a report released earlier this month by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, 95 percent of Jews in France said antisemitism is a big problem, and that the true numbers of such attacks may not be known because people are hesitant to report them, in part because they don’t believe that police will act effectively.

In addition to the rally in Paris, a simultaneous one will be held in London in front of the French embassy there. Due to coronavirus restrictions in the United Kingdom, all participants must pre-register and attendance will be limited.

Those who can’t attend the rally are being urged to show their support via social media using the hashtags #JusticeForSarahHalimi and #JeSuisSarahHalimi.
  • Friday, April 23, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon
B'Tselem polled Israelis about a number of topics, and it heavily publicizing one result.

The question was:

“A regime in which one group controls, and perpetuates its control over another, through laws, practices and coercive/forced means is considered an apartheid regime. In your opinion, does this description fit or it doesn’t fit Israel?” 

25% of Israeli Jews said it fits (8%), or somewhat fits (17%.)


Only one problem: B'Tselem made up that definition for this poll. You can't find that as a definition of apartheid anywhere.

Dictionary definitions of "apartheid" vary between a specific reference to South Africa's racist system of discrimination against Blacks, or a very general definition of segregating groups. None of them say that treating non-citizens differently from citizens is apartheid - which would be absurd, since every nation on Earth does that. 

The Rome Statute defines it as "an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." It specifies racial groups - not national groups. 

Israel's laws that specifically prohibit discrimination against any citizen shows that the "other group" B'Tselem refers to cannot refer to anything religious or racial, but only national.

We have a classic case of a leading question. The people answering didn't have a choice to say "I disagree with your premise." This pressures the people being surveyed to accept the definition as stated, and base their answer on that - and some did. But changing the question even slightly would result in a very different result.

Anyone can make surveys to make people say what they want them to say. Anti-Israel groups do this all the time. And here's a perfect example. 

(h/t YMedad)




  • Friday, April 23, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon








From Ian:

Two-state solution sinks as Biden tries to resurrect it
Postponement of the upcoming Palestinian elections on 22 May for the 132-member Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) seems virtually assured with the report from an “unnamed US source” that Washington would not object to any such postponement.

The potential boost to Hamas’s power in winning this election at the expense of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would spell the death knell for the creation of an independent Palestinian State located in all of Gaza, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem (“target area”).

Amazingly this failed solution still continues to be pushed by the international community 40 years after the Venice Declaration first embraced it.

President Trump’s plan to create another Arab State in about 70% – rather than 100% – of the target area – was effectively discarded by President Biden from the day he became President – rewarding the PLO for its unequivocal rejection of Trump’s proposal by resuming much of America’s financial largesse to the PLO and international organisations withdrawn by Trump.

Particularly shareworthy has been Biden’s failure to demand that the PLO end its “pay for slay policy” that rewards the killing and maiming of Jews with substantial payments to the perpetrators or their families – currently running in excess of $300 million per annum.

In agreeing to postpone the May 22 PLC elections – Biden is trying to keep alive the failed 40 years-old “two-state solution” that realistically has never had any chance of succeeding.


Caroline Glick: For Progressives Netanyahu isn't the problem, Israel is
As an anti-Israel Jewish-led lobby, J Street operates much differently than AIPAC did. J Street's job isn't to initiate anti-Israel policies as a counterpart to AIPAC. J Street's job is to serve as a Jewish fig leaf for anti-Israel Democrats.

Warren doesn't seek to block Israel from defending itself against Palestinian aggression because J Street asked her to. J Street supports placing conditions on US military aid to Israel because Warren and her comrades wish to condition the aid. The anti-Israel Democrats come to the J Street conference every year to receive J Street's Jewish stamp of approval for their anti-Israel policies. It can be assumed that the more powerful Warren and her comrades become, the less need they will have for their Jewish fig leaf. Over time, the rise of the progressives is likely to render J Street even more irrelevant than AIPAC.

The second lesson from Warren's speech and the J Street conference more generally is that the era of bipartisan support for Israel is essentially over. Israel has become a partisan issue.

The Republican Party is a pro-Israel party. Republicans, almost to the last want to maintain and strengthen the US-Israel alliance. While a majority of Democrats will still support US military aid to Israel, most Democrats prefer to keep their positions quiet because the Democrat base opposes Israel. The Democrat leadership in both houses not only refuses to take any steps against the Israel hating progressives. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Pelosi are promoting them even as the push policies openly geared towards empowering Israel's enemies and weakening Israel.

For many years, leftists in Israel and the US accused the Israeli Right – and Netanyahu in particular – of making US support for Israel into a partisan issue. But Warren's address and those of her colleagues this week proved that neither the right in Israel nor Netanyahu is responsible for what has happened.

In her 15-minute speech, Warren referred to her demand that Israel withdraw from Judea and Samaria as a "moral" imperative five times. As she and her camp see it, anyone thinks Israel should maintain its presence in the areas is immoral. And if withdrawal opponents are immoral, it follows naturally that they do not share the values of Warren's America. And since they do not share progressive values, they cannot be allies with the America of Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.

As for President Joe Biden, so far, the difference between him and them is hard to find. While he may not be going down the anti-Israel path as quickly as Warren, Sanders and their comrades would wish, Biden has done nothing they disagree with. His trajectory, like theirs, is clear.


The Caroline Glick Show: Episode 2: The Rise of Israel's NeverNetanyahus
In the second episode of the Caroline Glick Midest News Hour, Caroline and co-host Gadi Taub discuss the pathological state of Israeli politics in the wake of the country’s fourth stalemate election. They take a deep dive into Senator Elizabeth Warren’s anti-Israel screed at the J Street conference and they consider the implications of the woke revolution on America and its relations with the outside world.


Does Israel Lie America Into Wars?
Colin Kahl’s creepy insinuation was debunked last week. The question is why Biden’s Pentagon pick said it in the first place.

How can we understand that Kahl’s response to reported news of Israeli spies uncovering a “huge amount of new and dramatic information on the Iranian nuclear program” was to publicly retail a patently false anti-Semitic conspiracy theory? The possibilities are finite, and they all come with the same appendix. Maybe the top-secret U.S. government intelligence that Kahl was privy to before 2018 was in fact blind to Iran’s nuclear program, and really did make it seem reasonable to assume that the Iranian documents were forgeries. If not, and U.S. intelligence had long corroborated Israel’s eventual findings, then Kahl’s use of an anti-Semitic canard to deflate the new revelations was viciously cynical.

Kahl is now Biden’s nominee for the No. 3 position at the Pentagon. To support Kahl’s stalled confirmation, Obama’s former ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, and his former special envoy for Middle East peace, Martin Indyk, have spearheaded a letter in defense of the embattled nominee that attempts to portray him as a friend of Israel based on his 13 visits there while carrying out Obama’s policies. “Kahl has been unfairly and ludicrously smeared as anti-Israel,” Shapiro insists.

Really? A hallmark of the Obama years was the corruption of language—sometimes referred to as gaslighting—wherein people were asked to accept constantly evolving word definitions while rejecting contradictory evidence that they might have previously seen as clear-cut. In this case, the evidence suggests that Colin Kahl is a nuclear archive truther who deflected against unwelcome news by spreading anti-Semitic falsehoods. How friendly is that?

From an American national security standpoint, Kahl’s inability to tell the difference between friends and foes would appear to be matched by his failure to correctly analyze intelligence material, which might ordinarily seem like a prohibitive defect for the guy in charge of policy at the Pentagon. But these are not normal times. For Kahl’s brazen public supporters, the nominee’s empty toolkit must come second to his allegiance to the party line—which now apparently includes the idea that Israel lies America into wars.
The Tikvah Podcast: Jonathan Schanzer on the Palestinians’ Political Mess
To understand the Palestinian people and the region, one must understand the enduring cleavages and party affiliations that make up Palestinian politics.

In 2007, shortly after legislative elections that led to a surprising victory for the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, Palestinians fought a brief civil war. By the end of the conflict, Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party retained power in the West Bank, while Hamas controlled Gaza. Today, the Palestinians remain divided along those same factional and territorial lines—lines that are now front and center, since Palestinian elections are once again being called for next month. If the elections go forward—and it’s now looking unlikely that they will—they will feature the first presidential election since 2005, when Abbas was elected for a single four-year term that’s now entered its sixteenth year.

To help us make sense of what’s happened and what’s likely to happen, we asked Jonathan Schanzer, a senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (2008), to join our podcast this week. In conversation with Mosaic‘s editor Jonathan Silver, Schanzer outlines the history of Palestinian politics and brings listeners inside the vigorous competition for power taking place at this moment.

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