The "local holiday"? Are they afraid their Palestinian clients will throw firebombs if they mention "Yom Kippur"?
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Police averted a possible Islamist attack on a synagogue in western Germany and arrested four people including a 16-year-old Syrian youth in connection with the threat, the regional interior minister said on Thursday.
Authorities had received a "a very serious and concrete tip" that an attack on the synagogue in the town of Hagen could take place during the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur, the minister, Herbert Reul, said.
Officers tightened security around the building on Wednesday evening and searched it for bombs but found nothing dangerous, Reul, interior minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told a news conference.
He said the synagogue had called off its celebration of Yom Kippur, when observant Jews hold overnight vigils. The tip-off had included details of the timing of an attack, he added.
Earlier on Thursday, police in Hagen said they had arrested four people as a result of their investigation into the threat and had searched various buildings.
Reul said one of those detained was a 16-year-old from Hagen with Syrian roots.
Provocative pro-Palestinian protests outside a Jewish synagogue in Michigan are protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment, a federal court appeals said on Wednesday.Discover Card Cuts Ties With Palestinian Terror-Linked Organization
The court declined to stop the demonstrations or set restrictions in Ann Arbor. The protests have occurred on a weekly basis since 2003, with people holding signs that say “Jewish Power Corrupts,” “Stop Funding Israel” and “End the Palestinian Holocaust.”
Members of Beth Israel Congregation, including some Holocaust survivors, said that the protests have interfered with their Saturday worship and caused emotional distress.
“But the congregants have not alleged that the protesters ever blocked them from using their synagogue or that the protests were even audible from inside the building,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton said.
He said a proposed remedy — a 1,000-foot buffer and limits on signs — would likely violate the First Amendment.
“The key obstacle is the robust protections that the First Amendment affords to nonviolent protests on matters of public concern,” Sutton said in summarizing the case.
He was joined by Judge David McKeague. Judge Eric Clay agreed with the result but on different grounds.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in support of the activists, saying that the protests are entitled to protection even if “offensive, upsetting and distasteful.”
A major credit card company severed ties late last month with an organization accused of abetting Palestinian terrorism and backing economic boycotts against Israel.
Discover Card will no longer process donations to the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), a left-wing advocacy organization that provides funding to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a group that works to free Palestinians from the Israeli prison system. Discover Card froze donations after Israel designated Samidoun as a terror group earlier this year for its alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), according to information provided to the Washington Free Beacon by the Zachor Legal Institute, which has been pressing companies to cut ties with these organizations for several months.
Discover’s decision to cut ties with an organization accused of financially supporting Palestinian terrorism comes as online donation portals have increasingly come under scrutiny. In January, the online donation processing company Stripe cut ties with President Donald Trump’s campaign. Last month, ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising platform, booted former New York Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo days before he resigned office in the wake of a sex scandal.
ActBlue, in particular, has come under criticism for facilitating donations to terror-tied groups that back the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which wages economic warfare on Israel. Rep. Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.) petitioned the Justice and Treasury Departments in March to investigate ActBlue for its work with these anti-Israel groups.
While Discover has not stated its reasons for booting AFGJ, its decision came after the Zachor Legal Institute pressured the credit card company to remove the group for its relationship with known terrorist organizations. Discover did not respond to a request for comment, but communications reviewed by the Free Beacon confirm that the company will no longer process donations made to AFGJ, and, by proxy, Samidoun. Israel’s designation of Samidoun as a terrorist organization tied to the PFLP came as part of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s campaign against the PFLP and its affiliates.
On any given day, you can find the State of Israel coming in for some rough treatment in the media.Yom Kippur: The Zionist Holiday You Never Knew
Detractors accuse it of being either an apartheid state, an occupying colonialist power, or both. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has gone so far as to initiate a probe into what it says are possible war crimes stemming from IDF actions in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
For Professor Eugene Kontorovich, whenever the Jewish state’s legal standing or international legitimacy as a sovereign nation is impugned, it is grist for his legal mill and fodder for his laser-focused analysis. His forceful and well-reasoned arguments often appear in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. Fox News and other channels frequently tap his expertise in international and constitutional law.
Professor Kontorovich wears many professional hats. He heads the international law department at Jerusalem’s Kohelet Forum, a think tank that many Knesset members draw on for policy ideas. Eugene spends one semester a year in Arlington, Virginia, teaching at the George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he established the Center for the Middle East and International Law to train young scholars to take a deeper dive into the intricacies of the Middle East.
Kontorovich is highly regarded in the halls of Congress. He has testified frequently on issues of foreign affairs and national security, defending Israel’s claims of sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and shielding Israel from the economic warfare movement known as BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions). Pundits have dubbed Kontorovich the “intellectual architect” of anti-BDS laws passed in some 32 states.
Eugene is also no stranger to Mishpacha readers. He’s been one of my go-to sources since I first interviewed him in 2015, after the Palestinian Authority applied for membership in the International Criminal Court. I have described Eugene to my colleagues as a younger version of Alan Dershowitz, based on his media savvy and gift for formulating legally sound and persuasive approaches. For a journalist, one of Eugene’s endearing qualities is his knack for delivering a colorful “pull quote” — a one-line zinger that drives his point across without sounding hackneyed.
In this, our longest and most comprehensive interview to date, we sit across from each other over a desk at the Kohelet Forum on a steamy-hot Jerusalem afternoon. Eugene looks cool, calm, and collected, as usual. This day, he has ceded his own larger office to colleagues who need extra space for a meeting, to abide by Covid distancing requirements. So we are sitting in a smaller office, on the south side of the building, far from the panoramic view of northern Jerusalem that Kohelet’s office affords.
Eugene elaborates on how he found the niche that he fills so fervently.
We begin Yom Kippur with Kol Nidrei, and due to its inspiring melody and dignity with which the physical setting is conducted in, complete with Torahs and talesim at night (the one time a year), we instinctively know something that transcends the ordinary is going on.
After the Maariv shemoneh esrei there is a unique Selichot service — this being the only instance of the entire year when there is a lengthy additional section of prayers after shemoneh esrei. Here we request of God that He “bring us to Your Holy Mountain.” The next day at Yizkor, an emotional highlight of the day for many, we speak of God “dwelling in Zion” — that is on the Temple Mount, in the Beit HaMikdash. The Mussaf shemoneh esrei is the longest prayer service of the year. And the larger part of that is the Chazzan’s repetition. Within this section more time is devoted to a highly detailed and vivid description of the High Priest’s sacrificial service in the Holy Temple’s Holy of Holies — the only time of the year any human stepped foot inside. Included in this section is the lament that “Since our Temple was destroyed” we have no choice to recite words in place of the High Priest’s offering sacrifices, and we explain how we are like “orphans” without the Temple and we beg God to “bring the Temple back among us.”
During the afternoon Mincha service, the entire Book of Jonah is recited — the only time of the year that it is. And in the universally recognized episode of the whale (or more correctly, the large fish) Jonah cries to God — his “prayer came to You, to Your Holy Temple.”
And Neilah is the only day of the entire year when we add a fifth shemoneh esrei. At the conclusion of this one-time-a-year event, we mark the end of the Yom Kippur by saying: Next Year in Jerusalem! In reality, this means “Next Year on the Temple Mount in the Holy of Holies in the Holy Temple,” where the Yom Kippur offerings will be made in Messianic times.
This focus on Jerusalem, on the Holy Temple, and on the Holy of Holies, is the essence of Yom Kippur. It is what our ancestors dreamed, and prayed for during the nearly 2,000 year nightmare of exile. This Dream of Zion is the engine that created the available momentum that was harnessed by the modern Zionism of Herzl’s time, and used to create the modern State of Israel.
In this episode, Dara Horn explores the bizarre afterlife of a chance encounter that later caused an entire empire to lose its mind. In 1904, the American Jewish financier Jacob Schiff randomly met a Japanese banker at a dinner in London and decided to give Japan a $200 million loan to help ensure its victory in the Russo-Japanese War.
A generation later, when Japanese military officers were first exposed to an antisemitic conspiracy theory, they assumed, based on their country’s experience with Schiff, that it must be true—and convinced their government to take action. In twist upon twist, the Empire of Japan became more and more involved in “the Jewish Question,” to the point where they actually tried to answer it. Their answer? To build a Jewish state in Manchuria.
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"Moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem." May 5, 2018 |
We’ve all heard or read about references in the Qur’an to Jews
as monkeys and pigs and sometimes apes. Elder wrote only a few days ago about a
Qur’anic verse comparing
Jews to donkeys. The representation of Jews as animals is meant to dehumanize
them, making it acceptable to treat them cruelly, and even kill them, without
guilt or compunction. The Nazis did this, depicting the Jews as rats and vermin
in their political cartoons and pamphlets.
Knowing that the Qur’an refers to Jews as monkeys, pigs,
apes, and donkeys makes it difficult for most Jews to develop warm and fuzzy
feelings about Islam. These verses sound like pure antisemitism—as pure a form
of Jew-hatred as you will ever find. Add in Muslim terror and dang—it becomes
real hard to like these people. They’ve killed too many of my friends and loved
ones. They’ve sent my granddaughter running into the safe room to the tune of a
siren, shaking and crying and frightened.
As a result, I won’t claim to have a lot of Muslim friends and
particularly not Arab friends. But Robert
Werdine was one such friend. He came out of nowhere, and stuck up for me at
personal risk to himself, in a hostile virtual environment, the bloggers section
of the Times of Israel. This was a
place not friendly to someone like me on the Israeli right: someone who lived
in Judea.
A Rhodes Scholar from Michigan City, Indiana,
Robert was an historian but also a serious student of Islam who taught the
young people in his mosque on a volunteer basis. He read my columns to those
kids, giving them a different view of the Jewish people and of Israel.
Robert was unapologetically pro-Israel, and offended by the
antisemitism and anti-Israelism so pervasive in the Muslim world. He believed,
unlike the broader Muslim world, that Jews are indigenous to Israel, and had a
right to self-determination in their own land. His Zionist beliefs were,
according to him, informed by his understanding of the Qur’an.
There was a dichotomy here that anyone could see. You have
what seems like the entire Muslim world hating on Israel, but here’s this one
guy who is telling me it’s a distortion. Was it Taqiya*? A way to blindside me?
I was never going to trust Robert completely, but I was definitely interested
in hearing what he had to say.
So one day I asked him about those offensive references to
Jews as monkeys and pigs—references that get tossed around fairly often by
Muslim clerics in the mosques. Are these clerics misinterpreting the meaning of
these verses?
Robert died some years ago due to complications from
diabetes. But I remembered our correspondence on this subject after being
accused, earlier today, of being a Muslim apologist. I dug up this note from
June 12, 2015 and thought to share it here:
[Regarding] your question about clerics misinterpreting the Qur’an, he would be a strange cleric who did this, as true clerics are supposed to be read in the science of tafsir (exegesis of the Qur'an) and Hadith. The question is not so much as to misinterpretation by clerics, but that of distortion, manipulation, and misrepresentation by many of the more unscrupulous or bigoted among them. Radical Islamists and Muslim Anti-Semites frequently emphasize scripture that serves their purposes, and ignore what doesn’t. Thus, last October, when the lovely Imam Mohammed al-Khaled Samha of Denmark said that the Qur’an curses all Jews as monkeys and pigs he, like every other bigoted cleric who has repeated this canard, was deliberately misstating what the Qur’an says. There are three such direct references, in verses 2:65, 5:60, and 7:166. Verses 2:63-66 are criticism of the Bani Israil of Moses’ time, specifically those who sinned, broke the commandments, and violated the Sabbath, as an example for the Muslims to observe and learn from (my emphasis added):
“[2:63] We made a covenant with you, as we raised Mount Sinai above you: "You shall uphold what we have given you strongly, and remember its contents, that you may be saved." [2:64] But you turned away thereafter, and if it were not for GOD's grace towards you and His mercy, you would have been doomed. [2:65] You have known about those among you who desecrated the Sabbath. We said to them, "Be you as despicable as apes." [2:66] We set them up as an example for their generation, as well as subsequent generations, and an enlightenment for the righteous.”
Same is true of the other two “apes (and pig)” references in 7:166 and 5:60. The “monkeys and pigs” in verse 5:60 refers only to those Christians/Jews of Muhammad's time who mock and ridicule the Muslims' religion:
[5:57-60] [5:57] O you who believe, do not befriend those among the recipients of previous scripture who mock and ridicule your religion, nor shall you befriend the disbelievers. You shall reverence GOD, if you are really believers. [5:58] When you call to the Contact Prayers (Salat), they mock and ridicule it. This is because they are people who do not understand. [5:59] Say, "O people of the scripture, do you not hate us because we believe in GOD, and in what was revealed to us, and in what was revealed before us, and because most of you are not righteous?" [5:60] Say, "Let me tell you who are worse in the sight of GOD: those who are condemned by GOD after incurring His wrath until He made them (as despicable as) monkeys and pigs, and the idol worshipers. These are far worse, and farther from the right path."
Muhammad Asad, probably one of the foremost Islamic scholars of the 20th century, has written of Verse 5:60:
“As is evident from the following verses, the sinners who are even worse than the mockers are the hypocrites, and particularly those among them who claim to be followers of the Bible: for the obvious reason that, having been enlightened through revelation, they have no excuse for their behavior. Although in verse 64 the Jews are specifically mentioned, the reference to the Gospel in verse 66 makes it clear that the Christians, too, cannot be exempted from this blame.”
As can be seen, the reference in verse 2:65 is content specific only TO SOME of the Jews of Moses’ time, “those among you who desecrated the Sabbath,” and, in verse 5:60 "those among" the Christians and Jews of the Prophets' time who "mock and ridicule" the Muslims' religion. Same is true of 7:166 when viewed in context:
“[7:164] Recall that a group of them said, "Why should you preach to people whom GOD will surely annihilate or punish severely?" They answered, "Apologize to your Lord," that they might be saved. [7:165] When they disregarded what they were reminded of, we saved those who prohibited evil, and afflicted the wrongdoers with a terrible retribution for their wickedness. [7:166] When they continued to defy the commandments, we said to them, "Be you despicable apes."
Thus, as can be seen, the “apes” reference in 7:166, is, like verse 2:65, only in reference to those Jews of Moses' time who “continued to defy the commandments,” i.e. the “group of them” referenced in 7:164. Thus, the Qur’an, whatever its polemics or censures against Jews, whether it be of the Bani Israil of Moses’ time or the Jews of Medina in the Prophet’s time, does NOT curse all Jews for all time, as many have claimed. It only criticizes certain groups of them, usually by means of an implied partitive, i.e., “among them,” “those who,” etc. This is, in fact, a fundamental tenet of the Qur’an: that no person shall bear the curse or burden of another, and God never curses or punishes people for the sins of others as expounded in verses 2:286, 6:164, 17:15, 35:18, 39:7, and 53:38-42.
The good Imam Samha, however, does teach us an important lesson: how polemics in the Qur’an excoriating Jews and other groups have been, are, and can be manipulated in the service of Anti-Semitism, and how any scripture will always speak through the heart and mind of the person reading it. Of course, Muslim Jew-haters have been doing this for centuries. But they lie; the text does not. To acknowledge the very real phenomenon of Anti-Semitism among Muslims today, and especially throughout the Muslim world where it is an epidemic, is not the same as saying the Muslim Holy Book justifies this hate. It does not.
*I asked Robert about Taqiya. He explained it as a Shiite concept.
Robert was Sunni.
As two of the world’s most dynamic and advanced countries, the UAE and Israel together can help turbocharge economic opportunity by pushing for deeper regional integration. One element should be new institutions and co-operation to facilitate trade and to co-operate on public health and development.
Second, continued US and European involvement is critical. Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on much, but normalisation has had enthusiastic backing from both the Trump and Biden Administrations and across the aisle in Congress. Throughout Europe too, the Accords have been warmly received.
Active US and European political, financial, and technical support will help realise their full potential — as will the appointment of special envoys to co-ordinate these efforts. These moves will be welcomed as a clear signal of our friends’ sustained commitment to the stability and security of the region.
Third, the Accords underlined that even if a comprehensive peace agreement is still not in sight, better conditions for the Palestinians are a shared interest for us all. Normalisation must help facilitate increased investment, trade, and exchanges between Palestinians and the Arab world.
Sceptics will remain cynical, but they should look at what’s happened this past year, against all the odds. New ways of thinking and shared interests allow for breakthroughs and the building of relations. They encourage others in the region to initiate new channels of diplomatic dialogue.
Real breakthroughs are tough, but Emiratis and Israelis have shown that they are possible. This is just the beginning — the next step is to expand opportunity and connect people across the region. This is the best antidote to pessimism and the dead-end extremist ideology that has held the Middle East back for too long.
Last week, a laconic statement from the Department of Defense marked a tectonic shift in Middle East security cooperation, as the United States formally designated that Israel would now be part of the U.S Central Command (CENTCOM). President Donald Trump announced the proposed change on January 15, 2021, and while the escalation of violence in Gaza this spring seemed to put the designation in some jeopardy, it went into effect on September 1, 2021. The initiative to move Israel into CENTCOM is a direct result of the Trump administration-led Abraham Accords normalization agreements between the United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed one year ago today on the South Lawn of the White House.
CENTCOM got its name because the Middle East is literally located in the middle of everything. Israel is the most central point in that centrally located region, sharing as it does a maritime boundary with a European country (Cyprus) and a border with an African country (Egypt), as well as boasting Asian neighbors such as Jordan. In the wake of the Abraham Accords and the resultant burgeoning economic and cultural ties among the signatories, the timing is now ideal to develop a similar regional security relationship. This relationship would expand cooperation and improve Israel Defense Forces (IDF) integration with U.S. and partner forces throughout the region. It would also help CENTCOM promote a more holistic and inclusive regional security framework. There would be opportunities to conduct joint military exercises that include the IDF, which would indirectly provide Israel the occasion to communicate with countries that have yet to sign normalization agreements. Additionally, Israel would now be able to assign IDF liaison officers to CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa—and, hopefully in the future, to subordinate headquarters across the region.
As events in the Middle East crashed into the American consciousness due to the Iran and Afghanistan crises in 1979, President Jimmy Carter established the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (JTF) as a response mechanism for rapidly unfolding events. In 1983, under President Reagan, that JTF became CENTCOM. Its area of operation runs from the Pakistani border with India to Egypt's border with Libya. U.S. military regional combatant commands, including CENTCOM, are responsible for the deployment, support and operational employment of U.S. forces in their areas of responsibility, as well as for developing military relationships with allies and partners in their respective regions.
We are thrilled to celebrate one year of successful relations between Israel & Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates & the Kingdom of Morocco. May peace continue to prevail through the #AbrahamAccords & normalization agreements. @BahrainEmbDC @IsraelinUSA @morocco_usa @UAEEmbassyUS pic.twitter.com/2uYRXkd0YI
— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) September 15, 2021
There has been a gradual change over the past two years, under the auspices of the police. Jewish communal prayer, with a minyan of at least 10 men, has become a regular, twice-daily occurrence, during the four hours in the morning and one in the early afternoon, five times a week, when Jews are allowed onto the Mount. [It's been more than two years - EoZ.]I joined the pilgrims six times in the two weeks before Rosh Hashanah. Each time the groups entered on the same route, which takes about 45 minutes, without any noticeable friction with the Muslims there.In my visits with the pilgrims last month, I failed to meet many of the bitter fanatics I expected to find. Instead, I met a variety of Israelis with diverse reasons for making the pilgrimage. Some harbored political and nationalistic motives. Others dream of building a Third Temple in our lifetime. But many see Temple Mount in much more abstract terms and just want to be there, without a clear objective.One said he felt he was standing “at the window of yearning.” Another described “trying to touch a distant point of sanctity.” And others didn’t have any high words, but gave the impression of not being activists or dreamers, but simply wanting to break the shackles of what for many Israelis has become the limited and sterile experience of established routine worship within synagogues.For them, Temple Mount has simply become the place to “visit God.”After a few minutes walk to the easternmost point on the Mount, the group stops, with the sealed twin entrances of Mercy Gate behind them, and begin praying for about 15 minutes. It’s the standard Orthodox version, beginning with the blessings before kriyat shema, then amida (silent prayer) and the Chazan’s recitation following it, in rather unorthodox conditions.Unusually, the Chazan reads the blessings in a muted tone, and everyone – men and women, Haredim, religious Zionists and the secular – bunch around him to hear and answer “amen.” Most make sure not to sway in prayer and if one of them does so, a police officer may gently advise them not to. But make no mistake: this is Jewish communal prayer on Temple Mount.There is no agreed version on when the police began allowing the prayers: shaharith in the morning and minhah in the afternoon. .... In recent months, there have even been some reports about it in the news that didn’t create any waves.The police began allowing the group to stop at that point for longer periods of time – enough not only to pray, but also for a short dvar Torah (sermon) – before asking them to walk on. Also, the Waqf custodians from the Muslim religious trust, who know everything that takes place in the Al-Aqsa compound, seem to be silently acquiescing.On some days, they were nowhere to be seen around the group; on a couple of mornings, a Waqf monitor in an official white shirt and with a walkie-talkie could be seen watching from afar. It’s unclear why they haven’t vocally protested this ongoing erosion of the status quo. There’s now a fact on the ground. Jews are praying together on Temple Mount.It’s hard to get reliable figures on the number of pilgrims, though they’re clearly increasing. One of the pilgrim groups released a statement recently claiming that in 5781 (the Jewish year that just ended), 25,581 Jews prayed on Temple Mount – a 13 percent rise over the previous year. They also claim that there’s been a dramatic jump in recent months, after the coronavirus lockdown ended.What’s more interesting than their numbers is the sheer variety of the pilgrims. The pilgrimage used to be mainly a religious-Zionist phenomena, but today you can see Haredim (who say they have privately received the blessing of their rabbis), secular Jews and Jewish tourists from overseas too. It’s a more popular movement.In recent weeks, I’ve met people who told me they go up on their birthdays and their parents’ Yahrzeit (memorial day). Like pilgrimages to the graves of ancient sages, Temple Mount is becoming part of a more traditional and less political act of worship.You can also see it in the attitude of the police, who used to be much rougher with the pilgrims. Now, at the blessing for the ill at the end of the prayer, officers will join and ask for their relatives to be mentioned as well, or even for a blessing for themselves.What has helped popularize the pilgrimage is the lack of normal Orthodox boundaries. There’s no segregation between male and female pilgrims, and there’s no religious judgmentalism. Despite the injunctions at the entrance to enter only “in purity” and “out of fear of the temple,” no one tells men or women that they need to cover their heads or checks your footwear.Surprised at the lack of censoriousness, I asked one of the activists if he wasn’t bothered by bare heads and leather boots. “Who cares?” he shrugs. “The important thing is that you’re here.”
Temple Mount hasn’t just been the source of strife and bloodshed between Jews and Palestinians over the past century. Going back, deep into Jewish history, it was also the cause of schism and murderous violence among Jews themselves. And as it regains its status as a place for Jewish pilgrimage, it could become one again. Temple Mount will not remain silent.I have some news for Haaretz: The Muslim fanatics who oppose any Jewish presence on the Temple Mount are just as adamant that the Kotel be Jew-free as well.
REPRESENTATIVES ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, RASHIDA TLAIB, AND MARK POCAN are leading a renewed effort to prohibit the delivery of US-made bombs to Israel.The three progressive legislators submitted an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the Biden administration to halt the export of Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs to Israel for a year. The bombs were used by the Israeli Air Force to strike targets in Gaza during May’s escalation in violence.
Yet even worse was to come. The Jewish Democratic Council of America released an Internet video ad in which the Trump-Nazi analogy was directly made. It's hard to imagine a more inflammatory and deeply wrong-headed example of a group trying to exploit the Holocaust for political purposes. That's especially true because, whatever his other failings, Trump deserved credit both for changing policies to take action against anti-Semitism on college campuses as well as his historic support of Israel.Dexter Van Zile: Pointing Out the Roots of Muslim Antisemitism Does Not Make You a Bigot
This monstrous accusation was given a pass by leading liberal Jewish figures, including those who ought to have known better and who had in the past denounced those who did the same thing. Former ADL director Abe Foxman and Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt, who were likely thinking ahead to the competition to be the State Department Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism in a Biden administration, both betrayed their principles and gave this outrageous slur their approval. In the end, Lipstadt was the one who was rewarded for doing so when she was nominated for the job by Biden.
In a political culture where demonization of political foes is now universal, calling opponents horrible names is how both parties react to every controversy. The brazen hypocrisy of those who are all over Mandel but saw no problem when Democrats did the same thing is a function of partisanship and nothing else.
Still, that doesn't excuse Mandel, Taylor Greene or anyone else who is guilty of dragging the Holocaust into discussions where it doesn't belong.
Is there any way to reverse this trend in which both liberals and conservatives now regard comparisons to the Nazis and the Holocaust as merely a way to say something is really bad, rather than a reference to the greatest crime in human history?
Right now, the answer is "no."
In a world where Democrats would have been furious with Biden for crossing this line rather than applauding or winking at his offense and Republicans were prepared to do the same for similarly outrageous things said by Trump, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But we don't live in such a world. Instead, Americans in both parties find themselves not merely deeply divided by political differences but actually believing that their opponents are thinly disguised authoritarians who, if given the opportunity, would re-enact Nazi tyranny against them. The way back from this dangerous precipice is unclear, though it will have to start with Jews – those with most at stake in the effort not to degrade the memory of the Holocaust – and their leading groups taking a consistent stand against these outrages. Until that happens, expect even more of these controversies. Sadly, the consequences of that failure in the battle against anti-Semitism are incalculable.
In his book, “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History” (2020), researcher Andrew Bostom reveals that in 2011, Gunther Jikeli reported the results of his interviews with 117 young Muslim men in Berlin, Paris, and London — and found that “the majority [of them] voice some or strong antisemitic feelings. They openly express their negative viewpoints toward Jews. This is often done with aggression and sometimes includes intentions to carry out antisemitic attacks.”How did Iraq’s Jewish community disappear?
Jikeli also reports that his interviewees looked “for justification of antisemitic views within what they perceive as Islam or part of their religious or ethnic identity and they often find confirmation in Islamic sources and social circles, which serve as strong, authoritative references.”
In his assessment of Jikeli’s findings, Bostom takes the scholar to task for his “excruciating reluctance to come to terms with his own findings, harping on supposed ‘perceptions of Islam’ by the interviewees, as opposed to voluminous Jew-hatred within Islam’s canon.” “Nevertheless,” Bostom reports, “Jikeli provided these critical, if understated observations, which, despite his obvious reticence, affirm the centrality of Islam in shaping the Antisemitic views of young Muslim adults in Western Europe.”
Fortunately, numerous Muslim scholars have addressed the problem of antisemitism on the part of their fellow Muslims. For example, Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist himself, has regularly condemned antisemitism expressed by jihadists. So has Tarek Fatah and many other Muslim scholars. But just like their counterparts in Christianity dealing with the issue of antisemitism, they have a lot of work to do.
Addressing the horror of attacks like those perpetrated in London on August 18 — and their roots in the Islamic tradition — is not an act of bigotry. Quite the opposite. These attacks are anathema to any religion of peace, and give bigots license to falsely stereotype all Arabs and Muslims as anti-Jewish thugs.
But as a growing number of Muslim-majority countries are starting to come to terms with Israel’s existence in the Middle East under the rubric of the Abraham Accords, it is time for people of good faith to come to grips with the roots of Muslim hostility towards Jews, so that in the future, we will have fewer days like August 18, 2021.
The children and grandchildren of Jews from Arab countries are taking a keen interest in their roots: Take Sandy Rashty, whose parents and grandparents fled Iraq, where only three Jews remain. She traces her family’s story as part of gal-dem‘s Forgotten Diasporas series:
The flowers in Iraq were special. I remember their smell. Each one was brighter than the next, each with a different scent. The roses were so big. I remember swimming in the Tigris River in Baghdad. It was cold, but clean and fresh. The water almost tasted sweet. We lived in a house overlooking the river. I grew up there with my parents, siblings and a dog named Lassie. I used to call down to the sellers from the balcony, asking what fresh fish had been caught that day.
“It was a different life. It was a time when we could all play, laugh and sing together.”
These are the memories of my grandma, who was born in Baghdad to an Iraqi Jewish family in 1927. She shares her story with me over a pot of Arabic tea at her home in north-west London.
She has a proud identity, having grown up in a small but established community in Iraq that dated back more than 2,500 years. Prominent members of the community included Sir Sassoon Eskell, Iraq’s first Finance Minister who served under King Faisal I in the early 20th century; Reneé Dangoor, crowned Miss Iraq in 1947; and multiple poets and musicians including Saleh and Daud Al-Kuwaity.
Many Iraqi Jews were named after Hollywood stars like Grace Kelly and Rita Hayworth, wore Western clothes and were taught both English and French in Baghdad’s Jewish schools, including its main secondary school, Frank Iny, where my parents first met as students.
My grandma remembers the country before the modern wars, rise of extremism and the purge of its once vibrant Jewish community after the establishment of Israel in 1948.
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A Jewish school in Baghdad, 1959 |
The National Security Adviser, Qassem Al-Araji, revealed Monday the number of Jews present in Baghdad, indicating that they are afraid to declare their Jewishness and claim that they are Christians.Al-Araji said, in a televised interview on NRT today (9/13), that "there are Jews in Iraq, but they fear for themselves and claim that they are Christians. They have pride in the country, although they can leave it (if they want)."He added that "there are 4 Jewish people in Baghdad, as well as in other provinces and also in the Kurdistan Region, but they feel fear in declaring their Jewishness, so they say they are Christians."He continued, "We must deal with the Iraqi citizen in terms of rights and duties, regardless of his or her nationality or religion."
Hatred of Jews is a poison in our society. Anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents are becoming more common, both in Sweden and in the rest of the world. It's scary and requires us to act. Every form of racism must be fought.The Holocaust is the ultimate consequence of hatred of the Jews. We have a duty to ensure that the testimonies of the genocides committed by the Nazis and their allies are never lost.Concrete commitments are now needed. The government has set aside SEK 95 million in the 2022 budget bill for [fighting antisemitism.]Sweden will make the following commitments:-Preserve and carry on the memory of the Holocaust.-Promote education and research on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and other forms of racism.-Fight racism - online and offline.-Promote Jewish life, strengthen the work for Roma inclusion and strengthen the security of civil society.
Hatred of Jews exists in our history, in right-wing extremist groups, in parts of the left and in Islamist circles. We see anti-Semitism among adults and children who have fled to Sweden from countries where anti-Semitism characterizes schooling and state propaganda. We see conspiracy theories on social media and how the memory of the Holocaust is distorted and exploited for political purposes.
Perhaps the antisemitism of Muslims in Sweden is too obvious to ignore when dealing with the topic. Perhaps the glancing mention of the Left is a sop to the IHRA working definition. Still, it is nice to see a little bit of reality in the midst of a statement that mostly looks at Holocaust education as a vaccine against antisemitism, without truly looking at what makes Jew-hatred unique among all bigotries.
This announcement seems to be linked to Sweden becoming the president of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance next year, and its English language announcement does not mention the antisemitism of the Left or Islamists.
The Palestinian Authority slammed countries boycotting the upcoming Durban Conference anniversary event, with an emphasis on the US.
Meanwhile, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia confirmed they also would not be attending the event in New York on September 22, bringing the number of countries boycotting to 19.
The 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, was marked with antisemitism and anti-Israel events. Israel was singled out for opprobrium as racist in the declaration released by UN member states participating, a declaration that accuses no other specific countries and that next week’s conference is meant to reaffirm. The parallel NGO forum accused Israel of apartheid, and organizations taking part gave out copies of the antisemitic canard The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and materials saying Hitler was right.
The Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry tweeted in a statement on Tuesday that it “strongly objects to inimical statements and tendentious attacks against the upcoming Durban Conference... Such iniquitous calls to boycott the conference display an alarming level of deficit in morality and expose a hypocritical approach. The State of Palestine calls on all states and international organizations to attend the conference and adopt a political declaration for the full and effective implementation of its principles and values,” referring to the statement in which Israel is the only country designated a perpetrator of racism. “Palestine rejects morally corrupt and politically sinister attempts to disconnect the Palestinian struggle to freedom from this global cause” against racism.
In a thinly veiled reference to the United States, the statement adds: “It is not a coincidence that the same States that have long opposed the inclusion of acts of slavery in its current and past manifestations as a crime against humanity are now boycotting this past year’s conference on reparations, racial justice and equality for people of African descent.”
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— The International Legal Forum - ILF (@The_ILF) September 14, 2021
ILF's new publication - '#????????????: ???? ?????????? ???? ????????, ???????? & ????????????????????????', with lessons & analysis from leading experts around the world. #SayNoToDurbanIV
Full report ?? https://t.co/vSpE59HxfS pic.twitter.com/0crUgXsXsV
In 2001, 2 countries pulled out of Durban I.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2021
In 2009, 10 countries pulled out of Durban II.
In 2011, 14 countries pulled out of Durban III.
In 2021, 19 countries—so far—pulled out of Durban IV.
Urge more countries to take a stand against antisemitism: https://t.co/5f21p40q6n
Israel was shaken last week with the news of six Palestinian terrorists escaping from the high-security Gilboa prison. But potentially even more disturbing was the concerted effort by activists – and even the press in some cases – to whitewash their crimes and present the terrorists as heroes against oppression. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. The inability of some to differentiate between actual political prisoners, the likes of whom suffer every day in places like Evin prison in Iran, and convicted Palestinian terrorists serving a sentence for actions they took, is inexcusable.Why Didn’t Palestinians or Israeli Arabs Rally in Support of Fugitive Terrorists?
Immediately after news broke of the Palestinian terrorists’ miraculous escape, by digging a tunnel under the prison, Palestinian social media began celebrating. In addition, there were widespread celebrations in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank over the Israeli security failure. In one case, the Palestinian village of Beita celebrated by burning an effigy of a Jew and uploading the video to social media. Of course as expected, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas celebrated the escape of the prisoners as well. But even more disturbing were the activists, organizations and public figures, in some cases even journalists, who defended the terrorists and their activities.
Jewish Voice for Peace, known for their extremist viewpoints, had previously raised eyebrows for endorsing the intifada in their promotional materials. But in this instance they raised (or should I say lowered) the bar by comparing the Palestinian terrorists who escaped to Holocaust victims who attempted to dig their way out of concentration camps. In a similarly repulsive statement, Director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Ghada Majadli, explicitly endorsed the violence of the six terrorists, calling it “freedom fighting” and calling them “political prisoners.”
In the academic realm, there was no shortage of whitewashing terror: political analyst Yousef Munayyer tweeted in praise of the escape repeatedly, and even retweeted Harvard PhD candidate Randa Wahbe, who praised the terrorists as “heroes” and “political prisoners.” Noura Erekat, a professor at Rutgers University, also praised the terrorists and called for all Palestinian prisoners to be released.
When 6 terrorists escaped from an Israeli prison Islamic Jihad called for Israeli and Palestinians Arabs to take to the streets to interfere with efforts to recapture them.
The grand total number of Palestinians across all of Judea and Samaria who answered the call of Islamic Jihad numbered well less than a thousand with the largest incident accounting for half the total. Only around ten Arabs were seen chanting their support at Al Aqsa Mosque after Friday prayers.
Ten!
As for Israeli Arabs, when four of the terrorists we recaptured thanks to Israeli Arabs who tipped off the police, we learned that the terrorists couldn't find any Israeli Arab who was willing to help drive them across the Green Line.
Security officials remained concerned that the Palestinians would lash out in support of the terrorists and recommended that Jewish New Years movement restrictions from Judea and Samaria be extended until after Yom Kippur. Prime Minister Bennett overruled them and those Palestinians employed inside Israel returned to work on Sunday, So far nothing has happened.
Why did the security experts get it so wrong?
I suspect that they took the terrifying riots earlier this year as their model.
But, apparently, there is a key difference between the two situations.
The rioting took place because the street bought the line that "al Aqsa is in danger".
The escape of 6 terrorist had NOTHING to do with al Aqsa.
How do we use this insight?
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!