Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 16, 2022

09/16 Links Pt2: Abraham Accords stronger than ever, two years later; The NYT's botched attack on Jewish schools; The Jews of the Jews; How American Anti-Semitism Helped the Nazis

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Abraham Accords stronger than ever, two years later

This week marked the second anniversary of the Abraham Accords, under which Israel signed normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which were later extended to Morocco.

Skeptics at the time noted that Israel had not been at war with these Arab Muslim states and downplayed the idea that the accords – reached under the Trump administration and Netanyahu government – could be called “peace treaties.”

But their importance should not be underestimated. The Abraham Accords marked a strategic diplomatic shift for Israel and the region and the relationships with the countries has flourished beyond even optimistic expectations.

As the UAE minister of state for foreign trade Thani Al Zeyoudi wrote in an opinion piece in yesterday’s Jerusalem Post, “It was a moment that changed the course of history. On the bright, sunlit morning of September 15, 2020, when Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, foreign minister of the UAE; Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, foreign minister of Bahrain, held aloft signed copies of the Abraham Accords in front of the White House, it signaled not simply the end of 48 years of hostility and distrust but the beginning of a new political and economic era for our region.

“In establishing full diplomatic relations, the UAE, Bahrain and Israel had chosen prosperity over politics, cooperation over isolation, opportunity over suspicion. Everyone present on the South Lawn understood the magnitude of the occasion – and its potential to elevate the lives of people across the Middle East in the decades to come.”

What about today?
Today, it seems natural that a minister from a Gulf state would write in The Jerusalem Post praising the relations between the countries, but we need to remind ourselves that it was not always obvious. Similarly, to mark the anniversary, Prime Minister Yair Lapid yesterday hosted the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. It is important to note that although the administration and government in the US and Israel changed in the meantime, the accords hold firm, as seen, for example, in the so-called Negev Summit earlier this year. This is the mark of true treaties between countries rather than agreements between leaders.

What has the game-changing Abraham Accords accomplished after two years?

Israel has spent much energy touting the success of the Abraham Accords and encouraging other countries to join. In July, U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia, where there was speculation over warming ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

While Jordan and Egypt remain aloof from the developments, in part due to the Palestinian issue as well as widespread anti-Israel public sentiment in the two countries, the Abraham Accords, and Israel’s subsequent close ties with the UAE and Bahrain in particular, have led to agreements on everything from tourism to defense. Trade between the countries has reached approximately $2 billion annually and is expected to pass $10 billion within the next five years; Israeli officials point to this as a sure sign of success, with more to come.

But a poll in July by the Washington Institute reports that the proportion of those who view the Abraham Accords favorably in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE “has dropped over the past year to a minority view,” David Pollock and Dylan Kassin said in an analysis.

According to them, “current attitudes contrast with the relative optimism exhibited by a significant percentage of Emiratis, Bahrainis, Saudis and even some Egyptians in the months after the announcement of the Abraham Accords.”

The authors also noted, however, that the data “indicates a countercurrent of openness to allowing business and social ties with Israelis in some parts of the Gulf, especially in comparison to their peers in Egypt, Kuwait and the Levant.” Opposition to allowing business or sports ties with Israel “remains at 85% in Egypt and 87% in Jordan despite long-standing official relations,” they wrote.

It is unclear whether there is a difference in these countries between the older generation, which has spent decades considering Israel as an enemy, and the younger generation, which is connected on social media and may have differing opinions on the subject.

Critics note that the Abraham Accords have failed in a number of ways. First, they have not led to new agreements with other Gulf Cooperation Council countries such as Oman, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, and they do not appear to have led to an improved view of Israel on the street. The agreements have also not led to any tangible improvement on the Palestinian front.

The March 2022 “Negev Summit,” a gathering of foreign ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco and the UAE, and facilitated by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, went off course when Blinken used it to talk about the Palestinian issue instead of focusing on Iran, which was the original purpose of the gathering.

However, according to Gerald Feierstein and Yoel Guzansky of the Middle East Institute, “normalization has opened new opportunities for defense and security cooperation, especially among Israel, Bahrain and the UAE, which share a common perspective on the security threat posed by Iran.”

They said the Negev Forum that grew out of the Negev Summit and which folded Egypt into the Abraham Accords coalition “offered additional possibilities for cooperation on shared interests, including energy, food and water security, health and other issues.”

Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that “normalization is a process, not an event. There is no timeline or handbook for establishing warm ties after decades of enmity.”

Still, he remains optimistic about Israel’s ties with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco. He is also confident that other Arab countries “will prioritize their national interests over the Palestinian issue.

“Much of the region is undeniably ready to steer their countries toward stability and prosperity,” Schanzer said.

Others are optimistic as well.

Abraham Accords: A promising start with challenges ahead

Despite this somewhat optimistic view, it is essential that we invest serious effort to bolster the framework of the Abraham Accords and expand it, while doing our utmost to prevent Iran from wielding its negative influence to halt the trend of progress.

In addition to the security-related activity, and the economic, commercial progress being made, the policymakers in Israel would do well to consider adopting the following steps:

Firstly, strengthening the circle of peace-supporting countries and expanding it. It is important to invite Sudan and Chad (which was unjustly left out of the states party to the accords) to participate in all forums and working groups. It is important for them too to enjoy the fruits of peace and benefit from their decision to engage in normalization with Israel. As, if this is not the case, it might well result in negative momentum, possibly even leading to withdrawal – either publicly declared or discreetly – from the agreement. This will serve to encourage additional countries to join too.

Secondly, recognition of Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara. Although Israel provided no outright commitment to this, there is clear expectation of this in Rabat, especially after Washington and others have declared their recognition.

Thirdly, the opening of an overland trade route via Israel (or from it) to the Gulf States. Such a route would be considerably more efficient and less expensive than those currently in use, it would provide significant economic profits to the regional states and to the EU states too, which would be able to benefit from it for both the import and export of vehicles. This would be a tremendous boost to trade among the member countries of the Abraham Accords, while also contributing to the global economy.

Fourthly, expediting joint ventures for marketing solutions to globally urgent problems in the fields of energy, food and water, while exploiting the relative advantages of Israel and the Gulf States.

Fifthly, expanding educational and cultural initiatives to reinforce deeply-entrenched attitudes in favor of peace and so weaken separatist approaches and radical Islamic ideas.

This is a critical component for establishing peace at the popular level, between citizens and peoples, rather than just between states and governments.

Another idiotic antisemitic argument

Today I tweeted this meme:

Some Jew-hating idiot responded that today's Jews have nothing to do with the Jews of Jesus' time, and gave as proof "'EDOM IS IN MODERN JEWRY.' The Jewish Ency. 1925 Ed., Vol. 5, Pg. 41."

This was new to me, so, for fun, I looked this up. And this quote is all over antisemitic websites, I even saw a video about it on "GoyimTV."

They are claiming that the Jewish Encyclopedia says that Jews are really descendants of Edom (Esau.)

So I looked up page 41 of volume 5 of the 1925 Jewish Encyclopedia. It really is the entry on Edom, although it doesn't say at all what they claim it says.

What it does say is that during the Hashmonean era, some of the Edomites (Idumeans) were forcibly converted to Judaism by John Hycranus I (which is the only case of forced conversion to Judaism in recorded history.)

The Idumeans did become enthusiastic members of the religion - King Herod was Idumean. They were obviously still a minority among Jews. (There is an interesting halachic issue mentioned in the article about whether Edomites were allowed to join the Jewish people, but that is a separate matter.)

Even so - they were considered Jews living in what would later be called "Palestine" in Jesus' time. They are clearly of MIddle East origin, native to the region. Even if some of them survived to remain Jews today, how, exactly, does this hurt the Jewish claim to Israel? The Idumeans lived as Jews in Judea seven centuries before Islam!

All this proves is that antisemites, like anti-Zionists, will seize a tiny piece of real information and build an entire fictional universe around it to fit their hate.

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!

This week was the wedding of the Chabad rabbi of the UAE Levi Duchman to Leah Hadad. Khaleej Times reports:

It was pure joy and excitement in the UAE capital as guests from all around the world attended the first ever wedding of a rabbi in the country.

The rabbi to the UAE, Rabbi Levi Duchman, married Lea Hadad of Brussels, Belgium on Wednesday, September 14, at a magnificent ceremony held at the Hilton Yas Hotel.

1,500 guests from around the world attended the wedding – the largest Jewish event in the Arabian Gulf in recent history – including prominent rabbis and dignitaries. More than 20 ambassadors, including those from Japan, South Korea and Finland, were also in attendance.

Yemen news site 26 September was not happy:

It is a dance of shame about normalization at a huge wedding ceremony for the chief rabbinic in Abu Dhabi, in a new dedication to the shame of publicizing normalization between the Emirates and the Zionist entity

...Leaked wedding videos showed very intimate relations between the Jewish attendees and Emirati officials.
The event, which coincides with the second anniversary of the Abraham Accords, highlighted the growing openness of Jewish life in the Emirates.

Until 2020, the country's Jewish community preserved the privacy of its traditions and services. But recently, the UAE government has welcomed more public festivities and celebrations.

That's the shame that the wedding viscerally brings up to Yemen. Not the normalization, but Jews publicly celebrating in an Arab country with Muslims.

The caption on this video is "Normalization Dance."

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!

09/16 Links Pt1: IDF purity of arms and Palestinian Authority bloodlust; Abu Mazen is trying to blackmail Israel; Chile apologizes after president refuses Israeli ambassador's credentials

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: IDF purity of arms and Palestinian Authority bloodlust

WITHOUT SKIPPING a beat, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf told reporters in a phone briefing on Wednesday that “the security conditions on the West Bank do concern us greatly, but they also concern Israel and they also concern the Palestinian Authority.”

Never mind that the PA is at fault for those conditions, which make a mockery of the rules of Israeli engagement that place heroes like Falah in extra peril.

“Our part in this is to ensure that, to the greatest degree possible, security cooperation is robust and continuing,” she said, adding incomprehensibly, “but those other things are done around and outside that security cooperation that sustains it.”

She went on to spew the same old platitude, proven time and again to be totally false, about how improving “economic conditions” in the West Bank and Gaza “can help and sustain improvement in security conditions.”

Not a word about PA and Hamas terrorism. Perhaps Lapid and Gantz didn’t mind so much, since they tend to agree with her overall assessment.

They also must be patting themselves on the back for responding so forcefully about the IDF doctrine that Foggy Bottom slightly eased up on its criticism. Ironically, it did so before Falah was killed, through US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides and State Department spokesman Ned Price.

“Israel is a sovereign country and will make their own decisions,” Nides said on Monday at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York.

“No one knows the IDF’s processes and procedures better than the IDF,” Price told the press during his daily briefing on Tuesday. “And so, it is not on us or any other country or entity to say precisely what the IDF or any military or security organization around the world should do.”

On the other hand, he stressed, “It is incumbent on us to continue to underscore the importance that we place on mitigating civilian harm and taking steps, including revised policies and procedures, that would mitigate the possibility of civilian harm.”

Falah is but a single casualty of Israel’s gargantuan efforts over the years to avoid hurting civilians, including those used by terrorists as human shields. May he rest in peace, while the IDF remembers that it’s at war.

Abu Mazen is trying to blackmail Israel

On Wednesday, terrorists in the West Bank opened fire at an IDF checkpoint, killing Bar Falah, a thirty-year-old major. Falah’s comrades quickly killed the shooters, one of whom was a Palestinian Authority (PA) security officer. Last week, thanks to good luck and the vigilance of police, a major terrorist attack in Tel Aviv was thwarted. Yoni Ben Menachem believes these and many other recent incidents are not so much the result of the aging PA president Mahmoud Abbas losing his grip on the reins of power, but of his decision to resume violence:

Abbas is trying to blackmail Israel and the U.S.; he sees the new wave of terrorism that broke out independently in the field as a lever of pressure on Israel in everything related to creating a “political horizon” and renewing negotiations about the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Abbas, who has reached the end of his political career, is not interested in calming the situation. So long as the armed terrorists do not threaten the Muqata in Ramallah, [the Palestinian equivalent of the White House], and he has American and European backing as well as that of moderate Arab countries, he feels that this is the right time to squeeze major concessions out of Israel. . . .

Next week the PA president will go to New York to deliver his annual speech at the UN General Assembly. The PA has been engaged in a political campaign for several weeks now with the aim of obtaining the agreement of the United Nations to recognize “Palestine” with full membership in the organization. Today it has the status of an observer state. Israel strongly opposes this move. President Biden also opposes it, and last week he sent Barbara Leaf, a U.S. assistant secretary of state, to Ramallah. Abbas refused to meet with her, but in a meeting with Hussein al-Sheikh, [his deputy and likely successor], she clarified her position that the U.S. might veto the Palestinian request in the Security Council.

Abbas is playing with fire and if he doesn’t come to his senses he may end his rule just like Yasir Arafat: Operation Protective Shield in 2002 resulted [effectively in the end of Yasir Arafat’s political power]. If Abas pushes Israel into a corner, another IDF operation in Judea and Samaria in the style of Protective Shield may bring him closer to the end of his rule.

Mark Regev: Israel can engage with Mahmoud Abbas despite Holocaust revisionism

Over the years, Abbas has repeatedly revisited such themes. In 2018, at a meeting of the Palestinian National Council, he stated that European Jews were massacred because of their “social role related to usury and banks.”

Unfortunately, Abbas’s comments are reflective of a Palestinian society plagued by antisemitic stereotypes, where spurious references to the Holocaust are pervasive.

It is not just the ubiquitous charge that the IDF acts with Nazi-type brutality, or that the crimes of the Holocaust are deliberately magnified for political purposes; rather, it is widely accepted that the Palestinians themselves, and not the Jews, are the ultimate victims of the Holocaust.

In this skewed narrative, the Palestinians lost their homeland to pay for Europe’s crimes against the Jews, as if their political leadership was on the right side of history during the genocide.

Forgotten is Grand Mufti Amin Husseini, the preeminent Palestinian political leader of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, who was the Arab world’s chief Nazi exponent and spent World War II in Berlin, broadcasting Hitler’s propaganda to the Middle East.

Husseini was aware of, and supported, the Holocaust, encouraging Bosnian Muslims to volunteer for the Waffen SS. At the end of the war, he fled Europe to escape prosecution by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. He eventually surfaced in Gaza in 1948 to be elected president of the All-Palestine Government, despite his notorious Nazi affiliations.

The current Palestinian leader has nothing critical to say about Husseini’s wartime activities; instead, Abbas prefers to propagate bogus theories of Zionist-Nazi collaboration. But while Abbas’s revisionism is very real, he nonetheless can be seen as one in a long list of unsavory characters with whom Zionists have negotiated.

Zionist negotiations with antisemites, pogrom participants
In 1903, Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, met with tsarist interior minister Vyacheslav Plehve, who many held responsible for the Kishinev pogrom. Herzl had few illusions about his counterpart, but the goal was to enlist Russia’s support for a Jewish state that could absorb the masses of persecuted Jews of the tsarist empire.

In 1921, Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky met with the Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura, who had been accused of complicity in pogroms in which thousands of Jews were murdered. Jabotinsky sought Petliura’s support for the establishment of Jewish military units that could protect Ukraine’s Jews from future pogroms.

Most well known, in 1933, Haim Arlosoroff, the head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department, negotiated an arrangement with Germany’s new Nazi regime. The Ha’avara Agreement enabled the emigration of some 60,000 German Jews to Mandatory Palestine, saving their lives.

THE AFOREMENTIONED negotiations provided Israel’s enemies with ammunition for allegations of Zionist collusion with antisemites. Such accusations were a staple of Soviet anti-Israel propaganda throughout the 1970s and 1980s (when Abbas wrote his PhD in Moscow) and were echoed by the hard left across the West, reemerging in the UK in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

Zionists weren't complicit, they practiced realpolitik
But rather than proving a nefarious complicity between Zionists and Jew-haters, these diplomatic efforts by Zionist leaders merely demonstrate the omnipresence of political realism in all international relations. This type of realpolitik, decried by the Soviets when exercised by Zionists, was a practice in which they themselves were consummate specialists.

Times of Israel reports:

The head of a yeshiva in the southern West Bank settlement of Carmel said Friday that he was leading a study session when one of his students was struck in a suspected terror shooting.

The 18-year-old was moderately wounded in the attack Thursday night and taken to the hospital for treatment. Israeli security forces launched a manhunt in the area after the assailant fled.

Speaking with Kan public radio, Rabbi Natan Ofner of Yeshiva Reuta said his pupil was now listed as lightly hurt and was due to undergo surgery to remove shrapnel.

Palestinian terror groups are falling over themselves to praise the heroism of someone shooting through a yeshiva window, hoping to kill Jews.

The People's Republic affirmed that this heroic operation comes in fulfillment of the blood of the martyrs of our people and a victory for the suffering of the prisoners,...The People's Republic stressed that this process confirms the extension of the resistance act, and proves the ability of the resistance in the West Bank to penetrate the complex Zionist security measures, in light of the continuation of security coordination and the pursuit of the resistance. To continue the option of struggle until the last Zionist usurper leaves our land, and you should expect more of these honorable operations in the coming days.

Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said, "From the north of the West Bank in Jenin al-Qassam, to its south in Khalil al-Rahman, the rebellious youth in the West Bank continue their fight against the occupation army and its settlers."

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine praised the heroic operation: "It proves once again the efficacy of revolutionary armed violence in responding to the crimes of the occupation. "

The Popular Resistance Movement in Palestine blessed the heroic Hebron operation, saying: "Once again, the Palestinian resistance proves that it is capable of striking the Zionist security system, and its criminal plans against our Palestinian people fail." It added that "the Hebron operation represents a painful blow to the security coordination and to all calls for settlement and defeatism of the Zionist enemy, and the escalation of heroic operations carried out by our brave men in the Palestinian West Bank, will continue as long as the occupation is perched on our occupied land."

It seems that they are trying to convince themselves that this was a monumental victory, hoping that these tales of heroism will help them to recruit more members. I don''t know if Palestinians are buying any of this.

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!

J-Street, the self-styled "pro-Israel, pro-peace" organization, is definitely anti-truth.

An email sent out to the J-Street mailing list signed by their deputy Israel director, Eve Lifson, says:

Almost every day, my fellow Israelis are sent to guard wrecking crews.

Young soldiers have to tell children and their parents that bulldozers have come for their family home. They hold back distraught relatives as jackhammers tear into bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms.

It’s not the vision of defending our homeland that most young Israelis had in mind.

The truth? Demolishing family homes to make way for settlements has nothing to do with Israel’s security, and everything to do with the right-wing’s efforts to entrench permanent control over occupied land.

The idea that Israel demolishes Palestinian homes in order to build Jewish communities in their place is rampant among anti-Israel social media activists, but it is a lie. Jewish communities are not built anywhere near existing Arab communities. (The only exception is Hebron, where Jews lived way before Arabs did, and which J-Street wants to ethnically cleanse today just as it was in 1929.)

There are only two reasons why Arab homes are demolished nowadays. Either the home was built without a permit, or it was the home of a terrorist and the demolition is meant to dissuade future attacks.

Before Israel withdrew from Gaza, it sometimes demolished homes to clear land for security purposes (as in the Rachel Corrie incident.)

Lifson lives in Israel, which means that either J-Street hires the most ignorant Israelis to work for them, or she is knowingly lying.

And Lifson isn't ignorant. She's been obsessed with Israeli home demolitions since she was in high school. She considers home demolitions to be part and parcel of what anti-Israel activists call "creeping annexation." It is only a short mental leap between that belief and telling people that Israel is building settlements on destroyed Palestinian villages.

Her hallucinations may be shared with many modern antisemites, but that doesn't make them true.

But if anti-Israel organizations cared about truth, they wouldn't have very much to say.

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!

Survey: US Jews are not Islamophobic - but 26% of Muslims themselves are!

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding has released its 2022 survey on Muslims in America.

The survey shows that Jews are the one faith group that is most tolerant towards Muslims.

Even more than Muslims themselves!

The Discrimination and Islamophobia section of the survey shows that in their Islamophobia Index, which averages to responses for several questions about Muslims, Jews were by far the most tolerant - and Muslims looked at themselves in a worse light than the average American does.

17% of Jews were considered Islamophobic according to this index, while 25% of the general public did - and 26% of Muslims themselves.

The findings on the specific questions that make up the definition of Islamophobia are even more interesting.

While only 9% of Jews say Muslims are prone to violence, 24% of Muslims say that - the highest faith group to believe that by far and nearly triple that of the general public.

For the question of "Do you agree that most Muslims living in the United States are hostile to the United States," again the highest score went to Muslims themselves - 19% - compared to only 4% for Jews.

Nearly identical results came from the question of whether respondents agree that US Muslims are less civilized than other Americans.

Another result of the survey is that white Muslims are far more Islamophobic than Muslims of color - and it is getting worse.

ISPU tries to spin these results, saying that the Muslims who are self-hating have been brainwashed by mainstream Islamophobic tropes.

Endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own community is referred to as internalized oppression, or internalized bigotry or racism in the case of a racial group. ... Some studies on internalized racism have surprisingly found that endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own group is associated with a higher locus of control. This suggests that internalized prejudice may actually be a defense mechanism against the trauma of bigotry at the hands of the dominant group by agreeing with those in power but believing one has the choice (locus of control) to not be like those tropes.

That would make sense if the mainstream was indeed bigoted - one could expect a small percentage of the minority group to be influenced by the majority. But as theses result show, the majority isn't Islamophobic compared to Muslims themselves, which makes that theory nonsensical.

One other point: if a Muslim organization has no problem noting that over a quarter of US Muslims are Islamophobic by their definition, why is it considered so awful for Jews to point out that some Jews are antisemitic?

(h/t Adam Albilya)

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!

09/15 Links Pt2: Before criticizing Israel, US should clean up at home; U.S. Supreme Court rules Yeshiva University must recognize LGBTQ club; Israel Scores No. 1 in Digital Quality of Life Index

From Ian:

Statistics show Israel haters are wrong

Anti-Israel commentators also usually neglect to acknowledge that Palestinians have been waging a terrorist war against Israel's existence since the state's birth in 1948. Much of Palestinian suffering results from Israel defending itself against these unrelenting attacks, as well as the Palestinian refusal to accept offers of land for peace and a state of their own.

Israel is often also faulted for passage of its "nation-state law" in 2018 – which declares that the country exists to fulfill the Jewish people's "right to self-determination." This attack, however, is a red herring, attempting to discredit a statute that in no way limits Israel's democratic liberties.

Note that this law does not infringe on the rights of individual Israelis, including its two million Arab citizens. Like many other nation states, it merely formalizes symbols of its people – in this case the Jewish people – such as the flag, national anthem and holidays.

Note, too, that while the nation-state law declares Hebrew to be the national language, this is not different than in the United States, in which English is the mother tongue. Nor does Israel's nation-state law establish any official religion – unlike some seven European countries that declare state religions in their very constitutions.

All of this is to point out that Israel can be a proud nation of the Jewish people while still cherishing and implementing one of the most diverse and freest democracies on earth. In fact, some would argue that it is precisely Jewish values that fortify and help guarantee Israel's robust democracy.

In short, no matter what slanderous accusations Israel's enemies employ, the Jewish state objectively remains one of the strongest and most successful democracies on earth. Tiny Israel provides political freedoms and economic opportunities unmatched by the overwhelming majority of the world's nations.

Note finally that the suffering and political plight of the Palestinians has little to do with Israel and is in fact almost entirely the result of authoritarian governance by its terrorist dictatorial regimes and their obstinate refusal to make peace.

Before criticizing Israel, US should clean up at home

Israel has one of the highest numbers of foreign journalists per capita in the world. Many are critical, some outwardly hostile towards Israel; nevertheless, they are not banned from covering the news in Israel or the disputed territories. If Israel wanted to kill reporters who write negative things about the country, dozens would be dead. The idea that the government would intentionally target journalists is preposterous.

Imagine Israel's Foreign Ministry releasing statements calling for the United States to review its rules of engagement considering the casualties caused by its armed forces. It would never happen.

It was good to see Prime Minister Yair Lapid stand up for his nation's sovereignty by stating: "No one will dictate our open-fire policies to us when we are fighting for our lives. Our soldiers have the full backing of the government of Israel and the people of Israel." He added, "I will not allow an IDF soldier that was protecting himself from terrorist fire to be prosecuted just to receive applause from abroad."

Similarly, Gantz rightly said, "The chief of staff, and he alone determines and will continue to determine the open-fire policies, in accordance with the operational need and the values of the IDF, including the purity of arms. … There was and will be no political involvement in the matter."

Notably, in 2014, after the war in Gaza, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked about how "Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties." The Pentagon, he said, sent a team of officers to Israel to learn lessons from the fighting, including "the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties."

The United States is Israel's most important ally. Still, America's leaders sometimes need to be reminded that Israel is a sovereign nation, as Menachem Begin did after the Reagan administration took a series of measures to punish Israel for annexing the Golan Heights. "Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic?" he asked the US ambassador to Israel. "We have enough strength," Begin declared, "to defend our independence and to defend our rights."

Would the United States ever deign to tell Britain, Germany or France how its military should perform its duties?

No, which makes the approach towards Israel a double standard, one of the examples of anti-Semitism in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition used by the State Department.

Before Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt takes another trip abroad, she should clean up her own house.

Clifford D. May: Fascism for dummies

Fascism, Nazism and other "national socialisms," he writes, "had their roots in the 19th century and even earlier," in ideas promulgated by such philosophers as Rousseau, Hegel and Nietzsche.

The term derives from fascio, Italian for a bundle or sheath, conveying "strength through unity," the unifying force being the government and its supreme leader. As Mussolini put it: "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

In common with communism, fascism in its diverse forms opposes liberalism, defined as "individualism and the apparently chaotic conclusions of private enterprise."

Also akin to communism, fascism has had a "passion for science" that often turns out to be pseudo-science. The Soviet Communists had Lysenkoism. Nazis believed, as Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg wrote, that "history must be judged from the point of view of race."

The poet Ezra Pound, a well-known American fascist, moved to Italy in 1924, where he wrote for publications owned by the British fascist Oswald Moseley (whose street fighters also were called Blackshirts). Pound supported Hitler's rise, including in paid radio broadcasts attacking the United States, the United Kingdom, Roosevelt, Churchill and Jews. Among the ideas he championed: "race pride."

As George Mosse notes in "Fascist Aesthetics and Society: Some Considerations," the "human body indicates the structure of the mind."

Another attribute of fascism is hyper-nationalism. The Axis powers all invaded neighbors and folded them into their expanding empires.

Neither Trump nor Biden has displayed any interest in foreign conquests, as far as I'm aware. On the contrary, I see too many Republicans and Democrats succumbing to the siren song of isolationism.

This is an opinion column and I'll close with this one: A serious argument can be made that Vladmir Putin, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong-un exemplify 21st century varieties of fascism. Had President Biden addressed the increasing national security threats they pose, he might have helped unite us against those who hate us – Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, the woke and the unwoke. He chose not to.

I think that's because he wants to win in the worst way. And it's hard to imagine any way worse than this: slandering his political opponents as fascists while posing as a modern Mussolini in the City of Brotherly Love.

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!

Only Possible Conclusion From Unpopularity Of Party's Ideas: Voters Stupid (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, September 15 - A political faction struggling to approach, let alone restore, the legislative clout it held more than twenty years ago has followed the evidence to the only tenable explanation for its collapse in the interim: the electorate hasn't the intelligence necessary to cast the correct ballot and return the faction to its former glory.

A series of surveys commissioned by the far-left Meretz Party found less than a twentieth of the electorate will consider voting for the party in the November 1 Knesset elections, a dramatic erosion of the kingmaker status it held in the 1990's and early 2000's when it commanded double-digit seats in the 120-member legislature. Meretz has failed to garner more than six seats - in 2009 dropping as low as three - in almost twenty years, as Israelis' confidence in the party's insistence on generous concessions to the Palestinians even as the latter killed more than a thousand Israelis in bombings and other terrorist attacks. Meretz leadership, however, has reached the unavoidable conclusion that democracy is imperiled because the electorate refuses to vote Meretz, a clear indication that the electorate lacks the mental capacity to make important decisions for itself.

"Essentially, the people are wrong for thinking Palestinians trying to kill us means we shouldn't give Palestinians greater capacity to kill us," explained Chairwoman Zahava Gal-On, who came out of retirement to win internal party elections last month; the most optimistic polls foresee Meretz earning up to five seats in November, and Ms. Gal-On's return energized a party that previous polling showed might not meet the electoral threshold for Knesset representation at all.

"Our position has always been so manifestly correct that only ignorance or malice can adequately account for anyone selecting a different party's ballot," added Nitzan Horowitz, currently the Minister of Health. "The problem is, that obvious truth conflicts with a cardinal principle of democracy, which we purport to protect. What happens when voters get so stupid, and for so long, that our vision for the country's future recedes so far into unpopularity that it becomes not only irrelevant, but a sick joke? I think we know the answer, which has been tried numerous times over the last century, though with varying degrees of success: somehow seize and exercise power, by what might technically be considered undemocratic means, such as appointees in key positions in the judicial and prosecutorial system, say, while all the time claiming our measures are necessary to protect a democracy under assault from the benighted fascists of Likud, Ben-Gvir, and anyone to the right of Lenin."

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09/15 Links Pt1: Glick: For Israel to be safe it must bury the Oslo delusion; PA Fails to Meet ‘Minimum’ US Transparency Requirements; Israeli kindness to children is a problem for Palestinians

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: For Israel to be safe it must bury the Oslo delusion

The Oslo peace process was based on the idea that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Arafat and his PLO had abandoned terrorism and were willing to live in peace with Israel. Israel agreed to import Arafat, his deputies and his terror armies to Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria, and give them autonomous rule over the Palestinians. The idea, which had no basis in reality whatsoever, was that the PLO would fight terrorists on behalf of Israel. And if they failed to do so, it wouldn’t be because they were still the terrorists they had always been. It would be because Israel wasn’t giving them enough power.

None of this made a bit of sense at the time. And at no point in the intervening 29 years were these absurd notions borne out by events—quite the contrary. Reality has always reigned supreme. And due to reality, some 1,700 Israelis have been killed since 1993 by Palestinian terrorists. Moreover, 29 years after Israel first legitimized the PLO, Israel’s diplomatic standing is hanging by a thread. Not only did Arafat and Abbas never go to war against Hamas, from the outset Fatah and Hamas have cooperated in their joint war against the Jews, even as they compete for public support.

Palestinian terror groups like Hamas have been transformed from tactical challenges into strategic threats. Their missiles are capable of reaching nearly every point in Israel. And their influence over Israel’s Arab citizens has made the prospect of a fifth column in war a distinct threat that Israel is ill-prepared to contend with. In the countries most obsessed with preserving Oslo—including the U.S.—Jews are attacked in the streets for daring to support Israel.

But for 29 years and counting, Israel’s elites have refused to hear about it. As far as the political left, the IDF generals and their friends in the media are concerned, the problem was and remains the enemy within. Not Arab Israelis who support the annihilation of Israel, but Israelis who insist that reality is what matters, and that enemies have to be defeated, not stabilized and empowered, legitimized and enriched.

Today, 29 years after the Oslo delusion became the official policy of Israel’s elites, and as we bury its latest victim, we must bury the delusion with him. Israel will only begin the journey back to safety and strategic sanity after Oslo is abandoned.

Time to Rethink the Question of Palestine

The UN is poised to revisit the question of Palestine with renewed vigor. This invariably means flushing more money into UNRWA, a special agency devoted to keeping Palestinians in refugee camps in preparation for their conquest of Israel, and by upgrading the Palestinian status, recognizing them as a state despite virtual consensus that they in no way meet the legal definition.

In the 74 years since Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, Israel has continued to build, absorb millions of refugees from Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, has forged peace with old belligerents like Egypt and Jordan and more recently, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan. The Palestinian Arabs have, for the most part, remained unchanged, still viewing their struggle as one against European colonizers and not the ancient custodians of the land, and believing that if they resist long enough, the Jews will eventually go some place else.

It is time to deliver the hard truth that those who reject internationally brokered plans of partition, reject every offer of statehood put to them, and consistently use violence as a political device, do not set the terms. As long as the Palestinian leadership receives cost-free solidarity, currency and diplomatic recognition, a negotiated outcome is an impossibility.

Follow the Money: Media Absent as Palestinian Authority Fails to Meet ‘Minimum’ US Transparency Requirements

Ever since the establishment of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) under the 1990s Oslo Accords, international aid has accounted for a significant proportion of its budget. Even after the United States cut off assistance following the passing of anti-terror legislation in 2019, the PA continued to receive some $900 million in aid annually from other countries, with its total government expenditure estimated at $4.73 billion.

According to 2020 data published by the World Bank, development aid constitutes over one-tenth of the West Bank and Gaza’s entire gross national income. By comparison, in crisis-afflicted Lebanon, this number stands at only 5.7 percent.

Meanwhile, over the past 20 months, the Biden Administration has announced the restoration of $831 million in US funding to the Palestinians, further solidifying what some have called a “donor-based economy.”

When Washington declared its intention to resume assistance in April 2021, with additional aid pledged in July of this year, the media were all over the story. In fact, since the initial announcement, a sample of 18 major English-language news outlets produced almost 300 articles that mentioned the US aid plans. Headlines included ‘After bitter Trump years, Palestinians’ thank America’ again,’ ‘UN agency praises new US aid for Palestinians at ‘critical moment’,’ and ‘Editorial: Biden is right to resume aid to the Palestinians.’

Yet these same media organizations have entirely ignored a recent State Department report that seemingly once again casts serious doubt on the legality of President Biden’s renewed support for the Arab population of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.

On September 9, the State Department released its 2022 Fiscal Transparency Report to Congress, which evaluates whether governments around the world, as well as the Palestinian Authority, meet the minimum standards for financial transparency. Regarding Mahmoud Abbas’ autocratic PA regime, the document noted that:
During the review period, the Palestinian Authority made its enacted budget public, but not within a reasonable period of time, and the data was incomplete… The Palestinian Authority published monthly budget execution reports that provided a substantially full picture of its expenditures and revenue streams. The information in the reports was considered reliable and reasonably accurate. However, information on debt obligations was incomplete.”

The State Department also wrote that Ramallah’s supreme audit institution “lacked independence,” that its statements were not publicly available within a reasonable period, and that audits did not cover the entire annual budget. The PA did not make significant progress toward improving fiscal transparency in the past year, Washington concluded, calling again on Abbas to implement changes.

Russia -- When It Comes To Iran And Israel: Friendship Goes Further Than Partnership (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

In the Middle East, allies and adversaries can change back and forth.

This is true not only among the states in that area but also among the outside countries that vie against each other to either gain a foothold or secure access to resources and technology.

Russia is one example.

When it was the Soviet Union, it was one of the first countries to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran. But it also was a major supplier of weapons to Iraq during that country's war against Iran, while at the same time providing some weapons to Iran. After the war, the USSR agreed to help Iran complete its nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

Today, Russia is still in the middle of things. It has inserted itself into Syria, which helps Iran's strategy of exploiting that country to supply Hezbollah while also establishing a base of operations against Israel. Yet at the same time, despite its advanced missile systems in place to defend Syria, Russia has an agreement with Israel allowing it to take action against Iranian positions in Syria.

It's complicated.

Ksenia Svetlova, an Israeli politician and journalist, differentiates between Russia's relationship with Iran and Israel:

The Iranians are not Russia’s friends, they’re partners.
We’re not partners (referring to Israel).

Left unsaid is just what Russia's relationship with Israel actually is.

A 2005 Middle East Forum article on Putin's Pro-Israel Policy, noted similar interests between Russia and Israel in the fight against the threat both countries faced against terrorism:

While the United States and other Western governments criticized Russian operations in Chechnya, the Israeli government did not. Rather, Sharansky offered strong support for Putin's hard-line policy of not negotiating with terrorists but defeating them militarily instead. Parallels between Russia's conflict with the Chechens and Israel's struggle with the Palestinians have resonated strongly with the Putin administration.

...Like Palestinian terrorists, Chechen rebels have launched a number of attacks on civilian targets in Russia, including attacks on hospitals in southern Russia during the first Chechen war (1994-96), the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, and a series of attacks in the summer of 2004 that culminated in the death of hundreds of school children in Beslan. This similarity in predicament seems to have increased sympathy for Israel in Russia.

But beyond the common enemy of terrorists, there is another tie between Russia and Israel which exists even when the issue of Chechnya is not front page news. When Ariel Sharon visited Russia in 2001,

Putin referred to the fact that many Israelis originally came from Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, stating that he wanted them to "live in peace and security," and denounced terrorism, even as he also referred to Russia's "traditionally good" relations with the Arab world and the Palestinian Authority.

When Israel confined Arafat to his headquarters in Ramallah, the terrorist leader turned to Putin to pressure Israel to back off. Instead, Putin was reported to have told him that "combating terrorism and extremism is the most urgent task facing the world community today."

Another angle to keep in mind is that in 2005, Russian ties with Israel were worth in the neighborhood of $1 billion annually.

But on the other hand, Russia still has to deal with the millions of Muslims who live in Russia. That gives Russia a strong motivation to temper its ties with Israel.

But at the same time, that is a danger for Russia as well.

In 2011, Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt criticized Putin's connection with Iran, noting at the time that based on the disparity between Russian and Muslim birthrates, by 2050 Muslims would outnumber native Russians.

More than that is the issue of Iran itself:

Putin naively believes in a non-existent Russian/Iranian bond that places Moscow outside Iran’s crosshairs. But Iran eventually has in mind for Russia the same fate it has for other non-Islamic states—a fate shared by the Caucasus Emirate: i.e., to make the country subservient to shariah law.

As the Soviet Union was falling apart, Ayatollah Khomeini wrote Gorbachev, offering Islamism as a way to "easily help fill up the ideological vacuum of your system."

What about today?

Capt. (res.) Alexander Grinberg of the IDF Military Intelligence writes that there is no love for Russia among the Iranians themselves:

the vast majority of Iranians traditionally despise Russia and support Ukraine. Countless Iranian youth hate Russia because they see parallels between the Russian and Iranian regimes. Given this context, it is understandable that Iranian leaders dislike being portrayed as Russia supporters.

That is not to say that Iran has particularly friendly relations with Ukraine right now either. Back in 2020, Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people on board.

Ukraine is an impediment to ties between Russia and Israel as well, as Israel has carefully supported Ukraine against the Russian invasion while being careful not to do anything that might threaten the freedom Russia has been granting it in its flights over Syria. Russia has even told Iran to move from its positions in Syria in order to avoid giving Israel targets that are close to Russian positions.

Meanwhile, from a business perspective, the governments of Russia and Iran are in competition with each other as they try to find markets for their oil at a time when Russia is being isolated because of its invasion of Ukraine while Iran is trying to find a way around sanctions.

Partnerships in politics do not necessarily extend to partnerships in business.

And yet it is undeniable that the isolation of Russia and Iran is drawing the 2 countries together:

In July, Iran became the world’s largest buyer of Russian wheat. This month, Russia launched an Iranian satellite into space in a rare success for Tehran’s space program. And last week, Iran’s military hosted joint drone exercises with Russian forces, as the U.S. warns Moscow is preparing to receive Iranian drones for use in the war in Ukraine.

This interaction is going beyond an inter-governmental level:

Russians have been flocking to the Islamic Republic in recent months, often to discuss ways to circumvent sanctions, say Iranian businessmen. Russian is often heard in Tehran’s shops and hotels these days, as Iran remains open to Russian travelers who have been cut off from much of the West.

At the city’s grand bazaar, Hossein, a carpet seller, said the number of Russian customers has doubled since February and now make up half its customer base. In the lobby of a luxury hotel in Tehran, the only Europeans were Russians who brought their laptops for a business meeting with Iranians in black suits.

This almost sounds comparable to the descriptions of Israelis traveling to the UAE and investigating possible business ventures and opportunities for commerce.

But unlike the Arab-Israeli friendship that we read about, Russians visiting Iran are doing so out of desperation.

Svetlova's description still rings true: "The Iranians are not Russia’s friends, they’re partners."

Predictions over the years that Israel would face isolation and have no friends were wrong. The same cannot be said about Russia and Iran. And the fact that they find themselves in the same boat creates a partnership that will only go so far.

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Palestinian Media Watch reported yesterday:

Early this morning Fatah released a video on its official Facebook page celebrating the terror attack. During the video, a text appeared on the screen with three important messages:

1. "The Al-Aqsa-Palestine [Martyrs’] Brigades is officially announcing its operations (i.e., terror attacks)”

2. “The Fatah Movement takes responsibility for the operations of its military arm [the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades]”

3. "The Fatah leadership announces that it has returned to the phase of the armed struggle (i.e., Fatah’s euphemism for terror)"

The Al-Aqsa-Martyrs’ Brigades is an internationally designated terror organization. For years the United States, Europe, and other funders of the PA have tried to differentiate between Fatah which is headed by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas and its terror branch the Brigades. Palestinian Media Watch has argued all along that this differentiation is false and artificial. Now Fatah has officially confirmed that they are one organization, and Fatah is taking credit and responsibility for its murderous terror attacks.

The third part of Fatah’s announcement is also significant. For years PMW has been reporting that Fatah regularly declares that the pause in "armed struggle" - its euphemism for terror - against Israel is temporary and that the phase of the “armed struggle” will return. Now Fatah has officially announced that it has returned to terror.

The signs have been there for a while. For example, in May, Fatah released a video called "Security Services By Day, Fedayeen By Night," glorifying members of the Palestinian security services who have been involved in terrorism, including in 2021.

The supposed separation between Fatah's "armed wing" and "political wing" has always been artificial. The Fatah political party platform, in force since 2009, explicitly supports terror, glorifying terror and the destruction of all of Israel.

The liberation of the homeland is the central axis of the Fatah Movement’s struggle...

The Palestinian people’s right to practice armed resistance against the military occupation of their land remains a constant right confirmed by international law and international legality.

,,,Continued commitment to the culture of struggle, and the permanent readiness to engage in resisting the occupation, and sacrifice for the homeland. Continuous education through regular organizational meetings and training courses. The issuing of Fatah circulars, to continue mobilizing the cadres of the movement and masses with the heritage of the Palestinian armed struggle. Celebrating our battles, and commemorating the history of our struggle and the permanent readiness to sacrifice.

Fatah and the PA have been acting consistently with this published manifesto - which includes BDS and labeling Israel as "apartheid" - and yet I have not seen anyone besides me report on it.

The world and politicians and journalists and pundits like to pretend that Yasir Arafat agreed to end terrorism as a tactic in 1993. They ignore that he was behind the second intifada. They ignore the fact that Mahmoud Abbas never dismantled his party's terror wing. They ignore that Fatah says that killing Israelis is a legal right. And, today, they are ignoring the explicit support for terror that Abbas' Fatah is publishing on its own media.

Fatah, the dominant political party in the Palestinian Authority, states what its goals and tactics are. Explicitly. Anyone who pretends that this is a peaceful movement for a state in the territories is either ignorant - or complicit with their real goal of destroying Israel.

Fatah taking credit for terror is not a change in their philosophy or strategy. It is entirely consistent with what they have been saying and doing for years - but no one wants to listen.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Palestinians consistently align with the worst human rights abusers, and the "human rights" community stays silent

One of the biggest ironies in the progressive war against Israel is that Palestinian groups consistently align with the worst violators of human rights in the world - from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qaddafi to Osama Bin Laden.

Today, Hamas announced a restoral of relations with Syria, which had been ruptured by the Syrian civil war.

In an official statement, Hamas expressed its appreciation to the leadership and people of the Syrian Arab Republic, "for their role in standing by the Palestinian people and their just cause," and "expressing its aspirations for Syria to regain its role and position in the Arab and Islamic nations, and we support all sincere efforts for the stability, safety, prosperity and progress of Syria."

Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh also met with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov senior Russian officials this past weekend.

That meeting prompted Ukraine to designate Hamas as a terror group.

It isn't only Hamas. On September 9, Mahmoud Abbas issued a press release:

President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas congratulated the Secretary-General of the Korean Labor Party, Head of State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Marshal Kim Jong-un, on the anniversary of the founding of the Republic.

The fact is that Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leaders in Gaza are just as much dictators as the autocrats they love to align with. And they all have in common a contempt for basic human rights.

Try to find any progressive" or "human rights" organization denouncing these ties.

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09/14 Links Pt2: The ADL’s Radical Boss Must Go; Antisemitic Adelaide University editor sacked; UAE Rabbi Gets Married in Abu Dhabi; Jewish Lord mourns Queen Elizabeth’s death with Kabbalah class

From Ian:

Daniel Greenfield: The ADL’s Radical Boss Must Go

In August, the ADL announced the fellows for its inaugural Center for Antisemitism Research Fellowship, to identify “new approaches to combating antisemitism in society.”

One of its fellows, Michael Zanger-Tishler, has called for protesting Birthright Israel to “change Israeli policy toward the Palestinians” and his work has accused Israel of “constructing Palestinian criminality”.

Another, Sara Yael Hirschhorn, tweeted that, “the Palestinian case shares some common features with South Africa—population transfer/ethnic cleansing”, and falsely claimed that Israel is guilty of “daily violations of human rights.”

Hirschhorn has cultivated a career of bashing Israel with New York Times op-eds like, “Israeli Terrorists, Born in the U.S.A.” Her book, “City on a Hilltop”, attacking Jews living in their historical homeland in Judea and Samaria, was featured, along with the author, at a Foundation for Middle East Peace event. FMEP, a part of the Arab Lobby, accuses Israel of “apartheid”.

Her new book, “New Day in Babylon and Jerusalem: Zionism, Jewish Power, and Identity Politics”, already being promoted by the ADL, will discuss how “how the Six Day War and its aftermath transformed Zionism from a national liberation movement of the Jewish people to a colonialist enterprise in the Middle East in international eyes”.

Michael Boxer of Brandeis, has dismissed the reality of leftist campus antisemitism. “When I tell people the communal freak-out over antisemitism on campus is overblown, I’m usually told by people who haven’t set foot on any campus in decades that I don’t understand the climate today. Much Jewish communal discourse can be summarized by ‘ok boomer,’: he sneered.

He also argued that, “The American Jewish community’s fear that BDS permeates college campuses is almost entirely overblown.”

This is the level of contempt that the ADL has for the Jewish community and for its stated mission of fighting antisemitism. It’s a contempt that is a product of the Greenblatt era.

It can end when the Greenblatt era and everyone he hired are finally shown the door.

CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, an Obama administration veteran, has transformed the ADL, much as his counterparts have transformed the ACLU and other civil rights groups, from their original mission into another generic component of the national leftist network. And that network is venomously hostile toward Jews and aimed at the destruction of the Jewish State.

Under Greenblatt, the ADL has become a threat to Jews. Either he must go or it must go.

California school district partners with ethnic studies group once accused of anti-Semitism

The LESMCC has long been embroiled in anti-Semitic controversy. One leader of the organization, Theresa Montaño, characterized the ADL as “white supremacist, right-wing [and] conservative.”

In January, the LESMCC formed the National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition with groups such as Teach Palestine Project/Middle East Children’s Alliance and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, groups that accuse the “Israeli Apartheid Regime” of “systematic settler-colonial violence” and “strongly support the BDS movement.”

In its “Preparing to Teach Palestine: A Toolkit,” the coalition accuses the Museum of Tolerance, a Los Angeles museum devoted to Holocaust history, of “prevent[ing] teachers and students from making connections between the U.S. and Israel as white settler states.” The toolkit also pushes back on the “Zionist” argument that “any discussion of Palestine or critique of Israel creates an ‘unsafe climate’ for Jewish students.”

On May 12, Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles (CJPTLA), a group of Jewish and Zionist Los Angeles School District educators and parents, filed a federal lawsuit against the LESMCC. The Deborah Project, the organization providing legal assistance to CPTLA, told JNS it hopes to “prevent the infiltration of a discriminatory, anti-Semitic set of teaching materials and orientation into the LAUSD schools.”

According to Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, the LESMCC “ignores Jewish history in just about every particularity,” painting Israel as “the outsider who brutally ‘stole’ the land from the alleged original inhabitants.”

Beyond denying Jewish history in the land of Israel, says Marcus, the LESMCC “teaches a fictionalized version of a history and civilization of those known as Palestinians.”

Another issue highlighted in the lawsuit is the LESMCC’s designation of Israelis as white. According to Marcus, doing so ignores “the reality that more than half of all Israelis are ‘people of color,’ according to their own ludicrous insistence on labeling people based on skin color, real or imagined.”

Adelaide University editor sacked

Habibah Jaghoori, the editor of Adelaide University’s On Dit magazine and the author of an article published in the magazine in August which called for “Death to Israel”, has been removed as the magazine’s editor by YouX, the University’s elected Student Union.

A source who was present at the meeting of YouX, which voted to remove Jaghoori as editor on Tuesday night, reported that the reasons for her removal related to her conduct at a student meeting following the publication of the article, during which Jaghoori reportedly taunted Jewish students who were present by repeating “Death to Israel” several times.

YouX also voted to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

ECAJ co-CEO, Peter Wertheim, welcomed both of the YouX decisions as “a decisive repudiation of the violent, hate-filled rhetoric against Israel and the Jewish people which masquerades as free speech”. Wertheim called on the University administration to “show leadership” by “adopting IHRA as a standard to be used in applying its existing rules of conduct when complaints of antisemitism are made to it”.

“There is something clearly wrong with a campus culture that produces the kind of discourse we saw published in On Dit, and the University bears ultimate responsibility for the culture it fosters on its campus. We look forward to the university itself taking action specifically to address antisemitism on campus”, Wertheim said.

Wertheim commended the Student Union for its decisions and praised AUJS representatives and the Jewish students on campus for their efforts in bringing about this result. “They have shown grit and determination, and it has paid off. We can all be proud of them” he concluded.

She then asked for help preventing a (((Zionist))) club @AUJS from joining her university clubs. She needed a statement from a Jewish official, so as Chief Rabbi of #Gaza I obliged. Now she’s been removed as editor of @OnDitMagazine for supporting justice in #Palestine ?????? pic.twitter.com/DvxCilksn6
— Rabbi Linda Goldstein ???? (@RabbiLindaGold1) September 14, 2022