Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Initial impressions of the Deal of the Century

I am still going through the 181 page document called "Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the
Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People." Here are my initial thoughts.

The plan definitely takes into consideration Israeli security needs and red lines.

It is quite detailed, meaning that it won't be read by the Israel-haters who have decided already that it is an insult to Palestinians.

It isn't. It takes Palestinian needs very seriously and gives them everything possible without compromising Israeli security and yet there is a path to a state for them.

The only path to a state that is possible in the foreseeable future.

The settlements will be stuck in a sea of Palestinian Arab areas, which means that they will be sitting ducks for ambushes and the like. But there are lots of bridges and tunnels to try, as much as possible, to allow territorial contiguity among the very intertwined areas.

But I don't see Hebron (or Kiryat Arba) mentioned at all.

The border in Jerusalem is the separation barrier. Palestinians can create a capital city in their side of the barrier, and the US could one day open an embassy there.

The option of the "triangle" communities in Israel to become part of Palestine is there, if people want. (They won't.)

Jerusalem Arabs east of the security barrier will have the option to become Israeli citizens if they want.

Jews and Christians would be allowed to worship on the Temple Mount although the Jordanian Waqf would continue to be the official rulers. In other words, the status quo of today will remain with some changes, not the one from 1967.

The Palestinians are expected to mature their counter-terrorism operations, it is unclear how that can be enforced. And demilitarizing Gaza is essentially impossible.

There's lots of detail on proposed joint tourist zones, industrial zones, including some shared with Jordan and Egypt. As the map shows, parts of the Negev at the Egyptian border would become part of Palestine.

Israel would maintain all control of crossings and is even still allowed into Palestinian territory to destroy terrorist infrastructure if necessary. Again, needed from Israel's perspective; a non-starter for Palestinians.

The economic plan for the Palestinians looks very well thought out and impressive. It includes improving the governance, women's participation in the workforce, internal medical capabilities, universities, reduce corruption, imports/exports, and helping the private sector. Any Palestinian who objects to this part of the plan - far more than half the document - is insane. These are all things that need to happen anyway, and it addresses the major problems with the current Palestinian government and environment. It is largely what we saw in the Bahrain economic conference last year, from what I can tell.

It is not a trivial plan; a lot of work went into it. If Palestinians were smart they would try to at least get the economic and governance help it mentions - but they won't.

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01/28 Links Pt1: Trump peace plan gives Israel chunks of West Bank, creates Palestinian state; ICC gives Israel, Palestinians until March to respond to war crime charges

From Ian:

Israel Facing Monumental Decisions

Fate has sent Israel a rare set of circumstances that is unlikely to come our way again. The “deal of the century” really is a once-in-a-century opportunity, and Israel must seize it.

In October 1937, David Ben-Gurion wrote to his son Amos: “A partial Jewish state is not an end but a beginning … a powerful lever in our efforts to redeem the land in its entirety.”

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, which could potentially rip the Israeli nation’s ancient homeland in two, is also not the end, but rather the beginning.

Israel is facing a Ben-Gurion-style monumental decision: Some 73 years after the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, providence has sent the State of Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a rare set of circumstances that is unlikely to come our way again. The “deal of the century” really is a once-in-a-century opportunity, and Israel must seize it.

The full details of Trump’s peace plan will be revealed soon enough, but if what we know about it so far is true – if Jerusalem, even without the Arab neighborhoods beyond the security fence, remains ours; if the Temple Mount is left under Israeli sovereignty; if all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria fall under Israeli rule, and if the settlement enterprise in historical lands, the cradle of the Israeli nation, will have territorial continuity and become part of greater Israel – than we must say yes to Trump’s plan.

In 1947, too, the partition plan tore the land of Israel in two, leaving the Western and central Galilee, the eastern part of the Negev, including Beersheba, and even Jaffa (as an enclave) within the borders of the proposed Arab state.

In 2020, too, Trump’s plan will tear Judea and Samaria, the heart of our homeland, apart, and leaves about 70% to a future Palestinian entity. But what time and Arab rejectionism did in the past, time and Palestinian rejectionism will do in the future.

Embracing Trump’s plan at this time is just the beginning, even if parts of it are a bitter pill to swallow.

The Deal of the Century

“The Deal of the Century,” if the leaked details are even close to accurate, is a non-starter. That is the simple take-away. But should Israel wait for the Arabs to blow it up on their own? And then what?

The basic contours being leaked about the forthcoming Trump Mideast plan, which he predictably, in his own typically understated modest way, calls “The Deal of the Century,” suggest that:

1. Israel would get to annex all Jewish communities presently established in Judea and Samaria.

2. Approximately 30-40 percent of Judea and Samaria formally would be integrated into Israel, reunifying those lands.

3. The Arabs in Judea and Samaria (“Palestinians”) would get their own independent country in what is left of Judea and Samaria after Israel annexes its 30-40 percent.

4. Hamas would have to be demilitarized.

5. “Palestine” would have to be demilitarized.

6. Jerusalem would be united. Arabs in Jerusalem could deem themselves “Palestinians.”

7. No new Jewish neighborhoods would be allowed to be added to Greater Jerusalem.

8. No new Jewish communities could be created in Judea and Samaria.

9. Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that presently exist and are being annexed would not be permitted to expand further.

10. “Palestine” would be barred from having a military and would be protected instead by Israel, with “Palestine” paying for the protection.

PMW: PLO calls for terror against Trump's deal: "Escalate the resistance and the struggle... in all its forms"

In anticipation of the revelation of US President Trump’s Middle East peace plan – the so-called “deal of the century” - the PLO, the PA, and Fatah are emphasizing their rejection of the still unknown plan. They have also announced a “day of rage” on the day the plan is revealed, and called for “escalation of resistance” – a Palestinian euphemism for violence and terror.

Abbas’ Fatah Movement posted a photo of a Palestinian rock thrower in a call for violence accompanied by text implicitly encouraging Palestinians to seek death as martyrs for “Palestine”:
Posted text and text on image: “We will redeem you with our blood, #Palestine”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 26, 2020]

Similarly, the PLO urged Palestinians to “escalate the resistance and the struggle” against Israel “in all its forms and manners.” Terms like “all forms” and “all means” are ‎used by PA leaders to include the use of all types of violence, including deadly terror ‎against Israeli civilians such as stabbings and shootings, as well as throwing rocks and Molotov Cocktails:
“The [Palestinian] National Council (i.e., the legislative body of the PLO) again expressed its objection to every plan, project, deal, or attempt to harm the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights… The National Council yesterday [Jan. 26, 2020] demanded that the PLO Executive Committee implement all of the National Council and [PLO] Central Council’s decisions – and foremost among them the decision determining that the transition period has ended with all of the political, security, and financial obligations in it towards the Israeli occupation – and also to take all the necessary steps to encourage and escalate the resistance and the struggle against the occupation in all its forms and manners.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 27, 2020]

Unreported news: Israel reduced time for West Bank merchandise imports by 67%; lifts ban on tires into Gaza

When Israel makes life easier for Palestinians, it rarely makes the news.

COGAT announced last week when describing a tour of Qalandiya crossing to a group of international visitors:

The Civil Administration has advanced its “Door To Door” project throughout the West Bank this past year. Thanks to this unique project, Palestinian trucks can carry merchandise into Israel without long and exhaustive checking at the crossings, instead relying on modern technology. This project advancement has shortened the crossing time for merchandise by two thirds while saving money, resources, and precious time.

Also earlier this month the Gisha NGO sent a letter to Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett -widely regarded as an anti-Arab zealot - asking him to allow tires into Gaza, as tires have been banned by Israel since April 2018 in response to Gaza riots that burned hundreds or thousands of tires at the border. This is a humanitarian issue, Gisha emphasized.

Tomorrow morning, Israel will allow 6000 tires to enter Gaza.

Because the media ignores stories like these, the Arab and anti-Israel narrative that Israel wants to arbitrarily hurt Palestinians is the only one people can read and watch. But Israel is only concerned for its own security, and always has been - if there are ways to ease Palestinian suffering without affecting security, Israel has shown that it is willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do so.

(h/t Irene)

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Arab reaction to Holocaust Remembrance Day includes Holocaust denial, blaming Jews for the Holocaust

Here is a roundup of some of the Arab media reactions to Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Voice of Iraq:

World War II killed nearly 50 million victims, but the Zionist movement speaks only of the Jewish war victims which did not exceed the most inflated and haphazard allegations, 6 million Jews, as they nationalized and monopolized the horrors of war in favor of their [Zionist] project, in an unprecedented Zionist racism toward the rest of the world.

Some of the recent Arab official statements that came out in solidarity with the so-called Holocaust without mentioning one word about the occupation of Palestine, do not represent or express Arab peoples, but rather are part of the wave of criminal normalization that struck the region in the recent period, led by the kingdoms and emirates of the Gulf.

Al Sharq:

Remembering the Holocaust: and fighting anti-Semitism, we must not forget the tragedy of the Palestinian people that it is exposed to on a daily basis and the massacres that take place in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army, expelling the Palestinians from their properties and settling the herds of settlers in their place.

The writer understands European attitudes towards this human tragedy of the Holocaust, but I cannot understand the position of some Arab countries on this tragedy, they have nothing to do with it, and they did not participate in it and they are not historically required to profess this issue.
Seventy years ago "Jews" in Israel usurped Palestine with a European-American conspiracy and that it was planted in the heart of the Arab and Islamic world in order to be a hindrance to its unity and geographical contiguity.
I do not want to remind you of the words of the Almighty in Surat Al - Baqarah verse 120 "And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion. Say, 'Indeed, the guidance of Allah is the [only] guidance.' " Why do you scramble towards the tombs of the Jews, victims of European Nazism, to pray for their lives and weep for them?

Al Khaleej (UAE):

What we remember in this regard are American and European books (including by Jews) that question the Jewish narration of the event and turn it into an industr as well! The Occupying Power is authorized to exercise the role of executioner without accountability; rather, with blessing, acquittal, or participation under the pretext of honoring the victim. This industry also allows some of the ancestors of the Holocaust contemporaries to be acquitted for their collusion with the very Nazi parties that organized concentration and extermination camps.

Baladna El Youm (Egypt):

British historian David Irving says, “There is no documentation regarding the gas chambers,” as Jews reported, and Irving was not the only historian to discover this fact. There are a large number of historians and researchers who do not acknowledge these lies. The myth of the Holocaust and the Nazi gas chamber is the French researcher Paul Rassinier, as well as the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline who was mocking the gas chambers allegedly using the expression "magical gas chambers."

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah issued, in English, pure Holocaust inversion:

The Fatah International Relations Commission said in a statement commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz that the Palestinian people, ethnically cleansed by Jewish militias since 1948 and occupied by Israel since 1967 are like the victims of the Nazi occupation of Europe.

Fatah said that open or tacit acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism and the suppression of the legitimate critique of the State of Israel is tantamount to complicity with the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by apartheid Israel against the Palestinian people.

“Yad va-Shem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, stands just 1.3km away from the lands and the meager remains of the ethnically cleansed and massively massacred Palestinian village of Deir Yasin. This year, the Yad va-Shem commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz coincides with the 72rd anniversary of the Deir Yasin Massacre,” Fatah said in a statement.

There was also anger at the visit to Auschwitz by the secretary general of the Muslim World League, Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, along with a delegation of 62 Muslims. British Muslim and pro-Iranian site 5Pillars emphasized that al-Issa was invited by the American Jewish Committee which supports Israel.

However, the article did quote al-Issa as saying, “To be here, among the children of Holocaust survivors and members of the Jewish and Islamic communities, is both a sacred duty and a profound honour. The unconscionable crimes to which we bear witness today are truly crimes against humanity. That is to say, a violation of us all, an affront to all of God’s children.... [those around the world who engage in Holocaust denial are] partners in the crime. They are like Nazis themselves.”

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Anti-Zionists, don't compare yourselves to Jewish anti-Zionists before 1948. You have NOTHING in common.

Joseph Massad, in an interview on RT, claimed (4:14) "Remember there's always been a distinction between Zionism, Jewishness and Judaism and the Israeli government has sought since the 1950s to collapse all these terms and all these references into one ... we see this beginning in the 1970s as an explicit strategy at the time spearheaded by the Israeli politician Abba Eban who was a foreign minister and before that the United Nations representative of Israel who insisted and gave a speech in the early 70s insisting that in fact we must equate Zionism with Jewishness and Jews and that any opposition to Zionism should be cast in the frame of anti-semitism."

I could not find any such speech from Abba Eban, and it is possible that Massad is referring to this 1975 New York Times article that Eban wrote right before the infamous UN resolution equating Zionism with racism. Eban's words are not a "strategy" but a statement of fact.

When I posted this nice quote, a tweeter named Aaron Shakow tried to counter it with a personal story:

Let me put it this way: the anti-Zionism-is-antisemitism formulation describes the Jewish identity of tens of thousands of Jews as illegitimate. My great-great grandfather was one. He was chief rabbi of Boston. He opposed Zionism until the day he died. He was even challenged to a duel by Chaim Weitzmann, whose friends apologized profusely. The only universe where all Jews are Zionists is where nationalists mute everyone with contrary opinions. Which is what Eban was trying to do here.

I'm fairly sure the great-great grandfather he is referring to was R' Gavriel Zev Margolis, who was indeed an anti-Zionist. (The Weizmann story sounds nebulous.)

We've seen this argument made before - that a significant number of Jews before 1948 were anti-Zionist so it is absurd to say that they were all antisemitic.

Columbia University professor Joseph Massad made this same argument in a TV interview for the RT propaganda site on Holocaust Remembrance Day as well.

The people making this argument are being disingenuous.

Before 1948, there was a fierce debate in Jewish circles about whether a Jewish state was good for the Jews. Both religious and non-religious Jews weighed in. There were significant fears about whether such a state would increase antisemitism, whether Western nations would expel their Jews for the Jewish state (no one argued in those days that Jews were not a nation,) as well as religious objections to creating a Jewish political entity before the Messiah comes.

But all of that changed when Israel became a reality. Jewish anti-Zionism became a fringe movement immediately. Only antisemites argued that the existing Jewish state must be dismantled or destroyed.

This 1968 story from a biography of the anti-Zionist Satmar Rebbe illustrates how even the religious Jews who were against the idea of Israel understood that anti-Zionism that was not from a religious Jewish perspective was bigotry:

When Hubert Humphrey was running for president in 1968, he came to speak with the Rebbe. The Rebbe noticed the chassidim whispering to Humphrey, and after the meeting he asked them what they had been saying. They said that they had warned Humphrey prior to the meeting that the Rebbe strongly opposed the State of Israel, and therefore Humphrey should avoid that subject. Humphrey had then asked if he could at least tell the chassidim about his support for the state, and they had laughed. The Rebbe said, "Had he spoken to me in support of the state, it wouldn't have bothered me in the least. We Jews have a Torah which forbids us to have a state during exile, and therefore we cannot ask the Americans to support the state. But a non-Jew has no Torah, and by supporting the state he feels he is helping Jews. And on the contrary, if an American non-Jew is against the Zionist state, it shows he is an anti-Semite." (h/t @yesh222)

Even the most prominent Jewish anti-Zionist understands that when non-Jews and non-religious Jews oppose Israel, they are simply antisemites.

The State of Israel exists. Anti-Zionists today are not arguing the theoretical pros and cons of a Jewish state as Jews did before 1948 - they are saying that they want the existing Jewish state to be destroyed. They want there to be no safe haven for Jews under persecution. They want, ultimately,. for Jews to be ethnically cleansed from the Middle East, under the pretense of "democracy." (Funny how no one fights for a democratic Arab state in the region besides a bi-national Palestinian one where Arabs can outvote Jews.)

In short, before 1948 most Jewish anti-Zionists were of course not antisemitic. But after 1948, anti-Zionists who are against the very existence of a Jewish state are people who hate Jews having any national rights. Ultimately, they support a Palestinian state from the river to the sea that will treat its Jews as every other Arab nation did since 1948 - as second-class citizens at best, as candidates for oppression, pogroms and expulsion at worst.

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Hamas newspaper upset that David Friedman did "Talmudic prayers" on Netanyahu's plane

Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper, writes:

A video circulated showing that the American ambassador to the Occupying Power, who the Palestinians call "the settlement ambassador", or "the settler ambassador", David Friedman, traveled on the plane of the Israeli occupation government president [sic], Benjamin Netanyahu, on his trip to Washington to meet with President Trump.

The video showed that Friedman, who was famous for encouraging settlements by raising millions of dollars in favor of building settlements in the occupied West Bank, was performing Talmudic prayers on a Netanyahu plane, during the trip from "Tel Aviv" to Washington.

The video was at Yeshiva World News:

Why is this even a story?

Palestinians have always been far more frightened of religious Jews than secular Jews. They know that religious Jews are the ones who have emotional ties to the Land of Israel. Just as they use religion to scare gullible Westerners, they are scared of Judaism that pre-dates Islam and whose ties to the land also pre-date Islam.

They think they can win arguments based on international law or recent history but they know that in terms of religion and the emotional ties to the land, they fall way short.

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01/27 Links Pt2: Survivors, world leaders at Auschwitz mark 75 years since its liberation; Western world nations support terror-linked Palestinian NGOs; Rashida Tlaib resurrects a 700 year old blood libel

From Ian:

Western world nations support terror-linked Palestinian NGOs - report

A new report issued on Monday by the research institute NGO Monitor found that eight Palestinian NGOs, which receive support from Western nations, maintain ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization.

NGO Monitor claimed that the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Norway, and Belgium funneled millions of dollars to the Palestinian groups. The support was not limited to EU countries as the US, Canada and Japan were also among the donors. UN-OCHA and UNICEF were among the international organizations who also donate.

Over 70 current and former staff, board members, and general assembly members, as well as senior management and founders at these NGOs have direct ties to the PFLP, the report found.

Founded by George Habash in 1967, the PFLP is a Palestinian, secular, Marxist-Leninist terror group, originally supported by the USSR and China.

The PFLP was involved in suicide bombings, shootings, assassinations and other attacks targeting Israeli civilians. The group was well-known for hijacking commercial airlines in the 1960s and 1970s

David Collier: Antisemitism and Holocaust denial – the rise of the left

The Rise of Holocaust denial on the left

It would be fair to say that Marxist elements on the political left can freely love the victims of the Nazis. The tragedy of the Holocaust and the anti-nationalist ideologies of the modern left are a perfect fit. What better way to show everyone how evil some of their ideological enemies are, than by holding aloft the furnaces of Auschwitz?

When I began the undercover work into antisemitism it never crossed my mind that Holocaust denial would exist on the Marxist left. Yet just as antisemitism has evolved and mutated so too has Holocaust denial. In fact, ‘left-wing’ antisemitism today is so rooted in Holocaust denial it would be unable to have spread into the mainstream without it. It sits hidden away in an antisemitic sewer titled ‘Rothschild Conspiracy’.

Many people I know – indeed even many people who fight antisemitism – consider Rothschild Conspiracy as something akin to a racist joke. Antisemitic – but put away with Icke’s lizards as a silly and almost laughable version of it. An adaptation of the ‘socialism of fools’ that blames Zionists rather than Jews for the inequality of the world. Marxists hate bankers, antisemitic stereotypes paint Jews as bankers, therefore antisemitic Marxists hate Jews.

This misses the point entirely. Rothschild Zionist Conspiracy – is not throwaway foolishness, nor is the inherent Holocaust denial within accidental. It is all an absolutely vital part of anti-Zionist ideology.
20,000 Jewish children burn

The problem is this: Israel is an ethical imperative. It is why elements of the left supported the early Zionists as a liberation movement even before the rise of the Nazis. The more the Nazis rose – the more of the left understood the necessity of Israel. What the Holocaust managed to do, was simply end the argument. Even amongst Jews – there was near universal support. Zionism was no longer just based on history or universal human rights, but on an undeniable contemporary necessity. Had Israel existed earlier, millions of Jews could have been saved.

This image is from a file at the British archives. The Polish consul sought agreement from the British for 20,000 Jewish children from Poland to be allowed to immigrate into the Mandate of Palestine. The date 18 Sep 1939.

US Democratic Presidential Candidate Bloomberg Vows to Back Israel, Takes Dig at Sanders

US presidential contender Michael Bloomberg pledged on Sunday to “always have Israel’s back,” while separately joking he was the only Jewish candidate who does not want to turn the United States into a “kibbutz.”

The joke, made during a speech on antisemitism and foreign policy, referred to collectivist farms in Israel and was an apparent dig at fellow Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders.

Bloomberg and Sanders, who are both Jewish, are vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Republican President Donald Trump in the November election.

Sanders is a front-runner in the race and proposes left-wing policies like abolishing private health insurance in favor of a government-run Medicare-for-All program, based on the government program for older Americans.

Sanders spent several months in Israel in the 1960s as a volunteer on a kibbutz, and calls himself a democratic socialist.

Bloomberg has more centrist positions and has largely avoided attacks against individual Democratic candidates. A former mayor of New York whose wealth is estimated at about $60 billion, he has pledged to spend from his fortune to support the eventual Democratic nominee even if he loses the contest.

Bloomberg previously criticized leading Democratic candidates as too liberal to beat Trump. His remarks on Sunday appeared to take aim at Sanders, although he did not mention the senator from Vermont by name.

“I’m not the only Jewish candidate running for president. But I am the only one who doesn’t want to turn America into a kibbutz,” he told a campaign event at a synagogue in Miami.

There are two Jewish presidential candidates.@BernieSanders of them has always distanced himself from Judaism and has surrounded himself with antisemites.@MikeBloomberg is proudly Jewish and has always supported Israel.

For proud Jewish Democrats, there is no choice. pic.twitter.com/AgJMH1ysfZ
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 27, 2020

An article in Ammon News by Bassam Al-Amoush, a law professor, former member of Jordan's parliament and former head of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood:

Those who follow the history of the children of Israel find that it is a troubled history: they were humiliated under the rule of the Pharaohs, and the mission of the Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, was to free this people from shackles. They said to him when seeing the sea in front of them and Pharaoh behind them: We were hurt by what we came from and we'll be hurt now! And when God drowned their enemy before them, their faith did not increase. Rather they said to Moses "make us a god" as the other peoples have gods !! They killed the prophets and took the head of the Prophet Yahya [John the Baptist]!! They plotted against their brother the Prophet Joseph and lied to their prophet Jacob and used crocodile tears !!

A disgraceful black history made the world hate them and I will not talk about the Nazis criminals against the Germans and the world, but I am talking about Henry Ford, the American Ford Motor Company owner who wrote a book entitled "The International Jew" in which he describes the greed and deception of the Jews....

A country was established for them but it is a country of torment where there is no security or stability but rather fear, because thieves live in fear and they have been thieves since 1948 , and even today. ...

He certainly makes no distinction between Jews and Israelis.

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Last week, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, world leaders gathered in Jerusalem. Listening to the speeches, it was obvious the intent was to go beyond just commemorating and remembering the past. There was a growing apprehension about the future and the increase in antisemitism.

And not just about Europe.

The increase in reported incidents of antisemitism in the US is beyond shocking. It goes beyond graffiti, protests and harassment. It goes beyond college campuses. Jews are being physically attacked and murdered, both by fanatics on both the right-wing and the left-wing too.

Jews are being attacked in New York City -- by blacks.
And those who would be expected to provide protection and address the problem are not as forthcoming as one would expect.

The media may report what is happening, but begrudgingly mention the attacks by blacks in New York City, and even then, many in the media are trying to find ways to excuse it, blaming the attacks on the Hasidic victims, on gentrification.

Then there are the political leaders, who have been excruciatingly slow to address the problem. Some in Congress have insisted that antisemitism cannot be singled out as a problem, but rather must be packaged with 'Islamaphobia" and other forms of hate. Others have taken advantage of the crisis in order to score political points, whether to blame Trump or single out the right-wing as the sole source of the hatred.

The lengths to which the media and politicians will go to craft a narrative to suit their purposes comes up in a review in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, of the book "Wilmington's Lie", by David Zucchino, about the 1898 massacre of blacks in Wilmington, N.C., by members of a white-supremacist conspiracy. The book reveals what happens when the media and politicians ally with each other, leading up to the massacre and in covering it up afterward.

At the time, in addition to 3 of Wilmington’s 10 aldermen being black, there were black health inspectors, postmasters and magistrates, and a black street superintendent and county treasurer. The American Baptist Publication Society called Wilmington “the freest town for a negro in the country.”

According to the article:

Other key offices, such as those of the mayor and police chief, were held by white Republican or fusionist allies. Contrary to later racist propaganda, the city was well run. It was the very presence of blacks in positions of power that was intolerable to leading Democrats, who began railing against “Negro rule.”

This led to heated and racist rhetoric and worse. In this regard the review makes reference to Josephus Daniels, the influential editor of the Raleigh News and Observer:

His race baiting and fake “reporting” fueled the savagery of the white mobs. “White supremacy” has today become something of a buzzword in the debate over racial inequities: In the Wilmington of 1898, it was a proud battle cry.

Daniels would later serve as Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson. He was a close friend of Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed him ambassador to Mexico. A cruiser launched in 1963 bore his name.

Josephus Daniels. Public Domain

When Alex Manly, the editor of Wilmington’s black newspaper, the Daily Record, denounced the routine charges aimed at black community -- such as that blacks were rapists worthy of lynching -- there were outright calls for Manly's murder while a local paper, The Messenger, claimed that Wilmington was suffering from a massive crime wave (a claim that has been proven to be a complete fabrication):

“The Sambos do not wait to be threatened or assaulted but they take the initiative and assault to kill from the start.”

The newspaper went on to claim that blacks were stockpiling arms, that nannies were planning to poison the white children in their care and to set their homes on fire.

That November, on election day, blacks were blocked at gunpoint from the polls, where ballot boxes were openly stuffed. In one case, a Democrat won with 100 more votes than the total of registered voters in his precinct. Similar tactics brought Democrats overwhelming victories across much of North Carolina. One newspaper proudly declared: “Our state redeemed—Negroism defunct.”

And then came the massacre.

What came next was an organized riot, one that, as Mr. Zucchino conclusively shows, was planned even before the stolen election as a decisive coup de grâce to what remained of the biracial fusion movement. On streetcars, on horseback and on foot, hundreds of armed men poured into Wilmington from outlying towns, “stoked with adrenaline . . . and eager for an opportunity to shoot black men,” in Mr. Zucchino’s words. Many of them, known as “Red Shirts,” wore red calico blouses or red jackets over white butterfly collars, with cartridge belts around their waists. They shot their guns into black homes, fired on blacks standing on street corners, and burned the office of the black-owned Daily Record. Alex Manly had already fled north or he would have been lynched.

Later, white officials claimed that their actions were necessary to quell “Negro riots.” In reality, what took place was a slaughter. One white man was overheard to say to another as he fired, “We are just shooting to see the n—s run!” White housewives brought the shooters coffee and hotcakes. Meanwhile, hundreds of black women and children fled to the surrounding swamps in terror. By the time it was all over, at least 60 black men lay dead and many others wounded.

Every member of Wilmington’s fusion government, white and black, was forced to resign. In their place, 8 white supremacists, including 2 men who had led the rioters, were chosen as alderman. Col. Alfred Waddell, who had called for black voters to be shot, was selected as Wilmington’s mayor. Not one of the rioters was ever charged with a crime.

“With the killings completed and their enemies banished,” Mr. Zucchino writes, “Wilmington’s whites began crafting a lasting narrative of a heroic victory over dark and malevolent forces.” Later reports in the white press typically asserted that black men were the aggressors.

...In the years that followed, whites shamelessly rewrote history to incorporate racist tropes. In the 1930s, one popular writer asserted that Wilmington’s whites had to act because “black rapists prowled the city...attacking Southern girls and women.” And as late as 1949 school textbooks portrayed the insurrectionists as heroic defenders of law and order.

All this is not meant to demonize Democrats or the Democratic Party.

But it is interesting to note in passing the story of William Holden, the governor of North Carolina, from 1868-1871. 1870, in response to the assassination of Republican senator John W. Stephens months earlier, Holden called out the militia against the Ku Klux Klan, imposed martial law in two counties, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus for accused leaders of the Klan. This became known as the Kirk-Holden war.

For his efforts, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Governor Holden on December 14, 1870.

Holden was later posthumously pardoned -- by the North Carolina Senate, in 2011.

Today, we may take some comfort from the fact that the rhetoric aimed at Jews is not as heated or as debased as what Blacks faced in 1898 -- that is, unless you take a look at what appears on social media. Under the banner of 'free speech,' community and political leaders such as Sarsour, Omar and Tlaib consider themselves free to make various any of a number of baseless claims against both Jews and Israel.

And if the lack of backlash against them is any indication, they really are free to say anything.

In an article, Anti-Zionism has a death toll, Hen Mazzig notes that one of Sarsour's favorite memes has gotten Jews killed:

David Anderson, one of the Jersey City kosher supermarket shooters, posted, “Jews were using the police to [carry] out a well planned agenda [against black people]” to a thread discussing the 2016 police killing of Alton Sterling.

...One of the more prominent anti-Zionist organizations spreading this theory is the ironically-named Jewish Voice for Peace, which developed a campaign called “Deadly Exchange” to scapegoat Israel for police brutality in the United States. JVP claims that Israel is the root of anti-black police brutality, with practices that include “extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders, racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention, and attacks on human rights defenders.”

Another leader of the anti-Zionist movement, former Women’s March co-chairwoman Linda Sarsour, called the anti-Semitism watchdog Anti-Defamation League, “An organization that takes police officers from America ... to Israel so they can be trained by the Israeli police and military, and then they come back here and do what? Stop and frisk, killing unarmed black people across the country.”

Sarsour’s fellow co-chairwoman Tamika Mallory has taken this conspiratorial rhetoric a step further. When Starbucks announced it planned to work with the ADL on anti-bias training, the activist demanded the public boycott the coffee conglomerate because Jewish organizations like the ADL are “CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people.” When asked to clarify how, she wrote, “The ADL sends U.S. police to Israel to learn their military practices. This is deeply troubling.”

Then, there is Hanan Ashrawi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Miftah, which Elder of Ziyon revealed in 2013 posted on their website an article accusing Jews of using Christian blood on Passover. Just last year, the Miftah website claimed that Israel steals the organs of Haitian and Ukranian children.

When Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar announced their trip to Israel, they arranged it through Ashrawi and her Mitah organization.

Now Tlaib and Ashrawi have made news again this past weekend, doing what they do best: accusing Israel of killing non-Jewish children.

There was outrage -- on social media.
From politicians?
Not so much.

We keep talking about Tlaib and Omar.
But we almost gloss over the fact that we are talking about Representative Tlaib and Representative Omar, who serve in the House of Representatives in the US Congress in Washington, DC.

And what they do and say is important, relevant -- and dangerous:

Ashrawi apologized for her tweet, not whole-heartedly ("not fully verified"; "not certain"), but she apologized.
Tlaib just deleted her retweet, with neither comment nor apology.

It is only a matter of time before she will say or write another biased, derogatory accusation against Israel.

What happened in Wilmington seems long ago and far away. And it may be true that today such blatant, open and over-the-top attacks on blacks -- and Jews -- may be a thing of the past.

But then you read the stories about the increase in antisemitism.

And you read that the increase is not just in campus harassment, or verbal assaults on clearly identifiable Jews or the number of swastikas that are being spray-painted.

Synagogues around the world are being protected by the police and armed guards. My synagogue has been redesigned with reinforced metal doors with combination locks, special fobs and synagogue volunteers who will let you into the synagogue on Shabbos -- if they recognize you.

If the overt attacks by the politicians and the mainstream media are a thing of the past, their silence and foot-dragging in dealing with the rapidly increasing problem are very much a problem today.

With the increasingly vocal hate and the killing of Jews that is tied to it, maybe there really is not that much difference between Sarsour, Representative Tlaib and Representative Omar -- and their allies -- and the Wilmington racists after all.

All the more need for the media and political leaders to wake up.

Today, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, would be a good day to start going beyond just words.

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01/27 Links Pt1: Trump's peace plan: A presidential show of friendship and solidarity with Israel; Col. Kemp: Britain should support Trump's peace plan

From Ian:

Trump's peace plan: A presidential show of friendship and solidarity with Israel

Such a clear presidential display of friendship and solidarity with Israel can also help sway moderate Jewish voters to break with the Democrats and park their support with the 45th president.

Trump's decision to unveil the plan at this point is most likely designed to dominate the news cycle so that his impeachment trial gets less coverage.

But it would be wrong to accuse Trump of using the peace plan for domestic purposes only. Even if the timing may be a result of his own personal considerations, one cannot ignore the fact that it is the culmination of a long process that was launched in the very first days of his presidency.

In May 2017, Trump convened a summit of Arab leaders in Riyadh, laying the groundwork for a regional framework that he hopes will eventually serve as the backdrop for the Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.

He also took other steps, like the Bahrain workshop in June, when the administration unveiled the economic component of the peace plan as part of a larger effort to establish a mechanism to enhance the Palestinians' lives and help create a more stable Middle East.

Even if peace is still far off, Trump's vision will help cast him as a pro-active and assertive leader who is not afraid of thinking outside the box and does not feel tethered to the traditional US posture regarding this region.

Now we just have to wait and see what the actual impact of the plan is, both on American politics and on the region.

Col. Kemp: Britain should support Trump's peace plan

At a cost of 168,000 casualties, British Empire forces freed the land of Palestine from the malignant rule of the Ottoman Empire in a defensive campaign from 1915 to 1918. Had our troops not secured victory, the Turks would have maintained dominion over that land and there could never have been a Jewish state.

Yet the British government published a White Paper in May 1939 slamming the door on Jewish immigration into Palestine. Liberal Party MP James Rothschild observed at the time, "For the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine, it is a question of migration or of physical extinction."

We don't know how many Jews perished in the Holocaust who might have escaped to Palestine but it certainly runs into the hundreds of thousands. It is to Britain's eternal shame that our nation played a role in sending Jews to the Nazi ovens.

At the same time, had the British Army under General Montgomery not succeeded in halting Rommel at El-Alamein in 1942, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, would have achieved his desire to see Jews herded into gas chambers in Palestine and across the Arab world.

A serving British general led the illegal Jordanian invasion of the newly declared State of Israel in 1948. Britain armed the Arab aggressors and denied munitions to Israel, even continuing to hold fighting-age Jews in Cyprus long after British forces had withdrawn from Palestine.

On Tuesday, President Trump will announce his proposals for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Predictably, Al-Husseini's successors in the Palestinian leadership have rejected it even before it's been published. Britain, which played such an important part in the re-creation of the Jewish state, yet also made too many disastrous missteps, should get behind the president's proposals, which represent the only realistic hope for long-term peace and stability between the two peoples.

The security significance of annexing the Jordan Valley

A bill that would apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley is currently being pushed in the Knesset. Members of Knesset should support the initiative, as annexing the Jordan Valley will help bolster Israel’s security for the foreseeable future.

The Jordan Valley serves as Israel’s frontline of defense during conventional wars from any opposing attacks coming from the East. Israel has a width of about 9.3 miles at its narrowest from the Mediterranean to the Green Line, which would be nearly impossible to defend in the event of an invasion. However, Israel’s width from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River is on average around 40 miles, which provides Israel with the necessary strategic depth to withstand an attack.

Likewise, the inimitable geographical features of the Jordan Valley provide Israel with defensible borders. The Jordan Valley rises from an area that lies 1,300 feet below sea level to the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountain ridge, which at its highest point stands around 3,600 feet above sea level. The Jordan Valley thus creates a 4,000-foot topographical barrier that makes it difficult for an opposing army attacking from the East to traverse, especially with large artillery such as tanks. The Jordan Valley contains only five mountain passages, which makes it easy for Israel to defend.

Of equal importance is the IDF’s ability to thwart terrorist infiltrations and smuggling via the Jordan Valley. The Gaza-Jericho Agreement signed in 1994 by Israel and the PLO created a narrow strip along the border area between Egypt and Gaza that would be controlled by the IDF. The agreement designated this area as the “military installation area” but was referred to by the IDF as the “Philadelphi Route.” Palestinian organizations began to create smuggling tunnels underneath the Philadelphi Route, however, the IDF was able to identify the location of the tunnels along this strip of land and eliminate them.

Once Israel withdrew from Gaza, though, Israel was no longer able to send in forces to try to destroy these tunnels, so their number proliferated. Without the IDF patrolling the border area, Hamas and other terrorists were able to capitalize on this by significantly increasing the number of weapons they were able to import via the tunnels running underneath the Philadelphi Route.

Yaakov Katz, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, has put together some great research to describe what went on behind the scenes before, during and after Israel's bombing of the secret Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.

The actual bombing was not tremendously dramatic. It was a fairly straightforward operation, much easier logistically than the bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981. The real drama came beforehand.

The Mossad hacked into the computer of Ibrahim Othman, the director of Syria's Atomic Energy Commission, when he visited Vienna in early March, at the request of Israel's Military Intelligence, because they had a suspicion that something bad was going on but not nearly enough evidence. The computer gave them everything they needed, including photos of Othman with a North Korean nuclear expert posing in front of a Syrian reactor, under construction, virtually identical to the one the expert was in charge of in Yongbyon.

Throughout the book, we are witness to Israel's decision making - how much intelligence to share with the US? Will the US bomb the facility itself, or try to pressure Syria diplomatically? When it became clear that the US will not act, what repercussions might there be for Israel if it bombed it alone? How can they keep the planning for the operation, which ended up being known by some 2000 people in Israel, a secret? And, most importantly, would the bombing be the first salvo in a major war with Syria, a country with tens of thousands of missiles capable of aiming chemical weapons at all of Israel? How can such an outcome be avoided?

Katz gives lots of background and context, going over the Osirak bombing and some of Mossad's clandestine operations in Syria over the years, from Eli Cohen to the assassination of Imad Mugniyeh shortly after the attack done with the US. (Interestingly, Katz said that the bomb was made by the US to fit in the spare tire compartment of Mugniyeh's Mitsubishi SUV; the book Harpoon that I recently reviewed said the bomb was placed in his headrest.)

Perhaps more knuckle-biting than the raid itself was the preceding covert operation to take soil samples from the reactor itself, with IDF soldiers disguised as Syrian soldiers, with Russian helicopters and AK-47s, to get close to the target without arousing suspicion. The uranium particles discovered provided crucial proof that the facility was indeed a secret nuclear plant.

After the successful attack, Israel still has many diplomatic issues to deal with. When do they talk to their European allies about it and what do they share? How can they deal with Turkey's complaints that they crossed into their airspace (they hugged the Turkish/Syrian border as they flew under the radar.)

If there is any hero in this book, it is Ehud Olmert, who is portrayed as making the tough decisions with no interest in politicizing it, especially at a time when he was under criminal investigation. If there is any villain, it is Ehud Barak, who seems to want to delay the attack until he can topple Olmert to become prime minister so he could take credit. (Even so, during the Jerusalem Post conference in New York last year where Katz was hawking this new book, he had a one-on-one interview with Barak that seemed friendly enough.)

George W. Bush is shown as very sympathetic but unable to risk an operation after the intelligence debacle of the Iraq war. (He promised full support to Olmert after he was informed of the attack in case Syria initiated a war.) John Bolton and Dick Cheney are seen as "getting it" before many other American officials and having great suspicions of North Korea possibly wanting to be a nuclear weapons proliferator. Binyamin Netanyahu is portrayed as a political opportunist, taking partial credit for the operation on American TV when Israel had not accepted responsibility.

Shadow Strike is a fun read, chock full of interesting details that even those who were familiar with the operation beforehand would not have known.

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Middle East Monitor, an English-language site that is pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood, has an amusing article accusing Mohammad bin Salman, and the entire Saudi royal family, of being Zionist.

For decades, Arabs would accuse their political enemies of being Zionists in order to shut them down. That doesn't seem to work any more, but Hamas still tries, as this article by a Gaza writer shows.

It starts off with:

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes.

It's particularly funny that the author says that there is no problem for Muslims to visit Auschwitz - yet every one who does so is invariably attacked. The most egregious example is Prof. Mohammed Dajani Daoudi who was forced out of his job, subjected to death threats and had his car blown up after he lead a trip to Auschwitz. Also, Hamas has been bitterly against teaching the Holocaust in UNRWA schools, so the assertion that Arabs and Muslims have no problem with visiting Auschwitz is quite a lie.

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.
This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

The line from admitting that Israel is the Jews' ancestral homeland and supporting the (fictional) ethnic cleansing of 800,000 is not at all obvious - unless you are an Arab who sees life as a zero-sum game.

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Apparently, pointing out obvious truths is proof of one's Zionism.

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

I have no idea if this is true, but it would certainly be cool if it was!

(h/t Mark D.)

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This past Shabbat, the Park East Synagogue held an impressive Holocaust commemoration together with the UN and participants from many countries.

Park East synagogue's Rabbi Arthur Schneier is a Holocaust survivor and prominent speaker who pulled this event together. The synagogue featured the haunting recently colorized photos of Auschwitz.

Since it was held on Shabbat, there is no video, but the speakers and participants included Colonel Oliver Nurton of the UK, as well as speakers from the military attaches of the US, Russia and France, who read Pslams 23.

Also in attendance were representatives from China, Turkey, and the Vatican. Two representatives from Morocco spoke about how that country is opening synagogues and is open to Jewish visitors.

Israel was represented by Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon and Consul General to New York Dani Dayan who spoke forcefully about the need to combat Iran's desire to start a second Holocaust.

The featured speaker was UN Secretary General António Guterres, who gave a forceful speech against antisemitism (although he unfortunately only emphasized the right-wing flavor.) Excerpts:

Intolerance today spreads at lightning speed across the Internet and social media. Hate groups use social media to link up with like-minded bigots across borders. And hate is moving into the mainstream – as major political parties incorporating ideas from the fringes and parties once rightly considered pariahs are gaining influence.

We should not exaggerate the comparisons to the 1930s, but equally we should not ignore the similarities. Hatred is easy to uncork, and very hard to put back in the bottle.

Some of you may know of the recently rediscovered 1924 Austrian silent film, “The City Without Jews”. It was featured this month at the New York Jewish Film Festival.The film is based on a book from 1922 – in other words, even before Mein Kampf. In Vienna, in Austria, the city of Rabbi Schneier.

A country’s economy is in tatters. Opportunistic politicians need a scapegoat. And so they say: let’s blame the Jews. Jews were hounded, harassed and ultimately expelled. They were forced to leave in masses, by train and on foot.

At the time, such imaginings might have been dismissed as the height of absurdity. New York’s local newspaper called it “one of the most fatuous productions imaginable”.

Yet within years, cinematic satire turned to real-life prophecy.Today, the film has taken on a new life as a warning to act early, before the unthinkable fiction becomes all too real fact.

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the painful backdrop for today’s observance marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

We are together to honour the memory of the six million Jews and millions of others who were systematically murdered. Our urgent challenge today is to heed the lessons of a period when human dignity was cast aside for a racist ideology.

I was disturbed to learn that a recent poll in Europe found that one third of people say they know little or nothing about the Holocaust. Among millennials, some two-thirds had no idea Auschwitz was a death camp.

We are also seeing attempts to rewrite the history of the Holocaust, and to sanitize the wartime records of leaders, citizens and societies. As the number of survivors dwindles, it falls to us to carry their testimony to future generations.

And so my answer to Rabbi Schneier’s question as to who will speak on behalf of the survivors, is: we will. Education is crucial. We must teach our children to love before others teach them to hate.

The United Nations is strongly committed to being at the forefront of this important work. Our Holocaust Outreach Programme has activities in dozens of countries. I have just asked my Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to mobilize the whole UN system and devise a global plan of action to deepen our efforts to counter hate speech.

The UN may be a cesspool but Guterres is the most pro-Israel, philosemitic Secretary General that organization has had in many decades, if not ever.

(h/t Rabbi Elchanan Poupko)

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Here come the Palestinian threats to withdraw from Oslo - just like in years past

AFP reports:

Palestinian leaders threatened Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define arrangements with Israel, if US President Donald Trump announces his Middle East peace plan next week.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that the Palestine Liberation Organisation reserved the right "to withdraw from the interim agreement" of the Oslo pact if Trump unveils his plan.

Now, where have we heard that before?

2014:

The era of the two-state solution may soon be rocked by a decision that could signal its demise. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is mulling the merits of a proposal to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday morning.

2012:

If diplomatic stagnation continues after the Israeli election and construction in the settlements doesn't stop, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will dismantle the PA and return responsibility for the West Bank to the Israeli government, he told Haaretz in an interview on Thursday.

2010:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

"If Israel does not stop settlement building ... I will strive to end Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories," he said.

2008:

Rafik Husseini, the top adviser to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Sunday Telegraph that Palestinian politicians may take the drastic step of disbanding the authority if a lasting agreement is not reached during the current peace negotiations.

Somehow, Abbas didn't follow through. Just like he didn't follow through on his many threats to resign if he didn't get some demand or another.

The chances that PLO leaders would voluntarily choose to lose the (still significant) power they have is exactly zero.

The chances that they will continue to make baseless threats rather than take responsibility for the welfare of their own people is exactly 100%.

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Amazing video of thousands of Ugandans marching with Israeli flags

This is amazing to watch:

According to StopAntisemitism, this is sponsored by Vision for Africa, a Christian organization. The march was lead by a Pastor Drake in Marbara, Uganda.

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