Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 25, 2022

Jordan is officially discriminating against Jerusalem Arabs

There are three crossings between Israel and Jordan.

The main one is the King Hussein Bridge (Allenby Bridge) over the Jordan, in the central part of the country. The southern one is the Wadi Araba crossing where Jordanian workers can cross to work in Eilat.

The northernmost one is the Sheikh Hussein Bridge, near Beit She'an, from (Green Line) Israel directly into Jordan.

As such, Jerusalem Arabs - who are allowed to travel throughout Israel even if they are not citizens - should be allowed to travel through Israel to enter Jordan and return through that bridge, and avoid the huge delays and expenses at the King Hussein bridge. (Expediting travel from Jordan to Israel could cost some $650 for a family of five.)

Israel has said that they can use any route to Jordan.

But Jordan is not allowing them to.

Representatives of Jerusalem Arabs wrote a formal letter to the Jordanian government asking why this is, since in the past they were able to use that crossing.

I don't know why Jordan is not allowing this. It might have something to do with an idea that it would somehow be "normalization" to allow what they consider Palestinians to pass directly through an Israeli checkpoint. Or maybe it is to keep the cash flow from the "VIP" expenses to reduce the long wait times at the main crossing.

Either way, Jordan is making life more difficult for the very same Jerusalem Arabs they claim to support.

And either way, a story about how Arabs make other Arab lives difficult - especially when Israel is happy to help - is not one that the mainstream media is interested in covering.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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07/25 Links Pt1: How the Abraham Accords are helping the Middle East come to terms with Israel’s existence; Multiple Russian-Jewish organizations sent warnings by Russian gov't

From Ian:

How the Abraham Accords are helping the Middle East come to terms with Israel’s existence

Most of the Middle East (Iran and its proxies and partners notwithstanding) now seeks some new paradigm, something pragmatic that will meet the demands of the people. Happily for Israel, its demography, geography and entrepreneurial economy are all suited to regional rapprochement.

Both Israel and its regional partners would do well to emphasize through its diverse citizenry that it’s not some colonial aberration but very much of the region — culturally, religiously and socially.

Arab leaders were willing to deal with Israel in part due to frustration with the Palestinian rejection of successive opportunities for peace deals. And while Palestinian leaders in the West Bank today call the Abraham Accords “a knife in the back,” the accords may offer job-hungry Palestinians the opportunities that their political leaders deny them.

It is Palestinian leaders, not the people, who benefit from the status quo. Arab states may play a role in this development: through direct investment, the creation of special economic zones in the West Bank or even pressure on the Palestinian Authority to revoke regulations that forbid Palestinians to work for Israeli settlers (as tens of thousands currently do).

International diplomatic pressure can be brought against countries such as Lebanon and Iraq to rescind their laws that forbid contact with Israelis. States in the region that are shifting toward openness might grant visas to adherents of Abrahamic faith communities to make pilgrimage to the holy sites of their faith. (Lebanese Christians, for example, cannot travel to Jerusalem, the most sacred site in Christianity, because of anti-Zionist laws that remain in place since modern Israel’s reconstitution.)

Finally, Western and regional governments might reduce or cut off aid to countries that refuse to rescind anti-normalization laws and teach antisemitism in schools or preach hatred through state-funded religious institutions.

Perhaps as a prelude to these steps, Western and regional partners can work behind the scenes with some governments of the region that exiled their Jewish communities after 1948 to grant special visitor visas to the descendants of those refugees, and to begin public education efforts that acknowledge the presence and cultural significance of those communities. Thousands of synagogues, cemeteries, schools and other structures attest to millennia of Jewish lives.

There are few places in the world as ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse as Israel. For all the emphasis on Israel’s Europeanness, it is today, as in many ways it always was, principally a Middle Eastern nation. Israel’s neighbors who grasp this fact will benefit immensely — first through trade, then culture and perhaps one day through civil society and governance. Israel’s diverse citizenry, Israeli Arabs and Sephardim among others, may speed the process of regional rapprochement along as much as state-level diplomacy.

Israel Has Strengthened America Many Times Over the Years

“Israel did not grow strong because it had an American alliance. It acquired an American alliance because it had grown strong,” said Professor Walter Russell Mead, a leading historian of American foreign policy. He was right.

In 1948, Israel was misconstrued by the U.S. State Department as a burden upon the U.S. It believed the newborn state would be too feeble to withstand an all-out Arab military offensive, jeopardize U.S. ties with the Arab World and potentially turn pro-Soviet.

Since 1967, however, Israel has emerged as the most effective, reliable and democratic ally of the United States, as well as a formidable force multiplier.

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel devastated the pro-Soviet Egyptian military. Egypt was then on its way to becoming a pan-Arab leader and aimed to topple the pro-U.S. regimes of the Arab oil-producing countries, at a time when the U.S. was heavily dependent on them for its energy needs. The resounding Israeli victory spared the United States a huge economic and national security setback, and denied the USSR a geostrategic gold mine.

Twenty-five U.S. military experts went to Israel to study the lessons of the Six-Day War and examine captured Soviet military systems. Their findings upgraded the performance of the U.S. armed forces and defense industries.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a team of 50 American experts arrived in Israel, collecting information that benefited the U.S. military and American industry, bolstering the defense of Europe in the face of Soviet threats.

The December 1969 “Operation Rooster 53” highlighted Israel’s unique intelligence and battle tactic capabilities, which were shared with the U.S. An Israeli commando unit snatched an advanced Soviet P-12 radar system, which was stationed throughout the world, from Egypt. The Soviet radar was studied by Israel and transferred to the U.S., as were additional Soviet military systems, enhancing the capabilities of U.S. intelligence, special operations forces and defense industries.

Former IDF Military Intelligence Chief: We Don't Need a Middle East NATO

Former IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Tamir Heyman, now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, said that Israeli officials should lower their tone about a regional air defense system.

He waved off the suggestion of posting the Israeli Iron Dome systems and lasers in the UAE or other Abraham Accords countries as wildly unrealistic or relegated to the very distant future. Rather, he said the current air defense talk is about radar and sharing data relating to detecting threats.

On a technical level, Israel "can do a [regional] defense system immediately, without it being publicized, with the U.S. and with cooperation and reciprocal respect from all of those involved. We just attach all the radar systems and benefit from having more connected sensors." But he emphasized that "it is forbidden for Israel to lead it. The U.S. needs to lead."

Asked about a Middle East NATO, he said, "We don't need an alliance. They don't want it, and we don't....In NATO, if one country is attacked, everyone must counterattack the attacker. We don't want to be in this situation" where Israel is obligated to go to war on behalf of a Sunni Arab country.

"We don't want them to intervene [militarily to help Israel] - we don't need it; we do not want to rely on them." On the other hand, "We do have common threats. There are relative benefits to cooperation, but we need to do it quietly, under the table and with modesty....Do not talk about an alliance."

Haaretz reports:

Researchers, led by Prof. David Weisburd, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem criminologist, conducted an intensive course for police officers in three cities in the United States (Houston, Tucson, and Cambridge, Massachusetts) based on a model known as “procedural justice.” Addressing the encounter between police and the citizenry, this concept focuses on making the interaction between them fair and dignified: Has the citizen been given the opportunity to voice his or her side, do the police show respect and project neutrality?...

At the conclusion of the course, the officers were assigned to high-crime areas and their work was monitored for nine months. The results exceeded all expectations.

After documenting hundreds of hours in the field, the research team concluded that the officers showed a clear tendency to listen more attentively to the people they interacted with and to treat them respectfully. Weisburd, a recipient of the Israel Prize for his research in crime and policing (in particular, he is identified with the idea of having police focus their patrolling efforts on “hot spots,” often specific streets, where crime is especially rampant), is visibly moved by the results.

“We changed the officers’ behavior,” he says. “There are hardly any studies that look at the impact of police behavior on the street. Second, it also changed their behavior in terms of law enforcement. We saw a decrease of 60 percent in arrests. It’s great!”

In addition, not only did surveys conducted in the areas where the officers were stationed find that the public harbored a more positive attitude toward the police, there was also a 14-percent decline in crime incidents in these areas. Says Weisburd: “Sometimes you can eat the cake and leave it whole, too.”

This is of course the exact opposite of what the Israel-haters have been claiming - that Israelis have been teaching US cops how to beat Black people, or whatever they are claiming lately under the "Deadly Exchange" libel.

Which means that the Israel haters who claim that they want US police to act with more empathy towards the people they serve should want all police to be trained by these Israelis.

And they never will - because, as with all confirmed Jew-haters, every other cause they claim to support is subordinate to their desire to demean and delegitimize Jews and the Jewish state.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Of course the media obsession with AIPAC is antisemitic

The Israel Lobby is in the news again, as left-wing media has become obsessed with AIPAC's spending to promote pro-Israel candidates for Congress.

Rep. Andy Levin is a scion of a powerhouse Michigan political family. His father Sander was a member of Congress for 36 years and was twice the Democratic candidate for governor of Michigan. His uncle Carl Levin was a powerful senator for Michigan for 36 years as well.

He is one powerful Jew.

Yet he is portraying himself as a victim of the evil, all powerful, Israel lobby, whining on MSNBC that "AIPAC can't stand the idea that I am the strongest Jewish voice in Congress standing for... human rights for the Palestinian people." He's saying this behind a graphic warning about "DC's Dark Money."

Left unsaid, of course, is that Levin introduced a bill to consider the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall and all the Jewish holy spots in Jerusalem as "occupied Palestinian territory." The bill has no other sponsors and has garnered zero support from his fellow members of Congress, proving that Levin's ideas are an outlier and his ideas are extreme. AIPAC isn't opposing him because he is pro-Palestinian - they are opposing him because he wants to rip Jerusalem away from the Jewish state, something no "pro-Israel" politician would ever demand.

AIPAC's new PAC is indeed spending millions - $22 million so far this election cycle, more of it to promote pro-Israel candidates than to oppose anti-Israel candidates. This is only about 4% of all outside spending for this election cycle. It is virtually the same amount spent by the Protect Our Future liberal SuperPAC.

But only AIPAC is being singled out for doing what every single other political lobby does by definition - spend money to influence the government.

If you look at the major lobbyists in Washington, AIPAC and its UDP SuperPAC are powerful but hardly unique. The media attention given to them is definitely unique. Because the meme of powerful Jews controlling who gets elected is as irresistible to modern antisemites as it is to classic antisemites.

Also interesting is what doesn't get reported.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires any country that spends money to influence Americans politically (or even to encourage tourism) to report how much it is spending.

In 2018, the State of Israel was the top spender of any government, spending $35 million directly in the US according to FARA filings with another $15 million from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

That number has plummeted to practically nothing - $16 million in 2019, $2 million in 2020, $600,000 in 2021 and a mere $263,000 so far this year from the government of Israel.

The literal Israel lobby spending has gone practically to zero. But the media won't report that, because it doesn't fit the narrative of Israel controlling the US.

Now, how much do you hear about how much these countries spend to influence US policies last year?

Country	2021 Spending
China	$84,376,408
Qatar	$46,687,439
Japan	$46,426,178
Russia	$36,657,417
South Korea	$33,694,710
United Arab Emirates	$31,544,866
Marshall Islands	$30,032,779
Liberia	$29,868,477
Canada	$26,721,869
Saudi Arabia	$25,006,629

The obsession we are seeing with the Israel lobby cannot be explained by its actual influence. It can only be explained by wanting to convince people that powerful Jews are controlling American politics.

There's a name for that.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to believe antisemitic conspiracy theories

A study was just released asking "Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories?"

The methodology of the study that determines that both Republicans and Democrats are roughly equally susceptible to conspiracy theories is a little suspect - a lot depends on which theories the authors decide to test. But two of the questions that they evaluated were specifically Jewish conspiracy theories, and their results show that the self-described Left and Right are equally likely to believe them.

The two questions that are explicitly Jewish conspiracy theories are:

The official account of the Nazi Holocaust is a lie and the number of Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II has been exaggerated on purpose.

A powerful family, the Rothschilds, through their wealth, controls governments, wars, and many countries' economies.

A slightly larger percentage of Republicans (it looks like 1%) believed these conspiracy theories compared to Democrats.

And, if anything, partisanship seems to make one more likely to believe antisemitic conspiracy theories. A significantly lower number of independents believed either of these theories.

The numbers themselves are alarming. These polls indicate that about 18% of Democrats and Republicans (15% total) voters believe the Holocaust is a lie and about 30% of them buy into the idea of a powerful Jewish family controlling many world governments (26% total.)

A 2020 survey showed that 23% of young Americans 18-39 think the Holocaust is a lie, but it didn't break down the percentages that believe that by politics, religion or age.

At any rate, anyone who claims that their political opponents are more likely to be antisemitic - even when discussing classical, not new, antisemitism - is being blind to the problems in their own side. And when either side uses antisemitism as a political football to attack their opponents, and ignores it on their own side, it shows that they don't really care about antisemitism to begin with.

And believe me - we Jews notice.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

HRW's Ken Roth wants to minimize Iran's culpability in Argentina bombings

Ronen Bergman reports in the New York Times:

Two terrorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in the 1990s that killed scores of people were carried out by a secret Hezbollah unit whose operatives, contrary to widespread claims, were not abetted knowingly by Argentine citizens or aided by Iran on the ground, according to an investigation by the Mossad, Israel’s secret service.

The internal Mossad study, the written findings of which were shared with The New York Times, provide a detailed account of how the attacks were planned — including how material for the explosives was smuggled into Argentina in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes.

While Mossad stresses that Israeli intelligence still believes that Iran, a supporter of Hezbollah, approved and funded the attacks and supplied training and equipment, the findings counter longstanding assertions by Israel, Argentina and the United States that Tehran had an operational role on the ground. They also countered suspicions in Argentina that local officials and citizens there had been complicit.

In the first attack, which killed 29 people in 1992, the Israeli Embassy was blown up. The second, in 1994, targeted the headquarters of a Jewish community center, killing 86 people, including the bomber, in one of the deadliest anti-Semitic crimes since World War II.

Now, what should a human rights leader take out of this story, if anything?

Ken Roth, outgoing head of HRW, tweeted this:

Two 1990s attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires that killed scores "were carried out by a secret Hezbollah unit whose operatives, contrary to widespread claims, were not abetted knowingly by Argentine citizens or…Iran on the ground.”

The only part of the article he wants to share with his human rights community is to minimize Iran's culpability for the attack!

Even though everyone knows that Hezbollah does Iran's bidding. Even though Iran funded the bombings and bought the equipment.

In every other context, HRW (and Amnesty) always wants to maximize culpability for any human rights crime. But when it comes to attacks on Jews, HRW consistently tries to minimize the culpability of the attackers - as Roth claims that Hamas and Hezbollah aren't guilty of using human shields. They bend over backwards to find obtuse reasons to make Israel appear guilty of violating international laws but they act just as energetically to find Israel's enemies innocent, even when they are directly attacking civilians.

This is a consistent pattern. For these NGOs, human rights are paramount - but Jews are less than human.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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07/24 Links: David Collier: Anne Frank wouldn’t Trust this; Are the Palestinians going to take the League of Nations or the UN to court?; Ben Shapiro visits Temple Mount with his father

From Ian:

David Collier: Anne Frank wouldn’t Trust this

The Anne Frank Trust UK’s Dejudaisation
We all know what this is about. Perhaps it is best stated in a retweet by Amjid Khazir (one of the speakers mentioned above) of hard-core hater CJ Werleman, when he wrote “Muslims are the new Jews“

This is all about theft – appropriation. The Holocaust and Anne Frank are stripped of everything particularly Jewish. On the ‘explore Anne Frank’s Diary’ page on the website of the Anne Frank Trust UK, the word ‘Jewish’ does not even appear. Yet everything that happened to her – her entire experience – happened because she was Jewish. Someone looking at the site would actually need to download the ‘learn more about this’ link – to learn that her Jewishness had anything to do with her story at all. Inexcusable. Horrific. Deliberate. The universalisation and dejudaisation of Anne Frank.

Instead of the Jews – who in this woke, racist bubble are considered white, wealthy, and privileged – the Islamists slide right in. This has to be about them. The Anne Frank Trust cannot see beyond the hijab to the problematic ideologies that may be running within.

Simple fact. There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. They have majority rule in about 50 countries. There are dozens of nations where Islamic rule has all but suffocated out all minority groups. Without downplaying real bigotry that they certainly can face – their experience can be nothing like that of the Jews.

Had Anne Frank survived, and moved to Israel – all these people would be demonising her and her children. Had Israel been created sooner – perhaps she would not even have suffered at all. Failing to understand these issues – or build them into the Anne Frank story – signals a complete lack of understanding of Jewish history, Jewish identity, and anti-Jewish hatred. Today’s Israelis are descendants of the Anne Franks that made it out.

Let us not forget, that by the time Anne Frank’s family had moved into the ‘secret annex’ in July 1942, the ‘Palestinian’ Arab leader – Hajj Amin al-Husayni – had already met Adolf Hitler to try to gain assurances that Hitler would help to deal with the Jews in Palestine.

How can anyone have anything to do with Anne Frank and not understand the need for a Jewish homeland?

The story above is disgraceful. The Anne Frank Trust UK allows Islamists and antisemites to both work against the existance of the Jewish state and claim legitimacy as a friend of the Jews. They do this and they should not be allowed to do it in Anne Frank’s name.

Which means that the Anne Frank Trust should have made acceptance of the basic concept of a Jewish state a passcode – without which nobody is ever allowed to stand upon a platform with their name. That they have instead allowed anti-Zionists and antisemites – not just into the building – but to help them run the show – will forever be their shame.

They should do the ethical thing and change its name!

PA commits identity theft regarding South Africa and Namibia -opinion

Apartheid had begun three years after the Holocaust, promoted by the Nationalist Party and the rigid Verkrampte faction, with a background of antisemitism, expressed through their saying: “the Jew has a white face, but a black heart!” Five years later, I visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. Any Jewish connection had been removed. The curator was embarrassed by my questions.

In 1994, a Wiesenthal Center sting led to Bariloche, Argentina, revealing a roll of names of neo-Nazis, predominantly in South Africa. This resulted in the arrest of a group bent on bringing European assassins to murder listed members of the official Anti-Apartheid Committee.

For the first on the list, Chris Hani, it was too late. He had been shot by a Polish immigrant, Janusz Walus, close to the white supremacist Conservative Party. Second on the list was Judge Richard Goldstone.

During a visit, I and our then Latin American director, Sergio Widder, were invited by Goldstone to a “thank you” dinner in Johannesburg. We would have declined, if only we had known of his later report on Gaza, castigating Israel. Identity theft

The Palestinian leadership has constantly committed “identity theft” to validate their own historical narrative, as in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, where over the years they claimed numerous sites, from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to the Temple Mount, renaming the Kotel “al-Buraq Plaza” and still on the wish list, even demanding property over the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The new “apartheid” campaign against Israel is based on lies and identity theft, adopted by Amnesty International, presently including South Africa and Namibia – the latter bearing a horrifying history.

Moving from Jo’burg to Windhoek, I was hosted by the late Jewish leader Harold Pupkewitz, who pointed out that the capital of Namibia still held streets with German names, such as Kaiserstrasse... a vestige of Germany’s colonial bite of Africa, from 1884 until 1919, lost in the aftermath of World War I.

PMW: Are the Palestinians going to take the League of Nations or the UN to court?

From a legal point of view, while diplomatically important, the Balfour Declaration was nothing more than a statement of British policy.

In the aftermath of World War I, the allied powers met to discuss the future of the territories that had been held by the Ottoman Empire for 400 years. As regards “Palestine”, the allies resolved:
“The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the [2nd] November, 1917, by the British Government and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” [April 25, 1920]

The decisions made in San Remo in April 1920 by the Allied Powers then formed the basis for the preparation of a number of Mandates. Indeed, 2 years later, alongside the Mandate for Palestine, the League of Nations also adopted the Mandate for Syria and the Mandate for Lebanon. Together with the Mandate for Palestine, it was these instruments that provided the international legitimacy to create Israel (the Jewish State), Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Since it is the League of Nations, since replaced by the United Nations, that is truly responsible for creating Israel, the question that must be asked, is: Are the Palestinians going to sue the League of Nations/the UN?

Whatever the Palestinians decide to do, the truth remains that the 24th of July 1922 was probably one of the most important dates in the history of the Jewish people. On this day, the international community openly recognized the connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and decided to end 2,000 years of Jewish exile. On this day, the international community gave legitimacy to reconstitute the Jewish national homeland.

Early this morning, the IDF held an operation in Nablus reportedly to capture an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader, and two terrorists were killed.

A statement were released by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades mourning the two.

The Palestinian Authority issued statements of condemnation.

But in 2008, Mahmoud Abbas claimed to have completely dismantled the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is under the umbrella of the Fatah party he leads.

No one seems to ask: why do the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades still exist 15 years later?

This isn't like the Islamic Jihad-based fighters in Jenin. These are allies of the Fatah party that dominates the Palestinian Authority. While one can argue that the Palestinian security services are not powerful enough to secure Jenin (which is a separate problem) can they not control their own allies?

Or, as seems more likely, are the Al Aqsa Brigades doing what the Palestinian Authority wants - a terror group that can be used whenever it is convenient for the PA and Fatah?

If the Palestinian Authority was doing its job - under signed agreements - the IDF wouldn't need to go into Area A to arrest terrorists.

So why isn't anyone asking why the Palestinian Authority is not doing its job? Why is no one in the West upset that the PA is supporting and mourning the terrorists rather than arresting them?

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Is USAID trying to take Area C away from Israel?

USAID is the US government's humanitarian aid arm. It has worked with Palestinians on various projects.

In 2020, Congress allocated $250 million over five years through the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA) "to advance peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians to enable a sustainable two-state solution."

Most of MEPPA funds are funneled through USAID:

The funds allocated to USAID will be guided by a fifteen-member Advisory Board with twelve members appointed by Congress in addition to a chair and two international members appointed by the USAID Administrator. The Board is tasked "to consult with, provide information to, and advise USAID and other U.S. Government agencies" on the efficacy of programming and partnership options to ensure the advancement of the goals of the Partnership for Peace Fund. Members are selected from diverse backgrounds, and their collaboration is governed by the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

This Advisory Board held its first meeting in April, and it appears that it is interested in building institutions for Palestinians where they can supposedly work together with Israelis.

But they intend to build these institutions in Area C, which is under Israeli control, even though some 95% of Palestinians live in Areas A and B.

The transcript of their initial meeting in April included this:

Hiba Husseini: The other recommendation I would make is an Area C. Area C can be utilized both for the private sector, which I propose that we develop a logistics and distribution center, for example, in Area C. These distribution centers require large space and employ large number of people and create a lot of IT-related systems. So, I think logistics, distribution centers in Area C to serve the West Bank would be a very innovative idea and would bring the two sides -- the two businesses and create the integration that some of my colleagues have spoken about.
Another Area C project I envisage is the youth -- joint youth education in -- like IT incubation in Area C. So, take cool kids during the summer breaks and then create more advanced programs, maybe even leading to an IT university of sort or IT training center. We need the skills. And Israel has the skill, so I think jointly kids can start learning from the high school level moving forward...

George Salem (Chair):...I took pride to take careful notes of what everyone had to say. I would add, you know, the idea articulated by Ms. Husseini about expansion of programs for businesses in Area C is one I think that could be really fruitfully explored, as well as IT training, and perhaps even establishing a university there, as well as tourism.

You can be sure that when they are talking about these initiatives, the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in Area C are meant to be excluded. Which means that this is a means to help Palestinianstake over parts of Area C - much as the EU has done over the past decades.

To pass muster with USAID, these programs are supposed to be officially joint Israeli-Palestinian initiatives, but if Palestinians are meant to reap the benefits, why not place them where the Palestinians mostly live?

MEPPA has two goals: economic development of the Palestinian private sector and "person to person" peacebuilding programs. Building a Palestinian high tech university on Israeli-controlled lands is not either of these - it is a land grab. Even if some of the instructors are Israelis.

Husseini and Salem are both Palestinian. They know exactly what they are doing.

The advisory board's recommendations are non-binding, and some members seem to be staunch Zionists including Sander Gerber of AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Hopefully any agenda that undermines Israel, like the Area C proposals here, will be quashed before any damage can be done.

(h/t Irene)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Last week, AIPAC-backed Glenn Ivey defeated J-Street candidate Donna Edwards for the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s 4th Congressional District.

J-Street's backing of Edwards should put to rest the lie that J-Street is in any way pro-Israel.

The Washington Examiner summed up Edwards' congressional record on Israel:

During Edwards's first year in the House, she voted "present" on a resolution "recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." And Edwards voted present on a resolution expressing support for direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. She also voted present on 2012 legislation to enhance security cooperation between the United States and Israel. All three measures passed with overwhelming majorities, at times when Democrats and, later, Republicans were running the House.

J-Street pretends to be pro-Israel, but it supports someone who cannot even vote that Israel has the right to defend itself? Or that there should be direct Israel-Palestinian negotiations?

Clearly, Edwards is an outlier in her hate for Israel compared to most members of Congress.

J-Street cannot credibly claim to be pro-Israel in any context if this was the candidate that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

07/23 Links: Reclaiming Jewish advocacy beyond Zionism; Sharansky urges Russian Jews to move to Israel before possible shutdown; The Top 5 Most Popular Palestinian Terrorists in the West

From Ian:

Reclaiming Jewish advocacy beyond Zionism

Data conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and other leading research centers form the necessary CT scan of the Jewish American body today.

We can see the malaise, identify the various tumors: namely that a vast 73% of American Jews view their Jewish identity as an expression of religion, or that despite a plethora of Jewish teen organizations, Jews are less likely to become involved in Jewish life as adults, and more likely to intermarry (42% of all currently married Jewish respondents indicate they have a non-Jewish spouse).

And in regards to Israel, American Jewish teens struggle to support and feel affiliation in the midst of a social media propaganda campaign that paints the Jewish nation state as guilty of apartheid and Zionism as racism. We must use catheters – innovative pedagogies – to reach and confront the root of the problem: a generation that is confused about their identities, a generation that unwittingly deploys moral equivalents, a generation that is triggered by the word “truth.”

We are losing the ideological war not because we do not have better social media posts or better counter-arguments; we are losing the war because our children are marinating in a neo-Marxist framework that primes them to view power as evil, or the concept of truth an assault on narrative.

In the past four years that I have been teaching Zionism, I have noticed how rapidly things have deteriorated. If four years ago I could “sell Zionism” and inspire teens to become Zionists, today things are different. And I dare go one step further: selling Zionism has very little to do with Zionism.

Recently I had the privilege of hearing former ambassador Ron Dermer speak to a group of teens. To the question posed by one teen about how to get people to be more pro-Israel, Dermer announced: “When I gauge whether I am dealing with an ally or foe to Israel, I ask two questions and neither have anything to do with Israel or Zionism. First I ask, do you believe in a right and wrong, and second, is America a force of good for the world?”

Let us aim higher, dare to be better by reclaiming western civilization and its moral fabric by teaching that there are fixed axioms such as right and wrong, truth is objective, language shapes reality and that equality and equity comes at a cost to freedom. Dare I say, the solution is not more Zionism, but a reset button: a reclaiming of the morality narrative deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian values.

Natan Sharansky urges Russian Jews to move to Israel before possible shutdown

Russian Jews should move to Israel as soon as possible, former Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky urged on Friday, less than a day after Moscow called for the aliyah organization’s liquidation in Russia.

In a Facebook post, Sharansky, a former “refusenik” who was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities for nearly a decade during the late 1970s and early ’80s due to his human rights activism, framed the move as part of the ongoing Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine, which has seen a surge in immigration to Israel from both countries.

“Since the beginning of Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, Israel has taken a cautious stance and offered only limited support to Ukraine,” he wrote, echoing earlier criticism of Jerusalem’s Ukraine policy, which he had previously told Haaretz stemmed from former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s fear to call out Putin.

“In the past days and weeks, Russia, isolated as it is from the free world, strengthened its military and political alliance with Iran and Syria. At the same time, it took steps to stop the operations of the Jewish Agency, the central organization connecting Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora, in its territory,” Sharansky went on to say.

He called Russia’s actions a reminder that Israelis “must protect our interests in ways that don’t rely on relinquishing our moral positions but rather on insisting on upholding them and to join the free world’s fight to stop Russia’s aggression.”

And while the Jewish Agency does important work in Russia, “it behooves us to remember that Israel knew how to fight for immigration even when the Jewish Agency and all Israeli diplomats were barred from Soviet Russia, just as it knew how to defend its security interests successfully even when all the best Soviet weapons were delivered not to us but to our enemies,” he said.

“I want to finish this post with a message to all of our Jewish brethren in Russia who are seriously considering immigrating to Israel: I urge you not postpone the implementation of your plans,” Sharansky added.

Jewish Agency in Russia is secretly planning on relocating to Israel

The Jewish Agency has secretly launched a plan to move its operations in Russia to Israel and to run the aliyah process remotely, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The decision follows the Russian Justice Ministry’s request on Thursday to shut down the agency’s activities in Russia. In the meantime, there will be a court discussion on the case this week, the Post has learned, and until then, the agency is trying to fight its case.

“The Jewish Agency employees are working on packing up, metaphorically, and re-evaluating their challenges and work,” said a source close to the agency.

The understanding is that there is no solution for the complicated legal situation in Russia, and therefore there is a need to create a system that will enable long-distance aliyah applications.

Even though the aliyah process is able to move to an online platform, it won’t be convenient for the elderly, because face-to-face connections will no longer exist.

A source in the agency explained that without the ability to promote aliyah in Russia, the immigration rates will drop dramatically in the coming years.

The agency has just a few Israeli shlichim (emissaries) in Russia and about 100 local employees. It is unclear if there will be a solution for these employees if it is forced to close its operations there.

07/22 Links Pt2: French Far-Left Politicians Propose Resolution Denouncing Israeli ‘Apartheid’; Melanie Phillips: The urgent need for Jewish leadership

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Will France's National Assembly persist antisemitism?

In June, French voters elected 577 members of the National Assembly. Of those, 131 now represent the hard-left bloc of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and a further 89 are from Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. Both have been accused of antisemitism.

Marine Le Pen claims that neither she nor her party harbor any hostility towards Jews. During the elections, she even proclaimed that the National Rally is best positioned to “protect French people of the Jewish faith.” Many remain unconvinced.

The political movement she leads was founded in 1972 by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, notorious for abhorrent remarks about the Holocaust. In 1987, Jean-Marie Le Pen referred to the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history.” And in 2005, he wrote that the Nazi occupation of France “was not particularly inhumane.”

Marine Le Pen has purposely endeavored to distance her political movement from the extremism and Holocaust revisionism of her father, but while some see this as a genuine ideological transformation, others fear her strategy is to sugarcoat an ultra-right agenda.

Fueling such skepticism are some of Marine Le Pen’s own comments. In 2014, she stated that “antisemitism is due to the implantation of Islamism in our country,” effectively whitewashing historic homegrown French antisemitism – from the expulsions and massacres of the Middle Ages, through to ideologues Edouard Drumont and Charles Maurras, and the collaborationist Vichy regime.

Like Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon piously denies any anti-Jewish prejudice. After all, as a radical socialist, he advocates the equality of humankind and rejects all ethnic hatreds.

Yet, when it comes to the Jews, Mélenchon also has a history of disquieting pronouncements. In 2021, he was quoted as saying that the murder of three Jewish children in Toulouse a decade earlier was “planned in advance” so as “to point fingers at Muslims.”

In 2020, Mélenchon seemed to repeat the historic deicide charge, saying: “I don’t know if Jesus was on the cross. I know who put him there; it seems that it was his own compatriots.”

Furthermore, Mélenchon has a serious problem with the Jewish state. He has espoused a radical anti-Zionist narrative that sees Israel as an illegitimate colonialist implant created at the expense of the country’s indigenous Palestinian inhabitants.

Anger as Resolution Denouncing Israeli ‘Apartheid’ Is Proposed by Far-Left Deputies in French National Assembly

Far-left deputies in the French parliament have proposed a viscerally anti-Zionist resolution targeting Israel, accusing the Jewish state of practicing apartheid and committing war crimes against Palestinians under occupation.

Titled “Condemn Israel’s Institutionalization of an Apartheid Regime Against the Palestinian People,” the motion was signed by 38 members of the National Assembly who represent the newly formed far-left NUPES coalition. NUPES enjoyed a strong showing in June’s legislative elections, winning 131 of the chamber’s 577 seats.

Submitted on July 13, the 24-page motion became a subject of public debate only on Friday morning, after a dissenting NUPES parliamentarian, Jérôme Guedj, denounced its contents in a thread on Twitter.

Guedj said that he had first learned of the resolution’s existence on Thursday. “If it is always legitimate to challenge the policy of a government, I do not understand how the abolition of a state advances peace by a millimeter,” he wrote, referring to the resolution’s presentation of Israel as a colonial entity lacking in legal and moral legitimacy.

“The resolution maintains that Israel is an apartheid regime, calls for the legalization of the boycott of Israeli products and pleads for the official recognition of Palestine,” Guedj added. “If I can defend this last point, the first two are unacceptable. I condemn them.”

The resolution argues that “since its creation in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy aimed at establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and expanding its control over the territory for the benefit of Israeli Jews.”

It asserted that following Israel’s victory against a combined force of Arab armies in Six Day War of June 1967, “Israel extended this policy to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Currently, all territories under Israeli control remain administered with the aim of favoring Israeli Jews at the expense of the Palestinian population, while successive Israeli governments have continued to deny the right of return to Palestinian refugees for more than seven decades.” (h/t Rodin New York)

Melanie Phillips: The urgent need for Jewish leadership

Two things need to change if the Jewish people is properly to defend itself. Jews need to be taught better about their own people, culture and history. And there needs to be a more effective strategy to fight their enemies by getting off the defensive back foot and onto a pro-active and aggressive front foot.

Precious little of this is done at present because the diaspora leadership is woefully inadequate: timid, servile and anxious to fit in.

In Britain, Jewish leaders publicly fought the far-left Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn because they felt safe in the knowledge that most people in the country reviled him as a dangerous extremist.

But they refuse to fight Muslim antisemitism for fear of being called “Islamophobic”. Nor will they declare the demonstrable legitimacy of Israeli residency in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria — not least because so many of these leaders are ignorant of this themselves.

In America, Jews are increasingly living in a state of siege. Jews have been murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego and Jersey City. Visibly Jewish pedestrians are beaten regularly in the streets of American cities and towns.

Jewish students are bullied and harassed on campus. The Democratic party exhibits either indifference to all this or even tolerates the virulent anti-Jewish prejudice in “The Squad” of congresswomen.

American Jewish leaders either lend support to such people and their ideologies, or else behave like rabbits frozen in the headlights. Now a grassroots movement has just launched to hold their feet to the fire

The Jewish Leadership Project has a ten-point “action list” to mobilise a more effective Jewish defence. It demands that major Jewish organisations “cease subordinating the safety and welfare of the Jewish-American community to partisan ideology”.

The project’s co-founder, Avi Goldwasser, said: “Many once-venerable Jewish organisations have primarily become front groups for progressive political interests. The significant danger the Jewish community faces today is an indictment of these institutions and their leadership.”

All over the west, people have been left left demoralised and disillusioned by an entire political establishment that appears determined to send western civilisation off the edge of the cliff.

They’ve been rising up against this using whatever opportunities come their way. In Britain, it was Brexit; in America, it was the election of former president Donald Trump.

It’s time the Jewish people told their own diaspora leaders “enough is enough”, and demand they start properly to defend the Jewish people rather than their own exalted positions.

Which logo resembles a Nazi symbol more?

From JTA:

An elementary school in suburban Atlanta made national headlines this week after it unveiled a new logo, which bears a striking resemblance to the Nazi Eagle.

The Cobb County School District — Georgia’s second-largest district — said it would halt distribution of the new logo while “reviewing needed changes.” Local Jewish leaders who spoke with district officials said the logo was being entirely scrapped.

East Side Elementary in Marietta, located across the street from a synagogue, unveiled its redesigned logo on Monday. It features an eagle, with wings outstretched, gazing to the right, holding an insignia with the initials “ES” for the school. The Nazi Eagle, too, shows an eagle with wings outstretched gazing to the right, at graphically similar proportions, only the Nazi version holds a swastika in its talons.

“The new logo & badges were chosen to represent the Eagle soaring into excellence and to honor the history of our great school!” the district said in its initial announcement advertising the logo. “We hope that you love our new designs as much as we do!”

Reaction was less than positive.

“People are just angry, like, how could you make that mistake?” Marty Gilbert, executive director of Congregation Etz Chaim in Marietta, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Here's the school logo:

Here's the Nazi Eagle:

OK, now here is the Coat of Arms for Nazi Germany:

And here is the Coat of Arms for Palestine:

Just saying.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

07/22 Links Pt1: Brooke Goldstein: Stop Funding Palestinian Jew-Hatred; David Singer: Biden rejects Saudi plan for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine; Another IRGC official interrogated by Mossad in Iran

From Ian:

Brooke Goldstein: Stop Funding Palestinian Jew-Hatred

The social media accounts of UNRWA teachers are littered with posts that express support for terrorist groups and incite violence against Jews and Israelis. UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, has widely reported on these postings, including in a presentation to the U.S. Congress. Watchdog groups the world over have been shouting this same message for years.

UNRWA textbooks use terrorists to illustrate lessons the way American textbooks use Jack and Jill. "Martyrs" from the First Intifada are used in mathematical word problems. Students are encouraged to "defend the motherland with blood." Lessons are peppered with blatant lies, such as one about Israel dumping radioactive waste in the West Bank. Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who killed 38 civilians while hijacking a bus, is hailed in UNRWA textbooks as a role model of female empowerment.

Phillipe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, has claimed that content of this nature was published in UNWRA textbooks by accident. He has vowed to correct the oversight, and he claims that all UNRWA textbooks have now been scrubbed clean of "inappropriate pages."

However, in a report published just this month, the London-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that new materials created and distributed by UNRWA during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate distance learning continue to promote terrorism, while also denying Israel's right to exist.

It doesn't end in the classroom. UNRWA school buildings are also used by Hamas to store weapons and missiles.

All while America continues to foot UNRWA's bills.

At what point will this administration say enough is enough? What will make President Biden realize that he has aligned America with the wrong "ally?" Does a terrorist have to be wearing a UNRWA T-shirt while shooting up an American subway? Do UNRWA textbooks have to refer to America as an illicit "occupier?"

How close to home does the outrage need to hit before America turns off the spigot?

Palestinian Government Probed for Torture, War Crimes

The Palestinian government is complicit in "rampant, wide-spread, and systematic torture of Palestinian nationals" and Israelis, according to a landmark legal complaint filed this week with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The International Legal Forum (ILF), an advocacy group representing more than 3,500 lawyers and civil society activists across the globe, is pressing the ICC to investigate the Palestinian Authority for war crimes in the first ever case of this nature presented to the court, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The organization is demanding that the ICC launch "an immediate investigation and prosecution of Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership for allegations of torture." The documents outline instances of the Palestinian government engaging in "violent beatings, arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, cruel and inhumane prison conditions, harassment, forced confessions, and summary executions."

The case comes just a week after President Joe Biden made his first trip to the Middle East and announced another $316 million in U.S. taxpayer funding for the PA and organizations that work with it, bringing the total amount of American aid to around $1 billion. The Trump administration froze this money over concerns that the Palestinian government spends international aid dollars on terror groups and imprisoned terrorists.

"It is noteworthy that President Biden has just returned from the Middle East, where he touted millions of dollars in increased funding to the Palestinians," Arsen Ostrovsky, the ILF's chairman and CEO, told the Free Beacon. "One has to ask the question, then, are U.S. tax payer dollars also going toward underwriting torture practices carried out by the Palestinian Authority?"

While the Palestinian government has long pressed the ICC and other U.N. organizations to investigate alleged Israeli human rights abuses, the ILF's complaint marks one of the first times a pro-Israel organization has attempted to force international legal authorities to investigate the PA.

David Singer: Biden rejects Saudi plan for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

President Biden’s support for the creation of an additional Arab State between Israel and Jordan constitutes his clear rejection of a Saudi plan to merge Jordan, Gaza and part of the 'West Bank' into one territorial entity to be called “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine” (“The Saudi Solution”)

Biden’s decision to pursue the failed policy adopted by President Obama and Biden as Vice President between 2011 and 2016 (“Obama/Biden two-state solution”) was confirmed in Bethlehem on 15 July:

“Today, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. President Biden reaffirmed the enduring ties between the Palestinian and American peoples and underscored his commitment to a two-state solution on the 1967 lines with land swaps mutually agreed by the Israelis and Palestinians. He also highlighted the importance of direct negotiations leading to an independent, sovereign, viable, and contiguous Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, both enjoying secure and recognized borders, allowing the two peoples to live side-by-side in peace and security.”

Biden made this specific commitment even though admitting on arriving in Israel two days earlier:

"The two-state solution is still the best way to ensure peace and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians; however, I don't see a near horizon for this solution."

Biden’s refusal to consider or even comment on the Saudi Solution since its publication six weeks ago in a Saudi Royal Family-owned news outlet – was replicated when Biden held meetings on 16 July with:

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman
King Salman’s son and successor Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in what was described as an “extended working session” and The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

Arabic media is reporting that the Bahraini minister for Culture and Antiquities has lost her job because she refused to shake hands with the Israeli ambassador to Bahrain.

According to the story, on June 16, US Ambassador to Bahrain Steven Bondy held a special memorial service at his home on the occasion of the death of his father. He invited some ambassadors and officials, including the Israeli ambassador to Bahrain, Eitan Naeh, and the Bahraini minister (and member of the royal family) Sheikha Mai bint Mohammed.

During the ceremony, the officials were shaking hands as they were introduced to each other. When Sheikha Mai was told she was about to shake hands with Naeh, she withdrew her hand and refused to shake his hand. She then left the house of the American ambassador and asked the embassy not to publish any picture of her in the memorial service.

Previously, in her position, she refused to recognize various Jewish landmarks in Bahrain.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!