Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

07/13 Links Pt2: Are Jews really united against anti-Semitism?; Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why Islamism became woke; British Jews to get apology 800 years after antisemitic laws that led to their expulsion

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Are Jews really united against anti-Semitism?

Unlike in past generations when Israel’s peril was a source of Jewish unity, today it is a deeply divisive issue, with the politically and religiously liberal majority of the community adopting critical views of the Jewish state and the minority that are Orthodox, politically conservative or staunchly pro-Zionist more likely to support it enthusiastically against its detractors.

More to the point, many on the Jewish left are adamant about trying to detach concern about anti-Semitism from the rising tide of anti-Zionist invective coming from the base of the Democratic Party. They are opposed to the widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance precisely because it includes rhetoric and actions that seek to delegitimize Israel, to judge it by double standards applied to no other government and to compare the Jewish state to the Nazis among its examples of anti-Semitism.

That appears to be why Americans for Peace Now and J Street stayed away from the rally. The same applies to openly anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voices for Peace and IfNotNow—themselves a source of anti-Semitic incitement.

Unfortunately, the only instances of anti-Semitism that motivate many Jews to protest are those incidents that can be linked, however incorrectly, to their domestic political opponents, such as former President Donald Trump.

Along those same lines, some Jews refused to show up at the rally simply because it was an attempt at unity. For them, the partisan tribal culture wars of American politics are more important than a statement against Jew-hatred—so much so that they would prefer to skip it rather than to show up alongside conservative Jews who oppose critical race theory and the Black Lives Matter movement, which have been implicated in the targeting of Israel and the delegitimization of Jews.

It would be nice to draw from Sunday’s event the conclusion that Jewish unity is possible and that opposition to anti-Semitism, no matter its origin, is universal. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Opposition to anti-Semitism that doesn’t confront anti-Zionism and its prominent proponents, such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), is essentially giving a permission slip to hate groups and violent individuals to target Jews.

Until the fight against anti-Semitism can be said to include the entire Jewish community—meaning that Jews are willing to confront those on the left as well as the right—it’s no good pretending that Jewish unity is possible. So long as a significant percentage of Jews aren’t willing to stand up against such forces in theory, let alone show up at a rally against them, any talk of unity or a community that understands what it’s up against is deeply mistaken.

It’s not about Israel

Anti-Israel rhetoric and discriminatory initiatives are not really about Israel at all. They are certainly not about the Palestinians. They are not about justice or peace. They are in fact about American Jews and our place in American society.

In recent months, we have seen a large increase in bigoted, discriminatory, and slanderous statements about Israel’s alleged misdeeds. The anti-Israel campaign hijacks unsuspecting organizations – a city council in Raleigh, North Carolina; a teachers’ union in Seattle, the student government at Yale – to use as political shields for their campaign of hate. The campaign pretends to target Israeli crimes – some real, some exaggerated, some completely fictional – but it has no effect on Israeli policies and actions. The Israeli government really doesn’t care and likely hasn’t even noticed that Swarthmore College students called to boycott Sabra hummus (made in Virginia), a call the college president rejected.

Nor does the anti-Israel campaign help Palestinians. It was silent when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, and Lebanon. It has nothing to say about the Egyptian blockade of Gaza or the murder of a dissident by the Palestinian Authority security forces. Anti-Israel activists didn’t protest Assad’s forces gassing Palestinians in Syria, or Hamas using Gaza civilians as human shields for rocket attacks on Israel.

They remain mum regarding apartheid in Lebanon, which denies citizenship and civil rights to Palestinians, and don’t critique the UN agency that rejects resettlement of Palestinian refugees and condemns them to eternal dispossession. They didn’t care that the Palestinian Authority rejected COVID-19 vaccines from Israel. (The vaccines were sent to South Korea instead.) And they are oblivious to the harm their campaign against Israeli companies causes Palestinians, as when a Soda Stream factory relocated in response to the boycotters’ pressure, laying off hundreds of workers from the West Bank. (The pressure continued anyway.)

So if the campaign doesn’t hurt Israel and doesn’t help Palestinian, what is its point? The point is to condemn Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. (Grumbles about “ethno-nationalism” fall flat when applied only to Israel and not to other nation-states like, say, Norway and Japan.) Affinity and connection to the land and the people of Israel are core to Jewish religious tradition, ethnic identity, and cultural heritage. The right of self-determination and political independence is granted to indigenous peoples everywhere, challenged only with regards to the Jewish people. So an attack on Israel is, in fact, an attack on Jews everywhere. Singling out the Jewish state and the Jewish people is an expression of prejudice; prejudice against Jews is so ancient and so prevalent that it has its own word, “antisemitism,” or Jew-hatred. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why Islamism became woke, Extremists are using progressive rhetoric to fool the West

To their credit, some on the Left refuse to countenance Islamism, as they become increasingly aware of the contradiction between supporting universal human rights (including women’s rights) and the demands of Islamists. In France, for example, the centre-Left former Prime Minister Manuel Valls courageously denounced Islamo-Leftism without the least hesitation.

In the United States, however, such vocal opposition from the Left is increasingly rare. Indeed, at the 2019 Netroots Nation conference — America’s “largest annual conference for progressives” — multiple panel discussions and training sessions reflected the Islamist agenda, frequently coalescing around a critique of Israel while neglecting the toxic role played by Hamas in perpetuating the conflict. Meanwhile, Linda Sarsour, a feminist organiser and co-chair of the “Women’s March”, has made her support for Islamism more explicit: “You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

In government, too, Islamism’s capture of progressivism has become increasingly clear. Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan might lead one of the world’s most brutal and repressive regimes, but that hasn’t stopped Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, from expressing support for him. No doubt she was inspired by Erdogan last year when he proclaimed that “social justice is in our book”, and that “Turkey is the biggest opportunity for western countries in the fight against xenophobia, Islamophobia, cultural racism and extremism”.

Erdogan, in effect, was explicitly using progressive rhetoric. It’s a move that’s since been mirrored in Iran. The Tehran Times — which describes itself as “a loud voice of the Islamic Revolution” — recently attacked former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his “deep-rooted Islamophobia”. And in March, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif “lauded the determination of Islamic countries to address Islamophobia as one of the main challenges facing the Islamic Ummah [community in the West]”. Islamists, in other words, are becoming skilled at wrapping themselves in a mantle of woke words, while engaging in systematic brutality and repression within their own countries.

To this new alliance between Islamism and progressive rhetoric, there is no simple response. Dawa, by its very nature, is inherently more difficult to fight than jihad. But those who believe, as I do, in a free, open, pluralist society need to be aware of the nature and magnitude of this new challenge. After two decades of fighting Islamist terrorism, we have a new and more subtle foe to contend with. Wokeism has long been regarded as a dangerous phenomenon — but only now are we starting to see why.

How Media/NGO Bias Against Israel Works (infographic)

This is, in some ways, a distillation of years of media and NGO critiques from this blog. I came up with it after reporting on the ignorance of American Jews, realizing that one reason is that they simply are not exposed to the truth - and this is quite deliberate.

The media and NGOs aren't the same as far as their motivations go but they are close enough, and they use each other.

Ilhan Omar's reputation for anti-Israel attacks and antisemitism dates back to 2019, when she made her famous accusations that defenders of Israel were guilty of dual loyalty. In her latest controversial comments, just last month Omar compared the US and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas, with accusations of "unthinkable atrocities."

Those latest comments created an unexpected pushback that led to Omar's supposed "clarification" of her remarks.

There are, though, some instances when Omar's criticism of foreign countries are not controversial at all.

In November 2019, Ilhan Omar condemned the Chinese government for the "ethnic cleansing of Uighurs:"

And Omar did not stop there.

Earlier this year, she doubled down on her criticism of China's treatment of the Uyghurs, with a vehemence she normally reserves for Israel:

And just last year, Omar went beyond mere words and took action that amounts to the equivalent of BDS -- against China. In her April 2020 press release, Rep. Omar Leads Letter to CEOs, including Apple, Amazon, and Google, Condemning the Use of Forced Uyghur Labor in China:

According to the text of that letter:

The treatment of Uyghur and other Muslim people by the Chinese government – which the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has determined may amount to crimes against humanity – has drawn fierce and sustained bipartisan condemnation. That American companies would be using forced Uyghur labor, intentionally or unintentionally, is profoundly disturbing.

...Among the acts that comprise crimes against humanity, Uyghurs have been allegedly subjected to enslavement, arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearance, and persecution against a collective group of people. Put simply, it is our strong belief that nobody should be profiting from these conditions. [emphasis added]

As you are well aware, American companies represent this country in your business abroad. It is essential that your values are in line with the basic principles of human rights.

She asks that those companies ensure that Uyghur slave labor is not used in the manufacture of their products.

Good for her!

Too bad she did an about-face

While in November 2019, Omar tweeted:

We must hold officials responsible for this fully accountable

And in February 2021 she tweeted:

Yes, politics and relationships shouldn't stop us from the pursuit of justice...Now is the time for full accountablility and justice. [emphasis added]

Suddenly, just 2 months ago, in May 2021, Politico reported that Ilhan Omar changed her tune, from a call for "justice' to a call for "justified criticism":

“We need to distinguish between justified criticisms of the Chinese government’s human rights record and a Cold War mentality that uses China as a scapegoat for our own domestic problems and demonizes Chinese Americans,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of a group of lawmakers pressing Biden and congressional leaders to take a more cooperative approach to relations with Beijing. [emphasis added]

What accounts for Omar's about-face?

In the article, Politico notes the concern that progressives have that in its eagerness for justice, the US attitude towards China's ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs may endanger the battle against...climate change.

According to Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.):

We won't be able to solve the challenges of the 21st century like the climate crisis and global health unless we have relationships that harness partnerships across the globe, including China.

Bowman is not alone. In May, Bowman and Omar were among "more 60 activist groups and at least four prominent lawmakers [who] are stepping up their criticisms as the Senate pushes through this week a package of anti-China bills that enjoy backing from members of both parties and the White House."

And the pressure on the Biden administration by progressive groups continued this month. In another article, Politico reports Biden’s new Cold War with China will result in climate collapse, progressives warn:

Over 40 progressive groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden and lawmakers on Wednesday urging them to prioritize cooperation with China on climate change and curb its confrontational approach over issues like Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong and forced detention of Uyghur Muslims. [emphasis added]

According to the letter:

...While we are encouraged by stated commitments from the United States and China to work together and with other countries to enact urgent climate policies, we are deeply troubled by the growing Cold War mentality driving the United States' approach to China — an antagonistic posture that risks undermining much-needed climate cooperation.

We, the undersigned organizations, call on the Biden administration and all members of Congress to eschew the dominant antagonistic approach to U.S.-China relations and instead prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation with China to address the existential threat that is the climate crisis. [emphasis added]

Where is that going to leave Omar, who has publicly accused the Chinese government of the ethnic cleansing, enslavement, torture, rape, forced sterilization and mass detention of Uyghurs?

It was recently reported that Biden wants to follow in Omar's footsteps in addressing Chinese products being allowed to enter the US:

In particular, the Biden administration has prioritized boxing products with ties to forced labor out of U.S. markets. On Friday, the U.S. added 14 Chinese entities to its economic blacklist that are believed to be complicit in human rights abuses and forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. The blacklist means American firms will have to obtain clearance from the U.S. government before doing business with those companies.

Will Ilhan Omar come out publicly in support of Biden's BDS-style measures against Chinese persecution of Uyghurs?

Omar claimed that one of her concerns was a mentality that "demonizes Chinese Americans."

Can we expect her to show a new concern not to add to a mentality that demonizes Jewish Americans?

Or is all of this just another round in the game of politics -- where both Chinese Uyghurs and American Jews get thrown under the bus?

07/13 Links Pt1: Israel Isn’t Going Anywhere; Solidarity with ‘Palestine’ Means Kalashnikovs for Kids; Czech Republic becomes ninth state to boycott Durban conference

From Ian:

The erasure from historical memory of Israeli statehood offers and Palestinian rejections is badly distorting today’s debate about Middle East peace

The erasure from our historical memory of Israeli attempts to achieve peace by agreeing to Palestinian statehood, and of the serial Palestinian rejections, is now standard practice. This erasure sustains the libel that Israel is an ‘apartheid state’ seeking ‘permanent occupation’ and underpins a ludicrously uncritical attitude to the Palestinian national movement, its leadership, and aspects of its political culture. From Human Rights Watch to Nathan Thrall, Peter Beinart to the Carnegie Endowment, the debate now proceeds as if those offers were never made and never rejected. Bringing those offers back in, and those rejections, we get a more realistic picture of the obstacles standing in the way of achieving two states for two peoples.

‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’ is the slogan of the fictional English Socialist Party led by Big Brother in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. Orwell understood that the erasure of history is a useful tool to control the present narrative and to influence the future. While perhaps an exaggerated analogy, there are Orwellian parallels in how anti-Israel organisations and thought leaders now treat some of the key historical elements of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This is clearly evident in relation to the multiple offers of statehood made by Israel to the Palestinians in the 2000 to 2008 period (the ‘Statehood Offers’). These events do not fit the fictional narrative of those who portray Israel as a colonial-settler enterprise that seeks to dominate the Palestinians in an endless occupation that has been characterised by some as ‘apartheid’.

A central element of this viewpoint asserts that Israel’s control of the West Bank has always been designed to be permanent. (It also considers Gaza to be occupied, despite not a single Israeli being present in the area, but this topic is beyond the scope of this article.) Thus, the notion that the West Bank and Gaza are semi-autonomous entities that may eventually become a sovereign Palestinian state is a fallacy and the whole region between ‘the river and the sea’ must be considered one entity under two systems that by design discriminates against Palestinians.

The concept of ‘permanent occupation’ as Israeli policy is demolished once we undertake a full and honest accounting of the Statehood Offers. Over this period Israel, with the assistance of the Americans who facilitated negotiations in 2000 and 2001, offered the Palestinians a full independent state that according to most Western observers contained all the elements of what a final-status deal should look like. The Clinton Parameters were a set of core positions provided to the Israelis and Palestinians in December 2000 as a vast improvement over the statehood offer in Camp David during the Summer of 2000. The key elements of the parameters were:
- Creation of an independent Palestinian state with contiguity on nearly 100 per cent of the West Bank with land swaps, 100 per cent of Gaza and a dedicated link between the two areas.
- Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine divided under the principle that existing Arab areas would be Palestinian and Jewish ones Israeli. This would also apply to the Old City, which would also be divided.
- Palestinian control of the Temple Mount/Haram and Israeli control of the Western Wall.
- The ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinians would be allowed into the new Palestinian state.
- End of conflict agreement that would end all claims and satisfy all relevant U.N. resolutions.

Israel Isn’t Going Anywhere

For the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the majority of the world’s Jews live in Zion.

Whether forced from Arab lands, fleeing persecution in Russia and eastern Europe before World War Two, or survivors of the Holocaust, these people and their children and grandchildren aren’t going anywhere. They are home. They have nowhere to go. Christian Europe and Muslim lands made it abundantly clear that they would suffer the presence of the Jews from time to time, but they would not hesitate to remind them, through expulsions, forced conversions, and pogroms, that they were guests in other people’s lands, and only sometimes welcome ones.

So they went to Israel, where there has been a continuous Jewish presence for 2,000 years, since the conquest by the Romans in 70 CE.

The Israeli novelist Amos Oz wrote that the graffiti in Europe before World War Two said “Jews get out. Go to Palestine.” The graffiti in Palestine said “Jews go back to Europe.” Oz concluded that if you can’t be here and you can’t be there, the clear message is, “Don’t Be.”

Well, the Jews are a stubborn lot and they refused to disappear, much to the consternation of many. Their mere existence is an affront. But this time, they aren’t going anywhere because they have nowhere to go.

The Sand Curtain Has Fallen

The Sand Curtain, like the Iron Curtain 30 years ago, has fallen. Israel and its “Abrahamic” partners are enjoying a lightning-fast peace bonanza. But some Westerners have difficulty rejoicing in the breakthrough. The Left assiduously seeks to poke holes in the Abraham Accords, and makes sourpuss faces whenever advances in Gulf-Israel ties are mentioned. The good news is that the accords easily survived the recent Hamas-Israel conflict. How a renewed JCPOA accord will affect ties remains an open and troubling question.

Falling in Love
The speed with which Israeli relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have taken off (and with Morocco and Sudan to a degree as well), and the genuine warmth experienced by every Israeli business delegation and tourist group to have visited these countries, is astounding. It is a speed of light peace bonanza, a whirlwind of almost Biblical proportions.

Venture capitalists from Tel Aviv and Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Manama are scouting out joint investment opportunities in cybersecurity, fintech, aggrotech, food security, educational technology, and healthcare. Bilateral business chambers have been established, including a Jewish-Muslim women’s business council and a youth council. One Emirati investment house executive enthused to The New York Times, “It’s like falling in love!”

Trade between Israel and the UAE already has exceeded $354 million. According to the Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zayoudi, the two countries have signed approximately 25 agreements in more than 15 sectors. Academics from the Emirates and Israel are participating in each other’s conferences. Israel’s two main strategic think tanks, INSS and JISS, each have signed research partnerships with leading Emirati institutes.

Tourist packages for Israelis and for Jews everywhere to the Gulf are sprouting like mushrooms, and Gulf tourists to Israel are coming soon too. Three Emirati and three Israeli airlines are operating or planning daily flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi (slowed only by lingering effects of the COVID-19 crisis), as is Bahrain’s Gulf Air. Emirati Airlines times its flights from Ben-Gurion Airport to connect with Emirates flights from the Gulf to the Far East, giving Israelis new routes to China, Japan, Thailand and more.

Hundreds of Israelis in kippas and Emiratis in long white robes and kanduras gathered in early June at a Global Investment Forum in Dubai, co-sponsored by The Jerusalem Post and The Khaleej Times. This, despite the fierce mini war that Israel had just fought with Hamas in Gaza and with Palestinian radicals in Jerusalem.

David Singer: Abdullah-Biden meeting will not help resolve Jewish-Arab conflict

The meeting between Jordan’s King Abdullah and President Biden at the White House on 19 July seems set to achieve absolutely nothing towards resolving the 100 years-old conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Biden’s Press Secretary - Jen Psaki – has claimed:
“It will be an opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing the Middle East and showcase Jordan’s leadership role in promoting peace and stability in the region.”

The King has shown no leadership in resolving the conflict between Jews and Arabs over sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (aka "West Bank") [“Disputed Territory”] and Gaza – comprising the remaining 5% of the territory of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated (“Unallocated Territories”).

Sovereignty in the remaining 95% of the Mandate territory was divided between:
Jordan - 78% – upon the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946
Israel - 17% – upon its establishment in 1948.

Concerted attempts over the last 25 years to create an additional Arab State in the Unallocated Territories for the first time in recorded history (“two-state solution”) have all failed. Abdullah has been a principal protagonist for this solution.

Jordan’s failure to take a leadership role in agreeing to an alternative solution - division of the Unallocated Territories between Jordan and Israel within the framework of their existing 1994 Peace Treaty – has gone begging during Abdullah’s 22 year reign.

The following historic, geographic and demographic realities bind Jordan with the Disputed Territory:
Transjordan in 1948 conquered and occupied the Disputed Territory until 1967 – renaming the newly-merged territorial entity “Jordan” in 1950.
The Arab residents of the Disputed Territory were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988 and elected their own representatives to the Jordanian Parliament in Amman.
Statements made by Arab leaders over decades have attested to the territorial and population ties between Jordan and the Disputed Territory:
"Jordan and Palestine until 1945 were one state, actually. After the Second World War Churchill himself said ‘This is Transjordan and this is Palestine’. Before that, Jordan was an emirate, completely part of Palestine." – Yasser Arafat New York Review of Books 25 June 1987

A new survey commissioned by the (heavily Democratic) Jewish Electorate Institute of self-described Jewish voters in the US.

The results are shocking.

If the details are accurate and the questions weren't preceded with leading definitions, as we've seen in other polls, it shows that fully 25% of American Jews agree that "Israel is an apartheid state" while only 52% disagree.

22% agree with the statement that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians while only 62% disagree.

The numbers are even worse for the young.

Ignorance about Israel seems to correspond with ignorance about Judaism. While the survey didn't ask about Jewish practices, only 9% identified as Orthodox and 17% as Conservative Jews, with 31% saying that had no denomination at all.

While 62% claim they have an emotional attachment to Israel, it is obvious that for most of them, it is a shallow attachment indeed - not one that prompts them to even investigate whether the slanders about Israel are accurate or not.

The trend of people making up lies about Israel correlates with the increase of antisemitic attacks in America.

American Jews are thoroughly ignorant about their own history, their religion, and the Jewish state. That ignorance translates into apathy and then into a willingness to believe the enthusiastic modern antisemites who pretend that they are merely anti-Israel.

This is a massive failure of American Jewish leadership, Jewish education, synagogues and the previous generation of American Jews who taught their children that Judaism and Israel aren't priorities for them.

If the current American Jewish leadership cannot do their job, perhaps it is time for a new leadership to take over.

(h/t Noah)

The Seattle Times wrote an editorial on June 25 opposing those who tried to stop the Zim San Diego container ship from unloading its cargo at the Seattle port:

More than 100 years ago, with the creation of the Port of Seattle by King County voters, our community decided it would look out as much as look in when making our fortune in the world, establishing our reputation as an international port city.

Over a tense six days this month, that reputation — and our region’s standing as an open trade hub — was challenged after protesters temporarily blocked a cargo ship from unloading.

Activists with the “Block the Boat” campaign targeted the ZIM San Diego, which is owned by the publicly traded ZIM, an Israeli-based shipping company. The effort was part of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that seeks to put economic pressure on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories.

Thanks to outstanding Seattle leadership, however, the effort failed in Seattle, with its reputation as a reliable international seaport intact. Port of Seattle officials, working with Mayor Jenny Durkan, the Northwest Seaport Alliance, terminal operator SSA Marine and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, were able to accommodate protesters while ensuring the safety of workers. The ship’s cargo was unloaded Friday without incident.

Surrendering to protesters would have set a harmful precedent and caused irreparable damage in a highly competitive environment, said Port of Seattle Commissioner Stephanie Bowman.

“We fight for every single box that comes into the harbor,” she told the editorial board. “Looking as though we’re turning cargo away, that we’re inefficient, that we’re not welcoming, is not the message we want to be sending.”

Our region is vying for discretionary cargo — freight that could go to any other port — not only against West Coast seaports such as Los Angeles-Long Beach and Prince Rupert, but even through the Panama Canal to East Coast terminals.

The math is simple: The more cargo that comes here, the more jobs and opportunities there are for our manufacturers and exporters to ship their merchandise out. Thanks in no small part to the Port of Seattle, Washington was the fourth largest state exporter of goods in 2018, according to federal data, representing 13.8% of the state’s gross domestic product.

The combined ports of Seattle and Tacoma support more than 20,000 jobs and $1.9 billion in labor income, according to a 2019 report by the Northwest Seaport Alliance, and the region’s marine cargo industry produced an average annual wage of $95,000 and directly supported $5.9 billion in business output.

The message is clear: you can protest all you want, but blocking international commerce has direct consequences for the livelihoods of thousands of people in the Seattle area.

The BDSers wrote an amazingly tone-deaf response that pretty much said, "screw you, Seattle:"

As Jewish Seattlites who care about justice, we were deeply disappointed to see The Seattle Times editorial board applaud Seattle’s connection to the global economy, while refusing to acknowledge our complicity in Israeli apartheid through commercial interactions.

Injustice in Palestine/Israel is not a faraway issue, from the ZIM boat docking here to the Boeing-made bombs used by the Israeli government to massacre Palestinians in Gaza. There is no “over there” when it comes to Palestine/Israel.

The Block the Boat campaign, led by the local Palestinian group Falastiniyat, offered Seattle a chance to refuse injustice. The campaign responds to the Palestinian call for pressure in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel until it ends its system of apartheid.

The longshore workers and community organizers acted from a principle that eludes the editorial board: When commerce supports apartheid, there can be no business as usual.

Is there any better illustration of how hypocritical these people are? They claim to care about justice, yet they are willing to sacrifice the livelihoods of thousands of Seattle area residents for their cause!

Where is the justice for the people of Seattle - the dock workers, the exporters, the businesses that depend on the import/export business? That is not even addressed. Like toddlers, they scream about what they want, and cannot even consider the feelings or desires of anyone else.

Of course, endangering Seattle's cargo economy doesn't cost them a dime. They continue to use laptops with Israeli-designed chips, tweet from mobile phones with Israeli technology, watch streaming media with Israeli content - all of which far more directly help the Israeli economy than a delaying the unloading of a ship carrying medical supplies owned by a publicly traded container company whose headquarters is in Israel.

The rabid haters are very proud that this letter was published. (They don't even know the difference between an editorial and an op-ed.)

I'm also happy that this letter was published, and I hope that everyone in Seattle sees it. It shows how childish, selfish, short-sighted, hateful, antisemitic and hypocritical the BDSers are, and how little they care about their city and its residents.

From Crosstown:

In the first six months of 2021, there were 43 hate crimes targeting Jewish people, according to Los Angeles Police Department data. That is a 59.2% increase from the same timeframe last year, and more than double the number of incidents in a comparable period in 2018.

“What’s been especially troubling is the frequency, intensity and brazenness of the anti-Semitic hate crimes recently,” said Sam Yebri, an attorney who is active in the local Jewish community.

Yebri, who is running for the open District 5 City Council seat in 2022, added, “There has been an explosion of hate of all kinds, especially anti-Semitism, on social media over the last two years that has generated a focus, whether it’s on the far left or the far right, on Jews.”

The LAPD defines a hate crime as “any criminal act or attempted criminal act directed against a person or persons based on the victim’s actual or perceived race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender.”

Anti-Jewish attacks made up 14.6% of the 295 hate crimes reported in Los Angeles in the first half of 2021. Jewish people were the third most-targeted population; 25.5% of the reports were listed as “anti-Black or African American,” and the LAPD classified 16.3% of the hate crimes as “anti-Hispanic or Latino.”

I cannot parse out these statistics from the full dataset of crimes in Los Angeles, but based on State of California statistics from last year, the vast majority - 64% - of anti-religion hate crimes are against Jews.

07/12 Links Pt2: Clubhouse of Antisemites; Arizona's Holocaust education does not protect Jews; 3,000-year-old inscription bearing name of biblical judge found in Israel

From Ian:

Clubhouse of Antisemites

As a Jewish educator and rabbi who could speak authoritatively on the historical roots and applications of Jew-hatred, I began to get pinged or invited to join such rooms by other Jews who wanted a defense of our community.

One afternoon, I was called into a room discussing Israel and her struggles against Hamas and other terrorist organizations. One person in the discussion suggested that if Israel ever had the upper hand militarily, they would kill all Arabs in the region. I gently pointed out that since the late 1960s, Israel has had—as policymakers call it—a qualitative military edge, but despite that advantage, Israel instead pursued peace with its Arab neighbors in the region. A pointed exchange, but a purely political one.

Then a young man who was known for frequent antisemitic outbursts joined the virtual stage, and not only condemned my view, but equated my acknowledgement of Israel’s military might with a call for genocide. Despite everyone present pointing out that this was not what I said, the young man went on a tirade against Jews in general and their innate desire for blood and vengeance.

That night, a room began, hosted by several anti-Israel voices on Clubhouse including the fellow I met earlier that day. The room suggested that all Jews sought to murder Arabs living in Israel or the territories, and then the topic turned to me personally. I was quickly identified as a problem because “no one is able to counter his views.” Two solutions were proposed. The first was to use the reporting feature that Clubhouse includes to flag problematic content to mass report my account, with the hopes of having me removed from Clubhouse. The second was to “dox” me personally. My home address, where I live with my wife and five children, was publicly announced in the room. While as the Chabad rabbi of the University of Kentucky and the Lexington area, my address is fairly easy to find by design, to hear it announced in this fashion along with calls for “someone to do something about him” was certainly jarring.

The campaign to mass report me bore fruit and Clubhouse restricted my ability to begin conversations for 24 hours. My rights were thankfully restored after an appeal, but nothing was done to moderate the violent threats being made against me or other members of the Jewish community.

In the aforementioned Nation of Islam room led by LaKeith Stanfield, I was pinged in on a Saturday night following hours and hours of conversation on the app over Shabbat when many Jews were not there to defend themselves. After laying out academically how The Secret Relationship, the nation of Islam’s hateful pseudo-history book, has long been debunked, I was immediately inundated with vicious attacks, including references to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Holocaust denial, and death threats in my inbox.

Arizona's Holocaust education does not protect Jews - opinion

Obviously, there is little value to Holocaust education if we don’t teach students to identify antisemitism when they see it today. As HB2241 proceeded through the Senate, a video of House Minority Whip Athena Salman using an antisemitic blood libel on the floor of the Arizona House surfaced. Suspiciously, Salman was also a co-sponsor of HB-2241, an oddity that hardly makes sense to those who understand the issue of contemporary antisemitism. The prime House sponsor of HB-2241, Rep. Alma Hernandez, was privately approached and surprisingly refused to engage in a discussion of the policy and practical concerns raised by her bill’s exclusion of the IHRA definition. This was unlike her, given her history of strong national leadership within the Jewish community and in supporting the IHRA definition.

SOON ENOUGH, another video emerged of Minority Whip Salman claiming credit for having stopped the IHRA Definition in 2020. This was an attack effort she pursued in partnership with the ACLU. Suddenly, the suspicion surrounding HB-2241 gave way to an understanding of what was taking place. The price paid to clear Holocaust education with Salman and other progressive House leaders was for moderate Democrats to detach and hand over control of the serious issue of antisemitism to the ACLU. What we see clearly reflected in this bill is the fact that many of Arizona’s fine Democratic legislators have politically been taken hostage by extremists, a trend taking place all around the country.

Antisemitism in America today has no greater asset than the sophisticated legislative and legal support it receives from the ACLU. One need look no further than their unabashed activities and affiliations in Arizona in recent years to gather this fact. Their aligning efforts with hate groups that persecute Jewish persons on the basis of national origin showcase a stunning lack of objectivity, an embrace of bigotry packaged in deceitful narratives of victimhood and anti-racism, and double standards applied to suit their extremist political agenda.

The ACLU and antisemites of all ideologies oppose the IHRA definition because it objectively exposes the true nature of stylized contemporary antisemitism. We all know that antisemites often use the pretense of referring to Israel or Zionists when the public perception they seek to cultivate speaks to the Jewish people as a collective. Contrary to the ACLU’s false claims, the IHRA definition doesn’t prevent antisemitic speech, it merely highlights its bigoted nature for those who lack a proper understanding of this unique form of racism.

To be clear, the overwhelming majority of Democrats oppose antisemitism and wish to combat it. However, if they are unable to stand up to the ACLU and antisemites in legislatures, they will certainly be unable to do so in classrooms. Arizona’s Democrats now face a heavy moral responsibility for the fate of a Holocaust education mandate that includes no safeguards from abuse at a time of crisis for Jewish students. HB2241 is therefore a cause for soul-searching rather than celebration.

Failed Louisiana Holocaust education bill was used to pan critical race theory

He soon began telling fellow board members at Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation, in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, that the bill was more complicated than it appeared.

The Shir Chadash board decided not to weigh in on the legislation. And it wasn’t alone: While the regional chapter of the Anti-Defamation League and the New Orleans Jewish Federation backed the bill, several of the state’s Jewish community leaders declined to endorse it.

Ultimately the bill died in the State Senate. Still, its short life was notable because of how it functioned as a front in the battle between right-wing white lawmakers and progressive Black lawmakers over critical race theory, an academic framework for teaching race and history that has become a target for conservatives at statehouses and school board meetings across the country.

The Holocaust education bill seemed potentially uncontroversial when Hodges introduced the measure in April. The original text simply called for “instruction regarding World War II and the Holocaust for middle and high school students and training for teachers relative to such instruction.”

Many Jewish groups have called for exactly that kind of requirement, arguing that education is the key to increasing tolerance and preventing genocides in the future. Currently, 17 states require some form of Holocaust education in schools. Louisiana, which one study pegged as having one of the lowest percentages of Holocaust-aware young people in the US, is seen as especially in need of similar mandates. The state also recently became the new home of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, boosting the visibility of Jews in the region.

But as lawmakers held hearings on the bill, it became clear that many of its supporters had a different vision — starting with Hodges, an evangelical ex-missionary and prominent conservative who has served in the Louisiana State Legislature for a decade. Hodges initially accepted, then declined, an interview with JTA.

On her professional Facebook page during the bill’s debate period, Hodges shared an image of Hitler with a caption calling him “everything today’s liberal craves.” Another post compared Nazi Germany to critical race theory and the New York Times’ 1619 Project, writing, “World War II was about RACE, yet liberals objected to it being included in my bill … Hitler had been laying the groundwork for at least 15 years before the Holocaust. It began with the organization of college students who would be the ones to help him implement his reign of horror.”

Islamic Jihad releases antisemitic video about how Jews lie about their ties to Israel

Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today has released a slideshow/video called "How did Israeli propaganda start?"

It starts off with this picture of a page from the Talmud (not the tractate named, oddly) with the caption "The Israeli propaganda began to exploit the falsified religious tenets by resorting to the Talmud and the Torah":

It goes on to claim that the Zionists somehow managed to fool the Jews about what their own religion says and convinced them that they had roots in Israel, making up the phrase "a land of milk and honey."

The insidious propaganda continued as the Jews then even convinced the Western world that Jews came from Israel!

Then the Mossad used its own propaganda methods to somehow convince the world that Arab terrorists wanted to kill Israelis!

I don't quite understand how a terror organization that literally brags about shooting rockets at civilians and about past suicide bombings at discos and buses claims that Israeli claims that they attack civilians is Zionist propaganda, but there you go.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

07/12 Links Pt1: Arab Demography Westernizes as Jewish Demography Thrives; Is Israel Preparing For the Inevitable Civil War in the West Bank?; The Cairo Book Fair remains rife with antisemitism

From Ian:

Arab Demography Westernizes as Jewish Demography Thrives

In defiance of Israel’s critics and conventional wisdom, the highest-ever Arab population growth rate in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) occurred during Israel’s full control of the area (1967-1992).

Thus, from the end of 1967 (586,000 people) until the end of 1992 (1,050,000 people), the Arab population of Judea and Samaria expanded by 79%, compared to a mere 0.9% growth during the 1950-1967 Jordanian rule.

The unprecedented Arab population growth rate was the outcome of the unprecedented Israeli development of health, medical, transportation, education and employment infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, following the stagnation during the Jordanian occupation of the area. In addition, Israel offered employment opportunities, in its pre-1967 core, to Judea and Samaria Arabs, who preferred working in Israel to the far away Arab Gulf states, West Africa or Latin America.

As a result of the enhanced infrastructure (especially health and medical), Arab infant mortality was drastically reduced – and life expectancy surged – almost to the Israeli level. Furthermore, emigration was substantially curtailed due to new opportunities of employment and higher education.

Hence, while net-emigration during the 17 years of Jordan’s control (1950-1967) was 28,000 annually, it subsided to 7,000 annually during the 25 years of Israel’s full-control (1967-1992).

The exceptionally high Arab population growth rate, during Israel’s full-control of Judea and Samaria, was highlighted by the 170% growth of the 25-34 age group, which is the bulk of emigration. That they stayed attested to the unprecedent development of employment opportunities for Arabs by Israel.

Compared to an Arab population growth rate of merely 0.9% during Jordan’s rule – when the number of births was almost offset by net emigration – there was a 2.2% average annual population growth rate during Israel’s rule. Moreover, 1990 and 1991 featured a 4.5% and 5.1% population growth rates.

Arguably, the surge of the Arab population growth was misperceived by the demographic establishment, which projected a continued growth, ignoring the “pre-fall-surge” syndrome. The latter characterizes population growth rates of third world societies, whenever integrated into Western world societies.

Rally Against Antisemitism Draws 3,000 in Show of Unity at US Capitol in Washington

More than 3,000 people from across the country gathered near the US Capitol on Sunday to stand in solidarity against the rising tide of antisemitism across the United States.

“No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity With the Jewish People” was organized by more than 100 Jewish and interfaith organizations from across the political and religious spectrum, under the leadership of business executive Elisha Wiesel, son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.

“Looking out at all of you today, it becomes clear that instead of dividing us, the enemies of the Jewish people—whether from the right or the left, at home or abroad—have instead united us,” Wiesel told the crowd.

“Here we stand, a coalition of Jews and our allies from all backgrounds, all political beliefs and all religious affiliations, who have come together to stand up to antisemitism,” he said. “This coalition will not be silenced whether Jews are facing violence in Los Angeles, or Brooklyn, or Paris or Tel Aviv. It won’t be silent whether Jews are being attacked in our synagogues, on our streets, on our campuses or on the floor of the House of Representatives.”

In a show of unity, Joshua Washington, executive director of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, and Rabbi Menachem Creditor, UJA Federation of New York scholar in residence, appeared on stage together and led the crowd in singing, “Kol Ha’Olam Kulo Gesher Tzar Meod,” meaning, “The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is to have no fear at all.”

‘Fight the evil of antisemitism’

The event included speeches from Deputy Assistant to the President Biden Erika Moritsugu; “The View” co-host Meghan McCain; Israeli actress and author Noa Tishby; Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) chairman and former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.); Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) chairman and former Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.); former US Ambassador Rabbi David Saperstein; Arizona State Representative Alma Hernandez; and numerous faith and grassroots leaders.

“Do not concede.” - @JoshWashIBSI, just now at “No Fear” in DC. pic.twitter.com/8Dsu44e1pB
— Conspiracy Libel (@ConspiracyLibel) July 11, 2021

Jewish 17 year old Talia Raab details her experience being physically assaulted and receiving violent threats from around the world for hosting a pro-Israel march in her hometown.

Today’s rally against #Antisemitism in DC:@HikindDov @AmericansAA @MeghanMcCain @benshapiro pic.twitter.com/orDO7sV4zq
— Justine Brooke Murray (@Justine_Brooke) July 12, 2021

Palestinian prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh opened up his weekly cabinet session with his usual roundup of important items.

For example, after Israel announced the discovery of a giant Second Temple-era dining hall and possibly city hall, he called on UNESCO to review the issue, knowing that according to UNESCO, all the archaeological digs in Jerusalem are illegal.

But one of his statements was even more interesting.

Before he tackled the topic of Covid-19, Shtayyeh "warned of the dangerous repercussions of repeatedly allowing the so-called 'Women for the Temple' to hold Talmudic rituals in the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque."

This is a more specific concern than the usual condemnations of "settlers" - meaning Jews - visiting the Temple Mount.

The Women for the Mikdash is a group of women who study the laws of the Temple as preparation for its rebuilding. They study how to properly bake the showbreads, how to create the dye for the various Temple curtains and coverings, and other topics.

Like other Jews, they visit the Temple Mount regularly.

Somehow, this group of women preparing for the messianic age - who do not give a hint of violence - is frightening Palestinian leaders.

It isn't Israelis they are afraid of. It is religious Jews. Because they know that people hold on to what they believe in, and that the Jews who have a sacred connection to the past are the ones who will be the most tenacious in keeping Jewish holy sites in Jewish hands.

And very often, women are more spiritual than men.

At the Blog of the European Journal of International Law there was an online symposium on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid as claimed by Human Rights Watch. Some of the articles are technical, suggesting that HRW conflated international law with human rights law which have two different intentions and definitions, or that apartheid itself may not be a crime against humanity under customary international law.

Eugene Kontorovich offers a number of reasons why the HRW report is fatally flawed and agenda driven, and HRW's response ignores most of his points, instead arguing that it never said that Israel was an "apartheid state" but rather a state that practices apartheid as policy - as if that distinction refutes his solid criticisms.

I looked again at HRW's April report making the claim of apartheid, and saw another reason to prove that the report is based on fitting the evidence to the crime rather than actually taking an honest evaluation of Israeli actions. This one example is enough to prove that the report is 217 pages of propaganda rather than a sober analysis.

To sustain Jewish Israeli control, Israeli authorities have adopted policies aimed at mitigating what they have openly described as a demographic “threat” that Palestinians pose. Those policies include limiting the population and political power of Palestinians, granting the right to vote only to Palestinians who live within the borders of Israel as they existed from 1948 to June 1967, and limiting the ability of Palestinians to move to Israel from the OPT and from anywhere else to Israel or the OPT.

The highlighted section is a blatant lie.

There are thousands of Israeli Arabs who live outside the Green Line.

There are Arab citizens of Israel who have moved across the Green Line to the southern part of Beit Safafa in Jerusalem, across the Green Line.

There are Arab citizens of Israel who moved to Beit Hanina, a wealthy neighborhood across the Green Line.

About 1000 residents of the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem, across the Green Line, are Arabs.

Hundreds of Arab families live in the "Jewish settlements" of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaakov. Many if not most of them are Israeli citizens.

And there are thousands of Arabs in Jerusalem who have become Israeli citizens.

Every Arab citizen who lives across the Green Line can vote in Israeli elections, just as every Jew can.

Human Rights Watch purposefully lies and says that only Jews living across the Green Line have the right to vote in Israel, not Arabs. They use this lie as a key piece of evidence of how Israel treats Jews and Arabs differently. But the fact is that Israel gives the exact same rights to Arab citizens of Israel as to Jewish citizens of Israel, and the only distinction is citizenship, not religion or peoplehood. All one can say is that Israel - like every nation on the planet - treats citizens differently from non-citizens.

HRW is lying about a basic feature of Israel's laws and it twists laws that treat Jews and Arabs equally into one that discriminates against Arabs.

This one lie is enough to invalidate the report as a whole. If HRW deliberately misrepresents the truth here, then one cannot trust any of its research or assertions in the report altogether.

It is not an innocent mistake. HRW knows the truth.

Later on in the report, HRW admits:

Palestinians in Israel are citizens who have the right to vote in national elections, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (except for the small minority of Palestinian Jerusalemites who have applied for and been granted Israeli citizenship).

That parenthetical remark, which refers to another several thousand Arabs across the Green Line who have Israeli citizenship, show that HRW is indeed aware that there are Israeli Arab citizens across the Green Line - showing that it knowingly lied in the passage quoted earlier. The report's authors are quite aware that Israel distinguishes between citizens and non-citizens, not between Arab and Jew, on voting rights.

Similarly, HRW writes "Jewish Israelis living in all parts of Jerusalem also vote in both municipal and national elections" implying that only Jewish Israelis have that right, immediately after obfuscating the fact there are, indeed, Arab citizens in Jerusalem who have the exact same rights. The paragraph above that quote says "A path to citizenship exists for Palestinian Jerusalemite residents, but the vast majority have chosen not to pursue it." HRW admits, but tries to hide the fact, that thousands have successfully become citizens and have equal rights.

These are not innocent mistakes - HRW's language proves that it knows the facts and is purposefully giving the impression of legal discrimination against Arabs.

The only reason HRW would do this is because the organization has no interest in the truth, but in promoting an anti-Israel agenda. The truth disproves "apartheid" which is why HRW is hiding or obscuring the truth.

--------------------

Another proof of HRW's disregard to the truth: The report refers multiple times to "pre-1967 borders" that never existed. The Green Line was the armistice line drawn in 1949 that was explicitly not defined as borders. For a report that pretends to make a legal argument, HRW plays very fast and loose with language that has legal definitions. This is again deliberate, because using accurate language would prove that Israel has a legal claim to the land across the Green Line so HRW chooses language to diminish Israel's rights.

Hamas isn't the only anti-Israel terror group that actively recruits child soldiers. Hezbollah has been doing this for years.

Hezbollah openly started recruiting children in 2014 when helping the Syrian army.

A 2016 interview with Al Monitor of a soldier recruited as a child shows that brainwashing them with religious justifications for wanting to be martyred is a large part of the training:

Al-Monitor: How old are you and how long have you been with Hezbollah?
Karbal:  I am 18. I joined Hezbollah a year and a half ago.
Al-Monitor: Why did you want to join the organization?
Karbal:  To wage jihad in Syria. It is my religious duty to fight there. It is the duty of every Muslim. It will also ensure my salvation after my death.
Al-Monitor:  Why do you want to wage jihad?
Karbal:  I have always been religious. As a child, I used to attend religious majlis [religion classes at the mosque], where they explained to us the duties of a good Muslim. I think I have been ready to die for a long time, and when the war in Syria broke out, it was clear to me it was a war of good against evil. The takfiris in Syria were attacking our holy sites, our Mouqadassat, which are our most sacred places, such as the Sayyida Zeinab pilgrimage site. We could not let that happen.
Al-Monitor: What type of training did you receive from Hezbollah?
Karbal:  We are submitted to three trainings. The first is a religious training. We are taught about jihad and about the goal of the war in Syria, which is the protection of our holy sites.

Houthis also recruit child soldiers, so every group that Iran supports also recruits children for war.

Human rights groups seem remarkably unconcerned over this.

Revisionist history now being created in real time

When you think about revisionist history, you think about things that happened decades or centuries ago that are now being revised, often for political reasons.

But revisionist history now happens during the news cycle itself.

Here is a summary of the May Gaza war as described by an Iranian news site:

The Israeli regime launched a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip on May 10, following Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children and 40 women. At least 1,948 others were also wounded.

In response, Palestinian resistance movements, chief among them Hamas, launched Operation al-Quds Sword and fired more than 4,000 rockets and missiles into the occupied territories, killing 12 Israelis.

Apparently caught off guard by the unprecedented barrage of rockets from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance movements accepted with Egyptian mediation.

It even contradicts itself - did Hamas fire rockets to protect Jerusalem, or in response to Israel bombing Gaza? Neither of those are true yet both are side by side here.

This is revisionist history being created in real time.