Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, February 13, 2022

02/13 Links: Archaeology proves Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel; Amnesty’s problem with Israel – too many Jews; Abbas openly calls on Palestinians to murder Israelis

From Ian:

David Collier: Amnesty’s problem with Israel – too many Jews

Amnesty’s definition of ‘Apartheid’ means ‘Jewish majority rule’

These are some of the problems in Israel inside Amnesty’s ‘Apartheid’ report:
The report makes clear that they have a problem with Israel’s ‘law of return’ which is the basis of the world having a refuge for Jewish people (page 82).
Amnesty has a problem with Hebrew being the dominant language (page 212).
They have a problem with Jewish majority state control (throughout the document).
Amnesty has a problem with the Jewish state ‘owning’ its own land (throughout the document).
It has a problem with urban renewal projects (throughout the document)
Amnesty has a problem with the Jewish state building towns to house Jewish refugees and immigrants (page 146)
It has a problem with a Jewish majority anywhere – referring to the impact of that majority as ”Judaization’ (example page 22)
Amnesty has a problem when the Jewish state embarks on social and economic development programs (page 153)
Amnesty has a problem with normal economic restraints (such as a state not having enough money to invest as much as it should – see investment on classrooms on page 213)
It has a problem with there being more ‘Jewish localities’ than non-Jewish ones (page 146).
Amnesty scream ‘Apartheid’ when they see a housing shortage (you know, like we have in the UK)

The bottom line is this: Amnesty International have a problem with a Jewish majority state – period.

Wanting to destroy Israel
Being in the majority comes with perks. Most people will speak the same language as you, worship the same god as you and celebrate the same holidays as you. A nation’s culture is shaped by the majority. Christmas day is a big holiday in the UK – not so much in Saudi Arabia. The UK’s flag and many of the state’s emblems carry a cross – which you won’t tend to find on the state emblems in Indonesia. Nothing of this is untoward. The UK is not an Apartheid state because Easter is celebrated with a public holiday – and Ramadan isn’t. And inside pre 1967 Israel – this is what Amnesty are calling ‘Apartheid’ – this is what they want to tear down. They want to destroy the Jewish state.

So remember, when you see Amnesty say ‘Apartheid’ – what they mean is democratic representation inside a Jewish majority state. And when they say they want to ‘end it’ be in no doubt that they are talking about the deliberate destruction of the only democratic nation in the MENA region.

Why are they doing it? – Simply because the Islamist / hard-left alliance have taken a firm grip of what was once Amnesty’s soul.

Richard Landes: Antisemitism and Amnesty International

The report denies the State of Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people. Its extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism.

What the outside world heard: “Israel dismisses amnesty report as antisemitic.” For many this response offers proof of the “Livingstone formulation”: Jews use “antisemitism” to silence legitimate criticism of Israel.

What the accusers do not want, is that their audience see them spreading illegitimate anti-Jewish memes at a time when hostility to Jews is most decidedly on the rise even in Western countries formally wedded to Nie Weider. Like Freud, publishing Moses and Monotheism in German, in 1939, they throw fuel, refined fuel, on the flames of the often denied longest hatred. But don’t call them antisemitic. Freud wasn’t.

In order to frame the issue as Israeli apartheid and crimes against humanity, this report systematically projects malevolence – the racist desire to dominate – onto the Israelis, even as it conceals the patent malevolence of her enemies. As such, the report resembles the classic supersessionist projection of ill-will and dominion onto the Jews who allegedly take their “chosenness” as a warrant to dominate gentiles cruelly. This same hostile projection informed the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and like the denizens of the early 20th century, some in the early 21st century will take this report as a warrant for the destruction of the accused.

Indeed, an earlier draft of the report (sent to journalists to prepare for the official release) claimed that “This system of Apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in May 1948 and has been built and maintained for decades.” After much commotion (by the IHRA definition, this is antisemitism), the reference to 1948 was removed from the final English version. But the hasty and limited removal of this reference merely tried to conceal the driving force behind the report, the scaffolding upon which AI assembled it: Israel itself is a racist endeavor, an illegitimate nation. Israel delendus est. As such, like all supersessionists in pre-modern periods (Christians, Muslims), this allegedly civil-society discourse reveals itself incapable of tolerating the existence of an autonomous Jewish entity.

Is this antisemitism? You be the judge. Is it reasonable for Zionists to say that this report fans the flames of Jew-hatred? Yes. Does that mean that Jews are again suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel with the antisemitism charge? You be the judge. Does it mean that you owe it to yourself to read the devastating critiques of this malevolent report? Yes. Does it mean that if the charges against AI are accurate, this Report is a fire accelerant thrown into a combustive global community? You be the judge.

And if you so judge, then speak out. Words matter, especially when the words one opposes are weapons in a cruel war.

Amnesty International’s pseudo-scholarship

Clearly, when a report such as this refers to disputed territories—areas of Judea, Samaria, and sections of Jerusalem which have had a Jewish presence and identity since biblical times—as “Occupied Palestinian Territories” it has already revealed the political bias inherent in its view of the situation about which it has written this report.

In addition to a return, the AI report calls for full reparations for any Palestinian losses of wealth and property, something they never have considered, of course, for the more than 800,000 Jews whose businesses, wealth, and property was seized when they were expelled from Arab countries upon Israel’s birth. The fate of the Jews is never of concern to human rights activists or the virtue-signaling activists on campuses calling for an intifada to “free Palestine” from the current grip of Jews.

“Israel must grant equal and full human rights to all Palestinians in Israel and the OPT in line with principles of international human rights law . . ,” the report demands. “It must also recognize the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived in Israel or the OPT. In addition, Israel must provide . . . full reparations. These should include restitution of and compensation for all properties acquired on a racial basis,” meaning what, that any properties acquired by “white” Jews who appropriated them from “brown” Arabs during the War of Independence and in 1967?

AI should know that the demand for a right of return, a notion referred to by Palestinian Arabs and their supporters as “sacred” and an “enshrined” universal human right granted by UN resolutions and international law, in fact, has no legal standing at all, and is part of the propaganda campaign that is based on the thinking that if Israel cannot be eradicated by the Arabs though war, it can effectively be destroyed by forcing it to commit demographic suicide. AI, as an international organization that professes to be an authority on human rights and international law, should know the facts and the truth, but, apparently, it does not.

In the first place, the right of return claim uses the fraud as its core notion that the Palestinians were “victimized” by the creation of Israel, that they were expelled from a fictive land of “Palestine” where they were the indigenous people. Except that when historian Joan Peters used the expression “from time immemorial,” in her book of the same name, she proved just the opposite.

As Professor Efraim Karsh, head of Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London, and the author of Fabricating Israeli History: The New Historians, points out, “this claim of premeditated dispossession is itself not only baseless, but the inverse of the truth. Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, the Palestinians were themselves the aggressors in the 1948-49 war, and it was they who attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to ‘cleanse’ a neighbouring [sic] ethnic community. Had the Palestinians and the Arab world accepted the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947, calling for the establishment of two states in Palestine, and not sought to subvert it by force of arms, there would have been no refugee problem in the first place.”

Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist party in #Israel, in response to accusations of apartheid:

"I would not use the term apartheid…”pic.twitter.com/7KleK4TOhz
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) February 12, 2022

From the Jerusalem Post:

Lebanon's State Shura Council decided this month to reverse an order issued in December allowing Palestinian refugees to work in trade-union regulated professions, after complaints that the order would encroach on the rights of Lebanese professionals and claims that the order was trying to pave the way for naturalizing Palestinian refugees.

The reversal was made after the council accepted an appeal by the Maronite League, the head of the league, Neamatallah Abi Nasr, announced on Thursday, according to Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA).

In December, amended regulations published by the country's Labor Ministry stated that Palestinians who were born in Lebanon and officially registered in the records of the Lebanese Interior Ministry will be allowed to work in professions that are in general limited to Lebanese citizens only, such as law, engineering and medicine, among others.

The appeal filed by the Maronite League claimed that the labor minister had overstepped his authority when he issued a decision allowing Palestinians to access previously barred professions. The appeal had claimed that the decision violated the country's constitution, adding that the league was blocking attempts to "change the modern and historic face of Lebanon and attempting to impose a new demographic status quo," according to L'Orient Le'Jour.

Palestinians in Lebanon have no path to citizenship, unlike all other Arabs.

Palestinians in Lebanon cannot buy land.

Palestinians in Lebanon cannot expand their residences in overcrowded "refugee" camps.

Babies born in Lebanon to Palestinians cannot become citizens.

All of this is Lebanese law - laws specifically written to marginalize and oppress Palestinians as a separate group from all other Arabs.

This is the definition of apartheid.

Not once has Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch urged Lebanon to allow Palestinians who have lived there for seven decades become citizens. Even though they urge countries with other stateless minorities to give them a path to citizenship, when it comes to Palestinians, they instead agree that they should remain stateless until they can "return" to an Israel they never lived in and were never citizens of.

Amnesty hasn't written a full report on the plight of Palestinians in Lebanon since 2007. In 2006, it admitted that "state policies and practices in Lebanon discriminate, effectively on grounds of racial and national origin, against Palestinian refugees who reside in Lebanon." Meaning that Lebanon was guilty of apartheid against Palestinians in 2006 by its own definition, but it refused to use that word - and still does.

Which just proves that Amnesty doesn't really care about Palestinian rights unless it can blame Israel.

Today's analysis of a random page of the Amnesty "apartheid" report is for page 207.

This section of the report (pages 204-210) is called "Cruel and arbitrary restrictions on access to healthcare in the OPT."

This page is about how Israel sometimes denies or delays patient requests by Gazans or their companions to travel to Israeli or Palestinian hospitals.

This section did not have any provable lies. But it has a complete disregard for the truth.

It does not mention a single reason why Israel might place restrictions on patients or alleged patients leaving Gaza.

In 2004, a 22-year-old Palestinian mother of two named Reem al-Reyashi faked a limp as she blew herself up at the Erez crossing from Gaza, killing 4 people.

In 2005, Wafa al Bass attempted to smuggle a suicide belt into Israel which she intended to use at the Israeli hospital where she was being treated for burns.

In 2006, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) who had received an entry permit into Israel on humanitarian grounds was arrested at the Erez Crossing. He planned to establish terrorist cells in the West Bank.

In 2007, two female suicide bombers at the Erez Crossing who received authentic entry permits into Israel using false medical information were arrested. They planned to carry out a double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and in Netanya.

In 2017, two sisters who had permission to enter Israel - one of whom had cancer - were caught trying to smuggle explosive material at the Erez crossing.

Hamas has used Gaza ambulances to transport terrorist leaders to Egypt, so Gaza ambulances must be thoroughly checked.

The Shin Bet has discovered "time after time [Hamas] attempts to pass funds and/or instructions to terrorist elements in the West Bank via Gaza residents entering Israel and even seriously ill patients." It also says that senior medical officials in Gaza were involved in issuing falsified medical certifications,"In some cases, the passage of imposters to Israel was done in an ambulance."

The also doesn't mention how many times Egypt denies permits to Gaza patients. Hundreds of Gazans are denied entry to Egypt every month even after they go through the process of getting permits, which indicates that Egypt is also concerned about terrorism infiltration.

Perhaps the most egregious part of this section was this image of empty pharmacy shelves in Shifa Hospital from 2017:

No context was given, but since it is in the section of the document about Israel's "cruel and arbitrary restrictions on access to healthcare" it is assumed that Israel had denied the passage of medicines into Gaza.

But Israel never denies medicine to Gaza.

This photo was taken when the Palestinian Authority decided to strangle Gaza's medical infrastructure during one of its political battles with Hamas. This included denying medical permits. And Amnesty knows this, because it reported about it in its 2017 annual report:

The Palestinian government based in Ramallah imposed several punitive measures against Gaza in a bid to pressure the Hamas administration to give up control of Gaza. These measures impeded the civilian population’s access to medical care, essential services including water and electricity, and education. This contributed to violations of the rights to health, an adequate standard of living, and education.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in March the West Bank authorities suspended the payments for transfers of people in need of medical treatment outside Gaza, delaying the referrals of some 1,400 patients. NGOs reported that procedural delays resulted in the deaths of several patients, including babies. The UN reported delays in the transfer of essential medicines and medical supplies to hospitals in Gaza, affecting patients’ long-term health.

Yet these six pages do not mention the words "Hamas" or "Egypt" or "Palestinian Authority" or "terror" once. No, Amnesty is hell bent on denying any context and any indication that Gaza medical woes are not entirely because of fictional "Israeli apartheid."

Amnesty knows the truth damned well. And it goes out of its way to ensure that its readers do not know that truth.

Yes, it is possible to lie without saying a single verifiable falsehood. This section of the report proves this.

On Martin Luther King Jr. day, Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA, offended all decent humans by saying Israeli Jews are slave owners and Palestinians are their slaves:

The continued occupation in Palestine/Israel is 21st-century slavery and should be abolished immediately. Given the history of Jewish humble beginnings and persecution, there should be no ambiguity as to the ethical, moral, and dehumanizing marginalization and enslavement of other human beings. The United States of America must be a major influencer of calling this injustice both immoral and intolerable.

I would also hope that the Jewish community in the United States would influence the call to join the U.S. government in ending the immoral enslavement. Dr. King continuously preached a Gospel of justice, so that all people could live in dignity.

He didn't say it was "like slavery" or "comparable to slavery." This idiot said it is slavery.

And to add to the antisemitism, he called on the Jews who obviously control America to tell the government to stop this "slavery."

On January 22, after criticism, he doubled down:

While my reference to these injustices as “slavery” may seem extreme to many and, of course, offensive to most Israelis, no one who is informed regarding the use of military power and racial bias to control the lives of Palestinian citizens can honestly avoid the truth of this situation.

And now, he triples down on his antisemitic libel, by redefining "slavery" to mean pretty much anything he wants it to mean, with an insane definition of the term. And as "proof" he says that he was enslaved himself as he was growing up.

Yes, really.

People do not have freedom to be who they are in community with everybody else, they are limited.
That is slavery.
They don't have the opportunity to do and have the opportunity to be able to engage the way others are able to engage in society. They are set aside and they are treated as though they are in no way related to the larger context of what it means to live in community. It is taking the power of government, the power of individuals who have money and abilities, to set others aside and keep them away from the wealth of communities and at the same time marginalize them at every part of their lives.
I know that feeling because I experienced it as a child. I grew up in the south and I know that it is equated, again, to slavery through my experience. I don't need anybody to read a book on that one. It's what I have had to learn to live with most of my life.

Silly me, I thought slavery meant owning human beings and depriving them of all rights. I didn't realize that an expert who somehow attended college in the South was enslaved.

And he is mystified how anyone can be offended by his redefining slavery to mean anything Jews do that he doesn't like:

It's difficult for me to see how my sharing words that would encourage something different, a coming together a community of giving individuals opportunities to see their own self-worth. To build bridges of hope to new community, living, and what that means in integrating people and allowing individuals to have the same opportunities. Why is that such a bad context to address on Martin Luther King's birthday?

He's practically saying, "I'm a Black man, how dare you disagree with me about what slavery means?"

We have a pattern here: terms like "apartheid" and "genocide" and "slavery" and "persecution" are given brand new definitions to apply only to Jews.

The irony is that by doing this, the modern antisemites are cheapening the terms themselves, trivializing real slavery (which still exists today in the Arab world) and real persecution and real genocide and real apartheid.

Which means that to these bigots, inciting hate against Jews is more important than actual genocide and slavery and apartheid.

02/12 Links: It’s Time to Give Arab Countries Their Due for Normalizing Relations With Israel; Lebanon bans Death on the Nile due to Gal Gadot’s role; Farrakhan Podcast, Speeches Can Be Found on Spotify

From Ian:

It’s Time to Give Arab Countries Their Due for Normalizing Relations With Israel

To their credit, Arab rulers are telegraphing that benefits to peace extend to people rather than being confined to governments. Last September, upon entering the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, I was required to show my US passport, which specifies my place of birth as “Israel.” The Arab guard, wearing the traditional kandura and keffiyeh, broke into a broad smile after checking my documents and warmly addressed my family and me in Hebrew with a hearty welcome, “bruchim habaim.”

Throughout our stay, open displays of Judaism were greeted by Emiratis with a greater, not lesser, degree of friendliness and warmth. When describing these experiences, I sometimes hear the retort that the rarity of antisemitism in the UAE is a result of strict anti-blasphemy laws. While it is true that any act of hatred or intolerance towards any religion in the UAE is punishable by a five-year jail term or strict fines, another reason for the propagation of religious tolerance is due to a traditional reverence upheld by Arab culture. As Robert Nicholson, Director of the Philos Project, explains of Arab society, “the expectation isn’t to hide one’s faith, but to profess it openly while affirming the role that religion plays in political life.”

Validating Nicholson’s point is an awareness that religious avoidance remains prevalent in Western Europe, where antisemitic attacks are rampant. According to the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Report on Antisemitism in 2021, the European continent led the world in antisemitic incidents, with almost 50 percent of all attacks occurring on its soil. North America closely followed, with the US accounting for 30 percent of all antisemitic attacks in the region. Simply put, an Arab country like the UAE provides a safer haven for Jews than most liberal European metropolises, which are still considered popular vacation destinations for many.

Promoting the success of the Abraham Accords depends on Jewish organizations institutionalizing trips to Arab countries whose leaders are propelling exchanges with Israel. While gap year programs and groups like the March of the Living must commit to teaching US Jewish youth about the horrific enormity of the Holocaust by traveling to Poland, more must be done to bolster tourism to friendly Arab countries. Marinating in a history plagued by sadness and victimization must be tempered through teaching about a future wedded to prosperity and friendship.

UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whose visions of tolerance predate his region’s steady progression towards peace, should be hailed in the same vein as the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Jewish day schools must ensure that students recall the Abraham Accords signing ceremony with the same enthusiasm that their parents welcomed the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. Rather than retreat to outdated hatreds and engage in provincial politicizations, Americans across the political spectrum must be unambiguous about their support for the Abraham Accords and work to educate others on the promising new era reshaping the Middle East.

Israel, UAE issue call for joint space research proposals on climate, environment

The space agencies of Israel and the United Arab Emirates have published a call for joint space-based research proposals, inviting universities and research institutes to submit project offers in the agriculture and water fields.

The research will be based on data collected by VENµS — a satellite operated by the Israeli and French space agencies that monitors vegetation and environment characteristics.

A joint Israeli-Emirati committee will select a single project to fund with $200,000 for a two-year period, which “will leverage big data analytics, informatics and related techniques to expand humanity’s collective scientific knowledge about Earth and how we can live more sustainably,” according to a statement.

“Global collaboration is key to leveraging space to protect our planet. By partnering alongside other leading nations in the space sector, we are contributing to expanding the global base of scientific knowledge to help humanity develop solutions to its greatest challenges,” said Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology and head of the UAE Space Agency.

Israel’s Science, Technology and Space Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen added that the project “shows how technology connects nations.”

“The VENµS satellite is helping find solutions to deal with climate change.‏ The joint research will help advance shared issues between the UAE and Israel, including those in the field of agri-tech, climate change and others. ”

Bahrain Confirms Israeli Officer Will Be Stationed in the Country – State Agency

Bahrain’s foreign ministry confirmed in a statement on Saturday that an Israeli officer will be stationed in the country, according to the state news agency.

The appointment will be related to the work of an unnamed international coalition of more than 34 countries, the report said.

Bahrain also said that the coalition’s task includes securing freedom of navigation in the territorial waters of the region, protecting international trade and confronting piracy and terrorism.

Earlier media reports said Israel would send a naval officer to an official posting in Bahrain, the first time an Israeli military officer has been posted to an Arab country.

From the Wall Street Journal:

When Yaakov Baruch, a member of majority-Muslim Indonesia’s tiny Jewish community, set out to build a Holocaust museum in his country, he wanted it to stand as a symbol against genocide and bigotry. He reached out to Yad Vashem, the main Holocaust museum in Israel, for images and other exhibition material illustrating Nazi horrors against European Jews. Late last month, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, he hosted an opening ceremony that was attended by the German ambassador to Indonesia.

The museum—a modest single-story structure in the lakeside town of Tondano on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island—now faces calls for its closure.

A number of Muslim clerics and Islamist politicians have argued it has no place in Indonesia, which, like many predominantly Muslim nations, doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. By focusing on historical wrongs against Jews, they say, it distracts from Israel’s present-day treatment of Palestinians.

A major Indonesian television network, tvOne, hosted a 90-minute prime-time debate this past week titled, “Fuss Over the Jewish Museum.” The program featured conservative Muslim figures, one of whom used dehumanizing and inflammatory language and called the Holocaust a giant hoax. Mr. Baruch, also on the program, pushed back.

...In the days after the Holocaust museum’s Jan. 27 opening, senior clerics with Majelis Ulama Indonesia, an influential clerical body, gave interviews to local television networks criticizing the project. Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim, who heads the organization’s international-relations division, said although he condemns the Holocaust, the situation in the Middle East means the timing isn’t right for a museum covering it.

Hidayat Nur Wahid, a vice-speaker of Indonesia’s national legislature, called on local political leaders to reject the museum, saying it could be part of a campaign for normalizing ties with Israel, and could be used by Israel as a propaganda tool.

As is always the case with antisemitism, the excuses to oppose anything that shows Jews as human beings are all over the place - and antisemitic:

Deputy Chairperson of the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly, Dr. HM Hidayat Nur Wahid, MA supports the attitude of MUI and Islamic organizations that reject the presence of the Holocaust Museum and the Holocaust photo exhibition in Tondano, Minahasa Regency, North Sulawesi.

"We support the attitude of the MUI Chair for Foreign Cooperation and International Relations, Prof. DR Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim. He asked to stop the photo exhibition and the Holocaust Museum in Tondano, because it has the potential to create unrest and is counterproductive to efforts to defend Palestine that the Indonesian government and people are fighting for," said HNW, as he is known, Monday (31/1/22) in Jakarta.

According to HNW, apart from that, the Holocaust Museum also has the potential to trigger unnecessary uproar among the Indonesian public. Where we are currently concentrating on dealing with the wave of Omicron variants," he added.

This member of Commission VIII DPR RI also questioned the motive for the opening of the photo exhibition and the Holocaust Museum in Tondano. “What interest? This needs to be questioned. If the reason is preventing anti-Semitism, then, Indonesia, which does not ratify the law, is actually being shown acts of terror and genocide and a kind of holocaust by Israel against the Palestinians every day," he explained.

Israel's intolerant behavior towards Palestine is what Israel always shows. As a party who claims to be a victim of the Nazi Holocaust, Israel should not repeat the same thing to other nations, in this case Palestine. However, the proof is that Israel is no less cruel to the Palestinians.

"So the Holocaust museum, if needed, should be for Israel itself. To raise collective awareness in Israel how evil the holocaust is, so that Israel itself will not repeat it against any nation. So that it can bring peace and stop the crimes of the Holocaust, racism and Israel's intolerance towards Palestine," quipped HNW.

So, he continued, clearly, there is no need for a Holocaust museum in Indonesia, which is already very tolerant, not racist, and has not carried out the Holocaust against any ethnicity or nation. In fact, the Indonesian people have experienced a kind of holocaust perpetrated by the henchmen of the Dutch colonialists, Westerling et al, against tens of thousands of civilians in South Sulawesi in 1946-1947.

If we continue, we will open a lot of veils about the nature of the Holocaust and the events that preceded it. Because apparently there are also important documents; Haavara Agreement, which was agreed in 1933 between the Zionist organizations in Germany and Britain with the Nazi regime for the migration of 60,000 German Jews to Palestine.

"So we should be very suspicious if there is an ulterior motive for establishing a museum in Indonesia. Perhaps this is part of a maneuver to smooth the plan to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Indonesia.

The Deputy Chair of the PKS Shura Council, in fact, said that the opening of the photo exhibition and the Holocaust Museum in Tondano tends to hold more negative potential, and forcing its presence in Indonesia is also like an exhibition of intolerance and manipulation of Israel's contemporary history as a looting and colonial state, terrorists and terrorists. crimes against humanity against Palestine.

Therefore, HNW urges that the committee of the Holocaust photo exhibition and museum in Tondano be tolerant of the Indonesian nation and state which rejects Israel's occupation of Palestine. And therefore, in order to immediately close and there is no need to continue the Holocaust museum.

At least this other critic was honest in his Jew-hatred:

Member of Commission I DPR from the PKS faction, Sukamta, commented on the construction of the Holocaust Museum by the Jewish community in Tondano, Minahasa, North Sulawesi. Sukamta assessed that this issue is quite sensitive in Indonesia.

Sukamta said that the state of Israel is identical with the Jews, although there are also Jews who do not agree with the establishment of the State of Israel.

One thing is for sure: None of the "anti-Zionists-not-antisemites" will condemn the Indonesian critics of the museum for their clear Jew-hate. Because there are lots of exceptions to allow antisemitism for these "progressives," and being Muslim is one of them.

02/11 Links Pt2: Jew-Hatred in America: Not as Bad as Jews Think, Not as Good as it Could Be; That ‘Palestinian Holocaust'; Yossi Shain on the Israeli Century

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Jew-Hatred in America: Not as Bad as Jews Think, Not as Good as it Could Be

Although Zionists hoped that establishing Israel in 1948 would eliminate antisemitism, the Arab-Israeli conflict unleashed new waves of Jew-hatred. Professor Judea Pearl calls this Zionophobia, noting that the vicious, irrational hatred against Israel and Zionists is as illegitimate as the vicious, irrational hatred against the Jews underlying it. Clearly not every Muslim is antisemitic, and not every Palestinian is antisemitic, but there are many haters, often wearing keffiyehs as their symbol, who clump together Islamism, pro-Palestinianism, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism. The most publicized antisemitic violence in America this past year represents this second strain. Particularly worrying were the Palestinian protesters who turned violent during the Israel-Gaza conflict in May, beating Jewish sushi diners in Los Angeles, pummeling a Jewish cyclist in Times Square, and pelting a Miami family with garbage, rape threats, and curses, including “Free Palestine, f--- you Jew, die Jew.” There seem to be far fewer antisemitic Jihadists, like the Texas hostage-taker—or like the Seattle Jewish Federation shooter in 2006, who killed one and injured five, while berating “the Jews” for supporting Israel. Such Jihadists threaten all Americans. Still, 86 percent of Jews surveyed identify “extremism in the name of Islam” as an antisemitic threat.

Fighting Islamist antisemitism is harder for American Jews. Many fear being tagged as Islamophobic. The antisemitism of the Left, centered on American campuses, but now finding a welcoming home on the margins of the Democratic party and in many intellectual circles further confuses. Stemming from a two-centuries-long addiction some leftists and Marxists have had to antisemitism, this Jew-hatred hides behind a critique of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause. Over the last 40 years, empowered by identity politics and the passions stirred by the Middle East impasse, these Jew-haters have turned increasingly self-righteous. Often masking traditional anti-Jewish tropes behind modern human rights talk, insisting “we’re not antisemitic, we’re only anti-Zionist,” they feel validated by their alliances with a few far left-wing Jews and other social justice warriors. But it defies logic that when Black Lives Matter emerged with a manifesto in 2016, it only had one foreign policy plank—targeting Israel. There is no justification for seeing cartoons and protest signs, after George Floyd’s murder, blaming the Israeli army for centuries worth of American racism and police brutality. This “deadly exchange” campaign on campuses and elsewhere was characterized by the chant reeking of the medieval blood libel: “Israel we know you—you murder children too.”

Many liberal Jews feel torn. They want to ally with these social justice crusaders on other missions. They support many of their goals. Yet most—not all—Jews note how the obsession with the individual Jew has now become the obsession with the collective Jew (Israel). Many accusations, slurs, caricatures, and now memes recycle—and update—traditional anti-Jewish libels about Jews being rich, privileged, powerful, sinister—and bloodthirsty.

For some Jewish liberals, the confusion even extends into the fourth battlefront, against the crass antisemitism of the street. Most people can recognize the bullying of Orthodox Jews in their own neighborhoods, the vandalizing of synagogues, schools, and cemeteries, as unconscionable crimes. Yet, during a spate of Jew-beatings in 2019, one progressive rabbi tweeted: “the horrible attacks on Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn & elsewhere likely relate to long-term tensions & don’t fall easily into left/right category. Not parallel to white nationalists whose beliefs are based on antisemitism.” This activist clearly was more comfortable fighting antisemitism from the Right than acknowledging the antisemitism of her allies on the Left.

It is not politically correct to say but it is true: the violence epitomized by grainy video capturing some street thugs usually targeting Orthodox Jews, mostly in the New York area, is not random. Just as Trump’s rhetoric emboldened some Jew-haters online, certain ideological trends and conversational undercurrents in their communities embolden these criminals on the street. Some of the trends are universal or fester worldwide, from the jealousy of the “have-nots” to the obsessive demonization of Israel. Some trends find validation in modern progressive discourse, including the new, sweeping, stereotype of Jews as having “white privilege,” even though so many Jews—especially Israelis—are not white, not rich, and not free of Jew-haters. And some trends reflect certain African-American tropes, especially the obsession with Jewish shopkeepers and landlords—accusations fueled by demagogues like Louis Farrakhan and denounced by other prominent African-Americans like the basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Finally, the instinctive, underlying, genetic antisemitism of yesteryear still lives. It has shrunk. It remains mostly underground. It has often been forced to coexist uncomfortably with Jewish friends and relatives. But what we might call the antisemitism of the country club or the golf cap, that age-old sense that the Jews are too different, too aggressive, too grabby, to be fully accepted in polite society survives. A recent ADL poll found that 61 percent of Americans agree with at least one of eleven statements about Jews, with accusations of clannishness, ambitiousness, and dual loyalty toward Israel most popular.

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish institutions shouldn't hire antisemites

As far as Jessie Sander is concerned, she's being persecuted for her "political beliefs." She was hired by the Westchester (New York) Reform Temple last July but was fired 15 days later after the synagogue leadership was made aware of a blog post she co-authored a few months earlier when the Hamas terrorist group was raining down hundreds of rockets and missiles on Israeli towns and cities. Titled "israel [sic] Won't Save Us: Moving Toward Liberation," it contained a litany of lies and libels directed at the Jewish state, whose name the bloggers refused to capitalize.

It spoke of the duty of "white American Jews" to support Palestinian liberation and rejected the right of the 7 million Jews of Israel to self-determination in their ancient homeland as "racism." Ignorantly declaring that Zionism was alien to Judaism, it also opposed all American aid to Israel. The article also repeated the "apartheid state" smear, and falsely accused Israel of committing "genocide" and "state-sponsored murder." As if that wasn't enough, it then repeated the antisemitic blood libel invented by Jewish Voice for Peace claiming that the Jewish state is training U.S. law enforcement personnel to murder African-Americans on the streets of American cities.

Nevertheless, in an article about Sander's lawsuit to get her job back, The New York Times characterized this litany of conspiracy theories and lies in a feature about her plight as merely a case that was about "a Jewish teacher" who "criticized Israel."

The notion that a person capable of spewing such bile at fellow Jews should be entrusted with the Jewish education of the children of families affiliated with this synagogue seems like the stuff of parody. But in the view of the Times, it was worth more attention that it routinely gives to violent attacks suffered by Jews in the Greater New York area. That this so speaks volumes about the way the paper is influenced by its increasingly left-wing staff and far-left Jews like Peter Beinart, who are doing their best to legitimize anti-Zionism as a normal thing for respectable liberal American Jews to support rather than complicity with antisemitism.

Indeed, it puts the Times in the same camp as the radical Jewish Currents publication where Beinart is also affiliated. That online magazine featured an article about the supposed injustice dealt to Sander on its home page, alongside another piece in which the expulsion from Britain's Labour Party of supporters of its antisemitic former leader Jeremy Corbyn was lamented.

That ‘Palestinian Holocaust'

Elder of Ziyon has taken note of a recent article in “the most influential newspaper in the Arab world” that calls into question the real Holocaust – the murder of six million Jews – and instead, claims that the “worst calamity” of the 20th century was the “Palestinian Holocaust.”

His article can be found here: “‘Most Influential Arab Newspaper’ says ‘Palestinian Holocaust’ worse than …The Holocaust,” Elder of Ziyon, January 30, 2022:
Ad Dustour is a pro-government Jordanian newspaper that was declared as the most influential newspaper in the Arab world in Industry Arabic’s latest rankings. It is partially owned by the Jordanian government itself, so it will never say anything that goes against official government policy.

Ad Dustour is not some disreputable checkout-counter tabloid; the Jordanian newspaper, chosen as the ”most influential newspaper in the Arab world,” must be taken seriously, even when it spouts nonsense. It can run articles like this, that question the Jewish Holocaust and bewail the real “worst calamity of the 20th century,” the “Palestinian Holocaust,” and be taken seriously by its benighted audience across the Arab world.
That includes Holocaust denial.

Columnist Rashid Hassan not only casts doubt as to whether the Holocaust actually occurred, but he parrots a claim that the “Palestinian Holocaust” was the worst calamity of the past century.

More than the Shoah. More than Cambodia or Rwanda or Darfur.

The Shoah claimed the lives of six million Jews. The Khmer Rouge killed between 1.5 and 2 million people in Cambodia. In Rwanda, between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsis were killed by Hutus. In Darfur, the Arab Janjaweed killed between 80,000 and 500,00 black Africans. In the Bangladesh war for independence in 1971, the Pakistani army and Islamist collaborators killed between 300,000 and three million Bangladeshis. During the Ukrainian Terror-Famine, or Holodomor, of 1932-1933, between seven and ten million people starved to death. During the Stalinist repression of 1937-1938, between 700,000 and 1.2 million Soviet citizens were murdered — a small part of the total of 40 million people are believed to have died because of Stalin’s murderous rule throughout the 1930s. About 80 million Chinese died unnatural deaths when Chairman Mao ran the country, most of them in the famine following the Great Lea Forward. But what are all these, compared to the “worst calamity of the 20th century” – the “Palestinian Holocaust”?
He writes about how Holocaust Remembrance Day is a cynical ploy by Israel to gain sympathy and distract the world from the real genocide.

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency on Wednesday:

The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) affirmed this evening the suspension of the recognition of the State of Israel until it recognizes the State of Palestine on the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and halts settlement activity, and affirmed the cessation of security coordination in all its forms.

Hmmm, this sounds familiar. Oh yes, from October 2018:

A top Palestinian body authorised the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to suspend recognition of Israel and stop security coordination with Tel Aviv.

The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) – a body of the PLO – said the suspensions should be in place until Israel recognises the Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.

Similarly, in 2015, with hilarious explanatory text:

Leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) have called for ending security coordination with Israel.

The PLO’s Central Council (PCC), the second-highest Palestinian decision-making body, took the decision on Thursday in the light of rising tensions with Israel.

Launched under the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords which founded the Palestinian Authority (PA), the coordination involves the sharing of intelligence and is considered crucial for Israel to monitor the Hamas movement.

It is not clear if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will implement the resolution by the Council, but the decisions it takes are usually binding on the PA.

Council member Mustapha Barghouthi told the AFP news agency that decisions were binding “because it was the PLO which created it [the PA] and which signed the Oslo accords”.

It's adorable that people pretend that all these legislative bodies of the PLO and PA and Fatah actually have some sort of power to make decisions.

This repeated story proves that the Palestinian Authority is a dictatorship, run by Mahmoud Abbas who controls all the branches of the PA government as well as the dominant political party Fatah as well as the PLO that ostensibly is what the PA reports to.

02/11 Links Pt1: MK Mansour Abbas: Israel is not an apartheid state; Glick: The ayatollahs' men in Washington; Biden Appointed Palestinian Government Lobbyist To Steer Mideast Aid Strategy

From Ian:

MK Mansour Abbas: Israel is not an apartheid state

Ra'am Party leader MK Mansour Abbas rejected the claim that the state of Israel was guilty of the crime of apartheid within its sovereign borders.

"I would not call it apartheid," he said during a virtual talk he gave at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Thursday.

He pointed out the obvious, that he led an Israeli-Arab party that was a member of the government's coalition.

"I am within the coalition," he said, adding that the option exists for Israeli-Arabs to also be ministers in the government.

He was quizzed about the issue during his talk, in light of Amnesty International's report last month which accused Israel of the crime of apartheid both within sovereign Israel and within the West Bank and Gaza. Human Rights Watch and the Israeli NGO B'Tselem have made similar claims.

Abbas was asked if he felt the term apartheid aptly described the relationship between Arabs and Jews within sovereign Israel.

Mansour said that the was not a fan of exploring the situation from the broad macro level such as apartheid or racism, but preferred instead to take a hands-on approach to solve discrimination at the micro-level.

Such accusations, he said, do not help resolve the issues.

Caroline Glick: The ayatollahs' men in Washington

Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently co-authored a book in Farsi about the 2015 nuclear deal that tells us a great deal about how we should be assessing the nuclear negotiations taking place in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and France). Titled, "The Nuclear Deal: The Untold Story of the JCPOA, Projecting Iran's Security, Rights and Development," the book sheds light on a critical question. How did the US come to accept Iran's negotiating terms on all the major issues despite bipartisan opposition to Iran's illicit nuclear program?

Iranian human rights activist Heshmat Alavi translated the relevant portion of Zarif's memoir on his Twitter account. Zarif wrote that in 2014, the regime decided to send a copy of their draft agreement to the other negotiating teams through "an individual in contact with the US delegation and an active International Crisis Group (ICG) member."

"The goal," Zarif explained, "was to pave the path for lobbying for our draft agreement."

Zarif wrote that the highly secretive move produced the desired result. After the ICG's Iran desk officer Ali Vaez received Iran's draft agreement, the ICG published its own policy paper, which he authored that reflected the contents of the Iranian draft. Vaez's paper, "Iran and the P5+1: Solving the Nuclear Rubik's Cube," was embraced by Americans and became the basis for the 2015 nuclear deal.

Until 2014, Vaez's boss was Robert Malley, who joined the Obama administration that year after serving as the ICG's Program Director for the Middle East and North Africa. Shortly after joining the Obama administration as Special Assistant to the President and the White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region, Malley became a leading member of the US negotiating team with Iran.

In 2017, Malley returned to the ICG as its head of policy and later became its president. Malley left the ICG again in 2021 when President Joe Biden appointed him to serve as his envoy for talks with Iran.

As Alavi noted, the ICG denies that it served as a lobbyist and effectively as a proxy of Iran, presenting Iran's draft agreement as its own. True or not, both Malley's and Vaez's records indicate that even if they didn't launder Iran's draft agreement to sell it to the Obama team, they have long been champions of the Iranian regime and apologists for its terror proxies. Both men support the full removal of nuclear sanctions on Iran. Last October, when Iran was still refusing to renew nuclear talks after the change of government in Tehran, and so signaled Washington that it would accept no meaningful restraints on its nuclear program, Malley said, "We are prepared to remove all of the sanctions that were imposed by the Trump administration."

Vaez, for his part, has defended Iran's nuclear program, attacked sanctions, and defended Iran's missile program, among other things. He has praised the current government, led by Ebrahim Raisi, known as "the butcher of Tehran" for his central role in the mass murder of tens of thousands of dissidents in the 1980s.

Melanie Phillips: How America is helping Iran get a nuclear arsenal

It’s hard to imagine that the Biden administration can be so stupid. What’s more likely is that — astonishingly — it is either indifferent to Iran getting the bomb or even actually wants it to do so.

After all, the administration is stuffed with people who are the enemies of Israel and the west. President Joe Biden’s envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, whitewashed Yasser Arafat’s duplicity at Camp David and has a long track record of sympathy for the Iranian regime and animus towards Israel.

And since it gained power, the administration has been pivoting away from its allies in the Gulf towards their Iranian foe. This near-incomprehensible position was explained last year in a devastating and authoritative piece in Tablet by Michael Doran and Tony Badran.

The appeasement of Iran, they wrote, could be described as the third and final stage of former President Barack Obama’s hitherto unfinished policy. This had sought to achieve a new Middle East order which relied on partnership with Iran.

The aim was for America to withdraw from engagement in the Middle East. To enable that to happen, there had to be a new equilibrium between states to achieve a balance of power. The authors called this policy the “Realignment”.

It’s not too fanciful to see this as Obama’s strategy, since Biden has remained close to him while key Biden staffers, such as Malley, are even closer.

With signs that the United States might be about to cave in completely to Iran and close a renewed nuclear deal, several US lawmakers have become increasingly alarmed and outspoken. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last week argued for an hour on the floor of the Senate against reviving the deal.

Yet in stark contrast to the ferocious public opposition to the 2015 deal voiced by Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there has been almost total silence from Israel’s current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Last weekend, in what’s been described as a friendly phone call between Bennett and Biden, Bennett reportedly expressed disagreement with America’s Iran policy.

It seems that he wants to keep Biden sweet by keeping such a disagreement private. But without public pressure from the world becoming aware of America’s treacherous perfidy over Iran, which is endangering not just Israel but America itself, it will be far easier for the Biden administration to flick away Israel’s profound and all-too-real concerns.

After all, how can sober realists like Menendez gain any traction if Israel itself remains silent?

And meanwhile, as the US advertises to the world its terrible weakness, Russia and China are watching, and making their plans.

How can a child trapped in a well bring out the latent antisemitism of Egyptian officials?

Syed Qassem Al-Masry, former assistant foreign minister of Egypt, writes in Shorouk News that Israel is upset at the show of concern and grief that the Arab world had as a five year old child, Rayan, was trapped in a well in Morocco.

He brings no evidence for this charge, but he does create a bizarre narrative.

Since the inception of Israel, and even since the emergence of the Zionist movement, Israel has been striving to become part of the region. But how can it achieve this when the region is called “the Arab world?”

It is necessary to put aside this concept and search for a new concept for the region that includes Israel. Studies began to be published about the many nationalities inhabiting the region; The Kurds and Turkmens in Syria and Iraq, the many peoples and ethnicities that make up Lebanon, the Berbers in the Maghreb countries, and the many African ethnicities in Sudan and Mauritania. As for the countries of the Horn of Africa that joined the Arab League, not all Arab criteria apply to them, the first of which is language.. Therefore, naming the region “the Arab world” is a misleading designation [to Israel.]

Israel was not satisfied with only the studies, but started to implement it, so it put forward a new name for the region, which is “MENA” which is the first letters of the phrase “Middle East and North Africa” in English.

As far as I can tell, the World Bank was the first to use that acronym. But hey, Jews, banks, same thing.

He goes on to say that Israel capitalized on intra-Arab fighting and then came up with the idea of the Abrahamic religion, for the Abraham Accords - all to split the Arab world! (The "Abrahamic religion" as a means to destroy Islam is now a popular conspiracy theory in Arabic media.)

This is how Israel achieved the dream, and even more than it dreamed of. The decade of Arab unity was scattered and fragments flew all over, and Arab nationalism died and was buried, and there is no hope of reviving it except for those who believe in the transmigration of souls.
• • •
But suddenly the unexpected happened. A Moroccan child fell into an abandoned well in a remote area of Morocco, and if the entire Arab world was terrified, praying to God as one family, whose child had fallen into the well.. The Arabs proved - without pretense - that the flame of Arabism is still burning.. ,Yes, this is our nation, one nation, despite the nose of schemers.

So Al Masry says that Israel was upset that the Arab world was unified in its concern over little Rayan, which ruined the nefarious plans of Jews dividing the Arab world.

This is mainstreamed insanity.

Finding lies in random Amnesty report pages, part 3

I've been picking out random pages of the Amnesty report to see if I can find a lie or deception on every page of Amnesty's latest "apartheid" report.

I spun the wheel of the random number generator chose Page 191 is my next target.

Here is the beginning of that page:

Stone quarrying is Palestinians’ largest export industry, but Israel’s control of the OPT has restricted Palestinian access to these resources. In addition, Israel has refused to grant permits for new Palestinian quarries or to renew existing licences.[1047] Meanwhile, Israel carries out quarrying activities in the OPT, in contravention of the law of occupation.

That sentence seems to say that Israel refuses to grant permits to any new Palestinian quarries or renew their licenses as it takes over the quarries.

Footnote 1047 adds a crucial piece of information:

[T]he Israeli Civil Administrations fail[ed] to renew or grant new permits for Palestinian quarries in Area C since 1994.

Israel isn't restricting quarrying in the areas that Palestinians control - at all. Nor can it, under the terms of the Oslo Accords.

Amnesty is giving the impression of "occupation" when Israel allows full freedom for Palestinians to self-rule in the areas under their control.

Now, why might it restrict quarrying in areas that it is responsible for? Perhaps because Palestinian quarrying, while important to the Palestinian economy, is destroying the environment:

The environmental economics as related to pollution trend caused by SMI [stone and marble industry] is considerably high. This is in terms of the damages and adverse impacts caused by SMI to the environment, public health, and green cover. This can be attributed to the lack of control and monitoring system on the industry, and due to the lack of law enforcement. This requires from the Palestinian ministries and institutions in charge to undertake an evaluation of such damages and impacts resulted from the air, water, soil, and noise pollution caused by SMI. ....While the evidence from environmental and health points of view shows that pollution caused by SMI imposes an economic cost to the Palestinian society, urgent steps should be taken to control the sources of pollution originated from SMI. However, if nothing would be done to improve the industry, with respect to its laws and regulations, as well as to short-term and long-term strategies, the SMI’s impacts will be devastating.

Is Israel supposed to allow this pollution to be spread in areas under its control? Arguably, even as an "occupier," it has a responsibility to ensure safety regulations and control. And no Palestinian quarry would want to be working under Israeli regulations.

So this is a lot different than Amnesty made it look. Yes, one can interpret the phrase "Israel has refused to grant permits for new Palestinian quarries or to renew existing licences" as not to mean "all," but unless someone takes the time to look at the footnotes, the impression given is of a complete takeover of the industry by Israel. And as we've seen in other pages, Amnesty is actively trying to create that misconception while giving itself wiggle room that the sentence could have meant "some."

Amnesty claims it worked on this document for four years. They chose this language deliberately to deceive.

Anti-Israel rally in New Zealand last May

The following is a guest post from an author who prefers to remain anonymous.

________________________________________

Government-backed BDS support, links to the Amnesty report, and Holocaust denial in major institutions: What’s up with New Zealand?

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis has produced an excellent overview of people who publicly promoted the latest Amnesty report, showing just how predetermined the narrative was. From the Secretary General of Amnesty, who has promoted BDS; to the Research and Advocacy Director and Senior Adviser, who reverted to antisemitic tropes of Jewish power when questioned about the disproportionate condemnation of Israel.

However, all the senior Amnesty staff who have remained silent as the once-proud organisation embarasses itself are also responsible. I was fascinated to see that one of the Vice Chairs, Tiumalu Peter Fa'afiu, hails from New Zealand. This struck me as surprising, given the image of the South Pacific as a tolerant, liberal, part of the globe and a people who should understand indigenous struggles - including those of the Jews.

Digging deeper here I was floored to learn that Mr Fa’afiu spent eight years with the New Zealand Foreign Ministry. Surely Fa’afiu’s silence in the face of his current organisation’s antisemitism was not representative of New Zealand politics?

I was about to enter a surprisingly dark rabbit hole. The island nation next to Australia might project itself as a natural ally of democratic countries and it is a member of some of the pro-Western ‘clubs’ like the Five Eyes security alliance, but New Zealand does not, in fact, hold a great record when it comes to Israel or Jews.

New Zealand, I discovered, is one of the only Western countries to not designate Hamas or Hezbollah as terror organizations;

The New Zealand Sovereign Wealth Fund recently joined Ben & Jerry’s joining of the BDS movement by divesting from Israeli banks;

Bizarrely, New Zealand maintains an Embassy in Iran and in Turkey but has no embassy in Israel whatsoever;

New Zealand is perhaps the only Western nation to have actively avoided investigating its provision of safe haven for Nazi SS officers to its shores after World War II;

New Zealand is the only Western country to have awarded a University degree for a work of Holocaust denial;

The list goes on

What the hell is up with New Zealand?

It appears the country is a sovereign equivalent of Ben & Jerry’s - an apparently cuddly brand on the outside but a bad apple on the inside. Not, in fact ‘The Lord of the Rings’, but much more like ‘The Lord of the Wrongs’.

New Zealand has been chasing a Free Trade Agreement with the USA as a ‘key goal’ for a while. While New Zealand continues to undermine America by undermining our closest ally Israel, we should make it crystal clear that a bad friend gets no free trade access.

This issue is likely to make its way to Congress via senators in much the same way an increasing set of vocal Americans notified their representatives that Ben & Jerry’s needed censure. Ben & Jerry’s is just an ice cream company, but New Zealand has influence over a number of Pacific Islands and their votes at the United Nations. New Zealand represents a case where patriotic Americans, both Democrat and Republican, can send a strong message that the US is a real friend of Israel.

Please write to your friendly senator or member of Congress and let them know that New Zealand isn’t a friend of Israel and shouldn't be rewarded without pivoting its voting at the UN, its bigoted sovereign investment policy, investigating its safe haven to Nazis, revoking its Holocaust denial theses in its Universities, and proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah.

See more details at this link.

02/10 Links Pt2: To Combat Antisemitism, We Must Oppose Anti-Zionism—at Home and Abroad; CAIR Doubles Down on 'Illegal Surveillance' Charges; Israeli team to produce Disney+ show on Anne Frank

From Ian:

To Combat Antisemitism, We Must Oppose Anti-Zionism—at Home and Abroad

This ideology—antisemitic anti-Zionism—is on the march. It is an ideology rooted in ancient hatreds which targets for hate and opprobrium the modern-day State of Israel. And tragically, in the West, it is Europe—in whose bloodlands six million Jews were murdered eight decades ago—which is at its epicentre.

Last week, for instance, Amnesty International published a report which compared Israel to apartheid-era South Africa. Factually inaccurate and intellectually dishonest, the report has little to do with legitimate concerns about the plight of the Palestinian people. Instead, it's part of a continuing effort by some on the Left to demonize and delegitimize the world's sole Jewish state.

The "apartheid smear" originated in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, a movement which focuses obsessively and exclusively on Israel's "crimes" and which has done nothing to further the cause of peace in the Middle East. That's not their goal. As Bassem Eid, the founder of Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, has argued, "The agenda of the BDS campaign is to try to destroy Israel."

It has, moreover, inspired a welter of anti-Israel campaigning on university campuses which has stifled debate and led to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among many Jewish students. Last November, the CST, which monitors Jew-hate in the UK, reported that 2019-20 has seen the highest number of antisemitic incidents on campus in a single academic year, despite the year being cut short because of the pandemic.

The Oxford University Labour Club's 2016 decision to support "Israel Apartheid Week" lifted the lid on the underbelly of antisemitism which had infected some elements of the student body. "The student left produces the most aggressive and virulent propagators of antisemitism on campus," wrote the former president of the university's Jewish Society.

The new hard-left leadership of the Labour party had empowered and emboldened a racist fringe which now attached itself, limpet-like, to my party.

Alongside others, I fought the scourge of antisemitism within the party for three years before concluding that I couldn't tell voters in my constituency that Corbyn was fit to be Prime Minister. Thankfully, the British public agreed with that judgment. Research afterward showed that the party's association with Jew-hate made it simply too toxic to support. A year later, Britain's human rights watchdog concluded its investigation by determining that, Labour had become "institutionally antisemitic" on Corbyn's watch.

Repairing the moral damage the Corbynites inflicted on Labour will take time and determination. But the sheer speed with which a small far-left fringe was able to capture power in Labour offers a warning to those who are complacent about, or willing to indulge, the activities of the "The Squad" in the Democratic Party. The case of Labour demonstrates the need to set clear red lines and to call out each and every instance of antisemitism at the earliest opportunity.

The lesson of Corbyn showed the need not just to condemn antisemites but also to hold their fellow travelers to account. Jew-hate will never be snuffed out in an environment in which anti-Zionism is tolerated and condoned.

Melbourne survivor takes Whoopi to task

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1924, Annetta and Stephanie – who passed away in 2019 – were transported to Theresienstadt in 1942. The following year, they were sent to Auschwitz, where Mengele, known as “the angel of death”, immediately started his experiments on them.

At the end of the war, the pair returned to Czechoslovakia where they learned their entire family had perished. They subsequently moved to Israel, before Annetta relocated to Melbourne in the early 1960s.

In the video, Annetta, who celebrated her birthday last Friday with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, said, “It was about race. It was about my race and that of my sister and parents and all who can’t speak today.

“Today, I am the oldest surviving twin of the murderous Dr Mengele. I shudder to call him doctor. My sister and I were part of his experiments and no one can claim this did not happen. We lived to tell of the horrors we went through.

“My sister would say more and better, and I’m sure she would be proud of me for speaking out today. It is not easy for me to do this. She was stronger than me. I always cry when I think of our family and their terrible end.

“Whoopi Goldberg and all others, be careful with the words you choose and use. Be careful with the effect they have.

“In a world of fake news, be careful not to bring back the horrors of the past. The Holocaust was about the Nazis’ policy to rid the world of the Jews in the cruellest-possible way. The Jewish race.

CST: Antisemitic Incidents Report 2021

CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report 2021 , published today, shows 2,255 anti-Jewish hate incidents reported nationwide in 2021. This is the highest annual total that CST has ever recorded and is a 34% increase from the 1,684 antisemitic incidents reported in 2020. This is the first time CST has ever recorded over 2,000 incidents in a single year and is 24% higher than the previous record annual total of 1,813 incidents in 2019. The UK has seen record annual totals for antisemitic incidents in five of the past six years. CST has recorded antisemitic incidents since 1984.

A further 752 reports of potential incidents were received by CST in 2021 but were not deemed to be antisemitic and are not included in this total of 2,255 antisemitic incidents. Many of these 752 potential incidents involved suspicious activity or possible hostile reconnaissance at Jewish locations; criminal activity affecting Jewish people and buildings; and anti-Israel activity that did not contain antisemitic language, motivation or targeting.

CST’s Incidents Department receives reports of antisemitism from victims, witnesses, or individuals and organisations acting on their behalf. Every incident reporter (who has not come through an anonymised police report) is contacted by one of the Incidents Team. Emotional support is given, as is sensible and practical advice. If required or requested, CST will signpost or refer the reporter to further assistance, including more extensive psychological aid in the event of a particularly traumatic incident. In 2001, CST was accorded ’Third Party Reporting’ status, which allows CST to report antisemitic incidents to the police and to act as a go-between for victims who are unable or unwilling to report to the police directly. Data sharing agreements are also in place with various police services around the country, which has proved vital in gaining a more accurate and detailed picture of where and how antisemitism happens in the UK.

The record figure of 2,255 antisemitic incidents in 2021 is driven by the significant spike in anti-Jewish hate reported during and following the escalation in violence in Israel and Gaza last year. In May 2021, the month when the conflict in the region intensified, CST recorded a record 661 antisemitic incidents, and in June CST recorded the fifth-highest ever monthly total of 210 incidents. Together, May and June’s totals account for 39% of the annual total. When there is a trigger event, it consistently affects the levels of anti-Jewish hate directed at the diaspora Jewish community in the UK.