Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

"Jewish Voice for Peace" admits that to them, Judaism is something to be exploited for political purposes

From "Jewish Voice for Peace - Philadelphia":

PLEASE JOIN JVP PHILLY FOR A WORKSHOP WITH ROSZA DANIEL LANG/LEVITSKY EXPLORING CULTURAL WORK AS ORGANIZING, AND THE USES OF JEWISH CULTURAL TOOLS AND STRATEGIES IN OUR MOVEMENT.

About the workshop

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) - Philly often works with Jewish culture and ritual elements. Why do we use cultural tools and resources in our organizing? How can we widen and deepen the ways we use the power and resonance of cultural organizing? What is “demo-dressing” and what are other ways of using cultural work in our movements? What kinds of diasporic Jewish cultural materials are available and how can we find them? What kinds of Jewish methods and approaches can we use to find and engage these materials? What is “ethnographic surrealism”? How can we apply this all to our work together?

This makes it pretty clear - they freely admit that they don't care about Judaism. They exploit Judaism.

Palestinians think Jewish holidays are just an excuse for Jews to make their lives difficult for no reason

There is a phrase that is seen often in Palestinian Arabic media, especially around this time of year: "Under the pretext of Jewish holidays."

Ma'an wrote on Monday, "The Israeli occupation forces, on Monday evening, restricted Jerusalemites, especially those residing in and around the Old City, under the pretext of the Jewish holidays and to facilitate the settlers' storming of the Old City and the Al-Buraq Wall [Kotel]."

Al Wafd, Wafa and many others headlined, "On the pretext of Jewish holidays, Israel closes the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to [Muslim] worshipers."

Al Quds, last week: "Gaza: Israel's closure of commercial crossings under the pretext of Jewish holidays worsens economic conditions."

El Balad: "On the pretext of days of repentance, settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque, instigated by 'temple groups.'"

They don't mention that Egypt and Jordan close crossings on holidays. They don't mention that for every day the Cave of the Patriarchs is closed to Muslims, there is one day it is closed to Jews for Muslim holidays.

The wording makes it appear that they think that Israel uses the holidays as an excuse to make Palestinians suffer.

Indeed, that is exactly what they think.

An Al Jazeera reporter interviewed Palestinians and "experts" about the fact that there are so many Jewish holidays during the week this month.

The specialist in Israeli affairs, Ismat Mansour, describes the closures, which are carried out under the pretext of Jewish holidays, as a ritual of restricting the Palestinians and disturbing their lives on security grounds, although the situation today is closer to calm. There are no commando operations and no security tension, according to what the occupation describes. Despite this, the closure has become a reality, according to Mansour.

The problem with the Jewish holidays - according to Mansour - is that they are many, and the closures may extend for long days, as happens on the Passover holiday, in which the closure extends for a week, as well as the way the celebrations become against the Palestinians and their sanctities.

In addition to this, the national holidays, especially the Independence Day, are considered a history of the catastrophe for the Palestinian people.

Mansour believes that the Jewish holidays for the Palestinians are occasions of restrictions, closures, sieges and incursions by settlers, which are often reinforced by the occupation police and army, and these incursions may be a spark for confrontations and arrest.

The New York Times denies basic Jewish history

In an article about an Israeli animated drama about the destruction of the Second Temple, Isabel Kershner writes in the New York Times:

Israeli leaders have increasingly drawn on the lessons from Jewish history, noting that the Jews enjoyed two previous periods of sovereignty in the land in ancient times, but both lasted only about 70 or 80 years — a poignant reminder for the modern state that, founded in 1948, has passed the 70-year mark.

This quote was considered so important that it was tweeted by the New York Times as well.

Israel's leaders have increasingly drawn on the lessons from Jewish history, noting that the Jews enjoyed two previous periods of sovereignty in the land in ancient times — but both lasted only about 70 or 80 years. https://t.co/BXAGMVbNxJ
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) September 12, 2021

What?

Jews had partial sovereignty over the land from the time of Joshua through the timeframe of the Judges which lasted about 410 years. The era of the kings (Saul, David and Solomon) ruling the united Jewish monarchy lasted about 117 years, and the Kingdom of Judah succeeded that for another 340 years. After the first exile, Jews returned with various levels of autonomous rule - for example the Persian province of Yehud lasted 200 years during which the Second Temple was built.

Israel was mentioned as an independent political entity in the Merneptah Stele (1208 BCE) which clearly existed before then, and the Mesha Stele (830 BCE) celebrates another supposed victory over a Jewish king.

Only the Hashmonean rule of unqualified Jewish control of the area lasted about 80 years, but Jews maintained autonomy until the Revolt in 68 CE.

The only place I have seen such an attempt to minimize Jewish historical rule over the Land of Israel was by Arab pseudo-scholars - and even many of them admit longer Jewish rule than the NYT does. The New York Times seems to have gone way beyond even the most radical archaeologists who minimize Jewish rule over the land, claiming that the Biblical kings were really only nomads with few followers.

CAMERA says that they contacted the New York Times and the newspaper refused to correct the article.

The only reason one can imagine that the NYT wants to lie about Jewish history is to say that the Jewish claim on the land has no real historical basis. Yet the most important work of literature ever created, the Hebrew Bible, describes the connection of the Jewish people to the land since the days of Abraham. Even if one accepts the most extreme arguments against complete Jewish sovereignty, the historic, emotional and religious ties of Jews to the Land have lasted millennia.

The people who ignore that fact are generally antisemites.

09/13 Links Pt2: Saul Friedländer: A Fundamental Crime; Norwegian Pension Fund Boycotts Israel While Investing in Companies Linked to Chinese Slave Labor

From Ian:

Saul Friedländer : A Fundamental Crime

While anti-Semitism is rampant throughout the world, the Holocaust memory is increasingly interrogated in the name of post-colonial ideas. The latest attack is signed by the Australian historian Dirk Moses. He argues that distinguishing the Holocaust from other violent crimes in human history is nothing more than a matter of faith. And that it is time to abandon this faith in the singularity of the Holocaust and the obligations that derive from it and replace it with a new truth: the Holocaust is only one crime among others. The great historian of the Holocaust Saul Friedländer, in an article originally published in Die Zeit, counters: “‘Auschwitz’ was something completely different from the colonial atrocities of the West. And postcolonial thought is currently taking on the risk of disassociating itself from the struggle against anti-Semitism that can sometimes simmer in its ranks.”

There is one more element that Moses fails to mention, which is part of a long tradition: in 1985, forty years after the end of the war, President Richard von Weizsaecker declared German historical responsibility for the extermination. In fact, German responsibility to Jews and to Israel had already been accepted by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer when he signed the Reparations treaty with Israel and the Jewish Claims Conference in 1951. For Dirk Moses, it seems that these things only matter to the professional historian; in his eyes, in reality, this all is the past. For him, the German culture of memory, which developed over several decades after 1945, has done its job. Now it is urgent to make room for something new, for a comprehensive view of the history of violence in past centuries. And then, in his presentation of things, so-called postcolonial studies is a marginalized discipline that must be promoted in order to do historical justice to all victims of violence.

I cannot assess the importance or insignificance of postcolonial theory in Germany. In the US, post-colonial thinking, the kind represented by Dirk Moses and many others, has conquered university campuses and is well represented in Congress. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel movements have surged, BDS (boycott, divestments, sanctions) has become the common cause of an increasingly militant – and often violently so – coalition of “subaltern” communities, the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) and sundry academics and politicians.

Sure, not everyone who gathers under the banner of postcolonial critique is an enemy of Israel, and those who are openly anti-Semitic may be only a minority. But anti-Semitism in the U.S. has taken on disturbing proportions in the wake of recent protests, particularly in Los Angeles, where I live: Jewish neighborhoods were the primary targets of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence after the murder of George Floyd last May. In Fairfax, home of one of the oldest Jewish communities in Los Angeles, the march was led by professor Melina Abdullah, one of the main organizers of Black Lives Matter; at the protest, rioters also vandalized synagogues and Jewish businesses. “It is no coincidence,” wrote a local rabbi, “that the riots escalated here in Fairfax, the symbol of the Jewish community. I witnessed the Watts riots and the riots following the acquittal of Rodney King’s murderer, in which no synagogue or house of worship was harmed. Today’s graffitis, even before the attacks, were a sign of open anti-Semitism.”

These massive violent outbursts of Jew-hatred are relatively new to the United States. Unfortunately, they now seem to accompany Black Lives Matter protests quite often. Those who criticize the memory of the Holocaust from a postcolonial perspective and murmur about “American and Israeli elites” should take note of this fact. Antisemitism was a destructive force then, and it is still a destructive force today, no matter which direction it comes from. Does Dirk Moses wish to see this new militancy and its unavoidable and unrestrainable sequels unleashed in Germany? I can hardly imagine that.

Holocaust historian Saul Friedlander wins $815,000 Balzan Prize

An Israeli-French-American Holocaust survivor and historian and a US scientist specializing in gut bacteria were among the recipients of this year’s Balzan Prizes, recognizing scholarly and scientific achievements, announced on Monday.

Saul Friedlander, who has taught at both the University of California, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv University, was awarded the prize for Holocaust and Genocide Studies for his work broadening the perspective on the history of the Holocaust.

Friedlander, 88, was born in Prague in 1932 in a non-religious Jewish family, which fled to France after the German occupation in March 1939. His parents hid him in a Catholic boarding school near Vichy, where they were later captured and sent to Auschwitz.

With his parents’ agreement, Friedlander was baptized as a Catholic and later, out of his own conviction, considered becoming a priest. After he learned in 1946 that his parents had been killed at Auschwitz, Friedlander reclaimed his Jewish identity. He later said, “for the first time, I felt Jewish.”

Friedlander received the Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction in 2008 for “The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945,” the second volume in his history of Jews in Hitler’s Germany. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1999, after the publication of the first volume covering the period from 1933-39 and has also been awarded the Dan David Prize recognizing outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary research.

Friedlander was recognized for examining the persecution of all Jews in Europe, going beyond country-focused studies that had preceded him, and for making personal documents accepted in scholarly practice.

A Writer Reckons With the Fact That ‘People Love Dead Jews’

PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS Reports From a Haunted Present By Dara Horn

In three other essays, Horn deals with the upswell of anti-Semitism in the United States. Here it becomes clear that her concern about the ways we remember is inextricable from the way we relate to what is happening today. Horn claims that setting the Holocaust as the bar for anti-Semitism means that “anything short of the Holocaust is, well, not the Holocaust. The bar is rather high.” According to Horn, this might explain the limited shelf life, so to speak, of current events like the gunning down of Jews in Pittsburgh, in San Diego, in New Jersey.

And then there’s the moment of relief that Jews feel when we arrive at the famous questions in Act III of “The Merchant of Venice”: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? … If you poison us, do we not die?” So Shakespeare was not really an antisemite, but rather, more benignly, a satirist when he limned Shylock’s stereotypical Jewish character. After all, he is Shakespeare, and we want him on our side.

Or how we recognize the Chinese government’s investment of $30 million to restore “Jewish heritage sites” in Harbin, a city that was built by Russian Jewish entrepreneurs, who flourished there until they were no longer required.

“People Love Dead Jews” is an outstanding book with a bold mission. It criticizes people, artworks and public institutions that few others dare to challenge. Reading this book, I started to find the words I should have said to that woman in Motal. I should have responded that maybe Eastern Europe has been left with a void, but I have been left with hardly any family.

But there is a rare moment in Horn’s book in which she admits the austerity of her own perspective. It’s in “Legends of Dead Jews.” The common family story that so many American Jews have heard about their surnames being changed at Ellis Island is a myth, she writes. The names weren’t changed by mistake. American Jews preferred to change their names to be able to fit in, to blend in, to assimilate.

I expected Horn to criticize the purveyors of this legend. After all, they distorted the past to avoid the discomfort of its truth. But she writes: “Our ancestors could have dwelled on the sordid facts, and passed down that psychological damage. Instead, they created a story that ennobled us, and made us confident in our role in this great country.” Perhaps revision of this sort does not always have to be about self-blinding. Perhaps, as Horn suggests, it is “an act of bravery and love.” Some things are just too painful to say.

Reading Horn’s beautiful words, I thought that maybe, after all, what this woman in Motal wanted, and needed, was a simple thank you, a handshake and a humble nod.

The Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism has been a means for construction materials to be allowed to enter Gaza after the 2014 war, with Israeli approval, to ensure that the materials would not go to terror groups. It is administered by the UN and the Palestinian Authority together with Israel.

Today, Palestinian news site Safa seems to claim that the GRM has been abolished. It quotes Vice President of the Palestinian Federation of Industries, Ali Al-Hayek, that this is a major achievement for Gaza, because Israeli oversight over building materials were too intrusive.

I cannot find any corroboration for this.

The GRM website still exists, and it includes projects as recent as last week. Israel approved construction materials to enter Gaza earlier this month using the GRM.

Of course, it seems unlikely that Israel would agree for mass imports of construction material without the GRM, and Egypt is not likely to want to bypass GRM and send materials straight to the Hamas-run Gaza government.

For now, I will assume that this article is wishful thinking for pro-Hamas contractors in Gaza, itching to rebuild miles of tunnels bombed, But this is worth watching.

I was struck by the first two paragraphs of this Haaretz article by Odeh Bisharat:

Israel, an overly emotional, easily rattled military power
Odeh Bisharat | Sep. 13, 2021 | 12:23 AM

I’m very disappointed with Israeli Jewish society. How is it possible to run a country that is said to be the world’s eighth-ranked military power if last week’s escape of six Palestinian prisoners from Gilboa Prison rattles it so? For days now, from the time they get up until they go to sleep, the country’s citizens have been living and breathing on whether the prisoners were still on the lam or have been caught.

How can a military power that threatens every neighborhood with its lethal army be maintained when the killing of a single soldier drives people out of their minds? Where is the sense of self-confidence, and where are the nerves of steel?

The answers to his two questions are the same and they do not require an advanced degree in sociology.

Jewish Israelis consider each other to be family, and when any family member is in danger or dies, everyone is affected.

What family would shrug off danger to their members because they have "nerves of steel" or supreme self-confidence?

Israel's strength comes precisely from treating fellow Jews like family, and anguishing over the safety of each and every one.

Bisharat's wonder at this shows far more about his own psyche than anything wrong with Israeli Jews.

Some people mistake Israeli Jewish concerns for the safety and health of fellow Jews as racism against Arabs. It isn't. Prioritizing your own family is not bigotry, but it doesn't mean that people outside your family should be treated with anything but respect.

Perhaps the only Jews Bisharat associates with are fellow Haaretz columnists like Gideon Levy, Amira Hass or Rogel Alpher, who hate their fellow Jews with a passion and who cheer their deaths at the hands of Arabs as cosmic justice.

I suppose if those are the only Jews one knows, those questions make sense.

09/13 Links Pt1: Can the UN Finally Cease Its Relentless Anti-Israel Bias?; The withdrawal from Gaza: a failed concession for peace; Dutch Government to Call on PA to End Support for Antisemitic Riots

From Ian:

Can the UN Finally Cease Its Relentless Anti-Israel Bias?

few years ago, after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had just passed its usual litany of anti-Israel resolutions, an exasperated UN translator accidentally told the world the truth. Thinking only her colleagues could hear her speaking into the microphone, she caused laughter but no embarrassment among the diplomats as she exposed their farce: "When you have...like a total of 10 resolutions on Israel and Palestine, that's a bit much, no?"

Hundreds of parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic agree that this is way too much. In an unprecedented initiative, spearheaded by the Transatlantic Friends of Israel, 312 cross-party lawmakers from the European Parliament and national legislatures from EU member states, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, the U.S., Canada and Israel have urged EU member states and fellow democracies to end the systematic discrimination against Israel at the UN.

"Within the context of rising global antisemitism, the relentless, disproportionate and ritualistic condemnation of the world's only Jewish state at the UN is particularly dangerous and must finally end. Israel deserves attention and scrutiny, as does every other nation. But it also merits equal treatment—nothing more, nothing less," the declaration reads in part.

Last year, for example, the UN General Assembly adopted 17 one-sided resolutions against Israel and only six against any of the other 192 member states for human rights violations. As the 76th session of the UN General Assembly opens tomorrow, it is set to establish a similarly shameful record.

A particularly outrageous spectacle—the 20th anniversary summit of the UN's so-called 2001 World Conference Against Racism—will take place on September 22. We write "so-called" because the original conference held in Durban, South Africa perverted its agenda from fighting hatred to advocating hatred against Jews. Israel was singled out and libeled as an illegitimate racist apartheid state, setting the agenda for the next two decades of anti-Israel bigotry. Jewish conference participants were physically threatened and had to hide their kippahs. "Anti-racist" activists screamed, "you don't belong to the human race" and held placards that read, "Hitler Should Have Finished the Job."

Showing moral clarity, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. announced they would stay away from this odious affair. But as of the time of this writing, 17 EU member states are still on track to attend the celebration of what was an antisemitic hate fest, with speeches scheduled from the UNGA president, the UN secretary general, and the UN high commissioner for human rights.

Every country that withdrew from #DurbanIII, has now pulled out of the #antisemitic #DurbanIV event at UN - with the exception of #Poland.

Hardly surprising given the rampant Holocaust distortion & Jew hatred at the moment in Poland, that they refuse to #SayNoToDurbanIV. pic.twitter.com/5tIqmxqVUc
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 13, 2021

Wow, talk about chutzpah! Durban Conference became synonymous with unhinged Jew hatred and antisemitism, the very kind that led to the Tree of Life massacre. How dare the @UN now abuse the memory of these victims in such shameful manner! https://t.co/8Gx1EAeIEP
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 13, 2021

Americans and Jews are Fighting World War III

America too has a mission in the world – to defend the good and fight evil. Our victory over Nazism was part of that. In the second half of the 20th century, we fought communism in Korea, Vietnam and throughout Europe and Central America. Under Reagan, Bush (occasionally) and Trump, we fought Islamism. (Biden is determined to sign articles of surrender.) Like Nazism, fundamentalist Islam has marked the Jews for extermination. After the defeat of the Third Reich, the conflict shifted from Europe to the Middle East, and then went global after the Cold War. The World Trade Center should have been a wake-up call for America. For most in the West, the phone is still ringing. Tragically, very few Americans and Jews even grasp the idea of a mission. Americans are too caught up in the concept of a world ruled by international trade and international relations,and doing perpetual penance for imaginary sins of the past. Jews want the world to forgive them for being different, while complaining about the dramatic rise of anti-Semitism, which they refuse to relate to the rise of Islam. In that encounter at Kaufering Lager IV came a moment of clarity. The prisoners understood why they were being murdered -- “Juden, Juden.” (The world has always hated the messenger.) The Americans of Easy Company understood why they fought. Then amnesia set in. Now, 20 years after 9/11, we’ve saddled ourselves with a president who staged the most disastrous retreat imaginable from Afghanistan and thinks our enemies are a virus and a natural phenomenon (climate change). And many Jews can’t figure out why the percentage of Americans who have negative feelings about them is declining while anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise. Islam, anyone?

Graffiti on Canadian elementary school
last December

Right on the heels of a new report about antisemitism in colleges, there have been multiple reports of antisemitic incidents in colleges and even high schools just this past weekend.

At American University:

Antisemitic graffiti was found in a men’s bathroom stall in the Lower Level of Anderson Hall by an American University student on Sept. 7.

Jason Churchfield, a senior in the School of International Service, found four symbols, three of them Nazi propaganda, carved into the stall. Churchfield promptly posted a picture to his Instagram story.

The graffiti consists of two swastikas, Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) bolts and a Star of David.

At DePaul University:

Jewish tradition holds that on Rosh HaShana our destiny for the coming year is written. For many Jewish DePaul students, who make up 4 percent of undergraduates, it has already been chosen for them – we are being written out of the community.

This year, the first day of classes for DePaul students landed on this deeply important day. Somewhat ironically, Rosh HaShanah is also the day of the Involvement Fair that centers around religious and cultural groups. The result is that many Jewish students who are interested in being involved Jewishly on campus, cannot attend the fair because they are observing the Jewish New Year.

What I want to know is how does imposing an ethical burden on Jewish students evoke the ideals of welcoming and inclusion and reject the very discrimination that President Esteban stands against? What does this decision forecast for the first year students as they embark on their journeys at DePaul? And maybe most critically, are Jews welcome or merely tolerated at DePaul?

In Cobb County, GA:

A local rabbi claims someone drew swastikas with the words “Hail Hitler” on a bathroom wall at Pope High School in Cobb County, GA.

“This is an attack on humanity, and it is important to understand that,” said Rabbi Larry Sernovitz, a Cobb parent and senior rabbi at Temple Kol Emeth in East Cobb.

The incident took place at the school during the high Jewish holidays.

School officials sent a letter home on Friday to parents, but it did not detail the swastikas or antisemitism. Instead, the letter explained that “Several students have defaced our beautiful school with hateful graffiti and also damaged our facilities.” Officials vowed that “Disturbing acts like what occurred this week have no place in our district or at our school and will not be tolerated.”

American Federation of Teachers - San Diego issues an anti-Israel statement filled with antisemitism and lies

Right before Rosh Hashanah, the American Federation of Teachers in San Diego, Local 1931, issued an anti-Israel statement.

This statement is worth reading in full, because not only does it say that Jews have no right to self-determination, but it relies on lies in nearly every sentence to make that point.

Teachers who teach bigotry and lies would appear to be supremely unqualified to be teachers.

Here is the statement:

WHEREAS, the AFT Guild condemns the forced removal of Palestinian residents in West Jerusalem,

West Jerusalem? This must be talking about 1948, and Arabs in West Jerusalem were not forcibly removed from their homes.

the bombing of civilian areas in the besieged Gaza Strip,

Every target in the Gaza Strip, in every war, was pre-determined according to the laws of armed conflict to have been military targets. Every one.

and the continued human rights violations committed by the Israeli government during its 73-year occupation of this land.

By saying "73-year occupation" the statement says that all of Israel is "occupied." Even the UN doesn't make that claim. It is a statement not against occupation but against the very existence of a Jewish state and the concept of Jewish self-determination. It is pure antisemitism.

It is unfortunate that civilians on both sides have suffered casualties, yet Israel’s use of advanced weaponry in its indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza strip has claimed a significantly greater and disproportionate number of Palestinian lives and destroyed essential infrastructure in the already oppressed occupied territories.

Here the statement switches its definition of "occupied," showing that the teachers that drafted this statement are completely unconcerned with consistency, let alone truth.

The bombing of Gaza has never been indiscriminate, which can be proven by a modicum of research.

The statement evokes a violation of international law with its use of the term "disproportionate" but in fact Israeli actions are not in the least disproportionate, and no army in history has taken more care to protect the civilian population of an area where they are used as human shields by the enemy as Israel has.

WHEREAS, the recent forced removal of Palestinian civilians from homes they occupied in Shaikh Jarrah for generations follows a 73-year pattern of disenfranchising Palestinians of their rights, property and the opportunity to live with dignity.

The Palestinians who have fought a losing legal battle for homes they do not own have not been forcibly removed.

Since 1967, home demolitions, land confiscations, systemic denial of building permits, and massive illegal settlement building (a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention) on virtually every part of the occupied Palestinian territories, have become official Israeli policy, despite repeated condemnation by the international community.

It would take multiple articles to show how many lies are in this sentence, but all of the things listed here have been approved by the Israeli High Court - not to mention many things that the Israeli legal system did not approve - and one would be hard pressed to find a sober legal analysis of their rulings finding that they violate international law.

Building settlements is not a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions. It says nothing about building on disputed land.

WHEREAS, since the 1967 War, 48,488 Palestinian homes and other structures have been demolished compared to none belonging to Israelis. The United Nations has condemned Israel’s continued occupation of territory after the 1967 war. The International Court condemns the settlements, and Israel has repeatedly snubbed efforts to limit the settlements, which are viewed as an obstacle to peace.

Notice how the timeframe suddenly changes from 1948 in the first paragraph to 1967 here, to avoid noting the many Jewish-owned homes and structures - i.e., synagogues - destroyed by Arabs. Yet even with this attempt at sleight of hand, the statement is a complete lie: every single Israeli structure in the Gaza Strip has been destroyed - over 2,800 home and synagogues.

Israel has also destroyed - and continues to destroy - scores of homes determines to have been built illegally in the West Bank, such as in Amona, Givat Baladim, Maoz Esther other places.

WHEREAS, in 2018 over 40 Jewish groups worldwide signed onto a statement opposing the “dangerous conflation of anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel’s policies and system of occupation and apartheid.” Their statement read, “This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against anti-semitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.”

The statement referred to is simply another set of lies, that claims without any proof that Zionists call legitimate criticism of Israel antisemitism. It is a straw man - no one makes that claim. But statements like this one that use a provable litany of lies to target the world's only Jewish state as illegitimate using standards that are way beyond those expected of any other state are clearly antisemitic.

The idea that Israel is not "held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law" is as far from the truth as possible. Israel is held to standards way beyond those of any other nation in history. And the amazing thing is that it largely meets and exceeds the artificial standards created only for Israel.

Proof can be seen from the AFT San Diego website. No statements against China or Syria or Iran or Egypt, against Hamas or Hezbollah or Al Qaeda, or anyone besides Israel.

WHEREAS, although we consider the targeting of civilians by all sides to be inhumane, the absence of an evenhanded U.S. foreign policy, in addition to massive unrestricted military aid to Israel, emboldens Israeli militarism, contradicts our policy regarding the status of the occupation of the Palestinian lands, and dooms the two-state solution to failure.

Here is another contradiction, where the AFT switches from advocating the destruction of Israel to pretending to want a two-state solution.

US aid to Israel is not unrestricted - it has many restrictions, from where the money can be spent to what it can be spent on, in line with US laws on foreign aid to every country. And none of it is spent on "occupation."

WHEREAS, we condemn the recent spate of anti-semitic attacks in the United States and other parts of the world, just as we condemn white supremacy and violence against Blacks, and members of the AAPI, LatinX, and LGBTQ communities. We also unequivocally condemn anti-semitic violence wherever it occurs. However, let us be clear that condemning Israel for its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, occupation, apartheid and war crimes is not anti-semitism.

The AFT thinks that declaring itself to be free of antisemitism is a "get out of jail free' card. It isn't. Saying that Jews have no right to self determination or self defense, and that time should be turned back to the 1940s when no nation protected the Jews from genocide is supremely antisemitic.

Also, spelling "antisemitic" as "anti-semitic" is arguably bigoted, as it gives a pretense of allowing an argument that antisemitism is against Semites. Major Jewish human rights organizations and experts have adopted the spelling without the hyphen, and by adopting this spelling, the AFT is showing its disregard to the wishes of the organized Jewish community itself. For an organization that pretends to be "woke" it is rather disrespectful towards Jews.

BE IT RESOLVED, we urgently call on our government to put an end to the occupation and oppression of Palestinian people, and we call on the White House and the Department of State to hold Israel accountable for its complete disregard of international law and a prompt reassessment of military aid to Israel.

Besides the lies enumerated above, this is a demand that Israel not be allowed to defend itself from Gaza rockets, tunnels meant to kidnap Jews, sophisticated missiles used by Hezbollah and other groups, the genocidal Syrian regime, and Iranian plans to destroy Israel.

No state besides Israel and no people besides Jews are denied the right to defend themselves, but these teachers say the Jewish state has no such right - again, contradicting the UN principles it pretends to respect.

Only when Israel treats Palestinians inside Israel as equal citizens, recognizes the right of the Palestinian refugees to return, and the right of the Palestinians to live free of colonization and occupation, will there be hope for peace and reconciliation in historic Palestine.

Most Arabs in Israel do not identify as Palestinian, so this statement is disrespectful to them even as it lies and claims they are not treated as equal citizens.

The demand to "return" is a transparent demand to destroy Israel, and Arab leaders haven't even tried to hide that fact.

The term "historic Palestine" is a misnomer, unless one believes that history began with the creation of borders by Western powers a century ago. The term "Palestine" never referred to the borders that Palestinians today claim - the areas that are controlled by Jews, and not the areas of Jordan or Lebanon that were considered part of Palestine in every map before the twentieth century.

The statement was accompanied by a graphic:

The AFT, pretending to care about peace in the Middle East, accompanies its statement with a graphic of a raised fist - hardly the logo of someone who wants all peoples of the Middle East to live in peace and harmony.

Literally every paragraph and practically every sentence of this statement is a lie, and many of them are quite antisemitic. This is besides the fact that this statement gives a green light to attack Jewish teachers who believe that Israel has the right to exist in contradiction to the beliefs of the union. This statement chills free speech.

Teachers in San Diego are now open to being censured or attacked by their own union for telling the truth.

This is an outrageous litany of lies, supported by people who are supposed to care about the truth. It is a statement of bigotry written by those who are supposed to teach children to treat people equally. It is hypocrisy in its purest sense.

And every minute that this bigoted statement filled with falsehoods is not denounced by the national union of teachers, the lies and antisemitism are condoned by those who are teaching every American child.

Saudi Arabia's Muslim World League accused of being too pro-Jewish

Wikipedia says:

The Muslim World League is an International Islamic NGO based in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that claims to clarify the true message of Islam by advancing moderate values that promote peace, tolerance and love.

Because of the Saudi funding, the League is widely recognized as a representative of the Islamic principles promoted in Saudi Arabia.

The organization funds the construction of mosques, financial reliefs for Muslims afflicted by natural disasters, the distribution of copies of the Quran, and political tracts on Muslim minority groups. The League says that they reject all acts of violence and promote dialogue with the people of other cultures, within their understanding of Sharia, but they are no strangers to controversy, having been the subject of several ongoing counterterrorism investigations in the U.S. related to Hamas, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

However, since 2016, the Muslim World League has been widely recognized as one of the leading organizations in Saudi Arabia dedicated to combating extremist ideology. In its 2019 Country Reports on Terrorism, the U.S. State Department stated that the Muslim World League's Secretary General, Dr. Al-Issa “pressed a message of interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and peaceful coexistence with global religious authorities, including Muslim imams outside the Arab world,” as well as conducted extensive outreach to prominent U.S. Jewish and Christian leaders.

Arab news site 26 September is now accusing the Muslim World League of being way too friendly to Jews:

The MWL, led by a former senior official in the Saudi regime, announced that it had signed an exceptional partnership agreement with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, to bring together the visions of the two institutions.

The association indicated that it will work with Blair over the next three years to provide a global program to provide 100,000 young people between the ages of 13-17 with thinking and critical skills, in 18 countries, to meet the challenges of future opportunities, according to its description.

Sounds really bad!

The program will also work through networks of schools and education partners around the world to train more than 2,400 teachers in “dialogue skills such as critical thinking, active listening, and global communication, to impart these skills to their students, and thus the program will contribute to building greater mutual understanding, tolerance and trust between Young people and their societies, and correct perceptions of religious and cultural diversity.

Even worse!

The head of the Muslim World League, former minister in the Saudi regime, Muhammad Al-Issa, repeatedly promoted dialogue with the Jews and promoted normalization with Israel.

Al-Issa said during a conference organized by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) on issues of Judaism and combating anti-Semitism: We (Al Saud) are currently obligated to restore bridges of dialogue and construction with the Jewish community.

During the aforementioned conference, the committee presented Al-Issa with a prize for allegedly appreciating his role in combating anti-Semitism.

Al-Issa claimed that “while Jews and Arabs have lived side by side for centuries, it is sad that in recent decades we have moved away from each other.. There are those who try to falsify history, who claim that the Holocaust, the most terrible crime in our human history, is a figment of the imagination.”

He continued: "We stand against these liars, and I always stood by my Jewish brothers and said: This will never happen again, God willing, not to Jews, Muslims, or Christians."

In April 2018, Al-Essi visited the Museum of the Commemoration of the Holocaust, accompanied by Muslim leaders from more than 24 countries. American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said the trip represented "the highest-ever delegation of Muslim religious leaders to visit Auschwitz."

Now we see the real problem. The Muslim World League officially treats Jews like human beings. It denounces the Holocaust. It takes a stand against antisemitism.

No wonder some Muslims are upset!

Rabbi Eric Yoffie promoting Muslim jihad propaganda

The Muslim world love to frighten Westerners with threats of holy war - holy wars that almost never materialize.

1908:

1921:

1938:

1941:

1953:

1956:

1969:

Clueless Westerners not only believe and are frightened of these baseless threats, they amplify them. Muslims use the threats to get the West to do what they want, and Western dhimmis love to play their role.

Which brings us to Rabbi Eric Yoffie, writing in Haaretz last week:

I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry when I read Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s most recent article in Commentary magazine.

Entitled "The Real Truth About the Temple Mount," Soloveichik’s article calls for "freedom of worship" on the site for Jews, who, according to longstanding agreements with Muslim authorities, are permitted to visit the Mount but not to pray there.

Let us be clear about what is happening here: A leading representative of mainstream American Orthodoxy is calling on Israeli officials to undermine longstanding agreements between Jordan and the State of Israel, and between Israel and Muslim religious authorities, and is encouraging Jews, at least indirectly, to disregard binding commitments made by their government and to begin praying openly at the Temple Mount.

This is idiotic and potentially catastrophic. It would greatly weaken the Kingdom of Jordan, one of Israel’s most important Arab allies and the party ultimately responsible for administering the Mount.

It would open the door to incitement against Israel by extremist elements throughout the Muslim world.

It would strengthen the hands of Iran and Hamas in their struggle against Israel.

It would generate violence on the Mount and elsewhere in the region and would trigger furious protests from moderate Sunni states that have been drawing closer to Israel.

In short, on the grounds that the principle of "freedom of worship" entitles Jews to pray there — a point to which I shall return — Rabbi Soloveichik is prepared to call for steps that may lead not only to confrontation between Arabs and Israelis but to holy war between Jews and more than a billion Muslims.

Oh no! Jews, by insisting on their right to worship in their holiest spot, are provoking a holy war - a catastrophic conflagration where a billion Muslims will march and start killing Jews and Westerners because of the idiocy of the stupid religious Jews who want to exercise their rights of freedom of worship!

What Yoffie seems not to understand is that Jews have been quietly and communally praying on the Temple Mount for over five years now.

In full view of the Muslims there.

With the Jordanian Waqf watching them up close.

And nothing has happened.

No holy wars. No fighting. A little screaming, which died down years ago. There are lots of newspaper articles in daily Arab media about the "Talmudic rituals" done by "extremist settlers" in the "Al Aqsa Mosque" - so everyone who cares in the Muslim world already knows about this.

And there has been no war.

What will Muslims who read Haaretz think when they see a "rabbi" call for Jews not to exercise their rights to worship on the Temple Mount? It will empower them to encourage violence! After all, if Jewish leaders are against Jewish worship in areas that Muslims have stolen from Jews, Muslims can hardly be expected to do less.

So, paradoxically, a person who calls himself a leader of Jews is tacitly encouraging Muslims to rise up and kill Jews. Yoffie's pretense to "warn" about a holy war is giving Muslims an excuse for violence.

This isn't Jewish leadership. It is irresponsible, stupid leadership that justifies violence against Jews. Islamic Jihad and Iran couldn't ask for a better article to be written in Haaretz.

09/12 Links: The Real Lesson of 9/11 Isn’t a Story About Islamophobia; Escaped prisoners received no help while on the run; Iran Giving Militias Drone Training Near Isfahan

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: The Real Lesson of 9/11 Isn’t a Story About Islamophobia

Though Greenblatt claims FBI statistics back up his claims about an anti-Muslim backlash, a look at the last 20 years of such data proves the opposite. The number of attacks on Muslims has remained small even when temporary hikes occurred. Throughout this period, the numbers show that the overwhelming majority of religion-based attacks have been aimed at Jews, not at Muslims.

While Greenblatt is riding the left’s favorite racism hobby horse, elsewhere the anniversary is being used for different purposes.

In Afghanistan and other places where Islamists rule, Sept. 11 won’t be a day of mourning or an occasion for talking about Islamophobia. It’s not a coincidence that the Taliban — the Islamist group that hosted the Al-Qaeda terrorist atrocities — have chosen to inaugurate their new government on the date. They believe they have proved that with enough patience, sooner or later those who attack the United States can wait out a democracy that lacks the will to oppose them in a long, drawn-out struggle.

As Hudson Institute strategic analyst and former combat veteran Michael Pregent told me in an interview that will air on a JNS “Top Story” podcast, Afghanistan will now be open for business again as a base for Islamic radicals. While four administrations from both political parties contributed to this catastrophe, the feckless decision of the Biden administration to pull the plug on its Afghan allies and then effectively concede the country to this enemy will help to recruit others for various Islamist radical terror groups. It will also encourage Iran, a rogue regime that President Joe Biden is also still bent on appeasing, to stick with its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.

That will make American allies like Israel less secure and increase the chances of regional war. It will also — contrary to the belief of many Americans on both the right as well as the left, who think the conflicts in the Middle East can be ignored as long as Americans are no longer stationed there — make it entirely possible that future terror attacks will be closer to home, rather than in Kabul.

These cruel facts should be uppermost in our minds on this somber anniversary. Instead, Greenblatt and others on the left are trying to change the subject to Islamophobia. In retrospect, the Ground Zero mosque controversy was all about the way radical groups like CAIR were, with the help of liberal media, trying to change the narrative about 9/11 in order to distract Americans from a potent threat while miring them in a self-destructive and dishonest conversation about prejudice. Still, who would have believed 10 years ago that the ADL, the group tasked with defending Jews against the ideas and the people behind 9/11, would be lending its considerable influence to this disgraceful effort?

So moving, so powerful! U.S. Marines in Jerusalem, as "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played at the @JNFUSA #September11 commemoration. ???? ????@usembassyjlm @USAmbIsrael @IsraelinUSA @giladerdan1 @IsraelMFA @StateDept @JNFRobinson pic.twitter.com/SxCEYTKLg6
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 12, 2021

In 9/11 Anniversary Message, Al-Qaeda Chief Warns ‘Jerusalem Will Not Be Judaized’

In a video marking 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri attacked Arab countries for “collaborating” with the United States, calling them “Zionist Arabs.” Al-Zawahiri also vowed that “Jerusalem will not be Judaized.”

The video was posted to the website of a US NGO, SITE Intelligence Group.

Al-Zawahiri named Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the chief “collaborators.”

The UAE, along with Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, made history in 2020 when they signed the Abraham Accords, normalizing ties with Israel under the auspices of the United States.

Al-Zawahiri took command of Al-Qaeda following the assassination of its longtime leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Rumors of al-Zawahiri’s death have circulated for years, and the assessment in the West is that this video is not proof he is still alive, as he makes no mention in it of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden's son ashamed of father's crimes, wants to visit Israel

The son of Osama bin Laden, the slain leader of the al-Qaida terrorist group said he hopes to visit Israel in an interview with the Israeli media.

Omar bin Laden, 40, the youngest of Osama's sons, was expected to be his father's heir and take on the leadership of al-Qaida but turned down the offer. He said he felt "shame and horror" toward his father for the crimes he committed during his life.

He said after the devastation of the Sept. 11 attacks orchestrated by his father on the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon outside Washington, and in an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania that "it was hard for me to believe that he had the ability to organize such a thing. That day changed our lives forever, and it was very hard to continue to live afterwards. During these years of loss and pain, I was forced to come to terms with the truth about my father."

An artist, Omar bin Laden lives in Normandy, France. He longs to visit the United States and Israel, noting that his wife, whose maternal side of the family is Jewish and originally from Israel, received an offer to give lectures on peace at Israeli universities.

"I know that it's a beautiful country, and many people in it want peace with the Palestinians," he said. "I know that since 1948, the Palestinians have been living alongside the Jewish nation. We believe that the world needs to live as one and that neighbors from every religion can live alongside each other in peace."

'Osama Bin Laden was the face of evil', says the Navy Seal that killed him

Arab moves to improve human rights must be praised, not ridiculed

In late August, the UAE announced that it will establish an independent human rights commission, independent of the government, adhering to the Paris Principles for the National Human Rights Institutions.

There is reason to be skeptical when one sees such announcements. The UAE does not exactly have a stellar human rights record. It has essentially no freedom of the press and it imprisons political dissidents.

It is possible that this is a whitewash. Yet the very announcement shows a sensitivity to a public perception of human rights in the Emirates and that can be leveraged.

Human Rights Watch ridiculed the UAE move. "This is just another tactic, part of the UAE's decadelong whitewashing campaign to make themselves look like a tolerant, respectful and open country," said Hiba Zayadin, a researcher with HRW. Ken Roth dismissed the news out of hand.

But other human rights groups properly say that it is too early to tell, and that the new organization can be judged against its own standards soon enough.

Alexis Thiry, a legal adviser at Geneva-based legal advocacy organization MENA Rights Group, told DW it was too early to know if the new UAE organization would be sticking to the Paris Principles, as promised. This was because the rights group had not yet been able to read a publicly available version of the law, UAE Federal Law number 12 of 2021, that enabled the creation of the institution, said Thiry.

"It is difficult to have an opinion about the forthcoming independence of the [institution] and its compliance with the Paris Principles," he explained. "At this stage, it is also too early to comment on the performance of the institution since its members have yet to be appointed, to our knowledge."

This is the proper response - healthy skepticism but hoping for the best, and an eagerness to hold the UAE to its own standards. Compared to the HRW response, the MENA Rights Group sounds like a responsible party that actually cares about human rights and not sound bites.

Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi yesterday attended a human rights forum in Cairo, He said some very positive things about freedom of religion in Egypt: "What annoys you as a Muslim when you see a church or a synagogue? Whoever wants to convert can convert, and the one who wants to believe believes, and the one who doesn't want to believe does not believe... and this is freedom from a religious perspective...I respect non-belief, even if one says I do not believe in any religion...Whoever believes that he possesses cultural distinction and tries to impose it on other societies is taking a dictatorial path."

Again, Egypt's human rights record is abysmal. But shouldn't such statements be celebrated? One cannot turn around a society in a day, and hearing such statements from the president of a country is important.

It seems that groups like HRW choose to target countries that have established relations with Israel. But those relations can only have a positive effect on human rights in the other countries, as more Arabs are exposed to the Israeli society where Muslims enjoy full rights, to an extent beyond many European countries. Their relations with Israel are often accompanied with positive moves towards the few Jews who live in those countries.

People who care about human rights should celebrate peace between Arab countries and Israel, something that we have not seen from HRW and Amnesty. Real human rights groups should use the positive messages being given by the Arab countries leavened with a healthy dose of skepticism. At the very least, official announcements in favor of human rights can be leveraged later to hold those officials accountable, since no one wants to be exposed as liars.

There is nothing negative about Arab nations publicly embracing human rights. Even if they are hypocrites, it gives ammunition to human rights defenders. HRW's slamming those moves indicates that they are more interested in appearing to care about human rights than actually doing anything to promote them.

The Gilboa prison episode: A perfect example of honor/shame

When the six prisoners, most of them Islamic Jihad terrorists, escaped from Gilboa Prison, the Palestinian street went wild. Palestinians were proud. This tweet from "human rights attorney" Noura Erakat captures the glee, praising the "six Palestinian political prisoners who self-liberated themselves using spoons against nuclear weapons and grotesque racial domination."

Why?

It was very clear that they would be caught - or killed during a capture attempt - eventually. Four of them have been caught as of this writing. Islamic Jihad is blaming the "apartheid wall" for their capture saying that this was why they couldn't escape to the West Bank (and indirectly justifying the security barrier.)

So why the celebrations?

The celebrations and praise had nothing to do with "freedom" for the terrorists. Everyone knew that their freedom will end one way or another.

They were celebrations of Jewish humiliation.

To be sure, the problems at the prison that led up to the escape were inexcusable. But the Israeli prison system will lick its wounds, examine its mistakes, and fix the problems. That's what Israelis do - keep improving and learning from mistakes.

Palestinian Arabs don't think that way. To them, everything is about honor - the Jews must be not defeated but humiliated. Victories are based on perception, not facts.

The honor/shame society, with its emphasis on how things look and not ho they are, cannot win against a society that is fact-based. One needs to be able to admit mistakes to improve, and the Palestinians who blame all of their problems on the Jews cannot grow beyond their own myths.

This is why the Arab states have been turning away from the Palestinian cause - because the Palestinian refusal to accept a state and to stop their internal fighting is shameful to the entire Arab world, and at some point the shame has caused them to stop wanting to be associated with people who have shamed the entire Arab world.

Palestinian groups are trying to escalate this prison escape into something much bigger, into a new intifada. They will use any excuse to try to do that, and there are multiple attempts to do that every year, as we saw when Israel placed cameras near the Temple Mount. The groups try to direct Palestinian emotion of any kind into a new war. Usually such attempts fail, but this is hard to predict. Palestinian prisoners are heroes and new measures to frustrate future escape attempts will upset the masses. The Palestinian Authority is trying to ride this wave of emotion just as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are.

Both the "honor" of the escape and the "shame" of the captures elicit emotions, and the Palestinian groups want to gain power based on these emotions. The Gaza groups try to shame the PA and the PA tries to shame Hamas. Facts are secondary.

You simply cannot understand the Middle East without understanding how pivotal the honor/shame culture is - and how self-defeating it is. Arab nations are starting to catch on, but there is a long way to go.